The Nation Newspaper

Category: Femi Orebe

  • Reactions to who, what messed up Nigeria?

    Reactions to who, what messed up Nigeria?

    We must, therefore, clinically identify where exactly we missed it as a nation so as to be able to correct our mistakes

    “As it is at the moment, Nigeria reminds one of a badly wounded elephant cut to pieces but still shambling and lumbering towards an inglorious finale as it emits a fearsome rumble. The Nigerian political elite have neglected to bind the wounds of the nation or dress its suppurating gashes. Now it has gone fearfully septic and everybody is waiting for the end” – SNOOPER in Power and Politics in Nigeria, 21 May, 2017

    On Sunday, 28 May, 2017 I wrote as follows: ‘Who or what messed up Nigeria? Was it the British, who colonised Nigeria, instituted discriminatory, rather than a uniform, mode of administering North and South and, rapaciously sexed up not only the census and the elections it conducted in favour of the North, but so wantonly skewed up the military it has since been a tool in North hands? Was it our founding fathers who allegedly took no more than 10 per cent as bribe? Was it our post colonial, extremely rapacious, self loving military which, though procured most of our infrastructure to date, ended up destroying Nigeria when it re-integrated itself into our politics by outrageously ensuring Obasanjo’s victory in 1999 after which our elections became the most rigged in the world with all manner of characters getting ‘voted’ into political office, ending up in our having the most outlandish National Assembly in the 8th Assembly? Or finally, is it we, the people, about the most docile citizenry, anywhere on earth?

    I went further to invite readers’ comments but, shot myself on the foot by failing to indicate an e-mail address to which they should be sent. What you will be reading below, therefore, are largely comments on my Face book wall where my weekly articles are also published. Because like minds usually think alike, in the same edition in which my article appeared, my colleague columnist on The Nation on Sunday, the un-put-downable Snooper, writing on Power and Politics in Nigeria, amongst other things, wrote as follows in validating the fact that our country is terribly broken and in dire need of fixing:  ”For those who can see, it is obvious that a dark cloud has descended on the Nigerian political firmament. It is full of portents and sinister foreboding. For those who can read political horoscopes of impending disaster, this one is palpable in its astral malignancy. Like a band of merry somnambulists, Nigerians are sleepwalking to a major political catastrophe with eyes wide opened. In this regard, a nation is like a human organism. Once its grievous wounds are left unattended to over a period of time, it will die a natural death. This is why the greatest nations on earth are constantly tinkering with their constitution, working towards what the Americans memorably call a more perfect union. This is why this ceaseless striving towards perfection often involves tinkering with the political alchemy of the nation itself in a way that throws up a new type of leadership such as it happened in France recently to the echoes of a glorious national catharsis. As it is at the moment, Nigeria reminds one of a badly wounded elephant cut to pieces but still shambling and lumbering towards an inglorious finale as it emits a fearsome rumble. The Nigerian political elite have neglected to bind the wounds of the nation or dress its suppurating gashes. Now it has gone fearfully septic and everybody is waiting for the end.”

    As the Yoruba would say, we need to know where we are coming from to know where we are going. We must, therefore, clinically identify where exactly we missed it as a nation so as to be able to correct our mistakes.

    Below are some of the comments.

    Kunmi Fisher An insightful piece there. Even though some comments might stir up the hornet’s nest as you must have envisaged, facts are sacred and must be said for the health and love of the country. Nigeria is undoubtedly facing a structural problem that was deliberately designed by the British. You alluded to some of the methods they applied. To ensure a solid foundation for a strong nation, a transparent and nationally acceptable census must be conducted. We are in this precarious situation as a country because of the faulty electoral system and process. The colonialists started it and Nigerian political leaders are perfecting the unjust process.

    Demola Biodun-Obanise

    Again,  a very deep insight into the bane of the geographical expression called Nigeria which though, many appear to know but treat with such derisory helplessness that is becoming too African in its tale. The rain started to beat us from the very day we were drenched in this consciousness of anomalies to our National life and did nothing, even till date. Of course, we mouth the solutions easily, but how docile we are to create an impetus for practical civil disobedience towards this blatant disregard to our common good by the few sons and daughters of perdition?  I guess the yoke around the neck of  Nigerians needs  to be  further stiffened unto more punishment; just may be, as the Holy Book says about a similar situation concerning a reckless Esau, we shall feel enough dissatisfaction to break the yoke. Until then, we shall continue to endure the self inflicted pains in the face of obvious chances for remediation.

    No Country ever existed in history whose trajectory never, or almost, got distorted by the selfishness of some socio-political marauders but woe to that nation whose people never stood up  against such evil with decisiveness to scream ‘enough is enough’. I am averse to the rhetoric of unfavourable historical murmurings behind this. Rather, I am interested more in responses laced with solutions being deployed to have these conditions rewritten to the vantage of Nigerians.

    Rising from our slumber on the bed of historical inanity, let’s declare how best we want to be administered by tasking these leaders on accountability. Or for how long shall we continue to trace the history of our woes, rather than seeking plausible solutions to end the sufferings? Blame game is woebegone, rising up to say ENOUGH appears to me, the way out.

    Olujoke David We get what we desire by our attitude to elected position as being a means to an end. We forget easily that people we elect are our own reflection. The family, friends, priests/imams/marabas/dibias/babalawo will get easy road to the brain box of the people in power.  If we want true development we must be sure we elect people who can serve this nation and not pander to self.

    I commented as follows on the above views: Fantastic interjections: you guys wasted no time in picking your culprits. While Joke is sure it is our pernicious politicians, for Kunmi it is the disabling English while Damola is certain we have to blame ourselves – an abnormally docile citizenry.

    Then, almost tangentially, and in a rather narrow, unduly partisan reaction to a question so fundamental to Nigeria’s wellbeing, Iroegbu Obinna  wrote: ”Politics of pretense and hypocrisy, that’s our major problem. Pretending that it never happened that a certain Buhari kicked out a democratically elected government and failed woefully in that attempt to bring the succour he promised. Hypocrisy in complaining about the system skewed to favour the North when in fact we would readily align with the same North even when all they could offer was a very  old soldier whose main idea of nation building is to make sure that 97 percent of appointments go to a certain section of the polity while 5 percent (applying his own illogic and warped sense of summation) is to be shared by the rest of the constituency. Pretense & hypocrisy, these are the bane”.

    To which I replied as follows:

    Thank you Obi for your perspective. But were you talking here of the ’83 coup? This is just for my understanding of your ‘kicked out”. If you are referring to 2015, then please correct your premise and say Nigerians kicked out a government they believed had passed its sell by date.

    I will chalk your other reason up as nepotism and there I would say you have a very valid point.

    PS

    Interested readers can send their comments to: Femi.orebe@thenation onlineng.net

  • The nigerian kidnapping conundrum: Are our security agencies unthinking ?

    The time has come, therefore, for the creation of state police at least two thirds of whose men should be indigenes of the state

    “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting to have different results – Albert Einstein (1879 – 1955).

    Taraba State -Unknown gunmen have kidnapped a retired Director of the State Security Service (SSS) , Mr. Hosea Danjuma, in the early hours of today, March 1.  He was abducted inside his residence in Baisa town, at about 1:47 am.

    1. Kogi State – A former director of the State Security Service, Mike Ejiofor, has been kidnapped. He was kidnapped on Sunday in Kogi State.
    2. Goodluck Jonathan – Gunmen kidnap ex-president’s foster father
    3. Seriake Dickson Governor’s sister rescued from kidnappers after 2 months
    4. BREAKING: Patrick Ugbe, a former commissioner for Information in Cross River has been kidnapped at a burial ceremony. The kidnappers allegedly stormed the burial ceremony and threatened to kill everyone if the identity of the owner of a particular car was not made known. (Kidnappers having all the world to themselves in Nigeria)
    5. It’s now over 40 days that Mr. Pade Ojoodide has been held by kidnappers on his way from an official assignment in a country that has laws and government. Contacts with the family show that the agencies are all at the mercy of the kidnappers.

    Add to the above, the totally careless, and  incredible, successful kidnap  of six students from Lagos State Model College, Igbonla,  in the Ikorodu area of the state, an area which appears to have been unofficially ceded to the underworld when you factor in the escapades of  the Badoo gang  which specialises in killing whole families.

    No, this is no attempt to trivialise security issues or mess up with the men and women who keep watch over us, most times exposing themselves to incredible risk. It is also not an attempt  to downplay how far they have  gone protecting our behind, but for Christ’s sake, when you read about the ubiquity of the kidnapper, whether in the North, East or  West  of our country and how he continues to be steps ahead of our security agencies, you will be hard put not to ask what our police men learn in those Police Colleges or  our military and the  men and women of our 61- year old navy in their various training  and retraining institutions,  as well as during their several  training tours, overseas gulping millions of dollars annually.  Nor would you be disposed to lightly let off the eggheads that, year in, year out, populate the Institute of Strategic Studies. Of what use to the country, really, are these highly regarded graduates of NIPSS if they can’t bring their expertise in strategic thinking to our everyday problems? Or is the institute programmed to be effete, never positively impacting the nation?

    One would have been considered a complete dunderhead to assume that President Muhammadu Buhari’s promise to Nigerians to improve on the country’s security referred only to Boko Haram or was intended to return peace to only a part while the other parts could literally go to the dogs or live in total fear. As I once wrote on these pages, it has become a complete horror to have a journey which you just have to make: whether it is for a child’s wedding, graduation or a parent’s obsequies and you have to be home bound. Life and living in many parts of Nigeria has become a horror film as you do not know where or when, and which of armed robbers, kidnappers or murderous Fulani herdsmen would be your nemesis. And whatever it is, no matter the carnage or the number of lives lost, all you will hear the Inspector-General of Police and his men say is: “everything is under control”. There is no evidence, whatever, that in the tenure of the last six or seven Inspector-Generals of Police, anything has changed in the way they approach solving the problem of kidnapping. This is why Albert Einstein was quoted in the intro to the article.  How they expect to get different results beats the imagination. For Christ’s sake, what has happened to good old policing? On almost a daily basis, the Nigerian Navy continues to be worsted on our waterways by rag tag kidnappers who come at any time of their choosing, to the Ikorodu area of Lagos State, kidnap whoever they want, king or students – last time around, they even had enough time to interview the poor kids they were seizing from under a government the parents expected them to be very safe. This is a government’s model school, for Christ’s sake.  What is happening in our country? Why has life become so cheap and meaningless? What are our political leaders doing, what are they thinking; the next election or the next billion? God!

    Which was why one was close to tears, the other day, reading the empty sophistry, on the non- feasibility of restructuring, as articulated by an Attorney – General and Minister of Justice who, in other climes, would have been totally non- plussed by the increasing number of separatist agitations erupting from every part of the country, though in various forms, and would have put his expertise in Law, to put such proclivities in check.

    Obviously consumed by the northern disdain for restructuring, whatever the posturing  of  respected Professor Ango Abdulahi and the Northern Elders Forum  to the contrary, (and by the way, I have enough daily testament from my friend, Tony Sani, ex-Publicity Secretary  of ACF, as to  the true northern position on restructuring which is like cast in stone by the presence of  the likes of Mamman Daura, Babagana Kingibe and others, so very close to the president, but the immovable would end up being moved by the natural order of things),

    it’s a shame Abubakar Malami (SAN) cannot just see himself championing a process which is  guaranteed to return  peace  and qualitative, inter-regional cooperation to the country. And again I ask: what is the North afraid off? After all, we do not have oil in the Southwest nor can we match the North in agriculture, not to talk of the North’s several mineral resources. Nor would I ever subscribe to the view that our northern compatriots are less hardworking.

     

    In my view, in order to check the horrendous disaster which kidnapping poses to all segments of our country, amongst other challenges, there is a very urgent need to restructure the Nigeria police.

    The power to establish local government or native authority police by the regional legislatures was taken away by the Constitution (Suspension and Modification Decree only in 1971, and one of the most important reasons for it was that: “a single nationwide police organisation will make for more efficiency in the prevention and detection of crimes, especially crimes having interstate elements.”

    However, today, not even the Inspector General of Police needs any convincing that the Nigeria police has become more inefficient, corrupt and inept than it was in 1971. Its performance level has so degraded it now enjoys nationwide dissatisfaction and disapproval of its activities.

    To be fair, it is not all their fault. The Nigeria Police will reckon as one of the most deprived police organisations the world over apart from its being ill-equipped, underfunded and its men very poorly quartered. Besides, there is an unimaginable level of youth unemployment which has resulted in unprecedented level of crime in addition to the indescribable corruption of the 16 years of a thoroughly insidious PDP government, all combining to put the Nigeria police in tatters. But for the unprecedented support of many state governments, Lagos State in particular, many of the men of the already understaffed Nigeria Police, would have since deserted. Also, given the country’s size and population, serious and effective policing by a single organisation has become absolutely impossible. The chain of command is too long, remote and, therefore, ineffective.

    The time has come, therefore, for the creation of state police at least two thirds of whose men should be indigenes of the state. This will facilitate the identification of anti social elements like the cashiered Niger Delta militants who have made living in many parts of Lagos more than horrendous. This single move, which the Attorney-General can kick start through an executive bill, could very well serve as a silver bullet, even a Deus Ex Machina for far beyond  our kidnapping conundrum.

     

  • Who, what messed up Nigeria?

    Who, what messed up Nigeria?

    Who, or what messed up Nigeria? Was it the British, who colonised Nigeria, instituted discriminatory, rather than a uniform, mode of administration

    “Awolowo is, was and shall for a very long time be the central figure in the politics of Nigeria. He had answers to almost 95% of Nigeria’s problems and challenges. He  wrote about ALL.  All we need  do, as a country of nations,  what he called a geographical expression,  now that he is no longer  around to contest with anybody,  is to learn from all his books, all the rolling plans and budgets of the old Western Region and  we  would have the answer  to most of our country’s challenges. The Rolling Plans of the Old Western Region were made only as subsets of the  problems of Nigeria” –Quoted, mutatis mutandis,  from a thread on the Yorubapanupo Forum.

    I begin here, today, a discussion which  I hope will be enthusiastically  interactive, no holds- barred,  and  should, indeed,  take us  some quality  time to properly interrogate  as true patriots. We cannot all see things the same way, ethnic consciousness being one of our most potent problems,  but let us  try to be civil, in our language, and endeavour to add value to the subject.

    The question is: Who, or what messed up  Nigeria?

    Was it the  British, who colonised Nigeria, instituted discriminatory, rather than a uniform,  mode of administering  North and South  and,  rapaciously  sexed  up  not  only  the census and the elections it conducted  in  favour  of  the North,  but so wantonly  skewed  up  the military it has since  been  a tool in North hands? Was it our founding fathers who allegedly took no more than 10 per cent as bribe?  Was it  our post colonial, extremely rapacious, self  loving military which, though procured  most of our infrastructure to date,  ended up  destroying Nigeria when it re-integrated  itself  into our politics by outrageously  ensuring  Obasanjo’s  victory in 1999 after   which our elections  became the most rigged in the world  with all manner of  characters  getting ‘voted’ into  political office,  ending up in our having the most  outlandish  National Assembly in the 8th Assembly ( thanks to the suspended  Hon Jibrin)?Or  finally, is it we, the people, about the most docile citizenry, anywhere on earth?

    For starters this Sunday,   let me whet readers’ appetite with  a peep into the lives of  two of  the most  outstanding  politicians of Nigeria’s First Republic.

    CHIEF OBAFEMI AWOLOWO

    QUOTE

    “It was the British in their desire for continued control of Nigeria and  her  resources , which ensured  that Awolowo was never elected prime Minister , because of his sophisticated ideas whose execution would have accelerated, not only the West  but  Nigeria to a point of making the British very uncomfortable. The Coup of July 29, 1966 was related to Awo. The Supreme Military council under Major General Aguiyi Ironsi had ratified the release of Awo from  the Calabar prison as well as voided his 10 year imprisonment. After the meeting with the Obas in Ibadan , Ironsi was to announce the  release the  following morning, July 29, 1966 but he was  killed in the wee hours of that day. Lt Col Gowon, also a member of the SMC,  later took the credit for the release.  Ojukwu provided the airplane that flew Awo from Calabar to Lagos, just as Murtala Mohammed would personally drive him home on his arrival in Lagos..

    But Awo believed that had Fajuyi not been killed alongside Ironsi, he would, most probably, have been killed in Calabar in retaliation. That was why he would later say: “ Fajuyi died in my place “.

    Awo, as eloquently attested to by Gowon, was the reason Nigeria did not break up in 1967. Concerning this, Gowon  said he “needed Awo  more than he needed the Nigerian Army” because:

    1. The original rallying point of the Yoruba was Awolowo and if the Yoruba supported the break up, no Jupiter can stop it.
    2. Awo’s wisdom was unequalled, unparalleled and unrivalled and must therefore not be allowed to be on the side of Biafra; otherwise, Nigeria would not survive.

    Both Gowon and Ojukwu would later confirm this when Gowon claimed he was” the luckiest ruler of Nigeria because the best Nigerian asset, meaning Chief Awolowo, was his Vice Chairman and Finance Commissioner” and Ojukwu declared Chief Awolowo “the best President of Nigeria that never was”

    Awo devoted a lot of resources to building up investments for the West; investments from which he believed the  region’s progressive politics would be financed.  According to him, the region needed stable sources of funds because a poor West would stand no chance against a very unfriendly Central Government. No one knew this was his staying power until it was leaked to government and the West instantly became a target for destruction. He was fond of saying: “fight Awolowo from now till forever, if you do  not  succeed  in destroying Western Nigerian Investments, the region will always be  financially buoyant. Otherwise, they will fight you and destroy you”. Once that secret was blown, the  West became a target so much so that at a point during the military regime, all the region’s successive governors were non Yorubas and they made it a point of duty  to crush the  Odu’a Investment  Company; the region’s prime investment corporation..

    \SIR TAFAWA BALEWA

    “It was in the year 1963 and Nigeria’s first and only Prime Minister, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa took his annual leave and was off to his village to spend it. Then a British photojournalist came along asking for him but was told that  he was on vacation.

    The photojournalist then asked to which country he had gone and was shocked when told that the PM went to spend the vacation in his village. To satisfy his curiosity, he decided to go there. But on getting to the village, there was no sign that any big man was in town. Everyone went about his/her normal business and the village was peacefully quiet.

    Then he met a farmer along the way with his donkey carrying bales of sugarcane, from whom he asked the direction to the Prime Minister’s house. The photojournalist was again left speechless when the farmer told him that he had just left him and that if he gets to his house, which he described, he would meet him sitting on the bare floor with his kids, enjoying the sugarcane which he gave them. The British photojournalist was dazed when he  finally reached  Balewa’s  home. ( see in-boxed photo)

    Today, we have vagabonds and thieves in power. Those who disturb an entire city with sirens and their empty noises of vanity. Those who loot the treasury of an entire nation and insult our intelligence with their embarrassing incompetence. Nigeria has all it takes to be one of  the greatest nations on earth. All we need are visionary, dedicated and inspiring leaders; not the shameless rogues and incorrigibly kleptomaniac bandits who lie, rob, cheat, rig and kill their way to power”. ( End of quote)

    Now I ask:

    When exactly did the rain start to beat us in Nigeria?

    Where did we import these kangaroos from, these vagabonds in power who will personally set up gangs to steal our common resources like crude oil and ensure that those legally allocated are not paid for; or those who would  fraudulently get paid billions of naira in oil subsidy claiming that ships which never visited  the West African coast, delivered millions of litres of petroleum products in Lagos, Nigeria?

    How did we come about leaders who, in the middle of a ravaging terrorist war, ensured that funds  voted to equip the national army are stolen to the last penny just as they turned the country’s Central Bank to an Automatic Teller Machine(ATM)?

    How come we have in our public offices, persons who would think nothing of stealing funds meant for the upkeep of hapless millions of compatriots who, due to no fault  of theirs, have become internally displaced persons( IDPs)  in their own country?

    The questions are legion and would be asked as they become appropriate in this discussion.

    The time has come when we should talk truth, not only to power, but to ourselves. We must hold nothing back as we move towards another set of elections from which they will again hope to successfully banish us,  the electorate.

    We must say no and hand them, these sons and daughters of perdition,  over to God’s wrath, if they insist.

  • Gen. Robert Adeyinka Adebayo: A colossus departs in a blaze of glory

    His contributions to the church of Christ stand him out as one who served God with all he had

    In a marathon obsequies the like of which you would go back  a whole three decades to Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s glorious home calling to match, the colossus, elder statesman, Major-General Adeyinka Adebayo,  the Bobajiro of Ile-Ife, was laid to rest at his natal town of  Iyin-Ekiti in a ceremony the like of which we have never seen in Ekiti. Yes, Col.Francis Adekunle Fajuyi, (26 June 1926 – 29 July 1966)  who the general succeeded as military governor of Western Nigeria on his assassination in a military putch  certainly had a  glorious burial but  that  occasion was greatly  attenuated  by  both his relatively tender age of 40, and the  unfortunate  manner of his passing, it was understandably denuded of  the  all pervading joy, conviviality and, indeed, camaraderie that accompanied the general home to his maker as the entire  old Western Nigeria, the  military,  royalty, the clergy, even the ordinary Nigerian who remembered his service to Nigeria and humanity, erupted to give him a well deserved right of passage. It is worthy of mention that the crowd  at the  two events heralding his obsequies, the service of songs on Wednesday, 17 May, 2017 and the commendation service the following morning, both at the Archbishop Vining Memorial Cathedral Church, GRA, Ikeja,  the building of which, according to the Lord Bishop, The Rt. Revd. Dr. James Olusola Odedeji, the departed general was the very first to make a donation of N50,000, then a very huge contribution, can only be described as massive as the events were full to the brim, almost unmatched. And I should know, this being my church. There were people from every sector of the Nigerian polity as well as a decent representation of persons from outside Nigeria. And as the Lord Bishop rightly said in his sermon at the commendation service, we are followed in after life, only by the good we did while here on earth. It was crystal clear that the general positively touched lives.

    From the moment it pleased the Almighty God to call him home on 8 March, 2017 his Ikeja,  GRA home in Lagos became a beehive of activities with thousands of people from all over the country and beyond–yes, no exaggeration – pouring in to join the family in an unprecedented celebration of life. For us Ekiti in Lagos, it practically became our home with not a few having their three rounds of iyan (pounded yam), morning, afternoon and evening before heading home for the day. No kidding. Papa’s home calling was one event that united us like nothing in our recent history and the large turnout at the two events, ably coordinated by the Ekiti Parapo, Lagos, under the sterling leadership of  Chief Esan Ogunleye, a seasoned banker, joined by the likes of Ekiti icons: Prince Julius Adelusi Adeluyi,  Sir Remi Omotosho, Chief Akomolede and others more than confirmed this. This would continue until he was laid to eternal rest in Iyin-Ekiti on Friday, 19 May 2017, with his remains making a historic stop at Ibadan, the old Western Region capital where he made his most momentous contributions to the socio-political history of the Yoruba people besides his long and meritorious military service, both within and outside the country.

    Born at Ile-Ife in present day Osun state into the Christian home of  Papa Isaiah Kayode and Victoria Ogunrounbi Adebayo, both of Iyin –Ekiti on 9 March, 1928, the late General was put in the care of some Christian gentlemen teachers at Iyin –ekiti early in life  as  his father who wa a Public servant, traversed the country. He subsequently followed one of these teachers to his new posting at Usi-Ekiti where he would become a classmate of the highly reputed jurist, Mr Justice Olajide Olatawura, together with who he later proceeded to the famous Christ’s School, Ado-Ekiti. The young Adeyinka did not stay long at Christ’s School, having  to move again with his uncle to Lagos where he enrolled at the Eko Boys High School in continuation of his secondary education in 1947.

    On 12 July 1948, he joined the Royal West African Frontier Force, subsequently attended the School of Infantry, Teshie, Ghana and  after a series of courses, both within and outside the country, was promoted full Lieutenant. He attended several other courses which exposed him to several facets of the military profession. These included Platoon Commanders’ Tactical Course, Westminster, 1955; Platoon Weapons Course –Hyde, 1955; Company Commanders Course, Westminster, 1959, Staff College, Camberley, Surrey, 1960 and the famous Imperial Defence College, London, 1966. He rose rapidly through the ranks and was promoted Major General in 1971. Some of  his several postings are: ADC (Aide-de-camp) to the last British Governor-General of Nigeria, Sir James Robertson who would become the God Father to his first son, His Excellency, Otunba Niyi Adebayo; served in the United Nations Peace Keeping Force in the Congo where he was in charge of Intelligence; Commanding officer,  Second Battalion Nigerian Army in the Congo; General Officer 1, Nigerian Army Headquarters rising to become the first Nigerian indigenous Chief of  Army Staff . Between 1964-65, he served as the Chairman, OAU (Organisation of African Unity) Defence Planning Committee.

    However, it was as the Military Governor of Western Region, a position to which he was appointed in 1966, that Papa touched the most lives during his time in public service. Since his passing, many stories have been told, both in the mainstream and the social media, of his many acts of kindness. Among these is the story of  Bisi Oyedeji, a former University of Ibadan undergraduate as well as my good friend and classmate at Christ’s School, Ado-Ekiti who, together with his roommate who on the spur of the moment, had the audacity to go and meet the Military governor to request that University students of Western region origin be granted scholarship. What first surprised them was the ease with which the governor instructed the guards to let them in. Hardly had they finished making their presentation, he said,  than he approved of  their request and before they got back to the campus, the news was already being broadcast on radio. There was, on Face book, the story told by  another good friend of mine, the son of an Igbo woman, married to a Yoruba, who was about being forcefully removed to God knows where when Papa got wind of it. This was shortly after a Biafran plane flew into Lagos during the civil war, an act which made the soldiers become hyper active. But the governor would not hear of such an unprovoked aggression against an innocent woman. He promptly ordered her release.

    Papa served his God as he served his country and humanity. As a very senior military officer during the events leading to the Nigerian civil war, he counseled against the use of force declaring, for instance, as follows: “ I need not tell you what horror, what devastation and what extreme human suffering will attend the use of force. When it is all over and the smoke and dust have lifted, and the dead are buried, we shall find, as other people have fund, that it has all been futile, entirely futile, in solving the problems we set out to solve”. It was little surprise, if any at all therefore, that at the end of the war, he was appointed by the Head of state, General Yakubu Gowon, as the chairman of the  committee on the Reconciliation and Integration of Igbos back into the Nigerian fold. General Adebayo was severally honoured with chieftaincy titles literally all over the country, among them : Baba Oba of  Iyin-Ekiti, the Asalu of Ijero Ekiti, the Agbaakin of Ekiti, the Bobajiro of Ife, Jagunleke of Ijebu and, Jagungbayi of Abeokuta. In the academia he had honorary degrees from the universities of Ife and the Ondo state university and at the national level he was conferred with both the Officer of the Federal Republic OFR, and Commander of the Federal Republic CFR.

    His contributions to the church of Christ stand him out as one who served God with all he had. We are, therefore,  more than comforted that he now rests, in perpetuity, at the bosom of his Lord and Master, our Lord Jesus Christ.

    Adieu Papa, till we meet at the feet of Jesus, to part no more.

  • NYSC: Now a joke or at best a source of cheap labour

    NYSC: Now a joke or at best a source of cheap labour

    It is time to rethink the NYSC. Half a century on, and NYSC still pays corpers the same ludicrous bicycle allowance

    Half a century on, and NYSC still pays corpers the same ludicrous bicycle allowance to add to the ridiculous and insulting stipend given to university graduates to go spend 12 months of their lives in various parts of the country, deliberately chosen as far away from their home/school/state as possible.Today though, the scheme has an added deadly dimension.” – Mikky Attah, in ‘Their Suffering Must End Now( on NYSC)’.

    I have written, ad nauseam, about the National Youth Service (NYSC) but God knows I have literally forgotten all about  the scheme and its many problems  until this past Sunday, when as usual, I read that  racy and very interesting columnist of The Nation on Sunday, Mikky Attah,  writing on the topic: ‘Their Suffering Must End Now( on NYSC)’. Whoever missed it should please Google and read it to get a better understanding of this piece which is my article of 10 July, 2011 on these pages.  I am sure it should still be germane in resolving its many problems should government elect not to cancel  a scheme that has, in essence, become almost unrecognizable, but for the uniform.

    Again on the NYSC

    “The government has been completely remiss concerning the NYSC probably because children of the high and mighty have not fallen victims of its many vicissitudes. Matters have come to a head regarding the scheme  that one must, willy nilly, return to it since its continuation, or otherwise, has again come  to the  centre stage of national discourse, only that this time around, it has assumed a life of its own with Corps members  who represent  the very face of western education which the nation’s latest nemesis, Boko Haram, detests to high heavens. I personally feel sorry for the overwhelmed federal government because,  Boko Haram driven as it is by religion, nobody can say with any measure of certainty that some security personnel are not fully involved in it. After all, Egyptian President Anwar Sadam was shot dead 6, October, 1981 by a serving Egyptian soldier. Suggestions, including, but not limited to a‘class action’ by parents of would-be corpers  against their   posting up North, have been made. I have  suggested, however, that rather than resort to the long-winding legal route, affected parents should simply refuse their children’s  posting to any of the volatile states up there. As things stand today, parents in  both the north central and southern states should refuse their children going to those states because, apart from Boko Haram, the federal government has proved totally incapable of guaranteeing the lives of these embattled young people.

    I summarise below, my article- NYSC: Matters Arising – of 22 November, 2009 on the need to re-structure the programme: ‘ Without a doubt, Mr Abdulwahab Obomeile, NYSC Director of Publicity, must by now be congratulating himself for what he must consider a great favour done his employers  with his article: The NYSC, Security And Death  of  Corps Members’, published in The Nation of Friday,13 November, 2009. Paradoxically, however, he ended up practically killing off the programme which, to most discerning observers, has become nothing more than a source of cheap labour for some states in the federation, especially in the North. Since the wicked murder of some Corps members during the Jos riots of November 2008,  an argument  has arisen as to the reasonableness, or  otherwise, of continuing the scheme. Indeed, in the aftermath of those mindless killings, I called for what I described as a ‘vigorous debate’ on the way forward for the NYSC.

    In my view, it was to be either a complete scrapping or at worst, a total re-molding in ways that will take cognisance of our current precarious circumstances-a horrible national road network, vehicles in worse condition than the roads, marauding armed gangs and kidnappers, horrible, toll collecting and trigger happy policemen, ethnic/ religious crises waiting to explode in a moment etc, all of which have combined to turn an otherwise excellent idea on its head.

    Talking of an excellent idea, the NYSC was certainly  one at inception. All manner of arguments have been proffered for its continuation but the one by one Olaoluwa Richards in an article in the DAILY TRUST of 18 November, 2009 must rank as the most juvenile. Amongst other things, he wrote: ‘Accident is a daily occurrence on our roads. Has anybody asked for the scrapping of the ministries of works and transportation?’

    Apparently, it has not occurred to Richards, and all who think like him, that but for this compulsory one year programme, any of these  Nigerians  might just not have been in Jos  as at the time they were needlessly killed. From that, Richards leapt to an obvious lie: arrogating to the NYSC something everybody knows is  no longer in-existence in this country today. Hear him: ‘…the priceless understanding generated by this cross-cultural interface has served to greatly reduce the tribal lacunae that in the past created undue mistrust and suspicion among Nigerians.’

    What balderdash? If Richards ever cares to know, the truth is that Corps members are too busy praying daily  that no ethno- religious crisis erupts where they are serving than to remember anything about reducing intra-ethnic  problems in Nigeria.

    However, in another  article in The Nation of 17 May, 2009, devoted mostly to a critique of the critics of the  programme,  for instance, Professor Segun Osinowo who lost a nephew to the crisis, Abhuere, a director with the NYSC, enumerated some of the achievements of the programme in its 36 years, concluding that in spite of the pains , we must not throw the baby away with the bath water’.

    So what to do?

    In my view, government cannot continue to pretend that  there is nothing wrong with the programme. The scheme has chalked up impressive achievements, no doubt, but those are now obviously in the past as abuses, especially by states up North, have continued un-checked, example being the allegation that Northern female Corps members are  hardly permitted to be  posted to the South. The problems confronting the NYSC today are humongous and not much is being done to ameliorate things. Additional to infrastructural deficiencies are poor remuneration of corps embers  in the face of a ballooning cost of living, insecurity and the fact that many of them get turned back from their primary postings only to roam the streets, carrying about letters of rejection. On top of these, only very few of them  get  retained at the end of their service year. However, while it was quite justifiable to call for the  cancellation of the programme in the heat of the Jos murders, it is now my considered opinion that the time has come for government and the critical stakeholders to put heads together and jointly interrogate the various issues which an increasingly polarized and economically humbled country has  brought  on the programme, in addition to its own systemic weaknesses. This should enable government restructure and strengthen the scheme appropriately.

    Since that article was written almost two years ago, a national election has accounted for the blood of many Corps members:  in Minna, Niger state, 50 of its members barely escaped being roasted; in Osun State, a monarch allegedly defiled his throne on top of an unwilling female member while 5 of them were rescued from kidnappers in Rivers State after two grueling weeks.

    For parents of corpers  posted to volatile states in the North, it is my considered opinion that the fear of the ubiquitous Boko Haram should be the beginning of wisdom , while in the South, the ubiquitous kidnapper is a present danger any minute of the day”.

    It is time to rethink the NYSC.

     

  • As the 2014 confabulists (Pdp) juggernauts) gather again

    Where were these confabulists when President Jonathan completely slept on the same recommendations they now gathered to gloat about

    Tuesday, 2 May 2017 was a day like no other. No I take that back. It was a day that easily reminded one of the Thursday, 6 April, 2017 ill-fated, PDP Stakeholders’ meeting inspired by former President Goodluck Jonathan. Sans a few incongruous individuals who have really never openly declared for the party but shared everything else, especially their indescribable  Buhari loathing, it could have readily passed for a meeting of the PDP National Executive committee, that is, assuming they had one in. Christened the 2014 National Conference Implementation Summit, our 2014 summiteers, rallied within days by the Nigerian media mogul, an apparently obliging Dr Raymond Anthony Aleogho Dokpesi  who must  naturally have been keen to divert attention from the  very bad press former President Jonathan was harvesting from his  unfortunate reaction to exposes in Segun Adeniyi’s book: “Against the run of play”, the event saw such extravagant back-slapping you would think  they were celebrating  the fruitfulness of their 2014 ‘exertions’.

    Unfortunately, days after the summit, the Jonathan pummeling has not subsided.

    No objective viewer, on television, of the high profile event could have failed to ask where these reconvened confabulists were when President Jonathan completely slept on the same recommendations they now gathered to gloat about,  or when, despite the high profile of many of them in the PDP, the party failed, miserably, to make the  confab  a campaign issue. The conference initiator, Afenifere, had to carry that cross.  Of course, to any objective observer of President Jonathan’s body language,  it should have been obvious that he lost all interest in the summit  the minute Afenifere, failed to get their promises fulfilled.

    Nor would they be able to deliver on Yoruba votes.

    Given President Jonathan’s obvious lack of enthusiasm towards implementing even those he could have effected executively, I couldn’t help laughing when the ever available professor was, at the conference,  making a mountain out of  President Buhari’s statement that he has not read the confab report. Why this should surprise Professor Jerry Gana is amazing since, from the get go, both Buhari and the APC had both disavowed of, and dismissed the conference as political and opportunistic.  For starters, President Jonathan, like senate President, David Mark, was an arch enemy of any form of national conference and became only a very late believer. It was very obvious to the Southwest APC, for instance, that the conference was nothing more than the route through which Afenifere burrowed into President Jonathan through the auspices of his godfather and a Southwest PDP governor. What is funny about these professional politicians is their unchanging belief that Nigerians are fools who forget so easily. President Jonathan’s opposition to a national conference of any type, sovereign or not, was long and checkered.

    But so successful was the Afenifere lobby, and its complete takeover, of the former President on the  conference matter that they not only provided Senator Femi Okunrounmu to  kick start  the process, one of  its top members, or at worst, a very strong sympathiser, Professor Bolaji Akinyemi, emerged as the Deputy Chairman. Of course, the APC saw all this early and Ashiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the man Afenifere went to all that length to dislodge in the Southwest in order to be rescued from their political Siberia in the region’s politics, wasted no time in shredding the confab. Indeed, so total was the Afenifere control of President Jonathan  that on his instruction, Secretary to the Federal Government, Anyim Pius Anyim, unilaterally  removed  the Ekiti state leader of  delegation, Chief Deji Fasuan, and substituting him with my good friend, Dr Jide Olajide, who is well known to be more agreeable to Afenifere leaders. The Ekiti state governor’s subsequent visit to a President Jonathan already won over by Afenifere promises towards the 2015 election changed nothing.

    So one could hardly blame Chief Dokpesi, the media mogul that he is, when on deciding to divert the  attention of Nigerians from a President Jonathan who was being seriously pulverized especially on social media, he elected  to have a gathering of those who attended the very lucrative 2014 national conference, most of who were PDP members and sympathisers, the minders  having cleverly ensured that membership was thoroughly skewed such that government ended up nominating over 70 per cent of members. Indeed, those who should know said that the conference was doubly lucrative for some Southwest delegates courtesy the proverbial generosity of a former Southwest governor.

    In deciding whether or not Nigerians should be unduly bugged down by the 2014 national conference,  let us briefly look at only one out  of  its  recommendations; one  which incidentally,  both the Dokpesi conference chairman, as well as Professor Gana, celebrated to high heavens even describing it as a silver bullet for Nigeria’s problems: the creation of 18 new states for, wait for it: ‘ regional equity’. What should a gathering of supposed statesmen , in Nigeria’s current circumstances, be salivating over in that  recommendation? If, in spite of the federal government twice extending financial assistance to states, together with  the billions from  the Paris club refund from which governor’s deviously made away with billions faking it as fees to some faceless consultants most of today’s 36 States  can still not pay their workers, with some owing in excess of 12  months, why should any rational human being take that conference serious?

    Or is that how they want to rouse a President Muhammadu Buhari who, obviously subsumed in Northwest politics, certainly wants nothing of restructuring the country? I say no. Our politicians, whether of the opposition or otherwise, but who love this country and want it, not only to just survive but prosper, have got to think harder. As I indicated above, nothing suggests to me that the President would lift a finger towards restructuring as long as he can hang on to the country’s current economic circumstances to plead: no money. Since he has foresworn the 2014 national conference from the beginning, and we cannot reasonably expect him to convoke the usual jamboree-type national conference, I will like to go back to a recommendation I once made on these pages.

    On 7 August, 2016,  I wrote as follows: “For me, come 2018, the country should treat Restructuring like Brexit; have a National Conference for about 6 months starting during the Second  Quarter of the penultimate year of  President Buhari’s first term and get the recommendations approved at a national referendum ahead of the 2019 general elections during which the political parties should treat the document as part of  their respective manifesto. This is slightly different from my earlier suggestion on the issue but it looks much neater since political parties will not be the sole driver of the process. Whichever party wins that election should be presumed to have the peoples’ mandate to restructure the country, beginning, 29 May, 2019. That way, we would have cured the timing problem as well as effectively involve the citizenry in the decision making process.

    The immediate challenge before us as a country today is our economic survival and that is what should concentrate our attention. Murders have so spiked in Venezuela, on top of hunger, and general insecurity, that we should do everything to avoid that country’s fate. Their problems arose, we should remember, strictly from non-diversification of their economy”.

    Of course, kidnapping has now  literally assumed ownership of our own country.

    In the alternative, if President Buhari will still remain tight fisted, then his party SHOULD, if need be, force his hands,  to make him do the following which will be cheaper but no less effective: Convoke for 6 months only, a committee of 2 members from each state, Abuja 1, elected through a nationwide, one-day special election, qualification for which should be based strictly on integrity (any previous indictment will disqualify just as anybody undergoing EFCC/ICPC interrogation/trial, stands disqualified) professional competence/higher relevant education, to which recommendations of ALL past national conferences (Abacha’s inclusive) should be handed over to as working paper with a mandate to give the country a document on restructuring. The document should then go through a national referendum. Whichever party wins the 2019 election should, automatically, begin the implementation, 29 May, 2019.

  • Explaining the Nigerian legislature’s reticence in passing anti-corruption laws

    But Nigerians are not amused at all and many have expressed the wish that these people should just, one day, pack and go to their various homes or that the 8th Assembly, the Senate in particular, should be the very last this country will have. 

    Three weeks before the first three judges were arrested for corruption, I was talking to a fairly senior retired public officer who put things this way, ‘The judiciary is gone, the national assembly is gone, the military is sunk and the civil service was gone before them; God save Nigeria’. I said a loud Amen,” -Former President Olusegun Obasanjo at the First Akintola Williams annual lecture in Lagos.

    In  its first-ever engagement with  the wave-making, whistleblower  anti-corruption  tool, the ever bungling Nigeria Police so messed up it substantially detracted  from the efficacy, and the trust Nigerians have come to have in the  newly introduced  method. No thanks to its having now returned, in full, all the documents, monies etc, it took away from the home of Senator Danjuma Goje.  Had the more experienced EFCC handled the raid, it certainly would not have removed anything beside monies and the senate would not have had the temerity to attempt to lie to Nigerians that only the Chairman of its Budget committee had all documents relating to the 1917 budget still under its consideration, a full three months after its submission by President Muhammadu Buhari.  If the police were not such a fumbling organisation, or the presidency unnecessarily panicky and  succumbing too easily to a Senate you pray would be the very last in the country, only  Goje’s laptop, minus the incriminating ‘file containing write-ups on how a former governor plotted the assassination of Sheik Jafaru’, should have been released to the senator. It is so shameful that the police, after severally seeing the entire senate emptied, following its President to court, would not know that its members would do anything to extricate Goje from what could eventually turn out problematic as he must have informed, at least the leadership, about the Sheik Jafaru angle. To know that, and still collapse as it did, says so much about the Nigeria police. But having so easily submitted itself to infamy, the matter should not end there. Senate should use the occasion to teach the police a lesson or two about efficient handling of issues, even if it hadn’t demonstrated any such itself, just as Senator Goje should press charges of aggravated disequilibrium (whatever that translates to in law).

    I digress.

    Never  a man to dodge, hide his feelings, or distinguish between Jew or Gentile  in his ever  withering comments  on various  areas of our body politic, former President Olusegun Obasanjo has  been more than generous in  presenting  the  Nigerian legislature to, not only Nigerians, but the world at large. To confirm this claim, we would quote him at some length in this piece.

    But that will be a little later.

    While the senate moved rapidly to pass its amendments to the laws establishing the Code of Conduct Tribunal and Bureau, and it is now furiously working to pass its Magna Carta’ equivalent (Magna Carta Libertatum -”the Great Charter of the Liberties, agreed to by King John of England at Runnymede, near Windsor, on 15 June 1215, which is regarded as one of the most famous documents in world history) – a bill to abolish tribal marks, it is sitting coolly, not only on the 2017 budget, but on the two most important laws necessary to add teeth to the Buhari government’s anti-corruption war. First amongst these is the bill seeking the establishment of a special anti-corruption court to try serious crimes, including corruption cases. The Special Crimes Bill 2016, drafted by the Sagay-led Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption, is intended to provide for the establishment of a Special Crimes Court as a superior court of record to allow for speedy trials of economic and financial crimes, terrorism, money laundering and corruption offences and other related matters”.

    The other is the Whistle Blower bill. Although the federal government put the whistleblower policy in place in December 2016 to expose fraud in the country, and has thereby, already raked in billions of naira, the policy remains a stop gap, at best, as the legislature is yet to pass the enabling   Whistleblower Protection Bill which will protect those exposing corruption. Without this in place, the policy becomes stymied as a whistle blower faces far too many risks which do not exclude even assassination. Commentator after commentator on both radio and television continue to flagellate the Buhari government on this lacuna as if the executive would transmute to the law making arm of the government. Sponsored by my dear sister, and the senator representing Ekiti South, Senator Biodun Olujimi,the bill passed second reading as far back as October, 2016 and you won’t but wonder if the delay exists because senate also wants  a look in.

    When, therefore, the legislature hamstrings, rather than facilitate, or in fact, fast track, the anti corruption war of this government, why would any rational person doubt former President Olusegun Obasanjo when he says of the national assembly: ”The national assembly cabal of today is worse than any cabal that anybody may find anywhere in our national governance system at any time. Members of the national assembly pay themselves allowances for staff and offices they do not have or maintain. Once you are a member, you are co-opted and your mouth is stuffed with rottenness and corruption that you cannot opt out as you go home with not less than N15 million a month for a senator and N10 million a month for a member of the house of representatives. The national assembly is a den of corruption by a gang of unarmed robbers. Most of them conduct themselves and believe that they are not answerable to anybody. They are blatant in their misbehaviour, cavalier in their misconduct and arrogant in the misuse of parliamentary immunity as a shield against reprisals for their irresponsible acts of malfeasance and/or outright banditry.” When the former president says the above, it should be remembered that his government was the first to take some national assembly members to court for budget padding.

    But he goes further: Referring to the Hon Jibrin suspension from the House over his whistle blowing, he said: “Ganging up to intimidate and threaten the life of whistle blower is deplorable and undemocratic. What of the so-called constituency projects which is a veritable source of corruption? These constituency projects are spread over the budget for members of the national assembly for which they are the initiators and the contractors directly or by proxy and money would be fully drawn with the project only partially executed or not executed at all.”

    It should now be crystal clear that asking the national assembly to fast track the passage of these much needed laws is like asking the members to self-criminalise. But Nigerians are not amused at all and many have expressed the wish that these people should just, one day, pack and go to their various homes or that the 8th Assembly, the Senate in particular, should be the very last this country will have. So traumatised are Nigerians over this arm of government that  some have canvassed a ‘Storming of the Bastille’, as I have done twice on these pages and many have said Nigerians should frontally go to confront the police by occupying the senate which has proved most unhelpful. It has not, for instance, out of sympathy for Nigerians going through a hellish recession, decided to slash a penny off its humongous monthly take homes nor has its members receiving pension from states whilst receiving salaries been morally challenged to say, no more. So beyond shame is this national assembly that its members remain completely unruffled, even as its leadership has not successfully explained off the salacious allegations about the corrupt housing deals trailing them. If former President Obasanjo, a patriot of no mean repute, wats and all, could say these things about the national assembly, I think that, without a scintilla of doubt, the time has come for Nigerians to opt for a unicameral system of legislature. The senate is, and will forever  remain an unnecessary waste of national resources, whose member can have all the time in the world, to stand in front of a village orchestra to sing ludicrous songs, intending to put a state governor and named political opponents into ridicule because of  his own self-inflicted travails.

    Nigerians may, forever, wonder to what level they won’t denigrate this otherwise hallowed chamber.

  • Horrors Nigerians endure doing business with our embassies abroad

    Everywhere you go, Nigerians are completely disappointed with the service, no, non service, being rendered them by their embassy in total contradistinction to what obtains in embassies of even far smaller African countries. 

    First, the good news.  I do not know if there is any Nigerian columnist who is not sick and tired about the seeming disdain with which those in government treat their suggestions towards making governance more relevant to the citizenry, and that is where they read you at all. It is in view of that ugly truism that I personally feel elated, seeing  indications of some actions of  government,  coming so soon after the publication, only last week of ‘Wither Nigeria’, even if they happen to be merely coincidental. I had written the article of that title from both personal, and communal, fear arising from the total breakdown of law and order in our country; a situation which has resulted in armed robbers, but more especially kidnappers, operating at will anywhere in the country, even seemingly gaining the upper hand over the Nigerian Navy the manner in which they daily use the waterways to transport their victims from the Ogun/Lagos riverine areas to their operational base in the Niger Delta area. You can then hardly measure my joy reading in the newspapers this past week that the Southwest Governors’ Forum will soon meet to discuss, among other things, “the activities of some criminal elements parading as militants, now ravaging parts of the region.” Given the fact that murderous Fulani herdsmen have become totally untouchable, it is my hope that the forum will, in discussing this menace, turn a blind eye to party affiliations and adopt the Fayose Model which, happily, has legislative backing, of dealing with this national irritant. There can be no two ways to it if we do not want to turn Yoruba land to another Benue where people are so helpless, they are being slaughtered in their numbers.

    Although the recruitment of 10,000 policemen which the Police Service Commission (PSC)  Chairman Mike Okiro said would cost N8.6 billion has now been scaled to 155,000, according to newspaper reports, I feel happy they remembered anything about it at all, probably after reading ‘Wither Nigeria’. Both organs of state, the SWGF and the PSC need no longer be told that Nigerians are direly expectant.

    Now, the truly worrisome.

    News from the entire five continents of  the world indicate that nothing could give a Nigerian a worse headache than having anything to do with the Nigerian embassy in his/her country of domicile. To douse doubts or any suggestions of exaggeration, I request my readers to kindly watch the video: http://www.cbc.ca/i/caffeine/syndicate/?mediaId=2402334111 – a RAW Frustration at Nigerian High Commission, this time, in Canada. This has become a perennial horror for our compatriots overseas most of who left  Nigeria during the 16-year PDP stranglehold over our country. It is benumbing that after two years in  office, the present administration has not done anything to make matters better but concerning that, as in many other areas,  President Muhammadu  Buhari must be blamed squarely for his retention of  far too many appointees  of the last administration to the  utter bewilderment, countrywide, ,of those who worked tirelessly for his victory.

    In a  CONSULAR ADVISORY COMMENTS By NJOKU SAINTJERRY (Beijing) & Vera  Sam-Aniagolu late November 2011, it was shown that similar videos have erupted from Bangkok, Malaysia, even Senegal. Everywhere you go, Nigerians are completely disappointed with the service, no, non service, being rendered them by their embassy in total contradistinction to what obtains in embassies of even far smaller African countries. And it is not as if the officials involved are not aware of their complaints. It just so happens that it is forever beyond the ken of Nigeria, and those manning her embassies abroad, to solve what are mostly everyday problems. For instance, one of the strategies they sought to adopt in founding solutions, under the leadership of our dear friend of blessed memory, Ambassador Olugbenga Ashiru, as Minister of External Affairs, was the Regional Conference for Heads of Missions divided according to the five regions. The minister, without any equivocation, “called on the countries heads of missions to consider the welfare of Nigerians that are resident in their respective regions their paramount responsibility.” How far those efforts, and possibly others, have gone in mitigating the problems of Nigerians in those countries are eloquently attested to by the following discussion, a few weeks back, on the ever vibrant Ekitipanupo web portal. Since I do not have their individual permission, contributions will not be ascribed. They are, however, presented, in seriatim.

    Happy reading.

    “Fact is that there are actually no public servants in Nigeria. They’re all public masters. You even beg them to do what they have been appointed to do and also have to send delegations to thank those of them who manage to do what is expected of them. It’s a different world in Nigeria”

    “They can’t even provide passport booklets which are usually paid for by Nigerians! I think it’s more than a shame”.

    “Even when the passport  booklets ‘finally arrive ‘from Nigeria, it takes between  3-4months for the Nigeria High Commission  in London,  that is not fit for purpose,  to process  and issue a new passport  —passport that should be a right of every Nigerian  and not a privilege as against  a maximum  of 2weeks to process  a British  passport. During  the time of Prince Ajibola as acting High  Commissioner, it used to take up to a year to get one if you were lucky and well connected or you were prepared to pay the EGUNJE fee!!!.What a rotten nation”.

    “Your mention of Prince Bola Ajibola who was the Acting Nigerian High Commissioner caught the eye. That man as far as I’m concerned had no clue of what the High Commissioner’s role should have been during his tenure. Siji Lapite’s case comes to mind when the poor boy,  bless him, was accused of being caught with drugs by the police in Hackney. He was later to die in police custody. Despite the fact that Nigerians came out en masse to protest the cruelty of the police in the way in which Siji was manhandled by the police that later led to his death, this man was busy blowing unnecessary grammar to the media instead of taking the British Government and their police to task for taking a Nigerian life. I should know as I was involved with the protest at the time and was part of the coordinators of my union showing disgust at the actions of the police.

    Nigerians in the diaspora are on their own as the Embassies are never there to protect them”.

    “l remember Lapite’s case very well. I am sure you are not surprised that the situation with our High Commission is the same today as it was during Lapite’s unfortunate tragic case. 23 or more Nigerians are deported every month from the UK. Those Nigerians are on their own with no inputs or help from our High Commission. The only time l can remember we had some semblance of what a High Commission should be was the five or six years Dr Christopher Kolade was our High Commis-sioner. I used to visit our mission then on regular basis for meetings and functions. Since he left, the place has reverted back to the dogs. l am sure you will recall the time of one hapless   Alhaji  Alhaji  was being  interviewed by the BBC and he couldn’t  look straight  at the camera  because  he was busy  reading  his prepared answers. Trust BBC to focus on his sheets of paper with his prepared answers. It was so embarrassing.”

    “My son who lived in England said that it made more sense coming back home to renew your Nigerian passport than to do so in London. He travelled home three months ago. He claimed that it saved him a lot in terms of money and time. The situation is even worse in a place like Canada, a country where many towns are separated from the capital by continental distances. There is no single consulate outside of the Canadian capital. It is therefore a big  project (air travel, hotel accommodation, hassles at the Embassy )to renew your passport.”

    To all of which I reacted thus: In a government of ‘change’, there should be change and we must all work towards it. I will, therefore, for the sake of our helpless compatriots in those countries, like to take this issue to the public space by running these comments in my column.

  • Wither Nigeria?

    In circumstances like we are now in, the Yoruba would usually wonder and ask why all these are happening, ‘nilu to loba to nijoye’, meaning in a country where there are some people in authority.

    The word ‘wither’, when used as a verb, is to lose freshness, vitality or vigour. So, applied to Nigeria, is to ask where exactly we are; what is happening? Why is it that everything has so withered a Nigerian would have a bomb planted on him or her, to go blow up fellow Nigerians into smithereens or, jump into the lagoon to end it all? When did Nigeria become a Somali, an Iraq, Afghanistan or even worse, since people in those countries are not committing suicide but are being killed? Today, we veer off politics, simpli cita, and try, instead, to take a good  look at  ourselves: at what has become of our once dear country, Nigeria, which has become so generally degraded, and security – wise, so bad that when travelling anywhere today, fear of bad roads which used to be one’s main concern has receded far behind. The fear now is not even of accidents but of the almost inescapable run into  dare devil armed robbers or the ubiquitous kidnappers that now traverse every part of the country at will and at any hour of their choosing. They operate on highways, just as they have made a mess of the Nigerian Navy, practically dominating our waterways from the Niger Delta to the riverine areas of both Lagos and Ogun states where they ferry their victims almost on a daily basis, unmolested. I used to accuse the President Jonathan government of sleeping on duty. It is now far beyond me to describe the Buhari government; a government that so effectively degraded the fearsome Boko Haram but has now apparently capitulated to kidnappers who, it can bear a repetition, now operate without any let or hindrance.

    In circumstances like we are now in, the Yoruba would usually wonder and ask why all these are happening, ‘nilu to loba to nijoye’, meaning in a country where there are some people in authority. Where is the Nigerian Army or the police as the country now appears completely helpless with some of our security men themselves, unfortunately, falling victims needlessly? How can any government allow lives to become so cheap and worthless? Or what today is the life of any Nigerian worth, if a citizen like Dr Onukaba could be sent to his early grave courtesy these evil men? And with government still doing nothing worthwhile or effective  to rout them?

    God, of a truth, there was a country!

    Or are we saying that because the president is slightly indisposed, life must come to a halt in Nigeria? Today, not even our ‘ogas  at the top’, who travel, complete with  a battalion of soldiers or policemen, can say with  any measure of certainty that their convoy will not be attacked by armed robbers or kidnappers. And no part of the country is exempt from these horrible occurrences.  If you are lucky and don’t run into any of the two, murderous Fulani herdsmen, armed to the teeth with guns that will shame our policemen , are at the ready to pounce on you anywhere from Benue to Nasarawa, to Ekiti and right to the farthest redoubts of the  Niger Delta. You find them in urban Lagos or even Abuja, as well as in the remotest parts of Lanlate, in Ogun State, teaching the fear of the Lord to farmers or to highway travellers in any part of the country. Worse, they are untouchables and you begin to wonder if these were not the same poor, famished, stick-wielding cattle rearers we have known and treated nicely in these parts, for almost a century, if not more. They are now like a moving, erupting volcano; raping, maiming, and killing all the way.

    And the question that naturally pops up is: what is happening? President Jonathan neither knew, nor stirred, when over 200 young girls were stolen from under his watch three years ago. Has the Buhari government slept off on duty too? Where is the Nigerian army which so massively rooted out a Boko Haram to whose menace the Jonathan government simply had no answer except to steal the money intended for arming the soldiers? What of the rest of the police not yet deployed into protecting governors as the inspector General recently told Nigerians claiming he deployed over 200 to guarding a state governor? What exactly is delaying the 10,000 police recruitment President Buhari promised Nigerians and at which PSC Chairman Okiro was once feverishly working?  Are they now, like the Jonathan era Immigration department, ferreting for consultants, in which case they should simply approach the Nigerian Governors Forum which has a data base of readymade consultants some of who  were recently deployed in creaming off billions of the Paris Club refund meant to pay workers,  and pensioners governors had simply refused to pay  for  months; years in some cases?

    The Inspector General of Police deceived only himself if he thought Nigerians were impressed when he said over 200 police men are guarding Governor Wike of Rivers State. Whatever for? Has he two heads and how many police are left to guide the remaining four or five million in that cult-ridden state?

    The leitmotif for this article, really, is the confession by the AIG in charge of Lagos, made on the 10.00 clock news on Channels Television this past week, that the police is helpless in helping the inhabitants of the Arepo and other riverine areas of Lagos State where dozens are being routinely killed, including soldiers and policemen as we saw up until Thursday, last week. Now when a top police brass says that, what is the poor Nigerian who lives in those areas supposed to do, abandon their houses or carry them on their heads? Yet we daily see police men on highways harassing motorists. This has actually taken a turn for the worse since this IGP came on board.

    Which is why we must now ask him what his overall security architecture is. In which area of our security has the police made appreciable progress in the last one year or thereabout? Must any of our highly prized soldiers and policemen be as exposed by higher authorities as to be sent to their early graves by these pitiless marauders as has become the case of recent? What fate lies ahead for the ordinary citizen if scores of policemen and soldiers are allowed to lose their lives without our security forces rapidly moving in to quell same and ensure that never happens again?

    What are the fat cats at the head of our security agencies doing? The other day the Internal Affairs Minister rushed to Ile-Ife when it so happened that some Hausa- Fulanis were involved in a crisis in the city. Where else, what flashpoint, has the minister visited besides Ile -Ife? How many times has he visited Benue State where murderous Fulani herdsmen kill in hundreds, sacking whole villages as the icing on the cake?

    For how long will some northern politicians, President Buhari inclusive, stand ramrod against restructuring the country so we can, at the minimum, have state police who understands the terrain, and will not be comrades at arms with the killing hordes of Fulani herdsmen?

    Or for how long will a few impede and frustrate the nation’s progress and peaceful communal living? Why is the North afraid of restructuring; after all we never stop hearing about how the North feeds the entire country and can more than survive through agriculture and its many mineral resources. Why the opposition to restructuring by the powers that be then? I must say, emphatically, that I am not for the 2014 confab decisions which President Jonathan himself did nothing to execute because, as I always say, it was opportunistic and designed, primarily to gift Jonathan a helping hand. But it is time President Buhari opens up on restructuring.

    I do not know where you could be travelling to in Nigeria today and you will be certain you would return unscathed. Going to Akure, for instance, you would have at the back of your mind that black spot at Igbara-Oke. You would have to say your prayers if going to Ekiti you would have to pass through Iyin –Ado-Ekiti or Ikere-Emure Ekiti. And that’s a part of Nigeria where you do not have remnants of Boko Haram elements. Fulani herdsmen have completely complicated our safety, and overall security, in the Southwestern part of the country; an area that was once, unarguably, the safest part of the country. For how long will our lives have to be on tenterhooks when we are not expecting any 21 virgins in Paradise?

  • A citizen’s letter to President Muhammadu Buhari

    A citizen’s letter to President Muhammadu Buhari

    Mr President, no modern country, not to talk of Nigeria, can be self-sufficient not to talk of being buoyant, without a strong manufacturing sector.

    The letter to the president from citizen George I. Umeh, did not arrive the columnist’s desk yesterday. It came weeks back and I had cause, some two weeks ago, to quote therefrom. However, no time could have been more opportune than now, to bring the entire letter to the public space. When I quoted from the letter, though in reference to what I described as our country’s ballooning corruption, it coincided with the Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu Colloquium on ‘Made in Nigeria Products’. This past week, the president launched his government’s Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP).

    It will be apposite to quote the president on the plan. Said he:”We are determined to change Nigeria from an import-dependent country to a producing country. We must become a nation where we grow what we eat and consume what we produce. We must strive to have a strong Naira and a productive economy …”

    Mr Umeh’s letter is pointing the president in that very direction.

    Happy reading.

     

    Mr President,

    ECONOMIC ADVICE

    I am constrained to write this letter to you because of the dire economic situation in the country. Our country is on the brink of an economic crash with states unable able to pay salaries. The unemployment rate among the youth, according to the UNDP is over 75%. I am writing to you because I believe you have a listening ear. You are pure, highly disciplined, humble at heart, and above all, you are not the type that would want lives wasted. There are several evidences of your kindheartedness, even on the war front. For instance, I was reliably informed you released captured Biafran soldiers at the Awka sector, giving them relief materials, explaining that the war was for us to live together as one.

    But Mr. President, there is one war, I believe, you cannot win and that is the industrial war. Why you cannot win it is twofold:

    It started, way back, from independence when our leaders did not pursue industrialisation as being more important than even independence itself. They all overlooked it or, their efforts were at best half-hearted. It will take the combined spirit of your war against Boko Haram, and corruption, to make an impact during your administration, even if you were to stay for eight years. All our past leaders failed on this and so contributed to the present problem in which has led us to becoming a nation of importers. I actually told people to vote for you if they wanted a fight to the finish with corruption, or a very fierce fight with Boko Haram, but I did not see you being able to tame the economic problem facing our nation.

    Mr President, no modern country, not to talk of Nigeria, can be self-sufficient not to talk of being buoyant, without a strong manufacturing sector. You need to manufacture majority of the products you consume in your country and if possible, export, which Nigeria can do to our neighbours in West and Central Africa. I saw this problem as far back as 1973, and chose not to study medicine or engineering but instead, read business studies. Mr President, political independence is not economic independence. Political independence must be backed by economic independence otherwise it becomes a  flag independence which is merely symbolic and, like Nigeria and South Africa, could see poverty, crime and frustration gain the upper hand in a country.

    I remember how, from Nsukka,  in 1975 we embarked on a U.N.N students’ industrial tour of the north and I saw ripe tomatoes wasting on  farmlands in Zaria, Kaduna, Kano, down to Benue. They could not be canned. Today we are importing nearly a thousand different brands of tomato. We import vegetable oil, and such mundane things as ordinary hand grinding machines, basic electronics etc. By now, not only these products but other light engineering products should all be made in Nigeria.

    I have not seen any serious effort by Nigeria to industrialise. The most Nigerian governments did to push this was Shagari’s Import Substitution Policy around ’82 –‘83.  Economic insecurity breeds corruption, which will be minimised if the economy is properly fine tuned.  Except for one pre-war minister, all the other ministers had stories to tell about having to borrow money to transport their families home after the 1966 coup, or having to discover they had no house to live in on their return to their hometowns. People like Maitama Sule, Shettima Ali Munguno and others can say so. Even top civil servants found themselves in similar situation. To escape that situation, public servants now steal from the public purse.

    Mr President, why I am insisting on manufacturing and industrialisation is that it is the core of any modern economy. Many nations which had failed severely, have miraculously bounced back, becoming self sufficient, even affluent, through manufacturing. China is the most glaring example. Chinese officials came to Nigeria in 2009 and testified in Abuja that Nigeria in 2009 was better than China 30years earlier, that is, in 1979. China, after the death of Chairman Mao Tse Tung (their communist economy champion for about 30years), took up industrialisation and by 2013 had become about the greatest economic power in the world. That miracle of China is nothing besides industrialisation. South Korea had the same problem in the 1950s and 60s and reverted to industrialisation. By the 70s, it was already breaking through, and remains self-sufficient today. Vietnam, the miserable jungle communist country fighting the US from 1965 to 1975, is today an industrialising nation, becoming more self sufficient. It has, in fact, been projected to become the 17th industrialised nation globally, by 2025. Japan of the 1950s is not the Japan of today, due to industrialisation.

    No nation, including Nigeria, can survive on an excess of imports. It is stated that we spend about 90% to 95% of our income on imports. Poverty, devaluation of your currency, unemployment and uncontrollable crime will reign which the country’s police will never be able to control.

    In a good economy, political leadership recedes to the background. Japan and Italy have had not less than 58 prime ministers each since after World War II, yet they are not affected in terms of economy or employment. Even governments have closed down financially, but were helped, back up, by the private sector till they fully recovered. It happened to the U.S between November 1995 and February 1996 under Bill Clinton and under Obama in 2014.

    Mr President, it is not hotels and filling stations that will give our graduates employment but industries. We are compounding the problem creating more universities instead of industries, since hundreds of thousands of graduates are being poured into the labour market yearly without hope. Our economy has contributed to even the Niger Delta and Biafran problems. Yes, Niger Delta, because we have a monocultural economy based on crude oil alone. Together with unemployment, there is the fact that oil companies have not acted as they should. Pipes laid over 50 years ago are breaking up, polluting farmlands and streams. They never cared to help the communities around them until the communities started revolting. Even the B.B.C once reported, a few years ago, that 65% of all oil blowouts world-wide happen in Nigeria. Unfortunately, our laws are not updated to impose heavy fines on them. Recently a lawsuit brought against an oil company for polluting some towns since 1983 was just decided this year, 33years later. The compensations had become meaningless.

    The solution: Mr President, manufacturing must be encouraged at the federal, state and local government levels. Every area must find out what their people use, establish through feasibility\viability studies, the attractiveness of manufacturing such products. Local governments should not establish less than three small scale industries per year. So should the states also do with a minimum of three medium scale industries per year.

    Government cannot do it alone. Therefore, private businessmen must be encouraged, and heavily induced with free land, free taxes for up to 10 years and dedicated electricity to their factories. If we do not do that today, tomorrow will be worse. We barely have power for two days each week where I live. This must be substantially improved upon. It is better we embark on this industrial war, very much  like the Biafran war of old, but without shelling, bullets and war plane strafing civilians.

    Industrialisation will reduce our importation, increase foreign reserves, and revalue our currency. Industrialisation will provide the solution to the unemployment problem for millions of our youths. You only recently cited import substitution as a policy sometime ago. That is the way we should go. There is no other way, and we are already very late.

    It must therefore be treated as an emergency.

    I wish you well,

    Your compatriot, George I. Umeh.