The Nation Newspaper

Category: Monday

  • Oguta by-election: matters arising

    Oguta in Imo State has become a metaphor for all that is wrong with our electoral process. More than two years after elections were conducted into state assemblies, it has remained a daunting task for any election to be successfully concluded in that constituency. Last week’s re-run, illustrates most poignantly, the bad example Oguta has become in the nation’s desire to enthrone free and fair polls.

    This sordid record is not entirely new, as the area is home to politicians very notorious for their awesome technology in election rigging and falsification of results. There was a time when election results were written in private homes and hotel rooms even before voting commenced. But all that suffered serious reverses with the insistence by President Jonathan on the principles of one man one vote and general awareness by the electorate for their votes to count. But the behemoths will not let go.

    We have seen how that principle succeeded in demystified prominent politicians in parts of the country as they failed to deliver their wards despite purported claims to huge electoral value.

    The turn of events in Oguta is the predictable outcome of a bad habit that has refused to give way. It is not surprising that the latest election ran into troubled waters; such that it was declared inconclusive by the INEC. According to INEC resident commissioner in Imo State, Prof Celina Okoh, the election was declared inconclusive because the difference in the number of votes between the first and second candidate which stood at 2,011 was lower than the 4,861 registered voters in the remaining eight polling units where election did not hold due to violence. This she said was in keeping with extant regulations in the Electoral Act.

    But this arithmetic is not as simple as it has been presented. A further examination of the ratio of those who voted in the 121 polling units will expose the glaring incongruity in canceling the entire election because of the unavailability of votes from just eight units. Going by the 4,861 registered voters in the eight units under contention, it is estimated that those who registered in the 121 units where elections held will be in the neighborhood of 73,522 voters. Of this figure, only 17,179 actually voted. This represents about 25 per cent of the total number of registered voters. So even if we calculate 25 per cent of the votes in the remaining eight units and add all of it to the figure scored by the PDP candidate in the 121 units, he will still not make it. Even then and going by the pattern of extant results, there is nothing to show that the PDP will win more votes than APGA in the remaining units. The message from this simple calculation is very clear to all. And it is that the people of Oguta have unambiguously demonstrated their preference for the APGA candidate. This must be respected.

    Governor Rochas Okorocha has cried foul blaming the turn of events as part of the grand plan by the PDP controlled government and INEC to rob APGA of its victory. He said APGA won with 9,595 votes as against 7,584 by the PDP in the 121 polling units where election results were collated. The governor also argued that if at all the need arose for any repeat; it should be confined to the eight units where polling did not take place. The last point is unassailable as it draws huge support from the calculations above.

    However, the PDP has equally accused the INEC of collaborating with APGA to rig the election, claiming that its candidate won. It accused APGA of masterminding the irregularities that stalled voting in the eight units. So the game of recrimination continues. From the point of view of both parties, the INEC has issues to resolve concerning its conduct of that election.

    This is about the third time elections into that constituency will turn out unsuccessful since April 2011. Events in Oguta raise serious questions not only on the commitment of the Jonathan administration to free and fair elections but more importantly INEC’s capacity to conduct credible polls. Moreover, reports of late arrival of voting materials in an election involving only a local government, amount to a scandal of unmitigated proportion. And when this is paired with the reported militarization of the local government through massive deployment of soldiers and armoured personnel carriers, it becomes more puzzling why the touted violence could not be contained for the election to proceed unhindered.

    Matters were also not helped by the so-called Abuja politicians comprising elected and appointed officers. They were reported to have stormed Oguta in convoys with their retinue of heavily armed security personnel who added to the tension that characterized the election. Ironically, most of these people had no business in Oguta as they are not even from that local government. Why INEC shut its eyes to the impudence of these politicians and the regulation that no security officer should come to the polling units with arms as was done in previous elections, is one issue that must be thoroughly investigated. Good thing, President Jonathan feels sufficiently concerned by this show of shame that he has tasked the security agencies and INEC to fish out those responsible for the violence. In this task, the first people to arrest are the so-called Abuja politicians, most of them members of the PDP who had no business in Oguta on that day. INEC must summon the courage to bring this category of politicians to book now it is at the receiving end from both parties. Any inquisition that ignores the brazen impunity displayed by these elected federal legislators will be patently meaningless. They are known and their presence and activities in Oguta on that fateful day cannot be denied.

    It has become paramount to check the impunity of these category people who have found it hard to part ways with their decadent and ruinous pasts. The way this singular incident is handled, will send signals as what to expect come 2015. It is either those responsible for this mess are brought to book or we should be prepared for the soaking of the baboons and the dogs in blood as has been forewarned.

    Oguta has become something else. In the April 2011 governorship and state assembly elections, it was the epicentre of popular resistance against high- tech subterfuge by the then government in power to manipulate the outcome of the election. It was a classic test of the will power of the people to take their destiny into their hands. Such was the situation that when the electorate sensed subtle efforts by the electoral umpire in connivance with law enforcement agents to manipulate the election, they rose stoutly and resisted it. Of the 27 local governments in the state, only in that constituency did election not hold due to stiff resistance by the people against attempts to manipulate the distribution of voting materials.

    What we see in Oguta, is the surge of popular resistance against elections that do not reflect the wishes of the people. That is perhaps, what Okorocha meant when he said Oguta has never had elections before now. INEC must rise to that challenge. If it cannot declare the APGA candidate winner because of the issue earlier canvassed, it has no business canceling results from the 121 units where voting successfully held. The right thing is to reschedule voting in the remaining eight units. We have a precedent in the same state to rely on. Canceling the entire results will amount to a plot to procure victory for the PDP through unwholesome means.

  • From revolution with love

    From revolution with love

    Not many Nigerians eyed with enthusiasm the rumbles in Tahrir Square in Egypt last week. Not many are glued to it even now, in spite of the earthquake significance for the Nigerian political earth. It is not a revolution for the young alone. Its rage dissolves hierarchies. About the French revolution, the poet William Wordsworth crooned that “bliss it was that dawn to be alive/ to be young was very heaven.” Wordsworth wrote bliss that did not belong to the French Revolution. Not after the guillotine of paranoia that saw head after head fly out of bodies as hysteric crowds cheered with the glee of hyenas.

    As I write, the revolution has nothing of the neatness of theory, about one order going for the anointing of the new. Revolutions are not sacraments. Often they carry the mournful halo of butcheries. Don’t forget the other ones, including the Russian and Chinese revolutions. They woke up their societies, teased them with dreams of a promised land and, through waves of blood, anger and destruction, returned them to their default pennies and penuries, to their inequities and inequalities.

    That is why this writer is wary of revolutions. The best revolutions are reforms that over long periods become revolutions. So we can talk of the American Revolution not in terms of the result of the war that ousted England, but the country that resulted over 50 years later and became the model for other nations. The non-political ones like the industrial or scientific revolutions did not appear so until late in the day.

    So while many call for revolution Egypt style, I applaud their passion for Nigeria. Speaker of the House of Representatives, Aminu Tambuwal, called for it last week. I love a revolution for Nigeria. But unlike many, I think we wax romantic about this subject. We are not close to a revolution.

    Nigerians are too happy for a revolution. We love our tribes too much for a revolution. We love God too much for a revolution. We love our suffering, as master masochists, so we prefer the pain now to paradise tomorrow. We sniff crude oil every day, and the greatest tragedy is that we love oil too much to contemplate a revolution.

    We have never in our history manifested, in any collective way, a revolutionary ferment. We have only pretended it. We have only romanticised it, like in the June 12 struggles and the charade of a labour standoff we had about a year ago. We lack the spirit of endurance and the sense of sacrifice that embroiled Egypt last week and compelled an elected officer who was president to make an apology of a broadcast after dealing a high hand in the fashion of a pharaoh.

    The point though is not that Nigeria is not ripe for a revolution. We are. The problem is that we are too ripe for a revolution. The translation is that we have passed a situation that could have driven other societies to the streets. But we escaped every chance for a revolution. I think three reasons account for this.

    One, tribe. I try not to use the stylised word ethnicism, because what assails us in Nigeria is tribal. The hate in the air that divides us is savage. It is like the loss of innocence dramatised in the Nobel Prize-winning novel, Lord of the Flies. Hatred is no longer hatred if the other group does not fall and die. I recall the old national anthem, “though tribes and tongues may differ/ in brotherhood we stand.” We sang that anthem before we killed each other in a fratricidal war. We see this now in the Niger Delta, in Plateau State, and in the blood fest of Boko Haram around the North. We see it all the time in election cycles.

    The second is religion. I am a Christian, but I see Pentecostalism and the Islamic fundamentalism as twin villains of the day. We are compelled to see Nigeria as the kingdom of God, and we place emphasis on individual redemption as against collective liberation. This contradicts Bible injunctions, but individual salvation should not counter collective bliss. We should be our brother’s keepers. But the religious leaders key into the capitalist ethos to profit from the misery of the day. The consequence is a lack of insistence on change but in finding individual escape routes. It is always “my God, or my Allah.” As Max Weber wrote, capitalism preys on individual piety. The religions as they are practised endorse the status quo.

    The third is oil. Oil reminds me of a story in Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities. In the centre of a town near Paris before the city quakes under a revolution, a big vat of wine cracks on a rock. It leaks in furious temptation. Everyone scurries to have a share. Those with cups come. Those with buckets come. Ditto those with handkerchiefs. Everyone has their share of the drink. They thrill to this inebriate heaven. Mothers dance with their children. They make circles; and men, women and children rejoice in the liquid spell. But drink comes to an end, the alcohol clears and the whole society regains sobriety. Farmer goes back to farm, mother remembers where she leaves the child, seamstress defaults to her tools, etc. The party is over, and sadly they embrace the repressed reality again. That is what oil means to us. In one way or another, oil defers our engagement with our misery.

    Today we have to face it. Nigerians have not suffered enough. You would think the depredations of Boko Haram would trigger something. Nope. You would think that the stealing of treasuries everywhere would awaken us to integrity. No way. Somebody said recently that the kidnappings indicate our closeness as the poor are sending signals to the rich. But I believe the kidnappers are not thinking about ruffling the rich but want to be rich too. They don’t detest the rich and their corruption. They just want to be like them. That is not revolutionary.

    I think the thieves should steal more. The roads should decay more. The hospitals should be worse than consulting clinics but chambers of death, although they already are. The schools should churn out more illiterates and the bridges should collapse everywhere. Tribal strife should descend to deeper atavistic savagery. The Americans and Europeans should ban us from living in their countries but they won’t. They want our money. We should have a government that gambles all our oil to another country or firm in the West or China. We shall wake up one morning to see that our country is in a shipwreck and all of us are sinking together and there is no one with a God to pray to and a fat bank account to latch on to. We become dependent on our collective salvation.

    Then by our actions, we will begin a meaningful conversation about revolution. Meanwhile, we have a party in which some have wines costing a million naira and others are staggering on paraga, a local brew, or apetesi. Make your choice.

    I despair at this scenario. We are too adept at creating illusory heavens out of hell. So, let us just dream. A dream can be an end in itself. So let us just dream about it, and see Egypt on television.

  • Again on NGF controversy

    It does appear the crisis generated by the disputed election into the chairmanship of the Nigerian Governor’s Forum NGF will for long, dominate public discourse. If some governors are not blaming their colleagues for alleged betrayal, some others are seen talking of collective failure for the pass that has become the outcome of that election. There are also others rooting for an amicable resolution of the matter. Yet, the same election is before the court as Lagos State governor, Babatunde Fashola has challenged his colleague of Plateau State, Jonah Jang for parading himself as the chairman of the forum when Chibuike Amaechi of Rivers state was actually elected by a majority of the votes cast.

    At another level, the presidency which should be working to resolve the impasse is neck deep in fuelling the controversy. At least on two occasions, it has taken actions that have portrayed it as the unseen hand behind the schism in the forum. President Jonathan has not only gone ahead to recognize Jang as the chairman of the forum, he also fixed a dinner for the governors on a date and time the first meeting of the Amaechi group was slated.

    This is so even as Jang and his group have held meetings in their newly rented office without being challenged or have their meeting clash with key events at the presidency. And after one of such meetings, Jang’s faction proceeded for a meeting at the presidency in which Jonathan recognized him as the chairman of the NGF, which he is not.

    The maiden meeting of the NGF called by Amaechi since the crisis came up last week. After notices of the meeting had been circulated, the presidency curiously summoned all the governors to Abuja for what it termed a mid-term dinner for the same day and time. The immediate reading of that meeting was that it was a subtle attempt by the presidency to throw spanners into the NGF meeting so as to promote the claims of Jang to its leadership.

    What had promised a test of power was maturely handled by 15 governors that attended the meeting summoned by Amaechi. Having shown their presence at the Rivers State Governor’s lodge venue of the meeting, the governors resolved to adjourn in deference to the dinner called by Jonathan. But they succeeded in making their point. From there, they proceeded to the venue of the dinner, though after the president had arrived.

    It is equally instructive that there were at least five PDP governors from the north in Amaechi’s meeting. This is very instructive as it goes to show that the so-called consensus within the PDP fold before the election was nothing but a ruse. If anything, the level of attendance has shown that those supporting Jang are being less than honest. The level of response and solidarity with Amaechi despite obvious attempts by the presidency to mess up that meeting is also very revealing.

    It leaves no one with any shred of doubt that those who voted for Amaechi were not ghosts. It also speaks volumes about the purported consensus to have Jang as the NGF chairman. And as the governor of Niger State Babangida Aliyu succinctly put it, though northern governors agreed on Jang’s consensus candidacy, “when the election took place, the conscience of the people prevailed over consensus”. That is the real issue.

    It is therefore puzzling that some governors who really took part in the election that produced Amaechi are latching on to a very questionable consensus when the ballot box has said it all. Having voted, its outcome takes precedence over whatever agreement previously arrived at by any other group. That is the only reasonable way to look at the matter.

    But rather than accept the outcome of the election, some 16 governors who voted for Jang opted to float a parallel forum with Jang as their leader. They rented an office and have been holding their meeting there. If this had come from some other quarters, perhaps we could have excused it. But since it involved chief executives of states, the matter becomes more puzzling. If anything, it casts the integrity of those governors in a very bad light. That is the point Delta state governor Emmanuel Uduaghan made when he said in a radio and television programme that the turn of events at that election has shaken the people’s confidence in them. Hear him “I think we (governors) owe Nigerians apologies for the turn of events at the forum. We have no excuse for what has happened at the forum because the people expect so much from us.” Uduaghan has said it all even though he was one of those who pitched their tent with Jang after he failed to secure the mandate of his colleagues. The lamentations of the Delta State governor mirror vividly the inherent contradictions in the raging disputations over the authentic leader of the governors’ forum. And as he rightly argued, there is no excuse for what happened. There was no excuse for forming a splinter group despite the fact that things did not go the way some highly placed government functionaries wanted them. It is one thing to be dissatisfied with the outcome of that election and a different kettle of fish declare Jang the winner when such a declaration did not tally with the facts on the ground. That is the very grave error those supporting Jang have committed. It would have been neater if those governors had stopped at rejecting the outcome of the election.

    Had it been so, discussions will now focus on how to resolve the areas of difference. Now a loser has claimed he is the authentic leader having rented an office and recognized by the president, the matter has become more complicated and messy.

    It is a mark of this mess that the sitting arrangement at last week’s National Economic Council NEC meeting had to be altered such that none of the disputants was recognized as the chairman. That is part of the monsters we create. But then, the NGF is a voluntary organization. Why it has attracted the kind of heat it is now generating can only be located with the ambit of partisan politics. It all has to do with the politics of 2015.

    Otherwise what is there in that seemingly inconsequential organization that should make the rest of us lose sleep? But politics is involved and Jonathan’s desire for another term is at the centre of it all. Those who support Amaechi both from the opposition and the ruling party are all united by one goal. And it is to ensure that Jonathan does not make it this time around. They could differ in their approaches but their goal is the same.

    But more fundamentally, by attending the meeting summoned by Amaechi, those PDP governors have made a very bold statement. They have said very unambiguously that the simmering schism within the PDP has come to stay. They are saying very boldly that they have a different political agenda that runs at cross purposes with that of Jonathan.

    Viewed within this context, it becomes clearer why the crisis within the NGF will not easily abate. Being irretrievably tied to the politics of power shift, its fate will depend on the direction of the unfolding political competition. Whether Amaechi can appropriately fit into that change agent, is a matter for another day.

  • God’s graffiti

    God’s graffiti

    If you saw the Lagos State Governor, Babatunde Raji Fashola, SAN, in 2007, just before he ascended the throne, you need to see him today. Then he was a sprightly young man. Today, he looks like a sprightly young man, if you don’t look higher than his forehead. If you dare into that higher territory, into the forbidden region of his hair, you encounter age.

    Once your eyes fall on the grey hair, you contemplate the contradiction. The hair belongs to another person, a comparative Methuselah, hoary, wizened, frail, going. Not to a 50-year-old, not to his eyes that light up his face like an audacious candle. Not his tongue that weaves through legalese, that cuts through policy like a wonk, that insists on good roads, on rule of law, on the revamped schools, on the Eko oni baje sing song. Not his feet, sometimes too martial for its lankiness, walking though city projects. Not his smile that belies the grit within.

    With eyes dreamy, tongue razor sharp, his feet martial, the governor of example can live with his one handicap: the disappearing youth of the hair. But wait a minute. What does a disappearing hair tell us? That age has happened prematurely? That the eye however dreamy, mind however agile, tongue however sharp and feet however swift, the hair is a signature that the rest of the body is undergoing the same siege. We on the outside may never know.

    But we only have the spirit to tell us. And the spirit, as we all know, is master of the flesh. And that is why, even if the hair tells us that Governor Fashola, is not the 50-year-old he looks, his works reflect the genius of the 50-year-old we expect. Or shall we say, his works are the grey hair. So when we see the massive infrastructure work he has done, the housing projects, the Trojan work on the rule of law, the work on education, it is the hair that tells us of the toll. The eyes lie, the tongues deceive, the feet walk astray, but the hair, in its luminous boldness, tells us that the man Fashola is the toiling governor we see every day.

    His spirit, bubbly as ever, tells that matter is nothing. He works and he works and the body can tell its own story. The work is his spirit, the exertion, the exercise of the power within. It is like the words of Jimmy Carter in his autobiography when he defines old age as when “despair replaces hope.” So the grey hair may well be the liar here. Not the feet, or skin, imperious eyes or leaping feet. Since he hopes all the time, in works and deed, for a better Lagos, the hair is the loser, not him, not Lagosians, not history. Just the hair. When the hair fails, no despair.

    The Bible says “the grey hair is the crown of glory,” but I doubt if it had the age 50 in mind. But if you see it as the crowning glory of a task, then Governor Fashola should feel blessed. His eyes, dreamy and triumphal, are cast on history. He wants it, even if he is coy about talking legacy, to be glorious and kind.

    Winston Churchill, never one to shy from his stature in life, said in his famous growl, “history will be kind to me for I will write it.” Churchill actually put pen to paper and wrote chapter after chapter about his stewardships and others as well. But it is not what Churchill has written that has placed him in the front rank of all statesmen in history, it was what he did. He rejigged pride in his island nation against the superior behemoth of Hitler’s army. He marshaled arms, diplomacy and the English language.

    Fashola has been writing his legacy, and he still is. All over Lagos today, we see the handwriting in motion, in road work, in the trains undergoing tests to decongest commuting. We see it in his search for a decent society. The restriction of Okada was an instance of courage. Many thought it was heartless. Many thought it was elitist. Many thought it would raze down the city. No one countered the view that it saved lives and advanced the stride to a decent society. Governor Fashola, as Professor Itse Sagay noted, is not always about what we see, but the imponderables. What we see can perish, but what we don’t see will endure: rule of law, decency, education standards, simple values like lack of ostentation in office. Roads decay just as integrity decays. Both are called corruption. But the decay of the latter is more damaging. Hence his emphasis on the latter.

    A leader will not bother about his grey hair when his name is becoming an idea rather than a reference to person. So Fashola has become, not only to ACN, but to other parties an instance of what you can do when given an opportunity to serve. He turned 50 to great eclat not because he turned 50 but because he has turned the benefit of his half a century on earth to an eminent account. So his grey hair should be seen as “God’s graffiti,” apologies to Bill Cosby. If that is the story, then we can go back to the Proverbs assertion that it is the “crowning splendour.”

     

  • Fayemi’s Ikogosi School

    Fayemi’s Ikogosi School

    For two weeks, 50 graduate students gathered at the scenic Ikogosi warm springs to learn. That in itself was counterintuitive for Nigeria. We usually see such resorts as ambience of vanity. But there is room for that. Kayode Fayemi, the governor who knows, made it sublime. He brought bright Nigerian professors from Europe, South Africa and the United States to tutor Nigerian graduate students of Ekiti State origin in a wide variety of subjects. This was a tour de force for graduate schools in the country.

    I learned that there was a huge contrast between what the students learned in the summer school and the daily digests from their local teachers. The students also privately admitted that. This is the tragedy of brain drain, and the summer school is designed to teach them how to keep abreast of the latest in research, thinking, debate and access to the higher reaches of knowledge in contemporary world.

    Graduate school is about rigour, and they got loads of that at the summer school from our local imports. We cannot keep them here, so the summer school is the smartest to eat our cake and have it, to let the professors teach abroad and also teach here.

    If we have this in the most elite of education, we can wonder what we have at the foundational levels. Education in Nigeria is our greatest tragedy today, and unless we tackle the quality of mind of the young in their malleable stage. That is why we must support moves like the summer school.

  • Odimegwu’s fake census data

    A very revealing but stunning scenario played out last week when officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission, (INEC) met with their counterparts of the National Population Commission, (NPC). INEC chairman, Professor Attahiru Jega had asked NPC chairman, Eze Festus Odimegwu to officially release to him some certified data from the commission to aid them in the planned constituency delimitation exercise. But he must have got the shocker of his life, when he was told that, the NPC had no officially certified data for all the localities in the country as some of the enumeration areas do not exist in reality.

    Hear Odimegwu: “The enumeration centers we have, some of them do not exist in reality, some politicians bought them the way you will want to register voters and some people will buy voters’ cards in order to have an advantage”

    According to the NPC chairman, these people bought the enumeration areas and raised the number from about “250 to 500 and if you later count and discover that the population is 10, they will say no, but we gave you 500, you have to raise it to that number we gave you”.

    These disclosures are not only weighty but very revealing and sensitive. They are no doubt, at the root of the high wire controversy that trailed our past attempts at national head count. In the past 30 years or so, all the censuses held in this country were embroiled in intense controversy as the various sections of the country fiercely disputed their outcome. The two last ones held in 1991 and 2006 were no less contentious. But while that of 1991 posted a figure of 88.9 million people with a projected growth rate of 2.9 per cent, the 2006 census came out with a figure of 140 million people.

    Even before the 2006 headcount, intense bickering arose regarding the proposal to include the twin issues of ethnicity and religion in the questionnaires that will form part of the data to be furnished by individuals. The whole idea was to generate the statistics of the various ethnic and religious groups in this country given claims and counter claims regarding their relative strengths. And for a country that is still grappling with debilitating problems of development, the availability of these data will no doubt be of veritable aid for planning purposes. Despite the obvious benefits from these vital statistics, their inclusion was still highly disputed. The North threatened to mobilize its people to work against the exercise should these two indices appear in the questionnaire. There was equally a counter threat from the South-east to boycott the exercise if they were not included.

    And when eventually the NPC did not include them, some groups moved round the South-east campaigning against the headcount. This in part, accounted for the poor posting of that zone to the overall population figure. There was also the issue of state of origin as against that of domicile. It was vigorously canvassed that given the pattern of migration especially to urban centres in search of greener pastures, there was the need to add up indigenes of states counted outside to the total population of their home states. It was argued that in view of the unresolved issue of residency, states needed to have an idea of their entire population to enable them plan properly since their indigenes will ultimately have to rely for services provided by their home states. This was not adopted.

    However, the headcount went on and posted a figure that has at best, remained a matter of disputation. Its outcome did not depart substantially from the pattern that had characterized previous attempts further fuelling feelings that there is more to these figures than ordinarily meets the eyes. The revelations by Odimegwu only confirms the wildly held view that our previous attempts at reliable head count had along been heavily manipulated to gain advantage and cannot be relied upon. The desperation to falsify population figures should not be surprising given the crucial role vital statistics play not only in national planning but in the sharing of our national resources. Apart from its use as one of the indices for revenue sharing, it also constitutes a key factor in determining representation into the national legislature.

    It was in furtherance of this role that the INEC had to approach the NPC for the release of some certified data to aid it in its planned constituency delimitation exercise only to be told that previous population censuses were heavily compromised. Sadly, it is the same manipulated data that has been used to arrive at the subsisting constituencies. It is also the same spurious data that is considered in revenue sharing. We can now better appreciate the fate of sections of this country that have expectedly been short-changed through fake enumeration areas. Ironically, since that very embarrassing disclosure, much attention has not been drawn to that national disgrace such that it may soon be swept under the carpet in the typical Nigerian fashion. But that must not be allowed to happen given the centrality of accurate population data to the good health of any nation. It is good a thing Odimegwu summoned the courage to expose a festering cankerworm that has been at the root of nation’s fictitious census figures. It is also very refreshing that we have now been let into the main source of that fraud. Before now, the major sources of population fraud had largely been in the areas of double counting and counting of people in absentia. It has never been envisaged that politicians bought enumeration areas that never existed in reality and posted results for them. It is a similitude of the writing of election results after elections that have no semblance with the actual number of votes cast at the ballot box. It is fraud of unmitigated proportion that has been allowed to fester for quite some time. Given the way political affairs have been handled in this country, it may not surprise anyone to hazard a guess as to which sections of the country have mostly taken undue advantage of this malfeasance.

    It is thus not sufficient for the NPC chairman to have identified these fraudulent practices. He must proceed beyond these to plug all loopholes that were hitherto exploited by politicians to sabotage the realization of a credible headcount. The heuristic value of his revelations is that we can only rely on existing census figures at a very great risk. He must therefore work very assiduously to give this nation a census that can be relied upon. Thus, the proposed constituency delimitation by the INEC is already encumbered by the very fact that the population data that should aid the exercise cannot be relied upon. Putting it to use in the impending exercise will amount to double jeopardy as it will further perpetuate extant inequities between sections and groups.

    The idea of both commissions working in tandem to produce the digital photography of the country and give us a reliable census by 2016 is most welcome. But the NPC must weed out the bad eggs in its midst that had aided and abetted these high profile fraud. At no time in the life of this country than now is the imperative of a reliable population census more compelling.

    For once, we must ensure that the figures we post bear close semblance with extant facts on the ground. We can no longer afford to manipulate the actual population of this country because of the political advantage higher figures confer on constituent units without subjecting our collective fate to mortal harm. Can Odimegwu do the magic without being frustrated by the powerful forces that sabotaged previous attempts? Only time will tell.

     

  • Our artificial class

    Our artificial class

    Nothing explains the primitive profile of our capitalist system more than the chasm between the rich and poor. This is a cliché, but that is why it is a tragedy. I see this tragedy more in the furtive rise of a new cadre of the young in the society.

    I refer to the children of the very rich among us. They are disconnected from the soul of the society. Or shall I say they are engrafting a new soul on our society. I call it furtive because we see it and we seem not to see it.

    They are those kids who attend the very elite schools in our midst. Those schools, especially those in Lagos and Abuja, cost a fortune per year. Parents spend millions of Naira per ward just to ensure that they enjoy the most rarified and snobbish of classrooms. The classrooms are different. They are five star in quality, in facilities, ambience, in the accents of the English, even in the trajectory of their curriculum. They feed better at school, are chauffeured to and from school, and know no circle of friends except the vortex of snobbery that such an exclusive club offers.

    On graduation, the parents cannot see any secondary school good enough for them except in the United Kingdom or the United States. They spend top dollars. When they are done with high school, the next step is to secure a place for them in some of American or British universities. But these children are still not British, neither are they American. They are Nigerian. They spend their holidays here and circulate within the same circle of friends in the primary school in Ikoyi or Victoria Island.

    But the father, a well-heeled man in the business and political high tower of society, knows that the son or daughter will return home. He has a job waiting, and the job is a tony one, in the banks, telecoms or oil sectors. Others enjoy the privilege of high political apprenticeships.

    When they come they lord it over those who have sweated in the innards of Nigeria. They understand what it means to suffer and to enjoy in Nigeria. They know what it means to be without electricity, to jump on danfo, to hunger, to hope against hope for school fee to be paid by a struggling uncle. If they are female, they understand the alienation of their bodies from their souls as they have to compromise their pride for lucre just to get by. Those who live in Mushin or in the creeks or on the crowded suburbs of the North understand the fears of living in the life of the average Nigerian.

    But the new cadre of the young have no such experience. Yet they are placed in a position to rule over those who know the society. How will they decide what best product the average Nigerian should consume, what are the emergencies in education or in infrastructure or the heres and nows of political agitation?

    While the kids are enjoying the high-profile education in the upscale suburbs and in the Western world, the young here are educating themselves in the crucible of underdevelopment. But the new cadre has now spawned another cadre. These are the ones who go through the normal school system from primary to secondary school and even to the university but think they want to belong. So they eke out the funds to secure a master’s degree abroad.

    Others pursue their first degrees abroad. But they know, too, that they don’t belong there. They belong here. But their parents are not so rich and connected. When they come back, they do not get any jobs. They are alienated from the society they left behind. They are immiserated. They are like the character in one of J.P. Clark’s poems who cannot go forward and cannot go back.

    What created this class dilemma? It is our educational system. The parents do not want their children to suffer the inadequacies of the Nigerian education. But the same elite class impoverished and devastated that education system. Now they have left the education system to rot and decay.

    I have had a chance to interact with some of the products from “abroad” and I find them so synthetic. I also see that they love Nigeria but different from the way a Mushin man loves Nigeria. These synthetic Nigerians live and breathe only in the tony part of the land, and when they travel it is either to Europe, Dubai or the United States. They don’t see Nigeria as a nation to save but a place to exploit. They see it as a place to tap and enjoy because that was how they were raised. Those who rise genuinely can understand the life of privilege from the context of the life of the deprived. Those are better able to handle our anomies.

    When they organise events, they see only the world they know, the world of the privileged. Those who have lived in the United States know this experience, especially in the relations between the whites and blacks. The whites tend not to understand the peculiar sufferings and needs of the blacks, partly because those in power tend not to have experienced it except in the abstract. The whites go to white schools, worship in white churches and shop in the high-end stores. Over a decade ago when Jeff Bush, brother of President George W. Bush, was asked what he would do for the blacks, he said he had no plans for them. It generated firestorms of attacks and recriminations. I recall being asked by a white woman to have dinner with her family in Colorado. She had two sons. She was happy I came because, according to her, her sons who were in their early twenties had never sat before at dinner with a black man.

    But the society is making efforts to address this divide even among the rich like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet. The Supreme Court ruled that affirmative action should factor in admissions into American top universities. The reason was that if the whites and blacks schooled together and lived as roommates, they will understand the society better.

    The best way we can attack this is by reviving our education. Indications show that the fruits are beginning to show, if slowly. The work going on in Lagos State public schools with standards rising is a potential antidote against the toxic trend of the emerging artificial class. The governor of example, Babatunde Raji Fashola, SAN, is doing this with a blend of standards, testing, facilities and training. On the other end, the elimination of the house boy and house girl syndrome in Akwa Ibom State by Governor Godswill Akpabio are good signs. Some will take time to seed and flower like the leveling of classes with the tablet of revolution from Osun State and Ekiti State’s insistence on standards.

    Our rich do not know the value of money other than personal comfort. They think like the privileged that are lampooned in Thorstein Veblen’s masterpiece of social x-ray, The Theory of the Leisure Class. He coined the phrase “conspicuous consumption” to mock the avoidable waste of resources for their egos. It is the attitude of throwing weddings and birthdays in Dubai and Spain that we have also transferred to education. Nothing is worth rescuing at home. We plunder the home front and take refuge abroad. The result is to alienate the many and plant the seed for a potential social unrest. The trend must stop as the bomb ticks.

     

    Red, amber or green?

    I learned recently that Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan has enshrined a new template to monitor to progress of Delta State’s project and commissioners. They are used to know on a quarterly basis who is working and who is behind. If you score red, it means you are not performing, and your job is in danger. If you are amber, you are in a precarious position. If green, you are doing well. This is a simple way to work. I think other governors should follow this or create their own templates. It simplifies governance. It is the traffic light of performance.

  • Borno’s civilian JTF

    Reports that some youths in Borno State floated a vigilante group to hunt suspected Boko Haram members must have come to many with mixed feelings. Operating under the banner “Civilian JTF”, the youths go from street to street and house to house, arresting suspects who they subsequently hand over to the “military JTF”.

    Clutching cutlasses, iron rods and wooden batons, the youths were apparently emboldened by the relative successes by the military since the declaration of state of emergency and disenchantment with the lingering insecurity that has made life unbearable for them.

    They had to take resort to self-help ostensible to complement the efforts of the military.

    Given the intractable dimension the insurgency has assumed especially in that state, the reaction of the youths is quite understandable. With increased military presence forcing insurgents to flee, the youths must have mustered confidence that they can now turn against the insurgents without fear of reprisals as was hitherto the case. In the past, any attempt to expose the insurgents attracted severe repercussions from the marauders who had become law unto themselves. This made it difficult for civilians to volunteer information to the military and emboldened the insurgents to unleash more lethal attacks on their targets.

    The reaction of the youths could therefore pass for a vote of confidence in the activities of the JTF. With increased cooperation from the civilian population, there is hope that the insurgents will soon be smoked out of their hideouts. This should be something to cheer not only for the military that has been battling allegations of human rights violations, but the entire Nigerian citizenry that is equally terrified by these terrorist acts.

    Even then, the self-assigned crusade of the youths is equally laden with potent dangers. There is the risk of abuse. There is also the issue of the genuineness of those purportedly crusading as anti-insurgents. There is nothing to give comfort that the said civilian JTF is not a decoy by fifth columnists to mess up the renewed onslaught on the insurgents. Some other miscreants could equally hijack the exercise to wreak more havoc on the same society they purport to be crusading for. It could also turn out as another avenue for witch-hunting and scores-settling by the sponsors of the insurgency. These fears are real and have to be very carefully monitored.

    Rather than take to the streets clutching dangerous weapons, the youths would be more effective in the areas of information gathering and espionage. They should be encouraged to supply whatever intelligence information they have on suspects to the JTF. They cannot possible be a parallel unstructured army because of the frightening prospects of sliding into lawlessness. We say so because there is the possibility of politicizing the entire exercise with more devastating consequences for the overall health of the campaign. Signals emanating from the political turf indicate a deliberate attempt by the political parties to put the Boko Haram insurgency to partisan advantage. At the moment, there is a deliberate attempt by the political parties to place the blame of the heightened security challenge at the door steps of each other. In a desperate attempt to gain partisan advantage, the parties now, seek ways to label their opponents supporters or sponsors of terrorism. The issue is not helped by the utterances of key political persons since state of emergency was announced in the three states of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa.

    PDP publicity secretary, Olisa Metuh labeled the coalescing opposition as terrorists, sequel to a statement from the Action Congress of Nigeria ACN urging the National Assembly not to approve the declaration of the state of emergency by President Jonathan. Though the ACN later modified its stance urging the National Assembly to take a very dispassionate perspective of the matter, the cat had already been let out of the bag.

    As that was not enough, Mohammed Buhari’s statement that the state of emergency is anti-North equally drew the ire of the government. It has elicited calls for his arrest and the trading of words between him and the president of the Christian Association of Nigeria CAN.

    The Boko Haram challenge is no doubt a very sensitive one. A lot of families have suffered immeasurably both in human and material losses. It is one issue that is laden with the prospects of inflaming tempers not only along sectional but ethnic and religious lines.

    The positions political parties take on the matter are bound to affect their perception by the electorate and ultimately their electoral fortunes. Nothing illustrates this slide to partisanship more poignantly than a statement issued by the publicity secretary of ACN, Lai Mohammed in which the party reacted to insinuations by the PDP and the presidency that are intended to rope in the opposition or the leadership of ACN as sponsors of terrorism.

    In that statement, Mohammed contended that the sponsors of terrorism in Nigeria are either within the PDP or are somehow associated with it. The party drew attention to a publication in the journal of the New York-based World Policy Institute in which some names of Nigerian sponsors of terrorism were published. Mohammed said a perusal of that document shows a former Nigerian Ambassador to Sao Tome and Principe and a serving Nigerian state governor, all members of the PDP as alleged sponsors.

    Before now, we have equally been told by no less a person than the late National Security Adviser; Andrew Owoye Azazi that terrorism took to an all time high after the last presidential primaries of the PDP. The issue was also raised by Niger State governor, Babangida Aliyu when he tasked the committee on amnesty to focus on the sponsorship of the insurgency as a way of getting at the root of the mater.

    The point here is that there is an increasing focus on the sponsors of acts of terrorism in the country. What this indicates is that unless we expose those surreptitiously backing the Boko Haram insurgents, we are only scratching the surface of the matter. This point is unassailable.

    It is in this effort to expose those responsible for the huge resources that sustain the insurgency that the parties want to take political advantage. As we get closer to electioneering campaigns, terrorism, religion and ethnicity will turn out as irreducible decimals that will shape political discourse. We will also begin to see attempts to link some of the candidates to Boko Haram. Issues as the sections of the country and states most prone to terrorism; the parties that control them and the positions of leaders on the matter are bound to be played up. From the current posturing of the PDP and the opposition, sponsorship of terrorism has become a major issue that will be put to advantage when the ban on campaigns is lifted. The way it is handled will determine the success or failure of the coming elections. Time will bear this out.

  • Old man and the sea

    Old man and the sea

    The Peoples Democratic Party wallows in disarray, and the party leaders strut as though it is juice rather than poison. And the major culprit is the chairman of the party, Bamanga Tukur, who is gaining notoriety like other oldies like the ex-military officer Jonah Jang of Plateau State and the peacock without glory from the Niger Delta, E.K. Clark. These men have wizened but are not wise. Age has become an obstacle rather than leapfrog to sagacity. They make old age look like the plague.

    The latest firestorm involves Governor Aliyu Wammako of Sokoto, and how the party leadership under Tukur decided to flush out the man from party “honour” because he played a role of conscience during the recently concluded Governors Forum election. He is accused, like his fellow traveller Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State, of anti-party activity.

    Tukur on the surface has a stellar resume. He was a governor in the Second Republic of the old Gongola State. Prior to that, he was the helmsman of the Nigeria Ports Authority during the infamous Cement Armada scandal where he acquitted himself well when he decongested the ports in the Gowon era. He heads and is a member of many boards both locally and internationally. Without bagging a first degree with the toil and sweat of lucubration, he parades himself as a doctor that he acquired in the now common Nigerian fashion.

    If after all these, he decided to take a bow from public service after clocking the hoary tapestry of 70 years, he would have escaped scrutiny and soared to his maker as a man of immense stature and nobility. But he reminds one of the tragicomic protagonist in the novel Being There by Jerzy Kosinski. It is about a man who knew not much, witnessed not much, attended not much school, spoke little. Suddenly by the accident of history, he was, by wide acclaim, being touted for the presidency of the United States. It is a cautionary tale about the empty grandeur of fame and fortune, and the dizzy deceptions of democracy and capitalism.

    The climb to party leadership has brought Tukur to a pitiful pass. Two developments have led to his demystification. One, the stories of his sons, Auwal and Mahmud. The second is the crisis that has alienated the majority of governors from his own region from the party he shepherds. In the case of his sons, he exposed his lack of grace. When his son, Mahmud, became charged with involvement in a N1.2 billion rip-off of the Petroleum Support Fund Scheme, attentions turned to him. His son, many believed, benefitted from his high connections. On his own, Mahmud could not have enjoyed the high place in the world, and so when Mahmud suffered, the father also suffered. Some say he manipulated his high connection to plume his son and, vicariously, himself with oil fortune.

    This may not be fair, but that is life. But he commented later that he was not involved in his son’s story with the alleged oil subsidy scam. I thought that it was tactless. All he needed to do was stay quiet on the matter. We cannot visit the sins of the son on the father. We may say though that the blessings of the father may have foisted dubious gifts on the son.

    As for his other son, Auwal, the man wants his son to be governor. He wants to visit his blessings of many years ago on his son. He is the party chairman and that provides a conflict of interest. Why should a father want to impose his son and use the instruments of the centre that is at his beck and call to create his own dynastic fiefdom? He charges back by saying his son, Auwal, had been in politics before he ascended the party chair, and the son has a right on his own to do what is right. What is right is not always honourable. His son has a right to run for office whatever the father’s fortune. It is when honour meets right that we attain what poet John Keats goal of truth meeting beauty.

    The father should have played his role without interfering in the affairs or seeming to marshal his high office in the slugfest. We all know that he loathes the incumbent Governor, Murtala Nyaka, another clueless oldie in politics, who wants to create a dynasty by imposing his son Abdul-Aziz. On the surface again, we can say Tukur is right for wanting to challenge Nyako for trying to impose a nepotistic tyranny in the governor sweepstakes. Let the son do it and let us not see traces of your power looming from the centre. That is where again I saw that the man has wizened but is not wise. He is playing dubious messiah as though he wants to save Adamawa State from a tyrant. But he just wants to take it for himself. He is no hero.

    The affairs of his son have unveiled his iniquities like the story of the grand priest of the Bible known as Eli whose sons led him to spiritual limbo. All these acts prepared Tukur for his present malady with the governors.

    He is doing all of these because he needs the backing of the president for his special prize: governorship for his son Mahmud. The president since Obasanjo has always imposed the party candidate from the centre. He expects to play serf to Jonathan for a presidential quid pro quo in Adamawa State government House. That is the opportunism of Tukur and his lack of grace.

    His is an old man who wants to have peace even if it means his party is at sea. We all know the story of Hemingway’s classic where an old man struggles after forlorn attempts to catch a fish. After his success, he spends his last ounce of energy to drag the prey to shore. Much of the fish is gone, but he has honour and dignity – a spiritual satisfaction. The novel Old Man and the Sea has become a testament to literature and the sublimity of the human spirit.

    It is not to Tukur’s credit that he should wreck his party in order to build his own joy. It is cynical politics at best, but it exposes the worst in Nigerian politics. He is using his power in a way that reminds one of 19 the century Prussia before it became Germany and historians described it as an army with a state rather than a state with an army. It may be Tukur’s Hobbesian peace but it is PDP’s and Nigerian nightmare.

  • The new slate

    The new slate

    It was a slate then. It is a slate now. Back in the day, we carried the miniature blackboard and wielded our chalks. We could only write on it. It had no memory, and whatever passed for memory we wiped off with our hands or what we called duster. It contained only what the learner or the teacher put on it at the moment. We call it primitive now. At that time, it was the grand way to learn, a miracle of erudition.

    Today, the story is different. Kids wield the cell phone, and through it borders collapse, time and space intertwine into a blur. The internet, cell phone, iPad, and the dizzy traffic are what Al Gore designated as the information superhighway. We are fulfilling what Daniel said in the Bible, that “men will go to and fro and knowledge shall increase.”

    In that rustic state of Osun, the grand old state of learning is about to get rusty. From its success, others will take a bow, and emulate what is potentially the most audacious move for education since Obafemi Awolowo, with free education, shed light into the brains of his compatriots in the 1950’s.

    The Yoruba call it Opon Imo, and it is translated as the tablet of knowledge. The launching last week was a consummation of about two years of soldiering. I hinted in this column two years ago when the idea was mooted that it was an extraordinary innovation. It was an example in idealism. Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, with his trademark goatee, optimistic eyes and boyish zeal, took on the challenge.

    Over the past two years, I had waited for the moment last week. Often I would ask him, “what’s up with Opon Imo?” but his answers varied.

    At the beginning, his eyes glazed over when he boasted it would be a revolution. After over six months and I saw nothing, I wondered what was going on with it. His answer was more sober, without the glint of the sanguine. His answer, if I can recall properly, gave a hint that the work was on. But he had no enthusiasm to speak further on the subject. He, however, understood my agitation when I said that, for all his vision for the state, the project that impressed me the most was the tablet of revolution. He reassured me it would be done. I could see that he was a little embarrassed that the project did not move at the speed he wanted.

    I decided not to mention the subject for some time, but when the silence appeared to me like capitulation, I raised the issue about late last year. He was more spirited that time. The software was giving some problems but some experts had been hired and they were optimistic that they would get it done. The light had resurrected in his eyes, and his body language resumed to the path of boyish glee.

    That was the way of technology. It is thorny with frustration. Biographers of Thomas Edison, who invented so many modern marvels, tell the story of his constant frustrations, near misses, surrenders, and the stage that playwright Samuel Becket described as to “fail better” than previous failures. The governor referred to this in his speech at the launching. In the end, courage and spirit triumphed over pain.

    The tablet is like the iPad in size but it contains multimedia content, 56 tutorials and e-textbooks covering 17 subjects, over 40,000 practice questions and answers and seven extra-curricular books. It gives the student the ability to learn on the go, and the teacher to track the student’s performance. It is not only an innovation in learning, but also creativity in economics as it saves the state N8.4 billion annually to procure textbooks for its students. It also domesticates learning, tapping from local culture and lore. Solar power plants have been located in the schools to allow them charge the device as counterfoil to power failure.

    This boost will play on the already breakneck rise in the number of enrollments across the state. The tablet cannot be seen in isolation but in the context of a programme that includes feeding of students in schools with protein-rich food, supply of other tools as well as the erection of a model schools all over the state in what is billed to be the biggest budgetary allocation ever to the sector to the tune of N40 billion. It is a programme of light for the future whose fruits the governor may not see until his hoary days. It is an endowment for posterity.

    It is also a paean to technology. It reminds one of the phrase, a brave new world, which was popularised by the novelist, Aldous Huxley, by giving that name to his inventive novel. He borrowed the phrase from Shakespeare’s The Tempest. Other writers like Wells, Leibniz and Voltaire have been fascinated by the concept of technology. Technology helps us tackle the future. The world does not change without it. We remain where we are unless we invent. Alan Kay said the best way to predict the future is to invent it. We have had such things in our past, like the introduction of the television by Awolowo, the opening up of spectrum of mobile communication in the Obasanjo era and the use of software to account for and save revenue by former Governor Bola Tinubu.

    But technology often disrupts, and the word disrupts is always a good thing when scientists use it. When Gutenberg gave us the printing machine, it democratised learning. One of the beneficiaries was the lay man who could not access the Bible. He depended on the priest. But Gutenberg, who democratised learning, touched off the protestant revolution as a consequence. The steamroller, the car, the airplane, radio, etc, changed the world. Great leaders think about inventing. The Egyptian leader Mohammed Ali was so enamoured of change that a historian said that if they suggested to him to build a castle in the air, he would ask them to try it. Only those who dream, dare.

    Opon Imo is a testament to dreaming. Technology has not always done us good. But we need it. “The world is very different now,” intoned, John F. Kennedy, “for man holds the power to abolish all forms of poverty and all forms of life.” But that is only possible when “men have become tools of their own tools,” according Henry Thoreau.

    Opon Imo may hit some hiccups along the way, and I might say it is inevitable. But the destiny is inescapable. All others have to join him and adapt and even improve on it, so we can make education cheap for all across the country. It is time to move from the old form, by revising what we meet on the ground. That is merely mending. And as Huxley himself said, “ending is better than mending.” This is a surefire way to end illiteracy in land.