The Nation Newspaper

Category: Columnists

  • Queen’s College admission: Letter of apology to my daughter

    “ — no one can even live in Samaria without being a liar, thief and bandit.” Hosea 7v1 (TLB)  

    My dear 10-year- old daughter, you may be wondering why I have taken our private matter to the pages of a national newspaper when we had discussed the matter at home ad nauseam and you have had to join your siblings in a private school in the neighbourhood? Well the answer is that, yes we have borne our pain and frustration with equanimity but the matter transcends us; it is deeper and of more import than you can understand now. More important, hundreds of other ten-year-old boys and girls like you may have suffered the same inequity and injustice which they have borne quietly as if these were our national ethos. Another reason daddy is speaking up in this manner is that it has gone on for too long that we not only glory in our iniquitous ways, we now make huge capital of it.

    When you sat for the National Common Entrance Examination (NCEE) early this year, you were quite optimistic that you would do well having studied very hard. You wanted so much to attend Queen’s College (QC) having heard so much about it and cherishing the idea of living in the boarding house. When the result was released and you scored 147 out of a possible 200 marks, it was not an excellent result but good enough, especially when we learnt that the cut off mark for your state, Imo, is 135.

    We were quite elated that you stood a good chance until we got to QC in Yaba, Lagos only to find out that the entire admission process is a well choreographed national racket. First shocker was the cut-off point per state pasted on the notice board (see table). I remember how your joy evaporated when you learnt that you did not stand any chance at all because you came from Imo State. At the vice principal’s office, an official addressed us with a hint of rebuff and mockery seeming to wonder why we were bothering them having scored such a (low) mark and coming from Imo. We were treated as if you failed the exam when you actually scored approximately 74%.

    You were crestfallen; your little mind must have gone into a weird jiu-jitsu, especially upon noticing that your fellow candidates from Yobe State who could have scored zero; yes absolute, stark naked zero could have a chance over you in Queens College, Lagos. Had you come from any state in the North of Nigeria, you would have been top of the class, a champion as the highest cut-off mark from there is 120 points (Kwara). The alien logic of a student with zero score getting admitted into any school and another with a very good grade getting shunted must have stunted your growth for days. You had many questions some of them swimming in your now welled-up eyes. Some of your questions almost made dad cry too because I could not answer them with much conviction.

    “Is it because we are Igbo that is why QC did not take me even though I passed?”

    “ Well, sort of my dear. More people from Anambra, Imo and Enugu States scored high marks so you needed to score a minimum of about 80% to have stood a chance.”

    “So why don’t they build more schools like QC so that they can admit all the pupils who passed?”

    To this question, I really did not have any coherent answer knowing that some of the so-called Unity schools where built by the British colonial government and knowing that no new secondary school has been built by the federal government in the last 20 years or more even as Nigeria’s population grew exponentially. What this has exposed is that government is winking in the dark as regard education, the single most important index of development. What this plainly shows is that government does not have the vital statistics concerning education; concerning school intakes of yesterday, today or tomorrow.

    And what mad scramble we have in the few ‘good’ schools available. “Daddy, is it true that you were asked to pay money for them to admit me in QC?” (she must have overheard her mother and I discussing this. One of those forlorn trips to QC, someone who claimed to be a teacher noticing my helplessness, had furnished me a phone number to call for help. When I had called days later, I was told that for a fee of N250,000.00 I could ‘buy’ a teacher’s admission quota.)

    I was to learn that apart from the quota system and federal character method of allocating the admissions, anyone who was desperate enough and had enough cash got his ward into any of the ‘Unity Schools’ especially after all the top notch government officials must have had their fill of the sordid porridge.

    My dear daughter, even I did not know that we had reached this low, this nadir where we keep chickens and pigeons in the same coop. I learnt that there are a minimum of 70 students per class in QC; one ‘united’ Nigerian classroom of the good, the bad and the very ugly yoked into one: a perfect picture of a crumbling collage of the Nigerian state writ large in Queen’s College classrooms. A soulless confederacy not spared even at infancy, of the extremely dull, the super bright, the graft-assisted and all, meshed with legitimized impunity in a salubrious girls’ college. What recipe for failure for a doggoned country?

    My dear little girl, this is where our country Nigeria is today. This is probably where we were over 50 years ago. It reminds me of what my respected senior colleague Malam Mohammed Haruna wrote in his column on the back page of this paper (24/10/2012). Responding to a point Chinua Achebe raised in his book, There was a Country, Haruna said, “… what Sardauna objected to was the timing (of Nigeria’s Independence) for the simple and understandable reason that for historical reasons the South had a huge head-start over his region in producing the skills required for running the government, and he needed time to do something about the gap.”

    After 52 years, nothing seems to have been done about the ‘gap’. It has indeed remained more gaping today. Why would the gap close if the North has been enjoying what I call a delirious advantage over other parts of the country in the distribution of our commonwealth? As a State governor, I would loathe, in fact I would be utterly insulted should my State be allotted zero or a derogatory cut-off point in any national exam. Where is the challenge to compete or the will to excel if I can make do with zero score? Mediocrity will only breed mediocrity.

    This is our story my dear daughter; a country where an Haruna who scored zero per cent would get admission, federal jobs and all the other privileges and an Osuji who scored 74 per cent is denied and shooed away. Take heart my daughter but take note: don’t stop talking about it, don’t stop contesting it, don’t stop protesting it and indeed, fight over it if you must. Accept my apology for I failed you, but the ball is now in your court.

  • Six years so soon?

    Six years so soon?

    In every crowd of horizontal men there is always one vertical man who deserves honour not much because of his vertical position but because of the significant difference which that position makes to the crowd”

    Time flies. It was six years last Tuesday that His Eminence, Dr. Muhammad Sa‘ad Abubakar III, CFR,ascended the throne as the 20th Sultan of Sokoto. The historic date was November 6, 2006. Until then, this lucky man’s name did not ring any bell in Nigeria. And he probably was not conscious of the royal blood in him. If he was at all, his humble nature did not reflect it. But the thinking of man is quite different from the will of Allah. And when the thinking of man clashes with the will of Allah, the latter’s automatically prevails.

    For Sultan Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar III, ascending the throne of the great Sokoto Empire was like the rise of the sun anon meridian. When it beams its rejuvenating light, all the stars in the galaxy take their bow.

    History and man are like Siamese twins or a pair of scissors. The one cannot do without the other. History makes man just as man makes history. And the reciprocal baton continues to change hands between them as long as they remain in existence.

    Thus, the emergence of Brigadier General Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar as the successor to the exalted throne of the great Sokoto Empire without any controversy came as a surprise to many Nigerians. At 50 years of age then, many people believed that he was one of the youngest men to become the Sultan in many decades. But he disagreed with such suggestion recalling that his own father, Sultan Abubakar Saddiq III who died in 1988 ascended the throne at the age of 37.

    There is something mysterious about name which humanity is yet to comprehend fully. A puzzling secret seems to exist in the vocabulary of life which sticks to every man like a second skin. That secret, pearled in the yoke of name, is an effective evidence of destiny in man. Our names are the light that glows at night to lighten up our ways through the threshold of life. And when the dawn comes to render the glowing light ineffective, the bearer bows out into the recluse of death leaving behind an indemnified signature on the sands of time. This was the case with Prophet Muhammad (SAW), the greatest man who ever lived on the surface of the earth. Even as an unlettered son of Arabia who was born in an era of blatant ignorance, he introduced into the world, an unprecedented civilisation that opened the eyes of humanity to everlasting guidance. In recognition of his exemplariness, Allah said in Q 33: 21: “You have a good example in Allah’s Apostle for anyone who looks to Allah and the Last Day and remembers Him always”. The name Muhammad which means ‘Praiseworthy’ was never known to have been borne by anybody in Arabia before the birth of the Prophet. And no other person was known for bearing that unique name in Makkah and its environs until after his call to the office of Prophet-hood when Muslim parents started naming their children after him in appreciation of his greatness and in emulation of his exemplary character. Today, at the mention of Prophet Muhammad anywhere in the world, everybody around responds with thunderous traditional chanting of ‘Salla Llahu alayhi wa sallama’ meaning: ‘Allah’s peace and blessings be upon him’. This is even sometimes chanted unconsciously by some non-Muslims. Sultan’s first name is Muhammad which he bears in emulation of the Prophet. His second name is Sa’ad meaning ‘Good ‘Luck’ which makes him a name-sake of one of the Prophet’s disciples (Sa’d bn Abi Waqqas) who was a great Army General of Islam. And his (Sultan’s) surname is Abubakar which means ‘father of youths’, a name which he shares with the first Caliph in Islam (Abubakr Siddiq). In every one of these names is a profound meaning with profound influence on the personality and conduct of the Sultan. As an Army General, like Sa’d bn Abi Waqqas, Sultan is demonstrating the courage of a brave leader. As the father of the youths, like Abu Bakr, he bridges the gap between leadership and follower-ship by breathing a breeze of hope into Nigerian Muslim youths. A leader is known, neither by the office he occupies, nor by the enormity of the power he wields but by the magnanimity with which he exercises the power entrusted to him and the humility he demonstrates in his interaction with the people. This is the lesson which Prophet Muhammad taught Muslim rulers in his Hadith when he said: “A powerful person is not the one who can suppress others (with the instrumentality of office) but the one who can resist the temptation to use such power”.

    Sultan Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar III seems to have fully imbibed this prophetic teaching as a Muslim ruler and a faithful one for that matter. And through his humble interaction with all Muslims in Nigeria irrespective of tribal or geographical boundaries, he is the first Sultan to have created a strong feeling of a united Muslim Ummah in Nigeria under a competent leadership. At his instance, the Abuja National Mosque has been reorganised in such a way that no Muslim part of the country feels neglected again. Today, the Friday sermon in that Mosque is not only delivered in the three major languages (Hausa, Ibo and Yoruba) in addition to Arabic and English, three deputy Imams have also been appointed to join the Chief Imam in leading the Jum‘at Salat in rotation. These Deputy Imams are from the North, the Southwest and the Southeast respectively. Besides, a number of committees have been set up to take charge of certain necessities concerning the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA) and the National Mosque. And by speaking out incessantly against policies which may seem to deliberately impoverish ordinary Nigerians, irrespective of tribes or religions, Sultan Abubakar III has brought a lucky era to this country and the Muslims are the luckiest for it. Such a leadership deserves absolute allegiance, loyalty and regular prayer from the followers.

    The itinerary of his Eminence’s exemplariness is not limited to Nigeria. He has severally been invited as guest lecturers on interfaith and conflict resolution as well as peace management in many international fora including Harvard University in the United States and Oxford University in Britain. And in all these, he has proved to be a worthy leader. Today, he is on the list of the 50 most influential Muslims in the world and as a matter of fact he ranks 16th on that list.

    It thus becomes obvious that with a very solid military background combined with a unique diplomatic experience and a global modern travelling exposure, this Sultan has become a millennial royal Captain divinely designated to pilot the affairs of Islam and the Muslim Ummah in Nigeria.

    Philosophers who assert that every new century has a way of producing a great leader may be right after all. The example of His Eminence, Dr. Muhammad Sa‘ad Abubakar III, CFR, is a manifest attestation to that assertion. Ever since he assumed the exalted royal office six years ago, this great man has convincingly exemplified all the qualities of genuine leadership. Every statement he has made socially, religiously or politically and every action he has taken privately or publicly has proved to be a school from which all well-meaning people have learnt one lesson or another. An American President, Harry S. Truman (1884-1972), once described a true leader as “a man who has the ability to get other people to do what they don’t want to do and like it”. Through his activities and functions so far, Sultan Abubakar III has proved Truman right by demonstrating to Nigerian Muslim Ummah that the time has come for the reformation of the Sultanate and the unification of the Ummah. When he first assumed office in 2006, he hinted that the Sultanate would be put on the internet to enable all educated Muslims have access to their leader. And in this age of computer, can anyone lay claim to any serious information or knowledge without adequate access to the internet? That is why he decided to start the reformation of the Sultanate through the instrumentality of the internet. And as an exemplary leader, he demonstrates his intellectual prowess with mastering fingers on the computer.

    In Islam, education is the first law. That was why the very first Qur’anic revelation to Prophet Muhammad (SAW) ordained education thus: “Read in the name of Allah who created; He created man from clots of congealed blood; Read! Your Lord is the Most Bountiful One, Who taught man by the pen; He taught him what man did not know…”Q. 96:1-4. And to further emphasise the compelling need for education in Islam, Prophet Muhammad (SAW) said “knowledge is a lost treasure. Muslims should look for it and pick it wherever they can find it”.

    Without education there can be no information. And without information there can be no knowledge. And without knowledge, there can be no progress. That is why the Sultan started his reformation of the Sultanate from the premise of education. It is only with education that most problems in this world can be solved without much ado. The Sultan also believes that education without social harmony is like a virtue without value and that there can be no harmony in a society where people are overwhelmed by ignorance and penury as is the case with Nigeria. Thus, he has consistently championed the campaign for both. At his installation as the Chancellor of Ahmadu Bello University last November, His Eminence told the crowd that the current socio-economic indices in Nigeria were a clear indication that the country had begun to drift. He lamented the dwindling standard of education and the growing rate of poverty in the land despite the nation’s unprecedented wealth which he said had failed to aid national development.

    In his words: “Corruption has emasculated our progress even as poverty and unemployment have pushed citizens to the brinks thereby fuelling social conflicts and inter-communal crises which have extracted heavy toll in both human lives and property”. He went further by saying: “Persistent insecurity has generated panic and anxiety; our social and physical infrastructures are far from meeting the needs of the nation; the country appears to be adrift and at the core of all these is moral decay engendered by ignorance and greed.”

    He also noted that the reform of the tertiary education sector could not be effective without putting in place, the required progressive developments at the basic and senior secondary education levels insisting that “our state governments, especially those of the North, must begin to realize the enormity of the challenges facing the education sector and take urgent and necessary steps to address these challenges.”

    That the a renascent Sultan for you, a man who is at the topmost echelon of the tree of comfort but feels so much concerned about the condition of the peasants who feel deliberately consigned to the weeding of shrubs at the bottom of that tree by the system in place. At home in Nigeria, he has never relented in his advocacy for good governance and denunciation of corruption and religious intolerance just as he has consistently campaigned for religious peaceful coexistence at the international fora.When he was invited in January 2010 as a Special Guest of Honour to a religious seminar organized by the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) with the theme: ‘Knowing Your Muslim Neighbour’, Sultan Abubakar delivered an historic speech that reverberated meaningfully across the entire world. And in May, same year, he also invited the leadership of CAN to a special conference of the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA) held in Kaduna. The theme of that conference was: ‘Islam in the Eyes of the Christians’. He is the first Nigerian first class Monarch ever to engage in such an interfaith affair at the national level and his speech on that occasion was also electrifying. Please read an excerpt from that speech as presented below:”….we initiated, as we had done for the Jama‘atu Nasril-Islam (JNI), a thorough review of the activities of the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs [NSCIA] and an extensive reform of its structures. It is our firm belief that these reforms are not only desirable but necessary to reposition the Council to play its strategic role as the apex Islamic body in the country and to respond, effectively and meaningfully, to the challenges facing the Muslim Ummah in a multi-cultural and multi-religious society. We have had extensive consultations over the last one year and have received very useful inputs on the reform agenda from all the constituent bodies of the Council. Our strategic objectives in this exercise had been and shall remain:

    First is the promotion of Muslim Unity and Solidarity to accord the Ummah the ability to speak with one voice and to act and work together for the advancement of Islam. Second is the development of Education and Economic Enterprise, to enable the Muslim Ummah play an active role in the socio-economic life of Nigeria. Third is to promote peace and religious harmony both within the Muslim Communities and between the adherents of Islam and Christianity. Fourth is to establish effective linkage with Government, at local, state and federal levels, to safeguard the interest of the Ummah and to build consensus on those vital issues that bind us together as a nation….It is therefore our hope that as we bring this reform process to its logical conclusion, we will receive the support and patronage of the entire Muslim Ummah as well as the co-operation of all stakeholders including State Governments and indeed the Government of the Federation”.”….the task of overcoming Nigeria’s problems calls for sacrifice, dialogue and understanding; and all national stakeholders must overcome the myopia of greed and self-centredness to move this great nation forward and safeguard its strategic interests….we must begin to look into the future with hope and confidence and to ensure, first and foremost, that we shore up the foundations of our political system. The National Assembly and indeed all tiers of Government should not relent in their current efforts at Electoral Reform and in ensuring that Nigerians have a genuine electoral process that guarantees free and fair elections. Unless and until we do that our nation will continue to be haunted by unholy alliance between fraudulent elections and illegitimate electoral outcomes the consequences of which we all know very well. We must break away from this vicious circle and confer on Nigerians the power and indeed the ability to decide, freely and willingly, who leads them at all levels of governance. “….there is also the urgent need for us to re-evaluate our conception of leadership as a nation…. needless to add, that there is no way we can make genuine progress as a nation when a significant number of our populace wallow in abject poverty unable to secure the requisite means for their sustenance and to cater for the health and educational needs of their families. Democracy must build a humane society capable of looking after the legitimate needs of its citizenry. For it to be truly successful, it must be able to bring real progress for all sectors of our diverse society. “Finally we must all work hard to limit the influence of wealth in our society and to support those values that promote social responsibility, excellence and hard work”.That is Sultan Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar III a leader who knows the problems of his followers and associates with them in solving those problems. Through his humble interaction with all Muslims in Nigeria, irrespective of tribal or geographical boundaries, he has become the first Sultan to create a strong feeling of a united Ummah under a competent and kind leadership. And by speaking out incessantly against policies which seem to deliberately impoverish ordinary Nigerians irrespective of religions, this Sultan has brought a rare hope to Nigeria and the Muslim Ummah is the luckiest for it. Such a leadership deserves not only allegiance and loyalty but also regular prayers from the Ummah.‘The Message’ hereby joins millions of other Nigerians home and abroad in saying CONGRATULATIONS to His Eminence on his sixth anniversary of his royal regale on the throne praying for Allah’s continuous guidance to accompany him in his life’s odyssey. Long live the Sultan! Long live the NSCIA! Long live Nigeria

     

  • In our hands

    In our hands

    The United States presidential election of 2012 is now history. But it is one that leaves behind a lot of memories, not many of which are pleasant. The campaign was nerve-racking and torturous. For those candidates including former Governor Mitt Romney, who had to go through the primaries to secure the party nomination, it was an experience that they would not wish for their enemies. In one important respect, the Republican primary sealed the fate of the nominee as a general election loser. But more on this later.

    The general election was hijacked by money bags who took advantage of the Supreme Court decision in the landmark case of Citizen United to unload their green wares with a determination to make Barack Obama a one-term president. One individual contributed over $50 million to the Super PAC supporting Mitt Romney. There must be some intense gnashing of the teeth when Romney appeared at 12:55 am to concede defeat.

    The ad war was particularly fierce, especially in the battleground states. Through multiple media outlets—television, radio, Internet, Facebook—innocent citizens were inundated with attack ads. A five-year old got so upset that she broke down in profuse sobbing: I am tired of all these Obama, Romney, Obama, Romney! Leave me alone, she agonisingly pleaded, as if the ads were aimed at her. But it is the nature of the beast. It is the civil war model of democracy, the type that advocates of no-party democracy lament.

    The campaigns were particularly unsettling in the cruel insight they provided into the inner workings of human nature. They demonstrated the embarrassing reality that one may want something so badly that, in the quest for it, one really loses the soul that is supposed to be the beneficiary of the thing. But is it worth it? That is the question that ambition relegates to the back burner in the echo chamber of political brigandage where shamefaced lies, character assassination, hyperbolic narratives, and pettiness of mind rule the day.

    In the strategic positioning that is required to win the Republican primary, Governor Romney settled himself to the far right of the most conservative candidates in the pack. Forced to pander to the extreme right wing of his party and their rejection of the Affordable Health Care Act that they mocked as Obamacare, Romney denounced his own singular policy achievement as governor of Massachusetts and vowed to repeal Obamacare. One cannot appear more desperate. Independents and moderates watched in amazement.

    It got weirder. Romney defined his conservatism as “severe” and attacked Governor Perry of Texas for compassionately making in-state tuition available to children of undocumented immigrants. He also placed himself on record as an advocate of self-deportation, which translated to making life so unbearable for undocumented immigrants that they would just consider checking out on their own. Members of the Hispanic community, the fastest growing demographics in the United States, paid close attention and were not amused.

    Still making up to the Tea Party crowd who controlled the base of his party, the governor publicly opposed President Obama’s use of federal funds to bail out the auto industry. Even before the primaries began, Romney had authored an op-ed with the provocative title “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt.” The auto industry is the economic equivalent of natural oxygen for the key battleground states of Michigan and Ohio where one in eight jobs is tied to the industry. Working class families in these states took notice.

    With his demonstration of loyalty to the cause of extreme conservatism, Romney’s posturing paid off big in the Republican primary as he clinched his party’s nomination. And with a publicised “etch a sketch” strategy, he was poised to wiping off any record of his primary positions in the general election campaign. It almost paid off as evidenced in the performance of President Obama in the first debate. Having prepared to debate Romney on his avowed severe conservatism, Obama was befuddled by Romney’s sudden affirmation of moderation and championing of middle class values. This would earn a democrat the title of flip-flopper-in-chief as John Kerry can attest. But Republicans are a different breed.

    The 1 percent supported Romney with all they had. Pro-Mitt Romney Super PACs spent more than $600 million in political ads. And while pro-Obama PACs did not match that figure, they also spent above $400 million. The Romney donor who gave over $50 million to the campaign was reported to be just a little “disappointed but not discouraged.” That is to suggest that a repeat performance next time around is not out of the question.

    It is this attitude of the one percent that may partly explain the outcome of the election. Majority of the electorate believed that Romney did not understand their situation and cannot represent their interests. If a big donor can shrug off the loss of a $50 million investment in a presidential campaign, and would lose no sleep over it, how can their candidate feel the pain and suffering of the ordinary folk? As they watched, ordinary voters resented what they saw and determined to take their destiny in their hands.

    On Monday, November 5, Obama made his final pitch in the last campaign of his political career. In Des Moines, Iowa, he wowed the crowd with his now familiar oratorical style. Then he told them that the outcome of the election was in their hands. It was the moment of truth. It brought to the fore the obvious truth that in a true democracy, voters have the final word. Money doesn’t vote. Advertisements don’t cast ballots. People do; and if they choose to ignore the torrent of negative or positive ads because they have a good idea of who is best to represent their interests, no matter the amount of money poured into the airwave, it wouldn’t matter.

    A bagful of special interest money couldn’t undo the self-inflicted harm that Romney’s “severely conservative” credential caused in the Republican primary. Exit polls showed that the majority of voters made up their minds on who would get their votes back in September even before the first debate. For the sophisticated ones, the debates must have revealed another unflattering side of the candidate when he bold-facedly presented himself as a severe moderate on all issues.

    The one percent lost the election. But they are not going out without a fight. And when they still hold the purse string of the economy, they cannot be written off in the harm they are capable of wrecking. The day after the election, with teeth clenched, they gave a hint. The stock market was down by more than 300. Ouch! That was our retirement portfolio taking a thumbing. Still it is in our hands.

  • Six years so soon?

    Six years so soon?

    “In every crowd of horizontal men there is always one vertical man who deserves honour not much because of his vertical position but because of the significant difference which that position makes to the crowd”

    Time flies. It was six years last Tuesday that His Eminence, Dr. Muhammad Sa‘ad Abubakar III, CFR,ascended the throne as the 20th Sultan of Sokoto. The historic date was November 6, 2006. Until then, this lucky man’s name did not ring any bell in Nigeria. And he probably was not conscious of the royal blood in him. If he was at all, his humble nature did not reflect it. But the thinking of man is quite different from the will of Allah. And when the thinking of man clashes with the will of Allah, the latter’s automatically prevails.

    For Sultan Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar III, ascending the throne of the great Sokoto Empire was like the rise of the sun anon meridian. When it beams its rejuvenating light, all the stars in the galaxy take their bow.

    History and man are like Siamese twins or a pair of scissors. The one cannot do without the other. History makes man just as man makes history. And the reciprocal baton continues to change hands between them as long as they remain in existence.

    Thus, the emergence of Brigadier General Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar as the successor to the exalted throne of the great Sokoto Empire without any controversy came as a surprise to many Nigerians. At 50 years of age then, many people believed that he was one of the youngest men to become the Sultan in many decades. But he disagreed with such suggestion recalling that his own father, Sultan Abubakar Saddiq III who died in 1988 ascended the throne at the age of 37.

    There is something mysterious about name which humanity is yet to comprehend fully. A puzzling secret seems to exist in the vocabulary of life which sticks to every man like a second skin. That secret, pearled in the yoke of name, is an effective evidence of destiny in man. Our names are the light that glows at night to lighten up our ways through the threshold of life. And when the dawn comes to render the glowing light ineffective, the bearer bows out into the recluse of death leaving behind an indemnified signature on the sands of time. This was the case with Prophet Muhammad (SAW), the greatest man who ever lived on the surface of the earth. Even as an unlettered son of Arabia who was born in an era of blatant ignorance, he introduced into the world, an unprecedented civilisation that opened the eyes of humanity to everlasting guidance. In recognition of his exemplariness, Allah said in Q 33: 21: “You have a good example in Allah’s Apostle for anyone who looks to Allah and the Last Day and remembers Him always”. The name Muhammad which means ‘Praiseworthy’ was never known to have been borne by anybody in Arabia before the birth of the Prophet. And no other person was known for bearing that unique name in Makkah and its environs until after his call to the office of Prophet-hood when Muslim parents started naming their children after him in appreciation of his greatness and in emulation of his exemplary character. Today, at the mention of Prophet Muhammad anywhere in the world, everybody around responds with thunderous traditional chanting of ‘Salla Llahu alayhi wa sallama’ meaning: ‘Allah’s peace and blessings be upon him’. This is even sometimes chanted unconsciously by some non-Muslims. Sultan’s first name is Muhammad which he bears in emulation of the Prophet. His second name is Sa’ad meaning ‘Good ‘Luck’ which makes him a name-sake of one of the Prophet’s disciples (Sa’d bn Abi Waqqas) who was a great Army General of Islam. And his (Sultan’s) surname is Abubakar which means ‘father of youths’, a name which he shares with the first Caliph in Islam (Abubakr Siddiq). In every one of these names is a profound meaning with profound influence on the personality and conduct of the Sultan. As an Army General, like Sa’d bn Abi Waqqas, Sultan is demonstrating the courage of a brave leader. As the father of the youths, like Abu Bakr, he bridges the gap between leadership and follower-ship by breathing a breeze of hope into Nigerian Muslim youths. A leader is known, neither by the office he occupies, nor by the enormity of the power he wields but by the magnanimity with which he exercises the power entrusted to him and the humility he demonstrates in his interaction with the people. This is the lesson which Prophet Muhammad taught Muslim rulers in his Hadith when he said: “A powerful person is not the one who can suppress others (with the instrumentality of office) but the one who can resist the temptation to use such power”.

    Sultan Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar III seems to have fully imbibed this prophetic teaching as a Muslim ruler and a faithful one for that matter. And through his humble interaction with all Muslims in Nigeria irrespective of tribal or geographical boundaries, he is the first Sultan to have created a strong feeling of a united Muslim Ummah in Nigeria under a competent leadership. At his instance, the Abuja National Mosque has been reorganised in such a way that no Muslim part of the country feels neglected again. Today, the Friday sermon in that Mosque is not only delivered in the three major languages (Hausa, Ibo and Yoruba) in addition to Arabic and English, three deputy Imams have also been appointed to join the Chief Imam in leading the Jum‘at Salat in rotation. These Deputy Imams are from the North, the Southwest and the Southeast respectively. Besides, a number of committees have been set up to take charge of certain necessities concerning the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA) and the National Mosque. And by speaking out incessantly against policies which may seem to deliberately impoverish ordinary Nigerians, irrespective of tribes or religions, Sultan Abubakar III has brought a lucky era to this country and the Muslims are the luckiest for it. Such a leadership deserves absolute allegiance, loyalty and regular prayer from the followers.

    The itinerary of his Eminence’s exemplariness is not limited to Nigeria. He has severally been invited as guest lecturers on interfaith and conflict resolution as well as peace management in many international fora including Harvard University in the United States and Oxford University in Britain. And in all these, he has proved to be a worthy leader. Today, he is on the list of the 50 most influential Muslims in the world and as a matter of fact he ranks 16th on that list.

    It thus becomes obvious that with a very solid military background combined with a unique diplomatic experience and a global modern travelling exposure, this Sultan has become a millennial royal Captain divinely designated to pilot the affairs of Islam and the Muslim Ummah in Nigeria.

    Philosophers who assert that every new century has a way of producing a great leader may be right after all. The example of His Eminence, Dr. Muhammad Sa‘ad Abubakar III, CFR, is a manifest attestation to that assertion. Ever since he assumed the exalted royal office six years ago, this great man has convincingly exemplified all the qualities of genuine leadership. Every statement he has made socially, religiously or politically and every action he has taken privately or publicly has proved to be a school from which all well-meaning people have learnt one lesson or another. An American President, Harry S. Truman (1884-1972), once described a true leader as “a man who has the ability to get other people to do what they don’t want to do and like it”. Through his activities and functions so far, Sultan Abubakar III has proved Truman right by demonstrating to Nigerian Muslim Ummah that the time has come for the reformation of the Sultanate and the unification of the Ummah. When he first assumed office in 2006, he hinted that the Sultanate would be put on the internet to enable all educated Muslims have access to their leader. And in this age of computer, can anyone lay claim to any serious information or knowledge without adequate access to the internet? That is why he decided to start the reformation of the Sultanate through the instrumentality of the internet. And as an exemplary leader, he demonstrates his intellectual prowess with mastering fingers on the computer.

    In Islam, education is the first law. That was why the very first Qur’anic revelation to Prophet Muhammad (SAW) ordained education thus: “Read in the name of Allah who created; He created man from clots of congealed blood; Read! Your Lord is the Most Bountiful One, Who taught man by the pen; He taught him what man did not know…”Q. 96:1-4. And to further emphasise the compelling need for education in Islam, Prophet Muhammad (SAW) said “knowledge is a lost treasure. Muslims should look for it and pick it wherever they can find it”.

    Without education there can be no information. And without information there can be no knowledge. And without knowledge, there can be no progress. That is why the Sultan started his reformation of the Sultanate from the premise of education. It is only with education that most problems in this world can be solved without much ado. The Sultan also believes that education without social harmony is like a virtue without value and that there can be no harmony in a society where people are overwhelmed by ignorance and penury as is the case with Nigeria. Thus, he has consistently championed the campaign for both. At his installation as the Chancellor of Ahmadu Bello University last November, His Eminence told the crowd that the current socio-economic indices in Nigeria were a clear indication that the country had begun to drift. He lamented the dwindling standard of education and the growing rate of poverty in the land despite the nation’s unprecedented wealth which he said had failed to aid national development.

    In his words: “Corruption has emasculated our progress even as poverty and unemployment have pushed citizens to the brinks thereby fuelling social conflicts and inter-communal crises which have extracted heavy toll in both human lives and property”. He went further by saying: “Persistent insecurity has generated panic and anxiety; our social and physical infrastructures are far from meeting the needs of the nation; the country appears to be adrift and at the core of all these is moral decay engendered by ignorance and greed.”

    He also noted that the reform of the tertiary education sector could not be effective without putting in place, the required progressive developments at the basic and senior secondary education levels insisting that “our state governments, especially those of the North, must begin to realize the enormity of the challenges facing the education sector and take urgent and necessary steps to address these challenges.”

    That the a renascent Sultan for you, a man who is at the topmost echelon of the tree of comfort but feels so much concerned about the condition of the peasants who feel deliberately consigned to the weeding of shrubs at the bottom of that tree by the system in place. At home in Nigeria, he has never relented in his advocacy for good governance and denunciation of corruption and religious intolerance just as he has consistently campaigned for religious peaceful coexistence at the international fora.When he was invited in January 2010 as a Special Guest of Honour to a religious seminar organized by the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) with the theme: ‘Knowing Your Muslim Neighbour’, Sultan Abubakar delivered an historic speech that reverberated meaningfully across the entire world. And in May, same year, he also invited the leadership of CAN to a special conference of the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA) held in Kaduna. The theme of that conference was: ‘Islam in the Eyes of the Christians’. He is the first Nigerian first class Monarch ever to engage in such an interfaith affair at the national level and his speech on that occasion was also electrifying. Please read an excerpt from that speech as presented below:”….we initiated, as we had done for the Jama‘atu Nasril-Islam (JNI), a thorough review of the activities of the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs [NSCIA] and an extensive reform of its structures. It is our firm belief that these reforms are not only desirable but necessary to reposition the Council to play its strategic role as the apex Islamic body in the country and to respond, effectively and meaningfully, to the challenges facing the Muslim Ummah in a multi-cultural and multi-religious society. We have had extensive consultations over the last one year and have received very useful inputs on the reform agenda from all the constituent bodies of the Council. Our strategic objectives in this exercise had been and shall remain:

    First is the promotion of Muslim Unity and Solidarity to accord the Ummah the ability to speak with one voice and to act and work together for the advancement of Islam. Second is the development of Education and Economic Enterprise, to enable the Muslim Ummah play an active role in the socio-economic life of Nigeria. Third is to promote peace and religious harmony both within the Muslim Communities and between the adherents of Islam and Christianity. Fourth is to establish effective linkage with Government, at local, state and federal levels, to safeguard the interest of the Ummah and to build consensus on those vital issues that bind us together as a nation….It is therefore our hope that as we bring this reform process to its logical conclusion, we will receive the support and patronage of the entire Muslim Ummah as well as the co-operation of all stakeholders including State Governments and indeed the Government of the Federation”.”….the task of overcoming Nigeria’s problems calls for sacrifice, dialogue and understanding; and all national stakeholders must overcome the myopia of greed and self-centredness to move this great nation forward and safeguard its strategic interests….we must begin to look into the future with hope and confidence and to ensure, first and foremost, that we shore up the foundations of our political system. The National Assembly and indeed all tiers of Government should not relent in their current efforts at Electoral Reform and in ensuring that Nigerians have a genuine electoral process that guarantees free and fair elections. Unless and until we do that our nation will continue to be haunted by unholy alliance between fraudulent elections and illegitimate electoral outcomes the consequences of which we all know very well. We must break away from this vicious circle and confer on Nigerians the power and indeed the ability to decide, freely and willingly, who leads them at all levels of governance. “….there is also the urgent need for us to re-evaluate our conception of leadership as a nation…. needless to add, that there is no way we can make genuine progress as a nation when a significant number of our populace wallow in abject poverty unable to secure the requisite means for their sustenance and to cater for the health and educational needs of their families. Democracy must build a humane society capable of looking after the legitimate needs of its citizenry. For it to be truly successful, it must be able to bring real progress for all sectors of our diverse society. “Finally we must all work hard to limit the influence of wealth in our society and to support those values that promote social responsibility, excellence and hard work”.That is Sultan Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar III a leader who knows the problems of his followers and associates with them in solving those problems. Through his humble interaction with all Muslims in Nigeria, irrespective of tribal or geographical boundaries, he has become the first Sultan to create a strong feeling of a united Ummah under a competent and kind leadership. And by speaking out incessantly against policies which seem to deliberately impoverish ordinary Nigerians irrespective of religions, this Sultan has brought a rare hope to Nigeria and the Muslim Ummah is the luckiest for it. Such a leadership deserves not only allegiance and loyalty but also regular prayers from the Ummah.‘The Message’ hereby joins millions of other Nigerians home and abroad in saying CONGRATULATIONS to His Eminence on his sixth anniversary of his royal regale on the throne praying for Allah’s continuous guidance to accompany him in his life’s odyssey. Long live the Sultan! Long live the NSCIA! Long live Nigeria

  • Constitution review: A dangerous oversight

    He passed through this road before. But we seem not to have learnt any lesson from what happened then. The country faced a constitutional crisis following the late President Umaru Yar’Adua’s long absence from home, leaving the ship of state rudderless. We had a vice president in person of Dr Goodluck Jonathan, but the late Yar’Adua crowd did everything to stop him from acting for his boss.

       And they found a justifiable ground for their position in the Constitution. Now, we are travelling the same road again, with Taraba State Governor Danbaba Suntai taking a somewhat forced leave of absence from work following his plane crash on October 25. The only difference this time around is that the issue is restricted to the tiny state of Taraba. But treating it regionally instead of nationally will be taking a myopic view of the issue.

    The issue at stake is the same as that of 2010 when the late Yar’Adua left home in a hurry and did not return until about six months later in the heat of the constitutional crisis caused by his absence. Now, Suntai too has left his state for treatment in Germany just as the late Yar’Adua went to Saudi Arabia late in 2009 and did not return until May 2010. For now, we don’t know when Suntai will return. This, I daresay, is the crux of the matter.

    When will Suntai, who was flown out on October 27, return? When he returns will he be medically fit to return to work? Should his absence lead to a vacuum at the Government House, Jalingo? For how long can a governor be away on medical treatment before his office can be declared vacant? All these questions have become necessary because of the political bent his absence seems to be taken. Remember, this was how  the  Yar’Adua case went until providence intervened.

     With the Yar’Adua case still fresh in mind, we need to do things the way they should be done before the Taraba matter becomes something else. Right now, we are all pretending that everything is normal, when we know that they are far from being normal. It is almost two weeks now that Suntai left the country and there is no way that by now there are no matters calling for his attention.

     As we all know, in his present condition, Suntai cannot attend to state matters. The most important matter he can attend to for now is his health, which should also be of utmost concern to all those who truly love him. As we pray for his speedy recovery and await his return home, one thing, however, cannot wait and that is governance. The government of Taraba must continue to run with or without Suntai.

    Governance cannot pack up all because Suntai was involved in a plane crash. We thank God that he is alive. What if he had died in the crash? Won’t his deputy have been sworn in by now as governor? We should not be sentimental about this issue at all. What has happened has happened. We cannot close down Taraba because of this unfortunate incident as some people are suggesting. For how long will we have to wait for Suntai to get well in order to return to office?

    The Constitution, which foresaw a situation like this, unfortunately did not make clear-cut provisions for a deputy governor to take charge immediately the governor is indisposed. This is the lacuna the supporters of Suntai are exploiting to stop the deputy governor, Alhaji Garba Umar, from taking charge.

    The framers of our Constitu

    tion, in their wisdom, did all

    they could to prevent a vacuum in the absence of the president or a governor, but our politicians have devised a way of circumventing the constitutional provision on this issue.

    With what we saw in the Yar’Adua case and what is about to happen in Taraba, we need to take a look at Sections 144 and 189 of the Constitution in order to stop political hyenas from reaping from where they did not sow. When the late Yar’Adua was away for months, these political interlopers seized power from the righful person, the then Vice President Jonathan, turning him into a sissy in his own administration. Then, the National Assembly through the Doctrine of Necessity, saved the day.

      With that, we can say we have a precedent to fall on to avert the brewing constitutional crisis in Taraba. As is often the case, the crisis is instigated by those who believe that by their action, they are being loyal to Suntai. Others are doing it for the fear of the unknown. They don’t know whether the governor will survive or not and as such they don’t want to be caught on the wrong side if he pulls through.

      The issue is beyond Suntai or even any one of us. The question we should ask ourselves is this : is it proper for a state to be without its duly elected governor for 13 days, the number of days that Suntai has been out of the country as at today, counting from October 27? This is where I think the Constitution did not do well. But we cannot blame the framers for this, rather we should blame our politicians, who are always looking for a loophole in any thing in order to have their way.

    The loophole they are cashing in on can be found in Section 189, which similar provision in Section 144, the Yar’Adua clique used for long to stop Jonathan from coming to office in 2010. Section 189 reads : The governor or deputy governor of a state shall cease to hold office if – (a) by a resolution passed by two-thirds majority of all members of the executive council of the state, it is declared that the governor or deputy governor is incapable of discharging the functions of his office; and (b) the declaration in paragraph (a) of this subsection is verified, after such medical examination as may be necessary, by a medical panel established under subsection (4) of this section in its report to the speaker of the House of Assembly’’.

      With this provision, Suntai can stay in Germany for as long as he wishes because neither the Taraba State Executive Council nor the House of Assembly will initiate such a move. Who will bell the cat?

    This is a long shot, but having seen what happened in the Yar’Adua case, let all men of goodwill appeal to the good conscience of the executive council members and the lawmakers to do what is necessary. It will be in the best interest of their state to allow Suntai’s deputy to step in, pending the governor’s  return from his medical trip.

    Making Umar acting governor will not detract from the fact that Suntai is the governor because it is not an impeachment. It is better to have an acting governor in place rather than leave the state without a constitutionally recognised leader as it is now.

    Doing this will not amount to disloyalty to Suntai because his supporters will be doing him a world of good in his most trying moment.

     While at this, let me quickly submit that the planned Constitution review will be incomplete if nothing is done about Sections 144 and 189. It is time these sections were amended to state specifically how long the President or a governor can be away before the vice president or deputy governor steps into their shoes in acting capacity. I will go for seven days.

    If this issue is not factored in, then I am sorry to say, we are not serious about amending the Constitution. We cannot afford to keep quiet over this sensitive issue after seeing what happened in 2010 and the lie now being led in Taraba.

  • State police

    The recent report that the President of the Nigeria’s Senate, David Mark is now in support of state police calls for some comments. We do not know the PDP’s position on state police but it seems most of the northern PDP governors are opposed to state police. I have never understood their reasons for this except that they will want the federal government to remain awesomely powerful.

    Supporters of over-concentration of power in the centre see nothing wrong in it being overused. This has been the practice in the past that even a genial and gentle person like Shehu Shagari used the federal police to bulldoze his way in the states of the country that were under the UPN, GNPP and the NPP during the second republic. But times have changed and the security problems in the country have increased geometrically and the Nigerian police and even the Nigerian army have not been able to do much about it. This calls for a total overhaul and a review of the organs responsible for peace keeping and enforcement.

    In the past, we had native authority police (yandoka) and even local government police in the North and the West. It was only in the East that for cultural reasons that there was no local government police during the first republic. It is true that there were attempts to misuse this local police against political opponents in the North and in the West and this was the reason why these forces were abolished and their members absorbed into the Nigerian police force after the coup of January 15, 1966. But a lot of water has passed under the bridge since that time. We now have 36 states and Abuja and the population of Nigeria has grown from the initial 36 million in 1956 to a purported 160 million now. About 50% of Nigeria’s population now lives in urban areas with attendant growth in criminal activities. The economy of Nigeria has more than quadrupled and Nigeria is now closely linked to the international communities with consequent increase in international crimes. Nigeria has also become more sophisticated and the wealth of the country is equally more concentrated in a few hands thus creating problems of inequity and inequality with attendant growth in envy and crime. The number of the proportion of the young under 35 to those above 35years is probably in the ratio of 60 to 40 and many of the young people are unemployed and unemployable thus swelling the population of the disgruntled elements in the society.

    In short, our society is primed for crime and the challenge is for our government to react appropriately to this. Nigeria is a federation and like all federations all over the world, maintenance of peace must be concurrently pursued by the states and the federal government. In most civilized parts of the world, policing is not only a matter for government at the center but it also involves regional, local, city and county authorities. In the United States that we like to compare ourselves with, there is the Federal Bureau of Investigation; there are state police, county police, city police and sometimes campus police in many of their universities. These organizations work hand in hand in order to preserve peace and they have their jurisdiction properly demarcated. Interstate crimes are handled by the FBI while the local crimes are handled by the state police or city police. They all share information and work hand in hand for the interest of the people. I do not see why the same thing cannot happen here. State, local and city police would of course recruit people with the knowledge of the local areas and local language. This would give them intelligence advantages that are fundamental in policing.

    Critics of local police and advocates of federal police on the grounds of funding are totally mistaken because right now most states contribute equipment and money in support of the federal police assigned to their states. Recently I had an experience in the problem of federal policing. There was a crisis in Ekiti State University. We had information that students might riot and destroy university properties. We alerted the state police commissioner who said he could do nothing unless the Inspector General of Police orders him to. We had to alert the state governor who in theory is the chief security officer of the state and he had to call the IGP to give orders to the commissioner of police to protect his state. While we were going back and forth, the students invaded the university and destroyed facilities worth hundreds of millions. If our governor was in control of the police in his state, this unnecessary chaos would have been avoided. This is a practical example of how our current policy is not working. Lives are being lost in the process of this bureaucratic rigmarole while our leaders are busy disputing the limit of power of federal and state police.

    On the question of misuse, we have the judiciary to rein in any attempt to misuse state police. In fact, we are more in danger of misuse of centralized police power as has been done in the past and is still being done today as I write. We are supposed to be a federation. A situation in which police federally recruited and consisting in most cases of people not speaking the language of the areas where they are deployed is totally unacceptable. It is the continuation of the divide et imperia of the old colonial system where southern soldiers and police were deployed in the north while northern police and soldiers were deployed to the south so that there will be no sympathy for the locals by the colonial police and army. Is this what we want to continue in the 21st century of heightened awareness of cultural nationalism? This is not working in Nigeria and the more we bind ourselves together by force, the more resentful people will get. The result is the kind of resentment leading to problem against non-natives every time there is a misunderstanding or accident involving people of different tongues. We have to be realistic in this country. Our founding fathers knew the fundamental differences of our society and that was why they opted for the federal system of government with all that goes with it, namely separate and coordinate police, judiciary, civil service etc.

    In the words of Sir Ahmadu Bello, ‘‘we cannot forget our differences, we must understand them”.

  • Ribadu-led petroleum task force

    Ribadu-led petroleum task force

    As it has once again turned out, the PDP administration from 2001-2011, according to Ribadu draft report, presided over the theft of N10 trillion worth of crude oil. In all, the entire nation lost about N16 trillion through all sorts of shady deals by PDP and its associates.

    Other findings include the loss of $29b from 2001- 2011, the theft of 250,000 barrels of crude oil daily within the same period and also the loss of a total of $183m in signature bonuses paid by oil companies to the federation.

    There were also reports of indebtedness of foreign oil firms to the nation such as Addax, now a unit of China’s state-owned Sinopec, which owes Nigeria $1.5 billion in unpaid royalties, part of a $3 billion black hole of unpaid bonuses and royalties owed by oil bonuses. Shell, the report also says, owes Nigeria’s government N137.57 billion ($874 million) for gas sold from its Bonga deep offshore field while oil majors owed $58 million between them for gas flaring penalties. They were also not adhering to newer higher fines.

    Among other recommendations, the Ribadu committee want the NNPC re-organised or be scrapped.

    Alison Madueke who sat on the KPMG report for months has also acknowledged receiving the draft of Ribadu’s report over a month ago without any action. She has however now disclosed that a committee had been set up by the Ministry of Petroleum Resources to look into the “differences in perspective on the Ribadu committee report” and make an “input”.

    Dr Doyin Okupe’s heartache on the report however was that the report was illegally and prematurely released. According to him “what was irregularly released prematurely to the media is a draft copy which still requires full assent of all members of the committee and clarifications and due process from the originating ministry before the official handing over to the Presidency”. Like Dr Reuben Abati, who also found it strange that the report found its way to the pages of newspapers even before it was officially presented, he has once more reassured us of the president commitment to fighting corruption. There is however a curious parallel of views between the minister, the two government spokesmen, and the duo of Oronsaye and Otti who have tried to discredit Ribadu’s report.

    While no one can begrudge the president’s men for their views on their principal’s commitment to fighting corruption, Doyin Okupe’s attempt to distant the Jonathan administration from the monumental stealing going in government is an assault on Nigerians. Was it not under this government that the number of fuel importers jumped from about two dozen to over 140 out of which 25 are currently facing legal actions for swindling the nation of about N3 trillion? Even if Okupe thinks Nigerians suffer from collective amnesia, Nigerians could not have forgotten so soon the revelations from Lawan Farouk report which the government tried to discredit, or the findings from Aig Imokhuede-led technical committee set up by the government itself.

    On the current Ribadu findings which those who have just secured plum government jobs are trying to discredit, Ledun Mitte, chairman of National Stakeholders Working Group (NSWG) of the Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) said would not have been necessary if the successive findings of the NEITI had been implemented. In fact in his opinion, the Ribadu’s committee report only reiterated the revelations that had come out of the successive NEITI reports that had shown that the nation was losing about $9.8 billion or N1.373 trillion in outstanding recoverable funds due to the federation account from oil companies.

    NEITI has so far conducted three different cycles of industry audits spanning the period 1999-2004, 2005 and 2006-2008. The statement stressed that each of the past NEITI audit reports clearly identified financial, physical and process lapses, and revealed a loss of some $2.6 billion due to underpayments, under-assessments, poor judgment in the computations of volume of crude sales and other leakages. Another round of comprehensive audit of the oil and gas sector for 2009- 20011 which began early in the year is expected to be concluded next month, December. In the light of the above, it is perhaps only government functionaries like Okupe and Alison-Madueke that have faith in government commitment to fighting corruption.

    Instead of addressing the cynicism of the governed, PDP that has proved over the years that it doesn’t just give a damn about the governed is busy attacking the opposition for performing its constitutional role of holding the ruling party accountable. What in a democracy is disrespectful in ACN’s argument that “both Orasanye and Otti should have resigned their membership of the committee the moment they were given the plum jobs to avoid the apparent conflict of interest. The fact that they stayed on, only to disparage the report of the task force so openly and ferociously at the end, is the clearest indication yet that they were meant to play that exact role of spoilers’’.

    In fact, that was the argument of Ribadu who was pained by the turn of events. According to him, most of the members saw their appointment as a call to duty when appointed in February, and therefore worked round the clock during the first three months. Steve (Orosanye), according to him, “never participated in any of the meetings for this work. And during the course of the committee work, Steve became a member of the board of the NNPC. And Mr. Otti became a director in NNPC. They chose to remain as members of the committee instead of resigning”.

    But as usual, government has an ally in Tribune that has always been too quick to help it identify its enemies. As part of effort to discredit the report, Tribune alleged that some politicians have hijacked the report. Quoting sources close to security, the paper claimed ‘A report in the custody of government indicates that a former presidential aspirant, who is still hopeful of contesting the 2015 election met on Saturday with a chieftain of one of the leading opposition parties in Abuja where the plot to hijack the Ribadu report as a launch-pad for the 2015 election was said to have been hatched.’

    PDP on its part, instead of showing remorse for the greed of its members is diverting attention from the issue at hand to pillory the opposition which is doing its job of keeping the government on its toes. As if the party forgets we are running a democracy, it is accusing the opposition of disrespect for the presidency.

    The Ribadu Draft Report is destined for the same fate as the KPMG report whose non-implementation, Olisa Agbakoba had described as a national embarrassment; like Lawan Farouk fuel subsidy scandal, about which Okonjo Iweala said “we are going to be very aggressive in recovering money owed government and block all revenue leakages”; and like Imokhuede’s technical report being half heartedly implemented.

  • Boko Haram: Why govt should listen to Amnesty

    Boko Haram: Why govt should listen to Amnesty

    Last week, I promised the reader I will devote today’s column entirely to some of the reactions provoked by my piece of the week before on the controversial “personal” history of Biafra by Chinua Achebe which he titled There was a country.

    However, man, it is said, merely proposes but it’s only God who disposes. God, apparently, disposed through two terrible events of last two weeks that my promise would have to keep for another week. The first was the gruesome suicide bombing of St Rita’s Catholic Church, Unguwan Yero, Kaduna, on October 28 in which at least 30 worshippers lost their lives and hundreds more lost their limbs or were maimed.

    It was indeed a miracle that the casualties were not higher considering the number of worshippers who assembled that day and the suicide bomber’s (assuming he was alone in the vehicle) apparent desperation in ramming his way into the church yard through the perimeter fence that terrible Sunday morning.

    It was my typical Sunday morning; rising late and taking eternity to have my bath. I was sitting on the toilet seat a little after 9 am when I heard a huge rumbling sound like I’ve never heard before. At the same time, I felt the house shake as if the roof and the wall were going to cave in.

    Madam, who was in the bedroom, shouted “Baba, what is it?” Of course, I didn’t know what it was but somehow I restrained myself from rushing out, especially since the kaboom was not followed by any physical destruction. However, while still in the toilet I kept thinking what could have caused such a huge sound. In quick succession I dismissed the possibility of the rock breakers across the road from my house using dynamite and the other possibility that the transformer serving our neighbourhood had blown up.

    In the end, I concluded it must have been a bomb, even as I prayed to God fervently that it shouldn’t. My prayers were answered in the negative when shortly after my bath one of my kids came to tell us that the online media had been reporting that it was the suicide bombing of a church at Unguwan Yero.

    My heart sank just imagining what the casualty would be like; if my house which must be at least two kilometres away from the church as the crow flies, could be shaken to its foundation by the bomb I shuddered to think what could have been the fate of those in and around it.

    Terrible as the number of those killed and injured was, it was, indeed, a miracle that the mayhem was not far worse by the time the rubbles had settled.

    Predictably, the story grabbed the headlines of the media the following day. Equally predictably, virtually all fingers pointed at the usual suspect: Boko Haram.

    This time, however, the security forces acted with unusual dispatch to avert any retaliatory attacks. But even more importantly, in my view at least, the Christian leadership in Kaduna, especially those of the Catholic fold – that of the affected church even more so – acted with greatest restrain in calling on their, no doubt, angry flock not to seek revenge.

    As far as I know, Boko Haram has not claimed responsibility for the attack but it has remained the principal suspect.

    All this was Sunday October 28.

    Then last Friday came another shocker. I was about rounding up my lecture to my post graduate diploma students at the Samaru campus of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, when a call came through from a former very senior government official and a senior friend. During class I normally leave my phone on silent and pick up a call only when I think it might be important. This was one such call. So I excused myself and answered my phone.

    I had not spoken to the gentleman since dropping a document for him a few days before. So I thought he was calling to confirm receipt. He did confirm receipt but his next words shocked me to the marrow.

    “Sorry about Shuwa,” he said. “What has happened to him?”, I asked nonplussed. Didn’t I hear he had been killed that morning?, he asked.

    That ended my class that evening. Apparently, my students too had not heard. They were all shocked when I told them the news, half of which they must’ve guessed from the way my voice and countenance changed. Their shock was not surprising because more than half the class were old enough to have heard some of the probably apocryphal exploits of the (79 year old) general during our civil war of 1967 to 1970. To think that such a person who had survived a war and served his country well would be killed like a chicken by assassins who were probably young enough to be his grandchildren right in front of his house!

    If their shock at the manner of the man’s death did not surprise me, the way they all chorused that “dis one pass Boko Haram,” surprised, even shocked me, the more so because there were more Christians in the class than Muslims.

    My students are certainly not a representative sample of this country’s population. But it sounds sensible to me that if only one Christian would begin to wonder if there is not more to the bombings of churches and the killings of Christians – never mind the bombings of public buildings and the killing of security agents, serving or retired – than Boko Haram insurrections, one can be forgiven the thought that the official mantra about Boko Haram being behind each and every one of these bombings and killings needs a fundamental re-thinking.

    No doubt Boko Haram is real. And its methods are despicable and certainly counter-productive to its objective, to which it is entitled, of Islamising Nigeria. As it knows all too well the Qur’an makes it very clear that there is no force in religion.

    However, it has been said again and again that Boko Haram has since become a franchise used by criminals, and for all we know, rogue elements in government and the security services for their own ends. This is one good reason why government must rethink its scorched earth strategy to bring an end to the insecurity that has pervaded this country.

    The scorched earth policy has not worked and it will not work because it can only worsen the very vicious circle of violence which the extrajudicial killing of the Boko Haram leadership back in 2009 unleashed on the hapless citizens of our dear country.

    If only because government has control over the official instruments of violence, it has the greater responsibility for ending this vicious circle. It can start by listening to what Amnesty International said last week about how the public, especially in the theatre of the Boko Haram insurrection, has come to fear and loath our security forces more than the Boko Haram insurgents.

    Unless we have a strategy of more carrots and fewer sticks employed by government, the country could, God forbid, slide into an anarchy of bombings and counter-bombings and high profile killings along religious lines.

     

  • Oronsaye: Go home

    Oronsaye: Go home

    You could mistake it for a scene in a chartbuster Nollywood movie. The only difference is that, this time around, the actors on parade are technocrats and highly revered top civil servants who have dominated Nigeria’s civil service like colossus for many years. And watching the drama as it unfolded with ‘ruptured’ attention was the President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan including cabinet members, other top government officials and television-viewing public worldwide who were all dazed with amazement.

    The setting of this theatre of the absurd last Friday was the Council Chamber of the Presidential Villa, Abuja. Present were three powerful committees set up by the President to look into different aspects of our national life. These are Special Task Force on Governance and Control, Refineries Special Task Force and the Petroleum Revenue Task Force. They were there to submit their reports.

    Prior to that ceremony, Reuters, an international news agency, had gone to town on its website with some ‘scoops’ from the report of the Petroleum Revenue Task Force headed by the former anti-corruption czar, Nuhu Ribadu. The report was also widely circulated by several newspapers. This extensive publicity sparked off instant public debates which seriously rattled the government. As tongues continued to wag over the report, the government knew that it needed to do something quickly to stem the tide of negative commentary.

    Perhaps, to save its face, the government fixed last Friday for the submission of the report in which monumental corruption has been unearthed. But rather than work, the strategy actually boomerang and created more embarrassment for the Presidency. This was underscored by the confusion and avoidable altercation that ensued between Ribadu and Steve Oronsaye, the man who rose from the ranks to become the head of service of the civil service of the federation before he retired a few years ago.

    The dilemma started during Ribadu’s presentation. First, he saluted the President for his courage in setting up the three committees and expressed the hope that Jonathan would find the courage to implement the various recommendations. While focusing on his own report, Ribadu assured the President that all the issues in the report were handled with sincerity, and that if properly implemented, they would set the country free from economic bondage. This, according to him, is because the recommendations would strengthen institutions and increase government revenue. He lauded the President’s anti-corruption and reforms agenda but emphasized that more needed to be done to fight the hydra-headed monster which corruption has assumed in Nigeria, adding that carrying out such reforms requires integrity.

    As soon as Ribadu moved towards to Diezani Allison-Madueke, the petroleum resources minister, to present the report, an apparently uncomfortable Oronsaye, who served as deputy chairman to the committee, raised up his hand like a schoolboy in a classroom, to signify his intention to say something. But it was after Ribadu had handed over a copy of the report to the minister, that the President recognised Oronsaye, who had then become so desperate to speak. With subdued anger, Orosanye alleged that the process leading to the production of the report was flawed. He claimed, it did not pass through due process. This jolted everybody. The position of Oronsaye was supported by Ben Oti, another member of the committee.

    Though infuriated by Oronsaye and Oti’s position, Ribadu calmly said Oronsaye, “never participated even (for) one day in the deliberations of this committee”. He then added a caveat: “During the work of the committee, Oronsaye got himself appointed on the board of the NNPC. The other gentleman, Oti, became the Director of Finance of NNPC, and they decided to, more or less, bully everybody to take over. And they wanted us to write for them, but the Committee members refused.” Ribadu added,“Steve (Oronsaye) has not been in the country. He flew in this morning for him to come and do this and I think our president deserves more respect than what you have done now.”

    Ribadu’s position was corroborated by Samaila Subairu, the acting secretary of the committee and Ignatius Adegunle, another member. Subairu said the report was, indeed, the product of a joint effort of all members. Like Ribadu, he accused Oronsaye of staying away from most of the committee’s meetings. On his part, Adegunle said he was of the view that the forum was not the proper place for the issues canvassed by Oronsaye.

    However, what is clear from the melodrama between Ribadu and Oronsaye is that many people entrusted with sensitive national assignments have always found it difficult to separate personal emotions and self-preservation from such assignments. Or how does one explain the fact that it was during this type of assignment that Oronsaye and Oti came on the board of NNPC, a department that was under probe.

    It was quite astonishing viewing the video clips especially where Oronsaye repeatedly kept on hollering “the President said you should submit, and so what!”, with all the emphasis heaped on “so what!” That statement was contemptuous of the office of the president. Whichever way it is viewed, it shows lack of reverence for that office. What Oronsaye actually meant was that Ribadu and other committee members should have ignored the President’s directive. Perhaps, it was when this dawned on him, that he made spirited efforts to explain his “so what” just immediately after he said so repeatedly.

    A consummate civil servant that he is, a man who once sat at the pinnacle of the nation’s civil service rule as it relates to such an issue, Oronsaye should not, and he cannot, simply interrupt the submission of the report the way he did it. If at all he had any reservation, since he has access to either the minister or the president himself, he could have sought appointment with the president and voice out his resentment. This way, that show of shame he exhibited under television klieg lights would have been avoided. After all in the civil service, you can only communicate by writing not by engaging in reckless vituperation right in the presence of your superiors, not to talk of exhibiting such gross misdemeanor right before the President. If such a scene had enacted itself in the presence of the man who appointed Oronsaye head of service during his tenure as president, I am sure he would have dressed him down and reprimand him for his ‘bad behaviour’.

    The lesson from this is that Oronsaye and his cliques who have served their fatherland for more than 30 years should now take a back seat and allow those who are more vibrant, focused and result-oriented to take the centre-stage in piloting the affairs of this nation. Nigerians can no longer be bogged down by those who prefer to operate under archaic bureaucratic redtapism.

    All these appointments here and there, including even that of NNPC, which Ribadu said should have necessitated Oronsaye’s resignation from the committee in order to avoid being compromised, are no longer for spent bullets like him. Resignation would have been the most honourable thing for him to do rather than constitute a public nuisance. The same thing applies to Oti, his comrade in disgrace.

    With what the whole nation witnessed last Friday, Oronsaye need not be told any longer that he seems to have over-stayed his welcome in national affairs. The only option left for him at this moment is to devote his time to his community’s affairs back in Edo State, where his wealth of experience in the public service can make a whole lot of difference. I believe there are many things waiting for attention in Oronsaye’s community – youth counselling, community development, chieftaincy matters, settling matrimonial squabble and all that. It is time for him to retire from active public life and assume a father-figure. That it is why he should go home!

  • Felabration, Felamuseum are great! Annual ‘Soyinka Nobel Grant’ and Soyinkamuseum?

    Felabration, Felamuseum are great! Annual ‘Soyinka Nobel Grant’ and Soyinkamuseum?

    Felabration, Felamuseum are great. Nigerian leaders should think ‘legacy’ and count the country’s losses in potential revenues from creative sources. They should study the success of the musical Fela and know that they are responsible for loss of millions in income which has been mopped up by the Amercians.

    It is not too late, with the family of Fela, for the federal government, Lagos and Ogun State governments and the banking and communication giants to sponsor Nollywood and National Theatre stage and mount separate film, stage and radio Fela-licious productions. They could be called for example the recently coined Felabration, or Felamania or Felaforever or Felafever.The world appreciate a home-grown version. In this Nigerian production his children and grandchildren can play Fela at different stages of his life. Such ventures as these, the film and stage musical, will be major boosts to Nigeria’s documentary history. The music score is already laid by Fela himself and can be added to by Fela aficionados.

    Nigeria’s Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka with his personal experience of Fela’s antecedents, may be persuaded to take on the task or at least supervise others. In civilised countries a Nobel Prize winner in Literature would have been given an annual ‘Laureate Grant’ to come up with an annual performance to tour Nigeria and perhaps the world to promote Nigeria and offer a conduit for others to achieve higher heights. But no, we will await a death in the family to express what might have been and eat ‘cow’. The late great Steve Rhodes would have been ideal to participate in this project. Of course new blood must be given free reign to get a new perspective on the Felathing.This project is an investment, entrepreneurial, job creation, money spinning venture at home and abroad. It is not a charitable enterprise but a business venture to benefit all concerned and the nation. It should therefore be taken on after study of the success of Fela and the other ones from South Africa – Ipitombi and Umoja from South Africa.

    It goes without saying that Nobel laureates deserve an annual grant from governments to do what they do best in their area of expertise –to draw the attention of the world. Abroad Chemistry and other science Nobel laureates attract massive grants and funding to their chosen field and universities. Soyinka should be in control of a large grant from which he would dispense funds to artistic protégés and projects nationwide as well as being able to put up an annual radio play and film. How much would he have needed for this? N25-50-100m Soyinka Nobel Laureate grant is not too much as a start. Witness the enthusiasm for ‘instant millionaires and imagine the enthusiasm for one of 10 Annual Soyinka Grants of N200,000 -500,000 each towards plays and films funded by government realising that this strategy combats crime and keeps youth occupied and enthusiastic. It is an employer of labour. Image the anticipation nationwide of the 1st or 15th Annual Soyinka play!

    The arts world in Nigeria is very dry without budgeted government and private sector grants. Abroad these are taken seriously as lottery and grants are targeted at the arts in all its forms. We cannot expect South African MTN to sponsor a rival to South African Ipitombi? Maybe Glo will take up the challenge instead of wasting so much on bonanzas etcetera. Here in Nigeria art was an aside except for the mainstream pop music and magic or ‘violence’ films until the reality shows helped. Our art is making waves abroad through Nollywood and AfricaMagic. We must continue the evolution and add to the cerebral depth that has already been achieved. This requires budgets and funding. Has the $200m promised the arts by the President materialised? There is no excuse for ’starving’ Soyinka and others of the funds that will bring honour on radio, stage and in film worldwide. While Soyinka will live a long time, I dread to think of the ‘what might have been’ stories in future. An immediate annual Nobel Laureate Grant in the Arts budgets of the Federal Government and Soyinka-loving states will solve this problem and salve our consciences by funding a new generation of Soyinka works and the works of those sponsored, nurtured and supported by Soyinka and other great Nigerian artists like Kilani and Professor Ishola Akinwunmi. Just one percent of all those thousands of hundreds of ‘billions’ stolen and lost in gas flaring will more than change the face of art in Nigeria. If funds were spent on these developmental and constructive activities there would be much less for politicians and criminal contractors and civil servants to steal. Congrats to Governor Fashola of Lagos for agreeing to have a Felamuseum – a small step in the right direction. We do not have to await a death before having a museum. It is now we should be building a new and exciting Soyinka Exhibition/ Museum to house Soyinka’s life and times, works and worries, poems and prose, photographs and newspaper headlines, music and struggles, politics and successes. Imagine what that Soyinkamuseum will be like with Soyinka’s and Tunji Oyelana’s ‘Chairman’ playing, screens showing Kongi’s Harvest snips and plays and books displayed. Imagine how inspiring it would be to be at the Soyinkamuseum and see him walking through and talking to you. Imagine if Felamuseum had opened during Fela’s life time.