The Nation Newspaper

Category: Columnists

  • Yoked to the past

    Yoked to the past

    Two weeks after the announcement by Petroleum Minister, Diezani Alison-Madueke of the plan by government to sell the nation’s four refineries by the first quarter of 2014, there are enough signs already to suggest that the process is not guaranteed a smooth sail. As it appears, not even the horror of the reversal of an earlier sale of two refineries to Bluestar Consortium by the late President Umaru Yar’Adua, or the self-evident folly that flowed from that botched exercise would suffice to persuade those whose understanding of the times seems at best antediluvian to have a change of heart.

    I refer of course to the latest round of opposition mounted to the planned privatisation of the refineries by the Trade Union Congress (TUC) and the newly created multi-purpose vehicle– NUPENGASSAN – an amalgam of the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers, NUPENG, and the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria PENGASSAN.

    The indications are that a titanic battle lies ahead.

    Not surprisingly, it would be another instance in which emotions rather than reasons would rule the roost; the same old stuff about a patrimony that needs to be preserved for some future generation. And so the argument goes that simply because those refineries were built with millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money, everything must be done to preserve them as public entities even when it amounts to pouring scarce funds into bottomless hole.

    Here is how the TUC chieftain put it: “Other countries are building and maintaining refineries, what are you selling them to achieve? Is it to privatise them? What becomes of the workers and the assets? What becomes of the people whose land produces the oil? Are you going to sell to them as if Nigeria is not producing oil? Which of the OPEC countries will sell their refineries now? It is a development that workers will not accept just like that”.

    NUPENGASSAN on its part could not make its point without the usual threat to shut down the economy: “This planned outright sale is uncalled for; inimical to the economy and Nigeria as a nation…If government refuses to listen to the voice of reason, we will have no option than to do the needful – shut down the sector to protect these asets for generations unborn”.

    The problem with NUPENGASSAN and their likes is that they have simply refused to change. If their penchant to revert to their traditional default setting of antagonism is partly understandable given the history of their tortuous relationship with the government, their insistence on yoking the nation to the past, far from accceptable, is certainly not tenable in 2013. The point is, if only they would just take a step out of their comfort zones, they would find that the idea of elevating proprietorial issues over and above service delivery is long dated. Imagine defending such patently obsolete paradigm which puts everything other thing over above service?

    So, what’s their understanding of privatisation– stripping those aged complexes – bolts and nuts – and transferring them from their present locations to some fantasyland? Isn’t it about transferring them to better, more capable hands to enable their deliver on their rationale? What could be wrong with that? Isn’t somebody getting things muddled up here? Again, so much for the paranoia, what makes privatisation of the power sector desirable and the refinery not? And where is the evidence that some future administration would do better with the management of the refineries even when the facts of government’s legendary incompetence sticks out? And why should the interest of the unions override the collective interest of Nigerians?

    Imagine the costs being borne by the nation since TUC and their NUPENGASSAN fellow-travellers in the oppose-the-sale-train forced the hand of the federal government to abort what was possibly the best deal in the circumstance. It started with the $700 cheque returned to the Bluestar Consortium – a decision which although was quite popular then, was probably the dumbest, stupidest thing to do by a supposedly rational administration. Since then, the opportunity costs have grown to humonguos proportions. How many millions of dollars have been poured into the endless Turn Around Maintenance ever since? I wager that it would have exceeded that $700 million paid for the two refineries.

    Six years on, can anyone guarantee that the so-called prized assets would be worth anything near that $700 million?

    And now, courtesy of the presidential audit team on the refineries, we are even now learning that their performances are “sub optimal”, fit for the auction market! Yes, we have managed to poured billions of naira into the refineries for far less value all for the love of Grandpa’s piece of Oldsmobile! How about that as a fitting wage for prodigality?

    Now, if you ask me, it would hardly matter if the refineries are off-loaded into the market today. And I wouldn’t even bat an eyelid if the refineries are sold for a nominal price of one naira! Why should it matter that one money-bag with more cash than business buys up the carcass so long as he/she able to put it work? Who cares whether the fuel dispensed at the pump comes from Wazobia refinery so long as quality is guaranteed? Or would rather TUC and company prefer that the country continue to throw money into the hopeless entities? Is that what they want?

    Don’t ask me whether anything could be wrong with government establishing new refineries. First, it is late in the day. Secondly, its no use attempting to force an unwilling horse to drink. Moreover, the prospects of another refinery owned by the government must be seen as frightening indeed at this time. Apart from the fact that value for money at any point along the procurement chain would be a distant dream, it would most certainly end up as a museum piece – like the infamous four now locked in the battle to find willing suitors.

    We can only plead that TUC and NUPENGASAN take heart. One of the great lessons of the wave of globalisation is the futility of fighting it. As the far as the issue of the refineries’ privatisation goes, it’s as good as saying that the battle is lost; time to concentrate on the minor battle of process.

  • ASUU strike as subversion?

    ASUU strike as subversion?

    At the end of a very bad week, politically, for Mr. President, Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan made matters worse when he described the on-going strike action by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), as an act of subversion.

    The president’s comment came on the heels of an order by the supervising Minister of Education, Nyesom Wike that university teachers must resume work tomorrow or consider themselves sacked. While calling on the management of the universities to re-open the schools, Wike had accused ASUU of intransigence and sabotage.

    Sabotage, subversion, these are strong words that are often associated with military governments or dictatorships, and the usage of such words by a supposedly democratic government for a mere industrial action by aggrieved workers does suggest a hardening of position by a government that is either jittery or losing control and wants to reassert its authority by the use of force.

    The ASUU strike now in its 6th month has divided Nigerians down the middle. While one half is sympathetic, the other seems to harbor no sympathy at all for the university teachers. I belong to the latter group, but the way and manner the Federal Government has been handling the issue of negotiation with the union, especially the crude words of Wike and the unguarded (unfortunately) comment of Mr. President has sharply swung the pendulum of sympathy in favour of ASUU.

    The lecturers have suddenly emerged as heroes fighting for a better higher education system in Nigeria as against (in the belief of some) fatter remunerations, and the Jonathan administration as a bunch of unreliable negotiating partners.

    Failure on the part of government to implement the 2009 agreement it had with ASUU led the lecturers to go on strike on 1st of July and after another round of negotiation on how to implement the 2009 agreement, this time involving Mr. President, the lecturers are saying they have not seen anything to suggest government was committed to this new agreement and therefore would not return to work. But the Jonathan’s camp is saying it has done enough to convince the striking university teachers that the government is serious this time around and should on the strength of Mr. President’s words/assurances, have gone back to work.

    It is the rejection by ASUU of these mere verbal promises/assurances by the president that the minister is calling sabotage and Jonathan is describing as subversion. Now tell me where is the sabotage or subversion here? Once beaten as they say, twice shy. The Federal Government had promised ASUU in the past and failed, even with signed agreements, so what makes this verbal agreement different from previous ones? Was it because Jonathan was involved?

    If President Jonathan had wanted his words to be taken serious by ASUU, considering the recent history of failed promises to the union by government, he should have matched his words with immediate action and now leave ASUU with no other option than to call off the strike. But with a Federal Government that is lacking in integrity, nobody will take the president’s words to the bank.

    Worse still, we don’t even know the full details of the 13-hour meeting the president had with ASUU, so blaming the union and calling its action subversive is not the issue. Besides, such a hard line position by the government and the unguarded utterances of both the minister and (unfortunately) Mr. President show a poor understanding of the issues involved and the enormity of the problem(s) at hand.

    By ordering the authority at the universities to sack any lecturer that failed to resume work by the December 4 deadline, does the minister, Nyesom Wike know the number of people that are likely to be involved? If he sacks them where is he going to get their replacement from? Does he even know the number of academic staff in Nigerian universities? What is the position of the law on sacking and rehiring? Is it true that if you sack and rehire one or more, you must rehire all? I think the supervising minister of Education, a lawyer, should go and read the position of the law well on this his sack and rehire order and should also try and understand the limits of his powers.

    When you give the job of a carpenter to a tailor this is what you get. It is easier to blame the minister for his motor park approach to the ASUU strike, but when the president is speaking the same way as his minister on a matter as sensitive as getting our universities back and running, then you know the kind of thinking that goes on in the inner circles of government.

    Note that Wike’s argument after lambasting the lecturers was that after meeting for 13 hours with the president, the union still couldn’t take his words as enough assurance/guarantee of government’s commitment to implement all the agreement reached. “I have never seen anywhere in any country where you sit down with Mr. President (to negotiate). That is the highest level of discussion. If you cannot believe Mr. President, then who else will you believe?” He said.

    This comment was somehow echoed by the president in Yenagoa last Friday when he said ASUU leadership had shown utter contempt for his person and office (by their refusal to call off the strike), noting that never in the history of Nigeria has the president sat through a labour dispute meeting, the type of which he had with the lecturers’ union.

    Now you can smell ego and pride here, and to some extent, a bit of arrogance. That the minister said it first and it was reechoed by the president was an indication that that was the talking point agreed at their caucus meeting. Now you can imagine the quality of discussion at that level and the caliber of people that lurk around the corridor of power in Abuja.

    Well, maybe it is not right for the president to sit through such a meeting, since whatever was agreed at a lower level of authority, say ministerial, with ASUU will still come to his table for approval. But having decided to drag his person and office into that negotiation with ASUU, he should have known that failure to implement agreement reached immediately or as and when due will rubbish both his person and office. He should not be offended but he called for it. If he had given effect to the agreement reached immediately, the blame would have been on ASUU now if the strike was not called off immediately.

    Labour is by nature supposed to be selfish, so, if ASUU is being selfish, then it is just behaving true to type. It is not lack of respect for the president or his office, it is just the way trade unions are, always careful with and distrustful of authorities, especially in negotiations, irrespective of who is on the other side of the negotiation. They would only believe when they see agreements being implemented.

    The president, being a member of ASUU at one time, though not a unionist should have known that threat is the last thing you issue to unionists, it makes them stronger. So the threat of sack of lecturers as directed by Wike will not work, it will only make ASUU more popular. President Goodluck Jonathan should stop listening to the Wikes of this world, they are his worst enemies. The Gulaqs, the Ogiadhomes, he knows them, they are misleading him. ASUU is not subversive. Even though I don’t often agree with them, the lecturers are no saboteurs. They are patriots, looking at Nigeria from a myopic point of view.

  • Good luck for him, bad luck for PDP

    Good luck for him, bad luck for PDP

    Scratch Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, the embattled national chairman of the crumbling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and you probably would find, in his DNA, traces of a political undertaker.

    Back in the Second Republic, Alhaji Bamanga, fresh from a high-flying stint as top dog at Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), Nigeria’s national ruling parties’ cash cow, recorded a landslide to sweep into the Government House of the defunct Gongola State (now Adamawa and Taraba states), as National Party of Nigeria (NPN) gubernatorial candidate.

    Alhaji Bamanga’s landslide was part of the general electoral typhoon that shellacked the opposition; and which Alhaji Umaru Dikko, then President Shehu Shagari’s Transport minister and awesome man Friday, in roguish humour, christened a “moon slide”.

    That “moon slide”, by another election in 1987 the wise Dikko proclaimed, would explode into a “space slide”, by which time Dikko’s beloved NPN would have gobbled up the whole country (opposition be damned!), even if its incompetence was as clear as the moon at night.

    Compare NPN then to PDP now, and it is clear the PDP journey to perdition, under President Goodluck Jonathan, is not novel.

    Incidentally, there was no “1987”. The violently raped 1983 election rigged out the Second Republic. Three-month Governor, Tukur’s landslide mandate vanished under that republic’s rubble.

    Incidentally too, Alhaji Umaru is now chairman of PDP’s disciplinary committee, under the troubled national chairmanship of Alhaji Bamanga. Might the duo be comparing notes, with shared hindsight from the Second Republic crash, that might yet save their crumbling PDP?

    They had better! Otherwise, Alhaji Bamanga would yet earn another stripe as party undertaker – but this time, an hyperactive one. PDP’s crumbling fate is as much a result of past unconscionable impunities as it is Alhaji Bamanga’s reckless power grab, even with his suspect “election” (read presidential imposition) as PDP national chairman, after losing among delegates in his Adamawa base.

    Ironically, Chief Ebenezer Babatope, the much beloved Ebino Topsy of Awoist fame, is busy roaring like a lion in a new jungle, among PDP disciplinarians under Dikko – to underscore the neophyte progressive is in town to fix the conservative (if not reactionary) camp?

    Is he then fulfilling the post-1983 election Awo prophesy that after a political thesis and antithesis, a synthesis would align Nigeria’s political forces, such that those with Awo’s progressive inclination would ascend? Is Ebino then the Khalifa the PDP needs to set things right and yet triumph? Perhaps!

    Still, the Tukur mess is only a culmination of far too many bad calls. To start with, Tukur is only the party face of a dissembling president and a desperate Presidency, whose and which attitude to 2015, like that of former President Olusegun Obasanjo in 2007, is do-or-die.

    So, Tukur was supposed to do the dirty job and take the flak; while the real McCoy, the president breezes in, as prim and proper electoral statesman, to take the glory. It is the classical cant of Goodluck!

    Or why else would Chairman Tukur remain in charge, even if his party must become history? Unfortunately for Tukur and his principal, the “presidential chairman”, like the Achebe thief in A Man of the People, grabbed too much power for the owner not to notice – hence the PDP schism.

    Before the Jonathan-Tukur power show was the Obasanjo pious profanity of repudiating the PDP zoning arrangement – the same principle that propelled him to power – all in the bid to make Jonathan president, so he could be Baba’s poodle (Baba, that craved relevance at all cost), which Jonathan has not exactly been.

    Even before that was Obasanjo’s blatant subversion of party democratic principles, curling PDP round his fingers as first president of the Fourth Republic, ruthlessly purging those who might challenge him; and imposing on the party an unconscionable ethos of dog merrily eating dog; carefully veiled by a gruff military temper.

    And before all that was the grand subversive genesis: the Army Arrangement, (AA, apologies to Fela) that, in illicit concert with the North’s top political elite, imposed Obasanjo as Hobson’s choice, if only to impress upon starry-eyed democracy agitators the reality of Greek philosopher, Parmenides: nothing ever changes – departure from military rule must be a return to military rule, even if the starched khaki gave way to flowing agbada or babariga!

    Of course, there was Election ’99, but only to ratify Selection ’99 of AA and allied power plotters!

    Well, everything worked perfectly, except that Obasanjo proved no poodle of the North, any more than Jonathan has proved his own poodle! Indeed, things have turned full circle: the “North” finds itself at the receiving end of its own plot, and Obasanjo is threatened by the putative irrelevance he so mortally feared!

    This play of power giants has landed the country with an umpteenth mess: a clumsy Jonathan, a clumsier Jonathan Presidency and the meltdown of the federal ruling party in the clumsiest of ways!

    But having served as undertaker to his PDP, no thanks to unbridled desperation to remain president, Jonathan may yet serve as undertaker to his country. If the Anambra poll is anything to go by – and if that was aimed at securing an ally for 2015 – Jonathan may well press to that extent to make something give.

    Now, flash your mind back to 1983 and Umaru Dikko’s “moon slide”. Back then, the Shagari Presidency was the most incompetent in the country’s history. Now, the Jonathan Presidency would appear to have beaten that record. Yet, Jonathan, at all cost, wants an encore!

    So, if Umaru Dikko’s “moon slide” rigged the country out of democracy, a “space slide” by 2015 might just slide Nigeria into worse. For a country touted to kaput by 2015, these are indeed perilous times!

    The All Progressives Congress (APC) will therefore do well to learn from the PDP pitfall. PDP, ab initio, prided itself an all-comers’ affair. So, it can contemptuously thrust its jaw at any charge of harbouring strange bed fellows.

    APC has no such luxury. It has committed itself to a “progressive” ideology. Yet, not every strand in its rainbow coalition is “progressive”. But it can overcome these teething problems by federalising and being task-driven.

    It can do this by submitting itself to local tendencies, while committing to some pan-Nigeria goals. Then, it must rein in party barons, beyond offering leadership to rally members to the party’s cause, and educating fellow Nigerians on the difference the party can make.

    It should also sort out the very peculiar problem of internal democracy, the main driver of the PDP split, from which none of the APC legacy parties was immune.

    But most importantly, it must work out a restructuring agenda for the country. Without proper federalism, the collapse of Nigeria is only a matter of time.

     

  • Beauty and the beast

    Beauty and the beast

    The irony of the relationship between beauty and the beast is that power resides in the beauty. The beast is powerful, no doubt. It has all the qualities of the conqueror. The beast is primitive, raw, uncouth, greedy, fierce, unforgiving. On the other hand, the beauty is fragile, vulnerable, built to seduce. On the surface, that is.

    The Nigerian beauty today is not the winner of Miss Nigeria, but oil. It is not for nothing that crude oil is called black beauty. It is sleek, glistening, and takes on all the dazzling shapes we want of it. It can be willowy, it can be fat, tall, short and long. It is the malleable beauty of the age. It is vulnerable in that it cannot hide for long. We seek it, find it and use it. It flirts and plays hard to get while ensconced in its wells in the same way a damsel eludes the suitor. It is the quintessential target of the lusty.

    In the end, it falls. But does it? Just as we know that it is not Samson who is more powerful than Delilah and King Kong cringes at the sight of the vixen, we all are at the mercy of the beauty of the age: oil. The intriguing thing about beauty is that it can be humble about its appeal and its superiority. Like a smile that melts muscles, it cows nobility. It fights without effort. Some psychologists have called it passive aggression.

    We are the beasts, the Nigerians, the raw exploiter. Oil, the beauty, does not propagate its charms. It is just there, loud in its silences, in the well of abundance. We have fought wars over it, just as the beauty Helen of Troy inspired hatred among the Greeks. We have built palaces and skyscrapers in its name just as Taj Mahal was a monument of love for a woman. It can be the hub of corruption as men have defiled their dignities all through history for the love of women. All the graces have issued from it: chivalry, heroism, piety, patriotism. Also the vices: debauchery, murder, theft, parricide, hypocrisy.

    The tragedy of any great life comes from how it handles its beauty. Nigeria has not done well by her beauty. We have oil, the beauty, in abundance, and it has been faithful from the first time we set our eyes on it in the 1950’s. We have not been faithful. We have fought wars, denied our history, oppressed the poor, corrupted the rich, encouraged laziness and abandoned learning, and above all abandoned God. When we call God, it is because we want him to give us access to the fruits of this beauty, its shapely profits, its giddy joys, its extravagant lifestyles. Other than that, we have acted like Samson and forgotten the God who gave us this willowy empress.

    Recently, we went to war as a nation over this beauty. Some persons, they called them young Turks, abused this beauty by taking advantage of subsidy. They bought private jets, palaces abroad, choice boats, and their families know Nigeria only as leisure visitors. In exploiting this beauty called oil, they kept others in penury. When they spent one million naira, the ordinary folk managed one naira. They abounded in luxury and hauteur.

    The ordinary folks decided to shut down the country. Who says this beauty is not more powerful. In fact, the poet Y.B. Yeats describes it as “a terrible beauty is born.” Beauty is terrible, but the rest of the ordinary folks wanted to follow another characterisation of beauty by Russian author Dostoyevsky who said beauty will save the world.

    Well, soldiers were sent to fight against vulnerable men and women who went to the streets to fight for their own share of this great beauty. The leader of the country, Goodluck Jonathan, loved the beauty so much that he would not be part of sharing her glories with the common folk. The leaders of the protest, however, wilted and succumbed because they were offered a little of the beauty’s holy of holies, and they promised us that they would make things better.

    They would build new refineries so that the beauty, powerful as she is in her crudity, can be refined into sophisticated glory. That is, we shall have new beauty salons known as refineries. But what of the old ones? The person in charge called Diezani Alison- Madueke, a woman in charge of our beauty, promised that the new refineries also known as beauty salons will be upgraded so our beauty cannot only serve us but will be less terrible, will save us. A consensus seemed to have been reached between Yeats and Dostoyevsky, as terrible can also be saviour.

    We quietly exulted. Beauty is not only a charm, it is a great tease. She teased us and we fell for it. Then just recently she said the refineries will now be sold. The same refineries that would be upgraded and used to make our beauty more profitable for us?

    Well, it seems we can do nothing about that. Yar’Adua had turned it from private hands when he said the process was dubious but Jonathan said no, and it had to come back to private hands again. All of us know that the beauty called oil has always done well outside the suffocating hands of government. Its sense of romance lies only in exploitation. If it has happened to telecoms and PHCN, why not refineries?

    If it will go into private hands, at least the beauty should be allowed to pick who will refine her. Media reports have it that they want to give the refineries, the beauty salons, to fronts, or favoured sons. This will be another abuse of the beauty. Let all the suitors be allowed to make their cases before the beauty, and we call that transparency.

    Obasanjo sold them cheap and Yar’Adua reversed it. We want it transparent, and let the best suitors win. There are four refineries. Let whoever gets it be the person who did the best for the beauty. We have to look at their competence, history, capacity. It is like the wrestling match to determine the best suitor. Everyone, including the loser, cannot dispute the winner, because all are witnesses. We want transparency, not fronts.

  • Bombing Babangida

    Twenty seven years after Dele Giwa was bombed at breakfast, it is fascinating that a new book seeks to reinforce the weight of public suspicion that Gen (retd) Ibrahim Babangida, the former military ruler who was in power at the time, probably had a hand in the macabre murder of the colourful journalist. Perhaps the devastating beauty of the 360-page volume, entitled Honour for Sale, derives from the fact that it is signposted as “An Insider Account of the Murder of Dele Giwa,” making it the first version of events written from close quarters unambiguously pointing an accusing finger at the Babangida administration.

    The author, Major (retd) Debo Basorun, has a faultless qualification for the documentation, having served in the Babangida regime under the title of Press and Public Affairs Officer (Military Press Secretary) to the Military President of Nigeria between 1985 and 1988. His effort, therefore, can be considered as a testimony by a member of a charmed circle, who should know what he is talking about. Indeed, Basorun drops a bomb in the prologue to his autobiographical book, saying, “It is a laborious attempt at documenting over twenty-one years of a kaleidoscopic but exciting career – a gaudy reminder of the sweet days at the pinnacle of power and how a miscalculation on the part of the powers-that-be led me to uncover the truth that, in concert with his Intelligence Chief, Colonel Haliru Akilu, Babangida has not come clean with the Nigerian people – nay the world – concerning the duo’s roles in the mindless assassination of a foremost Nigerian journalist of his time, Dele Giwa.”

    In addition, Basorun states in explicit terms, “I am hopefully looking forward to the day when General Ibrahim Babangida, Colonel Haliru Akilu and myself would be brought before the people’s court to answer all we know pertaining to the cruel murder of a most illustrious Nigerian, Dele Giwa.” Clearly, this is the statement of a willing prosecution witness. The question is: With the release of this explosive book and its accusatory contents, wouldn’t it be appropriate to reopen the Giwa murder case?

    Unfortunately, such a possibility would appear complicated, particularly in the light of certain precedents. It is instructive that quite early in the tragedy, efforts to obtain justice by Chief Gani Fawehinmi, Giwa’s enthusiastic lawyer, were dampened by the mysterious stance of the journalist’s colleagues and co-founders of Newswatch magazine who disowned the legal activist in a November 5, 1986 edition; this was under one month of Giwa’s killing on October 19. Similarly enlightening is the fact that in 2001, Babangida rigidly refused to appear before the Human Rights Violations Commission, popularly known as the Oputa Panel, concerning the Giwa murder. Remarkably, Babangida betrayed desperation for silence by going to court. With Col (retd) Akilu of the Directorate of Military Intelligence (DMI) in his regime and Lt. Col. (retd) A.K Togun who was the Deputy Director of the State Security Service (SSS), he obtained an order barring the commission from summoning them to appear before it. It is apt to contemplate why they were so unwilling to face the public on the controversial matter, considering that the forum provided a golden opportunity for their exculpation. An astounding travesty of justice followed with the reported comment by the commission’s chairman to the effect that while it had powers to issue arrest warrants for the trio, it decided against such a move “in the over-all interest of national reconciliation.”

    Against this background of serial difficulties in the path of justice, it will surely require reimagination on the part of the justice system to resurrect the Giwa case. However, it would be a huge discredit to the country’s treatment of crime and punishment if Basorun’s momentous insights are trivialised by those officially positioned to act on such “revelations.” There is no doubt that Basorun’s bold account brings fresh dimensions to the unpleasant incident, and deserves to be investigated. If the book’s contents are ultimately swept under the carpet for convenience, it would amount to an official endorsement of impunity and send a dangerous signal that murder might not necessarily be a punishable transgression. It is the kind of dismisiveness that continues to encourage killers. In this connection, it is disturbing that so far no suspect has been formally charged with Giwa’s murder, a situation that Prof Itse Sagay (SAN), one of the high-profile symbols of social conscience who witnessed the book presentation, described as “the institutional failure of the state.”

    It is intriguing that Basorun, for all his emphatically implicating allegations against Babangida on the Giwa murder issue, fails rather disappointingly to provide an answer to the crucial question as to why the journalist was killed. This central subject of the motive for his peculiar murder by mail bomb has unsurprisingly spawned a rich collection of conspiracy theories, which Basorun’s book does little to clarify. Evidently, the knot is at the heart of the puzzle, and untying it would yield useful clues on the identity of the killers.

    Perhaps the enduring mystery bears testimony to the uninspiring state of investigative journalism in the country, which is ironic because Giwa had a reputation for that aspect of reporting. It amounts to a grave dishonour to his remembrance that there has been no serious journalistic attempt to unravel the circumstances of his cruel death at age 39. No whodunnit yet, regrettably.

    In the final analysis, Basorun has written a social service book not only because it is in a general sense focused on the underbelly of society, but also because it particularly illuminates to a significant degree the intricate expressions of “intrigue and treachery, clannishness and base humanity” characteristic of some of the military characters who abused power in the country.

    However, it would appear unfair to be judgemental based on Basorun’s book, despite its persuasive confidence. It is precisely this necessary margin of doubt that the accused should exploit in order to redeem their soiled image. As Babangida particularly, who is 72, advances in age, he should take advantage of the window to wash his hands clean, specifically in connection with Giwa’s blood. Giwa’s killing was a crime against humanity. Let no guilty party be under the illusion that strategic quiet will calm the storm.

    One curious dimension to this tale is the place of conscience in human affairs. It is inevitable to reflect on the possibility that Giwa’s murderers might be troubled in their souls, but that is not enough. On the other hand, supposing the killers here are monsters with repressed conscience? Possibly the high point of the book launch on November 22 at Freedom Park, (Old Prison Yard), Broad Street, Lagos, was the moment Basorun made his remarks with emotional sobs. His most poignant line was expression of regret on account of his association with what he termed “a government known for evil.” He ends the book on a revealing and deeply frightful note, saying, “I will count on all well meaning citizens of the country not to be deterred if Babangida eventually succeeds in snuffing the life out of me.”

  • PDP in APC

    Last week’s defection of the Abubakar Baraje-led PDP to the All Progressives Congress APC will for quite sometime, continue to dominate public discourse. Not only did it herald a redefinition of the political equation of this country, it is bound to send the ruling party back to the drawing board. There are now higher prospects that these coalescing interests will culminate in the emergence of two strong parties that can checkmate each other during elections. This should be something to cheer for all true lovers of democracy

    The defection is seen by many as the long awaited birth of a two party system and a prelude to the deepening of democracy on these shores. In the days ahead, we expect to witness alignment and realignments among the various political interests. Though not entirely unexpected, the defection must have taken the leadership of the ruling party by surprise since they are yet to conclude negotiations with the group.

    Issues tabled before the president as conditions for peace include among others, the sack of the national chairman of the PDP, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, reinstatement of dissolved state executive committees of the party in Adamawa and Rivers states, commitment from Jonathan that he will not run in 2015 and cessation of harassment of some of the governors by officials of anti grant agencies.

    With the sudden defection by five out of the seven dissenting governors, it would seem that a death knell has been sounded to whatever remains of that negotiation. Having joined the APC, all further negotiations appear foreclosed even as two of the dissenting governors still hope to go on with it. How they intend to do this given the new development is hazy.

    Expectedly, the development has generated considerable interest from a broad spectrum of the Nigerian population depending on which of the political divide one belongs. The APC leadership sees it as a defining moment in Nigeria’s political history. With 16 governors in its fold, it envisions the strengthening of a strong two party system. In its calculations, the defection has made it a strong alternative to the ruling PDP with higher chances of defeating it in the coming national elections. Such has been the level of optimism generated. There are merits in this optimism especially when the efforts that crystallized into the formation of APC are put into reckoning.

    But the PDP sees the development as good riddance to bad rubbish. For them, the move is long expected as it would now enable the party to put its house in order. The party said it will not lose sleep since decampment is not novel to it. It believes the PDP is such a large organization to be rattled by the actions of the five governors. The PDP is entitled to its views on the matter no matter how unconvincing they might seem.

    Beyond these however, are very fundamental issues that have been thrown up by the defection. The strengthening of a two party system is one especially given the dangerous slide to a one party state. There is also the issue of giving the electorate a plurality of choice. These are bound to find expression in the emerging order provided certain conditions are met.

    The first of such conditions is that the two parties must be visibly distinct in both ideology and orientation to be able to offer alternative political choice. Their manifestoes and programs must proffer alternative paradigms on governance and how to provide for the greatest good of the greatest number of our citizens. They must also be peopled by those who have shared vision on how best to tackle the developmental challenges of their constituents.

    Compatibility of interests, orientation and perception on the essence of governance is a sine qua none for co-habitation.

    That is where the defection has serious drawbacks. The APC prides itself as the party of the progressives. It also sees the PDP as a conservative party.

    But it has gone to town celebrating the coming into its fold of a group that had been deeply ensnared in the conservative train. It remains to be imagined how the APC intends to wean them of this conservative predilection. Or are we about to be treated to the biblical similitude of the pouring of an old wines skin into a new one? Will the new wine not be contaminated by the mixture? That is the challenge ahead. The way it is resolved will lead us closer to whatever national value or lack of it there is in the current marriage.

    The action of the PDP governors has been hailed in some quarters for its capacity to deepen democracy. That could as well be. However, when their reasons for leaving their party are juxtaposed against this optimism, the entire euphoria may add up to nothing. The issues they tabled before Jonathan say it all. Apart from the matter of internal democracy, all others in their agenda are largely propelled by self-serving and sectional considerations. Even the agitation for internal democracy must be taken with a pinch of the salt. Before now, these governors had benefited disproportionately from the scant regard of their party for internal democracy. They had been part and parcel of the bazaar that is the imposition of candidates both at the national and state elections. It served them well as long as they took advantage of it to determine who runs for political office or not. They saw nothing wrong when they sidelined their opponents through their undemocratic control of what has now become known as political structures. Now they have been cornered by their own dialectics, they complain. Is it not an irony of sorts that these later day apostles of internal democracy had the temerity to demand that Jonathan should repudiate his right to contest the 2015 election as a condition for peace? This demand has inflicted incurable damage to their claim to being apostles of good conscience. At any rate, were they not part and parcel of the Jonathan regime that has received unmitigated bashing from the opposition? What has been their reaction to all the ills bedeviling the country since that party has been in power? These are the issues to ponder. It could well be that the defection is a fresh undertaking by the governors to turn a new leaf. Only time will bear that out.

    To be sure, the defecting governors are within their rights to seek political accommodation in any party of their choice. But there is a problem when you hide under seemingly national goals to project interests of a selfish or sectional nature. Governors Chibuike Amaechi and Muritala Nyako’s further insight into the reasons for their defection bear this out. Amaechi told reporters that it is to protect Rivers oil wells that are being ceded to other states. Nyako’s grouse is with Tukur’s dissolution of the state’s executive committee of the party. How these will further the course of national politics and democracy remain at best, illusory. It would appear behind this façade is the masquerading of selfish and sectional interests under the garb of patriotism. Its outcome could turn out a mixed grill of the good, the bad and the ugly.

  • ASUU strike: Fed Govt, Wike lose their heads

    ASUU strike: Fed Govt, Wike lose their heads

    I shudder to think what intensity of anguish Nigeria’s eminent vice-chancellors endured as they reportedly sat glumly through last Friday’s meeting with the supervising minister of education, Nyesom Wike. Mr Wike, as everyone knows, is a man of many parts. Bold, dogged and energetic, the Ikwerre, Rivers State politician has made a huge impression on his followers, and, as it is obvious, is also now making a monstrously bigger impression on many Nigerians. The vice-chancellors who attended the meeting with him would doubtless have left his presence dumbfounded by the quirkiness of university education that produced such an impertinent man who many years ago defied the force and natural inclination of nature to leave a notable mark on his local government as an administrator and grassroots mobiliser.

    Not only was Mr Wike twice chairman of the now controversial Obio/Akpor local government, he performed with such distinction that he managed to win the confidence of Governor Rotimi Amaechi to become his Chief of Staff. Graduating with a law degree from the Rivers State University of Science and Technology, Mr Wike also developed a well-honed style of politics that saw him become an implacable force in both local and national politics. He even evaded the censorious gaze of the avuncular Peter Odili, a former governor of the state, to win his support at the initial stage of his political career. And he also managed to fool the feisty and sometimes impatient Mr Amaechi to earn the juicy and powerful post of Chief of Staff and later director-general of the Amaechi re-election campaign. He has now seduced President Goodluck Jonathan, who more and more finds solace in the arms of fixers and enforcers serenading him with sweet talk and bombast.

    It is important to understand Mr Wike’s background in order to find explanation for his hardline stand in the five-month-old Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) strike. He has a law degree, is streetwise, aggressive and gregarious. But those who know him and have worked with him insist there is little in his character or education, not to talk of the logic and judgement that sets an educated man apart from an illiterate, to justify the degree he is brandishing. He is a practical politician who is effective and skilful in herding votes. But at bottom, he is a man who conceals his unimpressive intellectual endowment beneath a morass of public works projects. Such a man is more likely to resent his betters when they meet in forums that require logic, thoughtfulness, restraint and cultured language and diplomacy. Mr Wike precisely found himself at one such forum last Friday when he encountered his betters, vice chancellors and former university teachers whom he gloated over.

    To a deep and lettered man, such a meeting would lead him inexorably to the veneration and modesty that the knowledge imparted to him in his university days should naturally elicit. But to one plagued by doubts and inferiority complex, such a meeting could only trigger in all its fury the resentment his intellectual failings have dammed in his angry soul over the years. Like former President Olusegun Obasanjo who under Gen Murtala Mohammed took perverse delight in purging the universities and demystifying the super permanent secretaries who mocked his inadequacies, Mr Wike has issued orders to his former teachers which no reasonable man should ever give and which even under the military no one could hope to enforce. Sadly, the Jonathan government is populated by many such upstarts who read politics into every dispute.

    Acting on behalf of the Jonathan presidency, and after opening another war front in the president’s many battles, Mr Wike has ordered the deployment of policemen in universities to secure those who would heed the command to resume work. After all, of what use is power when it cannot be used? He has also ordered the vice-chancellors to reopen the universities, when in reality it was ASUU’s withdrawal of services, not the shutting of the campuses by school administrators, that paralysed the universities in the first instance. Those who fail to resume work, Mr Wike commanded the National Universities Commission (NUC), should be sacked, notwithstanding the fact that the universities have neither the resources nor even the available pool of qualified teachers to fill more than 40,000 vacancies already existing. In the opinion of Mr Wike, force should solve a problem that neither logic nor diplomacy could resolve in five months. As far as he understood, and based on the Kano meeting of the university teachers less than two weeks ago, at least 60 percent of them already indicated willingness to resume work. Of course Mr Wike’s foolish order and outburst are bound to unite the teachers once again, for they are nobody’s fools.

    It is a worrisome indication of the incompetence of President Jonathan’s men that a crisis nearing resolution could be allowed to fester once again, thereby snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. The president has himself not demonstrated brilliant statecraft, nor shown any indication he has the steady hands to propel the country to greatness. But by surrounding himself with devious and vacuous advisers and aides, he is more likely to take more wrong-headed steps capable of dooming his presidency. The president sees foreign destabilising agents, when nothing of the sort exists. Those who trouble him and the country are his ministers and aides. They are the ones who instigate him into hardline position, who alarm him with imaginary enemies, and fill his mind with anachronistic ideas of the powers and perks of a president. Thus they tell us that Dr Jonathan is the first president to engage the ASUU in 13 hours discussion, as if it is a regrettable thing, or as if his job is limited to effusing power without a corresponding acknowledgement of the burdens and responsibilities of office.

    The few outstanding issues in the ASUU strike were the warehousing of the first tranche of promised financial interventions, making the agreement already reached ironclad, and paying salary arrears. I find it difficult to see how these should be a problem. Instead, Dr Jonathan, Mr Wike and other supposedly educated officials who snivel around the presidency think it is an affront to doubt the president. Were there not enough reasons to doubt the presidency before now? Had that office not been desecrated before, and is it not now being desecrated by the thuggish characters that deface its hallowed corridors? As an adviser, I would have asked the president to approach ASUU’s new doubts (not new conditions, by the way) with the kind of self-deprecating humour US President Barack Obama is famous for.

    Answering a question on ASUU strike during his last media chat in September, Dr Jonathan said that in the heady days of the Ghanaian ‘revolution’ President J.J. Rawlings closed down universities for a long time in order to reorganise the education system. Though he added he was not thinking in that direction, it was embarrassing and insulting that his mind even wandered in that direction. If he thought nothing of closing down public universities because many around him didn’t have their children attending them, would he also close down private universities if he had his way? By now it must be obvious to everyone that we are dealing with a fascist government, not an elected presidency. (See box). They have begun to see external saboteurs and internal collaborators. They are bypassing a somnolent National Assembly and simply directly deploying the increasingly fascist police force to undermine the constitution and take away people’s rights.

    In the weeks ahead, and as the political noose tightens around his neck, a desperate Dr Jonathan will attempt extraordinary measures to keep himself in office. For all patriots, this is the time to abandon neutrality, a time to stand firm against fascism. The challenge before us then is how to guide this rampaging, paranoid bull through the country’s china shop lest we all come to grief. Indeed, the hysterical Mr Wike has managed to run the Jonathan government into a cul de sac. But if history is a guide, it is hard to see the government succeeding in its self-destructive course of action against ASUU. Not only are there no university teachers anywhere to recruit, Nigeria is hardly the right place for any competent teacher to come and offer his services, let alone for pittance and with no equipment to do the job. We are close to an election year; yet, Dr Jonathan is toying with the electorate and displaying unparalleled contempt for the youth. But perhaps we should wait to see what talisman he hopes to mesmerise us with in 2015.

  • On the APC, New PDP nuptials

    On the APC, New PDP nuptials

    Former Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, is down. In his long years in politics and power the 77-year old has staggered from one scandal to another, but often staged improbable comebacks. This last week he was ignominiously ejected from the Senate because of his conviction on a tax-fraud case. That’s not the end of his troubles: he’s been ordered to stand trial for bribing a senator and is appealing a conviction in June for having sex with an underage prostitute – Karima El Mahroug aka Ruby the Heart Stealer – and abusing his office to cover it up. Clearly, a case of power corrupting and absolute power corrupting absolutely. Will the day ever come when such a character will face justice in these parts?

    Except for the blindly partisan, most reasonable people welcome the ongoing political shake-up which has seen the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) splinter group New PDP merge with the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC).

    Going into what promises to be a hotly contested general election in 2015, there are now no guarantees how things would pan out. Don’t be deceived by the PDP’s attempt at insouciance. They would be foolish not to be worried about what is unfolding.

    It is not every day that a party loses five of its governors to a rival. Looming ominously in the horizon is the prospect that more will jump ship when the elements are right. Even before the defection, the G-7 governors had often said that a few other colleagues within the PDP would move at the appropriate time.

    There is nothing for the ruling party to celebrate in the fact that Kano State Governor, Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso and his Niger counterpart, Babangida Aliyu, insist they are still part of PDP. True, there are no permanent friends or foes in politics still I don’t see how these two can continue in the ruling party. Even if Jonathan capitulates and accedes to all their demands they would never again be trusted by the party’s high command.

    Last week’s developments have rearranged the political landscape such that it is no longer unduly tilted in favour of the ruling party. A newly competitive environment emerged.

    Many have focused on counting governors. But to get a real sense of the changing power dynamic, we must look to the National Assembly. Before now President Goodluck Jonathan could reasonably expect his legislative agenda to sail through with minimal fuss. This may no longer be the case – especially in the House of Representatives.

    For the first time in a very long while Nigeria is about to go into a phase of divided government – where the executive branch is controlled by one party, while the legislature is in the hands of the opposition.

    If the messy United States government shutdown is any advertisement for divided government, we should all brace ourselves for a chaotic time ahead. But this dreaded arangement is not all about obstruction: it is one side asking hard questions and insisting that parliament not be a rubber stamp for decisions the executive has already taken.

    In this age where the image of government at all levels is so dismal, the prospect of robust checks and balances rather than frighten, should give us hope that the train of impunity that has been running out of control can be reined in.

    So much has been made of the untidy nature of the fusion. One day it is seven governors, the next two of them are denying dumping the PDP. In some states the erstwhile lords of the manor in APC have been less than enthusiastic in welcoming the New PDP hordes that look set to gobble them up.

    For me these are minor points of cavil. Politics is messy business. Anyone who was expecting the unprecedented movement of five governors from one party to another – each with his own agenda and local worries – to be without hiccups must be living on another planet.

    Frankly, what the APC has pulled off is remarkable. At every point they were written off. When the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) and Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) came together their opponents dismissed the new grouping as a contraption that would collapse within months.

    When that didn’t happen, they began speculating that the arrangement would founder because of the personalities of Bola Tinubu and Muhammadu Buhari. Again, their dire predictions have not manifested.

    So now they cynically dismiss the latest stage of the APC evolution as the merger of strange bedfellows. This supposes that what we have in the PDP, Labour Party and All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) to name a few is a banding together of birds of a feather. Spare me!

    Depend on it: the merger of the APC and New PDP elements would throw up turbulence and disagreements from time to time. It will produce pain – even reverse movement when some people don’t get what they want. But then nature teaches us that the process of delivering a new baby can be painful and messy. To expect anything less is to fool ourselves.

    Thanks to the merger newspapers are now full of talk about ideology. This sudden fixation is so amusing because no one can tell you what the guiding philosophy of any of the current parties is – other than they all have a template of policies they would supposedly implement in office. The best you’ll get from any of them is that: a mere election manifesto.

    Ideological battles as we used to know them in the Cold War days died with that era. Harsh dividing lines between capitalism, communism, socialism and welfarism have become largely blurred. Philosophies of governance are now so indistinguishable that it is hard to tell what is driving what. Russia and China which used to be avowedly communist are now as capitalist as the United States.

    In America there is very little ideological difference between the Democrats and Republican. Both proseletyse about the beauty of markets driving the economy and making government intervention minimal.

    In the era of bitterly divided government in Washington, Barack Obama’s supposedly more left-leaning government has acceded to cutting government spending on social welfare programmes with a fervor that a typical conservative would envy. What now sets them apart are positions on social issues like abortion and same-sex marriage.

    So if Nigeria’s emerging two-party arrangement does not throw up the kind of ideological divide to please the purists, too bad. In any event, who the progressive is and who the conservative is in this country has always been a matter of branding. Whatever labels our politicians have worn they have managed to get stuck in the same shortcomings of corruption and mismanagement of public resources.

    Ideology cannot be an end in itself; it ultimately should bring about development. Our people wouldn’t care whether you are socialist or capitalist if they have electricity, running water, healthcare and quality education for their children. Where these things are available the rest is just background noise.

  • Test yourself (1)

    DO you read, write and speak the English language with ease and confidence? Or do you confess to moments of embarrassment when faced with its exasperating uncertainties?

    Today you can test yourself on the grammar of the English language, its punctuation, spelling and vocabulary offered as a series of interesting quizzes. For answers: call me or send SMS/e-mail. Readers, it is hoped, will regard the tests as companions in their building up of knowledge of ‘‘correct English’’ in order to express themselves confidently through speaking, reading and writing.

    If you can answer every question correctly then your English is superb! Even if you can only answer a small proportion correctly your English may still be good, and you will have a lot of fun improving it in the process.

    The function of grammar, which is defined as ‘‘the general term for the science of language’’ is to examine and explain how words are formed, inflected, spoken, written, and arranged in sentence. But people spoke and wrote the language long before they formulated rules for speech and writing so grammar must be kept in its place as the servant, not the master or dictator of language. Language is always changing; the solecism (grammatical errors) of yesterday may be the accepted idioms of today, sanctioned by common usage.

    At the same time, if we have a concern for the beauty and precision of correct English, we should remember that there are grammatical laws which do not change, and violation of them cannot be justified or condoned. ‘‘To deplore the misuse of words and phrases by lazy thinkers and slipshod writers is not pedantry.’’

    In each of the exercises, a pair of sentences has been chosen to illustrate a common error in popular usage. Can you say in each case which sentence is too preferred, and what is wrong (according to the old rules) with the other sentence?

    1. (a) Every room, attic, cellar and garage was searched by          the police.

    (b) Every room, attic, cellar and garage were searched by          the police

    2. (a) None of his old friends were able to help him

    (b) None of his old friends was able to help him.

    3. (a) Neither the British team nor the French team was successful in the athletics contest.

    (b) Neither the British team nor the French team were  successful in the athletics contest.

    4.     (a) Your birth certificate as well as your passport is required.

    (b) Your birth certificate as well as your passport are  required.

    5. (a) I would never recommend those sort of films.

    (b) I would never recommend that sort of film.

    6. (a) She’s one of those girls who always look attractive.

    (b) She’s one of those girls who always looks attractive.

    7. (a) The two old campaigners always wrote to one another   on the anniversary of the battle.

    (b) The two old campaigners always wrote to each other on the anniversary of the battle.

    8. (a) Are there less children in the village school today?

    (b) Are there fewer children in the village school today?

    9. (a) The tycoon’s estate was divided between his three  surviving children.

    (b) The tycoon’s estate was divided among his three  surviving children.

    10. (a) If either of the suspects is seen, he will be arrested.

    (b) If either of the suspects are seen, he will be arrested.

    11 (a) ‘Nothing shall ever come between you and I,’ he   told her.

    (b)‘Nothing shall ever come between you and me,’       he told her.

    12. (a) I was introduced to the Chairman and the Vice   Chairman of the Company.

    (b) I was introduced to the Chairman and Vice Chairman of the Company.

    13. (a) Can you imagine him forgetting a date like that?

    (b) Can you imagine his forgetting a date like that?

    14. (a) They are players who I think will one day be  famous.

    (b) They are players whom I think will one day be     famous.

    15. (a) If you were him, what would you think of her conduct?

    (b) If you were he, what would you think of her                   conduct?

    16. (a) Playing the guitar, his dog howled all the time.

    (b) While he was playing the guitar, his dog howled all   the time.

    17. (a) The secretary said he’d written back without  delay.

    (b) The secretary said he’d wrote back without delay.

    18. (a) Candidates are advised to carefully and   methodically read the instructions.

    (b) Candidates are advised to read carefully and  methodically the instructions.

    19. (a) They used not to allow such goings-on here.

    (b) They didn’t used not to allow such goings-on here.

    20. (a) If I was wrong, I’d be the first to admit it.

    (b) If I were wrong, I’d be the first to admit it.

    21. (a)We never have and never will yield to threats.

    (b)We never have yielded and never will yield to  threats.

    4. (a) This low-fat spread tastes as good as if not better  than butter.

    (b)This low-fat spread tastes as good if not better  than butter.

    22. (a) In competitive sport, one can’t afford to rest on his   laurels.

    (b) In competitive sport, one can’t afford to rest on  one’s laurels.

    23. (a) I can’t stand the heat as she can.

    (b) I can’t stand the heat like she can.

     

    Source: ‘Correct English’ by J.E. Metcalfe and C. Astle

  • Ongoing political realignment is last hope. No hyperbole

    After almost 15 years of unremitting political provocation, Nigerians are about to enjoy some relief from the tedium a succession of bad or incompetent leaders have subjected them to. Kawu Baraje, the chairman of the new Peoples Democratic Party (nPDP) that has just fused with the All Progressives Congress (APC), enthused last week that President Goodluck Jonathan should begin to prepare his handover notes. His effervescence is a reflection of the hopes elicited by the migration of five PDP governors into the APC, and the possible wholesale migration of the national legislators of the five states into the opposition party. If the migration is carried through in the National Assembly, it will mean an immediate and drastic alteration of legislative power. In addition, it will also mean in theory that the electoral vote-rich Southwest, Northwest and Northeast zones will go to the APC column. Political analysts recognise the impossibility of winning the presidency in Nigeria without two of these three blocs.

    It is hardly necessary to explain why the PDP could not keep the five governors, and why it may still lose a few more to the opposition. But it is important to state that the reason is not really the desire of the North to reclaim the presidency, after being shut out for a cumulative period of almost 13 years. The real reasons are the uncontrollable and spiteful internal dynamics of the PDP, and the almost absolute incompetence of the Jonathan government to engender progress and development and to facilitate peace. If Dr Jonathan had been a listening and charismatic president, the opposition against him would have been feeble. But now the opposition is potent and growing, and it is likely to succeed if it plays its cards well. More importantly, the country is an overripe pimple ready for a new party to take office, and new men, no matter their ideological disposition, to implement new political and developmental paradigms.

    But the expanded APC should not have illusions about its reach, power and readiness to take office. Its unity will remain testily brittle, and its ideological core will in the foreseeable future continue to be a kitchen midden of multifarious and sometimes conflicting worldviews. While the PDP has seemed to achieve some form of unity based solely on its long years in power, the APC will have to confect its own unity based on its members’ shared desperation to take power. Neither party’s unity will be contextually superior to the other, nor will one party’s style be less morally reprehensible than the other. The ageing PDP is a longstanding opportunist; the new APC is a latter-day opportunist. However, and more crucially, while the old opportunists have become inured to change and progress, and have even openly embraced fascism, the new opportunists, themselves idealists and theorists, appear genuinely interested in change, democracy, progress and stability. The choice facing the country is, therefore, clear and easy.

    Given the awful record of the PDP in government and the appalling characters that have seized governance and entrapped a willing Dr Jonathan, I have no hesitation in recommending change. Nor do I have hesitation in making the hyperbolic statement that four more years of Dr Jonathan would ruin the country. The signs are clear. But the APC must appreciate the kind of politics Nigerians play and why that sort of politics has held us in thraldom for so long. Dr Jonathan’s strength remains the fact that he is viewed in the Christian middle belt with a fondness and wistfulness that belie his unsuitability for the post he has held for nearly five years. In addition, many seem to find his consistent lack of composure and charisma, as well as his lack of profundity, both engaging and beguiling. (I have struggled to use inoffensive words for a man who merits the harshest adjectives for plunging the country into retrogression and chaos).

    In the South-South, neither his incompetence nor dullness matters to the single-minded voters of that zone. What matters are that he hails from their zone, and that the North, which they describe as parasitic, is once again annoyingly hankering after the plum post. I confess that such mechanical consideration of politics can be off-putting and is a dangerous path to follow for a country passing through trying times. If APC is to take the presidency, it will have to select its standard-bearers with considerable aplomb by avoiding sentiments and jaded calculations, take a little of the South-South and North Central as much as it can manage, and sweep the Southwest, Northeast and Northwest. The arithmetic of the next elections, not to say the dynamics of the National Assembly, favours the opposition party. If the opposition does not underestimate the fanatical ruthlessness of the Jonathan government, if it manages its own diversities well, checks its fissiparous tendency, and puts up a winnable ticket, Nigeria will be rid of the confusion and disaster that have bedevilled it for more than a decade.