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Category: Columnists

Willie Obiano – Another feather to honour-laden cap

Chief Willie Obiano carries a spark that lights up any arena he enters like a burst of fireflies in a dark, moonless night.

And it has very little to do with his well cultivated sartorial style; or his regal carriage which was there long before he took his first chieftancy title. Nor is it his infectious humour and kindred spirit that strikes instant connectivity with anyone that comes his way regardless of age or class. Obiano is far more nuanced than that. And it’s all perhaps because the Aguleri high chief has managed to squeeze into one personality, as much complexity as simplicity.

Perhaps no one in recent memory closely approximates what Chinua Achebe may have had in mind when he choose the title, A Man of the People for his apocalyptic novel that prophesied the Nigeria Civil War as Chief Willie Maduabuchi Obiano. However, unlike Chief Honorable Nanga, Achebe’s central character in A Man of the People who was a noisy, flatulent politician who drew insincere adulation from his beggarly constituents, Chief Obiano who holds the title of Akpokuedike (loosely translated as the buzz of the warrior) is a brilliant banker and astute administrator who is well loved by his Aguleri people in Anambra State.

Essentially, the story of Chief Obiano is a tale of a life of solid personal achievements. Until recently, Chief Obiano was the number two man at Fidelity Bank Plc, as the Executive Director in charge of Business Banking after a glittering banking career that saw him rise through the ranks and heading virtually every important segment of the bank including corporate banking, non-bank financial institutions, treasury, foreign operations, oil and gas financing, telecommunications, aviation and several other businesses where he showed tremendous leadership skills and a rare people’s touch. Prior to berthing at Fidelity Bank, Obiano had had an auspicious beginning at First Bank Nigeria and Texaco Nigeria Plc where he was the Chief Internal Auditor for years.

At Fidelity, what mostly stood Chief Obiano out was his rare human touch; a deep connection with the people which resonated throughout the bank and a large reservoir of knowledge of the subtleties of banking and a keen sense of the present and how it connects to the future, which most bankers who have fallen by the way side never seemed to have. Obiano knew banking well enough to know that the banker’s reputation is like a house of straws; one bad move and all the years of struggle would go up in a plume of smoke. But Obiano left Fidelity on a high. He was well loved by the ordinary staff and respected by the management and the board. At the bank’s annual dinners and social events, AkpokueAguleri, as he was fondly called by friends and colleagues always stood out. Being a man of style, his remarkable haircut and aristocratic fashion taste always marked him out in the crowd. Smiling comes easy to Chief Obiano as does his hearty gentleman laughter that draws instant fellow feelings from the people around him.

Chief Obiano’s social skills were also well known outside Fidelity Bank as most of his closest friends are members of the armed forces, para-military, royal fathers, professionals like doctors, lawyers, fellow bankers and brilliant architects and engineers, among others. He is also deeply connected to the clergy and the church. Obiano is a devout Catholic whose commitment to the church is deep. It is perhaps ironic that a man with his high social skills and a profound love for tradition is also deeply involved with the church. It is all part of the high art of personality code-mixing which Obiano has perfected in his simple but complex personality.

Obiano’s involvement with the church began rather early. Following his early education in mission schools, Chief Obiano has never really strayed too far from the church. His keen interest in the church of Jesus Christ has led him into accepting different roles in the service of God including but not restricted to being the patron of Catholic Women Association, Missionary of St. Paul’s Society, Catholic Women’s Organization, Catholic Laity Council of Nigeria and the Grand Pillar of St. Gerald Catholic Church, among others.

All things considered, perhaps the most startling thing about Chief Obiano is his astonishing brilliance. For someone with his profound social skills, it is almost unbelievable to note just how acute his intellect works. Obiano holds a Second Class Upper Division in Accounting from the University of Lagos and an MBA in Marketing from the same school. He is a class member of the Harvard Business School and Stanford University, both in the USA. He is also both Fellow and patron of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN). In the course of his career, Obiano attended numerous courses including Credit and Trade Services at Citi Bank, New York, Treasury and Money Market at Northwest London, Emerging Markets at FIM Bank, Malta and Managing Integration Process at Houston Texas, USA in 2006.

As is the case with people who live a life of meaning, AkpokuedikeAguleri’s life is spiced up with numerous humanitarian gestures that heal the world. Obiano is a committed philanthropist, a cheerful giver who finds contentment in easing the pain of people in need. However, Akpokuedike has a different attitude to philanthropy – he never makes his interventions public. He likes affecting lives silently. Just recently, he made a bold intervention to alleviate the suffering of the victims of the flood that engulfed half of Anambra State.

There are times when Chief Obiano comes across as the quintessence of the archetypal Igbo man of means who delights in his largeness of heart to the people. He loves people and there is always something about him that draws people towards him.

Not surprising, Chief Obiano has been a recipient of many awards and honours in recognition of his eternal warmth, public spirit, candour and generous contributions to society. In May this year, Obiano received the honour of the 1stUSAfrica’s Distinguished Banker of the Year award in Houston, Texas, USA. In addition to being honoured by the people of Aguleri as the Akpokuedike of Aguleri Kingdom, Chief Obiano also holds the revered title of OtunbaAtayase of Ilemeso-Ekiti in Ekiti State. This later recognition from Oba David AdegboyegaOyewunmi (Fasemi II) of Ilemeso-Ekiti underscores his bridge-building capacity and a natural inclination to bond with people from diverse cultures.

Needless to say, more honours have continued to trail Chief Obiano. As the saying goes, if a man makes a better mouse-trap than his peers. The world would make a beaten-path to his door. People and society whose lives he has touched are beginning to look back in gratefulness.

It is partly for this reason and everything else that the Board of Governors and Trustees of Wisconsin International University, USA, has decided to confer on him, the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Leadership, honoris causa, today. It is a richly deserved honour for someone who has made his mark as a thoroughbred professional and as a man of means.

To some people, after a rewarding career in the private sector, this great honour would be the crowning glory of a life in full. But Chief Obiano’s incredible energy and pursuit of excellence will most likely not allow him any long lasting feeling of fulfilment. It is almost certain thatAkpokuedikeAguleri will always find a newer and more challenging territory to tame and bring under his firm hands. Only time will tell.

Mr. James Eze

October 20, 2012
Re-thinking Nigeria’s party system

One of the sources of contention in Nigeria’s current political system is the power granted the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) by the constitution to de-register political parties that do not comply with the Electoral Act. In this regard, the commission recently reiterated its determination to ensure that parties meet requisite conditions before they are allowed to field candidates for elections. In the words of INEC Chairman, Professor Attahiru Jega, “It is good to have a multi-party system and to allow as many parties as possible to register but we really need to sanitise the process of registering parties. This will ensure that only the most deserving in terms of programmes, their constitution and their physical presence in states and in localities that are registered”. Ordinarily, Jega’s position may be perceived as restricting the horizons of participatory democracy which many believe was broadened by the late Chief Gani Fawehinmi’s judicial success in de-regulating the registration of political parties. Those who reason this way see the existence of a multiplicity of parties as an end in itself – a demonstration of rights and an exercise of liberty. However, is there a nexus between a country’s party system and the broader goals of political evolution and national development?

A legitimate goal in a multi-ethnic, culturally complex polity like ours will be promoting national cohesion as a basis for political stability. It is obvious that a system of limited number of parties will more likely help achieve this than an unrestricted party system. What are the lessons of the June 12, 1993, presidential election regarded as the freest and fairest in the country’s history in this regard? Did the two- party system not play a part in the much celebrated national spread and success of the election – its pan-Nigerian character? Are we giving sufficient attention to the structure and administration of political parties? Arguably this institution is more central to the state than any other; it is the platform on which members of two critical arms of government – the legislature and the executive – emerge. Yet, parties continue to be run in a largely informal manner. This is unlike the Babangida administration’s transition programme during which parties were registered by government and had functional offices at all levels with party officials democratically elected and formally remunerated.

Of course the idea of trying to ensure that all members of the government created National Republican Convention (NRC) and Social Democratic Party (SDP) were ‘equal founders and joiners’ was largely utopian and unrealistic. Individuals have varying degrees of orientation to politics. The degree of an individual’s interest in party activities and public affairs depend on what students of political behaviour describe as a person’s ‘sense of political efficacy’. Some individuals are more willing to expend their time, energy, resources and energy on politics than others. These political personality types are more likely to participate more actively in and have more influence within the party and polity than others. In any case, a fundamental contradiction of the Babangida transition programme was that its Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) was widening social equality at the economic level while its Political Transition Programme (PTP) was seeking to equalize participation and influence in the political sphere! A logical impossibility.

Yet, the institutionalization of a more formal party system with specified boundaries will demonstrably have a beneficial impact on the political system and there can be no better example than the celebrated June 12 presidential election. During the IBB transition programme, I was one of those who criticised the NRC and SDP as nothing but artificial parties and government parastatals. We attributed their quick capitulation after the annulment of the election to the fact that they were purportedly ‘inorganic’ parties. But if we follow this logic, why did the purportedly organic parties of the first and second republics – Northern Peoples Congress (NPC), National Council of Nigerian Citizens (NCNC), Action Group (AG), Northern Elements Progressive Union (NEPU), Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN), National Party of Nigeria (NPN), Nigeria Peoples Party (NPP) and the Peoples Redemption Party (PRP) – literarily vanish into thin air when they were peremptorily banned by the military usurpers of political power. This is unlike the African National Congress (ANC) in South Africa, which survived and ultimately triumphed over apartheid after decades of persecution, harassment, torture and outright ban.

Now, I do not want to be misunderstood. The IBB regime’s annulment of the presidential election exposed the motive behind the highly regimented party system, which created two parties, foisted manifestoes on them and located them by fiat ideologically a little to the right and a little to the left of the regime’s neo-liberal Structural Adjustment Programme. It needed a highly regulated and controlled party system to legitimate and consolidate its extreme deregulation of the economy, which had the consequences of dramatically increasing poverty and inequality. But the outcome of the election and the regime’s inability to contain the implications of the annulment only illustrates what the late Professor Aaron Gana described as ‘the limits of political engineering’. But whatever, its motives the truth is that the regime’s more formal and regulated party system facilitated the best and most pan-Nigerian election in the country’s history.

The present chaotic party system is ultimately subversive of the national goal of deepening democratic development. it encourages a one-party dominant system where a veritable behemoth in control of the centre since 1999, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), profits from the existence of a multiplicity of largely unviable parties that compound the problems of evolving a cohesive, potent and viable opposition. A fundamental re-thinking of the current dysfunctional party system has become imperative.

…Welcoming the Dame

The First Lady, Dame Patience Jonathan, looked quite radiant on her return to the country on Wednesday after a six-week stay in Germany. Her remarks were quite interesting, even impressive in parts. She told us everything that was not wrong with her. She does not have a terminal illness. She did not undergo cosmetic surgery. She did not have a tummy tuck. She was never in hospital. But where was she and why was she there? The nation remains in the dark. She faulted the logic of those who, citing Sani Abacha, Stella Obasanjo and Umaru Yar’Adua, say “that anybody that goes to the Villa or Aso Rock will die”. How about those who went there with their families and came out alive, she asked? Smart thinking. She sounded romantic: “My husband loves me as I am and I am pleased with how God created me, I cannot add to it”. She sounded spiritual: “God has said it all, that when two or three are gathered in His name, that he will be with them.” The Dame sure knows the scriptures. Shout Alleluia somebody! Above all, she sounded presidential: “God has given me a second chance to come and work with women of Nigeria, children and the less privileged. I have come to serve Nigeria. I have come to work with Nigerians. I am there for them”. Pray, who did we vote for? Are we blessed with two Presidents? All the same, it’s nice to have the Dame back. There surely will be no dull moment at the Villa.

October 20, 2012
Tottering Super Eagles

These are interesting times for Nigerian football. Hitherto, it was a deluge of criticisms about the way the game was being administered and the ineptitude of the coaches, who didn’t have the courage to discipline the Super Eagles’ foreign legion.

Most people cringed at the conduct and the passion that our Europe-based boys exhibited during Nigeria’s matches. They sneered at the lackadaisical attitude of our players on the pitch. They played as if nothing was at stake.

Put simply, the Eagles’ convulsive style of play forced many fans to the clinics to check their blood pressure after every uninspiring outing.

Many spiritualists have been disappointed by the outcome of the Eagles matches. But don’t our opponents recognise the efficacy of prayers? Doesn’t the Holy Book detest slothfulness?

Since last Saturday, the mood of football fans has changed. A new dawn is being celebrated. The drum beats of a resurgent Super Eagles is deafening. No one is bothered about Liberia’s pedigree in global football competitions. Years past, Liberia was a piece of cake. Beating Liberia should be the norm. Countries, such as Liberia ought to surrender even before the kick-off when pitched against Nigeria in a football match. What the wild celebrations portend is that we will waste precious time backslapping and shouting at the roof top, forgetting that others have left us behind.

Sadly, the reality from the Liberia conquest is that our best legs are in Europe. And I’m glad that Stephen Keshi recognises this fact. Nine of the starting 11 men came from Europe. The two home-based played because we didn’t have men in the foreign legion in those positions. It hurts though that the goal conceded came from a defensive error of the best home-based defender.

The home-based stars couldn’t compete with the others, perhaps because the domestic league is off. I hope people are reading this. Again, Keshi should accept that he would be judged not by what he does on the field in training, but by what the players showcase during matches.

Therefore, he must learn to accommodate their idiosyncrasies to get the desired results. This is not to say that players should be disciplined. Coaches get the best from their players through personal contacts. With Keshi’s feats and pedigree in the beautiful game, no player would be rude to him. Rather, they would be prepared to learn from him.

The truth about the Saturday game is that the Eagles tottered, despite the 58 seconds first goal. They barely were able to string passes together just as they played without a plan. Perhaps, they forgot all that they were taught in training. Our second goal was scrappy, except from the bravado show of the scorer Ahmed Musa in burying the ball at the back of the net.

After the second goal, I looked at the Eagles’ bench. Keshi’s countenance told the story of what I saw on the pitch. He kept scratching his head, apparently remembering his playing days. I don’t blame him. He was an excellent, strong and zestful player.

He got up most times to shout out instructions, yet he wasn’t impressed. As for the fans, they were satisfied, but the coach was certainly looking beyond the minnows.

The argument can be made that they stay together to train but their experience ought to have counted. It never did because we struggled for the better part of the first. Emmanule Emenike was the worst culprit. He was anonymous, except for that bone crushing pass that Musa squeezed into the net. He needs to take a cue from the way Mikel executed the goal he laid on Victor Moses’ head for the fourth goal. Why the coaches took so long to substitute Emenike accounted for the anxious moments that the Liberians created for our players. I always wonder what these coaches see in Emenike who couldn’t dribble past his marker and does not he know how to open up the space for his mates to make the darting run at goal. He certainly shouldn’t be at the 2013 Africa Cup of Nations in South Africa.

Kudos must go to Keshi for fielding Musa instead of Ikechukwu Uche. I was excited when I saw the change because Ike Uche can be wasteful with goal-scoring chances. Ike Uche did miss quite a few in the second half, despite scoring Nigeria’s fifth goal. What I took away from Keshi’s decision to drop Ike Uche is that he knows that he needs taller, stronger and faster strikers for the Africa Cup of Nations. Good thinking.

Keshi’s revelation that he has Newcastle of England striker Shola Ameobi and Everton’s Victor Anichebe bowled me over. I can’t wait to see how they will blend, when the team plays the 4-3-3 formation. Keshi should always seek Sydney Sam’s consent to play for Nigeria. This idea of waiting for the boy to show interest won’t pay him. Nigerians are impatient. They will call for his sack, if the team fails. Sam will give his team depth, especially in the attacking midfield role. He also is a prolific goal-scorer. He is younger than those playing the roles in the Eagles. Is anyone suprirsed that the two young men in the Eagles -Victor Moses and Ahmed Musa- shone like million stars? Age is the key for good football. The average age of most teams in the game now is 23. No one in the Eagles, except Moses, is less than 28. Forget what they have on their international passports.

Nigeria’s best player on Saturday was Moses. This is not because he scored a brace, but his deft touches, his inter-play with his mates and the skill with which he scored the goals, showed a future Africa Footballer of Year- if we can assemble a winning team. Moses can play better than he did on Saturday, but Keshi must find him an intelligent right back to complement his efforts. If Taiye Taiwo was right footed, he would have brought the best from Moses and we would have been talking of a harvest of goals. With a menacing right wing, no opposition will dare attack, using their left footed players because they would be too busy defending or retrieving the ball from inside their net against the Eagles.

Efe Ambrose isn’t a good player. He scored our first goal, but was a misfit. He ran the most on the pitch, yet his contribution stopped after 58 seconds, with the first goal. Keshi can return to the experiment he did in Benin City in his first game when he switched Yusuf Ayila to the central defence.

Keshi is thinking of drafting Nedum Onouha into the team. He is a utility player. I have seen him play in all the defensive positions for Manchester City and now Queens Park Rangers in England. It is also good to know that goalkeeper Vincent Enyeama is playing regularly after a torrid time on the bench in France. He is our best. His recent poor form was because of match rustiness. His substitutes are good goalkeepers, but they need to wait for sometime, if Enyeama finds his form. Anyway, the rivalry is good for competitions.

The Eagles urgently need younger players with international exposure from foreign leagues. Victor Anichebe, Chuka Aneke, who plays for Arsenal but has been loaned out to play frequently and, of course, returnee Osaze Odemwingie will strengthen the squad.

Nosa Igiebor did better this time. He was poor in Monrovia, though he looked timid in front of the yawning net. I’m excited that Joel Obi has started playing again. He will make an awesome midfield quartet, playing with Mikel, Moses and Obiora Nwankwo. Nwankwo was the gem against Liberia. He played flawlessly. He impressed me at the botched U-23 side at the London 2012 Olympic Games qualifier in Morocco last year. He is temperamental, but Keshi can talk him out of this.

Is there anything to cheer from the Eagles going forward? I doubt it, if the opponents are Cote d’ Ivoire, resurgent Algeria, Ghana and Morocco in Africa.

As for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, we had better not qualify if what we saw against the Liberians is used as a yardstick. Glad to hear Keshi say that he doesn’t have a team yet. That is the truth, Big Boss. Will Keshi give Brown Ideye and Ogenyi Onazi several trials like he did with Emenike and other fringe players? Your guess is as good as mine.

October 20, 2012
What Ondo people must do tomorrow

Tomorrow is Ondo’s day of destiny. The great people of Ondo in Southwest Nigeria must seize the day tomorrow and engrave it into the history books of great elections. Tomorrow is Ondo’s day of reckoning, a day they owe a duty to themselves and indeed the rest of us Nigerians to make us proud at the poll. Every voter-card carrying Ondo man must have made up his mind how to vote tomorrow therefore no preachment or suggestive promptings might change anything or sway the voter. But one thing he must not fail to do is to allow democracy to reign supreme. He must not only vote he must guard his vote.

How I envy the Ondo voter. Isn’t he spoilt for choice? Three great candidates to choose from (no offence intended to about a dozen others but honestly one cannot remember their names): the incumbent governor, Dr. Olusegun Mimiko, (Labour Party); Rotimi Akeredolu, (Action Congress of Nigeria); and Olusola Oke (Peoples Democratic Party). Three great men in every respect who have so much in common: they were all born in the mid-50s, they all attended the great University of Ife before it became OAU, they are all professionals with quality educational pedigree and have worked to the pinnacle of their callings. While Mimiko is a medical doctor, the twain of Akeredolu and Oke are lawyers of high standing. Akeredolu is indeed a Senior Advocate of Nigeria of about 15 years standing.

I see a final two horse race by my own simple calculation. Without taking anything from Chief Olusola Oke, a man who practically hefted himself up by the boot straps and right up to great heights in legal practice, public service and administration, the odds seem stacked against him. A great analytical mind and a tenacious personality, Oke is sadly, encumbered by his party, PDP which has lost grounds and even face in the Southwest. In another season, on the platform of another party, Oke would be hard to beat by any but PDP has had its day in the Southwest and unfortunately, it made a meal of it much like it has been doing at the centre since 1999.

Now Akeredolu versus Mimiko will prove to be one block-buster of an electoral battle. Mimiko, fondly called Iroko, is the incumbent and in battles like this, especially in places like ours, the man on the seat has all the advantage tilted to his favour at an angle of over 50 degrees. He has at his disposal, the State’s treasury, the machinery and all the power and glory of an imperious executive office. But as recently as last year, we have seen incumbents defeated ingloriously. Mimiko has more than incumbency going for him; he is a wily politician and a grassroots trooper. He is doughty, fearless and understands the dynamics of power; its uses and abuses in an impoverished enclave like Nigeria. This medical doctor-turn politician has all these and more going for him at tomorrow’s grand slam.

Ondo is however, at the peculiar turning-point of its history. In ordinary times, Mimiko and his people would be doing victory party now. But it is a different ball game now and this is the fight of his life – the be all and end all fight for Mimiko. If he wins, he wins his place for good in the pantheon of Yoruba history and if he loses, he loses into oblivion. This is why it is a fight to finish; a deathly fight.

Akeredolu, called Aketi by supporters, on his part, can rightly be described as a neophyte in the dark jungle of Nigeria’s politics. Surely his students union and Nigeria Bar Association (NBA) politics cannot compare to this epic battle he is locked in now. There is a lot going for Akeredolu though. There is the ACN machinery and war chest available to him. He also rides on the crest of the Southwest groundswell – the inexorable integration of Nigeria’s West undergirded by a rich political, intellectual and economic template. It is the new dawn, the new direction not only for the Yoruba but for every nationality under a nebulous country called Nigeria. If the song today is to return to the regions, then the Yoruba (of ACN) are a mile ahead of the pack and Ondo and her people had better join the train. It is in the long-term strategic interest of Ondo people to bond with their kin now.

However, Akeredolu’s greatest strength, in my estimation, is his person, his carriage, his gravitas. He is the kind of person you would proudly show off as your governor. His visage adorned by a rich landscape of graceful gray hair cast the picture of Moses leading the Israelites out of Egypt. He also made a damn good president of the NBA, bringing so much integrity and quality activism to bear on the most enlightened and most influential interest group in Nigeria. Akeredolu must have been so good a president that Nigerian lawyers named their new national secretariat after him. He initiated the complex and set it on motion after many hits and misses. He does not look like the run-of-the mill Nigerian politician; he seems sturdy both in physique and character.

On the other hand, Mimiko from my observation has proven to be your average Nigerian politician. In the first place, if he had put up an extraordinary performance in the last three years, he would never struggle in campaign now. He had four years and State resources; his work ought to speak most eloquently for him now. It took the class of Lateef Jakande, Sam Mbakwe, Abubakar Rimi and Jim Nwobodo just four years to turn their huge states around those days. Obviously, Mimiko like the average state governor of today does not think out of the (federal allocation) box. I am of the opinion that what a governor cannot do in four years, he may not do in 40 years.

Finally what particularly troubles people about Mimiko is the dagger in that smile of his if one looked closely enough. If the ACN had backed him body and soul in his 20-month legal battle to reclaim his stolen mandate, this is surely not the best coin to pay back with. Could he not have made all the changes he desired from within? Don’t eat a man’s meal if you didn’t like his face and for sure, it is obscene, if not ungodly to go to a man’s dinner table with a dagger hidden in your pocket. That is detestable.

All said, Ondo people already have more than enough guide on which way to vote tomorrow. I wish them goodluck.

LAST MUG: Oyo Gov’s curious showcase: one struggles hard to understand the point of Oyo State Government advert headlined “Oyo State of ‘Firsts’”. The gov’s photo is superimposed on the imposing photos of the Cocoa House, WNBS-WNTV House and the Liberty Stadium. All of these are great edifices of a great era long gone. We think Gov. Ajimobi should show us the foundation he is laying to surpass these landmarks. Some of them must have been built in four years. For instance he can revive the cocoa industry by facilitating the building of the largest processing factory in Africa. Is it unthinkable that Oyo could become one of the largest cocoa exporters in Africa over the next 8 years? That is legacy waiting to be built.

October 19, 2012
And there was an ‘elder’ (2)

(Truth and politics according to Chinua Achebe)

His pithy words are of the pitiful liabilities of his soul. But many people do not know that. Everybody loves Chinua Achebe. And every Igbo would die for Achebe; whatever it takes. Yet nobody knows what it takes to be Chinua Achebe. Nobody knows what efforts go into it. Everybody simply loves the idea of the man, Achebe. Thus it becomes sacrilegious for anyone, particularly of any other ethnicity, except Igbo, to call to question the politics and essence of the man, Achebe.

It’s enlightening to see self-acclaimed Igbo intellectuals evolve into war-mongering assassins and hell raisers simply because I chose to write of Achebe, truths I think of him, just as he writes of others, truths he deems about them. The hate and the vitriol, illogicalities and wanton generalizations, all attest to the fact that anyone could get away with just about anything, even pre-meditated murder, if committed in the name of Biafra.

But then there are those rare breed of Nigerians who would rather pass as towering citizens of humanity than subscribe to ethnic bigotry and propaganda of any kind, like Igbo victimhood and supremacy above any other tribe. Makes me doff my hat, to that wonderful female engineer from Port Harcourt among others; a towering Igbo woman and Biafran whose amazing intellect and good-breeding belies the arrogance and over-celebrated intelligence of every random nitwit baying for blood, in the name of Biafra. Well done Mrs. Pat M., Nigeria deserves more like you.

Were Mrs. Pat a full time writer, generations of Nigerians would learn, and quite profitably too, those priceless truths that frequently desert the pages of our celebrated authors. But she isn’t thus we would have to contend with whatever truths Achebe and company deem worthy of us.

How worthy is Achebe to us? Do the Igbo possess greater right over him than any other Nigerian? Achebe has answered these pertinent questions many times over and he makes no pretensions about the quality of his loyalty and passion to the Igbo race above any other. But then, that is where his problem lies.

Nigeria’s literary hero has chosen to box himself into ethnic straits undeserving of a man of letters of immense global stature and renown. This is actually very revealing of the troubles within his soul. Achebe hurts. He is at a crossroads. Torn between his hate for Late Chief Obafemi Awolowo, who he recently labeled the arch nemesis to his defunct Biafran fantasy, and the responsibilities of his role as a man of letters, Achebe wrestles with values and heart sores undiminished by years of spurious blame-casting and frantic rationalizations.

And even though we are all ignorant of the guilt that unmans him, he enjoys what could be likened to the peace of the killing fields just after a bloodbath. He is in dire need of peace and compassion. But the peace he seeks is never attainable by shirking his faults and casting the blame on some other people’s hero.

The peace he seeks lies not in the rude admiration of hyper-sentimental fops desperate to deify him as some wise great Odin and worship him as such; his responsibilities as a man of letters are much more burdensome than that.

He, by virtue of his stature and the immense weight of his letters, is expected to be the soul of all. What he teaches, his immediate world will rally to make sense of. The didactic value or not of his letters however, becomes a burden or gift to the world.

Our manner of dealing with Achebe is the most significant feature of the world’s general position to his politics and literature. A careful look at his recent thoughts offers deep, revealing glances into the life of those singular centuries which have produced him. What is the quality of Achebe’s recent work? How genuine is it? To what extent has it been garnished with embroidered truths, untainted truth and the spurious? And

If his work can be taken as genuine, then it can be found to be discharging a function for us which is very honorable and of the highest importance. He is propagating truth and humaneness in such way that many more generations of Nigerians will benefit from his truth and the incense that inspired his soul – and that is all that a very honest man of letters, in any case, can do.

I say inspired; for what we call “originality,” “sincerity,” “genius,” and the heroic quality we have no good name for, signifies that.

How does Achebe fare in this respect? Does his truth and brutal candor re-address and fearlessly condemn the first military coup by which the Igbo were blamed for ethnic cleansing of sort, particularly by Northern Nigerians? Does his truth seek to move every such “erroneous perception” or “hard-nosed truth” from planes of rancour to that of resolution?

Does Achebe’s truth teach Nigeria highly practical and citizenry-centred means to eradicate youth unemployment, child prostitution, child trafficking, armed robbery, corruption in high places etc?

Does his truth provide the pathways to empowering the highly industrious and yet helpless artisans of Nnewi, traders of Onitsha, Alaba, Mile 2…the disillusioned school drop outs of Umukegwu, Akokwa, Urualla, Apongbon, Idumota, Agege, Agbor, Sankwala, et al?

Does Achebe’s truth teach the current generation of Nigerians, the youth especially, to evolve beyond the greed, selfishness and idiosyncrasies of his generation? Does it teach us to accept truths we cannot change, like the fact that they made their world as gory and burdensome as it was and still is? Does his truth teach us all to make peace with our guilt and conquer our most riotous demons? Does Achebe’s truth teach us that at the end, we get to choose what to make of our own lives and our own world?

By his truth, do our world rise imaged once more as godlike, the workmanship and temple of a God? By his truth, is our world illumined by the prophetic healing balm symptomatic of the best and most humane from a man of letters?

Or is it some self-serving and calculated plan geared to enthrall and excite heady plaudits in its wake? Does his truth establish him a true Hero; heroic in thought and manhood; heroic in what he has said and perhaps still more in what he did not say and did not do? Does his truth establish him a noble spectacle: a great heroic ancient man, speaking and keeping silence as an ancient sage and man of letters, as the circumstances demand? And keeping all savagery in straits in the true tradition of a most modern, high-bred, high-cultivated man of letters?

Or does Achebe’s truth make him appear highly problematic and vindictive even as his heartfelt letters appear vague?

The best kind of truth is that which establishes its provender as some heroic shiner of light and preserver of peace. It is that which fosters a victorious interpretation of the obscure to the understanding and unconscious acceptability of all. It is rather the grail of all literary endeavours and no amount of propaganda, bigotry and gross sentimentalism can dim the beaming brightness of its good.

To be continued…

October 19, 2012
National ethical challenge

These are trying times. Hardly does a day pass in the heart of the nation without an episode or event that makes one wonder aloud: what kind of a people are we? What principles drive us? What are our priorities? What do we cherish as a collective? Indeed do we have a collective sense of honour and shame?

Last week it was about the gruesome lynching of four young students. We are now learning that one of the suspects had set these young men up because one of them was his creditor. Kidnappers are on the prowl across the country. Just this week the wife of the Speaker of Osun State House of Assembly was rescued from the wicked hands of youthful kidnappers. There was also the incident of the truckers who decided that the most effective way to demonstrate their anger was to block the express way and make innocent travellers suffer for fourteen hours.

Some anthropological observations on the beliefs, norms and values of our pre-colonial antecedents appear to have been turned over on their heads. We were said to be communitarians who value the community without sacrificing the individual. We were supposed to be God-fearing and spiritually endowed folks who look after their brothers and sisters. And we were an industrious hard-working lot guided by the unwritten principle that only through the labour of our hands shall we survive and prosper. Were these myths made up to make us look good in the eyes of an unsuspecting world?

No, it’s not all myth. Indeed, somewhere in the rural man-forsaken heartland of the various zones, these models of human accomplishments in social living still motivate conduct in some version. I once referenced the back-wood communities of Oke-Ogun, my beloved homeland, where humaneness still inspires and civility is a norm of behavior. To be civil is to be decent; to appreciate the goodness of cooperation, the pricelessness of others, the obligation of respecting them, and of course, the demand of performing civic duties religiously.

Discipline is an enduring virtue of the collective existence of rural folks. This is explained by the fact of our early exposure to life, first, through the stringent teachings of traditional religions practiced by our ancestors. Which of our fore-parents was unaware of the imposing presence of the god of thunder who avenges wrong-doing with all the might of its fierceness? Swear falsely to an oath and prepare to die shamelessly. Or did we not grow up being taught about the requirements of Obatala even before we became Christians and Moslems? Our ancestors went through the yoke of an imperial majesty that was ruthless in its demand and unforgiving in its judgment. Liberated by the colonisers from both burdens, we ended up being exposed to the doctrines of the new religions they brought. We gladly embraced them and internalised their norms.

But in the urbanised satanic corridors of political and business power, it’s dog-eat-dog mentality run amok. There the hardening of the heart is beyond reason, and it’s a ticking time bomb that portends catastrophe for everyone. It is not just the dregs of society; demonic forces have taken over the psyche of the powerful as well.

From different tradition-based authorities, we accepted a republican arrangement which gives everyone the liberty and responsibility to participate in various capacities and at various levels in governance. It works perfectly when everyone takes the liberty and the responsibility seriously. Electorates ask penetrating questions and would-be representatives of the people canvas for votes without intimidation in a climate of peace. When the free flow of competing ideas is disturbed because someone or some groups arrogate illegal authority to themselves, the condition for a republican arrangement is violated. From there, it can only get worse unless steps are taken to confront it effectively. For it is a short course to imposition by default. This is just one example of the nation’s gradual but sure drift.

How it has gotten so tragically rotten is anybody’s guess. But a more rewarding approach is an exploration of what it takes to avoid an impending crash and redirect our national train to a track of survival and prosperity.

A major culprit is the ego which has become the be-all and end-all in all areas of our lives. Where everyone only looks out for self and no one worries about the collectivity without which the self cannot be, the result is an inadvertent annihilation of the self. More seriously, however, where the focus of the self is the greedy lust for material possession, regardless of considerations of desert, it’s easy to see the inescapability of a Hobbesian anarchy of the kind that has characterized the republic thus far.

But a nation, like an individual, must have a sense of honor and a sense of shame. A true patriot, with a sense of belonging, naturally feels proud when her nation excels in the discharge of responsibilities integral to the reason of its existence and is considered a member in good standing in the comity of nations. Surely, nations cannot be judged with identical standards and an element of relativism is involved. What is expected of the United States in contribution to the relief of international suffering cannot be expected of Nigeria. But in the matter of democratic norms, freedom of expression, accountability, and a general civility that abhors a thuggish approach to governance, there is a universality of standards.

Nigeria has lost its moral bearing and every citizen is implicated in the morass.

To be troubled by such a demeaning standard of decency requires a concerted effort to combat the perpetrators. Political parties and political actors, including candidates are too engrossed in their vote-catching tactics to be effective partners in what must be a national effort to reinstate our national self-esteem. The suffering masses are turning against themselves when what is needed is a collective effort to save the nation from uncaring power grabbers that see Nigeria as their grandfather’s farm to be exploited at will. These locusts do not belong to just one sub-national group. Theirs is a coalition of an evil cabal that cuts across the thirty-six states plus Abuja. Yet there is no denying the fact that they are far fewer than the suffering masses whose common patrimony the members of the cabal are bent on looting and exploiting.

The army of unemployed school leavers and university graduates parading the streets need to know that they have to fight their own battle. Why are septuagenarians and octogenarians still toiling for true democracy when the youth that really need Nigeria to do better for them to do well are engaged in collective self- immolation? They must be made to realise that their potential for growth is being wickedly hampered by the godless politicians who recruit them to do their dirty jobs for them.

Nigeria needs to be saved from the corrupting grip of the political robbers. Nigeria needs to be saved from the deadly claws of daylight election robbers. And surely, Nigeria needs to be saved from the vampire mentality of political assassins and kidnappers. When a nation drifts so dangerously towards the cliff, the leaders are called upon to intervene. But when the leaders themselves are responsible for the drift, the followers have a collective responsibility to take their destiny in their hands.

October 19, 2012
Brutes, beasts and bullets

JUST how much more can a country take?

Furious floods washing away lives and property that represent so many years of sweating and toiling, sparing neither the weak nor the mighty. The President’s home in Otueke is submerged. The once strange staccato sounds of guns firing bullets are now common. Streams of blood all over as more and more gangs of brutes and beasts stalk the land.

Piles of natural and home-made disasters. Calamities upon calamities. Just how much more can Nigeria take?

When Boko Haram, the insurgent group, murdered National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) members in Bauchi last year, we all vowed it would never happen again. Little did we know that the worst was on the way. On National Day in Mubi, Adamawa State, some unknown gunmen stormed a community hosting students and, in a most absurd manner, killed 40. They called out the victims’ names one after the other, shooting them dead as they showed up. Some had their doors smashed, dragged out and shot. Three University of Maiduguri students were also killed on that day. The motives for these killings remain unclear.

From Mubi, the absurdity moved onto Aluu community in Rivers State where a mob lynched four University of Port Harcourt (UNIPORT) students for allegedly stealing mobile phones and laptops. The police alleged that the community’s chief supervised the savagery. The police got a distress call and stormed the scene only to beat a hasty retreat. One of the suspects said a policeman actually joined in beating up the boys; another was pleading that they should be spared, he claimed.

It was a bad day. The police said reinforcements came too late and that they couldn’t save the “UNIPORT Four” because the mob pelted them with stones. Were they not armed? Couldn’t they have shot into the air to scare away the mob? Didn’t they carry tear gas? At what point did they call for help? Why was the community leader not allowed to speak at the press conference where the suspects were paraded?

In Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, Itohowo Offiong Asuquo, a student of Uyo City Polytechnic, stabbed his cousin Uwana, whom he accused of stealing his phone. Asuquo found his phone, but the row that followed the incident turned bloody when he allegedly stabbed Uwana. He died. What is there in a telephone – or any material thing – to kill or die for? How will Asuquo be feeling now, assuming that he has some conscience?

Before the Mubi and Aluu madness, there had been other exhibitions of pure insanity. Four NNPC engineers, who were sent to Arepo, Ogun State, to mend a vandalised pipeline from where thieves stole petrol, were murdered. This, the corporation said, is responsible for the shortage that has shot up price to between N100 and N110 in Lagos. Who killed the “NNPC Four”?

Just last Sunday, it was the turn of a Kaduna State community to taste the wine of absurdity. Unknown gunmen killed 24 in Dogo Dawa in Gwari Local Government Area in what some believed was a reprisal for the losses suffered by a gang of robbers. A man, who is described as a “thief catcher”, and his two children were killed. The gunmen cut off his wife’s hand. The villagers had earlier organised a resistance against the robbers whose operations were crippled for three months. They returned in fury to spill blood, the blood of innocent villagers said to be returning from a mosque. Where were the security agents? Is Dogo Dawa so far from where help could have come? Doesn’t this kind of horror strengthen the case for state police?

Add these to the massive canvass of blood in Jos where whole families,including babies, have been murdered. Gradually, we are losing our claim to decency and respect for human life for a disgusting descent into savagery–the jungle world of animals.

How do you explain the case of a 20-year-old girl who was raped and disfigured by her assailants. Ruth Simon was returning home in Jos on September 23, according to The Sun, when two depraved youths grabbed her, pinned her to the ground and raped her. Disturbed by her screaming, one of the youths whipped out a knife and slashed off her lower lip. The police are holding a welder, John Akwara, and searching for a man who is believed to be his accomplice, Ezra Dachalon. It will be nice to find out why the duo did this to a poor housemaid. But, what can we say in a season of absurdity?

Amid the aberrations , two Ogun State traditional rulers dragged royalty into the gutter, brawling like “area boys” at a police station in Itori, Ewekoro Local Government. Oba Fatai Akamo, the Olu of Itori, was said to have slapped Oba Adisa Akinremi, the village head of Lapeleke, following a disagreement over some traditional matters. What kind of royal anger led to this royal show of shame? Even nobility is not spared in this season of madness?

In the flood victims’ camps, the depravities are hard to comprehend. Displaced women and girls are being raped in Benue. There are allegations that some of the officials whose job it is to cater for these traumatised people are the perpetrators of such unconscionable acts. Who will stop them?

Even as the abnormalities go on, Nigerians are seeing some comic relief in the tragedy. Aluu community has become the subject of jokes. Consider this sent to my mobile by a friend: “Here is the news…Boko Haram condemns Aluu killings. Spokesman Abu Qaqa says, ‘this is pure wickedness’.”

And this on a friend’s telephone: ‘ If you’re my friend and you’re from Aluu, please, I know we haven’t quarrelled. Biko, just delete yourself before you say I stole your BB charger.”

Then, there is this other one with the picture of two young lovers looking passionately into each other’s eyes. The man asks the woman: “Are you leaving me because I’m from Aluu?” The woman replies: “Yes, my love. The youths may say I stole your heart.”

Philosophers are finding it difficult to explain what is going on in Nigeria.

Neurologists, such as Dr. Njideka Okubadejo of the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), say many Nigerians have mental disorders. Does this explain the hell we prepared? Social scientists ascribe it all to the effects of a collapsed system in which values have been killed and buried. Spiritualists, who see this life as a cycle, believe that the strange events we are witnessing are signs of a closing cycle, which they insist the holy books have predicted. In other words, in their views, the end of time is fast approaching.

Political scientists are talking of a failure of an overwhelmed leadership that is swimming in a pool of social and economic challenges. They compare Nigeria to a car with an overheating engine, even as the radiator and the fans that keep the cooling system in place are functioning. The engine, they stress, will get knocked if experts do not move fast. But the question remains, who will save Nigeria, the black man’s pride and hope? Who?

As Ondo votes…

In two days, Ondo State residents will go to the poll to elect a governor. I have been following the hustings, talking to my friends and relations in the Sunshine State. They say of all the parties, three – Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) and Labour Party (LP) – are serious.

PDP is wracked by a fratricidal war of attrition that has evoked the imagery of a torn umbrella. A torn umbrella is useless. It can’t provide shade against the sun or stop the rain from soaking its owner.

Labour symbolises hard work and the dignity that goes with it. But, the popular thinking is that the labourers are weak and fagged out, having been poorly compensated with poor service delivery. Who wants to labour in vain? LP is buffeted by internal rancour that has sent many of its leading lights fleeing the labour room. The party has promised to do all that it promised but failed to do in more than three years – roads, schools, hospitals and more. Will it get another chance? Doubtful. Why? Its account seems to have been overdrawn in the bank of credibility. It is in the red.

ACN is offering action. And change. The template is ready – in Osun, Lagos, Oyo, Edo, Ogun and Ekiti– and working. If I had a vote in Ondo, I will surely cast it for Rotimi Akeredolu, a tested lawyer, a fighter and a great defender of the poor. He will not betray the trust.

October 18, 2012
There was a Country: The pogroms, the Aburi accords and the nightmare

There was a country, Chinua Achebe’s narrative of the Biafra and the Nigerian crises of nationhood soon moves from a personal story of early beginnings to the Nigerian tale of elite redux, leadership failure, coup, killings, counter coup and war. Reading through his account, one is chilled to find that the conditions precedent to the calamities that befell the country, the grim precursors to Nigeria’s sad unravelling are also eerily present today. Though he has not said anything that had not been said in other Biafra books by Madiebo, Achuzie, Ademoyega andUwechue, it is easily discernible that Achebe’s narrative is nimbler, his insight deeper and perspective broader.

For instance, contrary to the generally held view that Colonel Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu was driven by a vaulting ambition to rule a sovereign State of Biafra, thus declared war heedlessly, the decision was actually taken by the entire Igbo leaders, intelligentsia and the people after months of consultation and dithering by the Federal Government.

Hear Achebe on this: “It is crucial to note that the decision of an entire people, the Igbo people to leave Nigeria, did not come from Ojukwu alone but was informed by the desire of the people and mandated by a body that contained some of the most distinguished Nigerians in history: Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, Nigeria’s former Governor-General and first ceremonial President; Dr. Michael I. Okpara and Sir Francis Ibiam, former Premier and Governor of Eastern Nigeria, respectively; and Supreme Court Justice Sir Louis Mbanefo. Others included: Educationist Dr. Alvan Ikoku; First Republic minister, Mr. K. O. Mbadiwe as well as Mr. N. U. Akpan, Mr. Joseph Echeruo, Mr. Ekukinam-Bassey, Chief Samuel Mbakwe, Chief Jerome Udoji, and Chief Margaret Ekpo.”

By late May of 1967, the battle line had been drawn between Eastern Nigeria and the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Both sides were engrossed in what in today’s parlance, is called a strategic session, to contain the “enemy”. Earlier in April, frustrated that the Gen. Yakubu Gowon-led Federal Government would neither act on the Aburi agreements nor do something about the masterminds of the pogrom, Ojukwu began to sever ties with the centre. He froze official communication with Lagos and disconnected all administrative and revenue ties.

In a speech to the nation on May 27, 1967, Gowon responded to what he described as Ojukwu’s assault on Nigeria’s unity and blatant revenue appropriation by declaring a state of emergency and dividing the nation into 12 states. This was a deadly blow to the Biafra move as the implications of this move were deep and devastating. The Igbo were isolated and all the surrounding ethnic minorities were ranged against them and most notably, they were excised from the major oil wells. This singular move was to be decisive later when the war raged. All the minority states fought against Biafra and the foreign powers with their eyes trained on Nigeria’s crude oil, backed the federal side or looked the other way as the Igbo were being pummelled when hostilities raged.

The die was cast. On May 30, 1967, Ojukwu bit the bullet. This is how Achebe recorded it: “Ojukwu, citing a variety of malevolent acts directed at the mainly Igbo Easterners – such as the pogrom that claimed over 30,000 lives; the Federal Government’s failure to ensure the safety of Easterners in the presence of organised genocide, the direct incrimination of the government in the murders of its own citizens – proclaimed the independence of the Republic of Biafra from Nigeria, with the full backing of the Eastern House Constituent Assembly.”

The Biafran position, as Achebe sees it is that beginning with the January 15, 1966, coup d’etat, through the countercoup (staged mainly by Northern Nigerian officers, who murdered 185 Igbo officers) and the massacre of 30,000 Igbo and Easterners in pogroms that started in May 1966 and occurred over four months – the events of those months left millions of other future Biafrans and me feeling terrified. As we fled “home” to Eastern Nigeria to escape all manner of atrocities that were being inflicted upon us and our families in different parts of Nigeria, we saw ourselves as victims. When we noticed that the Federal Government of Nigeria did not respond to our call to end the pogroms, we concluded that a government that failed to safeguard the lives of its citizens had no claim to their allegiance and must be ready to accept that the victims deserve the right to seek their safety in other ways – including secession.”

The Nigerian position in the crisis as Achebe presents it, was hinged on the premise that if Biafra was allowed to secede, then a number of other ethnic nationalities within Nigeria would follow suit. The Nigeria government, therefore, had to block Biafra secession to prevent the dissolution of Nigeria.

Tracing the origin of the crisis, Achebe noted that Nigeria’s leaders at the time were not quite ready to face up to the nation’s problems. He says: “If its leaders had approached their duty with humility, they all might have realised long before the coup that the country was in deep trouble. Nigeria was rocked by one crisis after another in the years that followed independence. First, the Nigerian census crisis of 1963-’64 shook the nation, then the federal election crisis of 1964, which was followed by the Western Nigeria election crisis of 1965 – which threatened to split the country at its seams. At that point, most of us, the writers at least, knew that something was very wrong in Nigeria. A fix was long overdue.”

Apart from the incompetence of the Nigerian ruling class to rise up to the occasion at this critical juncture, the author also delved at length into the supposed Igbo dominance of that era, how it fanned the embers of hatred and how the January 15, 1966 coup, which went awry, was twisted to be an Igbo coup, breeding the reprisal in July. If the Northerners had stopped at killing about 185 Igbo officers, it would have probably been allowed as a horrendous tit for tat. “But the Northerners turned on Igbo civilians living in the North and unleashed waves of brutal massacre that Colin Legum of The Observer (UK) was the first to describe as a pogrom.”

The Igbo fled from across the country back home. There was suddenly a “refugee” crisis in the East as over a million returnees could not be managed. Meanwhile, the killings were not assuaged; they were not even discussed let alone the perpetrators being brought to justice. General Aguiyi- Ironsi, the Igbo officer who took over the reins of power after the first coup, was hunted down in a most horrific manner with his host, Colonel Adekunle Fajuyi, in Ibadan.

When, therefore, attempts were made to repair all these at the Aburi Summit in Ghana, the sore had festered.

•Tomorrow: Ojukwu and Gowon; The Asaba massacre and Ogbunigwe bomb.

October 18, 2012
Lord have mercy

I sometimes ask myself what exactly is going on in this country. Why are things so bad and why have the roads in the country collapsed suddenly? Why do we budget trillions of naira every year and there is no noticeable change in our lives?

Why are most of the industries closing down and their premises converted to churches? Why is there so much insecurity in the land? Apart from the Boko Haram phenomenon, students are killing fellow students and at every little provocation, people are pouncing on each other and beating each other to death and people are burning each other alive because of petty thievery.

We are suffering as a people in the midst of plenty. The insecurity in this country has become a fundamental issue that government must tackle. The situation has gotten so bad that when burglars visit your house in the night and they try to force their way into your house and you shout at them asking who they are, instead of them taking to their feet and running away, they would unashamedly announce that they are burglars and would ask you to open your door before they force their ways in. Things are that bad that when you go to bed nowadays, you sleep with one eye open.

Our houses are like fortresses surrounded with high walls and barbed wires on top of them and burglary iron bars across the windows. We are just lucky in this country that the incidence of fire is not as frequent as it is in other parts of the world because escape from an inferno would be near impossible. Our electricity supply is terrible and irregular. We are in the rainy season when the demand is not so high because of the cold weather condition, we are being told that the dams are full; the fullest in 29 years and that they may collapse. When the dry season sets in, we will be told that there is no water in the dam which is why there is irregular supply of electricity. There is no aspect of our lives as a nation that one can celebrate right now. I do not blame President Jonathan for all the ills of our society, our problems started a long time ago and they seem to be culminating to the present chaos our country is in. But there is a need to demonstrate leadership because it seems the federal government is biting more than it can chew and it seems to me that there is a need for devolution of power and responsibilities. This is what the so called constitutional review should be about. It should not be about creation of states because we cannot afford additional states.

At present, the cost of the huge bureaucracy that we have at all levels is 80% of our budget while sometimes less than 20% is used for capital development. This should be the other way round because no developing country can survive under this heavy over bureaucratization and governance cost. One sometimes wonders why in spite of close to 60 billion dollars of crude oil export and growing GDP, at about 7% per annum, our infrastructure seems to have collapsed. In all my life, I have never seen the network of roads in Nigeria being this bad. When we did not have oil, we were able to travel from the North to the South, from the East to the West on motorable roads. Those who did not want to use the roads had the alternative of railways. However, since the so called “oil wealth”, it seems as if everything has gone to the dogs. The collapse of the roads started with Obasanjo’s government when substantial amount of the country’s wealth was used to pay off Paris and London Clubs’ debt. At that time, we all thought this was a good idea but it should not have been at the total neglect of the country’s physical infrastructure. I also remember Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, then Minister of Finance and current Minister of Finance telling us in a closed door meeting that after the debts had been paid, one billion dollars out of what would have been part of the debt repayment would be used for roads rehabilitation and reconstruction annually. Now, what has happened to this promise and where is the money?

There are so many questions to ask but space would not permit us. Our government needs to know that we need to change course. People want to see roads being rehabilitated and if needs be, being reconstructed. We have the people; we have young engineers coming out of universities and polytechnics. These people need to be engaged and we also have the resources. We need a Marshall plan in this country to keep everybody working and to keep the country developing. We need to depart from orthodox economics to Keynesian economics. This is not far from what the Chinese did and today everybody is running to China for foreign investment and technical assistance. In all my life, I have never seen Nigerians this despondent. It is even affecting our profile abroad. I was so angry with the international media that did not show our President attending the funeral of the late Ethiopian Prime Minister who died recently. It was so infuriating seeing only South African President and the President of Rwanda and even Thabo Mbeki, a former South African President being given media coverage than our own sitting President. During the last Olympics, every country was excited about winning medals; we were the only large country which did not win any single medal. This general decline of our country is affecting us in every respect. We used to be a proud people but what can we be proud of now? We are a giant with clay feet and we are gradually becoming the laughing stock of Africa. We are largely irrelevant globally and being an oil-producing country is no longer a ticket to ride because all the countries in West Africa now have discovered oil in their territories. Is it not ironical that Nigeria is now importing diesel from Niger, our northern neighbour which has discovered crude oil and which now has a functioning refinery as contrasted with our moribund four refineries necessitating our corrupt importation of refined petroleum?

I am calling on President Jonathan to summon a national conference on national moral rearmament and strategies for future development. If we do not do this, this country will either implode or explode. There is no time to waste. May God have mercy on our country. Everything should be put on the discussion agenda. One hears the statements by some not well-informed persons saying national unity is non-negotiable. What is the meaning of this? Was Nigeria not made by man? All human institutions are of necessity imperfect and our national unity is not an exception. If not negotiated as had been the case since 1914, 1946, 1953, 1957, 1959, then we are heading for a national precipice. It is only the living that can enjoy whatever advantages national unity confers on Nigerians. In a situation where people are being killed because of where they come from or their different faiths, it behoves upon us to discuss and establish a constitutional modus Vivendiand a structural architecture within which hands and limbs will be preserved while we live together and if this cannot be negotiated, then unto thy tents o Israel may be the only way out as was the case in Yugoslavia, and the former Soviet Union.

October 18, 2012
Is anyone really in charge?

‘Two weeks earlier, it was the turn of Mubi in Adamawa state. There, hoodlums murdered about 40 students of higher institutions in the state. Their assailants armed with their names moved from room to room, calling each by name before the execution. The killing spree went on for two hours, enough time to deploy fighter jets from any part of the country to Mubi to confront the hoodlums. But for the two hours the nightmare lasted, there was no policeman in sight’

Assailed and buffeted by myriad of problems, the nation’s nightmare continues. For two weeks, Lagos, the economic nerve centre of the nation has been brought to its knees by traffic grid lock created by long queues of motorists searching for fuel in a nation recognized as the sixth biggest oil producer in the world. Those who fought their ways into the filling stations after hours on the line are confronted by an insolent petrol attendant who dictates the gratification he wants before selling to you.

A trip between Lagos and Ibadan on the broken express road , a distance of a little over a hundred kilometers take about three hours or sometimes 13 hours as it happened last week Wednesday when the unruly tanker drivers that the government has not been able to tame for 13 years once again closed the road to traffic. They only agreed to liberate their victims who slept on the road after government had begged them.

The chaos and anarchy in Ogere is worse than it was 13 years ago. The dangerously packed trailers now stretched for about five kilometres. We also now have an army of Road Traffic Safety personnel paid by taxpayers to merely monitor the unruly activities of those who have repeatedly demonstrated they are above laws. The cumulative amount of taxpayer’s money government waste on this type of unproductive endeavour would be enough to rehabilitate the broken rail lines. But such an option is unattractive to government that has in its economic team some who own as many as 8,000 trailers.

As we move towards South-south and South-east, the two zones responsible for about 75% of foreign earnings, the people’s nightmare increases. Kidnapping and ransom-taking which started with PDP ascension to power in 1999, initially limited to expatriate oil workers has become a very lucrative trade extended to politicians, babies, indigenes visiting homes from Lagos and abroad and university teachers. Only last week, Professor Hope Eghagha, once a member of editorial board at The Guardian and a teacher at the University of Lagos who took time off to serve his Delta State as Commissioner for Higher Education was taken away in a broad day light by hoodlums who slain his police orderly and shot his driver. He was only released yesterday. And it is business as usual in Abuja where the debate has always been about contracts.

The north eastern part of Nigeria has been made ungovernable for about two years. Only last Sunday, hoodlums carried out a pre-dawn murder of about 24 people returning from early hour worship in Dogon Daewa village, Birmin Gwari Local Council area of Kaduna State. The hoodlums thereafter, walked leisurely to the house of a man they suspected could identify them, shot him along with his two children in the presence of his wife. The wife, they left a living dead after cutting off one of her hands.

A few days earlier in Aluu, university town in Rivers State, hoodlums and traditional rulers supervised the brutal murder of four university students and set their bodies ablaze causing universal outrages.

Two weeks earlier, it was the turn of Mubi in Adamawa state. There, hoodlums murdered about 40 students of higher institutions in the state. Their assailants armed with their names moved from room to room, calling each by name before the execution. The killing spree went on for two hours, enough time to deploy fighter jets from any part of the country to Mubi to confront the hoodlums. But for the two hours the nightmare lasted, there was no policeman in sight.

Leadership is about vision and the capacity to motivate people to be part of that vision. Hoodlums have taken over our land because of the quality of leadership provided by President Jonathan and PDP. An overwhelmed President Jonathan who secured a pan Nigerian mandate less than two years back, instead of confronting the problems has been lamenting about being the most criticized president in the world. And to wade off criticism of his lack-lustre performance, he had said with innocence of a child, ‘it is not as if there were roads, electricity…and Jonathan brought hurricane to destroy them’.

On the other hand, Obama emerged as president when America was under siege. He inherited two wars, massive unemployment and collapsing economy. Obama instead of engaging in blame game with his defeated Republicans reminded his sympathizers that he was elected to fix those problems. Obama in spite of sabotage by the defeated Republicans, and betrayals by members of his own party who only front for big corporations, has confronted those problems headlong sometimes taking some unpopular decisions.

Our pre-independence years remain the golden age of Nigeria on account of quality leadership provided by representatives of the dominant ethnic nationalities – Awo, Ahmadu Bello and Zik. Murtala Mohammed with quality leadership in six months secured more mileage in terms of national pride and international recognition whereas all the billions wasted on fraudulent rebranding by Yar’ Adua, Jonathan and Akunyili only further consolidated our position as one of the most corrupt nations in the world. Buhari, in eight months, with his crude economic ‘barter arrangement’, saved the nation billions that would have gone into importation of petroleum products and grains which, with quality leadership, we produced in abundance, giving in the process, the West that survives only on our mystery, a bloody nose.

It is inconceivable that the nightmare of motorists in Ogere that has lasted this past 13 years because of lawlessness of hoodlums would have survived Muhammed’s mercurial temper or Buhari’s zero tolerance for indiscipline for a month.

For those who have said our founding fathers operated under a different milieu and that Murtala Mohammed and Buhari operated as dictators, both Tinubu and Fashola have demonstrated in Lagos that what our nation needs to move forward is quality leadership. Oyinlola in Lagos was a disaster, unable to mend pot holes, clear refuse that was choking Lagos or guaranteed security of life and property. Marwa shamed him with quality leadership. Tinubu left enduring legacies through quality leadership and today as we can see Fashola has taken the state to a new height making it a state to beat in terms of quality leadership. He has effortlessly tamed the traders’ anarchies in Mushin, Oshodi, Mile Two, Ikotun and other parts of Lagos. He has, with confidence, asked those who are not ready to comply with the laws of his state to go elsewhere.

In Oyo State, we have seen evidence of resourceful leadership. The whole stretch of less than 10 kilometres portion of the express road from the Old Toll Gate to Ife By-pass that used to take motorists sometimes up to two hours under successive PDP governors today take less than 10 minutes. The Ife By-pass has been rid of anarchists as traders.

If we need any proof that there is really no one in control, the ongoing haggling over the proposed expenditure of N5.8b for new quarters and offices for lawmakers, Senate President and the Speaker, the proposed N2.8b for the rehabilitation and repair of residential buildings for the president and vice president and the proposed N5.6bn to provide water for the residents of FCT is all that is required.

If indeed there is someone in charge, those in Abuja serving none but themselves would have been wary of this type of scandalous proposed expenditure in the face of collapsed Lagos-Ibadan Express road and others in the country that are vital to our economic development.

October 18, 2012