The Nation Newspaper

Category: Monday

  • When U.S. fact-finding team visited

    When U.S. fact-finding team visited

    It would appear US president, Donald Trump’s threat of unilateral military action against Nigeria for alleged Christian persecution and genocide is gradually giving way to diplomatic engagement. That much could be discerned from meetings between officials of the Nigerian government and the US, hallmarked by last week’s visit of a fact-finding team to Nigeria.

    The evidence is also perceptible in statements emanating from both sides of the discussions. The National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu had taken to his X handle to announce that he hosted a delegation of US congressmen as part of ongoing consultations between both countries. The meeting, according to him, followed earlier talks in Washington DC.

    Ribadu disclosed that discussions centred around counter terrorism cooperation, regional stability and ways to “strengthen the strategic security partnership between Nigeria and the United States”. But the meeting with the Nigerian government team was not the end of the assignment of the US fact-finding team.

    Straight from Abuja, the delegation made for Benue State where discussions were held separately with the governor, Rev. Fr. Hyacinth Alia followed by another with religious and traditional leaders to get their own side of the story. It is not clear whether the visit was arranged by the Nigerian government. But it appears the US team had their itinerary even before they left their country.

     US Congressman, Riley Moore posted in his X handle after one of the meetings: “It was an honour and deeply moving to meet with His Excellency, Bishop Wilfred Anagbe, Bishop Isaac Dogu and His Royal Highness, James Ioruza, the traditional ruler of the Tiv people to discuss the ongoing genocidal campaign by the Fulani in Benue State”.

    Moore said the US will not ignore the suffering reported by local leaders. “The US has heard your cries and we are working diligently towards solution”, he said. The delegation also visited the camps of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) where they heard first-hand, gory details of the killings from victims. Moore shared some of these chilling and heart-rending killing details which he said, will remain with him all his life.

    But he admitted that US concerns were positively received even as he hinted on the establishment of a joint task force between Nigeria and the US to “tackle these critical issues”.

    So, guns-a-blazing may no longer happen in the form threatened. If it will come, that will be through mutual understanding and agreement. That appears the reading from statements by the US delegation and their Nigerian counterparts. But all will depend on how Trump receives the report of the delegation. Going by Moore’s statements during and after the visit, the report is not going to favour Nigeria.

    Beyond this, there are, arising from the visit, issues that should not be allowed to peter out. And they relate to claims and statements that suffused the social space in reaction to Trump’s threat. Of particular concern was the insinuation that self-determination campaigns by the IPOB were responsible for Trump’s action. Those who canvassed this odious view, feign ignorance of the obvious infractions that influenced US action. It served their narrow interests to shift the blame to IPOB knowing the mortal harm it will inflict on the region where their activities are most felt.

    But when the US delegation came, they neither visited the southeast nor IPOB leader, Nnamdi Kanu. They did not visit Governor Charles Soludo of Anambra State to show evidence of Christians killing Christians which many writers have been referencing upon. He could not have shown them the Christians that populate the Ebubeagu security outfit or its variant called Agunaechemba that has been fingered in alleged extrajudicial killings.

    In one of those incidents, construction workers including a man from Isuofia, Soludo’s community were murdered on allegations of being IPOB hitmen. Neither could he have shown the US team evidence of the sins of his kinsmen severally killed in the north during religion-induced riots.

    Yet, he found comfort to say that Christians are killing Christians in the southeast in the circumstance he did. What could be the motive other than rope in the Igbo, majority of whom he admitted are Christians, in the US allegations of Christian persecution and genocide in Nigeria. But who said Christians or adherent of other religions do not commit crimes for it to be an issue?

    The US authorities had their lead and knew precisely where to get instant corroborative evidence-the Middle Belt. So, they wasted no time to arrive Benue State where they conferred with Bishops Anagbe and Dogu among other Christian leaders. They met with the Tor Tiv, Professor James Ayatse.

    Anagbe had twice prior to the US visit, made presentations to the US Congress on the killings in Benue. So, there was no limit to the weight of evidence the delegation could garner from Benue State. That fact is evident from Moore’s posts detailing chilling accounts of the killings through his interaction with victims in the IDP camps.

    Read Also: Akinnadewo urges Christian, Nigerian leaders to deepen humanitarian efforts

    The views of Tor Tiv are also not hidden. He had openly told President Tinubu at a stakeholders’ meeting last June that the killings and displacements in Benue State were a” calculated, well planned, full-scale genocidal invasion and land grabbing campaign” by herder terrorists and bandits and not mere herder-farmer clashes or communal disputes.

    He had then also insisted the violence is a war and a systematic effort at ethnic cleansing while its characterisation as herder-farmer conflict obfuscates its true nature and deeply offends the victims’ realities. He is likely to show evidence of this claim to the US fact-finding team.

    The findings of the US team are likely to puncture claims by Governor Alia in the wake of the controversy that: “in my state Benue, we don’t have any religious, any ethnic, any racial, any national or state genocide”. He had also claimed there is no jihad going on in any part of the country.

    Alia must have been cornered by the dialectics of St. Aquinas’ allegory of two cities – the City of God and the City of Man when he said, “I’m speaking to you as a reverend father in the church. I’m speaking to you as a governor of a state”.

    It is difficult to operate from the two contrasting realms without running into serious contradictions. Ironically, his claims mock the distinction by medieval philosophers between the ecclesiastical and corporeal realms; between the purview of state and religion. It was not for nothing that his Bishops opted to meet separately with the US delegation.

    It is not clear why the US team did not visit Plateau State, another key Middle Belt state faced with the same pattern of killings as Benue. Jonathan Ishaku, a top journalist and author from Plateau State shared frustrations in his Facebook for inability to hand over three of his books to Moore.

     He named them as: The Road to Mogadishu, Janjaweed in the Middle Belt, The Butcher of Kaduna and the Rise of state-backed violence. Their titles speak for the contents and add to extant evidence available to the fact-finding team. Do we still have to worry about how Trump reached his conclusions?

  • The odd couple

    The odd couple

    Never in Nigeria’s political history have we witnessed a father-son duo like Olusegun Obasanjo and Ayo Fayose. It makes a fun tale for a festive season, except that this is not, at bottom, a funny story.

    If we needed a father-son story for the ages, politics and the southwest could never have chosen a better cast. You can call them a dysfunctional family. You can call them the odd couple. But they belong to each other as against each other.

    A quarrel – and a good one – is an important grist for the gist. And if Obasanjo were to pick a son, history gave him a better one than his bloodline could.  In this relationship, there is mutual respect because there is mutual contempt. One sentiment cannot divorce the other. Love and scorn never inhabited a better embrace.

    This is because they have similar traits. They both crave public theatre. Both covet the subversive streak. They disdain decorum or restraint. Both crack the public rib. Both display an earthy temperament, or what some can call bush men. Remember Fayose’s fake neck-brace and Obj’s tearing of party card?

    The one does not respect age, the other does not act his age. Some calls both elders, one being 65 and other allegedly 89. It is mutual fascination. The one could stop by the road side for a bite of roasted corn or plantain. The father could crash a ‘mama put’ for lumps of iyan and swigs of oguro.

    The story is told of how Obj, in the heat of the June 12 debacle, was hosting a meeting at his Ota farm. He wanted to down some pounded yam and egusi, and he wanted to eat it the best way to enjoy it: on the ground. No finesse of dining table, tray, chair, table cloth et al. Some arrivals concerned him and he wanted to be sure there was not yet in his compound any person of the Yoruba aristocracy. Once that was clear, his buttocks hit the ground and he dug in, as his wife would describe him, as a bush man.

    If Fayose was not tempting the bear, why did he want Obj in his birthday lair? It was not as if they had been chummy. At best, they were both affably distant. Public courtesies are no friendship. In fact, they reinforce animosity.

    Did he not get the hint when the man said he would not come free, and why did he send him dollars? Was it to broadcast to the world that he bought Obj’s presence? Maybe that was how Obj saw it, and he exacted a revenge or preempted Fayose’s public swipe at him for accepting his money.

    Was it a bribe? Maybe, but not in the legal sense. It is money of deference. But Obj does not see deference. He sees rebellion. As a soldier, he understands what it means to mutiny. He knows plotlines. Was it not the same Obj who summoned Kabiyesis to their feet?

    Obj also loves ambush. Fayose did not see that coming. So, when the man mounted the stage, it was as if there was a director behind the scene. Husband and wife stood, dressed in entwined glamour to mark the grandeur of a 65th birthday. Was it the day father and son would hug, and the bitterness of the decade would fade away? The father would serenade son, and they both would laugh away the tempest of the past. After that, a languor of reconciliation. Boring. No one lives boring stories.

    Not so fast. Poet Lord Byron wrote, “revenge is sweet, especially to women.” Byron might have known that some men do revenge for career, like Obj. There was a quality of respect for Obj that day from the visage of Fayose and his wife as the elder spewed out profanities on a man’s special day. Omoluabi is the core of being Yoruba. If you don’t have it, your kinship is delegitimised. Obj said he didn’t have it.

    Husband and wife, according to Obj, had taken a rebuke in a private phone call. They therefore did not expect a public show. They underestimated the old fox. The man can do anything anytime, and that is why he is obj. if the drama took place in secret and remained there, it meant he was not the Ota man.

    Stanley Macebuh, in an interview for the Guardian Newspaper, with Onukaba Adinoyi-Ojo, had described Obj as “crafty, very crafty.” Fayose knew that enough of a man who called himself father and threw him out of government house.

    Was it not the same Obj, who showed up General Olutoye? Was it not the same man who did little to win the civil war but took credit for everything, made himself Nigeria’s indispensable warrior, and made sure every other person was a poor soldier. He alone was the good soldier. Was he not the one who would not give Gen. Alani Akinrinade his plaudits, although he was the same fellow who helped negotiate and concluded the war? The same Akinrinade circled the home of S.B Bakare where Obj hid in the firestorm of the Dimka coup. When he became head of state he would not say thank you. He is guilty of what psychologists call the fear of gratitude.

    So, it seems Fayose wanted drama on his birthday, and no one could provide a better thespian script than the Ota man, an archenemy as elder, a boor and a bully. Maybe it was what he bargained for and maybe the former Ekiti governor relished a new fight.

    Read Also: Akinnadewo urges Christian, Nigerian leaders to deepen humanitarian efforts

    After all, he lashed back in a letter to Obj, thanking him for showing that he belonged to a zoo. The other person who used such foul language in public is Nnamdi Kanu. It must have hurt, and so Obj outsped him in making the letter public.

    We had a father and son sort of feud before and this was in the east between the great Zik and Chuba Okadigbo.That was a serious one. There was no humour in that encounter. The young Chuba described Zik’s words as “the ranting of an ant.” Zik never forgave him. Rather he poured out a curse. For those who believe, Zik’s curse was effectual on Okadigbo, who rose later to the eminence of a Senate president before he was orchestrated out of office. By who? Obj. The Ota man is the tortoise in every Nigerian tale.

    But Obj has not uttered a curse. Many may not take him seriously because they believe he is too much of an old rascal for the gods to hear him.

    In his play Tempest, Shakespeare said: “good wombs have born bad sons.” Many fathers have fallen short of their sons. Okadigbo might have thought so of Zik, although there was no intimation of prior father-son tie in them. This essayist confronted Okadigbo a few years after Zik’s curse on him and wondered if it was true he was going to make peace to avert the curse. True to the former senate president, he turned irate and he might have resorted to something fistic if not for the posh milieu of the restaurant in Victoria Island.

    The tragic thing about their feud is that neither Fayose nor Obj fought because of some high principle or ideology. It was just street brawl. I might have recommended a great classic, Fathers and Sons, by Russian writer Ivan Turgenev who engaged fathers and sons across generations who were at odds over whether Russia should be liberal or nihilist. That is why the Obj-Fayose duel is not just about an odd couple, it is an odd story.

  • Lest we forget

    Lest we forget

    In the light of debates over the quelling of the Benin Republic coup attempt, it occurred to me that Nigerians who are 40 years and below did not really experience military rule.

    So, while we can accuse those in the 50’s and above of denial or mischief, it is clear that a majority of Nigerians do not know what it meant to be under the jackboot men.

    Military rule ended in 1999, which means those who were born 26 years ago and now in their late 20’s were babies when the soldiers bullied us. If we add 14 years, it means those who were in their early teens then saw it. At that age, they looked but did not see.

    Read Also: Akinnadewo urges Christian, Nigerian leaders to deepen humanitarian efforts

    Unless you were 18, when General Abdulsalami handed over power, you did not realise what country was crawling under the soldiers, IBB and Abacha. If you are 40 or in your early 40’s, you did not see the banning of newspapers, you did not see jailing of dissenters, the slaughter of innocents.  You did not see the annulment of June 12 and how we fell into disarray, soldiers making laws and becoming laws themselves.

    You did not witness Abacha’s “ five fingers of a leprous hand” as Bola Ige described the five political parties who fell head over heels to make Abacha their presidential candidate. He crafted a mock republic of sycophants and lickspittles dedicated to the cult of one man. Good people were in hiding or on the run and bad one were peacocks on the streets.

    If he did not die, we might have had a life president.

    Men like Soyinka, General Akinrinade, Enahoro and now President Tinubu were wanted men by the junta around the world. Men like Adedibu, Wada Nas and Ebenezer Babatope, who was Awo’s super ally, became footloose sycophants of power. Fear and trembling took over the hearts of usually brave men.

     In fact, as Segun Adeniyi relates in his book, the last 100 Days of Abacha, on the very day Abacha died, Babatope was to be the lead speaker in a seminar on whether Abacha should succeed himself. Guess another man on the panel. Bashir Dalhatu, the chairman of Arewa  Consultative Forum (ACF). Retired army chief Buratai was one of Abacha’s honchos.

    Go figure. As they say in Warri, who no go, no know.

  • A question of empathy

    A question of empathy

    It is thought-provoking that a posthumous birthday celebration triggered questions about murder and government compensation because the death was connected to government-related operations.

    The family of Bamise Ayanwola marked her birthday on November 30, seven months after her killer was sentenced to death.  Her sister, Damilola, was reported saying, “We only have judgment, and for justice to be served, they must at least compensate my family. Bamise was killed inside the government’s own property, and a government worker also did the evil to her.”

     She argued that her parents “deserve compensation after everything they have suffered emotionally.”  They “cried almost every day,” she said, adding, “Two of my elder sisters now battle high blood pressure. I also had to undergo a brain scan after breaking down from stress.”

    “They only promised justice, and we appreciate that. But justice is not complete without compensation,” she said.

     Justice Serifat Sonaike of the Lagos State High Court, Tafawa Balewa Square Annexe, on May 2, sentenced a Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) driver, Andrew Ominikoron, to death by hanging for the murder of 22-year-old Bamise Ayanwola in February 2022. She was a fashion designer found dead “in a naked state” on Carter Bridge, Lagos Island, nine days after she was declared missing after she boarded a BRT vehicle.

    The shocking case of rape and murder gripped public attention from the beginning till the verdict was delivered. Ayanwola was going to Oshodi from Ajah, and was said to have observed that she was the only passenger in the bus and the driver was not picking up other people on the route.  She was suspicious and fearful, and was said to have sent voice notes to her friend, describing her situation. Information she had provided helped in locating the bus and the driver after she was declared missing.

    Justice Sonaike said she “died from severe cerebral injury and blunt force trauma, and his actions and inactions led to her death.” The judge also said there was proof of a rape attempt and “the resultant death must have ensued when she resisted the defendant.” She noted that Ominikoron “admitted he was alone with her in the bus and where her body was dropped and failed to return to the place to help her and ran away to another state without reporting the case.”

    Read Also: Ribadu in talks with U.S. fact-finding Congressional delegation

    The driver, said to be 47 at the time of the incident, was on the run when he was arrested in Ososa, Ogun State.  He said some gunmen had taken Ayanwola away after forcing him to stop around Carter Bridge, Lagos.  “I picked her from Chevron and I picked the other three guys at Agungi; when those guys showed me a gun as I was driving, fear came over me, so whatever they asked me to do, I did,” he narrated after his arrest. He said they ordered him to stop on Carter Bridge, asked him to open the door and “they started dragging her. I saw her crying for help but I was helpless. When the issue happened, I ran away because I was afraid.”

    In addition to the death sentence for Ayanwola’s murder, the court also found him guilty of rape involving one Nneka Maryjane Ozezulu and sentenced him to life imprisonment. The incident happened in November 2021.  He was also found guilty of sexual assault on one Victoria Anoke and sentenced to three years imprisonment. The incident occurred in December 2021.

    Justice Sonaike noted that the rape incidents occurred within three months, describing him as a “serial rapist who took advantage of his position.”  Indeed, she further noted that there might be other rape victims “who for fear or shame failed to come forward and give evidence against the defendant.”

    It is disturbing that the incidents were linked to Ominikoron’s work as a driver of a government-owned bus.  Importantly, his trial raised serious questions about public transportation security.

    Notably, during the trial, Ominikoron had explained that when BRT drivers pick up passengers illegally after their official hours, they usually tell them to sit at the back of the bus so that monitoring officials would not see them in the bus and sanction the drivers. According to him, this practice is called ‘Korokpe.’  This was the context when he picked up Ayanwola on February 26, 2022, around 7pm, near the Conservation Centre, Lekki-Ajah Expressway, Lagos.

    It is commendable that the state government ensured his prosecution. It is significant that the judge described the case as “an eye-opener for everyone.” The authorities were expected to reassure the public by reviewing the driver recruitment process and bus monitoring system to ensure passenger safety at all times.

    On the question of compensation raised by Bamise Ayanwola’s family, the Lagos State Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Gbenga Omotoso, was reported saying the Ministry of Justice would be consulted to determine if the court had ordered compensation.

    His words: “The unfortunate incident was a legal matter handled by the Ministry of Justice. I will need to talk to the Ministry and get information about whether there was a pronouncement for compensation.

    “However, the state ensured that the criminal was brought to book, and he was given the sentence of death.”

    Is the commissioner suggesting that the state government is unwilling to   consider paying compensation based on empathy? Surely, there is a place for empathy in this matter.

    It is noteworthy that rights groups are calling for a standard compensation framework for casualties in such contexts. Where such systemic support is lacking, the affected persons may well need to seek judicial intervention.

    Indeed, there is some merit in the argument that compensation in such cases should not necessarily be court-ordered or come from private charity. However, such reasoning seems reasonable only in the context of empathetic governance.  

    What can be observed from this case is that a government with a human face may lack a human heart.

  • Citizenship; National identity question

    Citizenship; National identity question

    Citizenship and national identity challenges in Nigeria took the centre stage last week, at a national discourse organised by the National Peace Committee in collaboration with the European Union (EU) Delegation to Nigeria and ECOWAS.

    The event which has “Discourse on Nigeria’s National Identity: Revisiting Indigene-Settler Question” as its theme, brought together diplomats, clerics, policymakers and civil society leaders.

    Speaker after speaker took turns at the Abuja summit to warn on the daunting challenges facing citizenship and national identity due to the inability of our leaders to effectively manage diversity.

    Convener of the National Peace Committee and Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Diocese, Matthew Hassan Kukah noted that national identity once occupied a central place in public discourse in 1980’s and 1990’s but regretted that unresolved tensions have turned nation-building into “syllabus of forced errors and crises”. The cleric stressed the “need to elevate the Nigerian identity to a higher pillar of common citizenship around which all other identities can stand”.

    Kukah pointed out that failure to prioritise national identity over sub-national loyalties fuels mistrust, violence, and widening gaps between citizens’ expectations and state performance. “If we do not mend quickly, we shall break ultimately”, he warned.

    Head of the EU Delegation to Nigeria and ECOWAS, Gautier Mignot wants Nigeria to resolve long-standing tensions around identity, citizenship and belonging to build a stable and prosperous future. He identified the imperative of dialogue especially amidst rising insecurity, communal tensions and social fractures.

    “What is at stake is not merely social harmony but the essence of stability itself. Every citizen regardless of ancestry or length of settlement must enjoy the rights to reside, participate and prosper”, he stated, contending that constitutional guarantees must be realised in daily practice.

    Read Also: Ribadu in talks with U.S. fact-finding Congressional delegation

    Mignot further argued that embedding residency rights and federal character principles into governance would help to dismantle discriminatory practices that weaken state legitimacy and impede development.

    Director-General of National Orientation Agency (NOA), Lanre-Isa-Onilu highlighted the agency’s programmes to promote tolerance, peace, and inclusive citizenship while urging every Nigerian to recognise every citizen as a stakeholder beyond ethnicity or place of origin.  Other speakers called for a new constitution to guarantee inclusiveness, participatory governance and residency-based rights.

    The theme of the discourse and timing align with contemporary challenges of our time.  Coming amidst rising insecurity and tensions which weaken citizens’ belief in the capacity of the government to protect them, such discussions reawaken our collective consciousness to all that needed to be done to stabilise the polity and accelerate national development.

    At the centre of it are the inalienable rights of the people to live together with shared vision, common belonging and identity. It entails constructing a Nigerian personality out of the disparate groups that make up the country such that they see themselves first as Nigerians rather than members of their ethnic groups.

    These issues are not necessarily new. But they have become more pronounced because of the inability of administration after administration to manage our diversities despite some measure of constitutional guarantees.

    Even the federal character principle that is geared towards inclusivity has in many cases been applied in its breach. The assault on this pristine clause was so brazen during the last regime with the control of the commanding heights of the military, paramilitary and the highest echelon of bureaucracy in the hands of a section of the country. It fuelled feelings of exclusion, domination and alienation that incubate fission.

    It is inconceivable how citizenship rights and national identity can grow and mature when the managers of our national affairs are neck-deep in promoting tendencies that nurture and promote recline to primordialism. Nigeria has become more divided and more fragmented than ever before since independence.

    Policies meant to guarantee equity, fairness and inclusiveness are brazenly pushed to the back seat for political expediency. Nepotism and cronyism have become the major considerations for appointments into key government positions.

     It is a verity of prebendalism, characterised by Richard Joseph as the capture of political power for the benefit of one’s family and that of his ethnic group that accounts for the bitter competition for political power among the dominant ethnic groups and the inability to evolve a rancour-free framework for power rotation.

    Peter Eke’s theory of two publics has continued to find relevance in Nigeria, 65 years after independence. Competition between the primordial realm and the civic public for the loyalty of the citizens with the former having ascendancy, signposts the failure of a sense of national belonging and identity.

    Ironically, such challenges are usually more pronounced during the foundation stages of modern states. At 65, Nigeria should have long left that stage. But its citizens are still engrossed in the crisis of national identity. And you cannot talk of citizenship when the average individual first regards himself as a member of his ethnic group.

    That is the challenge. And matters are not remedied by cascading insecurity across the country that is pitching groups against others. Unmitigated violence associated with the activities of terrorists, killer herdsmen and bandits have also raised suspicions of domination and extermination.

    These have had deleterious repercussions on the task of imbuing a culture of common identity in all citizens such that they begin to see themselves as Nigerians rather than members of their ethnic groups.

    It is good a thing Kukah and Mignot took time to identify policy measures to promote citizenship rights and grow national belonging and identity. Sadly, the sentiments raised by the discussants as ennobling as they are, may not go beyond the four walls of the conference room. Why? Exclusion profits some people and those who benefit from it are unlikely to let go.

    Exclusion has continued to define our politics as evident in the bitter competition by the ethnic groups to take a shot at the presidency. There is the increasing belief that the surest way an ethnic group can get the best from the national affairs is by having one of theirs ascend the presidency of the country. Even those that claim to be patriots or moderates have been found floundering on this issue.

    They may pretend to be patriots, nationalists because of the positions they held in the past, but the reality is that they easily succumb to the ethnic card. The reality today is that ethnicity has become a major commodity packaged and marketed by the elite. But all hope is not lost.

    It requires a leader with vision, one with uncommon political will to steer the ship of this country to the right direction; a leader with genuine committed to the progress and development of the country to put things right. Certainly, he will be cheered by a populace hungry for a break with the decadent past. Kukah’s warning that we either mend or break should be instructive enough.

  • The miracle of Nnamdi Kanu

    The miracle of Nnamdi Kanu

    I have had some time to ponder the staying power of Nnamdi Kanu, whom I had at several moments described as an ethnic entrepreneur. I stopped calling him that long ago because he has transfigured into something higher: a genius.

    I do not mean, by this assertion, that the jailbird in Sokoto is now a sublime act. But he is a beautiful subject of study.

    What intrigues me is that he belongs to a group that swears and acts with blood and death. If his followers are just the street gang, the rough-hewn ragamuffins and the men with blood in their eyes, he would not inspire this essay.

    But what concerns me is that he has the sympathy, I dare say, the following of some of the polished and intelligent citizens of the east. After all, when the authorities threw him to the edge of the northwest, the first major guest is a man of culture and commerce, and a man of democracy, a man of Nigerian confession. Alex Otti, the governor of Abia State , where Kanu hails from, paid him a call.

    Even if Otti does not legitimate Kanu’s subversion, he is negotiating with it. He would not have visited if he did not carry with him the nod of his class in the east. By his class, I mean the Igbo intelligentsia, business, cultural and political elite. He walked into that jailhouse with the halo of the Igbo pride. He shook Kanu’s hands with the soul of his people.

    Yet, when you ask the most peace-loving of the Igbos, they would say they abhor the acts of the IPOB group. And they say it with all sincerity. The Monday paralysis in the east punctures the chief business of the Igbo people, which is business. So, none of them would like what his group is doing.

    Yet, before the day of verdict, some lawmakers from the east wanted to preempt Justice Omotosho’s judgment by asking for his release, and some form of out-of-court settlement.

    What all this means is that, from top to bottom with some exceptions, the Igbo head may not always be with Kanu. But their heart is with him.

    Read Also: ‘How Nigeria helped foil military coup in Benin Republic’

    This was the fellow that said openly that Lagos should be burned down. He called Nigeria a zoo. He tried to deligitimise the governors in the Southeast. He opened a war room during EndSars where he was directing his foot soldiers to burn and destroy. He impugned Peter Obi, the beloved of the Obidients, by railing at his sexuality. Ironically, his followers form the core of Obi’s followers.

    In spite of the visits and negotiations of the top men in the east, Kanu has not shifted one ground. He is not ready to foreswear Biafra. He is not ready to accept Nigeria. Has anyone asked how he has gathered senior advocates to defend him in court. Are they doing it for free? Of course not. SANs do not accept pittance to appear in court. Without pretty penny, there is no appearance.

    Who is funding them? Street gangs cannot afford a SAN. No one has come out to tell us who the sponsors may be. If the lawyers are doing it for free, does that not add to Kanu’s mystique? He was not even a nice man to his lawyers. He openly insulted them, and he even threatened to fire them. Eventually, he did. Kanu has no resources for a court trial.

    Why, then, would the Igbo elite sympathise with him? It is because the sentiment of Biafra is alive and well. It is not a goal in most of their hearts. It is a treasure. It has moved from a lived reality in the 1960’s when the war was fought with bloodshed and destructions and miscalculations and blunders that led to its collapse.

    The elite who even fought in the war would tell you it was not a pleasant experience and they would not want to go through it again. When I was researching my novel, My Name is Okoro, I gathered this much from those who passed through its crucible.

    But man is a creature of sentiment, not reason, said Oscar Wilde. Biafra still lives in the hearts of many Igbos, whether a professor or a roadside mechanic. Kanu has shown for them a courage that is pristine. He is their diamond in the rough. They can live with the rough, so long as it cherishes the diamond inside. In fact, the rough is a protector layer for the lustre within.

    On the surface you would think that what Biafrans should fight for is justice. Justice may mean, even within today’s system, a fair shake in the polity. That would mean an Igbo president, good roads, better schools and education, peace and prosperity. In the days of Jonathan, the Igbo elite appropriated the Ijaw as Azikiwe, and Jonathan saw his opportunity to vouchsafed them his Ijaw heart. But all they wanted and got were positions as ministers and director generals and contracts.

    When Buhari came and gave them the best infrastructure ever under Babatunde Raji Fashola (SAN), the story gained traction that it was Jonathan’s legacy. Thanks but no thanks. If Kanu recants his position today and renounces his Biafran stance, majority of Igbos will be disappointed.

    You can call him a ruffian, an anarchist, a hopeless irridentist, to most Igbo the man is a treasure. He may be stronger than an ideologue. Ideologues have a set of ideas about society and future. He has none. He is more of a utopian, like the spirit of a millenarian. That utopia is Biafra. Utopias are dreams, like soap bubbles. But they are delicate fantasies for which bloodsheds are deemed necessary. Although Machiavelli says ideologies covet violence, Kanu knows ideology limits him. He would rather gulp something that is at once simple and elusive. He has grown into a sort of charisma, like the fellow in Nobel prize novel The Books of Jacob by Olga Tokarczuk.

    In that sense, Kanu is not an ideologue of justice. He is a miracle. Dostoyevsky wrote about the three features that entrap a people: mystery, authority and miracle. Kanu has embodied all of them by insisting on the purity of the Biafran idea, and that in itself is worth all the bloodshed, all the fear and trembling on the streets in the southeast. It forgives his foul rhetoric. His admirers would not want the poverty he is causing in the east, but they would not want to compromise him or want him compromised. In a sense, being in jail is Kanu’s ultimate sacrifice for his people. He will not shift his ground, and the courts would not shift for him.

    They will not want him to go the way of Ojukwu, who had to leave Ivory Coast and sup with his conquerors in the National Party of Nigeria, the same people who saw Ojukwu humiliated a second time when he lost his Senate bid. Ojukwu lost his purity. They do not want that for the new Ojukwu. This Ojukwu bears no sword, commands no brigade, but holds something more potent: an idea. A sentiment.

    If the Igbo love their business, they love Biafra more. Before business is the Igbo soul, and Kanu encases it even when he is a boor. Man shall not live by bread alone. As I stated, men never go to war for bread. There is no bread martyr in history.  That is why I say Kanu, for them, is a miracle. The intelligentsia would not want to come out to condemn his acts. The sentiment is too strong. They remind one of the scene in Chigozie Obioma’s novel, The Road to the Country. As the war ends, some federal soldiers coerce some Igbos to shout One Nigeria, but an old woman, once the soldiers are out of earshot, yells “hail Biafra.” In Chimamanda Adichie’s  Half of a Yellow Sun, when the people are fleeing towns and villages, a woman insists she is not going to leave her home. Her home is inviolate, even on pain of death. That is what Kanu symbolises.

     Those who say they can negotiate with Kanu are in a dance. The Sokoto jailbird is the choreographer, and the choir as well as the audience want the tune to continue. They can finetune it, but not to stop it. the choreographer is a genius

    It creates a dilemma for them. They want peace, but they love, at least admire, Kanu, even if they cannot say it in public. Discussing it is like touching a sacred grove. The Igbos, from top to bottom, love Nigeria so much that they would not want to leave. Hence, when Ojukwu declared Biafra, he was not satisfied until he conquered all of Nigeria, and headed to Lagos. Hence when he died, I called him Omo Eko on this page. I told a journalist the other day that if Biafra is declared today, the next day Igbos will line up for Nigerian visa. She replied it was true and they like it that way. Biafra is a like a virgin. She must not wed.

  • Security emergency

    Security emergency

    Before President Bola Tinubu’s announcement of nationwide security emergency, this column was putting together an article titled, “Gumi: A budget for bandits”. 

    The title had to be stepped down to accommodate the far-reaching measures in the president’s statement meant to address the contradictions thrown up by Gumi’s advocacy on how to handle the insurgency of the bandits. Even then, some of those nagging issues still reared up their ugly heads in the negotiations heralding the safe release of abductees from Eruku in Kwara State and the 24 school girls in Kebbi State.

    Securing the freedom of the abductees unharmed came as a huge relief given the deadly and violent manner they were ferried out by the bandits. But the account of the negotiations by the security agencies which left gaps as to the fate of the terrorists/kidnappers created some puzzles. It fuelled speculations as to whether the authorities had succumbed to Gumi’s advocacy even as the government said no ransom was paid.

    What did Gumi really say? The fiery Islamic scholar who has not hidden his uncommon expertise on what constitutes bandits’ grouses had in a viral video in the wake of the threat by the United States of America (USA) to attack terrorists in Nigeria, vehemently warned against military action.

    “Attacking the bandits will be a mistake. The cause of this chaos is because they are not included in the budget. So, USA attacking them will cause more chaos in the country. The best solution is to negotiate with them and they should be included in the budget. Give them what they want for peace to reign”, Gumi sternly warned.

    That was the setting in which the abductees from Kwara and Kebbi were released through negotiations with the bandits which the presidency said were to ensure the safety of the victims. The government defended the approach on the ground that bandits use the victims as shield and it would have inflicted collateral damage had the kinetic option been called into action.

    But the government did not leave anyone in doubt that it had the capacity to neutralise the bandits after credible intelligence revealed their location. That could as well be though the previous regime had argued along the same lines. Ironically, the terrorists have not relented in their devious enterprise.

    Curiously, the position of the presidency shares some traits with the warning and recommendations by Gumi on how to go about the matter. Bandits were not attacked. And there were negotiations with them. What we are yet to be told is whether any concession was made by the government before the bandits acceded to release their victims. Did Gumi’s warning play any role in the negotiations? If yes, what implication does it hold for the authority and legitimacy of the government?

    There is everything wrong with this advocacy even as the grouse of the bandits has, at best, remained opaque.

    For one, it goes with the unmistakable impression that the bandits have morphed into an alternative government and can in verity square up to any threats from the government. That should be a serious challenge to the authority and legitimacy of the government. And for another, including bandits in the budget would amount to recognising them as a sub-national unit. So, in preparing the national budget, allocations will be made for the bandits. That sounds strange indeed.

    Perhaps, the question Gumi needs to answer is the activity the budget will be deployed to? And in what domain – a bandits’ republic?

    In this column in 2021, I wrote an article titled: “A bandits’ republic”. The thesis of that presentation was anchored on the dialectics and inherent dangers in allowing the bandits to operate as if they were a government in a government. Attention was drawn to the foreboding prospects of emboldening the bandits through policies that allow them dictate the terms of engagement

    Events are quickly pointing to that direction. Or how else do we explain the demand from Gumi that bandits should be included in the budget and be given whatever they want for peace to reign? What manner of peace can there be in the atavism of the state of nature? In saner climes, Gumi should have been interrogated to say all he knows about a budget for bandits and the purpose it will be applied to. And within what domain?

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    This is not the first time Gumi is entering advocacy for the bandits. Before now, he had called for amnesty for them. He is also known to have asked that bandits be treated the same way the Niger Delta issue was handled. But none of these is as offensive as the demand that bandits should not be attacked, should be included in the budget and given whatever they demand. Where on earth is that done?

    This advocacy is at the centre of scepticisms on the nature of negotiations leading to the release of the Kwara and Kebbi abductees. Those who pick holes with the idea of treating terrorism with kid gloves are on point. It emboldens them to the point of threatening the authority of the state.

    This danger is brought closer home by the kidnapping of 11 people in Isapa in the Ekiti Local Government Area of Kwara State shortly after the release of those kidnapped from the CAC church premises. Isapa’s closeness to Eruku says it all. There have also been other kidnappings since the release of the two sets earlier kidnapped. So, at what point will the negotiations stop and the kinetic option called into quick action?

    That underscores the weaknesses and futility of any policy that seeks to reward criminality. In Afghanistan, concessions to the Taliban including prisoner-swap allowed them to re-group. They eventually succeeded in overthrowing the entire government and restored their own rule. And in Mali, deals entered into with the bandit/jihadist groups allowed them to spread violence to neighbouring countries.

    Back home, the so-called de-radicalisation and rehabilitation of Boko Haram insurgents allowed the group to transmute into five splinter groups. It is not hidden that much of the reverses suffered by Nigerian troops in the fight against Boko Haram were as a result of insider sabotage. So, we have our own experience to draw from.

    The situation calls for urgent and decisive responses from the government to restore order and protect the dignity of citizens seriously assailed by unabating terrorism. That is where the president’s directive for the recruitment of additional hands into the military, police and allied security agencies to root out terrorism comes in handy. His order to security agencies to deploy into the forests and smoke out undesirable elements taking refuge there to levy mayhem on citizens is the way to go. There is no doubt that strong government presence in notorious forests and a rapid implementation of the policy on ranching will rid the forests of all undesirable elements. But the president must muster the political will to confront the sponsors and enablers of terrorism in high places. That will give real meaning to the demands of national security emergency.

  • The maidens of Maga

    The maidens of Maga

    Let us not spin the story of Maga the way we did the others. What others? Chibok and Dapchi. But why not? The names of the towns or villages may not sound exactly the same, but each leaves the tongue with two syllables. And they were all about girls. They were about night raids, guns and bandits.

    It was defiance, if not skullduggery. It was outlawry, if boys of slaughter. It was failure of security, if not the matter of AWOL. It had all the stains and iniquities of rape, even when they returned whole. Only in Maga did they return whole.

    What is whole? A nubile is no more pure when a man or boy, in the language of holy books, knows her. To know, in this context, is to hurt, bruise and sigh without her permission. That also means “to defile.”

    Now, some may think the girls came whole, and undefiled, because we heard no tales of rape. We did not hear that about Maga in Kebbi State when the bandits stormed the Government Girls Secondary School. We saw the girls return, speaking, sometimes with glee, and say “amin” to a male prayer. They seemed intact, swathed in hijab and even donning smiles, each taking her number in the count.

    Not so with Chibok, after the night raid. Years later, they returned in trickles. Those who were girls became women in their youths, became wives and mothers. Single mothers. Abandoned wives. Comfort to the barbaric passions of distorted souls.

     They became echoes of their past elegancies. They were, in one word, raped into maturity. Families rejected some of them, having regarded them as dead and buried. They were ghost from the past.

    From Dapchi, it was the same story with 110 young bloods. The poster image is that of Leah Sharibu, who reportedly would not renounce her faith. The politicians ululated, soldiers’ boots pounded forests, media cried, poets sang, yours truly devoted a volume of poems to her. She was alive, she was dead, she was alive again. She became no more Sharibu.

     She inhabited everyone’s imagination. She was everyone’s daughter, sister, student, neighbour, each with their vision of the demoiselle. She also became a convenient foil to forget the other 109, as though a tear from Sharibu was a tear for a hundred. It soothed the conscience.

    But to rape is not always to take a girl’s pride by direct sex. Western law has expanded the meaning in the definition of sexual harassment, including the portent of a smile. Geofrey Chaucer wrote tales of the vulnerability of the girl child, especially the Knight’s Tale with the themes of honour and fidelity with the maiden Dorigen. So, what happened to the maidens of Maga?

    We may say they returned maidens. That may be true up to a point. The girls were in their hostels at night. They were asleep. Intelligence had it that the goons were going to strike. The governor, Nasir Idris, knew, and he notified the army and asked for protection. In earnest, soldiers were deployed in the school.

    The students may have seen the uniform and guns and jackboots on campus. Hard enough to lull them to sleep.

     In hostels, students sleep early. By midnight, the hostel air might have succumbed to a choir of snores. By 1 am, the soldiers had a new song. They were asked to vacate the place. Why? No one is telling us.

    Reports say it was a soldier, a sergeant, who led them there and he was the fellow who asked them to leave. Forty-five minutes later, the demons blazed into the school. It was a thoroughfare. If a snore party, a new party had arrived, a party of ruffians, daredevil mission as their identity. They had barks for melody and guns for percussions.

    All 25 of them were whisked away, but one escaped. Imagine fear in their hearts. The rough handling. The bullying words, the shoving, the sight of guns. For the few days, it was the foreboding. Did they eat? Could they eat? They had diets they did not ask for. They had bath? Who supervised it if they had? If they didn’t, was it because they did not want to strip in the ambience of their abductors? Did any one see them the way God made them? Did any suffer menstrual miscue? How did they survive it? What kind of water, if at all. If they drank, what kind of water, what taste, what colour, what smell? Where did they sleep? Or could they? Compare that to the familiar beds in daddy’s home or the hostel where they were possibly dreaming. If this was not rape, then the word does not mean violation. It was a rupture of their familiar sense of peace, or even routine. What Alexander Pope ribbed in his mock-heroic poem, The Rape of the Lock.

    Had they ever been to a forest? Had they ever seen a gun up close? Had they been around boys of rapine who spoke without courtesies and who acted without finesse?

    The foreboding was worse. Imagine what they were imagining. Would they be taken to wife? What is the life of wifehood with hooded men?  Where is daddy, where is mummy? Where is my home? Where is governor? Why did the soldiers leave us? We saw them before we slept. In novelist George Lamming’s words, “something startles where I thought I was safest.” What will they think of the male species? May they not follow Alexander Pope’s line: “Beware of all/but most beware of man.”Our Maga girls in hijab may need rehab.

    In their young souls, their bodies were their cathedral, and so their yearnings. What they experienced was murder in their cathedrals, apologies to T.S. Eliot. In that play, very part of the building was sacrosanct except what happened inside. An ethereal collapse.

    That is why we must ask, why did the soldiers leave? Why did they abandon young girls half an hour or 45 minutes to the coming of their jackals? They left them in the lion’s den. If the reason is that they were not well-armed as some speculations say, why did they not call for reinforcement? They cannot say they are not aware of the sort of weaponry these boys wield in the forests, the Ak 47, Ak 49 et al.

    So, they should have armed the soldiers enough to eliminate them.  If they could deploy the armoury needed before the time, why did they not take them along and empty the school ahead of the invasion. Retreat is part of military activity. Even during conventional wars, soldiers have been known to evacuate territories ahead of enemy onslaughts. We saw that in Europe during the Second World War. It is no cowardice. Retreat is not surrender. So, were the deployment and military evacuation a charade? Was it just a show? They appeared to disappear, like Black Dog in Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson’s novel of buccaneers.

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    It was therefore callous for them to be left to the justice of bandits. Who was that soldier who gave the order for them to leave? If it was a sergeant, we are not hearing the full story. A sergeant does not have an authority for such an order unless in defiance of higher authority. If it is a higher authority, then we must put in context the cry of Governor Idris that some people are working against the government.

    The word is sabotage. We learn that the sergeant was summoned to Abuja, and it is supposed to give us hope that the truth will come to light. But what is even more potent is the suspicion that some people high up in politics and military are in on it, and they tolerate it. They even bask in the miseries of the north.

    The tragedy is that they are northerners, whether in the army or in the establishment. Who are the parasites? Who are the failed men who should preserve our schools, our girls. Rather they have spawned an economy of blood, where the weak, including maidens, are the wares of transaction.

    The head of the Arewa Consultative Forum, Bashir Dalhatu, wants to compare the bandits to the Niger Delta militants. So, he wants us to show them a hand of friendship. Dalhatu did not speak from a heart of peace. He may want to be friends with the goons, but he does not want to be friends with Nigerians. The Niger Delta militants did not abduct girls or raid villages to evacuate citizens, burn homes, rape girls, behead men. If we want to change them, they must bow. We cannot allow men like Dalhatu to lead a respected body like ACF. He is a politician. ACF should rid itself of partisan mongrels.

    We cannot solve the violence by coddling forest tyrants. I believe, with political will and cooperation of northern elite, we can flush out these vermin in our blood in six months. It is a choice and not a difficult one. Bello Turji and Dogo Gide are human beings. The bandits are not spirits. We only need to be spirited.

  • Trying times

    Trying times

    What could be the motive behind the rising insecurity in the country? This question appears to have gained traction with Nigeria’s designation as a Country of Particular Concern (CPC) by the United States of America (US) for alleged Christian persecution and genocide.

    Since then, events have occurred in several fronts in quick succession to inject complications into the country’s insecurity matrix. Curiously, these are taking place at a time the authorities have been striving to correct the narrative of Christian persecution and genocide.

    The issues may not all have to do with Christians. But they revolve around terrorism, the malfeasance on which the allegation of persecution and genocide by the US was predicated. There was a re-enactment of the Chibok school girls’ saga of 2014 when a couple of days ago, 25 girls from Government Girls Comprehensive Secondary School in Maga town, Kebbi State were abducted by terrorists.

    The bandits invaded the school at midnight, killed the vice principal in the presence of his family before absconding with the poor school girls.

    As the country was brooding over the incident, another set of terrorists again abducted students at St Mary’s Catholic School Papiri, in Agwara Local Government Area of Niger State. The number of abductees was yet to be released as at the time this article was being put together.

    Terrorists unleashed mayhem inside Christ Apostolic Church (CAC) in Eruku, Kwara State killing three worshippers, abducting several others including the pastor.  A video footage of the incident showed worshippers including an elderly woman who could hardly walk scampering for safety inside the church.

    And in Kano, bandits abducted five nursing mothers in the Faruruwa community of the Shanono Local Government Area.

    Catholic clerics and community groups in Southern Taraba also raised an alarm over what they described as coordinated attacks by armed herdsmen leading to widespread killings and displacements. Director of Social Communications, Catholic Diocese of Wukari, Rev, Fr. John Laikei said dozens have been killed and several communities abandoned as the attackers continue to occupy farmlands.

    Within the same timeframe, Islamic State of West Africa (ISWAP) ambushed Nigerian military along the Damboa-Biu axis in Borno State, killed and abducted some soldiers. In the ensuing confrontation, the terrorists captured and killed the brigade commander, Brigadier-General Musa Uba after a failed attempt by his colleagues to rescue him from where he managed to escape.

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    Not unexpectedly, the upsurge in terrorism has raised speculations regarding the motive. Could it be a mere coincidence or choreographed to give the dog a bad name so as to hang it?

    Before the recent escalation, some commentators had linked the upsurge in violent killings to the 2027 general elections. Parallels were quickly drawn between the renewed attacks and the escalation of terrorism before the 2015 elections-a period hallmarked by serial abduction of school children. Could it be a case of self-fulfilling prophesy or deliberate attempt by politicians to instigate violence for some foggy selfish interests?

    New ideas seem to be creeping into these puzzles especially with the US designation of the country as CPC and threat of military action against terrorists. Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) George Akume toed this line when he sought to link the upsurge in violent attacks by extremists to the US action.

     The SGF had said profiling the crisis in Nigeria “as genocide against Christians fuels religious tension, emboldens extremists and criminal factions seeking to exploit sectarian narratives, undermines Nigeria’s longstanding efforts to build constructive internal security and partnership”. Can this angle be reasonably sustained?

    There is nothing that has happened in the insecurity dynamics of the country since the US action that is new to us, except the capturing and killing of a general by ISWAP. Acts of terrorism and killings witnessed in the last couple of weeks followed the same pattern as the previous ones. School children had been serially abducted in larger numbers in Chibok, Jangebe and even in some higher institutions around the states most prone to the attacks. Neither is the attack at CAC Church, in Kwara State the first of its type.

    Perhaps, Akume’s claims may find some support in the call by the factional chairman of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP), Kabiru Turaki on President Trump to intervene and save Nigeria’s democracy.

    Apparently piqued by the fracas at the national secretariat of the PDP, Turaki accused Federal Capital Territory Minister, Nyesom Wike of leading thugs in connivance with the police to create the mayhem. “So, we are now calling on the international community. I want to call on President Trump. What is at stake is not just genocide against Christians. He should come and save democracy in Nigeria. Democracy is under threat” Turaki cried out loudly.

    By extrapolation, Turaki tacitly admitted claims of genocide against Christians in Nigeria as well as serious threat to democracy. Had the US not designated Nigeria as CPC on account of alleged religious persecution with a threat of military action, Turaki may not have found a handle to call for Trump’s intervention.

    In a sense, it could be argued that Turaki’s call may have been emboldened by US position on the crisis in Nigeria. If the US could intervene to degrade terrorism and protect Christians, it could as well protect Nigeria’s democracy when it is under threat, the argument further goes.

    Yet, the issues that led Turaki to that desperate call are quite different from those Akume said are bound to worsen due to US characterisation of Nigeria’s crisis as genocide against Christians. But who is to blame? Definitely not the US government. Acts of terrorism have in the past decade or so tilted the country to the precipice. They had nothing to do with US characterisation of the Nigerian crisis.

    The brand of politics at play in this country is at issue. The earlier we come to terms with that reality the better for all. Before now, copious attention had been drawn to the increasing slide to one-party state.

    But the trend continued even as the government at the centre rationalises it on the lure of its policies. Almost all the major political parties are entangled in one crisis or the other. The PDP which is the major opposition party is a ghost of its former self as virtually most of its governors have decamped to the ruling party.

    Yet, a serving minister remains a leading figure in the crisis rocking the PDP. Wike cannot be the new face of PDP in his current official position. He cannot represent credible opposition. His activities in the PDP do not help the image of the government he serves. That is why Turaki spoke in a manner that sounded unpatriotic. He did so out of frustration.

    Trump spoke the way he did because we could not find a handle to the suffocating terrorism. Turaki spoke unpatriotically because of the seeming emasculation of credible opposition – the lynchpin on which the wheels of democracy revolve. The problem is within, not outside!

  • Dan the Man

    Dan the Man

    One afternoon, my phone buzzed.

    “Hello sir,” I said.

    “Hi Sam, this is Dan the butcher calling.” The great Dan Agbese’s voice was unmistakable, and so was his cheer.

    He was responding with thanks to my short tribute on his 80th birthday.

    I was a staff member of Newswatch, a magazine that revolutionsied the journalism craft, in writing style, investigation and essays. Above all, it endowed a generation with courage in the written word.

    Ahead of the cream of its editors was Dele Giwa, perhaps the most colourful journalist we have ever had. I knew Dele Giwa from a distance, meaning I read all his columns I could access. I joined the magazine after his tragic passing.

    My first experience in the company was not with Newswatch, though. When I was hired, Newswatch had been proscribed by the IBB regime, and the editors floated a soft sell known as Quality under the editorship of May Ellen Ezekiel, who tugged the popular fancy with her edgy column under the name MEE.

    I worked with her as a rookie but hoping to join Newswatch when it was reborn. One afternoon, all the staff were summoned to the office of editor-in-chief Ray Ekpu. Word had reached the company that the IBB regime would unban the paper the next day, and we had to be ready for the new edition. I had seen the other top editors and reporters around, but I never had real interaction, including Yakubu Mohammed, Soji Akinrinade, Dele Omotunde, who left for the Alfred Friendly Press Fellowship that this essayist would also attend later in his career, Nosa Igiebor, Dare Babarinsa, Onome Osifo-Whiskey, Chuks Iloegbunam, Anietie Usen, Ben Edokpayi, Louisa Aguiyi-Ironsi (daughter of Nigeria’s first army chief) and fellow reporters like Peter Ishaka, Janet Mba and Sam Loco Smith.

    As Ekpu presided, I was like a fly on the wall, observing for the first time the interplay of ideas that brewed the magazine on the stands every Monday. It was the first time I saw Dan Agbese up close. He was in his element, cracking jokes and sizzling with ideas simultaneously, and it was on his lips I was reminded of the phrase Kwarangida, which I first heard from the lips of good friend Solomon Olaniyan during my youth service in Kano.

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    After various writers had been assigned their stories, Ray brought up the society page known as Newsliners. Dan edited the page, and he looked towards me and said “Sam, who do you have?” I was flummoxed, though he said it with a smile. How was I to have candidate for that page? He asked me to see him later, putting me at ease.

    I was not yet a staff, but on a stipend. I was just happy to be there. When I met Dan in his office on the top floor on Oregun Road, he asked me to read past issues, and he suggested a few names I should follow, including Alao-Aka Bashorun, who had just become the president of Nigerian Bar Association, Oprah Benson – the Iya Oge of Lagos. I dropped down to the newsroom with no clue how to proceed. I asked someone for Alao Aka-Bashorun’s office address. I had it and was on my way to the bus stop when I saw a Volkswagen Beetle pull up just beside me and it was the actor Funso Alabi, Mr. Gyang in the hugely popular Teevee show Second Chance and perennial Soyinka favorite on stage.

    I said hi and told him casually where I was headed. And he said, “That’s where I am going.”

    He was a godsend. He saved the sweat and ache of bus ride and the intellectual toil of mapping the office in a geographic chaos of Lagos. Alabi was also a candidate for Newsliners, and once we arrived at Aka-Bashorun’s office, I interviewed him. Femi Falana was a lawyer in his chambers. What a miracle. A free ride, freedom from Lagos wear and tear, and two celebrities for my page. The next day, I clasped Iya Oge at an event at Airport Hotel. A day after I met the owner of Supreme Stitches, a fashion designer who is now Nigeria’s wealthiest woman, Folorunsho Alakija.

    I was told in the newsroom that Dan was the most difficult editor to impress. Having had a hard time with May Ellen in Quality, I was expecting Dan to query me on my first copy. Moments later, I saw his personal assistant come downstairs but he never looked my way. I was waiting for him to make the turn at the end of the newsroom but he proceeded into the compugraphy room. When he returned, I looked away nervously, hoping to hear my name. When I looked back, he had disappeared.

    I was even more nervous for it. I walked to the compugraphy room to see if he had rewritten everything. I saw my copy. Clean almost as I had written them, except the part about Aka-Bashorun being married with children. I asked the staff there whether there was any problem with the script. He was aghast at my impudence. Dan had sent a copy and I was asking if there was a problem? I walked away, my nerve more powerful than my whole body.

     I was to learn that Ray loved elegance, Dan poetry, and Yakubu a straight story. Agbese was my real first editor. I would not say I learned how to write from him. I would say, he gave me the confidence to write on my own terms. I had a problem with May Ellen because she had no patience with a rookie. I had to ask Iloegbunam and Usen to show me the Newswatch style. I came off understanding that I had to be myself. I had to forge my own personality on the page, in diction, rhythm, cadence and angles.

    Agbese let me be. Since I was writing mainly cultural stories, he was my boss. I remember his knack to cast headlines. I did a story on monitor lizards, a totem in Orogun village in Delta State, and he headlined it: Gods on Four feet. Another story marked the 9th edition of the Trade fair, and he titled it: Fairer in the Ninth. I enjoyed Newsliners, and my constant critic and appreciator was Femi Macaulay, now an essayist and editorial board member of The Nation, who was at the ready with a comment.  I was always on the move, at night, at parties, offices, sports arena, et al. I was doing other stories, but my impulse for politics was overpowering. I wanted to write a cover, preface to cover, etc. I was getting ahead of myself. I had not spent a year.

    One evening, Nosa Igiebor then observed why I was not paying more attention to the page. “Since we started that page, you are by far the best who has handled it,” he said.

     I thought I was just doing a routine job. I had read that page from outside and I was wowed by my predecessors.

    To be the best? I was emboldened, not to continue but to move on. “Sam, I know you are deliberately doing a bad job.” That was Dan. He did not tell me I was the best, he merely said he had not had a problem with my script since I started doing it. A rare compliment from the butcher. Yakubu – we called him Yaki -, echoed Nosa’s sentiment.

    Dan presided over our editorial meetings every Friday, and I also learned how stories were minted, perspectives born, and how a fest of ideas led to big stories. In one edition, I wrote the first story in the magazine under the Life section, and the last, Newsliners, one in the nation section, a Noriega piece in the International section and a culture story on fights in the music industry.

     One evening, Dan’s assistant came to me with a post-it note with words of commendation from Agbese. It ended with congratulations. That was the clincher when Lewis Obi hired me as staff writer in African Concord.

    I had learned from Dan the butcher, who was so called because he had a knack for tight editing. I was in heaven with him. I never experienced such cuts. You might write a 1000 word- piece and he could cut it to 300 and you would not query his skill. You admired your butcher, blood and all. He cut not to slaughter but to heal.

    He wrote with poesy. When Kogi and Akwa Ibom State were created. He described Kogi’s sound: “just like tin drum.”

     For Akwa Ibom, he wrote Akwa was like the sound of a stone released from a catapult. Ibom the sound of the pebble dropping into the pond. In recalling Giwa’s death he sang, “in this business of minding other people’s business, tragedy is a way of life.”

    I met with him quite a number of times after I left Newswatch, and his bonhomie and visceral charm remained unassailable. I recall seeing him at a party in late Joe Agbro’s home in Lagos, and he would not live down his experience with starch and banga soup, and wondered when we would relive the experience. We would never share starch again but his memory sticks forever. Good night, Dan the man.