The Nation Newspaper

Category: Columnists

  • Transformational Leadership Revisited

    Transformational Leadership Revisited

    The following is an updated version of a piece that appeared on this page three years ago. There is good reason for an update. Three years ago, with the emergence of the Jonathan presidency following the demise of former President Yar’Adua and the leadership struggle within the ruling party, a good number of citizens concerned about the need for a new beginning through the instrumentality of a transformational leader, invested their hope in Jonathan’s ability to provide such a leadership. Even those who didn’t see a messiah in Jonathan had hoped that his background placed him in a better position to provide the leadership for change in policy and attitude that the country sorely needed. Three years after, the question is: what has changed?

    While developmental projects matter and leadership is rightly judged on the basis of its success or failure in promoting the welfare of the people, what is even more important is the ability of the leader to steer citizens on the path of moral rectitude and attitudinal change. The challenge of leadership is leading by example, and on this, the scorecard of President Jonathan has been far less than exemplary.

    Three years ago, when I wrote about transformational times with the challenge to the President to lead the charge, a commentator wondered whether it was a realistic challenge when a section of the country was already deploying the “s” word.

    I surmised at that time that the revival of the “s” word, where “s” stands for secession, had a lot to do with public cynicism about the real motives of political actors; and we all knew that it wasn’t the first time that provocative word was deployed, having featured periodically in the checkered political history of this country beginning in 1953, then 1966 and 1993.

    Indeed, in 1967, it was not just a word that was deployed; an act was performed with devastating consequences. Since the tasting of that forbidding fruit, however, it seems to me that we have all been forced to accept the reality of our common fate. We are in this lifeboat together, and we either float or sink together. It is this reality that trumps cynicism for me.

    On the assumption that none of us as individuals, zones, or nationalities is suicidal, the question is “how do we float together?” This question faced us in 1970 at the end of the civil war. It was not properly addressed. It faced us in 1993 after the debacle of the annulment. It was not properly answered. On those occasions, leadership hubris intruded the zone of rationality, and rationality retreated. We are faced with exactly the same question now, and it will not go away unless we address it satisfactorily.

    The life boat analogy is apt for my purpose. The various scenarios that can sink a lifeboat are present in the case of this country at this time. Imagine some of the occupants deliberately puncturing a part of the lifeboat. Or imagine more occupants brought into the boat without expanding the boat. Or imagine some of the occupants of the boat being disproportionately tasked with paddling while others are forever napping. Surely with these kinds of issues, only a miracle can save the boat and its occupants. And no doubt, many Nigerians now believe that with our present situation only a miracle can save the country. I think it serves us better to actively work for our miracle to happen.

    In the last few months, we have seen the deliberate and sustained effort to spread fear concerning the 2015 elections. Again, there is nothing new about this. We once heard a former president declare that an election in which he was not going to be a candidate was a do-or-die affair. And we saw an investment of raw power and intrigue of the meanest kind in the federal elections of 2007. We also saw the house of cards built by that investment crumble before our very eyes. Shouldn’t that have sent a signal that Nigerians wanted a different direction in the matter of electoral integrity? And now there is nauseating chatter over the airwaves about the hell to expect should Jonathan fail to get a second term. Shouldn’t this President have read from the pages of history—even our own limited history—that citizens reward leaders who truly lead and they revile those who rely on raw power with no moral compunction? But where is the presidential rebuke of the loose talk going on?

    Just to pick on the very recent incidents, the President failed to show true leadership in the matter of the Nigerian Governors’ Forum elections even after the unsolicited revelations from members of the Northern Governors Forum. Instead he intensified the vain rhetoric about party discipline. Must party discipline be prioritised over conscience?

    Now we are witnessing a further escalation of the same crisis as the Rivers State Assembly is engaged in a macabre dance, the calculated outcome of which may be a declaration of a state of emergency. Should this be the ultimate goal of the brains behind the crisis, the question is what does the President expect to gain? How a president benefit from a politically engineered crisis that is aimed at removing the institutions of governance of a state, including the governor? What legacy does the President expect?

    Of the very important issues that the Jonathan presidency was expected to tackle and resolve for a lasting legacy, none is more important than that of keeping this lifeboat afloat. For this to succeed, we have to pay careful attention to its need for restructuring to avoid leakage and provide for its expansion in the light of new occupants being brought in in waves. A transformational leadership passionate for the survival and prosperity of the country and imbued with integrity is needed for this purpose.

    Only incurable and irrational egoists believe that this country rests on a solid foundation and therefore is not in need of a fundamental restructuring. But to argue with an irrational egoist is not only to endorse irrationality but to become a partner in irrationality. I am not willing to do that.

    The founding fathers of this country were patriots to the core. They held conferences in which they deliberated passionately on a fitting constitution for the country. They zeroed in on a federal structure as the best in the light of diverse nature of its peoples. Each region was to have its own constitution, its own coat of arms and flag. Each region was to keep up to 50% of the resources coming out of its land and the sweat of its people. Each country was to be responsible for some vital aspects of the lives of its people, including their internal security, their health and their education. The system they agreed upon worked; it generated healthy competition among the regions. It was not the structure that faltered; it was human nature that led to its collapse.

    What will save this lifeboat at this transformational time is a genuine effort on the part of the President engaging those transformational leaders who in their various stations have paid their dues and made enormous sacrifices for the survival of the country thus far to come together once more in one accord. Even politicians who may be thinking only in terms of political or sectional interests should get it right this time that the possibility of satisfying such interests is minimal in the light of the imminent and present danger of collapse the country is facing.

    No one doubts the poverty of values this country is experiencing now. From the horror of armed robbers to Boko Haram insurgents beheading innocent victims, and kidnappers making daily living uncertain in cities, we are inching closer to a failed state. The President must now resolve to actively engage all stakeholders to save this lifeboat through fundamental restructuring and thus preserve his legacy. President Jonathan must now choose the noble art of statesmanship over the odious craft of politicking. This is what transformational leadership is about.

  • Time to govern; not electioneering

    We have about two years to go before the next elections in Nigeria, except in a few states where elections are due next year. The federal elections are not due until May 2015. Although I know that people generally say the campaign for the next election begins during swearing-in, but in our case in Nigeria, I think we are carrying things to an extreme. There is too much politics in this country and little time for governance and development. Our leaders seem to spend too much time on planning to stay in office than on helping the country to develop. Hardly does anybody pick the newspapers or listen to the news without politics dominating everything. I think we are getting to a point of saturation where people would just switch off from politics.

    Unfortunately, there is no other way of ruling a people than through politics and it is in nobody’s interest to go back to the old days of military dictatorship. But our politicians have to be very careful that they don’t by their behaviour invite the unthinkable. We have only reached the midway in this present dispensation and there is nothing to show for it. The country is earning billions upon billions of dollars in the sale of hydro-carbons without the people benefitting from it. There is still no power in most places in this country. In fact more power is generated by individual Nigerians than by the state. Statistics show that only about 20 percent of Nigerians benefit from electricity supply. I have a feeling that this is probably true as far as supply of portable water is concerned.

    It may seem a middle class obsession, but there is need to say once again that our roads have collapsed and they constitute a danger to every road user and these are in the majority because we have no trains on which to ride and flying is out of the reach of the average individual not to talk about the risk of flying in Nigeria where aviation infrastructure is pedestrian. There is so much to do in terms of governance and everyday should count. As they say, a day is a long period in politics; it should also be that a day is a long period in governance. Imagine what can be done if all the efforts being concentrated on politics were to be devoted to finding solutions to our problems in Nigeria. The reason for this overconcentration on politics is because strictly speaking, there are no political parties in Nigeria, what exists are ad hoc coalitions to win elections. The party organs are not developed and there are no party structures and most of the parties have no ideologies. Those of us who grew up in the days of the Action Group in the Western region know that apart from government, there was a parallel party organisation with distinguished party functionaries who kept politics going on while those in government faced squarely the problems confronting society. This is not so nowadays except perhaps in Lagos, where there seems to be a well-organized and parallel political party structure completely distinct from government. Some people have argued that that is why Babatunde Fashola is able to devote most of his time to governance rather than to politics. This dichotomy does not seem to happen anywhere else most especially at the federal level.

    What is going on right now is not healthy for democracy. Because at the end of the day, democracy is about people and if people feel that their lives are not being changed by the democratic process, they are likely to develop a nonchalant and negative attitude to the political process. Even in countries where the impact of government is being felt, people are increasingly disillusioned about political leaders. The ongoing protests in Turkey and Brazil should be an eye-opener for our leaders. I know that Nigerians generally would say “this cannot happen here”; this assumes that we are a different kind of humanity, but I think we are wrong. In a globalized world, anything that happens in one part of the world has reverberation all-over the world. The internet, is not limited by national frontiers and communication these days, have universal audience. This is why we have to be careful that we don’t get carried away by our leaders’ penchant for looting the treasury through their love for primitive accumulation of resources that should belong to the commonwealth of our people.

    I shudder to imagine what can happen to this country if our leaders do not learn lessons from other lands. I remember vividly what happened during the demonstration against removal of so-called fuel subsidy, a year or so ago. To many, it was an occasion to ventilate their feelings against government and there is nothing wrong in doing that, but to others, it was an occasion for unbridled criminality. There were stories of looting, rapes in such places as Ibadan and the outline areas of Lagos by criminals on the lunatic fringe who took the opportunity of the demonstration to rave and rant against society and to commit crimes. I barely escaped being killed near Ibadan when I was travelling from Ife to Ibadan very early on the day of the demonstrations. I say this because in the nature of revolutions, blind fury can take over well planned and well articulated plans of protests and manifestation against government action or inaction and when revolutions begin, nobody can predict its end, because revolution tend to consume its own children. Therefore, those who wish for revolutions and those who by their lack of vision and non-performance invite the wrath of society on their heads and the heads of all of us, need to be warned of the possibility of eventual chaos or doom that await us as a collectivity of people if we don’t do the right thing.

    It was J. F. Kennedy who said “those who make reforms impossible make revolution inevitable.” My old Professor of Political Science at the University of Ibadan, Reverend Father James O’Connell, wrote a paper in the sixties titled “The inevitability of instability in Nigeria”, which at the time was dismissed as the wild imagination of somebody from the ivory tower. We now know how prophetic, O’Connell has been proved. Instead of facing serious problems of governance, both the legislative and the executive branches of government in Nigeria are usually seized with the non-existent problems of creating new states and re-writing the constitution, and wasting resources in this regard. They create unnecessary debate over a six-year term for the president and governors and creation of innumerable number of states to satisfy the ambitious politicians who want to be governors of their little ethnic kingdoms, without thinking of the viability or not of their little areas or the relevance of whatever years a president or a governor spends to the development of the country.

    A cynic has described the Nigerian democracy as “government of the politicians, for the politicians and by the politicians.” The people hardly count in the reckoning by our leaders. This cannot go on forever without repercussion especially in the face of massive unemployment of young people, particularly, young graduates; substandard education at all levels because of lack of facilities; and financial inputs by the relevant bodies and also massive insecurity and general underdevelopment. It is always a shame when one goes to countries that are oil-producing like our own and compares our physical development with theirs; and these where countries that became independent around the same time as our country. The difference between them and us is leadership. We have been cursed by the problem of the right kind of leadership in our country. In a developing or underdeveloped country, leadership by example is everything. If we had a leader today who is not corrupt, who is forward thinking, who is development oriented and selfless, he can take this country within a generation to the highest point possible. Singapore and Lee Kuan Yew are examples, so also are Mahathir Mohammad and Malaysia.

  • To kill or not to kill?

    It is a debate as old as time itself. It is a sensitive issue because it involves life. Wherever the issue is being discussed, emotions run high because the discussants find it difficult to reach a consensus. It all has to do with capital punishment. Should condemned men be executed? Many will not blink an eye before saying yes they should be killed. Yet, there are others who frown on the death penalty.

    Those against death penalty believe that it is inhuman to take a life, no matter what the person might have done. These people are also quick to cite the Bible to strengthen their position. ‘’Thou shall not kill’’, they say, quoting the Bible. But the scripture is clear on the issue of killing. Even the Quran is also explicit on the matter.

    The two holy books draw a distinction between intentional and unintentional killings. They mince no words in their condemnation of intentional killing, which today may be likened to extra – judicial killing. Whoever kills another intentionally, the holy books say, should also be killed.

    Today, there is a raging debate in the land over the propriety or otherwise of capital punishment. The debate ensued over the execution of some condemned men a few weeks ago by the Edo State Government. The executed men had been found guilty of various offences by the court. Their execution followed a presidential directive that governors should no longer shy away from signing the death warrants of condemned men.

    Those against capital punishment say that despite its implementation, we still have cases of armed robbery, murder and related offences. So, they argue, why retain capital punishment when it has not deterred people from committing capital offences. We have been executing robbers as far back as the 1970s yet robbery has not ceased, they further argue. They may have a point, but the failure of a law to deter crime should not be an excuse for throwing away the baby and the bath water.

    If despite the so – called harsh punishment things are like this what will happen if the law is not in place. If the law is not there, things may be worst than they are now despite the human rights community’s misgiving about its effectiveness. Can we blame the laws ‘ineffectiveness’ on the upsurge of capital offences? What the human rights community seems to forget is that those with criminal tendencies will exhibit those traits no matter the ineffectiveness of the law in place. Human beings are very complex. Some express fear for the law, while others are ready to march on the face of the law. In that wise, should such people be allowed to go scot – free? What will become of the society if we allow such impunity?

    Nobody is happy seeing people tied to the stake and shot or put under the gallows, but for a safe, secure and saner society, these things must be done. When such happens, it is for the wise to draw a lesson from such episodes and refrain from things that could make them collide with the law. Execution as a form of punishment is to instil the fear of God in would – be criminals and also protect society. As the Americans would say, ‘’if you don’t want to do the time, don’t do the crime’’. Those who kill or rob know the consequences of their action and that is death. Even the Bible tells us that the wages of sin is death. What greater sin can there be than to rob or kill?

    Armed robbery and murder, lest I forget, are not offences against the victims alone; they are also offences against the state. This is why the state and not the individual prosecutes for murder and armed robbery. It is because of the sensitive nature of these offences that the state takes up the matter itself in order to avoid a scene in court if the victim’s family decides to prosecute. If the victim’s family is allowed to prosecute, chances are that another murder may be committed in court. Those who kill deserve to be killed. Nobody should take human life and be allowed to live thereafter. What is he living for? If a murderer feels somebody is not worthy of life, he too should be denied the benefit of living.

    Society is the worse for it when people take the lives of others for no just reason. Must we look the other way when such barbaric acts are perpetrated? If we decide to do nothing on such occasions, we will be digging our own grave without knowing it because soon we will have a society of killers. Things have not become worse than they are now because of the law which provides capital punishment for such offences. As I have observed, nobody is happy seeing criminals executed, not even judges, but then, they have a job to do, no matter how unpalatable it may be.

    Perhaps, this was why Justice

    Chukwudifu Oputa, then of

    the Supreme Court, noted in a 1985 murder appeal involving Josiah versus the state: “Justice is not a one – way traffic. It is not justice for the appeallant only. Justice is not even only a two-way traffic. It is really a three – way traffic – justice for the appellant accused of a heinous crime of murder; justice for the victim, the murdered man, the deceased ‘whose blood is crying to heaven for vengeance and finally, justice for the society at large, the society whose social norms and values had been desecrated and broken by the criminal act complained of’’. If justice must serve all these purposes outlined by Justice Oputa, it means that those condemned for murder or armed robbery must pay the ultimate price for their dastardly act or else society risks being at the mercy of criminals. We cannot afford that. With due respect to rights activists, the right of a convicted killer to life ends at the point he is found guilty of the crime. For criminals to maintain their right to life, they must do away with acts that can deprive them of this God given right. If they know how to kill, they should be ready to know how to die when they are caught.

    Killed in their prime

    It was the last thing the public expected to hear in the wake of the emergency declared in the Northeastern states of Adamawa, Borno and Yobe because of the Boko Haram insurgency. Since emergency was declared in those states on May 14, there appears to have been a lull in the sect’s activities until last Saturday when people believed to be its members hit a secondary school, killing 20 pupils and a teacher. These innocent kids were asleep when the killers struck around 5.30 am. No matter what anybody says, this was a premeditated act carried out with the intention of having the maximum effect. Those kids did not deserve to die that way. These were children sent to school so that tomorrow they can stand on their own and contribute to the socio – economic development of our country. Their dreams have been killed and our parents’ plans for them shattered. It is a callous and barbaric act which no sane person could have engaged in no matter the provocation. The killers carried out the act fully aware of what they were doing. It was a planned and deliberate act to provoke the country at large. Boko Haram carried out this attack because in recent times, it has been losing the terrorism war. Since soldiers arrived in those states, they have succeeded in pushing the Boko Haram insurgents out. Many of its members have fled to neighbouring countries, while those still around no longer move about freely. Since they have been caged, as it were, they needed to make a statement that they were still a force to reckon with. So, they resorted to killing these innocent souls just to make a point. What a mindless act. For too long, Boko Haram has been killing people and getting away with it. This time around, they should not be allowed to get away with the murder of these children. We must pursue this group to the end of the earth if need be in order to make it pay for this killing. Anything short of this will further embolden these killers. Can those campaigning against capital punishment now see why the penalty should be retained for grave offences such as this. I invoke the spirits of these children not to rest until their killers are brought to justice.

  • Rivers: Where are the elders?

    Rivers: Where are the elders?

    WHAT is going on in Rivers State?

    The scene is familiar. A group of lawmakers – usually infinitesimal in number -find their way into the House of Assembly chamber, grab the mace, proclaim one of them speaker and, apparently in a befuddled state of a newfangled legal muscle, proceed to make fundamental decisions. By the time the world learns about such actions, it is too late for sanity to prevail, too late to withdraw a bitter joke.

    That was the scenario on Tuesday at the Rivers State House of Assembly. Five lawmakers – they are often described as loyalists of Minister of State for Education Nyesom Wike; have they lost their identities? – seized the chamber to proclaim a new leadership that lasted just a few minutes. Governor Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi moved in to pull the brakes on the theatrics. The nonsense stopped after a few heads had been smashed.

    A source has just told me that the root of the Rivers crisis is money. Cash. As a corollary of this is 2015. The crisis in the local Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has been contrived to achieve a purpose, which surely is not to project the people’s interest, but to pursue personal designs for personal gains. I hope the actors do not think they can take the people for granted forever. When they realise the truth and rise, the consequences may be too grievous for us all to handle.

    A brief recall of some of the events. A court in Abuja handed over the leadership of the party to Felix Obuah as chairman. Obuah is believed to be loyal to Wike. Godspower Ake, who the Abuja court removed, is of Amaechi’s faction. He insists he was validly elected in an election Obuah never participated in. The House of Assembly suspended a local government chairman and his executives from office for alleged fraud. The party asked Amaechi to restore the council chiefs. He did not. He couldn’t have. The principle of the separation of powers will never allow that. The party suspended Amaechi and asked him to apologise for him to return to the party.

    Ever since, the Rivers crisis has been part of the trouble with the national PDP. Amaechi’s plan to retain his chairmanship of the Governors’ Forum became a fratricidal strife from which the forum is yet to recover. Governors became the subject of beer parlour jokes after Plateau State’s Jonah Jang maintained that he won the election with his 16 votes. Amaechi scored 19. Academic giants were seized by a strange frenzy in a bid to unravel the new theory of how 16 became bigger than 19 – the Nigerian politician’s latest contribution to scholarship. Till date, they are yet to resolve the mystery. Unable to conceal his questionable neutrality any longer, President Goodluck Jonathan embraced Jang, hosting him at the Villa.

    Amaechi was subjected to all manner of indignities. A recent visit of the First Lady shut down the Rivers capital city, Port Harcourt. He had to shelve some official engagements for as long as the Dame Patience Jonathan road show lasted. Many verbal grenades were hurled at him. The official aircraft that flew him to the Akure Airport was grounded in questionable circumstances. Before then, Rivers had lost some oil wells to its neighbour, Bayelsa, in what has been seen in many informed circles as an attempt to cripple the state financially.

    Amaechi and Commissioner of Police Mbu Joseph Mbu are not the best of friends. They are not working together. In fact, the governor says since Mbu’s arrival in the state, the crime rate has surged, adding that kidnappers are back in business and robbers have ended their holiday to seize the state by the throat. Mbu denies it all. He insists that he remains an impartial enforcer of the law and not an executioner of a political design drawn up from the very top as part of a line-up of activities to enfeeble Amaechi.

    The governor has remained pertinacious, saying the interest of the people is paramount. Nobody, it should be noted, has dismissed Amaechi’s achievements in many areas of development – health, education, infrastructure and all that. Why then is he having problems? Politics? Envy? Ambition?

    A school of thought says it is because Wike, a former associate and Chief of Staff to Amaechi, wants to succeed him, but that the governor has dismissed this as a mere dream because he and the minister are from Ikwerre. Others, he says, should be given a chance. Wike kicked. He launched into a war of attrition against Amaechi.

    Like a mere scratch of the skin, the Rivers crisis has grown into a sore that needs attention because of its potential to balloon into an infectious disease that will spread to other places and become difficult to heal. There are speculations that the main target of the madness in the House on Tuesday was Amaechi. If the five legislators had had their way, they would have initiated impeachment proceedings against the governor. Sounds strange? Yes. But, recall, dear reader, that recently, 16 was said to be bigger than 19. Besides, memories of such incidents are fresh. Dariye. Alamieyeseigha. Fayose. Impeachment is a long process, but our politicians sure know how to shorten any process. After all, doesn’t the end justify the means?

    The role of the police in this drama has been everything but noble. From just watching hoodlums harass the lawmakers on Tuesday, the police yesterday stepped up the game. They reportedly fired teargas into the Government House as they pursued people who had come to show solidarity with the embattled governor.

    Where is the Constitution in all this? Where is the rule of law on which the Jonathan presidency has built its shaky public image? With businesses shut down yesterday as policemen chased protesters around the city, there is a clear invitation to anarchy. Presidential aide Dr Doyin Okupe has said his boss is not involved in the crisis, adding that Amaechi is too small for Dr Jonathan to fight. Hold it doc; that is wrong. The issue is not Amaechi. Why should the President watch as a part of the country is being wracked by anarchists who don the garb of politicians. Shouldn’t he show he is not part of this morbid game – many believe he is –?

    Those former militants who made a living by fighting the law are back in business. They are leading the assault on the state’s constituted authority – obviously with official backing. Isn’t this a costly way of keeping ex-militants busy?

    Nigerians, ever inventive, have started cracking jokes with the Rivers situation. A friend sent me this: “Dad & Son.”

    Son: Dad, why are you training in martial arts?

    Dad: It has been entrenched in our constitution as part of the criteria to contest elective office.

    Son: Are you sure, dad, that we now have such in our constitution; since when?

    Dad: Oh my son, yesterday the Rivers State House of Assembly was suddenly turned into a boxing ring. I need to acquire skills to defend myself when I become a honourable member.

    But the Rivers crisis is no laughing matter. It is the type that makes decent people fulminate. Where are the elders? Should the nonsense in Rivers be allowed to go on? The other day at the Villa, a group of Rivers indigenes, among them some notable individuals, visited the President. They poured invectives on Amaechi, casting him in the mould of an implacable brat. That is not the way of elders who are expected to be custodians of public morality and wisdom. It is politics taken too far.

    It is good that the National Assembly has stepped into the matter. The nonsense in Rivers must be arrested. It should not be allowed to spread. With a state of emergency in three states, the fiendish bloodletting in Plateau and the communal clashes all over the place, Nigeria seems to be overdrawing its account in the bank of peace. It may hit the red.

    Rivers indigenes have a big role to play in the resolution of this crisis, which is part of the long-predicted implosion of the ruling PDP. They should demand peace and decency. But, again, where are the elders?

  • 2015:  A revisit to the diarchy option

    The omen of 2015 is unsettling. As the desperation, scheming, and intrigue unfold, the fate of our nation after 2015 looks uncertain. As if it is a family title, the South-south exuberant youth and octogenarian militants are saying, it is Jonathan or there will be no Nigeria. It is difficult to know where the South-east stands. The North like the ostrich, with its head buried in the sound, while blaming her adversity on unfair sharing of oil revenue, is insisting power must return to its traditional place-the north. The South-west is wary of casting its lot with President Jonathan it helped into

    power for marginalizing and uprooting its people from the commanding heights the economy. The rest of the Middle-Belt for fear Islamisation of their area, preach ‘an eye for an eye’ like their Islamic fundamentalist counterparts.

    Yet the beneficiaries of the current anarchy have ignored a call to discuss many of our self-induced crises. In the midst of massive corruption and culture of arbitrariness, the guardian of the democratic process has become intolerant of dissent. They insist they must rule for 60 years. Last month, leading lights of the party publicly swore that members would rather die than let go of power. Many of those behind the creation of a mega party to confront the PDP evil have no ideological orientation. As if these are not enough threat to 2015 elections, we are fighting elusive religious fundamentalists that amidst state of emergency, and deployment of soldiers, strolled into secondary school boarding houses and university student living quarters, murder our children and our future in their dozens.

    That the political class has failed is perhaps an understatement. Perhaps it is time to revisit the diarchy option which apart from allowing soldiers direct participation in government also make them watchdog over the conduct of politics and public life. This call is not new.

    At the beginning of the fourth republic, in September 1998, the Northern Elders Forum (NEF), after a meeting in Kaduna  in a communiqué signed by its  Secretary, Senator A. M. Gani and  chairman, Alhaji Aliko Mohammed said “more realistic civilian/military relationship should be considered in order to ensure a stable polity”. Much earlier, precisely in October 1972, Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe came under virulent attack when he first mooted the idea.

    The argument of anti-diarchy group has been that the military is ill-equipped, ill-educated  and ill-tempered to manage society and that they  are in fact the cause of the decay we have in our society today. But those reasons are in fact why the military in my view should be given responsibility to contribute towards finding solution to the mess they have made of our society since they came as custodians and liberators in 1966 ostensibly to deal with those who had undermined the electoral process during the first republic.

    It was true the inheritors of power in 1959, instead of deepening democratic principles, destroyed opposition and followed up with the rigging of the 1964 election. History repeated itself in 1983. The election was massively rigged, and the sea and land slide victory of NPN brought the military in 1984. After eight years of Babangida’s ‘transition without end’, Babangida imposed Ernest Sonekan as a stop-gap for Abacha the maximum ruler. Following Abacha’s death, Abdulsalami Abubakar, the caretaker along with retired military well-heeled officers imposed Obasanjo. Beside those who operated behind the scene, the stars of Obasanjo administration include Aliyu Gusau, Theophilus Danjuma, Bode George, Ahmadu Alli, Olagunsoye Oyinlola, David Mark, Jonah Jang, Abubakar Atiku and Tony Anenih among many others.

      Obasanjo at the end of his second term imposed Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, the younger brother to the late General Shehu Musa Yar’Adua who was the equivalent of a prime minister under him as military Head of State in the in 1979. He publicly admitted imposing President Jonathan when the search for his (Jonathan) replacement took him to Jigawa State recently.

    The truth is that the Nigerian military has since 1966 surreptitiously wielded power and influence, controlled the commanding heights of the economy either directly or by proxy. They do all this without being accountable to Nigerians. ‘It has been power without responsibility’. Diarchy will make the military accountable.

    We must also not lose sight of the enduring legacies of the military when tamed and managed by visionaries and those trained to manage society such as Obafemi Awolowo, Tony Enahoro, Aminu Kano, Ahmed Joda, Phillip Asiodu and others. We fought a 33 months civil war without borrowing money. We had a viable working federation of 12 states that had been impossible to create due to the selfishness of three dominant ethnic groups; Hausa/Fulani, Igbo and Yoruba before the

    collapse of the first republic. They bequeathed on Nigeria pillars of unity such as NYSC, Federal Government Colleges, enduring monuments like Murtala Mohammed International Airport, Third Mainland Bridge, the now collapsed Lagos/ Ibadan, Sagamu/Benin express ways and their equivalents elsewhere in the nation. They presided over a nation with a solid economic base.

    If our bureaucracy, the best in Africa , if our university system, highly regarded in the world, if our teaching hospitals that ranked very high among the Commonwealth countries collapsed, blame reckless military adventurers like Murtala Mohammed and Obasanjo who destroyed these institutions out of share ignorance. If our ‘economy started heading for the rocks’ in the early eighties, blame Obasanjo who in 1979 said the best Nigerian manager of man and resources did not necessarily have to emerge as Nigerian president. If the economy finally collapsed, and if corruption became institutionalized, blame Babangida with his ‘army of anything is possible”, who embraced IMF-inspired privatization through which they shared our national patrimony among themselves and their cronies.

    I am also aware of the argument of anti-diarchy to the effect that the cure for imperfections of democracy is more democracy. But while it is true that democracy has become the new god worshipped by all nations including those ruled by dictators, we must also define our own variant of democracy. Do we want to pattern hours after the French’s ‘Liberty, equality and fraternity, that has left France economy prostrate, or after those of communist China and Russia that have helped them to move their nations from one that could not feed its citizens a few years back to become the second biggest economy in the world and from one that was a few years back a candidate for aid but now inching back to its former position as a world power? What we have in the last 14 years is not democracy but anarchy.  If diarchy with restricted freedom guarantees “responsiveness of government to the people, justice, and civil liberties of thought, speech writing, and worship”, we will still not be too far away from the initial concept of democracy by the Greeks.

    And if the true test of democracy is election, who else but soldiers can cure those who insist Nigeria is doomed if their tribal representative loses  election, that their party must rule for 60 years or that they are ready to die rather than lose power, of their madness? Without a balance of terror, those who have consistently undermined the electoral system since 1964, and have now elevated election to ‘a do or die affair’; those responsible for widespread poverty, illiteracy, injustice, social discontent, all of  which reduce the electorate to easy tools for manipulation; those who under fund and undermined  the institutions needed for safeguarding democracy, like the police, the electoral body, judiciary, and the mass media will continued to be let loose on our nation.

  • Sanusi’s CBN ‘Medical Tourism’: Bigger medical budgets, Medical entrepreneurship

    Sanusi’s CBN ‘Medical Tourism’: Bigger medical budgets, Medical entrepreneurship

    Medical tourism’ complained about by CBN’ Governor Sanusi saves the lives of those who can afford it or have sufficient government-CBN connections for them to pay. For over 40 years, we doctors were strangled and made medically impotent by government-orchestrated limited budgets and obsolete equipment. For how long will Nigeria be satisfied with the cheapest medical equipment? We in medicine manage to cater for the ‘rest of us’ -100+million or are forced to go on strike to guarantee ‘minimum facilities’ and remuneration compared to the bullion raked in by politicians. Nigeria operates a ‘Minimum Medical Service’ when we can afford ‘optimum’ or ‘gold standard; services for our people. Medical tourism is about citizens’ rights to maximum medical services which we in Nigeria can easily afford by increasing medical budgets, eliminating corruption in the medical delivery system and providing 24/7 electricity.

    As I write, the Indians are coming with medical equipment bought with loans from Indian billionaires and banks at 3-4% to ‘take over’ medical services and ‘improve’ hospitals providing ‘superior service’. If Nigerians had cheap and easy medical loans, would we not have the best equipment also?  Many doctors, including me, seek N2-4.8m soft loans for the best ultrasound and other machines payable over 3-5years at 3-5% interest per annum –like for a car in the 1970s. Why should hard working professionals in Nigeria, who deliver services, be denied government perks and tax breaks that rice, cement, sugar, tobacco and oil marketers got in every military and political era that made Nigerians paupers and them billionaires? I too would like to be billionaire but I would prefer to serve my patients with better equipment! God knows we have worked hard. But life is worthless in Nigeria. Ask any teacher or patient.

    But even sartorially elegant and ‘wise’ Sanusi, his CBN and banks have got it wrong. It is simply a ‘lack of funds’ issue. The problem is not with the medical tourists’ right to obtain the best for themselves. In fact the medical tourists are as wise as Sanusi as they have the good sense to avoid contracting more diseases and even dying in dirty-walled and filthy ‘mattressed’ casualties in concentration camps called hospitals. Even if we refuse to get good equipment why is it impossible for Nigeria’s budgets to paint hospitals and clinics quarterly, annually, before they get filthy? Visit any government casualty room. You will be sick! The problem is with the money supply side. Nigeria constantly fails to provide funds for cleanliness and cutting edge medicine. The national and state budgets and the CBN fail to recognise government hospitals, let alone private medical practice among others, as genuine profession-driven entrepreneurship strategies. Yet private practice employs tens of thousands of Nigerians in hospitals and clinics. Is that not ‘Medical Entrepreneurship’?

    Many specialists still inside government facilities have personally acquired specialist skills which waste away without saving any Nigerians because the skills need cutting-edge equipment maliciously cut by politicians from the hospital budget. Though these hospitals are often named ‘specialist’ there is nothing specialist delivered to the patient-just mediocre medicine. Do you know what a radiologist, radiotherapist, neurosurgeon, laparoscopic surgeon, plastic surgeon, orthopaedic surgeon or a maxillofacial trauma surgeon or an obstetrician and gynaecologist need to deliver maximum service to Nigerians?

    Recent open heart surgery, kidney transplants, being bandied around as breakthroughs, are not new. They were performed 35 years ago in Nigeria by Nigerian doctors but the programmes died in an ‘agony of broken medical dreams’ from political budgetary neglect by idiotic governments when the title ‘Centres of Excellence’ was created to make a laughing stock of ‘Centres of Extreme Suffering’. From that time Nigerian medicine was dragged into disrepute and thousands of medical professionals wisely fled with their qualifications abroad to cater better for family and brain. Locally professionals were rendered redundant by the politics. Even in private practice the cost of cutting-edge medical equipment to replace obsolete machines is a huge obstacle to entrepreneurial development.

    Nigerian medicine requires petrodollars to be like medicine abroad. It demands cutting-edge equipment – the main ‘medical tourist attraction’. In Nigeria, cutting-edge equipment paradoxically costs more than in the UK. Decent medical loans are not available but N5million loans and N500,000 obituary pages are plentiful to bury the dead.

    Sanusi’s CBN should earmark N1billion for professionals in government and private practice for cheap, easy loans for ‘Professional Entrepreneurial Development’ in self-recognition, guaranteed by the NMA or their professional body.

    Even the ‘wise’ NMA has failed to negotiate such loans for its 30,000+ membership, though it has an annual budget of N2-300million of its members’ money. Can the NMA suspend most of its huge budget for administration, travel and five-star hotel accommodation and put N100m per annum for 20 years towards a powerful N1-2billion NMA Bank or NMA Coop Bank to guarantee its membership equipment and loans and get international grants? The NMA should also insist that state NMA should not beg governors for vehicles but save N1m/annum/state in a ‘Vehicle Fund’ to guarantee a new NMA vehicle every four years. Myopia!  If government refuses to improve medicine, the NMA should take up the challenge and lead in Medical Entrepreneurship promotion if CBN will refuse to recognise ‘Medical Entrepreneurship’ and prefers to merely criticise those who want the best medical care worldwide.

    To be continued.

     

    PS Please pray for those using delayed, damaged and ‘dead’ on the misnamed Lagos Ibadan Expressway.

     

  • FG’s mandate to Unilorin

    On his maiden visit to the University of Ilorin in the last week of June, the new Pro-Chancellor and Council Chairman of the University, Prof. Chukwuka Okonjo, came with a message from the Federal Government, the institution’s proprietor. The respected Obi of Ugwashiuku, Delta State, told a cross section of the university stakeholders that the Federal Government, worried by the wonky standard of education in the country, has a new mandate for the University of Ilorin to help salvage the nation’s dwindling global educational rating and restore Nigeria to its former position of reckoning in world universities’ ranking.

    He further disclosed that the authorities in Abuja are worried that despite the fact that Nigeria is the second fastest growing economy in the world today, none of its universities is ranked among the best 5000 in the world. Obi Okonjo however explained that the antecedents of the University of Ilorin have given the government some confidence that with the necessary support, the University could make Nigeria proud. “There used to be a time when Nigeria used to feature as one of the best 200 universities in the world”, the Council Chairman said, adding that “It is important that you understand that we are in a new era; the people in Abuja want you (Unilorin) to show that Nigeria can deliver and within the next two or three years, they want you (Unilorin) to ensure that Nigeria is among the best 500 universities in the world”.

    Keen watchers of the steadily rising profile of the University of Ilorin in the last five to six years are not at all surprised by the decision of the Federal Government to pick the university to pioneer the implementation of this noble vision. Over the years, the university has proved to be a centre of academic excellence. In the past four years, Unilorin has been consistently ranked the best university in Nigeria by different international ranking agencies including Web of World Universities (Webometric), which ranked the university the best in Nigeria for three consecutive years of 2009, 2010 and 2011, and one of the best 20 in Africa. Statistics have also shown that the University has the most stable and consistent academic calendar in the country, which makes it the most sought after institution by admission seekers.

    All these feats are not lost on education policy makers in the country, who, at every given opportunity, do not fail to acknowledge the numerous giant strides recorded by the “better by far” university. During their separate oversight visits to the University on May 7, 2013 and June 1, 2013, members of the House of Representatives and Senate Committees on Education could not hide their impressions about the academic excellence and environmental aesthetics of the university as well as the peaceful and orderly comportment of its staff and students. The respective chairmen of the two National Assembly committees spoke glowingly about the university.

    The Chairman of the Senate Committee on Education, Senator Uche Chukwumerije, who led his colleagues to the institution, commended it for maintaining a stable academic calendar for over 10 years, noting that it is a great achievement for any university in Nigeria to maintain such academic excellence despite the prevailing challenges. He said that “this academic stability is a feat which should make the University of Ilorin a model to all universities in Nigeria.”

    Similar sentiments were expressed about four weeks earlier by members of the House of Representatives Committee on Education, led by Hon. Shehu Garba. After meeting with the university management and a drive round the campus to inspect on-going and newly completed projects, the lawmakers gave kudos to the university “for its accomplishments in the areas of academic excellence, efficient system of administration, environmental beautification, infrastructural development and sustained high ranking among universities in the world.”

    The leader of the House of Representatives team further noted: “As a Nigerian I am very proud to be at the University of Ilorin. I graduated close to 30 years ago and I am worried by what has become of the standard of education in our country since then. But for me to be here and seeing what I have seen, I feel very hopeful and I feel elated that in the midst of the decay that we have an institution of excellence with very beautiful infrastructure.

    He went on: “I believe that it is not just the beautiful infrastructure; that we are all aware of the ranking of the University of Ilorin in the comity of universities in the world. You are one of the few universities in the country that is often mentioned outside Nigeria as a centre of academic excellence. And so I feel very proud to come here to see things for myself. I must commend the Vice-Chancellor and his able team for the good things they are doing. I must say that you have a lot of prospects to build on what you have been able to accomplish to give us something that we can be proud of that we have an institution in this country that can be compared with any reputable university in the world.”

    It could be seen from the foregoing that truly, the confidence that the Federal Government has on the ability and willingness of the University of Ilorin to deliver on the new mandate is not misplaced. And it is heart-warming to note that all stakeholders in the university community are enthusiastically keying into the government’s vision, a situation that makes its implementation easy and its attainability assured.

    While assuring the Federal Government of the University’s readiness to implement the government’s new vision to the letter, Obi Okonjo, said the new university council, under his chairmanship, has taken up the government’s challenge and prayed God to lead the council to formulate appropriate policies to achieve the task. Also, the university’s Vice-Chancellor, Prof. AbdulGaniyu Ambali, noted that the Federal Government has given the University of Ilorin a big task, adding that “every staff member of the university has a responsibility to champion this new thinking of the Federal Government”.

    Prof. Ambali also said, “It is heartwarming that the Federal Government, based on our antecedent, has singled Unilorin out to be the pioneer of the new formula of tertiary education in the country and we are ready for the task.”

    Also, all the staff unions on campus and the student body have expressed their readiness to continue to give the management the necessary complementary support in its determined effort to ensure the full and successful implementation of the new government mandate. This is reassuring, as it means that all stakeholders in the university are on the same page. And nothing demonstrates this assurance better than what the Unilorin Branch Chairman of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Prof. Abdulwahab Egbewole, said during the meeting between the council chairman and leaders of all the staff unions in the university, i.e. ASUU, SSANU, NASU, and NAAT. The ASUU leader said, “The mantra of our union, which is unionism for development, coincides with the vision to make the University of Ilorin the best in Africa”.

    What more evidence does one need that at Unilorin, the urge for advancement runs in the veins of every stakeholder? And, to put it succinctly, that is the secret of the University’s quantum leap in all spheres of its endeavours these past few years.

    To be sure, the University of Ilorin is ready, willing and able for the task ahead, a task that is in synch with its founding philosophy of excellence in teaching, research and community development.

    • kogun is Deputy Director, Corporate Affairs, University of Ilorin

     

  • Egypt: Thumbs down for Morsi

    Egypt: Thumbs down for Morsi

    The security situation in Egypt has continued to deteriorate following last week’s ouster of Mohammed Morsi, the country’s first freely elected civilian President. Morsi was overthrown by the Egyptian military following weeks of widespread protests over his style of governance, which many described as “high-handed, autocratic and uncompromising”. For some time, the country has been plagued by a crumbling economy resulting in shortfall in fuel supplies and electricity, among other unbearable hardships foisted on the Egyptian people for quite some time now.

    On July 1, the Egyptian army delivered a 48-hour ultimatum that required Morsi to find a quick resolution to the political impasse. He could not. At the expiration of the deadline, the military high command, led by Abdul Fatah Saeed Hussein Al-Sisi, more commonly known as General Sisi, took over Egypt and installed Adly Mansour, Chief Justice of the Supreme Constitutional Court and a foe of Morsi, as interim President. After the change of government, the army suspended the constitution and has been carrying out massive crackdown on members of the Muslim Brotherhood on charges ranging from “inciting violence to disturbing the general security and peace” of the country. With this, the country seems to be hooked on a cliff-hanger as the Muslim Brotherhood are largely displeased about the turn of events.

    Prior to the ouster of Hosni Mubarak from office in 2011, the Muslim Brotherhood has been engaged in sporadic violence for the control of political power. The exit of Mubarak opened a vista of opportunity for the organisation who wrestled power from the hands of the politicians. It is, therefore, expected that Egypt could relapse into a regime of violence if the present situation is not properly managed. For now, fighting has erupted across the country between supporters of Morsi and his opponents, leaving several people dead and many more injured. The violence erupted as Morsi’s supporters held massive protests across the country, calling for his reinstatement.

    Morsi became the nation’s President barely a year ago, but failed to fix the nation’s ailing economy or improve its crime statistics, among other accusations. Human Rights Watch said he had continued abusive practices established by ousted Mubarak, who ruled Egypt for three decades with iron-fist. Numerous journalists, political activists and others were prosecuted on charges of ‘insulting’ officials or institutions and spreading false information.

    Surprisingly, the United States, U.S’ reaction to the unfolding political scenario has, at best, been tepid and measured. The Barack Obama administration is turning to top officials of his government to tout democracy, political transparency and peaceful protest for Egypt, a message that has taken on a hollow tone. This is just as everybody seems to be eagerly awaiting a quick and responsible return of full authority to a democratically elected civilian government as soon as possible in the country. But behind the scenes, the U.S. was signalling to Egypt and its allies that it accepts the military’s decision to depose Morsi, and was hoping that what fills the vacuum of power would be more favourable to U.S. interests and values than Morsi’s Islamist government.

    However, those hopes were tempered by very real concerns that a newly emboldened military would deal violently with the Muslim Brotherhood thereby sending Egyptian society further into chaos and making reconciliation more difficult. The Obama administration’s stance, which carefully avoided the legal implications of calling the military’s intervention a coup, won something of a bipartisan endorsement last Friday from Republican Representative, Ed Royce of California, and Democrat Eliot Engel of New York, who issued a joint statement that criticised Morsi for not embracing “inclusiveness, compromise, respect for human and minority rights, and a commitment to the rule of law.”

    Indeed, the Obama administration is facing difficult choices. If it denounced the ouster of Morsi, it could be accused of propping up a ruler who had lost public support. Yet, if it supported the military’s action, the administration could be accused of fomenting dissent or could lose credibility on its commitment to the democratic process. This is probably why the administration is acting as if it accepts what happened in Egypt – and actually believes it could turn out for the best with the Islamist Morsi no longer in charge. At the same time, officials are attempting to keep their distance, laying down signposts for what they want to see in the long term while challenging the military to make sure that happens.

    The concern being expressed all over the place is that, in the short term, the situation could spiral out of control, with the military using the clamour in the streets as an excuse to confront the Muslim Brotherhood with excessive force. By laying emphasis on U.S. aid in conversations with Egyptians without cutting it off, the U.S. leaves room for the escalation of the situation if need be, but it is also ready to work with Egypt’s new government if it moves in the right direction. The military leaders have assured the Obama administration that they were not interested in long-term rule following the overthrow of Morsi. The swearing-in of Adly Mansour, the head of the Supreme Constitutional Court as the country’s interim President, illustrates the military’s desire to be seen as committed to quickly returning the nation to civilian control.

    Whichever way the present political configuration is viewed, there is a threat of imminent chaos looming over the country. Since more than 22 million signatories drew the line on the sand for Morsi, everybody knew that the days of the regime were numbered. By far, this 22 million outnumbered those who had voted for him barely a year ago because he was not elected with a landslide but a slim victory, which arose from the coalition of several interests.

    No sooner had he stepped into office than Morsi started baring his fangs. He collided with the courts in 2012 and gradually alienated the people. He toyed with power and, by so doing, he inadvertently wrote his own obituary. Morsi was a complete disaster. As an engineer in power, he would have demonstrated what it takes to sustain his regime but failed woefully due to his complacency and obduracy. Morsi’s government was a regime because even though he emerged through the ballot box, Egypt has never been a full democracy. Morsi would have been a transitional regime to real democracy in the country, but he bungled the great opportunity to write his name in gold. He just did not demonstrate or develop sufficient understanding of what to do. That was why the military stepped in to stop the drift.

    It is hoped that being the epicentre of Arab civilisation, Egypt will quickly get itself together. But people are still divided over what to call what happened last week. Many say it was a coup. Many others disagree, preferring to call it a popular revolution. Those who call it a people’s revolt or revolution may be right after all. However, in Jurisprudence, when a drastic change has been brought about outside the constitution, it amounts to a coup. Nevertheless, when you have an obdurate regime, a self-seeking, self-centred government, the military will always step in.

    Therefore, the exit of Mohammed Morsi signals the collapse of religious politics in Egypt. This is because the Muslim Brotherhood politicised religion and stifled opposition. According to the Egyptian constitution, political parties are allowed to exist but religious political parties are not as they would not respect the principle of non-interference of religion in politics and that religion has to remain in private sphere so as to respect all beliefs. The Muslim Brotherhood failed to take any cognisance of this.

    Though the African Union has a non-obligatory clause not to recognise unconstitutional governments, but as the situation stands today, this may not hold much water in Egypt where a successful revolution has just taken place. While Egyptians are happy for the change, many African countries are mortified. I believe the other African States should only be wary of the military if the leaders are not accountable, if they are reckless or condoning corruption. These are sure recipes for military take-over!

  • On ethics and leadership in Africa (II)

    On ethics and leadership in Africa (II)

    General Ibrahim Babangida’s SAP which has since become entrenched as the country’s unofficial directive principles of state policy – the management of our political-economy since the return of civilian rule in 1999 with its ideology of deregulation, privatisation, liberalisation, retrenchment of the public sector, removal of subsidies, etc, is SAP in all but name – may have unleashed the entrepreneurial spirit of Nigerians but by the time he left office in August 1993 it had failed to deliver the goods.

    To make matter worse, General Sani Abacha, his minister of defence whom he had left behind in the interim government he set up under Chief Ernest Sonekan, following his inexplicable annulment of the presidential election of June 12 which was widely adjudged as free and fair, overthrew Sonekan in November 1993 and brought the military fully back into power once again. Ironically, Babangida had said he had left Abacha behind to rein in the soldiers and give Sonekan’s administration some teeth.

    For the next five years Abacha ruled the country with an iron-fist and headed what arguably became the most venal administration since independence – until President Olusegun Obasanjo came along in May 1999.

    When Abacha seized power in November 1993, he promised to be “brief” but, instructively, refused to be drawn on how brief. Five years later, he seemed to have eliminated, compromised or neutralised all opposition to what became his obvious agenda of transforming himself from a military dictator into an “elected” civilian president.

    In June 1998, he died a sudden and mysterious death. He was quickly succeeded by his Chief of Defence Staff, General Abdulsalami Abubakar. Abubakar promised a quick transition to civilian rule and kept his word; in May 1999 he handed over to General Obasanjo who had been released from a life sentence for his alleged involvement in a coup attempt against Abacha after which he was “persuaded” to become the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the largest of the three parties registered by the Abubakar regime. He handily won the election.

    As a critic of every administration since 1979 when he handed over power to President Shehu Shagari following his succession of General Murtala Muhammed who was assassinated in February 1976, Nigerians came to expect much from a civilianised President Obasanjo.

    Eight years and a failed attempt to extend his tenure beyond the two term limit later, Obasanjo dashed those expectations. Worse, he seemed to have surpassed those he had criticised in the venality his administration engaged in, as has been exposed by several National Assembly investigations of many of his policies and decisions.

    In those eight years his regime collected far more revenues, mostly oil, than all the regimes before his second coming combined. Yet the country’s decayed infrastructure – roads, electricity, schools, water, etc – over which he excoriated previous regimes, got worse. Meanwhile, a few Nigerians, including himself, had become stupendously rich.

    To appreciate the size of the gap between Obasanjo’s rhetoric and his deeds one needs only examine why the “African Renaissance” the great Nelson Mandela predicted in 1994 following the collapse of Apartheid in his native South Africa has failed to take off nearly twenty years hence.

    To give this “African Renaissance” a concrete form, Thabo Mbeki, South Africa’s second black president after Mandela, along with Obasanjo, Algeria’s Abdelaziz Bouteflika, Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak, and Senegal’s Abdoulaye Wade, initiated a New Partnership for African Development in 2001 which was supposed to engage Europe and America in a partnership that would jump-start Africa’s economic development.

    On its part, the rich world was to increase its aid to Africa and open up its borders for a more equitable trade with the continent. In return Africa was to eschew its dictatorial past and become more market-oriented.

    One of the things Africa did to prove its goodwill was to establish a Peer Review Mechanism in 2001 through which Africa leaders would subject each other to peer pressure to fight corruption and waste and tyranny on the continent. Obasanjo was a key figure in setting up the mechanism.

    Another thing the continent did in the same year was replace the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) which had degenerated into a mutual back-slapping talking shop, into African Union (AU) with a mandate to intervene in the affairs of its member states anytime the need arose. This was a critical break from OAU’s hitherto sacrosanct principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of member states by outsiders – a principle which allowed African leaders to treat their countries as private chattels. Again Obasanjo was a key player in this transformation.

    However, while he preached all these virtues abroad back home the man practised the opposite. For example, he set up various institutions to fight corruption and waste, but corruption only thrived because he used the institutions in a selective way to fight his perceived enemies, especially anyone who opposed his agenda of self-entrenchment, while simultaneously rewarding his supporters whatever their misdeeds.

    Again, while he preached democracy abroad, he eliminated internal democracy in his own party and tried to neutralise the opposition parties by planting fifth columnists in the ranks of their leadership to undermine their viability. Nationwide he installed what one of the many PDP party chairmen he whimsically hired and fired called “garrison democracy,” a democracy where dissent was regarded as treason.

    Tragically, Obasanjo was merely typical of the continental leaders in their attitude of preaching virtues abroad but mostly practicing vices at home.

    With such an attitude it is not surprising that Africa has remained the most backward region in the world. Obviously, if it is to have any hope of catching up with the rest of the world its leaders must learn to practice what they preach.

    Of course, this is easier said than done. For one thing, even though ethics, at least some, may be universal, they are open to interpretations. One man’s loyalty, for example, may be another’s disloyalty. Second, ethics may sometimes be in conflict with one another and one may have to choose one over another. Third, all too often we view leadership too narrowly through political prism as the man on top, whereas each one of us, as both the Qur’an and the Bible say, is a shepherd and we will have to account for our responsibilities in whatever role we play in society and at whatever level.

    All this notwithstanding, we simply have to make choices. And the mark of leadership is the ability to choose well in the most difficult times based on what is in the greatest interest of the greatest number.

    Personally given a choice among the many virtues leaders should posses, I will pick five as the most important. These are honesty, transparency, equity, justice and fairness, not necessarily in that order.

    In politics and economics, I will definitely put equity on top because inequity wastes talent and undermines social cohesion which in turn easily leads to, among other vices, the violent crimes and ethnic and religious conflicts that have bedevilled society every where on the continent.

    Inequity is when our “elected” leaders spend more money on their creature comforts than on the necessities of life in a country, like Nigeria, where more than half the population live on less than a dollar a day. Inequity, in a more concrete way, is when, for example, senior officials of a ministry spend over N2.7 billion in one year globe-trotting and the minister feels absolutely no remorse when confronted by the legislators that exercise oversight over his ministry. Instead, the minister, Chief Ojo Maduekwe, in charge of foreign affairs, would counter the legislators’ criticism by arguing that “diplomacy is all about visibility”.

    In short, unless Africa’s leaders eschew the vices of corruption, tyranny, waste, etc, and imbibe the virtues of honesty, transparency, equity, fairness, justice, etc, Africa will continue to remain the proverbial “dark continent,” literally as well as figuratively.

     

  • NGF and NBA leadership

    The National Executive Committee of the Nigerian Bar Association held its last bi-monthly meeting from July 5-7, at Yenogoa, Bayelsa State. At the end of the meeting the NBA President, Okey Wali SAN was reported to have called for the proscription of the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF) in view of the controversy which had trailed the outcome of the re-election of Governor Rotimi Amaechi as its chairman. Wali, SAN must have forgotten that his own election was serioulsly contested by his major opponent, Emeka Ngige SAN. In spite of the fact that the allegations of malpractice (including the fact that some lawyers who died several years ago voted from the grave!) were proved beyond reasonable doubt no one ever suggested that the NBA be proscribed. However, while I reject the insinuation in certain legal circles that the call for the proscription of the NGF was influenced by the fund collected from the government to host the last NBA NEC meeting, I am of the strong view that the liquidationist call should not go unchallenged.

    In his characteristic forthright manner, the Edo State governor, Comrade Adams Oshiomole exposed the NBA leadership to ridicule when he maintained that “the environment and the overall circumstance known and unknown that led the NBA president to call for the freezing of the right of Governors to associate borders on corrupt practice.” Although another governor has joined issues with Wali, SAN, I deem it pertinent to challenge his reactionary call before it is adopted by the forces of annulment in the country. More so that the call is a sad reminder of the fate that befell some progressive professional bodies and trade unions which were either corruptly taken over or decimated by the Ibrahim Babangida junta. It would be recalled that in February 1984, the candidate backed by the junta had failed woefully to win election as the president of the Nigeria Labour Congress at its delegates conference held in Benin, Edo State. The government reacted by promulgating a decree which sacked the NLC leadership and appointed a sole administrator to run its affairs.

    The next target of the junta was the NBA which had under the leadership of the Late Mr. Alao Aka-Bashorun (1987-1989) been in the fore-front of the struggle for the observance of the rule of law and the restoration of democratic governance in the country. The junta did not disguise its plot to hijack the leadership of the Bar at the 1992 Annual Bar Conference which held in Port Harcourt, Rivers State. But some of us successfully frustrated the imposition of the official candidate as the leader of the NBA. A few months later, the Legal Practitioners (Amendment) of 1993 was enacted and backdated to 1992. In the main, the decree sacked the National Executive Committee members of the NBA led by Chief Priscilla Kuye and replaced them with a caretaker committee headed by the Late Chief FRA Williams SAN to manage the affairs of Nigerian lawyers. Although the decree ousted the jurisdiction of the courts and criminalised the institution of any suit which might question “anything done or purported to be done” under it, I was prepared to challenge it. But the Ikeja branch of the NBA instructed me to file the suit on behalf of all its members. I did.

    In the suit we challenged the legal validity of the proscription decree. the Lagos High Court presided over by Obadina J (as he then was) granted an injunction against the caretaker committee. Dissatisfied with the injunction the defendants rushed to the Court of Appeal. Owing to the constitutional significance of the case, the request of the appellants’ counsel, Chief Williams SAN, for a special panel of five Justices of the Court of Appeal to hear the appeal was granted. However the appeal was dismissed. In upholding our submissions their lordships unanimously declared the amendment decree illegal and struck it down for violating the fundamental right of Nigerian lawyers to associate freely and assemble without interference. See FRA Williams & Ors V Akintunde & Ors(1995) 3 NWLR (PT 381) 101. In the same vein, the complaint filed by Olisa Agbakoba SAN at the African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights at Banjul, The Gambia on the proscription was equally determined in favour of Nigerian lawyers. Thus, in Civil Liberties Organisation (in respect of the Nigerian Bar Association) v Nigeria (2000) AHRLR 186, the African Commission found that the official interference “with the free association of the Nigerian Bar Association is inconsistent with the preamble of the African Charter in conjunction with UN Basic Principles on the independence of the Judiciary and thereby constitutes a violation of article 10 of the African Charter”. Both decisions have confirmed that some Nigerian lawyers went all out to defend the autonomy of the NBA and resisted the official imposition of leaders on it, even under a fascistic military dictatorship. It is therefore ironical that the current leadership of the NBA has, for some inexplicable reasons, colluded with the forces of retrogression to constrict the democratic space in Nigeria.

    It is particularly sad to note that the NBA which used to be the defender of the fundamental rights of the Nigerian people has thrown up leaders who are campaigning for the proscription of friendly societies and clubs. Even if Mr Wali does not like the NGF, he is duty bound, as a lawyer, to respect the right of the members to associate without external interference. I personally, opposed the acquisition of jets by a few state governors in view of the excruciating poverty in the land. But I had to condemn the decision of the aviation authorities to ground the Rivers State owned bombardier plane while a couple of other governors are allowed to ride theirs. Since there is equality before the law it is illegal to restrict the movement of Comrade Adams Oshiomhole of Edo State, for political reasons, while others are allowed to enjoy their freedom of movement, without let or hindrance.

    Regrettably, the NBA appears to be encouraging impunity on the part of certain public officers. Otherwise its leadership should have called the Rivers State Commissioner of Police, Joseph Mbu to order for banning demonstrations and rallies convened in Rivers State without police permit. More so, that the order of Mbu is totally contemptuous of the verdict of the Court of Appeal in the case of the Inspector-General of Police v All Nigeria People Party (2008) 12 WRN 65 wherein it was held that seeking police permit for public protest is violative of the right of Nigerian citizens to freedom of expression. In that appeal which I also had the privilege of handling for the respondents, the Court of Appeal agreed with me that police permit was illegal in a democratic society. It was the view of the court that: “In present day Nigeria, clearly, police permit has outlived its usefulness. Certainly in a democracy, it is the right of citizens to conduct peaceful processions, rallies or demonstrations without seeking and obtaining permission from anybody. It is a law guaranteed by the 1999 Constitution and any law that attempts to curtail such right is null and void and of no consequence.” Pursuant to the epochal verdict, the Nigeria Police Code of Conduct recently launched by the Inspector-General of Police, M. D. Abubakar, has directed all police officers to “maintain a neutral position without regard to the merits of any labour dispute, political protest, or other public demonstration while acting in an official capacity; nor make endorsement of candidates, while on duty, or in official uniform.”

    Incidentally, the honourable Justice Olufumilayo Adekeye JSC (rtd) who read the leading judgment in the case of IGP v ANPP (supra) is now a member of the newly inaugurated Police Service Commission. It is hoped that the police authorities will muster the courage to sanction the Rivers State police commissioner for violating the Police Code which has mandated all police officers to “perform all duties impartially without favour or affection or ill will and without regard to status, sex, race, religion, political belief or aspiration. All citizens will be treated equally with courtesy, consideration and dignity. Officers will never allow personal feelings, animosities or friendships to influence official conduct. …”

    In the light of the foregoing it is hoped that concerned lawyers will urgently adopt decisive measures to free the NBA from the grip of anti-democratic forces and reposition it to resume its traditional role of defending the rule of law and the expansion of the democratic space in the country.