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Category: Columnists

  • 49 ways to love a woman

    I am not sure why you chose to read this article. If you are a regular reader of this column, you probably didn’t because you wanted to know the 49 ways to love a woman I would write about.

    For others, if you were attracted by the headline, it is understandable. Loving a woman is a serious issue that one has to keep learning how to — depending on the kind of woman you are in a relationship with.

    At a stage in a man’s life, he is under pressure to get a woman to marry. Choosing one to settle with   “for better for worse” can be tough and sometimes a gamble.

    There is a Yoruba saying that marriage for a man and woman is like buying a product from a night market. You will need to get home to know how good what you have bought under the cover of darkness is.

    This analogy may not be completely true of marriage but it somehow captures the reality of how men and women turn out to be different from what they were before marriage.

    I really wish I could write 49 ways to love a woman based on my over twenty years of marriage but I am not sure I can. I know a few though and they are the ones I will mention in this piece.

    Over the years I have learnt that one sure way to love a woman is to know her very well to know how to express your love. If you don’t, you may easily get frustrated trying to love her in a particular way she doesn’t appreciate.

    You must know what she likes from what she does not and work together on how to have a harmonious relationship based on your own likes and dislikes. Love is about compromise and not insisting on having your way all the time.

    Love is not science. It could be as simple as complimenting your woman about her looks. Don’t wait to be asked if you didn’t notice the new hairdo she has on or the dress she is wearing for the first time.

    Some women are known to have gotten involved in extra-marital affairs with men who compliment them often while their husbands choose not to see anything good in them.

    It could also be as complicated as meeting her various emotional and physical needs which she may not want to ask for but expects you to know and do something about.

    Learn to say ‘I love you’ when you should, instead of assuming she knows you love her. What women hear you say about them matters a lot.  There is no better way to show you love a woman than to openly declare it as often as you can as against being ‘old school’ or over spiritual.

    Some of the pieces of advice I have given are easier said than done. I am not sure how good a lover man I have been myself but I can give myself a pass mark.

    The person to rate me should be my darling wife, Ronke, whose this piece is dedicated to on her 49th birthday today. The 49 in the headline is not about how good I am about love matters, it is a tribute to the woman who has taught me many things about how to love a woman. Happy birthday Ronkusbaby!

  • APC: Power is never served a la carte

    APC: Power is never served a la carte

    President Jonathan looks to me a much more desperate politician than erstwhile President Obasanjo

    Power is never served a la carte’, is a regular refrain of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, former Lagos State governor, and now one of the leading lights of the opposition party, the All Progressives Congress. He should know. He has bruises to show for his many battles against power, i.e entrenched impunity in our country which, like corruption, fights back very ferociously in aid of the status quo of power without responsibility, except to self.  This once led former President Olusegun Obasanjo to make one of his most important statements ever when, at a PDP congress, he said the party existed, or was at best, cohered only by patronage or the expectation of it.  Both the PDP and the incumbent president have shown beyond any doubt that they will brook no opposition nor concede any quarters to the opposition in the titanic 2015 battle. As far as they are concerned, going by what they do and what we hear their militant supporters say, nothing is sacrosanct; not individuals, not the very existence of Nigeria as a united country. Therefore, as you read this, a sitting governor has no Aide de camp, no chief security officer and the Nigeria Police can look askance, like the governor’s security is no longer a concern of theirs even as certified militants bay for his blood. All this because of an alleged ambition they won’t even let him declare. Nor are their members of only a few months back, but now of the New PDP, fairing any better.

    Consisting of seven governors and a number of leading members of the PDP –they have not defected – they must now, like governor Amaechi, no longer sleep. Indeed, if the PDP has its way, not only Baraje and Oyinlola, but also Obasanjo and Atiku will be behind bars while plans are hatched as to how to truly, and manifestly, humble those seven governors who have the temerity to call attention to the Tukur-led crippling political repression in their party.

    I have gone all this length to properly situate what humongous battle lies ahead of those wanting this county to take its rightful place in the comity of nations and not be seen simply as the domicile of corruption and ineptitude because, even with all the make-belief, President Jonathan looks to me a much more desperate politician than erstwhile President Obasanjo. It must be said, in mitigation though, that while he does not look personally desperate he is simply incapable of reining in those who want him to literally commit murder for the sake of 2015.

    Without a doubt, the most at risk are leaders of the APC and, ipso facto, the party itself. A little history will help but space will not allow details.

    For just being considered stubborn and vociferous, a PDP president decreed  that the licence of Orji Uzor Kalu’s Slot Airline be  withdrawn and hundreds of his employers thrown into the unemployment market just as Tinubu, for the same alleged offence, had billions of naira due Lagos State local governments withheld. The minute Buba Marwa was touted as the ANPP presidential candidate, and becoming rather threatening to the Third Term project, it was  time for the EFCC to move against him and get him detained him for weeks in December 2005, on allegations of laundering money for General Abacha.

    On Thursday, 7 September 2006, the Senate heard that an Administrative Panel set up by President Obasanjo had found Atiku guilty of utilising funds in the account of the Petroleum Development Trust Fund for personal use while it said nothing of same funds being used to buy a car for a female acquaintance of the president. All that for opposing the Third Term agenda even if some spurious reasons of an American report were to be given later. In similar circumstances, Freedom Radio was shut down, Africa Independent Television (AIT) was serially embarrassed and intimidated and its transmission equipment near the National Assembly was destroyed because it ran the Senate hearings.

    All these again to forewarn leaders of the APC that they must remain focused amidst intimidation of all types. Lies and all manners of concoctions will be levelled against them individually but they must, for the sake of Nigeria, brace up and be men of principles. It will not only be scare-mongering but bribes will be offered too, in a carrot and stick, double-pronged attack. A good example is what happened to Hon Nairu Dantiye of the ANPP during the Third Term campaigns.  On rejecting his own N50m, he was freshly offered one million dollars in cash, at night on Thursday, 11 May, 2006 , at a hotel in Abuja.  As he told Punch in an interview published on Monday, 15 May, 2006: ‘My price shot up like crude oil about three days ago. It increased from N50m naira to one million dollars’.  But the failure of the offerer to guarantee that he would live long enough to enjoy the loot, which was his counter offer, vitiated the deal. Even oil blocks were offered. This presidency may not be averse to any of these ploys to ensure Jonathan returns in 2015. APC leaders must, therefore, have honourable Alhaji Dantiye at the back of their minds when their own temptations come.

    And one has already come in the latter-day readiness of President Jonathan to approve the convocation of a National Conference. As usual, this is already trending on the wide web and I have had my say too. Below are some of the comments I have already offered.

    My first was a poser to some mails: Must you really put any stock by this Greek gift? Don’t you by any means remember the SAP debates? Didn’t IBB get his required time to plan the never, never transition programme? What about Yar Adua’s Uwais Committee on Electoral Reforms? Where did it lead to? Were this a year ago, when President Jonathan still had PDP intact, I just might have given this a thought. But today, in my view, it is nothing more than a well calculated diversion and one must give it to the Jonathan ‘2015 Think Tank’. The choice of Senator Okunrounmu as Chairman was, for me, the clincher’.

    Critics of my position wrote back and I replied: Please let’s do a reality check, beginning from the basics; the president can only be doing this if he believes it will help him electorally in 2015. Then the following. 1. The Southwest has been most vociferous about a Sovereign National conference and one of its prime demands is fiscal federalism. Let us assume Okunrounmu is dexterous enough to get this. Will it make the Southwest – now with APC governments and most likely to field a strong presidential candidate – prefer Jonathan, as happened in 2011?   2. I believe also, that we can safely assume that the majority of northerners will detest fiscal federalism. Will that decision therefore hurt or help the president in 2015?  In my view, this will serve no more than good photo ops and beautiful newspaper headlines

    An avalanche of views, even a possible agenda for the conference, then came in and I wrote back as follows:  Even on this podium we already have suggestions as to people wanting representatives on the basis of the 774 Local Government Areas, who, of course, must, in their words, not be politicians. Very fine by me. Now you allude to the Southwest Integration effort. Assuming that this were acceptable to everybody in that zone, marshalling it will then bog down the All Progressives Congress and thereby achieve what I personally consider one of the main targets of this ploy – diversion. Of course, the president has already succeeded by diverting attention to the talk show as you are no longer going to hear of such things as the president’s  ‘cluelessness’,  as was previously the case. And how do you approve decisions of a conference which is not sovereign and where the north already has much more than half the numbers in the National Assembly? Why is the president allowing it now with all the raging challenges he faces?  Also, has he decreed the National Assembly out of existence, since he once said it can’t happen as long as that body was in place?

    I concluded my contribution as follows and tried to respond to views that this should, indeed, be an opportunity for ‘pastors’, not politicians, to straighten the cause  of our country:

    I can’t remember how nice it is to be led by the nose.

    Fortunately, even if out of self interest, those politicians we want exempted this time around, are at their best when the government is out to send them on a frolic. I guess they would rather err on the side of caution. They are most unlikely to fall for this presidential trick.

    Enough history, then, for APC leaders.

  • Independence and an air crash

    Independence and an air crash

    When will we be free from such disasters? Whither true Independence?

    This certainly is not the best of times for our beleaguered country. I had thought I was going to explain why I did not mention a word (in my last week’s column) about the country’s 53rd Independence anniversary held last Tuesday, today. I will still do that anyway, after which I would also say one or two things about the last air crash in the country which occurred on October 3.

    Our country is one where more often than not, bad or ugly things keep recurring. Indeed, we can count on our finger tips the positive developments we have had even in the last five years whereas we can mention a litany of problems that the country has been wallowing in for decades, without recourse to any reference material. As a matter of fact, the dilemma I had when I was thinking of whether to write on the then impending Independence anniversary in my column last week or comment on the ‘One man, one term brouhaha’ that I eventually settled for, was if there was anything new to say by way of positive developments, even since October 1, last year, when we observed the last Independence anniversary.

    I thought and thought, but could not find much to talk about. It was not as if the tenure controversy too was particularly new or refreshing; it was just a case of one having to choose between the devil and the deep blue sea. I mean it was more or less a case of head or tale, you lose. It is that bad. I was not proved wrong when I saw what the media were awash with on Tuesday; it was the same sad tales, except from government officials who keep deluding themselves that the country has been making some progress. Is it about electricity supply on which we have sunk, not billions of naira but billions of dollars without much result?

    Or, is it about education, whether at the primary or tertiary level, that is comatose? Is it about healthcare that we can commend the government, when doctors are on strike as we speak, joining university teachers in their own strike which is now over three months old.

    Now, when some of the people in government want to spoil your day, they tell you the problems did not start with President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration. Apparently they are the only ones who understand themselves and what they are saying because, as far as the rest of us are concerned, what we know is that there has been only one ruling party in the country since our return to civil rule on May 29, 1999, and that is the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). And we do not know the difference between the present government and that of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo who handed over to the late Alhaji Umaru Yar’Adua. As far as we are concerned, Nigeria has been in the hands of the PDP for more than 14 years, with the changing never changing. And if it is changing at all, it is for the worst. From the ruling party it has been promises galore of El Dorado, a thing that even the greatest fool in the country knows will take eternity to materialise for as long as the country remains in the hands of the rudderless party.

    And, as if to demonstrate that the country is truly rudderless, a plane bearing the remains of former Governor of Ondo State, Dr Olusegun Agagu lost its bearing and crashed barely a minute after take-off from the Murtala Muhammed Airport in Lagos for Akure, the Ondo State capital, where an elaborate farewell programme had been prepared for him, barely 48 hours after our 53rd Independence anniversary.

    Many people have said Dr Agagu, was a good man. If the comments had been coming only after his death, I would have dismissed them as a product of our culture which forbids talking ill of the dead. But I have heard those comments about him long before his demise, which somewhat confounds me as to what a person like him was doing in the PDP. Some members of the party are probably realising this fact and this might explain the intractable crisis in the fold. No matter how hard a goat tries, once it has settled for a dog as its best friend, chances are the goat will also find faeces aromatic and tantalising.

    But in times like this, we are usually united by our common humanity. My heart pours out to the relatives of those who died in the crash. I pray that those who have so far survived would experience the miracle that would make their survival permanent. I particularly feel for the family of the undertakers’ undertaker, the M.I.C boss, Chief Tunji Okusanya and his son who both died in the tragedy.

    For now, we have been told the usual story, the Federal Government has ordered a probe of the incident. Of course this followed the usual dirge from the government whenever we experience a thing like this. At the risk of repeating myself, what we require are not these well-written graveside orations but practical steps to make air crash a thing of the past in the country.

    Will there ever be a time when we shall be truly independent? Our Old Citizens always recall with nostalgia the good old days of British rule. To many of them, Independence is meaningless because it has not improved our lives. It is either some people are throwing bombs on October 1 or government is spoiling the occasion by rehashing worn-out speeches of hope that end up bringing hopelessness. When will be out of all these? When? when?

    Meanwhile, I leave you, dear reader, with these words of wisdom from someone I have great regard for. There can’t be a better epitaph in a time like this. “Life often enacts warnings of calamities and tragedies as integral to our living on the stage of time. Our flimsy minds always ignore these signs! We are thus caught in the iron claws of sorrow, pain and despair. But the meaninglessness of our living is that the pretty blue tent above suddenly bears the camouflage of piercing gloom. The soil of the earth ebbs under our feet and its fresh pit swallow us all with brutal greed, one by one. What are we doing here? Life’s vain. In the end, it seems we are mere meals for the worms of the earth! Fear Allah. Do all the good that you can for all you encounter so that you may sap sorrow and blossom in God’s comfort. May Allah preserve the inescapable end of each of us with love, dignity, and His mercy and compassion”.

    I hope our leaders are listening.

  • Leaders in the eye of the storm

    The last UN General Assembly provided ample opportunity to see ‘World leaders in Action’ which incidentally is the title of my new book published last year by MacMillan Nigeria, Book Publishers. The spectacle of world leaders taking the stage to air their views on issues concerning them and their nations provided ample opportunity to assess not only the personalities of these leaders but to form an opinion of their nations from the way they delivered their various speeches. Space cannot allow us to focus on all or most of them. Hence I have identified just a few that I will comment and focus on, because I think they have found themselves in the eye of a global diplomatic storm by their actions and a lack of it perhaps, in recent times. Some of these leaders made an impact at the UNGA last week while one or two could not come because of circumstances beyond their control. In all, their actions and utterances affect the conduct of global diplomacy and international relations enormously and provided them ample opportunity to make history one way or the other.

    The first is the president of Iran Hussain Rouhani who shocked the whole world albeit pleasantly by declaring that Iran will never make a nuclear bomb, a prospect for which the UN has mounted sanctions against his nation for some years now. The second is the president of Kenya, Uhuru Kenyatta, who could not turn up because of the attack on Westgate Mall in Kenya by terrorists who have killed over 65 people while more bodies are being recovered from the site of the murder and mayhem in Nairobi. The third is the Prime Minister of Israel who arrogantly told his world audience not to believe the Iranian leader and vowed that Israel is ready to go it alone if the whole world is not ready to act on Syria and its use of chemical weapons on women and children by the Assad regime supported by Russia and China in the UN Security Council. The fourth is our president Dr Goodluck Jonathan who was in New York but returned to find the shocking news that Boko Haram terrorists have slaughtered over 50 sleeping male students at a School of Agriculture in N. East Nigeria which was under emergency rule. The Nigerian president’s reaction to this as well as his Independence day address showed indeed that this is one Nigerian president really in the eye of a storm, in terms of the management of the challenges of insecurity facing the nation.

    Starting with the new Iranian President Hussain Rouhani, let me state that his bearing, demeanor and manner of speaking was a pleasant departure from that of his predecessor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who during his tenure always stunned his audience by insisting that Israel will be taken off the world map when Iran has its nuclear bomb. Ahmadinejad also insisted throughout his tenure that the Holocaust never took place to the horror of a civilized world. Now a new Iranian president has said in a much publicized TV interview with CNN’s Christine Amanpour that the Holocaust was reprehensible and should be condemned by all right thinking people. Which really soothes global nerves and alters the image of Iran tremendously from the cantankerous and violent one created by Ahmadinejad’s fiery speeches, highly denunciatory rhetorics and volatile diplomacy. Also President Rouhani has said he is in a hurry to start talks on Iran’s nuclear programme with the UN and the nations involved with the insistence that he has the authority of the powers that be in Iran to speak authoritatively on the matter. He has since spoken to the US President Barak Obama before leaving New York which would be the first communication between the presidents of the two nations since the overthrow of the Shah and the arrival in Teheran of the powerful Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1979 – which led to the Iranian hostage crisis that made then US President Jimmy Carter a one term president. Now a new Iranian president is most unexpectedly offering an olive branch to the world especially the US and predictably the US president Barak Obama is ready and willing to play ball. President Obama has given instructions to US Secretary of State John Kerry to begin talks with Iranian officials on sanctions and Iran’s nuclear program which that nation has always said is for electricity and which its new president is now saying will never be used for making a bomb.

    A booming voice however shouted foul on the utterances of the new Iranian president at the UNGA last week. That was the guttural voice of Benjamin Netanyahu Israel’s Prime Minister who spoke after the Iranian president must have returned to Iran. It is necessary to discuss Netanyahu’s speech here in the context of President Rouhani’s diplomatic overtures at the UN before we go on to discuss the problem of Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta . This is necessary because Netanyahu refused to let the Iranian president steal his thunder and warned that the Iranian president is ‘a wolf in sheep clothing’ which is to be expected given that the two nations are mortal foes and more so with Rouhani’s predecessor Ahmadinejad. Netanyahu reminded the world that Iran is arming Syria and sponsoring world terrorism and he would never compromise the security of Israel . His saying that Israel will go it alone showed his contempt for the climb down by the Obama Administration over the promised limited strike on Syria. According to Netanyahu it is the sanctions that has made the Rouhani ‘ turn around ‘possible and the UN sanctions should never be stopped. Anyway, Netanyahu insisted Israel will never allow Iran to have a nuclear bomb, which was a bold statement indeed.

    What is amazing here is that if the two leaders were not such implacable enemies they should know they are saying the same things in protecting each other’s interests. Rouhani said Iran will never make a bomb. This is expected to give his nation at least some breathing space in the face of overwhelming global doubt on the matter. But Netanyahu has not heard that. Instead Netanyahu said the sanctions are biting that is why Iran is softening with Rouhani . But then, does it matter why, once Iran has said it will not make a bomb? If Iran does indeed live up to its promise not to make a bomb, of what use is Israel’s threat that it will stop Iran from making a bomb it says it is not interested in? Which shows that while Israel is saber rattling on a quarrel that is expiring, Iran is trying to purge the image of its hitherto blood red color of a major sponsor of terrorism. Both sides need help very much from the international community in understanding each other and moving to a new level on engagement and understanding. They have good examples in contemporary history and politics to follow. One was Gobachev’s unexpected but historic role in bringing the downfall of communism with Glastnost and Prestroika in the former USSR. The second was the most unexpected cooperation between prisoner and gaoler that led to the release of Nelson Mandela by Apartheid S Africa’s President de Klerk and the end of apartheid in S Africa. The two leaders can be reminded that in International Relations there are no permanent enemies but permanent interests. So the ball is in their court in the eye of the storm they have found themselves.

    Let us now look at Kenya in the eye of another storm over its handling of intelligence and security on the Westgate Mall bombing. Investigations are on to confirm or refute intelligence lapses that included information that some security agencies had warned that Al Shabab was planning some thing for September to commemorate 9/11 and the revelation post – Westgate that the attackers hired a shop in the Mall in which they kept their ammunition for May Day undetected. Kenya obviously needs the international community’s cooperation and expertise in unraveling the sickening security lapses at least to avert a repetition. The Kenyan government especially needs the international community to get its head above water in terms of adequate security strategy to protect all Kenyans on its territory as is expected of any government worth its salt. But then there is or there was a little dilemma at least before the Al Shabab terrorists struck West gate. This was the fact that the Kenyan Parliament had passed a resolution asking Kenya to withdraw from the ICC because of its trial of Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta and Vice President William Ruto for post election violence over the 2007 presidential elections in Kenya before the duo were elected into their exalted offices this year. Indeed, presumably under Kenyan prodding the AU was to have a meeting recently to discuss withdrawing from the ICC on the charge that the ICC was discriminating against African nations in prosecuting the Kenyan leaders. Which to me is just a spurious charge to stop the ICC from fulfilling its responsibility of banishing impunity and lack of respect for the rule of law, transparency and accountability in global governance including Africa. Now, most unfortunately Westgate and Kenya’s security vulnerability, not to talk of negligence or incompetence, have shown that it does not exist in isolation. Surely Kenya needs international help in securing its borders just as its leaders must respect international norms on governance and be answerable if they are not. This is because the world has become a borderless one in terms respect for the rule of law and transparency including respect for the norms of campaigns and elections which were violently brushed aside in the 2007 post election violence in Kenya.

    Lastly Nigeria’s President Goodluck Jonathan must be the first to admit that he is really in the eye of a storm. Boko Haram aside, and really that alone is sufficient to ground any government, I think the president’s main problem is from his own party. Or at least a chunk of his party called the New PDP. This is because even though reports say a peace meeting was being brokered by elders of the party, the New PDP has challenged and wounded mortally, I think, the economic performance of the Jonathan Administration and two examples during and after this year’s Independence celebrations will suffice. In his Independence Message through the National Publicity Secretary of the New PDP faction, the Chairman Alhaji Kawu Baraje lamented that Nigeria has become ‘ a crumbling edifice as a result of corruption and bad leadership.’ He went further to say that – ‘53 years after independence Nigeria is still a crumbling edifice, wrecked to the seams by corruption, bad leadership, ethnicism, parochialism, sectarian intolerance, and childish political recrimination.”

    In another Reuter’s report the CBN Governor Lamido Sanusi blamed the political crisis in the ruling party for the huge purchase of dollars by buyers who were not involved in importation of goods and services but were politicians laundering money to be used to finance their 2015 election bids . He reportedly blamed ‘ the dollarization of the economy by political elites’ for the continued weakness of the naira, despite CBN ‘s moves to prop it up with dollar sales that had depleted the reserves to an eight – month low ‘. What more can one say except to sympathise with our president on the credentials of the party he leads and which controls government under his leadership. Surely the President’s speech on Independence Day was most patriotic but then it begs the question when squared up with political, economic, and security problems begging urgently for solutions. One prays that the President finds a solution that gives the governed succor , urgently if for no other reason than that it is not even safe for him, or any leader for that matter, to stay too long in the eye of a storm, indeed any storm again, for that matter.

  • Mourning the youths of Gujba

    Death hurts. And the closer it comes, the more it hurts. That is why it is some times hard to keep the tears at bay at the passing of even a 90-year-old close relative. Death refreshes old and fond memories. Then, it hits you with the finality of eternity. No more earthly meetings. Still, you can cope, if only for the age of it.

    But what about the death of people in their prime? A week ago, students whose number is now put at 90 were murdered at the College of Agriculture, Gujba, Yobe State by gunmen suspected to be members of Boko Haram. It was barely three days to the nation’s 53rd birthday anniversary. And it was in cold blood.

    Death hurts but the violent end of young people intensifies the hurt to imaginable and unimaginable proportions. And come to think of the circumstances. They were at school studying to better their lot and make something of their lives. They were at the college to prepare for life’s challenges, their future. They were studying not just for themselves but also for their families, nuclear and otherwise. Some had just returned from the mosque where, according to one of the survivors, they had prayed for a reprieve from the violence of the Islamist sect. Some other victims had retired to bed. Then, came their assailants in two vans and on motorcycles, dressed in military wear. The students were fooled at first, mistaking them for soldiers and heaving a sigh of relief. Their relief soon turned to agony and, ultimately, to grief, not only for their friends and relatives but also for the rest of the country and the world. The terrorists opened fire, killing some as they stood in single files, according to orders; some as they tried to flee and others as they failed to recover from their mortal wounds in the bushes or the hospitals.

    It must have been a bizarre scene. The students were terrified but none knew what they did to earn their predicament. Some were too close to the booming guns to flee. So they were cut down right there. Some figured they could make it if they ran fast enough. Some fled into the spaces between the ceiling and the roof.

    Thankfully, many lived to relive it. Still, a huge number did not. Initial reports put the casualty figure at between 40 and 50. Latest publications have revised the toll, putting it at 90, considering that many bodies were later recovered from the bushes. And possibly, too, some who were taken to hospital may have also died.

    Now, how do you bury and mourn 90 youths? If they lived, many would certainly not only have earned their keep (which is a good thing in these days of youth unemployment) but also looked after their families. Not all would have become millionaire industrialists but, surely, some would have made a difference, no matter how little, in other people’s lives. Perhaps, one or two would have gone on to govern their states if not their country.

    When the killers left, some students returned to view the corpses of their erstwhile colleagues and friends. As a friend, how would you mourn such friends? As a relative, what would you say at their funeral? As a parent, how would comport yourself at a son’s graveside? What words would proceed from your mouth? In what shape is Alhaji Ibrahim Gaidam, the state governor who has reserved some of the ugliest words for the perpetrators? As Nigerians, what fitting words can we fashion out as we contemplate the dead young students of Gujba?

    President Goodluck Jonathan in his Independence Day broadcast, sympathised with the relatives, saying his heart and everyone else’s, by inference, were with them. Elsewhere, Jonathan would ask: why did they do this? Why did terrorists slaughter innocent students?

    That question has been asked by many. But the answer is not far-fetched, really. The killers of the Gujba students did what they did because they have declared war on Nigeria. They did what they did to spite Jonathan who leads the nation. They did what they did to prove to Jonathan that they can fight dirty. Otherwise, what motivation can anyone find for attacking students sleeping in their dorm, some of whom shared the same faith as their killers?

    What justification can anyone find for their latest brutalities? Last October, gunmen believed to be Boko Haram fighters slaughtered about 40 polytechnic students in Mubi. In July, armed men invaded a school in Damaturu and forever silenced 29 pupils and a teacher.

    As a result of these and other attacks on institutions of learning, several thousands of people have reconsidered their education in the Northeast of the country. Many have quit altogether. We all can see a gloomy picture ahead if the trend is not scaled back. What will become of the pupils who flee school? What about their teachers?

    Other questions equally deserve answers. In May, emergency rule was imposed on the Northeast, and, to be fair, it did indeed hurt the sect and its operations. Still, its fighters have managed to catch everyone off guard from time to time, leaving blood and destruction in their wake. On September 17, they appeared in Buni Yadi, headquarters of Gujba council and unleashed some fresh terror on residents before retreating through a bush path from which they came.

    Why do the nation’s chief enemies find it so easy to strike at the people in spite of the troops? Whatever happened to policing the borders in the Northeast?

  • If his ‘Excellency’ were man on the street…

    If Governor Babatunde Fashola were man on the street, he would understand what it means for the leader of your dreams to be reduced to an ordinary human sound bite. He isn’t. Thus he does not know what monstrosity afflicts the world of the average Lagosian, in the region where his mega-city dreams are yet to birth.

    Now that I may have incited their wrath, this is probably the moment that men who would consider black to be white, and white to be off-white, would counsel Governor Babatunde Fashola to ignore this too as the impotent rant of some poor, desperate journalist pandering to the script of some enfant terrible worrywart.

    Yet such men, probably, are hardly around Governor Babatunde Fashola; the “maverick Governor,” I would love to believe, despises the guts of such sycophants and prostitutes to power. Thus hoping that such uprightness, understanding and humanity are positively inured in the glands of the Lagos State Governor, I make good to say that in Lagos, life is still hardly what it’s supposed to be in most parts, even as you read.

    Few nights ago, a Volkswagen truck lost its grip on a slippery slope, at the junction forking into Ogundele street off Alhaji Oladipupo street off Emmanuel street, Agege. It backed into a motorbike carrying a painter (the cyclist) and his wife. It ran over the painter’s left thigh crushing it in the spokes and probably fractured his wife’s hip because till I left the scene, she could neither sit not move.

    At the backdrop of the mishap, vehicles wreck their bumpers and shock absorbers in unavoidable potholes, craters and mud piles and the residents of the area played host, albeit hopelessly, to a maddening vehicular traffic hold-up at midnight.

    It’s a dangerous ride through Emmanuel, Alhaji Oladipupo and Ogundele streets, through Oja Oba bus stop, off old Lagos-Abeokuta highway. The madness gravitates from the road leading to Agege abattoir, through Abule Egba. On this increasingly cratered road stretch, motorists, apparently mentally disturbed, veer off the appropriate lane to face on-coming traffic from Abule Egba.

    It’s unnerving to see police officers and traffic wardens of the Police post stationed at the abattoir, watch unperturbedly as such disturbed motorists flout traffic rules in careless abandon to face oncoming traffic thus posing the greatest of dangers to other road users.

    It is even more maddening to watch these so-called law enforcers pass on such miscreants while they attempt to forcefully return to the appropriate lane, to the detriment of painstaking and law-abiding road users.

    In Ipaja, Baruwa, Ayobo, Ajasa-Command and environ, residents and road users still groan under the weight of very bad roads, heavy traffic, absence of drainages and insecurity. Save the random presence of a police patrol team at the border where Ayobo meshes with Aiyetoro and Itele road, Ogun State; road users and residents in these areas are frequently left at the mercy of constant street elements characterized by roving urchins and armed bandits.

    Orile-Agege, Tabon-Tabon, Agbado Kollington, Dalemo, Akera, Ijaye-Jankara, Meiran, Alakuko, Ajegunle, Iju-Ishaga among others, remain disgraceful eyesores. Dividends of citizenship of the fabled “City of Excellence” remain ever elusive to poor, helpless dwellers and travelers within these derelict habitats of Lagos.

    Some say it’s because these areas fall within the range of so-called slummy and negligible regions that they are left decrepit, in near collapse. Some say it’s because they are peopled by citizens who fall within the low-income bracket that they are abandoned. Some would joke that it’s because they possess such “hideous” and “local” names.

    If you could prove that these neglected areas are indeed, shorn of valuable and estimable citizenry, I would ascribe to you the unrivalled mastery of he who could gather fume into neatly tied bundles, with twine.

    Should it even matter, the value of citizenry inhabiting these regions before the Lagos State government accords them their constitutional rights to equity in provision and distribution of amenities, justice and security? Should not these regions be rehabilitated and improved upon as Victoria Island (V.I.), Lekki Peninsula, Ikeja Government Reservation Areas (GRA) et al?

    Picture a Lagos where the residents of Ayobo, Agege, Ijaiye, Ipaja, Abule-Egba enjoy the same perks and amenities that lures them all to V.I., Ikoyi, Lekki, Ikeja. Picture a Lagos where residents of Meiran, Alakuko, Agbado-Kollington, Ajegunle, enjoy very good roads and bypasses, along with the conveniences that come with such facilities – like flourishing Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), well tended public parks, cinemas and other leisure and tourist attractions. Wouldn’t it be a wonder to behold and dwell in?

    There is need to develop other parts of Lagos as it is been done in the so-called choice neighbourhoods of V.I., Ikoyi, Lekki, Ikeja. The logic is to make the so-called “remote” and “very local” areas of Lagos habitable to all.

    This would no doubt check the desperation of most Lagosians itching to relocate to V.I., Ikeja, Lekki Peninsula, Banana Island as they appreciate in status and affluence. It would also reduce over-population of so-called highbrow area of the Lagos metropolis.

    Governor Fashola perhaps understands the lunacy and dangers inherent in the migration of every upstart, upwardly mobile, wealthy, class-conscious or order-loving citizen to the choicest parts of his mega-city dream – the latter would sooner than expected, become greater purlieus of squalor and dereliction than anyone could ever imagine.

    It wouldn’t hurt Governor Fashola to best his first term record and thus accord Ipaja-Ayobo, Ijaiye, Meiran, Alakuko, Ajegunle, Ajasa-Command among others, more than the passing tribute of a lifting platitude and a sigh. The benefits accruable from such venture are no doubt limitless which probably explains why Governor Ibikunle Amosu of Ogun State, recently visited the cratered terrains of Sango Ota. Moved by the wanton ruin and dereliction of the transit township, he promised to do something about it and true to his pledge, rehabilitation works commenced in the area at midnight. Perhaps Governor Amosu would ensure the rehabilitation would be more than ordinary road patches for the sand and gravel would wash away sooner than expected in the rains.

    Perhaps he would extend such conscientiousness and humanity to the state’s many derelict areas like the road linking Itele, Ogun State with Ipaja-Ayobo, Lagos; and then Owode-Ijako, Agoro road, Dalemo-Toll Gate, Ijoko, Ita Elega, Onikolobo, Ilepa, Ota, Ilo Awela road, to mention a few.

    And maybe Governor Fashola would affect even greater humanity than his Ogun State counterpart and thus transform Lagos into the city of everyone’s dream. This is not some veiled attack on Governor Fashola but an importunate plea that he hearkens, knowing that the true worth of a leader lies not in some of his deeds some of the time but in all of his deeds all of the time.

    Let’s hope his self-confessed loathing for the degenerate and verminous translates to more good roads, functional drainages, conscientious law enforcers, pedestrian foot bridges, law abiding citizenry, equity, justice and peace particularly in the oft abandoned parts of Lagos.

    If he could graciously make manifest such heartwarming and responsible leadership, eons from now, when generations of Lagosians remember Lagos State’s golden years, they will remember when Babatunde Fashola was Governor.

     

  • NIGERIA @ 53: How presidency and governors immiserise us

    NIGERIA AT THE BRINK OF COLLAPSE. Fifty- three years after independence, our dear country totters dangerously at the precipice. But that in itself does not pose such a morbid danger to the entity. What is troubling is that Nigeria’s critical leadership seems not to appreciate how close we are to an irrevocable doom. They therefore carry on blissfully using a template that is bound to lead us to our collective atrophy.

    THE PRESIDENCY IS THE WORST CULPRIT. It is business as usual for the presidency, the fulcrum of leadership and the key catalyst for change. But the capacity to lead and effect basic changes is too low to engender radical, paradigmatic changes which are what we sorely and urgently need now. The presidency which controls over 50 per cent of the nation’s revenues continues on its binging, wastefulness and a worrisome inability to focus on the major problems.

    ACUTE INABILITY TO MANAGE THE BUDGET is at the heart of the matter apart from the well known old enemy, corruption. All the institutional levers for implementing the budget may have crashed as we hardly achieve 20 per cent of our capital budget year-on-year. Capital expenditures are hardly released to the ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) and whatever little is released are roiled in corruption and inefficiency.

    Though we do not need the corroboration of the National Assembly, House members who were on oversight inspection of MDAs projects last week found only about 30-40 percent project execution with three quarters of the year gone. If this has been the story in the past one decade or more, what it simply means is that there has been little or no development going on in the country over this period.

    LIKE PRESIDENCY LIKE STATES. The 36 states of the federation are no better than the presidency. All the state governors without exception effectively disburse both the state and local government funds without proper recourse to the executive council or the state houses of assembly. State budgets are mere formalities hardly implemented while the LGAs don’t have budget anymore. The result: most governors expend the state’s resources loosely and recklessly as if they were pocket money but often in whimsical and myopic ways.

    Naturally, all the statutory institutions for orderly distribution of resources like the ministries, the agencies, the LGAs and development areas have been shutdown in most states. The decrepit state of ministries across the country is enough proof that there is no life in them how much more delivering service to the people. Please take a trip to the LGA and LCDA secretariats across the country and you will find most of them overgrown by weeds. Of course it is common knowledge that most of the LGA heads and key personnel who are mere errand boys and girls of the various governors do not dare live in the vicinity of their LGAs. They all live in the state capital or posh and secured parts of town and only come to office when there is money to share.

    NO GOVERNANCE GOING ON HERE. The result is that what we have is a semblance of governance. We see the presidency hee and haw over a few projects and our supermen governors engage in so much abracadabra in cities and a few towns. A vast expanse of the country is left in total neglect and disarray. This explains why hardly anything is working in spite of Nigeria’s huge earnings; it explains the burgeoning youth unemployment, and criminal activities like kidnapping, baby factories, and armed agitation.

    To cut a very long story short, we cannot be governing our country wrongly and expect the right results; the current template is not sustainable and if the president and governors insist on it, the country will meet its perdition sooner.

     

    FEEDBACK: Re: Iwuanyanwu: Selfish politics to the end

    Good morning Mr. Osuji, Iwuanyanwu has been a great disappointment. A very young man when he came to public prominence, he quickly imbibed a cynical disposition to business and politics. His Hardel and Enic Construction Company became known for shoddy and poor jobs and abandoned road projects. As a pioneer student of in 1981 of the Federal university of Technology Owerri, I still remember today a donation he announced towards some projects at our then campus at Samek Road, off Okigwe Road. He donated some large number of bags of cement and staff, students and the audience hailed him. He then announced that the donation was conditional upon his company being awarded one of the contracts in the campus and the university authority agreeing to hire one of his warehouses for storing the cement. It was a deflating anti-climax for us all then. Today, nobody knows what he stands for in politics. – 08188884775

    Steve you have always made my day each time you show the brilliance in your use of the pen. The likes of chief Iwuanyanwu must be told the home truth. Fire on at full throttle. -08039568640

    Brother Steve you hit the nail on the head. Iwuanyanwu has no noble principles and swims any government in power – tyrannical, fascistic or blood thirsty. He says Igbo are not organized and coordinated but what has he done towards Igbo unity. I am truly disgusted with that man. From Gabriel, Aba. – 08051481333

    Steve my brother Chief Iwuanyanwu is indisposed and can never recover. In fact that is all about him since we know him and he cannot change. From Charles Umunnakwe, -07039095549

    Hi Steve. I will still say that the major problem of Ndigbo is that the political space is left in the hands of ‘freerollers’ who misconstrue Igbo political world view. You can imagine someone like Ojo Maduekwe who dropped from being foreign minister to accepting an ambassadorial posting. People like Iwuanyanwu will continue his ‘trade’ until serious Igbo wake up from their slumber. Maybe you should start something like Ohaneze Renewal Group. There are more than enough young, vibrant Igbo elite who can anchor that. From Olu, 08033013597

    Leave press work, contest for presidency, it’s your right. From Anu, 08165124180

    Dear Steve, after reading Iwuanyanwu’s Calabar statement, I could not believe it. For long I have been wondering when someone would stand Ndigo in front of the mirror. Iwuanyanwu is not alone in this politics of the stomach. What has so-called mainstream politics got my people from Obasanjo to Yar’Adua to Jonathan? May god save us? – 08086135704

  • NLC v. The people

    NLC v. The people

    It is difficult not to reckon with the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) which claims to represent and protect, the interests of the toiling masses of the country. But when it appears that the NLC stands against those same interests on a fundamental issue that is at the foundation of the misery of the people, then it goes without saying that the original claim of effective and selfless representation needs a re-examination.

    It is certainly not unusual for there to be a misreading of the mood of the base by the leadership of an organisation leading to a misjudgment of the desires of the former by the latter. That scenario is the reason for the not so uncommon cases of mass revolt against the leadership. If you claim to be my leader and you don’t even understand what I want according to my best judgment of my interest, then you have no business leading me because you cannot represent my interests effectively. And what you cannot represent, you cannot protect.

    The widely reported unguarded attack by the Vice President of the NLC, Mr. Isaa Aremu against proponents of Sovereign National Conference (SNC) is not only misguided, it is misinformed. It is misguided by reason of its clear aversion to the expressed interests of the working class that Labour represents.

    Let us start with a common denominator and tease out the variations. Majority of the working class in this country have taken sides with the proponents of the convocation of a national conference, by whatever name it is called, that addresses the structural imbalances in this country because they are wise enough to know that those imbalances create serious bottlenecks in the effective delivery of the proverbial dividends of democracy.

    Consider just one item. For a long time, power has been on the exclusive list of the Federal Government. States, local governments, or private companies have no effective participation in the generation and/or distribution of power and energy. But of course, the Federal Government has been grossly incompetent in the discharge of that constitutional responsibility. Despite this, it has guarded jealously that exclusivity until recently. But we know that because of this constitutional debacle, the promise of industrial development cannot be fulfilled, leading to the misery of the toiling masses. Is it unconstitutional, as Mr. Aremu would have us believe, to seek a discussion around the kind of issues that should be the preserve of the Federal Government versus other jurisdictions? If the answer is “no”, as I am sure it is, isn’t this what the proposal for a national conference is about? And shouldn’t the NLC, as the purported representative of the working people, be in the forefront of confronting this issue?

    The media report that is available to me suggests that Mr. Aremu made his remarks when he spoke with journalists on Tuesday. I assume then that he made off-the cuff remarks. If so, one can probably excuse the incoherent nature of his declarations. What strikes me from the report that I have, however, is that there is not one reference to the interests of the working people as a reason for the position of the NLC. Mr. Aremu rested his position on several factors, not one of which touches on the misery of the people that the NLC represents. Surely, the NLC has the right to take a philosophical or ideological stand on issues, but every such philosophy or ideology must be anchored in the interest of workers.

    Now, what are the philosophical and ideological grounds of the attack of the NLC on the proponents of a national conference?

    The Labour leader put together a mixed bag of ideas in support or defence of his position. Unfortunately, it seems to me that the ideas are ill-informed. First, Mr. Aremu argues that an SNC is diversionary and unconstitutional because Nigeria has elected representatives and therefore it would be unlawful to convoke an SNC. Nobody should shortchange the system midway, he added. I dealt with this kind of argument in my comments on Senator Mark’s first position in the column titled: “Mark this logic.”

    The major issue is that this type of argument simply begs the question. Proponents of an SNC are aware that there is a constitution. They are, however, convinced that the constitution is not timeless and can be revisited to better serve the interest of the people. Constitutions are made for citizens; citizens are not made for constitutions. SNC is an attempt to remake the constitution. Therefore, the existence of a constitution cannot validly be used as an argument against SNC. And as Senate President Mark finally realised, a national conference “can find accommodation in the extant provisions of the 1999 Constitution, which guarantees freedom of expression and association.’

    The Labour leader suggested that Nigeria is not a debating society and that Nigeria should be functional while the citizens should stop agonising. I really don’t know what this means! It is certainly not a well-considered statement even in the category of an off-the-cuff remark. If Nigeria should be functional and it is not, as even the NLC would admit, since it is not tired of leading protest rallies on a regular basis.And if there is a prospect of ending the dysfunction inherent in the system that we inherited from military unitarists and their hegemonist collaborators, what does rationality recommend?

    SNC promises to be that last hope to fix the national dysfunction. It provides an avenue for us to “organise our thoughts to make the country work” as the Labour leader recommends. And on a point of correction, nobody, not any one of the leaders or members of the various organisations proposing a national conference, has suggested that Nigeria is too big. I am not, therefore, sure what the basis is for the NLC argument that “it is wrong to say that Nigeria is too big.’

    From a globalist’s perspective, the NLC is against SNC because “SNC is no longer a global trend” and “all ethnic sentiments should be divorced from Nigeria’s national life” because “globally, the use of ethnic nationalities is no longer fashionable.” These are philosophical positions bolstered by reference to global trends. In other worlds, Nigeria should follow the trend. Of course, he is not concerned about what happened to Yugoslavia, or to the Soviet Union, or what is happening in Scotland.

    Let us assume that multinational state is the global trend. It could be a slippery slope. Do we want to suggest that whatever is the global trend is what we should follow?When it suits our self-interests we are quick to suggest that we should domesticate democracy to fit the cultures of our peoples. But those cultures are not abstract; they do not fall from the sky. They are specific to particular domains and arenothing more than an articulated mix of languages, religions and customs. We recognise them in our original national anthem. But now, if we are to follow the ideologically moderated stance of the NLC, “how can language and ethnic identity remain an issue for us?”

    This last rhetorical question posed by the Labour leaders goes to the heart of the matter and we cannot dismiss it lightly. But what is being ignored is that we had a chance to deal with this issue in the various conferences prior to Independence and we opted for a true federal system that gives recognition to the diversity of language and culture. And we know that it was the military who truncated our Republican constitution that also dealt a fatal blow to the agreements that we thought should serve us well as a nation united in diversity. An SNC would allow us to readdress the issues and take back the autonomy the military arrogated to itself.

    Genuinely frustrated that Nigerians are not embracing the global trend, and are still divided by language and ethnicity, the Labour leader made glowing reference to the United States of America where, from his perspective, the historic election of the first African American president ended all divisions and dissentions: “The day an African-African became the president of the most powerful nation in the world, the United States, colour had ceased to be an issue.” Really? Q.E.D.

  • A bloody birthday

    A bloody birthday

    NOTHING shocks Nigerians. Just when you think you have seen it all, a more terrifying absurdity hits you right in the face and you start struggling to figure it out. But the events in the days leading up to the 53rd Independence Anniversary were really shocking, even by Nigeria’s standards.

    I doubt if there is any horror movie producer who will not be petrified. A bank manager left Nasarawa for Abuja. In the car with him were his driver and a colleague. The journey was smooth; no stress and no traffic snarls. Suddenly, some armed men jumped onto the road. They stopped the car, ordered the driver and his passengers out and shot them dead. No questions. Shocking? Not quite? Wait for this: the evil men set the vehicle on fire and dug a big pit in which they buried the car and the bodies. Days after, the police found the grave and exhumed the car and the bodies. It was all ascribed to the Ombatse cult members.

    Before anybody could make any sense of the savagery, another blood chilling event had occurred, this time in the heart of Abuja – the seat of the government and home of the rich and the powerful. Soldiers and Department of State Security Service (DSS) officers stormed an uncompleted building in the dead of the night while its occupants were fast asleep. They turned their rifles at the building, raising a huge smoke of horror. As the shots rang out, cries of agony shrilled through the night, according to neighbours. By the time the smoke subsided, no fewer than nine men lay dead. Another died later in the hospital.

    Neighbours were frightened. The DSS claimed that the dead were Boko Haram members who, according to the security agents, fired the first shot. Those who knew the victims said they were people eked out a living as tricycle riders and menials without any rifle to fire. But the DSS insisted that some of them confessed to being members of Boko Haram.

    There have been many questions since the incident occurred. Were weapons recovered from them? Where are the exhibits? If two suspects “confessed” to being Boko Haram members, is that good enough an indication that all the occupants were Boko Haram men? Did they resist arrest? How long was the investigation that led to the assault on the uncompleted building? Are we convinced that those were no extrajudicial killings, the type that provoked the blood guzzling monster that is Boko Haram insurgency?

    The rumour is strong that the woman who owns the building, in a desperate attempt to eject the illegal occupants, told security agents that she suspected that they were Boko Haram members. Where is this landlady? Will she live in the house, with the ocean of blood created in there by the rain of bullets? Could this be true? The military and the DSS may have explained the killings as a mere routine in the fight against terrorism, but it is clear that they have put themselves in an invidious position. The argument will go on for long.

    If the Abuja incident was contentious in its motive and the identities of those involved disputable, not so the massacre of students in Yobe. Students of the College of Agriculture, Gujba were in bed last Sunday when a group of armed men stormed their hostel, woke them up and lined them up outside where they were executed. Forty – the official figure – died immediately in the Boko Haram attack. One died the next day in the hospital.

    Poor Governor Geidam. He was all tears. So were many parents who couldn’t find any sane reason for the mass murder of the innocent students. President Goodluck Jonathan was angry. But the popular thinking is that we did not do enough to show that we felt the pains of the parents who lost their children in that insanity. The mood was rather defiant – perhaps to show the architects of the madness that we will never bow; should this stop us from mourning the dead? – instead of being truly sober. Should we have carried on with the events of the 53rd Anniversary as if all was well? I do not think so. Shouldn’t we have declared a national day of mourning? I believe we should have.

    But then, can you win such an argument in a country that is fast losing its humanity and the essence of life and living? A country where everything is reduced to politics and freedom as well as all the other ideals cherished by humanity are being curtailed by forces of evil.

    A dark cloud of gloom fell on Kenya after the mall attack in which 67 people died. The world grieved with Kenya in its moment of trial. What national calamity could be greater than the massacre of 41 students – some are still missing – right in their hostel?

    Before Gujba, there was Benisheik where scores of travellers were pulled out of vehicles and shot dead. The military retreated as the insurgents got the upper hand. Where is Boko Haram getting its weapons from? Who supplies the cash? Are the sect’s attacks planned in Nigeria? How helpful are our neighbours in confronting this wickedness? How strong is our intelligence network? For how long will Boko Haram reign?

    The other day in Kokori, Delta State, a young man staged what amounted to a village square meeting where he railed against the state and the Federal governments for, according to him, neglecting the oil producing community. He issued a 60-day ultimatum for the governments to mend their ways or get whipped. Furious, the government went after Kelvin Prosper Oniarah (aka Ibruvwe), who is popularly known as Kelvin, a suspected hardened criminal whose specialty is kidnapping. In a matter of days, he was captured in Port Harcourt where he had gone frolicking with women of easy virtue. If Kelvin crossed the red line and was swiftly haunted down, how about Abubakar Shekau; has he not done enough havoc? Is it beyond our security agents’ capacity to seize him?

    The Joint Task Force (JTF) once announced that Shekau had died after being injured in a gun duel. Then the man showed up in a video, mocking our military might. When will he sufficiently provoke the authorities to act? President Jonathan was reported as seeking United States President Barack Obama’s help in fighting Boko Haram; are we truly helpless – as it is thought in many informed circles?

    But it was not all about blood and bullets. Love found – it will always do, even in the most stifling of situations – its way. Frontline businessman Emmmanuel Iwuanyanwu turned a beau all over again. Decked in a pair of suit and a tie, his shirt’s collar flying on one side, the chief,72, married a 26-year old beaming belle. The ways of love are, indeed, strange.

    The All Progressives Congress(APC) said the economy had collapsed. States went to Abuja thrice to collect their monthly handout; thrice they came back empty handed. Some said there was really nothing to share; others claimed it was a mere row over disparities in figures. Asked on television to speak on the health of the economy, President Jonathan smiled and declared that all was well. His proof: he rang the closing bell at the New York Stock Exchange. Can you beat that?

    Consider Jos, Ombatse, Boko Haram, kidnappers and robbers as well as the army of illiterates we are breeding – varsity teachers remain on strike for three months – and think about Nigeria’s future. What is life worth here?

    NCAA and Arik

    VIATION authorities NCAA have sanctioned Nigeria’s leading carrier, Arik, for the unruly behaviour of its passengers who seized the tarmac in Abuja after being flown to Calabar where the aircraft could not land because it was late. The pilot returned to Abuja where it had been delayed because of a VIP movement.

    It’s good to enforce the rules, but I think NCAA should temper justice with mercy. Arik would have had no business flying late if there had been no VIP movement in this country of VIPs who insist on getting first class treatment always. Besides, the airline couldn’t have been able to control its angry passengers. Some discretion, please.

  • The next century of Nigeria – 2

    The next 100 years would have to be different from this last century. The future is of course pregnant, nobody knows what it would bear. But as they say, the child is the father of the man. Unless we radically change the way of doing things, the next 100 years would be difficult. If we do not drastically control our population through appropriate demographic policy, our population would become a burden to us. The rate of growth of this population seemed to have stabilised somehow in the South-west perhaps because of education and the dwindling economy but in the South-east and in the North, the rate of population is still very high. In the North for example especially among our Muslim brothers, the fact that polygamy is tolerated by Islam makes it difficult to enforce any demographic policy unless the number of children is anchored on the woman rather than on the man. But in the South-east where polygamy is not too popular especially among the elite, it is still a matter of celebration when a single woman is able to have as many as 10 children. This sociological factor in population growth would have to be tackled. Religious differences will also have to be contained because it is not in our interest to have a clash of civilisations based on different religions. Religious and population bombs are going to be the greatest threat to Nigeria’s survival in the future. If we can deal with these two factors and rein in the rampant corruption and rapacity in the land and develop our economy away from the exportation of raw commodities, of minerals and farm produce and embark on an industrial economic development so that every Nigerian who wants to work can have work to do and also adopt a policy of careers open to talents and do away with any policy that smacks of affirmative action or discrimination, the next century should be a better century than this last one.

    With more and more Nigerians going to college and getting properly educated, and with the problems of the past being well known and being properly analysed, it should be possible for us to avoid the pitfalls of history if we learn the proper lessons from them. There are certain things that Nigeria must avoid. It is no use comparing Nigeria with America as some people glibly do. We are part of an old continent and we are not an immigrant society. Nigerians love their land and their soil. Different ethnic groups are associated with different parts of the country. The question of indegeneship and settlerism can tear this country apart if not well handled. This is not to suggest that the movement of Nigerians should be restricted to their home origins but the rights of autochthonous people must be respected and not circumscribed and overwhelmed by new arrivals from different parts of the country. It will not be right for people of different ethnic groups living with others to enjoy double privileges of enjoying rights of abode and rights of origin. This is what is the cause of the problem on the Plateau and several parts of the North and may yet pose a problem in the South particularly in Lagos where the question of indegeneship and settlerism is beginning to rear its ugly head. Ideally, all Nigerians should be able to live and work in any part of the country and enjoy the right of citizenship without hindrance but this has to be harmonised with the rights of native people and the successful balance of this in Malaysia should be the way forward.

    There is no country in the world that has no problems and Nigeria cannot be an exception. Our diversity was what necessitated our embrace of federalism as a system of government. Unfortunately, over the years, Nigeria has been moving towards a unitary system of government with consequent conflict. We should in the next century define state rights and find the appropriate economic structure that would preserve the rights of states to control their resources while contributing to a weak centre which would have then devolved powers to the states so that political competition would largely be at the state level rather than the do or die competition for control of the centre. If we do not go this way, we would not have learnt any lessons from the history of the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Malaysia and nearer home, Ethiopia and Cape Verde and Guinea-Bissau in our region. Even good old Great Britain has found it necessary to concede virtual independence to Scotland and Wales in order to maintain the appearance of the unity of Great Britain. If a country that is almost 1000 years old can do this, we should anticipate future political development that would have disastrous consequences in our country and put in process anticipatory policies to obviate disastrous consequences. The essence of knowing what is possible is to make sure that we avoid what is avoidable and this is particularly important in the life of our nation. Finally, there must be a divine hand in the fact that the largest concentration of black people is in the area of modern Nigeria. This is also the heart of Africa; this is the place of authentic African culture and if Nigeria cannot manage its diversity, then the future of the entire African continent would be in jeopardy. This is why we must embrace our destiny as a people, and deliberately through education, teach our people that we have a responsibility to generations of future Nigerians and the black race as a whole. In a rapidly globalizing world, where as a result of technology the world is shrinking, we cannot as a black race lag behind other races. If we do, our survival will be in doubt because we may be seen as freaks who are not fully human or some kind of intermenschen not ready or fit to compete with the rest of mankind. This may sound rather unfortunate mentioning the factor of race. But the point is that the racial factor has always been important in international relations and we cannot wish it away. The point to make is that we as Nigerians have a responsibility beyond our immediate frontiers. We owe it to the people of Africa at home and in the African Diaspora to be successful. The success of course will depend on how well we harmonise our differences at home and chart a way forward and take our rightful place in the comity of nations. This is our destiny; it should also be our charge and our bounden duty in the next one century.