The Nation Newspaper

Category: Columnists

  • The familiar games of Ekiti opposition

    The familiar games of Ekiti opposition

    The Ekiti opposition had planned their strategy to be debilitating, to hurt the ACN government fatally, at least; and they were riding on the recent NULGE strike in Ekiti State to launch the intensive campaign of hate, as a prelude to a governorship aspirant’s tour of the state.

    The malicious opposition in Ekiti State had apparently bought over some commercial drivers and sent out party faithfuls to pose as passenger-sympathisers of the striking LG wokers on a shuttle of Ekiti routes.

    There were a number of indentical sample cases that helped this writer to draw his conclusion, out of which he personally encountered three. And in each of the cases, the driver of the commercial vehicle had claimed to be a suffering LG worker who eked out a living to survive non-payment of salaries or denial of minimum wage. His sympathiser-passengers would then descend on the state government with diatribes, making the governor their particular target; the governor who was a supposed villian who, allegedly, was “conserving the money (of the state) which is God-given anyway and merely wells up on oil fields for the use of all Nigerians”.

    Their base and crude arguments were laced up with deliberate, libellous statements that were delivered so virulently to intimidate those who might want to challenge their vituperations.

    Of course there were still a few cases where innocent passengers challenged or tried to educate the campaigners either until they discovered that they were talking to sheer blackmailers or until they alighted at their destinations. While deliberate, desperate misinformation was the mission of the malignant opposition, sanity has always been the goal of the Ekiti Government in restruaturing or reforming both the education and local government systems in the state.

    The opposition which would want to catch in on every opportunity of pretence to relevance had decided to over-celebrate the skirmish of the LG wokers and teachers with the Ekiti Government, forgetting totally that sancrosanct sanity can only be faulted temporarily, and certainly at the peril of those who faulted it. With the LG workers in Ekiti State back at work and their demands being met, just as Ekiti teachers are coming to terms with the government’s policy of genuinely raising the standard of teaching to improve the quality of education, we can watch the smart campaign of the opposition to collapse soon and fast.

    Soon, they would realize that they should have accepted , at least in principle , that sanitization of the LG system was a necessity which they, themselves, had attempted while in power, even though without success. The honesty would have won them some admiration, you know, but might have appeared not too politically wise.

    Soon, they would also realize that they had hurt themselves fatally by not accepting the need for educational reforms when there was a dire need for it. They would be ashamed to have instead chosen to canvass the perpetration of negativity in the forms of crushing presence of ghost workers and absentee workers in Local governments and existence of examination magic centres in public schools.

    They were taking the Ekiti people for being gullible, treating them as nincompoops who would not know or care if ghost or absentee workers cheat them; who won’t know that the teachers or schools that indulge in securing undeserved bright results for pupils could render such pupils potentially useless to themselves, to their parents and to the larger society.

    The familiar Ekiti opposition did not even spear time to lament the 16% pass which the Ekiti public schools recorded in the recent WAEC exams. Perhaps they had blamed the John Kayode Fayemi administration which scrapped exam magic centres! One recalls now that some teachers, in an earlier interview, had gaily described exam magic centres as”a vogue all over Nigeria”. The opposition might have borrowed a leaf to say: “It serves the governor right if Ekiti schools recorded low WAEC performance. Why didn’t the Governor leave the teachers to fix results?” What a Pity!

    Apart from the fact that reaping the fruits of travesty does not portend true and real progress anywhere, the positive posture of the current administration in Ekiti State has obliterated all doubts about its intention. But for the cross of reforms in the LGs and the schools that the JKF administration had to courageously carry, the clever Ekiti opposition would have been dazed and deflated by now.

    Nevertheless, the Ekiti opposition’s smartness is already blowing on its face as the tour of the aspirant, at which its reckless mischief was targeted, has failed to draw the projected crowds. Rather, it has met with resistance at each stop.

    Yes, a government’s performance can speak louder than virulent blackmail!

     

    • Oguntoye writes from Oye Ekiti.

     

  • The shame of our prisons

    The shame of our prisons

    Just when you think you have crossed that threshold where nothing in the Nigerian public sphere can shock you, something jolts you out of your smugness.

    No, I am not referring to the N2 billion that President Goodluck Jonathan has asked the National Assembly to appropriate for building a “befitting” banquet hall in Aso Rock, where he can treat his guests to the delights of gourmet cassava bread and fish peppersoup.

    I do not see the delusion of grandeur that some mischievous people have insinuated into the project. On the contrary, I see great vision, and transformative genius. If previous residents of Aso Rock possessed these attributes, they would not only have dreamed up the project, they would have executed it at a fraction of what is now projected. Is it ever too late to do that which is befitting?

    Nor am I referring to N9 billion being requested to complete the official residence of the Vice President, over and above the N7 billion it was projected to cost. Poor Architect Namadi Sambo! Since taking office, he has been squatting in a cramped guest house that is far less swanky than servants’ quarters tucked in a corner of his expansive compound in Zaria, to say nothing about his living quarters on the grounds.

    Instead of praising him for his sacrifice, some so-called analysts have been carping about cost overruns and fiscal recklessness. I commend to them Dr Kingley Mbadiwe’s timeless dictum that those who want greatness must be prepared to finance greatness.

    Nor yet do I have at the back of my mind the vast sums being requisitioned for building new residences for the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives. The proper authorities have certified that they cannot guarantee the safety of those principal officers of state, aforementioned, in their present quarters.

    That consideration alone should have settled the matter. When they cannot even guarantee the safety of the President and Commander-in-Chief, when they put him in the humiliating position of having to take the salute at the National Day parade behind the fortified walls of Aso Rock, is it any wonder that they cannot guarantee the safety of these lesser officers unless they relocate to fortified quarters?

    In any case, shouldn’t such protection come with the territory? Is it not a crucial aspect of national security?

    It is, to be sure, galling that Mohammed Abacha, son of the repellent dictator Sani Abacha, is openly laying claim to a chunk of the proceeds from what is without question a colossal theft of the national patrimony, namely the Malabu Oil Field. Too much can never be enough for some people. But again, that is not what is on my mind.

    To cut the crap as they say here and come right out with it, what moved me to write this piece is the living conditions of the inmates at the Kuje Medium Security Prisons, in the Abuja Federal Capital Territory reported in this as reported by this newspaper (December 4, 2012, at page 24).

    Even without the picture accompanying it, the story is disquieting enough. Of 507 inmates there are at the time of the report, 424 were awaiting trial, a good many of them for 20 years or longer, without ever having their day in court. Many of them do not know whether they will ever be released. The facility was not designed to hold so many inmates

    The picture could easily pass for a frame from Rwanda’s national archives of horrors. Absent the debris, it can pass for the mass of bodies washed ashore the tsunamis in South-east Asia and Japan. It evokes memories of the “Black Hole of Calcutta” ginned up by Tory historians to justify a further tightening the imperial chokehold. It conjures up haunting images of conditions on the ships that ferried millions of Africans into enslavement in the so-called New World.

    My equanimity was restored somewhat by the finding that the picture was not taken at Kuje Prisons and cannot therefore be presumed to reflect prison conditions there. It is file photo illustrative of just how horrid prison conditions can get, not of conditions in any Nigerian prison.

    Still, as the once merely notorious Lagos Boy and now totally infamous PDP chieftain, Chief (Dr) Olabode George will testify from personal experience, a prison is no holiday resort even if you are housed in its luxury wing.

    Rare is the prisoner who gets that kind of treatment. Gani Fawehinmi, the departed crusading attorney, certainly never got it. So crowded was the prison cell in which he was once held that inmates had to sleep in a foetal position. If anyone was allowed the luxury of lying on his back, some other inmate would have had to stand throughout the night, assuming there was room even for that.

    Wedged in such suffocating juxtaposition for years on end, with no regard for personal hygiene, the inmates are stripped of their humanity. The squalor and degradation breed further degradation and bring out the worst in the inmates.

    For persons who have not been convicted of any offence, it is punishment most cruel and unusual. Even for those who might eventually be convicted, the punishment is already more severe than the law could have envisaged.

    Even convicted persons have rights. There is thus no reason to abridge the rights of persons awaiting trial. The degradation and dehumanisation to which they are subjected has gone on for far too long.

    It is time for the National Human Rights Commission, the National Assembly, religious bodies and civil society groups to take up the plight of our prison inmates with renewed and sustained vigour.

     

  • Media and terrorism

    Media and terrorism

    What should be the role of the media in the fight against terrorism in this country, has of recent been a matter for public scrutiny. In the last couple of days, this relationship has been the major concern of security agencies, the government and the discerning public.

    The spokesman of the Joint Taskforce on Terrorism JTF, Col. Sagir Musa was the first to fire the salvo. In a well presented and very engaging article widely published in the media, he made spirited efforts to draw attention to the nexus between regular reportage of acts of terrorism in the media (albeit through sensationalism) and the festering of the malaise.

    He contended that publicity is the oxygen of terrorism and that modern terrorists employ media terrorism to oil their dastardly acts. Musa further argued that terrorism makes sense only when it is conspicuous in that targets are selected for maximum propaganda and publicity value.

    Also at a security training programme for the media, the Director-General of the State Security Services SSS, Ekpenyong Ita, arguing along the same line said terrorists craved for media attention. Hear him, “when they carry out attacks, they want as much publicity as possible and when the media sensationalize such an attack, the terror groups have achieved their objectives of getting wide publicity which is aimed at intimidating and instilling fear in the people”

    The presidency through Doyin Okupe also spoke in a similar vein while reacting to a media report to the effect that nowhere is safe in Nigeria.

    The issues raised above would appear novel given our recent experience with the scourge of terrorism. Because we are experiencing it for the first time, there is the temptation to view these concerns as a challenge peculiar to Nigeria. And given the way things are handled in this country, it may not take long before the media are made to take vicarious responsibility for the ravaging insecurity accentuated by the activities of the dreaded Boko Haram sect.

    There is a sense in which these arguments could be pursued and the inevitable impression created that the media have become the greatest impediment to the fight against terrorism. This is more so with spirited efforts to construct a link between terrorism and the media seen by our security experts as the oxygen without which the former cannot survive. But this claim cannot find support for the very simple fact that one precedes the other. Terrorism takes place before the media record accounts of its deadly and devastating consequences. There is therefore a limit beyond which we cannot hold the media liable for the festering acts of terrorism. Moreover, it has neither been established nor can it be established that publicity is the driving force for terrorism undertakings. From what we know all over the world, acts of terrorism are largely driven by such societal malaise as injustice, religious fundamentalism, poverty and discrimination based on race, ethnicity, class or religion.

    Terrorism is propelled and sustained by perceived grievances. And in all instances of terrorism, these grievances are articulated by its promoters and not difficult to locate. The Boko Haram sect has been very unambiguous in its demands from the Nigerian state. It is opposed to western education and committed to imposing an Islamic state in the country. These are some of their known demands and grouses. It was therefore not surprising that as soon as the government made clear it was not interested in negotiations with them and proceeded to place ransom on the heads of their leaders, they selected targets for maximum impact to demonstrate their capacity for evil. And they succeeded in doing just that.

    The bombing of a church right inside Jaji and the assault at the SARS headquarters in Abuja soon after that pronouncement, illustrate this point most poignantly. If the media proceeds to document these occurrences in the interest of the reading public, they are only acting within the confines of their profession calling. It will therefore be incorrect to convey the impression that the media provides the necessary and sufficient conditions for terrorism to thrive as our security chiefs have sought to do.

    Even then, the media have not equally fared well in the hands of terrorists. Terrorists have variously targeted and levied maximum harm on media organizations and practitioners. They have been accused of bias in reporting and documenting the activities and views of the terrorists. The bombing of some media houses in Abuja and Kano by terrorists not long ago, was on account of perceived bias on the part of the media against them. They specifically accused the Thisday Newspaper of distorting reports by not publishing some press statements emanating from them.

    What this underscores is that the media are at the receiving end both from the point of view of the government and the terrorists. The government would want the media to thread softly in the manner they disseminate information on terrorist activities given that their aim in selecting targets for maximum impact is to get maximum publicity and instill fear in the public. This could as well be. But it is also the responsibility of the same government with the benefit of this strategy at its disposal, to make it impossible for them to reach such sensitive and high impact targets that will make for ‘sensational’ news for the media. If the military authorities and the police echelon could not adequately secure Jaji and SARS headquarters resulting to that unmitigated assault, they should squarely take the blame. If they cannot through surveillance and intelligence gathering nip these tendencies in the bud, they could be the real source of that oxygen for terrorist action. Moreover, the media have a social responsibility in regularly drawing attention to these terrorist acts. They draw the attention of the government to the festering phenomenon with a call for more action and alert the public to the dangers they poses to their lives. If the government wants less of these reports, it must do more to tame the mortal danger terrorism has become on these shores.

    Admittedly, there are bound to be some excesses in the manner some sections of the media handle some reports especially given the advent of what is now known as the social media. Their largely unstructured nature gives ample room for abuse. But this affects all spheres of the society and not limited to terrorism. The issues raised by our security chiefs are not entirely novel.

    Before now, the role of the media in the fight against terrorism had engaged global attention. P. Wilkinson sees a symbiotic relationship between terrorism and the media.

    But the dilemma in this relationship was succinctly captured by C.A Damm when he contended that terrorists are dependent on the publicity they receive and the media acquire from the terrorists that staple in news reporting: an event newsworthy, unexpected and violent which the public is drawn attention to hear. This appears a more apt way of representing the predicament of the media in the reportage terrorism in a country like ours.

  • Democracy is not enough

    Democracy is not enough

    Few Nigerians know of a place called Providence, even though most citizens grapple with the idea of the word. Providence the idea fascinates us and not Providence the place.

    But last week, the providence of Africa was the subject of discussion in the city of Providence, in a state called Rhode Island in the United States. The man at the bottom of this is Chinua Achebe, Africa’s leading novelist, who incidentally touched off a tempest with his flawed new book, There was a Country.

    He is a professor at Brown University, a member of the American Ivy league and one of the best schools in the world. He started the Chinua Achebe Colloquium, a talk shop of the world’s top exponents on Africa to chart a new way out of the ennui and tragic turbulence of a people.

    It was my first attendance, and it was a feast of ideas, if the menu did not always flatter the mental palate. A wide range of persons spoke, from university professors from such upscale schools as Harvard to institutes like the Centre for Strategic and International Studies to a businessman like Mohammed Ibrahim to men of power like our own Babatunde Raji Fashola(SAN), the governor of example and chief executive of Lagos State.

    The presence of two speakers resonated throughout the event, and they were Mo Ibrahim and Governor Fashola, in earnest because of the positions they advanced. Achebe, aplomb in his wheelchair, never uttered a word throughout the conference, maintaining an avuncular aloofness from the friendly affray of the sessions. He did not only not convey what he felt, he did not want his enveloping silence ruffled with interaction. It was an irony of a convener, a magnet that attracted without being touched.

    Even when Fashola stirred the hall with incisive comments about his new book, the most Achebe did was the lofty mannerism of touching his eyeglass and a little tic of his face and movement of the head. It seemed, at the hoary age of 82, Achebe was only interested in vocalising through his most potent forte: the written word.

    Mo Ibrahim came across, in spite of his wealth and status, with a touching modesty, interacting with everyone as much as he could before he left. He spoke with great passion about the failing of his continent. He noted that for a continent with so much promise, it is failing in all the important indices of governance, which included the rule of law, economic performance, participation and transparency, and gender issues.

    His speech was, however, significant for a question he propounded. He wanted the audience to tell him the leaders of Cape Verde, Botswana and Mozambique. Few could answer. But everyone knew who Mobutu, Idi Amin, Abacha and Mugabe were. He lamented that we did not celebrate what good we interred in our African bones. These three countries had great indices.

    With due respect to the host, Achebe, Mo Ibrahim said this was no time for poetry, but for facts, for getting our hands dirty to save the continent from the jaws of poverty. He said the conflicts in Africa were about the poor fighting against the poor.

    Fashola’s speech was marked by two main positions. One was the workability of the idea of democracy for development. The second was on Achebe’s book, There was a Country. He took on the prose stylist for provoking a debate of old wounds belonging to a passing generation, and how his generation and the future generations should be left to grapple with challenges not fraught with the divisiveness of his book.

    He felt as a man brought up on Things Fall Apart as one of the diets of his education, he felt engaged with the author and that was why Achebe should allow ethnic disputes between the Igbo and Yoruba be at ease, so the falcon can hear the falconer.

    Going into history, he said both Awo and Ojukwu had moved on, and so should the rest of the country. He argued that some sapient harmonies had been ignored in the tempest. One, the Yoruba did not lay any proprietary claims to abandoned properties after the war. In fact, as somebody pointed out to me as the governor spoke, some Yoruba kept the full rent money for the landlords until the battle field fell silent. Two, that Ojukwu’s property was saved from the grasping lust of the Lagos State military government by the brilliance of a Yoruba lawyer, Tunji Braithwaite. Three, that a Yoruba general married off his daughter to an Igbo. He buttressed this with his family and his uncle who attended school the same day with Ojukwu. Four, that in Lagos State, some of the assets of his administration were Igbo, singling out Ben Akabueze and Joe Igbokwe for mention.

    On the value of democracy, he noted that Africans were not grappling with democracy alone but a series of existential distractions that made democracy to appear like an impediment.

    With insights into history and law, he argued that Africans had yet to come to terms with the anachronisms of kings and conquerors in a modern world of cooperative living. Yet we cannot ignore our past, and that is where his speech fascinates.

    African roots with the traditional obeisance, zest for divinities and the fear to experiment have often killed a greed for the future. Adam Smith had argued centuries ago that societies with big families under a patriarch would always abide with tyrannies.

    Our extended family system with the power of one man has reflected in the entire democratic experiments of our people. What complicates it is the inevitability of modernisation: the rise of the city, capitalism, the modern bureaucracy, the clash of culture at the linguistic and social levels. These are breaking down the family structure while we resist them. That is why in one breath we accept democracy and in another resist it.

    We cannot look beyond our ethnic cleavages or the big man syndrome in our politics. Democracy will not come a la carte. We must be ready for the sacrifices. So the problem is not that democracy will not work, but it is not enough. We see democracy only as election. It is beyond that. It is about a culture. A culture that is corrupt cannot produce a vibrant democracy.

    It is like administering a pill for malaria. You have to use it with the necessary nourishment of food, rest, hydration, room temperature, etc, before the quinine will work. Otherwise, you will keep blaming the drug instead of the man.

    “Except a corn of wheat fall to the ground and die, it abideth alone. But when it dies, it bringeth forth new fruits,” said Jesus Christ. What parts of our culture are we ready to let die in order to enjoy the fruits of democracy?

    As Mo Ibrahim said, countries like Cape Verde and Botswana are African and they are good models. Why not Nigeria? The fault is not in democracy, but in our culture. It takes leaders to save us from this fixation on kings and predators and fear of opposition when we win. Mo Ibrahim gave an example of a Cape Verde leader who, having no home or money, returned to his mother’s home after losing the election. He organised and won the next time. It is with such leaders that democracy delivers dividends.

  • Obasanjo in Ghana

    Obasanjo in Ghana

    Nigeria’s Chief Olusegun Obasanjo is a fairly well-known African leader, having presided over the affairs of his country twice. His reputation as a leader, whether democratic or authoritarian, has however not quite matched his fame as a long-standing ruler. Even then such fame as he continues to enjoy has made him a prime candidate for African Union (AU) or Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) missions. If he cannot be trusted to carry out those missions with the perspicacity of a true statesman, so the feeling goes on the continent, he can at least be relied on to handle them with the weight of his presence and renown. This probably explained why the AU/ECOWAS appointed him to head their observer mission to the February/March presidential/run-off elections in Senegal. It is a tribute to his disputatiousness and ineffectiveness that he made the assignment a controversial one. Now, again, ECOWAS has made him the head of its observer mission to monitor the presidential election in Ghana. This time, he is not expected to undermine the little fame he has left, notwithstanding his propensity for the controversial.

    If the two continental and regional bodies are serious about advancing the cause of democracy in Africa, it is time they began to search for the right candidates to head their observer missions. It should gladden the heart of Nigerians that their former president is entrusted with continental and regional responsibilities; but they are keenly aware that he is the wrongest candidate for the job on account of his anti-democratic credentials. Nigerians are not so parochial as not to appreciate when the wrong honour is being done them. Nor are they so mystified as not to know that Obasanjo’s repeated and continuous appointment for such delicate missions is a reflection of both regional and continental unease with the principles and values of democracy. Africa may be more democratic than it was some 20 years ago, but such democracy as they now practice falls short of universal standards.

    I acknowledge that none of the observer missions Obasanjo led in the past few years has miscarried. His modest successes are, however, less a function of his wise counsel and assiduousness than they signpost the iron determination of the host countries to get their democracy right. In the February/March presidential elections in Senegal, Obasanjo had blunderingly suggested to the angry and restless Senegalese electorate to offer a two-year tenure extension to ex-President Abdoulaye Wade who was hotly disputing with the opposition the correct interpretation of the country’s presidential tenure. Obasanjo had in that instance tried to act as a political scientist or statistician, having observed that Wade wanted three more years while some stakeholders were willing to concede only one year. The main opposition led by Mr Macky Sall had offered none; and Obasanjo struck for the mean by offering two years. For someone sent to Senegal by AU and ECOWAS to mediate a disputatious pre-election period and ensure sound adherence to democratic principles, it was distressing to hear the former Nigerian president talk and seem arrantly self-important. In the end, during the run-off election on March 25, wise counsel prevailed, and the Senegalese electorate booted out Wade, voted in Sall, and disgraced Obasanjo who had prided himself on some unfounded originality and tactical ingenuity.

    To prove his diplomatic and political malfeasances were not an aberration, Obasanjo had earlier displayed a stark lack of judgement in Sierra Leone when in 2007 he backed the then vice president and presidential candidate of the Sierra Leone Peoples Party (SLPP), Solomon Ekuma Berewa, for the presidency in that year’s election. He didn’t need to, though he had travelled to that country to dedicate a youth centre named after him. The All Peoples Congress (APC) candidate, the more polished Ernest Bai Koroma, won the election of that year to assume the presidency of Sierra Leone. But after leading a business delegation to the country of six million people last month, Obasanjo simply took sides and declared Mr Koroma as favourite to win the November 17 election. Many commentators in Sierra Leone concluded that Obasanjo was unprincipled and motivated by wrong and base motives. Some even said that his endorsements should be watched with care because the former Nigerian leader did not have the reputation of a statesman and democrat, and that electoral malpractices followed him everywhere, including those he engineered himself.

    But by far the most important fact that should disqualify Obasanjo from heading any election monitoring group is his own record as an elected president. None of the two elections he conducted while in office was adjudged free and fair. In fact that of 2007 was by universal acclaim dismissed as the worst election anywhere in the world. Observer missions sent by many countries, including the European Union, described the poll as fraudulent and did not reflect the true wishes of the people of Nigeria. Even the main beneficiary of that election, the late Umaru Yar’Adua, declared the election to be flawed. To further demean himself, apart from conducting a fraudulent election, Obasanjo also strove desperately to secure tenure extension for himself, climbing down from asking for three years, to plaintively asking for two years or even one. Nigeria has still not been able to live down the appalling choices he foisted on the country in 2007 and 2011.

    Neither the AU nor ECOWAS will take the wise counsel of always appointing someone really qualified intellectually and temperamentally to monitor elections on the continent, mediate electoral or governmental disputes, and generally serve as facilitator for anything that would advance the cause of democracy. The reason, as the Mo Ibrahim Foundation has found out in its frustrating effort to award leadership prizes over the years, is because the continent is replete with uninspired leaders, of which, sadly, Obsanjo is the archetype. Until the quality of leadership increases in Africa, the continent’s leaders will continue to be inured to the weaknesses exhibited by their colleagues. And since Obasanjo fancies himself a statesman and has an exaggerated opinion of his capacity and accomplishments, he will continue to angle for diplomatic jobs and offer himself as a champion of causes far beyond his ken.

    Monitored or not, and by Obasanjo or any other, Ghana will get its electoral dynamics right. It has a prouder democratic history than Nigeria, and has managed, in spite of its hunger for modernisation, to establish and run a humanistic government, one that is at once as unprepossessing as it is somewhat ruthlessly efficient. Ghana may not be as copiously intellectual as Nigeria, or as boisterously exciting and culturally variegated, but in its seeming staleness and staidness, it has proven to be a better avatar of governance, moderation, innovation and surprisingly piquant traditionalism. People like Obasanjo should go to Ghana to learn a thing or two about the eternal verities of life, not to monitor elections for which they are least qualified. Perhaps a course on Nkrumahism would do them some good and positively redirect and refine the amorphous Pan-Africanism they struggled to acquire in their youth, and which pristine version they grew up yearning to embrace, to identify with, and to market.

  • The dangers this time

    The dangers this time

    As the Nigerian ship of state enters turbulent and uncharted waters, we must be careful in which direction we push the troubled hulk. The troubled early years after independence appear to be back with us, but with heightened and more critical contradictions. This time around, almost everything that can go wrong in a fragile nation and a more fragile democracy has gone wrong and without powerful countervailing institutions.

    As it was the case in the First Republic, we have a military stretched to the limits of its fabric and professional tether by internal security operations. We have a bitterly divided political elite. We have a situation in which a section of the country has been rendered virtually ungovernable by armed insurrection, with the other sections besieged by social, economic, political and religious vampires and vultures.

    But now in addition to these ancient woes, we have the alarming situation in which ordinary and normal military postings are judged and condemned through the prism of religious and ethnic coloration. We have warlords and powerlords jostling for contention. We have a ruling class that has become a byword for a bizarre and berserk variant of kleptocracy. Never in the history of this country has the run on the Exchequer been more openly defiant and in your face. Presiding over all this is a president who reminds one of a boy-emperor handed an empire as a toy rigged with explosives.

    In politically divided and ethnically fractured nations where zero sum politics is the name of the game, the struggle for power is often seen as a struggle for the soul of contending nationalities. No wonder then that democratic contests are framed as a battle for the survival of the ethnic group in a hostile environment rather than a struggle for office. In such circumstances, elections are nothing but an ethnic census or a tribal referendum. They solve and resolve nothing. In fact as we have argued on this page and it is now apparent in the plight of the nation, elections tend to worsen the contradictions.

    If it is of any help and comfort to us, primordial scare mongering is not restricted to developing nations alone, but with an important proviso. As we can see in the tragedy of the Republic of Congo, the other African giant with which the chaotic mess of Nigeria is often compared, developed nations are not colonial amalgamations or overseas plantations and mega-mine crematorium put together for the sole purpose of extractive predation. In about sixty years, Congo has had only four rulers: Patrice Lumumba, its murdered and iconic founding president, Joseph Mobutu and the two Kabilas. The first three were either violently overthrown or murdered. Every election has been followed by a civil war.

    Now if gold can rust, what is dross expected to do? During the run up to the ill-fated Treaty of Versailles and the knotty issue of German reparation, an American negotiator was so affronted by the unrelenting hostility to the Germans of Georges Clemenceau, the French prime minister, that he was forced to ask him.”Pray sir, have you ever been to Germany?”

    “No sir!” Clemenceau, a.k.a The Tiger, shot back. “But twice in my lifetime Germans have been to Paris!”. He was of course referring to 1870 and 1914. Had The Tiger tarried a bit longer, he would have lived to witness a more comprehensive German “visit” during the Second World War when Hitler’s Panzer Divisions overran France in a question of days. One can then imagine what would have happened had the French and the Germans been boxed together in a nation-space by colonial fiat, and without a road map.

    But it can be worse. And some nations have paid terrible prices as a result. If the rhetoric of injustice and marginalisation succumbs to dark, paranoid fantasies; if passions are inflamed to a point where they lead to a bitter scape-goating or stigmatisation of other ethnic groups, civil wars or genocide often result. Nigeria, Rwanda and Kenya come to mind. In Kenya in 2007, the entire country dissolved in ethnic mayhem after disputed presidential elections. But as soon as an internationally driven acceptable formula for post and power-sharing was found, all became quiet on Mount Kilimanjaro.

    Although often mainly executed by ordinary people, all the genocide in post-colonial Africa are driven by elite hate propaganda and are often the nuclear fallout of bitter contention for state largesse. Genocides do not descend suddenly from heaven. The principal role of intellectuals in fanning the embers of hatred and inflaming genocidal passions is often ignored by intellectuals who write on genocide.

    Once again, Nigeria appears to have arrived at a critical juncture. Political battles are almost always preceded by intellectual contestations. You can almost tell when a nation is headed for a major showdown whenever certain key cultural and political codes, eg, genocide, demonology, terrorism, federalism, devolution of power, sovereignty etc become sites of fierce intellectual combat.

    In the old West, even when the battle field wears a new garb and fresh mutants of the old tendencies emerge, the contest is still structured around the ancient ideological divide which showed up fifty years ago when the Action Group fractured irretrievably. Whether as seen in the struggle between federalists and anti-federalists, between the demos and their demonologists , between Afenifere patriots and Abacha collaborationists and now between the so called mainstreamers and the champions of regionalism, the ghosts of Awo and SLA have always stalked the battle field.

    Unflinching loyalty to a cause, a group or the communal ideal is a timeless phenomenon since humanity first socialised and civilised. So is political treachery which is arrant disloyalty to the communal ideal. Just as no alchemy can transmute base metal into gold, no verbal alchemy can transform treachery to loyalty. From the Jews to the Japanese, it has been shown how loyalty to the group and established communal ideals promotes good virtues, particularly resilience, industry, generosity of spirit and the cult of heroic self-denial in the service of the society.

    Every human society has a way of dealing with dishonourable dissent and outright disloyalty and political treachery. The disincentives range from stigmatisation, demonisation and when all else fails the employment of Political Terror. Terror ranges from physical coercion to other more subtle forms of economic, spiritual, metaphysical, artistic and intellectual intimidation.

    In the old Yoruba society, there were certain institutions which acted in concert to protect the integrity of the communal ethos and ideals. These ideological apparatuses of the old Yoruba state include the Ogboni Confraternity, the oro and Osugbo cults which employed the efficacy of physical, intellectual and spiritual terror to ensure strict compliance with societal norms. It was not for nothing that a baffled and bewildered Peter Morton-Williams described the Ogboni as “mystery-mongering greybeards”

    The problem with Nigeria, and with all colonial creations, is the clash of competing loyalties, that is loyalty to the old organic community and loyalty to a new nation that is yet to be properly founded, one that remains an artificial contraption and a mere geographical expression as Awolowo famously noted. Although loyalty to the new modern nation ought to supersede loyalty to the primordial community, that is only where and when the state acts out its true historical role as an arbiter, arbitrator and mediator of the competing and countervailing demands of the different factions of the ruling elite.

    Unfortunately, the Nigerian post-colonial state has proved itself to be incapable of arbitrating or mediating anything, except when it comes to the deployment of gratuitous and autistic violence against different constituting units and nationalities. Like a childlike monstrosity, the Nigerian bandit state is frozen in conception as an instrument of Colonial Terror against captive nationals, utterly incapable of coming up with an organic organogram that will satisfy the yearnings and aspirations of its captured natives.

    In such circumstances, rather than being an ameliorative clinic of national clarity and charity, the state becomes a theatre of chaos and confusion in an absurdist drama of national entropy; a Bazaar of buccaneers where every ascendant group barricades the door as the feeding frenzy of political hyenas commences. To the faithful, come and chop is the war-cry and there is no difference between the colour of blood and the colour of red wine. Each must flow abundantly.

    As every outbid or smashed nationality retreats to lick its wounds, the ethnic igloo welcomes back its own at great costs to national consciousness and cohesion. In the event, the embattled nationality, particularly if it retains some residual cohesion from its pre-colonial political formation, begins a process of internal purgation. Conscientious objectors and opportunistic “one-Nigeria” dissidents alike are branded as traitors and harsh sanctions often follow.

  • Four Yoruba and Nigerian Avatars

    Four Yoruba and Nigerian Avatars

    More than any other Nigerian nationality, the Yoruba nation often suffers this periodic backlash arising from traumatic stress and disorder. On at least three occasions, it has led to low intensity civil wars resulting in the liquidation of many of its illustrious children, particularly during the “Wetie” civil insurgency, the revolt against massive rigging that sank the Second Republic and the uprising that marked the annulment of the June 12 presidential election.

    Yet despite all this , and all things considered, there are those who argue that Akintola was a better focused and more realistic politician than Awolowo. In their estimation, SLA probably discovered very early enough the gigantic fraud that the post-colonial nation was and how every heroic effort to reform it is doomed to tragic failure. Since politics is ultimately about who gets what and at what time, it is better to let the status quo be as long as the Yoruba elite were allotted their fair share, after all what the bird eats is what it flies with no matter the complexion of the skies.

    This was the early prototype of the later mainstream argument. Akintola acquiesced in the feudal supremacy of the old North. It should be recalled that his battle cry of “Ekiniani” and Ekejiani was directed against the dominant Igbo elite whom he felt were greedily gulping up what should belong to the Yoruba elite but which was denied them as a result of Awolowo’s political intransigence. In fairness to them, Akintola and his colleagues did manage to claw back some concessions.

    But there were also many who saw through all this as sheer political chicanery, an attempt to appease the greedy palate of a few Yoruba right wingers even as the entire Yoruba society lay under the hammer of the feudal oligarchy and with its authentic leadership in jail. In sharp ideological contrast to Akintola, Awolowo heroically believed that Nigeria was redeemable but that it would know neither peace nor development until feudalism was smashed in the north.

    Prolonged and protracted military rule stalemated the argument, with the Yoruba society oscillating between confrontation and guarded collaboration with the military-feudal complex. After Chief Awolowo’s departure, and in a significant play of signifiers across rigid ideological divides, it took a habitual right winger who had transited to the left to break the deadlock.

    Before his Pauline conversion, M.K.O Abiola’s apostasy knew no bounds or limits. But he brought immense rightwing resources to bear on a leftwing cause. These are the resources of immense wealth, wide contacts across the political spectrum and a liberal attitude to political impurities. Abiola triumphed but panicked an outfoxed military high command into annulling the freest and fairest presidential election in the history of the country.

    In retrospect, it can be seen that it was Awolowo’s tradition of heroic defiance which facilitated Abiola’s dramatic victory. Awolowo’s courageous opposition made it possible for the Yoruba nation to maintain its position as a hegemonic power bloc even while being out of power and contention. The northern power masters knew where the real threat to their hegemonic stronghold on the nation lies. In turn, it was Abiola’s heroic defiance and self-martyrdom coupled with the NADECO insurrection which made an Obasanjo presidency possible.

    Of the four Yoruba titans, Obasanjo, the lone soldier, is arguably the outstanding political games-master. It will be recalled that Akintola’s supine deference led to a stiffening of feudal arrogance which in turn invited a violent military reprisal. Awolowo’s disdain and defiance led to a cycling of the wagon by his adversaries which prepared the Yoruba for a long siege. Abiola’s in your face conversion panicked the military feudal complex into a nation-destroying annulment. But Obasanjo stooped to conquer, feigning bucolic ignorance and enduring humiliation and indignities along the way until he acquired enough leverage of power to wreak untold havoc on his feudal tormentors.

    It will be left to future historians and psychoanalysts to ponder whether Obasanjo was in the best psychological state to lead a nation shortly after he was sprung from jail by his wily benefactors who had looked the other way as Abacha summarily impounded him. A man with the legendary memory of an affronted elephant, Obasanjo simply returned the toxic compliment in full measure. By the time he had finished with them, the hallowed aura had vanished and the feudal power mongers were looking very ordinary and most politically vulnerable. For the first time in the history of the country, we have what looks like an open playing ground among the ruling class.

    But it is also obvious that Obasanjo lacks the temperament, the political skills, the psychological disposition and the intellectual wherewithal to build and sustain a mass political movement or even a regular political party. More shattering is the fact that having ruled the nation for the longest period as a civilian and having been able to impose the last two presidents on the nation, the current chaotic mess is a damning testimonial against the substitution of benign, visionary and transformative statecraft for petty and vindictive score settling. Rather than being the solution, the general is part of the problem.

    With the old pacted consensus gone, with no overriding pan-Nigerian statesman in sight and with no dominant power broker in the horizon, it is clear that once again Nigeria has entered uncharted waters. Yet our story of avatars shows the immanent rationality of history, how unjust visions of human development will ultimately succumb to bitter reality, no matter how long and what it costs, and how different people with different goals, in a different, contradictory and even adversarial manner, can end up contributing to the same historical cause without their ever being aware of the end result.

  • ‘Unity symbols’ and shadow chasing

    ‘Unity symbols’ and shadow chasing

    No federal legislature has a right to outlaw symbols  and emblems of cultural nations within Nigeria

    It appears that our National Assembly is indefatigable when it comes to cultivating self-distracting issues. If it is not contesting the site of sovereignty with citizens, it is embroiled in disagreement with the executive over which branch of government should supervise development projects in senatorial constituencies or trying to silence the CBN governor when he finds pleasure in criticizing federal legislators’ exorbitant salaries. When the assembly is not acting as a body, some of its members are quick to engage in, to use popular parlance, heating the polity unnecessarily.

    For example, when the legislature finally chooses to countenance citizens’ call for constitutional reforms, the assembly brings to the fore creation of states. Some of their leaders even travel to different parts of the country to promise new states to traditional rulers. When citizens argue that it is not the responsibility of lawmakers to create a people’s constitution, lawmakers claim that as the only site of sovereignty in the country at present, they can manufacture a people’s constitution through tinkering with the 1999 Constitution that has no input from citizens.

    The new game in town by federal legislators is to deny citizens their right to information. A few days ago when the Aviation Minister asked the assembly to send out journalists from the hallowed chambers during presentation of her ministry’s budget for next year, legislators quickly accepted to do. Similarly in the same week, members of the legislature refused to listen to presentation of the budget of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The argument is that the persons representing SEC were acting on behalf of SEC’s director-general who is not considered to be on friendly terms with many members of the legislature in Abuja. Is it proper for legislators to stop the work of government because of a disagreement with the head of an agency? Should lawmakers personalize in a puerile manner whatever conflict they have with a public officer? With this decision, the lawmakers are not only creating distractions, they are also trivializing the role of government, particularly that of the executive and the legislature.

    As if all these were not enough, honourable lawmakers are now in the process of spending sessions on the right of states to have flags and coats of arms in a federation. The latest game in the national assembly is the threat to outlaw flags, coats of arms, and anthems of states. The thinking of lawmakers is that state emblems can detract from national unity, an argument that clearly confuses the concept of territorial integrity (national unity) with cultural integrity of individual states.

    It is hard to know how many of the lawmakers in Abuja or anywhere else in Nigeria are aware that Nigeria before the coming of military dictators used to have national and regional flags flying side by side. Each of the three regions used to have its own coat of arms, in addition to the federal one. There was no threat to the country’s unity because of simultaneous existence of federal and regional flags and anthems. When Eastern Nigeria decided to secede, it was because Igbo leaders believed that people of Eastern Nigeria origin were not safe in northern Nigeria and that the federal government, then controlled by military leaders from the north, were not to be trusted with securing the life and property of citizens from Eastern Nigeria.

    Lawmakers have no good reason to feel skittish about the country’s unity simply because states choose to express the cultural diversity of the country. Lawmakers’ attempt to suppress expression of the country’s cultural diversity undermines the country’s motto of unity in diversity. Furthermore, serious lawmakers should have the humility to seek information about other federations in the world before inducing tension between federal and state governments. Our federal legislators need to know that they are operating in a post-military era and that not all the policies and practices bequeathed by military governments can be sustained in a democratic system.

    Legislative aides (if any) need to tell lawmakers that most of the countries that operate federalism do have a tradition of at least two levels of symbols of allegiance: federal and state. For example, each of the 50 states in the United States flies two flags daily; the American flag and the flag of each state. Even cities and companies fly their flags daily along with federal and state flags. The same applies to Canada. In South Africa each of the nine provinces has its own flag and coat of arms.

    Furthermore, Brazil has 27 state flags in addition to the national flag. Switzerland allows its 26 cantons to have flags and coats of arms. Each canton has a constitution that complements the federal constitution. So does Belgium host 18 flags: one for the country, three for the regions and the rest for the country’s 14 provinces. There are also coats of arms for each level of government. Argentina has one national flag, 23 provincial flags, and a flag for the city of Buenos Aires while Germany has 16 state flags while Austria has nine state flags and coats of arms. India, a co-member of the Commonwealth, has 28 state flags and coats of arms, in addition to the national flag and coat of arms. There are 14 state flags in Malaysia, etc. Nearer home, Ethiopia, a federation, does not have state flags but has provision for secession in its national constitution.

    Similarly, there are multiple flags and coats of arms in the country that created Nigeria, the United Kingdom. Apart from flags in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland to complement the Union Jack, many cities in England, Scotland, and Wales have flags to accentuate their identities. Yet Britain has not broken into pieces because of symbols and emblems to express Britain’s cultural identity.

    Nigeria cannot afford the myopia or intolerance that is illustrated by the call of lawmakers for abrogation of state flags, coats of arms, and pledges. The world has been (and still is) changing faster than the military dictators that reconstructed Nigeria into a unitary system were (and still are) capable of imagining. Despite frantic efforts by leaders of sections of the country to dampen the spirit of cultural identity in a federation, Nigeria must prepare itself for change from the blanket of uniformity draped around it by military dictators through the 1999 Constitution. Lawmakers and cultural leaders who refuse to acknowledge the inevitability of change take the risk of going the way of the dinosaur. No federal legislature has a right to outlaw symbols and emblems of cultural nations within the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

  • ‘My life has been a struggle’

    ‘My life has been a struggle’

    He was a political neophyte when he joined the Victor Attah administration in Akwa Ibom State as Commissioner for Local Government Affairs. When he indicated intention to succeed his boss in 2007, nobody gave him a chance. Today, the story is different. Governor Godswill Obot Akpabio has come of age politically. By 2015, he will complete his two terms as governor of the state. Since he is constitutionally barred from seeking a third term, Akpabio plans to move to the Senate to, according to him, serve his people who have asked him not to quit politics yet. 

    As governor, Akpabio, who turns 50 today (Sunday, December 9), believe he has touched the lives of his people. In this interview with Lawal Ogienagbon, Deputy Editor, and Ibrahim Kazeem, Akwa Ibom State Correspondent, Akpabio speaks on his journey in life.

    AS your name Godswill a product of your political fortune?

    It is a coincidence that my name is Godswill. I think it has more to do with my belief in God. My late brother taught me that everything in life radiates from God and the Bible is clear on that. The ways of prosperity are there, enshrined in the Quran and the Bible, that seek ye first the Kingdom of God and all other things shall be added unto it. That was what my late mother taught me. My name is God’s will and I believe strongly that God has a divine purpose for every man. You don’t just come into the world and believe that you don’t have direction. You definitely came into the world for a purpose. God placed you in your family for a purpose and therefore God gave me the name Godswill for a purpose. And that name He gave me was for me to do His will and to continuously seek His face and say let God’s will be done in my life. In 2007 when we were going for election, I did not say God make me the Governor of Akwa Ibom. I said let God’s will be done. I believe there is a lot of relationship between my name and my action. It is only through God that things are possible. The will of God is in this administration and that is why Godswill is being done and there is a direct relationship between the name Godswill, what is happening and the fortune of Akwa Ibom today.

    You always say you are being propelled to perform by anger, what is the source of this anger?

    Any Nigerian who has lived to be 50 years knows that the source of our problem is not lack of resources but how to utilise the natural resources for the benefit of all Nigerians. Every research in Africa and in the world shows that the problem of Nigeria is not availability of resources and how to utilise the resources; leadership is the bane of Nigeria. I became angry with the situation I saw and I said I wished God will give me the opportunity to be a leader so as to show the difference. Why was I so angry? I lived in Lagos and each time I came home, I will not be able to drive my car to my village. My village is sedentary, it is on the road between Ikot Ekpene and Aba, the road that comes from Umuahia, in Abia State. For 29 years I had no road to my village. The federal road between Ikot Ekpene and Aba was totally out of function and all the filling stations on that road were closed down. Even to get Okada to get into the road was a problem. We used to have pipe-borne water in the 60’s and we even saw some of it when we came back from the war. By the 80’s there was no water to drink, people had to resort to streams and I say what is happening in Nigeria. I could enter train in 1973 to Zaria to go and take entrance exam in the Nigerian Military School. Thrity years after, the train disappeared. If by 1990 as a young lawyer I could drive my car from Lagos, from Lagos I could drive seven hours and by the 8th hour, I am in Ikot Ekpene in my state and I would go to a restaurant to eat. From 1990, about 15 years after, the road disappeared between Lagos and Akwa Ibom. Don’t you think there is a reason to be angry? So the question there is what we are going to bequeath to our children if in my own time, the trains the cheapest means of transport have disappeared? I was a young boy of 10 years old when I travelled alone by train to Zaria to attempt to enter Military School. Thrity years after, no train and nothing. So, what about children who are not as privileged? I wasn’t a privileged child, but I was able to find my way to Zaria to take entrance examination. Can you say the same today of children who are orphans? Where would they get money to enter a plane since the roads are no longer there; the trains are no longer there. There was a reason to be angry. That is why when I came, I approached development with anger. I can tell you even as I am talking now the feeling of the anger is coming back but I am trying to reduce it. When I look around and drive round Uyo and I see over 34 to 38 urban roads that we have done, the anger starts reducing.

    I was angry because of the decayed infrastructure; I was angry because of the number of children that were hawking in Lagos State from Akwa Ibom. I was angry because every groundnut seller in Port Harcourt was from Akwa Ibom State. I was angry because every single person in Lagos or Rivers states is from Akwa Ibom. I was angry because if you find 50 children that were trafficked from Nigeria to Gabon, 40 of them would be from Akwa Ibom State. I was angry because every house in Lagos or Abuja had an Akwa Ibomite as an housemaid because they had no money to go to school. So, with the policy of free and compulsory education and the inherent triple school enrolment and the number of children from orphaned homes being taken care of here in Uyo, Akwa Ibom children are no longer in servitude. My wife is sending them to school and those orphans now have hope that in spite of their situation in life they can become something and the anger starts subsiding. I am happy now that you cannot easily find an Akwa Ibom child that is about the age of five who is still into slavery and servitude. I was angry because I lived as a young lawyer in Lagos and on one, two or three occasions I rescued some Akwa Ibom girls raped by certain expatriates some of whom were Indians. In a particular estate in Ebute Metta a woman used hot iron on the breast of a 12-year old from Akwa Ibom because she dared to say she wanted to visit home because the father was thinking of sending her to school and the woman asked her. Is school for your type?’ and used the iron on her breast. I went to the police station out of anger to represent the girl. The anger is going down.

    At 50, according to you, a man should start counting down. Why?

    Do you know why I was afraid to be 50, it is because I love counting up but when you are 50, you start counting down. When you are five and 10 years old, you keep counting up but when you are 50, you can hardly count 50 again.

    As a young person, you celebrate first birthday, second birthday, 30, 40 but once you get to 50, you are not likely to count to 50 again. It is difficult to count up to 40 again. When the first 50 is over, can you ever count 50 again? Even if you are to count 50, you are to count down. Very few people in our generation count 50. Even if you were to count 50 you can’t count up again. But it is to the glory of God that one should be 50.

    What has life been like in the last 50 years?

    Life has been a mixture of ups and downs. I have learnt a lot in the last 50 years. First, as a young child it was very traumatic, I had a lot of challenges. Second, as an adult and somebody with a feeling that you have worked hard and succeeded in life, you also learnt the travails of life that the Mexican play, The Rich Also Cry, which used to be on the television, came to mind. While the poor cry, the rich also cry. At what stage would you really say that life has been smooth? It has been very rough. Everything has been a struggle. The struggle to obtain education, the struggle to get school fees, the struggle to look for a place to do NYSC. As a young lawyer if you go to anywhere they will ask you if you have any Executive Director working in a bank. When you say no, they will send you out of the office. I stayed for two months in Lagos looking for where to do my NYSC, but I couldn’t because they wanted to link your name to a manager of a bank, and through you they will get briefs. But I wanted to practice law. Even I went to the oil industry, those to be taken had already been taken. Those in the oil industry want their children or their relations to do NYSC in those places. Sometimes merit is not recognised in Nigeria. It is only connections and we allow mediocrity to thrive in the society. A lot of young bright people are not given the opportunity to display their talent. So it has been a lot of challenges. It is sadness and joy. Joy in the sense that you have been able to graduate as a lawyer, sadness that it wasn’t possible for you to get a place to do NYSC. Joy in the sense that you now surmounted that problem, sadness in the sense that you could not get a permanent job that could give you decent living. Joy in the sense that you are able to surmount that other aspect and sadness in the sense of the absence of a decent job, the struggle must continue and then eventually you get to a point of saying that I’m a state governor then you discover that the rich also cry. The politicians try to paint you in a colour that is not yours. The only thing that has given me sanity is my dependence on God

    Can we now say that at 50, you are now fully developed politically? In 2007, when we were talking about choosing the PDP candidate for this state, it was a tug of war and God used a particular line Chief Ufot Ekaete. Today we hear that you are your own man now, you don’t have God father. How true is that?

    I have never had a Godfather in Akwa Ibom State. Your reading of the Akwa Ibom political situation in 2007 is totally wrong. Please, do a little bit of more investigation. Chief Ufot Ekaete was Secretary to the Government of the Federation. He was not in my political campaign team for the governorship of the state in 2007 before the primaries. The PDP primaries, I believed strongly that he had his own sympathy. When you interview him he would tell you who his preferred candidate was. I never had a Godfather before I emerged as the candidate of PDP in Akwa Ibom State. That was why there were so much troubles but I thank him for being a man of integrity and truth. Chief Ufot Ekaete was among the Akwa Ibom elders that came out in my support and said since he has won the primaries, we must stand by his victory not that he was a Godfather who put me to win the primaries. He was among the elders who spoke the truth that we don’t know how the young man won the primaries, but he won it, therefore, he should be given the opportunity to contest a governor of the state. For that, I remained grateful to him but interms of the primaries I had no single elders in the state of national prominence that was in my camp. Infact, I used to dress up some of my PA’s with their chieftaincy dresses whenevr we were going for meetings.

    Let me give you a little bit of clarification so that you can understand. In 2006 we had about 56 to 57 aspirants. There was a particular aspirant from Ikot Abasi Local Government Area that had the blessing of the then SGF before the primaries and ofcourse the incumbent governor had a particular aspirant. I don’t want to name names. The elders that should have come together to support another aspirant all went into the race themselves. They all wanted to be governor.

    If I wasn’t politically mature in 2006 as you were saying but I managed to win the primaries out of 57 people then that is the kind of political immaturity that I want. Here is the man, young man that was the chairman of rally and mobilisation committee for PDP re-election in 2003 and chairman of the rally and mobilisation committee of Obasanjo/Atiku campaign mobilisation in 2003 for Akwa Ibom State. I went round the state to canvass support for the governor of the state with the youths of the state for his re-election in 2003. He was not political matured but he was the chairman of all the campaign committees for Obong Victor Attah on rally and mobilisation in the state. I organised the 31 local governments rallies for the 31 local governments in the state. I mobilised support in 329 wards with the youths of the state for the then governor to win re-election in 2003. I also organised the PDP Presidential rally at the Uyo Township Stadium that was second to none, never seen in the history of this state. Former President Olusegun Obasanjo was so excited and announced that he had never addressed this kind of rally even in Western Nigeria. This was a young man totally politically immature in 2006 and therefore, he became a Commissioner for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs and they had over 539 cases in court on chieftaincy matters but he sat in judgment in the chambers daily and all the communities in court withdrew their cases from in court and came before him. Also communities that never had Paramount Ruler for 14 years withdrew their cases in court and settled them. A community like Uruan that was in court for over nine years was able to get a Paramount Ruler during my time. People felt that he was a man of justice therefore his pronouncement was respected by all because I gave justice to all irrespective of your status. This was the same young who wasn’t politically matured but he was the last to declare for governorship in the state because of the respect he had for the former governor. When he realised that the former governor had his own preferred candidate he refused to go into the race until women went to the primary school and stayed there. Thousands of Akwa Ibom women said they were going to go naked unless Godswill Akpabio declare for governorship of the state. Grudgingly, he was the last to enter the race and when he entered, he never said he wanted to be governor he just told Akwa Ibom people, let Godswill be done.

    Do governors need a summit to come together on regional integration? For instance, we have BRACED commission in the South South and given the incessant border disputes between governors over allocation of oil wells. Don’t you think the regional integration is being threatened?

    Also what has happened to the Southern Governors’ forum?

    I am actually not an activist at 50. I am a governor at 50. So what you are talking about will be a better question for people who are involved in activism. I won’t know much about it. It is a very good idea but it is not the oil well that will divide the South South. There will always be differences. But we must focus on things that unite us and one of those things is how to integrate ourselves economically. We can do things that will be of general advantage to our people. The oil wells you mentioned are things that could divide the people. Let us not focus on oil well. Let us focus on economic integration.

    You talked of economic integration, for instance, Uyo-Calabar/Umuahia-Ikot Ekpene road are in the state of collapse? The roads though federal, can there be an integration between the three states?

    I am working on how the three sister states can collaborate for the repairs of the road. I have written to President Goodluck Jonathan and he has given me approval to work with my brother states of Abia and Cross River and ensure that those roads are not only done but they are dualised. I got the approval from the Federal Ministry of Works. President Goodluck Jonathan graciously granted the approval and that for me is how to integrate the state. that is why I said let us focus on things that will benefit our people and not on things that will divide us. The oil well is all about money issues but if we focus on truth then there will be no conflict. The reality is that for instance, I don’t want to speak for Bayelsa and Rivers States but if what I am hearing is true that these were the issues that were done in the year 2000 and not things that were done in 2012 then you can see that the protagonists are a little bit unfair to the president because the reporting tends to give the impression as if it is being dine under the presidency of Bayelsa. For instance, look at the Akwa Ibom issues, it was settled even in the Supreme Court in 2005 when Cross River State went to the Supreme Court. They explained to Cross River State that if Bakassi goes to Cameroun, there is no way you can talk about oil well on the deep sea, yet, the current administration still went back to the Supreme Court. I tried everything possible to stop them from doing so. I even wrote a letter to them saying that it was unnecessary offering assistance at that time but they still went to court. So those are the issues. It is the individual attitude that could threatened, the unity of the South South because oil wells are not movable assets. They are permanently fixed. If we all believe in justice and speak the truth then there will be no conflict in the regard. As a governor I decided that the best way to move forward is to focus on things that can unite the South South and not on things that can divide the South South. Let the BRACED commission concentrate on economic integration, commonality, and comparative advantage in agriculture and how we can create wealth system for our people. Right now I am intervening on the road from Arochukwu to allow the people from there get to Akwa Ibom State. so that they can also make use of the Ibom International Airport. That is also what informed my request to Mr. President to grant me permission to dualise road from Uyo to Aba in Abia State and from Uyo to Calabar in Cross River State. I am going to be working with my brother governors in that regard so that we can create common facilities/infrastructure that will enhance the living standard of our people and not to focus on things that divide us. That is why I said at 50 I will never be an activist. I will only be a man who speaks the truth.

    What is your position on the call by some sections of the North calling for the review of the Onshore/Offshore dichotomy?

    That was a settled issue. We should not reopen old wounds. Even when that policy was in place the entire Nigerians described it as obnoxious. Obnoxious in the sense that it was a clear case of an unjust policy and then Nigerians decided to find a solution to it. They went through alot of processes before finally arriving at a compromised position. I need to tell you that thousands of oil wells in Nigeria are still offshore. The onshore/offshore dichotomy is still there but the compromised position was that for oil wells between 200 meters isobaths, we should pay derivation but oil wells beyond 200 meters isobaths, no derivation because that is almost like international waters. So, oil wells within the shadow waters that impacted alot on the aquatic life with the region and affect the livelihood of the people who are predominantly fishermen and the impact of the oil spill also spills on the land and destroyed the possibility of agriculture. Since the people are riverine and depend on the water but the water is already black as a result of the activities of oil exploration. They should get compensation. So, we got to a compromised position. The position was that we should pay derivation up to 200 meters but some of my colleagues in the North when they are granting interview, you hear them saying 200 nautical miles. Nigeria doesn’t even have the capability to police up to 200 nautical miles. So you have to correct some of these distortions. These things are being done and propagated in order to confuse and cause bad blood between the north, the south south and oil producing communities. That is not the correct position. The reality is that the dichotomy is still there. I give you an example, if dichotomy was totally removed, the highest oil producing states in Nigeria will not be in the South South, it will be Lagos State. That is where you have Bonga Oil field that produces up to 800,000 barrels per day but it is deep offshore. It is beyond the 200meters isobaths. That is why Lagos is not a derivation state. That is the simple truth. There are lots of thousands of oil wells in Bayelsa, Rivers, Akwa Ibom that are beyond 200 meters isobaths that we are not getting derivation on but the ones within 200 meters isobaths that impact on the landmass should be regarded as part and parcel of the land for the purpose of derivation and yet people are not still happy. In 2012, when American decided to quadruple oil production and trying to compete with Saudi Arabia in oil production and our greatest partner is America. Shouldn’t we be worried that a time may come that oil will have no value? It is a time we should be talking of more dependence on oil instead of thinking about how to diversify the economy?

    From Nassarawa to Zamfara we have mineral deposits. From Jos, we have bauxites everywhere in the North. There is no part in this country that God has not embedded mineral resources in the soil. Why don’t we set up corporation and even increase derivation to make it attractive to our sister states to go into major exploration and exploitation of these mineral resources so that we can diversify our economy. We have things embedded in the soil all over Nigeria, we have not talked about that, we are depending on crude oil. Is it the time in 2012 that we should be talking of how to grab more oil so that we can share more revenue while forgetting the environment impact on the people such as oil spill, gas flaring that is affecting peoples’ lungs, acid rain and the rest of them.

    I am not into that argument. I want to thank the President and the Attorney General of the Federation who issued a statement and pointed out that that was a settled issue. That Nigeria should move forward not backward. That is an issue that will move the country backward. For me I want to move forward. If we start the issue today, it means that we are moving backward and we are not patriotic. Also that some people are elected to destroy Nigeria and I think it is important for us to bring leaders into this country who will rather build this country than dividing the country.

    You have a grass to grace story. What is the greatest lesson you have learnt in life and what impact do you want it to have on the lives of people?

    Perseverance is the key. If you persevere you will succeed. Then don’t depend on your ability, depend on God. Any child no matter the circumstances of your birth, persevere, work hard and realise that there is only one place in the world where success comes before work and that is in the dictionary. That is where you see S before W. In real life, it is work before success.

    Before you got married, what was your relationship like with the opposite sex?

    I was very timid because I was a very poor man. You know you only have confidence when you have money in your pocket. So, I congratulate young men who are handsome and rich. But the rest of us who are good looking even when girls try to get close to you, you will think they are trying to mock you. I have not always been a ladies man. Humanity gets attracted to my personality. That is why when I was a student in the university I didn’t join any cult because I felt I had too many friends and therefore I was a cult onto myself. So, I said how can you carry a cult into a cult. Already the name Godswill Akpabio was an attractive name. I am very sociable and a mixer. I have always been that kind of person all along. In secondary school, I was a general senior prefect and I have the largest number of school sons. Everybody wants to be Goddy A school son. Instead of me having school sons that washed clothes for me. I washed clothes for my school sons. I washed plates for them, they stayed with me and I have to make sure they are clean. I will ask them my friend have you changed your pants today, they would say Goddy A I want to be your school son. I would tell them if you want to be my son you must be clean. I rather served my school sons instead of them serving me. That was why I had many school sons. So, that kind of personality has always been there for me.

    I was the speaker of the Students’ Union Parliament in the University of Calabar. The students said I should contest for president but I refused. I pulled out in the last minute because of family considerations. They said they had the money to sponsor me for president but I told them supposing the union is dissolved and I am sent home, will I start over as a poor man?

  • ‘Same’ can’t stand alone

    NATIONAL Mirror Views, Editorial and Education Today of December 6 created misunderstanding: “…the seeming connivance of the judiciary with those intent in (on/upon) protecting the criminals in our midst.”

    “The suspects are walking free in the society, enjoying their loots and attracting more political patronages.” ‘Loot’ is uncountable.

    “…in the guise of delivering same (the same) as bribe to the Commission’s officers to ‘kill’ such cases under investigation.” (Editorial) ‘Same’, in formal—and even most informal—contexts, cannot stand alone.

    “The highest value of university education is not just about imparting knowledge on (to) individuals….”

    “Nigeria loses N533bn to sugar importation” (THE PUNCH Headline, December 5) A rewrite: Nigeria spends N533b on sugar import

    The Guardian Editorial of December 4 comes next with a pack of foibles amid other offences: “…which also congratulated the Sierra-Leonean (sic) people for (on/upon) the peaceful conduct of their election and pledged support for their democratic process.”

    “The United Nations, which had borne much of the burden of restoring peace in (to) the country….”

    “The re-elected president should eschew witch-hunting (witch-hunt) of the opposition….”

    More mistakes from THE GUARDIAN: “They have proved themselves as medical professionals per (par) excellence.”

    “…and stand a chance to win an all expense paid trip to South Africa 2013.” (Advertisement by Guinness Nigeria PLC) At least two winners must emerge daily: an all-expenses-paid trip….

    “For more details (a comma) go to…or call the Guinness toll free (toll-free) line on….” Can’t this full-page running copy be corrected?

    “…the labour leaders have decided to bury their hatchets and come together again….” Fixed expression (irrespective of number): bury the hatchet.

    “Remarkably (Remarkable) as well, (needless comma) was the huge success recorded of (in) this year’s Comptroller General’s Annual Conference just concluded in Kastina (sic).”

    Finally from the Back Page of The Guardian under review: “Do we have to wait till someone effect (effects) a change?”

    “Today, Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan sits on (in) the saddle of governance.”

    “Israel moves to diffuse (defuse) tension with Egypt”

    “The objective was attained quite alright.” ‘Alright’ is not all right in formal environments.

    “The Zikists are his political offsprings and despite all the betrayals we have witnessed of recent….’ ‘Offspring’ is non-count.

    “When the storm rages, men can do nothing about it, but when it has seized (ceased), its destruction could be addressed.”

    “Students write exams half-naked.” It is a lie! They write exams half-dressed/half-clad/half-clothed/half-covered or naked/bare to the waist.

    “I stood up, took another naira note and put it near my half-empty (half-full) beer glass.”

    “The classroom was filled to capacity (filled) as early as….”

    “How did you fair (fare) in your examination?”

    “The feeling is that many don’t want to be seen as taking a position which would be interpreted as confrontational and as such they have resulted (resorted) to lobbying….”

    “Do not pass the bulk (buck) to anyone….”

    “Sanusi explained that it was not the first time that banks would be liquidated and that the history of bank failure in the country dated (dates) back to 1958 or 1959.” There is also ‘dates back from.’

    From SMS portal:

    I react to ‘Eniola Bello’s point’ last Sunday. I say the distinction between ‘contradictory’ and ‘paradoxical’ is a distinction without a difference. Further, to imply, as he did, that it is possible for a person to express the emotions of sadness and gratitude simultaneously is to take, ignorantly or unconsciously, confused verbal imagery to the sphere of intellectual fraud. The ideas, logically and psychologically, are mutually exclusive.

    Please let him look up again the words, ‘sorrow’, ‘gratitude’, ‘contradiction’ and ‘paradox’, in the dictionary and answer the question: Can or should a person be sad over something he is grateful for? Regarding his sexual analogy, I say nobody in their lucid moment says thank you genuinely to an oppressor!

    Finally, they can co-function but only confusedly whereas effective communication must be lucid. Wabara you have my vote! (Hon. Barrister Dave Oputteh/08031830352)

    MIND your language is a guide to reality. Language is not about logic. Language is not always logical. It is often illogical—it is about commonsense!

    Besides, in the instant context, ardent grammarians have come out with the idiom ‘cold comfort’. Words are but cold comfort at such a time when a member of the family had passed away. Therefore, ‘sorrow’ and ‘gratitude’ can co-function.

    I usually write about what I know. Besides, I have about 150 books on the English language alone and not fewer than 12 dictionaries and several English or language-related books. I do make mistakes, like any other human being. Nobody knows it all!

    However, nothing is final in language. We can only appeal to authority on language. Keep it up, brother! (Baba Bayo Oguntuanse/08029442508 & 08056180046)

    YOUR persistent efforts to point out and correct the obvious omissions of colleagues of yours are appreciated by some and misconstrued by others.

    Today, all caution seems to have been thrown to the winds, and the value of good writing, which should be the hallmark of every respectable newspaper, has become subordinate to the rush for exclusive and sensational stories which lack depth and quality.

    This, however, is not to say that mistakes cannot be made in the course of producing a newspaper. But journalists will make fewer mistakes if they read illuminating columns like this and a few others elsewhere. (Kenneth Ugbechie, publisher, Nigeria Political Economist/08056801124 & 08034364524)