The Nation Newspaper

Category: Monday

  • The Bazaar

    The Bazaar

    It is the way of the race. Just as Apostle Paul says, all run but only one receives the prize. But what prize? At what price? The view is now rife that the PDP ticket, in the words of Paul again, was a corruptible prize. For Paul, only the prize of heaven is without blemish. Even the UEFA Champions final was not going to share its glory with two finalists. Liverpool was not too far from the Madrid crown. It sniffed it but snuffed out after 90 minutes. Winning is not always about the fiery player but about the goals. As the good book says, the battle is not always for the strong. Time and chance bestow the jewel.

    So, it was for Abubakar Atiku. The Adamawa chieftain beat the field, in spite of the husky uproar of Rivers State Governor Nyesom Wike. Before the primary, three big names bowed out. Sokoto State’s Aminu Tambuwal conceded charmingly to Atiku. Obi and Hayatu-Deen walked away, the former from the party, the latter from the race. Both cited an unfair contest. Obi cried that he was dumping the party. But it was the party that dumped him. The light-voiced fellow was pretending late in the game as though he did not know the rules of the game. He knew it was a contest of war chests. He signed up early. He wanted to war according to what Hayatu-Deen called obscene monetisation. He was mobilised to monetise. He then compared his war chest with his rivals. He discovered that, chest for chest, he had no cheers. He withdrew because he had no chest for the war. Suddenly he waxed into a righteous man who would not touch an unclean thing.  Shakespeare said conscience has made a coward of men. Money turned Obi into a man of conscience. Not because he was too upright to fight but because he was facing a certain catastrophe.

    Hayatu-Deen was only naïve, fighting a contest of war chests on television and billboards when the spears and arrows of dollars flew about in the entrails of the grass roots. Atiku and Wike were constipating the delegates with their “materiel” of war.

    So, to Apostle Paul again, Atiku won a corruptible prize, a dollarised victory. It was a bazaar of democracy, and what a bizarre duel. A democracy of the money men. Money and politics have never turned more obscene than the story of the PDP presidential primary. This is the price for a fraught delegates system, where a few handpicked fellows of less than a thousand decided for a major party to contest to govern over 200 million.

    The open primary was tossed aside, and Speaker Gbajabiamila was a big voice for open and direct primaries. He evangelised its virtue as the gateway out of a democracy of vipers. But it was handed over to the plutocrats. We have made the political bed, and we must lie and snore on it. Maybe in another cycle, we will do well.

    One thing is clear: PDP has overthrown zoning. By picking Atiku, the southern governors’ pact to uphold southern ticket has turned out a fatuous jamboree. Those who say Atiku’s win was a nod for the northeast are mistaken. Atiku is Fulani. If it is a northeast prize, then it should go to the Kanuri who fill that landscape from Borno to a big chunk of Jigawa. To present Atiku is to ‘Fulanise’ the northeast and cast swine before Kanuri pearls. The Kanuri will not appreciate that insolence.

    So, Atiku is a northern pick, not a northeast choice. It is a triumph of a selfish candidacy. Atiku has privileged his private fantasy over a fraternal nation. In his victory speech Saturday night, he said he aims to unify Nigeria. His mere candidacy defeats that idea. He was laughing at the south, at the Kanuri and his fair-minded Fulani folks, at the Igbo, Yoruba, Afemai, Kalabari, et al. He has soured the national palate. All those who want the country to feel like one people will be sorely disappointed. He is Machiavellian in the sorriest way ever. Here is a man, in moments of intellectual vainglory,  who drew the sword for true federalism and restructuring.

    But the battle is set for the APC. Some have said the best way to counter him is to pick another person from the northeast. That will be a surrender to PDP poohpoohing of zoning. Again, you don’t play your opponent’s game, or else you admit he is better. Some have pointed Ahmed Lawan’s way because he comes from Yobe State, and the northeast. But that is a bad strategy. He comes from the northeast but northeast has not come to him. Even in his Yobe State, he does not have command the political jugular. He is not even Kanuri, but hails from the Bade tribe, a small group in Yobe. Nothing wrong with that, except that he has not transcended it. He has not been able to rise above his insular appeal in his senatorial district.

    The APC can only battle Atiku with a person who has the contacts and appeal of a nationalist. That person is not the vice president either. Yemi Osinbajo has been campaigning with modest energy, and all he claims as strength is that he served under Buhari for seven years and he acted for some weeks. He has not drawn out any vision, or clarity of ideas other than an empty air of rhetoric. He has alienated the Muslims, especially in the north, and has shown himself incapable of breaking free of his RCCG cocoon. He was cut out of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu’s cloth, but now wants to declare himself as the fashion designer. At the burial of one of Napoleon’s descendants, the writer Victor Hugo wrote, “Just because we had Napoleon Le Grand (The great), do we have to have Napoleon Le Petite (The small)?” Even he could not handle Tinubu’s welfare ideas the administration appropriated and Buhari fired him from that task. He left him to shepherd the economy whose currency is now the north of 600 Naira to a dollar.

    Nor is Jonathan an option. His choice is to make the presidency go back north after another four years because he cannot seek re-election if he becomes president again.

    The only option is to have a Tinubu as the candidate. It promises to be a gladiatorial contest. Even if Atiku won the ticket with money, you must give his plaudits. He did not enter the fray yesterday. He has been at it for decades, from under Yar-Adua’s shadow. He has become his own man with is own money, and structure across the country. He is a big name to fight in the national sweepstakes. He has contacts. He has people who swear by him. Forget that he has been the harlot of Nigerian politics, without a core of values other than the vanity of attaining political power. He has been able to show a muscle no one can ignore.

    Other than Tinubu, APC has no one near Atiku’s prowess. The others are baboons waiting for a boon of anointing. Tinubu knows him well. In one of Atiku’s ashewo bus stops, he sought and clinched presidential ticket in Tinubu’s party. He knows Tinubu is a tough cookie to crack. Tinubu knows business more than he does. He has done it for himself. He has done it for Lagos, the model for all states who want to plough out of economic doldrums. Both even belonged to the Yar’adua group of yore. They both have grown to be different men of stature.

    But APC knows Tinubu has an edge. Tinubu has been across the country, and has made contacts that outmatch Atiku region for region, tribe for tribe. In the field of ideas, Tinubu is original. Atiku has nothing but to ape popular tropes. Both have troops, but Tinubu has a heftier one. Tinubu has strategised to defeat Atiku. Atiku has no such record against him. With Atiku’s victory in PDP, half the battlefield is opened. The other half is in the offing.

    The option for APC is whether they want to win with Tinubu, or lose without him. Do they want to fight a lion with a domestic cat or a bigger lion? It’s a battle of pound for pound and guile for guile. It will be a thriller. A week from now will prove it.

  • Attahiru’s apparition

    Attahiru’s apparition

    A biography and a documentary brought him back to life. The book titled The Man, The Soldier, The Patriot and the film titled Ibrahim Attahiru, A Soldier’s Soldier drew attention not only to his life but also the implications of his death.

    Perhaps he could have made a big difference to Nigeria’s war against terrorism. But Lt. Gen. Ibrahim Attahiru tragically died in a military plane crash, in May 2021, four months after he became Chief of Army Staff. He was 54. Ten other military men flying with him from Abuja to Kaduna also perished when the Nigerian Air Force aircraft crashed near Kaduna International Airport. There were no survivors, but his deeds survived the crash.

    It was remembrance time on May 21, and the General Ibrahim Attahiru Foundation (GIAF), established by his widow, Fati Attahiru, presented the biography and documentary at the Ladi Kwali Hall, Sheraton Abuja Hotel.

    ”I was invited to write the book by General Ibrahim Attahiru Foundation, and now, with the benefit of hindsight, I feel very privileged to have been invited to do the book because I didn’t know General Attahiru beyond what I read about him in the media until his passing,” the author Niran Adedokun said at the event.

    “By the time I started doing the book, I discovered that he was indeed a true Nigerian hero whose life inspired a lot of people, and I find it a privilege to have been invited to document his life in such a way that everyone who reads will find inspiration about Nigeria.”

    According to the author, “he seemed to have the determination; he seemed to know what to do about security in Nigeria.” This is the heart of the matter.  Increasing insecurity fuelled by terrorism, banditry and kidnapping, gives the impression that the military leadership and the political leadership do not know what to do to tackle the crisis, and lack the determination to deal with the problem.

    Interestingly, in March 2021, National Security Adviser Babagana Monguno was reported saying “huge sums of money” approved for the purchase of weapons were “missing” and the weapons “were not bought.” He later claimed he had been “quoted out of context.”

    In April 2021, when Lt. Gen. Attahiru finally honoured the invitation of the ad hoc committee of the House of Representatives investigating the government’s procurement of arms and ammunition from 2011, his response raised issues that are still pertinent.

    The takeaway then was that at least three former army chiefs, who preceded him, have a lot of explaining to do on the federal government’s purchase of weaponry since insecurity became a reality more than a decade ago.

    The committee was mandated to review the purchase, use and control of arms, ammunition and related hardware by the military, paramilitary and other law enforcement agencies. Its chairman, Olaide Akinremi, was reported saying Nigeria spent about $47.387 million on arms in 2019.

    On the investigation, Lt. Gen. Attahiru told the committee to focus on his predecessors, saying he became army chief “barely two months” earlier.  He declared: “Issues of procurement that you so demand to know were done by specific individuals. I would rather you call these individuals to come and explain to you very specific issues.”

    His predecessors, relevant to the legislative investigation, were lieutenant generals Azubuike Ihejirika, Kenneth Minimah and Tukur Buratai. Ihejirika was army boss from September 2010 to January 2014, three years and four months; Minimah from January 2014 to July 2015, one year and six months; and Buratai from July 2015 to January 2021, five years and six months.

    Lt. Gen. Attahiru possibly implied that his predecessors should be held responsible for the ill-equipped armed forces inherited by the then new service chiefs, including him.  It is puzzling that the investigators did not act on his suggestion in order to get to the bottom of the matter.

    He emphasised to a senate committee that “the Nigerian army requires equipment, weapons, armour fighting vehicles, platforms, and various combat enablers,” which he called “critical needs.”

    There is no doubt that billions of naira was approved for procurement of weapons over the years. Claims by military personnel that the armed forces are poorly equipped to fight insecurity are not new. It is obvious that an ill-equipped military is a non-starter.

    Who shortchanged the military? Why has President Muhammadu Buhari, who is also the Commander-in-Chief of the Nigerian Armed Forces, failed to address the issue decisively?

    Apart from the army chiefs, other service chiefs in the period were the chiefs of air staff, air marshals Mohammed Dikko Umar, Alex Badeh, Adesola Amosu and Sadique Abubakar. The chiefs of naval staff were vice admirals O.S. Ibrahim, D.J. Ezeoba, U.O. Jibrin and Ibok-Ete Ekwe Ibas.

    Also, the chiefs of defence staff were Air Chief Marshal Oluseyi Peterin , Admiral Ola Ibrahim , Air Chief Marshal Alex Badeh and General Abayomi Olonisakin.

    Lt. Gen. Attahiru’s death anniversary prompts questions on the current capacity of the military, whether the fighters are now better equipped, or well equipped, to fight insecurity.

    About a month after he became army chief, he showed the stuff he was made of. During a visit to troops in Dikwa, Borno State, he was reported to have given them an order to recapture some areas held by Boko Haram within 48 hours.

    “Areas around Marte, Chikingudo, Kirenowa, up to Kirta Wulgo must be cleared in the next 48 hours… you must not let this nation down… I will be right behind you,” he was quoted as saying. The fighters recaptured the named communities.

    It is striking that under him the army renamed the operation against Boko Haram. Operation Lafiya Dole, launched in 2015, became Operation Hadin Kai in April 2021. He was theatre commander of Operation Lafiya Dole at one time.  The Hausa expression Lafiya Doye means peace by all means. Hadin Kai, another Hausa term, means cooperation/unity. Before Operation Lafiya Dole, there was Operation Zaman Lafiya, a Hausa term for peace.

    The war on terror has gone on for too long. It’s been more than a decade since the military launched its counter-insurgency operation, yet terrorists continue to terrorise the country. Tragically, it looks like a war without end.

    There are disturbing allegations that the war against terrorism has become an inspiration for corruption among military and political leaders; and those benefiting materially from it do not want the war to end.

    Lt. Gen. Attahiru believed that sustainable security depends on collaboration involving the people, police and armed forces, and the government. He advocated “the participation of the entire nation using all elements of national power.” This approach is worth adopting as the country grapples with increasing insecurity.

  • Drum beats of violence

    Drum beats of violence

    It is not in doubt the Nigerian state is assailed by crises of multifarious dimensions.

    Even as security infractions exert much pressure on the resources and capacity of the government to live up to its statutory functions, emerging tendencies raise suspicions as to whether there are contrived plans to push the country further into unmitigated disaster.

    The presentation of certain reports on alleged criminal activities and security breaches in sections of the media especially the (ubiquitous and unstructured social media) is beginning to raise suspicion of an attempt to play up ethnic and religious sentiments to further divide the people and precipitate chaos.

    This concern was shared by the presidency in its reaction to the killing of a lady identified as Fatima and her four innocent children by gunmen in Anambra State. The government had while condemning the atrocious act “cautioned against indiscriminate sharing of posts on social media so as to deny vested interests who seek to divide us and create disturbance the chance to do so”.

    Fatima and her four children were killed while being conveyed on a bike after she visited her sister. Though no arrests have been made, media reports have largely fingered the IPOB for the senseless killings to which the organization has denied. Media reports have also tended to assign ethnic coloration to the killings prompting the Anambra State government to deny there is ethnic killing in the state notwithstanding the general insecurity across the country.

    The incident created so much tension that a coalition of northern groups apparently believing that the killings have ethnic prompting, threatened reprisals. But the presidency cautioned against precipitate reaction, disruption of lives and livelihood or even retaliatory violence as its experts are “verifying the factuality and veracity of the claims accompanying the horrid pictures”. It urged citizens to avoid hasty steps or conclusions that could exacerbate the situation.

    The position of the federal government on the horrific and dastardly killing of the poor woman and her four children is in order irrespective of the provocative tone of whatever claims made by those who recorded the scene. This is more so given the high tension generated in the public space by face value interpretation of the motive of the killings as well as the group suspected for it.

    Since no arrests have been made and the group being fingered for the killings has denied it and others attributed to it in the past, it is only proper that our security agencies should investigate the regularity with which such potentially divisive posts are making appearances in the social media. They should not rule out the possibility of fifth columnists intent on simulating cataclysm of unimaginable proportion having a hand in some of them.

    With sophistication in technology and the linkage of the National Identification Number NIN to all phone lines, our security agencies should by now, have the capacity to decode and trace the original source of such posts and have the culprit arrested. That is what is required to prove very conclusively those behind these posts and their motives.

    This line of action is further dictated by a recent post attributed to a purported official of the Department of State Service DSS claiming to have resigned his position because of alleged swapping of motorcyclists arrested in connection with the killing of a sound engineer, David Imoh.  In a widely circulated post, the purported DSS official said he was the team leader of security operatives that arrested 11 suspects, mostly northerners in connection with the murder.

    According to him, after the 11 suspects were handed over to the police, they were replaced with six southerners who were paid N100, 000 to admit guilt. But the Lagos State police command denied the allegation tagging it “a cunningly- crafted work of fiction ill-intended by some unpatriotic persons and warmongers to cause disaffection and possibly ethnic war”.

    The correlation between the position of the presidency in the circulation of the horrid pictures of the murder of Fatima and her four children and that of the Lagos State police command is very clear. They all speak of clandestine attempts to create bad blood; divide Nigerians and possibly precipitate ethnic and religious upheaval of unimaginable proportion.

    That would seem the undertone of those two incidents irrespective of their repulsive and bizarre nature. Inexorably, we run a mortal risk each time we take such post on their face value. You will be shocked to know how divisive such posts are from the comments of Nigerians each time they appear on Facebook. They create fear; divide Nigerians along ethnic and religious lines and heighten the atmosphere of insecurity around the country.

    It is an ominous trend that should be carefully watched in the management of the festering insecurity. The above incidents are not alone. Across the country, killings tainted with ethnic and religious imagery abound.

    The recurring divisive messages and posts are indications of the regularity of heinous crimes that have reduced the worth of human life in the face of the inability of the government to stem the tide.

    There is also the dimension of false alarms in ruffling peace and tranquillity in the country. A case in point was the recent allegation by the leadership of Miyetti Allah in Anambra State on the rustling of 300 cows and kidnap of 10 herders who were each asked to pay N4million ransom and one gun. But the accounts of the Anambra State police command and the local government chairman where the incident was said to have occurred put a lie to that narrative. The way the incident was painted including the fictitious demand for guns would suggest the alarm had a veiled agenda.

    It is vital the authorities are circumspect of what use they put to some of the horrid posts in the social media purporting to have emanated from targeted groups and individuals. Such posts must be subjected to the weight of empirical validity for them to command credibility. But it says a lot about our security agencies that they get to know of such heinous crimes from media posts.

     

  • The ban

    The ban

    In pre-modern times, the road was no thoroughfare. It is what we call a bush path – sinuous, dusty, often tranquil with the scent of earth and trees on the cargo of soft winds. On it, women broke water, baby cries stirred birds, farmers trudged under heavy yams, preys strutted out of hunter’s sight, hunters crouched for the kill, kings crouched over nubile who crossed their paths.

    But it was also the theatre of war, bearing arms and warriors in the shadows of shrubs. Okonkwo beheaded Ikemefuna, Nana’s Itsekiri blockaded the British, horses neighed to death in Osogbo of 1840. The bush path was romance and tragedy.  But, apart from Fafunwa’s gnomes and blood spill, it invoked traveller as reveller.

    “You must set forth at dawn,” Soyinka sang to the wayfarer, “I promise marvels of the holy hour.”

    That was for pristine times by comparison.

    With no cars or fuel, those in villages inhale that air today bleakly. City people look backward to it with nostalgic envy. We may say it was the good old days.

    Today, whether in the village or in the city, the road enjoys no odes. We have neither the great ride nor great trek. The last time a great walk made news involved hundreds of boys in bush paths, trekking and eking out a living under the command of hooded fanatics on the outskirts of Katsina. The great journey, on road or air, does not happen. We have sneak journeys, where you hope that going to destination does not obviate destiny. Whenever you arrive, it is the great survival, or great escape.

    In Soyinka’s play, The Road, it is “flat in treachery and deceit.” Soyinka did not write about Okada. But again, because he presents the road as myth and metaphor, the bard foresees today. The mystery of the road, as an odyssey of tragedy, as the province of ogun, has now become the place of pain.

    Road became centre piece last week. The BOS of Lagos, Babajide Sanwo-Olu stepped in with a bang. Okada riders cannot have their way in key areas in the state. Just like in Soyinka’s The Road, the mask is off. No more the impunity of boys on bikes. No more the traffic subverts, the ones who dictate where the centre of the road is, who hug highways and clog streets, who turn express ways to the way to express lawlessness; men with heads filled with only air, cant and uncanny talent for violence. As I wrote in a poem, the bike/ is not a ride/ but a way to die.

    On one of its major arteries, we witnessed a man, called David Imoh, who passed on over a dispute on a bike. The row between two became a metaphor for a nation unable to move without bloodshed. He is often inappropriately described as sound engineer as though he has no name. it happened not long after the Deborah Emmanuel tragedy in Sokoto. A nation calls itself a democracy but enacts laws on blasphemy. Yet, what was more painful about Emmanuel’s roasting was that a crowd was instantly called to the scene. In Bauchi, most of the people who haunted a so-called blasphemer were easily recruited because they had no jobs. If they were busy in an office or absorbed in homework, they would have no urgency for bloodthirst. That is the danger that Governor Sanwo-Olu wants to avert.

    The issue of Okada is not new. Many commuters in the city kick when we say the bike is not the modern way to move. It is seen as elitist, words from a bored, smug airconditioned class out of touch with the mass. But it is more than that. The catalyst of the Imoh agony may now send the message home.

    The riders of Okada are mostly not Nigerians, and most of them have no respect for law and order, and they belong to the class of marauders that have made the north prostrate with blood and death.

    The other unknown is, who are those who have no bikes but who moon about on street sides or straggle at night like loafers? The other day on traffic, I witnessed three red-blooded boys, who were playfully harassing a few females inside a car. The furrows of their faces could turn to frowns from smiles, from cynical to maniacal. If the bike could be lethal, what of a mass of them? We have seen that the bike ought to be banned in parts of the north. Hoodlums see it as their cruise missile, or warhead. They ride it to burn down edifices, mow down churches and mosques, kidnap hundreds as in the Abuja-Kaduna train wreck. A market known as Alaba Rago was raided for weapons, and what horror finds.

    The matter is being ethnicised. It is about safety, not tribe. The leaders of the Hausa community begged and blackmailed simultaneously, saying they would caution them and that they are a block vote. That cannot draw water. It is not about votes. We have to be alive first before we can cast our votes. Why did they not chasten their folks before the ban?

    What we also need to address is the immigration policy. Where are the documents of most of those riders and their friends who have no bikes? Many of them do not speak the Nigerian Fulani or Hausa. Forget the inanity of the Bauchi governor who said we should open our borders for them.  We have to decide whether we are a country first or a region first. If we are not a country first, why do we have a constitution?

    The best way to handle these fellows is to isolate them, just like in the western countries where those who cannot show that they are legal are shown the way out.

    Okada also is a hospital nightmare. Broken bones, limp and limbless citizens are all over hospitals in the state, especially Igbobi. The alternative may not be easy. But it can be done. The seven-seater Korope, a bus that is now filling the streets can replace Okada. They don’t run fast enough for a militant’s dare. And they cannot slide and hide. They reach any part of town, like the buses of the days before Okada. Apart from state government’s intervention, individuals are beginning to see it as a worthwhile investment. Banning Okada will cause some hardship and a sense of loss. But better to be alive than to live under the shadow of fear. Some cities have banned it, like in  Akwa Ibom, and citizens have adapted. It will take some enduring, but if we keep our eyes on the goal, Lagos will triumph.

    Poet Niyi Osundare writes that the “road never forgets,” but we can enshrine its memories, its bad ones, and move on.

     

    When Adeleke farts

    •Adeleke

    He was addressing a rally in what should have been a holy attire. What came out of Ademola Adeleke had no holy mission before his adoring followers. His lips violated his white cap and white tunic.

    He was in his element as a political never-do-well. He did not tell his people he wanted to change their lives in education or health care, or he was going to lift the profile of governance from the vanity of his owambe dance. He went venal with world currencies.

    You might have thought he wanted to say something that would ennoble a human soul when, with a mien of casual self-righteousness, he yelled in Yoruba, “E ni su-uru,” that is, “be patient and listen to me.” Rather, he farted from his lips. “It is not just Naira,” he emitted, dismissing the local currency as if the beating it has received from Uncle Mefi’s CBN was not enough.

    He was going for the kill. He was going global to spend dollar, pounds and Euros in the upcoming governorship polls where he will try to fight the gentle but redoubtable records of a performer in Governor Gboyega Oyetola. He wore a pair of dark goggles like a Mafiosi revving the partisan conscience of his inner circle. He had the swagger of a loser spoiling for another disaster.

    The people want his money, not his dance. Or maybe they will enjoy the prancing spectacle of his elderly waist onstage. Maybe Davido, who echoed his “fire for fire,” could strum his uncle into another alawada fiesta. But when it comes to who will make decisions for Osun lives, let his swagger begone.

    It is no comedy matter, no time to insult the stock exchange. He cannot turn a serious election into an Obi Cubana show. Even that fellow saw my chiding, and has started to do good charity. Learn, Senator Adeleke, learn!

  • The Deborah metaphor

    The Deborah metaphor

    The lynching of Deborah Samuel, a student of the Shehu Shagari College of Education, Sokoto for alleged blasphemy, presents a metaphor for all that is wrong with the Nigerian state. Additionally, it highlights the flaws in the secularity of the Nigerian state as expressly guaranteed by the constitution. Divergent opinions on the propriety of jungle justice as punishment for alleged blasphemy equally betray a simmering conflict between the rule of law and resort to self-help for perceived religious infractions. It is a typical case of conflict of two worlds as succinctly captured in St Augustine’s allegory of two cities – the city of God and the city of Man.

    The scene of Deborah’s heart-rending death characterized by stoning and being burnt to death even with the presence of a heavy detachment of security agencies conveys the unmistakable impression of two sets of laws governing this country –the secular and theocratic.  It presented a typical case of conflict between the state and religion; the corporeal and the ecclesiastical. Yet, this is a democracy guided by well-established laws.

    Deborah was accused by her classmates of posting a message in their class platform allegedly blasphemous of the Islamic faith. Sensing trouble as the matter raged, the school authorities promptly took her into protective custody at the security gate. Her father who rushed to the school before harm could be done gave a chilling account of what appeared high level collaboration or conspiracy as the police team that arrived was reluctant to ferry her away until they were overpowered by the surging crowd from the surrounding villages.

    They all watched helplessly as the poor student was stoned and clubbed to death in the most dehumanizing manner. They were there also when the irate mob set her body on fire only for two suspects to be arrested and detained by the police.

    Ironically, hell was let loose the following morning as misguided youths and children led by some adults took to the streets demanding the release of those detained in connection with Deborah’s murder. The demonstrators saw nothing wrong with the killing of Deborah to warrant the arrest, detention or bringing to book any person for that matter.

    They did not just stop at that. They went ahead to attack, destroy and desecrate some churches including, the Catholic diocese of Sokoto where fiery Catholic Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah presides. The irate mob chanting religious slogans also attacked and destroyed the shops of non-indigene traders.

    There are salient issues from the tone and character of the Sokoto violent uprising. The first is the clear message that those who lynched Deborah committed no offence and the police had no reason either to detain or bring them to book.

    For the rioters and their collaborators, the killing of Deborah is justified because she did not respect the faith of others.  Ironically, the same set of people supposedly angered by irreverent comments about their faith, had the audacity to attack and desecrate other peoples places of worship without seeing anything wrong with their action.

    It did not occur to them that the faith and sensibilities of other religions should be respected in like manner. That is the uncanny irony thrown up by the Sokoto incident. And in it, lies the duplicity of jungle justice in avenging alleged irreverent conduct against religions either of Islam or Christianity. Who now avenges for the Christians for the destruction of their places of worship and desecration of their faith?

    During the last Easter celebrations, Sterling Bank with a Muslim Chief Executive Officer CEO, Abubakar Sulieman ran an advert: “Like Agege Bread He Rose”. This was in reference to the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ which is the central theme of the Christian faith. The comparison was not just reckless but insulting to the Christian faith. The bank apologized and the matter was rested.

    This is brought into focus to underscore the inherent danger the country would have been thrown into if every religion were to resort to jungle justice to avenge perceived infractions to their faith. Attacking and destroying the wares of innocent traders who have practically nothing to do with their touted grievances gave the protesters away as people nursing a hidden clannish agenda.

    Transferred aggression in matters of this nature is not uncommon in that part of the country.  In 2006, riots broke out in Borno and Katsina states when Muslims protested a cartoon in faraway Denmark considered offensive to their faith. Churches were destroyed as well as shops belonging to Igbo traders. Many also lost their lives in a riot whose motive has till date, remained inexplicable.

    More fundamentally, the government must rise to the challenge thrown up by the murder of Deborah. It is one murder, too many. In 2016, a 74-year old woman, Juliet Agbahiwe was lynched in a market in Kano for asking a Muslim neighbour praying in front of her shop to give way for her customer to access her.

    It remains unclear if any person was punished for that. All we got from the federal government were pontifications to the effect that people should respect the faith of others. The prevarication of the government and its inability to conclusively prosecute and punish all those who kill in the name of religion brought us to the current pass. Why would the Sokoto mob not demand the release of the suspects when the police could only arrest two out of the many that are trending in the social media?

    Had the police arrested many of those seen at the scene of the murder, it would have conveyed clear signal that our laws seriously frown at jungle justice for alleged acts of blasphemy. But they went about their job very reluctantly fuelling feelings that our justice system is favourably disposed to that manner of punishment.

    The federal government should get up from the fence; take steps to detonate the time bomb religious extremism and other unresolved national questions pose for our corporate existence. This country risks more lynching for alleged blasphemy if the raw teeth of the law are not brought against the murderers of Deborah. The choice is before us. But the consequences of inaction or ambivalence could be dire.

  • Running mates

    Running mates

    In a nation where laughs are many and tragedies even more, it is often a struggle to tell them apart. So, we cast the Nigerian story as tragi-comic. Episode after episode, we laugh with salty tears, sounding and looking half the hyena, half the happy child. It is laughter as hiccup except that we don’t choke enough to die.

    The APC presidential sweepstakes give us much for theatre, if for little cheer. Those who make a penny of a N100 million and are quick to dispense with it in order to make more. They will make more by staying put with the honeypot of office. Better to lick the honey for one year than risk eight-years without the money, a pie in the sky, a promise without a premise. Those who pay it and those who don’t, and those who pay and deny it, and those who pay not as charity but as mockery.

    There are those who pay by acting as what Bayo Onanuga calls the puppeteers. These persons work behind the portals to stoke the egos of presidential wannabes. They know how to flatter their secret hopes. They know how to make a little man into a gargantuan soul. This is what medics and psychologists call the delusion of grandeur, or a folly of grandiosity. For examples, let’s look at Goodluck Jonathan and Godwin Emefiele, two men who make you laugh indeed. Acolleague of mine calls them running mates, a definition of their status that explains their peripatetic misery as well as their subordinate perch.

    They are running mates because both are running the same way, if they are running against each other, but they are running at once to the office or away from it. They are running in plain sight and out of sight. They are running by proxy. But they are two candidates who are running and are denying they are running while sweating and moping on the presidential track. In the end, they are running like Apostle Paul’s castaways. They won’t “run all” and not get the prize, a corruptible crown.

    Last week, the illusion festered that Jonathan had actually thrown his Otuoke weight into the ring. Pictures and video clips of jubilant youth in Bayelsa bloomed online. He had paid his N100 million. But before then, the story was that he had paid, and then he retorted with a denial. The former president with a simpering smile flew to the office of the APC chairman to find out if he was indeed the chosen one. He did not seem to get the answer he wanted from Adamu, and then a silence. Then an eruption on Otuoke streets. The deadline passed. But no form from Jonathan. His presidential dreams kaput.

    The man wants the second term badly. Many had flayed him for giving up the presidency so easily even though he lost. They believe the man could have amassed the armed forces to edge out the Katsina chieftain. The homilies about being a gentleman who left office with class had grown old. He does not want to die as the man who did not get back power, a la Buhari himself. So, he kept keeping his supporters in hopeful reverie. Now, they see no revelry in the offing.

    Jonathan was going to move from PDP where he flourished and perished to the party that sealed his fate. He was going back to his vomit. He might have done it with pride, not the man without shoes kind of tale. Maybe as a reconciler. No time to muse over his place as a puppet. A Fulani platform had bought the form to make the former president a northern slave. He would be president for only four years, and then yield it to the north. He did not think that, always pursuing a typical politician’s zest for self over people. If it worked, he would have given us a chapter of burlesque tears.

    Jonathan may be suffering a comeuppance. When he was president, he subverted his Bayelsa gubernatorial successor Timipre Sylva’s bid for a second term. In spite of cajoling and begging, the then President Jonathan deployed land, air and sea forces to flush Sylva out of office. In his own bid for a second term, Jonathan is probably beholding Sylva like Banquo’s ghost to rid him also of a second-term fantasy.  What a way for history to repeat itself.

    So, Jonathan may have had a fruitless dialogue with his God. He may have remained in the tranquil dignity of an ex-president, chewing a statesman’s cud. But the lust for power is probably eating him up. He remembers the emblems of office, embers of flattery, swagger, pomp and power of over a hundred million souls. Rather than bear it with contentment and say, I thank God for that opportunity, he would not. Rather he is battling St Augustine’s storms of the flesh, the sage who dreamed the City of God. The Catholic philosopher and saint begged God in moments of concupiscence: “Give me chastity and continence, only not yet.” Jonathan wants another bout of lust in the City of Nigeria. But like God told Paul, my grace is sufficient unto you. If APC absorbed him as candidate, it is going back to its own poison.

    For Mefi, it is clear he cannot run. He must be in a sort of haze wondering what hit him. Who conned him into such a delusion. He thought he could upturn law and common sense, and he would walk, with his puny frame into the colonnade of Nigerian power. The same frame that once bowed to a cross-legged “cabal.”

    Delusion of grandeur is not new. It is the Malvolio complex in our politics, where a servant by mere flattery believes he can marry the great woman of the house. A man makes a P.A. who marries his daughter a governor. Victor Hugo laments it in his play Ruy Blas where a servant disguises to win a queen’s heart. The theme is best pursued in literature in Don Quixote, who permits himself to believe that everyone loves him, everyone is under him, he possesses kingdoms and damsels and even a lion can obey him. Even in his memoirs, Obama said he once chastised himself whether he was not a Don Quixote when running for president. If Mefi, Jonathan and all the others with that delusion can’t read those works, they should look for Soyinka’s A Play of Giants, especially the part where a head of state thinks he is so important that his massive statue must stand at the United Nation’s embassy.

    We have seen instances of this aplenty here. The least spoken is Kogi State Governor who, with a travesty of superfine sobriety, thinks he can be president, just because whimsical fortune gifted him the governorship chair.

    In Nigeria, just like Jerzy Kosinski’s novel, Being There, anyone in Nigeria thinks he can be there.

     

    The Ballad of Bourdillon

    They say he is sick. Yet he is the one showing a dynamo of energy. He had a surgery, nothing new in any man’s life. Some worry, and that is legitimate. We have had persons in the top chair who did not show capacity of action because of poor physical being.

    But Asiwaju Bola Tinubu threw the challenge last week. He said people say he is not well, but he undertook the long walk in Mecca during the hajj.

    He is the one conquering miles in the country, from palaces to big hall podiums to government houses, from Abuja to Oyo, to Gombe to Kaduna, to Abeokuta to Niger. He once took a drive from Sokoto to Zamfara at night. He is the one hopping in and out of planes, in and out of cars, in and out of halls, glad-handing, hugging, meeting till late at night. Where are the others? What is their itinerary? So, he challenges his critics, where is their health certificate?

    He is not like the others who are cell phone candidates, ensconced in Abuja or their villages waiting to be announced the anointed ones. They are the baboons waiting for the boon. But the people will say babu to such opportunism. It is the Nigerian disease of reaping where no one sows. The same thing that made President Buhari to say, at the party convention, that no candidate should be imposed. It is the impunity of indolence, what my teacher at Ife, Prof. G.G. Darah called the “Agbero bourgeoisie” who get paid for passengers they did not get.

    Asiwaju is like the lines in the Ballad of St Andrews: “Fight on, my men,” says Sir Andrew Barton,

    “I am hurt, but I am not slain;

    I’ll lay me down and bleed a while,

    And then I’ll rise and fight again.”

    That is the spirit we are seeing in the lion of Bourdillon. Others will do well to ape him.

     

  • NDDC after Akpabio’s control

    NDDC after Akpabio’s control

    Good riddance! That may well be the reaction of many Nigerians to Godswill Akpabio’s resignation from President Muhammadu Buhari’s Cabinet to pursue his presidential dream. As Minister of Niger Delta Affairs from August 2019, he failed to turn around the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), established in 2000 by the President Olusegun Obasanjo administration to facilitate progress in the oil-rich region.

    Ironically, Akpabio’s tenure compounded the NDDC’s failure to develop the Niger Delta as expected.  He became part of the problem, and extended the ironic narrative of a development agency as an agent of underdevelopment. He was notably criticised for allegedly misdirecting the Federal Government on the NDDC because he wanted to be in control of the agency.

    The government had lamented the “uncompleted and unverified development projects” in the region “in spite of the huge resources made available to uplift the living standards of the citizens.”

    The government said there were “over 13,777 projects, the execution of which is substantially compromised,” even though the commission got “approximately N6tn” from “budgetary allocation” and “income from statutory and non-statutory sources,” from 2001 to 2019.

    When President Buhari, in October 2019, ordered a forensic audit of the agency’s operations from 2001 to 2019, the move suggested that his administration’s anti-corruption campaign had finally reached the NDDC.

    The audit was reported to have started in April 2020.  The Federal Executive Council (FEC) approved a contract of N318m for the engagement of a lead consultant for the audit. It is curious that the exercise took well over a year.

    After the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, on behalf of President Buhari, received the NDDC forensic audit report from Akpabio, in Abuja, on September 2,  2021,  nothing happened to show that the government understood the importance of implementing  the report without delay.

    Among the recommendations, presented by the Lead Forensic Auditor, Tabir Ahmed, was  that the NDDC should be made to operate within the limits of its annual budget and ensure that only projects budgeted for are awarded each fiscal year.

    The report also recommended that mobilisation payment be abolished, and the agency should employ project consultants to ensure accurate supervision and valuation of projects. Additionally, the report recommended that the agency should adopt a standard for costing contracts with appropriate profit margins.

    The government said it would “apply the law to remedy the deficiencies outlined in the audit report as appropriate.” The government added: “This will include but not be limited to the initiation of criminal investigations, prosecution, recovery of funds not properly utilised for the public purposes for which they were meant for amongst others.” Also, the government emphasised its objective to improve the standard of living of the people of the Niger Delta “through the provision of adequate infrastructural and socio-economic development.”

    Eight months after the tough talk, there is no sign that the government meant what it said.  It is unclear if the delay in implementing the report is because those implicated in the underdevelopment of the Niger Delta are preventing the government from taking action against them. The government needs to demonstrate that it is against the region’s underdevelopment by implementing the report without further delay.

    Akpabio, who should have driven the process, was busy offering unconvincing explanations for the inexcusable lack of drive.  He continued to project himself as a redeemer ordained to turn around the NDDC. But he seemed like a redeemer in need of redemption.

    Under him, there were puzzling twists and turns by the government, with the result that the agency aberrantly still lacks a substantive board.  It is striking that during Akpabio’s tenure, which was less than three years, the agency had two acting managing directors at different periods, and the current interim administrator appointed by President Buhari in December 2020.   The government picked Effiong Akwa “to assume headship till completion of the forensic audit.” He was the agency’s acting executive director, finance and administration at the time.

    The forensic audit has not only been completed; the report was submitted to the government eight months ago. It is abnormal that the NDDC is still controlled by an interim administrator appointed more than one year ago. This arrangement is not the same thing as having a lawfully appointed and approved board for the commission, with the implications for transparency and accountability.

    In 2020, a legislative investigation exposed indefensible financial recklessness under the agency’s Interim Management Committee (IMC). According to a Senate report, NDDC squandered N81.5bn between October 29, 2019 and May 31, 2020.  Two different IMCs led the commission within the period.  Senate President Ahmad Lawan said the report “exposed inefficiency and large-scale corruption going on in NDDC.”

    The Senate ordered that N4.923bn spent between March and May, 2020, should be refunded by the beneficiaries who were mainly members of the then IMC, staff of the commission and policemen.

    The breakdown of the questionable N4.923bn to be refunded: N1.49bn spent as COVID-19 palliatives, N1.12bn for public communications, N1.96bn for procurement of Lassa fever kits, N164.2m spent on Union members’ trip to Italy, N105.5 spent on scholarship grants and N85.7m on overseas travel to the United Kingdom during COVID-19 total lockdown.

    Akpabio was minister when this happened.  There were regular allegations of irregularities and lack of due process at the agency during his tenure. Importantly, the Senate also said IMC was unlawful, adding that a Board of Directors should lawfully run the agency, not an interim committee, which was a violation of the NDDC Act of 2000.

    Up till the time he left office to seek greener pastures, he insisted that his approach regarding NDDC was unimpeachable. His stock answer to demands for a board for the agency was that the government was busy working to produce a perfect formula and should not be rushed.

    A statement issued by the ministry in December 2021 said Akpabio was “irrevocably committed to assisting Mr. President to leave behind a legacy for the Niger Delta people , particularly saving the NDDC from dying like past developmental agencies put together for the region since 1958.”

    Despite his said commitment to saving the NDDC, he has moved on to chase presidential power, leaving a legacy of institutional aberrancy.

    Now that Akpabio is no longer minister of Niger Delta Affairs, the Federal Government should stop wasting time, constitute a board for the agency without further delay, and ensure that the audit report is implemented. That will show that Akpabio has truly lost his counter-productive grip on the agency.

  • Nomination forms by proxy trivialized

    Nomination forms by proxy trivialized

    There are salient issues from the purchase of nomination forms by presidential aspirants that should worry keen observers.

    First is the unusual high number of aspirants especially from the All Progressives Congress, APC and the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP. The APC parades about 28 aspirants that paid the N100 million fees for the forms while the PDP has about 10.

    This high number and huge amount of money raked in by the APC has fuelled speculations as to whether the party was not into a fundraising ceremony in another garb.

    The other discernible feature is that nearly all the aspirants had their nomination forms purchased by sundry interest groups; some of them of very questionable hue. The phenomenon of proxy forms and unwieldy number of aspirants trivialized the process with suspicions that highly placed interests are behind it for hidden and self-serving objectives.

    But there are aspirants who personally paid for their forms. This article is concerned with the phenomenon of proxy nomination forms; the objective behind it. It also seeks to interrogate the reasons adduced by these interest groups for buying forms for their preferred aspiring candidates.

    It is not possible to interrogate all of them; their claims and motivations in this essay. A random sample would suffice. But the investigation will be eclectic; deploying paired constructs for ease of illustration.

    There are aspirants that carry serious weight, enormous political war chest and penetrating influence that make sense when you speak of interest groups buying forms for them.

    But there are others that make one begin to wonder what purpose proxy forms will serve them. Is it to showcase a non-existing popularity profile or cover up for the source of the humongous sums paid for obtaining nomination forms or both?

    For APC, five aspirants would be on focus in no particular order. The aspirants are: Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, APC national leader, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, former president, Goodluck Jonathan, governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, Godwin Emefiele and Minister of State for Education, Chukwuemeka Nwajiuba.

    Tinubu stands out here. He is the only one that personally paid for his forms. James Faleke who led a team of support groups to pick the forms said, “we are here as team on behalf of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu to pick the forms he has personally paid for and because he is out of the country, he paid for his forms directly and asked us to come and pick them”.

    His was a clear demonstration that he has enough personal funds to buy the forms irrespective of his huge support base. The case of Osinbajo was different. His media aide, Laolu Akande said “a passionate team of support groups and individual Nigerians from across the country raised funds to support the purchase of APC nomination forms for the vice president’s 2023 presidential bid”.

    It is unclear how much financial support Osinbajo got from the groups and individuals and whether he made any personal financial commitment for the purchase of the forms. Two clear messages: it would seem Osinbajo wanted to show he has large political following across the country while at the same time avoiding questions as to the source of the money if he were to pay for the forms personally. He is entitled to his claim of large following given his current office.

    Jonathan’s case is as interesting as it is comical.  A group of Fulani herdsmen and Almajiri ostensibly raised the funds to buy the forms for him. Spokesman of the two groups, Ibrahim Abdullahi explained their action on the grounds that Jonathan initiated a comprehensive policy of reformation and integration of Almajiri into Nigeria’ mainstream education system.

    He said Jonathan also gave the Fulani community, the nomadic pastoralists, a sense of belonging by setting aside N60 billion for livestock development in the country. Can you beat that? There is some truth in the nomadic education policy but it is doubtful whether the herdsmen and Almajiri actually bought the forms. The leadership of Miyetti Allah has dissociated the group from the claim.

    It is also doubtful if Jonathan is in the goods books of the northern tendency to deserve support from its downtrodden. Events of the 2015 elections do not bear this out. If the claim is to demonstrate Jonathan’s acceptance and popularity in the north, it definitely cannot fly. Not with the gang up by the northern elite (that controls and manipulates the herdsmen and the Almajiri) that wrested power from him. Jonathan claims the development does not have his blessing. But his actions speak to the contrary.

    Emefiele had his forms bought by rice farmers and two other support groups while Nwajiuba’s Project Nigeria pooled resources to buy his. Rice farmers? Why should rice farmers be at the vanguard of Emefiele’s ambition?

    If it is on account of enhanced income due to recent advertisement of questionable rice pyramids, should the credit go to him or the government? It is also disconcerting that Project Nigeria is pooling resources for Nwajiuba to seek the presidency with our education system in disarray. It is good he has resigned his appointment. Definitely, the inability to resolve the ASUU debacle that has shut down our universities is not a good credential for higher leadership.

    For the PDP, we have former vice president, Atiku Abubakar who had his forms bought by North East Business community while former Anambra State governor; Peter Obi had his purchased by Like Minds for Peter Obi. A group, Northern Progressive Elements and friends of Wike purchased the forms for Rivers State governor, Nyesom Wike.

    PDP presidential nomination forms are sold at N40 million and could be afforded by Atiku and Obi but they opted for support groups as a show of their wide acceptance. Wike would have no difficulty raising the funds but progressive northern elements had to come to the rescue to show his acceptability in the north. Whether these support claims are contrived or real will become evident during the primaries.

    But the unwieldy number of persons seeking the presidency of this country in the midst of debilitating national challenges trivializes that office and reflects how low it is now viewed.

  • Obi-nomics

    Obi-nomics

    I have always despised those who call him “her excellency.” No one is masculine like Peter Obi. Look at his intense eyes, carriage, stride and sometimes visceral smile. His vocal output may be light, but a warrior underlies its deceptive effeminacy. The gifted ear can filter the man from the female sigh.

    But that is the former governor of Anambra State. He abides his own contradiction. See, for instance, the story of his encounter with a journalist when he Anambra helmsman. He wanted to insert a newspaper ad and he turned not the aloof, superior state chief executive. Rather, he became a sort of broker. He negotiated advert commission with the journalist on behalf of the state. He had to save money for development. For him, to be frugal was a canon. You may even say cannon.

    That scenario haunted me until the story that few know or want to know about the former Anambra chieftain and now megaphonic presidential hopeful. It occurred in 2009, and he was Anambra State’s number citizen. The story goes thus. The governor had an office at 7, Aerodrome Avenue, Apapa, and he had instructed an aide and one or two others to deposit about N250 million there.

    Someone in his inner circle was probably not happy with Obi. So, the police followed a tipoff and top cop Marvel Akpoyibo – remember him? Former CP and DIG? – organised his men and intercepted the vehicle headed to Obi’s office. The matter roiled Obi, cut short a trip, put together some media men to hush the story.

    But some reporters craved it like shark sniffing blood because it was a pip of a story. Under Akpoyibo, the report landed in the office of the inspector general of police. PDP top brass cried. Olisa Metuh berated the state house of assembly for hiding their tails behind their cowardly backs, implying that the rubberstamp legislators had sold their souls to the puritan Obi. They yelled impeachment. PDP thought the time was ripe to cut down the APGA mango. Even Obi’s party disowned him on the scandal. But the man would not go. Mango would not go. Obi glowed lush, round and proud on Anambra’s tree.

    The IG and those after him have not released the report, and no house member has had the courage to browbeat the fellow. In 2013, Olisa Okechuckwu of the APC reopened the wound, and asked the police to unearth the findings. He worried because Obiano, his account officer, was taking over from him.

    No dice. The soft-voiced merchant was more warrior than his macho pursuers. He wrestled them to the floor. Men with throats of bass, soprano and treble could only tremble before Obi’s audacity, or what novelist Joseph Conrad calls the “bravado of guilt.” Just wonder how charmed Obi is. Many are calling him to be president but they are not asking for N250 million in 2009 value of the sum.

    I envy the man. When he was running as Atiku’s deputy, tv hostess Kadaria Ahmed asked him why he invested Anambra money in his family business. With a rueful smile, Obi did not deny but put on a toga of righteousness. He did it for the good of Anambra, not for his family. No one capered over that act of impunity and audacious corruption. How did he do it without due process. How come billions of naira left the state coffers without question or alarm in the system?

    Then when off-shore scandal broke last year, his name came up again, lodging money abroad while governor? Then we recalled that he owned the biggest mall in Abuja, which unfortunately fell to tongues of fire. Reports say it was built when he was in office. Who is asking him those questions?

    Indeed, the Bible says blessed are those whose sins are covered. It may be that Obi is God’s son, because King David applauds those, like him, “whose sin the Lord does not count against him and in whose spirit is not deceit.”

    But I am not sure of the deceit part with Peter Obi. He may even be a version of the Biblical Peter the rock. He is the man who says he loves to be frugal, but opens state coffers into his company’s account.

    And again, he says he was a great governor. I will not be unfair to him. I will say he was a good governor, which in Nigerian history does not mean much. He appropriated what Ngige and his predecessor Mbadinuju did into his museum of achievements. What a clever man. I envy him for that. The blessing of the former is taken by the latter. Obi must know his Bible well. Never mind the roads Obi did in an age of concrete were mere laterite, only surface deep and washed away by the generous malignancy of Anambra floods.

    Some say, his great achievement was bequeathing N75 billion. What a claim. In a state that still had debts at that time. I think his view of money is to keep rather than do. But the task of governor is to do. We don’t hail a father for having a lot of money but for doing a lot of good. He was miserly to the state, magnificent to himself. No one expects a person to save money when there are lots of schools to build and lots of hospitals, et al. The man has what I call “pouch economy,” like those our beloved mothers who keep their pouches beneath their navels and hide money there. They don’t have grand designs for the money. It’s security. you can call it “Ogbele economy.” Former Katsina state governor and president Umar Yar’Adua did same in Katsina. It is what was called pound foolish. Money for money’s sake, or a sort of ‘financialism.’

    If as governor he did not leave a grand vision that endures, then we may be looking at the hype called Obi. Onitsha, Nnewi, et al, make billions by the day, yet when he was governor, he could not wax that to tax. But he left those markets to operate a 20th century fashion when a 21st century beckoned. That is the vision for the new governor. Obi thinks like a trader, not statesman or visionary. A friend of mine calls it Obi-nomincs.

    I understand why the southeast clutches at Obi, because they want the president this time. But the east must learn to earn from our geo-politics. In politics, we don’t always get what we deserve but we get what results from how we play clock and men. The southeast has not forged alliances with the other zones. They have miscalculated with tensions and alienations. When a Kanu inspires home support in one breath, and the same supporters of secession want to be president, the matter becomes complicated. You cannot say, “To your tents O Israel,” in one voice, and “Support us to lead you,” in another. It has no rhyme or rhythm. Politics is the art of the possible. It’s time to play a politics of realism in the southeast. It may be right to co-opt than coerce, but it is even more profitable to cooperate than co-opt. See how Sinn Fein saw margin was error, and now are on the verge of getting first minister for Northern Ireland.

    That is an issue for the Igbo to chew. Even at that, an Obi as frontline candidate is a broken proposition.

     

    Akintola’s children

    This essayist did not expect to be hailed in some quarters with hallelujah chorus for last week’s column. As a colleague noted last week, if you prick a child, it must squeak, or else you worry if it is normal. A writer is nothing if not straight from the heart. Some became hysterical, and a certain errand boy called me and sounded half drunk, half in drug, and I cut him off on the phone before he wrote some drivel unworthy of civilised publication. Just then, I saw that the southwest was still agog with presidential wannabes, a story that makes me realise Chief Ladoke Akintola, husband of Faderera, is so fertile as to still have sons in Yorubaland. The libido of treachery. Those who, when they wanted something, bowed at his home day and night, reported there like school children, flattered him, ate his food, laughed with him, wallowed in his riches, schemed with him, won his trust, gossiped about other associates, alienated him with lies and insinuations from those who meant well, plotted with reptilian souls. This essayist is witness. They are now saying they are equal or even better because the man put fortune at their disposal. It reminds me of the old Oyo Empire and a fellow known as Bashorun Gaa – or Gaha – who genuflected daily at the palace while plotting to bring down the throne. Historians and biographers need to tell us more about Yoruba history, and men like Akintola, (and Afonja and co) as well as Gaa, an ancestor who ended tragically but whose ploys, subterfuges and plots as well as the death and rise of Oyo invoke German philosopher Nietzsche’s theory of eternal return. They hypostasised what Greek historiographers called the cycle of time and history.

     

     

     

     

    Mefi unveiled

    Godwin Emefiele has defied all laws, economics and decencies to declare for president. I don’t want to dwell on it, as in the past, that forced his minions to buy a full-page newspaper advert to attack me. For now, leave the legality to the courts and political process.

    I just want to think math here. Who are the farmers who bought the form? Shall we know them by name? I ask because, his farm theory and practice have not given Nigeria enough rice for profit. Rice is far more costly now than when he became CBN chief. Most of the rice consumed come from smuggled goons. Where did they make enough profit to cobble together N100 million to buy a form? It means they make billions of Naira. Even Mefi will laugh at that. A seller will give out excess only from profits. That’s basic math and common sense.

    He needs to confess just as Malami did about the vehicles. We don’t have customers of his rice, so where is the profit?

    His rice pyramid has turned out to be white (rice) elephant. Hence, I am asking, who are those shadowy rice merchants who make profit without sale, and sale without a produce, produce without a market. That must be Mefi-nomics.

     

  • Again, the zoning question

    Again, the zoning question

    Nigeria is again back to the seemingly settled issue of rotating the presidency between the north and south. A number of recent events brought us back to this avoidable trajectory.

    First was the decision by the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, to throw open the presidential contest to all zones in the country. Though the party re-affirmed its commitment to zoning as contained in its constitution, it rationalized the decision on what it called the exigency of time.

    This has seen motley of aspirants jostling for the PDP primaries. Some leaders from the north have even gone an inch further to select consensus candidates even as the exercise was marred by intense controversy.

    But the decision has not gone down well with the south as groups and individuals have continued to insist it is their turn to produce the next president after President Buhari. For now, the race is open to all the 15 PDP presidential aspirants screened and cleared by the party.

    As if this was not enough to resurrect the rotation argument, the newly elected national chairman of the All Progressives Congress APC, Abdullahi Adamu threw petrol into a raging fire when he declared that the party has not zoned the presidency. Before Adamu’s statement, all was going on well within the party as there seemed an understanding the post had been zoned to the south. The assumption accounted for the emergence of nearly all presidential aspirants of the party from the south.

    The situation became somewhat confused with Adamu’s statement such that the chairman of the southern governors’ forum and governor of Ondo State, Rotimi Akeredolu had to call on the party to come clear on zoning as equivocation could throw the country into crisis of unimaginable proportion.

    Akeredolu insisted it is the turn of the south to produce the president in 2023 in keeping with the spirits of equity, fairness and progress of the country.

    Within the same week, a pressure group staged protests at the national headquarters of the APC and PDP insisting the two parties should zone their presidential tickets to the south. With these and emerging views from the north objecting to rotation, the zoning controversy is once again before us.

    Adamu’s statement has seen more northerners joining the fray with more likely to enter the race before the extended closing date for the sale of nomination forms by the party. And unless the APC makes a categorical statement zoning the presidency to the south, theirs promises an open contest as is the case with the PDP. If that happens, then zoning would have been thrown overboard.

    But we have been through this troubled route before and some lessons ought to have been learnt from the altercations of the 2015 elections. It does appear no lesson has been learnt as we have gone back to our old ways.

    Have we forgotten so soon, events of 2015 and the heated arguments by the northern elite to have power ceded to that part of the country? Then, secretary of the Northern Elders Forum, NEF, Ango Abdullahi, had drawn attention to how rotation was arrived at during the 1987 National Political Reforms Conference as a way of giving a sense of belonging to tendencies that make up the country.

    Abdullahi had then said, “the north was determined and insisting that the leadership of the country will rotate to it in 2015. If it is on the basis of one man one vote, demography shows that the north can keep power as long as it wants because it will always win elections”. Though the north had genuine grounds for its agitation for power rotation then, not many were comfortable with the claim that it can always win elections because of the touted demographic advantage.

    As events of that election were to show, the north did not win the contest against Jonathan without clear support and collaboration from the south. Curiously, the same line of warped argument has surfaced as part of the considerations by the PDP for throwing its presidential slot open.

    The PDP was said to have cited voter turnout in the 2019 elections in which out of the 10 states that ranked highest, nine are from the north as part of the reasons for its decision. This curiously falls in line with the argument canvassed by Ango Abdullahi in 2015. The purport of this is that elections will always go the direction the north wants because of their touted numerical advantage.

    It seems so on the surface. The truth is that neither the south nor the north can win the presidential election if all southerners vote a southern candidate and vice versa. So the issue of voting advantage should not be taken too far.

    More fundamentally, arguments like this constitute serious challenge to southern solidarity and consensus building. It is also a serious test for the Lagos declaration during which southern governors affirmed their unflinching support for the president of the country to emerge from the south in 2023. Though southerners across the divide have been most vocal in calling for power rotation, each of the zones seeks to take maximum advantage of such a reality.

    But that is exactly where the problem lies. Is it possible for the three zones in the south to apply the same reasons of equity and fairness in micro zoning the slot to one of its three constituents? That is the big question; a big test to southern solidarity. And what is the likely outcome of each pursuing their ambitions separately?

    For now, it does not appear southerners have any answer to this question. Both the parties and contestants are enmeshed in a mind game. It is a game situation involving payoffs. They are concerned with rational calculations on the choices open to each other and their possible payoffs. They are contending with options that will minimize their losses in the event of the worst outcome.

    That seems the idea behind the PDP decision. The same reason may account for the recent position of the APC. The real issue is not as much with where the office is zoned as with the determination, commitment and capacity of southerners to resist any attempt to thwart the process in the same fashion northerners did in 2015. Can they?