The Nation Newspaper

Category: Barometer

Defence Minister defends the indefensible

THE Minister of Defence, Mansur Dan-Ali, does not give too many interviews. But last Thursday, he was cornered by reporters as he emerged from a National Security Council (NSC) meeting at the Aso Villa in Abuja, and pinned down to about two main questions: why herdsmen attacks have been left virtually unchecked; and what motivates the killers. Reporters were quite clear whatever the Defence minister had to say would be of capital importance and probably offer a peep into the government’s mindset, particularly why it has proved puzzlingly incapable of stanching the flow of blood where the attacks have taken place. The minister’s answers, however, shocked the reporters, not just because of the elocutionary difficulties that accompanied his answers and often marked his public speeches, but principally because of their incredible inappropriateness.

Nigerians have the enterprising State House reporters to thank for gaining insight into the workings of the Defence minister’s mind, and insight into the mysterious minds of the country’s leaders and the obvious but shocking fact that the solutions to the herdsmen killings are either not anywhere in sight or have been coloured by strange and incomprehensible interferences. Perhaps confused by the insincere and colourful answers government officials continue to give to questions pertaining to the killings in Benue State, reporters felt obliged to ask the minister, who was expected to know, what factors were responsible for the crisis.

Apart from acknowledging that he emerged from the NSC meeting with the president, the minister suggested that remote and immediate causes explained the crisis. There the wonders began. On remote causes, he blamed the constriction of grazing routes over the years, due, it seems, to economic and demographic changes, but shocked reporters by suggesting the inevitability of the clashes. He spoke nothing about the antiquated mode of cattle rearing and the need to modernise dairy farming. Hear him: ” Since Independence, we know there used to be a route whereby these cattle rearers use. Cattle rearers are all over the nation. You go to Bayelsa, you see them; you go to Ogun, you see them. If those routes are blocked, what happens? These people are Nigerians; it’s just like you going to block river or shoreline, does that make sense to you?”

Luckily the Defence minister was honest with his answers which betrayed where his sentiments lie, not to talk of admitting that the offended herdsmen are Nigerians, not foreigners. But reporters were to receive a much bigger shock. Explaining the immediate causes of the clashes, the minister suggested as follows: “But what are the immediate causes? It is the grazing law. These people are Nigerians, we must learn to live together with each other, that is basic. Communities and other people must learn how to accept foreigners within their enclave, finish!” English can be a very problematic language, sometimes amplifying meanings quite unintended by the speaker. It was, however, clear that the minister was impatient with what appeared to him as public bias against the herdsmen. His impetuous answers demonstrate how easy it is to goad a minister into betraying his innermost sentiments.

From all indications, those sentiments are unpleasant to the ears. And coming a few days after the president himself begged farmers to accommodate their herdsmen countrymen in the name of God, the country is assaulted by how dangerously narrow the perspectives of the federal government have become on the crisis. With a security council that does not mirror all shades of opinions and cultures, not to say have the capacity to understand production systems, it is not difficult to see why it seems the government is more concerned about the safety and survival of the herdsmen than anything else. Worse, it does not appear as if the government has ever fully discussed all points of view on the causes of the clashes and the solutions. Officials merely reinforce one another’s jaded arguments.

The Defence minister’s point of view tallies with the president’s. Both apparently see the clashes as communal, as the Inspector-General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, first suggested before he was forced to recant, and as the Defence minister has now reiterated. This is why the anomaly and impracticability of establishing grazing colonies all over the country do not strike them in the face. This is why they are indeed surprised that many Nigerians, and particularly the news media, put too much emphasis on the killings. And this is why it must be bewildering to the public that the country’s Defence minister finds it difficult to see the contradictions in blaming anti-open grazing laws for killings that began before the laws were made.

No one can estimate how many deeply disappointed Nigerians continue to ponder the shameful and contradictory responses those entrusted with power over the country give to the crisis. First, they suggest that the killers were foreigners, not Nigerians. But no one bothered to explain why foreigners would be so embittered by Nigeria’s domestic policies to levy war against the country, nor why, since the authorities knew the identity of the killers, they were nevertheless reluctant to take the fight to the invaders. Today, the far-fetched suggestion is that the Benue killings were orchestrated by Islamic State in West Africa (ISWA) militants. Second, there was also the suggestion that what was taking place was a clash of militias. Yet, no government official has volunteered proof regarding which militia is the aggressor and which militia is defending their lands. Sadly, the government which should help navigate a way out of the crisis is either paralysed or has proved spectacularly incompetent. Third, after spending months ignoring the killings that predated the anti-open grazing laws, and after being tongue-tied over killings in states where those laws do not exist, the government now bizarrely blames laws enacted in response to the clashes and killings.

Until the government finds the depth of knowledge needed to appreciate the factors predisposing the country to farmers/herdsmen clashes, and develops the requisite impartiality needed to sustain the integrity and independence which the constitution demands of them, they will simply make a mess of the problem, divide the country further, and banish the peace required for long-term development. It is troubling that no one in government seems to know the right thing to do, and those who do, lack the courage to make their voices heard. The country is thus virtually divided into two on this matter, and the divisions are ossifying because the government is either complicit or incompetent.

January 28, 2018
Senate’s discordant tunes on Benue killings

QUITE appropriately, the highest legislative body in the country, the Senate, last Tuesday debated the killings perpetrated by herdsmen in some parts of the country, particularly Benue State. The debates were however desultory, emotional and shockingly inadequate. If Nigeria is distressed today, it is not just because the executive branch has proved, as is well known, incompetent in dealing with the huge challenges besetting the country, it is also because the legislature is polemically unable to rise up intellectually to the level of sensibly grappling with the complexities and depth of those challenges.

Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu, in his contributions on the floor of the Senate, believes that the best remedy is to get the federal government to declare a state of emergency in all parts of the country, deploy troops, and support the decision with the appropriate laws. This, he thinks, will curb both the killings and lawlessness orchestrated in nearly all parts of the country as well as guarantee peace. If this was not laughable enough, another senator, a former governor of Kebbi State, Adamu Aliero, incredibly argues that it is necessary to exhume the atrocious and insensitive grazing reserves bill sponsored by another senator and former governor of Kano State, Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, which mandated the federal government to all but expropriate portions of land from all parts of the country and turn them into grazing reserves for the herdsmen. The grazing reserves, says Senator Aliero, is another name for grazing colonies.

To be sure, there were many counterpoints to these insensitive submissions, including those of Senators Samuel Anyanwu and former senate president David Mark who both argue that the problem is either caused or encouraged by failure of intelligence, or that it is arrogant and insulting for the government to begin to expropriate land on behalf of private businessmen. There was also the submission by the radical and fiery Senator Shehu Sani which lays the blame for the government’s impotence squarely at the doorstep of the president. The president must wake up and protect the country, he says firmly.

But perhaps the most discordant of the tunes coming from the Senate was one of the resolutions from the debate, suggesting that the police be given two weeks deadline to fish out the perpetrators of the January 1, 2018 killings in which about 73 people lost their lives and were buried in a mass funeral ceremony two Thursdays ago. Police spokesman, Jimoh Moshood, confidently responded that the law enforcement agencies would make progress even before the two-week ultimatum expired. But both the giver of the ultimatum and the receiver are unrealistic. The problem is doubtless an urgent one, and it is appropriate that the security agencies make expeditious progress; but to put a timeline on the apprehension of criminals, especially in view of the powerful and untouchable individuals who have indirectly claimed responsibility for the killings, is to cajole a police establishment notorious for false arrests to work from the answer to the question.

The executive arm has been strangely reticent and incoherent, even sometimes caterwauling about God’s role in the whole brouhaha. The legislative arm wades in with a fiercely and copiously dissonant argument that badly mocks its claims of ratiocinative brilliance. The judiciary, for reasons everyone knows, but which the government pretends to be ignorant of, has not always moderated the fights between farmers and herdsmen with the juridical promptness and finesse expected of them. And now, with a security apparatus firmly locked in the hands of uninspiring and insular individuals, many of them ethnic jingoists, the country cannot dare to expect more than a superficial handling of the crisis.

Between the incoherent executive and dissonant legislature, not to talk of the despondent judiciary and insular security agencies, it is doubtful whether the bloody herdsmen/farmers crisis can be tackled with the clarity and promptness that conduce to peace, development and stability. There is nothing that has been said or done so far to give hope that the political atmosphere, not to say the future entirely, is as clement as the ruling party projected in its winning manifesto.

January 21, 2018
Between Ministry of Loneliness and Ministry of Happiness

WHEN the Prime Minister of Britain, Theresa May, announced the creation of a Ministry of Loneliness, a first in the developed world, it was bound to attract derision from Nigerians who had only recently exhausted themselves lampooning the Imo State governor, Rochas Okorocha, for creating a similarly farcical Ministry of Happiness. For weeks, Nigerians from Imo State and elsewhere rained cruel comments and ridicule upon Mr Okorocha, wondering why he thought ministering to an abstraction like happiness that is normally difficult to measure, should be his priority. They queried whether a gainfully employed person earning living wage would not naturally be inclined to happiness unlike someone who is unemployed. Nigerians and Imolites then concluded that had Mr Okorocha set his priorities well, he would have known that happiness is normally predicated on other practical and tangible things which existing ministries could tackle.

Now, with the news coming from Britain, Mr Okorocha will feel elated and vindicated. Even though loneliness is to a large extent more measurable than happiness, at least considering the effects of the former on the individual, the Imo governor will give the impression his quest for dangerous and useless abstractions has remarkably inspired an equally dangerous and useless abstraction in foreign lands. Nigerians should henceforth expect huge and expansive exultation from Mr Okorocha, not only now, but long after his melodramatic reign.

Mrs May’s Loneliness ministry is anchored on the supposition, backed by research as reported by the New York Times, that “more than nine million people in Britain often or always feel lonely.” The British prime minister therefore swore to confront a ‘modern reality’ that has constituted a challenge to so many people, a reality she fears is far worse for health than some of the common addictions known to Britons. She has designated a minister to head the ministry, and she is a woman like Mr Okorocha’s Happiness commissioner. Irrespective of Britain’s bureaucratic stability, there is nothing to indicate this new ministry will endure. In Imo State, the Happiness ministry will hardly survive the next government, even if the ruling party in that state should produce Mr Okorocha’s successor.

Loneliness and happiness are two sides of a coin. A happy person is unlikely to be lonely, and vice versa. To that extent, Mr Okorocha and Mrs May may be said to have actually done the same thing and looked at the same problem from different prisms. Only this time, Mr Okorocha has the distinguished honour of originating a local ‘solution’ with an international flavour. Who says a prophet is not without honour except in his own country? even if that honour is dubious and meretricious.

January 21, 2018
Govt at sixes and sevens over herdsmen

IF any Nigerian has tried to make sense of the federal government’s policies on herdsmen/farmers clash, he will by now be certain that no such policies exist, nor has one been really conceived. If the federal government itself thought it had a policy or policies in respect of the crisis and its resolution, its contradictory and nebulous statements on ranching and cattle colonies give the government away as extremely and deliberately dilatory. What seems to be at play is that the federal government has a soft spot for the herdsmen and has sought to find a policy mix that will favour them without offhandedly offending the rest of the country. It is safe to say that the government is clumsily walking a tightrope.

Last Monday’s security meeting in Abuja attended by about two ministers and some six governors is the clearest evidence of the federal government’s confusion and lack of sincerity. At the meeting designed to find strategies to end the crisis were the Interior minister, Abdulrahman Danbazzau, Agriculture minister, Audu Ogbeh, and the governors of Kaduna, Nasarawa, Benue, Niger, Taraba and Adamawa states. It is instructive that in one short six-hour meeting, the government managed to send contradictory signals to a distressed and agitated public.

Before the meeting, the Agriculture minister, who should clearly know the mind of the government, disclosed to reporters that the federal government had decided to set up cattle colonies on 5,000 hectares of land where herdsmen would live and tend their livestock. He added that security and other infrastructure would be provided for the herdsmen. According to him, “We are planning a programme called cattle colonies not ranches, but colonies where at least 5, 000 hectares of land would be made available, adequate water, adequate pasture would be made available. We also want to stop herdsmen from roaming about; the culture of cattle roaming about will be stopped. The cattle will be provided with water and adequate security by the rangers, adequate pasture, milk collection, even security against rustlers to enable them to lead a normal life. This has been done elsewhere in India, Ethiopia and even Brazil.”

Mr Ogbeh justified this investment on the grounds that for over 50 years, the government had similarly invested in farmers and brought them up to speed in modern farming culture and management. He argued that the government’s lack of investment in the cattle business probably triggered the violence the country was witnessing. It is unclear whether he felt the killings were a justifiable vent for the herdsmen’s pent-up frustrations, for he said nothing about the tragedy of the killings in his own home state. The Monday meeting was held at the instance of the Interior minister who has apparently embraced the red herring of linking crimes and violent conflicts with electoral violence, implying that the country could be witnessing nothing but indeterminate crimes. He did not expressly talk about the bitter struggle for farm lands and pastures.

However, after the meeting, the Benue State governor, Samuel Ortom, and Taraba State governor, Darius Ishaku, addressed the press on the communiqué and told a totally different story, almost as if two meetings actually held on the same day at the same venue, and at the same hour. Hear Mr Ortom: “The meeting noted that all animal farmers must ranch their cattle and livestock for better productivity. It also observed the existing synergy between the security agencies and between the states and the Federal Government.” Either they used the words ‘colonies and ranches’ interchangeably or, given what the country already knows about the situation in Benue and Taraba, not to talk of their anti-open grazing laws, the communiqué was clear in differentiating between the two terms.

Some two days later, while addressing the press on the outcome of the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting, the Information minister, Lai Mohammed, gave his opinion on the herdsmen crisis. According to him, “What I can assure you is that the government is very, very concerned about the herdsmen and farmers clashes, and it is receiving attention at the highest level. And as to if troops will be sent, it will be a decision after thorough deliberation on the matter…I’m not an agricultural expert. I know that a colony is much bigger in nature than the ranch.” It was obvious that the FEC did not really discuss the Benue crisis and herdsmen attacks, nor did they attempt to formulate the difference between cattle colonies and ranching. In short, if Mr Ogbeh spoke of cattle colonies, he was speaking for himself or simply flying a kite. And if Mr Mohammed explained the difference between ranching and cattle colonies, he was simply being true to himself when he confessed he was not an expert in that field.

Indeed, it was not until a few more days after the first meeting that Mr Lalong visited the Agriculture minister in Abuja to seek clarification over the cattle colonies matter. The minister happily obliged. Said Mr Ogbeh: “Ranching is more of an individual venture for those who want to invest, but cattle colony is bigger in scope and size. It is going to be done in partnership with states government who wish to be part of it. Already 16 states have volunteered land. Nobody is going to seize land from any community for the project…Cattle colony is not using Fulani herdsmen to colonize any state. It is going to be done in partnerships with state governments that would like to volunteer land for it. Federal government will fund the project and those wishing to benefit from it will pay some fees.”

Perhaps sometime in the future, he will address why herdsmen either want the government to pave way for their private businesses or claim the right to make way for themselves by force, including seeking to violently abrogate states grazing laws.

But what the country needs is for FEC to continue to discuss the herdsmen killings at its Wednesday meetings until the matter is resolved, and to also give the country a very clear and precise idea of what it intends to do, whether to ranch or set up colonies. They, however, seem undecided, as the divergence between the Agriculture minister’s view on the one hand suggests, and the communiqué read by Messrs Ortom and Ishaku on the other hand indicated. Surely, there are better and more precise ways to run a country.

January 14, 2018
Buhari/Osinbajo campaign office and Minister Shittu

IN an interview he gave State House correspondents last Wednesday after meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari, the Minister of Communications, Adebayo Shittu, virtually confirmed that the president might seek re-election, considering his sterling achievements since he assumed office. The minister also told reporters that he had been appointed to lead a group dedicated for that purpose. He did not say who appointed him. Even though he tried to be diplomatic by suggesting that the president himself was yet to indicate his interest in contesting the 2019 presidential poll, it was clear from the minister’s words that that decision was already made. It was really never in doubt that the president would be seeking a second term; now it is all but certain, regardless of presidential spokesman Femi Adesina’s hemming and hawing on New Year’s Eve indicating that the president had not yet committed himself to running.

The president is of course entitled to seek a second term, whether his first term was glittering or not. Alhaji Shittu, whose political association with the president predates the All Progressives Congress (APC), can also of course offer his support and loyalty to anyone he wishes. But it is not clear that his excitement and hyperbolic statements do not border on the sycophantic. According to Alhaji Shittu, who by the way wants to be governor of Oyo State next year, “It goes without saying; if you have a child who goes to a primary school and he does well; he proceeds to a secondary school and he does well, and you keep asking if he will be going to university. It goes without saying. By the grace of God, we, his (Buhari’s) ardent supporters who appreciate his worth on behalf of millions of Nigerians, would urge him to re-contest. I know he has not made up his mind, but I can say some of us can assist him in making up his mind so that Nigeria can continue to enjoy stability and progress in our land.”

If the president has not made up his mind, or in the words of his spokesman, Mr Adesina, has not said anything relating to that goal, is he simply being cautious or diplomatic, or is he really unsure whether he has the zeal and stomach to scheme for a second term? If, as the Communications minister said, it would take the pressures of his friends to help the president make up his mind, is there not something terribly amiss about such a conviction? The ambitions of past Nigerian leaders were generally predicated, not on their own personal convictions, ideas and zeal to affect the lives of Nigerians for the better, but on the persuasions of their friends, aides and supporters. Nigerians would love their presidents to own their ambitions, to determine whether they had enough fire in their bellies for leadership, and to boldly disclose how far they were willing to go in seeking public office.

The Communications minister spoke excitedly about the president’s qualities, including his achievements since assuming office in 2015, indicating that he had amply justified his re-election bid. Hear the minister: “Every day, since he (Buhari) came into office, all his activities are geared towards letting Nigerians know that they have a saviour, a rescuer, somebody who is committed to providing relief for Nigerians in all respects, in the area of fighting corruption, insurgency whether in the North-East or the Niger Delta; in the area of repairing the economy and providing jobs and providing social stability in the society.” But it is hardly helpful that he spoke exaggeratedly and apocalyptically about what would have befallen the country had President Buhari not assumed office in 2015. “You will agree with me,” he deadpanned, “that today, but for Buhari, Boko Haram would have invaded even Lagos.” Ha!

When he is not engendering distorted scenarios, Alhaji Shittu is naturally hyperbolic. He is one of the few long-standing associates of the president to be rewarded with a ministerial office. It would defame his character to say that he does not merit the promotion, but his long years of seeking public office cannot be said not to sometimes colour his perceptions in ways that are difficult to defend. He is much taken to the president, and he will say or do anything to water that ground. But even in his excessive adulation, and notwithstanding the president’s personal zeal and talent, the minister must in his private reflections wonder whether his proclivity for getting ahead of himself in mouthing sweet words does not give an awful interpretation of his image as a doting loyalist.

January 7, 2018
Army’s needless extortion probe

IN their response to a Twitter post last week alleging extortion against some soldiers at a few checkpoints in Borno State, the military has ordered a probe to unearth the truth. The allegations on social media had indicated that some military escorts demanded about N300,000 from every truck seeking safe passage through the Maiduguri-Gamboru-Ngala road that had become a Boko Haram gauntlet. Protesting that soldiers were professionals who “thrived on discipline, selflessness and dedication to duty and operate within the confines of the law”, the army chief suggested that such unbecoming behaviour was intolerable and would be investigated to ascertain the truth.

What the army chief, Lt.-Gen. Tukur Buratai, should have done is not to announce an open investigation, but to discretely order a sting operation. The army would be lucky to establish the truth after going public prematurely. Had the army posted a few soldiers to accompany the trucks incognito through the gauntlet, it is doubtful whether the falsity or otherwise of the said Twitter posts would not be established. They call it the element of surprise. Now that that element of surprise is lost, the army should brace itself up for some compromised ‘truth’.

The army would of course like to be seen as working hard and responding to public complaints. But it is hard to see how this public show of responding to anomalies would be of any help in sanitising the operations of the military along those dangerous corridors. The public would have expected the army to privately investigate the allegations, establish the facts of the case, court martial offenders, if any, and then let the public know all the steps they took to respond to the allegations.

January 7, 2018
Thanking God for small mercies

SOME weeks ago, the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) published a notice on impersonation and restitution cases involving some 34 holders of the Council’s certificates. Some 26 of them were involved in impersonation cases while the rest were involved in restitution. This is what WAEC says of the 34 whose names and exam numbers were published in the newspapers: “The candidates listed below have made confessional statements to the effect that they were impersonated and/or involved in one form of malpractice or the other in the examinations indicated against their examination numbers. Certificates/Results Slips of these candidates have been returned to the Council.” The Council concluded the advertisement, saying: “The general public is hereby notified that the Council has cancelled the results of each of the candidates listed above and their certificates have been withdrawn.”

It was not the first time WAEC would take such extraordinary measures against self-confessed cheats, and there have been quite some interesting cases of candidates who came forward with their confessions, restituted certificates improperly procured, and started afresh, in the words of one of them, to rebuild his life on a surer, moral foundation. It takes enormous courage to come forward, let alone publicly, to denounce one’s inglorious past and strike boldly but uncertainly into the future. The puzzle which those who embarked on restitution would always want answers to, assuming they do not drape the matter in religion and repose hope in celestial intervention and reward for injurious right-doing, is whether such confessions would not dog them for life. Although the United States seems now to be bucking the trend, it is really difficult, if not impossible, in some countries to find a reformed thief or exam cheat assuming the presidency of a country.

As difficult as it is to confess to dishonesty and follow it up with restitution, it is even more difficult to confess and do restitution in personal relationships. How does a person confess to having cheated his best friend, probably made a cuckold out of him to the bargain, and as some clerics have even done, taken over the unfortunate victim’s family, lock, stock, and barrel? And among humans, when even the mere hint of suspicion of adultery is enough to trigger very diabolic responses, including acid attack, second-degree murder citing diminished responsibility, how does a partner face his or her spouse and confess, let alone find a convoluted way of restitution? Indeed, how does anyone restitute spousal dishonesty?

But it is not only in personal relationships that confessions and restitutions encounter difficulties and sometimes assume tragic dimensions. It may even be worse in cases involving public office. Recall the Nigerian civil war commander who broke into the Central Bank and carted away money, only to make restitution sometime later and then assume national leadership? Well, apparently it was easy to go through such transitions in the 60s and 70s. It is unlikely any public officer would find the incentive today to disclose his offence and hope to pass barely singed through the furnace of social media and the censorious and sanctimonious public abuse that has seized Nigeria. Do such guilty officials not even put a bold spin on their malfeasances, standing defiantly against the criminal justice system, and daring anyone to cast the first stone?

Yes, the metaphoric first stone is always difficult to cast, for it is often not easy to determine when a malfeasance is the product of a mistake or a deliberate plan to thwart the system. And if mistake, what part of it is the result of a cracked or underdeveloped moral compass? What role does a person’s upbringing play in the development of a moral compass, and what role does genetics play? It is easy to be judgemental, but the problem is in fact much more complex than it seems. Take chauvinism, for instance. Sometimes it may manifest in nothing more than silly boasts. At other times, it could manifest in atrocious rape, rape excused on many complex grounds, including claiming ignorance of how to decipher a woman’s no.

The WAEC 34 must be encouraged to find a new beginning. They have, in a way, acknowledged wrongdoing, and are obviously willing to reform. Their paths henceforth will be strewn with all kinds of stones and thorns, and they will be harried to no end by judgemental and hypocritical commentators. It is not only their exam numbers that were published in the WAEC disclaimer, even their names accompanied the notice. Someone, somewhere will take the trouble of remembering. And that someone, sometime will deploy the notice to try and stifle the real purpose of the restitution. And who can tell, perhaps one day, at the doorpost of their great successes, the notice would be hoisted high and boldly to remind the penitent that insufferable society had put a limit to how high they could rise.

But the restitutive penitent must always arm himself with the fact that no one is qualified to cast the first stone, because no one is really without one egregious sin or the other. And if sin is such an objectionable word because of its connotations, the society must ask if the critic himself has not committed one egregious blunder or another in his life. Were Nigerians to make the WAEC 34 their example, imagine what national assets would be restituted, what legal costs the country would save, and what utopia the country would feel confident to dream of.

December 31, 2017
Back and forth in Ibadan

AFTER the chieftaincy review exercise carried out by the Oyo State government between May and August, 21 kings were in consequence enthroned in August in Ibadan even before the endorsement of the review by the House of Assembly. By October, state lawmakers were still insisting that the bill was not before them. In any case, that exercise has become embroiled in all sorts of controversies pitting the Olubadan, Oba Saliu Adetunji, against the newly installed kings and the Oyo State government. That controversy became so bad-tempered a few months back that the governor, Abiola Ajimobi, briefly toyed with the idea of deposing the Olubadan. At least he claimed to have the power to depose the Olubadan but relied on his own counsel to perish the thought. He did not say anything about whether he needed the endorsement of the legislature.

But while the bad-tempered exchange between the Olubadan and the governor was yet to die down, considering that the matter is still in court, the obviously elated 21 kings have nevertheless waded into the affray to protect their new crowns. Three weeks ago, the kings, claiming to be acting as the Ibadan Council of Obas, issued a 21-day ultimatum to the Olubadan to reconcile himself to the provisions of the Chieftaincy Review Law if he was not to be recommended for dethronement.

Not only did the Olubadan describe the 21 kings and their ultimatum as end-of-year jesters, the lesser ranked Mogajis (family heads) have also joined the battle by issuing the 21 kings a seven-day ultimatum to withdraw their ultimatum or face the wrath of the Ibadan people. A standoff has developed.

The controversy can only deepen. The state government may have the constitutional powers to amend or review the state’s chieftaincy laws, and get the amendment duly passed, it is, however, curious to find out whether without a crisis, or the threat of one, involving the Olubadan throne it was necessary to try to fix something that was not broken. The cut and thrust will continue, and if the matter is not sensibly resolved now, either out of court or in court, the Ibadan throne may be altered in ways that complicate the future and stability of that monarchy.

December 31, 2017
Gov Dickson, PDP and presidential election

IN a statement last Sunday by his Special Adviser on Media, Governor Seriake Dickson suggested to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), which was about to conduct its national convention yesterday, not to focus entirely on the convention but to shift their gaze in the direction of recapturing the presidency in 2019. The convention, he advised, must be seen as a means to an end. According to him: “…And let me use this opportunity to caution our party leaders across the country. I hope we are not focusing too much on this convention instead of focusing on winning federal power. I think we should be strategic and focused and think of how to get an acceptable candidate through a fair process for all the zones; in a process that is open to all the three zones of the North so that we can get somebody who would have the support to win the presidency for us. That is the key thing. So, I advise that people should not see the forthcoming national convention as an end in itself. People should see it rather as a means to an end. Nevertheless, the convention is important because we need to get it right; the process itself must be right and the outcome should also be acceptable so that we can now move to the next stage.”

Why Mr Dickson interpreted his party’s frenzied moves to conduct a successful national elective convention as being too preoccupied with it to the detriment of the 2019 presidential election is difficult to tell. While it is true that the party is consumed by a desire to make the convention successful, and was even more captivated by the dynamics of zoning and electing its chairman, it is even truer that everything party leaders and members did before the convention was predicated on the 2019 polls rather than merely conducting a successful convention. That objective was plain to everybody to see, including the Bayelsa State governor, had he looked more closely.

Even if Mr Dickson misread what should be his party’s priority, prematurely talking of producing an acceptable standard-bearer for the presidential election when that process was still about a year away, he was nevertheless right to argue that the convention should be seen as a means to an end, and that their success in the coming polls must be anchored on a successful convention outcome. But, like all PDP leaders, Mr Dickson is also obsessed with the 2019 presidential poll and desperate to get the party back in Aso Villa. Yet, neither he nor any other PDP leader has spoken of the purpose of ‘reclaiming’ Aso Villa, nor of the lessons learnt in losing the coveted seat.

They have ignored the salient issues of national vision, national ambition, and national ideology. For the 16 years they occupied the presidential office, they did not seem perturbed by the laxity they showed in pursuing great national, awe-inspiring goals, nor penitent about their appalling misuse of power, nor yet crushed by the obvious fact that they left the country poorer and more chaotic than they met it. Now, they are desperate to return to Aso Villa without the mortifying agency of the introspection and remorse necessary to remake and renew the country.

This piece was written a day before the PDP convention. It is not clear whether among the grand speeches at the convention some speakers would be heard to reflect on what the party did wrong in office and how to redress that wrong and strategise their way into office. It is also not clear whether the new chairman, who will be the most powerful man in the party for as long as the PDP would not be in Aso Villa, would mastermind the rediscovery of the party’s self-confidence and inner strength, and put the machinery in motion to reform and reclaim public confidence in the party’s platform and ideology.

If the party was preoccupied with the convention before yesterday, it was simply to ensure they got it right. But what they do thereafter to reposition the party to winning ways is even more strategic than the elementary mechanics of conducting a convention. After all, every potential standard-bearer, who by the way will not emerge until another convention sometime next year, would be interested in who won the chairmanship election.

For the PDP to reclaim any good image it thought it had, it must first occupy itself with the methods and processes of remaking the party to engage with the electorate. That reengagement will not happen simply because the ruling party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), has not quite met the expectations of the people. It will happen for other different reasons. For in the final analysis, the electorate will sensibly juxtapose the misdeeds of the PDP in their 16 years in office with the alleged disappointment caused by the APC in its about three years in office. It is unlikely that the electorate will see a fair comparison between 16 and three. The only way the PDP can stand a chance is to prove that it has learnt major lessons from its loss and is more than ready, with proof of its contrition, to reconnect with the electorate.

December 10, 2017
Shehu Sani on Buhari’s friends

IN a philosophical excursion last week, Shehu Sani (Senate-Kaduna Central), suggested in a Facebook post to President Muhammadu Buhari that he would not know his true friends until after his presidency. According to the outspoken senator, “Baba (Buhari) will not know those who genuinely love him until someday when he is not in power. Then, he will sit down in his living room, balcony or garden; then, he will read comments and remarks by politicians he once thought meant what they said. Most of the political elite don’t love Baba, they simply fear him. They fear him because of his mass appeal among the poor and his ‘vindictiveness.’ What they say about him in public is not the same as what they say about him in private. They were silent and scheming when he was on health vacation (in London); now they are for Baba. Time will tell.”

Quite apart from the fact that most rulers would rather be feared than loved, there is in fact nothing in President Buhari’s style that showed him a leader. He is instinctively a ruler. As former vice president Atiku Abubakar said when he publicly indicated his reasons for defecting back to the PDP, President Buhari was at heart a ruler rather than a leader. And since he, Alhaji Abubakar, would rather be led than ruled, he thought it wise to retrace his steps to a party that offered the best chance of leadership rather than rulership.

Senator Sani is, however, right to warn that President Buhari would know his friends only after he had left office. But he is wrong to insinuate that the president cared whether any member of the political elite really loved him. The president is satisfied that the poor masses, the so-called talakawa, love him. The elite can go and hang. After all, after his deposition in 1985, though few gravitated towards him and would not even vote for him the three times he sought the presidency, until ex-president Godluck Jonathan’s poor governance made him somewhat appealing, he was satisfied that every time he made a public appearance the masses chanted his praise. Should the president return to that isolation after his time in office, as Senator Sani feared, he would still be indifferent.

December 10, 2017