The Nation Newspaper

Category: Columnists

  • Should Afe Babalola have ignored Dele Farotimi?

    Should Afe Babalola have ignored Dele Farotimi?

    In Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, a satirical novel first published in 1726, this is what Gulliver told his master in Lilliput about lawyers in Part 4, Chapter 5: “… there was a society of [people] among us, bred up from their youth in the art of proving, by words multiplied for the purpose, that white is black, and black is white, according as they are paid. To this society all the rest of the people are slaves.” About judges, he said: “Now your honour is to know, that these judges are persons appointed to decide all controversies of property, as well as for the trial of criminals, and picked out from the most dexterous lawyers, who are grown old or lazy; and having been biased all their lives against truth and equity, lie under such a fatal necessity of favouring fraud, perjury, and oppression, that I have known some of them refuse a large bribe from the side where justice lay, rather than injure the faculty, by doing any thing unbecoming their nature or their office.”

    In this fictional world, Gulliver could only have been accused of the negative stereotyping of lawyers and judges. He could also have been accused of being a closed mind incapable of and unwilling to countenance individual differences. But that is not the case with Dele Farotimi, a Nigerian lawyer and activist. He published a book titled Nigeria and Its Criminal Justice System. Aggrieved by what he considered to be the criminal defamation of his person, office and associates, Babalola reported the case to the police. Accordingly, the police have decided to prosecute Farotimi for the offence.

    The case has generated immense controversy, with some arguments sounding tenuous, fallacious, or self-contradictory. In the opinion of Donu Kogbara, a veteran media personality, in a 10 December, 2024 Arise TV interview titled, “I don’t understand how Peter Obi has gone from top to bottom – Kogbara,” “It’s quite clear that Dele Farotimi is being victimized for being a strong government critic.” It is, however, important to note here that neither Farotimi nor Babalola is an associate or supporter of the incumbent government.

    In a 12th December, 2024 article titled, “Afe Babalola: Of a man and his weakness,” in The Punch, Abimbola Adelakun stated: “Even if he wins the case, what will be the social value of a reputation held up by the courts? If Farotimi begs him as [Babalola’s] lawyer and others have enjoined, what is done cannot be undone. … Given the contradictions of his profession, Babalola should have been circumspect enough to not jump into a public contest over his reputation. He seems to me like a man who has invested in being nice just so that he would not be remembered as a villain in Nigeria’s story. Now he is no longer the man with the carefully curated legacy who set out to redeem his image but the one who proved his critic right.”

    In a 5 December, 2024 interview with Channels Television, Laolu Akande, former aide to former Vice-President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, said: “I think the first place to start is that … Pa Afe Babalola, Senior Advocate of Nigeria, a legal luminary that we all respect, felt that he’s been libelled … and I think there are very significant proofs … I don’t think Farotimi himself made any pretensions that he’s actually going after this guy. So, there is a basis for Afe Babalola to be aggrieved, and there’s a basis for him to pursue redress. What I think is inelegant, if I can use that language, is that you will expect somebody like Chief Afe Babalola … would rather pursue this matter as a civil case. … The man is aggrieved. And I understand that. … You’ve got to see the ferocity and audacity of Dele Farotimi. … Go after Dele Farotimi, by all means, but go through a civil suit.”

    In order to put psychological pressure on Afe Babalola, some of Dele Farotimi’s supporters are dramatising the claim that, as a consequence of Babalola’s legal action, Dele Farotimi’s Afe-Babalola-tormenting book has become a “bestseller”. Here, reference to the King James Version of the Bible in Titus 1: 10-11 is useful. It enjoins: “10 For there are many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers …: 11 Whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole houses, teaching things which they ought not, for filthy lucre’s sake.” The New King James Version of the Bible refers to “filthy lucre” as “dishonest gain”, and this makes gloating over or romaticising filthy lucre, acquired through tormenting Afe Babalola, to be absurd. 

    In a further attempt to pile psychological pressure on Afe Babalola, biblical allusion has been made to the David and Goliath story. This allusion shows how complex the case is, because it’s not easy to determine who really is David and who is Goliath between Farotimi and Babalola, with respect to physical stature and presumed power. This is one example of how the use of metaphor creates vagueness and ambivalence. If you say A is B, as metaphor typically does, the fact that each of A and B have various features on the basis of which direct comparison could be made, raises the question, “With respect to which shared feature is A called B?”

    To make this point clearer, let’s look at the biblical story as it is narrated in 1 Samuel 17: 1-53. The Israelites and Philistines were in contention. The Philistines included a physically huge and towering, fearsomely-amoured, meanly-boastful and Israelite-taunting Goliath, and the Israelite side included a young, small, seemingly ill-kitted, easily-dismissible David, who all the same, felt compelled to attempt to end the torment and humiliation of his people by the awesome and arrogant Goliath. With just a sling, the unlikely David aimed for Goliath’s head, hit him right and brought him down, and brought an end to the suffering of his people. As the Bible put it, “51 … And when the Philistines saw their champion was dead, they fled.” This is the classical manifestation of deterrence.

    Moreover, those invoking Yoruba culture as the reason why Aare Afe Babalola should not have reacted the way he did seem not to know or remember that part of Yoruba child-raising ethics includes teaching the child not to inflict pain on others. This child-upbringing practice often involves tolerating a young child hitting the mother or an older person, with the mother or older one merely showing pain and rubbing the point of the attack. Upon seeing their capacity to make an older person suffer, a naïve child hits the older person again. This time around, the older person hits back, and the child begins to cry. By the time the crying ends, the child would have learnt the life-long lesson of not setting out to hurt those who are capable of paying back with due effect.

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    Even Afenifere, the foremost Yoruba socio-political group is aware that the Farotimi-Babalola feud has been taken out of the Yoruba cultural context and has defied Yoruba cultural ethics. Accordingly, the group’s National Publicity Secretary, Mr. Jare Ajayi, in a 7 December, 2024 story in Vanguard, titled “Babalola vs Farotimi: Allow courts do justice, Afenifere cautions parties,” was reported to have said: “Afenifere is of the view that the appropriate forum to determine whose rights have been breached and how, is the court of law as established by our constitution. Meaning that the matter is presently where it ought to be, to enable all parties to prove their case. We enjoin all parties to conduct themselves in total submission to and respect for the rule of law.”

    Like Afenifere, Alex Enumah, in a 7 December, 2024 opinion in an article titled, “Let Farotimi, Babalola have their day in court,” in ThisDay newspaper said: “A popular axiom holds that, ‘A person’s freedom ends where another’s begins.’ So, as criticism and condemnation of the arrest and arraignment of popular activist and lawyer, Mr Dele Farotimi, continues to mount, it is expedient to … state that elder statesman and legal luminary, Chief Afe Babalola, SAN, at the receiving end of Farotimi’s action, deserves some protection also.”

    In an 11 December, 2024 article titled, “Afe Babalola, Farotimi and a dangerous culture of wokeism (1),” in Vanguard, Rotimi Fasan remarked: “As far as these allegations stand today, however, [Farotimi] could have been speaking to a group of free newspaper readers engaged in their kind of morning banter and argument with generous support of ogogoro by the road side or, say, under the Ikeja Bridge Roundabout. He could be speaking the truth, who knows. But where is the evidence? It is the burden of evidence that compels us to be careful of what we say even if true. Otherwise, our world would be upended if anyone could just say anything they have in mind. Farotimi probably wanted no more than to show his disdain for a respected individual he does not care two straws about.”

    Moreover, Fasan noted: “To bear a legal lion like Babalola in his den, poking a finger in his eye and twisting his tail might well be the object of Farotimi’s action rather than the necessity of offering evidence. But even that undermines his authority as the intelligent man that he is, not to mention his standing as a trained lawyer. He has for some time now been treading a thin line between political critique and blatant disrespect of individuals and state institutions. He is too free with words and insults that he dispenses as if it is the only way he could demonstrate his supposed fearlessness. This is unnecessary.” Jiti Ogunye also cautioned: “If you don’t have proofs, don’t make such allegations. … [At] the end of the day, you will not be able to dictate to the victim which course of action to take.”

    Idowu Akinlotan, in his Palladium column in The Nation of 8 December, 2024, posited: “Not going to court is not an option, considering the weighty claims levelled against him. And beyond standing with Chief Babalola or supporting Mr Farotimi, it may be time for Nigerians to stand for the rule of law, despite the judicial system’s weaknesses, rather than tolerate the anarchic proclivity of activists who protest against everything because they suspect everything and denigrate everyone.”

    In the unbridled exercise of their media power, some gore others with their words. With hackles raised, eyes bulging, teeth blood-soaked and mouth blood-stained, they seem to end every episode of verbal savagery with the warning, “There’s more to come.” It’s victims of this kind of viciousness that Afe Babalola seems to be seeking to protect by legally challenging swaggering impunity. The legal challenge is thus a desirable deterrent to culprits and the dissuasion of potential copycats.

  • ECOWAS treading carefully for sake of the poor innocent

    ECOWAS treading carefully for sake of the poor innocent

    The situation with the three breakaway member-states of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), being Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso, seemed to have been kept in the cooler for a while, almost like the sub-regional body had decided to leave them to their own devices. However, during the week, on Wednesday, the Chairman of the Authority of Heads of State and Government of the ECOWAS, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, assured the world that the regional body will not abandon its own over a few people’s misdemeanour.

    President Tinubu corrected the error of thoughts when he hosted the German President, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who was in Nigeria for a three-day state visit. In one of their conversations, one revolving around the state of democracy in the sub-region. He reassured his guest of Nigeria’s, as well as West Africa’s, devotion to sustaining and escalating the democratic culture. However, here is the sore in the sub-region, sadly represented by Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso, neighbours who have decided to trade away the sophistication of modern and rational way of life offered by democracy for the pariah of crude military rule.

    Besides making the point that the ECOWAS will never tolerate unconstitutional regimes, at least not under his watch as Chairman, and assuring that the leaders of the body would go about their opposition and rejection of the unconstitutional reign of the military in those countries in the most mature and civil manner, he made a pledge even more profound than the ECOWAS rejection of military rule. He reaffirmed his ordinary-people-oriented outlook to governance.

    He told Steinmeier that the ECOWAS, despite its opposition to unconstitutional regimes in the three countries, is more concerned with the welfare of the citizens of the countries. While expressing frustration over the unwilling disposition of the military regimes in the countries to return the people to democratic ways, especially as they have adopted sit-tight schemes that experiment with pseudo transition plans, which never lead to elections, he categorically said ECOWAS will be careful how it metes out measure to force return to democracy in the countries so as not to subject their citizens of the countries to harsh repercussions.

    “Our relationship of mutual respect will continue as we reappraise the situation in the three countries. What I can assure is that we will not give tolerance to unconstitutional government. We will continue to lead by example. We have innocent citizens who are victims of the military. We will continue to explore diplomatic channels to navigate without punishing the innocent people. We will continue to allow free movement and trade. Though the transition programme is not sure or certain, we will not punish the innocent citizens; they are not in possession of power. This is what ECOWAS will stand for. Whatever is happening in the countries, we are mindful of the wellbeing of the citizens. I don’t want to personalize issues as ECOWAS Chairman. We will leave the door for collaboration”, Tinubu said

    The German President’s visit was actually more about the diplomatic and economic relations between Nigeria and the Federal Republic of Germany. It was a time for both sides to revisit existing relations and agreements, table new ones and work together to forge mutually beneficial systems. To President Tinubu, it was a time for both countries to work on fostering a stronger and more rewarding partnership with Germany, a country that has shown much interest in Nigeria and particularly the progress of his administration. 

    “I could see from the previous meeting, earlier meeting today that our businessmen and policy makers are very anxious to do business with Germany. Mine is to continue to give you assurances that our business doors are open and reforms are working very well. These business ranking, that’s what we have discussed. We plan to strengthen the relationship and build partnership that is fulfilling and rewarding to the two countries, people-to-people relationship, and government-to-government facilitation of opportunities and prosperity”, Tinubu said.

    Meanwhile on Tuesday, President Tinubu commissioned the Bola Ahmed Tinubu Technology Innovation Complex (BATTIC) at the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) Headquarters. Beyond the ceremony, the moment marked a pivotal step in his administration’s commitment to leveraging technology for security and economic transformation.

    The BATTIC facility is more than a gleaming edifice; it represents the President’s vision of a forward-thinking Nigeria—one where technology, innovation, and strategic reforms converge to propel the nation to the forefront of global affairs. In his address, President Tinubu articulated a future where public infrastructure is no longer a weak link but a formidable asset in Nigeria’s quest for greatness.

    “With over 200 million citizens and our leadership role in Africa, we must embrace technological advancements to benefit the majority of our people,” the President declared. These words encapsulate his administration’s ethos: a government unafraid to tackle systemic challenges with bold and modern solutions.

    The BATTIC facility serves as a hub of cutting-edge infrastructure, housing a data center, command and control operations, a visa approval hub, and even an ECOWAS biometric card production center. At its core is the integration of air, land, and water security systems—a comprehensive approach to national and regional security. This vision is not just about ensuring safer borders; it is about establishing Nigeria as a benchmark for seamless and efficient immigration processes on the continent.

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    Tinubu’s plans for immigration reform exemplify his approach to governance: combining innovation with inclusivity. By simplifying visa application processes through the Nigerian Visa Approval Centre within BATTIC, the administration is laying the groundwork for Nigeria to become a magnet for global partnerships and investments. “People can now travel and conduct business partnerships with ease,” he remarked, signaling the administration’s focus on removing barriers to economic growth.

    The symbolism of BATTIC extends beyond technology; it underscores Tinubu’s belief in infrastructure as a cornerstone for national transformation. The facility’s solar farm ensures sustainability, while its passport personalization center embodies the President’s determination to redefine the Nigerian passport as a security document rather than just a travel necessity. Tinubu’s commitment to achieving a 100% new passport regime by 2025 underscores the strategic shift toward prioritizing security and global reputation.

    This integration of technology into governance is not limited to immigration. The complex’s capabilities to profile high-risk passengers, identify suspicious travel patterns, and enhance border surveillance highlight Tinubu’s focus on fostering a safer Nigeria. By aligning national systems with international best practices, the President is ensuring that Nigeria is not just playing catch-up but setting standards.

    However, the BATTIC project is not merely about technology; it is about the ripple effects it promises to generate. Streamlined immigration systems and air travel reforms are expected to unlock immense economic opportunities. Easier entry and exit processes will not only boost tourism but also attract global talent and investors eager to be part of Nigeria’s growth story.

    For Tinubu, this is just the beginning. His administration’s vision extends to repositioning immigration services and air travel reforms across Africa. This Pan-African perspective recognizes Nigeria’s role as a leader in shaping the continent’s future. By driving inclusive growth and fostering regional integration, Tinubu is ensuring that Nigeria remains at the center of Africa’s economic and technological renaissance.

    The commissioning of BATTIC is a testament to the President’s resolve to transform public infrastructure into a catalyst for change. It is a bold step toward a future where Nigeria is not only competing with the best but setting the pace. As the country embraces this era of innovation, it is clear that Tinubu’s vision goes beyond solving immediate challenges. It is about laying the foundation for a Nigeria that can stand shoulder-to-shoulder with any nation in the world.

    The Bola Ahmed Tinubu Technology Innovation Complex is more than a state-of-the-art facility; it is a statement, a statement that Nigeria is ready to lead, innovate, and redefine what it means to be a global power. Under Tinubu’s leadership, the journey to that future has firmly begun.

    During the last week, he did much more than hosting the German President or commissioning BATTIC, for instance, on Tuesday he appointed Mr. Shamseldeen Babatunde Ogunjimi as the Acting Accountant General of the Federation (AGF). As this week starts with the meeting of ECOWAS Commission in Abuja today, presentation of the 2025 Budget during the week, much should be expected.

  • Unending PDP BoT crisis

    Unending PDP BoT crisis

    There is little anyone can do to stanch the flow of blood in the main opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Frustrated supporters and elected officials may not defect to other parties with the same avidity with which functionaries of the less endowed Labour Party (LP) defect to the All Progressives Congress (APC), but they have proved more resolute in fighting themselves to the finish over trivia. Once they lost the 2015 presidential election, and all other presidential elections since then, they had turned on one another with fiendish glee, slashing, lacerating, and devouring anyone that offered himself for leadership.

    For now, they give the impression that former Rivers governor Nyesom Wike and his lackeys in the party, chiefly the acting national chairman, Umar Iliya Damagum, are the problem with the party. Once they are either got rid of or inoculated, party leaders think the demons that gnaw at their livers would be castrated. They are wrong. The more their stay outside power lasts, the more difficult it has been to rally themselves back from the brink. They will need money no one seems eager or able to provide to run the party, except someone steals from the public purse. And they need a mobiliser, who is not Mr Wike but in his mould, a role their former presidential candidate and ex-vice president Atiku Abubakar has been loth to play for strange reasons. In the past six months or so, they have seethed with one plot or another to unseat Ambassador Damagum and hobble Mr Wike. Each time, they had failed.

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    But they won’t rest until they achieve their regicidal objectives. It may leave them vulnerable and a little flummoxed, but they yearn to be independent of the two gentlemen they describe as their chief tormentors. It is not clear how soon they can achieve their goals, but if and when they reach that point of no return, they will quickly realise how empty their politics has been, and how awkwardly they had chased a chimera. They still have all of next year to reach that point, but they can’t wait to meet their fate.

  • Donu Kogbara on Peter Obi

    Donu Kogbara on Peter Obi

    Columnist Donu Kogbara last week delivered what is arguably one of the most memorable putdowns of the year on former Anambra governor and ex-Labour Party (LP) presidential candidate Peter Obi. Asked on Arise Television to react to the defection of some LP national lawmakers to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), she brushed the matter aside and instead launched into a tirade on Mr Obi. He was a ‘sparkling inspirational figure’, she said, ‘who created a movement almost overnight and galvansied the youths’, but is now ‘like a firework that became a damp squib’. Unable to conceal how bitterly disappointed she has been, she summed him up as ‘so pedestrian’.

    Had she stopped at those searing words, she would have conveyed her message copiously enough, leaving nothing else to say, not even to the imagination. But she thundered on nevertheless: “He has become so pedestrian, making anodyne statements on TV. He is a good guy, but we can’t see a leader the opposition needs.” This was already and fully so dismissively characterising that she needed to say no more. But never one for half measures, she launched an extra, parting salvo: “I’m not an Obidient anymore, to be honest with you, because he’s such a disappointment. I mean there’s no aggression…” Well, Ms Kogbara’s verbs were vigorous enough and needed no further lexical help, but just to make sure that the cadaver stands no chance of any kind of resurrection, now or on the last day, she has had to dragoon some high-powered adjectives and fierce gestures during the interview to qualify the political specimen she once idolised.

    Observe very well Ms Kogbara’s quaint use of words: damp squib; pedestrian; anodyne statements; no aggression; not a leader; and on and on – all memorable individual putdowns, each goose-stepping after the other. Yet, she was not scurrilous, and never intended to disparage. But her words drove home the utter disappointment she felt, having, among LP’s and Obi’s other teeming and unquestioning supporters, deified her champion and cast him as a David armed with nothing more than a sling to slay the detested and flatfooted APC Goliath. That she and many mesmerised LP supporters came to grief was more unbearable than the fitting electoral disaster their champion experienced. As she ruminated on and declaimed upon Mr Obi’s lack of competence and capacity, it was unclear how she still held on to the falsehood that he probably won the election. Indeed, how she thought someone who couldn’t master or manage the art of opposition could have been trusted to run a multi-ethnic, multireligious and politically complex society remains unfathomable.

    But perhaps the biggest contradiction in what became a phonetic extravaganza between the interviewer and interviewee is her disinterestedness in interrogating the abject incompetence of LP followers in accurately gauging the capacity or even charisma of Mr Obi, their candidate and champion. They imbued him with some electric qualities when in fact right from the beginning there was no spark in him. It is remarkable that Ms Kogbara was only recently disillusioned only when it became obvious her champion could not muster the sense and composure to offer quality opposition to the APC. She failed to admit it in the interview, but what ailed everybody in the starry-eyed politics of the LP and its former presidential candidate was the lack of capacity of Mr Obi’s followers. They were impressionable, guileless peasants sheepishly dragged to the guillotine. They thought him ‘a sparkling, inspirational figure’, when in reality it was the platform of ethnicity and religion he rode on that sparkled. Mr Obi had always been himself, both as governor and as a political peregrinator. He has an engaging dullness about his politics, aided by his feline voice and chasmic lack of ideological depth. If they imbued him with something inspirational and deep, the problem was not that he disappointed them or that he suddenly lost those virtues; the problem is that his supporters endowed him with qualities they nurtured in their dreams and ambitions.

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    In any case, after the fateful 2023 presidential poll, and after it was no longer tenable for Mr Obi to take refuge in his electoral grief, it was time for him to settle into the humdrum of opposition politics. In January 2024, he appropriated the title of Nigeria’s chief opposition figure, but has since then failed woefully to don that onerous regalia, especially in the face of the APC’s many missteps, as Ms Kogbara ably identified. But to be a leading opposition figure, Mr Obi needed to ride on the steady platform of his party, the LP. Unfortunately for him, the party, a small electoral and political vehicle he gave the impression he did a favour to adopt for the race, was itself mired in turbulence and confusion. That turbulence was his first test to prove his mettle, assuming he had the capacity to see it. It took months for him to weigh in on the party’s many crises, and once he did, he showed a spectacular lack of capacity to even manage the smallest of crises. He ran with the hare and hunted with the hounds, and assailed by friends and foes alike, he constantly beat an ungainly and unmanly retreat.

    Ms Kogbara may not have summed up her disappointment expertly, nor honestly admitted her culpability in being led by the nose despite her education and experience. But she gave a general impression of Mr Obi’s inadequacies and yawning lack of depth and charisma. As far as she is concerned, and notwithstanding the abuse of the Obidients or the pointless visit by Mr Obi himself to her residence days after she excoriated him, she is unlikely to return to the LP fold, a party for which, like her champion, she had never shown any affinity. For her, Mr Obi and LP are history. Had she been a politician, she would have, given the scale of her disappointment, toyed with defecting to the ruling party. But she is just one of those punctilious neutrals drawn to the embrace of an unworthy politician. She will lick her wounds quietly if Mr Obi will let her grieve privately.

  • APC, PDP and Ghanaian extrapolations

    APC, PDP and Ghanaian extrapolations

    The ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) has done its best to keep any thought of the next presidential election of 2027 at bay, but the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) will not let sleeping dogs lie. Ecstatic about the outcome of the December 7 Ghanaian presidential poll won by the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) with a wholesome, unbridgeable margin of over 56 percent, PDP sympathisers simply extrapolated the victory and the margin, not to say the economic hardship factor that propelled the votes, and concluded that the opposition would win the next Nigerian presidential election. Chafing at the opposition insinuations, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), George Akume, said last Sunday that there was no vacancy in Aso Villa.

    Putting it officially thereafter, PDP National Publicity Secretary Debo Ologunagba last Monday argued that the Ghanaian poll presaged a massive repudiation of the APC in Nigeria in 2027. The link between the two polls, one this December and the other in faraway 2027, appears farfetched, but Nigerian politicians and their spokesmen have never been deterred by distance or illogic. According to Mr Ologunagba, “The victory of democracy on the platform of the opposition NDC is a clear demonstration of the triumph of the power of the people over misrule and oppressive policies of government as now being witnessed in Nigeria under the corrupt, rudderless and insensitive All Progressives Congress (APC). The verdict of the people of Ghana in this presidential election is a signal to the APC that its days in office are numbered as the power of the people in Nigeria, just like in Ghana, will surely prevail, end APC’s oppressive rule, and return Nigeria to the path of good governance, security, political stability and economic prosperity on the platform of the PDP in 2027.”

    Whether they like it or not, more than two years before the next elections, the APC will be dragged out of their lair to talk shop on politics. The ruling party has not yet made much sense out of an economy thrown out of kilter for decades, at least not yet, but its leaders are now fated to be distracted by talking politics well before they are ready. Formalising their response through the mouth of Mr Akume, the administration deadpanned, with a telling hint of sarcasm: “President Tinubu as a southerner should be allowed to have a second term, meaning that those eyeing the Presidency from the North in 2027 should look beyond that year by waiting till 2031. If it is the will of God for Alhaji Atiku Abubakar to be President of Nigeria, even at the age of 90, he can get it. But he and other northerners eyeing the office now should look beyond 2027.” It was hard getting the former vice president to reconcile himself at over 76 years old to his loss in last year’s presidential election; asking him at 80 years in 2027 to wait another four years until 2031 would crush his spirit. He won’t have it. Last year, he gave the presidential contest his desperate all, money and extraneous legal justifications; in 2027 he will give it his apocalyptic worst, everything of virtue and decency be damned.

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    Indeed, as a sign that his zeal and fanaticism would not flag, Alhaji Atiku said through his media adviser, Paul Ibe, that it was inequitable for southerners to occupy, by 2027, the presidency for 17 years while the North had occupied the seat for only 11 years. Should President Bola Tinubu run for a second term and win, the South would occupy the office for 21 years to the North’s 11. Alhaji Atiku does not for once believe in rotational presidency when his ambition is at stake. That is why he has run for president without break since 2003. That he contradicts himself by arguing against regional unfairness in the number of times the North and the South have occupied the high office is also of little consideration to him. He deliberately, provocatively and arbitrarily limited his power analysis to the pre-1999 cut off point, instead of making a holistic argument about power sharing and rotation in Nigeria, starting from 1960. Had that regression analysis been done, it would have been obvious to even someone as adamantly entitled and irredentist as he is that the North had occupied the highest seat of government for a whopping 48 years or so, of course with not much to show for their exertions and fecundity.

    But perhaps the most curious of the PDP arguments, coming from both the opposition party’s spokesman and Alhaji Atiku’s media adviser, is their attempt to establish an implausible connection between the 2024 Ghanaian presidential poll and the forthcoming 2027 Nigerian presidential election. Conveniently ignored in the PDP analyses are three powerful reasons that make nonsense of any comparison. One is the fact that the opposition NDC candidate, John Mahama, won after having been president between 2012 and 2017, but was booted out of office after losing the 2016 poll due to economic downturn and hardship. Alhaji Atiku was never president. Two, President-elect Mahama is 66 years old, while by the next poll, Alhaji Atiku will be 80. And three is the fact that even before the votes were collated, Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) conceded the election and congratulated the winner. Alhaji Atiku who claims to be a democrat par excellence never once conceded the six elections he lost. Extra proofs that the PDP extrapolations are misplaced relate to the 2024 Ghanaian poll turnout of 60.9 percent compared to Nigeria’s 26.72 percent in 2023 and 35.66 percent in 2019, and President Mahama’s nomination of a female running mate, Jane Nana Agyemang, a heresy the former vice president would never consider.

  • Babalola, Farotimi and the Ekiti saga

    Babalola, Farotimi and the Ekiti saga

    Days after Dele Farotimi, activist and lawyer, was dragged before a Federal High Court and a Magistrate Court in Ekiti State to answer for his audacious characterisation of legal icon Afe Babalola, 95, as a corrupter of the justice system, Peter Obi, former presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP) travelled to Ado Ekiti to mediate the legal kerfuffle between the two. Mr Farotimi was Mr Obi’s presidential campaign spokesman, and he continues to represent a faction of the party still embittered by the role it alleged the judiciary played in the LP presidential loss. No one could tell last week whether Mr Obi’s visit was entirely at his own instance or, as some alleged, at the instance of the straddling ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo, himself a supporter of Mr Obi and also a friend of Chief Babalola. However, regardless of who initiated the visit, the former candidate and still LP leader of sorts was in Ekiti last week where he parleyed for an hour or two with Chief Babalola, and then visited his former aide Mr Farotimi in prison to have a word with him, perhaps on the virtue of legal and authorial sobriety. Unconfirmed reports sourced from the meeting indicate that the legal icon was accommodating, but the upstart lawyer and author of the controversial and offending book, Nigeria and its Criminal Justice System, remained defiant.

    The Federal High Court may have granted Mr Farotimi bail on reasonable terms, and the Magistrate Court will ineluctably follow when it sits sometime this week, but the uppity activist seems to be enjoying the hoopla, particularly the snide and withering attacks on Chief Babalola’s reputation. The attacks are generally idiosyncratic of the Obidients who terrorise the social media, cruelly and maliciously projecting cancel culture, and promoting all kinds of tendentious reports about the fate awaiting the legal icon should he persist in asking for his pound of flesh from the author of the book. Most of those who have commented on the Ekiti cause célèbre have not even bothered to read the book, nor realised that Mr Farotimi was neither a defence nor prosecution counsel in the celebrated land case that formed the kernel of the author’s alleged defamatory statements. He was introduced into the case only after it had been resolved at the Supreme Court and judgement was being executed. His book undoubtedly rides on the wave of the ill-tempered opinions of Nigerians who uncritically analysed the 2023 presidential election and determined that only corruption could have led the courts to give jdugements in favour of the ruling party.

    The courts, assuming Mr Farotimi and his friends understand law and still hold a modicum of respect for the judiciary which they continue to traduce so bitterly, will determine who is right between the injured Chief Babalola and the euphoric and highly opinionated social media terror group calling itself Obidients. The latter hope that along the line, certain facts will emerge to embarrass Chief Babalola and expose him as a man wholly devoid of reputation. They latch on to unsubstantiated entries in United States diplomatic cables, gossips and titbits with no legal evidentiary value, and they project their wish over reality, lionising Mr Farotimi, deifying Mr Obi, and demonising Chief Babalola. They are impatient for the court’s reasoning and decision; and if judgement does not favour them, then the courts have been bought. It is not certain that Mr Obi’s visit was at the behest of Chief Obasanjo, but if it was, it would be dispiriting that an author, who admittedly is the Obidients’ good but pampered boy, could savage a man’s reputation so badly and the victim is being pressured to reach accommodation outside the courts. They know, and their instincts confirm it, that Mr Farotimi has no legal pedestal to stand on; but they insinuate threats about uncovering hidden facts to discomfit the old lawyer and make him wilt.

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    Hopefully, not to long from now, Chief Obasanjo’s secret longings on the case would be exposed. It would then be proper to take him on. But for now, it is enough to focus on Mr Obi’s Ekiti mediatory visit. Like his mentor, the bedraggled protégé and former LP candidate seems to think that his presidential election loss was due to judicial shenanigans instigated by rich and powerful politicians. They leave no room for incompetent legal arguments or sloppy tendering of evidence by complainants, and offhandedly dismiss any possibility of the eminent justices remaining genuinely unpersuaded. In the lexicon of Obidients, all of whom have coincidentally rallied to the cause of the uppity lawyer, the judiciary should be disposed off entirely, peacefully if it can be managed, or revolutionarily if it can’t be done by pressures and fiat. They also leave no room for incremental improvement in institution building, for in their view Rome must be built in a day. No leader worth his salt would wade into the fray at this stage of the Farotimi case. But Mr Obi is neither worth his salt nor knows his onions. Of course a book can be written on the justice system, and a case made for urgent and even radical reforms and streamlining of the judiciary as an institution. But there are ways to write a book, with facts held sacred and deployed in such a manner that readers will appreciate the industry brought into the work by a seasoned author. Great books have been litigated before; but when a book is irredeemable and seemed to have been instigated by malicious ill will, a political leader must be circumspect in lending his image in any guise to such works.

    Chief Babalola believes his character has been defamed. If the Supreme Court had a voice and could express it in their own defence, they would also feel slandered by Mr Farotimi. But the warriors on social media do not think these victims should complain, let alone litigate their grievances, nor be entitled to be heard or seek redress. There is danger ahead, much of it inspired by the social media and its nefarious and fanatical denizens. Indeed, if this tendency is not counteracted, intolerance will take root and spread unchecked, creating regional, ethnic, political and religious tensions. Worse, opinionated youths inebriated by the power of cancel culture which they wield recklessly and irresponsibly will continue to run rampant all over the country and on social media; and leaders lacking in foresight and vision will maliciously and mischievously take short-sighted electoral advantage of this new form of politics. These twisted leaders ignore the lessons of state collapse and failure, with Syria, Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Mali, Burkina Faso, and a host of others serving as cautionary stories of why states collapse. By indulging Mr Farotimi with mediatory excursions, Mr Obi obviously appears inured to the dangers lurking in the corner for a deeply polarised Nigeria, a country pulling in many ethnic and religious directions at the same time.

    There are many ways not to write a book. But Mr Farotimi is too heady to take any lesson to heart. He should be allowed to quietly go through the judicial process, since he cannot import a new justice system just yet. Chief Babalola should also be allowed to seek redress unfettered by the idiocies on social media. Authorial violence and the inconsiderate actions and intolerance of some loud and persistent public commentators threaten to destroy the country rather than reform the justice system or the myriad national institutions wracked by bureaucratic and regulatory disease. If care is not taken, and at this rate, the 2027 polls may very well become a tinderbox.

  • Kwankwaso gets his reshuffle wish

    Kwankwaso gets his reshuffle wish

    In mid-October, there were stirrings in Kano State about an impending cabinet reshuffle ordered by New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP) and Kwankwasiyya Movement leader, Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso. The shake-up was planned to offload the Secretary to the State Government (SSG), Abdullahi Baffa Bichi, and the Commissioner for Transportation, Muhammad Diggol, and possibly too Information commissioner Baba Dantiye. The first two, in particular, were thought to be the arrowheads of the plot to unhorse the former governor by instigating Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf to wean himself off the former governor. They coined a Hausa phrase to capture the ‘war effort’, to wit, ‘Abba Tsaya da Kafarka’ meaning, Abba stand on your feet. Incensed, Mr Kwankwaso reportedly asked for their dismissal from the cabinet. The governor stalled, insisting there was no rift in his administration, and he was still loyal to his mentor. The former governor would, however, not answer any question relating to the rumour. (See Palladium, October 20, 2024).

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    Late last week, perhaps unable to endure the pressure any further, the governor wielded the big stick, sacked the SSG and the Transport commissioner, and threw in a number of other hapless victims in a big and ramifying cabinet reshuffle. Mr Kwankwaso at last got his wish. He couldn’t care less what anyone thought or said. He is determined to hold on to the state and, despite mouthing many highfalutin phrases about democracy, including deriding the Tinubu administration’s democratic credentials, he would brook no opposition to his suzerainty. Governor Yusuf is just being sensible and tactical. No one can doubt that all is not well in the state. For now, the fight has merely been postponed. It will flare up again, sometime later, but unavoidably. 

  • FEELINGLY YOURS

    FEELINGLY YOURS

    cradled between birdsong

    and the lingering tenor

    of a blue-grey sky

    poised between chilly serenades

    and a sweat so  out of tune

    with the season’s breezeglued to a soiree of lizards

    and their red-headed nods

    in the nooky shadow of a turgid noon

    torn between tomes

    which read my thoughts

    their studied spines

    so lean and learned

    with hieroglyphs of

    unanswered summons

    taunted so forgetfully

    Read Also: Afe Babalola petitions LPDC, demands Farotimi’s disbarment

    by the endless honey

    of your lush alluring words

    warmed so softly

    by the absent flame

    of your quickening song. . . .

    sigh of the seasons

    the universe craves

    the steady sunrise on your brow

    step out now

    let our day begin.

    *Imuniti un-arrestability. A Yoruba coinage from a conflation of “immunity” and “impunity”

    **For a peculiarly Nigerian meaning of this word, I recommend a quick journey to Honorebu, Akeem Lasisi’s rip-roaring video.

  • Onyema Ugochukwu at 80: before their very eyes

    Onyema Ugochukwu at 80: before their very eyes

    Although published to commemorate the landmark 80th birthday in November this year of journalism icon, first class economist, accomplished administrator, polished politician and revered elder statesman, Chief Onyeama Ugochukwu, this collection of tributes actually contains reflections on the life and times of the subject at different critical epochs of his existential trajectory. Running into 319 pages and organized around eight sections, the book titled ‘Testaments and Testimonials: Celebrating Onyeama Ugochukwu at 80’, bears the trademark of exhaustive research and meticulous craftsmanship characteristic of its editor, Dr Tunde Olusunle’s style and flair. The 89 chapters that make up the book reflect diverse perspectives and insights into the character and values of a truly unique personality at the various arenas of life on which he has operated in both the private and public realms.

    There is no doubt that the central and defining essence of Chief Ugochukwu’s eight decades of existence on planet earth has been his journalism career which served as the launching pad to his latter attainments at higher levels of public service through politics, governance and statesmanship. The sheer array of stellar journalists across generational boundaries who pay glowing tributes to one of their very best in this collection is a function of the high esteem in which the former Editor of the Business Times, West Africa magazine in London and the then hegemonic Daily Times is held in the profession.

    Some of the brightest and best minds in journalism attest to his high intellect, impeccable ethical standards, exemplary industry, urbane cosmopolitanism and sheer charisma that defined his journalistic practice. Yet, rather than fuel an attitude of superior aloofness or dismissive arrogance, Ugochukwu combined these qualities with a simplicity and disarming modesty that inspired and encouraged others and refraining from intimidating or diminishing his associates.

    Some of the outstanding journalists and/or scholars who tell remarkable tales of their varying encounters with Ugochukwu in the book include Akogun Tola Adeniyi, John Araka, Lizzy Ikem, Lade Bonuola, Eniola Bello, Ayodele Akinkuotu, Lanre Idowu, Chidi Amuta, Olu Obafemi, Solomon Odemingwe, Segun Adeniyi, Femi Adeshina, Dan Agbese, Al-Bishak, Omar Farouk Ibrahim, G.G Darah, Angela Agoawike, Gboyega Okegbola, Emeka Nwosu, Tunde Rahman, Hakeem Bello, Martins Oloja, Dare Babarinsa, Idang Alibi, Felix Adenaike, Oluwole Olatimehin, and Gbenga Adeniyi to name a few. These are names that have carved enviable niches for themselves in different spheres of journalism or scholarship, are of divergent temperaments and outlooks but are agreed on the integrity and humaneness of the man in whose honour they write.

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    Dr Yemi Ogunbiyi, accomplished scholar and outstanding Managing Director of the Daily Times recounts graphically Ugochukwu’s critical contributions first as Editor of the Daily Times and later General Manager of the Times Publication Division, to the much lauded landmark revitalization and resurgence of the newspaper conglomerate’s titles under his leadership. One of the legends of Nigerian journalism, Mr Lade Bonuola, describes Ugochukwu as an exemplar noting that

    “No one feels old inside him. The body may wrinkle and it may begin to fold. It may be weak and the steps may be slow, aided by a walking stick; even then, everyone feels as he has always felt, ever young. Onyema is an example of an old young man: Young in the soul and fresh in the body. It is emblematic of a contented man and a loving soul who is ever holding himself in readiness for service. He is a friend to all, an enemy to none. Onyema Ugochukwu is on the last step of the staircase to enter the eighth floor of a chequered life. He did not use the elevator. He climbed and experienced every rung of the ladder!”.

    Paying the kind of tribute to journalism that Chief Obafemi Awolowo famously expounds on law in his autobiography, Bonuola submits that “All-rounded education which journalism provides as a newsroom is a school from where you don’t ever graduate! It impels you into constant reading, reading everything in print, as iconic Lateef Jakande was wont to say. In these days of technological wonders, whatever digital platform also has as its menu must be lapped up as well. Knowledge that is inherent in journalism, being currents driven by a market place of ideas, exposes the journalist to all manner of people. It thus gives one an insight into the nature and character of man, his fellow human beings if he is perceptive and alert. Journalism itself offers a stepping stone into another variant of public service: politics at the level of governorship and governance. Ugochukwu’s trajectory, therefore, begins with being an economist, then a journalist and an administrator in his eventful journey through life”.

    The story has often been told of how Chief Ugochukwu moved from being Editor of the Business Times in Lagos to become the first African to edit the West Africa magazine in London. But Mr Bonuola reveals some of the background dynamics that informed that development. According to him, “It was when he came to the Business Times that our paths crossed. We were to meet again during the planning and the debut of The Guardian in 1982-1983. He actually received a letter of appointment as associate editor to run the Economy and Business section of The Guardian. The appointment coincided with another offer he got at OPEC. When this was leaked to the management of the Daily Times, the management not wanting to lose him pulled a fast one on him. If what he wanted was to live overseas he could as well go to London to take up the editorship of West Africa Magazine in which the Daily Times had interest. When he returned to Nigeria upon the completion of his tour of duty in London, it was to assume office as the General manager, Publications, at the Daily Times. During his tenure the Daily Times recorded the stunning highest surplus in the annals of the company”.

    Politicians like Professor Tunde Adeniran, Senator Ben Obi, Chief Olusegun Runsewe, Chief Timi Alaibe and Eyo E. Nyong among others have fulsome praise for Ugochukwu’s graciousness, selflessness and lack of desperation as a politician. He ran an elevated campaign to be governor of Abia State on the platform of the PDP but moved on without bitterness when the Court of Appeal overturned the ruling of the Elections Petition Tribunal that he was the actual winner of the 2007 governorship election in the state. Other contributors reflect on his invaluable contributions to the electoral victory of President Olusegun Obasanjo in 1999 as head of the campaign media team of a candidate that had a mostly rancorous relationship with the press.

    He played critical roles in managing the administration’s media relations after Obasanjo’s victory while also taking initiatives to overhaul national values as head of the National Orientation Agency (NOA) in the administration. As pioneer Chairman of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NNDC), he laid a firm foundation for the agency including drawing up an enduring master plan for the revolutionary transformation of the region. The kind of industrial scale corruption that later became a defining feature of the NDDC never reared its head under Ugochukwu’s leadership.

    This collection reveals that Chief Ugochukwu’s reputation is not just a matter of image laundering or public relations manipulations. For, contributions by close family members and leaders of his community demonstrate that his public conduct is predicated on values of care, compassion, integrity and fidelity in his private life. Describing Ugochukwu as ‘a quiet teacher’, a close relation of his wife, Dr (Mrs) Joyce Ugochukwu, Olamire Grant, writes

    “There are a few people that have a character worthy of emulating and, without any doubt, you are one of them. It was always a period of personal study of your personality for me whenever we were in close proximity. And I must say I took a lot away with me. You are a great example of an upright and humble man. And your ability to carry everyone along, as much as possible, is extraordinary.

    Happy 80th birthday uncle, with plenty of love, respect and admiration”.

    And his daughter, Dr (Mrs) Uzo Ugochukwu-Flake testifies that “Some of my favourite early memories of my father includes my brother, Chukwuemeka, and I sitting next to him as we would go through countries and capitals by spinning a globe and landing a target. Countries to which he had been, and coauntries to which he would eventually go. He instilled a love for knowledge in me, and inspired me to think beyond our shores. My father’s love of reading was also notable from a young age. It was not uncommon for him to disappear for hours, lost in a book. He fostered a love of reading and I have so many memories of going through random books in and the level of support I have received from him: getting through school, becoming a medical doctor, and finding my way to have a wonderful family. He may not have agreed with every decision but I knew he was always on my side and offered guidance in a caring manner.

    I have had many opportunities in my life that most never have, but through all this, one of my greatest privileges has been having Onyema Ugochukwu as my father and I am eternally grateful to God for blessing me with this remarkable, kind gentleman”.

    On behalf of the Ugboaja family, Ihuoma Tina writes that “You took over the mantle of total leadership and fatherhood when our father passed on and made sure we never missed him and stood up whenever the need arose. You believed in us even when we doubted ourselves, and your encouragement has helped us become better, either in our academic pursuits or in achieving excellence in our careers. Your wisdom and guidance have been invaluable throughout our lives. Your advice has helped us navigate life’s challenges and make important decisions. (When the young ones were desperate to get junior cadre jobs, you insisted that they must get higher and better qualifications so they can have better placements and be more productive and respected)”. As Nigeria grapples with an overly materialistic outlook that glamorizes wealth without industry and power without character, this book acquires added importance because it makes a vivid case for a life predicated on life-affirming values as the basis for a flourishing, thriving and wholesome society.

  • Identity, heritage, and complexity: Unpacking the Badenoch-Shettima discourse

    Identity, heritage, and complexity: Unpacking the Badenoch-Shettima discourse

    The recent verbal exchange between Kemi Badenoch, the Nigerian-born leader of the Conservative Party in the United Kingdom, and Kashim Shettima, Nigeria’s Vice President, has seemingly thrust into the global spotlight a profound and delicate discussion about national identity, ethnic heritage, and the intricate dynamics of postcolonial belonging.

    From Badenoch’s standpoint, the context of her statement saw her refer to herself as Yoruba rather than Nigerian. Such a statement has largely reverberated far beyond mere personal preference; it represents a complex narrative of historical tensions, cultural distinctions, and a personal reckoning with a multifaceted national identity.

    Badenoch’s critique fundamentally centers on the stark cultural and ideological differences she perceives between the Yoruba people and Northern Nigeria, with similar examples found throughout the country. While many may judge her statement as provocative, those who are true to themselves would rather view it as indicative of the long-standing ethnic and religious divisions that have historically characterized Nigerian sociopolitical landscapes and our failure at nation-building.

    However, her characterization of Northern Nigeria as a “haven for Islamism and Boko Haram” is inappropriate and should not be uttered by someone who may one day govern the United Kingdom. It is akin to calling Texans “Rednecks” or describing Germany as a haven for Nazis. It is important to remind Badenoch that no region has suffered more at the hands of Boko Haram and Banditry than the North she labels as its haven. In doing so, she does great disservice to the people of that region who have died or suffered immeasurably from the terrorist organization’s activities.

    Thus, the response by Vice President Kashim Shettima epitomizes the defense of our national pride. By challenging Badenoch to “change her name” if she doesn’t want association with Nigeria, Shettima represents a perspective that prioritizes national unity over ethnic distinctions.

    His retort reflects a broader Nigerian sentiment that seeks to transcend ethnic boundaries and promote a unified national identity. However, Badenoch’s stance suggests that such unity remains more aspirational than real.

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    Badenoch’s assertion that the Yoruba were “ethnic enemies” of Northern Nigerians reveals the deep-rooted historical tensions that continue to simmer beneath Nigeria’s national facade.

    Her comments challenge simplistic notions of national identity, suggesting that belonging is more nuanced than a mere administrative categorization. This serves as a warning to our leaders and those who insist on Nigeria remaining a united entity. If we must be one nation, one people, then we must sit down and tell ourselves the basic truth and create a template that will assure all Nigerians, irrespective of where we come from, that we are better off as a united nation than as splintered entities—an argument many Nigerians will not readily buy into, given our present circumstances.

    While Badenoch declares her commitment to “protect” and her willingness to “die protecting this country” (referring to the United Kingdom), she frames her identity not as a rejection but as a principled stance rooted in her understanding of her ancestral warrior ethos.

    Such a perspective suggests that true loyalty transcends geographical boundaries and is instead anchored in cultural values, historical narratives, and personal convictions.

    This is where a majority of past Nigerian leaders missed it! Whilst they demanded unalloyed loyalty from the Nigerian citizen, they paid lip service to the issues that confronted many a Nigerian from buying into such. Take for example, my Igbo brothers will readily scream marginalisation, my brothers within the Niger Delta have long cried about the exploitation of their resources without any visible infrastructural presence, while these calls have been long drawn, government after government have all failed to properly address such clamours.  Even now, Presidenr Bola Ahmed Tinubu, whom many felt would readily address the political lopsided nature of the nation has told the nation he much prefers to face the economic challenges before tinkering with the former.

    The Badenoch-Shettima discourse illuminates several critical contemporary issues, such as the limitations of postcolonial national identities, the persistent challenge of ethnic reconciliation, the complex ways individuals navigate multiple cultural affiliations, and the ongoing dialogue about belonging in an increasingly globalized world.

    While Badenoch’s statements might seem controversial, aside from her derision of Northern Nigeria, the rest of her comments appear to represent a legitimate exploration of identity in a complex, multifaceted world. Her critique, though sharp, is not without merit and reflects genuine concerns about regional dynamics in Nigeria.

    Likewise, Vice President Shettima’s defense of national unity is equally valid, representing an alternative perspective that seeks to bridge ethnic divides. The dialogue between them is not a simple conflict but a nuanced conversation about belonging, heritage, and national identity.

    Ultimately, the Badenoch-Shettima exchange offers a profound insight into the intricate tapestry of modern identity politics, challenging us to look beyond simplistic narratives and appreciate the complexity of human experience.