Category: Femi Orebe

I cannot  exactly remember where those  who now say that I criticise the Muhammadu Buhari government too often were, when a well known polemicist completely took me to the cleaners, arrogating to me things I am not, have never been, nor would ever be, for no other reason than my  solid support for this same government.

They obviously need a teaching curve: they need to know that my angst with the President Buhari administration did not come easy, nor was it peremptory.

First, let us see the scathing put down I received  for nothing other than the above stated reason. Wrote the critic:”As a Columnist in the Nation Newspaper Sir, you have a platform through which you consistently puke putrid partisanship devoid of balance, allergic to facts, dyspathetic to evidence, antagonistic to common sense, averse to integrity, immune to fairness, hostile to justice and intolerant of and to being called out for your glorified inanities, sour sophistry, mean montebanking, and intellectual somersaults. You twist obvious truths and marinated yourself in parlous propaganda without sparing a thought for the miseries on our streets, the hunger, need, want and pulverizing poverty permeating the nooks and crannies of this country as well as the tragedies of loss of lives occasioned by the ethnic cleansing of other nationalities by the Fulani tribesmen tacitly supported by President Buhari”.

That was, in fact, the friendlier part.

The gentleman was right about my rather uncritical support for the Buhari administration. However, less for this critic, and others like him, but far more for the President’s increasing somersaults, as will be shown in the article below, published almost a year to the day on 3 January, ’21, I became so disgusted my conscience could no longer afford any silence of the grave yard, regarding the President’s increasing misgovernance.

Happy reading.

“So much is wrong with Nigeria that I personally no longer  know  what to think or believe. Indeed, I no longer know what to write, having severally repeated myself on issues which, not only I, but even well known  friends, and sympathisers, of President Buhari, the likes of the Emir of Katsina and His Eminence, the Sultan, have had cause to  say of recent concerning where the President  has landed  Nigeria.

Even as every organisation that has the flimsiest link to the North – Coalition of Northern Groups, the Arewa Youth Consultative Forum, NEF, ACF etc,  now equate the minutest criticism  of the Buhari government to regime change,  it cannot but be heartwarming  that  the usually forthright  NEF spokesperson,  Dr.  Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, could still permit hinself to say the  following before lauching into his withering criticism of Bishop Kukah: “There are many grounds to question the competence and sensitivity of President Buhari’s administration. Even his most ardent supporters, if he has any, that is, will wish he has shown greater respect for inclusion and accountability of those he chooses to trust with power. “The nation is paying a heavy price for mediocrity and ineffectiveness in key areas of decision-making under President Buhari”.

With truisms like this, one would not mind  putting  up with the obsequiousness of Presidential spokespersons, and those other hangers on, ( as well as complete busy bodies) who are now so dim- witted they cannot offer the President some honest advice even as Nigeria regresses daily under his watch.

I am presently so completely tanked out having written  a whole year too early, on the topic: Annus

Horribilis on 29 December, 2019 , an article which would have been most appropriate today, pandemic aside.

Readers will, therefore, please forgive me as I go back all the way to my archives to fetch an article that not only encapsulates the times, but generated as much heat, and trended on social media for well over two weeks, as now does the Bishop Kukah speech, when you take away his deliberately misinterpreted so – called call for army takeover.

Published, 15 Decenber, 2019, ‘What Is Happening Mr President?, was also deliberately misterpreted by mischief makers  to look like I was doing a hatchet job. I had  no  option than to urge them to go read my column from inception which, incidentally, went back to COMET, (2006) and so debuted long before The Nation itself.

That article is now edited for space.

Happy reading.

For those who may not know, I have more than established my bona fides as a supporter of President Muhammadu Buhari. When he was not even sure he would emerge the APC Presidential candidate, I  had written concerning  him, saying: “Nigeria, in its current dire straits, needs Buhari more than he needs Nigeria”.

This was repeated in a book by the late Prof Tam David West, his very  good friend and, now of blessed memory, when he wrote in his book, “Buhari: The Politics Of Age   October 14, 2014: “Nigeria, in its current dire straits needs Buhari more than he needs Nigeria.” -Femi Orebe – “The Nation On Sunday” September 28, 2014 Page 18″.

I write that now to show  not just where I stand on the Nigerian political spectrum, but to let President Buhari  know that in asking what are bound to be thoroughly uncomfortable questions herein, they are not coming from enemy territory, but from the tortured  soul of a supporter of his, who has been at the receiving end of  those Nigerians who say I was one of those who sold them ‘a pig in a poke’. In fairness to the critics, I have  often personally wondered  as to how the President still manages to sleep, that is, if he is able to, when he takes a hard look at how the North has come to so completely dominate the Nigerian public space under his watch  to the extent that one would be right to say Nigeria  is under a Northern stranglehold.

Worse really, is the fact that this seeming internal colonialism shows no signs of remission as various stratagems are still ongoing; examples being the Water Bill as well as  the case of the Federal Commission on Nomadic Education, which though has failed, maximally,  in its core function, given the number of out- of -school children in the North, but is now trying, coyly,  to insinuate itself into  the contentious grazing reserves issue which is aimed at sexing up Nigeria’s demographics in favour of the Fulani.

As I said earlier, these views of  the government are now being shared by core Northerners.

Like  one time House of Reps member, Dr Junaid Mohammed,  U S- based, Farooq A. Kperogi, has in fact gone to the extent of describing your government as ‘Government Of Buhari’s Family, By His Family, And For His Family’.

But before that, he had been  “so impressed by one of the  President’s  declaration that in his May 16, 2015 column titled “6 Reasons Why Incoming Buhari Government Fills Me with Hope,” he isolated it as one of the six reasons he thought Buhari’s administration would “represent a qualitative departure from the legalised banditry that has passed for governance in Nigeria for so long …”

But all those soon  dramatically  changed that the First Lady had to cry out, protesting what she called a hijack of  the government.

I never thought that possible.

If the President  would  overlook the impertinence, could you please get the Presidency to  provide answers to the following  posers from  a younger friend of mine,  a retired Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

He taunted me as follows concerning:’our government’:

“Finance, Customs, Immigration, FIRS, NPA, NNPC, AMCON, NDIC, Federal Mortgage Bank, are now firmly in the hands of Northerners. Executive, Legislature, the Judiciary, Police, DSS, Armed Forces, minus the CDS, Oil, Airports and Seaportslpp are  all in the hands of Northerners. Chief of Army Staff tenure is over. He is still in office. Chief of Air Staff tenure is over. He is still in office. The EFCC  acting Chairman is from the North. The terms of office of both the FIRS Chairman and DG NIMASA, both southerners’, are over and they were both replaced with Northerners. The rout is complete”.

As I indicated above, I know that the First Lady  had once observed that you do not know many of  those working in your government,  but that notwithstanding, I think it is necessary  I remind  your Excellency, that Nigeria presently has no less than 250 ethnic groups’, divided into  6 geo – political zones . Under no circumstances should these things happen as they are  totally unconscionable, and a matter of great discomfort  for those of us still  supporting you in this part of the country. It is extremely nauseating  that a part can so  horribly dominate the rest when those others are no slaves.

No genuine supporter of yours in the South can be happy, or roll out the drums for this state of affairs  as they are  not only unthinkable, but totally ungodly. It is  even worse, given Nigeria’s current realities of mass poverty and unremitting insecurity.

Unfortunately, Nigerians are not hearing a word from APC leaders in other parts of the country, who toiled with you in forming the party, on which  you rode to power thus heedlessly, and selfishly, disappointing those they led to  the party.

Whatever you can do to correct these ungodly acts will be of great  help not only to your party, but will  molify the people somewhat and secure a positive legacy for you. Otherwise all  your  contributions to Nigeria, at this extremely difficult times, may come to naught, which I pray, God forbid”.

I obviously do not regret my latest stance on the government because the APC must be saved from perdition, and reject, by all means.

At no point these past six years has President Buhari seriously taken  the party  as partner.  Worse is that the party merely looks on, no Board of Trustees nor a National  Executive Council, properly so called. Rather, he has  relied on his insular, Northern dominated Kitchen cabinet whose advice has so negatively impacted the Nigerian diversity that today, not a few ethnic groups, North and South, are waiting to serve the party a well – deserved payback unless, of course, it succeeds in taking ownership and insinuating itself into governance in the barely one year left for the government. Whether, or not, the party’s leaders and spokespersons know this, but are too afraid to talk, this – that is, mismanagement of the Nigerian diversity -is the greatest weapon PDP relies on when its leaders say they will send APC parking, come the next election  because the overall result has been that everything in the party has become knee jack, with a minority of mostly Northern governors always walking into the Villa, literally holding the President captive, and always getting all they want, whatever their longterm implications for the party, nationally.

If APC does not want to be a two- term wonder, or like PDP,  wish to return to political Siberia come ’23, the President must now partner with the  party in a determined effort to mollify angry Nigerians.

As the Holy book says, I can only hope that those who have ears will take heed.

The following suggestions should be of some help, going forward in their symbiotic relationship, now that our increasingly improving electoral process could, very soon, render incumbency meaningless besides the fact that the President has promised open and transparent elections:

1.The immediate appointment of an Igbo to a position which will,  ipso facto, make him/her, a member of the National security council;

2. A reconfiguration of the headship of National security agencies to reflect the country’s diversity.

3.Ditto, for headship of MDAs, parastatals and other state agencies;

And,

4. As previously suggested by Governor Fayemi: “put in motion, a political restructuring of the country through a national dialogue process before it is too late.

Wale Tomori, the highly regarded Professor of Virology, former University Vice Chancellor and my friend of several decades, who belongs in that generation of  Yorubas who are ‘banished’ to saying it as it is, not minding whose ox is gored, was in no mood to serve Nigerians any of his usual rib cracking wisecracks at a public forum the other day. Rather, his lacrymal glands failed him as he spoke about what has become of his Nigeria in reaction to Britain giving Nigeria the red card over Omicron, smack on the heels of Canada which had earlier announced a similar ban on Nigeria.

The British action has since been severally condemned, including by the UN Secretary – General, Antonio Guterres, who described it as a ‘travel apatheid’. In like manner, but wisely  adopting a diplomatic language, the Nigerian High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, Ambassador Sarafa Isola, simply called on the British authorities to review their decision, arguing that leadership is the ‘ability to reverse decisions made in error.”

But not so the Nigerian minister of Information and culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, who chose several expletives, rather than a word or two, to excoriate a country which did nothing more than proactively act in the interest of its citizenry. His words:”unjust, unfair, punitive, indefensible, discriminatory”, even as Britain herself has a history of being banned over Covid -19. For ease of reference, Switzerland has banned visitors from the UK, putting them on the quarantine list over Omicron.

That said, however, it must be emphasised that for all that is decent, a country of 200million people, Africa’s leading economy and a major trading partner, Nigeria should never have been treated as nonchallantly, or as peremptorily as Britain just did, given the fact that Nigeria has very few cases,  has no hospitalisation, or death therefrom. Om Omicron Oo has reported any death resulting from Omicron. It is all the more infuriating that Britain could ex her  own citizens and reside  by .

In view of all these, it is not unreasonable to conclude that putting Nigeria on the red list is nothing short of a slap on the faces of all 200 million of us, Nigerians.

But this is precisely where we all must pause, sit down, and critically examine what the hell is the matter with Nigeria and Nigerians that we have so effortlessly become the butt of silly jokes everywhere? After all, as the Yoruba would say, the fact that you do not have money does not change one’s name.

In pyschoanalysing ourselves, we must, as I never stopped saying on these pages, be honest to ourselves. And the starting point should be the realisation that we now live in a globalised world where the outside world sees us exactly as we are – no thanks to cable television.

They not only see how short and brutish human life has become in our country, they see and, of course, deride us as security men descend on the National Assembly – the very bastion of our democracy – just as they watched, in awe, as some rogue security elements descend, on the home of a Supreme Court Judge, with the utmost possibility  of  a  murder or a kidnap for ransom.

While these examples may  seem tangential to the issue at hand, that is, the British ban, let us critically examine the intervention by Professor Tomori to properly situate where we are in this country today.  Let us dig deeper into the factors that predispose others  to treat Nigeria,  and Nigerians,  as they choose, that is, like an international pariah, with Britain treating us in a manner it wont treat Ghana.

Professor Wale Tomori aptly put his fingers on some of the factors when he said the following:”Our underdevelopment and backwardness rest on four pillars. They are the real enemies of our nation, and they are – Lack of patriotism, the main destroyer of our nation, self-interest, corruption, and shamelessness. I quote him:”I woke up today to hear that Canada no longer recognises my genuine vaccination card. And Britain has clamped a travel ban on us. A few days ago, I had to know there was Omicron in Nigeria from outside – (please note that Tomori is Chairman of the Expert Review Committee on COVID-19 in Nigeria).The same Canada was telling me that Nigerians who travelled out with negative COVID-19 lab result were omicronised, before my own CDC finally tells me that we had the variant detected in samples collected from people who recently travelled from South  Africa. Were they people on the entourage of President Ramaphosa? They did not tell. We painfully call the reactions of the UK and Canada racism, inequity. But I say we are paying for condoning errors of commission and overlooking our errors of omission.”

Read Also: Tomori’s thoughts: Tantamount to throwing tantrums?

Meanwhile, we do not know whether he also heard Health authorities in Fiji Island say that two of their citizens flying in from Nigeria tested positive to Omicron? Said the Fijians:”The two travellers are Fijian citizens who had travelled back into Fiji from Nigeria, arriving on Fiji Airways flight FJ1392 from Hong Kong on November 25 — the day the discovery of the omicron variant was announced internationally.”  Did he hear a word from our CDC anything about it? I doubt.

Let us now examine his contribution at some depth: “I woke up today to hear that Canada no longer recognises my genuine vaccination card”. Why so? This, in essense, is because there’s hardly anything, or anybody you can, any longer, trust in Nigeria; governments in particular.

Here I will have to  tell two short stories. In April or May this year, a young lady was about returning to the U.S when she visited us. Being solicitous of her welfare, I asked if she had perfected her Covid requirements for re entry. Without batting an eyelid, she simply  told me in words to this effect: Uncle, dont worry; I shall sort myself out before I leave”. Sort herself out, she did, but without troubling herself with any jab or a swap in any laboratory. The second is more serious as it has security implications. It is interestting that only this past week, in confirmation of the story, we heard a general of the Nigerian Army expressing doubts about the sincerity of the so- called repentant Boko Haram fighters who we are told are daily surrendering in droves. The general said they cannot be trusted but as we shall see below, that is only one side of the story. Let us yield to one one of such insurgents, Mohammed, who  as he disclosed to IRISH TIMES that hundreds of them are already rushing back to re join their Boko  Haram colleagues because the Buhari government has “reneged on  the promises of  education, shelter and employment  which.are  the main benefits the government offered them to desert the deadly group. Some of the Boko Haram terrorists that surrendered their arms are already rejoining  the terrorist group because government, according to him, has proved unworthy. Even though he  claims to hate killing, he has now promised to go back as about 200 of them have now been asked to vacate the camp where he lives in Maiduguri with his mother, two wives and 14 children.

Back then to Professor Tomori:”The same Canada was telling me that Nigerians who travelled out with negative COVID-19 lab result were omicronised” – This speaks directly to the unreliability of test results from Nigeria and this will not be the first time the results are being so questioned. Even the CDC has oncr reported sealing  a health centre in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) for issuing fake COVID-19 test results to unsuspecting individuals. just as the Lagos State Government had once raised alarm over sales of fake COVID-19 test result, warning that processes were being put in place to clamp down on both buyers and sellers.

So who to blame for our corruption and  shamelessness if not ourselves?  He  went on: “But I say we are paying for condoning errors of commission and overlooking our errors of omission.”

When last  was it you heard anybody was punished for any gross act of official corruption? Are reasonable Nigerians proud of all the shenanigans happening  daily at our entry points; the very gateways to our country?

As recently as 6 November, 2021, an American blogger, Tommy El Forastero, wrote as follows on the Lagos International Airport, Ikeja:”I have been around the world and I have never seen anything like this. I mean, it’s extremely corrupt. The Lagos airport, is the very definition of corruption that would pop up in a dictionary. Literally”.Now  what would stop a Covid-19 or Omicron positive traveller passing through such an airport if he is ready to grease palms? But that pales into insignificance when you hear the case of  the 32 Nigerians deposited from Germany. Said one of them to a newspaper reporter:”We were marched into two coaster buses and driven to a hotel on Airport Road, Lagos, where we were lodged without anyone inquiring about our COVID-19 status.  Like regular hotel guests, we were allowed to freely mingle with other people in the hotel. While the tests were eventually carried out seven days after we arrived, the results were not released before we were checked out of the hotel  after only a week and departed to our various destinations”.The bitter deportee said: “Nigeria is making a very big mistake the way they are handling the coronavirus pandemic”. “I am disappointed in Nigeria. The country failed 100 per cent.”  “The CDC in its guidelines for self-isolation, said: “Passengers who have arrived in Nigeria must self-isolate for 14 days and remain in the city/state where the point of entry is located (i.e. Lagos or Abuja) throughout the duration of self-isolation. “All passengers will be tested within 72 hours of arrival based on appointment at a sample collection centre located in Lagos or Abuja for a repeat COVID-19 PCR test. “Persons who have completed the 14 days of self-isolation/quarantine will undergo an exit interview. Their details will be forwarded to the Nigeria Immigration Service for release of their passports”. “

No such thing happened.

Add to all these the detailed reports in diplomatic pouches sent home daily by the ever smiling diplomats here in Nigeria and you see why we are not given the respect we deserve and could be banned as they choose.

KUDOS TO COMRADE ISSA AREMU

Despite my seeming put down of Comrade Isa Salami’s perspective at a recent event, he called and was such a gentleman. We chatted heartily. When he had thought I wont return his call which I missed, he sent the message below:

“Happy Sunday. Read your good reflection on my Abuja outing. Let the struggle for nation building continue. I appreciate your perspective but let many flowers bloom, according to Chairman Mao Zedong.

Regards.

Issa.

“Northern Nigeria is not developing its human capital. It also does not have the time to do so anymore. Therefore, it is now ill-equipped to fit into either the knowledge-driven world of today or the new world of tomorrow. It needs at least 20 years to become significant in any way. But, rather than wake up to this benumbing fact, there is the pursuit of the illusion of dominance. Meanwhile the people of the region lack the skills for tomorrow, as majority of its youth lack everything that could make them part of a 21st century world. I think we are not doing ourselves much good by the way we are living, and by refusing to educate our children. We rather produce and send them to the streets to beg for what they will eat, neglecting their character and learning.” – the highly regarded elder statesman, Ahmed Joda of blessed memory in: ‘Attitudes North Must Change to Develop’.

Comrade Isa Aremu, an alumnus of  George Meany Labour Centre, Maryland,  USA, and the prestigious  Institute of Social Studies, at the Hague, Netherlands, where he earned a Masters degree in Labour and Development, even though most probably a student of Ilorin Grammar School, Oko erin, Ilorin, Kwara State when, in 1976, I joined the late Medical guru, Professor Oladipupo Akinkugbe, as a foundation staff  of the then University College, IIorin was, in my view, very disappointing when he appeared alongside the distinguished Speaker, and discussants, at the ThisNigeria Media Limited Inaugural lecture and Gold award event which took place in Abuja, Wednesday,  December 2, 2021.

Listening to Aremu, a celebrated Nigerian Labour leader, and currently

Director- General, Michael Imodu Institute of Labour Studies, Ilorin, it was embarrassing he so completely misconstrued an occasion which was meant to critically analyse, diagnose and proffer, solutions to the suppurating Nigerian conundrum as one in which Nigerians must “always celebrate successes” ( of government), no matter what agonies they are daily  experiencing.

Our comrade appears interested only in hearing  about how the 2nd Niger bridge has been ‘completed’, about the Ibadan – Kano – Maradi rail line etc, and such  other things some people call successes of the  President Buhari administration. Aremu, indeed, also had the sheer audacity to tell Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah, one of the very few Nigerians left, who could still speak truth to power, to “stop agonising”.

Glad, however, the bishop told him that “there is a difference between darkness and light. between truth and lies and, of course, between justice and injustice”. And that Nigerians will not stand there pretending, and saying, let us just keep moving.”

Let us hear Isa Aremu at some length and you would understand why Nigerian workers have been languishing since the exit of the likes of comrade Oshiomhole who, am sure, cannot be smiling at the present state of affairs in the country.

Said Aremu who, I guess, must be eager to let government, qua government,  know that it has enough friends, out there, ever ready to praise it to high heavens: “I really disagree with Bishop Kukah whose narrative, from my point of view, goes contrary to the spirit of the theme of the gathering.  Speakers should help to bring inclusive narrative, not divisive narratives”. ”We must only

amplify our successes as citizens”. “This,  he said, “is a time that  the Nigerian patriot must make proper discussions in a way that we can have proper dialogue.(Meaning?)

“When you use categories such as Christians and Muslims, some of us are taken aback.  At this forum, we should only  talk of who we are, based on the spirit of the constitution which never defined us as Muslims or Christians. It talks about Nigeria and if you want to go further, it is very dangerous” “I think we are Nigerians and when we are discussing let discussion focus along that line. I think it is better to celebrate some of the successes we have made in nation building.We should celebrate it that we have gotten an uninterrupted democratic transition with all the shortcomings that come with it and for me this is the kind of narrative we should be talking about”. “So, I want to say that Bishop Kukah and others while talking, please  stop agonising. Let’s organise. And we need to organise to build a nation. We need inclusive language, we need inclusive orientation in a way that we build a nation”.

Without a doubt, this comrade forgot that the same constitution  provides for a  Federal Character commission. Or he should educate us as to how that is playing out under this government. I have tried the best I can, editing Comrade Aremu’s contributions for both language, and space, but I still can hardly make head or tail of  it so as to evaluate how far he must  have impacted  on a topic as critical to our present condition as:”National Cohesion for growth and progress: The Nigeria dilemma”.

I am happily leaving that to the organisers of the event.

For me, that was as good as any  opportunity to have  painstakingly analyse the multi- dimensional problems that have not only seen Nigeria rooted to the very base of the least developed countries of the world, in spite of her tremendous resources, human and material, but has seen it graduate into becoming the Poverty Capital (PC) of the world. Take, for instance the seminal thoughts of, unarguably, one of Nigeria’s finest public servants, the recently departed Alhaji Ahmed Joda,  as captured in the intro to this article. Let us identify the key issues he touched: the North and its human capital development; time to fit into the knowledge-driven world, which he says no longer exists; lack of skills which only education can deliver; a poorly educated people who will, ipso facto, be mostly unemployable, except in menial jobs; children being sent to streets, rather than to schools, only to become easy target of recruitment for terror merchants and, of course, the illusion of dominance.

The above are the very beginnings, up there in the Northwest, of the criminal gangs who, leveraging on our very poor policing system, have metamorphosed into a brutal kidnapping industry which has not only turned Northern Rivers crimson – as somebody once prayed – but has so convulsed the entire South, accounting for about 3000 kidnaps and N8.9B paid in ransom money, according to SBMIntel – Nigeria’s leading geopolitical intelligence platform.

All these are issues, not just nepotism, or the total capture of the nation’s security architecture by one part of the country, which we are able to distil from a single paragraph of Alhaji Joda’s ramifying thoughts that should concentrate the minds of speakers at that event. It may not be presumptuous  to suggest that by the time he finally retired to his farm, Nigeria had most probably frustrated the patriot, statesman.

When generations of youths are left uneducated, in a region most affected by climate change in the country, the youths are bound to wander, far and wide, even sometimes outside the country in search of livelihood, and these migrations have severally led to problems, as in herders versus farmers. This will ultimately make unity extremely difficult to achieve in a heterogeneous country like ours.These are the issues comrade Aremu,  and those who think like him, would like to see us bury under the carpet because government must hear, or see, no evil.

Happily, only Aremu, of all the distinguished speakers at the event, believed that was an occasion for celebrating what he calls successes. Bishop Kukah, for instance, believes that it is the state that has created a division, not the citizens, who are, indeed, victims.  “Every where you turn in Nigeria today, he went on,  “what are people telling you? We are living in injustice”. “People use to think that only Ogoni people were suffering injustice”. “Are we going to continue to pretend, and say, yes let us move together?”  “Tell me, who is happy in this country today?”. “We are saying what we invested in we are not getting the result. We cannot continue to deceive ourselves by pretending that nothing is wrong. No, something is very wrong. And the question of fixing this country rest on us and the knowledge that I have now if I pay for transport, I must know where the bus is going”.”We now must choose people that have shown us evidence that they understand where we are hurting.”

On his part, the Chairman of the event, Governor Kayode Fayemi of Ekiti state, had the following to say:”Our country is going through enormous challenges.We have to agree that Nigeria is sleeping and also agree that it is a giant which you can approach from all sides. It’s like an elephant and I believe that is the perspective from which so many of us would approach the Nigerian state. The Nigerian state is not in its most healthy state and regarding that, there should be no debate.  Regardless of political  or ethnic consideration, regardless of economic opportunity available to individuals, our country is in the doldrums. Luckily, in every adversity, there is always an opportunity and it is our ability to identify what those opportunities are that will take us further in this nation building journey.”

The pity of all these is that even when President Buhari is not, anywhere on record,  as saying that citizens cannot ask questions of his government, knowing very well that in a democracy, the Oval office, or the Presidency, is not the domain of a KABIYESI – the Yoruba word for a king who you cannot question – many are out there, like Comrade Aremu, who believe that asking questions about governance is off limits to the citizenry, no matter how  ill one government, or the other, serves the people. That is an absolute ‘No no’, in a democracy, and if such people hate to hear that, then  they could very well take a one way ticket to The Peoples Republic of China.

The main themes in Waiting for Godot include the human condition, absurdism and nihilism. The human condition: The hopelessness in Vladimir and Estragon’s lives demonstrates the extent to which humans rely on illusions—such as religion and politics according to Beckett—to give hope to a meaningless existence” – Google    .

This past week, elder statesman, Edwin Clark,

alleged “that the National Assembly spends about N1 billion annually on the effort to review the nation’s constitution without making any headway.”  He went on to “challenge President Muhammadu Buhari to convoke a meeting of representatives of Nigeria to deliberate on the report submitted by the Governor Nasir el-Rufai committee set up  by the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC) on restructuring”. He then ominously warned “that unless the injustice perceived by parts of the country is addressed, the issue of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and other agitators will be a child’s play”.

My liking the perennial constitution review by the National Assembly to Samuel Beckett’s WAITING FOR GODOT, is another way of saying that for the National Assembly, the exercise is nothing more than a sink hole, another way for legislators in the Poverty Capital (PC) of the world, aka Nigeria,  to further add to their humongous emoluments which rank among the highest in the world; including countries that Nigeria’s annual budget, which we borrow to execute, does not amount to one per cent of their own.

It is obvious that no session of the National Assembly ever appeared eager to have the exercise concluded and, when it did in 2015, it inserted enough booby traps to foreclose President Goodluck Jonathan’s assent.

More germane, however, is the fact that Nigerians, across board, are convinced that not even the Assembly’s  best effort will be good enough for the Nigeria they yearn for.  This fact was captured in a very expansive statement by the Northern Elders Forum (NEF) when it declared as follows in a statement that has since been echoed by many other  Pan – ethnic organisations in the country:

“Nigeria’s future, it said, rests largely on its willingness to address major constraints to equity and justice, a functional structure, consistent good governance, security for all citizens, a credible electoral process, growing understanding between, and among all groups, and an economy that grows and narrows inequalities between classes and regions.” Continuing, it says: “national goals cannot be achieved by a process that makes wasteful expenditure around false hopes a routine. The legislature and executive branches of government have large quantities of reviews, recommendations and reports from past attempts at amending the constitutions and these represent enough resources for a review if the legislature is serious about this vital national priority”. “The Forum recommends the alternative of leaders of thought, elders, groups and professional organisations and representatives of government, to freely discuss every element of our co-existence as a country under principles of voluntarism, genuine representation, mutual respect and integrity of the process”. Specifically, it said: “A Nigerian Peoples’ Conference on Review of the Constitution will benefit from past work in this direction in addition to contemporary challenges, which the country needs to address in a context that allows free and productive engagements without pre-determined ends.” The outcome of this conference, it concluded, should be submitted to the two arms of government, which should provide for a referendum in the constitution so that Nigerians can directly decide on how they want their nation to be structured and function”.

I have also severally written  on the subject. For instance, in “Constitution Review: That Nigerians Would Not Be Taken For A Ride Again”, I wrote as follows on 8 March, 2020:

“Just as President Yar Adua denounced the election that brought him to office in 2007, former President Obasanjo recently said that the 1999 constitution on which he was sworn in as President, is  not working, nor will it ever work, as it cannot take Nigeria out of its  present predicament”.

But  has the National Assembly  come to this realisation? Do the members appreciate that what Nigeria requires today is far beyond the perfunctory amendment  of a jaded and totally inappropriate  constitution? I think they should be told, loud and clear, that what Nigeria needs now is a Constitution Drafting Committee, whose report  should  be approved by Nigerians at a national referendum.

Unfortunately, even if they are aware of this minimum desideratum for peace, precedents already set at  these exercises  are too tempting for them not  to want a  repeat.

Given the need for Nigerians to be on their  guide, I consider it a bounden duty to bring to the attention of  all,  the following  unflattering report of a PREMIUM TIMES investigation published 11, December 2015, on an earlier constitution review exercise. This should  warn Nigerians against them conducting another.  It should also alert the  EFCC,  which recently demonstrated courage by commencing  investigation into the N35B defence funds  believed to have been looted over a decade ago, to also bring the legislators allegedly implicated in those deals under its purview . For those so   accused,  that should be  a grand  opportunity for them to clear their names.

But more crucially, the President would be giving his place in history, a major  boost if, rather than permit another sterile constitution amendment  exercise, he would urgently convoke a Constitution Drafting Committee to  fashion out a new constitution which will not lie against itself, claiming to have been made by “we the people”.

It is therefore being suggested, as already opined by former President Obasanjo and many other eminent Nigerians, that it will be a sheer waste of time, and resources, to just look on whilst the National Assembly continues with this  chimera  of a constitution review.

The Senate President, Ahmad Lawan had, on February 6, 2020,  set up a 56- member committee for this purpose with all  the principal officers as members in addition to one senator from each state, and two others, selected to represent each geo-political zone.

Welcome then to the Prime Times report titled :”How Lawmakers Pocketed N8 Billion In Failed Constitution Amendment”.

“In an investigation lasting months, this newspaper found that between 2011 and 2015, the 53-member House of Representatives Ad-hoc Constitution Review Committee and its 49-member counterpart in the Senate in the 7th National Assembly withdrew N3,250,000,000.00 and N4,500,000,000.00 respectively to purportedly execute the fourth alteration of the Constitution.

It is not immediately clear how the lawmakers spent the outrageous funds but insiders say a huge chunk of it was pocketed by members of the committees in what one source described as ‘unprecedented naira bazaar’, by a committee of the National Assembly’.

Officials of the committees continued to make withdrawals even long after the exercise was concluded. It remains unclear what those withdrawals were spent on.

The Committees, which operated independently, withdrew the monies in tranches from their accounts domiciled in an Abuja branch of the Guarantee Trust Bank.

Curiously, some of the withdrawals were made long after they submitted their final reports to both chambers for consideration and a few weeks before the general elections and the inauguration of the 8th National Assembly.

The Committee withdrew N83.33m on March 2, 2015 and the same amount on March 23, five days before the Presidential and National Assembly elections and on April 13, barely two days after this year’s governorship election.” – PREMIUM TIMES, December 11, 2015.

The House Committee’s major activities during the process included a retreat in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, between May 27 and 29, 2012; Peoples Public Sessions held simultaneously in all the 360 federal constituencies on November 10, 2012; and public presentation of collated results on April 18, 2013.

It held 25 meetings altogether while the assignment lasted. There was also a retreat for the Technical Experts on Constitution and Legal matters who produced the work-plan as well as some civil society organisations drawn from the six geo-political zones.

Members of the House subsequently voted on the various sections proposed for amendment on January 30, 2014.

The Senate Committee, on the other hand, held a retreat in Asaba, Delta State; organised zonal and national (Abuja) public hearings; conducted opinion polls; undertook study tour to the United States, Canada and India; held consultations with seasoned experts and constitutional lawyers; and organised town hall meetings in the senatorial zones.

It presented its final report to the Senate on June 5, 2013.

The Committee whose membership included the principal officers of the upper chamber who served as “members of the steering committee,” finally organised a retreat in Lagos to consider a draft bill. That was after the senators voted on the amended sections on three occasions – July 2013, April 2014 and June 2014.

But those who should know say all these engagements could not have cost the nation more than N1billion altogether. They said some of the public sessions held in states were funded by state governments.

Then Senate President, David Mark  did not answer or return multiple calls. Neither did he respond to a text message sent to him.

Ditto Deputy President Ekweremadu. When contacted, Imam Imam, the media aide to Speaker Aminu Tambuwal, asked this newspaper to direct all inquiries to the Clerk of the House of Representatives.

Deputy Speaker, Hon. Ihedioha, who chaired the House Ad-hoc Committee, merely told us in a text message to feel free to reach out to the Clerk of the House of Reps to furnish us with all the details”.

Mr. Omolori could however not be reached and did not answer or return calls. He also did not  respond to a text message sent to him.

Several attempts by this newspapers to speak with the Clerk to the National Assembly,  failed. The  spokesperson of the House, who served in the ad-hoc committee, did not answer calls by this newspaper”.

“However, a former senator who served on the Senate Ad-hoc committee, Anthony Adeniyi,

told  Prime Times in a telephone interview: “I can’t confirm the figure you are quoting. I don’t think we spent that much,”  while another senator, close to the constitution review committee, but who requested anonymity for fear he might be attacked by his colleagues, said, “I can confirm that they withdrew more than that. Committee members were just sharing money”.

Can Nigeria afford such irresponsibility in this era of a gruelling pandemic?

Nigerians  beware”.

Add to the pandemic,  the suffocating financial meltdown that may, according to the latest revelation of the NNPC, GMD. Mele Kyari, see Nigerians being asked to pay up to N340 per a litre of petrol.

Panegyricists of the Muhammadu Buhari administration – among them two highly regarded pals of mine – I shall be writing a lot more about them in this piece – are so very eager to put to flight from these shores, those of us who contend  that given all we know about President Buhari before he assumed office: his ramrod intrepidity, incandescent integrity and can – do spirit – in April 1983, he expelled Chadian troops, under the command of the late Idriss Déby; in the process briefly invading Chadian territory – all the things they now seek to credit to him as achievements are not  even half of  what Nigerians  expect he should have achieved, a whole 6 years into his 8- year tenure.

Given that he is not even only a retired General of the Nigerian army, it but a  former military Head of state and, therefore, with hands on experience, and who did actually put his life on the line, fighting to keep Nigeria one,  most Nigerians believed that he would turn in an outstanding performance, fighting insecurity and corruption in a manner that would  shame  the critics who believed he could not rouse Nigeria’s laggard, and beleaguered economy, one notch.

One of my  two pals  referred to above, has claimed that the other one is, “fast becoming nemesis to his former media colleagues who feel they can peddle personal bile as legit government criticism all because they have access to people’s mind through their sacred mediums”. While I claim to be nothing more than a citizen journalist, and so not one of the colleagues referred to I, nonetheless, think it will be quite a  pity if that is the mindset that propels that other pal’s writings.

For me, I have found it close to impossible not to express, on these pages,  my very sincere disappointment with  President Buhari’s performance, and for that, I haven’t  the slightest regret because to whom much is given, much is expected. It can bear a repetition that I was one of  the  loudest cheerleaders  of contestant Muhammadu Buhari even pre the APC presidential primaries  when he wasn’t yet  sure he would emerge the party’s candidate, and right to that point in his ongoing second term, when I became convinced that time was fast

running out on him, if he ever intended to be the Nigetian president of our dreams. This is especially so  in his management of the Nigeria’s diversity. He simply stood our expectations in this regard on the head with the result that Nigeria has never experienced a worse divisiveness than  is presently the case.

Let us now examine the camouflage, if not the joke, on which my referenced  pals  are trying to build their veneration of  the Buhari administration. It is what the title  of this article mimics when it reads:”In a Season Of Scarcity?”.

Let us see that phrase in the following quote in a recent article by one of my pals: …”his government has a lot to flaunt IN A SEASON OF SCARCITY; the previous ones ( governments) being rippled with pathetic excuses, IN A SEASON OF PLENTY”.

My pal goes further, still quoting the other:”And he proceeded, as he is wont, to marshal the government’s achievements, the very ones President Buhari was reeling out to his stellar audience in Paris: the 2nd Niger Bridge (which finally is coming to life), Bodo-Bonny road (35.7 km, first to connect oil-drenched Bonny Island to mainland Rivers), the Lagos-Ibadan expressway (West Africa’s busiest freeway), Abuja-Kano-Kaduna expressway and the Loko-Oweto Bridge, which links the Middle Belt, via Benue State, to the South East, North East and the Niger Delta. He listed other potentially game-changing infrastructure and life-changing public assets as the Lagos-Ibadan rail (the first rail project to be started and completed by any government in Nigerian history), “brand new” airports in Abuja, Kano and Port Harcourt, and new runway and terminal building at the Enugu Airport. Aside from infrastructure, he listed the Buhari great strides in agriculture, with its tremendous results via the Nigerian rice and putative food security, despite the grave insecurity challenge which, he added, the government was tackling head on”.

On and on he went.

But first, and foremost, what does this SEASON OF SCARCITY pretend to mean?

Is crude oil price now back to about four years ago, selling for $40 or below? Have loans from the World Bank, African Development Bank,  the French Development Agency (AFD), the China EXIM Bank, the Industrial & Commercial Bank of China, China Development Bank,  European ECA/KFW/IPEX/AFC, Standard Chartered Bank/Sinocure, not forgetting the African Development Bank (AFDB), all suddenly dried up, or is Nigeria the only country ravaged by the Covid – 19 pandemic?

Put another way, are these humongous loans not expected to be put to something concrete, even, measurable?

Why are we then being asked to celebrate this government for doing not even half of what it ought to have achieved whether in multi- sectoral infrastructure procurement,  or  in social investments, to cushion the effects of the terrible suffering most  Nigerians are going through? It has just been reported, for instance, that another 6 million of them recently regressed into the poverty line. Add that to the 40% or 83 million Nigerians the Federal Bureau of statistics reported in 2020, as we await figures for the current year even as crude oil now sells for over $75 a barrel.

While those harrassing the  President’s critics seriously want them to “squirm and fidget”, is there a possibility they forget that President Buhari has already spent over six years out of his 8?

Apart from the loans which now stand at a humonguous N33.107 trillion or USD87.239 billion, as at March 31, 2021 and not including subsequent loan approvals by the National Assembly,  isn’t the President expected to achieve something substantial, and make a difference in the living condition of Nigerians, even if all he had were just the budgetary allocations which run into several trillions, counting from 2015?

In assessing the Buhari administration, are we obliged to be limited to brick and mortar, which is what his efforts in infrastructure amounts to? Also, seeing the country’s highly degraded state of  road infrastructure,  shouldn’t Nigerians legitimately raise questions with the quantum of  our ballooning Chinese loans which are devoted, almost exclusively, to building railways, a significant portion of which is  into a foreign country? It has now even come to light that a narrow gauge is planned to run through huge parts of Nigeria while the portion going, gratis, to a foreign country, is of the superior standard  gauge. What sense is in that as Transportation minister, Rotimi Amaechi, spoke like a bewildered magician before the National Assembly, claiming he is also from the Niger Delta – one of the areas to be affected – as if that means he could over rule the President’s preference.

Let us even assume that all is well with infrastructure, and also that Nigerians are, better  off than they really are, would that remotely assuage for the insecurity in the land; the daily killings, kidnappings and rape, recorded in every part of the country under this government?

I battled, successfully, with my conscience, not to include in this piece, newspaper reports of all round mayhem, in every part of Nigeria but feel obliged to include what, at best, is a tip of the iceberg. Suffice then to  say that an average of 13 persons were  reportedly abducted daily in Nigeria in the first half of 2021, according to a report by SBM Intelligence – a leading research consultancy group – bringing to 2,371, the number of persons kidnapped in the country within the first six months of the year just as the Vanguard newspaper, quoting the Nigeria Security Tracker, reported that in the first six weeks of 2021, no fewer than 1, 525 persons were killed across the country. In which other part of the world does this happen?  Certainly not in Myanmar, Tigray/ Ethiopia, Afghanistan, Sudan nor at the very height of the Iraqi war. Yet some people could still sit down in their comfort zones and attempt to rewrite Nigeria’s contemporary history, in our very eyes. Nigerians  are daily told of how many Boko Haram elements are surrendering to Federal forces, yet news break daily of the gruesome loss of some of our highly valued, gallant, but  overstretched fighting forces. I once read Kaduna state governor, El Rufai,  advising that all bandits should be killed. Apparently, he couldnt help putting it that brutally. And now that it  has been reported that well trained Libyan fighters have teamed up with  ISWA to fight Nigeria, why would President Buhari not either seek foreign help, or simply hire military contractors as has long been suggested? Or for how long would we be content with  sending condolence messages to bereaved families? Not religion, nor ethnic considerations should stand in the way of President Buhari doing the needful in this regard.

Regarding the anti corruption war  I am more than impressed listening to the Chairman of the EFCC laying out the  commission’s plans to give a new impetus to the fight against corruption. One can only hope that he would be allowed to put in his best efforts now that the office of the Attorney -General, and Minister of Justice, has become  a clearing house for every of his actions.

In concluding this piece, I think that in these twighlight days of the Buhari administration, it is important that all Presidential Aides, and Advisers, should be out to assist the administration. But one sure way of not doing that is the quote below, whose authorship is allegedly ascribed to one of the President’s spokespersons in a trending WhatsApp post. It ill behoves any member of this administation which has, unarguably, accounted for the greatest blood letting in Nigerian history, the civil war inclusive. It reads: “If President Buhari hadn’t exercised the restraint and tolerance of a father, we would have been talking of something else in this country. The rivers of Nigeria could have turned crimson, and mourning and lamentations would have suffused the land. But we are thankful for the father in President Buhari, patient and enduring, almost to a fault”.

Really?

Ola Olorun ni ki tan o, meaning that only God’s grace abides forever.

May God give us the grace to know this.

“Not less than 888 people have been killed and 2,553 kidnapped, while 720 persons were injured in the state between January and September 2021” – Samuel Aruwan, Kaduna state Commissioner for Internal Security and Home Affairs.

Bear in mind, dear reader, that Kaduna state is not the epicentre of insecurity in Northern Nigeria. This, therefore, tells you the emptiness of some Presidential spokespersons telling us that security in Nigeria is better under the Buhari administration than during the government it succeeded..

It is great news that the Super Tucano aircrafts are finally here in Nigeria but let it be said that as recently demonstrated by the Taliban’s in Afghanistan, weaponry, alone, cannot be the sole determinant of victory in wars. Otherwise, the U.S would not have not have been dealt the heavy blow it got in that country. To, therefore, think that the acquisition of the American fighter jets is the end of our insecurity problem in Nigeria, much as they are welcome, will be a grand illusion.

The A-29 Super Tucano light-attack aircrafts are reputed to be capable of performing intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and precision air-to-ground strikes. They also offer improved targeting capabilities which should enable Nigeria to more effectively confront the fight against Boko Haram and the ISIS West Africa branch.

But that is as far as they go as Nigeria would have to confront her own internal demons since the factors propelling the hydra- headed insecurity in the country are substantially different from their standard variants which include youth unemployment, regional imbalance, over population. Political instability etc.

Even where these still play a role here in Nigeria, our major causes of insecurity are fundamental, and sometimes result from leadership failure, things no amount of weaponry would solve since there will always be a long line of recruits for insurgency.

Let us look at these at some detail.

EDUCATION: While the Northcentral which has always been an integral part of the North is today one of the most educated parts of the country- thanks to the statesmanship of the Sadauna of Sokoto, Sir Ahmadu Bello – not so the Northwest where, because of feudalism, Western education was seen either as unnecessary or even taboo. That was at the same time Awo and Zik were furiously expanding the frontiers of education in their regions that the difference between the different parts today, is as clear as that between day and night. Today, the Northwest is an area where insecurity has taken permanent habitation with hordes of people either being kidnapped or killed, out rightly, on a daily basis with hardly a thing being done to reverse the trend.  That Aruwan is not tired of his morbid announcements surprises not a few. There is nothing to suggest that Northern governors see this as a problem whereas their Southern colleagues would no longer be able to sleep easy were things as dire in their respective states as they are in Zamfara, Kaduna, or Katsina.   Take the Almajarai issue as an example. While the governor of Sokoto was busy erecting fundamental changes in the practice, establishing schools where he made attendance compulsory and for which reason a law was passed criminalising parents for their children’s nonattendance, others were furiously deporting Almajiris from their states of residence to their putative states of origin as if the poor kids remember who  their actual parents are, having left home too early. Some of these leaders would rather take new wives or marry off their children in some outlandish festivals while those other elements, in society, keener on empire building, took the opportunity of the lockdown, with which it coincided, even though interstate movements were officially banned, to move these luckless urchins, in trucks, to southern forests and communities with security agencies paying no attention,  and now busy raping, kidnapping for millions of naira and killing; the reason Dr Akinwumi Adesina, President, African development bank, at a recent lecture, described them as the supermarket  for all manner of insurgency recruitment. This glaring leadership failure, particularly in an area where population is growing in geometric proportions, will never be ameliorated by any number of Tucano aircrafts.

Leadership failure as a causative factor of insecurity in Nigeria goes far beyond the subnational level. Indeed, for me, it actually manifests much more poignantly at the national level. Whereas cluelessness had been the problem with President Jonathan, a cluelessness that was aggravated by his inherent fear of the North with regards to his reelection hopes, and analogous to Obasanjo’s inability to pro- actively deal with Sharia at its introduction, President Buhari has no such alibi. Here was a trusted, retired military general, who had fought to keep Nigeria one, coming not merely to ask for our votes for the highest office in the land, but promising to rid us of our insecurity, fight corruption which he said would kill Nigeria if left untamed, as well as reposition our collapsing economy. A man of incandescent integrity, and former military Head of state, Nigerians had no qualms, electing him both in 2015 and 2019. At the same time, on these pages, I heartily canvassed his candidature, to the  highest heavens, believing he would be our best President ever.

But what did we get?

Let me, for once, play the devil’s advocate and capture, in some detail, what the do- nothing PDP had the temerity to say of this government, solely for reasons of the President’s totally unexpected failures; most of them self-inflicted.

Asked what are the things the PDP failed to do during its 16 years stranglehold over Nigeria but which the APC has succeeded in doing, Kola Ologbondiyan, the party’s spokesperson answered:

“The absolute truth is that in the last five years, President Muhammadu Buhari has failed woefully to fulfil any of the promises he made to Nigerians. The economy is in shambles. He promised to fight from the front against kidnapping, insurgency and banditry but as we speak today, we have the worst form of all these”. “Rather than take care of the poor who they beguiled and lied to, the almajiris are being rendered more homeless and abandoned in the middle of nowhere. They are being deported within their own country, being moved from one place to the other as if these luckless children, victims of religion, know their actual parents. Concluding, he said PDP has thrown a challenge to the Buhari administration, not once, or even twice, to tell Nigerians which of the promises they made to Nigerians they have fulfilled in five years”.

I would ask the same question.

For security, the litmus test for me, aside the daily festivals of killings in all parts of the country, is the fact that in the past 19 months, I have not had the temerity to venture out of my location, to anywhere by road, no matter how short. For the economic revival the President promised what we see is the free fall of the Naira against the dollar, to a level no Nigerian could have imagined a mere four years ago nor is the anti-corruption war anything to jubilate about since Attorney- General Malami maneuvered himself into becoming the sole determiner of who can be tried, no matter the alleged offence. Some people would not only wonder, but ignorantly conclude that I am remarketing the APC, to which I belong, but that would be farthest from the truth. I write the way I do, with elections fast approaching, in the faintest hope that people concerned would change and not allow the party to snatch defeat from victory come ’23. As for the governorship election in my home state in ‘22, I cannot be happier, or more confident because, as they say, all politics is local. State of security in the country permitting then, I shall be as active on the campaigns as I have always been –  like for 2 straight weeks in 2018 when I was about the oldest person on the hustings, bar my friend, the Deputy governorship candidate.  But whether on ground at the campaigns, or on these pages –God being my helper – I will readily and happily campaign for the APC governorship candidate, carrying him aloft on my shoulder, metaphorically speaking, on the basis of Governor Kayode Fayemi’s performance and the candidate’s own competence, the latter being, what I know, will be one of the key determinants of whoever emerges as candidate. As I mentioned earlier, I draw all this attention to the shortcomings of the Buhari administration hoping we can still change the perception of the party in many places; not just opposition circles.

So why do I think that the Tucano aircrafts will not be a solution in itself?

The answers, as I have written about severally, will point mostly to the President’s personal failings, some of which ought to have since been corrected if he had advisers who would tell him things he needs to know, and not merely things they believe he wants to hear. I have once described this on these pages as one of the downsides of nepotism. First is the impression out there that the President rules for the North, as if he subscribes to the FUNAM philosophy that Nigeria is a captured country where Fulanis are only waiting to declare a caliphate with Sharia AS THE LAW. law. Unfortunately, in that same North, there are areas – Benue, Southern Kaduna, for example, where people are being treated worse than aliens. This is the same impression one gets from his policy initiatives: RUGA, Open grazing, Cow colony and National Water Resources bill – all of them Fulani-centric. This too goes for his appointments where he would, most probably, not bat an eyelid, giving 18 out of 20 consequential appointments to the North, all probably going to Muslims (both the Chairman and the Executive Secretary of the Federal Character Commission are from the North). It also happened in the recent elevation to higher bench in the Judiciary. If the North, with no known oil resources in commercial quantity practically dominates the NNPC, it goes without saying that President Buhari will do the same at the National Water Resources commission, if created.

This is what has resulted in the unprecedented level of separatist agitations we see all over the country. These are all insecurity -inducing factors no military hardware can resolve. It is apposite to also mention that it is now public knowledge that the U.S forbids the aircrafts being deployed against bandits unless they are declared terrorists. Even where banditry has become about the most troublesome of our security issues, I can hardly see President Buhari do that.