The Nation Newspaper

Category: Monday

  • Herders’ rights advocates

    Herders’ rights advocates

    Emeka OMEIHE

     

    The position of the presidency on the 12-point resolution by southern governors elevated to the fore, government’s disposition on the festering clashes between herders’ and farmers. But more fundamentally, it gave out the primacy of herders’ welfare over other burning national issues in the overall calculations of the Buhari administration.

    Southern governors cutting across party lines had during their epochal meeting at Asaba, Delta State taken far-reaching decisions which if seriously and honestly addressed would offer lasting solutions to some of the debilitating national challenges that had set the country on edge. Among others, these included: a ban on open grazing of cattle across Southern Nigeria; restructuring of the country to ensure true federalism leading to the evolution of state police, review of the revenue allocation formula and all appointments into federal agencies including the security agencies in keeping with the federal character principle.

    But what caught the attention of the Buhari government in all those resolutions was just the ban on open grazing across Southern Nigeria. It was obviously the only thing of interest to the government given the prime attention it paid to it and the dismissive manner it handled others.  Others issues just paled into insignificance.

    In a statement, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu said the ban was of questionable legality “given the constitutional right of all Nigerians to enjoy the same right and freedoms within every one of our 36 states (and FCT) regardless of the sates of their birth or residence”. He dismissed other resolutions as “acts of politicking”.

    Even on the ranching alternative proffered by the governors, the statement strove to get the public to believe that the idea was not original to them. It claimed President Buhari had In April signed off on the back of a report by the Minister of Agriculture, Sabo Nanono a number of measures to end the frequent skirmishes between herders and farmers among which ranching and the revival of grazing reserves featured prominently. The government further claimed it would soon embark on “rehabilitation of grazing reserves in the states, starting with those that are truly committed to the solution and compliant with stated requirements”.

    The government accused the governors of just demonstrating power without offering solutions to the herders and farmers clashes. This accusation is a contradiction of sorts. Having accepted ranching which formed one of the governors’ recommendations, the presidency cannot successfully sustain the claim that there was no solution to the herders’ and farmers’ clashes in the recommendations of the governors.

    Their solution is ranching and they said so unambiguously. It is a different thing altogether if they did not provide any timeline for its actualization. That may have stemmed from the reasoning that cattle rearing business engagement is essentially private. States and individuals are at liberty to approach it in their own ways. The governors were concerned with the imperative of ending recurring clashes between herders and farmers that are fuelled by the outdated open grazing practice. And they found solution in ranching. What other solution does the president expect of them?

    The only difference between the measures the president was said to have endorsed prior to the governors’ resolutions was the rehabilitation of grazing reserves. Even then, all these measures have been in the public space ever since. Ranching is not original to the Buhari regime. As a matter of fact, his government had overtime shown strong aversion to it as evident from other contraptions it floated on the debilitating crisis that met stiff opposition across the country. But for opposition, we would by now be contending with the challenges of grazing routes, RUGA et al.

    It is also amazing that the presidency could not find any merit in restructuring, the nagging need for quick intervention to ensure true federalism and reflect the federal character principle in the conduct of its affair. It found nothing of value in the skewed appointments into federal agencies including the security arm that is dominated by people from a section of the country in utter defiance of our laws. The government found nothing untoward in extant situation in which the Federal Character Commission FCC charged with ensuring equity and fairness in all federal appointments, is now in defiance of its mandate through its composition.

    When sometime last year, a new chairman was appointed for that agency, observations were made on the anomalous situation the agency was embroiled given that both the incoming chairman and the sitting secretary are  both from the north in defiance of subsisting tradition. The excuse the government offered then was that the tenure of the secretary would soon expire and the anomaly would then be rectified. The narrative now is that that tenure had since expired with the incumbent confirmed for another four years.

    These are fundamental breaches of our constitution as they relate to the federal character principle. What remains of the federal character principle if the very agency that should ensure its implementation to the letters is in utter breach of it in the appointment of its principal officers? That is how bad the situation is. And we are being made to believe that the governors were merely demonstrating power without offering solutions.

    On the contrary, it is the presidency that is demonstrating power by refusing to act on the prevailing feelings and sensibilities on what needed to be done to get the country out of the precipice into which it is inevitably headed. The recommendations of the governors contain solutions to the country’s challenges. The snag has been lack of sincerity of purpose and reluctance or refusal to muster the political will to do what is right at the federal level.

    It is hard to fathom how we can make substantial progress when government policies and programmes are colored by sectional, ethnic and religious considerations. National progress will remain a tall order when public officials are quick to deceive the country by inventing misplaced and skewed comparisons. That was the exact situation when the Attorney General of the federation, Abubakar Malami sought to compare the ban on open grazing with that on spare parts business.

    Not minding the aspersions that comparison cast on a section of the country, it is obvious that the two issues stand out on account of their dissimilarities. In other words, they can only be compared in terms of their dissimilarities. But nothing illustrates these differences more poignantly than a post this writer came across in the social media.

    A spare parts trader in Kano central market, James Okafor (not real names) had in reaction to the comparison said he rented his shop paid the necessary fees to the landlord and regularly pays his rent. He also pays all manner of rates in the market including sanitation fees, charges for offloading his wares and tax to the state government. He also rented a living accommodation, pays all the necessary bills and lives there based on the contract he had with his landlord.

    He said when he has enough money to own a house in Kano, he would apply to the government for approval after meeting all the conditions. Okafor just stopped at that. His message is not lost in the comparison between herders and spare parts traders. The spare parts trader operates within the law while herders outside of it. They grab lands belonging to other people for their business with impunity. They obey no known laws even as their business had become a source of threat to the lives of their host communities. That says it all.

    The same misplaced comparison featured when Malami claimed the ban infringed on the rights of herders to freedom of movement. Surprisingly also, the presidency bought that dummy. Their inability to draw a line between human rights and animal rights is at the centre of the feeling that parochial interests are behind it all. Nobody banned herders from their rights to free movement within the ambit of the law but cattle.

  • Herbert Macaulay: 75 years after

    Herbert Macaulay: 75 years after

    By  Femi Macaulay

     

    Herbert Macaulay (popularly known as HM) is unforgettable. He is deservedly remembered in various ways that celebrate his historical significance.  The acclaimed nationalist, widely acknowledged as the ‘Father of Nigerian Nationalism,’ died 75 years ago, on May 7, 1946, at the age of 81.

    He has been honoured again and again for his services to Nigeria. After the country’s independence from Britain in 1960, HM’s face appeared on Nigeria’s postage stamp, with the inscription “Championed Independence.”  The Nigerian Shipping Calendar for 1972 showed the picture of a ship called The Herbert Macaulay.

    The N1 note issued in July 1979 by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to mark its 20th anniversary bore HM’s portrait. The banknote was replaced with a coin that also showed him.  When the N1 note was released, Macaulay was at first wrongly spelt as “Macauley.” The Macaulay family pointed out this embarrassing error.

    The then CBN Director Domestic Operations, A.B.A. Obilana, in a letter to the family dated July 11, 1979, said: “We have noted your observations concerning the correct spelling of the surname “Macaulay.” We shall get in touch with our printers to see what can be done to ensure that the correct spelling of the name is used in subsequent issues of the N1 note. It has been a pleasure to us that the Central Bank could accord this honour to your ancestor and the country’s foremost nationalist.” Sadly, the currency is no longer in circulation, which defeats the purpose of its introduction.

    HM’s statue stands at Herbert Macaulay Street, Yaba, Lagos. The Herbert Macaulay Senior Girls High School, named after him, is located a short distance from the statue. Another statue of HM stands in front of the Bookshop House, Broad Street, Lagos. The site of his residence, which was known as Kirsten Hall, is nearby.

    ”It was an impressive and elegant one-storey detached building which has, regrettably, since been demolished, giving way to what now looks like a grotesque Post Office junk yard,” said Ambassador Dapo  Fafowora, who delivered  the maiden Herbert Macaulay Gold Lecture in 2017. I organised the lecture, with support from the Lagos State government, as part of the events to mark the state’s 50th anniversary.

    Fafowora added: “The site is now at the back of the General Post Office House on the Marina. Long after Herbert Macaulay’s death, the house remained a tourist attraction and a sort of political Mecca for his admirers and political associates. Given his prominence as an outstanding historic and public figure in Lagos, I think the house should have been preserved for posterity, not demolished. The irony is that it was not the colonial authorities, but an indigenous government, that demolished the house to make way for the General Post Office, a singular display of the lack of a sense of history.”

    HM’s rich library, which he called “The Temple of Peace,” was part of the house located in then Balbina Street. It was open to the public, especially to youths who were interested in reading. Macaulay’s desire was “to see the masses in this country educated, their intelligence stimulated and the minds well informed.”

    In December 2002, the Association of Lagos State Indigenes (ALSI) put a plaque at the site of Kirsten Hall in an effort to signpost the place for posterity. Then President Olusegun Obasanjo, in a message to ALSI dated November 18, 2002, commended the group’s “decision to further embellish an already immortalised national hero.” ALSI used to organise a yearly Herbert Macaulay Memorial Lecture, and had introduced a Herbert Macaulay Merit Award.

    In Abuja, the federal capital and seat of the federal government, Herbert Macaulay Way is the location of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) Towers, the headquarters of “the oil corporation through which the federal government of Nigeria regulates and participates in the country’s petroleum industry.”

    A political celebrity, HM, in 1923, founded the Nigerian National Democratic Party (NNDP), which is noted as “the first well- organised political party in Commonwealth West Africa.”

    At the age of 80, in 1944, he was the “Grand Old Man of Nigerian Politics,” and he emerged as the first President of the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC).  The late Dr Nnamdi Azikwe, popularly known as “Zik of Africa,” was the party’s Secretary.  Zik acknowledged Macaulay as his “political father.”

    He fought several battles against the British colonial government. He was an anti-colonial combatant by conviction and choice, for he could have followed the comfortable path of collaboration with the white colonialists if he wished. His background and education placed him among the elite of the society, and he had solid connections among the native intelligentsia. The British administration regarded him as too principled, too critical, too independent, too outspoken, too bold and too assertive.

    He published the Lagos Daily News, which carried the inscription, “The First Daily Paper Published in Nigeria.”  With his handle –bar moustache, white suits and black bow-ties, and his charming command of English, HM earned the epithet Oyinbo Alawodudu  ( white man in black  skin). He was also fondly known as “Champion and Defender of Native Rights and Liberties’’; “The Ghandi of West Africa’’; and “The Musical Wizard of Kirsten Hall.”

    HM was outstanding beyond politics. He became a civil engineer in 1893 after completing his studies in England, and the Nigerian Society of Engineers (NSE) recognises him as “Engineer Number One.” Macaulay’s bust can be seen in front of the National Engineering Centre at Engineering Close on Victoria Island, Lagos. The Faculty of Engineering, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, established a Lecture Series in his honour. He was also an architect and surveyor.

    His anti-colonial zeal cut short his life. At the height of the NCNC’s opposition to the Richards Constitution in 1945, on the grounds that it fell short of the party’s demand for self-government, he volunteered to go round the country with his associates to win the people’s support, disregarding his advanced age and failing health.  He took ill in Kano during the tour, and the sudden illness forced him to return to Lagos, where he eventually died.

    HM was born on November 14, 1864, in Lagos. His father was Reverend Thomas Babington Macaulay, founder and first principal of the CMS Grammar School, Lagos, which is the oldest secondary school in Nigeria, founded in June 1859.  His mother, Abigail, was the second daughter of the Rt. Revd. Samuel Ajayi Crowther, the first African Bishop of the Anglican Communion, the Church of England, who first translated the English Bible into Yoruba.

    The 75th anniversary of Herbert Macaulay’s death is a time to reflect on the state of Nigeria today, 60 years after the country’s independence, which the great man championed.

  • What if a senator is kidnapped?

    What if a senator is kidnapped?

    By Femi Macaulay

    It’s unbelievable that the Senate is considering making a law to jail ransom payers in kidnap cases.  The idea reflects the gravity of the country’s security crisis, and the desperate search for a solution.  But the move is not a solution. It is a complication.

    The Terrorism Prevention (Amendment) Bill, 2021, is sponsored by Senator Ezenwa Francis Onyewuchi of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), representing Imo East senatorial district. According to the proposed law, “Anyone who transfers funds, makes payment or colludes with an abductor, kidnapper or terrorist to receive any ransom for the release of any person who has been wrongfully confined, imprisoned or kidnapped is guilty of a felony and is liable on conviction to a term of imprisonment of not less than 15 years.”

    So what should the families of kidnap victims do when kidnappers demand ransom? The Senate needs to answer this question. It isn’t enough to prohibit payment of ransom. The proposed law denies the right of families to try to save the lives of their members when they are unfortunately kidnapped for ransom by paying the kidnappers. It is unjustifiable.

    If kidnapping for ransom is thriving because the authorities responsible for security and development are underperforming, who is to blame?  Ransom payers are not to blame for the evil business, but the structures of power that seem powerless against kidnappers and unable to bring about development.

    When bandits-cum-kidnappers struck at Greenfield University, Kaduna State, on April 20, it was yet another terrible evidence of the rising cases of kidnapping for ransom across the country. Significantly, it also showed how much money kidnappers dream of making from their evil activity. In this particular case, they initially demanded N800 million. The invaders kidnapped more than 20 students. Tragically, on April 23, the bodies of three of the abductees, a male and two females were found at a location close to the university. On April 26, two more abductees were found dead.

    ”We are still in shock,” a parent of one of the abducted students was quoted as saying after three bodies were found. “We did not expect the bandits would resort to killing our children because they had contacted us and demanded ransom.” The concerned parents were negotiating with the kidnappers when the students were killed.

    One of the kidnapped students has been released.  The student was said to have been freed after his mother, who is the wife of a retired Army officer from Plateau State, paid ransom to the kidnappers. The mother of the student, Lauritta Attahiru, confirmed the release of her son but refused to give details of how he was released and whether a ransom was paid or not.

    The release of the student followed a threat by the kidnappers to kill the remaining kidnapees if the concerned parents failed to meet their fresh demands by May 4.  The kidnappers had asked the parents to pay N100 million ransom, in addition to more than N50 million they had already paid. They also asked for 10 new motorcycles.

    The deadline has passed. The concerned parents say they are unable to meet the fresh demands, and have appealed to the state government to come to their aid in order to save the lives of the abductees. Kaduna State Governor Nasir El-Rufai says his administration will not negotiate with kidnappers. “Even if my son is kidnapped, I will rather pray for him to make heaven instead, because I won’t pay any ransom,” he was quoted as saying. What will happen to the 16 caged students?

    This case shows why the idea of jailing ransom payers is unacceptable. If the concerned parents had met the demands of the abductors, it is likely the remaining abductees would have been set free. The case of the released student, whose parents are said to have paid a ransom, suggests such a probability.

    True, not all kidnap cases end in the release of the victims after payment of ransom. Some kidnap victims lose their lives in captivity, despite the payment of ransom. But cases in which the victims are freed after payment of ransom show that it can achieve the desired result.

    ”Hasn’t the Federal Government paid millions of dollars to rescue some of those abducted in Borno State? The government paid heavy ransom to rescue some of the Dapchi girls that were kidnapped,” activist lawyer Femi Falana (SAN) observed in his criticism of the proposed law. He added:  ”Members of the National Assembly have paid ransom when their loved ones were kidnapped and even today, if any of the relations or a member of the National Assembly is kidnapped, members will contribute to rescue him or her.”

    A study indicated that more than $18 million was paid as ransom to kidnappers in the country from 2011 to 2020, and the greater part of the payment was from 2016 to 2020 when about $11 million was paid. In the local currency, these are huge figures indeed. It shows that kidnapping for ransom is a thriving business, albeit an evil one. Sadly, it is even regarded as a “growth industry.”

    Some analysts forecast that kidnap-for-ransom cases will increase in the country as a result of increased unemployment.  This is a disturbing scenario, considering that Nigeria already has one of the world’s highest rates of kidnap-for-ransom cases.

    The Chairman of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF), Kayode Fayemi, recently attributed the country’s security challenges partly to its 33 percent unemployment rate. The country’s difficult socio-economic conditions do not justify kidnapping operations, but show why the authorities should urgently pursue improved socio-economic conditions to discourage kidnapping for ransom.

    It is noteworthy that Senator Onyewuchi accepts that “government should provide adequate security and strengthen the economy as a matter of urgency, accelerate its poverty alleviation programmes, provide employment opportunities targeting youths who are mostly involved in abductions and kidnappings, strengthen our law enforcement agencies, and provide the necessary support to end the menace of kidnapping.”

    The Senate should focus on these rather than pursuing the passing of a senseless bill against ransom payers. A final question: What if a senator is kidnapped?

  • If Lagos can

    If Lagos can

    By Sam Omatseye

     

    This essayist often has to hark back to past melodies on this page, and I do that today. It is because, sometimes, one man’s symphony is another man’s dirge. While I noted last week that state governors have the power to put paid to the controversy over restructuring, some thought it a fanciful idea, and that In Touch is suffering from the armchair languor of a columnist’s idealism.

    Such a position arises out of a lack of near-sighted vision. If they looked well around them, they might know that the work has already begun. If they looked at the state of states in this federation, that is Lagos State, they might have urged other states to hop on the train.

    They might have known that no less a visionary and fighting liberal of the law than Asiwaju Bola Tinubu has been daring the federal bear since 1999, and his successors, especially Babatunde Fashola, SAN wore the amotekun uniform to chip away at the power of the centre. Tinubu was an auditor who brought a numerate eye into legal literacy. Fashola, a lawyer and SAN, followed suit suing with a suite of cases. Only recently, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, the BOS of Lagos, threw his hat in the ring by setting up an anti-corruption agency to democratise and federalise the fight on corruption.

    The concept is, if the centre rusts, what will the parts do? In other words, why should the parts wait or watch while the centre rusts, if it can maintain the health of its metallic state. If David can shoot down Goliath, why wait to unleash the shot?

    Today, Lagos is enjoying the plenty of revenue not by accident? It came with diligence and probing the frontiers of financial imagination. Tinubu and his successors in Lagos adhered to Jesus when he told his disciples who cast their nest away from the wrong side of the river when they could only look close by at the other side of the boat. The net was heavy with precious haul of fish. So, when Tinubu became governor of Lagos, it had a revenue of N600 million a month. When he left, Lagos was hauling close to N10 billion. The revenue has been doubled by his predecessors, and the beat goes on under the BOS of Lagos.

    What Has Lagos done? Barrister Femi Falana (SAN) has explained this in 2019 in a lengthy piece published in African News Digest titled: The Legal Battle for Restructuring. Falana noted, “Although the federal government has failed to stop the restoration of limited federalism through litigation only the Lagos State government has consistently mounted political pressures to ensure power devolution. Thus, apart from litigation, the Lagos State government has dared the federal government by enacting laws in areas not covered by the exclusive and concurrent legislative lists in the Constitution. As a result of the successes recorded in the law courts, the internally generated revenue of every state government has increased rather phenomenally.”

    Some of the areas Lagos has stared down the centre include Local government, town planning, land tax and the certificate of occupancy, tourism and hotels, lottery, etc. Some other matters are still in court.

    It is the courage of Lagos at work. It is the fortitude of democracy. It is also the facility of the constitution, maligned at will, that is alive and well. If Lagos State can do it and raise its revenue, why can the whole 36 states not do it? Why can’t they raise enough numbers to do it as a cooperative bullwark.

    Lagos did this without the bulldozer of the state houses of assembly or mobilising men and women in the National Assembly. In spite of the shadow of corruption over our courts, it is judges that swayed matters for states. This started under the Owu chief’s muscular reign. No one was more gung-ho about the power of the centre than Obasanjo, and Tinubu stared him down, and the court ordered him to release local government funds to Lagos State.

    So, when the coalition of southern governors was crying for restructuring, it was like a buxom cat crying for his mother to help in felling a mouse. The power is in you. Use it. That is the plea.

    The Buhari administration has said over and again that the federation is in good shape, and it is not in any hurry to even tweak. Power is not served a la carte. No one in history ever gives up power. Not even in the home. It is negotiated, coaxed or coerced. During the Yalta Conference of 1945, Winston Churchill would not give up the colonies even after Roosevelt asked that they should go into international trusteeship. “Never. Never. Never,” roared the English lion. “I did not become the Queen’s first minister to preside over the dissolution of the British Empire.” He was kicked out of Downing Street. Eastern Europe fell in spite of the Soviets. The Nigerian centre will not give in.  Even if any of the southern governors went to the centre, they would start fighting instinctively for the status quo. Even when all forces work to the contrary, the one who holds the power will still not relent. Gorbachev thought he was rebuilding the soviet empire when he was dismantling it. So was the last Czar, Nicholas II, whose obstinacy led to the wiping out of the clan.

    If the governors do not do it, no one will. Nigeria will be our babel of federal ululations without a prospect of change, an eternal cackle of complaint. No one will do it. The centre will not hold, but it will hold out any agitation. It will be a rickety molue that will not stop or keel over. Or the Sisyphusean rock that keeps falling back down.

    Those who say we should dust up the files of other committee reports or conferences know that will not work. We shall start a debate within a debate. What papers shall we adopt? Who will adopt it? Some will say let us set up another committee to determine whether they are still relevant. We will reenact Ola Rotimi’s play, Holding Talks, where jaw-jaw is a sort of war-war. Or Samuel Beckett’s Waiting For Godot. We shall be looking for a conference to end all conferences. Bishop Matthew Kukah once said Nigeria has never resolved any issue ever. This is an example.

    Men like the juvenile attorney-general Abubakar Malami will pursue their hidebound visions as he did defending the herders. Or the senate president who said a wise thing in a foolish hour. They will obstruct the wheel.

    If the governors cannot come together, take advantage of their Houses of Assembly or their senators and representatives, they will be wasting their powers as monarchs of democracy. Every system, no matter how republican, always stores some despotic powers either in a body, like the Roman senate, or  in a man like the US president until they abuse it, like Caesar did in Rome, or Emperor Commodus, son of Mark Aurelius. They will need governors, and manage baby-minded governors like El-Rufai, who does not know when to rein in his youth.

    Governors don’t have to do a big law at once. They can chip away, one legislation at a time, one court case at a time, while lunging at a fraught constitution. The federal bear will be a spectator at its own death, the clock ticking way. Lying prostrate, the bear is clothed by a swarm of ants, killing bite by bite while the federal monster watches its decaying hulk of a body until its eyes say good night.

  • Asaba and Ibadan resolutions

    Asaba and Ibadan resolutions

    By Emeka OMEIHE

     

    Two events of profound significance for the peace, progress and unity of the country took place in quick succession in the last two weeks. The first was the meeting of 17 southern governors in Asaba, the Delta State capital. It was followed quickly by another parley by governors elected on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party PDP in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital.

    The southern governors came out with resolutions that realistically sought to provide solutions to the myriad of challenges assailing the country. Unanimity of purpose and unrivalled sense of patriotism were evident in their decisions irrespective of partisan political predilections.

    It was perhaps the first time in the recent past that governors would rise above partisan considerations in arriving at decisions for the overall good of the country regardless of how they are perceived by the government of the day. So it was that all the All Progressives Congress APC governors, the PDP governors and the All Progressives Grand Alliance APGA governor spoke with one voice.

    In a 12-point resolution, the meeting agreed that “open grazing of cattle be banned across Southern Nigeria, including cattle movement to the south by foot”. They agreed that the progress of the nation requires “urgent and bold steps be taken to restructure the Nigerian federation leading to the evolution of state police, review of the revenue allocation formula in favor of the sub-national governments and creation of other institutions which legitimately advance our commitment to and practice of true federalism”.

    The meeting was also of consensus on the imperative for a review of appointments into federal agencies (including security agencies) to reflect federal character as Nigeria’s overall population is heterogeneous. While expressing grave concern on the security challenges currently plaguing the country, the governors also resolved that the president should address Nigerians on the matter to restore the confidence of the people.

    The PDP governors meeting which followed closely after that of southern governors, came up with a six-point communiqué in which they supported the earlier positions by “the Nigeria Governors Forum, Northern Governors Forum and recently by the Southern Governors Forum to adopt ranching as the most viable solution to the herders/farmers clashes; the restructuring of the Nigerian federation to devolve more powers and functions to the states; and reform of the various civil institutions to achieve efficiency and equity for all sections of Nigeria”.

    They also called on “Mr. President as the Chief Executive Officer of Nigeria and Commander-in-Chief of Nigerian Armed Forces to immediately send an executive bill to the National Assembly to amend the Nigerian Constitution to devolve more powers to the states with respect to security arrangements culminating in some form of state policing and general security architecture. This was in addition to other recommendation on how to de-escalate general insecurity in the country and promote peace without discrimination based on race, religion and ethnicity.

    There are recurring issues and convergences in the recommendations of the two meetings on ways out of the current quagmire into which this country is seemingly irretrievably mired. But the first thing discernable from the two meetings is the common values shared by the governors on ways out of our predicaments irrespective of party lines. That is really something to cheer.

    They share common concerns and common solutions on herders/ farmers clashes and found lasting solutions on ranching. They share common convictions on the imperative of restructuring and devolution of powers as the most veritable options for stabilizing the Nigerian federation and stave off the increasing heat on the polity by mounting grievances and agitations. When the PDP governors asked the president to urgently send an executive bill to the National Assembly to amend the constitution, they were targeting the imperfections of that document that had been the greatest source of schism fuelling agitations for self-determination.

    There were also common concerns and consensus that equity, fairness and all-inclusiveness in the conduct of government business and appointments are sine qua non for the overall peace of the country. So when southern governors called for a review of appointments into federal agencies including the security agencies to reflect the federal character principle, they were directly faulting the anomalous situation in which the commanding heights of the military and para-military institutions are preponderantly under the control of a section of the country. They did not seem to fathom how true federalism and lasting peace could be engendered through such unbridled nepotic and clannish manifestations that assail the country’s diversities.

    It is also very instructive that with the above resolutions by six northern PDP governors, we now have 23 governors cutting across party lines in support of restructuring, constitutional amendments/national dialogue, ranching as the most effective solution to herders/farmers’ conflicts, devolution of powers/true federalism and state policing. The implication is that a significant majority of the governors are in support that these constitute irreducible decimals to the resolution of mounting challenges currently threatening law and order and the corporate existence of the country.

    It is also no less a truism that some other governors not captured in the two meetings as well as other key personage have at one time or the other, lent their support for aspects of these resolutions including restructuring, true federalism, ranching and state police. With this wide gamut of national consensus, what then is the issue? Why are we still finding it difficult to embark on the attendant political re-engineering process that will take us out of the current pass? What accounts for the inability of our leaders to ‘work the talk’ and on whose shoulders do we rest responsibility for the quagmire?

    Answers to these can be located in the style of the current leadership of the country; its seeming imperviousness to new ideas, crass mismanagement of our diversities and utter disdain for the sensibilities of the constituents. Or how else do we rationalize the embarrassing lethargy of the government in responding to the wishes of the people on ways out of the wood? The issues to our debilitating challenges are well known and their solutions very clear.

    But what you find are constant attempts by a cabal in the corridors of power to throw spanners into the wheels of the progress of the country. Such was the situation when Senate President Ahmad Lawan sought to ridicule the decision of southern governors on restructuring through unguarded uncomplimentary remarks. The indecent haste with which Lawan reacted showed serious disdain for any change that will alter the status quo that profits the section of the country he comes from.

    Yet, this is the same man that claims to be leading the National Assembly through a constitutional amendment process. It is doubtful if Lawan could superintend over amendments that will reverse the scorching subsisting order that largely profits the section of the country he comes from.

    In saner climes, Lawan should have been impeached to pave the way for a more broadminded leader and imbue confidence in the constitution amendment process. But that will not happen. He has hurriedly shut down the senate for one week on the guise of allowing time for zonal public hearing on constitutional amendments. What kind of amendment do we expect from a man opposed to restructuring, its logical manifestations in true federalism and devolution of powers?

    The same negative mindset was displayed by the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami when he claimed the ban on open grazing is unconstitutional. The flurry of differing views to his position reinforces the feeling that he spoke to preserve the subsisting moribund order.

    But there is something very absurd of an elected government paying scant heed to the sensibilities of the citizens. The current mood of the country was eminently captured in the resolutions of the 23 governors. A government that is with its peoples should immediately activate processes to see them through. Government is not an end but means to public good. Sadly, the posturing of the Buhari regime reinforces the impression of a government that holds the collective will of the people in utter disdain.

  • Allegations upon allegations

    Allegations upon allegations

    By Emeka Omeihe

    It is a season of allegations, alerts and outright blackmail. Either our psyche is being assailed by alleged attempts to overthrow the government of the day or our sensibilities ruffled by fear of speculated terror attacks.

    State and non-state actors are active players in this game. But, state actors have been the most potent purveyors of these allegations, alerts and warnings on impending subversion against the government and ancillary criminalities.

    Governments all over the world, have the advantage of access to information especially on security matters. So whenever they come up with such information, it ought to be taken seriously. However, the frequency of such alerts and the manner they are currently traded are beginning to diminish their value, raising doubts in the minds of discerning public.

    That was the exact situation when the Department of State Services DSS, alleged sinister moves by misguided elements to wreak havoc on the government, sovereignty and corporate existence of the country. The presidency joined the trend by alleging a plot to overthrow the regime of President Buhari. They further alleged a move to pass a vote of no confidence on the president in a bid to precipitate a forceful change of government, albeit, illegally.

    But many saw in these allegations, an attempt to run away from the reality of a government that is unable to keep faith with its social contract with the people in the face of a failing economy and looming anarchy. Not many were convinced that an attempt to overthrow the government really existed in the absence of any evidence to that effect. But one thing certain is growing public disenchantment with government’s response to the debilitating challenges that had put the country on edge. There is no doubt the captain of the ship had lost control in the middle of a turbulent ocean.

    Instead of alerts on touted coup plans, what the situation called for was effective responses and solution finding to the myriad of challenges behind the increasing loss of confidence in the leadership of the country. It called for reassurances and commitment from the president that he is still in charge and irrevocably committed to justice, fairness and the wellbeing of the constituents.

    The feeling that pent up grievances behind the agitations will be doused by mere allegations or wished away is wrong. Neither will military might offer effective therapeutic response to the malignant tumor. The issues will rather become more problematic and complicated if nothing decisive is done to address them to the satisfaction of the citizenry.

    Even then, there is a dangerous angle to the armada of allegations from state actors without any attempt to prove them conclusively. If the government has evidence of coup plots or covert subversive plans against the state, it should make them public. They should progress beyond accusations and alerts and apprehend suspects to face the law.

    Where such evidence is not availed the public, then people are at liberty to ascribe whatever meaning to such allegations. The frequency of such allegations without any effort to provide evidence for them is beginning to send wrong signals to the citizenry. They may soon culminate to stigmatization and profiling even with lingering doubts in the minds of the public on the motive behind them.

    Just recently, the DSS alleged that IPOB/ESN had acquired bombs and explosives which they were moving in articulated vehicles from Lagos to a hide-out in Orlu, Imo State to destabilize that state. Without prejudice to whatever information the DSS may have, one had expected they should have gone beyond alerts to actually apprehend the culprits. They knew the source of the bombs and explosives- Lagos.

    They knew the type of vehicles the bombs and explosives were to be conveyed in- articulated vehicles. They were also privy to the destination of the bombs and explosives- a hide-out in Orlu. They had all it takes to burst the plan, arrest the masterminds and parade them. Yet, nothing of such happened. How do we then believe them?

    And I ask, are there factories in Lagos that produce bombs and explosives for IPOB/ESN or any willing buyer? Where in Lagos State are such factories located and who are their owners? Why Lagos? Or do we presume they were brought in through the sea ports? If so, what investigations have the authorities conducted since then and what is the outcome?

    These posers are compelling now the Lagos State Commissioner of Police, Hakeem Odumosu has also alleged of an impending plot by the same IPOB to attack soft targets in the state. He said the threat by IPOB agitators had been put on the radar of the commands intelligence gathering and other security services. The commissioner said the command has also taken note of threats by agitators of Oodua Republic and other Yoruba separatist groups- ‘24 of such groups have been identified and closely monitored’.

    But the IPOB described the allegation as baseless just as they denied acquiring and ferrying bombs from Lagos to Orlu. The group said they nurse no such plans and it is a ploy by the security agencies to cause disaffection between the existing peaceful relations of the Igbo and Yoruba ethnic groups. As if to corroborate the position of the IPOB, nine Pan-Yoruba self-determination groups promptly issued a statement in which they picked holes with public declaration by the police of the alleged plans by the IPOB to attack Lagos.

    The groups contended that if the police really had credible information on the issue, they should have discretely gone after IPOB members and arrest them instead of raising an alarm. The groups saw in the alarm an attempt to set the Yoruba against the Igbo and urged the Yoruba to ignore such attempts as the two groups need each other.

    They also warned against ethnic profiling given that in the recent attack on the Yoruba at Mile 2 Lagos, the ethnic group of the attackers was known. Yet, at no time did the police make any attempt to speak about the ethnic identity of the perpetrators. They have said it all. And that highlights the contradictions in the flurry of accusations that have inundated the public space in recent times

    It is not clear what the security agencies intend to achieve by these allegations, propaganda and potentially divisive alerts. But it is getting clearer by the day that there is more to them than ordinarily meets the eyes. The tempo and texture of the allegations add to the suspicion on the source of the escalating insecurity in the country. The feeling is that insipient hands of fifth columnists can be seen in it all.

    No thanks to the inability of security agencies to demonstrate beyond reasonable doubt that some of these infractions now providing the basis for military action are neither contrived nor simulated to achieve predetermined ends. If anything, trending video from Akwa Ibom State gives further boost to the air of suspicion surrounding heightened spate of insecurity in parts of the south east and south-south.

    In the video, Governor Udom Emmanuel lamented the freeing by the state’s police command of heavily armed bandits in fake army uniform arrested with 18 AK-47 riffles. According to him, the criminals were released through the order of the state police commissioner as soon as they were arrested and their riffles returned to them. He accused the police of naked partisanship to precipitate mayhem and provide basis for security agencies to attack the state. That captures the dilemma in the attacks on security personnel and ancillary governmental institutions in the southeast and south-south for which an engagement plan has been approved by the president.

    It is hoped we have not boxed ourselves to a tight corner. It is hoped we have not through actions or inaction, created a Frankenstein monster. The challenge is gargantuan but not entirely insurmountable. But the scorching heat can be doused if the recommendations of southern governors are taken seriously.

  • A big dialogue

    A big dialogue

    By Sam Omatseye

    They came with the air of heirs to a new realm. They were revolutionaries. They were rescuers in a time of peril. They had great ideas. In Asaba, they all arrived, one after the other. In sartorial facades, they highlighted the cultural cornucopia of the south. The caps, tunics, beads, neckwear, footwear, et al. The time was near. Indeed, the time had come for the big jump over the chasm to save the heirloom for the realm.

    But it was like a small sigh from a giant’s chest. This was an anti-climax. The governors from the south did not see it that way. They had had a great meeting, and they unveiled a great resolution.  Some call it anti-climax. Others say it was heroic.

    They called for restructuring, but it was nothing new. They asked the president to address the nation. Nothing special about that. The man had been quiet on that front from the neck up for too long. They shut their borders to open grazing. Even the north has said that much. So, why all the hullaballoo, the private jets, the attires, the royal ambience, the caravans, the air of majesty of the southern governors as they strode into Asaba?

    The host, Governor Ifeanyi Okowa of Delta State, hailed his colleagues. The senate president thought otherwise, couching his onslaught in logic as inelegant as its language.

    They did not do anything bad. They just pointed the finger to the centre instead of at themselves. By their resolutions, they admitted that the centre could not hold. To avert anarchy, rather than release a charter of action, they uttered a cry of surrender.

    Did they expect anything from their resolution from a centre that has not been able to comb the bandits from the bush, save nubile girl in college, or the old man in a village hut during night raid? What they did was a grandiloquent ritual, a good photo op, a good headline, and absolutely nothing.

    It might have been better if they went to Mr. President, and told him that. Even if the man did nothing, it would have made a greater gesture, perhaps a prelude to action. Even at that, it begs the question.

    The governors forget that even if the centre cannot hold, they can tie the country together. They need to heal themselves of what the Hungarian novelist of ideas, Milan Kundera, calls the unbearable lightness of being. They feel light whereas they are freighted with great power by our constitution. It is the great virtue of the federalist system that if the centre fails, the parts can save the union. This is the power they have failed to realise.

    One of the great opportunities from security is the security council that men like Femi Falana (SAN) have been harping on for some time. It is a council that has not been holding. The president and governors are supposed to meet on security. That body has remained inert. The governors have the power to invoke the law and compel even the president to convene it regularly. In that meeting they can take far-reaching decisions that will even make the present security architecture superfluous if it does not obey that council. It is a body with constitutional heft. So why are the governors crying about their impotence when the power to attack the goons in our midst is within them? Are they afraid to call on the president to convene it? They have the right to browbeat him to do it within the ambit of the law.

    Again, the issue of restructuring has rankled us. The argument that we have all matters resolved in the archives has droned for so long that Nigeria will need another conference to decide what document will work. It will be the rigmarole, a coming and going that goes on forever.

    The southern governors can go into action and restructure the country without a conference. We know that we need two-thirds of the state houses of assembly to append signature for a matter to be passed into law. If these southern governors are ready, they can start right now. The state houses of assembly are virtually rubberstamp, and the governors preside even in this democracy with the paraphernalia of a monarch. They can bring their monarchical resources to the benefit of democracy. Soldiers have given us democracy, like the charisma of George Washington. So, why not elected governors? After all, the governors also decide who will be a member of the House of Representatives and the Senate. They control who makes law at home and centre. All they need do is come together as governor and decide to whittle the centre one law at a time, and within one year they can restructure the country, without a conference, without a billion naira jamboree and without a jot of blood. It will be a game of numbers. That is where the task calls for statesmanship and perseverance. It will be interesting to see if the president can turn down the law at his desk.

    If the southern governors are serious, they can start shopping for support among their colleagues up north. It will be a grind of give-and-take. They don’t have to win them all. They just have to win enough. They can start with revenue. All states know they lack for money and that is why they go to the centre as beggars. Why can’t they take the financial wind out of the centre and legislate for fiscal federalism? This is what political scientists call cooperative federalism. Eventually, it should redound to what is called dual federalism where all powers belong to the states except foreign affairs and defence.

    If the governors start this, it will give the nation its great ferment in politicking since 1960. There will be back-channel deals, threats and carrots, but the excitement of give and take will trump any subversive forces. It will be the big Nigerian dialogue. It will be the move to save the country. There will be wolves and there will be lambs. The idea is to change the wolf to lamb, or what Shakespeare calls “ravening-wolvish lamb” who might yield to their gentler natures. Governors have done such feats in the past as in the introduction of the doctrine of necessary during YarAdua’s time.

    Theory will yield to practice, just as it happened when the Americans had to translate their Federalist Papers into a country. It is still work in progress even though Hamilton and Jefferson belonged to opposite ends of the pole.

    It is a way to make democracy save federalism, and vice versa in the midst of the present rumbles in Nigeria.

     

    Fiction in Akwa Ibom

    Those who follow Akwa Ibom politics will not appreciate it until they go online, and it is a pot-pouri of opinionated folks often masquerading as great journalists. It is also the stronghold of the opposition who must tear down whatever the government is doing. It is sometimes difficult to distinguish opposition pamphleteering and honest rage. For instance, I read a piece that was saying that the government has done little on unemployment, and I wonder if the writer saw the syringe factory, the best in the subcontinent, or the coconut refinery under works, or the meter factory, among others. Or even Ibom Air, with the best planes today, and surging the Nigeria air every day. That shadowy writer also somehow blames the state government for the unfortunate slaughter of Iniubong Umoren, whereas it is a police matter and it is in the hands of the federal authorities. Beware of what brand of social media you like.

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  • Time to hire

    Time to hire

    By Sam Omatseye

    We might not admit it in public, our government has reached its wit’s end in contending with both bandits and Boko Haram. This much is known from Mallam El Rufai’s rhetoric on the Forestry students. With his impotence, they were abducted. In his impotence, they stepped into freedom.

    He fantatised a commando-style raid. It did not happen. It could not happen because, unlike us who have babyish intelligence networks, the bandits knew and strode out of sight. The Kaduna State Governor’s fantasy fell flat. Then he had the effrontery to tell us the story as though we should clap and caper over his imaginative failure. Generals don’t applaud strategies. They sip wines over conquests. Strategy ended Hitler’s bodies in ashes. Mussolini, known as the Sawdust Caesar because of his oversized ego, was burned in effigy. Ojukwu fled to Ivory Coast. Gadhafi expired in the hands of street thugs.

    In the fever of El Rufai’s imagination, the air force would launch, wipe out the goons, save some of the students, and declare victory. He had wet dreams of Arnold Schwarzenegger. He expected blood trails, corpses of some students with hurrah in the streets. He advertised his mournful fantasy and expected our praise? His dwarfish thinking blinded him to the meaning of victory. Parents would be in sack cloths, tongues limp from wailing, faces in runnels of tears. Even if the goons died, it would be what historians call a pyrrhic victory.

    Even if they had a plan, good leaders keep mum. Such revelations don’t see the light until the end of the war, in the height of hostilities. Now, they know what government plans. The strategic cat is out of the bag. It shows he lacks as a leader the mental acuity for a people in crisis. El Rufai is too glib to lead.

    We also saw that in negotiating the Faka students’ release, the family of the bandits were involved. One of them whose name is coincidentally Buhari was also coincidentally Known as General. His father had a role in the bargains. The story shows, one, that it is not just foreigners who torment us. They are part of us. As French philosopher Montesquieu noted, societies don’t fall from outside forces until forces within have already fallen. Bandits cannot abide in our forests with such prosperity and defiance without roots here. Two, if they have roots here, why are we finding it difficult to root them out and rout them? It shows we are not serious about peace in the land. It is, as it were, in the family. It is like we love our family too much to rebuke the bad boys. So the ferment of evil eats us alive while we look.

    Three, it shows that we cannot fight the war on bandits with our army, intelligence networks, or air force. We might buy the best weapons, but we shall fail. Superior arms have never guaranteed victory anywhere in history. It only complements other factors, including intelligence and motivation. These two factors are lacking and they cripple any fire power. We are fighting bandits without bandwidths. Our telecom forces are not catching their phone calls or not understanding them.

    Hence, we must go beyond our armed forces. The appeal to American forces will not do it either. When Americans fought ISIL in the Middle East, they employed what they call in their fancy and euphemistic language, “Private Military contractors.” The world calls them mercenaries. No one deploys that language because they have been declared illegal by the United Nations since 1989. So if the problem is that they are called mercenaries, countries like the United States who are signatories, decided to conjure a different language. All over the world, they come in handy. They are deploying the Illegal for the service of peace. Some of the best fighters as mercenaries are American veterans, including the dreaded Navy Seals, who still want to fight out of boredom and more pay. Two of the major such mercenary groups are the Wagner Group and Blackwater.

    We cannot pretend we don’t know these fighters. There is nowhere in the world where there are conflicts, especially high intensity ones, where mercenaries are not at work. They are crack squads, if some of their personnel are crackpots.  The Jonathan administration hired them against Boko Haram, and according to documented reports, they achieved in a few weeks, what the Nigerian army could not in six years. That fruit was exploited by the Lai Mohammed in the early days of Buhari’s administration when he boasted that Boko Haram’s end was in the horizon. Jonathan built, Buhari inherited. But he could not maintain the house. They did not pay the mercenaries to continue. They packed their loads, including their Mi-24 Hind helicopter gunships, and left. Their exit was a shot in the arm for Boko haram, hence their current swagger.

    The reason is the hubris of our army and government. We cannot hope on an army that has failed his people. The Americans, with the best the world has ever known, uses them. Irbil, the capital of Kurdistan, is the chief marketplace of mercenaries today. Veterans of drug wars in Chile, Panama, Colombia, El Salvador, have been enlisted in their fiery market. In Africa, Sudan, Chad and Eritrea have harvested them for conflicts around the world. Even Ukraine and Russia, who are staring each other down like two cocks, have them in their armoury.

    It is because the Nigerian army has failed that it cannot give up. That is the tragic irony. But we cannot stop these goons in the bushes until we get the mercenaries. They know no fear. They want to be paid. They care not for the herdsman or the gang of kidnappers. They will go from forest to forest like bush fire, and raze the bandits to ashes. They will save us time and money. New reports show we have spent N10 trillion in six years on security, and we are here walking our streets with our hearts pounding like a goat’s in a lion’s grip.

    Reports say we have spent too much money and some in the political and military top brass want it so because security is profitable. It means the death of our fellow citizens is profitable. Lack of development is profitable. National fear and trembling is profitable.

    Standing armies are not always the cure for fear. From the ancient times, mercenaries have been a forte of fights. In the Bible days, they were handy. Pompey and Caesar used them. Xenophon employed Greek mercenaries. Carthage deployed them for the Punic Wars. Hannibal’s army was typical as they mounted elephants. Alexander the Great could not write his exploits without them. Popes used and applauded them during the Crusades. Author Thomas More hired them to protect his Utopian state in his satire, Utopia. Colonial armies used them to take our people as slaves and conquer us into colonies. They also formed the West African Frontier Force in British West Africa and Senegalese Sharp Shooters for the French.

    It is not a moral army. They have no ideologies or faith. In fact, Machiavelli described them in The Prince, as “gallant among friends, vile among enemies, no fear of God, no faith with men.” Frederick Forsyth wrote that Adekunle recruited some never-do-wells, including prison inmates, to form the Third Marine Commando, the fiercest force in the Civil War, where Alabi Isama was chief of staff. Their only loyalty is to get the job done. In my television show on TVC, Alabi Isama said, soldiers are not asked to do their best but to get the job done.

    Our task is to flush out the felons. Let us get those who can do it for us. To hire the mercenaries is the beginning of wisdom, the urgency of freedom.

  • Perilous times

    Perilous times

    By Emeka Omeihe

    Nigeria is obviously passing through perilous times. It is visible from the parlous state of the economy hallmarked by unbridled corruption in public offices; spiraling inflation, jobs losses and the attendant abject poverty that now ranks our citizens the poorest of the poor.

    Evidence of the hazardous setting the country is seemingly irretrievably entangled can also be felt from the plethora of security challenges that have continued to question the ability and capacity of the Buhari administration to maintain law and order. Boko Haram insurgency; agitations for secession, herdsmen militia attacks, unceasing banditry and kidnapping for ransom form part of the debilitating security infractions that are fast sliding the country to a verity of the atavism of the state of nature.

    Anarchy hovers around the landscape menacingly. Nobody knows for certain the next victims of the unbridled bloodletting as non state actors with devious technology for inflicting maximum damage on humanity are on prowl. Matters are not made any easier by the glaring inability of the government to be of reasonable help.

    The situation has so much degenerated that self-help has become the option for victims of the marauding killers and kidnappers. We are contending with governments that discourage the payment of ransom, yet, have nothing on ground to make kidnapping a dangerous enterprise. They threaten and dare kidnappers. Yet in their very faces; these agents of awe and sorrow abduct students in their numbers, without any help from the same grandstanding government. What a country!

    Faced with degenerate security situation and other national challenges assailing the unity, progress and development of the country, there have been calls from some quarters for the president to resign or get impeached by the National Assembly. This is in addition to subsisting agitations for the restructuring of the country with threats that the 2023 elections may not be without political re-engineering of the convoluted and defective federal set-up. So, the heat of something ominous has always been there fuelled by rising signals that Nigeria is fast sliding into a failed state.

    This pervading air of uncertainty and despair appeared to have got further impetus when the Department of State Services DSS alleged sinister moves by misguided elements to wreak havoc on the government, sovereignty and corporate existence of the country.

    The danger alert from the DSS was quickly followed by a pledge by the military that it will not overthrow the government of President Buhari. In a statement, the acting Director of Defence Information, Brigadier-General Onyema Nwachukwu said the military has no intention of taking over power again in Nigeria.

    Warning politicians nursing ambition of ruling Nigeria outside the ballot box, the statement pledged the commitment of the military to remain apolitical, subordinate to civil authority and firmly loyal to the president and commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. This is not the first time the military is making such a pledge. It had cause to issue similar statement during Buhari’s first term.

    But the ante to the alarm seemed to have been upped by the presidency which quickly alleged of a plot by some leaders working with foreigners to forcefully sack president Buhari from office. The statement by the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina claimed the plot “is to eventually throw the country into a tailspin, which would compel a forceful and undemocratic change of leadership”.

    Adesina accused the masterminds of recruiting the leadership of some ethnic groups and politicians with the intention of some form of conference where a vote of no confidence would be passed on the president. He warned against such plans claiming “the only accepted way to change a democratically elected government is through election”.

    The DSS alert, pledge of loyalty to the president by the military and the allegation of an attempt to procure a change of government albeit, unconstitutionally bear the imprimatur of a country under serious systemic stress. That is by no means an admission of the allegation of a forceful change of government. What is obvious is that the government has been under intense attacks from various groups in the country in the face of the mounting security challenges that have become serious threat to human existence. The government has also been under fire for not addressing observed imperfections of our federal order and its mismanagement of our diversities.

    On a daily basis, Nigerians are kidnapped and killed by a coterie of marauding bandits. Those who are lucky to pay ransom get spared even as some are equally killed after ransom had been paid. Herdsmen are on rampage in many parts of the country killing and maiming without the government doing something serious to stop the carnage. Boko Haram insurgents wax stronger with more states feeling the heat.

    Fiery Islamic scholar Sheikh Ahmad Gumi shocked the nation when he disclosed that some of those behind the spate of kidnapping in Kaduna State are members of the Boko Haram and not bandits whom he claimed the government knows where to find them. Gumi who was reacting to allegations of complicity for hobnobbing with the bandits in states of the north had said the bandits were fighting an ethnic war. But he is yet to disclose the nature of this ethnic war and the issues to it except some complaints that are not different from those of the herdsmen.

    There are also rising agitations for self-determinations from the ethnic nationalities and serious calls for the restructuring of the country to make it more effective and responsive to the needs of the various groups in the union. Political parties are in this call for restructuring, so also are ethnic nationalities and many well-meaning Nigerians as well. But behind all these are rising feelings of alienation, system injustice and marginalization. The raging feeling is that one part of the country had become the lords of the manor from whom the others take instructions.

    Nepotism has become so manifest with the glaring mismanagement of our diversities by the Buhari administration. We have never had the lure of self-determination and recline to centrifugal tendencies as intense as they are presently. And these are rooted in injustice. Disenchantment with the system is palpable. So, when the government came out to levy allegations of an attempt to overthrow it through unconstitutional means, they were obviously not oblivious of the discontent in the land. They may have been reacting to these feelings.

    The current pass was fuelled by the passiveness of the Buhari regime to genuine concerns and feelings of the people. The challenges the country is passing through now, are manifestations of unaddressed grievances. Why the government prefers to evade reality even as things get worse is behind the raging feeling that the regime has abdicated its mandate by the electorate.

    Nobody gets to see the president in action leading from the front as he had promised. The president hardly gets to address the nation in serious emergencies even as such sensitive issues are trivialized through statements by media aides. The impression one gets is that nobody seems to be really in-charge.

    So, the solution does not lie in alarms or speculations on plots to overthrow the government. It is also not correct as Adesina claimed, that the only way to change an elected government is through an election. There is the impeachment clause in the constitution that requires the National Assembly to remove the president under certain conditions. That clause could be called into action if a president become a liability to the very people he was elected to protect.

    The issues are real and complaints clear. What has been in short supply is the necessary political will and commitment to address the grievances that are fast tilting the country to the precipice. A government cannot be above those it is elected to serve. It must be seen to be constantly responding to their needs, desires and aspirations. And what is left of an elected government if it cannot read the temperament of the people and assuage their genuine feelings?

  • FRA was right

    FRA was right

    By Sam Omatseye

    When the Owu chief foisted the EFCC on the nation, many hailed him as a moral arbiter, a secular priest with the anointing oil to wither the itchy finger of the mighty.

    The pious hailed, and they could find a place in scripture to buoy him. After all, in the Old Testament, the prophet Zechariah invoked Jehovah’s curse on the house of the thief.

    Someone asked us for restraint. He is dead now, but he must squirm in triumph in the grave. Rotimi Williams had challenged it in court and noted that we cannot fight corruption as revenge. And, in any case, where was its place in the constitution?

    We have seen the fight on corruption become an onslaught either for one man, against one man, against a political party, a sword of menace, a populist piece of meat in the tiger’s cage. It has often turned into an intrigue in Abuja, whether it was to browbeat a fellow party chieftain or to make a Magu turn from a slobbering flatterer with an idolater’s badge of the president to a wimp besieged.

    Professor Itse Sagay (SAN) warned not long ago that the attorney general is trying to upend the war on corruption into his personal moral fiefdom.

    So, there. We have had a few scapegoats. A governor here, an IG there, a few business perverts.  But for most part, the war on corruption is like a farce mocking corruption on an elaborate stage. It claims victories that we cannot even call pyrrhic, since there are not real victories but mockeries of the overcomer. Just like the Roman leader Caligula, who wanted to distract his people and get home approval in his reign of profligacy and sexual orgies. He decided to invade Britain as a prize since even the great Augustus could not. On the verge of battle, he retreated and conned his people by marching into Rome with his own soldiers decked as prisoners of war and his people hailed him as a war hero.

    The EFCC made the Nigerian thief into the Igbo proverb popularised in Achebe’s Things fall Apart. They learn to fly with our money without perching. The EFCC keeps shooting and missing. The war has even morphed into a game of an unspoken alloy and ally between the judiciary and the federal government, so a case can become an eternal song like the case that never ends from generation to generation in Charles Dickens’ novel, The Bleak House.

    What is wrong? We have tried to make the fight of corruption into a sort of martial presence. It is an overhang from the military era. For the most part, it runs against the gain of a federal constitution. Hence this essayist supports the step by the man who bears the payload of Lagos in his small frame, The BOS of Lagos, Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu for setting up an anti-corruption agency backed by law.

    “We believe that this law will not only ensure accountability of public funds, responsibility of public office but also promote dialogue among public officers to keep the trust of the people…” noted Gov. Sanwo-Olu.

    Some have railed at the law as a dig on Abuja and a shield of Lagos bigwigs. If we must run a federal system, let us do it. Corruption fight is not oil, and it does not belong on the exclusive list. Why should the centre think it has moral authority over the states? What makes them holier? After all, we have seen in the intrigues and infighting over the EFCC that the hands of the priest are not better than the hypocritical character Teribogo in Soyinka’s new novel, Chronicles of the Happiest People on Earth. Or Brother Jero. They lay claim to equity, but where are their clean hands?

    The fight on corruption was taken as harmless at first, but gradually, like the Rhinoceros in Eugene Ionesco’s play, everyone becomes a rhino and loses their own personality.

    We need to hark back to Rotimi’s William’s wisdom when he first challenged it. Some who say it is primed to save a man only look at the moment. Democracy is not a system for a day, it is for centuries, a system of laws and not of men. To federalise the fight is to give it back to the people.

    The fight against corruption is also part of the larger current of a populist trend today. In the legislative sphere, the lawmakers are angling for not only freedom to make laws but also money to be free. In a democracy, your major source of strength is your finance base. If we want to federalise anti-corruption war, we should also support free legislatures, so the executives do not hold their purse strings.

    The judicial arm also deserves same, and the JUSUN strike hits at the heart of this. When a court does not need a chief executive and the assembly can account for its own money, nobody has a power to steal with impunity.

    But when we subject the war to the peccadillos of one man in the centre or an agency, we don’t have anti-corruption. We have dictatorship. We are not running a totalitarian state. We are running a republic.

    The Owu chief was very clever when he started it. He looked for a big fish, and it had to be a police chief. He appointed a junior police officer to squelch his former oga. It was a dramatic episode in Nigerian history. It had the ingredients of great theatre: suspense, overthrow of mores, surprise of outcome.

    It is an irony that the police have been used to prosecute the war. The same police have become the punching bag of federalist fighters today. The same police are on the exclusive list. A clamour for state police has drowned the land. In this day of the breakdown of law and order, we are saying that we need each state to own their security. It was resisted for a long time. We are growing close to a national consensus on state police now.

    The same should apply to the anti-corruption war. We build an institution to save a system, not to coddle a few. Even if they save a few for the present, we cannot elevate one person’s hatred for a generation’s loss. The white made a few laws to protect the white man and white woman from the black man. One of them is the divorce law. It is the whites who benefit from them more today. Once a law is just, it will save the people. When the US said all men were created equal, they meant white men. Today, George Floyd’s family appropriated that declaration for all humans.

    Lagos has always been the lab rat of Nigeria’s democracy, just like New York and California in the United States. The revenue system, the local government order, the search to make electric power broken into parts, etc, all began here in Lagos. Lagos is putting its fingers in the fire again, and this time to burnish our moral fibre.

    If the problem with Nigeria is about leadership, as Achebe noted, it is about leadership of values. We cannot do that when we enthrone values with Czars instead of democrats.

     

    Helen Prest’s other beauty

    Helen Prest-Ajayi

    Many remember her as beauty, one of Nigeria’s belles who took home the prized trophy of Miss Nigeria. She became a wife and mother and moved out of the spotlight. It seems she does not want to be the lady who is known as the pretty face or the curves of seduction for memory. Or what some with mischief might call femme fatale. She challenged herself and has written a book, not about fashion or how to make your skin glow for your man. It is a book ambitiously titled, A Complete English Grammar Guide. Helen Prest Ajayi pays attention to some of the nuances of grammar as she explains the basic errors of tenses and how to make them right.

    This book is her other beauty.