The Nation Newspaper

Category: Columnists

  • Pilgrim’s purpose

    Pilgrim’s purpose

    The President is on pilgrimage to the Holy Land.”

    “Good for him”

    “As far as I know he is the first Christian President to do so while in office.”

    “Good for him.”

    “Is that all you have to say? Good for him? Whoever thought it was bad for him?”

    “You never thought it was bad for him? So what’s your problem? Why is it an issue?”

    “Whoever said it was an issue? And I didn’t say I have a problem, either.”

    “How many Christian Presidents have you had in the country, anyway?”

    “Well, we had Grandpa Nnamdi, Uncle Yakubu, and Brother Sege, and none of them made the pilgrimage while in office.”

    “Grandpa Nnamdi didn’t have enough time before he was booted out. Uncle Yakubu couldn’t afford it because he was at war. And Brother Sege didn’t need it; his enemies needed prayers and the favor of God more than he. So there you have it.

    “Just think of former President Obasanjo for a minute. Of course, he claimed to be born again and he had prayer sessions which he led at the Villa. And after his presidency, he enrolled for a Divinity diploma at the Open University. But he didn’t look to me as someone who wore religion like agbada or toga. In fact, many people questioned his claim to spirituality just based on his “up-in-your-face” approach to his political opponents. To his credit, however, he didn’t exploit religion for political purposes. Remember how he dealt with the Christian governor of Plateau State.”

    “Are you suggesting that Jonathan is politicizing religion?”

    “I am not suggesting anything. Why are you always putting words in my mouth? At any rate, it’s only a matter of perception and the beholder’s eyes may be cataract-infected. What is it about politicization that makes it obnoxious? For some, religion is itself political. And I am not talking about the politics of church governance and all its ugliness. While Islam enjoins holy pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina at least once in a lifetime, Christianity has no such injunction in relation to Jerusalem or Bethlehem. As you know from our Sunday School classes in those days, Apostle Paul was persecuted for taking Christ’s message of hope and salvation to the gentiles, meaning non-Jews. So there is some element of politics intrinsic to any social institution, including religion.

    “The challenge that a public figure, indeed, a rallying point for national identity such as the president faces is how to negotiate the personal identity of faith with the general interest of the nation. He cannot because of his position abandon his faith. On the other hand, he cannot because of his faith alienate or divide the nation.

    “Consider the case of President Obama. During his first campaign, his opponents sought to tie him up with the fiery rhetoric of his Pastor, Dr. Jeremiah Wright. On assumption of office, Obama chose to tread the field of religion softly, choosing not to identity with a particular church home in Washington DC, and only worshipping at different churches as the “spirit” directs. Of course, that also infuriates his opponents who now accuse him of being a closet Muslim. Heads they win, tails he loses!

    “Now let us go back to our good friend and leader, President Goodluck Jonathan. You asked me whether I thought that he was politicizing religion. I think what you should ask is what I thought was the purpose of his pilgrimage.”

    “Alright, thanks for the correction. So, then, my good friend Opalaba, what is the pilgrim’s purpose?”

    “Being neither an insider nor a mind-reminder, I should say that going beyond what we are told can only be an exercise in speculation, which is fine provided that we make an honest declaration as such. The President told us that he was going to seek God’s face on behalf of the country. And Lord knows that Nigeria needs His face now more than at any other time in her checkered history.Consider the many afflictions and concerns: Boko Haram; ASUU; National Dialogue imbroglio; ministerial scandals; anemic economy; nPDP; APC; and of course 2015.

    “The God of Boko Haram insurgents which is certainly rejected by the majority of Muslims, is one that feeds on the blood of innocent people, Christians, Muslims, and traditionalists. A war has been declared on Boko Haram by the government and the resolve of the people. Yet it appears that the insurgents are not retreating. Whatever God Boko Haram relies on must be a powerful entity that the combined forces of Nigerians and their Gods have not been able to overcome. In the circumstance, it makes sense for the President to seek God’s face where He can be found, and that is Jerusalem.

    “ASUU is not a violent organization. It has been in the forefront of providing education for our young men and women and feeding our industries and businesses with sound minds and creative geniuses over the years. But the president is surely tired of incessant strike by ASUU and nothing seemed to have worked. Threats have been issued; prayers have been offered; and rituals have been performed. ASUU remains intransigent. The President is out of tricks at home.

    “And can you understand how a goodwill gesture has been turned into a political nightmare? Surely constitutional conferences have been held in Nigeria since 1922. But when the military struck and declared the republican constitution invalid in 1966, a genuine crisis of legitimacy was created. And since 1990 there has been an unceasing demand for a genuine Sovereign National Constitutional Conference of the people by the people and for the people. Jonathan was reluctant but then he changed his mind and succumbed to the will of the people. But look at how it has turned out. It’s unclear what the President wanted: is it a constitutional amendment? Is it a sovereign conference? Is it a talk-shop without the power to enact its decisions? These questions are being asked and pressed when a serious crisis engulfs the Advisory Committee that he had set up to recommend an agenda for the conference. How on earth does an advisory committee on national dialogue end up with one of its own scuttling dialogue with a clear demonstration of intolerance of dialogue?

    “The economy is cash-strapped according to one of the President’s ministers. And without a robust economy, the President’s agenda is on life-support. The 2014 budget is about to be presented but it is unclear how much of the many of the proposed projects can be delivered.

    “I do not need to go into the challenges emanating from the politics of 2015. The New PDP is a thorn in the flesh, a bug in a not-to-be named part of the anatomy. Crush the bug and you crush the part. What is one supposed to do? Go to where the God that answers prayers is located. That, for Jonathan, is the rationale for slouching to Jerusalem.

    “I know what you’re thinking. We were taught in Bible class that God is everywhere, even in the tiny bedrooms of our youth.The injunction is to seek God when He can be found and to call Him when He is nearby. This is about time, not about place. So why does the President need to travel miles to seek the face of God?

    “This takes us to the heart of the politics of pilgrimage, the pilgrim’s purpose. Christians learn fast from their Muslim brothers and sisters. As mentioned earlier, pilgrimage is not an injunction of Christ. But since Christianity, like Islam had its origin in a place, Christians adopted the idea of pilgrimage as a desirable religious practice.

    “But Muslim political leaders do much more with pilgrimage than perform religious duties. They fraternize and strategize. And of course, they make deals. Consider the number and caliber of the men and women on the President’s entourage. And consider the fact that as president, he can tie his religious performance with duties of state. So he gets to chat with the President of Israel. And he gets to seek partnership on security, something that Israel has perfected beyond reproach, and interestingly, not with deep faith in the Christian God.”

  • Like locusts at harvest time…

    There is no odor as dire as that which arises from tainted goodness. I will not deny any bit, the praise that is due to philanthropy, I simply demand sincerity of all whom by their works and lives pose to be a blessing to the country.

    This is the age of charity. And trust Nigerians, they are desperately exploiting generosity for all its worth. Thus everybody is a philanthropist; even youngsters as green as dug-up spinach have caught the bug – which explains the preponderance of self-acclaimed “youth leaders,” “advocacy gurus,” “motivational speakers” and “philanthropists” afflicting our world like plundering locusts at harvest time.

    A youngster on national youth service constructs tables and chairs for the school in which he’s serving and he pleads with selected mainstream media to mention it; then there is the advocacy guru who donates literature to a school library and pays the mainstream media to report it, after which she posts it on Facebook and other social networking sites for all to see.

    Both characters among other things elevate and give expression to mankind’s greatest vanity: lust for applause and unearned greatness. In Nigeria, this has become social currency particularly among the youth. Youth seeking instant wealth and acclaim daily exploit the hackneyed terrains of philanthropy and what they perpetrate as “advocacy,” passionately praying and hoping that their exertions attract the attention and “goodwill” of local and international sponsors with deep pockets.

    “There is a clear-cut difference between philanthropy and advocacy,” many are probably jabbering by now. Agreed; but both fields of human endeavour are essentially set to the attainment of similar goals; sustainable development and the improvement of humanity.

    Philanthropy and “advocacy” as currently practiced by Nigeria’s youth is devoid of humanity. It is in essence, a partial and transitory act, projected in constant superfluity until the motives of the philanthropist and advocate are achieved. And what really are the motives? A fat bank account, a posh vehicle, a spectacular mansion, higher status, acclaim and unalterable greatness to mention a few.

    Greatness should be earned. The seekers of unearned greatness and material benefits are merely social parasites, moochers, criminals, who are too limited in intellect and in character to pioneer the often tasking and spirited march to eminence. Essentially, they are a threat to humanity and the advancements we dream.

    There is nothing as deceptive and neurotic in concept as unearned greatness as it makes a wretch of the individual who seeks it. To substantiate it is in fact, impossible, thus the nation’s youth like her under-achieving ruling class, is caught in the web of such deceitfulness. Dwelling on ostentatious, indefinable sound-bites of altruism and collectivism they struggle to give plausible form to their nameless vanity. Ultimately they seek to anchor it to reality to support their self-deception and swindle their unsuspecting victims.

    Such deception never lasts. There is no short-cut to greatness. The best generosity and “advocacy” subsists in honest work. Be you a lawyer, doctor, accountant, journalist or accountant, your commitment to your calling represents the best form of advocacy.

    If you build a library, toilet or bathroom for your alma mater, why plead with the media to report it? Why package your so-called philanthropy or advocacy for the viewership and applause of all? It is only con-artists and social parasites that do that.

    Heartfelt, repetitive acts of diligence and altruism are sooner remembered and celebrated by the world. The world will accord you a listening ear and pay you the homage you deserve at fate and fortune’s appropriate hour.

    But a greater number of youth aren’t wired to accept such fact. They would rather seek the shortest cut to affluence. If by towing such path, they achieve their goals, they claim to be “smart,” but if they fail in their quest, they blame the government, their parents, the society and everyone else but themselves for the failures their lives become.

    It is our tragedy today that Nigeria still parades ‘promising’ youth with the heart of a lion and wit of a hyena. It’s our tragedy that we still talk the talk of champions and walk the walk of cowards.

    Now more than ever, the Nigerian youth seeks to harvest sugarcane where he planted thistle.

    The talk is of ‘seed.’ By every philanthropic act or showy advocacy, the lot of the unfortunate improves, it is claimed. Bet the “unfortunate,” ignorant recipients and audiences of such acts do not know that every such “charitable” act they approve, they applaud no humanity; rather they subject themselves as middling marks for their crafty philanthropists and “advocates” to rip off.

    By consenting to be deceived, the society establishes and confirms its shameful ignorance and it’s purely illusory foundations.

    This generation considers itself to be more intelligent than the one that came before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it; thus its inexorable quest to outclass both bastions of our past and future. It is not clear however, how well it would fare in this arduous quest but many a youth have argued that it’s about time the “wasted generation” moved over.

    They claim that a new breed of Nigerian youth is fast evolving. This breed, they claim, do not seek handouts from the country’s under-achieving ruling class; no, they simply want the government to facilitate an enabling environment in which the youth could engage in gainful industry and thrive.

    By enabling environment, they speak of stable electricity, safe and usable road networks, security, access to free and quality education, free and affordable healthcare, and a corruption-free society to mention a few. I agree that such wonderful environment is overdue in Nigeria, but for what manner of youth should the government create such enabling environment? Resourceful, mean, currency-activated “youth leaders,” “advocacy gurus,” “philanthropists,” “motivational speakers” et al? Should Nigeria become more habitable for such characters and pretenders to humanity to flourish?

    To rebel against the established order, to criticize the current ruling class and in the same breath, court it; to lament the existing reality and confound extravagant hopes of the future by pillaging off the same reality are the common dispositions of a greater number of Nigerian youths. Add self-acclaimed genius to the mix, and you have yourself a perfect portrait of our leaders of tomorrow.

    You need to learn to crawl before you walk. It’s the way the universe is ordered. It’s about time the youth got busy doing honest work. The best advocacy occupies a crucial niche in honest industry.

    There is a sweet tang to success earned following years of slugging it out in the trenches. Career philanthropy and advocacy only encourages you to become a fraud unto yourself and your immediate society. There is no smart or street-savvy path to the good life. If you see certain people living large and amassing fortunes by circumventing honest sweat and industry, they are simply conning themselves off the rewards they ought to enjoy in their twilight.

    You need to be extraordinary at something before you earn recognition for it. Fortune seeks out he who has paid for it in sweat and honest toil but the lust for vanities steer importunate fools to the path to tragic twilight.

  • Sultan @ Seven

    Sultan @ Seven

    In a few days time, His Eminence, Dr. Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar, CFR, mni, the Sultan of Sokoto and President-General of the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA) will be seven years on the throne. He assumed the exalted royal office as the 20th Sultan on November 6, 2006. And his impact both as a royal father and the Commander of Nigerian Muslim Ummah has been unprecedentedly historic. When he was five years on the throne, yours sincerely wrote an article in this column which remains as current today as it was then. Thus, the article is repeated here for the records. Please, read on:

    “In every crowd of horizontal men there is always one vertical man who deserves honour not much because of his vertical position but because of the significant difference which that position makes to the crowd”

    History and man are like Siamese twins or a pair of scissors. The one cannot do without the other. History makes man just as man makes history. And the reciprocal baton continues to change hands between them as long as they remain in existence.

    Seven years ago, in Nigeria, an innocent human crescent lay hidden in the firmament of the orbit waiting to be sighted before prompting Nigerian Muslim Ummah into a united folk. That crescent is the towering personality generally known today as the SULTAN. The gentleman’s name did not ring any bell in Nigeria before he was named and crowned ‘THE SULTAN OF SOKOTO’ in November 2006.

    Thus, the emergence of Brigadier General Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar (rtd.) as the successor to the exalted throne of the great Sokoto Empire without any controversy came as a surprise to many Nigerians. At 50 years of age then, many people believed that he was one of the youngest men to become the Sultan in many years. But he disagreed with such suggestion and recalled that his own father, Sultan Abubakar Sadiq III who died in 1988 ascended the throne at the age of 37.

    With a sound military background and a diplomatic and modern travelling exposure, this Sultan has been perceived since coming into office as a millennial royal Captain divinely designated to pilot the affairs of Islam and the Muslim Ummah in Nigeria with great success.

    Philosophers who assert that every new century has a way of producing a great leader may be right after all. The example of His Eminence, Dr. Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar is a manifest attestation to that assertion. Ever since he assumed the exalted royal office about seven years ago, this great man has convincingly exemplified all the qualities of genuine leadership. Every statement he has made socially, religiously or politically and every action he has taken officially or personally has proved to be a school from which all well-meaning people have learnt one lesson or another.

    Five years after his assumption of office, the symbiotic relationship of history and man was reconfirmed in Zaria, on Wednesday, (November 23, 2011), where a galaxy of well-meaning men and women from all walks of life assembled to say “we are here to bear witness”. That was the day His Eminence was installed as the CHANCELLOR OF AHMADU BELLO UNIVERSITY, ZARIA. The occasion was just one of many laurels accruing to him since he assumed office.

    An American President, Harry S. Truman (1884-1972), once described a leader as “a man who has the ability to get other people to do what they don’t want to do and like it”. By his activities and functions so far, Sultan Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar has proved Truman right by demonstrating to Nigerian Muslim Ummah that the time has come for the reformation not only of the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA) but also the Sultanate.

    When he assumed office seven years ago, he hinted that the Sultanate would be put on the internet to enable all educated Muslims have access to their leader.  And in this age of computer, can anyone lay claim to any serious knowledge without adequate access to the internet? That is why he decided to start the reformation of the Sultanate through the instrumentality of the internet. And as an exemplary leader, he demonstrates his leadership prowess by possessing mastering fingers on the computer.

    In Islam, education is the first law. It is only through it that man can understand life in all its ramifications. That was why Allah’s very first revelation to Prophet Muhammad (SAW) ordained education thus: “Read in the name of Allah who created; He created man from clots of congealed blood; Read! Your Lord is the Most Bountiful One, Who taught man by the pen; He taught man what he did not know…”Q. 96:1-4. To further emphasize the compelling need for education in Islam, Prophet Muhammad (SAW) was reported to have said in one Hadith that “knowledge is a lost treasure. Muslims should look for it and pick it wherever they could find it”.

    Without education there can be no information. And without information there can be no progress. That is why the Sultan started his reformation of the Sultanate from the premise of education. It is only with education that most problems in this world can be solved without much ado. Sultan Sa’ad Abubakar also believes that education without social harmony is like a virtue without value and that there can be no harmony in a society where people are overwhelmed by ignorance and penury as is the case in Nigeria. Thus, he has consistently focused on both.

    At his installation as the Chancellor of Ahmadu Bello University two years ago, Sultan Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar, told the crowd that the current socio-economic indices in Nigeria were a clear indication that the country had begun to drift. He lamented that despite the nation’s unprecedented resources, development had failed to match the national wealth.

    In his words: “Corruption has emasculated our progress even as poverty and unemployment have pushed citizens to the brinks, fuelling and confounding social conflicts and inter-communal crisis has extracted heavy toll in both human lives and property”. He went further to say that: “Persistent insecurity has generated panic and anxiety; our social and physical infrastructures are far from meeting the needs of the nation; the country appears to be adrift and at the core of all these is moral decay engendered by ignorance and greed.”

    He also noted that the reform of the tertiary education sector could not be effective without putting in place, the progressive developments required in the basic and senior secondary education sectors insisting that “our state governments, especially those of the North, must begin to realize the enormity of the challenges facing the education sector and take urgent and necessary steps to address these challenges.” He lauded the founding fathers of the ABU, especially, the late Sarduana of Sokoto, Sir Ahmadu Bello, and urged the authorities of the school to continue to abide by the cardinal principles on which the institution was founded.

    That is the renascent Sultan for you, a man who is at the topmost echelon of the tree of comfort but feels so much concerned about the plight of the peasants who are deliberately consigned to the weeding of the shrubs without hope through official policies. He has never relented in his advocacy for good governance and denunciation of corruption and religious intolerance.

    When he was invited in January 2010 as a Special Guest of Honour to a religious seminar organized by the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) with the theme: ‘Knowing Your Muslim Neighbour’, Sultan Abubakar delivered an historic speech that reverberated meaningfully across the entire world. And in May, same year, he also invited the leadership of CAN to a special conference of the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA) held in Kaduna. The theme of that conference was: ‘Islam in the Eyes of the Christians’. He is the first Nigerian first class Monarch ever to engage in such an interfaith affair at the national level and his speech on that occasion was also electrifying. Please read an excerpt from that speech as presented below:

    “….we initiated, as we had done for the JNI, a thorough review of the activities of the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs [NSCIA] and an extensive reform of its structures. It is our firm belief that these reforms are not only desirable but necessary, to reposition the Council to play its strategic role as the apex Islamic body in the country and to respond, effectively and meaningfully, to the challenges facing the Muslim Ummah in a multi-cultural and multi-religious society. We have had extensive consultations over the last one year and have received very useful inputs on the reform agenda from all the constituent bodies of the Council. Our strategic objectives in this exercise had been and shall remain: firstly, the promotion of Muslim Unity and Solidarity, to accord the Ummah the ability to speak with one voice and to act and work together for the advancement of Islam.

    Secondly, the development of Education and Economic Enterprise, to enable the Muslim Ummah play an active role in the socio-economic life of Nigeria is a sine qua non.

    Thirdly, the promotion of peace and religious harmony both within the Muslim Communities and between the adherents of Islam and those of Christianity is a joint effort that cannot be handled with levity.

    Fourthly, the establishment of effective linkage with Government, at local, state and federal levels, to safeguard the interest of the Ummah and to build consensus on those vital issues that bind us together as a nation must be pursued and sustained.

    It is therefore our hope that as we bring this reform process to its logical conclusion, we will receive the support and patronage of the entire Muslim Ummah as well as the co-operation of all stakeholders including State Governments and indeed the Government of the Federation”.

    “….The task of overcoming Nigeria’s problems calls for sacrifice, dialogue and understanding; and all national stakeholders must overcome the myopia of greed and self-centredness to move this great nation forward and safeguard its strategic interests….we must begin to look into the future with hope and confidence and to ensure, first and foremost, that we shore up the foundations of our political system. The National Assembly, and indeed all tiers of Government, should not relent in their current efforts at Electoral Reform and in ensuring that Nigerians have a genuine electoral process that guarantees free and fair elections. Unless and until we do that, our nation will continue to be haunted by the unholy alliance between fraudulent elections and illegitimate electoral outcomes, the consequences of which we all know too well. We must break away from this vicious circle and confer on Nigerians the power and indeed the ability to decide, freely and willingly, who leads them at all levels of governance”.

    “….There is also the urgent need for us to re-evaluate our conception of leadership as a nation…. needless to add, that there is no way we can make genuine progress as a nation when a significant number of our populace wallows in abject poverty unable to secure the requisite means for their sustenance and to cater for the health and educational needs of their families. Democracy must build a humane society capable of looking after the legitimate needs of its citizenry. For it to be truly successful, it must be able to bring real progress to all sectors of our diverse society.

    “Finally we must all work hard to limit the influence of wealth in our society and to support those values that promote social responsibility, excellence and hard work”.

    That is Sultan Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar a leader who knows the problems of his followers and associates with them in solving those problems. Through his humble interaction with all Muslims in Nigeria irrespective of tribal or geographical boundaries, he has become the first Sultan to create a strong feeling of a united Ummah under a competent and kind leadership. And by speaking out incessantly against policies which seem to deliberately impoverish ordinary Nigerians across board, this Sultan has brought a rare hope to Nigeria and the Muslims are the luckiest for it. Such a leadership deserves allegiance, loyalty and regular prayer from the Ummah. We pray for the elongation of his life with very sound health and regular Allah’s guidance.

  • POT POURRI: Of Rochas, Aregbe and Adesina

    Gov. Okorocha running Imo like Rochas Foundation: Imo State under the watch of Governor Rochas Okorocha is in dire straits. Pay no heed to the propaganda blitz you see on television and read in newspapers, the heartland of Igboland suffers under the blight of the poorest quality of leadership. At the heart of the matter really is that the governor is acutely intellectually incapacitated to lead that modest entity but he is blissfully ignorant of this fact and worst still, he is a closed shop, impervious and impregnable to ideas or institutional guidance. The result is the people of Imo have woken up to find that they have installed a naked king – one who is restless and hyperactive with it. One who is quick to sally up an iroko tree in the majesty of his nakedness unbeknown to him.

    Naturally, this strange visitation leaves Imo people shame-faced, dumb-struck and utterly subdued. Imo today looks like the path of a violent hurricane – everything is upturned yet nothing is fixed. Of course there is a wide disconnect, a gulf between the government and the people; or more accurately, between the governor and the people for he is the government and the government is him. For instance, he disbanded his cabinet long ago and has been running a one-man show, but it is just as well because members of his cabinet were no better than his errand boys and girls.

    The local government areas are cold and dead with most of the secretariats overgrown by weeds. There has been no election and there is not likely to be one. There are no heads of this second tier of government either. Rather he orchestrated the crisis in the LGAs and initiated an illegal contraption he called community government; otu abughi eziokwu – so much scamming. The much touted free education policy is a huge joke but none is amused.

    The real tragedy however, is that there is no economy in Imo today. The place has been turned into an arid land where hunger ravages the people. The governor must have construed the state as some sort of phony Rochas Foundation long sustained by spell-binding marketing tricks.

    All we see in Imo today in the guise of governance is so much madness without method. He rode on the back of the people to power promising to rescue the state. After two years, it is clear he is merely a fantasist himself in need of help and rescue. And more pathetic, he has a voracious and insatiable hunger to covet. Consider this confounding paradox: there is acute hunger in his domain because he keeps all the money yet he remains very hungry. Surely Imo people cannot wait till 2015 to dislodge this tragic aberration.

    Governor Aregbesola making simple matters complex: Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola of Osun State does not look like a terribly complex persona. Right from his days in Lagos, even though he loves his politics dearly, he comes across as an easy-going man who was always so quick to act to impress his people. But as governor, in spite of his best efforts (and he makes such great effort to get work done), he always seems to rub off people the wrong way – from his oft soap-box-like grandstanding, to his shaggy beard and his Islamic religion fervor – he always seems to leave some sour curd for people to chew.

    But Ogbeni’s current education reclassification exercise is by this column’s estimation, an unwarranted exercise in mysticism and magic. Formal education is education and it is education; there is absolutely nothing to reinvent. In fact it is actually the simplest task a smart and empowered education commissioner can routinely carry out without breaking nary a sweat.

    First, he must hand over private schools hijacked by the errant military regimes of yore back to their owners where they are willing to take them back. Lagos State under Governor Bola Tinubu set this pace over a decade ago to the applause of all and the result has been most salutary (please go see St. Gregory’s, Holy Child, Anwar Islam today, to name just three). This handover will immediately free up funds, human resources and time for the uplift of the remaining government schools.

    Someone must convince Ogbeni that the problem with schools and indeed education in Osun and even Nigeria is not the school calendar, structure or classification. There is nothing wrong with the 6-3-3 system and splitting hairs about re-classification adds little value. What to do is first, declare education state’s core priority sector; two, fit the MDAs under education properly to take institutional responsibility; three, appoint the right leaders for the MDAs; four, impress upon them that education is crucial and empower them; five, capture your desire in the budget by paying attention to all details and providing appropriate funding.

    With close supervision, the commissioner and his team (agencies under his watch) will deliver needed results most routinely. For instance, in one budget cycle, all the dilapidated school facilities in Osun can be fixed. Teachers will be trained, labs will be equipped and standards will be benchmarked against the best in the world. These and more will be done as a matter of routine without much fanfare.

    Who says state must provide uniforms and even meals when it really cannot afford to. It is ok that Ogbeni has a strong intention to effect change but not for its sake.

    Agric Minister, just what the spin doctor ordered: What shall we do with our dandy Agric Minister, Dr. Akinwunmi Adesina? It may well profit the nation more if we created a ministry of entertainment and theatrics for he is more adept at these arts than the crucial sector of agric he currently meddles with. Just as stakeholders decry the burgeoning rot and inertia he is bequeathing the sector, our dashing, jet-set minister staged a side-show in far away New York, USA. It was a fantabulous Eminent Persons Group to advise President Jonathan on the way forward on the Agric Transformation Agenda!

    Dr. Adesina simply corralled Messrs Bill Gates, Kofi Annan and IFAD’s Kanayo Nwaeze to a fancy New York hotel suite and had the president shake hands and snap photos with them. Well let it be noted that if President Jonathan is fooled by Adesina’s razzmatazz, the rest of us are not. To drive home our point, we throw these few posers and hope he will give Nigerians honest answers: 1) How much rice has been imported through our borders this year and what quantity is smuggled? 2) Can he account for Nigeria’s rice development fund, how much do we have so far, who is managing it, who has benefited? 3) Same for the Cassava bread development fund, 4) and the Cocoa fund; what about the three million cocoa seedlings withering away at CRIN?

    Under a more conscientious minister, Agric would employ millions of jobless Nigerian youths but Adesina has been extremely disappointing and history will record him as the spin doctor he is.

  • Jonathan and otherVIPs

    Jonathan and otherVIPs

    EXCEPT for the brouhaha over the purchase of N255m bulletproof cars for Aviation Minister Stella Oduah, all was quiet last week on the executive’s side.

    The weekly Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting went without much excitement. There were, quite alright, the usual scenes of ministers cracking jokes, laughing, pumping hands and posing for photographs in their exquisite local apparels and Oxford Street suits. But, no earthshaking contract was announced. No policy statement was made. In fact, for reporters, it was a drought.

    The President was away in Israel on a pilgrimage. With him were a host of other Very Important Pilgrims (VIPs), including governors and ministers.

    It was a very busy time for His Excellency, Dr Goodluck Ebele Azikiwe Jonathan, JP – of course. His media team did a fantastic job of ensuring that those who were not privileged to be in Israel did not miss the events. We were bombarded with photographs of the holy trip. There was one of the President and other VIPs singing on Mount Olive. A cheeky fellow grinned: “What manner of songs – praise (for personal blessings) or lamentation (for Nigeria’s parlous state, despite her huge blessings?”)

    Trust Nigerians; they have launched into a wild criticism of the pilgrimage, attacking every step the special pilgrims took. How much did this cost? Was it provided for in the budget? What benefit will Nigeria derive from this jamboree decked in a spiritual dress? What informed the choice of the entourage? Were they all on holiday? Shouldn’t this be a private affair? It’s all so irritating.

    They never saw the image of the President returning from the pilgrimage more compassionate, more forgiving and more spiritual, ready, as they say here, to move Nigeria forward. All they saw was a jamboree.

    It was, indeed, a humbling sight: Mr Pesident and the others, including Christian Association of Nigeria(CAN) President Ayo Oritsejafor, Governors Theodore Orji (Abia), Emmanuel Uduaghan (Delta), Godswill Akpabio (Akwa Ibom), Martin Elechi (Ebonyi), Jonah Jang (Pleateau) and Gabriel Suswam (Benue) – JPs all – heads bowed and eyes shut, praying at the Dominus Flevit (the place where Jesus wept over Jerusalem).

    To those critics, of whom I had earlier spoken, who will never mind their own business, it was not enough for these leaders to just bow and pray here. One asked: “Did Jonathan weep over Nigeria there?” Another said: “If Jerusalem, rustic, calm and peaceful, attracted the Lord’s tears at that time, does Nigeria today not deserve wailing and crying from our leaders? But will such tears be genuine?”

    C’mon folks, today’s leaders are not like babies crying for lollipop. No. When confronted by those little hitches you guys describe as problems, they simply frown a bit, swear for a while shrug their shoulders and walk away. If they feel irritated, often by public outcry, they set up a probe panel, issue some nebulous directives – they are called terms of reference – and get on with their ever demanding jobs.

    His Excellency and the other excellencies were also photographed at the Church of St. Peter in Gallicantu (where Peter denied Jesus three times). They all stood there, their arms clasped either behind them or in front and their faces betraying unmistakable reverence. Some kind of submission. Another armchair critic, obviously one of those envious people who may never be able to afford such a pilgrimage, said the faces of the distinguished pilgrims may have been a betrayal of incredulity at Apostle Peter’s fate. He quoted the VIPs as thinking: “Shuo! Just for denying his master three times? Haba. Don’t we deny our godfathers a million times? Just three times and the poor guy earned a place in history? Na wa o. Isn’t treachery part of our political menu?”

    At the Wailing Wall, the VIPs – skull caps and all – were again praying. Some merely touched the wall; others slammed their two palms on it, murmuring their petitions in the belief that the angels would fly in to move them all to heaven for the Almighty to sanction. Trust the spoilsports. They launched into an elaborate guess work on what the VIPs were asking God to do for them.

    Jonathan, they said, must have been praying that God should remove all the obstacles on his way to 2015. In fact, one fellow with a dubious claim to telepathy quoted the President as saying: “O Lord, I know you have favoured me, making me the luckiest of all my people. I thank you. And I pray that you should not get tired of helping your son. This 2015 matter, now it’s a bit tough, but I know nothing is difficult for you to handle. Father, handle it for me well well o. Clear all obstacles and make me lucky, once again – in Jesus’ mighty name. Amen.”

    What were the others praying for? Was Jang seeking forgiveness for his role in the Governor’s Forum election debacte where he was the poster boy of the group that said 16 was bigger than 19, a position they defended up till the very day they embarked on the pilgrimage? Was Akpabio asking for God’s will –or his own will – in his bid to be a senator? Was he confessing his role as the ring leader of the 16-is-bigger-than-19 Governor’s Forum faction, which turned logic on its head and created the trouble from which the forum is yet to recover? Was Peter Obi praying for his candidate’s success in the November 16 election, knowing that Willie Obiano will find in Dr Chris Ngige a Goliath of an opponent? Uduaghan may have spared a thought on his role in the Governors’ Forum crisis. He was the Electoral Officer—sorry, an error there—the Returning Officer, who supervised it all, but joined the group that said 16, not 19, carried the day.

    Suswam is eager to be a senator. Was he begging God to help him beat Barnabas Germade, the incumbent and former PDP chair?

    Mr John Kennedy Okpara, the Executive Secretary of the Nigeria Pilgrims Commission, urged the pilgrims to see their trip as a time for spiritual rebirth and a time for divine encounter.

    Nonsense, another of those envious fellows of whom I had spoken, roared. In his view, the pilgrimage should be seen as a trip to a purgatory, a kind of reformation for the confession of sins. Restitution. He then began, without any attempt to differentiate between official and personal matters, to list those to whom he felt the pilgrimage should have been of immense benefit.

    Works Minister Mike Onolememen should have been on the pilgrimage, said the fellow, to seek forgiveness for what he called the criminal negligence of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway on which many great dreams have been terminated. He mentioned also the East-West road, saying there was no reason for allowing these roads to become the death traps they now are.

    Education Minister Nyesom Wike was not on the trip. He should have, said our man, who insisted that the chief should have sought forgiveness for pursuing a personal political goal while all parents are looking up to him to lead the resolution of the crisis that has got the universities shut for more than four months.

    The busybody went on. He said Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala was a sure candidate for the pilgrimage for, according to him, not telling the truth about the economy. He could not fathom why the economy could be doing “so well” and yet many are out of job and states would go on for three months without their statutory allocations. Besides, he accused the lady of telling university teachers to take what the government offered or go to hell – a statement the Minister of Finance and Co-ordinating Minister for the Economy denied.

    Our man, the interloper, was glad that Ms Oduah made the trip. It must have afforded her the opportunity to seek God’s face in the face of a huge assault on her integrity, he thought. Besides, some confession and penitence won’t be a bad idea. Buying N255m bulletproof toys – sorry, a wrong word there – cars in a country where many go to bed hungry and universities are shut down by a massive strike and doctors are pushing for better pay and poor electricity supply has killed many factories, is, no doubt, a big sin that requires some ethereal intervention to cleanse.

    And talking about Oduah. I wonder how President Jonathan shunned her – as reported in the media – in the Holy Land. Wouldn’t that have been sinful, negating the whole idea of the long spiritual peregrination? I saw Ms Oduah in one of those pictures, a big hat on her head, her face covered by the cream hat, a smart-fit shirt on a pair of trousers, just two rows behind Dr Jonathan. If His Excellency had looked back, I bet he would have been all smiles; those harmless smiles that often brighten his face.

    It is good to have our VIPs back. Now a thought for ASUU, Boko Haram – over 100 died in Yobe while you were away – extrajudicial killings, political intolerance – Federal Capital Territory (FCT) authorities are threatening to demolish New Peoples Democratic Party’s office in Abuja – and corruption.

    Shallom!

  • Nigeria’s cultural tapestry and challenge of devt – 3

    Acorollary of systemic and endemic corruption is profligacy, the mindless waste of public resources. This, too, has become a great drag on Nigeria’s developmental efforts. Granted that Nigeria earns a fairly steady income from crude oil and natural gas exports (with all the perils of a mono-cultural economy), the country is still relatively poor. Its poverty is revealed by the huge deficits in infrastructure, education, healthcare and local content in industry and critical sectors of the economy, which the totality of internally generated revenue, even with prudent management, cannot possibly fund. Yet, Nigerian leaders have rather focused on white elephant – the proverbial bridge to nowhere: the under-utilized seaports and airports, prestige projects without economic spin-offs – which would yield slush funds to oil the corrupt politicians’ campaign and election and saddle the people with sub-standard infrastructure, which benefits only a small fraction of the population. Driven by megalomania and a bloated sense of Nigeria’s importance, Nigerian officials take very large and bloated delegations to regional, continental and global summits. A retinue of officials accompanies our athletes and sports ambassadors to international engagements. Presidents and governors undertake countless and useless overseas trips, especially the quixotic search for foreign investors, with a huge entourage, all drawing estacode from our national patrimony. The rate at which public officials and their friends acquire a fleet of aircraft and put the latest models of exotic cars on pothole-infested roads betrays the absence of a developmental vision and a lack of self-confidence in our so-called leaders.

    It may be argued that next to corruption and profligacy, the greatest common behavioural trait of players in the Nigerian public space is impunity, and this is not a recent development. As early as the First Republic, notable people and/or their agents committed offences against the state and its citizens, and were not made to face the full wrath of the law. In consequence, such misdemeanour was repeated in later times. For example, the mayhem in the Western House of Assembly in May 1962 was perpetrated by some so-called “Honourables,” who broke the mace, assaulted their colleagues and disrupted proceedings. Till date none was brought to book. The recent affray on the floor of the Rivers State House of Assembly merely rehashed that script. Elections were brazenly rigged in the Western Region in 1964-65, and again in August 1983. In spite of court decisions and/or graphic evidence, the culprits got away with it. In the case of the perennial cancellation of elections in Oguta, Imo State, a commentator, who identified federal lawmakers from the area as major culprits stated as follows: “Any inquisition that ignores the brazen impunity displayed by these elected federal legislators will be patently meaningless.” He added that it had become “paramount to check the impunity of these … people.” (Omeihe, 2013)

    Another trait that dominates public behaviour is self-help, which is widely acknowledged as the weapon of the weak in the face of perceived injustice. Violent reactions to electoral heist, perceived to have been perpetrated by unpopular but powerful state actors with the connivance of judicial and security apparatus of state, have characterized most elections in post-independence Nigeria. Western Nigeria achieved notoriety for the “wet e” spree of arson, destruction of property and murder of political opponents in 1964-65 and in Ondo State in 1983. Sporadic violence also greeted disputed elections in parts of the West, Benue and Akwa Ibom States in more recent times. Self-help can be regarded as an indignant response to weak institutions, brazen injustice and impunity, and the “might-is-right” syndrome. The “might-is-right” type of self-help, typical of powerful Nigerians who abduct creditors or demolish physical structures or forcibly possess disputed land, was recently demonstrated in a long-drawn dispute between two agencies of the federal government. On June 21, the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Security Agency (NIMASA) blockaded the Bonny Channel to compel the Nigeria Liquified and Natural Gas (NLNG) Company to pay a disputed levy. The blockade defied a High Court injunction in favour of the gas company. A newspaper (The Nation, July 8, 2013:19) declared that it was “hard to find a more befitting word than self-help” to describe the NIMASA action. Given the intervention of the court, the paper wondered why NIMASA was “in a hurry to do things its own way.” But this was merely one in a long list of cases of self-help, mainly among private persons, between government agencies and private concerns, and, as in this case, between government establishments. No nation can develop in such an atmosphere of lawlessness.

    What is also becoming alarmingly rife in the Nigerian public space is the suffocating grip of acquiescence to a decadent system and unwholesome practices by the populace. It is reflected in the robotic obedience to unlawful orders by police orderlies who brutalize fellow citizens on the orders of their power-drunk principals. For instance, the brutal treatment of a journalist, Minere Amakiri, by the military governor of Rivers State, Alfred Diete-Spiff, in 1973 was done by underlings in obedience to what was a patently inhumane order. A commentator asserted that: “Nigerians are specially gifted at rising or falling to the level of leadership they’re offered.”(Ogunlesi, 2013:25)

    There is a pervasive cult of silence in Nigeria. It is called “suffering and smiling,” living in denial, pretence, and complicity with injustice and oppression. It manifests in a herd instinct (Fela’s “follow-follow”) or the “if you cannot beat them, join them” syndrome. For instance, those who should have spoken out kept quiet till the Boko Haram insurgency in the North invaded even the hallowed chambers of emirs’ palaces. The bandwagon mentality and appeasement of the “winner-by foul means” or worship of the parvenu (“money-miss-road”) betrays moral cowardice. Sycophancy, eye service, obsequiousness and hero-worship are routinely expressed in fawning congratulatory messages to temporary holders of power on occasions of inconsequential “achievements” or “landmarks.” Even an octogenarian could address a lady half his age but fortunate to be a First Lady, as “our mother,” even when Her Excellency’s conduct belies the title.

    Where nepotism (“man-know-man”) reigns, mediocrity becomes the norm. Banality takes centre stage and reaches new depths in the craving for titles, especially honorary doctorates. Even institutions that do not award bachelor’s degrees brazenly award all manner of doctorate degrees, often styled “fellowships,” and those institutions that do not have the professoriate now organize inaugural lectures! It seems that we have chosen to settle for second-best and sub-standard products, leaders, facilities and what have you.

    Sheer mendacity – brazen lying as an art of governance – what the inimitable Professor Emeritus Tekena Tamuno has styled “lying-in-state” has become official policy. Endorsement now supersedes voting and 16 votes are higher than 19! Official double-speak makes it difficult to know what and who to believe. Usually reliable sources are now suspect. The credibility of government as an institution is eroded and public trust in the integrity of our leaders is weakened.

    In a materialistic world, hedonism and excess should be expected. But the degree and pervasiveness of godless, soul-less greed (“chop and quench”; jeun ko’ku”), avaricious and vulgar materialism, loud and raucous exhibitionism, vanity (“I better pass my neighbour”), get-rich-quick mentality beat the imagination. Our materialism is tasteless and gaudy. We love grandeur and pomp without quality and substance. We are notorious, even in Europe and North America, for our ostentatious celebrations of empty “landmarks.” A columnist lamented that: “Those who should be laying out the framework for reconditioning our minds are too busy over-celebrating underachievements, too busy building castles on the ground for themselves and in the air for the people.” (Ogunlesi, 2013:25)

    Although Nigerians can be aggressive when their national pride is wounded, most suffer from “culture cringe” – inferiority complex – that makes all things foreign superior or more attractive. Anything foreign seems fine, if not better than ours. Foreign degrees, foreign accent, foreign spouses and elaborate wedding ceremonies in foreign lands (Dubai, the UK, the USA, etc.) have now become status symbols.

  • A Panel’s Cross

    Tony Nyiam became a household name 23 years ago. He shot to the limelight following the 1990 Gideon Orka coup. Nyiam, a colonel, was one of the arrowheads of the putsch, which was purportedly sponsored by fish magnate Great Ogboru. Until the coup, Nyiam like many of the plotters was an unknown figure in the army, who went about his duty unobtrusively. The coup changed everything and he became an instant celebrity.

    Unlike some of the plotters, Nyiam was lucky to have escaped the long arm of the law. He evaded arrest and fled abroad from where he became a thorn in the flesh of the Babangida regime, which he and his friends attempted to topple. Because the Babangida regime’s cup was full, many no longer had sympathy for it at the time of the coup. They had wished that the plotters succeeded in sacking the government. The plotters’ failure was, therefore, bad news for those who did not see anything good in the Babangida regime.

    With such support from the public, the plotters stood commended in the court of public opinion. This was all Nyiam and his co – travellers needed to become political activists. Nyiam especially has been riding the wave of political and rights  activism all these years  to make himself relevant in the country since his return from exile after Babangida left office unceremoniously in 1993. Even though he was tried in absentia and retired from the army by the Babangida regime, he has not allowed  this to bother him since his return home.

    Since he was perceived as doing no wrong in the  attempt to topple the Babangida regime along with others, he has been well received  everywhere he went to since he came back.  Even those he attempted to topple seem not to hold that against him anymore. Nyiam, the fugitive from the law some years ago, has become the man campaigning for people’s rights and participating in democratic struggles. When he was named into the National Conference/Dialogue Advisory Committee, the public did not raise an eye brow. To them, Nyiam has paid  his dues and  as such deserved the appointment.

    In the past few weeks, the Senator Femi Okurounmu – led committee has been going round the country rubbing minds with the people on what line the planned conference should take. At each sitting, people expressed their minds. They spoke from the heart. Some condemned the planned talks, some said it was long over due and yet some were non – committal. Until the committee went to Benin, the Edo State capital. At Benin on Monday, the unexpected happened. Nyiam, an officer, who is expected to be a gentleman, blew his top over the remarks of Governor Adams Oshiomhole.

    Whether in a fit of anger or not, Nyiam, as a member of such an august panel, is expected to be accommodating and self restraining in dealing with people, particularly those who appear before the committee. The committee and its members should be ready to take anything from people because it is by so doing that they will be able to arrive at a fair and accurate conclusion. The panel was not set up to impose its will on people; it was not set up to sell its or the government’s views. It was set up to collate the people’s views and prepare a report accordingly for the government. Can the committee do that by being hostile to those who appear before it? The answer is no.

    What happened in Benin on Monday was a shame, a big shame. Nyiam did not exhibit  the traits of an officer and a gentleman the way he lunged at Oshiomhole. If he had not been held back, only God knows what he would have done to the governor. What did Oshiomhole do to warrant such an indecent attack? Oshiomhole merely expressed his views on the planned dialogue, but this did not go down  well with Nyiam, who threw caution to the wind as he went for the governor. A case of if you miss the ball don’t miss the leg. But this was not a football match. It was a public gathering of people from different walks of life.

    Mind you, these people were there at the behest of the committee, which needed  them to gauge how the public feels about the proposed dialogue. Oshiomhole took the floor to speak and repeated what he told the committee when its members visited him at the Government House earlier in the day. According to Oshiomhole, there is no need for the planned conference. The governor was not saying anything new, so there was no need for Nyiam to flare up. Except  there is something we don’t know that made him to act that way.

    ‘’I want to make my own comments’’, Oshiomhole began. ‘’They are my views and not the views of Edo State. It is not the view of any particular ethnic nationality. I think as a Nigerian we all have a stake in this country and we have a duty to lay a solid foundation for the future of this country. I have a duty to be honest and truthful on the views and position that I canvass. My views are different. I asked the question, why are we having a national conference?

    ‘’I believe that anyone who convenes a meeting must be clear why he convened a meeting. I have the opportunity to travel far and wide. You don’t assemble people and then ask them, what do we talk? Whoever  wishes to convene a meeting must be clear on what the issues are. When you have stated why the meeting was convened, you can then ask what should be added or deleted. You have hundreds of agenda. When I was in the NLC (Nigerian Labour Congress), a former president convened a national conference…

    ‘’People from various states converged, money was spent and in the end I can’t remember what came out of that conference. It is a valid point to make that we failed before, we can make amend but it is important we learn from our history. I will be surprised if anything changes. As a leader, I have no business to mislead anyone. This conference will not be different from any previous conference’’. From his seat, Nyiam sprang forward, shouting : ‘’No’’, ‘’no’’, ‘’no’’, while banging the table. His action paved the way for thugs, who had been heckling the governor,  to disrupt the proceedings.

    Did Nyiam act in concert with the thugs?

    Was he privy to their coming to the sitting? Was his action premeditated or spontaneous? Whatever, by his action, he has soiled the reputation of the committee, which will now be hard pressed to convince Nigerians on the genuineness and integrity  of its mission. It is good that the panel has dissociated itself from what it calls the ‘’unruly behaviour of one of our members, who joined the crowd in shouting down the Comrade Governor Adams Oshiomhole of Edo State’’, and  accordingly  apologised to Oshiomhole.

    The committee has done well in taking this bold step, but the matter should not be allowed to die like that. Should Nyiam continue to be a member of such an august body? With his uncivilised behaviour in full public glare, he should be stripped of his membership forthwith, if the government wishes to restore public confidence in the committee’s job. For now, whatever trust the people have in the panel has been rubbished by Nyiam’s unbecoming behaviour. He should be removed now before he does further harm  to the committee. Who knows he may come with a gun next time. The government should not wait till then before it acts.

  • Nigeria as captive to prayer warriors

    As a nation of miracle seekers where people are desirous of reaping what they did not sow contrary to God’s injunction that we must live by our sweats, we have all become captives of prayer warriors and merchants of grace. Our children are misled to believe they could pass examinations through the power of prayers while our youths see nothing amiss becoming fortune-seekers as yahoo yahoo scammers. The churches that have become the biggest industry in our nation and their prayer warriors take credit as the source of the new fortunes. Prayers thus become elixir to all ailments – joblessness, poverty, barrenness, and inept leadership of the political class.

    Of course, our elected and selected leaders understandably are the weakest link. Once captured, they hardly have time to think creatively. Ex-President Obasanjo, fresh from Abacha’s incarceration, immersed himself in endless prayer sessions while the sharing of our national patrimony in the name of privatization, the wrecking of the banking sector, the collapse of the stock market and above all, the frittering away of about $30b foreign reserve in the name of repaying debt to Paris club went on. There has been no parallel to such recklessness, anywhere in the world, whether in the advanced or developing economies.

    President Jonathan, captured before he was elected, has spent the greater part of his presidency engaged in fervent prayers. Confronted with probe reports of massive looting going on in government, coupled with his own acknowledgement of infiltration of economic saboteurs and Boko Haram insurgents into his government, he resorted to prayers with little help from Nigerian prayer warriors, never in short supply in high places like the Abuja presidential palace.

    And still confronted by the unresolved ASUU strike now in its fourth month, increasing tempo of ‘kidnapping for ritual and kidnapping for ransom(apology to Gbenga Omotosho), the sheer ferociousness of Boko Haram insurgency, crisis in the aviation sector, fuel theft etc, all these despite the president’s recent 30 days of fasting and prayers with our Muslim brothers, he was persuaded that by the prayer warriors that what was needed was more prayers, and this time around in Israel, the Holy land.

    He was consequently, quietly conscripted by the prayer warriors to lead this year contingent of Nigerian pilgrims to Israel. John-Kennedy Opara, the Executive Secretary, Nigeria Christian Pilgrims Commission revealed this when he announced that the presidential visit was purely spiritual and not a state visit. He went ahead to also recruit the Plateau State Governor, Jonah Jang, “to lead other governors that will accompany the president to the Holy Land”. And accepting his new task, Jang had declared “It is a great honour and privilege for Plateau pilgrims to show example to others and for Mr. President to know that pilgrimage to Israel is not a wasteful venture.”

    The prayer warriors did not disappoint Nigerians. Those who closely monitored the tour of the Holy Land by our president and his entourage of governors and ministers cannot but acknowledge how fervent Nigerians are. President Goodluck Jonathan set the ball rolling in Jerusalem when on arrival he led other Nigerian pilgrims in a special prayer for the numerous challenges facing Nigeria. At the intercessory prayer session at the Chapel of Dominous Flevit (where Jesus wept), the President was reported to have specifically beseeched God to intervene in the current political and security challenges in Nigeria. He was ably supported by other powerful prayer warriors including Governor Jonah Jang of Plateau, Minister of Agriculture, Akin Adesina, FCT CAN President Rev. Israel Akanji and Ndudi Elumelu, a member of the Lower House.

    Jang’s session was remarkable for its theatrics. He crawled on his fours, occasionally touching the floor with his head, weeping, wailing crying murmuring “Christ, my God, my father, my father”, momentarily forgetting that Pope Francis recently reminded us that Christians don’t have a monopoly of Christ who is equally a saviour to those among his non-believing cantankerous anti-Christ Israelis and their querulous cousins-the Arabs who do good to others. For those who must have forgotten, Jang was the PDP governor who lost Nigeria Governors’ Forum chairmanship election by 16 votes to Amaechi’s 19, declared himself the winner, swiftly moved to the church to give a thanksgiving before racing to Abuja seat of government to receive the president’s embrace.

    In another scene, we saw the president on his knees in one of the most hallowed parts of the Holy land with our prayer warrior stretching forth their hands to bless him. In this hallowed chambers where Christ’s body was washed and perfumed before burial, a place where cardinals pray in studied silence and submission to God’s presence, only few visitors outside Nigerian Holy men have the temerity for such an audacious act.

    The spiritual journey climaxed with a church service tagged: “A Day with Jesus for Nigeria In Israel,” which was preceded by a fast observed by the President and over 3, 000 Nigerian pilgrims along with ministers, governors and the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), officials led by its president, Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor. It was here the Executive Secretary of Nigeria Christian Pilgrims Board (NCPC), Kennedy Okpara, revealed that the total number of pilgrims this year will exceed last year’s figure of 30,000. It was also there that Pastor Paul Eneche, founding overseer of Dunamis Church, who gave the word of exhortation during a church service prophesied that ‘God will replicate the successes Israel has witnessed after many years of wars and tribulations in Nigeria’.

    What Opara however did not tell his congregation was that more than half of the 30,000 figure he quoted were sponsored by either the federal or state governments using taxpayers’ money to support individuals and cronies who want to fulfill their religious obligations. Jang alone sponsored 1000 pilgrims for the 2012 edition. (In the just concluded Hajj exercise, of the 800 deported pilgrims that arrived at the Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport, last Wednesday, about 171 of the young females returned for not having male companions were claimed to be underage students, undergraduates and youth corpers sponsored by governors with taxpayers money).

    And what Pastor Eneche, did not tell the president, his ministers, governors, law makers and the 3000 Nigerian pilgrims was the fact that the success witnessed by Israel after many tribulations was not just because of prayers. The Israelis, in spite of being the chosen people, added value to their prayers in order to transform their nation of desert, hills and gullies into a fertile agricultural land from where Nigeria today imports not only chicken but also arms and secret intelligence personnel.

    But since no one can mock God who has in His wisdom decreed we all must reap what we sow, the captive and the prayer warriors returned to Nigeria early in the week to confront the unresolved issues of ASUU strike, doctors strike, kidnapping for ransom and kidnapping for ritual, revealed dirty deals between NCAA and Coscharis allegedly supervised by the aviation minister, fuel theft that has reduced our current budget by a quarter, PDP’s vicious gang wars and many other issues which cannot be wished away by fasting and prayers whether in Nigeria, the land of prayer warriors or in Israel, the land of the unbelievers.

    Beyond prayerful leaders and self righteous prayer warriors whose activities make the much derided Pharisees that Christ condemned look like saints, our nation is in dire need of selfless leadership with ambition beyond political office, who can faithfully apply the lesson of the Jewish Torah “don’t do on to others what you don’t like” which is not dissimilar to Christ’s “do on to others as want done onto you”

  • Nigeria’s most important challenge

    For decades now, one issue has stood persistently and unavoidably before the Nigerian public – namely the issue of restructuring of the Nigerian federation. Issues come and go, but the need to restructure our federation, and demands for it, are always out there before us. In recent weeks, since President Jonathan announced his decision to convene a national conference, the issue has loomed very large indeed. But it has loomed that large only because the people of Nigeria want a national conference as forum for restructuring their federation. Restructuring is the one and only issue that fuels the raging fire of Nigerians’ passionate demand for a National Conference, or a Sovereign National Conference.

    So, why is this issue of restructuring so important to us Nigerians? The reason is that we want to live in an orderly country – a country in which governments and systems work. Since independence, especially since 1962 when the controllers of the Nigerian federal government decided that the fast-progressing and independent-minded Western Region must be pulled back and pushed down, we have lived in growing confusion and escalating pain in all parts of Nigeria. Ours is a large country, and a country of copious geographical, ethnic and cultural diversity. It is a country that can only work if it is organized as a rational federation – a federation in which the federating states are vested with sufficient constitutional powers, enough modicum of freedom, and sufficient resources, to promote their own socio-economic development competently, and to expand the opportunities available to their citizens; and a federation in which the federal government has enough powers and resources to defend our country, moderate the relations between our states, and speak with dignity for our country in the world.

    But instead of trying to build this kind of federation, we have watched in agony as the people who control our federal government have relentlessly seized and accumulated all power and resources in our country into the hands of the federal government, thereby turning the federal government into the controller of all important things in our country, and the dictator to all governments and sections of our country. We have watched our state governments become agencies lacking in confidence, uncertain what the all-mighty federal government will give or allow or dictate, and weak-kneed in upholding the welfare of their citizens. We happily accepted (even demanded) it when the controllers of the federal government (especially the military controllers) split up our country again and again, and gave us smaller and smaller states. Now we know that those states were really designed to be weak and incapable of resisting the expanding federal power. We know that those states are incapable of generating resources and developments, and must borrow dangerous loans in order to be able to show any development to their people. We see our states waiting like beggars month by month for the dolls handed out to them by the federal government. We see our federal system become what one of our senators recently called “feeding-bottle federalism”.

    And we live in the horrible consequences of this kind of federation. We live in in the confusion, the relentlessly declining standard of life, and the conflicts. Even the federal government itself admits that about 70% of us now live in “absolute poverty”. Among our young people, unemployment is said to be as high as 78%. Everything important in our public services and infrastructures has declined abysmally – highways, water supply, electricity supply, health services, and most devastating of all, our educational system. We approach every election with fear and trepidation – because we know that, come election time, an agency of the federal government will come and crook up and pollute the electoral process in order to give electoral victories to the ones that they have been ordered and paid to go and help among us, and we know that some of our youths will die needlessly in their attempts to resist the fraud. We can no longer approach our courts with confidence; we know that those of us who do not have the money to buy justice for ourselves simply do not get justice. We built some prosperity in the 1950s through our cash crops – cocoa in the Western Region, palm produce in the Eastern Region, and groundnuts in the Northern Region. The regional governments of those days designed various support programmes for our farmers who gave us this cash crop prosperity. When the military governments came, they took these things away and vested them in the federal government – and under distant federal control and neglect, the programmes of support for our farmers were abandoned, and the cash crops were allowed to decline and fade away, thus establishing firm roots for poverty in significant sections of our rural populations. Because of the fearful reign of crime, we dare not travel on our roads and highways in certain hours, and more and more of us are living behind metal barricades in our homes. For the ambitious and enterprising among us, pushing and jostling to be in government or to be close to the persons in government has become the essence of enterprise. As a result, both our political life and our business life have become fearfully corrupted. And in the wide world, the name of our country has become synonymous with corruption and crime. In country after country on all continents, governments issue advice and warnings to their citizens to avoid dealing with Nigerians, or to take extra care when dealing with Nigeria or Nigerians.

    And finally, in the desperation caused by the poverty, the uncertainties, the insecurity, and the hopelessness, we Nigerians are turning more and more viciously on one another – nationality against nationality, immigrants to other peoples’ homelands against their hosts, adherents of different religions against one another. Desperate youths who have turned to terrorism are now the makers of the biggest news from our country.

    It is the desperate search for solutions that make us Nigerians scream for the restructuring of our country. The demands for restructuring are not some fanciful political game. Those influential ones among us who stick out their necks to oppose restructuring are doing enormous harm to our country, to our people, and to humanity.

    However, there are many, including some of our most prominent political leaders, who do strongly desire the restructuring of our federation, but who are very skeptical of President Jonathan’s step into calling a national conference. The greatest question therefore has to be: What may we expect of President Jonathan in this all-important matter? Will he support the national conference resolutely with the powers of the presidency, until he sees it to a productive conclusion and implementation? Or will he, as many people fear, bungle it at some point – or perhaps shillyshally with it until it fizzles out into nothing?

    In the answer to that question resides, today, even the very destiny of Nigeria. As things stand, this is not a time when our president, like some presidents before him, can play with a national conference for some political purpose of his own, or mess around with a national conference. No, this time is different. The prevailing mood of most Nigerians makes this time different. Very many Nigerians are asking: If what we have been trying to build is impossible to build, should we not be men enough to acknowledge that – and to let it go?

  • Anambra: Ngige as Nehemiah

    Anambra: Ngige as Nehemiah

    During his recent tour of some local governments in Anambra State, the real value of Dr. Chris Ngige, the gubernatorial flag-bearer of the All Progressives Congress (APC) became manifest for even the blind to see. What was meant to be a campaign tour turned into a socio-political carnival. The young, the old, the broken and the bruised, women and men of diverse callings trooped out to welcome the man they said was genuinely concerned in making Anambra State great. Several appellations were thrown at him. From the ‘Light that shines for all’ to ‘Bulldozer’, they spared no words to describe what they considered the superlative performance  of Ngige during his first term as governor of the state. Ngige was governor for 33 months between 2003 and 2006. But the one that caught my fancy was the nickname ‘Nehemiah’.

    An improvised placard borne by a gaunt old woman put the message most eloquently. Ngi nwa bu Nehemiah, Biko bia dozie Anambra (You are Nehemiah, please come and rebuild Anambra). But was Ngige really the Nehemiah of Anambra? Or put differently, does Anambra need a Nehemiah? In the Bible narrative, Nehemiah was the Jewish cup-bearer for the Persian king. He was comfortable in the king’s palace but he never for once forgot the agony of his kindred, the Israelites. In his comfort, Nehemiah minded the distress of his people and took immediate steps to salvage the situation.

    First, he sought the face and support of God, then he sought the permission of the king and went down to Jerusalem to rebuild a completely broken down city and emblem of God. In life, every good enterprise throws up its peculiar opposition. The case of Nehemiah was not different. He was opposed, chided and derided but he forged ahead, stirring the people and making them key into the vision of a beautiful and fortified Jerusalem with walls. At the end, he prevailed and was able to rebuild Jerusalem to the envy of surrounding nations and to the admiration of both the Jews and heaven.  Thus till this day, Nehemiah has come to symbolize the best model for the management of public affairs.

    Perhaps, it is on account of this that the people of Anambra have likened Ngige, medical doctor, former civil servant and now politician to Nehemiah. They see Anambra as a broken down state with no walls. Yet Anambra just like Jerusalem was destined to be great. Providence endowed the state with a rich platoon of highly gifted intellectuals, leaders, consummate business people and proven professionals. Yet, in the midst of such glut of talents and skill, Anambra has been overtaken by a cult of mobocracy, a form of government in which touts and thugs, rustlers and hustlers hold sway. Anambra had been under mob action, roiled by mediocrity and cronyism.

    It took the spunk and courage of Ngige during his 33-month tenure to break the evil grip of these tyrants from the neck of Anambra. Ngige was commandeered to make monthly donations to the political demigods that held Anambra captive for years. He refused, according to him ‘for the sake of the people’. Just like Nehemiah, Ngige refused to allow the comfort of his office to blind him to the suffering of the people. He set forth to rebuild Anambra. He broke down the walls of opposition not just from within his party at that time, the PDP, but from an amalgam of centrifugal forces unleashed by socio-political touts and army of goons in the state. At the end, Ngige triumphed. He earned the support and confidence of the people. He built the best roads of the highest quality in the history of the state. Till date, the roads he built over seven years ago are still used to benchmark quality of roads in the state. They are called ‘Ngige Roads’. He built quality schools and employed qualified teachers and for the first time, Anambrarians became willing again to engage knowledge within the confines of schools.

    Ngige’s 33-month reign was dogged with struggles to free Anambra from the influence of the mob but that did not dampen his spirit to give the people the benefits of their mandate. Among all the candidates jostling to win the November 16, gubernatorial election, Ngige is the only one that combines experience with integrity. In a state where god-fatherism has ruined the polity, Ngige is the only candidate that has no god-father and more importantly, he is the only candidate that has the capacity to stand up to any politician who as much as pretends to play the godfather to him. He did it against former President Olusegun Obasanjo, against the Uba political dynasty and he says “I will do it again for the sake of my people even at the risk of my life”.

    No doubt, Anambra people are desirous to have Ngige back to rebuild the state once more. For sure, Anambra needs to be rebuilt. Its walls are broken in varied places: infrastructure, healthcare, economic development, education, housing, sports and agriculture. Only a Nehemiah who has walked these paths before can do it again. Ngige is that Nehemiah; a man with no political or criminal baggage. In Anambra, we have become wiser this time. We will not vote for political party, we will vote for the individual based on their merit and history. The campaign that Ngige belongs to an anti-Igbo party (APC) holds no water because even the so-called Igbo party, APGA, is being run by a few men from Agulu, a town in Anaocha local government of Anambra State. Little wonder it is now being derided as the Agulu Peoples Grand Assembly (APGA).

     

    •Moneke writes from Obosi, Anambra State