The Nation Newspaper

Category: Columnists

  • APC: What prospects?

    APC: What prospects?

    A new political party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), a broad coalition of three political parties, the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), and the All Nigerian Peoples’ Party (ANPP), has emerged on the Nigerian political scene. The registration of the new party by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) after some disturbing hesitation and delay is commendable. It allayed widespread concerns that, under pressure by the PDP, the ruling party, the new party may not be registered. That would have been tragic. If there was such pressure from any political quarters, the INEC chose very wisely to reject it. In doing so, the INEC has restored public confidence in its electoral impartiality, vital in a democratic state.

    The emergence of this broad coalition of parties has generated some expectations and euphoria in Nigeria’s politics, particularly among the various opposition parties that have now merged and their supporters. The new party’s leaders are up beat about its electoral future. Many believe it is now time for change in the country, and that the new party may provide a credible alternative to the PDP Federal Government. Since the return of the country to civilian rule in 1999, the PDP has been in power, a total of 14 years. At the federal level at least, Nigeria was beginning to look increasingly like a one party state, or a one party dictatorship. After 14 years in power, the PDP Federal Government had become increasingly lethargic and complacent. That was partly because it did not have to contend with any serious opposition to its hold on power. The various opposition parties were too weak on their own to successfully challenge the electoral dominance of the PDP, itself an amalgam of various and often conflicting political tendencies.

    From that perspective, the emergence of a new broad coalition of parties should be considered a positive development in Nigerian politics. Nigeria needs a united, strong, and credible opposition party to check the excesses of the PDP Federal Government and make it more accountable and transparent. This has nothing to do with the performance or non-performance of the PDP Federal Government. Rather, it has to do with the fact that democracies function better where the opposition party has an electoral chance of replacing the ruling party in government. Even if the PDP Federal Government were doing quite well, it would still be necessary to have a strong opposition party that can present a clear alternative in policy choices to the nation. That is the essence of a true democracy.

    But will this new political alliance work? Does the emergence of the APC present the nation with the prospect of its becoming an alternative government? Can the APC seriously challenge the dominance of the PDP in the 2015 federal elections? The APC must face the fact that the PDP is still quite formidable. As the ruling party, it has enormous financial resources that it can use to influence the outcome of the elections. The new opposition cannot match these vast PDP resources. The president’s powers of patronage are quite enormous and he will use some of this to win votes in critical areas at the 2015 elections. In recent weeks, President Jonathan has been going up and down the country with some political goodies to mobilise support for his government.

    At this point, one can only speculate about the political future of the new alliance, as there are far too many imponderables and uncertainties in the political equation. To start with, the history of political grand alliances in Nigeria has not been a happy one. Grand coalitions are not new in Nigeria’s political history. Even the PDP itself is a kind of grand political alliance welding both the progressives and the conservatives together. From 1959, Nigeria has been governed, except under military rule, by grand party coalitions. Even during the current civilian dispensation, at least two such alliances among the opposition parties have been formed to dislodge the PDP from power. But, except the PDP, which is pan-Nigeria, the other coalitions or alliances have all failed. This is because Nigeria has for long been dominated by regional or tribal parties, a situation that reflects the tribal political structure of the country. Such regional political parties have block, or ‘captive’ votes that they can trade off with other parties in a coalition such as the APC.

    The logic of Nigerian politics has been that regionally, or tribally based political parties, cannot win federal elections on their own and need to enter into some form of political alliance with other equally regionally based parties. It was this situation that led to the formation of two grand party alliances in 1964 in the run-up to the federal elections. The NPC and the regionally based National Democratic Party (that had replaced the AG in the West) entered into an alliance, while the NCNC and the rump of the AG formed the United Progressive Grand Alliance (UPGA). But these opposition alliances collapse when they lose elections because they are not really bound together by common values or policies, but by regional political interests, of which the most important is the capture of political power at the centre. The APC alliance will probably hold until after the 2015 presidential elections. If it loses that election it will probably collapse and the constituting parties will revert to their regional political stronghold. If it wins this will be a major feat.

    But the emergence of the APC is merely the first step in a long political journey. It will encounter many formidable challenges. A lot still has to be done by the alliance to dislodge the PDP from power. The alliance must avoid a descent into playing the regional card or pursuing regional interests as this will weaken the resolve and unity of the party. It is clear that the APC has some conflicting and contradictory tendencies in its fold. It is a coalition of both the progressives and the conservatives. Some of the politicians who have now embraced the APC worked actively in the past with the military. Their credentials as progressives are somewhat suspect. Many of them have no electoral appeal or credibility and could even prove to be an electoral liability to the new party. The major historical tragedy of the progressives in Nigeria is their inability to stay and stand the heat together. This was the case in 1993 when Abiola won the presidential elections on the platform of the SDP. When the military annulled the election many of those in the SDP, who had worked with Abiola, simply walked away and left him in the lurch.

    As a new coalition of parties, the APC should begin to mobilise the electorate at grass roots level for support and build strong party structures all over the country. Every hamlet, village, and towns must be involved in the mobilisation, and be made to believe that peaceful change, through elections, is possible in Nigeria. This is particularly vital in the North where federal elections are usually won or lost in the country. No political party has ever won federal elections in the country without getting the overwhelming political support and votes in the North. Obasanjo lost in the SW in 1999 but won the presidential elections with the backing of the North. That is where the major electoral battle is to be won. Now, this should lead the APC to present a credible Northern candidate in the 2015 presidential elections. Zoning of political offices, though deplorable, is a reality in Nigerian politics. It cannot be ignored. But such a candidate must be a youthful and visionary candidate that can swing the votes in the North and win the presidential elections for the APC. The party should avoid bringing in yesterday’s stodgy men who have little or nothing to offer the country.

    The party must also spell out in clear terms why it is different from the PDP, the ruling party, and why it deserves the broad support of the electorate. The public would like to know how the APC is going to tackle such prevailing critical challenges as mass corruption, state of insecurity, infrastructure deficit, poor health and education service deliveries, and the growing rate of unemployment in the country. These are some of the key economic problems facing the country. To have any chance of winning the 2015 presidential elections the APC must offer a credible alternative to the blundering and inept PDP Federal Government.

  • Welcoming the APC

    Welcoming the APC

    The emergence of the APC is good for Nigeria because it provides our people a viable alternative to the PDP government that has been in power for more than 14 years. Most Western democracies operate a two-party system i.e. there is always a party in government and another one in opposition keeping the one in government on its toes and providing a standing alternative to the government in power. This is the essence of democracy in many Western countries. There are of course countries in continental Europe like Germany and France where as a result of their culture, coalition governments of sometimes two or three parties seem to be the rule because of the intense factionalization in those countries. It reminds me of what General Charles De Gaulle used to say about French men that if you lock two French men in a room and ask them to form a political party; they are likely to come out with three political parties. In the history of Nigeria, the first time we ever had a semblance of a two-party system was during the Babangida era when two parties: the SDP and the NRC were decreed into being. Although we tend to criticize the military for all our problems, the imposition of the two-party system by General Babangida at that time was a master stroke. This was the system that gave us the best election that we have ever had and that produced MKO Abiola as the President that was never sworn in. Hopefully, the emergence of the APC will lead to credible elections 2015. At least we now have a choice of two national parties; one that has been in power for 14 years and for which we have nothing to show for it, and another that is ready to take power and has some credentials especially judging from the performance of some components of it in the South-west and in the North-east. The assemblage of seasoned politicians with credibility like Buhari and Tinubu and others should give the APC some leverage with the Nigerian voters. A lot of work of course has to be done in fashioning out a manifesto that is at least left of centre and that would be totally opposed to the abysmal corruption that the PDP has elevated to a philosophy of government. The two main planks of the APC for now are firmly rooted in the South-west and the North generally so demography favors the APC come 2015. Democracy is about one-man vote and with the lack of performance of the PDP generally, it should be possible for Buhari, Tinubu and other APC leaders to mobilize support in the North and in the South-west and also because the PDP itself is collapsing from inside, it will not be impossible to get the other parts of the country to join a winning band-wagon.

    All these of course are predicated on the kind of candidates the APC is able to choose for its presidential ticket. I speak as an outsider, if Buhari and Tinubu are able to control their personal ambitions and to look for a younger combination of credible people to run on the APC platform, the party stands a good chance of winning. The party should avoid anything that may make it look like a tribal or a religious coalition or party because its opponents would definitely exploit this if there is a tendency of the party in that direction.

    As for the Yoruba people, they now have a choice to make. The PDP used to appeal to some elements in the South-west by suggesting that the people would reap a lot of democratic dividends if they belong to the mainstream. The APC being a national party and more ideologically in tune with Yoruba political tradition should give the South-west the opportunity of genuinely belonging in the mainstream of Nigerian politics just as was the case with the SDP. The kind of mainstream offered by PDP has been found out to be totally not in consonance with Yoruba political tradition. After all, Obasanjo as president dragged the Yorubas into the so-called mainstream and they have nothing to show for it. The collapsed infrastructure in the South-west is a testimony to the PDP’s misrule even under Obasanjo. I would like to point out that what is good for Nigeria should be good for the Yoruba people. The Yoruba people do not want to be favored over others and they do not want to be discriminated against. Rather, what they want is equitable representation of all groups at all levels. Any fair assessment of the present regime cannot but come to the conclusion of total marginalization of the Yoruba people and the South-west. A situation in which the first 10 positions in the country do not have a single Yoruba among them is totally unacceptable for a people constituting about 40 million of Nigerians. The strength of the APC in the South-west is directly related to this marginalization.

    Secondly, the performance of the former ACN governors particularly in the upliftment of the infrastructure of the area is a strong testimony of what APC when it controls the federal government will do in the South-west. The PDP used to control the South-west before now and people should be reminded that their governors did virtually nothing for the people. In fact, people are now asking why it has been relatively easy for the ACN in the South-west to transform the infrastructure in the area while their predecessors were not able to do much. Just go to Ibadan, Abeokuta, Ado-Ekiti, Osogbo and Benin City and see what has been accomplished. These are the issues. Yoruba people are highly educated people and they like to play politics of issues not of personalities. Even though leaders like Tinubu, Akande, Osoba, Adeniyi Adebayo, Kayode Fayemi, Amosun, Ajimobi, Aregbesola and others are good mobilizers, but mobilization alone would not do unless there are issues around which people can be mobilized and the main issue in the South-west is the non-performance of the PDP and the marginalization of the Yoruba people. It is not just the leaders in the South-west who are saying this, ordinary commuters on the dilapidated roads and those who need power to run their small businesses and those who need security in their homes and on the streets are grumbling loudly and who do they blame, they blame the PDP federal government and this is rightly so. The issue is not about Tinubu delivering the South-west or Buhari delivering the North. In fact, nobody can deliver anybody. The point is the disenchantment, disillusionment and dissatisfaction of the people with what is going on.

    If the PDP were wise, they should quickly realize that the issue is not about personalities but about programs and performance so any campaign based on discrediting Tinubu, Buhari and other leaders of the APC would not wash. This question of issues will also resonate I must say among other Nigerians even in the South-south not to talk about the South-east. It is unfortunate that politics in Nigeria is based on the coalition of ethnic groups against other ethnic groups. One hopes that 2015 would usher in the same kind of movement that produced the same result of the election of a Muslim-Muslim ticket of MKO Abiola and Babagana Kingibe in 1993. As for the Labour Party in Ondo being a vanguard for the division of the South-west in 2015, I do not see that happening. The Labour Party in Ondo is built around the charismatic leadership of Olusegun Mimiko, a young man that I admire very much. But this is a flash in the pan when Mimiko finishes his second term, the Labour Party will be swept out of the South-west. There have been instances of political parties built around a one-man charismatic leadership in the past.

  • Akande and Jonathan’s combative aides

    Akande and Jonathan’s combative aides

    Chief Bisi Akande, the interim chairman of newly registered APC, must by now be wondering what he said about an elected president to warrant the verbal assault from President Jonathan’s combative media aides. He must be having a nostalgic craving for the old constitutional monarchy of his people where leaders earned their positions, answerable to the people and can be told to abdicate if they betray the trust of the people. Part of what may be agitating his mind could also be whether we have not made a mistake to trade the old reliable system for the current variant of PDP democracy where losers resort to self-help and where might is right.

    The old man had incurred the wrath of the angry and combative media experts when he last week stated that ‘following two meetings he had with the president since 2011 and two other long telephone conversation on two other different occasions to discuss serious challenges facing the country, he came to the conclusion that the president has reduced governance to kindergarten level and that he is not serious-minded.’ He also accused him handling national issues with levity as well as of embarking on witch-hunt of political enemies citing the cases of Asiwaju Tinubu who was dragged before the Code of Conduct Bureau, even while the president has refused to declare his own assets and Rotimi Amaechi, who was being persecuted because of what the chief described as ‘his insistence that the allocation of the country must be judiciously shared among local, state and the federal governments.’

    The above is what the president aides dismissed as “an unguarded and intemperate outburst, not only an unbecoming lack of respect for the person and office of the President of his country, but also a complete disregard for the patriotic feelings of the millions of Nigerians who voted for President Jonathan and who continue to appreciate his sincere efforts to positively transform the nation.’ He was also accused of ‘rudely and falsely describing President Jonathan as a ‘kindergarten’ leader who treats national issues with levity’. It doesn’t matter whether there is an element of truth in this claim for the president who has not found time to publicly address the ongoing ASUU strike or thought it necessary as the father of all in the on-going intra-party crisis in Rivers to call to order rascals who claimed to be fighting his family’s wars. They also did not forget to warn “Chief Akande and his fellow-travellers to remember that there are laws against libel and defamation of character in this country even if there are no legal impediments to indecorous, hypocritical and unpatriotic vituperations.” As a final shot, they said “It is certainly rude, ill-mannered, uncharitable and hypocritical for Chief Akande to falsely and cavalierly allege that a President who toils tirelessly every day of the week, evolving and implementing workable solutions to Nigeria’s problems, is handling national issues with levity.’ For maximum effect they cited one of the president major achievements- ‘his well acclaimed deft handling of the insurgency.’

    And for accusing Jonathan of playing ethnic and religious politics in order to divert attention from his bad governance, the media aides have also taken a swipe at El-Rufai, a former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory. They dismissed him as a ‘serial liar.’ They want Nigerians to note that El-Rufai ‘profaned the name of Jesus Christ on Twitter by tweeting a joke which is too indecent to mention in the presence of civilized persons’.

    And to demonstrate that President Jonathan does not play religious and ethnic politics, they called attention to the president who ‘though a Christian took part in the just-concluded Ramadan fast and broke his fast with Muslim faithful every evening.’ Besides they cited ‘the quantum of funds that Jonathan had spent on education specifically tailored for Islamic itinerant scholars known as the almajiris,’ to demonstrate his tolerance of all religions.

    The PDP through its acting secretary Okeke also descended heavily on Chief Akande claiming that ‘the main agenda of Akande and other prominent members of the APC were to liquidate the nation’s economy’. He did not say how but added that ‘Akande and El-Rufai were aggrieved because of the refusal of the President to join the APC when he was invited’. I suspect a tinge of blackmail is allowed here to justify the righteous indignation of the president’s media aides and PDP.

    President Ebele Jonathan has for over two years worked under severe strains. The thankless albeit a privileged job of paddling the affairs of our great nation has started to take its toll. Watching him closely during his last visit to his godfather, ex-President Obasanjo in Abeokuta, the scars have become very visible. He is fast aging, while some of his ministers, special advisers, and some rabble rousers who claim to be the president co-crusaders are developing rosy cheeks and rotund faces.

    The angry media aides have been called upon to assuage the president’s apparent feelings of despondency, celebrate his self-acclaimed giant strides, and insulate him from the offensive actions of some of his PDP feral party members. They are also aware the president as a toy in the hands of PDP political warlords is called upon to take responsibility for the mundane, the ludicrous and outright invidious actions of PDP unruly family members. But the media experts are equally aware that the opposition is the weakest link.

    For instance it was not the president but PDP that influenced the emergence of Ahmadu Alli as chairman of PDP as well as his chairmanship of PPRA. Yet his presidency suffered collateral damage when the later was accused of presiding over the loss of about N1.7 trillion in phantom fuel subsidy. When poor Nigerians were indirectly called upon to pay through taxation, which experts said best described the fuel pump price increase, the president took direct responsibility. When his economic advisers misinformed millions of his admirers who gave him a landslide victory that the price increase would affect only the middle class car owners and the wealthy Lagos residents, the president alone faced the outrage of commuters, petty business owners and 140 millions Nigerians that the minister for power claimed have no access to electricity.

    When overzealous police officers under the police commissioner Joseph Mbu shut down a section of Port Harcourt where the first lady has her mansion erected, making it impossible for even the governor to move, the president is called upon to check the excesses of his unelected wife. When the governor of Balyelsa appointed the president’s wife, Dr Patience Jonathan, a permanent secretary to operate from the presidency in Abuja, the president was accused of nepotism. Even when Bipi the leader of a gang of five that illegally attempted to take over Rivers State House of Assembly proclaimed the first lady a messiah for whom he was prepared to lay down his life, the president was the one accused of blasphemy by his fellow Christians. As we can see from the account of how Nyesom Wike emerged as a minister, infiltration of the president’s cabinet by leaders of the South-south militants as well as the North-east Boko Haram was the handiwork of PDP.

    But as I said on this page last week, both Doyin Okupe and Ahmed Gulak failed to protect the president from bad press because instead of focusing on improving the quality of their product, they adopted an outdated media model of leaving the substance to chase the shadows. The product and its qualities contribute to the making of a successful brand. The decision by Reuben Abati to now join and invigorate the efforts of the duo will not make the press legitimize President Jonathan’s assault on the spirit of the constitution. It is also not likely that angry verbal assault on Chief Akande by combative media aides while ignoring the important issues he had raised will suddenly lead to a change of fortune for a government that has not only failed to meet the aspirations of the people, but generally considered as very corrupt by both national and international press.

  • ‘It’s the economy, stupid’

    The economy is a reflection of a country’s development. If a country is doing well, it shows in its economy and if it is otherwise, it also shows. So, the economy is the pivot on which every other thing rests, especially the core elements of the economy, such as manufacturing, banking, finance and insurance, transport, oil and gas and human development.

    Every nation strives for a productive economy and not a consuming economy because of its derivative benefits. In a productive economy, the per capital income is good and the people live well. A nation’s economy says a lot about it. Its strength and ‘’vulnerabilities’’, to borrow the word of the all – knowing Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Dr Ngozi Okonjo – Iweala, are the determinants of how well an economy is doing. How well is our economy doing?

    Okonjo – Iweala answered this question in an interview in ThisDay on Sunday four days ago. Her answer : ‘’Our economy is strong, with vulnerabilities’’. Yes, we are all vulnerable in one way or the other; so in that wise, Madam Minister was not saying anything. What she should have told us in simple and plain language is either that the economy is doing well or it is not doing well. Rather than do that, she chose to talk from both sides of the mouth.

    That same Sunday, the African Development Bank (AfDB), answered the same question and chose to shoot straight from the hip. Without mincing words like Okonjo – Iweala, AfDB said the Nigerian economy did not do well last year, quoting its African Economic Outlook (AEO) report. The government fought back swiftly, dismissing the report as ‘’false and political’’. Can AfDB play politics with such matters? What will be its gain in being political in a report that covers all countries on the continent?

    Our government is alleging that AfDB was biased against it when statistics showed otherwise. The only basis on which it can sustain the bias argument is to prove that the statistics used is not correct. If the government cannot do that, the best it can do in the circumstance is to look through that report once again and see how it can work with it to improve the economy. There is no need to grandstand over this very serious issue if the government has the interest of the governed at heart. Even in the United States (US). which is far developed than Nigeria, the issue of the economy is taken seriously. This was why in 1992, former President Bill Clinton, who was then campaigning for office, focused on reviving the ailing American economy. The catch phrase of his campaign, coined by master strategist James Carville, was : ‘’It’s the economy, stupid’’. Till today, whether in America or any other country for that matter, it’s still the economy, stupid.

    The AfDB as the continent’s leading financial institution owes it a duty to make its owner member – states to be alive to their responsibilities whenever their economies are not doing well. If it does not do that, it means that it is not doing its job. What then will be the essence of having the AfDB if it cannot comment on the economies of countries under its purview? If the government must know, the AfDB is not there to make life comfortable for countries on the continent whose economies are not doing fine. No, its job is not to praise sing governments, but to ensure that they do the right thing for their people by developing a robust economy. An economy can only become strong when it is properly managed and those at the helm are not stealing as some leaders are doing in Africa.

    We are where we are today in Africa because of the thieves in power on the continent. Many of them know next to nothing about the economy, so they find the criticism of their economic policies hard to swallow. As I said, the AfDB was only doing its job by presenting its report on the African economy and a wise government will take a look at the document and make amends where necessary. It is not for the government to bellyache and impute motives to what the bank did. Despite the bank’s low rating of our economy, it noted that the future is bright if we do the right things. So, it was not condemnation all the way as government officials have been painting it. The AfDB noted that the economic growth last year did not translate into job creation and poverty alleviation, adding that unemployment rose from 21 percent in 2010 to 24 percent in 2011. ‘

    The report said : ‘’The Nigerian economy slowed down from 7.4 % growth in 2011 to 6.6 % in 2012. The oil sector continues to drive the economy, with average growth of about 8 %, compared to -0.35 % for the non – oil sector. Agriculture and the oil and gas sector continue to dominate economic activities in Nigeria. The fiscal consolidation stance of the government has helped to contain fiscal deficit below 3.0 % of gross domestic product (GDP). This, coupled with the tight monetary policy stance of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), helped to keep inflation at around 12.0 % in 2012. Short and mid – term downside risks include security challenges arising from religious conflicts in some states, costs associated with flooding, slower global economic growth (particularly in the United States and China) and the sovereign debt crisis in the euro area.

    The AfDB could not have done that because it is supposed to aid the growth of the same economy.

    So, it refrained from throw

    ing the baby away with the

    bathwater in its assessment. Proffering the way out, it said : ‘’There is a high need to diversify the Nigerian economy into the non – oil sector. This will help expand the sources of growth and make it broad based, both socially and geographically. Further development of agriculture, manufacturing and services could broaden growth, create employment and reduce poverty’’.

    Monday, Mr Labaran Maku, Information Minister, faulted the AfDB report, saying it was based on old data. ‘’The AfDB report based on 1996 – 2010 statistics is therefore behind time and does not reflect the real achievements/results of this administration in tackling poverty and unemployment in Nigeria in the last three years. This government has undertaken significant policy reforms targeted at addressing the challenges identified in the report. These policy interventions have contributed positively to turning things around beyond the picture painted in the report. Poverty is a national challenge that transcends the whole country cutting across party divides. In reality, the responsibility of fighting poverty does not rest solely with the Federal Government. States and local governments share in this responsibility too. Dealing with poverty as a partisan phenomenon will be trivialising the problem’’. This is the problem with our leaders. They view every criticism from the political prism.

    They see nothing constructive in any criticism of their policies and actions. Their belief is that their political foes sponsor such criticisms against them. Unfortunately, this is the light in which the government is seeing the AfDB report. It is imputing political motive to the AfDB action. I will not be surprised if the government accuses the opposition of sponsoring the report instead of taking a critical look at it in order to make use of the salient findings therein. Will we ever grow if we continue to think like this? May God give us leaders with large hearts, who will not see every criticism as a ploy to bring them down. By the way, Mr Maku, where are the jobs?

  • APC: Nigeria deserves new, not recycled leadership; Suffering: Nigeria is an Emergency

    APC, the new political party should not accept just anyone from other parties, particularly PDP which has ruled since 1999. Al Mustapha will be a huge negative for the APC. PDP’s political deadwood will not perform better in APC. A change of party will not change these people. The APC already has many forward looking politicians. Give them space and do not tie them up in ‘political favour’ knots. The new electorate is more discerning and desperate for good governance. Romancing with Babangida, Abdulsalami and players like Danjuma who is not a democrat though wealthy may empower APC with money but will that bring change to save Nigeria from destruction? Buhari’s and Tinubu’s reputation means they should take to the sidelines! No to recycled leadership. We need new leadership!

    Hurray, the FRSC has moved its Ogere checkpoint 100metres to where stopping a vehicle will not shut down a lane. Who authorises procedures, supervises, reviews situations and plans for eventualities in FRSC? Strangely, though such hawking is illegal, we see both hawkers and FRSC waving their arms frantically to attract you to stop. The FRSC should now carve out an FRSC area, free of hawking, for vehicles to be interrogated.

    One day the FRSC will remember its old ‘Observe Speed Limits’ and ‘Keep Right’ campaigns. Professor Soyinka will tell them that slowing down vehicles by speed limits and keeping slow traffic in the slow lane except when overtaking or avoiding dangerous road surfaces was the primary goal of the original FRSC. Such actions are more effective than randomly stopping vehicles for vehicle and driving licence ‘particulars and fire extinguisher’.

    On Saturday at 9.06am a brand new government issue Ibadan based yellow and deep red commercial vehicle overtook us, four kilometres outside Ibadan on the way to Lagos, at about 140-150kph.  That is our problem. Someone is driving at a speed that could kill us and we sit silently praying for a ‘Safe Journey’. That is a threat of GBH, ‘Grievous Bodily Harm’. We must inform the FRSC that commercial vehicles are driven, with impunity, by members of the NUTRW who make commercial vehicles into WMDs- a ‘Weapons of Mass Death’.

    What is FRSC waiting for? Mega deaths? The Highway Code shows road safety signs. Even potholes have no warning signs. The FRSC needs new strategies in order to tackle speed and as well as ’particulars and fire extinguisher’ enquiries. The new big multimillion naira billboards sponsored by an oil company, Exxon Mobil I think,  encouraging the speed limit are a small very expensive step. There are cheaper ways of enforcement. Passengers are often too intimidated by the NURTW reputation for violence to report ‘Endangering The Lives Of Passengers’.

    Who is there to report to, anyway?  FRSC should please add phone in and internet ‘Name and Shame Anti-Speed Campaigns’ where passengers are encouraged to report erring vehicle drivers by ‘Motor Park, Time, Date, Route’ for FRSC to place on their website and investigate. Speed can be controlled by convoys led by demarcated ‘FRSC Convoy Leader Cars’ driving at 100kph.

    I and tens of thousands of others suffered silently, but angrily, in yet another totally preventable nearly five hour massive traffic jam on the Ibadan-Lagos on Saturday. Apparently unknown to FRSC leadership, the FRSC was actually specially set up to deal with, and possibly prevent and then manage major traffic emergencies and rescue the citizenry from their misery through novel approaches to traffic control through short diversions, information dissemination, preventing overtaking on shoulders et cetera. But none of this happened. Nothing happened. The members of the FRSC could not be seen at any of the problem areas in over 30km of traffic. The FRSC made little or no effort beyond trying to arrest a few miscreants around ‘Redeem’.  There was no alarm raised by the FRSC.

    Did the FRSC members report up the chain of command and higher authorities to request assistance for the six vehicles and maybe 15 FRSC members we saw clustered around turnings and junctions? Was any order given to recall FRSC members from other areas and off-duty officials to help deal with the problem? Why were no FRSC members deployed automatically every few hundred metres along the 20km traffic jam to inform citizens and implement solutions to the massive problem and also keep order and keep vehicles from driving on the road shoulders?

    During this emergency, it was a serious if unrecognised emergency, the few FRSC who were seen were casual, disinterested and lackadaisical in attitude and showed no real concern to actually solve the traffic problem. They were not on their phones discussing with superiors and implementing any plan like the ‘FRSC 20KM Traffic Jam Plan’ at panic stations. FRSC knows that one of Nigerian drivers’ major problems is inability to follow the queue. Queue jumping is congenital among commercial and most other road users. Over 1,000 vehicles overtook us on the shoulders. If they had stayed in line we would have moved faster. If everyone was forced to stay in line on the two lane road the traffic problem would reduce dramatically. This can be done by placing some blocks every 20 metres on the shoulders which will allow parking but discourage driving on the shoulders. Perhaps the designers of the new expressway need to take this up. The suffering of Nigerians is preventable. Nigeria is an emergency waiting for treatment.

    PS : Give Nigerians emergency electric power NOW!

     

  • Drumbeats of war

    To say that the security situation in the country is both tense and precarious, at the moment, is to beg the question. In recent times, there have been discoveries and interception of arms and ammunition in many parts of the country. This has raised fears and alarm in security and political circles over the real intention of the arms merchants.

    While such incidents of arms smuggling is not limited to a particular geo-political zone, the preponderance of opinion is that the frequency of such discoveries all over the country, in recent times, has been on a geometric ascendancy. As a result of this, the level of intelligence shadowing and surveillance in the whole country by security agents has been on the increase. As insurgency remains a major toothache in the north-eastern part of the country, where a state of emergency still subsists, the growing cases of arms stockpile in the north-west states are said to be giving security analysts sleepless nights, especially as they look for clues about the motives of the masterminds of this arms stockpile.

    In order to unravel the sudden surge in the trafficking menace across our numerous porous borders, security agencies in the country are said to be focusing on both local and external sources.  In the first instance, the importation of arms may likely be traceable to trans-national Islamist terrorists arming local jihadists as well as using Nigeria as a transit route in the Sahel arms and related smuggling trade. This line of thought dominated the minds of the top-shots of the country’s security agencies for some time until in the last few months when political motivation began to filter in. Although security agents are yet to find direct linkage between the arms stockpile and political gladiators, fears are rife that the ugly trend of politicking across the country could in fact snowball into obvious threats from key leaders who are increasingly getting desperate.

    It will be recalled that the arms cache found in Kano is still a mystery despite the ongoing prosecution of the Lebanese allegedly involved in the whole saga. The security agencies are also said to be at a loss over the alleged connection between alleged Hezbollah Shiite agents and the Sunni-led Boko Haramists. Boko Haram is said to belong to the Sunni school of Islam, and therefore, finding a synergy between them and the Lebanese under trial over the arms cache is said to be proving very difficult. What the security agencies are believed to be zeroing on is the possibility that the Shiite group could have its own separate agenda for the country.

    Consequently, the Kano arms discovery has thrown up many theories. One of them is the possibility of a non-religious involvement, with political undertone being the chief reason. This theory was said to have given added fillip after the Zamfara State government recently got its hands burnt in an arms importation imbroglio. Abdulaziz Yari, the state governor, had claimed that it wanted to arm vigilance groups in the state in view of recent rising incidence of violent robberies. However, the way and manner the state government imported the arms allegedly without police approval has since become a subject of investigation in Abuja. And understandably, this investigation is already attracting attention of people within the nation’s security circles.

    Though the Zamfara State government has since justified its action on the need to combat criminal gangs operating freely in the state, keen watchers of the 2015 drama pointed out that arming vigilantes in the countdown to 2015 sent mixed signals. The belief is that, once Zamfara succeeds in this matter, other state governments will follow suit, leading to proliferation of arms in the country ahead of a potentially explosive electoral year in 2015.

    However, while the controversy over Zamfara arms importation is yet to abate, a tanker filled with assorted arms and ammunition, whose source of importation is still unknown, was recently impounded between Kebbi-Zamfara axis. With hundreds of such tankers streaming into the country through remote border areas, fears are mounting that there may be a deliberate agenda by some unknown elements in the country to warehouse arms ahead of 2015 elections.

    This is more worrisome because a few days after the arms-bearing tanker was impounded, another arms cache was discovered in the sleepy state of Jigawa, which led to an exchange of fire between security agencies and those described as Boko Haram insurgents. This assertion is astonishing, to say the least, because Jigawa has never once witnessed any Boko Haram attack since the insurgency reared its head in the northern part of the country many years ago. At any rate, the exchange of fire cannot stand in as explanation for the owners of the arms or those who masterminded their importation.

    One thing is that, each time there is a security breach in some parts of the country, especially in the North, it has become convenient for security agents to heap the blame on Boko Haram. This situation is scary. We cannot say for sure that all these arms are imported by Islamists. We cannot prove that. We can also not prove that politicians are behind the menace for electoral purposes. All that is apparent is that there is an arms build-up across the country.

    While the real motive behind this dangerous development is still baffling to security agencies who are probing deeper, Mike Oghiadohme, the Chief of Staff to the President, recently warned leaders and elders in the country against precipitating a civil war in the country through their actions and utterances. He warned such leaders and elders against plunging the nation into avoidable catastrophe, in furtherance of their individual or collective agenda. Analysts argue that Oghiadohme’s warning is a signal that the Presidency already has more facts over security situation, especially arms build-ups in the country, than it is willing to tell the public.

    Arms build-up in the country has become a constant issue for discussion within the Nigerian military arena, which is battling insurgency in the North-East. Though the military has not ruled out any trace of political opportunism, suspicions are strong that the Islamists could be behind the development. The wider intelligence community, however, thinks differently. They feel political forces are neck-deep in the menace.

    In a recent statement, Sagir Musa, a lieutenant-colonel and spokesman of the Joint Task Force in Borno, while confirming the rising incidence of arms proliferation, gave greater insight into the problem facing the North and the country as a whole.  Said he: “Nigeria’s borders are massive with hundreds of footpaths crisscrossing to neighbouring countries of Chad, Niger and Cameroun with links to Mali, Libya and Sudan.”  According to him, “from conservative estimate by locals, there are well over 250 footpaths from Damaturu/Maiduguri axis that link or lead directly to Cameroun, Chad or Niger. These paths, which are mostly unknown to security agencies, are unmanned, unprotected and have continued to serve as conveyor belts for arms and ammunition trafficking into Nigeria. It is disheartening and unfortunate that the merchants of death have since devised methods to beat security agencies at the borders, chief among them, through the footpaths.”

    Musa explained that “the Libyan and Malian rebels are desperate to exchange arms for money to Boko Haram terrorists, their financiers and collaborators as the sect has since been affiliated to Al-Qaeda in the Maghreb.” This, according to him, “has added to the overwhelming challenge of the influx of illegal aliens, arms, ammunition and sophisticated IED materials into the country and an efficient and effective fight against terrorism.”

    Whatever the case is, I believe the security agents still need to critically explore the political angle to all these discoveries. If need be, investigation could be extended to foreign soil. As the arms influx continues, the questions are: Is Nigeria fast becoming a Somalia? Who is preparing for war? Could the current flexing of muscles by political gladiators be a subtle declaration of war ahead of 2015? Perhaps, a thorough investigation by the security agencies would provide answers to these probing questions. Time will tell!

     

  • A combatant’s chronicle of the Nigeria – Biafra War

    A combatant’s chronicle of the Nigeria – Biafra War

    It is fitting and quite thoughtful that General Godwin Alabi–Isama has chosen Nelson Mandela’s birthday to present his book, The Tragedy of Victory. For Mandela, in so many ways, exemplifies the generosity of spirit which you will constantly encounter as you read this sprawling book. In Long Walk to Freedom, Nelson Mandela’s engrossing and deeply moving chronicle of his extraordinary life, he shares the honour and glory of the successes of the anti-apartheid struggles, not only with all the comrades with whom he served long jail terms, but also with many others who supported the struggles. For instance, on page 601 of that fascinating book, Mandela pays the following tribute to one of his comrades: “In Plato’s allegory of the metals, the philosopher classifies men into groups of gold, silver and lead. Oliver Tambo was pure gold; there was gold in his intellectual brilliance, gold in his unfailing loyalty and in his tolerance and generosity, gold in his unfailing loyalty and self-sacrifice. As much as I respected him as a leader, that is how much I loved him as a man”.

    Gratitude matters. Appreciation of the good contribution of others humanises us all. When you recognise the goodness of others, you’re actually laying the building blocks of what will make humankind endure and survive. It doesn’t diminish you; the world is incredibly richer for it.

    The total lack of this kind of generous spirit in General Olusegun Obasanjo prompted General Alabi-Isama to write The Tragedy of Victory. Three years ago, when General Godwin Alabi–Isama turned 70; he came to Nigeria from the US to celebrate his birthday. His close friend, General Alani Akinrinade who attended the ceremony, gave him two copies of General Olusegun Obasanjo’s My Command. By that time Alabi-Isama had heard about the book but had never read it. Akinrinade had told his friend that the book would turn his belly. It surely did. General Alabi-Isama discovered that there were so many distortions of fact in the book, and he immediately dismissed it as a tapestry of inaccuracies. As he read it, he marked out not less than eighty two passages in My Command where General Obasanjo simply told outright lies to massage his ego and damage the reputation of his colleagues. Alabi-Isama then thought that since he was still a moving encyclopaedia on the three Marine Commando Division, it was time to tear the painted mask of Obasanjo’s lies.

    In My Command, the achievements of gallant officers like Benjamin Adekunle (The Black Scorpion), Alani Akinrinade, Godwin Ally, Ayo Ariyo, Ola Oni, Isaac Adaka Boro, Ahmadu Aliyu, Roland Omowa, Sani Bello, SS Tomoye, Yemi Alabi, Philemon Shande, Musa Wamba, Mac Isemede, Sunny Tuoyo, Audu Jalingo, Ignatius Obeya, and their informants like Ndidi Okereke – Onyiuke, Margaret Eyo, Florence Ita-Giwa and many other women who made the 3 Marine Commando Division such a formidable force, are tainted and belittled. Blessed with very good memory, General Alabi-Isama, in Tragedy of Victory, offers a ferocious and damning critique of General Olusegun Obasanjo’s vainglorious claims of his gallantry. He sets the mangled records straight with absolute passion, precision and indignation. To him, history matters because it is meant to inspire and instruct posterity.

    He shares George Santayana’s view that those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it. And because Nigerians have been made cynical by many decades of lies, all claims that Alabi-Isama makes he supports with abundant evidence. If this book is a 671-page to me it is in part because the memoirist illustrates his story with 450 pictures, 36 maps and 20 documents. It is also partly because the author meanders. He repeats himself many times.

    By and large, his responses to General Obasanjo’s claims show that he was a more competent soldier, military strategist and theorist than OBJ, who tends to mistake good luck for profound gift and talent. Alabi-Isama simply did his duty and left politics in the army for all the crafty war profiteers who have been described by Wole Soyinka in Jero’s metamorphosis as DGS – Desk Generals. As Chief of Staff of 3 Marine Commando Division, he was very demanding of everyone – he was hard on his men and women without ever losing tenderness. Deep knowledge was central to his strategy and tactics, so he sought for it everywhere. Indeed, one very important duty of the 3 Marine Commando women was collecting vast data about Biafran soldiers and their operational orders. The 3 Marine Commando Division operated in a very difficult terrain of creeks and mangrove forest comprising the present Rivers, Cross River, Akwa Ibom and Bayelsa states. Those young men and women fighting for the unity of a country that would later abandon them demonstrated uncommon patriotism. Consider the courage of a young officer who just got shot in the war front, and as he was about to die, he asked his commander, Alabi-Isama, who was carrying him, “Have I tried? Those young men were brave people. Consider the immense talent and heroic move of Captain Gbadamosi King, the Nigerian Air Force pilot whose air-to-air operation was the first, not only in Nigeria’s history but was the first in Africa. Consider also the exploits of those ladies who cheered up the troops when their morale was down. The book is dedicated to Alabi-Isama’s mother who solidly supported the war efforts of her only son.

    This was war at the Atlantic theatre. A very difficult place to fight to keep Nigeria one. Each time situations became intractable and confounding; it was either Akinrinade or Alabi-Isama who were ordered to go and sorts things out. Many of the troops died of malaria, dysentery, cholera; cold and snake bites. One soldier was swallowed by a 50-foot-long snake. The troops had to kill the snake with the soldier still inside.

    As the troops were getting tired, the Biafrans redoubled their efforts.

    Helped by France, they launched deadly attacks. With the capture of Port Harcourt by the 3 Marine Commando in 1968 and the capture of Enugu and Umuahia in April 1969, Biafrans had lost three of its major capitals. Uli-Ihiala then became its centre of gravity. But Colonel Benjamin Adekunle, the commanding officer, did not see Uli-Ihiala that way. Missing the point completely, he ordered that OAU (Owerri, Aba and Umuahia) be captured as an October 1 1968 Independence gift to General Yakubu Gowon. It was a complete disaster. General Alabi-Isama says he warned his commander against the operation, but Colonel Benjamin Adekunle did not listen. The 3 Marine Commando Division that had given a good account of itself in Bonny, Calabar, Warri, Ugep, Obubra, Oron, Uyo, Ikot Ekpene, Itu, Eket, Abak, Etinan, Opobo, Bori, Okrika, Port Harcourt, Degema, Buguma, Abonema, Finima, Nembe, brass, Ahoada and part of Midwest now became a butt of joke in other divisions. Other blunders followed.

    Suffering from stress, all those who criticised Benjamin Adekunle constructively he regarded as cowards. The case became so bad when he decided to get both Alabi-Isama and Akinrinade killed in an ambush. They escaped to Lagos where they reported to General Gowon the crisis of confidence in the 3 Marine Commando. But Gowon was very reluctant to remove Adekunle thinking that, with the Agbekoya riots and protests in Ibadan, many people would shout, “ethnic cleansing” if a non-Yoruba officer was brought in as a commander. He, therefore, asked Akinrinade and Alabi-Isama to suggest a Senior Yoruba Officer he could use. Akinrinade suggested Obasanjo—not Oluleye, not Sotoye, not Olutoye because Akinrinade and his friend were simply desperate to have a commander who would listen to them and implement Alabi-Isama’s operation Pincer 2, a plan that they were sure would end the war in 30 days. Obasanjo was not an infantry officer, he was in the Army Engineers Corps, but Akinrinade rooted for him because he thought he was his friend. General Gowon, who suspected that Obasanjo would not want to go to the war front, asked Akinrinade and Alabi-Isama to go and persuade him which they did. Of course, General Gowon was right. General Obasanjo was furious that they suggested his name. He thought these men wanted him dead. While Akinrinade was civil in his dealing with him, Alabi-Isama was impatient; he told him off, wanting at a point to walk out after several hours of talking without any food or drink from their host. Alabi-Isama would soon pay the big price for doing that to Obasanjo who obviously has what the medical experts call pachydermatous memory for slights and insults.

    When General Gowon gave the order that all divisional commanders at the war front, who had been there for two years, should be replaced and the then Colonel Obasanjo was made the commander of the 3 Marine Commando Division both Alabi-Isama and Akinrinade thought they had won but their victory is part of the tragedy recounted in this book. General Olusegun Obasanjo’s did not take over the 3 Marine Commando until 16 May 1969. As soon as he did, he simply sidelined Akinrinade and Alabi-Isama. He went after all the members of the dream team of the Commando with vengeance. The winning force that was being praised for fighting gallantly to keep Nigeria one was now fighting a war of attrition. George Ininh who knew how to play the politics of genuflection which Obasanjo wanted rose meteorically during and after the war.

    Four days after he resumed duty, Obasanjo’s first battle experience as a commander of 3 Marine Commando Division was a disaster. In what Alabi-Isama describes as a complete disregard of the sound advice of his sector commanders, he ordered Godwin Ally to attack Ohoba, a town 40 kilometres south of Owerri. The Division lost over 1,000 troops. This loss still enrages Alabi-Isama, who suggests that in a saner society, Obasanjo should have lost his commission on account of that tragedy. Why would he be bothered? Did the high command in Lagos ever sanction Murtala Mohammed of 2 Division for ordering an Asaba – River Niger crossing, against the advice of Akinrinade in which about 2,000 troops died by drowning and bullet wounds in the River Niger? Alabi-Isama reminds us many times that Obasanjo, the blundering Commander of 3 Marine Commando Division “had no battle experience and had never fought at any of the three fronts of the war. He had never commanded a battalion or a brigade, now he had to command a division in battle. That was why his military administration and logistics placing was that of a cadet”.

    It was because of his tactical error as a commander that he was almost killed in an ambush when he visited Col. Iluyomade’s unit. He had to flee from the ambush and got shot in the bottom. Alabi-Isama’s take on that is that true generals do get shot in the chest, not bottom. Before Obasanjo was posted to 3 Marine Commando Division, Alabi-Isama, in consultation with Adekunle and other officers, had three plans – Pincer 1, 2 and 3, strategies and tactics which their division knew would win the war. Pincer 1 would be a monstrous operation that was meant to level many towns in Biafra. As if to impress those who doubted his ability, Obasanjo wanted his troops to settle for that. If the 3 Marine Commando had used that plan, Alabi-Isama argues, the charge of genocide that Chinua Achebe raises in his book, There Was a Country would have been justified. Thankfully, reasons prevailed. The commander finally listened to his officers. Pincer 2 was used. And it took only 23 days for the 3 Marine Commando Division to put an end to the Nigeria-Biafra War. Biafra surrendered, not to Obasanjo, who was not at the war front, but to Alani Akinrinade, who was very much there.

    It was a triumphant and self-centered Obasanjo, who rushed to Lagos with Effiong and some of the Biafran officers. And the real heroes of that war were then forgotten. But Alabi-Isama was not only forgotten he was later persecuted and dismissed from the army by General Olusegun Obasanjo who was then the head of state. Alabi-Isama was accused of stealing money which he did not know anything about. He was even accused of being part of the Dimka coup. The two officers who refused to implicate him suddenly died mysteriously. But as James Frederick Green would say their organised slaughter did not settle the dispute; it merely silenced an argument which The Tragedy of Victory has now brought to the front burner. Before his unjustified persecution, General Alabi-Isama was the likeable Principal General Staff Officer of the Nigerian Army. He was a well-decorated officer. He gave the Nigerian Army his best shot. And he was a role model. It is important to remember that our history is full of this kind of bad behaviour. Let me explain that with just one example. In 1980, Chief Bola Ige accepted to review My Command because he thought General Olusegun Obasanjo was a good friend. But since Ige’s assassination, has the general not been dancing on his grave?

    Of course, The Tragedy of Victory is not only about the civil war and the 3 Marine Commando Division even though it is the major plank of it, its centre of gravity. There are other+ interesting stories. The story of his humble early life, how he joined the army after his secondary school at Ibadan Boys High School, his military training in Zaria and England, his peace-keeping mission in the Congo where he helped to kill a huge and notorious hippopotamus that had been terrorising a village for many years. There is a sense in which the story of the Nigerian Army mock battle in Ibadan which he, and his troops won foretold the victory of the Nigeria-Biafra war in the Atlantic Theatre. We are told of how he was captured by the Biafrans, how he was sent to Kirikiri prison for wrong accusation. We are moved by the story of Azuatalam the wonderful swimmer who was later recommended to be recruited into the Army by General Alani Akinrinade. The reader is told of how Alabi-Isama, and his officers arrived at their strategies and tactics like the dilemma strategy. As Generals, Yakubu Gowon and Adeyinka Adebayo write in their introductory remarks, this is a book about military strategies, tactics and campaigns. There is the interesting story of the visit, in 1993, of Stella Obasanjo to his American home where Stella stayed for a pleasurable week. You will not miss the story of how he saved General T.Y. Danjuma and Domkat Bali from being killed by the Dimka coupists.

    Finally, it is clear from our reading of this book that when we yield our hallowed ground to clueless people, they will grow and nurture their weeds on it, thereby suffocating the flowers of the land. May our country have the good sense to always choose good people who will reproduce their goodness in others.

     •Ajibade, Executive Editor of The News, read this review on July 18 at the public presentation of The Tragedy of Victory at the NIIA, Kofo Abayomi, Victoria Island, Lagos.

  • Salami: An epic injustice

    Salami: An epic injustice

    When the National Judicial Council recommended in May 2012 after a detailed inquiry that the suspended president of the Court of Appeal, Justice Ayo Isa Salami, be reinstated, not a few of those who had followed the matter closely felt that the Council was offering President Goodluck Jonathan a decent way to end one of the ugliest episodes in Nigeria’s judicial history.

    That the recommendation bore the imprint of two of the nation’s most eminent jurists who stand at opposite ends of the ideological spectrum made it all the more resonant.

    If the liberal retired associate justice of the Supreme Court, Justice Kayode Eso, since deceased, and the conservative senior attorney and former Minister of Minister of Justice and Attorney-General of the Federation, Chief Richard Akinjide, could sign off on the document, along with the overwhelming majority, it would seem that the Council had decided to take politics out of the matter and had considered it purely on its legal merit.

    The Council, I thought, had thus placed in Dr Jonathan’s hands a powerful weapon to rein in the hawks in the PDP who will settle for nothing less than Justice Salami’s scalp because his Court stripped them of their stolen gubernatorial trophies in Osun and Ekiti and restored the people’s mandate to those who had earned it at the polls.

    I was hoping that Dr Jonathan would seize the opportunity to play statesman rather than party chieftain. And when he was reported to be “studying” the document, I thought he was trying to find a way of appeasing the hawks, aforementioned.

    Dr Jonathan had something else in mind. His strategy, it is now clear, was to run down the clock on Justice Salami, calculating that the books would be closed on the matter once the jurist reaches the mandatory retirement age of 70 years.

    And so, two years after being consigned to judicial purgatory, Justice Salami, according to competent sources, has served notice of retirement, effective October 15, victim of an epic injustice that Dr Jonathan could and indeed should have ended.

    Justice Salami’s ordeal began, as I once recalled in this space, when he presided over the sitting of the Court of Appeal that voided the purported election of the PDP candidate, Engineer Segun Oni in the 2007 Ekiti gubernatorial election and declared Dr Kayode Fayemi of the ACN winner.

    The election was marred by fraud on a staggering scale. In a court-ordered partial re-run to ascertain the true voice of the people, the PDP, the election umpire INEC, Maurice Iwu presiding, and the police executed a more brazen heist that a 3-2 majority of the Election Petitions Tribunal nevertheless consecrated with transparent sophistry.

    The Court of Appeal reversed, and Justice Salami became a marked man.

    Five weeks later, the Salami Court, Justice Clara Ogunbiyi presiding, vacated the stolen mandate under which yet another PDP candidate, Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola, had governed Osun for three years and seven months — or seven years and seven months if one believes, as one now positively must — that Oyinlola and the PDP never won the 2003 election, on the basis of which he had served a four-year term.

    As in Ekiti, the Osun poll was vitiated by massive rigging and violence. The ACN candidate, Engineer Rauf Aregbesola, headed to the Elections Petition Tribunal for review and redress. Obtaining none, he took his case to a superior body, which held that the verdict of the court below amounted to a miscarriage of justice and ordered that the petition be heard de novo.

    The new tribunal rejected Aregbesola’s petition in a “unanimous” judgment signed by four of the five judges, and the text of which was festooned with alterations and interpolations that called the integrity of the process into question.

    In finding for Aregbesola, Justice Ogunbiyi wrote for a unanimous Appeal Court, that the Tribunal was “lackadaisical” in its handling of the case, that it dismissed vital evidence as “mere allegations”; that it set at nought compelling forensic evidence; that it wantonly misrepresented evidence of key witnesses; in sum, that the Tribunal’s conduct was “a travesty, and a mockery” of the judicial process.

    That verdict sealed Justice Salami’s doom. He would have to be taken out of the Court of Appeal, the terminus for all election petitions except those arising from the election of President.

    First they offered to promote him to associate justice of the Supreme Court. He demurred.

    Several years earlier, when there was a vacancy, he had declined to apply for such a position.

    Then, they accused him, first in whispers and subsequently in paid newspaper advertisements, of all manner of misconduct, including consorting with attorneys of parties to the case he was handling. Leading the charge was Senator (as he then was) Iyiola Omisore who, despite his apparent conversion to an apostle of probity and propriety, nevertheless remains a principal suspect in the murder of the former Federal Minister of Justice and Attorney-General, Chief Bola Ige, leading the charge.

    Then there was talk of giving him a “soft landing” if only he would just quit.

    Why would they contemplate, much less make such offers to a judge they claim has been tainted irredeemably? Why would they reward him with a promotion to the Supreme Court? Why offer him a “soft landing”? Why not make a public example of him?

    If you have the facts on your side, if you are serious about cleansing the judiciary, if you are truly desirous of prosecuting a Transformation Agenda in which fighting corruption is a core element, why would you pass up such a great opportunity to nail him?

    But Justice Salami’s saga was never about law. It was all along about politics, politics in its rawest form.

    A pending judgment in the disputed gubernatorial election result in Sokoto before the Salami Court would provide the final pretext for caging Justice Salami and ultimately terminating his career. The judgment could overturn many a political applecart, and the authorities were taking no chances.

    According to Justice Salami, the sitting chief justice of Nigeria, Justice Aloysius Katsina-Alu, requested that the judgment be withheld, for political reasons. He cited Justice Dahiru Musdapher, of the Supreme Court, as a witness to this encounter.

    Justice Katsina-Alu said he had merely informed Justice Salami that the judgment had been leaked, and that it might be wise to put off issuing it.

    If the judgment had indeed leaked, that was not unusual. Only last month, judgment in a major case before the Supreme Court leaked well ahead of delivery, and no member of the Court was blamed for it.

    Justice Musdapher whom Justice Salami had cited as witness would only say with consummate diplomatic tact that he could not recall the occasion. Not categorically that the encounter never happened; merely that he had no recollection of it.

    For all practical purposes, that was the end of Justice Salami’s career. Those determined to teach him a lesson wove Justice Musdapher’s diplomatic answer into a charge of perjury, with chief justice Katsina-Alu as accuser and prosecutor and witness and judge while in office and even after he retired.

    Not even the National Judicial Council could save Justice Salami from their vengeful wrath.

    He leaves the scene bruised and battered, and not entirely on his own terms. But his head is unbowed. He refused to submit to blackmail and blandishment. While they hurled every weapon in their arsenal of dirty tricks at him, he sought vindication through the law.

    Something tells me that history will remember him more kindly than those who, when presented with a chance to end an epic injustice, chose to perpetuate it.

     

    Re:  Allah-De

    A  retired career ambassador has commented as follows on my tribute in this space (July 31, 2013) (to Alade “Allah-De” Odunewu, the departed veteran newspaperman and revered columnist:

    “I could understand your good intention to “speak no ill of the dead.” But you should not mislead your readers by creating the impression that the veteran was utterly apolitical as a top Editor of the highly regarded Daily Times in the 60s. He certainly wasn’t!

    “The day after the Western Region election was massively rigged by Chief Akintola, & Co, the Daily Times under Allah De screamed with a headline in an unprecedented Yoruba language headline, “DEMO BORI!” — a clear exultant declaration by an ‘apolitical’ editor.

    “I hope you will be characteristically courageous to publish this contribution.”

     

     

     

     

  • Tale of two scapegoats

    “When your enemies sit in the assembly for the impeachment of your blessing, the Lord will appear like Chidi Lloyd with a mace and beat them to a coma” – social media joke that went viral.

    In Rivers, it is a tale of two scapegoats: one nestling in a foreign hospital bed fighting for his life; the other (at least until August 5) in a local prison, fighting for his freedom.

    Enter then Michael Chinda, of the G-5 failed impeachment bid, and deeply scarred soul from the July 9 messy parliamentary coup attempt; and Chidi Lloyd, no-nonsense fiery avenging angel of the G-27 fame; but now chartered devil in the books of a baleful establishment.

    But aside from the main tragic drama, the stage fizzes with comic strips that would have been so hilarious, were they not so tragic.

    Take the case of model cop, Mbu Joseph Mbu. Only a few days ago, he smugly self-declared his box office “popularity” with the country’s media, for his exploits in the Rivers carnival of anarchy. But many paused and wondered: did the all-mighty cop know the difference between popularity and notoriety?

    But before anyone could decide on anything, his “Oga at the top”, Mohammed Abubakar, the Inspector-General of Police (IGP) himself, weighed in on Mbu’s side. Mbu remains Rivers police chief – at least that was how The Nation of August 9 coined it – affirming Mr. Mbu’s sound professionalism; and confirming his popularity, and not notoriety, as some deluded subversive minds were already thinking!

    Ride on then, cop of example! Go pacify Rivers of Amaechi and allied pollutants! The whole nation is solidly behind you! And should any irritant wave the 1999 Constitution in your nose, tell them exactly what Stalin, of the defunct Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) told of the Pope: The Pope – sorry, the Constitution? How many divisions does he – sorry, it! – have?!

    But as you canter from victory to victory, you must know these severe facts.

    Joseph Stalin is dead, though his power notoriety remains. More importantly, the haughty pedestal on which he made that arrogant papal challenge has crumbled, never to rise again, except as ruins in the commodious brain of history.

    But as that particular Pope, Pius XII (with his famous riposte: “Tell my son Joseph that he will meet my divisions in heaven!) had died, the Papacy (which commands a moral armada, a lot more formidable than physical tanks) is alive and well. That means there is more to life than brazen power play.

    Of course, there is also the festival of cant by Felix Obua, factional chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Rivers and by the Chinda clan – understandably on the current health of their son, main victim of the aborted parliamentary coup of July 9, now hospitalised abroad.

    Whatever the pros and cons of Mr. Chinda’s case, every well meaning Nigerian should wish him speedy healing from the injuries he sustained from that messy parliamentary coup attempt. On this, peace-loving Nigerians must be one with the Chinda family, sharing their angst and giving them hope.

    Still, as life is not run on sentiments alone, the issues call for clinical examination and analysis, lest unsuspecting members of the public be led astray.

    First, “Chairman” Obua. On the issue of Chidi Lloyd, he had issued a shrill protest, alleging foul play and inviting the attention of the National Judicial Council (NJC) to the “improper” bail allegedly granted the Leader of the Rivers Assembly, now in the dock, in connection with the affray of July 9.

    Indeed, there would appear, on the face of it, some merit in the case; though it would take lawyers to establish the more fundamental basis for granting bail in the Lloyd matter. The Ahoada court apparently ruled on the basis of “fundamental human rights”; Lloyd, according to his counsel’s pleas, “having been detained for about two weeks now” and following reported certified medical report about his dipping health.

    Still, even with the medical alert, should the Ahoada court have shut its eyes to the fact that Lloyd was being docked for alleged offences in a Port Harcourt court of coordinate jurisdiction, in granting him bail and ordering the Police not to re-arrest him? Only legal experts can navigate that mire.

    Fortunately however, the Port Harcourt court also granted the suspect bail, thus averting the crisis of two courts of coordinate jurisdiction giving contrary rulings on a single case boasting similar facts, almost in every material particular.

    Mr. Obua did just fine as advocate of judicial sanity until he blundered on the sentence: “Why run to far away Ahoada, when the offence for which Hon. Lloyd was arrested, was committed in Port Harcourt?” That manifestly established Obua’s cant.

    Ahaoada is “far away” from Port Harcourt, uh? And Abuja: it is closer to Port Harcourt? On what basis is Obua parading himself as Rivers PDP chair – on the basis of a court sitting in Abuja or one sitting in Port Harcourt? Or has Rivers PDP headquarters suddenly shifted from Port Harcourt to Abuja? Which is nearer to Port Harcourt: Abuja or Ahoada?

    The Rivers PDP case is sub-judice; and the court will in the fullness of time dispose of it. But Mr. Obua’s outburst exposes the jaundiced mindset of political power players: when it suits them, it is fine. When exactly the same condition suits an opponent, it is not. That is why rigging, political or judicial, is their stock in trade!

    For the Chindas, it is cant coming from blood being thicker than water, even if they are humanly entitled to their passion for a son.

    But let’s assume Michael Chinda’s alleged batter has been docked. What is stopping the state to dock Chinda (whenever he is well and strong enough for trial) and his fellow G-5 for alleged battering of the Nigerian Constitution as regard impeachment quorums?

    Or, in the eyes of the family, is a batter of an individual more dangerous than a batter of the Law on which the whole society is erected, and could well come crashing down because of such assault and battery?

    Is the family, beyond the passion for a son, proud of that son for engaging in the G-5 legislative banditry, even if he has ended up as the most grievous scapegoat of that rascality?

    Let the law prosecute whoever is alleged to have committed a crime. If Lloyd is in the dock for allegedly battering Chinda, Chinda too must be docked for allegedly battering the Constitution. You cannot have one without the other.

    If you do, the result is the joke that opened this piece: “When your enemies sit in the assembly…” It is a grim endorsement of just desert, even if the physical result is ugly!

    Let those in temporary power govern fairly and justly, lest they become the butt of jokes of society which outlives every government.

    That is the grim moral from the tale of two scapegoats in Rivers!

  • All roads lead to Abuja?

    The latest circus of muscle-flexing over local government autonomy hardly comes as a surprise. If it seems an indication of how muddled our federalism has come to be in the hand of our slow-learning operators, it partly reflects the desperation in some quarters to perpetrate their retrogressive reign and anti-development agenda on the polity.

    I don’t want to go into the matter of how our federal lawmakers came to read their manual on federalism upside down. That is not important; at least not now. Rather, of great interest to me is that the two chambers of the National Assembly have taken their positions on the raging debate of local government autonomy: one for, the other against.

    The House of Representatives, persuaded that autonomy is the way to go, voted –according to the reports – overwhelmingly to give “full financial, administrative, executive and legislative autonomy to local government councils in Nigeria”.

    In the Senate, a determined group of minority senators – 34 in number – used the filibuster to deny the pro- autonomy senators the needed 73 votes! And that on an issue that have the potentials of altering the terrain of our federal practice!

    Should anyone therefore feign surprise that the division came that close? I don’t think anyone should. At least, not while everyone remains hung on the Niger Delta freebies and the rentier economy it promotes, and not when power is seen as an end an itself rather as an opportunity for service.

    I think I understand the Lower House’ love for the fancy word “autonomy” a phrase increasingly used exclusively for the councils. It starts from their opinion of the 36 governors as the bad boys who need to be stopped forthwith from dipping itchy fingers into the councils’ tills. Where the idea came from, I do not know but suffice to say that the attitudes of some of the governors, who, often times carry on like the Lords of the Manor have simply not helped matters.

    What could be wrong with councils insisting on taking control of their funds? I think there is a world of difference between being allowed to take charge of their affairs and the clamour to have council officials sit at table with their federal and states counterparts to share revenue from a common pool. How about blending the confounding three-tier federal arithmetic with the monthly conclave of 774+ 36+1 officials to share oil money in the name of autonomy? How does that square to the imperative to devolve more powers to the states?

    And to what effect? More funds for council officials to buy those fancy toys that make them objects of adoration in those far flung communities after leaving just enough left to pay the bills of their bored staff?

    What are the problems with our councils? I can number them in dozens. In the first place, I believe that the capabilities of our local councils are overstated. Majority are simply nowhere there yet, at least not as far as being agents of change and development is concerned. Take a trip to any of the rural local governments and you will be amazed at the number of absentee officials – officials on AWOL – men and women who only show up either when their wage is due or when there is something to share!

    No doubt, there are few exceptions in notably, urban local government areas which for obvious reasons, have very little choice than to perform even if minimally. The truth is that the records of our local councils overall, have been dismal. That explains why nothing of development is going on, and why basic social services are not provided at that level. Fact is; majority are no more than mere outposts for sharing the federal freebie.

    So how does the quest for “autonomy” cure what is fundamentally a structural problem? How does a monthly excursion to Abuja promote development or even lift the status of the local council? Will the craving to share in the wealth they did not help to create encourage responsible fiscal practice? Would it not produce alternate governors – officials who will consider themselves answerable to no one in the long run?

    This is where I believe that those pushing the autonomy miss the argument. It starts with their inability or unwillingness to isolate the problem. Left to me, we should rather be discussing whether indeed the current local government structure has not outlived its usefulness. Imagine the chairman of a local government whose internally generated revenue would not even suffice to purchase the diesel needed to run its generators making a case for autonomy. What he means is that he needs a licence to live off the wealth created by others. True autonomy means living off your sweat. Has anyone ever queried any chairman for spending their internal revenues the way they deem fit?

    I need to make one important point. I do not wish to suggest that the governors are entirely blameless in the mismanagement of our councils. Indeed, one of the problems is the absence of democracy at that level. The obverse side is that claims of meddlesomeness by the governors are often times exaggerated. The problems of the local governments are largely endogenous, hence my position that the prescription of autonomy is a wrong therapy to consider.

    While fiscal federalism is yet a long way yet in practice, let the local governments make do with what they have. Yes, we need democracy at the grass roots; we also need development. Autonomy in the circumstance cannot be the end. The councils surely have a long way to prove that they are worthy of our trust. They are a long way from there.