The Nation Newspaper

Category: Monday

  • When doctors need physicians

    Truth, however underdressed, will always be more magnetic than untruth, however overdressed. This truism will be put to the test in the governorship elections in Ekiti State on June 21 and Osun State on August 9. By logical extension, next year’s critical general elections will also provide an opportunity to observe whether the maxim can stand the test of time in the context of political contest across the country.

    Specifically on Ekiti, last week’s press release on the chances of the candidates in the approaching poll, issued by ANAP Foundation, was food for thought particularly because its appeal to objectivity seemed to contradict objective reality. It is worth mentioning that the body described itself as a “Non-Profit Organisation that is committed to promoting Good Governance”, with the elaboration that its formal statement on the June 2014 Ekiti election is part of its “Election Series which started in 2011.”  According to the communication, “ANAP Foundation has also been collaborating with NOI Polls Limited to help publicise and institutionalise a polling culture which helps political leaders to be aware and more conscious of the yearnings of the electorate.”

    In other words, the publicised result of the poll purportedly conducted in connection with the Ekiti election is possibly intended to encourage a front-runner mentality in the gubernatorial challenger and ex-governor of the state, Ayo Fayose, 53, of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)   who held the reins of power from May 2003 to October 2006 when his four-year term was abbreviated by impeachment. ANAP claimed that 31 percent of the electorate endorsed Fayose, while 29 percent backed the incumbent governor and second-term aspirant Kayode Fayemi, 49, of the All Progressives Congress (APC).  Three percent reportedly supported Opeyemi Bamidele, 50, of the Labour Party (LP); and Kola Ajayi of Accord Party (AP) had zero. With a trivial difference of two percent supposedly separating the leading candidates, the pollster portrayed the election as a “close race.”

    Significantly, the report said that 37 percent were “yet to decide.”   With just over one month to go, it is reasonable to reckon that those allegedly undecided about who to vote for are likely to decide the outcome of the election, if the survey is of unquestionable veracity. But is it? To start with, the methodology adopted by the polling group is unclear, just as the margin of error is uncertain. What is more, there are clear curiosities in the announcement; especially the fact that the female support for Fayemi was put at 24 percent against 34 percent for Fayose, which is strikingly implausible, given the state administration’s widely acclaimed feminine-gender sensitivity due largely to the activism of the governor’s wife, Bisi.

    To take the matter further, it is illogical that Fayose who conceded that he had a negative and unattractive track record in office without concrete evidence of reformation would gain acceptance so effortlessly. This is the character who said in a recent interview, ostensibly focused on the electorate, “I am assuring them that the Fayose they were afraid of is a better Fayose. He is more mature and more responsive. If you say I’m a bad man, I say I’ve changed. I am appealing to them that I am a changed man.”  ANAP’s portrayal suspiciously suggests that the electorate has had a change of heart, and Fayose is now in the good books of Ekiti voting population simply on the weak strength of his mere claim that he has improved, which cannot reasonably match Fayemi’s demonstrably persuasive governmental performance.

    These points will suffice to illustrate the immense possibility that the ANAP survey is an enlightening instance of hallucinatory realism; it is most likely the effect of a dream-state or fantasy rather than external reality. To put it more simply, it may well be wishful thinking, with the connotation of an agenda-setting venture without actual relevance to real life except perhaps as a lesson in politically motivated falsification. The exercise brings to mind the title of Darrell Huff’s 1954 book, How to Lie with Statistics, although this is not exactly the same thing as lying with cooked-up or doctored statistics.

    However, there is an unmistakable and potentially perilous dimension to the phoney -sounding poll result; namely, that it could well be a foretaste of a predetermined electoral outcome, meaning that it might serve as a way of preparing the minds of the people for an eventuality. The fact that the report was signed by Atedo Peterside, the president and founder of ANAP Foundation, whose association with President Goodluck Jonathan is beyond conjecture makes it understandably thought-provoking. It may not be without merit to imagine that a friend of Jonathan would be a partisan of PDP and an antagonist of APC. Furthermore, apparently informed assumption about the ownership of NOI Polls reinforces the possibility of the influence of agents of the PDP-constituted central administration on the survey.

    It is instructive that, by way of response, the John Kayode Fayemi (JKF) Campaign Organisation declared, through Dimeji Daniels, “We hereby urge Ekiti people to be vigilant. We wish to state categorically that NOI Polls is nothing but an acronym for Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala Polls, the real owner of the company who is Nigeria’s Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister for the Economy.” The spokesman added, “Our people would recall that the All Progressives Congress (APC) at the national level has indeed challenged Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala to publicly deny her ownership of the company. Expectedly, she has kept mum on the matter. We again reiterate that challenge.”  According to him, “NOI Polls is nothing but a front organisation organising voodoo polls to achieve pre-determined ends for the PDP. Indeed, since these folk are the pollsters of the Jonathan administration, Nigerians can now understand why we are in this present mess as this same company organises monthly polls for the Presidency under the close supervision of its owner, Dr.Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.” No doubt, clarification by the accused would be in order.

    It is an eye-opener that the release of ANAP’s statistics coincided with news of APC’s magnetisation of two former PDP members of considerable political stature, particularly a former governor of the state, Segun Oni, whose U-turn is remarkable.  His term was shortened by Fayemi’s victory in 2010 after a three-and-a half-year legal challenge. The other person is a lawmaker in the Ekiti State House of Assembly, Mrs. Bunmi Oriniowo. Oni put the defining desideratum in a capsule, saying, “We must ask ourselves who is in a better position to give Ekiti a better future, the kind of future that we want.”  Certainly, it will be a mission impossible for spin doctors to redefine this clarity for the people.

  • Ekiti and Osun as guinea pigs

    Ekiti and Osun as guinea pigs

    We cannot live without technology, and that is at once the bane and grace of this age. Technology defines our age and makes great nations, and also unmakes their foes. All over history, nations grow on the level of their technologies. Whether it was the mechanics of Rome, the literacy of Greece, the navy of England, empires raise technology as their mistress of progress. Today, we have heard of new technologies, including the power of robotics.

    Very soon, it will turn humans into ciphers of their handmaidens. We will become slaves of our doing. Our Frankenstein wonders will make us merry and mourn.

    Today the edge the United States holds over others derives from its technological superiority. Its military, especially its navy, is the best the world has ever known because of its technology. The best Air Force of the world is the United States Air Force, and the second best Air Force in the world is the Air force of the U.S. navy.

    Security cannot be guaranteed with technology. The failure of Nigeria to tackle the menace of Boko Haram may be due to corruption, even if the President says stealing is not corruption. We are yet to know how all the trillions allocated to security in the past few years have been expended. We have soldiers and police even though we hosted the World Economic Forum with over 600,000 men who could have worked their way into Sambisa forest to chase down the terrorists and save the girls. But technology is prime guarantee, especially in monitoring and tracking the vermin of Boko Haram. It also helps in documenting and comparing data, what the United States used in decapitating Al Queda and dousing the life of Osama Bin Laden. Those who underplay the power of technology should read books on how Osama was tracked and killed. If members of our security council have not read them, at least they can watch the movie titled Zero Dark Thirty. They will realise how all the money we have wasted on corruption in the name of security could have made the help of the U.S. and other world powers superfluous.

    Democracies also thrive on technology and nothing demonstrates this better than the vote. Over the years, elections have worked on a simple principle: one person, one vote. But to realise this, technologists have adopted a variety of methods. The most obvious has been the thumbprint. For decades, the issue was social. Who should vote? It was initially patriarchal. Only men had the right. Then the women’s movement rose from the martial femininity, ardour and articulations of such amazons as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and her fellow suffragist Susan B. Anthony. By fighting the patrician logic of patriarchy, property and politics they railroaded the world by partnering with abolitionists. Female angst and turbulence led the world to cow to Seneca Falls when the beginning of women’s fight began and led to the woman vote. Then the other matter was colour and what we know as universal suffrage, empowering everyone to vote.

    Here in Nigeria, feudal hubris that made only men and literate votes is succumbing. But we have a peculiar cultural problem with our vote. That is, the belief by an oligarchy that the vote is democratic only in theory but the result must favour their narrow agenda. That is why we have rigging. This has led to the abuse of our democracy, the fall of wisdom and the peacock reign of the bandit. When we fail to attack the essential nature of democratic banditry, we have rigged election and the wrong person takes reign. We lie that we have the right people in office. We gradually, if we don’t control matters, slide into the arms of the tyrant who parades himself as the people’s anointed.

    “One person, one vote” cannot work without technology. Hence the trend towards computerisation of the vote is intended to avoid the corruption of mathematics by those who count the vote. As Einstein once said, “Everything that can be counted does not necessarily count; everything that counts cannot necessarily be counted.”

    That is the logic of the great world mathematician, and he was not necessarily referring to democracy of politics, but the democracy of sociology and economics, on which the democracy of politics partly depends.

    Einstein was the progressive of numbers and the physical world. He knew little of the impact of his ideas on democracy. Technology today owes a lot to him. That is why in the world over, once a person votes, technology takes over. The more technical the process, the less rig-prone will the vote be.

    That came to mind when the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) decided not to use its latest technology of the card reader for the two upcoming elections in Ekiti and Osun states. The card reader, if implemented with integrity and purpose, is an antidote to the subversive cunning and impunity of the vote bandit. It records the imprint of the voter and forestalls the injuries of double registration and multiple voting. We cannot have a Mike Tyson vote and be counted in Nigerian poll.

    INEC insists it will use permanent voter cards alone without the technology savvy of the card reader. It says it will use the card reader in 2015.

    One can understand the fear of the electoral body about a new technology. It seems the best way to ensure its success is to try it in smaller elections. In Ekiti State where the election for governor will take place on June 21, 657,256 PVCs have been printed, although not all have been collected. In Osun State, where the election takes place in August, 1,256569 PVCs were reported printed but, like in Ekiti, not all have been collected. This is a fraction of the elections nationwide. This is manageable geopolitics. These states can be used as guinea pigs and lessons can be learned for the bigger ring of a national poll.

    In democracies, local elections are laboratories. Also technologies always thrive when begun in small places. The strengths and weakness become platforms for improvements and assured implementation. Osun and Ekiti are small states. INEC has denied that it ever planned to use card readers. That is beside the point. It still has the opportunity to use it. It is good for the integrity of the umpire and it presages confidence in 2015.

    The Anambra governorship poll is still wrapped in murk in so far as even the INEC boss felt helpless over an inconclusive exercise. Card readers are not magic, but they are the best armoury and counterfoil to fraud. As Alan Kay said, “the best way to predict the future is to invent it.” Societies have invented their futures with technology. INEC can do that for Nigeria by using card readers in the labs of Ekiti and Osun.

  • Azonto and presidential dance

    Azonto and presidential dance

    Before President Goodluck Jonathan visited Kano at the hour hoodlums whisked away 276 girls, I had not heard of Azonto, a popular dance rooted in African rhythm and domesticated by local maestros. It gives grace to the body, exercises the limbs and inspires ecstasy on stage and at parties. The old and young can execute its bold turns. Legs and torsos tighten on its physical toll.

    What bothered me, however, was the gory dance in town, the dance by the so-called randy goons of God who zipped away our girls. Nigerian beauties lost in the bosoms of defilers.

    But the president did not understand what he did. He felt for the damsels in his own way. However, he does not know how to feel for them as a Nigerian leader. Psychologists call it emotional intelligence, the ability to translate feeling into words and deeds. With that armoury, he can inspire a people to action to save the 276 girls.

    If he did not know how to feel, how could he have known that he erred in storming Kano before the campaign season kicked off?

    The president should understand he is a leader in times of crisis. Rather, he is a leader in crisis himself. He nestles in Aso Rock and routinely summons his service chiefs. The girls can be any of our sisters, cousins, nieces, daughters, friends, neighbours and potential in-laws.

    He has not shown leadership by symbolism, acts or speech. When Boko Haram boys shoot, bomb and kidnap kids, a leader does not leave the stage to protests on the streets. He walks onto the stage and inspires. He gives them speeches; he rouses with his eyes, words and other gestures. He galvanises the troops and flashes the light at the end of the tunnel. But the president has responded with lethargy and languor, as if those on top are asleep. Even if he is asleep, he can still wake up the way Jesus did in a storm-tossed ship and reassured his disciples. His many pastors ought to tell him.

    We have seen leaders rise in times of crisis and their actions jolted their generations. Winston Churchill is a potent example. England lay prostrate when Hitler’s army blitzed its way all over Europe and cowed the proud French. Churchill defied fellow leaders who wanted England to sup with the tyrant. Bombs fell daily, defacing England and killing droves. The great British Empire reduced to living on rations and in shelters. But Churchill inspired the nation with speeches and his personal appearances in public. He gave speeches that made the great journalist Ed Morrow to say that he inspired the English language to battle. He said England would fight in the land, on the seas, in the air, on the beeches and ended by saying “we shall never surrender”.

    Even if despair came, he had words for his people. “But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new dark age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves, that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, This was their finest hour.”

    Whenever he visited rubbles of war in the city, the suffering compatriots eulogised the courage of their hero.

    His counterpart on the other side of the continent, Franklin Roosevelt, who sat on a wheelchair because he had polio, roused his nation in times of the Great Depression. Millionaires committed suicide because their wealth evaporated. The poor could not hope for food and bleakness pervaded America. “We have nothing to fear,” he crooned, “but fear itself”. Learning from Mark Twain, he spoke of the four freedoms, including freedom from want. With a sunny face in spite of his personal handicap, he gingered a nation to rebuild an economy and win the Second World War against the greatest tyranny in history.

    In the same era, we had Charles de Gaulle, the cocky Frenchman who levitated a defeated country back to its pride. He formed the Free French and gave speeches from outside the country as a tonic of revival to a disconsolate nation. He is mythicised today as the greatest Frenchman, perhaps since the little general.

    Mahatma Gandhi, derided as the little brown man in a loincloth, is in the class of all the others. He was not only a nationalist; he was a humanist of the first rank. By self-sacrifice, moral courage and austere dignity, he coalesced a diverse people against the British. He disarmed them by his disdain for violence and as the first practitioner of Henry David Thoreau’s doctrine of non-violence. Without inspiring a shot, he subdued the biggest empire the world had ever known. Once the Hindus and Muslims did not see eye-to-eye and engaged in zero-sum bloodbath. He did not fight with guns or with words, but with a gesture of self-sacrifice. He would fast until the killings ended. Both Muslims and Hindus stopped the butchery so that Ghandi might live.

    When Mandela left jail, he met a people on the verge of a civil war. He inspired them not by aloofness, but by engaging each group with empathy. Perhaps hence he said, “Lead from the front – but don’t leave your base behind”.

    President Jonathan can also learn from President Bill Clinton. When he confronted a bad economy, he uttered perhaps his best line, “I feel your pain”.

    With now 276 girls missing, we need leadership. We need the girls back with their parents and society, to dream and be human again. Images flood the imagination of what might be happening to the girls. Are they wives in bed with hoodlums, washing their dirty clothes, cooking for them? Are some of them being beaten up for resisting or subjected to all forms of bestialities? Are some of them trying to escape, and did some try and were stopped? Have some escaped but are clueless where they are? Are all of them alive? The zealots no longer want their virgins in heaven but here on earth.

    In Homer’s The Iliad, the Greeks rescued Helen, a beauty captured by the Trojans. Hector was a great fighter but he fought to keep Helen in the hands of the kidnappers. The Greeks suffered in battle, and they suffered many dead until Achilles came to the rescue and killed Hector. “By trying”, wrote the poet Theocritus about one of the hardest fought battles of all time, “the Greeks got into Troy”.

    Those girls are our Helens, and we need Jonathan to play Achilles and save them by providing leadership.

    If history remembers his Azonto dance rather than the girls’ rescue, his would be a tragic presidency. He can redeem it with a victory dance when the girls come home.

     

  • Chibok abduction dilemma

    Mounting concerns on the fate of the 234 schools girls abducted by insurgents in Chibok, Borno State are to be understood. The fury and frustration generated by the continued incarceration of the poor girls have given rise to demonstrations in Abuja, Kano and Ibadan by women groups and civil society organizations.

    The demonstrators were piqued by what they perceived as the tepid approach of the federal government in securing the release of the girls more than two weeks after their abduction. They are miffed that even with the assurances from the government after the expanded National Security Council meeting; no visible progress appears to have been made to free the girls. The Abuja protesters issued a 24-hour ultimatum to the government to do something positive else they resume their demonstrations.

    Most of those who spoke especially in Kano heaped huge blames at the door steps of President Jonathan for not showing sufficient empathy for the excruciating pains of the girls’ parents through the delay. Some even picked holes with the president’s inability to visit Chibok or the school where the kidnap was carried out.

    Matters are not helped by speculations that the girls are being married off to the insurgents. Further allegations from the Chibok Elders Forum that the girls have been moved to Niger and Cameroon have further heightened the tensed atmosphere. As each day passes by, imaginary pictures or conjectures of what the girls will be passing through given the criminal records of the insurgents are bound to ruffle emotions. That accounts for the seeming desperation of the protesters to have the authorities quickly secure the release of the girls.

    Yet, there is something untidy in the way the protesters are rooting for the quick release of the abducted girls. It would seem that the delicate nature of this engagement is not being fully appreciated by the public. Chibok abduction is a deviation from the style of operation of the Boko Haram group. Before now, the news the nation would have been treated to is that of the roasting of the girls in the most blood-thirsty and reprehensible manner. That was what exactly played out at the Federal Government College Buni Yadi where 59 innocent children were murdered in their sleep in the most callous and cruel manner. We thank God the girls are hopefully alive. The Chibok abduction therefore presents a metaphor of sorts. It is reflective of the evils of Boko Haram and the dangers in the actions, inaction or utterances of some political elite that have tended to encourage the devious onslaughts of these merchants of death. It is sufficient warning that unless leaders of all hue close ranks and stamp out this malignant tumor called Boko Haram, nothing is safe in this country. And nobody is safe. That is the stark reality that has been forcefully underscored by the abduction of the girls in Chibok.

    The war against terrorism would have become a huge success if the kind of mobilizations that saw protesters in the streets of Abuja, Kano and Ibadan had been applied all these while to show the unmitigated evil the insurgents had been. In my view, the demonstrations are in order but the target was missed. The target should be the insurgents and all those who have through their actions and utterances aided and abetted their murderous activities. Such people should be the target of the demonstrations. This is more so with disclosures from some of the escaped girls that some of the masterminds of the abduction were locals known to them. The abduction of the girls as painful and agonizing as it has been, may pale into insignificance given the weight of atrocities that have been committed by this blood-thirsty group. It can neither equate with the roasting of the 59 school children in Buni Yadi, nor the sacking of many villages that sent many women, children and the aged to their early graves. These ought to have generated public revolt against Boko Haram and its sympathizers. But they did not.

    Those who demonstrated could not have protested against the federal government. Their protest was with the abduction of the school girls. So their grouse must be with all those overtly and covertly connected with the spate of contrived insurgency that has brought this country to it knees in the past few years. They should be the subject of the anger and fury of the women demonstrators and civil society groups. That is the fitting of the issue if we are not deceiving ourselves. Without the abduction, the issue of securing release would not have featured.

    So it is germane that we address the root cause of the problem rather its symptoms. The demonstrations targeted at the symptoms and therefore are of very limited value in addressing the insurgency debacle. Since women and civil society groups have shown the capacity to resist the manifestations of the unbridled insurgency in the country, they must use their network to mobilize the entire country to rise against Boko Haram proper.

    This mobilization is very vital especially in the north-east part of the country that has been the hotbed of the insurgency. They need to mobilize their religious and traditional institutions. There is the need to mobilize the political elite, women groups and civil society organizations to denounce the evil that Boko Haram is. With such level of activity, the statement would have been made very unambiguously that the insurgents do not enjoy the support of the locals. But as long as the local elite continue with their ambivalent disposition to the matter, so long shall we have cause to grieve over the atrocities of the group. That is the real issue; and the real danger.

    It is by no means being suggested that the government should not do all within its powers to ensure a quick release of the abducted girls. Neither is there any attempt to circumscribe the duty of government to maintain law and order. There have been copious assurances to that effect. But the protesters want quick action and quick results.

    However, the battle comes with its own dilemma. It is a game situation with its payoffs. The option to be adopted by the military should be that which will minimize losses in the event of the worst outcome. It is all about rational calculations and rational action devoid of sentiments. The issues involved were aptly captured by the Chief of Defense Staff Air Marshall Alex Badeh when he told a delegation that visited him “We cannot go with our armoury to where they are; otherwise we will go and kill them. If you go and kill them then you will not have achieved anything. But I know that we will get those girls”. That is the real issue.

    And those in custody of the girls know it. They are prepared to harm the girls if the government applies maximum force to secure their release. They will kill them and then blame the government. Public reaction to this scenario will also be very adverse. That is the uncanny dilemma in which the country’s security forces are currently entangled in the matter of the abducted school girls. Those who through demonstrations canvass quick action must come to terms with this reality.

    Moreover, what the insurgents have done is akin to hostage taking. Their intention is to use it as a shield or bargaining tool with the authorities. Those at the centre of the carrot approach as a solution to the insurgency are already beating their chests weighing their options. We may soon begin to hear some bizarre demands as conditions for freeing the girls. Hostage exchange may feature very prominently.

    In all, the girls may not get quick respite unless those northern leaders we have been told the insurgents respect intercede on their behalf. That is the challenge.

  • Religionise good governance

    Recent revelatory events reinforce the thinking that until Nigeria embraces good governance with religious zeal, or more exactly, as a religion, the country may be going nowhere. A striking pointer was last month’s startling  and puzzling appearance of Chief Femi Fani-Kayode, an ex-Aviation Minister, former partisan of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and lately an enthusiastic voice of the opposition in the All Progressives Congress (APC), at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, where he reportedly met with President Goodluck Jonathan behind closed doors. It provided evidence of a misperceived, questionable and regrettably retrogressive  linkage between faith and political performance. Certainly, this is not to deny that religion can be politically influential; rather, the point is that, except perhaps in an extreme theocratic context, the influence of faith on political players is usually tempered by other, or outside, factors.

    Interestingly, after familiar but unconvincing bromides about the Presidential Villa being a place where every Nigerian who is welcome can always visit, Fani-Kayode spoke about “the wonderful people here”, a flattering reference that was food for thought, given his known oppositional attitude to the Jonathan administration.  What has changed about the government to prompt the praise, or perhaps to be more precise, what has changed about Fani-Kayode to inspire the new song?

    “I won’t go into that,” was his curt reply to reporters who sought information about what he discussed with Jonathan; and when he was asked whether this unexpected meeting was a signal that he was about to exit APC, his answer was pregnant with meaning. He said: “The step I will take will be made known to Nigerians at the right time. The most important thing and I think you are fully aware of this is that I cannot and will not be associated with a situation whereby any group of people is promoting a religion above another.”

    It would appear that there was a lot more significance about what he did not say than what he actually said. There was an unmistakable implication that all is not well with his APC-connection.  More importantly, there was also the implied point that religious differences, or differences about perspectives on religion and its political influence, may be why he is rethinking his political affairs. According to him, “I think all of us have gone past the stage of religious politics in this country. We must treat the Muslim community with utmost respect and we must treat the Christian community in the same way, and even the non-religious.”

    So who is playing “religious politics” by Fani-Kayode’s definition or standard? It is noteworthy that Jonathan, well before his March visit to Pope Francis, the global head of the Roman Catholic Church, at the Vatican in Rome, which was possibly the ultimate move in a series of churchy activities, faced a barrage of criticism for his overt romance with Christian places of worship in particular and his indecent exploitation of otherwise spiritual space for the strictly secular business of politics.

    More concretely, it is logical to situate Fani-Kayode’s fresh exploration of a possible renewal of old political affiliations within the conservative circle. Or could it be better described as an unprincipled pursuit of reunion with his old ideological collaborators? In this connection, it is worth mentioning that his pilgrimage to the Presidential Villa was sequel to his publicised rejection of a speculated APC Muslim/Muslim combination for the 2015 presidential election, which has also been criticised as unrealistic in certain quarters where the accepted wisdom is that a same-faith blend is unworkable and bound to fail in a multi-religious state like Nigeria. Obviously, convenient amnesia is at work here, for such union was a hit in the country’s famous   June 12, 1993, presidential election.

    The critical question arising from this stance must be whether such otherwise enlightened critics should be more attentive to so-called “religious politics”, whatever the form or content, rather than the goodness of governance in form and content. Indeed, this consideration is crucial as next year’s general elections draw near. However, it should be admitted that the meat of the matter may not be as clear-cut, and Fani-Kayode’s position as an insider must come with insights that may be obscure to non-participants. Be that as it may, the religious dimension need not be overstretched, particularly to the detriment of reason, by the suggestion that the faith question, or the influence of belief, is of paramount potency in the country’s politics.

    To project such unrestrained viewpoint is to insult the concept of good governance, which is neither a function of religiousness nor irreligiosity. As things stand, there is a compelling need to de-religionise the country’s political space, and to relegate religionism and religionists to irrelevance. To put it more accurately, it is time to religionise good governance, which is not to imply the end of spirituality. The idea of secular spirituality, indicative of non-religious worship of eternal virtues and values, should be appealing for its emphasis on solid social-development orientation instead of socially unhelpful misorientation based on religious thinking.

    In practical terms, Nigeria’s disgraceful rating as 41st on a 52-country list called the 2013 Ibrahim Index of African Governance (IIAG), a project of the respected Mo Ibrahim Foundation, is gravely instructive. The country not only scored lower than the continental average (51.6), it also ridiculously scored lower than the regional average (52.5) for West Africa. Assessment was based on four key areas: Safety and Rule of Law, Participation and Human Rights, Sustainable Economic Opportunity and Human Development.

    It goes without saying that the country desperately needs new paradigms of progressive leadership, particularly in today’s world with its galloping pace of development.  It is a huge shame that the country is still struggling with inexcusable poverty, appalling infrastructure, backward education and primitive health care arrangements, among other inadequacies that make it the butt of jokes in enlightened circles.

    The exemplary leaders, focused on excellence in office, which the country desires and deserves, will not emerge as long as religious considerations reign; and it would  amount to undesirable capitulation to visionless mediocrity should  the criteria for high political office be defined in terms of religious balancing rather than an equilibrium of effectiveness.

    Demonstrable commitment to good governance and capacity to deliver what the people yearn for should rank among the uppermost qualifications for the type of progressive leadership that would benefit the country at this historical juncture; and religion should belong to the lower rungs as a deciding factor.

  • The new kidnappers

    The new kidnappers

    The parents who prowled the Sambisa forest left nothing to an impotent state. They prowled the woods for the souls from their souls, blood from their blood, those for whom they had invented a future at birth, as toddlers, at puberty, as nubile beauties.

    They did not envision bigoted goons, red-blooded and hooded, hounding and carting them away into a forest, defying the law and a state of emergency.

    But that is the desperation of the Nigeria of today. What the beastly boys of Boko Haram did reflects a society not just of self-help or of impunity. It is a mirror of a return to feudal savagery. The sort of life that these boys evinced is already at play in all aspects of our lives. The powerful invade the weak and take away their valuable assets. We are back to the modern version of pre-capitalist society. They are the new kidnappers.

    The feudal system prospered on the logic of a few with military and economic might. They took over the society and made the laws. The men worked for them, the women were their wives, sex slaves and sometimes glorified whores and the children grew into the servile roles of their parents.

    They owned all the land and that was why some of them were called landed nobility. The wives were property.

    The feudal lords, who then were the kings and Obas as well as the chiefs and other feudal elites, could corral anyone’s wife, or accost her at a village intersection or bush path and avail themselves of instant pleasure and move on. That is the context of the Boko Haram boys and their brutish rights to entitlement. They have created their alternative society since the days of Mohammed Yusuf, their founder, and they are their own lords.

    They are a shadow of the larger society that has lost its capitalist mooring. The business elite, weaned on the colonial masters, understood the value of productivity. When they left power to the Nigerian elite, the principle persisted for barely two decades.

    We had businessmen who turned out wealth from almost nothing. They were the capitalists, like the Fajemirokuns, Rewanes, Odutolas, etc. They knew how to eke money out of sweat and resources. Chief Obafemi Awolowo, who bred technocratic elite, showcased men like Simeon Adebo. In the centre, we boasted geniuses like Asiodu, Udoji, Ayida and Agodo. They understood that wealth derived from ideas and industry. That explained the rise and glory of the middle class and the high standard of education from primary to university levels. Standards were vehicles to success.

    But with the rise in oil revenue after the civil war, we began to witness a decline. Yet the standards still glowed. Parents did not dream “miracle centres” and products from our education system still preened against their British and American counterparts.

    But the military punctured our pride. It started with Gowon, who allowed indulgence with oil money. Our oil wealth made its debut with scandal. Murtala wanted to instill disciple, but his reign was a soap bubble. The Obasanjo and Shagari eras resumed our fascination with materialism fueled by opportunism. In fact, opportunism subsumed opportunity.

    The Buhari regime saw the lapse but it did not have the cunning to address the drift, as it was also caught in its own moral sleight of hand, especially with the 53 suitcases saga. The Babangida era let loose the Freudian id of greed and, from then, the society saw a free fall. That has led to the new feudalism of today. What is important is not the ability for rapidity of success, but connection for concession from the mighty. That has meant the decline, not only of values, but of value for talent. Our society makes billionaires of the lazy, like the jet set titans of subsidies. They are like stock broker Jordan Belfort, the American wolf of Wall Street, who lived a life of false glamour and extravagance on the misery of others. He was a baboon dey chop. His book, The Wolf of Wall Street, depicts such a contract with Beelzebub, like a hyena crying gloatingly on bleeding flesh.

    The new invasion begins in politics. They rig elections. But the larger society frowned at it in the first republic and, hence, we often welcomed the messianic adventures of soldiers. Now, the military pool also became poisoned.

    The political elite invade power. While in old feudal societies, the militarily powerful worked with a few others, today, the new feudal elites are the politicians. Rigging is their version of invasion of political power. They kidnap power. Then they work with bureaucrats, bankers and contractors from the civil society. The rout is complete. Now, the lawyers and judges, media barons and a few others become accomplices.

    In this setting, they kidnap power, business, law and information.

    The nation’s pot is the prime abduction. We don’t need to produce, but to consume. Oil provides the wealth. They are a consuming elite and we a consumptive society. They rig to office, get the judges to legitimate them, they plunder and bankers formalise their fraud, pastors canonise their rule and a section of the media elite burnishes their image. Ours is a kidnapped society.

    The results are the impotence of the civil society and the whittling away of the middle class. It leaves two classes: the very rich and very poor. The middle class afforded loans to build their homes, educated their children, bought cars on higher purchase, had decent medical care and had the pride of life. These attributes only belong to the rich today. We cannot make businessmen who rely on their sweat and resourcefulness anymore. They get contracts from belonging to the ambience of power. At independence, we had a false start with meritocracy. Now we have mediocrity from the top. We buy degrees, wives, contracts, pastors, Imams as we buy political offices. While the BH boys kidnap with raw weapons, our elite kidnaps with law, guns and money.

    When they plunder our resources, they live large, fly jets for N10 billion, dance when others die in bomb blasts, accuse others of genocide without evidence, call elections war without apology, move from campaigns in Kano to champagnes at Ibadan when girls are abducted, the lazy lap billions, the smart ones smart from lack of jobs and die searching. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is cited by Time Magazine as one of the world’s influential persons even though she cannot add simple numbers. When we earned less than $105 a barrel, we could pay all the states their entitlements. Now we earn more, we pay 60 percent of their allocations.

    Nothing explains this era of moneychangers more than the recent discovery that when we rebased our economy into African preeminence, we also became one of the poorest in the world. Pastors cannot caution them because they have no moral authority. Rather, they anoint them and welcome them to their churches with front row seats and benedictions. Jesus would not have welcomed leaders who stole the people’s money. Rather, he would have rebuked them in the fashion he did to the Pharisees.

    In the United States, President Obama has embarked on a campaign against inequality and that is because the United States is witnessing a big gulf between the rich and poor. The top 85 richest men in the world are richer than 3.5 billion people on earth.

    Now a new book, Capital in the Twenty First Century, by French economist Thomas Picketty has caused a storm in Europe and the U.S. by making the case that western society is going back to the pre-World War 1 era when wealth was based on inheritance and family pedigree, rather than merit. In this book seen as modern Das Kapital, income and hard work have suffered a divorce. And those with capital keep making more capital, and the so-called theory that skilled labour determines wealth has lost face. In our society, it is primitive acquisition. Ours is worse than the west because the rule of law, unlike here, can redress it. Their rich did not steal from the government.

    Just as our lazy jet set – politicians, business elite, clerics, etc – sees the society as free booty, so the BH goons see the girls and food and other valuables as their share. Society created the crime. They committed it.

  • Bad news for Abuja

    From all indications, it may not be out of place for the Jonathan presidency to introduce preemptive emergency rule in the federal capital, Abuja, particularly in the light of the reported declaration of territorial presence by the commander-in-chief of the Islamist militia Boko Haram, Abubakar Shekau. “We are in your city,” the rebel lord was quoted as saying by way of conscious self-indictment, ostensibly addressing President Goodluck Jonathan, following the outrageous April 14 bombing of Nyanya Motor Park in the city which consumed at least 75 lives, with 164 people injured. Similarly offensive was the group’s next-day abduction of over 200 students at the Girls Senior Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State, which represented a defiant statement reinforcing its reality in the state already under one-year-long emergency conditions along with Adamawa and Yobe states in the country’s northeastern region.

    Although the Abuja bus terminal blast extended the chain of violently destructive behaviour by the group, it is noteworthy that the attack was perhaps its most devastating in the capital city since 2009 when the insurgency gathered momentum in the northeast. Ironically, Shekau, who claimed responsibility on behalf of the group, reportedly referred to the carnage as “a tiny incident,” suggesting that it was a tip of the iceberg and more monstrous tragedies lay ahead. By serving this foretaste, it is reasonable to expect that the rebels will follow up as Shekau probably implied.

    His reappearance was itself ominous, considering the controversy over his supposed end, which now sounds more like a wish than a report of actuality. Even more foreboding was his martial manifestation as he allegedly announced to the world, “We are the ones that carried out the attack in Abuja.” Reports said he was “seated with a Kalashnikov resting on his shoulder and dressed in military uniform,” and “spoke in both Arabic and the Hausa language that is dominant in northern Nigeria.” It is enlightening that he sought to maximise his reemergence by taking advantage of the power and influence of an international medium. According to Agence France-Presse (AFP) which reported his comeback, Shekau made the claim in a 28-minute video it received from the insurgents through familiar sources. The issue of believability was, therefore, out of the question.

    For an individual who has been tagged as a terrorist by the United States (US) with the promise of $7m bounty for his capture or assistance in his capture, Shekau’s materialisation after a lengthy lull that generated claims and counter-claims about whether he was still alive or dead can be interpreted not only as an audacious assertion of his existence but also a loud and clear signal of danger.

    The thrust of Shekau’s statement, “We are in your city”, cannot be that his group was hitherto unrepresented in Abuja, the seat of federal power with its boisterous actors and actresses in the drama of representative government. Such misinterpretation is highly improbable, particularly given the fact that even Jonathan, perhaps in a rare moment of insight accompanied by paradoxical perplexity, hinted at the possibility that the central administration had been infiltrated by Boko Haram.

    More likely, the grave implication and import of his announcement may be that the insurgency is about to relocate to the federal capital, or more precisely, that the militia has reviewed its operational strategy with greater concentration on the city. Either way, it is bad news for Abuja. It is thought-provoking that such positional clarity is coming from the group at this time, with the approach of the decisive 2015 general elections which continues to engender fissiparous contention in the polity.

    Against this grim background, Abuja, the playground of the prosperous and powerful, well-known for its paradisiacal features, ought to pay greater attention to fundamental security, and this must not be in an insular manner that discriminates against the underprivileged humanity living in the suburbs.

    Indeed, it is catastrophic enough that Boko Haram penetrated the city; but even more tragic is its noticeable defencelessness, which may not be divorced from official corruption. It is scandalous that, according to reports, the $470m (about N76bn) National Public Security Communications System (NPSC) project completed two years ago in Abuja has turned out to be an embarrassing failure. The job, handled by a Chinese company, ZTE Corporation, was designed to provide “voice, video and data using the Code Division Multiple Access technology to enable security agencies to combat terrorism and other violent crimes in the Federal Capital Territory, Lagos and other cities across the nation.”

    An investigative media report said, “the security agencies had been unable to deploy the system in checking terrorism, kidnapping and other violent crimes in the country.” It also stated: “Checks showed that the Video Surveillance Cameras Monitor and the Video Conference Terminal at the Force Headquarters, Abuja Main Switch Centre, had been largely dormant due to lack of video feed from installed cameras, most of which are not functional.” In addition, it said, “Further findings showed that many of the installed 1,000 Close Circuit Television (cameras) apart from covering limited areas of the city had never worked while most of them had been vandalised and their parts stolen.” Moreover, according to the report, “It was learnt that the installed cameras covered only areas inhabited by influential Nigerians and districts where important facilities and institutions were located like the Central Business District, Asokoro, Maitama and major roads and junctions in the city.” The clear meaning of this latter finding is that places like Nyanya will always be vulnerable, even if the security system worked, because it was not planned to work in their interest nor in their favour.

    Not surprisingly, Jonathan’s Easter message to Nigerians referred to “evil machinations of terrorists, criminals and their collaborators,” boasting that despite the negative activities of such instruments of evil, “our administration remains ardently focused on efforts to successfully execute the Federal Government’s Agenda for National Transformation and achieve sustained development.”

    However, the president needs to understand that the terror war will not be won with bromides. He should appreciate that Shekau’s latest statement may make matters worse, considering the government’s dilatory approach to counterinsurgency. Particularly at this time when the subject of a possible further extension of emergency in Adamawa, Borno and Yobe states is burning on the front burner, and school girls are increasingly endangered by terrorism, the administration will profit from an awakening.

  • Averting the looming danger

    In a previous outing in this column titled ‘ominous signals’, we had drawn copious attention to the huge cloud hanging over the Nigerian political space. That damning conclusion was drawn from the utterances, actions or inaction of the political class and their body language at a time some sections were threatening dire repercussions should Jonathan run or blackmailed not to run for the presidency come 2015.

    We had then cautioned against a situation where “Any and every issue sacrosanct for the overall survival of this country is unduly politicized, trivialized and sabotaged”. The central theme of that presentation was that if the trend was not checked, we may be heading for a self-fulfilling prophesy given the predictions that Nigeria will self-destruct in 2015.

    The concerns raised then are now being given further impetus in a most dangerous manner by events of the past couple of days. Otherwise, how do we explain the scandalous allegations by the Adamawa State governor, Murtala Nyako on the motive behind the killings and general insecurity in the north-east zone that has kept this country on its knees for some years now?

    In a memo he sent to northern governors, Nyako alleged among others that the federal government under President Goodluck Jonathan was promoting genocide in the north and its fight against the Boko Haram insurgency was aimed at depopulating the north. Accusing the federal government of organizing the killings, Nyako wrote “cases of mass murder by its bloody minded killers and cut-throats are well known but it attributes the killings to so-called Boko Haram”.

    According to him, militia backed by the federal government were responsible for the rampant kidnappings in the north and virtually all the soldiers killed in the operation against the insurgents were of northern extraction.

    These are very sensitive and weighty allegations. This is more so as they are not only loaded with the frightening prospects of negating all efforts at taming the insurgency in the north but the unity and progress of the country. Not unexpectedly, there have been sharp criticisms and condemnations against the sweeping allegations by the governor who once served as the Chief of Naval Staff of this country. Most of those who spoke queried the motive of the public allegations especially given what we know about the origin, motivation and modus operandi of the Boko Haram insurgents. It is not surprising that political motive is being suspected as the raison d’etre for those allegations. In it, the desire to pitch the north against the south has featured very prominently. Thus, when Nyako spoke of systematic plans to depopulate the north, his target was to whip up sectional sentiments against the Jonathan regime. The same sectional agenda featured in the claim that most of the soldiers who lost their lives while fighting the insurgents were of northern extraction.

    Sectional predilection was very palpable from that memo even as the medium through which he sought to convey that message equally spoke volumes along the same direction.

    Again, it is difficult to fathom how the allegations will be of help in taming the senseless killing of innocent people in that part of the country in the name of some weird ideology. More worrisome is the realization that the governor whose state is home to the unbridled insurgency that has kept this nation prostrate these past years can wake up with tendentious and scandalous allegations without any account of the role of his government to stem the tide.

    As the chief security officer of one of the states that has been under a partial state of emergency on account of the blunders of the insurgents, it is not enough for Nyako to fold his hands and lay the blame on the shoulders of the federal government. Security is the collective responsibility of both the federal, state and local governments. It is yet to be seen what roles Nyako has played to aid the federal government fight the insurgents. Instead of building a synergy that will lead to the stamping out of the terrorists, Nyako has by his actions and utterances encouraged the terrorists in their dastardly acts. That is the implication of imputing ethnic motives into the daunting sacrifices of the soldiers who daily lose their lives in this senseless war.

    It is a huge disappointment for a man who was sometime ago, the overall head of this country’s navy to now go public with the allegation that deployments in the armed forces are made according to sectional preferences. This is most unpatriotic. For, it has the prospects of pitching the soldiers against each other. Its outcome could be very disastrous for the delicate war against terrorism.

    Good a thing, the expanded National Security Council meeting has in very unambiguous terms condemned Nyako’s memo as a worthless piece of paper because he cannot substantiate them even as they are capable of causing incalculable harm to the unity and progress of the country. It is very instructive that none of those at the meeting saw any iota of truth in those sectional allegations.

    The resolutions of the council also spoke volumes on how the actions or inaction of a governor could aid and abet insurgency. That is my reading of the resolve to exploit anti-poverty strategies, media capacity among others to end the insurgency. No doubt, this is a sufficient indictment on Nyako as it recognizes that Boko Haram has its roots in the squalid conditions in which the ordinary people of the affected states have found themselves overtime. It is not the creation of the federal government. Neither is the overall objective of the war to depopulate the north. Boko Haram uprising is deeply rooted in the mismanagement of the economies of that part of the country by its leaders. That has been the real issue and reason why the northern political elite have been advocating approaches other than the force of arms.

    Perhaps also, it could have served the nation better if Nyako was taken to task to produce credible evidence to substantiate his claims. It is not enough to end the matter with mere condemnations.

    But for the immunity he enjoys, the appropriate thing would have been to charge him to court. It is on account of this quick resort to abuse of power that the immunity enjoyed by governors has attracted its most virulent criticisms.

    Nyako’s reaction has shown very clearly that the war against terrorism is not receiving the overall support of some of the governors in the affected states. Yet he is supposed to be working in concert with the local governments and the traditional institutions to provide the necessary information that will lead to the defeat of these merchants of death. Little wonder the partial state of emergency declared in those states has not been successful in stemming the tide. How could it succeed with the disposition and posturing of the Nyakos?

    No doubt, Jonathan has been at the receiving end for not doing enough to end the insurgency. The recurring escapades of the insurgents and the bombing at the Nyanya motor park in Abuja have been some of the sore points of the battle. Jonathan is now being urged to do all within his powers including a full-scale declaration of state of emergency to end the battle. Those who make these suggestions are encouraged by the reluctance of some northern elite to do the needful in the fight against terrorism.

    Even as reservations have been expressed on the propriety of full-scale state of emergency, the sabotage and irredentist posturing of the likes of Nyako may garner huge support for any legitimate action that can stem the tide now.

  • Nyanya and other storms

    Nyanya and other storms

    That shall we say now, but shall we continue in silence so that violence may abound? We forbid.

    Many will contend that all have been said of the Federal Government’s impotence in tackling Boko Haram. We have heard, now as before, that we are witnessing a failure of intelligence. But what we have not established is whether the failure derives more from naivety or corruption. We know it is certainly not equal parts. We just don’t know in what measure naivety and corruption share the ignoble pie.

    We have said also that President Goodluck Jonathan falls shy of appreciating enough the gravity of the epidemic. Not just because of the cavalier fatalism of his speech that it will all vanish someday. His deeds show it. Barely two years ago he flew across to Brazil after Boko Haram bombs and guns made carrion flesh of human lives at home. His men said in a world of e-governance, he could direct affairs from anywhere. He resonated more with the samba of Brazil than with the heartbeats of the bereaved. Last week, he did same. His face wrinkled with grief in a hospital the day 75 persons died from the Nyanya bus terminal explosion in Abuja. The next day, he danced on their wounds at a campaign ground in Kano and jetted to Ibadan to clink birthday glasses with the Olubadan.

    So who is the real Jonathan, the one with compassion or the campaign man with a will to power or the merry man at Ibadan in the ambience of champagne?

    No one wanted the President to donate blood, but the soulless act of the Kano visit came to high relief when a diplomat was donating blood to the victims in Abuja. On that day, the president revealed he gave money to delegates through Kano State Governor Kwankwanso to give to delegates to ease his electoral victory in 2011. Sin upon sin, this time the sin of inducement for electoral victory.

    But that was not the time for such detonation of angry words when others, including Speaker Aminu Tambuwal and former Governor Bukola Saraki paid visits and donated blood.

    Again, the PDP spokesman and Goebel’s mock reincarnate, Olisa Metuh, said the opposition APC was responsible for the bombing. Neither the president has publicly called him to apologise nor has the party sanctioned him for such reckless effusions in mimicking Hitler’s publicist.

    This is not the sort of drama from the presidency that affirms a sense of sobriety and aggressive thinking in stamping out Boko Haram. If the president acts with such Janus-faced devotion to war, what do we expect from the intelligence agencies, the military and the other staff involved in the combat against the bigots.

    That is why no one has a right to be silent about the weaknesses in the fight against terror. Lives are being lost, markets shut down, schools in paralysis and societies on hold.

    Terror was the matter the same day he danced in Kano and joyed in Ibadan when 129 girls were whisked away by the red-blooded militants. Was that news not enough to call off any such matter? Was it out of place for the president to say that the nation was in sackcloth and dour moods and no time for barnstorming and birthday revelry? Even his supporters in Kano, who are no strangers to such bloody inanities, would have understood. Ditto the Olubadan.

    The story of the girls became another narrative of lies and distortions. The army headquarters said it rescued over 80 of them. The news reporting in the media should have been more wary because the army’s own story did not show any rescue. In their footloose account, they reportedly found the girls already free. You don’t rescue free people. The girls who fled in defiance were the heroines of the tale. The army recanted but it calls in question how much of earlier press releases from the army about captured militants and weapons impounded bear credibility.

    All of these reports tell us how shabbily we are fighting this war. Again, Saturday Punch of April 19 reported that N76 billion was wasted on technologies to monitor the terrorist mischief in Abuja. All of it has broken down. Is this accountability or corruption or incompetence? According to the report, the programme did not cover the area of the Nyanya bombing even if it worked. Year after year, princely sums are devoted to defence, specifically against Boko Haram. What has happened to all of it?

    The APC has called for a summit with neighbouring countries, including Chad and Niger. Those countries can help, but the nation ought to wring the hands of France. Our neighbours are, at heart, still French satellites, a decision they made in the years of President Charles de Gaulle. France has not taken the matter as seriously as it has deployed forces and diplomatic pressures on French-speaking nations on the continent like Mali. The insurgents there have been subdued.

    But the issue of summit barely addresses more fundamental issues. If the neigbouring countries fail to rein in the militants from entering our country, is it now their responsibility once they are in Nigeria? Where are our cameras to monitor the movements of these militants and the personnel to react? What role do the civilian JTF boys play these days? The insurgents attacked two schools in about a month. How was it that cameras could not track them down, if they were available?

    Lagos State has established a model for all of Nigeria with real-time cameras covering vital arteries and institutions in the state. The governor of example, Babatunde Raji Fashola, SAN, has showcased this and it has worked with evidence in tackling criminals and unearthing cells in the state. It is a sharp contrast to the N76 billion extravaganza.

    As the penman of conservatism, Edmund Burke, once asserted, “the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” In this case, is it that our government is doing nothing, or they cannot do the right thing? I weigh with the latter.

    It is not as if we don’t have the resources or potentially the men. The point is, the government is not ready. Declaring a state of emergency was hailed last year. Clearly it is hard to call it a success when the group clucks defiantly while we bleed and weep. They lull us into false triumph with strategic retreats and wake us into horror with bombs, shootings and abductions in their macabre rhythms of silence and thunder.

    Said Winston Churchill who knew about winning a war that seems hopeless: “no one can guarantee success in war, but only deserve it.” Our government still doesn’t know how to deserve it.

  • Two characters in search of power

    For sheer theatricality, the spectacular emergence of Mr. Ayo Fayose and Senator Iyiola Omisore as the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governorship candidates in the approaching elections in Ekiti and Osun states respectively was evocative of the 1921 “absurdist metatheatrical” play Six Characters in Search of an Author by Italian dramatist and 1934 Nobel laureate in Literature Luigi Pirandello. The core of the drama is the invasion of the stage by six outsiders who demand to enact their own story.

    Although in the specific instances of Fayose, 53, and Omisore, 56, it is about an obsessive quest for power, nevertheless their antagonistic entry and seizure of space, with the associated absurdities, must qualify them for positions in the realm of the fantastic. Beyond the surface, at a more profound level is the fact that in Pirandello’s plot the characters interrupted the rehearsal of a play called The Rules of the Game, a dimension that has a serious implication for the political ambitions of both men in an environment with a reputation for scandalous and unconscionable electoral fraud.

    Against the background of protest by co-contestants that both men allegedly triumphed at the party primaries through dubious means, the question of fidelity to rules is of instructive significance. With the foundation of alleged impropriety, it may not be out of place to consider whether the gubernatorial contests in the two states will be free from corruption. Will the fundamental principles of “free and fair election” and “one man one vote” be allowed to prevail, given that the very processes leading to the elections were reportedly perverted and subverted?

    Speaking of the absurd, Fayose’s contested endorsement at the primary reflected a basic ridiculousness on account of the fact that he is still facing trial for alleged financial misconduct while in office as governor of Ekiti State from May 2003 to October 2006, his four-year tenure having been shortened by impeachment. Not surprisingly, he has understandably and quite correctly taken refuge in the fact that his guilt has not been judicially established, which technically makes him unencumbered. However, even legalism has its limits and limitations, for Fayose , no doubt, labours under an undeniable moral albatross. It is both puzzling and disturbing that he doesn’t seem to appreciate the weakening implication of his situation, and has been busy trumpeting his self-perceived strengths without the sense of sobriety that would have been expected of a power-seeker in his demystified circumstances. He asked, possibly gleefully, in an interview, “Don’t you know that in law, a man is adjudged innocent until proven guilty by a court of competent jurisdiction?”

    It is food for thought that he emerged as standard-bearer despite the moral burden on his shoulder, suggesting that his party is unbothered by that factor, if not dismissive of it. He is likely to go into the election with the unresolved issue of his alleged fraudulence, and it would be interesting to observe voter perception and behaviour in such context.

    Remarkably, he seems to have unwittingly given the electorate a clue on how to vote, that is, against him. “I am assuring them that the Fayose they were afraid of is a better Fayose,” he said, adding, “He is more mature and more responsive. If you say I’m a bad man, I say I’ve changed. I am appealing to them that I am a changed man.” Of course, change, positive or otherwise, is always a possibility in the dynamic flow of life, but the people would expectedly and rightly need more persuasive proof than mere declaration of transformation, especially when his record is contrasted with the widely acknowledged superior governmental performance of the incumbent governor, Kayode Fayemi of the All Progressives Congress (APC), who is pursuing a deserved second term.

    Absurdity was also a central aspect of Omisore’s materialisation; and in his own case the narrative is extremely scarier. A former deputy governor of Osun State from 1999 to 2003 and two-term senator from 2003 to 2007 and 2007 to 2011, he is as well seeking, probably illusorily, the glory of political helmsmanship in a state where the incumbent governor, Rauf Aregbesola of APC, has overwhelming advantage to achieve a second term in office based on popular endorsement. Of course, he is entitled to his ambition, however dreamy, but it is alarming that he allegedly resorted to unbecoming violence in the situation.

    Incredibly, his involvement in the intra-party struggle for the ticket reportedly betrayed undesirable qualities that can do the polity no good, and which the people should reject in unambiguous terms. The picture of behind-the-scenes bestiality painted by Isiaka Adeleke, a co-aspirant and ex-governor of Osun State, is damning and disqualifying. According to Adeleke who alleged that he was dangerously manhandled by Omisore and Minister of Police Affairs Jelili Adesiyan, possibly to discourage him, his attackers are “unfit to live in a civilised society.” Should any individual described in such language be encouraged to aspire to leadership?

    Adeleke recounted, “When I got to the hotel in Osogbo last week, I met about five people lying face down. The police put guns to their heads claiming that they were thugs. I checked them out and discovered that they were my people. One of them was a former council chairman in Ede North.” He continued, “I told the police that they were not thugs and were my people. They later released them to me and I went inside to ask what was going on, but rather than explain, Adesiyan, Omisore and Sogo Agboola started beating me. At a point, about seven guns were pointed at my head.” He said further, “I am going to press charges against these people. They put off the light in the hotel so that the cameras would not be able to record their atrocities. Thank God we use infrared to aid our recording. This they did not know. They said I had been bought over by the All Progressives Congress but that is a lie.”

    These portraits of Fayose and Omisore are useful for an understanding of the major characters that will be challenging the progressive camp in Ekiti on June 21 and in Osun on August 9. Even the otherwise assonantal appeal of their names, which is certainly inadequate for election purposes, loses beauty in the light of their essential unattractiveness as governorship candidates. All things being equal, it should be expected that the sovereign electorate will decide against them.