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  • Mellanby Hall at 60: Some reflections

    Mellanby Hall at 60: Some reflections

    How time flies! Mellanby Hall, the premier hall of residence in the permanent site of the Premier University in Nigeria, University of Ibadan, is 60 years already, and, as a great Mellanbite, who has always identified with members of that Great Hall since I graduated from that University 40 years ago, the Hall Master, Professor Agbede, the Hall Warden, Dr A. Fadoju and the Hall Executives invited me to deliver a speech, along with some other prominent Great Mellanbites on Saturday October 6. That event turned out to be an emotional occasion for both the present generation of Mellanbites being prepared for life in Nigeria and those Mellanbites who have long graduated into the world and impacted Nigeria with those virtues and culture with which they were equipped at Mellanby Hall. There are many reasons for us to celebrate that monument called Mellanby Hall, for, embedded in that celebration is the story and history of that great hall. Professor Kenneth Mellanby (seconded from Cambridge University) was the First Principal of the University of Ibadan and that perhaps explains the good sense in the University Council’s decision to name the great hall after him. Secondly, the National Universities Commission, in a recent country wide survey, adjudged Mellanby Hall as the cleanest and best kept hall, not only at the University of Ibadan but amongst all university halls of residence in Nigeria.

    Angels don’t come down from above to keep our buildings and institutions. We should therefore single out all those officials, from hall porters, executives, wardens and hall masters from 1952 till date for a special praise and appreciation. Thirdly, we may celebrate those unique and fortunate people who have had the good luck to pass through Mellanby Hall and have therefore been passed through by the culture associated with that great hall. Where do we start from? How many do we want to count in “Adepele’s Dentition”?

    Fellow Nigerians, please come along with me and let me share with you, a little bit of my own passage through Mellanby Hall. In our days, once your Higher School Certificate results were satisfactory, all you had to do was pick up an admissions form, fill it and send with your results to the admissions offices of the four existing universities at that time. Within eight weeks, your letter of admission would be sent to your house or postal address. You didn’t have to know any one in those offices, and you didn’t have to visit them either. A few weeks after your letter of admission, your Hall of Residence would be allocated and also sent to you by post, in addition to being pasted at the entrance of each hall. It was through this route and machinery of a superbly efficient university bureaucracy led by the Late Prof. Adeoye Lambo, the Vice Chancellor, and late Nathaniel Adamolekun, the Registrar, that providence and goodluck conspired together to “Jonathan” me into Mellanby Hall, from September 1969 to June 1972. Just like that British Constitution that is so uniquely famous for its being “unwritten”, each Mellanbite was expected, from day one, to adjust to a certain set of unwritten rules and regulations. You have to be a complete gentleman. If you talked too much or too loudly, you were quickly ostracized. You had to be serious and studious, otherwise, no one would identify with you. No matter how lowly and humble your background was, you had to dress well and neatly all the time. Having entered the university through the door of Loyola College, Ibadan, where, from Class 1, up to Higher School, we had been taught and brought up with the tradition that noise making belonged only to the jungle and that being loud and loud-mouthed was a manifestation of an inferiority complex, adjusting to those Mellanby’s unwritten rules was therefore a painless ritual for me.

    My sojourn in Mellanby Hall was a turning point for me. It was in Mellanby Hall I discovered myself and how to relate and get along with all tribes in Nigeria. I met many good and outstanding people and cultivated friendships that are still enduring till today. It was from those Mellanbites I got my nickname “Sir Muye”, and, within a short time, “Sir Muye” spread throughout the University Campus! I met Dr Edwin Madunagu, our Hall Chairman in 1969. A quiet and gentle giant, who although didn’t talk too much, his body language sometimes emitted loud and threatening signals which the hall authorities could hardly ignore. I met Akin Famodimu, Yinka Bada, (Students Union President 1969), Tayo Okubote, Adewale Owoade, Dr Olukunle, The Okusami Twins, Tunde Jawando, Chichi Nwachukwu, Yinka Sogbesan etc.

    I met Kingsley Adeseye Ogunlewe, the ebullient politician and former Federal Minister (he probably doesn’t know or remember me anymore, but me, I know and remember him very well!). In spite of all those political “shakara” and outpourings, associated with frontline politicians in Nigeria, Adeseye Ogunlewe remains a true, unique and valuable Mellanbite. I met Tonnie Iredia, (which one be Tonnie Iredia sef? Your name is Anthony Iredia and I should know, because you were my Loyola classmate. Maybe your Loyola nickname of “Tony-Ray” was too much of a sweet melody to your spirit, and you had to change to Tonnie after Mellanby Hall. Abi?) Mellanbite Anthony Iredia is a complete gentleman, a hard worker, a humour merchant, with a rare ability to make the likes of Idi Amin, laugh out loudly, and at the same cut him to size with intelligent but diplomatic and embarrassing questions. He ended up his distinguished career in the service of the nation as Director-General of NTA.

    Have you ever heard of the name “Groove”? If you haven’t heard of “Groove”, have you heard of Prince Ladipo Sanmi Eludoyin? At times, he is fondly referred to as “O’sha”, but only a few inner circle of friends like Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Pius Akinyelure, Afolabi Salami, Kayode Soyombo and some select members of the “Adeola Odeku Conclave” are licensed to call him by that acronym. Sanmi Eludoyin is the Enigmatic Boy Wonder, who, like the Glo Advert, is Ruling his World, with success that has touched many people and governments in many parts of the world. “Groove” Sanmi Eludoyin is very apolitical but ironically, most of the key decisions within South-west geopolitical zone and in some vital sections in the corridor of power in Abuja are never taken without his “for your information”. Ladies and Gentlemen, “Groove” is a distinguished Mellanbite, and I can tell you for free, that the management and students in Mellanby Hall are already making arrangements to honour him and some others with the Distinguished Mellanbite Award” within the next few weeks. Let “Groove” go and “sit down somewhere” for now.

    I also met the late Yakubu Abdulazeez and the late Adekunle Adepeju. With due respect to the dead, Yakubu Abdulazeez had a dual personality. He was respected for his over-intelligence and over-brilliance, but because of his penchant for cigarettes smoking, we didn’t appreciate that part of him, so much so, that if he stood in front of you and asked for an obligation, you were most likely to turn him down but if he went back to his room and put the same request into writing and sent back to you, you would most likely and enthusiastically get up to oblige him unconditionally. His talent and ability to pull the crowd with his writings was on display during the 1971 students riot, when, as the Public Relations Officer in the “Chairman Mao” Agunbiade/Tayo Ogungbemile Presidency of the Students Union, he wrote his controversial “A Call To Arms” which moved and incensed most students to obey that call and confronted the Police in a peaceful “face-to-face”.

    Unfortunately, a drunken and God-forsaken Policeman pulled the trigger and, who was the victim? That super-gentleman and easy-going Mellanbite, Adekunle Adepeju. That was the day the Nigerian Police lost its innocence and began to put on the garb of recklessness and impunity. May the souls of those two Great Mellanbites continue to rest in perfect peace, Amen.

    Saturday October 6, was a day full of Joy and fond memories I will not forget in a hurry. Meeting the Hardworking and selfless Hall Warden DR A. Fadeju, Prof Adeloye, Chief Tunde Oshobi, Hon Rotimi Agunsoye, a former Hall Chairman in 1987 and former Commissioner in Lagos State and his retinue of friends from the Lagos State House of Assembly, Mellanbite Idowu Sowunmi, the rising star writer at Thisday, who, is presently on loan as Senior Special Adviser, and also those young Mellanbites and their Hall Executives, headed by Stephen Omotayo all put together, was a thrilling experience. Mellanby Hall, I am glad and proud that I passed through you and also that you passed through me. Happy Birthday Mellanbites! Let me seize this opportunity to appreciate the V.C, Professor Isaac Adewole, who has done so much within his short tenure to contribute to the stature of Mellanby Hall as an enduring monument.

     

    • Runsewe wrote from Ogbogbo-Ijebu, Ogun State.

  • Ondo poll: Myth of Mimiko’s landslide victory

    Ever since the announcement by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) of Dr Olusegun Mimiko of the Labour Party (LP) as the winner of the October 20 governorship election in the Sunshine state, there has been a frenzy not just among the governor’s supporters but also in certain sections of the media. Many newspapers have been trying to outdo themselves in dramatising the scale of Mimiko’s purported landslide victory. The headlines have been creative, even entertaining. ‘Landslide Mimiko’. ‘Mimiko crushes ACN, PDP’. ‘How Olusegun Mimiko trounced PDP, ACN, Others’. One could go on and on. The objective is to manipulate public opinion and create the impression that Mimiko won an emphatic victory in the election. But accuracy of reporting is critical to the capacity of the press to help sustain and deepen democracy. Without accuracy of information, people could be easily misled into reaching wrong conclusions and innocently taking harmful decisions. The press must present and analyse the facts with scientific rigour devoid of partisanship. That is the only way it can effectively play its role as the watchdog of the people and facilitate the sustainable development of democracy in the country.

    Now, what do the statistics of this election tell us? The total number of registered voters was 1,546,081. The total number of accredited voters was 645,594. The total votes cast was 624,659 representing 40% of registered voters and meaning that there were 30,415 invalid votes. Governor Olusegun Mimiko of the LP was declared winner in 13 out of 18 local governments by INEC with 260,199 votes, which represents 41.6% of total votes cast. Olusegun Oke of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) was declared second winning in 2 local governments with 155, 961 votes representing 26.25% of total votes cast. Rotimi Akeredolu of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) was declared third winning in three local governments with 143,512 votes representing 24.15% of the total votes cast. A close analysis of these figures shows that more voters actually voted against Mimiko. Approximately 57% of total votes cast were actually against Mimiko and in favour of his opponents. He, therefore, did not get a majority of the votes and could not logically have won a landslide victory.

    To demonstrate this point further, let us examine the statistical implications of the July 14, 2012 governorship election in Edo state which returned Governor Adams Oshiomhole to office. In the Edo election, the total number of registered voters was 1,651,099. The total number of votes cast was 647,698 representing 40% of registered voters. Governor Oshiomhole scored 477,478 votes, representing 73% of total votes cast. General Airhaivbere of the PDP scored 144,235 votes, which was 22% of total votes cast. The other candidates in the election recorded 6% of total votes cast. All Governor Oshiomhole’s opponents put together polled 152,621 votes, thus trailing the comrade governor by 324,857 votes. Oshiomhole won a majority of votes cast and it is this example that can be accurately and properly described as a landslide victory.

    A perceptive analyst, Mr. Emmanuel Aziken, graphically captured this point in his clinical dissection of the October 20 Ondo state governorship election result. According to him “In the end, the people of Ondo state decided to return Dr. Mimiko apparently based on what has been largely described as his credentials in office. However, it was a narrow escape. Yesterday’s declared results gave Mimiko 260,199 votes out of a total of 624,659 voters representing about 40%. He thus did not get majority of the votes. The PDP candidate, Olusola Oke who came second with 155,961 votes and ACN’s Rotimi Akeredolu who came third with 143,512 votes together mustered enough votes that could have probably sent Mimiko packing. However, the past history of animosity between the PDP and ACN did not allow the two to form an alliance. Remarkably, Mimiko was returned to power by the Court of Appeal in 2009 which scored him 198,261 votes and his rival, Segun Agagu with 128,669. Then he had more than 55% of the votes. How the governor’s votes proportionally diminished between 2007 and 2012 is an issue for the governor and his handlers.”

    It is significant in this respect that the governor enjoys the advantages of incumbency. The PDP is crisis ridden. Believing that Mimiko was coming to join its ranks, the ACN allowed its structure to grow moribund only reviving its machinery a few months to the election. Interestingly, before Governor Mimiko headed to court in 2007 to challenge the election result, INEC had declared Dr. Segun Agagu winner with a landslide of 349,258 votes representing 53.2% of total votes cast. Mimiko was said to have scored 226,021 votes, which was 34.4% of total votes cast. Forensic investigation proved INEC’s declaration a fraud and Mimiko reclaimed his mandate. The results declared by INEC in the October 20 election will surely attract the interest of forensic auditors. The story may have just begun to unfold and the press should simply keep the people accurately informed.

  • Mimic day

    Mimic day

    The anticipation of the governorship election of last Saturday was frenetic, and it was billed by this columnist as the battle of the intellect. I also billed it as a battle of integrity. This is because these are the cardinal impulses at play in the unveiling of the history of the state and that of the Southwest.

    As the voting process took place, I began to receive gloating text messages by partisans who thought that a victory for Olusegun Mimiko is a loss for Sam Omatseye. This sort of reading of an event of such far-reaching significance told me that the impulse of the savagely parochial had overtaken the more urbane mentality of the thinker.

    From the result released by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on Sunday, the numbers clearly lofted Mimiko as the winner of the poll. And, according to many text messages of those who celebrated, it was the triumph of the people. If the figures are not wrong, it all points out one thing about democracy.

    It is the system of the majority, but not always the ideology of the wise. From the currents of all those who communicated to me, they said they were voting against invasion from the outside, and that Mimiko had performed in the past four years.

    I billed the election as the platform for intellectual supremacy in the sense that I expected the people to vote for their own welfare, for the rise in education, for urban renewal and infrastructure development, for the promotion of integrity in office.

    If what INEC reported yesterday reflected the spirit of the Ondo people, it shows that the election was not a contest of the mind, but a contest of a sentimentality, of looking the other way when the fundamental outrages of the past term of Mimiko mocked them openly. Is it true that this man did not commission a major road as part of his stewardship? If it is true then my position is right. Is it true that in his four years in office, he only boasted a mother and child hospital, while other humbler states like Lagos and Delta have this phenomenon as routine? Only last week, Governor Babatunde Fashola, (SAN) the governor of example, unveiled eight of such hospitals.

    Is it true that he is spending over N600 million on a mega school, and boasted during his outing on the hustings that he would build mega schools in every local government, and the people believed such egregious folly? Is it true that thousands of Caesarian operations took place in his hospital? Does it not bespeak a failed system that such a stunning number of Caesarian surgeries will take place in a system?

    So if they say he performed, what are the tangible signatures of this performance? It has been demonstrated in the history of democracy that perception, not performance, is the potent force in democratic elections. It is the power of the spin. The people can be suffering, and be told that their lots are actually blissful. If the right figures are cleverly calibrated and the diction forceful, they would achieve a Goebels-like score, hoodwinking the people with a narrative of their own heroism when, in actual fact, the facts paint a contradictory picture.

    Looking at the issue of invasion seems to me more than a little unfair. Is it invasion in Ekiti State, where Governor Kayode Fayemi, in a brief two years, has had impact on poverty alleviation and infrastructure development of both roads and education than Mimiko can imagine in his self-glorification? Or are I am to refer to Rauf Aregbesola’s compassionate state where the education is reborn in a tale that only harks back to the time of Awolowo in terms of fervency of enrollment. Mimiko threw a gratuitous salvo over the thousands of people he has employed in his poverty alleviation programme. Those are 20,000 people removed from the streets of crime and indolence. How many of such can Mimiko boast of? Does he have a comparable figure of human rescue? Shall we refer to the doings of Ibikunle Amosun, with roads he has unveiled with deft measures in tertiary education and efforts to energise for industrial development? What of Abiola Ajimobi’s valiant work in Ibadan already, rescuing the city from the grubby propensity of his bejeweled predecessor as well as the first real efforts to save the state from the tragic routines of floods? Is this what they saw as invasion? If that is invasion, it should have been the invasion of liberation rather than internal servitude.

    In terms of integrity, I recalled in this column a few weeks ago when I characterised Mimiko as a pariah in the story of brotherly love. I itemised his serial acts of betrayal and that tells us that integrity should be seen as a factor in leadership. Apparently, that did not matter.

    The great thing about democracy is that the people can live to see the consequences of their ill judgment. I recall in my days teaching in the university in the United States, and I warned my students about the portentous errors of George W. Bush, and that he had deceived the majority of Americans, including marquee media establishments like the New York Times. Some of my students thought I was probably supping with the enemy. By the time they knew the effect of their actions, Bush was winding down his second term in office. And one of the students accosted me on campus with a slobbering apologia.

    The New York Times published its mea culpa for being complicit in a wave of deception in the country. The media is not always innocent in matters of mass deception. It even happened in Hitler’s Germany, where only the Munich Post stood as the corrective voice in a whirlpool lies.

    I only hope that we do not wake up one day to learn that, true to type, Mimiko has dumped his Labour Party and found a new rhythm in a new or familiar crowd of politicians. He should realise that if he did not perform in the first term and got away with it, history that outlives the presentistic follies of newspapers will be less kind if he fails to perform in the second.

  • There was a country: Biafra was ego fight between Ojukwu and Gowon

    There was a country: Biafra was ego fight between Ojukwu and Gowon

    As leadership failed Nigeria at the most critical time, just before Biafra was declared, Chinua Achebe suggests that the gruesome conflict would have been avoided, were it not for the seeming clash of egos between the two protagonists – Colonels Emeka Ojukwu and Yakubu Gowon. The one was 33-years old while the other was 32. While Ojukwu rose from an aristocratic background, attended the best schools in Nigeria and the United Kingdom (University of Oxford) before enlisting in the Nigerian Army at the officer cadre, Gowon’s trajectory was almost the reverse, though he also trained at the best British military schools.

    From this background, there was, therefore, a suspicion that an unspoken rivalry brewed between the twain, which came to the fore when they gained commanding positions and faced each other down across opposing divides.

    After General Aguiyi-Ironsi was killed in the reprisal coup of July 1966, Col. Gowon emerged as Head of State. He was, of course, a favourite of the British colonial establishment which still had strong influence in Nigeria’s politics. And being a northern Christian, he was the perfect gambit of the Hausa–Fulani oligarchy, which used him to assuage the fears of the other tribes already grumbling about domination.

    Ojukwu rejected Gowon’s ascendancy on the grounds that he was not the most senior in the Nigeria Army’s hierarchy to lead the country. He said he would not subordinate himself to Gowon. This was one of the points of disagreement at the summit in Aburi, Ghana.

    On the part of the new Head of State, his headship was not negotiable; not with Ojukwu, for that matter. At the least opportunity they both had, they took hard stands, writes Achebe. It is instructive that Ojukwu and Gowon only met once (at Aburi) from the time Gowon became head of state till the end of the war. Achebe captures their rivalry thus: “There are a number who believe that neither Gowon nor Ojukwu was the right leader for that desperate time, because they were blinded by ego, hindered by a lack of administrative experience, and obsessed with interpersonal competitions and petty rivalries. As a consequence, according to this school of thought, these two men failed to make appropriate and wise decisions throughout the conflict and missed several opportunities when compromise could have saved the day.”

    Achebe says there was an obsessive tendency by both belligerents – Gowon and Ojukwu – to seek positions of strength and avoid looking weak throughout the conflict.

    Ojukwu’s Mid-West misadventure and folly

    To correct what has remained a contentious record, the Nigerian side, according to Achebe, fired the first shot in the war when Gowon decided to use the federal Army’s First Command in what he termed “police action,” in an attempt to “restore Federal Government authority in Lagos and the breakaway Eastern Region.” That move to capture the Biafran border towns of Ogoja and Nsukka proved to be a declaration of war, says Achebe. Thereafter, in July 1967, Nigerian troops attempted to cross the Niger Bridge into Biafra. According to Madiebo’s account, quoted by Achebe, the Biafran army was able to halt this advance and disperse the federal troops.

    Now that minor Biafran victory became “an advance, leading to the taking of a large swath of the Mid-Western Region in a surprise manoeuver that the Nigerian federal troops had not anticipated.” Of course, Ojukwu got euphoric by this small victory and was quoted in a speech at the time as saying: “Our motive was not territorial ambition or the desire of conquest. We went into the Midwest (later declared the Republic of Benin) purely in an effort to seize the serpent by the head; every other activity in that Republic was subordinated to that single aim. We were going to Lagos to seize the villain Gowon, and we took necessary military precaution.” Those who accuse Ojukwu and the Igbo leaders of not applying wisdom in proclaiming a Republic of Biafra may well base their arguments on this singular Ojukwu misadventure and folly in the Midwest.

    As it turned out, Ojukwu’s incursion into the Midwest territory, en route Lagos and delegating the then ‘fugitive’ South westerner, Col. Victor Banjo, was not only an exercise in extreme youthful exuberance, it also turned out a costly, if not mortal error. Here was a leader who had neither army nor ammunition; not even a war strategy. The Observer reporter, John de St. Jorre captured Ojukwu’s folly thus: “The Biafrans ‘stormed’ through the Mid-West, not in the usual massive impedimenta of modern warfare but in bizarre collection of private cars, “mammy” wagons, cattle and vegetable trucks. The command vehicle was a Peugeot 404 estate car. The whole operation was not carried out by an “army” or even a “brigade”… but by at most 1,000 men, the majority poorly trained and armed, and many wearing civilian clothes because they had not been issued with uniforms.”

    Of course, this rag-tag “army” got nowhere near Lagos. In fact, it turned out a suicide, mission having pricked the ire of the federal side by their action, pushing them to unleash what may be described as blind horror on Biafra subsequently.

    The four murderous generals

    Following from what was considered the Mid-West humiliation, Gowon regrouped his troops and they plotted a three-pronged onslaught that was meant to “crush the Biafrans” in a few weeks. Mohammed Shuwa who was in charge of the First Division of the federal army was to advance against Biafra from the north to take the Biafran towns of Nsukka and Ogoja. Col. Murtala Muhammed who was in charge of Division Two was charged with retaking Benin and other parts of the Mid-West occupied by the Biafran army, as well as storm Onitsha crossing the Niger Bridge. Lastly, Benjamin Adekunle, known as the ‘black scorpion’, leading Division Three of the Nigeria Army, led the southern offensive.

    In just three months, the federal troops, armed to the teeth now with British weapons, had staged a successful counter-offensive and the Biafran troops were in full flight. Since resistance by the Biafran soldiers was almost non-existent on all fronts, it would have been enough for the federal troops to have captured the entire Biafra with minimum casualties on all sides. But that was not to be. Most of the federal officers were unrestrained and unprofessional; they were blood-thirsty and murderous in their operation.

    Thus in Asaba, Onitsha, Nsukka, Enugu, Owerri, Aba and Calabar, they killed Igbo civilians in cold blood, according to Achebe. The example of the Asaba massacre will suffice: Murtala Muhammed and his lieutenants, including Col. IBM Haruna, apparently smarting from Biafra’s Mid-West humiliation, had rounded up no fewer than 500 Igbo men of Mid-West stock, young and old, and executed them summarily in cold blood. This particular atrocity which attracted worldwide attention, prompting Pope Paul VI to send an emissary has remained unaddressed and unquestioned till today.

    It was 35 years later, in 2002 precisely during the Oputa Panel (the ill-fated Truth and Reconciliation Commission) that the matter came up again. While Gowon claimed ignorance of the massacre and apologised profusely, here is the response of IBM Haruna, then retired as a Major-General: “As the commanding officer and leader of the troops that massacred 500 men in Asaba, I have no apology for those massacred in Asaba, Owerri, Ameke-Item. I acted as a soldier maintaining the peace and unity of Nigeria… If Yakubu Gowon apologized, he did it in his own capacity. As for me, I have no apology.”

    Tuesday: Ogbunigwe, Abagana Ambush; Achebe, Okigbo and Ifeajuna

  • Back to the future

    Back to the future

    As we await the outcome of the historic Ondo state gubernatorial polls, it is clear that there is turbulence in the House of Oduduwa. Once again, the Yoruba political elite have arrived at one of those critical conjunctures of history. The unprecedented militarisation of Ondo state by the federal authorities in the wake of the election, the high decibel scaremongering, the level of elite rancour and mutual loathing, the arrows of hatred being shot in all directions, point at a fundamental fracturing of consensus.

    When the din of political commotion has receded, when tempers have cooled, when frayed nerves have calmed considerably, we will have to resume the dialogue, if not for our own sake but for the sake of our children, for the sake of posterity and for the sake of a nation in total shambles. All the major post-independence and post-colonial crises of the Nigerian state and nation have always emanated from the old west. Once again, the omens are dark and dire.

    The complete militarisation of Ondo state on the eve of its fourth gubernatorial election after the advent of military rule does not bode well for the development of democracy or the deepening of civil rule. It speaks to the continuing inability of the political elite to internalise the elementary norms of democratic rule. The post-military consolidation of civil rule is facing its most severe test. Soldiers are already out in full force maintaining civil order in several parts of the nation. Gradually, a significant section of the old north is coming under informal military rule. Slowly but inexorably, the entire country is being placed on a war footing.

    In the old west, a bitter confrontation and rearguard rallying is unfolding between the new dominant tendency of the Yoruba and the old hegemonic forces in alliance with disaffected fractions of the Yoruba intelligentsia and the inevitable mainstream mensahib. A regular feature of Yoruba political infighting is for the emaciated and emasculated faction to hide under federal might to cause mayhem in their own fatherland. Given recent disturbing signals, will the old Afenifere grandees go in the same direction, destroying all they have fought for in the twilight of their career?

    We speak with caution and circumspection. Exactly five years ago, the cream of the Yoruba political and economic elite together with their intelligentsia gathered in Ibadan for a historic reapproachment. In a famous riposte at the gathering, Chief Olu Falae noted that fighting ends when fighting itself is tired and exhausted. (O tire ija) But it is obvious that given Chief Falae’s recent vitriolic and volcanic outbursts that fighting is far from exhausted. On the contrary, it is bearish and bullish. What went wrong between October 2007 and October 2012?

    When a child falters and falls, it looks instinctively at what lies in front. But when elders stumble and fall, they cast a glance backwards. This morning snooper takes a retrospective look at the immediate past as a prelude to confronting the future. We republish the report of the Ibadan deliberations which took place exactly five years ago this week.

  • Ondo formula is simply not reusable

    Ondo formula is simply not reusable

    To police some 1.5 million expected voters in yesterday’s governorship poll, half of whom may not even vote, the federal government sent in four police commissioners, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) chairman himself, an estimated 8,000 soldiers according to a newspaper estimate, about 11,000 policemen, and a battery of sundry officials, a horde of election observers, and a gaggle of journalists from newspapers nearly all of which are disposed to Governor Olusegun Mimiko, one of the candidates in the election. This certainly cannot be a dress rehearsal for the 2015 polls, for the security agencies would be stretched wafer thin as to be in danger of snapping.

    There is no doubt that the October 20 Ondo poll is hugely significant in and to the Southwest. But to deploy an armada, as it were, to police a relatively small voting population appears to me to be excessive. Not only that, it even suggests to me that we seem to think whenever we are confronted by difficult situations, the magic formula is to overwhelm the problem with all the force the nation can muster. Our governments are not intellectually inclined, have no finesse, and are blissfully unaware of the image and messages they send out to the rest of the world silently but carefully watching our every nuance. Do we think there is no better way of policing votes or ensuring the integrity of elections conducted here? I think there are. The problem is that we have not engaged those novel methods because the government at the centre has not shown the altruism, dignity and detachment required to instil discipline in a combustible polity.

    In the last general elections, what did the government do to punish those who undermined the balloting process in some affected states? Nothing. In a few states in the South-South, voter turnout was too fantastic to be true, in some cases recording nearly twice the national average. What did the federal government do to restore confidence in the face of such brazen thievery? The government implausibly and incredibly argued that since the exaggerated figures merely emphasised the voting pattern, not contradict it, it was needless complaining or doing something about it. The cancer was therefore left unattended. In fact, in the history of elections in Nigeria, the voter turnout in the riverine states has always been excessively unrealistic. If the president had sensibly cancelled those elections and ordered a rerun, he would have sent the message that whether it favoured him or not the integrity of polls must at all times be upheld, and he would be ready even at his own peril to stake his presidency to secure the sanctity of the elections.

    Until we have a president willing to lose an election or to stake his presidency on ensuring electoral integrity, we may never have a poll where the candidates would not be desperate to undermine the balloting process. The use of overwhelming force was first successfully applied in the Edo governorship election, and was again applied in yesterday’s Ondo poll. It will be used in subsequent isolated polls. But it cannot be applied in the 2015 general elections because the country does not have the resources to deploy as much logistics and as many men as it did yesterday. Indeed, such deployments indicate there is still something terribly wrong with the country, which if not tackled urgently may finally consume all of us. But every time I make such an argument, I feel more and more like Cassandra.

     

  • Welcoming our dear Patience Jonathan

    Welcoming our dear Patience Jonathan

    I was angry when Dame Patience Jonathan left the country’s shores unceremoniously late August. I was still angry when she returned on Wednesday. Indeed, I was angrier when the media made her return an issue. Why must you roll the carpets out to welcome someone who did not bid you goodbye when she was travelling? Even if she was not capable of doing that, should her aides too not have explained at least a little of what the issue was as she was leaving the country, or even after she had left? To make matters worse, one of them had to remind us that madam is not his ‘mate’, when we asked him for an idea of when to expect the First Lady. “Is she my mate”, that I should ask her that kind of question? he asked angrily. Anyway, my Christian conscience would not allow me grudge her for too long. So, welcome back, ma’am.

    But I won’t allow what I noticed when she returned to go just like that. For a man whose wife had been away for about seven weeks, one would have thought that President Goodluck Jonathan would be more romantic when receiving his wife on her return. But, what did we see on Wednesday? A President Jonathan who appeared too shy to properly hug his Dame in the open, when she returned after the weeks of ‘resting’ abroad. He must have disappointed those of us who were waiting for the award-winning picture of the President hugging his wife on the tarmac, and squeezing her tight, Lagos-style, her two feet off the ground in the process. I trust President Barack Obama, if he had such an opportunity in the open, he would convert it to political advantage so that weeks after the great ‘event’, it would still be the focus of the media worldwide.

    President Jonathan would be lucky if the women’s rights groups would not conspire with others at large, to wit: sue him for this run-on-the-mill welcome peck. And when the President should have been making plan to make up for this casual welcome back home hug, he left the country for Niamey, the Niger Republic capital on official assignment. Pray, what business has he in Niamey at a time Patience’s lips must be saying something like ’near-me’?

    Anyway, President Jonathan has a rare third chance: having returned from Niamey, he should declare a week-long national holiday to do the needful; Nigerians would understand. Then, in their inner recesses in Aso Rock, they should put a sticker on the door with the stern warning: “First Couple at work” (or is it at play?) with some of the best hits of Donna Summer, Sonya Spence and (cap it with that of) Marvin Gaye, at the background. It is dangerous to let Patience run out of patience.

  • Ondo election on my mind

    Ondo election on my mind

    Other things being equal, the governorship election in Ondo State must have come and gone by the time you are reading this piece. But the kind of security arrangements that were put in place by the police and other security outfits for the election is mind-boggling. Barely 72 hours to the D-Day, the Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed Abubakar, said roads leading to Ondo State would be closed from last Thursday (October 18) preparatory to the election. Not only that, 20 armoured patrol security personnel and marine police patrol men would be provided at the riverine areas. “There will be no fishing on that day. Whatever fish you have on that day, stay at home and eat it…” Abubakar said, among other things.

    Even soldiers are not left out of the security arrangement. The General Officer Commanding (GOC) Nigeria Army 2 Division, Major-General Mohammed Abubakar gave a shoot-on-sight order against hoodlums who may want to rig election or foment trouble to disrupt the polls. In addition to the no-fishing order by the inspector-general of police, the GOC also said that there won’t even be any hunting on Election Day (yesterday). So, people who might want to carry arms under the pretext of going to hunt must have been effectively checkmated. Also, soldiers drafted for the election would get a dress code to differentiate them from fake ones that some politicians might have recruited. Again, soldiers would mount check points on major roads even as the INEC office has been heavily protected against bombing and other criminal activities.

    Now, do we blame the security agents for relying on ‘war and chariot’, as it were, to give us free and fair election? Yes and no. I will explain.” Experience”, they say, “is the best teacher”. The fact of the matter is that our politicians have not imbibed seeing election as any other contest in which there is bound to be a winner and a loser. In other words, they are bad losers. Long before former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s coinage of ‘do-or-die battle’ to describe election, elections in the country have become another kingdom of God that suffereth violence and only the violent taketh it by force.

    I agree that is not good enough, but the point is that in its 13 years of governing the country since the return to civil rule in 1999, the PDP has not taught us much lesson concerning corruption, particularly political corruption. And there is a limit to how far it can go in the matter because it is a major actor in and beneficiary of election rigging. But I plead with the army to take things easy by not killing innocent voters in the process of killing hoodlums.

    Again, the point must be made that all these security arrangements would amount to naught if they are for superficial purposes. We will only have result if the security agents were posted on election duty for genuine reasons. The point must be made too that it would be tragic if all these security arrangements are to feather the nest of any of the contending parties, particularly the federal ruling party. It would be tragic because of the peculiar history of the Ondo people who cannot tolerate their votes being tampered with.

    All said, it is important to point out that Ondo election and even the last governorship election in Edo State that returned Adams Oshiomhole, the Action Congress of Nigeria’s (ACN) candidate to office are now assuming the nature of serious business that elections should assume, that is minus the violence aspect. In spite of the fact that Oshiomhole ought to have been returned ‘unopposed’ based on his track record, he still had to fight the battle of his life to ward off the rampaging PDP that wanted to rattle him out of the seat.

    We saw the same thing in Ondo State. The three leading contenders for Mimiko’s job, Mimiko himself, of the Labour Party (LP), Rotimi Akeredolu (SAN), the candidate of the ACN, and Olusola Oke of the PDP; and particularly the first two, had been selling themselves to the people in the last few weeks. They had traversed the state in their individual attempt to woo the voters. The incumbent must have fought a battle of his life too. This is the way it should be; votes need not come cheap because when they do, they are hardly appreciated. What you do not labour for, you do not value. As they say, “no pain, no gain”. If we continue in this hard work tradition for elections, one day, the voter would be the king that he should be.

  • One giant mental institution, that’s our Nigeria!

    Did you hear the one about a mentally unstable man who was released from an institution for good behaviour? Well, his doctors felt he was sufficiently healed to be let into the society so he got out and went on the streets. Two hours later, he was back at the institution. What was the problem? He said that while he stood by the road side, he saw a man wearing thick glasses riding a commercial motorcycle and carrying a pregnant woman who had a child on her back, and another one who carried three passengers on his motor cycle. He also saw a taxi driver who had carried seven passengers in his four-seat vehicle and a policeman who only laughed and collected some money from him. Then he thought, ‘the people out there in the world are all madder than me, and I am the one committed!’ So, to avoid being contaminated, he went back.

    This last week, I listened in on a radio programme celebrating World Mental Health day. And I thought, ah, mental health! That is the inability of the mind to distinguish between what is socially acceptable and what is not. For example, since most husbands have not been able to distinguish between what is domestically acceptable (such as leaving all their month’s pay in the pockets of their pants for their wives to find) from what is not (such as leaving those pants on the kitchen table), we can assume that their mental health is challenged. There’s someone else whose mental health is challenged: my dog. For reasons best known to him, he thinks barking is beneath him. Do what you like, he just won’t bark. To harass visitors therefore, he simply, err, licks their feet. Grrr! That dog is so in need of a specialist.

    Obviously, then, anyone whose mental health is challenged needs help. I can count the people who need help. All taxi drivers need help. All Lagos bus drivers need help. All okada riders need help. Believe me, all husbands need help. How else can you classify a husband who sells his wife for a sum of money if not someone in need of help? No, that happened in literature. But I know one who nearly sold his wife because she was costing him too much to feed. Really, what constitutes mental health is a matter of perspective. After all, I once drove the car into one of the walls of the house. No, no one pushed me; I just thought the road extended there. Of course, need you ask? Those around me went, ‘But, were you mad?!’

    So, like everyone else, I interpreted the mental health day to mean the day we pause in our respective tasks, think for a moment about any mad person we know, say a little prayer for them, and then move on to choose what we are going to have for dinner. Not so, explained the resource person, it means the day we examine our mind and clear it of debris such as excessive love of money, excessive hatred of our noisy neighbour and too many death wishes such as driving the car at one hundred and forty kilometres an hour on Nigeria’s rough roads. Or, we can just use the day to think about those who appear well on the surface but are really sick beneath, like Nigeria.

    Reader, pause awhile and say a prayer for Nigeria for we have, by our behaviour, converted it into a mental institution. Seriously. The poor thing thinks it is well but it is really, really sick. Just think about the antics of her citizens. Where else in the world can you find a people so cheerfully bizarre, yet uncompromisingly devilish? Where else can you find a people so nice and yet so wicked to each other all at once? I say, where else can you find a people so artful at biting each other and so equally artful at blowing palliative air to soothe the pain? Where else but in this your good ol’ country can you find people perpetually screaming at each other ‘You hit my car, are you mad?! You beat my son, are you mad?! You stole my prayer, are you mad?! You stole my future, are you mad?! You stole all the meat in the pot, you this stupid child, are you mad?!!!

    When we think of the fact that what peoples the walls of this country is a veritable mix of schizophrenics, psychosomatics, psychopaths, sociopaths, sociogoths and psychogoths (if you know what those are cause I don’t), repressed and depressed joy killers, quarter-mad, half-mad and fully-mad individuals, and all in need of specialists, then we know we need to tread a little. If you don’t believe me, just take a look at the Lagos traffic and transport system. That is pure madness. Whoever contrived that system should be hung up for the world to behold as the example of a mad man. Or, you might look at Abuja driving. For exercise, drive to and from Abuja and you will see what I mean. Clearly, every driver along that route needs a specialist. The ones inside the city itself appear to be beyond redemption, so the government appears to have left them alone to finish one another off. When they finish getting rid of one another, to the last one of them, then we can claim the city back from madness. Right now, it is on the brink.

    When we think of the mad things we have done to this country, then we would agree that it is all but hanging on a thread, or just hanging. And it all began when we stood the country on its head, much like when you stand logic on its head. Again, pause a while and let us go over the facts together. Is it not in this country that people who have been convicted or are under suspicion are also ‘elected’ into political office? Is it not in this country that people who say they are trying to salvage the country’s economy ask to be paid in foreign currencies? Don’t these things boggle your mind? They do mine.

    Sadly, it is also in this country that people go out to kill in the name of God and still preach that that God, in whose name they have killed others, stands for love. Hmm. Strange love. Anyway, this is also the country that houses the highest number of people who steal from the government so that they and their children will never be poor again. Yet another kind of strange love. So, with so much strange love going around, are you surprised that there is so much madness in the land, and we are all ensconced in this giant mental institution?

    The World Mental Health day came and went without too many people noticing it. Perhaps, those who did were the only sane ones among us. I dare say the rest of us were too busy displaying our mental instability to notice. So it comes down to this. The mental health of this country is in your hands. Stop screaming at others; stop driving recklessly; stop embezzling recklessly; stop killing in the name of God, and begin now to take care of yourself and others in this mental institution. Who knows, if we begin to behave ourselves we might be let off, and be allowed to join the comity of sane nations soon, real soon.

  • Patience’s second chance

    Patience’s second chance

    I join the First Lady, Patience Jonathan, in thanking God for returning ‘hale and hearty’ from her recent ‘trip’ to Germany.

    Considering speculations over her health while her six-week stay abroad lasted, she really has reasons to thank God that she came back alive. Among the speculations was that she went for a tummy-tuck operation, while some said she had a terminal disease.

    I remember seeing a particular edition of a soft-sell magazine with a headline that she was down with Parkinson syndrome being sold on the streets of Lagos. Much as I had doubt over the authenticity of the report I was really worried for Dame Patience.

    Apparently shocked by the wild speculations, the first lady on arrival immediately denied the reports but stated that “God has given me a second chance.” While Dame Patience should be angered by the speculations which indeed amount to unethical practices by the media organisations concerned, the presidency should be blamed for refusing to give a clear picture of why she was suddenly flown abroad.

     No official statement was issued on her trip until the online media was abuzz with speculations. Even when journalists requested for the whereabouts of the first lady, her media aide, Ayo Osinlu, first claimed that his boss was retiring, after the rigours of hosting the African First Ladies Summit.

    Thereafter he and other presidency officials declined to speak on the very sensitive issue and gave room for more fertile imaginations by the speculators. The president also kept mute over the issue and recently went to visit his wife who was supposed to be ‘resting’ in Germany. If indeed she was resting, there was no justification for the president’s visit. It was bad enough that our president’s wife could not rest at home and had to incur God-knows-how-much money to ‘rest’ abroad.

    Nigerians would have been more sympathetic if the truth of Dame Patience’s trip had been disclosed.

    Just like any human being, she could take ill and Nigerians deserve the right to know. If the best treatment she could get is abroad, so be it, but to have smuggled the First Lady out of the country and kept quiet about what was wrong with her amounts to the height of deception and undue secrecy about what should be public knowledge.

    This second chance is an opportunity to be the First Lady she should be.

    Now that she is back, she needs to work hard at making the best use of the second chance God has given her as she acknowledged. She should cut down her self-imposed multiple public functions which most times keep her in the news for the wrong reasons.

    She needs to operate more from the background than getting into controversies that rub off negatively on her husband. Since the role of the First Lady is not constitutional, Dame Jonathan should stop throwing her weight around like she has done on occasions when she clashed with elected officials.

    On this second chance, she should be modest in implementing whatever pet project she is running and not incur unnecessary expenditure like some first ladies before her, whose projects don’t outlive their stay in office.