The Nation Newspaper

Category: Columnists

Beyond the Ikeja Police College eyesore

It was a story right under our noses, but we pretended not to see it. Since what you don’t see, you don’t tell, the story went untold for years. But thank God for Channels. The television station seized the bull by the horn by walking where others in the same business with it feared to tread. The nation is praising its bold move today because of that brilliant piece of public journalism. Its expose’ on the Ikeja Police College showed clearly how far gone that institution is. Institution? Yes, the college is supposed to be an institution, but in its present state, it has shed that toga. It is more of a pigsty now than a training institution.

The college was not always like this. In the late 60s and early 70s, it was a neat and prim place. From the outside, passersby craned their necks to see what was happening inside because a lot of activities were always going on there. At such times, the trainees were either being drilled or involved in one sporting activity or the other. At its gate were smartly dressed policemen with batons keeping an eye on those coming and going. They were firm and courteous. That was the golden era of our country’s foremost Police College, which many could not recognise from the Channels documentary. Those who know that place well will weep at its present state.

As a college, that facility ought to be properly maintained and its needs always met in order to make good policemen of those being trained there. As a place where people are trained in the art of dealing with fellow human beings, nothing should be spared in ensuring that the trainees are in top mental, physical and spiritual shape, except if we want them to become animals on leaving the college. Indeed, with the kind of policemen we have these days, I say with all due respect that those being churned out of there these days are no better than animals. Who then should we blame when our policemen misbehave in public? Is it not those charged with giving them the best but who have cornered everything?

The college is in bad shape today because of the age-long corrupt tendencies of the police leadership and the institutions saddled with the task of ensuring that we have a good policing system. I believe that past Inspectors-General of Police (IGs) and the Police Service Commission (PSC) should be held responsible for the disgraceful state of the college. I don’t know if any of the past IGs passed through the college, but if there is an old student among them, he should cover his face in shame that his alma mater has gone seedy. The deterioration of the college started long ago and it must have been during the tenure of one of them.

Many IGs would also have come thereafter without doing anything about the problem. The Channels expose’ seems like a bad dream to me and I have not stopped pinching myself to say that it cannot be true that the nation’s leading police college is in such a sorry state. Is it that past IGs were not aware of this mess? Is the Ikeja Police College not under the IG? If an IG is not concerned with what is happening in a police college where the rank and file is trained, then what will interest him? What about the PSC? What are the functions of this Commission? Should it not also be interested in the training and welfare of policemen? Should it only be concerned about discipline, appointment and promotion of officers?

The rot at the college has exposed the high level of corruption in the top echelon of the police. There is no doubt that in the police budget over the years, allocations would have been made for the college. What happened to the vote? How was it spent, that is if it was spent on the college at all? With the situation on ground now, President Goodluck Jonathan should order a probe into how the police college got to this pass. The inquiry should go back the last 20 years because from the look of things the mess didn’t just start yesterday. We must know those who drove the college to the ground and bring them to book.

Getting to the root of how the police top echelon nearly killed this famous college should be of more interest to the president than looking for those who granted Channels access to the college. Those who invited Channels to expose the rot in the college have the nation’s love at heart. How can we say that we are the giant of Africa and have such a good for nothing facility as our police college? Is it not a shame? We killed the Nigeria Airways, we killed the Nigerian National Shipping Line, we ran the Nigeria Railway Corporation to the ground, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation is virtually bleeding. Now, the Ikeja Police College is almost gone. Haba! what is wrong with us as a nation? Are we cursed?

Let us thank God for what Channels has done. With its documentary, the television house has saved the college from imminent death. Our leaders are now forced by the report to give attention to the college. Yes, money will be pumped into the place to make it look good once again. But before we do that, I insist that we get those who turned the place into a pigsty or else the money spent now may make no difference in the near future if another set of thieves and never- do- well come and mess up the place again. If they see how those before them are publicly humiliated now they will think twice before dipping their hands in the till when they are put in charge of the place.

•Government has raised a panel to probe the rot.

Orubebe vs Amaechi

It is not often that public officers fight dirty in public. When they do, we watch with glee because it is fun. This is exactly what we are witnessing in the face-off between Rivers State Governor Rotimi Amaechi and Niger Delta Minister Godson Orubebe. Their clash has its origin in 2015. Those close to President Goodluck Jonathan believe that Amaechi is interested in the 2015 presidency. Despite his denial, they don’t believe him. So, to ensure that Amaechi does not eventually declare his presidential interest, everything possible is being done to rattle him. First, it was the president’s wife, Dame Patience, who took the fight to Amaechi in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, the other day when she accused him of tormenting her people, the Okrika, with the demolition of the waterfront, an exercise which the governor maintains is to beautify the Garden City.

Then came the purported ceding of Rivers oil wells to Bayelsa, the home state of the president, which Amaechi claimed was done because of the belief that he is interested in the 2015 race. It is only in our country that those whose political interest clash with that of the president are harassed and hounded all over the place as if they have committed a cardinal sin. Come to think of it, is the presidency the birthright of anybody? The answer is no. So, if Amaechi wishes to contest the presidency in 2015, he is free to do so, whether or not he is in the same party with the president. It sounds illogical for any one to stop Amaechi from contesting the 2015 presidential election, if he so wishes, because he is in the same party with Jonathan. With his henchmen jumping the gun before the 2014 date he set for himself to tell us whether or not he will contest in 2015, we now know how the president’s mind is working.

Mark my words, Jonathan will tell us next year that he is going to contest in 2015. But he should not because of his ambition give his loyalists a free rein and allow them to overheat the polity. There was no need for Orubebe to have attacked Amaechi the way he did under the guise of fighting for the president. He should leave Jonathan to fight his own fight and the time for that will soon come. I tell you, it’s going to be a decisive fight. Just wait and see.

January 24, 2013
A symbol of hope

They do not call the state of Osun helmsman, the Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola the symbol of good governance for nothing. Aregbesola closed his account for 2012 with a flourish. As usual the signature tune was a trajectory of meticulously planned new initiatives.

The symbol is quite captivating when it comes to breaking new grounds. They appear to just keep rolling in; not by accident though. For it must be recalled that Aregbesola came in courtesy of a six-point programme of action. It represented at the time an old-fashioned sort of thing. Time was when a few people of a certain age will recall political campaigns where fought on the basis of well thought out, solidly put together programmes. Political operators of that era were as they used to say “blessed with a plan anchored on a vision”.

This was not just meant to be sloganeering. It connoted that a well conceived manifesto is invariably the beginning of good governance with sensibly implemented programmes. The manifesto thereby represented the beginning of a game changing administration. Unfortunately the intervention of the military interregnum induced militicians changed the ball game. Programmes were replaced with all manners of vacuous sloganeering. The end result was predictably, very predictably disastrous. Nowhere, so more than the now rechristened ‘State of Osun.’

When he was elected, Aregbesola met a broken down infrastructure and a demoralised people. Such was the effect of the interregnum of the militicians. Only a well conceived programme of social and economic reconstruction could rebuild spirits. This is precisely what he is doing. To close his deal on an eventful 2012, the symbol put into play a couple of new initiatives. Once again the thrust was on the social sector. And yet again they provided an example of a dividend of democracy. God knows that nobody needs a democratic dividend more than the hitherto hard-pressed people of the state of Osun.

In the first instance the Ogbeni Governor launched the uniform scheme for 750,000 students of the state recently. This is a magnificent path breaking scheme. Aesthetically, the designs of the uniforms were very enticing and pleasing to the eye. The design itself is bound to increase the confidence of the pupils who will wear it. Secondly and very importantly, it will increase the feeling of self-esteem; a feeling of self-esteem is a vital bedrock psychologically at a certain age.

In an observation on a not too dissimilar proposition, the British war time leader and statesman, Sir Winston Churchill had cause to observe that, ‘We shape our buildings after which our buildings shape us.’ He was absolutely correct, although here he was referring to a housing project and its effect on the public good. We can however translate the essence of its message to the new uniforms in Osun State. The new uniforms will definitely shape the mood of the students; increase both self-esteem and self confidence which will translate to a better receptacle for the learning process.

It must also be stated that the progressive governor as usual made a direct link between a social advancement and an overall economic policy. The linkage is obvious. Design and implementation of the project took place within the state’s economy. A social policy was in this way turned into part of an economic stimulus. In this way both seasonal and permanent employment were created across the board in the state. It is a very good example of social and economic linkage. It is also an indication of what happens when you use your brain.

What we have here is an example of a sound body and mind in a pleasing and indeed eye-catching uniform. The resultant effect of pride and fulfilment will soon begin to become obvious. We must remember vitally that the new uniforms go hand-in-glove with refurbished and new school buildings and structures. The change is therefore all encompassing; coupled with a reinvigorated teaching workforce, what we are observing is a new deal for education in the state with the sobriquet – State of the Living Spring. Indeed it is a new lease of life and the effect on another generation in the state will be most positive.

There is of course now a convergence of opinion that education is now the key battleground. He who wins the race for the acquisition of knowledge is certainly the champion in this epoch. As in so many things this is again a throwback to another era when for example the now revered educational policy of the government of the western region was launched in the early 1950’s and looked like a lot of ado. “Why?” The disinterested would say “should you get so excited about a mere educational initiative”. The rest of course is history.

The policy turned out to be a seminal piece of social engineering. An entire region was transformed. Within a generation, every household had produced a graduate of a tertiary institution. Aregbesola is in reality carrying on from there by refurbishing old schools and building new ones, providing new uniforms, as well as the revolutionary Opon Imo (learning tablet). All of these are the roadmap for a future which is based on winning the knowledge arms race. History is bound to be benevolent in its judgement on this and similar initiatives.

Closing the deal for the year also saw the distribution of free health books. Again the thrust here once again is on the social sector – the creation of the total personality who has a healthy mind in a sound body. The transformation of the state of Osun is bound to accelerate in 2013. The linkage between social transformation and the deepening of the economic sector will be strengthened. Inadvertently, Aregbesola is a living example of the old German Social Democratic rallying cry – ‘Macroeconomic stability as the precursor of social justice.’ He is showing that fiscal rectitude, prudent management of resources and the emphasis on production will lead to an enhancement of the social sector and the provision of social services. On their part the people of the State of Osun can’t seem to get enough of initiatives such as the one we have just highlighted.

• Oke writes from Lagos.

January 24, 2013
Chief Emeka Anyaoku at 80

It is a matter of joy for me to join the Anyaoku’s family to praise the Lord for his grace on the life of this distinguished and extraordinary gentleman. I first got close to Chief Emeka Anyaoku in 1978 when as Assistant Commonwealth Secretary-General, he came to deliver a public lecture in Ottawa Canada where I was then a Director of the Nigerian Universities Office, an office representing the interest of the National Universities Commission and that of all the Universities in Nigeria in Ottawa Canada. There were also sister offices of the office in Cairo, London and Washington DC. This was at a time the Nigerian Government had just established federal universities in Benin, Sokoto, Maiduguri, Calabar, Port Harcourt, Kano and Ilorin and saw the need for staff recruitment, training and other ancillary services needed for the rapid take-off of their putative tertiary institutions. We used to call them the seven sisters. Chief Anyaoku then a dashing middle aged man gave a brilliant lecture I believe on “The Role of the Commonwealth in World Affairs” before hundreds of White faces. He discharged his responsibilities with distinction and aplomb. I introduced myself to him and he greeted me warmly and I as a black man was very proud of him particularly because of his confident mastery of the topic. Later I was at an audience when he gave another lecture in Lagos some years later on “The Racial Factor in World Politics”.

One of the things he said was that for a Black man or a woman to distinguish himself or herself internationally, he or she would have to be twice as good as a White person. I did not need to be convinced about this and I believe that many of us who studied abroad went through this crucible of fire. As part of divine providence, I was in the team headed by General Ike Nwachukwu, then Minster of Foreign Affairs charged with the responsibility of campaigning for Chief Anyaoku’s election as Secretary General of the Commonwealth in 1988. I was then Special Adviser to the Minister of Foreign Affairs. Needless to say that we had a candidate who was sellable and just like a good product needed no advertisement, so it was with Chief Anyaoku. However we had a formidable opponent in Hugh Fraser, the former Australian Prime Minister. But in spite of this and because of his sterling qualities, Chief Anyaoku was elected Secretary General of the Commonwealth in Kuala Lumpur in 1989.

I was present during his election and the Nigerian delegation was led by the late Admiral Augustus Aikhomu who was then Vice President and we were all filled with joy at this great stride by our fellow country man.

Chief Anyaoku remains the only Nigerian to occupy the highest post in an international bureaucracy. The late Prof Adeoye Lambo and Dr Rilwan Lukman at one time or the other served respectively as Deputy Secretary-General of the World Health Organisation (WHO) and Secretary-General of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). Chief Anyaoku was Secretary-General of the Commonwealth in the 80s and 90s at a time of rapidly changing political situation on the Africa Continent. He was involved in negotiating the transfer of power in the then Southern Rhodesia from White settlers to Africans in independent Zimbabwe. He was then not even Secretary-General yet but his role was crucial in persuading Dr Robert Mugabe to accept a compromise of retaining reserved seats for White settlers after independence and later delaying redistribution of land to African farmers.

His role in organising a Special Committee of Commonwealth foreign Ministers, including those of Nigeria, Canada, Zimbabwe, Australia, Zambia, Guyana and Tanzania to put economic and political pressure on the apartheid regime was quite significant in forcing the then government of South Africa to realise the futility of denying Africans political and economic rights in their own country. He was also the brain behind organising an eminent persons group in which Obasanjo was involved to put additional pressure on the apartheid regime in South Africa. The role of the Commonwealth in the emancipation of the people of South Africa from the slavery and oppression of apartheid remains to be fully studied. Suffice it to say, Chief Anyaoku was at the centre of all these.

Nearer home in Nigeria, he did everything that was humanly possible to explain to the various Military leaders in Nigeria the need for transition from military dictatorship to democratic rule. His effort against even his personal safety to persuade General Sani Abacha to respect the wishes of the electorate and to release Moshood Abiola was one of his attempts to ensure the survival of democracy and indeed the stability of the country itself. Even as a young man, he had tried without success to persuade Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu to seek accommodation with the Federal Government in spite of the wounds inflicted on the Igbo people during pogrom against them in Northern Nigeria. He risked his life during the Civil war to see how he could alleviate the conditions of suffering humanity in Biafra.

In his public international career, Chief Anyaoku’s life is an epitome of integrity, discipline, fairness, equity, honesty and good up-bringing. Since his retirement, he continues to remain relevant serving as chairman of several international organisations, devoted to economic development and protection of global wildlife and environment. Since 1999, he has served as chairman of the Presidential Advisory Council on international relations, a forum which allows him to share his experience and to advise all the Presidents from Obasanjo, to Yar’adua and Jonathan on Nigeria’s roles in the world. It has been my privilege to serve with him in the PAC and this is a service freely given and largely unrewarded. Chief Anyaoku is also chairman of Orient Petroleum, a position that he wants to use to prove that Africans can build and run a refinery so as to mitigate the sad situation in which an oil-producing country continues to import most of its refined petroleum.

A titled chief in Obosi, he is the Adazie and a member of the royal indichie that chooses and advises the Obi of Obosi. It will be incomplete to write about his achievement without mentioning his wife Bunmi, the daughter of the famous Barrister Ladipo Sholanke of Abeokuta but who lived most of his life in England. He was the founder of the West African Student’s Union (WASU) in the 1920s, a Proto Nationalist organization that preceded the formation of ´political parties in Nigeria before independence. While Chief Anyaoku was at work in different parts of the world, his wife kept the home front and without peace at home he would not have been as great as he is today.

Chief Emeka Anyaoku remains incredibly strong and mercifully healthy and I believe he will continue to be of relevance for years to come. It is with joy that I celebrate this great man, this distinguished International Civil Servant, this patriotic Nigerian, this man of sartorial taste and elegance, this iconic figure, symbol of excellence, a man worthy of emulation; this civilised man, this l’homme engage´.

January 24, 2013
Aregbesola’s good turn…

In his robust and characteristically rigorous and highly readable defence of Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, the governor of Osun State, against an absolutely gratuitous attack by The Punch in its editorial of November 20 last year over his declaration of a holiday for the Islamic New Year on Muharram 1, 1434 which fell on November 15, Adamu Adamu, the Friday must-read columnist of the Daily Trust, described the governor as “one of the best, most humble and most upright governors in the country.” (Trust, January 11, 2012).

Anyone familiar with the man and the way he has governed his state since more than two years ago couldn’t agree more. Far from disagreeing, one can even argue that Adamu’s list of the governor’s virtues fell short by at least one, namely the man’s courage of his convictions.

The Punch had described Aregbesola’s declaration as “strange” and a manipulation of religion in a region “where harmony among the various ethnic and sub-ethnic groups is legendary.”

How the declaration by the governor of a holiday to celebrate a new Islamic year is “strange” in a state where more than half the population are Muslims and where such a holiday detracts nothing from non-Muslims, The Punch did not demonstrate convincingly. But this is a matter for possibly another day.

For now it’s hard, if not impossible, to deny that the man has shown in the more than two years or so that he has never been afraid to act on his convictions, in so far as they reflected the popular will and the greatest good for the greatest number of people of his state.

Convinced, for example, that in a federation – even one like Nigeria’s where power flowed from the centre instead of from its component units – there was something inspiring with a state having its own flag, slogan and state anthem, he initiated these symbols of statehood for his state.

Predictably, this attracted a virulent attack from the Peoples Democratic Party, the country’s ruling party, whose dubious victory in the state’s governorship polls in 2007 was overturned by the courts after nearly three years, thus ushering in the rival Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) into power in the state. Aregbesola’s action, the PDP said, was seditious, to say the least. Yet when Bayelsa State, where President Goodluck Jonathan comes from and where the party is in power, did a similar thing – even worse, some would say – the party, which prides itself as being the biggest in Africa, fell into a deafening silence.

Today, several states in the Southwest have their flags and anthems but that has not seriously detracted their loyalty to the federation. Certainly, it has not detracted from the governor’s well known faith in the potential of the country to lead Africa – and the black race – into being reckoned with and respected internationally, if only the country and the continent could get leaders that are competent, compassionate, selfless, humble and honest.

The man’s courage in charting new ways of doing things apparently led him to be the first, and so far the only governor, in the country to ask senior bureaucrats to choose a head of service through ballot papers with a list of criteria that focused on peer review of each other’s performance and personal integrity rather than on the usual one of longevity and seniority. The jury on this innovation is still out but its potential for making civil servants more transparent and accountable in executing policies and programmes of government is hardly in doubt.

When the man took over power from the PDP two years ago, the state routinely took loans from banks to pay the wages of its civil servants. He not only stopped that. He went on to restructure the state’s lean finances to make sure it stopped living beyond its means.

To be sure, the man took loans through, for example, issuances of bonds like many of his colleagues. But unlike several I know that have gone on a borrowing binge to build luxury hotels and similar non essentials, the Osun governor has borrowed essentially to invest in infrastructures like roads, drainage, water supply and schools. This much is pretty obvious for anyone who has been to the state since the man came to power. Certainly his sensible – and prudent – investment in infrastructure explains in part why, in spite of its many rivers and undulating topography, the state did not suffer from the floods that devastated many other states last year.

Obviously, the man’s achievements have not only been in intangibles, as the record of his successful massive youths employment programme in the state has shown. Youth unemployment everywhere has since become perhaps the biggest source of the violent criminality that has led to so much insecurity in the country. Few governors in the country have done as much as the Osun State governor to contain this scourge of youth unemployment.

For me, however, the man’s greatest achievement lies in the future. This will result from the highest priority he has given primary and secondary school education in his state. Virtually all over the country these levels of education have suffered devastating neglect resulting in the massive failure in, for example, the West African School Certificate examinations in recent times. In Osun State, the government has massively invested not only in building schools at this level. It has also done so in information technology that will enable pupils to learn as much at home or anywhere else as they do in schools.

It’s early days to be definitive about the man’s record. But if only he continues with his current level of performance he’ll certainly deserve another turn in next year’s governorship election for the good turn he has done his state. He deserves another turn because, unlike your typical Nigerian politician, the man is humble, honest, transparent and competent – and has the courage of his convictions.

On my frequent usage of the word “penultimate”

Please Mohammed, check the real meaning & use of ‘penultimate’. Rather unsettling for a columnist of your stature to keep falling into the common Nigerian error! Merry XMAS!

FEMI OSOFISAN. +2348033048383

I checked for the meaning of the word as Osofisan, one of the country’s literary giants, suggested and got even more confused because the meanings they gave suggested my usage was right. To clear my confusion, I emailed his text to the in-house linguist of sorts of Trust, Farooq Perogi, who teaches journalism in America.

Among my “offending” usages, in Osofisan’s eyes, were my columns of Wednesday December 26, 2012, and before then, probably that of May 2, as reproduced below:

General Muhammadu Buhari at 70.

“Penultimate Monday, i.e. December 17, General Muhammadu Buhari, former military head of state and perennial presidential contender since 2003, turned 70.”

Beyond Azazi’s controversial intervention at BRACED Summit

“Penultimate Monday, a (presumably) regular reader of this column sent me an sms from 08025720606, in apparent anticipation of today’s piece.”

Perogi replied my enquiry thus: Your use of “penultimate” in the sentences you quoted above is perfectly legitimate. I am mystified by Professor Osofisan’s charge that your usage falls “into the common Nigerian error!” Penultimate is just a grander, less familiar term for “second to (the) last,” or “last but one.” Contrary to Osofisan’s claim, it is in fact native English speakers, not Nigerian English speakers, who tend to misuse “penultimate.” Grammar enthusiasts here always rail against the tendency in native-speaker English, especially of the American variety, to use “penultimate” as if it meant “greater than the ultimate,” which is senseless because “ultimate,” like “unique,” “absolute,” etc are already superlative adjectives.

The only sense I can make of Osofisan’s criticism is that he is probably cautioning against the use of “penultimate” in contexts where the endpoint isn’t apparent. If the endpoint isn’t clear, it would be hard to isolate the second or next to it. He would probably prefer an expression like “the penultimate Monday in December” since December helps us easily locate the Mondays being referenced. But that argument neither makes grammatical nor logical sense since the newspapers in which your columns appeared have datelines that help the reader determine the days of the week you referred to.

At any rate, many prestigious English-language newspapers habitually use “penultimate” exactly the way you used it. See the following examples:

”At Mr Obama’s penultimate rally at a nearby arena earlier the same day, the crowd, although bigger, had been more muted.—Economist Nov 8, 2012.

“A few minutes later, Woods walked into the clubhouse in fourth place, already assigned to the penultimate pairing Sunday.”—New York Times Jul 21, 2012

“I am really excited to compete,” she said after completing her penultimate training session before the first day of competition on Friday.—Reuters Jun 27, 2012

“Squeezed by a royal wedding and bank holidays, parties are making the most of the penultimate day of assembly election campaigning.”—BBC May 3, 2011

January 23, 2013
Is the political party corruption? Are soldier’s and politician’s oaths different? Davos!

Nigeria is at a needless moral and monetary crossroads from theft and stealing- masquerading as ‘corruption’ which seems to be a judicially ‘forgivable sin of politics’. Quite apart from the massive and multi-dimensional financial extortion and theft in cash there is the ‘other corruption’- lost leadership, poor decision-making, ethnic protectionist decision making, false federalism, inter-ethnic and intra-ethnic discrimination and social immorality. Even ‘plea bargaining’ has been Nigerianised for politicians and billionaires. But judicial equity exists only if a goat thief can ‘plea bargain’ away a three year prison sentence by returning goat’s tail, leg or skin if the police and judiciary have not chopped the evidence!

‘Are you a politician and corrupt and a thief?’ If ‘yes’ step aside. 2013 Nigeria has no place for you. ‘Can serving politicians become non-corrupt and non-thieving?’ ‘Why are they corrupt and thieving anyway?’ ‘If we had better policing and anti-corruption agencies, would political corruption and thieving reduce?’

Let us get something straight about politics and democracy in Nigeria. The current political class is making Nigerian citizens feel that they, not the politicians, are ‘the problem’ with Nigerian democracy. It is even the mantra of public lectures. After recommending Public Private Partnerships to fill the huge hole left by official government corruption and provide more money to steal, the lectures target the citizens for not overcoming massive electoral fraud or not ‘Arab springing’ and of course dying. ‘A citizenship gets the government it deserves’ summarises the attitude. But the citizens, especially non-civil service private sector citizens, have suffered billions in lost incomes during strikes, Nigerians have died, over 500 during the Abiola annulment and since then assassinations, maiming and lethal political violence incidents. The people of Nigeria are told to forget the rigging, cheating, cross carpeting, unknown candidates all misnamed benignly as ‘political electioneering’ instead of ‘Crimes Against Nigeria’. Somehow when the word ‘political’ is put in front of a murder or election forgery it is transformed into an unsolvable ‘lesser crime’ a misdemeanour, a juvenile incident, a joke, judicially ‘alright’. No punishment. ‘Go for re-election and please do it properly this time!’ Rubbish! Political crimes must be punished in prison, like for goat theft. A vote is more valuable than a goat. Nigerians, your misguided acceptance N500 to vote is not the cause of our political problems.

Politicians, military and civilian, cannot escape blame for Nigeria’s failure to provide 100,000Mw power, books and sports equipment for all schools, pothole free transport and modern 200kph railways and MDGs with all the riches God has given to Nigeria. The people were never at decision-making business meetings, contract awards where Nigeria’s budgets were divided between greedy political parties, contractors and potholes.

It seems the political party is designed as the greatest corruption organ in Nigeria draining the budgets of the nation through fictitious or inflated contracts and extortion from contractors and consultants, having access without accountability? Politicians are not infants but adults who voluntarily and automatically take responsibility for development and are solely responsible for their actions and inactions, their morals and immorality.

Our soldiers from 18 years will be fighting and dying in Mali for what reward? Already the first two have died on home soil? Our policemen, some just 18 are ‘training’ in a pigsty. Congrats to IGP Abubakar and Channel CSR Project for this ‘revelation’ about the Ikeja Police College that we all know. Many years ago, the Americans sent to teach new techniques at the College had to leave because it was not fit for animals. But it is an widespread educational malady in ‘pigsty’ secondary and tertiary hostels and schools across Nigeria while Nigeria’s politicians grow fatter. What is the Police College’s annual budget over 30 years? Who stole it? Who underfunded the college? Who dehumanises the trainees? Which past IGPs now advising Abubakar on ‘good police governance’ neglected the Police College and used it as punishment posting for senior officers? Today the seniors of these 18+ year olds are dying daily in kidnappings, robberies, bank attacks and terror attacks. They die as adults, often unmourned. They, like the soldiers, took an oath to protect Nigerians and serve the country, laying down their lives.

Politicians also take a sworn oath to serve with honesty. Does it not matter to their souls? So even if they are fraudulent with honesty, the oath to serve Nigeria is still binding. So the politician must be anti-corrupt and honest. But can good come out of bad? What was the original motivation for running? Corruption?

This ‘’politicians’ responsibility’’ argument does not absolve the electorate from some responsibility. Within one week a politician had demands from his constituents totalling over N5million for school and hospital bills. Citizens invite politicians to functions, expecting megabucks. Citizens elevate the politician to a minor god by bowing to ‘Excellency’, ’First Lady’, ‘Distinguished’, ‘Honourable’. Citizens create the political monster and are surprised that it bites them!

Where would Nigeria be without the Corporate Social Responsibility, the Parent Teachers and Old Students Associations, NGOs, DFID, USAID etc? ‘Government cannot do it alone’ is a smokescreen for corruption and the need for Public Private Partnerships is questioned in the light of a trillion naira losses to corruption scams.

DAVOS World Economic Summit must begin to get a new deal for the world’s poor or the revolutions will be worldwide. How can Morgan Stanley ‘return to profitablity’ and not repay ruined shareholders?

January 23, 2013
Booming business of pipeline vandalism

For many years, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, depots at different locations around the country have suffered severe product shortage due to the nefarious activities of vandals who destroy the pipelines feeding the facilities. This way, consumption of the product has been adversely affected due to inadequate supply. Even where they are available, they are often sold at cut-throat prices.

Andrew Yakubu, NNPC Group Managing Director, GMD, put the number of pipeline breaches between August and early January this year at 1,498. He told newsmen in Lagos last week: “Between Atlas Cove and Mosimi depots, the NNPC recorded 181 break points; from Mosimi to Ibadan, it had 421 ruptured points; and from Mosimi to Ore, it recorded 50 vandalised points. Also between Ibadan and Ilorin, it had a total of 122 break points.”

Yakubu, who was on a fact-finding visit to Arepo in Ogun State, the scene of constant vandalism and fires in recent times, decried the unending incidents of pipeline hacking and product theft, which, he said, were currently posing great danger to the efficient distribution and supply of petroleum products in some parts of the country. The GMD said if vandalism was left unchecked, the activities of pipeline marauders could cripple the smooth operation of the downstream sector of the industry.

Also last week, the Pipelines and Products Marketing Company Limited, PPMC, said the economy had lost about N165 billion in the last four years to pipeline vandalism. This includes the cost of repairs and products theft. Haruna Momoh, the Managing Director of PPMC, noted that “the activities of vandals at Arepo and products theft across the country had become a recurring national embarrassment and had cost the country N165 billion between 2009 and 2012.”

Giving an insight into the activities of the ubiquitous vandals, Momoh said: “In one case, the vandals killed one of our personnel who had gone to fix a vandalised pipeline, and buried him in an unknown grave. It took the intervention of the management of PPMC, which pleaded with the community for several days, before they could show us the grave, allowing us to exhume the body so as to give the (staff) a befitting burial.”

Between 2010 and 2012, Momoh said, 76 fire incidents were recorded in the country. According to him, more than 87 per cent of these were as a result of the nefarious activities of vandals along PPMC’s pipeline right of way. He gave the recurring decimal of Arepo as a typical example of such incessant fire outbreaks the organization has had to grapple with. Nigeria has about 15000 kilometres of oil pipeline.

There is no doubt that pipeline vandalism is one of the biggest challenges confronting the country today. The harassment, intimidation and perennial killings of PPMC personnel by these vandals underscore the desperation, viciousness and callousness with which this booming business is being carried out. The illegal business is also believed to have led to the death of no fewer than 6,000 people due to fire incidents that resulted from pipeline vandalism in the last five years.

While some people blamed the fire incidents resulting from petroleum pipeline vandalism on the ruptured pipelines, the affected oil companies, in their own defence, always attributed it to the activities of pipeline vandals. Regrettably, the activities of the vandals might have led to the unplanned exit of some oil companies in the country, which in turn has a drastic effect on the economy.

The economic downturn in the country could have made many people to seek alternative means of survival through crime and criminality. In this regard, the very lucrative oil business must have been of topmost priority for them. Pipeline vandalism, therefore, has become almost an all-comers’ game because of the seeming ‘ease’ of stealing petroleum products. Though the pipelines are buried deep inside the ground and many in swampy forests, the vandals have devised various ingenious methods to breach the pipelines. Once this is done, they divert the products for their illegal business.

In most cases, trucks are used to load illegal products to be sold to willing buyers in the black market. The buyers could be owners of filling stations or other unscrupulous Nigerians acting as middlemen for end users. When it is not convenient to use trucks, drums or jerry cans are used, and then taken in large quantities to secret places where the buyers come to take delivery. It is in the process of siphoning these products that ‘avoidable’ fire incidents occur.

Since the first fire incidents in Jesse, near Sapele in Delta State, on October 17, 1998, where an estimated 1,200 people died, many more people have died, particularly as a result of the activities of pipeline vandals. These people met their untimely death through sudden and devastating explosions resulting in huge infernos. Men, women, old and young, even toddlers have been roasted alive.

What is more saddening is that, try as the government may, with constant advertisement in the media pointing to the dangers inherent in scooping fuel from burst pipelines, nobody seems to be listening or perturbed. The simple reason is that those engaged in vandalism have formed a terror gang or cartel to keep themselves in business. Those living around or close to the pipelines, could possibly be aiding and abetting this heinous crime. At worst, they could be accessories to this act of vandalism. Also, a probe of the owners of several mansions that dot these landscapes around the pipelines could lead to some startling discoveries. Most of these mansions could have been built from the proceeds of this crime.

I have heard stories about some unscrupulous Nigerians who have built houses inside villages and settlements close to pipelines route. Such houses usually go with high walls to keep prying eyes at bay. Inside these high walls, they bring oil tankers under the cover of darkness to take fuel siphoned from burst pipelines which are then neatly stored in huge storage tanks in the houses waiting for buyers. This is why I believe that the security agents must do more of intelligence gathering in order to unmask these enemies of the nation. Perhaps, one should add that the possibility of some unscrupulous security agents acting as shield for some of these criminals cannot be totally ruled out.

In a society where money is worshipped and where poverty is widespread, the tendency to look the other way when these crimes are being committed is always there. This is more so if would-be or potential whistle-blower is given a piece of the action to keep body and soul together. Each time pipeline vandals are paraded on network television, it is usually the foot soldiers from the dregs of the society, who run errands for the barons that get caught. The godfathers usually lie low, while their stooges are being paraded half-naked in public.

Oil theft, generally, is a very lucrative business in Nigeria. That is why many people are involved- from Nigerians to foreigners. The other day, it was some Ghanaians that were caught with illegal crude oil on the high sea; some Russians followed; so also were some Filipinos; now some Indians have joined the ‘deal’. And the soul train continues.

A Yoruba adage says, “It is the rat at home that informs the one outside that there is food in the house”. It is Nigerians who act as fronts for all these foreigners who are falling over themselves in their bid to plunder our oil resources.

Don’t let us talk about the Niger Delta area where illegal oil refineries have sprung up like mushrooms. Rightly or wrongly, it is estimated that the quantity of oil stolen from Nigeria through various dubious methods might far outweigh our officially declared national output or legal sales. Bad enough, even the NNPC does not seem to have a good and reliable record of Nigeria’s total oil output and sales. All that is being fed to the public is mere apocalyptic guesswork!

January 23, 2013
Many faces of corruption

The pages of leadership history in Nigeria are saturated with unending stories of treasury looting, election-rigging, nepotism, tribalism, bribery and its twin, corruption.

This, invariably, result from public officers – both elected and appointed – regarding their positions, not as call to service to their fatherland but as a gold-mine.

Therefore, they get preoccupied with not how to initiate rewarding policies that would place Nigeria and Nigerians on a pedestal, but with the easiest and clandestine way of looting the country’s treasury and cause more damage to Nigeria’s already-comatose economy.

Interestingly, while we seem not to have a hope in hell in wriggling out of this social and moral hemlock, President Goodluck Jonathan became worried that corruption is becoming an albatross despite relentless even though puny fight against it. He had said that Nigeria’s problem is not corruption but the people’s attitude. His sincere comment on corruption raised some dust which has not settled. Trust Nigerians. They vilified and demonised him. One believes that these verbal attacks on President Jonathan are warped, lame and blinkered.

Moral gate-keepers have argued that an individual’s action is morally good not only because it conforms to moral law, but also in so far as it flows from a moral conviction. They also maintain that actions are deemed right or wrong according to experience and the conclusions of reason.

It should be noted that our idea about morality has changed, and majority of Nigerians believe that whatever produces happiness and well-being is, in the highest sense, moral. They forget that unreasoning obedience is not the foundation or the essence of morality.

It therefore follows that since every mankind has a moral responsibility which only his conscience can teach, it is imperative that one should be conscious of what one does. One has the need to rationalise what value one’s apparent damaging actions would add to the society.

Having recognised, sincerely or sanctimoniously, the deleterious effect which corruption has had on the growth and development of the country, President Jonathan had vowed to stamp the monster out of the system. But how committed he is to winning this fight against graft is left for posterity to judge.

Honestly, the President’s assertion is flawless. Corrupt tendencies are functions of the mind. Crimes are hatched in the mind before they manifest physically. If the mind constantly breeds evil, corruption will multiply. Corruption is simply a deformity of the mind.

This leads us to asking what constitutes corruption. Does corruption manifest only when money exchanges hands? This is a terrible perception. It is a matter of how refined, tacky or bestial our minds are. One who exhibits purity of mind may or may not be corrupt in a sense.

Again, any mind that is disposed to justice, mercy, honesty, and intellectual development is also not corrupt. But any man or boss, who is not willing to give to every mankind every right that is due he is just so much nearer a barbarian than Nebuchadnezzar.

The current humiliation of personalities that has become the lot of the mighty and the elite of our land has confirmed that corruption had never been a defining element of the Nigerian poor but a feature of the super class in our political milieu.

All those that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has arrested for alleged financial crimes are celebrities, even though they are treated as sacred cows as it were. The war against fraud is directionless or so it appears. One believes that the fight against corruption should go beyond financial inducement as is currently construed. This is so because corruption is a multifaceted phenomenon.

The attention of the media, government and its anti-graft agencies is focused on inane societal contradiction that involves financial inducement. But there are other grotesque behaviours that are more sinister than bribery and corruption.

Therefore, anti-graft agencies’ searchlights should be beamed on people’s attitudes towards their fellow mankind and issues.

A boss who feels he is god, who despises his subordinates, robs them of their respects, denies them of their rights, regards them as beasts or less human, and denigrates them is corruption personified.

It is necessary that the boss should give every mankind every right he claims for himself. He should keep his mind open to the influences of nature. He should also receive new thoughts with hospitality.

Any man who is not willing to treat his fellow mankind with love, sincerity and openness is dishonest, selfish, and brutal. All these are manifestations of corruption.

Manipulation of issues in a terrible manner has often led to a creation of nauseating deformities so much so that the beauty of human mind and integrity seem somewhat subjected to malicious damage and insult both to self and others.

We seem to be less sympathetic towards a man who fails to adjust to a low level of expectation than we are to one who fails to adjust to a high level. We should have no pity for some corrupt rogues who steal money or exhibit uncongenial attitudes towards their fellow mankind simply because they are in position of authority because they succeed in defaming themselves. They are so poor that the only thing they have is money.

The present campaign against corruption should be serious, total and sustained. Any one implicated in any form of scam should be disgraced publicly and jailed. This way, integrity would be an integral part of our daily lives.

One significant question those whose minds have been darkened by their poor-quality attitudes should mull over is: would their reputation, integrity, honour, and good work be recognised by their character should they meet in the dark?

January 23, 2013
As Nigerian troops deploy in Mali

There is a saying in Yoruba that if your neighbour is feeding on house rat and you fail to warn him, by the time he begins to cough at night you will not be able to sleep. Since the fall of the Moammer Ghadafi regime in Libya about two years ago the rest of North Africa has not been able to sleep due largely to the terrorist activities of armed supporters of the late dictator displaced by the Libyan revolution.

Working in concert with other terrorist groups aligned with al Qeada in the Maghreb region, the ex Ghadafi boys trained by the slain dictator are all over North Africa causing havoc and are beginning to show their hands in West Africa.

For the over three decades that Colonel Ghadafi was in charge in Libya he harboured and trained terrorists from other African countries who later returned home to destabilize their countries. Remember Charles Taylor and his NPFL rebels in Liberia including Yommie Johnson’s? They were all trained by Ghadafi in Libya and funded by him to cause the civil war that later engulfed the West African country. The Sierra Leonean civil war and the general instability in the Mano River region including Guinea and to some extent Cote D’Ivoire could all be traced back to Ghadafi and his band of terrorists. The Chadian civil war in the 80s had its roots in Libya.

Throughout his stay in the Presidential Villa in Tripoli, Ghadafi was never at peace with his Arab neighbours as well as he was once accused of sponsoring an assassination attempt on late King Fahd of Saudi Arabia at one Arab League summit. Yet with all his terrorist tendencies and destabilization activities in the continent and beyond well known, nobody in the defunct Organisation of African Unity (OAU) did call him to order. Citing a provision in OAU’s charter that forbids member States from interfering in the internal affairs of another member country, African leaders looked the other way as Ghadafi was causing trouble all over the place even when his activities amounted to interference in those countries he was destabilizing.

Shortly after his fall these band of terrorists spread across North Africa and some, especially the Touaregs of West Africa moved back into the region with all their arms and ammunitions and West Africa has known no peace ever since. After unsuccessful attempts at having a foot hold in Mauritania, these terrorists took a large chunk of Mali, especially the north, last year and were beginning to spread to the south on their way to overthrowing the government in Bamako when French forces intervened and drove them back.

France, acting under a United Nations resolution last week sent Special Forces and fighter jets to Mali to confront the rebels and their al-Qeada allies pending the arrival of a West African force to be led by Nigeria’s Major General Shehu Usman Abdulkadir. The Nigerian led International Support Mission to Mali (AFISMA) will draw troops and equipments largely from Nigeria, Chad, Niger, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Togo and Benin Republic.

Last week the Nigerian senate approved a request by President Goodluck Jonathan to deploy 1,200 Nigerian troops to Mali and over the weekend the Nigerian Air Force sent two fighter jets join the war.

Not a few Nigerians are worried about the deployment of our soldiers in Mali and their worries are well founded. In the 90s Nigeria was at the head of a West African intervention force called ECOMOG that was dispatched by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to intervene in the Liberian civil war. Our troops were also involved in Sierra Leone where another civil war was raging. In both instances we had bitter stories to tell. Though the wars were eventually halted and peace restored in the two countries, our soldiers were bruised and our efforts largely unappreciated especially by Charles Taylor who eventually became president of Liberia. The cost of the wars to Nigeria, especially Liberia’s was enormous both in terms of human and material resources. Many Nigerian civilians were massacred by Taylor and his NPFL rebels in Liberia just because our troops came to intervene in the war. Many of our soldiers were killed and millions of dollars spent (much of which was wasted) prosecuting the war which most Nigerians believed we had no business being part of. I doubt whether Nigeria has recovered fully, especially militarily from the effect of that war and now that we are getting involved in another West African war, the rule of engagement and the tenure of our involvement must be well spelt out to avoid a repeat of what we went through in Liberia and Sierra Leone.

While some might want to argue that Nigeria being far away from the theatre of war in Mali has no business sending soldiers there, the fact that some of the Boko Haram militants threatening the peace in northern Nigeria had reportedly confessed to receiving training in Mali is enough to convince that the Malian civil war is a threat to the Nigerian nation. The facts also that some elements of al-Qeada have been found to be offering support to Boko Haram and the weekend attack and killing of two members of Nigeria’s contingent to AFISMA by a hitherto unknown terrorist group somewhere in Kogi state are further justifications for our involvement in Mali.

But in sending our troops to Mali, care must be taken to ensure that all the necessary equipment and logistical support were provided for them, including their allowances. It is hoped that those being sent have been properly trained both in peace keeping and enforcement, and the rules of engagement properly spelt out. The scandals that accompanied our involvement in ECOMOG must be totally avoided in AFISMA. Our soldiers must behave well especially in their relationship with local civilians including the women.

Now that we are in Mali, the likelihood of the terrorists and their allies in Nigeria particularly Boko Haram targeting strategic places and even military installations in the country should not be ruled out hence the need to scale up security protection around such places. Areas with high civilian congregation should also be properly protected while some high profile individuals both within and outside government should also be given increased protection. Nobody could say for sure the reason behind the gun attack on the convoy of the Emir of Kano, Alhaji Ado Bayero in Kano at the weekend. People like him could be vulnerable.

It will also not be out of place for the Foreign Affairs Ministry to issue a travel advice to Nigerians living in Mali in particular and neighbouring West African countries to be less visible and avoid volatile areas where they could be singled out for attack by the terrorists or their sympathizers.

January 22, 2013
Obama 2.0: Retrospect and prospect

One of the high points of my two-week visit to Germany in 1993 as a guest of the German Foreign Office was an interview with the publisher of the influential weekly, Die Zeit, in the northern port city of Hamburg.

My interviewee was no ordinary publisher, and professional issues were the last thing on my mind as I was ushered that crisp September morning into his capacious office. Ringed by bookshelves reaching up to the high ceiling, it was like a busy but well-kept library.

Behind a cluttered desk commanding almost a full view of the room sat the man I had flown from Berlin the previous day to meet, one of the major world figures from the West who in the 1970s sought to inaugurate a new, more hopeful and more just international order even as the Cold War raged with deadly violence across the world.

There was Jimmy Carter in the United States, and next door, in Canada, Pierre Elliot Trudeau. Jim Callaghan held sway in Britain, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing in France, and Guilio Andreotti in Italy. Down Under, in Australia, there was Malcolm Fraser.

In West Germany there was the longest serving and easily the most outspoken of them all, Helmut Schmidt, who served as chancellor from 1974 -1982, the man behind the desk in the capacious office at Die Zeit, the man they called “The Lip” because of his volubility and his habit of dispensing advice whether it was solicited or not.

He lived up to that reputation during our discussion that went on for more than an hour. Ask him a question and he would launch a tutorial worthy of the masters at Oxford and Cambridge.

He did not flaunt it, but he left you in no doubt about his great learning

The euphoria over the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the re-unification of Germany was still in the air, though much subdued, and I asked him whether he ever thought that Germany would be re-united.

He said he never doubted it, but he never believed it would happen in his lifetime.

It happened just eight years after he left office. And Helmut Schmidt is still very much alive.

I doubt whether any adult American alive today ever believed that a black man would be president of the United States in his life time. Dr Martin Luther King’s famous dream did not go that far. Nor can it plausibly be advanced that “the promised land” he said he had seen in the Memphis speech that prefigured his assassination the very next day was one in which a black man would be president and commander-in-chief.

The civil rights leader Jesse Jackson, it is true, did seek the presidential nomination of the Democratic Party in 1984 and 1988, as had Shirley Chisholm, the black Congresswoman, in 1972. Both knew that they did not have a ghost of a chance of securing the nomination, much less winning the presidential race.

They sought the nomination because they could; they sought it to make the point that, not merely in theory but also in practice, any qualified person can seek any elected office in the United States, regardless of skin colour.

But here we are today, in the lifetime of some of Dr King’s closest associates and disciples, celebrating the second inauguration of a black person as president of the United States and commander-in-chief. It is more than the stuff of dreams; it is the stuff of fantasy. What began as an unpromising journey— even Michelle Obama thought it was a quixotic quest – is now one of the most inspiring political stories of our time.

“RACIAL BARRIER FALLS IN DECISIVE VICTORY,” The New York Times proclaimed on the front page of its Late Edition for November 5, 2008. This was true in a narrow sense; in the larger sense what followed was the precise opposite.

In a tribute to what has been called “American exceptionalism,”Obama had proclaimed that only in America was his story possible But instead of embracing, even celebrating him as a glittering product of that uniqueness, those who felt that his ascendancy had upturned the natural order of things denounced him as a rootless impostor who had been insinuated into the system to destroy everything they hold dear.

They had to “take the government back,” their government, by all means.

Just three months ago, one of them, a political hack who bears the quintessential American surname Sununu, was publicly denouncing Obama for not having learned “how to be an American.”

Deconstruction: He is not one of us. He doesn’t belong.

Too bad we could not stop him first time. Take all means necessary – block every initiative he launches, suppress the vote, stir things up, focus anger and resentment against him, hint darkly at assassination – take all necessary measures to ensure that there will be no second time.

And, for a quite a while, it seemed Obama’s time was up. The TEA Party was set to run him out of town, and all those who could be identified with him or his policies, however remotely. A year before the election, pollsters were reporting that if the election were to be held then, a “generic Republican” would defeat him. With the economy in distress and the jobless rate north of 8 percent, all that a Republican – any Republican — needed to do to win was to show up.

The rest is history.

Obama can already point to some significant accomplishments. When it takes full effect, his Affordable Health Care Act will provide insurance cover for some 30 million Americans for the first time. He saved the auto industry. He curbed the predatory propensities of Wall Street and the banking industry and the securities market. He created a path to legal immigration status for millions of undocumented aliens. He arrested the economic decline.

That is achievement enough.

On the international scene, he ended the misbegotten invasion and occupation of Iraq. He reduced global tension and made the world safer by sublimating the American impulse to war

He enters his second term with his place in history already secure.

Now, he must have an eye on the legacy of his Presidency. Great challenges lie ahead, not the least of which is forging a partnership with a Congressional opposition that has turned calculated obstruction into an instrument of legislative policy.

He has to restore America to economic prosperity through investment in education and innovation. He has to see the unfinished work of comprehensive immigration reform through. He has to address climate change and its consequences forthrightly.

Gun violence in America has taken on frightful dimension that requires action. Obama will have to lead the effort to regulate access to guns and assault weapons and bullets designed for human slaughter, despite the militant opposition of the powerful National Rifle Association.

Because he has no illusions that he can forge a partnership with a Congressional opposition, he is turning over the awesome machine that helped put together the winning coalition in 2008 and 2012 to a movement that will be in permanent campaign mode during his second term, championing his agenda.

There is perhaps no greater symbolism than the fact that Obama took the oath of office yesterday with his hand on one Bible that belonged to Abraham Lincoln, the legendary 16th President who freed enslaved blacks, and another that belonged to Dr Martin Luther King, Jr, who led a titanic struggle to make that freedom real and meaningful, and on whose birthday, anniversary, an official American holiday, Obama’s second term was launched.

Hail to The Chief as he navigates the rough road ahead.

January 22, 2013
Oyinlola taku

Oyinlola taku [Oyinlola stays put] – that resonates well with “Akintola taku”, that 1962 Daily Times immortal headline that captured the constitutional crisis in the First Republic Western Region. This was after Premier Samuel Ladoke Akintola (SLA) had rebuffed a parliamentary sack by the Western House of Assembly.

The resulting impasse, and the contrived state of emergency piously orchestrated by the Abubakar Tafawa Balewa federal government, was the beginning of the end for that republic. But the Balewa government’s contrivance had the fond hope of nailing, once and for all, Obafemi Awolowo, officially the Federal Opposition Leader, but the central government’s Political Enemy No. 1. It ended up nailing that republic.

Nevertheless, like history repeating itself and petering out into a farce, the present Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) power in-fighting is a poor copy of the original.

To start with, Olagunsoye Oyinlola, embattled PDP national secretary, has not, in the classical sense of the word, “taku”. After initial threats to ‘storm’ his office, after his latest court-ordered sack, the man the Court of Appeal had earlier booted out from the Osun governorship, after illegally occupying the post for more than three years, beat a tactical withdrawal.

If he is staying put at all, it is more de jure than de facto. De jure [in the eyes of the law], he insists he is still PDP national secretary. That is the long and short of his appeal, now before the Court of Appeal. But de facto [in reality], at least for now, he is out in the cold – and that is where the rich stream of ironies surrounding Oyinlola’s present odyssey is so sweet and refreshing.

For some three-and-a-half years, Oyinlola was de facto governor of Osun, while Rauf Aregbesola, the de jure governor, languished in political wilderness. How long will Oyinlola languish before he gets justice, one way or the other?

Then Kunle Kalejaiye, SAN, the attorney alleged to have engaged Justice Thomas Naron, chairman of the first Osun State Election Tribunal, in allegedly indecent telephone text exchanges, is also the attorney leading Oyinlola’s cause at the Court of Appeal, to over-turn his client’s sack by the verdict of Justice A. Abdu-Kafarati. It is a grim irony that both client and attorney, on the attack to save Oyinlola’s illegal rule as governor, are now on the defensive to save an ill-fated job as PDP national secretary.

Again, former President Olusegun Obasanjo, the do-or-die electoral philosopher of 2007, is reportedly in the checkmated Oyinlola camp. Though Obasanjo’s ancien regime offered Oyinlola the pad to launch his ruthless gubernatorial heist 2007, both philosopher and acolyte would appear fated to languish in the evolving Goodluck Jonathan PDP hell. The allegation is rife that Oyinlola’s ouster is to clip the wings of Obasanjo, in the hot proxy war for the soul of PDP, en route to 2015 presidential candidacy.

Indeed, if the allegations that the legal instrument PDP chairman, Bamanga Tukur, used to post-haste oust Oyinlola is skewed, is it not sweet irony that the grand philosopher of do-or-die politics and one of his foremost acolytes are seeping the bitter taste of their own galling brew, before the judiciary clears the wilful mess, if it ever does? Ah! So the rich also cry?

To be sure, no one can be sure how the Oyinlola conundrum would pan out. Though the Bamanga Tukur camp appears set to consign the embattled Oyinlola into the dustbin via a legal technicality, with the announcement of Onwe Onwe as acting PDP national secretary, another faction of the party has propelled Victor Kwon, PDP national legal adviser, to ask a federal high court in Abuja to stay execution on the verdict. It is instructive that a counter-manoeuvre is on to replace Kwon with a “more experienced” lawyer.

Still, if the status quo remains and Victor is victorious, Oyinlola gets a breather. If not, it is sure political Golgotha. Some lobbies, perhaps with a morbid sense of humour, are even proposing Obasanjo – Obasanjo, a principal part of the hurt Oyinlola party – to meet with Tukur to resolve the crisis! Some resolution!

Why, even Jonathan, on January 19, offered his own flattering sop, claiming his administration was building on Obasanjo’s legacy! Some building! Reminds one of a certain pounded yam feast before the final, ruthless daggering!

This is cynicism of the highest order, even if there is a surfeit of bad faith in both warring camps.

But the sweetest irony may well be this – and Justice Isa Ayo Salami, the sacrificial lamb to appease the PDP gods, for abject failure to sustain their brazen gubernatorial robbery in Ekiti and Osun, must love it: a petition alleging probable miscarriage of justice has hit the Court of Appeal, Lagos, causing an indefinite adjournment.

Ironically, on this one, Tukur and Oyinlola are in the same corner, against the Adebayo Dayo-led Ogun State PDP executive committee, which had earlier in a Lagos federal high court, kayoed the Tukur PDP national executive committee, on a case to determine the lawful lord of the manor in Ogun PDP. But an allegation, rather wild, had popped up that Justice Amina Augie, head of the appeal panel, was likely to be biased, since some highly placed personages had allegedly bragged she was in hock with them.

So, to preserve justice, Justice Zainab Bulkachuwa, acting president of the Court of Appeal (PCA), had frozen the process, pending the investigation of the allegations – right step.

Still, how can Goodluck Jonathan’s latest Trojan horse against Justice Salami’s legitimate return as PCA, no matter how well meaning the Honourable Justice Bulkachuwa is, be perceived as guarantor of justice? How can the Court of Appeal, under its present contrived presidency, deign to push for justice and fair play when it is itself a sorry captive to, and culpable conspirator with, the Jonathan Presidency against justice for its own rightful president?

This streak of ironies and its current victims are a lesson to all – which, however, is not saying much. The Nigerian political class, as Socrates said of the Athens of his day, is such a slow-witted mule, almost unable to learn any lessons, even if it is always stung by a gadfly. The people themselves have a terrible penchant to suffer fools gladly.

If Obasanjo, now a putative victim if not an actual one, had scaled the Mandela heights during his presidency, instead of roughing it up in the power trough, he would have bequeathed this republic with high ideals, below which his successors would find difficult to levitate. But alas! So, why would his successors not, with his own patented impunity, splatter his face with executive mud?

As for Oyinlola, it is sweet irony to taste a long agonising wait for justice, as Aregbesola did, if indeed he was rightfully picked as PDP national secretary. But if he wasn’t?

The collective tragedy is, of course, that these are costly distractions for a country that needs more than its fair attention span in the race against time for development. Pity!

January 22, 2013