The Nation Newspaper

Category: Monday

  • Amaechi’s monkey business

    Amaechi’s monkey business

    In the face of public outrage over the terror attack on a train on the Abuja-Kaduna route on March 28, Minister of Transportation Rotimi Amaechi offered a self-righteous defence.  He exculpated himself, and implicated co-members of the Federal Executive Council (FEC) in the tragedy. It was intriguing that his self-exculpatory defence went against the concept of collective responsibility.

    Perhaps this explains why a document on the FEC meeting of September 24, 2021, appeared in the public domain. The leaked minutes of the meeting suggest that Amaechi may well be implicated in the tragedy, and not FEC co-members.

    The Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) said 362 people were on board the train when evil men struck. Eight passengers were killed, 41 injured, and the whereabouts of 136 are unknown.

    Amaechi lamented to journalists: “We knew what the problem would be. We knew we needed to have digital security equipment, we told them that’s what we needed, we applied for it…

    “If we had that equipment, you’ll see nobody on that track for Christ’s sake. And I warned that lives would be lost, now lives are lost… we don’t know how many people have been kidnapped, and the cost of that equipment is just N3bn.

    “The cost of what we’ve lost is more than N3 billion, we’ve lost track, we’ve lost locomotive and coaching, we’ve lost human beings, and the equipment that would’ve prevented that is just N3bn.

    “To fix that equipment now, to fix all the things on that track would cost us more than N3bn. And now even the things we wanted to buy and we said give us approval to buy, we didn’t say give us money; at the time we asked for it dollar was N400, now if we’re going to buy we’re going to buy it at N500.”

    Then he added self-praise and attacked FEC co-members, saying, “When you come with sincerity to the government and your colleagues and people around you are stopping you it is annoying.”

    In his long lamentation, he conveniently avoided details of how his proposal had failed the integrity test. The leaked minutes exposed him.

    Amaechi had asked the council to “approve the award of contract for the procurement and installation of electronic surveillance system and interrogation unit on the Abuja (Idu)-Kaduna (Rigasa) 200km railway monitoring rail intrusion detection system and emergency response system in favour of Messrs Mogjan Nigeria Limited/Cagewox Dot Net Limited in the sum of N3, 780,827,410.66 inclusive of 7.5 per cent VAT with a completion period of four months.”

    According to the minutes, “Some members expressed concern about the quality of the memorandum as there was no description of the surveillance system concept note, brand name, country of manufacture or review by the previous user to enable them to make informed decisions.

    “They stated that as sophisticated as the surveillance system was touted to be, there were no indications that it had been demonstrated and tested by the security technology agencies. They equally observed that all the projects were lumped together under one budget line, which they noted was not good enough as each rail line project was supposed to be captured in its individual budget line.”

    Amaechi was quoted as saying in his response that it was a pilot programme, which would be replicated across the country if it worked. If he wasn’t sure it would work, why did he propose it? He also explained that if the rail was tampered with, the system would send signals to an observation platform. His explanation seemed speculative.

    Importantly, Mogjan Nigeria Limited, which he had recommended for the contract worth N3.7bn, had a deficient profile. It was incorporated on August 6, 2019, by Prince Godwin Momoh, Chioma Momoh and George Momoh, and had a turnover of N84.9m. Who are these people?

    Not surprisingly, available information about the company attracted suspicion. A “top Presidency official” was quoted as saying “We had doubts about the capability of a company, which was formed less than two years prior and had no track record of handling a contract of N3.7bn or a contract on surveillance systems. The company was also to be paid up front. Our investigation pointed to a conflict of interest.”

    The mention of a possible conflict of interest is significant because it suggests that Amaechi’s proposal may well have been monkey business.  An article by Paul Catchick in Fraud magazine titled ‘Conflict of interest – Gateway to Corruption’ is illuminating. He explained: “A conflict of interest exists where an official could abuse his or her position for private gain, whereas corruption exists where an official does abuse his or her position for private gain. Thus while a conflict of interest doesn’t always lead to corruption, corruption always requires a conflict of interest.”

    Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo chaired the FEC meeting in which Amaechi’s proposal failed. The minutes said he “directed that in view of the observation raised by members, there was a need for the ministry to provide further description of the equipment, its brand name, manufacturer and how it worked.”

    Amaechi had obviously presented a low-quality proposal.  Did he expect automatic FEC approval? It is inexcusable that he presented such a flawed proposal, considering his background and experience. He became Minister of Transportation in 2015, and was re-appointed in 2019. He was Rivers State governor for two terms, from 2007 to 2015. He was speaker of the Rivers State House of Assembly twice, from 1999 to 2007.

    The horrific train attack happened more than six months after FEC rejected Amaechi’s bad proposal. Did he present an improved proposal on the same security matter in the period between the rejection of the initial proposal and the terror attack?  It seems he didn’t.

    If he didn’t, how much time did he need to improve the rejected proposal and present a better one?  It was easy for him to lament alleged non-cooperation of FEC co-members, and give the impression that he had a greater sense of urgency about the security issue than they did.

    Since the leaked minutes hit the headlines on April 1, Amaechi has not responded to the damaging implications. He certainly has a lot of explaining to do.

  • Banditry: El-Rufai spills the beans

    Banditry: El-Rufai spills the beans

    Those still confounded by the ease with which bandits bombed an Abuja-Kaduna passenger train, killed eight people, injured many with several others abducted should hold it. The reasons for its successful execution and the general reign of terror that has reduced human life to nothing in Kaduna State and the northwest are beginning to emerge. If it takes the train calamity for us to get at the root of the festering banditry/terrorism that has consigned the country to a verity of the Hobbesian state of nature, the incident though condemnable, may be serving a useful purpose.

    Before last week’s attack, there had been a similar attempt that destroyed the rail track on the same route though the train successfully manoeuvred its way out. But the level of mortal damage both in human and material capital from the recent terror attack exposed the vulnerability of the citizens to continuing onslaughts of bandits/terrorists.

    The train attacks have been roundly condemned with blames heaped at the doorsteps of the federal government for its serial inability to guarantee the safety of lives and property. Not a few have also expressed frustrations with the seeming kid gloves the government treats the mortal danger posed by the activities of bandits/terrorists in this country.

    Not long ago, fiery Islamic preacher, Sheikh Ahmad Gumi had warned that bandits were fast acquiring ant-aircraft guns. But the authorities never gave attention to that until they successfully brought down one of the Nigerian Air force jets. Gumi had also sought amnesty for the bandits as the only condition for them to come out of their evil ways.

    The manner Gumi conducted himself in his interactions with bandits in Zamfara forests and elsewhere had raised suspicion that he knew more than he was making the rest of us to believe. Suspicion of complicity in the banditry in the northwest gave rise to calls on the Buhari government to have Gumi arrested.

    Though the government never gave heed to such calls, something of significance emerged from Gumi s account of his interaction with the bandits in Zamfara forests. The two camps he had discussions with in the forests were those of the bandits and the Fulani.

    According to Gumi, during the presentation of their grievances, leaders of the bandits listed them as cattle rustling and attacks on the Fulani by the military and indigenes of Zamfara. What emerged from the disclosure was that both the bandits and the Fulani herdsmen shared common identity and challenges. They are two sides of the same coin.

    In this column in May last year titled “A Bandits’ Republic”, I had drawn copious attention to the increasing slide of the country to a verity of the sovereignty of the bandits. My position then was in part, based on the escalating kidnapping escapades and killings by the bandits in the face of the inability of the government to rein them in.

    Additionally, Gumi’s account of his interaction with bandits which showed no difference between the grievances of the bandits and Fulani herdsmen had injected complications into the matter and diminished quick prospects of workable solution. It was envisioned that with such mixed identity, the challenge of banditry was bound to assume a complex dimension.

    The body language of the federal government on the insurgency of the herdsmen did not help matters. So a bandits’ republic had become an emerging possibility in the face of the inability of the government to smoke them out of the ungoverned forests they had firmly established authority.

    It is not surprising they subsequently grew in strength and sophistication to the extent of attacking the Kaduna International Airport killing one and disrupting flights. As if the airport attack was not grave enough, the train terror onslaught brought the reality of the mortal danger of armed banditry/ terrorism closer to the doorsteps of the authorities.

    And for Kaduna State, it was the tonic for the truth to come out. It provided the window for equivocation and doublespeak to give way to truth. And that moment came when Governor Nasir El-Rufai received in audience, the Minister of Transport, Chibuike Amaechi.

    El-Rufai was so devastated by the incident that he had to spill the beans only if that will prick the collective consciences of the authorities to halt the scourge. Hear him: “The bandits’ hideouts are known. We know where they are. We have enough intelligence for us to take action. The SSS have their phone numbers, they listen to them and they give me report. We know what they are planning.”

    These disclosures are as weighty and grave as they are revealing. Even as they provide a lead to the unceasing insurgency of the bandits, the issues are not entirely new. It had long become evident that the camps of the bandits are known to Gumi, security agencies and government officials that were part of his trip.

    Despite this weight of credible intelligence, the government failed to act citing the need to avoid harming innocent inhabitants of the camps. Yet, it is from the same camps the bandits levy terror on innocent citizens at their homes, on the roads and elsewhere killing and maiming them. That is why the Buhari regime has been accused of duplicity in the reign of terror that has held the country prostrate.

    This lethargy allowed the bandits to perfect in sophistication to attack airports and passenger trains. It is good El-Rufai has been forced by frustrations to speak out. He had in the past justified duplicity in selective military responses to banditry and self-determination campaigns on the ground that the former was only in the business of collecting ransom.

    He is now in a better stead to know there is no difference between banditry and terrorism and that bandits are terrorists. But it is late in the day as innocent citizens have had to pay dearly for this tardiness. Curiously, Kaduna State has been at the receiving end of banditry.

    Its annual security report had it that 937 people were killed by terrorists in 2020 and 1,972 kidnapped. In 2021, 3,348 residents were kidnapped and 1,192 murdered. These are chilling statistics from just one state. But they speak volumes on the general slide to anarchy in the country. The cat has been let out of the bag. The government owes explanation on El-Rufai’s revelations.

  • Tinubu and associates

    Tinubu and associates

    When people go into politics, they don’t enter it as a profession. In that case, they want to excel in competence alone. They join clubs as a social amenity, to put up their legs and crease their faces with a smile. We go into a church or a mosque, only with a view to peer the afterlife from the here and now. They go to war, to slay the foe, cut down a leg, pierce a heart, burn a sacred place. They clasp families to their bosom.

    But many go into politics for all these, and more. The good politician must espouse competence. Aristotle prescribes that men must join politics only after excelling in their professions.

    They go to church as Christian the same way you go to the mosque, and vice versa. Compromise is virtue. They see it as a club, where they joke and quaff a glass or bottles. They also see it as ‘us against them,’ a la political parties and other groupings, including feline cults. Politics takes on the air of worship, as though their mission is heaven on earth. Remember Nkrumah’s political kingdom. Ditto Zik. They invoke messiahs or new dawns, or even nirvanas. And, of course, they even work together as though they were born of the same father and mother, until they meet another group with whom they act as though the former brothers and sisters ought to be abandoned for another set of siblings who were born of the same father and mother.

    So, politics is faith without reverence, family without blood and bones, profession where competence is only a fraction. It is club where you plot while pouring out a drink or wolfing down pounded yam, remember OBJ and Okadigbo. A theatre of war and play.

    So, how do you make a friend in that quicksand? That is what I reflect as Bola Ahmed Tinubu turns 70. He is the political friend’s friend. He knows how to make a friend. It is because he does not know how to make a foe. Or shall we say, he knows how to make a foe unlike any man. He who sees himself as a foe is only waiting to be a friend. Or he is a friend who turns a foe. When a foe, he is plotting to be a friend again.

    Rather than see the foe, he sees opportunity. He knows that everyman has a virtue. Like Jesus and the harlot who was about to be stoned to death. No one has the right to stone anyone because we are all human. Anyone can repent and bring his virtue to the cause.

    What is that cause? Democracy, a progressive chapter, an army of transforming the society. So, he is not like Harry Truman, who loathed betrayals in Washington. He quipped, “if you want a friend, buy a dog.” Tinubu buys time.

    But for that quality, Nigeria will not have Lagos as the governance model. He has competence and vision. Hence he pioneered privatising power, revolutionised IGR into a fortress of economic growth sought after by the Governors Forum. Again, Lagos as the refuge of most states in spite of the death and violence across the country? As a Muslim, he handed over schools to missions.  He introduced the big new year Christian service in the state.

    Humans are the great resource. Without men, what is the place of vision? He has an eye for talent, so he surrounds himself with the best. That made Lagos the state among states. He brought that acumen to the national stage. With the APC, he effected almost single-handedly the most successful and vast political coalition in the nation’s history.

    Few have focused on the fact that he has friends outside of politics. Where is the time to look back and mix with that friend he has had from childhood? Politics is all-consuming. If not, we should see him in public more with his friend with whom he followed a popular Nigerian musician on a southwest tour. They had no money to return to Lagos. So, they hung on to the back of a truck that almost cost them their lives. But you don’t see him in public with him. You see him with the political associates because politics is not a job at Mobil from where you go to the Island Club after closing hours. He wakes up to the associates in the morning and sleeps after goodnight to them. Who did we see with Awo if not Rewane, or Jakande, or in the good times, Enahoro? You never saw Lincoln’s best friend Joshua Fry Speed in public, the man who read out chapters from books to his best friend in his younger days. Or Lindeman and Lord Beaverbrook with Churchill when he was daring Hitler and serenading us with orations. Or Strobe Talbott with Bill Clinton who made breakfast for him at Oxford – not even when he hired him as assistant secretary of state. Or even Oliver Tambo with Mandela even when they were both in the trenches together.

    So, political family trumps every other. Wives suffer. Children groan.A politician once told me the story of his daughter who stayed awake at home after midnight till he returned. She had a cheeky proposal. She wanted to book an appointment to see daddy.

    The vocation is faith, army, family, club, et al, and becomes the breath of life. It is your clothes. Hence, friends have tended to be more intense for a man like Tinubu because he has to have many of them. Because the bigger the politician, the bigger the circle. And who is bigger than he in Nigerian politics since 1999?

    Hence, he accommodates turncoats. He makes enemies even when he is not aware of them because he has to juggle indulgences, tasks and positions. I remember a fellow who complained that he was removed from a certain perch, and his bitterness was directed at Tinubu. I asked Tinubu. He was aware, but he said, “He’s a good man.” He told me it was another group that edged the man out. It was not his choice. He had to yield because of the larger interest of balancing interests in the sweepstakes of governance and politics. The fellow knew that a leader must take the blame even when he is innocent. Some have left because he replaced them with others who did not to have, and they felt let down. It is a delicate game.

    It happens often. He has to balance, and it will never be just all the time. He will only have to try harder. Ironically, some who are favoured also turn against him after tasting the “forbidden fruit.”

    Sometimes when a person returns, he prioritises him over those who have been “home” – Tinubu himself has admitted that privately. I discussed it with a friend, and he referred to the prodigal son. The father threw a party for the one who left. What of the good children at home? Even Jesus said, when a sheep strays, he would leave the other 11 to save the lone one astray, so there will be “one sheep, one shepherd.”

    He walks a tightrope. Yet those who leave tend to come back. He does not fight with hate, although with malice. Waziri in the second republic spoke of politics without bitterness. Tinubu lays no claim to sainthood. He fights with malice, but of a peculiar sort. It is not quite like Apostle Paul’s admonition: “In malice be children, but in understanding be men.” He does not exercise his malice with bitterness but as a store of facts. There is no word in English to define his sort of grudge. He uses it to fight you when it is necessary, but also to embrace you when it is necessary. In this regard, he exercises his gift as a great judge of talent, but not always astute as a judge of character. Even then, Lucifer was the most beautiful of the angels. And Christ chose Judas, not just as apostle but as treasurer. Apostles become apostates, too. Awo lamented Enahoro till he died. There is no art to find the mind’s construction in the face. Ambition is a terrible thing when it afflicts a person. Churchill’s friend Beaverbrook once said, “A person with a will to power can’t make friends.”

    But Tinubu likes friends. Hence some who cynically leave always know a party awaits their return like the prodigal son. Does it pain him when men he made turn against him? I asked him about it when I wondered how he handles such matters. He said, “If it pains you that they behave like this, how do you expect me to feel.” Is it the lawyer that he insisted he must be included in as many cases? Or the one who abused him many times, yet he came to his rescue when his health collapsed?

    He is like what French writer Andre Malraux wrote: “If you abandon a certain number of deputes or if they abandon you, that is…an incident. If you abandon an idea, that is not an incident, it is a suicide.”

    Tinubu looks beyond incidents to the goal.

     

  • Anti-terrorism lessons

    Anti-terrorism lessons

    There are fresh lessons for Nigeria on how to fight terrorism by fighting its sponsors, and strengthening anti-terrorism capacity.  The question is whether the country’s authorities are teachable.

    The US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has added the names of six Nigerians to “the List of Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons… for having materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, or technological support for, or goods or services to or in support of, Boko Haram.”

    It accused the Nigeria-based terrorist group of “numerous attacks in the northern and northeastern regions of the country as well as in the Lake Chad Basin in Cameroon, Chad, and Niger that have killed thousands of people since 2009.”

    The six Nigerians are: Abdurrahman Ado Musa, Salihu Yusuf Adamu, Bashir Ali Yusuf, Muhammed Ibrahim Isa, Ibrahim Ali Alhassan, and Surajo Abubakar Muhammad.

    The United Arab Emirates (UAE) Federal Court of Appeals in Abu Dhabi had convicted them of transferring $782,000 from Dubai to Boko Haram in Nigeria.  Adamu and Muhammad were sentenced to life imprisonment for violations of UAE anti-terrorism laws; Musa, Yusuf, Isa and Alhassan were sentenced to 10 years in prison, followed by deportation.

    The US sanction against them, the agency said in a statement on March 25, “will prevent these individuals’ funds from being used further to support terrorism.”

    Crippling terrorism enablers is a critical aspect of the war against terrorism. But the Federal Government has failed to tackle terrorism sponsors, and so encourages terror-support which sustains terrorism.

    In April 2021, for instance, the government announced that it had arrested 400 alleged Boko Haram sponsors. At the time the said arrests suggested a new level of seriousness in the fight against terrorism.

    The arrested alleged financiers of the Islamic terrorist group were said to be businessmen, including bureau de change operators. They were arrested in Kano, Borno, Lagos, Sokoto, Adamawa, Kaduna and Zamfara states, and Abuja.

    The arrests were said to have been carried out based on investigations involving the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA), the Department of State Services (DSS), Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU), and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). The suspects were expected to be prosecuted without delay.

    Five months after news of the arrests, the media reported that the Federal High Court in Abuja had fixed September 17, 2021 for the arraignment of the suspects for alleged terrorism funding. The public had looked forward to the event. “The case will come up before Justice Anwuli Chikere,” the media said. But there was no subsequent report of the case, which suggested that it didn’t happen.

    About a year after the said arrests, the public is still expecting the trial of the suspects. This cannot encourage public confidence in the government’s effort to tackle terrorists and their sponsors.

    Apart from the failure to deal with terrorism financiers, there is the question of poor anti-terrorism capacity. The United States government, on March 25, donated five nuclear detector cans to the Nigeria police to help tackle terrorism in the country. The security donations were said to be worth about two million dollars.

    It is unclear how much the country’s anti-terrorism capacity has improved.  Last year, 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.”

    Also, the House of Representatives had set up an ad hoc committee to investigate the government’s procurement of arms and ammunition from 2011.

    Claims that the armed forces are poorly equipped to fight insecurity were reinforced by some striking incidents.  For instance, Lance Corporal Martins Idakpini of the 8 Division, Sokoto, of the Nigerian Army, dared to speak truth to power in a 12-minute video that went viral in June 2020. He had criticised the military leadership for failing to provide adequate weapons to fight terrorism.

    Also, in two other videos, soldiers involved in the war against terrorism had claimed that the army was ill-equipped to defeat the terrorists. In one video, a former theatre commander, Maj. Gen. Olusegun Adeniyi, was seen and heard telling troops that “it appears the people we are fighting have more firepower than us.” He was court-martialled for embarrassing and ridiculing the armed forces.

    Is the military better equipped now?  The war on terror has gone on for too long. It is more than a decade since the military launched its counter-insurgency operation, and Boko Haram continues to terrorise the country. Tragically, it looks like a war without end.

    There are disturbing allegations that the war on terror has become an inspiration for corruption in the military and political leadership; and those benefitting materially from it do not want the war to end. This may explain why the things that should be done to boost the anti-terrorism effort have not been done.

    In January, Borno State Governor Babagana Zulum supplied information showing that the Federal Government cannot claim to be winning the war against terrorism.

    He told members of the Senate Committee on Army during their visit to him at the Government House in Maiduguri that two local government areas in the state were under the control of Boko Haram terrorists.

    He said:  ”Two of our local government headquarters are still under the control of Boko Haram terrorists, Malamfatori in Abadam local government and Guzamala. We want the owners of these two local governments to take over, that is the government of Borno State and the two local governments.”  Have the areas been recovered?

    There may be greater trouble ahead as Zulum highlighted the growing presence of another terrorist group, the Islamic State of West Africa Province (ISWAP), in the southern part of Borno. This is likely to worsen the country’s terrorism problem.

    Increased activities by terrorists can only mean increased insecurity in the country. Zulum observed that “If nothing is done to check and tackle the growing presence of ISWAP fighters who are better armed, better equipped, more deadly, more sophisticated and receive more funds than Boko Haram, it will be disastrous not only to Borno State but the country in general.”

    The alarm was loud enough. The government needs to adequately equip the anti-terrorism fighters and effectively tackle terrorism financiers.

  • When Buhari summoned Uzodinma

    When Buhari summoned Uzodinma

    President Buhari, penultimate Monday summoned Governor Hope Uzodinma on the escalating insecurity in Imo State. The summons came on the heels of the burning of the country home of the President-General of Ohaneze Ndigbo, Prof. George Obiozor and attack on Umuguma police station in Owerri.

    Two appointees of the president – Minister of Power, Abubakar Aliyu and Chief Economic Adviser, Prof. Doyin Salami were also summoned to separately address the president on the state of the power sector and national economy respectively. The tone of the order conveyed an emergency requiring the invitees to clear issues in areas of their responsibility.

    There is no information on decisions reached on the power sector and the general economy of the country. But decisions on the festering insecurity in Imo State are copiously in the public domain.

    Uzodinma told State House correspondents that the president approved a fresh range of solutions including the deployment of more security personnel, arms and ammunitions to douse the rising insecurity in Imo State.

    The governor seemed optimistic that kinetic approach is all required to restore peace in the state. This position however, is at variance with all we have been told especially with regard to the source of the spreading insecurity in the state. Admittedly, more security personnel, arms and ammunitions are vital to maintain law and order especially where the enemy is known and its location precise.

    But that is not the exact situation with the insecurity in Imo State as opinions are largely divided regarding those responsible for the reign of terror. It is also very instructive that during his interview with State House correspondents, they confronted him with allegations of culpability of his administration in the reign of terror in the state which he denied while describing such thinking as abnormal.

    At the initial stages, the public was fed with the narrative that Indigenous People of Biafra IPOB and its security arm, Eastern Security Network, ESN were the masterminds of the orgy of violence in the state.

    Somewhere along the line, the story of unknown gunmen crept in even as nobody has been able to decode the precise identity of the so-called unknown gunmen. We have also heard of the Ebubeagu security outfit set-up by the government even as its membership has been embroiled in controversy. These came with complications to the security situation as blame trading reigns supreme.

    A new dimension was injected into this seeming puzzle when Uzodinma told Course 30 of the National Defence College, Abuja on a study of Imo State that the causes of insecurity are “a combination of the activities of bandits and political gang-up masterminded by politicians who ruled the state in the past and refused to accept defeat from 2019 election”.

    At other occasions, he blamed opposition politicians and criminal elements for the rising insecurity in the state. He capped these allegations when last December, he promised to make public, the names of those sponsoring unwarranted killings, kidnapping and all forms of insecurity in the state.

    Hear him “We have gotten the bank accounts from where they have been transferring money to them and we have the evidence. When I address Imo stakeholders, I will call their names one by one”.

    The atmosphere in Imo was filled with suspense and great expectation waiting for the unmasking of the brains behind the festering insecurity that has ruined the economy of the state. That day came but he failed to name the so-called masterminds. Though he acknowledged he had promised to make such names public, he would rather leave security agencies to do their work and prosecute those found culpable.

    It was a day of great disappointment for the people of the state in particular and the country given the high interest the issue had generated. So many questions were raised regarding what could have brought about the volte face by the governor with suggestions that he could be playing to the gallery for inexplicable reasons.

    When he claimed he would name the masterminds of the spate of insecurity in the state, did it not occur to him that he was delving into an area outside the scope of his authority? And which should precede the other, the naming of the so-called sponsors of insecurity or their arrest, investigation and prosecution?

    Additionally, there has been no information on the arrest and prosecution of the alleged politicians who ruled the state in the past and have refused to accept defeat from the 2019 elections. Neither has anything been heard of the list he claimed privy to including their bank accounts.

    In saner societies, the law enforcement agencies would have been made to compel Uzodinma to make public such names not only to re-assure  the public but as evidence that it was not aimed at getting even with opposition politicians. Had the touted evidence been availed the security agencies, the puzzle over the unceasing insecurity in Imo would have been perfectly resolved. And Buhari would not have had cause to summon the governor.

    Buhari’s summons to Uzodinma says much about the peculiarity of the lingering insecurity in the state. It also points to clear inability of the authorities to decode the texture and character of the escalating insecurity in the state. Why Imo State? Is there anything peculiar to the security situation in Imo that stands it out in the southeast zone? And why is the insecurity along with its bizarre dimensions concentrated in just a few communities in the Imo West senatorial district?

    Or are we to believe the governor that Imo is in the current security mess because of events of the 2019 elections? It may well be a dimension. But there are obviously other potent angles. There is the accusation that the security situation in Imo was ab initio mishandled. And what we are witnessing, the outcome of bad decision by the government. We run the same risk if the deployment of more arms and ammunitions takes precedence over credible intelligence.

    Had Buhari been availed of other angles, he would have had no need to deploy more arms and ammunitions for a job the governor claims to have credible intelligence.  Or are we going to roll out the tanks against those who ruled the state in the past and have refused to accept defeat from the 2019 elections?

  • No holy war

    No holy war

    If you did not see the letterhead, you might think it came from a political party. A PDP, or APC, or APGA could not have penned the directive more elegantly. It had no mystical air. You did not see the ghost of the holy spirit, or the balm of the word. It was a felicitous tone for the political battlefield. But a general overseer, not a general, was behind the call to battle. The signee was not important. A pastor can sign a PDP letter, or a bishop an APC memo. The wall of partition has for long been torn between the spiritual and temporal in the life of politics.

    But never before have we seen, in the country, that a church would set up a directorate of politics as the Redeemed Christian Church of God has done. It is even hard for this essayist to accept it. When I first saw it, I chalked it up to internet provocateurs seeking to throw dirt on the altar. But in Nigeria, fiction has become so real that even the magical sort popularised in Latin America is tame in the Nigerian experience. In faraway Colombia, novelist Garcia Marquez must have squeaked in his grave last week at the sound of Bianca’s queenly palms in Awka. The mighty writer’s ghost surely rose to see how a mighty slap made mincemeat of his genre.

    It was not RCCG alone. For emphasis, the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria joined RCCG in the call for such a directorate.

    My first instinct was the contradiction. If PFN espoused the idea, were they calling for each church to support their candidate, so that we have, say a Winner’s candidate at loggerheads with an RCCG candidate? If you read the RCCG letter, it was a call specifically for a Redeemed candidate. Their hierarchy of politics was from the zone to area to parish. It looks like a political party from national to state, to local government area to ward. The spirit is learning from the letter. The word taking a cue from the world.

    Or are they implying that if each Pentecostal church has a candidate, they will organise their own version of a primary? Who will vote? Will it be the church with the largest vote, or it will be based on the pastor with the biggest dose of the holy spirit? How will they determine it? If it is the church numbers, maybe it will be a nod to the Catholics. But if the Pentecostals believe they are more authentic than the old church, we shall have even more exquisite mess. So even at that, will they yield to the mega churches? Does the Bible judge by numbers or by faith? Are they going to “cast lots” as in when Matthias emerged to replace Judas? That will be an interesting scenario, and I would want to know the umpire? In the case of Mattias, Bible scholars still quibble whether the expression meant voting in the electoral sense, or simply communing with God for answers, since no opponent was named in the story. Whatever the scenario, I fear the prospects of how historians described a Polish parliament in the medieval age: A “divinely ordained confusion.”

    It is obvious these guys did not go to the altar to seek from God before jumping into the public arena. Do I oppose Christians going into politics? No. The church as an institution? I say no. Christ said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, then will my servants fight that I be not taken by the Jews. Now is my kingdom not of hence.”

    The mistake of the church is that it has become too rooted in the material obsession and forgotten its heavenly mission. Hence, they are more interested in numbers instead of members, whole money instead of holy mourning, joy in things rather than joy in the spirit. Some have quoted phrases like “occupy till I come,” or “give to Caesar what is Caesars.” What did Jesus occupy on earth? Certainly not political power. He didn’t seek it. He evangelised. He tended the broken hearted, and inspired the poor. Rather our church is more interested in ephemerals: wealth, healing, earthly glory. They are good, but secondary. They preach those things as though primary. What did Jesus give to Caesar, was it power? No. he spoke of “giving” not “taking.”

    The reference to the age of kings in the Old Testament and the kings in Israel as an excuse is an error. A mistake of context and texts. That was before Jesus came. Israel was a prefigure of the church as a people of God against gentiles. In political power, they tended to fail like David, who stumbled and Solomon after him and many more. The kingdom broke in two and mired in wars. Prophets like Elijah and Elisha chastened them. Theocracy stumbled. The priestly order cautioned them. Not time yet for the kingdom. Even many a prophet erred, like Jonah, Nehemiah, et al. When Christ came, Jews were no longer privileged, and “the gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world.” Not the kingdom of this world. Paul said the world belongs to the devil, “the god of this world.” It was because of this that Christ said, “let the wheat and tares dwell together until the day of harvest.”

    In a politically fragile country like Nigeria with religious suspicion, are they not aware that it is a combustible step? They forget we have Muslims in this country, even in larger numbers. What if they decide on a Muslim candidate? Shall we now turn our politics into a theocratic slugfest, war of faiths? Jesus said, “I send you as lambs among wolves, be ye wise as a serpent but harmless as a dove.” Even in the U.S where the Christian Right pushes its agenda, it didn’t, until Trump, come out this brazenly. They know they can’t do it alone, so they work quietly with Wall Street, capitalists and gun advocates in what Nixon enunciated as the southern strategy: God, guns and Gays.

    Religious leaders should concentrate to set the values in the society rather than play up sectarian differences. If they succeed, they will have a righteous nation by osmosis, rather than a Maccabean revolution. The church will do well to pursue values and not valorise factions or persons of their faith. The best candidate is not always a Christian, but a Nigerian. Again, they should unleash battles against drug addiction, corruption, moral laxity, kidnapping, cultism. They do less of these. They should chide governors who fail rather than supine co-ops and photo-ops.

    It is all right for individuals to pursue causes. William Wilberforce detonated slavery. Mary Slessor conjoined twins with culture. Not glorifying wealth as though the poor are sinners. Seek ye first the kingdom, not wealth or earthly vanity.

    The churches ought to be careful. The spirit is more important than things. What the PFN and RCCG are doing reveal what the French writer and playwright, Charles Peguy wrote: “All begins as mystique and ends as politique.”

    We don’t want religious war. We seek the holy of holies, not hurly-burly.

     

    Soludo takes flight

    •Prof Soludo

    It was not only a sartorial stamp, but the charisma of his macho presence. He made a political regalia of his Akwete top and trousers, red cap and his glowing dark skin, and you could not miss the voice: The boom of the Anambra orchestra. No leader, perhaps since Tafawa Balewa, will lead with the rare philtre of his vocal gift. No broadcaster, but he will dwarf any electronic larynx evangelising his own programmes. imagine an Ikenna Ndaguba, Ernest Okonkwo or Kevin Ejiofor on the throne. But he has more.

    Chukwuma Soludo, at last, mounted the throne as governor of Anambra State. He does so with a mighty credential hardly matched by any in any office. The former CBN chief now becomes a chief servant of one of Nigeria’s top entrepreneurial states. He calls his people an itinerant tribe. He is beckoning them home, like the existential philosopher Heidegger who says home is the object of all quests.

    His speech was a promise but a restraint, an embrace but a caution, a flight but a crawl, a dream inside a pragmatic vision, soars but saunters, at once revolutionary and conservative.

    Unmistakable is his avowal of an ideology called Pan African market progressivism. It brings the market impulse for popular good. Goods for the good of all. It reflects a man with a mission, and aware of the watch-eye of posterity. He spoke with zest and detail. He wants to transform many things. For commercial brio, to praise and challenge Nnewi and Onitsha duopoly, and stir the people to trust and taxes. For politics, to create a cooperative society by dimming the tides of violence and enlisting the renegade forces of IPOB, criminality and ESN to a band of brothers. Culture will brandish standards and locally made goods in a high-tech context to bring “Anambra to the world and the world to Anambra.” To bring plenty through a frugal style. All under the umbrella of an ideology at once indigenous and universal. It was delivered in a tone at once sober and optimistic, but putting off celebration until the job is done.

    For optics, no one could forget his reference to Innoson as his official car, and all meals and clothes and shoes within Anambra confines. He has presented the agenda. After the people, Anambra big wigs, led by the inimitable Oby Ezekwesili, anointed him.

    He has whetted the appetite. His gunpowder is dry. The eagle is looking at the sky. He has fluttered his wings. Now in flight. Lookout.

  • Petrol souvenirs as national mockery

    Petrol souvenirs as national mockery

    The arraignment of one Ogbolu Chidinma Pearl for alleged distribution of kegs of petrol as souvenirs at a party is as interesting as it is embarrassing. But it symbolizes a foreboding imagery of a country unable to get its priorities right.

    Ogbolu’s arraignment followed a viral video in which kegs of petrol were being distributed as souvenir at a social even in Victoria Island, Lagos. The Lagos State government and the state police command had taken exceptions to the incident and ordered investigations which led to the arrest of the suspect.

    The state police command said the suspect was arraigned on four-count charges of conduct likely to cause a breach of peace and endangering human life by distributing combustible matter in public gathering. The other charges are intent to do harm to another and unlawfully carrying on the business of storage and containerizing petroleum products without a permit.

    These are no doubt, weighty allegations. It is improbable the suspect had prior knowledge of the gravity of these offences. It is also doubtful whether these were her intentions as she set out packaging petrol as souvenirs for her guests. She may have equally been ignorant that her action infringed on the laws of the land; though ignorance does not constitute an excuse in law.

    So the suspect risks being jailed on some or all of the charges. It is also possible she could be discharged and acquitted on all of them. Her situation is bound to divide opinion because this is the first time an individual is being arraigned for giving out petrol as souvenirs in a party. It is a novel, albeit absurd situation. And in this novelty and absurdity can be located some of the failings and contradictions of our national life.

    It is probable Ogbolu was propelled by the desire for innovations. She may have been moved by this aspiration to respond to the challenges of her environment. She packaged the ‘gifts’ at a time the country was groaning under the pangs of debilitating fuel scarcity. The thought of her guests being stranded after the event may have compelled her to think out of the box on how to ensure they do not run out of fuel while going back home.

    That may have been her prompting; her little way of showing appreciation to guests at a time movements across the country were seriously hampered by debilitating fuel scarcity consequent upon the importation of a lethal variant of the commodity. That was the setting in which she located a fuel source with which she struck a business deal.

    How she located the fuel source at a time of biting scarcity is not known. Neither is there information on how she came about packaging the product or the dealers that worked in concert with her.

    But her innovative souvenirs seemed to have struck the right chord when the guests willingly accepted them and happily too. Who would not in view of the period the offer was made? So she is not the only offender. The government that put the commodity out of the reach of citizens has blames to share. Those who received the souvenirs and others that assisted her to package them must have shared in her concerns.

    Does that not say something about us a country? Is it not a national shame that Ogbolu saw nothing wrong with her packaging and presentation of petrol as gifts to her guests?

    These are the issues to ponder as Ogbolu faces trial at the special offences court. Nigeria is a major oil producer in the world oil producing matrix with the commodity accounting for the largest chunk of its foreign exchange earnings. Yet, it is interminably faced with epileptic fuel supplies and shortages that have made it difficult for businesses and normal activities to thrive unhindered.

    It is a country unable to refine its products locally and have had to depend on importation of fuel to service its domestic needs. This has left country vulnerable to the vagaries and fluctuations in the international oil market.

    It is therefore not out of place for citizens like Ogbolu to accord very high premium to the commodity such that moved her to package it as valuable gifts for her guests. After all, buying fuel in kegs has become a norm in the face of constant power outages.

    So what difference does her novel souvenirs really make when black market is all over the place and fuel sold in kegs? We are confronted with an uncanny dilemma that should prick our collective consciences. The incident is a serious challenge to our leaders for serially failing to get the compass of the country’s ship right.

    It signposts the metaphor of a country bountifully endowed with oil by Mother Nature, yet its citizens live in its scarcity. So the hullaballoo about petrol gifts is just scratching the surface of a more fundamental national challenge. It has no solution to the embarrassing inability of the government to make the product available and at affordable prices.

    It has no solution to the hi-tech corruption that has been the sad story of fuel importation and the so-called subsidy regime. These are the real challenges if we are seriously concerned by the seeming embarrassment of the petrol souvenir incident.

    Again, a number of events within the same week Ogbolu was arraigned appear to draw huge sympathy for her predicament. Within the same week, there was nationwide power blackout as the country’s power grid collapsed on two occasions. The same week also, airlines threatened to shut down operations on account of aviation fuel scarcity.

    Before then, a train on transit had stopped abruptly inside the forest as it had no diesel to further its journey. This is in addition to persistent nationwide scarcity of petrol that has put its price beyond the reach of many.

    Are these not a damning statement on the fuel situation in the country?  Ogbolu’s souvenirs; as potentially dangerous as they appear, signpost the contradictions of a country bountifully endowed with a commodity, yet its citizens live in want of it. It is both a metaphor for national failure and collective shame.

  • Obiano’s troubles

    Obiano’s troubles

    Was the immediate past governor of Anambra State, Willie Obiano, trying to escape when he fell into the hands of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC)? Some hours before EFCC officials arrested him at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Ikeja, Lagos, on March 17, on his way to the US, he had participated in the inauguration of his successor, Prof. Charles Soludo.

    EFCC spokesman Wilson Uwujaren explained: “Obiano was arrested for alleged misappropriation of public funds, including, N5bn Sure-P and N37bn security vote which was withdrawn in cash. Part of the funds was also allegedly diverted to finance political activities in the state.”

    It was an uncomplimentary exit after two four-year terms as governor, from 2014 to 2022. Though his party, All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), remains in power with Soludo’s election, this does not necessarily glorify the ex-governor’s performance in office.  Indeed, Obiano’s arrest calls into question his governorship years.

    It is striking that his arrest happened on the same day he left power and consequently lost the constitutional immunity he had enjoyed as governor, which shielded him from prosecution while in office. There had been signs that he would be asked to account for his performance as governor after leaving office.

    Last year, the EFCC had placed him on its watch list, and had also asked the Nigeria Immigration Service to stop him from leaving the country, in a letter to the Comptroller-General of Immigration dated November 15, 2021. So the anti-corruption agency was waiting to pounce on him at the end of his tenure. Even then, his arrest was perhaps unexpectedly swift.

    His speedy arrest suggested that the agency may well have a strong case against him. It is unclear if his arrest will lead to a trial.

    Interestingly, the allegation of “security votes” fraud underscores the reality that it is still in vogue among people in power in the country today as an easy path to wealth acquired fraudulently.

    In a letter to President Muhammadu Buhari, in January, Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) highlighted a recent report by Transparency International (TI) indicating that “most of the funds appropriated as security votes are spent on political activities, mismanaged or simply stolen. It is estimated that security votes add up to over N241.2b every year.”

    The group urged Buhari to instruct the EFCC and the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) to “jointly track and monitor spending of security votes” by the 36 state governors.

    Paradoxically, security votes in Nigeria are usually not for security purposes. In 2020, for instance, a former governor of Abia State from 2007 to 2015, Senator Theodore Orji, told the EFCC how he spent N38.8b security votes in eight years for other purposes, showing that security votes do not mean what they should mean.

    The former governor was reported saying he received N370m monthly as a security vote in 2007, and N410m monthly from 2008 to 2015.

    Orji, who is representing Abia Central Senatorial District in the National Assembly, “said he shared much of the N38b with members of the state House of Assembly, his security informants and traditional rulers.” He “claimed to have also given part of the money to military units, the police, the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) and security agencies as what he called statutory allocations.”

    In a breakdown of who got what, the former governor “said he gave successive members of the State House of Assembly N5. 760b, at N60m per month, in the eight years,” and “also claimed to have paid N75m monthly to security informants in 15 of the 17 local government areas of the state within the same period.”

    He was also reported saying the so-called informants pocketed about N7.200b from 2007 to 2015, and some of the security agencies received N2m per month. But he failed to provide a comprehensive list of all the beneficiaries of the largesse.

    It is noteworthy that a former governor of Kano State, Musa Kwankwaso, described security votes as “another way of stealing public funds.”

    An important implication of the allegations against Obiano is that he may need to explain his wealth. Notably, EFCC chairman Abdulrasheed Bawa has said that there were certain provisions in the EFCC establishment Act that gave the agency powers similar to those under the UK’s “Unexplained Wealth Order (UWO).”

    He said: “Section 7, subsection 1b of the Act says the ‘commission has the power to cause investigation to be conducted into the properties of any person that appears to the commission that the person’s lifestyle and the extent of the properties are not justified by his source of income.’

    “This means without any complaint, if it comes to our knowledge that you have amassed so many properties that are not justified by your source of income, the EFCC can ask questions. That is what the simple definition of explanation regarding the Unexplained Wealth Order means.”

    Bawa explained how UWO works in the UK: “If you have this property, the UK will ask you – what is this property for? If you explain that this is how you earned it; so be it. If you do not explain, then they can further their investigation to determine how you acquired it.”

    Unexplained wealth can be inexplicable. The EFCC should use its power to demand explanations concerning unexplained wealth.  It is useful to have such power. It should be used effectively.

    Anambra’s new governor, Prof.  Soludo, has his work cut out, including demonstrating that governors need not be faced with the challenge of explaining their wealth after leaving office. Also, he should show that governors need not abuse security votes by fraudulently benefitting from them.

    Obiano’s troubles should be a warning to those in governorship positions across the country that the immunity they enjoy is not perpetual, and they can be asked to account for their performance after leaving office.

    After eight years as governor, Obiano, 66, now faces not only life out of power but also life after immunity.

  • Re: Mefi’s Orchestra

    Re: Mefi’s Orchestra

    I thought the issue of Mefi or CBN Governor Godwin Emefiele, should enjoy a revisit when media speculated he was hopping on the plane to London. Was he going to plead for the ramrod leader to browbeat Senate to assent to his electoral request? Or was he going to tell the president, he was preparing his exit into the tumble of presidential race? He does not know how to boast, or unclasp a showy character. Mefi has always been humble. That seems about to change, though. To run for the big post of the land is no mean ambition. He should remember though the words of the clown called Feste in Shakespeare’s play of mistaken identity and oversized ego, Twelfth Night: “By swaggering I could never thrive.” The big, bumbling clown Malvolio fell mightily with a foul and rickety lust when a few courtiers deceived him he was good enough to be the master’s lover. Beware, Mefi, of ambition.

    I depart from my practice and publish some of the responses from high and low to my essay, “Mefi’s Orchestra.” Enjoy!

    Hmn, Big Sam. I had wanted to say: “No comment” because you’ve said everything, but there’s a question I’ve been asking with no one to provide an answer. Who does due diligence on those who become CBN governors in Nigeria?

    I gave up on this one when the news leaked that during PDP’s so-called “Convention” that made Jonathan the party’s Presidential candidate for a second term, loads of Naira cash were converted into Dollars under the supervision of Emefiele and taken to the Convention center where each delegate went home with $10,000. The question then was: Is the dollar Nigeria’s official curreny of exchange? To cap the ridicule, Jonathan was the sole candidate, no opponent.

    Now, the dollar is exchanging for almost N600 and nobody is telling us what we are buying with our reserves that has turned our own currency into tissue paper to be used in the toilets.

    Another question is: Why have neither the President nor the NASS called him to explain the noise surrounding his personage of recent? As you said, he’s not just an ordinary Nigerian, he occupies one of the most sensitive positions in the land.

    Lastly, where are the noisy CSOs, especially SERAP, which know the location of all the courts in Nigeria? Where are the nosy SANs who like to play the legal game by their own rules? Why have everybody gone quiet? Are we all that damaged? Enjoy your evening, Big Sam. By Olu Adebayo, veteran journalist

    “It’s Buhari’s fault that this Mefi is retained to continue to foist his incompetence to afflict our dear Naira. If Mefi won’t resign to squarely face his ambition to preside over the country which finances he has turned iniquitous, he will be borrowing a leaf of indiscretion from Mesu Eleyinmi (apology, Sam) who tried unsuccessfully to strategise himself to Nigerian presidency while wearing the epaulettes of senate presidency.” By Morufu Smith

    “Just finished your Article “ Mefi’s Orchestra “. Thanks for the beautiful piece. We truly must weep for Nigeria. Had to contemplate that after total destruction of the value in naira, Mefi will contemplate ever running for President.  I ask, to do what? To end whatever left of rational hope, I suppose? But herein lies the tragedy of Nigeria. this type as leader.”

    Tunji Abayomi, Lawyer, statesman

    Sam, gud day and compliments. I have just finished reading your ‘In Touch’ of yesterday March 28. Appointment of Emefiele as Governor of CBN is, in the first place, really an embarrassment to this nation. Here is a man who ran Zenith Bank as Chief Executive for years during which the largest money-laundering business in Nigeria went through his bank. What do we expect from him? His re-appointment for 2nd term was indeed a deliberate dishonour to the banking industry and, by extension, a disservice to Nigeria. He has now come out in his true colours: BIG UNREPENTANT…

    Olorunfunmi Basorun, former deputy director of CBN, technocrat, politician

    “Mr. Omatseye, They read In Touch and the next day his media people started calling him Mefy. You exposed them. Maybe they are jealous that you were the first to identify him by his nickname in public. All they did was to anglicize the spelling by ending it with the letter Y. Colonial mentality. You even tried to make it local and indigenous by ending it with an i.” Abubakar Ringim, Kano

    “Dear Sam, it is not hard to know where the so-called supporters club is emanating. If you read a certain newspaper and watch a certain television station, you will know that it is the work of some who are making easy fortune from the beguiled banker. I hope in the process they do not stretch their kleptomaniac fingers too far into the Nigerian vault. They are dealing with the guard to our treasures.” – Ufuoma, from Warri

    “What intrigued me is the reference to private jets. Once I read it online, I gasped. I waited for him or his people to refute the report. Silence here means consent. I wonder what is going on. Is this man really running? If so, he needs to reveal where he is getting the support from, who are these media people behind him, are they wayfarers who want to milk him dry. Is Mefi so naïve that he would allow them to lead him by the nose by dashing media entrepreneurs who know nothing other than to hoodwink a man who never knew a thing in politics all his life? Haba!” Nwachukwu, Owerri

    “Some people say some sleek men in agbada in the presidency working with some in the media are encouraging him. A believe there is a racket around the president that is going about making a fortune over this matter. They lie to the fellows that the president wants them to run, and then they believe and dry up their cisterns in the process. They are clever men. IBB did it to quite a few his time, like Abel Ubeku. I wish I could be in on the deal.” Anonymous.

    “Few realise that a Mefi presidency means only one term for the south. He comes from south-south and Jonathan has had its first term. It is a plot of the north to encircle the south in the politics of zoning. It is fair game for them, using the ever-bowing Mefi as a tool,” Justus Okechuckwu.

    “I still saw the picture of Mefi bowing like a minion to an oligarch. I almost choked on my pounded yam when my son showed it to me. How does he feel about the picture? Does his family not tell him his foes will flaunt it about when or if he declares to run?” Nnanna Agwu

    “Hello Sam, now that the senate has decided not to sign Buhari’s request to rewrite the electoral bill, is Mefi now thinking about writing his handover notes?” Abu Abbas.

    “Dear In Touch, A morning news programme that does not say anything salutary about Buhari suddenly started praising the Rice Pyramid in Abuja. I wondered what changed? Now I know why Mefi is the only Teflon in the Buhari crowd for the TV station. He is their favoured son. Hence they promote him. Is he part of the nameless group that has no recognizable figure in the public domain?” Bayo Awojobi

    “Keep throwing your elegant salvos,” Efe Enakome.

     

    APC movie

    • Buni

    THE APC turmoil is no comfort for PDP, which is also in its own tempest of intrigues. Mai Mala Buni, too coy to govern at home, did not seize the chance of his fall from head of the Chinese company-sounding caretaker committee to return to his governor chair in Yobe. He seems to have clawed – or shall I say, fawned – his way back because of an INEC technicality. I might have said I don’t see why Buhari cannot re-tweak the March 26th date to meet the electoral body’s 21-day deadline. But Ramadan beckons, and that gives the party little room for convention given INEC’s primary deadline. That was Buni’s scheme to install a fait accompli for the convention so as to shoe in a presidential candidate of his choice. He wants to be clever by half. Eyes are on him. He is a subvert, not a democrat. A trigger of chaos, a reptilian schemer, an ideological cretin, fomenting a dedicated insanity in the party process.  Governor Sani Bello sedated the storm. A return to Buni is like clutching a cat’s paw. Anyway, the decision to remove Buni and still fix March 26 without heeding the law attests to the topsy-turvy ideas that Buhari’s advisers give him, especially his attorney general whose heart swirls with mischief. Buhari picked them, so he has to abide their quicksand.

    If Buni returns with rottweiler Akpanudoedehe, it foretells a big cockfight between El- Rufai’s 19 and the remaining four who back the rogue leaders of the Chinese-sounding committee. I believe there are factions even within the 19, and it will only unravel in the coming weeks and months. It is a movie on the move. Enjoy!

     

     

  • Umahi’s court sack

    Umahi’s court sack

    It is not for nothing that the court verdict that sacked Governor Dave Umahi of Ebonyi state and his deputy, Kelechi Igwe generated intense public interest. This should be expected in view of the sensitive nature of the issue in dispute.

    Justice Inyang Ekwo of a federal high court, Abuja had declared illegal, the defection of Umahi and Igwe from the Peoples Democratic Party PDP to the All Progressives Congress APC in a suit brought before him by the PDP. The court ruled that the offices of the governor and deputy governor of Ebonyi State belonged to the PDP and that the option for Umahi and his deputy is to vacate office and wait for the next election to contest under the platform of the new party.

    The court restricted Umahi and Igwe from parading themselves as governor and deputy governor of Ebonyi State on the ground that by Section 221 of the constitution and the democratic system of government operated in Nigeria, votes are won by the political parties and not their candidates. By the same token, the votes won at an election by a political party cannot be transferred to or utilized for the benefit of another political party or member of another political party.

    In another judgment, Justice Ekwo also sacked 16 members of the Ebonyi State House of Assembly who defected from the PDP to the APC on the same grounds the governor and his deputy got removed.

    Surprisingly, Umahi reacted angrily to the court verdict bandying damaging allegations against Justice Ekwo and Nigerian judiciary. In an outburst, he described the judgment as “jungle justice” and Justice Ekwo as “a hatchet man” who was on a mission to embarrass the APC and the federal government. “I feel sorry for the Nigerian judiciary” he said at a press conference.

    He did not just pass a vote of no confidence on the judiciary but arrogated to himself the powers of the appellate courts when he called on the people of Ebonyi State to “disregard the judgment because it’s null and void”.

    But he appeared to have contradicted all these claims when he vowed to appeal the judgment. Why appeal a judgment you claimed to be null and void?

    One would have expected the occupant of such elated office to have called for calm while arrangements were being made to appeal the ruling. But he would never have any of such as he spoke in a manner that cast serious slur on his leadership credentials. Is this brash reaction the temperament of a man aspiring to lead this beleaguered country?

    He was to approach the appeal court the following day apparently to prevent the Independent National Electoral Commission INEC from issuing Certificate of Return to the candidates hurriedly forwarded by the PDP to replace him and his deputy in line with court directive. His tirade against the judge and the judiciary was so much so that the Nigerian Bar Association NBA had to challenge his claims, demanding apology.  He has since apologized.

    But that is beside the point. The issue involved is very fundamental and at the heart of the survival of the democratic contraption this country is operating. It is a contention on the propriety or otherwise of governors and their deputies as well as legislators elected on the platform of a political party defecting to other political parties in manners that offend public conscience. We are dealing with the dearth of principles and ideology among elected political office holders that propel them to jump ship at will.

    It is a concern for the survival of multi-party democracy driven by the conviction that something must be done to check mindless defections in our political process. It is nothing personal nor is the Ebonyi case different from events in some other states. But Ebonyi has become a test case and many are happy that serial defectors are being made to account for their scant regard for principles.

    Umahi argued that the constitution provides three ways to remove a governor: death, resignation and impeachment. That is correct. But the judge also raised issues on the conflict in transferring the votes of a political party to another or using such votes for the benefit of another political party or individual. The contention that the constitution is put in jeopardy where the collective will of the electorate is brazenly merchandized by elected officials without consequences is unassailable.

    That is the substance of the matter which the superior courts will have to determine. Whichever way it goes, jurisprudence will be better for it. But the overall objective should be to find effective therapeutic responses to the incalculable harm wrought on the democratic enterprise by politicians who take refuge in loopholes to compromise the mandate given them by the electorate for self-serving ends.

    If Umahi is challenging the verdict on the basis that it is outside the constitutional grounds on which a governor can be removed from office, the same cannot be said of the 16 members of the Ebonyi State House of Assembly also sacked on the same ground.

    Section 68(1) (g) and Section 109(1) (g) of the constitution provides conditions in which federal and state legislators can defect without losing their seats- division in the political party of which they were previously members, merger of two or more political parties or faction by one of which they were previously sponsored.

    For the lawmakers, no such situations existed in their party prior to their defection. Neither did they adduce such reasons. The ruling is a landmark judgment. It is perhaps, the first time such defections have been seriously challenged. It may well signal the end of the madness called defections that compromise multi-party democracy and assail the collective will of the electorate as expressed at the ballot box. Concerns on the dangers of defections on these shores are not new.

    There is a bill awaiting second reading at the House of Representatives which seeks amendments to the constitution to have a defecting president, vice president, governor and deputy governor expressly vacate their offices in the absence of the conditions stipulated in sections 68 and 109 of the constitution.

    Nigeria urgently needs such laws to save our democracy. Before now, scholars have argued that the African culture abhors opposition. That appears the emerging tendency in the spate of defections. The danger of a one party state is real unless those who defect are compelled by law to vacate their offices.