The Nation Newspaper

Category: UnderTow

  • Buhari’s celebrated speech at UNGA

    Buhari’s celebrated speech at UNGA

    President Muhammadu Buhari’s speech two Tuesdays ago at the 72nd session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) has been celebrated as timely, inspiring and statesmanlike. An international news medium reportedly ascribed the speech — in tone, nuances, breadth and logic — to one delivered by the president of Africa. Other local media establishments and analysts also suggest that the speech was well received, and the president’s outing at UNGA a great one. Indeed, it is almost universally acknowledged that both the president’s presence at the UN and his speech did his image and the country’s reputation much good.

    The speech is textually much more coherent and accessible than most of his previous speeches. As a matter of fact, it is probably the first of his speeches to be universally acclaimed as befitting of his reputation and the country’s sub-regional and continental stature. In an uncanny way, it does appear like he is finding his feet in international affairs much faster than he is finding his feet domestically. Of course, in the final analysis, his legacy will more likely be defined by his domestic policies; but he can for the moment bask in the euphoria of sounding off with considerable aplomb on external relations issues.

    Even though he stretched his convictions and achievements a little beyond bounds in suggesting that the “frontiers of good governance, democracy, including holding free and fair elections, and enthronement of the rule of law are expanding everywhere, especially in Africa,” he can justifiably claim credit for the severity with which he and his fellow West African leaders resolved the Gambian logjam, forcing out Yahya Jammeh who lost the 2016 presidential election but refused to relinquish power. President Buhari also speaks glowingly of the rule of law though he shows considerable unease in submitting to its strictures, as evidenced by the many cases his government is battling with in the courts, and of democratic principles despite his apparent abhorrence for free speech which his government has sometimes creatively redefined as hate speech bordering on insurrection, secession, terrorism and disunity.

    Then, as if to demonstrate transcendental statesmanship, President Buhari speaks of the need by the world body to redress inequality by championing the cause of the poor, to tackle the ISIS problem, find a solution to the Rohingya tragedy in Myanmar, focus on the intractable Palestinian problem in Gaza especially, and cobble a global coalition to hammer out a peace deal or truce on the Korean peninsula by pressuring North Korea to abide by the treaty on nuclear non-proliferation. The speech is truly elevating and presidential, almost as if President Buhari had assumed continental leadership. In fact, compared with his prognosis on global conflicts, it pales into insignificance that he has been unable to find a formula to engender peace and stability in Nigeria. On the surface, therefore, the president addressed the right things with the right words, thus exuding the image of a statesman and conciliator.

    But on the whole, the speech essentially evaded the most germane issues that trouble Nigeria and the continent. The president spoke to the world about the world in details and perspectives the rest of the world, particularly the developed economies and military powers, are more eminently qualified to speak about. Despite the appeal of the address, it was impossible for President Buhari to match Europe, Russia, China, and the United States in terms of the global issues he addressed, issues that ironically resonated with many analysts locally and internationally.

    Though he spoke about other sundry issues like the Boko Haram menace and human trafficking, there were more pressing issues that could have been addressed with a philosophical and dialectical precision. The world enjoyed his speech, but they waited for the African perspective on the many issues that agitate the continent, dangerous issues that the rest of the world could neither address with the forthrightness the situation demands nor the resoluteness and resources required to curb and remedy them. There is nothing the president said on Gaza and the Palestinian nightmare that can move the matter towards a resolution. On North Korea, Nigeria is even more impotent. Neither Nigeria nor its president has any leverage whatsoever.

    As entrancing as his words were, and despite a large number of analysts swooning over the speech, it fares very badly when compared with the speech delivered at a similar UNGA by the strapping but now late Burkinabe leader, Captain Thomas Sankara, in 1984, a little over one year after he took power in a military coup. It was not so much that Captain Sankara gave a more poetic and resonating speech, an excerpt of which is published below, nor that he gave a confident and masterful delivery full of passion and vigorous language. What stood the Burkinable leader’s speech out was its brilliant focus delivered in trenchant rhetoric. He realised it was useless competing with powerful countries over issues which Burkina Faso could never hope to influence in any meaningful way, issues ruthlessly masterminded and influenced by world powers, big and medium.

    Captain Sankara also recognised that, like literature and arts, the world would be more fascinated by the African perspective of politics (local and foreign) and international affairs, for that perspective is in no way inferior to the rest of the world’s. He knew instinctively that the world waited to hear what he had to say about the economy, culture, leadership, gender equality, etc. He was of course impetuous and deeply provocative, and in the end fell to a conspiracy orchestrated by world powers and executed by local forces, but he displayed more depth and conviction, and more learning even, than many world leaders who strode the stage during his time.

    It was not expected that President Buhari should replicate Captain Sankara’s style. He was, however, required to replicate or even exceed the late Burkinabe leader’s substance. With a history of Nigeria falling victim to international conspiracy during ex-head of state Murtala Mohammed’s rule at the back of his mind, it was not expected that President Buhari would thumb his nose at world powers and embrace the provocations that led to the assassination of both Gen Mohammed and Captain Sankara. But having spoken glowingly of the rule of law and democracy, among many other great concepts and ideals, he was at least expected to illustrate his convictions with the African perspective, perhaps with a gusto and boldness that surpassed the rest of the world’s. If he didn’t, it was because he couldn’t. His speech is normally written for him, where Captain Sankara mostly wrote his own speeches. The Nigerian speechwriters penned for President Buhari what they thought everyone wanted to hear at UNGA, and they succeeded largely in making a huge but transient impression; Captain Sankara on the other hand penned what he fanatically believed, and left a short but lasting legacy.

  • That kerfuffle over IPOB and terrorism

    ORKING from answer to question, and after the deed had been done, the Muhammadu Buhari presidency on Sunday signed a proclamation to both proscribe and declare the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) as a terrorist organisation. By Monday, the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, was at the Federal High Court in Abuja to give effect to the presidential proclamation. On Wednesday, Justice Abdu Kafarati, very swiftly granted the president’s wish and declared IPOB a terrorist organisation. It mattered little to all who took IPOB to task, including the military that pummelled it to submission last week, that IPOB was a non-juristic person, having not been registered anywhere in Nigeria, nor was it given fair hearing. They were all satisfied that the organisation, whether registered or not, had indeed troubled and menaced the country, and its leader was, after all, well known.

    It is curious that an organisation that operated rather so openly and did not carry arms, but organised itself with the hollow flourish of a militia and armed itself with rudimentary ‘attack’ implements, could elicit such profound and elaborate military, political and legal rigmarole. The rigmarole began with the Defence Headquarters (DHQ) of the Nigerian military last week, in the thick of the operation against IPOB, declaring IPOB a terrorist organisation. That declaration was immediately followed by the five state governments of the Southeast proscribing the Kanu-led organisation consequent essentially upon the military categorising it as a terrorist organisation. The governors were disdainful of any criticism of their actions, for they were quite clear in their minds that Mr Kanu had grown too big for his britches and represented, to them, a clear political competition for supremacy in the region.

    Shortly thereafter, eminent legal scholar and Chairman of the Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption (PACAC), Itse Sagay, a professor of law, weighed in and interestingly argued that though he had not adverted himself to the legal stipulations on the matter, he believed that the declarations by both the military and the Southeast governors were in order. According to him, “Whilst I’m not sure of the legal parameters of that declaration, in practice, I agree. If you look at it, we’re very lucky that this thing did not get out of hand. They (IPOB) were coming in their thousands, establishing road blocks, bringing out Northerners – for what, I don’t know – to kill some of them? If that is allowed, then the country is finished. Then they burned down a police station, killed a policeman. For Christ’s sake, even if you want Biafra, you don’t have to be violent. If you look at the words that Kanu uses on the social media, how he has described our President and the rest of us as living in a zoo – abusive, violent, intemperate words – kill, kill, kill, all those in my view, constitute in totality acts of terrorism in which they can push undiscerning youths into rage and violence, which can be destructive.”

    While Prof Sagay seems to give the impression that the political exigencies of the IPOB agitations apparently justified the declarations, Senate President Bukola Saraki was adamant about the inconsistencies of the declarations with the position of the law. He should know, as a lawmaker himself. In his opinion expressed on Monday, Dr Saraki says: “I (also) wish to state that the announcement of the proscription of the group known as Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) by governors of the Southeast states and the categorisation of the group as a ‘terrorist organisation’ by the Nigerian military are unconstitutional and do not follow due process. Our laws make clear provisions for taking such actions and without the due process being followed, such declaration cannot have effect. I am sure the President will do the needful by initiating the right process. This will go a long way in demonstrating to the world at large that we are a country that operates by laid down process under every circumstance. So, those who have been hammering on this point should maintain their cool.”

    Asked on the same day the senate president advertised his perspective on the matter whether the military had the right to declare IPOB as a terrorist organisation in view of the law, the Chief of Army Staff, Lt.-Gen. Tukur Buratai, all but agreed that the proclamation really ought to come from the presidency. Said he: “As regards the proscription, this is what I want to give: the federal government will take a final decision on that. There are guidelines as provided in the Terrorism Act and I am sure the relevant government agencies will take appropriate steps whether to arrest or whether to do any other actions and we will receive the appropriate directives from the authorities.” It was clear he had cleverly backtracked. But what does the law itself say?

    Without doubt, the Terrorism (Prevention) Act, 2011, backs Dr Saraki’s position, a fact the Buhari presidency itself apparently realised shortly after the military jumped the gun on the proscription matter. The law is clear on the issue. According to Section 2 of the Act, under the subhead ‘Proscribed Organisation’, a process must be followed to achieve that declaration in order to avoid allegations of arbitrariness.

    1. Proscribed Organisation.

    (1).    Where two or more persons associate for the purpose of or where an organization engages in—

    (a)     Participating or collaborating in an act of terrorism;

    (b)     promoting, encouraging or exhorting others to commit an act of terrorism; or

    (c)     setting up or pursuing acts of terrorism, the judge in Chambers may on an application       made by the Attorney General, National Security Adviser or Inspector General of Police on the approval of the President; declare any entity to be a proscribed organization and the notice should be published in official gazette.

    Finally, in two dizzying days, the AGF kick-started the process and by Wednesday, Justice Kafarati, making no pretence about any lengthy argument on the matter, had quickly affirmed the president’s proclamation and declared the group a terrorist organisation. This outcome was inevitable, given the fervour of the moment, the temper in Aso Villa, the near unanimity of opinion and panic among the governors of the Southeast, and the frenzied plans by nearly all of the North and huge swaths of the South to avoid what they believed was the likelihood of war if the agitations and Mr Kanu’s militia drills had continued.

    It seemed likely that before signing his proclamation and the military making its declaration on IPOB, the president had reached the governors of the Southeast, all of whom were either locked in a supremacy battle with the irreverent, defiant and megalomaniacal Mr Kanu, or felt threatened by him. Whichever way he turned, it was clear the IPOB leader’s goose was cooked. By Wednesday, the matter, legally speaking, was over, and the misfortune of the would-be revolutionary had become grist for the presidency and its collaborators. In addition, By Wednesday, it was also clear that Dr Saraki had spoken up and acted sensibly in defence of the law contrary to the presidency that had seemed either not to know the law or had intentionally defied it.

    About one week after the insane punch and counterpunch in Abia State between the army and IPOB ended, and a few days after the Information minister, Lai Mohammed, had scorned those he described as ‘fixated on due process’, in other words, the rule of law, the judicious got the simple impression that there was nothing the presidency and the state governments did or said that could not have been otherwise done in accordance with the rule of law. Mr Kanu’s IPOB was undisciplined in pursuing their grievances. It is sadly also clear that the two levels of government were even more undisciplined and clumsy in summoning the constitutional powers eminently at their disposal to fight the Southeast organisation.

    However, all said, labelling and proscribing IPOB as well as pummelling and scattering it is just one small and in fact easy step in the whole fracas. The disease has been left virtually unattended, if not aggravated. Even if the government will not learn anything from the whole skirmishes, from the needless kerfuffle, surely it is sensitive enough to learn the bureaucratic and constitutional lessons it would need subsequently to fine-tune its handling of some of the existential challenges that are certain to grow in leaps and bounds in the coming months and years.

  • A conundrum unfolds in Kenya

    A conundrum unfolds in Kenya

    N his reaction to the annulment of the August 8, 2017 Kenyan presidential election, President Uhuru Kenyatta exhibited his real African self: a split, dual personality. The poll had been annulled by the Supreme Court, which ruled that the transmission of the poll results was not in accordance with the provisions of the constitution. The court, by a 4-2 split decision, had ruled that:

    1. As to whether the 2017 Presidential Election was conducted in accordance with the principles laid down in the Constitution and the law relating to elections, upon considering inter alia Articles 10, 38, 81 and 86 of the Constitution as well as, Sections 39(1C), 44, 44A and 83 of the Elections Act, the decision of the court is that the 1st Respondent failed, neglected or refused to conduct the Presidential Election in a manner consistent with the dictates of the Constitution and inter alia the Elections Act, Chapter 7 of the Laws of Kenya.
    2. As to whether there were irregularities and illegalities committed in the conduct of the 2017 Presidential Election, the court was satisfied that the 1st Respondent committed irregularities and illegalities inter alia, in the transmission of results, particulars and the substance of which will be given in the detailed and reasoned Judgment of the court. The court however found no evidence of misconduct on the part of the 3rd Respondent.
    3. As to whether the irregularities and illegalities affected the integrity of the election, the court was satisfied that they did and thereby impugning the integrity of the entire Presidential Election.

    After the annulment, which followed the case brought by Raila Odinga’s National Super Alliance (Nasa), President Kenyatta’s first instinct was to submit to the rule of law. “It was important to respect the rule of law even if you disagree with the Supreme Court ruling,” he said gravely. “Your neighbour will still be your neighbour, regardless of what has happened. My primary message today to every single Kenyan is peace. Let us be people of peace.” But after catching his breath a little later, he fired a vicious broadside on the judges when he addressed a rally in Nairobi, the country’s capital. Describing the judges as crooks, he accused them of malevolently deciding to cancel the election. He then went on to issue a dire warning to the chief justice, David Maraga, that the annulment he authored had transformed him (the president) once again from president-elect to president, implying that he had full powers to possibly deal harshly with the judges. “Do you understand me? Maraga should know that he is now dealing with the serving president,” the 55-year-old president said ominously. “We are keeping a close eye on them. But let us deal with the election first. We are not afraid.”

    Most Nigerian analysts have focused almost exclusively on the lessons contained in the Kenyan annulment for the Nigerian judiciary. The analysts rightly draw attention to the abject reluctance of the Nigerian Supreme Court to upturn presidential elections in the past even when it became glaring that the rules of the game were not respected, and plaintiffs had competently underpinned their arguments with condign proofs. The apex court in Nigeria, they snorted, had found the inventiveness to create a whole new range of lexicon to excuse their cowardice, including talking of ‘substantial compliance’ and other jurisprudential contrivances such as legal and procedural technicalities to validate clear and dangerous political anomalies.

    Other commentators speak of their sadness about how irresponsibly Nigerian judges, particularly on the apex court, forfeited their chances at setting a legal precedence for Africa, one which in annulling an election would help enthrone and strengthen democratic practices. The Nigerian apex court, they argued, had that chance in 1979, but it wilfully threw it away when it admitted the fallacious political arithmetic argument of twelve two-thirds of a state. Since then, they said, the apex court in these parts had sustained a despicable tradition of never annulling an election on the unstated excuse that it was inherently destabilising. By a combination of fear and perhaps lack of surefootedness, the Nigerian apex court thereby surrendered the continental leadership mantle to other more ambitious jurisdictions, this time, kenya, in the same way they had become accustomed to surrendering to Ghana and other polities leadership in the practice of democracy.

    But what really counts in the Kenyan example is not so much the courage of their Supreme Court, as enviable as that was to other African countries, nor of the accuracy of their judgement, as indisputably as it seems; what appears to matter much to the continent is the idiosyncratic reaction of the Kenyan president to a matter which, if he had sensibly exploited it well, would have brought him honour and much acclaim. The reaction showed up his dual personality, a dualism certainly not alien to other African leaders. Indeed, it can be argued that as far as humans are concerned — and African leaders are no exception here — the instinct to distinguish right from wrong and the temptation to embrace either of the two depending on the subjective mood of the moment is deeply embedded in everyone. That African leaders often invariably choose wrong rather than right is perhaps the major controversial issue bothering the continent.

    It is striking that President kenyatta at first acknowledged the salience of the Supreme Court judgement, even admonishing his countrymen to submit to the dictates of the rule of law as well as to keep the peace, before doing a volte face and submitting to his primordial and atavistic instincts. So, the problem is not that President Kenyatta does not know the right thing; the problem is that he lacks the discipline to do the right thing, and the patience to carefully work towards leaving a great legacy of nurturing democratic institutions even when they cost him a lot. It is important to praise the Kenyan Supreme Court for finding the boldness and courage to annul the election. That uniquely iconoclastic move must never be understated. But it is far more important to finally understand that the war between good and evil that raged in the mind of the Kenyan president emblematises the malaise afflicting the continent’s political leaders.

    After forswearing his own private counsel to respect the rule of law and keep the peace, President Kenyatta sadly embraced a contrary point of view by insulting the apex court justices and threatening to unhorse them. As if he needed to remind Kenyans, he told the market rally in Nairobi that he was still the president and had the power to do something about the obstreperousness of the four justices. It did not occur to him that by swearing at the justices who voted to annul his victory he had drawn a dividing line between the six justices, and indicated that the four were evil and the two who upheld the election were good. Yet, he did nothing to controvert the basis of the judgement nor to establish that the justices were induced: all he did was indicate that because the judgement went against him, then it had to be wrong and evil, and the justices who threw his election out must have done it on purpose.

    President Kenyatta is an example of the problem with Africa, of leaders so arrogant that they must always have their way, of leaders who foolishly weave their destinies inextricably with those of their countries, of leaders so intellectually and emotionally diminished that they fail to see the significance of even allowing themselves to be wrong and wronged in order to strengthen their countries. From Cape to Cairo, as many African leaders had illustrated in times past, and are still doing today unremittingly, there appears to be little hope of finding among them great men with purpose and farsightedness who sensibly appreciate their own limits and estimate the infiniteness and eternality of their countries. In the many controversial legal cases the Nigerian Supreme Court grappled with, it had no sense of that history as critically as the Kenyan apex court has demonstrated.

    It is a shame that President Kenyatta has spurned an opportunity to associate with the regnant philosophy of his country’s apex court, especially in view of an election next month many pundits gave him the chance of winning fairly easily. Now that Kenyans know him for who he really is, a man made of straw and with no restraint and vision, it is left to them to determine whether they would still give him their votes on the scale he seemed ready to attract when he first lauded the courts for their sound and iconoclastic judgement.

  • AGF and coalition of northern youths

    Abubakar Malami, the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF), clearly had an unpleasant job last Tuesday to defend the federal government’s refusal to arrest leaders of the coalition of northern youths who gave the Igbo in the North a quit notice on June 6. The notice was thought to be unprecedented, hateful and a dangerous incitement to anarchy. In his response when he addressed a number of issues concerning his ministry’s operations, Mr. Malami averred that it was not expedient to arrest the youths despite their objectionable reaction to the agitations in the Southeast. According to him, “Government considered the security implications on the issue. Let me state that government is alive to its responsibility and whoever is found wanting will be prosecuted. This administration is determined to provide good governance and promote justice, peace and fairness.” By not arresting the youth leaders who issued the June Kaduna Declaration, Mr. Malami was suggesting that doing so had negative security implications, or that as a matter of fact the youths had not yet been found wanting. However, it was clear last Tuesday when the AGF addressed the press in Abuja that he was neither able to convince even himself nor his audience.

    A few days before then, on August 25, the AGF issued a press statement indicating that his office had approached the Federal High Court in Abuja seeking for the revocation of the April 25 bail granted the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) leader, Nnamdi Kanu. The statement clearly suggested that Mr. Kanu had violated the terms of his bail in the following ways: “That the offence for which he is standing trial does not entitle him to bail; that among other conditions for the bail of the 1st defendant is that he should not be seen in a crowd exceeding 10 people; that he should not grant any interviews, hold or attend any rallies; that he should file in court medical updates of his health status every month; that rather than observing all of the conditions listed above, the 1st defendant in flagrant disobedience to the court order flouted all conditions of the bail.” It is indisputable that Mr. Kanu violated his bail terms.

    But a day before the AGF applied to the courts for the revocation of Mr. Kanu’s bail, the same northern youths whom Mr. Malami egregiously defended against arrest imperiously issued seven pre-conditions for the rescindment of the June 6 quit notice. Among the seven conditions, all of which appeared to counter or dilute President Muhammadu Buhari’s affirmation of the right of every Nigerian to live in any part of Nigeria unmolested, was the one that predicated their magnanimous rescindment on the arrest and detention of Mr. Kanu for violating his bail terms and for his continuing incendiary remarks. Few people would fail to notice that the northern youths and Mr. Malami seemed in fact to be on the same page. Their actions followed the earlier statement by the Internal Affairs minister, Abdulrahman Dambazzau, that the courts might revoke Mr. Kanu’s bail to curb his excesses.

    Worse, President Buhari’s terse and threatening broadcast of August 21, which probably partly inspired the rescindment of the northern youths’ quit notice, also appeared to be in sync with the general feelings in the North that Mr. Kanu should be locked up after the revocation of his bail. The unanimity of opinion across many parts of the North, however, complicates the IPOB-northern quit notice brouhaha. Mr. Kanu doubtless violated his bail terms, having organised or attended rallies, continued to make inflammatory statements, and neglected to file his medical updates before the court that granted him bail. But whether re-arresting him will help resolve the dangerous and inflammable matter at hand is a different thing altogether, especially in view of Mr. Malami’s argument that security implications were considered in the federal government’s reluctance to arrest leaders of the northern youths.

    Unfortunately for the government, the argument has shifted away from the appropriateness or otherwise of Mr. Kanu’s defiance of his bail terms to the reluctance, if not criminal connivance, of the government to arrest or censure the northern youths. In the process, a lot of issues have become so complicated that the government is unable to draw a line between moral and political rectitude on the one hand and deliberate and provocative malfeasance on the other hand. The northern youths claimed their actions, hate speech and the unacknowledged hate song that went viral a few weeks ago were a product of the provocation and actions of Mr. Kanu’s IPOB. But neither the pro-Biafra provocation, which has met with vicious government response, including the president’s fierce anger, nor the northern youths’ reaction, which has so far met with deliberate and orchestrated pussyfooting, was lawful. Both should have attracted equal law enforcement and governmental sternness on the grounds that while the provocation was unlawful and malfeasant, the reaction also amounted to unlawful self-help. Instead, the federal government and the security agencies gave the impression that lawlessness had colour and mitigations.

    It is puzzling that Mr. Malami dared to suggest that the federal government’s refusal to arrest the northern youths followed a sensible and cautious consideration of the security implications. What is even worse is that the AGF did not feel any obligation to explain in detail what those security concerns were, nor to defend them as factors militating against the government’s stern action. But by going ahead to assert cynically that the government was alive to its responsibility, when that responsibility seemed to be targeted in one direction, Mr. Malami did not convince anyone, let alone himself, that the government had any such ‘life’, nor even dispassion, nor yet impartiality. With the exception of the Kaduna State governor, Nasir el-Rufai, who at first ordered the arrest of the northern youths but soon inexplicably kept his peace, and the police who also at first gave the impression that they sought out the youths to arrest them, little was heard from anyone else. Indeed, all that was heard were condemnations targeted at both IPOB and the northern youths. Even the Department of State Service (DSS), according to reports, invited the youths once, spoke with them and let them go.

    Why it is difficult for the federal government to recognise Mr. Kanu’s obstreperous and trenchant advocacy of the Biafra cause and the equally tendentious and acrimonious northern youths’ reaction as evidence of the dire condition of the country’s unity, is hard to say. These actions and reactions, much of it almost neatly divided along North-South lines, are a testament to the decay afflicting the polity and an indication that little or nothing is being done to salvage the problem. The country is fraying at the edges, and this fraying is compounded by incompetent and prejudiced public officials who lack the knowledge and dispassion to weld a country together out of its many seething and fractious parts.

    From the presidency to the relevant ministries, and on to the various law enforcement and security agencies, nothing expert or rational by way of public policies is being done to repair the country’s broken hedges. Contrary to what the presidency says about the country’s unity being settled or non-negotiable, the IPOB crisis and the northern youths’ quit notice, and various other forms of hate speech and hate songs on social media and traditional media, suggest quite clearly that fresh thinking is required to manage the dangerous decline to anarchy. Strong-arm tactics, as appealing as they may look, especially in the short run, do nothing but obfuscate the contentious issues tearing the country apart. The country is not only clearly not united, and nothing extraordinary and informed is being done about it, until the right mix of policies are designed and public officials from the North and South can eschew ethnic and religious prejudices, the situation may worsen considerably until it explodes.

    Mr. Malami had no rational and acceptable explanation for the inexcusable reason given by the government not to arrest the northern youths who issued the Igbo a quit notice in June. He compounds that oversight by applying to the courts for the revocation of Mr. Kanu’s bail. Had he and the government he serves been fair-minded enough to deal firmly and expeditiously with the purveyors of quit notice, the move against the IPOB leader would have been explicable and defensible. More, it would have shown everyone that the government understands the need to keep an open mind in dealing with cantankerous groups threatening the peace and unity of the country. And if by chance the government were to also correctly situate those threats where they belonged, and go further to appreciate the factors that undergird and propel those threats, Nigerians would have assumed that sooner or later a political formula and existential fulcrum would be found upon which the unity and stability of Nigeria could rest without being imperilled.

  • Oshiomhole, restructuring and restless agitators

    Oshiomhole, restructuring and restless agitators

    FORMER Edo State governor Adams Oshiomhole deployed his immense elocutionary and rhetorical skills some three weeks ago in Benin to persuade his audience to take a second, if antagonistic, look at the cry for restructuring. He avoided the definitional maze in which many Nigerians, pro- and anti-restructuring, are entangled. In the lecture held in honour of Prof. Wole Soyinka in Benin, he simply went ahead with deconstructionist proficiency to isolate certain parts of the restructuring argument, hoisted them loftily, and offered them as proof of his fidelity to the new restructuring buzzword and perhaps too to his highly nuanced progressivism that now gets many people writhing in agony. The media were astounded, and so, too, were many Nigerians who had associated Mr. Oshiomhole’s labour union fame as an indisputable evidence of his acceptance of the general principles of progressivism. This astonishment was reflected in the way newspapers cast their headlines the day after, expressing both surprise and dismay.

    But Mr. Oshiomhole is obviously unapologetic about his position on restructuring. Explaining his position at the lecture, the former Edo governor insisted Nigeria’s problem was not structural but that of leadership, attitude and character. Nigerians should strive to make their country work, not advocate for restructuring, he argued amorphously. Three weeks after that lecture, and having of course been pilloried in the media by those who disagreed with him over his unusual perspective on restructuring, he met with a far more vocal and disapproving public which had wised up to what they suspected was his reactionary and expedient position on restructuring. At a one-day colloquium on restructuring organised by the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) in Abuja last Wednesday, Mr. Oshiomhole drew the ire of the audience when he again repeated his apparently unwelcome opposition to the regnant view on restructuring.

    Despite being heckled and greeted with boos, Mr. Oshiomhole insisted on being heard. Said he: “I believe in the unity of Nigeria. I have said, and I am not saying it for the first time, the unity of Nigeria is not negotiable. Just like the unity of the NLC is not negotiable. But, the governance of our country, the quality of leadership, we must continue to review it and continue to engage it…I ask us to recognise that no structure will be permanent, or will be perfect. We will have to do devolution of power; we must also do review of our attitudes, our characters, and join forces to fight corruption, because what has been taken from a few will not be available for the rest…” After the boos died down, particularly because of the NLC president’s intervention, the newsmen who covered the lecture did not indicate how the rest of Mr. Oshiomhole’s arguments panned out.

    The former Edo governor is a gifted rhetorician who knows how to tug at the emotional strings of an audience. Whether by polemical accident or sheer rhetorical design, he guilefully conflated the problem of corruption, which bothers everyone, with the campaigns for restructuring, which many have touted as the needed national elixir, thereby probably disarming and defanging his audience. He zeroed in on the alleged humongous greed of former Minster of Petroleum, Diezani Alison-Madueke, whose properties scattered in some parts of the country have been temporarily forfeited to the government pending the resolution of court cases against her. No one who has read the case against Mrs. Alison-Madueke can fail to be horrified by the stupendous abuse she allegedly masterminded during her stewardship at the Petroleum ministry. Knowing this full well, and knowing that no one could safely excuse her greed or dissociate that greed from the crisis that afflicts the country, Mr. Oshiomhole used her as an example of the character and attitudinal reform Nigeria needed to transcend the crisis in reference.

    Corruption is a cankerworm, but the campaign against that vice, which must of course be vigorously pursued, must be separated from the campaign for restructuring. As many societies which had broken up or been restructured prove, a low level of corruption is not necessarily a catalysing factor for political and structural changes. Neither the breakup of the former Soviet Union nor the dissolution of both Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia were caused by corruption. Their political structures showed deep, endemic and corrosive fissures, and they strained badly under various weights including ethnic, economic and spatial, among other factors. Mr. Oshiomhole’s ad hominem argument was a not-so-clever ploy to prejudice the minds of his audience. Sadly, that same argument has begun to receive currency in other parts of the society, especially in government circles. The argument for restructuring, whether the people agree with it or not, must be disentangled from the skein woven around it by those who view it snidely.

    The former Edo governor made two other arguments that gave worrisome indications of just how specious his perspectives are. Whether he believes it or not is not clear, but Mr. Oshiomhole poll-parrots the trite and incomprehensible statement that Nigeria’s unity is settled and non-negotiable. The problem is not that the ex-governor has adopted that controversial position on unity and its non-negotiability; the problem is that given his antecedents, his vocal advocacy of the rights, welfare and liberties of the people, and promotion of other general and non-specific libertarian values, it seems antithetical that a man who espouses such great causes should in the same breath embrace very stultifying political and constitutional paradigms. It does in fact seem that at bottom, Mr. Oshiomhole is not quite the radical and progressive he is cracked up to be. He may be a nationalist, a fine and effective governor, and a leading and successful labour activist, it is however doubtful whether he has given the matter of restructuring and national unity much thought, not to say principled thought.

    Mr. Oshiomhole also, secondly, suggested that most of those campaigning for restructuring were those still smirking from the electoral defeat of 2015. In other words, for him, the issue is not the concept itself, but the advocates of the concept. Apart from offering no validation whatsoever for that sweeping generalisation, it is shocking that given his standing in the society and the fact that he and his party were once in opposition, he also demonstrates the penchant by ruling parties and their functionaries to deride the opposition.

    Not only does his party include in its manifesto a pledge to pursue restructuring, there is nothing to suggest that anyone, whether in the opposition or the ruling party, cannot hold a principled and philosophical stand against unitary government and in favour of full restructuring. Demonising the opposition is both wrong and unwise. After all, even the All Progressives Congress (APC) spokesman, Bolaji Abdullahi, in a statement he issued early this week, insists that much more than the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the APC is in favour of restructuring and is in fact taking deliberate steps to actualise it. According to him, “For the avoidance of doubt, the APC believes in the restructuring of the country. It is at the very heart of our party’s manifesto as explicitly stated in Section 3 (1) thus, ‘We will devolve more revenue and powers, such as policing to States and Local Government so that decision making is closer to the people. We pledge to bring the government closer to the people through fiscal and political decentralization, including local policing.’ “

    Mr. Oshiomhole’s arguments are on the surface sensible and attractive. In reality, however, they are weak, desultory, diversionary and, for a politician of his reputation, shocking and embarrassing. He is at liberty to oppose restructuring — a right he seeks to deny those who oppose it, and a group he tries to demonise — but he must not in the same breath try to pass himself off as a progressive and visionary.

    Restructuring talks about the future. But the political palliatives Mr. Oshiomhole tries to sell deal with stabilising the status quo and producing a new form of beguiling conservatism. His party is reportedly attempting to properly define or redefine the concept, and it has saddled party leaders knowingly and openly sceptical and contemptuous of its definitions with the task of harmonising those disparate definitions, no matter how liberally or conservatively they have been presented. The suspicion now is that the party itself has appeared to fall in line with President Muhammadu Buhari’s nonchalant approach to the subject; and Mr. Oshiomhole, perhaps because he does not wish to exclude himself from future national office and assignment in the coming cabinet reshuffle, and also because he is reluctant to sell himself as a non-conformist radical and isolationist his labour union antecedents presuppose, is mouthing egregious opinions on restructuring to the point of even name-calling the opposition.

    Restructuring will be a veritable campaign issue from next year. It will be risky for any of the two major parties to treat the matter with disdain. In fact, though the concept is now roughly dichotomised between the North and the South, the dividing lines will become much more obfuscated as the 2019 electoral season draws near. Then, Mr. Oshiomhole will have a lot of clarifications to make, and much more hemming and hawing to engage in, as he and other leading politicians jostle for prominence and seek interparty and intraparty alliances.

  • PDP convention and the blame game

    PDP convention and the blame game

    DETRACTORS of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) had half expected the previously fractured opposition party to hold a peaceful, rancour-free and upbeat convention, whether elective or non-elective. To the relief of its fretful members, many of them on tenterhooks before the great gathering, the convention went very well, indeed far beyond their expectations. The Abuja Eagle Square venue was last Saturday packed, and members who had just gone through more than one year of convoluted and nerve-racking dissension mostly orchestrated by the intransigent Ali Modu Sheriff, a former governor of Borno State, were grateful for the celestial benevolence that saw them through a difficult period. Mr Sheriff, partly because of his spirited and aggressive politics, and given the PDP’s desperate need for someone to serve as a tough and ruthless counterpoise to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), was virtually handed the leadership of the party on a platter to act as the National Working Committee chairman. For about three months beginning from February 16, he did just that before he was ousted with judicial pomp and circumstance last month.

    Unfortunately for the PDP, its desperation to promptly stand up to the marauding APC before it was too late led it to embrace the unphilosophical option of adopting a brawler’s method for a considerably nuanced problem that began with a huge electoral loss. Unhorsed in May, 2016 during the party’s convention in Port Harcourt, Mr Sheriff, also a senator, nonetheless stood pat for another 11 harrowing months cantankerously defying the party and plotting to undermine its mores, values and binding principles. Last month, the Supreme Court finally put paid to Mr Sheriff’s shenanigans and upheld the position of Ahmed Makarfi, a former Kaduna State governor, as the party’s caretaker chairman. Senator Makarfi finally conducted the much-awaited convention last Saturday where party members sighed with great relief and celebrated what they saw as their party’s restoration.

    The convention recorded three main achievements. First was the inevitable extension of the tenure of the caretaker committee chairman by four months, a tenure originally expected to end with the conduct of the convention. Second was the popular and upbeat statement by Senator Makarfi himself that, going by the success of the convention and the ongoing restoration of the party to its founding principles and values, particularly its rousing conservatism, the PDP would sack the ruling party in 2019. And third was former president Goodluck Jonathan’s highly controversial speech in which he laboured to convince the party faithful and general public that both his tenure and 16 years of PDP in government did the country much good. It was not immediately clear why Dr. Jonathan chose that inauspicious moment to salve his wounded pride.

    Buoyed by the shambolic leadership of the APC in the past two years, it is not surprising that the PDP felt particularly exuberant about its chances in the next general elections. There was little hint of the seismic soul-searching the public hoped it would order after leading the country into a cul-de-sac during 16 turbulent years in office; and there were no indications whatsoever that it planned to fine-tune its founding principles, its guiding philosophy, and its leadership style, all of which had become absolutely enfeebled by lack of intellectual depth and general inattentiveness to the little, existential things that matter. In fact it was only the Delta State governor Ifeanyi Okowa who had the presence of mind to touch on the absolute necessity of the party anchoring its revival on the enunciation and execution of a paradigm shift in its leadership style and leadership recruitment. Senator Makarfi, who by his customary taciturnity is thought to be fairly intellectual and contemplative, strangely did not touch on that esoterica.

    It is unlikely, therefore, that the deeper things needed to re-engineer the party and produce a philosophical and ideational transformation in its ranks may be far-fetched. As speaker after speaker showed during the non-elective convention, no one seemed interested in compelling the party to grapple with the horrendous misrule of the past 16 years, let alone in finding ways of coming to terms with the errant ideas and misbegotten practices that led the party and the country astray. Worse, party leaders who masterminded that misrule, exemplified by its finagling excesses, will neither be identified nor disgraced. They appear to hope that the current ineptitude of the APC should be sufficient to either cancel out or at least mitigate the PDP’s remorselessness and past excesses.

    Of all people, ex-governor Makarfi should know that it takes more than one convention or two, not to say exuberant political campaigns, to unseat a sitting president. The PDP has done and said nothing to give hope that it could sack the APC in 2019. But this has not deterred Senator Makarfi from expressing and embracing that hope. It is mystifying that Dr Jonathan himself, in the said convention, gave vent to that same unfounded ambition despite failing to retain office when he superintended what was demonstrably Nigeria’s most extended period of high oil earnings. Perhaps he was seduced into that hope by the Supreme Court victory that helped the PDP to unhorse the hated Senator Sheriff; or perhaps his enthusiasm flowed from the boisterous crowd that turned the convention into a mafficking. Whatever the causes of his high-spirited talk about the integrity of the government he led, Dr Jonathan could be seen in the convention launching into what so far is probably the most energetic and unrestrained defence of his legacy.

    Quite apart from restating Senator Makarfi’s wish for their party to reclaim power from the bungling APC in 2019, Dr. Jonathan spoke longingly of his party’s and presidency’s legacy in politics and electoral reforms, and in economy and international relations. Of course no president is wholly without achievements, but his robust defence of his anti-corruption record, though devoid this time of the definitional pitfalls his presidency was noted for, appears quite baffling. Said he: “…Our approach to fighting corruption may not have plugged all the leaks in the system; in fact, no nation has ever been successful in eradicating the cankerworm of corruption. But we went about it in a sustainable and measurable manner, by, among other measures, creating institutional tools like bank verification number (BVN), the treasury single account (TSA) designed to block leakages, as well as the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information (IPPIS), which eliminated tens of thousands of ghost workers, during our time.”

    Unimpressed, officials of the Muhammadu Buhari presidency have suggested that Dr. Jonathan in his six years in office earned nearly half a trillion dollars in oil revenue, compared with the paltry amount so far earned by the current government in two years, with little or nothing to show for it. He was also reminded that his boasts and asseverations are anchored on thin air, especially considering the humungous amount stolen by many of his officials during his presidency. He was reminded that he understated the true position of what went on in his presidency when he suggested that he could not plug all loopholes in the system as indeed no nation could. Angry and bewildered, critics reminded the former president that he was a failure and should have stuck to some other themes to inspire the crowd at the convention.

    For the umpteenth time, the PDP must be reminded that they have unwisely leapfrogged over the critical things they need to do to reform their party, inspire a revival, and enunciate and institute the values and principles by which their party could flourish or die. That they have refused to do that so far, but have instead preferred to pin all their hopes and future on the anticipated misadventure of their political opponents, is indeed sailing near the wind.

    Not only must they fine-tune their conservative ideology and refine their value system, they must also go beyond purging their ranks of those who misled their party into defeat by putting some distance between themselves and former presidency officials whose image and ideas rub off badly on the party, reminding the electorate of the deceit, depredation and appalling wastage of the recent past.

    Sadly, so far, they have remained adamant.

  • Makarfi’s PDP and freed Chibok girls

    Makarfi’s PDP and freed Chibok girls

    WHILE the Ali Modu Sheriff faction of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) played safe in their reaction to the release of 82 of the over 200 abducted Chibok schoolgirls, indicating its deft reading of the mood of the times, the Ahmed Makarfi faction of the same party took forthrightness to an unusual and provocative level by qualifying their approval of the means by which the girls’ freedom was secured. Senator Sheriff, a former Borno State governor, perhaps for lack of what to say, gave a historical excursion of the efforts made by the previous administration to free the schoolgirls. He praised former president Goodluck Jonathan for acceding to the rescue efforts, and noted his altruism and commitment to the rescue of the girls.

    But unlike Senator Sheriff whose natural inclination to everything is comparatively much simpler and empathetic, the Senator Makarfi faction, whose arrowhead is the former Kaduna State governor, examined the release and the swap deal that accompanied it, in all its polemical and logical details, and came to conclusions with a candour that was bound to infuriate the public and bait the emotions of the distraught families from Chibok, Borno State. Even if the Makarfi faction was right to object to the pragmatism of the deal between the federal government and Boko Haram, the insurgent group that abducted the girls in April 2014, it is doubtful whether it demonstrated the sensitivity the times and the occasion called for.

    The Makarfi faction gave seven grounds for their discomfort, among which were the following:

    “1). The suspected terrorists by this release have escaped justice; and all the effort made by security agencies to bring them to book has come to nothing.

    2). The release of the terrorists is a setback for the War on insurgency. Their release is tantamount to releasing them to resume their war against society. Many of them could find their way back to the terrorists camps from where they could unleash terror against the country. Others who are allowed to roam freely in society could become veritable recruiting agents and purveyors of suicide bombing and urban terrorism.

    3). The Boko Haram terrorists are emboldened to continue with their tactics of kidnapping innocent people with the belief that they can always use it to blackmail the Government to release their members and to extract other concessions.

    4). The piecemeal release of the girls means the terrorists want to extract more concessions from the Government which in the end can only prolong the insurgency.

    5). The release of the girls will increase the agony and high expectations of the remaining girls still in custody of the terrorists, and their families who will be wondering why they have not been so lucky. It therefore would have been better to ensure the release of all the girls at once.

    6). The negotiations are in clear violation and indeed a direct assault on the generally accepted international principle never to negotiate with terrorists. This international principle is sound and logical because negotiation with the terrorists only fuels their urge to continue with their heinous crimes.”

    Though the Makarfi faction eventually lauded the release of the girls and celebrated with their families, it, however, insisted that the Buhari presidency’s approach was inappropriate. The faction did not suggest what better options the government could have taken to free the girls, nor did it explain why it opposed the deal between the government and Boko Haram despite the fact that in 2014 the PDP government of Dr Jonathan also desperately but unsuccessfully pursued a swap deal. In his reaction to the release of the 82 girls, Senator Sheriff had contextualised the Buhari swap deal by detailing the earlier efforts made by Dr Jonathan, suggesting that neither the ruling party nor the opposition was fundamentally and ideologically different in their approaches to the abduction that disgraced, scandalised and lowered Nigeria in the esteem of the world for many years.

    The Makarfi faction may have been roundly condemned by commentators and analysts, and there is no proof that the soft-spoken and thoughtful Senator Makarfi, had he been president, would not have sanctioned an exchange of captives, but there is no doubt that some of the faction’s arguments are indeed germane. Payment of ransom to kidnappers has, for instance, seemed to encourage kidnapping in Nigeria. In the same way, as argued by the Makarfi faction, a swap deal between the government and Boko Haram could encourage more abductions and stiffen the resolve of the militants to pursue and even justify their nefarious political and sectarian goals.

    While its objectionable and inadvisable perspective on the release of the Chibok girls may not seriously hurt its political standing in the society, nor influence in any way the outcome of the judicial battle between the two factions in the Supreme Court, the Makarfi faction of the PDP may have demonstrated an uncommon political boldness which could prove costly. In the past few months, it has played the part of an opposition party more sure-footedly than its factional rival, and has spoken more bravely on controversial and arcane issues; but there is so far no indication that it has organised itself in such a way as to respond very profoundly and guardedly to the ruling party’s dangerous propaganda and undemocratic measures.

    The Makarfi faction’s reaction to the release of the Chibok girls was spontaneous. But it is not often that political spontaneity bears fruits or advances the objectives of a political party. Hopefully, the faction will, in reaction to public disapproval of its views on the swap deal, be less hasty in future in judging its opponents and taking sides on very public and emotional issues. It must learn to be discriminating, and in addition be circumspect about when to be spontaneous and when to be reserved. It is true that between 2014 and 2015 the then opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) was not only spontaneous and radical in the manner of its opposition to the then ruling PDP, it was also deeply and even offensively propagandist. But the context of opposition also matters.

    Senator Makarfi and his faction must appreciate that even opposition politics is a highly nuanced exercise. It is not as simple and direct as it appears. They must recognise that sometimes, perfectly sound views and positions may rub off on the people badly and elicit resounding rebuke or rejection. It is, after all, not all the time that legality and expediency positively correlate. For a political party to be able to draw a fine line between the two, its leaders must take their responsibilities more seriously than their parties, whether in office or out of office, have done in the past few decades. How well set up are their research departments? And how well professionally manned are they? In the First Republic, the Action Group, by popular acclaim, had the best organised mass party in Africa, and it showed in their political and especially parliamentary responses to the issues of the day. In the Second Republic, a few other parties, including the Peoples Redemption Party (PRP) in Kano, copied that example and organised themselves to produce and accomplish policy depths.

    Irrespective of the outcome of the Supreme Court judgement on the conflict undermining the stability and cohesiveness of the PDP, if it is to prosper as an opposition party and find its way back into office, it must organise itself better than it has done since its founding, and make interventions that are deep, impactful and often unimpeachable. Those tasks will not be achieved if the party continues to speak extemporaneously off the mark. They will only be achieved when voters and opinion moulders see in the opposition the kind of seriousness, organisation and credibility that are lacking even in the ruling party. There may be times when the party or faction will promote unpopular or inflammatory views, but apart from ensuring that these views are few and far between, it must manage the promotion so unerringly as to enjoy vindication at a future date that will not damage its electoral chances.

    Senator Makarfi’s faction did not show early this week that it possessed the ability and composure to manage crucial and exigent national issues with the aplomb it appears to credit itself. The Sheriff faction was of course naturally opportunistic in its response to the Chibok girls’ freedom, even as the Buhari presidency appeared to engineer an uncanny and puzzling coincidence in prising the girls loose from their jailors at a time when the image of the government was ebbing badly. But this is politics, and those who come to it and cavort in it must do so without the awkwardness that Senator Makarfi and his faction demonstrated early in the week.

  • The three musketeers scheme again

    The three musketeers scheme again

    They are Nigeria’s first leadership eleven: the troika of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, Gen Ibrahim Babangida and Gen Abdulsalami Abubakar — all of them retired army generals. The media was awash with reports they met at Gen Babangida’s Hilltop residence in Minna, Niger State, on Tuesday to deliberate on issues whose agenda were kept away from the prying eyes of the public. They always seethed with schemes; but this time their schemes were not quite as obvious to the public as reporters would like them to be. Moreover, why only three of them met , out of Nigeria’s seven living ex-heads of state, is difficult to fathom. Perhaps it is only these three that have shown bravery in affecting, for good or bad, the fortunes of Nigeria.

    Speculations were rife on Tuesday that the meeting dwelled more on President Muhammadu Buhari’s delicate health and its implications for both governance and stability. It was said that the three were loth to be taken by surprise, should the president succumb precipitately to the vagaries of poor health, especially with cabals poised dangerously in the wings to profit from the confusion. So far, the three former leaders have been uninterested in confirming the details of their meeting, whether it was principally to discuss President Buhari’s health in terms of its urgent dimensions, or whether it was to look in general terms at the post-Buhari era. Whatever the meeting was about, it held, and the troika confidently posed for a group photograph at the end to illustrate either their defiance or self-assurance.

    Given the three leaders’ qualifications and general background, it is unlikely that Nigerians think the gentlemen possess the wherewithal to positively affect the future and destiny of Nigeria. The threesome always summoned the presumptuousness to tinker with Nigeria; but whether they have the qualifications to engender great and inspiring outcomes is a different thing altogether. In 1999, the three, together to some extent with former army chief, T.Y. Danjuma, determined the direction of Nigeria: what the constitution would look and sound like, and who should assume the presidency in the wake of MKO Abiola’s controversial death in government custody. In the end, pretending to some democracy, and with a constitution that was yet to be promulgated, it was decided that the traumatised Chief Obasanjo, who was just coming out of jail and the spectre of a death sentence, should assume power. The electorate merely became a rubber stamp.

    While Generals Babangida and Abubakar were not involved in foisting the then sick Umaru Yar’Adua on the country in 2007, that bewildering choice was a substantial fulfilment of the designs and preferences of the troika. Since then, and without any hint of remorse whatsoever, the three generals have always had their way in determining who gets what. Indeed, even a section of the political class which attempted to muscle their way into the group to enthrone President Buhari, had had to worm or insinuate their way into the confidence of the troika. The three generals undoubtedly have an implacable hold on power in Nigeria.

    In the past few years, the three generals have become even more confident in meddling in the politics of who becomes president. In 2015, they were deeply involved, perhaps Gen Babangida less so on account of his health challenges. Chief Obasanjo, the usual battering ram of the group, provided the casus belli in baiting and profiling the disfavoured ex-president Goodluck Jonathan, and in softening the grounds for the incoming President Buhari. If feelers from the Hilltop mansion meeting are accurate, Chief Obasanjo appears poised to weigh in against the weary and now reclusive President Buhari, an assignment that may not be mitigated by President Buhari’s sudden appearance yesterday at the Aso Villa mosque for Friday prayers. A few months ago, he had suggested that the president’s economic management ability left much to be desired. Now, some innuendoes are issuing from him concerning the president’s disappearing and appearing acts.

    Gen Babangida had hoped to profit from the precedence set by Chief Obasanjo, by contesting and retaking the president’s office in 2007. He failed. But despite that, he has sustained his interest in who takes the highest office in the land. In fact, during his about eight years in office, he had managed to create a myth around himself, a myth that has somehow endured, if not in vigor, for no one is willing or even interested in testing it, then at least in perseverance. His ‘boys’ may no longer be in the military; but who wants to find out? Perhaps the idea of his ‘boys’ being in the military, or the suspicion that officers loyal to what he stood for might still be in the military, is more than sufficient to sustain his political and leadership currency.

    Gen Abubakar’s relevance rests mainly on two planks: his resolute and summary completion of a short transition programme between 1998 and 1999, about 11 months after assuming office; and the laudable role he played as leader of the National Peace Committee in the last presidential election to smoothen the change of baton from the more sensitive and fairly compliant Dr Jonathan to the more truculent and less amenable President Buhari. Gen Abubakar has sensibly, bravely but taciturnly persisted in safeguarding whatever unwritten agreements flowed from the work of his committee in those heady months leading to the last polls. His work and assiduousness, not to say being the least controversial of the troika, have combined to reinforce his relevance as a member of the musketeers.

    If it is presumptuous of the three generals to take upon themselves the task of forging peace and amity in the country as well as midwifing who becomes president, it is a presumptuousness that is sadly anchored on nothing but a general belief that their names and positions qualify them to do so. Whether those qualifications are sufficient to enable them perform the thankless role of guardian angels, when a disciplined adherence to the constitution would otherwise be sufficient, is hard to say. Perhaps societies need such interventions; but if they do, it would be to the extent of the philosophical and ideological qualifications and convictions of the interventionists. In the case of the three musketeers, their interventions, whether in 1993 or 1999, or more gallingly in 2007, were based on private and entirely selfish considerations.

    It is hard to avoid the conclusion that the continuing crisis Nigeria faces is essentially due to the needless, selfish and destructive interventions and manipulations sponsored by the three meddlesome ex-generals. Appreciating them for their contributions in the past few years must therefore be situated properly in the context of the damage they had occasioned in the past, near or distant. Had they allowed the system to run independently as it should, and had their contributions been altruistic as the country had hoped, Nigeria would have avoided the pestilential reign of Gen Sani Abacha, escaped the appalling ‘democratic’ foundations laid by Chief Obasanjo between 1999 and 2007, ducked the pillage masterminded by Dr Jonathan, and entirely circumvented the now lethargic and staid presidency of another ex-general, Buhari.

    But much more damaging and hubristic is the arbitrary manner the three former generals and ex-heads of state have determined that no other former head of state or president is apparently qualified to join the so-called ‘first eleven’ and ‘patron saints’ of Nigerian leadership. By accident or design, and since 1993, none among the other former leaders have been invited to the conclave of schemers determining the fate of Nigeria. Ex-president Shehu Shagari has been largely ignored, and has himself not attempted to muscle his way into the group. He apparently has little say and no real locus standi. Little say, because no philosophy or ideology of society and leadership has been associated with him; and no locus because his presidency was stymied by such weariness of mind that few thought he was better than a cipher when he ruled.

    Ex-head of state Yakubu Gowon remains probably the most moralistic of all Nigeria’s former leaders, and the one who could boast of real or substantial fame following his successful prosecution of the civil war and the developmental programmes and projects his government emplaced. But he is a man full of caution, pawky caution, and he is distant, sometimes patrician, somewhat unobtrusive, and now more sermonising, if not outrightly proselytizing. Such a man could not be inducted into a caucus of schemers and intriguers, nor get him to offend or undermine his Christian principles and conscience. The three generals will not invite Ernest Shonekan, the interim president who by military decree became a former head of state, into anything, so help them God. As for Dr Jonathan, why, the wounds are still very fresh, searing and palpable to allow him rub shoulders with the three ex-generals.

    For as long as the country permits them, the three generals will continue to meddle in the country’s leadership politics. They will hardly suggest anything deep, engaging and ideological about the economy, politics and society. These concepts addle their brains. What obsesses them is leadership, partly because of the benefits which that brings, the itch to run things, and the power and visibility involved. Do they possess the wisdom to scheme right? The jury is out on that. If they had the ability to see far into the future, they would not have schemed the country into its present cul-de-sac. So, unable to see into the distant, they will intrigue for the short run, insist on the conservatism and fearful caution that blighted their own leadership, and place themselves appropriately to remain influential and to be heard and seen. The three musketeers, this restrictive ‘first eleven’ scripting Nigeria’s unfolding tragedy, can’t do more than they are really and clearly capable of.

  • Balarabe Musa, PDP’s incompetence and APC’s fascism

    Balarabe Musa, PDP’s incompetence and APC’s fascism

    Former Kaduna State governor, Balarabe Musa, recently used piquant phrases to describe the character and operations of Nigeria’s two leading parties, the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Mallam Musa, who is and also the chairman of the almost forgotten Peoples Redemption Party (PRP),  is undoubtedly an agitated and impatient idealist, but his characterisation of the two bungling and bumbling parties is unimpeachable. The progressive politician had mercilessly skewered the two parties last week while responding to reporters’ questions last week in Abuja. The PDP, he summed up, was incompetent; and the APC, he growled, was fascistic. Ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo had delivered a similar judgement on the two parties not too long ago; but Mallam Musa possessed better and ethical justification to reach the salient conclusions the entire country seems to be coming round to.

    “I will tell you they are complete failures,” said Mallam Musa of the parties. “If PDP was incompetent, APC is even worse. In the case of the PDP government, it was just incompetence, and you can negotiate with incompetents. But in the case of the APC, it is fascism and you know that you have no stand with a fascist who clears the obstacle by any means. This is what we are experiencing now. We have replaced incompetence with fascism.” The divisions between the two parties may however not be as neat as the former governor painted it. While the PDP was truly incompetent in office, especially judging from the reckless wastage of the country’s resources and the mindless stealing that undermined the economy under its 16 years leadership, the APC, on the other hand, is not just fascistic, it has managed so far to have combined that singular vice with a multiplicity of dubieties and incompetence.

    To dwell on the PDP, despite the telling effects of its incompetence and the bold relief in which that ineptitude is increasingly etched, is to flog a dead horse. It is sufficient to say that the party, which had boasted it would rule Nigeria for 60 years without explaining why it chose that silly and arbitrary figure, had no system in place to govern well, nor the men to champion its cause and promote the modest values it managed to conceive. It suffered a humiliating defeat in 2015, a consequence of its lack of discipline, dearth of values, and partisan pride. Unlike shortly after it lost the general elections, when some people wondered whether the country was not too hasty and sentimental in repudiating the PDP, only a few people now view the exposure of the kleptocracy that hobbled the nation without concluding that keeping the inept PDP in power for 16 years was both excessive and indefensibly generous.

    Mallam Musa was neutral in judging the two parties, though he will of course be unable to supplant any of them with his own fairly untested and nearly forgotten party should that thought ever cross his mind. There is nothing to show he thinks of any supplantation, however, for like every other Nigerian, he is realistic enough to know that to nurse a party to national prominence, if not invincibility, requires both financial and human resources of grandiose and intimidating proportions. His current frustrations in running the PRP, including getting justice for the party when it is assailed by conspiratorial busybodies and conniving jurists (see box below), is a testament to the abominable course politics has taken in the country.

    No one will question why Mallam Musa dismissed the PDP as incompetent. But given the unrestrained national excitement over President Muhammadu Buhari’s rejection of avarice, some Nigerians may cavil at the former Kaduna governor’s disparaging conclusions. But Mallam Musa is neither given to histrionics nor has he ever been accused of been flighty, irrational and tempestuous. His point of view may be disagreeable, and his ideological conviction considered inflexible, anachronistic and unworkable. But he is a logician of great accomplishment, an ethical politician of high standing, not by persuasion but by deep and genuine conviction. Such men rarely exaggerate or say something out of spite. If Mallam Musa says APC is fascistic, he is probably, if not unimpeachably, right.

    The former Kaduna governor did not elaborate on the fascism label; but he needn’t. The facts are clear for everyone to see, even to those mesmerised by the president’s unconvincing rationalisation of many of his draconian actions. Section 1 (1) of the 1999 constitution says: “This Constitution is supreme and its provisions shall have binding force on the authorities and persons throughout the Federal Republic of Nigeria.” But repeatedly, the president and his cabinet have placed themselves above the constitution. Suspects are routinely detained for longer than the constitution mandates; and when regardless of the government’s umbrage the courts summon the courage to grant bail, sometimes as many times as possible for effect, the Buhari presidency ignores the courts, and accuses them of colluding with saboteurs and conniving at corruption. In the opinion of President Buhari, the outrage caused by the malfeasance of the suspects far outweigh the government’s disobedience of the courts.

    In other instances, the Buhari presidency goes beyond pursuing the media trial of suspects to outrightly disobeying the constitution by detaining suspects ad infinitum. In the popular case of the Shiite leader, Ibrahim El-Zakzaky, the government not only approved of the massacre of more than 300 of his followers — men, women and children — and their hasty burial in two mass graves, the injured and almost blinded leader and his wife have had their constitutional rights suspended or even abrogated. There are many other cases, sometimes during security operations and anti-corruption war, when the government has backed its campaigns with autocratic, poorly conceived and unconstitutional measures. The country shudders to think what would happen to the liberties guaranteed the people by the constitution had the ruling APC been a united, pacesetting and ideological party fascinated by its own repressive tendencies.

    Mallam Musa does not of course indicate whether he thought the disunity in the APC significant enough as a factor in the party’s fascistic approach to governance. Nor is it clear to anyone whether the disunity had anything to do with any ideological struggle within the party. What seems clear is that a faction of the party has hijacked power, not on ideological grounds, but probably on sectional, cabalistic or even sectarian grounds. It is that faction’s brutal use of power, its abhorrent deployment of Machiavellian tactics, and its camorra-like methods that gall the judicious and emit the fascistic signals picked up by Mallam Musa and every Nigerian sensitive about the concepts of freedom and justice.

    The former Kaduna governor is right to say that Nigerians can indeed negotiate with an incompetent leader, for an incompetent leader is sometimes amenable to other views; but not so a fascist. A fascist is obsessed with his own point of view, believes himself to be infallible, is paranoid about other people’s objections and observations, hates to be proved wrong, and is overall messianic about his role and objectives in leadership. There is indeed no negotiating with a fascist. Mallam Musa sees the APC as a fascist party; it is unlikely he exaggerates. He must however hope that he does not become a Cassandra whose warnings are fated to be disbelieved, and that the current factionalism in the party does not give way to one supreme, fanatical faction with which neither man nor gods can reason.

  • Ondo LG dissolution and PRP

    ON the surface, the March 31 judgement of a High Court in Ondo State ordering the dissolution of the 18 local governments sworn in by former governor Olusegun Mimiko should not raise eyebrows. It however does. The case was originally instituted by Balarabe Musa’s Peoples Redemption Party (PRP), but long since abandoned because the reason for going to court, non-inclusion in the ballot in last year’s local government poll, had been resolved. Someone, somewhere, some say agents of the new All Progressives Congress (APC) Rotimi Akeredolu government, revived the case and asked for the LGs to be dissolved.

    Alerted to the case, the PRP chairman and the party’s lawyer, Femi Aborishade, and other party supporters thronged the court to confirm that they had discontinued the case, and that in any case, they should be heard. Justice S.A. Sadiq, however, reportedly disregarded the PRP leaders and their lawyer, and chose to recognise another lawyer claiming to represent the party, one Segun Agodo, a stranger to the case. The PRP, which had participated in the election, insisted it had no reason to ask for the LGs dissolution, but the court went ahead anyway. Indeed, it was the APC that had boycotted the election last year, though the party’s name and symbol were on the ballot. It had claimed that it had a case pending in court questioning the composition of the state electoral body, OSIEC.

    Immediately the court dissolved the LGs on March 31, though their tenure was to expire in April 2019, the state government announced new caretaker chairmen. Earlier, however, the 18 chairmen, all of whom belonged to the PDP and feared what injury the new APC government was capable of inflicting, had gone to court to bar the government from sacking the LGs. The former Chief Judge of the state, Justice Olasehinde Kumuyi, assented to their request and barred the government from interfering with the councils. But the APC was reported in February to have appealed Justice Kumuyi’s January 17 decision and was waiting for its determination when the idea of reviving the PRP case occurred to some bright minds in the APC. The government’s lawyers, however, said they were not aware of the case, let alone any appeal. But in March, the government had frozen the accounts of the LGs. Eventually, not even the PRP was allowed to have a say in the case they were purported to have filed, a case both the PRP chairman and lawyer had said was overtaken by their participation in the LG poll.

    The manner the Ondo State government cleverly tweaked the legal process, and the collusion of the judiciary among other insalubrious measures, probably prompted Mallam Musa to suggest that the APC had become a fascist government far worse than the incompetent PDP government it replaced. Few Nigerians will disagree with the PRP national chairman.