The Nation Newspaper

Category: Columnists

  • Bashir Tofa: What manner of man?

    Bashir Tofa: What manner of man?

    In formal terms, Bashir Tofa was one of the principal figures in the June 12, 1993, presidential election debacle. As candidate and standard-bearer of the National Republican Convention (NRC), one of the two officially recognised official political parties, he shared the spotlight with the candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Bashorun MKO Abiola.

    Few outside Kano and the business community knew much about Tofa until he was catapulted to head the NRC ticket by the not-so-hidden hands of the grand manipulator in Aso Rock and his proxies, as an element in their secret agenda. The intelligence at the time was that military president Ibrahim Babangida would seize on some gaps in Tofa’s résumé to void the election if, as per his calculation, Tofa won. And Tofa would not be in a position to cause a stir.

    Secret agenda or no secret agenda, foil or no foil, Tofa grew quickly into the role of presidential candidate, criss-crossing the country in a spirited campaign. One element of that campaign clings in my memory. It was a television commercial in which a man wearing an upturned collar and black suit led an energetic crowd whose attires reflected the nation’s ethnic diversity to chant “Tofa is the answer.” Billboards dotting the landscape carried the same message.

    Even more memorable was the televised debate between Tofa and Abiola, staged by the NTA and moderated by its senior programme executive, Dr Biodun Sotumbi. Oil pricing came up, naturally, in the wake of yet another threat to cut a phantom gasoline subsidy. Tofa, it turned out, did not even know the pump price of a gallon of petrol.

    There was something of a cad about him. But his performance was on the whole passable. Among major commentators, only MCK Ajuluchukwu thought Tofa had “won” the debate.

    For Nigerians weary of the bitterness and the stubborn refusal to accept defeat that had been prominent features of Nigerian politics, I suspect that the high point of the debate came at the very end. Abiola and Tofa shook hands and pledged to abide by the result of the election, no matter how it turned.

    This, then, was going to be a different election. The political transition programme, despite its manifest flaws, might yet inaugurate a new political era.

    It was not to be.

    Abiola won outright in 18 states, including Tofa’s home state, Kano. He also won more than one-fourth of the votes cast in all but two or three of the remaining 14 states.

    This was the most decisive victory in Nigeria’s history, in what local and foreign observers ranked among the cleanest they had witnessed anywhere and also, I fear, the fairest and freest my generation will ever know.

    The National Electoral Commission had named a chief returning officer, signalling that it was set to declare a winner.

    In keeping with Tofa’s pledge, his camp has assembled to put the finishing touches to a statement conceding defeat when, according to Dr Doyin Okape, NRC’s national publicity secretary, Tofa’s cell phone rang. Tofa responded in Hausa to the call, which he said was from “the Villa,” and then retreated to a private room where he and the caller continued their conversation, in Hausa.

    Emerging some 30 minutes later, Tofa was a changed man. Gone from his countenance was any trace of a willingness to concede, or even compromise. In its place, defiance, and grim determination.

    The concession was never made. Instead, calls for voiding the poll, for reasons ranging from the infantile to the spurious, poured forth from the NRC camp.

    Babangida gladly obliged.

    Abiola’s camp, propelled by the umbrella organisation NADECO, mounted a campaign of protest and resistance that shook Nigeria to its fragile roots.

    Tofa slunk into the obscurity from which he had been plucked. Never has a principal actor in an epic drama faded so quickly from the scene, unremarked and unremembered.

    Sometime in 1997, Tofa’s handlers inveigled or bribed some rogue elements in the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations into inviting Tofa to address that prestigious bastion of America’s foreign policy establishment.

    Compounding his fecklessness with mendacity, Tofa declared with a straight face that he, not Abiola, had won the election – a claim he had never made at home — and that he had accepted the annulment in the national interest

    Year after year, as those who hold that governance should be based on the consent of the people rather than the caprice of a cabal celebrated the June 12 anniversary, Tofa kept denouncing the occasion.

    He was at  it again last week.

    The brutal and thieving dictator, Sani Abacha, of frightful memory, had called the election a “watershed.” In a shameless and self-serving retreat with few parallels here or anywhere, the annuller himself, General Babangida, had called the election the best in Nigeria’s history and claimed the credit for organising it.

    Fifteen years after the election, its chief umpire, Humphrey Nwosu, freed finally from the oath of silence the annullers had worn him to, published the official results. Abiola had won, in the manner that election returns awaiting official certification had indicated.

    As if to secure his place in the hall of infamy even as other authors and enablers of the annulment were seeking desperately to extricate themselves from that gallery, Tofa declared, on the 20th anniversary of the historic election, that “June 12” is dead, that its celebration is a “fiction.”

    “I am not one of those people that celebrate fiction that is the more reason why I don’t like to be talking again on June 12 presidential election,” he told journalists in Kano.

    “Only those who don’t have anything to offer to this country to move forward can still be talking about June 12 presidential elections.

    “If you have learnt any lesson out of it, well; if you have not, keep quiet, let this country make progress. But for one to still be talking about something that occurred 20 years ago, is colossal waste of time.”

    This is the quality of mind of a man whom the manipulators of the transition program judged fit to be president, the man who had a statistical chance of being elected to that office but chose to connive in the annulment of the election.

    I stated earlier that there was something of the cad in Tofa.

    On June 12, 1993, he traipsed from one voting booth to another in his Kano constituency in a vain hope of casting his ballot. His name was not on any of the books. Apparently, he had not even bothered to register to vote.

    Down the ages, history will remember him, but only as a contemptible footnote to “June 12.”

     

  • What does APC want?

    What does the All Progressives Congress (APC), the new party, which just approached the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to consummate its merger, want – power? What else would any political party want?

    But if it is power for power’s sake, the party has a disturbing mirror before it.

    For 14 agonising years, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has bellowed “Power!” has been intoxicated with power and has been completely charmed by power. Yet, its terrible lot is a classic example of power as dysfunction.

    So maddened by power is PDP, that two of its best performing governors are interlocked in a party-fatal vanity war.

    Akwa-Ibom’s Godswill Akpabio, credited with some stunning infrastructure development in his state, heads the reactionary bastion spurred on by presidential hubris; which insists the ruling party must prey on its members, no matter how much of assets such members are perceived.

    Rivers’ Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, an underdog giving the PDP Jonathan establishment a bloody nose, despite graceless presidential muscle-flexing, heads the other column (dubbed rebellious or progressive, depending on which side of the divide you stand), which insists party membership must not equate presidential zombies.

    When two elephants fight, the saying goes, the grass suffers. Inside the PDP Power Babel however, it is the reverse: the power-crazed elephant buckles, when the grass gets too hot under its unfeeling limbs!

    With suspended Sokoto Governor, Aliyu Wamakko, launching a scud missile of “incompetence”, at embattled Bamanga Tukur, PDP national chairman, whose counter-missile of “indiscipline”, cracked back at Wamakko, the combat is on! The Nation of June 15 reported nine northern governors, out of 15, had backed Wamakko against Tukur.

    Even among the ranks of these northern governors, things appear to be falling apart: two, Benue’s Gabriel Suswam and Bauchi’s Isa Yuguda, have reportedly pulled out, obviously suffering some post-Nigerian Governors Forum (NGF) election defeat syndrome, after backing a wrong horse!

    And for Jonah Jang, phoney “NGF chair”, the cruel irony of power without authority coldly mocks his “summon” to a meeting, of governors outside his moral authority. See what impunity does to the mind? As the Yoruba say: can a thorough reject raise a tune and expect his peers to back that tune?

    For PDP, therefore, it is morning yet on self-destruct day! By the time the smoke clears, the party might well be buried under the rubble of own hubris!

    That is what power without purpose does.

    So, what direction should APC take? That of power with purpose.

    The Nigerian state suffers great debilitations that need more than just power to cure. For starters, the present Nigerian presidency is unsustainable. Neither is Nigeria’s troubled federalism, no more than military unitary contraption, in false “democracy” cloak.

    So, while working on its rainbow coalition so vital for success for a Nigerian power elite so prebendal at heart, even while sloganeering along progressive-conservative divides, APC must codify a nationwide charter of demands, based on felt local needs.

    These felt needs must reflect what different parts of the country, using the six geo-political zones as windows, want as a matter of urgency: a sort of core demands, to offer the tottering Nigerian state a rebirth.

    Of all, it would appear the South West is the most vocal, as to what it wants in a new Nigeria: fiscal federalism, regional integration, and political restructuring to make for productive federalism as opposed to the present central parasitism, perhaps using the geo-political zones as new federating units.

    All these, of course, would entail paring down the humongous powers of the Nigerian president; and transferring most of the Nigerian state’s tasks to the regions – but backing such tasks with adequate cash.

    How to source that cash? Not by sharing a centrally collectible pool as is the present practice. It is rather by each region working its own resources, but paying some agreed percentages to the central government. This is no innovation. It was what powered the federal Constitution at independence.

    Steve Osuji, fellow The Nation columnist, always passionately writes on the “Igbo question”. But can the South East codify the Igbo question into some sort of negotiating charter with the rest of the country? That is what APC must work at. This is absolutely important, for no power elite with enlightened self-interest would shut from central power one of its most enterprising blocs and hope to live in peace.

    Beyond the vicarious feel of “power”, the South-South, like the South West before it and indeed, like the North before both, must admit producing the president does not improve the lot of its masses, beyond satisfying the greed of the few in the power cockpit. So, what are that region’s felt needs? Beyond “resource control”, meaning some 100 per cent retention of petro-dollars, the South-South should write its own charter.

    The North is generally the bastion of conservatism; which often translates on its insistence on “unity”: a euphemism for retaining the status quo, which the departing British skewed in its favour. Even then, its willy-nilly loss of power and influence, since the tragic presidential election annulment of 12 June 1993, has shown that gravy could not go on forever.

    So, what does the North want? Whatever it is, there is an urgent need, however future Nigeria is structured, for a deliberate and sweeping emergency plan to tackle mass poverty and mass ignorance (which feeds mass insurrection under religious and other cloaks) in the North East, aside from the felt needs of the North East elite and people.

    North Central? Christian-Muslim tension is explosive here. That accounts for the radicalisation of the Northern arm of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN). Besides, the many peoples of North Central are eager to project and express cultural, ethnic and religious pride, in the framework of a truly federal Nigeria.

    The North West, ever so privileged under the present Usman Dan Fodio-inspired system, need not lose its proud heritage. But it must come to terms with changing times; and balance its conservative Islamic temper with the religious rights of minorities, to forge a new, fair and equitable Nigeria.

    The North, as a bloc, must come up with proposals on how to mine its own mineral resources, propose fair derivation for its sweat (as counterpoise to South-South’s “resource control”), and further hone its agriculture to earn foreign exchange. It must, as a rule, wean itself from hankering after proceeds from South-South’s oil, under whatever justifications, when it could build and drive its own wealth.

    If APC collates these regional charters, and it wins power, it would be primed to tinker the right restructuring: mainly, paring down the humongous powers and the vast but idle resources that now come with the Nigerian Presidency; which nevertheless fuel corruption, fund subversion, and drive structural under-development. Even before formal restructuring, APC would have specific developmental tasks to tackle.

    But if the party succumbs to the expediency of a North-West/South-West power grab, without addressing the structural stress of a quaking Nigerian federation, it will further drive Nigeria to the precipice. History would blame it for the final beginning of the end.

  • Boko Haram:the end in sight?

    President George W Bush’s tenure as America’s leader would probably have passed without much to remember it for were it not for Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda terrorists.

    The 43rd president of the United States had his work cut out when Al Qaeda struck mainland America on September 11, 2001 bringing sorrow, tears and blood to an hitherto, fortress America. And Bush, after a slow start took on the challenge and responded in such a strong fashion that finally defined his presidency.

    His war on terror, initially wrongly christened a crusade, later identified the so called axis of evil and rallied the rest of the world against Al Qaeda and its backers. It drove him into the second Gulf War that led to the overthrow of the then Iraqi president, Saddam Hussein, the war in Afghanistan and the countless military actions in Pakistan and some Gulf Arab countries against the terrorists.

    Though he couldn’t kill or capture bin Laden, his presidency set the tone for the Obama administration in the continuing war against terror. And if anything good would be said about the Bush presidency it probably would be that he confronted and fought terror and weakened Al Qaeda. History would probably judge him right on that, even though he could have done it better.

    As the Nigerian government continues its own war against the home grown terror called Boko Haram, the success or otherwise of the ongoing military action in Borno, Adamawa and Yobe states could well define the Goodluck Jonathan presidency.

    Like play, like play, as we like to say in Nigeria, the Boko Haram insurgency which began like a child’s play has assumed a notorious and murderous dimension that could consume our country if proper actions were not taken. Just as Gowon treated Biafra at the outset of the civil war as a police action, federal government’s initial reaction to the emergence of this group of home grown terrorists was less than serious. The political elite especially those of northern extraction didn’t pay much attention either. At best they saw it as a problem of the north east, the Kanuri people, alone. But when the group, which was firmly on ground in the north east decided to export terror to the north west, north central and even Abuja the whole country took serious note of their activities. But even at that, a section of the northern elite, especially some elders and leaders of thought in the north east zone was against the limited military activities deployed to that region by the federal government, complaining of high handedness and brutality against the civilian population by the soldiers.

    Though the military Joint Task Force (JTF) sent to the region to battle the insurgents recorded some qualified successes, Boko Haram was all the same getting stronger and even popular among the people, and the government was beginning to lose control of that section of the country bordering Cameroun and Chad. So, something had to be done and urgently too to arrest the situation and save Nigeria from disintegration. And so entered the state of emergency declared on the three states by the federal government.

    Even though President Goodluck Jonathan’s action could be said to have come rather late, some have argued that it is better late than never and recent reports seem to suggest that the military could be winning the war. Though as I warned on this page recently, it is too early to role out the drums and celebrate or declare victory as the terrorists are not relenting.

    One area that gladdens the heart in this war against Boko Haram is the resolve of the locals, especially the youth to collaborate with the JTF to fish out the Boko Haram members in their community. A group of youths known by the locals as “Civilian JTF” and whose ages range between 17and 25 years has for some time now been moving from one street to another, house to house in Maiduguri, the Borno state capital identifying and arresting suspected members of Boko Haram and handing them over to the JTF.

    Armed with iron bars, cutlasses and wooden batons, the group apparently fed up with the trouble and hardship that Boko Haram has brought on the community decided to launch it’s own war against the terrorists and rescue the people from Boko Haram.

    One had argued repeatedly on this age that until the people themselves turn against Boko Haram there is nothing much the security agencies can do to end the insurgency and defeat terror. These terrorists are not spirits, they live among the people, they attend the same mosque for prayers, so, there is no way they would not be known in their local community. So, if they operate with seeming impunity that’s because the people condone them and in fact support them.

    It would be necessary to recall here that there was a time (during the Babangida years) that Benin City, the Edo state capital and to a large extent, the entire state was under the terror of a gang of armed robbers led by a Bini man called Lawrence Anini. Together with his right hand man Monday Osunbor and the rest of the gang, they robbed at will and even dashed out their loot to members of the public, the Robbinhood way to escape arrest especially in a difficult situation. Because the robbers evaded arrest successfully for so long, the people began to believe that they were spirits who could not be arrested. But it took a presidential charge by Babangida to the then Inspector General of Police, Etim Inyang to get the police to arrest the gang. The rest is history, but suffice to say that the Bini people actively cooperated with the security agencies to fish out Anini and co and rid their city and state of the menace of these robbers.

    That Maiduguri youths have taken the initiative to fight and fish out Boko Haram members in their midst without minding the likely repercussion on their personal safety is a clear indication that the days of the terrorists are numbered. It is a pointer to what can be achieved when a people are determined. Their decision, not without it’s dangers though, was in sharp contrast to the position of the so called Borno Leaders and Elders Forum that had criticized the deployment of the JTF to the state in the past on the grounds of high handedness and indiscriminate killing of innocent civilians by the soldiers.

    The Borno youths have shown that to defeat terror and overcome evil, all men and women of goodwill must come together to collaborate with both the government and the security agencies. Boko Haram is beatable and the war is winnable, but all of us must get involved.

    The war on Boko Haram could define the Jonathan presidency and decide whether he returns in 2015 or not. Even with victory in sight, the way and manner it is conducted could determine whether the president would be praised for a job well done or get blamed for the collateral damages. Stories abound about the “atrocities” of the JTF, but nowhere has the kind of war we are waging against terror been won without the innocent suffering, but what must be done is to have a clear cut rule of engagement for the military and follow such strictly and anything to the contrary must be punished severely.

     

    Madam at the top

     

    Strange things are happening at the presidency that all men and women of goodwill need to come together and stop. It does appear that there is more than one commander in chief of the Nigerian armed forces going by the way and manner the wife of our president, Dame Patience Jonathan has been conducting herself both in private and in public.

    Those who know one or two things about the political crisis in Rivers state where the first lady hails from, claim Madam at the top, as part of her war against the sitting governor, Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi, has been meeting with heads of security agencies, including the military in the state dishing out instructions and woe betide who amongst them dared flout her orders.

    Emboldened by her show of federal might over the state government, crooks, hoodlums, kidnappers, cultists et al are returning to the streets of Port Harcourt to terrorize the people without any fear of arrest. Kidnapping is returning now and the state police command appears not bothered: part of a conspiracy to return terror and fear to the state preparatory to the declaration of a state of emergency in Rivers? Quite a lot is happening with Madam exercising powers she doesn’t have. Nigeria shine your eyes.

     

     

     

  • Triumphing against constraints

    Studies have without doubt proven that it is seasonally expedient to pause at some point, whether in the pursuit of personal or public interest for a backward voyage, designed for mental stock-taking, or if you like, capture the memory lane of where it all began.

    The case of Abia is very eventful and awe-inspiring when juxtaposed with the magnitude of the sorry state she was hitherto identified with.

    Rewind to one of our annual facilitations, where I acknowledged the huge expectations of our people on the capacity of our mandate to deliver. Even when history and precedence may have given our people occasion not to, their over-whelming endorsement of our mandate, boxed us into a speechless corner as we could not reciprocate with the fitting syntax, to exhaustively express our heartfelt gratitude to our people. It was therefore not surprising when torrents of criticisms were hurled on our mandate when it was assumed we were derailing.

    But Abians were oblivious of our steel-hearted dedication to lift the state from the ashes of despondency. Consequently, a filtering instrument was designed to sift through issue based and unbiased positions and adopt it in our blueprint for development. On another note, mischievous and colourless positions designed to mislead and plunge the state into political conflagration were hurriedly dispensed with.

    I have for the umpteenth time, variously acknowledged a cancerous pain inflicted on our stewardship, during the tortuous half of our eight years gubernatorial assignment. But for the intervention of divinity, the Abia of precarious yester-years would have remained intractable. Present exhilarating state of affairs in Abia is a function of divine mercy visited on the state and leading to a sweeping liberation from insensible god-fatherism, which assumed a delusionary invincibility.

    It was an impactful paradigm shift, which began to lift the state from the clutches of impoverishment and socio-economic amnesia.

    At the expiration of our political constraints, authored by god-playing gladiators, the frightening enormity of infrastructural laybacks prevalent in the state menacingly starred us in the face. But we soldiered on and before long, seeming impossibilities began to metamorphose into possibilities. We were buoyed by the belief that small beginnings gives birth to conglomerates. But just as the state was savouring the tranquility of peace and unfettered access to movement of goods and persons, there was an incredible jolting visited on her by the alien name; “kidnapping for ransom”.

    Abians did not give a thought to the possibility of her own wards subscribing to the extreme wickedness and atrocious lifestyle of kidnapping and raping their victims before placing a ransom on their head. But crossing the Rubicon to tamper with the lives of our 15 greater tomorrows and Nigerian journalists who were navigating their way back from a conference in Uyo, was more than the state could stomach. As expected, our venomous anger was unleashed on these evil mongers whom we comprehensively over-whelmed to become a model in security, nationally and internationally.

    Fast-forward to a resurgence of enabling environment achieved through security clean up, the state was at the precipice of insolvency, largely due to the absence of a blueprint to make her economically viable. What obtained was a hopeless dependence on revenues accruing from the centre and perennially inadequate to shoulder the retinue of domestic responsibilities in the state. Naturally, the loopholes created from the neglect of looking inwards constantly enriched custodians of strategic government revenue windows, who exploited the lack-lustre approach of succeeding regimes to re-engineer the machinery for internally generated revenue.

    My heart will always skip a beat, each time I dare to compare the enormity of infrastructural necessities, gasping for injection of life, vis-à-vis the financial far cry at our disposal. The reality of our innumerable electoral promises kept dawning on me. Our flammable angst for the disorder we inherited was quickly visited on the vitality of instituting a virile and result-oriented pathway for shoring up our revenue base. This was an inevitable approach, having seen the heart rending monthly balance of an infinitesimal one billion naira from N3.4 billion after salaries left for us to thoroughly manifest, the infrastructural deficiencies scattered here and there. Our evolving revenue strategy then began to yield fruit, and has graduated from a monthly 150 million naira that I met on ground, with a realistic potential to net N1 billion.

    Chronic critics, whose positions lack substance, have at different times and fora undermined these essential variables while battling to drive home their point. A blanket appraisal of our stewardship exposed to pathetic monthly revenue of 3.4 billion in comparison with others who coast home with N19-22 billion is practically pedestrian and laughable.

    But we have not been sulking in despair. We rose from the drawing board of dexterity and prudent management, to significantly change the infrastructural identity of Abia State. Millennium Development Goal, our inaugural partners in progress, synergized with us, towards the realization of a humble beginning, which produced functional health centres and cottage hospitals in excess of 250. Abians will not be in a hurry to forget the excitement associated with the health care icing of Abia Specialist Hospital and diagnostic centre delivered to them by this mandate.

    This mandate, backed by its towering divine endorsement has ridden triumphantly on the wings of obvious constraints to attain several infrastructural mile-stones viz- the state secretariat due to be commissioned in few months time, ultra-modern and gigantic high court complex in Umuahia and Aba, relocated and occupied timber market, soon to be occupied, the new Umuahia modern market Ubani, on-going and global best standards in government house, state of the art 5000 seating capacity international conference centre due for public presentation in a matter of months, on-going classical edifice for state joint account allocation office complex, new office complex for the state Universal Basic Education Board, New office complex for members of the state House of Assembly, completed and commissioned state environmental protection agency building, completed and occupied new office complex for the state Ministry of Justice and innumerable others that space and time will not permit me the luxury to accommodate. But suffice it to say that this brief disclosure, though in public domain, is an obedient fall out of demands arising from peoples well-intended request desiring us to share in testimonies won from our resilience and doggedness.

    Our determination to reverse a retrogressive history cascading over the state, constantly stimulated us to latch on every inhibition as stepping-stone to success. Our vision was further enhanced by the dismantling of every vestige associated with apostasy and oath of allegiance before any alter, other than the heaven aboding God named after our dear state.

    • T.A Orji, is the Governor of Abia State.

  • FAAC ruckus

    If the newshounds barely paid attention to the boycott of the monthly Federal Accounts Allocation Committee meeting in Abuja Thursday last week by commissioners of finance in the 36 states of the federation, the aftermath of the drama has since become impossible to ignore.

    To be sure, this would not be the first time that the finance commissioners will openly voice their disagreement with the federal government on the computation of the distributable revenue. Whereas such disagreement has since become the norm – flowing as it were from the bizarre federal practice in which federating parts would routinely gather to share funds, the difference this time is the context and the setting of the disagreement.

    Clearly, short of an attempt to play the ostrich, nothing of the ruckus at the Abuja meeting can be said to be entirely unexpected. After the May 24, election of the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF), the losing and the winning side have since thrown everything into the fray in what is supposed to be their mission to gain advantage. Of course, with the Presidency sworn to play the spoiler in the project to rip the forum apart, it was a matter of waiting for the next opportunity to launch into the next phase of battle.

    Well, that opportunity presented itself at the meeting convened to share the federally collectible revenue for the month of May. On the appointed day, the members gathered; however, the meeting was not to be as members walked out with a resolve to report back to their principals that things are not exactly what they seem.

    If the honourable commissioners had meant to stir the heart of the conscienceless federal behemoth to act justly, they were to be mistaken. Rather, they merely provided ammunition for the behemoth.

    I guess it was inevitable that FAAC will be sucked into the battle. By its composition, the body is made up of the commissioners of finance in the 36 states with the minister of state for finance representing the federal government. More out of reason of protocol than anything, the minister also doubles as chair of the body. Of course, with the principals of the two sides still locked in combat and even more so at a time the parties are still seething with rage over claims and counter-claims of ‘victory’, it seems understandable that the agents of the two parties would take their cue.

    It seems, unfortunately one instance when the politics of the forum will trump not only common sense, but also the cherished principles of our federalism. At the heart of the dispute is the interest of the states which is obviously diametrically in opposition to that of the federal government. The issues of course revolve around claims of observed discrepancies in the accounting of the distributable revenue, a claim, though hardly new, has remained a thorny issue in the relation between the federal government and the states. Unfortunately, the federal government prefers to see itself as principal while treating the states as its vassals. Now, to this claim was added an alleged non-implementation of decisions and resolutions of the forum. Specifically cited was the non-payment of arrears of February and that of the augmentation passed in May.

    The issues were such that the commissioners needed the input of their principals to resolve hence their boycott and subsequent resolve to take the message to them “so that they will put heads together to meet with the President and every other well-meaning entities of the federation so that these problems will be resolved once and for all”.

    As must be obvious now, that expectation is thoroughly misplaced. First, aside providing opportunity for the meddlesome federal government to further sow seeds of division into the governors’ body, it affords Governor David Jang and his losing party in the NGF an avenue to play for relevance.

    The issues are very clear. The call by the finance commissioners on a federal government alleged to be cheating to judge its own cause is clearly a ludicrous one. The federal government has no such records of fiscal sense or that of equity. In the last 14 years of civil democratic rule, the evidence on ground is one of a federal government most resistant to all entreaties by stakeholders to open the books of the national oil corporation turned collecting agency – the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation – in line with the requirement for transparency.

    Surely, could the commissioners have chosen to be blind to the politics of revenue sharing? After all, the evidence is clear: 14 years after the revenue formula inherited from the military, the same federal government has practically frustrated every attempt to divest it of the ‘excess baggage’ revenue. Through its collecting agency, it solely determines what gets paid into the distributable pool. Again, much against reason and common sense, it has held on to a disproportionate 52 percent share from the pool- funds it has neither been able to use wisely nor indeed any productively for the benefit of the Nigerian people.

    Why are these issues relevant at this time? It is precisely because the issues underlie the many battles between the federal government and the states. They are at the heart of why the Jonathan administration seeks to decapitate the NGF. Whether it is the battle over the Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF) which although the federal government jointly owns with the states and local government, the former insists on running almost exclusively or the management of the piggy bank called crude account, they are the reason the NGF, and by extension, its obdurate leader – Governor Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State have become the enemy that must be crushed.

    Clearly, President Goodluck Jonathan’s desire to carve the NGF in his very image and likeness is perhaps only hidden to the extent that his desire to run in 2015 remains disguised to those in the villa. More than an ordinary tool, a FAAC in the hand of a desperate President is both a weapon of defence and offence – a veritable scourge to whip dissent into line. Forget the so-called commonality of interest among the governors: reining in the fiscally obdurate federal behemoth would come later. Jang and his co-traveller in infamy, Olusegun Mimiko will ensure just that. At this time, the name of the game is power – and as for President Jonathan, the March towards 2015 is unstoppable!

    Where do these lead? Your guess is as good as mine.

  • Borno’s civilian JTF

    Reports that some youths in Borno State floated a vigilante group to hunt suspected Boko Haram members must have come to many with mixed feelings. Operating under the banner “Civilian JTF”, the youths go from street to street and house to house, arresting suspects who they subsequently hand over to the “military JTF”.

    Clutching cutlasses, iron rods and wooden batons, the youths were apparently emboldened by the relative successes by the military since the declaration of state of emergency and disenchantment with the lingering insecurity that has made life unbearable for them.

    They had to take resort to self-help ostensible to complement the efforts of the military.

    Given the intractable dimension the insurgency has assumed especially in that state, the reaction of the youths is quite understandable. With increased military presence forcing insurgents to flee, the youths must have mustered confidence that they can now turn against the insurgents without fear of reprisals as was hitherto the case. In the past, any attempt to expose the insurgents attracted severe repercussions from the marauders who had become law unto themselves. This made it difficult for civilians to volunteer information to the military and emboldened the insurgents to unleash more lethal attacks on their targets.

    The reaction of the youths could therefore pass for a vote of confidence in the activities of the JTF. With increased cooperation from the civilian population, there is hope that the insurgents will soon be smoked out of their hideouts. This should be something to cheer not only for the military that has been battling allegations of human rights violations, but the entire Nigerian citizenry that is equally terrified by these terrorist acts.

    Even then, the self-assigned crusade of the youths is equally laden with potent dangers. There is the risk of abuse. There is also the issue of the genuineness of those purportedly crusading as anti-insurgents. There is nothing to give comfort that the said civilian JTF is not a decoy by fifth columnists to mess up the renewed onslaught on the insurgents. Some other miscreants could equally hijack the exercise to wreak more havoc on the same society they purport to be crusading for. It could also turn out as another avenue for witch-hunting and scores-settling by the sponsors of the insurgency. These fears are real and have to be very carefully monitored.

    Rather than take to the streets clutching dangerous weapons, the youths would be more effective in the areas of information gathering and espionage. They should be encouraged to supply whatever intelligence information they have on suspects to the JTF. They cannot possible be a parallel unstructured army because of the frightening prospects of sliding into lawlessness. We say so because there is the possibility of politicizing the entire exercise with more devastating consequences for the overall health of the campaign. Signals emanating from the political turf indicate a deliberate attempt by the political parties to put the Boko Haram insurgency to partisan advantage. At the moment, there is a deliberate attempt by the political parties to place the blame of the heightened security challenge at the door steps of each other. In a desperate attempt to gain partisan advantage, the parties now, seek ways to label their opponents supporters or sponsors of terrorism. The issue is not helped by the utterances of key political persons since state of emergency was announced in the three states of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa.

    PDP publicity secretary, Olisa Metuh labeled the coalescing opposition as terrorists, sequel to a statement from the Action Congress of Nigeria ACN urging the National Assembly not to approve the declaration of the state of emergency by President Jonathan. Though the ACN later modified its stance urging the National Assembly to take a very dispassionate perspective of the matter, the cat had already been let out of the bag.

    As that was not enough, Mohammed Buhari’s statement that the state of emergency is anti-North equally drew the ire of the government. It has elicited calls for his arrest and the trading of words between him and the president of the Christian Association of Nigeria CAN.

    The Boko Haram challenge is no doubt a very sensitive one. A lot of families have suffered immeasurably both in human and material losses. It is one issue that is laden with the prospects of inflaming tempers not only along sectional but ethnic and religious lines.

    The positions political parties take on the matter are bound to affect their perception by the electorate and ultimately their electoral fortunes. Nothing illustrates this slide to partisanship more poignantly than a statement issued by the publicity secretary of ACN, Lai Mohammed in which the party reacted to insinuations by the PDP and the presidency that are intended to rope in the opposition or the leadership of ACN as sponsors of terrorism.

    In that statement, Mohammed contended that the sponsors of terrorism in Nigeria are either within the PDP or are somehow associated with it. The party drew attention to a publication in the journal of the New York-based World Policy Institute in which some names of Nigerian sponsors of terrorism were published. Mohammed said a perusal of that document shows a former Nigerian Ambassador to Sao Tome and Principe and a serving Nigerian state governor, all members of the PDP as alleged sponsors.

    Before now, we have equally been told by no less a person than the late National Security Adviser; Andrew Owoye Azazi that terrorism took to an all time high after the last presidential primaries of the PDP. The issue was also raised by Niger State governor, Babangida Aliyu when he tasked the committee on amnesty to focus on the sponsorship of the insurgency as a way of getting at the root of the mater.

    The point here is that there is an increasing focus on the sponsors of acts of terrorism in the country. What this indicates is that unless we expose those surreptitiously backing the Boko Haram insurgents, we are only scratching the surface of the matter. This point is unassailable.

    It is in this effort to expose those responsible for the huge resources that sustain the insurgency that the parties want to take political advantage. As we get closer to electioneering campaigns, terrorism, religion and ethnicity will turn out as irreducible decimals that will shape political discourse. We will also begin to see attempts to link some of the candidates to Boko Haram. Issues as the sections of the country and states most prone to terrorism; the parties that control them and the positions of leaders on the matter are bound to be played up. From the current posturing of the PDP and the opposition, sponsorship of terrorism has become a major issue that will be put to advantage when the ban on campaigns is lifted. The way it is handled will determine the success or failure of the coming elections. Time will bear this out.

  • Old man and the sea

    Old man and the sea

    The Peoples Democratic Party wallows in disarray, and the party leaders strut as though it is juice rather than poison. And the major culprit is the chairman of the party, Bamanga Tukur, who is gaining notoriety like other oldies like the ex-military officer Jonah Jang of Plateau State and the peacock without glory from the Niger Delta, E.K. Clark. These men have wizened but are not wise. Age has become an obstacle rather than leapfrog to sagacity. They make old age look like the plague.

    The latest firestorm involves Governor Aliyu Wammako of Sokoto, and how the party leadership under Tukur decided to flush out the man from party “honour” because he played a role of conscience during the recently concluded Governors Forum election. He is accused, like his fellow traveller Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State, of anti-party activity.

    Tukur on the surface has a stellar resume. He was a governor in the Second Republic of the old Gongola State. Prior to that, he was the helmsman of the Nigeria Ports Authority during the infamous Cement Armada scandal where he acquitted himself well when he decongested the ports in the Gowon era. He heads and is a member of many boards both locally and internationally. Without bagging a first degree with the toil and sweat of lucubration, he parades himself as a doctor that he acquired in the now common Nigerian fashion.

    If after all these, he decided to take a bow from public service after clocking the hoary tapestry of 70 years, he would have escaped scrutiny and soared to his maker as a man of immense stature and nobility. But he reminds one of the tragicomic protagonist in the novel Being There by Jerzy Kosinski. It is about a man who knew not much, witnessed not much, attended not much school, spoke little. Suddenly by the accident of history, he was, by wide acclaim, being touted for the presidency of the United States. It is a cautionary tale about the empty grandeur of fame and fortune, and the dizzy deceptions of democracy and capitalism.

    The climb to party leadership has brought Tukur to a pitiful pass. Two developments have led to his demystification. One, the stories of his sons, Auwal and Mahmud. The second is the crisis that has alienated the majority of governors from his own region from the party he shepherds. In the case of his sons, he exposed his lack of grace. When his son, Mahmud, became charged with involvement in a N1.2 billion rip-off of the Petroleum Support Fund Scheme, attentions turned to him. His son, many believed, benefitted from his high connections. On his own, Mahmud could not have enjoyed the high place in the world, and so when Mahmud suffered, the father also suffered. Some say he manipulated his high connection to plume his son and, vicariously, himself with oil fortune.

    This may not be fair, but that is life. But he commented later that he was not involved in his son’s story with the alleged oil subsidy scam. I thought that it was tactless. All he needed to do was stay quiet on the matter. We cannot visit the sins of the son on the father. We may say though that the blessings of the father may have foisted dubious gifts on the son.

    As for his other son, Auwal, the man wants his son to be governor. He wants to visit his blessings of many years ago on his son. He is the party chairman and that provides a conflict of interest. Why should a father want to impose his son and use the instruments of the centre that is at his beck and call to create his own dynastic fiefdom? He charges back by saying his son, Auwal, had been in politics before he ascended the party chair, and the son has a right on his own to do what is right. What is right is not always honourable. His son has a right to run for office whatever the father’s fortune. It is when honour meets right that we attain what poet John Keats goal of truth meeting beauty.

    The father should have played his role without interfering in the affairs or seeming to marshal his high office in the slugfest. We all know that he loathes the incumbent Governor, Murtala Nyaka, another clueless oldie in politics, who wants to create a dynasty by imposing his son Abdul-Aziz. On the surface again, we can say Tukur is right for wanting to challenge Nyako for trying to impose a nepotistic tyranny in the governor sweepstakes. Let the son do it and let us not see traces of your power looming from the centre. That is where again I saw that the man has wizened but is not wise. He is playing dubious messiah as though he wants to save Adamawa State from a tyrant. But he just wants to take it for himself. He is no hero.

    The affairs of his son have unveiled his iniquities like the story of the grand priest of the Bible known as Eli whose sons led him to spiritual limbo. All these acts prepared Tukur for his present malady with the governors.

    He is doing all of these because he needs the backing of the president for his special prize: governorship for his son Mahmud. The president since Obasanjo has always imposed the party candidate from the centre. He expects to play serf to Jonathan for a presidential quid pro quo in Adamawa State government House. That is the opportunism of Tukur and his lack of grace.

    His is an old man who wants to have peace even if it means his party is at sea. We all know the story of Hemingway’s classic where an old man struggles after forlorn attempts to catch a fish. After his success, he spends his last ounce of energy to drag the prey to shore. Much of the fish is gone, but he has honour and dignity – a spiritual satisfaction. The novel Old Man and the Sea has become a testament to literature and the sublimity of the human spirit.

    It is not to Tukur’s credit that he should wreck his party in order to build his own joy. It is cynical politics at best, but it exposes the worst in Nigerian politics. He is using his power in a way that reminds one of 19 the century Prussia before it became Germany and historians described it as an army with a state rather than a state with an army. It may be Tukur’s Hobbesian peace but it is PDP’s and Nigerian nightmare.

  • Endgame 2015: they are frenemies alright, but are they benign and/or deadly?

    Endgame 2015: they are frenemies alright, but are they benign and/or deadly?

    Frenemy: Alternatively spelled “frienemy”, the term is a portmanteau of “friend” and “enemy” that can refer to either an enemy pretending to be your friend or someone who is your friend but is also a rival.
    Oxford English Dictionary (online)

    Share de gari/Share de gari/Share de gari
    Share gari/Share gari/Share gari
    Share am/Share am/Share am!
    Wole Soyinka, “Etiko Revo Wetin?”

    It is well, compatriots. Stay blessed, countrymen and women. The shortest book in the Bible, the holy book of Christians, is the Book of Nahum. It is also the one and only book in the Bible that, from the beginning to the end, is filled with curses, imprecations and maledictions, some of them so bitter and violent that you wonder whether this book is indeed part of a holy book. But the Book of Nahum is in the Bible exactly in the manner in which, if you go today to the houses of worship and nights of vigils in our country, you will feel as if you are in the world of the Book of Nahum. This is because a great part of both the prayers and the sermonising in these times and places of worship is devoted to calling the wrath of God and Jesus against “ota ile” and “ota ode” (enemies known and unknown; enemies within one’s own household and enemies lying in wait for one outside the home). In these devotional and prayerful contexts, there are only friends and enemies; there are no frenemies at all. This is why the topic for our lay, secular sermon this Sunday is precisely this enigmatic category of individuals, groups and political parties, frenemies, a category that defies and confounds an easy separation between friendship and enmity as we can see in the dictionary definition of the word in the first epigraph to this “sermon”.

    There are three questions at the centre of our “sermon”. This is the first one: Why are our religious practices and discourses filled with a clear separation between friends and enemies while, if you look beyond the claims and counterclaims, the dire warnings and predictions that our politicians hurl at one another all the time, what you see are so many frenemies amongst whom it is virtually impossible to separate friends from enemies, bitter foes from loyal allies? Secondly: if in our contemporary religious worldview there is a clear separation between friends and enemies while there are only frenemies and no true separation between friendship and enmity among our politicians, does this mean that there is a gap, a contradiction between the inner movements of religion and politics in our country? Thirdly: What do these questions have to do with the looming elections of 2015 about which even the most optimistic among us are already feeling great foreboding?

    For Nigerians under the age of 40, it may come as a surprise to learn that politicians of the First Republic for the most not only remained permanently in one party, they had considerable loyalty to their parties. And it was a common thing that they felt an allegiance, even a pride in the ideologies and policies of their parties. The phenomenon of carpet-crossing from one party to another was not unknown, but it was rare, so much so that it always caused a great stir anytime that it happened. Who amongst us does not know that defection from one party to another is so rife now, so banal in post-1999 Nigerian politics as to be the order of the day? Regardless of what reputation you have as a politician, regardless of either your expressed views or, conversely, your absolute lack of any views, all our political parties without exception will throw their doors open to you if you defect from another party, another coalition of parties. If, compatriot, you are still dubious about my claim that there are only frenemies and no real separation between ally and foe among our politicians and political parties, this is the clearest sign of the claim, the phenomenon.

    Compatriots, this is not a sermon from a religious pulpit that is steeped in sacred catechisms of faith and moral and philosophical absolutes. Nothing in our contemporary politics is foreordained, nothing happens in a transcendental time outside history and human practice in which, as diehard religionists among us put it, “God is in control” no matter how bad a mess our leaders have created and are continuing to create. I do not in the least expect that things will always stay as they are now. Moreover, I do readily admit that within the overwhelming blurring of ideological, moral and policy lines between our political parties, there are pockets of talented and visionary leadership that could, under a different political order, make a difference. But we must face the facts of the present, brutal as they are: other than where their ethnic and regional bases are, other than the invocation of the principle of performance as an ultimate value in political governance, there are no real or significant philosophical, ideological and policy differences between our political parties. This is why our present political ethos is overwhelmingly dotted with frenemies who are willing to forego any and all moral, ideological and policy differences as long as power at federal or state level is within reach.

    At this point in our “sermon” we must address the question posed in the title of the sermon: “they are frenemies alright, but are they benign or deadly?” This is because so far in the discussion we have engaged the issue of the non-distinction between friend and enemy, ally and foe only with regard to philosophical, ideological and policy differences between our politicians and political parties. The truth is that these are not the only or even main grounds around which individuals and groups within political parties draw lines of alliance and opposition, friendship and enmity. All over the world and throughout history, it is a well documented fact that politicians base their friendships and enmities not only around philosophical, ideological and policy differences but also around the prize at the end of their electoral and electioneering activities, these being the material and symbolic spoils of office. It is also a recorded fact of political history throughout the world that where the “prize” is so big, so monumental as to leave losers in dire circumstances, the stakes become so high as to make bitter enmity a prevalent, perhaps even defining aspect of politics. Definitely on the African continent, perhaps in the whole of the developing world, the “prizes” of electoral politics that are sedimented in the Nigerian presidency and the states’ executive governorships are without equal in their actual and symbolic concentration of power, authority and patronage, thanks largely to our oil wealth. To put this in very blunt terms, for as long as the oil wealth lasts, the scions of federal and state political power in our country seemingly have to do nothing other than simply collect and share amongst themselves the rents from crude oil production as the principal and in many cases the only source of their power, influence and authority. And this is why, even though there are no real or deep enmities on philosophical, ideological and policy grounds between our politicians and political parties, there is an ocean of bitter and nation-wrecking enmity around who gets the “prizes” and how to share them. In other words, here we are in the universe of the Book of Nahum in which there are enemies everywhere in the struggles over the spoils of office among Nigerian politicians and political parties. Thus, we can see that the inner movements of contemporary Nigerian religion and politics are, in their essential contents and logic, completely congruent.

    It is well, compatriots. Stay blessed. If you look carefully at the quoted lines from Soyinka’s 1983 song in our second epigraph, you will find, dear reader, that by the time you get to the last line, the repeated inscription has become more compact – and frenzied: “share am, share am, share am!”. I suggest that by moving from “share de gari” that plays on the name of the President at the time – Shehu Shagari – to the more colloquial and demotic “share am, share am, share am!” Soyinka moves us from the bitterly divisive and nation-wrecking brinksmanship of sharing the spoils of office among our political elites to sharing the national wealth and patrimony equitably among all groups and classes in the nation. The major way, perhaps the only way that this can happen is by de-concentrating the vast accumulation of power, authority and patronage in the presidency and the executive governorships in the states of the federation.

    Additionall, reducing the great concentration of power in our current bloated presidency and its arrant re-inscription in the thirty-six governorships in the country will take electoral politics in our country away from the bitter negative regionalism that surrounds it at the present time. Let me put this in plain language so that the essential point that it entails may be fully grasped: no politician and no political party will be prepared to tear the whole fabric of the country apart, as so many now do, if the office that he or she is seeking either at the federal or state level does not have the vast concentration of power and authority that that the presidency and the governorships now have. To those who think that this is the pipe dream of an idealistic sermoniser, I say, quite simply, that among the nations of our continent and the developing world, Nigeria is not typical but is an aberration in these matters.

    “The South has had two successive presidencies, so it now the turn of the North”. “The nation’s wealth comes substantially from the Niger Delta, so what is wrong in a man from the Niger Delta seeking a second term in the presidency especially since this is the very first time that that exalted office has gone to a person from the region”. “All the governors in the state have come from the north senatorial district since 1999; it is now the turn of the south senatorial district”. These are the sorts of slogans, the rhetorical gauntlets that are being thrown at the country and the world by our politicians and political parties as we approach 2015. John Campbell, a former U.S. Ambassador to Nigeria, in his widely debated book, Nigeria: Dancing at the Brink, expressed this same sentiment in dire predictions for the future of the country. There must be a balance between the “Christian South” and the “Moslem North” in the sharing of presidential power in our country, Campbell warns, otherwise Nigeria will never know peace or may even break up. Apart from the fact that the “South” is not all Christian and the “North” is not all Moslem, Campbell completely ignores the fact that the first problem with the Nigerian presidency is that it contains a vast, wasteful, and corruptive concentration of power. But no single ruling class party in our country has taken the reformation of this malformed instrument of misrule as a vital part of its vision and mission.

    Stay blessed, compatriot. It is well. Don’t lose hope, even though there is and there will be much suffering in the land before and after 2015. Nigeria will not break up. It is the presidency and the executive governorships that will eventually break up so that equitable distribution can at last take place in our country and restitution replace the great suffering in the land, God willing, Inshallah!

    Biodun Jeyifo

    bjeyifo@fas.harvard.edu

  • Morphological tragedies

    NATIONAL Mirror of June 13 committed multifarious offences: “Fatai on the hospital bed….” Tribute: Fatai in the hospital bed

    “The bill has stirred quite a lot of controversy (controversies).”

    “…is against the spirit and letters of the Nigerian 1999 Constitution….” My view: either the spirit of the law or the letter of the law (the Nigerian 1999 Constitution)

    “The commissioning (inauguration) of the ultra-modern building complex….”

    Another oddity from National Mirror: “The Plateau State Polytechnic, Barkin-Ladi, on Friday matriculated 4,800 new students admitted into various courses for the 2012(?)/2013 academic session.” Posers: Do old (returning) students matriculate? And this: admission into various courses! Would they all have read the same course? This way: …matriculated 4,800 (students) for the 2013/2014 session.

    “Fire outbreak averted in hostel” Campus News: Fire averted in hostel

    “Pan African (Pan-African) varsity commences operation in Nigeria”

    “Effect of security in socio economic development in Nigeria” A rewrite: Effect of insecurity on (not in) socio-economic (take note) development in Nigeria

    Still on National Mirror: “Global investments in renewable energy drops (why?) by….”

    “Iredia condemns police intolerance to (of) media”

    “…just as the service would be opened (open) to any brand or model of handset.”

    Finally from NATIONAL MIRROR Back Page: “…they are in every strata (stratum) of society….” And, of course: all strata/stratums.

    “FG approves border free (border-free) trade zone for Borno”

    Last week’s muddle: “Jos, the capital of Plateau State (another comma) is one of the few cosmopolitan towns in the country that have (has) enjoyed peaceful co-existence relatively.” Get it right: Jos…one of the towns that have—not has!—enjoyed peaceful co-existence relatively. Instead of bracketing ‘have,’ the columnist put ‘has’ in parentheses! What a morphological tragedy! Please, accept my apologies.

    More contributions to last week’s edition: ‘Followership’ has been in existence since 1928. Also, ‘witch-hunt’ is both a noun and an adjective. Source: Word Book Dictionary and Webster’s New Encyclopedic Dictionary. It is also listed in Oxford Dictionary of Current English. (From Bayo Oguntunase/080561800046) This columnist notes that most dictionaries and reference books, like the 2012 Longman Advanced Dictionary of Contemporary English and Roget’s Thesaurus, do not, however, list the contentious word.

    ‘Finger bowl’ is different from ‘wash-hand basin.’ The former is the plastic moved around for washing of hands, while the latter is usually affixed on a wall or metallic contraptions. (Intervention by Sunny Agbontaen/08055162531)

    “Moro, who exonerated the Interior Ministry of capability (culpability), revealed….” (Sunday Vanguard, June 9) (Sent in by Kola Danisa/08028233277) Yet another input from Uncle Danisa taken from last week’s edition of this medium: “…some NWC members are urging the leadership of the party to exercise refrain (restraint) in further suspending the governors.” All well-informed readers are free to contribute to this column, too. The essence is to exchange robust ideas on the English language.

    “Interior Minister swears in immigration boss, third on (in) the saddle” (AIT News Scroll, June 11)

    The Guardian Editorial of June 11 offered its esteemed readers a school-boy howler: “Had the said term been imposed in (on) any of those corruption cases involving public office holders, ears would not have tingled in the least.”

    “Samsung Galaxy Reach for the Star contest all expense paid trip to Dubai for 10” (10 x 5 advertisement by Samsung, THE GUARDIAN, June 11) Get it right: all-expenses-paid trip!

    THISDAY of June 10 disseminated advertorial and editorial gaffes: “Introducing Fidelity Managed SMEs….” (Full-page advertisement by Fidelity Bank PLC) We keep our word: what about Fidelity-managed SMEs?

    “…road traffic accidents and transport related crimes and criminalities.” EDITORIAL: transport-related crimes and criminalities.

    “…patients at LUTH are being turned down for shortage of bed space (spaces).”

    “FG to pay-off (pay off) PHCN casual staff”

    “The Presidential Committee on Flood Relief and Rehabilitation expresses its profound gratitude and appreciation to all who answered the clarion call to be our brother’s keepers through….” For the attention of the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation: brother’s keeper (fixed expression irrespective of number)!

    “This appointment is well deserved, an attestation of (to) the transformation you have ignited in the Nigerian youth….”

    “I believe such road (such a road) with large number (a large number) of vehicles….”

    Finally from THISDAY: “Wada: Fulani herdsmen, farmers clash major security challenge” News extra: …farmers’ clash, major security challenge

    Last week’s edition of this medium committed a few blunders starting from its front page: “Govs in fresh gang up against Tukur” Truth in defence of freedom: gang-up

    “Traders hail Amaechi for commissioning (inaugurating) market”

    Now the Editorial: “Majority (A majority) of the members of the House of Representatives seeking to make….”

    “…people from the North who alleged that they had a talk with him with regards to 2015.” The Sunday Interview: with regard to or as regards

    “…which is one of the fallouts of the daily traffic jam.” Life: ‘fallout’ is uncountable.

    Finally from the business section of THE NATION ON SUNDAY under review: “While some of the funds have been diverted to other uses….” Away from commercialese: ‘Diversion’ means to other uses other than the original purpose/intent. So, ‘diversion to other uses’ is sheer verbosity!

    THISDAY Front Page Banner of June 8 goofed: “NAMA recalls Oshiomhole’s already airborne chopper” If a helicopter is airborne, it is airborne—there is no need for ‘already’!

    The last headline rape by THE SATURDAY NEWSPAPER, June 8: “Navy personnel ups (up) the ante in weapon handling, marksmanship”

  • Maximum leader, minimal democracy

    Maximum leader, minimal democracy

    Nigerians are loud, opinionated and impatient. Ordinarily, those traits should make for a vibrant and fascinating democratic adventure where freedom of expression and choice, as well as transparency in public affairs would take root.

    But for a people who are quick on the draw when expressing their views, recent events are evidence that we would also be content with a system of governance where a maximum ruler lays down the law and his loyal subjects fall obediently in line.

    Over the last two weeks we’ve been celebrating democracy with two symbolic dates. May 29 speaks to an uncommon longevity of civil rule – an unbroken run of 14 years. June 12 reminded us of the subversion of the very ideal we claim to hanker for.

    How interesting that the celebrations took place in the shadow of the bitter battle to elect a new leadership for the influential Nigerian Governors Forum (NGF). While it was fun for a while reducing what happened to a David and Goliath contest in which an increasingly overbearing president received his comeuppance at the hands of a Lilliputian governor, there are deeper issues at play here.

    Thirty-five governors locked themselves in a room and willingly subjected themselves to a democratic contest. When the dust settled, two “chairmen” emerged in a contest that could only produce one! The winner had a majority of 19 votes; the other claimant had a majority of pre-polling endorsements but only 16 votes.

    How telling that 20 years after General Ibrahim Babangida and his military co-conspirators annulled the results of the June 12, 1993 election, Nigerians are still being made to endure a brazen attempt to annul what was a clear-cut victory by Rivers State Governor, Rotimi Amaechi.

    Many governors who until now had been posturing as democrats have been exposed as they sought to deny what had happened by explaining that there had never been an election in the NGF, or that the polling should never have been filmed.

    Today, everyone has a version of the history of forum; how it had always chosen its leadership by consensus. One wonders where all the historians were in the run-up to the election. How come none of these custodians of the NGF folklore never piped up with a word of dissent all those months when it was clear that the next leader would emerge through balloting?

    One of the most disgraceful aspects of the NGF fiasco is the meddling by President Goodluck Jonathan. Following the defeat of his preferred candidate, Plateau State Governor, Jonah Jang, the president and his aides have sought to distance him from the mess. But then there he was recognising and addressing the “loser” as chairman of the governors forum at some Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) event in Abuja.

    What sort of example is that? Of course, he had never hidden the fact that he was opposed to Amaechi’s return. But then he’s president of Nigeria, not of the PDP and ought to elevate himself above certain things because of the exalted position he holds.

    When it suits them, those around Jonathan are quick to flay the opposition for “playing politics with everything.” They are also known to deliver lectures pointing out that elections had been held and won, and now was the time for governing, not politicking. That sermon was clearly lost on Jonathan who ought to have done everything he could to insulate himself – at least publicly – from the bitter politics of the NGF.

    By endorsing Jang and refusing to recognize the man who won the election on the night, Jonathan and the PDP have behaved in the same fashion as those who refused to accept the electoral outcome of June 12, 1993. The ‘annulers’ equally had reasons for refusing to concede.

    If Jonathan and his henchmen have refused to lead and set an example with something as simple as the NGF election, why should they expect the opposition accept any electoral outcome that isn’t favourable to them? In the same breath why would anyone believe that PDP, given their conduct in this instance, will accept anything short of victory in 2015? Put simply the bane of Nigerians elections which is mutual suspicion of the participants and the electoral umpire has only just been tragically reinforced.

    In the aftermath of the collapse of the PDP strategy to impose its man on the NGF, the party has gone overboard as it sought to exact revenge against the “traitors” who torpedoed its agenda. Both Amaechi and Sokoto State Governor, Magatarkada Wamakko, are out on their ears – the latter suspended for the most flimsy of reasons: refusing to take party chairman, Bamanga Tukur’s calls.

    Whatever may be the sins of these two men, it is evident that their greatest fault is refusal to toe the party line one hundred percent. In democratic practice there is certainly a place for enforcing the supremacy of the party. But truly democratic parties also allow room for dissent otherwise they would be no different from the old Communist parties in the USSR, China or Cuba. I may add that this flaw is not a failing of only the PDP.

    So instead of beginning to build a democratic culture with robust parties with internal traditions of vibrant and open disputation, what we now see is debate being driven underground. Parties are being split along the lines of ultra loyalists and the band of Judases.

    Debate and dissent are now dangerous foreign bodies to be stamped out at all cost. In this setting, the president or whoever is the maximum ruler at federal or state level simply lays down the law, and the rest of the cadres fall in line. In other words, the president has become the party.

    Amidst all the sentimentality that has trailed the NGF polls, the incongruity of trying to create of a new maximum ruler in a democratic environment seems lost on even the most sober of us. I have heard very intelligent people argue that governors had become too powerful and needed to have their wings clipped.

    Let’s hold this thought for a moment: if the governors are less powerful than they are now, the president simply becomes a Frankenstein monster no one can rein in. Even with the checks and balances in our system a reckless occupant of Aso Rock can unsettle the leadership of the states and National Assembly. Things even out when all sides realise there’s a balance of terror.

    In the end having these various centers of power is not so bad after all. Decisions can be arrived at on a more consensual basis. The different tendencies in the country would be carried along, and people wouldn’t feel too alienated. But beware the fake democracy where one man’s word is law.