The Nation Newspaper

Category: Ogochukwu Ikeje

  • Hope beyond Chibok

    The girls’ return is as memorable as their abduction was unparalleled. For never in the history of Nigeria or, for that matter, any other country, had over 270 pupils been seized and taken away from their dormitory in one night. And never had any government betrayed such lethargy and lack of character as that of Goodluck Jonathan when the unthinkable did indeed happen on April 14, 2014, a bizarre failing which, as some have pointed out, foreclosed prompt rescue of the girls.

    Nor, it must be said, have Nigerians ever come up against a sect as ambitious and bloodthirsty as Boko Haram, which claimed responsibility for the Chibok abduction. Not that there was nothing as horrifying as the terror gang. In the 1980s, the Maitasine riots shook up the North in a way nothing else did, claiming thousands of lives from Sokoto to Maiduguri, and from Kano to Yola and Bauchi. It may well have been the precursor of Boko Haram, but the Maitasine sect, founded by a Cameroonian Mohammed Marwa nicknamed Maitasine, did not claim territory, hoist a caliphate flag or abduct schoolchildren.

    Penultimate Thursday, two and a half years since the abduction, 21 of the girls returned. They came looking frail and gaunt, their gaze vacant, suggesting that nearly three years at the hands of the militants took not just a physical toll, but probably also left them emotionally and mentally drained.

    Still, it was pure joy having them back. In a matter of days, the girls themselves had started shaking off the gloom, relishing the soothing hands of the vice president’s wife Dolapo Osinbajo, and finding their voices and dance-steps.

    Yet, it was joy amid grief. On Wednesday, the eve of their release, a blast killed eight and injured 15 in Maiduguri, a city which the terror group coveted so much that it hit it so relentlessly.

    That same Wednesday some eight members of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria, also known as the Shia sect, were killed in skirmishes across Kaduna, Katsina and Sokoto during a procession. The Shiites were reportedly attacked by mobs, which seemed to denounce them almost everywhere they turned up. Clearly, more work must be done to curb sectarian violence and reassure everyone that indeed they are free to identify with any religion and are protected to practice it within the confines of the law.

    The girls’ release, brokered by the Swiss government, with some involvement of the Red Cross, triggered some academic concerns. One, did the government swap the girls for some Boko Haram commanders? Two, was money paid to the Islamist group before the girls were freed?

    Both questions are irrelevant, whatever the answer. In hostage situations, both options are routinely applied provided the abducted are freed. Information minister Lai Mohammed said there was no such swap, and that the return of the girls was the product of painstaking work and trust on the side of government and of Boko Haram.

    It sent a huge sigh of relief through the Chibok community. TV footage showed a parent lifting his daughter off the ground in indescribable excitement.

    Finding the girls and bringing them back was a task Dr Jonathan and his government clearly failed to accomplish. They doubted that the girls were taken away in the first place, and when they could no longer doubt, they just did not have the heart for any rescue. Even when they tried to negotiate with Boko Haram, they came up against swindlers and remained clueless till the end.

    The Muhammadu Buhari administration also had some false starts, but it deserves credit for this one. The girls’ rescue happened at a time Boko Haram was factionalised, with a certain Abubakar Shekau being killed several times over. So securing the release of this number of the girls when no one was sure who was in command of the group must be the result of some credible effort.

    The return of the 21 Chibok girls is arguably the biggest thing that has happened to the country, and to the Buhari administration. It must have forced some to revise their positions and conclusions, one of which was that President Buhari promised more than he could deliver. Some also concluded that the girls would have been scattered, possibly across borders, married off or killed, all pointing to hopelessness. But with their return, though assaulted in imaginable and unimaginable ways (in fact, one of the girls returned with a baby), Nigerians can hope for the return of the others.

    The best news of penultimate Thursday also silenced those who said the whole thing was a hoax, a point that was driven home by a relieved Chibok community leader who, alongside his people, was not only troubled by the abduction but also haunted by the fact that some said it did not happen at all.

    Chibok, a little humble town, exploded in joy as the 21 came home. But it was joy that spread beyond its borders, to neighbouring communities all the way to the nation’s capital and across national boundaries. The abduction got the attention of world leaders, each adding their voice to the #BringBackOurGirls campaign. With the release of the 21, those leaders have started voicing their relief, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair being one of the first to speak. Mr Blair said he was happy the 21 have come out, urging that the rest be found and returned too. United States First Lady Michelle Obama would be just as happy as Mr Blair, having emblematised the push for the girls’ return. So should others who, though in vain, nudged Dr Jonathan to secure the Chibok girls’ release.

    Now there is hope that the other girls still in captivity, nearly 200 of them, could return. But, away from abductions, there is also hope that perhaps the unflattering national economy, perhaps President Buhari’s nemesis, could also get a lift and take the wind off the sail of critics who say he is not up to the job.

  • Kidnappers, police and the rest of us

    If you think the police are useless, someone once pointed out, imagine what the country would be like in a week or even day without them. It is hard to visualise anything other than absolute chaos. Yet, when kidnappers cultivate such an insatiable appetite, striking with impunity and repeatedly, there is no other conclusion than that they must have a sense of being one or two steps ahead of the police and other crime-fighting outfits.

    On Thursday they proved it in Epe, on the northern flank of Lagos, and in a manner that dredged up the dark memories of Chibok two years before. On the night of February 14, 2014, in that all-girls school in Borno State, the pupils were studying for their exam when the abductors barged in, taking with them over 200 of the girls. On the morning of Thursday, pupils at a model college in Epe were praying when armed assailants crept in, seizing four and two teachers and taking them away on a boat. When Deputy Governor Idiat Adebule turned up that day at the school, it was a grim deja vu because in February she had undertaken a similar mission to a junior seminary school in nearby Ikorodu where three girls were abducted.

    At Igbonla model college, a crowd of horrified parents was on the ground intent on moving their children and wards out of the school. For Dr Adebule, as it was in Ikorodu, so it was in Epe; her words to the agitated parents were similar to those with which she sought to calm her terrified Ikorodu school audience seven months ago.

    “I know you are angry,” she pleaded, “I know you are worried and I know you are agitated, but we must look for solution.”

    Dr Adebule delivered a message she was expected to deliver, urging all hands to be on deck and assuring that government and the security authorities will do everything necessary to quickly rescue the abducted children alive and unhurt.

    In July, in Iba, in the southern part of the state, the rescue of the abducted 73-year-old traditional ruler of the town took weeks during which Oba Goriola Oseni was first fed eba and Ogbono, then bread and water, after the leader of the gang made away with the first ransom. A second ransom had to be paid to appease the angry foot soldiers who threatened to lock up the king somewhere till his children came up with the cash. The king’s wife was shot and another person killed during his abduction.

    After the monarch’s episode, it took N16m ransom to free some landlords who were seized and bundled into a boat in September as they were jogging in a border town between Lagos and Ogun states. In the same month, two days before the nation’s 56th independence anniversary, Central Bank Governor Godwin Emefiele’s wife Margaret was kidnapped between Benin and Asaba. On Monday, two days after the anniversary, a former federal minister Laurentia Mallam and her husband Pius were kidnapped on Kaduna-Abuja Expressway.

    When they took Mrs Emefiele, the abductors reportedly said they had struck gold, after all, the better half a central bank chief should be money personified. In their excitement, they let go a victim of lesser importance. Mrs Emefiele was enough, they thought.

    The attitude of the abductors had brazenness and a huge air of imperviousness written all over it. Why? Far fewer of them are ever caught and brought to justice. Why? Apart from the horrible profile of joblessness, the security community lacks the tools and  requisite skills as well as the motivation to put the outlaws out of business.

    The police have a staff strength of some 371,800, and though they plan to roughly double the number, it is still pitiably insufficient to look after a surging crowd of nearly 190m Nigerians. That is not the only problem. Three years ago, a deputy inspector-general of police said about a third of the force was on unofficial duties. That further depleted an already thin force. Generally, the police post a worrisome image. Their personnel are poorly housed and woefully kitted, their footwear, for instance, bought here, there and anywhere they can find them. At a time when criminals are getting more and more sophisticated, it is doubtful if the Nigeria police avail their personnel of necessary skills to outwit the bad guys.

    There are other worries. Is there a forensic unit worth the name, equipped and adequately staffed with trained and retrained personnel? When Babatunde Fashola was Lagos State governor, there was the idea of installing close-circuit television cameras in strategic places in the state? It would have helped but it never saw the light of day. Then consider state policing, an idea that many have advocated but which the federal authorities would have none of. What about tweaking the command structure of the police, taking it away from Abuja and giving the states more control?

    Apart from the Emefiele and ex-minister kidnap cases, almost all other abductees in Lagos and Ogun were taken away by boat. The marine units of the police should do a better job, but it is an open secret that things are not the way they should be. The average policeman does not look motivated to work. That is a shame. Until that motivation comes through improved condition of service and proactive planning, hoodlums will continue to outwit the police and set everyone’s teeth on edge.

  • Left behind by founding fathers

    They probably hoped that the next crop of leaders would outthink and outpace them in due course. But how wrong the founding fathers were. Decades after they left the scene, all the people did was moan and groan about how big the founding fathers’ shoes were for their successors’ small feet to fit.

    The other day in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital, that lamentation was heard afresh from no less a person than Gbade Ojo, chief of staff to the state governor. Speaking on a topic focusing on Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s remarkable welfarist policies, Dr Ojo said the present crop of politicians had not matched the late leader’s achievements. Dr Ojo, an associate professor at the University of Ilorin, also explained why. Chief Awolowo, he said, was a visionary whose legacy spanned education, health and agriculture, among others.

    “What Awo did,” to quote him, “was to strengthen the production of cocoa. With an efficient marketing board cocoa production output improved…Today, where is Nigeria in terms of agricultural revolutions?”

    The answer is obvious, and tragic: nowhere. The late icon would be spinning in his grave because since he transformed the Western Region some six decades ago, it has been impossible to match his record, to say nothing of surpassing it.

    Things are probably far worse on the eastern flank of the country. Take the late Chief Sam Mbakwe, who ran a much larger Imo State than the current geographical space of the same name, between 1979 and 1983. In those short years, Chief Mbakwe set up three electricity generating plants across the state, one in each of its zones, namely Okigwe, Umuahia and Orlu. Many saw and savoured electricity for the first time during those years. Under the Mbakwe administration, clean water ran for the first time in many communities too. Chief Mbakwe paid close attention to education, opening up multiple campuses for the state university to encourage people who would have simply preferred to sit back at their shops and wait for the next buyer. It worked. Many traders embraced education.

    High revenue-yielding palms sprang up under him, as did estates to accommodate residents, and financial institutions to boost business. In the schools, living quarters were built to encourage teachers to stay and help build up the pupils. By the way, those estates and quarters were built with glass and burnt bricks made in Imo factories, not imported from elsewhere.

    A genuine leader, Chief Mbakwe inspired those he led, proving to them that better life and credible governance were attainable. He gave hope.

    Now the tragedy. The facilities Chief Mbakwe built, including the iconic Concorde Hotel in Owerri, started to wear out for lack of maintenance as he was eased out of power. Decay set in, and soon they were sold.

    In the space once named Midwestern Region, now broken up into Edo and Delta states, Brig.-Gen Samuel Ogbemudia (Retd) remains an indisputable hero. As administrator, General Ogbemudia tapped into the region’s abundant resources and set up rubber plantations and research institutes, alongside farms and fish ponds. At Agbede he built a cattle ranch, in Asaba a textile factory, in Ughelli a glass industry, a cement factory in Okpella, a zoo here, a stadium there. Gen Ogbemudia also linked up the region’s communities with a network of roads.

    The North also rose with its inspired first leaders and fell with them. Its best roads were built in the days of yore, as were its academic and hospitality infrastructure. The great groundnut pyramids of Kano, for instance, have disappeared, its historic tanning industry a far cry of what it once was.

    What does all this mean? Simple: our fathers have left us behind, to grope in the dark. The younger generation is unable to attain the standards of the older.

    The politicians will not put it that starkly, of course. They will mention a thousand and one things they have done, invoke the forebears’ names, even copy their dress styles, but everyone knows that they fall far short.

    What do we lose? Plenty. The facilities the founding fathers built have collapsed, throwing people who once worked there into the streets, jobless. No prizes for guessing the roles unemployed youths play in militancy, robbery, kidnapping, even as male partners of young baby-factory mothers.

    Last week, states created 25 years ago marked their anniversary, trumpeting puny achievements, lamenting paltry finds and still dreaming of how to diversify their economies. Delta, one of those states, was reminded by finance minister Kemi Adeosun that it had everything it needed to thrive. It has industrial clay, kaolin, silica and limestone, among other raw materials needed to make bricks, ceramics, bottles and glass and other things.

    The tragedy is threefold. The younger generation of leaders does not look after the structures built by the older breed, does not equal old standards, and suggests that the child cannot outshine his father.

  • Not the way to treat senior citizens

    WANT to gauge a country’s progress? Look at how it treats its young and the elderly. Looking after the former indicates a plan and hope for the future, while taking good care of the latter could show how that country appreciates the labours and sacrifices of people who were once young, and how it will respond to those aspiring to grow old. To both categories, Nigeria has been pretty unfair, through the years. The country has failed to harness the skills and energies of youth, and utterly overlooked the contributions of the aged as though they didn’t exist. It is a dangerous path to tread.

    The result has been horrifying. The lack of a coherent plan for the youths has left them at the mercy of unscrupulous politicians who turn them into roughnecks who hound and hurt opponents during elections. In the Niger Delta, at least in the first phase of militancy in the second half of 2000, some of these thugs easily morphed into such effective agitators and kidnappers, among other things, that it took the insightful pleas and negotiations of the late President Musa Yar’Adua to get them to lay down their arms, at a huge financial cost to taxpayers.

    In the Southeast, at roughly the same period, otherwise useful energies of youth were invested in abduction, a nefarious industry that fetched its practitioners some mind-boggling, dirty millions and kept many frightened easterners away from their homeland. It has also been argued that even the terror group Boko Haram, ideological as it may be, equally tapped into the critical mass of unengaged and disillusioned youths to launch and sustain its bloodthirsty campaign.

    Not every jobless youth will embrace vice, it must be said, but many of those who have no appetite for crime have slipped out of the country, at unspeakable risk to themselves; some have been robbed, abused or died on the way, some held by the authorities at their destinations. The old, on the other hand, spent and some certainly ill, have nowhere to run, even if they wanted. At 70, 80 and above, there is little thirst or prospect for escape.

    So to the pension board they turn, but there is little respite there. In most of the federation’s states, retirees are owed several months, in some, years, of pension arrears. This has reduced them to a sad, griping, protesting segment of the population, incapable of finding any joy in life. In word and deed, they convey a picture of being unloved and abandoned after giving all to their country.

    Theirs is a chilling twilight narrative of broken promises; government not remitting anything to pension fund administrators, and PFAs not being able to pay retirees; disjointed payments; fraudsters posing as pension agents; excruciating verification processes; worsening terminal diseases, death, and more frustrations for next of kin. In Bayelsa State, as at the first week of June, retirees were griping over eight months’ arrears of pensions. At a verification exercise organised by the state’s pension board, three senior citizens reportedly slumped.

    Barely three months earlier they had taken their anguish to Government House in Yenagoa, the state capital, where some pro-administration youths promptly chased them away, according to reports. In neighbouring Delta State pensioners were for years locked in a hide-and-seek with the government especially that of Emmanuel Uduaghan. Retirees spoke of government not remitting the deductions to the PFA, which in turn told the pensioners that there was no cash to pay them. At a point pension arrears in the state ran up to N16b, triggering protests.

    Mid 2010 Dr Uduaghan was said to have promised to accelerate the processes and payments. Two years later nothing was accelerated and no payments made. A certain Pa Uwadiogbu, a name that speaks to the mysteries of life, typifies the lot of many pensioners across the country. Employed in the federal civil service as a driver, he ferried dignitaries about, even drove a representative of Queen Elizabeth on October 1, 1960, and later Chief Dennis Osadebey, premier of the Midwestern Region. Pa Uwadiogbu has been in pains and in penury.

    His appeals for his pension to be paid have mostly gone unheeded. Worse, his waist has been in a bad shape, with a piece of metal fixed there by the medics, to be removed after five years. The metal was said to be still in his waist, six years after, leaving him in more pains. Dr Uduaghan’s successor, Ifeanyi Okowa sought to calm agitated nerves, telling the pensioners about six months after taking office that they need not suffer, and that he inherited about N33b in cash arrears. He promised to pay “some percentage of the money owed the retirees”.

    By the end of this April, the state pensioners, frail as they were, risked a 5km protest-walk to the gate of Government House, Asaba, after being unable to table their grief before the House of Assembly. They were protesting their two years pension arrears. In Lagos, where more efforts seem have been made to end retirees’ grief than is the case elsewhere, three pensioners slumped during a July verification exercise, and were reportedly rushed into a waiting ambulance.

    They were later discharged, thank goodness. Penultimate week, Edo State Governor Adams Oshiomhole said he owed about four years of pension arrears after clearing a 10-year backlog left by his predecessors. This speaks of a culture of criminal callousness to the old. In Benue State, two retirees keeled over on August 3 while protesting their plight. The youth have age and energy on their side. The old have nothing to hang on to, not even their paltry monthly pensions. This is frightening to the young who aspire to attain the age when all hair turns white. Such a country is backward, lacks a core and can hardly hold anything dear. Surely, there must be a better way to treat seniors.

  • Ego-tripping governors

    Before the end of Goodluck Jonathan’s profligate government, his finance minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala warned of a shrinking economy and the need to tighten our belts. It was a timely advice. As Muhammadu Buhari took over, he too spoke of a drained national coffer, and urged prudence. The reason was simple. Crude oil, our major foreign exchange earner, was no longer earning anything of note. So far, both Dr Okonjo-Iweala and President Buhari’s warnings have fallen on deaf ears, mostly those of our leaders.

    It is a national shame.

    Penultimate week it was reported that our state governors were dreaming of a trip to Germany for a vocational training, a venture that is sure to further drain our resources and expose our legendary vanity. To be sure, it was not an isolated plan by one state chief executive or two or even three. Zamfara State Governor Abdulaziz Yari, who chairs the Nigeria Governors Forum, made that much clear when he spoke to State House correspondents in Abuja. When he spoke, he used the pronoun ‘we’, suggesting it was a collective plan of the 36 governors he leads.

    Think of all 36 governors planning a flight to Germany with their aides and perhaps their aides’ aides. Isn’t that mental catastrophe through and through?

    One report said governors of Kaduna, Niger, Plateau, Anambra, Ogun, Bauchi, Kastina, Kano, Kebbi, Delta and Abia attended the nocturnal meeting at which they deliberated on the trip. The report added that the governors who didn’t make the Abuja meeting sent their deputies.

    Governor Yari provided some detail. “We received some presentation from the German Ambassador prior to our trip to Germany for the vocational programme,” he told reporters, adding that Vodacom, a South African telecoms firm, equally briefed them on such areas of partnership as health and agriculture.

    What Alhaji Yari did not say, or probably did not want to say, was that they were planning a vacation trip rather than a vocational one.

    Alhaji Yari betrayed the vanity and Olympic-sized ego of the forum which he chairs. He also exposed their shallowness of thought as well as their striking confusion. First, don’t Alhaji Yari and his colleagues know enough about what is wrong with our health and agriculture sectors? Second, if such a training programme were necessary, in the first instance, can’t the NGF find a suitable place in Nigeria to hold it?

    You can smell their vanity and ego a mile away. You can sense their satisfaction settling into comfortable seats on the international flight. Picture them escaping from their poorly developed states and country and heading for one of Europe’s most advanced nations. There, they will savour the relief and peace of law and order, the benefits of planning, the joys of meticulous execution, and, among other things, the comforts of well-made hotel beds. You can visualise them issuing instructions to their aids about their briefcases and cell phones, and can hear them let out a huge sigh of relief. Life is good, especially if you are getting away from a chore in the most difficult of places.

    To our leaders, there is little joy in the homeland. And there is no sense of urgency in changing this obnoxious mindset. By what logic did they conclude that it is in Germany, not Nigeria that they can learn to improve our moribund health infrastructure and comatose agric sector? Did the governors calculate the cost of such a trip and assess the damage it will do to their much-depleted state coffers? Most of the 36 states cannot pay workers’ salaries; some are paying reduced wages, despite a federal government’s bailout last year. Alhaji Yari was himself facing impeachment at home when they were planning the Germany trip.

    It is almost criminal to contemplate such an ego trip, even if the governors were paying for it out of their pockets.

    Who can blame them, really? The mindset is life can be sweet, but only abroad. One aching tooth, for instance, is fixable beyond our shores. No holiday is worth the name if it is not spent in Europe. Nor is any school worth our children’s while if they are not in America or Britain. It is a warped mindset our leaders seem incapable of changing. Worse, there is no serious effort to tap our infinite human and material resources to make the country, its people and institutions the envy of the world. We have not forgotten how Niger Delta governors in the past mounted such a spirited campaign for resource control, trying desperately to pass themselves off as the region’s heroes. But despite whatever funds they got, the region has yet to show it. Those leaders should give account. What effort did they and their governor-colleagues elsewhere make to develop their non-oil resources? Bayelsa State sticks out like a sore thumb. Lacking durable development, our states stretch out like carcasses, unloved and unlovable even by those who govern them. So to Europe and America such leaders turn. Shame.

    Peter the Rock at 55

    Of politicians I am not particularly fond but if there is anyone I respect it is Peter Obi who governed Anambra State for eight years. He turned 55 penultimate Tuesday.

    There are reasons why I admire him. Take his frugality. People who know him closely say he is content with a pair of shoes at a time until they are almost worn out. I also understand he earned a few critics, if not enemies, who credit him with perhaps the tightest fist in living memory. But that is because, as some of them have said, Obi does not believe in giving out money for its sake. Money is spent for a purpose, and that purpose had better be genuine.

    It is to his credit that he stabilised his state’s cash profile while in office. With little federal allocation and virtually zero derivation cash he left the state not in debt but a tidy sum with which his successor should carry on.

    If there is anyone who fits the Buhari model, it is Peter the Rock.

  • Lesson from Nigeria’s tormentor-in-chief

    After a fantastic speech, a family huddle at the door and a wave, David Cameron left 10 Downing Street for the last time on Wednesday holding hands with his wife and three children. He had been British Prime Minister for six years. We have a few things to learn from him.

    For the people he led, his record was probably better than mixed. Dealing with them, he was just about the perfect gentleman. Taking questions from parliamentarians, the Prime Minister did his best to be civil and respectful even when handling some troublesome questioners. For Nigerians, he was probably not the friendliest. And that is putting it charitably. We have not forgotten, for instance, how, in May, he calmly but firmly informed Her Majesty the Queen that we were fantastically corrupt. In June 2013 Mr Cameron announced that Nigerians travelling to the United Kingdom would each pay £3,000 to his government before being allowed into the country, adding that the money would be returned if they kept faith with their visa terms and did not overstay. It is clear that there was something in the Nigerian that triggered the alarm bell in Mr Cameron. He tormented them ceaselessly.

    Before the visa saga, Mr Cameron had declared imperially that Nigeria had better embrace same sex activities and relationships including marriage, if the country wanted to enjoy British aid. Shun gays and forget aids, he said, in other words.

    Nigerians shot back, literally telling him to go to hell.

    Yet, in the past few weeks Mr Cameron so conducted himself in the countdown to his departure from office that we, his punching bag, not only applauded but will do well to copy. In June Britain voted in a most controversial and divisive referendum to exit the European Union (EU), a 58-state organisation that harmonised nearly everything about them including trade and movement. Mr Cameron led the ‘Remainers’ who lost the referendum vote to the ‘Leavers’ by the slimmest of margins.

    He must have seen the sign that somehow something was wrong somewhere. As Prime Minister he failed to convince more Britons to stay in the EU. Leaders, he must have reasoned, should have the backing of more, rather than less, of their people especially in certain crucial circumstances. He offered to resign as Prime Minister after six years and as the Conservative Party leader after 11 years. He fought back tears as he announced that the country needed a fresh leader to negotiate its departure from the EU, and to also navigate party waters. It is unclear why Mr Cameron got emotional. Did he weep for a country that somehow failed to see the foolishness of leaving an organisation from which it benefitted so much? Or did he nearly break down because he felt betrayed, or that he was quitting prematurely?

    No matter. That he quit at all, is worthy of commendation.

    He was also quick with the quitting. He did not pretend to consult elaborately nor seek to point out the folly of the Brexit outcome. Nor did he try to delude himself that he was the best thing to happen to Britain.

    If he was bitter or hesitant leaving, he did not show it. He joked seemingly offhandedly. His tone and pitch of voice was upbeat as if relieved to leave. As he spoke he was cheered, not booed. Had Mr Cameron ever worked and roused up the British people the way he did on his departure?

    Yet it was not just his charm or delivery. He spoke about honour in serving his country and its people. He spoke about support from his family, making the point that the time had come for them to quit 10 Downing Street and move on. Mr Cameron wished Theresa May, his successor, well, even though he knew that the woman, 10 years older, could hardly wait to take over from him, having announced during the brief period of jostling that she was the best for the job.

    The transition was swift and seamless, almost natural and in fulfilment of some superior legal code. In one day Mr Cameron and his cabinet came down, and Mrs May’s up, making the point that governance must not be held up under any circumstance.

    Watching the proceedings on cable TV in Lagos, a round of applause coincided with London cheers as Mr Cameron ended his farewell speech.

    In our country, such a smooth transition is unheard-of. There is usually every attempt to prevent it from happening. Incumbents find it hard to give way even when they must. In these parts there are handwritings on the wall but our leaders turn a blind eye to them. When their time is up they seek to lengthen it and, in doing so, betray their emptiness, vanity and selfishness. Olusegun Obasanjo, to mention one example, so loved power that the only way to retain it when his time was up was to fashion out a devious third term. One or two highly-placed individuals said between N8b and N10b was thrown into the unsuccessful bid, which Chief Obasanjo would later deny. More recently, Goodluck Jonathan begged to differ by conceding defeat in the last election but his discretion earned him nothing but condemnation, even attack by his henchmen who thought he should have dug in and brought the house down with him.

    It hurts to hail your tormentor-in-chief, but hail him we must, and better still, copy him.

  • After Boko Haram

    Will there ever be a Nigeria without Boko Haram? Will the guns and bombs of the sect ever cease?          Those questions formed the opening paragraph of my article published in 2012 in the days of President Goodluck Jonathan, when the terror group had not started taking territory. At the time, the sect had demonstrated enough mindlessness and thirst for blood to be taken seriously, but probably had not hit upon the grimmer idea of suicide-bombing or seizing territory. Despite its savagery, I felt Nigeria would survive Boko Haram. Perhaps a picture of that survival is starting to appear. Territories captured have been recovered, closed roads are reopening, and Borno State has, for the first time in years, celebrated a peaceful Sallah. Yet, the thrust of that earlier piece was how to manage the post-Boko Haram peace era and deal with factors that bred Boko Haram in the first place, to prevent a recurrence. President Muhammadu Buhari will do well to galvanise his team and the entire nation along those lines.

    I reproduce that piece here:

    Given its rage and capacity to cause maximum damage, not to mention the tough talk of its leaders, will there ever be Nigeria without Boko Haram? Is there any chance that one day the guns of the Islamist sect will stop booming and its bombs silent, the energies of its leaders and suicide bombers channeled to healthy ventures?

    My answer is yes.

    True, the group has terrorised the country enough for everyone to take it very seriously. Oceans of blood were continuously spilled. Their dead victims are gone, never to contribute anymore to the growth of their families or country. For survivors, life will never be the same after their encounter with the sect.  Many may never walk again. Property lost can only be valued in billions, perhaps, trillions of naira. Boko Haram has also caused all sorts of problems for government across the board, the security community and virtually everyone. Relentless terror has taught public officials to have a healthy fear of the group, just as day-to-day life has substantially changed, especially in the Northeast.

    Still, a post-Boko Haram era is possible, whether government succeeds in crushing it or the group, by itself, unravels and ends its atrocities.

    But I have an enduring worry: are we preparing for that peacetime? You can grapple with the tensions and challenges of the moment, even manage to contain them (as the military do), but there is more work to be done. Preventing a repeat scenario of those tensions and challenges is where the ultimate victory lies. That is the peace era, defined not merely by momentary cessation of violence but by the sustenance of law and order and mutual respect for one another. Peace era stimulates creativity, productivity and growth. Is the Jonathan administration merely working towards the end of Boko Haram, or is it looking to evolve sustained peace?

    Niger Delta militancy in the last decade is a relevant scenario. Like Boko Haram, it started with isolated cases of disorder before it got everybody in the region and beyond worried. Before we knew it, not only oil facilities were being blown up, nor were expatriate workers the only targets and victims of kidnappers; local chiefs, grandpas and grandmas and their grandkids were being taken too, to be ransomed at handsome fees. Naturally, business activities declined in the region, to take root beyond our national borders. And then President Umaru Yar’Adua came along, succeeding to get the region’s fighters to lay down their arms and embrace amnesty. It worked. Tensions cooled and, to boot, some of the former militants have been trained in entrepreneurship skills to help them get a life worth the name.

    Yet, and this is my major concern, I do not think government has really come to grips with the issues that remotely caused or precipitated the militancy in the first place. Life in the oil-rich delta is still pretty much unflattering. Several communities are left without power, clean water or any viable means of livelihood. Many areas lack schools of any kind, and where they are available, are unworthy of the name. Regional soils and waters are despoiled, leaving residents with few sustenance options. The Jonathan administration can look beyond the amnesty-induced peace and work towards evolving enduring harmony propelled by capacity-building and growth. The rehabilitated ex-militants represent a tiny fraction of the Niger Delta population, much of which live in abject poverty. Resolving infrastructural challenges will help to check gloom in the region. In other words, the government merely looked to contain the militancy, which it did, but failed to create an environment that will be sustained on growth based on needs met, not on fires put out.

    The Boko Haram matter should be approached from a wider, more comprehensive perspective. So far, government’s response is not flattering. Predominant assessment is that it is not doing enough to halt the sect. The move by the Jonathan administration to stop the United States government from designating Boko Haram as a terrorist group has also worsened matters. But I think that, one way or another, the terror reign will end someday; how that will happen is beyond me. Yet, one question remains: what happens after the guns and bombs of the sect cease? Beyond politics and rhetoric, has the Jonathan administration assessed the factors that gave rise to the emergence, and ferocity, of the sect and mapped out strategies to contain them? Is neglect of the people one of the reasons? Is infrastructural challenge another? What about youth unemployment?

    I have argued in this space that the federal government does not need to create a Ministry for the North to pacify Boko Haram, my position being that such creations are largely political and have very little positive effect, anyhow. The Niger Delta Ministry has changed little in the region. Still, there is a lot a federal government can do to solve problems and stimulate growth in the states. Apart from initiating and executing its developmental programmes, it can inspire the state governments to drive growth and put their people out of misery. To inspire, it must shed party toga. Its intentions must also be transparently genuine and the president must be fatherly and above board. He must be courageous, with an eye on enduring legacies.

    That is one way to prepare for a post-violence era and make way for the emergence of a new Nigeria.

    • First published under the title ‘Nigeria after Boko Haram’ in November 2012

  • An avaricious Senate

    The demand the other day by the Senate for life pension and immunity from prosecution for its principal officers has provided additional proof that the eighth session of the federal legislature is obsessed with little more than materialism and envy. Thankfully, not every Senator backed the pension demand when they broached it in Lagos at a retreat. Some dismissed it with all the energy they could muster, pointing out its frivolity and senselessness. Those who backed the demand seemed determined to convince everyone that the matter was not only divinely inspired but could well be the beginning of a long overdue patriotic movement to right an old wrong.

    Of those pushing for it, Ike Ekweremadu was the weightiest not just because he is a veteran Deputy Senate President but also because in his other life he was deemed important enough to chair the Senate’s ad hoc committee reviewing the 1999 Constitution. Senator Ekweremadu argued that the pension push had nothing to do with any individual, only the institution, and pleaded that it should not be politicised. Then he added, for good measure, that “nobody elected the Chief Justice of Nigeria but he enjoys pension.”

    Stella Oduah picked it up from there, laying out the case that since the executive and judiciary arms of government enjoy retirement benefits, there is no credible reason the legislature should be denied.

    “The executive enjoys it,” she said. “Let us stand by our leaders. They should enjoy this benefit. They act on behalf of us. They are equal to the executive and judiciary and should therefore enjoy the same benefit.”

    There you have it. Both Senator Ekweremadu and Senator Oduah could hardly conceal the spirit and motivation behind their demand, though the latter made some perfunctory attempts to do so. The pension demand is simply about acquiring more wealth enough to last them a lifetime. It is also about jealousy of the most despicable sort, as the comparison with the executive and judiciary arms of government makes clear. If the President and CJN can enjoy it, they argued, why shouldn’t the Senate President?

    Is the pension idea for such high office holders bad in itself? No. Even in more prosperous climes, it is practised. But there is a loftier spirit that powers it, or at the least, inspired it. In some of these other places beyond our continent, the beneficiaries clearly earned it, in some cases, giving up high net worth jobs to serve. Everyone generally agrees too that such pension structures help to kill off corrupt tendencies while in service, knowing the officers will be well looked after in post-service life.

    There is also another reason for the pension scheme. In 1958 the United States introduced the presidential pensions when they found that President Harry S Truman was grappling with financial difficulties as he left office. Congress, their legislature, reasoned that it detracted from the dignity of the office of the US Presidency.

    What do we find in our own case? In or out of office, some of our leaders sit on an inexhaustible pile of cash. Senator Oluremi Tinubu, who opposed the pension demand, pointed out that those seeking the retirement benefit are already swimming in affluence, boasting a fleet of cars and sundry allowances. What genuine argument can be made for shoveling more cash into their already deep vaults every month for the rest of their lives? How can you make such a case at a time when most Nigerians are feeling the squeeze brought on by mismanagement of the economy by previous administrations, especially Goodluck Jonathan’s, a situation worsened by vanishing global oil prices?

    The Senators’ other demand, immunity for principal National Assembly officers, is also ill-motivated. It is not just almost entirely without justification considering the legislators’ unflattering profiles, but also exposes their pitiably envious core. Again, those who push the immunity case argue that the President enjoys it, so why shouldn’t leaders of the federal legislature? This is avarice.

    The argument is flawed but not because in themselves such officers are unworthy of immunity. The case falls flat because it is ill-motivated and ill-timed. Bukola Saraki who heads the National Assembly is being tried at the Code of Conduct Tribunal for alleged assets declaration infractions and other allegations, though he never tires to say it is through and through a political persecution because he is Senate President. He was not his party’s choice for the office, and may well have a point, but isn’t there politics in almost every human endeavour, and, crucially, did he or did he not commit the offence? Dr Saraki himself became Senate President through what many see as a creepy political move, seizing upon a much crucially depleted house to execute his plan. He is now facing trial for an alleged forgery of the rules upon which his election was based.

    The move for immunity clearly betrays a determination to halt and prevent such a trial, a scenario made clearer by the fact that Dr Saraki has repeatedly tried, and failed, to stop his prosecution at the CCT. It is difficult to find any other reason for the immunity demand.

    In any event, the Senate has underperformed in its primary business of making laws. In one year the Senate passed 11 bills out of the 299 it received, while the House passed 85 out of 685. The Senate rather tainted itself with frivolous and self-serving pursuits. On May 17 it withdrew the much criticised Frivolous Petitions Bill flayed by many for its perceived attempt to discourage social media activities in a country rated as the second most vibrant tweeting nation, next to Egypt, and ahead of South Africa.

    In one year we have heard of distinguished Senators clamouring for more pay and glistening four-wheel drives. But then, it all seems eerily familiar in the nation’s highest lawmaking house from which all manner of demons have crept out in the past. We have seen cash-stuffed Ghana-Must-Go bags on the hallowed floor, and watched our esteemed lawmakers literally tear one another apart. We have heard and seen worse things, only that we hoped the eighth Assembly would have dared to differ and key into the change agenda.

    So far, there isn’t any hope.

  • Like football, like Nigeria

    If all you see in football is the players’ mere task of putting an inflated round object into the opponents’ net, or even lifting a trophy at the end of the season, you miss out on some stunning similarities between the game and our dear country. Beyond the hard job on the pitch lasting all of 90 minutes or 120 or even more, in some cases, football proves why it is called the most popular game on earth.

    But so does Nigeria, a fantastically blessed nation, yet incredibly blighted by its leaders, some of whom should better be called misleaders. It has time and again proved it is not just another nation. It offers the world not merely its best, but also such puzzling paradoxes as must qualify it for the most interesting country earth’s inhabitants can find.

    Football draws a large following, but in saying this I have carefully avoided factoring in those who kick it in bedrooms, living rooms, or the backstreets or community square or just about any space they can find such as a Lagos road or motor park on a strike day. I refer only to those who live off the game as players, and also those who spend their money to watch it, listen to it or follow it in one form or another. This set of people is in millions, even hundreds of millions, sometimes.

    As I laboured at this piece just hours before the kickoff of the Uefa Champions League match in Milan, Italy between Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid, those millions were getting ready for the encounter, perhaps as much as were the players themselves, the second time in three years both sides would try one another for size in Europe’s most important football matchups. Their first clash in 2014 in Lisbon, Portugal was aired in over 200 countries and viewed by a projected 380 million global audience, the largest TV audience in years in Spain. On Friday night those numbers were bound to jump appreciably.

    The game brings joy to souls. That cannot be denied. It also brings grief. From Bolton to Liverpool in the United Kingdom, football has left families in eternal horror from stadium tragedies, just as it has wrecked homes from Brussels, Belgium to South Africa and beyond through hooliganism or facility breakdown.

    My country, in its own way, shares a lot of these joys and horrors. It pulsates with a staggering number of citizens, closer to 200 million than away from it. Its politics boasts a dizzying following, just like football, pulling away many from their first professional, but sometimes unrewarding, loves onto a train whose every coach runs over with gravy. Along with gravy also comes blood, the blood of the people. Yes, the god of football has quite an appetite for blood but the deity of Nigerian politics seems to live on nothing else. Our politics is ruined by violence, bile and blood.

    Football is supposed to be a sport and should offer some entertainment to watchers. But this is perhaps one of the most intriguing things about the game. What is essentially a sport has since become war not just between rival teams but, more seriously, among opposing supporters, leading to bloodshed, even outright death.

    Yet, that’s not the only worry. It has become increasingly difficult trying to understand what really drives the passions of club football supporters. Is it club success proved by trophies won? Is it how much money a club makes at the end of a season? Or is it good old good football?

    And what is good football?

    Football Club Barcelona on the Catalan side of Spain play arguably the best football on the planet, and have just won their sixth La Liga title in eight years. Along with enviable trophies have also come sworn enemies. The other day someone called the Barca style that “useless passing game”. Conversely, if a side can dam up their goal area, as it were, and manage to sneak the ball into the opponents’ goal and run away with victory, that side also probably plays great football. And if a set of players lacks no artistry whatsoever but can kick and follow the ball, perhaps leading to some victory, that team are no less deserving of praise.

    In other words, it is difficult determining why people support their clubs. Put differently, people will stick with their team even if everyone else finds them obnoxious.

    The Nigerian situation is hardly any different. Take those who lead or mislead this potentially great nation. It does not seem to matter what they do, those who govern Nigeria will always have their supporters. And those who will write off those leaders will do so no matter what. The economy has dipped in part because global oil prices have crumbled, and in part because the immediate past administration wrecked it. This has earned President Muhammadu Buhari blame and cynicism, if not outright condemnation. The other day in a public space, a young woman raved and ranted against the President, calling him all manner of unprintable names. For Dr Goodluck Jonathan, the word was silence. Those who robbed the country blind in broad daylight are being questioned but that does not seem to make any difference to the aforementioned girl or to those who think like she does. Two of the abducted Chibok girls have returned, but the word in some quarters is Na Buhari bring dem back?

    In recent memory, Boko Haram was taking territory, not losing prized captives.

    Like or hate. It is a free world.

  • Cameron in fantasy land

    Since he became Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron has cultivated the habit of ruffling feathers, especially those of Nigerians and, sometimes, some of his own people, and to no particular end. This week, standing slightly bowed before Queen Elizabeth at Buckingham Palace, he blurted out a phrase that has since so animated Nigerians back home, in the offices, on the road and everywhere else that it could well have helped them absorb the shock of a fuel price increase that was announced shortly after. On the eve of a multi-national anti-corruption summit in London, the Prime Minister was filmed telling the monarch that Nigeria and Afghanistan were among “fantastically corrupt” countries attending the meeting. President Muhammadu Buhari was billed to deliver a keynote address on Thursday entitled: Why we must tackle corruption together.

    It may never be known why Mr Cameron said what he said about Nigeria and Afghanistan, nor what he hoped to achieve by saying it. Was he hinting in a Cameronic way at the indiscretion of allowing representatives of such dirty countries into clean Britain? Or was he trying to warn as many Brits as would attend the summit to beware some strange characters in their midst, a way of mobilising them to come with something like a 14-foot-long spoon when refreshment was served? Mr Cameron’s agenda was not clear.

    In Nigeria, however, the effect was electric. Suddenly, the phrase “fantastically corrupt” popped up in almost any conceivable or inconceivable stretch of utterance. Trust us; we sure got something good out of Mr Cameron’s latest offering. The laughter must have helped to calm things down momentarily.

    A few years ago, when our usually distracted federal lawmakers chalked up enough willpower to pass a definitive law against gay practices, prescribing 14 years for anyone convicted of same-sex indulgences, the British Prime Minister responded with such an imperial threat that it was clear at least in his mind who between him and then President Goodluck Jonathan was king and who subject. Britain, Mr Cameron declared, would withdraw aid from Nigeria and any other country where people of gay persuasions are denied their sexual preferences, whether to engage in sex at will or marry or live together.

    Nigerians fought right back, calling the Prime Minister’s bluff and essentially asking if he imagined their country was still a colonial corner of Britain. Thankfully, the lawmakers and Dr Jonathan himself held their ground.

    In fact, it would seem as though imagination or fantasy were a crucial part of Mr Cameron. Back in his own country, he has called a Muslim cleric a supporter of ISIS, the terrorist group wreaking havoc in Syria and Iraq and indeed Europe and elsewhere. He later apologised after the man threatened to sue. It is possible that Mr Cameron spoke fantastically in a sense that would suggest that he imagined or fantasized more than he actually knew of his subject of attack.

    Minds, generally, are notoriously difficult to read, let alone Mr Cameron’s. It would have been quite satisfying to know how his works considering some of the unflattering revelations touching on the Cameron family’s sense of propriety if not outright corruption. The Prime Minister’s father Ian, a renowned stockbroker, was named in the Panama Papers, a dizzying tome of leaked offshore tax-free accounts which earned Mr Cameron himself a notable protest if not call for his outright resignation by the outraged British public. The Prime Minister fumed and fussed in defence of his daddy before conceding apologetically that he ought not have handled the matter the way he did. If there was such legendary streak of integrity running over in his family, why did his father not look hard enough for a place in Britain to stash his wealth? Why Panama?

    If Mr Cameron intended to impress the queen with the notion that Britain has been as clean as a whistle since he became Prime Minister six years ago, it is difficult to determine what effect his effort had on the monarch. Right in majestic Britain, Mr Cameron has been perceived by some as showy, vain and unreliable. It has been pointed out that once in a few hours Mr Cameron changed his clothes four times. His rivals have labeled him a chameleon.

    They were probably harsh, perhaps seeking only to knock it into every British skull that Mr Prime Minister was up to no good. That is incorrect because Mr Cameron’s schoolmates have admitted that he was exemplary, a first-class material. He may well have been but one teacher also once dismissed him as “very confused…his speech filled with contradictions,” perhaps hazy with misunderstanding.

    That may not the true picture of the man who has presided over the affairs of Great Britain for six years but it could provide a few insights into his fantastic core.

    Yet, did Mr Cameron really miss the mark on Nigeria’s corruption profile? Not quite. I think he only disappointed his fellow leaders to whom such comments must be kept private, never voiced in public. Mr Cameron himself did not intend his comments for the public, a point that President Muhammadu Buhari made in his defence, telling CNN’s Christiane Amanpour that somehow people like her got to know about it.

    In any event, the PM said what he said and we all have heard what we heard. Are Nigerians fantastically corrupt? Some, in fact, a few, are. Majority are quite clean.

    The question is: Why do leaders like Prime Minister Cameron look the other way while the crooked lay their loot in their strongest vaults?

    President Buhari did well to say he was not interested in Mr Cameron’s apology; only to hand back what Nigerian crooks took to Britain and other havens. Mr Cameron has a fantastic opportunity to redeem himself and return to the real world.