The Nation Newspaper

Category: UnderTow

  • Presidency makes heavy weather grappling with Danjuma’s censure

    ABOUT one week after former Defence minister and one-time Chief of Army Staff (CAOS), T.Y. Danujma, launched a scathing attack on the federal government for its seeming indifference to the rampage of herdsmen in many parts of Nigeria, the presidency finally responded fully last Saturday through a press statement by one of President Muhammadu Buhari’s spokesmen, Garba Shehu. By every consideration, the government’s response was civil and even laid-back. But it was no less poignant than Gen Danjuma’s vigorous and unsparing allegation of military connivance at herdsmen attacks. Gen Danjuma had spoken at the Taraba State University convocation ceremony three Saturdays ago where he decried the alleged collusion between military personnel and herdsmen to the detriment and woes of Taraba farmers and host communities. The former Defence minister is a Taraban.

    The issues raised by Gen Danjuma have been thoroughly dissected by analysts, including those who see his views from the perspective of his personal foibles. The general had been both livid and vivid in his denunciation of the collusion he felt was undermining the professionalism of the military and the unity of the country. Nigeria could be heading for the same kind of failed state status that smashed Somalia to pieces, he warned. Said the furious general: “But the peace in this State is under assault. There is an attempt at ethnic cleansing in this State, and of course all the riverine states of Nigeria. We must resist it. We must stop it. Every one of us must rise up. The armed forces are not neutral. They collude; they collude; they collude with the armed bandits that kill people and kill Nigerians. They facilitate their movement. They cover them. If you are depending on the armed forces to stop the killings, you will all die one by one. This ethnic cleansing must stop in Taraba State. It must stop in all the states of Nigeria. Otherwise Somalia would be a child’s play. I ask every one of you Nigerians, to be alert to defend your country; defend your territories, because you have nowhere to go.”

    The Buhari presidency had at first limited itself to expressing shock at the directness of Gen Danjuma’s accusations. They in fact did not go beyond cautioning the general that such remarks were capable of becoming self-fulfilling prophecies. Then they admonished him to be more temperate in his utterances, especially utterances that have far-reaching consequences on statecraft, inter-ethnic relations and national unity. But apparently, on second thought, the presidency decided to address some of the issues raised by the general, for those issues were really unprecedented and deeply worrisome.

    Said Mr Shehu, a presidential spokesman: “Silence can be dignified, but sometimes it can be misinterpreted and exploited. It is both shocking and scary to hear the recent comments by a senior citizen calling for Nigerians to defend themselves. What country would survive if its citizens rise against the country’s organised, trained and equipped military? The Presidency is very worried that criminal gangs will feel justified in defying legal governing and democratic institutions, and authority of legitimately elected democratic government if unrestrained pronouncements are made. We advise former leaders to take advantage of the various fora where people with a history of national security can offer advice to the government without resorting to the exploitation of emotional sentiments. The Presidency wishes to appeal to prominent Nigerians, who have national influence, to use their influence wisely and not continue to engage in public declarations that are likely to inflame emotional passions and threaten National Security. The Presidency commends the Nigerian military’s efforts to maintain peace and stability, despite being pulled in various directions by elements determined to destabilise the country and government for their selfish reasons…The civil war motto: ‘To keep Nigeria one is a task that must be done’ rings very timely at this time in our nation’s history. We must be careful to avoid the mess that destroyed other African countries like Somalia.”

    The presidency rightly acknowledged the need for a response, for the issues raised by Gen Danjuma were weighty enough to elicit their direct intervention. But other than the rhetorical flourish with which the response was couched, there was little in Mr Shehu’s response that tackled the general’s remarks or debunked them. Firstly, the general did not anywhere in his speech call for Tarabans or Nigerians at the receiving end of herdsmen attacks to rise up against the military. It is true he accused the military of complicity, but he limited himself to calling on victims to rise against herdsmen, to defend themselves because the state had failed in its constitutional mandate to defend the people. Moreover, Mr Shehu vulgarises the issues raised by the general by equating self-defence with criminal gangs who might wish to take the law into their hands or engage in defiant subversion of democratic institutions.

    Unfortunately, Mr Shehu seems to be more concerned about Gen Danjuma bringing the issue of the unchecked activities of herdsmen militias out in the open. Had the government he served taken firm and urgent steps to stanch the flow of blood in farming communities and curbed the rampage of herdsmen and their militias, neither the former army general nor anyone else would have felt the compulsion to raise the terrifying issues in public. The problem, it is clear, is not the publicity surrounding Gen Danjuma’s address and accusations, but the government’s lethargy in tackling the bloodlust triggered by herdsmen ostensibly because of restricted grazing routes and shrunken grazing reserves. Gen Danjuma did well to bring this critical problem into the open. It had previously been spoken about only in whispers. The government should accept responsibility for being slow and incoherent in addressing the crisis. For even if the ultimate cause of the crisis was the problem of shrunken grazing reserves, adequate and sensible proactive measures exist to address the problem instead of the government’s paralysis and unfathomable insistence on anachronistic livestock farming practices.

    On second thought, Mr Shehu and the Buhari presidency should have restrained themselves from responding to Gen Danjuma. It is clear they had no response, let alone an adequate one. If Mr Shehu had wished to respond well to the issues raised by the general, he should have giving proof of the impossibility of the Nigerian military colluding with militiamen. It was said of the soldiers of Frederick the Great that they could neither be bought nor sold. Nigerians, including Gen Danjuma and the harried farmers and communities of Taraba, needed to be assured that the Nigerian military was a disciplined and incorruptible force, for such virtues are not so esoteric that they could not be replicated and inculcated today. But most Nigerians know that both discipline and professionalism have withered considerably in the Nigerian military. Consequently, and sadly, most Nigerians are likely to find Gen Danjuma’s account more believable, even if some commentators think it impolitic and undiplomatic.

    The Buhari presidency exposed itself to allegations of acting mala fide in the crisis between herdsmen and farming communities. By running the country along insular lines, thus making Nigeria unrecognisable to those like Gen Danjuma, Ibrahim Babangida and ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo who had been involved in government at the highest levels, the Buhari presidency should not be surprised that its security appointments make tremors to course through the hearts of Nigeria’s elders — statesmen, generals, clerics and captains of industries. And given the conspiracy theories being bandied around by Dominique Boursicot, Intelicor Buro Chief for Françafrique on security issues in the West African sub-region, to the intent that there were more than met the eyes on Boko Haram activities and abductions as well as Nigeria’s bumbling economy, Mr Shehu’s response should have been more surefooted and factual.

    Gen Danjuma has raised some key issues about the modus operandi of herdsmen and their accompanying militias, and also proffered a tentative way out of the bloodletting. His panacea may grate on the nerves of the presidency, and may even be short-sighted and counterproductive. However, his ideas, for now, particularly in the absence of a sensible and coherent response from the government,  are the more profound and practical. Instead of berating the general and pointing fingers at his person, let the government instead put forward its own answers to the crisis for the public and experts to judge. The Buhari presidency has dithered for far too long and allowed the problem to fester, if not completely metastasised. Sitting on their hands is simply not the answer, especially at a time when insecurity has almost completely overtaken the country, with the law enforcement borders between soldiers and policemen either greatly obfuscated or completely obliterated.

  • Democracy, Electoral Act: All hope is not lost

    UNTIL Justice Ahmed Mohammed of the Federal High Court, Abuja rules in April 25 whether the case brought before him by the Accord Party on the Electoral Act, 2010 amendment has merit or not, the political terrain will continue to quake under accusations and counter-accusations from the president’s supporters and opponents. The National Assembly had in February overwhelmingly voted to reorder the sequence of the 2019 general elections, with the presidential poll taking the rear after both the National Assembly and state legislative and governorship elections are conducted in that order. The electoral body, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), had in January announced the retention of the 2015 order of elections which put the presidential and National Assembly polls first, and governorship and state legislative polls second. But perhaps suspicious that the reordering of the polls targeted his re-election, the president vetoed it.  It is this veto that the National Assembly is attempting to override.

    On the one hand are those like the Accord Party who fear that if the National Assembly should be allowed to override the president’s veto in the order of elections matter, that action would constrict the electoral body’s elbow room in conducting the elections, for instance in terms of rescheduling postponed polls. Others in the same camp, including the president in particular, suggest that it would amount to usurping the functions and powers of the electoral body to impose a particular sequence on it. The umpire must not only have control of the order, it must also have control over the dates, they argue.

    On the other hand are those who argue that the order of elections is not the same as the date of elections, and that, in any case, they do not see why a popular president should be perturbed or feel targeted  by anyone using election dates and order. First or last, they suggest, the president should not feel intimidated by his popularity to contest the poll whether it is brought forward or rescheduled late. Whether the proponents of this position are being cynical or not, no one seems to know or even care. As far as everyone is concerned, the National Assembly has not abused its powers by amending the Act, and can furthermore, if the lawmakers so chose, even go ahead to strip more powers from the electoral umpire.

    It is simply democracy at work that the president and his supporters argue that the amendment is targeted at the number one citizen, fearing that rescheduling the order, and not the dates, of the elections could jeopardise his chances. It is also part of the dynamics of democracy that national lawmakers fear that should the presidential poll hold first, and the president wins, it could jeopardise the chances of victory for lawmakers and even governors who have drawn the ire, if not the fury, of the president. So, on the one hand, the president fears defeat should the presidential poll come last, for once his enemies win, they could immobilise him openly and remorselessly. On the other hand, the lawmakers fear defeat should the president win. The fear of defeat, rather than any thought of the sanctity and integrity of the polls, are the overriding considerations in the battle to amend or retain the order of elections.

    Significantly, one political party – ever so typical of the political class — has presumptuously dragged the judiciary into the fray. Here the Accord Party, which is not in alliance with the ruling party, nor seems on the surface friendly to the president, has gone to court over the matter. The party does not stand a cat in hell’s chance of winning the presidency, let alone suffer any loss by the reordering of the polls. Why it has gone to court is, therefore, not clear. Its action can of course not be thrown out on the ground of locus standi, and it can theoretically argue that the new order of elections as passed by the National Assembly could bring injury upon its political interests. It can also argue that it is selflessly concerned about safeguarding the independence and powers of the electoral umpire, which the lawmakers might be intent on eroding. But deep down, no one believes the Accord Party’s claim of political or legal altruism, nor of the sensibility and plausibility of its position.

    If the Accord Party should get any relief from the courts, the first beneficiary would be the president, not even the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) whose members dominate the pugnacious and antagonistic legislature. But the chances of getting any relief of any kind are not only slim, they are indeed next to nothing. What the courts will try to answer is whether the constitution does not empower the lawmakers to make amendments as part of the legislative process, or whether that lawmaking effort does not also include the process of overriding vetoes. The courts will also answer the question of at what point a judicial process can be initiated into and against legislative work: whether at the beginning, because a potentially injured person or part fears future damage, or at the middle, or at the end. Finally, the courts will also attempt to answer the straightforward question of what fraction of the legislature can override a veto, whether the ordinary two-thirds mentioned in the constitution as contained in the relevant override provision in Section 58, or in accordance with the explicit provision of two-thirds of All members as contained in some specific parts of the constitution such as Sections 8 and 9.

    Hopefully, in the final analysis, the courts will settle the question of the point at which an injured person can wade into the legislative process, such that whenever a similar case is brought before the courts in the future, it would merit outright dismissal. If it loses in the Federal High Court, would the Accord Party head to the Court of Appeal without seeming to be a busybody or stooge of the ruling party? No one can tell. April 25 is barely a month away, even though the contest seems clear and the winner incontrovertible.

    However, rather than see the presidency as being motivated by malevolent reasons, and the lawmakers as selfish and misdirected, and the Accord Party as dancing to nefarious tunes, and the courts as being pusillanimous in dismissing the matter, and the controversy surrounding the matter as needlessly passionate, partisan and misconceived, the public should proudly consider all the back and forth and cut and thrust as nothing but the exemplification and projection of the finest principles of democracy. Had this controversy popped up under the military, the question of order of elections would have been settled with a fiat or flagged as a no-go-area, an approach that has distorted and even stultified both democracy and constitution-making in Nigeria.

    The ongoing debate on the order of elections, the peaceful approach to litigating it, and hopefully the juridical expertise that would mark its conclusion, should inure the practice of democracy in Nigeria to the sometimes violent political vagaries that had hallmarked it in the past. The Accord Party’s judicial quest may be questionable and degrading, but as some developed democracies, particularly the United States, are showing, no country is immune to such judicial adventurism or humiliating flagellation.

    Whether Nigerians like it or not, democracy is not only taking root in these parts, it is fast becoming indispensable and largely irreplaceable. Its definition may be problematic, and even somewhat at variance with the simple, austere and engaging explanation offered by Abraham Lincoln, a former US president, but overall, once the element of compulsion is taken away from the practice of democracy, and if the country can manage to develop a judicial practice that is intellectually incontestable, constitutional flaws and idiosyncratic political failings may pale into insignificance. Both the president and the National Assembly may selfishly posture for political advantage today, but in the end what will remain, after the dissipation of the election sequence controversy, should be of such lustre that will encourage Nigerians to have faith in their democracy and work harder to entrench it.

  • Still obsessed with the North-South divide

    If anyone thought the chasm between the North and the South was narrowing, the war of words between the Yoruba Council of Elders (YCE) and Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) a few days ago should disabuse their minds. On Tuesday, while responding to leaders of the northern women socio-cultural organisation, Jam’iyya Matan Arewa (JMA), in Kaduna, the ACF chairman Ibrahim Coomassie made a terse remark that Nigeria could not survive without the North. He offered neither proof nor expatiation, prompting the suspicion that the statement was not only at variance with the substance of the visit, but that it was the product of his residual and disgruntled irredentism.

    According to Mr Coomassie, a former Inspector General of Police, “We all know that without the North, Nigeria can never survive. We still stand by it. But now is the time to walk the talk in the interest of our people.” He then adds, in the same breath: “Chibok girls are still missing. Now it has gone to Dapchi in Yobe State. What happened? Are we always going to be the victims? Boko Haram; see what they did to the Northeast. They have spread over to the Northcentral and even to the southern part of the country. Should we continue to be regarded in the negative side? No. We are leaders in our own right and we must exercise this responsibility for our people. Whenever there is crisis, women and children are always the major victims. Enough is enough. Enough of killings of our women and children, enough of kidnapping of our daughters and enough of destruction of our property.”

    Except he was badly reported or misquoted by the reporters who covered the visit, there did not seem to be a connection between his declarative assertion of the North’s indispensability and his jeremiad against the same region’s serial misdeeds. It was not a Freudian slip that Mr Coomassie suggested that the North was indispensable to Nigeria’s survival; it is a dangerous and plainly unsubstantiated conviction rooted in the primordial and narrow worldview of the region’s elite. Had the former police boss limited himself to exposing the socio-economic and cultural contradictions in the region, and to asking for his visitors and every responsible Nigerian to join hands with the ACF to help redress the ills, he would have come across as a responsible and farsighted leader who is passionate about overthrowing the maladies that have arrested or stunted development in the deeply scarred region.

    Mr Coomassie’s statement might not be shocking to his visitors or indeed most of the North, but he should have known that to many in the South, what he said was like a red rag to a bull. It was hardly surprising that two days later, the YCE secretary general, Kunle Olajide, took umbrage and fired a volley at Mr Coomassie. Said Dr Olajide humourlessly: “The newspapers reported the Arewa Consultative Forum as saying that Nigeria cannot survive without the North. Whatever was meant by that statement credited to the ACF chairman remains to be understood. However, I congratulate him for accepting that the North, as it is today, represents all that is wrong with Nigeria. The Northeast is ravaged by insurgency costing the country billions of dollars annually. The Northwest is home to religious crisis, and the Northcentral is ravaged by herdsmen of northern extraction. Collectively the North is home to all negative indices of the quality of life. Infant mortality rate is highest in the North.”

    Not done, and still feeling provoked, the YCE scribe added: “Illiteracy rate is highest in the North and the number of out-of-school children is highest in the North. The poverty index in the North is high, while the twin evil bedevilling the North is feudalism and religious fatalism. It will not be out of place to say the North has in fact been dragging Nigeria down since independence. All sorts of mischievous phrases were coined  by the very tiny political/military elite of the North to give undue advantage to the North.” Clearly, northern and southern elites have very unflattering but differing picture of Nigeria and the tenuous existential chord that binds the beleaguered country together.

    It would have been both fitting and helpful had Mr Coomassie offered a definable and rational basis for his assertion on the North’s indispensability. Perhaps he will still do so, if not now, maybe a little later. It would help to shed light on whether he was in fact suggesting that the country’s greatness would be advanced by a deft application of the North’s huge economic potentials; or whether he was implausibly arguing that Nigeria would be untenable without the North, and that the other parts of Nigeria, whether singly or collectively, could not hope to survive because of a lack of potential or resources. Short of second-guessing the ACF chairman, and risk getting it woefully wrong, the analyst must resist the temptation to expand his provocative assertion beyond its ordinary grammatical meaning.

    It would be helpful if the North and the South, and the various peoples of Nigeria, overcame their mutual suspicions to strenuously forge a nation out of their disparate nationalities. There are immense possibilities in forging a country with a common objective, a centralising national identity, and a noble and inspiring continental destiny. So far, unfortunately, Nigerian leaders have neither shown the intellect nor summoned the will to build a stable and progressive country. But to suggest that one part could not survive without the other is not only sentimental nonsense, it is ignorant and self-serving. Take Nigeria’s three leading ethnic groups, the Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba, for instance. None is less populous than the topographically challenged Netherlands (Pop. circa 17.2m), or the small and semiarid Israel (Pop. 8.8m). Divided opportunistically along the lines drained by the Rivers Niger and Benue, the three former regions could hold their own admirably in the world. And should the country fracture along the expedient six geopolitical zones, they would still be able to hold their own in the world. And so whether three or six zones, there is little doubt that they would put their shoulders to the wheel and survive.

    Mr Coomassie’s argument is unhelpful and jaded. It is not supported by economics, geography or politics. It is suspected that his narrow and prejudiced views are popular among many northern governors and possibly even the presidency. The facts, however, show that no region of Nigeria, including the North, would collapse should the country be dismembered. What Nigerian leaders should be preoccupied with, rather than holding on to and propagating tired narratives, is to identify and strengthen common grounds, and to help produce a new crop of leaders not hamstrung by old and diseased perceptions of Nigeria. Mr Coomassie’s views are provocative and futile, and Dr Olajide’s riposte two days later was also fierce and counterproductive. Both viewpoints are unfortunately representative of the popular view of the tenuousness of Nigerian unity and the impermanence of its borders. By a combination of deep prejudice and ignorance, Nigerian leaders have proved mystifyingly incapable of reversing such dominant views or mitigating their injurious consequences.

    Admittedly, such trenchant and uninformed views do not amount to hate speech by any stretch; they are only dangerously anachronistic. After three major democratic false starts between 1960 and 1999, the Fourth Republic was supposed to offer the country a golden chance to make amends, rebuild the foundations of the country, and begin carefully, intelligently and synergetically to recreate a new nation from the diseased and aging one. Sadly, that hope has proved to be a chimera, especially with the older elite and unimaginative political, ethnic and religious leaders fanning the embers of mistrust and exploiting the issues and controversies that divide the country. But until Nigeria can find the right structure to guarantee balance and stability, and manage to put the right leaders in office, it would be nothing but platitudinous to speak glowingly and fondly of a crop of leaders destined to unify and lead the country to greatness.

  • Buhari, Jonathan and the Chibok —Dapchi duel

    THE presidency is unlikely to offer any explanation as to why President Muhammadu Buhari yielded to the temptation to compare his government’s response to the February 19 Dapchi abductions with ex-president Goodluck Jonathan’s hesitant approach to the 2014 Chibok abductions. He did it anyway, and spoke glowingly of the steps he took to address the disaster immediately it occurred. Both abductions had schoolgirls as victims, and the attackers were factions of the Boko Haram sect. However, that the latest attack in Dapchi took place at all is undoubtedly a significant embarrassment to the Buhari presidency which strangely believed, judging from the president’s words, that its peculiarly prompt response to the disaster offered some amelioration. It is not clear why he thinks so.

    Nigerians may disagree with the president, but here is how he defended and applauded his response: “The Federal Government’s response to the unfortunate abduction of the schoolgirls is a clear departure from the insensitivity of the past administration which looked the other way while the Chibok girls were taken away in 2014 and held in captivity for over three years. Due to our commitment, over 100 Chibok girls have been rescued and reunited with their families, sent back to school and empowered with requisite skills. You may recall that recently, our negotiation efforts led to the release of abducted University of Maiduguri lecturers, some women police personnel, students and even an NYSC member. We, therefore, have no doubt that the Dapchi girls will be rescued or released. I can assure parents, Nigerians and the international community that we will do all that is within our power to make sure that the girls are brought back safely to their families.”

    If the president hoped that the mere fact of a difference between his response and that of his predecessor offered proof of his assiduity and empathy, he must be strangely mistaken. The Boko Haram sect abducted some 219 schoolgirls from a girls’ school in Borno State in April 2014, some four years ago. The repercussions of that abduction are still felt today, both in terms of the tragic consequences to the victims and their families, seeing that over 100 of the girls are still in captivity, and the implications for the politics and image of the former president, Dr Jonathan. In the latest case, 110 schoolgirls were abducted in Dapchi, Yobe State about a month ago, virtually in similar circumstances, with the security agencies caught flat-footed. Somehow, the president, perhaps feeling awkward that a similar tragedy occurred under his watch, has selected an aspect of the abduction for a justificatory excursion.

    Nevertheless, the Buhari and Jonathan presidencies obviously put more confidence in negotiating the girls’ release than, according to them, risking a bloody rescue whose outcome is uncertain. The earlier abduction was consequent upon the carelessness of the Nigerian government, their lack of proaction, even their evident stupefaction. The latest abduction is also consequent upon the carelessness of the government, four years after the first; and it also exposes the current government’s enervating lack of proaction.  By all accounts, the so-called rescue of the first batch of Chibok girls was facilitated by payment of ransom. There is nothing President Buhari has said that gives any indication that both the second batch of Chibok girls still in captivity and the Dapchi 110 would not be facilitated by ransom payment. Indeed, hearing the president speak enthusiastically of getting the girls back home sooner than many think gives the impression that somehow the government fully understands the currency of Boko Haram’s trade in humans.

    The opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) seems to think the president is politicising the tragedy. No one can stop the Buhari presidency from actively negotiating the schoolgirls’ release, nor in taking the accolades if they are able to pull it off successfully. Such gloating goes with the territory. The Jonathan presidency had the opportunity to negotiate the girls’ release before the last general elections. Had they succeeded, they would have taken the glory and politicised the freedom of the abducted girls. Dr Jonathan never visited Chibok; President Buhari, after initially dithering, has managed to visit Dapchi. Though he said nothing inspiring in Dapchi, nor gave a big policy statement other than putting down his predecessor, at least he visited ground zero of the abduction.

    Could this be the last major abduction Boko Haram would orchestrate? It is hard to say. Despite the president’s self-congratulations, it is evident that his forces in the Northeast, particularly in Yobe and Borno States, have neither shown the operational fervour and proficiency expected of them nor displayed the instinctive preemption that should have stood them well in that volatile region where Boko Haram’s potential victims abound in excess. It took Boko Haram four years to plot another embarrassing abduction. They obviously have the luxury of time, having lost considerable ground, and are more inclined to restricting themselves to their newfound status of spoilers and wet blankets. The terrain is vast, and troops are spread thin. The Nigerian government will be hard put to find the right formula, amidst such territorial vastness, to knock the sect into a cocked hat. It is these new threats and general unknowns that should preoccupy the Buhari presidency rather than gloat in comparative fantasies.

    President Buhari may have responded with alacrity to the Dapchi abductions, but it is to his discredit that the lessons of both the Boko Haram revolt and the course of the insurgency have not been learnt in order to help him forestall a repetition of the tragic abductions. He has learnt to delegate responsibilities without supervising his men; and worse, he has seemed able to appoint officials he appears incapable of sacking. It can therefore be inferred that President Buhari does not seem to be running an inspired and motivated government but an administration of lackadaisical friends and family. He has indicated that a panel to find out what went wrong in Dapchi would help him get to the bottom of the disaster. If the panel musters the sense and skill to expose the rot that facilitated the Dapchi tragedy, would he have the gut to wield the axe? How much axe has he wielded over many of his patently incompetent and misspeaking appointees?

    Admittedly, there are some differences in the responses of the Buhari and Jonathan presidencies to the schoolgirls abductions in the Northeast. But those differences are not enough to make them duel, let alone for one of the parties to claim the moral high ground. After all, Dr Jonathan can also interpret the festering insecurity in the country as a product of President Buhari’s inexpert and even prejudiced and myopic handling of the crises bedevilling the land. Neither of the two presidents caused the outbreak of the revolt in the Northeast, and neither, it can be asserted with some fair degree of accuracy, gave it extra stimulus. Therefore, rather than revel in needless self-glorification and name-calling, President Buhari should have more appropriately focused on the pressing issues at hand, especially the Dapchi abductions, which required his entire concentration, genuine empathy, reform of the security forces, and absolute retooling of his waning politics.

    Dr Jonathan was roundly and probably soundly defeated in the 2015 polls, partly because of his awkwardness and complacency in the presidency; President Buhari, who campaigned on possessing more than an average talent in matters of statecraft, should restrain himself from exhuming those ghosts of Nigeria’s dreary past, especially when he has not shown himself capable of profiting from the lessons of their untimely demise.

  • The Dapchi debacle and wider implications

    The Dapchi debacle and wider implications

    WHILE arguments are still raging over whether the Muhammadu Buhari presidency demonstrated incompetence both before and after the abduction of the 110 Government Girls Science and Technical College (GGSTC), Dapchi, Yobe State, on February 19, many commentators remind everyone that some 112 schoolgirls from Government Girls College Chibok, Borno State, are still being held in Boko Haram captivity, the remnant from the April 14-15, 2014 abduction that shook the world. They also remind the country that beyond fighting Boko Haram, nothing else is being done about studying and understanding the sect in order to find a resounding victory and closure. Yes, the style of the terrorists has not changed. Indeed, what has appeared to change is the identity of the abductors. For, unlike the Chibok abductions masterminded by the Abubakar Shekau faction of Boko Haram, the Dapchi attack was carried out by the Abu Musab Al-Barnawi faction of the Boko Haram sect.

    Those close to the leadership of the Al-Barnawi faction have attempted to console Nigerians by suggesting that the abductors, this time, are more humane, and that the girls would be released sooner than expected. Cold comfort. What is evident beyond the mere act of the abduction, or the humaneness of the abductors, or the arguable incompetence of the Buhari government, is that the government, like the Goodluck Jonathan presidency before it, appears to be waiting for the end of the insurgency to demonstrate what lessons it has learnt from the crisis and how it intends to find a closure. But that general and unending slothfulness has proved very costly. It is not only inadvisable to wait for that indefinable end to come, it is a much more depressing indicator that no coherent policies are in place to tackle the whole gamut of the insurgency. Indeed that gamut is huge and getting increasingly insurmountable.

    Just like the Jonathan government, the current government seems more preoccupied with fighting and defeating Boko Haram, and indeed many other threats to national security, than any other thing. That they only give some cursory thoughts to the post-Boko Haram era is not quite as reassuring as it should be. But implicit in their actions and policies, not to say in the amorphous structure of their government and personnel, are clear indications that no lessons have been learnt, are being learnt, or are willing to be learnt from the multiple threats to national security, particularly the Boko Haram insurgency. With the entire country almost drenched in blood, and with the government apparently overwhelmed and limited to essentially reacting to the threats, rather than being proactive, Nigerians are beginning to fear that their leaders lack the depth and breadth needed to understand and govern an increasingly globalised, complex and conflictive country. This conclusion is not mistaken, though Nigerians must be in a quandary whether to dismiss each government for incompetence or boldly engage another one without any hope either would be better.

    When the Chibok abductions took place in 2014, the Jonathan government was caught flat-footed. In the hours after the tragedy, not to say days and weeks after, that government moved from flat-footedness to living and operating in denial. The Buhari presidency has on the contrary revelled in showcasing the difference between its own reaction to Dapchi and that of Dr Jonathan on Chibok. President Muhammadu Buhari, Nigerians were told, immediately acknowledged the abductions and described it as a national disaster. The Information minister, Lai Mohammed, together with a few other government officials visited Yobe State, conferred with state officials who briefed them, and gave assurance that the government would do everything to rescue the girls. Indeed, the Information minister told the media that the Buhari presidency had mobilised all military and security nsurgency. It is in fact both compelling and urgent for the government to demonstrate a clear and comprehensive understanding of the revolt in the Northeast as well as design adequate and fitting responses. To do these, the state governments where the revolts have taken place and other states where similar revolts might break out sometime in the future must meet minds with the federal government to tackle the whole gamut of the crisis. So far, they have not indicated that perceptiveness and resolve.

    Last Thursday, the Kaduna State governor, Nasir el-Rufai, spoke in Abuja about the low investment in education in Borno and Yobe States as a contributory factor in sowing the seeds of terrorism in the region. He is right, even though the malaise is not limited to only the Northeast. Both Borno and Yobe States, not to say other states in the North and elsewhere, must find the will to invest heavily in education to take idle and unskilled hands off the streets. If canon fodders are not available, mischief makers would find nothing to do with their canons.

    But low investment in education is not the only problem. States, particularly in the less secular North, must begin to recognise that of all the revolts that complicate law enforcement, religious insurrections are the most difficult to deal with. As the beginnings of the Northeast revolt showed, Borno State, the epicentre of the Boko Haram insurgency, had a history of official romance with religious fundamentalism. Once a huge misunderstanding broke out between the clerics and the government, it was unlikely to be limited to religious circles only. The misunderstanding immediately widened and sucked the government into its red vortex. If these troubled states will not draw a line between the democracy they claim to practice and the theocracy they seem to long for, they may be unable to prevent the widening of misunderstandings anytime they rear their heads. The official dalliance with religious groups, especially fiery sects, must be deliberately and sensibly restricted if violent eruptions are to be averted. The federal government has not seemed to focus its mind in this direction at all.

    Mallam El-Rufai may be right in his Abuja exposition last week about the education crisis confronting the Northeast and elsewhere, but much more than that, the region’s frightening poverty index and high population growth rate would sooner than later predispose the northern states as a whole to other forms of social and economic revolts. The region faces a time bomb. The Northeast states must begin to find ways of reconciling birth control with the region’s dominant religious concept of family and procreation. Population growth may be an electoral asset and a tool for cornering a significant portion of revenue allocation, but a sensible government with an eye on the future, a government more concerned about peace and stability and development, will cleverly embrace the imperatives of political and economic restructuring in the truest sense of federalism. Any other solution, such as sermonising about peaceful co-existence which President Buhari has unwisely limited himself to, will not only fail to work, it will in the long run be counterproductive.

    By all means, the country must plan and work to defeat Boko Haram, which is the principal terrorist organisation afflicting the country at the moment. But far more desirably, the Buhari presidency must show that it understands the complex issues involved, and compel itself boldly and revolutionarily to engage the right methods to deal with the existential crisis confronting the country. It has neither shown the needed brilliance nor found the courage to do what is required and practicable, and has as a matter of fact never spoken about breaking the mould in tackling these dangerous issues. But except brilliant remedies are applied, even after Boko Haram is finally and completely defeated, there will be a recrudescence of the crisis on some inauspicious tomorrow. And as every epidemiologist knows, a second break out is notoriously difficult to manage.

    The Dapchi abduction, it is hoped, has also finally persuaded the government of the dangers of spreading military resources thin, especially because of the military’s needless exposure to police duties. If the government is to have enough assets to hold recaptured territories and not expose itself to the embarrassing abductions Boko Haram militants have seemed adept at, then both the presidency and the Defence Headquarters must recognise the danger of their seemingly casual approach to military deployments. The Dapchi tragedy was embarrassing and inexcusable, and despite the Information minister’s exultant statements about the Buhari government’s prompt response, neither the president himself, who has carried on blithely as if he is unable to comprehend the scale of the disaster, nor his military top brass, who have said or done little  to reassure a grieving and apprehensive country, have handled the aftermaths of the abductions with the gravity and adroitness the situation demands.

  • Obasanjo’s myth of infallibility

    Obasanjo’s myth of infallibility

    IT is hard to know what to make of former president Olusegun Obasanjo’s insinuation of his own infallibility. Addressing students of the Ijaw National Academy in Bayelsa State recently as part of the events to mark Governor Seriake Dickson’s sixth anniversary, Dr Obasanjo argued that his failings as president were excusable on the grounds that he took decisions based on the best information available to him at the time. It is remarkable that after many years out of office, it still has not dawned on the former president that nothing excuses bad and sometimes injurious decisions. Just like former military leader Ibrahim Babangida who sometimes remorselessly accept responsibility for some of the bad decisions he took in office, Dr Obasanjo keeps an expressionless face when he wrestles with his own decisional demons.

    Not only has the former president now qualified as a thinker, particularly with his PhD in Theology, he also ruled Nigeria both as military head of state and an elected president. By experience and learning, therefore, more introspection is naturally expected of the former president who led Nigeria first between 1976 and 1979, and then between 1999 and 2007. But bafflingly, he has often been wary of the morality, discipline and depth required of him, virtues the country, nay the African continent, presumed him to possess in abundance. Here is how Dr Obasanjo defended his failings: “What is it I didn’t do in office that I now want to do? Do what you can defend before God, man and conscience. With the knowledge, resources and facilities that I had, there is nothing that I did not do. None. If I had more resources, then I think I would have done differently, but with what I had and the resources at my disposal, l would say no, I did all that is humanly possible when I was President. I was not perfect, only God is. Also bear in mind that people you work with will make sure you don’t see all things. If that happens, who do you blame? Some of them will do everything. What is important is that you must not have regret. I do not have any regret about things I did when I was in government or in any leadership position I have held. No regret.”

    Obviously, neither the country as a whole nor the Ijaw people to whom he spoke when he addressed the academy, are going to hear from him any remorseful statement about the military invasion he ordered against Odi community in Bayelsa State, an invasion that led to the killing of scores of indigenes and the levelling of the town. Neither the country nor the people of Lagos are going to get from him the contrition a great leader proves himself capable of, especially regarding his defiance of the Supreme Court judgement that ordered him to release Lagos local governments’ impounded share of the federal revenue allocation. He seems to suggest that those bad decisions, among a myriad, were justified on the grounds of either the available information at his disposal at the time or the deliberate mischief of his aides who conspired to constrict or subvert his options.

    The tenor of his justificatory arguments indicates and speaks more clearly to his eternal cocksureness than the accuracy or falsity of the facts available to him when he took his decisions. He would not do anything different, he almost gloated, should he be faced with the same issues and the same inputs. But what his audience wanted to elicit from him — especially given the fact that Odi town, which his military wrongfully invaded and burned just a few months after he assumed office in 1999, is located in the state where he was addressing the academy — was a discourse on the subject of Odi, his opinion of the event that has scarified the town, and what he now thought of his actions in retrospect. But Dr Obasanjo is not one to yield, no, not by a mile. He preferred, he said, to hide under the whimsical justifications of mischievous aides and what he went on to describe gleefully as available contemporary facts. The November 1999 Odi invasion has since been litigated and adjudicated, with a full and final payment of N15bn made to victims. It would not have hurt Dr Obasanjo to speak on the quality of intelligence available to him at the time of ordering the invasion, even though most commentators at the time feared that the decision was based more on emotions than facts, to wit, that the former president felt that the killing of the 12 security agents that served as the casus belli for the invasion was a challenge to the almightiness of the security forces and the government. Had he spoken of the available intelligence presented him at the time, and had he extrapolated from it to caution leaders everywhere on how fine policies could sometimes miscarry, both his audience and the entire country would have profited from his introspection, remorse, and the humanity which many, alas, thought he was incapable of exhibiting.

    Among other policy miscarriages, it was also expected that he would speak about his flagrant disregard for the rule of law, in particular for the judgement of the Supreme Court regarding the Lagos council funds which he treated so contemptuously. He did nothing of such. He kept a brave face despite knowing that his audience needed him to identify a few controversial issues that dogged his presidency, and speak to those issues with enlightened hindsight. By sticking to the pompous highway and pontificating on curious ancillary issues, not to talk of his boastful lack of penitence, Dr Obasanjo unwittingly demonstrated his lack of understanding of the role which character plays in building and sustaining the legacy of a leader, and in developing and projecting a great personality worthy of historical lionisation. Indeed, far beyond suggesting that he did no wrong, or that if he did any wrong, then it should be blamed on extraneous factors, he sadly gave the impression, by his stubborn loyalty to his decisions in office, that he is incapable of the judgement and intuitiveness which hallmark exceptional leadership, the anvils on which great leadership is forged.

    There was, however, a second notable strand in his address to the Ijaw academy. Perhaps because of his PhD in Theology, the former president felt the burden, if not challenge and inspiration, to offer an original idea on the essentials of leadership. Hear him: “If you are a leader that fears God, the chances are that you will be good. If you do not fear God, forget it. A leader has to have knowledge, be a team worker. They are very important. You must fear God.” Mercifully, he did not deem it fit to elaborate on that sophomoric philosophy. His view of God is well known, so, too, are his suspect Christian principles. But how would he categorise the leaders of great and powerful nations who either, by Dr Obasanjo’s theology, worship idols or worship nothing? How would he view China, Russia, the Mongoloid leader, Genghis Kahn, the great Caesars, etc who paid no heed to Dr Obasanjo’s entranced idea of deity? Leadership is such a deep and almost unfathomable issue that no one, let alone Dr Obasanjo, had the right to treat so cavalierly.

    In any case, Dr Obasanjo believes he knows and fears God. Yet, few around him think that, by any stretch of the imagination, he qualifies as a good leader. He not only ordered invasions that led to the needless death of scores of innocent people in Odi and Zaki Biam (Benue State), he is known to eye the concept of justice warily, had deliberately orchestrated injustice as evidenced by his approach to the Lagos council revenue issue, intrigued for a third term agenda, and organised what remains till today probably the vilest elections in Nigerian history. There is much more to leadership than Dr Obasanjo presumes. The country can only hope that when he finally comes round to writing his memoires, he will prove everyone wrong by penning the truth and exposing in simple language everything his convoluted and indefensible lifestyle has encrusted in mysteries.

  • Okorocha as instinctive monarchist

    Okorocha as instinctive monarchist

    Imo State governor, Rochas Okorocha, is eternally fascinated by his own elocution. When he lets go of his words, neither time nor logic, nor yet his audience’s discomforts restrain him. Last Monday, he was again at his irrepressible best as he indirectly announced his preference for the state’s governorship position. In the account released to the press of the visit by some All Progressives Congress (APC) leaders to the governor, Sam Onwuemeodo, his press secretary, gave insight into the workings of Mr Okorocha’s mind. The visitors, all of whom were APC leaders from Owerri Municipal Council, suggested, according to the press secretary’s account, that the governor should endorse his chief of staff, Uche Nwosu, for the next governorship election. Mr Nwosu is a son-in-law to the governor.

    Responding to his visitors’ blandishments, the governor craftily hid his secret longings for his pick despite the fact that, like most other governors, his desire to run things down to a tee appears boundless. In particular, monarchism is instinctive with him. Here is Mr Okorocha at his elocutionary and dissimulative best: “Uche Nwosu is hardworking, and never gets tired. He is a very humble young man. Not proud. Not arrogant. So, power won’t enter his head. In spite of the position he occupies, you can’t see him quarrelling with anybody or maltreating anybody. He does not segregate anybody, whether from Orlu or Owerri or Okigwe zone. He relates with people enviously. I have checked him in and out, I have not found him wanting. What the state wants is Imo governor and not Owerri Zone or Orlu Zone or Okigwe Zone governor. Zoning does not put food on the table of anybody. The young man is a team player who does not use his office to molest anybody. He has the qualities of a good leader. If he says he will run for governor, I will support him.”

    Ignore the one or two howlers in the governor’s statement. Ignore also his cautionary declaration of support. What is clear is that Mr Okorocha has made up his mind. So, too, in all probability, has his son-in-law. They can’t fool the public. Indeed, going by the nature of politics in these parts, the APC leaders’ visit was most likely orchestrated. There is hardly any governor in Nigeria who is not interested in who his successor is. Mr Okorocha is not an exception. What probably sets him apart is that he has declared support for his son-in-law, again, probably a first in Nigeria. It is possible that Mr Nwosu has all the qualities the governor adumbrated, and perhaps even much more. It is also possible that the visiting APC leaders were genuinely persuaded about the potential successor’s qualities, and were anxious to ensure that the state should be put in the hands of a person with a good head on his shoulders, someone not prone to the tremulousness that excessive ambition and bureaucratic and political arrogance confer on ill-bred leaders.

    But regardless of the fears that prompted the governor to weave safety nets, it is also indubitable that Mr Okorocha is in theory and practice a monarchist. Last December, he had controversially appointed his sister, Ogechi Ololo, to the equally controversial Ministry of Happiness and Purpose Fulfilment. He defended both the ministry and his sister’s appointment thus: “The real essence of life is to be happy and to fulfil one’s purpose in life; Government officials are elected to address this. Happiness and Purpose Fulfilment ministry, therefore, is established for the lost time to correct the policy framework to guide ministries and departments on what they must do to guarantee the citizens’ happiness and contribute better to the society. This is the very reason people elect their leaders: to guarantee their happiness and purpose fulfilment. A great leader therefore, is one who provides happiness to the people. Unfortunately, this vital element of our social lives has not been properly addressed…The choice of Mrs Ogechi Ololo, a Masters Degree Holder in computer Science, USA, who has been the Deputy Chief of Staff to the Governor on Domestic Matters and Food Security, can be described as a round peg in a round hole.”

    Mr Okorocha has a little over a year to go as governor. There is, therefore, not much any Imolite can do to mitigate his monarchism, let alone his insatiable romance with rhetoric. They will nevertheless hope that they can do something about coping with and penalising his offensive monarchical inclinations. He has made an inspiring case for his son-in-law as the next governor, but Imolites know that the young man is untested politically and, despite the governor’s confidence, even emotionally. Mr Okorocha is at liberty to support anyone he likes, but it is not certain that he has done so with the judgement and cleverness he seems to repeatedly arrogate to himself. Respect for democracy and its processes requires that the governor approach the issue of succession with all the restraint and gravitas the constitution enjoins those in position of leadership. But Mr Okorocha is feisty, bold, sometimes mocks people’s feelings, and above all, carries himself, in words and deeds, with the insouciant airs of royalty and snobbishness. He is, therefore, unlikely to be mortified by his choices for the Happiness ministry and the governor’s office in 2019 notwithstanding public remonstrances.

    There is nothing substantial to defend the allegation that Mr Okorocha, despite his controversiality, is divisive. He is undoubtedly ambitious, and he hopes that his unquenchable zeal for his party, not to say his well-known eloquence and derring-do, will somehow earn him a shot at the presidency sometime in the future, when the country manages to achieve a consensus in favour of the Igbo. He is also quite exposed, has a crossover appeal, and regardless of the cynicism of many Imolites in an age when the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) seems to have captured the imagination of the Igbo, is well regarded by many politicians outside the Igbo region. But his inscrutable tendency for frivolity, such as his creation of the Happiness ministry and the erection of statues in honour of disreputable local and international figures, raises eyebrows not only in the Southeast but also all over Nigeria.

    With the exception of Lagos State, no other state has had any measure of success in guided, but nevertheless democratic, governorship succession. Not in the Southeast, nor in the North. Mr Okorocha will hope to buck the trend if he can manage by dint of legitimate balloting to get his protégé and in-law elected into office. He himself has neither been an instant success as governor nor an enduring success, given his many questionable policies and projects. But even if he gets Mr Nwosu to occupy the Government House in Owerri, there is nothing to suggest that his trust in his chosen successor’s talents and the Owerri APC leaders’ conviction that he best approximates the state’s needs are unimpeachable.

    It is of course assumed that when the time comes for the party to elect its standard-bearer Mr Okorocha will let the party’s internal processes function transparently. Equally, when it comes to statewide polls in 2019, it is hoped that he will neither contemplate nor countenance the erection of obstacles designed to thwart popular will. He may have the tendency to dominate everything around him, as many in the state and outside have suggested, but it is expected that beyond developing a preference for a candidate and announcing it, Mr Okorocha will do nothing to undermine the system. Should he do what is right, it will be unusual of him; but it will greatly enhance his public confession as a democrat and stand the state in good stead to reinforce its claim to regional and Igbo leadership.

  • Herdsmen colonies and the Ganduje panacea

    Herdsmen colonies and the Ganduje panacea

    KANO State governor, Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, seems more bemused than bewildered by the recent furore over herdsmen/farmers clashes all over the country. During his inspection of the vaccination of over one million cattle and other small animals at the Kadawa artificial insemination centre in Garum Malam Local Government Area of Kano State last Sunday, the governor wondered why killings had persisted between farmers and herdsmen when a fitting and sensible solution stared everyone in the face. According to him, Kano State alone had more than enough grazing land and infrastructure for animal husbandry to cater to the needs of the country’s herdsmen. He, therefore, advised Nigeria’s herdsmen to take advantage of the facilities the state has provided by relocating to Kano and conducting their businesses productively and peacefully.

    Judging from Dr Ganduje’s submission last Sunday, two unsavoury facts emerge from the federal government’s own solution to the herdsmen/farmers clashes. One is that, contrary to the impression the Agriculture minister, Audu Ogbeh, gave, the establishment of cattle colonies was neither well thought out nor the only solution to the clashes. Chief Ogbeh had suggested to the media and Benue State governor, Samuel Ortom, that the colonies panacea was the federal government’s conclusive solution to the clashes, and in fact the only solution to the bloodletting laying many parts of the country waste. He even added that each state not averse to the colonies idea was expected to contribute, for a fee, about 5,000 hectares of land for that purpose.

    Two, it is all but clear that the federal government at no time really deliberated on the crisis with a view to finding a realistic and implementable solution to the crisis. What seemed evident was that a sinister group existed somewhere along government corridors who had both a jaded idea of animal husbandry and a rather expansionist, if not irredentist, agenda to benefit cattle breeders and the Fulani in particular. There was no contemplation of modern forms of animal husbandry, no ruminations about the crisis that free grazing often engendered, and no responsible and imaginative consideration of the feelings of reluctant host communities who were being press-ganged into a costly promotion of cattle breeders’ business. Instead, and sadly too, President Muhammadu Buhari and all his top security chiefs have been guilty of this dereliction of duty as a government. They have either haughtily blamed grieving host communities and their farmers or counselled them to, in the name of God, accommodate their fellow countrymen.

    It turned out that, as Dr Ganduje said, the solution was neither far-fetched nor even too costly. If there is no ulterior motive to the retention of old and now unworkable traditional methods of animal husbandry, it is perhaps time the slow-to-change federal government, the impetuous Agriculture ministry, and the president who has simply refused to advert his mind to the problem, let alone conceive a forthright and productive solution, engaged the ideas of Dr Ganduje and see whether his solution does not have integrity and practicality. For it is absolutely clear that the old methods of animal husbandry cannot work and will not conduce to peace. It is indeed selfish of the federal government to turn a blind eye to the pains of the farmers, ignore the cultural sensibilities of farming communities expected to host the cattle breeders, and demonstrate an unseemly eagerness to spend humongous amount of money to patronise and pamper cattle breeders to the detriment of those who have been at the receiving end of their thuggery and callousness.

    Though Dr Ganduje insists Kano State alone can cater to the needs of the country’s entire cattle breeders population, and had profusely demonstrated that capacity last Sunday, it is even more evident that a few states in the North, where animal husbandry is a potentially big business, can take dairy farming to the next level and make Nigeria one of the biggest in Africa. If only the federal government can eschew its slothfulness and learn from Kano State. Here is how Dr Ganduje put his case, recognising how easily his state could rake in huge revenues from the business: “…We have enough grazing land, ranches and traditional livestock routes…So, they (herdsmen) don’t have any reason to move out of the state. We take care of them and we accord them the respect and dignity they deserve…I am inviting herdsmen from all parts of Nigeria to relocate to Kano because we have enough facilities to accommodate them. We have grazing lands in Rogo, Gaya, Kura, Tudun Wada, Ungogo and other reserved places where facilities are in place to accommodate the herdsmen and their cattle…The Falgore Game Reserve can take care of millions of herdsmen and their cattle in Nigeria. The place has been designed to contain schools, human and animal clinics, markets, recreational centres, and other social amenities that can give the herdsmen enough  comfort to take care of their animals and do their business without hindrance.”

    Dr Ganduje continues: “These killings must stop. We cannot afford to continue to witness these senseless killings in the name of Fulani herdsmen and farmers’ clash over lack of grazing land while we have a place like the Falgore Game Reserve underutilised. Cattle rustling is now history because we fought the menace headlong. In Falgore right now, we have enough security there. Those rustlers have relocated elsewhere, while some of them who repented from their evil ways were given amnesty and rehabilitated…A cattle intervention centre has been established to address the challenges associated with the livelihoods of herdsmen within Kano. Just recently, we sponsored the training of over 61 Fulani herdsmen who were sent to Turkey to learn artificial insemination. They are back to Kano and I must tell you that they are doing well in the various places they have been assigned to do their jobs.”

    Going by the Ganduje panacea, three or four states in the cattle belt can sustain Nigeria’s herdsmen and provide beef and dairy products substantial enough for domestic consumption and exports. The governor in fact thinks Kano alone can do the job. If there are no other political and socio-cultural considerations by a shadowy group within the presidency, if the Buhari presidency is not being manipulated for sinister motives perhaps far beyond his own ken, and if Chief Ogbeh is not being used as a lackey by those who have little interest in the peace and unity of Nigeria, then it is time the federal government got serious about resolving the farmers/herdsmen crisis. The problem, as Kano State has shown, is essentially a state affair. States which have interest in promoting dairy farming should be encouraged to ranch as Kano has done, and develop the infrastructure required to sustain the business. If they need federal assistance, they should know how to get it.

    Federalising herdsmen colonies or even grazing reserves is foolish and inimical to peace and progress. There is too little thinking going on in the federal government. They should ship up or be shown the way out at the next polls. Reports suggest that the copycat Governor of Kogi State, Yahaya Bello, is thinking of establishing ranches in Adavi and Ajaokuta LGs. This is after first thoughtlessly embracing the colonies boondoggle. If he can persuade those two LGs to embrace the business in order to improve the state’s IGR, if he is not using the idea as a cover for his political servility, if he can set aside the money required to sustain that demanding business, perhaps he should be encouraged to get on with it. But there are doubts about his depth and about his motives.

    Nevertheless, Dr Ganduje has shown the way cattle ranching can be done, and how dairy farming can both be profitable and a promoter of peace and development. The federal government and Chief Ogbeh, assuming they do not see the herdsmen matter as a political issue, should engage the Kano model and see whether it does not dispel all their fears and answer the visionary developmental programme that animal husbandry can potentially become as a huge revenue earner for some states in the North. Too much blood has been shed for so little. It is time to put a stop to the madness, instead of holding on foolishly and tenaciously to outdated animal husbandry methods that set the society on fire.

  • Reps, order of elections and 2019

    Reps, order of elections and 2019

    IF the order of elections in Nigeria is judged to be connected with electoral outcomes, it is a subject of research that may take a few more years, perhaps even decades, to conclusively establish. What is, however, clear is that more than anything else, sitting governments in Nigeria, with the possible exception of the Goodluck Jonathan presidency, often force those outcomes, regardless of the order of elections. It is therefore a little hard to explain why the House of Representatives two Tuesdays ago chose to tinker, through an amendment of the Electoral Act 2010 (as amended), with the order of elections less than three weeks after the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) announced both the order of elections and the timetable for the 2019 general elections. The only guess probably hazardable is that the National Assembly, recognising that it had since 2015 thoroughly angered the presidency and struck a bold and fatefully independent course of action seemingly at odds with the ruling party’s interests, is seeking to protect itself from hostile pre-election measures from a government many fear has remained vindictive.

    The electoral umpire had in March last year first announced the election dates to commence from February 16, 2019. That announcement was reiterated on January 9 when INEC again indicated that the elections would commence in February with the presidential and National Assembly polls, and followed by the governorship and state Houses of Assembly polls. The new timetable and order of elections seemed a foregone conclusion until the House of Representatives began work on the amendment of the Electoral Act 2010 (as amended). According to the lower legislative chamber, the order of elections will follow a different trajectory from the INEC’s arrangement. In their opinion, the 2019 elections will start with the National Assembly, progress to the governorship and state Houses of Assembly, and then end with the presidential poll. As far as the Reps are concerned, the election will be bunched into three parcels, instead of INEC’s two.

    The electoral umpire has shown its displeasure with the timing of the amendment, not necessarily the amendment itself. It however promised that it would not violate the law. So far, the presidency has kept discretely quiet on the matter. It is, of course, interested in the order of elections, and will doubtless show keener than normal interest in how the first two sets of elections play out, considering the fact that bandwagons cannot be totally ruled out in elections. If the Muhammadu Buhari government has apprehensions as to the order of elections and its possible consequences for the ruling party’s fortunes, it has been clever in disguising it. After all, there is nothing to indicate that the feared bandwagon effect can be ruled out of the amended Electoral Act which the Senate is likely to identify with. Overall, it appears the National Assembly is distrustful of the presidency, mortified by growing public disapproval of the president’s policies and appointments, and is therefore eager both to establish its own independence and to take control of its fate. Whether that gamble will pay off remains to be seen.

    The target of the amendments is obviously not INEC. The electoral umpire must, therefore, do everything in its power to navigate the treacherous rapids of the 2019 polls triggered in part by the gale ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo’s ‘special statement’ unleashed against President Muhammadu Buhari last week. The former president had denounced President Buhari for incompetence and dismissed most of his policies as clannish and nepotistic. He summed up his intervention by advising the president not to seek a second term, an advice no one is certain the laconic and aloof president will take. Though the amendment to the of Assembly elections on January 9, then moved through National Assembly polls on February 20, and then lumbered to a halt with the presidential poll on February 27. Though it was clear who the Abdulsalami Abubakar government’s preferred candidate was, there was nothing to indicate that the order of elections was engineered to bring about that outcome; or indeed, even if that was the purpose, that it could have delivered the desired outcome forcefully. There were of course allegations that the polls were fiddled with, but the courts disagreed with the public suppositions, and ruled in favour of the winner, Olusegun Obasanjo.

    By 2007, when Dr Obasanjo’s second term was coming to an end, the electoral umpire, probably profiting from experience or because it was simply determined to be more efficient, had tweaked the order of elections by scheduling the governorship and state Houses of Assembly polls to begin first, as was the case in 1999, on April 14, while the presidential and National Assembly polls were bunched together to be held the same day on April 21 contrary to what prevailed in 1999. Again, if there was a nefarious intent to the order of elections, it was not immediately discernible from the eventual outcome of the polls. What was clear, however, was that the Obasanjo presidency was unprepared to leave anything to chance. It not only forcefully and undemocratically streamlined the number of aspirants, it enthroned candidates in some states, and then eventually foisted a presidential ticket of its own choosing on the then ruling party. Worse, it blatantly subverted the principles of openness and transparency by ensuring a particular electoral outcome that shocked the country and dismayed the rest of the world.

    The 2011 elections were, however, much better. Though the order of elections was again split into three, as was the case in 1999, the arrangement was a little bizarre and did not seem designed to serve any particular purpose. It began with the parliamentary election on April 9, coursed through to the presidential poll on April 16, and then ended with the third layer of governorship and state Houses of Assembly polls on April 26. Allegations of electoral shenanigans were not as deafening as in 2007. By 2015, after a particularly contentious postponement of the polls, the order of elections was again tweaked amidst uproarious controversy and allegations of electoral chicanery designed to gift the Goodluck Jonathan presidency an unmerited ‘second term’. It began with the presidential and National Assembly polls, and ended with the governorship and state Houses of Assembly polls. Other than the usual allegation of preparing the ground for a bandwagon effect, little or no other meaning was read into the order of elections. In the end, partly because of the country’s changed political dynamics, and Dr Jonathan’s surprisingly civilised disposition to the concept of democracy, the elections were fairly credible and the outcome unquestionably a mirror of popular discontent, regardless of the grumblings of some of the losers.

    All the frenzied tweaks that took place between 1999 and 2015 were a far cry from the leisurely pace adopted for the 1979 elections which put the senatorial poll first for July 7 of that year, followed by the House of Representatives poll held on July 14, governorship poll on July 28, and presidential poll on August 11. There did not seem to be any cold electoral calculation behind that scheduling, but it was no less controversial, and the electoral outcomes were even more negatively impactful. Apart from fouling the wells of justice as evident by the enunciation and adoption of very controversial juridic principles in resolving the litigations that flowed from the 1979 presidential poll, the democratic experiment of that time was itself doomed by the irresponsible projection of many questionable measures by an undisciplined political class.

    There must be an end to the tweaking of the order of elections. The uncertainties and instability that flow from the numerous tweaks are sometimes befuddling and simply too destabilising to the polity to engender the growth of democracy so earnestly desired by a majority of Nigerians. Nigeria’s political elite, if they can act responsibly and above partisanship, must structure the country in such a disciplined and intelligent way that the order of elections will have no influence whatsoever on the outcomes of the elections. Otherwise, defeated parties will always accuse the winners and possibly the government that backs them of acting consistently mala fide.

  • Poll 2019 began furiously on Tuesday

    Poll 2019 began furiously on Tuesday

    Some definite but unmistakeable fancy footwork over the 2019 general elections had been slowly evident before 2017 came to an end, but few Nigerians ever deduced that 2018 would open as frenetically as it has done this January with all manner of radical and complicated moves. Ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo triggered the chaotic footwork on Tuesday with his idiosyncratically damning summary of the failings of his chief victim, the enigmatic and taciturn Muhammadu Buhari. Chief Obasanjo, no longer a chief but now Ph.D., never shied away from damning his predecessors, but he often reserved his bitterest vitriol for his successors. President Buhari is the latest victim he has disembowelled so poignantly in a special statement released to the public and entitled “The way out: A clarion call for Coalition for Nigeria Movement”.

    Not only was Dr Obasanjo’s press statement extraordinary in pummelling the president, indicating very vividly the failings of the object of his vitriol, it also more directly suggested a way out in the form of a conclave of Nigerians he was willing to mobilize, inspire and lead ad hoc. He calls the assemblage “Coalition for Nigerians”. Some news reports already indicate that a few governors and senators are eager to climb the Obasanjo coalition bandwagon. In his statement, the former president seems to suggest that those disenchanted with President Buhari, for reasons adequately amplified in the special statement, should join untainted hands with him in salvaging a country he said was hobbled by the president’s incalculable misdeeds.

    That coalition, said Dr Obasanjo, could later, if members insist, metamorphose into a vote-seeking and vote-giving association. When that stage is reached, he counselled, he would step aside to allow a process he triggered achieve the right and salutary consummation. For now, and in the interim, he was presenting himself as the soul of the coalition designed to salvage the country from the perdition he said President Buhari sentenced it. There are already suggestions by many political commentators that the coalition referred to by Dr Obasanjo is in fact another name for the so-called political Third Force some eminent Nigerians and serving and former governors and senators have been toying with for some months. Whether Third Force or Coalition for Nigerians, it is clear Dr Obasanjo is interested in inspiring a group of politicians to take over power from the present set of failing leaders. Poll 2019 is truly and unmistakeably underway.

    Even though their response to Dr Obasanjo’s initiative leaves much to be desired, considering how President Buhari’s defeneders clumsily sidestepped some of the critical issues the former president raised, they have focused mainly on the president’s economic achievements. Whether that is sufficient or not remains to be seen. But clearly, the defenders mean these achievements on the economic front as a template to argue the president’s suitability for re-election. And whether it is coincidental or not, the presidency, or more accurately the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), has hauled in the former Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Babachir David Lawal, for questioning with a view to preparing charges against him for wrongdoing involving his supervision of the Presidential Initiative for Northeast (PINE) contracts.

    Nigerians had for long and repeatedly called for the former SGF’s prosecution. The presidency turned a deaf ear. Indeed, it took an inordinate amount of time before the government even accented to his investigation, suspension and sack. It also took an inordinate amount of time to consent to his arrest and prosecution. The government presumably anchored its foot-dragging on the need to observe due process as well as be consistent with the president’s famous defence of why he is slow in taking decisions. Dr Obasanjo had in his last Tuesday special statement accused the government of orchestrating corruption prosecution against only his opponents, and appearing to shield or prematurely exonerate those believed to be corrupt in his inner circle. The popular interpretation is that the move against the former SGF is an indication of the government’s sensitivity to the demands of Poll 2019. Even if this interpretation is far-fetched, the presidency did nothing before now to dispel that conspiratorial label.

    But perhaps the most direct and incriminating step the presidency has taken, in the eyes of those who watch the government and interpret its every move, is the conclusion and release of the work of the Nasir el-Rufai panel on true federalism. Though the exercise was instituted by the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) last August, it is only now that its report has been submitted to the party, apparently to the satisfaction of the presidency. Governor el-Rufai had spoken out disdainfully against restructuring, which he argued was politicised, and the APC itself had all but disavowed its promise on devolution of power, feigning ignorance of its inclusion in its campaign manifesto. Well, both governor and party have now hastily made their peace with the calls for substantial political and economic changes in the country. It is not clear how they hope to do something about the report before the 2019 polls, but at least they have enunciated some changes, and those changes left unattended could become an albatross on their necks.

    Here is how Mallam el-Rufai summarised their assignment when the committee submitted its report to the party leadership: “After four months of rigorous research, we are pleased to inform the chairman we have completed our assignment and are here to present our report…The report is in four volumes with Volume One containing background information of the research and recommendations; Volume Two, Action plans from the research to implement its resolution and draft of bills; Volume 3, Media reports and the result of the online survey of the issue; and Volume Four, the appendix- summary of all memoranda received…We articulated 14 issues re-occurring in previous conferences. At the end of our rigorous research, debates and deliberations, we came up with 24 items that Nigerians have indicated interest views that balance our federation.

    “These items are; creation of states, merger of states, delegation principle, fiscal federalism, devolution of power and resources between state, federal and local governments, federating units, form of government, independent candidacy, land tenure system, local government autonomy ,power sharing and rotation, resource control, types of legislature, demand for affirmation for vulnerable groups;people with disabilities, women and youth, ministerial appointment, citizenship, state constitution, community participation, minimum wage, governance, judiciary, state re-alignment and border adjustment, circular status of the federation; and referendum.

    “We articulated only 13 issues from the various opinions expressed by Nigerians in our engagement, identified these 24 issues for which the committee deliberated and has made recommendations in the report. We went ahead to look at these recommendations to convert them into concrete actions that the party, government and the  national assembly can take to re-balance our federation.”

    Never mind that in some parts of his presentation Mallam el-Rufai could not resist using the first person singular and plural pronouns interchangeably, the important point is that the party, whose manifesto already indicated its point of view on political changes, needed all of four months to restate its belief in paradigm shifts. Even then, it is significant that the party had to be compelled to embrace a change it willingly and eagerly promised in its campaign manifesto pre-2015 elections, but later violently and intemperately disavowed when the country bristled against its retrogressive conservatism. Their biggest challenge, they will soon discover, is to get the legislature to go along with them when they (both the party and its leaders in government) are not really sold on the change they campaigned on.

    Apart from the former SGF, there are a few other public personalities in government, or perhaps associated with government, who are yet to be called to account for alleged corrupt practices. Could the government and the ruling party muster the courage to bring them to justice with the same ire and diligence it has exhibited against opponents? Could they achieve substantial progress in that direction enough to convince the public that the presidency’s conversion to fair and undiscriminating anti-corruption war is real and lasting?

    The public should expect more from the Buhari presidency in the coming weeks to countervail the heat and pressure the Obasanjo Coalition would subject it to. But their worst fear would be how to defang the new coalition dedicated to instigating a critical mass of anti-Buharists against the government. Everything in the coming months will be about politics and Poll 2019. There is, unfortunately, nothing else the government can do beyond executing remedial measures and hoping that those measures would be strong enough to arrest the momentum triggered by Dr Obasanjo’s special statement and newfangled coalition.