The Nation Newspaper

Category: Columnists

Osun’s revolution in education

Unarguably, education is the most precious and enduring catalyst that has helped mankind in the discovery and sustenance of the world as we live in it today.

It is indeed the strongest weapon with which mankind broke the cycle of ignorance and darkness, thus arriving at the threshold of civilization.

It ultimately amounts to merely begging the question to say that a country which handles its education sector in slipshod manner faces one of the greatest perils that could ever threaten the foundation of its very existence.

And expectedly, a nation without clear cut education policy or one with low education quality, undoubtedly cannot stand among great nations of the world, which pioneer development, break new ground and open new vista in learning and knowledge towards the advancement the of entire human race via research.

The past three decades in the history of Nigeria’s education – both in policies and planning, not to talk of its progress – confronts one with a gory statistics of decadence, retrogression and abysmal performance if not outright failure.

It goes without saying the fact that the same measure of failure cascaded to the states with each one of the 36 states jostling to occupy the bottom table of poor performance index.

Sadly enough, in comparison, the type of education the country had from post-independence up to early 70s appeared to be the golden era in the nation’s history as opposed to the sham we have today.

As earlier observed, the shambles confounds one from one state to the other. No one state has the same problem or challenge as the other; each with its own peculiarity.

Hence the Case of the State of Osun couldn’t be any different from the shoddy account above. Until around October 2010, no one believed, including the people of the state themselves that the air in the balloon of the state’s education has instalmentally leaked away inexorably.

This point of despondency was exposed when the incumbent governor, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, declared a state of emergency in the education sector and called a summit on education.

What his government discovered were so terribly disheartening that the governor toyed initially with the idea of closing down all primary and secondary schools across the length and breadth of the state so as to allow for a total overhauling – from physical structure to curricula as well as restructuring of teachers and teaching aids, some of which were then scantily available.

The decision, according to Aregbesola, was informed by his administration’s discovery of crass degeneracy in both physical structures and polices of the school, thereby making qualitative and conducive learning impossible.

He also told the people at the summit that he however, refrained from his initial decision because of the colossal adverse consequences such clamp down would cause all stakeholders -government, pupils/students and parents – in the education sector.

He lamented that none of the public schools at that time could actually be called schools in the real sense of the name, which explained why he proposed closing all the schools down in order to swiftly address the rot.

Reversal of this decision, the governor revealed, caused the slow process of government’s intervention efforts in revamping the schools from this near total decline they have been for more than three decades without concrete efforts towards a turnaround around – how ever feeble – by successive governments.

Consequently, he elected to approach the gargantuan problems through a middle-of-the-road approach. The obvious corollary of this approach, as Aregbesola revealed, was a slow process of revamping the decades of cold-hearted inattention meted to the education sector in the State of the Virtuous.

The intervening periods thus allowed Ogbeni to go back to the drawing board to tackle the decay from the roots rather than surface-scratching it as the usual practice of old employed by past regimes.

After one and half years of painstaking planning and brainstorming, Ogbeni seems to have come up with radical solutions to education in the state.

The revolutionary process which, much more all-inclusive in outlook, is currently unfolding, going through what can be described as a test running. A cursory look at these new plans and policies reveal somewhat innovative strategies spiced with renascent programmes, which are a reminder of the colonial education heritage in Nigeria.

Let’s attempt to capture the new education agenda of Ogbeni’s government one at a time.

First is his idea of a physical structure of a place of learning called school. Aregbesola reminisced that in the 60s through to 80s the finest and edifying buildings in towns and cities were school buildings and so beautiful were they that even a blocked head would want to go to school merely seeing the architectural exterior of a school building.

Against this backdrop, Aregbesola conceived of a school building that will be an architectural masterpiece as a model school befitting the great people of his state. A sample of this model, which is one of 21 such buildings that will dot the states within the next 18 months, now stands splendidly in the capital.

In addition, his government is also building 100 elementary schools and 50 middle schools. That explains the physical structure.

At this junctures, a peep into the mind of Ogbeni is necessary in order to verify the authenticity of the motive behind the promised re-engineering of education in his state. His intention was informed by his sincere commitment to bequeath a lasting legacy in the state of his birth.

His words: “We are laying a solid foundation for their future – a future of freedom, a future of prosperity, a future of security…The rich will be allowed to pursue their choice of education for their wards but public schools will be put in the best possible shape for others and our people will have real choice.”

This budding seed sowed in this sector is so fundamentally irresistible to warrant accolades from the Senate Committee on Education which visited Osun few weeks ago in the performance of its oversight function.

The high power delegation, which was led by distinguished and indefatigable Senator Uche Chukwumerije openly, commended the efforts of the governor for his landmark achievements in education, and at the same time calling on other state governors to borrow a leave from what Aregbesola is doing in the education sector in his state.

He and some of his colleagues, including the wife of the former Governor of Lagos State, Senator Oluremi Tinubu; Professor Olusola Adeyeye, Senator Atiku Bagudu and others paid a courtesy visit to Osun as part of their oversight functions. Seeing the reforms on-going in the state’s education sector, Senator Chukwumerije said: “The states and the country owed Governor Aregbesola a lot of gratitude for promptly laying a formidable foundation for education in the state. I will like to use this opportunity to advise other states irrespective of your political affiliation. You must drop your ego and learn from the people oriented projects and programmes of Governor Aregbesola.”

Indeed, with what he has achieved so far, we would be safe to conclude that a new dawn is unfolding in education sector in the State of the Virtuous.

• Owolabi is of the Bureau of Communications and Strategy, Office of the Governor, State of Osun.

November 14, 2012
Dividends or Demands of Democracy? Envir/ Land Use Demands – Terrorist Taxation: A ’penkele mess’

Alhaji Lam Adesina, Former Governor and ACN leader in Oyo State is dead. We console his family. May he Rest in Peace. His legacy, limitations and achievements, will be analysed politically. All governors must think of their legacy. Today the living working citizens have serious economic challenges in Oyo State aggravated by IGR strategies. This requires intervention by current Governor Ajimobi.

A letter from a State Commissioner may appreciate you for ‘services rendered’ or be an Internally Generated Revenue Demand. The citizens are asking from government agencies ‘When is a ‘‘legality’’ an immorality?’ Bad Breaking News 1 on 1-11-2012: The Environmental Ministry’s Commissioner Dauda signed a dreaded ‘Demand Notice: Annual Environment Development Charges’ for my and hundreds of other business premises, N50,000/annum backdated 3 years to 2009 before this government came in. This N200,000 is payable ‘within three weeks or you.. ]face] a fine, imprisonment, seal of premises – 2004 law.

Bad Breaking News 2 on 29-10-12: Courier letter dated 29-10-2012 delivered on 9-11-2012 -10 days lost. Finance Commissioner Adelabu signed to me and hundreds of others a 2012 Land Use Charge of N126,000 for commercial use of building within 30 days. We could pay a discounted N107,000 if paid by 13-11-12, N157,500 paying between 13-28 Dec, N189,000 paying between 29 Dec-Jan 28 2013 and N252,000 paying between 29 Jan-28 Feb 2013, or ‘property will be liable to receivership by the state or its agent and any other ENFORCEABLE reliefs.

How can a charge double in four months? Does that make it easier to pay? Is this mere law enforcement or extortion? Is this bad political advice, legalised illegality or political rascality like when ‘people’ working during Adedibu/Akala’s time extorted up N20,000 ‘within one week’ from Ibadan businesses for ‘fire protection’? Those promoting excessive government charges should explain and perhaps be ‘sued’ by Civil Society and Consumer Protection Agencies. Are these government charges, their size, time frame, threat factor and insulting wordings not ‘terrorist tactics/Tax Terrorism similar to colonial taxation? Imagine if we had enforcing state police. We should feel at home in a state we love, not in occupied territory.

Let public officials publish their own payments for charges in their business officers and homes. We hear the Residence Charges are coming also. What an unpleasant End of Year present from Government for an ‘annus horribilis’ with the January fuel strikes, poor power, dwindling business, November fuel scarcity and N120/litre fuel. Now triple taxation! Does government want blood from stone?The Governor, as a professional, businessman and politician, should please intervene. Can the Governor please cut the fees by 80% and cut out corruption opportunities of ‘negotiation’? A little from a lot of citizens is better than a lot from a few. Obama and the Red Cross made ‘billions’ from millions of $10-50 donations and not $1000s from a few.

These charges may breach the human rights of citizens who deserve civility not ‘demands’. Just because someone calls it ‘TAX’ or ‘Charge’ or ‘Demand’ does not make it morally correct in amount. Even if it is ‘legitimate’ and ‘IGR’, Fellow Nigerian citizens need protection from overzealous taxation. Where is the Citizens Ombudsman? The authors of excessive tax bills should be cautioned and sanctioned because their wild assessments are causing panic among their tax victims, the voting Nigerians of 2015. This ‘mental assault’ intimidates the citizens and the letters should be rewritten. There should be trust and mutual respect between citizens and government, not a master servant relationship. This is not a human face of government.Does no one uphold the SERVICON pact not to abuse the citizens’ trust and respect?

Would the Commissioners writing these letters be happy to receive letters promising such violence and vitriol? The bills are too high, too late in the year, with too short a notice for payment and too severe punishments. Does government want us to steal to pay these bills? Whenever the amount is agreed, bills and rents can be more easily paid by 12 monthly instalments like in civilised countries instead of once annually, ‘within one month’. An honest business professional could lose his business for this while the dishonest one will pay up and even ‘bribe up’. Meanwhile billions are stolen in government inflated contracts and corruption nationwide daily for no punishment.

IGR must be ‘Intelligently’ and empathetically collected. Are these letters different from the threatening text messages and letters sent by Boko Haram, kidnappers and robbers forcing citizens to pay ‘protection’? They have ‘legal’ backing but every schoolboy knows the quote ‘The law is an ass’ and interpreted differently by every lawyer and judge. Indeed the ‘law is a manipulated ass’ used by authorities to legalise immorality. The principle of environmental care and land use are good but extortion is not.

Firstly a charge for 2012 is issued in November 2012. Secondly, which financial wizardry makes N126,000 malignantly become N252,000 in four months, 300% interest per annum? Is that legal? Neither the Mafia nor Shakespeare’s Shylock and his ‘pound of flesh’ charge such interest rates? A la Adelabu of old, this is a ‘’penkele mess’’ demand of democracy, not a dividend. The citizen needs protected from government agents paid by citizens’ taxes. Struggling business, education and health services lift the state’s income and reputation. They are not pariah or the enemy but partners in state progress. The governor can intervene. For me, Agodi prison is a real 2013 possibility.

November 14, 2012
Feedback on ‘Achebe’s personal history of Biafra’

In keeping with my promise last week, here are some of the scores of reactions my piece of October 24 on the subject above generated in texts and emails.

Sir,

Thank you very much for balancing the story objectively. We need more of your likes to educate our people on what really happened in that Civil War. As you are aware, our people, for lack of reading their history books, can believe anything, including the fact that goats in Nigeria had eight legs before the Civil War! As for Prof Achebe, Olatunji Ololade summed his self-propelling lies thus, “There was an elder.” I cannot agree more!

Kayode A, Abeokuta.

Sir,

Your article on Achebe’s Biafra story was well written. Those of us Igbo who lived here before and after the war understand you. Both sides have certainly erred and strayed. What we need to learn is the futility of resorting to violence and murder as a method for redressing wrongs. Peaceful demonstrations and powerful articles like yours and powerful speeches and lectures like Azikiwe’s in the pre Independence period are, in my view, better. The newspaper articles and the action of the Save Nigeria Group urging the observance of the Constitution regarding the succession of Yar’Adua by Jonathan proved that this method can work. And it is a more civilised way of dealing with such issues.

Dr. Ekweani, Kabala Hospital, Kaduna.

Sir,

You missed Achebe’s point. I’m neither Igbo nor northerner nor a fan of both people, but, my dear, we need to say the truth. And you are the one not saying the truth not Achebe. Why didn’t northern officers stop at killing Ironsi and Igbo army officers? Jan ’66 coup saw less than 35 casualties, but July ’66 coup saw well over 300 victims. Was that not enough revenge? Why oh why, did they go ahead to kill civilians in such large numbers and expect the Igbo to stay calm for the sake of one Nigeria? Your article justifies the murder of countless innocents. This is one area anti Achebe writers, including you, glossed over. If hatred for the Igbo wasn’t a factor, why didn’t Gowon institute policies to assuage Igbo feelings? How on earth did you expect a tribe that lost 30,000 souls in massacres across the North not to opt for secession?

Tonye Kalango, Port Harcourt

Sir,

I read with dismay and I found it very nauseating reading miles of inaccurate nonsense you wrote about Chinua Achebe and the Civil War. I don’t like distortion of facts which is your trade mark. You exhibited a stunning ignorance of what happened during the war. Yoruba and Northerners both hate Ndigbo. Why don’t you leave us alone to go as Biafrans? You hate us and you still want us to be in Nigeria. I believe you are confused and your confusion emanated from a deeper ignorance different from what Achebe has written in the nice book, “There was a country”.

Collins Ewenike, Imo State.

Sir,

For the first time you are writing southern issue without your acidic bite. Thanks for not joining our Yoruba brothers to shout down peoples account as if they have skeletons in their cupboard. Ojukwu failed the Igbo by not writing his account before he died. Please beg Gowon not to make the same mistake again. We, the new generation Igbo, need as much information as possible on the Civil War so that when the time comes in the near future we will not suffer the same fate again.

Andrew Udeze

Sir.

Your piece of 24/10/12 got it all right. However, you equally allowed the manipulation of historical events to affect you, which reflects in your write up. You may note that Anthony Enahoro’s proposal for independence in 1956 was in 1953, which Sir Ahmadu Bello sought for its amendment with the clause “as soon as practicable’. The eventual motion for Independence was proposed by Chief S. L. Akintola in 1959. The Yoruba nation, in its desire to erase the contributions of Akintola, conspired to ensure that all his landmark inputs were obliterated from historical events. Sir, please crosscheck this area of your work and don’t allow students of political history quote you in error.

Mohammed Adebayo Ameenu

Sir,

Thanks for the refreshing angle on the one of the causes of the Civil War. Achebe has only succeeded in opening a can of worms, and creating disaffection between new generations of Nigerians.

+2348034058476

Sir,

Your fact on Igbo triumphalism and their celebration and gloating at the death of Sardauna is very true, as I recall as a seven year old in Makurdi, a recorded popular song in Igbo with the lyrics ‘ewu ne barkwa’ ( meaning a goat is crying or gloating). Regrettably that’s what the Igbo still think and call all Northerners. What puzzles and annoys me is why would an icon like Achebe today remind me of the sad era of me running for cover with my siblings whenever Makurdi came under Biafran bombing? History is okay but Nigerians, especially the Igbo, should let the sores of that period of the life of the nation go.

Adoga Anyebe

Sir,

I can’t understand what Achebe wants to achieve by raking up an old wound with so much hatred at a time this nation has so much present day challenges to surmount. What Nigeria needs today is how to heal old wounds so as to move forward. I suppose Achebe is familiar with the saying that if you cannot improve on the silence it is better to keep quiet!

I think Achebe and some members of his generation with long memory for hatred are part of the problem with Nigeria. Period!

Dr Festus Aisabokhale

Sir,

I hold you in a very high esteem, and your critique on Achebe’s latest offering, ‘There was a Country’, has only reinforced my respect for you.

You pointed out, from your perspective, the lapses inherent in the work without abusing the author. There is no doubt that Achebe is human, and therefore he is not infallible. The good thing about this work is that it has opened up the debate for a soul searching exercise, and even the healing of the wounds of the past.

It is right for those that do not agree with Achebe to state their own perspectives, without resorting to inflammatory statements or abuses. I do not share the view of some commentators that we should bury the past and forge ahead. The holocaust is still being discussed in the Western world, in spite of being a very sensitive issue.

If, as you pointed out, Achebe glossed over the murder of innocent military officers of Northern extraction by Major Nzeogwu and other conspirators, then you have towed the same line of argument as Michael Hollman, one of the first reviewers of the book, who stated that the book is ‘partisan in perspectives’. I was uncomfortable to learn from you that Achebe did not acknowledge the contributions of nationalists like Herbert Macaulay and Bode Thomas to our independence. However, the lapses inherent in the book do not detract from its importance and relevance to our fledgling society. For once, both the generation that did not witness the Civil War and those that witnessed the brutal conflict are engaging themselves in intellectual exercises; some in the right direction, others, unfortunately, in the wrong direction.

Erasmus Ndulue.

Only well informed and respected columnists like you and Duro Onabule, would serve as guides to ensure the youths do not stray from the path of probity. Abusing Achebe and demonising his tribe, simply because his views were seen as ‘being partisan’ will not help matters. We need other perspectives to balance the stories of our unfortunate past. As you rightly pointed out, ‘The truth of the Civil War was that there were rights and wrongs on both sides’.

Another critic, Clem Baiye, in Tell of October 29, even pointed out that Achebe did not address the issue of the opposition of the minorities in the Southeast to the secession of Biafra in his work. It is however simplistic and reductionist for most commentators to dwell solely on Achebe’s comment on Awolowo’s role during the war. Those commentators turned a blind eye on Achebe’s observation of Awolowo’s meticulousness in managing the affairs of Action Group, as pointed out by Clem Baiye in Tell.

Having said that, I have placed an order for the book, and your critique will surely serve as a guide for a student of political history like me.

November 14, 2012
The ‘fever’ of Obama’s re-election

After months of gruelling and exhilarating campaign, the two front runners in the 2012 Presidential contest in the United States of America – Barack Obama of the Democratic Party and Mitt Romney of the Republican Party – left their fate in the hands of the electorate last Tuesday. At the end of the election, which has been described as the toughest ever in the history of the country, Obama won an overwhelming majority votes. With this, the first African-American President of the US won a second term in office as the country’s 44th President.

It has gone down as one election where political bookmakers got it wrong, opinion polls and exit polls somersaulted, and an overwhelmed media declared the polls too close to call. For many of us, it was like a battle of our lives. Days before the election, I had taken it upon myself to put regular calls through to my friends in the US in order to get-first hand information about the campaign. That was when it became obvious that the usually reliable international media could no longer be relied upon.

Not even the Sandy storm that bared its rage across the east coast of America, leaving disaster and destruction along its tempestuous route, was enough to dissuade Uzoma Nwagwu from his daily commentaries which he shared with me with ferocious interest. Uzoma is a resident of New Jersey who commutes to New York every day to fend for self and family with a paid employment at the Citi Bank Group. Before he ‘migrated’ to ‘Obama’s land’ about 20 years ago, Uzoma had had a stint with a newspaper in Nigeria. He had also been exposed to some pro-democracy activists who were at the fore-front of the clamour for civilian rule in the country in the early 1990s.

So to Uzoma, whom his numerous friends prefer to call Uzor, monitoring an all-encompassing campaign like the recent one in America was more or less a familiar terrain. He was just there anytime his phone rang to give updates. He exuded confidence and charisma each time he weighed the chances of Obama and Romney. When Obama faltered during his first televised debate with Romney, we were both gripped with fear and trepidation.

Though Romney’s rating had unexpectedly soared after that first encounter, Obama was to shore up his electoral value during the other two debates. On the eve of the election, we had to abandon every other thing and concentrated attention on how Obama would fare in the battleground and swing states. At least, we were sure of his victory in Ohio because of his auto bailout programme which resuscitated the failed auto industry. This ensured that workers in the state had their jobs for keep in the aftermath of the economic recession that plagued the US and the rest of the world in 2008. But we had concern over Florida, Iowa, Virginia, Wisconsin, North Carolina and others.

At a point, Uzor and I became more troubled when feelers started pouring in that many of the white voters had probably introduced racial dimension into the voting pattern in their desperate attempt to ease out ‘our candidate’ (Obama) from the White House. That evening, the Cable Network News, CNN, which has maintained a track record of accurately projecting winners of elections in US for many years, played safe and could only see a tie between Obama and Romney. That sort of increased the adrenalin flow in our bloodstream.

At 11:18 pm (Eastern Time in America), when Fox news, CNN and other news outlets still projected President Obama winner, the race to the White House wasn’t anything close. It was a decisive victory for Obama who polled 332 electoral votes, 62 votes more than the required 270 votes, against Romney‘s Republican party’s 206. Obama also swept eight out of nine swing states, with North Carolina his only battleground loss. Of the 56 presidential elections held in United states, 44 presidents in US history, incumbents have run 30 times, winning 20 times and losing 10 times.

But Obama’s second-term victory did not come as a surprise. The worsening economy set the agenda for the 2012 election. Obama made lots of grandiose promises when he was first elected President in 2008. Paul Ryan, the Republican Vice president, captured this thus: “He promised to cut the nation’s deficit in half? It doubled. He vowed to create jobs and put Americans back to work; unemployment rate grew higher than the day he took office. You have 23 million Americans struggling to find work, 15 percent of American citizens are today living in poverty”.

The facts are monumental and, definitely, the defence of Obama’s record almost made his candidacy a hard sell. All but the economy became central in the campaign. It is the Middle class that lost their jobs and could not find any. They lost their homes as they could not pay their mortgage and could no longer afford medical care for the family. No wonder the two candidates ran their campaigns focusing on the class.

Obama’s ground game of getting voters, micro targeting the much-needed audience, and ensuring they voted timely, was a deciding factor for the outcome of the election. For sure, hurricane Sandy did not blow in wind of votes for his victory rather it was the result of a carefully conceived election campaign based on changing political demography that was passionately executed.

Essentially, the grounding game strategy roared Obama’s message home directly to the target audience. He connected with the Middle class who formed the bulk of the voters. He understood that voters wanted the president they know. They believed convincingly that Obama, not Romney, understood their nightmares of college costs, insurance bills and all that. Virtually, in most of Obama’s rallies, he did not fail to seize the opportunity to remind Americans that he had been in their situation, understood and shared their values. This worked well for him as exit polls showed that voters thought far more and viewed Obama as the voice of the poor and the middle class. On the other hand, they saw Romney as the guy leaning perpetually toward the rich.

Furthermore, Latino vote was a significant block. Obama’s campaign strategists, therefore, converted to advantage, the emerging demographics and their voting influence on the outcome of the election. He succeeded in building a firewall with Hispanics, and tapped heavily on their increasing population. Hispanics became the biggest deciders of the election. For the first time, they represented 10 percent of the overall electorate. On the whole, Hispanics cast about 11 million votes in the election.

There was a good reason for this. Five months earlier, under an executive action, Obama amended the immigration policy to allow hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants who came to the United States as children to remain in the country and work without fear of deportation. That appeared to have removed the rug underneath Romney’s feet. From then on, the Republican Party candidate was all through hunted by his statement calling for illegal immigrants to “self-deport”.

Also, throughout the campaign, Romney carried the baggage of horrendous gaffes. The problem was that the Republican Party candidate couldn’t pass the credibility test. It was so bad that even many voters who were hitherto disenchanted with Obama found it unsafe to vote for Romney who was seamlessly at ease shifting grounds on his earlier adopted positions on many issues.

On the whole, Romney’s flip-flop cast aspersions on whether he could really be trusted by Americans. Obama’s strategists effectively used the question of Romney’s credibility to ask American’s who they trusted based on their antecedent. At a point in the campaign, Obama was constrained to call his rival a ‘talented salesman’ who will change his position at anytime to win. The lesson of the 2012 United States presidential election especially for Nigeria, is a topic for another day.

November 14, 2012
Obama/Justice Jombo-Ofo: Tale of two nations

The widening gap between America’s astonishing progress in managing her diversities and Nigeria’s rather embarrassing retrogression at integrating her diverse populations has come to the fore, once again. While an Anambra born woman, Justice (Mrs.) Ifeoma Jombo-Ofo, could not be sworn in as Justice of the Court of Appeal because she hails from Abia, a different State as her husband’s, an Africa-American, Barack Obama, was re-elected by a predominantly white population as the President of the most powerful nation in the world. What a shame!

This brings to the fore a recent lecture entitled “The Political Ideology of the Great Zik of Africa and the Leadership Challenges in Nigeria” delivered by the Deputy President of Senate, Senator Ike Ekweremadu in Awka. Ekweremadu had noted that apart from the fact that Zik won election in the South West, with his NCNC also showing great strength in the 1951 Western Region House of Assembly election, NCNC installed Altine Umoru and Bashorun Balogun as the Mayors of Enugu and Port Harcourt, respectively. According to him, therefore, the question our generation would have to answer is: “Why is it that decades after the great Zik and his generation had shone the light of this level of brotherhood, we are still unable to profitably manage our diversities and gel into a true nation state?”

Also, wondering if we are actually making progress or retrogressing, the Senate Leader explained during a debate on the matter by the Senate in plenary that some 30 years ago, an Igbo man, Honourable Justice Kalu Anya was the Chief Judge of Borno State, while a Yoruba man was the Attorney-General of the Borno Judiciary.

Let us look at the contrasts to find answers to Ndoma-Egba’s questions. Sometime in the United States history, blacks were just some pieces of property, with the first set of black slaves arriving in State of Virginia. It was a long and tortuous history of misuse, dehumanisation, and derogation. In 1800, a black slave and blacksmith, Gabriel Prosser planned a slave revolt which was to march on Richmond, Virginia. His plan was uncovered and he and many fellow black “conspirators” were hanged. The same faith befell Nat Turner, an African American preacher in Virginia in 1831 as well as Denmark Vessey in Chesterfied, South Carolina in 1821. Ironically, as if to atone for its notoriety for slavery and highhandedness against black slaves, Virginia, known to have consecutively delivered to the Republican Party from 1968 to 2004 presidential elections, made a “U” turn to elect Obama, a black, in 2008 and re-elected him few days ago.

Now, though the US Congress banned slave importation in 1808, the US Supreme Court ruled in Dred Scott’s case that slaves were not citizens. Yet, from Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation that freed black slaves in the Confederate States in 1863 to the Fifth Amendment that gave the blacks voting rights; from the election of Hiram Revels as the first African-American Senator (Mississippi) in 1870 in the period of Reconstruction (1865-1877) to election of 16 black Congressmen and 600 black state legislators in the same period; from the founding of the first college for black women (Spelman College) in 1881 to the breaking of Major League Baseball’s colour segregation when Jackie Robinson signed to the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947; from the integration of African-Americans into the US military by President Truman in 1948 to the landmark Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kans case in which the Supreme Court declared (on May 17, 1954) that all forms of racial discrimination in schools was unconstitutional; from the popular Rosa Parks refusal to give up her seat to a white passenger at the “coloured section” of a bus in Montgomery on December 1, 1955 to the successful one-year bus boycott by blacks that led to the desegregation of buses in Montgomery in December 1956; and from the sweeping Civil Rights Act under President Lyndon Johnson in 1964 that prohibits discrimination of any kind- race, colour, religion, national origin, etc, plus the Voting Rights Act (1965) and another Civil Rights Act (1968) to the election of President Obama in 2008, the US has made tremendous progress in transforming into a country that truly lives out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold this truth to be self evident, that all men are born equal”. US is now a country of Martin Luther King’s dream where “men are judged by the content of their character, not by the colour of their skin”. This invariably accounts monumentally to America’s tremendous transformation into an economic and political super power because men and women find their dreams, becoming the best they are capable of, irrespective of their religion, race, colour, etc.

Conversely, Nigeria has moved from a nation where an Altine Umoru and Bashorun Balogun became Mayors of two biggest cities in the then Eastern Region, namely Enugu and Port Harcourt, to one where no man/woman amounts to anything outside his/her State of Origin. We have retrogressed from a nation where an Honourable Justice Kalu Anya became Chief Justice of Borno to one where an Anambra born Justice Jombo-Ofo, was refused ascension to the Court of Appeal unable to access her full rights and privileges as a Nigerian from her State of Marriage, Abia. Ironically, she remains an Abian, her children remains Abians, and will no doubt be her final resting place when she is called. We have also moved retrogressed to a country where a Governor of a State in a 21st century Nigeria has, on purely sectional and ethno-religious grounds, consistently upbraided and discredited the ongoing efforts to address dire contradictions in Nigeria’s constitution. Even though we spend billions of naira funding the NYSC, we are steadily transforming into a country where funny and incompetent characters could occupy the best of available positions and opportunities, so long as they are “sons and daughters of the soil”. Again, what a big shame!!!

However, given the national applause that has greeted the patriotic motion moved by Senator Ekweremadu and the entire Senate calling the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Honourable Justice to order, it is comforting that Nigerians understand that this Jombo-Ofo matter, if allowed to stay, would sound a requiem for Nigerian women and big obstacle for inter-state marriage and national integration. It is like digging a grave for our future.

Kowtowing to an unreasonable Rule of the Federal Character Commission (FCC) is not a complementary commentary on the nation’s judiciary. Unless we are saying that the FCC Rule overrides Section 42 of the 1999 Constitution which provides that no Nigerian should be discriminated against on the ground of religion, state of origin, sex, language, etc.

i also feel this national embarrassment should further mobilize Nigerians to support the National Assembly to replace the State of Origin with State of Residence in the ongoing constitution review. Indeed, what God has joined together, let no judiciary put asunder. Besides, the hunger, insecurity and poverty challenges we face, know no state, religion, tribe or tongue.

• Anichukwu is Special Adviser (Media) to Deputy President of Senate.

November 14, 2012
Restoring public trust in Ekiti

The common notion about political office holders otherwise called politicians in developing countries is that they are not to be trusted when they make electioneering promises which has more often turned out to be mere sloganeering. However, in Ekiti State, trust is gradually being restored in governance with the advent of Governor Kayode Fayemi. Ekiti people have realised that he is different from other politicians because he has kept a substantial part of his electioneering campaign promises which he made to them in 2007 as encapsulated in his 8-point agenda.

It was the same 8-point agenda he reiterated when he was sworn-in as governor on October 16, 2010 by promising to deliver the dividends of democracy by ushering in a new dawn. Ekiti people had been traumatised through bad governance by previous administrations of conservative elements. Though Fayemi assumed the leadership of Ekiti State with a lot of goodwill from the people who felt their liberator has come, he had a lot of burden on his shoulders to live up to their expectations.

He almost incurred their wrath arising from his methodical planning which took him some time before taking off fully. One cannot blame the people because they have suffered and had many unfulfilled promises in the past so they expected an immediate succour from the governor whom they regarded as a magic worker. Dr. Fayemi took his time, calculated, planned and carefully identified what he wanted to do and how to do it before launching his agenda fully. He inherited a debt of 42 billion naira and many abandoned projects from his predecessor, a paltry 109 million naira Internally Generated Revenue and a meagre 2.5 billion naira monthly allocation from the federation’s account which is the second lowest in the country.

But with careful planning, prudent management of resources and an avowed commitment to the welfare of the people, he has been able to deliver, within reasonable limits, dividends of democracy in an unprecedented manner. In two years, Fayemi has turned Ekiti State into a huge construction site such that discerning observers say the job he has done is more than what some governors did in 8 years.

It is not only the work that Fayemi did that fascinates Ekiti people, but the way he has earned their trust in governance. His method is novel and his style is inviting and fascinating. He is the first Governor in the country to embark on a village square meeting for the sole purpose of knowing what each community in his state requested to be incorporated in the budget. He started this in November 2011 when he undertook the tour of all the local governments where every town sent a representative to ask for at least three projects the community would like to be incorporated in the following year’s budget (2012).

At each meeting, he promised the towns that, at least one project would be granted for each town in the budget. This promise has been fulfilled as every town with at least a project either completed or ongoing presently as contained in the 2012 budget. Out of these requests, provision of pipe borne water and boreholes, supply of transformers and repair of schools were common demands across the communities. The Governor immediately embarked on the construction of mini-water works in many towns.

The final phase of solving the water problem in Ekiti once and for all will be in 2013 when the pipes would have been ready and the Ero, Egbe, Ureje and Itapaji dams would have started functioning optimally..

When the Governor embarked on another round of village square meeting in October 2012 to again request for what each community desire to be in the 2013 budget, he got more gratitude than requests. The social security for the elderly became the most popular of the programmes while the renovation of schools was next. In all the LGAs visited, elderly women who are beneficiaries of the N5, 000 monthly allowance came in groups to pray for the Governor while many of them danced with him. One elderly woman who was about 80 years old presented the Governor with a gift of Kolanut which she had kept for a long time for the Governor. A touching episode was when the Governor visited Ola-Oluwa Muslim grammar school. The students swarm round the governor and were falling over one another in their bid to touch him in a show of appreciation which nearly led to a stampede inside the newly refurbished hall.

Therefore, when the governor embarked on the village meetings in October, it was sure that he has restored confidence into governance with the way people of the communities gave him a rousing welcome for keeping to his promise of the previous year. They also thanked him for restoring peace to Ekiti after many years of violence, instability and uncertainty. The Governor kept his note of their requests of 2011 which he read what they requested and what he has done out of the request. Some he has fulfilled fully while others are ongoing. So when they made other requests against 2013 budget, they trusted that he will do it again.

One of the journalists who had gone round the state on inspection in three days and to cover the second year anniversary remarked that there is no other state in Nigeria presently with the volume of job going on in Ekiti and they wondered how he managed to do this considering the small earnings of the State. What surprised the journalists most is the transformation of Ikogosi Warm Spring resort centre within one year. Some of them who visited the resort last year were short of words when they saw the level of transformation of the place.

The roads leading to the place from all directions have been tarred. The landscaping has been done, new chalets have been constructed while the existing ones have been renovated. A 1,000 seater amphitheatre is almost completed while the whole place has been redesigned. The swimming pool is brand new with the warm spring water directly piped into the pool and the whole area of the warm and cold spring have been transformed to accommodate small huts for family relaxation. A long stretch of pathway made of strong plank of teak wood has been constructed right from the chalets to the warm spring area. The scenery is so natural and picturesque such that it has made the resort a world class tourist centre.

The Governor has again promised to embark on ‘Operation Renovate all Hospitals’ in year 2013 while the urban renewal currently going on in Ado-Ekiti would be extended to other traditional headquarter towns of Ikole, Ikere and Ijero in the first phase. Ekiti people are excited over all the good things that are happening to them in the last two years and they are now convinced that governance could be made simple and result oriented if there is enough sincerity of purpose and an avowed commitment to improve the lives of the people on the part of a leader.

• Jamiu writes from Ado-Ekiti

November 13, 2012
Obama price

Say it! Recant in your own words! Let the whole world know!”

“Say what?” his askance eyes popped out.

“Go on!” he jeered, a glint of triumph in his mocking eyes. “When the going was tough, you were blabbing: Obama ti d’abamo o! Obama ti d’abamo o!” [Yoruba twisted pun, which could mean Obama has turned a joke or regret]. “Now that Obama has earned a second term, you must recant. Really,” he declared, rubbing it in, “you must!”

“O, that! But it was only an election!”

“Yes, it was. But you swore Obama would head back to his Kenyan Luo tribesmen, by the time the Republicans had finished with him!”

“But asodun n’iyen now! [That was just sweet talk!]. I was only jiving.”

“No, you looked earnest enough! Why don’t you admit it?”

“Okay, okay. I goofed. You win.”

“Better!”

“But you must credit the American electoral system – so transparent, even when they had challenges, as those voters in Chicago who gave up after hours of trying, because the computer crashed.”

“Yes, you’re right,” he admitted, nodding.

“But did you see the celebrating Kenyans? Obviously, the irony was totally lost on them.”

“What irony?”

“You mean you couldn’t get it?” It was the other’s turn to lase his partner with a triumphant glint. “Could a Luo man, a hapless minority, ever likely to become president in Kenya? And what rebuke Obama hands the Kenyan president!”

“Rebuke?”

“Yeah. President Mwai Kibaki was, for donkey years, a victim of electoral heist and political repression, during the Kenyatta and Arap Moi years. Yet, he replicated these same despicable conducts after he himself became president! See how he virtually forced the Kenyan electoral chief to declare him winner, even when the poor man could not vouch for the tally he announced? Can you imagine that?”

“I think it is an African curse.”

“African curse? You’re dead right!” he agreed. “Even here, all our leaders falling over themselves to congratulate Obama, with their mealy mouthed, empty and annoying cant. Have they ever learnt anything from the American democracy which they jump on the bandwagon to celebrate? I mean!”

“As for that,” the other conceded yet again, “I think our political elite are beyond redemption. But you know, Obama’s victory speech was fine. What blew me out, however, was Mitt Romney’s concession speech. It was simply majestic and brilliant, and after such acrimonious campaign! When would our politicians concede defeat with such grace and such majesty?”

“When the hurly-burly is done, when the battle is lost and won!” he said with laughing eyes. “But the problem is the Nigerian electoral battle is never lost and won; and the hurly-burly is never done: not with the pre- and election proper rigging, and post-election bickering, not to talk of the mindless violence that comes with the electoral territory!”

The other burst out in a guffaw. “I can feel you: professor of Macbeth and Shakespeare expert! Indeed, it is a classic case of how not to run a democracy!”

“But you know my real heroes of the Obama victory?”

“Who?” the other wanted to know.

“The WASP: White Anglo-Saxon Protestant, the American landlords and majority, since the discovery of the so-called new frontiers, after which they made savage mincemeat of the native red Indians and took over their land. But now,” he added with a sardonic, sententious air, spiced with laconic wit, “the WASP have an electoral wasp to contend with. They sting hard and take no prisoners! That is what has gifted Obama the American presidency for two terms – some historical comeuppance?”

“You know, you have a solid point there. Very solid point!”

“Yeah, I know!” he returned with a wink. “While a slice of the WASP voted for the other side, the minorities solidly voted for their own. Now, what sort of democracy is that, where the minority could band together to lord it over the numerical majority? Is democracy turning from majority rule to conspiratorial rule? I just wonder!”

“Don’t be so alarmist and sinister!” the other quickly cautioned. “It’s only two elections, in an electoral history of more than 200 years for God’s sake! Your generalisation is too sweeping.”

“You’re right; and I’m sorry, if I sounded alarmist. But I just wished one day, voters here too would behave like the American WASP – be enlightened and broad-minded enough to vote for quality and conviction and not be rabble-roused by passion and primordial sentiments. It makes democracy all the more beautiful!”

“I agree. But here, it is a different kettle of fish.”

“Meaning: that angels live in America and baboons live here?”

“Of course not – and don’t be silly! It is just that unlike America, even with its bias against the Black and even other minorities, there is a national consensus on how the state should be run. Here, it’s far from that – and the chaos at elections is only a symptom of that political anomie.”

“Meaning your favourite pitch for a national conference?”

“And why not?”

“I don’t see why not. But the regnant political elite would rather push their luck. To them, Nigeria is a gambit to be pushed to breaking point.”

“That is why we must not fold our arms. Nigeria is damn too important to be left solely to the politicians and power racketeers.”

“I agree, but back to the US elections. Obama, faced with a formidable foe and dead heat poll forecasts, told his electors that in four years, he had rapidly aged working for them – and he was evidently believable, for indeed he had aged, and his hair had turned grey out of punishing work.”

“And if I may add,” returned his partner, “Obama was not the first to be sentenced to such excruciating work. It took President Bill Clinton just 100 days in office to grow a shock of grey in his hair and develop bags under his two eyes – bags of glory he has carried till today!”

“Now my friend,” the other added, “show me the Nigerian equivalent of Obama or Clinton: straight-from-prison Mr. Anti-corruption, Olusegun Obasanjo, who left the presidency with rosy cheeks but bequeathed his country the gaunt cheeks of his Abacha gulag days? Or even present incumbent Goodluck Jonathan, under whose unsteady hands Nigeria faces a meltdown, yet whose hand couldn’t be steadier in his pursuit of a 2015 encore …?

“Your point, precisely?” the other snapped, almost rudely.

“That the presidency, or any other public office for that matter, is no booty to be enjoyed but service, service and ceaseless service to be endured. That, to me is the lesson of American democracy and the triumph of Obama, who our shameless leaders crow is the pride of the Black race – which indeed he is.”

“Again, I agree. They admire Obama so much. But can they pay the Obama price, in selfless and quality service?”

November 13, 2012
Election USA: A post-mortem

One week after his run for the White House went up in a puff, Mitt Romney and company are still trying to figure out what went wrong.

Most of the polls that did not give him a slight lead had him in a statistical dead heat with President Barack Obama. Surging crowds filled the venues of his rallies, following his strong performance against a sedated Obama in their first “debate.” From rally to rally he rode on a wave of enthusiasm, whereas Obama’s supporters sulked in quiet resignation.

In that debate, Romney twisted himself into so many different shapes and sizes that if the contest had been for the contortionist-in-chief of the United States, he would have won it that night for all practical purposes. The one who had made a virtue of being “severely conservative” cut the middle ground from under Obama’s feet with a brazenness that left the usually unflappable Obama utterly confused.

And it worked, splendidly.

In another clime, Romney would have been undone by that debate. For he confirmed his public image as a person without a core, a person who would say anything if he thought it would help him win, inauthentic. Not for nothing did one of his opponents in the race for the GOP ticket, Jon Huntsman, compare him to “a perfectly lubricated weather vane.”

But in America, where politics is a game like almost everything else, where appearance – they call it “optics” — counts far more than substance, Romney’s contortions catapulted him to front runner.

Nobody remembered anymore his comment about the 47 per cent of Americans who see themselves as victims and have settled for an easy life of dependency, nor the wealth he had salted away in off-shore tax havens, nor yet his sworn determination, in the face of established practice, to release no more than two years of his federal income tax filings.

Not even Obama’s superior performance in the two subsequent “debates” could arrest the Romney momentum. The race dragged on, oscillating within a minuscule window, leading commentators to project all kinds of possible outcomes.

One candidate (Romney) might win the popular ballot but lose the Electoral College vote to Obama, in which case Obama would have to contend with a fresh legitimacy issue that would provide fresh ammunition for the Tea Party crowd and its punditocracy that had spent the better part of the past four years trying to de-legitimise him.

A winner might not be known for several months, and it might fall again to the Supreme Court again, the Republican Party in judicial robes to determine the outcome, according to another scenario. They even conjured up one curious scenario under which Romney would be president, and Obama’s running mate and vice president, Joe Biden, would continue to serve in that capacity in the Romney Administration.

In these permutations, Obama figured only as a secondary actor.

One of the few pollsters who came to a different conclusion was Nate Silver, the computer geek and resident statistician for The New York Times. While others predicted an outright win for Romney or a squeaker at best for Obama, Silver gave Obama more than eight chances in ten to clinch the race outright. For this, he was denounced endlessly by Romney’s supporters.

Then, a deus ex machina that not even Sophocles could have devised supervened. Hurricane Sandy struck across 15 states in the North-east, wreaking devastation on a scale America has not seen since Katrina.

Hurricane Sandy called to mind another deus ex machina that had supervened at a critical moment in the 2008 presidential election contest between Barack Obama and John McCain. The race was a ding-dong affair. Obama had the crowds and the enthusiasm, but this did not translate into a significant lead in the polls.

The collapse of the stock market changed all that.

McCain called off scheduled rallies and headed to Washington DC, saying he was going to help fix the economy. Obama kept his cool, consulted quickly with the experts, and staked a position that Americans found much more reassuring than McCain’s panicked and erratic conduct. The rest is history.

Hurricane Sandy concentrated national attention on the ruin it had loosed on a vast swathe of the United States and to the efforts to deal with its aftermath. It offered President Obama to do what he does best – uniting the nation at a time of grief, and playing comforter-in-chief. There, on splendid display, and unsullied by the bitterness that has been the hallmark of the campaign – there was the essential Obama.

But I am not persuaded that it slowed down or arrested Romney’s momentum, as his camp is now claiming. Right up to Election Day, they believed that they had the game in the bag, and their own internal polling and a good many of the independent polls appeared to back them.

Romney and his inner circle certainly believed it.

He had written and tucked in his vest the acceptance speech he would deliver moments after Obama would have called to concede. Boats moored along Boston harbor, had been detailed to launch a spectacular eight-minute fireworks to herald Romney’s victory. This was, to be sure, an incongruous move in the major city of a state that had just rejected him overwhelmingly at the polls. But then, nobody has ever accused Romney of subtlety.

A web site for President-elect Mitt Romney was already up and almost running. Offices had been acquired in Washington DC to house his transition team.

Romney was set to hit the ground running, as they say here, though he would have to wait until taking office on January 20, 2013, or Day One as he called it on the stump, to abolish “Obamacare,” the health care delivery law enacted by the Obama Administration and affirmed by the Supreme Court of the United States. It did not matter in the least that it was modeled on the law Romney had enacted as governor of Massachusetts.

By the time they called Ohio some three hours after the poll closed, it was all over for Romney. Nate Silver, the resident statistician at The New York Times, had it right all along.

Hurricane Sandy undermined the Romney mantra that big government was an aberration, whereas the private sector is the answer to every problem under the sun. It exploded Ronald Reagan’s oft-cited dictum that there are no words in the English language more terrifying “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.”

But in the end, I think it was Romney’s phoniness that brought him to grief — his lack of a core, his inauthenticity, his cavalier treatment of politics as an amoral game in which winning is the only thing that counts, his belief that he could fool all the people all the time.

This was what Obama distilled into a powerful closing argument in the final days of the race. “You know me,” the drained and bone-weary candidate seeking re-election said at each stop. “You know what I stand for. You know that I say what I mean. You know that I mean what I say. . .”

Romney had no answer to that one.

Former President Clinton, who played a pivotal role in the Obama campaign, drove home the point to teeming admirers who remember his tenure as an era of prosperity.

The genius that has sustained the United States through the centuries prevailed. A bourgeoning progressive majority that cut across class and color and creed and tongue and gender and sexual orientation saw through the flakiness. It refused to submit to the fear-mongering, the race baiting, the xenophobia, the homophobia, and the demagoguery that constituted the pillars of Romney’s bid for the White House.

November 13, 2012
Now that Buhari says NO

Major General Muhammadu Buhari, retired soldier, politician and one time Head of State and Commander-In-Chief of the Nigerian Armed Forces is a man only a few can claim to know. The gangling Fulani man from Daura in Katsina State, northwest Nigeria is an enigma that is very difficult to unravel.

As a soldier he remained committed to the ideals of his profession and stuck to the best in military tradition. When he became a soldier/politician as Head of State, he, together with his second in command, late Major General Babatunde Idiagbon brought that steely quality of a good soldier combined with unquestionable discipline to bear on our daily lives and living as a people.

Not many Nigerians liked this then, but after living through the Babangida years of anything goes and the steady decline in our values as a people and a nation, not a few today would relish a dose of the Buhari/Idiagbon even if just a little, in order to bring sanity into our national lives. Such is the level that we have declined and things have degenerated that we would not even mind some “high handedness” of that era now.

This, probably was what some new day politicians who believe in cleansing Nigeria of the evil of corruption, maladministration, nepotism et al, all rolled into bad governance thought they saw in the retired General when they dragged him into partisan politics at the outset of this democratic dispensation. But each time he stepped forward to lead, he was given a resounding rejection by the electorate, or rather, rejected by the electorate acting under the manipulation of the ruling class. This is debatable you know?

These “qualities” were also probably what the terrorist organisation, Boko Haram saw in Buhari when they appointed him their negotiator-in-chief in their offer of dialogue with the Federal Government to end the mindless and evil terror they have been unleashing on the good people of northeastern and to some extent, northwestern Nigeria for some time now.

Lest I am accused of eulogising Buhari, no. Neither am I interested in bringing him down, far from it. All I’ve tried to do is to bring out what we know of Buhari’s past/antecedent to find out why Boko Haram would want him to represent them in a peace meeting with the government.

If it is the Buhari that we knew, I doubt if there would have been a Boko Haram then and even now if he were to be in charge, not to talk of being asked to represent them. But then you never can tell.

Before I was struck by malaria last week forcing this column to be off, I was debating the Boko Haram appointment of Buhari as a negotiator and concluded that head or tail the former Head of State would be the loser. If he accepts, his opponents would say “we told you so. The man is a religious fanatic, in fact a terrorist. How come Boko Haram chose him to represent them? He must be one of them or a sympathizer”. And if he says no, the story would change; “ don’t mind him, he is not a patriot at all, he’s only interested in himself. To help Nigeria find solution to this security challenge using his experience both as a former Head of State and retired General he is saying no, just because he wants Jonathan to fail so that the north (Buhari) can retake the presidency in 2015″, etc.

But considering the pros and cons, I thought Buhari should have accepted the offer but with conditions. Except there is contrary information, we all know that a former Head of State, especially one with Buhari’s kind of character would not support a Boko Haram. Forget about all his inflammatory political rhetorics of the past, he just doesn’t fit in. Yes, he has been carrying his religion/faith on his face but can he really do anything to hurt the other faiths if he gets to power? No. So, he’s just pandering to the Islamic faith just to get the support of the Muslims, which most politicians will do just to get elected?

Was Jonathan not sold to the South and the Christian elements in the North, in 2011 as ‘one of us,a Christian’ hence we should vote for him? So, if we can conclude that Buhari is not a terrorist or can not be a member of Boko Haram, then why can’t he represent them in negotiating peace with the Federal Government?

It is on the strength of this argument that I think Buhari ought to have accepted but may be as a mediator. Boko Haram probably chose him because of his integrity and belief that he won’t sell them out. Good if that was their reason. And I don’t think the Federal Government has anything serious against his choice. So it appears the man is his own problem over this matter. Why did I say this? If Boko Haram trusts him to negotiate for them and the government has no serious objection if any at all, why can’t he accept if it will help the nation find a peaceful end to this Boko Haram insurgency, after all he is are suppose to be a statesman and patriot? May be Buhari should ask himself why didn’t Boko Haram nominate Babangida or even Abdulsalami? Did I hear you say integrity?

Now as a mediator, all he needs to do is to sit down with terrorists to know what they want and also listen to the government’s position. After series of talks and shuttle diplomacy between both sides transmitting each side’s position to the other, he can then bring both sides together at a formal parley, where one expects Boko Haram’s leadership to come out in the open.

Buhari should not be afraid of the public perception of Boko Haram as murderers and terrorists. The Palestinian Liberation Organisation and it’s leadership, including charismatic Yasser Arafat were once regarded and labelled terrorists, especially by Israel and her allies, but that did not stop them negotiating underground before the now famous Oslo peace deal. The FARC rebels in Columbia are still similarly labelled and have not dropped their guns, yet negotiation is going on between their representatives and the Columbian government at a neutral country. So. If Buhari is really interested in helping Nigeria out of this conundrum he should accept to mediate between the Federal Government and Boko Haram and set up a formal platform for both sides to negotiate peace. After doing the ground work he can withdraw and allow them negotiate their peace. This is more honorable than outright no if he knows it. He should not mind all the noise and side talks, he should just face the task if he truly loves Nigeria. I am not rally bothered or persuaded by his explanation for his no, this is the time for all men and women of goodwill to step forward and pull his back from the precipice. For those abusing Buhari over this matter, time will tell.

But if the man should remain faithful and stubborn to his no, that should not discourage both the Federal Government and Boko Haram from pursuing that window of opportunity to achieve lasting peace in the north and the country in general. May be both sides could look for and agree on a less controversial but equally credible negotiator to arrange preliminary peace talks at a lower level after which a bigger parley could then be arranged where an agreement could be reached. Friendly but neutral countries could be brought him at this stage to gain the confidence of both sides. At every stage both sides must negotiate in good faith for the main objective of peaceful resolution to be achievable.

If at the end of the day nothing came out of this offer, Boko Haram in my opinion, have themselves to blame. All this while they have been fighting, bombing indiscriminately and killing innocent souls across the north without letting us know what their political demands are other than a vague reference to Islamization of Nigeria. Can that be a realizable agenda anywhere in the world today, not to talk of Nigeria?

Struggling to have a political face or voice to speak or represent them shows that they were just interested in killing, destroying or causing mayhem to avenge whatever injustice they must have suffered in the hands of whoever. Even the Talibans have people who speak for them and negotiate on their behalf with the Afghan government and even the Americans. So if Buhari says no, then Boko Haram should bring out their leaders and we’ll negotiate with them. We are tired of this bombings and killings. Let there be peace in the north.

November 13, 2012
Reflections on Awo phenomenon-2

These national groups are as distinct from one another as the Ibos are distinct from them or from the Yorubas or Hausas. Of the eleven, the Efik, Ibibio, Annang national groups are 3.2 million strong as against the Ijaws, who are only about 700,000 strong.

Ostensibly, the remaining nine national groups population is 1.4 millions. But when you have subtracted the Ibo inhabitants from among them, what is left ranges from the Ngennis, who number only 8,000 to the Ogonis, who are 220,000 strong.

‘A decree creating a COR state without a plebiscite to ascertain the wishes of the people in the area, would only amount to subordinating the minority national groups in the state to the dominance of the Efik-Ibibio-Annang national group. It would be perfectly in order to create a Calabar state or a Rivers by decree and without a plebiscite because each is a homogenous national unit. But before you lump distinct and diverse national units together in one state, the consent of each of them is indispensable, otherwise, the seed of social disequilibrium in the new state would have been sown. On the other hand, if the COR state is created by decree after the Eastern Region shall have made its severance from Nigeria effective, we should then be waging an unjust war against a foreign state. It would be an unjust war, because the purpose of it would be to remove ten minorities in the East from the dominance of Ibos only to subordinate them to the dominance of the Efik-Ibibio-Annang national groups.

I think I have said enough to demonstrate that any war against the East, or vice versa, on any count whatsoever, would be an unholy crusade for which it would be most unjustifiable to shed a drop of Nigerian blood. Therefore, only a peaceful solution must be found, and quickly too to arrest the present rapidly deteriorating stalemate and restore normalcy.

It is my considered view, that whilst some of the demands of the East are excessive within the context of a Nigerian union, most of such demands are not only well-founded, but is designed for smooth and healthy association amongst the various national units of Nigeria. For instance, the East has demanded the creation of separate regional monetary authorities, the demolition of the appellate jurisdiction of the Federal Supreme Court, and the dependence of the Federal Government on financial contributions from the regions.

These and other suchlike demands, I do not support. Demands such as these, if accepted, will lead surely to the complete disintegration of the Federation, which is not in the interest of our people. But I wholeheartedly support the following demands among others, which we consider reasonable and most of which are already embodied in our memoranda to the Ad Hoc Committee:

‘That mines and minerals should be residual subject: that revenue should be allocated strictly on the basis of derivation; that is to say, after the Federal Government has deducted its own share for its own services, the rest should be allocated to the regions to which they are attributable; that the existing public debt of the Federation should become the responsibility of the regions on the basis of the location of the projects in respect of each debt, whether internal or external; that each region should have and control its own militia and Police Force; that, with immediate effect, all military personnel should be posted to their regions of origin.

If we are to live in harmony with another as Nigerians, it is imperative that these demands and others, which are not here related, should be met without further delay by those who have hitherto resisted them. To those who may argue that the acceptance of these demands will amount to transforming Nigeria into a Federation with a weak central government, my comment is that any link, however tenuous, which keeps the East in the Nigerian union, is better, in my view, than no link at all.

Before the Western delegates went to Lagos to attend the meetings of the Ad Hoc Committee, they were given a clear mandate that if any Region should opt out of the Federation of Nigeria, then the Federation should b considered to be at an end, and that the Western Region and Lagos should also opt out of it. It would then be open to Western Nigeria and Lagos, as an independent sovereign state to enter into association with any of the Nigerian units of its own choosing on terms mutually acceptable to them.

‘I see no reason for departing from this mandate’, if any Region in Nigeria considers itself enough to compel us to enter into association with it on its own terms. I would only wish such Region luck. Luck, I must warn, will, in the long run, be no better that that which has attended the doings of all colonial powers down the ages!

‘This much I must say in addition, on this point. We have neither the military might, nor the overwhelming advantage of numbers here in Western Nigeria and Lagos. But we have the justice of a noble and imperishable cause on our side, namely: the right of a people to unfettered self –determination. If this is so, then God is on our side and God be with us- then we have nothing whatsoever in this world to fear.

The fourth imperative, the second conditional one, has been fully dealt with in my recent letter to His Excellency, the Military Governor of Western Nigeria and in the representation which your deputation made last year to the Head of the Federal Military Government. As a matter of fact, as far back as November last year, a smaller meeting of leaders of thought in this region decided that unless certain things were done, we would no longer participate in the meeting of the Ad Hoc Committee. But since then, not even one of our legitimate requests has been granted. I will, therefore, take no time in making further comments on a point with which you are well familiar.

As soon as our humble and earnest requests are met, I shall be ready to take my place on the Ad Hoc Committee, but certainly not before.

Certain attributes are required on the part of Nigerian leaders- military as well as non-military leaders alike- namely: vision, realism, and unselfishness.

But above all, what will keep Nigerian leaders in the North and East unwavering in the part of wisdom, realism and moderation is courage and steadfastness on the part of Yoruba people in the course of what they sincerely believe to be right, equitable and just.

In the past five years, we in the West and Lagos have shown that we possess these qualities in large measure. If we demonstrate them again, as we did in the past, calmly and stoically, we will save Nigeria from further bloodshed and imminent wreck and, at the same time, preserve our freedom and self-respect into the bargain.

In view of this, one has since discovered that the Awo legacy will never end. The Awo myth lives on. Theodore Sorenson sums it all when he wrote; “no myth or exaggeration, admiring or adverse can help hurt the dead. But it can make true perspective difficult for the living”.

• Concluded

• Teniola, former Director in the Presidency, Office of the Secretary to the Government now lives in Lagos.

November 13, 2012