The Nation Newspaper

Category: Columnists

  • This ‘Okada’ Country (2)

    This ‘Okada’ Country (2)

    On the economic front, as more and more companies, factories and other workplaces go into extinction, a greater percentage of the workforce, who are daily being thrown into the unemployment market, have launched themselves into the okadabusiness – a business that guarantees them instant profit and it is an all-comer’s affair. It is so because anybody can venture into the business at any time. They are emboldened because all you need is to get hold of a motorcycle and hit the road at once. There is little or no government regulations of the business except that both the rider and passenger must wear safety or crash helmet.

    There are different types of people engaged in okada business. Majority of them are disengaged labour force who have no other way to fend for themselves and their families than to be lured into the okada business to keep body and soul together. Then there are many others who are either school dropouts, who don’t want to venture into any other thing than to mount on okada so far it will provide something for the stomach.

    Yet there are others who are products of secondary schools or some tertiary institutions who have no other place or thing to do than to settle for okadaas a business. Also, you have businessmen who have ventured into okada business because it is profitable. These are investors who either bring in motorcycles in large quantities from the manufacturers abroad for sale to willing buyers or those who buy them in large quantities from local dealers and go on to assemble able bodied young boys to ride them and make returns to them.

    This last category engaged to ride okada and make returns to the owner are mostly recruited from a section of the country. In the good old days, they are ubiquitous in Ikoyi, Obalende, Victoria Island, Ikeja, Lekki, Ajah, Ogba, Agege, Ajegunle and many Lagos suburbs. Once they stay long with their ‘master’, they could move up to control some of the okada riders too. This is how cells of okada riders have multiplied and grown like mushroom all over the place.

    It is true that the business is very risky, considering the fatalities often associated with any accident on okada. It is often said that the National Orthopedic Hospital, Igbobi, Lagos, has a large ward devoted to victims of okada accidents. Even if such does not exist, it underscores the severity of injuries from okada accidents. Many able-bodied souls, men and women, children and orphans, who were either riders or their passengers, have been lost to fatal okadaaccidents. Many more have lost their limbs and legs or suffer one form of physical deficits or the other through these bikes.

    Of course, the security aspect of it is there as well. For many years, okadahas become a veritable instrument used by hoodlums to perpetrate violent crimes, particularly armed robbery. The ease with which such crimes are committed while the perpetrators vanish from crime scenes without trace using okada has also raised serious security concern. Quite often, bank customers are attacked and dispossessed of their money by armed robbers who lurk around banks and other places waiting for their prey. The statistics released by the Lagos State Police Command on the involvement of okada riders in violent crimes like robbery, kidnapping and others is staggering. It is only those who have fallen victims that can quite appreciate the enormity of danger okada constitutes to the society.

    Having said all these, it is apt to note that the population of okada riders in a state like Lagos is very high. Some say there are as many as a million okada riders in Lagos State alone. Imagine this number and the danger they pose to traffic management in the state. These are people who do not play by the rules at all. They operate like a cult group to the extent that any infringement on any okada rider usually incurs the wrath of his colleagues who easily employ violence to settle scores. This way, they constitute a big nuisance to the wellbeing of the society.

    But considering the economic importance of okada to many families, most of who are on the brink of poverty, should we throw away the baby with the bathwater? Should the authorities outlaw the business completely in its entirety? The answer is neither here nor there. There is what could be termed ‘legitimate’ okada. These are motorcycles used for transacting corporate businesses like courier services and protocol services. Some departments of security agencies still make use of motorcycles for movement, reconnaissance, intelligence gathering or for carrying messages from one point to another.

    Many private individuals also use motorcycle as their own private vehicles to take them to work and move them around. All these‘legitimate’ okada riders, as it were, are now vulnerable to harassment and arrest by security agents, especially the police and KAI brigades who seem to have abandoned every other thing to chase okada riders all over the place. This is why the Lagos State government should devise a way to accommodate this category of okada riders.

    Therefore, however good intentioned the ban may be, it surely has adverse effect on the life and existence of those who depend solely on it to feed, clothe and pay school fees of their children and wards. This is why I think, rather than a blanket ban, as it were, the Lagos State government can bring in tricycles for distribution to any willing member of the public on installment payment plan. This can be done through the unions, local governments and other groups without any discrimination either on party, ethnic, tribal or other primordial lines. The welfare and happiness of the people should be the cardinal principle of good governance.

    In addition, the state government should try as much as possible to fix the deplorable roads in the state so as to ease vehicular movements. This will encourage those who can afford it to buy vehicles for mass transportation. No doubt, there is a dearth of commuter vehicles in Lagos State.

    Similarly, strategic planners should put heads together and devise alternative means of livelihood for the masses as a way of buying them out of the dangerous okadabusiness. We cannot continue to run an Okadacountry, which we are, at the moment.

    A few months ago, this column featured a piece titled: “Lagos, a State and its cross”. In it, I categorically made allusion to the fact that Lagos deserves a special status. This is against the fact that “the state has no compensation whatsoever for its microeconomic input in the country”. This appears to be the only safety valve for the state to wriggle out of the financial burden imposed on it by its status as the commercial capital of Nigeria.

    In the face of the mounting state expenditure on a variety of programmes such as good transportation, adequate healthcare delivery system, appropriate security system, education and many others, it is obvious that the monthly federal allocation can no longer sustain the state. Not even the state’s internally generated revenue, IGR, can adequately make up for the financial requirement of the State. “The state’s IGR, though higher than what obtains in other states of the federation, cannot meet the demand of its yearly budget.

    With a projected growth rate of six percent annually, the financial requirements of the state to sustain its enormous social services to the people, is so huge… Not even the donor agencies’ funding it receives or the multilateral loans it gets can adequately provide for its shortfall. Moreover, the daily influx of people to the state from every hamlet in the country confers on it, the unenviable status of a state consistently in search of adequate funds to sustain its infrastructural needs.

     

  • The Oloye (1933 – 2012)

    The Oloye (1933 – 2012)

    Beginning August 1, 1977, the New Nigerian ran a series of interviews I conducted for it with a number of candidates for elections into the Constituent Assembly (CA) that eventually authored the 1979 Constitution. The interviewees were 14 in all, among them Dr. Abubakar Olusola Saraki who went on to win his Ilorin seat. His interview started the series.

    At the time of the interview he was one of the most successful medical doctors in the country, holding retainerships of many blue chip companies and high net-worth individuals. He practiced his medicine out of a modest clinic on the popular Broad Street, Lagos. However, even though he was doing well in his practice, there were already signs that the man was about to hang his stethoscope for politics.

    In the course of the interview which I conducted in his clinic, he expressed strong views on several contentious issues, notably on the heated debate over the military authority’s obvious preference for the American type presidential system against the parliamentary democracy of the failed First Republic.

    “I am,” he said unequivocally, “against this provision.” He gave three reasons. First, he said, the country’s level of literacy and the political awareness of its citizens were too low for what he said was the highly sophisticated presidential system to succeed. Second, he said, it would be too expensive and, third, the risk of its being abused was too high because he thought it gave too much power to one man.

    Long before he died on November 14 aged 79, it seemed the man’s concern about the viability of the system in the country had been born out on the second and third count, if not the first; few would dispute the fact that the system, at least in its current form, has proved unsustainably costly. Few would also disagree with the argument that we’ve since been saddled with a dangerous presidential monarchy.

    However, his strong objection to the system notwithstanding, the man soon became one of its biggest operators as probably the country’s most powerful Senate leader to date.

    His journey to Senate leadership during the Second Republic started in earnest with his successful election into the CA. However, the journey would have suffered a setback had his biggest rival in Kwara State politics at the time, Alhaji Abdulganiyu Folorunsho Abdulrasaq, the North’s first Senior Advocate of Nigeria, had his way.

    Not long after Saraki’s election into the CA a huge scandal surrounding the purchase of Leyland buses for the 1977 African Festival of Arts and Culture, FESTAC ‘77, broke out in which himself, Malam Adamu Ciroma, then managing director of the New Nigerian, late Chief Anthony Enahoro and late Alhaji Tatari, as commissioner and permanent secretary, Federal Ministry of Information respectively, were implicated. The government White Paper on the report of investigations into the deal found all but Malam Adamu guilty of self-enrichment.

    An Ilorin Progressive Youth Organisation with links to Abdulrasaq, then a nominated member of the CA and, like Saraki, known to have had his eyes on the governorship of Kwara State, seized the incident to call on Saraki, along with Alhaji Tatari and Malam Adamu, to either quit the CA or be sacked. Otherwise, the IPYO said, the authorities would be guilty of double standards because they had used an earlier and somewhat similar scandal, the Scania Bus scandal, to stop Chief Adisa Akinloye, one of its chief culprits, from contesting the CA seat for his Ibadan constituency. Akinloye, since deceased, eventually became the first elected chairman of the ruling National Party of Nigeria (NPN).

    None of the three left the CA or was kicked out. Instead Saraki went on to become one of the most influential voices in the CA and, like a considerable number of its members, notably Alhaji Shehu Shagari, Chief MKO Abiola, Malam Adamu, Dr Chuba Okadigbo and Dr. Joseph Wayas, he became one of movers and shakers of the Second Republic.

    By the time the CA ended somewhat abruptly in 1978 because of a serious rift over the status of Sharia in the draft Constitution, Saraki’s ambition had, it seemed, moved on from the governorship of his state to the presidency of his country; he contested the first presidential primaries of the NPN ahead of the elections in 1979, along with Alhaji Shehu Shagari, Alhaji Maitama Sule, Malam Adamu, Chief JS Tarka and Professor Iya Abubakar, coming out a respectable fourth behind Shagari, Alhaji Maitama and Malam Adamu, in that order, but ahead of Chief Tarka, easily the most formidable politician during the First Republic from the Middle region to which Saraki belonged.

    In his obituary about the man, Professor Ibrahim Gambari, one of United Nation’s top bureaucrats and himself an Ilorin prince, said Saraki had “single-handedly built a grassroots machine that endured for decades.” In truth the man did no such thing. Rather, what he did was use his considerable wealth to build a huge patronage system that all his contemporaries in the state, singly or combined, could simply not match.

    Of course, Saraki was not the only Ilorin plutocrat. But he was almost alone in his willingness to spend money to earn the personal loyalty of the political grassroots and opinion leaders alike in his state – and elsewhere. Again almost alone among his state’s political elite he held no contempt for ordinary people. On the contrary, he seemed to enjoy mixing with them.

    Consequently, Saraki came to dominate the politics of his state so totally that hardly anyone in the state with political ambition – from the local government level to the centre – could realise his or her ambition without his patronage. It was not for nothing that the man, who was first the Turaki of Ilorin and subsequently its Waziri, the emir’s prime minister, came to be affectionately called the Oloye – the benevolent big chief – by all and sundry.

    Like all great men the man made his mistakes, not least of which was his attempt in the twilight of his life to impose his first daughter, Gbemisola, a two-term senator, as governor of his state in succession to her half brother, Bukola, after his second and final term. This lead to a sad falling out between father and son who, in this case, it seemed, was more in tune than the father with the very religious conservatism of Ilorin as the centre of Kwara politics. The predictable failure of the attempt became a sad anticlimax in what was otherwise one of the most illustrious political careers in the country.

    Also his generous political patronage system may have been partly responsible for the eventual collapse of his bank which was the Nigerian affiliate of the troubled French bank, the Societie Generale. The bank has since regained its operating licence from the Central Bank. However, it is instructive that over a year on, it is yet to return to business.

    Most of all, the man expected absolute loyalty almost bordering on servility from recipients of his political benefaction. The inevitable consequence of this was that he invariably fell out, for example, with each and every one of the five governors he installed between 1979 and 2003, including his own son.

    In spite of these political and financial misjudgements, the Oloye will no doubt go down in Nigeria’s history as one of its most accomplished politicians.

    May the Beneficient and Mercifrul Lord forgive all his transgressions and reward his good deeds with aljanna firdaus. Amen.

     

  • Osun, Hijrah and equity

    Osun, Hijrah and equity

    This piece is not for the Christian bigot or Muslim fanatic. Neither is it for the emotively misguided, warring for God who could war for Himself. It is rather for the open-minded; with absolutely no hang-up about religion, the bastion of immensely personal faith.

    Look at Nigeria’s green-white-green. Isn’t green rather dull for Nigerians known for their vigour, dynamism and corky pride, when the subject is national bragging rights?

    Why would anyone therefore pick such drab colour for Nigeria, when Britain the departing colonial master had draped itself in a blaze of red, blue and white?

    Why green? A surreptitious tinge of Islamic green, as parting gift to the Sokoto Caliphate and its green flag, for its lasting partnership in the British colonising mission in Nigeria?

    Look at the Nigerian currency: N1, 000, N500, N200 and N100 notes. All have Arabic inscriptions. Yet Nigeria’s lingua franca is English, not Arabic.

    None of Nigeria’s native national communities has Arabic as their mother tongue, though a lot of Muslim scholars and clerics in these communities use Arabic as the Islamic code: for teaching and scholarly discourse; a reality that led the religiously liberal Yoruba to tag Muslims Imale (literally, hard stuff, regarding Arabic), as distinct from Igbagbo (Christianity).

    That tag underscored the relative inaccessibility of Arabic in the local Yoruba community, since they could access Christianity by English (the colonising language) and Yoruba (their mother tongue, thanks to the works of Bishop Ajayi Crowther, who translated the Bible into Yoruba). Islam enjoyed no such twin-luxury of lingo accessibility, even if both religions are bastions of unquestionable faith, and Islam had cohabited with Yoruba traditional beliefs long before the advent of Christianity.

    There appears therefore ample evidence of Islamic symbolism in the panoply of Nigerian national symbols, even if Nigeria is constitutionally a secular state.

    But look at the other side of the religious coin. The government calendar and the routine work-free days are decidedly Christian. The colonial master worked from Monday to Saturday and worshipped on Sunday. So, Nigeria’s official rest day is Sunday, after the Western, Christian calendar.

    Femi Abbas, a Friday columnist with The Nation, has claimed Seventh Day Adventists, a Christian sect, successfully persuaded Gen. Yakubu Gowon to, from half-day, make Saturday a full work-free day, since the Adventists worship on that day. But not even the strong Islamic lobby could persuade the British colonialists and independent Nigerian governments to make Friday, the Muslim rest day, work-free, though Muslims are allowed ample time for Friday Jumat prayers.

    Before aligning the school calendar with the international September-July cycle, the January to December calendar was decidedly Christian. Schools took short breaks in the first term in April (which dovetailed with Easter), second term in August and the end-of-year longer holiday in December (which also dovetailed into the Christian Yuletide, a season in Christendom starting from December 24 – Christmas Eve – to January 6, well beyond the Christian New Year’s Day of January 1).

    Indeed, ever so adaptive Yoruba Christians have promptly tagged Christmas, Odun Kekere (small festival) and New Year’s Day, Odun-Nla (big festival). Besides, the harmless Yuletide wish of “a merry Christmas and happy New Year” holds in its goodwill cheer an imposed Christian calendar.

    Indeed, Yuletide appears some unseen parallel to Saudi Arabia, which theocratic court declares as many as 10 days to celebrate the two Islamic feasts of eid-al-fitr (after Ramadan) and eid-al-adha (which Yoruba adherents simply tag Ileya – literally, “time to go home and feast”).

    The Nigerian case is even more interesting when compared with Egypt, a secular state with a Muslim majority and a sizeable Coptic Christian minority. Egypt, each year, celebrates the Coptic Christmas (January 7), Orthodox Easter (April 25, this year). For the Muslim festivals of eid-al-fatr, it sets aside three days of public holiday, and four days for Qurban (eid-al-adha). It also observes a public holiday for Al-Hijrah, the Islamic New Year, but only recognises what, in most of the Arab world is called the international New Year’s Day, January 1, though on that day, offices remain open.

    From the foregoing therefore, it would appear Nigeria is under the twin-domination of Muslim and Christian symbolisms, which is just as well: since a majority of Nigerians claim to be Christian or Muslim.

    It is also clear that though officially January 1 is not in Nigeria a Christian holiday, its root is Christian. It is the first day in the Gregorian calendar, decreed into being by Pope Gregory XIII on 24 February 1582. Besides, January 1 cannot be totally separated from the international celebration of the Yuletide, the Christmas season.

    That moves the discourse to the hoopla State of Osun Governor, Rauf Aregbesola, caused with his declaration of November 15 as Hijrah (Islamic New Year’s Day) this year.

    Was the governor right by law? No doubt. Was it politic? Not convinced: that the Yoruba are famously tolerant of rival faiths does not eliminate residual Christian-Muslim tensions, which the Hijrah declaration appeared to have goaded in many a Christian psyche.

    Was the declaration legitimate? If legitimacy is interpreted as quiescence in Osun, it would appear so: for while Osun Muslims appear happy and proud of their latest concession from the state, hardly any Christian groups have growled over the holiday.

    So, why the media hue and cry? Perhaps because a governor just accused of putative Islamisation should be very circumspect on religious matters. That is good faith.

    But much of the media flak veered beyond good faith into impish intolerance and sweeping but false claims. The most blatant of these claims that no Arab and Muslim country has Hijra as public holiday is false.

    According to www.schoolholidaysguide.com, Egypt, Malaysia (marked as Awal Muharram), Indonesia, Kuwait and United Arab Emirates (UAE) have Hijrah as public holidays, though all of these countries, except Egypt, also observe January 1 as public holiday. Saudi Arabia runs an official Islamic calendar but does not declare Hijrah a public holiday. Neither does it declare January 1. Hijrah is no public holiday in Pakistan. But Pakistan also only observes January 1 as “banker’s holiday”, according to information on this website.

    Thinking Aregbesola’s Hijrah move is impolitic, therefore, is within the explosive realm of political gains and losses. If that Machiavellian motive indeed drove the declaration, then it is well and truly condemnable.

    But if it was driven by meeting deeply felt but much repressed Muslim aspirations, there is nothing sinister about it, so long as no non-Muslim is forced to join in the Hijrah celebrations.

    The notorious fact is that the Nigerian Christian and Muslim majority, having carved the country in their twin-images, bawl and scream anytime they sense a tilt on the domination scale. That is no ode to tolerance.

    So, let all in the State of Osun beware. As citizens, Osun Muslims have a right to Hijrah. But adherents of other faiths, like African traditional believers, have rights too.

    So, when this most repressed group come to the fore to claim their own religious rights, let no one turn emergency jihadists or crusaders!

  • PDP and Fayose’s unholy alliance

    PDP and Fayose’s unholy alliance

    What kind of human being returns to his or her own vomit? Because even a dog does not… But, obviously, some people, for whatever reasons seem to be comfortable around puke, whether it is theirs or that of others. I’m pointedly referring to how the elite Nigerian political class as personified by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). As it is, the party continually gains notoriety for infamous acts of some of its high profile members across the length and breadth of the country. And this trend does seem to abating anytime soon.

    The latest is the re-arraigning of one of its recently re-admitted members, former governor of Ekiti State, Ayo Fayose, for embezzlement of N1.2billion while in office, at the Federal High Court, Ado-Ekiti. Even on that occasion, the high-handedness exhibited by security cohorts of the former governor spoke volumes of the brigandage associated with the PDP. At the court premises, it was reported that ‘loyal’ policemen to Fayose initially barred journalists from covering the court proceedings. It took the intervention of the state’s police public relations officer before journalists were allowed access. Now, that sends dangerous signals.

    Yet, the same Fayose still aspires to hold public office. In saner societies, such ambitions would be a no-go after being arraigned on a 27 count charge bordering on mis-appriopriation of state funds. I find it also sad that Fayose is resorting to cheap legalese to buy time and perhaps a further lease of life for himself. Owoseni Ajayi, counsel representing Fayose had reportedly tried to stall the former governor’s re-arraignment. In a bid to frustrate the proceedings, Ajayi had sought to dismiss the EFCC’s counsel, Adebisi Adeniyi, saying it was only Rotimi Jacobs that had fiat to prosecute the case. It was a relief that Justice Adamu Hobon ruled in Adeniyi’s favour.

    Fayose definitely lacks the stuff good leaders are made of. But, this is just my take.

    It must be recalled that Fayose was first arraigned for the offence in Lagos in 2007 while he was still governor. The biggest challenge lawyers of the former governor could offer then came in the form of ‘lack of jurisdiction’ as it was pointed out that the offence was not committed in Lagos. Hence, it was back to Ekiti State. Well-known for his frolicking lifestyle, around Fayose, there was never a lack of the best comforts life offered. He explored them and it seemed that to him, cost was no restrain. As governor, there were various ways to pay for such a flamboyant lifestyle as long as Ekiti State coffer was still liquid. And seemingly, for his profligacy, he found ways to explore the state’s till.

    I have often wondered why associations continue to adopt certain individuals despite allegations of treasury looting, stealing, and subsequent public disgrace labelled on such individuals. The PDP would do good to begin to renounce some of such individuals; rather it seems to make a penchant of rubber-stamping them.

    Bode George, after being ferried off to prison was given a hero’s welcome by the party. Also, former chairman of the PDP Board of trustees, and former minister of works, Tony Annenih was recently asked by the House of Representatives concerning how N2.3bn that was awarded for road contract in 2001. These are examples of the sort of individuals sensible political parties should sever alliance with. Why does the PDP continue to swell its folds with characters like Fayose? Perhaps, the major reason why this severance may not be possible may be because birds of a feather flock together.

    While in law, a suspect is presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond any reasonable doubt. In the eyes of the public, it is a different game. In the public glare, a suspect is presumed guilty should any accusation be levelled against him or her. And responsible politicians do the honourable thing of hiding their face in shame. In some climes, Fayose would have been ashamed for rubbishing the party’s name by such accusation of theft. But, sadly, this is Nigeria and the party concerned is the PDP, widely acclaimed as Africa’s biggest political party by its members.

    However, with so much recklessness, the people of Fayose’s party plundered state funds, and like smart ‘crooks’ which most of them are, they covered their tracks. But, one can only cover his or her tracks well for so long. There comes a time when a wrong step is taken and a wide opening comes up. That crack for Fayose came with the allegation of theft in 2007. As it is now, the law machinery is grinding for Fayose who has another set date in court for January 24th 2013. I wish him well. And he had better be prepared to face judgment.

    Lastly, while I do not speak for the entire Ekiti indigenes, I believe I can stick out my neck, that apart from the few crooks and PDP apologists in the state, the people are tired of the brigandage which the state was hitherto held by both Fayose and the PDP cabal. And for this, Fayose must not count on support from Ekiti people. Already, 31 witnesses are ready to testify against him. Interpreted in another way, Ekiti people no longer want to tolerate non-performers like him. Fayose may not know now but being accused of theft has proved he is a good example of a bad leader in the public square already.

    • Akinbayo writes from Ado-Ekiti

  • A farewell to two legends

    A farewell to two legends

    What can anyone say now about Justice Kayode Eso and Dr Olusola Saraki, both recently deceased, that has not been said with greater eloquence and insight by persons who knew them closely?

    I met Eso only once, at the Third Obafemi Awolowo Foundation Dialogue, in 1995. His paper for the colloquium, which had as its theme: “Nigeria: In Search of Leadership,” was the product of a supple mind versed in the liberal arts, and an erudite piece of expository composition withal.

    Eso’s career on the Bench was marked by judicial activism. But it was activism informed by the noblest ideals – to humanise the Constitution, to enlarge rather than constrict human freedom, and to make the law an instrument of citizen empowerment, not subjugation. He never flinched from raising his learned and resonant voice against governmental acts that were inconsistent with the Constitution or were carried out in disregard of the extant law or the rule of law.

    Two cases are usually cited in support of this summation.

    The first centred on the one Justice Eso himself called “the mystery gun man” in his engaging memoir — the gunman who sneaked into the studios of Radio Nigeria, in Ibadan, and ordered the staffers to replace a taped recording by Premier Ladoke Akintola already on air with another one pouring abuse and scorn on Akintola and his lawless “Demo” Administration.

    Wole Soyinka, a militant opponent of the regime, was arrested and arraigned before the Ibadan High Court, in Ibadan, Justice Eso presiding, for the armed intrusion. Prosecution witnesses contradicted themselves on key points. One said the gunman was bearded; another said he was clean-shaven.

    Eso dismissed the prosecution’s case. Ordinarily, no judge should be praised for abiding by his oath of office. But Akintola’s Western Nigeria was no ordinary place. A regime that came to power by usurpation preserved itself by the most brazen subversion of law and process. Those who did not fall in line stood to be humiliated and hounded out of the system. And many were the judges who dutifully fell in line.

    Not Eso.

    For his fidelity to the law and to his judicial oath, Eso was transferred to Akure, then a provincial backwater. Today, we can only speculate how a finding of guilty would have changed the trajectory of the life of the no-longer-mysterious gunman and, for that matter, that of literary history.

    The second case stemmed from the outcome of the 1979 Presidential election that was supposed to inaugurate a new democratic order in Nigeria after 13 years of unbroken military rule. To be declared winner, a candidate must secure a majority of the popular vote, plus a majority of the votes cast in at least 12 and two thirds of the nation’s 19 states.

    The leading candidate, Shehu Shagari, won the majority of votes in only 12 states. Then, cardsharpers for the NPN, led by Richard Akinjide (SAN), inveigled the electoral umpires into declaring Shagari the victor on the ground that he had won the majority of the votes in 12 states, plus one quarter of the votes in two-thirds of a13th, thus satisfying a literal interpretation of the electoral law that had never been canvassed, namely, that two-thirds of 19 states translates into12 states plus two thirds of a 13th state.

    Holding that the law could never contemplate an absurdity, that what the law states is exactly what it means, the Supreme Court nevertheless went on to consecrate a legal absurdity.

    By what alchemy could a state with defined geographic borders and a juristic person to boot be transmuted into two-thirds of a state? When was the state divided into three equal parts for the purpose of ascertaining one quarter of the votes cast in two of its three constituent parts? Which law provided for this curious expedient?

    These were the questions that rang through Justice Eso’s robust dissent which, Professor Ben Nwabueze said in his majestic 2005 Justice Kayode Eso Lecture at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife, should have been the court’s opinion. Nwabueze’s endorsement is all the more remarkable, considering that he was rooting for Shagari to become president

    But Eso’s judicial activism extended beyond these cases.

    There was his famous pronouncement that the Lagos State Government committed “executive lawlessness” when it evicted former Biafran leader Emeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu from his residence while determination of the ownership of the property was pending before the courts. There was the Adewumi case, in which he voided an edict of the military governor of Oyo State on the ground that only a decree of the Federal Military Government could override those portions of the Constitution that were operative.

    Whether writing the lead judgment, concurring or dissenting, under military rule no less than under civilian rule, Eso insisted on maintaining a proper balance between the powers assigned to the Federal Government and those granted to the states by the Constitution. He sought to free the courts from technicalities that valued form over substance.

    May his great example endure.

    Olusola Saraki had already made his name and fortune in Lagos, where he ran a chain of clinics patronized largely by employees of government parastatals and private sector companies before he entered national politics to vie for the NPN presidential ticket in the First Republic. I saw him frequently at Lagos and Abuja airports, but never up close.

    His preparation for the career move was vintage Saraki. He set up a state-of-the-art bakery in Ilorin, which flooded the city and environs with its delicious loaves and sold them below cost, undercutting Mafarosere bread, which had been a reliable staple in the community for decades, subsequently forcing it out of business.

    The Saraki bakery would collapse not long thereafter, but its proprietor had endeared himself to the public. He dispensed favours small and large to just about anyone who could show up in the right place or at the right time.

    He failed in his bid to clinch the NPN ticket for the presidency, but ended up as Senate Majority Leader.More importantly, he helped ensure victory in the Kwara gubernatorial election for his candidate.

    Since then, nobody has become governor of Kwara or attained significant federal office on the Kwara quota without his imprimatur.. He would install you in the office, but if you failed to keep your end of the bargain, he took you out. Not for nothing did they call him “the strongman of Kwara politics.” He made and unmade.

    Remember Adamu Attah, and Mohammed Alabi Lawal? Ask Shaba Lafiagi.

    Only when Saraki sought to install his daughter as state governor, to succeed his son Bukola who had held the office for the two consecutive terms permitted by law did he run into a communal brick wall. Even he could not turn the conservative tide of Kwara politics.

    The remarkable thing is that Saraki dominated Kwara politics so comprehensively and for so long without espousing any ideology or even what might be called a para-ideology; without any set of ideas that could be distilled into a framework for good governance and development.

    He made no memorable speeches, wrote no books, set up no institutions. His Société Général Bank collapsed in insolvency.

    Yet, when Saraki died, Kwara State went into deep mourning, and so did his political family and the countless beneficiaries of his munificence across the nation. The day he was buried, Ilorin and environs stood still. Persons of consequence and aspirants to that status gathered from all over Nigeria to pay their last respects, with the former military president General, Ibrahim Babangida, revealing that he had learned not a few political lessons from Himself the Oloye.

    He had little in common with the grassroots; yet he was the quintessential grassroots politico.

    Truly, this was a man of the people, and of his clime.

     

  • Delta’s educational policy of ‘every child counts’

    Delta’s educational policy of ‘every child counts’

    The Uduaghan-led administration’s commitment to education and human capital development has led to the birth of such laudable programmes as the Delta State Bursary and Scholarship award scheme to prove that “every child counts”.

    When Dr Emmanuel Uduaghan assumed office in 2007, he compartmentalized the challenges of the state into peace and security, human capital development and infrastructural development. This three point agenda has not only remained the cardinal focus of his administration, during his first and now in his second tenures but has been vigorously pursued.

    In achieving his goals towards Human Capital Development, the government has continued to support the educational advancement of Deltans with bursary, scholarship awards among other forms of financial aid to students at all levels.

    From primary pupils to postgraduate students, there are various forms of scholarship schemes and financial assistance at their disposal. West African Educational Council (WAEC) fees are paid for secondary school students among others.

    This year alone, additional 518 students of Delta State origin were beneficiaries of N73.9 million released by the state government as scholarship awards to outstanding students, including those currently studying in different countries across the globe.

    A break down of the figure shows that 367 undergraduate students received amounts ranging from N100, 000 to N300, 000 apart from 106 masters and 45 doctorate degree students.

    Though the Delta State Bursary and Scholarship Board through which the scholarship is disbursed was established in August 2003, the impact of the Board was not felt till the Emmanuel led administration took over the reins of government in the state.

    As the scholarship scheme is being pursued, expanded, courtesy of Governor Uduaghan’s education consciousness, it has clearly become part and parcel of the present administration’s vision for massive manpower development as well as to secure the future of Deltans.

    The award also puts into consideration the financial challenges of certain categories of students such as children of deceased civil servants in secondary and tertiary institutions across the country. N30 million has so far been disbursed to 403 children of deceased civil servants and 101 students with physical disabilities in the state as a way of encouraging them to attain their educational goals.

    The Chairman, Delta State Bursary and Scholarship Board, Monsignor Buchi Aninye said this while presenting cheques to beneficiaries of the 2011/2012 scholarship scheme for children of deceased civil servants and physically challenged Students at the Board’s office in Asaba.

    Monsignor Aninye disclosed that since the inception of this administration the government has expended over N71million to 1,233 children of decreased civil servants and 346 physically challenged students adding that this administration has continued to demonstrate its unparalleled commitment and determination to her education policy of ‘’every child counts’’. According to him, children of deceased civil servants in secondary school category got N30,000 each while those in the primary school category received N20,000 each. with the physically challenged receiving N50,000 each.

    Other schemes in the board also includes; Student Special Assistance scheme, scholarship recipients of first class degree honors to study to PH.D level any where in the world, scholarships to students in Aviation college within the country. Overseas postgraduate scholarship scheme and financial assistance to students in the Nigeria law schools.

    The values of the scholarship award are on merit and selection of beneficiaries on the basis of academic performance and other competitive criteria.

    Established in August 2003 by the former governor the state, chief Ibori, the Delta sate Bursary and Scholarship Board formulates and implements policies as it pertains to scholarship and student special Assistance scheme. However the board never took off till the warri boy as I always call Dr Uduaghan came on line.

    Since then, the board has achieved tremendous success. In 2007, the sum of N402,499,816 was released for the payment of bursary to 36,967 students of Delta state origin while in 2008 over N213 million was paid as scholarship for 10 students attending the maritime Academy Oron and Aviation college Zaria.

    The board is also managing the special Assistance Scheme to Delta sate indigenes attending the Nigeria law school valued at N30,000 per student.

    In the year 2007, total disbursement was over N13 million, this assistance has now been increased to N50, 000 per student.

    The Board which is made up of seasoned administrators , technocrats and politicians,on the postgraduate scholarship, has disbursed over N7 million in 2008 while N45million was expended for this project in 2009.The most recent being on November 16th when N12 million was disbursed to 40 beneficiaries of it’s local PhD scholarship scheme at the rate of N300, 000 per beneficiary.

    Presenting the cheques to the beneficiaries at no 2 Anwai road Asaba, office of the bursary and scholarship board, the chairman of the board said the beneficiaries were different from the batch that would soon receive the third tranche payment of their scholarship.

    These beneficiaries are those that wrote the board’s competitive exam on September 1st and scaled through the bench mark set by the board. The scholarship is not tied to the beneficiaries working for the state after the completion of their programes.

    With the above, well articulated schemes, it becomes undoubtedly true to say that the government has shown enough passion about the educational needs of her citizens.

    Already registration is on for the 2012/2013 first class degree scholarship while registration for Masters in Science (M.Sc)scholarship for delta state female students who want to go for post graduate diploma in media and communication ended in July.

    The commissioner for higher education in the state Prof. Hope Eghagha had earlier charged the beneficiaries to work hard and show greater determination in their endeavours, stating that they can not get to the top without being focused in their academic pursuit.

    Some of the beneficiaries of the first class scholarship this year are Raolat Abiola, Ika South, studying at Cornell University ,New York. Chukwuedo Achi,Onisha south, Delta state University Abraka. Hillary Adibeli, Ndokwa west ,university of Benin. Daniel Akpo,Isoko south ,university of Lagos. Ufoma Diakparomre, Ethiope East, University of Benin, among others.

    As the Uduaghan led administration works hard to afford every Delta the opportunity to attain his educational goals, it is a project that requires all hands to be on deck in order to move the state to an enviable height. It is an undisputed fact that education is needed to achieve the development of human resource base required to drive the economy of the state.

    • Otumara writes from Asaba

  • Listen to the message

    Listen to the message

    Central Bank governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi is a straight talker, always shooting from the hips. Although some of his views could be annoying and irritating, but give it to the Kano prince, he says it the way he sees and feels it and seems not to care whose ox is gored.

    And any time ‘Basket Mouth’ decides to leak or open, apologies to late Afrobeats legend Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, you can be rest assured that not a few feathers would be ruffled. And so it happened last week when the head of the apex bank decided it was time the government was told the home truth (according to St.Lamido) about its workforce; it is too large, he says, cut it.

    In plain language, the economist is calling on the three tiers of government to sack some of their workers. And you may want to know why. The CBN governor says the government is spending about 70 per cent of resources available to it to service its workers, leaving just 30 per cent for other sectors. And for a government workforce of just a little more or less than a million, consuming the resources meant for a population of about 167 million does not just make sense, he argues.

    He is therefore calling on government to lay off some of these workers in order to free some of the revenue used in paying their salaries and other emoluments for investment in social infrastructure that are presently seriously deficient. Spot on did you say? Good talk. But then that is just looking at the problem from purely an economist point of view. A sociologist will definitely differ and consider the wider implications of a massive sudden job loss as being suggested by Sanusi on the entire society, including the government.

    As expected, the CBN Governor’s suggestion is not being well received especially by organised labour which has called for the sacking of Sanusi instead, by the Federal Government, which itself doesn’t seem to fancy the top banker’s unsolicited advice. And Sanusi as usual is unperturbed, after all this is not his first time of swimming against the tide of public opinion and every time he emerged unscathed. Will he be lucky again this time and weather the gathering storm of public anger, especially of workers against him? I think so. Will this basket mouth once again get away with this intellectual arrogance and I know it all attitude that gives him that aura of an untouchable who could talk down on anything and anybody and nothing will happen? Sadly, yes. Has our CBN Governor attained that level of infallibility like the Pope that he can say and do no wrong? Something like that. Is he beyond reproach? It seems so. Recall that this man had done and said certain things outside his core area of competence as an economist/banker that could have caused social upheaval and nobody called him to order? Even in banking where we are told he is an expert in risk management, some of his whimsical decisions (some bordering on political rather than sound economic considerations) have done more harm than good to the sector and not a few workers have a sad story to tell as a result. The success or otherwise of his famed banking reforms is there for all to see and the jury is still out. You remember his failed N5,000 note project that crashed following public outcry? Even when his reasons for wanting to introduce this new note fell short of basic economic principles and were shot down by fellow economists, he still insisted on going ahead until public outcry and common sense prevailed on the government to turn him down.

    I am not trying to catalogue the sins of Sanusi, and they are many, depending on which side of the argument you are, the man also has some strong points that could help us get out of our economic problems. Now before we crucify him over his latest unguarded comment and unsolicited advice wouldn’t it be better if we look at what he said and not himself? That is, looking at the message and not the messenger. Quite often the personality of the messenger tends to influence or interfere with the reception the message gets. And this is exactly the problem with Sanusi. He has put himself in a situation where not a few would read meanings into every of his actions or utterances no matter how altruistic and genuine they appear. They now look for the motive first before supporting or believing him, even when he is saying the truth, as he seemed to be saying in the matter at hand.

    Speaking last Tuesday at the second annual Capital Market Committee Retreat in Warri, Delta State, Sanusi observed that “at the moment 70 per cent of Federal Government’s revenue goes for payment of salaries and entitlement of civil servants, leaving 30 per cent for development of 167 million Nigerians. That means for every naira government earns, 70 kobo is consumed by civil servants.

    You have to half of the civil service because the revenue of the government is supposed to be for 167 million Nigerians. Any society where government spends 70 per cent of its revenue on its civil service has a problem. It is unsustainable.

    The various tiers of government should cut down their recurrent expenditure and use the fund to provide basic infrastructure like schools, hospitals, etc

    “How can we be using the proceeds from our major source of revenue to service recurrent expenditure, by paying salaries, allowances, etc. The country should be thinking of enhancing its productivity base rather than spending on things that cannot create wealth,” Sanusi said.

    Whether his observation in terms of the percentages is true in fact is debatable, giving the fact that accurate statistics are rare to come by in Nigeria, but what is undeniable is that we spend far too much; the bulk of our resources paying its workers and this is unfair to the rest of us in the private sector. So why call for Sanusi’s head for saying the ‘truth’? is the solution he proffered to the problem he identified.

    Calling for the sack of half of the population of government’s estimated one million workers cannot be the only solution to the problem. Indeed it was a callous suggestion borne out of insensitivity and utter show of contempt towards these set of workers. Agreed that they are too many, but to what end are they being deployed by government? If government is not optimally utilizing them whose fault? Do you blame them for that? Bureaucracy definitely can not grow the economy the way business would, but then government can use bureaucracy to pave way for job creation and growth of the economy. This same one million or so government workers can still be effectively used by government to facilitate wealth creation in other sectors apart from oil for the rest 166 million or so other Nigerians not in government employ. I agree they are taking too much out of our resources but this is an issue now because they are not serving us well. If the civil service is actually providing the service to the public as expected, how much they earn wouldn’t necessarily be an issue. When the 30 or so players and officials of our national teams play well and make us proud, nobody cares how much they get as match bonus. It is only when they lose matches and play disgracefully that we remember that what they earn per match individually is probably more than the monthly or annual take home pay of the bulk of this same workers.

    Rather than carpeting Sanusi’s suggestion what if these workers were retrained, refocused and redeployed to other more productive sectors or sent to the private sector to help grow the economy and create jobs. It’s just a matter of making them do other things that are more productive and beneficial to the rest of us than what they do now and still earn the same thing.

    Instead of sacking half of the civil servants to conserve funds for use in other sectors of the economy, the problem I think lies with the large retinue of political appointees that currently service our bloated democracy. What each member of the National Assembly earns annually for instance is probably enough to build, equip and staff a primary health care facility in his/her constituency.

    This is not a defence of the civil service. In fact I am in support of any measure that will make it effective and plag waste. Who knows, it might be that the bulk of the 70 per cent Sanusi is talking about goes into servicing ghost workers or the very few top people at the helm of our bureaucracy including himself.

    We have often spoken about the curse of oil, may be this lopsidedness is part of it but then cutting the head is not the cure for headache.

    Agreed Sanusi can be tactless and unguarded in his statements; call him basket mouth if you like, but don’t ignore his observations, they are valid. The problem is just his suggested solution. Take the message, you may ignore the messenger.

     

  • Quench not the spirit

    Quench not the spirit

    You might have thought him a teenager, seeing him for the first time that night. Except for his sometimes seamed face, his white-flecked goatee and a pair of eyes deep in the cares and plays of this life. Otherwise, the febrile energy of his hands, eyes, feet and even the easy mobility of his face can pass him off as a partisan of that species still enraptured by the sweet oat of life: the teenager.

    But Rauf Aregbesola is no teenager. The Ogbeni only carries the strength of one. The night was last Friday when he engaged his fellow citizens in a programme called Ogbeni Till Daybreak. It was an interactive affair in which questions came from all walks of life: journalists, civil servants, farmers, the jobless, the elite. And the questions streamed forth from different agencies: direct from the variegated audience, through phone calls, Twitter, Facebook, emails, etc.

    The questions, propounded sometimes with probing defiance, sometimes with flattering fatuities and sometimes with superficial candour, reflected the range of the anxieties, hopes and befuddlements of the citizens. There were questions about roads not completed, jobs not offered, actions perceived to carry partisan mischief, etc. But at bottom was the sense, even from the most adversarial questioner, that the man fielding the questions was on a high pitch of performance.

    Those who asked about roads not completed acknowledged the many roads at work, in virtually all communities in the state. Those who asked about jobs not offered wanted to be part of the new élan of opportunities, especially with the engagement of the youth employment scheme that puts 20,000 young men and women out of the giddy despair of indolence.

    He answered with the gusto of a natural politician and the knowledge of a technocrat. He reeled out songs and wiggled with dance moves that infected the crowd, made up of party faithful, journalists, and wide range of citizens. It was a night that was simultaneously sombre and festive. At times so sombre as to be warlike, just like when he answered questions about his predecessors reign of terror and paralysis for seven and half years. He also celebrated when he compared the statistics of performance between them, dwarfing already in two years all that the Oyinlola offered in three quarters of a decade.

    He spoke with confidence, and you could not escape the infection. I attended having also gone around the state to see what his story has been about. I came off with a distinct impression of a man in constant wrestle with his dream. He is a man of great enthusiasm, and if it were possible to turn the dream into reality with a span of 24 hours, Ogbeni is a man who would want to accomplish that feat.

    That is why he has put in place a system of multipliers. Look at three distinct areas: infrastructure, agriculture and education. For instance, the pupils in class one to four feed every day all across the state. Caterers are employed to cook, and the farmers have to provide the farm produce for the caterer. The multiplier effect is inevitable. The farmer gets a market, the caterer gets employed and the student gets nutrition. Prosperity builds on prosperity. The instant benefits as testified to by the job of the caterer and the farmer. The future enjoys, witness the student who gets nourishment. The other instant benefit is the rush of parents to enroll their kids. Again, the major farms in the state have roads constructed, giving jobs to construction, encouragement to transportation. This is a seamless connection in governance.

    A tailor walked up to thank the Ogbeni for keeping his fellow tradesmen engaged. The same multiplier takes place with school uniforms, OYES cadets, etc. The local tailor works and feeds the seller of the threads, etc. It is a gain chain.

    His main love is food security as a driver of prosperity. The farms are offered free, for all who are serious from the small farmer to the large-scale entrepreneur.

    To set this in motion he followed the Lagos example: financial engineering. He met a mess and the state had to borrow one billion Naira every month just to pay civil servants salaries. He turned this financial desperation into advantage. Now Osun is not broke. By saving money over a period, he turned the fat purse to leverage development. That is the genius of financial stimulation. Having achieved that, he became Keynesian, throwing huge sums of money into developments in various parts of the state, giving jobs, stimulating demand and setting to work an energy that has not been matched in the state. So good was it that he even paid civil servants bonus at the end of the year.

    In my drive around, I saw some of the projects. One of them is the road that moves from Gbogan up to Ijebu-Igbo, and the idea is to provide an alternative to the Lagos-Ibadan expressway for those travelling to Osun, Ondo, and even to the Niger Delta and the Southeast. This is the power of thinking. I visited the road that some of the government officials call Hongye, which is the name of the Chinese firm working the 44 kilometre road. I drove about half of the road, which was originally intended as a farm road. It used to be a serpentine monster of a dirt road, dipping, rising, twisting like a reptilian booby trap, narrow with menace and lurking with death, dust-laden, besieged with bushes and imposing shortsightedness to a journey of many miles.

    That is what is being salvaged as alternative to a road – Lagos-Ibadan Expressway – that the Federal Government has somersaulted for years without putting it on an even keel of work. As I travelled the road, which has been expanded with shoulders and furniture for about 18 kilometres so far, I saw the work of a dreamer. I spoke to Hongye officials on site and they said they will be done by April next year. The contours and dips have been corrected, with earth work, stone work, etc, and it is wearing, in expanse, feel and ambience the atmosphere of an expressway. It is a great work. Another impressive activity is the road leading from the state to Kwara. In a mark of fortitude, setbacks have been drawn and many structures are coming down, showing a sense of an expressway of the future. One of the questions on Friday night. Compensation for the affected? Ogbeni: all those with documents shall be paid back.

    Some of his critics often peddle stories about his lack of restraint. When the people have suffered so poor and deprived for so long, how can a person of enthusiasm not show zeal when opportune to do it? His critics have a staid way of looking at development. To quote Epicurus, “do not spoil what you already have by desiring what you have not, remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.”

    That is a recipe for paralysis. That is the spirit of the conservative of the worst tradition. He just had a dream to change a state, he is going about it, and a few people are shaken out of their torpid lack of ideas. The shock crystalises into fearful, aggressive tirades of criticism.

    That is the way of the visionary. “A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of us,” noted the inimitable Oscar Wilde.

    They forget as playwright Goethe writes that “what is not started today is not finished tomorrow.” Civilisation as we know it today with cars, television, internet, cell phones did not come without what is called disruptive thinking. It is the sort that multiplies, and it is the multiplier effect that changed man from the hewer of wood and drawer of water to the prosperity of the highway and aircraft and brain surgeon. In his novella, Man from the Underground, Dostoyevsky caviled at a civilisation where one plus one equals one, and he says it is the beginning of death.

    That is not the civilisation that transformed the world. It is the multiplier one, the sort Ogbeni is pursuing with boyish zeal. He reminds me of the words of the Canadian musician who travelled West Africa by bicycle and wrote a book, Masked Rider. He noted, “A spirit with a vision is a dream with a mission.”

    So, I tell Ogbeni’s critics, quench not the spirit.

     

  • South-East discord

    If you ask the average Nigerian the likely reaction of people of the south-east to any political issue that concerns their common destiny, his most probable answer would be disagreement. In line with this perception, the zone has been constantly portrayed as incapable of reaching consensus on issues affecting them. And sometimes, this contrived dissonance has proved a very convenient excuse to deny them their rights within the larger federal set up.

    Not unexpectedly, the actions or inactions of some of those who have been thrown up as their leaders in the last 42 years or so have not helped matters in sustaining this negative ascription to once a very organized and very cohesive group. In the competition among the dominant groups for the spoils of our common being, no body has cared whether this malignant culture is real or imaginary; imposed or part of the social formation of the people of the area.

    As the so-called inability or incapacity of people of the south-east to speak with one voice is being elevated beyond reasonable proportions, nobody has given a thought to why this has been so. No body seemed to have realized that it was the same group, armed with bare hands and crude implements that waged a 30-month war against the rest of the federation. If they were such a culturally disorganized group; if they had no leaders and respect for leadership; if dissension is part of their political culture, could they have carried out that feat as a people?

    This poser takes us closer to the main thesis of our presentation and it is that the Igbo are not a culturally disorganized or disoriented group as they are being portrayed. They are also not incapable of reaching consensus on issues of their common existence. It will be helpful to locate the source of this conduct and subsequent stigmatization. Put in another way, we need to locate at what point in the relationship between the people of the zone and others this schism set in. Without fear of contradiction, it would appear to me that this stigmatization is of a very recent history; and it is largely an imposition from the outside. It derives it force from events since after the civil war and was deliberately created by Nigerian leaders so that no strong voice could ever rise up again from that zone. It was in the interest and part of the strategy of the Nigerian government to ensure that the people do not easily reach common grounds for fear that cohesion could lend itself to actions supposedly against national unity. This assertion might sound controversial or even absurd or both but it finds ample justification from events since after that civil war.

    It started with the appointment of marginal Igbo people into key federal slots meant for the zone during the years the military held sway. These yes members ensured they did the bidding of those who appointed them. They were neither answerable to their people nor did they have compelling reasons to identify with their genuine wishes and aspirations. They were constantly under the prying eyes of their masters who ensured they did their bidding. Any attempt to identify with their people is viewed from the prism of trying to resurrect the memories of the civil war. It became very fashionable for such appointees to take pride in not identifying with their people. In some instances, they openly stood against the collective interests of their people. And who are you to query them?

    With the departure of the military, we had thought that such impositions had gone for good. But we were wrong. Obasanjo who became the president in 1999 took serious steps to ensure that this culture of imposition of sundry characters as Igbo leaders continued. Events in Anambra state then were ample testimony to this conclusion. Even though there was a governor elected by the people, Obasanjo raised surrogates who never allowed the governor to rest.

    Those thrown up and who overnight became the conscience of the people in a state that had people like Alex Ekwueme, became a source of immense consternation to many.

    This charade continued even when Chris Ngige emerged the governor after his predecessor Chinwoke Mbadinuju was refused the ticket of his party by the same powers that be. We cannot forget in a hurry the abduction of Ngige and the unsuccessful attempt to depose him by a band of faceless people. We cannot also forget the criminal assault on the government house Awka and the destructions that followed. Till date, nothing has come out of it and no body to the best of my knowledge has been held culpable for that show of shame and an unmitigated assault on democracy.

    But somebody somewhere was stoking that assault and division in that state. Is it not surprising that that act of criminality was very conveniently covered up as if nothing went wrong? Those who traduce the people of the south-east for failing to reach consensus on issues affecting them will soon turn around and cite these sponsored official malfeasance as evidence of their claim. But as proposed earlier, the Anambra case demonstrates very poignantly that these divisions are largely inflamed from outside.

    As soon as this institutional interest in keeping the people permanently divided wanes, we will come to realize that the Igbo are not that a disorganized, fragmented and non consensual group. But for the same conspiracy, Ekwueme was sure to emerge as the civilian president in 1999 after he worked tirelessly to build the People’s Democratic Party PDP. Was it the much orchestrated lack of consensus among his people that denied him the fruits of his hard labor? Was he not sidelined and relegated to the background even as some charlatans from his state were constantly beamed to us as genuine leaders of the party? And you want consensus to come out of that madness? That is the real source of the problem and we need to admit it.

    The point being raised here is that the much touted discord is a direct consequence of the policies of the federal government of Nigeria towards that zone since after the civil war. It will therefore not be out of place if this policy has some influence on the people on whom it has been applied over these years. Expectedly, sundry characters basking on the enormous influence of outside sponsors have gotten swollen headed; not amenable to group influence and discipline. But that cannot represent the conduct of the majority who are intricately linked to their zone through their various unions and associations.

    It will be grossly unfair to stick to this transitory discord as an excuse for constantly denying the zone its due within the larger federation.

    Two key issues the zone yearns for among others are: a shot at the presidency and the additional consensual state. No matter how cohesive the zone can be on these issues, they cannot possibly go it alone. They need the cooperation and goodwill of all other groups in the federation to realize them.

    Lack of cooperation from other zones rather than the envisaged discord from the south-east is going to be the greatest impediment to the realization of these genuine aspirations. We need to prove this conclusion wrong by appreciating the merits of the demands and giving effect to them rather than focusing on observed shortcomings of the zone.

  • The Doyen’s December

    The Doyen’s December

    Exactly five years ago this weekend this column paid a dutiful and devoted tribute to one of the all time greats of Nigerian journalism. It was on the occasion of his eightieth birthday. Five years down life’s rolling and roiling avenue, snooper is happy to report that the great one is still very much around. Witty, urbane and ever debonair in carriage, Alhaji Alade Idowu Odunewu exudes the supreme forbearance and Olympian calm of a timeless sage.

    But if five years ago was the dean’s November, now it is the December of the doyen. It is the autumn of the golden patriarch. Even in normal societies, it is impossible for ripe old age not to be accompanied by its peculiar adversities. But when you live in a post-colonial hellhole, it is a different proposition altogether. The Yoruba have a saying that there is a choice between long life and its inevitable adversities or the abridged existence.

    In the past five years, Allah De has ridden the ugly bumps of life’s adversities with calm fortitude. A very private man, these personal adversities should not be for public consumption, lest it is mistaken for something else. Nevertheless, snooper must condole with the grand old man on the passing of his beloved wife and the gruesome death of his doting and devoted son-in-law at a Lekki police checkpoint a few years back.

    We must not wait for our few heroes to depart before heaping fulsome praises on them; or before scrambling for the condolence register to pen effusive panegyrics. That is the way of cynical and diseased societies. This morning, we republish the tribute to the old man on the occasion of his scaling the octogenarian bar. Once again, let us all rise in honour of a great man and the fathers that sired him. Many happy returns to the dean.