The Nation Newspaper

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  • Murder, most foul and vicious

    Murder, most foul and vicious

    Believing that what personally touches one must come last, this column does not always encourage any emotional incontinence from even its creator. It was a great author who admonished that we must always separate the man who suffers from the artist that creates. But there are moments when the profoundly private cannot be separated from the powerfully public, when what we have all made of Nigeria returns like a monster to stare us in the face, and when an injured man must return to the community for solace and succour.

    This morning, snooper evacuates the cerebral fireworks and the din of agonistic contention from this column to mourn our late and beloved aburo who perished in the hands of hideous hoodlums on the notorious Ife-Ibadan road in the early evening of January 26th. He was returning to Ibadan after a funeral reception in the ancestral town of Gbongan. But he never made it back to the warm embrace of his beloved wife at their Iyaganku GRA residence.

    A chartered auditor, Godwin Kolawole Adedeji was a scion of the notable Adedeji family of Gbongan and the famed Ojo family of Ibadan. He was a director in the Federal Ministry of Mines and Power. Before then, he had served his country meritoriously in NAPEP and the Petroleum Trust Fund. He had also worked at the UAC as an auditor before transferring his services to the public sector.

    All those who met and interacted with him in the places he had worked spoke of a quiet and reticent fellow, devoted to duty and hard work and given to stoic fortitude and Christianly forbearance. He was also a man of immense personal generosity, lavishing kindness and affection on all who came his way without any ethnic or religious bias. He was a model Nigerian. Had he been allowed to live, Kola would have turned fifty eight in March.

    By all accounts, it was a life of humility, piety and studied self-effacement. He did not push himself or push anybody around. He was courteous and polite in the extreme. Even in our old age, Kola still greeted snooper with the Yoruba deferential gesture of half-prostration, despite the fact that he was already a grandfather several times over.

    But he was not a softie by any stretch of the imagination. On both sides of the family, he was descended of illustrious warriors, and he could tackle like a compact tank. As a youth, he was known as the “admiral” and till the end there was still something of a martial gait to his quiet bearing.

    His loss is Nigeria’s loss because it was said by those who know of these things that he was in close contention for the post of Auditor General of Nigeria. Now the audit is on the grim statistics of elite haemorrhage in Nigeria. Once again, we mourn for a country which like a deranged old hen must suck life out of its most precious eggs in order to prolong its miserable existence.

    How does it feel writing the obituary of your own younger sibling? It is a stark reversal of the evolutionary process. This is too close to call even when one is a compulsive glutton for punishment. How does a traumatised wife explain to the children who have all partaken of a mire humane and civilised existence in Canada that she found their father’s lifeless body with the skull openly split by a crude axe right there on the Ife-Ibadan road near the quarry at Wasinmi? What a savagely ironic mockery of that village’s name!

    The grim reaper has been at work, scything down anything and anybody at sight like one of those dreaded and iconic Egunguns of Yoruba folklore. Once, we were many youths roaming the wild, enjoying the bounteous fruits of nature and eating from the communal pot of their father, S.A, the notable teacher and community leader.

    Now like a Homeric battlefield, men and women are falling on all sides in a crushing pile. The great future that we dreamt about is almost behind. It was a life of schooling, but may be we missed something about the school of life. We went to school as we were told only to succumb to those who didn’t.

    We have been taught a hard lesson by them. You cannot create a personal paradise in an environment of consuming hell. They will come for you, and as they say in America, just because you are paranoid doesn’t mean they are not going to get you. Once your number comes up in the irrational lottery of a dysfunctional society, there is nothing anybody can do about that.

    In a traumatised society, metaphysical self belief is often a talisman for physical self disbelief. Last Thursday evening, snooper departed Kola’s residence in Ibadan after a service of songs in company of a childhood friend who had recently retired as a Permanent Secretary in Lagos state. We were heading for Gbongan to be with the family in preparation for the burial the following day.

    It was getting late and a hideous and fearful pall of darkness suddenly descended on the notorious Ife-Ibadan road. Having cautioned his friend about the dangerous folly of travelling on that road at night, yours sincerely was full of premonition and dark foreboding. But like all people who believe they are metaphysically fortified, our friend would have none of snooper’s words of cautionary wisdom.

    As darkness enveloped everywhere and driving becomes a function of autopilot, our friend growled at snooper. “ I never knew you are this security conscious. Listen, you are travelling with the anointed”. Snooper took a look at him and quipped. “When the armed robber chaps get hold of your bulky frame, you tell them you are anointed. They will ask you, oga wetin you say before ramming your skull.” By that time, the anointed will need ointment if not some immediate life-saving surgery.

    Unknown to our friend, snooper was actually thinking that his (our friend’s) older brother, Segun, had perished in a terrible early evening accident on the same road a decade and a half earlier. Decades before this, their father had also succumbed in a different theatre of road carnage. But even then it is getting impossible to even leave your room these days without being reinforced by some mystical faith in your destiny if not destination.

    As if to confirm snooper’s premonitory hunch, and by an almost preternatural development, there on the road and at a very sharp bend after Ikire very close to where Kola was murdered was an articulated lorry lying completely athwart the road. But for the prompt and timely intervention of the police who opened a bypass for motorists, the carnage would have been unimaginable. Snooper at this point could hear some fearful rumbling from the anointed. But it was a mere vigorous shaking of the lottery can. Our numbers were not up, not yet. At 8.23 am the following morning, the vehicle was still lying across the road.

    How did we get to this point in this country where you leave your loved ones in the morning and you are not sure whether you will be returned to them in a body bag? Or whether it is your spouse that will happen upon your corpse in the middle of the road? Kola’s murder has all the dark hints of a modern whodunit and the satanic ingenuity of a professional execution.

    At first, it was given out that he had jumped from a moving car and smashed his head against the road. But the autopsy has revealed something darker and more sinister. His head injuries were from an axe which suddenly struck. Frozen for posterity were the looks of quizzical horror and tormented bewilderment. What have I done to deserve this, he seems to be asking his sadistic executors.

    That question must now be answered by the men of Osun State police command. This is one vicious murder that must not be swept under the carpet under the guise of permanent investigation. The bald and bare facts are there. Kola did not kill himself. Somebody somewhere must be responsible for this heinous crime against humanity.

    By all corroborated accounts, Kola left the funeral reception around six in the early evening to get to Ibadan. He never did. At the bumps just outside Wasinmi and before Ikire, some armed hoodlums intercepted the car and abducted him. He was taken to a nearby bush where it is believed a stormy confrontation took place.

    Thereafter, he was struck twice at the back of the head with a crude instrument. His body was taken back to the point where he was abducted and deposited near the road. To remove all evidence, the abductors burnt the car they operated with. They were also hoping that by the following morning the body would have been smashed up by traffic with vultures completing the rest. But this was not to be. The body was discovered in the early hours of the morning by his wife who had set out from Ibadan to find out what was going on.

    This is obviously not the work of some amateur killers. This is professional elimination by hard and hardened criminals. The police must find out what is behind this callous execution. All leads must be followed to their logical conclusion, and the criminals brought to justice. There are indications that the highest echelons of government apparatus in Osun State have already swung into action. This is as it should be. This will not bring Kola back to his family but it will effect a much needed closure. May his gentle and noble soul find perfect repose.

  • Some political insults for the road

    One thing that is missing in the contemporary political atmosphere of Nigeria is the great art of political insult such as was evident particularly in the First Republic and classically in the Anglo-American political theatre. It is an index of the lack of education and preparation of our current political class that they cannot come up with the wit and brio to match the forensic exertions of their illustrious forebears. They are nothing but dismal caricatures and epigones of this distinguished tradition. Since snooper is in a foul and uncharitable mood, we will supply three political and literary insults for the road.

    1

    Benjamin Disraeli, the great author and remarkable politician, was once accosted by a furious younger opposition parliamentarian. “Sir, it seems to me that you will either die on the gallows or of some horrible venereal disease”, the younger man bellowed.

    “ Youngman, that depends on whether I embrace your principles or your mistress”, the great man shot back.

    11

    And when the selfsame Disraeli was asked to explain the difference between a calamity and a catastrophe, his eye twinkled with epic mischief..

    “You know William Gladstone?” Disraeli began in reference to his greatest political foe. “Well if Gladstone were to fall into a river, that would be a calamity”, Then he quickly added the mortal clincher. “But if anybody were to pull him out, that would be a catastrophe.”.

    111

    George Bernard Shaw, the great Anglo-Irish dramatist was a notorious hell-raiser and incorrigible social gadfly. He was once the object of lavish attention from a leading lady of the London literary saloon and a rich heiress to boot. Thinking that Bernard Shaw would be flattered to be the object of her adulation and public affection, she sent him a telegram of invitation.

    “Lady B…will be home tomorrow at 7pm”, the telegram read.

    “So will Bernard Shaw”, came the prompt reply by return telegram.

  • After Ratzinger, enough with the old European Popes!

    He was supposed to be ‘God’s Rottweiler.’ In Newsweek, A.N. Wilson looks at the paradox of Benedict XVI. 

    My wife exclaimed, when she heard of the pope’s surprise announcement to retire: “It’s bad enough having one old man thinking he’s infallible—now there’ll be two of them!” Our conversation went on to imagine the election of yet another octogenarian, who might well in turn resign before the demise of Benedict. Pretty soon, the Vatican could fill up with retired infallible old men, most of them Italian, all nodding in front of the daytime television in the geriatric wing, and all—all—infallible.

    My guess is that this time, they won’t go for yet another ancient European, and they will plump for a cardinal either from Africa or South America. Cardinal Peter Turkson of Ghana would be good. Another possibility is Cardinal Francis Arinze of Nigeria—an arch-conservative who makes Ratzinger seem like a wishy-washy Anglican. (Which in many ways he is!)

    But my money is on Cardinal Leonardo Sandri of Argentina. At 70, he is the ideal age—with 10 years, at least, before he joins the other infallibles in the dayroom. Additionally, he has the great advantage of being, at present, in charge of the Vatican’s relationship with the Eastern churches—and it is surely the moment in history to reunite Rome with the Orthodox. And he is also a voice of South America—and that must be heard. Europe and North America have grown deaf to the faith, and the church needs someone from elsewhere to nourish the flame once more.

    Whatever happens, for a pope who was elected on the traditionalist ticket, it was a curious thing to retire. Popes just don’t retire. And then he did. Ever since his moment of truth in 1968, when the rioting students of Tübingen converted the liberal-minded Joseph Ratzinger into the Enemy of the Enlightenment and Defender of Catholic Reaction, this has been a man—surely—who wanted to revert to the way things were in the good old days, back in … er … when exactly?

    That has always been the problem for “traditionalists” or “conservatives” in any sphere of life—church, politics, family life. How far do you want to go back? At what point, exactly, did things begin to go wrong?

    Appointed as John Paul II’s righthand man, Ratzinger was the Nasty Cop, engaged to wage war on the liberals. But in point of fact, he was always a much subtler figure than his enemies—or, more dangerously—his fans believed. Almost the first thing he said to the English Archbishop Cormac Murphy-O’Connor was: “When are we going to make Newman a saint?”

    John Henry Newman, the 19th-century convert from Anglicanism, in 1845 wrote a world-changing book—literally—called The Development of Christian Doctrine. In it, he posited that nothing stays the same; everything is in a state of flux and development. He popularized the Hegelian view of the world for English speakers, and thereby prepared the world for Darwin and modern political democracy. But it took a while for the church—in the Second Vatican Council—to catch up. Ratzinger, behind the old-fashioned vestments, and the occasional sharp message to American or German liberal theologians, has always in fact been a Newman Catholic, aware that the church, for all its historic roots in the world of late classical antiquity, is ever changing, ever new.

    Dante Alighieri, not a poet who minced his words about popes, had no hesitation in sending to hell the only pope who had resigned in his lifetime. True, he did not put the resigning pope in the very pits of hell with those who sell political office, or who betray their country or their friends. But there he is, cowering on the borders of hell at the very beginning of the Inferno. “And then I saw—and knew beyond all doubt—the shadow of the one who made, from cowardice, the great refusal”—che fece per viltade il gran rifiuto.

    They are tough words, especially if we take them to refer to a man whom the Catholic Church venerates not merely as a holy pope but as a saint: Saint Celestine V.

    No one would compare Benedict XVI, a highly intelligent and articulate man, with the poor hermit peasant-friar who was chosen as a compromise candidate for the papacy in 1293. Unable to make up their minds between rival French and Italian rascals, the College of Cardinals—only 12 men in those days, dithered for 27 months! Eventually, someone had the idea of appointing a saint to the Holy See. Poor, illiterate Padre Pietro was an 85-year-old hermit living in a little grotto on a mountainside in the region of Naples. He accepted the papal office, but was terrified by it, and after only a few months begged to be allowed back to his cell. The cardinals accepted his choice. He was canonized relatively quickly, in 1313, less than 20 years after his death. Modern scientists examining his skull found the unmistakable traces of a nail having been driven into the poor old man’s head, so he was evidently murdered, and in all likelihood, it was his suave lawyer-successor, Boniface VIII—Dante’s bête noire—who arranged the murder.

    It was an unedifying episode in medieval history, and we would probably not know much about it if Boniface VIII had not, in addition to murdering his predecessor, sent Dante into exile from his native Florence. Boniface thereby made himself into one of the villains of world literature, and all of Dante’s hatred was poured out on the pope’s head.

    There is matter for meditation here. Celestine V was a holy and good man, but a very bad pope. Boniface, if only half the things his enemies said about him were true, was far from a good man. But he was a brilliant pope who rescued the Western church (for a time) from some of the worst crises in its history: the breakup of Christendom itself being the worst, with the Eastern Orthodox churches going it alone, while the Western church was riven with schism. Add to that the European wars and the ever-present threat of Islam in Spain and in Eastern Europe.

    Benedict XVI is neither a holy hermit nor a criminal. But he is a paradox. Before he became pope, he was the white hope of the arch-conservatives in the church—”God’s Rottweiler”—the man who was going to send the liberals howling to their lairs while the universal church once again reasserted the old ways.

    And in some ways, it looked very much as if this was what Benedict set out to do when he was first elected. He wore a variety of extremely old-fashioned vestments—the little red cap trimmed with white fur bearing more than a passing resemblance to that of Father Christmas—and those scarlet loafers made by Prada. He brought in from the cold the ultraright conservatives who followed Archbishop Lefebvre. (But he failed to do a name check with all of them, and found himself acknowledging as a bishop an English oddball called Richard Williamson, who was a Holocaust denier.) He restored the old Tridentine Mass, for those who wished to use it—a semi-cynical move, since how many priests are left who know how to perform the old rite?

    But also, from the very first, he revealed a surprising intellectual flexibility. The very first address he made to the cardinals, just after his election, was a remarkable piece of prose for anyone to have written—but even more for a German Catholic. For a German pope, it was actually astounding, for he acknowledged that Martin Luther, father of the Reformation, had in effect been right, and that Christians are saved not by the mere performance of religious observances but by faith in Christ. His first encyclical, “God Is Love” (“Deus Caritas Est”), followed up the theme with an exaltation of love in all its human forms. It contained none of the usual carping papal denunciations of gays or divorced people. It was a simple celebration of love—as simple as Dumbledore’s when he tells Harry Potter that he had been saved by “love, Harry, love.”

    Oh, yes. Harry Potter. That too. When a sour-faced old Austrian Catholic schoolmarm went to the boring trouble to write a book denouncing Harry Potter as encouraging magic and the black arts, Benedict carelessly endorsed her thesis. But when it was pointed out to him that, as a matter of fact, J.K. Rowling was on the side of the angels, he was gracious enough to withdraw his denunciation.

    In other words, Joseph the Unbudgeable, Ratzinger the Ironclad Bismarck of Church Politics, transmogrified into a gentle, unpredictable, accident-prone old pope, more absent-minded professor than Grand Inquisitor.

    Continued on Page 68

     

     

  • Yoruba marginalisation: to what effect? 1

    Yoruba marginalisation: to what effect? 1

    Yoruba marginalisation as a theme of public debate is gaining more attention by the day. Afenifere Renewal Group first raised the issue formally a few months back. Just a few days ago, a group of older Yoruba professionals and politicians (than those in Afenifere Renewal) held a press conference on the topic, at which the group’s spokesmen reeled out details of efforts by the Jonathan regime to neglect and relegate Yoruba interests to the back burner of Nigeria’s socio-economic process. Members of the Ikenne front for Yoruba unity had also visited President Jonathan to complain about non-inclusion of Yoruba politicians in top-notch positions in his government. Media pundits have also come on board to analyse and find reasons for this condition of the Yoruba under Jonathan’s presidency.

    It is hard to identify why any president would choose to diminish the significance of the Yoruba in a federation in which they form close to 22% of the population. But if there is no surprise in third-world politics, then where should anyone expect to be startled and confused? But this phenomenon, as volatile and dangerous for the country’s unity as it might be, needs to be understood in all its ramifications, to prevent the Yoruba from being associated with cry-baby syndrome by other regions.

    What has been observed as marginalisation can be broken into two types: apparent and real neglect. Apparent marginalisation is evident in absence of Yoruba in the political pantheon that directs the life of the country. All appointive positions are essentially political. In a winner-takes-all ethos, political appointments are restricted to trusted members of the ruling party. It is true that there are many Yoruba in the PDP that controls all political appointments, but it is also clear that those in the power house in Abuja know that such Yoruba represent mostly themselves. If they represent anybody else, it must be a tiny minority of the Yoruba nation. And this feeling is despite the fact that Jonathan won more votes than Buhari in most Yoruba states in 2011 presidential election. It is, therefore, easy for those holding the lever of power in Abuja to ignore Yoruba individuals in the PDP, just as it was when Obasanjo had more Yoruba votes than Buhari in 2003 presidential election.

    Jonathan’s men and women must know that the heart of the average Yoruba is not in the ideology that subtends policies and actions of the PDP, even though their votes came into his ballot boxes in 2011. They know that Jonathan’s party is not ready to give to the Yoruba region what it needs. They probably know that the value of the Yoruba had disappeared after the election, more so that they are sure that Transformation, which the Yoruba must have voted for had also lost its edge after the election. The current travails of Olagunsoye Oyinlola is a graphic illustration that leading Yoruba in President Jonathan’s party have more nominal than substantive value, because they are deemed to have only a handful of Yoruba voters behind them. Should it have been so? Not necessarily. But anyone that can be ignored in politics without any threat to the party’s consolidation of power is generally the first to be neglected in the competition for appointive posts. If there is any group that should complain about marginalisation of Yoruba by Jonthan, it should be Yoruba men and women in his ruling party. Is anyone surprised that Yoruba members of the PDP are not complaining about neglect?

    Therefore, marginalisation of Yoruba in political appointment cannot be held against Jonathan, more so that his party members from the Southwest are not complaining. Jonathan is only upholding the values of winner-takes-all political culture. Even if Yoruba PDP members have been appointed as some of those that actually rule the country, this may not filter down to Yoruba people. A few Yoruba were so appointed during the administration of General Olusegun Obasanjo without any noticeable impact on Yoruba life. Organisations that are sending delegations to Jonathan for redress should not worry about appointive positions. The Yoruba have gone that route before. Yoruba thrived in the days of NPC and NPN, when those that held most political appointments were largely Hausa-Fulani, Igbo, and representatives of the so-called minority groups across the country, just the way it is today. It must be added though that in the days of NPC and NPN, the leaders of the two parties did not ever think that they could take the Yoruba for granted, as it appears to be the case today.

    Actual marginalisation concerns unfair hiring or firing policy. If Yoruba people are retired unduly from the public service or are jumped over in hiring to the public service for career and professional positions in a federation to which they belong and pay taxes, there are other ways to address this issue, in addition to sending delegations to President Jonathan or creating media events about it. There is a need for individual Yoruba individuals, retired without just cause or disregarded in the hiring process, to engage the Federal Character Commission by going to court to challenge any manner of injustice against the Yoruba.

    To be continued

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Okupe on Southwest marginalisation (1)

    Okupe on Southwest marginalisation (1)

    The elders of the Yoruba Unity Forum (YUF), and before them the Young Turks of the Afenifere Renewal Group (ARG), have stridently complained about the indefensible marginalisation of the Southwest. The YUF has even gone ahead to publish a two-page advertorial in the newspapers spelling out precisely some of the areas in which the Yoruba in the Southwest are marginalised. The details are very disturbing. The advertorial indicates that no Yoruba is represented in the first 12 top positions that constitute the country’s power hierarchy, yet other powers in the country flow from these 12 positions. It also says that the Yoruba head only three of the 36 MDAs (ministries, departments and agencies), yet these MDAs constitute the principal economic and financial agencies in the country. In addition, says the publication, no Yoruba is represented in the controlling echelons of the judiciary and anti-corruption agencies, and many more, including alarmingly the security agencies. On top of these, says YUF, some ministers, such as that of Aviation, have specialised in sacking the Yoruba from agencies under their control and replacing them with favourites from their preferred ethnic groups.

    The question of Southwest marginalisation became a debatable issue last year, and the presidency cannot claim to be ignorant. When eventually the President Goodluck Jonathan government deigned to respond, it chose the unlikely agency of the melodramatic Dr Doyin Okupe to speak on the issue. But in the context of allegations of unhealthy deployment and recruitment in the Army and Immigration, it was expected that when these complaints began to come to light, the presidency would take urgent steps to study and, if required, remedy the problems. Instead, the problems and the controversies have been left to fester, and the government now unfortunately comes across as parochial, insensitive and divisive.

    And so, instead of indicating that the Jonathan government is determined to take targeted and responsive steps to tackle the alleged marginalisation of the Yoruba, Okupe prefers to lay the blame on the Yoruba themselves. Hear Okupe’s warped logic: “The issue of marginalisation of the South-West was a political misadventure and political accident, brought about by the Yoruba themselves. If you would recollect, the Yoruba were supposed to produce the Speaker of the House of Representatives, which is the number four position in Nigeria. Due to political mishandling of the leadership of the Yoruba and also the sabotage of the Yoruba people by Yoruba leadership elsewhere, I am talking of the ACN now, the Yoruba leadership in the ACN conspired against the Yoruba people and allowed that position to be taken away. That was the beginning of the marginalisation. You see, when people sit down to share what is not enough and you don’t have anybody to speak for you, there is a problem.”

    Okupe also suggested that the marginalisation of the Yoruba could not be blamed on Jonathan. As he put it: “It is not President Goodluck Jonathan’s problem. I am not saying it is not his problem; the President is sympathetic towards the Yoruba people. It is not true that the president hates the Yoruba people; that is not correct. It is our (Yoruba) own making that the election of the House of Representatives was badly handled by the leadership of the Yoruba in the PDP. And also the conspiracy of the Yoruba in the ACN for personal interest and wickedness and evil plotted against their own men. This was the beginning of our problem.” Not being a judicious man, Okupe is of course never given to moderation in speech or thought. As I have noted in this place more than once, the eminent medical practitioner and politician can defend the two sides of the same coin with perfect equanimity, conviction and subversive joy. His conclusion that the Yoruba brought this misfortune on themselves is both crassly political and an indication of deeper underlying malaise in the Southwest. Indeed, because there are many like him running riot with that heresy, Okupe’s statements deserve closer examination.

    In presenting their petitions before the president and the public, neither the ARG nor the YUF argued that the Yoruba were responsible for the orchestrated discrimination against the Southwest. In this first part, this column will limit itself to Okupe’s injudicious conclusion. The statistical proof presented by the two Yoruba organisations is of course unimpeachable. If it had been riddled with errors or demagoguery, the Jonathan presidency does not lack attack dogs to punch holes in them and to present a suitable counterpoise. It says a lot about the temper and disposition of the president himself that such shocking discriminatory practices go on unchallenged under him. Even if he didn’t know that the Southwest was so discriminated against in his government, it calls to question his own competence, the diligence of his aides who should keep a tab on things, and the bureaucratic perverseness of many of his appointees who have become indifferent to the factors that predispose the country to crisis and disunity.

    Dr Okupe says Jonathan does not hate the Yoruba, in spite of the glaring evidence to the contrary. Well, there is no evidence that he loves them either, or that he harbours no malice against them. During the 2011 governorship campaign, the president was in Lagos to bolster the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) chances of winning the state. On the soapbox, he said a few things that should have cost him even the presidency itself. He told the crowd of supporters that if the other ethnic groups (that is, the non-Yoruba) came together, their electoral weight would be of such significance that they could unhorse the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) candidate. That was not just a puerile play of the ethnic card; it opened a window into the ethnically-prejudiced mind of the president. In addition, during the fuel subsidy protests of January 2012, the president was unsparing in condemning those he described as the arrogant elite of Lagos who owned three or more cars and whose pampered underage children cruised around in luxury cars. Again, this was not just a harmless opposition to Lagos’ protest culture; it was an exhibition of unadulterated bitterness against a people.

    In spite of Jonathan affording us a peep into his closed mind, many people still thought his statements had no disturbing implications, or perhaps they put them down to both his desperation to help PDP take Lagos State and his discomfort with the unrest that threatened his shaky government. I saw more than that, however. His statements were obviously a Freudian slip that helped us measure the level of his statesmanship and competence. When he made those insensitive statements, I immediately concluded that the country was unlikely to prosper or unite under him. I have been proved right. The country is in turmoil today.

    More, there is no element of veracity in Okupe’s opinion that Jonathan does not have a grudge against the Southwest. Not only does the president nurse a grudge, he has pretended not to notice the discrimination his government is promoting against the Yoruba. Moreover, he seems embittered by the criticalness of the zone, its holier-than-thou attitude, and the insufferableness of its business and political elites, including the region’s untameable and effervescent press. I go as far as saying that the president’s main headache is not even the ongoing insurrection in the North, but the censoriousness of the Southwest.

    If the president is afflicted by lack of insight into how a modern and complex society should be governed, and also lacks the temperament to bring groups together and forge a harmonious whole out of them, Okupe is even much worse and infinitely more mischievous. He argues that the Yoruba are responsible for their own marginalisation. The only proof he tenders is that a faction of the PDP in the Southwest and the entirety of the ACN voted for Hon. Aminu Tambuwal for the position of Speaker House of Representatives, when in fact the position had been zoned to the Southwest, and one Hon Mulikat Akande-Adeola had offered herself for the position. Okupe argued that this amounted to betrayal and wickedness. He glossed over the fact that the Reps were in a fever to checkmate the influence of the executive and its undisguised attempt to impose a candidate on the lower chamber. Jonathan’s candidate, as well as Obasanjo’s, was Hon Mulikat. Not only did the lower chamber feel insulted that the executive wanted to manipulate and control the legislature, many of them also felt Obasanjo was too narrow-minded and unpopular to impose anyone on the Reps. To vote Hon Mulikat was to give in to the malfeasances of the executive and Obasanjo.

    But it is even needless defending the Reps’ choice of Tambuwal, notwithstanding Okupe’s obfuscatory arguments. As far as the marginalisation of the Southwest goes, and as far as the observable bias against the zone is concerned, the position of Speaker is just one tiny block in the Jonathan government’s architecture of discrimination. If Okupe is promising presidential action to redress this major wrong, he is only trying to help the president against what is certain to be electoral debacle in 2015. But no matter what the president does between now and the next election, it will be too little too late. The zone is competent to tell the difference between righting a wrong for electoral reasons and knowing Jonathan for who he really is. I do not think the zone can be fooled. From start to finish, they know Jonathan has not done any major work in the zone. Instead, he has caused more division, displayed unmanageable temper and made incendiary statements when the subject is the Southwest, insulted the zone’s elites, and on top of these, refused to appoint anyone from the zone into notable or sensitive office.

    Yet, Okupe gives the impression the president may be unaware of the marginalisation of the Southwest. Does Jonathan not meet with his men? What faces does he see? Who are the people in his inner caucus, and what amperage of insularity do they display? Is he apprised of the country’s history, and does he have a comprehensive and holistic grasp of the issues troubling the people he pretends to govern? I suspect the president is mixed up with the wrong aides who can’t offer him qualitative or educated advice. Yet he needs a qualitative crowd around him to mitigate the damaging effects of his obvious shortcomings, nay, his provincialism.

    But why is it always easy to discriminate against the Southwest, marginalise it, or as the YUF sentimentally alleged, purge the Yoruba from key positions in government without fear of repercussions? I will attempt some explanations next week, for these explanations are even more relevant to understanding the current pressures the Yoruba face than the seemingly nugatory exercise of merely drawing attention to any perceived discrimination against them or debating who is or who is not responsible for the marginalisation.

    To be concluded next week

  • Advancing media career

    What does it takes to advance a media career in Nigeria despite the various challenges faced by journalists in the country?

    I recently asked Jenifer Ehidiamen, a former Young Nation columnist with this paper to share her thoughts with a group of journalists in Lagos. She was very reluctant, claiming to be too young in the profession to be advising her seniors.

    Ehidiamen may be young in the profession but she has learnt and accomplished a lot to qualify to speak on the issue of succeeding in whatever career one chooses. Her prescriptions are not only good enough for media profession but for anyone who wants to make a success of his or her career.

    Trainings and Fellowship

    In my final year thesis that was focused on The Factors the Influences Journalist’s Productivity, one of the findings in the research was journalist’s interest in embracing training opportunities. However, most journalists who were surveyed in the Vanguard and the Nation admitted that most of the trainings they have been to are mostly self-sponsored. The management rarely provide training opportunities that can advance their career. However, as journalists we must not limit ourselves to the limited training opportunities provided by our organizations. If we really want to move ahead in our media career then we must be ready to maximize every training opportunity available. Popular online resource where we can find training and fellowship opportunities include: www.ijnet.org; www.internationalreporting.org etc.

    Embrace the New Media

    The new media is changing the face of journalism. But how many of us here are maximizing the tools to advance our media career? A lot of people I know who are active on social media and very proactive in reproducing news contents from the news professional journalists publish have no prior training in journalism. Yet, they are the ones making the best of the new media tools. What are professional journalists doing? There are different tools we must be willing to embrace in order to become more visible online. Some of the tools I use most are: Twitter, FaceBook, GooglePlus, Blog, LinkedIn etc. Each of these tools has a strong way of helping us have a more impactful online presence. We must not settle for just creating news contents for our traditional media alone. We each can own a website or create a free account on Blogger or WordPress and use them as channels to amplify our voices on issues we are passionate about. The more people know that you are actually a journalist and not just another blogger, the more they are likely to visit your blog for original and accurate reports you publish. We can use the new media to engage others, network, collaborate and advance our career.

    Profile: Tell your story right

    Journalists are very good story tellers. We do a very good job telling the stories of others but not our story. The other day my former classmate was having a challenge with filling a space in an application that required her to tell her story. The space required over 700 words. But all she had was some 390 words or so. I was perplexed after I read through the profile. “You are more than this,” I said to her. I could not figure out if she was trying to be modest or she was just too timid to tell her story. As journalist we need to have an audacious voice in sharing our experiences with others. Our profile should speak for us. How is your current LinkedIn page, is it up to date? Is the picture you used on point? People are interested in learning about where we have been and why we do what we do. Without an up to date profile that accurately tell of our work, they cannot learn this. Don’t get me wrong, this is not same as blowing out own trumpet. I think we are each shortchanging ourselves from possible opportunities that might come knocking if there is nothing about our story that draws those opportunities on.

    Ehidiamen is a 2013 IRP New Media Fellow reporting on issues of global health and development in Nigeria to the International Reporting Project (IRP) at Johns Hopkins University SAIS

     

  • AFCON 2013, Keshi’s resignation, etc.

    AFCON 2013, Keshi’s resignation, etc.

    This year’s Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON), has come and gone, but its sweet and bitter memories linger; yes, sweet and bitter memories; depending on which side of the divide one falls. For us in Nigeria, it was an event to remember because our football ambassadors, the Super Eagles, brought the coveted trophy home. A country like Burkina Faso who lost to us will continue to rue that loss for some time to come. But I must confess I am no longer a football enthusiast. I lost the enthusiasm years back, when our local league became moribund, making Nigerians to join the rest of the world in celebrating European football.

    I remember how in years past, we used to celebrate our own great teams like Enugu Rangers, IICC Shooting Stars of Ibadan, Mighty Jets of Jos, Alyufsalam Rocks Football Club of Ilorin, Stationery Stores of Lagos, Sharks Football Club of Port Harcourt, to mention just a few. I also remember, albeit nostalgically, how in those years Nigerians trooped to any stadium where any of these great teams was playing to watch soccer as well as entertain themselves. But that was in the years when Nigeria was an issue and Nigerians could still look to the future hoping that it would be better than the present. We savoured the fine soccer that our players displayed on the fields, the panache, the victories, and even sometimes the defeat, especially when we realised that the losers really played well but the god of soccer was not favourably disposed to letting them win the match.

    But all that is gone! Just as we now look back and keep asking ourselves how we came to this sorry pass in other spheres of life; so we are also asking today how we lost all that patriotism and sentimental attachment to our local league to some funny European teams whose names are so popular in our homes today that we hardly remember that it had not always been like this. As a matter of fact, some of us had become so fanatical about these foreign teams that they had killed fellow Nigerians in anger over matches played by the teams.

    It was in this ‘I can’t care less’ attitude that I was when AFCON 2013 began. Like many Nigerians, I did not have any hope that the Super Eagles would go far. As a matter of fact, I started convincing myself that the team would come back home sooner than expected after watching their first match against Burkina Faso in which we played 1-1. By the time we played the second match with Zambia, I had lost interest completely, with that match again ending 1-1. But this lack of interest in the team had nothing to do with the team or the coach; it is just this thing about our sports administration, particularly that of football. Like the tortoise, they are so ubiquitous that their names keep coming up when the issue is the ignoble.

    We have heard all kinds of stories about them. For instance, when some of the foreign coaches were recruited, we read of allegations against them (football administrators), for instance, that some of them went into deals with the foreign coaches and were getting part of the mouth-watering salaries that the coaches were paid. We have heard allegations of how they creamed off players’ allowances; how they return home from events outside the country with more luggage than the plane can carry, as if their primary mission on those foreign travels is more for mercantilist than for soccer purposes. We’ve heard stories of how their ‘entourage’, comprising all manner of persons, including girl-friends and concubines, far outnumber the number of players and other auxiliary officials needed for the teams, etc.

    Quite strangely, hardly is anyone punished in spite of all these allegations. The best we have seen is that if there is too much noise, the government replaces the person causing the brouhaha and we move on. It would seem most of the people posted to administer our soccer are king’s goats that no one dares to touch. Since merit is never an issue in the appointments, we hardly get any good result. And when we do, as in the last AFCON, it is in spite of these characters, and not necessarily because of any effort they put in. Perhaps if their contribution to soccer is just to steal the funds, we would not complain much. But they go further by placing all kinds of hurdles on the path of coaches who refuse to dance to their tune and in the end, the coaches fail. Where they are not recommending the players to be selected to reflect ‘national spread’ (as if soccer is about quota), they dictate who to bench and which number the players should wear.

    But thank God for Keshi; because if he had failed, they would have turned his nostrils into a trumpet. As a matter of fact, he was the envy of all last Sunday night at the world press conference that he addressed alongside the team’s captain, Joseph Yobo, after the Super Eagles victory. His mien did not betray the fire that was burning underneath his cloth, caused by improbable masters who had never thought anything good could come out of his Nazareth. The Nigerian Football Federation (NFF), specifically had allegedly told Keshi he would be sacked; that was apart from calling his selection to question. His salary, we were even told, was withheld. Meanwhile, in spite of their own incompetence and all, their salaries are paid promptly. But, in spite of everything, Keshi carried on as if nothing was amiss, only to tender his resignation after winning the AFCON trophy.

    Since only failure is an orphan, the Super Eagles have been well celebrated by friends and foes alike. Even the NFF that had hitherto been threatening their coach has had its mouth padlocked by the Super Eagles victory. But Nigerians should be grateful to the Aliko Dangotes and the Mike Adenugas for their generous financial gifts to the Super Eagles. This is how to nurture a team; you don’t do that by giving ‘golden handshake’ (whatever that means) in a country where everything has been monetised and these boys and other Nigerians see people in positions help themselves to billions of public funds.

    But this victory should not becloud our sense of judgement that the AFCON victory is not one that would always come. We have to do things differently to expect different result. The fact of the matter is that government cannot take us far in soccer and sports generally because it is not disciplined itself. The state of our stadia across the country (that we spend humongous sums to build or repair whenever we are to host an international event) is enough proof of this. Many people have said this time and again; but the government would not listen because making it hands off sports would plug the source of money for some of its boys.

    However, now that Keshi has withdrawn his resignation, time and only time will tell whether he acted right by so doing. The fact is that it is easier to get the World Cup ticket for the country than it is for him to dislodge the entrenched interests in the football house. They have been beaten once by Keshi; whether he will beat them for all times is another kettle of fish entirely.

     

  • Road to achieving zero new hiv infection in lagos

    When AIDS emerged from the shadows three decades ago, few people could predict how the epidemic would evolve, and fewer still could describe with any certainty the best ways of combating it. Today, we have passed the stage of conjecture. We know from experience that AIDS can knock decades off national development, widen the gulf between rich and poor nations and push already-stigmatised groups closer to the margins of society. Unlike time when the affliction of HIV/AIDS was considered by many as the Western World’s burden, the concern of everyone today is about the best way to tackle the spread of this killer disease.

    The AIDS epidemic is a global catastrophe responsible for over 20 million deaths world-wide, leaving tens of millions of children orphaned and some 33 million people living with the dreaded virus. Sub-Saharan Africa accounts for 25 million of these people and estimates from the joint United Nations AIDS programme (UNAIDS) revealed that not less than 3.14 million Nigerians were found living with HIV as at the end of 2011.

    Currently, Nigeria bears the second highest burden of HIV/AIDS in Africa, next to South Africa and third in the whole world after South Africa and India. It is estimated that approximately 220,000 people died of AIDS in Nigeria in 2009 and the disease has also been associated with Nigeria’s declining life expectancy which in 2010 was only 52 years. Since HIV is found in body fluids-such as blood, semen and vaginal secretions, it can be transmitted when fluid from an infected person enters the body of another person. Given this modes of transmission, everyone is at risk of contracting the virus. This can happen through sexual intercourse, during blood transfusion, when using unsterilised skin piercing instruments and from an infected mother to her baby during child birth or after birth through breastfeeding.

    Regarding HIV/AIDS, it is worrisome that the average Nigerian have turned knowledge is power into knowledge is death certificate. Despite the availability of many voluntary counseling and testing services in various hospitals/centers across the country, very few know their HIV status. For instance, in Lagos, there are currently over 57 free HCT sites run by government, civil societies and the private sector. There are 29 free PMTCT (prevention of mother to child) sites, 24 free ART (Anti-retroviral therapy) sites, 6 EID (early infant diagnosis) sites in secondary and tertiary health facilities across the state.

    Till date, the figures on HIV in Nigeria are still one obtained through surveys of women attending antenatal clinics. Yet, only few comprehend how to assess risk to HIV with behaviour and practices that increase risk of HIV infection still rampant among our people. The big question, of course, is can we get to zero new HIV infection? We can achieve zero new HIV infection by committing large sums of fund to prevention especially when it is a fact that HIV is largely a preventable infection. We can achieve it by first of all attaining zero discrimination. Persons living with HIV and AIDS require information, counseling, care and support and not discrimination.

    Given its strategic place and importance in Nigeria, Lagos State has been very proactive and in the forefront of the national response to the HIV and AIDS epidemic through strengthening of institutions, social mobilisation and enlightenment.

    In Lagos, the State Law for the Protection of persons living with HIV and AIDS was signed into law in 2007. To ensure full implementation of the law, a mechanism whereby PLWHA (People living with HIV and AIDS) who have had their rights infringed upon can seek legal advice at no cost was set up. This is in line with the views of Justice Michael Kirby of the High Court of Australia when he said: “paradoxically enough, the only way in which we can deal effectively with the rapid spread of HIV/AIDS is by respecting and protecting the rights of those already exposed to it and those most at risk”. How apt!

    A vital means of achieving zero new infection in the state is what is being done at the health facilities concerning encouraging all pregnant women to get tested for HIV and providing ARVs to all pregnant positive women. Over 80% of infections in children under 15 are acquired from their mothers. PMTCT interventions, when properly implemented, have been proven to reduce the risk of MTCT of HIV to less than 2% (from about 40% in the absence of any intervention). It is therefore obvious that one of the fundamental pillars of getting to zero would be to ensure increased uptake of PMTCT services. This is already being done at the 29 PMTCT sites located in secondary and tertiary institutions across the state.

    Another way is to provide care and support to PLWHA. People should be aware that AIDS is NOT a moral issue- it is a public health problem. The vicious circle of fear, prejudice and ignorance has not and cannot help our quest to eradicate the problem. This is high time people should stop imagining number of partners PLWHA must have slept with to be in the condition. Do we turn our back on thousands of children who are infected and are living with the virus due to circumcision by untrained health personnel? What of many who got infected through transfusion by unscreened blood? Do we also turn our back on millions of children who got infected by their positive parents? Ed Koch said: “if you turn your back on these people (PLWHA), you (yourself) are an animal. You may be a well-dressed animal, but you are never the less an animal.”

    The state government has also scaled up its counseling and testing. Beside the over 57 free HIV Counseling and Testing (HCT) sites, in marking last year World Aids Day; the Lagos State Government provided mobile HIV counseling and testing campaign in the five divisions of the state. The large attendance of Lagosians at the five centres gives hope that the journey is achievable. In 2013, the target of the state is to get 1.3 million people in the HCT net. Treatment as prevention is a new buzz phrase that is doing the round in the HIV and AIDS field. The raising of the CD4 threshold for treatment from 200 to 350 means more people are eligible for treatment and is expected to translate into fever new infections.

    But how do we get people on treatment if they do not know their status? HCT is the entry point to all services. People who tested negative would have had access to information which would hopefully influence their lifestyle. Positive people are referred to whatever service they need and can prevent progression to AIDS. One other way through which the government is working to achieve zero new infection is strengthening of prevention programs by targeting young people in and out of school. Reaching young people even before their sexual debut with information about HIV and other reproductive health issues would help to avert new infections. There is one British AIDS education slogan which could also be adopted in our schools. It goes thus: Every time you sleep with a boy you sleep with all his old girl friends.

    In Lagos State the availability of a screening test to detect HIV in donated blood has nearly eliminated blood transfusions as a possible source of infection. Other preventive efforts include education about safer sex practices, such as consistent condom use, and avoidance of needle sharing among people who inject drugs.

    It is hoped that with desired interest from all stakeholders, increase and expansion of interpersonal communication and community mobilisation approaches at the LGA level, the journey will become interesting and reaching the destination will become easier.

     

    Musbau is of Features Unit, Lagos State Ministry of Information and Strategy, Alausa, Ikeja.

     

  • What is the government celebrating exactly?

    What is the government celebrating exactly?

    Like everyone else, I have heard stories about the activities of various orders of monks in various erstwhile monasteries to develop or show their faith. Some have sounded just plain incredible. There was, I learnt, the order that chose to walk barefoot. Fair enough, I think, when you remember that the cost of shoes has a habit of rising astronomically and not necessarily in direct proportion to their functions or aesthetic qualities. Another order prefers to walk some minutes a day on hot coals. Honestly, you couldn’t pay me to even look at hot coals. Most horrendous of all, why, I always think, would anyone choose to belong to the order that indulges, I say indulges, mind, in self-flagellation? I would have refused to believe it if they did not have the stripes to show for it. If I had a choice, I would have chosen to belong to the order of those who get together once a year to eat very costly satisfying dinners in order to raise funds for the hungry poor and wretched of the earth. You see, pity is pithier and more cynical when you are able to do it from a certain detached height.

    I believe that cynical kind of pity is what our federal government is feeling for its citizens right now. We the citizens are bursting our sinews protesting the decision of the government to go ahead with the centenary celebrations. I don’t believe that the government suddenly developed an inability to understand English. I think that the problem rather is that the government has as usual gone deaf in one ear. It tends to do that many times, mostly when the people are speaking or when the people are saying what it does not want to hear. That’s when it turns the bad ear to the public and the good one to the other side where it hears itself speak. This is why the government perpetually sees the people’s lips moving but hears itself speaking.

    So, you see people, the government has no idea that there is any opposition to the centenary project because it cannot hear us. It can only hear itself humming a joyful tune sometimes made into song by bus ‘conductors’, ‘Go on soun jare, o wo mbi’ (the road is clear here). Clearly, it fails to appreciate what people say about the road which is that the light is always green when they see a fool coming. Please don’t look at me; people say it, not I. Anyway, because the government has failed to hear, understand and appreciate our opposition to the centenary project, we simply must make our arguments more vociferous and pass them through strident voices; that’s all. No violence please; I hate violence. There is absolutely no need to go jabbing stubby fingers at the chest of the president’s dog. Everything else apart, you might get bitten.

    To start with, I had a hard time comprehending what the centenary celebrations were about. I asked everyone around me, what centenary? The last time I counted, Nigeria was fifty-two. No, explained someone very patiently, clearly believing he was speaking to a dumb one, independence is different from amalgamation. I coughed, reluctant to ask, what amalgamation? Luckily, the bright one read my thoughts and further patiently explained that the amalgamation was when the north and south of the country were joined together to make one. The natural question that should follow that, of course, is how come I never heard of this before?

    Don’t get me wrong. Every beggar in this country has heard of how Lord Luggard sauntered into the territory, looked left, right and then left again, then declared, the north and south will be one; you know much the same way we are told that day and night and conjoined twins came together. So, I knew all that, but I had no idea the fact was worth celebrating. Frankly, every pair of conjoined twins I have ever read about has always rued the day it was born; none has ever yet gone to church or mosque to thank God for joining their two heads or two bodies together. The inconveniences you get from any joining are just too many and painful to rejoice over. For instance, when a priest declares a couple as being ‘joined’ together, I think he does so in a manner of speaking. For I am yet to see a couple happily going about their business literally tied together at the waist. So, no thanks, this amalgamation thing is nothing to rejoice over but something to weep over, for it has resulted in a troublesome case of conjoined triplets or quadruplets or any number of lets you might care to use. Ideally, the country should be in the hospital where the doctors would be trying their best to prise it apart as carefully as possible without losing too much blood.

    In any blessed case, who the deuce are the celebrators? The government? Hmm, yea, I guess. The government and all its functionaries are well cared for so they do not lack. Indeed, I think they have every reason to rejoice. I have never been to Aso Rock but I imagine PHCN is not allowed to practice the profligacy it flagrantly displays on the rest of us there. Therefore, since they have electricity all the day and year round, they do not need to fend for themselves; they do not need to go looking for fuel; they also do not even need to look for food – food comes to look for them.

    So, why are the people not celebrating? I am the people, and I say I am in no mood to jolly around but rather to weep for the many problems I have to get myself out of. Right now, I am busy extricating myself from the generator fumes of people who cannot sleep (poor things) without relief from the heat through their fans powered by their generators because there is no electricity. I am likewise busy extricating myself from the high cost of fuelling my car now because the government cannot rein in its friends and friends’ children who are robbing the country dry through fuel scams and I must pay. Yes sir, I am too busy extricating myself from the hunger forced on me because the prices of foodstuff in the market have aimed for the sky. So, pardon us, government for not celebrating this centenary thing with you but please go ahead, don’t let us stop you.

    It is time, however, that we raised the level of our national intelligence. Believe me, the world is not mocked when Nigeria portrays herself as a wealthy nation when everyone but the government knows that people here are hungry, tired and getting angrier by the day. To go around celebrating something that should be swept under the carpet for now does not send a very good message to the world. It posits that there isn’t a sufficient level of intelligence in the country so that our children do not stone our graves.

    To be sure, a time may still come when this kind of celebration will not only be auspicious but will suggest itself. At that time, the people will lay tables of food, produced on the land, along their streets and invite passers-by to join them. They will waive the national flag with joyous abandon amidst the smiles and coos and laughter of freedom from want. Today, however, is not auspicious because there is too much want in the land. For now, I think we should do well to let the government celebrate alone and we the people should just wish them happy celebrations.

     

  • A lunch date Jonathan should have granted with caution

    A lunch date Jonathan should have granted with caution

    Health experts believe that people eat for two reasons: for pleasure and to assuage hunger. In African setting, eating together is a symbol of truce where warring parties are involved. That is why supporters and admirers of President Goodluck Jonathan and former President Olusegun Obasanjo must have rejoiced when the two statesmen had lunch together at the presidential villa penultimate Friday, after bouts of verbal exchange.

    Jonathan would most probably not be anywhere near his present position without Obasanjo’s influence. His fortuitous emergence as the Bayelsa State governor, vice president and president were all made possible by Obasanjo’s political influence. He was minding his business as the deputy governor of Bayelsa State before the former governor of the state, Diepriye Alamieyeseigha, jumped bail in the UK after he was arrested by the Metropolitan Police for money laundering. The then President Obasanjo, who was in the heat of his anti-corruption campaign, piled pressure on the Bayelsa State House of Assembly to impeach Alamieyeseigha, paving way for Jonathan to step in as governor.

    It was also Obasanjo who nominated Jonathan as the late President Umaru Yar’Adua’s running mate. As fate would have it, Yar’Adua died midway into his first term, and Jonathan fortuitously became the president. And while Jonathan dilly-dallied on declaring his interest in vying for the presidency after serving out Yar’Adua’s tenure, Obasanjo came out and publicly urged him to throw his hat in the ring, in spite of the zoning arrangement in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). In the ensuing battle for the presidential ticket of the party, Jonathan defeated the consensus candidate of the North, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, before going on to win the election.

    In a clear instance of the instability of human relationships, Obasanjo and Jonathan fell apart after the former publicly criticised Jonathan’s handling of the destructive activities of the Boko Haram sect in the northern part of the country. At the 40th anniversary of Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor’s call to ministry at the Word of Life Bible Church, Warri, Delta State in November last year, Obasanjo had carpeted Jonathan for not deploying soldiers to invade the towns that harboured members of the sect and crush them like he (Obasanjo) did in Odi and Zaki Biam in Bayelsa and Benue states respectively after some militant youths in the communities allegedly killed policemen and soldiers deployed there to keep the peace.

    A few days later, Jonathan seized the opportunity of an interview he had on national television to dismiss Obasanjo’s invasion of Odi as nothing, but a monumental failure because the soldiers who invaded Odi only succeeded in killing and maiming innocent souls, while the real culprits escaped. From then on, both parties seized every available opportunity to throw words at each other before the surprise lunch they had together at the Presidential Villa.

    As would be expected, many supporters of Obasanjo and Jonathan hailed the development as an end to the feud between them. But the more discerning of Jonathan’s supporters, who are familiar with the antecedents of Obasanjo in such matters, have reasons to panic. A reputation for which the former president would never be found wanting is his ability to turn a lunch date with his political foe into regrettable moment. So recurrent is this aspect of his political life that observers now say he who Obasanjo wants to punish he first gives dinner.

    And instances of this abound. In January 2005, a lunch date supposedly designed to reconcile Obasanjo and the then PDP Chairman, Audu Ogbeh, became the latter’s albatross. Obasanjo had fallen out with Ogbeh over a letter Ogbeh wrote, accusing the presidency of worsening the political crisis in Anambra State. After several meetings were convened by party chieftains to reconcile the two, Obasanjo rode in the same vehicle with Ogbeh to the latter’s house where they feasted on pounded yam and egusi soup. Thereafter, Ogbeh went on national television and announced that whatever misunderstanding he had with Obasanjo had been settled. Less than a week later, Obasanjo struck. He went to Ogbeh’s house and told him to resign as party Chairman.

    Before then, there had been the celebrated quarrel between Obasanjo and the late former Senate president, Dr. Chuba Okadigbo. A politician of immense political clout, Okadigbo had carried on his leadership of the Senate with little or no deference to Obasanjo, a situation that provoked a kind of personality clash between the two statesmen. After a series of quiet but bruising confrontations, a truce was brokered between them, following which Obasanjo was on hand to commission a new residence that was built for Okadigbo. At the commissioning ceremony, they had dinner together and Obasanjo even danced with Okadigbo’s wife. A few days later, Obasanjo brought his training as an engineer to bear by engineering Okadigbo’s impeachment and the then Senate president was removed.

    Other politicians who have suffered the similar fate in Obasanjo’s hand include the immediate past governor of Ogun State, Otunba Gbenga Daniel, and former vice president, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar. After a serious disagreement between Obasanjo and Daniel over the latter’s successor, some Yoruba elders decided to intervene as Jonathan prepared to take his campaign train to the South West in the build-up to the 2011 presidential election. Consequently, the Yoruba elders, including Chief Afe Babalola; Chief Kessington Adebutu; Chief Kenny Martins; the Olubara of Ibara, Oba Jacob Omolade; and former governorship aspirant of the party, Dr. Femi Majekodunmi, stormed Obasanjo’s residence with Daniel and supposedly worked out a truce. Daniel was said to have prostrated for Obasanjo who, in response, declared that his sins were forgiven. And to demonstrate the fact that he had truly forgiven Daniel, Obasanjo reached for his pocket and brought out a kolanut which they shared and ate. Today, Daniel is like a fly caught in the spider’s web as he fights the battle of his life with forces that owe their existence to the former head of state.

    The emergence of the presidential campaign posters of the Jigawa State governor, Sule Lamido, and his Rivers State counterpart, Rotimi Amaechi, days after Jonathan and Obasanjo had lunch in Aso Rock, is seen by many as a concomitant of the incident. Any need for more proofs?