The Nation Newspaper

Category: Monday

  • Mary Slessor meets girl bomber

    Mary Slessor meets girl bomber

    When Mary Slessor visited this part of the world exactly 100 years ago, the killing of twins scandalised her missionary soul. Locals thought them a taboo. Twins sprang from the bad spirits in the ether world. So, slaughtering them did not amount to barbarism. Rather it freed their cultural consciences. Mary Slessor may have seen the killers in the light of Apostle Paul’s words, that their “consciences were seared with hot iron.”

    But they did not hate the twins. They only feared them. The strange creatures were malformed dainties. They had to let them go. The culture wept when ogbanje’s slipped out of its own fingers. But the same culture exulted at the barbarity of its own hands that wrung twins to death.

    Mary Slessor did not judge them. They did not know what they did. Even in Achebe”s Things Fall Apart, the novelist only scratched the surface of the benighted act, and no one looked at that primitive era of infanticide with righteous horror. Culture defines morality, and when culture is dark, good can be evil. Like in the poem Paradise Lost. Poet John Milton paints Satan in magnificence as a brutish beauty. “All good to me is lost,” chants the devil in that epic opus.

    One hundred years after, the child still suffers in solitude. What will Mary Slessor think of the fate of the child today in Nigeria, especially the girl child? In the past half year, Boko Haram has hatched a new idea. Girl children are now deployed as bullets and bombs. They are no longer beauties but beasts. They haunt the innocent in the market, in the public square, on the populated streets, in churches. Young girls are innocents, but they are the scare of the adults and children and men. This is the height of perversion. They are like horror movies where girl children doom adults.

    But Mary Slessor would have mused on the savage irony of the day. Young girls roused a different odium a year ago. We frowned, including in this column, at the sexual perversion of girl-child marriages. A governor married a girl of about 13 years, and he tried to fetch justification from the constitution. We mourned the prevalence of VVF, the physical damage and the psychological trauma, of the big men crouching in sexual ecstasies over unformed female organs. Governors do it. Senators do it. Bankers do it. We moan it. But no one has stopped it.

    Mary Slessor would have campaigned against it. A moral heroine of that day, she changed a whole culture. Can a voice rise today to save the girl child up North? Mary Slessor had no Internet, or newspapers, or television, or the sort of bandwagon convulsion of the #bringbackourgirls movement. Yet she succeeded with the charisma of faith and majesty of moral suasion. Is this an age of irretrievable evil?

    It is justified falsely in the name of religion. The answer, we opined, is the brilliance of education. Reports have shown girls in revolt. Some run away into an uncertain world, but prefer the wilds of uncertain streets to the servitude of sexual tyranny. Others sulk to their hoary graves in sullen slavery.

    Now, while bemoaning this, we face another tyranny: the girl bomber. Last month, Zaharau, a 13-year-old, did not detonate her bomb in the Kanti Kwari Market in Kano. She disavowed the paradise of her so-called liberators and chose to live. Others have gone who obeyed.

    Is the girl child not an endangered species? In one case, we moan rape. In the other, we mourn their murder-suicides. Those who marry them see them metaphorically as bombshells, alluding to their physical charms. The others see them as bombshells. The Chibok girl saga still haunts a nation that looks with paralysis at the failure of a government to do something strong, or to even pursue even a symbolic story that could ease the pains of the loss. The president visited Maiduguri to mark the Army Day Memorial, but was it an act of empathy from a president? He has not up till now visited the town of the notorious abduction. Does the president’s visit assuage any conscience? Who would say the president’s visit was not cynical? He goes to Maiduguri one month to election at the same time CNN features the eerie testimonials of Nigerian soldiers who buy their own uniforms and cannot access drugs. They confess that Boko Haram soldiers have better weapons and are better motivated.

    In those circumstances, how would the Boko Haram fighters not raze down Baga town, and make away with the girls, and kill the men and recruit the boys? The greater evil is a government that fails its primary responsibility: security of its citizens. Foreign media have flayed President Goodluck Jonathan for condemning the attack on a French newspaper, Charlie Hebdo, while keeping mum over the massacre of Baga town that wipes the place out of the map.

    How are we sure these girl bombers are not being radicalised by the sect, and launched back at us as messengers of death? Joseph Kony, the leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army, has terrorised many villages in Uganda and environs, and abducted hundreds of girls in the past decades. Some of the girls are stigmatised while others with children from rape and forced marriages are trapped forever. That is the prospect for the Chibok girls and others abducted. Zaharau’s case is another dimension. Her father decided to volunteer her for Boko Haram. This is another form of early marriage. Rather than force their 13-year-olds into marriages, they prefer apocalyptic paradise.

    By ceding their kids to the sect, they believe they have done good to the Almighty. Whether they are defiled sexually or strapped with bombs to die while killing others, the parents think they have done good to their souls and to the Almighty. The new defilement is bad. I don’t know which is worse though. Is it the girl who lives in psychic turmoil all her life in a forced marriage or the one who dies in meaningless martyrdom in the name of the Almighty? One a living dead, the other a dead living.

    This tragedy happens only when a state fails. That is why the president’s visit only helped to worsen a sense of alienation in the beleaguered citizens in the Northeast. If President Jonathan had visited them often and done more symbolic acts, his empathy would have registered, but not a few days to elections.

    Essentially, to save the innocent girls, we must mount a campaign around the North to tell girls not to allow anyone strap any devices around their body. It is time to incite girls against murderous parents. These girls are too young to know what is happening to them in the name of religion.

    Let us do what Mary Slessor would have done. Let us save the girl child. Girls are the mothers who fashion families that make cultures. It is one of the great tasks of this generation.

  • Ambode’s art

    What’s in a biography? Plenty, if it’s about Lagos State governorship hopeful and frontrunner Akinwunmi Ambode of the All Progressives Congress (APC). The Art of Selfless Service by Marian Osoba, which was published last year and colourfully launched on May 15 at the Civic Centre, Victoria Island, Lagos, stands out as a book for this time in the countdown to the gubernatorial poll next month. It is a must-read for anyone who desires a picture of the man who will succeed outgoing Governor Babatunde Fashola, all things being equal.

    Symbolically, the book’s release announced Ambode’s canonisation. Oba Rilwan Akiolu, the preeminent Lagos monarch who may be considered a reliable source of information on the thinking in the charmed circle of political kingmakers in the state, controversially declared: “The elders of Lagos have said that Ambode will be governor.” He said: “It is true that we are launching a book, but we know why we are here.”  Beyond the surface, the book presentation had the quality of a finely planned public relations stunt to sell Ambode. According to Oba Akiolu on the occasion, “The elders have been meeting…We review things regularly…The elders have said that Ambode should be the next governor of Lagos.”  So far, the king’s confident endorsement is winning as Ambode, having won his party’s governorship primary, is well-positioned to defeat all rivals in the February election.

    What does Ambode’s candidacy represent? In a fundamental sense, beyond his respected financial wizardry and managerial mastery, Ambode’s recognised emphasis on selfless service is a defining plus. In actuality, a leader without a correct sense of service is ultimately negative.  Service to the people, in the purest meaning of the concept, is Ambode’s mantra.  Two quotes from the biography deserve contemplation, especially given the regrettable reality that personal aggrandisement is a familiar guiding principle of political leadership in the country.       According to him, “A true leader sees his work as selfless service towards a higher purpose. A true leader should be judged by what he has not – ego, arrogance and self interest.” He also said: “We must, wherever we find ourselves, create an atmosphere of selfless service.”

    Against this background, it is significant to highlight Ambode’s Local Government Years from 1988 to 1998 and his tenure as the Accountant General of Lagos State from 2006 to 2012 in a 27-year career in the state civil service, which he ended by voluntary retirement. In the biography, he said: “If you work successfully at Local Government level and you are able to make a difference, there is nowhere else you cannot work successfully.”

    Ambode’s remarkable sense of service could be discerned from his critical role in the creation of the State Treasury Office (STO), which should be of special significance in rating him as a governorship material. The STO has been acknowledged as a ground-breaking development which has fundamentally improved how the state’s funds are raised, budgeted, managed and spent. It goes without saying that Ambode’s demonstrated authoritative grasp of treasury issues would most likely be an advantage. ”If we take the concept of resource generation, allocation and distribution into cognisance and apply the principles of good governance, we will achieve economic growth and development,” Ambode said while presenting a paper titled “Public Finance: Probity and Accountability” at a workshop organised in August last year by the Lagos State Government and the Lagos Business School.

    He has also shed light on his understanding of good governance, which is an essential aspect of his vision. He said in a newspaper interview:  ”In essence, the elected government is like a caretaker for the rest of the people, overseeing their resources on their behalf. The citizens remain the landlord while the elected officials are only caretakers.”  He further said: “Arising from this, good government can only thrive where the resources of the people are judiciously distributed to various sectors/needs in the society in a just and equitable manner that makes life easier for every person.”

    Interestingly, the biography provides what may be interpreted as a thought-provoking response to the view in certain quarters that Ambode is a puppet of political kingmakers. “Sometimes I am confronted with the subject of mentoring and I am asked who my mentor is,” he said. “Somehow I cannot place appropriate answers to some of these questions. Why? Because every day, I am also confronted by situations which give one the opportunity to search for true leaders and even though they abound everywhere and a lot of us have the innate capacity to make a positive difference, we are never recorded as mentors, champions or true leaders.”

    He added:  ”At different points in our lives, we have had relationships; a teacher, a boss, an employer, a friend, a parent who has greatly changed the way we looked at life and the world. Someone who inspired us and motivated us, someone who taught us to set goals and instilled the confidence and spirit to achieve them, someone who had high standards and truly stood for something; such a person is the real mentor we all need to find. I have found true leaders through such observations in the course of my career…they help you build your art of selfless service, but it is important too that you carve out for yourself an identity authentically your own, that you don’t monkey another person’s life so slavishly as to lose your own.”  It is noteworthy that Ambode spoke of those who “help you build your art of selfless service.”

    The projection of Ambode’s political vision through an inventive acronym, LAGOS, is notable for the inclusion of service.  At the well-attended ceremony in October last year at the Onikan Stadium, Lagos, where he formally expressed his desire to govern the state, Ambode declared: “Our message is LAGOS. LAGOS is Leadership, LAGOS is Accountability, LAGOS is Good Governance, LAGOS is Opportunities and LAGOS is Service. This is what I stand for.”

    It is a demonstration of impressive originality that he has been able to package his organising principles in a capsule named after the state he seeks to govern. More importantly, his antecedents indicate that he is a man who can walk the talk. His credentials in leadership, accountability and service are reinforced by Governor Fashola who branded him as an individual   ”guided by the philosophy of a true public officer, who must place himself last while rendering service to the public.”

  • Parable of Father Mbaka

    Parable of Father Mbaka

    The signal tear is his poster photo. It glistens a narrow line down the right side of Father Ejike Mbaka’s face. It makes him a sort of modern day Jeremiah. The word Jeremiad arose from that Old Testament prophet’s molten tears over the iniquities of his time.

    But whoever watched the video or read the full text of the Catholic cleric’s crossover night sermon of December 31, 2014 will know that his was not only a jeremiad. It was also a fiery rebuke. Father Mbaka had been around, but he only now gained national traction because of his pious perorations against the failings of the Jonathan administration.

    In the Southeast, he had always been a phenomenon. The Igbo always knew him, whether it was when he twisted the ribs of the swaggering “Ebeano,” Governor Chimaroke Nnamani, or when he ripped open the hypocrisies and vanities of Governor Sullivan Chime, or even when he was much younger and fulminated against the barbarities of the Abacha junta. His shrill voice, like John the Baptist’s, ruptured the wilderness of sin in the east. Now, in this harmattan season, he has poked the Jonathan government out of joint.

    So intimidated is the PDP hierarchy that a sulky silence is the only reaction to the less-than-an-hour bombshell from the pulpit. Olisa Metuh, who often bursts out of control, became a wimp and responded with a whimper of conciliation, almost begging the man. And President Goodluck Jonathan, who has now lost decency in his campaign speeches, could not bait the righteous tiger when he visited the neighbourhood of his lair at the Adoration Centre in Enugu at the weekend.

    The only hefty voice who objected to Father Mbaka was Cardinal Archbishop John Onaiyekan, and he appealed to the inviolate supremacy of the Catholic hierarchy. But the gentleman cleric deliberately forgot that Catholic priests of Mbaka’s stripes do not bow to the Onaiyekan school of docility. He comes from the tradition of liberation theology that began in the 1950’s in Latin America. That brand of theology sees the gospel through the plight of the poor, and harangues a society that preaches the love of Christ when wealth and inequality lash the back of the weak and lowly.

    With such stalwart priests as Gustavo Gutierrez of Peru, Leonardo Boff of Brazil and John Sobrino of Spain, the Catholic Church was jolted out of its elitist and tyrannous torpor. They probably had read of the exploits of Martin Luther who thrived on the ideas of Erasmus and Peter Abelard in the Scholastic era that led to the rise of the protestant movement. But these Catholic priests of liberation did not want to break out of the Church. They galvanised it as a platform not only to humble it but turn it into the way for the poor. Since then, some Catholic priests have pitched their tents with the downtrodden, and compelled the pope to recognise the poor. The present Pope Francis is the first modern Pope to exercise this radicalism with his emphasis on the poor and attack on tyranny in the world. While an Enaiyekan may frown, Pope Francis will cheer on his priest.

    The effect of liberation theology coined by Gutierrez has ricocheted throughout the church around the world, especially where poverty and oppression are palpable. The priests see the word of God as a sword and latch on to scriptures like Paul’s that noted that Jesus was poor so that we might be rich. It resonated in the communist era, especially in Poland when a Catholic priest, Jerzy Popieluszko, found common cause with the Solidarity Movement that buried communism. Or in South Africa where anti-apartheid forces formed groups to rail at racism. In Nigeria, we have seen a few. Olubunmi Okogie, now greying at the temple, once ruffled the army brass. Outside the Catholic Church, we have seen a few do it. We cannot forget what Reverend Mbang did in the Babangida era when top officers sat in cold comfort in the church as the cleric tore them apart on network television. The irony of Catholic defiance is rooted in the history of the church’s cohabitation with tyrants, whether in the Ancien Regime in France before the revolution and even in the Napoleonic era or during Nazism or under Mussolini or the Sawdust Caesar’s regime. Perhaps that is why they throw up upstarts and rebels in the name of the Lord. They are contrasts to the Pentecostal order who tend to either distance themselves from or preach partnership with authority as we witness in today’s Nigeria. They don’t cry out against the sins of social injustice.

    References to such scriptures as Roman 13 that call for obedience to temporal powers are self-serving. God cannot ask his people to obey rulers that lack the fear of God. Paul who wrote that fought against the order of his day and was beheaded, a radical of his day. Did Moses not rise against Pharaoh, or Daniel against the king? What of the trinity of Shredrack, Meshack and Abednego? Did Herod not pursue Jesus into a manger? Would the Lord have been born if Herod had his wish? Did Jesus not die a rebel?  Did Prophet Nathan not rebuke King David? That is the logic of Mbaka, and the liberation theology. They know that the kingdom of God suffers violence.

    So those who say that Mbaka once endorsed Jonathan should have listened to the sermon and the parable of the birds. He said, in his recantation, that Jonathan the bird did not fly in his vision, and he had to turn. The anointed Peter in the Bible, and whom Paul called Cephas, once had to reverse his position when he was rebuked by Paul. Those who know little about the lives and working of priests criticise him. They should know that the path of the just is a shining light that shines more and more to the perfect day.

    Rather than flay Mbaka, why not probe the content of his sermon. He said Jonathan has failed. He said the Southeast has not enjoyed his service in spite of the Igbo support. Is it not true that President Jonathan has recruited the Igbo elite, plied them with positions and contracts, and neglected the common Igbo man? He has conned the Igbo with promises of bridges and roads and economic progress that never happened. Jonathan is a psychological booster to the Southeast, an Ojukwu reborn in a phantom Biafra victory. Hence he calls himself Azikiwe during elections and becomes Goodluck thereafter. His victory benefits only the top Igbo acting like the warrant chiefs of the colonial era. This is political 419.

    President Jonathan is enemy number one of the Niger Delta. He rose on their back to power, and he has done nothing significant. For all their mediocrity, the military under Hausa-Fulani soldiers built refineries, petrochemical plants, major schools, etc. What can Jonathan say he did other than pursue Ijaw agenda? Even at that he has only energised a few of them. The Ijaw are some of the most pauperised in Nigeria. They sit on black gold and look like rust. The number two enemy is Chief Edwin Clark, an elder who is not elderly, and plays the role of interloper in the politics of the region. His age-mates now take the back seat because they have done their best and are tired. He is either saying un-elderly things or doing them.

    We should heed Mbaka’s parable of the four birds. It mirrors the classic novel, The Painted Bird, by Jerzy Kosinski, about a bird that was isolated by other birds because of its colour. It was an attack on prejudice, especially during the Nazi era. If the healthy bird in Mbaka’s parable could not fly, the Jonathan administration should heed it, and so should his apologists. If not, Jonathan is the Judas who betrayed the Nigerian people. And, as the good book says, “his place let another take.”

  • Voice of God or man

    When is the voice of man equal to the voice of God?  This must be the central question in the controversy over the priestly intervention by the Enugu-based Catholic Rev Father Camillus Ejike Mbaka. His intrusion was unanticipated because the country had grown accustomed to the silence of those who claim to represent the divine when faced with the influence of political power.

    So, it was food for thought when Mbaka’s New Year message to the congregation targeted President Goodluck Jonathan. Mbaka said: “I’m not saying that Goodluck is a bad man. He is a good man. But he cannot lead Nigeria. As things stand right now, from the oracle of the Holy Spirit, Jonathan should honourably resign quietly and let Nigeria be.” He also said:  ”The way Nigeria is going right now, the office of Goodluck Jonathan let another take…We need change. May the Holy Spirit help me to vocalise what he has shown to me while I was waiting on him to give me a message for my people.”

    Indeed, Mbaka’s appeal to authority, more specifically, to the believed infallibility of divinity, may appear mystifying, but that is understandably the nature and character of priesthood. Priests are expected to be peculiarly connected to the metaphysical realm, but it is difficult to prove when a priest is metaphysically correct. It is the fundamental uncertainty of spiritual integrity that complicates a priest’s claim to oracular capacity.

    However, when a priest, by his pronouncement, is on the same page with the people, it may suggest a definitive divine influence; and this is Mbaka’s appeal. In the sphere of public opinion, there is little doubt about Jonathan’s abysmal governmental performance, and his pursuit of a second term in office has all the ingredients of a defiant and unrealistic venture. The context gives credence to Mbaka’s words and to his claim to being a messenger of God.

    It was striking that in reaction to Mbaka’s remarks, the Catholic Bishop of Abuja Metropolitan See, Cardinal John Onaiyekan, was quoted as saying, “I wouldn’t be surprised if most people are not happy with the statement he made. From my reactions, you should see that I do not agree with him. I don’t believe a priest should be doing that.” He added: “If he was in my archdioceses, I will have sanctioned him long ago for the kind of things and utterances that he makes.” Interestingly, the President of the Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria (CBCN), Archbishop Ignatius Kaigama, also said: “There are more than 30 million Catholics in Nigeria; Fr Mbaka is just one Catholic; if he makes a statement, it cannot be the voices of more than 30 million Nigerian Catholics speaking.”

    For the avoidance of doubt, Mbaka never claimed to be speaking for anyone but God. It is noteworthy that he said: “It is so unfortunate that pastors are becoming vultures around the president. Pastors are becoming hawks around him, eating the porridge of Jacob and selling their prophetic rights.” He continued: “Listen, this is the voice on the pulpit: all these men of God, who are telling Jonathan to continue because they are benefiting one thing or the other, you should question your apostolic, prophetic anointing.”

    It may be relevant to highlight the fact that when Jonathan went on a pilgrimage to Israel last year, the second time in his four-year term, he had with him the Chaplain of the Presidential Villa, Ven. Obioma Onwuzurumba; Bishop David Oyedepo of Living Faith Church Worldwide; Primate, Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion), Most Rev. Nicholas Okoh; and President, Christian Association of Nigeria, Ayo Oritsejafor.  It is not difficult to guess that Jonathan’s repeat pilgrimage was probably inspired by his pursuit of reelection this year.

    Mbaka’s difference speaks eloquently when considered against the background of a “Primatial Award of Excellence in Christian Stewardship” given to Jonathan last year by the Anglican Communion. From the testimony of Most Rev. Nicholas Okoh who led a delegation to the Presidential Villa in Abuja, the Anglican Church is proud of Jonathan. Listen to Okoh’s words in justification of the unprecedented award: “By this award, we affirm that you as the leader and President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, has shared, allocated, distributed the resources of Nigeria fairly, equitably, and judiciously to the East, West, North and South of Nigeria to all, including the traditional religionists, Muslims and Christians alike, to men and women, to the youth and children, including the Almajiri. This is the essence of this award. Congratulations. May God honour you.”

    In a revelatory moment, Jonathan said on the occasion: “I grew up as a member of the Anglican Church…I have been a part of the church from the beginning. I attended the Anglican Primary School as a pupil. So I have to be very grateful to the Anglican Church that brought me up. I am what I am today because of the Anglican Church.” If Jonathan sounded like a proud product of Anglicanism, then the questions should arise as to what he was taught in that framework, if he was taught anything, and whether he is practising what he learnt, if he learnt anything.

    Just imagine how colourful and reinforcing it would be for Jonathan to be given awards by the representatives of the categories defined by Primate Okoh: “the East, West, North and South of Nigeria…including the traditional religionists, Muslims and Christians alike…men and women…the youth and children, including the Almajiri.” It would be a carnival of highly favourable publicity and praise, which Jonathan would, no doubt, enjoy.

    Seriously, isn’t it confusing? Who is speaking on God’s behalf?  It may be clarifying to quote Jesus on the Mount of Olives. In Mathew 25, he spoke to his disciples about the judgement of the sheep and the goats. Jesus said: “Then he will say to those at this left hand, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me…Truly, I say to you, as you did it not to one of the least of these, you did it not to me.”

    If Jonathan’s record in governance should be judged by the words of Jesus, he would probably be qualified to be where Jesus referred to as “at this left hand”. In other words, his performance in office, which has observably deepened the country’s harrowing socio-economic conditions, places him among “the goats.”

    This must be the point of Mbaka’s sermon. It was an impressive and commendable instance of speaking truth to power, and deserves to be emulated by genuine priests in the interest of the country.

  • Mu’azu’s crocodile tears

    Those familiar with events surrounding the last ward congresses and primaries of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) would be amazed at the recent assessment of that party by its national chairman, Alhaji Adamu Mu’azu. Not that the issues he raised are not correct. But coming from such a key leader, people are bound to wonder what he is now up to.

    Hear him, “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 APGA is increasing because of this. All these members are from our party. We must find out what is wrong and correct it”

    Mu’azu’s comments at the event which had President Jonathan in attendance reportedly attracted heavy ovation from party members. Apparently sensing danger, Jonathan was quick to admit he was aware of issues arising from the last PDP primaries. But he called on members of the party to unite and resolve them so as to ensure success at the coming elections.

    The issues raised by Mu’azu on the conduct of their party are not entirely new. What is perhaps new is that this is the first time a sitting PDP national chairman who just presided over very flawed primaries would so soon after, come public to speak of his party in such a deprecating manner.

    From the way he spoke, he appears to have given the impression that he is not part of the charade that went in the name of ward congresses and primaries of the party. That is why he would want the president to speak with the governors, senators, members of the House of Representatives and other elected officials.

    Its corollary is that much of the blame for the said injustice should be heaped at the doorsteps of the president or somewhere else. That is why he is being asked to speak to all categories of elected officers. The other logical deduction is that much of those in the category of the aggrieved, fall within elected people who apparently could not secure a return ticket or whose plans to install their anointed candidates hit the rocks.

    Admittedly, there exist clear instances of this. Enugu State, where the incumbent governor had to trade off his senatorial ambition for imposing an anointed governorship candidate is a case in point. There is also that of Ebonyi State where the incumbent governor not only had his preferred candidate shortchanged but has been so frustrated that he now pursues his senatorial ambition through another party. These and many more instances could be cited.

    But they represent an infinitesimal fraction of those genuinely embittered by the outcome of the last PDP primaries. They only represent the most vocal and most visible of those who have left the party because of the malfeasance the PDP national chairman felt strongly about that he had to come out public. There are many more of such aggrieved people and Mu’azu cannot claim ignorant of this fact.

    He inadvertently fell into the same trap he is complaining about in assuming that those who need to be reconciled are all about elected members.

    That is not exactly the case. If it were so, he would have had no cause to lament the heavy exodus of his party members to other parties. In the category of aggrieved people are ordinary members who were lured out to participate during its ward congresses which never held in many places even as lists of purportedly elected delegates were produced by powerful members.

    Complaints were made to the national headquarters where Mu’azu holds sway but nothing came out of some of them. It was against this foreboding background that the primaries were held with lists doctored by highest bidders. Their outcome was very predictable as those who suffused the lists with their cronies’ names succeeded in determining who eventually emerged as candidates. They succeeded in throwing up people who at once, were electoral liabilities.

    The party’s further reaction was to embark on the very panicky measure of even substituting names of such people with those they thought will give them victory at the polls. This further exacerbated the situation. Many of the popular candidates who could not withstand the glaring injustice had to seek accommodation in other parties as the PDP national chairman rightly observed.

    They have left and may not be available for any reconciliation for now. They have left and are going to fight the PDP at the elections. So, it is not just the issue of bad losers. You cannot have bad losers or losers at all in a game that has no rules or worst still where the rules were observed in their breach. That is the burden the party has to bear for now and the consequences might be very dire.

    Mu’azu was being less than honest when he asked the party to find out what went wrong and correct it. In a way, it could amount to self-indictment for him to feign ignorance of the monumental corruption at the party headquarters that made its leadership incapable of decisively handling genuine complaints of members. He cannot claim ignorance that a lot of money changed hands before delegates’ lists that bore no semblance with the wishes of the people were imposed on them. He cannot claim he was unaware the current predicament of the party in Imo State was a logical concomitant of the delegates’ lists’ imposition. So why does he require another inquisition for what is obvious? The issues that aggravate defection are not new. Not even after the implosion of the party leading to mass exodus of some of its governors and foundation members. For someone in Mu’azu’s shoes, the minimum expectation was that he should have seized the momentum of that event to put the party on the right frame.

    But he did practically nothing as it remained business as usual. For a party that is faced with the kind of challenge this country is passing through, he would have steered the ship of his party to the part of sanity, order and good example in internal democracy. He allowed the matter to degenerate such that he now wants to give the impression he could be exculpated from the vices he complained about.

    It would have made more sense if he had let the nation into the actions he initiated to remedy the situation or throw in the towel if his ideas on that were being frustrated by some powerful interests. That would have been the path to credible and visionary leadership rather than this belated resort to shedding crocodile tears when the harm had already been done.

    Had he done so, he would have saved himself the embarrassment of buck-passing when the buck should stop at his table. Unless there are some extenuating issues, Mu’azu should take much of the blame for the current fate of the party. He must also share in the blame for the injustice he complained about. The issue is not just about the existence of injustice in the party as the steps he took to remedy the situation.

    Curiously, all these are taking place during an election year with very high stakes. For Jonathan, the party will take these into account when preparing for the 2019 elections. Fine! But the cost could be such that he may not have another opportunity to redress the situation.

  • Chicken rebellion

    Chicken rebellion

    Should I thank God or accident that I am alive? My beak scratches my plumage into high gloss. Inside this cage, I cannot gloat. But I rejoice that I survived two major cups. The cup of Christmas and the cup of New Year.
    I join you humans to say, Happy New Year. But I say that with a survivor’s guilt. Some of my fellows tumbled from your greasy stews into your grateful stomachs. You are a rare breed of human vanity. Your rich know how to throw parties and your poor are past masters at acting rich. For Nigerians, vanity knows no class distinction.
    If you caught me, I might have digested by now, or become the gooey waste in the belly of your earth. But I don’t count on my survival, although I thought things looked a little bright for me when some bad news started to trickle in for you humans, especially the variety called Nigerians.
    We learned that your buying activities were looking bad. People were getting poorer, and that meant more of us would live. Earlier in the year when those who pray to another God celebrated their annual day of mirth called Sallah, I wept with foreboding. My hairy cousins started to disappear.
    Your money called Naira with which you do things was healthier then – sick as it was – just like the rams that disappeared. I knew I had to eat as much corn and other grains. As one of your prophets said, eat and drink, tomorrow we die. I knew it was a matter of time. I had to lay as many eggs as fertility permitted, and I did a lot in that department, believe me. Some of us died during that Sallah festivity. The poorer ones of your race came to buy us. I thought the holy book prescribed rams? I hate those poor folks. The rich went for the hairy cousins with huge palates for grasses. How they skidded out of sight, baaing away as their hooves limped behind their potential devourers.
    But when November threatened, I was afraid until I observed that fear gripped our predators more.
    If you noticed, quiet jubilation stirred cages all over the country. Well, most of you could not get it, except those who specialise in the psychology of chickens. You guys are too busy humanising our quirks to probe us. You call the coward chicken, you seek our blood for sacrifices, our feathers as ornaments, our flesh as feast, our eggs for pastries. You forget we have lives too. We love and hate, and mourn and play.
    We learned that our owners moaned two things. They kept talking about oil, but that made us sad. They said the price was falling, and we thought it was bad news. If the price of whatever oil fell, whether palm oil, or vegetable oil, we were doomed, or we were fried. It would save your buyers more money to buy us. Later they said it was black oil, and we were puzzled. Were they going to sell oil already cooked? Was that a new trade? Even that would be bad news because it would mean recycling our fluid of tragedy.
    But it became clear when they said it was crude oil and only the nation sold it. They said the price was falling, and that meant many of your buyers would have less money. That was the good news. That followed another: that the Naira was losing value. We always hate that piece of paper. Once it passes between the visitors and our owners, one or two of us disappear. So, it was doubly good news.
    One of us, the cock with reddish-black plumage, wondered if they had not saved enough? Humans saved for hard times, unlike animals. Except goats who chewed cuds. One hen cawed, “this set of humans called Nigerians love life too much. Their leaders said they had what was called sovereign wealth fund and invested lots of billions from excess crude account with foreigners and another tranche of money of about ten billion dollars that could buy all the chickens on earth were missing in their pocket.”
    All of us looked at the Witch Hen, and wondered how a fowl could know so much. She cawed all night breaking down the terms for our poultry minds.
    She said while all of us were busy cawing, crowing and pecking away, she listened to the visitors and owners and picked a thing or two. Witch Hen said it meant life would be bad in December and there was a chance many of us would survive. Nigerians had little money to waste on mortals like us.
    I asked, does that mean those who lead the humans are not better than us chickens. What we have we eat and go out as waste, and life is good. We think nothing of tomorrow. Why do humans have to worry about tomorrow?
    Witch Hen said because the humans make life difficult for themselves like paying rents, buying cars, paying people to treat them when they are sick, buying material to cover their head, body and feet, cooking and baking bread and building markets and making cages like the one we are in right now.
    I asked again, is it that the breed called Nigerians want to be like us fowls or animals now that they cannot save or make themselves make more money? How come in other places they do things well? Are these people going to lose control of us then?
    Witch Hen could not answer, but promised to listen more and get back with us with an answer.
    Unfortunately, I may never get the answer. Witch Hen was whisked away a day before Christmas. Maybe they thought she knew too much. Witches are not supposed to last anyway. I still wondered, if the humans were losing their money, it meant they could not buy us. We noticed that more of us survived this year when the carnage of New Year and Christmas came. Our owners complained in their murderous ways that it was a “bleak Christmas.” What is bleak about what makes us survive, although it was bleak for us because they reduced the quantity of grains in the cages? Better to starve and live than end in those cauldrons of delicacy they call stews.
    As New Year came, traffic eased in the market. We are happy we survived. We learned that one man who prides himself on leadership by feeding stomachs distributed a lot of us free. At least, he should have fed them well before they died. The fowls looked so frail and lean. This came from a man who once owned a controversial poultry operation and could have been one of us. It was foul profit for him.
    Now that everything looks bad this new year for the humans, it means we shall survive as chickens. They don’t have much money to buy us. The only thing I fear though, is that when everyone starts complaining of hunger, will the leaders not magically recover the billions that can buy all the chickens in the world? Then they will imitate the poultry governor and distribute all of us free. I doubt they will find the money. But in case they do so or take their habitual loans, I am going to rally all fowls for a chicken rebellion. If you humans don’t know your rights, we chickens do. After all, one of you who won a prize wrote a play called A Dance of The Forests where millions of ants mounted a rebellion against humans for encroaching on their bushes. With our beaks, preening, bird flus like avian and about 140 other afflictions, we shall fight for a chicken republic.

  • People Power Project

    Apart from its sheer symbolism, the publicised move by northern yam farmers to boost the campaign funds of the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, with a donation of N5bn speaks volumes about the mass appeal of his remarkable Crowd Funding Project. Reports said Rev. Jacob Musa, Public Relations Officer of a group named Buhari-Osinbajo Presidential Appeal Campaign Fund (BOPCAF), declared in a statement that the money would be raised by its members in Taraba, Nasarawa, Plateau, Adamawa, Benue, Kogi, Kwara, Niger and Kaduna states as well as the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.

    More dramatically and spectacularly, according to the information, an unusual fundraiser based on yam selling was scheduled for Jan 4 at the Mararaban Demshin village yam market in Qua’an Pan Local Government Area of Plateau State.  Musa said: “We have contributed five million tubers of yam to be donated in support of the funding of Buhari’s presidential campaign. The five million tubers of yam will be retailed at a special price of N1, 000 each towards raising the sum of N5 billion in support of the APC candidate.”

    Symbolically, tubers of yam hint at the natural cycle of sowing and reaping, possibly suggesting that the time has come for the Goodluck Jonathan presidency to get its comeuppance after a long night of irredeemably poor governance.  Musa, who painted a picture of the Jonathan era, was quoted as saying that the group’s political involvement was a “campaign against poverty, crime, killings, kidnappings, armed robbery, castle rustling, rape, cultism, election rigging, looting of public funds, smuggling, terrorism and other social vices now prevalent in the society.”

    The clear difference between Buhari’s focus on the people for funding and Jonathan’s reliance on moneybags for resources, even if not definitively ideological, is at least promising in terms of individual orientation and direction. Buhari said: My strength mainly is the ordinary people. N100 is plenty of money for them and I know that they are going to make the sacrifice required for the change we are looking for, especially when I made them a promise to be transparent and personally responsible for the money.” It is a reflection of Buhari’s widely acknowledged immaculateness that the bank account details of the Buhari Support Organisation are officially in the public space: Acct No. 2026724405; First Bank Plc. He disclosed that the people had contributed N54.4 million so far.

    However, it’s a long walk to “Change”, that enchanting word which is the APC slogan ahead of next month’s presidential election. Although money by itself is unlikely to give Jonathan electoral victory, especially given his provable low-rung performance in office and associated weakness in the critical area of people appeal, there is no doubt that his reelection campaign war chest of at least N21bn raised at the December 20 Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) fundraiser in Abuja is truly intimidating.

    While the contest might be portrayed as a battle between the masses and the moneybags, the electoral clincher would hopefully be beyond Jonathan’s cash stockpile and the expected grassroots financial contributions to Buhari’s pursuit of presidential power.

    Fundamentally, the country’s historically significant 2015 presidential election represents an unquantifiable opportunity for the electorate to demonstrate not only discerning political consciousness but also confident mastery of its ultimate sovereignty. In other words, the election is better appreciated as a People Power Project.

    It is interesting to note that Jonathan, perhaps in an indirect and self-serving manner, appears to have come to an impressive realisation of the supremacy of the vote or the primacy of the voters. He reportedly said to a visiting delegation of traditional rulers and leaders from Bayelsa State: “If Nigerians didn’t want me to be here, when I contested elections in 2011, I wouldn’t be here. But they voted for us and we are here.”  Without exploring the purity of his alleged win in 2011, it is sufficient to highlight the solid implication of his reasoning, which is that the people have the power to vote against him and deflate his dream of a second term. The question, therefore, is whether this would happen, not whether it could, because it is always a democratic possibility based on people capacity.

    Jonathan further said: “I don’t expect praises now, until I leave office…People don’t often give credit when the man is still there. They often do it when he has left and another man is in charge. When they make comparison, they will begin to see the great things the former man did.”  At least, to go by his words, it is a positive sign that he can accommodate the idea of official impermanence. Of course, he is entitled to his own self-rating, however exaggerated, or more precisely, however revealing of “hallucinatory realism”. What matters, in the end, is whether the people see Jonathan’s first-term performance from his own conceited perspective. So, he could leave office sooner than he is clearly anticipating, if the people say so by their votes.

    Power to the people is a catch-phrase that must be actualised by the people themselves for meaningful change. It is noteworthy that Buhari said: “Currently, 82 support groups have been registered under the Buhari Support Organisation (BSO) with over 475, 796 coordinators and total membership in the region of 8,492,226 across the length and breadth of this country.” Probably the main the challenge facing the progressive camp in the countdown to the defining election is people mobilisation, which will likely come with the difficulty of spreading political awareness and enlightenment as well as delivering the crucial message of the need for game-changing political action within a population that is usually fatalistically absorbent. Indeed, how far the people are ready to go to protect the sacredness of their votes will be decisive.

    It is thought-provoking that Jonathan said in his New Year message: “After the 2011 general elections, some unpatriotic elements embarked on an orgy of violence, resulting in the destruction of lives and property. That will not be allowed to happen this time around. This government will act decisively against anyone who disrupts the public peace, before, during or after the 2015 general elections.”  The question is: What if the people are triggered to defend their votes?

  • Here we are!

    The year 2015 is here with us. The advent of a new year means different things to different people. Generally however, the beginning of a new year is devoted for sober reflections among all classes of people and religions. It provides ample ambience for people to reflect on events of the past with a view to charting a better future.

    Characteristically, the commencement of a New Year is marked with what is now known as New Year resolutions. Such resolutions reflect on the activities of the past year with a resolve to part ways with bad habits and lead a better life henceforth. However, the extent to which these resolutions are observed to the letters would depend on individual strengths or weaknesses.

    Our main concern here is this recognition that it should no longer be business as usual when we transit from one year to the other. Its corollary is that the New Year should hold better prospects for all and sundry.

    For nation-states, the foregoing sentiments are equally relevant considerations. That is why governments prepare annual budgets to enable them take care of the challenges of statecraft on the eve of a coming year. For Nigeria, the year 2015 is particularly symbolic and challenging as well. A number of events have taken place in so many fronts to bring about this situation. And the picture has been a mixed grill of the good, the bad and the ugly.

    There was this prediction some years back from the United States of the prospects of Nigeria becoming a failed state this year. And as if to give vent to this, a number of challenges have arisen in this country since then to raise consciousness on the prospects of the predictions coming into fruition.

    The first signal emerged with the rise of the Boko Haram insurgency within this time frame. Their weird ideology of installing an Islamic state in the country, expelling non-Muslims and southerners from the north and constantly attacking churches in the north through sponsored suicide bombings raised the stakes and shook the faith of the people on the continued unity and indivisibility of the country.

    Not unexpectedly, this came with an increasing slide to parochialism and primordial sentiments. Ethnic and sectional sentiments came to an all-time high. Unfolding events began to have negative effects on the people’s confidence on the capacity of the state to continue to provide for their collective interests. Life in some pars of the country degenerated to the atavism of the state of nature-nasty, short and brutish. Nigeria was drawn into an inevitable war against the Boko Haram insurgency with no end in sight. Thousands of innocent lives and property of inestimable value have been lost to the senseless war. It rages on and may assume a new dimension this year.

    Within the same time, the menace of Fulani herdsmen became a matter of serious public concern. There were constant incidences of the sacking of villages and killing of innocent people in Plateau, Benue, Kaduna, Nassarawa states among others. The schism was such that two former military rulers- Olusegun Obasanjo and Ibrahim Babangida had to issue a joint statement deprecating the situation. They were more worried that even those they hitherto classified as patriots were increasing questioning the basis of Nigerian unity. That has been the environment in which this country operated for most part of the year that just ended.

    Such has been the situation with the Boko Haram insurgency assuming a very dangerous and complicated dimension. Accusations have been traded regarding the real motivation of the insurgents. But the most worrisome is that which links it to the unfolding political competition in the country. In this regard, we have in mind the issue of which of the geo-political divides should occupy the highest political office in this country-the presidency. The heat has been so much with some sections of the north and the south-south trading words.

    There have been threats of catastrophe from both sections should any of these contending forces fail to clinch the presidency. The south-south feels President Jonathan should be allowed to finish a second term. The north thinks otherwise. The ruling party, the PDP has been badly ruffled by this power contest leading to defections from its ranks. With the defections and the emergence of the APC, a strong opposition is now in place.

    Party primaries have been concluded. And the presidential candidates of the parties have emerged with Muhammad Buhari as the APC rival to Jonathan. With this, it would appear the battle line has been drawn. And in this contest, two factors will dominate the language of political discourse- ethnicity and religion. The potency of the last factor is given credence by events leading to the picking of Buhari’s running mate. Obasanjo elevated this to the fore when he warned the party against a Muslim-Muslim ticket given extant developments in the country.

    And this came to pass. But that is not the end of its all. The two contenders are from the two dominant religions- Christianity and Islam. They also come from the two dominant geo-political divides in the country- south and north. Though this line of division may not be as perfect as has been presented, but that does by no means whittle down the potency of their envisaged roles in the unfolding political contest.

    The point being raised here is simple. And it is that the foregoing scenario will add up to heat up the political space when campaigns commence. The situation is such that the average Nigerian is apprehensive of events that will follow the coming elections. Questions are now being raised regarding whether Nigeria can survive this election given the utterances and posturing of politicians? Questions are also being asked as to whether our current path has been primed for the doomsday as represented by the predictions from the US.

    Many are apprehensive at the way things are going. Nigeria may be heading to the precipice unless the current posturing of politicians change for the better. Every indication point to the foreboding direction that the coming elections will be a do or die affair. There have been threats to form a parallel government, the soaking of the dogs and baboons in blood should elections be rigged and similar talks that tend raise fears as the elections draw nearer.

    When this foul and tense political environment is juxtaposed against the raging war against terrorism in the north-east, the fears being expressed are better contextualized. There is also the contentious issue of whether elections will hold in the war-ravaged states and how free and fair will such be given the prevailing environment.

    All these are potential sources of schism that will determine the fate of the country in this election year that has been predicted as a turning point in our nation’s existence. As things stand, the way politicians conduct themselves will hold the key to unfolding events. But in this vaulting ambition to capture power, they should spare the ordinary people the trouble of being dragged into a senseless war. Our people have suffered enough in the hands of marauding politicians whose prime motivation is selfish interest. If they have failed to put things aright all these years, they should not compound the misery of the ordinary people now.

  • For citizens Fahat and Zaharau

    For citizens Fahat and Zaharau

    His name is poetic and so is his soul. She has a popular surname, although she does not belong to high society. Fahat Fahat is a soldier, and is one of the 54 sentenced to death for mutiny by the army court.

    Zaharau Babangida played coy by not detonating a bomb strapped in her body beneath her hijab. She said she was forced to wear it and detonate it in the famous Kantin kwari market in Kano on December 10. Two other girls yielded to the order and died in presumed martyrdom, killing four persons and injuring several others. In irony, Babangida was one of the victims and her leg injury forced her to yell for help.

    Both stories tell tales not only of innocence but how this generation of leaders has failed the young at every level.

    The story of Citizen Fahat Fahat is compelling. His English is flawed, but his poetic imagination surges with pithy lines. This young man’s ardour for the army and his nation contrasts with his present and ominous case. It draws not only pity for him but for this country.

    Technology and the magic of Facebook unfurl this story. When Fahat Fahat, 22, left for his assignment against Boko Haram, he wrote on his Facebook on May 21, 2013: “Nassarawa off I go Maiduguri here I come, one man one bullet. We do good things to good people and we do bad things to bad people (sic).” His adrenaline rush springs from that page like a martial tide against the insurgency.

    But if it was mere juvenile effusion, he showed that he was a patriot. “we ar train to kill. God bless Nigeria armed forces.” (sic). This is not the sort of guy who would shy from battle. He gloried in his soldiery and his martial prowess. He did not cut the image of a coward in these lines. He posted his picture, his thin, ruddy face and sharp eyes. His black hood on his Nigerian army fatigue reflected a man primed for battle. He had no complaints at that point.

    It was clear he loathed Boko Haram, and he characterised them as bad people, as indicated in his post of February 28, 2014, “I am commando trooper junper canta force galopa amphibios. Above all a gorilla d king of the jungle, am trained to kill the wicked, am proud to be killer, we do good things to good people and we do bad things to bad people one man one bullet sumtimes one man one magazine.” (sic).

    A certain gloating vanity drapes his ardour, but it is the sort that drives the soldier of destiny.

    Yet in the course of his call to national duty, he suffers personal tragedies. He laments not only the passing of his father, but of his kid brother, Umar. However, his zeal for the army does not flag. Rather he posts with irony the following words on July 24, 2014. “Bless Thursday I lost my dad on Thursday my little broda on Thursday. I lost my elder brodason on Thursday O Allah your name be prase.”(sic). He posts Umar’s picture on November 23.

    After all the optimistic drama came this post from Citizen Fahat Fahat: “Hello ladies and gentlemen, I am soldier and I am sentence to death by the Nigeria army. Cause we did not go to fight Boko haram with out equipment. We ask for weapon insted dem gave death sentence.” (sic). This was a mournful post, a contrast from the exuberance of the soul that once exhaled, “Maiduguri here I come.”

    For Babangida, her father wanted her to be a parody of Ibrahim sacrificing Isaac. But Zaharau is a girl, 13. The father took her to a Bauchi forest where they wanted to compel her to paradise against her will. She disavowed the paradise, but her father insisted. She eventually had her revenge. At the last minute, she disobeyed. But for the wound in her leg, she might have disappeared quietly out of the disaster scene, or maybe the father would have forced her back to the forest, to the arms of her tormentors. She was taken in a tricycle to Dawanau where her parents resided. She left her bomb in the vehicle. The driver alerted the police and she was arrested in a hospital. She wanted to live.

    Zaharau reflects the failure of family, if the tale of Fahat Fahat connotes the failure of national institutions. For Zaharau, in her hijab, was a devout Muslim. She wanted to go to paradise, but not her father’s or Boko Haram’s. Her father failed her and the so-called custodians, the ecclesiastical lords of her faith. It is like the Greek story of Iphigenia whom her father, Agamemnon, wanted to sacrifice to the gods in order to secure winds for the country’s army. But according to the plays of Euripides, Iphigenia survived. So did Zaharau.

    She is a case of a budding feminist, a woman who would not conform to the bestialities of patriarchal world. We know that virgins are promised the boy suicides. Nothing has been documented awaits the girls. This is canonical prejudice from the texts of renegades of the faith. “The corruption of the best produces the worst,” wrote English philosopher John Hume.

    For Citizen Fahat Fahat, he worked for the army, but they wanted him to fight without arms. Yet, it is his duty to fight, and not to desert. Did he commit a crime? By law, he did. Mutiny is a crime. The question is who committed the crime first? His country or he? Is it the case noted by novelist Samuel Butler that “society creates the crime and the criminal commits it?” An army does not send its troops to battle bare handed. Fahat Fahat probably had weapons when he started, when he boasted of one man, one bullet. He could not post his deficiency of arms when it happened. It would have made him liable for a court martial.

    But how do we define the army without armoury? Especially when we know the dark exploits of Boko Haram, which has now occupied 20 of the 27 local government areas of Borno State. An army without armoury fails the soldier. Was that not what happened to Fahat Fahat? It is not the fault of the army per se, but the fault of those who pay the army to fight. Does Fahat not know that we have voted about N1 trillion a year in the past three years on defence? Yet it is the soldier that is rescued by a foreign army on our border with a tinier military budget and smaller armed forces.

    In the Babangida and Fahat stories, we see how this generation has failed the young. If everything is failing, why not fathers as in the case of Zaharau? If money has failed, why not the army against the efficiency of a guerilla force?

    Fahat Fahat believed in his country. Zaharau believed in her father and the faith he confessed. Both father and country inflicted them with doubt and gave them death.

  • No! Jonathan No!

    President Jonathan appeared to have opened Pandora’s Box when last week, he sought to establish the conditions for the growth of democracy in this country. Obviously worried by intense rancour that was the outcome of the primaries of his party, the PDP, he had urged aggrieved members not to quit the party so as to enhance the growth of democracy.

    Hear him: “the only way you can strengthen democracy is for you to stay in your party. If there are some issues you feel are not too correct, it behoves on us to stay together and correct them. That is the only way we can grow democracy. If out of anger or frustration you leave the party because you did not get what you wanted, then you are not contributing to the growth of democracy”.

    On face value, it would seem Jonathan’s perspective on this matter is a very innocuous one that holds tremendous prospects for the growth and sustenance of democracy in this country. This is more so when it is viewed along the lines of encouraging party members to sink their differences for the overall good of their party.

    It is no less a truism that there must be differences among members of the same political party in the pursuit of their individual ambitions. And in this pursuit, some interests must definitely suffer as not all will be accommodated when many seek the same goal. And in matters relating to contest for political offices, this could be more appreciated. There must be losers and winners in such game situations. Those who lost ought to accept their defeat in good faith. This however, presupposes that extant rules of the game have been followed to the letters. If that is the situation Jonathan had in mind, then one can understand him.

    But that was not the situation in the instant case. Those planning to ditch the party are not aggrieved because they lost out in the primaries. They are not aggrieved because they did not get what they wanted. It is also not that they are impatient. These are not the issues and Jonathan cannot pretend the issues go beyond these.

    They are aggrieved because of the scant regard of the party for due process in matters concerning party primaries. They are frustrated by the serial inability or refusal by the party to allow the sovereignty of the people to have free reign. They are piqued by a flawed system that has over the years been irresponsive to the frustrations of members who have never been allowed to participate in decisions as to who are to represent them. The inability of the party to allow popular participation in the choice of leaders at the ward, local government, state and federal levels is the issue to contend with. It is this scant regard for the sovereignty of the people that stultified the ward congresses of the party and gave rise to lists of delegates that were at variance with the wishes and aspirations of the constituents which they purport to represent.

    Having laid a weak foundation at those levels, the outcome of the primaries had obviously been primed for a total fiasco which it turned out to be. People of conscience and principle will be hard put to remain in a party that has no ordered way of conducting its affairs. People of principle will prefer a party that has established processes for conducting congresses and primaries. If such people dump a party that has shown scant regard for rules, procedure and order, they should be hailed and not vilified. In their action lies the path to the growth of democracy. For them to be encouraged to stay on and grow democracy there must be some order. That is the issue that has been elevated to the fore by the bad blood in the party leading to defections.

    So Jonathan missed the point completely when his suggestions gave the impression that those aggrieved were merely impatient people grumbling because they did not succeed in the elections. That is not the issue here.

    Neither does it make any sense to heap the blames of the current challenges facing the party on these frustrated members. The issues that demoralize them leading to defections are very fundamental and at the very heart of representative democracy. And they are not entirely new to the party. They formed part of the grouses of some governors and key leaders of the party that culminated into its implosion early this year. They are issues relating to internal democracy, arbitrariness, imposition of candidates and scant regard for rules.

    Given the above, the minimum expectation was that the party would have been guided by this experience in preparing for this election. The general feeling was that the PDP would seize the momentum of current events in the country to reform and reposition itself in the overall interest of our wobbling democracy. But events have proved all that wrong. Rather than abate, such negative tendencies and dispositions were further reinforced by the outcome of the ward congresses and primaries of that party.

    Jonathan’s reaction that the party will be guided by this sad experience when preparing for the 2019 elections is rather ridiculous. So also is his exhortation to aggrieved members to remain in the party and resolve whatever they felt is wrong in the party.

    Since these issues have been with the party, a President or political party that is desirous of deepening democracy ought to have taken steps to ensure they were corrected before the primaries. To allow things get out of hands only to blame the aggrieved for impatience is not a mark of good leadership. All the signals for whatever happened at the primaries had all along been there. Jonathan saw them. The corrupt party leadership saw them and was interested in lining their pockets. They cannot pretend at the bazaar that was the fate of their ward congresses and primaries.

    They cannot pretend there is now a strong opposition waiting in the wings to provide credible alternative. They cannot pretend that the impunity of the party when it comes to electing members into party positions or elective offices has long been a huge source of worry to all lovers of democracy. It is also not new that many have left or shunted out of the party on account of these. There have been enough signals that it should no longer be business as usual.

    Yet, for the party, nothing changed. Whatever reverses the party is currently passing through are self-inflicted.

    Jonathan was pushing his luck too far when he promised to redress the undemocratic conduct in his party affairs when preparing for 2019 elections. He may be able to do so if he wins the 2015 election. But there is no guarantee he will win as the current disputes over the primaries have been taking a toll on the membership of the PDP. Maybe all these have been primed to weaken his candidature.

    Even then, more than any other, this is the time he needed to hold his party members together given the armada of opposition that has been lined up against him. Having failed to take advantage of this imperative, he should be prepared for the consequences of his inaction.

    But he must hold himself and his party leadership largely responsible for the spate of defections arising from the flawed congresses and primaries. If we cannot grow democracy through such outcome, he and the PDP leadership should take the blame and not aggrieved members.