The Nation Newspaper

Category: Segun Ayobolu

  • Professor Diji Aina On Factionalism, Economic Parasitism And State Fragility (2)

    Professor Diji Aina On Factionalism, Economic Parasitism And State Fragility (2)

    For the humanistic scholar and thinker, man is the be-all and end-all of existence. Only that which is material, that which can be seen, heard, touched, tasted, smelled and felt is real. The spiritual is thus mere fantasy and thus no more than the creation of the fertility of the human imagination. This is perhaps what Marxists mean when they describe consciousness as a creation and reflection of matter and not vice-versa. Of course, not all radical academics are of the humanistic philosophical persuasion. Thus, the late Marxist political scientist, Professor Aaron Gana, for instance, started his Convocation lecture at the University of Jos with the famous declaration, “Let me start this lecture with two apologies. One is that because I am a “Jesus person” I am giving this lecture in Jesus name (Amen). My apology here is to those who might be offended by this declaration”. In giving this apology, Professor Gana obviously had in mind not only those who were not of a Christian religious persuasion but even more so those who are of a humanistic, materialistic, disposition particularly in an academic environment.

    Many humanistic thinkers reject the notion that man is essentially and fundamentally flawed as a result of sin and thus hopelessly and helplessly in need of a savior and redeemer to reconcile him to God and salvage him from an innate disposition to evil leading to eternal damnation. ‘I am the captain of my soul and the master of my destiny’ is the enduring credo of the humanistic ideologue. For him, man is a perfect creation with no spiritual flaws. If so, however, how then do we explain the evil we can see all around us transcending social classes, levels of educational attainment, socio-economic status as well as across all categorizations of nations – developing, underdeveloped or developed?

    The humanist has no answer to the problem of prevalent and persistent evil in human nature and society. Is it any wonder then that such humanist ‘saviours’ of man as Lenin, Stalin or Mao Tse Tung, for example, did not flinch from slaughtering large numbers of people in striving to salvage society and promote what they perceive as the common good of mankind in their respective societies even though the means towards the achievement of their goals were manifestly evil?

    Like Professor Gana, Professor Diji Aina comes across in his inaugural lecture under focus here as essentially a ‘Jesus person’. Thus, for him, factionalism has its roots in the inherent spiritually flawed nature of man that predisposes the individual to pervasive selfishness and self-centeredness thus fostering negative and dysfunctional factionalism across diverse sectors of society.

    Read Also: Professor Diji Aina on factionalism, economic parasitism and state fragility (1)

    As he put it, “The implication of the foregoing is that factionalism is the outward manifestation of a sinful (rebellious) heart, covetousness and of fallen humanity…In the biblical context, factions are outcomes of rebellious acts and are often created via subtle persuasion to upturn natural order and events. In Genesis 3:1-6, the serpent, portrayed as “more crafty than man” asked, “Did God really say you must not eat from any tree in the garden?” From this spiritual analytic paradigm, Professor Aina concludes that “The moral lesson here is that it is only by allowing the indwelling Holy Spirit that we can have eternal peace, one that propels cooperative rather than degenerative spirit that results in factions and its attendant consequences of conflict and violence”.

    After a detailed and exhaustive excursion into the manifestations of factionalism in Nigeria right from the colonial era through to the first, second, aborted third and now fourth Republic, Professor Aina posits that “It was not until the advent of crude oil as a major, national, income-earning source that the personal lust over state resources became so evident. Hitherto, it had been shrouded in a regional, economic interest-driven struggle for the political soul of the nation”.

    It is instructive in this regard that in the first republic, the most progressive, rapidly modernizing and prosperous part of the country, the Western Region, was the most affected by a fierce destructive factionalism within the ruling party, the Action Group, that split the party down the middle, fostered the massive rigging of regional elections, degenerated into widespread anarchic violence that ultimately resulted in the January, 1966 coup and the collapse of democratic rule only six years after independence.

    Although the military was initially welcomed by large sections of the populace as a redeeming political Messiah which intervened to save the country from the misrule and venality of the politicians, it took little time before the intervening military itself became the victims of divisive organizational factionalism that deepened ethno-regional mistrust, bred widespread instability and severely threatened the country’s cohesion and continued existence. As Professor Aina pungently and lucidly put it, “Resources accruable from crude oil are largely administered by those who are located outside the terrain of crude oil exploitation thereby creating factions and struggle for control. This resulted in separatist agitations, which eventually led to recurring military coups and transition governments in what Oyediran and others documented as “Transition Without End”.

    Professor Aina continues by depicting the linkage among militarism, crude oil, economic parasitism of the elite and state fragility. In his words, “Military insurgency and counter-insurgency took the odious dimension, not only truncating the development of civilian rule but the destruction of the socio-political and economic fabric of the nation. Corruption became ubiquitous, evil and malignant. Even the clergy that once served as distant echo of “voice of reason” got engulfed in the greasing of palms and monetary inducement to gain public endorsement…Nigeria is evidently at crossroads. As I have documented in a number of publications, and as many other scholars have confirmed, the factions have multiplied, metamorphosed and transmogrified becoming malignant and inimical to national progress. They have left in their wake multifaceted fragmentations that have resulted in over one million people killed in just 30 months of a civil war and scores of other people most recently in the Niger-Delta insurgency and an international terror-induced hydra-headed insurgency known as Boko Haram”.

    The lecturer documents the pervasive and persistent factionalization of political parties and groups in the current fourth republic since 1999, the deepening of corrupt elite enrichment through access to state power, rampant political vagrancy of the polite elite from one party to the other in desperate quest for platforms to contest for public office with scant regard for fidelity to party ideology, philosophy or principles. Just as intra-party factionalism was partly responsible for the loss of the PDP’s control of power at the centre to the emergent APC in 2015, no sooner had the new party assumed office than it became bogged down with fragmentation and factionalism leading not only to organizational immobility but also competing cabals in government resulting in state paralysis on diverse fronts.

    According to the author, “Assessing the new ruling party, (APC), as more or less a replica of the former ruling party (PDP), Schineider (2015), dubbed the APC as “an opportunistic coalition of interests.” In  the scenario that ended the seventh assembly, “cross carpeting”, which was the buzzword of of the politics of the 1960s was replaced with “defection”. All it took to decamp or defect in Nigeria’s puerile political ecology was to feel shortchanged in the sharing of the national cake at any point time”. As the countdown to next year’s elections continues, the political elite in control of state power persist in behaving like economic vampires, sucking the resources that should be the lifeblood of providing for the wellbeing of the generality of the people, and rendering the state even more fragile as manifested by corrupt management, pervasive criminality, kidnapping, banditry, rape, incompetent economic management and the contestation of the very sovereignty of the state by criminal gangs and terroristic elements.

    Even then, with the evidently increasing autonomy of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), and the intensification of the utilization of technology to enhance the credibility and transparency of the electoral process, the electorate may increasingly begin to more effectively utilize the power of the ballot to effect positive change in the efficacy and quality of governance in the country.

    Although Professor Aina proposes no less than ten recommendations to deal with and minimize the dysfunctional effects of degenerative factionalism in society, I will conclude by citing only one of this because it brings us right back to the spiritual underpinning of his lecture, with which we began the second part of this review. In his words, “The political society should be re-oriented towards cooperative and competitive rather than degenerative factionalism. This can be achieved if there is a deliberate effort/program towards minimizing crass materialism in the national psyche of the citizenry, using the East Asian “tiger” and Scandinavian countries’ experiences as benchmarks. I call for a return to primitive godliness, a lifestyle that aligns with the biblical aphorism “righteousness exalts a nation, sin is a reproach”. Factionalism is rooted in self and sin”.    

    • First published on February 4, 2023      

  • New constitution as a political magic wand?

    New constitution as a political magic wand?

    Seek ye first the kingdom of a new constitution for Nigeria and every other thing – prosperity, stability, security, electoral rectitude, moral integrity, etc – that have largely eluded the country since independence will be added to her an influential school of thought appears to believe. For instance, the eminent pressure group known as The Patriots, when they paid a courtesy call on President Bola Tinubu at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, in August last year, made the demand for a new constitution the fulcrum of their essentially two-point demand. Led by former Secretary-General of the Commonwealth, Chief Emeka Anyaoku, the group is made up of experienced statesmen and respected elders, including former governors and other ex-public office holders, distinguished professionals and accomplished leaders whose views are no doubt deserving of respect.

    Speaking on behalf of The Patriots at the meeting with the President, Chief Anyaoku appealed to him to send an executive bill to the National Assembly to convene a national constituent Assembly with the mandate to produce a draft people’s democratic constitution for the country. The group advocated that the proposed Constituent Assembly should comprise individuals elected on a non-party basis from the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory. They also proposed that the Constituent Assembly should be supported by seven constitutional lawyers representing the six geopolitical zones and the FCT and that its deliberations “should take into account the 1960/1963 constitutions as well as the recommendations of the 2014 National Conference and indeed of the various national conferences that considered the Nigerian constitutions.”

    Continuing, the group advised that “The draft constitution, produced by the constituent Assembly should be put to a national referendum and, if approved, should then be signed by the President as the genuine Nigerian people’s constitution”. Insinuated subtly in this proposal is the belief that the current 1999 Constitution (as amended) is a fake document but The Patriots do not proffer any logical or empirical reasons for arriving at this conclusion. Although President Tinubu did not necessarily disagree with the proposals of his distinguished visitors, he hinted that his major preoccupation for now was to see through his administration’s ongoing economic reforms, after which the suggestions of The Patriots would be reviewed and carefully considered.

    However, the group of eminent persons has obviously not given up on its demand for a new constitution as the cure-all panacea for the country’s socio-political and economic maladies. Towards this end, the group plans to meet with the leadership of the National Assembly to further push its agenda for far-reaching constitutional reforms. Speaking at an event marking the 20th memorial anniversary of their founding Chairman, Chief FRA Williams in Lagos, the group’s General Secretary, Mr Olawale Okuniyi, reiterated The Patriot’s commitment to constitutional reforms stressing that their meeting with the National Assembly would focus on amending Sections 8 and 9 of the 1999 Constitution to allow for a referendum to enable Nigerians to directly influence constitutional changes.

    According to Okuniyi, “The 1999 Constitution is fundamentally flawed and structured in a way that benefits only a small elite while enabling corruption. We are calling on President Tinubu to convene a Constituent Assembly where Nigerians can negotiate a new governance framework that works for everyone”. Incidentally, The Patriots have the support of many eminent senior lawyers in their campaign for a new constitution. For instance, when he received a group, the Prestigious Sisters League at the Afe Babalola University, Ado Ekiti, campus last year, the founder of the university and respected Senior lawyer, Chief Afe Babalola, unequivocally threw his weight behind the demand of the Patriots.

    In the words of Chief Babalola on that occasion, “I read the publication of The Patriots visiting President Tinubu, and I am in full agreement with them. We need a new constitution. But I do not agree that we should go through any constitutional conference. Recently, you are aware that President Bola Tinubu asked us to go back to the old National Anthem; there was no conference for it before it was passed by the National Assembly and assented by the President. The 1963 constitution was the one made by all of us. By the same token, the parliament should bring back the 1963 constitution and reenact it”. This is an incredible view from a SAN of Chief Babalola ‘s pedigree. He spoke seemingly ex-cathedra and apparently saw no reason to justify through rational arguments his advocacy for a return to the 1963 Constitution under which the First Republic collapsed catastrophically, and the country drifted to a tragic civil war.

    Unfortunately, another esteemed SAN, Chief Wole Olanipekun, did no better when he delivered the 32nd and 33rd convocation lecture of the Olabisi Onabanjo University in February last year. Describing the 1999 Constitution as fake, Chief Olanipekun told his audience, including impressionable youths that “We need a constitution with a humane face. I’m a lawyer, but we are deceiving ourselves; our constitution is fake, and I have said this over and over, but then you will ask us, lawyers, ‘If we say the Constitution is fake, why are we practising it?’ Lawyers and judges apply the law as it is, not the law as it ought to be, so we apply the law as we have it now and we have been pleading that we should amend the constitution, let us overhaul it’. But Chief Olanipekun did not believe that he owed the public, given his legal expertise, the benefit of his rigorously articulated position on what he thinks a ‘genuine’ constitution should contain and why he describes the 1999 Constitution as fake.

    The casual and rather cavalier manner in which these revered lawyers approach the very critical issue of an appropriate constitution for Nigeria is a far cry from the seriousness with which Obafemi Awolowo undertook the same task. Awolowo seized the opportunity of his incarceration at the Calabar Prisons to undertake extensive research into the constitutions of most countries in the world at the time based on which he formulated rigorous, near-scientific principles to guide the formulation of an appropriate constitution for Nigeria. Among the principles he arrived at in this respect include that (1) If a country is unilingual and uni-national, the constitution must be unitary (2) If a country is bilingual or multilingual, the constitution must be federal, and the constituent states must be organized on a linguistic basis (3) Any experiment with a unitary constitution in a bilingual or multilingual or multinational country must fail, in the long run. He articulated his political ideas on constitution making as well as Socio-economic policy in such books as ‘Thoughts on the Nigerian Constitution’, ‘The People’s Republic’ and ‘Strategy and Tactics of the People’s Republic of Nigeria’.

    Chief Anyaoku talks so casually about the present Constitution breeding corruption but perhaps forgets that humongous corruption was a behavioural pattern of our political elite right from the First Republic. Indeed, the corruption of the political class in that period featured prominently in major Kaduna Nzeogwu’s coup speech in 1966 as one of the reasons for the military intervention that sacked the First Republic. In his seminal work on the failure of Nigeria’s First Republic, Professor Larry Diamond wrote that “Each ruling party set about in the early 1950s to use the lever of state power – the control over patronage, coercion and chieftaincy in particular -:to consolidate its political base and to suppress those elements that resisted consolidation…Rank favouritism in the award of loans, contracts, bank credits, positions on public boards and corporations and licenses to trade commodity crops gave rise in each region to a ‘privileged group’ of entrepreneurs who came sudden and fantastic success and who, in return, were expected to contribute substantially to party funds, use their wealth and influence to mobilize support for their parties in their various localities, and maintain unflinching loyalty to party leadership”.

    Read Also: Domino’s Nigeria partners with Arla Foods to double its premium cheese on customer pizza’s nationwide

    Indeed, the flaws and ills of the 1960/1963 constitution informed the change from the parliamentary to the presidential constitution of the Second Republic and even then the rampant corruption, intemperate politics, blatant election rigging, promiscuous vagrancy of politicians from one party to the other that resulted in the collapse of the First Republic led to the breakdown of democracy once again with the coup of 1983. Another respected Senior Advocate in the person of Mr Babatunde Fashola, former Lagos State governor and Minister of Works, in my view, summarizes the crux of the matter succinctly and poignantly in his book, ‘Nigerian Public Discourse -‘The Interplay of Empirical Evidence and Hyperbole’.

    According to Fashola, “My summation is that “Nigerians want a better life, not a better document”. The conviction that the Constitution serves as a universal remedy, a magic bullet with the capacity to address all our tribulations, perhaps warrants a re-evaluation. Proponents of the perspective that our political architecture is the principal barrier to our progress may indeed possess a legitimate argument. However, l advocate that their contentions necessitate less rhetorical flourish and more exactitude”.

    Fashola continues, “Interestingly, while an impressive number of commentators and agitators for constitutional change endorse the 1979 Constitution, they disown the 1999 Constitution in many aspects such as to assert that it lied about its source and that it was written by the military. However, they continually forget that the 1976 Constituent Assembly leading to the 1999 Constitution and Justice Niki Tobi’s constitution debating and coordinating committee share one thing in common – they were both inaugurated by Military Heads of state. As I acknowledged earlier, there may be the need to further amend part of the Constitution, and indeed – the amendment was made in 2023, but those who seek those amendments must move away from wholesale condemnation and recommend specific amendments that they seek”. I concur.

  • Professor Diji Aina on factionalism, economic parasitism and state fragility (1)

    Professor Diji Aina on factionalism, economic parasitism and state fragility (1)

    Although his inaugural lecture interestingly delivered on the ninth day of March in the ninth year of his promotion to the rank of professor at the Babcock University some six years ago in 2016, Professor Diji Aina’s dissection of the phenomenon of factionalism, economic parasitism and state fragility with particular reference to Africa and Nigeria specifically is one of the most exhaustive and insightful searchlights on the subject that I have read. The issues raised in the lecture are ever so refreshingly relevant to the push and pull of communal life in diverse polities across time and space. Titled ‘Factionalism, Economic Vampires and the Fragile State’, the discourse analyses diverse forms of cooperative and thus healthy factionalism as well as competitive, conflict-laden and thus dysfunctional  factionalism in polities ranging from South Korea, Eastern Europe and Latin America, Western Europe, the United States of America and of course Africa.

    Although some scholars have an essentially atomistic view of man as an isolated individual fundamentally preoccupied with the selfish pursuit particularly of his existential material interest at the expense of others, the philosophical basis of the ‘economic man’ of capitalist society, man is basically a social or political animal in Aristotelian terms whose life can only be meaningful in his relationship with other fellow homo sapiens. The imperative of living in society since man is not created to live a Robinson Crusoe-type of self-reliant existence makes the interaction of individuals with others in society inevitable essentially through the formation of groups which may be economic, religious, cultural, military, professional, educational, ethnic, leisure-related or, of course, political in nature.

    The political association in the form of the political party in democratic polities’ is perhaps the pre-eminent group in society since it competes with other like groups for the control of state power and the legitimate authority to coordinate and allocate values as well as determine, in the formulation of the political scientist, Harold Lasswell, who gets what, when and how in the societal distribution of resources even though he is criticized for not paying sufficient attention to the production of those resources as well as how much goes to the constitutive classes of society.

    Stressing the inevitability of factionalism in organized society, Professor Aina notes that the phenomenon “is an integral part of the political process whether in corporate political settings, autocracy or democracy. Party politics globally has served only as a tool of factional strategy in order to achieve political power. In other words, party politics depended on factionalism because the goal of party politics has been about access to power, the route to economic resources”. He sheds further light on the concept of factionalism stating that “Whereas in the cooperative and competitive typologies, the State is strengthened; in the degenerative model, the fragility of the state is seriously highlighted. For instance, factionalism contributed to political paralysis of the Soviet Union in the late 1970s, delayed Gorbachev’s political reforms in the 1980s, made the prospect of Obama’s last two years dull, and created an ugly scenario in 2015 in Nigeria’s national politics, thereby stultifying the change mantra”.

    Read Also: Elebuibon: Why there’s growing urge for money rituals

    Incidentally, for the first phase of governance in post-colonial Africa, the fractious character of democratic politics as captured by Professor Aina’s conception of factionalism bred a distrust for liberal democracy with some of the modernization theorists such as Samuel Huntington at the time in the early 60s and 70s,  perceiving and promoting the military, for instance, with its supposed organizational attributes of discipline, efficiency, primacy on order, hierarchy and promptness as a modernizing agent through what was described as ‘developmental dictatorship’. It was this same kind of rationalization that sought to justify the rash of military, one-party and one-man dictatorships across Africa at the time that was perceived as more suited for the attainment of Africa’s desired rapid development than the rancorous debates, noisy disputations, intra-party disputes and inter-party conflicts and protracted legislative deliberations characteristic of liberal democracy, a scenario vividly captured by Professor Aina’s conception of factionalism, which was seen as unduly distracting and obstructive of accelerated transformation in underdeveloped societies needing fast-paced transformation.

    It took bitter experience for African and other underdeveloped countries to see that imposing the peace and seeming order of the graveyard on a polity in the quest for development, rather than being a sure and speedy route to development, bred pervasive corruption, drove grievance, dissension and faction underground, inevitably nurtured political persecution, oppression and pernicious human rights abuse while worsening instability and deepening underdevelopment.

    In Nigeria since 1999, for instance, the most intense forms of intra-party disputations, political disagreements, poor governance, degenerative violence, unbridled corruption among other perverse manifestations of the political process have not tempted Nigerians to desire a return to military or any other form of dictatorship. Sometimes chaotic factionalism is increasingly being seen as an integral part of political contestation in a free and plural society and society must incrementally and systematically develop the capacity to manage such within the prism of democratic culture, institutions and processes.

    Illustrated throughout Professsor Aina’s lecture is the thesis that “Factions are ubiquitous aspects of life. From the Caudillos of Latin America where, according to Lewis (2006) strong colorful personalities impose their will on the people through the “hyper-presidential” system to political paralysis leading to Mikhail Gorbachev reform politics of the 1980s in the defunct Soviet Union to the gridlock cum divided government of the United States, factions have either strengthened or weakened the state”. But while relatively strong institutions as well as restraining moral or cultural values have been able to help contain the dysfunctional and disruptive consequences of governmental gridlock or democratic decay in advanced democracies such as Donald Trump’s America or Boris Johnson’s United Kingdom, factionalism has had more devastating and destructive consequences in underdeveloped polities like Nigeria.

    As Professor Aina explains, “Unlike in the United States where the political system is confronted by a gridlock and a divided government arising from multiplicity of interest groups and policy options, the Nigerian space is perforated by rampaging economic vampires, predatory elite gangs and a disoriented civic populace whose mind is sold to a complex web of patrons”. The economic parasitism of the political elite described by the professor as ‘rampaging political vampires’ is thus the key explanatory variable that links extreme and divisive factional contestations in Nigeria to state fragility and debilitating underdevelopment.

    As he pungently makes the point, “The concept of vampire is mythological. It conveys the idea of an entity or being whose goal is sucking out the life essence (i.e. blood or life sustaining fluid) of other living beings. In this lecture, we use economic vampires to represent all agents of the State and non-State actors who fuel factional flames and fan the embers of degenerative politics with the ultimate goal of preying on the economy. They come as political and economic entrepreneurs, multi-national corporation actors as well as other entities and persons whose apotheosis is putting profit ahead of all other goals and to the exclusion of ethical and moral considerations”.   In the concluding part of this essay, we will relate Professor Aina’s ideas to the character of politics, paralysis of governance, decay of values, heightened state fragility and developmental degeneracy in Nigeria’s fourth Republic with particular attention on the forthcoming general elections.

  • Rivers crisis and the perils of unwisdom

    Rivers crisis and the perils of unwisdom

    There are those who have sought to draw parallels between Prime Minister, Alhaji Tafawa Balewa’s declaration of a State Of Emergency in the Western Region in the First Republic and the dissolution of the region’s democratic institutions and President Bola Tinubu’s similar action this week to address the obvious drift to anarchy in Rivers State where a debilitating political crisis had festered paralyzing governance for the better part of the last one and a half years. However, it is not a particularly accurate attempt at establishing historical equivalence.

    The State of Emergency imposed on the Western Region by the ruling Northern Peoples Congress (NPC)/National Council of Nigerian Citizens (NCNC) coalition at the centre was a premeditated and calculated plan by the federal government to obstruct, disrupt and dismantle democratic governance in the West, dislodge the ruling Action Group (AG) in the region, politically castrate the leader of the AG, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, who as Leader of the Opposition was perceived as an implacable thorn in the flesh of the ruling federal coalition and impose on the region a servile leadership more amenable to external control and manipulation.

    Thus, it was not the declaration of the State of Emergency in 1962 that instigated the widespread violence and unrest (operation wetie) that engulfed the Western Region and ultimately resulted in the collapse of the First Republic but rather the brazen rigging of the 1964 Western Regional elections that sought to foist the unpopular SLA Akintola-led Nigerian National Democratic Party (NNDP) on the people. In the Western Region, there was no breakdown of law and order anywhere in the region that prompted Balewa’s action but an instigated fracas by the minority in the Western Regional House of Assembly to prevent the majority from exercising its constitutional right to remove the Premier, Chief SLA Akintola, from office and appoint a new Premier. Balewa’s action in the West was the equivalent of a coup de tat which President Tinubu’s intervention in the continuously degenerating crisis in Rivers State could by no means be described as being.

    Read Also: Court halts INEC from processing recall petition against Senator Natasha

    In Rivers State, the protracted crisis between the immediate past governor of the state and now Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Mr Nyesom Wike, and his successor, Sir Similayi Fubara, had resulted in the criminal demolition of the premises of the state legislature to prevent the suspected planned impeachment of the governor, the consequent incapacitation of the legislature, the running of the affairs of the state with four out of 32 legislators, the holding of local government elections in defiance of a court order all culminating in the Supreme Court judgement of Friday, February 28, that stripped the Fubara government of any veneer of legitimacy.

    In the aftermath of the apex court decision, the majority faction of the legitimated Assembly initiated moves to commence the impeachment of Fubara and his Deputy which elicited threats by some militant ethnic-based groups to unleash violence in the state including the sabotage and crippling of the country’s vital oil pipelines. Governor Fubara himself had earlier, during the commissioning of a project, asked youths in the state to be calm and wait for instructions which would be given at the appropriate time. A few hours before President Tinubu declared the State of Emergency and suspended the executive and legislative arms of government, there had been explosions on at least two critical oil pipelines in the state and with no record of the governor as Chief Security Officer of the State warning against such actions or even convening a security council meeting to deliberate on strategies to contain the situation and prevent further deterioration.

    It is needless here to join the now largely academic debate on whether or not the President should have acted preemptively to avoid a descent to anarchy or the appropriateness of suspending democratic structures when declaring a State Of Emergency when a conflict between the executive and legislature in the state is central to the crisis.

    At the root of the crisis that has resulted in the unfortunate paralysis of democracy in Rivers State at least for the next six months in the first instance, is the self-sabotaging unwisdom of the contending individuals and groups in the politics of the state and this is not a characteristic that is peculiar to Rivers State. Rather, it is a feature of the political behaviour and culture of Nigeria’s political class across time and space which has led to debilitating systemic breakdowns at various times in the country’s political evolution.

    There is no doubt that the verdict of the Supreme Court amounted in reality to a decisive and massive victory for the pro-Wike forces in their battle with Fubara for the control of the soul of Rivers State. But was it a sign of wisdom or even strategic astuteness for them to have continued to push for the impeachment of the governor when they had him practically trapped and at their mercy? Moreso,  Fubara had already shown signs of softening his hard-line stance and stated his preparedness to implement the decisions of the Supreme Court, a matter in which he had little choice in any case. From the limited but significant triumph that the Supreme Court judgement meant to them, Wike and his supporters wanted overwhelming victory and the total political vanquishing of their opponents in Rivers State including the impeachment or maximum humiliation of the governor. It was unnecessary.

    Writing on the conflict between Awolowo and Akintola that degenerated to anarchy in the Western Region with all sides ultimately losing out, Professor Larry Diamond noted that “But neither was the Awolowo faction impressive in its commitment to the democratic rules of the game. While less flagrant in its abuses, it, too, manipulated the system in dubious ways for short-term gain: desperately trying to avoid a dissolution of the Western House that would necessitate a new election, secretly removing Akintola through petition before a House meeting, and rejecting, at every crucial point before the Emergency when it had the upper hand, any real compromise with Akintola”. Diamond could well have been talking about the Wike faction which squandered the upper hand that the Supreme Court judgement gave it and pursued a course of action that could most likely have led to widespread violence but for the President’s State of Emergency that demobilized all the contending factions.

    None of this is to downplay the gravity of the Governor’s constitutional infractions which were appropriately articulated by the Attorney-General of the Federation, Mr Lateef Fagbemi (SAN). Supervising the demolition of the House of Assembly structure and relocating the four legislators loyal to him to operate from the government house and illegally pass the state’s appropriation bill as well as approve the list of commissioners constitute the height of impunity. There is also the moral question of the governor turning so viciously and vehemently against his predecessor without whose support he could never have attained the position. But the unwisdom in Mr Wike’s widely perceived extremist utterances, his uncompromising stance and sometimes disdainful and dismissive attitude to the governor and his supporters elicited some degree of sympathy for Fubara who was perceived as the underdog.

    Beyond this, the conflict between the two had begun to assume ethnic undertones that could have complicated matters and aggravated the possibility of violence had attempts to impeach the governor continued. The truth is that Wike most likely acted impulsively in supporting Fubara as his successor rather than with the requisite care, diligence and meticulous consideration needed for such a decision. Having made that grievous error which revealed his inability to correctly assess and judge human character and leadership potential, the Minister should have handled the fallout in a less combustible manner and in a way that would not constitute a political liability for President Tinubu given his key position as a member of the Federal Executive Council (FEC).

    On his part, Fubara’s inability to more subtly and strategically manage his relationship with his predecessor and benefactor no matter the excesses of the latter exposes his naivety, political inexperience and deficiency of emotional intelligence. It is also a measure of his leadership capability that he has been unable to utilize the influence of his office to win greater support from the legislative arm of government but chose to antagonize the majority of the legislators till everybody was sent packing at least for six months. He is the greatest loser in the unfolding scenario in Rivers State and will most likely find out that most of those that urged him on in his confrontation with Wike were doing so not out of any sense of loyalty or commitment but for what they could benefit materially from the position he occupied. Sadly, the various leaders and elders in the state also took positions not dictated by the common good of the people of Rivers State but considerations of personal interest.

    At the inception of the crisis, President Tinubu convened a meeting of the contended parties with elders and respected statesmen from the state in attendance with a view to finding an amicable solution to the crisis. Unfortunately, the terms of the agreement which all the parties signed to at the meeting was subsequently jettisoned with people digging into entrenched and inflexible positions until the President wielded the big stick. But given his considerable political experience, strategic astuteness and the weight and authority of his office, President Tinubu is still in the best position to broker an acceptable peace that can usher Rivers State back to normalcy and such a feat will earn him considerable political capital.

    The Vanguard newspaper in its editorial of Tuesday, March 18, advised that “In this kind of situation, “might” may not be”right “. The two sides may not be in the mood to exercise diplomacy and implement the verdict through consensus. That was exactly the situation that the Lagos Assembly men and women found themselves in until the President intervened in a fatherly manner. We call on him to adopt the same attitude towards the implementation of the Supreme Court verdict in Rivers State”.

    In conclusion, the Vanguard suggested that “the President holds private talks with Governor Fubara and Minister Wike and commit them to peace and hold them responsible in case of a breach of the peace. …No side should be allowed to push its luck too far. Everything must be done to preserve the peace”. President Tinubu can break the vicious cycle of unwisdom in Rivers.

  • Further issues in the LSHA crisis

    Further issues in the LSHA crisis

    For members of the De-Renaissance Patriots, a socio-cultural group of eminent Lagos indigenes with accomplishments in diverse spheres of life, the Lagos State House of Assembly crisis, which has been finally apparently laid to rest following a meeting in Abuja between President Bola Tinubu and the 40 members of the state legislature, has to do essentially with the politics of indigeneship in cosmopolitan Lagos, which is its prime concern. Obviously not too concerned about the grave but yet unsubstantiated allegations that resulted in the earlier, now reversed, impeachment of Hon. Mudashiru Obasa as Speaker of the House, the De-Renaissance Patriots are of the view that having elected Hon. (Mrs) Mojisola Meranda as Obasa ‘s replacement, the new status quo should have been allowed to stand, especially as what it describes as her ‘forced’ resignation as Speaker is a slight on Lagos indigenes who supported her emergence.

    In a rejoinder to a well-publicized piece by respected Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Dr Muiz Banire, on the LSHA crisis, the association of Lagos indigenes had averred that “The decision to reinstate Speaker Mudashiru Obasa at the expense of Hon. Meranda, an indigene, effectively disregarded the will of Lagosians from Epe, Badagry, Ikeja, Lagos and Ikorodu divisions, who had overwhelmingly supported Meranda. The intervention of these external figures, therefore, dashed the hopes of Lagos indigenes and will be remembered in history as a betrayal of democratic principles”. The ‘external figures’ referred to here by the De-Renaissance Patriots are Chief Bisi Akande and Aremo Olusegun Osoba, former governors and revered progressive Yoruba statesmen, who had led mediatory initiatives to resolve the impasse in the Assembly and restore normalcy.

    But the position of the De-Renaissance Patriots as stated above appears fallacious and misleading. Obasa was not initially removed by his colleagues as Speaker because he was an indigene and neither was Mrs Meranda named to replace him because of the indigene factor. And no poll was conducted to empirically determine the views of Lagosians from Epe, Badagry, Ikeja, Lagos and Ikorodu on the matter as insinuated by the Lagos Patriots. The politics of  indigeneship   is complex and intricate in a sprawling metropolis like Lagos where indigenes are a numerical minority in a political system predicated on liberal democracy where voting strength determines electoral supremacy.

    There is hardly anyone better placed than Dr Muiz Banire to intervene in the matter as he has done in his characteristic forthright and incisive manner. I had not known that he had played a major participatory role in the efforts by Chief Akande and Aremo Osoba to mediate in the crisis and thus is in a position to speak authoritatively on the issue. Banire is himself a Lagos indigene of an illustrious lineage. He served with distinction as Commissioner in Lagos State in the key Ministries of Environment and Transportation for at least 12 years and was active in the politics of the state for nearly two decades before he chose to quit partisan politics to concentrate on the practice of law. Even before his exit from the political scene, he was bold in speaking out and strove to be objective in his positions on crises within the party.

    Read Also: Six AI hacks transforming how Nigerian Gen Zs hustle smarter, live better

    Banire thus speaks with considerable credibility when he avers that Baba Akande and Osoba were not procured by the presidency to play the role they did. Rather, they were invited by key stakeholders in the party in Lagos to intervene in resolving an avoidable crisis with potential cataclysmic consequences detrimental to the continued enviable progress of Lagos State. And there is no reason to doubt Banire when he testifies that the duo played their roles with dedication, diligence, determination, balance and an open mind to resolve the crisis in the best interest of Lagos State and the ruling party in the state. That the final resolution of the crisis did not strictly follow the pattern of the recommendations of the mediatory committee, at least as reported in the media, confirms Banire ‘s submission that Chiefs Akande and Osoba were not necessarily being teleguided by anybody. There is no indication that Dr Banire himself is supportive of the terms of the final settlement.

    But the important thing is that the unduly festering crisis has been contained and this is due largely to the towering stature of the President in the politics of the state. There was the danger that the crisis could have dragged on interminably with legal battles being waged from one level of our cumbersome legal process to the other right up to the Supreme Court with deleterious consequences for the development of the state. As things stand, all parties to the crisis have been given an opportunity to reset and learn appropriate lessons to inform future actions. The legislators have learnt that they cannot act unilaterally and independent of their party and its leadership in taking key decisions on its operations as a legislative body. Hon. Obasa has been given an opportunity to learn from his missteps, mend fences with his colleagues and improve on his human and public relations.

    Hon. Mrs Meranda has emerged as a self-sacrificial hero in the entire affair by subordinating her personal ambition for the collective party interest and I believe the party owes her a debt of compensation when it is time in future to collect her political ‘IOU’.  She could well have opted for the ‘Akintola taku’ option and sought to bring down the roof on everybody. From the perspective of the De-Renaissance Patriots, “…it is deeply concerning that Speaker Obasa, despite losing the confidence of the House, is being artificially sustained by external forces, thereby subverting democratic principles”. Again, this is fallacious. The political party which provides the platform for the legislators to be elected cannot rightly be described as an ‘external force’ in the affairs of the legislature. The same legislators who exercised the right to remove Obasa have exercised the right to reinstate him and there cannot be anything undemocratic about that.

    In his authoritative and inimitable manner, Chief Obafemi Awolowo stated in his address to the Oyo State Conference of the Unity Party of Nigeria on 8th November 1980, that “Indeed, the registered Political Party is the sole source from which candidates for election, and elected members of the Legislature and Executive, derive their life-blood for acceptability, public status, and legitimacy. Any elected member or group of elected members of a Political Party who refuse to toe the party line – that is, choose to break their link with the party source – must, of a necessity, either quickly affiliate with another Political Party for a link with another party source, or be doomed to political dehydration or anemia. In other words, by express provisions as well as necessary implications in the Constitution, the Registered Political Party is supreme and absolutely decisive in the conduct of our public affairs”.

    Commenting on the role of the Governor’s Advisory Council (GAC) in the LSHA crisis, The Punch newspaper in its editorial of 11th February 2025, wrote that “The GAC’s involvement in this matter amounts to a democratic hijack. As an unelected advisory body with no constitutional authority, it has no place dictating the pace of legislative affairs”. Contrary to the newspaper’s view, associational and interest groups which are not necessarily creations of the Constitution have their legitimate roles in liberal democracies. The GAC was an innovation of President Tinubu when he assumed office as governor of Lagos State in 1999.

    Contrary to those who always strive to portray him as a power-monopolising, totalitarian godfather, Tinubu created the GAC then known as the G12, to enable him as governor to have access to the advice and input of men of distinction, wisdom and experience in public service to serve as a restraint on his exercise of power. In his book, ‘Reflections of a Public Man’, Alhaji Olatunji Hazmat, who was Commissioner for Transportation in the Alhaji Lateef Jakande administration in Lagos State in the Second Republic and a leading Lagos, Southwest and national progressive leader, wrote of a crisis that arose over the decision of two of his sons to contest the local government elections in the state based on their own campaigns and efforts and devoid of his influence. He gives us an insight into the workings of the advisory group even at that time.

    In his words, “The first open dissent I encountered about the boys’ ambition was at a meeting of the Group of 12 (G12), an advisory group of party leaders that met often at Isaac John Street, reflecting on important issues to guide and formulate policies. Though the group served at the behest of the governor, he was not mandated to attend its meetings. Now and then he would appear, depending on the hurried pace of events and the exigency of the moment. He had appeared at this very meeting because of the party primary and related electoral concerns…Here, at this meeting, the governor had expressed misgivings about my sons’ ambitions, saying one of them should drop out. I thanked him for his observations and there and then l plucked out a written statement and read it out loud and clear”.

    In that statement read to the G12 at the Isaac John Street meeting on 3rd January 2003,  Alhaji Hazmat had contended that “In this wise, it would be wrong, wicked and even malicious to deny a son a legitimate ambition simply because the father is a revered political presence. If we want to sustain the integrity and the equitable continuity of this democratic enterprise, we should emulate the enlightened tradition of the great democracies of the world where distinguished political lineages and ancestral beginnings are seen much more as a benefit than a liability. On this nobody should compromise. It is a matter of honour.”

  • Azu: Symbol of class, value at 60

    Azu: Symbol of class, value at 60

    In all of its 180 slim pages, the unique publication, ‘Azu at 60: Celebrating a Legacy of Words and Love’, compiled and crafted to commemorate the Diamond anniversary of Azubuike Ishiekwene, Frontline journalist, ace columnist, media manager, engaging polemicist, author and public intellectual, oozes class, quality and style. It is a true embodiment of the man simply called Azu by friends, colleagues and acquaintances – a unique manifestation of considerable value. The quality of the historic work in content, graphics, literary flair and the sheer erudition of its diverse contributors is not surprising given the reputation of its three ‘curators’ and editors – Louis Odion, Mojeed Jamiu and Ololade Bamidele – who rank among the best and brightest minds in contemporary Nigerian journalism.

    Although he is renowned as one of the country’s leading pharmacists and a former Minister of Health, Prince Juli Adelusi-Adeluyi, in the succinct but pungent foreword demonstrates not only exquisite literary craftsmanship but arresting intellectual versatility. Noting that 1965, the year of Azu’s birth, was a good one to arrive this side of eternity, Prince Adeluyi writes that “It was in March 1965 that Martin Luther King Jr led the famous Selma, Alabama demonstrations for voting rights for black people. It was also in 1965 August that Lyndon Baines Johnson, the 36th president of the US signed the Voting Rights Act…In the Arts, it was the year the movie, Sound of Music, directed by Robert Wise, came up on the cinema screens…In Science, it was the year of the revolutionary invention of the internet, a phenomenon which, like Azu, continues to grow stronger and more relevant with the fullness of time”.

    For Adeluyi, the dexterity with which Azu navigates the intriguing terrain of newspaper management in Nigeria and “His determination, zeal, creativity, persistence, perseverance and the Mona Lisa smile he wears through trying times, must have been a result of the special Ogbe-ani, Ndokwa milk that mummy Jenny fed him with when he was young”. It was with evident pride and immense sense of fulfillment that Azu’s teacher, renowned journalism scholar and inimitable columnist, Professor Olatunji Dare, testifies to his protege’s brilliance and sterling accomplishments in the introduction crafted with his trademark scintillating prose style.

    According to Professor Dare, “From early encounters in the class, Azu struck me as a young man who was most likely to succeed. He was driven, committed, and enquiring. On assignments, small and big, he strove to excel. You would hardly catch him making the same mistake or lapsing into the same solecism twice. He invested so much care into preparing his submissions that I remarked once that if every reporter were as meticulous as he was, copy editors would go out of business”. It was thus no wonder that Professor Dare did not hesitate to recommend Azu for employment on graduation and one of Nigeria’s leading newspapers, The Punch, immediately offered him a job.

    Azu’s rise to the topmost editorial and managerial echelons of The Punch was meterioc as he quickly proved his versatility, competence and professional astuteness. Even though he was to depart the newspaper in controversial and hazy circumstances, he demonstrated uncommon inner fortitude and tenacity to bounce back to even greater glory. As Dare put it, “Azu has, by dedication and sustained commitment to the art and craft of journalism, earned and re-earned the encomiums strewn across this volume, an eloquent testament to the high esteem in which he is held by his peers. He fell, he picked himself up, and by great striving rose and rose to a position of acknowledged eminence in Nigerian journalism. At 60, Azu has lived a life rich in purpose, achievement, and example. Nor is he done yet”.

    And on Azu’s latest book, Dare has subtle words of admonition for his former student. He writes, “Lately, with the publication of ‘Writing for the Media and Monetizing It’, Azu has ventured into what I call mercantile journalism, for want of a better term. By all accounts, the book has been a commercial success. Such books, I humbly suggest, should be left to those who are more interested in commercial success than journalism, in helping shape the standards of sense and sensibility in society”. Incidentally, Prince Adelusi-Adeluyi had humorously referred to the book in his foreword. In his words, “I was excited that this was Azu’s”eureka!” moment. For writing such a book, he himself would soon be in the ranks of Keith Rupert Murdoch, the Australian -American business magnate, investor and media mogul. Months later, I am yet to see Azu’s name among the rich-list of the Forbes magazine. Am I missing something?”.

    The calibre of those who testify to Azu’s qualities in this publication testify to his class and integrity. They include Alhaji Mohammed Idris, current Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mr Frank Nweke II, a former Minister of Information, Dr Muiz Banire, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Adeyinka Olumide-Fusika, another Senior Advocate of Nigeria,  Justice Olubunmi Oyewole, a highly esteemed Judge of the Court of Appeal, Mr Lekan Abdul, Chief Executive Officer of Bond Energy Limited and Dr Niyi Adeosun, MD/CEO of Ayodele Medical Centre, Lagos.

    Zainab Nda-Isaiah, widow of the late founder of Leadership newspaper, testifies to his professional proficiency and soaring sense of loyalty, fidelity and commitment. “I guess Azu means different things to different people” she writes. “Some know him as an author; many see him as a mediapreneur. To us, the family of Sam Nda-Isaiah, he has been a Rock!!! I believe he is all these and more – a consummate journalist, a leader’s leader,  and an intelligent troubleshooter who finds solutions where others see road blocks”.

    Some of Azu’s eminent professional colleagues – Funke Egbemode, Louis Odion, Joseph Adeyeye, Gbenga Adefaye, Mojeed Jamiu, Eze Anaba – offer insights into his career trajectory, his role and impact as a journalist and above all his attributes as a good human being. In his characteristically reflective and philosophical contribution, Louis Odion, focuses on Azu’s life of sacrificial self-giving affirming that “I, therefore, count myself among the countless beneficiaries of his generosity of spirit, which is quite ecumenical in texture. You only need to hint Azu of a difficulty – whether professional or personal – and, in the next moment, he has everything already worked out clinically, like an Oracle in terms of solution options”.

    Read Also: Athena Centre calls for better safety for Nigerian women

    A number of contributors allude affectionately to Azu’s wife, Mrs Rume Ishiekwene and there is no doubt that she is a vital and indispensable factor in whatever he has achieved in six decades of an ongoing epochal life. Frank Nweke Jr recounts how her stubbornly insisting on his partaking of a feast of Amala, Ewedu and orishirihi accompaniments at the Azu’s Lagos home at Omole led to his postponement of a return trip to Abuja on an aircraft that fatally crashed. In her contribution, Mrs Ishiekwene writes, “As you turn 60, I find myself reflecting on the remarkable journey we’ve shared and the extraordinary man you are – both as a distinguished journalist of over 35 years and as the cornerstone of our family”.

    Rume writes further that “What makes you truly remarkable is how you’ve balanced these professional achievements with being an extraordinary father and husband. You’ve never watched from the sidelines of our children’s lives, you’ve been an active participant in their dreams”. In their respective contributions, the children – Ashioma, Emeke and Nkechi – all paying glowing tribute to their dad’s invaluable contributions to their life accomplishments.

    On a personal note, my first close interaction with Azu was when I was appointed Special Adviser/Permanent Secretary in the Lagos State Ministry of Information and Strategy in 2005. The Commissioner, Mr Dele Alake, and I had a dream of making Lagos the first state to domesticate the Freedom of Information Act. Accordingly, we set up a committee to work out modalities towards actualizing this objective and Azu was a member. His work rate was incredible and the quality of his contributions at meetings superlative.

    We worked at a frenetic pace holding several meetings over a two-month period culminating in  a very successful stakeholders forum at the Lagos Airport Hotel. Azu played a central role in drafting the final report which was to be the basis for the requisite FOI Act. Until I left the Ministry in 2009, we were still trying in futility to get the report through the labyrinth of the public service bureaucracy. We were quite lucky that Azu did not do a scathing column lacerating us for wasting his valuable time. I wish him a happy birthday and even more glorious years ahead.

  • IBB in history

    IBB in history

    Self-styled former military President, General Ibrahim Babangida’s long-awaited memoir, ‘A Journey in Service’, brings to the forefront an earlier book, published in 2010 titled ‘Diary of a Debacle: Tracking Nigeria’s Failed Democratic Transition (1989-1994), authored by renowned journalism scholar, inimitable satirical columnist and diligent public intellectual, Professor Olatunji Dare. In the light of IBB’s account in his book of the reasons for and the personalities behind the annulment of the June 12, 1993, presidential election, now confirmed to have been won by Chief MKO Abiola, Professor Dare’s ‘Diary of a Debacle’ acquires greater poignancy, saliency, relevance and significance.

    For in delectable after delectable column giving a ringside account of events as they unfolded before, during and after the annulment including the pronouncements and actions of the major dramatis personae, Professor Dare proves conclusively that IBB did not have any intention of leaving power and thus made no effort to reign in those of his military colleagues that he belatedly admits in his book, were vehemently opposed to the transition from military dictatorship to a democratically elected government.

    Professor Dare’s disdain and dislike for what he perceived as IBB’s duplicity, slipperiness and Machiavellian disposition is unhidden in his chronicles of events surrounding the annulment but he hardly ever succumbed to the passions of raw anger or blind outrage. Yet, Dare had much to be displeased with as regards the IBB dictatorship. His newspaper, The Guardian, was one of the courageous voices shut down for prolonged periods during IBB’s inglorious reign. His pungent and popular columns understandably attracted the close attention of the regime’s security goons.

    His refusal to be part of a delegation to apologize to the military to facilitate the reopening of the newspaper rendered him virtually jobless. Yet, his articles were couched with characteristic literary and linguistic flair and the facts were presented with the meticulous diligence and integrity of the professional historian. A resort to anger, vulgar insults and cheap abuse would no doubt have devalued their intellectual worth and diminished their worth as reliable historical documents.

    Those responding in fiery anger to IBB’s memoir may have some lessons to learn from Professor Dare’s class and style in the presentation of his material. Can it be that there is absolutely nothing of worth and not a single iota of truth in a memoir of over 400 pages? That would be an intellectually dishonest overgeneralization. For a dictator who ruled the country for eight years, we surely should be interested in a dispassionate analysis to situate his place in Nigeria’s history. Much more important and critical than his regime’s Political Transition Programme that produced the annulled June 12, 1993, presidential election was its Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) which was its flagship economic policy.

    There are those who contend that there was no alternative to SAP at the time the Babangida regime came to power in August 1985. The austerity measures and remedial economic policies implemented by the preceding Shehu Shagari civilian administration and the General Muhammadu Buhari military regime were simply not producing the desired effects. Professor Adebayo Olukoshi analyzed some of the Buhari regime’s policies such as devoting over 44% of the country’s total foreign exchange earnings to debt servicing and the policy of counter-trade which involved bartering Nigeria’s crude oil for raw materials, spare parts, machinery and consumer goods from a number of countries.

    Read Also: Nigeria committed to peace in West Africa, says CDS Musa

    In his words, “In the face of this, the problems of the Nigerian economy worsened, with inflation still rising further, infrastructural facilities deteriorating, more workers losing their jobs, the payments problem persisting, the industrial sector suffering more setbacks and the agricultural sector stagnating”. All of these increased the intolerance and authoritarianism of the Buhari regime and facilitated the successful Babangida’s palace coup in 1985.

    The core of the IBB regime’s SAP was the massive devaluation of the Naira and the country has continued to suffer from its debilitating effects to this day. Commenting on the consequences of the devaluation of the Naira and the introduction of the Second Tier Foreign Exchange Market announced on February 26 September, 1986, the late Pa Alfred Rewane, had written that “As my friends and I discussed the implications of the government’s announcement, I expressed the view that the devaluation of the Naira was a recipe for disaster and that within five years, the Naira would be worth less than 20 per cent of its then existing value, leading to the possible collapse of the Nigerian economy”.

    Rewane continued, “I reminded them of a standard economic argument that devaluation of the national currency is best contemplated where the nation’s economy depends largely on the export of manufactured goods for its foreign exchange earnings, and where devaluation is considered appropriate to ensure the competitiveness of its manufacturers. I went on to say that, for a country like Nigeria, which earns the bulk of its foreign exchange from the export of crude oil and a variety of agricultural products, such as cocoa, groundnuts, palm produce, rubber etc, there is no advantage in devaluing its currency”.

    Unfortunately, Pa Rewane ‘s prediction has been all too true. The IBB regime’s SAP resulted ultimately in the massive de-industrialization of the economy, phenomenally increased unemployment, the virtual wiping out of the middle class and widespread increase in poverty levels. But as evidenced by the minuscule number of billionaires at his book launch, who raised N17 billion for his presidential library within an hour, his regime also created a new class of super-rich Nigerians whose wealth was predicated more on government patronage than any outstanding ingenuity or extraordinary skill or creativity.

    However, the administration’s Political Transition Programme was fashioned to protect and preserve the SAP and make it a permanent policy feature in Nigeria. Thus, while the SAP undertook a far-reaching deregulation of the Nigerian economy, through the privatization and commercialization of state-owned enterprises, considerable whittling down of fuel and other subsidies, deregulation of prices and interest rates, trade liberalization, reduction of public expenditure and removal of administrative controls in foreign exchange transactions among others, the Political Transition Programme was highly regulated and characterized by rigid military regimentation. That is why any elections conducted under this suffocating military-political environment can be described as the freest and fairest in Nigeria only within necessary contextual limits.

    IBB’s Political Transition Programme involved the patently undemocratic banning, unbanning and rebanning of so-called old-breed politicians, the imposition of two government-created parties, the National Republican Convention (NRC) and Social Democratic Party (SDP), the imposition on these two parties of government created manifestos and constitutions positioning the parties a little to the left and a little to the right of a centre determined by the military. But for the banning of the so-called old-breed politicians, it is unlikely that either MKO Abiola or Bashir Tofa would have emerged as presidential candidates of either the NRC or SDP. It is certainly not fortuitous that the two presidential candidates that emerged were close friends of IBB.

    Again, in the earlier presidential primaries that were held, General Shehu Musa Yar’Adua had emerged the clear winner in the SDP while Alhaji Adamu Ciroma and Alhaji Umaru Shinkafi were heading for a run-off in the NRC. However, IBB cancelled the primaries in which two northern candidates were emerging alleging monetization of the process and he received widespread approbation in the South for this forerunner to the annulment of the June 12, 1993, presidential election. Indeed, some newspapers in the Southwest wrote front-page editorials commending IBB for the cancellation of the primaries. When his regime eventually annulled the June 12 election so clearly won by Abiola as IBB himself has now admitted, it is understandable that the criminal act received little condemnation outside the Southwest.

    IBB and the other pro-annulment forces within his regime had obviously presumed that MKO Abiola could be placated with government patronage or induced like Elesin Oba in Wole Soyinka’s ‘Death and the King’s Horseman’ with the pleasures of the flesh to forgo his mandate. But the billionaire businessman and Egba warrior chief rose to the occasion, stood doggedly by his mandate and lived up to the saying of the Yoruba that a honourable death is far more desirable than a shameful existence.

    There are those who condemn IBB as being cowardly for blaming others like Abacha for the annulment although taking responsibility as the one ultimately in charge at the time. They contend that he could easily have retired Abacha and the other officers opposed to the transition programme. But this view underestimates the complexities of politics within a military regime despite the unitary character and rigid hierarchical structure of the military as an institution. From what we know of Abacha, would he just have quit meekly if sacked or would he and his loyalists have fought back ferociously even if it meant bringing down the roof on everybody?

    General Yakubu Gowon was alerted about a coup plot against his regime before his trip to Uganda for the meeting of the Organization of African Unity. But there was little he could do but meekly accept his fate with philosophical equanimity. General Obasanjo was military Head of State after the demise of Murtala Mohammed but the powers behind the throne were Generals Yakubu Danjuma and Musa Shehu Yar’Adua. Military politics may be more intriguing and intricate than we think.

    What will be the final verdict of history on IBB, MKO, Abacha and other dramatis personae in the confounding conundrum of the June 12 annulment? Was IBB the sole villain with no redeeming feature whatsoever? Was he in the final analysis an embodiment of the weaknesses and limitations of the collective Nigerian society and character, features which he thought he understood and sought to manipulate but which finally undid him? Or is there as the famous Gbolabo Ogunsanwo once famously asked an IBB in us all?

  • Wike’s intriguing politics

    Wike’s intriguing politics

    To his surge of supporters, former governor of Rivers State and now Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, Mr Nyesome Wike, has transformed into the status of deity. He is the object of their unending adulation and ululation. Among them, he is fast becoming the man who cannot be corrected because he is above mere mortals and thus can do no wrong. Alas! Wike knows more than anyone else the sheer ephemeral nature not just of power but of life itself. A leader who wants to succeed must beware of listening to the deceptive music of sycophants who desire nothing but to lure him to the cesspit of demystification and destruction. This is a factor that the incumbent governor of River State, Siminalai Fubara should also habitually keep in mind and meditate upon daily.

    On the other side, those who fervently support Governor Fubara detest his predecessor, Wike, with unmitigated passion and undisguised hatred. They do not see anything wrong with the governor turning so vehemently and venousmally against a mentor who not only sold his candidacy to the voting public but mobilized and deployed massive resources to ensure a little-known Fubara’s victory at the polls. Now that Fubara is in the governor’s seat, he has laid bare his fangs and set his claws like a feral beast waiting to pounce on any available prey. But it is a matter of moral integrity, character, loyalty and fidelity to truth. Of course, it can be argued that it was God who made Fubara governor of Rivers State. True, but God uses human beings to achieve his purposes on earth and in the case of Fubara, God’s tool was Wike and the governor must never forget that.

    It is difficult to understand how a man like Fubara who was a trusted aide to Wike and worked with him for eight years as governor, could so suddenly turn against a man who made him politically and helped build the political structure that enabled his victory to become Rivers State governor. Could he have been deceptive all along, hating his boss with all his might but disguising his true feelings in order to achieve his political objective? If so, Fubara should be Intelligent and wise enough to know that no matter which political party he gravitates towards in due course, he will not be trusted. His integrity will always be questioned as well as capacity for loyalty either to any person or group. Wike as it is now turning out to be, has little capacity to spot, recruit and motivate people of talent and ability to aid him add value to governance when he was governor of Rivers State.

    But then, despite his political astuteness and acumen, how could Wike have decided for and massively enhanced resources behind a Fubara who was his candidate for the governorship office in Rivers State? It is now obvious that if Fubara had any iota of loyalty to his then-boss, Wike, or any sense of commitment to the principles of truth and honesty, they were deceptive and only skin deep. But many of the Rivers State respected elders swarming around Fubara, singing his praises and denouncing Wike today are most likely to harbour some doubts within them about the character, constancy and dependability of Fubara.

    The lesson here is that rather than one person picking a candidate and imposing such an aspirant on the party, structured and institutionalized mechanisms must be put in place across parties to facilitate the emergence of candidates for elections in a competitive, transparent and credible process. But this also implies further that there must be a fundamental change in the way our political parties are funded and run. Rather than the current system whereby wealthy political entrepreneur’s fund and thus dominate the political parties, we should return to a new model where party members pay their dues through which the parties’ activities and obligations are funded.

    Read Also: EFCC arraigns ex-Abia governor, son, three others for alleged N60.85bn fraud

    Both Wike and Fubara have their respective faults in the ongoing political crisis but the governor in my view has the greatest responsibility to bend over backwards to cultivate his mentor and former boss. It is certainly not too late. Moreover, it is the well-being and progress of the people of Rivers State that must be paramount. The speed with which he moved against and sought to decapitate Wike politically is amazing and creates the impression of a ‘Machiavellian’ for whom  the end justifies the means no matter how base or immoral. But a lesson of history is that adopting a Machiavellian disposition to life can often be counterproductive or outrightly self-destructive.

    It was not until he stormed the venue of the PDP presidential election convention and very nearly got the ticket but for the ethnic sleight of hand that gave Alhaji Atiku Abubakar the PDP presidential flag, that I began to take a serious view of Wike. If Atiku had picked him as his running mate, would that not have brightened his chances in the last presidential election? Well, that question lies in the bosom of time. Wike is energetic, focused and productive. Both as governor of Rivers State and now Minister of the FCT, even WIKE’s most ardent adversaries would admit that he is a star performer and an aggressive goal-getter. But his failure with regard to the Rivers crisis is his penchant for intervening unnecessarily in the administration of Rivers under Fubara. Many see him as too brusque, harsh, dictatorial and overbearing. Even as it is important to let Wike know the need to curb these traits, his shortcomings cannot be an excuse for what is widely believed as Fubura’s betrayal of his former boss.

    The Scenario in Rivers is no exception. We have continued to witness ceaseless confrontations between governors and their successors since the inception of this dispensation in 1999 and across party lines. And in most cases, it is due to a struggle between former governors who seek to play the role of party leaders in their respective states and newly elected governors who seek to assume control of the party structure and assume the leadership of the party in the state. It was this conflict between the leadership of the party and that of the government machinery that led to the

    breaking down of the relationship between Chief Obafemi Awolowo as Leader of the party and Chief SLA as Premier of Western Nigeria that later degenerated into widespread riots and demonstrations in the region and later led the country to civil war with excruciating implications for millions of people on both sides of the battleground. And it was to avoid such a situation to recur in future that in the Second Republic from 1979, Awolowo insisted that the governor in each state controlled by the Unity Party of Nigeria must also be the leader of the party in the state.

    How he walks the tightrope of being a Minister on the platform of the APC and also a still influential member of the PDP is intriguing  and impressive. But we can only wait in bated breath as events unfold in the near future. President Tinubu tried in futility to reconcile the warring factions. Their mutually agreed positions were soon jettisoned and the contenders were back in the trenches. It is surely time for elders in Rivers State to close ranks and help bring these two eminent citizens of the state together.

    Meanwhile, we will continue to closely watch Wike’s intriguing dance steps on the often treacherous terrain of Nigerian politics.

    • This article was first published 8th February 2025

  • Issues in the Obasa saga

    Issues in the Obasa saga

    Surely, the parties in the ongoing impeachment crisis rocking the Lagos State House of Assembly (LSHA) ought to have known that such an utterly avoidable internal implosion would make them vulnerable to vicious attacks by those who envy and deplore the fact that their party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), in its various mutations at different times since 1999 as AD, AC, ACD, ACN and now APC, had maintained near one-party electoral dominance of the country’s economic nerve centre over the last two and a half decades. In a widely circulated piece on online platforms, for instance, one Dr Afolabi Gbajumo, after a lengthy dissection of the crisis from his own perspective accused both factions in the current LSHA imbroglio and even the executive of unbridled corruption, illicit accumulation of wealth and venality without the slightest scintilla of evidence.

    True, Lagos is not yet anywhere near where it should be in developmental terms as it is still a work in progress as all human communities always are. But it would take the height of intellectual dishonesty not to admit the glaring fact that compared to where she was pre-1999, the megacity state has made remarkable progress on all fronts leaving virtually every other state in the country far behind. Today, she is not only the sixth largest economy in Africa, Lagos is gradually emerging in the ranks of leading megacities of But this is the kind of unfair onslaught that disputants in the LSHA open their party to and it is unfortunate that they are digging in deeper in their trenches in what can only be an ultimately self-destructive internecine warfare. However, what are the issues?

    With no less than two-thirds of the members of the LSHA controlled by the APC undertaking his impeachment on January 13, 2025, when he was away on vacation to the US, it is logical to argue that the erstwhile Speaker of the House, Hon. Mudashiru Obasa, had lost not only legal but also moral legitimacy. And there is no doubt that the members of the LSHA are constitutionally empowered to elect and remove their principal officers through stipulated rules and procedures. And the vote of confidence passed on the newly elected Speaker, Mrs Mojisola Meranda, by a majority of members before the House adjourned sine die suggests that the legislators are indeed fed up with Obasa whom they have accused of arrogant, insensitive and corrupt leadership.

    The problem is that in politics, things are often not as they seem to be. For example, on 11th November, 2024, members of the LSHA passed a vote of confidence on the allegedly corrupt, insensitive and arrogant Mudashiru Obasa as Speaker of the House. As the This Day Newspaper reported the story, “The vote of confidence on the Speaker coincided with his 52nd birthday as the lawmakers eulogized him for uplifting the country’s democracy through laws that impact positively on the people. Majority Leader, Noheem Adams said during plenary presided over by Deputy Speaker, Mojisola Lasbat Meranda, that his motion, seconded by Hon. Sa’ad Olumoh (Ajeromi Ifelodun. 1), followed a wide consultation”. What then had changed between this time and the ‘impeachment’ of Obasa on January 13 this year?

    Again, since Obasa had lost the confidence of the vast majority of his colleagues and it is even claimed that civil servants in the LSHA bureaucracy boisterously celebrated his removal, why was he impeached when he was out of the country on vacation? Since he was so reportedly overwhelmingly unpopular, could he have done anything to stop his removal if he was present? Wouldn’t that have denuded the process of his impeachment of its seeming surreptitious and conspiratorial secretiveness and accorded it more legitimacy? After all, this is not the first time that a Speaker of the LSHA would be removed in this dispensation. Hon Waheed Jokotola Pelumi was the Speaker of the LSHA between June 2, 2003 and December 29, 2005. Pelumi was removed from office by his colleagues and replaced by Hon. Adeyemi Ikuforiji who remained in office from December 29, 2005, till the end of the life of the 7th Assembly in 2015. Pelumi was not removed from office in his absence and the governor at the time, now President Bola Tinubu did not oppose the change of leadership which reinforced his democratic credentials.

    It is ironic that those who mobilized a massive security presence in the Assembly premises to facilitate the removal of Obasa cried foul that officials of the DSS had invaded the Assembly premises to prevent the Speaker, Hon. (Mrs Miranda) from accessing her office and allegedly to facilitate the resumption of Obasa who had dismissed his impeachment as defective and not following due process. The DSS has since made public a letter signed by the Deputy Clerk of the House, Mr A.T.B. Ottun, to prevent alleged plans by Obasa to forcefully resume in his office on February 18, 2025. Reports widely disseminated on social media that a cache of sophisticated arms were suddenly discovered in Obasa ‘s office weeks after Mrs Meranda had supposedly been making use of the same office does little to help the credibility of the anti-Obasa elements. It gives the impression of a desperation to de-market and instigate public opinion against the embattled Agege legislator.

    During Adeyemi Ikuforiji’s tenure as Speaker, he led the House in offering robust checks and balances to the executive during the tenure of the highly cerebral Governor Babatunde Raji Fashola (SAN). But this the easy going but inwardly steely lawmaker from Epe did without ever insulting the governor or demeaning his office. Thus, that Obasa kept Governor Sanwo-Olu and his entourage waiting for nearly four hours before the commencement of the presentation of the state’s 2025 budget estimates and without any apologies for this slight is inexplicable.

    Rather, his needlessly combative speech on that occasion was the height of arrogance which has been widely condemned by the public. Had members of the Assembly limited themselves to Obasa ‘s arrogance and insensitivity which was publicly on display in his treatment of Sanwo-Olu, in the allegations that led to his impeachment, it would be hardly possible to fault their action. But they also leveled grave allegations of financial misdemeanor and recklessness against him which in my view necessitates that he be given the opportunity to defend himself before being sanctioned in accordance with the principle of fair hearing. Since he was not given the chance to defend himself before his impeachment, could this be likened to shaving his head in his absence (apologies to MKO Abiola)?

    True to his calm and difficult to ruffle demeanor and simple, unassuming carriage, Sanwo-Olu responded with philosophical serenity and enigmatic taciturnity, to what was perceived as an unwarranted slight on his person and office by Obasa. But then, we must look beyond Obasa ‘s annoying abrasiveness and a disposition to easy combustibility, which makes the prospect of his ever occupying the position of governor as he is rumored to desire, frightening.

    It will be recalled that in August, 2023, the LSHA under Obasa ‘s leadership, had rejected 17 of the 39 names Sanwo-Olu had forwarded to the legislature for clearance to be appointed as commissioners in his cabinet. In an unnecessarily bad-tempered speech on the floor of the House during that episode, Obasa had decried the fact that the nominees were grossly unrepresentative of the diverse local government constituencies in the state while also not reflecting the requisite Christian-Muslim balance that had always been taken into account in constituting the State Executive Council.

    As the late Oba Olatunji Hazmat, a Frontline Lagos and national progressive political leader of uncommon perspicacity stated in his gripping book, ‘Reflections of A Public Man’, “Lagos may be the greatest cosmopolitan city in Nigeria, but just like the nation itself, it can not march forward even in the matters of the least consideration of governance without accommodating the diverse interests, biases and native proclivities that shape and girdle her formative character…For fairness and wide judgement, the governor, the mayor or any other official of the state must consult others, must bring diverse interests into focus and attention in the choice of cabinet members, in the composition of parastatals and other allied governmental bodies”.

    But beyond this, Obasa raised the pertinent point of the undue dichotomy between so called technocrats and politicians in governance in Lagos State and what he perceived as the unfair favouritism given to the former in filling cabinet and non-cabinet positions particularly under the Sanwo-Olu administration. In its report on the face- off between the House and the governor on the matter, the Premium Times of August 29, 2023, wrote that “But some party loyalists said the main reason some nominees who are technocrats were rejected was because they were not known in their constituencies and had no electoral value. Michael Uju, a public affairs analyst, said the disqualification was political. “Unfortunately, there is the sense that most of those rejected by the House are the technocrats among them who are not so much into party politics,” he said.

    Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s administration as Premier of the Western Region in the First Republic is still the reference point in qualitative developmental governance in Nigeria. Its achievements were gargantuan and path-breaking. In his autobiography, the great Awo commented on his Cabinet thus, “Second, my team of Ministers was unexcelled. It was a team of which any head of government anywhere in the world would be proud. It was a well-knit, highly disciplined and fanatically loyal team. Each of them knew his subject well”. None of these men would be regarded as technocrats or even intellectuals in today’s lingo. They were educated men and professionals in diverse fields but to be appointed into public office in the Action Group (AG) at the time, you had to have a very strong linkage with your grassroots communities. This was made more imperative by the parliamentary system of the First Republic which required that those to be appointed as Cabinet members first had to win elections into the legislature as elected representatives of their constituencies. Even though he could have couched his argument in less inelegant and confrontational language, Obasa had made the point that he was concerned about the grassroots vibrancy of the APC in the state. This is certainly a pertinent concern even if it is true that his real motive was his assumed governorship ambition in 2027.

    Read Also: Immobilium Nigeria and Immobilium USA: Transforming Nigeria’s Real Estate Sector

    The truth of the matter is that although successive APC administrations in Lagos State have performed relatively remarkably well in infrastructure development, social services delivery and security among others – the primary purpose of government – the electoral performance of the party has declined with each election since 2011 and one reason for this is the ever growing alienation and distance between the government and the grassroots. In the 2007 governorship election, Fashola of the AC scored 593,300 votes to 394,956 for Senator Muslim Obanikoro of the PDP. In 2011, BRF scored a record 1,509, 113 votes to win reelection while Shamsideen Adegboye of the PDP recorded 300,450 votes. In 2015, Mr Akinwumi Ambode of the APC had 811,994 votes while Mr Jimi Agbaje of the PDP had 659,788 votes. As for 2019, Mr Babajide Sanwo-Olu of the APC won 739,445  votes to 206, 141 votes scored by Jimi Agbaje of the PDP.

    In the 2023 governorship election, Sanwo-Olu won reelection with 762,134 votes to 312,329 votes scored by Gbadebo (Chinedu) Rhodes-Vivour of the Labour Party (LP). To secure his victory after the APC had unprecedentedly lost the earlier presidential election in Lagos to Peter Obi’s LP by nearly 10,000 votes, the party had to scramble frantically to mobilize primordial sentiments to ensure Sanwo-Olu’s reelection.

     Had the governorship election come first, would Sanwo-Olu have become history in Lagos State? The answer is anyone’s guess. A school of thought believes that the electorally dysfunctional overly elitist outlook and disposition of governance in Lagos State has heightened under Sanwo-Olu and this is dangerous as the crucial 2027 elections approach, an election in which the triumph of the APC will depend on the degree to which it has regained its organic linkage with the grassroots. This is probably the point Obasa was making but his petulant mode of delivery distorted and undermined his message.

    What then is to be done about the seeming impasse as regards the position of Speaker of the LSHA? The right of the members to elect their principal officers cannot be contested but this must be in line with their extant rules, due process and the guidelines of the party. The enthusiastic support given to Hon. Mrs Meranda so far indicates that she enjoys considerable goodwill with her colleagues as well as the bureaucracy in the LSHA. But some voices in the party contend that the next Speaker should come from either Lagos West where Obasa comes from or Lagos East if legislators from Lagos West are not interested in the Speakership position as it is claimed.

    Both Mrs Meranda and the governor are from Lagos Central and this contradicts the party’s zoning formula. The aggrieved members no longer want Obasa as Speaker and they have successfully removed him at least until the courts adjudicate in the matter. But they cannot at the same time unilaterally jettison the party’s power sharing formula. Honourable Mrs Meranda has demonstrated her value and the high esteem in which her colleagues hold her which must be a function of her personal attributes despite her having been Obasa’s deputy. But she may have to stoop to party supremacy today to conquer a future that is politically exceedingly bright for her.

  • NIIA, Professor Richard Joseph and  Renewed Hope for Africa

    NIIA, Professor Richard Joseph and  Renewed Hope for Africa

    To not an insignificant number of people, President Bola Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda (RHA) is just another political manifesto and a campaign document routinely designed to win elections by making rosy promises in attractive poetry while the politician actually governs in more realistic prose as it is often famously said. But for a politician and political party that takes its word seriously and seeks to refashion reality in its envisioned image, a manifesto is a sacred bond with the people, a trust to be abided by as a guiding light.

    Inspite of the persistence of dispiriting failings and weaknesses, Nigeria’s political system seemingly imperceptibly evolves stronger and more resilient. For instance, larger sections of the electorate are growing increasingly more sophisticated and aware, technological innovations make elections more and more difficult to rig while the amount required to buy votes multiplies at compound rates making such criminal investments by political actors of ever decreasing marginal utility.

    Against this background, it is understandable that elected politicians and parties are taking the diligent implementation of their campaign promises more seriously and this requires placing premium as much as possible on merit in making critical appointments even though it is impossible to completely eradicate the influence of sheer partisanship or primordial considerations in filling many political positions. President Tinubu’s choices in making some key appointive decisions indicate that for the administration, its RHA is as much an intellectual enterprise requiring men and women of knowledge, expertise and competence to implement as it is also a vital weapon of partisan political competition.

    The appointment of one of the country’s most accomplished public administration and political science scholar, practitioner and foremost reform expert, Professor Tunji Olaopa, as Chairman of the Federal Civil Service Commission (FCSC) for instance, speaks to an acute awareness of the imperative of high intellect for optimum policy actualization. Similarly, a trained scientist, methodical logistician, experienced administrator and transport management expert, Dr Kayode Opeifa, has just been appointed as Managing Director of the Nigeria Railway Corporation (NEC). And one of the most heartwarming appointments made by the administration in the recent reconstitution of the Boards of public corporations was that of renowned political science and international relations scholar, one of the country’s most impactful former Minister of External Affairs and relentless public intellectual, Professor Bolaji Akinyemi, as Chairman of the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA).

    One of Nigeria’s oldest and most prestigious public policy Think Tanks, the NIIA was set up in the immediate post-independence era to research, produce knowledge, promote discourse, influence policy and profer advice on the conduct of the emergent country’s foreign affairs and international relations. This would also necessarily involve an abiding concern for appropriate domestic policy as the requisite foundation for robust external relations. For many years, the NIIA was the leading platform for intellectual discourse in Nigeria as the institute routinely hosted high caliber lectures, summits, seminars, book launches and round table conferences on diverse issues critical to national development and not necessarily limited to international relations. I remember that as a student of the University of Ibadan in the early to mid eighties, the institute’s library proved invaluable in producing my research essays both for the B.Sc and M.Sc degrees.

    Unfortunately, the country’s steady economic decline since the late seventies, a process that accelerated, and affected other aspects of national life negatively particularly under praetorian military rule up till 1999 also had deleterious consequences for the NIIA as its funding, fortunes, vibrancy and prestige plummeted. With the appointment, however, of another eminent political scientist, renowned expert on ethnicity and federalism, former Vice Chancellor of Igbinedion University, Okada, former Emeka Anyaoku Visiting Chair of Commonwealth Studies at the University of London, Professor Eghosa Osaghae, as Director General of the NIIA in 2021, the institution began to witness a steady Renaissance and to reclaim its position locally and internationally as a virile public brains trust. Incidentally, Professor Akinyemi had been the DG of the Institute at one of its most productive and vigorous periods between 1975 and 1983.

    It was thus not surprising that on Friday, February 7, the NIIA, in a landmark event, inaugurated the Professor Richard Joseph Learning Centre as a key academic resource located at its library situated at its Victoria Island Headquarters in Lagos. One of the most profound and celebrated scholars of African political science, Professor Joseph, a John Evans Emeritus Professor Northwestern University and Honourable Fellow of New College, Oxford University, has made invaluable contributions to scholarship on African governance, democratization and political economy. His classic, ‘Democracy and Prebendal Politics in Nigeria: The Rise and Fall of the Second Republic’, offers penetrating insights into the root causes and consequences of pervasive public corruption in Nigeria and its linkage to political instability and protracted underdevelopment.

    Read Also: Alleged bribery: House remains committed to protecting democratic institutions

    Incidentally, I covered the public presentation of the book as a political reporter for the Daily Times at the same large auditorium of the NIIA sometime in 1987. Professor Osaghae, a former student of Richard Joseph, was one of the attendees from UI while the book was reviewed by another of his former students and now illustrious scholar, Professor Adigun Agbaje. Professor Akinyemi while expressing gratitude to Professor Joseph on behalf of African scholars described the Learning Centre as a vital initiative for preserving African intellectual heritage while Professor Osaghae lauded the facility as a cornerstone of academic scholarship at the NIIA acknowledging the donation by Richard Joseph of 77 cartons of books and other publications to the Institute. The presence of such other cerebral political scientists as Professor Femi Otubanjo, a Research Director at the NIIA and Professor Adele Jinadu added scholarly gravitas to the event and indicated the NIIA ‘s surging organizational profile.

    The Learning Centre is no doubt evidence of Professor Joseph’s hope in Nigeria and faith in the possibilities of actualizing Africa’s destiny. Expressing confidence that current challenges on the continent would be overcome, Joseph said, “I have seen and lived through many movements including the civil rights and anti-colonial movements. I have seen when democracy was threatened in Nigeria and the sacrifices we made to overcome”. And Professor Osaghae could not have articulated the usefulness of the Centre to the liberation of Africa’s potentials more clearly when he averred that “This legacy project is a platform for exchange of ideas and engagement in robust debates about development. Africa should not be where it is currently, but what do we do to make it get where it should be? The same is the case for Nigeria. The world now realizes that very little can be achieved without Africa. It is never going to come to an end until Africa truly becomes great”.

    But exploring the thoughts of the NIIA DG further, I would say that with the emergent dominant Trumpian worldview especially in the West, the world is unlikely to tolerate for much longer Africa’s perceived sitting on and wasting valuable resources that could be better utilized for the benefit of her people and humanity as a whole. It is in our best interest to maximally deploy Professor Joseph’s intellectual beneficence to empower Nigeria to lead Africa to the promised land of progress and prosperity thus avoiding a seemingly looming second colonization of the continent.