Governor Bello Matawalle of Zamfara State is not as comparatively spunky and fiercely rhetorical as Kaduna State governor Nasir-el-Rufai, nor as quietly enigmatic as Katsina State governor Aminu Masari; but after endless killings have drenched his state in blood, he has finally come to his own, both as a rhetorician and radical. He has asked Zamfarans to prepare to arm themselves against bandits, to resolve to do so courageously, and to put in the paperwork needed to bear arms legally. He will be the third or fourth governor in the Northwest to okay self-defence in the classical American sense of cops and robbers, sheriffs and outlaws. Katsina and Kaduna have since sunk into stupor in the face of federal opposition and intransigent and pampered bandits, while bluffing but beleaguered states in the Northeast have reached some controversial accommodation with the so-called repentant insurgents. It remains to be seen how long Zamfara will hold out in their newfound resolve to fight on the hills and in the valleys, and in the forests and trenches until the enemy is vanquished.

What is important now is that frustrated Zamfarans and their nervous government are eager to do battle with unrelenting bandits. In a statement the governor caused to be issued last week, and which made newspaper headlines, indigenes were called upon to apply for gun licences to protect themselves since the police and the military had proved spectacularly unable to do so. That the security agencies have become flatfooted is not in doubt. They are also haemorrhaging, losing men and material, and are short-staffed and unable to muster substantial force to deter rampaging bandits. But they want their sacrifices to be acknowledged and their losses to be recognised and appreciated. However, they and the federal authorities that deployed them in battle have become unresponsive to the changing dynamics of the country’s worsening security crisis. A country of more than 200 million people runs, along very archaic lines and simplistic philosophy, one centralised and poorly funded and poorly equipped police force. To worsen the crisis, the government sees the police and the security agencies more as a protective force for the administration than a law enforcement agency to safeguard the populace.

Unlike the ambiguities that truncate the government’s perception of what the roles of the police force are, the Zamfara government’s statement is direct and energetic. According to the state’s Information commissioner, Ibrahim Dosara, “…Government is ready to facilitate people, especially our farmers, to secure basic weapons for defending themselves. The government has already concluded an arrangement to distribute 500 forms to each of the 19 emirates in the state for those willing to obtain guns to defend themselves. People must apply to the Commissioner of Police to own guns and such other basic weapons to be used in defending themselves. A secretariat or centre will be established for the collection of intelligence on the activities of informants.” This is perfectly legitimate and constitutional.

But responding to what in effect amounts to a vote of no confidence in the country’s security forces whom many now fear have been compromised, the state’s Police Commissioner, Ayuba Elkana, warned that the ban on firearms licence was still in force. He added that the police were doing their best, and wondering whether anyone expected policemen to accompany farmers to the farms in this planting season. What he did not address, a lacuna the state government has done its best to draw attention to, is what the people should do in the face of bandits’ unremitting attacks. This is not a dilemma the federal police, including policemen deployed in the state, can address. They are under authority. They cannot recruit more men than they are given, and cannot propose and enforce laws not backed by Abuja and the national legislature. They are nearly as helpless as the people they are expected to protect.

Sadly, having allowed the problem of banditry to fester and metastasize for so long, sustained it seems by years of federal excuses designed to shield herdsmen who have morphed seamlessly into bandits, the country, police force and beleaguered states must now contend with federal paralysis that has prolonged the mayhem and made the crisis intractable, if not entirely irresolvable. But while the federal administration dithers dangerously as the country careens towards the precipice, the bloodletting continues with ferocity that now seems entirely capable of predisposing the country to general conflagration. The economy is prostrate, insecurity is worsening, government agencies as well as insurgents and bandits run parallel extortionist organisations, and inflation is climbing to the stratosphere. If the Muhammadu Buhari administration does not sit down to address these issues head-on, federal incompetence may endanger everybody and imperil the country’s fragile and generally untenable unity.

Read Also: Matawalle’s curious gospel of self-defense

The Zamfara police commissioner may be unable to react to the governor’s call to arms other than the way he has responded, and the military, through the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), may also frown at the desperation of embattled states; but rather than shuffle their feet, they should let the states know how else to protect themselves: whether to confront bandits with broomsticks or rely on overwhelmed and thus ineffective security agencies. Rather than cavil at the states’ call for self-defence, the security agencies should prevail on the administration to respond more imaginatively to the crisis threatening to unravel the country. The current paralysis is undesirable, and cosmetic surgeries have proved wasteful and futile. If the administration cannot be made to see why there simply must be radical and revolutionary changes in law enforcement, then they should be less sanctimonious when citizens and states take the law into their own hands.

Mr Matawalle has rightly insisted on the need for the state to embrace self-defence in the face of the impotence of security agencies and ineffective administration ensconced in a bubble in Abuja. But just as Governors el-Rufai and Masari were unable to find a way around federal indolence, Governor Matawalle will sadly discover that there is little, in the end, that he can do to mobilise his embattled people against pampered bandits against whom the federal government is allegedly pulling punches. The killings will continue. What is not clear is how much the people can take and how long they can be silent in the face of circumstances that try their souls.

Landlords, EFCC and foolish ‘laws’

Last week, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) invited the public to a town hall meeting on the controversial subject of punishing landlords who let out their houses to internet fraudsters, aka Yahoo Boys. The meeting was billed to hold on May 29 and was to be anchored by an EFFC legal team. It is presumed that the meeting held as planned, and hopefully they received enough inputs to help them fine-tune what is certain to be a very difficult proposition and law.

Until the outcome of the meeting is circulated, it is not clear what legal grounds the anti-graft agency hopes to stand on to suggest that landlords should be punished for the crimes of their tenants. Hopefully, they can also convince their legal draftsmen to adduce reasons to punish the internet fraudster and, not satisfied, then go after the property owner. Except on rare occasions, no property owner would want his house turned into a criminal den. Therefore, carrying out due diligence on their tenants becomes advisable, if not obligatory.

But there is a limit to the due diligence a property owner can carry out. After thoroughly screening the prospective tenant, and he passes muster, but turns rogue somewhere down the line due to inability to respond very well and sanely to pressures, how on earth does that make a landlord culpable? Or are landlords also expected to be soothsayers to foretell a tenant’s future? The EFCC is right to be concerned about conspiracies between house owners and criminals, not just internet fraudsters; but to seek to criminalise landlords over their inability to foretell the future of their tenants may be treading on dangerous constitutional grounds. The EFCC and other law enforcement agencies should limit themselves to prosecuting the criminal, except in cases where collusion is clearly indicated. The Commission does not need the extra thrill of pursuing sensational nonsense.

Given the frequency and dexterity with which the presidency walks back some of President Muhammadu Buhari’s statements on national issues, it has become increasingly difficult to tell which of his views and refutations really belong to him. For instance, he denies the widely held belief that a sinister cabal lurks around his administration and policies, insisting proudly but unconvincingly that he is his own man; yet, since the inauguration of his administration, he has been indifferent to what most people think of him, of his independence, and of his direction. However, his recent Bloomberg News interview, widely disseminated across Nigeria last week, shows a disturbing, if a little disjointed, streak of the president projecting the ideas and perspectives of vested interests.

Two of his answers underscore this fear. Bloomberg did not ask him any question, directly or obliquely, about the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), but he dragged the issue in anyway, seizing the opportunity of the question on insecurity and his performance in office to declaim on the south-eastern crisis. He rightly began addressing the question with a recount of what his government had done to degrade Boko Haram, and then he lauded the help his government had received from some foreign powers, praised the role recently purchased military hardware was playing in counter-insurgency operations, and, almost out of the blue, called on the same foreign powers to proscribe and label IPOB as a terrorist organisation.

Hear the president: “Their (IPOB) leadership enjoys safe haven in the West, broadcasting hate speech into Nigeria from London, spending millions lobbying members of the US Congress, and freely using international financial networks to arm agitators on the ground. This must stop.” Ignore the president’s impatience. What really worries many analysts is his obsession with the Southeast-based and Nnamdi Kanu-led Igbo self-determination group. Recent reports suggest indeed that IPOB could be contributing to insecurity in the Southeast, but whether in the Bloomberg interview or elsewhere, neither the president nor anyone in his administration has been able to provide conclusive evidence that IPOB really masterminds the abominable killings that have horrified the Igbo themselves and the rest of Nigeria. For instance IPOB started the so-called sit-at-home order to pressure the government to free Mr Kanu, but it has since suspended the policy and distanced itself from its violent enforcement, including even providing clues to the public about the identity of those behind the elongation and enforcement of the order.

Now, this of course does not absolve IPOB of responsibility for the nefarious order, or its gory enforcement, or the perpetration of the much crueler torture and killings going on in the Southeast allegedly by the inappropriately named Eastern Security Network (ESN). There are indications that IPOB might have sired a monster, and that the monster is now beyond its control, the organisation having splintered irretrievably with each faction acquiring a terrifying life of its own. The president was at liberty to make reference to the killings in the Southeast as a component of the insecurity plaguing Nigeria, even though he was for a long time contradistinctively indulgent towards the activities of bandits and violent herdsmen whom foreign powers have labeled as terrorists. But to zero in on IPOB without significant substantiation gives the discomfiting impression that what angers him is their self-determination campaign, and their offensive vituperations, rather than their alleged terroristic leaning.

Read Also; ‘Why U.S., UK, others won’t heed Buhari’s call on IPOB’

In the same breath, and still responding to the same question, the president eulogised the policy on livestock breeding widely regarded as placatory of herdsmen instead of cognisant of the plight of farmers with whom some armed cattle rearers have engaged in deadly feuds. The policy, called the National Livestock Transformation Plan, is sold as unimpeachable; but it is bitterly divisive and hugely controversial. Said he:  “My administration is the only one in Nigeria’s history to implement a solution to decades-long herder-farmer conflicts, exacerbated by desertification and demographic growth. The National Livestock Transformation Plan, putting ranching at its core, is the only way to deplete the competition for resources at the core of the clashes. Governors from some individual states have sought to play politics where ranches have been established; but where they have been established disputes have dramatically reduced.” It is not clear, however, whether describing the policy as ‘the only way’ is not an exaggeration. There are obviously less divisive and less acrimonious ways of fostering amity between farmers and herders, just as there are far more imaginative ways a country can respond to the twin pressures of uncontrolled demographic growth and desertification.

But what perhaps takes the biscuit is the president’s disingenuous response to the blatant and offensive politicking of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor Godwin Emefiele who desecrated his seat and waddled in the murky waters of presidential politics at the prompting of a few power mongers. Not only did the president fail to condemn that provocative intrusion into politics from the august seat of the apex bank, he even excused Mr Emefiele’s indefensible behaviour on the grounds of the CBN’s controversial embrace of a new and radical economic orthodoxy, “an alternative economic model that puts people at the heart of policy”. But the CBN governor’s immersion in politics, apart from being opportunistic and deviant, is inexcusable. Glossing over that misguided action encourages public officers’ aberrant behaviour. Reluctantly, the president finally conceded that the CBN board would have the last word on the governor’s behaviour. After the president had defended him?

There are many significant policy footprints the president will leave when he vacates office next year. Those footprints will burnish his legacy. But there are also many other controversial footprints he will be leaving behind, many of them interred with his government’s bones. But on IPOB, herders-farmers conflict, and Mr Emefiele, it is inconceivable that anyone can find the word or the logic to defend or applaud the president. The Bloomberg interview merely reinforces what is already known of the Buhari administration: that it harbours an unpredictable mix of laudable and obnoxious policies and programmes. If only the president had mustered the right team to galvanise the country and repair its broken hedges.

Candidate Atiku and angry Wike

In three obscene and eventful weeks, Rivers State governor and former presidential contender on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Nyesom Wike, had witnessed two resounding defeats of enough amperage to singe the feathers of any politician of lesser mettle. No one is certain exactly how the governor is taking the PDP rebuff, having been conspired against and betrayed, as he put it, in the presidential primary, and then passed over for the running mate position. Both in Alhaji Atiku Abubakar’s explanation that followed the selection of Delta State governor Ifeanyi Okowa as running mate and the needless justification by former Niger State governor Babangida Aliyu indicating that Mr Wike was rejected for his unpresidential temperament, the Rivers governor’s pride was unconscionably injured.

Mr Wike gives as much as he takes, and has always defended himself admirably in the face of mostly unprovoked attacks. He has derided Mr Aliyu for his current irrelevance in politics, and dismissed another of his critic, billionaire Ned Nwoko, as an unparalleled hedonist whose brain has been addled by concupiscence. Now, it is feared he could be on his way out of the PDP, despite swearing that as a loyal party man, probably the most loyal in recent times as he put it, he would never countenance leaving a party he had grown to love. But after two rejections in less than three weeks, it is not clear whether he does not consider himself to have been tested beyond human and political endurance.

If Mr Wike will accept entreaties from Alhaji Atiku, it will soon be known. Meanwhile, some of his men have defected from the PDP, almost as a precursor movement. But whether the governor will follow suit, after his double humiliation, is uncertain. What is certain is that if he leaves the PDP, it will make it much harder for the opposition to dethrone the ruling party, especially with a certain Peter Obi, Labour Party presidential candidate, snapping at the heels of the major parties.

Of all the presidential aspirants’ campaign directors-general, two prominent men stood out in the recently concluded All Progressives Congress (APC) primaries. They stood out for being controversially prominent as individuals, and short-lived as campaign managers. Senate President Ahmad Lawan engaged former Abia State governor Orji Uzor Kalu as his campaign DG virtually weeks to the spectacular debacle that came upon his attempt to win the ruling party’s primary. Sen Lawan was of course a latter day convert to the presidential campaign, having been persuaded, against his personal wish and desire, to run for the presidency once it was clear the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) was set to elect ex-vice president Atiku Abubakar as standard-bearer. The colourful and grandiloquent Mr Kalu, an apostle of grand political mendacity, plunged into the role with unforgettable gestures, postulations and gross exaggerations.

This column had this to say about him last week, beginning with his repudiation of the Igbo presidency agenda: “His main argument for jettisoning the Igbo presidential project and backing Sen Lawan for the APC presidential ticket is simply because the PDP gave the ticket to a north-easterner, former vice president Atiku Abubakar. That logic is insane; but it is rife in the ruling party, and has obviously gained traction as party leaders prevaricate over the morality of keeping the presidency in the North for another eight years. In his statement declaring support for Sen Lawan, the former Abia governor painted a doomsday scenario of the APC being sent into premature retirement should it give its ticket to any southerner. It is not clear why he thinks he can speak for the entire South. If his self-abnegating politics leads him to trade Igbo pride for a pittance, surely he must know that other parts of the South still possess, and would wish to retain, their self-pride.

“Sen Kalu then caps his ignoble politicking with the abominable argument that President Muhammadu Buhari reserves the right to pick his successor. It is true that last week the president seemed to have asked a meeting of progressive governors to give him that honour, but Sen Kalu comes from a region wailing against marginalisation, alienation and even provocation orchestrated by quislings and other agents provocateurs killing and maiming in the Southeast. His political instincts, had they been well developed, should have prompted him into embracing at least the silhouette of democracy. That faint democratic instinct should have nurtured in him respect for proper democratic elections either in intraparty affairs or inter-party affairs. Sen Kalu, alas, is destitute of any democratic instinct.

“In fact, his support for Sen Lawan and the northern presidential agenda is, strictly speaking, business. He and the senate president are close friends, some say, right from their University of Maiduguri undergraduate days; and so Sen Kalu elevates the narrow purviews of friendship and business above the existential struggles of his Igbo race. He can of course repudiate any respect and affection for the rest of the South, but to rubbish the Igbo cause with shallow and pedantic arguments about the ogre of PDP challenge betrays the little regard Abia and the Igbo people had for him that made him a two-term governor.”

It is uncertain whether Mr Kalu will find a role in the presidential campaign of the eventual winner of last week’s primary, ex-Lagos State governor and national leader of the APC, Bola Ahmed Tinubu. But whether he does or does not, his reputation for running a brief and short-lived campaign of undistinguished severity will endure for a long time, partly because of the many principles and ideas that suffered collateral damage as a result of his decision. But as this column noted last week, Mr Kalu is in incurable political romantic, an expert at ingratiating himself into any person’s confidence and any politician’s campaign. If they do not find a role for him, he will probably create one for himself anyway, for after all, the struggle to corral the Igbo vote in 2023 will be a herculean exercise.

The other DG, still referring to the APC, is of course the unforgettable Hafsat Abiola-Costello, whom this column also commented on two Sundays ago. She is a daughter of the dogged democracy fighter, Kudirat Abiola, who was slain in the course of her struggle to reclaim her husband’s June 12, 1993 presidential election win. Mrs Abiola not only lost her life for a worthy cause, her husband, Moshood Kashimawo Abiola, also lost his life for the same cause. Unexpectedly, however, Mrs Abiola-Costello pitched her tent with the frivolous and flighty Kogi State governor Yahaya Bello who also desired the APC presidential ticket. He failed, as expected, but not before exhuming Jonathan Zwingina, DG of the Abiola Hope 1993 presidential campaign, and dragging into his doomed campaign the inexperienced and enthusiastic daughter of the two late democracy icons.

Here is what this column said of Mrs Abiola-Costello on May 22, 2022: “…Addressing journalists in Lagos last Monday, she said a few things out of sync with her brilliance and altruism. Defending her role as DG of the Yahaya Bello campaign, not to say her optimism about the relevance and qualification of the aspirant, she declared: “I am proud of GYB because of his development records in Kogi. This is a governor that is always looking for progress and the development of lives of his people. This is me, a Yoruba, supporting someone from North Central. There is no progress without demands; I lost my parents, though unfortunately, because Nigerians believed in them. I’ve been working with GYB for a while and I have seen that he has the courage and intelligence to deliver Nigeria.

“No, madam, GYB does not have the courage and intelligence to deliver anything, not himself, not Kogi, let alone Nigeria. And as to GYB looking for the progress and development of the lives of his people, nothing could be further from the truth. Mrs Abiola-Costello said a few more glamorous things about the aspirant, including his economic record. She exaggerated his credentials and capacity. The aspirant she described is completely alien to Kogi people. Kogites would like to meet such a man, real or fictional. Having ruled the state for about six years, GYB has proved nothing near what the director-general painted. She painted a myth; Kogites know a monstrous failure.”

Perhaps the Tinubu campaign can find a role befitting her enthusiasm, much more than a role recognising the grandiloquence of Mr Kalu. But surely both Mr Kalu and Mrs Abiola-Costello cannot claim they didn’t know their principals’ campaigns were doomed. The campaigns were doomed from the beginning, regardless of the secret promises they had received from Aso Villa power mongers, and the lips of the president they had claimed expertise in reading.

Owo massacre may inspire worse monstrosities

While the grief over the killing of some 40 worshippers at a church in Owo, Ondo State, was yet to be assuaged, other killings occurred in different parts of the country. It is predictable. Mass killings have become commonplace in Nigeria, some of them so horrendous that they seem to redefine bestiality. On the day (June 5) this column warned that the gory Anambra and Imo killings were likely to birth more monstrous killings, the Owo massacre occurred. It does not, therefore, require any special endowment to anticipate that the problem is far from over. The reason is not farfetched.

Nigeria’s law enforcement agencies are hopelessly antiquated, unable to serve the growing and complex needs of a nation of more than 200m people. Not only is the structure misshapen, the  system is also underfunded, and law enforcement agents are poorly trained, poorly equipped, unresponsive, inadequate and poorly managed. The agencies are also structured in a way that blinds them to the peculiar and differentiated needs of a nation consisting of, in reality, dozens of nations. The present law enforcement system is a product of misconceived political system and power configuration. Until these foundational paradigms are redefined and restructured, the country’s law enforcement system will continue to atrophy, with no solution to the killings.

Obviating further and perhaps more gruesome killings will require the altruism of responsive leadership. They are reluctant to honestly grapple with the problems now; but if they do not resolve them, the country will be exposed to worse cataclysm with all the attendant consequences for peace and stability.

After spending years advocating Igbo presidency, and briefly offering himself for that number one role, Orji Kalu, a former Abia State governor and currently chief whip of the Senate, abjured his political beliefs and has become the chief campaigner for a northern presidency, presumably eight years after a northerner occupied that position. He wants his friend and senate president Ahmad Lawan, a north-easterner, to pick the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential ticket. His argument is simple: “Congratulations to the PDP for electing a north-easterner. Nigerians must have seen what I saw yesterday. For our party, the APC, it is no longer feasible to talk about a southern candidate except the APC wants to go on political retirement. I urge the national chairman of the party and the entire NWC to stamp their feet and zone the APC presidential ticket to the Northeast. President Buhari has a right to choose his successor, and I call on him to pick Senator Ahmad Lawan as his successor. In every democratic setting, presidents and governors support and pick their successors.”

For a few dizzying months, south-eastern political and cultural leaders swore by Igbo presidency, insisting in some instances that any Igbo politician who took the running mate ticket would be regarded as a traitor. Senator Kalu was a strident voice for the Igbo project. Now, not only has the Southeast moderated its opposition to a northern politician securing the presidential ticket, the region has begun to be desperate for the running mate ticket to thwart the South-South’s push for the ticket. The Southeast will, however, face the dilemma of pushing for the junior ticket on both the APC platform and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) platform. It is unlikely they’ll have their cake and eat it.

But more critically is the questionable role politicians like Sen Kalu are playing in the unfolding 2023 game. The former Abia State governor’s politics over the years has been, to put it mildly, objectionable and unprincipled. He was never capable of taking a stand, let alone sticking to that stand for a considerable length of time. His idea of wheeling and dealing is not even as engaging as that term is; he actually trades in votes, prostitutes principles, and leaves his dwindling followers in the lurch every time he stands to gain something by flip-flopping. The Igbo know him well; and though he manages to raise his voice and make himself heard anytime there is an advantage to be had, few in the Southeast take him seriously.

As governor, he was undistinguished, leaving his state worse than he met it, and getting himself embroiled in all manner of malfeasances from which he is yet to extricate himself. Abians have a low opinion of him; the generality of the Igbo have an even lower opinion of him. But he does not care. He is convinced he can sell any product no matter how defective. At a time the Igbo have sought to raise their self-esteem by politicking for the presidency from a position of strength, Sen Kalu has valiantly worked to lower that self-esteem by advocating for Igbo subserviency. In his obtuse logic, if the Igbo could not win a fight, it was useless fighting it at all. To him they cannot win the presidency, and so it would be pointless fighting for the standard-bearer ticket.

His main argument for jettisoning the Igbo presidential project and backing Sen Lawan for the APC presidential ticket is simply because the PDP gave the ticket to a north-easterner, former vice president Atiku Abubakar. That logic is insane; but it is rife in the ruling party, and has obviously gained traction as party leaders prevaricate over the morality of keeping the presidency in the North for another eight years. In his statement declaring support for Sen Lawan, the former Abia governor painted a doomsday scenario of APC being sent into premature retirement should it give its ticket to any southerner. It is not clear why he thinks he can speak for the entire South. If his self-abnegating politics leads him to trade Igbo pride for a pittance, surely he must know that other parts of the South still possess, and would wish to retain, their self-pride.

Sen Kalu then caps his ignoble politicking with the abominable argument that President Muhammadu Buhari reserves the right to pick his successor. It is true that last week the president seemed to have asked a meeting of progressive governors to reserve that right for him, but Sen Kalu comes from a region wailing against marginalisation, alienation and even provocation orchestrated by quislings and other agents provocateurs killing and maiming in the Southeast. His political instincts, had they been well developed, should have prompted him into embracing at least the silhouette of democracy. That faint democratic instinct should have nurtured in him respect for proper democratic elections either in intraparty affairs or inter-party affairs. Sen Kalu, alas, is destitute of any democratic instinct.

In fact, his support for Sen Lawan and the northern presidential agenda is strictly speaking business. He and the senate president are close friends, some say, right from their University of Maiduguri undergraduate days; and so Sen Kalu elevates the narrow purviews of friendship and business above the existential struggles of his Igbo race. He can of course repudiate any respect and affection for the rest of the South, but to rubbish the Igbo cause with shallow and pedantic arguments about the ogre of PDP challenge betrays the little regard Abia and the Igbo people had for him, which made him a two-term governor.

Sen Kalu is of course not the only one who quickly abandoned the resolve of the Southeast to press for the presidential ticket as a right from the leading parties. Presidential aspirant Peter Obi himself shrunk from the challenge within the PDP and has scurried to the ineffective Labour Party. Worse, the region’s delegates to the PDP special convention also collectively repudiated the few Igbo aspirants left in the race, given them a collective 15 votes out of about 95. If south-easterners do not even have faith in their own advocacy, including the unprincipled Sen Kalu whose execrable politics remains incomparable, why should any outsider back them?

The Anambra murders

It is not difficult to explain why the country is in uproar over the gruesome and despicable murder in Anambra State of pregnant Harira Jibril and her four children, all of them from Adamawa State. But surely it cannot simply be because of their ethnic group or religion. Murderers and terrorists, with their twisted and unpredictable logic, often don’t discriminate. In any case, appalling murders and rights abuse have also been perpetrated elsewhere in the country, particularly in the Northeast and Northwest. The gruesome murder of a military couple, Gloria Matthew and Linus Andu, in Imo State weeks earlier and the Jibril murders are a logical progression from the unchecked murders elsewhere, either by Boko Haram, kidnappers, ritual killers or bandits, most of whom are known. Having failed to check the menace in the past, the problem has metastisised, become more vicious, and the country is probably doomed to witness many more horrendous massacres in the coming weeks and months, despite the threat by President Buhari to crack down.

It will be surprising should the federal government feign ignorance of the motivation for these south-eastern murders. Together with provocative cyber campaigns from other regions, including from the Southwest, there are now an army of agents provocateurs intent on setting the country ablaze. Had the Buhari administration nipped these problems in the bud, and properly situated the context in which these crimes were committed, mitigation would have been possible. Now, with an economy heading into a tailspin, an insurgency and banditry recrudescing wildly, all in an atmosphere of incompetent management of the politics of the nation and law enforcement, there seems to be no immediate hope that peace and stability would be restored. Too many criminals have tasted blood and liked it; they will get bolder in the months ahead, regardless of whatever the government does. Hopefully the murderers of the military couple and the Jibril family will be caught and brought to trial; but it will have little impact on a problem that is already replicating everywhere, for the criminals on rampage have sold their souls to the devil and don’t give a damn what happens next.

On May 19, while receiving Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential aspirant Mohammed HayatuDeen in Abeokuta, Ogun State, ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo, as is his custom, waxed profound about Nigeria’s existential struggles. Ignoring his own failings and the controversies that swirled around his politics and ethics as president, he drew a strong connection between leadership deficiencies and Nigeria’s instability and crises. And responding to his visitor’s opening remarks, Chief Obasanjo adumbrated four panaceas he believed were indispensable to the resolution of the country’s crises.

Quoting him extensively, he had said: “I will say four things, of which I was reminded this morning. One is knowledge. If Nigeria is not at the table, maybe the knowledge that we should have of ourselves, of our situation, of our continent, and, indeed, of the world is not that adequate. If that knowledge is adequate, we will do what is right, when it is right and how it is right.

“The second is vision. What is the vision that we have? And if you have no vision, you may have eyes, but you are blind. And I believe that is part of our situation.

“The third is passion. And when you said you are involved in this with a passion, and I was telling some people this morning that passion means madness; that you are mad about Nigeria. I am and I have no apologies for that; because I have no other country I can call my own and I have no other country I can go to and say, yes, I have come to live here. Passion means being mad about Nigeria, having a touch of madness and I look at you (Hayatu-Deen) and say, yes, you are mad about Nigeria, too.

“Fourth one is innovation. We cannot be doing the same thing that we have done in the past that did not pay us and continue to repeat it and expect any change. We have to move out of it, we have to innovate, we have to re-strategise. And you talk about security and people ask me about it and I say I know that we can put all insecurity in Nigeria behind us within a space of two years. That we have not done that or that we are still in the situation we are is a choice that has been made by our leaders, not the way God wants us to be.”

As galling as his self-righteousness is, Chief Obasanjo is right. In general, his analysis of the Nigerian condition is not exaggerated, nor even misdirected. His confident assertions give the impression that should he have the chance to lead Nigeria again, he would resolve all these knotty issues in two years. He may be right that the inability to resolve these issues is the choice of Nigeria’s leaders, but given his own antecedents, for example his 1999 Inauguration Day promise to resolve the power conundrum in a jiffy, his two-year deadline may be characteristically but unduly optimistic. Throughout his eight years in office, Chief Obasanjo was neither scientific in his approach to governance nor, despite his vaunted claims to being passionate about Nigeria, altruistic. Given the chance again, he would try of course, and his methods would be seen to be detribalised and nationalistic, far better than the current administration’s insular approach, but nothing in his methods or ‘madness’ bears out his confidence that he would succeed where others have failed.

And that leads to the controversial point which Chief Obasanjo asserted in his interaction with the visiting presidential contender. Mr HayatuDeen of course has no hope of clinching the ticket, not even by a long shot, but there is no doubt about his bona fides or intellect, or even of his noble intentions for Nigeria. Chief Obasanjo spoke of the ideal leader needing to possess a ‘touch of madness’ as a prerequisite for successful leadership. He didn’t misspeak of course; no, he usually never does, not even when he is far off the mark. But he also never accepts blame for anything, including those things that he deliberately and unethically botched, such as the manner he raised funds to build his presidential library where he is today ensconced in sybaritic lavishness and medieval contentment.

While adumbrating the problems Nigeria is immersed in, Chief Obasanjo spoke about the place of knowledge in finding a resolution. Here, knowledge must naturally presuppose not only scientific reasoning but also historical experience, yes, the same history he scoffed at during his first term in office. It is not clear, should this presupposition be right, that any touch of madness would be appropriate. What madness would resolve the country’s power supply conundrum when other lesser endowed nations and developed economies had resolved this same problem with a touch of science, methodicalness and appropriate investments? What touch of madness is required for any nation under siege by criminals and non-state actors, when devolved law enforcement and truly national security forces properly kitted and remunerated would be more than sufficient?

Where was any touch of madness when the founding fathers of the United States crafted their timeless constitution, which like many other great constitutions, was based on the great Bill of Rights derived from the Magna Carta of 1215. Perhaps a touch of madness would be needed to foment a revolution against colonial oppression, but solving existential problems like power crisis, economic woes, insurgency, and banditry, etc. should require, not madness, but methods. How many touches of madness would be required in a country should the same problems keep recurring? Was it touch of madness that helped China leap to a first world beginning from 1978-79? The touch of madness Chief Obasanjo referred to is a hangover of military methods, a needless and foolish recourse to extralegal measures to tackle often routine but sometimes complex problems, and counterproductive measures involving the abrogation of the rule of law. Where have such serial constitutional malfeasances, to which the people have sadly become acculturated, got Nigeria?

Fortunately, it was not Mr HayatuDeen who spoke about a touch of madness; he spoke only of his passion for Nigeria. The madness rhetoric came from Chief Obasanjo who, as always, is convinced, that his analysis is irrefutable. Well, regardless of what touches he thinks are appropriate for Nigeria, it will barely make a dent on the fundamentals of retooling the country. For eight years, he had the opportunity to use whatever touches caught his fancy; he flunked it. His lack of vision and discipline made him a part of the problem. His misrule and undemocratic practices – his so-called touch of madness – produced the ailing Umaru Yar’Adua as president; and that in turn led to the irresolute Goodluck Jonathan; which also out of popular revulsion and anger produced Muhammadu Buhari. Periodic madness got Nigeria only into a cul de sac; it is time to get a bold thinker, not a mad man, no matter how fleeting, into office.

Peter Obi and others like him

Despite his gleeful claims to parsimoniousness, there is nothing particularly remarkable about the style and politics of former Anambra State two-term governor and presidential aspirant, Peter Obi. His defection to the PDP after leaving office as governor was opportunistic, and was aimed at having a shot at the presidency in the years ahead. He deemed that year had come when he ran on the Abubakar Atiku ticket to contest the 2019 presidential election. This year, he had hoped to run for the presidency but seemed to have been thwarted by what he described as a gang-up against him in the PDP.

Mr Obi merely typifies aspirants whose ambitions will be thwarted by the illiberal atmosphere suffusing Nigerian democracy. The politicians are themselves not principled, as Mr Obi is showing, and will hop, step and jump to as many parties as their fancies and political expediencies can carry them. The public must be cautious in being carried away by the political umbrage the aspirants take. True Mr Obi will be frugal should he mount the throne, but even as Anambra governor, there was little remarkable about his government. Governance is after all not about just telling inspiring and humorous stories of frugality, especially when every other thing about the aspirant or candidate is jaded and uninspiring.

It is one of the galling realities of Northern Nigeria that it was not difficult to find lawyers to defend two men suspected of involvement in the lynching of Deborah Samuel, a 200-level student of Shehu Shagari College of Education, Sokoto. Not only was it easy to assemble lawyers almost spontaneously, it was also easy to find nearly three dozens of them led by a law lecturer at the Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto, Mansur Ibrahim, a professor. The two suspects, Bilyaminu Aliyu and Aminu Hukunci, need defence lawyers; but to find nearly three dozen lawyers eager to defend the suspected killers is a reflection of the ethical and moral miasma the region is enveloped in. The two accused were among dozens involved in the lynching of Miss Samuel, a lynching depressingly inspired and orchestrated by her fellow students over unsubstantiated allegations of blasphemy.

The murder has shockingly become a barometer of the mindset of northern elites. Apart from the high calibre defence team, some of them learned in the principles of law, other key northern officials ranging from serving bureaucrats to former government officials have shamelessly jumped to the defence of the killers. State commissioners, serving or retired, waffling former Nigerian leaders, Deputy Chief Imam of the Abuja Central Mosque, Ibrahim Maqari, a professor, and a host of notable individuals whom the society respected have joined the fray on the side of the killers. It became clear last week that the core North has vacillated very badly on the murder, cannot be persuaded to condemn the lynching, and prefers to quibble over the alleged blasphemy.

It is unclear why there is so much ambiguity on the lynching of the young student, or why there seems to be near unanimity of opinion in the North on the supposed guilt of Miss Samuel. Despite that confusion, what is even more important is why the supporters of the killers side with the extra-legal measures taken by the lynchers. First there was no consensus on the issue of blasphemy or the guilt of Miss Samuel. Yet, without recourse to the law or even the principles of Islamic jurisprudence, lynchers carried out an execution. The lynching and the complicity of a significant section of the Northern elite expose the ugly underbelly of the core North. It is an ugliness that has been long in maturing, but is now in full bloom. The lynchers and their supporting regional elite displayed ignorance of the law, not to say a visceral hatred of minorities, whether ethnic or religious. The consequent bifurcation of the core North and the religious and ethnic dichotomies which are its byproducts may eventually become the fuel that will conflagrate the region swarming with hordes of bitter, uneducated and unemployed youths.

It is inconceivable that only two people were involved in the murder of Miss Samuel. Dozens and dozens of gleeful and bloodthirsty rioters participated. To forestall their arrest and to cripple a possible police dragnet to haul the fleeing murderers before the law, a riot of indescribable proportion was organised to foil the attempt and prevent societal retribution. Such murder and lack of retribution are not without precedent in the region. If the madness is to end, the Sokoto State government, Nigerian Justice ministry, presidential aspirant and governor of the state Aminu Tambuwal, not to say the president himself, Muhammadu Buhari, have a chance to prove that such bloodthirstiness would not be tolerated on their watch. There are doubts that their denunciations of the crime committed on May 12 by the Sokoto mob were genuine and sever enough. But as tame as some thought the denunciations were, the relevant officials must have had time to reflect on the international disgrace the murder has brought upon Nigeria, not to say the ham-fisted and desultory manner the crime has been handled.

The murder was committed virtually in the presence of social media. Many of the faces seen on camera have not been arrested. It is not clear, given the riots that followed the arrest of two suspects, that the police will be eager to find the fleeing murderers. It would, however, be unwise to leave the assignment to local police. The crime calls for the deployment of federal police investigators, crack detectives who would brook no opposition. In addition, the trial of the arrested suspects should require the involvement of the Nigerian Justice ministry. This is the ministry’s opportunity to prove that the Nigerian constitution is above any religion, region or ethnic group. Given what is on the ground, local prosecutors are likely to make heavy weather of the trial, and will in view of local hostility find it difficult to prove the involvement of the two suspects. They will need external help. Indeed, defence lawyers will focus more on trying to prove a lack of evidence tying the suspects to the crime. But whether by incompetent investigations and prosecution or by clever defence by smart lawyers, exculpating the suspects will be interpreted as official connivance. That would be truly tragic.

Whether Sokoto State officials, northern elites and the federal government realise it or not, Miss Samuel’s lynching is capable of making ethnic and religious divisions in the country widen into a chasm as hate preachers and extremists begin to entrench themselves in state and federal governments. If decisive steps are not taken to find Miss Samuel’s killers and investigate and successfully prosecute a crime committed openly to the shame of the country and streamed live, more and more Nigerians may begin to lose hope in the unity and stability of Nigeria. Too many northern elites have demonstrated irresponsibility and shamelessness in this murder case, which they hide under the cover of blasphemy. Hopefully, Sokoto State and the federal government are sensitive enough to realise that sweeping this case under the carpet or handling it shoddily will have consequences.

Hafsat Abiola-Costello on Yahaya Bello

The Director-General of the Yahaya Bello Presidential Campaign Orgnisation, Hafsat Abiola-Costello, needs no introduction. Nor, going by the huge price her parents paid in their fight for democracy, does she need introduction to politics. She was born into it; and now, as DG of a campaign organisation, has the chance to prove her mettle. Whether Mr Bello, Governor of Kogi State, wins the nomination or not, Mrs Abiola-Costello has now cut her teeth in politics and will likely continue in it for a long time. It is ironic that she is doing it, as she observed, in North Central, not her native Southwest.

But addressing journalists in Lagos last Monday, she said a few things out of sync with her brilliance and altruism. Defending her role as DG of the Yahaya Bello campaign, not to say her optimism about the relevance and qualification of the aspirant, she declared: “I am proud of GYB because of his development records in Kogi. This is a governor that is always looking for progress and the development of lives of his people. This is me, a Yoruba, supporting someone from North Central. There is no progress without demands; I lost my parents, though unfortunately, because Nigerians believed in them. I’ve been working with GYB for a while and I have seen that he has the courage and intelligence to deliver Nigeria.”

No, madam, GYB does not have the courage and intelligence to deliver anything, not himself, not Kogi, let alone Nigeria. And as to GYB looking for the progress and development of the lives of his people, nothing could be further from the truth. Mrs Abiola-Costello said a few more glamorous things about the aspirant, including his economic record. She exaggerated his credentials and capacity. The aspirant she described is completely alien to Kogi people. They would like to meet such a man, real or fictional. Having ruled the state for about six years, GYB has proved nothing near what the director-general painted. She painted a myth; Kogites know a monstrous failure.

The core North is unlikely to subdue the controversies caused by its meddling in the nomination of presidential candidates. In the past few months, groups purporting to represent the North have issued statements or taken steps to influence the nomination of northern candidates for both the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). It is understandable why the groups have shown such keen interest. They may not be active members of the two parties, but their remorseless desire to retain power in the North seems to have united them. Though there are indications that their objective is also dividing them, that division, which often manifests in strident arguments over open primaries (direct and indirect) or consensus arrangements, is tenuous.

In about three weeks, the presidential primaries will hold. The northern elders, presuming to speak for the core North, are more interested in the nominations for the presidential position than the other primaries for the lower levels of elections. Cleverly, they have meddled more in the PDP than in the APC, hoping that once they get the opposition party to do their wish, the ruling party would face a dilemma. Chief among the northern groups speaking influentially on the presidential nominations is the Northern Elders Forum (NEF). About two weeks ago, NEF leaders disagreed sharply over their recommendations to the PDP to pick between two aspirants. There was, however, no disagreement on where the nominee would come from. They all agree he must be a northerner.

Former military head of state Ibrahim Babangida had asked NEF leader Ango Abdullahi, a professor, to chair a committee to streamline the nominations. The committee had returned a tie decision recommending Bauchi governor Bala Mohammed and former senate president Bukola Saraki for the PDP nomination. Not only did this obviously unpopular decision split the NEF in two, it also set the cat among the pigeons in the PDP presidential nomination race. Other aspirants who had initially gone along with the sifting process became livid, refusing both to acknowledge the legitimacy of the Prof Abdullahi committee as well as the presumptuous interference in PDP affairs by a group of individuals alien to and unrepresentative of the opposition party.

But if the northern elders can kill two birds with one stone, they will, and they may be succeeding beyond their wildest dreams in tilting the nomination in the PDP towards the core North. By now, Senator Saraki, despite his best efforts, knows that he is merely seeking significant relevance in the party, in case it wins the centre. But the nomination will not go to the Middle Belt except there is a seismic shift in the loyalty of their southern PDP compatriots. But if current projections hold true, and the South does not threaten to bolt from the party, the northern elders will pursue their regional interests with gusto. With Sen Saraki out of the way, and other southern aspirants browbeaten by northern intimidation and determination, the PDP will safely venture North in selecting their nominee. More, they might even cajole the APC to follow suit.

But the question the northern elders will have to answer, once their identities are known, is why a regional socio-cultural grouping should inspire and even take such far-reaching political decisions for a party that has national following. They will decline to provide an answer. They have obviously taken for granted that the core North should always decide for the rest of the country. Political parties often oblige them in the same manner the military indulged them for decades. That their objectives were and remain parochial, with sometimes religious undercurrents, does not dissuade them from imprinting their signatures on national policies.

Spokesman of NEF, Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, gave a poignant reason for the core North’s obtruding nature and politics. Politics, not to say democracy, he argued not too long ago, is a numbers game. The North, he aggregated with unparalleled presumption, has the numbers, and it will always deploy that force as it deems fit and will refuse to settle for less. Even though Nigeria’s electoral statistics show otherwise, the core North may be already accustomed to thinking it could by itself win any national election. That President Muhammadu Buhari tried three times to win the presidency on the strength of northern votes alone and failed thrice does not seem to inconvenience the wild assumptions of the elders. The core North has two geopolitical regions; if hypothetically the other four regions were to unite around a political party, they could also theoretically deny the core North the presidency in perpetuity.

Political parties undoubtedly need to court the regions, sometimes through their cultural and political elites, but to surrender their processes, as the PDP appears to be doing in respect of its presidential nomination, to social and ethnic champions may be counterproductive. Between 1999 and 2015, the party seemed to have transcended such limitations and pollutants. Now shaken by two defeats in a row and unsure how they would fare in the next, they are desperately clutching at regional and primordial straws. They take cold comfort in the fact that as they appear to be getting away with murder they might infect the vacillating ruling APC into the bargain. It is not clear how both parties will fare in the path they seem eager to take. If they regain their senses and let their internal processes and ideologies take primacy in their politics, they may save themselves and the country. If not, there is no telling what repercussions await everybody.

Ministers on partisan junkets

About five or six cabinet members of the Muhammadu Buhari administration have so far declared their interest in running for president or governor. Governorship aspirants have relinquished office as commissioners on the directive of their governors based on Sec. 84 (12) of the new Electoral Act. Their federal counterparts, citing the ongoing litigation over the enactment, and in particular the judgement by Justice Evelyn Anyadike of the Federal High Court, Umuahia, on March 18 declaring the controversial Sec. 84 (12) of the amended Act illegal, have refused to resign their appointments in order to run for office.

Chris Ngige (Labour), Chukwuemeka Nwajiuba (state, Education), Godswill Akpabio (Niger Delta), and Rotimi Amaechi (Transport) show interest in the presidency. A few more are rumoured to be interested, including, incredibly and unlawfully, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor Godwin Emefiele. Abubakar Malami (Justice) and possibly Isa Pantami (Communications) plus a few more are also said to be interested in running for governorship. The point is not how many they are, though this is disturbing enough and indicates what they had been up to as they pretended to give service to the Federal Republic, the point is how they are going about it.

Considering how many they are, it is worrisome that the president seems unbothered by the disruptions his ministers’ politicking would cause the work of government. It is unlikely he is restrained by the ongoing litigation on Sec. 84 of the Electoral Act. Perhaps he sees the one-month duration in which they would contest the primaries to be too short to affect the work of government. Or perhaps he is more worried by the necessity of having to appoint new ministers should the aspirants in his cabinet leave. Whatever his rationalisation, the president should see his ambitious ministers as truly disruptive of governance. They are already crisscrossing the country to fish for delegates; how could they concomitantly mind the affairs of government, whether it relates to abducted train passengers or striking Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU)?

The ministers do not have the public ethics required to resign honourably to pursue their ambitions. And the president won’t kick them out, invariably reflecting very badly on the quality and temperament of the current administration, and thus leaving Nigerians stranded and shortchanged. The ministers want to have their cakes and eat them. With the president looking askance, it is safe to surmise that, for Nigeria, this is a new low.