The Nation Newspaper

Category: Monday

  • Fleecing Kaduna

    Fleecing Kaduna

    Men like Mallam Nasir el Rufai fit the experiment that added the phrase “Pavlov’s dog” to the lexicon. Ivan Pavlov, a Russian neurologist, rang a bell and fed a dog, and each time the dog heard a bell ring, it salivated. Bell ring was a synonym for drools of joy.

    He demonstrated that the human species can respond in a certain way to external stimuli. The former Kaduna State governor was not born when Pavlov and his dog invented an idea. But if you follow the man who almost became power minister, you will know that he has a Pavlov dog’s feature. He does not salivate for food. He drools for trouble. Trouble is his bone and raw meat in the cage.

    We saw it when he was in BPE and what he called an accidental public servant. When as FCT helmsman it was revealed he gave lands and deals to his family and he reveled in the storm. As a man who turned his back on his first mentor, who was not really worthy of that name. Atiku Abubakar, that is. As traitor to Obj. As turncoat to Yar’Adua, the former president.

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    A man with a quicksand temperament like Mallam, as he is often called, may veer by accident of self-interest into the right cause as he did in the last polling season when he tackled former president Muhammadu Buhari and his cabal up to the Supreme Court for asphyxiating the naira. He is amoral, egotist, and inevitably a hunter. He has no qualms since he loves to quarrel and he is never calm. He loves the art of the manoeuvre, to hop from person to issues and back, the turbulence of a restless soul.

    But such persons develop the delusion of invincibility, like the words of Shakespeare’s character who boasts, “I am Caesar, fear, fear Caesar.” The former Kaduna State helmsman sees himself as an epic invention of fate, like Nietzsche’s superman. They think laws are for all, but they are a special breed exempted by a discriminating providence. But at last, they have to answer some questions. While he may be bellyaching over why no one made him minister, he may have to address the rumblings in Kaduna State when he was its first citizen.

    In an over 5000-word report for the Sunday version of The Nation, I addressed a pile of concerns about how he spent the state’s money. Why did he, barely a month to the end of his tenure, take a loan of N20 billion. Terrible as it was, he tied it to the state’s internally generated revenue. To be fair, he raised the IGR from about N11 billion to about N50 billion a month. So, what did he do with that money, lawmakers and his party members and elders as well as labour unions want to know. He borrowed the N20 billion to pay contractors who performed work under the $350 million loan.

    Now, the man has a certain trait we in the Warri waterside of the Niger Delta call gra gra. Or “bol’ face.” The Yoruba call it ogboju. In his novel Nostromo, Joseph Conrad calls it “an adventurer’s easy morality, the bravado of guilt.” That was why he announced in his farewell speech that he was bequeathing a debt of $587 million dollars and N85 billion. He made it appear he was transparent. But he was only being crafty. He did not say he drew down all the $350 million loan in 2021, whereas the job has not been completed. Not being completed, the contractors confronted the new man in the saddle, Governor Uba Sani with a certificate of completion that el Rufai gave them, and they are demanding N115 billion. That money was part of the $350 million. According to a top lawmaker, the figure is conservative and the money is about N120 billion.

    The project was for urban renewal. A source told me that the work yet undone amounts to another N160 billion. So, what did Mallam do with the money?

    Governor Sani held a townhall meeting to lay bare his frustrations. The el Rufai camp says it is all politics. Indeed, it is. They wouldn’t respond to my queries, though. But what sort of politics is it? Is it that the former governor is trying to beguile his people by claiming he is the good guy while the man in the saddle who inherits this is the bad guy?

    There is a lot he has to account for. He has a friend called Jimi Lawal. Jimi Who? A former banker with a familiar pedigree… The same man he wanted to partner when fate tantalized him with power minister. But this man has been accused by members of the new exco of having served as head of economic council with commissioners serving under him and, contrary to law, making the governor endorse its recommendations.

    El Rufai wanted, for his power project, to corral a 215 megawatts plant that Babatunde Raji Fashola SAN spurned as minister. He took a CBN loan of about N8.5 billion, and picked up a used plant from Dubai. Lawal was part of the deal using his special purpose vehicle (SPV) called Skipper, an Indian firm. With only N1 billion investments, Skipper owns 52 percent while Kaduna with over 80 percent of the money has 48 percent. How come? There is still no power from that plant in Kaduna.

    Again, he obtained a $26 million Indian Exim Bank loan to partner with a food firm to build a ranch to trap nomads on about 2,000 acre land. Arla Foods, a European firm, was to milk the cows for dairy products. There is no cow, no nomads, no $26 million, and no Arla. But there is Skipper, a company known for transformer, was also involved here. What of the $51m loan to build a 300-bed hospital now abandoned? The inexcusable thing was that he secured a moratorium on all the loans until he left office.

    So this is the task before Mallam. He has given another Sani, his foe and nemesis, Shehu Sani a reason to gloat. He now says he is vindicated because, as senator, he railed against it. His son, Mohammed Bello, who is a member of the House of Representatives, would not say anything about the questions I asked. Give it to Bello, he lacks the father’s impetuosity and unguard diction. He will be a better politician. For now, he is caught between Governor Uba Sani, who he calls his boss, and his father the former governor.

    But his brother tweeted a nasty line about the governor. Bello restrained him. There is sibling tension, but oedipal harmony bustles between father and sons.

    The last has not been heard about this. From the lawmakers I spoke with, the matter may be escalated into a more formal inquiry, although the governor is restraining them. How long that will last remains to be seen.

    Governor Sani came out when NLC and TUC threatened to down tools. He would none of that. For his part, he says no new vehicles for himself and officials for now. He abolished N800k el Rufai added to political appointees while restoring a N500 million revolving loan for workers first introduced by Governor Ahmed Makarfi.

    We want audacity, not bravado, from el Rufai in answering the queries. Rather than pursue a charade about security report, he should report to his people who he misgoverned about how he managed their money. By the way, what of the N3.5 billion loan he obtained to buy gadgets? Maybe no bandits would have taken students on a desert trek if those gadgets were in state’s armory.

    But he could act like Prophet Samuel in the Bible who laid bare the accounts and asked anyone who had anything to say about any misconduct to say so. He came to equity with a holy hand. Let Mallam do same.

  • A Pastor and Politician

    A Pastor and Politician

    Pastors in politics ought to learn from Umo Eno, the governor of Akwa Ibom State. He does not belong to that band of fanatics who weaponize God for division, or for feisty rhetoric of hate.

    Hear him: ““I am a pastor trained to respect people and we must continue to show that all-important character of humility, of compassion and of respect to constituted authority. Even though a PDP, he urges civility in addressing the president.

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    He was addressing defectors from APC, YPP and other parties who moved to his PDP. He let them know that a pastor is an attitude, not a position. It is a burden of immense gratitude to those who have the privilege. The same labour of love he has shown in the shower of palliatives to the needy.

    This is an indictment of some candidates who thought God was a platform for partisan posturing. Governor Umo is not only a model governor, but in doing that he is also a model pastor. The scriptures say, “let your  light so shine before men that they may glorify your father who is in heaven.” Governor Umo’s light is not under the bushel.

  • Bringing Abiola home

    Bringing Abiola home

    The play, Kashimawo, succeeds as a revival of interest in one of the icons of our democracy. Many expressed nostalgias about the enigma of Moshood Abiola, Kashimawo being his middle name. If only as a reminder of the times and the tortured era of military gestapo and the heroics of the times, I applaud Joseph Edgar for producing it and Professor Rasaki Ojo, who wrote and directed it at the Muson Centre during the Easter weekend.

    For me, the play fails in mythicising a man whose story is myth enough. Portraying him as a fruit of Osun goddess is apocrypha. Abiola as a child survived after many died. As he told it himself, his parents expected him to die. Never in his life did his parents or Abiola say he was born of a shrine, and that his coming impoverished his father. He came from a poor family. He, a great dancer and singer in spite of his stutter, performed daily on the streets to secure balls of eba for the family. That was good enough material for a drama.

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    Presenting him as going to heaven in the hour of June 12 struggle minimizes his right to claim his mandate, as though God preferred having him to giving us democracy. That implies God prefers death to justice. The clever part of the tale is making Abiola rattle Death, who shows uncharacteristic sympathy for the hero. It makes Abiola larger than life enough to equal death, if not larger than death. That, I think, may have been further explored.

    The acting, though, was classy. Actor Biodun Abey’s Abiola was particularly sunny, even though the author provides him a one-dimensional hero whose romantic peccadillos are barely hinted. Portraying his source of wealth might have put his personal sacrifices and heroics in more nuanced human contexts.

  • Tinubu’s race

    Tinubu’s race

    Easter is about Christ’s rebirth, but it is about more. It is about loss and betrayal, trials and triumph, the folly of the crowd, suffering and sacrifice, the unrelenting motif and futility of death. Unlike Soyinka’s Elesin Oba, Jesus did not dodge death. He embraced it, teary-eyed, for his own vindication. He foresaw his vindication. Few men ever know theirs. In fact, Christ did when he asked his apostles what the world thought he was. Some said Elijah, Jeremiah, John the Baptist, or one of the prophets. But when Simon Peter said, “You are the Christ, the son of the living God,” the Lord lighted up and said, “Simon Bar-jona: for flesh and blood has not revealed this unto you…” He knew his legacy before the world woke. He knew that as leader, redeemer, teacher, moral exemplar and lamb for slaughter. Throughout history, leaders often contemplate legacy. Some have a hint, though, before they expire. Like Lee Kwan Yew who did not want his home preserved because fanatics would turn it into a shrine. Or George Washington who bothered about his legacy as a slaveowner but freed all of them. Mandela is remembered more for his epic heroics as freedom fighter than as a genius of governance. Pericles craved a tender epitaph for his sentiment for his people but the Parthenon and wars still overshadow his pacific offerings. Charles De Gaulle only wanted to resist his army superiors but ended up as France’s best citizen of the 20th century. Abiola’s fabled wealth takes a back seat to his martyrdom epic, just like Dele Giwa who did not want to be anyone’s hero. Leaders, no matter how great, must wait for the cold eye of history to stare over their mausoleums. With a low-key birthday, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, must have had a moment last weekend to muse over his 72 years. What did he want to leave behind. Did he want to be one of the leaders? Not like OBJ who set the polity aboil, or meek Jonathan who stumbled to make a statecraft from being crafty; or Buhari whose mess he is tossing into the trashcan. He must have quizzed our avatars: Awo, Zik, Imoudu, Macaulay, et al. Of all, he must have concentrated the Ikenne titan. As a politician, few give Awo enough plaudits. They stigmatise him as a man who rose on Zik’s ashes, and tar the Action Group as an ethnic stronghold. But Zik burned himself. Awo admitted in an NTA interview that Zik was a cut above him during the nationalist forays. But in the 1980’s he quipped, “Zik has lost all his lustre.” Many forget, though, that Zik subdued his profile by trying to ride without grace over another ethnic group in the 1950’s. Zik’s trajectory was paralysed after that debacle when he threw up the ethnic card by ousting Eyo Ita as premier of the east. It was the springboard for Awo to soar. As Conrad wrote in his Heart of Darkness, “Our strengths are accidents arising out of the weaknesses of others.” Perhaps Zik spurned Awo’s offer to serve under him as prime minister in the First Republic because he was scared to be Awo’s boss. He preferred to sip tea as a cipher as president under Tafawa Balewa’s NPC. Yet Awo could not transcend a western appeal in spite of the gorgeous adventurism of his vision. It was his Achille’s heel as a politician. Neither the north nor east hugged him. President Tinubu must contemplate Awo’s politics and applaud his own exploits. Like a father, Awo must admire Tinubu’s ability to make APC not only a party but an institution with electoral sweep across the country, an unbeaten feat in Nigerian political history. He must look at him as a son who learned from a father’s shortcoming. APC beats Nigerian National Alliance (NNA), a northern rampart, that won because it enjoyed incumbency. APC upends United Progressive Grand Alliance (UPGA) that won nothing but thrashed about like a caged beast. The All Progressive Congress (APC) comes top in strategy, pan-Nigerian alliance, fortitude and charm of success. He learned a thing or two from M.K.O. Abiola who coalesced a nation for June 12. That was Asiwaju Tinubu’s model feat as a politician before he won on that platform. That platform wanted to push him off his train but he, with cunning and courage, steered it for his own victory. A twain unparalleled. No politician, whether in colonial or post-colonial Nigeria, came near this extraordinary achievement. As innovation goes, Awo is the Pele. In spite of his massive doing in making Lagos a model, Awo knitted a wider tapestry, the west. Both laid foundations. Awo’s was completed by his traitor, Akintola. But imprimaturs of his genius remain, from free education to Cocoa House. In spite of the complexity of Lagos and how he reimagined it and turned it into a foreshadow for all the country today, Awo’s larger canvas is hard to challenge. Zik and even Ahmadu Bello envied and copied his doings. If Awo’s politics disabled his ability to work the full Nigerian space, President Tinubu’s politics has offered him what Awo desired: the whole country. Awo’s politics restricted his fertility to his western region. This is Tinubu’s Archimedean moment. If to be the president is his lifelong ambition, it is his lifelong opportunity. He may not have had Awo’s sublime persecution. The Ikenne giant went to jail and mythicised his image with his grandeur and rhetoric in court. It galvanised an awe for all time. It was that chapter of his history, more than free education, first radio and television, that gave mystique to the Awo brand. During the presentation of the Awo Prize to former agriculture minister Akinwunmi Adesina, Awo’s profilers left out root of his special aura. It was his enemies who made him a hero as much as the free work of his hands. “Great heroes need great sorrows and burdens,” wrote Peter S. Beagle, “or half their greatness goes unnoticed. It is part of the fairytale.” Asiwaju has had his own plethora of persecutions. This dates back to the NADECO years, his time in detention, his release and junta’s pursuit of him in the United Kingdom and United States, his marshalling of resources to sustain the fight at home. He epitomized NADECO abroad.

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    Back home, he baited the bear of Ota and his mechanics and machinations. Tinubu alone stood fighting while others fell to fall behind him. The coalition of forces in the country massed against him. The last two polls showed how a barrage of bile and accusations both local and external followed him but washed off like water off a duck. It is not that they accused but that he triumphed. He has remained an eel to his foes who are still on his heels. It takes time for such mystique to sediment. More than Awo, he has a heartbeat in the grassroots. Awo, with his aloof intellectual carriage, exudes the mystery of a patriarch, more like a monk and wonk in politics, like Ghandi. In a column for the Daily Times in the Second Republic, Ray Ekpu compared Awo and Zik, and observed that if Awo met a child, he would start rattling out statistics about how many children suffer malnutrition or are out of school. But Zik had no time for such romantics. The Owelle of Onitsha would embrace the child in tears. More dramatic. Awo compensated for his lofty remove with great grassroots organization. He was a paragon of Max Weber’s charismatic hero. Tinubu is more earthy, can dance and sing. He traveled with a minstrel in a truck in his younger days. But he is not given to Zik’s visceral theatrics or Awo’s ascetic poise. He will need to show more of that emotion in his presidency, especially his humour. Rather, he was a magnet of quotes from emilokan to church rats and holy communion. The last election was too bitter for dance floor moves, though he tried. Ideologically, though, Awo was systematic, though doctrinaire. Perhaps that was his weakness. It gave room for his enemies to turncoat in his fold, and he did not have enough of the politician’s flexibility. He once said, “I will not compromise on principle. If Jesus or Mohammed compromised, they would not have the following they have today.” But even Jesus said, the “Sabbath is made for man and not man for the Sabbath.” President Tinubu is more pragmatic. Like Alexander Pope writes, Tinubu “make(s) use of every friend and every foe.” He fits into sociologist Karl Mannheim’s idea: “For progressive people, the present is the beginning of the future.” So, President Tinubu must be cogitating his opportunity. He ascends the throne in crisis, a depleted treasury, a roller-coaster currency, a bitter divide of tribe and faith, a confused ululation of the opposition. Many dread it. Tinubu wants it, though. Bill Clinton lamented he had no war to fight, like FDR or Lincoln, to propel him among the greats. In my new book, I call Tinubu a shorebird who soars as the clouds tumble. In his idea, the anxiety of influence, Harold Bloom says leaders – or writers – wrestle with “the greatest of the dead.” In Nigeria, Awo is nonpareil, the greatest. For Tinubu, unknown to him, the wrestling match has been for a while. Sons want to be like fathers. Good fathers want sons to surpass them. Pope also wrote, “Our sons their failing fathers see/And such as Chaucer is, shall Dryden be…some bright idea of the master’s mind.” Awo would be smiling on his son’s sojourn in Aso Villa. We must admit these men lived in different epochs, and it may make rosy speculation to wonder what each would do in the other’s place. Again, Awo prospered in a pre-internet age when people craved mystique and idolized leaders. In ancient times, people filled unknown details with sweet myths. In modern times, Hannah Arendt attributed charisma to the industrial age. Today, we slaughter leaders who give us bread and medicine. We decide who to forgive and pardon. The individual sins mean nothing. If the devil worships at our shrine, he can be forgiven all his sins. We bow to those who build shrines and tribes, like Trump, Erdogan, Putin, Modi, Netanyahu. They adhere to Jean Paul Sartre’s lament: “Hell is other people.” Recall last Lagos guber poll. No one debated the trains or schools but God and tribe. In his new book, The Age of Revolutions, Fareed Zakaria laments our post-material revelry at the polls. It is Tinubu’s race for the future, even as Awo the father looms for protection and caution. In this weekend of resurrection, is the naira rebound his first step into that light?

  • A case of military lawlessness

    A case of military lawlessness

    It is alarming that agents of the Nigerian military recently carried out an oppressive operation against a Nigerian journalist and editor of an online medium, FirstNews, Segun Olatunji.  They invaded his Abule-Egba home in Lagos State, on March 15, and took him away. They denied knowledge of his whereabouts, and detained him for two weeks under harsh conditions before eventually releasing him following public and professional outcry.

    It is unbelievable that such lawlessness happened under the President Bola Tinubu administration.  Such an incident encourages attacks on journalists by state agents. Those who attack journalists, and those who encourage attacks on journalists, whether by action or inaction, can be described as enemies of journalism. The Tinubu administration must avoid giving the impression that it is one of them. That is why it must probe this incident and ensure that lawless state agents do not get away with lawlessness.

    After his release on March 28, Olatunji told the story of his hellish experience. At an event organised by the International Press Institute (IPI), the Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE), and the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), in Abuja, he provided disturbing details of how he was brutalised by his captors. 

    His gripping narrative: “On March 15, I was at my house in Lagos, watching ‘Journalists’ Hangout’ with my seven-year-old son, when suddenly, soldiers burst into the sitting room.

    “I saw my wife and one-year-old son amongst them, crying. I asked what happened, and she said they arrested her from her shop and asked her to take them to where I was…

    “I asked an officer, whom I identified as Colonel Lawal if I could know why they were looking for me, and he said no, that they were from the military and they were there to arrest me.

    “Immediately, he seized my phones as he had earlier seized my wife’s phones. I said okay, let me go in and dress up since I was only in my boxer shorts; some of them (soldiers) even followed me to my room as I took my shirt and trousers…

    “They handcuffed me and put me into the vehicle. At first, I thought they were taking me to the Directorate of Military Intelligence (DMI) in Apapa (Lagos), but then we made a detour to the Air Force Base and straight to the office of the National Air Defence Corps (NADC) where we waited for about three hours. I didn’t know we were waiting for a military aircraft to come pick me up.”

    He continued: “After a while, when the aircraft came, someone came to me and asked me to hand over my glasses and then put a blindfold on me.” He didn’t know that they were taking him to Abuja.

    “They moved me into the aircraft, and we took off; when we landed, they took all my clothes. I was left with my boxer shorts. They also put leg cuffs on me in addition to the handcuffs and put me in a cell.

    “At one point, one of the officers came and tightened the cuffs on my right hand and leg. I was there groaning in pain, and it was that way for three days. When they released it all, the right side of my body felt numb. As I’m talking to you, I can still feel the numbness in my right hand and leg.”

    What did he do to deserve such torture? “They were asking me about certain stories that FirstNews had carried,” he said.  “One of them told me that I was one of those abusing the chief of defence intelligence. I said: How? He said we did a story, and I replied that it was a general story. They didn’t say much about that.

    “He also asked me about a story we carried about the chief of staff to the president. I think that was the major thing.” Olatunji said “people in the corridors of power who are not happy with what FirstNews is doing” were to blame for his ordeal. 

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    The alleged mention of the Chief of Defence Intelligence, Maj. Gen. Emmanuel Undiandeye, and the Chief of Staff to the President, Femi Gbajabiamila, is bad for the image of the Tinubu presidency.

    The manner of Olatunji’s release was as curious as the manner of his capture. His captors initially denied responsibility, which made his situation even more dangerous.  According to NGE secretary-general Iyobosa Uwugiaren, “The military claimed the journalist was not in their custody. They lied to us and top government officials whose interventions we sought… However, IPI Nigeria was able to determine (without doubt) that the journalist was being detained and tortured by the Defence Intelligence Agency in Abuja… Again, they lied that the journalist was not in their custody. Yet our sources were telling us we needed to act fast to save our colleague.”

    In the end, Olatunji’s captors took him “somewhere under the bridge in Abuja,” where they released him to Yomi Odunuga, whom he described as “a good friend and brother who brought me into journalism some 27 years ago when I joined The Punch.” He said they had asked him to “call someone in Abuja who can guarantee my release.”

    Olatunji is physically free, but not free from fear. “Given the series of events, I want to say that my life is not safe because they have everything about me; they know my house,” he lamented.

    Nigerian democracy must not encourage a climate of fear in the media, which is supposed to hold power accountable under a democracy. Olatunji’s maltreatment by state actors in connection with his role as a journalist is condemnable. In a democracy, people in power who feel aggrieved by media actions are not expected to resort to self-help or lawlessness. 

    The NGE expressed its intention to pursue justice for Olatunji. “This is not the end of this matter,” Uwugiaren stated, reassuringly. “The Nigerian media community shall consult further in the next few days on the actions to take against the CDS, the CDI, and the military regarding this matter.” Indeed, the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), Gen. Christopher Musa, and the Chief of Defence Intelligence (CDI), Maj. Gen. Emmanuel Undiandeye, have some explaining to do.

  • Sailing at 60

    Sailing at 60

    Owanbe is in the tale. The Yoruba word literally means “it is there.” It’s a metaphor for an epicurean night, a happening party, with the who’s who splashing cash and exhaling glamour. Turning 60 is a big deal, but for Senator Tokunbo Abiru, owambe here means innovation and sailing with talent. What is there – the owanbe – is not vanity but sublime hope in a generation. He turns 60 today with gratitude. But showing gratitude are young men and women enjoying work epitomized in his SAIL Innovation Lab, a fruit of a foundation of the senator and his wife. Here he has graduated almost 1700 persons by providing them with free training in posh setting on new technology.

     In what was his stepmother’s bedroom, about 200 students gathered for a class. They are the lucky ones from over four thousand applicants from his senatorial district in Lagos. The bedroom is just one of many rooms in a vast compound the Abiru family used to call home in Ikorodu, including Tokunbo the third child and now Supreme Court justice Habeeb Adewale – the fourth child.

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    The large room shone with a white wall and desks crowned with new computers. Young men and women were taking lessons from a young man on indexing. I asked Ismail Ibrahim, who looks in his late 20’s, about his dreams? He owns a fashion outfit and wants to leverage new technology for fashion. I asked him if he knew Steve Jobs. He did. Like the Apple maven, Ibrahim wants to make an innovation for the world. Awari, a well-known tech company in Europe, has employed many of SAIL graduates now working for it based on SAIL work. Other graduates came around who are working in reputable outfits in the country. Vice President Kashim Shetima has honoured it with his presence. So, too, the minister of communication, Bosun Tijani. He can replicate it around the country as tech points of light. Senator Abiru, who has almost completed another centre in Lekki, has shown the way. Happy birthday.                                                    

  • The shrine of oil

    The shrine of oil

    Okuama is a little village, obscure, unknown, absent from the map. It is like a meteor. Just when it hit the limelight, it expired.  It, however, still looms in our imagination for intrigues, oil, bloodlust, death and the evisceration of a village.

    From the beginning of time, cities, hermits, villages and even empires have atrophied. We only wish they do not suffer oblivion like Okuama.

    Some that don’t disappear lose lustre, like Rome, Alexandria, Vienna. Or here at home like Calabar. Near Okuama, Warri is not its illustrious past, hence Governor Sheriff Oborevwori wants to be its warrior of return. But what comes to mind are Zaki Biam and Odi. They are testaments to OBJ who still haunts the Nigerian tale like a tortoise.

    Some places go out of sin like Sodom and Gomorrah. Out of floods like the first world. Floods almost blanked out Lokoja last year. Some cities succumb to war. The firefights of the Yoruba Wars lapped up Ijaiye and Old Oyo.

     But evacuations are not new to history. The most famous is Moscow during the Napoleonic onslaughts. The little general arrived the city without people, including Czar Alexander 1. Everyone had left. But it was, unlike Okuama, not a retreat of surrender. It was strategic humility, stooping to conquer. Napoleon’s men were on the run afterwards. In War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy retells the movement of the people out of their town.

    For Okuama, though, it is a mystery. Soldiers came, soldiers went. While the investigations are ongoing and awards go to the army officers and men killed in cold blood, questions are more than answers. Why would senior officers, including a commanding officer, go for an adventure of peace, hardly armed, in a ‘nondescript’ village to resolve land disputes? If it is about land disputes, why was the governor of the state not brought into the picture? The same land disputes between Okuama and Okoloba villages that the governor brought both communities to Asaba for resolution? Both communities signed agreement. So did anyone break the truce? If it was broken how come the army would go there for its resolution without the knowledge and input of the governor, house of assembly, DSS and police, most of who were present at the February dialogue.

    The Okuama people had had problem with Okoloba village. They said the Okoloba people who are Ijaws wanted to build a shrine as part of a mansion on Okuama land. They also claim big militants and a former top government official who led a high-profile agency backed the imposition of the shrine. The Okuama, who are Urhobos, balked at it, and this led to the killing of three Okuama villagers. Is it true? The casus belli was the kidnap of one Anthony Aboh, an Ijaw man. The Okuama people say they did not kill him. But he is dead. How come?

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    So, why would top officers of the army get involved in a local matter in a bucolic retreat? Why in Okuama, and did Okoloba natives take part? If it was a peace meeting, why would it end with apprehending Okuama leaders?

    Reports of reprisal kidnappings between the villagers abound. When I spoke to a top military officer, he said the rift was all about oil. In Niger Delta villages like Okuama and Okoloba, federal officers would not be concerned unless big men are involved, and the magnet is oil.

    There were also claims that the village has been burned. The army denied it, but we have seen videos of Okuama on fire. Who burned it? If the people have fled their town, who remained to set it ablaze? No one expects that the villagers would set their homes ablaze, like Muscovites did in Moscow to sabotage Napoleon. Napoleon himself was stunned. Hear him: “What a terrible sight! And they did this themselves! So many palaces! What an incredible solution! What kind of people! These are Scythians!”.[37]

    If these sins were going on, who then killed the 18? Who had such bloody hands, such audacity? A senior government official told me in pidgin, “our people no try at all.” There is no justification for the killing of men in uniform. Whoever did it must be fished out and made to face the law. Governor Oborevwori warned against hiding them.

    But we must also investigate why soldiers flock like bees to the Niger Delta. If it is bunkering, is that why the army is settling quarrels? It is a paradox that in suing for peace, a crime occurs. We should not turn oil into what the poet Harriet Monroe calls “mysteries the gods forbid.”

    How innocent are soldiers in the region? The army should also investigate its own and probe the scramble of its men to the region. If the casus belli of the row between Okuama and Okoloba is the shrine, it is because of a bigger shrine: oil. For all the breakthroughs to stop oil theft, the Okuama drama shows it is alive and well because many are digging our wells. The god is not on earth. It is under the earth and water. Oil floats on troubled waters, a sea without a plea. A viscous mammy water flirts. It is a dark, slimy, seductive and crude deity. To the god are all the sacrifices of deaths, rage, blood spills and, of course, the conflict of tribes and the death of a village.

    The person I pity is the village  farmer or fisherman who, in the course of their work, knows the killers but can only tell on pain of reprisals and sudden death.

  • A king and his mother

    A king and his mother

    In the understated grandeur of décor, food and fashion at the high-end Harbour Point event centre in Lagos on Saturday March 23, the Olu of Warri feted his mother who turned 70. But the Ogiame Atuwatse 111 put it in context. It was not just the facility of food, music, dance, the majesty of high society presences. It was about a son honouring a mother, a kingdom appreciating a mother. “God honours honour,” he says in a cadence of a poet.

    His mother, Olori HRM Gladys Duroorike Emiko-Atuwatse, Iye-Olu Atuwatse 111, has lived a life of sacrifice as a romantic, a mother and a queen. If we add what the General overseer of the Foursquare Gospel Church of Nigeria, Reverend (Dr.) Sam Aboyeji, said in a short sermon, she also has shown that virtue as a woman of God. He called her pastor.

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    As a romantic, she abandoned her dreams and career all lined up for her in the United Kingdom to marry then Prince Godwin Toritseju Emiko in Warri. “She gave it all up for her husband.” The story threw my mind back to Hillary Rodham, who, as a young attorney in Washington D.C., was soaring to the top. But she gave it up and moved to rustic Arkansas to marry a bushy-haired young politician, Bill Clinton. The friend who was driving her out of Washington told Hillary that she could still change her mind. Hillary loved the love, and never looked back. Just like the Iye-Olu. Hillary became first lady, senator, secretary of state and almost became president.

    But a new part of the Iye-Olu story is that she is the first to bear that title in 173 years. The last time a mother of a king was alive was during the reign of Ogiame Akengbuwa, who died in 1848. “The same God who made her Olori Atuwatse 11, kept her alive and whole to be elevated to Iy’ Olu Atuwatse 111 (an honour that kept reserved for her for a whole 173 years),” he noted.

    The scene played host to Itsekiri tradition and dance and sartorial designs and colours with inevitable cameos of Yoruba, the Iy’Olu being Yoruba-born. The scene was ornate without superfluity, what Shakespeare would describe as “not expressed in fancy; rich, not gaudy.”

  • The Nnamdi Kanu matter

    The Nnamdi Kanu matter

    Last week’s court appearance by Nnamdi Kanu, leader of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra IPOB, stood out in a very remarkable way.

    It is not that his arraignment that Tuesday did not witness the usual security cordon characteristic of previous ones. Neither did its allure lie in his being granted some of the prayers he had sought from the presiding judge. Nothing of such as all his prayers were refused.

    But that court outing struck as the first time since his extraordinary rendition from Kenya and subsequent trials he found himself addressing the press after the court session. It is not clear the arrangement that allowed him to speak to the media especially given previous posturing by security agencies on such matters.

    Whatever the circumstance that permitted that brief media interface provided Kanu the rare opportunity to put on record, his views on some of the contentious issues surrounding the festering insecurity in the southeast region. Before then, we had been treated to third party information on what Kanu was purported to have said or not said.

    At one point, his lawyers were the only source of information on Kanu’s views and standing on evolving matters. And at another, his family members allowed access to him dished out such information.

    And with all issues of this nature, instances arose where such representation led to dispute among his close allies. Kanu has now spoken first-hand and has been heard. He may not have prepared himself for the media interface. His choice of words, demeanour and constant interjections from his lawyers gave out all that.  Some of his claims may also lend themselves to misinterpretation.

    Nevertheless, he spoke clearly on why insecurity still festers in that region, the possible interests behind it and how to bring a final closure to the malfeasance. Not only was he unequivocal in distancing the IPOB from the sundry security infractions and criminalities in the region, he vowed to bring an end to them if he regains his freedom.

    “I swear anybody committing crime in the east cannot go free. They are doing this because I am in the DSS custody. If I were to be outside, nobody could try this. I suspect that some people in government are complicit. They are making money with insecurity.

    Anybody involved in any form of violence in the east in the name of IPOB is a goner and they know it. Let me come out of this mess, only two minutes there will be peace in the East”, Kanu vowed.

     He further asked: “Who is that bagger or idiot that will speak when I am speaking? That I will give an order in the East who is that idiot that I will give an order that will counter it?” This aspect of his speech could be misconstrued. But he spoke within the context of sundry groups claiming to be speaking for the IPOB and issuing directives especially on the sit-at-home order. It is unfathomable that he could be implying that no other authority can speak when he speaks.

    Irrespective of the limitations of his choice of words, Kanu did not leave anyone in doubt about the reasons for the unceasing insecurity, those benefiting from it and how to bring it to an end. And these are the issues to contend.  Much of his views struck a common chord with the position of leaders from the southeast on the insecurity in that region.

     Not only did he distance the IPOB from the criminalities in the east, he said sundry criminal groups were taking advantage of his detention to commit crimes. For him, the solution lies in his being set free. With his freedom, those who issue conflicting orders or engage in sundry criminalities on the guise of agitating for his release will have no further room to exploit.

    His claims distancing the IPOB from the criminal activities in the region may not go down well with the federal government that holds the group responsible for all security infractions in the zone. Sadly, such fixation came with dubious profiling which views anybody from that region especially the youths as potential IPOB recruits. The telling consequences of such sweeping generalisation on the lives of the innocent people are a story for another day.

    But the good thing there is that Kanu’s views are largely in sync with the position of southeast leaders and interests groups on how to resolve the insecurity in the region. In 2021, a strong Igbo delegation led by late elder statesman, Mbazulike Amechi met former president, Muhammadu Buhari and pleaded with him to free Kanu as a solution to the lingering insecurity in the area. Buhari’s reply was that it was a difficult task.

    Again, on the eve of his 94th birthday in 2022, Amechi asked Buhari to release Kanu to him as a birthday gift. “There is only one key solution to the killings in Igbo land now, and that is the release of Nnamdi Kanu. If that young man is released, you will see all these criminals…claiming to be agitating for the release of Nnamdi Kanu while their real intention is to rob unsuspecting people will go into hiding” he had pleaded with Buhari. 

    Amechi urged Buhari to release Kanu to him and hold him responsible (arrest him) if he (Kanu) misbehaves thereafter. In spite of this passionate plea, Buhari turned a deaf ear to him until the old man passed away only for the presidency to shower praises in a tribute to the late nationalist and first republic minister of aviation.

    It did not come as a surprise that some interest groups faulted Buhari for not acceding to Amechi’s request only to turn around to revel on platitudes and encomiums after his death. They felt if Buhari held him in such high esteem, he should have obliged him his 94th day birthday request to set Nnamdi Kanu free. All of that is now history.

    Amechi and his group of Igbo leaders were not alone in this position. The apex socio-cultural Igbo group, Ohaneze Ndigbo also made several representations to Buhari to explore the political option to the crisis by freeing Kanu to no avail.

    Buhari had a veritable window provided by the Appeal Court judgment to free Kanu and explore a political solution to the crisis. But he allowed that opportunity slip until he left office.

    Curiously, Buhari’s hard-line position on insecurity in the region contrasted sharply with his policies in the northeast where amnesty and the so-called de-radicalisation of terrorists had been the official policy. He may have his biases as one of the military officers that fought in the Nigerian civil war. But as Paul Robeson cautioned, “the answer to injustice is not to silence the critic but to end the injustice”.

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    With the emergence of the President Tinubu regime, the fate of Kanu vis-a-vis insecurity in the southeast has resonated. Around August last year, the five governors of the southeast met in Enugu to brainstorm on how to resolve the insecurity in the zone even as some of them had exploited the situation to feather their political nests.

    In a communiqué after the meeting, the governors among others stated “categorically that the perpetrators of insecurity in our region and their sponsors are criminals and should not be seen as legitimate agitators…upon arrest, they should be dealt with in accordance with the laws of the land”.

    Again, after the recent release of Yoruba nation agitator, Sunday Adeyemo (Sunday Igboho) by the president of Benin Republic, Patrice Talon through appeals by Yoruba leaders, the Ohaneze Ndigbo also appealed to President Tinubu to withdraw all charges against the IPOB leader. They said the release of Kanu would play a pivotal role in restoring peace in the southeast region and help in addressing the prevailing insecurity.

    There is a common thread running through the positions of southeast governors, Ohaneze Ndigbo and Kanu on the insecurity in the region and the way out of it. The governors are in agreement with Kanu’s view that the perpetrators of insecurity and their sponsors are criminals and should not be seen as legitimate agitators.

    Ohaneze and opinion leaders in the region are also in agreement that freedom for Kanu is key to the restoration of peace in the region and addressing the lingering insecurity. These are common denominators in the issues raised by Kanu during his brief interview. It is as well good that he was allowed to speak to the public. He made commitments to help restore peace and security and was heard.

    There are musings that his public outing through that interview may signal a new attitude to his case and possible release by the federal government. That will be in consonance with the expectation of the people of that region. The country is currently assailed by multidimensional insecurity to which the current government is battling to contain.

    If the release of Kanu will restore peace and address insecurity in the zone as attested to by the leadership of the zone, it is in the national interest that that option be fully explored. President Tinubu has a chance to make history by heeding to the prevailing feelings that Kanu’s release is pivotal to peace and security in that region.

  • Fayoade: Changing policing narrative

    Fayoade: Changing policing narrative

    It seemed too good to be true. But it was good and true. Unprecedently, the Lagos State Police Command, under Commissioner of Police (CP) Adegoke Fayoade, provided refreshments to protesters during the recent Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC)-led two-day mass protest against the rising cost of living.

    The protesters had moved from ‘Ikeja under bridge’ to the Lagos State government house at Alausa via Obafemi Awolowo Road, on February 27. At some point, police officers distributed packets of biscuits and bottled water to the protesters.  Unlike in the past when protesters jeered at police officers, the appreciative protesters cheered them. 

    Understandably, viral videos showing the goodwill gesture aroused public curiosity about the man who heads the state police command.  CP Fayoade, who assumed duties at the Lagos State Police Command in December 2023, was at the centre of the unique good deed by the police. He explained to journalists: “I provided water and biscuits because I don’t want anyone to collapse on the way. We have to use water to strengthen everybody. That is the least we could do.” It was ironic that the organisers of the protest allowed the police to steal the show regarding supply of refreshments to the protesters.

     He added: “The protest went on as agreed with the NLC leadership. We promised them protection from the beginning to the end.” He said the police would provide the same protection on the second day of the protest, and he would be “part of the operation.”

    The public was possibly unprepared for Fayoade’s positive approach to policing, given the long-term negative image of the Nigerian police. He had painted a picture of progressive policing to be expected under him at the handing/taking over ceremony held at Ikeja, Lagos. He said the police would “collaborate with the judiciary to ensure swift prosecution and conviction of criminals to serve as a deterrent,” and strengthen “intelligence-gathering capabilities.” He also said “the clampdown on commercial motorcycle operators in prohibited areas, which has led to a drastic reduction of crime and accident cases, will be sustained and intensified.”

    On cleansing the police, he pledged to strengthen “our internal disciplinary mechanism to swiftly and impartially investigate any allegations of misconduct by our personnel.” 

    On police-community relations, he said: “Members of the public will be actively engaged in community events, holding public forums and neighbourhood watch programmes. This will help to build a relationship as the community works together with the police.” 

    On human rights, he said the police would “conduct regular, unannounced spot checks at police stations and holding cells. These checks will encompass a thorough review of weapons and ammunition to ensure strict adherence to recommended regulations.”

    According to Fayoade, “Police stations and front desks must be made attractive for more accessibility and visits of citizens to report matters or make complaints. Unnecessary bottlenecks in receiving complaints shall be removed.”

    He walks the talk. Under him, the police force has intensified efforts to deal with erring officers.  In January, for instance, he was reported to have ordered an investigation into an allegation of bribery against a Divisional Police Officer (DPO) in the state, and ordered the officer to “step aside” pending the outcome of the investigation. Also, in the same month the force identified three officers who stopped a motorist in Lagos to demand his car’s tinted glass permit without their ID cards and uniforms and vowed to sanction them.

    About a month after he assumed duties, he announced that the police had arrested 37 persons allegedly involved in cultism, armed robbery, kidnapping, unlawful possession of firearms and other crimes. He said that 16 firearms, including 72 live cartridges, 75 live ammunition and one expended cartridge, were recovered from the suspects. Also recovered were one pistol magazine, a toy pistol, six axes, four daggers, five cutlasses, two vehicles, one Point of Sale (POS) machine, fake vehicle number plates and charms.

    According to him, those arrested included three suspected leaders of a notorious group terrorising residents of Ikorodu, and three members of an armed robbery gang wearing military camouflage. He said the fake soldiers were arrested by the 9th Brigade of the Nigerian Army and handed over to the police. He also said 1,050 commercial motorcycles were seized for contravening traffic rules and regulations.

    Fayoade’s posting to head the Lagos State Police Command demonstrated the high level of confidence that Inspector-General of Police (IGP) Kayode Egbetokun has in him.  Known as ‘Centre of Excellence,’ Lagos State, the country’s former capital and economic and commercial nerve centre, demands exceptional policing. 

    An indigene of Ila-Orangun, Osun State, he joined the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) on May 18, 1992. He has a first degree in Education/History from Lagos State University and a master’s in Public Administration from the University of Lagos. He also has a degree in Law from National Open University of Nigeria.

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    He attended several professional courses in the country and abroad, and served in Taraba, Akwa-Ibom, Abia, Ondo, Ogun and Lagos states, and Abuja, before he became police commissioner in Lagos State. He has won notable awards that testify to his exemplary professionalism. He was a two-time winner of Best Divisional Police Officer in Africa, awarded in The Hague, Netherlands and Nairobi, Kenya in 2007 and 2013 while he was DPO at Ilupeju and Victoria Island, in Lagos State.  He was a recipient of the Lagos State Government Honour Award for Excellence in 2013 while he was DPO Victoria Island. Also, he was a two-time winner of Meritorious Award on Crime Fighting from the Crime Reporters Association of Nigeria; and Youth Motivation Award by National Association of Nigerian Students.

    After his promotion to the rank of Commissioner of Police in September 2022, he became CP Armament, Force Headquarters, Abuja from where he went to the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies, Kuru, Jos.

    In three months as police boss in Lagos State, Fayoade has shown what he’s made of. His efforts to change the narrative of policing in the country are noteworthy. Nigeria needs more of such a narrative-changing police officer.