The Nation Newspaper

Category: Columnists

  • Nine ministers axed:should have been 39

    Good riddance! Be gone and fare thee well. This is what we all must say to the ministers fired from President Goodluck Jonathan’s cabinet on Wednesday. We hear some of them burst into tears, while they actually ought to jubilate and be grateful that they were relieved of a burden that was obviously breaking their weak backs. Many Nigerians had long expected this sack but Jonathan doodled apparently not quite understanding the essence of a cabinet. Many expected a near clean sweep; or something like 19, or even 39, for left to this column, only about three to half a dozen of the lot have shown that they can think through their responsibilities and deliver any result.

    SELF-SERVING PRESIDENCY But by this cabinet change (if we must call it that), Jonathan has shown how pitiably mixed up he is in his bid to run a government and how he is not ‘working’ and his administration will continue to flounder even if he stayed a 100 years in office. Now he has sacked these fellows by the tag of ministers not because they were not up to speed on the job but because they will not serve his political purpose in the coming months. The pack of Ruqayyat Rufai, Okon Ewa-Bassey, Olugbenga Ashiru, Ama Pepple, Shamsudeen Usman, Hadiza Mailafia, Olusola Obada, Bukar Tijani and Zainab Kuchi have been marinated in the rich trappings of Jonathan’s presidential powers that often becomes Nigeria’s public office holders, in the past two or more years.

    But what we call a cabinet here is a glorified royal court where the king’s men didn’t have to work or exert their minds; all they need do is to be ever present at the royal court, smile broadly at the king’s lame jokes to be acceptable in the king’s presence. Now this horde has become an irritant to the king and they are hereby thrown out like litter. This is the way our executive cabinets have worked at all levels since the British left these shores; members of the executive largely serve the boss and not the people. Now they have been sacked not because they have not performed in their duty posts but because they are deemed no longer useful to the boss man.

    NO GRAND VISION President Jonathan fell deep into the same hole like all his predecessors. He picked underlings, party wags, personal aides, in-laws and mistresses of party big men to form a cabinet. Some had never held down a serious job in their lives and many who can never run a store were saddled with an entire ministry and accompanying agencies. Because neither the boss nor the messengers have any strategic vision for the job or the country, they end up destabilizing the system instead of adding or bringing any value to bear on it.

    The result is that after four or even 20 years, the country would not be much different from how they met it. Our education for instance, would be in the doldrums and ASUU would continue to bicker; we will keep having a ministry of planning that cannot see beyond today and ministry in charge of housing that cannot manage to build a row of sheds in four years. Therefore, naught upon naught is naught; there is no grand vision, no overriding national interest being pursued and no strategic perspective brought to the job.

    In this light it would be asking too much if we begin to question or interrogate the performances of these so-called ministers in the last two years. Safe to Gbenga Ashiru who managed to project some respectability in Nigeria’s foreign policy, most of the others (including those still on their seats) cannot be remembered for any positive contribution while they warmed their various seats. Prof. Rufai in the education ministry will be remembered for protracted ASUU strike and education policy that changed every session. She seemed always out of her depths while her upstart junior minister was rather illiterate for such most important job. Both the president and his appointees can’t seem to fathom the import and majesty of education in this age.

    Mama Ama(l) Pepple, a retired civil servant, one would wager she doses half the time in office having segued from a lifetime of wearisome Nigerian bureaucracy into heading a ministry. One cannot remember that she delivered anything, not in housing, not in urban development in two years. Mrs. Obada was noticed cutting tapes here and there and that was all. Prof. Ewa-Bassey was neither seen nor heard anywhere and it would not have mattered if we did not have a ministry in charge of science and technology. Mrs. Mailafia manned one of the most important ministries in modern times but bet she did not realize just how critical issues of environment are in today’s world. She never lifted off the ground. Mrs Kuchi, the junior minister for power could not be expected to have put in any work if her senior counterpart was de-fenestrated and thrown out by the scruff of the neck; all one has for her is sympathy.

    The same emotion I extend to Mr. Tijani, the junior for agriculture who must have been dazed by the bamboozling and bombastic razzmatazz of his senior man, Akinwunmi Adesina. Shamsudeen Usman who was in-charge of National Planning was particularly pathetic. He has been around as cabinet minister for nearly two decades under various governments and manning different ministries. All these years, one hardly remembers him for any performance on the job or freshness of thought; he is remembered as a time-server and bench warmer. This last outing however, completely unraveled the former bank chief. As the man in charge of National Planning, not one day did he give the nation nary a thread of insight about our condition yesterday, today or tomorrow. Worse, the vision 20-20-20 which was on his corridor died a natural death right their in his hands. In fact he carried on as if he was doing the rest of us a favour serving us in the executive council.

    Beyond the sacked ones, most of the rest really ought to be chucked out if it was really all about service. Just a few instances: what on earth is Ms Omobola Johnson (Communications) doing there; what can we point to if she leaves today? Same for Prof. Onyebuchi Chukwu (Health), one cannot see any imprint or monument. Labaran Maku has not brought anything to his office apart from the odium of a ministerial visit (we remember him for something at least); Goodsday Orubebe (Niger Delta ministry) has nothing to offer, same for Onolememen (Works). Akinwunmi Adesina is all fancy foot works with neither depth nor results and ditto for Olusegun Aganga who has lived a fantasy world of phantom investors.

    Apart from one or two, this cabinet and its leadership have been a debacle, to say it straight. Let’s be rid of them!

  • The war within

    The war within

    We live in a republic defined by its self-governing status and the constitutional principles by which it conducts its affairs. Those constitutional principles respect, among others, the fundamental rights of human beings to live their lives with minimum interference from government or any other authority. That is one difference between a monarchy and a republic.

    Republicanism is predicated on the principle that individuals have rights and those rights must be protected against the whims and caprices of any groups or individuals. One system by which a republic proceeds to respect the principle of respect for human rights is the democratic system of governance according to which citizens directly or indirectly participate in the formulation and implementation of policies. In either case, the majority principle has the edge in the practice of democracies. This has led to the denigration of democracies in contrast to republicanism.

    But while much has been made of the virtues of republicanism and while the tradition has been to applaud republican virtues over democracy, it seems to me that the bifurcation can be misleading because there can be no republican virtue without adequate attention to democratic virtues.

    In truth, democracy is the rule of the people by the people and for the people. Here the people can rule themselves directly or indirectly through their elected representatives. Either way, it is the majority voice that is heard and respected. From which it follows that the minority will always lose out. Talk about internal democracy in group and political party procedures cannot lose sight of this crucial aspect (defect?) of democracy. Yet, it cannot be overlooked that as flawed as it is, democracy is still an indispensable instrument of governance in a republic, a reason why we are quick to cast aspersion on non-democratic (self-governing) republics.

    The most important instrument of democratic governance in modern democracies is the political party. For democracy to function properly and thrive, political parties must function properly. But there is no guarantee that political parties will function properly. From which it follows that there is no guarantee that democracies will thrive. Two questions follow naturally. How must political parties function? What is the criterion for proper functioning? And why is there no guarantee that they will?

    Before we look at the possible answers to these questions, it is perhaps helpful to look at an alternative to a system of political parties in a democracy. A clear-headed argument was once made by the Ghanaian philosopher, Kwasi Wiredu, for “a no-party consensual democracy” in Africa, based on what he considers the prospects of such a system in forging harmony and protection for minority interests. Wiredu’s position is not too far-off from the position of those early nationalists who argued for one-party democracies on ground of harmony and consensus, though he differed from them in the sense that they “murdered” competing political parties in order to make their case, while he doesn’t assume the prior existence of any parties.

    I am not persuaded by the argument for a no-party system because it is unworkable in our modern complex societies with not just one but numerous groups—ethnic, religious, linguistic—with competing interests. The modern political party is clearly indispensable to the governance of modern democracies.

    But what is expected of political parties and how must they function. The assumption is that a political party brings together people of like minds, with similar interests and ideological persuasions about the place of government in the lives of citizens. The party competes for political power along with others by selling its programs and policies to the electorate. If the electorate buys its programs and policies, and there is a free and fair election, it wins the support of citizens and assumes power. This is where the practice of majority rule becomes a problem for critics of democracy and efforts have been made by theorists of democracy to suggest corrective measures that promote minority interests. I will not go into this here. Suffice it to say that the system is not that obnoxious.

    Now, the norm is what has been spelled out briefly in the last paragraph. However, the practice has not often conformed to the norm. The interest that brings people together has not always been that which they can sell with honesty to the citizens and the virtue of the political party, to articulate the foremost interests and aspirations of citizens, has not always been the motivating factor for a good number of contemporary political parties. The political party has been turned into a business organisation where the pecuniary interests of the leadership are dominant; but they are able to access political power and keep it because of their ability to manipulate the citizenry.

    In a system that is rigged against the majority of its members because of the conditions of their existence—poverty, ignorance, disease—such manipulative practices succeed and a political party in power gets to impose itself on the nation with impunity even when it doesn’t discharge the responsibilities of governance to the satisfaction of the citizens.

    Recall however that the satisfaction of the citizens is not a category that is high on the list of the party’s priorities in the first place. This is the reason that there can be no guarantee that the party will function adequately or that democracy will thrive. For in the last resort, when citizens are tired of manipulation, no matter the nature of the force levelled against them, there will be mass revolt, and it cannot be guaranteed that democracy will survive such a revolt. But even before such a time, there is bound to be war within the structure of the party itself.

    The personal interests that bring its members together cannot be reconciled through consensus because human nature is egoistic and acquisitive as Hobbes told us long ago and we still don’t believe him.

    If nothing else has demonstrated the veracity of Hobbes’ theory, the war within the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) seems to me to a veritable example of a party, whose members are governed by the principle of personal egoism. Recall an unfortunate exchange between the late Chief Afolabi and the late Chief Bola Ige when the former accursed the latter of ingratitude to the leadership of the PDP who out of their generosity extended an invitation to Chief Ige to “come and eat.” The expression was that raw.

    Consider now the grounds of the complaints of the members of the “New PDP” against the party leadership. Every bit of the complaint has to do with personal interest. Jonathan must forget contesting in 2015. Tukur must go. Amaechi must be restored as NGF Chair, etc. How does resolving any of these disputes or acceding to any of these conditions impact the fundamental interests of Nigerians? The New PDP faction has not made any case that focuses on issues of party accountability to the people. It has not faulted a governance style that has emboldened terrorists and sentenced innocent citizens to a life of perpetual insecurity. Indeed, the New PDP has not worried itself about the conditions of existence of the poorest of our fellow citizens.

    The war within, no matter how it is resolved, whether in favor of the old or the new PDP, does not seem to have any prospect of benefitting the average suffering Nigerian. Indeed, what is most likely is that a consensus will be reached by the warring parties in the crisis. Attention would be paid to the original interests that brought them together and the personal interests at stake and the settlement will have no bearing on what a party in power owes to democracy or to the people who are the ultimate beneficiaries of a democratic republic’s system of government.

  • I started life learning from my weaver mum, says renowned artist Jimoh Buraimoh

    I started life learning from my weaver mum, says renowned artist Jimoh Buraimoh

    Jimoh Buraimoh is in many ways like the Biblical prophet who is without honour in his land. In Nigeria, his homeland, very little is known about Buraimoh and his achievements. But in the US, he has successfully etched his name in gold in the city of Atlanta, US.

    Though a successful hotelier in Osogbo, Osun State, Buraimoh made his marks as an artist. He has also made his marks as a member of the Osun Festival Committee.

    In the US, he was honoured with a honorary title for his contributions to the development of the city of Atlanta.

    He also received an Award of Excellence from the Atlanta Urban Design Commission as the Best Mosaic Mural of the Year.

    Interestingly, the success which Buraimoh enjoys today came from doing something seemingly impossible when he introduced bead painting in 1965.

    At the time, the feat was a revolution of sort in Africa because the only thing they were conversant with was oil painting. He made fortune from his paintings. The fortune he made from his unique painting before veering into the hospitality business.

    While it is true that it is his unique style of painting that brought him international recognition and fame, it was his entrance into the hotel business in the early 80s that earned him the little fame he enjoys at home.

    And since then, he worked hard to remain in business despite the very unfriendly business climate. Almost three decades after, his hotel, Heritage Hotel, in Osogbo is waxing stronger, leaving its contemporaries in its trail, while pointing to the ruins of many others in the capital city.

    Asked what his staying power is, Buraimoh smiled, then slowly shot back: “I work hard to maintain a standard. I also make sure that we are not left behind. So we moved with the trend, making sure that we are ahead of our competitors.”

    Aside his hotel business, the life of the first African bead painter revolves around culture. And his early hours are still dedicated to painting, a routine he has faithfully kept for ages.

    “My hotel started about 29 years ago. The reason for its establishment being that when Duro Ladipo died, we were not able to use the place we were using for arts because that was where he was buried. So, we could no longer have exhibitions where we used to have them. This situation made me to think of creating a studio for myself at home. I later created a place where other people could do their exhibitions like what we used to do there at the hotel.

    “Primarily, it wasn’t a big hotel, but a nite club. The club was for people around here to bring life into them. But back then, there wasn’t any life at all. That was how I started my own hotel. But after some time, there were a lot of demands. So, I started by including five rooms. Later, I increased it to 10 rooms. Now, we have about 49 rooms in the hotel. Mine was not intentional, but to create an awareness and to create life in Osogbo.

    “However, getting the land to build the hotel was not a tea-party business, as he had to face many battles and protests from neighbours. But he refused to give up, scaling all the hurdles that came his way.

    “In order to stop me from continuing with the hotel plan, one of my neighbours’ decided to start a farm to raise pigs beside the hotel. The idea then was to discourage me from embarking on the project. You know anywhere they do piggery, the place is bound to have offensive odour, emanating from the faeces of the pigs. But I remained undaunted.

    “The battle was much then. And when Sunny Ade saw that I could expand the hotel, I approached the owner of a property beside me to sell the property to me. Initially, he refused, but finally gave me conditions.

    First, he said I should get another property for him and pay him certain amount of money. I got the property for him in town which was to cost about N1 million. But because I could not raise the money, the property was sold.”

    Rather than give up, Buraimoh kept faith with his dream, and finally got another property for his man at a place very close to the hotel. “He agreed to take over the property. That was how I was able to acquire the property where the hotel is standing today”,Buraimoh said.

    Though a highly successful businessman, Buraimoh’s early childhood was rough. Born to poor parents, young Buraimoh seemed condemned to a life of poverty. But his resolve to extricate himself from the firm grip of poverty which had dealt severely with his parents later paid off when he fell in love with arts.

    “I was born in Osogbo on April 3, 1943 to Mr. Oladapo Buraimoh of Alagba’s Compound, Osogbo and Simbiatu Abeke from Igbesa in Ogun State. I was not the first child of my parents. The first child died very early, perhaps a few months after I was born. This event thus made me, at least in a functional sense, the first-born. My mother had a total of eight children, including two sets of twins. Only Lasisi, the last born and one of the last set of twins survived Thus, for very many years, I was the only child,” he said.

    His first contact with the arts came from his mother who was a mat weaver. Watching his mother weave, young Buraimoh gradually fell in love with the arts that would later in life earn him fame and wealth. But he almost ended up not going to school.

    “I really worked hard. I had so many sleepless nights. When I started my art, I never knew where I was going. I tried my hands on so many things that I hardly slept. My parents had little or no money; they were both poor. Even when I wanted to go to a technical college in Abeokuta and Ijebu-Ode, they couldn’t afford it,” he said.

    Though he failed to attain his dream of a university education, Buraimoh is happy to have found love and happiness in the arts.

    “My aim was to go to the university or any higher institution and end up as a white collar job-man. Though I was pained that I didn’t go to the university, but I later realized that it wouldn’t have helped me or my inner talents. Perhaps, I would have wasted away with many ideas. But entering into arts has allowed me to express myself freely, promote the African culture the way it should be done.

    “I have no regrets as I have duly realised that arts is my life. It is the blood that flows in my veins. It is the water that I drink every day. I am happy that someone was able to discover me very early in life, and this is the reason I also have done many trainings for the young ones that are arts inclined,” he said.

    Inasmuch as he would have proceeded to secondary school after his primary education, but the fact that his father could not afford to send him to there made him opt for modern school.

    Buraimoh further said:”I did not even bother to seek admission into such schools. Rather, I focused on the modern school because the required fees were considerably lower than those for the secondary schools. Soon after I completed my primary education in 1959, I sought and gained admissions into two modern schools in Ilaro. One was the I.D. C. Modern School.”

    But his parents’ inability to pay his school fees somehow altered his destiny. He later became an apprentice to an electronics repairer before fate took him to the late Duro Ladipo with whom he grew and rose to become the Manager of the Duro Ladipo Theatre Group. But he left the group to concentrate on bead painting in 1965.

    He said:”I keep a good record of my paintings, since I don’t have to sell all I produce to live well. When you talk to any artist, you will find that artists produce works that they will prefer to keep. Regrettably, many artists are

    painfully compelled to sell these special works, sometimes at ridiculous prices to meet their obligations. In my case, I don’t have to. If I fall in love with any piece I produce, I keep it until such a time I can afford to part with it. And you can be sure I won’t sell such pieces at prices less than I think they are worth.

    “I’ve got some followers both in Nigeria and abroad. I have trained some people and others that I have influenced. Among them is David Dale, while others that are not known are using beads. It costs more to produce bead painting than oil.”

    Though he struggled to have the little education he has, his children are enjoying the best of education in Europe and the United States. His passion has brought him honours and laurels. He was the first Nigerian to be awarded a membership in the Contemporary World Association of Mosaic Artists (Associazione Internazionale Mosaicisti Contemporanei), an organization based in Ravena, Italy. In 1996, he was also the recipient of a lifetime Achievement Award from the Center for African American Art and Culture, California; and in 1997, his work, mosaic mural, The Elders, commissioned by the City of Atlanta, Georgia, United States and installed in the City Howell Park received an Award of Excellence from the Atlanta Urban Design Commission as the Best Mosaic Mural of the year. He was one of the judges in the art competition organized by Access Bank for youngsters.

  • Fani-Kayode Vs. self-serving Igbo elite

    Please tell Gbogungboro (the masked rambler without phone number) that the positive contributions the Igbos made to Lagos becomes obvious even when viewed from the prism of recent superficial events. How does Lagos look like when Igbos goes home for Christmas? Did your banks not collapse when Igbos withdrew their money to go home during the Abiola saga? The man must have studied perverted history at UCL. Be reminded that your Hausa masters are still around the corner, lest you forget. We are not unmindful that you will, as it is your habit, treacherously team up with them against the Igbos’ (08027188222)

    I missed this columnist’s piece of August 22 titled ‘Letter to the Igbo nation by a friend’. It was the above reaction which the reader probably expected me to forward to the ‘masked rambler’. That prompted me to search for the said article. The summary: As a people not known to have developed kingdom and cities, very little was known of Igbo history until Professor Adiele Afigbo’s major work which established Igbo had no contact with people outside their immediate neighbourhood; that the Aworis, a Yoruba sub group, established a kingdom in Lagos Peninsular in the 12th century which by the 19th century had become an important trading post for the Europeans; that the British that used force to establish dominance over Lagos in 1851 went ahead in1861 to sign a treaty of cession with a Lagos king and in 1914 made Lagos the capital of Protectorate of Nigeria. The Igbos who, like other Nigerian groups, only started coming to Lagos in the 1920s, Gbogun gboro contended couldn’t have been responsible for turning Lagos from a jungle to a city as averred by Dr Ezeife and that Lagos could not have been no man’s land as claimed by Kalu Uzor Kalu.

    I think, Gbogun gboro should have also reminded the two self-serving Igbo leaders that the Yoruba nation itself was, according to P. C. Lloyd, more culturally developed than Europe as at the time of the coming of the Europeans, if we use urbanisation as index of measurement.

    It is not as if that alone would have cured the much abused ordinary Igbos of their feeling of persecution complex of God-ordained leaders of Africa persecuted in Nigeria by the Yoruba and Hausa Fulani out of envy as their self serving leaders had repeatedly drummed into their ears. The exploitation of the fears, infirmities and weaknesses of thousands of Igbos who live and face uncertainties in strangers’ land by their more privileged elite have gone on for far too long. This dates back to Zik’s arrival in 1934 when they needed a spokesman while the emerging educated Igbo elite were also scheming for positions in the approaching independent Nigeria.

    As it was then, so it is today. Uzor Kalu, Dr Ezeife like Zik, Ozumba Mbadiwe and other self-centred Igbo leaders have only one thing in common- demonising others for the failure of Igbo leadership to mobilise their people for the development of their area. Uzor Kalu’s hypocrisy about fighting the Igbo cause, following confrontation with Lagos State government over failure to pay land charges on his palace in an exclusive haven of the rich in Lagos, is not different from Ozumba Mbadiwe who built a mansion comically christened ‘Palace of the people’ in the midst of his people’s squalor, from the proceeds of federal property he bought in Ijora, Lagos, and sublet back to the Federal Government at a scandalous higher rate. How did an inquiry into the diversion of Eastern State money to ACB, owned by Zik, his children and his friend, Sir Odumegwu Ojukwu, promote the cause of poor Igbos?

    Ozumba Mbadiwe and self-serving Igbo leaders poisoned the minds of three generation of Igbo over the false claim that Awo and Yoruba betrayed Zik and therefore Igbos, after the parliamentary election into the Western State House of Assembly in 1951. “I witnessed how Awo and Yoruba betrayed Zik in the Western House in 1952’, Chinua Achebe declared. But, what both Igbo celebrated leaders did not state was that at the end of the 1951 parliamentary election, A.M.A. Akinloye led a delegation of those elected on the platform of his Ibadan Peoples Party to Zik. They insisted they would only consider a coalition with NCNC if he gave an undertaking to appoint a prominent Yoruba NCNC member as Premier of the West. Zik, supported by prominent Igbo NCNC members, insisted on becoming the Premier of the West without satisfactorily addressing the misgivings of Akinloye group about how an Igbo man would speak for the Igbos and the Yoruba at the centre while Hausa/Fulani speak for the north.

    That we operate a federal arrangement underscores the fact that we are not one. But like the proverbial ostrich, we have paid little attention to the warning of Ahmadu Bello that we must try to understand our differences. We demonise those who say the truth by labelling them tribalists as if it is not the virtues of tribes we set out to celebrate when we adopted federalism as a system of government. We eulogise those who fraudulently claim to be Nigerians first, a strategy to acquire oil blocks, contracts and wield political power in Abuja without representing anyone.

    Fani-Kayode’s celebration of the virtues of the Yoruba is the very essence of federalism. That does not make him an Igbo hater. Neither does he become one by stating documented facts; that the January 1966 selective senseless killings of non-Igbo military officers and non-Igbo politicians led to the vengeance coup of July 1966 and the mindless reprisal killings of Igbo military officers; that the Igbo political elite led by Nwafor Orizu, the Acting president, for selfish reasons, instead of swearing in Zana Bukar Dipcharimma as the Acting Prime Minster as provided for by the constitution sided with Ironsi, a commander-in-chief who, after foiling a coup, claimed he could not guarantee the safety of the surviving ministers unless he was given full powers as Head of State. From hindsight, can we not now conclude that Ironsi’s failure only vindicated Ahmadu Bello’s admonition when Ozumba Mbadiwe and others were lobbing for him that Nigeria would regret if he was foisted on the country as Commander-in-Chief?

    The problem has always been that the Igbo elite, while eating with 10 fingers hardly take a principled position on any national issue that affects their Igbo people. In 1959, they entered into a coalition with NPC precisely because of what Igbo elite stood to gain. They did the same in 1979. On both occasions when the coalition collapsed, Igbo serving ministers refused to resign their positions as directed by their parties. They were partners-in-crime with Babangida over the annulment of the June 12, 1993 Abiola’s victory. They served as lackeys to Abacha’s despicable regime with the Ikemba himself serving as an errand boy for Abacha in Europe. In all these, it was about what was in it for the Igbo elite and not the people. In the current political dispensation, there is no difference between APGA and PDP, with the relative ease with which notable Igbos like Chukwuma Soludo, Dora Akunyili, moved from the latter to the former to contest election.

    On the issue of restructuring, the Igbo elite have remained the most ambivalent. Despite the fact that it was former Vice-President Ekwueme that recommended a six-geopolitical zone structure for Nigeria, the dominant tendency in Igbo land prefers the easier path –crumbs from the Federal Government than the more difficult task of mobilising their people towards turning their own territory to Taiwan of Nigeria.

    If we don’t understand where we are coming from, we will likely not know where we are going. I think after three generations of falsehood, today’s Igbo youths should search for the truth and raise some critical questions. For instance, would their leaders who schemed out Eyo Ita, a minority Premier of the East have accepted Prince Adeleke Adedoyin or Dr Ibiyinka Olorun-Nimbe the two NCNC members that defeated and refused to step down for Zik in the 1952 National Parliament election, as Premier of the East in 1952? What was the role of the Igbo leaders in the unjust incarceration of Awo whose only sin was his mobilisation of the oppressed minorities for self-actualisation within the greater Nigeria nation? What was the role of the Igbo elite in the dismemberment of the old Western Region while ignoring the demand for self-actualistion of Efiks, Ibibios and Ijaw that constitute about 35 percent of the population of the then East? How come their leaders knew so little about the culture and history of the Yoruba with whom they had lived to have assumed Awo had the power to declare an Oduduwa State?

  • Before America attacks Syria

    Before America attacks Syria

    President Obama is on the verge of firing American Tomahawk cruise missiles at Syria. This is in response to claims by the US government that the al-Assad regime in Syria is responsible for the August 21 chemical attacks on its own citizens. Anyone who has seen video clips of the large number of fatalities of the chemical (gas nerves) attacks, including hundreds of innocent children, men, and women, will be horrified by the attacks. There can be no justification for either side in the protracted Syrian civil war resorting to the use of chemical weapons. It is deplorable, barbaric, and morally unacceptable. The international response to this horrifying chemical attacks has been one of outrage. Nigeria has joined other nations in condemning the chemical attacks as morally reprehensible. Since 1925, the Geneva Protocol, signed by nearly 200 states, has banned the use of chemical weapons in wars. So, it is easy to understand the outrage and anger of the international community over the use of chemical weapons in Syria. It calls for some international response.

    But before launching American cruise missiles against Syria, President Obama should pause to consider whether a direct military response is appropriate and necessary. He should carefully consider the following factors and possible consequences of any missiles attack on Syria. First, though the evidence of the use of chemical weapons in Syria is now irrefutable, there is no clear and unambiguous evidence that the al- Assad regime is the source of such attacks. The US says the Syrian al- Assad regime was responsible for the chemical attacks. But it has, so far, not been able to produce any direct proof of this. The al- Assad regime has flatly denied the charge. Russia, a strong ally of President Bashir al-Assad, has also called into question American claims that it was the al-Assad regime that used chemical weapons against its own people. In addition, as I write this the report of the UN inspection team to Syria has not yet been released. President Obama should wait for this crucial report even though it may not be able to ascertain the real source of the use of chemical weapons in Syria. American military attack on Syria would, in the circumstances, be somewhat premature and would lack the necessary international support and moral legitimacy. It would not be justified.

    Secondly, there is strong opposition even in the US to any precipitate military action on the part of the US authorities. The polls in the US show that an overwhelming majority of Americans do not support any air strikes on Syria by the US. The American Congress is equally divided on any military action by the US against Syria. Although President Obama says he does not really need Congressional approval to attack Syria, America is a democracy and it is better for him to get Congressional support before launching his missiles against Syria. Without such support Americans will be divided over the war. In Iraq, President Bush went to war claiming that the US had clear evidence that the Saddam Hussein regime was in possession of chemical weapons. No such weapons were eventually discovered in Iraq in a war that led to heavy casualties on both sides. Now, many Americans do not wholly believe the claim by the US government that the al- Assad regime was responsible for the chemical attack in Syria. The opponents of the planned air strikes against Syria argue that intelligence is not fact, and that, as in Iraq, America’s intelligence regarding who used the chemical weapons in Syria may be flawed.

    Thirdly, America’s European allies have not shown much enthusiasm for an air strike against Syria. In Britain, the strongest ally of the US in Europe, the House of Commons has defeated and rejected a recent motion by Prime Minister David Cameron for Britain’s involvement in the proposed air strikes. Germany, Italy, and many other European countries will not join the US in the air strikes. At its recent meeting in St. Petersburg, in Russia, the G20 was equally divided on the proposed US air strikes. Only France appears keen on the air strikes but it can only offer the US limited military support. NATO will not be involved in any US air strikes against Syria. That will leave the US badly isolated. The lack of diplomatic support at the UN for a US air strike in Syria should also be taken into account. A US war against Syria would, in the circumstances, be morally untenable.

    Fourthly, although President Obama says the attacks will be ‘limited and measured’ US cruise missiles attack on Syria will almost certainly lead to some collateral damage, including the loss of innocent civilian lives. There could be some American casualties too as the Assad forces will resist American military attacks on Syria. In that event, the US will be obliged to send American boots into Syria, contrary to the assurances of President Obama that American troops will not be sent to Syria. Already, over 100,000 civilians have died in this civil war. An American air strike in Syria will lead to more fatalities. That cannot be the intention of the planned air strike by the US, which is intended ostensibly to save lives.

    Fifthly, US air strikes could lead to increased international involvement in the Syrian civil war. America is already supplying the Syrian rebels with arms, while Russia has also been supplying the Assad regime with weapons. If America attacks Syria, there will be some military response from both Russia, and Iran, al-Assad’s strong allies in the region. Israel will find it difficult to stay out of a widening conflict that is so close to its borders. Turkey, which is trying to cope with nearly 2 million Syrian refugees, will not stand pat over the war. It will seek some involvement in the ensuing military conflict. Hezbollah is already fighting with pro-Assad troops in the country. The Arab World, which is still battling with the consequences of the ‘Arab Spring”, will be further divided over the war. A grave regional security situation in the volatile Middle East will become even more complex. The Arab League has expressed its concerns over the use of chemical weapons in Syria, but has fallen short of endorsing America’s planned military action in Syria. Such widespread foreign intervention will increase the gravity of the civil war in Syria. It may be inconclusive and could go on for years.

    The Americans say regime change is not their strategic objective in the planned air strikes against Syria. If that is the case then, from the US perspective an air strike against Syria will be meaningless. What is the point of the US simply knocking off chemical weapons facilities that can be easily replaced by both sides of the conflict? Obviously, the US will need to attack other Syrian military facilities, including military communications and air space, in the war that is bound to follow. This could then become a total war the objective of which will have to be a regime change in Damascus, contrary to the assurances of President Obama. If President al-Assad is removed from power, then the Americans will have to move in to sort out the mess there. In fact, the American military authorities may be working towards a total war in Syria aimed at the removal from power of President al-Assad. But this is wrong as the US has no vital national interests in Syria that is deserving of a war.

    The Americans are claiming a high moral ground in this matter. Specifically, the US Secretary of State, John Kerry, said on television in Qatar recently that one of President Clinton’s regrets was that when he was in office he did not stop the genocide in Rwanda by sending American troops there. But Clinton learnt from the embarrassing and humiliating experience of American soldiers captured and paraded on TV in Somalia when he intervened there. To whip up emotional American and international support for the air strikes John Kerry also said that World War II would have been prevented if Britain and France had stood up against Nazi Germany and had not ‘surrendered’ to Hitler at Munich. This comparison of el-Assad with Hitler is invidious. It is the kind of specious argument advanced in 1956 by the British Prime Minister, Anthony Eden when, in concert with France and Israel, he invaded Egypt over the nationalisation of the Suez Canal, claiming that Nasser was another Hitler On that occasion the US refused to support Britain and the invasion collapsed. Nasser prevailed. That terrible misjudgment and blunder over the Suez crisis was to end Eden’s brilliant political career. He died a few years later, a broken man. He had drawn the wrong conclusions from Hitler and Munich. President Obama should not make the same mistake.

    Besides, the situation in Syria now is different from the European crisis before World War II. The civil war in Syria does not threaten international peace and security. The US should also be reminded of its desperate use of napalm in Vietnam, against the 1925 Geneva Protocol, to save its tottering ally there from collapsing. In addition, it was the US that supplied Saddam Hussein of Iraq, then its ally, with chemical weapons for use against both Iran and its own people, the Kurdish Turks. The US should also be reminded that Israel is in possession of chemical weapons and will not hesitate to use it if it were to find itself with its back to the wall. In that event would the US threaten Israel with air strikes?

    The response to the use of chemical weapons in Syria has to be global and not limited to one major power. Russia and China also have strategic interests in the Middle East that they will defend. The US should not arrogate to itself the role of the world’s policeman. It should work for a consensus at the UN over this matter instead of resorting to unilateral military action that has the potential of widening the war. The Arab League should be given all diplomatic support and a more central role to secure peace in Syria and in the entire region. The UN inspectors should be stationed in Syria to prevent further chemical attacks. The UN secretary general has suggested a way out of the crisis; that if found the Chemical weapons should be taken out of Syria and destroyed. The big powers should agree not to supply either side with arms and ammunitions and work for a peaceful settlement of the Syrian civil war. Before attacking Syria President Obama must pause and think hard whether the military action he is contemplating will actually serve American strategic interests in the Arab World. After Iraq and Afghanistan, the US should undertake a serious review of its Middle East policy so as not to lose further grounds there.

  • PDP’s macabre dance

    It was predicted long ago that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) will implode because of the way it was being run. Expectedly, PDP dismissed such talks as balderdash, saying as the ‘’largest party in Africa’’ people were jealous of it. In describing itself like that, PDP was referring to its size. Indeed, it is not only large in size, but also monstrous in shortchanging others, rigging and everything that is bad in politics.

    Since 1999, PDP and its members have consistently shown that they can go to any length in order to get to power. The route to power does not matter to them; what matters is that they should acquire power either by hook or by crook. So, the use of foul means is not strange to them. They are at home rigging and snatching ballot boxes during elections. There is nothing they cannot do to win an election, even killing is part of the game.

    Is that how to be Africa’s largest party? Shouldn’t a party which prides itself as such set good examples? PDP is not bothered by morality. To the party, the end justifies the means. This is why it has been coming to power since 1999 through crude and cruel means. As a party interested in power for power sake, PDP has no scruples whatsoever. It uses and dumps its members at will once they outlive their usefulness.

    Its national leaders are not spared this treatment. Many of them were discarded like mere tissues after being used by those they helped into power. Ask Chief Solomon Lar; ask Chief Barnabas Gemade; ask Chief Audu Ogbe; ask Dr Okwesilieze Nwodo; ask Chief Vincent Ogbulafor. These were leaders of the party at one time or the other who were booted out for not doing the bidding of the then president. The party confers a lot of power on its elected members in government, especially the president and governors.

    Any serving president elected on its platform is its national leader and the governors its leaders in their states. So, under such arrangement, its national chairman who does not see eye to eye with the president is an endangered specie. Such a chairman is removed from his post with ignominy. Former President Olusegun Obasanjo, who was brought into the party by those who thought they could manipulate him, were disappointed as he turned out to be their nemesis.

    Obasanjo removed or was instrumental to the removal of some chairmen like Lar, Gemade and Ogbeh. Only Ahmadu Ali, who is a former soldier like him, survived his high-handedness. Nwodo and Ogbulafor, who served under a different president, also got the Obasanjo treatment. Ogbulafor, who boasted that PDP will be in power for 60 years, did not stay long to realise his goal! So far, the party has been in power for 15 yeasrs, counting from 1999. Will it still be in power in the next 45 years?

    I doubt it because it is not likely that PDP will return to power in 2015 if the newly registered All Progressive Congress (APC) and the other opposition parties can capitalise on the PDP crisis to push out the party from power in the next elections. It won’t be easy but it can be done. With nine national chairmen in 15 years, PDP has shown that it is not a party to be taken serious. Only Alhaji Haliru Mohammed and Alhaji Kawu Baraje, who served in acting capacity, enjoyed a peaceful tenure. Others fought tooth and nail for their survival just as Alhaji Bamanga Tukur is doing right now.

    No matter how hard Tukur fights, his days in office are numbered. For now, it may seem as if President Goodluck Jonathan is backing him, but mark my word, the president will soon ditch him in order to realise his aim of seeking reelection in 2015. Tukur is still holding on to power because of Jonathan’s support and he knows that. Since he knows where his bread is buttered he will do everything to remain in the president’s good books, including disowning his people from the North, who are opposed to Jonathan’s return in 2015.

    As long as Tukur remains on Jonathan’s side, the seven PDP governors and former Vice President Atiku Abubakar can only bark and not bite him. In fact, if you ask me, I will say Tukur is not PDP’s problem. The party’s problem right now is the president, who because of his ambition has put Tukur in a tight corner. Tukur is afraid of confronting the president because he does not want to lose his job. To him, the president is a bigger evil, while those opposed to Jonathan’s planned return in 2015 are the lesser evil, which he is sure he can take on.

    His confidence stems from the assurance of presidential support when the chips are down. Tukur is a man buffeted on all fronts. In his home state of Adamawa, in his Northeast zone and at the national level, he is all alone. This political infighting has exposed the underbelly of the PDP. The Abubakar Kawu Baraje – led new PDP has shown that the Tukur – led PDP is a big for nothing balloon, which needs only a prick of the pin to burst.

    The PDP umbrella is leaking

    because of the tiny holes

    punched in it by the Baraje faction. It is only a matter of time before those holes become bigger and the umbrella is torn to shreds. With the new PDP attacking it from one side and the APC and the others from the other side, the PDP is as good as gone. But the opposition must stand firm so as to realise its dream of sending the PDP packing in 2015. The opposition can bury the PDP alive, for after all, the party has dug its own grave. It will be a long and bitter battle, but the opposition and the PDP faction can pull it through if they get their act right.

    Troubled by his conscience

     Offa in Kwara State is a politically enlightened town.

    Its people know what they want and they usually go all out for it. When it comes to politics, they have always aligned with the progressives. One of its prominent sons, the late Chief J.S. Olawoyin, for years led the town on the progressive side of politics. A die – hard Awoist, J.S, as he was popularly known, played a major role in the political emancipation of his people. It is these politically aware people that some vote robbers want to cheat in the last August 31 Offa Local Government Area rerun. In the last 10 years, Kwara has been a PDP state, but it was not always so. It became a PDP state following the rift between the late Governor Mohammed Lawal and the late Kwara strongman, Dr Olusola Saraki. The late Saraki made the late Lawal governor on the platform of the defunct All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP). The late Saraki left ANPP for the late Lawal and joined PDP for the sake of his son, Senator Bukola, who wanted to contest for governor then. The late Lawal lost in the power game.

    The Offa rerun was a supremacy battle of sorts between PDP and APC because it was the first election the mega party formed from the merger of Action Congress of Nigeria, Congress of Progressive Change and ANPP will contest against PDP. So, the parties threw all they had into the election. Everything went smoothly until the electoral agency began to footdrag over the declaration of result. That was the first sign of trouble. When the result eventually came, it was announced on Kwara Radio! Why would the electoral umpire declare result at a radio station and not its office if it has nothing to hide? Since the announcement, Offa has been boiling. Hardly a day passes without a protest in the town. There was a twist in the tale when one of the so – called winners, Afolabi Jimoh, confessed that he did not win the election. The ‘councillor – elect’ for Shawo Southwest said the APC candidate won. In other climes, that is enough to void his election and declare his opponent the winner. One week after Jimoh’s confession, it is mum from the electoral umpire.

    Will the matter end like this? Will Jimoh stand by his confession if the matter gets to the tribunal? Is this an indication of what will happen in 2015? What are the police doing about this case, especially Jimoh’s confession? Have they started investigating his claim? Jimoh confessed because he has a conscience, but his confession will amount to nothing if the stolen mandate is not recovered from him.

  • Between Anyim and Bala

    Between Anyim and Bala

    A little over two years ago, on July 25, 2012 to be exact, this column tried to draw the attention of President Goodluck Jonathan to one good reason why the nation’s war against corruption has never made any serious headway, namely the highly selective application of the weapons used in the war against the scourge.

    I used the word corruption then not in its narrow sense of “dishonest exploitation of power for personal again,” – in Encarta Concise English Dictionary’s phrase. I used the word in its broadest sense of the abuse of trust for whatever reason.

    I illustrated my point with four examples; (1) the huge oil subsidy scam then just unfolding in which some of the beneficiaries were members of the president’s kitchen cabinet, (2) the blatantly nepotistic appointment of the First Lady, Dame Patience, as a Permanent Secretary in the civil service of Bayelsa State, 13 years after she had retired on her own as wife of then Deputy Governor Goodluck Jonathan, (3) the highly selective application of public service rules and regulations in the appointment and retirement of senior civil servants, senior military commanders, police chiefs and those of other uniformed services, and (4) more specifically, the arbitrary extension of office given the bosses of the National Directorate of Employment (NDE) and the Nigerian Intelligence Agency (NIA), Alhaji Abubakar Mohammed and Ambassador Ezekiel Olaniyi Oladeji, respectively. The two had, on account of both age and years of service, been overdue for retirement.

    A year on after my article, things seem to have taken turns only for the worse, not better. And the main reason is clearly the president’s wish, regardless of all pretences to the contrary, to contest – and win – the 2015 presidential election, come hell, come high-water. The president has obviously become a hostage to this wish.

    Among those who seem to have taken him hostage is the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), former Senate President Anyim Pius Anyim, GCON. Anyim, it seems, has been exploiting President Jonathan’s apparent desperation for another term to gain as much undue advantage for his Igbo kith and kin in the federal civil service in return for a promise of the Igbo vote. There seems, at least in the eyes of Honourable Mustapha Bala, to be an irrefutable case of the gross violation of the principles of federal character as enshrined in the constitution against Anyim.

    Five months ago, Honourable Bala, a ranking member of the House of Representatives from Kano State, gave a full page interview in LEADERSHIP WEEKEND (March 16) in which he categorically accused Anyim of abusing his office. “Yes,” he said in the course of the interview, “the office of the SGF is corrupt and unfair to the North like I have stated before. Currently, we have many DGs (Directors General) of Northern origin whose tenure renewal is in the limbo because the SGF has failed to act on them.” The federal legislator went on to name several of the parastatals in question.

    Naturally, the SGF took umbrage. Four days after Bala’s interview, he took out a full page advert addressed to the Speaker, Rt. Honourable Aminu Tambuwal, in LEADERSHIP (March 20) in which he lambasted the legislator. Bala, he insinuated, was barely out of his diapers when he served as senate president with distinction nearly ten years before. After ticking off the “kindergarten” legislator – apologies, Chief Bisi Akande, the protem APC chief who recently dismissed Goodluck Jonathan’s presidency as “kindergarten”, much, of course, to the annoyance of all the president’s men – every inch of the way, Anyim concluded his advert by “humbly” requesting the Speaker to “kindly call Hon. Mustapha Bala to order.” Bala, he said, should be told to wake up “to the fact that Nigeria is no longer run by baseless ethnic sentiments as the divisive song has become archaic.”

    With due respect to the SGF, it is not a fact that the country has seized to be run by baseless ethnic sentiments. As the distinguished former Senate president knows all too well, Nigeria’s politics is a veritable bastion of ethnic – and sectarian – sentiments. This is why our politicians ask for – and all too often get – our votes, not on the basis of their integrity, commitment and ability to deliver on their promises. They ask for, and willy-nilly, often get our votes essentially on the basis of where they come from and what god they claim to worship. Unfortunately, this ethnic and sectarian framework determines much of everything else in our society; our economics, our businesses, our bureaucracy and parastatals, name it.

    Take, for example, the parastatals over which the former Senate president and Hon. Bala have been at war. There are at least eight – Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND), Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC), Nomadic Education Commission, Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Nigerian Television Authority (NTA), Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN), PTDF and lately, Customs – whose leaderships have been in limbo for nearly a year now – except for Customs – simply because the SGF can’t seem to help the presidency, as it is his job, to make up its mind whether or not to renew them.

    On the other hand, there are other parastatals like the Debt Management Office, the Security Exchange Commission and the Federal Road Safety Commission the tenures of whose bosses have been quickly renewed at the SGF’s behest. He may have good reason for the difference in his speed of handling the two sets of parastatals but it may be more than mere coincidence that the second set has his fellow Igbos and Southerners as heads.

    If Anyim rejects these comparisons as unfair what can be his explanation for the single-minded determination with which the presidency, again at his apparent behest, has pursued the executive bill seeking to reduce the experience of the director-general of the Pension Commission (PENCOM) from 20 years to 15 just to suit the current acting DG, Mrs Chinelo Anohu-Amazu, who happens to be a fellow Igbo? The young lady may be a smart lawyer, but, for crying out loud, she is a 1998 graduate and came to her position as PENCOM’s pioneer company secretary and a general manager through a less than transparent procedure; she was appointed directly by the presidency instead of by the commission’s board as should’ve been the case.

    How, again, can the SGF explain recent goings-on at the National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure (NASENI) which suggests he is being ethnicist? The agency, which is under the Ministry of Science and Technology and has the president as its statutory chair, has nine institutes, among them two scientific equipment and development institutes, (SEDI) one in Minna, the other in Enugu. That of Enugu is headed by Professor Christian Nwajagu, the SGF’s fellow Igbo.

    At the expiration of the tenure of the agency’s DG/CEO in March last year, the minister at the time, Professor Ita Okon Bassey Ewa, advertised the post in The Guardian, PUNCH and Daily Trust. Sixty two people applied out of whom 16 were shortlisted for written tests and interviews. Seven emerged as the best, with Dr Mohammed S. Haruna, the acting DG, at the top with a score of 72.1%. Prof. Nwajagu came a distant sixth with a score of 58.1%.

    One of the things Hon. Bala accused the SGF of was that he sat on the recommendation of the minister for the appointment of Dr Haruna as substantive DG/CEO because his preference had been Prof. Nwajagu. Eventually, Dr Haruna got the job last April but it was backdated to April last year.

    Since then the professor has served out one year over his mandatory eight years as director. However, alone of his colleagues who have served for eight years, he has been given a letter to continue as director without tenure, contrary to the extant regulations.

    Not only that. There are speculations that the SGF’s office is making moves to have the SEDI under him removed from the science and technology ministry to education and made autonomous to boot.

    It all looks like in this war between the former Senate president as the SGF and our “kindergarten” legislator, the facts and the dialectics do not seem to favour the former.

     

    Feedback

    Sir, You are just an incurable northern irredentist. You praise (Lt-Gen T. Y.) Danjuma for his stupendous riches without alluding to corruption (“Another open letter to Gen Danjuma”, September 4). If it were OBJ (General Obasanjo), the phrase ‘ill-gotten’ would have been used to describe his gesture. OBJ had a cabal but Yar’Adua had ‘a so-called cabal.’ Double speak.

    Danjuma had about ten oil wells, most of which he acquired during Abacha regime. Is that a godly person and a man of principle? This, in a country where millions wallow in abject poverty? He sold one of them to a Chinese company and made a cool $2 billion. The genesis of the acrimony between them was that OBJ retrieved 3 out of the wells because he found it unfair and too much.

    We know the saintly patriots amongst us. Danjuma is not one.

    You are still pained that OBJ didn’t retain you as his spokesman when he became president. Too bad.

    Lanre. +234805363????.

     

     

  • Boko Halal; Education and ‘Summer Renovation Budget’; Osun computers; Casualty painting

    Those who profess Boko Haram should identify as co-conspirators politicians, political terrorists, who ensured that too many Nigerians in schools graduate without knowledge and cheat. This has resulted in their needing retraining before employment. My friend Professor M Aken’Ova told me that in the old Zaria days the children sent to read book were called boko, a form of enculturation of the word ‘book’. Haram means ‘no’. Perhaps we should have ‘Boko Halal’ to counter the Boko Haram. The lack of educational activities of politicians in proportion to needs demonstrates that you do not have to blow up or ban schooling to get negative education. Schools, under political budget under-funding, have poured barely literate youths into the marketplace resulting in one of the solutions – entrepreneurship partly to cater for a poor employee: job availability ratio. But the entrepreneurial drive also addresses youths leaving schools as products of rubbish education neglected by education budgets. These youths are programmed to be ill-prepared and cannot get jobs so they are diverted into creating jobs for themselves and blamed if they fail –a win-win situation for the politician.

    We talk of system failure and that the system has failed the teachers and lecturers in need of staff space like staffrooms, books, equipment, skills, justifiable promotions and overburdening the teacher or lecturer with students. The gold standard is 30 students /class. Do staff also fail the system? Many blame teachers and lecturers for shirking their responsibilities by selling items on-duty and doing jobs in three universities at once. Even students are seen as being mediocre, too expectant of spoon-feeding and without ambition.

    Most Nigerian teachers, education politicians and students have failed the system in spite of 200 plus annual general meetings, AGMs, and education summits at Minister, commissioner, ASUU, NUT, STAN, NANS, and sub- group meetings like professional, ethnic, religious and subject levels. What little progress has been largely due to the unsung efforts of ASUU, the Old Students Associations and the high fees charged private students. The ASUU strike is on-going.    The ‘democratic’ period from 1999 is long enough for the 38 governments to put in place sufficient equipment and staff to achieve education equality across all states. The current abysmal performances in some states are due to fraudulent administration and abandonment of the youth. The education money has been misappropriated and lost to education middlemen, summits, consultants, retreats, hotel bills, honoraria, travel expenses and huge hall rental costs of Ladi Kwali Hall, with apologies to Ladi Kwali, the famous female Kwali potter who died in 1984. If that money had been spent on a ‘TEN BOOKS, ONE CHILD PROGRAMME’ and equipment, all Nigeria’s schools would be well equipped. It is this material that makes a school – books, library, equipment, laboratory, wall charts, sports opportunities, desks, chairs, toilets and sanitation. Leave one out and you have no school. This is why we are still talking of ‘disadvantaged states and students’, when we should be talking about disenfranchised students, disenfranchised by their political leadership – governments. Governments disadvantage their children. Most of the good students even in advantaged states had parents who spent up to 80% of income on education only to be checkmated at JAMB cut-off. States failed even with their own tertiary universities to rise above mediocrity. When Jesus said ‘Suffer the little children to come unto me’, He did not mean that the children must ‘suffer’ but come unto Him without any suffering. ‘Suffer’ means ‘allow’, not ‘suffer-head’.

    Around the world, the long ‘summer holidays’ of July to September are the time for needs assessment for the next year and refurbishment, repairs and repainting in preparation the new year. In Nigeria these activities are zero. And that is where the problem of education lies. No preparation for the New School Year from anybody. This week some 30+million Nigerian students arrive in government-run unprepared schools and classrooms untouched for three months except by vandals and religious meeting participants.

    We all live near government education facilities. Name one that had a face-lift between July and September. Of course some governors are making tremendous efforts. Years ago I campaigned for schools to set up summer camps. Now summer camps are everywhere. Today, campaign for budgetary provision for ‘Summer Renovation of Educational Institutions’. This is part of job creation as upgrade requires artisans, science equipment marketers and publishers of books and educational posters. No doubt during the 2013 summer political recesses multi-billions are routinely spent to maintain the offices of political power in Abuja and all state capitals.

    Nigeria’s children deserve more now, before the reckless spending on 2014 elections and political posters. Governments must insert ‘Summer Recess Renovation of Schools and Institutions’ into budgets. Nigeria’s children are not animals to be sent to pigsties. The children deserve a decent ‘Child and Teacher Friendly Learning Environment’, CATFLE. The cost of refurbishing one airport would upgrade 1,000 schools with 500,000 beneficiaries. Governments should get its priorities right from the foundation.

    A ray of hope from Osun State’s student computer introduced by Ogbeni Aregbesola. It is as monumental as Awolowo’s ‘Free Education’. It hopefully will be adopted with improvements if necessary, across Nigeria as it frees the students and equalises levels from village to Osun villa. We anxiously await the results of comparative performance studies across states.

    Alert! Alert! Most government and private casualties, wards and toilets are dirty, disease ridden and needing emergency annual painting budgets. Anyone listening?

     

  • Ayala: A painful exit

    Nigeria is certainly passing through a dark phase in its history. From the wheeler-dealers that are called businessmen milking the nation dry to the shenanigan of some of our greedy but visionless politicians and the satanic exploits of hoodlums, it is trouble all over the place. The situation confronting our nation today beats imagination.

    One thing that has remained constant in recent times is the rise and continued rise in criminal activities in every nook and cranny of the country. Perhaps, there is nowhere in the country, be it our cities, villages or any of the hamlets for that matter, that is safe. This reminds me of Bernard Odogwu’s book, No Place to Hide, or the late Chinua Achebe’s No Longer at Ease. What all these boil down to is that we are a nation at war with ourselves.

    Many years ago, once you leave the city to any of the villages, you are overwhelmed with the hospitality, conviviality and spirit of camaraderie that embrace you as soon as you step your feet into your village. Above all, there was this real or imagined air of absolute security that pervaded the entire environment. But not anymore! Hoodlums are on the rampage everywhere. Some of their victims have been traced right from the cities to their villages and are either killed, robbed or kidnapped. Not long ago, a serving police commissioner who was close to his retirement travelled from his base in Ilorin, Kwara State, to his hometown in Enugu where he was gruesomely murdered in cold blood.

    In the early hours of Sunday, August 25, while Christian faithful were getting ready to go to church for the usual weekly worship, tragedy struck. This time, the victim was Reverend Father Peter Ayala, the Catholic priest in charge of St. Thomas Moore Catholic Church, Sobe, Owan West Local Government Area of Edo State. The lifeless body of the priest was discovered inside his apartment in the Cathedral. So far, information available said a locally made double-barrelled gun and two spanners were found with his lifeless body. The rumour making the rounds is that the priest mistakenly shot himself while cleaning his gun. But such outlandish claims have raised a lot of doubts in the sleeping town.

    Ayala’s neighbours were said to have rushed to his apartment when they heard the sound of a gunshot that early morning, and were shocked to see him in the pool of his own blood. The questions being asked by many are: Why would a reverend father be keeping a gun in the house? If it was true that Ayala actually owned a gun, why would he choose early Sunday morning, when he was supposed to be in the church, to clean his gun? If, indeed, his neighbours heard the sound of a gunshot and rushed to the scene, why would they meet the body stone dead? Was any attempt made to rush him to any hospital for medical attention?

    Again, some other people are saying that the reverend gentleman might have committed suicide. This assertion is arrant nonsense. Such a happy, quiet man had no worries for which he would even toy with the idea of taking his own life and he could not have died accidentally. Anyway, there is every possibility that he could have been murdered. This is more germane given the fact that if actually the gun belongs to Ayala, he would have known that it was loaded. In any case, why would he choose to service his gun on a Sunday morning instead of preparing for mass? And I don’t believe he could own a common locally made double-barrelled gun. What for?

    However, it is gratifying to note that, in the face of all these rumours and postulations, Rev Dr Gabriel Dunia, the Bishop of the Auchi Diocese of the Catholic Church, has called for caution and warned people not to engage in apocalyptic guesswork over the circumstances that led to the death of Ayala. According to him, though the church was traumatised by Ayala’s death, it was eagerly awaiting the result of police investigation. Dunia believes that “although the body of Rev. Fr. Peter Ayala was found lying lifelessly in his pool of blood with a locally manufactured gun and a big spanner on his body and floor respectively, they were only some of the clues on which experts’ examinations must be effected to ascertain more authentic proofs of what had led to the death.” The question is: What would a big spanner be doing on the body of somebody who supposedly died of gunshot either self-inflicted or fired by an assassin? I believe the talk of spanners, or what have you, is a mere decoy to mislead investigators into jumping to unfounded assumptions.

    However, Dunia spoke glowingly on the late Ayala. He said the late Father was a “calm, modest and well-behaved cleric who worked under me as a seminarian when I was the parish priest of St. Joseph Catholic Church, Emeora, 17 years ago and as a priest who collaborated with me, nonetheless similarly in the Diocese of Auchi until his passage from this sinful world.”

    I cannot agree less with Dr Dunia. Ayala, until his unfortunate death, was a good friend of mine and a true friend for that matter. I met him in 2001 while he was serving as a parish priest in Iviukwe village on the Auchi-Jatu-Agenebode Highway in Edo State. Surprisingly, Iviukwe village is the home town of irrepressible lawyer, Mike Ozekhome, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, who was kidnapped by yet-to-be identified hoodlums at Ehor, a village on the Auchi-Benin Expressway on Friday, August 23. That incident happened two days before Ayala’s death. In that kidnap episode, four policemen were said to have lost their lives.

    As a priest who resided in the parish at Iviukwe, Ayala had a concurrent obligation to lead them in service in most of the adjourning villages in the area. That was how he came into contact with my aged mother in the late 1990s, when she relocated to Iviukhua, my village, also in Etsako East Local Government Area of Edo State, a distance of less than two kilometres from Iviukwe. Considering her active role in the church, it was not difficult for my mother to invite Ayala to come and perform the dedication of my country home in July 2001.

    That was when I met the late Ayala and our friendship blossomed ever since then. Shortly after the dedication, he was posted to Port Harcourt on pastoral duties. He was also in Rome for some time. All these times, we kept the contact alive. I remember in one of our discussions way back, he told me he had a cousin who was a journalist as well. He gave his name as one Brotu (Eric). That name stuck. I remember my days of freelancing with the defunct Daily Times. There was a guy who went by that name with Times International magazine, one of the titles on the Daily Times stable. It was edited at that time by Dr Dayo Alao, now a professor with the prestigious Babcock University, Ilishan-Remo, Ogun State.

    I received the news of Ayala’s death through a phone call by my mother from the village, in the early hours of Monday, August 26. The obviously devastated old woman spoke to me amidst sobs, as she said: “They have killed your friend, Fr Ayala.” I was particularly shattered and I tried to figure out whether such a quiet, jovial, nice, easy-going, young man deserves to die in such a violent manner.

    I will like to appeal to the police authorities to do everything possible to get to the root of this heinous crime and similar cases that have cast a dark spot on our national image. From all I know of Ayala, he could not have engaged in anything that could lead to his death in such a callous manner. He was a gentleman through and through. I will surely miss him; so also are the many people who traversed his path while he was alive. May his soul rest in perfect peace! Amen.

  • Of Rehoboam and Jonathan

    David had fought all the wars and secured the kingdom. Solomon had taken the kingdom to its zenith, a pearl among nations. All Rehoboam needed was a little wisdom to “possess his possession”.

    Yet, he blew it with folly as profound as the wisdom of Solomon, his father. No thanks to bad advice, a royal fool was soon rid of his Israel.

    The odyssey of Goodluck Jonathan and his crumbling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is not unlike that of the grandson of the Biblical King David.

    All Rehoboam needed was a little concession, over forced labour, to an angry but still loyal people. All Jonathan needed was a little wisdom to manage the poisoned chalice of his presidency, given his controversial emergence.

    But instead of stooping to conquer, as counselled by Solomon’s wise advisers, Rehoboam succumbed to the empty power conceit of bad advisers his age, who a version of the Bible dismissed as “worthless young men”. He lost everything.

    Much the same way, President Jonathan is courting ruin by over-relying on a conceited presidency, almost shorn of all its glory and majesty.

    Even then, there is a big difference: Rehoboam was done in by callow advisers. Jonathan may yet be done in by callous advisers, young and old.

    The general madness in the Abuja power house is symptomatic of fated collective madness before the final, irredeemable crash! But it is early days yet.

    Still, on one point, Jonathan is spot on: former President Olusegun Obasanjo cannot be part of the solution to the roiling PDP problems. The man who now craves relevance as fish craves water, rather conveniently absent at the convention bust, re-appeared all too suddenly: like some happy vulture sampling sweet carrion!

    It is perhaps too creative to suppose, as the Presidency is doing, that Obasanjo and former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, would gang up to unhorse Jonathan, no matter how permanent interests always trump permanent friends or enemies, in soulless politicking. Both would appear too much of chartered political enemies and mutual-nemesis to fit in that bill.

    Still, it is grand immorality for Obasanjo to posture to be settling a PDP crisis of which he could easily have been the mastermind. But then, morality and legality are no strong points of the PDP!

    Indeed, the president as party outlaw was what Obasanjo bequeathed his party. That grand fraud labelled “PDP national leader” is ostensibly after the American system in which every successive president, or governor, assumes the role of party leader after election.

    But Obasanjo’s peculiar invention neither boasts the presumed good breeding of the normal American president nor brooks the conventional but rigorous checks and balances inherent in the American system.

    Indeed, it is the president as the unconscionable party bandit, before whom party laws and every member must bow and tremble. Just as Obasanjo’s imperial presidency affected the conceit to soar above the Constitution that gave it life, the party variant affected the conceit that a president was supreme to the party that gave it a platform.

    It was this subversive conceit that consumed Audu Ogbeh, the last PDP national chairman that had any character; and set PDP on a journey of no return. Ogbeh’s successors, Ahmadu Ali, Vincent Ogbulafor, Okwesilieze Nwodo and the latest poodle, Bamanga Tukur, were merry and eager rods in the hands of a bully president.

    All the same, Jonathan has himself to blame for the grave turn of events. The Christ was divined to die, so humanity would live. Still, woe begot Judas: that human scum that made that divine decree happen. PDP would sooner than later unravel, given its reckless and undemocratic ways. Still, history will damn Jonathan for making it happen in his own Presidency!

    Jonathan as presidential fall guy for past presidents’ PDP excesses, is a study in tragic flaws, bordering on wilful folly. Obasanjo had enough satanic gravitas to thump his nose at the law in bare-faced impunity. The ill-fated Umaru Yar’ Adua had a golden quietude about power that earned him respect, if not awe, before he passed on.

    But Jonathan, in fits and starts, reminds himself he is president; and would appear to act on that whim. He projects power – and crudely too – when he should not. But when he legitimately should, he clams up. He is the sorry study of a president as serial loser. But instead of pulling back to think after each avoidable loss, he plunges further in search of further disaster!

    That tragic streak he demonstrated in his Nigerian Governors Forum (NGF) election debacle, when he permitted himself the hubris of dictating which candidate should and should not run for NGF chair; but earned nothing but disgrace.

    Even after his horse, the jangling Jonah Jang had lost, he flexed presidential muscles in a laughable bid to crown a loser as winner. Huffing and puffing, he blundered into Rivers, in hot pursuit of the victorious Chibuike Amaechi: his minister Nyesom Wike, talking wike, wike, and generally making a fool of himself; his police commissioner, Mbu Joseph Mbu, shackling his presidential principal in a futile bid to police a sitting governor; and even his Dame, in an insufferable projection of power, earns the highest office in the land nothing but scorn.

    Yet, Amaechi, the object of all this naked dance in the market, would appear always a step ahead!

    The undertaker in Jonathan has condemned him to using Obasanjo-era bully tactics. Yet, the equation has drastically changed, except that only he won’t see it. That explains why the party is going kaput.

    From Jonathan, the Tukur mandate is clear: deliver 2015 PDP ticket, even if the party collapses. Well, it appears Tukur would get his crude mandate. But it would come with a collapsed party.

    Still, in impotent rage, the Jonathan PDP faction would illegally conscript the Nigeria Police as partisan rod to seal off rival camps, just as the Mbu Police in Rivers routinely aid and abet Jonathan’s local faction.

    Even, pro-Jonathan voices from the South-South couldn’t be more “Rehoboamic”: the ancient Pa Edwin Clark, with his utterances, is busy manufacturing vicious presidential enemies for his godson. Asari Dokubo, from the militant class, is mouthing his usual trashy talk.

    Even from the intellectual front, at the height of the oil subsidy strike of January 2012, the best the normally cerebral minority rights advocate, Annkio Briggs, could offer, as convener of Niger Delta Occupy Niger Delta Resources (NDONDR), was some South-South/South East Alliance that sinisterly suggested secession – and that on January 13, the anniversary of the day the tragic Civil War ended in 1970!

    Why is Jona so blest!

    The PDP goose is probably cooked – and Jonathan appears on his way, other things being equal, to be the first Nigerian president voted out of power.

    That would be good for Nigeria’s democracy. But it wouldn’t amount to much if whoever took over still repeated the PDP hubris. This polity must learn from the looming PDP meltdown – or it is doomed.