The Nation Newspaper

Category: Monday

  • Imo: Many puzzles of an attack

    Imo: Many puzzles of an attack

    By Emeka OMEIHE

     

    Emerging recriminations on the masterminds of the attack at the Imo State Police Command headquarters and the Correctional Services in Owerri are a measure of the puzzles the incident presents. The gunmen who attacked both facilities in their numbers were reported to have first gathered at the roundabout opposite the Government House around 1 am for about 30 minutes singing solidarity songs before proceeding to hit their targets.

    The first victim of the attack was the state police headquarters where they detonated sophisticated explosives that blew open cells housing detainees and set them free. Not done, they set on fire almost all the vehicles parked at the police command and affecting some buildings.

    They proceeded to the correctional facilities located some distance from the police headquarters, blew open the cells and freed all prisoners and detainees. The gunmen had a field day carrying out their criminal objectives without challenge from the security agencies even as the area is the most fortified in the state. Why the hoodlums operated freely without any challenge from the array of security operatives that maintain strong presence in the area is the most tasking puzzle presented by the incident.

    Government’s posts and security agencies from which resistance was expected to come are: the Government House itself, the state police command headquarters, the correctional facility and the old headquarters of the Department of State Services DSS. The chief security officer of the state, the governor lives there, so also is the commissioner of police. The commander of the artillery brigade at Obinze also has his residence located around the area.

    One had expected serious confrontation with the armed gunmen from this array of security agencies. But nothing of such happened. The information that made the rounds is that the hoodlums operated unchallenged. None of the attackers was killed, wounded or arrested. The only inkling of resistance we were treated to was that the gunmen made serious attempts to break into the armoury at the police headquarters but met serious resistance. Apparently emboldened by the absence of resistance, the attackers then marched or sped off to the correctional facilities with several Toyota Hilux vans and Sienna buses they came with to complete their devious assignment. There, they also blew open the cells and freed about 1,800 inmates. It was a scene to behold as prisoners and detainees of all hue struggled to exit confinement.

    Immediate past Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed Adamu who arrived the scene promptly, named the proscribed IPOB and Eastern Security Network as the perpetrators of the attack. Adamu’s fingering of the IPOB for culpability was hasty given that nobody was arrested during the attack and there are neither labels nor uniforms that mark out the so-called IPOB or ESN members for ease of identification.

    From what material evidence did he then get his information or is it a case of the usual hallmark assumptions and profiling?  But IPOB denied the accusation even as another self-determination group MASSOB has placed the blame for the attack on the federal government. MASSOB alleged the attack was a ploy by the federal government to invade the state and hound innocent citizens.

    A new twist to the issue emerged when Governor Hope Uzodinma claimed in an interview with Channels Television’s Politics Today that aggrieved politicians were behind the attacks and their aim was to destabilize his government and that of President Muhammadu Buhari. “We have credible evidence leading to those who paid the hoodlums, where they met and how they met. Security agencies are already working with this information” he stated.

    It is not clear whether the ‘credible evidence’ the governor claims to have were availed him before or after the attacks.  But any doubt on this appeared to have been cleared by a former official of the DSS, Dennis Amachree. He claimed in an interview on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily programme monitored by The Punch that both the governor and the state police command were alerted three times by the DSS of the impending attack. This claim is yet to be denied.

    If this information is correct, it further complicates the riddle surrounding the entire incident. It may then provide a lead as to why there was no resistance when the hoodlums levied terror of unimaginable proportion on the poor state. Uzodinma appeared to have corroborated the claims by Amachree by the way he volunteered knowledge of where the hoodlums met, how they met and their sponsors. What he did not tell us is whether this information was availed him prior to the attack or thereafter. If it is before the attack, then a profound statement has been made on why there was no challenge to the attackers. It also says something on kind of leadership in the state. But, if the information was made available to him after the attacks, then those who gave it to him must be arrested for complicity.

    They must be arrested and immediately paraded by the police for withholding sensitive security information until after monumental harm had been done. Since the governor claims he has evidence of those who paid the hoodlums, where they met and how they met, it means all these were really available in some quarters before the attack. They could not have been generated after the attacks. Of what use then, is the information if it could not be deployed to prevent the attacks?

    We do not want to believe that the alleged ‘credible evidence’ was availed the governor and he did nothing only for the criminals to unleash mayhem. But somebody is definitely complicit in the circumstance. That some people had prior information on the impending attack and kept it under wraps adds to the conspiratorial theories making the rounds since the incident.

    Uzodinma’s claim that aggrieved politicians were behind the attacks was further narrowed down by his commissioner for information, Declan Emelumba when he pointedly accused a former governor of the state of being behind the spate of attacks on government’s establishments. The commissioner said the ex-governor had recently organized a group of northern youths to demand the imposition of a state of emergency on the state. By all the descriptions he provided, that former governor is identifiable. So why not have him arrested?

    But more fundamentally, the new position of the state government counters the pinning down of the IBOP as the mastermind of the attack. So who are the suspects of the attacks: IPOB, politicians, a former governor or all of the above? And why bring in Buhari’s government into the matter if credibility issues are not behind it all.

    The conduct of Governor Uzodinma evokes the impression of a man being haunted by the very manner he came into power. His demeanour and temperament since the incident do not speak of one intent on deescalating the tensed security situation in the state. Bandying allegations freely when investigations are still going on may end up compromising their outcome.

    It is worrisome and condemnable that such an attack could take place in Imo. The development calls for serious introspection especially when added to the attacks on police station across the state, Why Imo? What is expected of a leader in such a circumstance is calmness for serious investigations to be carried out to unravel those behind those despicable attacks.

    But he would not have any of such with his display of uncanny obsession with getting even with perceived political enemies. Such was the sentiments evoked when he asked the police during his visit to the scene of the attack, to use their riffles to defend themselves against suspected masterminds of the attacks. Why prod the police on self-defence?

    In a clime law enforcement agencies are regularly accused of human rights abuses, telling them to use their weapons to defend themselves could be misconstrued, leading to rights abuses of the most extreme form. That is the potent danger in that advice.

    What the circumstance demands is comprehensive investigation and proper examination of all leads to that reign of anarchy in Imo State. Nothing should be foreclosed in this investigation. Not with the serial abduction of hundreds of school children in northern states without resistance from the security agencies. Nothing should be ruled out in this investigation.

  • The Lekki report

    The Lekki report

    By Sam Omatseye

     

    He moved in the night as the news dawned. The BOS of Lagos wanted facts, not in the mockery of Charles Dickens’ novel Hard Times. He wanted to be sure he did not mix the dead among the living or the living among the dead.

    This is in respect of the Lekki incident that some social commentators or media outlets sensationally called massacre in a macabre abuse of the word “massacre.”

    The matter rose from its smouldering stove last week when the United States expressed ambiguity over the story that many people died. The report expressed the position of the BOS of Lagos, Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, that noted that two lives were confirmed dead. Even at that the connection of one of the dead to the scene was tenuous. The US report noted that the army was there as an ignoble presence. The governor as much as acknowledged that at the point of the controversy.

    What strikes this writer is the contrast between the report of the US government and the CNN, the country’s most vocal outlet in the world. The CNN reported killings. It verified none. The human rights body, Human Rights International, said 10 people died. It did not prove their names.

    Since the infamous night, we have seen claims, encountered ghosts, a certain D.J. Switch with apparitions of the dead on social media, mothers have materialised with the rage of a puffadder only to ebb out like puffs of smoke.

    Other than the two mentioned, we are yet to ascertain if there are any more dead. Even one death is a tragedy. No life is worth the insanity of an army.

    Amnesty International with their Nigerian researchers jumped into conclusion. Its hubris will not let it flag to facts. Rather it challenged the US report without facts.

    The US, just like the Lagos governor,  say they are open to facts. If there are more dead, let us see them. That is the reason he set up a panel that includes the EndSars representatives. So far, we have seen no hard evidence. Somehow Amnesty wants us to believe 10 died at least.

    If the Nigerian staff of the august body wants to justify their pay, they are welcome to it. But they should not sacrifice the facts. As this writer has noted in the past, corpses are no ghosts. If they are dead, they  should have found brothers; if not brothers, sisters. If not siblings, parents. If not parents, co-workers. If not that, they should have neighbours. Amnesty International cannot say that because there were shootings, it must result in massacres.

    To be clear, the army acted like a leopard in ambush. It had no right to fire bullets. Its acts had no place in a democracy or in civilised place. It was barbarism even if it shot the bullets in the air. The army brass contradicted itself first by denying it was there and later confirming its presence with defiance. Up till today, no one has been queried for that night.

    CNN has, for its storied record, goofed. It will be interesting to see the executives of the network go back to the story in humility. It is not reporting to turn social media mirage into facts, to elevate a fleeing DJ Switch into a heroine, and make professional cockiness into a virtue.

    The US position was a responsible one. It wanted to speak with evidence, not sentiment. CNN wanted sensation as driver for revelation. Because they saw rage on Facebook and Instagram, some media leaders and so-called influencers marshalled facts to match the fire of the hour. It was a leap of Imagination, fantasy over facts.

    Media gets away with a lot, especially when it does not face scrutiny. But when it comes to body count, it has often been a guess game. Media leaders must learn to be sure of their facts when disasters strike.

    Headlines about incidents often differ. Reporters ought to leave matters not provable on the level of speculation. They tend to get away with it. Now, they have to collide with the truth. The main point here is that facts are sacred, as they teach all historians and journalists. But opinions are free.

    The advent of social media has complicated the business of facts and the power of truth.

    Ambiguity is a better virtue than leap to facts. Facts are a sober business. Biases can colour what we seem to see into what we deceive ourselves to have seen. Hence reporters delve into several checks before delivery as consumables. Once the words are in the public space, they contaminate the society.

    The business of reporting is not a flawless enterprise. But its integrity lies in the humility of admitting errors when they occur. It is because of professional hubris that some people like Donald Trump have lashed on to the fake news mantra. News gathering is a human effort. It has done a great job for civilisation but that is why it must be humble.

    For all the lack of grace of the former US president, he forced the media to look inwards and recast its certainties. It is an irony that the US reporting on the Lekki Shooting played down CNN and that should tell them that it is better to err on the side of caution than jump headlong into falsehoods.

    It is interesting that those who call it a massacre have not eaten the humble pie of apology. It is because even in the news business, we exercise the same impunity that we accuse the army of performing. Bad news can be as harmful as stray bullets. Wars have erupted because of it. The media helped George W. Bush plunge the world into over a decade of turmoil in the Middle East. It was based on false claims over weapons of mass destruction. When I taught media in the US,  I kept urging my students to address the facts. I said no media house had proved it. A year later a student accosted me on  the hallway to apologise to me. He said he thought I was anti-American. He had learned a great lessons in news sobriety. The media also inflamed passion that lit the tinder of pogrom that imploded Nigeria in the 1960′. Words are more dangerous than guns. Words made firefights. Wars cannot happen without words. In the beginning was the word. Too many lives end because a bad word started it. Napoleon boasted that pens were not mightier than the sword. It was words, the reporting of his magisterial fireworks that brought him down at Waterloo.

    When we hear facts, let us be sober before we soar into anger. It is an irony, that the first words on body counts  came from Governor Sanwo-Olu and, up till now, even the US government cannot controvert him.

     

    Soludo’s escape

     

    Chukwuma Soludo

    The attempt on former CBN chief’s life is a sad chapter on Anambra State politics and political ambition in Nigeria. We cannot say it was not bloody. It was choreographed to threaten Chukwuma Soludo. Maybe they didn’t want to kill but to shake him up. The facts remain blur. They killed the guards and wounded others. They probably want him to quit the race. So they sacrificed his security for that? Such murderous cynics.

    It’s up to Soludo, a distinguished Nigerian and by any means a worthy man to be governor, to decide if he will faze or face his detractors. If we cry over the herdsman’ butchery, let us not forget the dark heart of the desperate politician. They are no better. They are the ones we trust to stop the herdsmen, whereas they are cousins in carnage.

     

  • Echoes of unity

    Echoes of unity

    By Emeka OMEIHE

     

    Nigeria’s unity took the centre stage at the 12th edition of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu colloquium in Kano last week, as speaker after speaker took turns to highlight the benefits for the country as an indivisible entity.

    Even the choice of venue, Kano State, bore eloquent testimony to the desire by its organizers to expand the frontiers of national unity at a time the country is assailed by fission of all hue. And the organizers made no mistakes in driving this point home. It is the first time the colloquium held outside Lagos and Abuja.

    With the theme “Our Common Bond, Our Common Wealth: The imperative of National Cohesion for Growth and Prosperity” the stage was set for speakers to draw copious attention to the gains of coming together and remaining together as a united country. This is especially so, given the upswing in destabilizing challenges to the nation’s corporate existence in recent times.

    Such was the palpable sentiment when President Buhari said in a virtual statement at the event that “despite occasional inter-ethnic tensions in our national history, it seems to me that we have all agreed on one point, that notwithstanding our diversity or ethnicity, culture, language and religion, Nigerians are better; even stronger together”. He said his experience working in all parts of the country showed possibilities of a strong and united nation.

    For Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, by accepting to hold the colloquium in Kano, Governor Abdullahi Ganduje has helped the organizers “to underscore the point that this country and its people are stronger and more powerful together than apart”.

    Asiwaju Tinubu, warned on the dangers of disunity when he contended that if Nigeria broke into small countries, he would not be able to visit Kano without a visa. But perhaps, the most tasking contribution to the discourse came from Ganduje when he said, for Nigerians to attain the desired development, its citizens must become ‘born again’ “As far as national integration is concerned, all Nigerians must become born again by turning a new leaf and doing away with the negative tendencies that becloud senses of reason”, Ganduje stated.

    These are the key issues to contend with. If one’s reading of Ganduje is correct, his concern is more with the necessary measures to stabilize the unity of the country than pontifications on its desirability. In a sense, he has taken the unity of the country as given especially after 60 years of independence. So, what is at issue now from his viewpoint, is not as much with such platitudes as unity of the country as its capacity and ability to translate to a common sense of identity and belonging amongst constituents. It brings to the fore the inability of the leadership to transform this act of togetherness to sentiments-sentiments of common identity and shared values. That miserably, has been the missing link.

    If emphasis on the gains of remaining as one country proved useful at the foundation stages of modern Nigerian state, by now we should have proceeded beyond that. The fact that unity remains a serious sermon several decades after indicates something is not just adding up. Beyond bringing the variegated interests together, we have been less than successful through our actions and policies in allowing the benefits of this act to be fully seen and appreciated by those it is meant to serve

    Constructing a Nigerian personality from the distinct ethnic groups in the union has turned out a tall order. Ganduje admitted this reality when he called for national integration, born again Nigerians, turning a new leaf and doing away with negative tendencies. These are issues critical to approximating those ideals the unity of the country ought to bring to the table. Unity is not an end but a means to collective good. The question that should be asked is, how much of the benefits of unity are evenly and equitably shared among the constituents?

    Whenever leaders pontificate on this issue, the impression conveyed is that they have not been able to instill relevant policy measures that will make citizens feel and appreciate the fact of their being together. If they were satisfied, the leadership will have little need to remind them of it. And these are better achieved through inclusive policies and programs rather than preachments. It calls for examples rather than precepts.

    It involves mind-reconstruction and re-engineering. It seeks to make Nigerians out of the disparate and variegated tendencies that make up this unity in diversity-tendencies that reinforce and sustain the competition for the loyalty of the citizens between the government and the primordial units. That is the born-again dimension Ganduje spoke about. And those well versed in the spiritual meaning of being born again, will attest, it is not a mean feat.

    That is the challenge that confronts this country. Being born again also presupposes we have identified our failings with an abiding resolve to part ways with our sinful pasts. That is the mindset that will make the difference. We cannot realize that ideal when the policies and programs of the government are regularly skewed to reinforce centrifugal tendencies.

    So, when President Buhari sought to remind us for the umpteenth time that Nigerians are better and stronger together and that the unity of the country is not negotiable, the impression it evokes is that all is not well with us. And really, all is not well with us. This is evident from the suffocating insecurity across the country; Boko Haram insurgency, banditry, the insurgency of the herdsmen, kidnapping and all manners of criminalities. It is also palpable from the rising agitations for self-determination.

    All these have had the net effect of tasking the energies of security agencies to elastic limits. Beyond this, the rising lure for self-determination and stiff competition between the government and the ethnic nationalities for the loyalty of the citizens is measure of how deep the unity gospel has sunk. The issue is not whether Nigerians are stronger and better united. Neither are there doubts about the advantages that come from such combined efforts with the diversities and possibilities they offer. It is also not a case of Nigerians deliberately refusing to live together.

    Theodore Bikel comes to mind here when he said “No doubt, unity is something to be desired, to be striven for but it cannot be willed by mere declarations”. Henry Ford added his voice to this challenge thus: “Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success”. We had since come together, struggling to keep together but yet to work together.

    The federal government has not operated in such a way to imbue confidence in what this unity holds for the various groups. Both in structure and daily dealings with the constituents; feelings of inequity, non-inclusiveness, injustice and outright nepotism are regularly evoked and seriously nursed. And there does not seem to be conscious and honest efforts to correct these and assuage the feelings of those who feel aggrieved. Little wonder these grievances have blossomed to a point they are driving the country to the edge.

    It is a thing of immense worry that despite the convoluted federal order in operation and the constant systemic schism it engenders, we seem comfortable with things as they are. The mindset of the leadership is that ether force will sort out things or the solution lies in preachments that have not been able to permeate the hearts of the audience.  Such is the dilemma we are confronted with.

    That is the challenge of leadership. Unity of the country is still at the realm of an expression of hope. The right attitude for the leadership is to work the talk though policies and programs that give hope to citizens that they are strongly bonded in one nation. Only then, will Nigerians begin to see themselves same way American citizens see themselves as Americans rather than members of their primordial public.

    President Buhari touched on this when he called on leaders and followers to be ready to ensure that justice and harmony reign in the country. But that is more of a challenge before the government he leads. Let the actions of his government make that statement.

  • The monster next time

    The monster next time

    By Sam Omatseye

    He could not wait. Ibrahim Shamaki’s heart failed him. The government failed him. Time had also failed him. He probably felt he had failed his daughter caught on video under the monstrous, gun-wielding goons who took away 38 other Kaduna students. So, he succumbed.

    The clock ticks like a heart but it has no heart. Shamaki imagined his daughter under the spell of bandits. He probably saw the video many times or only once. Was the girl, viral online and wrapped in silky blue hijab, her face in palpable fear, still alive? No voice contact on phone, no emails or text messages. Was her beauty defiled by the jungle men? Beaten? Raped? Tortured?

    He probably had the answers, or some of it, and he could not live on as witness to the despoliation of his flesh and blood, and offspring he brought in innocence to the world. He waited. Patience united him and his daughter. But, unlike the word of Jesus, patience did not possess his soul. Patience failed. Life is about waiting. We wait for what we give timelines. We wait to finish school, to eat, to heal, to get home, to become fathers and mothers. We never wait to die.

    Most of our goals we think we have control over because time and chance will answer it. “We never live,” crooned French philosopher Voltaire, “we are always in the anticipation of living.” Shamaki gave up hope of any anticipation. He gave up his own ghost. He clocked out.

    Shamaki’s story is Nigeria’s story in the past few years. It is Nigeria’s tragedy, but it is families who mourn. We may pity the families, but real persons like Shamaki shed tears, or die.

    The travail of the Shamakis gives us a peep into the bandit’s house of horrors. These men act in bushes, in cells, or groups. They are forest demons. Each group has its leader. The forests are many, especially in the north and middle belt. They have their own modes of operations. They have no other life. They band, they attack, they work their victims as task masters, they ask for ransom. They also kill, maim and rape. They have carved up their own paradise, their alternative society. They play by their own unwritten constitution. They have, as it were, signed an oath to die as bandits of fortune.

    It may have started as mere criminal forays, as red-blooded boys seeking a livelihood. But it is not like Boko Haram that morphed out of neglect into faith. Yusuf saw the abandoned boys and adopted them into a ragtag republic under heaven. Today, even with Yusuf gone, his flames and fury ravage the northeast and have given fodder to the routine corruption of a bedraggled army brass. A failed government gave birth to an army of pious renegades. But the nation’s organised army is helpless to fight it. Order at the mercy of chaos.

    We may have a bigger monster on our hands than Boko Haram. Sheikh Gumi had described the ongoing banditry as “ethnic.” That is perhaps the first articulation of some form of rhythm among the groups scattered about the country, from north to east, to south-south to southwest.

    We have also observed their obsession with schools and students. If it is not a meeting of minds with Boko Haram, it may be a coincidence of vision. But that is dangerous. In my recent TVC interview with Sokoto State Governor Aminu Tambuwal, he warned that we should not close down schools. It may fulfill Boko Haram’s tenet of forbidden education. He converted boarding students to day students, so as not to fall foul of the bush men.

    That is what we should watch out for. These men of the forests may be working as separate entities, as bandits of fortune. But with the state weak, they grow strong, and even more daring as savages. If the military brass cannot work together to stem them, the next step may be the rise of a uniting hero. We have to watch out for the rise of another Yusuf. His second coming may bring down the country. This may become the hero in the forests across the country. They could find such a man even fascinating, like a god. All he needs are two qualities. One, he has to exude the charisma of a brute who flatters their secret hopes of dominance. Two, he may synthesise their dreams into an “idea.” The idea might not be religious or ethnic per se. And it could be either. But the idea only needs to intoxicate. So under this charismatic villain, the leader in Niger State may join with the leader in Kaduna, and the ones lurking in Ekiti or the one in Benue, and we could have more than a rebellion in our hands. We shall have commotion. We may call it so, but they might see it as freedom. They could elevate barbarism into a cause. Racism, Nazism, colonialism or other forms of stylised butchery in human history began by sugarcoating prejudice.

    As Philosopher Isaiah Berlin has noted, one man’s scoundrel is another man’s freedom fighter. Such a charismatic leader may be in the offing. We may be lucky he is not. When the French Revolution was in its deep flames, Philosopher Edmund Burke warned that the rebels were still in tatters but they could be overtaken by one fiery villain. He was right. Napoleon erupted and changed the history of not only France or Europe, but the course of world events.

    This is the time for arms for the army. But, more appropriately, for intelligence. It did not help matters that the National Security Adviser accused the former army chief of missing funds and weapons. The federal government has not explained what happened to the missing funds and whether we have weapons anywhere. A mere presidential denial does not sate the quest for truth.

    In such uncertainty, we are witnessing a failure to tackle this febrile hour. If the man of intelligence is out of sync with the man of arms, how do we coordinate against a potent enemy at the door, in the bushes, in schools? When a defence minister says we should defend ourselves and a sitting governor runs for his dear life, we know that the monster is growing in the cellar. If the NSA was at odds with the army chief, is the breakdown of security a result of large egos? Are deaths and blood flowing from the clash of men in the comfort of their offices?

    In spite of the change of service chiefs, we have no sense, other than bluster, that the war is heading in the right direction. The rise of a charismatic bandit is the monster next time. If we don’t master the moment, the incredible might become inevitable.

    This is hoping that Nigeria does not become like Shamaki the father. May we not collapse when we see the contours of a bush fire.

     

    MERCENARIES, PLEASE

    We have had some call for the use of mercenaries to stop the riot of banditry and killings. The House of Representatives is the biggest voice to wade into the matter. The matador and Borno State Governor, Prof. Zulum has also advanced the idea.

    •Gbajabiamila

    But the House of Reps under Hon Femi Gbajabiamila has said we should consider it. Maybe the top brass of Nigeria’s military is not at home with the idea. We should think more about what will save us than what will pump our egos.

    At the tail end of the Jonathan administration, mercenaries were hired and they accounted for the rollback of the insurgency. In the first year of the Buhari government, Lai Mohammed boasted that they had licked the enemy. But it was not the fruit of our army but Jonathan’s mercenaries. Once the contracts did not continue, the mercenaries left and our army returned us to the cycle of defeats and scandals.

    The executive branch should stop this flirtation with ego. We want success, not pride. We want our territories back, not fat cat generals claiming their official territories in their offices.

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  • Obsolete Supreme Court judgments

    Obsolete Supreme Court judgments

    By Emeka Omeihe

    Something of interest to the nation’s jurisprudence emerged from the valedictory speech of retired Supreme Court Justice, Olabode Rhodes-Vivour. Justice Rhodes-Vivour who just retired after the mandatory 70 years of age, had drawn attention to the existence of several outdated Supreme Court judgments he said should no longer be followed.

    He cited the doctrine of ‘precedence or stare decisis’ meaning “stand by your decisions and the decisions of your predecessors, however wrong they are and whatever injustices they inflict”. The retired Justice said “precedents that no longer make sense anymore or are outdated should be laid to rest and never followed”.

    Implicit in this, is the reality that many of the decisions of the nation’s apex court are encumbered by precedents of questionable value. That is really something to worry given the primacy of the judiciary in protecting and safeguarding the rights of citizens from executive and legislative meddlesomeness.

    As fundamental to the overall dispensation of justice the issue is, it remains curious why justices still rely on stale precedents that are no longer of value in the dispensation of justice? Why are they seemingly slaves to moribund rules that end up inflicting injustice on litigants? Is man made for rules or rules made for man?

    It is good a thing the retired justice alerted the public on the incalculable harm undiluted reliance on questionable precedence has wrought on our justice system. Even as his overall aim is to expand the frontiers of jurisprudence, it is somewhat sad Justice Rhodes-Vivour chose his valedictory session to draw attention to this mortal danger. The timing of his advice conveys the impression that either he raised the issue for his successors to handle or just wanted to be heard.

    It appears now a fad for retiring justices to raise weighty and fundamental issues impeding quick and efficient dispensation of justice on the eve of their exit. But the question that crops up each time we are treated to such scenes is why wait till retirement before raising debilitating hiccups in the temple of justice?

    It would have served greater public good for justices to raise such issues and find solutions to them while on the bench. What manner of justice is served when justices stand on wrong decisions and moribund precedents that manifestly inflict injustice on one of the parties? Or, are we contending with the concept of justice espoused in Plato’s Republic by Thrasymachus as the ‘interest of the stronger party’. Maybe also the Marxian perspective that views the judiciary as part of the superstructure that exist to serve the interests of the ruling class can fill in the gap created by this philosophical inquisition.

    The impression one gets is that justices are helpless and slaves to rules. That should not be the situation. They are neither helpless nor slaves to rules unless they chose to be so. There is a whole lot they can do to remedy blind adherence to outdated precedents in cases brought before them. Law and justice are dynamic processes that must constantly adjust to the dictates of the ever-changing environment.

    The danger in outdated precedents is brought closer home by events of the last governorship election petition in Imo State between Hope Uzodinma of the All Progressives’ Congress APC and Emeka Ihedioha of the Peoples Democratic Party PDP. The case had run successfully in favor of Ihedioha at both the tribunal and Court of Appeal. But the Supreme Court upturned all that and declared Uzodinma winner based on its admission of results from the contentious 388 polling units which he claimed were excluded by INEC from the total votes credited to him.

    The court noted that results from the cancelled polling units amounted to 213,295 votes and admitted them as lawful votes. It further directed the addition of the unlawfully cancelled votes it said were due to Uzodinma and declared him winner of the Imo governorship election.

    By the figures INEC released after the election, the total number of accredited voters stood at 823,743 while total valid votes amounted to 714,355. But with the new addition, the total number of valid votes increased to 950, 925.  This amounted to 127,209 votes in excess of accredited voters of 832, 743 indicating a serious arithmetical error.

    That would denote a clear case of over voting which cannot confer electoral advantage on any of the candidates. But the apex court awarded victory to the APC candidate irrespective of the questionable manner the figures were generated, without indicating the scores of other parties to the election. The Supreme Court ruling elevated a candidate who came fourth in that election to the first position. It was one ruling many could not come to terms with till now.

    Based on this error, Ihedioha filed for a review of the apex court’s ruling. He asked the court to reverse its earlier decision based on factual error and to better serve the course of justice.

    The Supreme Court led by the Chief Justice of Nigeria CJN, Tanko Mohammed held that it lacked the powers to sit on appeal on its own judgment. That is the anachronism embedded in the principle of stare decisis which Rhodes-Vivour canvassed as he took a bow from the bench. But the issue is not as difficult as has been presented by the CJN. The apex court is not entirely helpless as it would goad us to believe. It can really reverse itself to mitigate the injustices of its wrong decisions or blind adherence to precedents.

    This fact was eminently canvassed in a minority judgment by Justice Centus Nweze who held the “apex court has the power to overrule itself and has done so in the past. The court has powers to overrule itself and revisit any decision not in accordance with justice”. The jurist said Uzodinma mischievously misled the court into unjust conclusion with the unverified votes credited to him in the disputed 388 polling units without indicating the votes polled by other political parties.

    The decision of the Supreme Court in the Imo governorship election is wrong and “will continue to haunt our (Nigeria’s) electoral jurisprudence for a long time to come” he declared. This is a landmark ruling that rubbished the vexatious notion that the Supreme Court cannot reverse itself. So, there must be other reasons for the controversial judgment than the touted encumbrances of judicial precedence.

    The apex court was on sound ground to reverse itself but it chose the other way for inexplicable reasons. And that judgment has continued to haunt not just jurisprudence but the sanctity of the electoral process as the lynchpin of the democratic option.

    True to prediction, the ruling has continued to reverberate. There is a petition before the Supreme Court arising from its reaffirmation of Uzodinma as the duly elected governor of Imo State. In its ruling in December, 2019 on the APC governorship primary in Imo State, the apex court held that Uche Nwosu was the authentic candidate of the party. But Nwosu eventually ran the election under the platform of Action Alliance, AA. Based on double nomination, the apex court in a post-election petition judgment, nullified Nwosu’s nomination as both the candidate of the APC and AA. That left the APC with no candidate in that election.

    But here we are with Uzodinma holding sway as the governor of Imo State when there is nowhere in the electoral law provision was made for independent candidacy. The suit now before the apex court is to interpret and enforce its ruling on the authentic candidate of the APC in that election. Again, for reasons that remain suspicious, more than six months after the suit was instituted, it is yet to be slated for hearing.

    These are the monsters we create. The problem has little to do with outdated precedents. It revolves around the disposition of our judicial officers to ensure the course of justice is served. They are largely to blame. But this case has shown that justice is yet to be served. The sooner all issues revolving around it are resolved, the better for the integrity of the judicial process.

  • Fafowora’s 80th milestone

    Fafowora’s 80th milestone

    By Femi Macaulay

    Having a good name means a lot to retired ambassador Dapo Fafowora who turns 80 today. Born in Ilesha, in present-day Osun State, on March 29, 1941, he can be described as a man of knowledge and integrity.

    “Early in life,” Fafowora says in his autobiography, Lest I Forget, published in 2013,  “ I set myself some objectives, of which the most important were my intellectual and moral development. I believe that I have achieved those two objectives. I have also achieved personal success in my public career with which I remain satisfied.”

    An old boy of CMS Grammar School, Lagos (1954 -58), he had joined the Nigerian Diplomatic Service in 1964 after graduating in History from the then University College, Ibadan.  He earned a master’s degree from University of London in 1966, and a doctorate from Trinity College, Oxford University, in 1972.

    He served as Second Secretary, Nigeria High Commission, London, from 1966 to 1968.  He was Ambassador and Deputy Permanent Representative of Nigeria to the United Nations from 1981 to 1984.

    “I was only 43 years old in March, 1984 when, without any justification whatsoever, I was suddenly and prematurely retired by the Buhari military regime from the Foreign Service, twenty years after I joined it, and some 17 years before I was due to retire statutorily,” Fafowora says in his memoirs.

    Understandably, this unexpected development hurt his sense of personal and professional integrity. Apart from writing about the matter in his memoirs, he further publicised it when he boldly criticised the appointment of Prof. Ibrahim Gambari as Chief of Staff to President Muhammadu Buhari in May 2020.

    In a widely published article, Fafowora had again accused Gambari of treacherously working with others to end his diplomatic career unjustly and prematurely. Gambari was foreign minister at the time.  According to him, “I had done absolutely nothing wrong in my entire career in the diplomatic service… There were many other Yoruba and Southern officers retired who like me had done nothing wrong.

    “Now, the result of these capricious and vengeful retirements that took place under the watch of Gambari is that the fine Foreign Service we had, of which we were all proud, was wantonly destroyed.”

    Fafowora’s insistence on his innocence, and his repeated accusations against Gambari, reflect his sense of personal and professional integrity. It is noteworthy that Gambari has not responded to the damaging allegations.

    With his diplomatic career cut short in unclear circumstances, the career diplomat was left wondering about ruined possibilities. He had a stint in the private sector as Director General of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN), which showed his versatility.

    His investiture as a Fellow of the Nigerian Academy of Letters (NAL) in August 2014 highlighted yet another dimension of his multidimensionality. “Nothing gives me greater pleasure than writing,” he says in his memoirs.

    For more than 25 years, starting from 1991, he was a respected newspaper columnist who focused on Nigerian Diplomacy, Politics and Economics. He retired from column writing when he left The Nation editorial board in January 2018, after 11 years of dedicated service.

    He is the author of  Lord Lugard’s Political Memoranda and the Development of Indirect Rule in Nigeria; A History of the CMS Grammar School, Lagos (1859 – 2009); A Venture of Faith (An Official History of the Cathedral Church of Christ, Lagos (1867 – 2007); and Lest I Forget: Memoirs of a Nigerian Career Diplomat (2013).

    As a public speaker, Fafowora has delivered lectures at University of Ibadan, the then University of Ife, University of Lagos, Lagos State University (convocation), University of Ilorin (convocation), University of Benin, Redeemer’s University, and the National Institute of Policy and Strategic Studies, at Kuru, in Jos, Plateau State. In 1989, he was invited by the Confederation of British Industries (CBI) in London to speak on the Nigerian industrial sector. Also, he has presented papers on Nigeria’s foreign policy prompted by invitations from the foreign ministry.

    Our paths had first crossed on the editorial board of The Nation.  I got to know Fafowora better when he agreed to deliver the inaugural Herbert Macaulay Gold Lecture in 2017. I coordinated the event. He helped to turn an idea into an event. He chose the topic: “Herbert Macaulay and his relevance to the excellence of Lagos.”  While we prepared for the event, which took place at the Lagos Country Club, Ikeja, Lagos, on May 25, 2017, we shared life beyond the boardroom.  It was an unforgettable time. I benefitted immensely from his immense experience. He deepened my understanding of decency and integrity.

    He said in his lecture: “As a professional historian, one of my unfulfilled literary ambitions was to write a full-length biography of Herbert Macaulay. There is, regrettably, none at the moment. This is because I find his public life, career, and politics in Lagos very fascinating. Therefore, I welcome and relish this opportunity and privilege of delivering this inaugural lecture on the life and times of Herbert Macaulay, who is widely regarded and acknowledged as the ‘Father of Nigerian Nationalism.’”

    It is ironic that Fafowora headed a team that was set up to prepare a paper for President Buhari on foreign policy after he won the 2015 presidential election.  This was the same seasoned diplomat who had been prematurely retired under the Buhari military regime.

    Also ironic is the information that Alhaji Ahmed Joda, who headed Buhari’s presidential transition team at the time, involved Gambari in Fafowora’s foreign policy team.  This was the same character accused of playing a leading role in Fafowora’s retirement drama.

    It is a testimony to Fafowora’s diplomatic distinction that he was the first national president of the Association of Retired Career Ambassadors of Nigeria (ARCAN) from 2017 to 2019. Under him, the association did a review of the country’s foreign policy to aid the federal government.  He led members of the group when they visited President Buhari in November 2018.

    Interestingly, he has stayed out of partisan politics, although he was Special Adviser on Economic and Industrial Affairs in the Osun State government under Chief Bisi Akande from 2000 to 2003. He was Commissioner for Trade in the government for two years, and acting Commissioner for Finance and Secretary to the State Government at various times within the period. He describes his role as “going there to assist the government as a technocrat.”

    Fafowora’s story shows that there is a need for men of knowledge and integrity in the country’s corridors of power. He may well represent what is missing, at the leadership level, in the country’s pursuit of development.

  • The laboratory within

    The laboratory within

    By Sam Omatseye

    As an undergraduate, I attended a symposium at the great Oduduwa Hall at the then University of Ife, and Wole Soyinka, not yet a Nobel laureate, spoke like a past master. Spry and combatant, he lamented how brick and mortar was becoming lord and master over trees and verdure. The lush green lure of lawns on Africa’s most beautiful campus crawled under concrete jungles.

    Trees make groves sacred for human dwellings. We strut like nature’s tenants. The deities view our harmonies with envy. The Oduduwa event happened in the early 1980’s before the global rave over the environment and the ozone layer’s fall from grace. Soyinka waxed lyrical over what he saw as the descent of the “university idea.”

    He noted that “in these days when some accuse me of obscurities and impenetrable densities,” his position on nature was clear. Decades later, if universities have learnt little about nature, they still need tutoring on nurture.

    One area where the university idea appears stunted is the search for a vice chancellor. The battle for VC is always like a night cloud of lightning and thunder. Many years ago when the position was open at Ife, the story had it of a professor and contender who deposited ebo – pot of fetish for sacrifice or atonement – on a major intersection on Ife campus. It often is no different from the fight for governor or senator in the outer world. The campus mirrors the society it mocks. Teacher becomes tyro. The refuge absorbs refuse from the larger society. Town stains gown. A priest dramatises iniquity.

    Everything we hate about our politics bares its ugly face. Due process upturned, voter’s lists disputed, candidates disqualified to pave way for men of favour, money upends merit, accusations of rigging overshadow outcomes, ideas fall to sentiment, tribesmen coalesce, bigots assemble, ideologies occluded, ideas cave in to violence, protests erupt on campus not over social injustice in the society, newspapers flare with querulous advertorials, a play of giants. Everyone finds it difficult to escape the epidemic, like the Eugene Ionesco play of the absurd, Rhinoceros, where nearly all in town end up being a rhino. In the end, Soyinka’s university idea falls again like humpty dumpty.

    We saw this a few months ago at Unilag. A chill now descends on professors and workers in what we call Nigeria’s premier university, The University of Ibadan, where these bad qualities are on display. They have made headlines not about cure for Covid-19, or contests about the best vaccines, but about infighting. But the worst of it is that it is not the university’s fight alone. It is also the contest of interlopers, both official and non-official. Just as non-state actors are trying to rejig the country, from Igboho to Kanu, the VC battle to the death involves designs from a force as “neutral” as the minister of education, the man with a double name.

    Adamu Adamu is being accused of damning the process and imposing his own. According to reports, he is defiling arithmetic, and so he is dissolving the process. Twice he has stopped the process because the voter’s list will not give outsiders power over insiders. The outsiders are those who want to get the number of collaborators within the council to vote for their favorite son. It is just like party politics. The party leader will monitor the voters’ list to doctor it. When he gets the number he wants, it becomes official and legal. Like the US cliffhanger Senate, he is allegedly waiting for a Kamala Harris clincher.

    They are also accusing a former health minister who is working with another Osun son-of-the-soil in Oyo State to ensure that the candidate they want emerges. The stumbling block seems the present governing council whose tenure ends on May 9. The idea is, according to the accusation, for the positions of two men of council to be filled for the minister and his people to secure supporters within the body of professors and administrators. The arithmetic as of today does not favour the minister, according to sources.

    He is waiting to get the men or women to tilt it. One of them represents the university community and the other represents the office of the VC. They need to be filled before the next vote.

    It is also alleged that there is Muslim agenda to foist a Muslim as the favoured candiate. When did the university become this base? What is the difference is the man wears a crucifix or looks at the crescent in the sky? I recall commenting on the process to get the VC at Uniben and how Governor Obaseki muscled his influence for a candidate who did not hail from Edo State to fail. He wanted his son of the soil in a federal university.  I understand that members of the Central Council of Ibadan Indigenes are also at war with the minister for trying to foreclose the chances of their son. That they are from Ibadan should not foreclose their chance at VC, but it does not entitle them. Unlike the Uniben case, they deserve fairness.

    On the UI affair, the federal house is in disarray. Five of the council members are from the ministry and they want due process. They want a council with counsel. The minister wants a council that counts for him. The minister is locking horns with his ministry. Minister Adamu is also in conflict with the pro chancellor and chairman of council, Joshua Waklek. Once he leaves his post in May, it may be open sesame for the minister.

    All we want at UI is sanity in the selection process. Many do not understand why so many professors want to be VC and die doing it. I recall a friend saying the other day what a certain VC told him when he landed his job as VC. He said, for the first time in his life, he did not have money problems. So, the fight is not about how to propagate Soyinka’s university idea, which is about creating a shelter of excellence for thought and a laboratory of intellects for the larger society.

    The professors are not examples for their students. “Jack was sent to school  to learn to be a fool,” goes the saying. “You can polish a stone as much as you want, but it cannot become cheese,” to paraphrase another.

    During the French revolution, Robespierre’s men thought Christianity had failed. They replaced its symbols with what they called, “Temples of Reason.” Their Cult of Reason yielded deaths, destruction, anarchy and Edmund Burke’s prediction of the rise of a dictator like Napoleon.

    Is the university idea facing the guillotine?

    The minister should preside over due process, and let the right person win.

     

     

    Not his autumn

     

    Samuel Ortom
    Benue State Governor Samuel Ortom

    In temperate climates, autumns are when flowers fade and trees become bald. Governor Ortom is not like the weather that sounds like him. A few days ago, bandits attacked him and he survived, thanks to his security aides. It was a sad day for Nigeria that a sitting governor might have had his heart in his mouth because of some renegades. A report said he ran for about a mile. Our country is in great peril. We do not have answer while criminals are asking all the questions. He said MACBAN held a meeting a few days earlier on him. His chief press secretary, Terver Akase, echoed the account that Governor Ortom was a major topic of their discussion. So what has the DSS done to level with the facts in this matter? If the unexpected happened to Ortom, what will we be saying today. This is not the first encounter of a governor with bandits. Ondo State Governor had one last year. There is a clear breakdown. Let us hope, we don’t go down. The fall downhill stares us in the face and it frightens us.

  • Unemployment time bomb

    Unemployment time bomb

    Emeka OMEIHE

     

    If doubts existed on the dire straits the Nigerian economy is enmeshed, indicators from the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics NBS have erased all that. The emerging picture is that of a people seriously assailed by abject poverty due to widening unemployment and spiralling inflation.

    For a country rated by the World Poverty Clock in 2018 as the world’s poverty capital with 86.9 million of its people living in extreme poverty, widening unemployment and spiralling inflation have had the net effect of further consigning its peoples down the last rung of the poverty ladder.

    In the report by the NBS, unemployment rate rose to 33.3 per cent in three months through December 2020 as against 27.1 per cent in the second quarter of the same year. This takes Nigeria to the second position in a global list of 82 countries monitored by Bloomberg along their unemployment standing. Namibia leads in the unemployment list with 33.4 per cent while South Africa placed third after Nigeria. Additional statistics has it that unemployment in Nigeria more than quadrupled in the last five years.

    The NBS also reported that inflation rose to 17.33 per cent in February from 16.47 per cent in the previous month of January representing the highest figure recorded in four years. It attributed this to continued rise in food inflation caused by increases in the prices of bread, cereals, fish, yam, vegetables, meat, and other food products.

    It noted that food inflation rose to 21.79 per cent in February against 20.57 in January 2020 representing the highest point since the NBS data series began over a decade ago. As chilling as these are, they are not entirely surprising to keen observers of Nigeria’s economic trajectory. They reinforce what is already in the public domain despite attempts by the authorities to paint a different picture. And as observed, Nigeria was in 2018 rated the poverty capital of the world. The government then made spirited efforts to give a lie to the rating.

    The NBS confirmed the standing of the country in the world poverty chart when in its poverty and inequality report from September 2018 to October 2019, it said 40 per cent of Nigerians live below its poverty line of N137, 430 ($381.75) per year. The indices that influenced that rating must have factored in the twin issues of unemployment and inflation as they add up to determine prevailing poverty level in a given society. But these indices are not self-accounting as they are symptoms of policy failure and mismanagement of the economy by its leaders.

    Nigeria is bountifully endowed both in human and natural resources. As oil bearing country with huge foreign exchange earnings, the expectation is that its leadership would have taken advantage of it to reflate the economy and turn around the fortunes of its peoples for the better. But this has failed to happen as the productive base of the economy has remained at its lowest ebb in the face of the high number of youths that graduate from all levels of the educational system.

    As usual, government functionaries may soon rise to rationalize why the nation came about the damning rating by the NBS.  Likely to feature prominently is the COVID-19 pandemic that threw the nation into recession following an earlier one in 2016. Nigeria is just exiting from its second phase. We admit that COVID-19 came with serious job losses both at home and beyond our shores.

    That is not all there is to it. That cannot explain why Nigeria took the second position in the unemployment list of 82 countries monitored by Bloomberg, some of them poor and less endowed African nations. That is also incapable of accounting for the high inflationary trend- the highest in the last 10 years. COVID-19 pandemic is also severely hampered in explaining why Nigeria sank below India as a country with the most extreme poor people in the world even when the pandemic was alien to the global economy.

    It is also regrettable that though Nigeria topped the list of 10 African countries in the extreme poverty index, only Ethiopia is said to be on track to meet the United Nations’ SDG of ending extreme poverty by 2030. Outside the top 10, Ghana and Mauritania are equally rated to be on track with the SDG target.

    These speak much on Nigeria. They suggest that the reasons for the mess into which we are currently entangled can only be located in the actions and inactions from within our shores. Mismanagement of enormous resources endowed this country by nature, is at the centre of it all. Here the endemic corruption that afflicts all spheres of our public life comes into focus.

    It is obvious from all indicators that significant progress has not been made in the fight against corruption in public places despite the fact that it represents one of the three major program thrusts of the Buhari administration. The two others are to grow the nation’s economy and stem the tide of insecurity. The level of progress to grow the economy and secure the country is a moot issue.

    Unfortunately, there is little on ground to give comfort that serious war is being waged against corruption. Admittedly, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission EFCC under the former leadership of Ibrahim Magu postured at the inception of the regime as if it was serious with the anti-graft war. That is without prejudice to serious credibility issues raised against his suitability to lead that battle. Even then, in the little efforts he mounted, he was in the habit of shifting the goalposts and setting different standards for suspects. Soon, allegations of witch-hunting political opponents of the government gained traction.

    Whatever modicum of credibility left of the agency petered out when the seemingly incorruptible helmsman was embroiled in serial corruption allegations leading to his arrest and detention. But the development was not entirely surprising.  The Directorate of State Services DSS had opposed the suitability of Magu on the ground of his alleged corrupt tendencies. They even supported their report with evidence.

    But the president refused to listen until he was eventually embarrassed by Magu. With the battle losing steam, it is not surprising corruption has continued to thrive in public places. Mindless looting at all level of the government has deprived the government of the much needed funds to address the debilitating economic conditions of our people. This has left our youths with neither jobs nor a promising future. The ENDSARS protests were in part, spurred by hopelessness and despondency of our youths as their collective patrimony and future are squandered by a self-serving leadership.

    It a vote of no-confidence in government’s social investment and job creation programs that both unemployment and inflation are at an all-time high. Much of the spiralling effects of the scorching inflation can be located at the door steps of some of the policies of the government. The price of fuel is one. Multiplicity of taxes that reduce the purchasing power of the people is another. Mounting arrears of salaries and pensions owed workers by various levels of government are also serious issues to contend with.

    At the moment, fuel sells for N170 per litre. There was trepidation last week when the regulatory agency rolled out a new price regime which has been suspended. But the minister of state for Petroleum, Timipre Sylva said petrol price will be fully deregulated before the end of this year. That will definitely put the price of the product beyond the reach of many Nigerians.

    With the centrality of petrol to daily economic activities, the prevailing rise in prices of goods and services did not come as a surprise. The situation will exacerbate with the touted full deregulation. Nigerians have to be alive to buy petrol. Whatever policy the government intends to come out with must have a human face.

    Before then, it is vital to check the mounting regime of official corruption else monies from anticipated deregulation will still end up in private pockets. That will perpetually consign our people to a vicious cycle of debilitating poverty. We shudder at such prospects.

  • Of Gumi and Nyako

    Of Gumi and Nyako

    By Emeka Omeihe

    Fiery Islamic cleric, Sheikh Ahmad Gumi was treading on a familiar turf when he told bandits that Christian soldiers are responsible for attacks mounted on them by the military. Even when he later claimed his statement was misunderstood, the reasons adduced ended up reinforcing his narrative to the bandits.

    A video clip had shown Gumi at a meeting with bandits telling them that soldiers involved in most attacks against them were non-Muslims and that they should be aware that soldiers are divided into Muslims and Christians. Despite the incendiary content of the widely circulated message, it inexplicably took the Nigerian Army about two weeks to come up with a position on it.

    In the statement, Director of Army Public Relations, Brigadier General Mohammed Yerima said the deployment of soldiers was not on religious or ethnic lines and warned “Gumi and other opinion merchants not to drag the image and reputation of one of the most reliable national institutions to disrepute”.

    But, Gumi told the BBC in response that he was misunderstood. Hear him: “When I speak about religious issues in the army, I am not referring to today’s army. The issue is from 2010-2015 when some people were in charge. It is during that time that there were bombings everywhere. It happened in Jaji and we lost a popular Muslim General”.

    Yet, he was addressing bandits on their current grievances and what could be done for them to stop the orgy of abductions, kidnapping and killings that had put the country on edge. The attacks being mounted against the bandits are an on-going concern. So also are their grievances. They have nothing to do with events of 10 years ago. Gumi’s attempt to bring in that period is just an afterthought that exposes the duplicity of his action.

    At any rate, what has the bombings at the budding stages of the Boko Haram insurgency or the alleged killing of a popular Muslim General in Jaji got to do with extant banditry in Zamfara forests and elsewhere which the nation is struggling desperately to contain? On the contrary, those who suffered most in the bombings that characterized that period were Christians and their worship places. The records are there. The so-called bandits whom Gumi set out to interface with had not become a serious security threat then if at all they existed.

    So, it is inconceivable how he could have been referring to that era when the bandits are just tabling their current grievances to him.  It is clear Gumi has no defense for deliberately attempting to place Christian soldiers in harms’ way by injecting religious and ethnic poison into military matters.

    If he can invent such dubious allegations when Muslim northerners are virtually in charge of the commanding heights of the military and paramilitary institutions, it shows the extent some leaders can push ethnic and religious cards for parochial and clannish ends. If there are biases in the deployment of soldiers, the military leadership that is almost exclusively composed of northern Muslims should take that blame. Curiously also, Gumi had the full backing of the federal government in that suspicious interface with dangerous criminals.

    Those familiar with events in this country, should not be surprised at Gumi’s Inflammatory and divisive claims. They fit into a familiar pattern of allegations from highly placed citizens from that part of the country each time we are assailed by serious security challenges.

    It is no coincidence that the years Gumi claimed to be referring to, coincides with the period the Jonathan regime held sway. It was also during the same period that a former governor of Adamawa State, Muritala Nyako came up with similar divisive, clannish and unpatriotic allegations against that regime. Nyako’s allegations came at the peak of the Boko Haram attacks and the abduction of more than 300 students from Chibok Girls’ College, Borno State.

    Nyako had in a memo to northern governors in 2014 titled: “On-Going Full-Fledged Genocide in Northern Nigeria” alleged that the Jonathan government was using “mass murderers/cut-throats embedded in our legitimate and traditional Defence and Security organizations” to carry out the genocide and that the regime was determined to create strife between Muslims and Christians. He also claimed that the regime organizes the killing of citizens but quickly “attributes the killings to so-called Boko Haram”.

    Citing the kidnapping of Chibok girls then, Nyako claimed “these organized kidnappers must have the backing of the federal government for them to move about freely with abducted children”. The former service chief further averred that virtually all soldiers of northern Nigerian origin recruited to fight Boko Haram are poorly trained, ill-equipped, given only uniforms and killed by their trainers in Nigerian Army training centres being used by the “so-called Boko Haram insurgents. Virtually all the Nigerian army soldiers killed/murdered in these operations so far are of Northern Nigerian origin”.

    These are by no means exhaustive of the weighty and combustible allegations raised by Nyako. The aim in highlighting these is in part, to demonstrate unambiguously that Gumi’s claims when he interfaced with the bandits could not have come as a surprise. Nyako had made more dangerous and more potentially explosive allegations bordering on the nation’s fault-lines and gotten away with them. So his, bore the imprimatur of the devious path Nyako treaded when we were assailed by the Boko Haram insurgency.

    Nyako’s allegations during the period Gumi claimed he was referring to, are handy for the purposes of comparison and contrast. Today, what do we make of his claims of genocide against the north, serial cynical references to ‘so-called Boko Haram insurgents’ and ascription of culpability to the federal leadership then on account of the ease with which bandits abducted the Chibok girls?  How do we now situate these in the face of the continuing serial and very embarrassing experiences of Kankara to Kagara mass abduction of school children? What do we make of Jangebe mass abduction of about 300 students; the burning of villages, kidnappings and rape that forced the like of Gumi into questionable negotiations with the bandits?

    In the face of serious attacks mounted by the Boko Haram insurgents five years after President Buhari claimed to have won the war, was it not naivety in its extreme form for Nyako through his cynical remarks to have been giving the impression that Boko Haram was a subterfuge? Today, he should know better if devious agenda of parochial hue was not behind his posturing.

    Today, it clear that Boko Haram is real and has undergone mutations posing more lethal threat to our corporate existence. We know that the war against Boko Haram has nothing to do with alleged ploy to depopulate the north. Rather, Boko Haram insurgency and banditry are creations of years of mindless misrule by northern leadership for which they should take responsibility.

    It also bears stating that it was during the same period that a former Chief of Army Staff, Azubuike Ihejirika was harassed and blackmailed by moles in the army and elsewhere opposed to the reforms he initiated. They bandied questionable statistics from a single army recruitment exercise to allege a plot to ‘Igbonize’ the army.

    Ironically, when Abdulraman Dambazzau was the Chief of Army Staff, Insider Weekly magazine had in its June 2009 edition, reported that soldiers were grumbling over ‘parochial unbalanced deployments’ in the army, wondering whether “he is building a Nigerian Army, a Kano army or a northern army’. The magazine alleged out of 32 key appointments, Dambazzau gave the north 27, Southeast three, Southwest two and none to the South-south. How these could have been suddenly upturned by a single recruitment to the point of Igbo domination remains a moot issue.

    Why ethnic and religious cards are always handy in periods of national stress are issues to ponder. But in that poser, can be located the crux of our inability to make substantial progress despite huge human and natural endowments.

  • Delta’s will

    Delta’s will

    By Sam Omatseye

    Lies are so powerful that they can upend justice, especially in a country like ours. So, the Ibori loot, as it is often described, looks like a story that will not end. For the same case, he fled the country. A former governor conquered the headlines. UK handcuffed him while their media huffed. His mug shot a public spectacle. His love story titillated bedside revelries. We were introduced to his girlfriend and relatives and his errors as a London youth. He was docked because he could not dock. The UK court proved he purloined his state’s money, and locked him for years behind vertical bars.

    The story seemed to disappear. Many at home applauded and even gloated at his guilty verdict. The justice that eluded him at home haunted him like an African witch across the pond. He returned into silence after a flourish of a hero’s welcome at his Oghara home.

    The man returned to his familiar role as the quiet beaver of Delta politics. He has shied from headlines, interviews or the glamour toast.

    Even recently, he probably would not want the Ibori revival in our national drama. After the humiliation, verdict and time in jail, a lie has refused to die. Those in the Delta State government said the billions of Naira for which he went to jail is not missing. They would wish they did not lie. They thought it would change the narrative, and turn guilt into liberty for the Ogidigboigbo. They could have followed the words of German novelist and essayist Thomas Mann: “A harmful truth is better than a useful lie.”

    It might have hurt then to say it was Delta money. That would have given them a moral high ground today. But this essayist wonders if it would have made a difference for the Attorney-general and his men in Buhari’s government in deciding what to do with the money. The decision to make it federal money on the basis that the Delta State government said it was not missing is one of the most irresponsible acts of financial impunity in our history.

    Ibori went to jail. That means he stole the money. The UK court said he did and that accounted for his incarceration. Those who applauded and celebrated Ibori’s time in jail are now not ready to admit that the money belongs to Delta State. Some SANs logged onto the specious logic that the UK government took the money as its own, and it is only giving it back to us as an act of benevolence. Some SANs need education on justice and the dignity of the black man.

    If a Briton stole British government money and brought it here for safe keeping, and he was sentenced here to jail, shall we say it is our money? I think this is colonial mentality. It is a drawback from the slave trade era. The British think what is theirs is theirs, and what is ours is theirs. Lawyers should understand that the law is made for justice. It is the same way the British took our people as chattel, guzzled our oil, our palm oil and robbed us of our rubber, cocoa, and ivory. They still display today, with proprietary arrogance, our Ife and Benin artworks of genius in their museums. “The law never made anyone a whit more just,” noted American essayist Henry David Thoreau.

    If, as I have stated before, Ibori went to jail, it was because of the money in question. He was governor of Delta State. It was money allocated to Delta State. It was money meant to do roads, build houses, educate and elevate the lives of Delta State citizens. Anyone who denies this is the bigger liar. No one ought to defend those who said it was not Delta money. It was and is. The accounts paper trail followed the money to Ibori and to Delta. Now that it has returned it should follow the same path to those who own it. It is simple. Give Deltans their money. If the government lied, should the average citizen suffer bad roads or bad schools because of that? The average citizen had no access to the account. If the UK investigators did what even the local courts in their moral perfidy could not, why make the ordinary man on the streets of Ughelli or Agbor moan?

    To say it is not Delta money is to say because I swallowed a frog and denied it, it means I didn’t swallow it. It is corporeal self-deception. Shakespeare said, man to thyself be true. I say to the Federal government: To Nigeria be true, to Delta be true.

    By diverting Delta money to the centre, we are witnessing grand theft with a receipt. It is licensed larceny. It is broad day-light looting of loot. It is federal fraud without shame. It is like a crazy hen eating up its day-old chic.

    We are seeing in clear repose the subversion of the concept of federalism. We have always espoused fiscal fairness. We already have a centre with a big and greedy appetite supported by a rogue constitution. At least, it pursues its routine roguery with honour by giving the states the pittances the law allows. But to take that pittance back, as it is doing with Delta money, on the excuse of an agreement with a neo-colonial master, is in bad taste. It is legalised looting.

    The argument has been made that the money should not go to Delta State government because they stole it and denied it. That is not a legal argument. When it came to technical argument, they point to fine points of law. They say the British government gave it to Nigerian government. But when it comes to returning the money, they say it should not go to the government. It is imbecile reasoning. But I am ready to concede that the money should not go to the state government. It can be used to develop the state.

    So many are poor, so many roads undone, so many schools need fixing, so many are sick without help. The money can do that without the state government’s finger on it. We cannot punish the people because of their government.

    After all, we claim to practise a democracy. It is the people first, not government. Governments are caretakers. Caretakers, like the real ones, can defraud the landlords, the people. Speaking about landlords, who says the money is safer in the hands of the federal government? Is it not the same government that cannot account for hundreds of billions of Naira spent on security? The National Security adviser says the money is missing. If we, as Nigeria on the whole, are concerned about missing money, let us focus more on that. It is because of that many people are running from farms and villages. It is the reason people are slaughtered daily, wives and nubile girls raped, boys take everlasting treks in the wilderness, girls dragooned on trucks and bicycles overnight. No one travels in peace. We cannot abide by Soyinka’s poesy, “You must set forth at dawn/ I wish you marvel of the holy hour.” No holy hour on Nigerian road. It is chockfull of shocks, of madmen and specialists of horror. It is road rage, Nigeria special. I just saw the video of the goons pointing guns at the petrified girls kidnapped in the bushes. NSA Monguno cannot go to his Borno village even with military escort. Even though Monguno denied the claim somewhat, we know he spoke the truth. He did not speak it because he wanted to but because it was his own revenge on the service chiefs who undermined him. We know he is saying the truth because the soldiers say they don’t have weapons to fight the enemies. Again, why should service chiefs be in charge of military contracts? It is only in Nigeria that such a thing happens. It is the service chiefs brief to demand, but the ministry to order and supply. When does a medical doctor now become a contractor of medical equipment? The same government rewarded the service chiefs as ambassadors. The former army chief was never openly investigated over allegations of fraud? To paraphrase Shakespeare, if correction lies in the hands that committed wrong, to whom shall we complain?

    How can the money be safer in the hands of a government that distributed billions of Naira in supplies to non-existent students on holiday during a pandemic? Even today, we still don’t have accountability. So, let us devise a panel acceptable to the people of Delta State for development work. Every kobo should be spent transparently.  When Dariye erred, the money went to Plateau State. After Alam’s alarm, Bayelsa State received its loot back in joy. Why not Delta?

    If it is no longer Ibori’s money, it is Delta’s, and the people should benefit. It is the meaning of what French philosopher Rousseau called the general will.