The Nation Newspaper

Category: Saturday

  • Biafra at 50

    Biafra at 50

    Can we talk in any true, accurate or meaningful sense of Biafra at 50? Didn’t the short-lived Republic collapse and its bones interred with the military capitulation of the Igbo on 12th January 1970? Haven’t we been going on ever since then, no matter how precariously and tremulously, with one Nigeria to borrow from the slogan of the federal side during the war? We may, however, have sung the Nunc Dimittis for Biafra too soon. Fifty years after Colonel Odumegwu Ojukwu proclaimed what turned out to be its ephemeral and transient existence as a sovereign entity, the spirit of Biafra is obviously alive, well and vigorous. This is most evident in the near instantaneous catapulting of a hitherto obscure Nnmadi Kanu of the emergent Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) fame to folk hero status in the South-East on the wings of demagogic Biafran rhetoric.

    Of course the whole notion of indigenous people of Biafra is utterly fictional and mythical. No such thing exists. The birth of Biafra was not a function of some deeply held primordial sentiment of shared nationhood by the Igbo. Biafra was a product of fortuitous circumstances arising from the unanticipated and unintended consequences of the January 15, 1966, coup of the five majors that resulted in the collapse of the first republic. The details are too well known to detain us here. Widely perceived particularly in the North as an Igbo coup, the Kaduna Nzeogwu-led putsch precipitated the counter coup of July 1966 that not only targeted top Igbo leaders but also ignited the gruesome pogrom against the Igbo in the north.

    The massacre of Igbo in the North was clearly unjustifiable even as the pattern of killings with northern political and military leaders as the major victims in the January coup was equally inexcusable. True, the rather enthusiastic celebration of the assassination of the Premier of the North, Alhaji Ahmadu Bello, particularly by Igbo traders in northern urban centres as documented by the late Professor Billy Dudley in his classic, ‘Instability and Political Order’, was provocative. But it did not legitimise the retaliatory killings against innocent Igbo citizens. In the heat of the moment, the fury of the young Colonel Odumegwu Ojukwu was understandable. There are those who argue that Ojukwu had no choice but to play the role history had bestowed on him as the defender and protector of his beleaguered people.

    But another school of thought contends that Ojukwu was motivated as much by his own ambition as the passion to protect his people. His undoubted erudition, they argue, could have been tempered by a higher degree of wisdom. Had Ojukwu’s youthful martial brashness been restrained by a more acute sense of strategic long term thinking, perhaps about two million Biafran lives could have been spared in an avoidable war. Maybe this is only being wise after the fact with the benefit of hindsight. But just as Biafra was born in spontaneous and unplanned reaction to the perceived injustices suffered by the Igbo in the first republic, its spirit is being sustained today more by reflexive emotive response to the perceived injustices of contemporary Nigeria than rational contemplation and action.

    There is no deep pan-Igbo bond that can necessarily sustain the cohesiveness of an independent Biafra. This much was demonstrated by the internal schisms within Biafra that led to the persecution, even execution ordered by Ojukwu in many cases, of so-called internal saboteurs against the Biafra cause. It is the lesson of Southern Sudan, where contending forces in the new nation turned against each other with brutal ferocity once the goal of independence had been achieved.

    The post-civil war Igbo generation that did not witness the fratricidal blood- letting, but is championing the cause of Biafra today invest the idea with an emotional energy that has no deep and enduring roots. Professor Billy Dudley makes this point brilliantly in his book, ‘An Introduction to Nigerian Government and Politics”. Dudley’s colleague, Professor James O’Connell, had visited the East shortly before the war in a bid to persuade Igbo academics who had fled Nigeria particularly from the University of Ibadan to return as part of efforts to assuage the tension between both sides and ultimately help to avert violent conflict. O’Connell during the visit came across an Igbo Professor of Medicine who was utterly disgusted with what he considered the lack of seriousness of his people. At a village meeting, which he attended, the Professor of Medicine was shocked to discover that elders were more interested to talk about raising funds for a new village hall than the serious crisis of Biafra. As Dudley tells the story, “On remonstrating with the elders about what he took to be their frivolousness, he was calmly told ‘Young man sit down! Biafra may come and go but Nimmo (the name of the village) will be here forever’. The dismay of the Professor was to find that, for most people, ‘Biafra’ was too much of an abstraction to be comprehensible…”

    The lesson of this narrative is that Biafra is no less artificial a construct than Nigeria is. When faced with a perceived common enemy, there may be a semblance of internal cohesion just as the Nigerian nationalists affected during the struggle against British colonialism. But once the common adversary is out of the way, hidden fissures come to the fore with dysfunctional consequences. Just like Nigeria, Biafra is an alien coinage. I do not think there is any Igbo word for the concept of Biafra. Yes, the Igbo are bound by a common language and culture. But this does not offset the stronger influence of their fierce sense of individual autonomy. As Professor Green Onyekaba Nwankwo put it, “The individualism gone berserk is both a cause and a product of yet another main trait- his extreme republicanism manifest in Igbo Enwe Eze – the Igbo has no King – no restraining influence like the Oba of the Yoruba or the Emirs of the North”.

    Ironically, the expansiveness of Nigeria provides the Igbo ample space and opportunity for the unbundling of immense Igbo energy and resourcefulness across the country. The Igbo have heavily invested in property, commerce and sundry businesses all over Nigeria including Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt, Kano, Kaduna etc. Surprisingly, the Igbo homeland has itself not been a beneficiary of the developmental capabilities of the Igbo to the extent it can be. Again, as Professor Nwankwo put it, “As long as the Igboman continues to sink money to reclaim swamps, and clear forests, construct shopping malls, skyscrapers and posh houses in his resident states while gullies and erosion continue to sap and wash away roads and destroy the environment in his home states, so long will he continue to be marginalized as life chances elude him in his home state”.

    Since the restoration of civil rule in 1999, the dynamics of democratic governance has had some positive impact on the quality of governance and the pace of development in the Igbo states just as in other parts of the country. But the energy being expended in the misguided struggle for Biafra can be more profitably invested in the quest for a truly federal Nigeria in which all component parts enjoy autonomy of resource control and policy initiative to actualize their potential for the collective benefit of all. In the final analysis, replacing a structurally suffocating Nigeria with a no less asphyxiating enforced homogeneity of Biafra cannot be a viable option for the Igbo.

     

    Herbert Macaulay’s day of resurrection

    The embers of knowledge glowed. The rays of enlightenment glittered like a million stars. The radiance of wisdom and insight shone with luminous intensity. The light-bearing angel of history descended, removed the stone of obscurity and ignorance that had hitherto blocked the entrance to the tomb of Herbert Macaulay and the great Wizard of Kirsten Hall, who died in Lagos on May 7, 1946, literally rose from the dead. The day was Thursday, May 25. The venue was the Lagos Country Club Ikeja. Mr. Femi Macaulay, scion of the legendary family and member of The Nation newspaper’s Editorial Board, summoned the audacity of courage, spoke the word and the annual  Herbert Heelas Macaulay Gold Lecture Series was born.

    Accomplished diplomat, historian, author, polemicist, academic, witty conversationalist, fellow of the Nigerian Academy of Letters and dignified denizen of the elitist Metropolitan Club among others, Ambassador Dapo Fafowora, delivered the inaugural lecture. The Wizard of Kirsten Hall was brought to life, iron clad moustache, stentorian look, bow tie and all by the Ambassador’s capacious memory, meticulous research and amazing synthesizing and analytical skills. The lecture was an intellectual tour de force – a fitting launch pad for the Gold Lecture series. The chairman of the occasion, accomplished editor and journalist and now Rector of the Nigerian Institute of Journalism (NIJ), Mr. Gbemiga Ogunleye and the MC, author, poet, historian and columnist, our own Sam Omatseye all contributed to making the event a memorable one. And of course one cannot forget the graceful and gracious Mrs. Macaulay, Femi’s better half, whose alluringly sonorous rendering of the national anthem and the immortal ‘Baby jowo ko mai lo o’ among other soulful tunes to the delight of the audience is firmly etched in the memory. It was an unforgettable three hours.

  • Buratai’s patriotism

    When a stentorian military baritone voice broke the foreboding monotony of unusual martial music on national radio to announce the coup that signaled the end of the unlamented Second Republic on New Year eve, December 31st, 1983, yours truly was one of the thousands of impressionable young undergraduates that thronged the streets of major cities across Nigeria in wild celebration. The four years of civilian rule between 1979 and 1983 had witnessed the most obscene and stupendous forms of elite pillage of the public treasury particularly by the predatory politicians of the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) at the centre; a morbid spectre of rampant corruption that made the much condemned pecuniary malfeasance that contributed to undermining the First Republic a veritable child’s play.

    Yet, the venality of the corrupt NPN politicians at the centre was not mitigated by at least a redeeming modicum of performance resulting in deepening poverty for a vastly increased number of Nigerians amidst the criminal opulence of a privileged few. The hope of millions of Nigerians that the 1983 general elections would provide an opportunity for peaceful change at the polls was recklessly thwarted by the massive electoral fraud that saw the NPN retaining power with a much more resounding margin of victory than it had secured in the 1979 elections irrespective of the will of the people.

    Could we then be blamed for dancing in ecstasy to the tunes of the martial music that sent the politicians packing in 1983? Could we not be excused for the youthful innocence and exuberance that made us perceive the military as the country’s messiah? Alas, we were poor students of history. For, it was the same way that the bloody mutiny of the young majors that truncated the First Republic was initially enthusiastically received in many parts of the country. It was a sweet good bye to the corrupt politicians and their nepotism as well as divisive ethnicity. And it was welcome to a brand new Nigeria remade in the shining image of the revolutionary and modernizing military many idealists thought. Unfortunately, the military was not only to plunge the country into a tragic three-year civil war, by the time the soldiers returned power in 1979 to the same set of politicians they had overthrown 13 years earlier, the problems of corruption, disunity and underdevelopment had worsened even though the country had hit crude oil as a bottomless gold mine.

    A little over a year and a half after the truncation of the Second Republic, the crusading anti-corruption but unrepentantly dictatorial Buhari/Idiagbon regime was displaced in a palace coup by the gap-toothed Maradona of Minna, whose military regime had its no less draconian fist hidden beneath the deceptive gloves of beguiling smiles and ‘subversive generosity’. By the time the military retreated once more to the barracks in near disarray in 1999 after God’s coup had toppled the dark goggled dictator of vice, the country had been brought to the very brink of disintegration. The freest and fairest election in the country’s history had been unjustly annulled in 1993 and its winner ultimately martyred. Corruption had reached stratospheric heights. Nigeria plunged the depths of underdevelopment. Not just Nigerians but most of the world heaved a sigh of relief on the country’s behalf to see the military take leave of the political terrain with the democratic restoration of 1999.

    Against this background, it was nothing but a bombshell when the Chief of Army Staff (COAS), Lt-Gen. Tukur Buratai, made the shocking disclosure this week that some individuals had been making overtures to soldiers in recent times for reasons that are yet undisclosed. The statement issued by the Director, Army Public Relations, Brig.Gen. Sani Usman, on behalf of the COAS was direct and unambiguous. According to the Army spokesman, the COAS “has received information that some individuals have been approaching some officers and soldiers for undisclosed political reasons. On the basis of this, he has warned such persons to desist from these acts. He also reminded them that the Nigerian Army is a thorough, professional, disciplined, loyal and political institution that has clear Constitutional roles and responsibilities. Therefore, he seriously warned and advised all officers and soldiers interested in politics, to resign their commission or apply for voluntary discharge forthwith. Any officer or soldier of the Nigerian Army found to be hobnobbing with such elements or engaged in unprofessional conducts such as politicking would have himself or herself to blame”.

    It is unlikely that the COAS would have caused such a serious statement to be issued on his behalf without justification. He certainly felt sufficiently disturbed to put both the military and the public on the alert. It has been speculated in some quarters that some disgruntled sections of the political class are trying to instigate the military to violate the constitution and possibly truncate the democratic order as a result of uncertainties concerning President Muhammadu Buhari’s health. If there is any truth in this, such atavistic political elements have clearly lost touch with the country’s political realities. They are vegetating in a dead past that can no longer be exhumed.

    The country is into its 18th year of unbroken democratic rule since 1999. It has not been a period without its many moments of pains, tensions and severe stress. Elections have been violently contested, unfairly manipulated and hotly disputed. Communal conflagrations have flared. Religious conflicts have been recurrent. Ethno-regional embers have been stoked. A murderous insurgency had practically laid the North-East prostrate until very recently. A particularly dangerous moment was when a severely physically incapacitated President Umaru Yar’Adua had to seek medical succour abroad without being able to properly transmit power to his deputy. A power vacuum loomed ominously. The country teetered on the brink of constitutional crisis. Yet, the political actors found a creative and pragmatic way out. Our democracy not only survived, it was strengthened.

    Today, the country is nowhere near a crisis situation. President Buhari is ailing. He has made no secret of the fact. Each time he has travelled on medical vacation just as he is now, he has kept the National Assembly abreast and ensured there is no lacuna. Quite apart from honourably abiding by the constitutional requirement that he transfers the powers of his office to his deputy in acting capacity in his absence, an emotional synergy has obviously developed between both men on a personal level. Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo admitted as much when he publicly declared in Katsina State during the week that the President treats him like a son. There could be no greater testament to mutual love and confidence. Osinbajo’s demonstrated restrained conduct and fidelity to a boss who has taken ill like any mortal can, has won him the admiration of millions of Nigerians. A deputy who seeks to capitalize on the physical discomfiture of his boss to aggrandize himself in power would lose the respect of Nigerians.

    Those politicians trying to exploit President Buhari’s ill-health to goad the military into political misadventure are severely on their own. They do not love Buhari, the military or the country. But Lt-Gen. Buratai deserves plaudits for his professionalism and patriotism. The coups that overthrew the first and second republics were instigated by disgruntled civilians who succeeded in infiltrating and inciting ambitious elements within the military to spurn civilian control. Having received the sensitive information of civilians making dangerous overtures to his men, Buratai could have opted for silence. After all, if the democratic order were overturned, he could be a likely beneficiary from the resultant praetorian order. That is how a soldier-politician would think. It is not unlikely that some top military men who have been susceptible to the carrots being dangled by tempting politicians are already thinking that way. Thank God, Buratai has removed the carpet from under their feet. He is a true professional soldier.

    Any officer who thinks that the military has anything to gain as an institution by assuming the reins of political power once again in the country is certainly not worthy of his commission. The military’s institutional coherence, organizational integrity and professional competence have between the greatest casualties of its intervention in politics. That was why a former highly respected Chief of Army Staff during the Babangida years in power once famously lamented that under military rule, the Nigerian Army became one of anything goes. We must never return to those days.

    The task of rebuilding the military as a truly professional institution is a necessary condition not only for creating a potent modern fighting force capable of safeguarding the country’s territorial integrity but also for maintaining a sustainable democratic order. Buratai has done his bit. He has shouted from the rooftops and put us all on alert. It is now time for the requisite security agencies to get down to work with a view to identifying, arresting and bringing some treasonable culprits before the law.

  • A walk with Obaseki

    A walk with Obaseki

    This piece is coming in fulfillment of the biblical injunction which preaches that “we honour our father and mother, so that our days may be long”. Last month, I wrote that I wasn’t going to write on Edo State again. And my 85-year-old father didn’t take kindly to that. My father’s terse message frowned at the line which said it was my last. I apologised profusely. This column is for you, dad.

    Let me start with this scenario last Thursday in Lagos. Boarding time showed traces of a likely downpour but the passengers had to board the plane. Less than 25 minutes after boarding commenced, the heavens opened up. It wasn’t funny as most of us were drenched to the sole of our feet because the airline staff didn’t have anything covering the point where the ladder connects the aircraft’s door. Unbelievable. Our problems were compounded as we waited for the skies to be cleared. Many of us could wax songs from the gnashing of our teeth. Not forgetting our trembling hands.

    Fast forward from the airport in Lagos last Thursday to Tuesday morning, this time in Benin City. Then you will appreciate the huge joke we experience everyday. It was raining when the aircraft arrived, yet boarding had to be done en route Abuja; guess what, there couldn’t have been a better drama script than what I saw in Benin. Passengers were ushered into the aircraft under the umbrella. They took their turns. Please don’t ask me how long it took. I saw some foreigners laughing. Will you blame them? Where these foreigners come from, it is mandatory for every airline to have vehicles taking passengers from the lounge to close to the aircraft and vice versa. For the bigger airport terminals, you walked out of the aircraft, even if the rain was heavy into the welcome lounge. No contact with the rain except when you get out of the building. When will Nigeria grow? I digress.

    Going to Edo State comes with a lot of excitement. I look forward to the level of development. I strive to visit my hometown, Okpokhumi-Emai in Owan East Local Government Area. Of course, I stop by at Sabongida Ora, my late mother’s place, for a meal of good bush meat and ogbono soup with pounded yam.  How could I have forgotten the big snails or the stockfish? The aroma is something else. Eating these delicacies leaves me with one option – sleeping inside the car while heading for Okpekpe. It has become a ritual. Thank you Mike Itemuagbor, for making this yearly feast called Okpekpe 10-km International Road Race (an IAAF/AIMS’ bronze event) possible. It compels many of us to go home.

    Travelling through the roads gave hope that something was being done to make life safer for commuters. Indeed the fifth edition of the race was one of transition and I looked forward to observing how Governor Godwin Obaseki would interface with his predecessor, Adams Aliyu Oshiomhole. There was a pre-race dinner in Auchi on Friday, an innovation by Deputy Governor Phillip Shaibu. I didn’t attend because I had to be awake at 4.30am Saturday to observe the details beyond what would be published in the media.

    If anyone had doubts about the synergy be

    tween Obaseki and Oshiomhole, it was time to clear such. People were excited when Obaseki, Oshiomhole and Shaibu crossed the finish line about the same time. The two men acknowlegded the change of baton and assured everyone that the global competition had come to stay. Obaseki directed that a three-year programme, starting from May 13, be drawn up to help the race attain the gold label in record time. Several innovations were seen this year, the most significant being the Police chopper hovereing over the place whilst the event was on. The chopper was also for surveillance. Besides, aerial photography of the race was shot from inside it.

    Interviewing Obaseki revealed a lot. This time with some sports editors (Tony Ubani, Christian Okpara, Dare Esan and Frank Ilaboya), we walked a short distance with the governor who answered questions. The walk took us to Oshiomhole’s dinning settee built exquisitely with burnt bricks. It was a beauty to behold.

    I was bowled over watching Oshiomhole, Shuaibu, Iara (Oshio Baba’s wife) and Betsy Obaseki eating like a closely knit family. Of course, the governor excused us to join the high table. I observed that former commissioners and legislators came for lunch. The Edo political family is intact.

    Oshiomhole showed that he had taught his wife our traditional values. Iara walked towards us and asked that we join the table. Lunch over, Obaseki, who had other plans before we cornered him, joined the movement out of Oshiomhole’s home with Sports Minister Solomon Dalung to Benin. The interview was truncated but we had enough materials from the discussion with Obaseki.

    Meeting Oshiomhole almost five years after came with plenty of drama. We took turns to greet the former governor. I shook his hands but he kept looking at me. Oshiomhole again shook my hands and won’t let go. He stared into the skies. A third time he shook my hands. I knew the former governor’s dilemma but I didn’t want to help him fix the puzzle.

    Not one to accept defeat easily, Oshiomhole sprang up to his feet, shook me ferociously and shouted “yes, Ojeikere! I know you now. Mike, this was the guy who wrote that article at the back of The Nation, aptly captioned “Oshiomhole’s suicide mission.” He told of his encounter with this column. The former governor remained excited, four years after reading. Thank you, sir for your kind words. 

    With the race over and winners heading back to their countries, the homeward movement took me to Benin City – to rest after another hectic exercise. The Obasekis, Uzzis and the Ojeikeres have family ties. I wanted to visit the governor, the first since he came into office.

    Let me confess here that a friend in government is lost. Also, a family member in government isn’t easy to access. I waited patiently. It was all for my column to capture the events differently. I succeeded. I worked with Obaseki on Monday for two hours, as they say, my ears were full. What I heard the governor telling Edo people raised hopes for better days. You needed to have seen how elderly people struggled to hug him. The prayers were moving.

    But I was stunned when school pupils sprang from their seats to hail the governor, who chatted with some of them. The children sang rehabilitation, apparently motivated by their teachers (I don’t blame them) for their buildings, most of which were falling apart. The governor reassured them, with one of them told that a mini stadium will be constructed along with their school buildings.

    Inside the governor’s office on Monday morning I saw Obaseki work with his deputy and the Secretary to the Government. Done with a discussion, the governor asked me to accompany him on an inspection tour. We drove towards Sapele Road besides the Central Hospital. There was a traffic light, which the governor’s convoy obeyed. When the light turned green, one of these “road assassins”, a fuel tanker beat the light on the other side. The governor instructed that the convoy blocks the tanker, arrest the driver, impound the trailer and ensure that the driver is prosecuted, onlookers were excited. They sang the governor’s praises.

    Quickly the convoy moved away to Oba Market area in Benin, where the real job continued. So much was said during the tour that had the Secretary to the Government and other permanent secretaries.

    Did I hear you say is this sport? Yes. We walked long distances, sweating profusely. Those who wore coat pulled them off. We covered over five kilometers, walking briskly. When I asked the governor about Bendel Insurance FC, his went bright. He said a lot, asking me how the government could recoup its investment.

    I sent the government my thoughts on this issue which he acknowledged as we drove back to the Osadebey House. I told him to organise a fund raiser where a card scheme would be launched. The governor asked, “what do you mean?”

    I said the cards will be in gold, silver and bronze, with another option where during matches sealed cans will be passed around for willing supporters to put whatever they had to help the team. The bronze card’s limit would be between N50,000 to N250,000. Silver card owners will pay between N251,000 to N500,000. Gold card holders will pay from N501,000 up to any figure.

    Again, the governor asked who would purchase the cards. I retorted by saying Bendel Insurance FC’s fans across the country. He nodded. I also asked the governor if he doesn’t have friends who are Edo people who can buy these cards. The governor said “I have”, nodding in approval.

    Obaseki reconfirmed the establishment of the Edo State Sports Commission (ESSC), which he promised will be backed by a legal document that would be binding on subsequent administrations since that is the modern way to run sports. We talked about how the commission could be funded. Then Obaseki said: “Ade, you sure say we no go find how we go bring you home come do something?” I smiled; the governor laughed.

    We were back in Government House. He walked into his office and I walked to the car that brought me.

    All hail Oshiomhole. Clap for Shuaibu. Take a bow, Barrister Osarodion Ogie. For Obaseki, with these men, Edo can be the model state. Thank you, Itemuagbor for thinking out this project that has placed Okpekpe on the world map for very good reasons. Oba Khato Okpere, Ise!

  • Fighting terrorism with trade, development and energy

    TWO diplomatic shuttles, a trade conference and a new energy source under the sea, this week‘ fire our imagination and dictate our discussion today. The premise here is that the world is fighting for its life, security and safety against Islamic militant terrorism, and world new leaders as well as old, are evolving strategies to deal with the menace right before our eyes and once and for all. My task here, which I confess enjoying, is to break down the motives and goals of these strategies and evaluate them in terms of the interests of the global players as well as the overall welfare of the world at large. Rarely do such interests and global welfare and peace coincide , but one must appreciate the efforts of those nations and leaders who are looking for new ways and ideas to make the world safer and more secure for humanity which we all claim to be a significant and notable part of. Let me break the ice by stating the two diplomatic shuttles carried out this week in the best fashion of the old Kissingerian working diplomatic shuttle of the Middle East, during the Nixon era.

    France’ s new President Emmanuel Macron’s first visit was to Angela Merkel, Germany’s Chancellor and thereafter to Mali to visit and cheer up France’s troops fighting Islamic insurgency in that African nation, and that means a lot for the global fight against Islamic terrorism. Next was Donald Trump’s first trip abroad to Saudi Arabia, Israel and the Vatican which analysts have described as a visit to the sources of the three major religions of the world namely Islam, Judaism and Christianity and also a visit tailored to nip the scourge of terrorism right in the bud. In China, the Chinese government hosted many nations to a trade conference premised on the theory that when nations trade they do not have time for war or terrorism. China revealed its plan to recreate the Old Silk Road that merchants used in ancient times to expend trade between Europe and China and China has a huge and expensive plan to build roads, railways, ports, bridges and modern infrastructure along the old routes starting with route along Pakistan, Tajikistan and Bangladesh. In addition there is the news that Chinese scientists have discovered an energy source called ‘flammable ice‘ in the ocean floor under the South China Seas and have found a way to activate it and make it the newest energy source of the future. Which gives China huge technological leap as well as a psychological boost over the US and EU nations in their historic quest to find new energy source to use to dominate the world and ultimately rout out global terrorism. We go back to the Macron diplomatic shuttle to Germany and Mali and the import of that to Macron’s presidency and the fight against global terrorism.

    While I commend the new French president for highlighting the importance of the fight against terrorism for his new Administration , the importance of Africa in that global fight is not original to him and is not an innovation . It was a path begun by the duo of Angela Merkel and former French President Francois Hollande in a Franco- German collaboration that fizzled out when terrorists attacked Paris and French cities bringing Hollande’s focus home and costing him his presidency with those who accused him of foreign adventurism at the expense of French Homeland security. As for Germany, Chancellor Merkel went to Kenya on the rationale that once terrorism border states are economically viable to care for refugees and migrants fleeing wars and insurgency, migrants will not flee to Europe and across the Mediterranean in their thousands as they do at present. Both French and German leaders Hollande and Merkel have paid a steep political and electoral price for this economic development model to fight global terrorism. But the new French president was elected on a huge platform of change that gave him power as a political greenhorn on a scale that has been branded the second French Revolution and he has resumed where his successor and Germany left off.

    This can only send a clear message to the ISIS, the Tuaregs and Insurgents fleeing from the law in Libya, and crossing the Sahara desert with impunity to wreak havoc and terror across the north of West Africa and the Sahel that their time is up. Definitely such miscreants and nuisance terrorists include Nigeria’s Boko Haram which has resorted to the deadly use of 15 –year old girls as suicide bombers to spread havoc in the former North East, especially Maiduguri, and its environs which lie mainly in a large but sparsely populated Sahel of Northern Nigeria. Donald Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia has a different implication to the Macron Mali visit.

    Trump is in Saudi Arabia for business and the Saudis are enchanted after they gave Obama the cold shoulder for the Iran Nuclear deal. America clearly shows with Trump’s visit that it is paying lip service to the global fight against terrorism and it is playing a game of divide and rule between Saudi Arabia and Iran, the two nations leading the sectarian feud between Sunni and Shia Islam which are at logger heads with each other, with each claiming the other is the major supporter of global Islamic terrorism. Similarly the trips to Israel and the Vatican have no import for world peace or the fight against terrorism . Israel under Benjamin Netanyahu never had it easy with Obama but is at home with Trump whose son in law is a Jew and has been asked to negotiate between the Palestinians and Israel. He will certainly support Israel’s interests over and above that of the Palestinians thus fuelling unrests and insurgency in the Palestinian territories and war in the entire Middle East. Similarly, the visit to the Vatican is a futile exercise in reversing the trend of a Vatican approbation of gay rights secured by the Obama Administration which muscled the last Pope on the pervasive misdemeanor of American Catholic priests and Bishops on pedophilia on which the Catholic Church paid huge funds to make its priests escape prosecution.

    The present Pope is already facing resentment from his College of Cardinals on his liberal views on homosexualism and gay rights and he is not likely to be persuaded easily to change his mind, least of all by an American president whose views on migration are diametrically opposed to those of the present Catholic Pontiff. With regard to China it seems that unfolding global events are fortuitous enough to make China the next global power economically and technologically in succession to the US faster than expected. The emergence of Donald Trump and American obsession with Russian interference in her last presidential election has thrown the US political system into a political decay which has not allowed the US to have a workable and identifiable global foreign policy. In addition Donald Trump’s cancellation of the Asia Pacific Trade deal started by Obama has given China the grand opportunity to showcase its plan for taking over global trade through its resuscitation the Old Silk route linking China with Asia and Europe with the development of infrastructure along the Old Silk Route. Critics have branded China’s Old Silk Route plan as a new form of colonization.

    Some have even said China is acting out of desperation and need, because it has excess capacity in terms of engineering, construction, steel and cement. But there is no denying that these are growth and developmental assets that are the envy of the world and China is trying to make hay while the sun shines. It is taking the bull by the horn to promote trade and use that to take the leadership of the world, which is a workable and admirable strategy based on peace and not war or exploitation. Luckily Nigeria has benefitted already from the Chinese global plan on infrastructure development even though we are not on the Silk Route, old or new. The Chinese Construction and Engineering Company is busy on the ten lane Lagos Badagry Express Way with a railway line in toe. CCEC is linking Lagos Island with the Orile End of the Mainland for mass transport connection to relieve traffic congestion in the Mega City of Lagos, the commercial capital of Nigeria. That is a great relief for Lagosians whose state population is really the largest in Nigeria although our census figures repeatedly give a larger population to some Northern towns located in the arid Sahel zone of the North. Anyway Lagos has gained from the global view of the Chinese that trade discourages war and terrorism and that can only frighten Boko Haram the more. Once again, long live the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

  • Politics of Buhari’s health

    Politics of Buhari’s health

    The politics of President Muhammadu Buhari’s health has in recent times become the main issue on Nigeria’s ever slippery and treacherous political terrain.  Discourse on policy in many circles has been relegated to second place. There is hardly any meaningful and sustained dialogue on the dynamics and vagaries of the development process. All the focus now is on the president’s health status sapping substantial energy from more productive and useful preoccupations. This situation is by no means the fault of the President. It is more a function largely of the dynamics and character of our politics, which beyond the surface trappings and superficial manifestations of liberal democracy, has really not changed fundamentally from the locust years of military rule. It was the late Claude Ake who in the in the mid eighties presciently captured the obsessive premium placed on power by the African political class saying “They accumulated power by all means, did everything to secure it and to prevent other from getting it…Indeed politics became the only game in town, it was a game played with deadly seriousness for the winners won everything and the losers lost everything”.

    True, Ake uttered these words when praetorian rule was still the norm on the continent. But the Nigerian experience since 1999 shows that the more things appear to change, the more they remain the same. The 1999 election was a rear guard action in which the departing military deliberately arranged a desired outcome to protect its back. In the 2003 polls, we saw the PDP blitzkrieg waltzing across large swathes of the country and ruthlessly converting a fairly balanced multi-party system into a one-party dominant one with the ruling party as the beneficiary. Even the winner of the 2007 presidential election in a rare display of nobility admitted that the polls that brought him to power were grossly flawed. And the aftermath of the 2011 election saw the loss of lives on a large scale particularly in large parts of a disenchanted north. The 2015 election witnessed the obscene expenditure of foreign currency to procure votes especially by the then ruling party, the open brandishing of sophisticated weapons by assorted militia groups to intimidate voters and was difficult to distinguish from warfare in states like Rivers and Akwa Ibom.

    In any case, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), which held on to power at the centre for 16 years between 1999 and 2015 was fashioned organizationally and philosophically in the unitary image of the military. Not too long ago, former military President, General Ibrahim Babangida, revealed how a coterie of Generals planned surreptitiously to ensure not only that one of them, General Olusegun Obasanjo, became president in 1999 but also planned that the ‘military party’ would be in power for at least 60 years. However, President Muhammadu Buhari stands in a unique position to both the stupendously rich military elite particularly of the north and their wealthy civilian counterparts. He was not like those of the military and civilian political elite who benefited from their positions or links with the military to become veritable billionaires and were thus easily able to contest and win elections in the emergent civilian dispensation after 1999.

    Yet, Buhari retained a cult following among the teeming masses of the North and by 2015 he had also won support among key influential elites of the South, particularly the South West, to forge a viable national coalition that gave the All Progressives Congress its unprecedented victory over a clearly overconfident and complacent PDP. Since his election, Buhari has steadfastly implemented his electoral promise of fighting corruption to a standstill. The socio-economic and political environment has become considerably sanitized. Humongous amounts of stolen funds have been found and recovered into state coffers. It is not uncommon to hear public officers declare that the fear of Buhari is the beginning of wisdom and there are no more free funds to criminally privatize.

    There is no doubt that those who have been the targets of the anti-corruption war will be highly elated to see some form of misfortune befall the President. However, the President’s inner circle of advisers need to quickly make amends on some of their policy advice to him so that he continues to enjoy the broad, popular support that brought him to power. For instance, the base of recruitment into public office by the administration should transcend Buhari’s narrow ethno-regional origins and become more inclusive of the diversity of ethnic, cultural and religious groups in the country. Again, they can be of considerable assistance to the President by helping to ensure that top members of his administration accused of the slightest pecuniary infractions are promptly and thoroughly investigated and decisively sanctioned if found culpable. That would deepen the support for the president personally, his party and the administration generally.

    Part of the complications of the politics of Buhari’s health challenge revolves around the very conceptualization, structure and functioning of the Nigerian presidency. Since the President has the whole country as his constituency being elected by a plurality of votes across the country, he is seen as an institutional symbol of national integration and unity. The 1999 constitution thus following on the 1979 constitution, gave enormous powers, responsibilities and control of resources to the office of the President. But these expansive powers of the office of President had the perhaps unintended, dysfunctional effect of enhancing its attractiveness across the ethno-cultural and religious cleavages of the country as a source of considerable patronage and diverse forms of rewards. Thus, the contest for the office became mostly vicious and unstructured. To surmount this problem of an overly attractive presidency and the fierce struggles to control it by different components of the country, Nigerian politicians came up with the creative ‘consociational’ device of a zoning formula, which would see the office rotating periodically among the constitutive zones of the country according to informally prescribed agreements.

    Thus, like the late President Umaru Yar’Adua before him, Buhari is seen first and foremost as representing his primary constituency, the North, rather than the country. Buhari is therefore perceived as utilizing the tenure of the north – a tenure which is the right of the region at least for two terms. Unfortunately, after Yar ‘A dua’s demise, two years into his first term, Dr Goodluck Jonathan not only completed his term but went on to contest the 2011 elections, which he won in utter violation of the PDP’s unwritten zoning formula. Matters were not helped by the seeming overbearing behavior of the Ijaw cabal in Jonathan’s inner circle after the 2011 election, which gradually began to crystallize considerable northern political support around Buhari – a development given fillip by the emergence of the APC as a pan-Nigerian party that he could use to actualize his ambition for the first time.

    Obasanjo’s case in 1999 was unique. He won the transition election that birthed this dispensation with a broad coalition made up of influential groups from other parts of the country, particularly the North, without the support of the Yoruba vote in the South West, which went to Chief Olu Falae of the then Alliance for Democracy (AD). Obasanjo’s inner circle during his tenure could certainly not be described as a Yoruba cabal. Rather, it was more inclusive in terms of ethno-cultural and regional coloration, age and gender.

    There have been calls from various quarters for Buhari to declare his health status. Some of these are definitely high minded and well meaning. However, they may be idealistic and unrealistic. As I have tried to demonstrate in this piece, any Nigerian President is not his own. Once he gets to power, he tends to be captured largely by self-seeking vested interests. Thus, from Obasanjo, through Yar’Adua to Jonathan and now Buhari, there are always tiny but powerful groups who want to keep a physically fit President in office through dubious constitutional manipulations and pecuniary inducement to achieve tenure elongation or outright rigging of elections or to keep an incapacitated president in power through subterfuge.

    However, there are also those who are calling for the disclosure of Buhari’s health status out of mischief, a desire to destabilize the administration or with a view to obtaining ammunition to intensify their scorn and hate offensive in some sections of the media. For now, this column sees no serious harm in the non-disclosure of the president’s health details. That is surely the prerogative of Buhari himself or his family. Right now, each time the President has travelled out for medical reasons, he has not concealed this fact from the public. He has always complied with the constitutional arrangement of transmitting notice of his movement to the National Assembly thus enabling the Vice President to act in his stead. Can a shadowy cabal capitalize on this opportunity to seize and exercise power surreptitiously? I think the possibility is remote. The forthright and firm stance of the Senate on the wordings of Buhari’s last transmission as regards Osinbajo’s role as Acting President shows this clearly.

    Obasanjo’s attempt to perpetuate his rule through the nefarious Third Term Agenda collapsed abysmally. Jonathan’s desire to literally procure re-election for a second term through the mindless squandering of foreign currency on assorted individuals and groups failed woefully. The attempt by a shadowy clique to benefit from Umoru Yar’A dua’s ill health and exercise power illegally proved a nullity. We must not underestimate the increasing capacity and resilience of our institutional structures and processes to help protect and strengthen the country’s growing democracy and ensure strict adherence to constitutionalism.

  • Champion Moses

    Champion Moses

    It always feels good whenever a Nigerian is part of a remarkable sporting activity. Such feats highlight the strong points of the nation beyond the bizarre stories which the western media tend to highlight. Watching Victor Moses dancing on the podium of winners, which is what Chelsea’s achievement as the Champions of the 2016/2017 Barclays English Premier League signifies, brings fresh hopes of better days for Nigerian league players and those in the Diaspora. It is also refreshing to note that Moses, who sought asylum as a result of the Kaduna carnage, in which he lost his parents, can now smile, sadly as a Nigerian and not a Briton, in spite of the fact that he has re-organised his life after the Kaduna killings.

    Chelsea’s rebirth this season has been anchored on the decision of the team’s manager, Conte, to play Moses as the right-wing back after two back-to-back defeats from Liverpool inside Stamford Bridge Stadium and Arsenal at the Emirates Stadium. Moses distinguished himself in the position. Twice Moses was missing and Chelsea wobbled. Many pundits suggested the team missed the Nigerian. Soccer greats revealed that Chelsea exhibited their best in the defence whenever Moses played.

    But what does Moses feel about this assertion? Moses told the international media, courtesy of a revelation from another Nigerian great who played for Chelsea, Celestine Babayaro: “I was at Stamford Bridge speaking to Victor the other day and I was amazed at how quickly he has adapted to his new role.”

    Babayaro told Sunday Mirror on Sunday: “He agreed and said that it was all down to Conte, and the way he has coached him. He goes through everything so that you know when to go and when to stay. He works with everyone as individuals and as a team, drills them so they know exactly what they are doing. If an opponent moves one way, they all know where they should be. He is a typical Italian coach.”

    The defeats compelled Conte to revert to the 3-5-2 formation which suited Moses’ style, leading to the remarkable Man-of-the-match awards for the Nigerian. This new system of play catapulted the Blues through 13 straight victories, culminating in the historic feat for Conte, who transited from being a national team coach for his home country Italy to grab the headlines for good reasons today. Not forgetting that Conte was very successful with Italian giants Juventus FC, who are favourites to play against Real Madrid in this year’s UEFA Champions League finals in Cardiff.

    Chelsea’s transformation was not about Moses alone. Conte was careful in ensuring that he sold out the team’s right back Ivanovic, who is touted as the closest person to the club’s owner just as it was rumoured that he headed the cabal that threw out Jose Mourinho last year. Again, Conte applied wisdom in benching old war horse John Terry, in spite of the fact that he is a cult hero at Chelsea, having captained them to many successful seasons.

    Two players, namely Marcus Alonso at the left wing back and Kante, gave Chelsea the balance that they needed both in offensive and defensive plays, with Kante’s smiles reassuring Conte that his system switch was worth the gamble. Kante held Chelsea’s midfield with gusto, scoring in a few games to underscore why he joins the league of players who have won the Barclays English Premier league diadem back-to-back. It also explains why former champions Leicester FC tottered this season after an exciting season last year.

    Credit must go to Conte for the patience and love he showed Diego Costa, preferring to use the player’s good qualities in front of the goalpost to emerge this year’s champions. Hazard also regained his confidence to produce some audacious goal-scoring acts. Hazard got Conte’s warm embrace after matches, irrespective of his performance unlike under Mourinho, where he took flaks for poor outings, including substitutions. He was also left on the bench or out of the squad. This is vintage Mourinho but the Special One must learn this lesson of standing by his players through thick and thin.

    If Chelsea fans needed a coach who is passionate about his job, they had it in Conte. He is also theatrical, irrespective of the team’s performance. You needed to see Conte fly at anyone when the team scores. Conte’s post-match handshake with his players was reassuring. This is surely a sign of his absolute control of the dressing room and the training pitch.

    What does Chelsea winning of the EPL title mean to Moses? Plenty, but the most significant impact is that it puts him on the line for Moses as the likely winner of the 2016/2017 Africa Footballer of the Year award, if the antecedents of the event are to be considered. Moses’ chances of winning the award will be enhanced if Chelsea beats Arsenal in the English FA Cup finals at Wembley Stadium later in May. Arsenal is always energised towards the closing stages of the league. It is the reason Gunners make the top four. Such last grasp finishing has seen them win the English FA Cup in the last two years. A win against Chelsea will be their third consecutive achievement. Unfortunately, Nigeria international Alex Iwobi can’t pose a threat to Moses’ chances of being crowned the 2016/2017 Africa Footballer of the Year.

    A victory for Chelsea over Arsenal will mean that Moses will be among the most decorated Africans in Europe. Moses’ likely challengers will be Liverpool’s Senegal international Mane, who has been sidelined by injury just as his club is still struggling to qualify for the top four in the English elite league. Mane was the best for the Senegalese despite his penalty-shootout miss which eliminated the country against the eventual winners, the Indomitable Lions of Cameroon.

    The Cameroonians could upset the predictions of tipping Moses ahead of others. But the Cameroonians’ records with their clubs don’t come anywhere near what Moses and Chelsea have achieved. We also shouldn’t discountenance Aubameyang who plays for Borrussia Dortmund in the German Bundesliga. He has been scoring goals in the German league and at the UEFA Champions League competitions The German side is out of the competition but Aubameyang’s goals stand him out. Aubameyang scored seven goals in the Champions league. He has so far scored 28 goals in the German Bundesliga. An awesome record, if the truth must be told.

    The points which Mane could have garnered from playing at the Africa Cup of Nations are irrelevant because of his injury, aside the fact that Liverpool’s sloppiness is noted in the Senegalese’s absence. Indeed, had Senegal won the trophy, it could have been Mane’s award, especially if Liverpool had won the league diadem. But such presuppositions are now illusions, with Chelsea emerging as the Champions of the 2016/2017 Barclays English Premier League diadem, yesterday in England.

    Is Moses the unchallenged contender for the award? Most probably, considering how he has fared with Chelsea. But the big snag is Moses’ attitude to Nigeria’s international games. Moses, sadly always gets injured days to Nigeria’s matches, only to return to play for Chelsea the next weekend, raising doubts about such claims. And no coach will bank on such players to plot long term strategies for the team to excel.

    When Moses plays for Nigeria, he is the undertaker. He delivers the goals when our strikers are clay-footed. His darting runs against the opposition’s defence create the openings for his mates to score goals. It is, therefore, understandable for any manager to reply on Moses’ talents to make his tenure successful.

    However, I grew goose pimples all over my body when I saw the training camp list for the Corsica game ahead of the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations qualification game between Nigeria and South Africa inside the Nest of Champions Stadium in Uyo on June 10. Moses was missing. I initially thought he was excluded because of the English FA Cup final game between Chelsea and Arsenal at Wembley Stadium. But my heart sank when I saw that other Nigerians likely to be involved in the game, such as Alex Iwobi for the Gunners and Ola Aina of Chelsea, were given the concession to join the team in France after the game.

    My mind went straight to how former French manager at the 1998 World Cup in France excluded three of the country’s best players in Europe – David Ginola, Eric Cantona and Jean-Pierre Papin. The French won the France 1998 World Cup, throwing up new talents, such as Thierry Henry who eclipsed the naughty trio for the good of the game. Dropping Ginola, Cantona and Jean-Pierre Papin brought a lot of resentment from the citizenry. But Aime Jacquet stood his ground, including defying presidential subtle persuasion to accommodate the troublesome players. The gamble paid off for Jacquet and the France senior team, going forward.

    I’m not an alarmist but I’m worried, even though many have argued that Moses’ exclusion from the Corsica friendly was to allow him to rest after a hectic season. Indeed. Did Moses not have two long spells of injuries, missing several games?  Moses is our best, dear Gernot Rohr. Excluding Moses from the list sends wrong signals to people. It would have been better if other Nigerians in Chelsea and Arsenal were left out too. It would be courting disaster if Moses doesn’t play against South Africa and Cameroon.

    NFF chieftains should get Moses to be more committed towards national team assignments even if he has dual nationality. Moses doesn’t need 75 per cent national team assignments to get a deal in Europe, unlike other Nigerians. I hope he isn’t using this fact to decide games that he should play or not. It would be very sad if Moses isn’t voted the best African football for the 2016/2017 European season simply because Nigeria didn’t qualify for the 2018 World Cup in Russia and/or the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations slated to hold in Cameroon.

  • Makarfi’s PDP and freed Chibok girls

    Makarfi’s PDP and freed Chibok girls

    WHILE the Ali Modu Sheriff faction of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) played safe in their reaction to the release of 82 of the over 200 abducted Chibok schoolgirls, indicating its deft reading of the mood of the times, the Ahmed Makarfi faction of the same party took forthrightness to an unusual and provocative level by qualifying their approval of the means by which the girls’ freedom was secured. Senator Sheriff, a former Borno State governor, perhaps for lack of what to say, gave a historical excursion of the efforts made by the previous administration to free the schoolgirls. He praised former president Goodluck Jonathan for acceding to the rescue efforts, and noted his altruism and commitment to the rescue of the girls.

    But unlike Senator Sheriff whose natural inclination to everything is comparatively much simpler and empathetic, the Senator Makarfi faction, whose arrowhead is the former Kaduna State governor, examined the release and the swap deal that accompanied it, in all its polemical and logical details, and came to conclusions with a candour that was bound to infuriate the public and bait the emotions of the distraught families from Chibok, Borno State. Even if the Makarfi faction was right to object to the pragmatism of the deal between the federal government and Boko Haram, the insurgent group that abducted the girls in April 2014, it is doubtful whether it demonstrated the sensitivity the times and the occasion called for.

    The Makarfi faction gave seven grounds for their discomfort, among which were the following:

    “1). The suspected terrorists by this release have escaped justice; and all the effort made by security agencies to bring them to book has come to nothing.

    2). The release of the terrorists is a setback for the War on insurgency. Their release is tantamount to releasing them to resume their war against society. Many of them could find their way back to the terrorists camps from where they could unleash terror against the country. Others who are allowed to roam freely in society could become veritable recruiting agents and purveyors of suicide bombing and urban terrorism.

    3). The Boko Haram terrorists are emboldened to continue with their tactics of kidnapping innocent people with the belief that they can always use it to blackmail the Government to release their members and to extract other concessions.

    4). The piecemeal release of the girls means the terrorists want to extract more concessions from the Government which in the end can only prolong the insurgency.

    5). The release of the girls will increase the agony and high expectations of the remaining girls still in custody of the terrorists, and their families who will be wondering why they have not been so lucky. It therefore would have been better to ensure the release of all the girls at once.

    6). The negotiations are in clear violation and indeed a direct assault on the generally accepted international principle never to negotiate with terrorists. This international principle is sound and logical because negotiation with the terrorists only fuels their urge to continue with their heinous crimes.”

    Though the Makarfi faction eventually lauded the release of the girls and celebrated with their families, it, however, insisted that the Buhari presidency’s approach was inappropriate. The faction did not suggest what better options the government could have taken to free the girls, nor did it explain why it opposed the deal between the government and Boko Haram despite the fact that in 2014 the PDP government of Dr Jonathan also desperately but unsuccessfully pursued a swap deal. In his reaction to the release of the 82 girls, Senator Sheriff had contextualised the Buhari swap deal by detailing the earlier efforts made by Dr Jonathan, suggesting that neither the ruling party nor the opposition was fundamentally and ideologically different in their approaches to the abduction that disgraced, scandalised and lowered Nigeria in the esteem of the world for many years.

    The Makarfi faction may have been roundly condemned by commentators and analysts, and there is no proof that the soft-spoken and thoughtful Senator Makarfi, had he been president, would not have sanctioned an exchange of captives, but there is no doubt that some of the faction’s arguments are indeed germane. Payment of ransom to kidnappers has, for instance, seemed to encourage kidnapping in Nigeria. In the same way, as argued by the Makarfi faction, a swap deal between the government and Boko Haram could encourage more abductions and stiffen the resolve of the militants to pursue and even justify their nefarious political and sectarian goals.

    While its objectionable and inadvisable perspective on the release of the Chibok girls may not seriously hurt its political standing in the society, nor influence in any way the outcome of the judicial battle between the two factions in the Supreme Court, the Makarfi faction of the PDP may have demonstrated an uncommon political boldness which could prove costly. In the past few months, it has played the part of an opposition party more sure-footedly than its factional rival, and has spoken more bravely on controversial and arcane issues; but there is so far no indication that it has organised itself in such a way as to respond very profoundly and guardedly to the ruling party’s dangerous propaganda and undemocratic measures.

    The Makarfi faction’s reaction to the release of the Chibok girls was spontaneous. But it is not often that political spontaneity bears fruits or advances the objectives of a political party. Hopefully, the faction will, in reaction to public disapproval of its views on the swap deal, be less hasty in future in judging its opponents and taking sides on very public and emotional issues. It must learn to be discriminating, and in addition be circumspect about when to be spontaneous and when to be reserved. It is true that between 2014 and 2015 the then opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) was not only spontaneous and radical in the manner of its opposition to the then ruling PDP, it was also deeply and even offensively propagandist. But the context of opposition also matters.

    Senator Makarfi and his faction must appreciate that even opposition politics is a highly nuanced exercise. It is not as simple and direct as it appears. They must recognise that sometimes, perfectly sound views and positions may rub off on the people badly and elicit resounding rebuke or rejection. It is, after all, not all the time that legality and expediency positively correlate. For a political party to be able to draw a fine line between the two, its leaders must take their responsibilities more seriously than their parties, whether in office or out of office, have done in the past few decades. How well set up are their research departments? And how well professionally manned are they? In the First Republic, the Action Group, by popular acclaim, had the best organised mass party in Africa, and it showed in their political and especially parliamentary responses to the issues of the day. In the Second Republic, a few other parties, including the Peoples Redemption Party (PRP) in Kano, copied that example and organised themselves to produce and accomplish policy depths.

    Irrespective of the outcome of the Supreme Court judgement on the conflict undermining the stability and cohesiveness of the PDP, if it is to prosper as an opposition party and find its way back into office, it must organise itself better than it has done since its founding, and make interventions that are deep, impactful and often unimpeachable. Those tasks will not be achieved if the party continues to speak extemporaneously off the mark. They will only be achieved when voters and opinion moulders see in the opposition the kind of seriousness, organisation and credibility that are lacking even in the ruling party. There may be times when the party or faction will promote unpopular or inflammatory views, but apart from ensuring that these views are few and far between, it must manage the promotion so unerringly as to enjoy vindication at a future date that will not damage its electoral chances.

    Senator Makarfi’s faction did not show early this week that it possessed the ability and composure to manage crucial and exigent national issues with the aplomb it appears to credit itself. The Sheriff faction was of course naturally opportunistic in its response to the Chibok girls’ freedom, even as the Buhari presidency appeared to engineer an uncanny and puzzling coincidence in prising the girls loose from their jailors at a time when the image of the government was ebbing badly. But this is politics, and those who come to it and cavort in it must do so without the awkwardness that Senator Makarfi and his faction demonstrated early in the week.

  • Like Rufai, like Enyeama

    Like Rufai, like Enyeama

    I cherish the day Nigeria beat Bulgaria 3-0 in her debut game at the USA’94 World Cup.
    The victory left the competition’s pundits wondering where such young lads as Daniel Amokachi, Emmanuel Amuneke, Austin ‘Jay Jay’ Okocha, Sunday Oliseh, Austin Eguavoen, Michael Emenalo and George Finidi learnt the tricks of the game.

    Samson Siasia, Benedict Iroha, Uche Okechukwu, Tijani Babangida, Peter Rufai, Mutiu Adepoju, the late Rashidi Yekini, the late Stephen Keshi, the late Thompson Oliha, the late Wilfred Agbonivbare, the late Uche Okafor, et al, were also part of the giant-killing team. The Bulgarians were better rated but we awed them with our skills and outran their defenders with sheer pace. The footage of how Amokachi rode the tackle before scoring the third goal formed part of the highlights of the goals at the Mundial in 1994.

    European clubs grabbed these new kids who painted the world with goals. There were others, such as Nwankwo Kanu, Taribo West, Victor Ikpeba, Dosu Joseph, Babangida, et al, who didn’t make the ’94 World Cup, but returned to form the nucleus of those who won Nigeria her first Olympic gold medal at the Atlanta 1996 Games soccer event in Georgia, on June 3. Olympic rules allow for three overage players (Okocha, Amokachi and Uche Okechukwu), yet not many can place a bet on which of the two teams (USA’94 Eagles and Dream Team 1) is the best.

    For soccer followers, it wasn’t much of a shock watching the Nigerian side tear the competition’s eventual third place side, Bulgaria, to smithereens. After all, Nigeria came to the Mundial as African champions.

    Rebuilding of the Super Eagles ahead of the 1994 Mundial arose from a crisis, which erupted in 1989 when Nigeria failed to qualify for the Italia 90 World Cup. Many people advocated a complete sweep of the old order. This didn’t come without complaints, especially when Clemens Westerhof dropped Peter Rufai at the airport en route the trip to Yaoundé. Nigeria lost 0-1 to the Indomitable Lions.

    The intervention of a former chairman of the then Nigeria Football Association (NFA), Group Captain John Obakpolor (retd), to ensure that Rufai made the Yaoundé trip failed. Obakpolor, though out of the Glasshouse then, urged Westerhof, who was a relatively new coach in the country, and didn’t know our players well, explained why Rufai should go to Yaoundé. This he did on the Lagos airport tarmac.

    “There is no gainsaying that at that time, Rufai was the best goalkeeper we had and he was in a terrific form. This is because there are some psychological things between the Nigerian and the Cameroonian teams. If any Cameroonian team saw Rufai in goal, they always trembled. But Westerhof said ‘no’ and that if I insisted Rufai should be on the trip, he would simply walk across the runway to the international wing and join the next flight to his country.

    “I said to him: ‘to hell with you.’ And what happened? We lost the match because the Cameroonians kept rushing our goalkeepers and intimidating them…they couldn’t have been able to intimidate Rufai,” Obakpolor said.

    The defeat cost Nigeria the World Cup ticket, but it served as the basis for the Dutch tactician to pick his men. Rufai’s cult status among the fans worried Westerhof, who couldn’t stomach the loud ovation anytime Dodo Mayana was around. Who will? Westerhof wanted to stamp his authority over his players and Rufai was sacrificed. The power brokers at the Glasshouse supported the Dutch, albeit to avenge Rufai’s alleged tantrums while fighting for the rights of his players anytime he was made team captain.

    Part of the purported strategies to wield the big stick on Rufai, and others, was the indiscipline clause. But Glasshouse chiefs had failed all the integrity tests as they didn’t play their part in their relationships with the players. Some of those who lost their places were Friday Ekpo, Etim Esin and, in many instances, Chidi Nwanu, although unlike Rufai,  Nwanu made it to only US’94 World Cup.

    Dropping Rufai from the Eagles came with a price. Goalkeeper Alloy Agu lost his tooth against the Indomitable Lions of Cameroon. Agu was substituted with David Ngodigha. And thus began the futile search for Rufai’s replacement. Nigeria lost the Italia 1990 World Cup ticket. Cameroonians distinguished themselves in Italy but it was a lost opportunity for our boys on the altar of indiscipline.

    We tried several goalkeepers – the late Wilfred Agbonivbare, Ike Shorunmu et al, but that charismatic aura around Rufai was missing in these goalkeepers. Rufai’s agility and showmanship stood him out and endeared him to football faithful. Whereas, Westerhof won the battle to stop charismatic Rufai, he lost the battle and plot to belittle Okocha, whenever he played Jay Jay on the bench. If the Eagles were wobbling, Westerhof got the baptism as he was pelted with sachets of water thrown from the stands. That didn’t stop until he introduced Okocha to the game. On one of such occasions, Okocha scored a brilliant free kick and the fans carried Jay Jay on their shoulders after the game.

    Westerhof built the team that shone in 1990, losing his first game 1-5 to Algeria, but the team qualified for the finals against the same country, losing this time 0-1. By 1992, it was obvious that the Eagles will be in US, if they kept the tempo. It happened. Our sore points remained the goalkeeping area. The media embarked on a campaign to bring Rufai back.

    The campaign paid off as Rufai made the 1994 Africa Cup of Nations in Tunisia. He shone in the matches and contributed his quota to the country’s winning the tournament, which she won for the first time in 1980, in Lagos, beating Algeria 3-0. Credit must go to Westerhof for throwing the Eagles camp open ahead of both competitions in his quest for our best players. Indeed, the Dutch got a goalkeeper trainer to drill his goalkeepers, with the aim of picking his best; he chose Rufai as our best. Westerhof took the professional advice which helped the Eagles to be rated the fifth best at the Mundial, despite their ouster in controversial circumstances in the second round.

    Is this not what is playing out with the Vincent Enyeama saga, 23 years after? Well, Enyeama has undergone a successful surgery, making him unavailable for the matches against Bafana Bafana of South Africa in Uyo on June 10, and against the Indomitable Lions of Cameroon, also in Uyo, in August. NFF chiefs and manager, Gernot Rohr have ample time to decide on Enyeama. They should start by sending him get well messages. A hospital visit will not be out of place. These gestures could further convince the goalkeeper to rescind his decision to quit the game at that level.

    Enyeama is our best goalkeeper in Europe. He is the most consistent and regular goalkeeper at the elite class in France, winning accolades and getting rave reviews for his acrobatic displays during Ligue Un. Enyeama quit the team to avoid further altercations with Sunday Oliseh, which could have affected team discipline.

    Of course, Enyeama didn’t expect NFF chiefs to back him against the coach. If NFF chiefs show some love towards Enyeama, he will rejoin the team. He knows the importance of playing at the World Cup. He was at the 2002 Korea/Japan World Cup where he made his debut, South Africa 2010 World Cup and Brazil 2014 World Cup. After all, the doctrine for goalkeepers is that they get better with age. Is this not true? Will anyone be shocked if Italy parades Buffon in goal at the Russia 2018 World Cup, given the goalkeeper’s superlative form with Juventus at the ongoing UEFA Champions League, where the Italians look like the team to confront Real Madrid in this year’s final at Cardiff?

    Unfortunately, the decision to invite Enyeama or not is the manager’s. He has the right to try other goalkeepers. But if Rohr courts Eneyama to return, NFF chiefs must support him to get the goalkeeper back. Nigerians won’t forgive the NFF if we fail to qualify for the 2018 World Cup in Russia. Sadly, if this happens, the manager goes home, we gnash our teeth, and others enjoy their games in Russia next year. God forbid.

     Pinnick’s maturity

     Elections into the Confederation of Africa Football (CAF) offices are over. The furore surrounding the elections, held in Addis Ababa, brought bad blood from supporters of the Isah Hayatou group and the new order that sacked him, spearheaded by Nigeria’s FA president Amaju Pinnick. Being a Nigerian, many expected those in CAF to root for Pinnick. But the old order rooting for Hayatou’s continued stay, despite serving for 29 years, tagged Pinnick a small boy, with many using uncouth words. While in Addis Ababa, the talk was about a wholesale replacement of Hayatou’s supporters who were Nigerians. But Pinnick shocked many when he said such vengeful acts won’t happen, insisting that the victory belongs to Nigeria.

    All those who didn’t give Pinnick a chance to win a place in CAF are in Cairo for a two-day workshop on club licensing. They have swallowed their pride. This is good. But I hope they have learned a few lessons about humility, and the need to see such an expedition from the prism of Nigeria, not what they stand to gain. Pinnick surely has a good heart by retaining these people. Now they know that it wasn’t about Pinnick, but Nigeria, which they represented in Cairo. Thank you, Pinnick.

    Sometimes, I wonder where Pinnick would have been had Ahmad Ahmad lost the election to Hayatou. Phantom charges would have been brought against him. The media would have been called names. Now, we know despots cannot rule forever, no matter how their supporters feel. The only constant thing in life is change.

  • Misogyny, politics and religion

    TODAY, we seek refuge in history and religion to illuminate the past and shed light on the present state of global politics. Three events will dominate our thoughts and draw us to the logical conclusions. The first was the conference of leading women leaders in the US where Hillary Clinton who lost the 2016 US presidential election to Donald Trump, attributed her election loss to the intervention of the FBI boss James Comey and misogyny, the hatred of women. The second was a decision of the Russian Parliament or Duma to decriminalize domestic violence early this year and the role of the Russian Orthodox in that decision as well as the umbrage in the West over the legislation.

    The third was the lecture titled ‘The Challenges of the Church in the Current Climate in Nigeria ‘delivered this week by Professor Dapo Asaju, Vice Chancellor Ajayi Crowther University, Oyo, to mark the 150TH Anniversary of Cathedral Church of Christ, Marina, this week at Muson Center, Lagos. Let me make some initial comments on the three events as they will be the compass of my analysis and direction of arguments therein. First, Hillary’s attribution of her loss to the FBI boss in the timing of announcing new investigations on her e- mails is a correct, albeit indignant statement, and that has been aggravated by the insistence of the FBI boss this week at a Senate hearing that he had no regret on both the content and timing of the intervention a few days to voting in the presidential elections last year. The blame on misogyny too is correct in a way but that was a self – inflicted fatal wound on her presidential ambition. Next, the issue of domestic violence showed clearly that the Russians who had earlier succumbed to western pressure to criminalise domestic violence, changed their mind on the grounds of parents rights and authority and based on a Russian adage that if you beat your wife you love her, an anathema in present day Western civilization.

    On the 150th Anniversary lecture of Christ Church Marina Professor Asaju opened a Pandora box on the state of Nigerian Christianity, and Anglicanism and boldly called on Nigerian Christians to fight the onslaught of Islamisation of the entire nation by powerful forces in power. These then are the guiding lights of my discussion of the topic of the day. Starting with the misogyny charge laid at the doorsteps of the American electorate by Hillary and her applauding same sex audience, it is not only sheer crying over spilt milk but milk spilt through the arrogance of misguided sexual orientation, that put family values, well beneath feminism.

    The feminism spirit that gained ascendancy in the 20th century gathered more momentum in the 21st century especially with the emergence of a popular figure like German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the powerful role of Germany in rescuing the EU nations after the global financial melt down of 2008. But that has its price as EU nations paid a steep price for German funded bailout in terms of lost sovereignty and national pride.

    The climax of EU anti – German frustration was the massive Angela Merkel- led migration quota to accommodate migrants fleeing wars in the Middle East which created the xenophobia against migrants in Europe leading to Brexit. Also there was the anti – Merkel, Trump presidential campaign that won the American race in an obvious backlash against the strident anti -Trump feminist attacks in the US media over his past escapades with women. In laying her charge of misogyny Hillary also confessed that unlike Trump she could not campaign that everything in Washington should be thrown overboard because she was committed to defending the Obama legacy, which included the land mark Supreme Court decision legalizing gay rights which Obama too boasted also as a major achievement of his administration.

    That too had its huge price exacted by the males in the American electorate as well as ardent Christians and even the large Latino Catholic voters who said that even though they hated Trump they voted for him because they know he will not go the way of the Obama Administration whose policies Hillary was sworn to follow and beholden to.

    These then are the reasons why Hillary’s charge of misogyny holds water albeit in a basket, because her sex had largely irritated and alarmed a large part of the US electorate with feminist rhetoric and tantrums for a large part of the presidential campaign. Compare this American feminism with the stance of the Russian Orthodox Church on domestic violence as well as the history of Eastern European civilization and you will eventually see a clash of civilisations between Eastern and Western Civilisation. This is obvious from the reasons given by the Russian Orthodox Church in supporting the Russian Parliament decriminalization of domestic violence.

    The Russian Church noted that Scripture and Russian tradition regard ‘the reasonable and loving use of physical punishment as an essential part of the rights given to parents by God himself. ‘The Church insists it was wrong for parents to face harsher charges for hitting their children than a neighbor would face on doing the same. According to Maria Mamikonyan of the All Russian Parents Resistance Movement – The family is a delicate environment where people should sort things out themselves .In addition a woman senator in the Russian Legislature Elena Mizulina argued for decriminalization on the grounds that a man who beats his wife does less harm than a woman who humiliates her husband and that the most important thing is to maintain‘ authority in the family ‘The Russian view point certainly tallies with what obtains in most Nigerian and African cultures yet it is the western and American version of human rights and feminism that was being introduced in Nigeria, before Hillary lost the election as some lawyers in Nigeria took to Motor Parks to lecture drivers on domestic violence.

    Even some old Nigerian wives suddenly showed up in Police stations accusing their husbands of forty years of life long beatings just to disgrace such husbands on the guise of human rights and feminism. According to reports many Nigerian husbands in the US have fled home to Nigeria abandoning estates and property to Nigerian wives who have used feminist rights in the US to criminalise domestic rifts and make their husbands culpable in such environments. Which really is a pity and may really be sufficient ground for Hillary’s claim of misogyny in losing her election, is such Nigerian men were Americans. Lastly, I take on Professor Asaju’s lecture on the current climate in Nigeria. The lecturer did not spare even the Anglican hierarchy as he made a sweeping condemnation of the state of things in the Nigeria’s political and religious environment. Indeed the opening prayer at the event said by former Provost of the Cathedral, Dr Yinka Omololu, was a sign of the thunder to come from the lectern of this brilliant Nigerian Bishop, educationist and theologian.

    Taking a cue from the title of the Opening hymn – Faith of Our Fathers – Dr Omololu asked for forgiveness for the Church for having abandoned the faith of the Church and its founding fathers for worldly things. He asked for God’s mercy on the crass materialism that has taken over the leadership of the Nigerian Anglican Church. Of course the lecturer took over the baton from there in a marathon, blistering, intellectual tirade on the poor performance and lack of leadership by emulative example that has been the bane of our economic development as a nation. He commended the concept of Anglicanism as excellent but its implementation as suspect and inefficient leading to migration from it to other denominations founded by former Anglicans.

    He asked the Church to improvise and be flexible and revert to some doctrine that allowed speaking in tongues .He resented, with contextual history, the allegation and question that the Anglican Church was founded on adultery and fornication. He recounted the role of Henry the Eigth in the historical saga of his divorce which the Pope rejected , leading to his forming the Church of England. Prof Asaju insisted that this was a dispute between the Church and the state and Henry the Eight was the state but this did not affect the doctrinal standard or liturgical direction of Church so formed then which was the forebear of the Anglican Church in Nigeria.

    The lecturer told Nigerian Anglicans to resist the Islamisation of Nigeria with prayers and all the means they can muster to protect the Anglican faith. In particular he was full of praise for the leadership of Christ Church Cathedral Marina which holds its Feast of Dedication, a sort of birthday of the Church tomorrow at its 9 30am matins. He praised the pioneering role of late Bishop Ajayi Crowther who brought Christianity to Nigeria especially the Eastern part of the nation and the Niger Delta. Yet Ajayi Crowther was discriminated against by the Anglican authorities in Lagos and was always posted out because he was a senor bishop to expatriate clergy in Nigeria. Asaju insisted that the burial site of Ajayi Crowther should be venerated and designated as a National treasure in Nigeria located as it is in the premises of the Cathedral in Marina.

    The professor brought the bible used in enthroning AjayI Crowther to the lecture, as well as the compass he used on his travels, and the pen he used in translating the bible to various Nigerian languages. The lecturer told the moving story of the Captain of the ship that rescued Ajay Crowther from a slave ship being present at his enthronement and giving him the bible he brought to the lecture. Of course it was difficult not to cry and the bible became a center of attraction as we all struggled to take pictures with it. In all, Prof Asaju said he had not brought any solution to solve Nigeria’s many problems. But in sensitizing our leaders to our collective shortcomings he blazed a trail in which direction we should look for solutions and that was more than enough. I doff my hat therefore to a preacher, a committed prelate and lecturer who has the gift of the garb and knows his onions so very well. Once again long live the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

  • The three musketeers scheme again

    The three musketeers scheme again

    They are Nigeria’s first leadership eleven: the troika of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, Gen Ibrahim Babangida and Gen Abdulsalami Abubakar — all of them retired army generals. The media was awash with reports they met at Gen Babangida’s Hilltop residence in Minna, Niger State, on Tuesday to deliberate on issues whose agenda were kept away from the prying eyes of the public. They always seethed with schemes; but this time their schemes were not quite as obvious to the public as reporters would like them to be. Moreover, why only three of them met , out of Nigeria’s seven living ex-heads of state, is difficult to fathom. Perhaps it is only these three that have shown bravery in affecting, for good or bad, the fortunes of Nigeria.

    Speculations were rife on Tuesday that the meeting dwelled more on President Muhammadu Buhari’s delicate health and its implications for both governance and stability. It was said that the three were loth to be taken by surprise, should the president succumb precipitately to the vagaries of poor health, especially with cabals poised dangerously in the wings to profit from the confusion. So far, the three former leaders have been uninterested in confirming the details of their meeting, whether it was principally to discuss President Buhari’s health in terms of its urgent dimensions, or whether it was to look in general terms at the post-Buhari era. Whatever the meeting was about, it held, and the troika confidently posed for a group photograph at the end to illustrate either their defiance or self-assurance.

    Given the three leaders’ qualifications and general background, it is unlikely that Nigerians think the gentlemen possess the wherewithal to positively affect the future and destiny of Nigeria. The threesome always summoned the presumptuousness to tinker with Nigeria; but whether they have the qualifications to engender great and inspiring outcomes is a different thing altogether. In 1999, the three, together to some extent with former army chief, T.Y. Danjuma, determined the direction of Nigeria: what the constitution would look and sound like, and who should assume the presidency in the wake of MKO Abiola’s controversial death in government custody. In the end, pretending to some democracy, and with a constitution that was yet to be promulgated, it was decided that the traumatised Chief Obasanjo, who was just coming out of jail and the spectre of a death sentence, should assume power. The electorate merely became a rubber stamp.

    While Generals Babangida and Abubakar were not involved in foisting the then sick Umaru Yar’Adua on the country in 2007, that bewildering choice was a substantial fulfilment of the designs and preferences of the troika. Since then, and without any hint of remorse whatsoever, the three generals have always had their way in determining who gets what. Indeed, even a section of the political class which attempted to muscle their way into the group to enthrone President Buhari, had had to worm or insinuate their way into the confidence of the troika. The three generals undoubtedly have an implacable hold on power in Nigeria.

    In the past few years, the three generals have become even more confident in meddling in the politics of who becomes president. In 2015, they were deeply involved, perhaps Gen Babangida less so on account of his health challenges. Chief Obasanjo, the usual battering ram of the group, provided the casus belli in baiting and profiling the disfavoured ex-president Goodluck Jonathan, and in softening the grounds for the incoming President Buhari. If feelers from the Hilltop mansion meeting are accurate, Chief Obasanjo appears poised to weigh in against the weary and now reclusive President Buhari, an assignment that may not be mitigated by President Buhari’s sudden appearance yesterday at the Aso Villa mosque for Friday prayers. A few months ago, he had suggested that the president’s economic management ability left much to be desired. Now, some innuendoes are issuing from him concerning the president’s disappearing and appearing acts.

    Gen Babangida had hoped to profit from the precedence set by Chief Obasanjo, by contesting and retaking the president’s office in 2007. He failed. But despite that, he has sustained his interest in who takes the highest office in the land. In fact, during his about eight years in office, he had managed to create a myth around himself, a myth that has somehow endured, if not in vigor, for no one is willing or even interested in testing it, then at least in perseverance. His ‘boys’ may no longer be in the military; but who wants to find out? Perhaps the idea of his ‘boys’ being in the military, or the suspicion that officers loyal to what he stood for might still be in the military, is more than sufficient to sustain his political and leadership currency.

    Gen Abubakar’s relevance rests mainly on two planks: his resolute and summary completion of a short transition programme between 1998 and 1999, about 11 months after assuming office; and the laudable role he played as leader of the National Peace Committee in the last presidential election to smoothen the change of baton from the more sensitive and fairly compliant Dr Jonathan to the more truculent and less amenable President Buhari. Gen Abubakar has sensibly, bravely but taciturnly persisted in safeguarding whatever unwritten agreements flowed from the work of his committee in those heady months leading to the last polls. His work and assiduousness, not to say being the least controversial of the troika, have combined to reinforce his relevance as a member of the musketeers.

    If it is presumptuous of the three generals to take upon themselves the task of forging peace and amity in the country as well as midwifing who becomes president, it is a presumptuousness that is sadly anchored on nothing but a general belief that their names and positions qualify them to do so. Whether those qualifications are sufficient to enable them perform the thankless role of guardian angels, when a disciplined adherence to the constitution would otherwise be sufficient, is hard to say. Perhaps societies need such interventions; but if they do, it would be to the extent of the philosophical and ideological qualifications and convictions of the interventionists. In the case of the three musketeers, their interventions, whether in 1993 or 1999, or more gallingly in 2007, were based on private and entirely selfish considerations.

    It is hard to avoid the conclusion that the continuing crisis Nigeria faces is essentially due to the needless, selfish and destructive interventions and manipulations sponsored by the three meddlesome ex-generals. Appreciating them for their contributions in the past few years must therefore be situated properly in the context of the damage they had occasioned in the past, near or distant. Had they allowed the system to run independently as it should, and had their contributions been altruistic as the country had hoped, Nigeria would have avoided the pestilential reign of Gen Sani Abacha, escaped the appalling ‘democratic’ foundations laid by Chief Obasanjo between 1999 and 2007, ducked the pillage masterminded by Dr Jonathan, and entirely circumvented the now lethargic and staid presidency of another ex-general, Buhari.

    But much more damaging and hubristic is the arbitrary manner the three former generals and ex-heads of state have determined that no other former head of state or president is apparently qualified to join the so-called ‘first eleven’ and ‘patron saints’ of Nigerian leadership. By accident or design, and since 1993, none among the other former leaders have been invited to the conclave of schemers determining the fate of Nigeria. Ex-president Shehu Shagari has been largely ignored, and has himself not attempted to muscle his way into the group. He apparently has little say and no real locus standi. Little say, because no philosophy or ideology of society and leadership has been associated with him; and no locus because his presidency was stymied by such weariness of mind that few thought he was better than a cipher when he ruled.

    Ex-head of state Yakubu Gowon remains probably the most moralistic of all Nigeria’s former leaders, and the one who could boast of real or substantial fame following his successful prosecution of the civil war and the developmental programmes and projects his government emplaced. But he is a man full of caution, pawky caution, and he is distant, sometimes patrician, somewhat unobtrusive, and now more sermonising, if not outrightly proselytizing. Such a man could not be inducted into a caucus of schemers and intriguers, nor get him to offend or undermine his Christian principles and conscience. The three generals will not invite Ernest Shonekan, the interim president who by military decree became a former head of state, into anything, so help them God. As for Dr Jonathan, why, the wounds are still very fresh, searing and palpable to allow him rub shoulders with the three ex-generals.

    For as long as the country permits them, the three generals will continue to meddle in the country’s leadership politics. They will hardly suggest anything deep, engaging and ideological about the economy, politics and society. These concepts addle their brains. What obsesses them is leadership, partly because of the benefits which that brings, the itch to run things, and the power and visibility involved. Do they possess the wisdom to scheme right? The jury is out on that. If they had the ability to see far into the future, they would not have schemed the country into its present cul-de-sac. So, unable to see into the distant, they will intrigue for the short run, insist on the conservatism and fearful caution that blighted their own leadership, and place themselves appropriately to remain influential and to be heard and seen. The three musketeers, this restrictive ‘first eleven’ scripting Nigeria’s unfolding tragedy, can’t do more than they are really and clearly capable of.