By Adekunle Ade-Adeleye

When a newspaper reported in early July that ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo would be forming a new political party and had scheduled a meeting for mid-July, it created a stir among Nigerians. The report also stated definitively that three ex-governors had already been appointed as coordinators. Last month, Chief Obasanjo was also reported to have written another letter to President Muhammadu Buhari excoriating him for poor governance. It turned out that some smart alec on social media had simply taken one of the ex-president’s previous letters and regurgitated it for a predetermined purpose. In the same vein, the party formation fantasy is a staple of the reportage on Chief Obasanjo. Clearly, despite the criticisms leveled against him, the former president still makes good news, helps newspapers to sell copy, and online media platforms to chalk up traffic.

But Chief Obasanjo was irate. He was not forming any party, he fumed; and though his doors remained open to all, he had no intention of returning to murky politics in the partisan sense. Said he: “In my part of the world, when you say goodnight in a place, you do not go back there and say good evening. The one who reported that (story) may need to visit Yaba Left. And those who believe it can believe that their mothers are men. I’m done with partisan politics, but by my position in Nigeria and in Africa and, without being immodest, indeed in the world, my door must be opened and it is open to any individual or group of individuals who want to seek my opinion, view or advice on any issue or matter and I will respond to the best of my ability, without being part of that individual or group.” It is not clear whether Chief Obasanjo dictated that part of his rebuttal that alluded to “Yaba Left”, a reference to the Psychiatric Hospital located in Yaba, Lagos. But his rural jocosity, even when he tackles serious political issues, cannot be doubted. Chief Obasanjo was saying in other words that the man who wrote the report published fiction and needed his head examined.

The former president insists he has taken a transcendental position on politics in Nigeria. His party, he says jocularly, is one that takes care of the welfare of Nigerians and responds to their yearning and challenges. In the rebuttal signed by his spokesman, Kehinde Akinyemi, he denounces any attempt to smuggle him back into partisan politics, seeing that he has now become a statesman. Chief Obasanjo has a reputation for hard work and passion for Nigeria. That he was, however, unable to bring those virtues to the service of lifting Nigeria to glorious heights neither invalidates his claim to loving the country nor indicates he was lying about his decision to stay off partisan politics. He may sound exhausted today, having had to address the same malignant issues over and over again, and age may also not be on his side, for he cannot summon as much energy at 84 as he did some 14 years ago when he left office after two terms as president. He must, however, be believed when he said partisan politics was no longer for him.

There is, however, one thing Chief Obadanjo has not come to terms with, and seems increasingly unlikely that he would grapple with now or in the years ahead as his night years flicker out. He was fortunate to be called upon, whether deservedly or not, to anchor the Fourth Republic, despite neither really being a politician nor a former leader whose exemplary legacy had called for an encore. Instead, he laid a wobbly foundation for the new democratic experience, not being a convinced democrat himself, and set such horrifying examples of leadership that all his successors, save perhaps the late Umaru Yar’Adua, aped him in far more inimical ways than he ever probably contemplated. His economic record was mixed, and his social engineering policies were contradictory and even injurious to the polity. It was his record on democracy that would have stood him out and set the country on an even keel, he as the fulcrum, and his successors as the balancing weights. But that was not to be.

Few ex-military men manage the transition to civil life with aplomb. Chief Obasanjo was not among the few. He did not of course go to the deplorable depth of subverting the judiciary on the scale the current administration has managed to do with so much panache, but he subverted the legislature, ruined his party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), in such a manner that has made recovery virtually impossible, and gradually etched into the executive branch psyche that the president should operate more like a monarch than an elected chief servant. The country is still grappling with the consequences of his imprudence today. And in the hands of an inept president, the combination of monarchical bearing plus subversion of key institutions and arms of government would become a lethal brew. This is why Nigerians keep looking in his direction, sometimes even faking the news, because his successors performed so woefully that he has begun to look and sound like the messiah of his fond, narcissistic bearing and imagination.

Chief Obasanjo will expire gradually. No writer or analyst can hurry the decay. Soon, the country will look beyond him, and his voice, not to say his admonitions, will no longer sound sonorous to their ears. President Buhari’s poor performance may have canonized Chief Obasanjo, but in reality he is only a tad better than his brother presidents. He has precious little else to give; and because governance has under the current administration been reduced to a sectional instrument for heinous attack on the idea of Nigeria, not many Nigerians will notice the jadedness of the Obasanjo phenomenon.

Fire service and firearms

Early July, the Ministry of Interior disclosed that the federal government would be initiating a legislative process to enable a unit of the Fire Service to carry arms. To be known as the Fire Police, this unit is expected to provide armed outer cordon during firefighting operations in order to curb the incessant attacks on operatives of the service in the line of duty. It is true there have been myriads of recorded attacks against firefighters, especially at a time of deteriorating security all over the country. During the EndSARS protests for instance, the fire service was disallowed in many instances from carrying out firefighting operations by armed hoodlums.

However, arming the Fire Service through the Fire Police is one more indication that the country is losing the battle to secure the nation. It will of course be out of place to expect the Service to study the reasons for such attacks and proffer solutions. The country as a whole has been unable to critically analyse the factors disposing the country to increasing insecurity, not to talk of finding the appropriate panaceas. If the country is remiss in constructing security architecture to police the nation, it would be a tall order to expect the Fire Service to do the job.

But if the instinctive response of the nation is to arm every public unit in order to secure its operational environment, there would be no end to the arming business. The country is still contending with constitutionally sanctioned law enforcement bodies which misuse firearms; to add one more would indeed be complicating. After all, the Road Safety Corps, which operates more widely and almost ubiquitously around the country, had unsuccessfully lobbied for decades to be allowed to carry firearms. If that request was declined, it is incomprehensible that the same government could be preparing to sponsor an executive bill to repeal the obsolete 1963 Fire Service Act to allow for the new realities.

By Adekunle Ade-Adeleye 

The interception of Nnamdi Kanu and the storming of Sunday Igboho’s mansion last week were clearly and deliberately orchestrated by the government’s security forces. These were not isolated or coincidental events. They show a determined effort by the government to stamp out any attempt towards separatism. Mr Kanu was brought in from abroad; it needed months of preparation to carry out. The assault on Mr Igboho’s house probably needed a week or two of planning, possibly more. Both events not only show the capacity of government to do so much damage and project state power, they also indicated very disturbingly the limited capacity of government to consult very widely before embarking on critical missions. This limited capacity has been a leitmotif of the current administration. It borders on naivety. The government spent so much time planning the two events; it is not clear that they spent as much time on, anticipating the fallout. For a multi-religious and multi-ethnic society, everything is not about force or the projection of state power.

The interception of Mr Kanu is certain to have its consequences, domestically and internationally. Questions are going to be asked concerning how the government pulled it off and whether it violated international and diplomatic rules. The county from where Mr Kanu was intercepted, when the whole story comes out, will experience some uproar, particularly if it is a democracy. Questions are going to be asked about whether Nigeria has extradition treaty with that country and what are the details of that treaty. Was the treaty respected to the letter, or was it abridged, or was it flagrantly violated? If there is suspicion that any diplomatic or extradition rule was violated, that country, if it is a democracy, will have it tough explaining to its electorate and cabinet. But if that country is like Nigeria where democracy has been severely abridged, then the questions may be stifled. Importantly too, because Mr Kanu holds a British passport, and is therefore a British citizen who is a victim of possibly a questionable extradition, the matter as to how Mr Kanu was intercepted is unlikely to die down any time soon. Nigeria may have ceased to be a robust democracy, it will be optimistic on its part to expect that other democracies are as eager to subvert their own rule of law and constitutional rule.

The assault on Mr Igboho’s house clearly yielded very little, despite the government’s rose-coloured narrative of the assault. From all indications, given the instability in the country and the total lack of security, Mr Igboho was not prepared to wage war on the state. He was prepared instead to defend himself to the death. The legality of the arms and ammunition allegedly found in his house is a different thing all together. What the government sought to do is not to prevent any ‘waging of war’ on the part of Mr Igboho; it was to take him out of circulation considering what he stood and still stands for. The manner in which the government executed the assault is going to raise speculations as to the motive of the administration. Questions are going to be asked about what is motivating the government: Is it Mr Igboho’s ‘war’ against herdsmen and other criminals making the Southwest countryside unsafe? Or is it the transformation of his campaign against herdsmen to his advocacy for secession that has troubled the administration? Mr Igboho was unwise not to have limited his campaign to restoring peace and tranquility to Southwest countryside. It would have remained a popular campaign, a campaign that would probably have stood the test of time. By making a detour to the highly politicised subject of secession, he entered the murky waters of politics.The  concensus that propelled his entrance into the consciousness of most south-westerners was unlikely, in the matter of secession, to sustain him throughout the region in particular and Nigeria as a whole. Up till now, there has been no concensus either in the Southwest or Nigeria as a whole as to the attractiveness or viability of secession. Mr Igboho should have restricted himself to his initial objective.

But regardless of Mr Igboho’s missteps, and not withstanding the government’s post-assault justifications, the midnight assault by the Department of State Service (DSS) cannot be justified in any way. The timing was hideous; and the style was gangster-like. Worse, questions will and should be asked as to the quality of intelligence available to the government. Already, many people suspect that the government was simply out to neutralise Mr Igboho. The scale of destruction levelled against Mr Igboho’s property, the controversy over looted money, and the killing of some people during the assault are bound to further exacerbate tension, not only in the Southwest, but in the country. More and more, people will begin to lose faith in the country.

The overall implication of the interception of Mr Kanu and the assault on Mr Igboho’s residence will be to worsen insecurity. Mr Kanu’s supporters will completely lose faith in the country they have been indoctrinated to hate. They will now see no reason to dialogue with the government; they will see the government more or less as an outlaw; and they will dismiss the government as one committed to their destruction. Mr Kanu himself can be trusted to exploit his trial. He will exploit it to the hilt. Mr Igboho is not the perfect embodiment of the  Southwest’s angst against insecurity in their countryside and highways. As imperfect as he is as a manifestation of regional anger against a government that seems to have no clue as to how to restore peace and security, the assault on him will not lessen regional grievances. It is even more likely that he and his supporters will go underground and have no other way to ventilate their animosity against a state that has proved incompetent to keep criminals at bay.

If the administration had been less pigheaded in approaching the issue of insecurity and alienation, they would have let Mr Kanu stay abroad, run his mouth as much as he wanted, while the government walked cautiously in undermining and counteracting his message. What Mr Igboho needed was not a brutal assault on his property, but a carefully cultivated message to restore hope and security in the Southwest. Neither Mr Kanu nor Mr Igboho was as popular as when their campaigns began; their messages were already wilting and needed only time. But since the government was not willing to wait or be disciplined in their approach, they have now demonstrated dangerous naivety in thinking that their approach will exterpate the grievances by the Southwest and Southeast against the state.

APC headquarters rechristening and Appeal Court oath fiasco

Just when Nigerians thought they had plumbed the depths of despair in their politics, something far worse comes from the sewers. Two Fridays ago, when the APC caretaker committee went to brief the president on what they had done with the two six-month extra time they had been given to rearrange the affair of a party that was not broken but had secured back-to-back poll victories, they baited him with the rechristening of their party headquarters in Abuja. It would henceforth be known as Muhammadu Buhari House, they announced. The president accepted the flattery, just as he strangely thought nothing of the unseemly decision by Transport minister Rotimi Amaechi to site the new Transportation University in Daura.

If you thought this was bad enough, you were in for a worse shock days later when, during the swearing in of new Court of Appeal justices, one of the justices, Olasumbo Goodluck, decided unilaterally and for reasons not unconnected with religion, to replace God in the oath with Allah. The Chief Justice of Nigeria compelled her to retake the oath. Was she trying to provoke another round of religious controversy by that heedless and unnecessary gambit? Did she not realize that such indiscretion could serve as a ground for some litigants to ask her to recuse herself from a case before her on the grounds that impartiality and neutrality could not be guaranteed?

By Adekunle Ade-Adeleye 

For about a decade, Nigerian diplomacy had been in the doldrums. Attempts at resurrecting and restoring it to its glorious 1970s era have either floundered or remained unconvincing. The past six years or so have been spectacularly excruciating. But uninspired by history and undeterred by six years of lethargy and a decade of failure, President Muhammadu Buhari made one more effort at giving Nigerian diplomacy a shot in the arm during the 59th Ordinary session of the Authority of Heads of State and Government of ECOWAS in Accra, Ghana, two Saturdays ago. Addressing the subject of the last Malian coup which saw the sacking of interim President Bah Ndaw and Prime Minister Moctar Ouane in late May, President Buhari asked ECOWAS leaders to sustain the pressure on the Malian military to compel coup leader Col Assimi Goita to respect the transition to civil rule timetable.

In August, Col Goita had also executed a coup that overthrew the elected but unpopular government of Boubacar Keita. Though ECOWAS imposed a regime of sanctions on the coup leaders, the approach was dilatory and feeble. Not only did the regional body negotiate a futile and shortsighted deal with Col Goita that saw him and his loyalists emplaced in the interim government, it also failed to sustain the pressure on the military or respond strongly and adequately when they struck again in May. Nigeria should have led the regional body in championing the cause of democracy, not just by appointing ex-president Goodluck Jonathan as negotiator/mediator, but also by inspiring the region by a most profound understanding of the principles of democracy. That, sadly, was not to be.

Said President Buhari, affecting to provide leadership undergirded by the right values and principles to the region: “While democracy continues to develop in our sub-region, recent events in Mali are sad reminders that vigilance remains a crucial imperative to protect people’s aspirations to freely choose the form of government they want. Pressures are needed to ensure that the transition process in Mali, which is half-way to its conclusion, is not aborted. A further slide in Mali could prove catastrophic to the Sub-region, considering that about half of that country is unfortunately under the grip of terrorists. I urge our organisation to remain engaged with all stakeholders in Mali through our astute Mediator, former President Goodluck Jonathan…” President Buhari is right to warn about the treacherous corner Mali has boxed itself into in the face of insurrection in the northern part of their country; but to affect to be a champion of democracy in the region when it has enthroned undemocratic practices back in Nigeria may be stretching credulity to its elastic limit. Nigeria is in the midst of enacting a law to criminalise media work and shackle the freedoms granted the people by the 1999 constitution. It routinely flouts court orders, and has embarked on serial self-help using its security and law enforcement agencies. It is not clear why not being a palladium of the rule of law itself it purports to champion same in Mali and elsewhere in the region.

Second, it is not clear why Nigerian diplomacy did not anticipate that by being soft on the August coup a worse infraction could occur in the not too distant future. Less than a year later, in May, as predicted, another coup occurred. Again, Col Goita has sworn himself in, and will in all likelihood stretch the transition beyond the accepted timeline. The foolish military in Mali hunger for power. And by also tolerating the disingenuous coup in Chad immediately Idris Deby senior was assassinated, it gave a sad signal to ambitious soldiers in the region to embark on adventures. It is too late now for the Buhari administration to offer the leadership the region desperately needs. The region is not fooled; they know that Nigeria is least qualified to teach them anything about democracy. The region will, therefore, have to fumble its way into democracy and the freedoms many developed countries already take for granted. Hoepfully, somehow, Mali will find a solution to its self-inflicted nightmare.

Presidency insults restructuring advocates

After many years of dithering over the relevance of restructuring, despite penning it in their manifesto, the All Progressives Congress (APC) government of Muhammadu Buhari has finally come out to declare those who advocate it as dangerous and naïve. Shockingly, a few days later, the presidency again announced that the president would assent to whatever constitutional amendments on restructuring the legislature agrees to. Obviously, the amendments will neither be far-reaching nor of use in stemming the dangerous slide to chaos.  For six unbroken years, the Buhari administration railed against restructuring, equating it with balkanization, questioning its definition, despising the understanding of the public on the subject, and denigrating ethnic nationalities who concluded that chaos was imminent on account of the country’s wobbly structure.

If restructuring advocates are dangerous, the administration is saying in other words that they are plotting treason or working towards the breakup of the country. Just for asking for a discussion on the clearly dysfunctional structure of the country, the administration declares them dangerous. And if they are also naïve, the conclusion may be that they are stupid and unlettered, or that they lack the gumption to understand the dynamics of the hegemonic hold the Buhari administration has coerced for his ethnic favourites.

The gravamen of both characterisations is that the Buhari administration has made up its mind, never mind the sterile work of the legislature, that no restructuring of any kind would be allowed. Worse, that the holders of power today would also engineer who takes over from them and ensure that such successors must never countenance the talk, let alone execution, of restructuring.

But if anybody is dangerous or naïve, it is the administration and the shadowy coterie of schemers in Abuja plotting to perpetuate power in the hands of a few. It won’t work; it has never worked. If the effort to restructure the country and put it on sound footing fails, the administration and its coterie will discover how difficult it is for a few to pacify the anger of many.

By Adekunle Ade-Adeleye 

In the ongoing war against banditry and other vicious crimes pockmarking Nigeria, the newly appointed Army spokesman, Brig.-Gen. Onyema Nwachukwu, dropped a pearl of wisdom to guide the restoration of peace in the country, particularly in the Northwest and Southeast. He does not dispute the role of the army in combating threats to the peace and progress of the country, nor does he suggest that the military establishment lacks the capacity to deal with the threats, no matter how complex. According to him, and referencing the banditry and security challenges laying the country waste, “…It is an indisputable and very well established fact that the sword or gun cannot alone provide the panacea to the complex and multifaceted security challenges that characterize today’s world. I must, therefore, make haste to say that the complex nature of these security challenges requires multi-disciplinary approach…”

It is unlikely that the Army spokesman spoke for himself alone. His view, as unusual as they were, may in fact be a summation of the prevailing wisdom in a military establishment that has had to deploy its assets and personnel to breaking point in combating banditry and all manner of crimes across Nigeria’s vast, untrammeled terrain. The deployments have met with mixed success, not to talk of constant migraine. But the pearl casually dropped by the Army spokesman, an orthodoxy that suffuses modern military institutions globally, may be somewhat alien to the current administration. Indeed his view about the limited efficacy of guns and swords to pacify internal restiveness is so sound that in other parts of the world it has become trite. The Nigerian Army will continue to deploy its assets in the face of festering banditry, because it understands its duty, in the words of Alfred Lord Tennyson, “not to reason why, but to do and die”. It will scarcely matter whether the order to charge at the enemy was well reasoned or whether the military had anything to do with the breakdown of law and order. Charge they must, at the enemy as defined by the civil authorities.

Two Thursdays ago, the country was in an uproar when President Muhammadu Buhari, after months of reticence, spoke about the lawlessness overwhelming the country. As many analysts noted, the president’s speech was not only reassuring because it indicated he was not as insensate as many had speculated, and refreshing too, it also finally settled the rumour that the president was not in charge of his administration. Yes, he is in charge, but still no one knows whether his views were original to him or whether they were distilled from the amorphous and indeterminate thoughts of his aides. That he finally spoke, however, was reassuring; but that he riled the people further was also frightening and disillusioning. Said the president on Arise TV two Thursdays ago while talking about the scourge of banditry: “The only one that initially overwhelmed me was the North West, but I can assure you, as we speak, those bandits are being brutally eliminated. We don’t intend to publicise this for security reasons.”

No one should expect the president to abandon his reliance on guns and swords as the perfect anodyne to banditry and separatism. It is instinctive to him to adopt that panacea, particularly because of his background and training. Indeed, judging from the gusto with which he disclosed what his military planned for the bandits, speaking of ‘brutal elimination’, there can be no doubt just how excessive his reliance on that strong-arm measure is. Similarly, if a little disturbingly cynical, he also talked of speaking to Southeast separatists “in the language they understand”, a dangerous reference to the use of force over a disagreement which a statesman could easily use clever methods and policies to disarm the troublemakers. But there is no telling where and when violence would end once it is triggered. This is why the higher responsibility to deescalate violence always rests on the government, especially when it has calibrated the cause of the trouble to be still within reach and amelioration.

After years of applying force to a problem with distinct socio-economic foundations and colorations, the army appears to suspect that they might have been applying the wrong solution to a problem that demands different responses. But once deployed, they are bound to obey orders. But if the problem becomes protracted, as banditry, insurgency and separatist agitations in Nigeria threaten to be or indeed have become, it may be time to see whether a better and deeper examination of the problems should not be attempted in order to find a more fitting solution. The army has suggested this new direction, even while still obeying orders; it is left to the political establishment, who should be more amenable to more civil and scientific approach to national challenges, to cotton on to the army’s extrapolations. That the political authority will change tack will depend on how open they are to reason, and how implacable they have not become in matters over which they claim a comparative advantage.

Femi Adesina at his abrasive worst

Presidential spokesman Femi Adesina is irredeemably excoriating. Last Thursday he wrote a Facebook piece that rebuked both ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo and human rights lawyer Femi Falana for their impatience with President Buhari. Said Mr Adesina: “And what of Olusegun Obasanjo, a civil war hero? Despite all that he has contributed to the current upheavals by his actions and inactions, words, and bile, he says it is idiotic to wish Nigeria disintegration now. Good. But let us put our money where our mouth is. Let Baba mind his thoughts and his language. Last Saturday, as Nigeria celebrated Democracy Day, some people wanted to stoke protests, riots, and destruction. Did the system allow it? Not at all. Should it have been allowed? Not when there is still law and order in the land. Only anarchists would set the country on fire in the name of Democracy Day protests. And it was sad, tragic, to hear some so-called activists asking the police to apologise to Nigerians for not folding their arms and allowing the country to go into a tailspin. Anarchists masquerading as activists.”

Mr Adesina is cantankerous in defending his principal. He is always at his abrasive worst when he does that. No one should think to reform him. It can’t be done. He is in suspended animation until the president leaves office. And like other spokesmen before him, he will snap out of his stupor only when he leaves Aso Villa, the metaphysical redoubt of which he is proud to be a habitué.

By Adekunle Ade-Adeleye 

Even though it is hard to explain why presidential spokesman Garba Shehu declared Nigeria safer in 2021 than in 2015, his assertion that the Southwest is the safest part of Nigeria is even harder to grasp. On the surface, the Southwest is indeed today the safest part of Nigeria; however, deep down, not only is whatever safety ascribed to it being rapidly eroded, the story and ranking of the region mask worrisome details of its presumed strengths and vulnerabilities. The region is not only exposed and its conditions fluid, its political, social and cultural values are also gradually being obliterated. Mr Shehu’s conclusions about Southwest’s safeness are specious and misconstrued. He did not offer reasons for that comparative safeness, nor, as he is wont, did he indicate what he thought of the durability of the region’s structures to withstand the stress that has sundered other geopolitical zones.

Mr Shehu gave his cursory safeness ranking on a Channels Television programme two Sundays ago. His view on the Southwest was, however, tangential to the main discussion; but it is weighty enough to require interrogation and expatiation which he declined to give. He had said: “As far as Boko Haram terrorism is concerned, Nigeria is a safer place today than it was when we took over power. New challenges have come up, farmers-herders clashes, and killings in the central sections of the country, much of these have been subdued. The problem of sabotage of oil installations in the South-South has been managed up to this point. Challenges of banditry, kidnappings have arisen in so many parts of the country, including the Southwest. Today, Southwest is perhaps the safest part of this country.”

Despite the shrinking space occupied by Boko Haram, it is untrue that Nigeria is safer today than it was in 2015. Insecurity, largely restricted to the Northeast axis before 2015, has gangrened to other parts of Nigeria, from North to South, without exception. Insurgency, banditry, kidnapping, armed robbery, ritual killing, cultism, etc have overtaken the country. No one, except presidential aides and probably cabinet members, thinks the country is more secure today, nor can any of them travel unprotected as they used to do.

That the Southwest is the safest part of Nigeria is no accident. The region is of course not safe to a global degree that would attract foreign or domestic investment. But, yes, the region enjoys a degree of safeness which the rest of the country would want to covet. Some of the factors that explain Southwest safeness are its economy, which is the most developed and innovative in the country; its secularism that enables its culture and religion to be differentiated from its criminal justice system and politics; its education which has reduced illiteracy; and to some extent its traditional values that have found ways of adapting and cohabiting with modernity without being assimilated, contorted or even completely destroyed by foreign influences and their retrogressive domestic parallels such as the tempered feudalism of the core North and the excessively and therefore stateless republicanism of the Southeast. In many ways, the Southwest has manifested a far better and larger understanding of the cultural and political miscegenation that probably accounts for the development, growth, modernisation and stability of China and Japan. The Southwest has kept its religions, and has sometimes even lapsed into syncretism; but it has, in tune with centuries of building and running empires, resolved to draw and sustain its secularist dividing lines in order not to hamstring the building of a modern society.

By sustaining its appetite for education, limiting birth rate in tune with global realities, accentuating its industrial drive to reduce its dependency on free lunch and the iniquitous fiscal arrangement that has bastardised and weakened the Nigerian government and political system, and promoting merit and value over and above religion in line with the secularism that has stood them well over the centuries, the Southwest has managed to keep up a semblance of stability in their region. Indeed, what is at the bottom of their self-determination campaign is not just the feral and atavistic behavior of herdsmen and a conniving federal government, as painful and unjustifiable as these are, but also their impatience with a national system that pollutes and retards their civilization and development.

But give the Southwest a few more years and it could easily regress to the national mean. Given the continuing erosion of the region’s political and ethical anchors, it has progressively produced less competent governors and lawmakers, and their elite have become inured to the challenges of building self-reliant economies, while displaying less resoluteness in combating insecurity or sustaining the secularism that has made their region blind to religion and tolerant of opposition. There are now groups in the Southwest who advocate Sharia without a corresponding appreciation of the harm and violence a conscious erosion of secularist principles does to any region’s body politic. At a time Saudi Arabia itself is inching away from theocracy, appalled by its corrosive effect on development, some south-westerners are toeing the Turkish line of swamping and corrupting their politics with the inherently divisive intrusions of religion.

It is not clear how the core North will regain the stability and innocence that beguiled the world in the 1960s and 70s, considering how heedlessly they are digging themselves into a hole worse than anyone thought possible, but Southwest leaders and political elite must consciously educate their people on the benefits of secularism if they wish to continue to enjoy the stability and growth that have made their region an oasis in a desert of crises and turmoil. For a region that has witnessed the diminution of religion in favour of development and stability, it is gradually being exposed to and is indeed highly susceptible to the unhealthy influence of religious politics from the core North. Deplorably, as the provocative statements of some south-westerners who have declared their opposition to self-determination in their region on the grounds of religion indicate, the region’s rampart against the cancerous intrusion of religion may have cracked already.

The Southwest states have a combined internally generated revenue that is in excess of four geopolitical zones put together. Prosperity, no matter how modest, has a salubrious effect on the polity and helps to temper and tame crisis and anarchy. The region provides and continues to expand economic opportunities, not just to south-westerners, but also to other people from the rest of Nigeria. Had the federal government been more proactive in unleashing the potentials of the region, the rate of economic development would have risen more sharply. But out of ignorance, Abuja has refused to restructure, foolishly prefers to depend on expropriating the resources of the Niger Delta and allocating them unfairly to other regions, and for decades has sustained a political system that is costly, cruel, disruptive, untenable and oppressive. The consequences are that poverty will increase, and as political leaders frolic with religion rather than build their states’ resource and economic base, they will correspondingly need to build a larger and more expensive security apparatus to tackle the inevitable anarchy.

Mr Shehu should know that the Southwest is not the safest part of Nigeria by accident or simply because the governors behaved responsibly. The factors predisposing the region to peace and stability are deeper and perhaps more nuanced than the presidential spokesman imagines. He does not have an influential voice in the presidency, and those who have are too immersed in power games and hegemonic ambitions to care about examining those factors. If against all odds they manage to learn a few lessons from the Southwest, and do not corrupt the region into adopting their cancerous way of life, they may yet produce new paradigms for national restoration and growth. But that’ll be the day!

By Adekunle Ade-Adeleye 

Barely 24 hours after parents of 20 abducted Greenfield University, Kaduna, students paid bandits a whopping N180m to resolve the stalemate, another set of abductions has taken place in Niger State. This time, some 136 pupils of Salihu Tanko Islamiyya School (or 156 by the bandits’ enumeration) were taken by another set of bandits who have named their price. The abductors want N110m, later raised to over N200m. Frustrated, angry and bitter, Sani Bello, the Niger State governor, has sworn not to negotiate or pay any ransom. He had probably reached the same point of detachment Kaduna State governor Nasir el-Rufai got to recently when the College of Forestry Mechanisation, Afaka, students were abducted by bandits and N800m ransom demanded. In the Kaduna case, the governor simply tuned off, refused to negotiate and showed only theatrical interest in any rescue attempt. Mr Bello, whose state competes ghoulishly with Kaduna in kidnapping, is also tuning off.

The Forestry Mechanisation students spent some 55 days in captivity, paying about N50m of the N500m demanded by the abductors. The abducted Greenfield University students spent about 38 days in captivity and paid anything between N150m and N180m. If parents decline payment of ransom – state governments have now reached the end of their tethers and are no longer negotiating or paying – kidnapping will probably cease altogether. But the problem is that while a government can afford to play ducks and drakes with the students’ feelings, parents cannot. The government has the constitutional duty to protect lives and property. When they fail, they can shrug their shoulders and saunter off into the sunset since it is not their children’s lives that are at risk. Those who care about their children will not only negotiate, they will pay ransom, even if it bankrupts them. Their children’s lives are invaluable to them in a way the government is unable to empathise.

So, where precisely does this leave Nigerians besieged by kidnappers and all manner of freelance bandits? Precisely nowhere. State governments, especially those not seeking reelection, can afford to be detached from the crisis; it is not clear that a governor seeking second term could abandon the problem and hope it would resolve itself once parents began to decline ransom payment. The state governments are of course right that ransom payment feeds the crime, and even gives it a catalyst on a proportion that staggers the imagination. But what is the solution? Mallam el-Rufai had infamously declared that should any of his wives or children be kidnapped, he would neither negotiate nor pay ransom. Instead, he would simply pray for those unfortunate relations to be accepted in heaven. This kind of opaque reasoning proceeds from the crass religionisation of public administration. If the state would not negotiate or pay ransom, and it is too ill-equipped and incompetent to muster a rescue, what happens to the abducted?

Declining to pay ransom, as beautiful and elegant as it seems as a policy, is not enough to deter kidnappers. What is paramount is that the abducted Nigerians be released unhurt, whether they are students or workers. If the government resents ransom payment and appreciates the futility of engaging in the buying and selling of human beings, it must concomitantly forestall the crime by either providing security against abductions or developing the expertise to mount rescue attempts with minimum collateral damage. To preclude ransom payment while clearly proving incapable of securing lives and property is both reckless and unacceptable. It is even irresponsible. The first duty of any government is the protection of lives and property. To fail in that cardinal responsibility is to delegitimise itself or make its occupation of State House ceremonial.

In all this, the federal government, which counterproductively retains a stranglehold on the security forces and law enforcement agencies, has kept eerily silent over the kidnapping crisis. First it began by threatening to deal ruthlessly with abductors, then it followed by paying condolence visits to families of those killed during abductions. Now, it does neither, preferring to keep quiet nearly all the time, or just play dumb. The national parliament, in their wisdom, is now determined to criminalise ransom payment, of course without criminalising the failure of government to secure lives and property. As this column argued a few weeks ago, it is clear that the parliament has been converted to observing the problem from the supply side. If parents disregard the pains they go through and the sleepless nights they endure as their children are brutalised and battered in captivity, they will regard any punishment levied against them with contempt. Any day, parental longing for abducted children trumps the punishment they might receive. Only an irresponsible country can ever countenance punishing grieving parents, not to talk of enacting laws to criminalise parental love.

There will be many more governors declining ransom payment, all of them taking a depressing cue from Mallam el-Rufai and Mr Bello. Such do-nothing governors will not be embarrassed by their failure to rescue the abducted children, with one of the governors last week even assuring the freed Greenfield University students that “the bitterness of the last few weeks…would set the backdrop for positive achievements in their (students) lives….” They will leave the pains and the efforts to parents whom they now abuse and want to criminalise. But if governors are frustrated, and the federal government is irresponsible, could parents of abducted children also fold their arms as the states and federal governments are doing, or bury their heads in the sand as well? Were politics to be rewarded or punished with votes the way it should naturally be during elections, the governors as well as the presidency would have long found an answer to the crisis. For now, they can snooze away the lazy days until the smug glow of self-importance is wiped off their faces by electoral shellacking.

Land flowing with bitterness and sadness

Last Thursday, ex-president Olsuegun Obasanjo remarked that instead of becoming a land flowing with milk and honey, Nigeria was, on account of bad leadership, flowing with bitterness and sadness. He is right, even if he is partly to blame. There is no part of Nigeria that is not unsettled by either poverty or crime of all categories, or worse, by various forms of insurgency. Not one. That bitterness is rife is undisputable. That Nigerians wear apprehensive and sad faces, is also not in doubt, except perhaps to presidential spokesmen.

Chief Obasanjo is idiosyncratically censorious. So, often, his person gets in the way of his intelligent observations. Speaking during a book presentation at his Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library, and using unimpeachable scriptural allusions, he drew a parallel between good leadership and development. Said he: “God has created Nigeria to be a land flowing with milk and honey, but due to leadership failure, the country is wallowing of crises and problems… Right now, it is a land flowing with bitterness and sadness. That is not what God wants this country to be…I believe that God has created Nigeria to lead the black race. That we are not doing is not because God has not given us all that we need to do it. It is because we have failed in leadership to do it and that have to be corrected. That is the fault of all of us.”

No one who looks at Nigeria would not suspect that it is this country’s manifest destiny to lead the black race. If the former president sensed it when he was in office for eight years, he did not give any indication that he did. Yet, he was a workaholic, and has had a significant impact on the country. However, those who came after him have been truly execrable. How could they not see, or at least get a glimpse, what the rest of the country, including the sanctimonious Chief Obasanjo, see?

By Adekunle Ade-Adeleye

When two-term governor of Ebonyi State David Umahi defected from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the All Progressives Congress (APC) in November 2020, the opposition PDP was unaccustomed to being spurned, let alone be capable of expressing the pain of rejection. On Thursday, the party suffered a similar blow when Cross River State governor Ben Ayade, another two-term PDP governor, defected to the ruling APC. He took along with him half of the state’s lawmakers. Again, the scorned opposition has kept a brave, quizzical face. Last year, responding to Mr Umahi’s defection, the PDP Board of Trustees (BoT) chairman, Walid Jubrin, had counseled his party to try to assuage feuding party leaders. Discussions, he admonished, would not hurt anyone. He has not yet spoken about the new blow, nor is it clear that PDP leaders and party chairman Uche Secondus have learnt anything from what is rising to be a gale.

Neither Mr Umahi nor Professor Ayade defected without first exhibiting their frustrations with their party. Whether those frustrations were tangible enough to trigger defection is not clear. But because they are both two-term governors, it is suspected that their decisions were probably prompted by post-2023 politics. As governors, they automatically become valuable to the APC, especially on account of the strong-arm politics Nigerians play during elections. By extrapolation, and regardless of their indifference to their losses, the PDP will be right to suspect that the defections of two governors would either complicate or weaken their chances in the next elections, particularly at the state level. But for the defectors to become assets on the scale envisaged by the APC, the ruling party will have to dexterously manage the complications certain to be introduced into the politics of their state chapters.

Last year, Sen Jubrin expressed some optimism about the fortunes of the PDP, notwithstanding the defection of Mr Umahi. He had said: “Today, the entire South-south zone belongs to the PDP. We are happy about it. In the same way, we must ensure that we do all that is necessary to listen to the Igbo and discuss with them as a family. It is not politically right to keep quiet, while other political parties are making overtures to them. They are humans and have interest to protect.” If he feared that the Ebonyi setback would be replicated less than a year later, he did not betray it. It was sufficient that he basked in the euphoria of keeping the entire South-South homogenously PDP. But the reasons given by Mr Umahi for his defection should have alarmed the party, particularly because no one could make head or tail of his arguments. It was like clutching at a straw, any straw. For a party that had done so well for Mr Umahi, it is hard to justify his complaints.

Mr Umahi rationalised his defection with circumlocutionary glee: “I want to clear the air that I never sought (for) PDP presidential ticket and I will not. So whoever said that I moved to APC because they refused to zone the ticket to me is being very mischievous.  Even if PDP promises somebody presidential ticket how does it work where over 8000 delegates will be voting?…There are a lot of qualified persons from Southeast. Some people say I was promised lots of things by the APC, there was no such discussion. APC never promised me any position; they never promised Southeast any position. However, I (use) this defection as a protest to injustice being done to Southeast by the PDP … It is absurd that since 1999 going to 2023, the Southeast will never be considered to run for presidency under the PDP.”

Prof Ayade’s defection also came with circumlocutionary ease. He claims that his state has been “reduced to want in body, spirit and in soul, and a state whose revenue and resources had been taken … and territorial boundaries … tampered with.” Then he argues that it is his “responsibility to re-link Cross River State to the centre.” Finally, leaving his audience flummoxed, he adds the clincher: “Having seen the commitment and the sincerity of Mr. President; having seen the progress made so far and the tension created by social media manipulation; and having recognised the issues and challenges in the state and nation; it is my responsibility as the leader of the people in Cross River State, to do the needful, to assist Mr. President to succeed.” It is pointless interrogating Mr Umahi’s excuses and Prof Ayade’s angst. They wanted a new political husband; now they have him. Let them enjoy their romp.

Their problem, it seems, is their former husband, the PDP. At the moment, the opposition party is virtually leaderless, and whatever goes for its ideology remains indistinguishable from that of the APC. Lacking in charisma, seduced by querulous governors like Rivers State’s Nyesom Wike, abandoned by its former presidential candidate Abubakar Atiku, unable to come to terms with its loss in the last presidential election, and chary of embarking on the soul-searching and purges needed to remould the party and ready it for the next elections, it is not surprising that some of its leading lights are jumping ship and clambering onto the decks of the equally decrepit APC ship whose tattered sail cannot fetch any wind. Perhaps next year the PDP will snap awake and hope that the talisman with which it mesmerized the electorate back in the day would prove potent again against the clumsy foot-dragging and ebbing legitimacy of the APC.

Of loans, ransom bill and ISWAP

Three quick takes. President Muhammadu Buhari has written to the National Assembly to ask for their approval for a $6.18bn (N2.3trn) loan to finance part of the N5.6trn 2021 budget deficit. They will oblige him; for apart from being supinely acquiescent to his wishes, by assenting the 2021 budget months ago, they also invariably committed themselves to whatever plans the government will propose to finance the deficit. By January 2021, Nigeria already owed close to $32bn, much of it procured in less than 15 years, with the current administration relying virtually on dizzying amount of loans to work its razzmatazz. They do not think of any other way to achieve anything except by loans, and they justify its ratio as a percentage of GDP as well as ignore every argument against what is building up into debt peonage. This burdensome point was roughly where Nigeria was in 2005 when ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo secured $18bn debt relief for the country.

Last Wednesday, the Senate began considering a bill to criminalise payment and receipt of ransom for the release of anyone abducted or kidnapped, imprisoned, and wrongfully confined. Sponsored by Ezenwa Francis Onyewuchi, the bill seeks to amend the Terrorism (Prevention) Act, 2013, and has scaled second reading. It is naturally silent on criminalising the government for failing to perform its most important and sacred function — the security and welfare of the people. The government has failed woefully in its responsibility to protect the people, and the victims, who do not have control of the security forces, are now to be criminalised for standing in the yawning gap created by an awkward government. Having read too much economics, the senate seeks to attack the problem of kidnapping from the supply side. It should instead seek to criminalise legislative folly.

Nigerians seem to be heaving a great sigh of relief that Boko Haram leader, Abubakar Shekau, has probably been done in by the rival Islamic State in West Africa Province (ISWAP), a feat the Nigerian military was unable to accomplish in about 12 years since Mohammed Yusuf, the founder of the sect, was murdered in custody. ISWAP is deadlier, more ideological, deliberately more refined, and infinitely more implacable. Not only did ISWAP unhorse its rival with vastly less ordnance than the Nigerian military boasts of, it also proved tactically adept in that bloodied region. Now, with the inconvenience of Boko Haram out of the way, the ISIS-backed, better funded, and well equipped ISWAP can focus on Nigeria. Nigerian political elite, some of whom have flirted foolishly with religious politics or theocracy for decades, are going to have the battle of their lives.

BY ADEKUNLE ADE-ADELEYE

Afraid that deadly Covid-19 variants might find their way into Nigeria – if they have not already done so in Osun and Edo States according to a report – Nigeria has reimposed restrictions akin to last year’s measures in order to avert the tragic Indian-scale recrudescence. The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has not confirmed the existence of the mutant Indian, Brazilian and Turkish variants, but preferring to err on the side of caution, it has revived measures put in place towards the end of last year. Curfews have been revived, religious centres are not to exceed 50 percent capacity, wearing of masks remain mandatory, gyms and recreational facilities remain shut, wedding receptions and parties should not exceed 50 people, and social distancing must be adhered to, among other measures.

At the best of times, as the Presidential Steering Committee on Covid-19 has indicated, compliance was only fairly satisfactory, and the law enforcement agencies have had a herculean time policing the measures. Consequently, after months of laxity and complacency, including a populace that had become indifferent, it will be difficult to reimpose these measures or guarantee satisfactory compliance.

There have been no reliable statistics of the economic losses sustained by Nigeria during past restrictions and lockdown, except of course the recession Nigeria slipped back into last year. That experience, assuming a fairly accurate picture of what happened could be painted, would have informed future measures and helped the government plan the policing of new restrictions. The country is just struggling out of a recession, while the recovery remains fragile, according to presidential economic advisers. Failure to synchronise the reimposed measures with the economic realities on ground might yet push the country into another recession or, worse, produce the social backlash that saw the country explode into a paroxysm of rage and violence. The society is already fraying at the edges because of the ubiquitousness of violent crimes such as kidnapping and insurgency, much of these caused by poverty and alienation. Adding another round of restrictions, with their dire economic implications, could give fillip to the seething revolt plaguing the country.

Policing last year’s restrictions and lockdown as well as relieving the economic pains they caused were inexpertly done, leading to widespread hunger and poverty. There were allegations that the reliefs were unprofessionally and incompetently distributed, with some critics even suggesting that they were skewed in favour of certain regions. There are no indications that lessons were learnt or that a review of the distribution of reliefs was attempted. No blames were apportioned, and no one was disciplined for inefficiency or incompetence. Not only is the country poorer now than it was last year, with anxiety being expressed over whether salaries of public workers would be paid in the coming months, nothing suggests that the country has planned for a reoccurrence of the pandemic nor put in place better and more coherent efforts to palliate the pains certain to proceed from new restrictions.

The problem is not that restrictions are uncalled for. They are necessary, if the Indian tragedy is to be averted. Indeed if the Indian Covid-19 crisis should be replicated in Nigeria, its fragile democracy and widespread discontent may just rend the national fabric. The government is, therefore, right to think futuristically about the pandemic, and to put anticipatory measures in place to prevent catastrophe. The problem, however, is that with a struggling economy that limits just how significantly the government can palliate the people’s distress, and with incompetent administrators saddled with distributing the palliatives, not to talk of the government’s inability to emplace plans that weave the measures, the economy, and social programmes together, Nigeria may again be poised on the brink of disaster. The reimposed restrictions may compound the people’s woes, worsen poverty, and encourage criminal ventures. Unable so far to stanch the flow of blood consequent upon insurgency and abductions, there is no proof that a worsening of crime would not lead to more anxiety and panic.

The restrictions are unavoidable; but the only way the nation’s increasingly numerous poor can tolerate the measures is to flout them and hope that the law enforcement agencies would execute nuanced policing that takes cognizance of reality. It is also urgent that the government should assemble tested administrators, without deference to parochial interests, to take charge of palliating the restrictions. There is no indication that the government intends to go beyond just announcing new restrictions. They should, if they are not to court disaster. It will be costly to assume that one way or the other, the people would cope. No, they are already pushed to the end of their tethers. They won’t cope, not because they don’t want to, but because they can’t. They lack the means to tolerate new measures.

Sadly, the country has boxed itself into a corner, seeing how horribly they are faced with many dilemmas at the same time. An Indian-scale pandemic tragedy will push the country over the precipice. Averting that implies that new restrictions must be put in place. But weighed down by a costly government inimical to peace and growth, the government has been unable to muster the resources to remedy or forestall the coming danger. And if they take the pandemic ham-fistedly, they may make the Indian-type tragedy inevitable. The government is in a bind. Their best hope is that current countermeasures to insurgency and kidnapping should succeed quickly, that the economy should sustain a steady recovery, that the law enforcement agencies be restrained in enforcing restrictions, and that the deadly Covid-19 variant meet its waterloo in Nigeria as it did last year.

Herdsmen rampage: juju to the rescue

No one can fail to notice the refuge ethnic activists have taken in juju (native black magic) in their fight against herdsmen rampage in many states in southern Nigeria. Before setting out to ward of the invasion of herdsmen, the activists visit local juju shrines, deck themselves in specially attires festooned with native accoutrements including cowries, miniature gourds, etc. The activists believe these would make them bullet-proof, enable them to command or hypnotise herdsmen to surrender their weapons, and generally strike fear into the hearts of the enemy and give victory in skirmishes with law enforcement agents. No one has established to what extent juju has proved efficacious in battle, despite fanciful stories of its potency.

Nigerian history is replete with storied charm usage by militias and even regular troops, and Christians and Muslims have not totally discountenanced its potency, sometimes even casting longing eyes at it. The ordinary Nigerian, partly based on oral tradition passed down to him, believes juju, reposes confidence in it, and recounts historical anecdotes of great battles in which powerful warlords and military commanders displayed versatility in appearing and disappearing at will or defying bullets. That history has now caught up with ethnic champions, with Yoruba activists like Sunday Igboho and his supporters proudly boasting of juju, recounting stories of lightning killing herds of cattle still engaged in open grazing, and the late Ikonso Don, an Eastern Nigeria Security Network (ESN) activist, posing for photographs in shrines.

Whether juju can stand the science of guns, RPGs, machine guns, artillery pieces, fighter jets’ strafing runs and bombing sorties remains to be seen. It also remains to be seen whether whenever science confronts juju, the outcome could ever be in doubt. The pre-colonial era is replete with wars where juju was deployed and rhapsodized. But it is often forgotten that the same juju proved impotent against the white man’s guns and tactics thus opening up the country to colonialism and reducing famous warlords decked with juju to jellies.