Category: Ogochukwu Ikeje

Has civility deserted Taraba State, especially its leaders? Since late last year there has been pretty little to lift the spirits of the people, and so much to ache them. First, about 10 months ago, Governor Danbaba Suntai’s aircraft crash-landed, leaving him between life and death. Immediately an unhealthy and unnecessary controversy swept into the incident. Initial reports said Suntai, a pharmacist who also qualified as a pilot, was flying the I’ll-fated aircraft. Another report emanating from the governor’s camp denied that position. Now, virtually every account agrees that the Taraba leader was in charge of the small plane on October 25

Did it matter? Yes. Public officers are entitled to some privacies but their health does not fall under such entitlements. Infirmity is no respecter of persons but the more open and forthcoming the afflicted public officer is the easier it is for the people to stand by him in his time of need. Besides, openness and truth show the respect the indisposed leader has for the electorate.

In Taraba this was not the case, but things were to get worse. No sooner was the injured governor flown to Germany for better medical care than the structures that supported his administration were pulled out in a matter that many read to be the ambitious machinations of Deputy Governor Alhaji Garba Umar. Everywhere, and especially in traditional African societies, ill-health is viewed gravely and with positive concern; it is scarcely exploited for selfish ends. In Taraba of our day things are different. In all this, where do you picture the people who supposedly elected these leaders into office? I imagine they must be agonising as the subject of ill-health is turned into a platform of manipulation and subterfuge, if not outright political war.

Now, 10 months after that fateful crash, Suntai’s return on Sunday has only worsened the bad blood running in the state, not only to the discomfiture of the Taraba people but also the horror of every Nigerian. Yes, he needed to be assisted out of the aircraft. And, yes, it made the headlines, and why not? The media has an obligation to report fact. If Suntai returned with a limp, say, reporters must report it, but his apparent frailty should not be a potent weapon in the hands of ambitious Taraba politicians. That Suntai needed help to debark from the aircraft in Abuja should not dampen the joy and excitement of his return. That the governor survived the crash should trigger happiness across the state, including the camp of the most ambitious politicians in the state.

Suntai has also sent a letter to the state House of Assembly formally indicating his return and intention to resume duty. That was what the law required but upon receiving the letter, the leadership of the fractured House launched into fresh subterfuge disguised as protocol or due process. They said Suntai would not return to office before they had deliberated on the letter. After reading the governor’s letter, they said Suntai did not write it and that his signature was forged. When he addressed them, they said the manner of his speech was even more evidence that the governor was not fit to govern.

In those 10 months of Suntai’s absence, the deputy governor who has been in acting capacity may have discovered a few sweet things about the office and is probably finding it difficult to back off as his boss returned. He may not be working alone; a report suggested that House Speaker Haruna Tsokwa will be happy to be number two to Umar, with Suntai out of the picture.

This is as disgusting as it is befuddling. To start with, it is no business of Tsokwa and his gang if Suntai did not personally write the letter transmitted to the state House. He could dictate it. He could instruct someone else to write it, provided its content conveyed his desires.

Finding much of the executive council disagreeable, Suntai sacked it, going ahead to also appoint two key officers, the Secretary to the State Government and his Chief of Staff. But that was what his deputy Umar needed to unmask his ambitions by promptly urging Taraba people in general and the sacked officers in particular to disregard Suntai’s directive. Tsokwa himself has told the governor he is unfit to govern and that he should return overseas for further treatment until he regained full health.

How uncivil and indecorous can things get in Taraba?

Some have questioned, even pooh-poohed the Tsokwa gang’s actions in their bid to turf out Suntai but there is still another unsettling dimension of the governor’s opponents’ judgments. They arrived at the conclusion that Suntai could not govern simply because, as they claimed, his manner of speech did not betray any impressive well-being. This is ridiculous. Suntai was away for 10 months under the expert eyes of probably the best physicians available. If they cleared him to go, Tsokwa and his co-conspirators are therefore unfit to declare otherwise.

The anti-Suntai camp is making some disguised allusions to the Yar’Adua scenario but the facts and circumstances are not the same. The late president was not seen at all, or heard. The Yar’Adua cabal was brazenly manipulative and was widely condemned. In Taraba, the anti-Suntai forces are simply operating beyond the realm of reason and decorum.

Current distractions at the national and state Assemblies point to one ultimate question: are our lawmakers the problem of the country or is it the electorate who reportedly voted them into power?

Now, it has become quite clear that among decent folks making laws at the state or national levels, there is a frightening number well-disposed to everything shameful, uncivil and retrogressive. Rather than make laws, they break them. Rather than talk things over, they fight over things. Instead of canvassing superior arguments, they resort to clenched fists and weapons. They place brazen selfish-ambition over enlightened self-interest. They have blood on their hands but it is all the same to them. And they are all in the revered legislative assembly, all honourable men and women.

But there is another side. Who took them to the otherwise hallowed Assembly?

For much of the week, senators and many Nigerians have been distracted by the developments at the Senate. In the course of the processes of tweaking the Constitution, 85 out of 101 senators voted to remove Section 29 (b4) from the laws. By the way, that section gives a married lady, even if she is below 18, the right to renounce her citizenship of a country. Their reason for pursuing this line of action is that a lady below 18, at least in the eye of the law, may be mentally immature to understand or handle such matters as citizen renunciation. Their perception chimed with anti-early marriage activists who point out that there are health, social and other risks attending early marriages, and so should be discourages.

There were a few who held back their votes but in the words of Senate President David Mark, “there was hardly any dissenting votes but once it got mixed up with so many other issues, (the senators could not) get the required 73 votes” to expunge that section of the Constitution.

Senator Ahmed Sani Yarima of Zamfara State played a key role in mixing up the proceedings with those “other issues.” He and a band of protesters he apparently inspired, managed to halt the larger body in their tracks. Yarima’s thesis was that removing that section of the Constitution was anti-Islamic. He was trying to stir a religious storm by inferring that marrying underage girls was fine by every Muslim and that the intended excision of Section 29 (4b) from the Constitution was an attack on Islam. That is not true.

That “blackmail”, as Mark called it, cost the Senate a lot. Many, including organisations overseas, said the Nigerian lawmakers had made a law legalising child-marriage. On these shores, criticism poured in, too, forcing the Senate president to make a statement. Addressing a team of activists, some of them renowned national leaders who denounced the outcome at the national Assembly, Mark said: “There was and there is still a big misunderstanding of what the Senate is trying to do. We are on the side of the people. That was why we put it that we should delete it; that is what the people want. We, in fact, were the first to take the step in the direction of deleting it. It didn’t go through because of other tangential issues that were brought to the floor of the Senate that are totally inconsequential and unconnected…A religious connotation was brought into it, it became a very sensitive issue. You must agree with me that in this country, we try as much as possible not to bring in issues that involve faith to this chamber.

“I think the bottom-line is when people get sufficiently educated, we can do a rethink and if the Senate agrees, we can then go back and see whether we can get the required number once more, because that is the solution.”

As governor, Yarima was the first to introduce Sharia in the North. In 2010 he reportedly brought home a 13-year-old Egyptian bride and was roundly criticised for it, though he denied the young woman in question was that young.

Others including fellow Muslims have pointed out to the senator that his latest exertions are selfish and not in any way in the interest of Islam. Yarima does not need any reminder that many societies, even in non-Muslim countries, have seen the risks and dark sides of early-marriages and are changing their habits. The well-travelled former governor should know that several Muslim countries have put the health and well-being of their citizens and nations first and pegged the age minimum age of marriage at 18, even as they will not trade their faith for any other.

Cases of VVF or vesico-vaginal fistula are consequently and needlessly widespread in the North, and otherwise enlightened leaders like Yarima should have been leading the campaign against such preventable diseases. The Senate would have been an ideal platform to campaign for a better deal for the North’s children and help them be the best they can be. But, clearly, Yarima has no such visions or persuasions.

Sadly, there are many like him who are driven by wild passions. Some time ago, we found that some of our lawmakers were seeking to legalise gay relationships, even marriages. Thankfully, reason prevailed and their intentions were shot down. Still, it points to the fact that some people were sent to the legislature to do nothing but drag the country and its people back several centuries.

That leads to an even bigger question. How do these sort of dodgy people get into the legislature? Do we vote them in, knowing they have very little to offer? Or are they still being imposed on us as their predecessors used to be?Or do they play the good boys and good girls long enough for us to take them where they want to be, only for them to shed their innocent garb and put on their true wear?

Current distractions at the national and state Assemblies point to one ultimate question: are our lawmakers the problem of the country or is it the electorate who reportedly voted them into power?

Now, it has become quite clear that among decent folks making laws at the state or national levels, there is a frightening number well-disposed to everything shameful, uncivil and retrogressive. Rather than make laws, they break them. Rather than talk things over, they fight over things. Instead of canvassing superior arguments, they resort to clenched fists and weapons. They place brazen selfish-ambition over enlightened self-interest. They have blood on their hands but it is all the same to them. And they are all in the revered legislative assembly, all honourable men and women.

But there is another side. Who took them to the otherwise hallowed Assembly?

For much of the week, senators and many Nigerians have been distracted by the developments at the Senate. In the course of the processes of tweaking the Constitution, 85 out of 101 senators voted to remove Section 29 (b4) from the laws. By the way, that section gives a married lady, even if she is below 18, the right to renounce her citizenship of a country. Their reason for pursuing this line of action is that a lady below 18, at least in the eye of the law, may be mentally immature to understand or handle such matters as citizen renunciation. Their perception chimed with anti-early marriage activists who point out that there are health, social and other risks attending early marriages, and so should be discourages.

There were a few who held back their votes but in the words of Senate President David Mark, “there was hardly any dissenting votes but once it got mixed up with so many other issues, (the senators could not) get the required 73 votes” to expunge that section of the Constitution.

Senator Ahmed Sani Yarima of Zamfara State played a key role in mixing up the proceedings with those “other issues.” He and a band of protesters he apparently inspired, managed to halt the larger body in their tracks. Yarima’s thesis was that removing that section of the Constitution was anti-Islamic. He was trying to stir a religious storm by inferring that marrying underage girls was fine by every Muslim and that the intended excision of Section 29 (4b) from the Constitution was an attack on Islam. That is not true.

That “blackmail”, as Mark called it, cost the Senate a lot. Many, including organisations overseas, said the Nigerian lawmakers had made a law legalising child-marriage. On these shores, criticism poured in, too, forcing the Senate president to make a statement. Addressing a team of activists, some of them renowned national leaders who denounced the outcome at the national Assembly, Mark said: “There was and there is still a big misunderstanding of what the Senate is trying to do. We are on the side of the people. That was why we put it that we should delete it; that is what the people want. We, in fact, were the first to take the step in the direction of deleting it. It didn’t go through because of other tangential issues that were brought to the floor of the Senate that are totally inconsequential and unconnected…A religious connotation was brought into it, it became a very sensitive issue. You must agree with me that in this country, we try as much as possible not to bring in issues that involve faith to this chamber.

“I think the bottom-line is when people get sufficiently educated, we can do a rethink and if the Senate agrees, we can then go back and see whether we can get the required number once more, because that is the solution.”

As governor, Yarima was the first to introduce Sharia in the North. In 2010 he reportedly brought home a 13-year-old Egyptian bride and was roundly criticised for it, though he denied the young woman in question was that young.

Others including fellow Muslims have pointed out to the senator that his latest exertions are selfish and not in any way in the interest of Islam. Yarima does not need any reminder that many societies, even in non-Muslim countries, have seen the risks and dark sides of early-marriages and are changing their habits. The well-travelled former governor should know that several Muslim countries have put the health and well-being of their citizens and nations first and pegged the age minimum age of marriage at 18, even as they will not trade their faith for any other.

Cases of VVF or vesico-vaginal fistula are consequently and needlessly widespread in the North, and otherwise enlightened leaders like Yarima should have been leading the campaign against such preventable diseases. The Senate would have been an ideal platform to campaign for a better deal for the North’s children and help them be the best they can be. But, clearly, Yarima has no such visions or persuasions.

Sadly, there are many like him who are driven by wild passions. Some time ago, we found that some of our lawmakers were seeking to legalise gay relationships, even marriages. Thankfully, reason prevailed and their intentions were shot down. Still, it points to the fact that some people were sent to the legislature to do nothing but drag the country and its people back several centuries.

That leads to an even bigger question. How do these sort of dodgy people get into the legislature? Do we vote them in, knowing they have very little to offer? Or are they still being imposed on us as their predecessors used to be?Or do they play the good boys and good girls long enough for us to take them where they want to be, only for them to shed their innocent garb and put on their true wear?

Our lawmakers have demonstrated that they have a few other endowments and competences beyond the fine arts of making laws. When they fail to make the desired impressions by talking, they shout. When shouting does not make much difference, their fists take over. In Rivers State, even the mace, an otherwise revered symbol of legislative authority, has become a potent tool of violence. It can descend on a disagreeable head, draw blood and still remain the revered mace that it is assumed to be. Lawmakers in Port Harcourt sure know how to sidetrack the law, roughen up one another and deliver a well-timed uppercut.

The tales and videos originating from there lately do not flatter the state or its leaders. They cannot lift up Governor Chibuike Amaechi’s spirits or cheer up the state legislature or reassure the people who supposedly elected them into office. Nor does the rest of the watching world have anything to gain thereby.

Symbols of solemn authority are violated. Hallowed chambers are desecrated. Sacred blood is spilled and splattered. Supposedly enlightened leaders are having a hard time subduing their anger.

A small, audacious gang of five took steps to unseat the Speaker of a 32-strong Assembly. That is bizarre. Presumed decent leaders are fighting back even with a broken mace in a possibly twisted interpretation of the kingdom suffering violence and only the violent taking it by force. That is weird.

Law enforcement agents are pictured apparently providing safe passage for lawmakers out for battle and sometimes even seeming to join the battle.

At some point, a tear gas canister, at the least, was said to have been fired into Government House.

We have also seen how easy it is to mobilise youths and get them to do the bidding of leaders.

And everyday since July 9 when the five-against-32 impeachment drama was staged, the crisis in Rivers has been worsening, not resolved. New angles and perspectives have been opening up. Accusations and counter-accusations have been made. The Presidency has been consistently accused of complicity in the crisis, a charge it has  continuously denied. In the week, First Lady Patience Jonathan traced the crisis to four years ago when she fell out with Governor Amaechi over whether to demolish or not to demolish a part of her community in Okirika land. The president’s wife referred to the state chief executive as a son, albeit a “hot-tempered” one. Before a team of visiting bishops, she catalogued the governor’s offences, then asked that peace reign. Amaechi’s camp contested almost every word Dame Patience said.

It is a messy picture before us and before the world, which will ultimately judge.

It shows the older we get as a country, the less mature we tend to become; the more we travel the beautiful, growing world, the less of that world we see, or if we do see, the less of it we fail to bring back to home. The older our so-called democracy gets, the less convincing or inspiring it becomes. When we take one step forward, we take many to reverse it.

Clearly, there are many rivers to cross. And not just in Amaechi’s state. Across the country, though I concede there must be a few exceptions, there is a twisted sense of governance and leadership. Wisdom almost always seems to flow from the leaders down, not from the led up. Whatever the leaders want and decree stands. There is no room for dialogue. Even among the leaders, there is hardly any concession, compromise or consensus. To them, power is effective only if the wielder has his way all the time. Mrs Jonathan has said the Rivers crisis started with a disagreement between her and Amaechi. Some have said read political ambition into it, alleging that Amaechi is not showing much respect for, or loyalty to, President Goodluck Jonathan and may even be hurting the commander-in-chief’s perceived second term designs.

Whatever the truth, what is happening hurts the country, its leadership and people. It further lowers our image before an eternally cynical world.

Democracy may be expensive, it’s processes tedious but it is still the preferred system of governance. Its strongest point is dialogue, not force of arms. No matter the issue, the solution is in talk and more talk. Every week, our friendly foe, Prime Minister David Cameron faces the British lawmakers, some of whom with nothing but venom in their guts. But they manage to refer to one another as gentlemen as they thrash out the hottest of issues.

I believe that is what maturity means: how to keep your head even under intense provocation. I know that politics seeks power and to hold it but I believe too that democracy which should drive politics, and not the other way around, thrives in  compromise.

At 53, Nigeria has come of age, but even though its democracy is not as old, it is expected to be substantially mature. In the Obasanjo days in Aso Rock, federal lawmakers were not always at their best of behaviour. Fists and furniture flew in the hallowed chambers. In 2013, we should have crossed such waters.

As things stand, there is more work ahead.

Great nations learn from their mistakes,

their scandals and their tragedies. Nigeria, if it wants to be great, should learn from the horrors and aftermath of June 12, 1993 presidential election.

Time was in Britain when a juvenile aged between seven and 14 faced the death penalty if there was a “strong evidence of malice” in him or her. Also, a Briton was to die for being in the company of Gypsies for a period of one month. If a criminal was found to have blackened his face or used any form of disguise while committing a crime, the law provided that he be killed.

In colonised America, the ruling authorities were so powerful that they determined what people should or should not say, especially against the state and religion.

Those were messy and unwholesome eras. Common sense prevailed, eventually. The British people saw the error, the scandal, the crime in their system. Crucially, they began to realise the folly of conferring on the state such overreaching powers as to terminate life for laughable reasons. In time, capital punishment was abolished.

In the United States, the battle for freedom was fought and won early as the colony freed itself from its British overlords, the liberated people judging that the greatest thing in life was freedom. Today, many centuries after, freedom remains the only thing that typifies and defines the Americans, the only thing they hold dear. They learned from a bad past.

We should learn also from our horrible history but I would even prefer that we learn from our present misdeeds. It is now two decades since the presidential election so clearly won by Chief MKO Abiola. The world knows all about the bizarre events that attended that election. First, it was annulled in the most hideous and scandalous circumstances by the Babangida administration. Rather than claim his trophy, the winner of the election was thrown into detention. And instead of regaining freedom, at the least, Abiola died in detention, again, in the most bizarre and scandalous circumstances. Amidst all this, the country burned.

That was clearly one of Nigeria’s darkest moments. But the tragedy was not just the fact that an election was cancelled and the winner denied, but also because that election was adjudged to be the freest and fairest the country ever knew. And to that extent, it was primed to lift the country up the ladder of democratic progress, a huge leap in the expression of the common will. It was looking to lay the foundation for national growth in many imaginable ways.

That was not to be. Two decades after, what have we learnt from that tragedy? Pretty little. For the most part, the leadership of the nation lives in denial. Chief Olusegun Obasanjo who would benefit from June 12, has since written off Chief Abiola. Alhaji Bashir Tofa who lost the election of that year would rather no one talked about June 12 anymore. The federal government does not reckon with it, so anytime the presidency says or does something about it, its utterances and actions are at best shallow. When President Jonathan announced the renaming of University of Lagos after the June 12 hero, it provoked profound controversy, some seeing it as sectionalising or tribalising Chief Abiola, even though the institution is federal government-owned. This week, at the anniversary of June 12, Jonathan acknowledged the profound significance of the election but did not sound like his administration would make June 12 a national holiday anytime soon. He seemed to be content with the fact that some states have on their own declared the date a public holiday.

It is not about the faults of the federal government. Certain individuals once identified as June 12 activists have been accused of either selling out or putting their activism to self-serving ends or even sectionalising a national hero.

What do core June Twelvers want? It seems to me they want more national prominence for Abiola and the election he won. They want the federal government to come forward and give the late Abiola some recognition and respect. They will like a national holiday in his honour.

All that is good, even desirable. But if Abiola and June 12 were remembered with cenotaphs, holidays and the like alone, they would have been reduced to mere superficialities. There should be more to the man and the election he won than cosmetics.

Cenotaphs and holidays will do neither the man nor Nigerians who voted for him any good if the nation does not recognise that crimes were committed 20 years ago and that the criminals ought to be punished. Since the crime of that electoral abortion, no one has been reprimanded. It is difficult to see how a nation can move forward without coming to terms with its past and correcting its errors. It has been pointed out that those who killed June 12 are still calling the shots in the country. That in itself is a tragedy.

Moreover, election riggers are alive and well in the country. There is nothing to suggest that they have turned a new leaf. Misguided and brazen political ambition is still rife and there is little to inspire the people. Our electoral processes are still dodgy. Among the governors, election has lost its meaning.

What Abiola and June 12 deserve is electoral justice, healthy ballot processes and the supremacy of the people’s will, not the cosmetics of statues and holidays.