The Nation Newspaper

Category: Columnists

  • Equal (life) and justice • Letter to Senate

    To an extent, Shakespeare was right. Often times when commoners die, they pass away unsung, it is only in rare cases that their death make the front page. When that happens, you know immediately that something extra – ordinary must have happened. Whatever it is, it is usually not palatable. So, it was on September 20 when eight persons were killed in Apo, a suburb of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) in Abuja during a raid by a combined team of soldiers and State Security Service (SSS) officials.

    The outcry over the Apo killings was deafening not because it was the second time in eight years that such a thing was happening in the capital city, but because it was becoming routine for our security operatives to wittingly kill their compatriots. It seems our security operatives take delight in killing their civilian brethren just for the fun of it. At the drop of a hat, they are ready to shoot to kill without taking into consideration the consequences of their action.

    They are apparently quick on the trigger because they know they will get away with their despicable act. All they need do is to tag their victims robbers. And in these days of Boko Haram, their alibi is made stronger. They know that once anybody is associated with that group, he will not enjoy sympathy from the people. The SSS was counting on such support when it went to town over why it embarked on the dawn raid along with soldiers on defenceless civilians living in an uncompleted building in Apo that September.

    Most of the inhabitants were doing menial jobs. Some were commercial tricycle operators, some shoe shiners, some washer men and so on and so forth. Because of the acute accommodation problem in Abuja, they were lucky to find such a place to hide their heads for a paltry N200 or N300 per night. Undoubtedly, in a situation like that, it is quite easy for those who do not mean well for the country to find their way into such a place. It is also easy for such evil – minded people to get new converts there. But this is not to say that everybody there will harbour evil intentions or will be criminals.

    Unfortunately, this was how the SSS labelled all the occupants of the building before it set out on its mission in September. With such a mindset, the security operatives went to Apo to kill, no more no less. It was a predetermined action because they had already made up their minds about those poor fellows. As a layman in security matters, I have not ceased wondering whether the rules of the game allow security men to behave in such irrational manner when they are not sure of how to classify their target.

    Do you label the target a criminal before or after an operation? How do you know that he is a criminal without interrogating him? Do you label someone a criminal by the company he unintentionally keeps or for sharing unknowingly the same quarters with suspected criminals? In this instant case, the SSS went to the Apo building based on what it called the intelligence it received that Boko Haram suspects were hibernating there. All the security men had in their heads as they went for the mission was that they were going after Boko Haram. Since the fear of Boko Haram is the beginning of wisdom, they were prepared to kill.

    In their haste to shoot anybody they came across, they forgot their rules of engagement. No matter the intelligence they might have gathered, they should have had it at the backs of their minds that those they were going after were civilians, whether Boko Haram or not. If they chose to forget that, our senators should not have made the same mistake. The SSS men may have a score to settle with Boko Haram and other insurgents, going by what happened to some of their colleagues in the hands of the Ombatse cult in Nasarawa State a few months ago, but that is not enough reason for them to behave like those people.

    If Boko Haram and other militias are losing their heads at will, our security operatives are expected to keep theirs to show that they have what it takes to do their kind of job. If we remember we got to this pass because the police lost their cool and killed Muhammed Yusuf, the Boko Haram leader, after he was arrested and handed over to them by soldiers in 2009. If soldiers could do that despite being trained to kill, why couldn’t the police, that are trained to be civil, restrain themselves in like manner? This is why I am shocked that some senators could defend the SSS’ action in killing in cold blood the Apo 8 on September 20.

    In defending the SSS, Chairman of the Joint Senate Committee on National Security and Intelligence and Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters, Senator Mohammed Magoro, who retired from the army as a general, said majority of the occupants of the Apo building cohabited with Boko Haram elements ”unknowingly”. In one breath, he described the SSS raid as ”necessary and timely” and in another, he said :”The conduct of the operatives leaves much to be desired”. Magoro was not done in his paradox of contradictions. Hear him : ”The death of eight people was not a case of extra – judicial killing but the action of an hastily executed operation”.

    I pray when you hastily execute an operation, what do you get? By now, with what happened in Apo on September 22, we all know the answer. It is sad that the Senate adopted the committee’s report. It is obvious that it did so because it felt that the lives of some of its principal officers were at risk, with the so – called Boko Haram elements as their neighbours. That is a wrong way to look at the issue. The Senate should have called the SSS to order instead of giving it the latitude to do something worse in future. The Senate, by its action, has unwittingly armed all our security agencies to engage in extra – judicial killing under the guise of ferreting out suspected criminals.

    The Senate should remember that a life is a life whether that of a prince or pauper. If the Senate deems it fit to protect its own why can’t it extend the same gesture to the commoners who voted its members to power. By its action, what the Senate is telling us is that we are only good at voting for them, but do not deserve to be protected when our lives are in danger from the very people we pay to secure us. May I commend to the Senate, these lines from Justice Chukwudifu Oputa’s verdict in a Supreme Court case in 1986 : ”In our system, it is better that nine guilty persons escape than that one innocent man is condemned”.

    Neither the Senate nor SSS gave the innocent in the September 20 tragedy the benefit of doubt. The SSS killed them and the Senate sanctioned the extra – judicial killings under the guise of fighting terrorism. Was he Magoro panel asked to look into acts of terrorism or to probe the Apo killings?

  • Black Africa’s deadly curse

    Some United Nations agencies, as well as some other voices in the international community, have for decades been making optimistic predictions to the effect that “the 21st century could be Sub-Saharan Africa’s century” or “Sub-Saharan Africa is showing signs of recovery and growth”. As a Black African, I wish sincerely that these things were true. But, at the same time, as a Black African, I know I must not lapse into self-deception about my own homeland – and that I must not lead any of my people into the folly of self-deception. This is our home and we know it is not doing well – that, in fact, it is in serious trouble.

    A few days ago, I spent a couple of hours watching a video on the current situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (or Congo-Kinshasa). The political storm that started in this country at independence, leading to the assassination of its first Prime Minister, to a major civil war, to a viciously corrupt military dictatorship, and then to an even larger second civil war, is by no means over. The rebel forces in this country are countless; most of them entrenched in the distant eastern provinces. The second major town of the Congo, the town of Kisangani in the eastern provinces, is in serious decline. In these places, all there is to see is nothing other than the stark face of poverty and barbarism. Camps of countless thousands of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) tell stories of human deprivation at its most extreme. These eastern provinces are separated from Kinshasa, the capital city of the Congo in the west, by thousands of Africa’s thickest forests. The Congo occupies a territory larger than the whole of Western Europe. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, that the government based in Kinshasa can do to bring order to the distant eastern provinces. The only arrangement that sustains the tenuous connection holding this country together is the presence of United Nations peace-keeping forces. If the justification for a country is that it ensures to its citizens life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, then the Congo does not qualify to be called a country at all.

    But on the political map of Black Africa, the condition of Congo-Kinshasa is not unique in kind; it is only unique in severity. Virtually all countries of Black Africa are in serious political troubles manifesting in various horrible conditions. Somalia completely lost hold on orderly governance in 1991, and it continues to live in that disorder till today. Only last week, the United Nations and the African Union agreed to increase the number of international peace-keeping forces in Somalia. After the earth-shaking horror of genocide in Rwanda in 1994, less and less is being heard about that country, and that makes a lot of people in the wider world assume that Rwanda has stabilized – but the world needs to look out. The military junta that took power after the 1994 genocide has continued to hold on to power by authoritarian means, and even some original members of the regime have had to flee from the country to save their lives – all of which cast a shadow on the future of this country. In Uganda, the military ruler who came to power in 1986 continues to hold on to power, intent on eliminating opposition and dissent by doing everything to weaken and break up the kingdom of Buganda, Uganda’s most developed nationality. Since 2011, Buganda and some other groups have been suing for secession, and confrontation between the government and these groups is increasing. In West Africa, United Nations forces were needed to restore some modicum of governance and political stability in the Ivory Coast in 2011, and that country is by no means showing any appreciable progress towards democratic and stable government. A military coup shattered the fragile stability of Mali Republic in late 2011, opening the gate to a secession move in Mali’s northern provinces, and then the emergence of a base for terrorism in those northern provinces – a terrorist base that potently began immediately to threaten most of West Africa, and that then called into action some serious French military intervention.

    The political hurricane goes on and on all over Black Africa, generating horrific destruction, loss of lives, and blood-curdling human deprivation and suffering. We Black Africans are only 15% of the population of the human race, but we consume probably up to 70% of international peace-keeping efforts on earth. Our sub-continent is the home of most politically displaced persons in the world – the largest refugee camps and internally displaced persons’ camps, where deprivation, starvation, sheer barbarous conditions, and death, reign supreme over the shattered lives of countless millions of our kinsmen.

    Some Nigerians hate to hear the truth; and they go into all sorts of intellectual gymnastics, and all sorts of romantic nonsense, in their attempts to reject the fact – that Nigeria’s history too is just a page in the destructive rampage of this Black African political hurricane. The Nigerian Federal Government set in motion the Nigerian phase of the horror story in 1962 when they embarked on an ill-advised venture to subdue the Western Region and stop its rapid march to progress. The disaster they set in motion did devastate the Western Region and stop its progress. But the hurricane they thus unleashed has swirled virulently over the face of Nigeria since then, producing military coups after military coups, assassinations after assassinations of important public officials, a sanguinary civil war that took the lives of millions of innocent folks, a long succession of ignorant and corrupt military regimes bent on promoting an ethnic agenda, and total destruction of all sense of proportion, all sense of order, and all sense of decency in the management of Nigeria’s affairs. Today, the chances are that Nigeria will break up – soon, probably very soon. More and more Nigerians are expressing the wish that Nigeria should break up, rather than that they and their children should continue to suffer in the hell that Nigeria has become. Even those politicians who are fabricating situations aimed at preserving Nigeria know that their efforts may soon be simply futile.

    When one considers this horrific political history of all of Black Africa, one cannot but ask two important questions. First, what is at the root of this Black man’s incapability to hold and properly manage the countries that European colonialists created and bequeathed to us? And second, what does the future hold in store for the Black man in Africa, and for these countries that we are messing around with? I intend to attempt answers to these questions in my next message.

  • Black Africa’s deadly curse

    Some United Nations agencies, as well as some other voices in the international community, have for decades been making optimistic predictions to the effect that “the 21st century could be Sub-Saharan Africa’s century” or “Sub-Saharan Africa is showing signs of recovery and growth”. As a Black African, I wish sincerely that these things were true. But, at the same time, as a Black African, I know I must not lapse into self-deception about my own homeland – and that I must not lead any of my people into the folly of self-deception. This is our home and we know it is not doing well – that, in fact, it is in serious trouble.

    A few days ago, I spent a couple of hours watching a video on the current situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (or Congo-Kinshasa). The political storm that started in this country at independence, leading to the assassination of its first Prime Minister, to a major civil war, to a viciously corrupt military dictatorship, and then to an even larger second civil war, is by no means over. The rebel forces in this country are countless; most of them entrenched in the distant eastern provinces. The second major town of the Congo, the town of Kisangani in the eastern provinces, is in serious decline. In these places, all there is to see is nothing other than the stark face of poverty and barbarism. Camps of countless thousands of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) tell stories of human deprivation at its most extreme. These eastern provinces are separated from Kinshasa, the capital city of the Congo in the west, by thousands of Africa’s thickest forests. The Congo occupies a territory larger than the whole of Western Europe. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, that the government based in Kinshasa can do to bring order to the distant eastern provinces. The only arrangement that sustains the tenuous connection holding this country together is the presence of United Nations peace-keeping forces. If the justification for a country is that it ensures to its citizens life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, then the Congo does not qualify to be called a country at all.

    But on the political map of Black Africa, the condition of Congo-Kinshasa is not unique in kind; it is only unique in severity. Virtually all countries of Black Africa are in serious political troubles manifesting in various horrible conditions. Somalia completely lost hold on orderly governance in 1991, and it continues to live in that disorder till today. Only last week, the United Nations and the African Union agreed to increase the number of international peace-keeping forces in Somalia. After the earth-shaking horror of genocide in Rwanda in 1994, less and less is being heard about that country, and that makes a lot of people in the wider world assume that Rwanda has stabilized – but the world needs to look out. The military junta that took power after the 1994 genocide has continued to hold on to power by authoritarian means, and even some original members of the regime have had to flee from the country to save their lives – all of which cast a shadow on the future of this country. In Uganda, the military ruler who came to power in 1986 continues to hold on to power, intent on eliminating opposition and dissent by doing everything to weaken and break up the kingdom of Buganda, Uganda’s most developed nationality. Since 2011, Buganda and some other groups have been suing for secession, and confrontation between the government and these groups is increasing. In West Africa, United Nations forces were needed to restore some modicum of governance and political stability in the Ivory Coast in 2011, and that country is by no means showing any appreciable progress towards democratic and stable government. A military coup shattered the fragile stability of Mali Republic in late 2011, opening the gate to a secession move in Mali’s northern provinces, and then the emergence of a base for terrorism in those northern provinces – a terrorist base that potently began immediately to threaten most of West Africa, and that then called into action some serious French military intervention.

    The political hurricane goes on and on all over Black Africa, generating horrific destruction, loss of lives, and blood-curdling human deprivation and suffering. We Black Africans are only 15% of the population of the human race, but we consume probably up to 70% of international peace-keeping efforts on earth. Our sub-continent is the home of most politically displaced persons in the world – the largest refugee camps and internally displaced persons’ camps, where deprivation, starvation, sheer barbarous conditions, and death, reign supreme over the shattered lives of countless millions of our kinsmen.

    Some Nigerians hate to hear the truth; and they go into all sorts of intellectual gymnastics, and all sorts of romantic nonsense, in their attempts to reject the fact – that Nigeria’s history too is just a page in the destructive rampage of this Black African political hurricane. The Nigerian Federal Government set in motion the Nigerian phase of the horror story in 1962 when they embarked on an ill-advised venture to subdue the Western Region and stop its rapid march to progress. The disaster they set in motion did devastate the Western Region and stop its progress. But the hurricane they thus unleashed has swirled virulently over the face of Nigeria since then, producing military coups after military coups, assassinations after assassinations of important public officials, a sanguinary civil war that took the lives of millions of innocent folks, a long succession of ignorant and corrupt military regimes bent on promoting an ethnic agenda, and total destruction of all sense of proportion, all sense of order, and all sense of decency in the management of Nigeria’s affairs. Today, the chances are that Nigeria will break up – soon, probably very soon. More and more Nigerians are expressing the wish that Nigeria should break up, rather than that they and their children should continue to suffer in the hell that Nigeria has become. Even those politicians who are fabricating situations aimed at preserving Nigeria know that their efforts may soon be simply futile.

    When one considers this horrific political history of all of Black Africa, one cannot but ask two important questions. First, what is at the root of this Black man’s incapability to hold and properly manage the countries that European colonialists created and bequeathed to us? And second, what does the future hold in store for the Black man in Africa, and for these countries that we are messing around with? I intend to attempt answers to these questions in my next message.

     

  • Constitutional dialogue: We need an arbiter

    He have passed through this way before. It is often the last resort of our past deceitful leaders. Motivated often by predilection for perfidious politics, they often come up with the idea of a national conference as a diversionary measure. It is a weapon freely used by Babangida, Abacha and Obasanjo not to enrich constitutional development, but to commit fraud. The nation got little joy from the conferences of 1988, 1994/95 and 2005. It is not therefore difficult to understand why President Jonathan, confronted with five months ASUU strike, facing local and international criticism over his corruption-ridden administration, and an intra-party PDP crisis that threatens his 2015 ambition, he has after four years of initial resistance to a call for a sovereign national conference to resolve the national question, suddenly changed his position without explanation.

    And for now the debate about the composition of delegates has pitched credible Nigerians with genuine concern for the health of our nation against government apologists and contractors. While Wole Soyinka has for instance suggested only elected representative of the people should be delegates, Dr Fasehun, leader of OPC militant group wants government and political parties exempted. While Ohaneze, the umbrella body for the Igbos wants equal representation of ethnic groups, the Arewa Consultative Forum has rejected the suggestion saying ethnic groups are not equal. While the Convener of the Yoruba Assembly, Gen. Alani Akinrinade (rtd), has suggested the adoption of the Pro-National Conference Organisation (PRONACO)’s 18 nationality region-structure for drawing the list of delegates, others have said the conference will be enriched if we have representative of NADECO, a body that is responsible for our current democracy.

    And still to tie the hands of President Jonathan who has publicly claimed he is never moved to action by public opinion, and who is known for tucking reports such as the Uwais electoral reform report and the Ribadu report of monumental fraud in the oil industry, that he and his party cannot exploit for political advantage, under his locker, others have suggested the involvement of United Nations representative, Britain, our ex-colonial master and other lovers of our country like ambassador Omowale Walter Carrington.

    And my sympathy lies with the last group. History is on their side. In the absence of the colonial master with a big stick, we have in the last 53 years proved incapable of producing an acceptable constitution to manage our affairs. And I think the time to stop hiding under sovereignty that died long before the age of globalization, the god the world worships today, and admit we need help is now.

    The starting point is to examine where we are coming from. Let us remember that at the height of our nationalist struggle to take over from the colonial masters, Britain had warned that it was their presence that guaranteed a measure of stability and that their departure ‘would mean for millions, a descent into the turmoil of warring sects’. This has long become a self-fulfilling prophesy. We have fought a civil war. We are currently engaged in another with Boko Haram. We are under the assault of ethnic irredentists’ sponsored militants. We are daily assaulted and assailed by armed robbers, kidnappers and thieving government ministers and lawmakers, all taking the form of warring sects as predicted.

    We can also note from insight that the golden era of our constitutional development was between 1946 and 1959. That was when the colonial masters held a big stick to ensure we behaved ourselves. The 1946 constitution which heralded in regionalism provided for unity in diversity and opened the way for participation of the nationalists and traditional rulers. The 1951 Constitution which they supervised created House of Representatives of 136 elected members, 68 from the north, 31 elected members and three members of the House of Chiefs from the West, and 34 elected members from the East. There was not just parity between the north and the south, provision for a bicameral legislature for the West and the North, was made, while the East was contented with a unicameral legislature.

    Similarly, with the supervision of the colonial masters, the 1953 London Constitutional Conference was without rancour as it allocated specific powers to the centre leaving the residual list for the regions. The 1957 Constitutional Conference paved the way for self-government for the West and the East without posing a threat to the North that was not ready. At the end, the British gave us a written constitution patterned after their own unwritten constitution that has endured only on convention for centuries.

    The question is why our written constitution collapsed in less than five years. The fault, we will discover, is not in our stars but in the character of our leaders like Tafawa Balewa, Nnamdi Azikiwe, Ahmadu Bello, Awolowo some of whom were motivated only by greed using their ethnic groups as cover.

    Of the three dominant groups, that have been used by the political elite to hold the nation to ransom since independence, the west and its true leaders have remained faithful to its preference for a federation of ethnic nationalities where each group can develop at its own pace without posing a threat to other federating members or to the overall health of the greater Nigerian nation. As for Ahmadu Bello and Balewa, the North would only be part of a federation where they could control 50% of member of the House of Representatives and the north remains unrestrained from imposing feudal control over areas conquered during the early 19th century jihad. They got everything they wanted under the British.

    The East and its leaders have remained the most ambivalent. Zik first canvassed for a unitary system. After becoming a late convert to federalism, Zik and the political elite from the East against the spirit of the 1951 Constitution attempted to take over the West through NCNC. After the first coup of January 1966, the East and its leaders attempted imposition of unitary system through Ironsi and when that also failed, it demanded a confederal arrangement with the East controlling the oil rich minorities.

    It was the greed of northern and eastern political elite to hold on to claimed conquered territories or areas mischievously regarded as ‘no man’s land’ that brought them into coalition in the first republic. It collapsed over sharing of booty from their adventure into Mid-west following NCNC’s takeover of the new region, which was followed by NPC dumping of NCNC as a coalition partner in favour of a fringe political party also from the same Mid-west region. It is the same greed that informed their coalition in the Second Republic which also collapsed over sharing of resources that rightly belong to others. It is the same greed that has sustained the East and the North in PDP in the last 14 years.

    From the discussion so far, it is obvious Nigerians don’t trust President Jonathan, the convener of the new conference, who has continued to behave as if he is elected to serve PDP.

    And what Nigerians have for their legislators who according to the president will decide the fate of the conference, is disdain. Widely regarded as the highest paid legislators in the world, Nigerians think they serve none but themselves.

    Cynical Nigerians think without the threat of a big brother, the outcome of the conference will be more of the same. And some have even predicted if the list of nominees for the proposed conference comes out tomorrow, it is likely going to be peopled not by Nigerian national icons like Soyinka, the Nobel laureate sought after by great nations of the world to proffer solution to mankind problems, Emeka Anyaoku, the world respected former Secretary General of the 53-nation Commonwealth, and our highly principled Col. Kangiwa Abubakar. In their places, they predict we will likely have entertainers like ubiquitous Ebenezer Babatope, Ojo Maduekwe and Jerry Gana.

    Why then should we be ashamed to seek help after groping in the darkness for over 50 years (1963-2013) – those who believe we need the help of Britain have asked. If you ask me, I will say why not?

  • Lamido’s persecution

    Lamido’s persecution

    Last month, on November 15, to be specific, President Goodluck Jonathan took a direct shot across the bows of Governor Sule Lamido’s ship in an apparent warning to the governor to reconsider his long running confrontation with the president over the 2015 presidential elections in which both have staked their claims. On that day, two sons of the governor, Mustapha and Aminu, were picked up by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), for allegedly laundering over N10 billion through several banks in which the state holds major accounts.

    Officially, the EFFC does not take orders from the president – or from anyone else for that matter. But this is only in theory. In practice it soon became notorious under President Olusegun Obasanjo, President Jonathan’s seemingly estranged benefactor who created it ostensibly to fight corruption in high places, as his battle tank for squaring and squashing opposition elements in and out of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party.

    As a good student of his erstwhile godfather it seems President Jonathan has since learnt to put the commission to good use in self-service, all in the name of fighting corruption. Ask Governor Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State and former governor, Timipre Sylva, of the president’s home state, Bayelsa, both of whom have attracted the president’s great disaffection. Governor Lamido is thus only the latest among several of those to have attracted EFCC’s attention more for their politics than for mis-governance.

    Lamido’s offence, it seems, is not only his expression of interest in the presidency. Recently, he suggested in an interview with an Abuja based radio station, Vision FM, that the president protected a corrupt minister by refusing to act on information he gave the president that the minister had collected a $250 million bribe from an oil firm. This provoked an angry retort from the president who, through his spokesman, Dr. Reuben Abati, said the governor’s allegation was “patently bogus” and “an unacceptable and callous attempt to unjustly impugn the integrity of President Jonathan and cast aspersions on the seriousness of his administration’s efforts to curb corruption.”

    EFCC’s picking up of the governor’s sons last month was clearly an attempt to demonstrate to the world that the governor was going to equity with very dirty hands.

    That EFCC’s action was triggered more by politics than by any concern of the president about corruption will be obvious presently. Before examining the facts, however, I should make it clear that this is not in defence of the governor against the allegation of using his sons to defraud his state.

    Jigawa, as we all know, was created in 1991. Between then and now it has had seven governors, four military and three civilians. Sandwiched between the first two military governors, one under General Ibrahim Babangida who created the state and the other under General Sani Abacha who threw out Babangida’s transition government of Chief Ernest Sonekan in November 1993, Governor Ali Sa’ad Birnin Kudu, its first civilian governor, did not enjoy much resources nor had much time nor much room for initiative to make a significant difference in the state.

    The next civilian governor, Ibrahim Saminu Turaki, did enjoy all three factors: less than two years into the fully-fledged civilian dispensation under President Obasanjo, oil money, which the country’s treasury has depended heavily upon for its revenue, became no longer an object, as oil price soared through the sky; the governor had eight years to transform the state with the state’s statutory allocation; and as civilian governor he was, at least in theory, a co-ordinate, rather than a subordinate, of the big man at the centre in the governance of the country.

    As we all know, Turaki, like so many of the governors during the first eight years of the current civilian dispensation, was a disaster. The man, as we all know, hardly sat at home to work. Instead, he spent so much time globetrotting he could not make any significant impact on his state. And, as he himself testified in the course of his yet to be concluded long running prosecution by the EFCC, he used a considerable portion of his revenue allocation, under duress he said, to help fund President Obasanjo’s infamous Third Term agenda.

    Enter Sule Lamido in 2007. Anyone who had been to the state since then, as I have, would agree that the difference between Jigawa before Turaki and Jigawa under Lamido is the difference between night and day. Dutse, the state’s sleepy capital, for example, has since become home to its civil servants who, before Lamido, used to go to work daily from Kano. And except, of course, they never meant what they said, all very important visitors to the state, including President Jonathan, have had only praise for the way the governor has vastly transformed its infrastructure in education, housing, health and road network, among others.

    So even if in the end it turns out that the governor used his sons to steal from his state, at least he has some mitigating circumstances for his alleged action. This much, I am afraid, cannot be said of many states in the country, including the president’s home state, Bayelsa, where incredibly huge gaps exist between the levels of development and the resources that have accrued to those states.

    This does not, of course, mean Lamido’s sons should not be prosecuted and their father exposed as someone who preaches what he does not practice. By all means prosecute them if you have a prima facie case against them and expose their father as a hypocrite if you can prove it.

    What, however, Lamido’s almost universally acclaimed performance means is that there are many, many, many more deserving cases for EFCC’s attention than the governor’s. Anyone with even the most casual acquaintance with Nigeria’s political-economy can reel off at least a dozen such cases before you can say the C word. But the three examples that follow are enough to prove the fact that Lamido’s case is by far more politics than about the president’s concern for good governance and transparency.

    Easily the most glaring of such cases is that of Malabu Oil and Gas, reportedly controlled by Chief Dan Etete, a former Oil minister under General Abacha. According to several newspapers, including The Economist (June 15) of London, two years ago, a consortium of Shell and Eni/Elf which had controversial stakes in the oil well, OPL 245, paid nearly $1.1 billion to Malabu, reportedly on orders of the president, as settlement over a long running dispute with Malabu on the ownership of the lucrative oil well.

    The payment was made to Malabu against the background of the fact that Etete had been a fugitive from France convicted in the country for money laundering in 2007 – a conviction upheld in 2009, following his appeal. The payment was also made against the background of the fact that EFCC was yet to conclude its investigation of an allegation that Etete had fraudulently acquired the company.

    According to Premium Times (September 30), an investigative online newspaper, the former minister, in turn shared the money paid to his company into several dubious accounts, some of them owned by close political associates of the president’s.

    Clearly this payment, which the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation, Mohammed Bello Adoke, tried to rationalise away during a public hearing of a House committee investigating the deal, as voluntary with government acting only as an “obligor” and “facilitator”, reeked to high heavens of the worst form of cronyism, to put it mildly. Even more clearly Lamido’s N10 billion alleged corruption pales into insignificance compared to Malabu’s $1.1 billion, which comes to nearly N184 billion.

    Second, there was an earlier case of the president versus a publication called Spynet Magazine. In its maiden edition in August 2007, it accused him of perjury in declaring his assets and liabilities during his tenure as deputy governor and governor of Bayelsa, and eventually as vice-president under Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, as demanded by the Constitution. Days after the publication its premises were ransacked by the State Security Services and its editors detained. To date nothing more has been heard of the case. Not even after the president has angrily told the public, following persistent demands that he declares his assets and liabilities publicly as was done by his predecessor even though the Constitution does not demand such public declaration, that he doesn’t “give a damn” what the public thought of his refusal to do so.

    Finally, there is the case of the paradox of worsening insecurity in the land, especially from Boko Haram insurgency, in the face of the huge budgetary allocation to our security forces since 2009. One glaring illustration of this is the fact that the Army Chief, Lt-General Azubuike Ihejirika, has lately been complaining of an under armed and under equipped military confronting Boko Haram. The paradox is, however, not surprising, considering credible allegations that one security institution recently spent over N600 million to construct an artificial grass football pitch for the recreation of its staff!

    By all means let the EFCC go after each and every thieving government official and his relations and cronies, if the commission has good cases against them. However, since it has neither the time nor resources to do so, equity demands that it begins with the more glaring cases.

    Surely all three cases above are much more demanding of the EFCC’s attention than Lamido’s case. When the commission is seen clearly to pick and choose mostly cases of only those perceived as opposition elements, it can only open itself and the presidency it reports to through the minister of Justice and attorney general of the federation, to accusations that it is merely fighting a selective, and therefore futile, war against corruption.

  • Dumping the Humpty Dumpty

    For Olatunji Dare

    A novel proposal, clearly borne out of frustration. Just as the quality of national leadership continues to have a free fal, quality of management of public institutions has gone to the dogs. The interests in elections are so profound and diverse that even your panacea of privatization will be a victim too.

    …travesties of the plebiscitary principle’ Anonymous

    Dare the wordsmith! Honestly these are the best of times in Nigeria. They are bringing out the best of our fine columnists like you. Keep it up my brother. Some of us will be richer for it. Anonymous

    In as much as I’m not a polician, I am forced to say that your tabloid is too partisan and ethnical.Mr. Dare, Prof. Jega is in control of millions. Are you in successful control of your little family.To me national interest surpasses tribal interest. Anonymous

    Re: Comment & Debate; Weep for Nigeria. Weep for the leadership. Weep for the followership. The flood of tears therefrom may not clean the Augean Stable. I agree with you. Try wholesale privatisation. Too too bad for Nigeria in all facets. Too too bad! From Tayo Ogungbemile.

    It is going to be a shame to INEC if at the end of the day, the court nullifies the election. It must happen because Anambra poll is jagajaga by Jega. Anonymous

    RE-A NEW PARADIGM FOR THESE TIMES. Only God Almighty will help resolve Nigeria’s political malady! The Anambra debacle, retrieval of power by old ACN in Osun , Ekiti and Edo from the PDP as well as the shambolic power-seizure at Offa, Kwara State by the PDP are all testimonies of regional-ethnic politics of we must win in our base, our region. Also recall the hijack of the chairmanship and councillorship rerun where PDP wrongfully won all! The issue in Anambra is beyond Attairu Jega. Regional politics and regional success had resurrected. From Lanre Oseni.

    In conclusion the electoral body (lNEC) should be overhauled for effective performance in 2ol5,in regard to what happened in just ended anambra state gubernatorial,where irregularities mauled the election.it is up to prof jega to resign,if he is not capable.gordon chika nnorom,umukabia,abia Inconclusion the electoral body(lNEC) should be overhaul for effective performance in 20l5; in regard to what happened in the just-ended Anambra gubernatorial election where irregularities marred the election, it is up to Prof Jega to resign if he is not capable. From Gordon Chika Nnorom, Umukabia, Abia

    Sir, When the people who are at the top are displaying the worst norms, especially for those who are young and who do not have the right idea of what it should be, then obviously we’ll be going backwards instead of going forward. The problem is, we speculate so much about the ideal that most of the time, we do not relate our speculations to practical life. It is impossible to have genuine elections in a society where many people are under pressure inclining them to what is wrong. If the society is fair and just, it is more likely that the individual who lives in it will live fairly and justly. From Adegoke O O, Ikhin, Edo State.

    Dare, “A new paradigm for these times” was not only wonderful in its historical analyses but also in comical contents with the most being your subtle suggestion to privatise electoral processes. I could imagine the magnitude of rigging and the gravity of insurgency and permissive killing of voters and election officials with reckless abandon. Surely, no party would emerge winner and no government put in place. If Jega would like to leave any legacy behind, he should make available to Nigerians, voters register, as amended, on annual basis geo-poltically, in senatorial modus, so that Nigerians could be privileged to know whether or not they have been duly and properly registered. The same exercise should be done for state elections in polling booths format and the cost deducted from monthly allocations of the state involved. This I figure would remove most of the problems in elections.From LAI ASHADELE, LAGOS.

    12. Integrity is the essence of everything successful in life. Jega’s integrity has been compromised by the powers that be. I want Jega to understand that he cannot prevent the birds of sadness from passing over his head, but he can prevent them from making nests in his hair. If Jega wants his integrity to be sustained, the best thing to do is to cancel the Anambra election and reschedule another one. Hamza Ozi Momoh Apapa Lagos

     

    For Segun Gbadegesin

    Apostle Segun of APC, I read through your implosion and it sounds so supportive of the ingrates called G7 defectors. In Nigeria, individuals change parties and not the other way round. APC would never make the G7 governors saints overnight. Well, it could be that the PDP deliberately sent them (the G7 governors) into APC only to distablise them. I trust the G7 governors for that. From Mr Vic Marine. From Port Harcourt.

    Whether the President suffered from hang over or he was indisposed according to Reuben is none of my business; all we want is for the President to realise that the whole world is watching. Nigeria has become marching carpet for the whole world that anybody can just open his or her mouth and talk. Nigerians should rise up agaist this unfocused government before it is too late. From Hamza Ozi Momoh Apapa Lagos

    You were my H.O.D 1986-89. In your“An implosion” THE NATION Nov 29, you sounded more like an active APC member. I thought you would’ve told us where PDP had a plus and where they failed. And then score APC against PDP shortfall. I’m the MD of BB&DAVEEGO LTD PH. From David Adegbaju

    Re-An Implosion. The recent implosion by G7-G5 of nPDP, is a lesson to all the political parties that godfatherism could end at an unexpected time hence, no permanent godfatherism and no permanent servitudism. It is happening in another old major political party joined in the formation of APC. Another lesson learnt in the implosion is that much more of self-interest matters in cross-carpeting of defectors as well as the godfathers otherwise, why would some godfathers jettison internal democracy and lord some sitting governors on the people for second term? With all of them running pillar to post, same implosion can hit and hurt when it matters most. From Lanre Oseni.

    An implosion; The umbrella was a coverage for evil-corruption while the broom is designed for change-sweep out. There is a wind of change. Nigeria is ripe for change. This is the beginning of the end. Every secret agenda shall b exposed. PDP is fallen. A house divided against itself can never stand. This is nothing but divine intervention. Expect more! Anonymous.

    A lost dog will never listen to the whistle of it master.PDP has shot its self on the leg for allowing the crisis to escalate to this extent. There is no champion for ever , that is the philosophy of life which some PDP members did not understand. From Hamza Ozi Momoh Apapa Lagos

    For Gbenga Omotoso

    With this, let all Nigerians put sentiments aside, Yoruba, Ibo, Hausa, Ijaw, Fulani etc and vote by 2015 fro a leader who has vision and mission. Time is NOW. From Anorue Kenneth -Imo State

    Nigeria is gradually changing. Only those who have chosen to live in the past pretend not to know this.Anambra governorship election has exposed the dirty rumps of those who say that APGA is Igbo party. How can a party resort to infantile rigging in an area where it should allow a free and fair election in order to showcase its acceptance and popularity among the people? Calling APC Yoruba party is cheap propaganda that has since outlived its potency. If Yoruba is in Nigeria and a ‘Yoruba party’ is ready to extricate Nigerians from the vicious and purposeless governance of the PDP, why can’t we support them? Who wouldn’t like what is happening in Lagos and Imo State to be replicated across Nigeria? The truth is that the entire South-east is fed up with APGA,which is a branch of the PDP; they wanted to show it in Anambra election before their will was sabotaged by INEC. From Ifeanyi O.Ifeanyi, Abuja.

    You have say it all. Mr President’s recovery rate was questionable. Is only hangover “challenges” that one recovers fast. For INEC, the Anambra case is just a test for 2015. APC should as a matter of urgency, get anti -rigging machines or else, they should forget it. From Alh. Musa

    Bro Gbenga, I have lived in Ilorin all my life, the defection of the Sarakis to APC is a minus for the party; he would cause problem in the party. From Olusola

    My brother, APC like the old medicine is just a first aid treatment, it has no basis, the foundation is shaky because all their members are former members of one party or the other. Anonymous

    God bless you for that write-up on the back page of The Nation of Thursday Nov 28. Nigeria’s leaders are not patriotic and are not committed to genuine development. Nigerians are not living but are only existing because the merciful God has given us the air to breath. l beg to advice that people like Bamanga Tukur and Edwin Clark should retire from active politics. From Abdulrahman Zikeyi Eneware, Trofani, Sagbama LGA, Bayelsa State.

    We heard every thing about their defection, that is the five governors. Well it is good for their own interest. What I am saying is PDP, APC, LP or any party, all are the same. Afterall everybody is fighing for position. Everybody struggling to send their children overseas, private universities, political positions and so on. Those governors are angry because maybe the party did not dance to their tune. And let me say here that when a new party comes on board to rule, they will first of all fill their pocket before they can think of any person. That will take years and the masses will continue to suffer. Personally, I am suggesting a one party system. Thanks. Anonymous

    Omotosho, I have read your article on P.64 of The Nation. From your piece there no doubt you are an APC sympathiser. I am an indigene of Anambra State and resident therein. I took part in the election of Nov.16. Your so-called candidate has absolutely no chance of winning that election. He misused his chance and developed only his own LGA -Idemili North and South. Moreover he did not provide any CV. His APGA counterpart had his CV published by Daily Times. Anonymous

    Mr Omotoso, your Editorial Notebook of 28/11/13 is great but you certainly had a hangover until you got to paragraph 10. For,I don’t know what Abati rammed into your head to make you see anything good in Goodluck. Remember the future of your wonderful children and ignore this ‘worldly kolas ‘.You are brilliant though; I will still read your essays. My phone indicates my text was delivered. Anonymous

    Re-needful hangover from above. I disagree with some Nigerians on insinuations! So hangover was their thought and not over-work? President do not look back. Do not be discouraged. Ride on with transforming the nation to a safe destination. Leave this Stella Oduah alone. There are worse rogues in panelists trying her. Blame not Prof Jega. Our regional politicking made Obanikoro Jnr not rule Ikoyi/Obalende chairmanship. Why Anambra? APGA must also win at all cost! G7-G5 versus PDP equals Dog eat dog. Lanre Oseni.

     

    For Tunji Adegboyega

    Re: Dumping the Humpty Dumpty. The last two paragraphs of your write-up were facts, factual and food-for-thought! If politics were to be a profession of discipline in Nigeria, I least expected the APC, a fusion of CPC and AC, etc. who once regarded themselves as a disciplined and better alternatives to have accepted ‘seeds’ infected into their clean ones. This portrays the APC as a desperate association aiming at dances without drumbeats. … One thing is clear: this nation will achieve her sanity, freedom and growth after 2019 elections. Then, we would be at peace! For now, till 2018, nothing concrete will change. From Lanre Oseni.

    PDP is a rotten wooden bridge that is about to scatter. The death of the ruling party is what every Nigerian should be celebrating because it is long overdue. PDP now is like a half dead snake that swallowed a poisonous frog, still struggling beside the road. May its gentle soul rest in perfect peace and may we not see or hear the name again (Amen). From Hamza Ozi Momoh, Apapa, Lagos.

    Governor Amaechi and Co. who decamped to APC is good for democracy and a welcome move to have a strong opposition party to criticise the ruling party against the backdrop of bad governance. It will make the ruling party sit up. From Gordon Chika Nnorom, Umukabia, Anambra State.

    It means that the defecting governors were rigged into power by the PDP and they saw nothing wrong with that, as they are enjoying their positions as governors even till now. If the APC is for repentant politicians and former coup plotters, what about restitution? Your paper is not the Bible or Quran, therefore, you can only make the costly error of scoring your friends high with very dangerous bias. The reading public will soon come to terms with this and place you where you rightly belong. Rivers people will one day ask questions about how Amaechi became the new bride of the west and north without spending their money where it was not earned. We are sure that you will leave him to face his people when the madness saturates. All of you know that the day of reckoning will come and you would have developed pot bellies. We pity the young lad confused by those that never loved his people. Anonymous.

    Tunji, I quite agree with you and only time shall tell. We will soon as a country be facing the reality of time. From Engr. Mohammed Haruna.

    Dear Tunji, in two weeks time, David Mark would be panting, and by the middle of January 2014, another set of five governors shall join APC to give it clear majority and Jonathan would be laid bare… The action shall sail thorough because the people wish it so. From Akin Malaolu.

  • Where is the love? We, the people, must stop this 2014 vehicle tariff policy

    Where is the love? We, the people, must stop this 2014 vehicle tariff policy

    Today, mournfully, let 100+m honest Nigerians express righteous indignation and join ANA and ASUU members who attend or offer up an ‘Iyayi silence’ prayerfully to sympathise with the family during the funeral of late Professor Festus Iyayi today Dec 4. Let no one be in doubt about this most important funeral. ASUU is under threat and orders to resume work or face sack and proscription. We have travelled this road before. Does no one learn from history? Is ASUU over-demanding or is government arrogant? Certainly without ASUU struggles, the universities would be 100 times worse! If only secondary school teachers had such clout, the education foundation would never have deteriorated!

    After the funeral ASUU should note that the proposed vehicle tariff increase, will make nonsense of any agreement with government. Increasingly, the ogas at the top, government and NASS, wants to live in maximum ‘European luxury’ alone while the citizenry remains in penury at the bottom. They have government cars, car allowances, fuel or mileage allowances, air-conditioned toilets and bullet proof cars got by disenfranchising citizens. And the private sector is not far behind with the DISCOS and GENCOS planning to cancel prepaid metres which honest Nigerians were forced to pay N45,000+ for. Remember the compulsory answering machine before being allocated a phone? Was that under Minister David Mark who said that phones were not for the poor? Enough.

    Ethiopia has a French-run wind farm which will generate 10,000Mw in Ethiopia. It cost $290m. The Nigerian 700km long seafront is available for renewable energy. Nigeria has the hottest weather in years but that solar energy is wasted. Countries with minimal sun have cities run with solar power. Is there a conspiracy against power in Nigeria? Certainly the satellite DSTV rates in Nigeria are perhaps the highest in the world at N11,000 + per month ie £44 or $68/month. Where is the ombudsman to protect the customer? What is the DSTV satellite TV tariff in South Africa or USA?

    Nigeria is yet to see citizens offered shares in the newly formed power giants, owned partly by most of the old boy military past presidents’ network.  It is like the days of oil blocks when no oil, cell phone or internet company appeared on the Nigerian stock exchange. It is a pity that government policies sell us as slaves and ‘commercial workers’ to feed the greed of big-man companies.

    Politicians and government officials must answer the question: WHERE IS THE LOVE YOU PROMISED NIGERIANS when you became President, Minister, National Assembly member or civil servant? Government is often very selfish people hiding under the toga of office with an agenda to DECEIVE AND DEPRIVE the citizen. Look at the Police checkpoints, LASTMA, YES-O and all uniformed services involved in entrapment of citizens and other bad behaviour!

    Now government plans increases tariffs on imported vehicles even though any new local cars are four years away. What government meeting decided that the best way forward for the automobile industry and easier transport is to increase the cost of imported vehicles? Nothing stops government from buying local vehicles. However the preferred vehicles are overpriced bulletproof. Are government officials jealous of other citizens in good cars? Already only politicians can have ‘tinted windows’. Is that not enough? In their tiny government minds, is the answer to the nationwide traffic jams and bad roads, putting cars out of reach?  Just imagine the effect on transportation costs for goods and Nigerians. Everyone will claim increased costs.  Nothing goes up by a fraction in Nigeria. It will be 100 or 200% or nothing. Fuel is transported in trucks so fuel prices will also go up. The domino effects of this economically detrimental weird transport system policy will cause economic trauma across society including all contracts, education, health, manufacturing, and consumer items. Everything will be affected negatively from food, pocket money, transport allowance for children and getting to work.

    This policy will negate CBN’s effort to control inflation. Is Governor Sanusi party to this attempt to cancel the questionable gains of CBN? I do not agree with his 12% baseline interest rates or his weak naira but he has some good ideas.

    Does President Jonathan not see this as the country being misled into executing a dangerous ill-thought-through policy? The policy has the elements of a perfect storm of malcontent, escalating costs and denial of cheap transport. It will bring his government into disrepute. All the questionable ‘gains’ of poverty alleviation strategies, Sure-P, ‘tight monetary control’, too high interbank interest rates, lifting people above a ‘dollar-a-day’ earnings and surviving massive political power abuse will be wiped out. It will wipe out any successes in youth empowerment as it will push millions back below the poverty line. It will negate any salary increments and ruin pension plans, earnings and it will increase rents. The ramifications are huge except for decision makers- they have government cars, petrol, food, drink, accommodation and multiple tax-free allowances.

    Every time we Nigerians adjust to cope with government leadership failure, a policy comes to rob us of our money and dignity. Do non-governmental, non-political Nigerians not deserve new cars? Can new cars and ‘Completely Knocked Down’ cars be built overnight especially in Nigeria? Will the vehicle shortage not further fuel inflation and make the locally produced vehicles cost more? Nigerians must brace for a fight or more government inflicted misery. Are we mumu or men and women?

  • FG, ASUU’s tango

    FG, ASUU’s tango

    For several months, the cloud gathered. Now, the bubble has burst with devastating tremor. And so, last week, the five-month-old dispute between the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, and the Federal Government finally degenerated into what might be a major conflagration. The new twist in the lingering dispute is the ultimatum handed down by the government, which directed all federal university vice-chancellors   to reopen their institutions for academic and allied activities. The government also declared that lecturers who fail to resume on or before today, December 4, risk losing their jobs.

    This development has elicited mixed reaction in the polity. Not only this. It has also put spanners in the works of progress made on the truce meeting between President Goodluck Jonathan and ASUU leaders. The meeting had raised the hope of students and parents on the final resolution of the impasse before the latest development. A gory accident on the Lokoja-Abuja Road on November 12, in which Festus  Iyayi, a Professor and former President of ASUU, lost his life, possibly delayed the suspension of the strike after the President met with ASUU leaders. Iyayi and some   members of the University of Benin chapter of the union were on their way to the Bayero University, Kano, for a meeting where the outcome of the meeting with Jonathan was to be tabled before the National Executive Committee members for consideration when he met his untimely death.

    ASUU had called off that meeting in honour of Iyayi. It later reconvened in Kano   to harmonise its position on the   offer made to it by the government. The meeting later came up with conditions for calling off the strike. Part of it was its demand for the payment of its members’ salary arrears and a commitment on   the part of the government to review the agreement in 2014.

    On November 25, the union wrote a letter which was addressed to the President through Nyesom Wike, the Supervising Minister of Education and demanded that the N200 billion agreed upon as 2013 revitalisation fund for public universities should  be deposited with the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN , and disbursed to the benefiting universities within two weeks;  that the renegotiation of the 2009 Agreement in 2014 be included in the final document as agreed at the discussion with the President; that a non-victimisation clause, which is normally captured in all interactions of this nature, be included in the final document; and that a new memorandum of understanding shall be validly endorsed signed by a representative of government, preferably the Attorney-General of the Federation, and a representative of ASUU, with the President of the Nigeria Labour Congress as a witness.

    But as students, parents and other stakeholders eagerly awaited the government’s decision on the demands, an over-enthusiastic Wike addressed a press conference last Thursday and ordered ASUU members to resume today or be sacked. To rub it in that the government meant business, Wike, who was blowing hot and cold at the conference, ordered the vice-chancellors to advertise the positions of those who failed to resume at the specified date. The supervising Minister said the government took the decision in the best interest of the country.

    If the past history of ASUU’s strikes is anything to go by, it is certain that this latest action by the government aimed at arm-twisting the striking lecturers could not have been done in the interest of the country. If anything, it has worsened an already bad situation. The ultimatum had shown that the government might not have been totally committed to the implementation of any of the resolutions it earlier reached with the union. That the lecturers could be so shabbily treated under a democratic government with a former university lecturer as head of that government shows the depth of political insincerity and lack of determination on the part of the government to rescue the nation’s education sector from the abysmal abyss it has sunk for many decades. This level of decadence is manifested in the poor turnout of university graduates who are not properly intellectually equipped for the challenges of their future careers.

    The result is that many of these graduates permanently roam the streets looking for jobs which are elusive in the first instance, and if available at all, they may not have been adequately prepared for them. That is why it has almost become the norm for employers of labour to conclude that many of our graduates nowadays are unemployable. It might sound ridiculous, but those who are in positions to employ these graduates know better.

    Anyway, now that the government has decided to clamp down on the lecturers, it is left to be seen how this threat would hinder ASUU’s determination to ensure that the universities are well funded and standards raised. It is a pity if the federal government is not willing to perfect the resolutions reached with the union. This is why people find it difficult to trust Nigerian leaders. How can the government be threatening to sack lecturers when, in actual fact, the universities are said to be short-staffed by almost 60,000? This was probably why Professor Osarieme of the University of Lagos who spoke on Channels TV main news hour recently, said that the government’s ultimatum reminded her of the military era which ended 14 years ago.

    Perhaps, Osarieme could not fathom the reason the government ordered them back to the lecture rooms with fiat like Kindergarten School children. That type of a setting was under the military dictatorship which terminated in 1999 with the ushering in of this democratic dispensation, which the country is still struggling with. No thanks to our politicians whose attitude and behaviour have placed them among the world’s worst, selfish, visionless leaders in history. The military tried the same arm-twisting tactics and it failed many times. I am sure this one will go the way of the previous ones.

    With the latest development, the government’s commitment to its promises has come under serious doubt. Even if ASUU says since it was agreed at the meeting that N200 billion is for 2012 and 2013 revitalisation, the government should, therefore, deposit the money in the coffers of the CBN, the government should have found a more decent way around it. ASUU is also saying that a non-victimisation clause should be inserted as agreed while the renegotiation of the 2009 Agreement should be included as agreed with the President. I do not, by any stretch of imagination, see the conditions as being too much for a sincere government to agree to.

    The problem, as I see it, is not Jonathan per se, but the colony of wheeler-dealers in government who will stop at nothing to hoodwink him to toe their selfish path. The combative position adopted by Wike on this matter, though consistent with his behaviour in recent times, especially in the frosty relationship between the Presidency and Rotimi Amaechi, the governor of Rivers State, is both reprehensible and condemnable to say the least. With a person like Wike as a minister, we are doomed in this country. And to discover that Julius Okojie, a Professor and Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission, was comfortably seated where the Minister was reeling out his abominable vituperations on the lecturers in what many have termed an ‘Area Boy’s show’, smacks of collusion with the government to ridicule the lecturers. I thought Okojie should have known better and appropriately advise the government on how to go about the whole issue.

    I am lost as to how Wike concluded that ASUU was making outrageous demands from the government. The onus is on government to address the issue ASUU sent to it in the letter, and from the contents that have been made public; they are not demanding anything extra. Wike and his cohorts should know that under successive military dictatorships, such threat to sack lecturers   did not work. What the government has simply done is to set the stage for another tortuous path to prolong the strike that should have been called off by now if the government did not engage in unnecessary bravado.

  • New turn in Nigerian politics

    New turn in Nigerian politics

    In the annals of political engagement, only in the rarest of circumstances does it happen that persons elected to high office on the platform of the ruling party and wielding the enormous powers of that office defect in large numbers to the Opposition.

    Nigeria may be the country of “anything goes.” But even there, that kind of migration was inconceivable — until last week, when five PDP governors defected to the APC.

    It is already one for the history books even if the PDP manages to stanch the widely anticipated migration in the weeks ahead of more governors, a raft of senators, and members of the House of Representatives, and of local government councils.

    No admirer of the self-styled largest political party in Africa, I confess to being smitten with schadenfreude. For, even at its least repellent, the PDP was more concerned with sharing the spoils of office than advancing the public welfare. Not even its most devoted followers have ever accused it of being imaginative. It has bred mass discontent and mass disillusionment

    It conducted itself as if it was an extension of the Presidency, wielding the wide powers of that institution without correlative restraint and responsibility. In relating to the rank and file, its senior officials behaved like schoolyard bullies. Having held power by hook or crook virtually unchallenged for 14 years, it had grown supinely complacent and developed an overweening sense of entitlement – the classic symptoms of regime fatigue.

    When key elected officials desert the protective ambience of The Umbrella and risk the petulant vindictiveness of the ruling party and its opulent agent, the Federal Government, for uncertain prospects in the Opposition, you know that a tectonic shift has occurred in the political landscape.

    Where it will lead is yet unclear. The new Opposition is an amalgam of political formations whose orientations span the entire ideological spectrum. Taking the situation in Kwara as an example, the amount of house-cleaning that it will first have to undertake will put it to the severest test.

    There, some two months ago, elements of the old PDP, with the active connivance of the state’s electoral commission, brazenly stole the re-rerun local government election in Offa, the state’s second-largest city and a stronghold of the APC. Several weeks later, it went on to stage state-wide local council elections, despite a subsisting court petition. The APC boycotted the poll, and the old PDP celebrated the outcome as yet another landslide victory.

    What is going to happen, now that those same elements of the old PDP have migrated en mass to the APC as decreed by the former governor and now Senator Bukola Saraki who, as chair of the Nigerian Governors Forum, had unsuccessfully sought the PDP’s presidential ticket?

    Before the grand defection, Dele Belgore, the senior attorney, was widely perceived as Kwara’s governor-in- waiting. As candidate of the now defunct Action Congress of Nigeria, he made a strong showing in the last gubernatorial election in Kwara. To this day, a substantial body of opinion in the state believes that he was robbed. If he secured the APC’s ticket for the next round, the election would be his to lose.

    Now, that calculus has become more complicated. With Bukola Saraki personally leading the mass migration of PDP members into the APC, and with his hand-picked successor Abdudlfatah Mohammed sure to seek a second term as governor, what awaits Belgore and his associates who had nurtured the ACN/APC and had been persecuted for their exertions?

    The situation in Kwara applies in other states, to a greater or lesser extent. Resolving it without rancour is not beyond the ingenuity of all those who fashioned the new coalition, but it is going to be a severe test.

    I was also concerned about how former Osun State governor Olagunsoye Oyinlola, the embattled secretary of the PDP and secretary, until its dissolution, of its breakaway faction, the new PDP, would fit into the latest arrangement.

    Apparently sensing the incongruity, he declared that he had not defected to the APC. With the merger, his post as national secretary of the new PDP no longer existed. But he remained national secretary of what is left of the PDP, he said. For his pains, the PDP, ramped up his suspension into expulsion.

    A war of words reminiscent of politics in the Second Republic – and indeed of the election at Eatanswill, recorded for the ages in all its hilarity by Charles Dickens in the Pickwick Papers –has since broken out between Oyinlola and his estranged protégé, Professor Wale Oladipo, who replaced him as PDP national secretary.

    I cannot repeat what Oladipo has said about Oyinlola’s mental state, or what Oyinlola said about Oladipo’s groveling ways without courting a writ of libel, especially from Oyinlola who is a qualified lawyer and has a partiality for litigation. If there are any adults still left in the room, would they kindly arrange an armistice? Where have you been, Tony “The Fixer” Anenih?

    Meanwhile, the grand coalition is gathering momentum. If this grand coalition coheres and endures, and if it is not just a vehicle for wresting power from the PDP and thereafter carrying on business as usual, it has the potential to set Nigeria on the path of real transformation. Even if it does not supplant what remains of the PDP as the ruling party, it will at least have positioned itself as a credible alternative. The enthusiasm with which it has been welcomed in many parts of Nigeria is a good augury.

    The chief architects of the grand coalition, Muhammadu Buhari and Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, deserve high praise for their vision, leadership, commitment, and tenacity, not forgetting their associates who toiled and are toiling even now behind the cameras and the headlines to hammer out the details of the historic merger.

    It must be accounted a mark of Nigeria’s growing political maturity that the coalescence of the groups making up the Opposition has not been portrayed by the news media as a “gang –up” and that the seven state governors who pitched their tents in the breakaway faction of the PDP were called the G7—the Group of Seven – rather than the Gang of Seven.

    In the Shagari era, the national television and radio networks and the NPN’s client newspapers would have pilloried the defectors and called them the most censorious names. Only Chris Ngige is receiving that treatment at this time, for the atrocious crime of seeking on the platform of the APC to be governor of Anambra State – the state in which he was elected senator under the banner of the ACN, and of which he was once PDP governor.

    Now, in his latest foray, some ethnic warriors enjoying privileged media access are casting him as an “agent” of Fulani/Yoruba elements bent on invading Anambra and lording it over the Igbo in their own homestead, with yet another allusion to the “deportation” of their kinsmen from Lagos as proof, were any still required, of the perfidy of the new coalition.

    In the wake of the “deportation” saga, they berated Yoruba indigenes of Lagos, which they impudently called “no man’s land,” for sticking with their traditional “oro” rites against the demands of “modernity,” and to the great inconvenience of the diverse elements that make up the population.

    The two positions — APC gubernatorial candidate Chris Nigige, an authentic Igbo, as an “agent” of rank outsiders and hence unworthy of election, and the subsistence of “oro” rites in the “no man’s land” called Lagos as an inconvenience to the non-native residents that must be discontinued – are all too emblematic of a political mindset summed up by the phrase: “What is mine is mine but what is yours is ours.”

    They do not bode well for building bridges of understanding and mutual respect.

  • Kokori deserted as JTF, Kelvin’s gang battle for control

    Kokori deserted as JTF, Kelvin’s gang battle for control

    The Joint Task Force (JTF), Operation Pulo Shield, has uncovered an armoury of the suspected kidnap kingpin and leader of the Liberation Movement of Urhobo People (LiMUP), Kelvin Ibruvwe (aka Oniarah), in Koko, Ethiope East Local Government Area of Delta State.

    The discovery of the weaponry followed an intense push by men of the Sector 1 Command of the JTF to rid the Urhobo town of remnant of the ragtag army purportedly led by Ibruvwe, who was arrested in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, on September 25.

    The Nation learnt that no fewer than 10 of Kelvin’s gang members, including his second and third in-command, Mr. Rufus Ovwigho (aka Don Jazzy), who succeeded Kelvin after his arrest and Ezegbe Ogheneruno (aka Commander Kelly) had been killed since the operation to rid the area of criminals began.

    Also, 12 members of the gang, including a member of the team which abducted a security expert, Dr. Ona Ekomu, have been arrested.

    A dilapidated storey building located off Market Road in the heart of the town was captured by the JTF during a bloody shootout, which lasted from the early hours of last Thursday till Saturday.

    The volume of arms and ammunition recovered from the building could not be ascertained, but our visit to the town yesterday showed that troops have taken over control and secured it with no fewer than 10 military checkpoints manned by stern-looking soldiers in strategic locations.

    The Commanding Officer of the 3 Battalion, Lt.-Col. Ifeanyi Otu, who spoke with reporters in the deserted town yesterday, said the internal security operation to rid the area of criminal and ensure security of life, property and to create a conducive environment for lawful activities had been carried out.

    He said: “This internal security role has been carried out by the synergy of officers and men of the services, mainly the Army, the Navy, the Air Force and the Department of State Services (DSS).”

    Although Lt.-Col. Otu was silent on the number of casualty, if any, resulting from the bloody duels, a source in the team, which confronted the gang members, told our reporter that they were armed with sophisticated weapons and ammunition.

    “They (youths) took position on storey buildings and fired at us for several hours. It was clear that they wanted to regain control of the community. We overpowered them and tightened our hold,” the military source added.

    A community source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said at least two members of the gang were gunned down, while others, who sustained gunshot injuries, were taken away from the scene by their members.

    However, the JTF boss lamented the activities of some of the community’s leaders, who he accused of encouraging the criminal activities of the group, stressing: “The conspiracy of silence maintained by the community leaders and especially its elders fanned the embers of these criminals. It also encouraged the establishment of a kidnap/militant groups led by Kelvin Ibruvwe.”

    The Nation’s visit yesterday showed that Kokori had become like a ghost town as over 95 per cent of its inhabitants had fled the community in the wake of the recent bloody clashes between troops and members of the armed gang. Nearly all the houses in the communities’ main quarters were empty.

    Scenes of destruction and carnage dotted the town: windows and doors were smashed. Over 50 cars and motorcycles were either destroyed or burnt. One of the victims was said to be a visitor, who drove his girlfriend to the town on Friday. His car was burnt as used to barricade the main road leading to the Egba Shrine in the centre of the town.

    The shrine was still smouldering yesterday. JTF sources said troops were engaged in an hour-long gun fight with the gangs, who took cover at the shrine before they were overpowered. The shrine was believed to render the militants invincible and bulletproof.

    The masterminds of the latest destruction were a subject of debate between the community leaders and the JTF authority.

    Residents accused troops of looting shops and houses in the wake of the abandonment of the town by residents and criminals. One of the leaders, who spoke with our reporter, said his house was among those looted.

    However, Lt.- Col. Otu debunked the allegations, saying: “The allegation of destruction and looting of property by the troops is not true. The daily administration is closely monitored by five officers; discipline is maintained as one is not unaware of the possible fallout in an operation of this nature.”

    He said the allegations were meant to draw sympathy from those who knew nothing about what was going on in the town before the current situation, adding: “It is an attempt to undermine the good work the troops are doing in Kokori, aimed at restoring law and order in a community, which hitherto drifted towards anarchy.

    “The headquarters of Sector 1 under the command of Brig.-Gen. Pat Akem has the backing of the state government to maintain law and order and restore normalcy in Kokori. It is on record that the rate of kidnapping and armed robbery has reduced in Edo and Delta states following the ongoing operations,” he added.

    Otu appealed to the indigenes to cooperate with the troops in the ongoing operations to restore normalcy.