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  • Nwabueze’s distortions of Nigeria’s History (II)

    Nwabueze’s distortions of Nigeria’s History (II)

    In the first part of this article last week I tried to debunk Professor Ben Nwabueze’s thesis in his recent essay on the 1914 amalgamation of Northern and Southern Nigeria that the idea of a “Northern Nigeria” was a subterfuge by the country’s British overlords to keep it permanently divided and empower the North to replace the British as its permanent overlord after Independence.

    He gave six reasons for his position that the North is a creature that has no basis of unity in its sociology, culture, language and religion. I tried to show how each and every one of those reasons was banal and specious. I concluded the article by promising to show the reader this morning how the professor’s thesis was a hatchet job for President Goodluck Jonathan in his undeclared war to remain on his seat beyond 2015.

    In my rebuttal, I showed how the learned professor did serious violence to the historical fact that, long before the British came to our shores, the people who lived within the area that became Nigeria in 1914 had related with each other through wars, internal migration, trade, religious propagation and diplomacy. I should have added then that the professor’s origin itself was a symbol of these varied historical intercourses.

    According to The New Who’s Who in Nigeria published in 1999 by the Nigerian International Biographical Centre, the professor comes from Atani in Ogbaru Local Government of Anambra State. Atani, as the man knows all too well, or at least should, was originally an Igala town. Old folks in that town, I am told, still speak and understand the language. And its inhabitants still look up to Idah, the historical capital of pre-colonial Igala Kingdom, as their spiritual capital.

    Before the jihad of Usman Dan Fodio which begun in 1804 and reached Nupeland and further down the Niger-Benue confluence region by 1810, the Igala Kingdom had extended over parts of Yoruba, Nupe, Ebira, Doma and other neighbouring tribes. It had even extended to parts of Igboland on both the Western and Eastern banks of the Niger, including Asaba, Nsukka and Enugu and, of course, Atani, the professor’s hometown.

    Dan Fodio’s jihad contributed to the decline of the kingdom at the same time that it led to the expansion of Nupe Kingdom. But then the Nupe Kingdom itself had its origin partly in the Igala; Tsoede who founded the Kingdom in the 15th century was an Igala prince whose mother was Nupe.

    The area that became Nigeria had (and still has) four hydrographical systems: Niger-Benue, along with the many of the tributaries of the two mighty rivers, which is by far the largest, and Chad, Cross River and Atlantic.

    These four hydrographical systems were the arteries around which many empires, kingdoms – most notably Kwararafa, Borno, Sokoto, Borgu, Oyo, Benin, Nupe, Igala, Ijaw and Efik – rose and fell and many so-called stateless people like the Igbo, Tiv, Ebira, Kambari, Dakarkari and Idoma and the many tribes on the Jos Plateau, fought, with various measures of success, against subjugation by the larger hegemons long before this corner of Africa was colonised by Europeans.

    None of these empires, kingdoms and so-called stateless peoples existed in isolation. For example, as we have noted already, the founder of Nupe Kingdom was half Igala. Again History teaches us that Sango, the Yoruba god of thunder and the third Alafin of Oyo, was born of a Nupe princess.

    East of the Niger, Calabar, as the late Dr Bala Usman said in his seminal paper I referred to last week, may have been an Efik polity, but the majority of its people were Igbo, Ekoi and Ibibio while further west the city states of the Lower Niger were of mixed Ijaw, Igbo, Igala, Edo and Nupe origin. Indeed, Opobo, established by King Jaja in 1873, was predominantly Igbo.

    So for anyone to say, as the professor has, that the people of Nigeria were strangers to each other within or between the regions until the Whiteman came along and eventually amalgamated the two in 1914 is to do great violence to the pre-colonial history of Nigeria.

    However, important as it is to expose the professor’s distortion of our pre-colonial history, it is really besides the point of today’s piece. This, as I’ve said, is to show that his amalgamation essay, stripped of any pretence, is a hatchet job in support of President Jonathan’s war to retain his job for another term.

    It has since become a notorious fact that the greatest opposition to the president’s wish has come from the North. What better way then could there be to help the president achieve this wish than by exposing the whole idea of a Northern Nigeria entity as a sham created and nurtured by a colonial master than never wished the country well?

    Unfortunately for the professor, even the most casual reading of his essay will show that he was determined not to let any inconvenient fact get in the way of his objective. Instead, he was determined to square and squash any such inconvenient fact.

    Perhaps the most glaring of such inconvenient facts was the widely accepted notion that Plateau State, along with Benue, is the core of the Middle Belt region. However, through the kind of “monstrous act of gerrymandering” he has accused the British colonialists of in creating Northern Nigeria, he curved out the state out of the Middle Belt and added it to his not-so-Middle Belt states of Niger, Nasarawa and Taraba. The lately departed Chief Solomon Lar, a, if not the, chief protagonist of Middle Belt, must be turning in his grave at such monstrous “travesty.”

    This gerrymandering was deliberately wanton; a little over halfway through the essay, the professor claims that “no Executive President of Nigeria has ever come from the Middle-Belt states of Benue, Taraba, Kogi and Kwara, and the South-East.” Obviously the man had to squash the fact that General Yakubu Gowon, as the longest serving military ruler of Nigeria 1966 to 1975), comes originally from Plateau State and is your quintessential Northern minority Christian.

    Similarly, it seems everyone, except the professor, knows that Taraba State has always been part of the North-East geo-political zone in what is now widely accepted as the country’s six geo-political zones, the others being, North-West, North-Central (aka Middle Belt), South-West, South-East and South-Central. For the professor, however, Taraba, is in one breath Middle Belt along with Benue, Kogi and Kwara and in the next breath not-so-Middle Belt along with Niger, Nasarawa and Plateau in an area he concedes half-heartedly “may arguably be grouped with the states in the True North as having some, albeit tenuous sociological, cultural, linguistic and religious as well as geographical nexus with them.”

    Third, the man says one of the ways the idea of one North poses a threat to the country’s unity has been its “persistent demand for power shift to the North which reared its head in…2007…”

    This demand, he adds, has failed to take into consideration the fact that, except for General Olusegun Obasanjo (February 1976 to October 1979) “all the rulers of Nigeria, military and civilian, were from the North.” It is truly amazing how the professor could have forgotten so soon that the first military ruler of this country was his fellow Igbo, Major-General J.T.U. Aguiyi-Ironsi (January to July 1966), and it was that first military misadventure by essentially an Igbo cabal of military officers which lies at the root of the country’s long running predicament.

    As for the North’s “persistent demand” for power shift rearing its head in 2007, again the professor seems to have forgotten it was his Igbo compatriot, Chief Alex Ekwueme, who planted and popularised the idea of power shift as far back as 1995 during General Sani Abacha’s Constitutional Conference.

    Our professor, it seems, suffers from schizophrenia on Northern Nigeria. In one breadth he says it is a fiction foisted on Nigeria by its British colonisers and in the next breadth he says it has had “a powerful hold…on the thoughts, attitudes and views of the people of the area,” such that it poses a grave threat to the country’s unity.

    Clearly the illogic of the argument that the unity of one section of a country necessarily poses a threat to the unity of the country seems to have escaped the fine mind of our professor. One would have thought until the various sections of a country are united, the country as a whole cannot be.

    Paradoxically, having misdiagnosed the country’s problem the man still arrives at the sensible and rational conclusion that the way to cure the country’s North-South divide is “by the creation of a national front for the activist pursuit of the NATIONAL TRANSFORMATION AGENDA.,” (emphasis mine) needless to say, the worn out mantra of President Jonathan’s administration and a choice of phrase which speaks volumes of where our professor was coming from.

    How this national front can be created, he does not say. Whichever way this can be achieved, a national conference of ethnic nationalities, as seems to be currently on the cards, is certainly a non-starter.

    This, however, is a subject for another day, possibly next week.

     

  • Confab excitements

    No doubt about it: Col. Tony Nyiam (rtd), member of the Presidential Advisory Committee on National Dialogue/Conference, which former senator, Dr. Femi Okurounmu chairs, ought to fall on his sword, for his October 29 spat with Edo Governor, Adams Oshiomhole.

    This is, of course, without prejudice to the rightness or wrongness of his motive; or the nobility or otherwise of his action.

    By that public spat, Col. Nyiam badly compromised the position of his committee. His passion – unfortunately – got the better of him, thereby reinforcing cynicism in some quarters (not by any means received wisdom, but widespread enough) that the Okurounmu committee could be a Jonathan presidential dummy, working towards a preconceived answer. This is despite its official mandate of no “no go” area.

    The colonel’s outburst gifted the committee the intolerant toga – intolerant to any view outside the approved official lines. The potent blackmail that Nyiam tried to shut up a sitting governor in public, aside from the legalistic fuel that he tried to abrogate an elected governor’s democratic right to contribute to national discourse, paints him as an anti-democracy demon of sorts, to be shunned, lampooned and excoriated by all!

    Nothing he will say, it appears, would ever mitigate that dire sentence.

    That is why the colonel should step down: to save the honour of the committee, recharge its credibility that it is no Jonathan’s poodle and perhaps take the wind off the sail of the confab’s opponents.

    Still, the colonel’s sacrifice, because of the political incorrectness of his action, does not necessarily equate public good, in the all-important issue of a national conference.

    Sovereign or no, the conference is to restructure Nigeria, from its present destination of self-destruction, to a country that gives its longsuffering citizens development and prosperity, en route to morphing into a nation, from a mere geographical expression of mutually antagonistic nationalities.

    On the Nigerian crisis, Col. Nyiam is no neophyte. In the grand anarchy of the military era when the most audacious brute was king, he was linked to the Gideon Orkar coup. The putschists not only claimed they had overthrown the extant power bully, they also claimed to have excised some northern parts of the country from the Federal Republic!

    What provocation could have driven that lunatic attempt? Those caught paid with their lives. But the survivors would appear to have continued living with the bile of the dead.

    Besides, the tragic annulment of the 12 June 1993 presidential election and the even more tragic death, in detention, of MKO Abiola, winner of that election, further fuelled the open secret that Nigeria was indeed in the vice-grip of hegemonists.

    That, with post-1999 Obasanjo era power rascality, including the Jonathan Presidency’s craving for a lawless presidency (witness events in Rivers State), which borders on creeping fascism, has snowballed into the clear lack of unanimity on retaining Nigeria as presently structured.

    The result is a pre-anarchy season of anomie that now beclouds the country. That urgently suggests some national dialogue to fix things.

    The big question: can you trust President Goodluck Jonathan on this one? Ripples would not wager for Jonathan. He may well be playing games. But others have put their faith in him, claiming he means well. Yet, others are ambivalent, deciding to play along, thinking the perilous objective situations on ground would force his hands, whatever his original motives, to do good by the republic.

    Ironically, that would appear where the likes of Nyiam come in. From the ill-fated passion of the military era, Col. Nyiam has articulated his thoughts, on the Nigerian question, in his book: True Federal Democracy or Awaiting Implosion? An Aide-Memoire for Makers of the Nigerian Constitution.

    A citizen that has gone through the rigour of putting pen to paper on the Nigerian question, after the miscarriage of the Orkar coup and its tragedies, would appear ardently committed to the restructuring school, against the establishment school that baits open catastrophe, by hoping to take their chances on Nigeria’s extant structure.

    Indeed, apart from Senator Okurounmu (at least going by his pre-2003 stance as an SNC purist) and Prof. Ben Nwabueze (who excused himself from the committee on health grounds), Col. Nyiam would appear the only other known member that clearly belongs to the pro-change lobby.

    That would appear the full tragedy of the colonel’s emotional blunder. In his spat with Governor Oshiomhole, and his looming sacrifice (self or forced), the sovereign national conference movement would appear fated to lose a key ally. That might prove even more devastating for the country, for Nigeria as presently constituted would appear a journey to nowhere.

    That brings into the fray the Oshiomhole intervention. Did the governor have a right to air his views? No doubt. Did Nyiam have a right to obstruct him in any way, even if the governor, in his view, was playing to the gallery? Definitely not.

    Does the governor have a right to overplay his own opinion, even after the visiting committee had listened to him, for 40 minutes, as Nyiam claimed, in his office? No law says he shouldn’t, though decorum demands the governor also cedes space for other opinions.

    But one thing is sure: if there was a time limit for contributions, then the governor ought to have stuck to that time limit. If he did not, then the governor erred. In a republic, every citizen should subject themselves to rules: and a governor or president is first a citizen, before his catapult to high office. But all that is in the realm of controversy!

    What is well and truly amazing is the manifest illogicality of the argument of Organised Labour (first put across by Isa Aremu, NLC vice president and also amplified by Oshiomhole at the confab Edo town hall meeting) that the Nigerian question is settled. It is not.

    Comrade Oshiomhole feels “Nigerian” because he was “Kaduna boy”, who made good over there, even if he was from Edo. His view should be applauded and respected. But to dub as “tribalists”, other citizens with diametrically opposed experiences, is plain conceit with nary any logical merit.

    Bola Ige (of blessed memory) was another Kaduna Boy (his childhood biography), his Esa-Oke folks teased as “Gambari”, because he could not even at first, speak his native Yoruba tongue. Yet, he scurried down South because he found he couldn’t enjoy educational privileges other “Kaduna boys” were enjoying!

    In any case, if “Kaduna boys” had all morphed into “Kaduna men” and lived happily ever after, why didn’t the comrade governor consider running as Kaduna governor? So long for the annoying sweeping finality of Organised Labour’s argument!

    Nigeria needs restructuring to earn a rebirth. Jonathan may or may not be sincere. But that does not eliminate that notorious fact; or that the Nigerian state is at its weakest in history for change. This is the time to remould – or die.

    It is imperative this toxic structure be done away with, whoever takes over by 2015.

  • Voodoo political economy

    Here we go again – with speculations rife that the nation’s finances may actually be in worse shape than citizens could have imagined. Although, it is not as if there was ever a time the economy as a whole could truly have claimed to have been out of the woods. This is despite the quantum earnings of the past decade. But then, the speculations have somewhat heightened in recent months. Before now, the closest indication about the economy being in any form of trouble was the acknowledgment by the federal government of the massive disruptions to oil production by activities of oil thieves said to have taken out a fifth of the nation’s daily output of 400,000 barrels.

    Today, with nearly the whole of the 36 state of the federation – minus the federal government of course – reeling in the after-effects of reducing revenues consequent upon the constricted oil output, with prospects of inability to pay wages of their workers looming and with many of them reportedly putting further implementation of capital projects on hold, things appears to have moved from the realm of speculation to grim reality.

    Of course, the lady in charge of the exchequer, Madam Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has insisted that the nation is nowhere near insolvency, contrary to the averments by the governors. Her view would be re-echoed by the duo of the Accountant General of the Federation, AGF, Joseph Otunla and Director General of the Budget Office, Bright Okogwu in their joint appearance at the National assembly last week. Both had insisted that whereas cash flow issues are to be expected in normal cycles of business, what the nation is currently experiencing comes nowhere close to being broke.

    To be sure, not even the tell-tale signs of potential crisis would render speculations of an imminent financial Armageddon anything less than an exaggerated at this time. And like this newspaper observed in its editorial of yesterday, the nation does not as yet face the prospect of slipping into the balance of payment crisis as we had in the 80s through the 90s. No doubt, the point could be made that this is hardly on account of what the managers of the economy have done but more out the benevolences of nature and the market – the factors of increased crude output and sustained high prices in a little over a decade. Even at that, the truth is that no one has sufficiently explained the current paradox in which the federal government continues to ratchet new debts at a time of sustained crude oil earnings. That is however a different matter.

    Flowing from that background, the latest squabbling between the federal government and the states over the renditions into the federation account, and which eventuated in two botched meetings of the Federation Accounts Allocations Committee (FAAC) in July and August, and which is held as partly responsible for the cash crunch across the board, would seem at best a storm in a teapot. The issue at stake really is the augmentation being demanded by the states in the face of cutback in oil exports in the situation that the price has held steady over the budget benchmark price. Left to the federal government, the net difference should be warehoused in the excess crude account to save for the rainy day – and this, naturally against the objections by the states. It is therefore clear that the squabble is one over entitlement, a reflection of the ingrained sharing mentality and the fixation at all levels with rent collection. So, the squabbling could as well go on forever.

    What cannot go on is the delusion being championed by the federal government that it pays to do either little or nothing. Clearly, the econometrics of stashing public funds in foreign bank vaults at nominal interest rates of barely two percent is yet to be sufficiently explained let alone appreciated by Nigerians. This is even more so, in the event that the federal government’s promises about giving the private sector the required muscle to thrive have remained undelivered. Today, it is no longer in dispute that after more than 10 years of financial services sector restructuring, businesses still cannot get cheap funds to run their operations, thanks to Sanusi’s central bank for making fetish of inflation-targeting with industry’s reference interest rate pegged at 12 percent. Trust the banks, they have since mastered the art of making money without lifting a finger just as small businesses have long adjusted to coughing out anything between 22 to 27 percent rate on borrowed funds or risk closure.

    Of course, like every other thing, critical financial infrastructures either for direct financing of businesses or those designed to take the pressure of capital acquisition off them, (a good example is infrastructure for leasing) remain underdeveloped. Ditto, for the plan for mortgage development; it remains on the drawing board more than two years after Okonjo-Iweala first served notice of government’s intention to overhaul the sector.

    The story of the operators on the Main Street is one of double whammy. Because the states cannot get enough from the federation account, they swing into overdrive with their tax hounds demanding all manners of taxes from hapless entrepreneurs across the states. Meanwhile, at a time small and medium scale businesses are hardly able to keep their heads above water, the political establishment, together with their bureaucratic allies, continues to gobble more than disproportionate share from the national till.

    I don’t think the question of the country being broke has arisen, yet. The proof is not just in the bazaar going on in Abuja and the 36 state capitals, but in the voodoo economy that thrives in rent as against a day’s honest and productive work. How can the nation be broke when all it takes to join the big league is a one-way ticket to Abuja or wherever for a share of the gravy? Isn’t that why politics has become the most lucrative, the biggest business in town?

    Broke? We aren’t; at least, not yet. Why should we worry when we have enough to finance imports for the next nine months even for doing nothing? Isn’t our membership of the Sovereign Wealth Fund club meant to announce our arrival in the global league? Didn’t the Americans say that if it ain’t broke, you don’t fix? And who says Nigeria needs fixing?

  • Jonathan’s dialogue: protecting President’s interest

    Predictably, the Femi Okurounmu National Conference Committee has been moving round the country to seek the views of Nigerians on what they would want discussed when President Goodluck Jonathan’s proposed national dialogue comes on stream.

    Predictable because numerous other similar committees in the past had gone round the country to seek and collate public opinions on what the problem is with Nigeria and how to solve it with little or nothing near the solution being found. Nothing in the horizon suggests that the current exercise would be any different.

    In fact there is every likelihood that the Okurounmu committee might even be worse than its predecessors and be too eager to dance to the tune of the presidency; Jonathan’s presidency.

    Just like most of our past and even present leaders, President Goodluck Jonathan is deficient in integrity as not a few Nigerians have lost faith in his promises and words. Talk about saying one thing and doing another.

    Even his promise of making his proposed conference the “mother” of all such conferences in terms of covering vast areas of our national problems and proffering solutions to them has not dampened the cynicism of critics who believe nothing good can ever come out from this national dialogue. At best, they contend, it would be a rehash of the reports of similar committees in the past that had been gathering dust on the shelf somewhere in the presidency. That such reports are there in Abuja and we are still where we are today, talking of another conference suggest that we have either not learnt from our history or this type of conference is not the solution to our problems.

    The cynicism is not helped by the president’s decision to subject whatever became the report of the conference to scrutiny by the National Assembly, with implied powers to either accept, reject or even amend to suit whatever interest they represent.

    But by far the clearest indication yet that the report of the Okurounmu committee and that of the National Conference expected to follow soon could just be a rubber stamp of what the presidency wants was given in Benin, Edo State recently, when the Committee held a public forum to hear and collate the views of the South-south people on the up coming national dialogue.

    A member of the Committee, Colonel Tony Nyiam (of the Orkar coup fame, remember him?) verbally descended on Edo State governor, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole just because of the Comrade Governor’s belief that the conference is a waste of time and would not get us anywhere. His outburst was made more insulting as it came while Oshiomhole was making his personal views known at the forum. Nyiam would have none of this and not only did he shout the governor down, his action also invited some hoodlum who disrupted proceedings which was hurriedly called off by the organizers.

    The rest of the story I am sure you know, including the fact that the Committee Chairman not only reprimanded Nyiam but also apologized to the governor. But surprisingly, Nyiam found nothing wrong with his action and not only did he defend it but also explained that he did so in reaction to what he called insults being poured on President Jonathan and other Edo leaders by Governor Oshiomhole over the conference. He similarly justified his outburst because such ‘insults’ on the person and office of the president by Oshiomhole and others like him were getting too much.

    While Nyiam action (his outburst) is condemnable, I would rather leave that to the public to judge, the same way I would leave the public to make up their minds on Oshiomhole’s purported insult on the president. My concern here is the reasons given by Nyiam for his action. Could that be one of the secret directives (if any) given to the Committee by the president? Or rather one of the directives given to Nyiam to protect the interest of the president? How many of such directives were given to him or other members of the Committee? These we may never know now, but read my lips, if a member could say such things openly, then one could imagine what he would say or do behind closed doors when the Committee writes its report and recommendation to the president.

    How many of the Committee members hold this same or similar view about the person of President Jonathan as Nyiam? It is necessary for us to know to prepare our minds for whatever report they are going to come out with. If all or majority of them are similarly inclined then we should be prepared for a report written in the Villa, prepared by the President’s men and handed over to Okurounmu for representation to the Presidency as the views of the Nigerians the Committee met in the course of its jamboree round the country. By the way I wonder, when would they go to Damaturu or Maiduguri to hold the public forum on the conference for the North east zone? I am only being curious.

    But could the Committee be secretly working on a hidden agenda for the president but using the public forum as a decoy? What could this hidden agenda be? Some say it could be tenure elongation for the president or a third term in disguise; that the Committee is just shopping for relevant views to arrive at the answer/report already prepared by the presidency. More like what we call ‘wuruwuru to the answer’ here.

    But whatever it is, the Okurounmu committee has to be very careful and not tamper with the views of the majority in presenting its report because it’s credibility is already at stake, right from the beginning and now made worse by the unnecessary and unwarranted outburst of Nyiam on Oshiomhole.

    For Colonel Nyiam, it is a big disappointment. Here was somebody that participated in the Major Okah led coup purportedly to rid Nigeria of ethnic and religious sentiments that have been militating against our wholehearted oneness as a nation and a people, now pandering towards that same ethnic sentiment to defend President Jonathan who hails from the same South south geo-political zone as the former Army officer. It is well known that Nyiam has a very soft spot for the president on account of this zonal kinship, nothing is wrong with that you may want to say. But to allow that to becloud his sense of reasoning and duty to the nation is highly unfortunate.

    If people abuse or insult the president in airing their views how is that his business and where is the offense there? If it is or was an offense to say uncomplimentary things about the president or any of our leaders then our jails would have been filled to the brim during President Olusegun Obasanjo’s regime. The former president was unarguably the most criticized and abused Nigerian leader in recent times, yet he took all on his chin. And where he felt so bad or annoyed he simply abused or insulted the other party in return and we all laughed over it. Criminalizing insults on the president (Jonathan) as Nyiam’s outburst is suggesting would make Obasanjo a saint or in retrospect looked a tolerant person. But we all know he wasn’t.

    Could Nyiam’s ethnic or regional sympathy for Jonathan account for his jettisoning of his earlier stoic support of a Sovereign National Conference (SNC) as opposed to the ‘ordinary’ National Conference (oNC) that the president is proposing? If that was the case, it would only be disappointing to hear that, but he wouldn’t have done anything illegal. Everybody has the right to change his/her mind anytime. After all, the committee chairman, Dr Okurounmu was once a staunch advocate of SNC as the only solution to Nigeria’s problems. He, like Nyiam, has now been converted to evangelizing for oNC. Hmmmmm, time will tell.

    This is also a test for Okurounmu as a person and his committee. The signs of imminent failure are there already. The boycott of the regional forum to collate views in some regions by the A-list leaders in those areas has not only created a credibility problem for the committee’s report but also a window of opportunity for these leaders to lampoon Okurounmu and his group if the committee’s report fell short of public expectations or was tampered with by the president.

    It would do Okurounmu and his committee a lot of good if the President is advised to allow a referendum on the report of the oNC as against passing the report over to the National Assembly. This will put all those ‘enemies of progress’ to shame.

     

     

     

  • Bayelsa’s crime eradication model

    Across the world, the challenge of security remains a critical issue in governance. Governments at different levels are battling with ever-increasing range of security challenges. In this regard, the idea of security governance has emerged, which among other broad themes, focus on the capacity and will of governments and other social actors in mitigating the endemic impact of insecurity on society.

    At home, the situation is no less a concern to the people and indeed the political leadership because security and development are interwoven hence the need to share perspectives on the success of the security reform and intelligence governance in Bayelsa State.

    At inception over a year ago, few could guarantee that the Seriake Dickson-led administration would be able to deliver on the lofty ideals of his manifesto which has security of lives and property as core objective. Such pessimism was not misplaced given the level of lawlessness in the state. It was more of a Hobbesian state of existence. The state was engulfed in brazen acts of street gang violence, investors fled the state, and professionals turned down postings to Bayelsa, just as contractors abandoned their sites. Criminal activities such as cult clashes, murder and assassinations put the state in the news for the wrong reasons. Worst still, kidnapping, proliferation of weapons, free use of explosive devices and illegal bunkering were a regular occurrence in Bayelsa.

    But today the story has changed, so dramatically that the once dreaded state is now a beacon of peace and tranquility with the resultant boom in economic activities.

    But how did it happen? What was the magic?

    Basically the change in leadership brought about some fundamental values which shaped the course of governance. Having appreciated the enormity of the security challenge, it was confronted headlong with the establishment of the Bayelsa Integrated Security Strategy (BISS) to harness the elements in the security programme of the administration. The modus operandi was re-engineering of policing and law enforcement and security operations generally to emphasize intelligence based proactive interdiction. It was a measure which leveraged on massive community and public participation through an auxiliary structure that effectively distills the contribution of the citizenry into the state security architecture. This system, I must report, has been very effective, affirming the zero tolerance to crime and criminality as promised by the governor. Now in the new Bayelsa, people go about their businesses with confidence, knowing that anyone who commits crime, high or low, no matter how long it takes, will pay for it.

    We must duly appreciate the tremendous work of the Bayelsa security apparatus as represented in the BISS which has such effective components as the Special Task Forces, Operation Doo Akpo, Operation Doo Akpo (Maritime), Co-ordination Assets, TETRA-Based Public Safety and Security Co-ordination Centre, Domain Awareness Systems and Urban, Municipal and Township CCTV Systems.

    Importantly, the security master plan equally involves Waterways Monitoring Systems, Aerial Surveillance Systems, Asset Tracking Systems, Public Vehicles Registration System and Indigene and Residents’ Identity Card System. It was massive though with a huge social cost which nonetheless was good for the people of the state.

    It is pertinent to note that the framework, infrastructure, equipment provision and organizational architecture to entrench law and order was built from the scratch by the Dickson administration with the support of President Goodluck Jonathan and heads of the security agencies at national and state levels.

    Yet it was not altogether a one way approach as the government also incorporated some socio-economic dimension to the fight against crime and criminality. The human element was well addressed through socio-economic programmes and projects with significant capacity to absorb and rehabilitate repentant criminals while denying any gang of new recruits. Consequently, in addition to government’s multi-sector development initiatives, development and implementation of a special human capacity development programmes were carried out which incorporates the phased training of youths locally and abroad in relevant fields of competence. This has helped greatly in reducing unemployment and possible attraction to crime.

    And for the success of the security governance in the state, Governor Seriake Dickson has been recognized and being appreciated with an award by the A.I.T’s Security Watch Programme in South Africa for leading the Most Outstanding Security Outfit in West Africa. Dickson, a shrewd and serious political leader, is not given to frivolity and as such believes in the philosophy that the best recognition and most testimonial of commendation of service to the people must first come from them. Of course, this has been done in several means and ways because the people can feel the impact of government with specific reference to their security and orderliness in the society.

    The award is a further affirmation of a job well done. Indeed, the people of Bayelsa from the creeks, to the streets, offices and marketplace are singing hallelujah on their new found sense of security, freedom and safety. Bayelsans at different fora have voiced their appreciation on the return of law and order in their domain. They also have graciously given the current administration kudos for the effectiveness of the professionally executed Bayelsa Integrated Security Strategy (BISS).

    By prioritizing the protection of lives and property as is expected of responsible governments, Governor Dickson has kept to his campaign promise to the people, who hitherto wallowed in fear, to return sanity to the state in order for development to thrive.

    The whole lot of economic and business activities right now in the state is a pointer to the success of the security governance in Bayelsa State. The state has since become a construction site and there is more to come.

    Dickson, as a former Police officer, lawyer, ex- Attorney -General of the state, understands the underlying nuances of combating crime. Of course, there will be isolated cases of crime in the state as criminality and deviant behaviour is as old as man but the impact can never be really significant. Right now in Bayelsa with the fantastic infrastructure in place, comparable to that found in developed countries, reported crime and every action taken about it, is recorded. There is a good communication infrastructure for security agencies in the state along with a dispatch system that works. Citizens who call distress centres get useful response within three minutes as teams are properly equipped to respond to security breaches in all parts of Yenagoa.

    With Governor Dickson working assiduously to make Bayelsa a tourism and investment destination of note, there is no doubt that a proactive and responsive security apparatus will remain one of the pillars of the administration just as the generality of Bayelsans believe that their governor is worthy of the Security Watch Award for leading the most outstanding security outfit in West Africa.

     

     

    • Iworiso-Markson writes from Yenagoa, Bayelsa State.

  • Matters miscellaneous

    Matters miscellaneous

    It is miscellany time again, time to fall back on that old, reliable expedient to address with broad strokes and in short takes some issues in the glut of recent occurrences as well as non- occurrences, lest the usual people feel neglected.

    The point of departure has got to be Oduah-gate, the alleged scandal that has concentrated national attention like no other recent scandal real or merely alleged, to the point of almost reducing to a footnote President Goodluck Jonathan’ s epochal pilgrimage to the Holy Land to offer supplicationfor the redemption, peace, unity and prosperity of Nigeria with himself in the saddle for four more years after the expiration of the current term.

    It even took some attention away from the Burial of the Year in Okrika, in Rivers State, and from the stirring victories of the nation’s “Under -17” soccer team in their World Cup outings. That is no mean achievement for a mere allegation

    When the story broke three weeks ago on the online publication saharareporters, it all seemed straightforward. The report was backed by what appeared to be indissoluble evidence. It surfaced at a period when planes had been falling from the skies with frightful regularity and air travel to, from and within the country had never been more fraught.

    The official denials that followed were feeble and perfunctory at best. The question was not whether the Minister of Aviation. Princess Stella Oduah,would resign voluntarily or be dumped by President Jonathan, but when.

    That was then. Now nothing is certain anymore. The whole thing has been spun into an impenetrable web of allegations.

    If asked what the whole thing is about, I would have to say that it is about an alleged scandal set off by the alleged importation of two armoured BMW limousines, allegedly by the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority,for the alleged sum of N127.5 million each, with the alleged approval of the Minister of Aviation, Princess Stella Oduah, allegedly for her use, following all manner of alleged threats to her personal safety, allegedly by contractors and suppliers and supplicants whose allegedly corrupt overtures she had allegedly rebuffed.

    Neither the panel Dr Jonathan set up to investigate the matter nor the National Assembly nor the alleged supplier of the vehicles nor the Bank that allegedly financed the alleged purchase shown the will to rescue the facts from the treacherous web of confusion, to say nothing of the penumbra of ethnic jingoism in which they now lie buried.

    I will not be surprised if, in the end, they declare that no vehicles were purchased at all, whether for the reported price or a fraction thereof; that no import duty waiver was ever sought or granted, and that no official of any agency under the Ministry of Aviation or within the ambit of the Federal Government for that matter ever sought, received, or was a party to seeking or receiving, or knew anything whatsoever concerning any armoured or un-armoured vehicles of any description, contrary to all that has been reported in the media.

    Those conspiracy theorists whom we unfortunately still have among us are claiming that a real scandal is being shabbily covered up. If there was a real threat to Princess Oduah’s life, why did she not alert the police? Why did she seek refuge in armoured limousine when the police could have provided her with armoured personnel carriers protected from the air by helicopter gunships?

    Easy, gentlemen. Are you sure the good Princess, who is a stickler for doing all that is needful, did not alert the police, and the security services for that matter?

    In whatever case, the Princess knows, as her detractors seemed not to have noticed, that the police have in recent times been fully occupied preventing members of the political opposition from holding lawful meetings even in private premises. Under the circumstances, therefore, alerting the police would have served no useful purpose.

    Even this line of reasoning is resting on the increasingly brittle supposition that the limousines were requisitioned and supplied in the first place.

    But there is no denying that the story took attention away from some really important things that should lift the national spirit.

    Early in the year, the Weather Bureau warned the nation to prepare for unusually heavy rains that would make last year’s deluge look like a drizzle – the record rainfall that, as this column observed then, literally buried vast swathes of Nigeria from the parched Sahel to the mangrove swamps of the Atlantic coast under water, causing major rivers to swell and rage as never before, and swallowing up houses and washing away bridges and roads and farmlands and sparing nothing in their ravenous wake.

    If all this would be a mere drizzle compared with what was on the horizon, the augury was nothing it not apocalyptic.

    For four days in September/October, the column further noted, the national capital was cut off from traffic from much of the south, portions of the road linking Lokoja with Abuja having been washed away. Lokoja itself, like many other cities caught up in the floods, evoked scenes of New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, which our own Poet Laureate Niyi Osundare has memorialised for the ages in epic verse.

    Some 130 persons, most likely a gross undercount, were reported killed in the floods, with at least as many missing. The number of displaced persons had to be in the millions, and damage to private property must be reckoned in trillions of Naira. Tens of thousands of the victims are yet to recover. Tens of thousands among them will.

    And yet, the Weather Bureau warned, this perfect calendar of woe in the face of which the National Emergency Management Agency and the relief agencies proved utterly unprepared and inept, would be nothing compared with what the public should expect.

    The rainy season is almost over. Some flooding has occurred here and there, but not on the biblical scale forecast by the Weather Bureau. For a public starved of good tidings, this is cause for celebration. There should be dancing and rejoicing in the streets. But the unpatriotic elements who conjured up Oduah-gate have robbed the public even of that simple pleasure.

    Shame upon all of them.

    This tawdry Oduah-gate also swept off the front pages another development that should have been cause for national rejoicing. Finally, the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency can state with absolute confidence and to the nearest millilitre the amount of gasoline consumed daily in Nigeria and where it comes from.

    The figure stands at 38.298 million litres. The NNPC imports 33 percent of the quantum, and 30 oil marketers import the balance of 67 percent.

    The good news is that when the nation’s refineries are finally rehabilitated, they will be able to contribute significantly to the mix of products entering the market.

    Nor is this the only good news in the pipeline (pun intended). The Department of Petroleum Resources is tantalisingly close to figuring out just how much crude is lifted daily from the nation’s oil wells.

     

  • Oduah: Conscience versus law

    Oduah: Conscience versus law

    We seem to be missing the point on the raging scandal on Aviation Minister Stella Oduah. The hearings at the House of Assembly have cast the drama as a matter of rule of law. It is, but it is less important than the power of conscience.

    What if Oduah followed the rule of law, and what if the NCAA followed the rule of law? Does that mean that purchasing two cars of less than 40 million in the open market can now be whisked off at the sum of N255 million?

    If Oduah gets away with it, it will be because the law failed us, and the law fails us in the face of grave injustice when conscience runs foul in a society. Our lawmakers seem to have fallen so much under the spell of the law that they are losing sight of the origin of law. That is, the law was made for us and not us for the law.

    In her appearance at the hearing last week, Oduah said the cars were not bought for her. For the purpose of fairness, let us agree that they were not meant for her as Stella Oduah, but was it not meant for the office of the Aviation Minister? Now, how do we distinguish Oduah and the office of the minister? So long as she is the minister, is it a ghost who will ride the car, or a spirit that will inhale the blissful coolness of the air conditioner, or will the windows alone enjoy the sonority of the sound system?

    Granted that the car would not go to the office of the minister, is it not a property of the ministry? If such a car of outlandish luxury goes to a ministry, will it be assigned to the office of the directors or cleaners? So, the minister ought to understand that the law was not designed for frivolity. And if it was bought for the ministry at such a princely sum, was it possible for such a thing to happen without her knowledge? And if it happened without her knowledge, does it not show that she was not in charge? And if she was not in charge at such a delicate moment of her work, why should she remain as Aviation minister?

    It is in answering such a question that the law meets integrity. But the obsession with due process in a way that may sacrifice morality portends danger. Oduah and her fellow travellers are taking that tack.

    Whatever the trajectory of the scandal, some facts have not been denied. They include, one, that the cars cost N255million. Two, that the ministry in whatever guises purchased them and the minister knew and endorsed them. Three, that Coscharis sold them, and four, that the First Bank unspooled the loan.

    The ‘what’ of the story is so overwhelming that the ‘how’ is of subordinate importance. The ‘what’ is moral and the ‘how’ is due process. The ‘what’ contains so much rot, so much puss that how it soiled the house and its superlative stench will only be important in how we prevent it next time. But that will happen only after the cleanup.

    So, the cleanup should have happened since the facts broke into the public space. It should have entailed the resignation of the minister immediately and with an apology to the Nigerian public. If she did not, her boss President Goodluck Jonathan should have, at the most merciful, asked her to proceed on suspension pending the determination of the case. His committee to investigate the matter is unnecessary. Another fact has it that the national security adviser played a role in the messy affair. Yet he has not resigned from the committee. How do we expect fairness where a member of the triumvirate will be a judge in his own cause?

    The role of the private sector is a part of the mess that has had inadequate attention. The questioning of the Coscharis boss Cosmas Maduka should not shed light with a view to determining Oduah’s culpability alone, but whether the car dealer does business in consonance with the moral standards expected by business leaders in Nigeria. Obviously Maduka wanted to show that he did not break the law, but had to sell for profit. The real tragedy was that he did not violate the law. Ditto to First Bank.

    If this society cared for its own moral fibre, the chief executive of the bank and all those involved would have resigned their positions or the board of the bank would have demanded it. As for Coscharis, all governments would have blacklisted it, and members of the public would have boycotted it as matter of principle. This same bank, as others, will not grant loans to many enterprising Nigerians who need merely N2million loans to transform their lives.

    Punishing companies and their wheel horses will set example for others doing business in the country. But if the sense of right and wrong is footloose in the land and the culpable ones go scot free, what happened in the Aviation industry would be a model rather than a warning to all wrong doers. As I stated last week, this practice of collusion between the public and private sector constitutes the norm of corruption in Nigeria.

    The law does not make people good, but people make the law good and, consequently, people become good. People make the law good by example, and that refers to the leaders. The law is important, and it is the soul of every working polity. But the law can entrench injustice if it operates without vigilance.

    When a car that sells for five million Naira sells for N10 million, the society ought to frown against it. It does not have to be a matter of law but of conscience. It is not justice to sell one thing to a person for one sum and to another person at a different sum, especially when it is a government that thrives on due process. If it was haggled upwards, on what terms or circumstances did it happen? Did that justify swindling a process? Why smuggle a car with armour into a deal for the sports festival in Lagos when the state had no knowledge of it?

    “When men are pure, laws are useless,” noted former British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli. “When men are corrupt, laws are broken.”

    Clearly, the law is being manipulated in the breach in the National Assembly hearings. Conscience is a feeble and supporting cast in a drama of felony. We must uphold the law, but not at the expense of justice. Justice is mute without the tolls of conscience.

  • Jonathan at Jesus’ tomb

    Jonathan at Jesus’ tomb

    When I saw President Jonathan in a prayerful pose at the tomb of Jesus, I initially agreed with those who wondered what he was praying for when Jesus was no longer there. The tomb was a museum piece, not a worship ground. After all, when women visited the tomb after his resurrection, an angel asked, “why seek ye the living among the dead.” And Jesus himself declared, “I am he that was alive and was dead. Behold I am alive forever.” On second thought, I concluded he could say a prayer there if he keyed into the words of St. Paul who enjoined Christians to invoke the spirit of Christ’s resurrection. In that case, President Jonathan could have prayed Christ to imbue him with the spirit of resurrection when he returned to Nigeria, so that he could resurrect a dying nation: resurrect infrastructure, jobs, healthcare, rule of law, education, etc. But did he offer that prayer or a selfish one?

  • Ubah’s obscenities

    In the build-up to the Anambra State governorship election on November 16, the crown for the ultimate grandstander must go to Labour Party (LP) candidate and controversial businessman, Ifeanyi Ubah. He has outclassed his rivals in loudmouthedness , which unfortunately is a quality many politicians in the land crave, in the mistaken conviction that it works on the electorate.

    However, it is comforting that Ubah, contrary to his fantasy, does not have the exalted position in his pocket just yet. It will be an intense contest, with the magnetic Senator Chris Ngige of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the incumbent-backed Chief Willie Obiano of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) promising a tough battle.

    Interestingly, Ubah himself unwittingly betrayed the unappealing nature of his candidacy in a recent newspaper interview. His words: “I am a money maker, a magician trained by God. In fact, let me tell you something, if I can gather all my resources, what God has blessed me with; I can do 50 percent of Anambra without anybody’s money. If I gather my worldwide resources and I am given a free hand to change Anambra, I promise that I will do 50 percent of what is in my manifesto without touching one kobo of Anambra State government.”

    In concrete terms, Ubah’s suggestion, which might be no more than an “epic boast”, was that he could on his own provide over N50 billion to run the state. This implication, based on the state’s 2013 budget of N110.9 billion, is a point to ponder. If it was a conscious statement, uttered with veracity, then the people of Anambra need look no farther than Ubah. On the other hand, if he merely served entertainment, the people ought to give him a wide berth, like others of that ilk who speak superlatively about their personal wealth with little evidence of employing it to transform society.

    In the first place, it is apt to wonder just how much Ubah is worth, given his grandiosity. Then, of course, the question of his sources would be inevitable. Furthermore, it would be interesting to know how faithful he has been in performing his civic duties, especially obeying the law and paying tax that is due. Such contemplation would be appropriate against the background of Ubah’s complicated expansion. His 40th birthday two years ago was a study in lavishness, and a statement that stamped him on the collective consciousness. Shortly after, his name featured prominently in the oil subsidy payment storm, and then he got entangled with Cosmas Maduka of Coscharis Motors Limited over a gargantuan financial deal that went sour. Lately, he was forced to relinquish the management of his company, Capital Oil and Gas Limited, to the Assets Management Company of Nigeria (AMCON) for two years on account of debt issues. And he is in court with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), which maintains that he has a case to answer in respect of a fraud allegation concerning a parcel of land at Apapa-Oshodi Expressway, Lagos.

    Beyond his troubles, which would likely be assuaged by electoral victory, it is instructive to reflect on his social responsibility in connection with his town, Nnewi, and in the context of his self-publicised prosperity. He reportedly established Ifeanyi Ubah Foundation which is said to have awarded university scholarships, sunk boreholes, installed electricity transformers, repaired and graded community roads and provided free fuel to commercial motorcyclists and bus drivers weekly. However, the truth is that these might be no more than tokenist gestures, considering the stupendous riches he claims.

    Regrettably, the entrepreneurial model that makes obscene noise about personal possessions but unenthusiastic about sharing a reasonable portion with society is very familiar. Across the country, there are so-called people-oriented Foundations set up by the wealthy and powerful, which function simply in a cosmetic fashion, lacking not only consistency, but also the commitment to long-term service. In addition, they are fundamentally ego-driven and constituted merely to aid vain posturing.

    Perhaps Ubah could benefit from reading the book, What Money Can’t Buy, by Harvard University scholar Michael Sandel, which is a critique of the “market society”. For, there is a subtle market mentality involved in the method he chose to sell his candidacy, relying on the seduction of money and what it can buy, in this case, his private wealth flaunted as a cushion that the people can count on beyond state funds. His selling point should not be encouraged, particularly because it glosses over the deeper moral implications.

    Quite strangely, but revealing of the fact that his candidacy is basically deficient in integrity, Ubah in the interview said of himself, “I am one of the Villa boys. I am not in an opposition party.” The puzzling self- description was his answer to a question about his relationship with the seat of federal power, which is occupied by the People’s Democratic Party (PDP). If Ubah’s suggestion is that LP and PDP are not rivals in Anambra, should this be interpreted to mean that the parties are one and the same, or perhaps partners? Whose interest, therefore, would Ubah represent, should he win?

    Again, there are moral angles. The people deserve full disclosure concerning Ubah’s actual leaning, rather than misleading double-speak. The lesson: Ubah inadvertently highlighted the sorry reality that the country’s political parties are separated by little or no differences in ideology. That is why he could so easily attempt to blur the dividing line. It is especially tragic that it involved LP, which is conventionally perceived as egalitarian and progressive, in contradistinction to the conservative elitism represented by PDP.

    Although the Anambra electorate is expected to have the final say, it is important to stress that political governance is too weighty to be left to moneybags, particularly the showy type who defines money in terms of a magic bullet, and demonstrates little respect for the moral core that should guide money-making and the purpose of wealth. It is equally crucial that the leader should be ruled by ideological clarity, the lack of which would create undesirable illusions for the people.

  • Edo’s ill-fated dialogue

    Outrage over the abortion of the interactive session of the Presidential Advisory Committee on National Dialogue in Benin, Edo State is to be expected. This is more so given that the issue which led to the disruption of the session was the raison d’etre for that gathering. It therefore came as a huge contradiction that a committee charged with setting the grand norms for the impending national conference and supposedly the mirror from which the nature and texture of the conference will be seen, could find itself faltering on this basic test. So when infractions that detract substantially from a setting where views are robustly canvassed without let or hindrance cropped up, they cannot but cast serious slur on the credibility of the conference.

    That was the foreboding reality of the disruption of the South-south interactive session of the dialogue committee in Benin. Reports had it that a member of the committee, Col. Tony Nyiam rtd had launched a verbal attack on Governor Adams Oshiomhole of Edo State as he was making his remarks on the propriety or otherwise of the conference. Apparently, the attack was to stop the governor from voicing his opposition to the conference which he viewed as unnecessary and a waste of resources. As he spoke, Nyiam rose to shout him down with his action spurring some thugs at the venue who rushed to the high table and disrupted the session.

    But for the security agencies, the charged atmosphere could have degenerated into serious confrontation.

    Nyiam’s unruly action has come under serious attack for very obvious reasons. Most of those who have deprecated his conduct are at pains to reconcile how the outing of a committee that has been put together to fashion out the modalities for constructive engagement among the diverse peoples of this country could turn out a theatre of high level intolerance and thuggery. That thugs could infiltrate such an occasion is a thing that is still difficult to reconcile. So also is the motive of their sponsors. But all those conjectures are now history.

    The incident has raised posers as to whose interest Nyiam was actually serving and above all, the desirability of his continued membership of the committee. Sadly, his conduct has deprived the South-south where he even comes from, the opportunity to make input into the formulation of the conference agenda. That must be a great disservice to his geo-political zone. Or are we safer to assume that being from that zone, he had some self interest to protect or scores to settle with some people hiding under the canopy of the committee?

    Whichever way, Nyiam must have disappointed even his most ardent admirers by his very rude conduct. Or is it possible to rationalize his action against the backdrop of the command structure and regimentation of his military background? But he has before now, been posturing as a social crusader and an apostle of good governance; offering views on a variety of issues of our national being. It strikes as a huge contradiction that someone who engages in informed dialectics at least on the pages on the newspapers, can display such a disdain to other views no matter how opposed they are to his predilections. That is the main problem with Nyiam’s conduct.

    He has offered some reasons for his conduct even as weak and unconvincing as they are. According to him, his action was spurred by the sarcastic remarks Oshiomhole made against the proposed national conference. Hear him: “Governors who have the penchant for insulting the president or making sarcastic remarks against the sense of judgment of the president of Nigeria should be ready to tolerate response from Nigerian citizens to tell them no”. He further alleged that the governor talked down on them when they paid him a courtesy visit only to continue the same at the venue of the interactive session. For these, he had to move to stop him, he seemed to be saying.

    But that is where he went entirely wrong. The impression created by his action is that he is intolerant of opposing views. Ironically, it is for the same reason that taxpayers’ money is being expended on the country wide tour of the committee. The committee was in that state to hear what the people of the zone had to say on the conference. That was part of the message Oshiomhole had for the committee. His, was by no means all there was to say. But it is his inalienable right. Neither Nyiam nor any other member of that committee can deny him of that right.

    It is a huge contradiction that a committee set up to ascertain the views of Nigerians on how to make the conference live up to public expectations can be so cheaply embroiled in disputations that cast serious doubt on the credibility of its members and the overall job they have set out to do.

    Oshiomhole’s views as the governor of that state must count. He represents a very key segment of that population. There are unarguably other views that may be supportive of the conference. But it is for the holders of such views to air them. Regrettably, the action of Nyiam and the thugs that disrupted the session could not allow such views to flourish.

    Going by his defence, Nyiam put forth himself as one trying to protect the interest of President Jonathan. That is the purport of all the argument about those who have the penchant of insulting the president or faulting his sense of judgment and all that trash. He is also opposed to those who make sarcastic comments about the conference. These, as justification for that unruly conduct cannot fly as they are not only puerile and unconvincing but equally ridiculous.

    First, he was not sent out there to defend the president. President Jonathan has an array of qualified aides that can enter defence for him if and when such need arises. Second, there is nothing new in the presentations of Oshiomhole that should warrant the conduct he displayed at that venue.

    Before now, so many Nigerians have raised issues with not only the timing of the conference but its capacity to address the plethora of national problems for which agitations for a sovereign national conference had been on top gear. Even then, scepticisms that this conference may go the way of others before it are neither new nor can they be solely traced to the doorsteps of the governor. These are issues borne out of our experience over time. They are being raised now so as draw Jonathan’s attention to the incongruity in expending our scarce resources on the conference if it is going to be consigned to the dustbin so soon after. That is the purpose of those criticisms and it is within the rights of people like Oshiomhole to say them loud and clear.

    The way forward is for the committee to take copious notes on these observations and advise Jonathan accordingly. It is not for any of its members to shoot down views that do not seem in tandem with their desire to go ahead with the conference. They would have done a great disservice to this country if they fail to properly reflect the views of its constituents on the need to subject the decisions of the conference to a referendum so as to guarantee its overall success. Jonathan will have the chance to prove sceptics wrong by what he makes of the decisions of the conference. That is the message. Before then, Nyiam owes unqualified apology to Oshiomhole.