The Nation Newspaper

Category: Saturday

  • Democracy, corruption and culture

    By Dayo Sobowale

    Nowadays it has become a tautology to say that Power not only corrupts but it does so absolutely. Nowhere is this more absolutely so than in the Nigerian political system. It is not as if Nigeria is the most corrupt nation on earth, it is just because of the political culture we have evolved and engrained in stone as it were, that politicians in Nigeria are expected to live and get rich by siphoning public funds into their pockets and those of their cronies and relatives. Nothing typifies this anomalous situation more vividly than the statement credited to our Attorney General this week that 22 former governors in Nigeria are under probe or on trial and three of them have been jailed. Certainly the situation would have been worse but for the fact that the incumbent Nigerian president was elected on a personal anti-corruption reputation and disposition which was a fall back on his anti-corruption posture and policies during his tenure in office as a military dictator. No matter how you look at it the administration must be commended in getting so many governors tried on political and financial accountability even as we condemn it unequivocally on its penchant for disobeying court injunctions and ruling thereby casting aspersion on its stated objective on abiding by the rule of law. Any government that drives a sitting judge out of the court cannot claim to be a law abiding nation more so a democracy for the simple fact that democracy thrives on respect for the rule of law.

    Given our presidential system of government the judiciary is the third and equal leg of the tripod of politics in a presidential system of democracy. The other two being the government or executive and the legislature. The three arms of government are intertwined and inter twixt and exist as equal centres of power in a system of checks and balances in a presidential democracy which Nigeria certainly, is by theory given its constitution and but which in practice it is not, given the way a judge was chased out of his court recently by armed security agents of government. Certainly the rule of law must exist side by side with the war against corruption as both are not mutually exclusive. That explains the topic of the day and we will focus our sights on how corruption has become a cancer in many political systems in the world today.

    Let me state clearly that the nature of corruption in the world’s democracies depend on the type of political ideology in each political environment and system. I will highlight some nations and their ideologies broadly and their types of corruption in holding on to power and later zero in on the Impeachment of US President Donald Trump this week. I will also examine the relationship between Russia and the US pre Trump and pre Vladmir Putin, the Russian president now and how that has played a part in the eventual impeachment of the American president.

    Let me proceed now to categorise corruption in various nations as well as the nature of their democracies. Charity begins at home here with Nigeria which runs a presidential system and its nature of corruption is in embezzlement, nepotism and tenacity of office. Politicians in power in Nigeria don’t want to leave power and office and want to enjoy the perquisites of office for life, just like long serving corporate retirees or pensioners who had made the sacrifice of a contributory pension scheme. Of course that is unjust for politicians who have enjoyed two highly lucrative terms of executive power only to migrate from state houses to the senate in Abuja. That however is the nature of executive political corruption in Nigeria.

    I will illustrate again with China the wealthiest Communist state in the world involved in a fierce trade war with the US, the leading world democracy in terms of liberal democracy. Neither nation regards the other as a true democracy but that is none of our business here as we discuss corruption in China first China is ruled by the Communist Party of China whose member ship is just a few millions and which rules over a nation of 1.5bn Chinese. Corruption in China is in the political culture that makes Communist Party leaders a special breed in society. The political corruption in China is in the total monopoly of political power by the Communist Party of China They dominate Chinese society and wield enormous and pervasive political influence. The present President Xi is an anti corruption leader and China is governed by 5 –year party conferences that map out state policies and economic programs. Many top Chinese leaders have been sacked for corruption and the Head of the Tax body was sometime executed for corruption. The Chinese president has however made himself president for life and that has dented his image externally as he has been accused of making those who oppose his ambition scape goats for corruption and subsequent elimination. This however does not detract from the fact that China under the communist party has made great economic progress and is a world power in information technology and artificial intelligence. That explains why the US President Donald Trump is busy trying to cut China down to size in economic and trade terms and slow the momentum of an economic rival that is bound to outpace the US as a world leader in finance, trade and technology, sooner than later.

    The political corruption in Russia too has to do with tenacity of office, cronyism and manipulation of tenure politics. That explains why Putin was president from 2001 – 2008 and PM between 2008 – 2012 while his Vice President, Medvedev was president only for Putin to return to power from 2012 till now.

    It is time, now, to highlight the issue that led to Trump’s impeachment this week as the foundation was laid during the Obama era, when Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State and the US government supported the opposition in Russia in the 2011 elections that were organised for Putin to regain power as president in 2012. Vladmir Putin never forgave Hillary Clinton on that issue hence his support for Donald Trump, her opponent, which ultimately led to Trump’s impeachment even though he has all along insisted that there was no collusion with Russia. Obviously the Democrats never believed him and have now impeached him on abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. His fate now lies in the senate where his party, the Republican Party is in power and he is expected to be cleared and thus be able b to retain power and compete for reelection in the 2020 presidential elections.

    The Trump Impeachment however process illustrates the nature of corruption in American politics. Partisanship, the dark, blind kind that the Democrats showed the Republicans in the two committees that handled Trumps’ Impeachment this week, namely Judiciary and Intelligence Committees, is the bane of US politics. It showed its ugly face in the way the Republicans were able to get two judges confirmed as US Supreme Court judges recently and was on display at Trump’s Impeachment this week and would continue in the Senate later. Already the Republicans have called the impeachment process in the House a one – party impeachment but it is their turn to try the impeached president and they will just repeat what the Democrats have done on the impeachment in the house – rail road the process and make the Democratic Minority in the Senate have its say while the Republican Majority have its way in allowing its party president continue in office. After all what is good for the goose is good for the gander. Partisanship is indeed the red flag in US politics and is the flagship of the corruption at the heart of its democratic system of checks and balances. Once again, long live the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

  • PDP govs clash over Buhari

    Sentry

    Two Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governors, Nyesom Wike of Rivers State and David Umahi of Ebonyi, were at daggers drawn last Saturday over a costly joke the former cracked on the latter’s relationship with President Muhammadu Buhari.

    It is widely believed that Umahi is the closest PDP governor to Buhari, and the governor himself has made no pretence about his closeness to the President, so much so that it was speculated in the past that he would defect to the All Progressives Congress (APC).

    But at a meeting of PDP governors and prominent party members as Wike was honoured by his Ikwere people in Port Harcourt last Saturday, a joke the Rivers State governor made of the Buhar/Umahi relationship struck the wrong cord in the Ebonyi State governor and almost resulted in fisticuffs between the two state chief executives.

    The meeting was said to have begun on a convivial note and exchange of banter. Then entered Umahi, and Wike jokingly welcomed him, saying, “Ah, here comes Buhari’s man!”

    The remarks elicited laughter from the other governors, but it did not resonate well with Umahi, who angrily asked Wike, “Who is more Buhari than you? I have many of your pictures with Buhari which are not known to the public!”

    Umahi then threatened to make Wike’s pictures with Buhari public if he was provoked further by his host. Was Wike rattled? Those present said he was speechless. Umahi’s outburst ended the discussion on Buhari and the meeting moved to discuss other issues.

  • See me eating in prison, Orji Kalu tells visitor

    Sentry

    This is a classic instance of the instability of human conditions. At the age of 20, he had become a millionaire at a time the naira was worth more than the dollar. At 26, he became the youngest Nigerian to receive the National Merit Award during the Ibrahim Babangida-led military administration in 1986.

    Orji Uzor Kalu became the governor of Abia State when he was not yet 40 and ruled the state for eight years between 1999 and 2007. He capped a life on the fast lane with his recent election as the senator representing Abia North, eventually emerging as the Chief Whip in the upper chamber of the National Assembly.

    But all that took a dramatic turn penultimate Thursday with his conviction by the Lagos Division of the Federal High Court which sentenced him to 12 years imprisonment for N7.65 billion fraud while he held sway as Abia State governor.

    Although he has become a prison inmate since then, Sentry gathered that the reality of his new condition did not dawn on him until some of his associates began to visit him in the prison. Recall that the former governor reportedly asked the prison officials who led him out of the court after the judge pronounced his conviction: “Where are we going now?”

    A few days after he landed in prison, one of his business associates was said to have paid him a sympathy visit but was shocked at the pitiable picture cut by the former governor, who was said to be wearing a pair of bathroom slippers.

    “See me now eating in the prison,” a pensive Kalu reportedly told his visitor, who struggled to find the words that could console him. An erstwhile colleague of his as governor, who spent some time in incarceration, also visited him. The flamboyant ex-governor advised him to stay strong and regard his travails as another phase of life.

    Sentry gathered that the former Abia State governor has been moved from Lagos to the Kuje Prison in Abuja for reasons no one could fathom.

  • Whither Nigerian boxing

    Ade Ojeikere

     

    What won’t you hear, see or read about when it comes to Nigerians and their passion for sports? From the obscene to the ridiculous are some of the scenarios you are confronted with, which tell the story of Nigeria – only unified by sports – no place for tribe and/or creed. How about this lamentation from an Arsenal fan who was in my office on Monday morning – angry, unable to understand what had befallen the Gunners, so much so any team can beat them, even at the club’s sacred ground – Emirates Stadium in London. Pity.

    Hear the Arsenal fan, dear reader: ” Oga, you see what I have been saying about my team, Arsenal? I advocated long ago that Arsenal’s management should go for Jose Mourinho. They kept faith with coaches who are not winners. See what Mourinho has done with Tottenham? Can you imagine Brighton beating Arsenal at the Emirates?

    ”Look Sir, in that game, Brighton, for instance, the visitors had more of the ball possession, more of the shots at goals, they had more of the corner kicks and free kicks. The only thing Arsenal players did better than Brighton was to get more yellow cards flashed at them by the referee.” I ‘collapsed’, almost choking because this colleague was dead serious and wasn’t in the mood for jokes. Omase o, I retorted and my colleague stormed out angry. He walked away from my office. A case of transferred aggression.

    I’ve brothers (please don’t ask me if they are older or younger than I), who  are avid supporters of Arsenal. One of them wrote on his WhatsApp chat after Arsenal’s home loss to Brighton last week, that he had dumped the Gunners. I couldn’t call him, knowing that it would have caused him more pain. My other brother who supports Arsenal has been bombarded with teasers from his friends. But he is adept in receiving such jokes and knows how to return fire-for-fire to his friends when their teams falter.

    Today’s column isn’t about Arsenal or other teams and how they are faring because the season is just gaining momentum. It would be unwise for anyone to make any predictions. However, the build-up to the Fight at the Dunes in Saudi Arabia last Saturday was very interesting with both boxers entertaining the media with different perspectives to the fight, which, on the hindsight  turned out to be an anti-climax. No knock downs. There was blood and that was the only time that one of the boxers realised that he had to box. He smelt blood and knew the implications on the umpires’ scorecards.

    However, Anthony Joshua drew the support of Nigerians when he entered the ring with one of the songs which endeared music lovers to the late Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, omi o lo ta (water no get enemy) blaring from the loudspeakers. The lyric typified what eventually happened, although most people couldn’t really follow the fight live on television. Indeed, Joshua has shown tremendous love for Nigeria, even though it hurts that he carries a British passport. The one got to represent England at the Olympic Games.

    We want to claim Joshua as a Nigerian, yet no local station could show the boxing bout against Andrés Ruiz Jr. But every TV/cable network in the UK beamed the historic event live across British cities. So, why the noise that he never mentioned Nigeria in his victory speech? How could Joshua mention Nigeria when he knows that over 200 million Nigerians relied on several parties to catch glimpses of his fight? Several supporters from England came to Saudi Arabia for the fight. And the loud noise  from where the fans sang, Joshua, Anthony Joshua , Joshua … took over the entire hall as they celebrated.

    “I want to thank God. I want to say that the first time was so nice, I just had to do it twice. A man like me don’t make no excuses. This is about boxing. I’m used to knocking guys out but I had to correct myself and put on a boxing master-class. You have to hit and not get hit.

    “I stay hungry and humble. Thank you to everyone, I don’t know what to say. So to everyone around the world and in this building – let’s go!

    “Careers are all about experiences, I took my ‘L’ and hit back. I’d do it all again, if you are heard, we going to do a third,” Joshua said in last Saturday’s post match analysis.

    Joshua is expected to be in Nigeria by the middle of January. He will be guest of President Muhammadu Buhari inside the seat of government Aso Rock in Abuja. What this shows is that the President recognises the importance of sports in reenergising the populace. The President has seen the Public Relations tool which sports uses to change people’s perception of the country. It was easy for the British media to tag Joshua a Nigerian in his troubling times with drugs and being on the wrong side of the law. But the moment Joshua became a celebrity, the narrative changed – Joshua became British born. Of course, he has been developed and taken out of his dark past to the part of glory which he presently enjoys.

    Sports minister Sunday Dare has shown remarkable understanding of the workings in sports with some of his decisions so far. Dare could use the interactive session with Anthony Joshua  next year to jumpstart the process of reviving boxing in the country. Joshua emerged from the dark corners where he took drug to stardom because the British government’s sports policy is robust. What the administrators did to Joshua was channel the energy in him positively to boxing. And it has paid off because there were trained coaches in the British boxing system who refined his skills and exposed him to the world at the Olympic Games.

    Joshua was transformed at the corrective centre by a system that works, which is lacking here because of the kind of ministers we have had. Today, Dare has changed the narrative. He has introduced several schemes to ensure that potential medallists are attached to sports friendly firms and individuals, with government’s function restricted to providing the facilities to train the athletes. With functional sports centres and coaches across the 774 Local Government Areas in the country, it would be easier for the budding stars to exercise and take to sports of their choice.

    President Buhari can impress it on Joshua to use his contacts in world boxing to get good coaches to visit the country periodically to train and re-train our coaches while working in our hinterlands to discover potential boxers to win laurels for the country. The new discoveries will open new horizon for themselves.  Nigeria did well in boxing winning medals and belts from our amateur boxers in the past.

    Dick Tiger was a Nigerian-born professional boxer who held the World Middleweight and World Light Heavyweight Championships. Tiger was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1991. The Ring magazine named him Fighter of the Year in 1962 and 1965, while the Boxing Writers Association of America (BWAA) named him Fighter of the Year in 1962 and 1966. In 2002, Tiger was voted by The Ring magazine as the 31st greatest fighter of the last 80 years. Hogan “Kid” Bassey MBE was a Nigerian-British boxer; he was the first man of Nigerian descent to become a world boxing champion.

    Nojim Maiyegun is a retired Nigerian boxer, who won the bronze medal in the men’s Light  Middleweight (71 kg) category at the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Japan,  Nigeria’s first Olympic medallist. David Izonritei is a former Nigerian boxer. Also known as David Izon, Izonritei won the Heavyweight silver medal at the 1992 Summer Olympics. Duncan Dalnajeneso Danagogo Dokiwari is a retired Nigerian boxer. At the 1996 Summer Olympics he won a Men’s Super Heavyweight bronze medal, together with Aleksei Lezin of Russia.

    Efe Ajagba won a gold medal at the 2015 African Games and bronze at the 2014 Commonwealth Games. As a professional, Ajagba holds the record for the fastest victory in boxing history after his opponent was disqualified for leaving the ring 1 second after the opening bell. there was also Ikemefula Charles “Ike” Ibeabuchi, whose story isn’t pleasant to narrate here. This list shows how well Nigeria could box even though it doesn’t capture all our exploits, especially Isacc Ikhuoria’s bronze medal winning feat at the Munich 1972 Olympic Games. Ikhuoria groomed other boxers, with the most prominent of them being Davidson Andeh. I ask, where is Davidson Andeh? tears on my face. Andeh’s story isn’t pleasant too. I digress.

    Indeed, the Lagos Boxing Hall of Fame anchored by Olawale Edun changed the face of boxing in the Centre of Excellence, without grave cost to the government.  The Lagos Boxing Hall Fame reawakened the fistic trade in state, especially the novel boxing tournament where boxers from Repton Boxing Club in the United Kingdom (UK) came to trade punches with those discovered from the local government areas in the state.

    Nigerian boxers were taken to London to box against their English counterparts in 2013. Imagine how those boxers felt entering the aircraft, possibly for the first time. Imagine the boxers’ gaze  as the bus drove through the streets of London. Imagine how they would felt putting calls across to their parents from London to Nigeria and what transpired in such telephone conversations. Imagine calling their friends to show that the Lagos Boxing Hall Fame is where they should be to learn and earn a living from boxing. Lagos Boxing Hall of fame began in 2009 and has held 107 editions monthly, where boxers were taught the rudiments of the fistic trade. Imagine how the boxers reacted to English meals as against Nigeria’s? Imagine how they coped with the weather and what ran through the minds during the period? Such is the message with sports and how it ought to be government’s biggest Public Relations tool.

    Such visits as Joshua’s help to raise the consciousness of Nigerians towards the sports, especially, those who used their big physique to bully people around the state instead of embracing boxing. It would be easier to convince them to embrace sports, having seen what others have achieved, especially their friends.

     

  • Unsung revolution

    WATCHING the video that has gone viral of the chaos caused in an Abuja High court by the Department of State Services (DSS) in its attempt to re-arrest former student union leader and social activist turned politician, Omoyele Sowore, earlier released from prolonged detention after over 125 days, could be quite befuddling. For one, no discernible DSS officers could be seen in the court room forcefully attempting to evacuate Sowore from the premises. Rather, it would appear to be the former presidential candidate’s supporters forming a human shield around him and chanting slogans that he could not be re-arrested. Outside the court room, however, the cameras showed the burly men of the DSS mobilized in full force to cart away their quarry once he stepped out of the court. That was why the DSS claims that the entire drama was enacted by the Sowore sympathizers to discredit the agency and mislead the viewing public.

    If so, one must credit the brilliance of the Sowore strategists. This is in stark contrast to the elaborate tactical dumbness exhibited by the intelligence agency in the entire affair. Pray, can Nigeria’s prime intelligence outfit do no better than to exhibit such disproportionate might in a bid to arrest an unarmed individual apparently in violation of due process and that within the premises of a court in these days of the ubiquitous social media? Could the DSS, given the resources and expertise at its disposal, not have unobtrusively picked up Sowore in a clinical and professional operation and thus avoiding the negative image in which it has portrayed itself and the government whose bidding it is assumed to be doing? Now, it has been placed continually on the defensive and defiant government spokespersons have had to put  up a bold face on the avoidable embarrassment.

    The DSS misadventure has focused attention, once again, on the human rights record of the Buhari administration. For instance, it has continued to hold former National Security Adviser (NSA), Col. Sambo Dasuki (Retd), and leader of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN), Mallam Ibrahim el-Zakzaky, in indefinite detention despite their being granted bail by several courts. In the Sowore case, the DSS appears desperate to keep him behind bars perpetually irrespective of the law. Yes, he was reckless in calling for a revolution and making statements capable of inciting public disturbance. Yes, Sowore may have been motivated by his loss in an election in which he willingly participated and thus lent legitimacy to a system that he now ostensibly seeks to overthrow by revolution.

    But then, a revolution is not a tea party. It is not actualized by cheap oratory. By all means let the DSS perform its institutional duty by swiftly bringing Sowore to trial if there is evidence that he planned to overthrow the existing order. The agency has ample resources to gather all the information and amass all the evidence it needs. It has the wherewithal to hire the best legal brains in the country to prosecute its case. This does not have to take forever.

    The same goes for Dasuki and el-Zakzaky. They may have allegedly committed the most heinous of crimes. There is certainly no infraction that is beyond the capacity of our laws to deal with. And crimes remain alleged until proven in open, unfettered and conclusive court processes. To continue to detain individuals in blatant defiance of court rulings is a feature of fascism, not the democracy we proclaim to be. Reference to human rights violations by preceding administrations is not a credible defence by any incumbent administration. The extant administration has the advantage of learning from the lapses of its predecessors and avoiding its errors. Mistakes will, of course, inevitably be made by any human government. But they must be new ones, not a repetition of the same old ones (apologies to the inimitable Jose Mourinho).

    During his campaign for election in 2015, President Muhammadu Buhari described himself as a ‘reformed democrat’. There is nothing to suggest that he is not living up to his word. His level of personal tolerance has been impressive. For instance, at least two of his cabinet Ministers were caught on camera either supporting one of his formidable political opponents or making uncomplimentary remarks about him. Yet, Buhari kept both of them in his government till the expiration of his first term and has reappointed one back to his previous position. No insult seems to be able to provoke the imperturbable General from Daura.

    Now, there is no guarantee that Presidents coming after Buhari will have the same thick skin and level headedness. That is why they must not be given the opportunity to cite precedents of violations of the rule of law now to commit even more atrocious assaults on the constitution and the rights of citizens. If critical elements of civil society keep quiet now in the face of brazen contempt of court decisions by this administration, they will have no moral right to speak up when future governments do worse.

    The  Sowore ill-defined revolution clarion call has become such an issue because the Buhari administration is doing a very poor job of proclaiming from the rooftops its own near revolutionary accomplishments in diverse areas. For instance, according to Professor Itse-Sagay, the administration has recovered over N1trillion of looted funds and this excludes physical assets both within and outside the country. Former top public office holders are facing the consequences of their actions more than at any other time in this dispensation. The fear of the anti-graft agencies is the beginning of wisdom for any custodian of public funds in Nigeria today and the impunity with which the country’s resources were once looted can never be the same again after Buhari. That is ongoing radical change if you do not want to call it revolutionary.

    Similar positive stories can be told as regards the resurgence in local food production and reduced import dependency in agriculture, the aggressive work being done in the resuscitation and modernization of railways and the massive ongoing reconstruction/rehabilitation of no less than 600 critical roads and bridges across the country by the Federal Ministry of Works to cite a few instances. But then, the administration’s vulnerable underbelly remains its disobedience of court orders and violation of individual rights particularly as manifest in the cases of Dasuki, el-Zakzaky and Sowore. Here, the crucial responsibility lies with the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation, Mr. Abubakar Malami (SAN) to take urgent steps to remedy these flaws that are badly distracting attention from PMB’s still largely unsung revolution.

    Even then, does whatever shortcomings of the Buhari administration justify our denuding it in anyway of its democratic legitimacy and thus creating the impression that we are back to a full blown military dictatorship and are no more under a civil and constitutional administration?  I do not think so. Despite the many failings and flaws of our unfolding democratic evolution there are also many successes and triumphs we can be proud of. We remain on the perpetual journey to the proverbial ‘more perfect Union’. It is a long haul, not a sprint.

     

     

    More good news from Imo

     

    THE National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) in its “The 2nd Corruption Survey Report in Nigeria”, recently released at the State House Conference Center in Abuja, revealed that Imo state has the least rate of corruption in the country. Presenting the report, the Statistician General of the NBS, Dr. Yemi Kale, and the Country Representative of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Mr. Oliver Stople, said that in the first corruption survey conducted in the last half of 2018, Imo was ranked high on the corruption scale. According to Dr Kale: “The survey was developed as a tool to assess the impact of the measures put in place by states in fighting corruption in the period since after the 2019 elections. The report gave a state-by-state record of the corruption index in Nigeria, with Kogi State leading as the most corrupt state (48%) followed by Gombe at 43%…The report also suggested that there is a remarkable decrease in the prevalence of corruption in Imo State in the short time span”.  From all indications, governor Emeka Ihedioha’s ‘Rebuilding Imo’ project is very much on course”.

     

    …And Cross Rivers Carpet Bombs Poverty

     

    In Cross Rivers State, the governor, Professor Ben Ayade, has been waging a furious and unrelenting onslaught against poverty. In 2018, his government implemented a N1.3 trillion budget christened ‘budget of kinetic Crystallization’. For 2019, the budget size was N1.043 trillion. It was christened, ‘budget of Quabalistic Densification’. And for 2020, the proposed budget size is N1.1 trillion and the tempo of the anti-poverty war is higher than ever. It is the ‘budget of ‘Olipotic Meritemasis’. Yours truly will soon be in Calabar to witness firsthand the unprecedented pulverization of poverty in the state and will keep readers posted.

  • Leaders, politics and marriages

    I start today on the premise that the morals amongst individuals as human beings differ greatly from that amongst nations. Relations amongst nations revolve around diplomacy and it is well known that in International Relations there are no permanent friends but permanent interests. In human relations however the virtues of loyalty, love and respect hold sway over that of treachery, hate and disrespect or insolence in making good relations amongst friends and acquaintances. It is very necessary to get this dichotomy between human relations and diplomacy right because today we are going to highlight political situations involving leaders and nations involved in international relations where human relations have been confused for diplomacy and diplomacy misconstrued for personal relations, in making important state decisions as well as very personal decisions.

    A good starting point for our discussion today is between the US President Donald Trump now about to face a two point charge of Impeachment for abuse of power and Obstruction of Congress in the US House of Representatives and Nigeria’s First Lady Mrs Aisha Buhari who accused the husband’s Spokesman of taking instructions from the husband’s nephew who wanted her position of First Lady abolished. The intention here is to show that these two events in the US White House in Washington and Aso Rock in Abuja live up to the billing on relations that we have identified before, for both diplomacy and human relations and that they are indeed mixed up so much so that they form the subject of our analysis today in the context of today’s title. Another interesting matter in this manner is the relationship between Turkey and the EU and the way and manner Turkey is trying to buy military equipment from Russia, the EU’s enemy when for over 50 years Turkey has been trying to be a member of the EU, which really is a marriage that Turkey really looks up to till now and I will explain this later.

    In the Nigeria’s First Lady’s case it is clear that she is protecting her marriage and status as the First Lady even though technically she is not in government. She nevertheless has the locus to protect her husband’s policies and government although she has even gone further to criticize her husband’s support staff and policies too. It is not difficult to see that she has crossed the line between matrimony and governance and has in so doing mixed up her role as wife and critic and there is therefore a blur between her official and personal roles. But then this is a woman whose voice cannot be ignored. You may say she has not been diplomatic enough but that is begging the issue. She had in the past called her husband’s government to order by saying that those who campaigned with her husband to get power are not seen in his government now run by strangers. This was in the first term of her husband. She is saying again that her family is under pressure from those about to wrestle power from her husband. She is not saying nonsense and I believe she is not crying wolf where there is none and she should be taken seriously by both her husband as a dutiful and concerned wife, and by Nigerians as a patriotic First Lady. All I ask her to do for us all is to persuade her husband and perhaps the cabal that she has apprehended as usurpers to let the Buhari government take a U turn on its now established style of government that defies court orders. The Attorney General has promised this should change but that is not nowadays credible enough. We earnestly call on our First Lady to come to the rescue and help save Nigeria like she is trying to save her family and marriage from the Aso Rock cabal she has identified so clearly.

    Similarly, Donald Trump in calling on NATO members to pay their financial dues mixed up personal and corporate accountability with diplomacy. Just as he thought he was conducting diplomacy in pressuring the Ukrainian president to investigate his opponents’ son so that the US financial clout to help Ukraine is not lost in a corrupt environment, Trump’s telecom diplomacy has earned him by default the charge ‘of abuse of power ‘ with US Lower House. Yet he must as President of the USA conduct diplomacy with or without domestic politics. Unfortunately this has now been turned on its head by his opponents to impeach him personally of abuse of power.

    Anyway, Trump himself is to blame for the use he has made of Twitter to conduct both personal matters and diplomacy. Yet the twitter technology which is great innovative technology in his time has made him more powerful than any US President before him and with the Senate trial as the concluding part of his Impeachment trial, Trump should literally get away with the murder of Impeachment and his peculiar cheek of using tweeter to mix diplomacy with personal and political matters during his hitherto turbulent tenure as president.

    In the case of President Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey and NATO or EU, it is a clear case of a marriage hitting the rocks even before consummation. The EU has been loath to grant Turkey membership for over 50 years ostensibly because Turkey is Muslim and Europe is Christian and Islamophobia is at the back of EU mistrust of Turkey. But diplomacy in the Syrian crisis and the refugee problem involved has strengthened Turkeys hand such that it has threatened to open its borders and flood Europe with refugees largely Muslims, if Turkey’s membership is not given urgent attention. Still, if Turkey insists on buying arms from Russia as it has vowed to, there is no way NATO nations can grant Turkey EU membership it so desires. It remains to be seen how NATO will call Turkey’s bluff and how Erdogan can eat his cake and still have it by becoming Russia’s arms customer and still hope to get EU membership. Surely there is no marriage made in heaven in Turkey’s suspect ambition for membership of the EU and NATO.

    Lastly the exit polls in the UK December 12 elections showed a victory for the Conservative Party and a painful loss for the Labor Party. Both Leaders have responded with the Brexit Champion and PM Boris Johnson thanking voters for their trust which he promised to repay by working for all Britons including those in Labor who voted for the Tories. Jeremy Corbyn of the Labour Party on the other hand has conceded defeat but has said he will not lead Labor in the next campaign election. The election results and the reaction of the Party leaders show the nature of political marriages in any democracy and the role of elections in cementing the marriage between those in power and the electorate or in making a divorce possible at election time by voting parties out of power. In Boris Johnson’s case the victory has affirmed Brexit as a true divorce from the EU and the wish of the the British electorate in spite of the dilly dallying of the last Parliament which is now under the control of a Brexit majority. That really is what democracy is all about in spite of the rhetoric of diplomacy. Brexit and the Brexit election victory puts the hammer firmly on today’s topic that in diplomacy there are no permanent friends but permanent interests as the UK parts company with the EU even as Boris Johnson and his Brexit companions have been called liars in the way they brought Brexit about. Morals amongst nations are definitely different from those of humans, even as leaders.

  • Unease in govs’ forum over Paris Club refunds

    MANY governors are facing anxious moments over the sum of N649.43 billion allegedly paid by the Federal Government to states as the final tranche of the Paris Club loan refunds.

    Paris Club refunds are the longstanding claims resulting from reported over-deductions regarding Paris Club debts made from state government accounts between 1995 and 2002.

    Rather than pay the said sum into the account of each state government like it had done with monthly allocations, the Federal Government decided this time to pay it into the account of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum.

    But the palms of many governors are believed to have been greased with the money, prompting the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to start a move towards bringing the errant governors to book. Some leading lights of the 8th Senate may also be invited to say what they knew about the sleaze.

    A reliable source in EFCC said the anti-graft agency will move against the culprits “very soon,” adding that the disclosures that will be made from the sordid deeds will shock Nigerians. To forestall this, some governors across the political divide have vowed to ensure that the EFCC boss is not confirmed as the substantive chair of the commission.

  • Awo, Tam David West’s perspectives on African juju (1)

    ALL hell was recently literally let loose when the Professor B.T.C. Ijomah Centre for Policy Studies of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, announced its intention to host an academic conference with the theme, ‘Witchcraft: Meaning, Factors and Practices’. For the organizers of the conference, it was entirely an intellectual endeavor to deepen knowledge about a widespread belief and/or practice in society. However, for the mainly Christian groups in particular, which vehemently protested against what was seen from the perspective of their faith as an attempt to accord legitimacy and acceptability to a patently evil spiritual realm, such a conference was the equivalent of consorting with forces of darkness. At the opening of the conference which eventually held under the rubric, ‘Dimensions of Human Behaviour’, to assuage the feelings of those opposed to it, its convener, Professor Egodi Uchendu said, “We have for too long glossed over this matter of witchcraft but it has persisted even as people pray against witches and wizards…For this reason, the B.I.C. Ijomah Centre for Policy Studies and Research, has attracted men and women of diverse intellectual backgrounds to explore, investigate and critically evaluate belief about witchcraft as a social phenomenon”.

    The controversy generated by the UNN conference reflects the intense interest that spiritual or extra terrestrial issues have always generated across time and space. There are diverse perspectives on these matters. For some, phenomena like witchcraft, wizardry and diverse forms of African juju are legitimate forms of spirituality, which have been unfairly cast in a pejorative light by the orthodox world religions particularly Christianity and to some extent Islam. For Christians, these practices and activities are decidedly satanic, evil and dangerous such that St. Paul famously warned in one of his epistles that “we fight not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms”.

    Both adherents of Christianity and other major world religions as well as practitioners of the occult and ‘fetish faiths’ believe in the existence of the spiritual but only differ in the moral valuation they place on them – good or evil, light or darkness. This is in sharp contrast to atheists who deny the existence of supernatural phenomena including God, the agnostic who says he has no way of knowing whether or not God exists or those scientists and philosophers of a materialistic inclination who believe that only that which can be seen, heard, smelt, tasted and felt by the five senses is real. All others are entirely mythical.

    I am sorry if my language is tentative and imprecise as I am no expert in these matters. My purpose in this piece is simply to present the interesting perspectives of two of Nigeria’s great sons, the just departed Professor Tam David West and the great statesman, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, on the phenomenon of African juju otherwise known as black magic. While David West, a renowned scientist expressed his views  in one of the chapters in his book, ‘Philosophical Essays’, Awolowo, a lawyer, politician, Christian and mystic, bared his mind on the subject in a fascinating and in-depth interview with the late philosopher, Professor Moses Makinde and published in the latter’s book ‘Awo as a Philosopher’.  We shall examine Awo’s insights in the second part of this piece.

    “Dad, what are your views about juju?”, Professor David West’s son asks him in a chapter of his collection of essays. The professor’s answer’s is blunt and unequivocal. His words, “Son, this is another expression of human culture that is founded in superstition. The question of charms also falls under the same class. Both the belief in juju and the faith in charms thrive under a pervading atmosphere of fear. This mortal fear is predicated on two other truisms of man’s nature or culture. First, Nature, has, perhaps most justifiably, hidden the “future” from the purview of man that is the “present”. This naturally makes most men to be anxious of the future. They would therefore do anything, even if these are patently silly and ludicrous, to flatter themselves that they can bridge the present and the future, i.e. that they could have the best of the two worlds – the present as well as the future. The second truism is that most men are innately cowardly…And so being basically cowards, men – perhaps all men – fear to die”.

    Thus, David West contends that it is fear and cowardice that drive men to belief in juju and charms, which is nothing but superstition and ignorance. He cites the example of a British military expedition, which marched against the Tibetans in Lhasa in 1905. In his words, “The counter-attacking Tibetan soldiers were encouraged to keep on advancing on the British militia. They were emboldened because their priests had concocted a bullet-proof charm for them; at least so they believed. However, when the soldiers started to die one after the other from the British bullets, the priest’s alibi was that their charm protected against lead and not nickel which the British bullets contained”.

    At the UNN conference on witchcraft mentioned earlier, Professor Damian Opata of the institution’s Department of English and Literary studies adopts a more cautious approach to the issue of such supernatural phenomenon. In his words, “Witchcraft may or may not be exercisable and I wouldn’t know the true situation but I understand the desire by the Christians opposed to this conference to totalize and sequestrate and, perhaps, control the discourse on witchcraft. Unfortunately, it cannot be pigeonholed as religious discourse, not to talk of being only a Christian exorcism discourse. How does one talk of phenomenon like witchcraft? Is it a scientific phenomenon? Is it superstition or is it the line of least resistance that people resort to when afflicted with problems that they cannot easily explain? Is it a form of technology?”

    Professor David West’s emphatic assertion that juju and charms are entirely mythical and non-existent is similar to the position of Professor Peter Eze, an anthropologist, at the UNN conference on witchcraft. According to Eze, “The claims on the nature of witchcraft are, of course, part of the belief. Belief is just what it is: belief. In Israel, in European countries and North America, it will be laughable to talk seriously about witchcraft as a real-life experience today. Things pertaining to witchcraft survive in the lexicon in a figurative sense only”. He agrees with Professor Daniel Offiong’s view that “Most of the western world has forgotten about the fear of the witches. This is unlike what happens in Nigeria and all over Africa”.

    But then, what does a Christian pastor like Andrew Wommack, one of the leading evangelists in today’s highly technologically advanced United States of America have to say about this in a book published in 2009? His words, “Like most people who were raised in typical America, I honestly didn’t think about demons. I’d read about them in the Bible, but I thought all the demons were overseas in some third world country. I didn’t think there were demons here, or that we could physically encounter them. Then I got turned to the Lord and began to look at the Bible. I recognized that the spirit realm is as real today as it was two thousand years ago. I realized that many things were demonic, including sicknesses. My friends and I began to cast demons out of people and seeing miracles happen”. Can it be then that scientists and philosophers like David West are too dogmatic and simplistic in this matter and that reality is indeed much more complex than they see and portray it?

    In conclusion, Professor David West warns his son, “I must not end this discussion without warning you seriously against classical biological (chemical) poisons that are sometimes decorated or concealed in fetish paraphernalia, and so pass as- charms. In other words you must exercise great caution and discretion in what you eat or drink. But as for those juju and charms that without rocketry travel through space, Son, Forget them”.

  • Dapo Abiodun’s headache in Ogun

    Sentry 

    More than eight months after he was reelected as governor and more than six months after he was inaugurated for a second term, Taraba State Governor, Darius Dickson Ishaku, finally appointed his commissioners during the week. But Dapo Abiodun and Nyesom Wike, his counterparts in Ogun and Rivers states, are yet to do so since they were elected or reelected in March.

    No one seems to know why Wike who is fully in control of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Rivers State and has no opposition within the party is yet to appoint a cabinet.

    Dapo Abiodun, on his part, says he is taking his time to woo credible and knowledgeable people who are doing well abroad to be part of his government. Among the eggheads being courted by Abiodun is said to be a respected female medical practitioner based in Europe and an engineer based in the United States of America.

    In other words, Governor Abiodun wants a cabinet of technocrats who would help him to perform and has been trying to convince them, according to sources close to him. All that will be known when he eventually does. But that is not the story.

    The story is that the governor gave some cabinet slots to his party in the state to fill and the party has not known peace since he announced the gesture because chieftains of the party cannot agree on those to be appointed.

    The governor is said to be highly disappointed that APC leaders in the state are working at cross purposes and that the number of people nominated are so high that he would need another six months to screen them.

  • ‘Daddy, Daddy! We’re here for you’

    Sentry 

    We are once again in that season of the year when ubiquitous presence of policemen is the order in major cities.

    Their numbers on the streets can be intimidating, but it is nothing for motorists to worry about.

    For the average cop, the issue around this time of the year is hardly about particulars but how well he can cajole motorists to make him part with something from their pockets.

    To this end, they have designed such slogans as ‘Oga, your boys are thirsty.’

    Sentry ran into a group of them in Lagos during the week and they greeted with the shout of ‘Daddy, Daddy! We’re here for you o.’