The Nation Newspaper

Category: Columnists

  • Who ‘ll pick up the gauntlet?

    Who ‘ll pick up the gauntlet?

    To go to a judge, is to go to justice, for the ideal judge is, so to say, justice personified – Aristotle

    ONE APPELATION THAT HAS STUCK to the court is the one that fittingly describes it as the last hope of the common man. It is so described because we live in a world where might is right and the strong, powerful and affluent lord it over the weak and poor. The poor or the hoi poloi, if you like, have no one to fight for them, except God. And as they say, the Almighty will not come down to do that.

    He will use man, again as they say, to solve the problem. Touching the heart of that man, that great helper from nowhere then becomes the issue. Some people, no matter how powerful, rich and influential they are do not like to interfere in others’ matters. They move around unconcerned about the condition of the poor, even when their attention is drawn to such people’s plight. It takes the grace of God for the wealthy to descend to the level of the poor to help and bail them out. But the court does not relate with people on the basis of class.

    Whether rich or poor, we are all said to be equal before the law. I use the word ‘said’ advisedly. I admit that we are now in a world where this maxim seems not to hold true again. The law is no respecter of persons, as we are told. But we have heard of stories where the big man walks away free from the law despite being guilty as charged, while the poor is severely punished even where he is innocent. We do not live in the George Orwellian age of Animal Farm, the title of his 1945 satirical book on the life and classification of animals in a commune. But unfortunately we appear to be in a situation where some animals are more equal than others as painted in Orwell’s interesting book.

    Those who regale us with these tales of the absurd blame the court for where we are today as a nation. They accuse judges of bribery and corruption. They say they sell justice to the highest bidder. We will be lying to ourselves if we say that some of these stories are not true. But then, where are the facts? There are black sheep in the judiciary, just as they are in other areas of human endeavours, but that is not enough to tar the whole institution with the same brush. When you hear some people, among them senior lawyers, who should know better, talk about our judges, you will shudder.

    They describe the judges in unflattering words, making wild allegations about their character, honour and integrity. All a judge has is his honour. Remove that and you strip him naked. For too long, many people have done the unthinkable to our judges all because, by virtue of their oath of office, they are to be seen not heard, except when they give their rulings and judgments. How do you accuse a judge of collecting bribe to decide a case without substantiating the claim? The law says “he who alleges must prove”. It is high time those who accused judges of wrongdoing were made to prove them with facts and figures.

    It is not enough to write a tendentious book on unproven allegations of corruption in the judiciary, or run to television and radio stations or the social media with such tales. The accusers must be bold to walk the talk by backing up their allegations with proof,  cogent proof of who gave what, the amount, the time and place of the deal. Such allegations are too weighty to be treated with levity. They go to the root of justice, which is the bedrock of the rule of law on which every society stands.

    Our nation operates on the basis of rule of law. The rule of law does not exist in name alone. It is the culmination of the activities of our judges who interpret our laws and sit in judgment over us. The rule of law will therefore be tainted by a corrupt judge. This is why these allegations of corruption in the judiciary can no longer be overlooked. It is time to name and shame those involved. This is where those making the allegations come in. If they really want a squeaky clean judiciary, they must go the whole hog by naming the judges involved in the shady deals that they have written or talked about. If they cannot, they should forever remain silent and apologise to Nigerians for peddling false information.

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    Her Ladyship, the President of the Court of Appeal (PCA), Justice Monica Dongban-Mensem, who is apparently troubled by these allegations, has now called them out: “produce evidence or stop the allegations”. She speaks from the place of pain. As PCA, she constituted the Presidential Election Petitions Court (PEPC), which handled the disputes over the 2023 presidential poll. Many of us are witnesses to the many unfounded allegations made against the court by the petitioners and their lawyers. Where the court ruled against them, it was corrupt, where it did not, it was fair and equitable.

    For how long shall we continue like this as a nation? Her Ladyship may be looking ahead, knowing that the 2027 general elections are looming. By virtue of her position, it is her responsibility to constitute the PEPC that will handle disputes likely to arise from the presidential poll two years from now. Let us not deceive ourselves, such disputes will arise, and allegations of corruption will, sadly again, flow like confetti against the panel. Perhaps, this is why Dongban-Mensem is now calling on these perpetual noise makers to get their facts ready or keep quiet. She has spoken well.

    What will these allegations profit us as a nation, if those making them do not provide proof? The claims will only end up causing chaos and denting the image of judges who are honestly doing their job. Whistle-blowing, if we can call it that, is not about destroying the image of any body, whether a judge or not, but for building a just, fair and equitable society.

    Judges have a key role to play in such a society. So, society must preserve their integrity so that they can continue to maintain justice. The obverse is too grave to contemplate, with the 2027 polls imminent.

  • The challenge of political stability in West Africa

    The challenge of political stability in West Africa

    In the last week, there was a failed coup d’état in the Republic of Benin after the success of a coup in Guinea Bissau. The military governments in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger are sitting tight at different levels of instability while the military regime in Guinea (Conakry) appears to be on its way out. The regime in Mali, despite its blind walking into a marriage with Russia, is daily challenged by various ethnic fissiparous tendencies in the wretched Sahelian dessert country that appears doomed to instability for the foreseeable future. Our neighbour Niger will eventually come to its senses and come back crawling to Nigeria if we stand on our democratic course. Burkina Faso, as far as I am concerned, is a basket case despite the exaggerated claims of the propagandists hired by its government of manufacturing air planes, going to space and other absurd performances by its president and government.

    I know this desert country and when I see how the world is being fooled, I laugh. The success of this propaganda can be seen in the recent inaugural speech of Madame Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah, president of Namibia who claimed that her country would follow the glorious example of the president of Burkina Faso!

    Eventually, Africa will wake up from the dream world of the paradise of the confederation of Sahelian States. This Burkina Faso is keeping a Hercules’ C130 plane belonging to Nigeria which landed in its territory because of bad weather and issuing inflammatory statement about guarding its air space. The Federal Government of Nigeria should issue a stiff statement saying what happened and demanding the release of its plane using countries like Senegal, Guinea and even Niger as conduits for our diplomatic intervention.

    What seems to be happening in the region is a challenge to Nigeria’s security and we must rise quickly to the occasion by cranking up our diplomatic feelers to deal with all these irritants. Our government must use as agents, Nigerians knowledgeable about the affairs of these countries.

    I am surprised that we have not worked on bringing back to our embrace the Republique of Niger. This should have been a priority of this government. We must never allow any hostile governments surrounding us. We have ties of consanguinity with our neighbours; we must always exploit this for our benefit. We should always post as heads of missions to these countries, people who can talk to those in power in African languages rather than inherited colonial languages with key players in power politics of these countries. For example, a Yoruba speaker should be sent to Benin, Hausa speaker to Niger, Kanuri speaker to Chad, Fulfulde or Hausa speaker to the Cameroon and an Igbo or Ibibio- Efik speaker to Equatorial Guinea.

    I remember General Ike Nwachukwu as foreign minister discussing with the foreign minister of Benin when the two of them found out they could do without English/French interpreters in 1988 when dealing with the issue of toxic wastes dumping in our waters by Italian shippers.

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    The situation which deteriorates to military coups and putsches in most cases in these West African countries is economic. In the particular cases of Chad and Benin, the two countries from their exit from dependence on France had serious problems of unviability. Chad throughout its history was ruled by the French military. Benin on the other hand provided junior civil servants for the French administration of West Africa (L’Afrique Occidentale Francaise — L’AOF). Of course when the French granted independence to the separate countries, Benin inherited too many civil servants which the economy of the country could not support. The unemployment consequently caused instability in the country. After independence, Benin cities regularly witnessed placards emblazoned on roads saying “Larmee au pouvoir  (army takes power). In the past, Nigeria tried to help by joint development of cement production in Onigbolo and sugar production in Save. Unfortunately the ventures failed while the attempt to privatise them did not succeed. The economy of the country depends on trans-shipping of imports bound for Nigeria through the port of Cotonou. This was also unviable because of changing policies in Nigeria on smuggling. Smuggling is such a big deal in the country which exports cocoa grown in Nigeria as its main produce.

    The solution to all these economic problems is integration of the West African economy with Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire and Nigeria bearing the economic burdens as Germany seems to do in the European Union albeit with complaints and grumbling.

    The recent abortive coup d’état failed because Nigeria answered the call of “safe our souls” by the remnants of the democratic government that was about to be kicked out. But for how long can Nigeria sustain the government of Benin while its own economy is not the best it can be and the current state of ECOWAS makes it difficult for it to do anything for the serious economic problems of Guinea Bissau and Benin?

    West Africa will remain in a prostrate and pathetic position until Nigeria takes the challenge of co-prosperity of itself and its immediate neighbours more seriously. In the meantime, Nigeria has to provide a grant or loan secured by Benin-Nigerian production of the oil found in the Benin waters. Nigeria also must press Benin to privatize the sugar production in Save (Sabe) and Cement industry in Onigbolo. If possible, the Dangote group should be encouraged to make a distress bid for the two factories. The political future of Benin should be negotiated because as it stands today, the economy of Benin will continue to be in dire strait and a drag on the economy of Nigeria which currently provides a safety net for Benin’s galloping population and its hopelessly resourced economy.

  • Africa, not battlefield for Europe’s ambitions

    Africa, not battlefield for Europe’s ambitions

    A strange stillness settled over Benin in the seconds before and after it got ambushed. It was the kind of quiet that precedes treachery; a momentary lapse creeping like a thief, to divest the unsuspecting republic of its peace.

    Mutinous boots thumped through its tracts as a band of renegade soldiers turned their rifles against the nation in an attempted coup.

    Yet, as treason crackled in the morning breeze, Nigeria, Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, and Sierra Leone rose in a rare symmetry of purpose, not like the scattered sovereignities of old, and united with Beninese forces to thwart the coup.

    The story will be told for generations of how the renegade soldiers stormed the state television, dissolved the republic by fiat, and appointed a new ruler while citizens watched in disbelief. Folks will recount how they attacked the presidential residence and sought to seize the machinery of the state.

    But the story that will endure longer is the rebuttal: the rattle of resistance across the Beninese command structure, and the rally of ECOWAS troops crossing the frontier lest the embers of mutiny take flame.

    From the skies, Nigeria’s fighter jets flew into Benin’s airspace with precision and purpose, dislodging the insurgents from strategic locations, including the national broadcaster and a military camp. From the ground, Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire and Sierra Leone moved as coordinated units, all united by a common mandate: to preserve constitutional order, uphold territorial integrity, and demonstrate that West Africa had learned from its recent miseries.

    This was not ECOWAS of old, the dithering, statement-issuing bureaucracy mocked across dinner tables in Bamako, Niamey, Conakry and Ouagadougou. This was ECOWAS, informed by historical pain and animated by a new, almost startling decisiveness.

    Not too long ago, Mali fell to a coup, so did Burkina Faso, Chad, Gabon, Guinea and Niger. And only weeks ago, Guinea-Bissau equally flirted with the abyss. The region has felt like a sequence of dominoes laid out by misrule and tipped by opportunistic soldiers.

    But not Benin. Not this time. For years, the Sahel had surrendered too easily to the gun as nations suffered constitutional collapse. But in Benin, something shifted. ECOWAS, long derided as a council of chronic throat-clearers, issuing barren condemnations, finally found its spine.

    Military forces from Nigeria, Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, and Sierra Leone converged with precision to assert that Africa, weary of being a theatre for experiments in destabilisation, still possessed its will to govern itself.

    Nigeria’s role was unmistakable. Responding to President Patrice Talon’s urgent call, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu ordered fighter jets across the border, taking over Benin’s airspace and neutralising the plotters’ positions at the state television station and a military camp. Ground troops followed, locking down strategic corridors and enabling Benin’s loyal forces to regain control. For once, the phrase “African solutions to African problems” did not sound like diplomatic poetry; it boomed like boots, wings, and resolve.

    Long caricatured as the giant that sleeps too often, Nigeria, in responding to the Benin coup, moved with the instinct of an elder startled awake by the cry of a younger sibling. Now, it must display greater commitment to eradicating terror at its home front.

    If this episode teaches Nigeria anything, it is that leadership surpasses rhetoric, and must be expressed in decisive moments. If the country is to reclaim its historic place as Africa’s bellwether, it must retool itself not only militarily but morally, politically, and economically.

    Nigeria’s leadership must reinforce democratic institutions at home, because no unstable nation can stabilise others. It must address the roots of discontent: corruption, unemployment, inequality, and the absence of social justice. It must also prioritise regional diplomacy that is proactive rather than reactive, rebuild its economic might to project influence without apology, and revive its cultural leadership, because Africa will only listen when Nigeria speaks from a place of cultural clarity, not chaos.

    A Nigeria that works is a fortress for West Africa. A Nigeria that falters is an open invitation to adventurers and external meddlers seeking to redraw the region’s political landscape.

    As a rallying force in ECOWAS, Nigeria must equally foster the redefinition and understanding of Africa’s coups as something more than local tragedies, but as chess moves in global contests.

    The Wagner Group helps midwife coup in Mali. Western governments look the other way when their “allies” elongate presidential tenures. Foreign forces train soldiers who later topple governments.

    Western powers have long perfected the art of remote-control revolution. Nick Turse’s investigations, for instance, reveal that at least 15 U.S.-trained officers across West Africa and the Sahel have been directly involved in coups from Mali to Burkina Faso, Gambia to Mauritania. The evidence is damning, alleging a pattern of security assistance that strengthens armies but weakens democracies; a structure where Africa becomes a proving ground for imperial doctrines rather than a sanctuary for its own sovereign interests.

    Europe too has played its part—France most notably—entangled in the politics of extraction, diplomacy of condescension, and a strategic playbook that treats African sovereignty as a variable, not a constant. Little wonder it got booted from its Sahelian perch.

    Neocolonialism is not a theory here; it is the continent’s living, breathing antagonist. And this is precisely why what happened in Benin matters. Because, for once, Africa did not wait for permission to save itself.

    To appreciate the significance of the intervention, one must understand the violence that precedes coups; the kind fed by governance corruption, economic mismanagement, elite impunity, youth unemployment, the absence of justice, and the corrosion of civic hope. Coups hardly emerge from thin air; they ferment from bad leadership.

    Foreign hands succeed in African coups only because local governance fails first. Where institutions are weak, loyalties cheap, and public faith eroded, the gates are always ajar. The colonist merely walks through the rupture and prevails.

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    Yet from the rupture resonates an indispensable question: how does ECOWAS restore the nations that have walked away—armoured in junta rhetoric—without the continent slipping into a theatre of inter-state bloodletting?

    The answer must be both practical and moral, disciplined and tender: a programme of reintegration that marries sovereignty to dignity, security to accountability, and regional solidarity to the everyday needs of ordinary people.

    This is where Nigeria must once again assert its influence. Soft power will prevent ECOWAS from being incited to an avoidable war with nations currently being led by military junta. That is the next phase of the Western styled remote-control revolution: in time, Africa will suffer the enabling circumstances that would pit nations against each other.

    And while African countries bomb each other to smithereens, imperial actors will sell weapons to warring parties, barter artillery for rare earth and other minerals. This is the dystopia Nigeria must lead fellow African nations to reject.

    Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger formalised their exits amid a wider drift toward a Sahelian alignment that views ECOWAS with suspicion and contempt. These departures were informed by deep grievances about the way regional power has been exercised and the perception that intervention sometimes favours externals over locals.

    Any path back must therefore begin with a candid acknowledgement of those grievances, publicly and privately. A first strand of policy must be the dramatic expansion of listening: a process of mediated truth-seeking and sustained dialogue convened in Abuja, Bamako, Ouagadougou, and Niamey.

    This measure must shun theatrical reconciliation and embrace pragmatic diplomacy.

  • Incompetence or ‘curse’ on Lagos-Ibadan expressway

    Incompetence or ‘curse’ on Lagos-Ibadan expressway

    The Lagos Ibadan expressway is an enigmatic symbol of Nigeria. Great potential but poor ability to follow simple professional maintenance and supervision rules. Is this incompetence or a Lagos -Ibadan expressway ‘curse’? Yes, there are contractors making pedestrian flyovers and repairing bridges. Good! But did they know that tens of thousands of vehicles of every description, size and speed driven by drivers of every temperament and degree of arrogance ply the road? After all, those drivers have collectively endured 15 years of broken promises and serial 2–12-hour delays on that same road which has a history of other contractors often treating the motorised public like dirt.

    We all thought the delays were over.

    Clearly the suffering continues. Are the delays a deliberate power play by the contractors for more money?  There is little or no sense of purpose or urgency on the part of the hard-hatted contractor staff, often working on ones and twos apparently unsupervised. The past week has shown a sad reality of our management capacity and demonstrated the well-known yawning gap in our management capacity. We just do not appear to care. Do they know about quality of work and time management? Sadly, last Saturday at the narrowed-to-two lane spot were two stationary vehicles with their drivers standing between them and arguing spiritedly. As vehicles were now forced from 3 to 2 and then just one lane, the accumulated traffic quickly grew to 4-5 lanes and stretched four kilometres. It was like witnessing a tragi-comedy seeing the easily preventable causes of the reduction of the road lanes from 3 to 2 and then from 2 to1 by recalcitrant drivers.

    The FRSC were never there and were elsewhere interrogating some vehicles, unconcerned with the need to free the bottleneck. Certainly there are no traffic drones in FRSC Command and Control Centre yet.

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    After this terrible weekend, we know that the authorities are alarmed and are stepping in. Really? Do the authorities not do preventive ‘possible scenarios’ and ‘possible catastrophes’? For construction work, do the authorities not alert FRSC to man the narrow points for quick pre-emptive resolution of road-conflict issues? Do the authorities not run ‘traffic games’ to identify what consequences to plan for in case of a traffic complication during the work of the contractor? Do the authorities not insist on the speediest methods of roadworks to keep disruptions at zero or at least a minimum as happens when such works are done in other countries worldwide? Do the authorities even consider the road users when they are doing their job?

    Recently, the forest accumulating within the road median and the actual narrowing of the road by accumulated dirt and weeds in some places was pointed out in this column to the authorities. We await a serious regular maintenance and clean-up in keeping with best road maintenance standards in oversight of a recently rebuilt multi-billion naira road. It is shameful to see the dirt accumulated and sometimes corn growing in it and the road actually yielding a whole lane to accumulated dirt at the side of the road.

    There must be a maintenance contract and the winner of that contract has woefully failed to achieve the goal – road cleanliness. It has previously been suggested on many occasions that because the federal government has been proven repeatedly incapable of managing the micro-cleaning of roads, the road should be divided into five or 10km segments and given to the surrounding community to maintain. If this is done, the officials of the federal government have merely to drive up and down the road once a month and write report scoring the maintenance level and indicting those who failed to complete their assignment.

    Periodically in the past, road maintenance units for inspection and maintenance have been announced on the political horizon, hailed as breakthrough, billions allocated and then a few vehicles appear on the political stage as ‘Instant Road Works’ saviours. This has been all ‘sound and fury, signifying nothing’ permanent for the joy of road users.  For how long will we behave with such ignorance of the true value of predictive planning, maintenance and supervision and preventive measures in our life? Meanwhile, our citizens sit, stuck in needless traffic jams in a country struggling to become a country-sitting ducks for criminals? At the minimum, the authorities need to immediately contact and recruit FRSC to the areas of potential traffic problem during construction work. Secondly, the authorities need to get contractors to expedite their work with removable road barriers which are mostly to protect their lives. The blockage should be removed every evening when there is no work and no one to protect overnight. There is a danger that some vehicle will run into those barriers and that would be a tragic preventable crash.

    As we face the current onslaught of terrorists and kidnappers and the increasing boldness of armed robbers in the towns and cities across the country, we must recall that the greed of the political class has had a negative impact on criminals. That greed has set the political class apart from the citizenry. It is time for politicians to, rein in their greed and publicly cut their salaries and perks,  and cancel the much abused constitutional projects from the national budget. We look forward to one National Assembly house, not two.

  • Banditry: Sheikh Gumi strikes again!

    Banditry: Sheikh Gumi strikes again!

    In September 2021, I argued in this column that noted Islamic cleric, Sheikh Ahmad Gumi’s proposal that the state negotiates with bandits as panacea for peace in parts of the North, was downright dangerous.

    If I understand correctly, these gunmen are not going to disarm and ride off into the sunset, but would remain a permanent feature of our landscape – albeit under terms agreed by all sides. Nigeria is a special country, but I am yet to find any sane society committed to law and order that would countenance such an idea.

    Four years on, as the country battles to rein in these amoral killers spreading across the landscape like a rash, Gumi is at it, again, preaching his doctrine of deadly cohabitation.

    Speaking in an interview with the BBC yesterday, he maintained that negotiating with bandits is a necessary approach because the military cannot defeat these bands of unconventional gunmen.

    A virtual fountain of controversial theories, Gumi further argues that the kidnapping of schoolchildren is a “lesser evil” compared to killing soldiers – insisting that Nigeria must negotiate to prevent greater bloodshed and end terrorism.

    In my piece titled “Sheikh Gumi and the politics of dialogue”, I stated that his proposals were illogical and impracticable. That article is reproduced here today as a riposte to what the influential cleric is hawking.

    ***Sheikh Gumi and the politics of dialogue

    (First published September 8, 2021)

    Two words often used to describe Kaduna-based Islamic cleric, Sheikh Ahmad Gumi, are respected and controversial. The adjectives – especially the latter – are well-earned.

    He’s had a lot to say about the violence ravaging the Northwest. His positions often verge on the outrageous and illogical. Sometimes, he’s just one breath away from sounding like an advocate for the bandits.

    His latest intervention denounces the military offensive against criminal elements terrorising Zamfara and surrounding states. He argues it’s akin to pouring petrol on the flames.

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    In a statement titled ‘Zamfara: The Flaring of Crisis,’ he said in part: “Let us face the reality, these herdsmen are going nowhere, and they are already in battle gear, and we know our military very well, so before things get messy, we need cold brains to handle this delicate situation. It’s common sense that if you allow your neighbours to be your enemy you are already conquered. Because they can easily be used against you by other forces.

    “Military actions in the past have worsened the situation stimulating herdsmen resistance. Any more action will push them closer to religious fanaticism. It gives them protection from discrediting them as thieves and also reinforces their mobilization of gullible young unemployed youth as we saw with BH (Boko Haram).”

    He suggested that unless an amnesty programme like that given militants in the Niger Delta is instituted, bandits are “going nowhere.” Sadly, the immediate victims of those “going nowhere” are Gumi’s fellow northerners.

    His amnesty envy is another way of saying “give us our own hand-outs or the killing and the maiming will continue.” It’s prescribing the same medication for different ailments just because the symptoms are similar. It’s an approach that’s not only ignorant but dishonest.

    The uprising in the Niger Delta was the result of decades of environmental degradation of the land and creeks – denying the people of their livelihood; worsening poverty in a region whose oil is the mainstay of the economy.

    The militants targeted economic assets of the Federal Government and foreign oil companies. They were not engaged in indiscriminate killings, or abduction of women and school children for ransom. They didn’t invade rural communities, burning scores of homes for no just cause.

    When the attacks on oil facilities were almost grounding the economy, government quickly worked out interventions to address the region’s issues. In addition to the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) created by the Olusegun Obasanjo administration, a ministry and amnesty programme were unveiled by the successor Yar’Adua government.

    The amnesty was to wean the fighters from illegal bunkering and other criminal acts. It was only a part of a larger package that reached out to other ordinary citizens.

    But let’s not forget that the Nigerian military and security agencies fought the militants for several years because they took up arms against the state and its interests.

    Any solution to what’s happening in the Northwest must honestly address its roots. Why have these people resorted to violence? There’s widespread consensus that lack of economic opportunities flowing from failure to develop the region is to blame.

    Bandits in Zamfara are in the forests because crime pays huge dividends. Ransoms are in the multimillions. Illegal mining is lucrative, while cattle rustling is another route to quick riches.

    The Boko Haram insurgency, on the other hand, was driven by the radical religious teachings of the late Mohammed Yusuf summarised in the proposition ‘Western education is evil.’ They didn’t become fundamentalist because government dealt harshly with the sect; they were that way from the get-go.

    But Gumi now argues that the bandits, who are just thieves with AK-47s, could be driven to embrace religious extremism by the military offensive. That’s laughable; it’s manufacturing a raison d’etre on the go, one that fits the moment.

    He says dialogue is the only way out because the military don’t have a monopoly on violence. Ridiculous! There are many other violent criminals confronting security agencies across the country. Why not apply the same solution to them so we can experience total peace in our time? Why make a special arrangement for bandits?

    Have we lost all sense of what constitutes a crime, good and bad? How should the state react when errant citizens violently attack others, dispossessing them of their properties or denying them liberty?

    There’s a time for everything and the time for negotiations will come. But to suggest there should be no military intervention even when killings and abductions are occurring daily; when bandits have built capacity to bring down an Air Force jet and strike within the Nigerian Defence Academy (NDA), is truly shocking!

    With certain enemies dialogue isn’t an option because they aren’t amenable to reason. Bandits are neither honourable nor reasonable. The only option is to defeat them by force of arms, while intervening socially and economically in their operational environment to deny them a recruitment pool.

    Perhaps Gumi needs to have a quiet chat with Zamfara State Governor, Bello Matawalle, who came to office with the dialogue singsong. Where has it gotten him? Not long ago he was moaning about how his efforts haven’t yielded fruit and the situation was deteriorating.

    There’s also Katsina State Governor, Aminu Masari, another one-time advocate of dialogue who famously posed for photos with an AK-47-totting bandit, but has since forsworn the option. He has acknowledged with exasperation that the word of a criminal is worthless.

    In all the time Gumi has been preaching to bandits how many have repented and renounced violence? The conversion rate could help convince cynics that his way is best.

    Unfortunately, even after his well-publicised interventions in major abductions in Zamfara and Niger States, the gunmen blew a lot of hot air but still collected their ransom. Dialogue stopped nothing because kidnapping has become a meal ticket in the region.

    The ongoing military action may not be a perfect solution but it puts pressure on the gunmen and deflates their momentum. There’s an urgent need to beat back the threat they represent and create a level of stability that allows for other governmental action.

    If the military don’t substantially degrade their capabilities they would come to any dialogue with a strong hand and guns pointed at our collective heads.

    Bandits are bullies hiding behind big guns to perpetrate atrocities. Psychologists will tell you appeasement empowers the bully, while confrontation stops him dead in his track. Resisting the evil in the Northwest is long overdue. Gumi can preach the rest of his sermon to the marines!

  • Trump trumping democracy

    Trump trumping democracy

    The last 30 years or thereabout saw the resurgence of democracy in Africa, principally because of pressure from the United States of America (USA) and other western European countries. With the USA and its allies breathing down the neck of despots across Africa, the local pro-democracy activists courageously pursued their democratic enterprise. In Nigeria for instance, the maximum ruler, Sani Abacha out of fear of the western alliance turned into a recluse and when he suddenly died, Gen Abdulsalami Abubakar who took over power foreswore any hanky-panky and quickly handed over to a democratically elected president in 1999.

    What happened in Nigeria happened across several African nations as any undemocratic country was treated as a pariah. Trump’s predecessor, on two different occasions, Barack Obama and Joe Biden, both of the Democratic Party, never ceased to use the banner of democracy to further American interests across the world. It was substantially the same with those who came before them in the 1990s and beyond. With America breathing down the neck of African despots, democracy of all sorts began to take place in the continent and before long, all nations were considered as running some form of democracy.

    But that hard earned “democracy” across Africa, especially in West Africa, is now in retreat because the hitherto moral leader of the world, the USA, now has President Donald Trump, who is somewhat amoral in charge. Donald Trump, the world famous dealmaker, who has cut peace deals between nations in the Middle East, Asia and Africa, appears ready to make deal with democracy. Between Israel and Palestinians, Trump was able to make peace at very heavy cost of human lives. This writer doubts if there is any other leader in modern history that would have the courage Trump had to allow the carnage that took place in Gaza, just to achieve relative peace. 

    Using Israel as a lightning rod, in the Middle East, the ambivalent Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthi rebels, and Syrian despotic leadership, are all in retreat. In Africa, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Rwanda, who have disgustingly been fighting over control of natural resources, in DRC, were arm-twisted to make peace deal. Trump is also arm-twisting Russia and Ukraine to make peace at any cost, against the weaker Ukraine. He barely listens to the anguish of Europe that sacrificing Ukrainian territory to make peace amounts to submitting to Russian expansionist militancy.

    Trump also has very demeaning regards for poor third world countries, especially those whose citizens have become some form of nuisance in the USA. He has no diplomatic niceties in describing them. He called Nigeria names and most recently called Somalians ‘garbage’. He had used worse epithets for other nations on the same pedestal with Nigeria and Somalia.

    So, the world may not be surprised that despite the turmoil democracy is facing in West Africa, the USA President has not taken any strong stance against the military adventurists that have been ravaging the region. It will be strange to his predecessors that democracy in Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Guinea Bissau were overthrown without any threat or even warning from the USA state department. In the past, the state department would have sent strong warning to the coup plotters in Mali and perhaps the follow up in Burkina Faso and Niger would never had happened. 

    Unlike his predecessors, Trump apparently ranks democracy lower than his other interests. His undemocratic policies at home suggest that. Take for example how he tried to browbeat the USA Congress to do his bidding, with respect to the recent budget impasse. When a congressman or woman of even his party disagrees with him, the least the person gets is severe tongue lashing. Clearly, Trump does not suffer any person he disagrees with gladly, and he surely believes the third world countries should stay in their ‘shit hole country’.

    Trump also flirts with autocratic leaders, and has no complaints about the lack of democracy in their respective countries. In all his dealings with Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, he never waves the lack of democracy in that country; rather he uses words that depict the leader as strong. Even the more autocratic despot, the leader of North Korea, Kim Jong Un is called smart, without any denunciation about his despicable repression records against his country men and women. Trump has even shown willingness to do deal with the Korean leader, without minding the poor state of rule of law in that country.

    Unlike his predecessors, Trump rarely questions the human rights integrity of the nations’ across the world. May be he sees those democratic principles as empty sloganeering by the western nations? Recall that former President Obama, insisted that Nigeria should not use military aircraft bought by Nigeria, to fight insurgency in certain parts of the country in defence of human rights, and because the bandits have not been declared terrorists. This strange posture was pursued by America, even when glaringly, the bandits were doing as much or more grievous damage to Nigeria’s security than the terrorists.

    In faraway Afghanistan, while Trump is mad against his predecessor, Joe Biden, for authorizing the USA military to leave that strategic country, he has not raised any complaint about the ongoing repression against the citizens especially women by the Taliban regime. Even now he is threatening to invade Afghanistan again, he does not give the excuse that he wants to save the human rights of the citizens, rather he says he wants to have a military base in the country so he can from there confront the Islamist extremists and other enemies of his country in that part of the of the world.   

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    So, with Trump as president of the world’s most powerful democracy, that preferred system of government across the world is clearly in retreat. Sadly, because of the economic challenges facing most countries in Africa, the young and unknowledgeable youthful population foolishly see the military intervention in governance as the solution to the socio-economic problems of their countries. But as most citizens of the military-led Mali and Burkina Faso may have seen, the economic challenges facing their country have gotten worse than before.

    It was that supposed preference for military adventurism that led the young military officers in Benin Republic to attempt to topple democracy in their country, last week. But for the swift intervention of the Nigerian military, those misguided soldiers would have been lying to their country men and women that they have solutions to all their economic and social challenges. As some have rightly argued, it would have been strategically risky for Nigeria to allow itself to be encircled by undemocratic nations, more so with Cameroon tethering under pseudo democracy.

    This column urges African democratic leaders to understand that it is Africans that can save democracy in their continent. The way to go is to practice real democracy and not the quasi-democracy we see in many countries. If they ignore the warning signs, the alternative sadly may be the military interventions that we now see.

  • Insecurity: The fault, dear Trump, is not in our stars

    Insecurity: The fault, dear Trump, is not in our stars

    Nigeria’s political elite have since the run up to independence freely deployed religion and ethnicity as weapons for political bargaining. In this regard, the 1953 Kano riot was Ahmadu Bello and his fellow NPC’s response to Anthony Enahoro’s motion for independence in 1956, the January 3, 1966 military coup was Zik’s response to his 1964 constitutional defeat by Prime Minister Tafawa Balewa, the July 29, 1966 counter coup tagged ‘vengeance coup’ was northern rejection of Decree 34 unification decree and Zik’s January 1966 pyric victory. The annulment of 1993 MKO Abiola’s pan Nigeria mandate signifies the coming together of two  of Nigeria dominant ethnic groups with a common world view of how Nigeria should be run against the other dominant group  with a divergent view. The illegal introduction of sharia as a state religion by Ahmed Sani of Zamfara in 1999 had nothing to do with religion but everything to do with balance of power.  Therefore, much as President Trump may love Nigeria, he needs a fair understanding of the nature of our crisis of nation building if he is not to end up just as a bully. I am not sure he can love Nigeria more than the man Nigeria elected as their president.

    President Tinubu no doubt must have gone through great stress and strain in the last two years over his inability to secure justice for victims of herdsmen violent killings condemned to IDP camps in Benue and Plateau states. It has even been said that one of the reason Donald Trump thinks President Tinubu is not doing enough about terrorists’ violent killings in Nigeria was because of his inability to resettle  those marooned in IDP camps back to their homes after two years.

    Benue State hosts about 500,000 of these victims who are daily confronted with overcrowded shelters, lack of water, sanitation, and health care and food shortages. On its part, Plateau, to the credit of the killer herdsmen, has about 500 seized and renamed ravaged villages.

    Much as President Tinubu wishes the chalice would pass by him, kidnapping of school girls, killings and periodic harvest of deaths continued with new intensity forcing Nobel-prize for peace-chasing Donald Trump to declare Nigeria a “country of particular concern” in November 2025, threatening to come to Nigeria gun a blazing to seek justice for their beloved Christians” if President Tinubu failed to stop Christian genocide in Nigeria.

    However, while Trump maintains his strangle-hold on the necks of our president and Senate President Godswill Akpabio, his last week announcement, through Marco Rubio, his secretary of state, of a new policy targeting sponsors of mass killings by radical Islamic terrorists, Fulani militias, and other violent groups in Nigeria is a welcome development. This followed a briefing, chaired by House Appropriations vice chair and National Security Subcommittee Chairman, Mario Díaz-Balart, attended by other house members including Representatives Robert Aderholt, Riley Moore, Brian Mast, Chris Smith, and some others. The new policy is about visa restrictions for individuals who have “directed, authorized, significantly supported, participated in, or carried out violations of religious freedom,” and their families.

    It does not matter at this stage that President Tinubu has pushed back arguing that “the US characterization of Nigeria did not reflect the country’s reality or values’ or that Moore’s data which shows that non-state actors have attacked both churches and mosques in Nigeria did not support his generalized claim that “Nigerian Christians are being killed at the rate of about 35 a day.”  Trump listens to no one but self.

    But I think Trump deserves some credit for this new initiative about visa denial to sponsors of terrorism in Nigeria and Rubio’s decision to publish their names.  I believe it will be a ‘win-win’ for everyone starting with the president. He has been accused of not doing enough to stem the spate of violence without finding out his challenges. As many have argued, Trump’s intervention was a wake-up call for President Tinubu who is now under the watch of the international community.

    The naming and shaming will also lay to rest the argument about who has the custody of an earlier list allegedly given to late President Buhari some years back. Rubio’s publication of the names will help whoever has the old list do some of his dirty job. Rubio’s publication will also bring some relief to many Nigerians who feel embarrassed by the spate of killing of innocent Nigerians, diminished by actions of animals who routinely kidnap our daughters from their hostels, and cowards who attacked subsistence farmers and their family members at night.

    Of course it is also a win-win for President Trump and Rubio. They will now have a fresh opportunity to take advantage of knowledgeable members of American House of Representatives to have a proper understanding of the nature of Nigerian crisis of nation building. Many have pointed out that some of the dangers of single story can lead to default assumptions, misconceptions and stereotypes.

    For instance, Nigeria political elite have often deployed religion and ethnicity in their battle for political power. Anyone not familiar with Nigerian politics trying to interpret the 1953 Kano riot that led to the death and castration of over 40 people with over hundred injured would focus on northern political elite’ claim of preventing desecration of Islamic religion by unbelievers from the south or trying to prevent the spread of Awo’s crusade of free education to the north. Those were what could be drawn out from Malam Inua Wada, Local Member House of Representatives, and Kano Native Authority information and adult education that NPC mandated to mobilize  Kano ‘Hausa ‘mahaukata’  mad men that unleashed terror using machete on Igbo considered as ‘tools of the crusaders’  and Yoruba armed with Dane guns.

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    It was not until during the debate that followed four days later where Yahaya Gusau speech rejected commitment to 1956 or any other fixed date for self-government’ and the Sardauna’s insistence that self-government can only come after northernisation and efficient local government had been attained that it became clear the battle was over self-government motion Enahoro had earlier moved for 1956 in Lagos

    The January 3, 1966 coup which eliminated non-Igbo political and military leaders while sparing theirs was celebrated as a pan Nigeria coup. An insider will however understand that it was Zik’s response to his 1964 constitutional defeat by Tafawa Balewa. He had in the midst of the crisis approached the military for support as commander in chief. His request was politely turned down because the military constitutionally was responsible to the Prime Minister.

    While claiming he was going on sick leave, he was seen in a cruise ship to South America.  The younger and more radical elements in the army struck and the Igbo senate president, Nwafor Orizu who was acting for Zik manipulated Ironsi to power. Ironsi’s first action was promulgation of Decree 34 that turned a multi-ethnic federal Nigeria into a unitary state. This was a world view, Zik and supporters had propagated from 1940 to 1957 London constitutional conference.

     The July 1966 coup was tagged ‘vengeance’ coup when in fact it was designed to end Zik’s January 1966 pyric victory. MKO Abiola’s pan Nigeria victory was annulled by Ibrahim Babangida. We have since learnt both the north and the east did not want a Yoruba president with Nzeribe placing a full page advert in the paper declaring Igbo do not want a Yoruba president while Evans Enwerem who later became senate president under Obasanjo presidency threatened that Igbo would go to war if the annulment of Abiola election was reversed.

    At the birth of the fourth republic in 1999, for anti-Obasanjo forces in the north, Sharia which had since the 1914 amalgamation been part of Nigerian penal code restricted to Muslims as a customary law on matters of marriage, gift, will, succession etc. binding only on adherents of Islamic religion, became a veritable weapon for political bargaining, when Ahmed Sani, governor of Zamfara, in breach of Nigerian constitution, launched Sharia as a state religion on October 27 1999. 

    Finally, let us remind those who want to help us wage our wars. Of the three dominant ethnic groups in Nigeria, the Yoruba want a federal system which guarantees unity in diversity with each group developing at its own pace without interference from others. The Igbo want a unitary system which will allow them trade anywhere without hindrance. The Fulani ruling northern elite want a Nigeria that will be home to all stateless Fulani across West Africa. We already have ECOWAS protocols as a guide.

  • A question of empathy

    A question of empathy

    It is thought-provoking that a posthumous birthday celebration triggered questions about murder and government compensation because the death was connected to government-related operations.

    The family of Bamise Ayanwola marked her birthday on November 30, seven months after her killer was sentenced to death.  Her sister, Damilola, was reported saying, “We only have judgment, and for justice to be served, they must at least compensate my family. Bamise was killed inside the government’s own property, and a government worker also did the evil to her.”

     She argued that her parents “deserve compensation after everything they have suffered emotionally.”  They “cried almost every day,” she said, adding, “Two of my elder sisters now battle high blood pressure. I also had to undergo a brain scan after breaking down from stress.”

    “They only promised justice, and we appreciate that. But justice is not complete without compensation,” she said.

     Justice Serifat Sonaike of the Lagos State High Court, Tafawa Balewa Square Annexe, on May 2, sentenced a Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) driver, Andrew Ominikoron, to death by hanging for the murder of 22-year-old Bamise Ayanwola in February 2022. She was a fashion designer found dead “in a naked state” on Carter Bridge, Lagos Island, nine days after she was declared missing after she boarded a BRT vehicle.

    The shocking case of rape and murder gripped public attention from the beginning till the verdict was delivered. Ayanwola was going to Oshodi from Ajah, and was said to have observed that she was the only passenger in the bus and the driver was not picking up other people on the route.  She was suspicious and fearful, and was said to have sent voice notes to her friend, describing her situation. Information she had provided helped in locating the bus and the driver after she was declared missing.

    Justice Sonaike said she “died from severe cerebral injury and blunt force trauma, and his actions and inactions led to her death.” The judge also said there was proof of a rape attempt and “the resultant death must have ensued when she resisted the defendant.” She noted that Ominikoron “admitted he was alone with her in the bus and where her body was dropped and failed to return to the place to help her and ran away to another state without reporting the case.”

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    The driver, said to be 47 at the time of the incident, was on the run when he was arrested in Ososa, Ogun State.  He said some gunmen had taken Ayanwola away after forcing him to stop around Carter Bridge, Lagos.  “I picked her from Chevron and I picked the other three guys at Agungi; when those guys showed me a gun as I was driving, fear came over me, so whatever they asked me to do, I did,” he narrated after his arrest. He said they ordered him to stop on Carter Bridge, asked him to open the door and “they started dragging her. I saw her crying for help but I was helpless. When the issue happened, I ran away because I was afraid.”

    In addition to the death sentence for Ayanwola’s murder, the court also found him guilty of rape involving one Nneka Maryjane Ozezulu and sentenced him to life imprisonment. The incident happened in November 2021.  He was also found guilty of sexual assault on one Victoria Anoke and sentenced to three years imprisonment. The incident occurred in December 2021.

    Justice Sonaike noted that the rape incidents occurred within three months, describing him as a “serial rapist who took advantage of his position.”  Indeed, she further noted that there might be other rape victims “who for fear or shame failed to come forward and give evidence against the defendant.”

    It is disturbing that the incidents were linked to Ominikoron’s work as a driver of a government-owned bus.  Importantly, his trial raised serious questions about public transportation security.

    Notably, during the trial, Ominikoron had explained that when BRT drivers pick up passengers illegally after their official hours, they usually tell them to sit at the back of the bus so that monitoring officials would not see them in the bus and sanction the drivers. According to him, this practice is called ‘Korokpe.’  This was the context when he picked up Ayanwola on February 26, 2022, around 7pm, near the Conservation Centre, Lekki-Ajah Expressway, Lagos.

    It is commendable that the state government ensured his prosecution. It is significant that the judge described the case as “an eye-opener for everyone.” The authorities were expected to reassure the public by reviewing the driver recruitment process and bus monitoring system to ensure passenger safety at all times.

    On the question of compensation raised by Bamise Ayanwola’s family, the Lagos State Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Gbenga Omotoso, was reported saying the Ministry of Justice would be consulted to determine if the court had ordered compensation.

    His words: “The unfortunate incident was a legal matter handled by the Ministry of Justice. I will need to talk to the Ministry and get information about whether there was a pronouncement for compensation.

    “However, the state ensured that the criminal was brought to book, and he was given the sentence of death.”

    Is the commissioner suggesting that the state government is unwilling to   consider paying compensation based on empathy? Surely, there is a place for empathy in this matter.

    It is noteworthy that rights groups are calling for a standard compensation framework for casualties in such contexts. Where such systemic support is lacking, the affected persons may well need to seek judicial intervention.

    Indeed, there is some merit in the argument that compensation in such cases should not necessarily be court-ordered or come from private charity. However, such reasoning seems reasonable only in the context of empathetic governance.  

    What can be observed from this case is that a government with a human face may lack a human heart.

  • Citizenship; National identity question

    Citizenship; National identity question

    Citizenship and national identity challenges in Nigeria took the centre stage last week, at a national discourse organised by the National Peace Committee in collaboration with the European Union (EU) Delegation to Nigeria and ECOWAS.

    The event which has “Discourse on Nigeria’s National Identity: Revisiting Indigene-Settler Question” as its theme, brought together diplomats, clerics, policymakers and civil society leaders.

    Speaker after speaker took turns at the Abuja summit to warn on the daunting challenges facing citizenship and national identity due to the inability of our leaders to effectively manage diversity.

    Convener of the National Peace Committee and Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Diocese, Matthew Hassan Kukah noted that national identity once occupied a central place in public discourse in 1980’s and 1990’s but regretted that unresolved tensions have turned nation-building into “syllabus of forced errors and crises”. The cleric stressed the “need to elevate the Nigerian identity to a higher pillar of common citizenship around which all other identities can stand”.

    Kukah pointed out that failure to prioritise national identity over sub-national loyalties fuels mistrust, violence, and widening gaps between citizens’ expectations and state performance. “If we do not mend quickly, we shall break ultimately”, he warned.

    Head of the EU Delegation to Nigeria and ECOWAS, Gautier Mignot wants Nigeria to resolve long-standing tensions around identity, citizenship and belonging to build a stable and prosperous future. He identified the imperative of dialogue especially amidst rising insecurity, communal tensions and social fractures.

    “What is at stake is not merely social harmony but the essence of stability itself. Every citizen regardless of ancestry or length of settlement must enjoy the rights to reside, participate and prosper”, he stated, contending that constitutional guarantees must be realised in daily practice.

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    Mignot further argued that embedding residency rights and federal character principles into governance would help to dismantle discriminatory practices that weaken state legitimacy and impede development.

    Director-General of National Orientation Agency (NOA), Lanre-Isa-Onilu highlighted the agency’s programmes to promote tolerance, peace, and inclusive citizenship while urging every Nigerian to recognise every citizen as a stakeholder beyond ethnicity or place of origin.  Other speakers called for a new constitution to guarantee inclusiveness, participatory governance and residency-based rights.

    The theme of the discourse and timing align with contemporary challenges of our time.  Coming amidst rising insecurity and tensions which weaken citizens’ belief in the capacity of the government to protect them, such discussions reawaken our collective consciousness to all that needed to be done to stabilise the polity and accelerate national development.

    At the centre of it are the inalienable rights of the people to live together with shared vision, common belonging and identity. It entails constructing a Nigerian personality out of the disparate groups that make up the country such that they see themselves first as Nigerians rather than members of their ethnic groups.

    These issues are not necessarily new. But they have become more pronounced because of the inability of administration after administration to manage our diversities despite some measure of constitutional guarantees.

    Even the federal character principle that is geared towards inclusivity has in many cases been applied in its breach. The assault on this pristine clause was so brazen during the last regime with the control of the commanding heights of the military, paramilitary and the highest echelon of bureaucracy in the hands of a section of the country. It fuelled feelings of exclusion, domination and alienation that incubate fission.

    It is inconceivable how citizenship rights and national identity can grow and mature when the managers of our national affairs are neck-deep in promoting tendencies that nurture and promote recline to primordialism. Nigeria has become more divided and more fragmented than ever before since independence.

    Policies meant to guarantee equity, fairness and inclusiveness are brazenly pushed to the back seat for political expediency. Nepotism and cronyism have become the major considerations for appointments into key government positions.

     It is a verity of prebendalism, characterised by Richard Joseph as the capture of political power for the benefit of one’s family and that of his ethnic group that accounts for the bitter competition for political power among the dominant ethnic groups and the inability to evolve a rancour-free framework for power rotation.

    Peter Eke’s theory of two publics has continued to find relevance in Nigeria, 65 years after independence. Competition between the primordial realm and the civic public for the loyalty of the citizens with the former having ascendancy, signposts the failure of a sense of national belonging and identity.

    Ironically, such challenges are usually more pronounced during the foundation stages of modern states. At 65, Nigeria should have long left that stage. But its citizens are still engrossed in the crisis of national identity. And you cannot talk of citizenship when the average individual first regards himself as a member of his ethnic group.

    That is the challenge. And matters are not remedied by cascading insecurity across the country that is pitching groups against others. Unmitigated violence associated with the activities of terrorists, killer herdsmen and bandits have also raised suspicions of domination and extermination.

    These have had deleterious repercussions on the task of imbuing a culture of common identity in all citizens such that they begin to see themselves as Nigerians rather than members of their ethnic groups.

    It is good a thing Kukah and Mignot took time to identify policy measures to promote citizenship rights and grow national belonging and identity. Sadly, the sentiments raised by the discussants as ennobling as they are, may not go beyond the four walls of the conference room. Why? Exclusion profits some people and those who benefit from it are unlikely to let go.

    Exclusion has continued to define our politics as evident in the bitter competition by the ethnic groups to take a shot at the presidency. There is the increasing belief that the surest way an ethnic group can get the best from the national affairs is by having one of theirs ascend the presidency of the country. Even those that claim to be patriots or moderates have been found floundering on this issue.

    They may pretend to be patriots, nationalists because of the positions they held in the past, but the reality is that they easily succumb to the ethnic card. The reality today is that ethnicity has become a major commodity packaged and marketed by the elite. But all hope is not lost.

    It requires a leader with vision, one with uncommon political will to steer the ship of this country to the right direction; a leader with genuine committed to the progress and development of the country to put things right. Certainly, he will be cheered by a populace hungry for a break with the decadent past. Kukah’s warning that we either mend or break should be instructive enough.

  • The miracle of Nnamdi Kanu

    The miracle of Nnamdi Kanu

    I have had some time to ponder the staying power of Nnamdi Kanu, whom I had at several moments described as an ethnic entrepreneur. I stopped calling him that long ago because he has transfigured into something higher: a genius.

    I do not mean, by this assertion, that the jailbird in Sokoto is now a sublime act. But he is a beautiful subject of study.

    What intrigues me is that he belongs to a group that swears and acts with blood and death. If his followers are just the street gang, the rough-hewn ragamuffins and the men with blood in their eyes, he would not inspire this essay.

    But what concerns me is that he has the sympathy, I dare say, the following of some of the polished and intelligent citizens of the east. After all, when the authorities threw him to the edge of the northwest, the first major guest is a man of culture and commerce, and a man of democracy, a man of Nigerian confession. Alex Otti, the governor of Abia State , where Kanu hails from, paid him a call.

    Even if Otti does not legitimate Kanu’s subversion, he is negotiating with it. He would not have visited if he did not carry with him the nod of his class in the east. By his class, I mean the Igbo intelligentsia, business, cultural and political elite. He walked into that jailhouse with the halo of the Igbo pride. He shook Kanu’s hands with the soul of his people.

    Yet, when you ask the most peace-loving of the Igbos, they would say they abhor the acts of the IPOB group. And they say it with all sincerity. The Monday paralysis in the east punctures the chief business of the Igbo people, which is business. So, none of them would like what his group is doing.

    Yet, before the day of verdict, some lawmakers from the east wanted to preempt Justice Omotosho’s judgment by asking for his release, and some form of out-of-court settlement.

    What all this means is that, from top to bottom with some exceptions, the Igbo head may not always be with Kanu. But their heart is with him.

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    This was the fellow that said openly that Lagos should be burned down. He called Nigeria a zoo. He tried to deligitimise the governors in the Southeast. He opened a war room during EndSars where he was directing his foot soldiers to burn and destroy. He impugned Peter Obi, the beloved of the Obidients, by railing at his sexuality. Ironically, his followers form the core of Obi’s followers.

    In spite of the visits and negotiations of the top men in the east, Kanu has not shifted one ground. He is not ready to foreswear Biafra. He is not ready to accept Nigeria. Has anyone asked how he has gathered senior advocates to defend him in court. Are they doing it for free? Of course not. SANs do not accept pittance to appear in court. Without pretty penny, there is no appearance.

    Who is funding them? Street gangs cannot afford a SAN. No one has come out to tell us who the sponsors may be. If the lawyers are doing it for free, does that not add to Kanu’s mystique? He was not even a nice man to his lawyers. He openly insulted them, and he even threatened to fire them. Eventually, he did. Kanu has no resources for a court trial.

    Why, then, would the Igbo elite sympathise with him? It is because the sentiment of Biafra is alive and well. It is not a goal in most of their hearts. It is a treasure. It has moved from a lived reality in the 1960’s when the war was fought with bloodshed and destructions and miscalculations and blunders that led to its collapse.

    The elite who even fought in the war would tell you it was not a pleasant experience and they would not want to go through it again. When I was researching my novel, My Name is Okoro, I gathered this much from those who passed through its crucible.

    But man is a creature of sentiment, not reason, said Oscar Wilde. Biafra still lives in the hearts of many Igbos, whether a professor or a roadside mechanic. Kanu has shown for them a courage that is pristine. He is their diamond in the rough. They can live with the rough, so long as it cherishes the diamond inside. In fact, the rough is a protector layer for the lustre within.

    On the surface you would think that what Biafrans should fight for is justice. Justice may mean, even within today’s system, a fair shake in the polity. That would mean an Igbo president, good roads, better schools and education, peace and prosperity. In the days of Jonathan, the Igbo elite appropriated the Ijaw as Azikiwe, and Jonathan saw his opportunity to vouchsafed them his Ijaw heart. But all they wanted and got were positions as ministers and director generals and contracts.

    When Buhari came and gave them the best infrastructure ever under Babatunde Raji Fashola (SAN), the story gained traction that it was Jonathan’s legacy. Thanks but no thanks. If Kanu recants his position today and renounces his Biafran stance, majority of Igbos will be disappointed.

    You can call him a ruffian, an anarchist, a hopeless irridentist, to most Igbo the man is a treasure. He may be stronger than an ideologue. Ideologues have a set of ideas about society and future. He has none. He is more of a utopian, like the spirit of a millenarian. That utopia is Biafra. Utopias are dreams, like soap bubbles. But they are delicate fantasies for which bloodsheds are deemed necessary. Although Machiavelli says ideologies covet violence, Kanu knows ideology limits him. He would rather gulp something that is at once simple and elusive. He has grown into a sort of charisma, like the fellow in Nobel prize novel The Books of Jacob by Olga Tokarczuk.

    In that sense, Kanu is not an ideologue of justice. He is a miracle. Dostoyevsky wrote about the three features that entrap a people: mystery, authority and miracle. Kanu has embodied all of them by insisting on the purity of the Biafran idea, and that in itself is worth all the bloodshed, all the fear and trembling on the streets in the southeast. It forgives his foul rhetoric. His admirers would not want the poverty he is causing in the east, but they would not want to compromise him or want him compromised. In a sense, being in jail is Kanu’s ultimate sacrifice for his people. He will not shift his ground, and the courts would not shift for him.

    They will not want him to go the way of Ojukwu, who had to leave Ivory Coast and sup with his conquerors in the National Party of Nigeria, the same people who saw Ojukwu humiliated a second time when he lost his Senate bid. Ojukwu lost his purity. They do not want that for the new Ojukwu. This Ojukwu bears no sword, commands no brigade, but holds something more potent: an idea. A sentiment.

    If the Igbo love their business, they love Biafra more. Before business is the Igbo soul, and Kanu encases it even when he is a boor. Man shall not live by bread alone. As I stated, men never go to war for bread. There is no bread martyr in history.  That is why I say Kanu, for them, is a miracle. The intelligentsia would not want to come out to condemn his acts. The sentiment is too strong. They remind one of the scene in Chigozie Obioma’s novel, The Road to the Country. As the war ends, some federal soldiers coerce some Igbos to shout One Nigeria, but an old woman, once the soldiers are out of earshot, yells “hail Biafra.” In Chimamanda Adichie’s  Half of a Yellow Sun, when the people are fleeing towns and villages, a woman insists she is not going to leave her home. Her home is inviolate, even on pain of death. That is what Kanu symbolises.

     Those who say they can negotiate with Kanu are in a dance. The Sokoto jailbird is the choreographer, and the choir as well as the audience want the tune to continue. They can finetune it, but not to stop it. the choreographer is a genius

    It creates a dilemma for them. They want peace, but they love, at least admire, Kanu, even if they cannot say it in public. Discussing it is like touching a sacred grove. The Igbos, from top to bottom, love Nigeria so much that they would not want to leave. Hence, when Ojukwu declared Biafra, he was not satisfied until he conquered all of Nigeria, and headed to Lagos. Hence when he died, I called him Omo Eko on this page. I told a journalist the other day that if Biafra is declared today, the next day Igbos will line up for Nigerian visa. She replied it was true and they like it that way. Biafra is a like a virgin. She must not wed.