The Nation Newspaper

Category: Columnists

  • The limits of pardon

    The limits of pardon

    President Goodluck Jonathan seems to like courting unnecessary controversies which keeps denting the image of his government. If not, how can he or his aides justify the surprise state pardon granted the impeached governor of Bayelsa State, Diepreye Alamieyeseigha?

    From one controversy to the other by him or his ‘born again’ wife, Dame Patience, the President continues to fritter whatever is left of the goodwill he initially enjoyed when he was elected.

    He has a way of sometimes leaving many of his sympathisers, including myself, speechless with some of his controversial decisions, which make one to wonder if he really cares about the implications of his actions.

    With the various challenges the federal government is battling on all fronts and the need to enjoy the support of as many as possible, the presidential pardon for his former boss, who was convicted for money laundering and other serious corrupt offences in 2007, is uncalled for.

    The President must know something we don’t all know to justify the surreptitious manner of getting the Council of State to endorse his hidden agenda of granting the pardon to Alamieyeseigha and others, which some of those present at the meeting are now faulting.

    If the president thought he could placate Nigerians by including the names of the former governor under whom he served as deputy along with some retired military officers who were jailed for a phantom coup, on the list of those pardoned, he now knows better.

    No amount of defence by his Senior Special Assistant on Public Affairs, Dr. Doyin Okupe, can convince anyone that the president does not have a personal interest in exercising his right to grant pardon to those who at one time or the other have been punished for an offence against the state.

    Okupe has really been at his best churning out all kinds of justification for Alamieyeseigha’s pardon, including the laughable one that the former governor had used his political and stabilising influence in the Niger Delta region to ensure high volume of crude oil export by the country. The irrepressible spokesman is obviously stretching the truth too far for want of good reasons for the pardon.

    Interestingly, Okupe quoted Lord Denning as saying that “the purpose of punishment is not to destroy the offender but to reform him and deter others.” Alamieyesigha should be grateful that he is not languishing in jail for the offences he committed. Granting him pardon is clearly not the way to reform him or deter others from corrupt practices.

    If President Jonathan is really serious about his anti-corruption crusade, he should not have pardoned the former governor, who was convicted for stealing public fund or any other person like the former Managing Director of the Bank of the North, Shetima Bulama, who misappropriated bank funds.

    Clearly, President Jonathan is very desperate to help his ‘benefactor’ to erase his shameful past records, which explains why military officers who had earlier been granted clemency are now being pardoned.

    Time will tell what the real purpose of the pardon for Alamieyesigha is for, but President Jonathan will go down in history as one leader who sacrificed the desire of Nigerians for a corruption-free nation by pardoning his former boss who was found guilty and jailed for corruption.

  • Baba Lekki unfolds his coat of arms

    Whilst we are still on the subject of whimsical and arbitrary rule and its self-perpetuating dynamics, it is proper to report that arbitrary violence is a logical fallout of arbitrary rule. Arbitrary rule is an act of psychological violence against the populace. Accustomed to the routine and wanton cruelty of arbitrary rule, arbitrary violence takes root in the society as everybody luxuriates in the superiority of brute intimidation.

    Last Tuesday as snooper was making his way through the vehicular maelstrom of Matori, a group of desperate urchins sitting atop a moving train and armed with stones the size of boulders were aiming their hand propelled grenades at passing vehicles. One of the crude missiles landed just behind snooper and made such a clattering noise that the fear of the lord was driven into everybody. Nobody could have stopped a moving train. This is as close to Hades as it could get on earth.

    A few days later, snooper was still ruminating on this apocalyptic meltdown when he was confronted by a most outlandish sight in the kitchen. It was a glum and gloomy Baba Lekki wearing a huge outsize coat with its front pockets bulging with poorly concealed weapons of mass destruction. His face was grotesquely swollen with a massive lump superimposed on what used to be his nose. He looked like somebody who had just managed to extricate himself from a giant rodent trap with telltale wounds. Snooper was secretly enthralled by this remarkable discomfiture of the old contra and master of anticipatory violence. But all efforts to draw him out about the nature of his plight failed woefully.

    “Okon, which one be this one again oo, or has your baba become a comedian?” snooper asked gleefully, casting a wicked glance at the human fiasco in the kitchen.

    “Oga, dis one no be matter of comedian ooo. Even dem comedian dey cry for Lagos, becos palaver no be dem play and anikura come pass alawada. You know say Eko na wicked place. He no good make dem small yeye boys dey beat old man. Na dem beat baba sotey for Idumota him head no correct again. You no see how him Yoruba nose come big pass him mouth? Na dem panel beat am silly silly. He get one kata Yoruba welder boy for Oshodi. Him name be Kamoru. Na him dey beat dem people. Efen police sef him dey beat dem. He come beat dem policeman like dat he come shit for uniform”, Okon retorted, eyeing Baba Lekki with a wicked grin.

    “Okon, so why is he wearing this big coat?” snooper asked, trying hard not to burst into laughter.

    “Na him native insurance be dat one. Inside one pocket baba get dem heavy stones, inside another him get dem blade and dem jack knives and inside dem top pocket him put dem Awka pistol and dem Yoruba juju. If Baba hit dem elephant with dat one elephant go kaput”, Okon sniggered.

    “Men, this is anarchy”, snooper exclaimed.

    “Anarchy ko, inaki ni”, Baba Lekki rumbled at last with violent scorn even as he sulked like an infant.

    “Okon, tell him not to come to this house with this coat again”, snooper ordered with a comic frown.

    “Ha oga, I no fit tell am dat oo. Baba say na him coat of army be dat. You no say baba be old soldier for dem Congo. Na for Congo dem wild monkey come bite him head fiam fiam and baba him head no correct again “ Okon snorted.

    “I said coat of arms and not army coat”, Baba Lekki groaned as he wobbled out of the house to snooper’s immense relief.

  • The Unpardonable

    No one can accuse President Goodluck Jonathan of not being full of surprises. The nation is still reeling from his decision to pardon former Bayelsa State Governor, D. S. P. Alamieyeseigha for his wrongdoings whilst in office.

    Prominent lawyers have assured us that the President was within his rights to do what he has done. His political advisers had ordered us all to quit making a fuss – after all Alams has shown remorse and returned everything he took.

    Frankly, I don’t see why busybodies are going on and on. The Americans have even intervened – expressing their dismay that the pardon represented a backward step in the anti-graft war. I expect a press statement from Aso Villa shortly telling them in no uncertain terms to stick their noses somewhere else.

    I take the position that if God in His mercies can forgive us our sins on a daily basis, there’s nothing wrong in the President cleansing his benefactor and mentor of his sins against the state.

    My only point of cavil is that by pardoning only Alams amongst past convicted looters, he has worsened the ongoing marginalisation of the five other geo-political zones in the country. But he can remedy that with next year’s list – on the cusp of the crucial 2015 polls. That will be political genius!

  • Between amnesty and state pardon…

    Between amnesty and state pardon…

    I hope I will not soon be telling any FRSC man who stops me, the government is giving amnesty to killers and pardoning plunderers and you are holding me for answering a phone call in traffic?

    I hope I will not soon be telling any FRSC man who stops me, the government is giving amnesty to killers and pardoning plunderers and you are holding me for answering a phone call in traffic?

    Not long ago, I wrote that the Maina saga of N195 billion had got to be the limit my shock absorbing system can take, cause I thought how much else was there? Plenty more, it seems. Since then, my system has reverberated from the shock of many more high voltages. For instance, I found that you can cook an entire cow in the microwave; you can walk to Timbuctoo without the aid of a camel; a deaf and dumb can sing on Broadway, my dog can stand on his hind legs and dance to music, and yes, yes, yes, the government can grant pardons to state plunderers. Anything after that, as they say, is cheesecake. I mean, when you think you’ve heard it all, something bigger comes along, yet, we keep on swallowing our tea, sandwiches and roll-ups of amala. Life goes on, eh?

    First came a request from the north that the country grant Boko Haram members amnesty and, like everyone else, the shock of it reverberated right across my teeth. But then, as usual, I recovered in time to think ‘Ah ha, Ah ha! Now, we have arrived at exactly where we were headed from the start.’ It has been obvious to many observers that the northern elites had wanted a replication of the Niger Delta amnesty programme for their own youths in the north for quite a while. However, in creating that organisation, the elites forgot to give the manual of behaviour: do not throw families into needless grief, and do not begin to go after your own. But, here we are, after the group has thrown many families into grief and mourning across the country, they are looking for amnesty, the kind granted in the Niger Delta.

    No one needs any crystal glass to see that the activities of the two groups are as different from each other as the north is from the south, but that is not our focus now. Our focus is the use of the word ‘amnesty’ itself. No, do not fear, I am not about to give you an English lesson, just to point out that the granting of an amnesty to the ND militants in the first place was misplaced. Clearly, when you take to arms, it is because something is wrong and that is the only way you can point it out, not unless of course you are so taken by consternation as I once was at the sight of a fire that all I could do was gawk like a fish and point at the sight while trying and failing to mouth ‘F-f-f-f-f…’ So, the government should have reasoned that if there was a problem somewhere, there was the likelihood that there was a problem elsewhere. In other words, it was wrong for the government to have trained its binoculars on just the problem volcano, forgetting that other dormant volcanoes might just be waiting for the right time to explode.

    More importantly, the contents of the amnesty programme itself leave many of us scratching our heads. Why should the government sponsor youths to go abroad to study courses that are available in the country? It amounts to a complete separation of state when one section is given too many handouts, even if that section produces a great deal of the country’s resources. It would have been better to translate such awards to social amenities such as schools, effective rail and electricity systems. This would let every section of the country be treated fairly and equally when everyone is given equal access to these privileges. That is good governance.

    Bad governance is giving the ND youths monetary gifts, much of which is squandered on licentious living, instead of training them to live worthy lives of work and great achievements. Bad governance is also keeping the ND area underdeveloped and in perpetual darkness while claiming that the area is too difficult a terrain to govern. Yet, the rest of the country enjoys electricity powered by gas from the region. If everyone were to enjoy the commodity equally, no one would feel compelled to cut off the supply since he knows he will also be affected. Therefore, paying off the restless youths of the ND and failing to develop the region is tantamount to giving sweets to crying children just to keep them quiet. In a while, the sweets will melt off and the crying will resume. It is better to point the child to the kind of behaviour that can earn him or her as much sweets as he or she can take independently.

    Back to the Boko Haram request. I think we are all inclined to say that the north started the Boko Haram problem, so let them fix it. The truth is that in so many ways, their activities have affected the rest of the country. Many among us can no longer take as much as forty winks of a night; imagine, many are now reduced to taking only thirty-eight or so. Many churches cannot even now pray with their eyes closed but must perpetually watch their gates or place policemen there so that no unwanted visitor comes driving up the wall. Haba, that is just so sacrilegious. So, we cannot wash our hands off them, but a firm answer should be that first and foremost, every drop of innocent blood that has been shed must be accounted for.

    However, the government needs to watch out. Soon, the western part of the country will also want the benefits of amnesty, and then the east, and then the middle belt, and then the middle-middle belt, and then the south-south east, and then the south-south-south west, and then the south-south-south east … Look, it was wrong for the government to have started the programme in the ND without considering that someday, some others like me would get up and demand their own share. There must be ways of getting off this train though before it crashes. Oh, I forget, it is already crashing. Just look at how Alamieyeseigha was granted state pardon. And that’s the second kettle of fish.

    The government just loves fishing in troubled waters, does it not, considering the way it moves from one boiling pot to another? If it is not renaming universities with long standing names, it is granting state pardons to people with whom the country has had long standing grudges. I believe that anyone can be pardoned; I have always believed in second and third and fourth and more chances but please, there is a time for everything. And this is not the most auspicious time for this kind of pardon. Things are too dicey, corruption is irritating everyone’s nose and daring all of us to hell, and state functionaries are behaving as if they exist on a different plane and jetting around the world like sparrows. So yes, everyone is sore right now and the atmosphere is as thick and dry as a tinderbox, ready to explode. All it just wants now is for someone to strike a match…

    As I said before, my shock absorbing system, and that of the country, appears on the surface to be insensate but I suspect that beneath that thin veneer of invulnerability is a system that can scream, shout and throw tantrums and someday will say enough is enough! I hope I will not have to retort to the next Road Safety man who accosts me for answering the phone in traffic: the federal government is giving amnesty to killers and pardoning plunderers and you are holding me for answering a phone call in traffic? But I won’t be alone; I know many of my fellow countrymen will join me.

  • Remembering my teacher Pa Festus Fajana 15 years after his translation

    Pa Fajana, solid and gregarious,  was a kind and jolly person.

    Like the evil that men do, the good also live after them. So it is with the elementary school teacher who made the greatest impact on me and whose corporeal bastinado, once inflicted on the soles of my feet, I shall never forget. That story is told anon.

    Keen to know him?

    Please come with me as I introduce the late Chief Festus Olorunsola Fajana, through the eyes of his erstwhile bosses. Of him, Chief J.B.C Adetola, his Headmaster at St Paul’s Anglican School, Odo-Ado, Ado-Ekiti, wrote “Festus, a very loving student of mine who became one of my very loving and amiable friends. He was loyal, dedicated, trustworthy and honest; Papa A.A Abiodun, the unforgettable Headmaster of Emmanuel senior primary school, Ado Ekiti , never known to spare the rod wrote: “Festus Fajana until last year December was a pupil of Emmanuel primary school, Ado Ekiti, under me.

    He was the school senior prefect a post always entrusted to the most reliable boy…”. His Principal, and later, Regional Minister , Chief J.E. Babatola said: “Festus Fajana attended the Ekiti Divisional Training Teacher College Ikere Ekiti, when I was the Principal. He was a stolid character and a kind- hearted man who won the confidence of both staff and students. As a result of his remarkable display of good sense I made him the College Senior Prefect in his final year and he discharged the duties of the office creditably’. That was not all, as Prince Owolabi, my own Headmaster at the United School, Are-Afao, Ekiti, where Pa Fajana taught me, and who would later become the Oluyin of Iyin -Ekiti wrote: “Mr. F.O Fajana had been a teacher, trained and certificated, under me for a period of one year. He is honest and diligent” but the following must be the icing on the cake: J.A Adeokun, his Headmaster at St Louis Anglican School, Ikere-Ekiti, wrote on 22nd November 1961: “He is reputed to combine certain evident qualities like a keen sense of diligence, honesty and tact; he is ambitious and dynamic, a real leader: responsible and cultured; but to be moderate in the issue of this recommendation, one should be constrained to leave the applicant for a further character study to prove the veracity of my honest recommendation.”

    As to the veracity of his recommendation, Pa Adedokun can rest easy in his grave because nobody who ever knew my teacher would doubt any of his words. Nor was this surprising as he had been brought up in the strict orthodoxy of an Anglican, at the homes of both Chief James Ajibade, the first Baba Egbe of St. Paul’s church, Odo Ado, and that of Rev. Obaweya of Igede Ekiti; was baptized on 7th July 1947 by Rev. Canon Adeyinka and confirmed in a Eucharist liturgy celebrated by the Very Revd. S.O Odutola, in 1953.

    Besides his Christian upbringing, my teacher born, 14th April 1928 to Pa Ayegbusi Fajana and Madam Abigail Ibidunt Alege was a scion of the redoubtable Aremo Ogunbiyi Agoketorunse whose dynastic origin dated back to the pre- Ewi era and is believed to be the only cabinet chief who does not prostrate before the Ewi. His own father, Ayegbusi Fajana, an intrepid hunter, was reputed to have killed not only warthogs, but also Buffalos and Leopards and had special ‘ijala ode’ and panegyrics sung for him.

    Late Papa Festus Fajana, a professional teacher, capped his professional training with a stint at the University of Lagos where he studied Pre-school and Nursery Education. He once toyed with the idea of joining the Nigerian police but he quickly dropped the idea and stayed put with his first love -teaching -where he touched and molded thousands of lives, amongst them today are professors, medical doctors, accountants, administrators, lawyers etc, as he taught in various towns dating back to the old Western Region.

    It was at one of these various towns, Are-Ekiti, my home town, where he arrived in ’58 that I was privileged to be one of his favourite pupils. The story can now be told of that totally strange bastinado. Pa Fajana had believed that if none of his final year pupils would head straight to secondary school, Oluwafemi Orebe would. I then took the entrance examination to one secondary school which I passed, but did not attend the interview as it fell on the same date with the entrance examination of another school which I preferred. He did not know this until the interview results were out and I did not go to him to report my ‘success’. He was livid, but didn’t think twice. He asked late Major Bayo Olorunfemi, a classmate, to fetch him a sturdy cane. At my outstretched hand, he laughed and asked me to raise up my right leg while the same Olorunfemi and another boy held me up, to receive six strokes on the sole of that foot. However, I knew it was out of love, and concern, and so never begrudged my teacher.

    Pa Fajana, solid and gregarious, was a kind and jolly person and was very much loved in the twin towns that co-owned our school. He became much more famous when he became the Headmaster on the departure of Papa Owolabi to ascend to the throne of his fathers at Iyin-Ekiti. He was among the most popular teachers of my era as a primary school pupil in my town, in the same league with Headmaster Akeredolu, Aketi’s father, who was astonishingly handsome and popular..

    On retirement from teaching, Pa Fajana went fully into the service of his community. Among other things he was Proprietor, Ita Eku Community School, Secretary, Ado-Ekiti Anglican Parish, member, governing council, Ado Grammar School, Executive Officer, Board of Pensioners, Ado-Ekiti and Chairman, Ifelere Thrift and Co-operative Society.

    He joined the Saints Triumphant on 19th of March 1998, survived by children and grandchildren who can justifiably be proud in the imperishable legacies he left behind.

    Adieu, my worthy and unforgettable teacher who, we are comforted, is resting at the feet of his Lord and Master, our Lord, Jesus Christ.

    OF POLICE COMMISSIONER YINKA BALOGUN (Rtd)

    Police Commissioner Yinka Balogun (rtd), the dashing, one-time nemesis of Nigerian fraudsters, as Head of the SFU division of the Nigeria Police, is a gentleman in, and out of, uniform. Recently retired as the helmsman at the Edo State Police command, we became instant friends as soon as we were introduced to each other by Dr Kayode Fayemi, the Executive Governor of Ekiti State from where Yinka headed to Edo, prior to his glorious retirement from service. As a result of space constraint, not much can be written here of this genial gentleman who was once strongly rumoured to succeed Nuhu Ribadu as Chairman of the anti-graft agency, EFCC. Suffice it then to recall only two of the sterling commendations Nigerians have been heaping on this exemplar of a police officer:

    ‘I believe you must have been watching on the Channels TV, the pictures of the dilapidated structures at the Police College. Ikeja,. May be the other Police Colleges in Nigeria are also in similar parlous state. I will always remember the legacy of excellence you left at all Police formations you headed in Lagos, Abuja, Ekiti and Edo states before your honourale retirement from service. How I wish you had headed one or two Police Colleges in the country. I am sure you would have applied your usual Midas touch to transform them to beautiful places to behold and the policemen who passed through your tutelage/discipline would have profoundly made our nation proud.

    Nigeria is the loser that a disciplined, honest, patriotic and highly cerebral officer like you did not become IGP’.

    And this one:

    ”Shame on us! Tears roll down in my heart when I remember all the efforts to put things back on track, especially police, ICPC and EFCC. I am still in shock you did not become the Chair of EFCC or Head of Police Academy. I am honoured to be your friend’.

    The trail-blazing Lagos State, if not Nigeria, will need the services of this cerebral -an author – very experienced gentleman, in its totally commendable and continuing efforts at securing the life and property of its citizenry. Over then to the indefatigable ‘Class Captain’ who I know is reading this. And congratulations on that which President Clinton has perceptively described as ‘an ingenious engineering feat’ -The Eko Atlantic Project.

  • Our amnesty and pardon culture

    Our amnesty and pardon culture

    Having to pardon Alamieyeseigha for his role in the Niger Delta suggests that we may need to do the same thing for Onanafe Ibori if he too chooses as an Urhobo leader to help prevent young people in Delta State from stopping the flow of petroleum. 

    Two words are rife today in political governance and public communication in our country. Both are words that are used by powerful men to give the impression of solving fundamental problems in the country. These words represent policies that the federal government in particular believes can put an end to some of the basic challenges facing the country’s security-economic, political, and physical. In consonance with the proverbial Nigeria Factor, these words quickly assume magical powers capable of serving as panacea to all problems. The words are Amnesty and Pardon.

    When the youths of Niger Delta chose to carry arms to reinforce their leaders’ demand for economic justice some years back, the federal government came up with amnesty as the way to end a long-standing problem. Niger Delta militants that were fighting for more revenue to oil-producing states and communities were persuaded to receive special stipends in lieu of what should have come to compensate the Niger Delta for ecological disaster spawned by oil drilling and gas flaring. Unlike the political demands of Niger Delta leaders that were ignored for years, the militants were assuaged with amnesty payments, special scholarships, and occasional contracts to high-profile militants. For Niger Delta militants to qualify for amnesty payments, they were asked to hand over their guns to federal government agents in exchange for forgiveness for attempting to disrupt the flow of oil. Of course, the issue of economic justice to the Niger Delta remains unsolved after granting of amnesty to militants who agreed to surrender their weapons.

    Shortly after implementation of amnesty payments to thousands of militants, a new group emerged in the North, Boko Haram (Western education is sin). This group hit the ground harder than Niger Delta militants. Boko Haram has for about two years acted as terrorists in every sense of the word, killing innocent Nigerians and non-Nigerians. In response to Boko Haram, high-profile Nigerians are calling for amnesty as a way to restore peace and security to the country. The case for amnesty has been built on mass poverty and illiteracy in the North: the birth-place of Nigeria’s foremost terrorist group. It is being suggested that empowering and educating the masses in the North will pacify Boko Haram warriors and end the culture of terror in the country.

    The belief that amnesty has solved the problem of the Niger Delta must have influenced the thinking of leaders who now believe that amnesty would also end the challenges created by Boko Haram. Amnesty as panacea to the country’s problems focuses not on resolution of conflict but on assuaging the feelings of individuals by giving them material inducement to abandon the cause that led to physical struggle against the Nigerian state. It does not matter to proponents of amnesty as panacea to Nigeria’s social problems if those given amnesty actually change their orientation or if the cause that led to militancy or terrorism that is to be doused by amnesty is addressed. Apart from President Jonathan’s statement that he is not ready to negotiate with ghosts, he too seems to believe that amnesty is an option for his government to end the security challenge posed by Boko Haram. Having been a part of the government that used amnesty to address the demands of Niger Delta militants, it is not surprising that the President thinks that amnesty is an option to change the minds of Boko Haramists, once they show their faces.

    It is, therefore, surprising that the presidency is using the pardon of Diepreye Alamieyeseigha to warn the country that amnesty given to Niger Delta militants has addressed just symptoms rather than cause. Giving official pardon to Alamieyeseigha is, according to the presidency, in the interest of Nigeria’s economy: “Alamieyeseigha is a foremost leader of the Ijaw nation, and his political and stabilising influence in that region has impacted positively on the overall economy of the nation, bringing crude oil exports from the abysmally low level of 700,000bpd to over 2.4 million bpd, …Therefore, it is obvious that, Alamieyeseigha has been a major player since his release from prison in ensuring that the blood that runs through the artery of the Nigerian economy is not cut off.”

    The import of the statement above is that President Jonathan needs to pardon Alamieyeseigha, to prevent the country’s oil-dependent economy from dying. In other words, the first governor of Bayelsa must have been helpful in ending the fight of militants against Nigeria before the adoption of the policy of amnesty. We are also being told that, without Alamieyeseigha’s freedom to interact with Niger Delta militants, the flow of oil may be stopped, with the consequence of killing what holds the country together: uninterrupted flow of petroleum. The presidency is unequivocal about letting Nigerians know that President Jonathan is doing Nigeria a big favour by giving his former boss official pardon. The fact that Alamieyeseigha was convicted for crime against the state is no longer as important as the role that he can play in ensuring that militants in the Niger Delta are kept at bay.

    From the role the presidency claims that Alameyeseigha is playing to keep the country’s economy afloat, it is clear that even the over cited amnesty has not worked. If anything, it has only addressed the symptom of the problem that led youths to carry arms against the state for neglecting the oil-producing states of the Niger Delta. In addition, the fear that new militants may spring up if Alameyeseigha is not given the freedom and respect to rein in potential militants suggests that amnesty is not an effective way to respond to calls for justice in the Niger Delta. It is also conceivable that if amnesty is given to Boko Haram terrorists, it may not work beyond bribing terrorists temporarily to abstain from violence.

    The right approach to solving problems is to face the cause and not symptoms of such problems, as we have done in the last few years. We threw money at Niger Delta militants but failed to put an end to demands for principle of derivation. Instead, we were able to pay off militants at work at that time without having any way of preventing other younger people from becoming militants, thus having to need perpetually the service of Alamieyeseigha to ensure the flow of petroleum. We are also being encouraged to give amnesty to Boko Haramists, without ensuring that they denounce their desire to extend Sharia all over Nigeria; their hate of Christians in a multi-religious and multiethnic country; and the sect’s opposition to Western education or civilisation, the origin of Nigeria itself.

    We will not be able to fight corruption if we have to pardon corrupt politicians for being in a position to appease militants, just as we may not be able to fight religious bigotry if we only choose to give amnesty to citizens that have waged war against the Nigerian state and its citizens. Having to pardon Alamieyeseigha for his role in the Niger Delta suggests that we may need to do the same thing for Onanafe Ibori if he too chooses as an Urhobo leader to help prevent young people in Delta State from stopping the flow of petroleum. The federal government needs to address problems frontally instead of treating symptoms.

  • Adulterated APC and unpardonable sins

    Adulterated APC and unpardonable sins

    Anyone who thinks the theatre of the absurd currently playing out at the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) over the acronym ‘APC’ is a freak coincidence, will believe anything. Anyone who believes those most threatened by the opposition dissolving into the All Progressives Congress (APC) are not in some way involved in this circus is naïve beyond belief.

    I refer here to the ruling Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP). Forget the bluster, they are worried and are wise to be disturbed. Obviously, you’re not likely to find fingerprints of their national officers plastered all over the grubby application letter of the adulterated APC, when nondescript proxies can execute the task excellently.

    Aside the flurry of meetings and caucuses of the PDP in recent weeks, this latest dirty tricks stunt calculated to throw the energised opposition out of their stride, is the best indication yet of how rattled the powers-that-be are. The received notion that certain persons and groups can never work together to challenge the anticipated 60-year PDP hegemony, has bitten the dust. For once, the monster which thought itself invincible is flailing around blindly.

    Suddenly, everyone wants to register a political party that will generate the acronym ‘APC.’ Aside the merging opposition parties, the ‘Jankara’ African Peoples’ Congress, a new bunch have turned in a letter at the electoral commission seeking to register something called ‘All Patriotic Citizens.’ The power of imagination displayed by these clowns is simply breathtaking!

    This rash of political party formation activity comes against the backdrop of the deregistration, by INEC, in December 2012 of 28 political parties on grounds of their inactivity and near electoral irrelevance. None of them won a single seat at any level at the 2011 general elections.

    Among those consigned to the political wilderness by that action are some of Nigeria’s best known political activists like Balarabe Musa, Olu Falae, Tunji Braithwaite, Dr. Junaid Muhammed, Rev. Chris Okotie to name a few.

    While not denying anyone their legal right to seek registration of their wives and children as political parties, the point must be made that such a step bucks the emerging trend.

    In a competitive environment where familiar political figures found it difficult to thrive, it is not surprising that the old logic of Nigeria being essentially a two-party state is swiftly evolving into our present day reality.

    In this sort of circumstance, it is not credible to expect that any political organisation with serious designs on power will seek to strike out on its own; even worse, do so in the transparently mercenary and bumbling way the fake APCs have gone about the business.

    While the mischief is evident for all to see, and while the leaders of the opposition merger vehicle will be foaming at the gills with consternation, the broader worry should be about how low we are sinking into the morass of mediocrity.

    Whichever political ‘strategists’ are pushing the adulterated APC operation deserve to be fired. If the best they can come up with to counter the threat of the new opposition grouping is the silly trick of denying them use of a particular name or acronym, then they deserve to be pitied. The parties could always pick another name that will resonate even better with the populace.

    Someone is probably wondering what all the fuss about the name is. You need to have hung around politicians to know why. What may seem trifling to the rest of us carries grave implications where they are concerned.

    A typical politician understands that a huge chunk of the electorate – the ones who actually queue in the sun for hours to vote – are largely not too well-educated. So there is the need to keep things very simple for these kinds of voters. So they pick a name or acronym that will, for instance, place them at the top of the ballot paper.

    That way they can explain to the simpleminded that their party – Action Alliance – is right at the top of the ballot paper. ‘It’s the very first box; you can even thumbprint it blindfolded.’

    Notice that in this fight over names and acronyms, there is no discussion of solutions to the challenges confronting Nigeria. That is because those sorts of matters don’t decide who wins elections in Nigeria. People go through the motions of campaigning, but they know that in the end what will count is how well you have deployed financial resources to get out the vote, or how well you’ve deployed your master riggers to fix the elections.

    So rather than beginning to engage the new threat on the basis of what they would do differently, we are stuck in the quick sand of ruling party officials trying to trip up their rivals in the vain hope that it will make them go away. But that is not going to happen.

    What is emerging now is a clear pointer that the elections of 2015 will be more of the same: a rigging contest – full of dirty tricks and uncontrollable violence.

    Of course, INEC might still do the right thing and register those who have presented themselves to the world since early February using the name All Peoples Congress and the ‘APC’ acronym. But even if they choose to do what the typical Nigerian institution will do, and register any of these other fly-by-night outfits, there will be important lessons for the opposition to learn, and grave implications for the credibility of the electoral commissions as an impartial arbiter.

    The opposition needs to quickly get its head out of the clouds and realise that PDP is not going to hand over power on a platter. If they are going down, they will do so making an almighty racket. They will employ dirtier tricks than the current APC stunt, and invent new ones that are not already in the books. Put simply: 2015 will be war.

  • Ahmadu Ali’s fulminatory portrayal of the Southwest

    Ahmadu Ali’s fulminatory portrayal of the Southwest

    It is easy to miss the Saturday Sun’s interview with Col Ahmadu Ali (retd), a former chairman of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and also former Minister of Education. Often, no wisdom is gained by reading some interviews, not to talk of the flagrant manner the interviewees sometimes concoct approbation for themselves. But thankfully, I saw the Ali interview and read it. As expected, Ali said many things about himself and the great work he did as a three-time cabinet minister and resilient party chairman. If his brilliance did not endure or was not recognised, he blamed the iconoclasts that succeeded him, and the ungrateful barbarians that undid the country with their narcissism.

    But for such an eminent self-confessed tactician and public servant, it is surprising that Ali didn’t notice his views, as harsh on others as they might seem, gave an unflattering impression of himself as Chief Olusegun Obasanjo’s zany. Now, he probably is not such a person, only that he gave that impression of himself. However, he thinks the world of Obasanjo, and describes him in superlative terms. “Obasanjo is sitting down there,” he began with a fulsomeness that matches his political obscurantism. “He is a bundle of knowledge for this country. If you have any difficulty and you cannot go to him and say come, how did you do it? This is my problem. You are wasting your time. All the people hanging around all these people (in public office) are just bootlickers. They are not advising properly. Obasanjo is the only person who has been Head of State three times in this country.” Ali’s depiction of Obasanjo reminds me of Nebuchadnezzar.

    The high point of the interview was when Ali portrayed the Yoruba as a totally ungrateful people on account of their rejection of Obasanjo both as a leader and as an icon. “This man, (Obasanjo) kept faith and voluntarily handed over to civilians,” Ali gushed. “He could have said he wasn’t going. What can anybody do? After all, it is the gun that got them there. And you people still don’t recognise him, especially the Yoruba people who are totally ungrateful kind of people in this country.” That may be a very sweeping dismissal of the Yoruba, but Ali is entitled to his views, even if it indirectly underscored his idolatrous fondness for someone the Yoruba are unlikely to ever respect, let alone embrace.

    Ali took his worship of Obasanjo to dizzying heights when he brutally eviscerated the Yoruba in terms that should make a sober man wince. Ali’s interviewer had suggested that the Yoruba could not forgive Obasanjo for robbing a fellow Yoruba, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, of the presidency in the 1979 election. Ali was incensed, and thundered in response: “Don’t talk rubbish. You are talking rubbish. That is the stupidity of the press and the self-appointed Yoruba leaders who are failures in their various fields of endeavour. They are just a total failure. How can you say, in an election where one candidate scored 12 million and showed presence in more than 12 states out of 19 and another candidate scored five million and showed presence in only five states, you then give it to the second person? What is democracy about?…Yoruba are another character.”

    The problem is not that Ali harbours such a disconcerting view of the Yoruba, and was not wary of going public with it. The problem, as the malevolently discriminatory Goodluck Jonathan presidency is showing, is that there are many more people in high places who entertain such horrendous prejudices against the Southwest, perhaps angered by the region’s sanctimoniousness, crusading disposition on civil liberties, including press freedom and activism, and their irritating superior airs. Do the Yoruba themselves know how rampant these sentiments against them are in other ethnic quarters? If they do, why do they not moderate their internal schisms to enhance their survivability?

    Ali’s fulminatory portrayal shows very clearly why most Yoruba politicians are apologetic about their Yorubaness: like Obasanjo, they believe they must be ethnically masochistic to be relevant in national politics. In a country brimming with perverse deductions and analyses of political behavior, it is not enough for a politician to be an exponent of fairness and justice; for the Southwest in particular, he must also deny his background and culture to be electable. Yet, what we need are not politicians who deny their Hausaness, Igboness or Ijawness, but those who in spite of their ethnic affiliations can be relied upon to be uncompromisingly fair and just, no matter whose ox is gored.

  • ‘Before this generation shall pass’: our need for a true intergenerational dialogue (1)

    ‘Before this generation shall pass’: our need for a true intergenerational dialogue (1)

    Verily I say unto you, this generation shall not pass till all these things be fulfilled.
    Matthew 24:34, King James Bible [Cambridge Edition] Generation, noun: 1. the entire body of individuals born and living at about the same time; 2. the term of years, roughly 30 among human beings, accepted as the average period between the birth of parents and the birth of their offspring; 3. a group of individuals, most of whom are of the same approximate age, having similar ideas, problems and attitudes Dictionary.com (online)

    For most adult Nigerians whether old or young, there seems to be a great divide, a chasm even between two broad, composite generational groups: those who came of age before and those who did so after the Nigeria-Biafra civil war, with its massive infusion of petrodollars and petronaira into the economy, and the SAP-induced devaluation of the naira, with all the attendant humungous cuts in public expenditure, especially in education and health care delivery.

    Of course most Nigerians also generally acknowledge the existence of smaller units of generational cohorts within these two broad composite groups. For instance, there is said to be at one end of a spectrum Nigerians much advanced in years that had lived most of their biological and social adulthood before independence and inclusive of the first decade after that. At the other extreme pole of this spectrum are said to be the post-globalization, SMS-texting youths to whom the life and times of late-colonial and early postcolonial Nigeria belong to a misty past that occupies a tiny, indistinct part of their collective imagination. But by and large, I believe that it is the notion of two broadly composite groups of generations before and after the civil war, before and after the rise and fall oil-rich, oil-doomed nairamania, and before and after the SAP-induced turnaround in economy and society in our country that fundamentally frames all discourses about unbridgeable generational gaps in Nigeria. This is the issue that I wish to explore in the series of two articles that begins in this column. As we shall see, my central argument will be our great need to deconstruct and transcend this alleged chasm between generations of Nigerians if a genuinely democratic and egalitarian order is to take root and grow in our country.

    In order to facilitate this review of currently prevalent ideas about the existence of these two broad generational groups, permit me to make an allusion to a keynote address that I delivered at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ife, in the year 2006 on the 30th anniversary of the award of the Nobel Literature Prize to Wole Soyinka. Titled “The Unfortunate Children of Fortunate Parents”, the speech focused on the innumerable and nearly insuperable problems and challenges faced by younger generations of Nigerian writers, artists, scholars and critics, problems and challenges that members of my own generation and our elders had not faced in our young adulthood. I confess that I did not even remotely foresee the impact that the speech eventually had on my/our younger colleagues in the arts and humanities community, even though I must also confess that I was deeply gratified that my speech had the impact that it did. At any rate, I used the countervailing terms “fortunate” and “unfortunate” in the title of the speech to draw attention to the great advantages that my generation had enjoyed but which, in sharp contrast, the younger generation sorely lacked. These include secondary and tertiary education of a very high quality; the easy availability of highly professional editing services and publishing outlets; a vibrant homegrown critical community that had both local and international visibility and influence; and a national community of writers and artists small and cohesive enough to be sustaining to us all, as individuals and as groups.

    It was with these extraordinarily auspicious conditions in mind that in that speech, I used the word “fortunate” for my generation. And indeed, we had supreme assurance in the reality of these advantages, so much so that we simply took them for granted. Superior editing and enlightened, well-heeled publishers are indispensable to good writing and its perpetuation; most of the first generation of Nigerian authors had ready access to them. By contrast, the vast majority of the younger writers had absolutely no access whatsoever to first rate professional editors; even more dauntingly, for the most part, they had to self-publish, at great financial, artistic and intellectual costs, in order to have the ghost of a chance to create and nurture a homegrown readership. Thus, their “misfortune”, in the framework of that speech of 2006, was that those highly auspicious conditions that we had taken for granted were as strange to the overall circumstances of the younger writers and artists as life-saving water would be strange to a wanderer lost in the arid, parched wilderness of a desert.

    The great point in all of this was of course the hugely portentous fact that these nearly crippling problems and challenges that the generality of our younger generation of writers and artists faced were but a microcosm of what all young people, writer or no writer, educated or unschooled, faced in present-day Nigeria. Permit me to give a personal testimony of my own graphic and unforgettable encounter with this matter when, about a decade and half ago, I visited Kuti Hall to which I had belonged as a resident in my undergraduate years at Ibadan. The tiny room that I had shared in my first year with Tokunbo Dawodu now housed five or six students. Even the dinning hall of Kuti had been turned into mass sleeping quarters for students called “squatters”. And in nearly all Nigerian universities, one heard of hyperrealist terms like “one/zero/one” or “zero/one/zero” which were supposed to represent the Spartan daily meal plan a student was compelled to follow in the face of very dire economic conditions.

    As if these were not enough, there emerged the strange phenomenon of so-called “professional students”. These were the large number of undergraduates who chose to – or were “chosen” by harsh economic realities – to linger for as long as possible in the university since, out there in the world, no jobs were available to those who had already graduated and left with their Bachelor’s, Master’s and even Ph D degrees. Nearly two years ago, the Governor of our Central Bank, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, gave the figure of 25 million for the educated and seemingly permanently unemployed in our country. By contrast, when I left university at the end of the decade of the 60s, it was absolutely unheard of, perhaps even unthinkable and therefore unthought, that a graduate from any Nigerian university would still be jobless three months after the completion of his or her university education.

    From all my observations and reflections so far in this discussion, it should be apparent that in our social genes, if not in our biological DNAs, we carry the differential markers of the decisive, formative experiences of our separate generations. This is why there seems to be such a deep chasm of memories, sensibilities and perspectives across the generational divides, making nearly impossible a meaningful intergenerational dialogue in our country. But then there arises the fundamental fact that in one old understanding or usage of the term, “generation”, we are all of us currently living in the same country and the same epoch of human history, members of the same generation. This particular usage of the term is what Christ had in mind in the quotation from Matthew 24:34 that constitutes the first epigraph to this article: “Verily I say unto you, this generation shall not pass till all these things be fulfilled”. Similarly, it is this very same idea of “generation” as a national or global community of all those living at a particular moment in time and space that is explicitly stated in the first dictionary definition in our second epigraph: “the entire body of individuals born and living at about the same time”.

    I draw attention to these other meanings and usages of the term largely because they are either totally unknown now or have almost been forgotten. At any rate, when I hear or read of conversations between our different generational cohorts – most of them very bitter and extremely recriminatory – it is almost entirely the following particular dictionary definition of the word in our second epigraph that comes to mind: “a group of individuals, most of whom are of the same approximate age, having similar ideas, problems and attitudes”. If this is the case, there would seem to arise this great intellectual challenge: If these diverse uses and meanings attached to the word “generation” are equally true, equally valid, how do we reconcile the differences and tease out a synthesis between them?

    I suggest that this problem is more apparent than real, more formal and logical than actual and substantial. For in real life, and at all times and in all places, conversations are always going on, simultaneously and referentially, intra-generationally and inter-generationally. In other words, we talk both within our own generational cohorts and across the presumed divides that separate us from other older or younger generations. I think we pay scant or no attention at all to this fact because the only divides that typically engage our attention are those, real and/or imagined, constructed around ethnicity, religion and regionalism. Occasionally, we do also talk about divisions based on class and power, but only very infrequently. But in my opinion, least of all do we talk about the fact that in one important sense, we all belong to the same living generation.

    The great challenge, the great need is to tease out the common denominators, the bottom line for all, as it were, for all of us of the generation that is coevally alive now, all full of great foreboding and little hope for what looms ahead of us as our common destiny, whether we are of the old, hoary generations or of the generations yet to cut their moral, psychic and ideological milk teeth in response to the crises already confronted or those hovering on the horizon of the present. In these common denominators that will be our starting point in next week’s concluding piece in the series, the things that separate “generation” conceived as a cohort of those of the same approximate age are folded into “generation” conceived as the universal community of all those living at the same time in a nation or in the entire world. As we shall see, there is equal blame and equal inspiration to extrapolate from the experiences of both the old and the young of our society as we confront one the most important statistical figures pertaining to realistic prospects for our national commonweal. This is the fact, compatriots, that the median age for our country is just 19.

    Biodun Jeyifo

    bjeyifo@fas.harvard.edu

  • Governor Orji politically transforming housing policy in Abia State

    Since the beginning of the administration of Governor Theodore Orji he has never relented in the provision of the infrastructure for the people of the state especially in the area of housing as he set out to ensure that there are houses for all categories of people in the state irrespective of where they are from or living.

    Orji started from the renovation of all general hospitals scattered across the state, then he moved to the building off 250 health centres in all nooks and crannies of the state, which are now being equipped.

    The governor worried over the development that many workers are still coming to work from outside the state capital, he set out to commence the building of housing estates in the state capital with the hope of making houses cheaper for everyone in the state.

    The special adviser to the governor on housing, Engr Nwabueze Onwuneme said that the governor has been worried over the lack of houses for the workers of the state most of who come from Aba, Owerri and other neighbouring state capitals and cities around the state. Onwuneme said that this made the governor to start the massive building of estates across the state.

    He said that the estate at Adelabu Street was started and completed in record time and the houses have been sold to the beneficiaries, stressing that other estates have been moving on simultaneously, thereby making the state one big construction site, where people of all shades and sizes have been coming to work and earn their living.

    Onwuneme said that the government of Abia state is set to commence the sale of 1000 housing units at Ochendo Liberation estate at Amauba and Isieke housing estate before the end of the year and has asked interested would be owners to collect the forms for the allocation.

    The Special Adviser to Abia state governor on Housing, Engr. Nwabueze Onwuneme said that the housing policy of the present administration has gone above 80% in the revolution aimed at providing housing for all before 2015, with the addition of more houses at the commissioner’s quarters. The governor believes that the state has the capacity to increase its executive council which caused the need for more houses at the estate.

    Onwuneme said that the state government under the present administration is determined to deliver over 1000 units of different categories of houses across the state by the end of the second quarter of this year apart from others earlier delivered.

    The housing adviser said that from inception, Governor Theodore Orji’s administration set out to ensure that housing problems will be a thing of the past, as the governor directed that a road map to housing revolution be produced and followed to the end.

    Onwuneme said that after looking at the United Nations data on housing in the state, “Which gave the state a deficit of 300,000 houses, we decided to change the situation by starting what we called mass housing so that there will be affordable houses for all”.

    He said that this made the governor to start the building of several housing estates like Amauba, Isieke, Amauba 2 for civil servants called Ochendo Liberation estates, adding that government is also developing a cluster business area apart from the housing estates.

    The adviser on housing said that the governor has directed that a new housing estate be established in all the three senatorial zones in the state, stressing that the aim is for housing pressure to be reduced in both Aba and Umuahia respectively.

    Onwuneme regretted that former governments did little or nothing in the area of mass housing and laying solid foundation for the growth of the state, “This why the governor is in a hurry to develop the state by doing the basic foundation after 21 years the state was created”.

    He noted that the governor’s housing projects have cut across all sectors of the society, “The governor has built 256 health centres, 2 diagnostic centres in both Aba and Umuahia, dialysis centre, new structures at the school of midwifery Amachara and the building of doctor’s quarters.

    We have also not allowed the judiciary to suffer as all old court houses have been renovated, new ones built; the legislature has not been left behind as new office complex has been built for them and the new government house.

    We are not going to forget the new state secretariat, international conference centre, four new additional blocks at the commissioners’ quarters, ASEPA building, the new markets for both relief and industrial and the administrative block for workers of the state radio/television among many others”.

    Onwuneme assured that the government of Theodore Orji will not have any uncompleted building by the time it will be leaving office in the next few years, “We know what we are doing as they are well thought out, which is why all our projects are moving at a lighting speed”.