The Nation Newspaper

Category: Emmanuel Oladesu

  • Babel in Labour Party

    Babel in Labour Party

    Labour Party (LP) looked like a promising party. That was during last year’s electioneering. It attempted to spring surprises. It upset some opponents in some states.

    Some believe that its future may still be bright. That is if it puts its house in order; if it can do a post-mortem of its fall in the last presidential election, engage in a realistic self-assessment, accept the reality of its health condition and stop fantasisisng.

    But, the party’s leadership tussle is its drawback. A party is as good as its ideas, its organisational structure, its leadership’s capacity to translate its ideas into actions, its ability to draw public support for its agenda to secure power and its determination and ability to effectively use power for the good of a greater number of citizens.

    Labour Party (of Nigeria) is projected as a national social democratic structure. But, its leadership is a pole apart from avowed theoretical radicalism. Its focus, like other parties, is power. But, it has not really attracted attention because it has not charted a clear alternative path to the resolution of grave national challenges.

    LP has failed in its aspiration to be the ruling party. Yet, it is not playing an effective opposition role. Its leaders seem to be facing adjustment difficulties after the Supreme Court verdict on the historic presidential litigations of last year.

    The party has rebuffed calls for collaboration or merger by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) leader and former presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar. May be, it would reconsider its position when the next presidential poll is around the corner. For now, the attention of the split LP leadership is distracted and diverted by its self-imposed hullabaloo. No realistic future plan can be made until there is peace within.

    Two factions, or camps, are competing for the soul of the distressed party. The first caucus, led by Julius Abure, a lawyer, seems to be the mainstream camp. Abure is even a nominal leader there. The camp revolves around the personality of banker and businessman Peter Obi, a defector from the PDP, who suddenly became its presidential candidate in the last election.

    The second camp is led by warrior Lamidi Apapa, who has been firing salvos from Ibadan, the ancient city of street fight and war mongering that cannot be forgotten in the pre-colonial and colonial history of Yoruba land.

    Both factions are in court. That is the crux of the matter. A house divided against itself may not stand for long. But, a fatal fall can still be averted if reason prevails.

    Reconciliation has collapsed in LP. It is because interests do not align. Interest is a unifying factor in politics. Instead of promoting collective interest, much energy and resources are dissipated on the crisis. Only a few Nigerians return from the courtroom to renew friendships. They often return from litigation to prolonged malice, which takes its toll on their psychological well-being and the health of their troubled party.

    So far, Abure is winning in the temple of justice. The anticipated verdict by the Supreme Court has sent the two warring gladiators into anxiety. The judgment will be final as far as the court process is concerned.

    But, it may not be the end in party politics. The judgment will have implications for the party and the rivals in the dispute. The eventual winner will consolidate his grip on party machinery and rusticate the loser.

    The loser has three options. The first is to swallow pride and surrender with a bruised ego. The other option is treacherous. He may regress into pretention, stay on in the party, and undermine or subvert the platform, following undue influence by external forces. The third is to call it quits with the party and seek refuge elsewhere. But this is a costly option.

    The best option, which was omitted at the beginning, is reconciliation. With its weak crisis resolution mechanism, LP is incapable of mooting a peace deal. Therefore, even after the court cases, the crisis may not be over. It can only assume a new dimension.

    LP may become another Alliance for Democracy (AD), unless the promoters of intra-party wrangling pull the break. Where is AD today? It was torn apart by protracted crisis, right from its controversial inaugural presidential primary at D’Rovans in Ibadan, to the internal bickering in the Lagos chapter where forces loyal to former Governor Bola Tinubu, now president of Nigeria, and the late Chief Ganiyu Dawodu were permanently locked in a war of attrition.

    At the national level, Senator Mojisoluwa Akinfenwa and his friend, Chief Michael Koleoso, the Babalaje of Oke-Ogun, fought to no end. The court ruled in favour of Akinfenwa, who presided over the carcass of a party. That is what a protracted conflict does to a party. By 2007, AD had lost relevance. It became a shadow of itself, deserted by its founding fathers who mismanaged its achievements on the slippery political field.

    Read Also: JUST IN: Ex-PDP lawmaker defects to Labour Party

    LP’s problems are not really identical with the challenges that dwarfed AD. LP is never a party in reckoning, until it becomes a borrowed platform during periodic elections to those in want of a party that can serve as a platform for contesting for public office.

    Fundamentally, it is supposed to be a party for the masses and the downtrodden. Although it is closely associated with Labour, the workers and the masses have not really gravitated towards its direction. Its leadership has always been its bane.

    However, LP has a way of surviving popularity tests in a few states, where aggrieved defectors from big political parties adopt it as a place of last refuge. An example was the Ondo State chapter, which saw a big catch in Dr. Olusegun Mimiko, who used and later dumped the party after consolidating his hold on the state.

    Mimiko won the poll, not on the strength of the LP, which can never withstand the PDP arsenal in the Sunshine State. In 2007, PDP only lost to PDP by subterfuge.

    A similar scenario is being enacted now in Abia State where, after his failed bid for governor in the PDP and the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), eminent banker Alex Otti is now decked in the LP robe.

    Those who voted for Otti accepted him as the best candidate in the election and not because he ran on the platform of the LP. At best, running under LP was just an added advantage. The two factors in the governorship poll were Otti and Obi, and not LP.

    Instructively, there is no evidence to suggest that politicians who come to hibernate in LP understand the philosophical and political ideals that underlined its formation. If those electef  on the platform of LP are asked to explain the ideological basis of the party, they would give incoherently diverse answers. The party, to most of its members, is just a vehicle for seeking power. There is no proof of visceral commitment beyond the hunt for elective office by the power seekers using LP as a decorative cover. There is also no evidence of a strong emotional attachment to an alien platform. Again, the implication is that after climbing to power on its back, LP users seldom remember the platform.

    Last year, the party attempted to bounce into national reckoning. It was beyond expectation. Obi and his fanatical supporters with the sobriquet “Obedients” came to identity with the party, based on his presidential ambition.

    That was the dilemma. LP has been described by observers as a “structureless” party that surprisingly attracted votes from supporters who never knew whether a party office existed or not.

    The support for Obi may have been uncritically misinterpreted as the support for LP.

    There was a semblance of a huge support base for a party erected on a very thin foundation. The support was  also mainly along ethnic line. The transient partisan loyalty of fans was to the presidential candidate, and not to the party or party leadership that was not even known to the lousy, garrulous, and loose Obdients, particularly the social media warriors among them. It is possible that many youths who endorsed LP during the presidential election were not even conversant with the profile of its candidate.

    LP is not a party of strategy as such. Put succinctly, its tactics appeared faulty because while it largely appealed to emotion and sentiments based on ethnicity and religion, the party betrayed an understanding of Nigeria as a highly heterogeneous country where the tools of religion and ethnicity can as well be counterproductive in the quest for federal power, in certain predictable circumstances, and the quest for nation building, in general.

    If a politician appeals to tribalism, other tribes have to be on their toes. If a politician is scheming, based on religion, it also provokes vigilance: people of other religions will not go into slumber. Only a broad-based support, as exemplified in the cross-regional alliance of diverse geo-political zones in 2023 in favour of President Tinubu, can lead to the attainment of federal power in Nigeria. The import of all these was lost on LP during the last presidential poll.

    LP needs more exerienced politicians to teach its leaders the ‘art’ of winning without any recourse to propaganda and intolerance of opponents or rivals. Nigeria is a big country. No hero of a regional expression can realise aspiration for national leadership, no matter how legitimate, without the support of other geo-political zones.

    Training and retraining of party leadership will facilitate self-discovery, learning, and a change of style in LP. These are recommended to the LP leadership for the party to rise above being used as the last resort.

  • Politics of state creation

    Politics of state creation

    Opinion is divided on the agitation for state creation. To many people, it is a call for the proliferation of states. It thus becomes undesirable and unviable because of the economic realities of such persons.

    But to those who believe the creation of new states will be the answer to their yearnings, the push is legitimate and desirable. To such persons, having new states will redress grievances arising from their perceived structural imbalance in the federation and marginalisation in their present states where they are lumped with other non-compatible ethnic groups without linguistic affinity, contiguity, and cultural assimilation.

    There are many Nigerians who see the periodic constitutional amendment as a peculiar jamboree, a waste of time, energy, and public resources. To them, it is a fantasy and an exercise in futility. But they did not come to this conclusion without reason. Perhaps, it is because civilian administrations in the Second and Fourth republics were unable to create states, unlike the military, due to some impediments.

    Predictably, no region is leaving anything to chance. In the Southwest, old provinces and divisional councils are calling for an upgrade into states. In Ogun State, Ijebu and Remo divisions want a separate Ijebu State to be carved out of the Gateway State. In Oyo, Ibadan, and Ibarapa districts are mobilising support for the birth of Ibadan State.

    In Lagos State, some political leaders from the coastal areas are promoting the cause of Lagoon State.

    The leaders and people of Ile-Ife and parts of Ijesa are rooting for Oduduwa State.

    In the Southsouth, there is agitation for a New Rivers State. In the Southeast, some people want Wawa and Anioma states, while in Benue State, there are agitations for two new states.

    There are arguments for and against the creation of new states. For example, the Southeast is aggrieved that it has been shortchanged by what the indigenes call the lopsided distribution of states whereby the Northwest has seven states and the other four regions have six each. In contrast, the entire Igbo land has only five.

    Revenue allocation is majorly based on the number of states, which are federating units. The implication is that fewer resources, compared to other regions, are channelled to the Southeast. However, those who oppose this argument point out that a state in the Northwest, Niger, is bigger than the entire Southeast in land mass. Also, the population of Southeast cannot match other regions.

    The strength of federally-run countries lies in the sub-national units of government that are coordinate with the distant central government. States connote a sort of autonomy as they legislate on residual items in the federal constitution which prescribes that the national government can legislate on the Exclusive List, while both the central and state governments can legislate on the Concurrent List.

    The general principle of state creation also relates to the legitimate agenda for identity preservation and concern for the peculiarities in a highly heterogeneous country. More importantly, it is generally believed that state creation will bring government closer to the people.

    The post-independence era has been characterised by the intense clamour for more states. However, the only region that was democratically created was the Midwest. It was created after a plebiscite. Yet, the minorities of Edo, Itsekiti, Uhrobo, Ijaw, Isoko, and others who started cohabiting in the region remained distinctive. The mutual suspicion and fear of domination persisted. Evidently, the real reason the Midwest was created was to reduce the sphere of influence of the Leader of Federal Opposition, the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo. While a region was carved out of the West, the prayers of the minorities in the North and East for new states were rejected.

    Awo did not oppose state creation. He was irritated by the refusal of the Prime Minister to also carve out states from the expansive Northern Region.

    The next exercise was during the outbreak of the Civil War. The then military Head of State, General Yakubu Gowon, created 12 states out of the four regions. He also appointed military governors to administer them. It was a ploy to weaken the secession bid of the Biafran warlord in the old Eastern State, Col. Emeka Odimegwu-Ojukwu.

    Since then, the agitations for more states have intensified. The pattern of creation was lopsided, as the old Northern Region had more states than other regions. Besides, some Ekiti/Igbomina/Ebolo Yoruba towns were merged with other tribes to forcefully fuse with the old Northwestern State (in today’s Kwara and Kogi states).

    Since the premise was also population or numerical strength, the census became a casualty of the intense struggle. Thus, since then, the headcounts were usually rigged, thereby rendering the figures useless as they could not be used for proper revenue allocation and other relevant political and economic parameters.

    In 1976, General Murtala Ramat Muhammed, who toppled Gowon in a bloodless coup, created a 19-state structure. During the exercise, more local governments and federal constituencies were also created, based on the numerical strengths of the states.

    The trend showed that state creation had become a major characteristic of military rule. States were created by force by the soldiers in power. To that extent, some of the states were products of imposition.

    In the Second Republic, moves to create more states did not bear fruits. There was no consensus to determine the number of people living in any particular area.

    The elite are coordinating the battle. Thus, observers perceive a hidden agenda. Although the agitators hinge their struggles on the need for easy administration and development, the  belief is that the elite are clamouring for more access to power and resources through state creation. They derive motivation from the fact that, if state creation is possible, each of the six geo-political zones will benefit from the exercise. Therefore, they are leaving nothing to chance.

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    The prayers of state creation champion were marginally answered by self-styled military President Ibrahim Babangida, who, on September 23, 1987, created two states: Akwa Ibom and Katsina. On August 27, 1991, he also created nine more states: Abia, Enugu, Delta, Jigawa, Kebbi, Osun, Kogi, Taraba, and Yobe, bringing the number of states to 30.

    Indisputably, the agitation for state capitals was also a divisive issue, which the military tackled with an iron hand. Objectivity was sometimes jettisoned as personal interest took the central stage. While the Justice Irikefe Panel recommended Sagamu as capital of Ogun State, top military officers preferred Abeokuta. Some towns became state capitals as part of rewards for military attainments and gifts to in-laws. Some villages, hamlets, and streets were named headquarters of local governments to please traditional rulers and other military lackeys and confederates.

    The maximum military ruler, the late General Sani Abacha, who shoved aside the inept Interim National Government (ING), led by Ernest Shonekan, created six more states on October 1, 1996. This followed the recommendations of the National Constitutional Conference (NCC) on the need to ensure balance in the number of states in each geo-political zone. Consequently, Ebonyi, Bayelsa, Nasarawa, Zamfara, Gombe, and Ekiti states came into being. More local government areas were also created. Unlike the previous exercise, the states were not given any take-off grant. They shared the same allocation with their “parent states”.

    After the 1996 creation of additional states, reality dawned on the South that the North had profited more. This has led to a feeling of injustice, inequality, and lack of equity. For example, while Lagos has 20 local governments, the old Kano State, which comprised Kano and Jigawa states, has 76 local governments.

    Two problems thrown up by state and local government creation are asset sharing and boundary dispute. These problems generated bitterness and unleashed tension, with contiguous communities being decimated by incessant violent clashes.

    State creation under a civilian government is a hectic exercise. The obstacles are always insurmountable. These have reinforced the feeling that the federal legislators who are warming up for another round of piecemeal constitutional amendment may be chasing shadows.

    The states and local governments are listed in the 1999 Constitution. Therefore, any constitutional amendment targeted at creating more states is likely to meet a brick wall due to the regression to the subsisting North-South dichotomy and lack of consensus.

    Besides, so tedious is the process that the concurrence of two-thirds of 36 states is required for constitutionalamendment on core matters germane to the structure of the country. It is a tall order.

    But, how viable are the states?

    The majority of them can hardly survive on their own without federal allocation. There is lack of creativity by some state governments as they fail to explore alternative avenues for revenue generation. Governance in many states is at a low ebb with some governors converting their states into fiefdoms where they rule as Lords of the Manor. They delude themselves into thinking that the mandate conferred on them translates to the ownership, monopolisation, manipulation, and abuse of state resources. Thus, many states are not fulfilling the dreams of their “founding fathers” who fought many battles for their creation.

    A shortcut to meeting the yearnings for state creation is the creation of additional local governments, which some governors have attempted through the creation of Local Council Development Areas (LCDAs). Through this approach, marginalised towns and ethnic groups can receive succour and achieve a sense of belonging.

  • Who are those calling for coup?

    Who are those calling for coup?

    All Nigerians cannot be afflicted by collective amnesia. They could not have easily forgotten the pains of oppression and repression inflicted by jingoistic dictators. The scars of militarism have not healed. The memory of dictatorial brutality still haunts our collective psyche. The poser is: what prompted some Nigerians into suggesting the intervention of the military to resolve a transient economic crisis? Who are those calling for coups?

    In 1970, shortly after the civil war, former ceremonial President Nnamdi Azikiwe, who spoke at a symposium in Lagos, described military regime as the rule of impostors. Universally, the mandate of the military is never from the people. To whom are they (soldiers) accountable? Azikiwe queried.

    There is no accountability to the constitution and the people by those who rely on the barrels of the gun. It is a colossal assault on democracy.

    Despite the fact that many political leaders, particularly elected and appointed office holders, have not learnt their lessons – as they have continued to indulge in profligacy, theft, and graft in high places – their displacement by soldiers is not an option. Indeed, it is archaic to rejoice at the forceful seizure of power or at the hearing of martial music followed by a hoarse voice calling: “Fellow Nigerians”.

    In the current circumstance, it is gratifying that the highest military hierarchy has disowned the advocates of power hijack and reiterated the Armed Forces’ determination to tackle insecurity, defend Nigeria’s sovereignty, and the nation’s territorial integrity.

    The problem with a coup is that it breeds more coups and there will be instability.

    Barely six years after independence, some young military officers posed as modernisers and tried to convince Nigerians that they were driven by puritanical zeal. Some scholars even celebrated the putsch as an act of patriotism.

    The coup failed and senior officers capitalised on it to seal the fate of civilian leadership. Instead of clearing the mess, they compounded it through their own agenda, aptly driven by the craving for power, political relevance, and scramble for the state’s resources.

    The Head of State, Major-General Thomas Aguiyi-Ironsi, was in want of political experience. He leaned on some technocrats and scholars from his own part of the country and was advised to abolish federalism and impose unitary system through his faulty unification decree. Aguiyi-Ironsi, popularly called Ironside, acquiesced to the suggestion, and it dug the pit into which he and his government later fell.

    Already, there were complaints that the coup of 1966 had an ethnic connotation. Of the five majors, only one was Yoruba. Others were from the old Midwest and old Eastern regions, bounded by ethnic ties. While Northern, Southwest, and Itsekiri political leaders and Army officers were killed, those from the tribe of the coup leaders were spared.

    The military became a casualty at that point. It lost its unity, cohesion, and purpose. Barely six months after the first coup, some Northern officers staged a retaliatory coup to avenge the killing of their kinsmen. The retaliatory coup heralded a succession crisis.

    Since tribalism had crept into the military, the next in rank to Ironsi, Brigadier Babafemi Ogundipe, was rejected. As General Yakubu “Jack” Gowon was assuming the reins, the military Governor of Eastern State, Colonel Emeka Odimegwu-Ojukwu, rejected him, insisting that the subsisting succession pattern should be followed.

    Within a year of military rule, a civil war was foisted on the country by its soldiers. It lasted three years. Many people died. Families were displaced and dislocated. A lot of resources went down the drain. Many soldiers perished. Up to now, Igbo land, which was the battlefield, has not recovered. The animosity has not disappeared either. A full national integration is still a tall order.

    After ruling for nine years with the help of experienced politicians, some of whom later took part in the corruption that further created a hollow in the records of military regimes in the seventies, General Gowon refused to leave office. He shifted the handover date.

    The third coup, led by General Murtala Ramat Muhammed and some other officers, was bloodless. But six months later, Colonel Bukar Suka Dimka and his gang assassinated the Head of State.

    Through his “retirement and dismissal with effect” whereby many honest, decent and promising young civil servants, including university lecturers who were dreaded as leftist ideologues, were swept by the wave of retrenchment, the Murtala Muhammed regime cowed and shattered the civil service. Consequently, civil servants jettisoned time-tested professional ethics and started to cut corners, thinking that their career stability could not be guaranteed. It was ironic because, following the coups, the civil service had to be positioned as a dependable ally of military rulers.

    The first 13 years of military rule were full of anguish, drama, superimposed theoretical stability and hypocritical transition to civil rule guided by several decrees from the Head of State, General Olusegun Obasanjo, who said the best presidential candidate might not win the 1979 election.

    Either by design or predetermined accident, the military returned four years after, in 1983, following the failure of the civilian regime of Alhaji Shehu Shagari to live up to expectation.

    The second phase of military rule was full of horror. From January 1984 to August 1993, Nigeria suffocated under the rule of jackpot. Military decrees outlawed basic human rights. The media, which the soldiers knew could be a threat, became their target for liquidation. When reporters sought to know the position of the Head of State, Major-General Muhammadu Buhari on press freedom, he said: “I am going to tamper with that.” Decrees Two and Four were used to terrorise reporters. Some went to jail. Others were unjustly detained.

    Also, when a reporter asked when he intended to return power to civilians, Buhari said he had no plan. After a few seconds, he said: “May be, after 10 years.”

    Such was the nature of the military. Soldiers had a morbid fear of the ballot box.

    Due to the highhandedness of the regime, it was toppled by those who later did not fare better. The gap-toothed successor, military President Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida always beamed an infectious at a nation he held captive with subterfuge. He became an inveterate military fabulist who hoodwinked the nation into the false belief that he was in office for Nigerians. It became evident that Babangida was overstaying his welcome in office. The military leader took Nigeria on an experimental journey that led to nowhere. Nicknamed the Evil Genius and Maradona, IBB, as he was popularly called, pretended for over eight years as a man of the people and went on a wild goose chase.

    As politicians and civil society groups challenged him to a duel, he bought more time with a dubious transition programme, shifting the handover date three times. He banned, unbanned, and banned vociferous political actors, lawyers, and rights activists.

    IBB survived a phantom coup, allegedly masterminded by his long-standing friend, General Mamman Vatsa, and the Major Gideon Okar putsch.

    As the clamour for transfer of power intensified, the military president imposed two political parties – Social Democratic Party (SDP) and National Republican Convention (NRC) – on Nigerians. The manifestos were drawn up by the military.

    The last straw that broke the camel’s back was the criminal annulment of June 12, 1993 presidential election. The National Electoral Commission (NEC), chaired by Prof. Humphrey Nwosu, conducted a free and fair election. But the transition programme was truncated. It became a waste of time, energy, and huge financial and human resources; it was a national flop.

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    Babangida boasted that although he did not know who would succeed him, he knew those who would not. He also boasted that he was not only in office but also in power. That posturing reflected his reluctance to honestly dispense a self-acquired power and mandate secured by tricks, cajoling, and deceit.But, power, although alluring and intoxicating, is nevertheless transient. IBB was compelled to step aside in ignominy.

    But he had foisted on the country an inept and illegal Interim National Government (ING), led by the late Chief Ernest Shonekan, who was effortlessly shoved aside by General Sani Abacha, whom IBB deliberately left behind.

    Abacha had been a principal actor in all the coups that occurred post-Second Republic. His voice ricocheted throughout the country as a soldier of fortune. He gave tonnes of reasons for toppling every government and midwifing a new one in his broadcasts after each coup.

    Of all the military dictators, Abacha was the most difficult and complex. He successfully manipulated the divided political class to an advantage, stabilised his regime, used and dumped politicians and tightened his grip on the country. The hope of revalidating the June 12 poll results became illusory. In a twinkle of an eye, the maximum ruler mooted the idea of transmuting from khaki to babanriga.

    It was an era of state-organised bombings and killing of pro-democracy crusaders who were in the trenches. Civil rule agitators were falsely accused of plotting coups. Once they were roped in, prison was their next destination, if they were not hanged.

    Abacha cowed Nigerians into submission. He raised a team of chorus singers, lackeys, and confederates who campaigned for self-perpetuation.

    Also, he turned attention to the media, closing down newspaper houses, detaining editors and trying innocent people for phantom coups. Over two decades after his sudden demise, the Federal Government is still recovering Abacha loot, which runs into billions of naira. Military regimes became more corrupt than the civilian authorities they upstaged.

    After Abacha passed on and General Abdulsalami Abubakar began the implementation of his transition programme, old soldiers who dictated the tune in blissful retirement foisted one of their own, General Olusegun Obasanjo, on the country. The rest, as it is often said, is history.

    What memorable past of the soldiers of fortune in power would recommend them as a viable option in the nation’s search for a better future?

    Is it their destruction of the federal principle, which guarantees unity in diversity for the amalgam of incompatible tribes or ethnic groups?

    Is it the typical assassination of targeted political leaders and colleagues during the ritual of coups? Is it their intolerance of opposition and opinions of “bloody civilians”?

    Is it their pillaging of the state treasury, their divide and rule tactics and enslavement of the polity?

    Obviously, those threatening the polity with a coup are either principal actors in the corruption conflagration the current administration is working hard to douse or are beneficiaries of the evil system that has tied down the nation’s development. They are the corrupt elements who now see a bleak future as the current government makes things work for everybody and not where a few reap bounties from entrenched grafts and diabolical pomposity. 

    As psychologists would say, those calling for a coup now are suffering from cognitive dissonance, a feeling of conflict between their values and beliefs. They need help.

  • Why is Southwest neglecting agriculture? (2)

    Why is Southwest neglecting agriculture? (2)

    The rainy season is here. But, how many people are willing and ready to till the soil? There is no shortage of arable farmlands, but farmers are becoming fewer.

    The huge population of youths avoids the farms like a plague. It is a no-go area. They loathe the early morning dew and the insects in thick forests where lie the dignity of labour. The price of laziness, to some people, may be hunger, even in the rural areas.

    Reality may have now dawned on the Southwest that it cannot adequately feed itself without relying on food supply from other zones. This is worrisome because farming was an age-long, inherited occupation in the zone; it was a culture into which able-bodied youths were inducted from a very tender age.

    In the glorious days of the Southwest, farmers were perceived as dutiful, responsible, and successful people who could conveniently feed their usually large polygamous families, pay taxes, and educate their children, some up to the university. Many who became lawyers, teachers, accountants, engineers, bankers, professors, and civil servants were children of big-time farmers.

    When the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo was premier, agriculture was the mainstay of the region’s economy. The least of the problems was food. So surplus was food that it was often wasted. The era of “buje-budanu” (eat well and throw away the excess) was prevalent then. There was no canning or storage facility. But, the barns, despite the threats and attacks by animals, sustained households throughout the year.

    Cash crops also fetched a lot of revenue. Cocoa and coffee were chief crops. Now, countless economic trees of old are nowhere to be found. The relics of farm settlements only remind residents of the region about where and how they missed it.

    Today, the story is different. Awolowo and his regional Ministers of Agriculture – Chief Meredith Adisa Akinloye and High Chief Gabriel Akin-Deko, Lisa Abejoye of Idanre – may be turning in their graves. The labours of the region’s heroes’ past appear to be in vain. It may be because there are few worthy latter-day successors to build on their legacies in the critical sector.

    The few farmers in remote farms are in pain. They complain about the lack of access roads in the rural areas to facilitate the transportation of farm produce to urban markets. Many crops decay because they are perishable. This discourages many farmers.

    Some years back, a sort of food crisis was orchestrated to the detriment of the three Southern regions. Some aggrieved Northern farmers and herders blocked the roads to the South from the North. They were protesting the alleged maltreatment of their kith and kin during the isolated crisis in the South.

    Vehicles conveying foodstuffs to the West were stopped from completing their journey. The traders and the lorry-loads of foodstuffs were stuck on the highway. For a week, the South was enveloped in anxiety. They lamented the shortage of foodstuffs which they could have easily harvested in their backyard gardens if they had not neglected agriculture to their peril.

    The lessons are instructive. The blockage was a wake-up call. Up to now, the region has yet to heed the call. The Western Region that previously relied on agriculture and reaped huge benefits from it in the fifties and sixties became a casualty of a curious shift or neglect. The children of Oduduwa became helpless. The import was not lost on discerning leaders of the region.

    It was a brief moment of agony at the Mile 12 Market in Ketu, Lagos. For a few days, prices of yams, tomatoes, peppers, onions and fruits went up. Momentarily, there was panic buying. The news about the blockage had spread, sparking anxiety.

    Up North, there was agitation among farmers too. Their articles of trade – the farm produce – are perishable. Northern farmers needed the Southern market to quickly dispose of their produce and earn money, in the absence of an effective canning system. If they are not sold on time, the foodstuffs will rot away. Therefore, the prospects of revenue loss also created apprehension for the farmers.

    It would, therefore, mean that food sufficiency in the Southwest through the development of agriculture has implications for the North. It is either Northern farmers would reduce the prices of foodstuffs from their region or look for an alternative market elsewhere. But that is only possible if the Southwest takes the mockery seriously and returns to the basics.

    The six Southwest states of Oyo, Ogun, Ondo, Osun, Ekiti, and Lagos are blessed with vast arable lands. Most lands in Yoruba land have remained uncultivated. Geographers describe the zone as tropical rainforest. Tilling the land in Yoruba land may not require irrigation and fertilisers, unlike some parts of the North, which are semi-arid.

    In pre-colonial Yoruba land, food was surplus. Even warriors, during intra-tribal wars in Yoruba land, knowing that their expeditions might last months or years, would plant maize and yam, which they harvested to augment food supplies from the home front.

    During the 16-year Ekiti Parapo war involving Ibadan/Oyo and Ekiti/Ijesa/Akoko, warriors on both sides went to battlefields with seedlings. As they were prosecuting the wars, they were planting. They had bountiful harvests with which they complemented food supplies from their home bases.

    Back home, the Alaafins of yore, who reigned over the Oyo Empire, were big-time farmers. Food sufficiency was a source of pride and security. In Ijesa land, for example, it was said that plantain, which was in abundance, was only meant for birds! In Ekiti axis, the farm was likened to a paradise: (Aye oko, ajed’oba ni – a farmer’s life is savoured like royalty); (Aye oko, ajedorun – a farmer’s life is savoured from the earth to heaven)

    The story was said about how the Christ Apostolic Church (CAC) founding evangelist, Apostle Ayodele Babalola, stormed a crusade in Ilesa with some plantains. As he raised them up, he predicted that a time would come when the berry would be expensive. Many members of the congregation never believed him. The reality later caught up with their offspring.

    Indeed, time has changed. In Ijesa, and indeed in many parts of the region, bananas is now expensive, sometimes beyond the reach of the people.

    Ace musician King Sunny Ade saw the danger coming. In one of his albums in the eighties, he warned about the consequence of neglecting farming: ‘Ko s’agbe mo loko, ara oko ti dari wale.’ (No farmer is left on the farm again; they have returned home).

    Southwest can only boast of a few farmers at the moment, relative to the general population. The tribe of farmers is fading. Southwest farmers are aging. The youths, in pursuit of elusive white-collar jobs, see agriculture as a highly laborious, less economically rewarding, and dirty occupation. Some prefer to operate commercial motorcycles, popularly called ‘Okada’, to make ends meet. Many follow politicians around for crumbs falling off the tables of big shots. Deviant youths engage in advance free fraud, cybercrime and armed robbery. Since rural areas are not conducive, they migrate to the cities in search of imaginary employment.

    In fact, the Yoruba elite who go into farming are not proud of being addressed as farmers. They are, as Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo once said, “agric businessmen.” Even at that, their agricultural activities are restricted to poultry and small-scale, backyard animal husbandry.

    Where are the farm settlements of the Awolowo era? Is there anything like an extension service again? Between 1955 and 1990, nearly all the rural Southwest public primary and secondary schools had school farms or gardens. Children were inducted into agricultural practices from the onset. It was a tradition. Many schools even had poultry and piggery. Some had fish ponds. In the rural areas, after the close of school on Friday, many day students would proceed to the farms to join their peasant-farmer parents. Today, there are pupils in the Southwest who think that yam tubers are plucked from trees.

    Also, teachers and other government workers in the towns and villages were given lands on lease for farming. Apart from achieving food security, they sold to earn money to augment their income.

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    In the old Western Region, Awolowo used proceeds from agriculture to develop the region. There was no oil money. Yet, the government provided free education and free health services. Many roads were constructed. Housing and industrial estates sprang up. Liberty Stadium, Ibadan, the first television station, Cocoa House, and Oodua Group are legacies of the administration. Up to now, the feats of the government have not been matched by successive administrations.

    The size of a farm conferred class and distinction on the owner in the olden days. Men’s crops included yam, maize, rice, beans, cocoa, coconut, palm tree, kolanut, orange, and mango. Women’s crops were vegetables, pepper, and garden eggs, among other berries.

    In those days, modern farm implements were scarce. Is it not pathetic that a sort of food crisis hit the Southwest, despite its fertile land, opportunities for mechanised farming and improved seedlings?

    Lamentably, farming is also threatened by banditry and cattle rustling. The few farmers do not have respite on their farms. In Yewa, Ibarapa, and Oke-Ogun areas of Oyo State as well as some parts of Ondo and Ekiti states, farmers are harassed on their farms by strangers from other climes. They are kidnapped, maimed, raped, killed and sacked. Their crops are destroyed by cattle rearers and their labour has become a pain due to the activities of kidnappers.

    The Southwest needs to face the reality of the danger of hunger that lies ahead. The six state governments should intensify efforts on how to encourage the youth to embrace agriculture. More incentives should be provided. More rural roads should be constructed to facilitate the transportation of farm produce to the cities. The region should go back to basics.

    There is an urgent need for the region to return to the days of agricultural cooperative societies. Through these, the farmer can access soft loans to boost their business and focus well.

    Farmers also need security. The fear of being seized on the farm by daredevils looking for the shortest road to wealth through kidnapping gives farmers nightmares. No one wants to be abducted while doing his/her legitimate job.

    With an urgent return to the Awolowo days in the Southwest, the region can conveniently feed itself and even export the excess. It is time for the residents to roll up their sleeves and guard their loins for food to return to the table. The region has the manpower and the land. It only needs an effective organisation of the people to ensure success.

  • Five elections in one day

    Five elections in one day

    Elections are the major parameters for measuring the strength of democracy in any clime. They point towards the direction a civilian government is taking and where it is likely to end. They also reflect the credibility level of the contestants and the electoral umpire. The extent of compromise or integrity of polls determines the extent of trust or misgiving the people would have in their elected representatives.

    From the conduct and results of many elections across the world, it could be surmised that there are no perfect elections anywhere, not even in the advanced democracy where skirmishes have trailed the conduct of many elections. But the ability of politicians to manage the loopholes that creep into the conduct of the elections without throwing away the baby with the bathwater ensures the survival of democracy.

    Given the fundamental essence of elections in a democracy, the ways and means infused into their conduct deserve a perusal. In Nigeria, the conduct of elections has thrown up many issues – most spontaneous, others emotional, some pertinent – to give this vast frontline African democratic nation the credible polls it deserves.

    Questions thus abound on how to achieve a credible electoral system worthy of national pride and international applause.

    Should the electoral commission be appointed by the President or another organ of government? What is the assurance that another arm of government will not later be accused of the same real or imagined pitfalls that critics are attributing to the appointing authority in the executive arm?

    Should a separate court or tribunal be set up for the trial of electoral offenders who continue to make periodic elections a predictable nightmare?

    Where will the manual method of voting and counting of votes lead Nigeria? Is electronic voting not the answer? Is the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) afraid to deploy all-round technology for the conduct of polls?

    Many puzzles, and few answers. But the debate on the sanctity of the ballot box continues. Electoral reform is an unfinished business.

    During the week, the House of Representatives examined a Bill seeking the conduct of the five elections in one day, and it was passed for a second reading.

    The Bill intends that the presidential, governorship, senatorial, House of Representatives, and Houses of Assembly elections should be conducted in one day.

    Following its passage for the second reading, the Bill was referred to the House Committee on Electoral Matters. It is expected to conduct a public hearing on it and other electoral amendment Bills before the House.

    At the proposed public hearings, Nigerians will have the opportunity to discuss why elections are problematic in the country and proffer solutions that are beyond whether polls should be conducted in a day, two days, or five days.

    The sponsor of the Bill, Hon. Francis Ejiroghene Waive, a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) from Delta State, argued that conducting the polls in a single day would reduce cost and the bandwagon effect associated with elections.

    He said the amendment became necessary because of the litigations associated with the 2023 general election.

    Elections are critical to democratic consolidation and political stability. Fundamentally, they confer legitimacy on elected authorities who derive the power to govern from the people. If an election is flawed, legitimacy may be eroded and those thrown up by bad polls are not better than coup plotters who hijack the machinery of government and rule by force; without accountability, public support, and a democratic constitution.

    Since it is generally accepted that civil, democratic rule is better and preferable to the rule of the gun, elections are inevitable as the only popular means of securing the people’s mandate. They are the weapons of choice, change, renewal and affirmation, and rejection of leadership.

    Elections are taxing in this part of the world. They are challenging and very expensive. Billions of naira are required to accomplish the task by the umpire. Due to the fierce struggle for power or the do-or-die stance among some candidates and their political parties, the umpire has to operate in an atmosphere that should be seen to promote fairness and equitability.

    Thousands of litigations arising from periodic elections suggest that the country still has a long way to go in its electoral journey.

    Apart from the cost of conducting free, fair, peaceful, and credible polls, which Hon. Waive highlighted, the lawmaker also alluded to the disruption of socio-economic activities every four years.

    The legislator maintained that conducting elections on two separate days often puts much pressure on Nigerians and their businesses because the country is always shut down during Election Days. Movement of people, except those essential services, is restricted. The border is closed and there is no room for inter-state travel. Policemen, soldiers, and other security agencies are on patrol. In some constituencies, there is tension and panic.

    The Federal legislator reasoned that if the country could conduct three elections in one day, it could also conduct five elections on the same day.

    However, the bandwagon effects, which cannot be ignored, may have also been exaggerated. In certain circumstances, some elections have predictive value. But there are also instances where constituents voted for candidates of a party in one election only to reject other candidates on the same platform in subsequent polls.

    The Centre for Liberty (CFL), a civil society organisation, that shares Hon. Waive’s views, believes that conducting the general election in a day would significantly curb incidents of rigging, and violence, and reduce costs.

    In a statement, the group called for an amendment to the Electoral Act to accommodate “full biometrics for accreditation and electronic collation of results”.

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    But the suggestion of the group is conditional. It is canvasing reforms based on the deployment of technology by INEC.

    The group also called for free movement of persons to allow for wider political participation on poll day. While this is also a good suggestion, past experiences that warranted the restriction of movements should not be forgotten. Movements were restricted to prevent full-scale hijack of polling materials and result sheets by unscrupulous elements and agents of violence.

    Elections are more expensive because Nigeria has opted for a presidential system. Under the parliamentary system in the First Republic, only two elections were conducted – federal parliamentary election into the House of Representatives and regional Houses of Assembly elections. After the polls, the Prime Minister and the Premier would come from the parties that command the majority in the Parliament. There was no poll for choosing the ceremonial president and governors. The ceremonial Senate was by appointment. Why the federal parliamentary poll was nationwide, it was not every time the regional Houses of Assembly elections were held on the same day across the regions. Therefore, even at that time, both federal and regional elections were not held on the same day.

    At the onset of the Second Republic, the Federal Electoral Commission (FEDECO), chaired by Chief Michael Ani, released a timetable that specified that the five elections would be held on five different days with an interval of one week, starting with the House of Assembly, the governorship, the House of Representatives, the Senate, and the presidential elections.

    In 1983, FEDECO, under another chairman, Justice Victor Ovie-Whiskey, maintained the five-day, five-week schedule, but in a reverse order. He started with the presidential poll and followed with the senatorial, the House of Representatives, the governorship, and the House of Assembly elections. The polls were massively rigged, contrary to the assurance the umpire gave.

    In the Third Republic, when manual accreditation, physical counting of eligible voters on long queues, and open-secret ballots were adopted, the exercise was transparent and there was no room for rigging. Yet, some experts said it was crude. They also argued that due to the population explosion, it would be more rigorous and chaotic.

    If the cost of conducting polls is a big factor in the electoral economy, the country has to decide between an expensive exercise that will uphold the sanctity of the ballot box or the option of five elections in a day that could cause a disaster.

    If INEC is still struggling with two days of conducting elections, the job would be more hectic if the five elections were conducted in one day. There is no evidence to show that under the current pseudo-manual system, the commission will be able to cope with the arduous job.

    The way out is the deployment of technology for electronic voting, if the process would not be hacked by unscrupulous elements and if there would be a stable power supply.

  • APGA of crisis

    APGA of crisis

    Crisis is not alien to any political party in any clime. It only confirms that politicians are human and do disagree. The difference between a political crisis and any impasse in other human settings, however, is the notion that politicians ought to possess more psychological and emotional absorption mechanisms than other folks to prevent their squabbles from getting into public glare.

    Such a notion tends to overrate politicians. As human beings, people in politics, like other beings, are susceptible to the vagaries of human dissensions and cantankerousness. This has been the reality over time. It happened before the nation’s independence in 1960, in the First, Second, and Third Republics. Under the current political dispensation, crises brew almost on daily basis among seekers of power.

    For the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), the obvious signs of distress have been on the wall from the beginning. The party has become a House of Babel, a disunited political family battling with internal contradictions. From its inception to this moment, its leaders have been locked in a curious war of attrition.

    Today, two chieftains are laying claim to being the party’s national chairman. Sylvester Ezeokenwa, a lawyer, is backed by the party’s National Leader, Anambra State Governor Charles Soludo. But armed with a court judgment, Chief Edozie Njoku, a businessman, is disputing Ezeokenwa’s leadership. He has the backing of some of the founding chieftains, including Chief Chekwas Okorie, the party’s pioneer national chairman.

    Reconciliation is difficult in APGA where warring chieftains prefer to work at cross-purposes.

    The party shares the fate of the “structureless” Labour Party (LP), torn apart by the protracted crisis between Julius Abure and Lamidi Apapa. It is reminiscent of the rift between Senator Mojisoluwa Akinfenwa and his friend, Chief Michael Koleoso of the moribund Alliance for Democracy (AD).

    APGA has wobbled along caucuses and camps. The camps underscore the extent of polarisation. They do not mean well for each other. It is the pattern in the party. While each camp claims to be for the survival of the party, it is oblivious to the damage it is doing to its chances at the polls through intrigues, persistent conflicts, and antagonism.

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    APGA is now the second oldest party in Nigeria; only second to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), having obtained a certificate of registration from the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) around 2002. It has tried to weather the storm created by the nature of party politics in Nigeria and the style of its antagonistic leaders. The protracted internal crisis has stifled its growth, weakened its structures, and robbed it of victory in many elections in some states.

    Many chieftains have left APGA for other parties where they achieved their ambitions for power at different levels.

    There was justification for its birth, as rationalised by its founders.  There was no evidence to suggest that APGA was meant for all of Nigeria. Its founding fathers never pretended that they wanted to build a platform with a national outlook. The party’s root is the Southeast and the target was a platform that could offer a more sustaining opportunity for an Igbo man to contest for President. It appeared the idea then was to bring the entire Southeast under APGA so that the party and the region could be in a vantage position to negotiate at the centre.

    But that approach became its undoing. APGA became ‘APUGA,’ completely branded as an Igbo party meant for the Igbo, but also momentarily available for borrowing by members of other political parties in the Southeast and a few defectors beyond the region. That was how former Minister of State for Information, Labaran Maku, used the platform when he was denied the governorship ticket of his party in Nasarawa State.

    The founding fathers were assailed by a sort of complex, which made them to look for a father figure to hand over the party’s apparatus after labouring hard to form the party. Bubbling with charisma and carriage, the late Ikemba of Nnewi, Dim Chukwuemeka Odimegwu-Ojukwu, accepted the invitation and became the party’s National Leader.

    Ojukwu was the idol of the Southeast; the legendary Biafra warlord who once led the Igbo through a three-year secession battle that shook Nigeria. But that was the end of the story.

    As the history of electoral politics has shown, Ojukwu never measured up to the reputation of an electoral asset. Although he joined the defunct National Party of Nigeria (NPN) when he returned from exile and was made the party’s national vice chairman, his senatorial bid crumbled like cookies. In APGA, while some people leaned on him to win, victory eluded him when he aspired to rule post-civil war Nigeria.

    Some people holding the levers of federal power in the first eight years of civil rule in this Fourth Republic also misunderstood the rise of APGA as the second coming of Biafra and attempted to categorise it as a security risk. It was an erroneous perception. The civil war ended in 1970. But the suspicion has not fizzled out. It is inimical to national integration.

    Of course, the big parties then – the PDP, All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), and even AD – never wanted APGA to shine beyond Igbo land. In the elections, APGA was far behind as many parts of the Southeast, particularly outside Anambra State, rejected its candidates.

    During the 2003 polls, APGA only won 1.4 per cent of popular votes. The party managed to win two of the 360 seats in the House of Representatives; it could not win a seat in the Senate.

    Its presidential candidate, Ojukwu, had, politically speaking, lost the momentum. During the presidential election, he only won 3.3 per cent of votes. But no other party has been able to penetrate Anambra, its stronghold, during governorship elections in the post-Mbadinuju era. Although Dr. Chris Ngige was sworn in 2003, the stolen mandate was retrieved from the PDP and handed over to the legitimate winner, Peter Obi.

    Obi, who also became APGA leader, handed over to Willy Obiano, who handed over to Soludo, the incumbent. Obi later abandoned APGA for PDP. From PDP, he hurriedly left for LP with his band of social media warriors.

    Once any Anambra governor is sworn in, he becomes the alpha and omega of ‘APUGA’.

    Dramatically, fortune smiled on APGA in Imo State in 2011 when Chief Rochas Okorocha, assisted by Chief Martins Agbaso, was elected governor, polling 15 per cent more votes than former Governor Ikedi Ohakim. But, by 2013, the defector again jumped ship, teaming up with the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) to later form the All Progressives Congress (APC). In 2018, APGA won a seat in the Senate in a by-election. In 2019, the party won seven seats in the House of Representatives. It was an improvement on its 2015 record when it only won two seats.

    Since Okorie, the party’s visioner, left the platform in crisis, APGA has not remained the same. Within two years, he tried to lay a solid and effective foundation for the party. He returned to APGA recently after pleas, only to meet a more divided platform.

    In 2023, APGA failed to produce a senator in Anambra. The three senators – Victor Umeh (LP), Tony Nwoye (LP), and Ifeanyi Ubah (YPP/APC) – are threatening to unseat APGA in its stronghold in the next governorship poll.

    Okorie was succeeded by Umeh who later won a seat in the Senate but was later denied re-nomination before defecting, in protest, to the LP on which platform he was re-elected.

    After a protracted leadership battle between Njoku and Victor Oye, APGA’s National Executive Committee (NEC) suspended the two chieftains. The Deputy National Chairman (South), Jude Okeke, became the Acting Chairman in June 2021.

    However, Oye continued controlling much of the party and claimed he was the rightful chairman until the Supreme Court ruled in his favour in October 2021. Irked by the verdict, Njoku went to court to seek redress. He was pronounced the authentic national chairman, although the party, now under the leadership of Soludo, has made Ezeokenwa its national chairman.

    The people of Anambra have supported APGA since 2002, despite its protracted crisis. The recent experience whereby they voted for candidates of other parties during the senatorial elections should be worrisome to the party’s leadership. There was fatigue and a review of solidarity.

    There is a need for soul-searching and genuine reconciliation in APGA, if the party is not to go into eclipse.

    A crisis is an ill will that blows nobody any good. APGA’s leaders need to make this their watchword and make urgent amends to put the party on more solid ground for better performances at the poll.

  • Lagos: Not FCT relocation but special status

    Lagos: Not FCT relocation but special status

    Thirty-Three years after the federal capital was relocated from Lagos to Abuja, the city has continued to make a major contribution to national development as Nigeria’s economic capital.

    The Centre of Excellence is not agitating for the relocation of the political and administrative capital to the ‘Land of Aquatic Splendour’, ‘City of First Choice’ and ‘Pride of The Nation’.

    Lagos’ role has been predetermined. Its strategic location on the nation’s map, its vast potentials as well as the quality and quantity of its population account for its comparative advantageous position in national life.

    What Lagos is agitating for, but which has so far remained elusive, is a special status.

    Yet, the term – special status – has provoked envy and triggered unfounded animosity towards the former federal capital by some political leaders who, ironically, have varied interests to protect in Lagos. Thus, the tone of agitation, over time, has been moderated to convey the message that Lagos, which is a sought-after city by all Nigerians, is in dire need of ‘special economic assistance’.

    The relocation of some offices of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the Federal Aviation Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) from Abuja to Lagos was a mere administrative decision meant to guarantee operational efficiency. It is cheap blackmail to attribute it to any imaginary move to relocate the federal capital to Lagos. It should also not be uncritically confused with the legitimate agitation by Lagos for special federal support and assistance as the commercial nerve centre, an agitation that has been going on for decades.

    The megacity shoulders enormous national, sub-regional and continental responsibilities. There is so much pressure on the social amenities provided by the state government. No state has been able to match the socio-economic contributions of Lagos to Nigeria.

    Many Nigerians might have thought the city-state would achieve the dream of special economic assistance under the Muhammadu Buhari administration. Their hopes were rekindled when Senator Oluremi Tinubu (Lagos Central) sponsored “A Bill for an Act to Make Provision for Federal Grants to Lagos State in Recognition of its Strategic Socio-economic Significance and Other Connected Purposes” in the Senate.

    The Bill was meant to address some of these problems in the national interest. Noting that Lagos has been under strains, Mrs. Tinubu said: “It is obvious that Lagos State has been left to deal with these pressures on its own at a huge cost.” The idea then was to get the distant Federal Government to appropriate an amount not less than one per cent of the total revenue accruing to it to Lagos as a first-line charge from the Federation Account.

    However, the hope was dimmed as majority of senators shot the Bill down at its Second Reading.

    When the FCT was moved from Lagos to Abuja, there was an agreement that Lagos would not be abandoned. Five cities – Enugu, Port Harcourt, Ibadan, Kaduna, and Lagos – were later designated as ‘Centres of Excellence’ by the Murtala Muhammed administration. The plan was to ensure that the Federal Government made them cities of pride.

    However, since Lagos was stripped of its status as the nation’s political capital, the Federal Government abandoned the city. Successive governments have also refused to borrow a leaf from other countries that relocated their national capitals without abandoning the infrastructural development of the former seats of political power.

    Why can’t Nigeria emulate Germany, Brazil, Malaysia, Australia, and Tanzania, which, after relocating their seats of government, did not stop developmental programmes targeted at the former capitals?

     From 1954 to 1994, the capital of Germany was Bonn. It was moved to Berlin, following the endorsement of an agreement on the movement, which spelt out the responsibilities of the German Government for the maintenance of the old capital.

    Another example is that of Brazil, which moved its capital from Rio de Janeiro to Brasilia. Up to now, all federal roads, buildings and other infrastructure in both cities are maintained simultaneously by the central government. This is the concept of dual cities at work.

    Malaysia has also maintained two capitals. Its old capital, Kuala Lumpur, has been retained as the legislative capital, where the National Assembly operates. Its new capital, Putrajaya, which is one of the most computerised cities in the world, is the administrative capital.

    In Australia, the old capital, Sidney, still enjoys special recognition. Although Canberra is the new capital, most government activities, international conferences, party conventions and meetings are still held in the former capital city.

    The former capital of Tanzania is Dar es Salaam. When Dodoma became the new capital, the old seat of power did not suffer neglect.

    There is no politician and businessman of note who does not have anything to do with Lagos, being the nation’s commercial capital.

    Across the pre-existing 20 local governments and an additional 57 Local Council Development Areas (LCDAs) in the five political divisions of Ikeja, Lagos, Epe, Ikorodu, and Badagry, there is a thin line of differences between the indigenes and non-indigenes. Unlike in other states, the doors of political and elective offices, as well as the civil service are not shut against non-indigenes, who now appear to be in the majority in the urban areas, to the disadvantage of the sons of the soil.

    Many old Lagosians believe that successive Federal Governments have not acted in good faith by refusing to accord Lagos its pride of place, contrary to early assurances. Before the relocation of the capital to Abuja, the Yakubu Gowon administration had set up the Federal Government/Lagos Committee to recommend certain special considerations for the city. The committee was chaired by a former Federal Commissioner for Finance, the late Alhaji Shehu Shagari, who later became the President of Nigeria. But the recommendations did not see the light of the day.

    Gen. Gowon’s successor, the late General Murtala Muhammed, whose administration approved the relocation of the capital from Lagos to Abuja, based on the late Justice Akinola Aguda Panel report, had promised that the city would not be abandoned because of its position as the economic nerve centre of the country. That decision was captured by the minutes of the defunct Supreme Military Council (SMC).

    The relocation of the federal capital was a phased programme. The former military President, General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida (IBB), who completed the exercise, also assured that Lagos would not be neglected as the former chief city. When Babangida moved the Presidency to Abuja, prominent women leader, the late Alhaja Abibat Mogaji, reminded him during the inauguration of the Third Mainland Bridge, to redeem his promise to Lagos.

    “As you relocate to Abuja, keep your promise to Lagos,” she told Babangida.

    When the late Head of State, General Sani Abacha, mooted the creation of zonal centres of excellence, he accorded Lagos a priority, along with Port Harcourt, Kaduna, Kano, and Enugu. However, it did not become a reality.

    Successors to the military hegemony systematically wreaked havoc on Lagos. Apart from frustrating the metro line project conceived by the administration of former Governor Lateef Jakande, military rulers short-changed the state during the creation of additional council areas. Kano and Jigawa, which were one state before, now have almost 80 councils; Lagos has to contend with the 20 local governments listed in the Constitution. When former Governor Bola Tinubu, now President of Nigeria, decided to create an additional 37 councils, the Federal Government under former President Olusegun Obasanjo erected roadblocks.

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    For 14 months, the allocations to the councils were illegally seized by the Federal Government, but the action could not even make any impact on the state for eight years.

    In 2004, there was a row between the federal and Lagos governments over the national census. The Tinubu administration had rejected the census figures of nine million for the state, insist ing that the figure of the state-sponsored headcount, which was 18 million, captured the population of the metropolis.

    When General Obasanjo left office, prominent Lagos leaders, including Femi Okunnu and Oba Rilwanu Akiolu, took on the battle of reclaiming Lagos lands and other property illegally acquired by the Federal Government. Also, many Lagosians picked holes in the non-payment of revenue to Lagos State by the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), which makes billions of naira daily in the city. Irked by the denial of a portion of the earnings, some have argued that if oil-producing states could receive 13 per cent derivation, Lagos, which generates the highest Value Added Tax (TAX), deserves special funding.

    Foreign officials acknowledge the importance of Lagos to the country. World Bank officials, who visited the late President Umaru Yar’Adua in Abuja some months into his administration, were taken aback when no representative of the Lagos State government was in the team that first accompanied the President. Taking a cue from that omission, the former President hurriedly requested the then Governor Babatunde Fashola (SAN) to fly to Abuja to accompany him to the meeting.

    As far back as 2001, the World Bank had rated Lagos as the regional economic capital of the West African States (ECOWAS). Also, the Vision 2020 and the National Financial Sector Strategy document have emphasised that Lagos was crucial to any economic calculation and reform process that the Federal Government might contemplate. As the commercial hub, Lagos contributes 31.98 per cent to the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Indeed, Lagos is the nation’s lead contributor in the non-oil sector, with 19 per cent attainment, which is equivalent to the contribution of 13 Nigerian states put together.

    Former Information and Strategy Commissioner Opeyemi Bamidele, now Senate Leader, put these into perspective when he said: “The city of Lagos alone accounts for over 70 per cent of national industrial investment, 65 per cent of total cargo freight, over 50 per cent of Nigeria’s communication subscribers and over 70.16 per cent of international and 58.30 per cent of domestic aviation traffic.

    “With three lighter terminals and two ports, Lagos generates 50 per cent of Nigeria’s port revenue and the Murtala Muhammed Airport (MMA), located in the heart of Lagos, is the major hub for aviation within West Africa, as well as between the regions and Europe.”

    Many experts believe that Lagos’s economic potential even makes the special status consideration more compelling. Apart from the fact that, historically, it had served as the seat of government from the colonial days, Lagos is a huge city with a bourgeoning population thirsty for sophisticated infrastructure.

    Covering an area of 3,600 square kilometres, the Lagos port city offers easy access to rich natural resources, including natural gas and oil. In the Lagos hinterland of Epe, Apa Kingdom in Badagry, Eti-Osa, Ikeja, and Ikorodu are found crude oil and bitumen, silica sands, clays and woods.

    The special status agitation is an unfinished battle. It has been raging among Lagos governors from the time of Asiwaju Tinubu through the period of Babatunde Fashola to Akinwunmi Ambode and Babajide Sanwo-Olu.

    The question is: when will the dream come true?

  • Tinubu and War Against Corruption

    Tinubu and War Against Corruption

    The fight against corruption is not new. It has been on for decades. How to curb corruption was among pressing national issues among public officials from the sixties. It has lingered till today for obvious reasons. It was a major reason the First and Second republics crumbled like cookies.

    Corruption would not have survived and become a thorn in our national flesh if previous governments had tackled it with all seriousness. But, as a character says in Ola Rotimi’s play, The Gods Are Not To Blame, we have left our pot unwashed and our food now burns. Our so long has been too long.

    The starting point now is the reform of the anti-graft bodies to purge them of the peculiar societal vices.

    The revelation of the rot in the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) by its chairman is mind-boggling. In lamentation, Ola Olukoyede, who recently visited President Bola Tinubu in Aso Villa, Abuja, disclosed that EFCC investigators are prone to gratification and bribery, thereby casting doubt on their capacity for thoroughness, probity and efficiency.

    A bribe taker is not less vicious and dubious than a giver. They are both enveloped by greed. It is a paradox, an anathema. If those saddled with the investigation of financial crimes are fraudulent, the process and the outcome are laced with lies, prevarications, compromise, and hypocrisy.

    A dishonest investigator has failed the test of integrity. The onus is on EFCC to examine itself. Olukoyede should try to identify the culprits, fish them out, and send them packing, thereby preventing the few bad eggs from damaging the time-tested reputation of the agency beyond panel-beating.

    EFCC started having problems when it became a tool of oppression and witch-hunting in the hands of those who founded it. It momentarily paled into the government’s attack dog against the opposition. Anti-graft bodies were in the past used to threaten and subdue perceived foes for partisan reasons. Bribe-taking investigators also became tools for frustrating investigations.

    The history of the EFCC shows that it has initially tackled corruption frontally. But, at least, two chairmen of the agency have left office under controversial circumstance. The implication was that its leadership was either not above board or the two helmsmen became victims of conspiracies in high corridors of power.

    Olukoyede should try to maintain a clean break from the past to rekindle public confidence.

    Corruption is the bane. It permeates all strata of society. There is a linkage between the cankerworm and poverty and underdevelopment. Having become the official culture, the unlawful behaviour is transmitted from one generation to another. It is more dangerous when the government becomes the greatest corruptor of society.

    Corruption has made Nigeria a laughing stock in the comity of nations. The world no longer respects Nigeria on account of this. On page 305 of Femi Adesina’s book, titled: Working With Buhari, the perception of the world about Nigeria was revealed.

    Adesina wrote: “London, May 2016. The Queen of Nigeria had just turned 90, and after a thanksgiving service, she was in conversation with the then Prime Minister, David Cameron, and Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby. It was in the build-up to a summit on corruption that London was hosting, and unknown to Cameron, a microphone was picking up their conversation. He said: ‘Actually, we have got some leaders of some fantastically corrupt countries coming to Britain – Nigeria and Afghanistan – possibly two of the most corrupt countries in the world.”

    Ironically, the proceeds of corruption are lodged in bank accounts in these Western countries.

    Corruption manifests in various ways.From the culture of 10 per cent bribes in the sixties, the government has become a big contract for grabs. Contracts are awarded to undeserving, shadow companies that cannot be traced in the past. But perpetrators later graduated into outright embezzlement, money laundering, a guarantee of salaries for ghost workers, and pension fraud.

    In high places, allegations of forex abuse, round-tripping, and dubious acquisition of banks are still being investigated.

    More damaging is the growing humanitarian fraud. In Nigeria, it was being claimed that the school feeding programme was more effective during holidays when pupils were in their parents’ homes.

    Reports of police corruption stare the public in the face. Policemen openly ask for bribes on highways, aid, and abet crime, and send their victims into agony.

    In some states, governance has become business as usual, a peculiar tea party. Former governors, ministers, and top government functionaries are answering charges in court many years after leaving office. They are in a vantage position to use looted funds to undermine investigation, prosecution, and the entire judicial process. Trials of suspects last a decade and a re-trial is ordered. The prosecutor is fatigued. The case is abandoned; it is a waste of time, energy, and public resources.

    The key driver of corruption is greed. The corollary is kleptocracy. They point to the collapse of indiscipline. It is the motivation for subversion and violation of the due process.

    But, the culture of cutting corners by smart guys in government has come to hunt them. In discomfort, they now appeal to sentiments. Reality is now dawning on them that reliance on presidential approvals without going back to follow the fundamental due process can expose ministers of government to embarrassment or take them to jail.

    If the corridor of power cannot be a moral zone, society is in peril. The calamity is postponed.

    Many are those accumulating money for offspring who would most likely mismanage the stolen wealth in the future. Also, the children of the poor who bear the brunt of corruption are now taking their pounds of flesh as troublers of the same society. Their activities include armed robbery, banditry, kidnapping, and ritual murders. The corrupt gangs are not insulated from their threats.

    There is a correlation between corruption and underdevelopment, particularly in Africa. After their reckless looting, the leaders later forfeit a blissful retirement and begin to attend courts, some of them at the twilight of life. Lack of contentment made them to steal while in office. In their old age, they do not have peace of mind. Their wealth becomes vanity.

    Those who have passed on, leave behind a legacy their children cannot be proud of. Is a good name not better than wealth acquired in a dubious way at the expense of society?

    If looted funds are still being recovered from a deceased military Head of State to the tune of billions, almost 30 years after his demise, it is an indication of how soldiers of fortune have silently ruined Nigeria.

    A novel form of corruption between 2003 and 2007 was the election rigging. The sanctity of the ballot box was violated. It was a prelude to a legitimacy crisis in some states in the South west, the old Mid-west, and the Southeast. Those who conducted the flawed polls still battle with their ruptured conscience and sense of guilt, an internal version of punishment that inflicts permanent psychological pains on them. It might haunt them to their graves.

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    Foreign investors may also be wary of corrupt countries, which they may perceive as a threat to business. An atmosphere devoid of bribery, misappropriation, or embezzlement, to them, contributes to the ease of doing business.

    Many years after the setting up of the EFCC and ICPC, corruption has continued to grow in leaps and bounds. Yet, observers have contended that the situation would have been worse without the anti-graft agencies.

    But, beneficiaries of corruption are eager to jump at the opportunity provided by plea bargaining, which makes a thief who has stolen billions to redeem himself in court by paying pittance as a fine, thereby escaping jail to continue to enjoy his loot in freedom.

    Apart from the challenges of the economy and security, President Bola Tinubu also has to reinvigorate the anti-graft war in the national interest. His administration has promised Nigerians many developmental and poverty-reducing programmes. He needs a lot of money to implement the programmes. And he cannot ask fellow citizens to continue to tighten their belts, like a deceitful former leader did, while he and his lieutenants fed fat. The recovery of looted public funds would enable him to implement his administration’s programmes without recourse to borrowing.

    Instead of looking forward to the arrest of corrupt officials, institutional frameworks for preventing sleaze should be strengthened in the public service.  Loopholes should be effectively plugged. Those who have stolen should not be allowed to go scot-free to mock Nigeria. What has been taken illegally should be retrieved from them.

    Physical contact with cash should be discouraged in favour of automated processes and systems.

    The step taken by the President in suspending his Humanitarian Affairs minister over allegations of corruption is laudable. The investigation is still on. The anti-corruption battle should not be a respecter of persons, big or small. It would serve as a deterrent to others to be more careful and imbibe the right values.

    Ministers, special advisers, other aides, and top civil servants are likely to adjust to the body language of the President, particularly his inclination towards tough measures against corruption.

    Speedy prosecution of suspects in special courts or tribunals, and adequate punitive measures, including recovery of the looted funds, long jail terms, and a ban from politics, may be more effective.

    Nigeria should resolve to kill corruption so that corruption will not kill the country. There is a need to reduce it to the barest minimum. Our national survival and global reputation rests squarely on how far we can go collectively in the fight against graft.

  • Reducing cost of governance (2)

    Reducing cost of governance (2)

    The wealth of many African political leaders is at the expense of their poor people. It is because politicians on the continent largely see the administration of domestic affairs as a lucrative business and the corridor of power as an avenue for private accumulation.

    It is relatively easier for them to declare their assets when they enter government, but most of them feel reluctant to admit that they have accumulated huge wealth after leaving office. Ill-gotten wealth is for the few; the burden is shifted to the poor who are many and wallow in squalor, desolate and unheard.

    Swimming in opulence when the disadvantaged poor are in want of one meal per day is the height of insensitivity; it is unjust, provocative, and oppressive.

    What President Bola Tinubu has done by cutting the cost of travel expenses and “Estacode” allowance for his aides was partly in response to calls for the reduction of wastes associated with officialdom. But it pales into tokenism unless lawmakers (federal and states), governors, ministers, council chairmen, and other top government officials take a cue.

    Also, as the government tries to cut costs, there should be a renewed war against other forms of institutionalised corruption: graft, sleaze, pilfering, misappropriation, and embezzlement of public funds.

    The budget should ordinarily show the direction. Whenever the recurrent expenditure rivals the capital expenditure, a big problem arises. A recurrent estimate is funding for a bloated bureaucracy, whereas the totality of governmental structures, which comprise political appointees and the typical civil service, is usually less than five per cent of the general populace.

    The greater benefit that accrues to the greatest number of people is through capital expenditure, particularly when the budget is faithfully implemented by honest leadership at the national and sub-regional levels.

    A culture that should be discouraged relates to the perception that any person who is given a political appointment has hit the gold mine. Political appointments are celebrated, not for being a privilege to serve but for being perceived as an opportunity to access state resources.

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    Although it should be a vocation, many now erroneously embrace politics as a career; a big and rare occupation of economic and social value.

    Government, therefore, is attractive because of the pecks of office, which may come with or without much sweat. The corridors of power are perceived as avenues for primitive accumulation by elected and appointed officials, instead of being taken as means of service delivery. This is counter-productive. It is a wrong orientation.

    Not all politicians or public servants follow the path of aggrandisement. Men of the old order were far better, more patriotic, honestly cautious, and committedly service-driven. But the tribe of those bubbling with a real sense of vision and productive service appears to be on the decline. The attraction, to the majority, is money and what it can do: how to acquire choice properties in Nigerian cities and abroad.

    At issue today is the cost of leadership, the cost of administration, and the cost of governance.

    This has ultimately become an institutionalised drain, a collective burden, and a liability.

    Why, for example, should a former governor, who is now a minister, senator, or ambassador, collect pensions while still collecting a salary due to his current position? What is the wisdom in paying millions as annual pensions to a former governor and his deputy by states that cannot afford to pay N30,000 minimum wage? It is the tragedy of a country that likes to indulge in waste, an economically fragile nation overburdened with the payment of double emoluments to certain privileged persons.

    In utter sensitivity, some states have tried to alter the pattern. For example, Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu has tried to halt the implementation of the pensions law that grants retirement benefits to his predecessors and their deputies. This is the semblance of value engineering, a creative method geared towards cost reduction which has elicited some applause from stakeholders.

    But pension laws are not the only problems. By nature, the executive presidency is not cost-effective. The political bureaucracy is akin to an employment opportunity and the key to the sharing of state resources.

    Under the presidential system, the cost of governance is too high. The President is expected to preside over the Federal Executive Council (FEC), which comprises at least 40 ministers, ministers of state and special advisers, Senior Special Assistants, Special Assistants, and Personal Assistants. The ministries and departments are usually duplicated, extended, and expanded.

    In the Second Republic, while President Shehu Shagari had a minister of education and a minister of state for education, he also appointed a minister of student affairs. He had a Special Adviser on Political Matters. Yet, he appointed another person as a “Political Adviser”. It was a case of jobs for party men and women, and surrogates.

    The National Assembly is bi-cameral. In the Senate, there are 109 members. The House of Representatives has 360 legislators. All of them have special assistants and other legislative aides. The size of the government is too bloated, making the recurrent expenditure account for over 55 per cent of the budget in the past, leaving only 45 per cent for capital projects.

    Governors at the state level also have over-sized Excos which, in some cases, have 40 members or more – commissioners, senior special advisers, and special advisers. These appointments have their aides who draw emoluments from the treasury. At a time, a state had 72 SSAs and SAs. On another occasion, a governor had hundreds of liaison officers in the districts, constituencies, and local governments.

    Not all the states are buoyant because not all of them are equally endowed. The 36 states are not the same. Their sources of revenue differ, so are their priorities. But it is one of the wonders of the Nigerian brand of federalism that governors are placed on the same salary structure, even though their states are different in terms of resources, opportunities, endowments, and potential. Nigerian federalism is about uniformity, not peculiarity.

    The cost of “local governance” is also huge. Council chairmen crave autonomy to free themselves from state control exercised marginally by the governor, the ministry of local government, and the House of Assembly. The grassroots administrative system has been a bastion of corruption.

    Local government chairmen – or mayors – pose as “local governors” with a measure of semi-autonomous executive powers and functions. Presidentialism is also practised at the local government level with appointed supervisory councillors and elected councillors and their countless aides competing for the meagre council revenue. Even the SSAs and SAs in many councils also have aides.

    When new governors and Houses of Assembly are inaugurated, states are overburdened by new expenses. The governors, commissioners, special advisers, Speakers and other lawmakers are not to inherit the official vehicles of their predecessors. New vehicles have to be purchased. The offices have to be refurbished. Old cars pale into a subset of severance allowance. It is a recurring decimal.

    Times have changed. The pathfinders of history are not emulated. In the old Ondo State under the late Governor Adekunle Ajasin, commissioners had to drop their official cars in office on Fridays unless they had official assignments at the weekends. Some of them lived in their private residences.

    That was what Chief Obafemi Awolowo taught his disciples. Instructively, Premier Awolowo, who never lived in Government Quarters, had admonished his associates in government not to embrace the lifestyle they could not sustain outside office.

    Now, at the national level, the accommodation provided for National Assembly members is sold to them at give-away prices. That means public office is exploited as a gateway to kleptocracy.

    The legitimate pecks of office are in order. But the penchant for wealth accumulation by public officers is anomalous. Indeed, many government officials often capitalise on loopholes to perpetrate graft. There is no fiscal discipline. Therefore, national development is sacrificed on the altar of corruption among many public officials. It would appear that governance is just for the benefit of those in power, their lackeys and confederates.

    In 2015, President Muhammadu Buhari and Vice President Yemi Osinbajo (SAN) slashed their salaries by 50 per cent. They also reiterated their commitment to the anti-graft war to stem the misappropriation of public funds. The National Assembly members, governors, and elected officials refused to emulate them.

    Today, some elder statesmen have attributed the high political expenditure to the neglect of the parliamentary system. But this is debatable. The only difference was that non-ministerial parliamentarians were not full-time legislators. Therefore, they kept their jobs as teachers, lawyers, businessmen, and professionals in their fields. They only took time off from work to attend parliamentary sessions.

    However, to reduce rivalry between the crop of parliamentarians who were ministers and those who were not, the latter were also appointed as parliamentary secretaries; others were appointed to boards of corporations. The Senate was ceremonial, like the Regional House of Chiefs.

    Under the presidential system, the competition for elected offices is fiercer. As the treasury becomes the inheritance of the political class, there is the pervading feeling that the quest for political power is tantamount to political investment for which the investors must always garner returns. As those in power get rich, the electorate is abandoned in spiraling penury.

    How would citizens not perceive the government as a burden when its recurrent expenditure is repeatedly higher than its capital expenditure, which should impact positively on the economy, especially in employment generation, investment, and other activities that propel growth?

    This is the challenge that stares some states in the face. It is obvious that less than five per cent of the projected 200 million population consumes the higher part of the nation’s wealth. The effects of over-bloated political bureaucracies involving the big Federal Government, 36 state governments and 774 local governments are alarming. There is disquiet among experts who believe that when recurrent expenditure is high, it may impact negatively on the implementation of capital projects and hamper the realisation of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

    Delegates to the 2004 collapsed National Political Conference in Abuja were alarmed by the retinue of presidential aides and appointees at the state levels. They recommended that the structure should be trimmed. During the Jonathan administration, some technocrats also suggested that certain ministries and departments should be merged or fused.

    Also, some experts have lamented that the rising cost of governance has not been accompanied by corresponding service delivery and efficiency of structures for optimal performance. For example, they explained that the defunct Western Region has been split to eight states. However, the output of the states has not matched the pioneering achievements of the golden era of Obafemi Awolowo’s premiership.

    Up to now, the salaries paid to senators continue to generate controversy, although the total package is unknown. It has been suggested that Nigerian senators and Representatives earn more than their counterparts in Europe and America, which are more advanced economies.

    Governors and council chairmen also have convenient access to resources through the inexplicable security votes. In fact, the Revenue Mobilisation and Fiscal Commission had been overwhelmed by the mounting allowances of public officers across the three arms of government at the state, federal, and local levels.

    Apart from basic salaries, allowances cover other details, such as accommodation, furniture, overseas trips, motor vehicle loan, car fuelling, medicals, special assistance, domestic workers, entertainment, leave, and severance gratuity.

    At a time many parts of Nigeria lack potable water, stable electricity, and quality schools, budgetary proposals and political emoluments should reflect national soberness.

    The current political class needs to learn lessons from the selfless service of the men of the old order – Ahmadu Bello, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, Aminu Kano, Adekunle Ajasin, Lateef Jakande, and Awolowo.

    President Tinubu is showing the way now. Other leaders should emulate his steps.

  • Unfinished reconciliation in Osun APC

    Unfinished reconciliation in Osun APC

    More than a year after losing power, the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Osun State has not learnt any lesson from its defeat during the 2022 governorship election. The chapter is now deck-deep in a crisis, an ill wind that won’t blow party members any good.

    It was a self-inflicted wound, which could have been avoided, if reason had prevailed. However, the disaster became inevitable because party leaders elevated personal and caucus interests over the collective interest of the party.

    Divided they fell on poll day, mocked by their opposition rivals and foes. The wound of the mutually assured destruction is yet to heal. The bitterness has not faded. Malice is still growing in geometric proportions.

    Osun APC is waging war against itself.

    The chapter has not forgiven itself. Due to the inability or refusal of top party leaders to sheathe their swords, the party is now polarised into what could be described as two ‘factions’. Reconciliation is not mooted by scattered party elders within the state, especially those who have taken sides. The seemingly dormant Southwest regional leadership of the party is helpless. It is doubtful if the Abdullahi Umar Ganduje-led National Working Committee (NWC) is cognisant of the entrenched discontent among the party fold and its implications in the long run.

    The loser is not only the party but also the state. The Action Congress of Nigeria/All Progressives Congress administrations in the State of Living Springs were people-oriented. They cared about society and they displayed lofty ideas and action. They had an ideological background. In their agenda, the people came first. The development of the state was a priority.

    Former Governor Adebisi Akande, a man of the old order, brought discipline, frugality, transparency, and accountability to bear on governance. There was no room for avarice, stealing, and misappropriation of public funds. He set a standard for effective governance. He accomplished much before the 2003 earthquake swept off his government.

    Charismatic Chief Rauf Aregbesola is an idealist, a mobiliser, a crusader, an astute politician, and an administrator who built on the pioneering achievements of Pa Akande. He fought the infrastructure battle and recorded feats in other sectors. Although Akande only spent four years, Aregbesola spent two terms. He also handed over to a government of continuity.

    Alhaji Adegboyega Oyetola: reticent, innovative, and reformist, was a silent worker. He was prudent, effective, meticulous, and modest. He was an administrator per excellence. He built on the achievements of his predecessors.

    However, Aregbesola’s succession plan conflicted with his party leader’s wish. Indeed, Aregbesola and his successor will reflect on the episode and reveal their inner workings in their memoirs. But it was evident that during that moment of intra-party bickering, the chapter lost its cohesion. So deep was the division that even in 2018, the party only won by a slim margin.

    Aregbesola and Oyetola are Osun APC assets. It is lamentable that the two leading politicians in the state’s progressive bloc cannot combine their strengths. It should be confounding to the duo that the virile, formidable, and time-tested structure that accounted for their victories in the past is now perceived as a shadow of its glorious past.

    What is striking is not what has changed in the progressive family but what has remained the same. Since the days of Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Southwest’s progressives have never demonstrated the capacity for crisis resolution. Once a crack appeared on the wall, it would not be mended.

    The import of a forgiving spirit is lost on many Yoruba politicians. Tolerance and accommodation are usually in short supply. Although the National Leader, President Bola Tinubu, is an epitome of tolerance and accommodation, many of his native Southwest followers lack that virtue of forgiveness.

    In Osun, the lack of reconciliation led to a chain of events that boxed the combatants into the opposition.

    The intra-party imbroglio in the progressive fold cleared the coast for Senator Jackson Nurudeen Ademola Adeleke to dance to the Government House in Osogbo. It appeared the divided APC leaders reveled in the intrigue, acrimony, backstabbing, strife, and rancour that was tearing their party apart without any indication that they were interested in an amicable resolution.

    In the next three years, the PDP governor will continue to direct the affairs of the state as an entertainer. This is a glaring departure from the ideals of his predecessors who evinced knowledge, vision, and focus in their style of governance. They were good governance personified.

    Since Osun APC is in trouble, it cannot play effectively the role of the opposition; it cannot also hold the PDP government accountable. The body language of the PDP administration in the state depicts the image that it has no rival, no opposition.

    Also, the membership drive is hampered. Who wants to join a party that is not at peace with itself?

    The concern now in the progressive bloc is that Osun APC may not be able to bounce back because it is not putting its house in order. While the chapter has three years to prepare, its leaders are locked in a curious war of attrition.

    Much energy is being dissipated on endless conflicts by leaders who have refused to appreciate that there is strength in unity.

    The two antagonistic camps in the distressed chapter revolve around the Minister of Blue Economy and the former Interior Minister. Instead of closing ranks and working together, their followers in the ‘Ilerioluwa Organisation’ and ‘TOP/Omoluabi Progressives’ are strengthening their caucuses as if the camps are replacements for the party.

    There is a supremacy battle between the two caucuses as if either of the camps can electorally survive without the other.

    Caucus meetings are given more prominence than party meetings. From there, party brethren fire salvos as perceived foes in their party. The warriors in Osun APC have also invaded the social media where they fight dirty, apportion blame and issue threats.

    There is no common ground. The suspicion and distrust permeate the entire party structures at the state, local government, and ward levels. There is no neutrality.

    Since Osun APC is out of power, its vast members are left in the cold. Although it was once the ruling party, APC has now become the opposition. The difference is clear.

    The contradiction in Osun APC is that as the cracks widen, party members become more disposed to working at cross-purposes and undermining the party. The havoc wreaked by chieftains who have defected to the PDP and Labour Party (LP) is intolerable. But the atrocity of party men and women who have become internal opposition leaders in their party is absurd. It is an act of disloyalty and indiscipline.

    Ironically, the gladiators tearing apart Osun APC are those who laboured to build the party and stood their ground against the PDP arrows. It is surprising that the same people who endured dehumanising tribulations, including repression and oppression by the PDP and unlawful detention in prisons so that their party could survive, are now indulging in acts that threaten the existence of their party. It speaks volumes.

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    During the week, chieftains of the first ‘faction’ sued the second faction for creating a division. The two camps comprise Yoruba men and women who understand the axiom that rivals do not return from the court to become friends. While the court can validate the party leadership structures, the temple of justice cannot restore love and unity among the litigating sides.

    Oyetola and Aregbesola are not the progenitors of the progressive bloc in Osun. They are also not the fathers of AD, AC, and ACN that metamorphosised into the APC. They are inheritors, beneficiaries, and contributors to the progressive idea that gave content, form, predictability, and popularity to the platform. The question is: what manner of a party do they want to bequeath to the younger generation of progressives?

    Osun APC needs to wake up from its phantasm urgently. Its legacies may be eroded by a succeeding administration that may not appreciate the giant strides of the past and the products of meticulous planning, sacrifice, and patriotism of Akande/ Aregbesola/ Oyetola era.

    Faithful progressives in Osun should return to the table of brotherhood. Aregbesola should reconcile with his leader and elder brother, Asiwaju. This is the expectation of many Southwesterners.

    The national leadership of the party should broker a truce between the two camps in the chapter. Both sides need to demonstrate the readiness to embrace peace. It is in their interest, in the interest of the party and their state.

    Osun APC warriors should also properly interpret the symbol of their party, the broom. It symbolises togetherness, collective effort, unity, cohesion, and strength.

    The prospects of reclaiming power will be high if these leaders come together, settle their minor differences, and present their party as a united, indivisible, and formidable platform.

    The likes of Aregbesola, Oyetola, Titi Laoye-Tomori, D. Alabi, Jide Omoworare, Sheu Moshood Adeoti, Ajibola Basiru, Iyiola Omisore, Jibola Famurewa, Sunday Akere, Sunday Owoeye, Afolabi, Layi Oyeduntan, Rasaq Salensile, Adelowo Adebiyi, Adelani Baderinwa, Najeem Salam, Sikiru Ayedun, Wale Adedoyin, Rasheed Afolabi, Mudashiru Hussein, Sola Jacob-Adegbite, Bayo Adeleke, Bola Oyebamiji, Isiaka Owoade, Olalekan Badmus, Babatunde Ayeni, Remi Omowaiye, and Ayodele Asalu must jettison the bickering that has denied Osun State the beautiful days of political conviviality and togetherness, love and progress.

    It is time to return the State of Living Springs to the era of colourful politicking and the Omoluabi administrative system.