Is there an ‘Igbo problem’ that has persisted and increasingly grown more complex, compounded and nation-threatening in post-colonial Nigeria? In chapter 9 of his slim classic, ‘The Trouble with Nigeria’, titled ‘The Igbo Problem’, the late Professor Chinua Achebe dilated on this issue. According to him, “Nigerians of all other ethnic groups will probably achieve consensus on no other matter than their common resentment of the Igbo…Modern Nigerian history has been marked by sporadic eruptions of anti-Igbo feeling of serious import; but it was not until 1966-7 when it swept through Northern Nigeria like a ‘flood of hate’ that the Igbo first questioned the concept of Nigeria which they had embraced with much greater fervor than the Yoruba or Hausa/Fulani.” Vigorously debunking what their critics perceive as the ‘clannishness, aggressiveness or arrogance’ of the Igbo, Achebe contended that the open, relatively democratic and merit-oriented character of Igbo society as well as the adventurous, industrious and competitive spirit of the Igbo tends towards a level of success and achievement on their part that makes them the envy of others especially in other parts of the country where their itinerant disposition has led them.

Five decades after the tragic Nigerian civil war, a conflict in which an estimated 2 to 3 million lives were lost, the grievances that triggered that avoidable conflagration remains well and alive and the South-East remains one of the most aggrieved and thus unstable and volatile parts of the country. This is obviously why Dr. Dapo Thomas of the Department of History and International Studies, Lagos State University (LASU), casts an analytical searchlight on the war in the research essay titled ‘The Nigerian Civil War (1967-1970): New Theories, Old Problem, Fresh Crisis’ published in volume 10, Number 3, May-June, 2022, edition of the peer-reviewed journal, ‘International Relations and Diplomacy’ issued in the United States.

Although scores of largely descriptive works have been published on the war, many of them by combatant participants in the conflict, Dr. Thomas seeks to bring conceptual and theoretical clarity to bear on the tragedy arguing that “some of the underlying issues that precipitated the war still exist and need to be de-established in order to attenuate their resurgent capability. The article makes a case for constructive and functional integration of the multiple nationalities that make up the Nigerian state as a way of preserving the corporate existence of the country. It also submits that perceived injustice is not just injurious to a system; it is capable of causing a dysfunction within the state because of its inflammatory war potential”.

Dr. Thomas dwells at length on various theories that seek to explicate the triggers of civil war onset in diverse empirical settings obviously in the belief that clarity at the theoretical level will facilitate learning of the appropriate lessons therefrom as well as empower society to more effectively deal with the onset of fresh crises and nip them in the bud before they implode uncontrollably as in the case of the Nigerian civil war. According to him, “Most writers of the Nigerian civil war refrained from the theoretical underpinning that could help illuminate the discourse on the war. The theoretical shyness is responsible for the visible incoherence in the arguments, analyses and logical processing in most of the literature…For instance, most of the books focused their attention on the causes of the war without emphasizing the theoretical signification of the war. No doubt, lack of theoretical understanding was one of the reasons why we have a resurgence of insurgency in the South-East as efforts and energy were channeled towards the history of the war rather than the conceptual fundamentals of the war”. This writer does not subscribe to the ethno-regional causal interpretation of crises and instability in Nigeria. There is no such thing as an Igbo problem in Nigeria just as it is shallow and diversionary to talk of a Yoruba, Hausa-Fulani, Kanuri or Ijaw problem for instance. Nigeria’s fundamental problem is not one of ethnicity or regionalism but that of an essentially corrupt, exploitative, inept and visionless governing class which is pan-Nigerian in composition and character. No faction of the ruling class can be exempted from responsibility for the protracted crises of poverty and underdevelopment in post-colonial Nigeria. The Igbo, Yoruba, Hausa-Fulani and other ethnic fractions of the political class across civilian and military regimes and transcending partisan political divides have been responsible for the massive looting of the treasury and poor governance that has led to the trapping of the country’s abundant but latent potentials and the consequent continued ‘immiseration’ of the vast majority of the people.

The collapse of the first republic in January 1966 was a function, largely, of the vicious and unstructured competition for power among the contending factions of the political class as represented in the dominant political parties of the period – Northern People’s Congress (NPC), National Congress of Nigerian Citizens (NCNC) and Action Group (AG) – as well as the smaller parties such as the Northern Elements Progressive Union (NEPU) and the United Middle Belt Congress (UMBC) which went into alliances with one or the other of the major parties. In the unbridled and unrestrained competition for power among the elite and their parties largely for the purpose of venal material accumulation, democratic structures and processes were eroded and abridged while both structural and physical violence were deployed on a scale that made it virtually inevitable for the professional experts in the mechanics and instruments of violence, the military, to forcefully step in to displace the politicians and project themselves as the new political Messiahs.

Unfortunately, the ethno-regionally skewed nature of the killings of civilian and military leaders in the process of executing the coup suggested that its masterminds were not themselves immune from some of the vices they accused the politicians of. No matter what, it is unfortunate and remains a monumental act of injustice that a humongous number of innocent Igbos who had nothing to do with the coup perished while millions were forced to flee in the pogrom in the North attendant on the counter coup of July 1966. This remains a sore point in our history which must be addressed as part of the basis for continued national cohesion.

Although he describes the use of the Marxist social conflict theory to interpret the Nigerian civil war as anachronistic as it has been overtaken by more contemporary explanatory schemas, Thomas nevertheless offers a brilliant depiction of the radical perspective which, in my view, continues to be relevant to the understanding of conflict, alienation and instability in contemporary Nigeria. In his words, “Social conflict theorists believe that tensions provoked by economic and social misplacements are largely responsible for disagreements and conflicts…Material insufficiency engenders bitter struggle for control not only of the insufficient resources but of the power to allocate the resources or to appropriate the resources. Constrained and restricted by knowledge deficit, the dregs of society have resorted to violent conducts to redress prevalent social inequalities and rampant oppression by the political class”. It was as a result of his understanding of the economic and class basis of the country’s socio-political crises that Chief Obafemi Awolowo warned in a lecture in Akure in January 1980 that “The rich and highly placed in business, public life and government are running a dreadful risk in their callous neglect of the poor and downtrodden”.

It is remarkable that less than a decade after the civil war, in 1979, an Igbo man, the cerebral Dr. Alex Ekwueme, had become the elected Vice President of Nigeria on the platform of the defunct National Party of Nigeria (NPN). But for the military intervention of 1983 that disrupted the country’s democratic evolution, is it not most likely that an Igbo man would have inevitably become President at some point in the unfolding dynamics of the political process? But that is what historians would refer to as a counter-factual question which may not be of much use now. Unfortunately, the leaders and principal actors in the post-1983 military regimes – Muhammadu Buhari, Tunde Idiagbon, Ibrahim Babangida and Sani Abacha – were combatants in the Nigerian civil war and their psychological disposition to the National Question was that “the unity of Nigeria is non-negotiable”. This also is the obvious worldview of the President Muhammadu Buhari administration even when the context in which the supposed non-negotiability of Nigeria’s unity was tenable has altered fundamentally.

As Dr. Thomas puts it, “The war of 1967-1970 was fought under a military administration at a time when there was no proliferation of small and light arms. The situation has changed now; what we have today is a situation where small and light arms are being smuggled into the country by faceless merchants whose economic interest can only flourish when there is national instability. This time around, it is the politicians that are in power. I do not want to imagine the catastrophe that we are likely to witness should there be an outbreak or escalation of hostilities? Must we then allow another outbreak of war and lose millions of lives, disrupt social and economic activities, displace innocent citizens and destabilize a system that is just being nurtured before we act on the wish of the Igbo?”

It is of course beyond dispute that as a major ethnic group in the country, an Igbo presidency is a necessary condition for the closure of the psychological wounds of the civil war and the stability, peace and cohesion of Nigeria. But in the context of liberal democracy in a complex, plural polity like ours this objective cannot be achieved by the kind of social media terrorism, bullying and intolerance persistently exhibited by fervent members of the ‘ObiDient’ movement even when the Labour Party (LP) candidate, Mr. Peter Obi, has repeatedly claimed that he is a national and not a sectional candidate. The question of the strategy and tactics for the realization of Igbo presidency was brilliantly addressed by Governor Chukwuma Soludo of Anambra State in his recent explosive public treatise on the issue. The late Ikemba Odumegwu Ojukwu had founded the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) for that purpose and handed over the party to Obi to nurture and build. The latter inexplicably abandoned APGA to join the PDP at the expiration of his eight-year tenure as governor of Anambra State in 2014, was its Vice presidential candidate in 2019 and only left the party this year for the LP when it became obvious he was unlikely to emerge either as Presidential or Vice Presidential candidate of the PDP.

Soludo argues that it is wiser and more practicable to build APGA into a formidable political structure to negotiate and bargain with other blocs and major parties to promote the interest of the South-East in the Nigerian federation including the vexed issue of Igbo presidency. It is difficult to disagree with him. Even then, it does not require a President of Igbo extraction to decisively address the questions of justice and equity as it concerns the Igbo in Nigeria. For instance, there is no reason why expeditious action cannot be taken to create an additional state in the South-East to bring the nation to par with other major ethnic groups in this regard. As Soludo argued, the post-Buhari administration must pursue the equivalent of a Marshall Plan for the South-East in fulfillment of the reconstruction pledge of the Federal Government to the region in the aftermath of the civil war. Indeed, is there any reason why we cannot have an annual National Biafra Day to allow for unceasing reflection on the lessons of the civil war and ways of ensuring our continuous march to ‘a more perfect union’ as the American founding fathers so delicately and aptly phrased it?

It could not have been more tersely phrased. Section 22 of the Second Chapter of the 1999 Nigerian Constitution (as amended) on the ‘Fundamental Objectives and Directive Principles of State Policy’ states unambiguously that “The press, radio, television and other agencies of the mass media shall at all times be free to uphold the fundamental objectives contained in this chapter and uphold the responsibility and accountability of the Government to the people”. This obligation places on the shoulders of the press the responsibility to ensure transparency and adherence to the highest ethical standards in government with the aim of promoting the utilitarian goal of attaining the greatest good of the greatest number of people in a given polity. Implicit in this degree of faith in the media by the drafters of the constitution is considerable trust in the latter’s sense of professional responsibility, ethical standards and moral integrity.

This column has often argued that there can and will not be a final national conference that will bring to a definitive conclusion, once and for all, troubling issues of our national co-existence often referred to as the National Question with the emergence of a perfect constitutional document that will usher in a political Eldorado of our dreams. A nation is a project continuously in progress and national dialogue a never ending process taking place ceaselessly in market places, beer parlours, company boardrooms, university lecture theatres and seminar rooms, clerical pulpits in churches and mosques, meetings of professional and groups and most importantly in newspaper editorials, opinion pages, letters to the Editor and columns, radio and television talk shows as well as the now ubiquitous social media. The concern of this piece is understandably with communications through the various agencies of the mass media, which are the most critical and dominant mediums for ventilating and maintaining the requisite quality of public discourse.

Do the Nigerian media today have the trust and confidence of members of the public that they can serve as reliable, professional and believable umpires in the arena of public discourse? Do we adhere to the highest standards of professionalism in the discharge of our constitutionally prescribed duties? Those in the orthodox, traditional media complain of the excesses of the social media. Have we necessarily risen to a higher level of professional practice? Of course, it is often impossible for a media organization not to have an ideological disposition and also an often partisan orientation not only in Nigeria but across the globe, including in advanced democracies. But facts must always be sacred while opinions must not only be free but civil.

News must always be differentiated from opinionating or editorializing. Abuse and labeling must never replace constructive social analysis. No serious and self-respecting news medium should pin labels of criminality on persons without the imprimatur of the judgment of a court of law. That many mediums and individual journalists routinely do this and are completely ignored by those they recklessly libel is an indication of the utter indifference and dismissiveness with which both the socio-economic and political elite as well as the public at large treat the media – social and orthodox.

Political talk shows on radio and television as well as newspaper political columnists have, perhaps because we are into another season of electioneering towards the 2023 polls, become the toast of the moment for many politically-minded viewers and readers. It is only a short-sighted and foolish media organization, however, that will sacrifice high professional standards on the altar of crass partisanship because the fervently partisan segment of the population is a veritable minority. Those who have subordinated professional ethics and decency to crassly pursuing the often ignoble and nefarious agenda of their publishers and proprietors are mostly the ones who find it difficult to pay their staff salaries as and when due, are notorious in the business for treating staff with utter contempt and lack of humaneness and resort to blackmail and assorted forms of unprofessional gangsterism to portray a façade of a thriving business. They are attractively whited sepulchers with rotten and dried bones within.

One of the anchors of a morning talk show on Arise Television recently challenged the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, to feature on an interview on the programme because some other presidential aspirants had done so. But this is most ludicrous. It is part of the democratic right of a candidate for any office to decide on which medium to feature and in which form he wishes to do so. It is unlikely that most Democratic candidates in America, for instance, will feel compelled to appear on Fox Television or that a Donald Trump should he choose to contest the 2024 elections as it appears increasingly likely, will condescend to be interviewed by CNN. The media has largely descended into the political arena in America as part of the gladiators and has been sucked into the poverty of trust and debilitating divisiveness that so dangerously imperils the durability of American democracy.

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Arise Television has all too often sunk into the political arena and assumed an openly partisan role. This is of course no crime if its programme anchors adhere to elevated professional standards to mitigate its partisanship. In any case, should a news medium go about seeking to blackmail guests to appear on its platform? Shouldn’t its professional acumen and ethical integrity be its selling point with esteemed guests doing all they can to feature on its shows? The anchor who made the challenge on Tinubu to appear for an interview on his pogramme is no doubt one of the brightest and best columnists of his generation. As spokesman to a former President elected on the platform of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), he performed his duties in a capable and accomplished manner for the most part. But the story does not end there. He later became a card-carrying member of the PDP and indeed contested as the Deputy-Governorship candidate of same party in Ogun State (his running-mate being the controversial, but now late Senator Buruji Kashamu) in 2019.

On which ground then does he want to interview Tinubu? Is it as a professional journalist or as a partisan politician? Can the objective public be sure that he does not still nurse subterranean grudges that his erstwhile principal was ousted from power in 2015 through the ballot box largely with Tinubu’s substantial input?

Another anchor on the same programme and on the same station has also echoed his colleague’s call on the APC candidate to appear on their show. Clearly the youngest among the trio of anchors, he is easily the most insolent and rude of them all. Some months back, he had a former Minister of the federal Republic from Oyo State on the show that had come to speak in defense of Tinubu’s candidacy. One of his questions to his guest went something like this and I paraphrase: “Is it not shameful and are you and your party not ashamed of yourselves to have opted for a Muslim-Muslim ticket in a country of diverse religions; a decision which has torn the party right down the middle with party members quitting in droves?”.

Of course, his guest could not hide his disgust and exasperation at that line and tone of questioning and gave it back to the anchor in good measure. As the programme degenerated into a shouting match, another of the anchors called for a short break obviously to allow tempers cool.

In the first place, there is no constitutional provision against same faith candidacy. So, what was the anchor’s beef? Secondly, was it right to claim that members were quitting the APC en masse because of the Muslim-Muslim ticket when not up to five prominent and significant members of the party had done so on that ground? Thirdly, if the anchor felt that the APC had jeopardized its electoral chances by picking a Muslim running-mate for Tinubu, how is that his business since he is not a card-carrying member of the party? More significantly, could the anchor not have asked his question in a less insolent, abrasive and hubristic way? But that is how this anchor with a permanent scowl on his face, possibly in demonstration of his passionate love for his country, harasses, hassles and harangues guests on the show that he disagrees with for political or other reasons. Civility is not in his dictionary.

As the religious leader, Gordon B. Hinckley, wrote in the chapter on ‘Our Fading Civility’ in his book ‘Standing for Something’ published in 2000, “In recent years the media have raised boorishness to an art form. The hip heroes of movies today deliver gratuitous put-downs to ridicule and belittle anyone who gets in their way. Bad manners, apparently, make a saleable commodity. Television situation comedies wallow in vulgarity, stand-up- comedians base their acts on insults to their audiences, and talk show hosts become rich and famous by snarling at callers and heckling guests. All of this speaks of anything but refinement. It speaks of anything but courtesy. It speaks of anything but civility and tolerance. Rather, it speaks of rudeness and crudeness and an utter insensitivity to the feelings and rights of others”.

Is it any wonder then that the anchor referred to earlier who so recklessly heckled the former Minister on his show was sometime later caught on camera by vigilant traffic officers violating traffic regulations by driving on the lane reserved for the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) vessels? Did he as a supposed man of honour and a public figure, a social influencer, humbly admit his guilt and take responsibility? Not on your life! Rather, he was caught on camera threatening the traffic officers with the ominous words: ‘I will call the governor! I will call the governor!’.

All the daily self-righteous posturing on TV meant nothing after all. It was not just a case of lack of civility. It was also one of lack of basic honesty and integrity. He eventually tendered a public apology only after a public outrage at such uncivilised conduct.

Referring to the case of Cain killing his innocent brother, Abel, and lying to God to hide his crime, Gordon Hinckley writes, “In our day, dishonesty does not always revolve around such a grievous offense, nor are those found in dishonesty put to death for their misdeeds as in biblical times. But something within them dies. Conscience chokes, character withers, self-respect vanishes, integrity dies”. Can the media today be entrusted not to betray the confidence reposed in them to conduct credible interviews and debates for candidates adhering to the highest standards of professionalism and integrity?

It is debatable. A colleague recently told me of his experience when he was assigned to one of the South-West states to cover the state’s governorship election sometime in 2012. He recalled that the team of journalists who had come to the state to anchor the gubernatorial election debate first paid a courtesy call on the governor who was seeking re-election for a second term, an act considered unethical by some of their colleagues. It eventually turned out from authoritative sources, he reported, that the questions were passed on to the governor in advance, which probably enabled him in performing well above average in the debate. A great responsibility to ensure and facilitate qualitative and informed public discourse rests on the media, particularly in this season of politics. Does it have the sense of honor, decency and integrity to discharge this obligation as expected? That is a million dollar question.

(Does the ‘average northerner’ need a kind of President different from that of the Igbo, Yoruba, Ijaw or from any part of Southern Nigeria? That was the fallacy that presidential flag bearer of the PDP, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, tried to sell when at

a forum of the Arewa Joint Committee in Kaduna, last weekend, he brazenly implored his audience to vote for him

as a Northerner saying the North does not need a Yoruba or Igbo President. Luckily, Atiku’s divisive statement has been widely condemned across the country not excluding the North. The emergent new Nigeria has obviously left Atiku behind stranded in a narrow time warp. In his comments when the APC presidential flag bearer, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, presented his agenda to the Arewa Joint Committee, Kaduna State governor, Mallam Nasir el’Rufai, gave an insight into how Tinubu emerged as the APC presidential candidate, stressing that the APC northern governors were firm and steadfast on power rotating back to the South after eight years of President Muhammadu Buhari because “it is not in the character of the North to breach agreements. In his address to the forum, Tinubu had declared, “As for the North, I believe you have no better friend in the race like me. I am not like those who only remember they are from here when it is time to ask for your votes…My political history is full of examples of long and abiding support for the North; from the late Shehu Yar’Adua to Atiku Abubakar; Nuhu Ribadu and President Muhammadu Buhari among several other allies from here. To its credit, the North has also paid back in good measure. I am the flag bearer of our party today partly because of the decision of the Northern APC Governors who rose to the occasion by standing up for our country and unity of our people, as against primordial considerations. By so doing, they have demonstrated that indeed the North is a region that keeps its words and always promotes Justice. Permit me to reiterate that I have the competence, knowledge and experience to provide good leadership to this country and run it very well. I am not an Island. However, I have demonstrated capacity to attract and work with the best hands to build enduring legacies. While humbly soliciting your support, I assure you I will be with you shoulder to shoulder on this journey”. Contrary to Atiku’s reactionary thinking, Nigeria today does not need a northern or southern President but a competent and knowledgeable Chief Executive with demonstrated track record of running a productive, result-oriented and inclusive administration capable of uniting Nigerians across sectional, primordial divides. Well before Atiku openly showed his ethnic hand in Kaduna, this column had analyzed his divisive strategy in a piece published here on Saturday, October 1, 2022, and which I reproduce below today)

He is a battle tested politician who is not unfamiliar with the complex intrigues and manoeuvrings of party and electoral competition. It is thus surprising that the campaign of the presidential candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, continues to be dogged by some of the poor decision making that plagued his earlier failed attempts to be elected to the country’s apex political office of President. As a veteran in the game, one would have expected Atiku to pursue what is evidently his last bid for the coveted office with a lot more tact and wisdom. He projects himself as a ‘unifier-in-chief’ with the capacity, if elected, of forging greater cohesion in a country admittedly badly fragmented along primordial lines. Yet, Atiku has given the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) the opportunity to brand him as a ‘divider-in-chief’ given the virtual civil war that rages in his party since his emergence as its presidential flag bearer raising questions as regards his ability to unite the country if he cannot offer cohesive leadership to his party.

Atiku’s emergence as the PDP’s presidential candidate was in violation of the party’s constitutional provision for rotation of presidential power between the northern and southern parts of the country although the presidential primary was ostensibly free, fair and transparent. Incidentally, his choice as Vice-Presidential candidate, Delta State governor, Dr. Ifeanyi Okowa, was an active participant in meetings of the Southern Governors Forum (SGF) at which it was resolved that the presidency shift back to the South after eight years in power of President Muhammadu Buhari from the North. Of course, the power rotation principle is neither a creation of the SGF nor is it simply an intra-party provision of the PDP constitution. It is an unwritten elite compact among dominant factions of the political class cutting across party lines since 1999 having its roots in the unjust annulment of the June 1993, presidential election won by the late Chief MKO Abiola on the platform of the defunct Social Democratic Party (SDP).

Prior to Abiola’s electoral victory in 1993, widely acknowledged as the freest and fairest polls in the country’s history, apex executive power had been domiciled in the north between the beginning of the second republic in 1979 under one civilian administration and two military regimes and the historic election.  It was inevitable that the annulment of the election of a Yoruba President-elect by a northern-led military regime further strained inter- ethnic relations with regard to power sharing in the country. The protracted struggle against military dictatorship spurred by the annulment led to the consequent retreat of the military from the political space and the democratic restoration of 1999. In compensation for the injustice of the annulment, the presidency was conceded to the South- West by hegemonic factions of the political class resulting in General Olusegun Obasanjo and Chief Olu Falae of the PDP and Alliance for Democracy (AD) respectively being the only contestants for the office in 1999 with Obasanjo winning an emphatic victory with the support of the dominant political elite of the North, South-South and South-East.

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After eight years of the Obasanjo presidency between 1999 and 2007, presidential power rotated back to the North with the election of the late President Umaru Yar’Adua. The latter’s untimely death in 2010 led to the constitutional ascension to office of his Deputy, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan from the South, who completed his late boss’s tenure and successfully ran for his own full term and won in the 2011 election. It is instructive that, despite being from a minority ethnic group, Jonathan achieved victory in 2011 with the support of the dominant political elite of parts of the North, the South-East, South-South and even the South-West following the collapse of the working relationship between Buhari’s defunct Congress of Progressive Change (CPC) and Asiwaju Tinubu’s Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) and the latter supporting Jonathan.

Dr. Jonathan’s decision to contest for a second term in 2015 split the PDP down the middle with prominent northern leaders of the party including Atiku insisting that it was the turn of the North to produce the President. That crack was a key contributory factor to the victory of the then nascent APC in 2015 with the opposition party displacing an incumbent government at the centre for the first time in the country’s history. It is thus astonishing that after eight years of Buhari’s tenure, Atiku, another Fulani, sees nothing wrong in his seeking to wield presidential power for possibly another eight years until 2031! The argument that the last PDP President, Dr. Jonathan, was from the South and that this justifies an Atiku presidency is self-serving and unconvincing. The rotational presidency principle transcends party demarcations and applies to the nation as a whole. Given the current fragile state of Nigeria’s cohesion, a part of the country cannot monopolize presidential power for sixteen years without negative implications for national harmony. There must first and foremost be a stable, united and peaceful country before there can be a functional and effective political party.

Atiku’s strategists contend that his choice as the PDP presidential candidate is only a matter of pragmatic electoral strategizing as of all the contenders within the party, he has the best stature and structure to win a nationwide election. Yet, they criticize and deride the APC’s Muslim-Muslim ticket disregarding the party’ argument that the pairing provides the most tactical and strategic choice to guarantee its victory in the presidential election. Speaking at a stakeholders meeting of his party in Enugu last week, Atiku described himself as a “stepping stone” for the South-East to produce a president. He gave no rational explanation why this is so. According to him, “I’ve had a close relationship with the Igbo and this influenced my choices of Senator Ben Obi and Mr. Peter Obi as my running mates in my two previous outings as a presidential candidate…I have three children with Igbo blood flowing in them. I am saying this for the very first time in public. So, my relationship with Ndigbo did not start today”.

True, the Igbo have put all their political eggs in the PDP basket since 1999. The South-East has been the most solid and consistent electoral support base of the PDP in this dispensation. The region deserves the PDP’s presidential ticket. If he is indeed the unifier and patriot that he projects, why couldn’t Atiku support an Igbo presidential candidate and back such a person with his perceived influence and structure? Perhaps in that case, a Peter Obi would have remained in the party. As it is now, the strong possibility of Obi’s Labour Party (LP) understandably eating deeply into the PDP’s support base in the South-East is one of the reasons why The Economist Intelligence Unit has projected victory for the APC in the presidential election.

Taking a dig at the APC during the Enugu meeting, Atiku stated that the second Niger Bridge about being completed by the Buhari administration is not a favour to the South-East but to Nigeria as the country as a whole will benefit from the facility. But if Atiku loves the South-East so much, why did the administration in which he served for eight years as Vice President do absolutely nothing to actualize the second Niger Bridge and other infrastructure projects in the region being implemented by the APC government?

Given his presumed political experience, it is surprising that Atiku is handling in a most cavalier manner the continued disaffection and dissension of the governor Nyesom Wike tendency in the party over the jettisoning of the zoning principle, his choice of running mate and the non-resignation of Dr. Iyorchia Ayu as National Chairman following the emergence of a northerner as presidential candidate. Atiku insists that Ayu’s continuation as party Chairman will no longer be tenable only if he wins the election and becomes President since both key positions cannot be occupied by persons from the same region. This not only negates the ordinarily principled Ayu’s promise to quit the position if a northerner became the presidential candidate before his election as Chairman, it creates the impression that Atiku is himself lacking in confidence as regards the probability of his winning the election. A National Chairman of southern extraction to succeed Ayu and achieve the regional balance being demanded can easily be actualized and necessary personnel changes effected to meet intra-party constitutional stipulations if Atiku possesses the political acumen and astuteness he is often credited with.

In any case, this is a completely avoidable crisis and a recurring pattern in Atiku’s leadership style. In 2007, he picked Senator Ben Obi as his running mate on the platform of the Action Congress (AC) without consultations with critical stakeholders of the party resulting in grievances that negatively affected the party’s performance in the election. PDP governors in the South-East were largely indifferent to Atiku’s campaign in 2019 because they were reportedly not carried along in the choice of Peter Obi as is running mate. And this time around, he could surely have handled his choice of Okowa as his running mate much better bending over backwards to carry along the diverse tendencies in the party particularly the not insubstantial Wike sympathizers.

But then, Atiku is not daft. He deliberately and consciously went all out to get the PDP presidential ticket despite the party’s zoning principle benefitting from Governor Aminu Tambuwal’s cynical skewed regional antics in the process. His support for the three critical offices/roles of National Chairman, Presidential Candidate and Director General of the Presidential Campaign to be allotted to northerners is deliberate. Asked during his last Arise TV interview how he would be affected by the choice of the APC Vice presidential candidate, Mr. Kashim Shettima, from the North-East, Atiku responded that Shettima is a minority Kanuri with presence in two states while he is Fulani with support base in more states. Atiku’s strategy is to sell himself as the candidate of the North in general and the Hausa-Fulani in particular in the hope that the South will be divided between the APC and LP. It is a divisive strategy but unlikely to fly.

It was the Northern governors in the APC who insisted that the party’s presidential ticket be zoned to the South in the interest of fair play and justice. Their support was pivotal to the emergence of Tinubu as the party’s presidential flag bearer. President Buhari could have used the power and influence of his office to steer the APC presidential primaries towards a different outcome. He did not and is the Chairman of the party’s Presidential Campaign Council. Whatever anybody may say, Buhari remains a political cult figure among teeming millions in the north.

Tinubu himself has cultivated and maintained enduring close relationships with prominent stakeholders in northern politics over the last three decades. It is not for nothing that he is the Jagaban of Borgu. The APC northern governors have far more to gain working for the APC to retain power after Buhari than for the victory of an Atiku who cannot be relied upon to keep promises or abide by pledges. The Waziri Adamawa’s divisive northern strategy is from all indications Dead on Arrival (DOA).

It is certainly not for nothing that that veritable master of the written word, the eminent monarch of the imaginative universe, Professor Femi Osofisan, agreed to lend his illustrious imprimatur to this new collection of poems by the journalist, essayist, scholar, poet and politician, Dr. Tunde Olusunle, by penning its most pungent and incisive foreword. In the words of Professor Osofisan, “These new poems reveal a voice that has matured over the years, grown wiser if somewhat more somber now, chastened by experience and adult disillusionment. The long silence of course must have been difficult for the poet, although serving in a political post, it was inevitable. But it seems to have served as a period of useful incubation, and it is a relief that Olusunle has reconnected with his muse again, and recovered his voice”. Continuing, Professor Osofisan writes, “Certainly it is a return worth celebrating. The poet has attained a firmer control of lexicon and syntax, of pulse and kinetics, tension and concatenation – all these nuances of verbal logistics that make for fluid syncopation and melodic ease”.

This collection which runs into 78 pages is divided into four sections, namely, ‘Wandering Echoes’, ‘Sombre Echoes’, ‘Angry Echoes’ and’ Earthy Echoes’. The first section is the longest and has 16 poems. It shows the poet as a widely travelled cosmopolitan citizen of the world with a keen eye for observation and an uncommon sensitivity to the sounds, scents, smells, history and occurrences of any environment in which he finds himself both within and outside the country. The descriptive vividness of this section can, of course, not be surprising to those who are familiar with the poet’s career as one of the most perceptive, observant and imaginative feature writers of his generation during his period of journalistic practice. On his several trips across the country on various assignments for the defunct Daily Times newspaper, the author wrote vivid feature articles on the various towns and cities he visited painting vivid portraits of the geographical outlay and social life of such places as Kaduna, Kano, Ibadan, Ilorin, Jos, Enugu, Owerri, Markurdi among several others.

In the most interesting first section where he reports poetically on various historic places both within and beyond Nigeria that he has visited, Olusunle comes across as a meticulous chronicler of the lives, strengths and foibles of diverse peoples across time and space. Writing on Istanbul, Turkey, for instance, the poet rhapsodizes: “Istanbul:/Your stone-locked streets/Ascending, then descending/Rising, then sloping/Narrow, narrower still/Than London streets./Where hotels and taverns/Microtels and motels/Adorn the cityscape/Embracing the world, all the world/In one oriental honeypot”. Continuing with his graphic lyrical portrait of the ancient city, the poet continues “Istanbul:/Intriguing mosaic/Of a million Mehmettan relics/Splashed, splattered/Across the medieval cityscape:/Churches and chapels/Museums and mausoleums/Mosques and minarets, palaces, parks/Voyeurs and locals/Savour the evening wind/In sky top clubs and wooden cafes”.

No less fascinating is Dr. Olusunle’s poetic depiction of the city of Chicago. Here, he invites the reader to: “O, come with me/To Mag Mile/Jaw-dropping continuum/Prodigious panoply/Of glittering steel/And shimmering glass/Rock-hard concrete/And the snaking run/Of Chicago River”. Capturing with photographic accuracy the competing gigantic and iconic structures that define the city’s landscape, the poet calls on the reader: “O, witness this eyeful duel/Of skyscraping gladiators/ Where century-high Willis Heights/Casts an imperious stare/Down the metallic visage/Of the gleaming Trump Towers/Aon Centre and John Hancock’s/Twin bemused contenders in the steeple/To graze the calm-faced skies”.

There is a hint of sadness and pain in the poet’s offering on Tinapa, in Cross River State. Here the governor of the state between 1999 and 2007, Mr. Donald Duke, had conceptualized an ambitious project designed to make Tinapa and by extension Cross River State a touristic centre, which would be the equivalent of Dubai in Nigeria. This does not appear to be a dream shared by his successors Thus, the poet reports of the Tinapa dream: “You lie lifeless, ghostly/Desolate, derelict/This Calabar noon day/Your Metalled frameworks/Rusted/Concrete driveways/Parched and dusted/Lawns, landscapes/Weedy, disheveled/Your aggregate visage/A canvass of caked spyrogyra/Echoing sad memories of Ajaokuta/Itakpe/Oku-Iboku/Taraku/And the brimful harvest/Of monuments and treasures/Dreams slaughtered/On the butcher’s slab/Of our collective amnesia”.

The poet’s disappointment is no less evident as he ruminates on Lokoja, the Kogi State capital in the poem ‘Lokoja revisited’. In his words, “You lie there/Still/Stunted, stymied, squirming/Gazing helplessly into the/Melancholic sockets of the noon clouds/ Like the remains/Of a war-worsted fiefdom”. And what is the root cause of this lamentable fate that has befallen Lokoja? The Poet’s diagnosis puts the blame firmly on the shoulders of incompetent and visionless leadership. According to him, “You lie there/Spent/A failed harvest/Of primordial promise/Your fat, frittered and ferried/To foreign vaults by/Rogue-rulers, brutish bandits/You lie there/A humongous cadaver/The putrefaction of your carcass/Rousing the remains of Lugard/And the heroes of yestertimes/From the mortal recesses/Of deserved rest”.

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In poems like Makurdi and Port Harcourt, however, the poet sounds a more upbeat and optimistic note. Of the former, for instance, he literarily sings: “Makurdi beckons to me/This blistering noon/When the amber-faced sun/Sits sky-high in its luminous ate/Draped in the Zebra colours/Of the silky anger/Streams of sweat dripping down/Its torrid torso”. His ode to Makurdi gets even more melodious as the poet contemplates the local cuisines of the city with which he is obviously very familiar. As he puts it, “Makurdi drenches my ears/With the plodding, pounding acapella/Of busy mortars/Sweaty biceps strangle/The helpless necks of wooden pestles/Kneading balls and balls of luam kumen/Ah, my tongue dreams/A buffet with ashwe, and adenger/Garnished with nyam toho”.

In the poem, Port Harcourt, the poet captures the contrast between the vast oil wealth of the city just like other parts of the Niger Delta and the desultory living conditions of the people. Thus, he invites us, “Let us go to Port Harcourt/Long-necklaced the “Garden City/Where petro-dollars gurgle and gush/Beneath seedy swamps and breeding backhouses/Luring questing minds and quisling feet From across all the earth”. He continues in this vein: “Let us go to Port Harcourt/Oil-pampered, growth-deprived/Where thatched havens sit and squat/Upon the face of spyrogyra-ed waters/In stilted slums and squirming space/Atop infinite riches and wealth”. Even then, this does not stop the poet from contemplating and savoring the culinary delights of the Garden City as he writes: “Let us go to Port Harcourt/Where the enchanting/Lavender of roast plantain/And yam slices/Croaker and catfish/Titus and tilapia/Wafts and wanders/Through the thin neck/Of evening breeze”.

The perennial busyness of Nicon Hilton, now Transcorp Hilton, one of the most prominent hotels in Abuja and the delight of the cream of Nigeria’s socio-political and economic elite does not escape the attention of the poet. Capturing the going and coming of the elite in their assortment of luxury vehicles to and from the hotel, Olusunle writes: “Your portals, Nicon/Ever busy hosts/Of a myriad customized machines/Coming, going, going, coming/Through bump-dotted boulevards/ Like a tireless column/Of armoured-ants”. He notes further of Nicon Hilton that “Hitech shoes rap, tap a rhythm/On the sprawling mat/Of the marbled lobby/As the verbal chaos/Of lethal politicking, suicidal intrigue/And plots to lacerate our oil wealth/Rule the winds”. Olusunle reveals that “Nicon Hilton never sleeps/Liquors and lewd lyrics/Dance and prance and hawkers too/Swaying teats, juicy like apples/Swinging backsides, sculpted like artefacts/At Capital Bar and Safari Club and Nightcap/Roll each night into day/Each day into night”.

No less vivid and gripping in the first section of this collection are the poet’s depiction of places like Ibadan, 8115 Vilakazi Street, Nelson Mandela’s historic home in South Africa, Lagos, Iyuku, a community in northern Edo State, Argungu, a town in Kebbi State and Zuma rock in Abuja. The poem, ‘Penteconmen’ included in this section is a blistering onslaught on the phenomenon of Pentecostal superstar pastors. Olusunle is clearly not enamored of their antics. Thus, he bemoans “Psyche-manipulators, emotion-fiddlers/Penteconmen garbed in Pradas/Guccis and Kleins/Prance about the face/Of marbled pulpits/Spewing alien tongues/Hypnotizing gullible followers…/Alas/Will the scales of mass narcosis/One day fall off the visage/Of our credulous folks?”. This section of the collection also offers useful geography and history lessons as the poet gives detailed background information on names of places, personalities and historic events that the reader may be unfamiliar with.

An oft-stated tale of Lagos’s once-notorious traffic jams is that of a taxi passenger stuck in a snarl-up who left the vehicle, wandered into a roadside restaurant to eat, drank a beer, took a nap, and returned to the vehicle that had not moved an inch. He reached his destination several hours later.

First-time visitors to Lagos about 10 years ago were warned, “This is Lagos.” That meant that you should not expect help from anyone – but brace up for hard times ahead. Fast–forward to 2016 and the traffic congestion, high crime rate, clogged drainages, and roads filled with garbage could soon become just a bad dream. These days Lagosians still regale each other with anecdotes of the dystopian city even as positive changes can be seen in Africa’s most populous city, with 21 million people. These days the greeting “Welcome to Lagos” portends better news.

Those were the words of the journalist, Kingsley Ighobor, writing in the April 2016 edition of the United Nations Journal, ‘Africa Renewal’, in the magazine’s ‘Focus on Cities’ section. He continued, “The transformation of Lagos started during the tenure of Bola Tinubu, Lagos State governor from 1999 to 2007. Mr. Tinubu set forth a rescue operation that his successor, Babatunde Fashola, later continued. There were political and economic benefits for such efforts. “Lagos is Nigeria’s richest state, producing about $90 billion a year in goods and services, making its economy bigger than that of most African countries, including Ghana and Kenya, notes the Economist.”

Yet, despite the glaring evidence of positive change across Lagos before their very eyes, there are some public intellectuals and journalists who purvey what can only be described as a deliberate falsehood that the country’s commercial nerve centre has made no progress since 1999.

An example is The Punch columnist, Abimbola Adelakun, who in her column of Thursday, July 14, 2022, wrote, “Lagos is one of the most dysfunctional cities in the world, and several objective assessments have demonstrated so. Lagos sits at the bottom of every rating that measures the liveability of cities worldwide. Year in and year out, the administrators of Lagos get exposed as a bunch of phonies. During the rainy season especially, their shoddy infrastructure collapses on their faces and their cluelessness is revealed. The only thing going for those who trot out the silly defence of their paymaster is that most of their audience have never seen an actual city before in their entire lives, and therefore have no framework for a reasonable comparison. That is why they dutifully regurgitate the lines of “Lagos is working” when they do not know what a working city looks like.”

Not minding the condescending and insulting arrogance of a columnist who probably moves around blindfolded anytime she is in Lagos, what is astounding is the magnitude of the sheer intellectual dishonesty of Adelakun. She is an Assistant Professor in a prestigious American university and unflinching fidelity to truth is supposed to be the hallmark of the genuine intellectual. The way she resorts to careless and empirically unsupported generalizations does not indicate the sobriety, cautiousness and restraint of the meticulous scholar. It is pertinent to wonder how and what she teaches her students. Is it true that there has been no positive transformation in Lagos whatsoever over the last two decades? This is entirely fictional and does the reputation and credibility of this otherwise brilliant writer no good.

A look at the news reports and feature pages of the major newspapers when Tinubu clocked 100 days in office in August 1999 reveals the utter chaos and anarchy that prevailed in Lagos at the time. The entire city from the rural areas to the elite residential preserves was suffocating under mountains of refuse. Heavy and destructive flooding accompanied rains as a result of either blocked or non-existent drainage channels. That was not the flash flooding witnessed now, which drains off in less than an hour after rains, and is a normal feature of coastal cities even in the most advanced countries in the world. The short journey from Ikeja to Ojota through Oregun, for instance, could take several hours on the then one-lane road that was riddled with potholes and craters. Today the Kudirat Abiola Road, Oregun is a double-lane highway equipped with sidewalks, traffic lights, duct pipes, drainage channels, and traffic medians. Two decades after its construction, the road does not have even a single pothole.

The same is true of other major roads constructed, dualized, and modernized under Tinubu such as Awolowo Road, Ikoyi; Akin Adesola Road, Victoria Island; Adeolu Odeku Road, Victoria Island; Agege Motor Road; Ikotun-Igando Road; Yaba-Itire-Lawanson-Ojuelegba Road; LASU-Iba Road, Ojo; Ajah-Badore Road, Eti-Osa; Oba Sekumade Road, Ikorodu; Adetokun Ademola Road, Victoria Island and the Lekki-Epe Expressway to name a few. No more is Lagos routinely described as one of the dirtiest cities in the world as used to be the case in 1999 as an effective Private Sector Participation (PSP) system in waste management has been institutionalized and the Lagos State Waste Management Authority (LAWMA) has been re-equipped and modernized to handle industrial waste in Lagos. Indeed, the challenge of refuse has been turned into a job creation opportunity with thousands of men and women gainfully engaged through the PSP scheme.

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As at 1999, car snatching and bank robberies in broad daylight were daily occurrences in Lagos. The security situation in the state was anarchic. An insensitive President Olusegun Obasanjo described the state as an urban jungle in Y2000 without lifting a finger to help Lagos or compensate the state for her enormous economic contribution to the polity. Lagos contributes the highest component of Value Added Tax (VAT), Petroleum Tax Fund (PTF), Education Tax Fund (ETF) among others all of which accrue to the Federation Account and are shared among all tiers of government. Through re-organizing, re-equipping, and providing better motivation for the Rapid Response Squad (RRS), a detachment of the Federal Government controlled Nigeria Police Force (NPF), as well as the establishment of the Lagos State Neighbourhood Watch Security Corp, among other initiatives; the megacity has become one of the safest havens in a country confronted with severe security challenges. The Mr. Babatunde Raji Fashola administration consolidated on the foundation laid by Tinubu on security through the establishment of the Lagos State Security Trust Fund (LSSTF) just as the Mr. Akinwumi Ambode administration enhanced the state’s employment generation capacity by creating the Lagos State Employment Trust Fund.

Anyone who asserts with Adelakun’s kind of authoritative ignorance that Lagos has not progressed over the last two decades must be living in outer space. Before 1999, the transport landscape in Lagos State used to be dominated by the notorious molue buses as well as the unruly yellow danfo buses. While the former is becoming extinct now, the latter is gradually and methodically being phased out. The riotous and dangerous okada operators are also being eliminated from Lagos roads in phases by the governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu administration. The Lagos State Traffic Management Authority (LASTMA), which is a permanent feature on Lagos roads today maintaining traffic sanity, was non-existent in 1999. Today, the revolutionary Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system begun by the Tinubu administration is being systematically extended across diverse routes throughout Lagos State. The ultra-modern buses are decent, clean, comfortable, and safer despite inevitable mishaps on occasions. The 27 km Lagos Blue Line Rail Mass Transit which will run from Lagos Marina-Orile Iganmu- Mile 2- Okokomaiko and ultimately down to Badagry will commence commercial shuttles in January 2023 while the Red Line which runs from Agbado to Lagos Marina will come on stream in the first quarter of next year.

As the Commissioner for The Environment, Mr. Tunji Bello, explained on an online platform recently, “Asiwaju Tinubu designed seven rail lines for Lagos in 2005 and I was a member of his cabinet as well as a member of the committee that designed it including the present governor. First was a cabinet team sent to three South American countries that came back and we decided through modifications that Lagos needed part of what we saw. Out of our committee came seven rail lines out of which Fashola who succeeded him started the Blue Line. And Sanwo-Olu who was also a member of the team started the Red Line. The Green Line is for the Lekki corridor all the way to Epe and Epe to connect the Purple Line to Ikorodu.

Mr. Bello continued: “Tinubu also started the Lekki-Epe Expressway and I was in the negotiating team with the consortium that financed it. A senior lawyer in this our estate was one of the lawyers for the consortium. Setting up the toll gate was part of the ways to be able to pay back the funds raised by the consortium. Just like when they claimed Tinubu owned Oriental Hotel and I laughed. My ministry gave the Hong Kong owner of the Steel Company in Ogba, Ikeja, and the famous owner of the former Golden Crown Chinese restaurant since the 1970s the drainage clearance to build that hotel and when they were opening it they labeled the underground restaurant thereafter Tinubu and some have repeatedly said Tinubu owned it despite the owner’s repeated claim.”

Incidentally, the whole stretch along which such iconic structures like Oriental Hotel, the Civic Centre, and the Boat Club lie today along Ozumba Mbadiwe Way, was as at 1999 a vast refuse dump. Before 1999, there was a perennial flood at the Bar Beach, which not only destroyed properties on Ahmadu Bello Way, forcing the Federal Government as well as state governments to abandon their guest houses and liaison offices along that stretch but also threatened the submergence of large swathes of Victoria Island. The Federal Government annually spent about N4 billion to pour sand into the ocean to prevent flooding to no avail. At the request of the Tinubu administration, the Federal Government handed over the beach to Lagos State and a bar beach flood prevention line was first constructed later this challenge was transformed into the ongoing construction of the Eko Atlantic City, a brand new city emerging from the bowels of the ocean. Last month, the United States announced that it is building its largest embassy in the world in Eko Atlantic City.

Today, the entire country is waiting on the take off of the Dangote Refinery to stop the embarrassing importation of refined petroleum and the massive fiscal hemorrhage occasioned by the opaque and fraudulent fuel subsidy payments. The facility is located on the Lekki Free Trade Zone, another notable Tinubu initiative, which is only one of several signature projects being undertaken in that axis, which certainly ranks among the fastest developing corridors in Africa. There are those who argue that Lagos State would still have developed at this pace even without Tinubu as governor. That is crass ignorance. Yes, Colonel Mobolaji Johnson helped lay a solid foundation for the state, Governor Lateef Jakande made impressive path-breaking strides and General Buba Marwa had flashes of brilliance in his short term as administrator. But Tinubu’s administration brought a paradigm shift in the governance of the state that unleashed the current unprecedented level of transformation.

A former Solicitor-General of the State and Commissioner of Lands in the Tinubu administration, Mr. Fola Arthur Worrey, gives an example of Tinubu’s exemplary developmental leadership in this regard in a 2012 essay. In his words, “For special projects, Lagos State was the first state to approach the capital market to raise development funds through the issuance of bonds, and these development bonds were successfully floated. Again this was a first even though the laws enabling the process had been on the books for years. It was a very involved process requiring a deep understanding of the financial and legal requirements and market factors especially how investors would react to state government bond offers, but the mix of Tinubu’s top-notch knowledge of financial systems with the legal and financial knowledge inherent in his team and among the civil servants in the finance and budget ministries and the debt office, the fact that Asiwaju had ensured that there was an up-to-date state finances audit report (a rare event), and with the input of external experts, we saw it through…Now, virtually every state relies on the floating of bonds to raise vital development funds, though not all of them get it right as we saw in a recent case. So here again was Asiwaju, changing the paradigm and setting the pace for the rest of the country to follow.”