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Category: Columnists

Achebe departs in a blaze of controversy

I see Chinua Achebe differently from how others see him. Some see him rightly as the grandfather of African fiction, and others simply but also accurately see him as the father of African literature. Yet others remember him as the hard-hitting literary critic that in 1975 disembowelled Joseph Conrad for his book, Heart of Darkness. But most people, whether critics or plain connoisseurs of great books, remember him as the delightful author of Things Fall Apart, an incomparable book that has sold more than 10 million copies and has been translated into more than 50 languages. Chinua Achebe (1930-2013) lived well and died at a ripe old age after bidding his country goodbye with a rousing, controversial book, There Was a Country. In a literary career spanning more than 50 years, Achebe churned out scores of works in nearly all areas of literature.

Achebe’s death on Friday morning is of course bound to elicit great obituaries from gifted editorial writers, many of them enchanted by the literary giant’s life and times. The death will also unleash a cornucopia of reviews and criticisms of his works, complete with projections of how relevant he would be in the decades and centuries to come. Most of the reviews will of course focus on his five novels, some of his essays, and his controversial non-fiction memoir on the Nigerian civil war viewed from the Biafran perspective. A few may attempt comparisons with contemporary writers, and others will unearth salient themes from his works to enrich future generations and provide cultural and political anodynes for a country in distress. Of course, too, most of the analyses and tributes will attempt a balanced examination of the writer, his on the one hand weighed against his on the other hand. Indeed, barely hours after his departure, tons of essays on the legend, many of them probably prepared beforehand, have been broadcast or published.

Shortly before There Was a Country was released, I had written a short but questioning review of the controversial book. The review was limited, as it concentrated on a small aspect of the book released by the publishers to tease the public. It turned out in the end that that teaser was central to considerations of the book’s strengths and weaknesses. In my limited review, I was careful not to use it as a measure of Achebe’s literary endowment, whether that endowment is constricted or expansive, or use it as an indication of his life and times. That would have been most inappropriate, for a man of such copious output and prodigious talent could not be sensibly dismissed or characterised by one book, let alone a section of that book. I am not also going to pretend to use all or nearly all his works to define his essence, for that would also be a presumptuous endeavour. Nor would I attempt to compare one of his books with another, say, the gentle accessibility and simplicity of Things Fall Apart with the brilliance and complexity of Arrow of God.

Whatever anyone may say of Achebe’s learning and worldview, whether he was deep or needed to be deeper, or whether he was thematically narrow in range or breathtaking, or whether he was controversial and disagreeable as a person or open-minded, gregarious, agreeable and universalist as an author, the important thing for me is that he had character and, needless to say, a curious and familiarly exciting point of view. There is no point trying to examine his literary competence. By every yardstick, he was an exquisite and exceptional writer, and he contributed immeasurably in birthing and giving fillip to the African perspective of literature. There are many fine writers the world has forgotten, or with time will forget. But there are a few who, regardless of the classicalness or mundaneness of their works, will be remembered for a long time. Like politicians and conquering generals, there are always a few additional and indescribable intangibles that qualify a man for greatness. Once these intangibles are absent, there is no amount of genius that can redeem the situation. And once they are present, there is no amount of ordinariness or lesser qualification that can attenuate it.

Achebe’s character can thus be viewed from two perspectives. One is in terms of his character as a person, and the other is in terms of his character as a writer. What I find impressive about Achebe is how passionately he exuded both characters, as a person and as a writer, shorn of contrivances. Indeed, it seems to me that the leitmotif of his life and work could not be divorced from his Igbo identity. However, embracing that identity was a matter of choice for him, not compulsion. It coloured some of his works, just as his politics could not transcend it. It may be too early to determine what influence that identity would have on his legacy now or in the future, but it made Achebe the enigmatic and mercurial person he was. It didn’t matter to him that critics pointed out the dissonance between his lofty image as a great writer and the limiting parochialism of some of his pet views; all that mattered was that he summoned the fortitude to stick to his views. He had an unquenchable zeal to be himself, and he had the talent to nurture and sustain that zeal.

As a writer, he cared even less what reservations anyone might have about the messages he furnished in his works or how trenchantly he projected his point of view. He belonged to the old school of great writers who despised taking refuge behind harmless, defanged words and imageries. His criticism of Conrad, for instance, was strident and, in some parts, downright abusive. In the same manner, his characterisation of some of the key political players during the Nigerian civil war was sweeping, exuberant and pugnacious. You may not agree with him, but you could not ignore him, for he had a poignant way of conveying his views. You may disagree vehemently with him, but you had a sense of his presence, his convictions, and his character. After all, I disagree with the American poet and critic, Ezra Pound’s impressionable theory of economics, and find his admiration for fascism shocking, but who could deny or resist the exquisiteness and brilliance of his poetry, particularly the Pisan Cantos, notwithstanding the circumstances in which the poem was penned shortly after World War II?

Achebe was a pathfinder, and, as I indicated in this place when I wrote a short review of his latest work, his reputation as a writer is secure, notwithstanding the multiple indiscretions of indulging in historical fallacies. As much as the inimitable Mark Twain tried to philosophise in some of his works, notably The Mysterious Stranger, and as classical and supremely engaging as many of his works were, such as Huckleberry Finn, Tom Sawyer, Old Times on The Mississippi, and Innocents Abroad, he never rose to the level of a philosopher of any appreciable talent. Achebe, too, never quite made it as an original thinker, nor perhaps ever tried. But he achieved greatness as a writer of immense ability, as the general editor of the Heinemann African Writers Series, and as a mentor, literature teacher and trailblazer.

His books did not win as many prizes as he probably coveted or merited. But those books are with us for all of eternity to help sustain his huge legacy. His aspirations for Nigeria were left unfulfilled, and he even spurned the half-hearted attempt by the Olusegun Obasanjo and Goodluck Jonathan governments to honour him, but he departed these shores with the consolation that he repudiated his country’s maladies as vigorously as he could manage and as cathartically as he felt he needed to mitigate the injury occasioned in his mind by widespread leadership incompetence.

It is no mean achievement that Achebe departed at 82, the second of the famous literary quartet God bestowed on Nigeria, Christopher Okigbo having achieved immortality ahead of the rest. As the many panegyrics written in honour of Okigbo have proved, absence really does make the heart grow fonder. From now on, many panegyrics will be written to the departed Achebe. Britain may no longer have its Dickenses, nor Russia its Dostoyevskys, nor France its Molieres, nor Ireland its Shaws, for the world has become a parched or at best middling literary landscape, but at least we still have our Wole Soyinka and J.P Clark, the two surviving members of the quartet. What we do with them is up to us.

Achebe’s life and death symbolise the continuing mockery of our inexistent national identity. There is no poet’s corner in Abuja to bury the legend, or any other legend for that matter, for neither do we have a national identity to subdue individual ethnic identities, nor do we have leaders with a sense of history to conjure symbols that could underscore that identity. Achebe will probably be buried in his hometown, the final act in his repudiation of a country that has neither proved itself worthy of its great sons nor risen to an enviable height by the cumulative and stirring effects of the accomplishments of its great daughters.

March 24, 2013
Kano, amnesty and amnesia

For some, the killing of more than 70 persons in a suicide bomb attack on a bus park in Kano last Monday makes the case for granting terrorists rampaging across northern Nigeria amnesty, more compelling.

I beg to disagree. If anything, this stomach-churning slaughter of innocents by faceless cowards should embarrass all those making the amnesty argument.

As an instrument for bringing peace to strife-torn countries, the amnesty has its place. But it works best where the issues involved are largely political or more general crimes. It is more difficult to accept where the matters are sectarian or religious, and where the potential beneficiaries are bestial killers who unapologetically target unarmed civilians – even children.

Those pushing the case for amnesty for Boko Haram militants think they have latched on to a magic bullet that will make the current misery of northern Nigeria disappear. But they are mistaken for a number of reasons.

Firstly, mass killings have become ritualistic over the last five decades in the north. What Boko Haram is doing today is not different from what the followers of Mohammed Marwa aka Maitatsine did in Kano, Kaduna and other places in the 70s and 80s. In that period, thousands of people lost their lives as adherent of his sect clashed with other groups and security agencies.

Interestingly, Maitatsine saw the reading of any other book but the Koran as paganism. He preached against the use of radios, watches, bicycles, cars and undue accumulation of cash – doctrines which bears an eerie resemblance to what Boko Haram – Western education is sin – propagates.

Today’s horrific killings may be shocking, but all those not afflicted with amnesia, will see that they pale in comparison to what happened to a certain Gideon Akaluka in Kano in 1994.

He was an Igbo trader resident whose wife was accused of desecrating a page from the Koran. Confronted by irate accusers, Akaluka fled to the Bompai, Kano police station for refuge. Soon the mob tracked him down and demanded that the police hand him over. They quickly obliged.

Right there, before people who were supposed to enforce the law, he was beheaded and his head impaled on a stake. The gory trophy was then paraded triumphantly round the metropolis by the ‘all-conquering’, singing and chanting mob. No one was ever brought to justice over that act of bestiality, neither were the police ever punished for dereliction of duty.

Hardly a year passes in the north without terrible and inexplicable killings triggered by sectarian or political causes. Over a week in February 2000, more than 400 persons were killed in Kaduna State following riots that accompanied the introduction of Sharia law.

After three days of rioting across the north in November 2002, over 100 people were killed after THISDAY newspaper published a controversial article following the botched attempt to host a Miss World pageant in Nigeria.

I doubt if anyone is keeping count. But the death toll in the lingering communal clashes in Plateau State since their onset must be somewhere in the thousands. The outrages continue today, unfortunately we have become so desensitised to mass murder that the abominable numbers no longer shock us.

This mass slaughter is errant behavior that has continued because it has never been confronted in any serious manner over the years. Rather than bring peace to the north, amnesty will be a reward for bullying conduct. Another set of thugs will rise up conscious of the fact that politically-correct politicians will one day band together to pat them on the back.

The second reason why this amnesty business will not wash is that the current insurgents are a totally different kettle of fish because of the time of their manifestation. Whereas their forerunners like the Maitatsine sect were a local phenomenon, Boko Haram has well-established ties not only with the routed Islamists in Mali, but also with the global Jihadi movement.

It continues to thrive because some of those it targets are not motivated just by a need to escape justice. They are not the dregs of earth pushed into criminality by poverty. Some like Farouk Abdulmuttalab are the scion of the rich classes seduced by romantic notions of jihad sold by the terrorist Al-Qaeda network.

When President Goodluck Jonathan said government will not extend amnesty to ghosts, some criticised him – saying Boko Haram were not faceless because some of their suspected members were in jail. But who do we have in jail other than some hungry 18-year old paid to place an IED in a public square?

These are errand boys whose only contact with anything that approximates sect leadership is some disembodied voice at the other end of a phone line. A serious matter like amnesty cannot be discussed with clueless messengers or so-called leaders who won’t show their faces.

Boko Haram bigwigs are not in jail, neither are their sponsors. They are so ashamed of their evil deeds they hide behind balaclava masks to address the media. If I were responsible for the Kano carnage that killed more of my people than my supposed enemies, I would be ashamed too. This is the third ground that makes it virtually impossible to contemplate any such measure for the sect.

When the Niger Delta militants signed on to the amnesty deal, they all crawled out of the creeks and were shipped off to Aso Rock for photo opportunities with the late President Umaru Yar’Adua. The world was at last able to put faces to shadowy characters with exotic names like “Tompolo,” “General Shoot-at-Sight” “Ogunboss” etc.

Although they had used unlawful, and often violent means to pursue their cause, but their fight against the economic rape of their region and the decades-long environmental degradation was a noble one that even mainstream politicians could identify with. The same cannot be said of Boko Haram. Which major northern politician wants to be associated with this despicable group?

Several months ago they named some major northern figures to negotiate with the Federal Government on their behalf. Within hours the would-be peacemakers were falling over themselves trying to put distance between them and the group.

Of course, there is the rump of Boko Haram led by one Sheik Abu Mohammed Ibn Abdulazeez which says it now wants peace. But before we get ahead of ourselves, we should ask how many legions of terrorists this chap commands.

One thing I know is that he has absolutely no control over the Kano killers. Neither does he have any hold over the Ansaru faction which claimed responsibility for the execution of seven foreign hostages two weeks ago.

Rather than wasting time on this amnesty talk, government should be thinking of developing capacity for fighting the terrorists. After 9/11, when Al-Qaeda caught the United States cold, the Americans created the Department of Homeland Security as part of their comprehensive response. They didn’t choose the easy way out by offering amnesty to the enemies of all that they stood for.

Today, the major national security threat facing Nigeria is terror, not some cross-border invasion by any of our neighbours. That is why the balance of our security spending should tilt away from conventional forces towards building up intelligence and counterinsurgency.

Let’s fight for justice and human values for once. This unhealthy stampede to offer amnesty is akin to surrendering to fringe elements who through murderous tactics are making us lose our humanity. Let’s grow a spine and say no to evil.

March 24, 2013
What befuddling tomfoolery is this now?!

If the FIRS would pay such people a visit, find out their businesses, slap them with a tax so befitting no earthly tailor could match it, then we probably would become less befuddled or even be cured of our tomfoolery

Tomfoolery, says my encyclopaedia, is silly behaviour; and befuddling, goes the same authority, means causing someone to be confused. To be honest, I am so confused by the silliness of Nigeria’s wise rulers and business class that I think it is time to bring out my bag of hows. How come that, according to news reports, some of Nigeria’s rulers and business men, have been able to donate more than N6 billion towards the building of a deanery for the president’s homeland church?! How possible was it for the president of my country to be looking on while those figures (money that is, not the people) were being thrown around and he was not in consternation as I am now?! Just how large can that deanery be that it would require that much money? And just how on earth am I going to explain this to my grandchildren, eh?!

Truth is, anyone can do what they like with their money; it is after all, their money. When someone decides to put his/her money under his bed rather than take it to the bank, he is exercising his full rights over it. When s/he decides to give out every penny of the billions he owns, he is still exercising his full rights. Some businessman somewhere in the world was said to have one day become very sick of having so much money and seeing so many people with nothing to eat that he decided he had had enough. I would have liked to tell you that he then had the poor swept off the streets so that he would no longer have to look at them, but that would be my own story, not our man’s. Our man decided to wind up his business, he gave large chunks of his fortune away and used the remaining to start a food kitchen where the poor could come and eat and where he himself served.

When an individual decides to write his/her birthday party invitation on the nation’s bank notes, s/he is exercising rights that are stolen, cause, as any idiot can tell you, the notes belong to the central bank while the rights to use it legally belong to the holder. I think I’ve reported once that some party girl somewhere in our south-west here once did just that. She decided to send out invitations for her twenty-first birthday on the nation’s highest currency then of fifty naira. Luckily for us all, the police quietly stepped in. We never did find out what happened to those notes. So, anyone who decides to give the president’s deanery any sou, s/he is freely using his/her rights to do so. But we object seriously because that right infringes on our collective sense of what is full and empty. It is not right that while two-thirds of the country is empty in stomach, money should be thrown over our heads by the full in stomach as if we don’t exist. It’s not right.

Someone said the monies donated have been used to serve God. Truly, I cannot comment on this because it is only God who knows who is serving Him. I do know, however, that if the almighty had a say in the matter, he would ask that the president should just take what he needs for his deanery and send the remaining to others still struggling to erect their own church walls, like err, mine. But then, who is the almighty to say anything in matters like this? So, back to breaking our backs, folks, as we struggle on to raise the walls of our worship tents.

One thing is clear. Those stupendous monies have come from people who have gained immensely from the president’s office. Don’t praise me. Saying this does not particularly make me a genius; I am only repeating what others have said because I am rather good at that. But seriously, I don’t care about anyone gaining from the office of the president. What gets my goat is this public show of gratitude. Why must these people show us so blatantly that they have got the president’s ear and we have not? Why must they rub it in that because we don’t have billions to dole out for any cause at all, we don’t get our photos taken with the president? Oh, how I hate these show-offs!

Anyone who has studied the business clime of Nigeria knows for sure that, for good or bad, the federal government has managed to tie every venture in Nigeria around itself and itself around every venture. So, no one can breathe now without the government knowing about it. This of course translates to the fact that the government allows those that it loves to take in more gulps of air than others so that those ones will know how to be grateful in times of contribution so that they can be allowed to take in more gulps of air so that they can be eternally grateful so that … Get my drift? Then you’re doing better than me. I guess what I am trying to say is that launching times are often gratitude times; something you and I can never understand because it is too much like watching the ping-pong of table tennis. Your head is swivelling so much following the ball that you soon lose any idea of who is winning; you just know that if you stand there watching for too long, you will be the one losing.

The trouble in all this, and this is where I suspect the people’s umbrage derives its strength, is that these gratitude times are ultimately tied to the people’s fortunes. What wealth the government doles out to the privileged few does not belong to it but The People who have given it to the government to hold in trust for it (the people that is, not the government). So, when large figures are flying around national news organs, The People’s heads threaten to burst and indignant exclamation marks escape from their mouths: ‘Whar a heck!; why were we not invited to this event?!’ The people know that even though they have not been partakers in the ping-pong of business and money, ultimately, they and their children will have to pay for it. They know that they are the ones losing because all the figures flying around are really theirs, and they have no idea where they are going (the figures, not the people).

To me, the real culprit in all this is the tax office, or the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS). In a good country, where there is adequate reverence for law and order, there would be some officers of FIRS who do not sleep but are perpetually on the lookout for anyone who wants to play the fool with the nation’s money. Their beady eyes would immediately alight on such a figure, note his/her name, place of abode, and times of playing the fool and to what tune. Then those fine gentlemen and women would pay such a one a visit, politely ask what line of business s/he was in to accrue such an amount and then literally slap him/her with a tax so befitting no earthly tailor could match it, no matter how close the person was to anyone. Honestly, that is how we can become less befuddled or even be cured of our tomfoolery in this country. In the absence of that, all the president’s beneficiaries continue to exercise their rights to be grateful citizens, even if at the expense of us all. They also continue to rake up enough goodwill to warrant greater cause for future gratitude world without end, Amen.

March 24, 2013
Corporal punishment for the corpulent prince

Oh dear, oh dear, it is Alapansanpa in Aso Rock. Anybody familiar with Ihe cultural history of Ibadan must surely remember the dreaded masquerade and its infamous ambidexterity when it comes to wielding the native atori whip. The victims are known to weep and wail far into the night from complications arising from post-flagellation trauma. Not a few have ended up with distorted and permanently corrugated buttocks.

There are weeping generals and there are whipping generals. When snooper famously announced that actual reality in Nigeria had retired him from fiction writing, not a few thought that this was a premature and unwarranted termination of noble labours. But reality in Nigeria has continued to make fiction look like a poor cousin: inferior and famished.

Has anybody noticed that mum has been the word from the prince and lead Alsatian of the Aso Rock presidential menagerie-since the impossible and implacable Dr Mohammed Junaid famously declared that he once personally witnessed our own Doyin Okupe of the Agbonmagbe royal lineage being subjected to merciless presidential flogging by former president Olusegun Obasanjo? Or is it snooper that is hallucinating as usual? What further indignities must a man suffer in a legitimate forage for the next meal? What a plebian assault and insult!

It may however be that in this matter, canine discretion is the better part of valour. A few months back, snooper witnessed the two political medicos square up to each other on television. With his visage permanently frozen in fiery contempt, snooper knew that it was only a question of time before the Moscow trained medic raised the ante.

The affable and amiable Remo prince is right to keep mum on this matter. As a Moscow trained doctor, the Kano stormy petrel must have had more than a passing acquaintance with the ways of the KGB or the OGPU, the old Russian all-purpose police. It is not unlikely that he might have recorded the tumultuous shellacking for posterity. If care is not taken the fire-spitting contrarian may yet release the pummeling proceedings to Nollywood under the title, The Pacification of A Prince of the Upper Majidun River, with the sub-title, The Labours of A Lacerated Labrador.

Snooper will like to have the last word on this one but not the last stroke of the cane from the old general. Obasanjo is known to wield the whip with a soldierly sternness and a monstrous mien of private pleasure. He once famously flogged a security man for mishandling a crowd and his victims are known to take to a shuffling crouch. Anytime you see the prince walking with a crouching gait, it may well be as a result of spinal lesions occasioned by corporal and corporate beating.

March 24, 2013
Alamieyeseigha’s pardon : Beyond emotions

The fashionable thing would be for this column to join the bandwagon of those who have been castigating President Goodluck Jonathan for recently exercising his power to forgive some persons found guilty and convicted of gross crimes against the Nigerian state and people. Thanks to the presidential prerogative of mercy, these persons now have a clean bill of health. They are born again and can enjoy the full benefits of Nigerian citizenship. Most of the critics have no grouse with the pardon of those military officers implicated and convicted in the phantom coup plots against the regime of the late General Sani Abacha. They had always been perceived anyway as victims of a sinister power game and the allegations against them pure fiction.

The main point of contention has been the pardon granted Chief Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, former Governor of Bayelsa State, President Jonathan’s former boss and the self-styled Governor-General of the Ijaw nation. Alamieyeseigha had been found culpable and convicted of massive corruption, money laundering and stealing. As Governor, he acquired property across the world on an obscene scale at the expense of the poverty-stricken people of Bayelsa State. In 2005, he jumped bail in Britain, mysteriously found his way back to Nigeria, was subsequently impeached by the Bayelsa State House of Assembly, tried in a court of law and duly convicted.

Those who support the President’s action in pardoning his former boss and continuing mentor contend that Alamieyeseigha had made sufficient atonement for his sins. He had suffered considerable psychological torture. He had worn the stigma of a convict. He had forfeited considerable sums of money and sizable property to the state. In any case, no one has argued that the President lacked the legal powers to exercise the right of pardon the way he did. And to further strengthen the President’s hand, he had acted in concert with the National Council of State (NCS), the highest advisory body in the land. Rather than joining in crying over spilt milk, this column considers it more useful to reflect on what the Alamieyeseigha pardon tells us about state, society, power and politics in contemporary Nigeria. We will dwell on our existential realities as they are and not as we think they ought to be.

The first thing that comes to mind, an issue frequently raised in this space are the phenomenal powers of the Nigerian presidency. Patterned after the American presidential system, Nigeria’s presidency wields enormous powers and privileges without the institutional, moral and societal restraints that largely circumscribe the conduct of his American counterpart. This is probably why the NCS simply acted as a rubber stamp on the Alamieyeseigha issue. Some critics have accused Jonathan of being largely motivated by self-interest, particularly considerations of the 2015 elections in pardoning his former boss. The calculation, it is suggested, is that Alamieyeseigha may be offered a powerful ministerial post, possibly the Niger Delta Ministry, that will enable him warehouse substantial funds and act as the President’s ‘Mr Fix-it’ in the South-South come the critical 2015 elections. Well, all this still lies within the realm of conjecture.

However, I find it difficult to fault Jonathan who has already clearly begun his permutations to stay in office beyond 2015. This is simply the norm in Nigerian politics. Anyone who, in these climes, opts for the famous ‘Mandela option’ of staying just one term in office would be considered a mad man. Here, calculations for a second term begin almost immediately after the swearing in for the first term. This seems to be an iron law of Nigerian politics. It applies at all levels from the local governments to the presidency. Not even General Olusegun Obasanjo could defy this iron law of perpetuation in office. During his first coming as military Head of State, OBJ won worldwide plaudits for voluntarily quitting office and handing over to an elected civilian government in 1979. In his second coming as elected President, OBJ had grown much ‘wiser’. He tried in futility to have the constitution amended to enable him enjoy a third term in office.

But then, there is something baffling about the way Jonathan is going about his ambitions for 2015. Here is a man who rode to power on the wings of a much trumpeted ‘Transformation Agenda’. Yet, midway into his tenure, there is little to show on ground in terms of concrete performance. Can the expected electoral abracadabra of the likes of Tony Anenih and Alamieyeseigha make up for this deficiency in terms of measurable achievements especially in the face of a determined opposition? Time will tell. However, a more serious question is why would Jonathan consider a man convicted of massive corruption like Alamieyeseigha a veritable political asset towards 2015? Should he not in a normal society be a grave liability that an incumbent President would want to keep at arms-length? And this is where we must transcend emotions in analysing this issue. Alamieyeseigha may have been a criminal in the eyes of the Nigerian state. But to his beloved people in the Niger Delta, he remains a hero and role model. This is the same thing with James Ibori who is currently serving a jail term in Britain for corrupt practices. If Ibori returns home tomorrow, he will definitely be accorded a hero’s welcome by ‘his people’.

The huge outcry against Alamieyeseigha’s pardon has come really from a small band of social critics, human rights activists, radical academics and Non-Governmental organizations supported by the international community particularly the United States. Does this outcry represent the Nigerian society’s sense of moral outrage at the gargantuan scale of corruption that hobbles the land? I do not think so. Most Nigerians are simply going about their businesses absolutely unperturbed about the pardon and its implications. In other climes, the people would be out in their numbers protesting this kind of moral outrage on the streets. Why then must outsiders cry louder than the bereaved on this matter? Just think about it. Alamieyeseigha did not still money belonging to the United States.

The money he stole did not even belong to the totality of the Nigerian people. It was the money allocated to Bayelsa state from the Federation Account during his tenure as Governor that he criminally privatised. Yet, what was the reaction in Bayelsa State at the announcement of his pardon? There was widespread jubilation! Who then are you and I to question Jonathan’s judgement on a pardon that the people of Bayelsa State- the victims of the massive corruption – have enthusiastically and wholeheartedly endorsed?

This is not a matter on which we can afford to be emotional. We should face the facts realistically in order to be able to come up with effective guide posts towards a corruption-free Nigeria. For the majority of Nigerians, the Nigerian state at all levels remains an alien entity whose resources can be legitimately plundered at will. Those who have access to state resources and maintain a saintly, ‘holier than thou’ attitude are held in utter derision. Those ‘wise’ ones who utilise state power to ‘eat’ ravenously on behalf of their people are held in the highest esteem. They are offered chieftaincy titles and the most prominent places in churches and mosques. In other words, Alamieyeseigha may have acted illegally in the eyes of the law, but he remained morally untainted by the ethical canons of his local milieu. That is a major obstacle to scale before we can fight any meaningful anti-corruption war in Nigeria.

March 23, 2013
Shocking fallout from Alamieyeseigha’s pardon

I did not realise how immensely Nigerians had profited from the public lecture theSpecial Adviser to the President on Media, Dr. Reuben Abati, delivered on clemency and pardon last week until an experience I had with my wife and her housemaid last Saturday.

Abati had described the widespread criticism that trailed the pardon President Goodluck Jonathan granted former Bayelsa State Governor, Diepriye Alamieyeseigha, as “sophisticated ignorance” and took time to educate those who described the pardon granted the likes of the late Gen. Shehu Musa Yar’Adua, Gen. Oladipo Diya and Gen. Tajudeen Olanrewaju as superfluous. He insisted that what the former military henchmen got from the Abdulsalami administration was mere clemency and not pardon which was why many of them had not received their entitlements.

Seeing that our six-year-old son failed to do his homework on the excuse that there was no public power and our generator failed to work, my wife decided to suspend the daily menu of sausage roll and juice the lad used to take to school. I pleaded with her not to make good her threat, particularly because it was the first time he would do such a thing in a long while. But I was surprised that the following morning, he cried to my room and complained that mum had withheld his fruit juice and gave him only a sausage roll.

I called my wife and asked why she still had not forgiven the poor boy in spite of my earlier intervention. “Of course, I have forgiven him,” she said. “I would not have given him the sausage roll if I hadn’t forgiven him. But his forgiveness was only a clemency. Tomorrow, I will turn his clemency into pardon and then he will have both the sausage roll and juice!”

But the worse fallout came from a fraudster who sent a text message to my phone after reading my piece on the pardon saga last Saturday and introduced himself as Dr. Reuben Abati, Senior Special Assistant to President Jonathan on Media. Buoyed apparently by state pardon the Jonathan administration granted a fugitive and convicted pilferer of the public purse, the fellow has been carrying on with the boldness of a lion, bombarding me with calls and text messages from his telephone number 08027456324. He said my name was being considered for a board appointment, and that to ensure that this came into fruition, I should send the sum of N250,000 into the UBA account of his CSO whose name he gave as Mumuni Kadiri with telephone number 07058881113.

Sensing that the impostor was doing a great disservice to the name and reputation of Dr. Reuben Abati, I sent the President’s spokesman a mail, drawing his attention to the development I saw as a clear and present danger. But Abati’s response was anything but urgent. It took almost 24 hours before his terse reply hit my phone, with nothing in it to show that he was angry or worried. “That is not my number. Someone has been using my name. Beware of 419,” he wrote.

Now certain that Abati had nothing to do with the fellow, I sent him a text message and tried to drive fear into him. I told him that he would rot in jail because I had alerted Abati about his antics and SSS officials were already on his trail. But I was disarmed by the temerity contained in his response. “Hahahaha, I return that to you,” he wrote back, boasting that his CSO would buy “two cartons of moet rose drink and clear drinks with SSS into the Villa (sic).” At this point, it struck me that the apparent impunity with which the Boko Haram sect has operated for two years might have rubbed off on fraudsters and could soon extend to other anti-social elements around the country. Clearly, there is anarchy on the horizon.

Such grim prospects were responsible for the public outrage that greeted the Alamieyeseigha pardon, including the following responses to my piece on the subject last week, in spite of Abati’s tirade:

•Your article every Saturday is like the fresh palm wine we used to enjoy in the village many years ago. Please tell me, when will Nigeria return to democracy and do away with this criminal arrangement that has made life worse than hell for the masses? For how long must we allow these outdated political godfathers to continue to toy with our collective survival in the name of politics?

Today, Nigerians are calling fraud democracy and paying duly for it. Alamieyeseigha was not alone when he stole Bayelsa blind. Somebody deputised him, and that person cannot claim ignorance of what was going on then. Today, if that person decides to help his partner who is down, why should anybody tongue-lash him. Don’t birds of a feather flock together anymore?

A young man got married. He did not wait for a child to arrive in the family before he hurriedly bought a dog and named it Paul. After 15 years of barrenness, he took his wife to a native doctor for spiritual solution. To his shock, the traditional doctor told him that his trouble started when he a domestic animal the name of a human being, and that unless he killed the dog, he would not hear the cry of a human being in his house.

Ifeanyi O. Ifeanyichukwu.

Can someone tell the President that he forgot to include on his posthumous pardon list the likes of Oyenusi, Anini and the extra-judicially killed Boko Haram leader. What about Cecilia Ibru. In fact, he forgot all the convicted corrupt felons. Long live corruption in the land of the giant of Africa.

And who says we don’t deserve this? Of course, we deserve the nonsense we voted for on sentiment grounds and for exhibiting total lack of wisdom despite the handwriting on the wall to the effect that we were voting for a candidate from a party that had heaped misery on us for 12 years. Have we learnt anything yet?

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•Whether or not President Jonathan changes guards by recruiting OBJ’s sworn enemies into his government his winning another term in 2015 is not yet guaranteed. He will definitely need OBJ. The sympathy votes of 2011 are gone. Many things have changed in all the six geo-political regions, particularly in the South West.

Granting Alamieyeseigha state pardon was and remains an economic and transparency error. The nation’s image has been brought down!

Lanre Oseni.

•The presidential pardon granted Alamieyeseigha is an embarrassment to Nigerians and an avenue to encourage corruption in governance. While it is in our constitution to grant pardons, it is not in cases of corruption. Other countries are busy fighting against corruption in governance.

Gordon Chika Nnorom.

March 23, 2013
Code of conduct for Eagles

Success intoxicates. It has an uncanny way of making people walk on thin air.

Decorum is thrown into the bin. For the media, bad news is good news. Newsmen look for such scoops to sell their platforms. Will anyone blame them, especially in our case where a man bites a dog and people are not stunned? They have seen worse things.

Indeed, the poor conduct of the top actors of the South Africa 2013 cup heroes reached its uncharitable and uncomplimentary heights last week Friday when Super Eagles striker Emmanuel Emenike fouled the air with scathing comments about his coach and eggheads of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF).

The words Emenike chose were awful. They showed a high level of indiscipline, such that this writer kept wondering if a Nigerian could pour such invectives on his club’s management and coaches. Even though his reasons for anger were germane, he ought to have known that he could one day return to the squad to meet these people he tried to paint as irresponsible in the international media.

Granted the failure to contact Emenike should elicit such angst from the player, yet he should have told us the attempts he made to reach the coaches and the NFF. This perspective has become expedient following the revelation that Emenike changed his telephone lines. He wouldn’t have expected the coaches to know about his change of contact, except he told them so. How does Emenike hope to curry the coaches’ favour in future, if he is a borderline case with another player for the list of those to be dropped?

What Emenike’s rant means is that our coaches should urge the players to register in their Blackberry group where everyone’s movement can be checked? Emenike didn’t want the coaches or/and the NFF to visit him in Turkey. All he demanded was a telephone call (s) to find out how he was faring. Emenike’s demand wasn’t a difficult one, especially as he sustained the injury playing for Nigeria at the 2013 Africa Cup of Nations held in South Africa.

Interestingly, the coach behaved maturely, with his stoic silence. He has learnt from the Osaze Odemwingie saga.

The need for a code of conduct becomes expedient when the story of John Mikel Obi’s text message to the General Secretary of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), Barrister Musa Amadu, broke.

The impunity of having to send a text message to the administrative head of the federation underscores how our players regard people in position of authority. Would anyone blame him when the NFF President was ordered out of the stage by the announcer at the presidential reception organised for the Eagles? Could Mikel have had the guts to do that to the smallest administrator in Chelsea? It is easy to say that they won’t owe their players. Yet there are better ways to demand for the cash than pushing out an audacious text message.

Mikel’s message read thus: “Sec pls, I just want to let u know that if we do not get our match bonus for winning the Nations Cup, we are not playing this game ok.” Had Mikel been the Eagles’ captain, one would have said that he was speaking for the others. In what capacity was he sending that message? What was the hurry in sending the message when he was coming to Nigeria for the game? Couldn’t he have been more courteous to call Amadu, instead of the threatening text message? Would Nigeria seize to be a sovereign nation, if we don’t play a World Cup game? Did the world stop when Nigeria wasn’t at the 2006 World Cup held in Germany? Or are we back to the era of the mafia who held our football hostage with this irritating arm-twisting tactics? Or did Mikel hear that the cash had been given to Amadu? Our players should exercise decorum some when demanding their rights.

The joke of the Mikel text saga is that it is being swept aside on the altar of whom it was sent to? Was it sent to the NFF Secretary-General or the team’s secretary? Little wonder Mikel laughed his naughty stunt off because he knew nothing would come out of it. Mikel didn’t deny that he sent it, but those desirous to debunk the story failed to ask the Chelsea star who he sent the text to?

One won’t be surprised if Mikel goes unpunished for this act. We treat issues concerning the Eagles with sentiments for as long as they are doing well. This Mikel act is despicable because he was clearly speaking for himself. As a top player in the Barclays English Premier League, he should know better how such demands are made.

Would he have confronted his compatriot in Chelsea, Michael Emenalo, if his club had delayed in paying his winning bonus? To begin with, does he even have access to Emenalo, despite that the man is also a Nigerian? Mikel knows that such untoward conduct is hardly condoned in Chelsea- and elsewhere in Europe. The truth of the matter is that our players are so uneducated and so unenlightened to know the right approach to issues. And this is where their European colleagues are years ahead of them. There is no way you will find a European player badmouthing his coach or employer, no matter the circumstance.

Elsewhere, the skipper of the team would subtly remind the federation about their outstanding entitlements and get commitments. He would do this through their coaches. It is from their coaches that the players would be told the next line of action. Is anyone angry that Mikel chose to deal directly with the NFF? I no know book o! He certainly didn’t carry his coaches along. Like the late Fela Anikulapo-Kuti sang in one of his albums, ODOO, overtake don overtake overtake, ye yea…

Going to the South Africa 2013 Africa Cup of Nations, the NFF’s budget for players’ match bonuses was graduated from $10,000 for the preliminary games, $15,000 and then $20,000. Eagles’ first two matches were convulsive. Indeed, the Sports Minister, in his wisdom – perhaps to further motivate the players, directed that the full winning bonus of $15,000 be paid for the drawn game against Zambia. This writer applauded the decision which was at grave cost to the NFF’s working plan of $10,000. Looking back, it was worth it because we broke a 19-year-old jinx. Our people felt like one and it opened a new vista for us as a country. People’s perception of Nigeria changed. The bonuses overshot the federation’s budget. The players didn’t really bother about the final game, having clinched the trophy.

A labourer deserves his wages, but such demands should be done with wisdom. One expected to read that the NFF reneged on earlier promises in Mikel’s text. He didn’t reflect it. Emenike and Mikel have thrown potshots at the system? Whose turn is it next? We are watching.

Ajimobi’s heart of gold

Oyo State Governor Abiola Ajimobi is the man of the moment. He is not known to be an avid supporter of football. Yet he has given the family of ailing Nigeria international Jossy lad N850,000, in two tranches of N350,000 and N500,000.

Jossy Lad has been diagnosed of a heart ailment. He needs help. The Oyo Government’s prompt response to a man who gave his life to Shooting Stars Sports Club (3SC) as a player, coach and administrator is commendable.

The government has promised more. We need to assist our heroes when they are distressed. Jossy Lad is a good man and deserves all the financial assistance he needs to stay alive. This is the time to assist him and not when he is gone (God forbid). Come on folks! Join Ajimobi in getting Jossy Lad back on his feet. Jossy Lad must not be allowed to die.

March 23, 2013
Global housekeeping – Values and issues

We take on housekeeping and cleaning chores today as we attempt to discuss and clear out some old issues that resurface this last week like stubborn cobwebs that have dogged global diplomacy for years. There are really quite a number of them and some have turned up in quite different apparels this time around. The first surprise was in Turkey where the leader of the PKK the well known Kurdish terrorist organization has, unbelievably, called for a cease fire. The second was at the installation of the Archbishop of Canterbury – Justin Welby – where a female Archdeacon installed the Archbishop whereas just four months ago the Church of England Synod voted against the ordination of women as priests. The third is Cyprus where in asking for a bailout fund of 10m euros from the IMF and EU, Cyprus is finding it difficult to raise its contribution of 7 bn euros before Monday and has attracted the attention of Russia whose citizens own about two thirds of bank deposits in that nation. The fourth is Kenya which had its presidential election recently and where the there have been petitions against the elections results and the pre trial sessions will commence in Nairobi next Monday. The fifth was the visit of the US President Barak Obama to Israel and the West Bank where he paid the usual US policy lip service to the two state solution to the Palestinian problem even as Israel continues its policy of building on occupied territories on the west bank.

The news from Turkey reminded me of the way the news broke about the release of Nelson Mandela and his initial negotiations with the apartheid de Klerk regime in S. Africa. Even ANC representatives scoffed at the news as apartheid and racist propaganda and misinformation then. But then, it turned out to be true. I have the same hunch on this Abdullah Ocalan declaration that PKK fighters should drop their arms in Turkey. According to reports on the internet Ocalan said the struggle has entered a new phase of democratic struggle and an era of ideas and negotiations requiring different strategy and weaponry. Most Kurds and Turks are said to be relieved and happy at the news and the Turkish government should be happy with itself in achieving an important political coup that past military governments which regarded the military as the guardian of Turkey’s secular democracy, have found elusive.

Although there have been reports that some elements of the PKK are against what they perceive as a capitulation of their leader under duress and in captivity, those close to Ocalan say that he has acted on his own volition. Any way it is up to the government in Ankarra to keep the peace momentum going to sustain the new peace in Turkey by giving the much sought autonomy to the Kurds for which PKK fought for so long and for which so many people have died in terrorist acts for decades. The Ocalan peace deal may even advance Turkey’s pursuit of what its government and people covet most, which is membership of the EU. This is because persecution of Kurds has always been a stigma used against Turkey in this regard, and this new peace deal should give the Turks immense opportunity to remedy this and boost their EU potential membership credentials and prospects.

The installation of the new Archbishop of Canterbury was dogged in controversy coming from the era of his predecessor. The issue of enthronement of gay bishops was one that the African Anglican Communion had always opposed, albeit to no effect, with the British government and leadership of the Anglican Church of which the Archbishop of Canterbury is the Spiritual leader. The hope in Africa and Nigeria is that the new Archbishop will respect African values because he has worked in Nigeria as an oil worker and as a priest prior to his present great assignment. But already, he too has faced challenges at home as he voted just a month ago, against what the English Synod approved on the ordination of women priests. On equal rights for gay couples he is uncertain as he endorsed biblical marriage between man and woman but has said he has seen same sex couples capable of the same love as a man and a woman. More importantly, the Conservative – Liberal Party government that appointed him, led by PM David Cameron is determined to enforce gay marriages and equal rights for same sex marriage in Britain and sooner than later, this new Archbishop will play ball and I wonder what the African Anglican Communion will do then.

We have seen on the internet that African Anglican Primates attended the ceremony but we were told they will not attend a meeting to be called by the new Archbishop later. Really, the African Primates have my sympathy because they have the problem of legitimacy, authority loyalty to face as these flow from the seat of the Archbishop of Canterbury to all parts of the global Anglican Communion. Yet, these Primates must brace themselves for hard knocks at home and abroad if they play ball with this new Archbishop. The way out is to stand for African values like former Nigerian Primate Peter Akinola did, till he retired and his successor Nicholas Okoh has been doing since. Which in effect means inevitable confrontation or schism in the global Anglican community. If however the umbilical cord is too hard to break, for whatever reason, a confederation of Anglican Communions will be more honorable for Africans than a global Anglican Communion led by an Archbishop at the beck and call of a British government committed to enforcing gay rights and same sex marriages. Really there should be mutual respect for cultural values even in matters of state and religion as in this particular instance.

On Cyprus I am fascinated by the speed with which the Lenders are about to throw the baby away with the bath tub given the Monday ultimatum they are giving Cyprus to perform or get its banking system blown away. The Russian PM Medvedev is reported to have said that the EU and IMF are behaving like a bull in a China shop and that is quite interesting in the light of some information I picked up on Cyprus in a book in my library. The book – The Sink – written by Jeffry Robinson is on money laundering and how money from offshore banking is being used globally to finance, terrorism narcotics and crime and has some information on Cyprus that I want to share with readers. The book says in part –In Cyprus, Russian criminal organizations control a huge percentage of the 48000 shell companies registered there, 47000 of which have no physical presence whatsoever – no roof, no phone number not even a post box . I found this amazing when I first read the book some time ago. Now given Cyprus’plight and the on- going financial and banking reforms in Europe, perhaps the EU is doing serious house cleaning starting with shell companies and tax havens like Cyprus, and is sending a signal to criminal gangs this time from Russia and banks that back them that the era of dirty money and offshore illegality is about to come to an end, starting from Cyprus. We are watching.

On Monday, the pre trial session of the petition against the election results that declared Uhuru Kenyatta winner will begin in Kenya. The Chief Justice Willy Mutunga has asked that the press should not comment on the issue once the trial, which will be publicized, starts. The petition include charges of rigging and figures manipulation. Again the personality of the CJ may be more fascinating than the case itself. He wears an ear ring which he said allows him to communicate with his ancestors and is a gay rights activist, although he says he is not gay. He has divorce case pending against him in a Kenyan court and has been a Catholic, Anglican and Muslim at various times. The petitioner Rahoula Odinga’s late father Oginga Odinga was his hero and he is a friend to the son. The new CJ has however assured all and sundry that he will be fair and just and handle the case according to the constitution of Kenya . Again , we are watching.

Lastly we look at Obama’s three day tour of Israel and the West Bank and see how it has lived up to its billing which was that the status quo will be maintained. Well to me it has, somewhat and I really don’t like that. The status quo was a stalled peace process because the Palestinians said there would be no peace talks unless the Israelis stop building on occupied territories. Obama seemed to have supported that, till he said the contrary on this visit, which is really unfortunate. The only good thing out of the visit was Obama confirming he was for the Israelis and the US is as such. However his kowtowing to Israeli hawks like PM Benjamin Netanyahu and asking the Palestinians not to use building on occupied territory as condition for peace is unfortunate and very unfair to the Palestinians. Again I want to see how that will move the peace process forward in the area. Such capitulation, most unexpected, sure to send a strong signal to Palestinians and indeed all Arabs that the US is not to be trusted where Israel is concerned and that creates a mirage for peace in the Middle East and as is often the case, the entire world. Which also is a great pity indeed.

March 23, 2013
I beg your pardon!

When a native English speaker exclaims: “I beg your pardon!” he is seeking clarification on what he heard, or expressing one of two possible emotions. An example is: “Where did you say you were going?” One of the emotions which the phrase conveys is surprise. Another is anger.

As news broke last week that former Bayelsa State Governor Diepreye Solomon Peter Alamieyeseigha had been pardoned for his corruption offences, I found myself seeking clarification. As the matter developed first from rumour to denial and finally to certainty, I shuddered with surprise and then anger. A Nigerian, though, I felt justified to explode: I beg your pardon!

In mid 2000s, DSP Alamieseigha was the news. If it wasn’t of his arrest in London for fraud allegations, it was certainly of his mysterious escape and appearance in Nigeria allegedly disguised as a woman, an allegation he has repeatedly denied. And if the media were not awash with news of his arrest in the country and prosecution by then Mallam Nuhu Ribadu-led EFCC, everyone was talking about his swift release from jail after being in detention for two years.

In those days, Alamieyeseigha was the lead story. The allegations against him were weighty. He was, and perhaps, still is, a very influential figure in the Ijaw nation and was generally hailed the Governor-General of the ethnic group. Again, not everyone lost sight of the fact that he was at odds with then President Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, and for that reason, many thought his troubles were essentially political persecution. For these reasons, DSP was a big item on the news desk.

Still, his state pardon was shocking and distressing. Reports said the National Council of State, a group of ex-presidents, state governors and other bigwigs headed by the President, approved Alamieseigha’s amnesty. A former bank chief convicted of fraud was also pardoned, as were several ex-military officers, a few posthumously.

Many are shocked and distressed, from the opposition to legal circles to students to civil society to even the ruling party, the PDP, of which President Goodluck Jonathan is national leader. A PDP leader who reportedly spoke anonymously expressed his surprise at the state pardon, wondering what message it would send to the corrupt or to those fighting them. Some lawyers even question the legality of the Council of State granting such pardons, wondering if the council’s role is not essentially advisory.

Alamieseigha’s pardon surprises and angers me for some other reasons? One of them is the manner the President’s spokesmen have defended it. One of those aides, Dr Doyin Okupe, said the pardon was proper because Alamieseigha was remorseful. Okupe also waxed philosophical, reaching deep into Yoruba adages to point out the futility of further punishing a surrendered thief. After chasing down a rogue and forcing him to give up what he stole, why continue the chase? he asked. Okupe also sought to tarnish the image of anyone who disapproved of the pardon, saying the President is like a parent whose decisions and actions should not be questioned by the children even if those decisions and actions may not always favour the children.

Okupe does not say what he means by Alamieseigha’s remorse or to whom he expressed it, whether to President Jonathan or the Ijaw nation or the Nigerian people. In one breath, this medical doctor who speaks for the President tries to rationalise his principal’s action; in another, he labours to absolve him of blame, saying the pardon was indeed granted by the Council of State, not the President per se. When Okupe suggests that Nigerians should accept everything the President says and does without flinching, he does not say by what democratic standards or precedence his postulation is based. He is even insinuating that every critic is an enemy.

I am also disturbed by the report that members of the Council of State were not thoroughly briefed on the agenda of the penultimate Tuesday session and that many of them got the memo at the meeting, not before. What will people make of that, if it is true?

I am equally disturbed by the report that the real reason Alamieseigha was pardoned was to enhance Jonathan’s rumoured 2015 ambition. The President’s approval rating among ex-militants in his home state, Bayelsa, is said to be low and that he intends to improve it using the immense clout of the Governor-General who is reckoned to be quite close to the former combatants. Such reports, if true, do the President little good, not because it is unlawful for him to run but because people will perceive him as scheming for power.

Okupe, who has been busy speaking to foreign and local media since the pardon, said Nigerians should respect national institutions, referring to the Council of State. But he seems to have forgotten that critics of the pardon are worried because national institutions are also being undermined. Take the EFCC which tried and jailed Alamieseigha. Like the National Council of State, it too was created by our laws.

The Presidency, itself a creation of the law, should not be perceived or seen to be undermining the spirit and letter of the nation’s institutions. Like plea bargain, this state pardon emboldens fraudsters. They get the idea that if caught, they will be pardoned sooner or later. It hurts and makes you wonder if you heard aright.

March 23, 2013
Kano blast: the second ‘pogrom’

It was a professional job. It was meticulously planned, carefully executed and the result was perfect. I bet they are still clinking glasses now, celebrating the willful massacre of Ndigbo, the expendable factor in the Nigerian equation. They chose the new Luxury Bus Park in Sabon Gari, kano, the hub of Igbo transport businessmen and traders who commute therefrom to different parts of Nigeria, moving goods to and fro the large commercial city of Kano.

They chose the right time, about 4.30pm last Monday, March 18, 2013. It was peak period for Igbo traders who are wont to travel by night to different parts of Nigeria to buy and sell. The murderers must have kept their surveillance at the park waiting until a few of the luxury buses were fully loaded and ready to depart. The signal must have gone out that the hour of slaughter had come; and the killers drove into the park, purporting to be passengers and with their vehicles right in front of the luxury buses, they detonated not one, but two massive explosions.

And the luxury buses, about six of them, were pulverized with their human cargo – mainly Ndigbo. They were blown to pieces and roasted like rams right in their seats where a few minutes earlier they waited patiently and made prayers for a safe trip. Some of them had been travelling this way for over a decade trying hard to make meaning of their ill-fated Nigerianness. Yes they knew they could die in their struggle but not by a sudden, ghastly Armageddon.

One of the buses was said to be fully loaded and ready to leave: that is a 52-sitter capacity plus about a dozen ‘attachments’. This totals over 60 passengers in just one bus. If we add the casualties in other buses and the usual bus park crowd, we begin to have an idea of the overall carnage which may not be less than 75 deaths as some newspapers have reported and about twice as much injured. Who is to talk about the goods, cash and property damage? Some of the luxury buses in the fleet of Gobison, Ezenwata, blessed Chimezie and New Tarzan are said to be brand new.

The second ‘pogrom’: this bombing of the luxury bus park is reminiscent of the pogrom against the Igbo race in Northern Nigeria in 1966; that orgy of killing of innocent Igbo civilian men, women and children following a failed military coup. But today, nobody has planned any coup, at least not these hapless Igbo traders whose only offence is that they are Ndigbo doing their buying and selling in Kano. They have been premeditatedly slaughtered because they are Ndigbo and they are dispensable. It is apparent that the Islamist terrorists and their elite thinkers want to make more impact in their fight against the Goodluck Jonathan administration. Their calculation is that by using Ndigbo as cannon fodder, Ndigbo would react spontaneously, fighting back and escalating the crisis. This must be the callous calculation of the masterminds of the Islamists. But they are disappointed, Ndigbo are not cowardly murderers of innocent, defenseless people.

This is not the first time Ndigbo have been savaged so tauntingly. Luxury buses bearing Ndigbo have been torched many times. Igbo clusters like the Catholic churches and some markets have been callously targeted to vicariously push Ndigbo into violence and blood letting. Since all previous efforts to score a point by slaughtering Ndigbo failed, and emboldened by the fact that they got away with such murders, they did it on a much larger scale this time.

And of course, there won’t be a whimper from any quarter this time either. As far as the president is concerned, it is just another explosion. His media aides have sent out their now pro-forma condolence news release which they must have used over a hundred times in the last two years: “ President Goodluck Jonathan has condemned in strong terms, yesterday’s bomb blast in…. Blah, blah, blah.” Everyone else follows suit in the ensuing chorus of puerile condemnations. The day after the blast, the president was seen doing what he loves best: receiving so gleefully, some foreign ‘dignitries’. By the third day, he was threatening Nigerians that the so-called fuel subsidy must be removed. Such was the importance attached to the life of a Nigerian especially of Igbo stock.

Nobody spares a thought for tens of families who have been thrown into mourning; who have lost their fathers, mothers, children; people who have lost their entire livelihood and whose lives have been damaged forever for no fault of theirs. While body parts still litter the Kano motor park some people are begging for amnesty for the murderers. What about bringing some succor to the victims of the blast? We have canvassed several times on this page that a committee be set up to cater for the victims of the burgeoning terrorist activities and ameliorate their pains but nobody cares. We have said on this page that southeast governors should create a databank of the victims of this madness, but nobody is doing anything. Since Ndigbo seem the major casualties of this crisis what are the southeast governors doing? Why have they become brain dead on this serious matter? It is most confounding that while the criminals are canvassing and are about to be compensated by way of amnesty, the real victims – Ndigbo, cannot articulate a coherent position or response on this matter even now that it has become a pogrom of sort. There is even a design to bury the evidence quickly and cover the material facts.

Solution to Boko Haram menace

Meanwhile, same Monday after the senseless murder of Ndigbo in Kano, Muslim umbrella body, the Jama’atu Nasril Islam (JNI) insists on amnesty for the Boko Haram terrorists. How much more insensitive can a people be in the face of the bodies of fellow compatriots still smouldering in a kano motor garage. The call for amnesty which was made by the secretary-general of the JNI, Dr. Khalid Aliyu was coming on the wings of the recent call by the Sultan of Sokoto for dialogue with the sect.

Since President Jonathan has indicated that he would not dialogue with ‘ghosts’ and rightly so, here is EXPRESSO’s simple solution: let the federal government empanel the Sultan, the JNI and some northern governors to dialogue with the Boko Haram and present their report/demands in four weeks. The rest of Nigerians would gladly consider the demands and take it from there. If they need an ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF NORTHERN NIGERIA, so be it, so long as the Sultan and the JNI elite sanction it, I don’t think the rest of us would mind. We would simply have streamlined the debate to the question of boundary adjustment. And there are precedents to cite: North and South Korea; North and South Vietnam and recently, North and South Sudan. Nigeria as constituted is not sacrosanct.

LAST MUG: Jonathan and his fuel subsidy: our dear president has threatened us that the ‘subsidy’ we the elite enjoy must be removed otherwise Nigeria will fail. He and his economists are one-track-minded about this matter but they refuse to accept that we are trapped in this cycle of ‘subsidy’ because we do not have refineries; they refuse to see the point that all other oil producing countries refine their own products and export more of refined products; they refuse to see the failure of NNPC not being able to work out our refining system the way other national oil firms like Petrobras, etc, have done. Why don’t we subsidise local refining instead of foreign refineries? If Jonathan was a visionary leader, he would have ended petrol product importation in this last two years. Yes, he ought to have solved the ‘subsidy’ problem by now.

March 22, 2013