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Category: UnderTow

Ezekwesili, Falae and unstructured, unprincipled polity

Events of the past two weeks or so may have convinced ageing but principled Nigerian politicians that confusion, lack of principles and incredible sophistry were enveloping politics in these parts. There was faint hope that a new order could somehow metamorphose from the rubbles of the past, especially given the first successful civilian to civilian transition of power from a ruling party to an opposition party in 2015. But that enthusiasm seems badly misplaced. Indeed, when in early October both the Allied Congress Party of Nigeria (ACPN) and the Social Democratic Party (SDP) organised their conventions to nominate their standard-bearers, their leaders were flushed with excitement over the immense opportunities new politics was affording new parties untainted by any connections with the old and decaying order represented by both the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

On October 6, 2018, some 4,500 SDP members met to nominate their standard-bearers. Former Cross River State governor, Donald Duke, won the nomination in an atmosphere of political exuberance few could imagine would peter out into nothingness and confusion less than four months later. Even though Mr Duke’s nomination was eventually litigated, with former Information minister, Jerry Gana, a professor, briefly emerging as the party’s nominee, there were no signs of a convoluted struggle to represent the party or place it firmly on the country’s political and electoral map. Though the legal dispute is still ongoing regarding who between Mr Duke and Prof Gana would represent the party in the February 16, 2019 presidential poll, a more assertive faction of the party led by the National Vice Chairman, Abdul Ishaq, simply brushed the litigants aside and went ahead stony-faced to endorse the ruling APC’s presidential candidate, Muhammadu Buhari.

The party’s National Chairman, Olu Falae, an economist and old political warhorse and former Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), appeared to have been blindsided by his party’s controversial endorsement. It turned out that he was not at the meeting where the APC candidate was endorsed. He probably heard rumours of that impending move, but he neither betrayed knowledge of that action nor felt he had to put up with it once it was done. A day later, he resigned his chairmanship of the party, insisting that he knew nothing of the nefarious endorsement, and was also unwilling to identify with the party’s decision. It was clear to him as well as the party and other Nigerians that Chief Falae had lost control of the party. He stated that his resignation was due to poor health, or some other excuses no one seems sure of, but added that after all, he had not been active in running the party for some time.

But shortly before a faction of his party endorsed the president, Chief Falae had himself unilaterally endorsed the PDP’s presidential candidate, Atiku Abubaakar. Speaking while receiving Titi Abubakar, the wife of the PDP’s presidential candidate, Chief Falae had spoken endearingly about identifying with any candidate who could thwart the victory of President Buhari. Said Chief Falae, according to some media reports: “All hands must be on deck by to ensure that President Muhammadu Buhari does not come back for the second term. We have to find ways to do it, this government must not come back, for the sake of all of us, even for the sake of the man (Buhari) himself. He does not have the clue of what is going on again, I don’t think he is well, he should just go home and rest. Some characters are hiding behind him to do evil. I wish him (Atiku) well, we are on the same page, we are aiming the same result, no one wants this government to come back because the government has failed.”

It is not clear whether the Dr Ishaq faction took a cue from Chief Falae’s arbitrary endorsement of the PDP candidate, but no one in the party seemed to care anymore. A part of the party now wants PDP, and another part wants APC. The remnants, both Mr Duke and Prof Gana, are still locked in a fierce combat to determine who will pick the crumbs — the soul and torso of the party having been offered to the two dominant parties. What is even clearer, as another party, the Allied Congress Party of Nigeria (ACPN), has begun to show, is that both generational and paradigmatic shifts are taking place in Nigerian politics. The principles and ideologies of the Falae era, despite its warts, are no longer indispensable in Nigerian politics. That transition had been in the offing for some time, indeed for the past three or four decades, but few ever imagined that the change, when it comes, would be accompanied by such horrendous abjuration of principles and ideologies as the country is witnessing today.

Voters were already moaning about the indistinguishability of political players and parties, and were sick to death about their flightiness, as they jump from one party to another, sometimes in a huff, but little did they know they were yet to see their political leaders and representatives plumb the gut-wrenching nadir of partisan politics. As the country laid wrong and weak foundation for the Fourth Republic, no party or political leader of substance and weight had attempted to remain faithful to principles and ideologies whatever the cost. It can only get worse, going forward, especially as the country’s poverty index grows worse.

The ACPN logjam is even more archetypal than the miasma the SDP embroil itself in. Though there did not seem to be any warning of the doom awaiting the party after the ACPN held its convention on October 7, 2018 and nominated former World Bank vice president and one-time Education minister, Oby Ezekwesili, as standard-bearer, it ought to be clear to everyone, given the amorphous nature of Nigerian politics, that attention must be paid by political players and analysts to both the structure of their parties and the character of their political leaders, particularly those offering themselves for election. There was no indication that Dr Ezekwesili carried out any due diligence. She was probably flattered to be offered the presidential ticket on a platter. Though she knew victory in the race would be far-fetched, she however expected, at the minimum, the cooperation of her party to make the race at least stimulating.

But after a few weeks of turbulent but largely uneventful campaign, the ACPN pulled the rug from under the feet of their presidential candidate. On January 24, 2019, Dr Ezekwesili and the ACPN, represented by its chairman and presidential running mate, Ganiyu Galadima, parted ways, virtually on the same date, only hours apart. It is, however, speculated that Dr Ezekwesili simply stole her adopted party’s thunder, knowing that they were about to endorse President Buhari. She beat them to the tape, announcing her severance of ties with the party hours before the party itself gave her the boot. The former candidate claimed the party was unprincipled and its leaders greedy; but the party in turn accused her of financial malfeasance. What is clear is that Dr Ezekwesili did not carry out due diligence on the party and its leaders, and also failed to understand the company of those she was travelling with.

Hear the former ACPN candidate in her own words: “Nigeria and Nigerians deserve a New Order of ethical, competent and capable leadership. I had earlier assumed the ACPN was aligned with me to offer that, until it proved otherwise. The values and vision divergence with the party was a key factor that triggered my withdrawal from the presidential race on their ticket prompting me to dissociate immediately in order to help build a coalition for good governance. It is why I was instant in sacrificing my candidacy to uphold my values by withdrawing. The party’s decision to immediately today endorse the candidate of APC, which was announced by my erstwhile VP candidate who is also the Chairman of ACPN, was their classic political entrepreneurship in full display for Nigerians to see. It is instructive. The party leadership’s transactional approach to politics began to manifest in their attitude following after the convention that adopted me as their presidential candidate. All who know me can attest that I detest transactional mindset.”

But not to be outdone, the party replied with powerful accusations of their own, alleging that their former candidate could not account for campaign funds with all the scrupulousness, diligence and exemplary conduct she preached and idolised. Yet, they could not deny the damaging fact that they had prepared themselves all along to endorse President Buhari, and that contrary to their claims that they had hoped the party’s presidential campaign would acquire traction, they in fact waited long enough, as sympathisers of Dr Ezekwesili argued, to give their party some semblance of presence and credibility in order to be able to market the party to the highest bidder.

Will there ever be a change to the way Nigerian political parties and politicians play politics? It is hard to imagine that possibility. Political actors will continue to be irresponsible, defecting from one party to another irreverently and casually; while the smaller parties, like the SDP and ACPN, will continue to fiddle with principles and ideologies. Until there is a fundamental change in orientation occasioned by a deep structural change, politics will continue as usual, and many principled players will continue to be treated shabbily. The sad decline in leadership and partisan politics precipitated decades ago when the structure of the country became more unitary than federal will continue until systemic atrophy compels fundamental change.

February 16, 2019
At last, enigmatic Fr Mbaka visits Aso Villa

He had pined for a visit to Aso Villa for the past two years or more, and whined when it seemed far-fetched that he would ever again get to be with President Muhammadu Buhari, cavorting in the midst of power and in the sea of plenty. Last year, Rev. Fr. Ejike Mbaka of the Adoration Ministries, Enugu, had groaned that the president he supported during the 2015 presidential election had failed to gesture in his direction, not to talk of mending his ways and catering to the needs of the poor and hungry. If the president would not mend, said the furious priest, change would change both the president and his All Progressives Congress (APC). And following Fr. Mbaka’s rather curt response to the alleged niggardliness of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential running mate, Peter Obi, a former governor, APC strategists saw an opening to placate the whining priest, and invite him to once again luxuriate in Aso Villa’s ambience.

Finally, last Monday, the Mahogany doors of Aso Villa were flung open to receive Fr Mbaka. He also got the photo opportunity with the president which he deeply coveted. His Adoration faithful will be satisfied, as if they need any further convincing, that their pugnacious and adorable priest rubs shoulders with the high and mighty in Nigeria. He had told them repeatedly that he frequently hears from God and perhaps sits in the Throne Room with God, hearing unspeakable things and being shown incredible visions. To dine before kings, after hearing from God, was therefore the icing on the cake and a favour to mortals.

However, in recent times, after the much ballyhooed pronouncements with which he presumptuously blew away the presidency of Goodluck Jonathan, he has become hugely controversial both in terms of his prophecies and his provocative comportment. He briefly dilly-dallied over whom to support between the two leading presidential candidates, hurled invectives at top politicians that drew his ire, and then finally appeared to have perched on the Buhari candidacy. With last Monday’s visit to Aso Villa, Fr Mbaka’s agenda seems to have been fully consummated. He did not disclose what he and the president discussed, nor did he need to, but it was never in doubt how his vacillations and ambitions conjoin on the altar of Nigerian politics. The president may have received him early in the week, but it is doubtful whether they did not understand him as much as the rest of Nigerians, minus his Adoration faithful, do.

Hereunder are a few quotations from Undertow in the past few months as the columnist traversed the priest’s colourful impressions and statements, just to remind the reader, if not the Adoration faithful, that Fr Mbaka’s actions and statements and agenda should be embraced cautiously. His highs should be regulated with a step-down verbal transformer, and his lows should be received guardedly. For, after all, neither his fellow priests nor his supervisors who struggle to rein him in over the years, have had any success in moderating his self-righteousness and self-importance.

Fr. Mbaka as imperious and doctrinaire as ever, December 8, 2018
“The Catholic Diocese of Enugu is in a quandary about what to do with their obstreperous priest and spiritual director of the Adoration Ministry Enugu Nigeria (AMEN), Rev. Fr. Ejike Mbaka. In January 2016, after the controversial priest had revelled in tons of political prophecies that drew the ire of the Goodluck Jonathan government, he was posted out of the Christ the King Parish, GRA, Enugu, where he started his ministry, to the lesser known Our Lady Parish, Umuchigbo, Nje-Nike.

“No one can say exactly how the Diocesan leadership would treat the new controversy stirred by the ebullient and irrepressible priest. What could they do to keep him silent? He had once been posted from GTC, Enugu, to CKP, where in six months, according to some sources, he supervised the building of the church cathedral and parish house. He must have an unparalleled, albeit controversial, system of fundraising that delivered quick results. But his controversial statements led to what some interpreted as a punishing exile to a less attractive parish in Emene. Yet, neither the censure by the Diocesan leadership nor his transfer from parish to parish has dampened both his outlandish prophecies and his exceedingly candid but embarrassing portrayal of men in power. Nor has his baiting of politicians seeking electoral victory abated one bit.

“He browbeat the Jonathan government, endorsed the Muhammadu Buhari candidacy, spoke searingly about many men in office, especially in the Southeast, and played ducks and drakes with the affections and gullibility of thousands who thronged and still throng his Adoration prayer grounds. If the Diocesan leadership thought that his transfer in 2016 would quieten his theology and dissipate his strength and followers, they were grossly mistaken. The eager dupes who flock to him cannot be dissuaded by anything, not even his flagrant and questionable methods of fund-raising, nor his abrasive, inordinate and sacrilegious putdowns.

“Fr Mbaka’s latest sacrilege is his diminution of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential running mate, Peter Obi, a former Anambra State governor whom he described as stingy for refusing to disclose in what ways he would assist the Adoration Ministry. Fr Mbaka had invited Mr Obi to the annual harvest and bazaar celebration, and seized the opportunity to squeeze donations out of him. But the thrifty Mr Obi could not be cajoled into parting with anything, let alone announcing any gift on behalf of himself or former vice president Atiku Abubakar, to whom he is running mate in next year’s presidential election. Consequently, Fr Mbaka denounced him and predicted that his stinginess would cost him and his principal the election.

“… So, once again, the Diocese will find themselves, despite their deep resentment of Fr Mbaka’s methods, proceeding with utmost caution. It is indubitable that the priest is wrong, unwise, recalcitrant and doctrinally inexact. They will therefore attempt to treat him severely, hoping that like what the punitive posting of 2016 attempted to do, the uppity and irreverent Fr Mbaka could be wearied into some form of unaccustomed silence or lethargy, or perhaps total compliance. Such outcomes, however, will jar against the priest’s DNA.”

Father Mbaka’s controversial pronunciamentos, January 7, 2018
“Fr. Mbaka’s Adoration faithful do not doubt that their priest hears from God. The Catholic hierarchy may be less taken in by his periodic fulminations and bombasts, but they have no doubt how influential the priest has become, nor how sometimes unerringly his prophecies cum judgemental political assumptions have turned out right. In his latest pronunciamento, Fr. Mbaka dismisses President Buhari’s anti-corruption war as barbaric and archaic, his style as indolent and ineffective, his presidency as entrapped by a cabal, and that, by his selective punishment of his opponents, he had become a purveyor of moral corruption. Then curiously, by a deft use of poetical statements, he admonishes the president to ‘change or be changed’. While leaving a little room for the president to change and presumably salvage his presidency, he also bizarrely discloses that God asked him to advise the president not to seek re-election.

“It may never be known where, in all his diatribe against presidents, God stops and Fr. Mbaka begins, whether prophecies are at play in his verbal and prophetic explosions, or he is merely voicing his own private instincts. He has used some words that cannot be described as godlike, and he has passed on messages that make him appear to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds. But whether it is his messages or instincts, he had in the past proved a somewhat accurate and deft reflector of the feelings and aspirations of the public. President Buhari is of course not popular in the Southeast and South-South, and his following in the Southwest is greatly tested, if not altogether unnerved. If Fr. Mbaka is simply mirroring these realities, he seems to be doing a good job of it. He, however, takes care not to ever burn his bridges when he conveys God’s messages, regardless of the extremeness of his prophecies. Indeed, his New Year’s Eve message is unlikely to have been influenced by the president’s New Year shocker which virtually shut the door against political change, whether it is called devolution or restructuring.

“Fr. Mbaka will still speak before the general election, either to reiterate God’s message, as he describes it, or to countermand or modify it once he sees which way the cat is jumping. The country has definitely not heard the last from him. But notwithstanding the discomfiture his superiors in the Catholic Church experience over his hard prophecies, or the trusting naivety of his Adoration faithful, the priest will remain active in politics, as the Latin American Cardinal Obando surmised about liberation theology in 1996. The nimble Adoration Ministry priest will always leave himself enough room to be wrong and ample room to bask in vindication. In a county that has tragically become a gymnasium where promises and manifestoes do triple summersaults, Fr. Mbaka’s pronunciamentos will walk a tightrope gingerly, expertly, and remorselessly, sometimes guilefully right, and at other times impassively far-fetched.”

February 2, 2019
Ohanaeze tarred with the same Afenifere brush
WEEKS after a faction of the pan-Yoruba socio-political and cultural group, Afenifere, endorsed the presidential ambition of ex-vice president Atiku Abubakar, the pan-Igbo socio-cultural organisation, the Ohanaeze Ndigbo, has followed suit with its own elaborate endorsement. The beneficiary of the latest Southeast endorsement is of course Alhaji Atiku. If endorsements were a significant factor in winning the presidency, the former vice president should be coasting to victory in the February 16 election. The South-South, North central, Northeast and Northwest do not have similar ethnic or regional organisations, otherwise the country would also be expecting their endorsements. But in fact they do endorse in nuanced and covert ways, which are often obvious only after the ballots are cast.

The South-South seems in some ways marching to the beat of Alhaji Atiku. If that march should be equal to an endorsement, then, going by the publicised political positions and preferences of the Southwest and Southeast, the entire southern states, bar perhaps one or two, would appear to have made up their minds to follow the former vice president all the way to the promised land. But in reality, endorsements are complex and sometimes uncertain, and are often dependent on many factors, most of them emotional and financial. The Southwest endorsement is even more complicated. Riven by three Afenifere factions, with one of the factions claiming superior mandate to endorse, the zone is unlikely to head in one direction in February, or whenever the elections hold. But the Afenifere faction that endorses Alhaji Atiku derides the other factions, describing them as either paid stooges or non-existent groups.

The Ohanaeze endorsement in the Southeast is less complicated but significantly tenuous. Though the group is not factionalised, and has for many years spoken with one voice principally on account of their shared feeling of alienation, its endorsements and resolutions are often vitiated by the many activist or militant groups balkanising the Southeast population. Among those vociferous groups are the charismatic but badly led Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), the rather perplexed Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), and other minor splinters of the two groups. They all have huge followings and are as assertive as the Ohanaeze; but they are evidently less cerebral, less restrained and hardly diplomatic. Both MASSOB and IPOB have been less forthcoming in giving endorsements. Their indifference alert both the Igbo and the rest of the county to other priorities of the activists that war against the goals and principles of the Fourth Republic.

After declaring itself as the apex socio-cultural organisation working for the interests of the Igbo inside and outside Nigeria, Ohanaeze went ahead to premise its endorsement for Alhaji Atiku on the following:
- Ohaneze notes particularly that a major political party (PDP) by the nomination of our son, Peter Obi, as the vice presidential candidate has given Ndigbo an opportunity for inclusivity. Ndigbo must seize the moment;
- That the presidential candidate of PDP Alhaji Atiku Abubakar has made an avowed commitment to restructuring of the federation and reconfirmed same during his recent visit to the United States in his meetings with high-level US officials;
- In consideration of the above and other relevant existential factors pertaining to the treatment of the Igbo in our polity, the Ime Obi Ohaneze, therefore, hereby ratify the decision reached at the Ohaneze National Executive Committee (NEC)meeting held in Enugu on Tuesday, 22 January, 2019, to adopt the Atiku Abubakar/ Peter Obi ticket in the 2019 presidential election. Ime Obi there all their years of activism and politicking is why they presumptuously claim to represent their peoples, and by inference, their zones. It is true that they sometimes cleverly aggregate the feelings of their zones, and even emblematise them, but they have neither at any time subjected themselves to elections as a group nor called for a referendum both on their identity and claims as a group and their objectives, regardless of how those objectives change from time to time. Both Ohanaeze and Afenifere were formed by a group of individuals, administered according to the rules and regulations of the organisations, and always elected their leaders as organisations do, not as geopolitical zones. Their claims to representation is, therefore, suspect. While the Ohanaeze has modestly describe itself as a socio-cultural organisation, the more voluble faction of Afenifere has described itself as a socio-political organisation, sometimes completely omitting the cultural aspect of their founding. This column has graciously but gratuitously re-inserted the cultural aspect of the Afenifere founding. Why both Afenifere and Ohanaeze could not resist the temptation to significantly whittle down their interference in the politics of their two regions is hard to say. Their peoples are too sophisticated, too politically conscious, and too ideologically diverse to be herded into one association or one direction. The Igbo are too republican and too resistant to regimentation to be herded into one column; and the Yoruba are too liberal and even regicidal to be dictated to by one group or one man. Restricting themselves to their socio-cultural agenda would have been highly recommended and less controversial.
But by coming out with its endorsement last Thursday, the Ohanaeze obviously failed to learn anything from the controversy generated by the Afenifere when they endorsed Alhaji Atiku on the grounds of his promise to champion restructuring. More, even if the Afenifere pigheadedly failed to learn any lesson from the fiasco that accompanied their endorsement of Goodluck Jonathan’s re-election bid during the 2014/2015 election cycle, Ohanaeze had enough example from the Southwest to make it more circumspect in dishing out endorsement to a party or politician when they have not so far been able to answer the question of who gave them the mandate to speak for their people.

It is true that on the whole, and especially given the activism of both MASSOB and IPOB, the Southeast faces terrifying existential questions aggravated by the insensitivity of the Buhari presidency . It is also fairly accurate that Ohanaeze, IPOB and MASSOB have tended to address the same issues and campaigned for inclusive politics. Even much more, all three groups, each claiming to represent the Igbo stoutly and unequivocally, also direct their attention to the issue of restructuring. But despite the coterminousness of their goals, not to say the vigour of their campaigns, none of them has proved conclusively that they represent the Igbo. Or that the Igbo accept their representation.

In the 2015 elections, the Igbo voted in one general direction, with only minor deviations. It is not clear how they will vote in 2019. But if the marginalisation to which they have been sentenced by the Buhari presidency should prove significant to skew their votes in favour of Alhaji Atiku, it will unlikely be due to the fact that Ohanaeze told them to vote for the former vice president. It is all but clear that the Southwest is facing its own decision crisis, wondering whether to endure for another four years in a classic display of enlightened self-interest, or to jump ship and embrace Alhaji Aiku in a spectacular embrace of unstated principles. Whichever way they vote, they won’t find making up their minds easy at all.

Unlike the factionalised Afenifere, the Ohanaeze was long expected to endorse Alhaji Atiku. This is why so many people have remarked the courage of the Southeast elders to, as it were, put their money where their mouths are. It remains to be seen, however, just what value the endorsement will add to the Atiku campaign. If they are able to deliver the region almost wholesale to the former vice president, and more, inflict a crushing on President Buhari next month, the stock of Ohanaeze might rise astronomically. They had better hope the complete reverse is not the case. For a crushing defeat for their candidate, not to talk of a total defeat in the general election, would forebode not only a dismemberment of the socio-cultural organisation, but by the most optimistic consideration a complete denudation of their influence and identity.
January 26, 2019
Osinbajo and legal approach to restructuring

It is not dishonest for the All Progressives Congress (APC) to be frank about the difficulties it is facing over the issue of restructuring Nigeria. Since it won the presidency in 2015, the party has become less eloquent about a matter it had fervently and almost lucidly espoused before that year’s general election. Indeed in the eyes of the electorate, there was nothing ambiguous about the party’s offering on restructuring. However, in the foreseeable future, judging from the presentations made by two of the party’s leading functionaries at a colloquium to mark Bisi Akande’s 80th birthday in Ibadan on Wednesday, the party will continue to wrestle with the subject and be humbled by its weakened ability to speak with clarity and resolution. Vice president Yemi Osinbajo asks those advocating restructuring to go to court to argue their case; and Kaduna State governor Nasir el-Rufai, forever obsessed with questions of scope and magnitude, suggests that his party has the best recipe for restructuring, going by the report of a committee headed by him.

Chief Akande, the celebrant, was a one-term governor of Osun State and first national chairman of the APC. He is today celebrated, as the Ibadan event exhibited to his honour, for his principles and commitment to democracy and good governance. It is ironical that the celebrant is neither as evasive about restructuring as Prof Osinbajo and Mallam el-Rufai, nor as disingenuous over how best to get the retuning done. Marking his birthday last year, Chief Akande had radically suggested that Nigeria should consider parliamentarianism as the better system of government, asserting that presidentialism was not working. He did not mince words, and he left no one in doubt what the country needed to do to remake itself in order to achieve stability and growth.

But at the colloquium in Ibadan, perhaps wary of being accused of deliberately forsaking the struggle for restructuring simply because he had become a member of the government, Prof Osinbajo spoke of using the detached and safe instrument of litigation to restructure Nigeria. The idea seemed far-fetched, an idea no one had really thought or spoke of, not even he in all his previous discussions on the subject. It is not clear how the idea came to him, or why he thinks that litigation seems the plausible instrument to tackle a complex political issue as restructuring. But as he goes along, and as his contemplations morph from one arcanum to another, the country is likely to be regaled with more newfangled ideas about how to help the country regain its political and existential composure.

Here is how the vice president rationalised the subject: “The government of Lagos State demonstrated that it is possible to have restructuring and devolution of power by process of litigation. As of 1999 when I first had encounter with the former governor of Lagos State, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, he made it clear to me that one of his objectives for us is to pursue fiscal federalism and devolution of power for our state. We spent a lot of time and resources to look into how we could do it. We knww that going through the National Assembly was just a waste of time. We then decided to use the process of litigation. As a matter of fact, we went to the Supreme Court on 12 different times on what we can describe as restructuring. The Federal Government at that time opposed every move we made…Fortunately for us, we were able to record successes. The achievements are gains of litigation. We can only get it through the court. As a region, if we are talking about restructuring, we should look at it from the point of view of the court.”

But the devil is in the detail. The vice president forgot to tell his audience that the state went to court because the federal government attempted to arrest the process of local government creation, and even went ahead to withhold the state’s local government allocations. More, the vice president also forgot to indicate that while the state successfully litigated the aspect of withheld allocations, it has so far been unsuccessful in litigating and legitimising the creation of additional local governments. The truth is that, for instance, there can be no successful litigation of the creation of additional local governments. It is a conundrum that can only be resolved by restructuring, yes, not even the limited restructuring advocated by the el-Rufai committee.

The vice president may be a professor of law, a qualification that makes litigation attractive to social conservatives and exponents of law like him, but he is not a politician in the classical sense, one who knows or feels instinctively the limits and possibilities of using law to resolve complex political issues that respond only to political panaceas. Nigeria is not alone in battling such dilemmas. In the United States, it is doubtful whether law, as in Roe V. Wade, rather than legislation through political debates was a better answer to the abortion conundrum that has assailed that country for decades. Prof Osinbajo is obviously too optimistic to think that litigation can help restructure the country. It cannot, even if its intractability can be overcome. The el-Rufai committee adumbrated a number of constitutional issues necessary for restructuring. But they are neither exhaustive nor attractive to the unyielding executive opposed to their implementation. It will take a willing and visionary president to embrace a report inspired by the party, not one inspired by the executive.

Admittedly, there is no consensus on restructuring, with a backward-looking presidency fearing it might balkanise the country, and some sections of the country fearing it might put them at a disadvantage. Rather than see its possibilities, many opponents see its limitations. In the courts, should the matter unadvisedly get there, and assuming interested parties have the time and money to litigate, piecemeal restructuring would simply mummify in the cacophonous rage of various ethnic and other interest groups. No, litigating restructuring cannot work. It worked only partially for Lagos State. It can do no more. It is protracted and expensive, and the result doubtful and meagre. For a matter as complex as restructuring, the way to go is through political debates, consensus building, and then legislation, all the products of efforts driven by a visionary president.

The APC never promised restructuring in its manifesto. It carefully worded its support only for power devolution. But even that has remained unattended to. After breaking that limited promise, the party has now engaged in various forms of political and ideological somersaults. If it is not punished at the next polls, it will be partly because despondent voters are unsure that the leading opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), can be trusted to embrace restructuring at a level that is comprehensive and feasible, not simply an election gimmick. Luckily for Nigeria, crude oil, the resource that binds the country together, is fast becoming irrelevant to global economies. In less than a decade or two from now, the cost of drilling oil may well outweigh its benefits. When that time comes, Nigeria will then have to face squarely its existential question. But given the country’s internal contradictions that are maturing at a fast and alarming rate, it is even doubtful whether the country would not be compelled to face its existential question sooner than its retrograde economy makes it even more compelling.

January 19, 2019
As governors coax president for endorsement

IN the last few days of December, 2018, President Muhammadu Buhari engaged in a triple political somersault in his desperate bid to get a second four-year term. Ogun State was the first experimental archetype of that somersault. It will by no means be the last, even if not as celebrated. The president will walk a tightrope, straddle all political divides as gingerly as he can manage, and attempt to fit his constantly changing political frame in the expanding partisan frameworks of his associates. By 2017, when his talisman was still flaming hot, his re-election was expected to be a shoo-in. By the middle of last year, that expectation had become a chimera, prompting him and his panicky aides to change into other gears. That gear shifting is, however, proving to be very complicated and problematic, as the Ogun State example is unhappily indicating.

The Ogun governor, Ibikunle Amosun, has not made the president’s straddle any easier at all. Unable to get the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) to adopt his preferred aspirant as standard-bearer in the coming governorship election, and with his every move thwarted openly and provocatively by the party hierarchs in Abuja, Mr Amosun, as intransigent as ever, has simply shifted to a different moral and ideological mode, randomly adopted another party for his supporters, and flaunted his rebellion in the puzzled and angry faces of his detractors. And using many unprintable cuss words to describe himself and his resoluteness, the governor swore to embarrass and undermine his party at the next governorship poll.

As if his open revolt was not enough, Mr Amosun took one Yusuf Dantalle, the chairman of the party he adopted for his supporters, to the presidential villa and introduced him as a willing accomplice in the general and complicated effort to re-elect the president in February. Alhaji Dantalle, national chairman of the Allied Peoples Movement (APM), took along to the villa a letter indicating that his party had adopted the president as their candidate. On the surface, that would be good news if that party commanded fairly substantial following. But other than the publicity Mr Amosun has accorded the APM, few knew of its existence or even of its potential. It was, therefore, both significant and puzzling that the president received Mr Amosun and Alhaji Dantalle, an action that indicated that the president had unwittingly associated with the rebellion against the APC in Ogun State.

Mr Amosun is of course entitled to vehemently disagree with his party, and even fight them if conciliation proves impossible. But what is inexcusable is to suborn the president to join his revolt against a party ostensibly led by the same president. That is not only an insurrection against the party, it is an indication of the low esteem in which he holds the presidency, a further hint of the lack of depth in the highest office in the land. Alhaji Dantalle offered the president the APM’s letter of adoption, and the president happily received it despite knowing the strange party’s antecedents and its role in accentuating the ongoing revolt in Ogun State. The anger in Ogun was obviously too fierce to allow for any second thought. But had there been some reflection in Aso Villa, the temperamental Mr Amosun could have been prevailed upon to let the APM chairman go to the villa unaccompanied or at least with his party chiefs.

As if the implications of the Amosun-Dantalle visit had just dawned on the APC as a whole, party hierarchs in Abuja orchestrated, four days later, the visit of the Ogun APC governorship candidate, Dapo Abiodun, to the president, hard on the heels of the APM chairman’s endorsement visit of December 24, 2018. If the president obliged Mr Amosun and the APM by receiving them and indirectly associating with their rebellion against the APC, party leaders reasoned he was even more obligated to receive the state APC candidate. The president did just that when he welcomed Mr Abiodun in company with a party leader, Olusegun Osoba. If these shuffles were the last moves on the disgraceful manoeuvres from Ogun State, analysts could be persuaded to leave bad enough alone.

But dissatisfied that President Buhari received the APC candidate and even raised his hand to signify that he was the authentic candidate perhaps deserving of support and victory, an incensed Mr Amosun plotted another visit to Aso Villa, and had his way on January 6, 2019. This time, the Ogun governor was more daring, taking the APM governorship candidate, Adekunle Akinlade, to the president. How both Mr Amosun and President Buhari rationalised welcoming the candidate of a rival party to the APC is hard to fathom. But no one seemed to care. Mr Amosun proved by his incessant visits how close he was to the seat of power, and how ready he was to drain that goodwill to its bitterest dregs. Mindful of the wary glances everyone was throwing at the president over what they regard as his unprincipled approach to politics, his spokesman, Garba Shehu, offered a disingenuous rationalisation of the APM candidate’s visit. Said he: “Following repeated media enquiries on the matter, the Presidency wishes to state in clear and unmistakable terms that as a party leader and a candidate on the platform of the All Progressives Congress in the coming elections, President Muhammadu Buhari will campaign for the party and all its candidates. This, however, does not mean that he, as the nation’s leader, will decline courtesy calls or offers of support from citizens, including candidates flying the flags of other parties. So please let there be no confusion about this. President Buhari is the APC.”

It is not clear how many people are persuaded by the president’s unending vacillations. Mr Amosun’s intransigence is well known, and his politics not quite as well-regarded as he might hope. But surely the president could not hope that in matters of principles and his party’s existential struggles he could run with the hare and hunt with the hound, and the public would feel smug about it. Mallam Shehu’s rationalisation is inadequate to explain the president’s hemming and hawing. What is more, a few days later in January, perhaps sensing that Mr Amosun might still be livid over how he, the president, raised the hand of Mr Abiodun during the latter’s visit to Aso Vila, the Ogun governor was invited to join the president on his return flight from a campaign rally in Akwa Ibom. No one knew what they discussed on the trip, nor should anyone really care now that they know the president is chronically unable to make up his mind.

Many analysts have suggested that the president needed to hem and haw in order to placate the variegated political interests around him, and hopefully retain their support in his crucial but difficult re-election race. This argument is logical, for the president is going to extraordinary lengths in being everything to everybody. But the Ogun conundrum was the perfect litmus test to gauge his convictions and ascertain his principles. He was surprisingly unable to comprehend that his choice in the matter, between expediency and principles, will indicate a window into his worldview and define both his person and his presidency in many poignant ways. There is little anyone can say to convince the president that he ought to understand that as the leader of the APC, he was obligated to take a hostile view of rebellion of any kind against his party, regardless of how accommodating he is as a person, or how friendly he is to the rebels.

Sadly, for a long time, the president has simply not fully reconciled himself to being regarded as the leader of the party. No amount of rebellion will enable him see himself as the emblem of the party, the chief custodian of its values and principles, and the main projector of its strengths and weaknesses. These roles are obviously too deep for him and his aides to comprehend. The president will, therefore, straddle when the need arises, waffle when he can’t make up his mind as has become his custom, and give a part of himself to every political cannibal Nigeria has managed in nearly six decades to spawn so prolifically but so disagreeably.

January 12, 2019
APC discord and presidential vacillation

IF peace and concord are to reign in the All Progressives Congress (APC), President Muhammadu Buhari will have to firm up his party and governmental ethics to set the moral tone for the ruling party. So far, he has not done that. In fact, increasingly, he is showing that he is less disposed to offering the party the leadership it urgently needs. The party is unquestionably in disarray, despite the enormous conciliatory work the party’s chairman, Adams Oshiomhole, has put into regulating party affairs and smothering revolt within the ranks. But hard as he has tried to paper over the cracks, his efforts appear more like putting new wine in old wineskin. The problems Mr Oshiomhole contends with, and which the president dithers over, are largely inherited. It will require the concerted efforts of the chairman and the president to restore sanity and amity in the party.

Mr Oshiomhole’s interventions are well known, even if they have achieved only qualified success. He has returned the party to the path of discipline and rectitude, curbed the overweening influence of some party leaders, including governors, and shown daunting readiness to contend with and curb every facet of dissension in the party, whether it be ethical or organisational, or personality or philosophical. His readiness to face up to the acrimonious internal politics of his party has seemed to charm many members and officials within the party. But his methods and objectives have also contradistinctively alienated some powerful individuals in the party, some of them very close to the president.

It is not clear which is the culprit in the party discord, whether the president’s dithering or the active and fiery opposition of powerful individuals. But it does appear as if both the president’s dithering and the powerful individual opposition to Mr Oshiomhole reinforce each other. The sword cuts both ways, with the dithering giving fillip to the opposition, and the opposition in turn giving catalyst to the president’s dithering. Mr Oshiomhole has so far stood pat, but having been unnerved by the president’s indecisive and imprecise interventions in late November, his resoluteness and panaceas appear increasingly unable to command enough amperage. More than three weeks ago, the president had summarily overruled the party chairman by admonishing aggrieved party members to litigate their grievances. This intervention came on the heels of Mr Oshiomhole’s warning to party dissidents to shape up or ship out, insisting that they must exhaust party dispute resolution mechanisms before heading to the courts.

On Thursday, the president, in what seemed like a mild vote face, urged aggrieved party members to pursue genuine reconciliation. He embraced this new deal while receiving defecting members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) from Kano State who paid him a courtesy visit in Abuja. The defection, which appears to strengthen the APC position in that Northwest state, is a fallout from the political schism between the bedraggled governor’s camp (Abdullahi Ganduje) and the former governor’s loyalists (Rabiu Kwankwaso) bivouacked in some impenetrable redoubts in the state. The president’s call for genuine reconciliation is, however ,unlikely to be heeded, for it is as futile as his earlier call for litigation. The reasons are not far to seek, and they are principally his own making. One of the reasons trumps every chairman’s competence and questions his political ethics and bona fides. The cause of the hostility is the party chairman’s refusal to endorse Mr Okorocha’s candidate, Uche Nwosu, for the 2019 Imo governorship election. The party under the firm grip of Mr Oshiomhole supports Hope Uzodinma.

The situation in Ogun State is no less provocative and disconcerting. In that Southwest state, Mr Oshiomhole and the APC have endorsed Dapo Abiodun for the state’s 2019 governorship election while repudiating Abdulkabir Akinlade, the candidate of the governor, Ibikunle Amosun. Livid, Mr Amosun has called the party chairman unprintable names and insisted that whether the chairman and the APC like it or not, Mr Akinlade will become the governor next year. Mr Okorocha also insists that his candidate will win. It is not the presumptuousness of the governors that unsettles APC members or amuse the public; the most unsettling thing is actually the president’s hesitant approach to the matter, his dithering in the face of insurrection, his seeming lack of resolve when the ruling party is being gravely threatened.

In a clear defiance of party discipline, both Mr Amosun and Mr Okorocha have pushed their candidates into other political parties, hijacked a significant portion of the APC machinery to back those candidates, and managed in the same pungent breath to sit pretty in the ruling party on the platform of which they are contesting senatorial seats. Under the instruction of Mr Amosun, Mr Akinlade has defected to the Allied People’s Movement (APM) and become the party’s standard-bearer for the 2019 governorship seat. On the order of the Imo governor, Mr Nwosu has defected to the Action Alliance (AA) and taken the ticket to vie for the governor’s seat. Both Messrs Amosun and Okorocha as well as their new all-purpose party vehicles have pledged their loyalty to the president, announcing boldly and widely that the two parties have endorsed President Buhari for a second term.

So far, the president has seemed unable to distinguish between his own interests serviced and flattered by the support of political insurrectionists, and the larger interest of the party as defined and exemplified by Mr Oshiomhole. It is inconceivable that he has appeared to let his friendships get in the way of the larger and long-term interest of his party. He may not like the way the party has resolved the disagreement between the party and Messrs Amosun and Okorocha, but once a resolution had taken place and the courts are unable to reverse it, not to talk of how close the whole affair is to the next elections, the president has a duty to ensure party discipline and supremacy. Both Imo and Ogun governors have openly identified with other opposition parties, and have pledged to work against the interests of their own party in selected elections. Yet, they have not even been censured. The president ought never to countenance that kind of revolt. Indeed, encouraged by the president’s dithering, some other disgruntled party leaders, including a federal cabinet member, Bayo Shittu of Oyo State, have taken spine-chilling oath to work against the APC.

It is likely the rebel leaders have in a manner of speaking given an undertaking to return to the APC once their alienated candidates triumph in the governorship polls next year. It is an uncalculated risk, not to say an unethical step. The president had the power to placate the disgruntlement in the party when the cancer first reared its head in the first few months of the party’s 2015 victory. He unwisely didn’t, or, as some say, perhaps because he couldn’t. Now, with the disgruntlement accentuated by lack of discipline and egregious rebellion, the president has remained perched on the horns of neutrality or indecision. If he does not urgently reconcile the party and its rebels, or take firm steps to punish the revolt in the leadership because he is indulgent of the executive rebels, there is no telling how fast or hard the cancer will spread.

Sadly, there is no indication that the president is willing to champion any real and lasting reconciliation beyond talking the talk. Perhaps, indeed, it is already too late to even sue for peace. The aggrieved party leaders sensed the president’s lack of resolve and have exploited it. The stakes are now so high and the consequences too dire to persuade any of the rebel leaders to climb down. The conflict has in effect become a zero-sum game. Somebody will win delightfully, and somebody will lose appallingly. The winner will then take all. Both winners and losers will, however, hope that the party can survive the brutal rebellion that has exposed it to so much public ridicule.

December 22, 2018
Presidency, Obasanjo: the unending 2019 wars

STILL stunned by ex-president Olsuegun Obasanjo’s flip-flop over the Atiku Abubakar presidential bid, the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and many Nigerians wait with bated breath for the other shoe to drop. They are certain that having excoriated the former vice president, Alhaji Atiku, so brutally and mercilessly in August, describing him as an incorrigible leader and a politician unsuited for the post of president, the former president would once again revoke his recent endorsement of his former deputy. Chief Obasanjo had in early October revisited his August denunciation of Alhaji Atiku, describing him this time as fit for the presidency, and indeed should be rightly addressed as president-in-waiting. For both the public and the APC, Chief Obasanjo’s volte face was too traumatic to be either true or lasting.

What began as a battle of endorsements and good-humoured criticisms has now become an open and unremitting war. The APC is determined to press the matter and show the former president as unprincipled and hypocritical. The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), for which Alhaji Atiku is standard-bearer, is also determined to show that Chief Obasanjo made a u-turn because increasingly, President Muhammadu Buhari’s unsuitability for the exalted presidential seat was becoming apparent. It is true that Chief Obasanjo’s description of his former vice president as incorrigible was harsh and shocking, but his walk-back, about two months later, in which he saw his former vice president as president-in-waiting was even more bewildering.

As predicted by this column moments after Alhaji Atiku took the PDP nomination early October, the battle for the presidency would become most intense in January. January is around the corner. Not only will the campaigns become fiercely intense, in particular the war (sometimes of words) between Chief Obasanjo and his enemies in the APC will also become horrifyingly sanguinary. President Buhari and his aides know that a loss in 2019 would both bar them access to privilege and constitute personal tragedy to each of them, considering how they have all become accustomed to both the good life and the heady raptures of rosy future and circumstances.

Chief Obasanjo is of course entitled to change his mind, regardless of how solidly he made it up earlier. When he first denigrated Alhaji Atiku in early August, few believed the former vice president could clinch the PDP nomination. The former president did not also think it possible, and perhaps had hoped that his throaty deprecation would catalyse his private cause of barring Alhaji Atiku from the presidency permanently. At the time, too, and since the beginning of 2018, Chief Obasanjo had preoccupied himself with the chimerical cause of enthroning a totally new leadership paradigm on the country. Between January 2018 when he indulged his damaging asseveration against President Buhari and the country’s political old guard, all of whom he dismissed as expendables, and August some eight months later, the former president was still hopeful he could help midwife a new national reality and political narrative.

This was why on August 3, 2018 Chief Obasanjo found it supremely easy to derogatorily condemn Alahji Atiku in a manner most pernicious and unsparing. Said he: “How can I be on the same side with Atiku? To do what? If I support Atiku for anything, God will not forgive me. If I do not know, yes. But once I know, Atiku can never enjoy my support. I do not have personal grudges with anyone…If you do not do well for Nigeria, you do not do well for all of us. It is not a question of working with or not working with an individual, If you are working But about four days after Alhaji Atiku took the nomination, Chief Obasanjo dramatically and extraordinarily recanted. He was neither coherent nor persuasive, but his endorsement was enthusiastic and fulsome. Said he on October 11, 2018: “Let me start by congratulating President-to-be, Atiku Abubakar, on his success at the recent PDP primary, and I took note of his gracious remarks in his acceptance speech that it all started here. Yes, when it started, it was meant for Atiku to succeed Obasanjo. In the presence of these distinguished leaders of goodwill today, let me say it openly that we have reviewed what went wrong on the side of Atiku. And in all honesty, my former vice-president has rediscovered and repositioned himself. As I have repeatedly said, it is not so much what you (Atiku) did against me that was the issue but what you did against the party, the government and the country. I took the stand I had taken based on the character and attributes you exhibited in the position you found yourself. I strongly believe that I was right. It was in the overall interest of everyone and everything to take such a position. From what transpired in the last couple of hours or so, you have shown remorse; you have asked for forgiveness, and you have indicated that you have learnt some good lessons, and you will mend fences and make amends as necessary and as desirable.”

But when the former president’s zeal seemed to flag sometime last week, as apparently misreported by a section of the media, the combative president vociferously denounced those who thought he had become unprincipled so soon. In responding to the misrepresentation, Chief Obasanjo seized the opportunity, in a press statement issued by his spokesman on December 9, 2018, to again train his guns on his chief enemy, President Buhari, signalling that the 2019 presidential war would be a fight to the finish. Here is how he framed his response, dripping with venom and sarcasm: “It is disingenuous, if not malicious, for anyone to suggest that Chief Obasanjo was being neutral when he chose not to use the Owu (his hometown in Ogun State) convention as a platform for political campaign but instead adopted a communal and familial approach in talking to members of his Owu family. For the records, and as accurately reported by some media organisations, what the former President said at the convention in Owu was that while he would not impose any candidates on them, Nigerians should vote for credible candidates who would drive growth and development and make their lives better than it is now. Chief Obasanjo’s statement did not suggest his neutrality. In fact, the former President believes that only a fool will sit on the fence or be neutral when his or her country is being destroyed by incompetence, corruption, lack of focus, insecurity, nepotism, brazen impunity and denial of the obvious. Chief Obasanjo is no such fool, nor is he so unwise. The former president reassures Nigerians that he will not sit on the fence when he needs to be out and active for people to know where he stands in the best interest of Nigeria.”

But every time he hurled his barbs at President Buhari, presidential spokesmen, including the inimitable Information minister, Lai Mohammed, and the pugnacious media assistant Garba Shehu, gave as much as they received from the former president. For instance, on December 10, Mr Mohammed snatched the bottom from the former president’s conviction. “With due respect to former President Obasanjo,” began Mr Mohammed cynically, “it is his constitutional right to support any candidate of his choice and we urge him to go out and campaign vigorously for any candidate he wants to support. He has not hidden his preference for the PDP candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, and we wish him very best of luck. However, I want to assure you that his candidate will be defeated roundly and comprehensively. It is not about endorsement; endorsement does not win election.” This confident response was nothing but a red rag to a bull.

Chief Obasanjo is a man of many parts. He is as unrelenting against weaklings as he is merciless against his strong-willed enemies. It will not matter how President Buhari and his aides posture, whether as strongmen or weaklings. All that matters to the former president is that he has met his enemies, and he knows them, and he wants them to be subdued. He will stop at nothing to neutralise them. But, unlike former president Goodluck Jonathan who vacillated between courting Chief Obasanjo one day and denouncing him another day, President Buhari and his bad-tempered aides are eager to throw punch for punch, as often as needed. The smoke of the cannonade will only clear after February 2019, when from all indications either the president or Alhaji Atiku is electorally dead and buried. Alas, Chief Obasanjo knows that his political fate is now inextricably tied to that of Alhaji Atiku. So, in February next year, Nigerians will either witness a double coronation, at least figuratively, or a double burial in fact and in substance.

December 15, 2018
Fr. Mbaka as imperious and doctrinaire as ever

THE Catholic Diocese of Enugu is in a quandary about what to do with their obstreperous priest and spiritual director of the Adoration Ministry Enugu Nigeria (AMEN), Rev. Fr. Ejike Mbaka.

In January 2016, after the controversial priest had revelled in tons of political prophecies that drew the ire of the Goodluck Jonathan government, he was posted out of the Christ the King Parish, GRA, Enugu, where he started his ministry, to the lesser known Our Lady Parish, Umuchigbo, Nje-Nike.

No one can say exactly how the Diocesan leadership would treat the new controversy stirred by the ebullient and irrepressible priest. What could they do to keep him silent? He had once been posted from GTC, Enugu, to CKP, where in six months, according to some sources, he supervised the building of the church cathedral and parish house. He must have an unparalleled, albeit controversial, system of fundraising that delivered quick results. But his controversial statements led to what some interpreted as a punishing exile to a less attractive parish in Emene. Yet, neither the censure by the Diocesan leadership nor his transfer from parish to parish has dampened both his outlandish prophecies and his exceedingly candid but embarrassing portrayal of men in power. Nor has his baiting of politicians seeking electoral victory abated one bit.

He browbeat the Jonathan government, endorsed the Muhammadu Buhari candidacy, spoke searingly about many men in office, especially in the Southeast, and played ducks and drakes with the affections and gullibility of thousands who thronged and still throng his Adoration prayer grounds. If the Diocesan leadership thought that his transfer in 2016 would quieten his theology and dissipate his strength and followers, they were grossly mistaken. The eager dupes who flock to him cannot be dissuaded by anything, not even his flagrant and questionable methods of fund-raising, nor his abrasive, inordinate and sacrilegious putdowns.

Fr Mbaka’s latest sacrilege is his diminution of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential running mate, Peter Obi, a former Anambra State governor whom he described as stingy for refusing to disclose in what ways he would assist the Adoration Ministry. Fr Mbaka had invited Mr Obi to the annual harvest and bazaar celebration, and seized the opportunity to squeeze donations out of him. But the thrifty Mr Obi could not be cajoled into parting with anything, let alone announcing any gift on behalf of himself or former vice president Atiku Abubakar, to whom he is running mate in next year’s presidential election. Consequently, Fr Mbaka denounced him and predicted that his stinginess would cost him and his principal the election.

The bazaar, held last Sunday at the Adoration ground, was a public ceremony, with many politicians and candidates in coming elections present. Fr Mbaka was full of admiration for those from whom he had coaxed substantial donations, but unsparing to those, like Mr Obi, who showed an uncommon parsimoniousness. The priest’s strong-arm method of raising donations is of course not a new thing. He had perfected it over the years and elevated it into a successful art form. It had yielded great projects over one decade and enhanced his reputation and standing in the church. Lured into doctrinal complanications, Rev. Fr. Benjamin Achi, upbraided Fr Mbaka and reiterated their warnings to priests indulging overtly or covertly in politics.

Said Fr Achi: “The church is apolitical. The church doesn’t take any political position at any time and the Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria (CBCN), a couple of weeks ago, issued an official statement to that effect; that the pulpit should not be used for any political campaign or the priest coming out to endorse any candidate as against the other. So, there has been official statement to that effect by CBCN. So, anything on the contrary is against what the church is teaching. He (Fr Mbaka) doesn’t represent the official position of the church because the church’s position has always been clear and that is what the position of the church has always been, and it hasn’t changed yet. Church officials don’t come out and make political statements or say things that might suggest that one political candidate is endorsed as against the other, no. It is against the church’s mode of operation. It is against the church’s principles.”

In a follow-up statement issued by the Catholic Secretariat of Nigeria (CSN), the church insisted: “While we are sure that Enugu Catholic Diocese where Fr. Mbaka is incardinated has or taking appropriate measures on the reported incident, we wish to categorically reiterate that no Catholic Priest is permitted to be involved in partisan politics. All liturgical ceremonies must never be used as an occasion for campaigns ahead of 2019 political activities. Catholic Church remains apolitical and would never support or subscribe to any political party. Our concern is for peaceful election process seen to be free, fair, credible and just, and a democratic governance that would herald peace, justice, equity, development and religious freedom for the common good.” The hint that the Enugu Diocese would take steps to return Fr Mbaka to doctrinal rectitude is unmistakeable. But whether whatever steps they take will be adequate or effective remains to be seen.

The Enugu Diocese will ponder two major arguments in their search for ways to discipline their controversial priest. One, how would they handle the worshippers who adore and sustain the Adoration Ministry, a throng that has clearly become powerful, unyielding, and even idolatrous? Two, how could they regulate the church’s fund-raising propensity in such a way that the funding of future church projects is not jeopardised? They will recall that in 2016, and even before then, they had had reason to caution and discipline their exuberant priest. They will also recall that they had to pull their punches because he was effective and getting things done. More importantly, they will recall how gingerly they proceeded against him in the face of his diehard followers who resented the lid their eminences attempted to place on the young priest.

So, once again, the Diocese will find themselves, despite their deep resentment of Fr Mbaka’s methods, proceeding with utmost caution. It is indubitable that the priest is wrong, unwise, recalcitrant and doctrinally inexact. They will therefore attempt to treat him severely, hoping that like what the punitive posting of 2016 attempted to do, the uppity and irreverent Fr Mbaka could be wearied into some form of unaccustomed silence or lethargy, or perhaps total compliance. Such outcomes, however, will jar against the priest’s DNA.

There is also no doubt that the Catholic Church, despite their long history of embracing liberation theology and other forms of theological activism, possesses stringent and adequate rules and regulations to govern church activities in political environments. Their main dilemma will however be how to enforce such rules in the face of populist priests who lack the restraint and moderation necessary to insulate the church from the putrefying practice of selling prophetic favours. Fr Mbaka unwisely gave the impression to politicians that his prophecies were up for sale, sale to the highest bidders. No corruption is worse than that. Indeed, if the Catholic Church hierarchy continues to feel that the Enugu Diocese is soft on the priest, there is no telling whether they would not be minded to disregard the consequences and wield the big stick.

What Fr Mbaka did last Sunday at the Adoration harvest and bazaar was execrable and indefensible. Mr Obi wisely bore the harassment and insult hurled at him by the priest. But it is perhaps time the Catholic Church eventually wielded the big stick to save their reputation.

December 8, 2018
Presidential race in slow start

THE 2019 race for the presidency is looking like the slowest on record. It was meant to be a sprint, a dizzying two and a half months short-distance race for plum of the plum, and best of the best. Yet, the two leading athletes in the race, President Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress (APC)and former vice president Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) have approached the race with the mentality of long-distance runners, or even worse, marathoners. Not only have they been slow from the starting blocks, they have so far not done anything significantly recognisable than flinging their turgid and uninspiring policy plans at the public face.

President Buhari’s Next Level plan has been needlessly assailed for engaging in plagiarism, but no one has sensibly argued how a fairly common title which athletes, film makers, preachers and even motivational speakers are accustomed to can conceivably become plagiarism or an infringement of intellectual copyright. Alhaji Atiku is belaboured over the length of his People’s Policy, tentatively put at six years, and is accused of secretly nursing the nefarious ambition of seeking two presidential terms while openly giving the impression of seeking only one term. However, there is nothing to suggest that the slow speed of the campaign has anything to do with these criticisms.

The PDP had nearly all of four years to get its act together to present a formidable challenge to the party that upstaged it in 2015. Instead, it allowed itself to be concussed with nothing more than a feather duster, chased red herring when it embraced the romantic adventure of the intransigent former Borno State governor Ali Modu Sherrif, and frittered away valuable hours and months in energy-sapping juridical wars. By the time the turmoil in the party subsided, its leaders were left breathless to face an equally confused and underperforming ruling party whose leaders cavorted in endless nomination plots.

If the convoluted political wars were limited to only the opposition party, the APC would have had a walkover. Happily for the PDP, the APC neither operated as a party, let alone a ruling party, nor had in its ranks leaders who could take responsibility about what needed to be done, nor yet had managed to produce an organisational structure able to withstand stress of any kind, not to talk of political and governmental stress. Confusion reigned in the ruling party as drama wearied the PDP and sapped it of its vitality. And to cap a very dangerous and dispiriting trend, the ruling party has engaged in the fiercest nomination wars ever, so bad that the president and governors are at sixes and sevens, the party’s soul racked by guilt, and many of its loyalists dazed by the president’s vacillations.

With neither party able to ethically and administratively rise above the other, and with none of the smaller and fringe parties able to seize the middle ground, it is hardly surprising that the 2019 race, particularly the presidential battle, has begun very slowly, hesitantly and uninspiringly. Despite the best but unconvincing efforts of former Lagos State governor Babatunde campaign effort, the PDP has opted for a combination of rallies and door-to-door marketing. But to do these, the party would need to unite around a common cause. That cause has so far proved ephemeral, and the party’s leading lights have stood disconcertingly aloof. Alhaji Atiku has also been accused of treating the highest ranking legislative leader from the Southeast, Ike Ekweremadu, shabbily. To remedy this omission, he has initiated a reconciliation effort. But almost concomitantly, the Southeast PDP governors have shunned the sales pitch of 2023 Igbo presidential bid, a carrot the PDP candidate is enamoured of and desirous of marketing. In fact the said governors appear at best to be noncommittal and, alarmingly to the PDP, even seemed somewhat persuaded by the logic of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Boss Mustapha, who has twice suggested that the Igbo 2023 agenda could best be realised by supporting President Buhari’s second and last term.

In any case, the PDP is spending an inordinate amount of time trying to coax unity out of its restless and ambitious party leaders. On top of this time-wasting, it faces the arduous task of raising enough clean money to fire and then structure its campaign. It will hope to get going sometime in December, a festive period that is however so unsuited to mass movements and electioneering. Despite the party’s best efforts, about two weeks or even three in December and January are virtually useless for campaigning. So the party is in effect left with about six weeks to persuade Nigeria to see through the APC’s chicanery. It won’t be easy.

On the other hand, the even more languid APC is not only tongue-tied and deaf to entreaties on rule of law and governmental ethics, it has been unable to coalesce around a common cause, let alone find and trust a few men in whom to delegate the epochal race for President Buhari’s re-election. Its nationalist and democratic credentials are weak, but it has lumbered on nevertheless, slowly and tediously. The demons confronting it are legion, ranging from nomination battles to party leadership struggles, and of course appalling lack of understanding of its raison d’être. Having stayed glued to its self-inflicted crises, more because of its inherent incompetence, it could hardly spare time to plan the 2019 campaign with the alacrity, fecundity and profundity the late statesman, Obafemi Awolowo, was renowned for.

But for their lack of hugeness and completeness, not to say inadequate financial resources, the smaller parties unencumbered by internecine revolts and battles have demonstrated more competence in planning and kick-starting their campaigns. Their ideologies may be inchoate and unconvincing, but their platforms, especially their promises, have resonated very well. They will not get far, and are unlikely to do well, but they will give glimpses of the utopia politics and campaigns ought really to be.

Having started slowly and poorly, even half-heartedly, the 2019 campaigns will overall fail to inspire or attract crowds on a scale commensurate with the fame and liveliness campaigns in Nigeria are reputed for. Whether major rallies or door-to-door campaigning, the 2019 elections will very likely fail to draw a huge number of voters.

Both President Buhari and Alhaji Atiku will hope that once they get their campaigns going, the zeal of the electorate will be fired. For the sake of the health of Nigerian democracy, the public will hope that at last some excitement can be triggered, and that once triggered it will encourage the candidates to press the throttles even more in order to convince voters to take the trouble of judging whom among the two leading candidates is the lesser evil. It will be a tough choice for the people, no matter how the campaigns go. The president is simply too distant and inattentive to envision a great and noble future for the country, its democracy and unity; and the challenger, despite his liberalism and talent for attracting young technocrats, is hobbled by both his controversial past and other ethical challenges. Indeed, nature has a way of taking care of its maladies. This may be why the campaigns have slowed down unnaturally, and the candidates themselves, despite their best efforts, have remained dour and colourless.

December 1, 2018
Buhari’s next level through Fashola’s prism

Works and Housing minister, Babatunde Fashola, and Transport minister, Rotimi Amaechi, are among the most ingenious of President Muhammadu Buhari’s ministers in selling his re-election ambition. This of course is not to discount the combative, wholehearted and aggressive marketing embarked upon by the national chairman of the ruling party, Adams Oshiomhole. But in sheer ingenuity, few ministers can hold the candle to Messrs Fashola and Amaechi. Whereas some ministers and supporters constrain their enthusiasm in a manner that indicates their inner doubts and perhaps too the pawky caution intellectuals are accustomed to, the two ministers let go with a fervency that is at once troubling and infectious.

Mr Amaechi, a former governor of Rivers State, is used to the animated display of enthusiasm, an attribute that helped him, in his second term especially, battle his political opponents in the years of rebellion against the Goodluck Jonathan presidency. It is not surprising that he is bringing those attributes in the service of the Buhari presidency, particularly the president’s re-election ambition. Mr Fashola’s charismatic style is harder to explain. But notwithstanding his aloofness, the Works minister’s rhetorical flourish and preachy and didactic manners are as beguiling as Mr Amaechi’s earthy humour and accessible style.

On Tuesday, however, Mr Fashola took the liberty of unfurling, with panache and logic, a verbal treatise on President Buhari’s second term ambition which his watchers found truly confounding. He used to act as a technocrat, and administer as a disinterested ruler. Now, finding himself having to prove his political skills, he has begun to act thoroughly involved, eager and even remorseless. His new form came to the fore early in the week when he inaugurated some 5,000 foot soldiers for the Buhari/Osinbajo campaign in Lagos. During the ceremony, he needed to tackle a few knotty political questions. Hard-pressed to explain why there seemed to be a dissonance between the APC’s promise of change in 2015 and the seeming lack of change today, the minister averred that although the APC promised change in 2014, the party did not promise to do it in four years. Brilliant sophistry. And recognising that the Southwest could once again determine the outcome of the presidential election, he threw a bait to the Yoruba, suggesting that the re-election of Buhari would guarantee that power would come to the Southwest in 2023.

Mr Fashola said much more. Hear him: “As a Southwest indigene, I will vote for the Buhari/Osinbajo ticket because my people stand to gain more from it. The Southwest is currently occupying the position of the vice president. We have three sitting ministers and many different federal appointments from the present administration which we cannot afford to lose…The APC has done more in three years than 16 years of PDP administration, yet they say president Buhari is too slow. President Buhari is taking Nigeria to the next level. We are going to the next level. The 2019 presidential election is a choice between going back and moving forward to the next level and also a choice of whom Nigerians can trust with their money. Buhari has inaugurated a structural infrastructure fund for road construction. N15 billion has been released for the continued construction of Lagos-Ibadan expressway.”

Mr Fashola’s logic is both faultless and irresistible. The PDP is still in a quandary just how much concession to make to the Southwest. They have talked of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), but little else thought to be of any serious significance. The presidential and vice presidential positions, should the PDP win, will go to the Northeast and Southeast. So, Mr Fashola’s reminder may help jog the memory of his fellow south-westerners to remember what they would lose should they take their 2019 balloting decision with levity. Undoubtedly, the Southwest will do a cost-benefit analysis in order to determine how they would vote, whether to stick to their current gains or hanker after the birds in the bush.

It is, however, unlikely that the Works minister does not recognise the implication of reducing both the presidency and the decision about whom to vote for to the crass politics of distributing political pork. It is untrue that the APC has done in three years more than the PDP in 16 years, as Mr Fashola asserted. But, really, how can anyone challenge the incontrovertible fact that the Southwest has gained much more under this administration than it gained under the three PDP administrations of the past 16 years? If regional gains are all politics is about, then the Southwest will find little difficulty in voting for President Buhari next year. But if far more noble and lasting benefits are considered — and the Southwest has the depth to expertly make the right assessments — they are unlikely to find it easy to do what both Mr Fashola and Mr Amaechi expect of the electorate, particularly the Southwest voters.

But the Works minister can take consolation in the fact that no matter how cracked his prism is, the Southwest is not the only region trapped in the sectional mindset. Both the North and the Southeast have also immersed themselves in sectional calculations, computing just what they stand to gain as the gravy train rumbles on over Nigeria’s rough and treacherous political and economic terrains. They recognise the more ennobling virtue of seeking and fighting for the national interest, but they lack the foresight and discipline to include that interest in their politicking. There is indeed little anyone can do, as far as the 2019 elections are concerned, to rouse Nigerians to higher ideals. If, as the APC and PDP leaders have shown, their leaders are shamelessly not encumbered by issues of national interests, and if in their short-sightedness these leaders cannot envision how that noble interest can deliver high positions and immediate pecuniary benefits to them, it is pointless preaching to the already damned ordinary voter to beware of their own private and ignoble interests.

It is not clear who Mr Fashola was addressing when he spoke that Tuesday about voting President Buhari so that the Southwest could retake the presidency in 2023. The Southeast is desperate for the prize; a few ambitious politicians in some zones in the North hanker after it; and the so-called minorities also pant for it, believing that they are best placed to look selflessly after the national interest in the most patriotic and unaffected way. The pro-Buhari/Osinbajo campaigners whom Mr Fashola addressed can hardly be bothered about his 2023 calculations. On the contrary, it is a calculation Mr Fashola probably designed for politicians like himself. His principal, whom he is campaigning for, never respected zoning in all his attempts at the presidency. So, come 2023, the elections are likely to become an all-comers’ affair. They will not be circumscribed by the politics of Elections 2019.

What is most probably true is that for politicians like Messrs Fashola, Amaechi, Oshiomhole, and other top APC leaders eager to get President Buhari re-elected, their own interests are more at stake than any other thing, not whether the APC government returns to office in 2019 to complete projects. Indeed, for most of them the prospect of leaving office and sinking into the gruelling nothingness some of their colleagues have found themselves is too depressing and damning to contemplate. They will, therefore, go at this presidential election hammer and tongs. They will not contemplate any other outcome but victory, and no other fate but one that does not injure their person and future. Yes, Mr Fashola’s prism may be cracked, but as far as he knows, no cracks are visible, and his vision and perspective cannot be more peerless and immaculate than any he has ever taken advantage of.

November 24, 2018