The Nation Newspaper

Category: Monday

  • PDP in blame game

    Since its dismal performance at the presidential and governorship elections, chieftains of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) have been embroiled in recrimination over whom to hold responsible for their fate. Not unexpectedly, accusing fingers have been pointed right, left and centre.

    More than any quarters, its national executive has been fingered for events that brought that pass. The supposed culpability of the party leadership is further buoyed by the woeful performance of the party in the home states of some of its top leaders especially in the north.

    The avalanche of calls for the dissolution of the party executive or resignation of its members especially the national chairman, Adamu Mu’azu is clear evidence of the disenchantment and dissatisfaction of members with their leaders.

    At another level, there have been calls for the setting up of a caretaker committee to manage the affairs of the party; total restructuring of its affairs and similar suggestions. In all these, the message that is being sent out is that the party as presently constituted, may further degenerate unless serious measures are taken to reposition it for the role of an opposition which the outcome of the polls has consigned it.

    In this blame game, disloyalty, conspiracy, sabotage and connivance with the opposition during the elections have featured as some of the infractions for which the leaders are being accused. In Bayelsa State, Governor Dickson set up a committee to probe allegations of sabotage and disloyalty against party leaders during those elections. Such has been the mood within the PDP especially with the last minute decamping of its key members across the country since after the elections.

    Members of the party are within their rights to be concerned about their future given extant realities. Those angry, have cause to be gravely disappointed over the declining fortunes of their great party as they are wont to call it.

    But the current fate of the party was self-inflicted. There were clear indications that the party would run into troubled waters but its leadership, for whatever reasons, refused to steer its ship away from the precipice. The signals were very clear that the centre could no longer hold but its leaders opted to look the other way.

    It all started with disagreement over the zoning arrangement of the party during the prolonged illness and eventual death of President Umaru Yar’Adua. Jonathan, as the then Vice president was expected to act as the president in tandem with extant laws. But some hawks and power hungry people within that party from the north did every thing possible to frustrate that outcome. It took the intervention of the senate with its doctrine of necessity for Jonathan to become the acting president and subsequently the substantive president with the demise of Yar’Adua.

    Having served out the remaining two years of the first tenure of Yar’Adua, issues arose as to the zoning arrangement of the PDP and the need for power to revert to the north.

    Going by that arrangement, power ought to have reverted to the north in 2011 given Obasanjo’s eight years and the two years in which Jonathan occupied that seat in a substantive capacity. The north protested. But for whatever contrivance, Jonathan was allowed to go for another four years and the north voted for him.

    We have since been told there was agreement for him to go for only four years and have power revert to the north in 2015. In the build up to the elections, that agreement was a very major issue with Obasanjo in the fore-front of persuading Jonathan to respect it. That was the major thrust of his very controversial and loaded open letter to Jonathan titled “before it is too late”.

    In that controversial letter, Obasanjo went out of his way deploying conventional and unconventional means to forewarn Jonathan of the huge risk in spurning the agreement and going ahead with his ambition to run for another term. He accused him of sundry misdeeds and sought to reduce his credibility in the eyes of discerning members of the public.

    But Jonathan denied such agreement existed and placed the burden of proof at the shoulders of Obasanjo. The subsequent implosion of the party leading to the decamping of many of its governors and leaders had its roots in the dispute over the zoning arrangement of the party and the arbitrary manner the party was being run.

    Matters became worse during the ward congresses of the party. Party members were not allowed to participate in the election of delegates as some influential members hijacked the process and turned in names of their cronies as delegates in preparation to manipulate the primaries. Many of their members across the country were not only disillusioned but totally disgusted with the brazen trifling with their collective will in that basic and elementary civic duty. Many were aggrieved and lost faith in the party.

    The subsequent primaries were a bazaar of sorts as it became a matter for the highest bidder while genuine complaints of imposition of candidates made to the national executive of the party were treated with disregard. The national executive committee of the party was compromised and allegations of extortion against its members were rife. Money changed hands with some of the key leaders of the party at the centre of allegations of corruptly enriching themselves at the expense of party cohesion.

    It was a bad situation which further led to massive exodus of aggrieved members to other parties. Such was the foreboding scenario in which the PDP went into the election and expected to perform wonders.

    And soon after, no less a person than the national chairman of the party, Mu’azu spoke along this line when he said the party was full of injustice. He had said in the occasion which had Jonathan in attendance that “a lot of people who left our party did so because of injustice in our party. Our party is full of injustice. The membership of the APC, LP and APGA is increasing because of this. We must find out what is wrong and correct it”.

    In an article in this column titled “Mu’azu’s crocodile tears” we had taken up the contradictions in his statements given that he presided over the most controversial and flawed ward congresses and primaries of the party. If he could not redress complaints of aggrieved members then, of what use is his coming public to cry wolf over issues that were bought to his table but for which he turned a blind eye? We then concluded that Mu’azu should take much of the blame for the ills he complained about and stop the buck passing.

    Jonathan did not help matters when he responded that the complaints would be taken into account while preparing for the 2019 elections. Our response was that the cost of the muddle could be so high that Jonathan may not have another opportunity to redress the situation and save the party. That prediction has come to pass. Those now trading blames are being less than honest. Signs of systemic decay and impending danger have all along been there. The issues leading to them are not novel. For now, the party should lick its wounds for ignoring clear signals of an impending danger. It is hoped a hard lesson would have been served.

  • Irony of power

    Irony of power

    In 2012, I wrote a column titled “military coup in Bayelsa,” and it referred to how President Goodluck Jonathan deployed all the branches of the Nigerian military to oust Timipre Sylva as governor of Bayelsa State. It was an election as military operation. The police were also involved.

    This column was a lone voice in the wilderness. I warned that the travesty was not only about Bayelsa or Sylva, but the loss of grace in our democracy. Newspapers merely reported, commentators looked elsewhere and even the opposition kept mute, except a comment by the often-prescient Asiwaju Bola Tinubu who wondered why Jonathan invoked the military like a sledge hammer on a fly.

    By impunity a new governor was “installed” in Bayelsa in the name of Seriake Dickson. The nation went on as though nothing happened. Last month when the people ousted Jonathan with their thumbs, the electorate’s great complaint was the reign of impunity. It began with the ouster of Sylva and the silence of a charmed nation.

    Last week, history had its revenge. Sylva was announced to lead Buhari’s team that meets with secretary to government Anyim Pius Anyim to dismantle the edifice of the Jonathan administration. Jonathan had acted as god over Sylva, ousted him from office like a gangster and unleashed EFCC after him. Now, Sylva is presiding over the dismantling of the Jonathan era. It is an object lesson on power. Ebenezer Obey sang, “Ile aiye o to nkan.” (This life is vanity). While GEJ unseated Sylva with force, Sylva is doing his in the gentle glow of the law and Jonathan’s capitulation.

    In those heady days, many missions were sent to Jonathan. They included elders from the party, the Governors’ Forum, Southsouth governors, elder statesmen in the country. Emissaries begged Jonathan to allow Sylva pursue a second term. He gave audience to all and pretended he accepted the pleas. In many instances, he said he knew nothing about the plots and it was party democracy in action. But he would intervene to save his kinsman.

    Sylva swallowed many instances of personal pride that reminded one of Tolstoy’s lines in War and Peace, “It is better to bow too low than not low enough.” Jonathan acted as though all was well. In spite of that, Jonathan allowed the armed forces to back a kangaroo election and Seriake Dickson gloatingly became governor by impunity. Governor Dickson must have quietly embraced Buhari’s win as it has saved him the possibility of the Sylva treatment. In its solitude, this column followed the days of infamy, including the silence of Nigerians.

    Once Seriake “won” the election, Jonathan “the Snake” slithered out in true venom and said he backed Sylva’s ouster and endorsed an earlier incident when hoodlums hurled stones and “pure water” sachets at Sylva in the stadium. The serpentine triumphalism at that time did not forewarn many Nigerians about the kind of man they had at the helm. This paper wrote an editorial titled, “Stoner-in-chief.”

    We were later to see Jonathan show impunity, instance after instance, in his six years in the saddle. Rivers, Ekiti, and the series of militant outbursts are a few examples. This is also a lesson for Buhari and all who are mounting the saddle anew in May. Power is transient. As Shakespeare wrote, “Man, proud man, dressed in a little brief authority…”

    We saw another instance last week. Oil minister Diezani Alison-Madueke spoke to reporters. I found that remarkable. And she actually answered questions propounded by “press boys.” She could humble herself in a hijab to see a retired general. She spoke about such topics that were taboo in her eyes in her days of vanity. She spoke about the alleged N10 billion spent on jetting around the world, the missing $20 billion, etc. This is the duchess who would not even give the National Assembly the benefit of her regal presence. And her president supported her. The same duchess who appeared at public events as though she was bored and did the audience a favour? Last week, she spoke to reporters in a mood of accountability. The scales of royalty have fallen. The wedding is over and all the frills are now giving way for the true picture of the bride.

    We also see the same script in Delta State. Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan was denied a chance to have a say not only in his possible successor but also in becoming a senator. Jonathan’s plot with his men was to entrench Senator James Manager, a fellow kinsman, to return to the Senate. That would give Manager an automatic berth as majority leader. It would then go into history, as they calculated, that the nation would have an Ijaw president and majority leader. As part of the scheme, a ranking PDP senator, Victor Ndoma-Egba, would be denied the opportunity to return to the senate so as to give Manager a thoroughfare to the prime position of majority leader. Neither Uduaghan nor Ndoma-Egba will be in the Senate. But Manager will be an inconsequential man in the chamber compared with what he sought.

    More importantly, the President, Clark and other so-called party wheel horses who hatched this low design will be missing in action in Abuja as from May 29. They thought they knew tomorrow and could play god over the destinies of fellow humans. God, however, had something to say about that. It reminds one of the words of the Psalmist, “I have seen the wicked in great power, spreading himself like a green bay tree…lo, he was not: yea, I sought him, but he could not be found.” In the same vein, Jonathan, Clark, et al, will be missing in action in Abuja.

    This is the nature of power. If we see power as a mandate, we shall not vacate our duties to the people and human conscience. The poet Dryden wrote, “As streams are, power is.”

    It has been said that power should only go to people who are mature; who understand that it is not about puffing and huffing. It is about responsibility. Perhaps that informed Aristotle’s admonition that only full-grown adults who have succeeded in other fields should go into politics. But it does not guarantee anything, and Lincoln knew about this. Many people who plotted his ouster were close associates. Hence he said, “If you want to test a man’s character, give him power.”

  • How does it feel to be Shekau?

    IT is thought-provoking that Abubakar Shekau, the elusive leader of Nigeria’s Islamist terror group, Boko Haram, has a place among “The World’s Most Influential People” listed by TIME. The identified influencers in the 2015 TIME 100 include four Nigerians and Shekau is the most intriguing of them, specifically because he is an anti-hero. According to the TIME portrait, “the citizens of Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, know Abubakar Shekau all too well: he is the most violent killer their country has ever seen.”

    Of course, Shekau’s terrifying profile is compounded by the outrageous seizure of more than 200 schoolgirls by Boko Haram terrorists in Chibok, Borno State, over one year ago.  With most of the kidnapped girls still missing and the world still in shock, Shekau and his followers are like an open wound on humanity’s conscience.

    Interestingly, the struggle to uncage the Chibok girls is the reason Obiageli Ezekwesili, a former Minister of Education, is considered influential by TIME: “The #BringBackOurGirls campaign that she championed is very important.” According to the description of the activist, “It has been a year, and the girls haven’t been rescued, but she has made a difference by speaking about it. Not just speaking but shouting.”

    Before the TIME ranking, an international think tank, the Project for the Study of the 21st Century, said the Boko Haram insurgency was the fourth deadliest conflict in the world in 2014 and was responsible for 11, 529 deaths. It is noteworthy that the think tank added that the figure of fatalities could be underestimated.

    However, the estimation of the human suffering resulting from the destructive imagination and vision of the insurrectionists is more accurate. “We are seeing tremendous suffering,” UN Assistant Secretary General Robert Piper was quoted as saying. He continued: “We estimate that only about 20 percent of agricultural land in Borno State (the hardest-hit area) was harvested last season.” Piper, the coordinator of the UN’s humanitarian work in Africa’s Sahel region, pointed out that the situation “leaves a massive deficit.”

    Also, Piper noted that there were “dramatic rates of acute malnutrition” among the displaced children in Nigeria. In statistical terms, he highlighted a recent survey of displaced children around Maiduguri, the Borno State capital, which showed that over 35 percent of them were malnourished. “That is very, very high,” he was quoted as saying. The picture of disturbing death and dying demonstrates the destructive power of Boko Haram.

    News of the latest international intervention in the terror-driven crisis, the European Union N325 million planned support for about 45,000 children and adolescents displaced by the activities of the terror champions in Borno State, reinforced the reality of Boko Haram’s depressing impact.  ”The project is expected to contribute to mitigating the negative psychosocial implications of the humanitarian crisis that currently plagues Borno State, which has largely disrupted education and health services, including immunization activities,” the Minister for National Planning, Dr. Abubakar Sulaiman, said at a ceremony to formalise the financing agreement concerning the 11th European Development Fund support. According to Sulaiman, the project is expected to be implemented in 300 communities across 11 local government areas in the state for a period of 36 months.

    The activities of Shekau and his destroyers necessitated ongoing emergency rule in Adamawa, Borno and Yobe states, and prompted the controversial rescheduling of the country’s recent general elections. From the look of things, the multi-national regional force formed to crush Boko Haram, including fighters from Nigeria and neighbouring Chad, Cameroon and Niger, will probably fail to achieve its objective before the newly elected Muhammadu Buhari, a retired Army General, takes over from President Goodluck Jonathan on May 29. This explains the TIME depiction of Buhari who is numbered among the leading global influencers: “From battling the Boko Haram insurgency to tackling endemic corruption, Buhari has many challenges ahead.”

    It remains to be seen how well the country’s immediate future, with all its promise of change built on Buhari’s antecedents as a no-nonsense enforcer of propriety, would fulfill the great social expectations regarding the termination of terror. Considering Shekau’s ambitious expansion, uncertain days lie ahead. The TIME profiler said rather ominously: “Shekau’s latest action may finally summon a US response: he has publicly aligned his group with ISIS, the terrorist group that holds territory in Syria and Iraq and has expanded its reach into Yemen and Libya.”

    The fourth Nigerian recognised by TIME is the internationally important novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, who is described as “Conjurer of Character”.  According to the magazine’s delineation, “her greatest power is as a creator of characters who struggle profoundly to understand their place in the world.”

    This takes us back to Shekau, who may be seen as a non-fictional character engaged in a struggle to make the world understand his position. But the point is that Shekau’s place and position betray a profound lack of understanding. Also, Shekau is ultimately not understandable because he is a product and a promoter of misunderstanding.

    If these four are among “the world’s most influential people” in the magazine’s estimation, does it follow that they are Nigeria’s most influential people at this time?  Certainly, there are dimensions of influence and these diverse individuals represent different things to different people. It is instructive that TIME Editor Nancy Gibbs said: “Every year we hope the TIME 100 will introduce you to influential people you might not have met before and encourage you to find out more about them.”

    Well, I haven’t met Shekau, Ezekwesili and Buhari, but I’ve met Chimamanda. I would like to find out more about Shekau in particular, especially because his identity is an enduring mystery. What’s in a name? Shekau has been reported dead, or more specifically, reported killed, on two occasions. But the Boko Haram commander-in-chief continues to torment the country. Although   there is speculation that Shekau may have become “a brand name” for whoever is the leader of Boko Haram, the most wanted man in Nigeria is still referred to as Shekau.

    It is striking that against the background of a desperate manhunt for Shekau, a military source was quoted as saying: “Nobody, not even some of the arrested insurgents, could locate or get in touch with him now. This is why troops have been placed on red alert to arrest whoever is Shekau alive.” The question must be asked: How does it feel to be Shekau?

  • Who owns Lagos? (2)

    Who owns Lagos? (2)

    Some persons had problems with my outing last week, and they could not hesitate to tag me a bigot.

    I had looked at the question of who owns Lagos, and my views spewed out a binary effect. The Yoruba came in aplenty to applaud while the Igbo responses were overrun with venom. I wrote neither to please the Yoruba nor rile the Igbo. But truth is a furious bullet and, in this case, it seemed to have lodged itself in an Igbo spleen. As Apostle Paul wrote, “we can do nothing against the truth but for the truth.” I wrote in surrender to the truth. If it hurts, it is because of human failure to embrace what they fear.

    My historical conscience forbids me to act like the character in Shakespeare’s Tempest who, for personal ambition, “made a sinner of his memory to credit a lie.”

    The issue of who owns the land wakes up hidebound loyalties in trenches of tribe and faith. We may recall the Itsekiri saga and how the Urhobo wanted to seize Warri from the Itsekiri by changing the title of the monarch from Olu of Warri to Olu of Itsekiri, even though his palace is ensconced in Warri.

    The rampaging Urhobo – and my mother is Urhobo – conflated their numbers with proprietary rights. A similar travesty unfolded in Ugborodo in Delta State over the EPZ crisis between the Ijaw and Itsekiri, a problem that President Goodluck Jonathan turned into another episode of chauvinism in his now documented reign of divide and rule.

    President Jonathan stoked the ethnic firefight between the Yoruba and Igbo in Lagos. He failed to rein in his opportunistic self-interest even as he freely played the ethnic and religious cards, all in the pursuit of ambition.

    Those who say Lagos is no man’s land have turned it into a sort of cause celebre by levitating the fate of the Igbo as a race of victims. But victimhood has morphed into a weapon. So, if Anyim Pius Anyim, as secretary to the government, filled the parastatals with his kinsmen, it was because they deserved it since Igbo were marginalised in the past. So, if Okonjo-Iweala said the Igbo exceled in tests, they should be given job priority. And when former army chief Ihejirika filled posh positions with his kinsmen, he should be excused because of his people’s history.

    This is not only victimhood but also victimisation of others. You don’t endanger the future by avenging the past. Society is about living and let live. Even in the United States where blacks have been left behind, the society has choreographed a system of affirmative action that negotiates, at least constitutionally, a process of rehabilitation for the coloured folks based on social contract. It anticipates conflict, so it works by understanding, not by imposition.

    The Igbo say they developed Lagos, and therefore they have a right to determine who wins an election. No one can deny the Igbo contribution to anywhere they go in the country. They have done well, especially in the area of merchandising. But to say they developed Lagos? That is a fallacy. History should bear us out. Most of what we know as Lagos today was created not only by the Yoruba indigenes but also by the Yoruba non-indigenes. Whether it was Surulere, or Ikeja, or Badagry or Ikorodu, or Epe, it was borne out of the pioneering genius of Yoruba non-indigenes, especially the contiguous Yoruba like the Egba, the Ijebu, even the far-flung citizens in Ondo and Ekiti. Lagos was a major part of the western region and the resources of the western region under Awolowo and later Akintola turned Lagos into its kaleidoscope of today. The Yoruba, for commercial outreach, set up Ajegunle. Even they don’t claim to be indigenes but see Lagos as Yorubaland. And it is. If the constitution allows residency, Lagos should not be both guinea pig and sacrificial lamb. If others don’t play by the rule, why should Lagos? Fair is fair.

    The port has been cited as a major asset of the city, but it’s by no means the only city with a port. Lagos bloomed because of the indigenes’ laissez faire culture, their syncretic worldview, erecting a big tent that has winnowed prosperity from the gifts and efforts of all.

    Others who came to Lagos have contributed and they should not turn that into proprietary disdain. If the Igbo claim they helped developed Lagos, we have to put it in perspective. They have been good at merchandising, what some call buying and selling. A modern city is about its technological forays, its innovation in commerce, its new ideas in culture, its ability to turn the soul of a place around by its bona fides in these lights. You don’t claim to be innovative when you ape and fake another’s genius and sell it as original. That’s not technology, and it is not innovation.

    So other than making profits for themselves buying and selling, few other roles have been claimed by them in the unfurling of the progress of Lagos. Other ethnic groups live in the city, and many who come from south-south have not trumpeted their bona fides like the Igbo. As Soyinka said, a tiger should not proclaim its tigritude.

    Again, Nigerians in Europe and the United States have won elections as mayors and councillors, etc. When I was a Gordon N. Fisher fellow in Canada, an Igbo young man won a student union presidential election in a university in Ontario. He vied not as Igbo, but as a fellow student. If he canvassed his ethnicity, he would have lost. The Yoruba fellow who won a Houston election barely a decade ago was praised for his ideas and warmth to all city dwellers. But in the Lagos case, an Igbo candidate sees himself not as a Nigerian candidate but an Igbo candidate, and some of his kinsmen are now boasting that their sights are set on Alausa.

    This is the sort of triumphalism that even Chinua Achebe – no innocent in this clannish game – condemned in his There Was A Country. If you claim a place as no man’s land and you act with a superior air, it means the expression “no man’s land” is tongue in cheek, a rhetorical subterfuge. It is paradoxically a euphemism implying that you own it.

    If the Igbo claim to own Lagos like the indigenes, I would like to see them do things with selfless virtue for the city. They should build schools, hospitals, or construct roads, or give scholarships or any of such things that benefit not just them but the city at large. If they see Lagos as home, let us see some charity. When you live in a place for profit, it does not show love until you give back. Paying taxes is good. But that is a face-saving argument. No one comes to Lagos to pay tax but to make profit and a living. But that is all right. Let us not be hypocritical. One of the reasons they voted for Agbaje is that the candidate promised tax relief. All great economies thrive on taxes. Check the UK and U.S.

    The tension between the Igbo and Indigenes arises from the sense that Igbo do not know how to play the balancing act between being Igbo and Lagosian. When you vote in an election in Lagos and vote Igbo rather than Lagos, it means you see yourself as an alien who is here to conquer. That is the wrong spirit, and Agbaje did not help matters when he promised to install an Eze for opportunistic reasons. He forgot that there are other ethnic groups here. If he won and fulfilled the promise, he would have opened an ethnic can of worms. If the Oba’s lagoon effusion was inelegant, it was prompted by such harebrained campaign promises from Agbaje. He borrowed from Jonathan and his PDP whose Igbo project began when they wanted Agbaje to run with an Igbo running mate.

    The concept of no man’s land rides on love. The best example was in the First World War during the Christmas Truce. British and German soldiers abandoned battle to hug, exchange banter, cigarettes and prisoners between opposing trenches. The space between the trenches was called no man’s land. They even played soccer as Robert Graves – novelist, poet and author of Goodbye to All That – relates in an account.

    We should avoid a gloating triumphalism, but embrace a cooperative élan. My identity should not drown yours. That is often the root of all crises. It inspired Jean Paul Sartre’s famous line, “Hell is other people.” The incoming governor, Akinwunmi Ambode, has a task to rid Lagos of the Agbaje and Jonathan incubi of division and unite all. Given his level-headedness, he will. It has been done before and it can today.

  • The way to go

    Barring a few states where the governorship election was declared inconclusive and a supplementary scheduled, the picture of all that transpired during that election is no longer cloudy. Whether any lesson has been learnt by our politicians on electoral matters has also become palpable from all that transpired. With more than 95 per cent of the results known, and the reported incidents that marked them, statements of empirical validity can now be reasonably made.

    This is more so as, the nature and character of the unfolding political environment is getting clearer by the day. As things now stand, the All Progressives Congress APC has become the dominant party having won at the centre and with a majority of the states in its kitty. The party is therefore poised to exert a commanding influence in the nation’s affairs in the days ahead.

    By the same logic, the Peoples Democratic Party PDP which before now bestrode the political landscape like a colossus has been reduced to a minority party. With that, its previous ambition to rule the country without interruption has become a pipe dream. But that is not the issue to contend with now.

    The failure of the PDP is not much the issue as what it holds for the survival of democracy in this country. From the trend of events since the conclusion of the presidential elections, there have been genuine fears that our democracy stands to face the greatest challenge of our time. The feeling gaining ground is that we may after all, not be prepared for democracy and all it takes to grow and endure.

    As a development paradigm, democracy requires certain attitudes, dispositions and orientations. It presupposes a concomitant political culture. But, it is increasingly becoming difficult for that culture to germinate and grow here.

    Events are more than ever before giving credence to dominant views among political scientists some years back that the type of leadership Africa needed is benevolent dictatorship rather than democracy. That view took copious perspective of the historical background of the African people, their administrative structure and intolerance to opposition. That was at the period when military rule was the fad in the continent. Military rule is now stale. But its dispositions are still much with us. We claim to cherish democracy and all it stands for. But the reality on the ground is that we are not prepared to allow that culture to take root on our shores. The situation has become such that the little gains that may have been recorded in the last 16 years may come to naught if politicians do not part ways with their decadent pasts.

    All the encomiums showered on the presidential election may be rendered useless in the face of the glaring cases of violence that marred the governorship and house of assembly elections in many states.

    From Kano to Ebonyi, Lagos to Rivers, we have been treated not only to complaints about subversion of the rules but more seriously, cases of political killings have been legion. With these, it is obvious that the do or die politics of yesteryears is still much with us. These have tended make a mockery of the peace accord signed by Jonathan and Buhari to maintain the peace before during and after the elections.

    It would appear the success of that undertaking was only limited to the presidential and National Assembly elections. It has become a huge joke given the sordid events that marred the governorship and house of assembly elections in many states.

    During those elections, all the vices that hitherto held our electoral process down and for which people lost faith in it reared their ugly heads. Not only were there snatching of ballot boxes and papers, incidents of rewriting and forgery of election results abound. This is so despite the introduction of the Card Readers to check fraud. Instead of giving the new device the cooperation it needed to succeed, our politicians were busy inventing strategies to frustrate its efficacy. All these have cast a dark cloud on the prospects of democracy in the days ahead.

    This seeming pessimism is further reinforced by the geographical distribution of electoral victory and the conduct of politicians ever since. By this, reference is made to the power equation in this country and how the dominant groups are bound to react to emerging political events.

    Apart from Ekiti and Gombe states, the PDP now has the South-South and the South-East as its political stronghold. The three zones in the north have all gone the way of the APC. Ditto for the South-West. By this development, the south-east and the south-south have now emerged as the fulcrum of opposition in the country. They are now expected to galvanize other pockets of loyalties in the north to challenge the ruling party.

    How much of this role and to what extent these zones can of it, is left to be conjectured. But if the history of opposition as we know it in this country is any thing to go by, there is reason to expect that the two zones may not be fully prepared for it. For one, they are not the traditional strongholds of the opposition in this country. They have across time, identified with the party at the centre. For another, it is difficult to conceive if the zones can reasonably isolate themselves from events at the centre given their peculiar circumstances. Soon, all manner of reasons will emerge as to why they cannot afford not to align with the centre. It is for the same reasons that we have been treated with a gale of decamping by members of that party especially in the northern states.

    The south-west known as the bastion of opposition in the country, together with Kano and sections of the north-east are very well accommodated in the new political order. Unless a new paradigm of political engagement is emerging, we may soon be all gravitating towards the centre with little or no opposition to check the ruling party.

    If such happens, we will be left with a situation akin to what obtained when the PDP held sway. Those shunted out of the mainstream may begin to heat up the system and we will be back to square one. The national chairman of the APC, John Oyegun captured this foreboding situation succinctly when he decried the spate of decamping from the PDP. He raised alarm over the issue and urged those decamping to remain in their party and strengthen opposition so that democracy can grow. He has said it all.

    Whether that is enough to change the situation will be borne out with time. The fears raised by Oyegun may become the greatest challenge of our time unless certain fundamental steps are taken to tinker with the subsisting structure of this country. For now, there is every reason to expect a continuous gravitation to the centre because of the omnipresence and omnipotence of the central government in the nation’s affairs. This overbearing dominance must be very considerably whittled down to discourage that drift and the systemic stress it engenders.

    Restructuring of the country with more powers to the constituent units is the way to go. President Jonathan once floated the idea of successful political parties at the various levels of election sharing power in proportion with their electoral strength.  It is another way to steer the ship of the nation away from a one party state. A combination of both approaches will engender faster development by insulating the nation from precipitate crises arising from bitter competition to control the huge resources at the centre.

  • The writer’s wrestle

    A few days ago, my eyes were drawn to email on “the book no one would publish.” It was one of the “eclectic excerpts” delivered regularly to my email address. After reading it, I felt like sharing it. The thought-provoking excerpt is from a 2015 book by Brian Grazer, A Curious Mind: The Secret to a Bigger Life.

    Commentary to provide context:  The first book of Theodor Seuss Geisel, better known to us as Dr. Seuss, was rejected by twenty-seven publishers before it was finally accepted by Vanguard Press: “Being determined in the face of obstacles is vital. Theodor Geisel, Dr. Seuss, is a great example of that himself. Many of his forty-four books remain wild bestsellers. In 2013, Green Eggs and Ham sold more than 700,000 copies in the United States (more than Goodnight Moon); The Cat in the Hat sold more than 500,000 copies, as did Oh, the Places You’ll Go! and One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish. And five more Dr. Seuss books each sold more than 250,000 copies. That’s eight books, with total sales of more than 3.5 million copies, in one year (another eight Seuss titles sold 100,000 copies or more). Theodor Geisel is selling 11,000 Dr. Seuss books every day of the year, in the United States alone, twenty-four years after he died. He has sold 600 million books worldwide since his first book, And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, was published in 1937. And as inevitable as Dr. Seuss’s appeal seems now, Mulberry Street was rejected by twenty-seven publishers before being accepted by Vanguard Press. ..

    ”The story of Geisel being rejected twenty-seven times before his first book was published is often repeated, but the details are worth relating. Geisel says he was walking home, stinging from the book’s twenty-seventh rejection, with the manuscript and drawings for Mulberry Street under his arm, when an acquaintance from his student days at Dartmouth College bumped into him on the sidewalk on Madison Avenue in New York City. Mike McClintock asked what Geisel was carrying. ‘That’s a book no one will publish,’ said Geisel. ‘I’m lugging it home to burn.’ McClintock had just that morning been made editor of children’s books at Vanguard; he invited Geisel up to his office, and McClintock and his publisher bought Mulberry Street that day. When the book came out, the legendary book reviewer for the New Yorker, Clifton Fadiman, captured it in a single sentence: ‘They say it’s for children, but better get a copy for yourself and marvel at the good Dr. Seuss’s impossible pictures and the moral tale of the little boy who exaggerated not wisely but too well.’ Geisel would later say of meeting McClintock on the street, ‘[I]f I’d been going down the other side of Madison Avenue, I’d be in the dry-cleaning business today. …’

    My mind went to Amos Tutuola. One defining moment in Tutuola’s life will just not go away, it will never go away.  The famous Nigerian writer who died in 1997 is considered the first African novelist in the English language “to attract international attention” with the 1952 publication of his first book, The Palm-Wine Drinkard, by Faber and Faber in London. In 1953, the book was translated and published in Paris as L’Ivrogne dans la brousse by Raymond Queneau.

    A writer noted: “Indeed, he could hardly have had more distinguished literary godparents, because it was T.S. Eliot at Faber and Faber who recommended that his first book, The Palm-Wine Drinkard and His Dead Palm–Wine Tapster in the Deads’ Town, should be published in 1952 and it was Dylan Thomas who gave it its first prominent review, when he praised this “brief, thronged, grisly and bewitching . . . tall, devilish story”.

    Tutuola’s early history: “When his father died in 1939, Tutuola left school to train as a blacksmith, which trade he practised from 1942 to 1945 for the Royal Air Force in Nigeria. He subsequently tried a number of other vocations, including selling bread and acting as messenger for the Nigerian Department of Labour. In 1946, Tutuola completed his first full-length book, The Palm–Wine Drinkard, within a few days.”

    Tutuola was quoted as saying, “I was still in this hardship and poverty, when one night, it came to my mind to write my first book The Palm–Wine Drinkard and I wrote it in a few days successfully because I was a story-teller when I was in the school.” It is noteworthy that the novel has been described as “one of the most important texts in the African literary canon, translated into over a dozen languages.”

    The gripping image of a tormented soul struggling to escape the punishment of poverty and creatively imagining the liberating power of letters is an enduring metaphor for self-knowledge, self-recognition and self-belief. Tutuola never fails to arrive whenever I reflect on the writing life and how it can change a writer’s circumstances.

    Stories like these show why it is important to “keep on keeping on.”  Sometimes, like this moment, I ponder what Roger Rosenblatt calls “the craft and art of writing” and wonder where it may lead me. I have just finished reading Unless It Moves the Human Heart by Rosenblatt, an eye-opening book about teaching and learning writing. Speaking about writing programmes in America, Rosenblatt said in his book, published in 2011, “Since 1975, the number of creative writing programs has increased 800 percent. It is amazing… all over America, students ranging in age from their early twenties to their eighties hunker down at seminar tables like this one  in Iowa, California, Texas, Massachusetts, New York, and hundreds of places, avid to join a profession that practically guarantees them rejection, poverty and failure.”

    What am I talking about? I’m thinking about the writing space and the publishing environment in Nigeria. I’m thinking about how a writer can repel rejection, pulverise poverty and foil failure. I’m thinking of the future of writing and writers in a country that produced the United Nations, Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) World Book Capital 2014, Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital.

  • Of fair weather politicians

    Those who have been full of praises for the outcome of the presidential and national assembly elections may have to pause for a while. The elections have largely been adjudged free and fair though they were not without peculiar problems.

    Despite these, there seems some understanding that we should let go especially given the heated political temperament that characterized the campaigns. There seems some consensus that no sacrifice should be considered too much for the corporate survival of the country. So has been the understanding. At another level, encomiums have been showered on the country for not falling for earlier predictions, much of which was on the negative side. These testaments have dwelt largely on the prospects of the successful conclusion of the elections to deepen democracy on these shores. President Goodluck Jonathan’s commendable move of  going ahead to congratulate Gen Buhari even before the official results were announced attest to this new thinking largely on the acceptance of defeat.

    Much of the comments locally and from the international community have focused largely on the prospects of the new development charting a new path for democracy not only in this country but Africa as a whole. It is a different kettle of fish if this turn of events was foisted on Jonathan, done out of his volition or thrust on him by an intricate web of contradictions. The fact remains that these monumental decisions and events have taken place and they will for a long time, shape the direction and perception of Nigerian politics.

    They will form the new basis for assessing elections and their outcome in this country.  But to what extent can we push the optimism that this singular act is all that is needed to redirect the attitude of our people on political matters for the better? How far can we push the idea that given the same set of circumstances, or a slightly different configuration of events, another leader in Jonathan’s shoes will behave the way he did? In effect, how far can we carry the optimism that democracy will be deepened by the singular action of Jonathan?

    Perhaps, insights into these posers can be gleaned from the attitude of some politicians since the results of the presidential election emerged. Reports from across the country have been a plethora of sundry politicians parting ways with their political parties in a new found love for the winning party, the APC. Even before the governorship and state houses of assembly elections were conducted, many chieftains of the ruling party, the PDP had started decamping to the APC. Matters were not remedied given that key among those decamping were very prominent people in the PDP. Some of them even ran for the governorship tickets of their parties while others hitherto held important political positions.

    And we ask, what has happened or what new things have they suddenly seen in the APC that they had to ditch their parties so soon after? What interests are more likely to have weighed in favour of such precipitate actions? How much does selfish interest count in this calculation and where is it likely to lead us in the quest to grow democracy? These are some of the moot questions. The way they are resolved will chart the future on the prospects and growth of the democratic culture.

    No doubt, we are in a democracy. Some of the pristine tenets for which democracy has become the fastest growing development paradigm are its capacity to offer unlimited freedom to the people. Key to this is the freedom of choice; the freedom to decide which party to belong. So those who are decamping are still within their inalienable democratic rights and no attempt is being made in this column to deny them of that.

    However, this right cannot escape public scrutiny since all are concerned with the growth and stability of those attitudes that can make democracy endure. This is more so given the positive sentiments that have come to be associated with the success of the presidential and national assembly elections. It would therefore appear that the mad rush to decamp to the winning party a few days after the elections smacks of indecent haste. For one, it portrays those involved as people lacking in principles. Ideally, political parties ought to offer alternative persuasions to the electorate. The alternatives which the APC offered were there before the elections and all those who believed in them had ample time to take a decision. And many did.

    For another, it is nothing but obvious interests that are largely self-serving that propelled those decamping after the results of the presidential election had been declared. Among these are political contractors and fortune seekers. In this category are those who eye the enormous resources at the control of the central government. Buoyed by the huge corruption in official quarters, the thinking is that it will still be business as usual and you need to gravitate to the center to have a share of the national cake. That has been our problem. That is why it has been difficult to talk of principles in Nigerian politics. It is for the same reason that politics has become the biggest industry in this country attracting into its fold sundry contractors and the criminally minded that switch camps without giving a hoot. It is for the same reason that competition for political offices has remained very rancorous and deadly.

    Ironically, these set of people have captured political power in many states and would not let go. They will go to any length to ensure they remain relevant. The illegal monies they have acquired have become their greatest strengths and it is difficult to wish them away. The APC is within its rights to admit the new decampees. After all, it will be happy to increase its membership so as to gain advantage over its opponents. But the optimism about the growth of democracy may be threatened if this trend is not carefully watched. We may inevitably be gravitating to a one party state as was almost the case when the PDP held sway. It took the combined efforts of some committed Nigerians to float a strong opposition through mergers to save the situation.

    That visionary action has today paid off in the successes of the APC. Now, if we again find ourselves in a situation where there is no strong opposition, we would have reversed the huge efforts to give Nigerians two credible alternatives. That will detract substantially from all the optimism about the growth of democracy in this country. It will also speak of something fundamentally wrong with our politics and with us as a people. But the expectations of these desperate politicians can be checked without denying them the freedom of a party of their choice. They can be discouraged by the incoming administration ensuring probity and accountability in public offices.

    These are the challenges facing our democracy. They can be checked through a decisive war against corruption and devolution of powers to make the center less attractive. Only then, can we discourage fair weather politicians and shameless contractors from gravitating to the winning party.

  • Outsiders inside

    How did it happen that three Igbo Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidates in Lagos State won elections into the House of Representatives in the March 28 polls? How did the winners defeat Yoruba rivals from the All Progressives Congress (APC), which is the ruling party in the Yoruba-dominated state?

    A report said: “In Amuwo Odofin local government, which has a very high Igbo population, especially in areas like Kirikiri, Satellite Town and FESTAC, the PDP candidate, Oghene Egboh, who is from the Niger-Delta, defeated Mr. Ganiyu Olukolu of the APC. In Ajeromi/Ifelodun, which is one of the most densely populated areas in Lagos State and is home to Ajegunle (another Igbo dominated area), the PDP candidate, Mrs. Rita Orji, who also hails from the South-East, defeated Taiwo Adenekan of the APC.” The report also said: “In Oshodi/Isolo federal constituency 2, the incumbent, Mr. Akeem Munir, lost to Mr. Tony Nwoolu of the PDP.”

    The account continued: “The story was the same in the Igbo-dominated Ojo LG, where the PDP candidate, Mr. Tajudeen Obasa, won the seat. In Surulere federal constituency 2, which is home to Aguda and a few Igbo settlements, Mr. Tunji Soyinka of the PDP defeated Mr. Hakeem Bamgbala of the APC.”  In addition: “In Mushin federal constituency 2, the APC candidate, Yemi Alli, lost to Dauda Kako-Aare of the Accord Party. Kako-Aare, who is the incumbent, lost at the APC primary last December to Alli and defected to Accord.”

    These striking developments suggest the strength of a particular non-indigenous group and it is not surprising that the election results have given rise to an emotionally charged controversy on the so-called Igbo factor in contemporary Lagos politics. However, this may be a matter in which appearance is different from reality. In a stakeholders’ meeting ahead of the Governorship and House of Assembly elections on April 11, the APC National Leader, Asiwaju Ahmed Tinubu, was quoted as saying, perhaps simplistically: “The turn-out of APC members during March 28 elections was poor and that was why APC was defeated in some polling units, wards and local governments in Lagos State…Some people said that APC lost in some wards and local governments to PDP because of Igbo votes; that is not true?”

    So, what is true? Tinubu observed that “losing six House of Representatives seats to the opposition in Lagos State has never happened in the history of Lagos,” referring to the period between 1999 and 2015 which witnessed an exclusive reign by the ruling party in various stages  of its metamorphosis. There is no doubt that what is particularly alarming about this latest historical redefinition must be the rise of non-indigenes who are also non-Yoruba, specifically Igbo.

    It is interesting that the PDP presented Igbo candidates for the National Assembly elections in the first place. How such candidates emerged in a Yoruba-dominated state presents a sociological question that may well beget a sociological answer. It may well be that an old order is being reordered; and this possibility deserves the attention of those used to the usual.

    It is noteworthy that the new Igbo federal lawmakers representing Lagos were elected in areas with a reportedly influential Igbo presence, which suggests that political consciousness among the diverse populace of the megacity is not only expanding but also escalating.

    The success story of Egboh, for instance, who polled a total of 29,761 votes over 20,616 votes scored by the incumbent Olukolu, is instructive in a number of ways. He was quoted as saying: “My success as member of House of Representatives-elect was very significant being a non-indigene to have won the seat for the first time in Amuwo Odofin, Federal Constituency. Again this is the first time the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) won in Amuwo Odofin Federal Constituency.”

    It is significant that Egboh was said to have “linked his success to hard work, focus and the experience of being a politician having served two terms as councillor, both in Amuwo Odofin and Ojo Local Government Areas.” Also, he “said his house-to-house campaign had indeed paid him, saying he had been working for the election in the past two years.” This is evidence of a gradual but sure redesign of the state’s political landscape.

    Irrespective of the outcome of the state governorship and legislative polls, it is reasonable to expect that the Igbo victories in particular will inspire and encourage other ethnic outsiders in Lagos to have big political dreams. Perhaps such dreams may be less fantastic in the cosmopolitan environment of Lagos, which is perceived as a melting pot.

    It is relevant to note that in July last year the National Council of State formed a committee to address the alleged discriminatory promotion of indigenousness in states across the country and work towards ending the institutionalisation of indigenity. The committee included the governors of Sokoto, Niger, Enugu, Akwa Ibom, Ondo and Gombe states, representing each of the country’s six geo-political zones, and they were expected to identify discriminatory practices in all states of the federation.

    Of course, it is no news that Lagos has been tagged “no man’s land” in certain quarters, especially by those who view its richly diverse populace and cultural variety as evidence of its alleged non-ownership by a particular ethnic group. However, it is easy to note the flaw in such perception, which denies the reality of an autochthonous population in the land.   The journey to this juncture dates back to the 14th century, according to historical sources. A society called Eko is said to have existed before the coming of the Portuguese in 1472. The Lagos community is said to have emerged in the 18th century, while Lagos became a British colony in the 19th century. Lagos State was created in the 20th century, specifically May 1967, and the 21st century has witnessed its transformation to a megacity with a population put at over 10 million.

    At the heart of what might be considered a growing ethnicity-based political rivalry in the state is the indigene-settler question, which is not peculiar to Lagos, although the peculiarity of its diversity probably accounts for the intensity in this case. As regards Lagos, there must be such a thing as the core of the cosmopolis. This is food for thought and cannot be wished away by those who want to belong without a sense of belonging.

    It is generally understood that indigenous peoples have historical ties to a specific territory as well as cultural distinctiveness; but there needs to be an understanding that the inclusion of outsiders, especially in the political space, may not necessarily be negative. But it may not necessarily be positive either.

  • Who owns Lagos?

    Who owns Lagos?

    Since the Oba of Lagos uttered his controversial Lagoon jibe, Lagos has come under a certain attack. It is the foray called, “No Man’s Land.” By that the settlers say Lagos is Nigeria’s city and no ethnic group should lay claim to it as their own.

    The position came into play in the just-concluded governor election. It also reared its insular head in the aftermath of the National Assembly and presidential polls in which non-indigenes scooped a haul of seats by besting indigenes.

    This sort of attitude is not only arrogant, but also inherently disrespectful.

    No one settles in a place and displays a proprietary disdain because the indigenes open their hearts and minds and money to them.

    The point often made is that Lagos was Nigeria’s capital city, and because of that it soared into a special status in the country. On that score, they argue, the indigenes have lost the right to claim it. It is now Nigeria’s Jerusalem where every tribe and tongue and worshipper has as much right as the other.

    This sort of thinking is defective on a number of points. One, it is historical revisionism. That Lagos was a capital city did not happen out of a whim. Where were the other ethnic groups when the indigenes fought wars, built the city, and turned it from a near wilderness into the mustard seed of city? Did they know when Kosoko and Akintoye duelled for the throne? In the colonial era, Lagos was not the only city they treasured. Others included Calabar, Port Harcourt, Lokoja, et al. The reason Lagos transcended others is rooted in the indigenous population’s attitudes to others, their cultural liberalism and economic expansiveness. The colonial authority focused on it, and developed it because it opened itself to such fertility of progress.

    Lagos also allowed itself to flower during the fury days of nationalism, breeding names like Azikiwe, Ojike, Mbadiwe, Awolowo, Adelabu, etc. In fact, the dominant party was NCNC, and it was an umbrella for all tribes. The non-Yoruba politicians learned Yoruba, and that itself was homage to the indigenes. How do you learn the language of the indigenes and say it is no man’s land. Zik was fluent in Yoruba, and it helped him ascended the roof in the high noon of Nigerian nationalism. Lagos was not the only port city, and was it the only city that persons surged to make a new beginning? But Lagos exceeded others because of its indigenous people’s open arms.

    What happened in the past few weeks with the Igbo against the Yoruba was unfortunate because both ethnic groups have lived together in Lagos for a generation without much rancour. In fact, many of the Igbo have resided in Lagos without a sense of alienation as the indigenes have given them free rein in commerce and culture.

    But it was the last election that triggered this, and it was the shadow of President Goodluck Jonathan that we should blame. He came to town to incite the non-indigenes, including those in the Niger Delta, against the APC. By implication, he characterised the APC as a Yoruba and Hausa party. He even held meetings with them without decency and in one of such outings he said INEC was discriminating against them in the distribution of PVCs. Those who are quick to call him a statesman should note this.

    Jimi Agbaje, the PDP governorship candidate, fuelled this by ratcheting up the emotions of the Igbo against the ruling party in the state. This ethnic card led to the vote pattern in the presidential poll. Southsouth and Southeast people decided to vote against the ruling party based essentially on ethnic as well as religious grounds. The factor of faith ossified the revulsion against the APC. Even though the APC prevailed, the pattern revealed ominous fault lines of faith and tribe.

    The concept of no man’s land is a prostitution of the constitution that allows residency in Nigeria, and therefore allows any person of whatever tribe to contest elections anywhere as long as they are constitutionally accepted as residents. It is prostitution because few adhere although all should. If Lagos accepts and acts it, it is expected to be respected by all. But as far as I know, it is rare to see what happens in Lagos anywhere else in the country.

    It is this lack of hostility to strangers that has now been taken to mean acquiescence. Only Lagos has grown to accept the spirit of residency requirement for election. Other parts of the country accept it, but only philosophically.

    But before Jonathan, the indigenes have not openly challenged Lagos as Yoruba land. The last time it significantly caused rumpus was in the 1950’s when Zik wanted a Yoruba man, Prince Adedoyin, to step down from the legislative seat for him. He refused and Zik went to his father, and his father, an Oba, shunned him. Zik had earlier boasted about the role of the Igbo as the tribe of destiny in Africa, and that led to ethnic self-awareness among the Yoruba who had naively believed that the Igbo elite were playing politics without tribal fidelity.

    The Yoruba, especially with the Ibadan People’s Party, scuttled Zik who was on his way to become the first premier of the Western Region. Zik cried foul, and lobbed a charge of tribal politics against the indigenes. He did not especially help himself when Eyo Ita, a minority in the East, was denied the chance to be premier of the East.

    The Yoruba self-awareness in stopping Zik reflects Shakespeare’s words in Hamlet: “Beware of entrance into a quarrel; but being in, bear it that the opposed should beware of thee.” That self-awareness is palpable today in Lagos.

    The bad blood in the past few weeks contradicts the feeling of mutual peace both ethnic groups have had for over a generation. Even during the civil war, the Yoruba did not only keep Igbo property, but kept their rents. It is unfortunate that it took the serpentine zeal of a Jonathan to rake up suppressed bad blood. It is the same Jonathan that did not fulfill any major promise to the Igbo and who only fattened its opportunistic elite with juicy contracts and appointments. In Lagos, all ethnic groups have enjoyed dividends of good government. It’s not perfect, but Lagos has remained the state of example.

    The United States has always called itself a melting pot, and that means all who come from outside should not impose their will, but be part of the society. That is in contrast to Canada known as a mosaic. In a mosaic, outsiders maintain their full will but outside the mainstream.

    The poet Walt Whitman noted this about America. “I am large/I contain multitudes.”

    But we have to go back to healing now, and learn to live together. No group needs to be punished for how it voted. It is part of the beauty of democracy. But it means we should learn to understand that diversity calls for the acceptance of the other side in a bid to build a society not hampered by clannish virtues but riding on the wings of merit.

     

    Kudos Ambode

    His is a victory for healing. We have a first-class brain with a profusion of experience in Akinwunmi Ambode. Again Lagos is in good and fertile hand. As they say, no shaking

     

  • Look back

    Look back

    This is no time to gloat. Several weeks to March 28, some irate readers and followers of President Goodluck Jonathan laid ambush on this columnist. Not physically but intellectually. They did it through letters to the editor, tweets, Facebook, emails, phone calls and text messages. They warned that I would be disgraced if Jonathan won again, and they would personally poke fun at me in public for my pig-headed consistency in unleashing salvos at the nation’s number one citizen week after week for the past four years.

    After the Buhari win, the intellectual battlefield has been empty. All the Internet rioters seem to have fled.  When Jonathan won in 2011, I congratulated him while confessing to voting for some else, specifically Buhari. I, at the least, expected my critics to evince some charity and say how wrong they were, and how prescient I was. No worry.

    I lay claim to no special wisdom or courage. As the Russian poet Yevtushenko wrote in one of his flashes of brilliance, I did what I had to do. I am not gloating that Jonathan lost. I bear him no malice. He is a Nigerian like myself who had an opportunity to serve, even if he bungled it mightily. I never wanted him to be president because I believed he lacked the wherewithal.

    I persistently fulminated because Nigeria was larger than all, and the presidency was not for anyone not qualified, ill-prepared or not visionary enough for the complexities of politics, economy and the diversity of the people. The past six years show he ran the country on impunity and footloose accounting, leading to a rot in values and crash in standard of living.

    There was too much theatre of the absurd, not only in errant rhetoric but also in symbolic imbecility. Yet, he has half-deservedly earned praises for his graceful admission of defeat after the last poll. But those who pour plaudits on him should not forget all that happened in his name in the run-up to the polls. We should not forget the renegades of the west who ratcheted up tension and allowed Lagos to rise to the teeth of fear with invasions of contract-happy goons. Also some militants promised war if he lost. He also came to Lagos and the west to inflame ethnic division, inciting the non-indigenes against the indigenous Yoruba. That is apart from making himself bride with a flurry of royal bribes. The president never saw anything wrong in all these.

    We also saw how an obstreperous elder called Orubebe made a show of obloquy in the midst of vote count. His kids and family must regret their blood ties this man and his moment of global dishonour. Contrast that with Jega’s unflappable demeanour and tempered response.

    In spite of all, we cannot take away the grace of President Jonathan’s concession because a preponderance of hawks around him wanted otherwise. I wish he exercised this amount of grace in the past four or six years! He might have repulsed the impunities of his fellows and shown single-mindedness in pursuit of education, infrastructure renewal, anti-corruption crusades and health reform. But no amount of valedictory grace can wipe out the sordid picture of the past half-decade.

    But I don’t need to gloat. As Winston Churchill said, “In war, resolution. In victory magnanimity.”

    If we must tell the story of Buhari’s victory last week, it was the triumph of technology. Those who rigged, especially for the PDP, could not exceed the registered voter count. That is why in the southeast the numbers were relatively tame. Where are the 1.3 million who voted Jonathan in 2011 in Imo State, or the I.1 million in Abia who lined behind Azikiwe in 2011?

    That explains why the PDP stalwarts did not want the PVC. It was the revenge of technology in 2015. Some theorists of democracy have argued that technology, while enhancing certain aspects of democracy, is a minus because it takes away the human connection that crowds and face-to-face dynamics provide. Philosophers like Hannah Arendt even believe that technology enhances despotism. Not in the case of the PVC. What this calls for is that in the next election cycle, we should introduce electronic voting. We need the courage to move ahead.

    We must not forget the bitterness of the campaign. It was the worst in our history. Even clerics did not help matters, and some openly supported Jonathan and made their adherents believe they heard from God. How silent they are today. They remind us of the prophet’s Jeremiad: “A wonderful and terrible thing is committed in the land. The prophets prophesy falsely and the priests bear rule by their means. And my people love to have it so. What shall ye do in the end thereof?” The same Prophet Jeremiah wrote that, “he that hath a dream, let him tell a dream,” adding that God did not send them and they act on their own imagination. (Jeremiah chapters 5 and 14.) Isaiah lamented, “the leaders of these people cause them to err and they that are led of them are destroyed.” Our clerics will learn from this, as well as our divisive politicians.

    Nor is the media spared. The proprietors of both print and electronic media ought to sit and reflect on a disgraceful season. Unprintable material, by all ethical standards, were allowed to be published in the name of advertisements. Deliberate falsehoods passed as news stories. Slants are forgivable and it is allowed for a newspaper to pursue a cause. But all should be done within bounds of decency.

    Buhari’s speech showed grace and class, and a lack of malice or bitterness. He needs to reach out to our people in the south-south and southeast to emphasize his lack of malice. Lincoln made a famous speech when he said, “with malice towards none, and charity to all.” He noted that his work was too vast and diverse for any malicious dealing. That is the first task of healing, and Nigeria can take other steps more confidently.