The Nation Newspaper

Category: Femi Orebe

  • Nigeria: Corruption fights back

    Nigeria: Corruption fights back

    Knowing how mercilessly they had butchered the national treasury, they came prepared to meet President Buhari toe to toe,  deliberately mis-characterising his determined anti-corruption war as nothing more than  targeting  PDP  top shots. 

    No, far be it that I would ever try to be clever by half. But outsmarting one of  the three  distinguished Ekiti elders I speak with a minimum two or three times  a week  – they sometimes  even,  generously, initiate the calls –  is about the only way to properly background this week’s article. Going by age, I refer above to Chief Oladeji Fasuan (84), a retired but by no means, tiring economist, former top civil servant, and pivot of that inimitable team that mid-wifed Ekiti State, Chief Dele Falegan (82), top economist and banker, and a former Director of Research, Central Bank of Nigeria, and the polyglot Prince, Julius Adelusi-Adeluyi (75), pharmacist, lawyer and mentor extraordinaire. You do not have these griots, and that rare privilege of reach, and be foolish. In a conversation with Chief Falegan this past week, he told me about an article he should be writing pretty soon, which article, God willing, you would read on these pages, about  a general misconception many Nigerians have concerning President Muhammadu Buhari.  This, according to him, is describing the president as BABA GO SLOW, whereas, he should more appropriately be branded ADAKEJA. That word, in our native Ekiti dialect, means he, who acts, very deliberately and stealthily, to inflict maximum punishment on the enemy.  Chief talks here of the enemies of the Nigeria poor whose identities are now pouring out like a broken dam. Thanks to a head of state with a single-minded determination to drastically reduce, if not completely eliminate, corruption in Nigeria.

    Last  week’s  massive ‘name and shame’ of  those who must,  at best,  be  a mere tip of the iceberg  (Dasuki, after the long showboating, is believed to have started  talking) of those persons Nigerians must hold responsible for the country’s continuing pauperisation and who, if found guilty by the law courts, must equally be held vicariously responsible for the thousands of deaths and the unbelievable  ruination Boko Haram has continued to inflict on Nigerians by diverting funds intended to properly arm our soldiers, has copiously demonstrated the president’s determination. The president knows Nigeria better than to rush into things like appointing every Tom, Dick and Harry ministers just so to satisfy some naysayers, and like many presidents before him, further destroy the country. Rather, he decided to, first and foremost, very carefully  probe into the Augean stable he inherited, using that very odious institution that has, like forever,  scripted and underpinned  the country’s  shameful corruption history,  namely, the Civil Service. For months,  PMB  engaged,  almost solely,  with the top guns of the civil service;  a people now described, with considerable justification, as EVIL SERVANTS – to get to the very bottom  of why Nigeria has remained perpetually  rooted to the very nadir of  the Human Development Index in spite of its massive human and natural resources. Everywhere President Buhari went since his inauguration, he has not hidden his single minded determination to fight corruption which, in his words, would kill Nigeria if we do not first slay it. A former military head of state, he knows only too well, how the military, like locusts, devastated the country leaving us only with massive hilltop mansions overlooking sprawling shanties that have become the lot of a clear majority of Nigerians.  He has equally observed, ringside, how our ruinous politicians have not helped matters, either.  He must have concluded that things are today far worse than when, as military head of state, courts sentenced people to decades long jail sentences before others from his military constituency came to completely institutionalise corruption and  made it indistinguishable from our very way of life.  This sorry state of affairs must be the driving force of the president’s anti-corruption war which the PDP corrupt ensemble has never ceased to describe as witch-hunting.  It is the reason Nigerians are beginning to see a near-dead EFCC, suddenly resurrect, naming and shaming individuals whose names you dare not mention during the Goodluck Jonathan years.  A caveat here, for the EFCC, though. As we have  come to know from the former president’s one time godfather, the inimitable Chief Edwin Clark, there was very little EFCC could have done since President Jonathan hadn’t the liver for any anti-corruption war.

    Long before stories of  the former National Security Adviser, as cash dispenser, hit town, there had been an earful of  Diezani Alison Madueke’s exploits in the NNPC, the undying Malabu scam, the serial oil thefts, and, of course, the massive oil subsidy scam over which Nigerians had to engage in the fight of their lives, to attest to President Jonathan’s complete inability to lead a serious fight against corruption in spite of all the make belief – Aviation Minister, Stella Oduah’s armoured BMW car scandal was a case in point.

    However, if the PDP never thought a day would come when it would be disgraced out of office and, therefore, got witheringly slaughtered at the polls, their fight against President Buhari’s anti-corruption war is, obviously, more hard-headed.  Knowing how mercilessly they had butchered the national treasury, they came prepared to meet President Buhari toe to toe,  deliberately mis-characterising his determined anti-corruption war as nothing more than  targeting  PDP  top shots.  Although on the surface  it looks  like Metuh  fighting a one-man  war, there is no doubt he is the mouth piece of an apparently overworked, if not overstretched, rogue rapid response team set up by the PDP to pour scorn on the anti corruption war. And they are not relying only on his now proverbial verbal diarrhoea to counter every indication of their people having, again, been caught in the act.

    And how massively they succeeded at first!  Sitting on billions in every conceivable currency, they planned, together with their private sector co-conspirators, and made a mince meat of the APC in the National Assembly leadership elections. So successful were they that APC, the majority party, now plays second fiddle to the PDP, with the latter’s members holding down the chairmanship of the most critical committees in the House of Representatives. So bad is it, that a gloating Senator Ekeremadu, a minority senator but the senate’s Deputy President- a complete anathema – could announce, with a swagger, that Nigeria is the only country on the face of the earth, where such depravity exists. How true; we have since seen this minority senator preside over meetings of the senate.  How long a weak APC leadership will tolerate that hanging shame remains to be seen; a National Assembly doing everything to suppress audit reports, which will not pass the Audit Bill but is speedily working towards passing laws to criminalise the social media just so they can protect all manners of corrupt acts. This, the reader should remember, is a National Assembly which, in over six months, has not passed a single meaningful bill that can positively affect the lives of Nigerians. But we assure them, that Jankara effort will fail. Nigeria belongs to us all.

    Just as the president is determined to fight corruption to the hilt, so are these corrupt politicians ready, buoyed by huge funds, and a battalion of senior lawyers at the ready, hoping to make tonnes of money. It is these lawyers with sated consciences, who go out there, waging war against a cankerworm they should be out fighting with all their God-given skills but claiming to be apostles of human rights; fundamental human rights that deny Nigerians billions of naira that could have been spent to cut down on our atrocious maternal mortality ratio, ensure that more of the approximately three million Nigerians living with HIV and AIDS have access to medication and revive our moribund education.  With some PDP leaders now named and shamed by their public exposure as sharing the funds meant to properly kit our soldiers, many of who were being  slaughtered by a better armed Boko Haram (hundreds of them were actually sentenced to death for not standing up to the enemy until saved by the president on the advice of the military), it will be fascinating to see Olisa Metuh out again, blabbing about “exposing  the hypocrisy,  the double standard,  and the dictatorial proclivities of the Muhammadu Buhari-led APC government in its orchestrated anti-corruption fight in Nigeria.”

     

     

  • Kogi: Of a soporific INEC and a listless professor – was INEC error a deliberate ethnic plot?

    Kogi: Of a soporific INEC and a listless professor – was INEC error a deliberate ethnic plot?

    If the three INEC commissioners deployed, and the state electoral commissioner suddenly lost concentration, what was a supposedly erudite Professor Kucha thinking about, not knowing there was no way 25, 000 votes can overtake 41, 000?

    Lawyers were at the forefront of the revolution that gave rise to the American declaration of independence. Majority of delegates to the constitutional convention that gave birth to the American independence were lawyers. Britain and America, the two leading democracies in the world were, at the same time, simultaneously led by lawyers. Lawyers were at the vanguard of a new constitution in Ghana. Lawyers led the constitutional reforms in South Africa and Zambia. Nigeria has produced its sizeable number of great lawyers who are untainted by the common vices that afflict ordinary folks. Lawyers are nation builders. They are influential agents of change in the society with prominent responsibility to build practical and pragmatic democracy founded on the Rule of Law and the constitution – Elder Dele Adesina SAN, in Kunle Ogunsakin’s ‘FOR THE LOVE OF THEIR NATION(Lawyers as agents of change in Nigeria).

    Pray, if the above is true, why are some senior Nigerian lawyers, even judges, doing everything to subject the noble profession to outright profanity by putting financial gratification before national interest?

    All of a sudden, it became the fad that a state Election Returning Officer must be a university professor and sitting vice-chancellor. Ordinarily, with their erudition and high profile, you would reckon this is in order and when you factor in the fact that the immediate past Chairman of INEC was both professor and former vice-chancellor, you are forced to concur with its reasonableness. But do their performances meet their high profile? Hardly; not with what Nigerians saw one of them do at the presidential votes collation, literally unable to read what he claimed he wrote personally, and this recent one in Kogi State where Professor Emmanuel Kucha, vice-chancellor, Federal University of Agriculture, Makurdi, was in action . PDP’s reaction, rejecting INEC decision that APC should replace its late candidate with another, did not come as a surprise.  Granted, though, that this decision itself has no backing in the Nigerian constitution, I had, much earlier in the day, foreseen that some opportunistic forces would rapidly step into the electoral conundrum to try to make money. I had consequently written as follows on my Face book wall: ‘ …take the Kogi case which lawyers will soon turn to billion naira briefs representing both sides, for instance, whereas the only thing that needs be cured is that silly mistake by INEC. That is why APC should promptly head to the Supreme Court to get INEC to reverse itself. This is because, if Governor Wada and PDP get ALL the less than 25,000 votes at the intended supplementary election, they will still be losers. Why then should there be any supplementary election? But look through the newspapers or listen to the television networks and all you find are lawyers obfuscating things and confusing everybody’.

    Read the statement by PDP’s  Metuh, and you can see that lawyers are already fast at work,  edging the country to a constitutional crisis which would go all the way to the apex court to  resolve rather than proffering the most reasonable way out in an election that was already won,  and lost, before some complicit INEC officers,  and a listless professor  created an unnecessary logjam.  For truth be told, the Kogi election was already clearly over and so what needs  be cured, now, is the totally unpardonable  mistake of declaring it inconclusive.  But since INEC cannot legally reverse itself, APC should go to court to put a finality to the needless controversy.

    As you read this, the following are the current standing of the two leading parties at the election:  APC – 240, 867,  PDP – 199, 514. Total number of registered voters is 49, 000 while only 25,000 have Permanent Voter Cards. It stands to reason to hold, therefore, that the number of accredited voters cannot be more than 25,000. In a situation, therefore, where the late Audu and APC were leading by 41, 000 votes, if ALL the votes at the proposed supplementary election went to PDP/Wada, they would  be only a runner up and with a win in only five local government areas, a complete no hoper. It needs be noted that apart from having the majority votes, the APC candidate also had the constitutionally prescribed geographical spread. So what exactly is the sense in declaring the election inconclusive? If the three INEC commissioners  deployed, and the state electoral commissioner suddenly lost concentration, what was a supposedly erudite  Professor  Kucha thinking about, not knowing  there was no way 25, 000 votes  can overtake  41, 000?

    And this, exactly, is where I suspect that a grand conspiracy, agreed to by the leading Igala members of both parties, NEVER to allow a non-Igala rule the state comes in.  Governor Wada, with all the intelligence and security resources at his disposal, and particularly at such a sensitive period, cannot, in good conscience, claim ignorance of Audu’s death even within an hour of its happening. That is the point at which I think top Igala politicians must have gone to work on the grounds that it was better an Igala, any Igala at all,  than any minority,  no matter on which party platform. That’s why, I suspect, INEC DELIBERATELY messed up an election that had been won and lost.

    A word then about the PDP and its fishing expedition with Wada reported as heading to court to ask to be declared winner on the laughable grounds that he is the candidate with the highest number of votes alive. Such morbid thoughts from a state governor cannot be laughable at all. It is a shame that not even its massive shellacking at the last presidential election would suffice in taming the PDP and return it to the path of rectitude. Among other claims, the PDP, in its laborious press release, claimed that APC was being permitted to transfer the votes of a dead man – note the arrant insensitivity – to another candidate, easily forgetting that PDP provided the precedent in the transfer of votes at an election. I quote below, how a veteran journalist, Wole Olujobi, captured that episode on ekitipanupo: “One thing strikes me about Metuh’s hallucination in his eagerness to return PDP to winning ways after clearly losing the election. Olisa Metuh ?agonised over transfer of a dead Audu’s votes to another candidate, conveniently forgetting that his own party created history in Nigeria when the votes of a sitting  governor  were transferred to another  person, who neither pasted a campaign poster nor attended a campaign rally to become the governor in Rivers State. I refer here to Celestine Omehia who won an election on the platform of the PDP and was sworn in as the governor before another PDP aspirant went to court, claiming to be the rightful PDP candidate. At the conclusion of that case the Supreme Court held that Amaechi? was the candidate of PDP and ordered that Omehia’s votes be transferred to him on the grounds that the votes belonged to the PDP and whoever won its governorship primary election.  Obviously, Metuh must have suffered a momentary loss of memory to claim as he did’.

    I was almost completing this article when I ran into Professor Lai Olurode’s interview on Channel’s television and I came to perfectly understand why Nigerians have had to endure INEC for so long. According to the Professor of Sociology and former INEC commissioner, in his own reasoning,  all that matters in an election is the register of voters which contains the names of registered voters many of who are, of course, long dead, did not collect permanent voters cards nor would ever come near a polling booth on election day. For him, PVCs are mere INEC internal product with no probative value in an election and, if his incredible thought process is followed, accreditation too, means nothing to the process either. Were these not his totally incredible  postulations, he should have known that with less than 25,000 accredited for the election in the areas where elections were cancelled, there is no magic, except there is an INEC magic, by which PDP can now overtake  APC.  By his thoughts, you would never think Olurode had ever seen the inside of an INEC office. It’s such a shame.

  • Between corruption and the judiciary, which is Nigeria’s worse enemy?

    Without a shred of doubt, the Nigerian judiciary has been more of a foe than a friend; it is too consumed with financial consideration which is the reason we have cases going on for decades in our courts.

      “I sincerely believe that the president as the Head of State and Chief Executive of the Federation, by virtue of Section 130 of the constitution, has the power to express concern and call on the CJN to explain what happened. “He can do this through the Office of the Attorney-General of the Federation as the chief law officer of the state. In his capacity, the president as the chief executive can, through the AGF, direct the Federal Judicial Service Commission or the National Judicial Council, both as federal executive bodies under the Third Schedule to the Constitution, to query all the justices of the Supreme Court involved in this scandalous illegality.” – Lagos-based lawyer Johnson Esezoobo

    Much as I do not subscribe to  Lawyer Esezoobo’s anger-induced  views which form  the epigram to this piece, I haven’t  the slightest doubt that  some elements within the Nigerian judiciary must silently be thanking their stars that President Muhammadu Buhari did not come,  this time around, as a military head of state. When last Sunday I quoted Femi  Falana, SAN, ad nauseam, detailing how some members of the bar and the bench are doing everything to  undermine the president’s anti-corruption war, little did I know that worse was to come. For in the space of a few days, the Supreme Court showed very clearly that the Nigerian judiciary is not ‘ad idem’ with the president when he says corruption is capable of killing Nigeria. Nigerian courts have no qualms, whatever, giving succour to anybody standing trial on corruption charges as in the Ibori case, easily demonstrating how hollow the Nigerian judiciary really is.  But with sections 306 and 309 of the New Administration of Criminal Justice Act still live in our books, the Supreme Court decision staying proceedings in the Saraki case before the Code of Conduct Tribunal must take the cake in judicial infamy. It became worse, when Mike Ozekhome, an otherwise respected Senior Advocate, flew into unpardonable sophistry, claiming that though applicable at the lower courts, the administration of criminal justice act does not apply at the Supreme Court as if Nigerian courts operate different laws.  It doesn’t get more worrisome.  When I remember how fetchingly Professor Biodun Jeyifo celebrated the Act in his column in The Nation on Sunday of  23 August, 2015, even  bringing Falana in to validate his position,  I could not help conclude that  newspaper columnists , in our clime, most probably labour in vain.  All the same, could he have also had the Supreme Court  judges in mind when he wrote as follows in that article: “. . . this concluding essay in our series on effective prosecutions versus probes as weapons in the war against corruption in our country will focus on the Administration of Justice Act of 2015. Most Nigerians, including lawyers, seem either to be totally unaware of the existence of this Act or if they are aware of its existence, do not seem to have a grasp of what it would take to make it work”.  Did our Lord Justices become seized of it only when the likes of highly regarded  Chief Folake Solanke,SAN, Professor Itse Sagay, SAN, Chief Adegboyega Awomolo, SAN,  Mr Femi Falana, SN, Jiti Ogunye and Malachy began to vent their spleen on the Apex Court?   For space constraint, I quote only Professor  Sagay: “The new Administration of Criminal Justice Act 2015 has completely eliminated any application or grant of stay of actions or proceedings in criminal trials; it prohibits it. So, what the Supreme Court has done is illegal and it is shocking that the Supreme Court would indulge in illegalities. “It is a complete affront to the law that is binding on them (S’Court) and it is a bad example to the rest of the judiciary and the country. There is no question about that.”Now, we have to call on them to revoke their own illegality and that is a more difficult thing because pride will make it difficult for them to accept that what they have done is an affront to the law. But that is the only thing that has to be done’.

    Nigerians were certainly not surprised when the Punch reported in its Thursday, 19 November, 2015 edition that the Chief Justice of Nigeria may be disbanding that panel of Supreme Court Judges. It got so bad even Esozoobor thinks the president should play the role of an overseer over the judiciary – a complete anathema. But who can blame him?

    I think it is apposite, for a thorough understanding of how the judiciary continues to undermine  the president’s  anti-corruption war, that I conclude this piece  with Femi Falana’s views, again,  as I captured  them  on these pages last Sunday. Said Falana: “The menace of corruption is compounded by the impunity of the ruling class. It is, therefore, pertinent to join issues with the lawyers who are being used to frustrate the anti-corruption war. Although the NBA condemns corruption in both the bar and the bench, it is public knowledge that some senior lawyers have since been recruited to frustrate the prosecution of corrupt elements in the society. The president’s appeal to lawyers to help in the fight has since fallen on deaf ears as these senior lawyers are determined to frustrate the trial of corruption cases. In the past three months, several interim and interlocutory orders have been issued by the federal and state high courts which have prevented the anti-graft agencies from prosecuting certain highly placed individuals accused of involvement in corrupt practices and other economic and financial crimes. In fact, a judge in the Federal High Court has granted not less than 10 of such orders. I also know of a State High Court judge who has ordered the police not to charge some indicted murder suspects to court. From the information at my disposal, these illegal orders were procured by some senior lawyers contrary to the settled position of the law. Granting of interlocutory injunctions to restrain the police or anti-graft agencies from investigating allegations of corruption and other criminal offences is illegal, and unconstitutional, as no court has the power to turn any person into an outlaw in a country which operates under the rule of law. In Fajemirokun v. CCB Nig. Ltd. (2009) 21 WRN 10 the

    Supreme Court held: “In view of section 35(1)(c)(2)(3)(4)(5) and (6) and Section 36(1)- (12) of the 1999 Constitution which provide adequate safeguard for  the arrest of any person suspected of having committed an  offence, investigation of the allegation, and the prosecution of the  offender, no person has the constitutional right to be shielded  against criminal investigation by a judicial fiat or order.”

    In the same vein in the case of Dododo v. Economic and Financial Crimes Commission & Ors. (2013) 1 NWLR ( PT 1336) 468 at 510 the Court of Appeal held: “The EFCC and the ICPC enjoy the status of the powers vested in  the police that encompasses the duty to examine a complaint or petition, investigate and prosecute, if necessary, and that when a petition or complaint is made the statutory body, their duty to look  at the complaint cannot be suppressed.”  In spite of the clear pronouncements of the appellate courts to the effect no court can confer immunity on criminal suspects, high court judges have continued to frustrate the anti-graft agencies from arresting, investigating and prosecuting influential persons accused of involvement in serious cases of corruption, fraud and other economic crimes. No doubt, the lawyers involved in the charade are promoting corruption and subverting the rule of law under the guise of protecting the fundamental rights of their clients”.

    It is a shame that it is the same group of lawyers you find going the rounds, shopping for courts in all parts of the country, eagerly looking for unprincipled members of their fraternity who would do their bidding. I cannot forget in a hurry, both the late Mr. Justice Kayose Esho, and Aare Afe Babalola once saying, at the end of a meeting of the Institute of Arbitrators, a few years ago that many lawyers have become billionaires through bribes related to election matters. PMB’s anti-corruption war would go nowhere unless the Nigerian judiciary puts Nigeria first. Without a shred of doubt, the Nigerian judiciary has been more of a foe than a friend; it is too consumed with financial consideration which is the reason we have cases going on for decades in our courts. Nigerians must call their bluff.

  • Can PMB, no, APC afford another political faux pas?

    If the president would not move to stop this self interest-induced camaraderie with the PDP by its National Assembly leaders, then APC needs be told that Nigerians are watching, and waiting, as the party makes fools of them, knowing pretty well that the next election is even less than four years away. 

    Let me rephrase that question: Can President Muhammadu Buhari survive a second damning political miscalculation? If he does, will he, and his party, succeed in positively affecting the country as they promised us all during the campaigns, or as the PDP never ceases to chorus, is all that change mantra nothing but a chimera? In an event that, in retrospect, can now be described as sleeping on duty, President Buhari surprisingly showed not even the faintest interest in who and who became the Senate President or the House Speaker when, given a clear understanding of the critical role of the National Assembly, he should have shown much more than a passing interest in who emerges in those positions. The result was that  a clever Senator Bukola Saraki did not only end up defying both the party and the president,  shredded the party’s  well choreographed  preferences but also traded off a key position that rightly belonged to the majority party, his. For me, it remains a puzzle till this day whether the president simply did not understand the role of the National Assembly, as in the senate constitutionally having to confirm some of his key appointments and such other things apart from its primary function of law making, where his government would, willy nilly, have to depend on its majority in the two chambers.

    Nigerians are already getting to see the effect of that tactical error especially as it is beginning to play out in the Senate.  The consequences of a second faux pas would, of course, be far worse and the National Assembly is already furiously working towards that, relying on a nebulous claim of separation of powers, as if in our own Electoral Laws, it is not the party that was voted for. I refer here to the ongoing constitution of the membership of committees in both chambers where the leadership is dramatically orchestrating a parity between both the APC and the PDP simply because of the highly flawed manner in which they got to their high offices. Indeed, so  unreflective is the National Assembly now that while the president, well aware of our parlous financial circumstances, is doing everything to cut down the cost of governance, restructuring ministries and planning to have ministers without portfolio thereby, among other things, cutting  down on the number of ministerial aides, its (the  National Assembly) leadership,  is creatively, and unilaterally, increasing the number of committees just so their members could dig deeper into the little money the country now has consequent upon the down turn in the price of oil. Were they not being driven by their own survival instincts, since it is now payback time, they should have been mindful of what obtains in the U.S from where we copied the presidential system.  Even with all the hue and cry over the president’s single-minded determination to restructure the bureaucracy, the U.S, a much more endowed country than ours, has only about 15 departments, namely: State, Treasury, Justice, Interior, Agriculture, Commerce, Labour, Defence, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, Transportation, Energy, Education, Veteran Affairs and Homeland Security. In place of  our  House of Representatives’ 96 committees, the U.S  Congress,  equivalent to the  House of Representatives,  has only 24 committees  made up of  the following: Agriculture, Appropriations, Armed Services, Budget,  Education and the workforce, Energy and Commerce, Ethics, Financial Services, Foreign Affairs, Homeland Security, House Administration, Judiciary, Natural Resources, Oversight and Government Reforms, Rules, Science, Space and Technology, Small Business., Transportation and Infrastructure, Veterans Affairs, Ways and Means, Intelligence and some select or special committees like the one on Benghazi. The senate has an almost identical committee structure. In constituting  these committees, it is customary for members of the majority party to hold the chairmanship but even if, for purposes of  attempting  to further unify our country the leadership wants to concede  chairmanship to PDP, it should only have  been tokenistic but because  they got to office ugly, the leadership  thinks  nothing  of  rubbishing the Nigerian masses who voted  massively against  the  same PDP in the last elections. If neither the president nor the party would move to pro-actively stop these politicians keen only on their own survival, with some of them serving on two or three committees, we would again have lost a golden opportunity to put a stop to the unspeakable profligacy going on at the National Assembly. It would be remembered that somebody who should know once alleged that the National Assembly consumes 25 percent of the national budget though they tepidly denied it. But that, in fact,  is only a part of the problem as the Speaker has already constituted the House committees virtually at par between APC and the PDP  while , from the grave vine, we  learnt  the senate president would be  toeing  the same line. This will be very disrespectful of the Nigerian electorate who made a clear choice in that election and is keen on seeing some concrete change.

    It never ceases to amuse me when our politicians behave as if they own us all – something akin to a master class – believing their personal interests supercede the peoples’. It will be a huge surprise if the National Assembly leadership does not appreciate how very much President Buhari would need all the support he can get from his party members in driving his and the party’s agenda. One would have thought it a no brainer to appreciate that the president would need their support, working, especially through the committees, to translate his campaign promises and programmes into action. That is the window of opportunity they have again thrown away. Or how on earth did Speaker  Dogara get his 48/46/2  ratio  in the distribution of chairmanship positions which he allotted to APC, PDP and the other  two  opposition parties, in that order? How does that reflect the parties’ numerical strength in the House?  I ask again, is this what is rumoured the senate president is about repeating in the red chamber? Are they such strangers to the practice in the U.S where no minority party member chairs a committee? This is what happens when overarching ambition drives politicians to disrespect their party and become unequally yoked with members of the opposition party whose only prayer is to defeat, and replace, the ruling party at the next election.  Can’t they see? Are these the president’s party members who will help him kill corruption before corruption kills Nigeria? Indeed, I have a sneaky feeling that, by allegedly gifting the PDP the chairmanship of critical committees as Finance, Petroleum, upstream and downstream, and Gas, Aviation, Environment, Foreign Affairs, Science and Technology and Works, somebody is already strategising for that party’s presidential candidacy come 2019. Or has  the PDP not announced already that it has zoned it to the north, deliberately remaining silent as to what exact zone in the north, so they could play some politicians, one  against  the other?  Can’t the non complicit APC members, apparently presently keener about serving on juicy committees, see the larger picture and put on their thinking caps? Can’t they see that there are some of their colleagues who care not a hoot as to whether or not APC survives beyond 2019 as long as they achieve their own political ambitions? It is left to President Buhari and the APC leadership to know exactly what they have coming or they would have kissed victory at the 2019 elections bye long before they know it. As I have repeated severally above, what concerns the National Assembly leadership, as well as many of its members, is not the well-being of the country. Rather it is calculations towards 2019 and whatever else, in addition to their humongous salaries and allowances, they can make even when Nigerians are hoping, apparently against hope, that they will appreciate our current circumstances and reduce their totally disproportionate earnings. If the president would not move to stop this self interest-induced camaraderie with the PDP by its National Assembly leaders, then APC needs be told that Nigerians are watching, and waiting, as the party makes fools of them, knowing pretty well that the next election is even less than four years away.

  • Afenifere: Still on that threat of secession

    Afenifere: Still on that threat of secession

    With a raging Boko Haram war, an economy just getting out of the woods and an imperilled security situation, it was not the best seeing Afenifere threatening not only to expel Nigerians from other parts of the country but also suggesting it might lead her own people  out of Nigeria. 

    “Since the federal government is obligated to protect the life and property of every citizen, urgent steps should be taken to avert further killings and destruction of farmlands by herdsmen. If the Buhari administration does not discharge its constitutional duty by stopping the unwarranted civil disturbance, we shall not hesitate to pray the Federal High Court to compel it to act responsibly in the circumstances by ensuring the protection of the fundamental rightso f every farmer to life and property” – Femi Falana, SAN.

    The front line lawyer and activist, Femi Falana, SAN,  who authored the epigram to this piece, will not be the last to give us the benefit of his views on the troubling problem of the Fulani herdsmen which recently got exacerbated by that totally irreverent treatment to which Chief Falae was subjected by some Fulani urchins. Indeed, as soon as the highly regarded Chief Wole Olanipekun, SAN, whose guest I was this past week as he hosted society’s crème de la crème at a reception for his son, and new silk, Dr. Oladapo Olanipekun, SAN,  read my article on the subject, he called to discuss the issue with me.  Although he was beside himself with rage at Chief Falae’s macabre experience and how, unchecked, it could make peaceful co-existence extremely difficult, he nonetheless agreed with me that finding a lasting solution was the important thing. That, indeed, is precisely what I advocate. Indeed, the situation could only worsen if, as the Arewa Consultative Forum has now met the Afenifere threat with theirs, government, at all levels, do not move proactively to find that modus vivendi.

    One of the points I made in my first intervention is exactly what Mr. Falana has also done. Afenifere is an organisation of highly regarded Nigerian elders, patriots, in fact, who have more than paid their dues. Afenifere has all it takes, and is, indeed, in a pole position to put President Muhammadu Buhari to task on giving this problem all the seriousness it deserves with a view to arriving at a comprehensive solution. The president should be able to do this in collaboration with stakeholders and elders, as well as with governments at all levels and in all parts of the country. If in the past, as an ordinary Nigerian, he had championed the cause of his ethnic compatriots, irrespective of whatever they did, especially as in the then Oke-Ogun case, this is the time to put the fire to his feet with a view to making him demonstrate that he is now a national leader, indeed the President of the Federal Republic.

    For the warring groups, this is no time to play the politics of any assumed ethnic superiority or one to gift some abrasive young men the opportunity to drag Afenifere into pulling their chestnuts out of the fire for them, repeating all those names they called the Hausa/Fulani during the campaigns when it was trendy for them to be seen, in cahoots with Mrs Patience Jonathan, in demonising northerners and rubbishing their culture. On either side, there are things we do not expect elders to indulge in. Countries go to war but at the end of it all, they sit round the conference table, winner and loser alike, to iron things out and agree the peace terms. With a raging Boko Haram war, an economy just getting out of the woods and an imperilled security situation, it was not the best seeing Afenifere threatening not only to expel Nigerians from other parts of the country but also suggesting it might lead her own people  out of Nigeria. I believe that with all the good they have done the country, with the ingenious way they ensured that the goggled one could not kill the Yoruba in their millions, even if he succeeded in killing some and driving others into exile, our elders must be eager to leave behind legacies we can all be proud of. Peace is nowhere an easy commodity. We must therefore work assiduously for it and we expect our elders, God keep them, to lead in our continuing search for same. Nor can we forget that, as Professor Bola Akintehinwa put it in his robust  intervention, survival is the core  issue on both sides which then means it is a much more sensitive issue than the young Afenifere members could attempt to latch on to play a ‘Moses’ for the Yoruba people.

    Worse than all the above, however, is the belligerency we have seen demonstrated by both senators Musa Kwankwaso  and Shehu Sanni; two otherwise respected Hausa-Fulani senators who have shown such crass insensitivity and uncharacteristic illogicality that you begin to wonder if they are worth the respect usually accorded them on account of what we thought we knew about them. Their most unaccustomed sabre rattling, seeing only the rights of their murderous compatriot Fulani herdsmen, and feeling total unconcern for their victims, many of who are murdered or raped, apart from their destroyed farms, go a long way to suggest that it is men like these, Fulanis of power and of means, who provide these murderous hordes with their lethal arms. It further shows how ordinary Nigerians, across board, must never put their lives’ hopes and aspirations in the hands of unreflecting politicians. Why is it so difficult for these two senators to see beyond narrow ethnic considerations, knowing, full well, what a menace the Fulani herdsman has become all over the country but especially in states like Plateau, Benue, Nasarawa, which they have turned to killing fields and Ondo, Ekiti but with Oyo bearing the brunt of their compatriots’ mindless gangsterism? Why is it beyond the politician to think national or even be rational for once? And why, as senators, has neither men raised the matter as one of urgent national interest in the hallowed red chamber?  Must politicians only think of the next election?

     In the contribution from which the epigram to this piece was taken, Femi Falana further suggested, and I quote: ‘states with large livestock population should take advantage of the Land Use Act to acquire land for the establishment of grazing reserves adding that in view of the increasing incident of cattle rustling, security measures should be put in place to police the grazing reserves which should, in turn, be phased out and replaced with ranches and abattoirs.” These, in my view, are very positive contributions but I was particularly impressed with what our much despised Nigeria police did this past week in Oyo State in order to secure a meaningful rapprochement between the two infernal enemies.

    As reported in The Nation of Monday 26, October 2015, the Oyo State command, as part of concerted efforts to curb the perennial conflict between Fulani herdsmen and farmers in the Oke Ogun, Ibarapa land, Oyo, Ogbomosho and other parts of the state, the Commissioner of Police, Lere Oyebade, summoned a peace meeting between the two warring groups at which representatives of traditional rulers and other stakeholders were present and far reaching decisions taken. In the advertised communiqué,  we learnt there would now be screening of  incoming herdsmen, apparently as a means of ensuring that undesirable elements do not infiltrate their ranks, that herdsmen should no longer threaten, intimidate or molest the farmers and members of their family, that incoming Fulanis will now be screened and recommended for settlement within particular local government areas by their own older compatriots. It is also now forbidden for herdsmen to carry firearms like AK47.  Additionally, herdsmen will ensure that movements of their flock are controlled at night, possibly by tying them to stakes, and elders of both sides are to monitor the lifestyle of their younger ones. The two obviously most critical decisions, however, revolve around the Fulani herdsmen ensuring that their flock do not graze on farm settlement or forest reserve and that on no occasion should either party resort to violence, no matter the level of provocation. This agreement, in my view, represents a fantastic template which the federal government, and government at all levels, elders and all peace-loving Nigerians should now further develop and made to work until large, and enough, number of ranches are established all over the country.

  • The increasing call for true federalism

    The increasing call for true federalism

    Had both the North-East and the North-West, for instance, synergised earlier via economic cooperation, they  would probably have achieved so much that terrorism and Boko Haram  would have been a most unlikely phenomenon in those areas, and, ipso facto, in Nigeria as a whole.

    “For me, Amaechi killed off ALL and EVERY allegation against him when he not only said he was NOT indicted anywhere in the panel’s report.

    So sure-footed was he that he offered to lay the report before the senate. But convinced of his sincerity, the senate did not as much as ask him to. What this means, in essence, is that Amaechi should wait a few weeks more  till  Wike hopefully gets booted out of office, to sue him for concocting a white paper that has no basis, whatever, to have so maliciously slandered him. Today, Amaechi demonstrated again, why he proved to be such a roaring success in public service: a 2-term Speaker, 2-term governor- both of Rivers State – 2-term chairman, Nigeria Governors’ Forum, and Director-General of the first-ever campaign in Nigeria to boot out a sitting president awash, not only with dollars, but an entire state security apparatti that was nothing but an arm of his political party. I am exceedingly proud of Amaechi, and, like Fayemi, I am sure he will leave his name in gold whatever ministry it pleases President Buhari to deploy him to.” – My comments on ekitipanupo on 22 October, 2015.

    Suspecting that some of my readers, on reading last week’s article: ‘Chief Olu Falae:

    Matters Arising’, (Sunday, 17 October, 2015), might have been led to believe that I do not subscribe to restructuring, I present, today, one of  the many  rticles I have written in support of the subject on these pages. My point of divergence from Afenifere’s position on it is that it is wrong to hang around such a crucial issue, any iota of political opportunism, like they did in 2014, intending thereby, to sell themselves to President Jonathan by coyly attempting to gift him two extra years, or if that failed, at least make his candidature attractive in Yoruba land and thus facilitate his re-election. As God would have it, the then president, a minority Ijaw, who should ordinarily have jumped at the offer, did not even as much as make the CONFAB a campaign issue. Only Afenirere attempted to, unsuccessfully. Meanwhile, they had not only tampered with the official nominees of some state governors, as happened in Ekiti where they surreptitiously manipulated the inclusion of another person to replace the governor’s initial nominee, they also allegedly  concocted the inclusion of all manner of interest groups whose representatives’ nomination they influenced  in many cases, resulting in husbands and wives becoming members.

    The increasing call for true federalism -15 July, 2012 I have had this running dialogue with my very good friend, Antony A. Sani, Publicity Secretary of the Arewa Consultative Forum (A C F), who sees any talk of regional economic integration or any effort at canvassing true federalism as nothing but a façade for ethnic nationalism that I could not but shout hurray when in recent times, very important voices from the north have come out loudly in support of both. In an article titled: ‘The State Of The Nigerian Nation’, by Alhaji Ahmed Joda, like former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar at the recent Leadership Governor of the Year award ceremony,  lent a ringing support  to the drive towards true federalism.

    Wrote Joda: ‘Our country has passed through difficult times, including a civil war and has survived. We must, however, not ascribe the fact of our survival to anything like military might; rather it was because ordinary Nigerians overwhelmingly desire to live together in one united country but under some acceptable arrangement. It is clear from all we are passing through that there is a sufficient body of opinion around the country that the present arrangement is not adequate and needs to be discussed further.’ In his own remarks at the Awards on September 18, 2012, former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, not only called for true federalism, he regretted not supporting former Vice-President Alex Ekwueme’s  earlier call for the creation of six semi-autonomous regions affirming that Dr Ekwueme obviously saw what some of  them did not at the time. There is, he said, too much concentration of power and resources at the centre which is stifling Nigeria’s march to greatness and threatening its unity because of  the abuses, inefficiencies, corruption and reactive tensions over-centralisation generates.”

    Without a doubt, suggested ways of achieving this have been as divergent as there are calls for it. While some have called for a Sovereign National Conference, Alhaji Ahmed Joda fears that it could be a recipe for disintegration. He, nonetheless, agrees that we need to urgently restructure in order to safeguard the country’s future, whether as a unit or under some other form of arrangement concluding that it is better to face the issues frontally now, and  discuss them frankly in an open forum  in order to come up with solutions that can ensure peaceful  co-existence. His preferred model is the establishment, by an act of the National Assembly, of a Constituent Assembly whose members will be elected on a zero- party basis, and would have full powers to comprehensively review the Constitution. He is insistent there should be no representation for special interests apparently because of the abuses this could lead to.  He also suggested that serving members of any legislative body should be ineligible just as interested public servants should resign their posts and contest.

    With these views from respected Nigerians of northern extraction, it should be expected that opponents of true federalism will go back and re-learn their history of Nigeria to understand how, in the First Republic, regional autonomy galvanized national development through positive inter-regional competition.

    This, incidentally, was a theme which featured prominently in the Keynote Address by the Ekiti State Governor, Dr Kayode Fayemi, at the recent National Convention of Egbe Omo Yoruba (National Association of Yoruba Descendants in North America),  in Baltimore, Maryland, United States of America.

    Many of the things he mentioned as developments in the Southwest, if not all, were replicated in both the North and the East. During that period, he revealed, the government led by Chief Obafemi Awolowo established the first TV and Radio Station in Sub-Saharan Africa, built Cocoa House, Ibadan, as well as the University of Ife, now Obafemi Awolowo University, all from funds  sourced from cocoa and coffee.  The government also introduced the free primary education programme which till date, has put the South-West in good stead politically, educationally and economically. In like manner, great institutions like the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, built from funds realised from groundnut, and the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, were established in the North and the East, respectively. Our unity in diversity was subsequently thrashed by the military, with far reaching consequences among which is the fact that we lost  that positive, and pro development, inter-regional competition with all  its advantages, heconcluded.

    Today, however, there remains a glimmer of hope; a window of opportunity which is to now re-engineer the country by properly restructuring it towards true federalism which will, once again, encourage development in the various geo-political zones, remove our atavistic politics of the control of the centre and facilitate the country’s cohesion.

    Unfortunately, but not surprising, opposition to restructuring is still unrelenting in some parts of the North. Indeed, so enervating has opposition to regional integration and true federalism become that

    I once responded to Tony Sani as follows: ‘These things are about perspectives, and a pointer to each group’s preferred developmental paradigm. For the status quoists, what is on ground is the best. But for majority Yoruba, stronger regional groupings will make for a much stronger, more peaceful and equitable country. Had both the North-East and the North-West, for instance, synergised earlier via  economic cooperation, they  would probably have achieved so much that terrorism and Boko Haram  would have been a most unlikely phenomenon in those areas, and, ipso facto, in Nigeria as a whole. While Europe and the Americas are synergising, and forging economic cooperation, I remain perpetually surprised at your angst against regional economic cooperation as a way of maximising development, and catalysing national development and cohesion’.

    Today, I feel certain that my friend will, sooner than later, bow to a development (restructuring) whose time has come and for which leading lights in the north are beginning to lend their support.

  • Chief Olu Falae: matters arising

    Chief Olu Falae: matters arising

    So where Awo would have seen this problem as a national one, and rather than peremptorily asking Fulani herdsmen to leave Yoruba land, he would have thoroughly analysed it and suggested ways of resolving them as such.

    The  vice royal  of Ilu-Abo,  Chief  Samuel Oluyemisi  Falae CFR,  is  far  too  important and  distinguished a personality  than to be laid upon by some  incorrigible  vermin’s – here I must be careful not to sound like that  irascible author of “herdsmen from hell”–  like the ones whose photographs we saw displayed in newspapers, claiming they were looking for money to celebrate Sallah. In ages gone by, long before the dictates of law and order prescribe otherwise, these ones would have been fed to lions. Such is the enormity, and how macabre the moment is!

     We talk here of  a  Chief Olu Falae, spiritual head of his people, a celebrated economist who, long before he ventured into politics, had served  this country meritoriously as a top and distinguished civil servant, leading banker and minister of the federal republic; not forgetting  that he was secretary  to the federal government. In politics, where he would later contest the presidency, it was Nigeria that lost when he was defeated by Gen Olusegun Obasanjo because, were the result otherwise, the trajectory of our country would have been different, and a lot better, given that the military would have been handing over to a democrat. The most profane of humanity should never have had the effrontery to put the chief through such ordeal as well as put the nation on such tenterhooks, even the president had to intervene. It is sincerely hoped that the consequences of that atrocity would be fully visited on the miscreants who, of course, represented, not the Fulani, but themselves.

     Unfortunately, sad and nauseating as the above is, it is the saner part of this unfortunate Fulani herdsmen incident as Afenifere’s subsequent reaction has been absolutely embarrassing, to say the least. So uncharacteristic was it, of our respected elders, that you begin to wonder what has happened to the concept of leadership in Yoruba land. So totally strange were the reactions that you wonder if they were coming from elders who dined and wined with the avatar, the inimitable Chief Obafemi Awolowo: his very associates and collaborators in that unmatchable, and unforgettable, era in the socio, politico-economic history of the Yoruba. For Awo had a template  as he uncannily demonstrated when, seeing the trajectory the Nigerian economy was headed under President Alhaji Shehu Shagari during the Second Republic, he drew his (Shagari’s) attention to it. Since I cannot pretend to be teaching Awoism to core Awoists, let me invite  Idowu Samuel for elucidation, as he did to the Awo template on Wednesday, 15 September 2010,  in  the article: ‘Obafemi Awolowo: One prediction, one democracy’. Wrote Idowu: “When Awo stepped out to speak, the shout of ”Awooo…!” would be thunderous and almost endless. Papa would pause for more than 30 minutes to gain control. He had to do it, sensing that the message he was to pass was germane, eternal and compelling. He would clear his throat for the last time to indicate seriousness. And then, there would be pin drop silence everywhere.”  Awo’s style was simple and direct, aimed at a resolution of the problem. He would draw attention, complete with verifiable facts and figures, indicate the likely consequences if situation was left unattended, and then posit ways out of the problem. His was never, as we saw in the instant case, a scruffy, knee-jack and, on-the-spur of the moment megalomania, left in the hands of some young men: the types described by Robert Greene in the 48 Laws of Power, mutatis mutandis, as being eager to “draw attention to themselves by creating an unforgettable, even controversial image and doing anything to make them seem larger than life in order to shine more brightly than those around them.” Writing further, Green says of these youngsters: “they make no distinction between kinds of attention, as notoriety of any sort will bring them recognition as having fire in their bellies.” Better to be slandered and attacked than ignored -seems to be their mantra. Some of them are now trying more than is necessary to be remembered by President Muhammadu Buhari.

    So where Awo would have seen this problem as a national one, and rather than peremptorily asking Fulani herdsmen to leave Yoruba land, he would have thoroughly analysed it and suggested ways of resolving them as such. Never would he have deigned to use Chief Falae’s kidnap, opportunistically, to re-open a political contestation already settled for the next four years. When, therefore, Afenifere threatened thunder, when it served notice of a unilateral declaration of independence by a Yoruba people it did not consult, when it undertook to banish a group of Nigerians from Yoruba land against the provisions of the Nigerian constitution, it was obvious that the traditional nation-cohering role for which the Yoruba leadership is well known, was being sacrificed on the altar of crude partisan politics, far away from fighting for Yoruba interest. At a time when former President Goodluck Jonathan has gloriously relocated back home to Otueke, it can only nauseate that our respected elders could, like the Catholic Bishop of Sokoto, still not appreciate that the next election is not due until 2019. Or what, other than politics, could have brought together all of President Jonathan’s  election time allies in Yoruba land – Afenifere, the now divided OPC plus Femi Fani-Kayode, all, not only splitting hairs, but like they did to the former president on Yoruba votes, making promises on which they are in no position to deliver?  When, for instance, they threatened secession, how many Yoruba have they consulted or carried along with them? For Dr Faseun and Gani Adams – leaders of OPC which they arrogantly claim is the Yoruba military wing – is the Yoruba nation now no more than their 5000- strong politicised OPC they claim to have deployed to their misbegotten oil pipeline security contract?

    In a mail to the ekitipanupo web portal this past week, I raised the following posers: ‘What does Afenifere do when after their 2-week ultimatum, Fulani herdsmen are still in the Southwest complete with their flock? What do they do if northerners also ask Yorubas- traders, tailors, businessmen, and taxi drivers etc – in their tens of thousands – to also leave the north? What succour would they give if, consequent upon their threat, helpless Yorubas are attacked up north? What percentage of Yorubas  any longer  trust their leadership,  post Jonathan, given that the period saw our palaces completely bastardised with dollars with not a few Yoruba believing it was on their advice? How many Yoruba are in support of this threatened UDI – unilateral declaration of independence – when most of those threatening it can neither play “MASSOB”, nor would volunteer their own well-heeled children to lead the charge? Do they think secession is a tea party that should not be thoroughly interrogated, even if it were necessary? These elders are obviously inviting something they no longer have the capacity to handle. And they should just honourably sheathe their sword.’

    I am certain they are aware that for almost no other reason than the Fulani herdsmen, states like Plateau, Nasarawa, Benue etc have become literal killing fields just as they cannot be unaware that some Yoruba persons have actually lost their lives, for the same reason, in the Oke Ogun area of Oyo State but with nary a word from our elders as if one Yoruba life is more important than the other. Without any iota of doubt, the Fulani herdsmen have become a pain in the neck; a murdering horde spewing blood wherever they go. It is now of the utmost urgency that they are reined in and separated from their menacing AK47’s most probably supplied them by some wealthy Fulani leaders as these weapons don’t come cheap. However, that is the business of our law enforcement agencies which should be seen, or dragged, if need be, to perform their lawful duties. That murderers in successive crises in the north were neither tried, nor punished for decades, is one of the causative factors of Boko Haram now laying prostrate the entire Northeast with tens of thousands dead and billions of naira consumed in fighting it. Governments, at all levels, must now rise to find a lasting solution to this pan-Nigeria problem and elders will help that process if they do not lend themselves to making incendiary demands.

  • Re: If corruption is so rotten, how come we all seem to enjoy its company? – Matthew Kukah

    Re: If corruption is so rotten, how come we all seem to enjoy its company? – Matthew Kukah

    Without a scintilla of doubt, Bishop Kukah got a well deserved shellacking from his club’s misbegotten trip to the Villa to plead the cause of those who stole Nigeria blind

    A time was, when you were literally awestruck, reading Bishop Hassan Matthew Kukah, the Catholic Bishop of Sokoto’s many epistles to the Nigerian people. He was master of impeccable language and unassailable logic, but no more. So annoying was his contribution on the above topic at the Platform, an event organised by the Covenant Centre, Lagos, October 1, 2015, to mark Nigeria’s 55th independence anniversary, that you could wager those were not words. Indeed, so distressing was his jeremiad that on the ekitipanupo web portal, it was summarily dismissed as nothing more than sour grapes. For instance, I wrote: “Bishop Kukah is many things in this speech: a cleric, a pragmatist but mostly somebody out with a jeremiad having seen his preferred candidate lost an election. Like the Afenifere people, he is still distraught; almost inconsolable. In nearly all of the premises on which he erected his thesis, are the very facts, or inferences, to dismantle them.”  Another commentator wrote: “It was individuals like Kukah and Oritsejafor who encouraged Jonathan to carry on as if he were exclusively the president of the Christians. The consequence, of course, was the defeat of their candidate at the election. Bishop Kukah should just keep his sophistry to his chest.”

    Obviously eager to pour cold water on Nigerians’ enthusiasm about, and support for President Muhammadu Buhari, and probably still suffused with the ancient papal bull of indulgence, he hit the ground running when in his very first sentence he railed: ‘…perhaps, out of deep frustration, Nigerians have raised up messiahs, hoping and praying that they would take away their sins and sufferings and usher in a new dawn. But, in almost all instances, our joys have turned into ashes. For over 50 years, we have celebrated every military or civilian regime only to lose patience and fall into depression. Under the civilian administrations, we have often summoned the military to come to our rescue.”

    I wouldn’t know if Bishop Kukah personally called for a military putsch, but I am over 50 and neither I, nor any of my friends, bona fide Nigerians, ever did. So here is the Bishop’s first illogical conclusion. Easily committing the second, he, again, contends that describing President Buhari as a ‘morally ramrod Muslim, God-fearing, a disciplined officer, a patriot, and an incorruptible man over which, to use his words, ‘he is now adorned with a messianic regalia’,  is nothing but sentiments even though he claimed not only superior familiarity, but friendship  of over 20 years with the president.

     Apparently still smarting from his friend’s defeat, Bishop Kukah could not see Nigerians’ happiness as arising from Buhari’s well known  history of disdain for corruption in which his friends, incidentally, luxuriated, as we are now learning of Diezani and co’s escapades in NNPC. Equally joy evoking is the fact that, in spite of the antics of all the Orubebe’s of this world, President Buhari emerged from a very transparent election, an eventuality that has escaped Nigeria for decades.

    Bishop Kukah’s most egregious error was building his thesis on the way and manner in which military dictators, the very incubators and purveyors of corruption in Nigeria, behaved while in office. Said Kukah: “I will try to look back at how the so-called fight against corruption has been deployed by successive military regimes as a means of seducing us into compliance. My concern is whether we shall continue to fall for the same tricks given that, after over 50 years we are nowhere near achieving success in our fight against corruption.” This he said, even when he knew only too well that Buhari was toppled by fifth columnists within the army because they were denied the opportunity to steal as they had hoped when they staged their coup in which it is generally known Buhari did not participate. That they could not ravage the national treasury, as they did post Buhari, was simply because of the man’s aversion to corruption. I am completely at a loss as to why, knowing all that happened after the coup that ousted Buhari, Bishop Kukah could not purge himself of his anti-Buhari sentiments and, for once, own up to the fact that here is a man certainly not cut from the same cloth as our other military heads of state, some of who would later be richer than some countries on the West African coast.  It is no less surprising that this public intellectual could conflate a peoples’ happiness with words like hysteria, euphoria and amnesia, words he romanced, ad nauseam, probably because he loved the uproarious hoopla that must have greeted his verbalising them. These are words, if he does not yet know, that cannot remotely describe  the peoples’ joy and relief as Buhari thumped the sitting president in that historic election. Left to Bishop Kukah, Jonathan should have won, no matter what. After all, didn’t he tell Buhari to let him be even if he had stolen the CBN itself?

    We need not bother, therefore, whatever his definition of those his alluring words.

    Without a scintilla of doubt, Bishop Kukah got a well deserved shellacking from his club’s misbegotten trip to the Villa to plead the cause of those who stole Nigeria blind. It will therefore not be a surprise if he feels a level of disorientation arising from the massive rejection by a people that used to literally worship at his feet. As a result,  Bishop Kukah’s disdain for Buhari has increased as we find in his following  words: “Personally, with some trepidation, I have some sense of de javu manifested in the blind, hysterical and euphoric outpouring of emotions welcoming the return of President Buhari and the belief that he has come to take our sins away. The sense that, somehow, we should simply fold our hands and wait – (I don’t know who told him that) – because, like a scene out of Jim-will-fix-it in the British television programme, we should hand our future to one man who knows it all. We are becoming victims of what our famous daughter, Chimamanda, has referred to, in a most powerful essay, as the danger of the Single Story. In her words, the single story is built on stereotypes and, the trouble with stereotypes is not that they are false, but that they are incomplete. Building on this, Nigerians have imbibed the notion of the single story that we are being defined as corrupt. Thus, the idea of a fight, a war against corruption has often taken a life of its own in our collective narrative of the problems of our country.”

    Judging from his vituperations above, this Bishop obviously does not believe there is anything like corruption in Nigeria. Nor that it should be wrestled to ground. Should we then believe that he enjoys corruption? If, as asserted by the respected Ambassador Dapo Fafowora in his column in The Nation of Thursday,  October 8, 2015, corruption accounts for over 40 percent of public expenditure in Nigeria and yet Bishop Kukah doubts its existence, wont it be correct to say Nigerians do not know this man at all? This says a lot for all the so-called men of God who milled around former President Jonathan worshipping at both the president and his wife’s feet all in the desire to be found at the corridor of power. It also explains the humongous amount of money the former president allegedly bribed the clergy with and how outrageously the Christian Association of Nigeria became an arm of the Peoples’ Democratic Party going into the election. Credit must, however, go to the Catholic Church whose bishops, as a collective, dissociated themselves from the supercilious peccadilloes of some of its colleagues. Nigerians must wait and watch, as Bishop Matthew Kukah continues to unravel, possibly to his utter demystification.

  • Nigerians must be ready to storm this bastille (the National Assembly)

    ‘Like a partridge that hatches eggs it did not lay, are those who gain riches by unjust means.
    When their lives are half gone, their riches will desert them, and in the end they will prove to be fools. – Jeremiah 17: 11

    It is a shame of monumental proportions that  84 members of  the  senate of  the Federal Republic of Nigeria could,  in pursuit of  juicy senate committees, permit  themselves to be rail roaded into passing a vote of confidence  in  a man, albeit the senate president, standing trial on thoroughly scandalous charges before the Code of Conduct Tribunal. Granted that Senator Bukola Saraki is presumed innocent, a more honourable group should have prevailed on him to step aside until his honour has been fully restored. It says so much for the moral of these senators, many of them brandishing, not only higher degrees, but membership of distinguished professions. Writing on today’s topic reminds me of Dr Segun Osoba, my teacher of unmatchable perspicacity, who taught both my Diplomatic History and Philosophy of History at degree level. Deploying deep insight and introspection, he had uncannily predicted today’s Nigeria way back some five decades ago. That wasn’t by magic, but the result of  clear-headedness and a principled stand on the side of the PEOPLE in their interminable war against the supposed great men of power; the despoilers of common causes, and oppressors of the flotsam and jetsam of society. Like most rational thinkers, my teacher voted for Holism over and above, Individualism.

    However, before we go into all that, let me most sincerely thank those who made my 70th birthday such an unforgettable and impactful event. This entire page will not contain their names but the good Lord knows you all. They made me an open book, saying what they know and believe about me as Olu Aluko did when he wrote on ekitipanupo: “indomitable is an appropriate word to describe Oga Orebe who, at 70, is still rugged, dogged, persistent and as ‘constant as the northern star – a man to admire and engage with, intellectually. Amiable and well cultured, he is a good example of what people should perceive of the Ekiti man!” I have since replied to thank  him while not forgetting to ask all the forumites, and  everybody  reading this, ‘to  kindly stretch a hand towards me in prayers  to the end that the Almighty God  will continue to instruct and guide me a right, to the last days of my life’.

    What the group of 84 senators is doing, holding up Senator Bukola Saraki as being superior to other Nigerians and should therefore walk away with a slap on the wrist instead of defending himself before the Code of Conduct Tribunal, completely stands logic on the head as it makes nonsense of the Hegelian postulate that the whole is greater than the part, and that the state is superior to an anarchic agglomeration of individuals, no matter what name they call themselves. In Hegel’s metaphysical doctrine – I don’t know how much of this our aspiring emperors of the Nigerian senate know – value, integrity and common sense reside in the whole, not in the part just as the eye is worthless when separated from the body. In the instant case, Saraki and his colleague senators, like the senate itself, are nothing more than a mere part of a country whose critical component are the PEOPLE. It is therefore numbing and defies all logic that Saraki, in being taken before a tribunal for his alleged personal transgressions, and having all the wherewithal to hire all of Nigeria’s SANs, can suddenly be equated to the whole senate as is now being mischievously claimed by the complicit 84 members, uproariously insisting that the senate leadership is being targeted and embarrassed. Senator Bukola Saraki, in case they truly do not know, is only  an individual and no amount of grandstanding by any number of bigoted  individuals, seeking after their own greed, must be allowed to shame the Nigerian judiciary as his mocking lawyers appear to be inclined. To succeed in that will mean that Saraki is a super man who can will whatsoever he wants on Nigerians. This is totally unacceptable and for every misguided pro-Saraki group demonstrating, there must be twenty or more, representing the interests of the Nigerian masses who remain victims of our politicians’ anti social devises. This tit for tat must continue until those misguided senators know that it’s inadvisable for them to hop up to Abuja, any longer, because they have proved to be enemies of the Nigerian people.

    For a whole sixteen years, these people, together with some who are now outside the power loop, but all the same luxuriating in their stupendous loot, ran this country aground, pauperising its peoples in the process. Now comes President Buhari, ready to right millennial wrongs since he appreciates that stealing is corruption but they think they can hamstring his administration. Nigerians say no. Indeed, they have a surprise waiting for them from the Nigerian masses and workers whose mere N18,ooo.oo  monthly salary remains unpaid for months before President Buhari came to their aid. It will be a shame of unimaginable proportions should pauperised Nigerians look askance and allow this ongoing Abuja shenanigan by a people who, by their own admission, earn unimaginable remuneration.

    In his defence when the EFCC arrested a former Speaker of the House of Representatives, it became common knowledge that these legislators, consequent upon a decision at an executive session on 30, March 2010, earn the following un-appropriated remunerations: Speaker – N100m, Deputy Speaker, N80m, House Leader N60m, Deputy House Leader N57.5m, Chief Whip N55m, Deputy Chief Whip, N54.5m, Minority Leader, N54.5m, Minority Whip, N50m, Deputy. Minority Leader, N50m, Deputy Minority Whip, N50m’.

    Is it a surprise then they have been fighting to the death wanting to grab these sinecure positions? These remunerations may have since been increased and Nigerians can only imagine what senators must be taking home quarterly from the national purse if the above is paid to House members. This, I imagine, is why they have now decided to distract President Buhari. And Nigerians just must say enough is enough.

    We must let them know that they lie if they ever think that through their continuing belligerence, they can cause anti-democratic elements to intervene because the civilised world hugely respects President Muhammadu Buhari for that eventuality to happen. Indeed, no soldier worth his commission will attempt that, having seen what transpired in Burkina Faso this past week. These senators, who are obviously not busy except  mounting a guard of honour  for Senator and Mrs Saraki wherever EFCC takes them, should find something  worthwhile  to do with their time. They should let Saraki be man enough to answer for his own actions. Saraki comes well prepared: a medical doctor, two-time state governor and Senate President.  His fair weather friends, as he would soon know, should allow him defend himself so that, rather than being remembered for those charges, history would record him as a man who stood up for his actions. Enough, too, of this chimera. Senator Bukola Saraki cannot equate the senate. He represents only a third of Kwara State in that hallowed chamber and the charge he faces is not against the senate as an institution. Those who are saying so should know that they are being laughed at all over the civilised world.

    For Nigerian politicians in general, there can be no better way of ending this piece than to quote Joe Igbokwe in his article in The Nation of 1st October, 2015 where he wrote:”Nigeria at 55 with Muhammadu Buhari as president provides a new window for all of us to sit up and be smart in re-ordering the way we do things. The massive flow of refugees from Libya, Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Africa into Europe should be food for thought for our leaders. Boko Haram insurgents, MASSOB and Niger Delta militants remain a big challenge to all. We must rise above ethnic sentiments in order to confront these threats and build the Nigeria of our dream.”

  • In the beginning

    I have been privileged to write as a columnist in all manner of  newspapers for close on four decades but certainly not in the continuous, unbroken manner I did,  first with Comet, and  now for a much longer period  for The Nation on Sunday, where I have not missed a week in some eight years.

    “Femi, a special day, a special landmark, all for a very special friend! We give God the glory for the journey so far. With you, what you see is what you get, no airs: uncommon candour, genuineness, consistency, loyalty and  an uncompromising embrace of your core values and beliefs, all fusing  in the patriotic zeal that burns brightly at the tip of your admirable  pen. Your effervescent personality is admiringly infectious. It is a privilege, and honour, to call you my special friend. My darling wife and l wish you happy birthday and the very best for the future in robust health, peace and God’s abundant grace. Pity we are not able to join you in the ‘knees up’ on Sunday. Do have a blast as we raise a glass or two to the ‘baffday boy’. – Dr Biodun Adu, a U.K -based Consultant Gynaecologist, and my very good friend, and classmate, at Christ’s School, Ado-Ekiti, obviously writing for all the 59-63 Boys.

     I have been privileged to write as a columnist in all manner of  newspapers for close on four decades but certainly not in the continuous, unbroken manner I did,  first with Comet, and  now for a much longer period  for The Nation on Sunday, where I have not missed a week in some eight years. My foray into  regular columnising had started with Niyi Oniororo’s, Akure-based,  totally irreverent  PEOPLES NEWS  which was the only community newspaper in the  old Ondo State of the early 80s; a period of great political ferment in our country. Suffice it to say that the state was volatile enough to have, unarguably, accounted for the demise of Nigeria’s Second Republic.  Dare Babarinsa, has since elegantly captured the era in the ‘House of War  in which this writer got a decent mention.  Of course, I had before then written regularly in THE SUNDAY TRIBUNE during the editorship of the erudite journalist, Banji Ogundele, and for the Sunday Sketch, when Uncle Jide Adeleye was editor.

     Niyi Oniororo and I had met early in life at the prestigious Christ’s School, Ado-Ekiti, where he was a year ahead of me. A scion of the Oniororo family of Otun -Ekiti and younger sibling of Comrade (Dr) Ola Oni of the University of Ibadan, Niyi was simply an enigma, absolutely in a class of his own. Given the thoroughly Christian bend of Christ’s School, it was obvious he was not going to complete his studies there.  But Niyi would not be an Oniororo if that little matter of an expulsion, over some boyish frivolities, was to delay him at all. He soon found his way to Eastern Europe and returned a few years later, a fire-eating, Marxist – Leninist and human rights crusader. I knew no door Niyi could not open and before long, he was sucked into the mix of the high and the mighty in government, something am still unable to explain.

    Working with the likes of Bayo Kumolu-Johnson, a medical doctor and human rights campaigner too, he soon found the National Council for National Awareness and became the Director of the National Orientation Movement on the brutal murder of General Murtala Mohammed.  A master at pamphleteering, Niyi wrote no less than fifteen books. Without a scintilla of doubt, however, PEOPLES NEWS was his magnum opus. It was published with hardly any regard for the extant laws of sedition or defamation.  He knew neither Jew nor Gentile; nor was anybody too big for him to hammer in his withering column. At varying times, he took on the state governor, the revered Papa Adekunle Ajasin, just like he would later descend heavily on Chief Akin Omoboriowo, the deputy governor.  He was as iconoclastic as they come!  Indeed, as a prosecution witness in a case instituted by Chief Omoboriowo against Oniororo, Chief Obafemi Awolowo testified that although he believes in freedom of the press, he had doubts as to Niyi’s journalistic intelligence. Said Awo: ‘I believe you wished me well in my political career, but your newspaper suggested otherwise. Your vicious attacks on the former deputy governor of Ondo State were not the right thing for the UPN.’

    However, those who accuse Niyi of being motivated by mercenary instincts certainly didn’t know him. He thought nothing of money.  I knew of days he did not have a dime nor did I benefit a penny writing for his paper.  Indeed, PEOPLES NEWS, published in Ibadan, and ferried weekly to Akure, was run absolutely on a shoe string and many a time, it took Niyi’s very doting wife to pay for the printing. Without a doubt, the fear of PEOPLES NEWS was the very beginning of wisdom for public servants in Ondo State simply because its publisher feared nobody, acting purely from inner convictions.

    On my part, the paper was very handy in drawing attention to a series of unethical things going on in some ministries and departments of the state government. There was, in particular, the pharmacy department which gave out outrageous contracts to some friends of some of the officials who usually came in from outside the state.  Aside my column in the PEOPLES NEWS, I was a regular face on the state television and had acquired a reputation for saying things exactly as they are.  This made me a recipient of several confidential information. Writing about such things, however, carried risks of their own as I was certainly not a Niyi Oniororo who, I sometimes believed, had a death wish.  For instance, I can  never  forget  the day I barely escaped  Bode Olowoporoku  who  came  to my house  with some people to protest an article I had written  against a  particular ministry  – not his own – where, unknown to the  highly regarded  commissioner,  some clandestine, anti-social activities were  going on.

    Sadly,  Oniororo would  die  a very painful death at the University Teaching Hospital, Ibadan,  Sunday, April 17, 2005, the consequence of a stroke he suffered consequent upon  the unresolved, very  gruesome death of  Yomi, his adorable and brilliant 29-year old  son, a  doctorate  degree  holder  who was  on the  staff  of  the National Intelligence Agency. The manner of Yomi’s death killed Niyi long before he joined the saints triumphant but he, no doubt, left his mark as a journalist of conscience. Niyi lives on in the many memorabilia he left behind as well as his sterling contributions to the campaign for human rights in the country in which he will, with considerable justification, be called a pioneer.

    My next major effort at column writing would be in the early 90s when an evening newspaper, floated in Lagos by the Ibadan- born Alhaji Balogun, had as its Managing Editor, my good friend, Banji Ogundele,  formerly of  Sunday Tribune. This again happened to be at a period of frenetic politicking. It was in the era of the two political parties – SDP and NRC, both the result of General Babangida’s harebrained political experimentations. My column here was so well received that a senior journalist, Segun Adelugba, wrote his project, in part fulfilment of his Post Graduate Diploma in Journalism at the Nigerian Institute of Journalism, Ogba, Lagos on it.  Hard hitting, it was a veritable space for propagating the superiority of the candidature of Chief M.K.O. Abiola, the SDP Presidential candidate, over and above his opposite number, Alhaji Bashir Tofar, of the NRC.  One issue which enjoyed considerable mention was who, between Alhaji Abubakar Atiku and Alhaji Babagana Kingibe should be Chief Abiola’s running mate.  The column unapologetically rooted for the more cerebral Kingibe to whom I had actually, earlier,  been introduced by his friend, and my senior at  Christ’s  School,  the Late  Leye Adegite, the  witheringly brilliant  Chemistry professor  of the University of Lagos, when  the idea of my becoming an aide to Baba, in the manner of  Ojo Madueke and the lawyer, Sola Akinyede, was mooted.  I, however, demurred because my sympathies were with the Chief Ajasin -led PSP, not the PDM though both would later merge in the IBB abracadabra politics. That little conscientious objection also accounted for my refusal to join in a PDM membership recruitment drive to Ondo State for which those who agreed were generously, financially rewarded, in my presence.

    • Culled from my forthcoming book: SIMPLY A CITIZEN JOUNALIST, in commemoration of my 70th birthday this past week.