The Nation Newspaper

Category: Columnists

  • Communication at a time of renewed hope

    Communication at a time of renewed hope

    The Italian philosopher Antonio Gramsci pointed out that the main essence of political action is to determine the course of the discourse in favor of your own project. Today, Nigeria is witnessing unprecedented, profound change. It is dislocating and must be explained to the public in a multi-ethnic and multilingual state as to why this painful but necessary adjustment has to be made.

    Much of government communication today appears to be directed at literate people. Unfortunately, this is not the issue. The government must direct the message at the hoi polloi – the traders, the artisans, workers’ unions, students, street hawkers, and so on. The key point in directing the territory of the discourse at those outside the elite group is to convince the grassroots, the base, to accept government policy, despite temporary dislocation and pain. The message should be about why this temporary pain will in the long-term benefit all of us and our families.

    What the government needs to do today is to emulate Prime Minister Harold Wilson, who, in getting into office in 1964 and facing a devastating economic outlook, appointed one of the youngest Britain’s professor of economics to explain the economic crisis to the public. The key point here is that Professor Balogh, from Balliol College, Oxford University (not Babe College London University), was not a media person per se, but he could explain and enlighten the hoi polloi as to why the crisis arose and why the government had to respond in ways that may, at first look, seem harsh and punitive. At the time, his appeal was not to the elite but to explain the economic crisis to those who were disaffected, those with very low levels of education, and those who now saw the crisis as a punitive tax on the least protected sectors.

    He did his job with aplomb.

    President Tinubu’s media team will do well by studying how the United Kingdom Labour government of 1964 managed the economic crisis, and won re-election by a landslide in 1966 to learn how to explain an economic crisis in a way that will favor the government’s own position. This is important. The grave economic situation President Tinubu inherited, necessitating the current measures, has not been explained to the overwhelming majority, and the disaffection is getting pronounced. People are experiencing a massive erosion in their cost of living, in their standards of living. As one pundit has said, “We no longer have a cost of living crisis,” but rather, “a cost of existence crisis.” Therefore, we must note that the government did not cause the economic crisis, but it must explain its way out of it and show how things will gradually get better for future generations yet unborn. The key issue here is that the government itself must stop being reactive and be preemptive, by anticipating what the naysayers and the opposition might say about any government policy.

    There have been a lot of particularly good government policies, such as the student loans and so forth, but they have not been explained with the clarity of how they benefit the overwhelming majority in the way that they ought to have been. Politics, as Machiavelli said, is about “the law of constant reminders.” The government must constantly remind the audience of the positive changes that are already in place. After two years in the saddle, the law of constant reminders is of extreme importance, and urgency in directing public acceptance of government policy and acceptance of the government itself.

    Therefore, the two key strategies now must be “preemptive” and understanding the law of constant reminders, which is that the government’s own positive bearing in a difficult climate must be constantly explained in simple language to give the public the impression that things are getting better and will continue to get better.

    The format also needs to be legitimate. As the late, much-revered Canadian communications expert Marshall McLuhan pointed out decades ago, “the medium is the message.” A new framework has to be drawn up of weekly press briefings, not press conferences, to present the economic message in simple terms with background graphics and data analysis in a humorous and enlightening way that can capture and captivate the audience at the same time, with the presumption that the audience has only a junior secondary school-type education.

    This should be followed up with monthly town hall meetings across the six geopolitical zones, in which the message is presented with clarity in ways that can be understood by the overwhelming majority.

    A good exponent of this kind of format was Charles de Gaulle, as President of the French Republic. He held press conferences explaining the dilemma of the Republic in ways which looked, in many instances, like pure theater. People loved watching them on television; there were live audiences, and there were a lot of things that were stage-managed to favor the perception of the government not as cruel but as caring and working towards a better future for all.

    The entire format of government presentation must be rejigged. What obtains now is out of sequence with today’s 24/7 social media news cycle. It is too reactive; it must dictate and direct the terrain of thinking, thought, and action in favor of continuing momentum to gain support for the government.

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    The government must be wary, because another example for the United Kingdom is that of John Major. He was a good Prime Minister, but he never really had a communications team to explain the very important gains that were being made under his government. He ended up losing by a landslide to Tony Blair. A better alternative is to look back at the past, to the intervention of President Franklin D. Roosevelt when he took over as president in the midst of a terrible economic crisis in 1932, in which Americans were eating out of the dustbin. In addition, we can borrow a leaf from the public presentation of policies by the Labour government in the United Kingdom in 1945, when the welfare state was created against opposition, but in which they carried the majority of the people with them.

    The government must now be proactive, preemptive, and realize that a lot of fine-tuning has got to be made in the presentation of policies in order to rally the republic behind its own good intentions. We must now not just look at public policy as good intentions but present them in a way that people will accept that, yes, there’s temporary pain, but things are getting better in the direction of helping myself, my children, and generations yet unborn.

    In the reality of today, we must not only look at geopolitical, ethnic, and religious disparities in tailoring messages to specific locations, but we must also begin to look at subgroups and social cleavages, such as age and gender. Pinpointing specific messages and formats, for example, to the informal sector and even sub-groups within the informal sector, is crucial. We need to explain why all these are a benefit to them.

    The days of looking at the public as one whole are out of the question. We must now put together several specific groups and tailor messages towards encouraging them and steering them towards accepting government policy and, indeed, gradually becoming supporters and, in the end, enthusiastic supporters of the government. The work is very clear-cut.

    The spokespersons of the government must see Nigerian as a fragmented population which must be rallied in a republic. to use the phrase must associated with President Charles De Gaulle . Tailor made messages must now be targeted at focus – groups and sub – divisions. This must be the way to revive and reinfigorate the communication strategy and strengthen the perception that all of these is to make tomorrow better.

    Bamidele Ademola-Olateju, a former Ondo Commissioner for Information, is Director of New Media and Corporate Communications for the All Progressives Congress (APC)

  • Amuwo Odofin stakeholders task LG aspirant

    Amuwo Odofin stakeholders task LG aspirant

    Lagos State has been agog with campaigns, for the upcoming local government election, slated for July 12 and Amuwo Odofin, home to the famous FESTAC TOWN and its alluring neighbourhood is not left out of the political fiesta. The ruling party in the local government and the state, the All Progressives Congress (APC), has the Labour Party (LP), the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and some mushroom parties to contend with, at the polls.

    After a highly contested party primary, the chairmanship candidate of APC, Prince Lanre Sanusi (PLS), and his deputy, Maureen Chika Ashara, are not leaving anything to chance in their campaign for votes. In the past two weeks or so, this writer has thrice witnessed the candidates speak on their vision and mission for the local government area hence this piece. The first was an evening with Amuwo Odofin Stakeholders Forum, of which this writer is the legal adviser. The candidates were clear on their mission to build an all-inclusive local council, regardless of tribe or religion.  

    The Amuwo Odofin Stakeholders Forum has Sir Benson Abalogu as chairman Board of Trustees with Sir Chidolue Levi Chidinma as vice. The key officers are Chief G.C. Ochie, chairman, Chike Okonkwo, vice chairman, Barrister Chidi Njoku, Secretary, Chief Emmanuel Orjichukwu, Treasurer and Chief Kenneth Ntong, PRO. In the interactive section, at Benny Hotels, the business moguls, professionals, residents and dignitaries who make up the nascent group told the candidates that the sole aim of the group is to promote good governance in Amuwo Odofin and by extension the state. They pledged funds and campaign materials to the team. 

    At another well-attended meeting with the general Amuwo Odofin Stakeholders, organized by the local government at the Festival Hotel, the young and ebullient Sanusi, who goes by the acronym PLS, showed promising prospects in political rapprochement, which this writer hopes will crystallize into an enduring political relationship with indigenes and non-indigenous residents of the local government area.

    Considering the infrastructural challenges facing the local government, particularly the dilapidated roads and blocked drainages within FESTAC TOWN, this writer was initially apprehensive how the evening would go. With who is who in Amuwo Odofin seated in the hall, with the incumbent chairman of Amuwo Odofin Local Government Area, Valentine Braimoh, it turned out an evening of honest conversation. Despite the rains and traffic bottlenecks at the apple junction road-about, intersecting Festac Town, Amuwo, Ago and Jakande Estate/Apapa expressway, which need a fly-over, the hall was filled to capacity.

    Gathered were the representatives of the business class, land owners, professions, leaders of residential estates, landlords and tenants’ associations, market men and women, and the ubiquitous traditional rulers. Amongst the APC leaders in the local government council, were the party chairman, Apostle Ayodele Ogungbiye, the councillorship candidates, and those who contested for the chairmanship ticket with Prince Sanusi. After introductions, the chairman of the occasion, Chief Igbokwe George Orji (Okosisi Nnewi), in his introductory remarks delved into the two major reasons for the gathering. The first is to lay bare the challenges facing Amuwo Odofin Local Government.  

    He mentioned three major challenges facing Amuwo Odofin Local Government, namely, roads, roads, and roads. His presentation resonated well with the audience, since all the roads in FESTAC town are in ruins. The chairman made a handsome donation towards the fund raising. Another speaker raised the issue of discriminatory taxes and rates within the local government, asking for equity and equality in assessment for indigenes and non-indigenes alike. The next speaker urged Prince Sanusi and his team to collaborate with estates to maintain the roads and other infrastructure within the local council.

    This writer who spoke on behalf of the Amuwo Odofin Stakeholders Forum, urged other stakeholders, especially non-indigenes to collaborate with Prince Sanusi who has made strong impression as a detribalized candidate in the forth-coming local government election, with an impressive manifesto. Another impressive outing by Prince Sanusi and his deputy was the meeting with the leadership of the Catholic Men Organization, Festac Deanery, led by its coordinator, Sunday Dim. After an evening of frank conversation, the consensus was that the APC candidates should be given a chance in the forthcoming local council election, unlike the voting pattern in the past.  

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    At each of the meetings Sanusi, didn’t disappoint his guests. In the event at the Festival Hotel, Sanusi before delving into his presentation, first removed his jacket and folded his long sleeves shirt, like a manager set to confront a big task. He gave a brief resume of himself, tracing his ancestry to the first Oba of Amuwo. He reminded his audience that he started small in the nearby market, like an Igbo apprentice, where he cut his teeth in business and established strong relationships. He subsequently travelled to the United States of America, where he bagged a BSc in Business, and an MBA, from Dallas Baptist University.

    Sanusi spoke eloquently on his blueprint for economic growth and expansion and laid before the assembly his five core values of integrity and accountability, excellence and innovation, inclusivity and equity, sustainability and stewardship, and collaboration and partnership. Thrice he has promised that within the first 100 days in office, he would make motor-able the 2nd Avenue road, a major artery into FESTAC town, which has become a death trap. Sanusi, urged residents of the local government to vote for the APC in the forthcoming local government election, to give him a bargaining power to attract state and federal support to the local government, with a peculiar status.

    He promised to seek collaborative partnership between Amuwo Odofin and County Councils in the USA. He reminded the audience that FESTAC town estate belongs to the federal government, even though it is the seat of the Amuwo Odofin Local Government Area. Indeed, FESTAC town is like a goat owned by many, which is left hungry, as each part-owner leaves the others to make provision for the hungry goat. At each session, the stakeholders contended that what will endear APC to the residents of Amuwo Odofin local government area are good roads, whether done by the local government authority, state government or the Federal Housing Authority (FHA), in the case of FESTAC town.

    As a stakeholder, this writer hopes Prince Sanusi will live up to his mission statement. On it, he wrote: “My mission is to build a vibrant, inclusive, and diversified economy where every individual has the opportunity to thrive.” He continued: “I am committed to fostering lifelong opportunities that uplift social welfare, ensuring that prosperity is shared by all, not just a few.” The Amuwo Odofin Stakeholders Forum, and indeed other stakeholders, earnestly look forward to a new era of political rapprochement, for the benefit of all and sundry.

  • Putting Dangote to the sword?

    Putting Dangote to the sword?

    So much for the wailing and gnashing of teeth in the aftermath of Dangote Refinery’s planned ‘intrusion’ into that last bastion of the inefficiency in the fuel supply and distribution chain; the talk about the new wave of disruption set to be loosed upon the segment is no longer whether or not it is unprecedented, but about the impact of the new measures will have in a terrain that has hitherto thrived in institutional lethargy, plain opportunism and organised subversion.

    I refer hereto the plans by Dangote Refinery to start direct distribution of petroleum products to filling stations and other stakeholders across the country particularly those in the critical sectors of aviation, manufacturing, and telecommunications – not excluding of course the so-called independent marketers. Not known to settle for half measures, the Dangote initiative, set to commence on August 15 will see the behemoth roll out some brand new 4,000 CNG trucks in furtherance to this.

    Surely, if Nigerians had prayed for that day when a band of unscrupulous predators would be put on notice that their perfidious game was over, they seem to have got more than they could have wished for in the Dangote plan! 

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    The deployment has, expectedly, raised questions about logistics dominance, fair competition, and pricing control in the downstream sector. Specifically, marketers under the aegis of the Petroleum Products Retail Outlets Owners Association of Nigeria (PETROAN) have since concluded that the plan would distort the market. Drawing attention to their earlier warning about the refinery’s intentions to dominate the downstream sector, the body fears that “the company may leverage its market power to fix prices, limit competition, and exploit consumers, much like it has done in other sectors.”

    It went on to note that the development “could lead to a massive shutdown of filling stations across Nigeria, resulting in widespread job losses. The introduction of 4,000 brand-new Compressed Natural Gas-powered tankers…poses a significant threat to the livelihoods of thousands of truck drivers and owners.

    “While CNG trucks may offer a lower cost of transporting petroleum products, this shift could lead to widespread job losses in the industry”, it noted.

    Dangote Refinery, it also added, “might be deploying a price penetration strategy, offering fuel at low prices to seize market share and force smaller players out, ultimately threatening the survival of independent operators”. In their opinion, Dangote refinery should focus on refining and exporting fuel rather than competing directly in the retail distribution chain!

    I believe that the body deserve more pity than understanding. This concerns (or is it recommendations), coming from a group long fattened by the regime of ‘equalisation’ under which uncountable billions of naira are doled out in bridging claims to fuel transporters is, to put it mildly, gratuitous and rich!

    Most certainly, I do understand why the Dangote plan comes close to a final death knell in an industry known to mistake rent for enterprise. For while their cash cow, the Petroleum Equalisation Fund (PEF) may have been certified as dead and buried, at least officially, under the current regime of liberalisation; it remains a measure of how deeply ingrained that psychology of rent is, particularly among the players of yore that some, among them, still fantasise about possible return of that ancien regime under which transporters collected subsidies to maintain fuel price parities long acknowledged as existing only on paper! Truly, old habits die hard.

    By the way, how about the tyranny of tankers drivers, whose all-powerful union could decree, at the drop of hat, that their workers embark on strike on just about anything ranging from a mild skirmish with police on the highways to frustrations with the electronic call up (e-call up) system at the loading bays is finally nearing its end? Who wouldn’t want their chokehold on Nigerians broken?

    Even among the hordes cringing at the budding ‘monopolistic dominance’, it seems unlikely that any, would crave for a return to the fraudulent, organised chaos of yore!

    So much for the labelling therefore; the choice, really, is hardly one between the so-called monopolistic dominance’ as some have chosen to frame the Dangote Refinery’s ‘intrusion’ into the fuel distribution segment on the one hand, and the fading past characterised by organised chaos foisted by the players in the absence of a virile rail infrastructure, functional pipelines and other ancillary distribution infrastructure on the other. To that extent, current concerns, though legitimate, matters little to Nigerians already ill-served by their predatory distribution arrangement; at least so long as fuel flows at the pump and at a price that seems fair enough!

    Rather than the strange charge that the development bodes ill for the market, I believe Nigerians should ordinarily be interested in seeking answers to the far more profound issues provoked the development. Issues about the state of the depots and the products receiving bays, the sprawling pipelines criss-crossing the entire country and countless critical ancillaries that once defined the downstream sector, all of which are now currently in ruins with no plans to resuscitate them. What of the railways that once served to transport bulk products into the hinterland? Billions of dollars of loans after, the sector not only remains subpar, but a recurrent item on electioneering manifestoes!  To imagine that the whiners – the same cartel that has contributed in no small measure to the sorry states which the industry has found itself, whose activities have undermined the very notion of competition, and whose understanding of competition comes to bear only when it suits them; that they have suddenly become drum majors of equitable rules in the market must be the revelation, the joke of the century!

    Yes, there is little doubt that Dangote’s 4,000 trucks present a looming threat to the club of indulgent and patently short-sighted players in the same way that the cartel of fuel importers have been whining to no end about the dominance of Dangote  Refinery hurting their market! The challenge is to engage; not one of a fruitless call to arms. Call it a price to pay at this stage of the industry’s steady evolution. How I love the way a certain Obasa Sanmi put out the matter in his social media handle. “Please Dangote; come up with a scheme like that for the distribution of cement. The middlemen are the profiteers. It’s time to chase them out!”

    Surely, Nigerians understand that. If anything, it seems the way to go. Most certainly, it is a far cry from the chant which comes basically to putting Nigeria’s leading entrepreneur to the sword, and this for no crime other than putting his money where his mouth is!

  • Emperor over crumbling empire?

    Emperor over crumbling empire?

    Imagine an emperor strutting over a crumbling empire? 

    That perfectly projects the latest legalism, from the Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Kayode Egbetokun, in his latest opposition to state police.

    If indeed the IGP is a crack mathematician — he earned his first degree in Mathematics from the University of Lagos — then he would realize the math just doesn’t add up!

    State police is an idea whose time has come.  It would be enlightened self-interest for the who-is-who in the national security apparatus to support it. 

    Every passing day returns the same grim verdict: a centralized police, that the Nigeria Police now constitutes, can’t deal with the current security crisis.

    It’s time to face the harsh reality and stop playing the ostrich, because of extant power and positions.  There’s neither power nor glory in vanishing quicksand!

    Yet, the IGP’s legal take, to the House of Representatives constitutional review dialogue, themed “Nigeria’s Peace and Security: the Constitutional Imperative”, is hardly haram.  Before we take any wise step, we must be steeped in the constitutional birthing of the Nigeria Police.

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    The IGP, insisting on Section 214(1) of the 1999 Constitution, which lawfully allows only one centralized Police, told us what we already know.  But then, isn’t replacing that unitary police, in a supposed federal state, the reason for having this dialogue?

    Worse: doesn’t that law — cast in stone ? — grimly remind us how harsh reality has beaten it black and blue? 

    The result?  Lost lives and hewn limbs, seasonal bloodbath in the macabre massacre of the helpless and peaceful, with the central authorities pledging to do better, each time killers strike.  Yet, are condemned to re-making same grim promises, when terror strikes next time? 

    Wasn’t the IGP struck by the irony of these ardent but never fulfilled promises?

    They are ardent but unfulfilled  — or even unfulfillable — not because the Nigeria Police is incompetent.  Even with its bad eggs, our cops rank among the finest anywhere.  They are near-unfulfillable because the police, no matter how earnest or dutiful, are already trumped by an impossible structure! 

    There simply is an imperative for more boots on the ground, especially in Nigeria’s wide, wild and un-policed spaces.  The Federal Government simply can’t go it alone. 

    It needs complementary investment from state governments that can, for now, afford it.  Those who can’t, right now, can follow later.  Easy breezy?  Not quite! 

    Which then leads straight to the Nigerian power elite’s centralist mindset, when they hit the federal capital of Abuja — an irony in itself?  That’s masked by paternalism that crows but seldom delivers!  If it did, we would still not be in this insecurity mess.

    Such strange paternalism was dutifully reflected in the IGP’s anti-state police position.

    “Let me state unequivocally that the National Police Force acknowledges the rationale behind the demand for state police,” conceded the IGP,  “including the desire for locally responsive policing, quicker reaction to community-level threats, and decentralized law enforcement presence.”

    “However,”  — it’s glorious paternalism, stupid! — “our assessment, based on current political, institutional and socio-economic realities, shows that Nigeria is not yet … politically prepared for the initialization of police powers to the state level.”

    Why? “Key concerns include the possibility of political misuse of police powers at the state level, lack of funding capacity by most states to maintain and equip a state control force, the potential for fragmentation of national security, intelligence and command, the absence of regulatory architecture to ensure standard and operational cohesion”.

    Let no one hurry to shoo the IGP out of the room.  Indeed, his fears are backed by solid historical horrors, in the 1st Republic order (1960-1966), that caused so much disorder and sent the political military grate-crashing into power.

    Indeed, it was a period best forgotten!  Alkali police in the North and naked thugs, hiding under local police, visiting mayhem; and muscling elections in the name of the local rogue order.  It’s rather forgettable, from the prism of police professionalism.

    So, a furious military, with no command flexibility, would go the other extreme of re-shaping the Police in its centralized, bristling law-and-order image.  No crime!

    Still, has the Federal Government, with a police that takes orders from the President and commander-in-chief, via his operational viceroy, the IGP, fared better?  Hardly!

    The Shehu Shagari era (1979-1983) birthed the Mobile Police unit, notoriously re-named “Kill and Go”!  President Olusegun Obasanjo, in his two (s)elections of 2003 and 2007 — his 2007 war cry was do-or-die — had the police proudly embedded in that electoral heist and rape. 

    To be fair, though: many governors, if they had the chance, would gladly have misused and abused the police, without blinking, for selfish ends.

    So, if abuse is an equal-opportunity possibility, why would the federal czar posture it would abuse the police less than the many wannabe czars in the 36 states?

    To that extent, much of the IGP’s anti-state police worries are just stacking cards and stoking fears.  The lesson of history and strict laws and regulations should take care of those. 

    In any case, why should past fears cripple our thinking and shackle us to past horrors, when what to do is fresh and rigorous thinking, to make laws that should impose security in today’s dynamic setting?

    That’s what the new thinking in state police is all about. 

    That dynamism, most times, is dangerous and life-threatening.  But that precisely makes an unassailable case for state police, over the present clumsy omnibus.

    The “North”, not long ago, was an impregnable fortress against state police.  Now, harsh reality has set in — and the “North” has become cheer leaders in state police advocacy!

    They see the yeoman efforts by the Army, the Police — conventional or secret — with the other security sister agencies. Yet, these agencies often fall short, when the chips are down!

    Isn’t it better then, to merge state and federal investments in policing, federalize command-and-control to localize policing, effectively cover more of ungoverned spaces and maximize the grassroots to tap intelligence, and curtail crimes, even before they are committed?

    Isn’t that better than the President, as he did in Benue, wondering aloud why the IGP and his (wo)men had not made any arrests, among the latest band of marauders?

    Questioning the appropriateness of state police is rather belated.  The challenge, right now, is to put in place stout laws to regulate operation and check abuse. 

    It’s not about a superman at the centre playing Hercules.  That has failed us for much too long!

    It’s rather a super-structure that federalizes the Police, but puts in place robust checks and balances, at every level of the command chain.

  • Villains of democracy

    Villains of democracy

    Sycophancy, which sadly, has become part of our political DNA, as many will argue, is anyone’s game in a democracy. It is not many seasons ago that Tinubu’s fought a nasty battle for the Nigerian presidency. The battle was against children of anger, social media terrorists, failed politicians and journalists whose major tool of engagement was sycophancy. Today in power, if anything has changed, it is that for his party, the APC and other opposition parties, sycophancy remains a compelling weapon for subliminal battle for the minds of Nigerians.

    In recent times, the APC has assaulted the sensibilities of Nigerians by turning the president’s midterm review of his presidency, a period for sober reflection in view of punishing effects of the president’s unavoidable economic policies, to a jamboree. Favour seeking party members, defectors without ideological orientations who the president said must be welcomed to avoid ‘political malpractices’, ministers trying to cover up their inadequacies and even  hardworking and goal-setting ministers have found flattering the president to high heavens, an irresistible distraction.

    Nyesom Wike, who the president publicly described as an asset, you will think, does not need to flatter the president to high heavens. But not even the president’s expression of the nation’s deep appreciation while “thanking him for bringing Abuja to a level that compares favourably with great cities of the world”, could in a season of sycophancy, restrain him from re-naming his newly refurbished Abuja Conference Centre after the president.

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    I am sure the president cannot but feel scandalized by having to be hit on the face every day  by Bola Ahmed Tinubu International Conference Centre , And unfortunately, it is not of any relief that both his Yoruba culture or his Islamic faith frown at deification of living beings.

    The amateurish intervention of Senator Abdul-Aziz Yari, former governor of Zamfara State must have no doubt further irritated a president who hails from an area where people read meanings to ordinary greetings. Doing great damage to the president’s recent visit to grieving Benue where over 200 people had been mindlessly killed, Yari had clumsily said: “His decision to suspend everything he was doing is worthy of note”; adding as if he had ever been president that “If we understood the responsibilities associated with the office of the president, we would see the empathy in his decision to personally visit Benue. He could have delegated a high-powered team to visit and stand in for him but he decided to show leadership and identify with the people”.

    Yari should focus on his many EFCC and ICPC cases instead of adopting diversionary tactics including organizing prayers for the president. The truth however, is that sycophancy has always been the scourge of successive Nigerian’s administrations. As Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, the former governor of the Central Bank (CBN), put it during the 2013 public presentation of  Mallam Nasir el-Rufai’s controversial book, The Accidental Public Servant, “corruption is not the bane of Nigeria … but sycophancy.”

    Again, we can take a journey through memory.

    Ahmadu Bello, despite espousing high morality and intellectual virtues through his political career started to unconsciously arrogate to himself the status of a super-human being, fuelled by the usual loyalty of serfs to feudal lords. He started to regard his contemporaries – Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe, Chief Obafemi Awolowo and Prime Minster Tafawa Balewa as subordinates.

    With a gift of a horse to Zik and a copy of the Holy Quran to Balewa after independence, he gleefully declared that he had divided Nigeria between his two loyal lieutenants.  After Zik fell out with him following the 1964 constitutional crisis, Zik was effortlessly replaced with Chief S.L Akintola who received a gift of the sword. Awo, who he had sworn would pay for forcing him to campaign for votes among his subjects during the 1959 election, had been jailed for 10 years.

    He probably now saw himself as the new Uthman dan Fodio. In fact the story was told of how he was one evening walking with one of his trusted civil servants with some grazing cows retreating following their approach, he could not resist telling his subordinate that “even cows recognize my presence”.

    He had ignored Brigadier Ademulegun’s warning of the impending coup just as he did of Chief SL Akintola’s who chattered an aircraft on the January 14, 1966 to Kaduna warning the revered premier that “they might be coming to kill all of us tonight”.

    Prime Minister Tafawa Balewa seemed to have added to Ahmadu Bello’s air of invincibility when with dead bodies littering major streets of Western Region, he ignored University of Ibadan students plea that a state of emergency be declared. He chose to wait for the arrival of Ahmadu Bello from the hajj with the crisis eventually consuming both of them along with the best of our trained soldiers.

    Ironsi was also a victim of sycophants. Following the January 1966 coups, Ironsi was told by self-serving Igbo politicians that he alone could save Nigeria. He in turn told the rump of assembled ministers that “since he could not persuade Dr Nwafor Orizu, the acting president to make an appointment, he must assume supreme control of administration. He was later stampeded to turn Nigeria, a federal state, into a unitary state and centralization of regional bureaucracies.

    Realising the move as an attack on Ahmadu Bello controversial northernisation policies that saw to the exit of thousands of Igbo and British expatriates from northern bureaucracy by northerners, an ABU students’ led riot eventually ended Ironsi’s regime and life.

    The irony was that, sycophants who drove him to his untimely death following January 1966 Igbo pyric victory were behind Ojukwu’s Aburi demand for return of regionalism.  Gowon, speaking with Charles Aniagolu of Arise Television last week insisted the cause of the civil war was Ojukwu’s insistence not just on regionalism but regionalism of the military to be controlled by regional governors.

    General Gowon with his post-civil war mantra of “No victor no vanquished” and solemn undertaking to cede power to civilian administration was on track until sycophants within his cabinet led by the Pa Edwin Clark manipulated him to breach the promised hand-over date to civilian rule. That was all Murtala Muhammed needed to oust him out of power.

    Ibrahim Babangida took Nigeria through eight years of ‘transition without end” with the help of sycophants made up of politicians, Aso rock professors, journalists including Chidi Amuta who after writing IBB’s biography, Prince of the Niger declared that his “earlier plan to hand over power was a betrayal of the masses”. Others include traditional rulers from whom he acquired more traditional titles than any living or dead Nigerian leader.

    His greatest hour was the Fellowship of Nigerian Economic Society (NES), the most authoritative body of scholars on Nigerian economy. The award they said was for being “visionary in the management of the national economy”, just after Financial Times had accused him of frittering away $5b Gulf war oil windfall and IMF, World Bank and Paris Club had accused IBB of “fiscal indiscipline”.

    Sani Abacha was humoured to death by his decreed five parties dismissed as “five fingers of a leprous hand “by late Bola Ige; Daniel Kanu and his “Two-million youths earnestly ask for Abacha”, the loyalty medal- wearing generals including Jeremiah Useni, the Bamaiyi brothers, Aziza, Akhigbe, Abubakar etc. who for three years could not prevail on Abacha to call the meeting of Provisional Ruling Council.

    His other zealot worshippers who presented falsehood as unquestioning truth, include Ebenezer Babatope who told us “ Abacha regime was the best to happen to Nigeria”, Wole Oyelese, Dr Walter Ofonagoro and Emeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, Abacha’s envoy to Europe to de-market President-elect MKO Abiola.

    Obasanjo was equally tamed by sycophants who made sure none of his legacy projects except the telephone revolution succeeded.  He swallowed the lie that Nigeria will cease to exist with his exit from power. Obasanjo, who assumed power in 1999 with goodwill of Nigerians, frittered away everything with his own hands following his third-term fiasco.

    President Buhari had within his government, sycophants who pretended to share his pan-Nigeria agenda while working for other tendencies including the promotion of Fulani agenda. There was Nasir El Rufai who would always kneel down to greet him while he allegedly encouraged a regime of ethnic cleansing in southern Zaria, Ababakar Malami who, while pretending to promote freedom, justice and equity for all Nigerians, was encouraging illegal occupation of government reserved forest in the West by armed Fulani criminals. Malami and his group succeeded in reducing Buhari, a leader with a pan-Nigeria outlook into a Fulani irredentist.

    But it is not all doom. Those close to President Tinubu insist that unlike our past leaders, he is clear-headed and cannot be distracted by sycophants falsely swearing by his name. And it is of little relief to flatterers that because of his tact and good breeding, he will not publicly or even privately shut flatterers down.

  • Deconstructing Benue killings

    Deconstructing Benue killings

    If the issues arising from President Bola Tinubu’s meeting with stakeholders in Makurdi are realistically followed up and addressed, the federal government may well be closer to finding lasting solutions to the unceasing killings in Benue and other states.

    The meeting which was part of the president’s interventions to restore peace in the troubled state followed the killing of about 200 innocent people penultimate week in Yelewata, Guma Local Government Area by militia herdsmen. Interestingly, the first shot on the seeming contradiction surrounding the killings was fired by the president himself.

    President Tinubu must have taken his audience by surprise when after establishing the purpose of his visit, he turned to the Inspector-General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun and asked, “How come no one has been arrested for committing the heinous crime in Yelewata. Inspector-General of Police, where are the arrests? The criminals must be arrested immediately”, he further ordered.

    The questions must have come against the background of an earlier order he gave security agencies to deploy to the state and arrest all perpetrators of the evil act on all sides of the conflict and prosecute them.

    Apparently unsatisfied with the progress in addressing the situation, the president further directed the Department of State Services (DSS) and the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) to intensify surveillance, gather actionable intelligence, and collaborate with local communities to apprehend the perpetrators.

    It is good a thing the president interrogated the security chiefs in the open on the arrests made of those behind the dastardly killings. That has been the recurring but unresolved puzzle in the cycle of violence unleashed by herdsmen across the country.

    The relative ease with which herdsmen terrorists kill, maim and despoil communities and disappear into the thin air without detection has over the years, fuelled feelings of a sinister agenda. Curiously, matters have not been helped by the serial inability of the security agencies either to prevent such attacks or arrest the culprits to face the raw teeth of the law. That seems to have emboldened the attackers in their constant recourse to lawlessness.

    However, the arrests that were gleefully announced by the Benue State Police Command were those of 14 suspects who allegedly hijacked the peaceful protests by some youths against the killings. The police said the suspects obstructed a roadway in Apir, in the outskirts of Makurdi, forcefully stopped a truck driver and set it ablaze with the driver trapped inside. It is in the line of duty of the police to apprehend suspected culprits of that infraction.

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    But the promptness with which those arrests were made pales in the face of the inability of security agencies to arrest those behind the Yelewata mayhem. The criminals who poured petrol on innocent old men, women and children while sleeping in their homes and set them ablaze ought to be cooling off in the cells of the security agencies to imbue some confidence in their capacity to protect lives and properties of all persons.

    Nothing of such is of public knowledge. That was the demand the president made of the security agencies and it goes without saying. By asking those probing questions, the president seemed to have set the tone for the resolution of the puzzles that shroud the invincibility of the herdsmen each time they kill, maim and despoil communities.

    The president’s questions sat well with well-meaning Nigerians who had sought genuine answers to the herdsmen insurgency that regularly operates with an air of invincibility, undetected. It is a serious challenge to the nation’s security architecture that criminal herdsmen have continued to defy intelligence, operating at will in different parts of the country without their cell busted.

    Now the president has spoken for Nigerians, hopes are high of something very positive being done. Arresting the culprits of the Benue mayhem is imperative to decode those behind the incessant attacks and killings by herdsmen in parts of the country often attributed to clashes over grazing lands. It is not for nothing that these attacks and killings follow the same predictable pattern.

    Arrest of the sponsors, enablers and foot soldiers of these attacks holds the ace to president Tinubu’s assurance to end the cycle of bloodshed in the state, restore peace and convert the tragedy to prosperity.

    Chairman of Benue State Council of Traditional Rulers and paramount ruler of Tiv, Prof. James Ayatse, threw up another troubling dimension to the killings that calls for serious attention. He told the audience that mischaracterising the violence as “herder-farmer clashes” only masked the true nature of the conflict.

    Hear him, “We have grave concerns about the misinformation and misrepresentation of the security crisis in Benue State. Your Excellency, it’s not herder-farmer clashes, it is not communal clashes; it’s not reprisal attacks or skirmishes.  It is this misinformation that has led to suggestions such as ‘remain tolerant, learn to live in peace with your neighbours’.

    “What we are dealing with here in Benue is a calculated, well-planned, full-scale genocide invasion and land grabbing campaign by herder terrorists and bandits which has been going on for decades and is worsening by the year”.

    Tor Tiv said wrong diagnosis of an ailment will always lead to wrong treatment and that they are dealing with something far more sinister and not just learning to live with your neighbour but dealing with the war. The paramount ruler may have been referring to an earlier statement by the presidency on the Benue killings.

    Special Adviser to the president on media and publicity, Bayo Onanuga had in a statement charged the state governor, Hyacinth Alia to among others, convene reconciliation meetings and dialogue among warring parties to end the incessant bloodshed and bring lasting peace and harmonious co-existence between farmers, herders and communities.

    Prof. Ayatse says these are not the real issues to contend with. He would want the president to have a proper reading of the situation for him to provide the right therapies to it.

    The presentation of the paramount ruler struck a common chord with the issues raised by a former minister of defence, Theophilus Danjuma when in March 2018, he accused the Armed Forces of aiding the ongoing killings in the country.

     He had said at the maiden convocation of Taraba State University that, “there is an attempt at ethnic cleansing in the state and of course in some riverine and rural communities in Nigeria. Our armed forces are not neutral. They collude with the armed bandits to kill people, kill Nigerians. The Armed Forces guide their movement. They cover them. If you are depending on the Armed Forces to stop the killings, you will all die one by one”.

    Danjuma insisted that the ethnic cleansing in Taraba State and other rural communities must stop, otherwise Somali will be a child’s play even as he called for self-defence.

    So, the issues raised by the traditional ruler are not entirely new; that they have persisted signposts the failure of the leadership to realistically to find closure to them. Sadly, the nation continues to pay the prize for inaction, acts of omission or commission.

    If a former minister of defence could go public with similar allegations about seven years ago, then the issues are damn serious and weighty. Danjuma spoke when Buhari, a former military head of state was in the saddle as civilian president.

    There is every reason to take Danjuma seriously especially in issues of this nature. The issue has again come into the public domain with President Tinubu in charge. The way he goes about it, will determine the level of progress or lack of it in finding durable solutions to the cycle of killings that has put the nation on edge.

    There are reports of the taking over and renaming of communities where militia herdsmen sacked the indigenous populations who now live in Internally Displaced Persons IDP camps in states most prone to the attacks. Independent but unconfirmed sources had it that about 150 communities sacked in Plateau State are now being occupied by the militia herdsmen with some of the communities already renamed.

    The issues are damn serious and complex. They have gone beyond the usual skirmishes between herders and their host communities. Expansionism and land grabbing are the leitmotif. It is vital to deconstruct the Benue narrative for better understanding of the issues involved.

    Even as daunting as the allegations of ethnic cleansing and genocide are, the first step to halting the scourge is to ensure that the criminals are not allowed to operate without consequences. It is the prime duty of the government to maintain law and order and protect lives and property.

    If the motivation and operational strategies of militia herdsmen are decoded, it will be difficult for them to attack, kill and maim without being apprehended. Then, the nation would have been on a sure path to consigning to the dust bin of history the cycle of bloodshed that is increasingly tilting it to the precipice.

  • A President and a comrade

    A President and a comrade

    One of the optics of the presidential sojourn last week was missed by the public and media, especially against the background of the June 12 remembrances. It was not his presence in Benue State, but in Kaduna State. It was the handshake between a president and a comrade. The day provided supernova episodes.

    Benue was anything but. Benue was ennui. With death and blood as backcloth, there was no other garment but sackcloth. Mourning is not what you wear, but what wears you down. President Bola Tinubu touched down in the state, and he walked to a hospital of those lucky not to be mourned but mourning as their home steers us to tears.

    Cries mingle with rage and revenge. Fear of the future is creepy with ambushes. Who is behind the slaughter? Why are they still breathing? Where did they come from? Who is sponsoring the carnage? Is it hegemony, genocide or revenge, or all? Is it ideological or an act of blind hatred? Or is it a mere show of barbarism by a horde of bigots? Or is the surge of bloodthirsty goons following what Poet Samuel Coleridge calls “purposeless malignity,” in his critique of Shakespeare’s Hamlet? What was the offence of the fellows at Yelewata, a name previously unknown to the cartography of slaughter? But blood chose to be the first to write its name and outline on map of the world and blur the pages of history? Time cradled it in its humble shadows until slaughter impaled it into a public glare.

    That was the backdrop to the president’s query to his service chiefs: Why has no one been arrested? It was a moment of rage. The bandits still lurk. The symbolism of the president’s visit is expected to ginger up the legitimate gunners against the goons in the forests.

    But sunshine fell the next day in Kaduna when President Tinubu warmed into Kaduna. His host, Uba Sani, the chief executive of Kaduna State, is often called Comrade by President Tinubu. A few days earlier, the president had conferred a June 12 honour on Governor Sani. Both were in the trenches.

    President Tinubu knew the face of tyranny. As a June 12 gladiator, he personified the gallantry, the hunger, fears and defiance of the fight for freedom. Abacha’s honchos trailed him in London and the US, after they failed to eliminate him in Lagos. He dreamed democracy and he dared the gun.

    They hounded and pounded him but failed to make him surrender. With M.K.O. Abiola locked away, he became a stout face of the struggle. He fought as a senator under the transition programme of Ibrahim Babangida.  I was the managing editor of the Concord Newspapers owned by Abiola, and I met Tinubu a number of times and reported some of his positions.

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    He kept the faith. Suddenly, he was out of sight, in detention, and at one time, the military men wanted to free Senator Abu Ibrahim, but Ibrahim would not leave the jail so long as Tinubu was still being held. The goons left Ibrahim with his friend.

    Eventually Tinubu left the country, and carried the battle to Europe and the United States, using his resources. In one of the parties held for him when he was bowing out as governor at the Muson Centre, Babafemi Ojudu – no senator then – pronounced in clear language: “When we talk of NADECO Abroad, Tinubu was the leader of the NADECO ABROAD. He was NADECO ABROAD.”

    He organized men and brought his resources to the fray. Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka, at a party in Tinubu’s honour at Dr. Yemi Ogunbiyi’s house related a story he was to repeat at one of the Tinubu colloquiums.

    He said Tinubu wanted to import rice from South Korea so he could amass the proceeds for the June 12 fight. He wanted Soyinka to sign as a guarantor so as to bestow credibility on the contract. In his dramatic way, Soyinka said he signed his name and wrote Nobel laureate under.

    Governor Sani was a fighter of the stay-at-home order. He was with Gani Fawehinmi and others who fought here.

    He fought in the South and in the North. He was arrested, and some had wondered why he, a northerner, would delve into a Yoruba struggle when he could enjoy the comfort of a feudal patriarchy.

    Sani would none of that. He fought and he saw neither North nor South. He saw Nigeria. He was arrested quite a few times and suffered beatings and torture.

     He was with the Committee For the Defence of Human Rights, of which I was the founding secretary under Beko Ransome-Kuti.

     Uba Sani was a  warrior with the Campaign for Democracy. He studied engineering and business administration in Kaduna and the University of Calabar, where he bagged his master’s degree, a hint of his liberal and metropolitan spirit.

    In the wee hours, Abacha’s goons stormed his home and whisked him in his underwear into a van and zoomed off.

     No one knew who took him or where they were taking him. He might have disappeared, and in fact, he feared they might make him disappear that night.

     The van took him to a dingy jail of criminals, and there he remained underground, no contact with friends, relatives or members of the struggle until the Abacha regime fell. That was his saving grace.

    The president once praised him as a man who stood here at home to fight the bear – my words.

     So, when they met last week, memories conjoined.

     They both fought for this democracy, and Governor Sani’s efforts in the past two years is a way of telling the President this is evidence of why they escaped underground and almost went underground.

    The peace in Birnin Gwari and its cattle market are dividends of June 12 struggle. Some say, with a joy of exaggeration, that you could drive through that local government area at night with your eyes closed. The cattle market had disappeared for about a decade. The President recalled his visit to the place during the electoral campaigns in 2022, and it was as though they moved a battalion to the place.

    The skills acquisition centre has been one of the highlights of Sani’s rhetoric. He believes Kaduna should rise again as the hub of the North.

    It was one of the first thing he did. He also launched 100 CNG buses. It is a nod from an engineer governor.

    A lot could not come for mention during the trip. For this essayist, his great deed was financial management.

    He inherited a state with a pocket full of holes from a predecessor who is clutching at straws to defend his stewardship. Yet, within the two years, it has risen from the darkness and able to showcase quite a suite of achievements.

    The president is in a fight to save the economy at the centre and a comrade in his arms in Kaduna State, an uncle and his nephew in a kinship to defeat a common foe: poverty.  No two figures compel us in one photo moment as their meeting last week in a sunny state.

  • Rich but bored

    Rich but bored

    Oscar Wilde, one of the wittiest writers who ever touched the pen, wrote, “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay for greatness.”

     One must agree with the bard if we look at the new political contraption in town.

      It is mediocrity trying to pay for greatness. They call themselves All Democratic Alliance (ADA). They cannot live down the APC, the All Progressives Congress, even when they want to ape it.

     Begin with the name. They are so original that they begin their own party’s name with ALL.

     In order to look even more original, they swap progressives for Democratic. They must have sincerely struggled with a third name, since they have to have a third one like APC or PDP, so they look for a synonym for Congress, and they chose alliance.

    No doubt, they are an alliance, but an alliance of mock reality.

     They are an alliance of men who have been retired from politics. They are however bored, but they are rich, so they want to spend their money to titillate their fragile egos.

    What is David Mark looking for, and who is looking for him? Atiku was shunned at Ibadan by the governors of the PDP, so they have started their party with no state governor, no structure, but the patterns of their egocentric imaginations.When you imitate, you should make the imitated look like it is imitating you. That is what literary theorists call the anxiety of influence, and Harvard literary theorist Harold Bloom, who developed the idea, described it as “relentless wrestling with the greatest of the dead.”

     These men want sumo wrestling but they have no muscles. I will concede that they are overfed, but they are no sumo wrestlers from Japan. They are more like the shrunken tree outside Tokyo. They hate Tinubu so much that they must be like him.

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    These guys are funny. The exiguous El Rufai was shooed out of Kaduna.

    Amaechi hardly clinched more than 15 per cent of the votes after his second term, eons ago. Atiku is homeless and the others are jobless, although the Adamawa man denies he is part of it.

    Trouble in paradise? They are generals without an army. They have an unknown protem chairmen known as Akin Ricketts, don’t call him rickety please. And he is not small like crickets.

    They have plenty of money to spend on party offices, and I am sure they will pay their rents.

    They may not have to pay because some of them have properties they can loan until the project dies. They have money for logos, constitution, and campaigns and registrations.

    They will add to the Tinubu trillion-dollar economy. Imitation may have its benefits after all.

     In his book, The theory of the Leisure Class, Thorstein Veblen says the rich spend their excess money on leisure, hence we have country clubs, polo and golf sports, yachts, etc, so as to keep boredom at bay. Our ADA folks are embarking on malice as leisure. It is a peculiar Nigerian pastime.

    When they have lost though, and they have spent a lot of the money they have stashed away, maybe they can know how bitterness can eat up persons as Paul says in scripture.

  • Israel, Iran: the changing face of warfare

    Israel, Iran: the changing face of warfare

    Days after Israel launched its air war against Iran on June 13, both United States president Donald Trump and Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu disclosed that for now they had no intention of targeting the Iranian leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, despite knowing his whereabouts. Obviously, the two leaders view the Ayatollah as a legitimate target of war, but conceded that he would not be taken out. Their views on the matter of targeting the Ayatollah have, however, started to change, particularly on the Israeli side. Moments after Iran achieved a direct hit on the 1,000-bed Beersheba Soroka Medical Centre in the South of Israel, Israel’s Defence Minister Israel Katz asserted: “A man like [Khamenei] has always aimed at destroying Israel through his agents. This man, who is willing to attack us, must not stay alive. This matter, the matter of stopping this man, eliminating him, is part of the campaign, and we now understand his role because before, he was talking about the destruction of Israel.” During his visit to the damaged hospital, Mr Netanyahu confirmed that ‘all options are open’ on the subject of the Ayatollah’s assassination, declaring that ‘no one is immune’ and that his killing would not escalate but end the war.

    Here in Nigeria, former Foreign Affairs minister Bolaji Akinyemi argued on a television programme last week, saying: “It is against international law to threaten to assassinate a head of state. And incidentally, it is also against American law.” While the eminent professor may be partially right, it is not clear that in war any head of state is an illegitimate target. In any case, while assassinating a head of state by a powerful country may attract retaliation, it is unlikely it is also justiciable. Shortly after Israel launched its campaign against Iran, reports indicated that President Trump restrained Israel from assassinating the Ayatollah. Clearly, Israel had left that option on the table and had the Ayatollah in their crosshairs. That the assassination was not attempted when it was most feasible may actually be due to Mr Trump’s influence. From all indications, if the opportunity presents itself again, Israel may take it if the war becomes protracted or if more civilian targets are hit in Israel.

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    In the opening stages of the Russo-Ukrainian war in February 2022, Russia targeted Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky in order to capture or kill him. Analysts suggest that there are no laws preventing the targeting or killing of an opposing head of state during war. For tactical, strategic and even political reasons, a vulnerable head of state may be spared, but otherwise he might be taken out in order to demoralise the country and weaken the resolve of that country’s military. Mr Trump’s reluctance to countenance the elimination of the Ayatollah may be an indication that the US had learnt lessons from its experience in Libya and Iraq where they connived at the killing of Muammer Gaddafi and Saddam Hussein respectively only to be confronted by post-war chaos. While Israel seems sure that a post-Ayatollah Iran could not be worse than the present situation, the US appears unsure the aftermath would be as easy as some think.

    Thousands of years ago, the world was more realistic and less fussy about the law of war. Captured or brutally killed heads of state were often displayed as war trophies, sometimes their eyes gouged out and all sorts of physical atrocities inflicted on them. The victorious kings and emperors were unconcerned about any post-war chaos in defeated countries or kingdoms, many of which were left desolate. In fact, sometimes, the victorious powers engaged in wholesale depopulation of defeated kingdoms, committing genocide which no one queried, and perpetrating massive abuse against women and children. On the surface, wars have got more circumscribed by laws and regulations. But wars have nevertheless not got neater. Indeed, they have become deadlier and genocidal. Clearly, Prof. Akinyemi’s remonstrance was directed against assassinations in peace time, some of which the US perpetrated in the past few decades. Even the law of war relating to war crimes can only be applied to minion states and kingdoms. Those laws do not deter powerful countries like the US, China, or Russia from erasing whole communities or assassinating enemy heads of state. Often, no one is dominant enough to enforce compliance against the powerful.

    Should Israel decide to assassinate Ayatollah Khomenei, he would be a legitimate war target. But they must then determine whether managing post-war Iran would fit into or fulfill their regional and political expectations. Decades ago, Israel had chances to take out the late Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) leader, Yasser Arafat, but they spurned the idea because they were unsure his successor would not be even more fanatical. The US acknowledges that while nothing precludes the assassination of enemy heads of state, regardless of what their parliament say about assassinating foreign leaders, the aftermath, they have learnt, has often been more volatile and unpredictable. They recall their experience in Cuba, are mystified by the emergence in Syria of Ahmed al-Sharaa (nom de guerre: Abu Mohammed al-Julani) who allied with al-Qaeda during the country’s long civil war, and saw first-hand the complications that accompanied the regime change in Iraq that birthed ISIS.

    As galling as it is, global reality scorns the law of war or creatively interprets its provisions. For a long time to come, no matter how vociferously critics rail against leadership excesses, might will continue to be right. Israel knows that. So, too, do the US, China, Russia and some hermit kingdoms whose leaders have no incentive whatsoever to travel to countries where they might be arrested should the International Criminal Court (ICC) feel seized by the urge to do something.

  • Mrs Abacha as inventive historiographer

    Mrs Abacha as inventive historiographer

    Last week, widow of the late maximum ruler, Gen. Sani Abacha, threw Nigeria into uproar over her conviction that her husband saved Nigeria’s money abroad rather than stole it. In a report carefully crafted by this newspaper, the former head of state allegedly stole about $5bn, some $3.65bn of which had been repatriated, and about $508m of which was found in the late ruler’s family account abroad. It is hard for any family or accused person to extricate himself from these allegations, but Mrs Abacha will not take the ‘insult’ lying low. The country was ungrateful, she wailed. In any case, barely able to conceal her exasperation, she alleged that the so-called loot had been stolen again after repatriation.

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    Many analysts scorned her interpretation of history, particularly with respect to her husband’s nearly five years military rule. Despite sanctions, the Nigerian economy was still strong, she sneered, also querying how a robust economy could amount to financial mismanagement or looting? She was never in government, and had no experience in administration other than her elementary introduction to organisation as first lady. She has had years to reflect on her husband’s dictatorship, but those years were obviously spent incubating private malice than engaging in rational appreciation of governance and financial management. If anyone thinks she can be persuaded to recast her husband as a leadership failure or thief, that optimist must have a rethink. It won’t happen. But who really ever heard a grieving wife expostulating with critics very mildly on her late husband, or tolerating those who deride her family?