The Nation Newspaper

Category: Ogochukwu Ikeje

  • Lagos on lockdown

    Lagos on lockdown

    Ogochukwu Ikeje

     

    LAGOS has always held a fascination for me. The sculpture masterpiece by Ben Ekanem of the warrior Queen Amina of Zazzau straddling a horse, sword in hand, at the National Theatre, Iganmu had quite a hold on the visiting schoolboy back in the 80s. So did the iconic theatre itself. And so too did the awesome waves that ceaselessly pounded the Bar Beach, attracting enchanted visitors as well as small-time pickpockets and budding magicians. And what about the intricate colonial architectures overlooking the marina, and the stocked libraries where you momentarily got lost in the world of books before it hit you that you were very far from home?

    Lagos was bold and loud, buzzing with its teeming crowd. In those days the molue was not just a mass carrier; it had a life of its own, complete with all manner of hawkers selling everything from shaving sticks to medicine for all ailments.

    In the daytime the city was a wonder. At night it was another world crawling with seekers of bodily and sensual pleasures, at Ojuelegba and at Obalende and elsewhere.

    Since Monday night it has been another Lagos, one locked down by a presidential announcement owing to the onslaught of the coronavirus or Covid-19. No movement in the city except you are a medical worker, media person, food seller, military personnel or you are in law enforcement. And you had better be on duty otherwise you’d be treated like any other person flouting the stay-at-home order.

    As this piece was written on Friday, there were 190 confirmed cases of the coronavirus in the country, 98 of them in Lagos, 38 in the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.

    Because your columnist falls into one of the exempt categories, he saw Lagos in broad daylight not quite looking like the good old Lagos. The roads were all but deserted especially on Tuesday. It was a rare reality. Nothing of the sort has happened in the city for decades. BRT lanes under construction, and even streets, became makeshift football pitches. The cacophony of car horns was absent. What you saw from time to time was a roadblock mounted by various uniformed persons. At one checkpoint, three soldiers, one a woman, sat on a bench so close to one another that I wondered if they did not care about social distancing, one of the measures we are asked to strictly observe in order to keep the coronavirus at bay.

    Truth be told, not everyone stayed home. Quite a few women displayed sundry edibles by the roadside. Even some hardy commercial bus drivers hit the road with their conductors and seemed to know how to get past the guarded checkpoints. Still, they were few and far between. 

    By Wednesday and Thursday more people were on the road, among them commercial motorists, their buses filled with passengers. There were also foodstuff sellers. Again, it wasn’t the typical business day. But there was one intriguing development. On Thursday night, the roadblocks vanished on one particular stretch.

    I thought about ladies who offer bodily pleasures and feed therefrom. As the lockdown lasts they will either fall back on their savings or starve. Or their patrons might smuggle themselves to their districts and abide there till the storm blows over.

    I equally thought about the street urchins or area boys who are part of us and seem to get by from what they can grab every day. With the rest of Lagosians at home, how are the boys coping? Do they observe social distancing or keep their faces away from their colleagues when they sneeze or cough? Do they wear face masks or check into hospital when their temperatures do not feel right?

    For the rest of us, hand washing has become a way of life, so much that someone joked the other day that by the time this whole thing is over our hands would have sufficiently whitened. We greet with the elbows now, smile from afar and bow. These days everyone knows that they are permitted to cough perhaps just once. Any prolonged business will be rewarded with rebukes. Every sneeze is suspect.

    But we are Lagosians and Nigerians, tough as a nail. We have seen tough times before and we overcame. This time we will also overcome.

     

     

     

  • What a generation!

    What a generation!

    By Ogochukwu Ikeje

    Every generation is worse than the one before. No? Ask Mama or Papa or someone of their generation. They are likely to tell you that their world was considerably sane, that children were better behaved, and ladies covered up appropriately, unlike the picture of today’s streets where nothing is left to the imagination of the male beholder.

    How did their generation unwind? Of course, they will not play the pope and pretend that there were no boyfriends or girlfriends in their days, or that they did not listen to music or dance enthusiastically. But they are sure to tell you that when they danced, their dance was nuanced, more detailed, more expressive, like art, and that word again, sane. Not the stomping and kicking, nor the offbeat twisting and turning of today’s azonto and shaku-shaku.

    Was there violence in Mama and Papa’s day? Of course, otherwise there would have been no police and no jails. There was the occasional killer, the lone thief, even a highway robber (as the felon was once called, largely because he operated on the highways). You will feel the older generation’s horror and alarm as they broach today’s crime profile. But they need not bother. You also know the truth and are just as horrified as they are. Rape is now a pastime, as are murder, burglary, fraud, armed robbery, terrorism, kidnapping, and cybercrime, the last one being, perhaps, the EFCC’s worst nightmare. These days it is not uncommon to see in the papers pictures of as many as 40 young men, sometimes with a lady thrown in, lined up on suspicion of cybercrime or Yahoo, Yahoo, a common term in these parts. And it is not an isolated case in Ibadan, say, or Lagos, but a national malaise. Sometimes they are pictured with such odd items as a package of fetish or miniature coffin, complete with a juju man. The EFCC has their hands full. The suspects are having their day in court. But the army is growing by the day.

    Bandits attack communities in Kaduna, Zamfara, Jigawa and other places, going from house to house, in some cases, robbing, killing and kidnapping people, rustling their livestock, and not just cows but donkeys or whatever they can lay their hands on. Sometimes the hoodlums are gunned down by police and military personnel, but like the Yahoo boys, their army is growing.

    It is a peculiar era.

    This week a polytechnic student in Anambra State, after carrying a pregnancy full term, reportedly threw the newborn out of her boyfriend’s first floor hostel room which served as maternity room. It is not difficult to guess her intentions but the baby survived, though with a broken leg, a barbed fence wire breaking its fall and preventing its certain death. Reports say the runaway mom was later handcuffed and advised to breastfeed her unwanted child in hospital.

    This week two women were arrested on allegation of stealing two babies, while a 50-year-old man appeared in court for sexually assaulting an eight-year-old. The other day a machete-wielding man cut up a woman in Ogun State after chopping off her hands for daring to accuse him of stealing a phone. Also, a man burnt his five-year-old son’s fingers, mouth and buttocks for stealing fish. Throw in the report too of a 51-year-old man who sexually assaulted his 10-year-old daughter as often as pleased.

    What sort of a generation produced that man, and the lady who reportedly poisoned her teenage daughter to death, and killed herself too just to get back at a husband who neither loved her nor cared for his children?

    The National Bureau of Statistics once named Lagos as the state with the highest crime rate in the country followed by the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja with Delta, Kano, Plateau, Ondo, Oyo, Bauchi, Adamawa, and Gombe taking their positions in the infamous ranking. But take another look. As per capital, the FCT with just over 3 million people is leader of the pack, with Lagos (22 million people) coming second.

    Unemployment and poverty are among a raft of causes of crime in the country. What hope for the next generation?

  • 2017: Year of the trafficker

    The West’s quest for conquest has changed the world in very remarkable ways. Continents boasting knowledgeable rulers and sophisticated empires have been ‘discovered’ and given names. So have great rivers, one of them Niger, which have always supported life on such continents. In time, as in the case of Nigeria, bustling population became an irresistible temptation. Energetic youths of both sexes were just what was needed to keep the master’s fields and factories running. So across the Atlantic the human cargo sailed on crammed ships until the voyage ended on the shores of Europe and the Americas. While it lasted, those who became too weak, or too sickly, or too stubborn were simply picked up and tossed into the sea to feed the grateful population of flesh-eating creatures and counted as marginal loss of merchandise. Those who made it to the shore soon started a new slave-master relationship. That much was clear to both sides.

    Times have changed. Trade in humans has been outlawed, and there is a semblance of freedom and equality across the world. In the fullness of time a black man would become the president of the United States of America, occupying the most powerful office on earth.

    This is surreal.

    But how much has really changed? Not much. The West’s taste for cheap African labour is as insatiable as ever. So is the desire for female African flesh.

    It is not a one-way ride. Indeed, Africans now own the latest layer of the trade. The only difference is that they have grown wiser this time. In the past, a white man carted off his human merchandise upon the exchange of such insignificant articles as a labelled bottle of kai-kai or strong drink, a sheet of looking glass, or a pack of cigarettes.

    Not anymore. Africans now sit on top of well-oiled networks of human traffickers and smugglers who make the supplies for a handsome fee. The white man or the Arab need not move a muscle. A multi-million naira trafficking ring delivers the goods.

    This year a CNN Libya slave auction footage shook the world, from Washington to other global capitals. An unhealthy number of ‘articles’ on the slave market are Nigerians, some of whom sold and resold.

    Throughout the outgoing year, we heard and read blood-chilling accounts of young compatriots bruised and battered and dehumanised by their traffickers. The other day there was an unverified video of a man urinating into a subdued black lady’s mouth, something touted to be one more proof of Nigerian migrants’ ordeal these days of atrocities in Libya.

    It is the story of the year, of how young Nigerians leave their homes and country, sometimes without the consent of their parents. It is the story of hazardous journeys through an inhospitable desert through Niger to Libya, and from the coast of that North African country to the coast of Spain and beyond. It is the story of starvation, of thirst, of horror, and of death at the hands of murderous robbers and rapists. There are tales of women forced to offer their flesh to multiples of men in one night. Some pass away in the act, some live to report it.

    It is the story that starts from the neighbourhood. A Nigerian trafficker gains the ears of a jobless or poorly-paid compatriot and sells the bogus tale of better life in Europe. Eager to break the cycle of poverty and ineffectual government, the prey bites the bait and soon ends up a sex slave, prostitute or forced labourer, stripped of every human dignity, and robbed of the cash that lured them away from home in the first place.

    There are frequent TV footages of bloated bodies washed up on Spanish or Italian coasts, and of migrants picked up as their dangerous boats managed to make it to the shore.

    This sordid development has got the world talking, a good part of it trying unsuccessfully to absolve themselves of blame. But if you blame the Libyan or the Italian or the Spanish, how much blame should be reserved for Nigerian traffickers, without whom this criminality would not have started? Is there anyone to beat the trafficker to this year’s person of the year award?

  • Ekwueme, Mugabe: Two contrasting exits

    Ekwueme, Mugabe: Two contrasting exits

    When former Vice President Alex Ekwueme passed on quietly on November 19 in a London clinic, the world, via cable TV, was following a strange drama unfolding in Zimbabwe on the southern tip of Africa.  Two days later, on November 21, the drama was essentially over, with the resignation of President Robert Mugabe.

    It was weird.

    After 37 years in power, 16-odd million Zimbabweans had come to terms with their grim fate: the old man would rather die in office than leave. Anyone who seriously coveted his seat regretted it. On November 6 Emmerson Mnangagwa, Mr Mugabe’s longtime ally and deputy with a dodgy past, was summarily sacked, and subsequently fled the country, amid claims that he was eyeing the president’s office.

    Mr Mnangagwa’s fate probably set the drama in motion. On November 14 the Zimbabwean army rolled out its tanks, placed Mr Mugabe under house arrest but would not call what it was doing a coup. The president was allowed a public appearance, though with a handful of security aides, at a university event, and would later give a bizarre speech in which he tried to maintain the facade that he was still in control of both the country and his party, ZANU-PF, both of which had clearly denounced him. Amid all this, tens of thousands of Zimbabweans were jubilating on the streets and hugging the same soldiers who had helped to keep the old man in power since 1980 when he led a successful uprising that ousted the white minority rulers of the country then called Rhodesia. On November 21 Mr Mugabe sent his letter of resignation to the parliament just before the lawmakers would impeach him as they promised. Mr Mnangagwa emerged from hiding and was sworn in to take Mr Mugabe’s office until next year when election is due.

    A nationwide gyration marked the end of Mr Mugabe’s political life and his iron-fist reign, a sad way to leave the scene, a lesson to all despots in Africa and the world. He and his scheming, ambitious wife Grace have obtained immunity from prosecution and will also keep what they called their personal properties, but the deposed despot will live out his days in ignominy. Enough said about the 93-year-old megalomaniac who once said Zimbabwe’s independence was procured with the gun, and whose departure Zimbabweans also procured with the gun.

    Dr Ekwueme did not fight the sort of battle that Mr Mugabe fought in the years leading up to 1980 but history will reserve its coziest living quarters for Dr Ekwueme, while leaving the dirtiest of rooms for Mr Mugabe. For at least a week after breathing his last, the former vice president had virtually every public figure singing his praise, hailing his good qualities and his accomplishments. It was not in mere adherence to the age-old practice of not speaking ill of the dead. Nigeria’s serving and retired leaders recalled he was a man of learning, with degrees in five fields, one of which architecture in which he took a doctorate. Dr Ekwueme’s mourners waxed lyrical on the subject of his cucumber-coolness and loyalty, pointing out that never did he betray his boss, President Shehu Shagari, with whom he served from 1979 to 1983 before the Buhari coup sacked them. Everyone sang of his patriotism, calling him a frontline nationalist. They said he was a firm believer in the unity of the country, and that he gave Nigeria the six geopolitical zones, an original restructuring masterstroke, that has stuck to this day, based on the principle of fair distribution of the nation’s resources. Many remembered that Dr Ekwueme was a man of peace, a few that he was also well-travelled, exposed and informed.

    Some said he left a pair of shoes too big to fill, and that his demise is a monumental loss to the country. The leadership of Ndigbo said Dr Ekwueme was a great leader of his people and an inspiration.

    Dr Ekwueme was probably a lot more than has been said of him, but it is about time Nigerians began to interrogate the sincerity of his mourners. From the picture they painted of him, Dr Ekwueme was probably one of the best presidents Nigeria never had, to borrow from the late Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, who coined the phrase back in the 80s while mourning Chief Obafemi Awolowo. But if they saw that much good and promise in him, why was he denied the presidency of the country? He was clearly a better candidate when he ran against former president Olusegun Obasanjo in 1999 at the primary stages of that election. Yet, he lost to the Owu chief, who went to on rule the country for eight years, and was also reported to be having some designs for another term before that ill-begotten project collapsed ignominiously.

    Ndigbo are now saying Dr Ekwueme was a rallying point in their zone, but how much have they learned from the master, and how much have they put to good use in their region? Are Ndigbo united in the true sense of the word? Do they really understand what regional unity means?

    Praising Dr Ekwueme in death and in such glowing terms brings to mind the typical Nigerian pastime of reserving their best for the funeral. The life of the average Nigerian is pretty much colourless until he dies. Then newspaper pages after pages and lengths of TV and radio airtime are bought up to announce his transition and interment. Finally, he appears in the most glittering casket money can buy, and is finally lowered to earth amid the loudest of party music, the best of food and the best of company on this side of the divide. How he lived or suffered before death is usually immaterial. It marks the hypocrisy of our time.

    How many in politics, and among those praising him today, are willing to emulate Dr Ekwueme? How many will play politics the way Dr Ekwueme played it? Though, hobbled with age, he remained with the Peoples Democratic Party, which he was credited with founding. In his home state Anambra, he supported Governor Willie Obiano’s reelection bid on the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) platform even though his daughter was a Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) deputy governorship candidate in the same election in the state. Responding to a reporter’s question, Dr Ekwueme would later say his daughter was old enough to take her own decisions. Such wisdom, such maturity, such openness.

    Dr  Ekwueme left a lot to love, Mr Mugabe a lot to regret.  Surely, mourners have a lot to ponder, don’t they?

  • Many sides of Maina

    Many sides of Maina

    Abdulrasheed Maina popped up about seven years ago when senior citizens needed him most. Those were days when gaunt, weak and shrivelled figures of pensioners were making their way to verification centres. Their story was common, a staple of the media in those days. Many of them died in penury and agony, many too sickly and weak to present themselves for verification. Some rode on wheelchairs or on the backs of their children or grandchildren or benevolent neighbours.

    In a country where tragedy often strikes and deadens people’s sense of horror, many still managed to be horrified by the plight of retirees. Not merely because of the manifest challenges they face on their way to the verification queues but also because government officials whose business it was to manage pension funds and save the pensioners hassles were the ones helping themselves to the cash trove. It was reported in those days that fake names were often on the pension books, and that public figures who had access to pension cash often did everything imaginable and unimaginable to defraud the retirees.

    It was in those odious days that Mr Maina showed up charged with the task of cleaning up the rotten pension system. Then president Goodluck Jonathan set up a task force on pension reform with Mr Maina as its chair. And, boy, what did the Borno State-born civil servant find? It took him only a few peeks into the system to see how billions of naira was ending up in the pockets of unscrupulous individuals.

    Mr Maina was an instant hit, and could have won any election in Borno or Abuja. He was a champion, a crime buster and problem solver. That was his best side.

    Other versions soon became visible. For no sooner had he discovered the leaky taps and leeches of the pension system than it was alleged that Mr Maina himself had creamed off a sizable chunk of what he dug up. A stir in Dr Jonathan’s government attracted the police and senate’s attention, and Mr Maina became a puzzle, a mystery, a subject of investigation. He disappeared into the proverbial thin air, supposedly chased by both the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and international police, as reports had it that he was actually living large in some choice destinations far beyond the borders. That was the fugitive.

    But there are other Mainas, such as the returnee, the reinstated, the promoted and the glorified.

    Returning to the country, Mr Maina was given a hero’s welcome, moved two steps up the civil service ladder and crowned with a director’s office in the ministry of interior.

    Everything about Mr Maina attracted attention, and so did his return and reinstatement, only that this time it was disgust and outcry that trailed him. The questions were many. Who facilitated the fugitive’s return? And why? Why was he reinstated and promoted, and by whom? Whither the integrity and anti-corruption war of President Muhammadu Buhari?

    The stench of the Maina saga was more than President Buhari could stand, so he ordered his sack and a quick investigation of the matter.

    Mr Maina has fled, again, but not before he said he had dirt on a large number of highly-placed individuals who shared the loot. His family has rallied to his defence, saying he is actually a miracle worker, not a thief. The family has also said the Buhari administration brought him back to help in the anti-graft fight.

    The presidency has not responded to Mr Maina’s family’s claim as vigorously and convincingly as it should. That may not be admission of guilt, yet, after all, Mr President is not known for speaking up or acting promptly even in the face of serious and unfavorable public perceptions. It took him an uncomfortably long time to relieve Babachir Lawal and Ayodele Oke of their positions, after the one, secretary to the government of the federation at the time, was accused of some dirty contract deals, and the other, a spy chief, could not come up with a cogent explanation for a dizzying pile of cash found in a Lagos apartment.

    President Buhari has ordered Mr Maina’s immediate sack but he has to do more than that. It is plausible that some members of his cabinet could plot and execute certain acts without the president’s knowledge or approval. But Mr Maina’s reinstatement and promotion should not be one of those acts. Why? It hurts everyone, but it hurts the president and his administration the more. In the thick of the Maina saga, some reports said a minister in President Buhari’s government tried to knock the EFCC off Maina’s trail.

    This is not a matter the president should hope time will sort out eventually. He must quickly determine the culpability or otherwise of his lieutenants in the matter and act appropriately. In the case of guilt, a slap on the wrist will not do. Everything depends on it. The senior citizens will hope that justice is served. People who believe that the years of rot under the unprincipled PDP government should end with the enthronement of the APC will be happy to see the guilty get their comeuppance. So will those who, in 2015, voted integrity rather than perpetuation of recklessness.

    Not doing more than just sacking Mr Maina can potentially pull down, brick by brick, the sturdy structure President Buhari laboured to build over the years. And should that happen, Mr Maina would have shown his most devastating side yet, that of the undertaker, the vanquisher.

  • Restructuring is dead, long live rest

    His Royal Majesty has not always been of mere cer
    emonial importance, if not outright joke. The fate
    of an individual and the kingdom once depended on his disposition or pronouncement. In many cases the king’s word was law. Such was the importance of the monarchy that the royal stool was not permitted to be vacant. In 1272 when the English king Henry III died, so says history, his son and heir-apparent Edward I was away preoccupied with the battle of the Crusades. Nevertheless, the Royal Council proclaimed him king and he reigned in absentia until he heard of his father’s death and returned home.

    In France, in those ancient days, a successor to the throne was announced as the demised predecessor was lowered into the royal tomb. The phrase “The king is dead, long live the king” accompanied the interment and the coronation. The kingdom was too important to be vacant, even for half a day, lest some ambitious claimant seize upon the lacuna.

    Here, in these modern but troubled times, restructuring has assumed a larger-than-life image, with people like former vice president Atiku Abubakar, in their own words, trumpeting the point that there is hardly any future for Nigeria without restructuring. It doesn’t matter to them that some have smelled 2019 politics in the restructuring crusade. The nobles and commoners alike have been so enamoured of the word that it may not be farfetched to assume that even in the markets where we buy our peppers, tomatoes and native seasonings, restructuring could well have become a staple.

    Despite its initial popularity, though, restructuring may have run into very bad weather. The presidency has amply shown that the R-word is not one of its favourites. Not after, it is feared, some have turned it into a campaign weapon, insinuating that the country may break up if not restructured. In fact, presidential spokesman Femi Adesina has lampooned some champions of restructuring who have been in government for decades and have only just woken up to the R-word on the eve of a presidential election.

    Some are also starting to ask for the meaning of the word. Northern governors, for instance, recently sought that clarification not because the region is afraid to stand alone, should it come to that, but because they think restructuring means different things to different people. And if there is no consensus, then there is a problem with the word.

    Southeast leaders seem to be joining the restructuring campaign late. The reason for this is unclear. Were they simply overwhelmed or distracted by the belligerent posture of the Indigenous People of Biafra or IPOB? Were they waiting to see how the secessionist agitation would pan out? But after the python danced in the region, a gyration few enjoyed, the leaders started pushing for restructuring, trying to knock it into every Igbo head that restructuring is indeed better than secession. It may be belated but it is still a smart move. In fact, if they could turn back the hands of the clock, Igbo leaders would have started early to knock restructuring into the heads of IPOB members, something they tried to do with Nnamdi Kanu, the group’s leader, shortly before the serpent started dancing in Abia. In any event, restructuring is at best an afterthought in the Southeast, not the original thought.

    Then, in Ibadan, on October 12, Southwest leaders effectively pronounced the death of restructuring, at least as a word.

    “Restructuring is not our language,” declared elder statesman Bisi Akande. “Go and ask those who are advocating restructuring to define it.”

    Chief Akande’s point was clear enough. The Southwest will not join the clamour for restructuring. That will be music to the ears of the president. But leaders of the region did not gather at the Oyo State governor’s office just to distance themselves from the R-word. Chief Akande conveyed the aggregate position of the Ibadan meeting and it had restructuring written all over it. They want the federal government to concede some of its powers to the states. They want the states to also control a good part of their revenues so those which prioritise agriculture, for instance, and have the land can go ahead and do so. Those which have concrete plans for education should be able to practicalise those plans. In other words, the Southwest wants a return to the glorious days of the regions when it shone brightly not just with its policies but also its structures, some of which still stand till today, to the envy of other regions. This, as Chief Akande pointed out, was the reason they met back in January.

    Of the zones, and as far as restructuring goes, the Southwest appears to be the most coherent, though they want nothing to do with the word itself. If their demands are met, and if they get other states to benefit from the campaign they led, then who cares whether you call it restructuring or anything else. If the Southwest push endures on this steam, then clearly, the word restructuring is on its last legs but its essence is alive nonetheless.

    Restructuring is dead, long live restructuring!

  • The Buhari paradox

    To some, President Muhammadu Buhari in just over two years has tumbled from the height of popularity to the depth of infamy and disdain. After thrashing the much compromised and ineffectual Goodluck Jonathan in the 2015 election, the retired army general, seen as Mr Integrity, is now viewed as sectional, rigid, aloof, undemocratic, a pretender, if not even clueless.

    This assessment is unfortunate, hasty, inaccurate and unhelpful. A few developments played into the hands of these assessors, though. Take the latest, the $25b NNPC contracts, for example. In August, the minister of state for petroleum Ibe Kachikwu complained in a private letter to President Buhari that contracts of that magnitude were awarded by the NNPC group managing director Maikanti Baru without due consultations or the approval of the corporation’s board. This month the letter was leaked to the media and all hell broke loose.

    Another matter is that involving the secretary to the government of the federation Babachir Lawal and Ayodele Oke, director general of the intelligence agency, the one linked to an IDP-related contract, the other to a dizzying pile of cash warehoused in a Lagos apartment. Add to these the recession, and the separatist agitations of the Indigenous People of Biafra or IPOB.

    Picking up the $25b NNPC contracts, some commentators have already arrived at their conclusions, putting the blame squarely on the president for appointing a rude GMD for Nigeria’s biggest money spinner, who has neither respect for bosses nor regard for the corporation’s board. Even before all the facts are out, sides have been taken, and Mr President is the guilty party.

    Regarding Mr Lawal and Mr Oke, the issue is essentially that President Buhari has taken a suspiciously too long a time to pronounce their fate after an investigative team submitted the report of their findings on the two men.

    For two odd years a biting recession also hurt President Buhari just as much as the secessionist tendencies of IPOB did. What use is integrity if the people are hungry, it has been said. Why won’t IPOB agitate when the president has chosen to sideline the Igbo.

    With these and such other sentiments, critics say the president has since gone from solution to the very problem afflicting the country.

    This is unfortunate. The NNPC contract issue is worrisome not because it involves such a huge amount of money or simply because Dr Baru sidetracked Dr Kachikwu, but because Baru may have exploited the unfortunate loopholes in the corporation’s untidy act to avoid whomever he wanted to avoid. The matter is also troubling because it exposes the poor cohesion within the president’s team, the same monster that has ravaged the administration since its inception.

    The president needs to quickly determine the fate of Mr Lawal and Mr Oke, so their replacements can be appointed, if they are guilty.

    It is odd, though, that President Buhari’s critics seem to write him off merely because some members of his administration are accused of certain atrocious acts. It is as if they are saying that people who work with Mr Integrity must be as squeaky clean as Mr Integrity himself. Things do not quite work out that way anywhere. The concern will be if any of Mr President’s men or women are found wanting but are not punished.

    In the midst of all this, it has been conveniently forgotten that the Treasury Single Account activated by the administration has forced government firms to start remitting to the federal purse huge sums of money that previously ended up people’s bank accounts. No one remembers that the once dreaded Boko Haram has been seriously weakened, and that the economy is picking up gradually, helped by some vigorous local farming.

    Two years after President Buhari took office, why do the people rage? Why is the chant of restructuring, federalism and secession growing louder? Why are state governors not blamed for their laziness, lack of inventiveness and the impoverishment of their people? In the 16 reckless years of the PDP in power, why did restructuring, federalism or even separatism not gain any traction? Why do we gloss over the fact that the country has been decaying for decades? Why were states created even though they have not been generating any revenue of note? Why are there so many private schools and yet such little grooming and employment? Why are there so many churches, yet such pitiable sanity or godliness? Why such little love among the ethnic groups in the country? Decades ago, a Fulani taxi man gave me a ride from out of town into Jos and refused to take the fare.

    It won’t be fair to blame the problems of the country on what President Buhari did or did not do in the last two years.

  • On the eve of 57th anniversary

    BY the time confrontations between members of Indigenous People of Biafra or IPOB and the military were reported on September 10,  11 and 12 in parts of Abia State, Nigeria’s 57th independence anniversary was just over two weeks away. That is not what a country should be grappling with on the eve of such a momentous event. You would expect, at least in speeches and other gestures, a semblance of unity, an evaluation of the country’s journey, an appraisal of its accomplishments, and an assessment of its challenges with a view to addressing them. You expect a country on the eve of its independence anniversary to celebrate the moment and look forward to the future with hope, but that is not the lot of Nigeria at the moment.

    Two weeks back, there was a lot more to worry about beyond confrontations between the secessionist group and security personnel. There was a report of  vehicles being stopped in Abia and commuters asked whether they were northerners or not. Violence was also reported in Rivers State featuring IPOB members and Hausa residents. In no time there was tension in places far afield such as Katsina, Kaduna, Plateau and Niger states, whose governors moved quickly to calm nerves. In Jos, the Plateau State capital, where a clash reportedly claimed two lives, Governor Simon Lalong declared a curfew, threatening to invoke the powers at his disposal to enforce peace, and warning community leaders to do the right thing.

    It was a forgettable week in which IPOB agitations came to a head. Many of its members were reported killed in a clash with military personnel in an operation codenamed Python Dance II. That was not all. The military put a terror label on the organisation, while the governments of the five Southeast states, regarded by IPOB as Biafra heartland, also proscribed the group. Nnamdi Kanu, its leader, has since disappeared.

    The only good thing about the week was the peace moves by governors of northern states, as well as similar efforts by their Southeast counterparts. The northern governors visited the Southeast and Southsouth to reassure their kin there of their safety.

    Proscribing the secessionist group in the Southeast will remain a knotty issue, with IPOB itself calling the region’s governors slaves of the North, and some others insinuating that the governors are essentially insensitive to the plight of their own people. But if you are a governor in any of the states, or if you witnessed the civil war, you would appreciate why they took the action they did. With fake news and exaggerations common in the social media it probably would have taken a few more ugly developments for the entire country to go up in flames had the state governors not intervened.

    It would have been foolish, ugly and unfair had an Igbo-Hausa war broken out. As Imo State Governor Rochas Okorocha pointed out, IPOD’s secessionist agitations do not have the backing of majority of the Igbo, who are known, not altogether for their own good, to have more hefty investments elsewhere than in their homeland.

    Then consider why IPOB wants Biafra. There is a perception that the Muhammadu Buhari administration marginalises the Igbo, and that the president himself has essentially shut the region out of his government. While it is difficult to argue forcefully in defence of the administration, it is pertinent to point out that the Igbo have had little to be happy about long before President Muhammadu Buhari took office two years ago. If Southeast roads are horrible and there is hardly any federal government’s presence in the region, surely, that ugly situation predates the Buhari administration. What were the tangible gains of Ndigbo during the years of President Goodluck Ebele Azikiwe Jonathan? How many federal roads were paved, or major industries sited in the Southeast? It is probable that Dr Jonathan’s defeat in the 2015 polls and the perception that President Muhammadu Buhari is anti-Igbo helped to inspire IPOB.

    That said, the point has been made and reinforced here that the tragic outcome of the IPOB clash with the military amounts to killing a fly with the sledgehammer. The federal government and its security institutions will do well to learn to manage crisis better. Yes, IPOB has been reported to have now formed something of a security arm, a dangerous development, it must be said, but how much threat did they really pose before the clash in which they were clearly vanquished? Arresting and prosecuting lawbreakers is a good way to go in a democratic setting.

    As for Mr Kanu, his disappearance has thrown the spanner in the works. His court trial has been stalled. Were he around, and despite the court case, one way to tackle the agitation he leads is to keep talking to him and his group and addressing their misgivings, whether real or imagined.

    Nigeria is said to be swimming out of recession waters, and gradually pulling out of the clouds of inflation. There are also reports that huge amounts of money that used to end up in the vaults of thieves are now being declared, but how can the nation celebrate anything when on the eve of its 57th independence anniversary it is caught up in secessionist trouble?

  • Much ado about six-minute broadcast

    Much ado about six-minute broadcast

    President Muhammadu Buhari’s 100 plus days  in London with his doctors was enough to trigger strong emotions back home. Some friendly folks simply wished him speedy recovery. Some declared without evidence that he was effectively dead, challenging anyone who said otherwise to come forward with their proof. Yet some others feared there were too many alarm bells in the country. Separatist voices were growing louder alongside hate speech. Herdsmen menace was unrelenting. The effect of a recessed economy was harsh. There was also concern that Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, then acting president, was too hamstrung to halt the slide.
    Yet, when the president returned, rather surprisingly, exactly a week ago, and made a national broadcast two days later, the communication lasted barely six minutes. It was too short, uninspiring and insensitive, some cried. It also did not calm frayed nerves, people like Oby Ezekwesili said, adding that the president missed an opportunity to be presidential.
    Such reactions are misplaced and largely a storm in a teacup, as they say. President Buhari is not known for great speeches, and I think it is a bit farfetched to expect him now at 74 to start learning the ABCs of oratory. He believes in making his point in as few words as can be permitted. During the campaigns he left few uplifting sound bites, but what he lacks in speechmaking he makes up for in strength of character, a fact that drove better speakers in his camp to do the job on the hustings.
    In any event, the president’s broadcast, while not being exhaustive, covered enough ground. He addressed the separatist agitations, stating clearly that Nigeria’s unity “is settled and not negotiable”. He mentioned terrorism, Boko Haram, kidnapping and farmer-herdsmen clashes, declaring an all-out war against them.
    He glossed over the economy, and in my opinion he shouldn’t have. There was also one other glaring omission: his hard-working second-in-command Prof Osinbajo, who impressed even the opposition while the C-in-C was away. That oversight, if that is what we call, would have provided the president’s critics with another weapon to fight him, insinuating that he undermines his deputy. These critics are simply mischievous. For everyone knows that President Buhari holds his deputy in the highest esteem, proving it in many instances. Glance back to the days of Obasanjo and Atiku. Any similarities?
    Failing to address Nigerians on the economy or applaud his deputy’s sterling work is not a putdown anymore than failing to claim a few credits for himself and his administration. For instance, President Buhari did not gloat over the fact that for the first time in 10 years the country pulled out of the notorious 10 most corrupt nations in the world, as per Transparency International. President Buhari also failed to mention that 82 Chibok girls returned before his flight to London. Nor did he say anything about new impetus in growing rice locally and halting capital flight through importations.
    Nor did he, for that matter, seize the opportunity of a national broadcast to reply some prominent Nigerians who wished him dead and mouthed all manner of thrash about his health. A Trump would not have let such an opportunity slip by.
    President Buhari’s brief broadcast should not have annoyed as many people as it did. True, it will not go down as one of the greatest speeches in recent years, but that is hardly surprising. Our man is not for speeches. It is enough that he is healed and back home. Now we can nudge him to crack the tough nuts he has identified and proceed to those he failed to mention.

  • Hope and tragicomedy in three months

    Even before May when President Muhammadu Buhari flew to  London, the second time in about two months, to consult with his doctors, there was enough drama to engage Nigerians. Since the second flight, however, the drama has intensified. Within these months we have heard a band of northern men, some of whom claiming to be youths, barking out a quit order to the Igbo living in the North. We have also had a sense of screaming vultures circling in the skies, while on the ground hyenas were laughing and jackals howling, all doing their best to either snatch a quick meal or throw their weight around while the king of the jungle was away. And then from the Queen Herself we heard that all would be quiet again in the jungle, everyone in their place, as soon as the king returned.

    And while all that was playing out, there was no small amount of activity in some quarters, in which were such frenetic individuals as Femi Fani-Kayode, who essentially and persistently pushed out the word that President Buhari was either effectively dead or nearly so, at best hooked up to a machine, unable to see or tell what the London weather looked like nor recognise the person in front of him. Not everyone found Mr Fani-Kayode and company’s methods and perspectives in good taste, but they may have had their uses. For instance, we soon started noticing growing traffic on the Abuja-Lagos-London flight path, some of the travellers genuinely going to wish the president well, and some probably just to see things for themselves, hear the man speak, eat and walk, before they believe he is alive.

    Over these three months we have heard of some Abuja characters deliberately bypassing the acting president Yemi Osinbajo and taking files directly to President Buhari in London. Thankfully, the president saw through their dark hearts and darker schemes, and turned them right back with specific instructions to lay the files on the desk of Professor Osinbajo. Needless to say that the president’s firm rebuke not only dampened the troublemakers’ ego but also laid to rest insinuations in certain quarters far afield that the vice president could do nothing by himself.

    In these intervening months while the president is away, Nigerians have heard hate speech and hate songs, the likes of which have thrown nations into atrocious wars. The latest of such hate products is an anti-Igbo song waxed in the North, where the Igbo quit notice was issued earlier on June 6.

    The jury is out on how to curb such hate and divisive tendencies. The federal government is trying to push out an executive bill to criminalise hate speeches, though this has raised questions as to whether we do not have enough in our laws to deal with such troublemakers.

    Against the backdrop of recession, have we lost it?

    Not at all. A few great things have been happening. One, even before the president left for London, some 82 of the Chibok girls returned. The International Monetary Fund has said Nigeria is clawing its way out of recession. In July Transparency International said the country has exited the top 10 most corrupt nations in the world, sitting in the 28th position. This is something to cheer, because for over a decade the country never cleaned up its acts, sometimes ranking among the three sleaziest nations on earth. We cannot over-cheer, though, because we are still no better than such nations as Gabon, Colombia, Panama, Liberia or Niger, corruption-wise.

    The best news is the recovery of Mr President himself. This silences the likes of Mr Fani-Kayode, at least for a while, and heartens many compatriots. President Buhari’s recovery may cut no ice with Charles “Charly Boy” Oputa who, with crowd, has been baying for the president to return or resign, but at the least, it inspires hope that the man who helped to remove Nigeria from the 10 most morally depraved country will not pass away just yet.

    This is something to cheer.