The Nation Newspaper

Category: Ogochukwu Ikeje

Obasanjo the incomparable

He should not have slammed Jonathan on security and corruption

Delivering his damning verdict on the Jonathan administration the way he did, was impertinent, tending to speak more, negatively, about the ex-president and less about the man he criticised.

Last week, in Warri, Delta State, at what was otherwise a commemoration of Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor’s 40th anniversary as a preacher, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo lashed out at the federal government, pooh-poohing its handling of the Boko Haram insurgency. Obasanjo likened the sect’s terror, which has claimed thousands, to a sore that Dr Goodluck Jonathan failed to treat early.

“My fear is that when you have a sore and you don’t attend to it early enough, it festers and becomes very bad,” he said. “Don’t leave a problem that can be bad unattended.”

He also dismissed Jonathan’s anti-corruption efforts, and those of Umaru Yar’Adua, and appeared to be looking back with nostalgia to the days of Mallam Nuhu Ribadu as head of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

Was he entirely off the mark? Not quite. Even President Jonathan knows that most Nigerians expect more in containing Boko Haram than he has delivered. The people also know that sleaze remains a present danger to the health of the country and everything it holds dear.

Still, the former president should have held back his fire until he had left the public space and had the ears of the current commander-in-chief he helped to install. More importantly, he was not qualified to deliver that sort of verdict.

But we know the Egba chief enough to expect the unexpected. We hate him. We love him. And sometimes we are not quite sure what we feel. To the man himself, what we feel may really not matter. He has this aloofness about him on what people think of him and his actions or inactions. He said, for instance, that he did not read local newspapers, and so essentially did not care what Nigerians said about him. Whether that detachment is a natural trait or derives from the stubborn airs that come from long years of running the country, or even from his phenomenal good fortune, is difficult to determine. He first presided over Nigeria’s affairs as an army general, easily having his way, according to the traditions of the military. Then, he returned as a two-term civilian president who would have preferred to keep having his way. That return to power was in itself quite memorable. We were told that influential people were visiting to persuade him to run, even though he was just fresh from prison. We were told that everything was in his favour. He is from the Southwest whose people were still smarting from the denial of an Abiola presidency. He is of the military constituency and was considered capable of checking the power lust of military adventurers. He feared no one, just the type of leader Nigeria needed. That could have filled any mortal with a sensation of immortality. How many parade such a profile?

As president we found him quite enigmatic. After leading us to believe he was overflowing with knowledge, he went back to school to study for a degree at the Open University. When we hoped to see him leave Aso Rock at the end of eight years in power, the infamous Third Term agenda popped up. When we nudged him to speak up on the matter, he declined, until the people’s voice drowned it out altogether. Thereafter, Obasanjo said he never really wanted a third term and that God would have obliged him if he asked. In retirement, his opinion was still sought after, but sometimes he disappointed news hunters at airports, preferring to dance for them, rather than answer their questions.

When we expect him to remain at his farms, we are somewhat shocked to see that the world still seeks his wisdom. In February, to mention a recent development, he was in Senegal to mediate the country’s political upheaval as Senegalese protested yet another presidential candidacy of 85-year-old Abdoulaye Wade. This month, Obasanjo was selected to head a 250-strong ECOWAS election observer mission to Ghana ahead of the country’s polls on December 7. He is to help promote transparent and credible elections there.

A man of such stature should know when to speak publicly on issues that disconcert him in the government he helped to install. He ought to be better advised too when making comparisons. In Warri, Obasanjo recalled the Odi invasion, implying that he prevented a worse security situation by deploying troops to the Bayelsa riverside community. He said the troops killed all the youths accused of killing policemen in the town. He did not say the invaders also killed innocent residents, including the aged and utterly devastated the town. In any case, militancy in the Niger Delta started in his time.

Obasanjo wrote off Jonathan and Yar’Adua in fighting corruption, conveniently glossing over the fact that his own administration hardly did any better, in spite of Ribadu’s best efforts. How many high-profile thieves were jailed in his time? How many fraudulent elections were upturned in the courts?

Last week in Warri, the enigma simply continued.

November 18, 2012
Falling for Obama

We should learn from his election

We have fallen for Obama, again. We might as well admit it. The man makes our hearts go pitter-patter. He did it on Super Tuesday when the United States of America, a country brimming with over 300m people, went to the polls and re-elected him. Barack Obama softened us all up that day, just as he did when he made history four years ago, sending us into a swoon.

Late 2008 when he was first elected the name ‘Obama’ was on most Nigerians’ lips. We mouthed it everywhere. It boomed in the marketplace, echoed in the barber’s shop, reverberated in the offices. The bus driver knew it and, in some cases, even had it painted on his vehicle. Back then I feared we might also print Obama’s face on our textile materials. Some rich and influential people in our midst ate dinner over the name, even claiming to raise funds on its owner’s behalf, an assertion from which the Obama organisation distanced itself.

Congratulatory messages poured out from everywhere. Our president hailed him. Our senators praised him. The House reps expressed their adoration. The entire nation fell for him.

It was not for nothing. Obama was not just the first African-American to preside over the affairs of the most powerful nation on earth; he was also the first first-generation African-Americans to do so. His father was a Kenyan and died as one. So Obama achieved what many thought was impossible. He lifted our spirits. The smart politician that he is, Obama did not campaign on racial lines but when he spoke of hope in 2008, the African-American community also understood it to mean there was hope for them. So did the Nigerian, and indeed, the African everywhere. If Obama could aspire to such heights, so could we. If Obama could win, so could we. The man of magic renewed hope, and we could not help but say, or at least, feel ‘we can’.

Last week, Obama did it again, besting his hard-fighting Republican challenger Mitt Romney. He sent us all to cloud nine, again, even though much of the hope he spoke about four years ago had slipped away with lost jobs. We were relieved when he rallied to win one of the tightest presidential races in memory with a comfortable margin, after sliding in the poll ratings following a disappointing performance in the crucial first debate with Romney. As he was re-elected, Nigerians were congratulating one another as though the winner were of Igbo, Yoruba or Hausa ancestry or of any of our tribes. President Goodluck Jonathan has since fired off a congratulatory message, as have our lawmakers. Other leaders have waxed lyrical, praising the system that produced last week’s election and our own Obama as president. One of them wished we could have that sort of election soon.

Even in defeat Romney proved no less a leader. He looked forward to a new and better America under Obama. He not only showed much respect for the man who frustrated his attempt to rule America but also said he would pray for the success of the re-elected president. That was impressive.

Obama was unmatchable in his victory speech, proving that words are as much a crucial aspect of great leadership as is action. He praised not just the man who nearly denied him a second term but also the man’s family which produced Romney’s father, who after serving as Michigan governor also ran for the presidency himself. Obama saluted the Romney family for their public service to the American people. The president praised his campaign organisation with enough words and, later tears, to inspire them the way money could not. To his workers he showed respect; to his wife and family love.

From the eyes of his country men and women he drew tears of powerful, positive emotions when he told them the task of perfecting their union was moving forward. He spoke of the larger American family which rose from “war and depression” to the “heights of hope” and of a people free to “pursue our individual dreams”. He praised the voters, whether they voted for or against him. He reminded Americans that it is not their wealth that makes them rich, nor do they derive their strength from the country’s superior military. Obama said their much sought-after universities and cultures do not make Americans exceptional. What does, he told them, is their bond.

As he spoke, sustained cheers forced him to pause.

Obama urged his people to be stubborn in hope even when situations nudged them to give up. He dismissed politics as sometimes divisive, as we all saw in his famous duel with Romney, who got more white votes than he did. Obama rallied his compatriots, calling their country the greatest on earth.

They lapped it all up. And so did we, outsiders. We loved his speech prowess, probably even envied the ability of a fellow black to carry along such a consequential country. For different reasons we fell for Obama.

But what use is falling for him if we cannot learn from him? Will our politics ever produce respect among our politicians? Without aping Obama in speech, can our leaders truly rally our people with words even when action fails them? Obama said the best was yet to come for Americans. Is our best also yet to come or is it behind us?

November 11, 2012
For the love of oil

Who will teach us to love something else?

From the colourful protest by walking-stick-wielding kings and chiefs in top hats and reach-down robes, as well as from the hot exchange between Rivers and Bayelsa state governments, it is clear that oil still sends heads crashing against one another in these parts. Unfortunately.

But before it begins to look as though this flammable liquid is being accused of causing trouble, it must be stated early enough that oil does not hurt anyone. It has neither hands nor feet. Nor does it have brains to think for itself. Like money, it remains harmless until man’s appetites come into the picture. You could say the thirst for oil is the root of all strife.

For the love of petroleum, nations have crossed their territories into other lands, and even deployed to battle. For the love of crude, blood has spilled and heads have rolled. For the sake of oil, a powerful cartel was formed long ago to determine how much nations should sell their natural resources. For crude oil, developed nations have been unable to abandon Nigeria no matter how rough its administrative edges, or how rudimentary its development profile.

For the sake of oil, Kalabari monarchs and their chiefs overlooked palace duties and administrative obligations to stage a protest at the nation’s capital, even dragging President Goodluck Jonathan into the matter. And was it not for the sake of oil that Bayelsa is at ‘war’ with Rivers, two neighbouring states, each hosting some communities with common ancestry and traditions?

The Kalabari chiefs in Rivers State said five of their community oil wells have been ceded with their lands to Bayelsa, and that derivation funds accruing from the ceded lands are already being paid to the state to which the lands and wells were given. The chiefs also accused President Jonathan, who hails from Bayelsa, of approving the transfer of the lands and resources.

The President, through his spokesman Dr Reuben Abati, has denied the charges. Abati also used such terms as “irresponsible” and “school-boy-style” to describe the chiefs’ protest, saying they were acting out the script of some “hidden sponsors”.

Bayelsa has not denied that the lands and wells in question belong to the Kalabari in Rivers State who have common cultural roots with the Nembe in Bayelsa. But Governor Seriake Dickson, through an aide, argued that the 11th edition of the administrative map of Nigeria recognised the contentious lands and oil wells as being part of Bayelsa State. Apparently by the same token, the governor reasoned that Bayelsa government has the responsibility to administer the recognised areas and should also receive derivation funds accruing therefrom.

Governor Chibuike Amaechi retorted that before the 11th edition of the federal map that there were first, second, all the way to the 10th edition of the same administrative map. The governor’s argument is that if the map recognised the Soku fields as part of Rivers State until its 11th version, why did the geographical status of the fields change suddenly?

Dickson believes it does not matter, and that the Kalabari can own the transfered land while Bayelsa should exercise administrative control and receive money for doing so.

Amaechi and his community leaders will have none of that. In fact the battle line has been drawn, though the Kalabari will want neutral intervention, from the National Assembly, preferably, to prevent a worsening of the crisis.

Things can actually get worse, but that would be unfortunate and unnecessary; such strife even exposes our pathetic paradox.

The bickering is not about lands or communities suddenly uprooted and tranplanted in another state in the name of state creation or boundary adjustment. It is simply about oil and the cash that it brings. We have our kins quartered in different parts of the country, even beyond the country. That does not necessarily generate any crisis, at least, not the sort we are witnessing in the Southsouth. The strife comes when oil is involved. That is the most unfortunate part. For our oil has done pretty little to lift us off the ground. As the chiefs and state chief executives bicker over Soku fields which pump out 300,000bpd, the rest of us should ask ourselves what oil has done for us and the country. It has not helped our jobs profile and our economy remains weak, susceptible to the fluctuations of oil prices. Oil has not taken our people off poverty. Our infrastructure remains unflattering. Beyond our potentials and pockets of integrity, we have pretty little to offer the world, in spite of our oil.

That is not to say lands and resources should be grabbed arbitarily. The Jonathan administration should ensure that there is justice in the matter by nudging the boundary commission to properly delineate boundaries.

But we need to tame out thirst for oil and cultivate healthier and more fruitful tastes.

November 4, 2012
Only truth will set us free

Relief returned to the country as First Lady Dame Patience Jonathan’s plane touched down in Abuja last week. Moments before she stepped off the aircraft, her hands went up in the air, a broad smile flashing across her dark-goggled face. It felt good to be back after what she called her “trial time.” That trial took over a month to conquer. And it was, crucially, about health. On the one hand, she was relieved and happy; on the other, she was quite sad and concerned. She expressed those contrasting emotions almost in equal measure. Waxing spiritual, in fact, quoting the Bible, Mrs Jonathan just about blessed those who prayed for her. As for those who spread uncomfortable tales about her during her ordeal, the First Lady had a word of caution, to put it mildly. They will do well to remember that God’s plans are different from man’s, she told the tale bearers, some impertinently reminding their audience that not all First Couples going into Aso Rock came out intact. Some thought and speculated that she had gone for either a face job or tummy tuck.

I subscribe to the Dame’s admonition because life is too precious to be made light of, especially when it is in any danger. Besides, man’s best efforts to declare who will live or die, often fall flat simply because he is so miserably unqualified to venture into that field. Doctors, for instance, have given up on their patients, only for the condemned to bounce back to life.

Still, it is quite easy to understand why Mrs Jonathan’s health status excited the tale bearers. There is so much secrecy surrounding leaders and their spouses in this country. We know pretty little about those whose business it is to mind our business. And where information is scare, speculation thrives. Where truth is nonexistent, lies fill the vacuum. We have experienced this all too often and paid very dearly for it. Our leaders across the tiers of government, as well as elected or selected ones, steal away to foreign lands, claiming to be on vacation, whereas they went in search of answers to their health questions. They are entitled to their privacy, of course, but at some point and to some extent, individual privacies must be surrendered to the public. For public officers are, after all, public property, as it were, being sustained by taxpayers.

In the days of President Olusegun Obasanjo, it was after the unfortunate death in 2005 of his wife Stella at the hands of an incompetent doctor in Spain that Nigerians learnt the First Lady had gone for a tummy job. The physician was later jailed for placing a tube in the wrong place, his licence suspended for a time. His last high profile patient was just weeks away from her 60th birthday.

In President Umaru Yar’Adua’s era, things worsened in this regard. When the president’s health seemed to fail and the people desired to know the truth, the issue of squash and how he could play it almost nonstop, popped up. When the president disappeared from view entirely, his handlers said everything was just fine. When it finally became public knowledge that Yar’Adua was rushed to a Saudi hospital and that he might be there for a while. His minders said all was still well with his administrative obligations, and that he could indeed preside over the affairs of the country from any part of the world. Then, one fateful night, when much of the country had gone to bed, his caretakers smuggled him back, still doing their best to sustain the lies they had been serving up. One day we heard the Commander-in-Chief was ascending and descending the staircase; another day we were told he recognized his mother. One day it was all over.

All the secrecy and lies were unnecessary. They reduced the number one man to an object of manipulation. This was unfortunate. His handlers also gave Nigeria away as a lying country but, more crucially, they made infirmity look like something of which to be eternally ashamed, whereas everyone knows that people, including presidents, nurse one disease or another, some even doing so through life.

Yar’Adua’s protectors either neglected or more ignorant of the fact that leaders are never judged by their health profiles, but by their records. Tumours have been extracted from presidential insides, and the executive patients returned to duty. Commanders-in-Chief have had their diseased hearts attended to. One president administered one of the most powerful countries in the world from a wheelchair, and at a time of great crisis.

The First Lady’s health concerns brought back the pains of the past. For one, her well being is of interest to the entire nation by virtue of her position. Enshrouding the whole “trial” period in secrecy, kept much needed information from Nigerians to whom she is a mother. No one knew exactly where she was or what was happening to her and how she was coping with it. Even those disposed to prayer may have been starved of precise prayer points. A vital point in all this is that this sort of secrecy alienates leaders from their people. And consequently, as in the case of the First Lady, scarcity of information put the rumour mill and tale bearers to work, bringing a whole lot of distraction to the country and it’s people.

Mrs Jonathan was disturbed that the “bad people,” to borrow a term from her arrival response, went as far as mentioning a certain hospital in Germany. She dismissed the claim, as she denied going for plastic surgery or stomach operation. All were denials and denials but she may be right and all the rumour mongers wrong. Still, the First Lady failed to set the records straight. She neither named the ailment for which she was flown overseas, nor disclosed the hospital where she was attended to. She desires respect and support, and rightly so, but it is equally imperative that she does not starve her people of information.

Still, the First Lady should not be singled out for blame. Why? It is not a personal failing. Hoarding information from the public is a national pastime. See how difficult it is to make freedom of information easy. Everyone keeps what they should give out. It is hard knowing how much our leaders earn, how much they pay in tax, how much they get to lead or how much they spend leading. It is difficult to get the truth.

But that is the basis of leadership. We need the truth. Our leaders need to open up more. They need to admit where they have failed. Only truth will set us free.

October 21, 2012
Wild, wild country

We must make life count

The two killing incidents, set apart by just four days, were as horrifying as the word can be. The one took place in the night when the day’s work was done and many had retired to bed; the other happened in broad daylight. On Independence Day, in Mubi, the second biggest town in Adamawa State, and its commercial nerve, students of the Federal Polytechnic sited there were in their hostel when guns began to boom. They sounded near at first, said one student; soon the gunmen drew nearer, still shooting. Panic gripped the hostel community. Everyone hurried into their rooms and locked their doors. But the visitors were on a mission they must accomplish. They kicked the doors open, shot and killed one student after another. At the end of the operation, over 40 students, according to some accounts, lay dead. The incident threw the polytechnic community into imaginable trauma. Friends and families of the dead were left in the deepest grief. The nation was in a daze, while the entire world stood stupefied.

That was one wild night in the Northeast of the country.

Four days later, and down south in Aluu, where the University of Port Harcourt, Rivers State, is located, four students of the institution faced the grimmest ordeal of their lives, none of them surviving to relive it. They were stripped naked and beaten until there was no life left in them. Finally, their bodies were burnt.

That was another wild outing.

Some reports blamed the Mubi attack on fundamentalists, while in Aluu, residents were said to have done the job.

Both incidents, not forgetting the killings in a Kano school within the same period, have sharpened up a whole new, horrifying angle in the country’s insecurity challenges. Schools have been attacked before, only now, there seems to be more boldness in taking on larger numbers of Nigeria’s young people secluded for the purpose of study. We must worry about the ease with which assailants invade our schools and kill young people being groomed for leadership. Our educational profile may not lift our spirits but we must worry when students are wasted. More fundamentally, we must worry when lives are wasted by people who neither have the sanction of the creator to do so nor the authority of the law of man. We must worry when mobs become accusers, prosecutors, judges and executioners in one fell swoop, as in the case of the Uniport Four, who were reportedly accused of stealing laptop computers and mobile phones.

Reports said a crowd watched with interest, even applauding, as the four, all below 22, were tortured to death and their corpses set ablaze. What do you make of such a scene and such an act? Such brutalities attack every claim we make to civility, and rebrand us a wild, wild nation.

Mob action or jungle justice did not start in Aluu, to be sure. All over the country, people have faced instant death at the hands of streetwalkers and bystanders, and for even the pettiest of offences. But for me, one nasty thing about such brand of justice is that the people dispensing it may be woefully unqualified for the job. Some who clobber mob victims to death may actually be thieves themselves. We can tell from the mob which was eager to slay a certain adulteress caught in the act.

But there are weightier concerns about jungle justice. It questions the character and professionalism of the police, the outfit whose responsibility it is to sort out civil disorders. How was it that a mob tortured and killed four undergraduates, then set their corpses on fire, an operation that must have lasted hours, without the police getting any wind of it? What do you make of such police? Again, why are people better disposed to taking the law into their own hands rather than reporting their concerns to law enforcers? Why has confidence in the police waned?

It is perhaps naive to conclude that the Aluu executioners were inspired by the assailants in Mubi simply because of the short space of time between them, but it is safe to say that unlawful killings, of which Nigeria has quite a pile, if not punished, pave the way for more of such barbaric illegalities. Heaps of files of unsolved murders are still with the police, as are bunches of reports on bloody communal and sectarian crises with government. Hope may have died out on those files being reopened or the murderers being brought to justice, and it is just this sort of profile that helps to reduce the value for life in the populace. In time, people with propensity to kill, begin to do so knowing that, as in the past, there is little or no chance of ever being caught and punished. Such scenarios make life seem worthless.

Everyone has a role to make things better, but people in authority have a bigger responsibility. You can tell if life matters in a local council if the chairman defends one threatened resident with all his soul. It is easy to see if a state or federal government cares for its people if a small endangered community is given the best possible attention.

Let’s make life count otherwise we are just one wild, wild bunch.

October 14, 2012
Life after the floods

Today’s remedial action determines tomorrow’s well-being

As Nigerians, we sure have our worries, but don’t we, on occasion, wonder why we are so blessed? Everywhere else, the earth quakes, sinking homes, burying and mangling private and public facilities, to say nothing of the precious lives lost. Asians, Europeans, South and Central Americans count their costs now and again whenever the earth moves. Our continent and country are largely spared. Hurricanes ravage the United States so often that the Americans have since learned to differentiate one from another simply by giving them human names. That was why we heard of Hurricane Katrina. We are spared of such Katrinas. Volcanoes are rare in Africa, unheard of in Nigeria, but erupt in Europe, spewing hot ash and rocks, and causing not a little palaver. We are also blessed in that area, aren’t we? There are other natural disasters from which the good Lord has insulated us.

But since last month, Nigerians have felt the power of water, life’s otherwise precious liquid. No one is comfortable with that encounter. A persistent downpour swelled the Niger River and other rivers and tributaries, causing them to overflow their banks. The result has been utter devastation. Over two million people were reported to be displaced in Kogi and Edo states. Hundreds of houses collapsed under the impact of water. Displaced residents found temporary perching spots on the rooftops of surviving houses, waiting to be evacuated. Women clutched their babies, hoping something would happen to put them out of their nightmare. In Delta and Anambra, misery was widespread, as homes and farmlands were washed away.

In Ndokwa-East, a council in Delta, reports suggest no flood ever wreaked so much havoc in its history. It left about 22 clans under water, their people in sheer torment, displaced and with little to eat and little to wear, in makeshift shelters, and unsure of what tomorrow would bring. In Onuaboh, for instance, a clan of three communities, namely, Umugwor, Umuoche and Umuazu, this year’s flooding will be a watershed. No dry grounds at all. Inyi, where I spent two formative years, is a vast body of water. 2012 will be the year of the Great Floods. Discounting the services of wall calendars, the year will help to set off one event from another. It is an unsavoury encounter with one of man’s most cherished resources.

There has been some response from government. The Emmanuel Uduaghan administration in Delta State has sent relief to the displaced residents, as have individuals and organisations.

But there is need for more work. There is need for the authorities, including the federal government, to assess the situation and ascertain the magnitude of damage. Next, it will help to determine what assistance is required. Plus, no one should forget that whatever relief is sent should be appropriate, targeted and monitored.

There are reasons for these suggestions. Disaster management can easily be bungled if not properly thought-out, just as relief efforts can be misapplied and wasted if not clearly conceived and monitored. If the right things are not done at the right time, people needing help become hopeless. And that deepens the initial crisis.

For some of the flood victims, their plight has a traumatising impact. Their farmlands may have been flooded in the past, but not their houses or entire communities, as is the case in Ndokwa-East and parts of Isoko in Delta State. These people are struggling with not just economic loss; they are also grappling with psychological shock and need help in that area as well. They need encouragement now, some sort of psychological therapy.

They need comprehensive relief consisting of, but not limited to, food, medicine, water, clothing, and, of course, sleeping places, till the water recedes. They will also be happy to see that assistance meant for them actually gets to them, and not to some opportunistic dealers or people far removed from the floods. But beyond all that, they need something permanent, something to start and sustain them after the great waters. They need cash to buy new seedlings and begin all over again.

It is in the interest of everyone if this crisis is well managed. For one, it will show that we can learn from past blunders in disaster management, and that our governments really care for the people they govern.

No one should lose sight of the imperatives of mitigating the unpleasantness of life in a relief camp. Still, it must not be forgotten that tiding victims over the flood season is only one step, requiring another. That second step is even more fundamental. It should resolve the issues of life after the floods. What will the farmer-victims eat when the waters recede? And since these farmers also feed the society, what will we all eat when dry grounds appear?

How these issues are resolved now will determine the quality of life after the floods.

October 7, 2012
Now, it’s your turn

The reader takes over

Every Sunday I put out my views and perspectives on the nation and its affairs in this space. And every Sunday you, the reader, indulge me, firing back your views and perspectives on my position. Those observations, revered and applauded, are, however, not often heard. Today, they will as you take over the space.

The editions of September 16 (Who will stop this national dishonour?) and September 23 (The joy of listening) remarkably stirred the readers, triggering a near deluge of reactions.

However, only some of those reactions will be printed here due to space constraints.

Who will stop this national dishonour?

You have spoken the minds of all Nigerians in the categories of middle and lower classes. In fact, it is nauseating. God bless you more. +2348066210767

Great article. The press, however, appeared to have missed the biggest ‘fart’ in the national honours list and that was the award to the chairman of the African Liberation Party who just happened to have been the same guy who took the legislature to court in a bid to prevent impeachment proceedings against Jonathan.

SFB +2348087426905

Mr Ogochukwu, I love your article. Permit me to say this, the president does not care about us and our yearnings; each president wants to outdo the other on failure. Imagine an honour Prof Chinua Achebe has turned down twice. I liken the president to that king in the Bible that prepared a banquet and invited guests who turned him down…What did he do but send his servants, go into the streets, bring everybody you see to come feast on my table…and who did they bring, executive thieves, petroleum subsidy robbers, sycophants, bribe takers, treasury looters, etc.

The joy of listening

The kind of listening we need from our leaders is not the one after they have fumbled like the decision to print N5000 naira [note]. The fact is that our leaders arrogate to themselves wisdom that nobody else has. In this sense, they are the most foolish.

Remi Rominiyi, Egbeda, Ibadan +2348124253384

President Jonathan says he is the most criticised president in the world. It’s simply because he hardly listens. Now that he has listened on the N5000 note and the bastardising of the national awards, he will begin to experience the joy of listening. The more he opens his ears, the less the critiques, the better his government and the more peace he enjoys.

Dr. Charles Uka, Owerri +2348033524655

It’s a good decision to halt Sanusi’s N5000 note. It is now a rested issue. Let him not bring another controversial policy. Thanks to the National Assembly for their wise action. This annual award should be stopped for now because the system is being abused…honouring people with questionable character. A committee should screen well before coming out with names.

Gordon Chika Nnorom, Umukabia, Abia State +2348084475093

I totally disagree. The president has no listening ear at all! It was the intervention of the National Assembly and because the impeachment threat is still on the burners, that is why he soft-pedalled. Remember oil subsidy of January.

F. Dare, Kaduna+2348095294338

Democracy is the government of the people which means leadership is about listening to the yearnings of the people. Simplicita. The citizenry have spoken with one voice against negative policies that would further impoverish their lives.

Laide Owadusi, Esq. +2348021483687

The government in any civilised and even in semi-civilised state is expected to be the spokesman of the people. When what the government says or does contradicts the people’s wish, the government, and not the people, should make amends.

Sofor Victor +2348034487157

About the N5000 note suspension by the President, I believe it is the presidential language of having it dead and buried. I want Sanusi to take note of that. He has sworn that come what may, Jan. 2013 would see the introduction of this currency. It made many of us to think, whose interest is he serving? Is it his or the public? Any public officer that does not have the people in mind will ever leave office in disappointment despite his brilliant performance, a lesson to all arrogant opportunists.

Babale Maiungwa, Kaduna +2348134184944

May I commend your lucid and exquisite rationcinations of burning issues. Your choice of words and witty candour is ennobling of a prose and creative pen pusher. However, I don’t share your view that the Presidential directive to suspend the N5000 note and the intended review of the National Honours Award due to public outcry is indicative of a listening FG. The feeble rethink and capitulation was due to the intervention of the NASS, especially the lower chamber that already has an impeachment issue with Mr. President. His stance on the oil protest and the PCA, Ayo Salami, among other blunders, will remain a puzzle to all fair-minded compatriots.

Ayo Aregbesola, Akure +2347062272073

You are mistaken, Mr. Ikeje, Jonathan only listens to himself, all are gimmicks towards public acceptance and perhaps, consideration for his 2015 hallucinations.

Wole St. Jones, Lagos+2348033264813

Listening president? The presidency is as confused as the president. If a committee can be set up to screen, why didn’t they do so before dishing awards to friends and political supporters? As for the N5000 note, he did so to save his ass or the NASS will have many reasons to send him packing. If he is a listening president, he should settle the queues at the filling stations, tackle insecurity, give good power supply, build infrastructure, reduce unemployment and make life bearable for Nigerians. It’s hurting but our leaders are liars and execuTHIEVES.

Dr. D.D. Ogbu, Maitama, Abuja +2348029554857

September 30, 2012
The joy of listening

It is good to revisit the national awards and suspend the N5,000 note

Being so wonderfully made, the human body hosts a pair of ears, one hanging on either side of the head. But just one mouth is enough, judged the maker. There are also two eyes.

The reason is simple and well known. We should hear better, see more and speak less. But the world is full of men and women who break this divine order. Relationships have been destroyed because of scanty information picked up by the ear. Marriages have crashed beyond repair owing to what was not properly heard or what was stubbornly shut out of the ear. International relationships have suffered the same fate for pretty much the same reason. The ambition of Mitt Romney, the United States Republican presidential candidate, for instance, may well go up in smoke, thanks, partly, to what he heard or chose to hear about his rival, President Barack Obama. A country’s leadership has been alienated because leaders refused to listen to their longsuffering people.

To the grief of Nigerians, their progress has, for decades, been frozen by the insensitivity of their leaders. Many have come and gone, leaving little more than horror in the memory of the people they so brazenly disdained and overlooked. They never listened when their spoke. They did nothing when their people shouted.

Two developments suggest, however, that the insensitivity ice may have begun to thaw. Consider the national honours recently awarded a large number of Nigerians and friends of Nigeria. Nigerians across the board poured out their criticism of the exercise, not because there were no worthy recipients but rather because the standards have been so distressingly lowered that we can no longer tell the hero from the villain, the hard-worker from the slothful, or friend of the country from its foe.

The awards went on as planned but President Goodluck Jonathan has, thankfully, said unworthy awardees will have their honours recovered and that a committee will screen recipients and ascertain their bona fides or otherwise. Many see this as bowing to the people’s wish. I see it as listening to the people to whom it is often said power belongs. Among recipients of the honours were our victorious physically challenged athletes fresh from London with Paralympian medals. The striking thing about this is the fact that the athletes were not originally on the honours list, a fact that many criticised before the awards.

You would be justified to ask why the honoured were not first screened to select the worthy among them and cast aside those with dodgy profiles. Nonetheless, setting up the vetting committee is a good move. It represents a start. We can hope, though, that the committee will indeed do its work, pencil down awardees with unprincipled backgrounds and hand the list to the President. What next? The Presidency should chalk up the courage to ask the unworthy awardees to step forward and hand over their unmerited medals. That is the right thing to do. It may not look like the tidiest thing but in the circumstances, it is a good way to begin to correct a messy national pastime, and credit, I believe, will go the commander-in-chief. It is in the same way that he will get plaudits for including sports heroes and heroines living with disability. I see it as moving forward even if the fuel of propulsion is supplied by those labelled critics, those who sought to be heard for the right reasons.

The second indication that leadership insensitivity may be giving way is the reported presidential directive that the N5,000 naira note matter be put on hold. Ever since Central Bank Governor Mallam Lamido Sanusi made public his intention to introduce the jumbo currency at the dizzying printing cost of N40b, Nigerians of all stripes have not ceased to condemn it. Some feared it will trigger inflation. Not necessarily, said a few of those we call economists who should know. Then the fear was also expressed that the proposed heavyweight note will simply help our traditional treasury looters and the corrupt to do what they do better. But neither Sanusi nor the government has dismissed this fear. Nor has the CBN chief nor the government convincingly explained the imperatives of the N5,000 note, anyway. Will the economy crash without it? Will the naira gain any weight with its introduction? Will it bring jobs? What inspired the idea? For as long as it lasted, the matter further distracted the country and its people.

Now, the President’s directive will calm nerves, another pointer to a new direction. Still, there is something to ponder. One report said the suspension was to enable Sanusi to carry out enough publicity on the new note. That will be unhelpful. I hope the word suspension, in this case, is only an official expression for termination or dead and buried, as one newspaper put it.

If that is the case, it will indicate that the people have a voice and can indeed be heard when they speak. If we are stepping into a new era of healthy national awards, it points to a new Nigeria where leaders and those they lead are not necessarily always at loggerheads. It is inspiring and productive for both parties. That is the joy of listening to the people.

.Reactions to this column will be printed next week

September 23, 2012