The Nation Newspaper

Category: Columnists

  • Unmasked

    Unmasked

    •Blowing the cover off the operatives of the SSS is a new low in the war against the state

    It seems quite an innocuous act but it may well be one of the deadliest blows the Boko Haram Islamist terror group has dealt the Nigerian authorities. There are no suicide bombs deployed or heavy gun battles as had been the case in the past.

    No. This time, the terrorists cut deep into the heart of Nigeria’s elite security outfit, they blew their cover. To unmask a spook is akin to rendering a damsel naked in public; it was a premeditated decapitation of Nigeria’s number one secret service.

    A few weeks back, the social media were awash with a deluge of information about officials of the State Security Service (SSS). Sensitive data and detailed information about the outfit were uploaded into the global information highway.

    According to report, the data of over 60 personnel, including the director-general of the agency Mr. Ita Ekpeyong were posted on the internet by suspected sympathisers of the Boko Haram sect. The information released included full names of operatives, their mobile numbers, names of next of kin, bank account details and other sensitive private information.

    This indeed is a punch below the belt as the expose is capable of not only jeopardising the lives of the men but also their career and operations. The intention of course is to ridicule and embarrass the service by the very exposure.

    The power and mystique of the secret service is in the secrecy of its operations and the ability to surprise through covert and undercover activities.

    For the Boko Haram Islamists, considered to be rag-tag, untrained and unprofessional to break the code of the SSS, is the very limit of humiliation.

    It is salutary to note that the service has redeemed a bit of its image by tracking the culprits, especially the moles in the house who breached its security. As it turned out, the agency was infiltrated by the sect who violated their system.

    The agency has vowed to clear the mess by flushing out the bad eggs and restructuring the service drastically. While we are at it, we want to differ that what has happened was a human error and not necessarily a structural one.

    Need we restate that the breaking of the cover of Nigeria’s elite secret service by the Islamists sect is a slap on all Nigerians. One would have expected that the SSS would have upgraded its activities in the light of the recent upheavals. It is worrisome that lapses of this nature still exist in the system. If the sect could break into the very heart of the SSS, there is no telling where else it has penetrated or is trying to.

    We call on the service to brace up. If there is nothing else Nigeria learned from the incipient terrorist activities, it must be the rudiment of security operations.

    We expect that by the time Nigeria is done with Boko Haram and its attendant security challenges, she ought to have one of the best security apparatus to be found anywhere. After all, it is said that every adversity has its bright side.

     

  • Trapped in the past

    Trapped in the past

    Kano sure does have them.

    There was Mallam Aminu Kano (1920-1983) of blessed memory, the patron saint of the northern talakawa; and undisputed muse of the Nigerian masses.

    So radically committed to the talakawa cause was Mallam Aminu that Second Republic President, Alhaji Shehu Shagari, once said Mallam Aminu was a professional agitator; so much so that were he president, he would bear a placard against himself before being reminded he was president! As an iconoclast and champion of the liberated masses, he was well and truly sublime.

    But there was also the tragi-comic Sabo Bakin Zuwo, of blessed memory. The lexically challenged Bakin Zuwo, who had no formal education but who jokingly declared himself “student” at the “Mallam Aminu Kano Political School, Sudawa, Kano”, sentenced many to wild guffaws when, at the hustings for the 1983 general elections, he said Kano boasted many “minerals” like Coke, Fanta and Mirinda! When after the Second Republic had crumbled and the messianic pair of Muhammadu Buhari and Tunde Idiagbon were handing out jumbo jail terms to errant politicians, Bakin Zuwo released his parting bazooka.

    Accused of warehousing N3.4 million (a mighty sum in those days!) in Government House Kano, the irrepressible Bakin Zuwo gave an apocryphal quip: “Government money in government house – so what the heck!”, or something to that effect. The media screamed Banking Zuwo, a bathetic pun of his name; and the immortal Banking Zuwo was born! He got 300 years in the slammer. Bakin Zuwo was as ludicrous as Aminu Kano was sublime.

    And now, here is Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso. Now, where does Governor Kwankwaso stand in the sublime-ludicrous continuum? He certainly is no Banking Zuwo, some lexically challenged comic and butt of media jokes. But neither is he a sublime defender of the talakawa, as the immaculate and incomparable Mallam Aminu was.

    But he certainly is a doughty defender of his native Kano, with his radical offensive against the creation of more states in the South East; and a straight-shooter when the issue is the North and its political ascendancy or decline. Indeed, Governor Kwankwaso is as radical in his attack of whomever or for whatever reasons bring Kano to ridicule; as he is inconsolable in his lament over what he called the political decline of the North.

    Ike Ekweremadu, deputy president of the Senate and chairman of the Constitutional Review Committee of the National Assembly, stoked the governor’s fury. Senator Ekweremadu used the slicing of old Kano into Kano and Jigawa states; and the seven states in the North West geo-political zone to make a case for the creation of one additional state in the South East; to make it at least at par with the other four geo-political zones of South West, South-South, North Central and North East.

    That would appear fair, on the face of it. If other zones have six states each, why should the South East have just five? Why indeed should the North West have seven states, two more than the South East, and one more than the other zones?

    But an irate Governor Kwankwaso used a welter of statistics (in a lengthy interview with The Nation, Saturday September 29), to remind Senator Ekweremadu (the young man of no more than 50 years!) and his ilk that going by the 2006 census figures, the combined population of South East and South-South is 37 million, just one odd million more than 36 million that the North West alone recorded. So, how dare they question the right of Kano and allied states to have as many states as their land mass and population merited?

    He therefore not only canvassed for more states for Kano but also pushed for the merger of states with an average of two million population, reeling off the likes of Bayelsa, Ekiti, Ebonyi, Taraba, Gombe, Kwara, Abia, Cross River, and even Enugu, Ekweremadu’s state, which peaked at just over three million people!

    And with a seeming Banking Zuwo affliction as regards federalism and its tenets, he queried why these puny states should have equal representation in the Senate with his humongous Kano; forgetting that in a federation the Senate is an electoral equaliser, while the House of Representatives is based on population. The governor signed off with the lament that the insults from the likes of Ekweremadu could emanate simply because the North is now “politically down”! What hubris!

    Governor Kwankwaso’s “facts” are a classical example of card-stacking; in a structurally skewed Nigerian federation. But then, the power elite craving more states, along the present sharing paradigm, handed the governor his ammo. He bombed them so spectacularly!

    But the Kano governor would appear far less formidable, if the paradigm were to change to productive federalism from the present consumptive unitary system, posing as federalism. That way, the people of Kano would sure have the right to carve themselves into as many states as possible. But they have to pay for that luxury: not awaiting some virtual freebies from a bloated and unfocused centre!

    Everybody earning his keep would clearly teach the governor that he would need quality and not quantity population to create and run a state. That should wean him from the wastefulness and needlessness of creating states (and local governments) as political tool to corner national resources, as against mobilising scarce local resources to forge a lean and efficient administrative infrastructure to push scarce resources to gain sustainable development and prosperity.

    Governor Kwankwaso would probably fall into a swoon, were the South West to demand more states for the old Western Region, after all, numbers don’t lie! Look at the stats: old Western Region, now South West: six states; old Eastern Region, now South East and South-South: 11 states; old Northern Region, now North Central, North East and North West: 19 states.

    But the regnant political school in the South West realises that pushing for more states, under a moribund corrupt and sharing system, is akin to the Biblical wide and merry way that leads to perdition. Hence, their angling for regional federalism to drive their own business.

    The Igbo elite sure have a right to have their due under the present system. If that means creating one more state for them, so be it. But they must realise their salvation is not in a sinking centre, but in their own hands.

    Governor Kwankwaso is something of a paradox. From his interview with The Nation, he boasts a laudable and futuristic education policy. Yet he himself came off as one whose mind is irredeemably chained to the past, the way he laments the current “weakness” of the North; and bludgeoned the South East for making a reasonable demand.

    The governor’s latest radical campaigns on onshore-offshore dichotomy and opposition to the South East demand for an additional state look steeped in the past. It has little to contribute to a restructured Nigeria, where everybody earns his keep.

  • That Hajj humiliation

    That Hajj humiliation

    Nigeria’s fading image abroad took a further battering last week when the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia sent back home some of our women who had gone to the holy lands of Makkah and Madinah to perform this year’s hajj.

    No fewer than one thousand of them mainly from the northern states as you know, were deported so to speak because they were not accompanied by any male guardian, either husband or close relation as prescribed by Islam. The refusal of the Saudis to accept our explanation led the Federal Government to temporarily call a halt to further airlift of Nigerian pilgrims to the Arab country.

    But as the weekend was drawing to a close, the National Hajj Commission of Nigeria (NAHCON) to the relieve of most Nigerians, particularly Muslims announced that the Saudis have opened their doors again to allow the near 100,000 Nigerian pilgrims billed for the hajj to perform/observe their religious obligation to Almighty ALLAH.

    The hajj, one of five pillars of Islam is enjoined to all Muslim adults male or female who are fit, able and capable at least once in their lifetime. Some have performed the pilgrimage more than once either in quick succession or at some intervals. Majority of the more than one billion Muslims in the world have never been on hajj and are not likely to, given the limited number of pilgrims allocated to each country by Saudi Arabia. Their main constraint however is their inability to fund the pilgrimage themselves due to their poor financial status.

    A would be pilgrim must not only be physically fit and of sound mind, but must also be financially able to sustain him/herself in the holy land as well as provide enough for those left back home. For the female pilgrim, she is required to be accompanied by a male guardian or Muharam who should either be her husband or close relation. This additional condition on the female pilgrim has been part of the pilgrimage from inception and therefore known to all Muslims.

    But then the nature of today’s world has made this a huge burden on the Muslim woman, especially if she’s not married for whatever reason or husband not buoyant enough to accompany her or sponsor a male relation to accompany her.

    And to take care of situations like this, we are told such Islamic bodies as NAHCON are allowed to give a shield to women pilgrims who find themselves in this kind of situation by acting as their Muharam so to speak. So if NAHCON could do this why then were our women turned back in Saudi Arabia? Could it be that the Saudis had added more conditions without telling or alerting us? We may never know why or told why as the Saudis, given the secrecy with which they conduct their affairs are likely to keep the reasons to their chest. This will no doubt suit Nigerian officials very well as they are never inclined to giving information, especially ones that could embarrass or nail them. May be the Federal Government delegation being sent to Saudi Arabia to ‘smoothen things out” with the Kingdom and prevent a further diplomatic spat between both countries would do a good job of getting to the root of this national embarrassment.

    Being led by Speaker House of Representatives Aminu Tambuwal, the delegation would do well to go beyond unravelling why our female pilgrims were turned back in Saudi Arabia but also look into the operations of NAHCON itself and how we handle our pilgrims both here and in Saudi Arabia, as well as the conduct of our pilgrims.

    I want to believe that NAHCON and to some extent, the Muslim Pilgrims Welfare Boards in each of the states have a hand in this unfortunate situation either as collaborators or main perpetrators. But then we need to look at how these pilgrims emerged in the first instance. Apart from those who paid for the pilgrimage with their hard earned money, the rest are mainly sponsored by State governments, political parties, mosques, religious organizations and in few instances by wealthy individuals who regards such as an act of Ibadah. Among these sponsored pilgrims, especially those ones bankrolled by either the federal or state governments or political parties could be found party loyalists, male and female who were being paid with hajj sponsorship by their principals for their political support in the past as well as anticipated future support. Regrettably it is among this group of pilgrims that you find the bad eggs that the Saudis are always looking for to prevent from entering their country under the guise of hajj. Some of these people constitute nuisance to themselves and embarrassment to Nigeria in the holy land. Some of them, male and female do engage in acts that are clearly not compatible with Islamic tenets and not in tune with the mood of hajj. There are some of them whose interest is anything but hajj. While some go there for business or in some cases tourism, quite a few are only interested in immoral activities. Perhaps this was what was on the mind of the Saudis when those Nigerian women landed in their country for hajj without their Muharram so to speak. Do not get me wrong and I am certainly not trying to bring down my brothers and sisters in Islam in Nigeria. Certainly not. Such bad eggs abound everywhere and I am sure the Saudis will do a similar thing to pilgrims from other countries in similar circumstances. But my grouse with the Saudis is that they tend to treat issues concerning Nigerian pilgrims and their counterparts from non-Arab speaking African countries with extreme application of the law. First most of them pretend not to understand you if you speak to them in any other language but Arabic, but they understand even if they cannot respond fluently. So you are left at their mercy if you run into trouble with them or they decided to put you in trouble.

    I can imagine what those our women must have gone through there especially the illeterates among them. This is where NAHCON and to some extent the state Pilgrims Welfare Boards are at fault in my opinion. Why put such a large number of female pilgrims on board without competent Muharram or authority to assist them, knowing full well how erratic and unreasonable some of these Saudis could be? How much screening did we do here of our pilgrims to ascertain their fitness and genuineness of their intentions before dispatching them to the holy land? Some NAHCON and Pilgrims Board officials actually collaborate with some of these undesirable elements who find their way from here to Saudi Arabia for activities other than hajj. Last year a female pilgrim that came via Kano gave birth on arrival at Jeddah airport. So, how did a pregnant woman board the flight in Kano when pregnancy of that state ought to have disqualified her from the pilgrimage. Another woman lost her pregnancy and her friends were lamenting that she was in for trouble on her return to Nigeria as her husband had warned her not to embark on the pilgrimage. So, how did she pass through the screening here if at all there was one.

    Agreed that the Saudis could be excessive in the application of the law when it come to Nigerian or black African pilgrims and even erratic at times, we should not blame them too much when we fail or neglect to enforce the same law here rigorously by doing the right thing. There are regulations for instance concerning food items that can be taken along but some of our people go there with such large number of food items as if they are going for a feast. If the Saudis decide to clamp down on this now we’ll begin to shout again. I think we need to do more of our home work here before we send our pilgrims to Saudi Arabia rather than blame the Arabs for maltreating us each time we fell foul of their law. We could do this first by being strict with our screening. We should stop sending or sponsoring thugs and other undesirable elements to hajj just to dispense political patronage. If at all government or whoever wants to send people on hajj they must be people of impeccable character who know what the hajj is all about and are going there to worship Almighty ALLAH. Secondly there should be rigorous application of the five-year interval rule where one can only go on hajj every five years (if one can afford it) and not every year as is the case with some people now.

    Thirdly,our pilgrims need to better organized, both here and in Saudi Arabia and pilgrimage ought to be better funded and not just relying on government sponsorship. In largely Muslim countries like Indonesia and Malaysia, people save for years to fund their pilgrimage and attend classes regularly to prepare them for the once in a life time opportunity. Here people can go straight from a beer parlour to the airport to board a hajj flight simply because they were being sponsored by government, why won’t they misbehave?

    Lets get our acts together and do the right thing and see whether anybody would want to mess with us. But as long as we open ourselves up for ridicule, even small rats will trample on our rights. This must stop. The Federal Government must in line with our foreign policy tell Saudi Arabia or any other country for that matter that Nigeria will not tolerate any maltreatment of her citizens in their country and that punishment for any infraction of the law must be commensurate with the offense committed. But can we really do this in our present situation? Let’s wait for Speaker Tambuwall’s report.

     

  • A nation under water

    A nation under water

    It was perhaps just as well that the Federal Government declared several weeks ago that Nigeria’s 52nd independence anniversary would be observed, again, on a “low key.”

    Nigeria is celebrating its National Day literally under water. “Low key” doesn’t get lower than that.

    Those of a decidedly malignant disposition, whom we shall always have among us, may even see the whole thing – the encircling waters and the objects drifting listlessly in the deluge – as an apt metaphor for the national condition.

    From the parched Sahel in the grip of the furiously retreating Sahara desert to the mangrove swamps of the Atlantic, a vast swathe of Nigeria is under water. Swollen by record rainfall and by water said to have been released from dams in neighbouring Cameroun to avoid a looming disaster, Nigeria’s major rivers, the Niger and the Benue, rage as never before, swallowing up houses and washing away bridges and roads and farmlands, sparing nothing in their ravenous wake.

    For four days, the national capital was cut off from traffic from much of the South, portions of the road linking Lokoja with Abuja having been washed away. Lokoja itself, like many other cities caught up in the floods, evoked scenes of New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, which our own Poet Laureate Niyi Osundare has memorialised for the ages in epic verse.

    Some 130 persons, most likely a gross undercount, have been reported killed in the floods. At least as many are missing. The number of displaced persons has to be in the millions, and damage to private property must be reckoned in trillions of Naira.

    Given just the dilatoriness, the studied evasion with which Nigerian insurance companies typically handle claims, those who lost their homes and property to the flood cannot rest easy that help is forthcoming. And here I am talking of those who took the trouble and expense to buy insurance cover, or were corralled to do so by a mortgage institution.

    Most of the victims probably do not fall in this category and are entirely on their own. With the sluggish economy and rising cost of everything, and the predilection of the mercantile class for profiting from the misfortunes of others, a good many of them are not going to be in a position any time soon to repair or rebuild their homes.

    The fortunate among the millions of displaced persons will be housed in camps for months if not years, and the rest will have to fend for themselves as best they can

    The National Assembly has not met in emergency session to deliberate on legislative measures to cope with what is without question the greatest natural disaster to have struck Nigeria in recent memory.

    Perhaps its members are waiting for President Goodluck Jonathan to propose a supplementary budget. But what stops a private member from proposing an appropriate bill and shepherding it through the legislature in readiness for the President for assent?

    As for Dr Jonathan, he was half a world away, in New York, addressing the United Nations General Assembly and trying once again to charm those elusive foreign investors into coming to Nigeria to seek their fortunes as the flood waters rose steadily, turned entire cities into flotillas, and cut off Abuja from the south-western part of the country.

    The churlish would say that he should not have travelled out at all, or should have headed back as soon as he was made aware of the enormousness of the unfolding catastrophe. But it may well be that his aides never told him how dire the situation had become so as not to distract him from making the most of a moment on the world’s stage that comes only once a year.

    Besides, the vice president, cabinet ministers and officials Specialised agencies and a sprawling were on hand to deal with any emergencies. And, to his great credit, Dr Jonathan took time off his hectic schedule in New York to direct the designated ministers and officials to take charge. If they did not rise up to the occasion, it cannot be the President’s fault.

    But, wearing another hat, the President is also griever and consoler-in-chief; he sets the mood of the nation in times of rejoicing as well as in times of calamity. It would have been a gesture of enormous significance if, on his return from the United States, he had visited some of the beleaguered communities offering words of sympathy and assuring them that his Administration would do all its power to bring them succour.

    In politics, perception is almost everything. Dr Jonathan needed to be perceived as a President who cared, who feels their pain, and is firmly resolved to translate his concern into practical relief measures. Such a gesture could have bridged somewhat the widening gulf between the general public and his Administration.

    In this respect, time is still on his side, even if not on the side of the beleaguered, who will no doubt see it as a fresh disappointment that their privations rated just four perfunctory sentences in his National Day broadcast.

    It will no doubt be remarked that it was foreign contractors who made the national capital accessible by road from the South-west some four days after a stretch of the Lokoja-Abuja highway was washed away by flood waters.

    And it will be asked: Where were the indigenous contractors? Where, for that matter, were all the hardware that the government relief agencies ought to have stockpiled all these years – rescue vehicles and river craft especially. Where are the mobile emergency health centres? Where are the emergency water-treatment plants? Where was the emergency communication system?

    It will be asked even more insistently: Why was there so little preparation for a disaster so clearly foretold?

    Meanwhile, the Jonathan Administration will have to shed its preoccupation with fringe issues and devote all its energies to coping with this unfolding tragedy. The Weather Bureau says the worst may still lie ahead. This means designing comprehensive measures to deal with the present emergency and proactive measures to contain the coming one.

    I am thinking of food and shelter for the displaced; of schooling arrangements for children, and of their general safety.

    I am thinking of the vast farmlands now under water, and the harvest now lost, and the livestock that perished; the food shortage that is sure to follow, and the high prices everyone will have to pay for a piece of whatever is available.

    At a time like this, the usual posturing will simply not do. It will have to yield to fast-paced, coordinated and sustained action designed to bring relief urgently to communities of the beleaguered across the nation.

  • Brother today, gone tomorrow

    Brother today, gone tomorrow

    A story looms in Ondo State, and it is not just about Governor Olusegun Mimiko and his opponents. He has cast himself a pariah to the story of brotherly love in the Southwest with the cold eyes he casts on the cooperative spirit of the Southwest. But the election is about that but not about that.

    It is about whether the man who rode to power on wavelets of glee, éclat and abundance of hope has translated programmes into fruition of joys for his people. But it is about that and something else.

    For me, it is about history and its perfidies. Is it possible that the people of Ondo State, with their historic warrior pedigree and political literacy, forget who now stands as their chief executive? We are our memories. Once we forget, we are lost.

    Mimiko came to power with the air of a progressive, and many thought, including yours truly, that he had defrocked himself of his unstable past. Unstable in the sense of his sense of association. You associate with those with whom you share things, and not for the opportunism of personal profit.

    When he decided to abandon Obasanjo, who was no little villain at the time, one could have thought that Mimiko had decided at last to prove his critics wrong. He had changed his chameleonic obsessions. He had become born again as a man of constant beliefs. That he would not allow the refrain gain ground that this man who jumps ship will jump ship again. That his hop from one party pole to another has made him too much of a feverish self-seeker, traitor, apostate, impostor even to the point of sanctimony. Brother today, gone tomorrow.

    What Mimiko is doing by cozying up in the labour party against those who made him, his Southwest blood, reminds one of the words of Joseph Conrad: “There is no friend or enemy like a brother.”

    But the rhythm of the Yoruba race, as other races, does not play out without turncoats. It all began with the Yoruba wars of the 19th century. If the Yoruba wars made the Yoruba race, Awolowo made the Yoruba man. The Yoruba wars threw up motifs of heroes and traitors, and it was sometimes difficult to tell one from the other. Whether it was the palace intrigue that upended the naïve Aole, or the rampaging Afonja, or the patrician pretensions of Ijaiye’s Kurunmi, or the Kiriji inferno, or the republican stealth of the Ibadan generals, the definition of hero sometimes depended on where you stood. What came out of that war was that each group in the Yoruba race fashioned its own identity based on sovereignty.

    Enter Awolowo. The patriarch defined along what principle that sovereignty rode, and it was properly explained by the great scholars who told the story in the days of its crucible. Richard L. Sklar and Billy J. Dudley documented the Egbe Omo Oduduwa and its transformation to the Action Group party, and how most of its members reflected the ideological leanings of its people: the progressive world view. But there were principled dissenters. One of the most prominent was Adegoke Adelabu, the impresario as conservative who held the region in spell if only for his theatrics. But he was respected and respectable for his consistency.

    What the southwest sought to avoid was the turncoat, the sort that pretended to belong. That was the cloth from which Ladoke Akintola was cut. As Awo was the John the Baptist of the modern Yoruba man, Akintola gave birth to the traitor. We have had a good number of them, if in little incarnations. One of them was Omoboriowo.

    It is interesting that Mimiko was in bed with the Southwest ‘quisling,’ when the pulse of the region beat with the hoary wisdom of Chief Ajasin. I have wondered how a man who supped with Omoboriowo, with all we know about him, could enjoy trust among progressives. It is the story not only of forgiveness but naivety in Southwest politics. But it is the story of Nigerian politics as a whole where party or group membership tests do not consider the rigour of belief and activities. It is also a testament to the chameleonic agility of Mimiko to manoeuvre through the thickets of regional politics.

    He was not done. He moved in with former Ondo State Governor Adefarati where he served in pivotal positions, and the man thought Mimiko was the man in whom he was well pleased. Mimiko could still hop out of the camp. He saw Agagu, the former Ondo State governor, and liked what he saw. He also served with him, even though Agagu belonged in a polar opposite party.

    He left Agagu and moved to the centre with Obasanjo, probably in the hope of working with him to torpedo the governor under whom he served. He did not get his wish and went to the Labour Party, and earned the support of the Southwest. He left Obasanjo for the same reason he joined him: self-interest.

    When he became governor, he seemed set to change the state. He began with what he called quick wins, in which he gave communities what they craved, like a town hall. But this was the work of the local governments which in his four years he has disenfranchised by not organising elections, and making no plans in that direction. He set himself to build a model school, on whose dream he has not delivered. He has not completed one road project. He has built the mother and child hospital, which is commendable, but he makes so much noise out of this whereas other states, such as Lagos and Delta that have done more do not make so much noise.

    The markets he built are for local governments, and is that how to account for the money he collected in three and half years as the only Southwest oil-producing state. If he goes next door to Ekiti State, he will see what Governor Kayode Fayemi has done within two years. The whole of Ado-Ekiti is a massive infrastructure site, a thing that marvelled many who visited when he buried his mother a few months ago. Also next door in Edo State, Governor Adams is another marvel. Mimiko is sandwiched between performers. His anaemic stewardship is his worst show of betrayal.

    Betraying the people is at the heart of the matter. In Julius Caesar, Shakespeare portrays Brutus as the traitor. But the real history shows otherwise. The historical Caesar betrayed Pompey, and Brutus stabbed him. Caesar was not popular with the people. Brutus betrayed Caesar, but Caesar betrayed the people. Shakespeare cast Brutus to be a worse villain than he was. The real traitor in history is Judas, who was trusted and betrayed the soul of a whole faith and world.

    You can betray your associations or fellow ideologues, but you should not betray the people. Mimiko even betrayed Gani Fawehinmi by claiming credit for the diagnostic centre. It is owned by a private concern. What he has done is to betray both the living and the dead.

    In his play, An Enemy of the People, Scandinavian writer Henrik Ibsen tells how two brothers are pitted against each other, one tries to hoodwink the people and the other tries to save them. The people are caught in the two narratives. One of them is a traitor, and the protagonist talks about nobility, not of talent or birth or even intelligence, but the nobility of character.

    The election is as much about brothers as it is about character. Making that decision is a task before the Ondo people.

  • The election in Ondo state

    The election in Ondo state

    The gubernatorial election in Ondo state has come and gone. Dr. Olusegun Mimiko and his Labour Party have won. In spite of the protestation of the PDP and the ACN, it seems that the people have decided. This is the spirit of democracy. The people have foolishly or wisely chosen who their leader for a while should be. Most of us independent observers are convinced that the economic integration platform of the ACN is in the longer interest of our people in the South-western part of Nigeria. I have a feeling that Mimiko himself would not be opposed to integration and I do not see how Ondo State can avoid integration with the rest of the Southwest even if Ondo state is not in the same party with its neighbours.

    In politics, one can choose his friends, but one cannot choose his neighbours. It’s like in life generally; one can choose one’s friends, but not members of one’s family. If this is a given position, both Mimiko and leaders of the ACN would have to get used to each other. If they do not, it is our people who would suffer. It is not necessary for elders to jump into the affray between the two contending ideologies in the South-west. Statesmanship should dictate that reconciliation is the way forward. Our interests are permanent, even though the strategies to attain these interests may change and there is no need to reduce political contestation to struggles between individuals and to personalize issues as it is being done in the story of Ondo State. There is absolutely no need to demonise and denigrate Bola Tinubu who by all accounts and yardstick has been a positive force in Yoruba politics. Whether we like it or not, Tinubu for the foreseeable future, will remain a relevant and constant force in Nigerian politics.

    I have read comments glamorizing one group while demonizing leadership of another group. There is no doubt that the leadership of the ACN has been largely successful in mobilizing people in the South-west and asking them to begin to look inwards, so as to find salvation from collective efforts, rather than looking towards an external saviour from Abuja. This trend has always characterised politics of people in the South-west over time and anyone who goes against this tendency would eventually find out that he has backed a wrong horse. This is the evidence of history and the political history of the South-western part of Nigeria is clear on this. This is also in tandem with global trend where cultural awareness accompanied by local autonomy is the order of the day. This is why I find it ridiculous for anybody to accuse the leadership of the ACN of tribalism. Politics is about defending group or collective interest and political parties are organised for this purpose especially in a situation of competing and conflicting interests as we find in Nigeria. Politics is war by other means. Instead of resorting to violence to defend one’s interest, one is involved in organised party politics. This is the real meaning and advantage of party political organisation.

    In advanced countries like the United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, Germany, Denmark and Belgium, political parties exist specifically to defend regional or cultural interests and they don’t have to be apologetic about this; and anybody who feels defending regional interest is against the national interest is living in a fool’s paradise, because after all, the national interest is the aggregation of the interests of all.

    Dr. Mimiko should settle down and face the reality of the need to relate positively with the main political force in the South-west and he should avoid being used to fight intra and inter ethnic battles. He has enough on his plate at home and he must understand that his support in Ondo State is statistically very weak. He should concentrate on the task of development and creating jobs and economic opportunities at home. And that should take all his time, so that he doesn’t have time for indulging in self-adulation and praises from his A-men corner. Mimiko is an intelligent man and personally likeable, I have respect for his sense of judgement. He should avoid being used as a Trojan horse or bridgehead of those who may be opposed to progressive development in the region especially at a time when it is obvious the region is under intense and programmed marginalisation.

    The ACN as a political party needs to be seen as a mass movement that is ready to work with other mass movements in other parts of the country in preparation for 2015 election. The party must therefore be structured in such a way that its leadership is collective and not domineering. There is also need for internal democracy within the party so that candidates who contest elections command the support of the electorate. This is not a time to apportion blame, but this is a time for reform and democratization of all party organs. This is the bitter lesson that it must learn from the Ondo election.

    Political parties grow when challenged. Parties without opposition tend to ossify. This is why I believe the ACN has no reason to feel discouraged or despondent, after all, it made a good show in Ondo in spite of the loaded dice against it. The electoral process must be transparently fair and not subject to the shenanigans of party hawks who would like to use federal might and muscle to win elections. We have seen this before and it has not always been in the interest of Nigeria and Nigerians. If this country is to progress, we must allow a contestation of ideas from which the right way forward would evolve.

  • Paradox of unity at 52

    Paradox of unity at 52

    I was preparing another topic for this column when it dawned on me by chance that today will mark 52 years of Nigeria as a sovereign independent (nation) country. A couple of years past, such an event meant so many things to so many Nigerians. It was not only a period of reminiscences on our journey so far, but equally served as a platform for the renewal of hopes and aspirations on what the future holds for our collective as one country. It also served as a gauge for evaluating the progress if any, made in approximating those lofty promises our founding fathers hoped independence would usher in. It was no doubt, an event to look forward to especially given the enormous sacrifices our people have made to keep this country together through a 30- month civil war.

    That such symbolic event was about to pass by without attracting the usual attention and sentiments associated with it in years past, may mean one or two things.

    It could either be an indication of a gulf between these hopes and their fulfilment or that Nigerian unity has become an aberrant concept that bears no semblance with extant facts or both. Whichever one it is, the facts on the ground especially events of our recent past have shown that the concept of Nigerian unity is more than ever before being confronted by serious crisis of relevance. Mildly put, it is now facing the greatest challenge of relevance since independence in 1960.

    I had in an article on this date last year titled “In fear at 51” drawn copious attention to the palpable fears that had overtaken Nigerians regarding the prospects of the country surviving the stress of corporate preservation and survival. The fears raised then which are still very relevant today were that Nigeria was fast drifting apart and that unless something urgent was done to remedy the situation, we may inevitably be heading to the precipice. To support the prediction then was the dissonance from the various ethnic groups questioning the basis of our continued existence as a nation. In that regard, one had in mind the discordant tunes from the resurging ethnic militias and militants that were competing with the federal authority for the loyalty of the citizens. As that was not enough, we were also confronted by the Boko Haram surge that raised ethnic and religious cleavages to very dangerous dimensions. Apart from its threat to impose Islamic religion on the entire country, it matched it with action by hauling bombs in churches with a view to provoking a religious war. Through these bombings and selective killings, they also succeeded in making good their threat to force southerners out of the north. It was against the backdrop of such a foreboding scenario that the last independence was marked in the villa under great fear and trepidation. At 50, the celebration was heralded by bomb blasts that left shock and awe in its trail.

    Those who chose the Independence Day celebrations to levy violence on the nation knew what they were doing. They were making a remarkably poignant statement. And it is that they do not believe in whatever that date represents for us as a people. They seem to have been passing a vote of no confidence on our collective existence as a nation. For them, independence does not seem to mean much again. That is why they have to mock its anniversary by hauling bombs, injuring and killing those who dared to come out to celebrate. Their objective was to change the face of that day to that of sorrow and mourning as against celebrations it rightly should be. They seem to be drawing attention to the fact that Nigerian unity has inevitably become a serious liability to the constituent units. They seem to be saying that instead of our shared experiences and close association over the years erecting a common bond of unity among the disparate peoples, they have further drawn us apart.

    The issue has been so much so that today, questions are being raised regarding the prospects of Nigeria surviving as a country. Two former heads of state Obasanjo and Babangida captured this dilemma succinctly in a recent joint statement when they said “a deeply worrying trend that is emerging from this terrible situation is that a pervasive cynicism is beginning to set in, so much so that millions of true Nigerian patriots are starting to question the platform upon which the unity of the country rests”.

    They also admitted that a regime of fear and frustrations currently pervade the nation even as the hope to build a united and peaceful nation where all will find accommodation is increasingly eroding. Babangida and Obasanjo recommended dialogue with the belligerent groups and what they called “grassroots engagement” as a way out.

    The systemic dysfunctions the duo made references to are not entirely new. Perhaps, the only new thing in their intervention is the quarters it is emanating from. Before now, some people and sections of the country had given the impression that it is their bounden responsibility to wield the nation together irrespective of the cost of that on other constituents. For these people and the likes of Obasanjo and Babangida, Nigeria’s unity is not negotiable as everything even the most ignoble must be done to achieve that objective. Genuine feelings of the people requiring attention so that the task of national unity can progress unhindered were treated with utter disdain. The erroneous impression was given that national unity is an end rather than a means to general good, resulting in the scoffing at genuine feelings of discomfort, alienation and marginalization. The feeling we got then was that all was well with us as a nation. National integration was not given the desired attention even as it holds the prospects for our survival as a corporate entity. It is one thing to recognize the desideratum of our continued unity and entirely a different kettle of fish to make the necessary sacrifices and cooperative accommodation that guarantee the success and survival of such a construct. Yes, the unity of the country is paramount. But unity per se is a means to an end and not an end onto itself. It is a means to the approximation of the collective good of the constituents. It is only relevant as long as it serves this common goal. The systemic stress the country is currently passing through is largely on account of years of neglect of those irreducible minimum that make for unity in diversity.

    We have over the years failed to reckon that as a federation, the constituents ought to march in an ambience of accommodation, trust, equality and mutual respect. The questions which the frustrations of Obasanjo and Babangida as past leaders have thrown up are: what is it that has happened that led millions of patriotic Nigerians to lose hope in the platform on which the unity of the country was erected? When and at what point did these manifestations become visible to the point that they had to cry out? And what is to be done to renew and reinforce the confidence of these millions of patriots and non patriots in the unity of the country? These are the real issues to contend with as the country turns 52. And unless we admit and find realistic answers to them, the task of building a united nation may turn out a mirage.

    At the root of it all, is the defective federal structure- a structure that has placed sections into undue disadvantage as the disproportionate resources at the disposal of the centre is appropriated and apportioned by those who have been opportune to capture state power. It is not surprising that as soon as power left that segment of the country, the so called millions of patriots began to question the basis for the unity of the country. What manner of patriots are these people really? And why is it only now they are coming to terms with the imperfections of our federal order? These are the real issues. We must therefore restructure this country such that no section is any longer in a position to lord it over others, dispensing state patronage and punishment at its whims and caprices. Only then, will the real patriots that will push further the frontiers of our national unity emerge.

  • Aikhomu and the travails of the naira

    This article first appeared in The Guardian on August 22, 1991. The article is as relevant today as it was 21 years ago. Today as it was then, it doesn’t appear there is anyone in charge of the economy. Today those who contributed to the collapse of the banking sector, those who supervised their activities and those who have been accused of defrauding the government are also economic advisers to government. Happy reading.

    It feels good to be a Nigerian at this period of our nation’s history. For once, attention is being shifted from corruption, police brutality, drug, scandals, student riots and so on, to issues of development. Economic decisions that government believes to be in the interest of the governed are promptly taken. In politics, we have come up with our own models that will shame the whole generation of Western model builders. We have come up with our own definition of political party, elections, manifestos and so on.

    In international economic diplomacy, we can ignore William Keeling and his Western masters and co-detractors who were envious because of about $150 million or 1.5 billion naira we spent on hosting the most successful OAU summit since the organization’s inception in 1963. If their problem is our outstanding debt, which is now $30 billion by their records, this we have been servicing without default.

    At home, our economists have shamed their Western counterparts by embracing models they had been too timid to adopt. We have embraced what our economists call “the inevitable large scale programme of devaluation” in spite of the reservations of Western economists and scholars like Jaime de Millo (the World Bank official) and Ricardo Fari of Johns Hopkins University. Both men have warned that the wholesale devaluation of our naira would not help our situation. Our former Head of State – the frustrated chicken farmer, once noted for his cynicism about our economic programme, has even taken the battle to Columbia University where he dared our creditors to begin charity at home by adopting the law of demand and supply and to jettison “protectionism” against Japanese goods and subsidy of their agricultural produce. He is on his own; our government economic advisers would want us to know they are in charge. Unlike General Obasanjo, they have faith in our creditors.

    What I have found disturbing however is not the economists ingenious recommendation that we must boycott goods and services including drugs, food, telephone, electricity, if the prices are too high, but their occasional head-on collision with government. This tendency tends to cast doubt in the mind of the governed especially when they are being told there is only one way to our economic salvation. The government no doubt needs credibility if it is to carry the people along.

    We can now recall that as at November 13, 1986, the first-tier rate was N2.80 to $1 or N4 to #1. But shortly after this, the first rift between the government and its economic experts became noticeable. Then, on November 24, 1986 when the exchange rate jumped to N3.45 to $1, Augustus Aikhomu, then Chief of General Staff, panicked and attempted to issue a decree to ensure stability of the naira in total disregard for the law of “demand and supply”. He consequently went ahead to increase the amount of foreign exchange for auction from $50 million to $75 million.

    The rift was settled but not without a strong warning from the Central Bank that government’s interference would not be tolerated. By November 1990, when they had successfully arrested the decline in the value of the naira, the exchange rate had floated up to N10.75 kobo to the dollar. Barely two weeks later, the Central Bank through its Director of Research, Dr. M.O. Ojo, ably defended this rate claiming that the naira was realistically valued because the supply of foreign exchange tallied with demand. In his words, the “rate is dictated by simple law of demand and supply.” He allayed our fears by informing us that low exchange rate is no indication that the economy is not on course.

    By last July 24, the floating exchange rate had climbed up to Nl1.32 kobo to the dollar. Once again Aikhomu, the military Vice President, broke the truce by publicly criticizing the Central Bank and its economic masterminds. Characteristically, the Vice President then said that, “the value of the naira cannot be left absolutely to the whims and caprices of market forces”. He is thinking of government measures aimed at stabilizing the exchange rate of the naira at an acceptable level.

    The latest confrontation has once again provided an opportunity for the critics of the economic policies of government to ask where exactly we now stand. The economic experts have moved us from first tier to second window, back to second tier and forward to the Dutch market. They have reduced our lives to second-tier lives. We accepted because “hope rises eternal in the human breast.” If government now doubts its able ally in this war of economic survival, how are we sure we have not all been hoodwinked?

    In all this, I sympathize more with government. This is not because I care less for helpless Nigerians, who live second-tier lives, but our government that is saddled with the overall responsibility of taking us to the economic El Dorado seems to have been reduced to a pawn in the chess game of our economists. With this type of betrayal from a trusted ally, we can easily see that, were it not for the craftiness of government, our whole economic system would have collapsed.

    Our government made up of men and women of great skills has, in spite of its unpredictable self-serving allies, successfully combined the husbandry of our economy with other vital decisions that have. far-reaching effects on our lives. For instance they alone decide for us when the nation needs to be prodigal or ostentatious. They alone know when we can make donations to the needy, sick, elite, successful footballers, musicians, churches and mosques. And it is they alone that can decide when it is time to stop spending money as if there will be no tomorrow.

    As if these were not enough burden for government, it has to maintain a delicate balance between investing in our future political stability and health as well as housing for all in the magic year 2000. It has to juxtapose economic rationality with political expediency. It is obvious that our economic managers are not ordinary men. Even craftiness is a measure of resourcefulness. I would therefore rather swim or drown with a resourceful government with all its scheming than with our economic experts who operate more as agents of our creditors.

    – August 22,1991

  • Animal Farm

    Animal Farm

    It was not supposed to become like an Animal Farm’s tale, but like everything that those in government handle, they have introduced class to it. Yet, when Taraba Governor Danbaba Suntai and his aides flew out of Jalingo, the state capital, last Thursday, one thing that probably was far from their minds was class. Unarguably, every one on board that ill-fated flight knew where he belonged in the hierarchical structure, it  was not an issue to be flaunted to the extent of embarrassing anyone. It was a flight of jolly good fellows, perhaps, on  a Sallah binge. But it turned out otherwise.

      It is not Suntai’s fault that his lieutenants are being treated as subjects in a matter of life and death because he himself is not aware of what is going on around him, at least, for now. Our prayer is that he pulls through. Suntai needs all the prayers to be alive because it appears he is between life and death. Suntai has a passion which we have all come to know him for and this is flying. He loves running around in a plane and at the least opportunity he takes to the sky. Since he passed out from the Nigerian College of Aviation Technology (NCAT), Zaria, Kaduna State, Suntai has been flying himself whenever he is opportuned to do so.

      To him, flying is not only an hobby, but a passion. Hear him: ‘’Personally, right from the onset of my life, I chose aviation as a career and pursuing it I was able to obtain admission to Mbrevidaila Aeronautical University in Florida, but coming from a very poor background, I could not sponsor myself in school; so, I started seeking scholarship, but I could not obtain a scholarship. So, that was how I ended up in the pharmacy profession. However, aviation has continued to bite in my blood. And when I learnt that I could even fly at my age, I decided to come over here to see the rector and inform him about my ambition and he enrolled me.

     ‘’And after some few training, today, I was able to undergo this solo flight. So, in my blood I have it as a passion, so this passion translates to my belief in encouraging students who want to be pilots to be sponsored to train…so, it is a passion…I don’t know about other governors but the thing is all about passion’’. Suntai spoke in August 2010 after he finished at NCAT and took his first solo flight as a pilot. He was no doubt ecstatic that, at last, he could now fly a plane. Many of us would wish we could also do the same thing but we lack the courage to take up that challenge. We can only fly with our mouths.

     Suntai, it is said, so much loves flying that he devotes so much time to it at the expense of his executive duties as governor. This is, however, not the subject under discussion. We are here concerned with the way other victims of the crash are being treated. It all appears as if the governor was the only one aboard the Cessna 28 plane flown by him whereas he was not. There were others with him. Among them were his Aide-De-Camp (ADC). Dasat Iliya, Chief Security Officer (CSO), Timo Dangana, and Chief Detail, Joel Dan. Now the only difference between them and Suntai is that the latter is a governor, which by our country’s standard, makes him a demi-god. This explains all the fawnings over Suntai since the unfortunate accident.

     It is as if those on board the plane with Suntai  do not exist as far as the authorities are concerned. To them, it is all about Suntai, Suntai and Suntai. We are not saying that the government should not show concern about the well-being of the governor. All we are saying is that they should also show interest about the well being of others injured in the crash.

    We are told that the govern

    ment is so much con

    cerned about the governor because he sustained far more serious injuries than others and I say that is where they got it all wrong. Why do I say so? A man, in most instances, does not die from the seriousness of his injuries. The severity of an ailment does not necessarily hasten the death of the indisposed. So, why are we not as concerned about the others as we are about Suntai.

    Life is the same, be it that of a prince or a serf. In so much as we do not want Suntai to die, we should also strive in like manner to ensure that the others also live. When it concerns life, we should treat the king and his servant the same way. The state, which flew Suntai to Germany for treatment also has the means to fly the others abroad for treatment, so why didn’t it do so? Was it advised medically not to extend the same gesture to them? What informed such medical advice? Is it because they are lesser mortals who do not deserve such royal treatment? God forbid, but if any one of them dies from his injuries, how will the government look like before the people? Has the government spared a thought for that?

     Well, what am I even talking about? Do they care about losing face before the public? It is not too late to make amends. The others too should be flown abroad for proper medical treatment because life is the same, whether that of a governor or his ADC, CSO or chief detail.

    We are all equal before God and no life is more precious than the other in the eyes of the Almighty.We are not in George Orwell’s  Animal Farm where pigs turned things upside down, broke the commandment on equality and turned the kingdom into where ‘’all animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.’’ I wish all the Cessna 28 plane crash victims hasty recovery.

       Carpenter’s hammer as gavel

    Our lawmakers will not cease to confound the world with their absurdities. Last week in Lokoja, the Kogi State capital, members of the House of Assembly turned themselves into a laughing stock when they held plenary outside the constitutionally recognised venue because they did not have access to the Assembly Complex. Besides that, they also sat without the mace, the House symbol of authority.

    The speaker added to the drama by wielding a carpenter’s hammer as gavel. In a society like ours where most of our lawmakers behave more or less like thugs, anything could have happened had there been any tiff during that session. If any of his colleagues had annoyed him that day, only God knows what the honourable speaker would have done with the carpenter’s hammer he wielded with so much relish.

    Will our lawmakers ever grow up? When will they stop ridiculing their countrymen with their incivility? They need a lesson in public behaviour, but my fear is they may think they are in one of those their sessions and turn the poor facilitator to a punching bag.

  • These days, it pays to own a canoe too!

    These days, it pays to own a canoe too!

    Whoever knew that come one day, canoes would rush around on Nigerian roads where big trailers would fear to tread?

    During the week, I listened in on a radio programme on the ‘curse of the ember months’. I was prepared to learn how I could meet those guys and give them a piece of my mind, thinning out the population the way they do around Christmas, the ember months that is, not the radio people. No, I do not necessarily have anything against them radio guys; it’s just that my diary is full. Anyway, I was very relieved to learn that there is no such thing as an ‘ember month’s’ curse. Instead, there are careless and desperate drivers who want to make extra money for the Christmas period, period. In the process, they make mistakes and kill people.

    I also learnt, on that radio show, that the Christmas period usually witnesses, how do you say it, a little bit of madness, no? People use the period to show off what they have achieved during the year, such as how many cars they have bought. This is why a single family that used to go home for Christmas in public transport finds that it needs to take seven cars to ferry everyone in the house home: one each for the father, mother, children, servants, luggage, food, family dogs … That’s right; the dogs must go for Christmas too. Who else is going to sing, ‘It’s beginning to feel a lot like Christmas’ for the family? The children? Are you serious? In a family that takes seven cars home for Christmas, the children do not need to know anything. I would not.

    Seven cars! Imagine that, and in a land where three quarters of the populace cannot even ferry themselves to work with a bicycle. Sometimes I wonder, should those ones commit suicide? What is just wrong with us that we lose all reason and dignity as we drool and grovel in abject ecstasy at the feet of these material things? Obviously, such families need some talking to.

    The unfortunate thing is that none of us can actually raise the first stone to condemn the family mentioned above because I think that is the secret dream of everyone of us: to show the world up in our little ways! How else will the world know we have ten cars if we don’t take seven of them home for Christmas? That is what makes life a little fair, at least. So, I guess our mindless worship of these mindless material things will continue unabated until something shows up to let us know how really flimsy we are, such as floods.

    Oh, the floods, the floods! Have you seen pictures of the Kogi floods? I mean, here is Kogi State, in gentle somnambulism all the year, undulating along the pathway of life minding no one’s business, not even its own, and it is suddenly and furiously thrust into national limelight, not by some great achievement but by the floods! It is a rather sad event, isn’t it, particularly for those killed, displaced or discomfited. When I saw the pictures, I just went, wow! There’s just water, water, everywhere in Lokoja! And Noah was nowhere in sight, only Mother Nature! Incredible!

    I mean, here we are, dying or killing each other over land, money, power, positions, just name it, and all the while not one of us realises that nature is in masterful control. How come none of us realised this? We really need to go back to our books. Seriously, don’t we ever learn? Has no one told us the story of the man who was so desperate to purchase an airline ticket he went and colluded with the tickets clerk to withdraw one that had earlier been sold to someone else and the plane now crashed and killed the desperado? Have we never heard that story? Or of the man who insisted on taking a particular seat in a bus on a long distance journey, only to be the only one to die in a crash the bus was involved in? You have not heard? Silly me, I thought these things were common knowledge.

    Look now, one of the Lokoja pictures was of a house with a car parked in front of it, both neck-deep in water of course, and as I looked at it, I thought, this car ain’t going nowhere any time soon, not to the market, the office, the shops, nowhere. But then, right beside it was a canoe and its paddle and I thought, what ingenuity! This man had prepared for a rainy day, literally! What message did this modern day Noah receive that the rest of us didn’t: when you buy your car, make sure you purchase a canoe to go with it? Who would have thought that one would need a canoe, no matter how little, after one had bought a car?!

    More pictures showed how houses had been completely submerged in water; and how big lorries, trucks, trailers were attempting to wade through the waters. I saw however that canoes, tiny little canoes, were able to move and were being used to ferry people and things over the waters. And I thought I spied a little canoe stretching out a helping hand to a big lorry across the water. Perhaps not, it might have been just my eyes playing tricks as usual. When I looked at that picture again, I thought how indeed are the little risen and the mighty fallen! Whoever knew that come one day, canoes would rush around on Nigerian roads where big trailers would fear to tread? Who knew indeed, that some day, some rainy day, some little canoes would be the heroes of their owners’ lives? As they say, life is full of strange turns and twists.

    Let’s look to now; there are some lessons to be learnt from these strange turns and twists. To begin with, I think we should all accept the fact that life is indeed full of strange turns and twists and it never pays to disdain the little guy. What do you mean you already knew that? What about your neighbour? If Nigerians as a people were to accept that they knew that, then we would all cling less to these material things, accumulate stolen funds less, stow away public funds less and generally not carry on as if we were in control. I think the only thing we are in control of is the food in our stomachs, not even the one on our plates. A fly may come suddenly and perch comfortably on it.

    Now, don’t go getting me wrong again. What I mean is that the larger order of things (such as floods, lightning strikes, earthquakes, etc.) is not in our hands. However, we can help the little things such as preparing for the larger order of things: getting a canoe, preparing systems for the delivery of relief materials, equipping hospitals well enough to take care of the injured, etc. We may not be in control of things in general, but we can at least focus on the things that truly matter such as making this world a better place by serving others, not just ourselves. Now, I’m sure not everyone can afford a canoe (imagine, Noah spent years building his own!), but we can at least bear in mind that nature rules, ok, cause we don’t, ok.