The Nation Newspaper

Category: Segun Ayobolu

  • Shades of violence

    Shades of violence

    It is now over three decades since I first read the gripping novel simply titled ‘Violence’, written by Professor Festus Iyayi, the renowned academic, literary giant, humanist and labour activist whose life was cut short on Tuesday in the most painful and tragic circumstances. The distinguished thinker, writer and combatant for the oppressed died in active service while participating in another phase of the struggle against those debilitating and dehumanising existential realities so graphically depicted in his various literary offerings.

    Although it was his second novel, ‘Heroes’ that won him international recognition and acclaim, ‘Violence’ has made a more enduring impression on my mind. Close to three decades after its publication, it still vividly reflects the appalling human condition in post-colonial Nigeria. Indeed, in many ways the country’s material and moral climate have worsened significantly since Iyayi was inspired to put pen to paper.

    The unscrupulous contractors, thieving government functionaries, powerful women of valueless virtue and other oppressive and exploitative elements portrayed in the book have become even more venal and reckless today in the plundering of the country’s resources than was the case in the 1970s and 1980s. By the same token, the plight of the downtrodden represented in the book by the struggling labourer, Idemudia, and his wife, Adisa, has degenerated abysmally. Poverty, hunger, joblessness, disease, illiteracy and other indices of underdevelopment have worsened. The criminal inequality between an obscenely wealthy elite and the impoverished majority has widened alarmingly.

    Iyayi teaches us in that book that the phenomenon of violence has much wider ramifications than is often associated with it in casual discourse. All too often, we restrict our definition of violence to the despicable activities of armed robbers, kidnappers, rapists, assassins, demented terrorists and other criminals. Yet, he contends that there is a far more insidious and destructive form of violence. This kind of latent or ‘structural’ violence provides the fertile ground in which the earlier, more perceptible types of violence fester to our collective detriment.

    Thus, the assorted and manifold looters of the public treasury including pension fund fraudsters, fuel subsidy scammers, scavenging bank executives, thieving ministers, unscrupulous legislators and their humongous allowances among others are perpetrators of structural violence against society. The late Afro beat king, Fela Anikulapo Kuti, made the same point in his chartbusting album, ‘Authority Stealing’. He sang memorably about the armed robber who steals one thousand Naira while the pen robber steals one million Naira.

    Yes, the fanatical terrorist destroys thousands of lives with his bombs. But the corrupt state official who steals billions of public funds consigns millions to poverty, hunger, disease, squalor, despair and joblessness. Corruption is as devastating as terrorism. One form of bombing is no less destructive than the other.

    It is a sad irony that Professor Iyayi, who dissected the phenomenon of violence with such brilliance and clarity towards the liberation of the oppressed, should himself have his life violently snuffed out on the death traps we call high ways across Nigeria. The circumstances of the distinguished professor’s untimely transition help to highlight the diverse shades of state violence that militate against life, liberty and human dignity in contemporary Nigeria. In that respect, the manner of his exit is as useful to the struggle for the liberation of Nigeria as the prodigious energy he expended to help realize this objective in his lifetime.

    The pathetic state of major highways across the country is a manifestation of the vicious violence perpetrated against citizens by the Nigerian state. This violence takes the form of massive corruption and sheer ineptness. Given the stupendous sums of money made from petroleum in the last 14 years, there is absolutely no excuse for the non-existence across Nigeria today of a vast network of modern and safe highways. Equally inexplicable is the absence of a modern, secure and reliable rail transport network that would considerably ease the pressure on road transportation.

    Describing the Lokoja-Abuja road where Professor Iyayi died as “arguably one of the busiest in the country”, the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) lamented that “The contract for its dualisation was awarded about 10 years ago. Quite sadly and unfortunately, no appreciable work has been done, thus turning the stretch into a slaughter slab…The congress holds the view that there is no justification for leaving this road and indeed other critical roads undone”.

    This tragically is the story of most critical inter-state highways in Nigeria today. On September 21, 2005, the one time students’ union leader, pro-democracy activist, human rights campaigner and anti-corruption crusader, Chima Ubani, died in a motor accident on his way from Maiduguri where he had participated in an anti- fuel price hike rally. And on December 20, 2008, the renowned actor, dramatist, teacher and poet, Femi Fatoba, lost his life along with four other colleagues in an auto accident along the Ughelli/Patani road in Delta State.

    The deceased were returning to Ibadan from the Niger Delta University, Wilberforce Island, Bayelsa State where they were teachers. Of course, these are only a tiny fraction of the thousands of little known but equally precious lives that have been lost on roads criminally abandoned by a negligent Nigerian state.

    The accident in which Professor Iyayi died was as a result of a collision with a vehicle in the convoy of Kogi State Governor, Wada Idris, on the Lokoja-Abuja road. The escort vehicle in the convoy was reportedly trying to overtake others when it ran into the bus conveying Iyayi and other officials of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU). Efforts of Kogi State officials to exonerate the governor’s convoy from blame for the tragedy have been most unconvincing. For, Governor Wada himself nearly lost his life a few months ago when his reckless convoy was involved in another crash. The NLC was thus right in blaming Iyayi’sdeath partly on “executive lawlessness/impunity on the part of the Kogi state governor.”

    Excessively unwieldy, boisterous and aggressive convoys constitute another shade of psychological violence unleashed against the people by wielders of state power in Nigeria.

    Now, why was Professor Iyayi on the Lokoja-Abuja road where he was involved in the fatal accident that claimed his life? He was on his way to Kano to participate in the National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting convened by ASUU to take a decision on its protracted strike action that had paralyzed public universities for over four months. Surely, if the universities had been properly funded there would probably have been no need for a strike. Or to be more specific, if the Federal Government had honoured the agreement it freely entered into with ASUU in 2009 and further reiterated through a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) in 2012, the prolonged strike action would have been utterly unnecessary.

    It is so sad that it was after public universities had been grounded for over four months that President Goodluck Jonathan considered it fit to intervene personally in the dispute and hold talks with the university lecturers. Professor Iyayi died on his way to participate in ASUU’s deliberations on the President’s proposals. Of course some will contend that Iyayi would still have died anyway if it had been so destined, probably. But this does not excuse the utter lack of seriousness with which the Federal Government has handled this national crisis.

    To worsen matters, the Minister of State for Education and lately Supervising Minister of the Ministry, Chief Nyesom Wike, has been actively pursuing his undisguised 2015 governorship ambition in Rivers State rather than face the responsibilities of his office. Despite the prolonged closure of universities he has been busy launching his Grassroots Democratic Initiative (GDI) across local governments in the state and constituting a nuisance to legitimate governance in Rivers. The presidency’s indulgence of this kind of irresponsible behaviour creates the unfortunate impression of utter contempt for Nigerians. It is a direct slap on the face of the public and offers another example of the structural violence against the sensibilities and dignity of Nigerians by temporary occupants of public office

  • A case of political schizophrenia

    A case of political schizophrenia

    These are truly most interesting times in Nigeria. This is a season when most of us are born again yet remain firmly rooted in our sins. We are all elated at being members of the kingdom of God but continue to hold tenaciously to and enjoy the bounties of the kingdom of Satan – a veritable spiritual dual citizenship. Janus faced, we exhibit the uncanny capacity to look simultaneously in two fundamentally opposite directions; to bask self-righteously in the radiance of light while at the same insisting on savouring, surreptitiously, the destructive pleasures of darkness. Ours appears to be the political equivalent of the medical condition known as schizophrenia – the coexistence within the same entity of essentially contradictory and incompatible impulses.

    Shortly before the country’s 53rd independence anniversary on October 1, our beloved President Goodluck Jonathan apparently experienced an epiphany. The light shone brilliantly around him and dispelled all forms of presidential darkness. Spurred by what must have been a divine revelation, our President suddenly became a born again federalist – or something of the sort. In a most moving exhibition both of humility and courage, the Commander-In-Chief ate his previous words, confessed his past constitutional obduracy, repented of his former Unitarian doctrine and affirmed his new faith in a national conference as the inevitable path to the country’s redemption.

    Please do not mind the cynics. They claim that it is all an elaborate exercise in trickery. For them, the timing of the President’s purported constitutional rebirth is quite suspicious. A fierce civil war rages within his party. Even if Dr Jonathan clinches the party’s ticket for his barely disguised second term bid, the PDP has suffered considerable damage as a formidable vote harvesting machine. And this is happening at a time when, against all odds, the opposition is gradually forging and consolidating a cohesive front. To worsen matters, it is argued, there is precious little to show for the President’s much trumpeted transformation agenda more than half way through his tenure.

    Well, if the emergency preoccupation with a national conference or dialogue or conversation – sovereign or otherwise – is an effort at political distraction, you must applaud the President’s handlers for the sheer brilliance of their strategy. For, the manoeuvre is certainly succeeding well beyond their wildest imagination. Just look at it. The prospect of a national conference is such a juicy bone that there is a frenzied scramble to partake of the delicacy. Hardy pro-democratic activists, doughty ex-Generals, wizened Awoists, seasoned senior advocates, trenchant ethnic entrepreneurs, cerebral academics and much more have all been charmed. For them, it is a national conference or nothing.

    It does not matter to the pro-national conference enthusiasts that President Jonathan has signalled his intention to forward the proposals of any such concourse for the consideration and approval of the National Assembly. Not even the President’s thunderous silence on their vehement protestations that the outcome of the conference be subject only to a popular referendum has dampened the ardour of pro-national conference elements.

    President Jonathan must find it difficult believing the sheer scale of his good luck. Just think of the implications of this manoeuvre. The 2015 elections suddenly do not matter anymore. There will unlikely be any need to account for unfulfilled electoral promises. Neither will there be the inconvenience of having to answer awkward questions on a transformation agenda that promised so much but has so far delivered so little and shows no indication of making any dramatic impact. Whoever dreamt up this idea most certainly deserves an armoured BMW luxury car or two as compensation.

    If the pro-national conference elements have their way, then the opposition both at the centre and the states will surely be in a quandary. For, the opportunity to constitutionally contest for political power will be put on hold until the expiration of the dialogue, which may be an indefinite, open-ended affair. Meanwhile, the incumbent occupants of public office at all levels will remain securely in power superintending the emergence of a new order. Beneficiaries of a supposedly iniquitous status quo will thus be expected to usher in a new era of fundamental change that erodes the foundation of their political advantage. This can be nothing but sheer illusion. Pray, can there be any more subtle yet exceedingly effective tenure elongation agenda?

    But in what way does this amount to what we have described as the political equivalent of schizophrenia? Now, President Goodluck Jonathan poses as a born again advocate of a constitutional conference. To the extent that he hitherto was vehemently opposed to the idea, his claim of repentance and change is valid. However, the President from all indications remains fiercely determined to actualise his constitutional right to seek a second term in office. But that constitutional right emanates from the discredited 1999 constitution, which advocates of a sovereign national conference want discarded!

    If the President has seen the light and now supports fundamental constitutional change through a national conference, it means that he agrees that the 1999 constitution on which his political legitimacy rests is incurably defective. What then should be the logical outcome of the President’s professed new political orientation? It is simply that his purported political and ideological rebirth cannot be a half way affair. Rather, he must be thoroughly and completely born again by renouncing his second term ambition and getting other elective office holders at all levels to do the same. That way, a level playing ground will be created for the institutionalisation of the genuine constitutional change he now claims to believe in.

    But then, what do we have? Diverse elements in civil society are taking the brand new Jonathan at his word and working hard towards actualising his proposed constitutional conference. Yet, the old President Jonathan is alive, well and actively using all the power at his disposal to ruthlessly pursue his second term ambition and indirectly entrench the discredited status quo. Thus, the agents of the state have intensified the unconstitutional harassment and intimidation of Jonathan’s opponents within the PDP. The centralized police continues to be used in a most brazen, flagrant and partisan manner to undermine legitimate governance in Rivers state.

    A minority of six legislators continues to prevent the Rivers State House of Assembly from functioning with the active support of Abuja. In the same vein, the Jonathan presidency continues to lend its considerable weight to the immoral antics of a minority of governors who petulantly refuse to accept the outcome of a democratic election within the Nigerian Governors Forum. A born again presidency claims to be committed to a new, equitable and just political order. Simultaneously, an unreformed presidency is working towards the entrenchment of the current political order beyond 2015. This is a case of political schizophrenia.

    The self -styled Southern Nigeria people’s Assembly (SNPA) offers another example. At the end of its last meeting in Abuja, the group of eminent Nigerians gave undiluted support to the proposed national conference. They want the conference to draw up a new constitution between now and May 31st, next year and are silent on whether this exercise can be undertaken concurrently with the 2015 election. If elections do not hold before May 2015 as scheduled, where would any incumbent administration derive its authority from? To give legitimacy to the conference, which they presume will have sovereign powers they curiously called on the President to “invoke section 14 of the 1999 constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria”. This column submits that the President has no powers to carry out a coup against the constitution.

    Yet, the same SNPA believes that the National Assembly has no legitimacy to review the outcome of the conference. They want a referendum to perform that function. But is it not the same election that produced both the President and the National Assembly? What confers legitimacy on one and not the other – the arbitrary whims of the SNPA? This kind of confusion is a function of political schizophrenia.

  • National Conference: Let a thousand flowers bloom

    National Conference: Let a thousand flowers bloom

    In a speech delivered in Peking in February 1957, the Chinese revolutionary communist leader, Chairman Mao Zedong, made the famous and much quoted assertion that “Letting a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend is the policy for promoting progress in the arts and the sciences and a flourishing socialist culture in our land”. The slogan of allowing the free expression of a diversity of views and ideas was utilised to mobilise the Chinese intellectual community to openly critique the country’s socio-political and economic system and offer alternatives under communist rule.

    Unfortunately, Chairman Mao and the communist party did not live up to the promise of creating a fertile environment for the free expression of contending ideas especially those not supportive of the status quo. Thus, many members of the intelligentsia who took the state at its word and openly expressed non-conformist views were persecuted and several even executed. Indeed, the suppression of alternative ideas and the imposition of a single purported and sacrosanct truth on society bred the political insularity, bureaucratic lethargy, administrative complacency and economic stagnation responsible for the gradual decline and ultimate fall of authoritarian communist regimes across the globe.

    On the other hand, liberal democratic political systems have proven more successful in promoting virile civil societies, thriving, even if still largely inequitable economies and dynamic innovations in science, technology and entrepreneurship that ensure the continuous progress and collective well- being of society. The context for this liberal democratic success is the protection of the rights of free thought, expression and association, the sanctity of the rule of law and respect for the dignity of the human person irrespective of class, faith or tongue. Thus, the individual is free to think the unthinkable within the limits of the law. The minority is able to have its say with the understanding that the majority view prevails. This liberal political culture allows individual creativity to flourish and enrich the communal fund of ideas for the collective good.

    In fragile societies like ours characterised by ethnic tensions, communal strife, sectarian intolerance and the unsavoury consequences of persistent socio-economic underperformance, there is the tendency to be suspicious of the unfettered expression of ideas as a threat to national cohesion and stability. It is this fear that had hitherto fuelled the opposition over the years to persistent demands in some quarters for a Sovereign National Conference. In this regard, President Goodluck Jonathan’s re-think of his position on the issue and endorsement of the desirability of a national dialogue, after several years of being averse to the idea, is a remarkable watershed. To the best of my knowledge, there is no fundamental disagreement as to the necessity of a national dialogue but a divergence of opinions as regards its timing and the suspect motives of the ruling party in the context of the country’s extant political configuration.

    Of course, we can understand the President’s dilemma in arriving at a firm decision on whether we should have a national dialogue, conference or conversation as well as the status – sovereign or otherwise – of any such deliberation. Can you have a sovereign conference when there are already in existence representative assemblies and governmental authorities at all levels elected through the exercise of the sovereign will of the people as expressed at the polls? Can you have a genuine sovereign national conference with the incumbent president, governors, local government chairmen as well as federal and state legislatures and their political parties holding firmly on to power? Will that allow for fairness and a level playing ground for contending socio-political forces? Will those who wield governmental authority at all levels in the country today willingly abdicate their offices to allow the emergence of ‘neutral’ umpires that can superintend a credible conference to usher in a new political dispensation?

    Even if the outcome of the national conference is subjected to the decision of a referendum as widely suggested, will the population to participate in such a plebiscite be imported from another planet? Will the structures and processes that will guide such a referendum not be the same as the ones that supervised past flawed elections that critics claim are not truly representative of the popular will? Will the outcome of the referendum not reflect the spatial population distribution and geo-political fissures as well as proclivities that presently subsist in the country?

    It would appear to me that we are faced with two options. The first is to have an outright revolution that sweeps away the current political order and offers us a tabula rasa to build a brand new constitutional structure. The second is to seek to deepen prevailing institutional structures and processes and utilize them to bring about desired constitutional and political changes in a gradual and incremental manner. Even though it will be slower and more exacting, the latter is clearly the more realistic and practicable option.

    As the experience of the Presidential Advisory Committee on National Dialogue in Edo State on Monday shows, Nigerians hold very strong, passionate and divergent views on the state of the polity and the way forward. It is unlikely for any group or tendency to be able to successfully impose its viewpoint on the rest of the country. The only way forward is to ensure mutual respect for contending ideas and opinions – allowing a thousand flowers to bloom. Those who are opposed to the conference must be as free to voice their view as those who fervently support it. This is with the understanding that the majority will always have its way in accordance with democratic tenets and the minority its say once the processes are credible and transparent.

    The two main actors in the Edo drama – Governor Adams Oshiomhole and Colonel Tony Nyiam (Rtd.) – represent critical tendencies in the on-going debate on the country’s political future. Colonel Nyiam was a central participant in the Major Gideon Orkar-led abortive coup against the Babangida regime in 1990. He is one of the lucky few that survived the failed coup attempt unlike others who paid the ultimate price. The architects of the Orkar coup had announced the excision from the country of the far northern states in what was clearly an ill-thought out, superficial and rash response to the complexities of the country’s national question.

    To be fair to Nyiam, he has since then given far more careful consideration to the national question and its resolution. His book, ‘True Federal Democracy Or Awaiting Implosion?’, published in 2012 is a very thoughtful and useful contribution to the quest for a new just and more equitable constitutional order in Nigeria. Those who perceive the national question from the prism of ethnic relations will no doubt identify firmly with Nyiam’s world view. If he can restrain his temper and be more accommodating of other views, Nyiam can make invaluable input to the quest for a viable constitutional framework for Nigeria.

    On his part, Oshiomhole’s viewpoint is informed by his background as a labour activist and trade unionist. Labour ideologues place greater premium on the social question – the relationship between social classes – rather than inter- ethnic relations. The exploited workers and peasants are united by their common experiential reality of impoverishment or inequality irrespective of their faith or ethno-regional origin. In the same vein, membership of the tiny minority of exploiting classes cuts across divergent nationality groups.

    Even then there are points of convergence between Nyiam and Oshiomhole. The former in his book laments that “Our political leaders are more interested in sharing rather than baking of the national cake”. The latter in his comments at the Edo Town Hall meeting decried the emphasis on the politics of sharing rather than wealth creation. With a little more mutual respect, tolerance and accommodation, we can converse in a cultured and matured manner without avoidable acrimony. Allowing a thousand flowers of thought to blossom is the key to a sustainable democratic order.

  • Praying and preying

    Praying and preying

    Nigeria is easily one of the most religious countries in the world. Our people would readily make the Guinness Book of records for their incomparable capacity to pray. We are a nation of passionate Christians. We are a nation of fervent Muslims. We are a nation of committed traditional worshippers. Many of us adhere strictly to any one of these three modes of spirituality. Others combine two or all of the three in an interesting creative synthesis. There are hardly any atheists or even agnostics among us. We are all God lovers, ever unrelenting God chasers. Worshipping God is a cardinal feature of the Nigerian character. Irrespective of faith or ethnic origin, the Nigerian proudly holds aloft the banner of his or her religion.

    The Nigerian Muslim steadfastly prays five times a day and devotedly adheres to other tenets of the religion. No less worshipful and dedicated to God is the Christian of whatever tendency – orthodox, Pentecostal or syncretic. It is no surprise that a considerable stretch of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway is fast becoming the Christian spiritual headquarters of the world. Millions of adherents converge on the many Pentecostal churches along that corridor for an endless variety of spiritual activities. Now, do we pray and worship God so much because we love him or we fear him? Why in the face of so much apparent Godliness is there so much obvious godlessness in the land? Let us leave such questions to the theologians and academics.

    Suffice it to say that is almost impossible to survive in Nigeria without prayer. Faith and prayer are indispensable existential necessities in contemporary Nigeria. You need prayers to escape the snare of kidnappers. You need prayers for protection against the assault of armed robbers. You need prayers to avoid lurking assassins. You need prayers so as not to become a victim of ritual killers. You need prayers to keep you from the path of blood thirsty Boko Haram insurgents. You need prayers before travelling on the treacherous death traps we call high ways. You need prayers before boarding aircraft that routinely drop from the skies. You need prayers so that your son or daughter does not spend eight years on a four-year course in our public universities. You need prayers so as not to fall sick when doctors are on strike. You need prayers not to be caught in horrendous traffic on the day when a certain First Lady, the mother of the nation, graces your state with a visit. Pray, what can we do in a country like this without prayers?

    But then in many ways, we are truly blessed and have so much to thank the almighty for. One of such blessings we enjoy is that we have, at least since 1999, had truly God fearing and ever prayerful leaders in charge of our affairs as a nation in Abuja. Remember the inimitable Soldier turned farmer and former tenant of the Presidential Villa. He was always so God conscious. OBJ was a reverential and ceaseless worshipper at the Aso Rock chapel. He was a frequent participant in several church programmes and activities within and beyond the Villa. OBJ would mount the pulpit and deliver exuberant homilies. He would quote scriptures like a seasoned pastor. If so how come all that third term agenda mess that rubbished his reputation and that of his administration so badly you may ask? Please don’t be unfair dear reader. The man has said if he ever desired any such thing, the God he serves so faithfully would have granted his wish. We must take his word for it. After all, prayerful men do not lie. They are only permitted to be economical with the truth.

    We are so lucky that at the helm of affairs today in Nigeria is a man who is even more prayerful and spiritual than OBJ. He is an epitome of prayerful humility. Can you imagine an OBJ, the EboraOwu himself, kneeling before any mortal man in prayer? Well, probably in private. But we have seen the likeable President Goodluck Jonathan publicly kneel in deep prayerful devotion before a revered Pentecostal General Overseer in the full glare of national and global television. Could anything be more endearing and ennobling? During the last Ramadan fast, the President even joined our Muslim brothers and sisters in observing the fast. Can there be any greater demonstration of a man’s love and devotion to God?

    As I write, our beloved President, His prayerful Excellency, is in Israel observing the holy pilgrimage. It is reported that accompanying him are several government officials including 19 very prayerful state governors. Ah! How lucky we are as a nation to have so many devout leaders. Well, at least from the pictures I saw in the press, there were the Information Minister, LabaranMaku and Governors Gabriel Suswan (Benue), Theodore Orji (Abia), Peter Obi (Anambra), GodswillAkpabio (AkwaIbom) and Jonah Jang (Plateau) in the holy land to pray along with the President. It will be interesting to know the cost to the public treasury of this pilgrimage extravaganza.

    Of course, the party would have been incomplete without the incomparable Jonah Jang. You can remember dear reader that this was the governor who miraculously emerged as Chairman of the Nigerian Governors Forum (NGF) by astonishingly leading a minority of 16 to defeat a majority of 19. Pray, where else should Jonah Jang be but in the very land where the Lord Jesus similarly performed the feat of turning water into wine? It is just that in the case of the NGF election, wine seems to have been turned into water. Surely, by the time Jang and his praying colleagues return to Nigeria they will be spiritually supercharged to perform even more mind boggling miracles.

    By the way there was also the picture of the President, Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor, standing with the prayerful President and Governors in the holy land. Pray, was the CAN President also on the Presidential entourage? Did he also go to Israel at public expense? If so, is there really any difference between CAN and the PDP under Oritsejafor’s leadership? Does this not vindicate Bishop Hassan Kukah’s contention that CAN has become the praying arm of the ruling party? Given the close alliance between church and state in contemporary Nigeria, how can the former speak truth to power? It is so sad.

    While ever appreciative of our president’s prayerful inclinations, this column joins millions of Nigerians in raising eyebrows about the strange, coincidental presence of the embattled Minister of Aviation, Princess Stella Oduah, in Israel at the same time that President Goodluck Jonathan is on pilgrimage. This is a woman currently embroiled in a monumental scandal back home. The purchase of two BMW armoured luxury cars for Stella Oduah by the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) at the cost of N255 million is one of the most brazen examples yet in this dispensation of how Nigeria’s leadership elite selfishly and heartlessly prey on our collective resources to the detriment of the suffering majority.

    Stella Oduah’s presence in Israel on official assignment when she is yet to clear herself of the grievous allegations against her is an indication of the levity with which the Jonathan administration treats allegations of corruption and the strong possibility that the administrative panel purportedly set up by the President to investigate the scandal is an elaborate smokescreen. A truly God fearing and genuinely prayerful leader would have promptly suspended the Aviation Minister pending the outcome of the investigations. As it were, the President’s body language suggests that in this matter he is inclined to place private and party considerations above the national interest. Yes, by all means let President Jonathan pray. But above all, let him pray for the courage to take decisive action against those Nigerians without conscience who prey upon their fellow human beings with impunity as so vividly demonstrated by the Oduahgate scandal.

  • Between 2015 and National Conference

    Between 2015 and National Conference

    You must give it to them. They are grand masters of the political chess game even if you dislike their style. I refer to the veteran old guard of the Afenifere Yoruba socio-political organization, which has suddenly bounced back once again into the political limelight. When you think they are written off, they have ways of resurfacing in the most surprising and unpredictable of ways – even if only temporarily.

    They may be advanced in years. Yet, the leading lights of the old guard Afenifere – Chief Reuben Fasoranti, Chief Ayo Adebanjo, Chief Olu Falae, among others – are still sprightly in political spirit and clearly not ready to leave the political stage anytime soon. There are at least two major beneficiaries, in the short run, of President Goodluck Jonathan’s latest gambit of planning a National Conference – Sovereign or otherwise.

    The first is President Jonathan himself, the perennially lucky man. In what the ordinarily perceptive Bishop Mathew Hassan Kukah rather exuberantly describes as a political and ideological masterstroke, the President’s proposed national ‘conversation’ has largely deflected attention from the crisis tearing his party apart.

    Beyond that, the move has the potential of creating a schism along geo-regional lines within the new All Progressives Congress (APC) if its leaders do not steer their party gingerly and most dexterously through the mine strewn terrain.

    The other major beneficiaries of Jonathan’s surprise ‘joker’ are the Afenifere old guard politicians. Jonathan’s proposed conference amounts to a kiss of life, a veritable resurrection from political death, for a group whose glory and grandeur belongs to the past. It is certainly not for nothing that the National Secretary of Afenifere, Senator Femi Okurounmu, has emerged Chairman of the National Conference Advisory Committee.

    He would most certainly not have accepted such a sensitive assignment without the full support and blessing of the group. What we thus have on our hands is a collaborative venture principally between the Jonathan presidency and Afenifere.

    It was not thus surprising that in his interview published on page 45 of the October 14, 2013, edition of the Vanguard, the redoubtable Chief Ayo Adebanjo had nothing but fulsome praise for President Goodluck Jonathan. In his characteristically down to earth manner, he enthused, “In fact, there is no complain (sic) except that I congratulate the President for being a listening leader…Here is a man who originally opposed the system but who is now yielding to the pressure of responsible citizens.”

    Given his vast political experience, wily intelligence and much vaunted political tutelage under the unceasingly questioning and meticulous Chief Obafemi Awolowo, shouldn’t one expect a lit bit more of circumspection, healthy scepticism and restraint on the part of Chief Adebanjo on this matter? Should the veteran Awoist not be at least a little bit bothered about the nature, timing and possible motive of Jonathan’s curious Pauline conversion? No sir. The venerableAfenifere Chief obviously has sufficient faith to follow Jonathan into battle blindfolded.

    Perhaps Chief Adebanjo has just cause for his unrepentantly pro-Jonathan posture.In his words, “I don’t see any reason for the scepticism. Those of us in NADECO and Afenifere had insisted that there was not going to be election in 1999 unless we had a Sovereign National Conference…We had made a national conference a condition precedent for whatever we were going to do in this country.”

    Presumably believing that President Jonathan is the much awaited Messiah that has come to deliver the desired Sovereign National Conference, Chief Adebanjo affirmed emphatically: “To me, if the 2015 election is to be postponed for us to settle how we are going to live together, it is worth it. What is the point of having an election only for us to start quarrelling immediately after?”

    So, will there ever be a magical national conference at the end of which political quarrels and disagreements would have vanished forever from Nigeria? Well, let us leave that to the undoubted political wizardry of the Chief Adebanjos of this world while we more usefully try to locate Afenifere within the politics of this dispensation before looking more closely at the implications of the chief’s position on the 2015 election.

    In 1999, Afenifere was at the height of its political glory. The group supported the Alliance for Democracy (AD) to win all the six states in the South West. By 2003, the fortunes of the group had plummeted badly largely due to internal fissures and dissensions. Just as it is doing now with Jonathan, Afenifere went into a deal with Obasanjo in 2003, which backfired disastrously when the wily farmer played a fast one on them.

    Led by the late Chief Abraham Adesanya, Afenifere supported the AD governors in Ogun, Oyo, Ekiti, Ondo and Osun states for the 2003 election but distanced itself from Governor Bola Tinubu in Lagos. The latter’s crime was his adamant refusal to share elective positions in Lagos state on a 60/40 ratio with the top Afenifere chieftain, the late Alhaji Ganiyu Dawodu.

    As we all know, the 2003 elections held. All Afenifere favourite sons in the South West were routed by the PDP. It was only Bola Tinubu who remained standing – without the support of Afenifere. What would the Afenifere chieftains do given their much vaunted Awoist credentials? Would they work to recover the region from the grip of the mainstream reactionary PDP ideologues? To our consternation, these highly respected Awoist veterans began an inexplicable political romance with the PDP state governors of the South West.

    Chief Adebanjo and his Afenifere fellow travellers had no compunction whatsoever in giving a PDP South West governor the privilege of delivering the lecture to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the formation of Afenifere. Not once during that inglorious reign of the PDP locusts in the South West did we hear the slightest whimper for true federalism or Sovereign National Conference from Afenifere.

    It took the tenacity, courage, steadfastness and determination of the likes of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, Aremo Segun Osoba, Alhaji Lam Adesina, Chief Bisi Akande, Otunba Niyi Adebayo and Chief Adebayo Adefarati among others to wrest the South West back into the progressive fold.

    In the run up to the 2007 elections, the Afenifere chieftains floated the Democratic Parties Alliance (DPA) and fielded candidates for elections. I doubt if the DPA won a single House of Assembly seat anywhere in the South West including Chief Ayo Adebanjo’s ward. With the abysmal electoral outing of the DPA, the group tried working with others to form what it called a mega Social Democratic Party for the 2011 elections with Chief Olu Falae as its arrow head.

    As this column predicted at the time, the venture was a mega non-starter. Yet, the ebullient Dr Doyin Okupe claims that these are the ‘authentic’ leaders of the South West. The presidential aide may probably be right. After all, everyone is entitled to his or her delusions.

    When he contends that the proposed National Conference, whose status, composition and operational procedure are yet unknown is more important than the 2015 elections, Chief Ayo Adebanjo has given the game away. The astute politician is not too artful a dodger after all. It is obvious that the highly respected chief is simply calling for the extension of President Jonathan’s tenure beyond 2015.

    Let’s face it. Nature and indeed law abhor a vacuum. There can be no void even as the constitutional conference holds. President Jonathan is firmly in power. He continues avidly to plot towards the realization of his second term in office. He has had a change of heart as regards the necessity for a national conference. But he remains the same old Dr. Jonathan as far as he desire for a second term is concerned. His party gives no indication that it has repented of its determination to hold onto power for the next 60 years as one of its former National Chairmen openly boasted.

    The postponement of the 2015 election in the name of a national conference will thus suit President Jonathan and the PDP quite well. It will also obviously please the Afenifere chieftains. For, the ideological difference between the two has become blurred. Surprisingly, Professor Itse Sagay, the legal icon, also supports this position. Can the good professor please educate us on where President Jonathan and other elected officials will derive their authority from a minute after midnight on May 29, 2015 if elections do not hold? Or is somebody working towards a coup?

  • National conference as ‘defensive radicalism’

    National conference as ‘defensive radicalism’

    The late political economist, Professor Claude Ake, had an uncanny ability to create fascinating concepts to illuminate aspects of social reality under his scrutiny.One of such concepts coined by the erudite scholar is that of ‘defensive radicalism’, which he utilised in his book ‘Revolutionary Pressures in Africa’, to explain some of the antics employed by conservative, even reactionary, ruling classes in Africa to maintain destructive strangleholds on their societies. The concept is seemingly problematic. It sounds contradictory. Yet, its explanatory power is phenomenal.

    Ordinarily, there is nothing defensive about radicalism. It is a necessarily offensive concept. Radicalism denotes an aggressive momentum to dislodge the status quo. It embodies a commitment to fundamental change and transformation in society. When then does radicalism become defensive? This happens when individuals, groups and social forces benefitting from a given iniquitous and inequitable status quo affect deceptive radical stances and become emergency advocates of change. This deft move disarms opposing forces and reinforces the capacity of the pro-establishment elements to maintain and continue to exploit a system that requires urgent and drastic change.

    Thus, beneficiaries of the status quo become the most eloquent and passionate exponents of social or national transformation. Yet, this strident advocacy is a grand pretence. In reality, the more things seem to change, the more they remain the same. There is so much motion but little or no movement. While their feigned transformational radicalism lulls society to somnolence, fuel subsidy gangsters continue to smile to the bank, pension fund fraudsters continue their feast of obscene opulence, the Nigeria Ports Authority Board remains the preserve of party election fixers and aircraft routinely drop from the sky as alleged acts of God while satanic party contractors aggressively white wash airports. Some transformation!

    An excellent example of defensive radicalism at work was former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s unprecedented anti-corruption war. It was fierce. It was intense. It was relentless. Yet, it was horrendously hypocritical and ineffectual. Right from inception in office, the Ota farmer projected himself as a veritable anti-graft radical saint. He ensured the enactment of stringent anti-corruption laws by the National Assembly. He set up anti-corruption agencies like the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). He mercilessly made a mince-meat of his corrupt political opponents who were foolish enough to play into his hands. It seemed that the slightest scent of corruption made the immaculately clean General sick and mad.

    Yet, behind this huge obscurantist cloud of anti-corruption radicalism, government contractors, mega companies and even public institutions were corralled into donating lavishly to our hero’s private presidential library project. He was allocated huge shares in the Transcorp Corporation project initiated by his government. The petroleum sector, particularly the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) remained a cesspit of graft throughout his tenure.

    The National Assembly’s probe of the Petroleum Trust Development Fund (PTDF) revealed that our ‘Chichidodo’ could enjoy a feast of maggots after all while affecting a public disdain for faeces. And we can all still recall the brazen third term agenda that remains the single most atrocious case of political and alleged pecuniary corruption in this political dispensation. That then is how defensive radicalism works. An aggressive anti-corruption war was feigned only as a cover for the consolidation of corruption.

    The masters of political deception are at it again. Radicalism has suddenly gone rampant in unexpected quarters. First to set the ball rolling was none other than the Senate President, the venerable Saint David Mark. At the resumption of the Senate, he announced his conversion to the idea of a national conference. It appears that his dramatic encounter with truth occurred, not on the road to Damascus like Saint Paul, but on the highway to Boko Haram’s Damaturu. But then, he was only John the Baptist; a voice in the wilderness preparing the way for a greater one whose shoelace he was unfit to untie.

    And verily verily, on October 1, the political Messiah emerged. In his national day broadcast to a surprised nation, he announced: “Repent ye, for the kingdom of the national conference is at hand. Verily verily, I say unto you, unless you are born again to the cause of a ‘national conversation’, you cannot enter the Kingdom of the new Nigeria”. And of course, the desired effect is largely being achieved. President Goodluck Jonathan is being lauded to the high heavens by advocates of a national conference who see this as a triumph of their long cherished desire. The ever so lucky President must be chuckling happily to himself: “Ah! The kingdom of a second term come 2015 seems to be at hand”.

    But then, have advocates of a national conference clamoured for it over the years simply for the sake of having a dialogue? I do not think so. The calls for a Sovereign National Conference have been made within the context of the erosion by the military of the country’s federal and democratic ethos. After the thorough devastation and despoliation of the country for close to two decades, the discredited military oligarchy beat a retreat in 1999, but carefully engineered the emergence of the PDP as its successor to ensure the preservation of the decadent and dysfunctional status quo even in a supposedly post-military Nigeria. The PDP has faithfully performed this task over the last 14 years. It has largely retained the military’s structure and philosophy of governance and virtually all sectors of our national life have steadily degenerated under its inept and venal watch.

    Why is Nigeria in the pathetic and prostrate condition we witness today? It certainly is not because a national conference has not taken place. On the contrary we have had several national conferences. It is the absence of a progressive, change-oriented government at the centre since independence that has retarded Nigeria’s progress and aborted her potentials. The lesson of our history is that without a government with the requisite ethos, vision and values at the centre, a hundred national conferences cannot change Nigeria. And if you have such a government with the courage and competence to initiate fundamental change, a national conference may be totally unnecessary.

    While inaugurating the Senator Femi Okunrounmu-led advisory committee, for instance, President Jonathan averred that the 1957 conference “effectively prepared Nigeria for independence”. So why had the country degenerated to military rule and outright civil war six years after independence? The answer is the lack of a visionary government at the centre. The President lauded the 1978 Constituent Assembly for saddling us with the 1979 presidential constitution “with its attendant checks and balances and fundamental human rights provisions”. But a succession of inept and visionless administrations at the centre have utilised the immense powers of the wasteful presidential system to undermine accountability, erode the rule of law and worsen underdevelopment.

    President Jonathan claimed that the 1995 conference gave us the informal concept of a six-zonal structure. But governments at the centre that do not believe in a genuine federal ethos have still kept us bound to an essentially unitarian structure that breeds inefficiency, corruption, poverty and is fast turning Nigeria to a failed state. Without a fundamental change in the values, orientation and vision of the government at the centre, the planned constitutional conference jamboree will be another exercise in futility.

    For the first time since independence, the mainstream, unitarist forces that have ruled Nigeria since independence under both civilian and military rule are politically vulnerable. The President’s undisguised second term ambition has badly fractured the ruling party at a time when the opposition is getting its act right for the first time ever. Thus, we have this sudden manoeuvre of having a distracting national conference when the 2015 elections, according to the electoral law, must hold by December next year. It has taken 14 years for the PDP to see the light. Are Nigerians too gullible not to see through this trickery? I hope not.

  • Varieties of kidnapping

    Varieties of kidnapping

    It was the ultimate demonstration of utter contempt for the Nigerian state. I refer to the public appearance on September 18 of the notorious kidnapper, Kelvin Ibrukwe, surrounded by some of his equally masked and heavily armed supporters. The veritable felon had the temerity and dexterity to seek to justify his criminal but profitable kidnapping enterprise by the ineptness and lack of vision of a Nigerian state that has not been able to utilise the humongous resources of the country to uplift the standard of living of the vast majority of our people.

    Thus, Kelvin was lustfully hailed by members of his Kokori, Delta State community, as he defiantly gave the government an ultimatum of 60 days to provide necessary facilities and amenities for his people or face dire consequences. It would appear that Kelvin is a hero of sorts among his people. Many of them apparently do not see him as being more criminal than many in government who lead prodigal lives amidst an ocean of mass poverty.

    Kelvin’s trade of kidnapping prominent citizens for huge sums of ransom money may thus be seen, in this context, as a class struggle of sorts. The only snag that exposes Kelvin’s clever hypocrisy is that there is no evidence that he used the money realized from his obviously lucrative trade in any way to ameliorate the plight of his much beloved people.

    Obviously stung by Kelvin’s audacity in giving the Nigerian state an ultimatum to live up to its responsibility, the security authorities swung into action and, in a matter of days the kidnapper’s world collapsed like a pack of cards. A joint operation between the State Security Services (SSS) and the Joint Task Force (JTF) smoked him out of his hideout and his reign of murderous impunity has come to an end.

    But given the parlous state of Nigeria’s economy, the massive poverty in the land, the mass unemployment among our youth, the criminal opulence of our elite, the ever increasing inequality among social classes in the country, will a hundred more Kelvins not spring up to replace one who is arrested and taken out of circulation?

    Yes, the Kelvins of this world have no place in a decent society. The very notion of kidnapping fellow human beings is odious and nauseating. They subject their victims to unthinkable psychological trauma. They put whole families into pain, stress, strain, anxiety and grief. It does not matter to them that their victim is a renowned lawyer and social activist like Mike Ozokhame or a venerable cleric like Archbishop IgnatiousKattey. They kill with impunity while carrying out their operations. But the truth of the matter is that arresting one Kelvin is not enough to contain kidnapping and other violent crimes perpetrated by our youth across the land. The Nigerian ruling class must get serious about rigorously addressing the socio-economic roots of this social peril or risk even more dangerous acts of criminal insurgency.

    It is all too easy for us to see the Kelvins of this world and his likes as the sole kidnappers in our society. It is so tempting for us to condemn and revile them. But there are other, perhaps even more dangerous kidnappers in our midst. These kidnappers wear exquisitely tailored suits. They drive the most exotic cars, befriend the most beautiful women, cruise around the skies in their private jets and are the most generous payers of their tithes and offerings in their respective places of worship.

    Let us take those bank chief executives whose nefarious activities led to the collapse of their banks for instance. They virtually captured the institutions they had the privileged of managing including depositors funds. Their loot was on a far more monumental scale than could ever be realized by the likes of Kelvin. Their pens wrecked more havoc than the automatic rifles of the lower degree of kidnappers. These bankers today still retain their ill- gotten wealth and live in continued opulence while many of their depositors and shareholders have been brought to ruin or sent prematurely to their graves. Can any group of kidnappers be more dangerous than these?

    Another set of veritable kidnappers are those who have completely messed up the country’s pension fund scheme. We read regularly of the embezzlement of hundreds of millions of pension funds that should serve as succour for those who had served their country in their prime. The activities of these pension fund kidnappers result in the pitiable sight of aged pensioners’ queuing up endlessly and futilely for their pensions that have disappeared into private bank accounts. Some of them are known to have died in the process. The Kelvins of this world kill their hundreds; the pension fund kidnappers kill their thousands.

    A notorious example is a certain Deputy Director in the civil service who was deployed to head the Pension Reform Task Force Team and restore sanity to the country’s corrupt pension system. In the course of discharging this task, he reportedly helped himself generously to the pension funds under his control. Invited by the National Assembly to shed light on about N195 billion reportedly misappropriated under his watch, he resorted to various tactics including media propaganda and manipulation of the judicial process to avoid public searchlight on his activities. Even though he was known to move around Abuja in a convoy heavily guarded by policemen, the Inspector General of Police could not produce this high profile kidnapper on the demand of the National Assembly. It was so easy to arrest Kelvin. But this more dangerous VIP kidnapper remains elusive. All hail Nigeria.

    Perhaps the most interesting variety of kidnapping is on the political terrain. Here we have the most mystifying incident of kidnapping whereby the Y2015 has taken a giant leap backward and kidnapped the process of governance in most parts of Nigeria today. While governance lies in miserable confinement, politicians are obsessively preoccupied with 2015. Senators want to become governors. Governors want to become Senators. Everybody wants to become President. The incumbent is determined to remain in office come that magic year, 2015. Meanwhile hunger stalks the land, poverty dehumanises millions, disease reaps human lives and public infrastructure remains decrepit.

    Thus, the largest political party in Africa has become fractured as various factions strive to kidnap the behemoth ahead of 2015. In the Nigeria Governors Forum, we have witnessed a minority of 16 governors trying to kidnap the organization and lord it over a majority of 19. It is all in the name of 2015.

    In Rivers State, we had the absurdity of five legislators trying to kidnap the Assembly and impeach the Speaker in a House of 32 members. That is a state where the police have obviously been effectively kidnapped by partisan politics. The latest antic of the police in that state was to forcibly disperse 13,000 new teachers who had converged at the stadium to receive their letters of appointment.

    The lame excuse was that they planned to demonstrate against the President as if that is a crime. Unfortunately, the luckiest President in the world appears to have been viciously kidnapped and irredeemably distracted by his second term ambition. Is Nigeria not thus a kidnapper’s paradise? God help us.

  • Pdp: Two sides of a coin

    Pdp: Two sides of a coin

    Are there any fundamental ideological differences between the two feuding factions of the People’s Democratic Party? I do not think so. What is currently going on within the self-proclaimed largest party in Africa is a bitter family quarrel for supremacy with 2015 in view. The feud is not about ideology. It is not about principle. It is not about the people. The fundamental issue at stake are the 2015 elections particularly the presidential poll.

    There is a sitting President, Dr Goodluck Jonathan, who is obviously bent on securing a second term in office. There are also those within the party who are determined to thwart his ambition. Those forces have now crystalized in the Kawu Baraje faction of the party.

    Interestingly, this faction is not confronting Jonathan on the basis of his performance in office. This implies that they must be satisfied with or utterly indifferent to the question of the current standard of governance in the country. All the PDP want is internal democracy in the party and a level playing field to enhance their chances of assuming power come 2015 so as to continue to milk the Nigerian cow to their heart’s content.

    No matter how much anyone loathes the PDP, the party’s implosion will not be in the best interest of the development both of the country’s party system and democracy as a whole. The emergence of the All Peoples Congress (APC) raised high hopes that with a viable opposition and a more balanced party system, the prospects for democratic sustainability in the country had been enhanced.

    The implosion of the PDP will once again lead us in the direction of a one party dominant system particularly if the opposition remains cohesive and gets its act right.

    There is no doubt that PDP deserves to lose the next election at the centre. But this must be on the basis of its monumental failure in governance over the last 14 years and not because it has splintered into factions. It is only when parties begin to lose elections on the basis of non-performance that democracy will become a hand maiden for development in the country.

    How can we understand the raging crisis within the PDP? The party was conceived in 1998 as a pro-establishment party to help preserve both the status quo and the country’s unity. Seeing that the party was not committed to the fundamental structural changes needed in the country, the progressives pulled out of the nascent party and formed the defunct Alliance for Democracy (AD).

    Since the PDP was so obviously the party of the establishment bent on maintaining the status quo, the most prominent and influential politicians from across the country flocked to the party. The party had a broad pan-Nigerian outlook. Its structure was centralized and reflected the unhealthy centralization of the country itself.

    Most unfortunately for the party, President Olusegun Obasanjo assumed leadership of the party even when its constitution provides for the office of National Chairman. Obasanjo ran the party like a military garrison removing and imposing party Chairmen and other officials as he pleased. The party could no longer hold its government to check. Under Obasanjo, the PDP could not be distinguished from a military organization.

    Ironically, it was his stranglehold on the party that enabled Obasanjo to foist the late President Yar’Adua and Dr. Goodluck Jonathan respectively as the party’s presidential and vice presidential candidates for the horrendously rigged 2007 polls. Now, Jonathan is showing that he is a most faithful disciple and student of his godfather and benefactor. President Jonathan has now effectively taken charge of the PDP and is ruthlessly and brazenly manipulating his way towards 2015. Like OBJ he is running the party like his private fiefdom.

    With the obvious support of Jonathan, the National Chairman, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, has been running the party like a tyrant. Executive committees in states are dissolved arbitrarily; governors are suspended while threats are made to declare seats of members of the National Assembly vacant. There is no doubt that Tukur has become a huge liability to Jonathan if the President really wants a second term.

    Like I said earlier, there are really no fundamental ideological differences between the Tukur and Baraje factions of the PDP. Both groups believe in Nigeria as she is currently structured. They both believe in the retention of the country’s current obsolete security architecture. They do not see a national conference to re-define the terms of our continued co-habitation as a multi ethnic entity as imperative. In any case, neither has told us that.

    Beyond that, there is no reason to doubt that even if the arrow head of the nPDP, former vice president Atiku Abubakar, had the opportunity of wielding presidential power, he would not use it as ruthlessly and mindlessly as Jonathan and Obasanjo before him. However it must be admitted that Atiku is a far more accomplished and astute political actor than either.

    The only source of grievance for both parties is the fierce and bitter struggle to control the levers of the party towards the 2015 election. It is so sad that this intra-party struggle and the attendant crisis have completely grounded governance in many PDP states whose governors are almost always in Abuja holding endless meetings. I once said here that President Jonathan is distracted by his obsession for a second term in office. Now, it is the entire PDP that is hopelessly distracted. Is it a farewell to the transformation agenda?

    The possibility of a healing of the wounds afflicting the PDP appears very remote although it is not impossible. However, any resolution of the crisis can only be superficial, hypocritical and unsustainable. This is because Jonathan is as bent on serving a second term in office as the North is determined that power should return to the region. Thus, even if daggers are sheathed now, be assured, they will be drawn again sooner or later.

    The crisis within the PDP further boosts the electoral chances of the APC if the latter get its act right. Of course, the party will be eager to work with the aggrieved faction of the PDP if the latter do not go back to their party. While this might be politically pragmatic, the party will also have to decide how much of its core values it wants to trade-off for electoral success. If on the other hand, the nPDP decides to align with the newly registered PDM, the race for 2015 will become more complex and interesting.

  • Taraba and the vicious cycle of stupidity

    Taraba and the vicious cycle of stupidity

    It was the Nobel Prize literature laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, who in a moment of exasperation once lamented what he described as the vicious cycle of human stupidity. He was no doubt denouncing the tendency for generation after generation of the human species to repeat the same recurrent errors responsible for much of the available misery, grief, exploitation and injustice in which the world is enmeshed today despite the phenomenal increase in man’s technical and intellectual capacity to create an infinitely better world.

    Nowhere is this capacity for recurrent acts of destructive stupidity more apparent than here in Nigeria, the great Kongi’s own homeland. The way our politicians play the all- consuming game of politics today – the obsession with power devoid of service, the pursuit of self- aggrandisement and pecuniary accumulation, the cynical manipulation of ethno-regional, religious and other fissures – shows a political elite that has learnt little or nothing from past failures.

    It is simply difficult to imagine that a country that went through the harrowing experiences occasioned by the late President Umaru ‘Yar’Adua’s protracted physical incapacitation could allow the veritable theatre of the absurd playing itself out today in Taraba state. Despite Yar’Adua’sinherent personal dignity and nobility of character, a cabal capitalized on his physical frailty to hijack the machinery of governance and run the affairs of the country in his name.

    Completely indifferent to the debilitating physical condition of the ailing President and the excruciating psychological torture he was going through, this feral cabal kept him imprisoned in Aso Villa. They subjected him in his infirm state to the strenuous burdens of governance when a good rest out of public life in his native Katsina could probably have prolonged his life span. While the cabal furtively ferried him across the world in search of an elusive medical succour, they kept the country fed on a steady diet of falsehood as regards the President’s remarkably improved health and enhanced physical vigour.

    At the height of their treasonable antics, the cabal flew the obviously dying Yar’Adua back into the country from a Saudi Arabia hospital under cover of darkness and with a massive deployment of troops in Abuja that remains a mystery till date. By this time and following intense pressure from civil society groups and the opposition, the National Assembly had invoked the utilitarian ‘doctrine of necessity’ to declare Vice-President Goodluck Jonathan Acting President of the country.

    Yet, the cabal remained determined to prevent Jonathan from succeeding his terminally ill boss in office as demanded by the constitution. Appropriation estimates were signed and other activities undertaken in the name of a President who was clearly no more conscious of his environment.

    It is perhaps because those responsible for the treasonous antics of the Yar’Adua cabal, during his health travails, were never brought to book and made to account for their actions that the nation is being subjected today to another round of ‘cabalistic’ stupidity in Taraba State.

    Of course, the story of Taraba is straight forward. Until he crashed in a Cessna 208, 5N – BMJ jet piloted by himself in Yola, Adamawa state on October 25, 2013, Governor Dambaba Suntai was in sound health. Following the crash, however, he reportedly suffered severe injuries in the head and had to be flown out of the country; first to Germany and then the United States for sophisticated medical attention. During his 10-month absence, the Taraba State House of Assembly authorised the Deputy Governor, Garba Umar, to act as Governor pending the recuperation and return of his boss.

    In the absence of Governor Suntai, the Taraba cabal, in a manner reminiscent of the Yar’Adua days, fed the media with all kinds of stories and visuals portraying the man as making rapid recovery. Certainly none but the most gullible and mentally vulnerable could be persuaded by such crude and deceptive propaganda. The drama reached a climax on August 25th, when a supposedly fully recovered Suntai was flown into Taraba State from the United States. The visuals portraying his return were a public relations disaster.

    He was supported on both sides by hefty aides. He looked unnaturally blank and could not even manage a wave to his ‘teeming’ supporters. After a controversial 10-month absence, he could not even spare a word with news hungry journalists at the airport. Yet, the following day, he had purportedly transmitted a letter to the House of Assembly signalling his recovery and readiness to resume work. He followed this up by purportedly dissolving the state Executive Council and appointing a new Secretary to the State Government and a new Chief of Staff.

    These actions were naturally bound to generate intense controversy given the hovering uncertainty as regards the Governor’s health. The state was virtually plunged into crisis. Motivated perhaps by principle, a commitment to constitutionalism or their own sectional partisan considerations on Taraba’s treacherous and complex terrain, 16 of the 24 state legislators led by the Speaker insist that the governor has not demonstrated sufficiently that he either wrote the letter intimating the House of his return or that he is fit to govern and that the status quo thus remains.

    Emboldened by the stance of the House of Assembly, the Acting Governor has described the purported dissolution of the Executive Council as null and void attributing the action to a self-seeking cabal and not the Governor. Here I think both the 16 members of the House and the Acting Governor must tread carefully.

    Even if they believe that a pro-Suntai cabal is acting unconstitutionally, that must not be an excuse for them to also toe the path of lawlessness. They must thus be on firm ground that one, the letter did not emanate from the Governor and two that they are in a position to authoritatively pronounce on his state of health. Two unconstitutional wrongs after all do not make a right. This is especially because of the evidence that Suntai addressed the state and actually swore in his two new aides no matter how frail he looked or sounded.

    Having said that, let me stress that whatever may be the presumed motives of those who question his mental and physical fitness to rule, the onus still rests on Governor Suntai to demonstrate convincingly that he is fully ready to resume office.

    Taraba is too important, strategic, complex and sensitive a state to be left in charge of a man not fully in control of his physical mental faculties even for one second. And it is even more dangerous to leave the state in the charge of an unelected, mercenary cabal ruling in the name of a helplessly incapacitated man.

    It must be said here that the drafters of the 1999 constitution had envisaged and made provision for this kind of situation. Section 189 (a) of the constitution requires members of the State Executive Council to determine by two-thirds majority if the governor or Deputy Governor “is incapable of discharging the functions of his office”.

    And if the State Executive Council comes to that conclusion, section 189 (b) provides for a medical panel to verify the decision after which the Speaker will cause the result of the medical panel, if it confirms, the Governor or Deputy Governor’s incapacitation, to be gazetted and the Governor ceases to hold office.

    But then, can a State Executive Council appointed by the Chief Executive ever decide that he is incapacitated to rule no matter how true this is? The constitution certainly assumes that the Executive Council members are honourable persons and that their loyalty is first and foremost to the constitution and not the Chief Executive.

  • Averting the revolution to come

    Averting the revolution to come

    Although it manifests itself as a crisis of the economy, the various maladies that have brought Nigeria to the very brink of collapse have their root causes in the structure of the Nigerian state, the character of the country’s politics and the sheer moral bankruptcy of its ruling elite. This was the submission of the late Professor Claude Ake, in one of his characteristically insightful pieces titled ‘What is to be done?’

    The solution to the country’s protracted crises of poverty, instability and underdevelopment thus lies largely in the political realm and not in the supposedly a-political IMF/World Bank economic technocrats to whom the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) have handed over the country’s destiny over the last one and a half decades.

    So severe has the Nigerian crisis degenerated; so alarmingly has poverty deepened and so appalling has become the inequality between social classes that fears of the possibility of a mass revolution have been echoed in the most unexpected, conservative quarters.

    Former Minister of Solid Minerals and later Education in the President Olusegun Obasanjo administration, Mrs Oby Ezekwesili, has once again drawn public attention to one of the key manifestations of our dysfunctional political system. A key member of the Obasanjo administration’s economic management team and ‘due process’ enforcer, Mrs.Ezekwesili has a way of making government officials catch cold anytime she sneezes. Speaking at a one day dialogue session on the ‘Cost of governance in Nigeria’, Madam ‘due process’ threw another bombshell, when she disclosed that members of the National Assembly have expended over N1 trillion over the last eight years.

    Coming on the heels of the disclosure last week by The Economist magazine, that Nigerian legislators are the highest paid in the world, Mrs Ezekwesili’s assertion naturally touched the raw nerves of the legislators and put them on the defensive. Just as presidential aides did when Mrs Ezekwesili accused the Jonathan administration of financial profligacy earlier in the year, spokesmen of the National Assembly largely ignored the message and went crudely after the messenger.

    They would like to know, they said, how much was allocated to her office when she was a Minister. Some wondered why she focussed only on the legislature and neglected other arms of government when computing the cost of governance. A member of the House of Representatives accused Ezekwesili of mischievously lumping together salaries and allowances of the legislators and their aides, salaries of civil servants, capital projects and the running costs of other institutions under the National Assembly.

    Now, many of these observations are pertinent and the former Minister would do the public a lot of good by shedding more light on these questions. Luckily, the former Minister has challenged the legislators to a public debate on her assertions. Such an open debate will most certainly enable her amplify on the issues raised in her lecture. Much more importantly, it should shed light on exactly how much our legislators take home as salaries, allowances and other perks that are now treated as classified and confidential information.

    This column agrees entirely with the legislators that in all probability members of the executive and their innumerable aides may also be receiving humongous amounts from the public till. Again, the whole issue of outrageous salaries and allowances for elected public officers is not limited to the federal level. It is also necessary to go down the line to reveal what public officers are collecting as remuneration and other perks at both the state and local government levels. Such information will enable the country come up with remuneration for public officers at all levels that is commensurate with the productive capacity of the Nigerian economy and is sensitive to the abysmal living conditions of the vast majority of Nigerians.

    Of course, Mrs Ezekwesili is not the first to call attention to the outrageous amounts that our public officers award themselves in a society where the majority survive on less than one dollar a day. At a public lecture last year, the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mallam Sanusi LamidoSanusi, caused uproar when he disclosed that 25% of the Federal Government’s overheads went to the National Assembly. And speaking recently at the Second Annual Capital Market Retreat in Warri, Delta State, the CBN governor said the country spends 70% of its earnings on salaries and entitlements of civil servants.

    In his words “At the moment 70% of Federal Government revenue goes for payment of salaries and entitlements of civil servants leaving 30% for development of 167 million Nigerians. That means that for every naira government earns, 70 kobo is consumed by civil servants…The various tiers of government should cut down their recurrent expenditure and use the funds to provide basic infrastructure like schools, hospitals etc”.

    Pointing out that Nigeria does not need 109 Senators or 457 members of the House of Representatives to make laws for her, Sanusi condemned a situation in which the bulk of the country’s total revenue is consumed by the executive, lawmakers and civil servants.

    There is no doubt that the degree of impoverishment in the land coupled with the criminal inequality between a microscopic wealthy elite and the majority of poor Nigerians is a time bomb waiting to explode. Already a full scale class war is being fought although it manifests as kidnapping, armed robbery, communal violence, religious intolerance, ritual killings and other sundry acts of wanton criminality.

    On the streets of Lagos, you now have scores of urchins who ought to be in school but are armed with bottles of liquid soap and brushes to forcefully wash the windscreen of cars stranded in traffic for a token fee. If something urgent is not done to ameliorate the situation in the land, such street urchins may turn nastier. They may forcefully extort money from motorists by threatening to destroy their vehicles. It is that bad.

    I agree entirely with Mrs Ezekwesili that “We must debate public policies as a nation because if we don’t debate public policies, we are going to make silly mistakes because we didn’t involve the stakeholders so policy debates must be encouraged”. Coming from Mrs Ezekwesili, this is a most welcome, even surprising position. For, I had always associated her with those World Bank and IMF technocrats who believe there are no alternatives to their strange brew of neo-liberal cocktail, which they administer in equal measure to all their patients irrespective of the ailment!

    In this respect, I was highly impressed and encouraged by the excerpts of a paper delivered by the Deputy Governor, Financial System, of the CBN, Dr Kingsley Chiedu Moghalu, at the Woodrow Wilson Centre for Scholars in Washington. Lamenting the continued dependence by Africa on the developed world making it difficult for the continent to maximise the inherent opportunities of globalisation, Dr Moghalu said: “We should also note that in this context (extraction of the natural resources), growth could be taking place, but no structured transformation, which creates real wealth is happening…the status quo, based on unrestrained free markets without a conceptual grasp of the opportunities, limitations and even the different kinds of capitalism and their implications for African countries, as well as the exact role of the government and the structure of world trade, cannot create an ennobling environment for Africa to matter in the world economy.”

    With such fresh, out of the box thinking by a key member of Nigeria’s policy establishment, there may yet be hope that new ideas can emerge from Nigeria to liberate the country from poverty, underdevelopment and gross inequality while also helping to avert the revolution knocking so impatiently on our creaky door.