The Nation Newspaper

Category: Femi Orebe

  • This house is falling: we must restructure now

    Femi OREBE

    Why are our leaders so adamant on keeping a moribund and completely unhelpful system?

    Nothing, in my view, captures Nigeria’s present circumstances better  than the  impassioned speech,  a jeremiad  really, which, in the highest pitch of  his normally guttural voice , Professor Sola Adeyeye, then a senator of the Federal Republic, belted out at plenary,  in the course  of  the last  of his long, and highly productive years  in  the National Assembly.

    Cried out Adeyeye like one of  those biblical prophets of  old :

    “I dare to tell this nation today, that this is the

    problem (raising  aloft  a copy of the Nigerian constitution);

    This constitution can never give us progress

    This constitution   can never give us peace

    This constitution can never give us unity.

    And unfortunately, most of us in the National Assembly do not have the spine to give this country what it needs to have peace and progress.

    What do I mean?

    This constitution has 68 items on the exclusive list, sixty eight (he repeated); this constitution has only 12 items on the concurrent list

    And those 12 are written so nebulously, so fraudulently, that you know the intention is to undermine the items on the concurrent list”.

    During this past week, Tola Adeniyi, my good friend and, unarguably, one of Nigeria’s truly powerful wielders of the pen, graciously forwarded Adeyeye’s thoughts to me afresh, via a Whatsapp chat. It was so refreshingly descriptive of Nigeria’s current situation that I instantly ferried it to the Nigerian public via a Face book post, complete with the video, not just the words in order to correctly gauge Adeyeye’s pain.

    The post read as follows:

    ”The distinguished senator speaking here, (in the video), Professor Sola Adeyeye, is no longer in the senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. He, however, did his best, not only in faithfully  representing his people of Osun state, but Nigerians in general, throughout the long years during which he conscientiously served.

    History will remember him with aplomb.

    One thing we have been hearing continuously about the present National Assembly is how very friendly, they call it cooperative, with the Executive arm of government, it is.

    Not a bad thing at all.

    However, In case they – the members that is- do not yet know it , Nigerians are already asking when it is they will rise in the service of Nigeria and Nigerians – or is it  going to be  all about  perquisites,  of alleged hoarding,  and sharing of  employment places  to their children and relations even as Nigeria is on the brink?  Nigerians are waiting to see the ‘Adeyeyes’ among them.

    Restructuring, or what APC calls Power Devolution, and for which the party once set up an El Rufai committee, has long gone cold. It must not be allowed to die.

    Were PDP a solid opposition party, this is one thing it would daily have been roasting the Buhari government about, not its harebrained attempt to select Supreme Court judges in its own case. The National Assembly, together with well meaning Nigerians, must wake up NOW to draw the government’s attention to about the  only thing – RESTRUCTURING -that can truly  redeem  Nigeria”.

    I posted  the above on the  Face book  shortly before a trip  to the Southwest part of the country and  given what I saw in that entire stretch, which should  still reckon as a lucky portion of  the  country compared with the deep South,  for instance, it is obvious  that Nigeria’s entire road infrastructure has collapsed.  Unfortunately, our road infrastructure  is merely symptomatic of the general state of things  as  the country is fast  collapsing under the heavy weight it is, inadvisedly, carrying.

    I  used  to think that the North was  in  a better shape but  I have since perished that thought  having had to severally  travel on the Abuja – Bida road in the past one year and a half .

    Nothing will, however,  better  epitomise this total collapse than  what transpired at  the recent defence of the  budget of  the Works and Housing  ministry by the minister,  Babatunde Fashola SAN, before the  House of Representatives Committee on Works.

    Fashola grandly decried the N157 billion allocated to the ministry which he said cannot even offset its outstanding debts. Unpaid certificates for completed road projects, he said, stand at N306 billion, while N2.93 billion is pending in unpaid certificates under the multilateral-funded projects.

    It must be emphasised that the terrible state of  our road infrastructure  is not for want of trying as, according to the minister,  there are 524 ongoing road projects across the country, with four multilateral-funded road projects;  81 roads under the Presidential Infrastructural Development Fund (PIDF) and 45 others being funded under the Sukuk bond,  adding that N255 billion is  needed to fund some of the major roads, which are  focussed  mainly on those that will  open up the economy and  increase  the  country’s ease of doing business.  Fashola concluded by directing states to concentrate on their own roads and  not get involved in federal roads  except they are not  going to ask for  a refund.

    And this, exactly, is the crux of the matter.

    When will the federal government cut its coat according to its cloth and let go of things that states would do much better; when with President Buhari, working in tandem with the National Assembly restructure this country? When will those 68 items on the exclusive list become no more than three or four and the states/ regions revert to the status quo ante; a system of cooperative competition which served Nigeria admirably?

    Why is Nigeria unduly punishing itself; why is the federal government adamantly carrying a weight it hasn’t the capacity to shoulder? Why are we self- immolating a country that has everything to prosper and be a lodestar to the entire black race?

    Why are our leaders so adamant on keeping a moribund and completely unhelpful system? Is Nigeria jinxed?

    The state of our roads which I doubt can be aptly described, even by the wordsmith, our own Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka , is a picture perfect of present day Nigeria in all ramifications.

    Unemployment has gone haywire, fuelling insecurity in all its various shades: whether as Boko Haram,  or as  banditry to which Zamfara State has the patent; whether as the Kaduna – typified kidnapping, or the  entire South infested armed robbery, kidnappers and ritualists, all of which  have  overwhelmed the country despite the  yeoman efforts of our fighting forces.

    For crying aloud, how much  of our lives would  the federal government  love to have under its stranglehold?

    In the Adeyeye video referred above, he spoke of 68 items on the exclusive list with only 12 on the concurrent. Does the federal government need all these to survive, even as the house is in the process of collapse?

    What exactly feeds the federal gluttony: Is it greed for power, selfishness, or our perenial problem of ethnicity? Must government just merely watch as things fall apart, displaying some mindless unconcern as if restructuring is tantamount to death?

    I plead with President Muhammadu  Buhari to act the statesman many believe he is; summon the needed courage and free Nigeria from this undeserved ‘imprisonment’. I call on him to do all that is required to set this country on the road to all-round development or, as Adeyeye says, this country will have neither progress, peace nor unity, nor to talk of development.

    Concluding, I still cannot reconcile PDP with its complete taciturnity on restructuring, which APC downgraded to power devolution even as half a bread would still have met with some approval from Nigerians. If APC has gone stone cold about even that, how does one explain PDP’s  total closure? Or was the noise all about grabbing power?

    Wasn’t restructuring Atiku’s ‘numero uno’ election promise even though Nigerians hardly saw him aggressively push it as a campaign issue in the North even as his supporters in the South, especially Afenifere, campaigned animatedly about it? It is worth mentioning that throughout the campaigns, I never stopped wondering as to what Alhaji Atiku Abubakar would tell His Eminence, the Sultan, about restructuring.

  • Give it to First Lady Aisha Buhari

    Like the Yoruba would say, she is one person who would not sniff what she won’t eat.

    Love or hate her, the First Lady, Aisha Buhari, is a solid lady of principles; decent too.  Like the Yoruba would say, she is one person who would not sniff what she won’t eat. There are too many examples of her plain speaking to delay the reader trying to list them.  But of all these, there is the one that can rightly be described as the icing on the cake and that is her confirmation of the  recently trending video in which she was captured at her angriest worst; even using expletives.

    A recall of the video on the Face book wall of Babatunde Ogala, incidentally the APC Legal Adviser, was not my first time of intervening in support of the First Lady. I have done so serially as some persons routinely  questioned her long absence from her husband’s side in the Villa and,  even without  knowing the underpinning reasons for the absence,  I have always held the view that she should be  at liberty to her movements and  that raising  such questions, at all,  was  nothing  less than  playing the busy body.

    In my comment on the Face book post in which Ogala had jokingly taunted the peddlers of fake news when he wrote that: “The lady that purportedly returned from UK is not Aisha Buhari. but a clone from Sudan, named Safariya;  the wife of Jubril”, I wrote:”The First Lady, Aisha Buhari, is truly a woman of impeccable integrity. I have just watched her on Channels Television own up to the trending video about her arrival at the Villa but the SCAMMERS gave themselves a bloody nose because, according to her, it is an old video. And you need no further verification than her saying this directly on her arrival from the UK around 5 am, thus putting a lie to the video which has circulated for days. I applaud her decency”.

    I write  about  this today, not to reopen old wounds  for  which the First Lady has  reportedly, graciously apologised, but because enemies of President Buhari and, indeed, of this great country, would stop at nothing  to cause  needless problems. Unfortunately, it does not appear like the rotten eggs thrown on the faces of those who peddle fake news about a ‘Presidential wedding’, would suffice to put a stop to their wiles. It is particularly opportune that only this past week, on the occasion of the Armed Forces Remembrance Day, the president  had the following to say: “This day calls to mind the negative impact of strife and conflicts and demands that as responsible citizens, we must at all times avoid actions that emphasise our differences. There is no doubt that the strength of Nigeria lies in her diversity. It behoves us therefore, to engage in activities and endeavours that feed our diversity as a source of strength, not weakness”.

    Courtesy a trending Whats app  message , these enemies of state are fast  spreading a rumour  which  is capable of causing  considerable  social unrest  having just exited the dire consequences of RUGA, and in the process, employing  very scurrilous ethnic bating.  Like  Festus Eriye, the  editor, Sunday Nation,  wrote in his back page column of Wednesday, 16 October, 2019, President Buhari  “does  not only  have a man of the people’s  image, especially in the North, he also  has an unusual connection with the common folk”. Like the First Lady has severally demonstrated, President Buhari is also a man of candour, who says it as it is. As he eloquently demonstrated in his suspension of RUGA, he has shown that he is not averse to listening to the complaints of the citizenry, and acting in the best interests of the country; even if it warrants reversing himself. I am therefore urging the president to overlook whatever indecorous language is contained in the Whatsapp post below and, instead react, unambiguously, to the allegation contained, therein.

    The trending Whats app message is as follows:

    “President Buhari has re-submitted an executive bill to the National Assembly for the Federal Government to take control of all waterways and their banks in Nigeria.

    We recall that he did this during his first term with Saraki and Dogara in the leadership of  the NASS. It was rejected.

    Now having a rubber stamp National Assembly, President Buhari has returned the bill to the NASS in the hope of grabbing the banks of all the rivers in the country.

    Of particular curiosity is the attempt to annex thousands of lands adjoining the river banks. These are ancestral lands belonging to poor farmers. Without any doubt, President Buhari will, as soon as the bill is passed, hand over permanent grazing rights to his kinsmen, the Fulanis, who will come with their destructive weapons and commence expansion /conquest of the hinterland!

    “Also, the bill is intended to abrogate the Land Use Act, which has vested all lands in State Governors. This amounts to bringing grazing colonies through the backdoor.

    Another Bill to take up all the rivers and water ways is already waiting for this one to mature.”

    This is obviously pregnant with great forebodings and if the NASS does not consider it its business to appreciate the deleterious consequences of such a bill, which not a few Nigerians would interpret as Fulani expansionism, and give it a wide berth, the Presidency must , at once, put a lie to the ‘rumour’.

    If this fails, states must be ready to resume former Lagos state governor, Bola Tinubu’s titanic judicial restructuring of the country by not holding back on  having  their  Attorney –General’s head to courts as appropriate.

     

    REACTIONS FROM READERS.

    On a needless confrontation.

    Femi, 1 read your column of Sunday Oct 13 2019 in The Nation newspaper on the needless confrontation between The Police Affairs Commission and the IGP despite the President’s intervention. This, for me, is nothing but corruption on display. How can this country get it right with a corruption ridden Public Service. Can the Public Service be reinvented?  Any nation with a rotten public service can never develop since one of the ingredients of development is a committed, well motivated and patriotic public Service. All hopes seem lost. – Pius Omonijo- tel no. +2348101688106

    As two titans of the Yoruba nation celebrate epochal natal days

    The history of influential, and great individuals, has always been justifiably associated with the history of their tribes and nations. That is why those individuals that would spearhead the reconstruction of their ethnic nationalities are often the same that mature into visionary leaders of their entire nation. Which is why, in Nigeria today, we need well developed and organised ethnic nationalities to actualise Nigerian advancement. All the major ethnic groups in Nigeria have their areas of comparative advantage in our collective pursuit of the nation of our dream..These advantages, if effectively pulled together, with love and good understanding, can produce the hitherto elusive dream nation we all crave, and in no time.

    From the look of things today, the Yoruba, it appears, seem  ahead of other ethnic nationalities in this respect, especially in advancing their common cause, utilising every opportunity  to achieve the needed unity and understanding they need to progress their  area, which is necessary for  enhancing the entire nation. It is one reason I will plead with those of them who seem unjustifiably opposed to the emergence of the erudite Professor Banji Akintoye, as THE Yoruba leader, to have a rethink, because this can light the way for other ethnic nationalities to find a way forward too; in the overall interest, growth and development of the entire nation; even though I appreciate the republican nature of the average Igbo.

    General Akinrinade I know as a man of conscience. I have once read him in the Tell Magazine, openly regret, also on behalf of the Yoruba, for joining the North in fighting  Igbos during the Nigeria /Biafra civil war. That was during the June 12 annulment. He endeared himself to me the more by that singular act. That also is the type of love, and concern, we need to show for one another for the required unity and peaceful coexistence in  Nigeria.

    Happy birthday to the celebrators – Emmanuel Egwu, Ebonyi State

     

  • A needless confrontation

    Femi Orebe

    The commission has alleged corruption and ethnicity as the root causes of this storm in a tea cup

    The ever perspicacious Yoruba would say: nilu to loba to nijoye, that is, in a country with all the paraphernalia of government. They say this when things are happening in a town, city or country, that you would least expect to ever happen.

    That exactly is where we are today in Nigeria.

    We have seen the intense, but absolutely unhelpful, inter agency rivalry that ensured that as you read this, years after the name of the Acting chairman of the EFCC was sent  to the senate for confirmation by the president, the  gentleman remains still in an acting capacity.

    Now the palaver is between the Police and the Police Service commission..

    We would come to that anon.

    Let us, for now, consider a matter of grave importance to the citizenry whose hopes of exiting poverty in 2019, has again been raised,

    This past week, President Buhari presented the 2020 budget to the National Assembly, envisaging an expenditure of N10.33trn. Given the  history of our budget implementation in the past many years, one  which has hardly ever exceeded the half mark whether in projected revenue generation or percentage implementation, but with soaring  deficits now  in excess of N2trn, should government continue to make budgets a mere annual ritual by never cutting the country’s coat according to her cloth? Why do successive governments not make realistic budget proposals rather than come up with proposals they themselves know are unattainable, even with the best of intentions? Take, for instance, the capital appropriation in the current budget, whose releases started only in the third quarter of the year, according to the president.  Out of a total N2.031trn appropriated, only N294.63 billion was released. So little is it that the president has now directed the release of an additional N600 billion by the end of the year. Since fluctuations in revenue generation is a constant, why do we still go ahead making unrealistic budgets? This is one issue about which I think Nigerians must critically engage government, going forward. Or am I being simplistic, not being learned in these matters? I do not think that Nigerians deserve to always have their hopes unnecessary raised yearly even when government knows that many of its promises are completely chimeric.

    I digress.

    Our concern today is Nigeria’s indescribable state of insecurity and the constant demonstration of a glaring lack of synergy between, and amongst,  our security agencies, indicating a clear un-seriousness in our efforts to tame the rampaging menace.

    Or how on earth should the mere recruitment of 10,000 police constables generate the amount of bile we have seen demonstrated by the police authorities against its regulatory body, the Police Service commission, that one begins to wonder if this is really not a proxy war, after all.

    A bi ki la gbe, ki la ju, as the Yoruba would say, meaning: what, actually, is the casus belli?

    It becomes more mystifying given the fact that the president has, indeed, intervened on the side of the commission affirming, without any equivocation, that it ”has the constitutional mandate to handle the recruitment and promotion of personnel in the police”.

    Unfortunately, Attorney –General Malami who should have helped to clarify matters, but always seems to represent interests other than that of corporate Nigeria, has   without a scintilla of constitutional backing, come up with the woolly advice that, and I quote him: “It is the IGP, and not the PSC, that has the operational and command control of the NPF all over Nigeria. Therefore, he proffered, it is prudent for the designated officers of the NPF to handle the exercise”. Is that what the constitution says?

    Reading him, you would be right to hold that the A-G has never read Sections 30(a) and (b) of the 1999 constitution which provide as follows:

    (a) The commission shall have power to appoint persons to office (other than the office of the Inspector-General of Police) in the Nigeria Police Force.

    (b) Dismiss and exercise disciplinary control over persons holding any office referred to in sub paragraph (a) of this paragraph.

    As a result of the Attorney-General’s totally unhelpful intervention, the Police Service Commission has headed to court to stop the inspector general of police from interfering in its constitutionally prescribed functions. The commission is seeking a restraining order barring the Inspector-General from usurping the powers of the commission. It wants the court to give an interpretation of the powers of the commission as enshrined in the constitution of the Federal Republic. .

    But  given the unambiguous constitutional provisions, as affirmed by the president, why is the Inspector-General willing to fight to the death, in the process daring the president like some top security chiefs were known to have done a while ago in the matter concerning the  confirmation of  the EFFC’s acting chairman’s appointment ?

    Or is this a smokescreen; a fight for something far deeper than most Nigerians think?

    The commission has alleged corruption and ethnicity as the root causes of this storm in a tea cup. As claimed  by the commission, citing copious instances in different  states of the federation,  the Commission’s spokesperson has alleged that the  police hierarchy is eager to recruit persons who  actually never even applied, talk less, of taking part in the recruitment process.  He further alleged that the police is working in cahoots with the National Assembly, some of whose members have already submitted names to the police for inclusion and subsequent appointment. Instances were also given of candidates who were dropped on the final police list because they could not afford to pay the bribes demanded from them.

    I doubt if many Nigerians would doubt the bribe bit.

    As should be expected, however, the police have denied all these allegations, dismissing them as spurious. It also admonished the commission to focus on its regulatory functions.

    To resolve the logjam so as not to continue to hamstring the president’s  determination to further confront insecurity in the country, and, in order not to  continually prolong the agony of the thousands of unemployed Nigerians looking up to this opportunity, we must go back  to the helpful  part of the  Attorney-General’s advice, especially the following  suggestions:

    1. That there is the need for a symbiotic relationship between the commission and the police hierarchy in order to achieve greater synergy and harmony.
    2. That the two bodies should set up a joint committee to agree on modalities for recruitment and appointment into the police;
    3. That the eventual appointment of successful candidates should be done by the commission;  and finally,
    4. That the Police Affairs minister should monitor the recruitment in order to ensure compliance with extant regulations, and federal character.

    One can only hope that in making the last suggestion, the Attorney-General is sincere, and not coyly looking towards strengthening   the IG’s position in the tussle.

    Like the President did, the Police Affairs minister must also endeavour to be considerate, and objective, shunning ethnic considerations in his intervention. Nigerians will be waiting to see him at this his very first public outing.

    Finally, one  takeaway from all these should be that the National Assembly will  now wake up to its responsibilities, take this as a grand opportunity for it to identify, correct and amend, all the  laws which require finetuning for purposes of effective, and rancour-free governance in the country .

  • As two Titans of the Yoruba nation celebrate epochal natal days

    In the latest of his series of  very seminal lectures,  (The 1886 Peace Treaty and Imperative Lessons of the Unity of Yoruba Nation),the Yoruba Leader, Professor (Senator) Banji Akintoye, recently said as  follows: ”As we gather here to celebrate, my humble  thought is that we, Yoruba, should spend this day to rub minds together about some deeper ramifications of our nation’s unity. Sure, we are a very strongly united nation. In fact, I have said in some of my past lectures and speeches that hardly any nation in the world can claim to be more united than the Yoruba nation. We Yoruba are all very proud of our culture and our great accomplishments in civilisation. We believe that, among nations in the world, our nation is, and deserves, to be highly exalted because of the common worldview  and the principles and ideals which we evolved in our history. Our religion is so superior in its overall message and its structure that it has become in the modern world the only Black African religion that ranks as a universal religion, one of the  world’s  leading religions, one of the most widespread across the world, and one of the fastest expanding  religions throughout the world. Our nation is also owner of principles and ideals which  command great respect in the world – principles and ideals such as our Omoluabi tenets, our deep respect for human life, our respect for individual peculiarities and choices, our generally democratic tendencies, our culture of religious accommodation and harmony, our deep sense of hospitality to strangers and foreigners, our unique expectation of dutiful, respectful and decent leadership and governance, our love of the beautiful and even elegant life, our unique dedication to societal progress and orderliness, and our general orientation towards mutual help and collaboration in the quest for the better life. This worldview, principles and ideals, have kept our whole nation strongly bonded throughout our history. Even though we have lived in many separate kingdoms for most of our history, our common worldview and our cherished principles and ideals have made us a highly noticeable nation among the nations of Africa and the world. They have also distinguished us from other peoples near and far. Even when we fought wars in our nation for nearly a hundred years in the nineteenth century, the norms that we regard as uniquely Yoruba norms, nevertheless strongly persisted.”For a people with the norms, and mores, culture and civilised ethos described above by one of the most  respected historians the world over , one who has devoted the greater  part of his entire life to  the pursuit  of  historical  scholarship and authored several books; his magnum   opus being  the  428 – page:‘A History Of The Yoruba People’, it should come as no surprise, whatever, that such a people must have amongst them some distinct specimen of humanity and leading lights in various disciplines, professions and callings.It is my distinct pleasure, today, to celebrate two of such titans of the Yoruba nation who, this past week, marked their birthdays.CHIEF OLADEJI FASUANChief Oladeji Fasuan, a retired, but by no means  tired, economist, is a former top civil servant who had a hand in the planning, and establishment, of most of the public companies that gave the Western Region its pride of place as Nigeria’s economic front runner in the first, and second republics. He would, however, most probably be remembered as the pivot of that  incredible  team that mid-wifed Ekiti State at a time it was considered  least feasible.  A distinguished public servant, both at the national, and sub national levels, Chief Fasuan is a Member of the Order of the Niger (MON), and the Asiwaju of Afao-Ekiti.He turned 88 on 1 October, 2019. Happy birthday, Sir. Many happy returns.Paired with Chief Fasuan on this glorious occasion is the OKANLOMO of the Yoruba nation, the one and only, Lt. General Ipoola  Alani Akinrinade, CFR FSS, officer and gentleman, and the quintessential OMOLUABI of our race, about who it will take pages and pages of this newspaper, not just a column, qua column, to begin to do justice to what he represents to both  our country, Nigeria  and the Yoruba Nation, in particular. A special creation of the Almighty with his winsome looks, General Akinrinade is decent, humble and completely without airs. So much has been written about the general in the past one week that I would rather not carry coal to Newcastle. I would, instead, discuss as much as space would permit, my long, and very close, relationship with the “baffday boy”, especially on a project that was conceptualised  towards achieving the greatest good for the Yoruba nation. That project,  saw him, as Chairman, adroitly demonstrate  his superb, and well known  etiquette, and leadership qualities, as  many of the members, like the late Chiefs Bayo Akinnola and Bola Adedipe, (both representing Ondo State) and many others, were much older than him.General Akinrinade can be very intense. He devoted not only quality time, but did not spare his purse, in the arduous, and absolutely enervating business of trying to establish AGBAJO YORUBA AGBAYE which went on for not less than three years at a  particularly critical time in the Yoruba trajectory, when a Nigerian president,  of Yoruba extraction, was  busy doing his damnest to humiliate the Yoruba nation, splitting down the middle, Afenifere, the numero uno Pan Yoruba organisation.Since then, Afenifere has never been the same.When the history of that time is written, due mention would be made of the men and women who toiled, day and night in this regard, even once setting up a Rapid Response team, under the lead of Professor Jide Osuntokun (yours truly was a member), primarily to draw  ‘our president’s’ attention to the fact that nothing was coming the Yoruba way even as  billions of irrigation projects, were  being approved for the north at every federal executive meeting, with Muktar Shagari as the Water Resources Minister.The following are the aims and objectives of Agbajo.

    1). To promote appropriate and sustainable policies and programmes to salvage, defend and fortify an authentic and self-determined Yoruba Ethnic Nationality within the Federal Republic of Nigeria and elsewhere.

    2). To work in close collaboration with all stakeholders to ensure that the value system entrenched in the Yoruba culture and nomenclature as OMOLUABI’  (Literarily  translated as person of integrity, honour and dignity) is fostered as a basic rudiment for mutual understanding, mutual respect, love of the Yoruba heritage such that the true national interests and identity of the Yoruba Ethic Nationality are distinctly entrenched and sustained in Nigeria and elsewhere;

    3). To encourage and support only attitude and behaviours of governments and other bodies and individuals everywhere that will have progressive impact on the basic and fundamental institutions of Yoruba Ethnic Nationality, to wit:-

    (a) The political system, (b) The economic system, (c)The educational system (d) The family system (e) The Traditional and cultural system (including but not limited to Religion), (f) The mass media, and (j) The environmental and infrastructural system

    4) To promote research and establish records on public policy on any and all issues/problem of public policies and programmes as well as prepare and disseminate/distribute information and statistics relating to the basic and fundamental institutions, personality types and cultures of the Yoruba that will promote the Yoruba Ethnic nationality as a guiding light to all ethnic nationalities in the search for a truly federal constitutional arrangement for Nigeria where all her citizens enjoy equality of opportunities in the unfettered pursuit of their happiness;

    6) To apply for and acquire such concessions and acts of legislature in Nigeria or foreign country as may be advantageous for carrying out the objects of the Association.

    7) To enter into any arrangements with any Government or other authority, supreme, municipal, local or otherwise, and to obtain from any such Government or authority all rights, concessions, and privileges which may seem conducive to the Association’s objects or any provisional order of the relevant Department(s) of government or authority, or any Act(s) of parliament for the purposes of the Association or any other Association(s).;

    8) To reach out to other progressive unions of Yoruba including those in the Diaspora and other sympathetic nations in furtherance of the Aims and objectives of the Association

    What collapsed this great effort?

    Politics, of course, PDP politics. At inception we had requested all Yoruba state governors to send in two representatives,  which they did, and everything was going on smoothly. We had drawn up the laws and regulations which were adopted and approved at  a  well attended mini-summit of the Association which held at the Oodua Hall, Cocoa house, Ibadan, Oyo State, on Thursday, March 22, 2007.  With the 2007 election, which somebody described as war was approaching, the state governors, all PDP, with the exception of Lagos state, withdrew their representatives. The party had obviously seen the handwriting on the wall and knew that theirs was already a lost cause in Yoruba land ahead the election. That was also the time the decision was taken, at the highest levels of government,  to rig the elections, even though their victory would later turn pyrrhic.

    Below is how a traumatised Yoruba Diasporan captured what befell AGBAJO on their withdrawal:

    “General Akinrinade is, mercifully, one of the greatest assets the Yoruba nation has today, and very many of us recognise him as such. For instance, though he has never really made a strong bid to bring the Yoruba abroad into membership of Yoruba Agbaye, very many of us here attach a strong hope to Agbaye because Gen. Akinrinade leads it. We all think of him as someone who sincerely loves the Yoruba nation, and who can never sell out. In the interest of the Yoruba nation, Gen. Akinrinade apparently thought that he could rein in those Yoruba who have sold out to PDP and make them work with Agbaye. I don’t blame him; his intensions were good and noble, but these PDP hounds cannot be handled in that way. Their quest is to hold on to what they have already stolen, and they will associate with any credible Yoruba person or group in order to buy some legitimacy for themselves among Yoruba people. But they will have no abiding loyalty to the group or person they are associating with in the meantime; and as soon as they see in the horizon another person or group that seems to them to impart stronger legitimacy, they will move.”

    I certainly cannot describe who General Akinrinade is, or what exactly those who ruined a promising Agbajo are, better than what my good friend did above. General Akinrinade remains the quintessential Omoluabi and, here is wishing him a happy and glorious 80th birthday.

    Many happy returns, Sir.

  • National livestock transformation plan: Did we hear Bauchi’s Bala Mohammed correctly?

    Governor Mohammed quite unreflectingly, has added considerably to our problems of co-habiting in this country

    Governor Bala Mohammed of Bauchi State must have sent not a few Nigerians into utter delirium when,  some two weeks ago, on Channels Television,  he waxed lyrical, authoritatively telling his listeners  how Fulanis  all over West Africa, are eligible  to participate in  the National Livestock Transformation Plan. Every question thrown at him to explain this dubious claim saw him telling Nigerians how every Fulani is a Nigerian because he, Mohammed, has relations in the Cameroons or such like inanities.

    Declared Mohammed  provocatively in answer to the question as to whether, like Nigerians,  foreign Fulanis  can also  partake in the programme: “Fulani herdsmen are nomadic, moving across countries within the continent. I think there is a lot of mistrust and misconception as regards the Fulani man. The Fulani man is a global or African person. He moves from The Gambia to Senegal and his nationality is Fulani. It would be inappropriate to stop them from benefiting from the livestock plan just because they are not from Nigeria. As a person I may have my relations in Cameroon but they are also Fulani. I am a Fulani man from my maternal side, we will just have to take this as our own heritage, something that is African. So we cannot just close our borders and say the Fulani man is just  a Nigerian. In most cases, he continued, the crisis is precipitated by those outside Nigeria. When there is a reprisal, it is not the Fulani man within Nigeria that causes it. It is that culture of getting revenge which is embedded in the traditional Fulani man that attracts reprisal”. “They are all Nigerians because their identity, their citizenship is Nigerian even though they have relatives from all over the world. So, presumably they are Nigerians because they move all over and have relations all over. That is why our population in Nigeria is fluid”.

    Some questions arise from the above: When on the suspension of RUGA by President Mohammadu Buhari and the Vice President , Professor Yemi Osinbajo, announced that “the National Livestock Transformation Plan (NLTP) is an initiative of the National Economic Council and that it as a comprehensive policy plan designed to accelerate the pace and scope of change in Nigeria’s agricultural system”, did he tell Nigerians only the bit he believed we would like to hear, deliberately leaving out the inclusion of foreign Fulanis? Did the National Economic Council factor the millions of foreign Fulani herdsmen that will , according to Governor Mohammed, participate in the plan, or is the governor merely on a frolic of his own, unilaterally incorporating foreign Fulanis? And since there is so much money approved for the Plan, a 100B at take off, is he saying that his Northern governor colleagues would all be throwing their states open to these hordes of foreign Fulani herdsmen? Or, indeed, can these people foray right down to the South, asking as of right, to benefit from the plan? Is governor Mohammed aware of the millions of internally displaced Nigerians the government has to cater for, inability to successfully do which, has led to foreign donor agencies lending support in various forms ? Is the governor unaware that Nigeria is initiating fresh borrowing modalities, e.g having to quit the Eurobond for concessionary funds, amongst others, in order to be able to finance her humongous budget deficit which is over two trillion? Does he know that the country is so financially constrained it is planning to create longer tenured bonds, example being an infrastructure bond, to be able to sustain the pace of its infrastucture procurement? Can the governor reasonably claim not to be aware of Nigeria’s dire economic straits that have seen some serious minds suggest a discontinuation of fuel subsidy even when such is guaranteed to inflict severe pain on a class of Nigerians? Is our dear governor un aware that over 10 million Nigerian children of school age are out of school, most of them in Northern Nigeria, or should the needs of foreign herdsmen mean more to Nigeria, than catering to the educational needs of these poor, young Nigerians who presently constitute a ticking bomb, as a ready recruitment ground for Boko Haram, and other anti social groups now mushrooming everywhere in the country ? Is it our health care delivery system witnessing, as of now, increasing medical tourism, or our education, barely attracting 15 percent of the national budget, that should be considered of less importance than the upkeep of the business of a foreign Fulani herdsman who has an elected government back in his country?Bearing all these in mind, is this the time for Nigeria to start playing the prodigal, especially to a group who come into Nigeria, armed to the teeth, multiplying our security problems?

    Were governor Mohammed patriotic, and less ethnically concerned, shouldn’t he be telling the federal government that it is time to ask ECOWAS to reconsider its clause on free movement in member countries so that we can at least resolve some of our nagging security problems? Shouldn’t he, in fact, be questioning the effectiveness of the Nigerian Immigration Service?

    Governor Muhammed’s take on what he calls the fluidity of the Nigerian population introduces a more menacing factor. One of the most potent arguments by opponents of RUGA was how it could have dramatically changed the demographics of the entire country with absolutely deleterious consequences on subsequent elections in Nigeria. Some even went to the extent of saying that before you know it, Fulani LGAs would spring up all over the country and bearing the history of the early 1800’s in mind, that Emirates would not have been long in coming.

    Was Governor Mohammed suggesting that foreign Fulani herdsmen participation will be limited to the North? Of course not , since he claimed, in his own words, that “Fulani herdsmen are nomadic, moving across countries within the continent. The Fulani man, he said further,  is a global or African person who moves from The Gambia to Senegal and his nationality is Fulani. It would be inappropriate to stop them from benefiting from the livestock plan just because they are not from Nigeria”.

    And by the way, what is the meaning of “his nationality is Fulani”? Is the Fulani, unlike all ethnic groups all over the world,  a country?

    What an attempt to harrass and misrepresent facts? Doesn’t every Fulani have a country of his/her own?

    Governor  Mohammed, by saying all these,  quite unreflectingly, has added considerably to our problems of co-habiting in this country. In all my writings, here on this column, and elsewhere, I have always held that we should not tire at  working towards a harmonious cohabitation between  all the ethnic groups in the country. Indeed, when it appeared like Governor Ortom of Benue state was becoming unnecessarily belligerent, I counselled that rather than accuse Fulani herdsmen for every killing in the state,  he should look no further than the internal militias concerning which he had severally accused his predecessor, and to resolve which, he declared an amnesty on his  assumption of office. Unfortunately, from Governor Mohammed’s Fulani exceptionalism here, we can infer that far more than the  Miyetti Allah people , many Fulanis, especially  in high places, are ‘ ad idem’ with the The Fulani Nationality Movement, (Funam) when that group  said the following :

    “We have said it over and over, that Nigeria is the only inheritance we have in Africa and anywhere in the world. This land belongs to us, from Sokoto to the banks of the Atlantic Ocean. This was the destiny bestowed on Uthman Dan Fodio which would have been fulfilled since 1816 if not for the obstruction of this great assignment by the British. It is no longer time to play the ostrish. Our men are waiting. We are eager to fight. We are boiling with the zeal to actualize our dream; enough of double dealing and ambivalence by Fulani political leaders who, unfortunately, think the Fulani can only take back what belongs to us through appeasement and elections destined to reflect cultural values antithetical to the preachings of Uthman Dan Fodio.”

    Given  the fact no Fulani leader, of any hue, condemned this rant by the duo of Badu Salisu Ahmadu, its National President, and Umar Amir Shehu, the fact that the governor of a top Fulani state like Bauchi believes that Nigeria owes non Nigerian Fulanis, this unearned responsibility, is proof positive that Nigerians need to take a fresh look at itself, restructure and thrive, or remain an animal farm and die.

    And this is  where President Buhari must have an eye on the future. He now has far less than four years to the end of his term as President of Nigeria and nobody, except him, will carve out for him, where his name will be located  in the annals of Nigerian  history.

    Again as I often say: I wish him well.

     

  • Turning nasty and brutish life into profitable living

    While education in developed countries rely on values and formal framework, that of developing countries is wholly deficient in both.

    This column is today ceded to Ile-Ife based Adekola Junaid PhD, as he takes us through a ‘raconteur’ on the Nigerian condition (not his title).

    Happy reading.

    NIGERIA’S CONTEMPORARY CONDITION

    Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe says H.G wells. Consequently both developed and developing countries continue to invest massively in education so as to evade dastardly consequences.

    While  education in developed countries rely on values and formal framework, that of developing countries is wholly deficient in both. Thus Nigeria, as a developing country, faces the impact of an education that lacks morals, resulting in such negativities as banditry, cultism, ritual killings, rape, unnecessary and illicit accumulation of wealth, money laundering, high unemployment and a general lack of vision.

    That is the Nigerian condition today whilst the developed countries, having substantially conquered the crave for needs and wants, have turned their attention to, among other things, probing into outer limits of space. Our current circumstances, therefore, remind one of the story of the City of New York, United States of America, at a point in time, as captured in Neil Postman book: “A Student’s fable”, published in 1970.

    In the city of New York, civilised life very nearly came to an end. The streets were all dirt with nobody to clean them up. The air and rivers were polluted and no one could cleanse them. The schools were rundown and no one, any longer, believed in them. Crime was rife and disorder reigned supreme. The Mayor was completely lost regarding what to do.  He met severally with his council but they could suggest no cures because their moral was just too low and their imagination dulled by the confusion that overwhelmed them. There was nothing else for the Mayor to do other than to declare a state of emergency. He had done this before during snowstorms and power failures, but now he felt even more justified. “Our city”, he said, “is under siege.” Our enemies, he declared, are sloth, poverty, indifference and hatred.  He knew all the problems, but the solutions simply eluded him. He was at his tether’s end. Though a state of emergency officially existed, neither the Mayor nor anyone else could think of anything to do that would  ameliorate their condition. Then, literally from nowhere, an extraordinary thing  happened.

    One of his aides, knowing full well what the future held for the city, had decided to flee with his family to the country side. But preparatory to that, he began to read David Thoreus’ “Walden”, which he had been told was a useful handbook on survival. While reading it, he came across the following passage: “Students should not play life, or merely study it while the community supports them at this expensive game. Rather, they should  earnestly live it from the beginning to end. How could youths better learn to live, than by at once trying the experiment of living?” Believing he had a good and exciting idea, he reached out to his boss, the mayor, showed him the passage and convinced him that was the solution to the city’s problems.

    He went on to suggest that students in the public schools had been part of the problem, whereas, with some imagination and change of perspective, the students could become part of the solution. He pointed out that from junior high school on up to senior high school, there were approximately 400,000 able-bodied, energetic young men and women who could be used as a resource to make the city liveable again.

    “But how can we use them?” asked the mayor, “and what will happen to their education, if we did?” Replied the aide: “They will find their education in the process of saving their city”. Continuing, he said there were ample evidence that the students no longer appreciated education and were, in fact, now turning against their teachers. The aide, who  had come armed with statistics pointed out that the city was spending $5 million dollars a year merely replacing broken school windows and that almost a third of  the students no longer showed up on any given day.

    “Yes, I know, “, said the Mayor sadly. “Woe unto us”. “Wrong said the aide brashly. The boredom and affliction we have now, can all be turned to our advantage”. The Mayor was not quite convinced, but having no better idea of his own, he appointed him to chair the Emergency Education Committee to put all his suggestions into action. That was how 400,000 students were removed from their dreary classrooms and drearier lessons, to where their energies and talents could be better used to re engineer the decrepit city.

    As should be expected, there was a great hue and cry against the innovations. Teachers complained that their contract contained no provision for such unusual procedures. To this the aide replied that the spirit of their contract compelled them to help educate the youth and that their education can take many forms. “It is not written in any holy book”, he told them, “that education must, willy nilly, occur in a small room with chairs in it. To complaining parents, he replied that American founding fathers used such practices to control the harsh environment they met in order to ensure their survival. To the students’  complaint that their God-given right to spend the first 12 years of their lives at public expense was being trampled, he replied that they were confusing a luxury with a right, and that, in any case, the community could no longer afford either.

    Subsequently, all the children became part of the programme. Monday mornings, they helped to clean up their neighbourhoods, swept the streets, canned the garbage, removed the litter from empty tots. Wednesdays were reserved for beautifying the city. Trees and flowers were planted, grasses and shrubs tended; dilapidated public buildings were repaired, starting, with their schools. Every day 5000 students in high schools directed traffic on the city streets such that policemen had more time for criminals. Another 5000 students helped in delivering mails such that mails were promptly delivered twice daily. Several thousand students maintained day care centres so that mothers on welfare were able to find gainful employment. Students were also assigned to publish a newspaper in every neighbourhood of the city to inform the public about all the gongs on. University students also participated voluntarily in various ways.  These include putting in place a short distance transportation system with their cars fuelled partly by the city. They gave parking and litter tickets thus freeing policemen to do their work. They also ran drug-addiction rehabilitation centres, legal rights centres and nutritional and medical bays.

    That was how New York City came back to life.

    Young people who were hitherto alienated from their environment assumed a proprietary interest in it. The older ones now respected them instead of labelling them unruly and parasitic. Crime reduced, courtesy improved inter personal relations, and students began to live the education they missed in school. Later the school program was resuscitated after the emergency, and everybody lived happily,  thereafter.

    And now to the crux of this story.

    At this point in Nigeria why would  students in professional courses – Agriculture, Pharmacy, Engineering, Journalism Communication, Education, Medical courses, Science and Technical Programmes not be made  to  do a compulsory one year “Industrial attachment”, or whatever name so called, instead of having to do “literary projects”, for the completion of  their courses? Why teachers at all levels of our educational pyramid but, especially, our over paid legislators,  would not think out of the box, and let us have policies in place that would turn our huge schooling population to advantage rather than being a massive ticking bomb can only remain a surprise. Policy should also be enunciated to get them paid handsomely for such national service which should, of course, be a far cry from what NYSC has become after its several decades of non re- engineering.  Inclusive in his programme, secondary school students should be exposed to farms for chicken, fish, fruits, maize, cassava, tomatoes cultivation in rural areas, and proceeds should be used to fund our kwashiorkor – like Education.

    Columnist’s comment

    Students at all levels of our educational system must be made to take a compulsory course in Morals and Citizenship Rights and Responsibilities which will aim at birthing a new generation of Nigerians different from today’s yahoo, yahoo boys, thieving politicians, a lecherous police force, and a citizenry consumed with money, to have which, they steal, kidnap and kill.

    May God help us.

  • Elder Nelson Akintunde Olawaiye: The versatile playwright, poet, and actor at 80

    He is ascetic, with a quiet lifestyle, more of a home-maker than anything else. He sees the positive side of every student, not just their weaknesses

    “Nelson Olawaiye is a friendly and sociable boy with considerable ability, most especially on the Arts side. A fluent and ready writer and speaker. Thoroughly satisfactory in character and manners” – Canon L. D Mason – Christ’s School’s incomparable Principal – 1948 – 66.

    As I wrote on these pages on 18 February, 2018 while celebrating my dear friend Chief Olumuyiwa Runsewe at 70,  I have, since the column’s debut in the COMET 15 years ago, been privileged to commend here, the life, times and contributions of some eminent lodestars in various segments of our national life. These indefatigable persons include Chiefs Deji Fasuan, Dele Falegan, Alex Olu Ajayi, Raphael Esan, Deji Adegbite,  Prince Julius Adelusi Adeluyi and Professors Banji Akintoye, Oladipupo Akinkugbe, Papa Sam Aluko (posthumously), Jide Osuntokun and Bolaji Akinyemi.

    It is my pleasure  to come out again today to pay tribute to one so very deserving; a multi – talented elder from my Ekiti neck of wood,  but with whom I share much more than ethnic affinity as I consider myself privileged to have shared  not only the portals, but the morals,  of THE SCHOOL,  that is  CHRIST’S SCHOOL, ADO -EKITI; that school on Agidimo hills, whose glory shall never dim because Christ, whose name we bear, not in name only, but in deed, and in truth, shall never let that happen.

    Elder Nelson Akintunde  Olawaiye was born in Erijiyan – Ekiti 80 years ago, on 13 September, 1939. He attended Christ’s School Ado Ekiti, where his flair for Poetry, Art and Drama flourished, with him winning many prizes . He would later graduate B.A ( Hons), 2nd class (UPPER DIVISION) in Fine Art at the Ahmadu Bello University,  Zaria in 1965, and later earned a Master’s Degree in Educational Administration & Planning from the University of Jos in 1981. The latter wili prove very useful when he emerged one of the best Federal Inspectors of Education in the entire country.

    A dramatist of no mean repute, Elder Olawaiye won prizes for Short Story writing,  first in the National Union of Nigerian students (NUNS) competition in 1964 and at the Sunday Times competition in 1973. He co-authored ‘Desira’, an operatic drama for the  Ahmadu Bello U’niversity’s Musical society, which was aired by a Kaduna Television station in 1964. Judged by the future Nobel Laureate, Prof Wole Soyinka himself, Elder Olawaiye helped Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, to win first prize even as the  initial role-player left unexpectedly  and he  had to memorise the entire script overnight in a contest involving  6 Nigerian universities.

    He  was one of the first set of four writers for the popular Village Headmaster, and at audition by ace-producer,  Sanya Dosunmu, he won first place twice, as lead actor  in 1969, and 1984. For Wole  soyinka’s  play, The Lion and the jewel, and at Professor Soyinka’s request, Papa joined the  Orisun Theatre, excerpts of which were shown on television, both in Lagos and Ibadan. . Nelson Olawaiye’s  poem: The Birds,  also won first prize in the whole world for www.poetry.com in 2002.

    Elder  Olawaiye did not just chance on his abilities. His father attended St. Andrew’s College Oyo,  where he became an organist, music teacher and trainer. This talent flowed down to Nelson, his first son, who would later compose some songs which the famous Nigerian musicologist, Ayo Bankole, loved very much.

    As  a member of the Society of Nigerian Artists, Elder  exhibited his Art works in Lagos (1971), Jos (1973) and later in Ilorin. He  presented papers on Art at  the Universitites of Benin (1979 and 1980) and  Lagos (1988 August) for the international Society of Education through Art.

    Back in Christ’s School  and only as a form 4 student,  he showed amazing initiative  by (1)  convincing the Principal,  Canon  L.D Mason,  to enlist Art on the School’s curriculum. The Principal agreed and employed a Benin -born artist, named  Erese, and (ii) Nelson formed the Young Writers’ Society which the Principal endorsed. (iii) At Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, his greatest contribution as a student  was when he pleaded for the retention of Fine Art. There had been earlier moves to scrap Physical Education and Fine Art. Today, to the glory of God  and the initiative which he championed, Fine Art is not only retained at ABUZ, but it goes right  up to P. hD Level .

    Elder Olawaiye is an author of many books, among them “Overcoming hindrances to getting married” , published in  2005. He has written other books yet unpublished, among them: 1.  Record  keeping in schools (2) A poetry book for schools (3) My philosophical sayings-espousal of my core convictions (4) A collection of Short Stories and the (5) The mystery of Christian Marriage.

    Pa Olawaiye is ascetic, with a quiet lifestyle, more of  a home-maker than anything else. He sees the positive side of every student, not just their weaknesses and has saved many students from being thrown out of school.

    Elder Olawaiye is happily married and blessed with children and grandchildren.

    Happy birthday, Sir. Many happy returns.

  • We must tell ourselves the truth about the South African attack on Nigerians

    Are the parents of these young men so money loving they cannot dissuade them to stop this deadly business?

    Threats, street and media rage will not address the problems. Nigerians must be troubled about our moral degeneration. We must be worried about those things that drive our people into beastly conduct. We must be worried that Africa’s most populous country increasingly appears to be a curse on the global stage and the kingpin of impunity. The danger now is that some of these criminal elements in South Africa are heroes in Nigeria, some seeking, or have already got legitimate political offices  as elected leaders, giving them a legal cover to perpetrate their crimes” – multi – award winning journalist, Wale Adeoye,  in a scathing, tell-it-all piece, on the attacks.

    I wrote on Adeoye’s article as follows on Facebook: ”It is extremely saddening seeing how South Africans continue to maltreat, even kill, Nigerians. Reprisal attacks have started in Nigeria, and if the  authorities will not now become proactive and guide against such heinous attacks, South Africans, and their economy, with its billions spinning businesses here in Nigeria, would be the worse for wear”.

    Thanks to Biodun Akin Fasae who in his comments on the post educated me when he wrote:”we don’t have to destroy any investment with links to South Africa.  These investments are just franchises; they are owned by Nigerians, and not South Africans. The workers are 100% Nigerian. Let government do the needful”. This I must say, however, is only half true as South African companies  like MTN yearly repatriate billions of dollars back to that country.

    What this means is that it may be double loss for Nigeria.

    Before going into the heart of this piece, let me comment on Nigerians who keep pointing accusing fingers at the federal government, holding it vicariously responsible for our compatriots, most times, needlessly going abroad when they haven’t the least competences to make them live an averagely decent life in their new country of abode.

    Apart from the fact that state governments are not precluded from also providing jobs for its citizens, and, of course, conceding that the federal government can do far more than it is currently doing in that regard, not even the United States, the bastion of democracy, has succeeded in providing employment for all its citizenry. With a current 3.7% (July 2019) unemployment rate that country still has a lot to do and that is a country where payment of tax is mandatory, unlike in Nigeria where, in 1918, of the 69 million taxable Nigerians, only a dismal 14 million were captured in the tax net.

    That said, not even the most critical of those opting for travelling outside Nigeria for what they call greener pasture can ever condone the bestiality that has befallen many Nigerians in South Africa, and it did not start today. That our government has taken this long to properly engage with South African authorities is truly shameful. The holy rage now being demonstrated by Nigeria with President Buhari sending an envoy to the South African President, and the Foreign Affairs minister, sabre rattling and promising hell fire, is far too late in the day.

    When about a month or so ago Senate President Ahmed Lawan exploded, reeling out huge numbers of Nigerians already killed in that country, and describing the attacks  as sheer ingratitude to Nigeria for its  enormous contribution to South Africa’s struggle for liberation, one would have thought  that was signal enough for government to act decisively.

    But what is the other side of this totally unfortunate state of affairs?

    The unvarnished truth is that many of our compatriots have not helped matters at all. For instance, Naledi Pandor, South African minister of foreign affairs, while responding to criticisms that South Africa’s security agencies are not doing enough to protect foreigners in the country claimed that

    many Nigerians there are involved in drug and human trafficking and wants Nigeria’s assistance in ensuring that such persons do not come to their country. There is also a very top police officer, in a trending video, alleging serial criminalities against them both, thereby, explaining their government’s inaction.  Coincidentally,  some Nigerians with conscience, have confirmed the presence of a section of the  Nigerian community in South  Africa,  living a life of utter debauchery, daily involved in deadly fights for territorial control in drug business, luring girls as young as 14, 15 years old. There are, they allege, several instances of Nigerians killing Nigerians.

    As recently recalled by Raphael Okunmuyide, nobody could easily have forgotten the South African -originated drug-cartel-organised, gruesome killing,  of innocent persons during Holy Mass in Ozubulu, Anambra State, a few years ago.

    Indeed, worse have been reported.

    There have been claims, for instance that: “Some of the shops looted and destroyed are actually covers for a serious crime. Some of our brothers take over entire areas and turn them into drug markets. But because the law in South Africa does not allow police to arrest criminals unless with evidence or unless shot at, the drug guys hide their merchandise in shops, restaurants etc which they  use as a decoy. There are, report  further says, up to 30 public “drug” markets in Joburg alone. These are areas where 50 to 200 Nigerians converge on street corners to sell drug.

    Let us then press into service, one Chinedum Agwaramgbo as he captures the scenario in his: Xenophobic Attacks In South Africa:

    ”I tried to keep my peace over this attack on Nigerians by South Africans and the increasing calls by Nigerians for our government to do this or that. I condemn in its totality, the violence meted on Nigerians living in South Africa! I abhor the violent taking of life.

    But:

    1. It was Nigerians that immigrated to South Africa and turned it to one of the major capital centre of drugs in the world! The drug cartels began with the Yorubas but were overtaken by the Igbos.
    2. They have presently turned the country to a drug-war zone, with killings galore especially Igbos killing themselves. Every day, an Igbo man is killed in a drug-related war.
    3. Every week at the Akanu Ibiam International Airport here in Enugu, corpses of Igbos, slain in “drug battles” in different streets of South Africa are flown into the country? I have personally witnessed the receipt of seven corpses within three weeks. The corpses arrive on the Thursday cargo flights of Ethiopian Airlines and I was present when three different families were in the manager’s office to receive their slain sons. Two of the families were represented by the aged biological fathers of the dead boys while the third family was represented by a younger man in age. I listened to them engaged in small talk; as they waited for the cargo (the coffins) to be disembarked!”

    Such gory details.

    Concluding, he wrote:”Please before you start the deluge of insults upon me, kindly call up your own brother doing legitimate business in South Africa and he will confirm these facts to you as the absolute truth.

    Questions we must ask ourselves.

    Are Nigerian security agencies completely helpless in these horrendous matters? Are the parents of these young men so money loving they cannot dissuade them to stop this deadly business? Can the Nigerian government legitimately protect persons involved in criminals without drawing international opprobrium to itself?

    Are governments in the Southeast helpless in doing anything to remedy the situation?

    Yes the federal government owe us a duty of care but is it in all circumstances, especially as there are thousands of Nigerian professionals – doctors, engineers, I.T gurus, academics etc – in South Africa, doing legitimate business, and who are not attacked by anybody?

  • Leadership, democracy and good governance; challenges and prospects

    First and foremost, I wish to thank the FEMI OYEBANJO FOUNDATION for the great honour and privilege of asking me to give this birthday lecture in honour of Chief Femi Oyebanjo, the Aro of Oke-Oro, Ekiti, a man I have always held in great awe and respect.  The Aro and I came a long way and for over three decades I have been more than privileged to learn at his feet. I first met Chief Oyebanjo in 1981 during the calm that preceded the tempestuous 2nd Republic politics in Ondo state. (We will henceforth omit all reference to Chief Oyebanjo as events conspired to ensure that the lecture, God willing, will now be given on the occasion of his 90 birthday. Amen).

    This recall, therefore, is only a precursor to articles which will soon appear on this column in answer to some of the questions that have arisen since the emergence of Prof (Senator) Banji Akintoye as the YORUBA LEADER. As is usual with the Yoruba, the articles will be handled syllogically; that is, applying deductive reasoning to arrive at conclusions so there would be no need for any abuses, whatever, from any quarters.

    The title, lest I have got you carried you away is: Leadership, Democracy and Good Governance:  Challenges and Prospects.

    In full disclosure, let me quickly make a confession.  I could not have been luckier in drawing this topic.  Why, you’d ask? I am particularly blessed that a John, not the Baptist, preceded me in interrogating the very issues I have been asked to deal with here today. I refer here to Dr John Kayode Fayemi, a Development Scholar, solid academician and governor of our dear state who, only last month at the CHATAM HOUSE, London, gave a lecture on Democratisation, Development and Good Governance. Though today’s topic is not on all fours with what he dealt with, he said enough, for me to leverage on.

    What then is LEADERSHIP? Leadership has been variously defined down the ages, but for o purpose today, I shall  adopt  the  simple  Microsoft Encarta dictionary definition of Leadership as the ability to guide, direct, or influence people because it is in these very areas that Nigeria, as a country, has so lagged behind that people have questioned what type of leaders God gave Nigeria. Many here, I suspect, must have heard the apocryphal story of the visit of the U.S President, the British Prime Minister, the German Chancellor and of course, their Russian counterpart to God to complain about the excessive human and natural resources He endowed Nigeria with.  God was reported to have laughed heartily; agreed He was favourably disposed to Nigeria but wondered aloud whether His August visitors have ever bothered to interrogate the type of leaders He gave her.

    What then are the essential ingredients of leadership, and which one world leader, past or present, can we use to demonstrate them?

    I proceed, here under to list them just as I shall be using the truly unique British Prime Minister, the indomitable War hero and statesman, Sir Winston Churchill to demonstrate each.

    INTEGRITY:

    A leader must have unimpeachable integrity.  He must have unshakeable moral values. Sir Winston Churchill was voted in a recent BBC poll as the Greatest Briton ever in history. Even in war time he never once understated the hard facts of the consequences of the war. Rather he promised Britons sweat, blood and tears. This rallied, rather than cow, the British since they trusted and respected him greatly.

    CONSISTENCY:

    Churchill was consistent. He had spent years warning of the ever growing Nazi threat. For some time his warnings went unheeded. He was, in fact, dubbed a warmonger. When the sitting Prime Minister was keen on appeasing Hitler, he stuck to his cause, rather than give in to the naysayers. For him, Hitler was a demon and the Nazis were too evil to be trusted about anything.  He would later be called upon to lead the nation and his consistency redounded well to the benefit of Britain and humanity.

    EXPERIENCE

    Experience is key to leadership. Churchill had been a Member of Parliament for nearly 40 years by the time he was made Prime Minister. For 25 years he had held high ministerial office in a wide range of departments. He had been in the government and served on the front line during the First World War. He had seen action, was captured and escaped from a prisoner of war camp. All these were crucial in his leadership role during the horrifying war years when hordes of German planes were daily pounding London.

    HARD WORKING

    He had an incredible work ethic and was a perfectionist. He demanded much from those around him – but more from himself of the extreme high standards he had set. He was, for instance, quoted  as  saying “Each night before I go to bed, I try myself by Court Martial to see if I have done something really effective during the day – I don’t mean merely pawing the ground, anyone can go through the motions, but something really effective.”

    KNOW YOUR PEOPLE

    Finally, a leader must know the people he leads, or indeed, wants to lead. He must show empathy and identify with the yearnings of the people. He must, at all times, demonstrate leadership traits that are worthy of his place in society.

    Britons, even in the agonising war felt close to Churchill. He was very sympathetic to their cause. His speeches touched everyone’s heart. He was a natural communicator, had no airs and was seen as an open book by his compatriots. Everyone knew where they were with Churchill.

    Shall we then take a quick look at Democracy and then, Good Governance, without which a country, state or even local government will be in great peril.

    Some 55 odd years ago in 1957, at the United School, Are-Afao Ekiti, my class teacher, Mr Fajana, later Chief, defined democracy for us as ‘the government of the people, for the people and by the people’. Events in the last half a century in Africa have strenuously questioned that definition of democracy. But our governor, to whose lecture I referred earlier, has done some good work of defining levels of democratisation in Africa.

    He identified three broad categories.

    I quote him: “First, I think we all need a typology of Africa’s democratisation that further interrogates the broad categories away  from the  Manichean divide – of success  and  failure, pessimism and optimism, sub-optimal performance and unprecedented progress – which is possible and indeed, necessary because of its practical implications for policy choices by African citizens, their governments and development partners. In this vein, one could clearly talk about five strands and even within them, experiences remain mixed and non-linear. One, there are states in the process of consolidating democracy and achieving better governance due to more legitimate and accountable governance, reformist economic management, rights based agenda, and a more active and demanding citizenry among other critical success factors – Botswana, Benin, Ghana will qualify here. Second are states in various stages of transitions – Kenya, Senegal, South Africa, Mozambique and Tanzania. Third, are states in conflict or emerging out of conflict – DRC, Cote D’Ivoire, Mali, Liberia, Sierra Leone.  Fourth are states in relapse or re-militarization – Comoros, Guinea Bissau, Madagascar and Mauritania and fifth, in my view, are out rightly authoritarian states”.

    What I understand Dr Fayemi as saying here is that the type of democracy in place in each category has determined to a significant level, to what extent Good Governance, in its proper essence, can be delivered to the peoples of these countries.

    What then is good governance?

    Modern economies are not built with capital or labour as much as by ideas. Put differently, wars are won in the map room. To talk about Good Governance, therefore, is obviously not to re-invent the wheel since the subject has agitated the minds of scholars for long, but much more seriously within the past decade as a result of the concern, worldwide, for best practices. Good governance, as terminology, is used in describing the desired objectives of a nation-state or a geo-political zone, as we are in South-West, Nigeria. Put simply, it is anti-corruption, i.e a system in which the government and its institutions are accountable, effective, efficient, participatory, transparent, responsive, consensual and equitable. Once a system meets these stated desiderata, the end is what the Avatar, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, described as the raison detre of any government, i.e catering to the happiness of the greater majority of the people.

    At the 2005 World Summit, leaders across the world concluded that good governance is integral to economic growth; to the eradication of poverty and hunger and towards ensuring sustainable development. Good Governance, the summit observed, ensures that the views of the most at risk segments of society, the oppressed: women, youth and the poor, are reckoned with because they suffer the most from the consequences of lack of good governance.

    The Independent Commission on Good Governance in public services established in the UK in 2004 by the Office For Public Management (OPM) and the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy, whose primary aim was to develop a common code and set of principles for good governance across public services to serve as a guide, came up with six core principles. These are:

    1. Focus: good governance means focusing on the organisation’s purpose and their outcome for the citizenry.
    2. Effective performance in defined roles.
    3. Promotion of values.
    4. Taking informed transparent decisions.
    5. Developing capacity and capability for effective governance, and,
    6. Engaging stakeholders and making accountability real.

    Having thus laid the philosophical underpinning of our core categories, let us now take a quick look at the challenges and prospects which Leadership, Democracy and Good Governance pose for us as a geo-political zone or as a state.

    SETTING GOOD GOVERNANCE AGENDA FOR YORUBALAND

    The desideratum for good governance is peace; political as well as social peace.  We need to, first of all, examine the sources of conflict and the structures available for conflict resolution in Yorubaland. The major source of political conflict in Yoruba land in the last twelve years or so has been the marginalisation of the Yoruba nation in the political scheme which came to a head with the annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential election, the war of attrition that followed the annulment, with the consequent decimation of the cultural and political leadership of the Yorubas.  This led to the mainstreaming agenda which dislocated our political and social life.

    With Yoruba land back in the progressive political platform, an agenda for good governance becomes a sine qua non. It is, therefore, a time for rebuilding; a time for working out  a blueprint for sustained social, political and economic development of Yoruba land.

    Leadership in Yorubaland

    Our leadership tradition is two-tier, i.e cultural and political but with both merging a-times. The Egbe Omo Oduduwa and Afenifere provided cultural cum political leadership; Obasanjo’s mainstreaming agenda created an out-rightly unpopular splinter group led by the Yoruba Council of Elders and the Akinfenwa AD as arrow heads. For the current political peace and harmony to be sustainable, our public office holders must be seen to perform optimally to the satisfaction of the citizenry as well as create a cultural leadership in its own image taking cognisance of the generational shift of the new political class. A Pan-Yoruba cultural organisation into which a lot of work has gone for the past five years with a thriving secretariat – THE AGBAJO YORUBA AGBAIYE- can, with judicious re-engineering, adequately fit the bill. It is led by Lt. Gen Alani Akinrinade, one of Yoruba’s finest specimens. It is my hope that the South-West governors’ forum can lead the charge here. It will not conflict with the new and improved ARG which is strictly political, and in my view, its Yoruba Academy is to serve as the intellectual power house for Yoruba land.

    GOOD GOVERNANCE

    The Yoruba race is one that inherited a good tradition of good governance in Nigeria. The high level of education of our political progenitors created a milieu that we can always look back to today to shape our political future.  The question does not arise, therefore, as to what good governance is all about for our new leaders.

    I proceed, therefore, to spell out the dividends that the new progressive governments should deliver to our people in the geo-political zone.

    Agenda for Good Governance

    1. The development of the Southwest must be done along regional lines, i.e regional integration. Fortunately, this is the trend that our new political leaders are already charting. The region is an economic block, and as such, a regional approach will be cost-effective and economically viable especially in the areas of infrastructure procurement, industrialization, commerce, the environment, and agriculture.

    Education:  Given the anti-intellectual posture of the PDP which would rather ravage resources, our education is in the doldrums but it is obvious the governors have taken education as a major priority of their government. For instance, I served on the Ekiti state Education/Visitation Panel set up by Governor Kayode Fayemi and chaired the Communique Committee at the subsequent Ekiti Education Summit. Similar summits have been held in other states in the region. There is a gaping need for increased attention to be paid to technical education, with particular emphasis on skills acquisition through the formal school system  – trade centres, vocational schools, traditional apprenticeship, reinvigorated Polytechnics etc.  The gigantic work of development cannot be accomplished with a top-heavy technocratic class without a competent class of those who translate dreams into reality. This restructuring will benefit the entire regional economy.

    Agriculture:  All the states have potentials for agricultural development but this must be harmonised to take care of areas of comparative advantage in food and cash crop production.  Food storage, preservation and processing industries should also be established, as well as, harmonised to avoid artificial glut. Agriculture should be used as a means of youth empowerment.

    While mechanisation is the ultimate for mass production, the consequences on the environment should be taken into consideration. Peasant agriculture should still be given attention because it has sustained us for a long time and a huge percentage of our farmers are engaged in it. Agriculture should also be used for women empowerment.

    Agro forestry: The Governments should go back to the preservation of our forest resources and also the afforestation and reforestation of overused land. There should be uniform laws to curb unauthorised logging, bush burning, poaching of wild animals etc because the entire region has the same forest resources. The youths should be massively involved in a forestation programmes across the region as a means of employment.

    Industrialisation: Industries are cited where the raw materials are available.  Good transportation in the region can bridge the disadvantage of access to the market. Major industries should be jointly-owned to ensure viability.

    THE ROAD NETWORK:

    Here is one area where the main streamers, under the lead of Ogagun Olusegun Obasanjo, has hurt us the most and there is no gain-saying its critical imperativeness.

    Luckily we have as governors, highly committed young men who know exactly how to tap into development partners and approach institutions like the IDA to come rescue us because roads are key to all our developmental plans. They should also find PPP -Public Private Partnership, attractive, with a strong regulatory frame-work to manage it.

    I haven’t the slightest doubt that we are poised for a very challenging but extremely exciting period of renewal in Yoruba land.

    A ju se. Odua a gbe wa.

    Congratulations Sir. Many happy returns.

  • When will PDP and its accolytes – Afenifere-PDP, Ohanaeze Ndigbo and co see opposition as serious business?

    However, one can hardly blame these young men who have most probably never functioned in any properly structured organisations.

    Kayode Samuel, a former Ogun State Commissioner for Information, unarguably one of Nigeria’s most intellectually engaging individuals on social media, and certainly not your most enthusiastic Buhari supporter, recently commented  as follows on Face book: “If the President indulges any Minister or aide by personally attending to them and their requests, they should know that that is a privilege. The correct protocol is that you go through his Chief of Staff. Not because the president thinks you’re not important but because the Chief of Staff is the one saddled with the responsibility for organising his diary, schedule and itinerary, and always ensuring presidential recall of actionable items.

    If you just want to chit chat with the president, you may insist on seeing him. But if you really wish that action be taken on any matter that you bring to his attention, you are better advised to go through his Chief of Staff. Really as simple as that. Self-important ministers who have any issues with this arrangement know what to do!”

    I reacted as follows:”It’s a great job you did here Kay but I don’t think you realise it. With this your short write up, by which I know you actually intend to address some ministers who consider themselves special, you have shut up the many who would soon have been telling Nigerians, pejoratively of course, that ministers cannot  see Buhari unless they  go through Kyari, his Fulani brother.

    So thank you for a good job”.

    God knows that when I wrote that, I had in mind only those intellectually deficient yokels, e- rats etc,  who  revel in ethnic profiling, no matter what it is President Buhari does or did not do. But how mistaken that has turned out to be as a coterie of busy bodies, and individuals, have jumped at what any logical person or group should have seen only as Mr. Samuel saw it, a procedural issue.

    But no, they would be lacking in what has since become their article of faith- irrationally criticising government for the sake of criticising – if they hadn’t trashed the president, calling him names, as usual.

    Now what is the casus belli? What caused their angst?

    Buhari’s sin was nothing more than declaring as follows at the inauguration of the new Federal Executive Council on Wednesday, 21 August, 2019: “As I said yesterday (Tuesday), in terms of coordinating communication, kindly ensure that all submissions for my attention or meeting requests be channelled through the Chief of Staff while all Federal Executive Council matters be coordinated through the Secretary to the Government of the Federation in order to speed up the process of decision-making.”

    One would have thought that this plea was straightforward enough and if we were to contextually analyse, and correlate it with Samuel’s position, one can only logically come away with the following: That:

    1. a) the president would only have been extending a privilege, which he is not obliged to, if he personally attends to any minister’s request, brought directly to him,  as that would be patently against protocol;
    2. b) the Chief of Staff is the one saddled with the responsibility for organising his diary, schedule and itinerary, and always ensuring his  recall of actionable items;
    3. c) it is no sign  of disrespect to the minister but a guarantee  that the minister would have action taken on whatever matter he/she brought to the president’s attention.

    Indeed, as if repeating the obvious, the president emphasised that this was for purposes of co-ordination.

    But hardly had he finished speaking than they launched their vitriol with the now, understandably, distraught PDP in the lead. Or what with the ‘death’ of their server at the Supreme Court only a few days earlier?

    Declared its Publicity Secretary, Mr Kola Ologbondiyan,  in his  forever  inelegant language: “By that directive, he (the president) has reduced the ministers to the clerical aides to the Chief of Staff and because of that even him, Mr. President, has abdicated his responsibilities and assigned it to his Chief of  Staff. The directive also suggests that Mr. President as the Minister of Petroleum Resources will also go through the Chief of Staff on policy matters (how logical?). He has abdicated his responsibility and ceded it to his Chief of Staff.” He concluded by saying that such demotion of ministers was “unacceptable and counter-productive, having reduced governance to a domestic affair”.

    That intervention reminded me of once writing about him as follows: “None of them will, however, hold the candle to their spokesperson, Kola Ologbondiyan, who has this incredible felicity with lying that I could not have been happier than when I read Emeritus Professor Jide Osuntokun on this  aspiring  Goebbels this past week. He wrote: “The wild exaggerations of government misdeeds coming particularly from the PDP’s spokesman, Kola Ologbondiyan, should be stopped. It is obvious to intelligent people that his claims of looting of trillions by people in the present government are mere juvenile vituperations lacking in merit. Targeting the vice president and tarring him with the brush of corruption is mere politics without fact. Those of us who know the vice president just laugh when we read or hear about Ologbodiyan’s accusation of corruption of members of this government in a case of the pot calling the kettle black …”.

    Not a few serious Nigerians see Ologbondiyan as the professor does.

    Just like you would expect the likes of Femi Fani Kayode to soon weigh in, both the Afenifere, PDP wing, and Ohanaeze Ndigbo, have since done  with  their own completely outlandish interpretations.

    Rather than see this as nothing more than a question of scheduling, as if the president’s office should become a bedlam with many ministers congregating, and angling to see him, all at once, the Afenifere spokesperson, who, I learnt,  also doubles as speaker for a nebulous  Southern and Middle Belt Leadership Forum, roars in: “That statement shows clearly that the president wants to reign as president. As a man that is reigning, he cannot be disturbed by matters of state, like ministers coming to disturb him and bringing files to him. So, he has delegated that responsibility to the de facto prime minister, the Chief of Staff, Abba Kyari. In the midst of what we are going through, should ministers be going through Abba Kyari to see the president?” Then he goes ex-cathedral: ”But our case is that in the midst of what we are, anybody that wants to govern Nigeria; that wants to achieve results and move the country out of these crises, (that person) should be holding almost a daily dialogue with the ministers.” You wonder as to what time the minister gets to work.

    Ohanaeze Ndigbo did not disappoint.  It weighed in, as expected. Declared its Publicity Secretary, Uche Achi-Okpaga: “This directive is highly condemnable. There are other ranking officials of the federal government, such as the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, so why the Chief of Staff? The appointment of ministers is confirmed by the National Assembly and you are now telling them to report to your aide? It only shows that Buhari is not in charge and that is why things have been going wrong in the country.”

    From his statement one would see that for Uche, it is all hearsay for had he read, or heard the president, he should have known, rather than being a sounding bag, that the president included the Secretary to Government in his directive.

    However, one can hardly blame these young men who have most probably never functioned in any properly structured organisations. Scheduling complex multiplicity of functions in an office not even half as busy as the presidency must be alien to them.

    A quixotic Alhaji Tanko Yakasai who, for purposes of ethnic solidarity was, a few weeks ago, feverishly queuing behind the president on the Ruga Settlement palaver, could be trusted never to let this pass without, opportunistically,  saying something. Said the PDP chieftain: “Our experience is that ministers line up in the office of the Chief of Staff (Abba Kyari) even to see him, let alone to see the president. If we continue with this, I don’t expect any miracle to happen.” There’s no way you won’t think the Baba is a minister, talking of his experience.

    Nigerians would sure be regaled to no end about this, otherwise simple, and straight forward matter,  since  no  PDP  chieftain would like to be outdone by others.

    On the long run, they will all come to see that this directive will only facilitate governance and guarantee efficient, and timely delivery of government’s promises to Nigerians; a fact that will make their graduating in inanities totally needless.