The Nation Newspaper

Category: Monday

  • Season of defections

    We are definitely in a season of defections. Hardly does any day pass by without reports of key political personages defecting from one party to the other. It all started with the registration of the All Progressives Congress APC at a time the ruling Peoples Democratic Party PDP was embroiled in debilitating internal crisis.

    Buoyed by the absence of a strong opposition, the three political parties in the merger had made serious compromises that culminated in the formation of the APC. Having been successfully registered, the next task was to scout for members to boost their numerical strength. And at their disposal were PDP leaders who had issues with the running of their party and sundry grievances. They had stumbled out of their mid-term convention to draw attention to their complaints.

    Among them were seven governors and other notable leaders. But despite their weight and the dust raised by their action, much progress was not made in redressing their grouse apparently because of inherent contradictions in some of the demands.

    Five of the governors were later to defect to the APC together with some other key leaders. This move seemed to have precipitated a gale of defections as 37 members of the House of Representatives joined. At the last count, 11 senators have also indicated their intention to defect even as their letter is held up in the senate chambers. There have also been defection from the state assemblies of the defecting governors and sundry others.

    But as the APC is harvesting from the ranks of the PDP, an interesting scenario is also playing out within its camp. Key members of the APC in some of the states have found it increasingly difficult to co-habit with the defecting PDP governors.

    In Sokoto and Kano states considered very strategic by the parties, two foundation leaders of the APC, Attahiru Bafarawa and Ibrahim Shekarau have defected to the PDP. They all cited unfair treatment by their party as the reason for their action. Bafarawa said he defected because of attempts by governors who defected to the party to take over party structures at the states. Though Shekarau was not as forthcoming as Bafarawa on the matter, it is obvious that he is also resenting his arch rival, Governor Rabiu Kwankwso’s leadership of the party. His plight was clearly underscored by his staunch supporter Yakubu Musa Hausawa when he averred that “no one can nurse a legitimate ambition under Kwankwaso’s leadership”. Then came the much awaited defection of former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar to the APC citing a catalogue of ills meted on him by the PDP. Atiku’s defection did not come to many as a surprise as he was one of the key personages that stumbled out of the PDP convention in protest.

    As things stand, it is difficult to predict the direction of these defections and what future it holds for the country. This is more so given the reasons that have been adduced. From all accounts, the main grouse of the defectors from both sides of the divide is with the way party affairs are being handled. Defecting PDP governors complained bitterly about their party leadership and its arbitrariness. Both Shekarau and Bafarawa made similar complaints against APC leadership in unilaterally handing over to defecting governors the structures of the party. So where is the difference?

    No reference is made to such key issues as ideology and party programmes. Little mention is made about how each of the platforms is better attuned to respond to the nagging challenges of the nation’s development. Shekarau, a known critic of the ruling party, has suddenly come to embrace it. If one may ask, what changes are there in the PDP that Shekarau has now found it a lesser evil than the APC? This poser is germane for us to properly situate the current gale of defections. It will also be of value in determining the nature and character of the two major parties when the dust must have settled.

    Shekarau seemed to have anticipated criticisms on the ideological dissonance in his move when he said it is not the “name of the party we choose that matters but what is important to us is the people we are going to work with in the interest of the common man”. Bafarawa equally touched on this when he argued that the objective of bringing change in society is “achievable in the PDP and that their entry could also transform the party”.

    In effect, they recognize that the party has its own problems but consider it safer to pitch their tent with it than their former one- a verity of one man’s meat being another man’s poison. They are entitled to their decisions.

    It would appear these defections are motivated more by self interest rather than commitment to higher national ideals. It is also a veiled admission that there is really no difference between both parties.

    What the parties eventually make of themselves will depend on the directional changes they come up with in the days ahead. It is possible that the new entrants and the current travails of the PDP could provide the ambience for the transformation of the party as Bafarawa has anticipated. It is also no less possible that things may not change that much.

    But what will be the fate of the likes of Shekarau and Bafarawa if nothing changes in their new party? And what if the defecting PDP governors come to the APC with those orientations and nuances that had been the undoing of their former party? Will the APC not suffer the fate of the PDP? After all, no less a person than Minister of Information, Labaran Maku had categorized them as troublemakers who are responsible for the problems in the PDP.

    These are the likely fallouts of these largely unprincipled and inchoate defections.

    Such dispositions cannot conduce for the emergence of parties that would at once, serve as alternative choices to the electorate. That seems to be the drawback in this largely unstructured and zero ideological promptings in the current defections.

    Those who defected from the PDP did so because they felt shunted out of the scheme of affairs of the party. It was also the logic of self-interest that forced both Bafarawa and Shekarau out of the party they founded. So let no body be deceived.

    Beyond these, what our people crave for is good governance and security of lives and property. Realignment into a strong two party system is good for the country. The message it sends to politicians very clearly is that it is no longer going to be business as usual. Sovereignty of the electorate as expressed at the ballot box must now begin to count as politicians will have to work for and earn their mandate. It is equally interesting that no discernable pattern in terms of ethno-religious divide is palpable in the direction of the defections. If Shekarau who is not known to share moderate religious views can pitch his tent with the PDP, then fears of unfolding competition sliding towards ethnic and religious lines should be considerably reduced.

  • Between prophets and alarmists

    Between prophets and alarmists

    When prophesies come, we ignore them because we are optimists. When they come to pass, we accept them as fatalists. Only prisoners of hope accept tragedies as a routine and never worry about storm clouds. They tell themselves in their fatalistic fashion: it was to be.

    That has been the way of Nigerians. Many societies around the world have ended up like this. But here we continue to live dangerously. In this season, we have wobbled into some of such prophesies, and Nigerians seem to take them in strides.

    That is why we ignore the cries of the skinny vicar of our financial soul over a depleting treasury and balding governor’s lamentations over the atrophy of the rule of law in his state. Rather we listen to a plump graduate of Breton Woods Institution when she says only $10.8 billion is missing and shows little righteous agony over the discrepancy. Again, when the opposition says the president should invoke the best of presidential soft power to rein in the drift in Rivers State before budget and ministerial nominees, some people say it is against the people.

    They forget that the federal government can always spend outside the budget, and that the ministerial nominees and service chiefs’ matters do little to affect the affairs of state and security. The issues are political. No one asked the president why he has not extended his powers on Mbu Joseph Mbu, the commissioner of police in Rivers State. Even when a serving senator was flown abroad after the potentially fatal rubber bullet shot, not a word issued out of the president’s lips.

    Shall we ask ourselves what they did with last year’s budget? For half of last year, state governments received fractions of their entitlements. The queens of government, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and Diezani Alison-Madueke, have not explained in mathematics, graphics and plain English language why we cannot pay our bills even though oil prices beat the budget benchmark by over $30 dollars per barrel. Even at that, we have almost depleted the so-called excess crude account when the price did not fall to even 80 dollars any time last year. When CBN chief Sanusi yelled, we did not go beyond quibbles over whether his math was right or wrong. We forgot the implications for the ordinary poor.

    In Rivers State, we see Governor Rotimi Amaechi fighting with President Goodluck Jonathan. We see it as a partisan matter, so it is not important what the law says and what decency prescribes.

    We forget that every crisis in our history came with warnings over trouble to come. Here we have troubles on two fronts: politics and economy. Both spell dire consequences. A well-known priest Mathew Kukah joined the cynical crowd in a recent interview by saying that the threat to Nigeria is in the pages of the newspapers and no one will be there when the politicians solve their problems. This is another cynical way of capsizing before our elite where he has friends on both sides of the divide. Politicians always resolve their differences after so much has been lost in lives and resources. If they resolve their differences, do they resolve the nation’s?

    Our history teaches us sombre lessons. The crisis of the First Republic started in the Western region, but many saw it as simply an Awolowo and Akintola fracas. Until elections came and it strangulated the region and all of Nigeria. The larger consequence was a civil war, and the tales of deaths, starvation and misery belonged not to the Yoruba of the west but the Igbo of the east.

    As poet John Donne warned, “ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.” My father Moses often said that if you throw a stone into the market, you cannot guarantee the safety of your mother. When crisis comes, it has a life of its own. Those who trigger it suffer as well as those who know little about it. If you start a bush fire, you also have to run for your life.

    That is why it is important to listen when people warn about a national drift. The danger is that we see things in rigid partisan brackets and fail to realise that not all partisan cries are without merit. We chuck them aside as paranoia. Henry Kissinger purred: “even the paranoid have enemies.” When Asari Dokubo threatened over 2015 elections, no one paid him a visit. But when Nasir el RuFai uttered his own, he was detained.

    If APC or PDP makes a case, it is inevitably partisan. But it does not mean it lacks substance, especially if the substance pries into our very existence. In the closing chapters of the Second Republic, Awo warned over the drift of the Shagari regime into tyranny, and raised the spectre of the preventive detention act that made Kwame Nkrumah notorious. He was dismissed as a partisan. A few months later, he was proved right and the republic slurred into a last song.

    We have seen this sort in other lands. Sir Winston Churchill was the disregarded prophet when as a back bencher in House of Commons he warned his country. In his grand and elegant growl, he described Hitler as the mad man of Europe. He said all of the continent should stop the tyrant before he engulfed civilisation in his Nazi holocaust. He urged Britain to start re-arming to match Germany that was building the most formidable military machine the world had ever known.

    His foes described him as an alarmist, with the peroration of partisan. When Hitler was ready, he rolled over France with his Blitzkrieg, and it took the Americans to save the world with help from nature in Russia and miscalculation by the fuehrer. England paid for ignoring Churchill when the German air force, the Luftwaffe, strafed London and other cities into a daze of apocalyptic fear.

    Even France may have been spared the humiliation of German invasion through the Ardenne Forest if the Vichy quislings had heeded Charles de Gaulle’s warning over fortifying that section and warding off the Nazis from Paris.

    Crisis comes from what many often regard as little crisis. The Boko Haram crisis might not have escalated if Yar’Adua had not regarded the death of its leader as trivial. Ironically, it is in search of justice for their leader that that region fell into the malignity of deaths, bigotry, lawlessness and state of emergency whose end is not in sight. The Owu War that ignited into what historians call the Yoruba Wars started over a fracas over cheap peppers. How many know that the First World, that conflict of butchery, began by the killing of an Arch Duke of Sarajevo. Those little things only mark tipping points of escalating tensions. It is just like a divorce that is triggered by spill of a glass of milk.

    The tragedy is that Nigerians are either facile or docile and accept injustices. So the political elite get away with any impunity. Russia wanted to impose its will on Ukraine, but the people resisted and have forced the prime minister to step down. In Turkey, Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has lost popularity because of his highhanded ways. The Maghreb has shown in its Arab Springs, in spite of drawbacks, that it will stand for justice.

    If we take the rule of law and decency seriously, we shall have little tensions. Europe and America are no less contentious people than we. But they have decided to abide by rules rather and men. The worst, as poet Lord Byron once wrote, that we can expect when bad things happen is the three words: I told you so.

     

  • Okotie’s carnal crown

    Perhaps Pastor Chris Okotie of the Household of God Church International Ministries, Lagos, deserves congratulations on its 27th anniversary this month. He has been the church shepherd for that long, following his regeneration as a “born again Christian” three years earlier. Strikingly, his pastoral life has been coloured by controversies that prompt reflections on spiritual existence as well as priestly integrity.

    It would appear that, with his spectacular background as a pop music star, the entertainer never quite left him. He continues to exude an unmistakable show-business quality decades after his stardom in the 1980s, raising perplexing questions about the extent of his temperance under the supposed influence of spirituality.

    The latest manifestation of the glitzy gospeler was the news of his vehicular indulgences. Enjoy Okotie’s account of his eye-popping splurge and his sophistic rhetoric: “My life is a trajectory of faith and commitment to divine servitude. It is proof that the veracity of scripture cannot be impeached, that God is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. That is why 27 years ago I had nothing, but through a progressive application of the word of God, I have appropriated soul prosperity and material blessings. That is why I was able to pay N33m for the Range Rover Autobiography 2014 Executive and just over N120m for the Rolls Royce Phantom Coupe 2014 bespoke edition; to mark the occasion of 30 years of being a Christian and 27 years of being a pastor of the Household of God Church.”

    According to him in the published interview, “30 years is symbolic because it is reminiscent of the baptism of the Lord Jesus at the River Jordan at the age of 30. Prosperity is an integral part of the gospel. It is not an end in itself. It is the authentication and validation of the Melchizedek priesthood of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

    The most profound aspect of this tragicomedy is the apparent fact that Okotie’s reasoning reflected unbelievable trivialisation of the egregious exhibitionism and vainglory. “Buying an expensive car is a choice,” Okotie said defensively and accurately. But the argument is self-serving and subtly deceptive. The unarguable point is that, in this instance, the expression of choice is unexemplary. It should be noted that he also said, “You know I bought those cars for a purpose…These cars are part of the event.”

    Unsurprisingly, he responded to a question on whether he owned a private jet, saying, “No, I do not have a jet now. But I will if it becomes necessary in the prosecution of my ecclesiastical responsibilities.” In another breath, he declared, perhaps in unintentional self-contradiction, “All that I require, I already have.” This was followed by a blunt statement significant for its revelation of his attention-seeking aspiration. “I am already prosperous and famous,” he told the interviewer.

    It is relevant to wonder about the flock he leads, not only in demographic terms but also in the particular area of their understanding of piety and how they rate their pastor in this context. Perhaps they find him inspiring in a material sense, given his acquisitions. Or maybe he transports them to another realm with his musical skill. Or possibly he enchants them with his grandiloquence. Or the sheer magnetism of his personality captivates them.

    What is evidently missing in all these possibilities is the centrality of Jesus, Christianity’s undisputed exemplar. Flaunting possessions was certainly not the style of Jesus. Indeed, the well-known Biblical story about Jesus and the rich young man (also called Jesus and the rich young ruler) is a metaphor for his perspective on the matter. A man approached Jesus and asked, “”Teacher, what good thing must I do to have eternal life?” He got an unexpected answer: “If you want to be perfect, go sell everything you own!  Give the money to the poor, and you will have riches in heaven.  Then come and be my follower.”

    Of course, it is possible that Okotie, despite his clerical status, does not dream of perfection from the viewpoint of Jesus. Consequently, he probably would not subscribe to such counsel. It is interesting that he interpreted his “material blessings” as a “reward” from God. However, it is apt to ask whether his showiness is also a divine gift.

    There is the unavoidable question of the source of this prosperity as well as the profitability of the church enterprise. This must explain why there are advocates of church taxation, which remains a contentious argument even in the face of the reality that pastors have become entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs have become pastors. The absurd result of this topsy-turvy actuality is that the church has become a place where money reigns.

    To speak the language of the corporate world, Okotie’s church also has Corporate Social Responsibility programmes, which he mentioned probably as a way of establishing equilibrium. According to him, “In our church, we are involved in a lot of charitable events, like our annual GRACE programme, amongst other charitable things we do to bless our members.” Even without the details of the reported charity, it is easy to conclude, given the information available about the scope of the pastor’s wealth, that such perfunctory arrangements amount to no more than mere tokenism.

    This is the kind of drama that gives not only Christianity, but also religion, a negative name. With the invasion of supposed spiritual spheres by mercantile forces, sacredness is violated and the human spirit suffers.

    Interestingly, Okotie, 55, still habours political dreams despite past failures in the arena. After a first attempt at presidential office under the banner of the Justice Party in 2003, and another shot in 2007 as a member of the Fresh Democratic Party, performing abysmally on both occasions, it titillates the imagination that Okotie is once again in the race. “I will run in 2015, God willing,” he declared, adding, “God spoke to me about my participation in the political process, which was why I took the step in the first place. He has not said anything contrary.”

    God again! The things men say, and do, in the name of God! It is amusing that Okotie, with his baggage, thinks that he could be acceptable to the people. The kind of insensitive, not to say sneering, display of unpriestly behaviour cannot recommend him for governance. Sadly, he comes across as a champion of carnality.

  • Boko Haram scare

    Of recent, there have been Boko Haram alerts in two states of the southern part of the country. The first came from Imo where the state wing of the Peoples Democratic Party PDP raised alarm over the presence of suspected Boko Haram youths. The party had alleged that the state government brought in members of the Boko Haram sect and was also training snipers at an illegal camp at Egbu road, Owerri in preparation for next year’s election.

    But the state commissioner of police, Mohammed Katsina said the rumor was unfounded as intelligence report showed no trace of terrorist activities. He further stated that, it was discovered that youths from various parts of the country were undergoing training at the centre which serves as Imo State College of Advanced Professional Studies ICAPS.

    A couple of days later, there was another report of bus loads of suspected Boko Haram members intercepted in Rivers State. Police authorities in that state said the suspects entered through the boundary with Imo and investigations were on to determine the motive of the suspects. At the last count, most of the suspects had been discharged save 19. Among the 19, one of them was said to have had in his possession, expended ammunition. Meanwhile the screening of the 19 continues.

    Apparently worried by the Imo report, ICAPS was compelled to send back the youths to their states for fear of being harmed. Director General of the College, Donald Day admitted that the centre cut short the training of the 84 youths from Katsina State and sent them back as the alarm had created fears on their safety.

    According to him, the centre trains youth on skills and leadership programme and had nothing to do with miscreants, criminal elements and members of the Boko Haram sect.

    If this explanation is a true reflection of the goings on at the centre, it remains a puzzle how the party came to the suspicion that the youths were Boko Haram suspects? It is either they are uncertain of the mandate of that institution or could not fathom how 84 youths from Katsina or neighbouring states could be quartered within that premises. Their age, dressing and ways of life are also issues that could have led to suspicion. And given the perilous times we are passing through, the presence of 84 youths from a single state within that premises was bound to raise concerns.

    It is good a thing that the college has sent back the suspects to their states so as save them from danger. Yet, they are not the only people from Katsina or other northern states that live in Imo. For all one might want to care, there is a huge population of northerners resident in Imo State going about their daily businesses. Many of them well established, have been living peacefully with the Imo people who go at length to make visitors feel at home. It is therefore not as if the presence of visitors is strange to the people of the state. There must be a reason why the instant case has generated so much heat that the state government had to terminate the training of the youths and send them back home.

    It is possible for the state government to accuse the PDP of raising false alarm. They could also insinuate political motive and the desire to discredit an opponent. These accusations could be raised.

    But there are minimum explanations the Imo State government owes the public before they can be taken along in this claim of ulterior motive on the part of the PDP. It is not enough to parcel the suspects back to their states on the spurious claim that their lives were endangered by the alarm. It is also not sufficient to claim as the state government did, that the suspects were merely youths who were on skills and leadership training.

    They ought to have allowed the police to screen them to determine what kind of leadership training and skills acquisition they came to the centre to benefit from.

    Issues to be determined include the curriculum of the college, qualifications of its teachers and prospective trainees and the kind of synergy that exists between the centre and other state governments.

    Of interest also is the issue of funding. Who picks the bills of the training and what type of competences do the trainees acquire thereafter? We also needed to figure out the mode of selecting the trainees, the benefit of the training and where trainees will be deployed after the completion of their courses.

    These are some of the nagging issues the police should unravel since they said investigations are still ongoing. Answers should also be provided as to the extent the centre has served indigenes of the state who are currently suffocated by debilitating high level of unemployment. By the time we provide answers to these posers, we might discover to our chagrin that the college has no clearly defined mandate. It could have been one of those ideas that emanate from the whimsical and inchoate thoughts of the current leadership in the state. There are more of such ill-defined ideas and programmes.

    That could in part, account for the difficulty of the PDP in understanding the mission of those youths. After all, Imo is no stranger to institutions of higher learning. There must therefore be something unclear about ICAPS and its mandate that has put it in the current pass. That is the folly in floating institutions and ideas whose mandate and value the people find difficult to comprehend.

    Beyond this however, is the danger which the Boko Haram menace constitutes for the peace and unity of this country. Before now, Nigerians especially people from the Boko Haram prone areas had moved around the country with relative ease. But not any more! With the guerrilla warfare style of the insurgents, the inability to differentiate them from ordinary citizens, people from the terrorism prone areas have unfortunately come under serious suspicion such that some innocent ones are now being exposed to untold embarrassment and hardship in their own country.

    It is a sad reminder to the fate of Nigerian travellers during the period some western countries designated us as a key drug courier country. The situation is yet to change despite the efforts of the country in the war against illicit drugs.

    Ironically, that is the point at which some of our citizens currently find themselves as the war against terrorism rages. So it is not necessarily a matter for grandstanding by legislators. Neither was matters helped by the curious posturing of the so-called northern elders when they spoke of their intention to prosecute the former Chief of Army Staff, Lt-Gen Ihejirika for the killings at Bama in Borno State.

    Since they came out with that ill-conceived position, about 200 helpless citizens have been mowed down with several others injured in both Adamawa and Borno states by the heartless and blood-thirsty hoodlums. So who will go to the International Criminal Court on behalf of those who died during those senseless and unprovoked killings? That is the uncanny dilemma brought to the court of public opinion by the compromising positions of some northern leaders in this very sensitive and dangerous war against terrorism. The sooner those in whose territories these killings go unabated rise up to the reality of the situation, the better for us all. Politics must be separated from this battle if we are to make any headway.

  • Amalgamation menu

    Ironically, Nigeria’s formal celebration of the centenary of its1914 Amalgamation, scheduled to run throughout 2014, is happening at a time of mounting discontent over the very composition of the union. However, this cannot be a good reason for non-recognition of the anniversary, or a perfunctory acknowledgement of the historical juncture.

    To employ a biological metaphor, a centenarian is a newsmaker any day; and by the same token, a 100-year milestone in a country’s affairs cannot be un-newsworthy. When all is said and done, there is no doubt that the amalgamation was both historically significant and historically consequential.

    It is notable that the ultimate merger followed earlier combinations that were similarly of historical import and consequence. While the Protectorate of Northern Nigeria, which comprised the pre-colonial states of the Sokoto Caliphate, the Bornu Empire and the Kano Emirate, took shape in 1890, the Colony and Protectorate of Southern Nigeria, made up of the Niger Coast Protectorate and the colony of Lagos, was concretised in 1900. It was these northern and southern protectorates that became the Colony and Protectorate of Nigeria in 1914 by the creative licence of Sir Frederick Lugard who became the country’s first Governor General and ruled in the name of colonial Britain until 1919.

    In reality, therefore, the name “Nigeria” even predated the amalgamation, which is a point to ponder in the divisive debate over the nationhood of the political entity that resulted from the merger. If the name was shared by the northern and southern protectorates before the union, it implied that they were already notionally linked, meaning that an actual combination was always a possibility. Questions: Could the amalgamation have been avoided? If so, would the different protectorates have retained their common identity? How would the issue of independence have been tackled in the separate protectorates?

    Interestingly, the name is a coinage credited to Dame Flora Louise Shaw, who became Lady Lugard by marriage to the man who welded the mix. A British journalist and writer who reportedly had an abiding interest in imperialism, Shaw provided an argument for the name in The Times of 8 January, 1897. According to her: “The name Nigeria applying to no other part of Africa may without offence to any neighbours be accepted as co-extensive with the territories over which the Royal Niger Company has extended British influence, and may serve to differentiate them equally from the colonies of Lagos and the Niger Protectorate on the coast and from the French territories of the Upper Niger.” In other words, the name, which was adopted in 1898, was conceived as a novel brand.

    It is remarkable that the thought of a change of name did not come up in the boiling build-up to the country’s independence from Britain in 1960, and even in the post-colonial era, which is perhaps a statement about its local acceptance, despite the fact that it was a foreign creation and imposition.

    It is food for thought that the singular instance of nomenclatural rejection had devastating implications for the union, speaking of the Nigerian Civil War of 1967 to 1970 following the declaration of the independent Republic of Biafra by the then Eastern Region headed by the military governor Colonel Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu. The rest of Nigeria, which was then under military rule, firmly rejected the secession, and the ensuing conflict reportedly consumed over 1 million lives before the secessionists surrendered. For both sides, it was a huge price indeed to pay for preserving the union as well as the integrity of territorial designation.

    In the context of alternative history, it is interesting to contemplate the consequence of a victory for the rebels, the sovereignty of Biafra and the redefinition of Nigeria’s political space. Forty four years after the war, it is apparent that wounds have not fully healed and the spectre of dissolution is alive with the campaign by the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), which continues to remind the country of the failure of the union.

    Certainly, there are other faces of centrifugal energy. What about the threat by Boko Haram, which is pursuing an Islamic theocracy in direct contradiction to the constitutional secularity of the state? What about militants in the oil-rich Niger Delta, who have not been tamed by official amnesty, and insist on resource control or hell for the country? Or, excuse the reduction to absurdity, what about Ijaw loudmouths who continue to shout that President Goodluck Jonathan’s re-election is non-negotiable, even if the electorate says “No”?

    The union is obviously disunited. Perhaps the most symptomatic element of the disharmony is the contentious idea of a conference to reimagine the country. The pros and cons of such confab, its character, its reliability, its acceptability and its practicability, among other critical aspects, are nowhere near any conclusion. It is a sign of foundational dysfunction that the fundamental issues of nationhood are yet unsettled after a century of blurred togetherness.

    Curiously, there are allegations that it was on account of British machinations that the northern part of the country enjoyed political dominance in the immediate post-colonial era and well beyond. However, the undeniable fact is that those who continue on such a slippery path of reasoning may be guilty of scapegoating. One especially striking strand of this argument is that the North has been the weak link in the country’s development chain, and that the rest of the nation space could do without the drawback. Evidently, such superficiality tends to shrink the wider picture and, perhaps unwittingly, provides a cover for general elite misrule, which no one can pin on the long-gone colonialists.

    The theme of the Nigerian Centenary Project, One Nigeria, Great Promise, positively insists on oneness, which, however, cannot be taken for granted. According to the organisers, the 12-month long festivity will “highlight the key concepts of unity, indivisibility, virility, progress and the promise of the Nigerian federation.” The vision is “to project a united, vibrant and progressive nation that is ready to be a world leader;” while the mission is “to re-inspire a sense of unity in all Nigerians.” Among the objectives of the project, one important aspiration holds a promise for future generations, specifically, to “institute legacy projects that will serve as a lasting reference for the Centenary.”

    More importantly, with the country’s decisive 2015 general elections ahead, and the political class already playing with dangerous fireworks, the historic celebration should be accompanied by sufficient sobriety. The leaders must keep their heads on their shoulders, and ensure that it does not turn out to be a merriment that precedes disaster.

  • Northern elders vs. Ihejirika

    RAGING furore over the plan by Northern Elders to prosecute at the International Criminal Court ICC, former Chief of Army Staff, Lt-Gen Azubuike Ihejirika for alleged human rights abuses in Baga, Borno State should not come as a surprise. The idea is not only viewed as insensitive and controversial but equally fraught with contradictions that may force the touted aim of its sponsors pale into insignificance.

    According to the spokesman of the forum Prof. Ango Abdullahi, their decision to go to the ICC is because of the failure of the Nigerian justice system to guarantee justice in glaring cases of human rights abuses. The forum would want Ihejirika to account for the alleged killings in Baga where the military is prosecuting the war against the dreaded Boko Haram terrorists to serve as a deterrent to others.

    Ordinarily, issues of human rights abuse especially where they have been proven beyond reasonable doubt, should be deprecated by all fair-minded people. This is more so in our clime where over time, governments have been pilloried for their scant regard for human rights. The several cases of such abuses we have had to content with as a nation bear this out.

    But in the instant case, it would appear there is more to the interest of northern elders than genuine concerns for human rights abuses.

    Expectedly, there have been vehement reactions from sections of the Nigerian public to the plan. Those who spoke do not by any dint of the imagination endorse human rights abuses either in Baga or elsewhere. But they have issues with the propriety in selective picking of Ihejirika and the Baga incident as a test case for alleged human rights abuse for ICC adjudication. They contend that our political landscape is littered with a plethora of proven and worst cases of such human rights abuses that have been swept under the carpet and wondered why the forum shut its eyes to these instances if it was moved by wholesome ideals. For this category of people, there is more to the new interest of the forum on human rights issues than ordinarily meets the eyes. At best, the concerns are not only sectional but limited in time and scope and therefore circumscribed by these flaws. Yet, this fact does not in any way encumber the forum from challenging human rights abuses if it has woken up from slumber.

    But there are moral contradictions that have been thrown up by the way these later day human rights converts are going about their current crusade.

    They have issue with the basis for handpicking Ihejirika for prosecution when in reality the war against terrorism is a joint military operation under the command of the Chief of Defence Staff. So on what plank was Ihejirika picked for prosecution? That is the question the northern elders must provide urgent answer to. It is also on account of this incongruity that Igbo elders have alleged ethnic bias and they are within their rights to so insinuate.

    Primordial bias as the leitmotif for the northern elders’ action is further reinforced in the face of their glaring silence in proven cases of human rights abuses in the past. Before now, there were the cases of Odi, Zaki Biam and Katsina Ala. Nothing was heard from the forum then. It could well be that the northerners have been so agitated by events since the prosecution of the war on terrorism that they have now woken up from slumber That could be conceded to them.

    But there are other serious issues that have been thrown up by their decision to challenge the military when serious fighting is still raging between the soldiers and the foreign-backed insurgents.

    There is the issue of the impact of the litigation on the current but difficult war of stamping out terrorism within these shores. There is also the issue of the residue of the sympathy of northern elders in the current war. The impression which their current posture is fast conveying is that they care little on what needed to be done to terminate these senseless and ill-conceived acts of terrorism.

    That ought to be the priority of the forum since the war still rages with prospects of more loss of lives and destruction of properties. Their litigation can also dampen the morale of the military and prolong the war to the detriment of peace, stability and progress in this county. These are some of the drawbacks.

    Ihejirika made references to this contradiction when while reacting to the forum’s threat he said they ought to be grateful to the military for rescuing the region from the stranglehold of Boko Haram. This goes without saying. He also painted a sordid picture of the war when he said there is no senatorial zone in the country that has not lost soldiers in the battle against terrorism.

    When this is juxtaposed against thousands of people that have been killed and maimed in their places of worship or while pursuing their daily living, the mortal danger posed by Boko Haram stares us on the face. It is therefore premature and patently insensitive for a forum of elders to be talking of prosecuting Ihejirika or any other person when we are yet to get a final handle to the Boko Haram menace. It is not in the character of elders to create conditions for situations to exacerbate.

    Their plan has inadvertently resonated sectional and religious sentiments that may pose some impediments to the overall fight against terrorism. This is not the first time Ihejirika is being harassed, blackmailed and intimidated since he became the Chief of Army Staff. Sometime last year, he was harangued by moles in the army and elsewhere opposed to the reforms he had initiated. They had bandied questionable statistics from a single recruitment exercise in the army to simulate a plan to ‘Igbonize’ the army. He had also been accused by fifth columnists apparently from the same north of pursuing a plan to avenge the killing of the Igbo during the civil war. That was at the heat of the Boko Haram crisis that saw the bombing of the nation’s highest military training institution at Jaji, Kaduna State. Curiously also, the tirade from northern elders came few days after Ihejirika was retired from the army. So if ethnic bias is read into the inexplicable posturing of northern elders, it stands on very strong foundation and cannot be wished away.

    Beyond this, the war against terrorism is a very difficult one that should call for utmost caution in actions and utterances. By the modus operandi of the terrorists, it is very difficult to say who a Boko Haram member really is. President Jonathan captured this dilemma succinctly when he said sometime ago that there were members of Boko Haram in his cabinet. They live with the people and have severally used this advantage as a decoy to attack both the military and civilians.

    Some of the purported excesses of the military were largely due to inability to differentiate between the insurgents and the ordinary people. That was the genesis of what has come to be known in that part of the country as a civilian Joint Task Force.

    Dissatisfied with the hide and seek strategy of the terrorists and the risks it posed to their lives, civilians had to form vigilante groups to fish out the insurgents in their midst. Such is the delicate nature of the fight. Such a situation calls for caution, maturity and understanding rather than the brash manner the elders have now chosen to respond to the festering monster. But then, whose brief is the forum holding: that of Boko Haram or civilians caught in the cross fire?

  • Of ideology and harlots

    Of ideology and harlots

    Since the All Progressives Congress came into being, some critics and commentators have rung the death knell of ideology. In their renditions, the PDP was supposed to be the conservative party, swarming with cranks and vandals. The other parties like the ACN, ANPP and CPC descended, in varying degrees of DNA, from Karl Marx and Lenin.

    This oversimplification came from the news stories of the strange bedfellows of the APC. How could the ACN votaries appear on television with their sworn enemies? Why for instance, would an Amaechi cohabit with an Obasanjo who once proclaimed his stake in the Rivers State governor ambition as being afflicted with K-leg? They also asked: Why, too, would an Asiwaju Tinubu, who shed sweat and career for June 12, romance an IBB who decapitated the best election ever? The same man capped it all with a clear-eyed boast that he was the evil genius. What is Ali Modu Sheriff looking for among progressives, and should the so-called child lover ex-governor roost with the governor of example, Babatunde Raji Fashola (SAN)?

    The illusion derives from a lack of understanding of the evolution of ideology in Nigeria, especially among our political parties. They have a lineal rather than dynamic view of the growth of ideology. We forget that the only parties that have shown ideological fervour were Aminu Kano’s Northern Elements Progressive Union and Awolowo’s Action Group, and both morphed into PRP and UPN in the Second Republic. While the PRP dueled as NEPU reincarnate in the Second Republic, Awolowo had already set the stage in the First Republic as the inaugural premier of the Western Region. He initiated free education and free health care, the pilot schemes in the country, and followed up with integrated rural development and a vast array of infrastructure work. He also embedded the cooperative free enterprise spirit highlighted with the towering heft of the Cocoa House. His doing became the envy of the other regions, if they could not replicate the standard with the discipline and efficiency. That was because Awo had a clear sense of his ideological belief that tilted towards what philosophers call Fabian socialism, which sneers at doctrinaire devotion to cant and canons. Yet, it did not happen like lightning. Even his free education idea, taken for granted today, met brick walls of the soldiers of the past.

    In the Second Republic, it was easy to differentiate the UPN from other parties, including the PRP, since the Kano party did not have the discipline that UPN states evinced in executing their goals. Awo had by his singular acts entrenched ideological divide in the country. But it was not because the other parties had ideology in defined sense. Politics was about winning elections and providing leadership based on individual visions rather than a coordinated principle of a group. That was why in the Second Republic, the NPN and Zik’s NPP had little differences. Even the GNPPP also had no special love of ideas.

    What we had was Awo with his devotion to his Fabian dreams versus others who merely followed a vague path to progress known for an ill-digested mélange of laissez-faire and feudal predilections. That gave intellectuals the misguided conclusion that any party that did not chime in with Awo was conservative. But Nigerian conservatism propagated itself by a contrast to Awo. They did not want free education, free health care or forays into ambitious infrastructural platforms.

    This thinking encouraged IBB to bifurcate the party system with the SDP and NRC. Even then, it became clear that a big mistake had happened. The SDP, while telegraphing its message as the party of the left, threw up men who clearly would not be in the same bed with Awolowo. Big men replaced big ideas as champions of party principles. The result? No ideology.

    What we have seen in this republic is that Awo has so overwhelmed our sense of what should happen that what is leftist is difficult to define. Awo may have gone into premature oblivion if the AD did not emerge to continue his work. But it all gained traction in Lagos State, the state of example. All states now want to replicate the example. So, it is not only in the APC states we have free education or free health. What it means is that we are growing ideologically without knowing it.

    Yet it can be confusing. Shall we say free health is progressive or free education? Or infrastructural development as progressive or cooperative ideas for subaltern women and the poor? If that is the case, the progressives would say the conservatives have stolen their ideas. Or does it mean that the progressives are winning many hearts and some who are in the PDP are also in some ways progressives at heart? Or is it conservative opportunism?

    Governor Amaechi had progressive virtues when he was winning elections against the ACN, and all acknowledged his credentials. In the same way, we can say Delta State Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan’s free maternal, child and aged medical care are as progressive as any other. Or can we not say that Godswill Akpabio is a progressive as his free education has virtually eliminated the house boy syndrome and his vast infrastructure work in Akwa Ibom State.

    So when the leaders of the APC embraced former foes, it is because ideological divides are getting blurred. What Asiwaju Tinubu and his APC coalition seem to want is a new platform first that would wax with time to an ideological rampart. Whether this succeeds, only time shall tell.

    So politics should not always be about closing borders to foes especially in an ideologically inchoate society. In the advanced societies, leaders have shown the ability to bury the hatchet. President Barack Obama’s greatest foe was not his Republican opponent, but Hilary Clinton. Yet, when he won the nomination, he enlisted her support and she became his secretary of state, and a good one at that. President Obama took a cue from his role model Abraham Lincoln, who populated his cabinet with his rivals. In her book, A Team of Rivals, Doris Kearn Goodwin chronicles how Abe Lincoln coalesced the talents of three great foes who wanted his job. They were Edward Bates, who became his attorney general; Salmon P. Chase who became the secretary of treasury; and William H. Seward whom he appointed his secretary of state. Lincoln said he did not want to “waste precious time on recrimination about the past.”

    Winston Churchill’s greatest foe was Lord Halifax, and even King George did not want him to be Prime Minister. But the British last lion embraced all and made Halifax his envoy to the United States during the Second World War. The ANC might have broken into smithereens of parties if Mandela ossified his communist credentials as civil war loomed. Ronald Reagan began as a Democrat and ended as a Republican. Obj has never veered left in his life. That will be the miracle of the century. IBB has shown some thawing. For instance, he now accepts state police. Buhari, who hated democracy and free press, nominally accepts these.

    Politics is not for idealists. Such men are like American David Henry Thoreau who said joiners are like pigs who come together in a sty to feel warm.

    The challenge of the APC is real. We must not remain a country of the ideologically fluid. Conservatives need to define their views in clear terms even as Awo has helped define the progressive agenda. APC and PDP have conservatives who have liberal tendencies and vice versa. But it does not have to be cut and dry. We have social conservatives who are economic liberals and vice versa. Such diversities vitalise and re-pollinate parties and help them redefine their world views as things change. After all, what we call conservative today used to be the Democrats and Lincoln who freed slaves was a Republican. What we need are not harlots but thinking men and women of ideas. It calls not for rigidity but engagement. Countries, parties and individuals evolve. But they should do so credibly.

    The parties should be less about strange bed fellows but unions on the make. They should winnow the devotees from the opportunists. That is the challenge before our parties. The formation of the APC is an opportunity to revolutionise opposition but also the party system. Oscar Wilde wrote that “the only duty we owe history is to rewrite it.” Here is an opportunity.

     

  • The Nzeogwu mystique

    The Nzeogwu mystique

    Every January we focus on the Army. Nothing has brought this more in focus than the President’s sweep of the top brass. We should swivel back to the man who invented January for the Army and the army for our politics: Major Kaduna Nzeogwu.

    Close to six decades after his act, his story still wraps itself in ambiguity. Some say he was good for our politics. Others say he deflowered the Army by bringing the hallowed institution to the forbidden porch of politics. Some say he brought tribal hubris that eventually led to the civil war and the suspicion that festers today between the Igbo brothers and the rest of us.

    His supporters said he did no such thing. He was as de-tribalised a Nigerian as you can ever be. So, who was Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu?

    In spite of the tomes on the man and testimonies by friends and relatives, the man who shot bullet into the agbada of politics still confounds pundits. Yet, the story of the man epitomises the narrative of our politics and the significance of its armed forces in our lives today.

    When he led the coup, he attracted universal praise across the country. But some say he never led the coup. Some accounts say the leader was Chris Anuforo, and Emma Okocha argues this in his updated book, Blood on the Niger. In his There was a Country, Chinua Achebe narrates that Nzeogwu was offended that Ifeajuna paraded himself as the leader. Yet, in virtually every narrative, Nzeogwu rumbles as the thunder of January 15, 1966. He was not to make the announcement but Major Ademoyega. But he seized the initiative.

    He led mainly Hausa-Fulani soldiers to kill the most iconic Hausa-Fulani in modern history, Sir Ahmadu Bello, the sardauna of Sokoto. Some say the soldiers could not have done otherwise. He was their commander. But they knew the target as the turbaned hero. Others explained that it was because of the ascetic temperament of Nzeogwu. He was more Kaduna than Chukwuma, never spoke Igbo, was fluent in Hausa. He also abhorred the poisons and prisons of character: women, alcohol, tobacco.

    He was a conservative radical. He wanted change but not of the libertine variety. He craved an upright society. He belonged to what you would call the right of politics. But he wanted integrity and we did not have it in government. Our politicians quaffed and baffed and looted the treasury and did not live up to the moral obligation of the vote. His moral fibre bristled against it.

    Some have therefore argued that Nzeogwu was too upright to indulge in petty loyalty to tribe. Yet, we have seen that when the coup unfolded, the killings were lopsided. Hausa-Fulani leaders were killed. Yoruba leader Samuel Akintola was killed. So what happened to the others in the East, and they were left untouched? Even the head of the army, Aguiyi Ironsi, was unhurt.

    Critics fault Nzeogwu. The others did not do their job. But they were Nzeogwu’s men. Another point of view introduces the Awolowo dimension. The coupists, it has been asserted, planned to hand over to the Yoruba sage. We have no definitive evidence, but the story has wafted permanently into the coup lore.

    So after a few days of the coup, and questions flew about its genuine purpose, praise diluted into doubt. And those who saw Nzeogwu and his men as true Nigerians cast them as tribalists. But how do we delineate the Ademoyega inclusion? Was he conned, naïve, or did his ethnicity prove the case that the coup’s intention was patriotic and some bad eggs failed and smeared the goodwill of the rest? Was he a quisling? In his book, Okocha quotes Lateef Jakande as being aware in jail of the higher purpose of the coupists after they struck. That remains vague and the former Lagos State governor will do well to shed light on this. But Awo never associated himself with Nzeogwu and his men till he died. That adds to the Nzeogwu mystique.

    Yet when Biafra was born, he fought on the side of the Igbo. In spite of his pedigree, he never commanded any force and Ojukwu treated him with suspicion. Circumstances of his death remain foggy. Some accounts say he never believed in Biafra and wanted the Nigerians and the Igbo reconciled without bloodshed. Yet he died in Biafran uniform. He was a Midwestern Igbo, and probably suffered the suspicion that other officers from that part of the country laboured under. Isichei, Nwawo, etc never had major commands in Biafra as General Alabi Isama shows in his book, The Tragedy of Victory, which is the best book yet on the civil war. They were not Igbo enough and not Nigerian enough.

    At the bottom of the Nzeogwu mystique is whether he was a good soldier or a good man, and whether the one embattled the other. Is it possible to be both in full or good measure? Charles de Gaulle was much older when he shot to limelight. He was too much of a good man to be the good soldier of the like of Petain and his Vichy collaborators. He was conservative in outlook, Catholic, lacked fluency of speech. But the good man in him preferred the patriot to the quisling even if it meant running away from his fatherland to fight from outside.

    Would a de Gaulle have donned a Biafran fatigue after killing an Hausa-Fulani icon and accused as an ethnic chauvinist? Not likely. Did Nzeogwu play the survival game and waited his time? Probably. We shall never know.

    The concept of a good soldier often comes with historical examples. Josip Broz Tito organised anti-Nazi militia during the Second World War as resistance against the conquest of the Slavs. In the colonial era, Charles Gordon, held on to faith in his Christian God and Pax Britannica, to hold Sudan during colonial times. Though out-manned and outgunned, he preferred to be beheaded by the Mahdi. His case problematises what is good soldier and good man. Ariel Sharon, who just died, had this personal battle. He began as a butcher of Palestinians and died a reformer.

    That is the mystique that surrounds Nzeogwu today. He wanted to save his country, but he died for another. His best friend was Yoruba – Olusegun Obasanjo- but he was accused as a tribalist. He was a loner, but the sins of others have tarred him. He was a conservative who wanted change.

    His life, with all its contradictions, is the history of Nigerian Army even today. While many acknowledge its messianic potential, nobody trusts it for redemption. It seized power to clean the Augean stable, but the officers became carpetbaggers.

  • Uduaghan in the theatre

    Uduaghan in the theatre

    Delta State Governor Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan performed a first last week. He led a team of Nigerian and American doctors to the theatre to perform kidney transplants twice. In the first, a mother donated her kidney to save the son. In the second, the son donated his kidney to save the mother. In this labour of love, a governor-doctor led a team to save two families. With the heavy schedules of governors, he performed what is called a wise daring. He risked everything to perform this act. If it failed, the headline would have been most embarrassing. Hence, he deserves accolades for this act of example, courage and diligence.

     

  • Beyond Tukur’s exit

    Alhaji Bamanga Tukur’s resignation as national chairman of the People’s Democratic Party PDP has seemingly brought to an end, weeks of intrigues over the headship of the party. President Jonathan, while announcing Tukur’s exit said it was to allow peace reign in the party. He admitted Tukur was bowing out as a result of internal crisis in the party; absolved him of any wrong doing and promised to offer him a more challenging appointment.

    Given the armada of contrived opposition against Tukur in the last couple of weeks, the news of his resignation would gladden the hearts of all those who had traced the crisis in the party to his doorsteps. For this category of people, Tuku’s exit will be the soothing balm for calming the nerves of all those who have been alienated by his style of administration. It could also be a signal for the good things to come in the PDP

    Within this category, fall the dissenting PDP governors who had given the sack of Tukur as one of the conditions for peace and normalcy to return to the party. The other is that Jonathan should shelve his speculated presidential ambition for 2015.

    Now a key demand of those governors has been met, should it be taken that the crisis that engulfed the PDP these past months culminating in the defection of five of its governors and many legislators is about to end? How safe is it also to presume that allegations of lack of internal democracy and high-handedness that had hallmarked PDP activities since inception are about to give way? And to what extent can we really hold Tukur responsible for some of these undemocratic tendencies that even predate his tenure especially when he claims he was being haunted because of his commitment to discipline and internal democracy in the party? These are some of the issues to ponder as we evaluate the case brought against Tukur. He seemed to have also touched on this paradox when he made references to re-inventing the party by promoting national interest, party discipline and deemphasizing selfishness and unbridled quest for power. So who are we to believe in this buck-passing: Tukur or his traducers? The way this poser is resolved will chart future direction for the party in resolving the plethora of problems it has had to face these past years.

    President Jonathan appeared to have recognized this dialectics when while stating that Tukur’s exit was to allow peace reign in the party, he praised his leadership and absolved him of any wrongdoing. The question then is: on what basis was all the organized pressure that forced him to throw in the towel prematurely anchored? Or are we to buy the view of Senator Abdul Ningi that Tukur was a sacrificial lamb? Even then, what guarantee is there that the blood of this lamb will be enough to assuage the anger of the gods on whose behalf the sacrifice was made? Who again will carry the can if the ransom is not enough to appease the anger of the gods?

    Will the party be prepared to look elsewhere for some other things that needed to be done to atone for the anger of some other gods?

    This is the contradiction that may eventually play out in the current crisis of the PDP because the failings for which Tukur is being harassed go far beyond his person. He may have had some personal weaknesses just as any other leader. He may not have responded to some events the way other members considered in tandem with team spirit. It is also possible he may have over-dramatized his purported loyalty to the president to the chagrin of the latter’s competitors. But it will be too naïve to conclude that Tukur was alone in most of the major policy decisions he took while in office. That would be reductionism in its extreme form that may prove futile in resolving the party’s nagging predicaments. It is therefore pertinent to locate the real source of the problem else all the noise will amount to shadow chasing.

    Obasanjo made references to the dilemma encapsulated in this when he said in his controversial open letter to Jonathan that he was holding Tukur liable for those failings until the latter told him most of his actions had the blessing of the president. Jonathan may have also inadvertently admitted this when he cleared Tukur of any wrongdoing with a promise of a more challenging appointment. But, Obasanjo was being less than honest when he feigned ignorance of the relationship that had always existed between the president and the party chairman which he disproportionately benefited from. The infractions that agitate him, will pale into insignificance when compared with the unmitigated abuse that office was subjected to during his eight-year tenure.

    If Tukur is being sacrificed just to appease some people, to what extent can such politically expedient compromise guarantee genuine peace and progress within the party? How does it resolve the deeply embedded cravings for arbitrariness, imposition of candidates and undemocratic conduct within the party? How does it resolve the geo-politics of power competition? Even then, some of those shouting on top of their voices against the style of governance of Tukur are worst purveyors of those anti-democratic tendencies. The way candidates emerged in their states during the last national elections and the local government elections speak volumes.

    Beyond these, are other wider issues thrown up by the warped thinking that all the problems of the party centre around Tukur and his exit will automatically bring about their resolution. This writer cannot share in this misplaced optimism. Not with all the facts on the ground to the contrary. Perhaps, the exit of Tukur should be the fulcrum for the wider surgical operation the party now needs to reposition itself for the daunting challenges ahead. Tukur seemed to have captured this very aptly when he spoke of re-inventing the foundations for internal consensus and “installing new national values that are driven less by personal greed and power and more by national interest”. He also took credit for nurturing and delivering an idea on the need for discipline and internal democratic practices within the party.

    Yet, it was on the basis of the same principles that he was ostensibly being haunted by his party men. Those disenchanted with the party, accuse Tukur of high-handedness and arbitrariness. Tukur accuses them of being averse to party discipline and not respecting the workings of internal democracy. Such has been the level of buck-passing. So who is really against instilling discipline and internal democratic practices in the PDP? That is the question the PDP should address if it must come out of the current crisis stronger.

    But we know as a matter of fact that the party is the architect of its own problem. Even those governors that have now become apostles of equity and order in the running of party affairs, have before now, disproportionately benefited from the decadent order that thrived on arbitrariness, imposition of candidates and manipulated elections. It was all okay then because it favoured them. Now they have been cornered by their own internal contradictions, they cry foul.

    At issue is the speculated ambition of Jonathan to run in 2015.

    Given the way the party had carried on, it will be nigh impossible for any opponent to win either these ambitious governors or the president in party primaries they are standing. So there is some hypocrisy in the manner some of those pillorying Tukur go about the matter. But the party has the chance to turn its current predicaments to advantage by nurturing the culture of inclusiveness, discipline and orderly conduct. Then, it could blackmail its defected members for being the real cog in the party’s wheel of progress. Then also, it could begin to lay claims to progressivism. Why not?