The Nation Newspaper

Category: Dayo Sobowale

  • Sovereignty, authority and  global justice

    I  read  some  where that colonialism    ‘with its across   borders  and across  seas‘  nature was indeed the forerunner of globalization  and I  sneered then that someone was trying to glamorize colonialism  in contemporary  terms  to make it relevant perhaps     to accommodate it in modern history . Events in the last week   however have shown that my skepticism  on the issue was misplaced.

     Just  look  at the foray  of US special  forces into Somalia and Libya this   week   and the reactions of the bona fide governments in both  nations and you see all the imprints of a new form of colonialism  actually mocking globalization as we know it today . When  you also hear  that former Liberian strong man Charles Taylor  who has been jailed for various crimes including rape, terrorism and the use of child soldiers in Sierra  Leone’s war is to serve his 50  years sentence in a British prison because Britain requested for this,  then you  see how colonialism  is very akin to globalization. Furthermore the  news that Cameroun’s  military chasing Boko  Haram   terrorists  off their  territory   informed their Nigerian colleagues  across  the border to make sure that the  terrorists  did   not escape really showed that ECOWAS’ cooperation   in fighting Boko Haram  can take shape in spite of colonial heritage,  its differences,  and history. Again,   the decision of the US  to cut military aid to Egypt  and the Egyptian government’s retort  that it will not yield to US pressure but   that Egypt will pursue its own path  to democracy say a lot about the topic of the day.

    Starting with the overnight strike  of US special  forces   in Somalia    and Libya, the reaction   of   the two  governments was markedly different. The  Somali  PM  welcomed the development and praised the Americans .He  told his interviewer   that Somalia  welcomes the intervention of its   foreign partners in fighting Al Shabab anywhere including  Somali territory. Ostensibly the Americans had come to attack or kidnap terrorists who had bombed the Westgate Mall in Nairobi  Kenya killing over 65 people. But  the raid in Somalia this time was not successful because the Americans had a new rule of engagement which did not allow them   to attack  where civilians are engaged. To the Somali PM then, sovereignty was a not an issue, and he had no qualms in the Americans usurping , as it were,  the authority of the de facto and de jure government of Somalia, as  long as the objective is to flatten the nose of Al Shabab  operatives which Somali leaders regard as a form of international justice being meted out to Al  Shabab.

    In  Libya, the Americans  carted away an Al Qada  operative who took part in the bombing of the US embassy  in Dar Es Salaam sometime ago. They kidnapped him in Tripoli and took him for questioning on a ship in the Mediterranean. The  Libyan government was livid with rage and summoned the US Ambassador in Libya  for explanation. Worse still,  over 100  gunmen were reported to have  captured  the Libyan PM Ali  Zeidane  only to release him  after 8 hours . Before his kidnap  and arrest,  the Libyan PM  had appealed to the International Community to help his government because it could not control the volume of arms flowing in and out of Libya,  which he feared would destabilize the entire region. After his  bizarre  kidnap and release, the Libyan PM  thanked those who worked for his release and noted that the issue was a distinct Libyan   problem that would be resolved in- house.

    What  is clear is  that the Libyan PM  has scant authority ,if any,  and his tenure is at the mercy of those    who brazenly arrested and later released him, as there was nothing stopping them from a repetition of the drama. Zerdane  lost power albeit momentarily and was lucky that he did not or has not lost his life yet. In  effect then the militia that detained Libya’s PM  took umbrage  at  the capture  of the Al Qada  operative   on Libya’s soil  and used the PM’s arrest to protest American violation of the territorial integrity   and sovereignty of Libya. Yet  the minlitia knew it had no authority for what it did   and returned the PM to his impotent office while it took cover in the oblivion from which it emerged to kidnap Libya’s PM.

    In  effect then both  Libya and Somalia showed their vulnerability as failed states last week. The difference is that while Somalia  is reconciled  to its fate, Libya is remonstrating like a  school boy who lost his toy and did not know who to blame but to break into childish tantrums only to calm down and live with his loss.

    In Charles  Taylor’s case one can only have some admiration for British sense of justice no matter how grudgingly. As  far back as 2007  the British had passed an Act of Parliament to  allow Taylor to serve his sentence in the UK  at the cost of government. This is because the Sierra Leonean  and Liberian government did not want the Liberian war lord to serve his sentence in the region for obvious reasons. According to the British,  the conviction of Taylor is a landmark moment for international justice. This is because it shows  that no matter how long the mills of justice  grind slowly  they  will grind exceedingly fine  and catch up  with those   leaders who rule their   people with impunity, any where in the world.

    It  is in this light that I look at the request of Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta’s  that he could face his trial for post election violence on video rather than going to the Hague as his Vice President William Ruto  had  done for charges against them for post election violence in Kenya’s 2007  elections. Kenyatta’s request should be granted as he is a seating  president. His request still shows respect for international law  and the rule of law and is a climbdown from  the resolution passed by Kenya’s parliament not to recognize the ICC. Really  I think Britain’s  willingness to play gaoler to Taylor would have moved the Kenyan leader in the direction of trial by video rather than outright refusal,  given that Britain was the colonial government in Kenya and both  the British  and Kenya and indeed the Kenyattas  know each other so well. Which  again is a positive development  for global justice  brought about  by globalization en route colonialism.

    Similarly,  the  border cooperation between the Camerounian and Nigeria military  over the elimination of terrorists  is a welcome development in the region. This sort of accord should be extended to nations that border Nigeria in the North  East  especially Niger. Before this,  the language of the Colonialist namely French and English  had created mistrust amongst the armed forces of both nations with France encouraging cooperation amongst Francophone states to the exclusion of the armies of former British colonies like Ghana and Nigeria. Such close ties with France have been more pronounced in recent times. That  was why it was not ECOWAS that intervened in Ivory Coast to displace Laurent Gbagbo and install President Ouattara but French  troops that came and fought on the streets  of Abidjan. The  same goes for the French troops intervention in Mali  while ECOWAS  was still vacillating and dithering on getting forces  and  logistics of intervention ready .Cross  border cooperation between sovereign forces should be recognized if ECOWAS is to contain the   fast  and viral rise of terrorism in the Sahel,  especially the Boko Haram threat that is giving the Nigerian government a run for  its  money, by killing students and burning churches and mosques with impunity.

    Lastly,  the way the US  government of Barak  Obama has cut some military aid to Egypt goes further to show the confusion of the US government in the way it is selling democracy to the whole world. US  policy  on military coups with friendly governments is to cut off aid. Everyone in this world knows that the displacement of Egypt’s elected government  of Mohammed Morsi was a military  coup except the Obama government.  The  army in Egypt had asked that people come out to demonstrate against an elected government and that call was heeded  and the army proceeded to form an interim government which is the precursor of military intervention in politics called military coup. Yet the US cannot call a spade  a spade and apply its own policy. Of  course the Egyptian army knows that the US present administration has no stomach for any fight as in Syria and will  dig in like Assad and evolve its democracy on the blood of demonstrating  and defiant Egyptians who think the initial street revolution fuelled by the US has been hijacked by the military in Egypt. Well,  the US president is   is  busy at home fighting for his   economic and social legacy over debt  ceiling with the Republicans in the US and has scant time for Egypt and its tottering democracy or is it diarchy? So  in Egypt  the sovereignty lies  between the army and demonstrators with the army having the upper hand. Even with the suspended military aid the Army is stronger. In terms of global justice however the US president is learning at great cost what his predecessors have known to their  cost. That is that if you abandon foreign policy for too long for domestic policy your diplomacy will be in tatters sooner that you can ever expect   and vice versa.

  • Leaders in the eye of the storm

    The last UN General Assembly provided ample opportunity to see ‘World leaders in Action’ which incidentally is the title of my new book published last year by MacMillan Nigeria, Book Publishers. The spectacle of world leaders taking the stage to air their views on issues concerning them and their nations provided ample opportunity to assess not only the personalities of these leaders but to form an opinion of their nations from the way they delivered their various speeches. Space cannot allow us to focus on all or most of them. Hence I have identified just a few that I will comment and focus on, because I think they have found themselves in the eye of a global diplomatic storm by their actions and a lack of it perhaps, in recent times. Some of these leaders made an impact at the UNGA last week while one or two could not come because of circumstances beyond their control. In all, their actions and utterances affect the conduct of global diplomacy and international relations enormously and provided them ample opportunity to make history one way or the other.

    The first is the president of Iran Hussain Rouhani who shocked the whole world albeit pleasantly by declaring that Iran will never make a nuclear bomb, a prospect for which the UN has mounted sanctions against his nation for some years now. The second is the president of Kenya, Uhuru Kenyatta, who could not turn up because of the attack on Westgate Mall in Kenya by terrorists who have killed over 65 people while more bodies are being recovered from the site of the murder and mayhem in Nairobi. The third is the Prime Minister of Israel who arrogantly told his world audience not to believe the Iranian leader and vowed that Israel is ready to go it alone if the whole world is not ready to act on Syria and its use of chemical weapons on women and children by the Assad regime supported by Russia and China in the UN Security Council. The fourth is our president Dr Goodluck Jonathan who was in New York but returned to find the shocking news that Boko Haram terrorists have slaughtered over 50 sleeping male students at a School of Agriculture in N. East Nigeria which was under emergency rule. The Nigerian president’s reaction to this as well as his Independence day address showed indeed that this is one Nigerian president really in the eye of a storm, in terms of the management of the challenges of insecurity facing the nation.

    Starting with the new Iranian President Hussain Rouhani, let me state that his bearing, demeanor and manner of speaking was a pleasant departure from that of his predecessor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who during his tenure always stunned his audience by insisting that Israel will be taken off the world map when Iran has its nuclear bomb. Ahmadinejad also insisted throughout his tenure that the Holocaust never took place to the horror of a civilized world. Now a new Iranian president has said in a much publicized TV interview with CNN’s Christine Amanpour that the Holocaust was reprehensible and should be condemned by all right thinking people. Which really soothes global nerves and alters the image of Iran tremendously from the cantankerous and violent one created by Ahmadinejad’s fiery speeches, highly denunciatory rhetorics and volatile diplomacy. Also President Rouhani has said he is in a hurry to start talks on Iran’s nuclear programme with the UN and the nations involved with the insistence that he has the authority of the powers that be in Iran to speak authoritatively on the matter. He has since spoken to the US President Barak Obama before leaving New York which would be the first communication between the presidents of the two nations since the overthrow of the Shah and the arrival in Teheran of the powerful Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1979 – which led to the Iranian hostage crisis that made then US President Jimmy Carter a one term president. Now a new Iranian president is most unexpectedly offering an olive branch to the world especially the US and predictably the US president Barak Obama is ready and willing to play ball. President Obama has given instructions to US Secretary of State John Kerry to begin talks with Iranian officials on sanctions and Iran’s nuclear program which that nation has always said is for electricity and which its new president is now saying will never be used for making a bomb.

    A booming voice however shouted foul on the utterances of the new Iranian president at the UNGA last week. That was the guttural voice of Benjamin Netanyahu Israel’s Prime Minister who spoke after the Iranian president must have returned to Iran. It is necessary to discuss Netanyahu’s speech here in the context of President Rouhani’s diplomatic overtures at the UN before we go on to discuss the problem of Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta . This is necessary because Netanyahu refused to let the Iranian president steal his thunder and warned that the Iranian president is ‘a wolf in sheep clothing’ which is to be expected given that the two nations are mortal foes and more so with Rouhani’s predecessor Ahmadinejad. Netanyahu reminded the world that Iran is arming Syria and sponsoring world terrorism and he would never compromise the security of Israel . His saying that Israel will go it alone showed his contempt for the climb down by the Obama Administration over the promised limited strike on Syria. According to Netanyahu it is the sanctions that has made the Rouhani ‘ turn around ‘possible and the UN sanctions should never be stopped. Anyway, Netanyahu insisted Israel will never allow Iran to have a nuclear bomb, which was a bold statement indeed.

    What is amazing here is that if the two leaders were not such implacable enemies they should know they are saying the same things in protecting each other’s interests. Rouhani said Iran will never make a bomb. This is expected to give his nation at least some breathing space in the face of overwhelming global doubt on the matter. But Netanyahu has not heard that. Instead Netanyahu said the sanctions are biting that is why Iran is softening with Rouhani . But then, does it matter why, once Iran has said it will not make a bomb? If Iran does indeed live up to its promise not to make a bomb, of what use is Israel’s threat that it will stop Iran from making a bomb it says it is not interested in? Which shows that while Israel is saber rattling on a quarrel that is expiring, Iran is trying to purge the image of its hitherto blood red color of a major sponsor of terrorism. Both sides need help very much from the international community in understanding each other and moving to a new level on engagement and understanding. They have good examples in contemporary history and politics to follow. One was Gobachev’s unexpected but historic role in bringing the downfall of communism with Glastnost and Prestroika in the former USSR. The second was the most unexpected cooperation between prisoner and gaoler that led to the release of Nelson Mandela by Apartheid S Africa’s President de Klerk and the end of apartheid in S Africa. The two leaders can be reminded that in International Relations there are no permanent enemies but permanent interests. So the ball is in their court in the eye of the storm they have found themselves.

    Let us now look at Kenya in the eye of another storm over its handling of intelligence and security on the Westgate Mall bombing. Investigations are on to confirm or refute intelligence lapses that included information that some security agencies had warned that Al Shabab was planning some thing for September to commemorate 9/11 and the revelation post – Westgate that the attackers hired a shop in the Mall in which they kept their ammunition for May Day undetected. Kenya obviously needs the international community’s cooperation and expertise in unraveling the sickening security lapses at least to avert a repetition. The Kenyan government especially needs the international community to get its head above water in terms of adequate security strategy to protect all Kenyans on its territory as is expected of any government worth its salt. But then there is or there was a little dilemma at least before the Al Shabab terrorists struck West gate. This was the fact that the Kenyan Parliament had passed a resolution asking Kenya to withdraw from the ICC because of its trial of Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta and Vice President William Ruto for post election violence over the 2007 presidential elections in Kenya before the duo were elected into their exalted offices this year. Indeed, presumably under Kenyan prodding the AU was to have a meeting recently to discuss withdrawing from the ICC on the charge that the ICC was discriminating against African nations in prosecuting the Kenyan leaders. Which to me is just a spurious charge to stop the ICC from fulfilling its responsibility of banishing impunity and lack of respect for the rule of law, transparency and accountability in global governance including Africa. Now, most unfortunately Westgate and Kenya’s security vulnerability, not to talk of negligence or incompetence, have shown that it does not exist in isolation. Surely Kenya needs international help in securing its borders just as its leaders must respect international norms on governance and be answerable if they are not. This is because the world has become a borderless one in terms respect for the rule of law and transparency including respect for the norms of campaigns and elections which were violently brushed aside in the 2007 post election violence in Kenya.

    Lastly Nigeria’s President Goodluck Jonathan must be the first to admit that he is really in the eye of a storm. Boko Haram aside, and really that alone is sufficient to ground any government, I think the president’s main problem is from his own party. Or at least a chunk of his party called the New PDP. This is because even though reports say a peace meeting was being brokered by elders of the party, the New PDP has challenged and wounded mortally, I think, the economic performance of the Jonathan Administration and two examples during and after this year’s Independence celebrations will suffice. In his Independence Message through the National Publicity Secretary of the New PDP faction, the Chairman Alhaji Kawu Baraje lamented that Nigeria has become ‘ a crumbling edifice as a result of corruption and bad leadership.’ He went further to say that – ‘53 years after independence Nigeria is still a crumbling edifice, wrecked to the seams by corruption, bad leadership, ethnicism, parochialism, sectarian intolerance, and childish political recrimination.”

    In another Reuter’s report the CBN Governor Lamido Sanusi blamed the political crisis in the ruling party for the huge purchase of dollars by buyers who were not involved in importation of goods and services but were politicians laundering money to be used to finance their 2015 election bids . He reportedly blamed ‘ the dollarization of the economy by political elites’ for the continued weakness of the naira, despite CBN ‘s moves to prop it up with dollar sales that had depleted the reserves to an eight – month low ‘. What more can one say except to sympathise with our president on the credentials of the party he leads and which controls government under his leadership. Surely the President’s speech on Independence Day was most patriotic but then it begs the question when squared up with political, economic, and security problems begging urgently for solutions. One prays that the President finds a solution that gives the governed succor , urgently if for no other reason than that it is not even safe for him, or any leader for that matter, to stay too long in the eye of a storm, indeed any storm again, for that matter.

  • New respect, fears  and terrorism

    US  President Barak Obama’s  speech at the UN General  Assembly  this week  was indeed an homily on  the need for global understanding of   his nation’s dilemma  on being ‘exceptional’. According to Obama  the world does   not expect    the US  to be its policeman especially in the Middle East  but  blames it all the same when  it decided  to keep off  as it did on Syria and the promised  US  limited  attack  on Syria’s use of   chemical weapons on its people. Obama’s   speech had the rapt attention of the audience of the UNGA and it had  a  word for every major part of the world   in crisis  and in search of peace. Yet, it was a most apologetic speech, a lesson in finding an excuse for not rocking the boat of world peace and security on his beat and watch,  with  his ‘great ‘ reason being that   his predecessor   started wars he condemned, and for which he was elected   and he   wants no excalation  of such or any  further  wars. Obama’s   two   terms then  seem unalterably   focused   on wrapping up the wars he inherited,   as he has no stomach for any new wars,  no matter the provocations or assault on his nations well known   values   on democracy and human rights.

    Really,   history  is the ultimate judge of global leaders and their actions  and I expect Obama’s speech at the UNGA to  get the usual treatment and leave the  rest to posterity. To  me  however the US President went to a great extent to rationalize why his nation cannot play the role that its policies and history have made the world to expect it to play,  especially in those parts of the world where despots  and governments tyrannise   people with impunity and have no respect for the rule of law. The US through its president last week was  asking such nations and people to paddle their canoes out of despotism because the US under him has closed shop on such expectations. Which  to me is a real pity, and a great global one too, and  a bad day for American image as a champion of democracy and human rights that some have come to believe it is – and that raises a host of questions, some of which we can discuss today.

    First, one could ask what Obama would have done if he had been in George Bush’s shoes in the first year of his presidency in 2001  when  Al Qada struck  on 9/11 . Perhaps another homily similar to the one this week   at  UNGA  would have wished the tragedy away, rather than launching the  war on Afghanistan   or the invasion of Iraq. It  is instructive that while Obama was rationalizing   American dithering and  inaction on Syria and  Egypt  and berating Egypt’s   President Morsi  ,Al  Shebab, an ally of Al Qada was  terrorizing Kenya with impunity and it was from Kenya that Obama’s father came to the US to father the 44th President of the United States. Really,  pleading   before the whole UN  for understanding   of US  foreign policy, mortgages the right of leadership of  the US  in the comity of nations and shows pitifully,  crass  inability to take difficult, personal  decisions on behalf of the US  and indeed humanity as demanded of that office.  Everyone except this US President  knows that the UNGA  is just a talk shop and that real power is in the UN Security Council where  there  are only a handful of powerful members taking action on behalf of the rest  of the UN. And even there,  China and Russia have effectively  shackled the US policy on Syria   for now at least to one of irrelevant indolence.  This may sound harsh but just as   a revolution is not a tea party,  as Morsi and the Egyptians have learnt at great costs, being president of the US is not a bed of roses and demands more than stale sermons that fail to impress in the face creepy and viral   global terrorism that is emboldened by the absence of leadership inertia and deterrence.

    It  is important to know that   this week the US President met his Nigerian counterpart  President Goodluck Jonathan  in New York  before his UNGA address  and there was mutual backslapping and congratulations on the approach they have   both adopted in fighting global terrorism   and a promise of further cooperation between both nations   on the matter. Which is to be expected, as they  are really birds of the same feather in the  way their two nations are fighting the so called global terrorism which is really Islamist militancy. Both leaders are fighting terrorism with kid gloves and in the process allowing terrorist organisations to gain the respect and recognition which they don’t deserve   and which they should be denied at all costs to ground their nefarious  activities and ambition. A sickening revelation on CNN on the Newgate Mall attack  in Kenya were the twin  disturbing  news according to those who survived the attacks, that the Al  Shabab  attackers at the Mall  asked if people were Muslims or not , and killed them if they were not,  and the terrorists did not come to take hostages but to kill as they did not react to any  offer of  hostage negotiations by the Kenyan authorities. Now  over 65 innocent lives have been lost in Kenya to  the emboldened Islamist Militants who say they are fighting Kenya because it has its troops in AU  contingent in Somalia but are really trying to bring the world to its feet with their warped way of life.

    In  Nigeria, the Boko Haram is getting more ferocious and murderous and it seems government policy is to wish it away while government business continues as usual. Even as the President was away in New York a video tape of the leader of Boko Haram, that the authorities claimed  had been killed showed him saying he was hale and hearty and had organized an attack  at Benisheik   in the North East  that killed many people when he was presumed dead. He threatened our President, the French president and the US president and said there will be no democracy in the world but a government of Allah  and for Allah. Such  videos create fears in people’s minds as well as a pervasive environment of insecurity  which  make people doubt if their governments really have their welfare and interests at heart and such doubt can threaten the political and socio economic stability of any society.

    It  would  appear that  the US  and Nigeria are fighting both local  and global  terrorism within the precints of international law  and the rule of law which is an approach that is leading to a dead end   and  growing  global fear  and insecurity. This is because terrorists do not respect the laws of military engagement subsumed in the rule of law or international law. Terrorists use civilian population as human shield and kill women and children to put across their message and should not be allowed to get away with it. A  case in point  is Syria  where the deed has been done and now there is negotiations going on,  on how to dispose of the chemical weapons of murder. It  is a unique case of getting wise after the event. Such  lackadaisical  policy and   diplomacy breed  fiercer breaches of international law as the  Kenyan Mall terror showed. According to a survivor,  one  of the attackers said  Somali women and children have been killed and threw a grenade into the midst of parents and children who were at a TV Show  at the Mall when the terrorists struck in Nairobi. Such  terrorism has no respect for the rules of engagement in international law  and should not be protected by it in any circumstances. Indeed it is arrogance   and the mistaken belief that the terrorist  can not go far   enough that encourages such careless policy that has made the world unsafe for the rest of humanity as we know it today.

    Since we are leaving leaders who unwittingly promote terrorism  and its   murderous appendages, by their action  or inaction, to history   and posterity to judge, it is to history that we turn  for an example that we hope can inspire the way forward  for a peaceful world. We  ask  the world to look at the monument to Horatio Nelson at Trafalgar Square in London and  the story of the War that begat   it. Nelson’s   high Column adorns Trafalgar Square in tribute to the feat of the British Admiral with one eye who routed the Spanish Armada that was threatening Britain at the time. When the smoke signal came that the British  fleet should  abandon the chase of the Spanish  Armada,  other British Admirals turned back their ships but Horatio Nelson persisted and secured a great victory for his nation over the Spanish fleet. When told by his lieutenants  that the smoke signal to go back was on,  Nelson famously retorted –  ‘I  have only one eye. I have a right to be blind some time. I really do not   see the signal’.

    That is the stuff of leadership  and defiance that the world needs  in confronting global terrorism today and running it aground, once and for all. Such leadership comes  from a hunch or action  or a sense of honor or responsibility  that gets it right in spite of the law or the odds  and in the nick of time.  It  is not to be found in any sermon or  speeches  at  the UNGA  as at this week nor in any post dated negotiations  at the UN Security Council. It  is to be found in the balls of leaders who take calculated risks to save lives and nations. Horatio Nelson had it   and used it and the world is still paying its homage to his  Column shooting   straight into the air at Trafalgar Square in the British capital. That really is the gratitude of history and posterity to really great leaders. We  wait with  apprehension,  baited breath and hope for such leaders to save us from the terror that has engulfed our  global  environment for now ever so murderously and pray  that they have the courage to emerge sooner than later and in God’s name we pray Amen.

  • Politics, impunity  and deterrence

    The  International  Criminal Court – ICC – trial  of  Kenya’s Vice President William Ruto   over  crime against human

    ity in the post election  violence that marked Kenya’s 2007  elections  began at the Hague  this  week.  Just  as the US  secretary  of State John Kerry  also  met   Russia’s Foreign Minster  Sergei  Lavrov  in Geneva to sort out  plans on  how Syria will submit its nuclear arsenal to an international custody to avert Barak Obama’ s  now   sterile  threat  of the  use of a limited attack to punish Syria over the use  of chemical weapons against its people. These  went on against a background  of violent protests in Chile over the 40th  anniversary of the coup that brought in former President  Augusto Pinochet into power  when he ousted President  Salvadore  Allende violently  in 1973  and held on to power brutally for 17 years during which thousands of people disappeared in unmarked graves;  and for which the Chilean Judiciary offered an unreserved apology to the Chilean people for its complicity in the Pinochet era,  just last week.

    If  you lace these  events with the home based political skirmishes between  New  PDP Secretary former Governor  Olagunsoye  Oyinlola  and   embattled PDP Chairman  Bamanga Tukur  and their  utterances  over the split in Nigeria’s ruling party; as well  as the verbal  gymnastics between former EFCC  boss   Farida  Waziri  and the charge  by  former  President  Olusegun  Obasanjo  that she was recommended to her   high profile  anti- corruption job by a former governor  of Delta  State  James  Ibori  now   jailed for corruption overseas, then you know that we have  very juicy cocktail for consumption and analysis   on global politics  and diplomacy today.

    First  let me caution that we have grave issues  to  discuss  today on which  l  have strong opinions which may  rankle  some bones but then that is the essence  of political  analysis  and public discourse. I  fire the first salvos by making some initial comments on the issues highlighted before going on to clarify extensively  on these issues . On  Kenya I  agree with former UN Secretary General  Kofi  Annan who said that the trials of the two Kenyan leaders must go on even  though some have charged the ICC  of prosecuting only Africans, a charge that does not jell at all with me.  On  the meeting between John  Kerry  and Russia’s Sergei Lavrov in Geneva, I think  it is a poor substitute   for the deterrence an attack would   have created  over Syria. This has  in turn  unwittingly and diplomatically   given great leverage to Russia in world affairs such that a dictator like Russia’s Vladmir Putin can,   in an   appeal to the American people  in article in New York Times    now write that the US  is  noted for  ‘brute force’  globally in interfering in other nations internal   affairs,  and  not democracy . Such  a statement coming from a man with  Putin’s  repressive leadership credentials is just  nauseating . But then that is the result of a drifting and rudderless US  policy on Syria for now.

    It  is with the likes of leaders like Vladmir  Putin in mind that I sympathise with  those who foment trouble in Chile when they  see the beneficiaries of Augusto   Pinochet’s  dictatorship taking to the streets  in Santiago  to celebrate his 17 years of dictatorship which started in 1973  and ended in1990. Relatively Chile had political stability but the  democratically elected Marxist leader that had mass appeal was slaughtered by Chile’s military to install their boss as president in that nation and the supporters  of Allende still have painful memories of their political loss  and the psychological trauma  of living in fear under military rule. It  was  an era  with arbitrary rules,  insecurity,  detention and torture aided  by a judiciary  that was too willing at the time to use the law to back and strengthen the   rotten government of the day

    In  Nigeria the mudslinging between the New  and Original PDP  and that  between Waziri  and a former Nigerian dictator threw up  some interesting vocabulary   like ‘senility‘, dictator’, ’exposure’  and ‘respect‘  which I  am  sure make very interesting reading. Especially  when  we analyse  their context, relevance and appropriateness  by  both the sender  as well as the receivers of the verbal exchanges.

    Let  us now go back to the trial  of William Ruto Vice President of Kenya which has begun although the Kenyan Parliament has voted that Kenya should pull out of the ICC  which has said the trial will continue any way. That  the Kenyan VP is attending shows that in spite of Kenya’s pull out of the ICC that nation has respect for the rule of law  and the international community. Again  Kofi  Annan who played a part in the investigations has affirmed that such trials are necessary  to affirm the rule of law and show that no one is above the law any where in the modern world .President Uhuru Kenyatta’s trial is to start in November and he has said he would attend as long as both himself and his VP  are not  away on trial at  the same time, a fact that the ICC has promised to respect. So  impunity is on trial at the Hague in Kenya while politics  and the threat of deterrence  take a back seat and that is good for global democracy in my book.

    Again let us  talk about the floundering  US  foreign   policy  on Syria which has subsituted   deterrence with diplomacy  . This   was  in the hope that threat of force will  galvanise the use  of diplomacy  to achieve   the objective  of making the Assad regime pay for  its use of chemical weapons , of which the US president said he had proof  and  with which the  Russians said they  disagreed. Now, speaking at home,  the US president pleaded  with Americans to give him permission to strike and he alerted his armed forces to prepare to strike any time and the law makers  to give him a vote to strike. At the end these   muscle  flexing and diversionary  press  ups  however,  the US president did nothing because right from the outset he had no stomach for this or any fight   whatsoever;  and that is the grim truth that the international community must face during the remaining part of the presidency of Barak Obama. When even the UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon could exclaim and denounce what he called the ‘paralysing inaction‘  over the    Syrian  matter, then  one can see how far the US president has led both admirers  and critics down a blind alley over the deterrence  option in calling the blood thirsty regime in Damascus to order, over the use of   chemical weapons against children  and innocent victims in Syria.

    Undoubtedly,  the US president has been boxed into a corner by the strong  anti war lobby in Europe  and the US that heralded  his assumption of office. They even gave him a Nobel  Prize  just  because they hated those who carried out the invasion of Iraq on a false premise of availability of weapons of mass  destruction. Now Obama’s albatross is in living up to his electoral promises  as well as pleasing his admirers  while forgetting those whose hope for freedom he ignited in the Arab world with his Cairo Speech and the support he gave to the Arab Spring   street  revolution together with  France  and Britain leading to the overthrow  of dictators in Tunisia, Yemen, Egypt and Libya.  In  those heady days, David Cameron and France’s former President Nikola Sarkozy even visited the demonstrators in Cairo to offer support before using the No Fly Zone to scuttle the  Muammar Gaddafi regime.

    Now,   Britain  has jumped ship in liberating the Arabs as Parliament has handcuffed David Cameron on the matter and he can only bark and not bite but could  shout   only on humanitarian aid on Syria’s use of chemical weapons. I  am sure Winston Churchill is turning in his grave  at the impotence of his present  replacement  and his beloved Britain  over  the use of chemical weapons on thousands of innocent Syrians by their government.  Only  France’s  new president is trying to do what he can to get the Americans who have developed political incontinence over Syria to do something at least similar to that which France did so well in driving the Tuaregs away from Mali so recently.

    One  thing is clear. The American leader has allowed domestic politics to befuddle international diplomacy and he will pay a steep price for that eventually before the end of his presidency as history will attest. This  was  what Richard Nixon noted in his memoirs  and he in spite of Watergate opened up US relations with China. Now the Americans have a man in charge who revels in gay rights and same sex marriages  at  home, and sells  human freedom  and liberty  abroad.  Yet,  when it comes to the crunch when he should  show a red card to  a blood thirsty  tyrant in Damascus,  he chose  to hobnob  with the residue of the Red Army in the Kremlin and to sermonize his armed forces and legislators to a miserable state of inertia  and   hand wringing over the  violation of their  core ethical  and cultural values,  right before their eyes  and  with them in full control of their senses. Really ,   I do not know whether to cry or laugh at the impotence of US foreign policy over Syria  and  its    consequences  for global democracy, freedom  and liberty in all ramifications.

    On  the PDP  spat  and Farida’s tussle with Obasanjo,  some things are clear. First it was wrong for Tukur and Oyinlola to be trading tackles while the elders have been called in  to mediate  in the crisis rocking the party. Secondly  it was right of Tukur to see dictatorial  tendencies in Oyinlola who  served as a military governor of Lagos state before. But  Oyinlola is now a lawyer and Tukur should beware. Just as it was  in order    for  Oyinlola to use the word ‘senile’  on Tukur who has been  in the public gaze  for so long since his days   as boss of the NPA that one was wondering if Oyinlola was not talking of another Tukur. Tenacity or longevity of office can more often than not induce unexpected senility  sooner than later. That  too can be a great  political risk or hurdle for anybody or any political party.

    Similarly  it was  highly uncalled for for Obasanjo  to mention the Ibori connection with Farida  and to question Farida’s credentials the way Obasanjo  has done in EFCC house magazine interview. Undoubtedly  Farida  has impeccable credentials  for her job in spite of Obasanjo’s unexpected spite and hatred. In  addition she operated under very difficult conditions and she could not have moved mountains alone in her anti corruption crusade. It  was nice to hear that her successor Lamorde at a function asked the media  to exercise restraint in reporting cases involving the EFCC  to avoid media trial of suspects. That was rampant during Farida’s  time and that could not have  been her fault alone especially in a high tension democracy like Nigeria.

  • Political hangovers, costly  jokes and  diplomacy

    UN  chemical  weapons inspectors are due to leave  Syria today,  that is if the US  and some of its allies have not attacked Syria   by now, albeit on a limited scale  , as was  being drummed up   with frenzy on the world media by Thursday this week.  Ed  Milliband,  UK   Labor Party Opposition leader put spanner in the works on attacking Syria  for  a war mongering PM David  Cameron by insisting that he would wait for the report of the chemical weapons inspectors,  as he is learning  the lessons of the Iraqi  invasion by Tony Blair , then British PM  and former US President   George Bush in 2003. That  is the first  political   hangover  we identify today and that   has  caused  British diplomacy to halt in its stride as it prepares for  an attack on Syria  with the hangover of the 2003  Iraqi  invasion premised on false information on the availability of weapons of mass  destruction, dogging its tail.

    Hangovers of the type we take on today in global diplomacy and politics are very much like the alcoholic type that prevents the victim from thinking straight the following morning or taking most of the morning to get his acts   right. That really was what   happened  on  Syria  to the US  and its allies this   week and which provoked a most undiplomatic joke from the Russians whose Deputy Foreign Secretary brought the house down with the cruel though hilarious joke that the US in the Middle East and on Syria was behaving like a monkey  with a grenade. That  joke too was vintage  hangover that left the US  and its president not knowing whether to cry or laugh at least judging from the sober mood of the US  president in the CNN interview in  which he sounded so solemn but still ended up saying nothing, except that he had not made a decision to attack even he  though  he  insisted that  no  one denies that chemical weapons had been used in Syria. Before we examine the prevarication and dithering of the US president on a decision that he could not take even though he had admitted that a war crime has been committed,  let us digress a bit, to look  at  situations  rather   similar    in anxiety   and humor in Ghana and Nigeria, over two very important issues, namely  post election litigation in the   presidential elections in Ghana and the conduct of census in Nigeria.

    According to reports, Ghana   in the last  few months  became  literally a huge court room because of the televised  hearing of the petition against the election of incumbent President John Mamah  by the man he defeated  Nana Akuffo Ado. Mamah got 50.7 %  of the votes cast four months ago and has been  in office for five months and Ghanaians find it difficult to believe that he could lose office if the Supreme Court in Ghana,  which is hearing the case,  rules that his election is illegal . Poor Ghanaians, they  should take tutorials in Nigeria where it is the norm rather than the exception for any election to  be visited with post election litigation .Indeed some state governors have almost completed their terms before post election tribunals ruled they were elected illegally and truncated their tenure . So  Ghanaians  should brace themselves for any eventuality from their  Supreme   Court as the heavens will not fall, in spite of the huge deployment of Police men all over Ghana in anticipation of the decision of that court. Such anxiety is a way of life in Nigeria and the joke is usually  on the loser which is what democracy and elections are all about – no cheating.

    Another joke on a very expensive side but on   census  – an  issue that Nigeria’s democracy  heavily depends,  was that by the Kano State Governor  Rabiu  Kwankanso  on the utterances of the newly appointed Chairman of the National Population Commission –NPC Chief Felix Odimegwu, former MD  of the Nigerian Breweries Ltd. The Census boss was reported to have told the press that Nigeria has not had any credible census since 1816 and blamed the  situation  on the distortion ,and falsification of figures for selfish reasons. According to the report,  Odimegwu said  ‘even the census conducted in 2006  is not credible. I have the records and evidence produced by scholars  and  professors of repute. This is not my report. If the current laws are not amended, the planned 2016 census will not succeed.’  The Kano State Governor not only faulted Odimegwu utterances in criticizing past censuses  and his predecessors in office, he asked the president to revoke Odimegwu’s appointment on the grounds that he had worked only in the brewery all his life. According to the Governor, ‘my guess is that he is taking a lot of   his products and that is why we feel that his appointment is a mistake because he cannot be the Chairman of NPC and at the same time attacking what his predecessors  have done‘

      Jokes  apart,  however,  both the governor and the NPC  boss  are both right in their observations on the census.  So the issue of the former brewery boss’ ‘hangover’ on census matter and history in Nigeria, is a trite issue and is indeed diversionary, as the NPC  boss of Public Affairs  Committee has been quick to point out on the matter. Census  in Nigeria  has been tainted with fraud  and irregularity   from time immemorial. What Odimegwu said was very correct. However it is not his duty as the new census boss to say that publicly. Indeed  I have confidence that the new census boss will conduct a credible census both if he is allowed and not sacked before the 2016 census and if he himself does not shoot himself in the leg with his utterances. As  for the governor he is using the brewery connection to give a dog a bad name in order to hang it. I don’t think he will succeed but I know the race is on to get rid of the new census boss  and the reason is simple.

    The north has been the main beneficiary  of skewed census figures inspite of its  physical terrain which cannot support the figures that have always been ascribed to it from previous censuses. It  is only in Nigeria that the population  of  destinations  of migrations have lesser population than the source of the migration. This is the Achilles heel  of the censuses conducted in Nigeria so far and the bane of their credibility and integrity.This  is where the joke really is on the Kano State governor in his anxiety to defend the present   census status quo and get rid of Odimegwu. Again, jokes and hangovers aside,  I am sure the NBL,  over which the new census boss presided  so successfully, has very illuminating  figures on consumption patterns of   all its   products, and not only the alcoholic ones,  all over Nigeria,  especially the north and that knowledge will  certainly  assist Nigeria to  conduct a proper census in 2016,  if the new census boss gets that far,  on his new seat.

    Let  us now go back to the diplomatic hangover of the Iraqi  invasion on British  diplomacy   as well as the Russian monkey and grenade joke on the US over the Syrian crisis. Again nothing illustrates the hang over     with  Britain more than the debate in the British  Parliament  this last  Wednesday and its comparison with a similar debate when the Parliament gave Tony Blair the authority to invade Iraq. Last Thursday the leader of Tony Blair’s party   Ed  Milliband was   indecisive and did not want to make the mistake that Blair made then . But then Blair spoke so eloquently  then that the Leader of Opposition then  now Foreign  Minister    Alex Hague gave his support by saying that this Opposition as it was then, ‘stood shoulder to shoulder with the PM‘  then, as Tony Blair was,  and it was a fine time for British diplomacy and collective responsibility, in a time of crisis. Of  course the moment lost its allure  and glory  when it was later discovered that the intelligence on availability of weapons of mass destruction was lacking . That  discovery poisoned the political career of Tony Blair leading to his removal  from office and has haunted his political and diplomatic fortunes since. But then, what have his opponents and so called friends made of it?  Nothing  as the debate in Parliament last week showed. Instead,  Blair’s error and an urgent need not to repeat it, pervaded the Parliamentary debate like a bad odor leaving a paralytic smell of inaction  and indecision to act on a clear violation of international law. Evidently Blair’s enemies are having a dose of their own medicine but this time the joke is on them as they now appreciate the anguish of those who took action in 2003  only to find  out   later that intelligence was incorrect   and  those waiting for intelligence   now, while infants and women are being killed with chemical weapons under their nose and they cannot be men   enough to act in the name of  humanity to effect a mere deterrence. Instead they jaw , jaw as if in a secondary school debating  society. Really  I  think Tony Blair  is having the last laugh that he at least was decisive when it mattered. Which really is the difference between real men and boy scouts in the British Parliament last Thursday   over Syria  and the use of chemical weapons.

    On  the Russian monkey grenade joke I think the Russians may soon discover that that may be one joke too many. Following  the giving of asylum   by Russia to the US security contractor who leaked US official secrets to the internet, the joke may be costly in terms of US reaction in Syria . At least to make the Russians laugh with the other side of their mouth the Americans may hit some   military   sites  in Syria this week . Barak Obama’s body language  on CNN  on Syria this week  was guarded , but his posture was that of someone trying to manage a bad joke or live through a nightmare. Especially during a week   in the US commemorating the scion of Non – Violence, late civil rights leader, Martin Luther King. But  again, the hangover of the   2003 Iraqi invasion which Obama condemned to get elected, is playing a bad joke on the same Obama going to action without the evidence of weapons inspectors like his predecessor and Tony Blair   did  in the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Really  in diplomacy as  in  politics, one  man’s meat can also be another man’s poison and   vice versa.

  • Reforms, Corruption  and Justice

    When  a former  Minister of Nigeria challenges Nigerian legislators  to a public debate over their salaries  and fringe benefits she is saying boldly  and clearly that it cannot  be business as usual on the cost  of governance in  Nigeria. In  Brazil  the President of the nation accepted the challenge of the demonstrators in Brazilian cities who disturbed the matches at the last FIFA Confederation Cup in June   and made proposals to Parliament that certain percentage of Brazilian oil royalties shall be devoted to education and   health. Yet  in Nigeria strikes by Nigerian lecturers  have become a way of life rather than lecturing in the universities because the lecturers claim they must strike to resurrect  the  comatose university system while their students   become victims of the idle mind and hands  with the attendant  socio  economic  consequences. In  Egypt, believe it or not former despot Hosni Mubarak  has been freed by an Egyptian court  and the judge said the judgement is final while the man who succeeded him as the elected  President of Egypt Mohammed Morsi is in detention in  a  place that nobody knows  in the land of the Pharaohs;   and in Zimbabwe  89  years  old President Robert Mugabe has been sworn in to  seventh  presidential term in a ceremony  in Harare  boycotted by the man he defeated Mr Tsivirangai.  Surely, one can say c’est la  vie  or such  is life as the French are wont to say.

    But  then in  all these issues  there  is  struggle  going on and a titanic one at that,  between those  defending the status quo obviously because it  pays them to do so at the expense of the rest of society. Just  as in some cases those fighting for their perceived rights don’t bother if the baby is thrown away with  the bath tub as long as they get what they want or what they think is their right. All  these struggles however take place in an atmosphere that calls for justice and order  as expected in a democracy powered by a rule of law which seem to have gone to sleep  while on duty on its watch. Or  why should Nigerian legislators abuse  Oby Ezekwesili  because she quoted authentic figures from the Federal Ministry of Finance on the salaries  of the legislators?  Why  should Brazilian legislators  now refuse to pass  the reforms proposed by President Dilma Rousseff  into law a month after the riots in Brazilian cities that saw these same legislators diving for cover for dear life at the time of the Confederation Cup? Why  should Mugabe still be grinning like a school boy winning his first prize at his seventh coronation as it were,  as the president of Zimbabwe after a rigged election like the opposition has  done a lot to substantiate?   And  pray, why should   Mohammed Morsi be in detention  in Egypt while Mubarak who was carried to court on a sick bed, in a cage  to face corruption charges , is now  a free  man – while the victor of the elections that strangled  and confiscated  the Mubarak regime to the dustbin of history  is  nowhere to be found in public? Obviously  there is something rotten in all these events that leaves   a sour taste in the mouth  but then we have to face the facts that unpleasant as they may  seem to observers, they are issues that will not go away just by wishing them so, and that is why we have to dissect them here and now today.  At  least to show that we are not totally befuddled by them and can at least  occasionally read between the lines.

    Taking them serially we start with the Ezekwesili revelations  which are not  original because she was quoting  statistics from the Ministry of Finance. What is unique is that she  has the guts to say that these salaries are not fair in a nation bedeviled with the poor welfare conditions of our citizenry and she  should know,  having been at the Mount Olympus of exploitation of the Nigerian masses as a Czarina of the sale of our public enterprises and  as a  Minister of Education. However,  her records while in office are immaterial  here, and should not disqualify her from the salutary task she has set herself in telling our legislators that their salaries are out of this world and make the cost of governance prohibitive. For her   guts and diligence in sourcing for vital statistics on the matter she has my unfettered admiration and l  enjoin our legislators to listen to her soft voice now or find out what happened to the rich and mighty in France  with the storming of the  Bastille during the French Revolution against  the ruling class in  France.

    In  Brazil  the President a lady like our  Oby Ezekwesili, Dilmar Roussef responded positively to the demands of the rioters that disrupted the staging of the Confederation Cup by FIFA in Brazil. One could say she did this to forestall a bigger disruption in the 2014  FIFA world Cup to be hosted by Brazil as well as the 2016  Olympics also slated by Brazil and one could be right. No  president will want his or her nation to be disgraced after going to great and very expensive lengths to win such glamorous and prestigious hosting rights. But it is in the nature of the reforms to placate the demonstrators that the Brazilian president has won my heart while I have scant respect for the Brazilian legislators trying to stall her proposals in Parliament. This  is because the demonstrators had complained about  increased transport costs and long hours spent in traffic  in commuting to and from work and the fact that   Brazil’s  riches in sports are not trickling down to the masses. So a responsive president  proposed to Parliament a huge $14bn bill for transportation and another bill that gives a huge percentage of new oil royalties to education and health  so that the masses can benefit from the riches of Brazil before next year’s World Cup and the 2016  Olympics  and the legislators in Brazil are trying to stall on the passage of these public spirited and pragmatic socio economic palliatives. Really l  feel sorry for these legislators as the Brazilian public knows the zeal and sincerity with which their president has pursued their welfare  and should know at the appropriate time what to make of their elected representatives in Parliament.

    In  Nigeria   however the issue of education especially in  the ivory tower is being handled with levity and a rather cruel one at that. Now  our youths spend eight years for a 4- year course and in most cases are not sure of when they are to graduate. Really I am fed up with the strikes and the lecturers as well as the government who is their employer as both have made a mockery of the tenet and objective  of industrial relations which is industrial harmony. For now  the Nigerian university  system is in disequilibrium and shambles  and the ultimate scapegoats  are our Nigerian students who are the   undoubtedly  the future of this nation. However,  the Minister of Finance complicated issues  further  and said the Federal   government could not afford   what  the striking   dons were asking for. She  quoted a figure which the striking dons denied  although they gave a lesser figure all the same . The Minister  obviously missed the fact that the matter  was beyond a budget issue and she should not have used the affordability concept in that context. Obviously people have asked if her children are schooling in any Nigerian university and she deserves the question and should  answer or resign. All  Ministers or legislators should also be asked that question and if   their wards or children are schooling overseas  they should just leave office. This  may sound stern now, but a time will come when it will be a litmus test to know those who have a stake in leading Nigeria now and in the future and especially  out of the present paralyzing strike syndrome. For now, I grieve with the Nigerian undergraduate in Nigerian universities who should be telling both the unyielding government and the strike loving lecturers what Shakespeare put in the mouth of the dying fighter in Romeo  and Juliet – a plague on both your houses, for you have made worms meat of me‘.

    I  take  Egypt and Zimbabwe  together in that in  terms of despotism and tyranny they are birds of the same feather. Indeed  in both nations this week you may say  of the two despots – Mubarak and Mugabe –  as it is usually said of successful  businessmen,  that they were smiling all the way to the bank! Mubarak was flown by helicopter out of prison to a military hospital for house arrest, what ever that means as his generals have Egypt’s democracy very well under their boots and have used even the courts to free their master and leader in the best spirit of spirit de corps you can find any where in the world today . So where is justice in all that?. Yes, the  army in Egypt has  made a bloody ass of the law  and made a mockery of the rule of law in that ancient land. But   then,  I  blame the Muslim Brotherhood which was patient for decades till Providence gave it power to tame  the army,  its ancient enemy in Egypt. But the MU   with  Morsi, frittered its  unique opportunity away in less than two years,  because it forgot an ancient dictum of the law that he who comes to equity must come with clean hands,  especially  in a democracy. So  the Brotherhood’s  high handedness and undue haste in establishing its values estranged it to those with whom it upstaged Mubarak in the first  street  revolution of 2011,  only for  it and Morsi to be consumed by a fiercer   democratic tsunami two years later,  with its elected president nowhere to be found and its spiritual leaders back in the custody  of Egypt’s  power loving and blood thirsty army. As  for Mugabe he has had his swearing in this week and must have sent a message to Mubarak  on his new status of house arrest. Mugabe obviously must have blamed Mubarak for trusting the Americans   in 2011  and  must have assured  him that what happened to Mubarak   in Cairo could never have happened to him in Harare. And he could be right,  as at 89,  there is not much time to spare to enjoy his  seventh coronation or  swearing in  after the ritual of a stage  managed election, as expected of a democracy which he has hijacked again and again  in Zimbabwe.

  • Government, democracy and anarchy

    A  basic definition of government in Political Science is that a government is any government that can   legitimately and  consistently   maintain law  and order,  and  control the use of physical force within its given territorial area  It  follows therefore  that this  week’s   carnage in  Egypt, ancient    land of the Pharaohs  and  the  slaughter  of demonstrators  and supporters  of deposed President  Mohammed  Morsi  of the Muslim Brotherhood , a bloody spectacle brought to the rooms  and privacy of a global internet and TV audience,  should  provide food for thought today. This is because in just  one day   which  was Wednesday, the Health Ministry in Egypt announced that over 500 Egyptians    had been killed with over 40  Police officers included. The frighteningly bloody scenario  vividly showed a live tragedy  of  the use of violence  and force to establish law and order by a diarchy  of an Interim Egyptian  government  that claimed to have legitimacy  and authority which those it had to disperse, members of  the Muslim Brotherhood equally claimed it did not have.  In  effect then,  in Egypt this week,   a  violent contest ensued for the soul and possession  of  the powers  and might of the Pharaohs who  once ruled Egypt with a mighty hand, and it was a spectacle  that would  have made the  ancient rulers tremble in their graves, given  the way and manner Egyptians were  mowed down with  tanks, guns  and ammunitions   by   the government of   the day   in its resolve to assert  its authority, and prevent  a descent to anarchy in Egypt. But  then,  was Egypt  on the way to anarchy with the way the Morsi supporters were behaving or did the government  overreach itself in the way it ordered the clamp down and  the bloody removal of Morsi supporters? These are  the  questions begging for answers now  and in the immediate  future or perhaps eternity. Who  knows?

    Such  answers must   anyway  include speculations on Egypt’s immediate past especially the Housni  Mubarak era  and its closure by the Cairo Street demonstrations  two  years ago. We  ask   loudly,  would  Mubarak have ordered the sort of clamp down we saw last Wednesday? With the benefit of hindsight it is now clear that the US must have shown a red card to Mubarak that made him go peacefully by resigning and suffering the humiliation of being brought to trial in a cage and on his sick bed . But where was the US last week? Of  course  US  President Barak  Obama was on vacation  and he issued a statement from there. Yet,  the  angry  mobs of the Morsi supporters were still busy setting fire to government buildings in Egypt and the toll of the dead Egyptians was rising. In  his speech the US President said America cannot decide  the future of Egypt  as that is for the Egyptian people to decide. Which sums up the kernel of US policy on the Middle East and Egypt and  that    is to promote democracy and step aside once the situation gets murky and bloody, especially with the death of the US ambassador   in Benghazi still very much in mind. Which  also  inadvertently  but  inevitably opens the way for Islamic parties to fill the vacuum created by US dithering, volte face and lack  of commitment to its allies in the Middle East.

    The truth the Americans must face is that anywhere they support democracy in the Middle East, anti American sentiments centered around US  support for Israel   against  the Palestinians  and the building on the occupied territories,  will make the Islamist parties  to win  democratic elections  in such places.  It  is apparent that the US  is feeling the heat in this regard and that explains why it closed so many embassies all over the Middle East on security grounds last week towards the end of Ramadan based on information it intercepted on the plans of the leaders of Al Qada to cause mass terror   in the region at the end of Ramadan.

    One  cannot but recall US  relations with the Shah  of Iran  and how similar it was  to the fate that befell Housni Mubarak   of Egypt and US  withdrawal  of support at the last minute   in 2011. In the Shah’s case he was lucky to flee  and go into exile. But  at  an interview later,  he said  he could have stayed  if he wanted but he did not want any more bloodshed   and that paved the way for the return of Ayatollan Ruhollah Khomeini who  was in exile in Paris, France. Given what happened to Egyptians supporting Morsi this week, one must commend the Shah’s humanity and respect for human lives. Yet,  the Shah’s  departure ended any hope of democracy in Iran and brought in a theocracy that called the US ‘the Great Satan’ and waged war globally against the interests of the US and its allies. Similarly the US through the war on terror eliminated Sadam Hussein in Iraq, planted democracy and got Shiite Muslims who are in majority in terms of population  into power  and Iraq’s government became ipso facto a stooge of Teheran, while the Sunnis who  were in power under Saddam but are a minority  in Iraq, have been  blowing up   anyone and everything   in Iraq  ever since. Apparently and  on the surface,   the Americans hardly do any   diligent cost benefit analysis of their foreign forays to plant democracy,  but just jump  in when there are demonstrations and jump ship when demonstrators face the  fire power of the sit tight tyrants they want out of power, as  the Egyptians are learning at   very high   human  and mortal costs.

    Nigeria should learn  a lot from the Egyptian debacle which has led to the Interim government in Egypt  declaring   a one  month curfew and  a state of emergency. The  problem with Egypt is that the army is the political organ  giving the orders  while the Police is the organ pulling the trigger. It is a fascinating situation really. The army cannot come in because of US funding for Egypt’s huge military apparatus. But according to Obama the US has canceled a scheduled military exercise   for next month with the Egyptian army. This is meant to deter the army from joining the police in killing Morsi supporters but it may backfire if the army decides to really bare its fangs   and join the foray, once it knows that the US funds  are not coming anyway , and that will make Egypt’s  volatile politics  even  more costly and bloody in terms of human lives.

    The  lesson for Nigeria   ironically   is with regard to Boko Haram, the state of emergency in some North Eastern states  and the situation in Rivers State. This  week Boko Haram killed over 40 people worshipping in a mosque  and on Thursday the CNN showed the Head of Boko Haram mocking Nigeria and its army whose spokesman reportedly said  the Boko Haram leader had been killed together with his father who provided spiritual leadership to the terrorist group. What  is clear is that the Boko Haram leader’s video and the killing of innocent Nigerians in mosques and churches portray Nigeria as  a nation in  a state  of anarchy that Egypt was going before the clamp down or even after . In Nigeria election is not due till 2015 yet the political system is overheated with an arrogant and impudent Boko Haram challenge that mocks the nation and   the strength  of  its army   on global TV while claiming that it has subdued Nigeria and is now after the US. Nigeria should not be allowed to go the way of Egypt before the 2015 elections. Yet if you look again at the Rivers’ state political and security dispute between the Commissioner  of Police and the Governor of the State, it is a lesson in a descent    to anarchy. This  is  because the Police have withdrawn police protection for the Governor who does not trust the Police Commissioner and thinks he should be redeployed. But   the PC’s boss,  the Inspector General of Police has said that the PC is a professional doing his job and that speaks volumes on the security situation of the state and the safety of the governor himself .With what legitimate force can the Governor assert his authority and legitimacy in ruling the state outside the police?  None to me and that is really dangerous in a state that abounds  with  deadly  militant groups and well armed youths. There  may not be anarchy yet in Rivers state,  but it is already  getting to that,  and that,  compounded with the video of a taunting Boko Haram leader,  make us   look  as  a nation  like a rudderless ship lost  on the high seas   certainly around Port Harcourt, and that   too, really,  is a huge pity.

  • Global security, diplomacy and politics

    The  news   this week   of the  bomb   killing of 11  Pakistani youths  while  playing football as   their parents

    were shopping for the end of Ramadan  in the city of Karachi,  Pakistan,  was as gruesome as that of the bombing of the Sabon Gari area  of Kano  in Nigeria in which Boko Haram  killed  even more people. This  obviously  prompted Nigeria’s  Inspector General  of Police   Mohammed Abubakar to issue  a statement this week assuring Nigerians as they celebrated   the end of Ramadan,  that the Police was up to the task of performing its constitutional duty of protecting them  at  places of worship.But    the pragmatic IG warned  grimly that  Nigerians too should be security conscious and report strange happenings and people to the authorities   immediately. Vigilance therefore  is a key and foremost prerequisite to guarantee security any where especially on the streets of the world’s  sprawling cities like  Karachi, Kano, Lagos, New  York  or indeed any part of the world.

    In  addition however those who manage security at national and international levels need information to  prevent the sort of mayhem that happened in Karachi  and Kano; or the bombings   by Boko Haram  at  Christmas,  of churches  in the North, and during October 1 Independence anniversaries  in Nigeria,   at  least in the last two years in Nigeria. It  is such  information, often called intelligence that form  the basis of security strategies to  confront, prevent or kill plans by terrorists  and anarchists to foment trouble and kill and maim innocent people just  to show society that they have a cause, or  are important and are to be taken seriously. But  then, those who detonate bombs and those who voluntarily become human bombs in the name of suicide bombing are foot soldiers for those who formulate the ideas and belief  that   make human beings turn to monsters when they kill  innocent  people  at recreation spots, places  of worship and at street corners for,  no just cause whatever.

    The  recent decision  of US  President Barak Obama to cancel a meeting in Russia  after the G20  meeting scheduled for that nation  in September this  year is a good example of information and intelligence   management  leading to complications in global diplomacy  and security subsequently. The  immediate cause was the granting of asylum to  Edward Snowden,  the American security worker who leaked intelligence about  the US,  its  foreign  and diplomatic workings, policies and relations on the internet and bolted to Russia via Hong Kong and has been holed up at a Russian Airport  for some time   now  till the Russians   finally   granted him  asylum  very  recently.  Similar  intelligence  and information   use  or abuse have complicated the Syrian Crisis  which has opened old Cold War squabbles between the US and Russia similar to the one between Nikita   Khruschev, leader of the former Soviet Union and late US President John Kennedy during the Russia Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.

    Also  in North Africa where the Arab Spring   and its  street   demonstrations  in Tunis, Cairo, and  Benghazi  unseated despots in 2011  and brought in elected  democratic governments, the current of public opinion and information is against those elected into office,  at least in Tunisia and Egypt, if not in Libya where secular leadership has prevailed against all odds in the elections and management of the high risk security situation in that nation.

    In  all  the examples I have highlighted above information and intelligence management skills have been at play and it is their quality or lack of it that have created  the  attendant security and diplomatic spats we are analyzing today. In Karachi, Pakistan, the bombers were waiting for a local Minister or politician expected to give prizes  at  a nearby football competition . Instead of the Minister they killed innocent teenagers playing a game of soccer. In the Russo- American Snowden saga  a tit–for-tat,   eye-for-an-eye diplomacy  was put  in place   by Russia, to cover a very serious intelligence breach by an American this time around. This  is because under normal circumstances,   Russians  are   the ones well known to be ruthless over such intelligence breaches  as they showed when some Russian spies were poisoned in London hotels some years back. Anyway, Russia’s President Vladmir Putin has enough  malice against the Obama  Administration, like someone  once  said famously,  to make himself and Russia    merry with the US embarrassment   over the Snowden Affair. Indeed, Putin is settling scores with the US  for the demonstrations that trailed his election in 2012 as  Russia’s new president elected that year. Of  course the US was miffed that Putin got elected as president of Russia after having been president of Russia from 2001 to 2008, the same two terms that Obama’s predecessor   George Bush,  the 43rd US  president  spent in office. Putin of course snuffed out the  American orchestrated  Street  demonstrations   in Russia and went on to become   in 2012, Russia’s new president. This  feat meant that Putin has taken  on  or consumed  for dinner or lunch as it were, two,   two-  term US presidents, to the indignation, and befuddlement of Obama  and his inexperienced team, who have now behaved like a baby whose toy has been taken away,  in cancelling a scheduled meeting over the Snowden affair.

    Aside  from the Snowden Affair, and other disputes over defence missiles and nuclear arsenal reduction, I think the disputes between  the two nations and their leaders  is boiling down to one of personality clash   boiling   down  to mutual contempt for each other. On  the cancellation of the September meeting,  the Russians had a cheeky but fast retort. Which was that the invitation is still there awaiting a change of American mind as the meeting will be in Russia anyway. On  Russia’s new law on gay rights which bans even speaking of it in public not to talk of recognizing it, the US  President Barak Obama  told  a TV audience in the US  that he has no patience with nations that do not recognize gay rights. And  he was saying this on the eve of the World Athletics Competition which started  in   Moscow, Russia this week end and in which gay US athletes have expressed  concern about their safety. Obviously as on Syria both leaders are moving in opposite direction on cultural  and religious matters. The  anti gay rights law in Russia is popular in that nation just as the ban on homosexuality in Nigeria. Of recent President Putin was shown on Russian TV giving a high profile audience to the Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church.  Which means that under Putin, former KGB  agent in Communist and atheist Soviet Union, the Russian Orthodox Church  has come in from the cold and is happy with Putin on the handling of the gay rights issue in Russia. Whereas in Obama’s US the Catholic Church is suing the Obama Administration for interfering in education management while it is the opposition Republican Party which is mounting a campaign to reverse the passing of the gay rights law under the Obama Administration. Really, if a poll is taken  today  on the popularity of Obama and Putin over the gay issue in the Middle East  in Pakistan or Afghanistan where the US is funding democracy,  Obama  will be a distant second. Even in Saudi Arabia where the US is most welcome,  the gay rights issue will see Putin beating Obama flat out in a popularity contest. Of  course I need not mention the entire ECOWAS states or even the entire African continent with the exception of S  Africa  which recognizes gay rights like Obama’s US.

    What  I  am saying in effect is that when world leaders and diplomats glare down at each other at negotiations and meetings on thorny issues  such as the Snowden Affair,  other perceptions and conceptions are at work in easing or complicating   present issues and discussions. This  again explains why the Interim government put in place  by the army in Egypt announced that discussions have  broken down between it and the Muslim Brotherhood whose members have refused to leave the  streets in some Egyptian cities till deposed President Muhammed Morsi is reinstated as the elected president of Egypt after   the tyrant Housni Mubarak . It  also explains why in Tunis  the capital of Tunisia,  the mood is in opposite direction to that of Egypt even though the momentum that galvanized the street revolution in Tahrir Square  in Cairo    which  got Morsi elected as president of Egypt, started in Tunis. In Tunis this week thousands marched calling for the removal of the equivalent of the Muslim Brotherhood in Tunisia, the  Ennahda,   the ruling Islamist  party they elected after driving away their despotic President Ben Ali in 2011. In  effect then,  Tunisians are trying to do to their elected government what the army has already done to Morsi in Egypt. It looks like an impossible task but then in the stormy politics of the Arab world in recent times, anything is possible for those who know how and when to fight for their rights. I  wish them the best of luck with all my heart and wish them God speed as I  fervently    also,  for their security and safety in achieving their legitimate and democratic objectives.

  • Siege economies and political  control

    Generally   and  historically,  it is during war that combatant nations lay siege on each  other’s territory  and borders. The  Trojan War in which the Greeks laid siege on   the ancient   city of Troy and  gained access eventually with the subterfuge  and    lure   of  a  wooden  horse,  with Greek soldiers hidden inside, is  the  best   historical example of a   successful siege.  Today,  however,  I am not interested in such military sieges whether ancient or modern. Instead I am  drawing inspiration from them to   talk of economic  sieges in modern times which have no territorial borders or  defined   locations. I  am saying loud and clear that in modern times and  in  today’s global economies, political and economic mismanagement  have  created  economies that have wittingly or unwittingly laid siege on the welfare and interests  of their electorates. In essence then,  siege economies have emerged in  which the electorate is like a prisoner in its own house; as   politicians try to keep the status quo while the electorate squirms and frets at first,  and later gets desperate  to throw out the yoke of  the bad joke of    imprisonment  in what it knows it is its   natural  habitation  by right. The  evolution of siege economies in modern times  and how political  leaders manipulate the  global and individual  political systems   to  maintain  the status quo at  all costs  while the electorate or the masses  struggle to throw off the shackles of imprisonment in their own house, is the topic of discussion today.

    The  Zimbabwean Elections  of last  Wednesday   which  the  PM  Mr.  Tsvirangai called  a farce  after ignoring the pre election charge of President Robert Mugabe to his supporters that the election was to be a do or die affair for them,  provides a good example of a siege economy  and the struggle  for political control. Also  the  registration of a new political party in Nigeria – the APC – by INEC, in  a nation in which the ruling party thinks it will forever win elections,  just  because of its size,  where oil  theft and mismanagement of the nation’s mono economy have turned its citizens into landlords of poverty in their country,  is another  good example of the  struggle for political control in a vintage siege economy  like Nigeria. In   addition, US  Secretary  of State John Kerry’s visit to Pakistan and his closed door meeting with Pakistan’s newly elected PM, Nawaz Sharif  on the Pakistani economy and the war on terrorism,  round up our examples for discussion today.

    Again,  we start with Zimbabwe  where 89 year old President Robert Mugabe‘s party was on course  for a smooth victory in spite of all odds  and expectations of majority of Zimbabweans for a change of government from the Mugabe regime which  has been in  power for 33 years. Even though international observers have said the elections have been largely free and fair and AU Chairman of Observers  retired  Nigerian General Olusegun Obasanjo was quoted  as saying that the first impression was that the Zimbabwean polls have been  free,  one cannot ignore the anomalies  highlighted  by the opposition. The  first is that about 2m voters on the voters list were recorded as dead and as such could not vote for the simple reason that dead men don’t or cannot vote. The second is that about one million voters were disenfranchised for one reason or the other and could not vote . In  effect then Mugabe’s party  has won a costly electoral battle but cannot claim victory because it was  a pyrrhic victory  in terms of electoral breaches that denudes it of any legitimacy. This is a victory for 33 years of Mugabe’s rule that has ruined the Zimbabwean economy through EU sanctions and land seizures  that has crippled the nation’s  once buoyant  agricultural   sector and fast growing economy that was once the envy  of the nations of   southern  Africa and indeed the rest of Africa. As  for Mugabe’s truculent pre election violent jargon that the election would be a do or die affair,  I presume the old Zimbabwean  Patriotic Front  warrior must just have borrowed a leaf  from  the book of another warrior, a Nigerian now election observer at the Zimbabwean elections General Olusegun Obasanjo,  who used the same volatile vocabulary while campaigning for the late President  Yar Adua to succeed him at the 2007  elections. You  may call both of them birds  of the same feather and you could be right at least in terms of  usage of  combustible political vocabulary. But if you brand them as ‘experts’ at laying siege to their economies and manipulating its  control  through rigged elections like the 2007 elections that the ultimate beneficiary,  the  late President YarAdua  himself later  admitted was rigged;  as  well as  this  last Zimbabwean elections where living voters turned up at the polling booth to be listed dead and could  therefore   not  vote, then you have scored a bull’s eye indeed in that comparison.

    The  registration  of the APC  made up  of a merger of opposition parties in Nigeria’s bullish, winner takes all political terrain on July 31  ushers in another cycle of hope that   Nigeria’s  difficult   democracy and siege  economy   may not crash land sooner than expected. At  least  not like the high flying  train in Spain last week which took a corner at a speed of 192 mph while its driver was on record as having a telephone conversation  and killed about 80 innocent passengers. A  big wig in  the ruling PDP once said that the party will rule Nigeria for the next 60 years. Just  this week another PDP chieftain said the APC cannot be a threat because it is made up of strange bed fellows. I wonder which  political party on earth is not made  up of strange bed fellows. Especially as politics is a game of who gets what, when and how and that has to be discussed, and negotiated amongst people of various background and interests,  who come together to fight a common cause. Given the implosion in the PDP and its factional governors’ forum there  is little doubt that the ruling party is losing the concensus and common front that catapulted it to power which  it has tried to cling to by all means. The PDP  should therefore be indeed wary with the emergence of the PDP and the political stature of those behind the party especially Asiwaju Ahmed Tinubu co author  of Financialism. This is   a brilliant book on how the financial system drains the economy. Financialism  could have helped the PDP leadership  a lot if it had been published by the time they took office in 1999 when the foundation of turning Nigeria into a siege economy  was  laid and cemented with the political control PDP has had ever since, through  successively   rigged elections .With  the emergence  of APC   then, the ball is   certainly  in the other court and not the PDP,   which obviously has run  out of ideas  to transform the Nigerian economy with the requisite knowledge  management base  to get the economy out of its rut and siege. What the APC needs to do is to be prepared   to fight rigging which the ruling party seem to have perfected to an exportable commodity for Zimbawe, to a stand still. For  the new APC  and indeed Nigeria as a whole –eternal vigilance is the price of liberty – especially at this point  in time,   for the APC to change the   pervading, sickening and repugnant  climate of economic siege and claim political control in   the coming   2015 elections.

    Lastly  I  take on   Pakistan   together  in the context  of today’s topic and  I will illustrate with  the two personalities  involved and the issues they  are facing. These are the US Secretary of State John Kerry,   and Pakistan’s PM Nawaz  Sharif. The two  have two  things   in common and  these  are   focus and   principle and  again I will elucidate.

    Before coming to Pakistan John Kerry had just kicked start the Middle East peace process. At  a press conference after both  sides  agreed to start talking, the Israeli peace negotiator doffed  her hat to the US Secretary of State for the firm way he told the Israeli  and Pakistani chief peace negotiators that failure was not an option in the renewed Middle East Peace Talks. In  Pakistan, Kerry will be visiting for the first time   since he took over from the former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.  He faced a newly elected PM Nawaz Sharif who has just  come to power and who has condemned the drone strikes which US  President Barak Obama asserts is a legitimate weapon   in the   war  against    terrorism, a   war in which  the US  and Pakistan are partners in fighting the Taliban, on the hilly borders between Pakistan and Afghanistan. The  war on terror has turned the Pakistani economy into a siege economy dependent on US largesse given the  Pakistani government to prosecute the war and fuel its economy as well. But the Pakistani army prosecutes the war and has done it half heartedly while the politicians  in power  cannot do much because of the fear of a coup from the military as the war is unpopular with the largely  Islamic population of Pakistan. Now Nawaz Sharif has spoken against the drone strike which the army and the other opposition could not do for fear of losing US funds and increasing the tension of a siege economy or losing political control  or relevance in the process  in Pakistan.

     Yet  I am sure that Mr. Kerry knows that Mr. Sharif  is man of honor and principle who has spoken on behalf of his nation and the US will respect his views  and concern on the drone strikes. Pakistan is lucky therefore in that it has a new leader that even the US  which oils its siege economy knows  as a man of principle in political    control who  should not be allowed to lose face in the   two nations partnership fight against terrorism. That  to me is mutual respect that is at first personal but which has a high convertible rate in sovereign and diplomatic relations and I think Pakistan was lucky this week that the leader  talking to John Kerry  was Nawaz Sharif and not anyone else  in Pakistan. That was a lesson on the rewards of leadership focus and principle  in   high  diplomacy, and it has my total   and  sincere  admiration.

  • When leaders juggle impunity, growth and decay

    When global leaders overreach themselves  and abuse their legitimate powers and expect the society or political system to do  nothing, then they are indulging in what I call impunity . It  is a state of mind or attitude in which the leader is confident that even though he has violated the rules of the game he is invincible enough to avert any challenge  to his authority or any sanctions for his apparent  abuse of office. Which is like saying that such leaders know that they can get away with murder quite easily. Such cheeky impudence is plain, old, leadership impunity.

     To  me, on the other hand, growth is not just cold statistics on increasing quarterly returns or GDPs as is usually the case. The growth I have in mind on the above topic,  is meaningful growth that enhances and  promotes prosperity and social welfare  as well  as  the quality of life of the citizenry of any nation,  at any point in time. Decay, therefore, is the antithesis of growth and the absence of prosperity and indeed a dismal situation when mass and crass poverty predominate in the midst of plenty and filthy opulence.

    The role of some nations and their leaders in managing their political economies and their raison d’être is our concern here today. The nations and leaders are China, Egypt and Nigeria   and the concomitant situations  in nations like  the US  and Tunisia,  with particular emphasis on events that happened  in  these places this last week. We are therefore looking  today at how leaders have handled the issues  of leadership impunity, growth  and decay in these nations in recent times.

    To tackle corruption China has   reportedly, finally decided to put on trial the former powerful  Party Chief of its wealthy Chongqing  Province  Bo Xilai. Bo is being charged with corruption and abuse of power, as Party Chief of Chongqing. His equally powerful wife had been charged with the murder of a Briton who served as consultant to British firms looking for business in China. This is in consonance with the new Chinese government’s policy of reducing corruption in China to zero level as far as possible.  Chinese President Xi Ping has made this fight against corruption a priority and Bo is the first example to show that nobody is above the law  and gets away with impunity in today’s China. Bo himself before his fall was amongst those leaders being considered for high office in China’s   recent once in ten years leadership change  and overhaul,  before he and his wife shot themselves in the leg with criminal acts of impunity that have led to their fall from grace to grass.

    To battle what it identified as slow growth in its economy China has announced new economic measures to create jobs and help small businesses. It has suspended value added tax and turn over tax for small businesses with earnings below $4000 and this is expected to create about 6m jobs and help millions of small businesses. The Chinese government has simplified custom procedures for small businesses and cut operational costs while making it easier  for small businesses to export their products  and create  and earn foreign currency in international business. The objective of the Chinese leadership is to ensure that the small businesses in China do not suffer unduly from the slowdown of the Chinese economy but are even given a soft landing to experience growth of their businesses and I think this is role model approach for any caring government in the world to adopt in looking after the people in its care.

    Egypt presents a different and almost opposite scenario to China. This is because in Egypt earlier this week at a military  graduation ceremony   the Egyptian Chief  of the Army  General al  Sissi called on Egyptians to demonstrate yesterday to give the ‘mandate’ to the military to counter Egypt’s  drift to what he called   ‘violence and potential terrorism’. The General also told his audience that he had earlier warned the Muslim Brotherhood not to contest the last elections that brought deposed President Morsi to power but he was ignored. Which showed clearly that Morsi‘s removal was premeditated and malicious and has nothing to do with his alleged dictatorial tendencies, mismanagement of the economy or the military bowing to public opinion in removing Morsi . Effectively then, the Military in Egypt has shed its toga of neutrality in Egyptian politics and has entered the arena as an interested political participant. Yet, the US which spurred on the demonstrators at Tahrir Square in Cairo two years ago to topple Housni Mubarak, is holding a Congressional hearing to determine if a coup had happened in Egypt when Morsi was removed. I tell the Americans candidly that  not only had a coup happened in bright day light , it has moved a step further from diarchy which the existing political arrangement represented, to open military involvement in the democratic process  given the call by the military chief for Egyptians to give the military power through street demonstrations yesterday.

     It is a situation similar to that in Nigeria during the Interim   government of  Ernest Shonekan   after the cancellation of the June 12 elections when Abacha was the Minister of Defence. Abacha eventually booted Shonekan out of office and assumed full powers as Head of State. Abacha later consolidated his rule and was on the way to becoming a civilian head of state as the NTA was already running the commercial on ‘Who the Cap Fits ‘before tragedy struck and Abacha died most unexpectedly. General  al Sissi is also the Minister of Defence in Egypt’s brand new Interim government but with his call for demonstrations you can bet that like Shonekan’s ill fated Interim contraption,  the days of the Interim government in Egypt are numbered and a return to the Mubarak   days  and ways are imminent in Egypt. Obviously the military in Egypt  has  acted with impunity that it seems no one can stop in that nation and economic growth and prosperity will take a back seat in the face of looming repression that will be used to justify  political stability. Again,  I wonder how the Americans will handle that,  given the fact that they had always used stability to justify support for past despotic leaders in the Middle East including Egypt.

    Lastly,  the report in the Economist of London that Nigerian legislators are the highest paid in the world  has outraged many Nigerians who have not seen any reason for the legislators to earn so much ahead  of their counterparts in the US  and Western nations . But the budget is the goose that lays the golden egg for Nigerian legislators. The Legislature approves the budget usually presented by Nigeria’s presidency according to our presidential constitution. But in Nigeria , the Legislature which prunes expenditure elsewhere as a matter of cost control ,  budget and fiscal discipline,  simply asks the presidency to add legislators personal emoluments   and fringe benefits to budget proposals before it or else it will not play ball and approve. Such additional benefits have been added by successive governments such that they have ballooned into the monster that has made our legislators the highest paid in the world .It  is   a sordid case of impunity in law making and crass abuse of office .Of  course,  funds for economic development and growth cannot be forthcoming when the legislators’ emoluments are the priority of budget presentation and approval by the executive .

    At  a different level of economic existence  in Nigeria, the picture of a Nigerian electrician and musician electrocuted on an electric pole in Jos is symptomatic of the comatose state of decay in the Nigerian polity  and economy. The Nigeria named  Chukwuebuka Eze   was trying to get power into his shop in Jos by climbing the pole  – obviously as usual –  before PHCN brought power as he was fiddling with the pole wires. Reportedly his shirt was burnt off him and he was electrocuted instantly. Which really is a pathetic situation. But then how many such Citizens Eze do we have in this nation today?  I daresay millions who are frustrated by incessant power failure but dare not like Eze take the suicidal plunge to fix the wires and have light . As an electrician Eze felt he had the skill to have his own back at PHCN inefficiency but paid with his life in that folly. Iwonder how Eze will be buried and how his family will cope and wish them succor over his loss.

    Yet, Eze’s case in Jos is not much different from that of Mohammed, the vegetable seller in Tunis , Tunisia whose burial sparked the Arab Spring revolt that has chased despotic leaders out of office in Tunisia , Egypt and Libya. Local government officials had been taking bribes from Muhammed at the site where he was selling his vegetables. At a stage he refused to any pay more bribes to sell his vegetables. When however the Local government officials seized his vegetable weighing machine Mohammed decided he has had enough. He bought a bottle of fuel and burnt himself in front of the local government office. It was his procession funeral that ballooned into the street demonstration that drove the   then President Ben Ali   of Tunisia out of office in 2011 .

    In effect then both Mohammed in Tunis and Eze  in Jos were driven  to desperation by greed corruption and institutional inefficiency and decay which in both instances claimed lives and created great pity as well as befuddlement in their respective societies . Impunity was also eminently present in both instances and one can only pray that global leaders will have compunction and not drive those in their care to suicide or premature deaths by their actions or a lack of it. Amen