The Nation Newspaper

Category: Dayo Sobowale

Responsibility, corruption and terrorism

Boko Haram was cheering enough but for the fact that it claimed they were those who benefitted from the Dasukigate   $2.1 bn arms diversion scandals in the ongoing   sordid revelations. This was not helped by the accompanying news that Boko Haram has again killed, through suicide bombers in, of all places, Chibok from where the over 200 missing school girls abducted by the same terrorist group had gone missing over a year ago to date. If you add that to another revelation   by the new Methodist Church of Nigeria Prelate that the last ruling party brought money in Ghana must go sacks to get the Church’s support but the Church rejected the money because it loathed corruption but instead asked them to go and campaign, then you see the rudiments for today’s analysis taking   shape rather quickly.

Naturally it is necessary to analyse the logic of these statements as well as their pragmatism and practicality. It is also necessary to examine if they are true or are indulgences in crude mendacity. We must also try to see if they are just mere excuses or cover ups for real and unforeseen actions or inactions. In effect we have quite a plateful of issues to tinker with.

First of all to say the beneficiaries of the arms diversion revelations are the cause of the Boko Haram menace is an oversimplification of the matter and is sheer fallacy. At best the arms diversion culprits, if and when found guilty, can only be punished for escalation and prolongation of the insurgency and as such can be found guilty of treasonable felony or crime against humanity .Nevertheless   it is necessary to remind the Borno State Elders Forum that Boko Haram started as an Islamic protest group that wanted to establish Sharia law in the North East and Nigeria and was able to recruit jobless youths roaming Maiduguri and the various capitals of the 6 North East states carved out of the 15m people said to be living in the North East then. Mismanagement of government resources, coupled with the big lie of a huge population claimed for the area to get huge federal government funding, as well as poor leadership and misuse of security and infrastructural funds are indeed the root cause of Boko Haram and the North Elders Forum cannot claim ignorance of this or claim truly that it has no hand in it. After all, Elders Forum anywhere do not just emerge in a vacuum. They emerge or evolve from the leadership,   over time, of any society especially from the ruling class which includes the clergy or religious leaders, the traditional leaders and politicians – and the Borno State Elders Forum cannot be an exception. To look for scapegoats for the emergence of Boko Haram outside Maiduguri and the North East states capitals is a bitter diversion, equal in magnitude and irresponsibility to the ongoing cruel arms diversion revelations we have called Dasukigate. It is illogical and dishonest. It can not gel in any way   with reason ,or   even serve as an excuse which certainly was its initial and ultimate objective.

Next, the attack on Chibok again brings to the fore the fact that Boko Haram has changed strategy from frontal combat to guerrilla warfare and that is not new and we do not need to invent the wheel to combat it. It was the strategy used by the communists in Latin America against dictatorial US sponsored military dictatorships. Its main hero in legendary and myth context was Che Gueverra the Argentine hero of the Cuban revolution who was more popular than even Fidel Castro the leader of the revolution. But even Che, who was my hero in my undergraduate days when I had his poster in my room at Ife was killed by organized government forces in a jungle somewhere in Latin America where he was leading another insurgency for the establishment of communism.

But Che and the revolutionary forces he led were popular with the masses who helped and even hid them from government forces. Boko Haram however is not popular because it is killing both Christians and Muslims and even though it is claiming to be a borderless caliphate, most if not all Muslims all over the world have denounced it. How come then that it is still capable of killing people in broad daylight as it successfully did in Chibok this week? The answer is simple. They have willing collaborators in Chibok and any where they kill people and get away with it or kill themselves in the process. That is where communal policing and intelligence gathering should be stepped up in areas in or regions of the North East where they have been prolific of recent in their nefarious guerilla warfare. Community groups,   age groups and institutions should be asked to police and guide their members because as in the case of bank frauds where connivance and internal collusion play a major role in the success of such frauds, Boko Haram has members living in our communities as such people do not live in a vacuum. They are full blooded Nigerians and when and where young girls detonate bombs to kill themselves and innocent people, their parents or kinsfolk should be cornered for explanations and responsibility for their wards murderous activities. On    the present Chibok suicide killings those interviewed said they had always reported that Boko Haram was in the vicinity to the authorities but their warnings were ignored. Police and security institutions should, in house, find out from their members why such calls were ignored and blacklist such officers on security matters. They can   post them out of the area or sack them with no benefits if found to have connived or colluded with suicide bombers or their relations. Really it is high time mosques, schools and public institutions in the North East did a Boko Haram staff audit of their members and employees to find out the wolves in sheep’s clothing in their midst who are definitely helping Boko Haram to kill innocent people as they did in Chibok – just to rub it in that the Nigerian state has not   only failed to find the Chibok girls they abducted a year ago but that they have the audacity and impunity to strike again where thunder should really not strike twice in our beleaguered North East.

On the statement credited to the Nigerian Methodist Prelate one should certainly commend the bold action of the Methodist Church in standing up against corruption. This again is because the religious institutions in our midst have been beneficiaries of looted funds one way or another as those involved with Dasukigate are well known Church and Mosque goers. Have these institutions tried to find out the source of the donations by politicians and businessmen who fund projects so lavishly and   so generously and who are praised to high heavens for their gifts by highly appreciative priests and imams during sermons and every opportunity to show gratitude for such charity? I attended a funeral where the Bishop   at the pulpit asked those who have take Dasuki’s money to return it and the audience roared in approval. Yet politicians serving and retired public officials   formed a large part of that audience. If that is not a clear case of a pot calling the kettle back then I wonder what it is. The law says he who comes to equity must come with clean hands. Religious institutions should sanitise the opulent gifts they get   from their rich members as they are a cool front for money laundry, diversion of funds and other vices. This society is on an anti-corruption drive and the religious institutions must accept responsibility for the source and application of the gifts they receive as well as the social responsibility and accountability that go with them. They must be seen to be transparent not only before men but also God whose representatives they are according to the belief of their followers. That is a very urgent strategy to be adopted by them not only to defeat Boko Haram in particular and terrorism generally, but to defeat corruption by showing that like Caesar’s wife they are above reproach as the Methodist Prelate so clearly illustrated on the rejected Ghana Must Go money sacks.

January 30, 2016
New twists and challenges for peace and security

This week Microsoft’s Billy Gates and Nigeria’s Dangote put aside $100m over the next five years to help turn around the ravages of malnutrition in Nigeria, a very commendable social responsibility move that showed their two companies as responsible global corporate citizens. But not many Nigerians seem to have noticed the good gesture because they had more interesting things going on in their minds and in the news media especially the daily exposures on

Dasukigate, the notorious arms diversion deal of the century that has been the death knell as it were of Nigeria’s ruling party under the last administration of President Goodluck Jonathan. Which really is not an unexpected development given the fact that the entire world is adrift on the repercussions of the wars in Syria, and Iraq and the concomitant surrogate wars and insurgency they have fanned across the globe. Including that of Boko Haram which really was the genesis of Dasukigate which in turn   is actually a tall tale of how the security chief became an ATM for funding other activities except the procurement of arms for which the ATM    was originally and initially configured for.

Today’s discourse will centre around developments and incidents that have emanated directly or not from the wars in Iraq and Syria and how these are shaping the development of our globe and reshaping world diplomacy and local politics and relations between old and new enemies.

According to the French Prime Minister   Manuel   Valls, the migrants crisis in Europe where over 1m trooped in last year alone is going to redefine the concept and meaning of Europe or the

European Union as we know it   today. In Nigeria the Army boss has asked army officers to declare their assets in the wake of massive diversion of funds meant for arms by army bosses that the military have promised to give up to the EFCC once they are declared culpable by the anti graft commission. In Saudi Arabia the new King Salman who has spent just a year on the throne has taken the fight to ancient enemy Iran with the vigor of a young boxing champion even though he is over 88 years of age. This is not assuaged in any way by the news that with the raising of the sanctions on Iran over the Iran Nuclear Deal Iranian economy will blossom while the new Iranian oil supplies will make life more difficult for oil suppliers like Saudi Arabia and Nigeria already reeling from the crushing impact of falling oil prices on their respective economies.

Going back to the migrants crisis in Europe the French Prime Minister insists that France is at war to protect its citizens and the emergency measures put in place will persist for as long as the threat to security endures. He criticized the present open door policy in Europe and contends that it is just not good or safe enough to say migrants can come and that they are welcome. That puts Germany’s Angela Merkel of Germany and the willingness of Germany to take 1m refugees on the line    as well as others willing to take more refugees into their EU nations. More interestingly it creates a twist with regard to EU’s refusal to give Turkey EU membership which has been delayed for over 50 years now. Funny enough Angela Merkel is on record as once saying that Turkey is Islamic and Europe cannot have an Islamic state at the heart of Europe. Definitely the refugee crisis is going to change her views as she is in the vanguard of those EU nations ready and willing to take in refugees. Whether that will lessen her hostility   to Turkey’s membership is another matter.

Again one is reminded of a statement in the book ‘Culture Matters’ that Europe has been penetrated by Islam through importation of labor, religion, capital, talent and knowledge. This was a point of view expressed a few years back and the penetration was said to be slow but steady. Given the one million refugees or migrants that flowed into Europe last year one can safely say it has become an avalanche and very soon Europe will lie prostrate to Islam whether the Europeans like it or not. The import of that for global peace and security however is a different topic for another day.

In Nigeria the order for Army officers to declare their assets reportedly came from the Army boss who had already declared his assets when he became head of the multinational task force fighting Boko Haram in the North East and when he assumed office as Army boss. That order is in tune with the anti corruption stance of the present government and its Commander in Chief.   But the Army should tighten up its security in this regard as corrupt officers under arms are a dangerous lot. Indeed the coup that removed the present Commander in Chief as a military head of state was by fellow army officers when he was about to probe   those who reportedly acted while his very anti corruption deputy was on a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia. Eternal vigilance should be the watch word in fighting corruption especially in the armed forces.

On Saudi Arabia’s new war with Iran it has been revealed that King Salman made a favorite son of his   Prince Mohammed who is 29 years old his defence minister on assuming power and taking the throne and also made him the Deputy heir apparent and that son is really the power behind the throne pushing the fight against Iran although King Salman himself is very much in charge.

Incidentally both Iran and Saudi Arabia condemn Islamic State but cannot come together to eliminate it and are fighting each other in the Middle East which has become the battle ground of the world. Both are dictatorships too as Iran is a theocracy while Saudi Arabia is a monarchy. Both have however been drawn into the present war by the US in a rather bizarre twists of events and global diplomacy.

First of all the US deposed Saddam Hussein in 2003 and created a democracy in Iraq which brought the majority Iraqi Shiites into power. That infuriated the Sunni minority which controlled the army under Saddam and that has led to the endless wars in Iraq from which IS eventually emanated. Before that the US had propped up Saddam for a long time to prevent Iran from blocking access to Middle East oil through the Straits of Omuz. Indeed Iran and Iraq fought a seven year war in this regard.

However the seeds for the present war between Saudi Arabia and Iran were sown over Obama Administration’s support for the Iran nuclear deal which has now led to the lifting of sanctions against Iran.

The Saudis found it difficult to believe that a US government can sign an agreement that allows Iran to go on with its nuclear development while assuring the civilized world that Iran will not get nuclear power. That disbelief and irritation of the Saudi monarchy provoked the breakoff of diplomatic relations with Iran over the attack on the Saudi embassy in Teheran Iran this year. By executing the outspoken Saudi Shiite   cleric Nimr one year after getting to the throne the Saudi King Salman took the fight to the Iranian Ayatollahs to tell them that he does not care a fig about the new friends the Ayatollahs have found in the American government of Barak Obama. This has produced another watershed in US – Saudi relations as the Saudis are the biggest buyers of expensive US sophisticated F15 and F16 jet fighters for now although their resources have plummeted because of low oil prices which indeed could have been the end product of the new US led and orchestrated

Iran Nuclear Deal. The import of that for global peace and security is also a matter for discussion on another time. Once again long live the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

January 23, 2016
The politics of corruption, credibility and diplomacy

The mood in Nigeria at present is for government to nail all those who have received any amount from the $2.1bn arms deal in which funds meant for arms have been diverted for other purposes other than the purchase of arms, even as the Armed Forces faced the Boko Haram bloody insurgency which had dented the battle readiness of our military immensely. That mood can be compared without apology to the mood and frenzy at the Arena in the Ancient Roman Empire when Christians, gladiators and unfortunate enemies of the state, were thrown into arena to be killed by lions and wild animals just as gladiators fought to death after declaring, hands raised   to Caesar and   to the blood thirsty, and roaring audience – Hail Caesar!   We who are about to die salute you!.

That type of mood is inherent in the picture painted in the minds of US citizens and indeed the rest of Europe over the acceptance of refugees fleeing wars in the Middle East which Donald Trump, American Conservative Party leading presidential contender compared to the ancient Greek story of the Trojan war while defending his call for a ban on Muslims entering the US which he called a security issue rather than a religious one.

These comparisons hobnob into the topic of the day in several ways just as they are delicate and sensitive issues mixing up religious sentiment and loyalties with equally delicate and ponderous matters of security, credibility, leadership and integrity. Indeed these issues are issues that will not go away for a long time in spite of the boldness and assurance of King Abdullah of Jordan that ISIS can be defeated decisively in a CNN interview this week – and the sooner we tax our patience and tolerance in treating them decisively and emphatically and stopping the carnage and killing by militant Islamic groups both locally and internationally the better for our individual and collective sanity and more importantly the security of our lives, property, history and peace of mind.

Quite seriously the arms diversion deal has brought shame and dishonor to the beneficiaries regardless of their reputations, and sense of responsibility. In this regard it is similar in terms of the opprobrium on their good name to the Name and Shame List of wealthy professionals like doctors and lawyers in debt ridden modern Greece who were exposed as tax defaulters and whose taxes would have helped Greece immensely in fulfilling its obligations as a valid member of the Euro zone and a responsible sovereign citizen in the EU capable of honoring its debt obligations. The Name and Shame List when published in Greece ruined the reputation and respect of many hitherto leaders of men and resources in that nation. That is where the comparison with Nigeria’s mood on punishing the converted arms deal however stops, and totally too.

Whereas in Greece the names on the list of defaulters was a proven one and the opprobrium well earned, the list of the beneficiaries of the diverted arms funds is made up of those who have not been opportuned to defend themselves but have been consumed in brazen media trial that has generated the killer mood for reparation, confiscation, jailing or even outright execution   of the arms diversion payments. This should not be so because our law presumes a person innocent until proven guilty in court. This is our legacy from the British Common law. It is different from the French and Francophone legal system inherited from the   Code Napoleon which presumes a suspect guilty until the prosecuting magistrate decides otherwise and this French judge is both the prosecutor and the judge. For now that is the legal strategy we seem to have adopted in bringing the beneficiaries of the arms diversion deal to justice and it is bound to backfire in open court where the rule of law should prevail. By now I expect the NBA, the Chief Justice   and our   busy and   immensely   wealthy   SANs   to highlight the Achilles heel of this strategy which seem for now to have turned the EFCC into the prosecutor and judge as in France or our neighboring Francophone states when Nigeria has a different legal pedigree as a Commonwealth state where suspects are deemed innocent until proven otherwise in a court of law.

To me those who looted public funds and have even returned them as announced by the President have not gone to sleep over the matter or are folding their hands. Indeed   they   have started to fight back and orchestration   of   poor, opaque and ineffectual prosecution seem to be their adopted strategy and the government should watch its back and review its present strategy, as these looters have ample funds from which they can derail the anti corruption campaign, since what they have returned was   just a tip of the ice berg and they have means and connections and even power to discredit the anti corruption campaign which is very dear to all honest and right thinking Nigerians to change our government and governance priorities for good.

Again it is in that light that one should look at the unbelievable spectacle and announcement by the Senate President this week that the wrong copy of the budget speech was what was sent to the Senate to work on in fulfilling its legislative obligations to Nigerians. The Senate President went on to say that its Senate Committee on Ethics discovered that that the Presidential Special Adviser, a distinguished senator in his own right made the mistake and the senate will not discuss the budget until the alleged anomaly is rectified. Definitely I smell a rat here and a rather rotten, dead one too. I   also smell a whiff of vendetta and retaliation against the presidency and the president himself over the forgery of election rules in the senate when the administration assumed office. Definitely in the senate it is payback time or time for negotiations to resolve the senate leadership election forgery, this time at the toll gate of retribution, veiled in dutiful and diligent pursuance of the constitutional legislative duty of the senate as an arm of government. I am sure that that is the ultimate goal of this Senatorial arm twisting of the Executive in this unbelievable saga and complaint of a false version of the Budget from   the Presidency. But then Nigerians are watching and waiting.

Similarly Donald Trump’s comparison of the influx of migrants to Europe as similar to the Trojan War cannot be dismissed lightly and events in Germany and Turkey this week   should bother our attention and conclusions. In Cologne in Germany migrants were said to have been involved in rape and robberies in the new year. This has put some pressure on German Chancellor Angela Merkel who is an angel of mercy on the migrant issue and has taken steps to firm up German laws to effect swift deportation for miscreant or lawless migrants to Germany. Similarly a suicide bomber blew up and killed several people in Istanbul, putting pressure on Turkish President Yeccip Erdogan’s pro migrant policy which has made Turkey a safe destination for migrants fleeing Syria and heading for Europe. ISIS has claimed responsibility for the bomb attack which will hurt Turkey’s blooming tourism industry which has been under pressure recently because of Russian boycott of it over the shooting down of a Russian plane by Turkey sometime ago.

If you remember that the Trojan Horse   story was about a wooden horse left at the gate of the city of Troy   by the Greeks   in their   war with Troy then you see a pattern of danger. Unfortunately   for Troy the horse was filled with   Greek soldiers who wreaked havoc on Troy in the night and won the war. Definitely Donald Trumps historical analogy is not nonsense but a call for closer security and scrutiny of all migrants entering not only US but any nation fighting ISIS and Boko Haram just as the US and Nigeria are doing at present

Again long live the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

January 16, 2016
Sovereignty, insurgency and security

It is difficult to ignore a visit this week by   Christine   Lagarde , the boss of the IMF to Nigeria, as I earlier intended,   but for the reported remarks of the departing visitor on the state of our economy . Indeed it is my   contention here     and now,   that the remarks of the IMF boss on the parlous state of our economy provoked    the topic of today. Just as it is my candid opinion that the IMF boss Christine Lagarde was weeping crocodile tears over our non   performing economy – as the IMF, like Pontius Pilate, cannot wash its hands off the comatose condition of our oil soaked but highly debilitated economy of today. Again I say clearly that it is with that mood of indignation, patriotic or righteous as you like, but definitely incensed by Christine Lagarde’s utterances on her four day visit – that I look at the issues I will treat under today’s broad topic.

The first is the Sunni – Shiite spat between Saudi Arabia, the world Sunni Islam champion and Iran, the leading Shiite Islam nation of the world over the execution of a Shiite cleric in Saudi Arabia at the beginning of the year and the obvious implication of that for world peace. Especially after protesters burnt the Saudi embassy in Teheran on that score and Saudi Arabia cut diplomatic relations with Iran in retaliation. The second is the assertion by US President Barak Obama that the most influential gun lobby in the US,   the National Rifles Association – NRA – is misleading Americans over his proposed amendments to get more information of gun owners. In return     the NRA called Obama’s proposals mere public relations stunts and the Speaker of the US House of Representatives dismissed them as a distraction.

How a sitting US president, already tagged a security risk by Donald Trump, the front runner presidential candidate of the GOP, can be treated with such disdain, scorn or levity by stakeholders in the fight against global terrorism and insurgency in his own domain; and by serious stakeholders too in the security apparatus of his own nation, speaks volumes of how much of a lame duck president he has become on the last hurdle of his controversial presidency in 2016.

I go back to my hard comments on IMF and Nigeria’s economic woes for which I hold   the IMF responsible. This is because Lagarde was reported to have said that poverty, unemployment, inequality were too high in Nigeria. Who should know but her and her infamous and hated institution that imposed anti social and inhuman IMF conditionalities on, not only Nigeria but the entire developing world. This in turn   led to increase in inequalities, poverty and massive unemployment. IMF conditionalities were imposed on developing nations to cut deficits, raise taxes and interest rates and retrench their workers all of which led to economic recession, stagnation,   political unrest and   social turmoil. Especially during military regimes which had feet of clay in terms of legitimacy and were fair play for IMF officials who literally put a gun to their heads to accept IMF conditionalities hook, line and sinker to get much needed loans for their nations and to pay endless debts to US and Western corporate institutions .Unfortunately even the loans never got used for purposes they were given but ended up in the pockets of Nigerian leaders. A situation which reached a crescendo in the last administration whose mess the host to the IMF boss is now clearing up at great risk to his personal security and that of the nation. So who needs an IMF boss on a visit to Nigeria especially at the beginning of a new year   when we say happy new year?. Definitely nobody as undertakers cannot be welcome where people have hope that a better day is in sight. As we see in the new Buhari Administration grappling with the fall out of the IMF Conditionalities which bred poverty and inequalities and even a debilitating insurgency that has strained our resources and resolve as a nation maximally. Surely Lagarde’s visit was one too many and a repeat should not be encouraged.

On Shiite / Sunni rancour I see sovereignty being treated without respect and it is even more interesting that what happened in Zaria when Shiite Muslims ambushed and almost killed the Nigerian Chief of Army staff is a good analogy in this regard. The much loved cleric killed in Saudi Arabia was a Saudi citizen who had been sentenced for terrorism sometime ago and the sentence was carried out by the Saudi authorities on new year’s day. Iran condemned the execution and the Supreme Ayatollah in Teheran invoked that Divine Vengeance  would be visited on the Saudi authorities . But that cannot be an excuse for Iran to close its eyes as it were for unruly Iranians to burn the Saudi embassy which is a sovereign territory in Teheran, Iran’s capital. That is a violation of international law and that is why the Wiki Leaks editor was able to stay in a foreign embassy in London till today while the British authorities are waiting outside the embassy without going in, in respect of international law. Iran must respect international law and cannot be allowed to get away with a repeat of the US Embassy hostage crisis in Teheran in 1979 when Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini came to power in Iran and the embassy crisis resulted in making incumbent US President   Jimmy Carter to lose his reelection bid to Republican   Ronald Reagan.

Unfortunately and rather ominously the 2016   US Presidential   Election is about to be influenced in the way and manner that it made incumbent President Jimmy Carter lose his reelection bid. Carter lost because he mishandled theTeheran crisis and bungled a rescue operation to free the hostages. At the presidential debate Ronald Reagan had been briefed to tease the normally smiling Billy Carter known famously then for his wide toothy smiles. Carter had campaigned that Reagan was a war monger and would take the US to the third world war. But when Carter raised that point at the presidential debate Reagan just smiled and retorted with the phrase – there you go again – making Carter look like the aggressor on stage. Carter’s famous smile dissolved into a frown and a rage and the rest is history.

Again I see an ominous   connection in the skirmish between those who condemn Donald Trump’s ban on Muslims entering the US and the retort of the US president that the NRA is misleading Americans on gun laws. I see   an answer to their   concern   in the famous Ronald Reagan phrase – there you go again. It is my belief that that phrase answers their fears adequately and in their context   of perception.

Donald Trump has said the issue of the ban rested on the grounds of security and it is difficult to fault that no matter how you hate the man. ISIS   or IS, is an Islamic insurgency and militancy rattling the security of the civilized world including the US and even majority moderate Muslims who hate the organization admit as much. The NRA‘s seeming arrogance in dismissing the claim of a US president as too much sound and fury signifying nothing as Shakespeare would have said, is steeped in the common American perspective   and   belief that the right to bear arms is a constitutional one and no one can take that or their guns away. It is their way of life and no crying president can be allowed to take that away and really I think President Obama should understand that. All he needs to do is to find out how most   Africans feel when high sounding US diplomats lecture them on gay rights by comparing such rights   to civil rights, for which the likes of Martin Luther King Jr fought for so   bravely and hazardously in their time and left   indelible footprints in the sands of time in so doing.

Once again, long live the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

January 9, 2016
2015: The Year of Buhari, kleptocracy, Syria and Donald Trump

It has always been difficult for me to pick a Man of the Year for any year and 2015 is not an exception. I base my choice of the Man of the year on the concept adopted by Time Magazine several years ago, which is the choice of a man, woman, events or institutions who or which   have influenced world affairs for good or bad in that   year. At the height of the Iran hostage crisis in the late 70s when Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini was the scourge of the West and called the US- the Great Satan- even that did not stop the Magazine from making him the Man of the Year in consonance with the principle behind the choice. Nowadays Islamic State and Boko Haram would be in line for our choice of organisations that have influence world events certainly for evil in 2015 which would certainly be correct in very bloody terms but that would be glorifying cruelty, murder and mayhem which the two globally notorious organisations are known and feared, all over the world. In Nigeria alone, Boko Haram, an ally of Islamic State or IS, has reportedly displaced 15m   people said to be the largest of such people in the world. Boko Haram has destroyed 1000 schools   in Nigeria in consonance with its notorious name which means No to Western Education, and killed 17000 people in its theatre of war and mayhem. What should be publicized and shouted at the rooftops all over the nation was the announcement this week by President Buhari himself that Boko Haram has been technically defeated and the army has met the deadline given to it to eliminate Boko Haram by the end of the year. That announcement certainly takes the sting out of the pervading bloody nuisance   and menace of Boko Haram during the year and scuttles   effectively any consideration of that notorious sect for influencing world or Nigeria affairs for sheer evil in 2015. The announcement by the President who as a military man certainly knows what he is saying reduces Boko Haram to a paper tiger and one can really say that as it recedes into oblivion from whence it came some time ago, Nigeria can certainly say of 2015 as far as terrorism is concerned – all is well that ends well and good riddance to a very bloody rubbish indeed.

Having eliminated Boko Haram and ISIS technically and from any consideration of mention with regard to the assignment of choosing those who have influenced world affairs for good or bad in 2015 let me say my choice of such people and events. Serially the first is our President Muhammadu Buhari and the way, manner and mode of his 2015 presidential election victory as well as the massive size of the nation wide victory. As well as the high expectations of the electorate on solutions to well known Nigerian nagging problems of lack of electricity, unemployment and massive poverty in the land before the elections. The second is an issue which unfolded after the 2015 elections which put the new government to budget   for 2016 in a way that acknowledges that returned looted funds form part of expected government revenue for the first time in our history.This is   a fact which established the practice of kleptocracy in the Jonathan Administration characterized by the exposure by the president that looted funds have been returned and the ongoing trial of   the former NSA for diversion of funds for arms to campaign and other extraneous matters unrelated to the purchase of arms to fight the insurgency of Boko Haram in the vast North East of Nigeria. So like budget revenue targets for taxation, customs and assets sale, our government now expects revenue from funds looted by our leaders in power at one point in time or the other. That to me is like shoplifting and the return of items later by the shoplifter which is called kleptomania but which in a democracy like ours is sheer kleptocracy.

The third person is the front runner of the Republican Party in the 2016 US presidential election, controversial billionaire Donald Trump who asked recently that Muslims be banned from the US because the issue was one of Security and not religion and he was vilified by all of us including the US government of the day. Yet the news this week on CNN was that some Muslim Families have been denied entry to the US from Europe, in particular from Great Britain. Whether Trump’s call has influenced world events for good or bad will divide world opinion on that score for good or bad for some time. Yet there is no denying that Trump has set the ball rolling on a new way to confront terrorism under what ever guise especially religion. My contention here is that it does not matter whether Trump wins the GOP presidential nomination in 2016, he has already said a lot and stepped on so many big toes and issues such that he in 2015 set the tone and agenda for the presidential debate to elect whoever emerges as the next president of the US in 2016.

The fourth choice of mine is a nation and that is Syria and its refugees fleeing war in their nation as well as those fleeing from Afghanistan and all heading for Europe. At the last count this week it was announced that a million people crossed to Europe in 2015 from the Mediterranean and all the treacherous ocean routes that have emerged overnight for desperate refugees seeking asylum and a new life in Europe. Syria has been brought to its knees in 2015 and was the place where the Cold War of the post World War 11 between the former Soviet Union and the US resurrected as it were in 2015 leading to the rise of Islamic State and now the establishment of a Russian military base in Syria. This goes hand in hand with the insistence of the Russian leader Vladmir Putin that the US cannot just wish away Syria’s hated President Bashar Assad because Syria is, one,   a sovereign state and that is the duty of its people, and secondly that the removal of Assad may create a void similar to that of the removal of Saddam Hussein in Iraq which, with the help of hindsight, destabilized the entire Middle East even though it brought democracy to Iraq.

In effect then these are my choices of people and events who and which   have influenced world events effectively in 2015. In Nigeria the election of President Muhammadu Buhari brought an aura of respectability to the office of president which decayed with the campaign utterances of his predecessor and his infamous slang that stealing is not corruption. The vote for change in the 2015 presidential elections was one for change of president and an endorsement of Buhari’s well known toga of integrity and passion to defend the Nigerian state against corruption which his predecessor rationalized at enormous cost to his re election bid.

Unfortunately however looting may have become institutionalized in our political and economic system the way returned looted funds are being put in the budget as expected state revenue. Something is really fishy about that. This is because once looters know that one way or the other their loot can be returned later through plea bargaining or some bizarre arm twisting after the   fraudulent act, there is no deterrence on looting and no disincentive to steal public funds. This week the news was that 350bn of such returned funds are being expected as government revenue in the 2016 federal budget. This needs clarification because democracy is always about the rule of law, transparency and accountability. There are many things foggy and tricky in an arrangement that gives a crook some breathing space once the stolen item is returned. Its like the saying in R L Stevenson’s famous book Kidnapped which says – play me foul and I play you tricky. Either way something is not right about that in any democracy including ours. Once again long live the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

January 2, 2016
Government, religion and politics

In an interview on Channels TV this week a Nigerian Islamic cleric brilliantly distinguished between secularism and secularity and sided with the latter to establish his   acceptability in the interest of a multi – religious society. On the same plain the beleaguered but leading US Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump told a campaign audience that his Muslim ban to the US call was not a religious matter but a security issue. Meanwhile in Nigeria Shiite Muslims almost killed the army chief in Zaria on his way to an official engagement just as Iran and Iraq issued a peremptory warning to Nigeria on the welfare of the Nigerian leader of the Shiite Islamic sect and Iran summoned our envoy in Teheran, the capital of Iran, for an explanation   on the Zaria incident.

Let me state clearly that there is nothing sacred or sacrosant about today’s topic and the incidents I have highlighted. I intend therefore   to be quite frank about them as they touch on the very important issues of liberty and security which really are the twin bedrock of any democracy, including our own Nigeria .Liberty is about human rights and dignity but it is not limitless and any student of political science is taught at the beginning in the University that – your rights end where my nose begins. Similarly democracy thrives in a peaceful and stable environment of security of life and property and that was what compelled Mao to state historically and categorically that a revolution is not a tea party and that real power flows from the barrel of a gun. Democracy therefore is about choice of leadership and guidance from the ritual of elections with the guarantee that inherent   in that choice is the capability and ability to maintain law and order as well as the safety of the life and property of the electorate. It is difficult not to remember Rousseau’s social contract and its Hobbes’ law of might is right where there is a breakdown of law and order as in an anarchy and the social contract breaks down. It follows therefore that a government must enforce its rule to keep law and order at all times or else expect the distrust of its citizenry leading to the disavowal of the social contract and the descent into anarchy and the emergence of Hobbes law in society. Today’s topic and its treatment intend an insight into   how   the global society is sinking into anarchy and   why it seems, nobody is bothered about that.

Let us go back to the Nigerian Muslim Cleric on Channels TV whose name I could not recall but who stole my heart with his candor and wisdom. He said he did not accept secularism because it denied religion its place whereas secularity acknowledged religion and its practice . I think   the best example   of that is Turkey  whose founder Kemal Ataturk insisted at the outset   that Turkey must be secular even though it remained   a Muslim state and the army guaranteed its secularity   from the 1920s, until   the present Erdogan regime where an Islamic Party has won four  consecutive elections and   booted aside the military guarantee of   Turkey’s secularity in that nation’s formidable democratic march, with the goal of EU   membership as its major driving force.

When asked about the knotty question of the difference between Shia Islam and the majority Sunni Islam, he attempted an answer then asked to be allowed to keep the difference as a personal matter. When told that Islam is a religion of peace, he ignored that homily but then went on to say that in spite of any or all differences, human beings should endeavor to keep the peace at all times and in all places. Which really is the crux of the matter today and that leads us to the Donald Trump categorization of his Muslim ban call as a security matter rather than a religious issue.

Sadly enough the recent killing of 14 innocent   people in San Bernardino California was the largest killing of US citizens on American home soil after 9/11. It came after US President Barak Obama assured US citizens of their safety in a special address before they went on their Thanksgiving holidays. Obviously the terrorists in California were trying to dent the assurance   of security the US president was giving to US citizens on their home soil and they tragically succeeded and that is Donald Trump’s trump card in saying that the issue is one of security rather than religion. More so as the terrorist plot now unveiled included a master mind now charged for a failed earlier plot which was not totally Muslim in conception and execution. It was all American involving the viewing of Muslim sermons, videos and lessons on bomb making in private homes and observers have noticed that it threw a huge question mark on American valuation of their liberty and security at the same time. So what Donald Trump said was not utter nonsense but a recall to a rethink about how Americans practice their various religions without jeopardizing the security and liberty of fellow Americans which really was also what the Shiite Muslim attack on our army chief in Zaria was all about.

Let me start on the Zaria Shiite ambush of the Army Chief envoy by recalling what I wrote some time that the army must protect its leadership after Boko Haram attacked the same army chief’s village, killed people, sorted women from damsels and made away with the maidens. Boko Haram was attempting what the terrorists did with the Obama assurance of security to Americans at Thanksgiving    time by staging a successful terrorist act about the time of the security guarantee. Boko Haram has attempted twice to decapitate our army by killing its head. The army and the Nigerian nation must never allow that to happen in the interest of the sovereignty of Nigeria and the social contract between the Nigerian electorate and its duly elected and new government. That is what the Shiite Muslims in Nigeria must be made to understand if they are not to be seen as trying to finish the gory work begun by the Boko Haram in attempting twice now to behead our army by killing its boss and scoring a major psychological war against our nation and its people.

Nigerian Shiite Muslims must be told clearly that Nigeria is not a Muslim state but a secular one. It is a democracy and not a Theocracy like Iran nor a failed state like Iraq whose democracy is American made and guaranteed, and was created   just after 9/11 in 2001. These two nations have nothing to teach Nigeria about democracy, rule of law, and law and order- so their warnings to Nigeria on the Zaria ambush of our army chief convoy was quite impertinent and meant to bring our democracy down to their own abysmal levels and that we should never allow.

Undoubtedly the Nigerian Shiite Muslims are a minority amongst Nigerian Muslims so one wonders why they should think it is their lot to bring the Nigerian nation to its knees by killing its army chief when the nation is preoccupied with stopping the insurgency of Boko Haram. I am even astonished at the army’s response in talking of the rules of engagements when it was not fighting a war or facing Boko Haram as usual but a mob out to kill its leader in broad daylight. The army must not be cowed into losing its power of deterrence against the enemies of the Nigerian state both within and without. It must not be deterred from using superior violence against those who threaten its capability to defend the Nigerian state by orchestrating demonstrations in London simultaneously as Shiite Muslims waylay our army chief and distribute pictures on religious rights at the same time. It is the duty of the Nigerian army to defend the Nigerian people against all enemies of the state within and without. It is as simple as that. Once again long live the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

December 19, 2015
Visions and challenges on terrorism and looting

At the conference of the National Human Rights Commision to commemorate its 20th Anniversary, Edo State Governor Adams Oshiomole called for the prosecution of the former Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo Iweala on her admission that she made available 322m dollars from the recovered Abacha loot to the office of the former NSA Sabo Dasuki for the prosecution of the war against Boko Haram in the North East of the country. At about the same time US Republican Party front runner in the US 2016 presidential elections Donald Trump called for a ban on the migration of Muslims to the US and raised such a furore that US President Barak Obama at the 150th Anniversary of Slavery in the US cautioned against the rise of bigotry even as he called slavery the ‘original sin‘ on that occasion. I will spice these two stories with the news of the sack of Nnlalah Nene, the Finance Minister of S Africa by President Jacob Zuma who announced that the Minister who has been largely described as reform minded and fiscally prudent was just being moved to a more strategic position in the cabinet after just 18 months.

On the surface, all these are quite controversial issues. But an analysis will reveal that they are new ways of looking at the problems of governance, leadership and corruption and are evolving in a speedily   changing world that is becoming degraded and dehumanized by the impunity of terrorism and Islamic Militancy led by the brutality of Islamic State and Boko Haram. The saying that desperate diseases need desperate cure is bound to evolve from our analysis of these issues on discussion today as I ask you to join issues with my chain of thought on them.

Let us start again with Adams Oshiomole’s seemingly endless grouse with Okonjo Iweala that she should be prosecuted for approving money for purchase of arms that were not bought and in which funds were diverted for other purposes. The Finance Minister’s media aide has been at pains to explain that the Edo State Governor has an axe to grind with Okonjo Iweal a because she did not approve a World Bank loan that Edo state was pursuing. But the Finance Minister’s reason for the loan was intriguing. She said that since there was an outcry that the Jonathan Administration was not funding the war effort in the North East enough she prepared a memo for a Committee approved by the president and gave the money to the office of the NSA. Which sounds like an ordinary housewife’s defence of why she bought more meat than fish with the feeding allowance given by the husband. Except that this was the Finance Minister of Nigeria at her second coming in that office after being recruited from the World Bank by the Obasanjo Administration at her first calling during which she got paid in hard currency against the labor laws of the nation. The same Finance Minister was promoted by the World Bank after her reforms in Nigeria based on the recipe of the Washington Concensus which emphasizes high interest rates and budget deficits when it was obvious that these were leading to economic stagnation, high unemployment and social upheaval from the ensuing growth of poverty and income   inequalities instead of   real economic growth and development.

Governor Oshiomole’s insistence on the prosecution of the former Finance Minister is not in any way misplaced. If anything it is patriotic and salutary. Has the National Assembly no role to play in the disbursement of funds for war according to our constitution? Why should an educated Finance Minister give the sort of excuse she gave that the government succumbed to public opinion and averted due process in giving the nations funds behind the door and on the authority of a kitchen cabinet instead of that of the National Assembly as demanded by the separation of powers inherent in our Presidential Constitution? Governor Oshiomole may be an insistent former labor leader and no friend of the World Bank because of its inhuman economic prescriptions but he certainly knows what he is saying when he calls for the prosecution of the former Finance Minister on account of conspiracy in giving out funds for fighting insurgency illegally and making the fraud of diversion a grim possibility and a huge drain on the dwindling resources of our nation.

Equally intriguing and   definitely more alarming was Donald Trump’s call for a ban on Muslims going to the US because of the rise of terrorism on the US homeland the latest   being the killing of 14 people by a radicalized US couple in California. How Trump came about such a statement still baffles me but he insists that what he has said is popular and has not recanted which is unfortunate. But then he has touched a raw nerve and since he is the leading Republican candidate in spite of all odds so far, his party has to look for a way to contain him. If in spite of this he wins the Republican Party’s nomination then that party can never be the same again and the nature of the 2016 presidential election will be quite unpredictable though it will be quite exciting as usual. However l do not subscribe to the view that Trump’s antics may give Hillary Clinton an easy presidential election next year. Clinton will have to react to these dangerous things that Trump has been dishing out and the way she does will determine her presidential fate and that of the Democratic, Party in 2016. Trump has been so bold as to postpone a trip to Israel’s PM Benjamin Netanyahu who has a soft spot for him as a Republican candidate, on the excuse that he will do that trip after he has been elected president of the US. Already Israel’s President has retorted to Trump’s Islam ban by saying that Israel is not at war with Islam but extremists who are wickedly bent on killing innocent people for no justifiable or sane reasons. Really I wonder at Trump’s emergence and his staying power which confirms that there is some anger out there against politics as usual in the US and established political parties and politicians had better be on the look out for as the saying goes no one can stop an idea whose time has come. Just like no one got it when a seasoned Democratic Party Convention Speaker emerged from no where to thwart Hillary Clinton’s ambition in 2008 to become the 44th and first black president of God’s own country. The rest is history and this rumbling Trump looks more like an approaching political volcano on the US political arena than an ill wind that will soon and   readily blow away. Americans   therefore and   indeed the world at large   should prepare like the Chinese would say, to live in interesting times and so too should terrorists and those who kill and maim innocent people globally prepare for a most unusual foe and enemy.

Lastly the sack of S Africa’ Minister of Finance, Nnlalah Nene is   a story that has parts and bits of the last two issues on our former finance Minister and Governor Oshiomole and of course Donald Trump and I will illustrate vividly. The first is tha the Finance Minister was sacked for among other things failing to approve the purchase of a presidential jet for the S African president and for failing to approve salary increment for workers. I commend the Minister for having the guts to chop off the presidential jet although he now knows that he who pays the piper dictates the tune. I disagree with him on the refusal to increase the workers salary as Governor Oshiomole would do and vehemently too and my reason is that such an act smirks of an IMF conditionality for which Finance Ministers like those of France, Indonesia and Nigeria have been rewarded with plum IMF jobs after leaving office for services well rendered for IMF even though such measures bred inevitable social unrest and violence in the nations of such ministers. Perhaps President Zuma saw through the Minister’s gambit to play to an international audience at the expense of the S African economy although there is no denying that the chopping of the presidential jet was enough ammunition for President Zuma known for opulent life style to have sacked him. Obviously the sacked S African Finance Minister now knows better that in politics as in religion you cannot serve God and Mammon. Just as Governor Oshiomole made very clear in his very public and strident call for the prosecution of our former Finance Minister. Again long live the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

December 12, 2015
Elections, corruption and terrorism

The governorship elections of both Kogi and Bayelsa states have shown the different faces of Nigeria in the way we see and perceive democracy   as well as our commitment to change and the fight against corruption which the present admiration has shown it is firmly committed to. The Kogi election has shown that in Nigeria we pay lip service to the concept of joint candidature and that in real terms we do not expect the running mate to succeed the governorship candidate in case of any mishap including. In Bayelsa the spirit of former governor Alamieyesagha looms larger than life even in death over   today’s elections which APC   expects to win without slighting the image of the former governor whose main legacy was the opprobrium of corruption for which inexplicably his people still dote and worship him even in death.

With regard to the fight against terrorism it is becoming clear by the day that the former Jonathan Administration could not have performed better than it did   on   fighting   Boko Haram if its NSA was busy diverting funds meant for arms to campaigns meant to keep the administration and PDP in power. Although the opposition could attack   EFCC or   government of orchestrating a media trial the fact cannot be easily dismissed that a clear case of abuse of power and criminal diversion of funds had been exposed and blown open even if we must respect the law and assume that those involved are innocent until proven guilty on trial and in open court. That these   revelations are coming at a time that China through its President at a China – Africa Summit in Johannesburg in S Africa promised a loan of 60 bn dollars to Africa   is   quite instructive and should   provide a good   opportunity   on the need for accountability   and the use of public funds   for the purposes for which they    are meant. Which really is the problem of African leaders   in that they divert funds meant for infrastructure and development for their personal and unproductive uses thus fuelling corruption   and stagnating economic development on the continent. 35 African Heads of states attended the summit and one can expect a scramble amongst them to have huge slices of the Chinese loans which have zero interest rates and no strings attached like IMF or World Bank loans. Unfortunately   good examples of such     diversions   abound in the ongoing revelations of diversion   of funds    meant to buy arms to unproductive purposes while security   matters   on terrorism were unattended to.

These   were   funds    meant for arms to defeat terrorism and secure the lives and properties of Nigerians especially in the North East where Boko Haram is having a

field day even as the December deadline that the President gave the defence forces approaches ominously.

On today’s topic it is clear that each isolated state election shows the face of Nigeria and the fate of democracy in that part of the world. Again it has been clearly demonstrated that   the deceased APC candidate’s   running   mate   was never meant to become governor as even the party   bypassed him   in choosing another man for him to be running mate to for a second time. Which is like   giving our election laws a huge kick in the ass. That makes a mockery of democracy and the rule of law as well as the tenets of our constitution even as we await the verdict of the rule of the Supreme Court on the matter.

In the case of Bayelsa it is clear that corruption can not be an issue in that part of the world where the heroes are larger than life picture of a former governor now dead and a former president whose NSA reportedly diverted funds meant to buy arms to campaigns and advertising promotions while soldiers lacked ammunition and equipment to fight Boko Haram at the war front and we could not find our 200 missing Chibok girls who got lost then, till now. Obviously a prima facie case of treason in high places is being established against leaders of the last administration. Yet they still dictate the pace and direction of elections in both Rivers and Bayelsa especially and no one is saying anything yet about the serious security implications of the charges of corruption and diversion of funds meant to fight terrorism laid very much like a huge dung hill of opprobrium at their door steps. Really the fight against terrorism and corruption must have a clear message of deterrence, and a policy to defeat delay tactics in court as well as moves to make an ass of the law, which are manifest in the Kogi election debacle on running mate as well as the indifference of Bayelsa people to the opprobrium of corruption in their election at any level of governance.

Democracy thrives on the rule of law, transparency, accountability and respect for constituted authority. It has no place for abuse of office and power which the arms diversion episode has revealed and no well meaning people can hope to improve their welfare or their lot if they do not frown on those who feast them from looted funds.

Surely the two elections in Kogi and Bayelsa have thrown up serious concerns on our practice of democracy which must be fine tuned in the overall interest of the larger Nigerian society and community.

We need to take our rules on elections more seriously, just as we also need to fine tune our approach to fighting terrorism. This really is urgent if we are to make Boko Haram a thing of the past in the shortest possible time. It was disheartening to read in the media that Boko Haram attacked the hometown of the Army Chief bearing his name and killed people before separating married women and girls and making off with the damsels. This was painful and the army leadership in the vicinity must take full responsibility for an avoidable lapse. They should have protected their boss’ village with greater care to avoid embarrassment to the army and themselves and to avoid giving unnecessary psychological boost to terrorists in such circumstances. Matters were not helped by the report that villagers said they warned the army of the presence of Boko Haram in the vicinity but the soldiers reportedly came to another village and shot into the air and went away till Boko Haram came to kill and carry off innocent maidens from the village. The army must wipe out Boko Haram but it must protect its leaders too and not expose them to unnecessary   dangers and embarrassment such as that which happened at the army chief’s village this week. Once again long live the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

December 5, 2015
The politics of succession, betrayal and corruption

The death of the APC candidate in the last Kogi State governorship elections that INEC declared inconclusive has opened a Pandora box on the politics of succession in Nigeria which has taxed immensely the spirit and letter of our constitution and is already making a mockery of our rule of law. It is definitely as controversial and debatable in terms of global politics as the accusation that Russian President Vladmir Putin levied this week on Turkey for shooting down a Russian bomber which Turkey said violated its air space and for which the Turkish president said he was not ready for any apology. However this diplomatic argument on air space use in the fight against terrorism by both nations claiming to fight terrorism and ISIS surely glows in honesty and clarity when compared with the   reported claim by the Senate President that he was representing the President at the funeral in Ikenne of Mama HID the wife of Immortal Awo this last week. Just as the President himself was said to have breezed in by helicopter at the event to show that he is representing himself to pay honour to the better half of the Immortal Leader and idol of the Yorubas.

The three events I have mentioned and the personalities involved provide good food for thought first on constitutionalism and the rule of law; next on the use of diplomacy and security coalitions and arrangements in fighting terrorism in a world that the terrorists have made borderless and are using suicide bombing and surprise as the main weapons of war against governments still relying on regular defence institutions and organisations to curtail such new faces of terrorism; and thirdly they show that   the war on corruption in Nigeria in which an APC government has won the election on an anti corruption and change slogan cannot be won until the APC puts its house, indeed its upper chambers of leadership in order first and foremost in the interest of the Nigerian nation.

Let me now treat the three events serially to tailor my conclusions on their composite nature as the subject of discussion today. I start    with the death of the APC candidate in the last Kogi State elections, the clamor for constitutional interpretation and the scramble for succession. My view is that the whole exercise has been made extravagant by the excessive predilection of our local TV stations to call on any lawyer and more so a SAN to comment on any matter concerning the constitution because such people are lawyers and the result has been revealing in that it has been dismal and uninformed. Students of political science and their lecturers have a better grasp of such matters even more than the SANs for the simple reason that they study the nature, growth and spirit of national constitutions and know why certain concepts exist in the constitution. Whereas lawyers mostly look at the constitution when they have such briefs or their clients have an interest. That explains why there have been as many different opinions on the succession issue in Kogi as the number of lawyers or SANs interviewed. That is surely is not right.

The truth is that the concept of running mate provides for the sort of situation that cropped up on the death of the APC candidate last week. There is no provision for single candidature in our constitution for governorship election and Kogi cannot be an exception. Thankfully his running mate has finally found his voice   above the din and cacophony of confusion and has announced that he is the one to run to conclude the hitherto inconclusive elections in which the APC candidate died. Before that there was the bizarre suggestion that the son of the deceased candidate should take over as if it was an hereditary issue and that certainly makes a mockery of the rule of law. Indeed not recognizing the running mate immediately as the constitutional and natural successor shows our disregard for constitutionalism and the rule of law and explains why running mates have been wrongly labeled spare tyres. The Kogi election should show clearly that when governor has a running mate that running mate should succeed him in case of any mishap including death. That is constitutionalism and nothing else and that is what we should promote and champion as a nation especially at this point in time in the spirit of our revered constitution and democracy.

Given the scuffle between the presidents of Russia and Turkey over the shooting down of the Russian plane one could say this was bound to happen sooner than later given the proximity of Turkey to Syria and the hostility between both sides. Like a revolution as Mao noted, fighting terrorism cannot be a tea party and when nations with borders deploy the most sophisticated war planes against each other in borderless fights against terrorists who are moving targets, people are bound to get killed as and indeed accidents must and do happen . What I cannot understand is the stab in the back charge by the Russian president against the Turkish president who was unrepentant on CNN on the shoot down. I doubt if Russia can do more than whine and threaten, of course in vain, because of the simple fact that Turkey, as a member of NATO is automatically covered by the clause in the NATO defence pact which says that any attack on any member is an automatic attack on NATO. Is Russia ready to square up to NATO on this Turkish shoot down issue?. I doubt and for now both sides should let sleeping dogs lie while they look for ways of eliminating ISIS urgently as they profess   instead of shooting themselves in the air.

Let me now round up with the icing on the cake in today’s analysis which is the reported representation of the president at the famous funeral in Ikenne this week. On the face of it if the president was not available at an occasion he could be represented by the Senate President who represents an independent arm of government in our presidential system based on separation of powers. But that is if the Vice President is not present at the occasion as he is the natural representative of the president in his absence. But then the Vice President of Nigeria the illustrious son of Ikenne, Professor Yemi Osinbajo was present at Ikenne   his home town, both in his personal capacity as his wife is a granddaughter of the deceased, and official capacity as the Vice President of Nigeria. So who was the Senate President reported to be saying he was representing?

Yet the Senate President has an on going battery of cases on his false declaration of assets trial at the CCT which has reached the Supreme Court. In defending himself he has said loud and clear in the submissions of his lawyers at different courts that his trial was political and was because he is Senate President, a post that it is an open secret that both the president and his party did not like the way he bamboozled them, to get into. In addition anti corruption agencies and the Police IG are reported to have warned him not to politicise his trial at the CCT. That declaration of representation by the Senate President reminded me of a US Secretary of State who just said that he was in charge after former President Ronald Reagan was shot and wounded some time. When that former Secretary of State wanted to be president later the Americans never took him seriously because they believed he did not know the constitution enough as the US Vice President is in charge in case anything untowards happens to the incumbent US president. Again long live the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

November 28, 2015
Strategy, the law and global terrorism

Nothing illustrates the importance of the topic of today more than the reaction of US President Barak Obama to the accusation that his Middle East policy is not working and the request of French President Francois Hollande for more powers from France’s National Assembly after the latest bombings in Paris that left over 120 people dead. If you add to that the local contents of our purview today which are firstly, the use of the term – tarry awhile – by our Supreme Court to listen to the appeal of the Senate President on the jurisdiction and composition of the   court trying him for false declaration of assets, and   secondly the revelation by the former NSA that he was not even given a query before being declared to have awarded fake contacts running into billions of dollars, then you have an idea of the pot pourri we are about to enjoy   and digest today.

Before going on however let me register my admiration for the crisis management skills of the French President Francois Hollande on the latest bombings in Paris . His leadership skills as a time tested Socialist not unfamiliar with violence and discord were obvious and apparent. He knew what to do and what to ask his National Assembly for. In terms of history he reminded me of Napoleon Bonaparte the French soldier and Emperor who is best remembered for the laws he made which formed the basis of the rule of law in Europe till today.The French President kept his cool and maintained that even though France is at war it would maintain the rule of law and not act arbitrarily in dealing with those who are falsely using religion to fake a war of civilization on a global stage as they did last week in France.

In contemporary times French law presumed a suspect guilty until proven otherwise and French magistrates could prosecute and decide a case swiftly. Under former President Nikolas Sarkozy this view came under attack and scrutiny. There is no doubt it would be adopted now especially as President Hollande has asked for a state of emergency   for three months which the French Senate has adopted this week and the lower house would consider later. In addition President Hollande has said France would not turn its back on refugees fleeing the war in Syria from where the master mind of the Paris bomb blast sneaked in to Belgium to plan the attack that killed innocent people in theatres , bars   and even the   National stadium where the French National team was playing Germany. Compare this with the heartless retort of Syrian President Bashar Assad who said after the Paris blast that France was paying for its policy on Syria. Which was quite inhuman and callous indeed but is not unexpected from a leader who remains in office by force and not the will and support of his people who are fleeing in their thousands to Europe.

Just after the Paris bombings and French President Hollande had declared that France was at war US President Obama was interviewed at the G 20 meeting he was attending in Turkey and this was shown on CNN this week. The US President stuttered on the view and insinuation that his strategy on Syria led to the emergence and rapid rise of global terrorism as with ISIS culminating in the fatal Paris bomb blast. Of course he was hard put to defend his strategy of not putting US soldiers on the ground to dislodge ISIS early enough in Syria and later in Syria until the Russians later came in decisively on the side of the Syrian dictator Bashar Assad.

To add to the US presidents horror on the accusation of a failed strategy were two events which are bound to affect his legacy as the first black US president and the chances of any Democratic Party presidential candidate succeeding him in the 2016 presidential elections in the US. The first was the decision of 31 US Governors not to accept his plan to allocate refugees from the Middle East     to the US on security grounds especially after the latest tragedy in Paris. The US president has gone on to threaten to veto any bill from the legislature opposing his refugee plan but what would he do with the 31 governors?

In addition the leading presidential aspirant for the Republican Party for now billionaire Donald Trump has bluntly asserted that the incumbent US president is a security risk. Even the CNN reporter handling the interview looked very worried as I am sure would be millions of US citizens at home and abroad. Yet the US cannot shirk its responsibility at home to its citizens on terrorism and security and to the civilized world where it peddles democracy, human rights and the market economy. But how does a president accused so brazenly as a security risk secure the confidence of his nation as well as his credibility and patriotism in the face of such brutal and undiplomatic attack and language? Well, the ball is in the court of Barak Obama and I expect him as a lawyer to weigh his words carefully before reacting to Donald Trump’s verbal bombshell which might be more lethal politically than any bomb that ISIS   and Boko Haram have used in recent times to kill innocent people worldwide.

Which brings us to the two Nigerian issues mentioned before on the   twin fight against terrorism and corruption in Nigeria as well as the workings of the strategies in place to prosecute the wars. Are the strategies working or workable? There must be positive answers to these two questions other wise the wars are doomed to fail, to which we say God forbid. But see what we have on the ground. The ‘tarry awhile’ admonition to the court whose jurisdiction and composition was being challenged was in spite of a 2015 law made to speed up criminal trials of such nature so as not to make a mockery of the rule of law and an ass of the law in the fight against corruption such as the case in question. Where speed is of essence to ensure justice the highest court   in the land is cautioning to make haste slowly. Yet the judiciary is independent and the Supreme Court is infallible or is it not? Yet this fight against corruption which has not even started must be fought and won for Nigerians by all means by this Administration which won on the slogan of Change.

In addition the NSA’s rebuttal of the charges against him on false purchases and non receipt of military ware was brilliant and clear and puts his accusers on the defensive. How do you accuse someone of theft and culpable criminality when he said in defence that he was not queried or asked for documents on purchases which were deemed false or for undelivered items? Surely something is amiss. Even an errant school boy should be   allowed the right of reply on any suspicious misdemeanor not to talk of our former   master spy and 007 on the   war against both terrorism on his watch and against corruption after him. There should be more diligence and transparency on the   case   or luggage of cases   against the former NSA who has great intelligence on our collective security in the fight against both corruption and terrorism. His importance can be likened in this regard to the wonder of the the students on the vast knowledge they ascribed to their headmaster in the classic poem Deserted Village   by Oliver Goldsmith. The   verse said- ‘ And still they gazed , and still the wonder grew, that one small head could carry all he knew’. Again, long live the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

November 21, 2015