The Nation Newspaper

Category: Femi Orebe

  • Adieu Moremi Ekiti

    Adieu Moremi Ekiti

    In a way, the Book of Revelation, in its apocalyptic Chapter 7: 9, must have had the late Mrs Funmilayo Adunni Olayinka, in view when it says: ‘after these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one can number, of all nations (states), tribes, peoples and tongues standing before the throne …’

    Callers at the Ekiti State House, at her family house or at the Olayinka’s in Osborne, Lagos we can count but there is hardly anybody that is somebody in the public life of this country that has not visited, personally, or sent an emissary, to pay his/her last respects to the departed Ekiti State Deputy Governor as well as commiserate with the families she left behind. It has been a complete outpouring of love and emotions for a woman that lived a dedicated life of service and in her very short stay left her mark on the sands of time.

    William Shakespeare could not have been more apt when he wrote in MACBETH:

    “Out, out, brief candle!

    Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player

    That struts and frets his hour upon the stage

    And then is heard no more’.

    Above is how the bard of Stratford-upon-Avon described the illusory nature of life; here today, gone tomorrow; but all thanks to our Lord Jesus Christ, death has, forever, lost its sting. And so, like Goke Omidiran, in a poem specially crafted for the occasion, we can mock death and enthuse:

    ‘DEATH, WHERE ART THY STING?

    If you can take a beauty out in a flash

    And able to cause pain untold here to a living soul

    But failed to stop the joy in heaven of a child come home

    A darling daughter standing in the warm embrace of her king

    Then death where art thy sting?”

    Rather than mourn therefore, we have been celebrating the life of this God’s special gift to us all, emboldened by the cocksureness of Apostle Paul when he said in 1 Cor.15: 12- 22:”

    12. Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13. But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen. 14. And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain and your faith is also vain. . 15.Yea and we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God that He raised up Christ whom He raised not up; if so be that the dead rise not. 16. For if the dead rise not, and then is Christ not raised. 17.And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain, ye are yet in sins. 18. Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished. 19. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable. 20. But now is Christ risen from the dead and become the firstfruits of them that slept. 21. For since by man came death, by man also came the resurrection of the dead. 22. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive?”

    It has been tributes galore and overwhelming crowd at all the activities lined up for her rites of passage. For instance, the wake keep event in Lagos was slated for 5 pm at the huge THE HAVEN Events Centre, Ikeja, but an hour before commencement, it had become near impossible to find a parking space on the humongous parking lot.

    Of the hundreds of tributes to our dearly departed, space will permit us touch on only two: the first, by an old man on the line to receive her remains: “I believe this woman was great. I doubt if anyone has ever been this honoured in the state. I have been here since 1.30 pm”.

    The second is the 2,269 -word tribute by her boss and Ekiti State Governor, Dr Kayode Fayemi which I will try my utmost to compress into about 500 words. Wrote the man with whom she spared nothing in the effort to make poverty history in Ekiti:

    ‘I was already seated when she walked into the busy Chinese restaurant in Ikeja that fateful evening end of January 2007. We had spoken on the phone twice but never met. I instinctively stood up and beckoned her to my table – ‘Mrs Olayinka’, I called out. She was that recognisable in the crowd. ‘Good evening, you must be Dr Fayemi.’ I answered in the affirmative and we greeted warmly. The meeting was to explore the possibility of her joining my ticket as the Deputy Governorship candidate of the Action Congress in Ekiti State and my friend, Femi Ojudu and our Leader, Otunba Niyi Adebayo, had broached the subject matter with her already but the feedback from them was: sceptical but not out-rightly negative.

    “She asked pointed questions based on her Google search of my name, wanted to know about the campaign agenda and was worried about political violence, given what she knew of the recent past. She had also read about my wife and was keen to know more about her work. I too asked about her experience in the corporate world, her family and her worldview. It became clear that she was bold, driven, deeply religious, and very concerned about entrenching good governance in her home state as elsewhere. Her earlier discussion with Femi Ojudu and Otunba Adebayo had clearly helped but she was still not ready to commit.

    “To my relief, she phoned few days later to say she had given it extensive thought, prayed about it and consulted widely and was ready to give it a shot. Thus began a journey that I could only describe as God-ordained until the cold claws of death snatched her away from us on April 6, 2013.

    “And was the journey rough and tough!

    “Had she been faint-hearted, she would’ve thrown in the towel when she arrived Ewi’s palace in Ado-Ekiti shortly after to all manner of unimaginable expletives. But her steely resolve manifested early as she simply waved off the incident promising to win over the nay-sayers , which she did.

    “Fortunately, Bisi and Funmi got on very well from the minute they met. And the relationship grew from strength to strength despite the common tendency of people to try to generate conflict between two strong, principled women. Indeed, in many ways, they became inseparable – till the end.

    “I cannot now recall the exact date she gave me the worrisome news about the lump she had felt in her breast but it was after the re-run election in 2009. She kept me in the picture from that moment – right from the first wrong diagnosis that gave an all clear to the second diagnosis later in the year that confirmed there was a problem – leading to surgery in the United Kingdom, late 2009. To our great relief, from now till early 2011 when another check indicated that the cells had metastasized to another part of the body the cancer was in remission following chemotherapy and radiotherapy as well as regular checks in the UK and at home in Nigeria. And so she renewed the battle with the dreaded disease with some of the world’s most renowned oncologists in Nigeria, America, Canada and the UK. All through, Bisi was at hand with her in the UK from September 2009 till her last visit in February 2013. We did everything and refused to accept that the situation could not be saved. Funmi was also a source of inspiration. She never gave up on recovery from cancer. She kept hope alive and refused to stay off work – no matter my admonition.

    “Funmi Olayinka was indeed the Moremi Ekiti. In the true tradition of the legendary Moremi, she gave her all in defence of our people. Indeed, there are bound to be many people who will insist that had she stayed away from politics and Ekiti, she probably would be alive today. But not Funmi who, as a devout Christian, believed we all have an appointed time with our Maker. She was never given to regrets. Pleasant in disposition, Funmi was always business-like. With extra-ordinary dedication, she was focused on our goal of bringing succour to our people in Ekiti and at no point, whatever, did I have a reason to doubt her commitment, loyalty or integrity. She was stellar in the performance of the tasks assigned to her and she was clearly central to the success of our administration to date.” Fayemi concluded: ‘your family is now my family. Bisi and I will forever remain grateful to you for being part of the Collective Rescue Mission and you’d remain my sister, my friend even in death.”

  • Nigeria: Before amnesty becomes amnesia

    Nigeria: Before amnesty becomes amnesia

    Had government gone the way of dialogue it should not have been difficult for it  to see the reasonableness of all that Malam Shehu Sani had been saying

    I will, forever, be proud of our web portal: ekitipnupo@yahoogroups.com, an Indigenous Think-Tank and Intellectual Round-Table, agglomerating no less than two thousand Ekiti compatriots, both at home and in the Diaspora and on which no single issue, however supposedly minor, concerning the state, in particular, and Nigeria in general, passes us bye.

    Witness the following remarks by two members of the forum, distinguished Professors in their own right, one of Chemical Engineering, and the other of Agric Economics, on the topic of the moment in Nigeria –Amnesty.

    First: ‘My heart nearly stopped beating yesterday when, listening to local Nigerian news, I heard that the Governor of Abia State was asking for amnesty for the 5000 kidnappers in his state, and that they should be paid compensation or monthly wages “like is being done in the Niger-Delta.”

    5000 kidnappers in Abia State alone? I asked.

    And already identified?

    And it was no April Fool, or an Onion radio station…

    Is this is a sick joke or what? What now does amnesty mean in Nigeria? How do you give amnesty to:

    1. Those who have not accepted that they are criminals that must be “amnestied”?

    2. Those who have not asked for it, even if they accept criminality?

    3. Those whose total number at a point of amnesty you have not identified?

    4. those whose stream of replenishment – after granting some amnesty that must be based on certain terms – you are not able to stem?

    I don’t understand it – ” – but this Orji’s request takes the cake.

    o mebiri emebi, biko nu…’

    And second one, on the same Orji macabre request:

    ‘We are gradually descending from being ridiculous to being insane, playing politics with everything including precious human lives. The logic, as warped as it may appear, is that if the northern leaders are getting money for their Boko Haram (terrorists), he can as well ask for his kidnappers too. After all, terrorism and kidnapping are both crimes and the funds to be used will come from the commonwealth – the theory of ‘whatever is good for the goose should also be good for the gander’.

    Preposterous, I dare say but then, is n’t this our friend of the popular shrine?

    Both quotes point to how serious, or otherwise, a country we are as well as what manner of leaders we have but , more critically, it calls to question our process of leadership recruitment which is as warped as we are rudderless.

    What then is amnesty?

    Generally, amnesty is defined as any governmental pardon for past offenses or crimes, especially political ones. Granting amnesty goes beyond a pardon, in that it forgives the said offense completely. Indeed, a key part of the definition is the fact that amnesty is granted before any trial or conviction so Asari Dokubo could not have been right with his postulation that “the government can only put in two things – exercise prerogative of mercy after a person is convicted or when a person is under trial to put a nolle Prosequi but you cannot see somebody and declare him a criminal and give him a pardon’.

    Amnesty has also been described (Tom Tancredo, for instance, a Colorado, U.S politician, and former Presidential candidate) as a terrible policy, as well as terrible politics because by offering it you are rewarding people for breaking the law.” Please note though, that this unrealistic G.O.P politician had American illegal immigrants in mind.

    Nothing demonstrates the wrongheadedness of President Jonathan’s amnesty offer than the following response by the Boko Haram leader, Abubjakar Shekau: “Surprisingly, the Nigerian government is talking about granting us amnesty. What wrong have we done? On the contrary, it is we that should grant you pardon,” and followed it up by listing what he called the state’s atrocities against Muslims.

    Were the Jonathan government serious, that was the point at which it should have realised that what the problem called for, was dialogue, rather than any sterile offer of amnesty. I have, on this page, been an unrepentant advocate of dialogue even when it was neither trendy nor politically correct to, as much, as mention it. I recently upped the ante by asking for an all-inclusive National conference at which Nigeria’s many demons can be objectively and critically interrogated.

    Had government gone the way of dialogue it should not have been difficult for it to see the reasonableness of all that Malam Shehu Sani had been saying, ad nauseam.

    Shehu Sani, prominent civil rights activist, who single-handedly interacted with Boko Haram up to a point former President Olusegun Obasanjo did not mind joining the chorus, has literally been having a dialogue with the deaf on the issue of Boko Haram. Before he respectfully declined to serve on the Jonathan Amnesty Committee, he had warned endlessly that the first step was to establish a credible link with Boko Haram through those who know the group and who they, in turn can trust. Given the literal ribaldry going on, Sani has ruled out the possibility of Boko Haram leadership accepting the proposed amnesty because you cannot give amnesty to a people who do not want amnesty. Said Sani, “First of all, government set up a committee whose members nobody knows -(that has since been corrected) – but he went on: “If you set up a committee with big people who do not have access to the leadership of Boko Haram, you are simply wasting your time.” He even doubts whether the cheer-leading Northern governors are in touch with Boko Haram at all. The last I remember, personally, were some groveling Northern governors, serving and past, literally on their knees, begging Boko Haram leaders, asking for forgiveness. The manner in which they pleaded, you would have thought they took any of Shekau’s many wives!

    Nor was Sani done. He alleged that the motivating factor in all this talk about amnesty is money –kudi – which some Northern leaders are already eyeing. And he cautioned: ‘the Federal Government must not dangle money before Boko Haram as money cannot solve the problem of Boko Haram. They have not made financial request and secondly they are not fighting because they need money’, he concluded.

    And I say it would be such a shame if these Northern éminence grise have forgotten so soon that, driven by religious fundamentalism, Osama Bin Laden thought nothing of his riches but how to cause maximum damage to humanity. He was known to have spent copious time in the desert where he had work camps and led a totally ascetic life style. How come any government would wish to grant these his ‘evil’ heirs, tonnes of money which would most probably end up in arms procurement and more havoc. (Evil – not my word, but that of respected Alhaji Bamanga Tukur of the Gen Murtala/Nigerian Port Authority fame, a happy throw back to the days Nigeria had leaders.

    The fact that highly regarded Dr Datti Ahmed, President, Sharia Supreme Council in Nigeria has also declined participation in the committee work says much about its reasonableness long term usefulness. Without a doubt this will also go the way of other actions and promises of President Jonathan, and here, power readily comes to mind.

    I will therefore respectfully suggest to Mr President to immediately disband this ill-advised Amnesty Committee, and in its place, commence two quick processes, namely, inaugurate an appropriate committee to commence a discreet dialogue and negotiations with Boko Haram leaders through those individuals they trust, and put in place, a tidy and efficient enumeration of ALL the victims of Boko Haram’s unmitigated terrorism with a view to cogently assisting them or their dependants . Government should also draw up a Marshall plan which will, unlike these loquacious governors, aggressively infuse real socio-economic development in Northern Nigeria which age long feudalism has brought to its knees. The plan should aim directly at tuning the youth around because they constitute the literally rootless, and mostly illiterate, field from which they recruit suicide bombers on the titillating promise of heavenly virgins.

  • Moremi-Ekiti goes home

    Moremi-Ekiti goes home

    The late Mrs Olayinka lived a life of service

    Uncle, your article today is a masterpiece’; ‘egbon, an absolutely brilliant piece, e ku’se ilu’ and so on and so forth. That was how I got this riveting encouragement, week in, week out, from none other than the Amazon herself; the young, totally irreplaceable Moremi-Ekiti , Her Excellency, Mrs Funmi Olayinka, the Ekiti State Deputy Governor, who translated to higher glory exactly a week ago. Tell it not on Ekiti streets; let it not be heard in the redoubtable Famuagun family house in Ado-Ekiti which has since turned a centre of pilgrimage. Nor must her ‘twin-sister’, the woman who stood ramrod beside her all through those agonizsing years of chemotherapy, and yet more chemo; whilst some idle, ignorant do-nothings gossiped endlessly about a so-called portfolio hijack, remember that her sister is gone, never to be seen on this side of the divide.

    Moremi- Ekiti, the woman who stood, unwavering, beside Dr John Kayode Fayemi throughout those nervy, energy sapping years of a titanic struggle against Nigeria’s men of illicit power, was as brilliant as she was radiant. Loyal to the end, our departed Amazon was a study in reliability. ‘Obirin bi okunrin’ – a she-man!

    Mrs Olayinka neither wavered, nor was she ever discouraged even as she got thrown into the jungle that Nigerian politics has become; a whole world away from her serene banking profession where she had risen to lofty heights in some of Nigeria’s leading banks. Such was her steely nature and single-mindedness, even at the height of serial treachery when otherwise respected ministers in the temple of justice , and their ignoble soul-mates in judicial merchandising, thought nothing of selling their conscience to the highest bidder, that she soon became a Job’s comforter to her leader and other distraught party members on those occasions when justice was shamelessly trampled.

    But nothing encapsulates our departed titan more than Senator Femi Ojudu’s tribute to her, quoted here mutatis mutandis. And the senator should know. Once it was decided, on the advice of Erelu Bisi Fayemi, that the Deputy Governorship candidate should preferably be a woman and the party added the additional proviso that she must come from Ado-Ekiti, it became Ojudu’s task, given by the party, to head-hunt a candidate who, like Dr Kayode Fayemi, is well-educated, independent-minded, decent and of impeccable integrity’. Wrote Femi: “We lost an asset. A consummate administrator, an unparalleled image maker, radiant, brilliant, self-confident, and a quintessential Ekiti woman who gave a good face to Ekiti State. Without the slightest hesitation, continued the senator, she left her plum bank job and went headlong into the murky waters of politics, determined to give of her best to her people. I will miss you.” He continues, Kayode and Bisi Fayemi will miss you. The entire Ekiti people will miss you. Ado Ekiti will miss you. Both E11 and the Afenifere Renewal Group, of which you were a pioneer member, will miss you. And most importantly, Lanre, your better half, will miss you. Yeside and her sisters, your three adorable daughters, will miss you dearly. Papa and Mama Famuagun and the entire Sasere clan will miss you. You gave our struggle and the one you waged against that debilitating disease all you got. You never wavered. Rather, you were courageous, full of hope and kept reassuring me that all will be well even when I had to apologise to you at those low moments for bringing you into the rough and tumble of partisan politics.”

    It has been a stream of tributes, from far and near. As at the last count, almost all the state governors or their emissaries had visited to commiserate with their brother governor and the family of the late Mrs Olayinka. Both Ekiti Elders Council, under the lead of our highly regarded Papa, Chief J.E Babatola himself, and Christ’s School Elders forum led by Chief F. A. D Daramola, have been here too, and on the occasion, Chief Dele Falegan, on behalf of the Special Intervention And Empowerment Programme (SIEP), which he chairs in the state, said as follower of the late Deputy Governor: ‘she came like a meteorite, fulfilled her early call with elegance, diligence, confidence, humility and honesty and, disappeared from the stage at her appointed time like a meteorite. You lost a partner in progress and we all lost her. She died at the flower of youth, loved, renowned, honoured and celebrated.”

    And, paraphrasing the authors of THE LONG WALK, a book which details the odyssey of Dr Fayemi’s mandate retrieval battle, themselves active participants in the seemingly intractable struggle, the departed Deputy Governor was born in Ado-Ekiti in 1960 and attended both Holy Trinity Grammar School, Ibadan and the Olivet Baptist High School, Oyo, before travelling abroad for further studies. She holds a Masters Degree in Public Administration and a Bachelors degree in Business Administration from the Central State University, Edmond, Oklahoma, United States, where she was three times on the Dean’s Honour’s roll. A Marketing Analyst & Strategist, she started her banking career at First Bank Plc and later worked at both Access Bank and the now defunct Merchant Banking Corporation. In UBA she served as Head, Brand Management & Corporate Affairs and left the industry as Head, Corporate Services Department of Ecobank Transatlantic Inc.

    Of the departed Mrs Olayinka, they further wrote: ‘the late Funmi Adunni Olayinka was a highly personable woman, a mobilising impresario and motivational speaker. So concerned was she that in the man- eat- man phenomenon that Ekiti politics became, she regularly kept in touch with the spouses of those involved in the struggle without the knowledge of their partners. She always encouraged party supporters, assuring them that all would be well as victory would certainly come the way of the ACN. She regularly enjoined Ekiti women to be steadfast in their support for justice as by so doing they were securing the future of their children.”

    Brilliant, prayerful and untiring, she took her courageous single-mindedness into fighting the punishing disease that she had, since 2009, been diagnosed with. She gave it no quarters and did not slow down at work either, always saying it would be unfair to the Ekiti people who entrusted Dr Kayode Fayemi and herself with their mandate to do otherwise. Her’s was a life of service. Even as she would not inform family members of her medical travails lest she put them in unbearable torture or even earlier death for her aged parents, she had the unstinting empathy and unqualified support of the governor, Dr Kayode Fayemi, and that of her friend, and sister, the First Lady, Erelu Bisi Fayemi. While Erelu gave her unceasing emotional support, the Governor ensured that the best oncologists in the world , whether in the U.K, U.S or India attended to her in search for the elusive cure.

    It has been tears galore all over Ekiti, if not in the entire country since she passed on. But truth be told, seeing what I have, whether in her Lagos house, in the Famuagun family house, not to mention the indescribable scenes in the Ekiti State House, I dare say her departure could not have been more momentous and glorious even if she had lived three lives. Therefore, we must all take heart, accept that God is the all-knowing and infallible one who knows all and has chosen to call her home. For our departed darling sister and Ekiti’s second ranking citizen therefore, it must be a celebration of life and thanks galore to God Almighty as the Holy Writ has enjoined us to do in all circumstances.

    Mrs Funmi Olayinka touched lives and was an integral part of what the state Governor, Dr Kayode Fayemi, calls his Collective Rescue Mission. What remains for us to do is pray for her sweet repose at the feet of Jesus and eternal grace on all she left behind, especially her very aged parents, her husband and the young girls she was blessed with. At a time like this too, we must all remember Ekiti State in our corporate and individual prayers and ask that the Almighty God continues to guard, and guide our Governor and his family. We must specifically ask God to continue to uphold and renew him so that he will neither fail nor falter in his determined effort to uplift Ekiti. Adieu, our adorable, totally committed Moremi, a name Ekiti people had long given her in sheer admiration of her service and commitment ala an earlier Moremi whose votive sacrifice saved her Ile-Ife Yoruba ethnic group from annihilation by the invading Baribas.

    Adieu, dear Avatar, rest at the feet of your Lord and savior, our Lord Jesus Christ, till we meet to part no more.

  • What is Professor Jega up to at INEC?

    What is Professor Jega up to at INEC?

    President Jonathan has to step into the ups-manship in INEC

    With the fresh petition delivered to the Chairman, Senate Committee on INEC, by employees of INEC on January 7, 2013, it would appear that matters are far worse today than they were when the article below, mildly edited, was published on 12 September, 2012. Like it or not, President Jonathan would now have to find a way of stepping into the ups-man-ship going in that agency because of its possible negative consequences on the 2015 general elections.It is now in the open why Jega wanted to be all-in-all as he recently requested of the government. Happy reading.

    What game is the North up to at INEC?

    Can Professor Jega, a celebrated academic and former University Vice-Chancellor, double as an ethnic bigot? Is the famous Professor Oba, former Vice Chancellor, University of Ilorin, working in tandem with Jega in the former’s usual role of a Northern irredentist? Or is it as simple as the Federal Character Commission becoming comatose and toothless wherever in the Nigerian polity the North wields an unfair advantage? These and more questions agitate the mind on reading the advert: THE TAKE OVER OF INEC published in the Monday, 20 August, 2012, edition of this newspaper by the ELECTION INTEGRITY NETWORK but which in itself emanated from an earlier story by TheNews Magazine. It will be a little disingenuous, even unfair, to claim or even pretend that

    INEC has just so suddenly become a Northern enclave. The story has always been the same since there is literally a Northern Executive Secretary, permanently in place, but with the addition of Jega as Chairman, cronyism and outright nepotism have assumed an industrial scale with Oba’s FCC’s ludicrous connivance.

    For ease of reference, let us quote directly from the advert under reference. According to the publication, INEC’s top management is made up as follows:

    1. Prof Jega (Chairman)- Kebbi 2. U.F Usman (Director of Logistics) -Kebbi

    3. A. Muktar (Director of Human Resources) -Sokoto

    4. A.A Uregi (Director of Finance) – Niger

    5. M. Kuta (Internal Auditor) -Niger 6. E.T Akem (Director ICT) -Benue

    7. I. Biu (Director of Voter Education) – North East

    8. I.K Bawa (Dep. Director, Legal) – Plateau

    9. Okey Ndeche (Director,

    Operations) -Anambra

    10. Nyise Torgba (Director M& E/ Performance) -Benue

    11. A.A Adamu Head, Commission, Secretariat) -Kogi

    12. M.Ekwunja (Director,

    Civil Societies)

    13. E. Umenger (Director, Public

    Affairs) -Benue

    14. Regina Omo-Agege (Director, Political Monitoring) -Delta.

    15. B.E Edoghotu (Estate & Works).

    Those heading its key committees are also quite revealing. They are:

    1. Col. Hamanga ( Chairperson, Logistics Committee) -Adamawa

    2. Dr Nuru Yakubu ( Chairperson, Operations Committee) -Yobe

    3. Ambassador Wali (Chair person, Procurement Committee) -Sokoto

    4. Prof Jega (Chairperson, F&GP) -Kebbi

    5. Prof Jega ( Chairperson, ICT) -Kebbi

    6. Hajia Amina Zakari (Chairperson, Political Monitoring) -Jigawa

    7. Membership of its 9-Man Strategic Planning Committee reads as follows: Nuru A. Yakubu, Istianus Dalwang, Mustafa Kuta, M.S Mohammed. Torgba Nyitse, Emanuel Akeem all from the North with the exception of the duo of Mike Igini and Okechukwu Ndeche from the South. Add to this, the Executive Secretary who is from the same geo-political zone with Jega and, who, by the way has long passed the official retiring age. How blatant can some supposedly educated people get?

    It’s impossible not to wonder how an otherwise accomplished academic conveniently overlook the fact that Nigeria has a a Federal Character prescription in its constitution. What will Jega claim as alibi for this totally unacceptable lop-lopsidedness in an agency that is so critical?

    I found the following comments by Ifeanyi Izeze very useful in taking a look at the Federal Character Commission. Wrote Izeze in 2011 : ” When Nigeria’s Federal Character Commission (FCC) was established in 1996, it was supposed to enforce the federal character principles which aimed at ensuring fair and equitable distribution of posts; social-economic amenities; and infrastruc-tural facilities among the federating units of the nation. The intention was for it to be the watchdog of government ministries, departments and agencies to ensure an evenly distributed workforce that reflects ethnic diversity and the geopolitical divides of the country’.

    In recognition of its failings, wrote Izeze, the Commission after a Port Harcourt stakeholders retreat recounted as follows: ‘The FCC has delineated the country into national, state and local government levels as channels of distribution among the federating units for ease of implementation. Allocations at the national level, it said, will now be based on the 36 states and Abuja or the six geo-political zones or north and south …’ Apparently under Professor Oba, all these have been thrown into the trash can such that today, the North can completely dominate INEC with literally all its consultants coming from the North with nary a voice of warning from the Federal Character Commission.

    Given Professor Oba’s history as Vice-Chancellor, University of Ilorin, I am not in the least surprised that under his leadership, the Federal Character Commission has decided not know that INEC exists within the country’s laws.

    It is here that one begins to suspect a collusion with the PDP Federal government, given the ringing silence from the office of the Secretary to Government of the Federation. Not even a single warning to that office for its total ineffectiveness nor to Jega for the nauseating ethnic domination in INEC. Add to this, Jega’s clandestine decision to now use permanent voter’s cards for the next election, which cards will be obtained in the most dubious of ways as it will permit the registration of, not only minors, but totally non-existent persons, just so INEC can unilaterally swell registration figures in some given areas.

    I doubt if Jega’s defenders know what incalculable damage they do to his reputation when, in mitigation, they claim that he met everything in place. If in all these years he cannot right the obvious wrongs then he certainly does not deserve all the adulation he got at his appointment by a man who, we now know, truly did not know him at all.

    What then are the probable calculations? The Election Integrity Network is of the view that the structural iniquity in INEC epitomises nothing but a skewed regional interest especially at a time when geo-political struggle for power has assumed a violent dimension. The body believes that this is a carefully planned restructuring in which the most important organs responsible for future elections are placed smack in the hands of the North.

    The only time in recent memory that I can recall a similar scenario was during the Abacha era when you could hardly find four Southerners on the list of the topmost twenty security officials and a security council meeting could hold with no southerner, whatever, in attendance, if you go strictly by rank.

    Without a doubt, this arrangement at INEC cannot be a happenstance; rather it is the result of cold calculations aimed at the next elections. Nothing, for instance, stops some of Jega’s Northern top men in INEC from being transferred to other sections of the service as long as they do not lose their seniority. But nobody will dare.

    The sponsors of the advert in question bemoaned the fate of the Southwest in the agency.

    For me personally, this is a non-issue since it is a failure of the Yorubas in the PDP who are obviously not treated as equals as was recently eloquently demonstrated by Chairman Tukur who unilaterally sent its Yoruba Secretary packing. If these people now traversing the South-West ahead of the next elections were treated as co-equals, having lost the Speaker-ship of the House, they should have since ensured that they are adequately represented in agencies like INEC. This, however, will never happen since they are keener at feathering their individual nests as opposed to corporate South-West interests.

    As things stand in INEC today, Mr President owes it a duty to Nigeria to clear up, the Augean stable as a stitch in time could more than save nine.

  • Boko Haram: A multi-level failure of leadership

    Boko Haram: A multi-level failure of leadership

    Boko Haram is the result of a multilevel failure of leadership

    It is not for nothing that the recently departed Professor Chinua Achebe situated the problem of Nigeria squarely on a failure of leadership. This has again been poignantly certified true as the chicken has come home to roost. Boko Haram, it was discovered this past week, is already knocking on the doors of metropolitan Lagos and it took no less than 100 security operatives to put a Boko Haram cell therein to sleep. In the meantime, we do not know how many more are in the city, being primed for an opportunity to cause maximum damage.

    For most Nigerians then, Biafra was in faraway Afghanistan until that solitary plane flew into Lagos. With the Badiya, Ijora discovery, many eyes will now open to the fact that Boko Haram is no tea party.

    It is no use telling them that a single suicide bomb attack in Lagos will be the very beginning of Nigeria’s unravelling since disintegration is what they want.

    A lot of commendation has been showered on South-West governors because of the relative peace in the region, but a single Boko Haram strike in Lagos can shred all that. That exactly is how dangerous the security situation in the country has become and why all Lagos residents must sign on to this war. We must all become the ears and eyes of the security agencies which, in turn, must immediately advertise telephone numbers through which residents can pass information to them. I once gloated on this page that were the North attacks happening in the South, everybody here would have become a vigilante in his neighbourhood. To be effective,the security agencies need the full support of the local communities, even though I remain skeptical about the efficacy of this shooting war against a very mobile enemy.

    Without a scintilla of doubt, Boko Haram is the result of a multilevel failure of leadership and leading the pack in this, as the causative factor, must be the cultural practice that permits a rich individual to treat thousands of his compatriots like mere serfs who, upon being fed and given handouts, must begin to ‘rankadede’ them like they have no lives of their own. These powerful men do not appreciate what psychological problem they inflict on society thereby; since they think only of themselves. Indeed, their own children also graduate to become a burden on the poor like their fathers. Not unexpectedly, people so malignantly treated readily constitute a fertile recruiting ground for the likes of Boko Haram.

    Another major plank in leadership failure was the introduction of political Sharia.

    Seeing how rapidly it evaporated, though not its huge army of armed enforcers, I am not sure how its originator, now Senator, Ahmad Sanni Yerima , his brother copy-cat governors, and then president Obasanjo who, completely out of character, treated it with kid gloves, must be feeling today. It is common knowledge that Boko Haram was a peaceful organisation at inception. Without a doubt, the fact of many of its members subsequently joining the Sharia enforcers must have toughened and prepared them for today’s war against society. This must have made its members attractive to those politicians who later adopted them as a necessary wing of their campaigns. The fact that then President Obasanjo saw nothing wrong in the introduction of Sharia, in a non-Muslim country, did a lot to embolden both the politicians as well as their armed gangs who were mostly members of Boko Haram. These days, I laugh when Obasanjo puts Jonathan on the surgical table, viscerally putting him under the scalpel; when he points a finger at Jonathan, I can’t fathom where he thinks the remaining four are pointing.

    But much worse must be how northern leaders ensured that their people, especially children of school age, were educationally malnourished, preferring to turn them into Almajeris. Consequently, at the prime of their lives, rootless, uneducated and unemployed, if not unemployable, except as lowly menial workers, they become ready hands for the likes of Boko Haram. Unfortunately, when they commit crimes, like hacking down defenceless Youth Corps members or security men in the course of duty, they are assured, apriori, that they are beyond any punishment.

    Now the chicken has come home to roost.

    It is interesting that it was in Borno State, now hardest hit by Boko Haram, that a one-time state governor, reputed to be probably richer than the state, once gloated that newspapers could criticise him all they want, since only a negligible fraction of his people are literate enough to read newspapers.

    Rather than build schools or establish industries to which the energies of these young men could have been properly directed, what we see in the long years of northern political/military domination are Sheik-like houses built by individuals like they were intended to house entire towns. This is why I do not subscribe to all these theories about poverty being the reason for Boko Haram. At the very best, it would only be a self-inflicted poverty; inflicted by leaders who should have been concerned with helping the under class but chose to turn a blind eye.

    But if leaders in the north are guilty, the President, on whose table the buck stops, must carry the can. Although Obasanjo had been grossly unkind the way he prescribes contradictory solutions, President Jonathan has shown a vacuity that can only be astounding given his education and long years in the corridors of power. I am at a loss as to how the President will today differentiate between Afghanistan, Iraq and the country over which he presides. After he had been staggered into visiting the North-East, he got there and demonstrated a gripping unpreparedness; failing, unbelievably, to proffer a single productive way by which to end the Boko Haram insurgency. All we saw was some kind of sabre rattling, threatening elders he will, willy nilly, have to partner with on the long run.

    Let me conclude this article by offering Mr President an advice. What Nigeria needs, Mr President, is structural re-engineering which a compatriot, Wale Adeoye, recently put as follows: ‘To get out of this unending human carnage, this is the time to enter into genuine, constructive dialogue with Boko Haram. This must involve giving concessions for the right of the group to participate in democratic elections. This may sound awkward, but an Islamic Party controlling a part of the country should not be seen as antithetical to democracy, if the party enjoys the support of the majority.The siege mentality that defines our national politics in a plural society must vanish. Ethnic groups, environmentalists, and other groups that seek political power, driven by particular interests, either ethnic or religious, must be allowed to register their political parties and contest in their own area of cultural jurisdiction.’

    The Afenifere Renewal Group was saying the same thing when it advised as follows at a recent press conference: ‘It is our view that there is no better time than now to convene a national conference that would finally resolve the Nationality question that constantly and continuously pushes this country to the precipice.’

    This, Mr President, is restructuring by another name. You need not be unduly overwhelmed by considerations for 2015. If this country unravels, there will be no 2015 for you or anybody else.

    Be a statesman; convoke a national conference by whatever name, and save Nigeria.

  • Sanusi Lamido Sanusi’s insults

    Sanusi Lamido Sanusi’s insults

    All Sanusi’s effusions against the Yoruba count for nothing

    Courtesy elombah.com, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi’s vituperation on the Yoruba being the problem of Nigeria had a fresh life of its own on the internet this past week and it is only fair that we take a new and proper look at the messenger on our way to dismissing his virulent assertion as merely a fanciful and rootless shibboleth. One constant with the educated Northerner is that he is either decent or plain brash, disdainful, and out rightly disrespectful. This I should know having worked closely with then Dr Jibril Aminu, later Prof, in the early ’70’s, during the deanship of both Professors Ladipo Akinkugbe and Kayode Osuntokun at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Ibadan. Professor Aminu was, and remains cultured, decent and is as brilliant as are his distinguished senior colleagues. On the obverse of Aminu, however, is the boastful and loquacious Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, who for so long, has been pouring all manner of invectives on every section of of the Nigerian polity sans his ‘Aryan race’, the Hausa-Fulani. When Sanusi is not talking down to the entire nation like he is from outer space, he is claiming to know it all or putting himself forward as either the single holy malam in town or Nigeria’s only prince charming. Asked the other day, at the Minna Seminar on Security, why he garrulously goes to work in his ’emirate’ attire, he contemptuously replied that his turban is Resource Control cap; a condescending reference to the justified struggle people of the Niger-Delta had to fight to get anything tangible out of their God-given oil. Considering himself an untouchable, he had unilaterally been shelling his Kano state with unappropriated millions of naira from the oil resources like he owns Nigeria. This is a guy who will fight to the death to ensure that the National Assembly had nothing to do with how the Central Bank -a national institution- is run so he could run riot with its funds. Now that his brothers – whose lead protagonist he has become spewing forth infantile poverty theories – have again incinerated fifty plus Nigerians at a South-bound bus stop in his Kano, it will be interesting to see how much he doles out to both the dead and the injured, not to mention owners of the five luxurious buses that went up in smoke. That is the guy who, rather than be penitent, has been regaling Nigerians with who planned to stage the first coup in the country, conveniently forgetting that was nothing more than a plot by his forebears. And as to royalty, which he brandishes like a lightning rod, were Sanusi not a poor historian, he should have remembered how Abacha – a mere plebeian – dealt with that presumably untouchable institution. How rude and unfeeling can an individual get? How impudent and insufferable to start bad mouthing a race as distinguished as the Yoruba or Igbo?

    And Sanusi did n’t just start today.

    I never spared a thought for Sanusi – indeed, he never occurred on my radar, until he was named governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria in 2009 and there were those thoroughly acerbic newspaper comments on his person, apparently now, by people who must have known his antecedents.

    Desirous to ensure that a young man was not unduly shot down, I leapt to his defence. And to make a sense of whatever I was going to write, I decided to google our man. Although his pride came out shining like a thousand stars, I thought that should matter nothing if he was a good banker. He has since amply justified those who doubted his all round suitability for such a high post having copiously demonstrated, especially through his unguarded speeches, that though, a good banker he may be, he is a damn poor public servant; dispensing insults as generously as his whims dictate.

    Undue pride in what he is, and whatever he hopes to become, has colluded to fatally damage this ethnic chauvinist, who considers General Babangida and Abacha, in his words, ‘as people of a lower culture,’ but sees his own race, the Hausa-Fulani, which in reality symbolizes nothing more than a gobbling stomach, contributing nothing and irretrievably dragging Nigeria down in every respect, as the country’s super race. For ease of reference, I think we better quote the loud mouth seriatim. Said Sanusi Lamido in one of his expansive moments: ‘… the problems of this country have a lot to do with the shift in power away from the Fulani to individuals like Babangida and Abacha, products of lower cultures’. That, funny enough, is the character who says that “The Yorubas are the greatest obstacles to nation-building’.

    Yet, he must have readily salivated on the fact that I, a Yoruba, as well as some others like Dr Olajide Ogunlayi, had overlooked his distressing record of ‘academic’ publications, which are ALL about Sharia, Islamic Law and Women , instead of penetrating articles on Nigeria’s economic issues and challenges, to warmly endorse and defend his appointment , by none other than his Fulani compatriot, the late President Yar’ Adua. And, whereas, one would have expected the cheer weight of that office to temper his unnecessary effusiveness, Sanusi has continued, like a drunk, to insult the sensibilities of other sections of the country seeing himself solely as nothing more than a Fulani irredentist, gadfly and armour bearer. For him, there is no longer ‘the question of negotiating the difficult terrain of politics and developing true concepts of citizenship in plural societies’ as he once absent-mindlessly prescribed. Not only that. Were he not consumed by his self-importance, Sanusi should have benefitted from Muhammad Jameel Yushaa’s unsolicited admonition to him to ‘let us learn to respect one another and use the little knowledge Allah (SWT) endowed us with in building bridges of understanding rather than engaging ourselves in self glorification and the destruction of others’. Were that the case, he should have known why it’s unnecessary to rave and rant, attempting to diminish others.In spite of my fulsome endorsement of Sanusi as CBN governor in my 2-part article titled: ‘Psycho-analyzing Sanusi Lamido Sanusi’ , beginning Sunday, 6 September, 2009, I had also indicated my fears about the possibility of his being deliberately head-hunted to be the North’s deus ex machina for its having been allegedly short-changed during the banking consolidation exercise. That has turned out to be pretty uncanny given the free rein Hausa-Fulani itinerant currency dealers enjoy hauling money all over the place, a trade Sanusi would long have found a way to squelch were it dominated by people from tribes other than the Hausa-Fulani.

    It certainly cannot be too late in the day to teach Sanusi a thing or two about the Yoruba. I therefore reproduce below, the concluding part of my 2-part article under reference:

    ‘However, suffice it to say that he(Sanusi) missed the point in his characterization of South-West politics.This is because in the same way the Islamic faith has never accepted the dichotomy between Religion and Politics, mainstream Yoruba political thought is congenitally opposed to politics of paternalism, as practised in the North. Rather, it is driven, solely and in principle, by what we call the OMOLUABI precept. This is precisely why the South-West political landscape is strewn with the skeletons of opportunistic politicians who deviate from this time-honoured cultural prescription from whose group the North, unerringly, recruits its allies in the region’. Here, in Yoruba land, we know right from wrong and some things are simply anathema meaning: Yoruba mo ko to.

    Therefore, all these Sanusi effusions against the Yoruba simply count for nothing. We shall never be anybody’s plaything.

    Rather, it is driven, solely and in principle, by what we call the OMOLUABI mindset. This is precisely why the South-West political landscape is strewn with the skeletons of opportunistic politicians who deviate from this time-honoured cultural prescription and from which group the North, unerringly, recruits its allies in the region.

    Here, in Yoruba land, some things are simply anathema’.

  • Remembering my teacher Pa Festus Fajana 15 years after his translation

    Pa Fajana, solid and gregarious,  was a kind and jolly person.

    Like the evil that men do, the good also live after them. So it is with the elementary school teacher who made the greatest impact on me and whose corporeal bastinado, once inflicted on the soles of my feet, I shall never forget. That story is told anon.

    Keen to know him?

    Please come with me as I introduce the late Chief Festus Olorunsola Fajana, through the eyes of his erstwhile bosses. Of him, Chief J.B.C Adetola, his Headmaster at St Paul’s Anglican School, Odo-Ado, Ado-Ekiti, wrote “Festus, a very loving student of mine who became one of my very loving and amiable friends. He was loyal, dedicated, trustworthy and honest; Papa A.A Abiodun, the unforgettable Headmaster of Emmanuel senior primary school, Ado Ekiti , never known to spare the rod wrote: “Festus Fajana until last year December was a pupil of Emmanuel primary school, Ado Ekiti, under me.

    He was the school senior prefect a post always entrusted to the most reliable boy…”. His Principal, and later, Regional Minister , Chief J.E. Babatola said: “Festus Fajana attended the Ekiti Divisional Training Teacher College Ikere Ekiti, when I was the Principal. He was a stolid character and a kind- hearted man who won the confidence of both staff and students. As a result of his remarkable display of good sense I made him the College Senior Prefect in his final year and he discharged the duties of the office creditably’. That was not all, as Prince Owolabi, my own Headmaster at the United School, Are-Afao, Ekiti, where Pa Fajana taught me, and who would later become the Oluyin of Iyin -Ekiti wrote: “Mr. F.O Fajana had been a teacher, trained and certificated, under me for a period of one year. He is honest and diligent” but the following must be the icing on the cake: J.A Adeokun, his Headmaster at St Louis Anglican School, Ikere-Ekiti, wrote on 22nd November 1961: “He is reputed to combine certain evident qualities like a keen sense of diligence, honesty and tact; he is ambitious and dynamic, a real leader: responsible and cultured; but to be moderate in the issue of this recommendation, one should be constrained to leave the applicant for a further character study to prove the veracity of my honest recommendation.”

    As to the veracity of his recommendation, Pa Adedokun can rest easy in his grave because nobody who ever knew my teacher would doubt any of his words. Nor was this surprising as he had been brought up in the strict orthodoxy of an Anglican, at the homes of both Chief James Ajibade, the first Baba Egbe of St. Paul’s church, Odo Ado, and that of Rev. Obaweya of Igede Ekiti; was baptized on 7th July 1947 by Rev. Canon Adeyinka and confirmed in a Eucharist liturgy celebrated by the Very Revd. S.O Odutola, in 1953.

    Besides his Christian upbringing, my teacher born, 14th April 1928 to Pa Ayegbusi Fajana and Madam Abigail Ibidunt Alege was a scion of the redoubtable Aremo Ogunbiyi Agoketorunse whose dynastic origin dated back to the pre- Ewi era and is believed to be the only cabinet chief who does not prostrate before the Ewi. His own father, Ayegbusi Fajana, an intrepid hunter, was reputed to have killed not only warthogs, but also Buffalos and Leopards and had special ‘ijala ode’ and panegyrics sung for him.

    Late Papa Festus Fajana, a professional teacher, capped his professional training with a stint at the University of Lagos where he studied Pre-school and Nursery Education. He once toyed with the idea of joining the Nigerian police but he quickly dropped the idea and stayed put with his first love -teaching -where he touched and molded thousands of lives, amongst them today are professors, medical doctors, accountants, administrators, lawyers etc, as he taught in various towns dating back to the old Western Region.

    It was at one of these various towns, Are-Ekiti, my home town, where he arrived in ’58 that I was privileged to be one of his favourite pupils. The story can now be told of that totally strange bastinado. Pa Fajana had believed that if none of his final year pupils would head straight to secondary school, Oluwafemi Orebe would. I then took the entrance examination to one secondary school which I passed, but did not attend the interview as it fell on the same date with the entrance examination of another school which I preferred. He did not know this until the interview results were out and I did not go to him to report my ‘success’. He was livid, but didn’t think twice. He asked late Major Bayo Olorunfemi, a classmate, to fetch him a sturdy cane. At my outstretched hand, he laughed and asked me to raise up my right leg while the same Olorunfemi and another boy held me up, to receive six strokes on the sole of that foot. However, I knew it was out of love, and concern, and so never begrudged my teacher.

    Pa Fajana, solid and gregarious, was a kind and jolly person and was very much loved in the twin towns that co-owned our school. He became much more famous when he became the Headmaster on the departure of Papa Owolabi to ascend to the throne of his fathers at Iyin-Ekiti. He was among the most popular teachers of my era as a primary school pupil in my town, in the same league with Headmaster Akeredolu, Aketi’s father, who was astonishingly handsome and popular..

    On retirement from teaching, Pa Fajana went fully into the service of his community. Among other things he was Proprietor, Ita Eku Community School, Secretary, Ado-Ekiti Anglican Parish, member, governing council, Ado Grammar School, Executive Officer, Board of Pensioners, Ado-Ekiti and Chairman, Ifelere Thrift and Co-operative Society.

    He joined the Saints Triumphant on 19th of March 1998, survived by children and grandchildren who can justifiably be proud in the imperishable legacies he left behind.

    Adieu, my worthy and unforgettable teacher who, we are comforted, is resting at the feet of his Lord and Master, our Lord, Jesus Christ.

    OF POLICE COMMISSIONER YINKA BALOGUN (Rtd)

    Police Commissioner Yinka Balogun (rtd), the dashing, one-time nemesis of Nigerian fraudsters, as Head of the SFU division of the Nigeria Police, is a gentleman in, and out of, uniform. Recently retired as the helmsman at the Edo State Police command, we became instant friends as soon as we were introduced to each other by Dr Kayode Fayemi, the Executive Governor of Ekiti State from where Yinka headed to Edo, prior to his glorious retirement from service. As a result of space constraint, not much can be written here of this genial gentleman who was once strongly rumoured to succeed Nuhu Ribadu as Chairman of the anti-graft agency, EFCC. Suffice it then to recall only two of the sterling commendations Nigerians have been heaping on this exemplar of a police officer:

    ‘I believe you must have been watching on the Channels TV, the pictures of the dilapidated structures at the Police College. Ikeja,. May be the other Police Colleges in Nigeria are also in similar parlous state. I will always remember the legacy of excellence you left at all Police formations you headed in Lagos, Abuja, Ekiti and Edo states before your honourale retirement from service. How I wish you had headed one or two Police Colleges in the country. I am sure you would have applied your usual Midas touch to transform them to beautiful places to behold and the policemen who passed through your tutelage/discipline would have profoundly made our nation proud.

    Nigeria is the loser that a disciplined, honest, patriotic and highly cerebral officer like you did not become IGP’.

    And this one:

    ”Shame on us! Tears roll down in my heart when I remember all the efforts to put things back on track, especially police, ICPC and EFCC. I am still in shock you did not become the Chair of EFCC or Head of Police Academy. I am honoured to be your friend’.

    The trail-blazing Lagos State, if not Nigeria, will need the services of this cerebral -an author – very experienced gentleman, in its totally commendable and continuing efforts at securing the life and property of its citizenry. Over then to the indefatigable ‘Class Captain’ who I know is reading this. And congratulations on that which President Clinton has perceptively described as ‘an ingenious engineering feat’ -The Eko Atlantic Project.

  • Awo Laureate Professor Wole Soyinka: Only the deep can call to the deep

    Awo Laureate Professor Wole Soyinka: Only the deep can call to the deep

    Professor Soyinka wrote two books, ‘THE MAN DIED’ and ‘Ake: The years of Childhood’, right within the prison walls. 

    Leadership in the currently troubled regions of the nation has been remiss. I have lamented, on numerous platforms, the delinquent silence of religious and community leaders where the religious rights of others were trampled upon, often terminally, where again and again martyrdom became commonplace – yes, the genuine martyrdom – made up of innocents, singly, in sectors, often brutally but always with the confidence of immunity. … there is also the issue of leadership of wrongful silence and inertia; the folding of arms and the buttoning of lips when leadership – and not merely localised – was desperately needed to lead and inflict exemplary punishment on violators of the freedom of belief, and existence of others. The examples are too numerous and depressing, and this is hardly the occasion for a recital of human derelictions that only stir up negative memories’ -Professor Wole Soyinka in ‘WINDING DOWN HISTORY’ – a lecture delivered on the occasion on his being awarded the maiden AWO PRIZE FOR LEADERSHIP.

    As far as reputations are concerned, those of Chief Obafemi Awolowo and Professor Wole Soyinka are already cast in stone. Soyinka, like Awo, is your quintessential epitome of integrity, credibility, discipline, selflessness as well as visionary leadership and people-centredness; the very categories the Obafemi Awolowo Foundation prescribed when it decided at its July 2011 special dialogue on Transformational Leadership and Good Governance that the prize is ‘established to encourage, recognise, reward and celebrate excellence in Nigerian leadership’. Without a scintilla of doubt, Professor Wole Soyinka stands shoulder high, over and above any other Nigerian, however, eminently worthy of consideration in these regards.

    On December 19, 2012, at a media briefing at which the columnist was present, the selection committee unveiled the recipient of the maiden award of the prize in the person of the Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka. The prize, the committee said, is an initiative of the Obafemi Awolowo Foundation, which was set up in April 1992 to serve as the custodian of Chief Awolowo’ intellectual legacy. The Foundation, it went on, was established as an independent, non-profit, non-partisan organisation dedicated to immortalising the democratic and development-oriented ideals of the great Nigerian leader.

    The prestigious biennial prize is structured to follow a rigorous process of nomination and subsequent screening by a selection committee made up of some of the most outstanding Nigerians. And for purposes of assuring cynical Nigerians whose first reaction will be to doubt the veracity of that claim, the membership of the committee is as follows: Chief Emeka Anyaoku, Chairman, Mr Justice Mohammed Uwais, Professor Akin Mabogunje, Sir Olaniwun Ajayi, Chief Ayo Adebanjo, Olorogun Felix Ibru, Professor O.O Akinkugbe, Bishop Emmanuel Gbonigi, Bishop Matthew Kukah, Professor Adetokunbo Lucas, Professor Ladipo Adamolekun, Professor Anya O. Anya, Mr Bola Akingbade, Professor (Mrs) Funmi Soetan and Mr Niyi Adegbonmire.

    In line with the relevant guidelines, nominations for the maiden award were invited between June and September 2012 at the end of which, we were informed, an impressive number of nominations were received. These were then subjected to very rigorous and careful consideration after which Professor Wole Soyinka emerged the individual adjudged to have demonstrated, and continues to demonstrate, many of the core values associated with Chief Obafemi Awolowo.

    Chief Obafemi Awolowo we know only too well as one for whom there was no higher purpose than the growth and development of the people he was called upon to lead. For him, the raison d’être of governance is the happiness of the greater majority of the people, and for that reason, he continues even in death, to inspire and to motivate serious leaders to work in the service of the people they lead. However, as much as we know Papa Awo, none of us can seriously ask the question: Professor Wole Who?

    Who then is Awo maiden laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka?

    Respected globally much more than many an African President , Professor Wole Soyinka, celebrated Nigerian playwright, poet, polyglot, social critic, teacher, moral crusader and political activist, is one man you can neither pidgeon hole nor compartmentalise. A man of impeccable integrity, first African recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature (1986), Professor Soyinka wears his lifelong battle for justice like his birth suit. And in this regard, it was fascinating to hear his friend and classmate at the Government College, Ibadan, some sixty-something years ago, Professor Ladipo Akinkugbe, say at the award night, that free or in harness, the awardee can be trusted to fight for the cause of justice. Incidentally, Professor Soyinka wrote two books, ‘THE MAN DIED’ and ‘Ake: The years of Childhood’, right within the prison walls.

    Whether in trenches or at the barricades in Nigeria where he is the nemesis of tyrants and absolutists, or whether he is fighting for racial and political justice in Europe or for gender equality and religious justice anywhere else in the world, you can bet your last dime, it is with the same seriousness and commitment.

    Professor Wole Soyinka is truly a world citizen.

    For him, therefore, the award night was one not to be missed in drawing attention to the many demons presently tearing at our very existence as a country; be it an in-explainable First Ladyism’s gluttony towards the ‘appropriation of public funds to feed her phantasmagorical projects, her illusions of power, delusions of grandeur and allied obsessions’ or ‘those who threaten the very existence of the inhabited world with their own agenda of eliminating its humanity – unless it adopts its own warped reading of reality’, gloating unashamedly: ‘We shall win, because we have nothing to lose. When any of us is killed, we rejoice, since we know he has gone to join the ranks of the martyrs, but when we kill the other side, they go into mourning’.

    The laureate’s harsh words for those who, out of fear, were tongue-tied and demonstrated what he called ‘wrongful silence and inertia; the folding of arms and the buttoning of lips when leadership was desperately needed to lead and inflict exemplary punishment on violators of the freedom of belief, and existence of others’. Nor did he subscribe to those fanciful and escapist theories ‘in which we can comfortably bury our heads, taking refuge in propositions that all we have to do is eliminate poverty,eliminate unemployment, eliminate class distinctions, eliminate alienation, eliminate illiteracy to achieve that smooth paste in which all granules are atomised and attain the harmonious ideal’.

    Much as this shopping list of contradictions must form a background consciousness of what is desirable, he holds that they only ‘provide us a cosseting picture of the totality’. It is, he says, an understandable tendency in human nature to concentrate on what seems performable: what seems beyond immediate solution had better be accorded proportionate space and attention’.

    While Professor Soyinka was not so quick in declaring religion an enemy of humanity even though,’ time and again, it has proved a spur, a motivator, and a justification for the commission of some of the most horrifying crimes against humanity despite its fervent affirmations of peace, he affirmed, without the slightest hesitation, that ‘it is time that the world adopted a position that refuses to countenance religion as an acceptable justification for, excuse or extenuation of, crimes against humanity’.

    In concluding, even though the ever graceful and reticent Dr (Mrs) Olatokunbo Awolowo Dosumu will loathe this, the piece will be incomplete without due mention of her untiring and totally commendable commitment to the Awolowo Foundation, a cause to which, without a doubt, she has committed her all since inception in 1992. Located in a serene part of town, the Foundation resides in a squeaky clean and absolutely inviting, tastefully manicured premises that can simply intoxicate with joy. This is where she daily coordinates the activities of a Foundation that so uncannyly represents the man Awo.

    It was from here she put together the Maiden Awo Leadership Prize award night; an event that had in attendance the crème d la crème of the Nigerian political and business class, the academia as well as the spiritual and traditional.

    It was obviously a night to remember at the well appointed Harbour Point, off Ahmadu Bello Way, Victoria Island, Lagos. It was an event that is certain to spur other eminent Nigerians to great works that should make them worthy nominees for the next award in 2015.

  • Fayemi: Of values and the building of a successor generation in Nigeria

    Fayemi: Of values and the building of a successor generation in Nigeria

    True leadership is something quite distinct from holding an office or a position.

    I recently wrote here about the historian’s episodic or epochal interpretation/explanation of historical events. The history of this column falls squarely into that paradigm. It began largely as a counterpoise to Obasanjo’s cynical, indeed, absolutely contemptuous treatment of, not just anything Ekiti, but of Ekiti people themselves  sparing  no contempt  and denigrating to his heart’s content, the very  icons we hold in awe and  great respect in that part of the country. Nor did he stop there. He believed it was his divine right to inflict on us just about anybody as governor and would  not stop until he had,  in spite of an inchoate impeachment of the sitting governor, whimsically gifted us his kinsman, the genial General Olurin, as sole Administrator in a totally needless and, induced, emergency administration.

    That was a period when I thought nothing of his massive powers but wrote here on this page, literally every Sunday, detailing our ordeal under his creeping misrule. Then came the equally intolerable phase when, courtesy his military jackboots, a peoples’ victory was aborted at the collation centre.  That  period started on a day when, though Ekiti people were already on the streets dancing and celebrating Kayode Fayemi’s victory in the 2007 gubernatorial elections, INEC, acting on orders from above,  miraculously divined  a PDP victory out of nowhere. Thus began  a long  period of thoroughly acerbic  dirges  detailing, and recording  for posterity, all the shenanigans  the   candidate, and ipso facto,  Ekiti was made to go through  going from one tribunal to another until  God, in His infinite mercy  ensured that truth trumped  falsity and the cocktails of judicial lies  and aberrations  were  summarily  incinerated. Indeed at a point, the columnist advised the President, and Obasanjo’s protege, the late Yar ‘Adua, to order for coffins if they insisted on inflicting their whim and caprice on hapless Ekiti people as we were prepared to fight to the last man. That epoch has been fittingly chronicled in THE LONG WALK, a  book by  aides of governor Fayemi  in which  I am  privileged  not only  to have  a decent mention but which I assisted  in editing.

    Since October 16, 2010 therefore, it has become my bounden duty on this  page,  to the chagrin of not a few, to project the  unprecedented milestones  of the Kayode  Fayemi administration ,  at least, one of which – the social security payments to  the elderly – is  clearly unprecedented  in this country.

    These preliminary remarks became necessary because some are bound to rave and rant  at merely seeing the title of this article since to them, bringing the good works of a public servant to the public space tantamounts to sycophancy. For such knaves, I have neither apologies nor explanations  except to say that this column, in  unalterably promoting the good of Ekiti and  the Southwest  in  particular, and Nigeria at large, predates Dr  Fayemi’s involvement   in partisan  politics  even  though he had  much  earlier came into  the Nigerian consciousness via the Radio Kudirat which he operated  with others at great personal risk. And those making the charge obviously do not know how much Kayode Fayemi detests obsequiousness. ‘Nough said.

    In  interrogating the above topic at the Ist  Inter-Disciplinary Public Lecture  of the Post-Graduate School Of the Ekiti State University, Ado-Ekiti,  on Monday, February 26, 2013, Dr  Fayemi   started  off  by posing  the following questions  after he had  drawn attention to the oft-quoted cliche that The Trouble with  Nigeria is  a failure of leadership: ‘If, after thirty years, we are still citing bad leadership as the root of all or most of our problems, why should  we not now, be interrogating the cultural and institutional forces, both subliminal and overt, which conspire to ensure that our society constantly throws up bad leaders?’ He went further: ‘If Nigeria is to stand a chance of national rebirth shouldn’t we, of necessity, ensure that the old brigade described by Prof. Wole Soyinka as the ‘wasted generation’ and which –  has to act as nursing mother to the emerging generation – does not contaminate them with the same tendencies and thus prime them to failure?’

     These were essentially the challenges he set out to answer and because of the seminal nature of his suggestions I believe the lecture deserves to be taken far outside the limiting purview of a leaned journal.  However, since it is beyond my ken to reduce a lecture of that depth and fecundity to a half page, I have decided to restrict myself to his views on leadership. For starters, it is his view, that it is  time we soberly reflect and take those affirmative actions that will be geared towards ensuring a successor generation which will effectively redefine the ‘Nigerian dream’ in which the younger generation was fast losing faith.

    In discussing leadership failure in Nigeria, Dr Fayemi identified the following three key elements: Corruption and the decline of moral values; the conceptual debasement of leadership itself; and the inability and unwillingness of leaders to reproduce themselves’

    Corruption, he says, has remained alive and kicking  in our society simply  because of the creeping monetization of values and the growing inability to perceive and articulate one’s life goals in non-material terms. Young Nigerians, he says, have been socialized in such a way that they have no conception of non-material achievement, resulting instead in a culture that serenades only the wealthy and esteems the “big man”, but never the studious with our institutions eagerly assisting in suffocating the spark of idealism which would have facilitated our nation’s renewal.. Leadership, which he contends, is neither an office nor a title but a function, is consequently debased in our country since the pomp and pageantry, the long motorcades, the sirens, the circus-like atmospherics surrounding political leadership have become the only signs and symbols of power.

    He went further to assert that the inability or unwillingness of leaders to reproduce themselves in far better molds, which has worsened our circumstances as a nation, is signposted by our dominant cultural and institutional models which are defined by the exercise of raw power, projecting a paradigm that is based on fear and exploitation. This he considers largely a legacy of military authoritarianism with leadership cast in the image of jack-booted soldiers wielding whips, guns and swagger-sticks.

    In concluding this short piece, and to understand the lecturer’s thought process and his well-merited place as an intellectual in politics, it is apposite that we quote him, at some length, and  directly, on what he sees as the ‘deus ex machina’ to Nigeria’s myriad problems. Says Dr Fayemi, ‘we need to rescue the concept of leadership itself from the cheapening it has undergone.  True leadership is something quite distinct from holding an office or a position. We will enhance the quality of leadership on our shores if we dissociate it from the acquisition of titles and positions. True leadership is influence. It is driven by core convictions, values and ideas. In a profound sense, leadership is living out one’s values and ideas. It is the sheer power of personal example that projects influence. For the next generation of leaders, it is essential that we recognize that one does not need a political office or title to become an exemplar of higher values. We also need to redefine elitism. Traditionally, the term ‘elite’ referred to those who are enlightened. Over the course of the past decades, the monetization of our values has yielded an association of elitism with wealth. We perceive elites to be those who are simply wealthy. The first generation nationalists such as Awolowo, Nnamdi Azikiwe, Hezekiah Davies, Aminu Kano and Adegoke Adelabu among others were men of thought as well as men of action. They wrote books, pamphlets and articles. They popularised their ideas aggressively. They thought deeply about their society and disseminated their musings.

     ‘For instance, while campaigning for the presidency in 1979, Awolowo said, “Look at the books which I have written, the lectures which I have given, and the many speeches and statements which I have made. You will find that there is no problem confronting or about to confront Nigeria to which I have not given thought and for which I have not proffered intelligent and reasoned solutions.” It was no idle boast. Awolowo was the most prolific of the founding fathers. It seems almost absurd to us today for a politician to advertise his intellect as one of his qualifications for high office’

    If Nigerian leaders and the led, especially its youth will read in full, not just this article, but Dr Fayemi’s offering on : Reflections on Values and the Building of A Successor Generation in Nigeria’, whether on the internet,  in hard copy or in learned journals, we just may have made that first step in facilitating and ensuring our country’s renewal and survival as a worthy member of the comity of nations.

  • Evidence of further marginalisation of core Southwest

    Evidence of further marginalisation of core Southwest

    As is often the case when there are matters of great moment, this column is being yielded today to Chief S.B Falegan, Economist and Banker, former CBN Director of Research, and governor Kayode Fayemi’s deliberate pick for the Chairmanship of the Ekiti State Sure-P Committee, who takes a deep and dispassionate look at other areas of South-West marginalisation by the Jonathan administration. Happy reading.

    I hope and believe those who are speaking about the marginalisation of southwest Nigeria are not limiting their comments to human capital alone, but should look also at structural capital especially infrastructural development. The recent announcement by the Federal Government to construct 10 new rail lines as appeared in PUNCH of Monday December 24 2012 page 26 (business and economy) further confirms and reinforces the discrimination by the Federal Government against the Southwest of Nigeria especially the Core south west of Ondo, Ekiti, Osun and Oyo States. The information as contained in page 26 of that paper is partly reproduced below

    The Federal Government has announced plans to construct 10 new rail lines to cover other parts of the country currently not linked by rail. The Minister of Transport, Senator Idris Umar, said on Friday that already feasibility studies had commenced on seven of the proposed railway lines. Umar, who spoke in Lagos at the inauguration of the Lagos-Kano train service and resumption of fuel haulage by train from Lagos to Offa, said that the feasibility studies on three other planned rail line would be done in 2013 . He gave the total distance of the areas to be covered by the seven rail lines as 3,421kilometeres. The minister said that at the completion of the feasibility studies, the railway development project would be undertaken through public private partnership arrangement. “Upon final construction of these lines, it will improve mass movement of Nigerians and open windows for rapid economic development and regional interaction,” he said Umar stressed that all the new rail lines would be constructed as standard gauge track for the movement of fast trains. According to him, the new lines will cover Lagos-Sagamu-Ijebu Ode-Ore-Benin (300km); Benin-Agbor-Onitsha-Nnewi-Owerri-Aba, with additional line from Onitsha-Enugu-Abakaliki (500km).

    It also included a 615km-high-speed rail track from Lagos to Abuja, passing through Lagos, Oshogbo and Baro. The minister listed Ajaokuta (Eganyi) – Obajana-Jakuru-Baro-Abuja, with additional line from Ajaokuta to Otukpo (533km); Zaira – Kaura Namoda-Sakoto-Ilela-Birnin Koni (520km) as other areas to be covered. Others are costal rail line linking Benin-Sapele-Warri-Yanogoa-Port Harcourt – Aba-Uyo- Akampa-Ikom-Obudu Cattle Ranch (673km); and Ajaokuta- Eganyi- Lokoja Abaji-abuja line (280km). The other three lines, whose feasibility contracts would be awarded next year, are Port Harcourt Unuahia-Enugu-Makurdi-Lafia-Kaduna-Bauchi-Gombe-Biu-Maiduguri; Ikom-Ogoja-Kastina Ala-Wukari-Jalinhgo-Yola-Maiduguri and Kani-Nguru-Gashua-Damaturu-Maduguri-Gamborun-Ngala.

    With ten new railway lines, that exclude the core southwest, pray does the phrase “other parts of the country currently not linked by rail” include Oyo-Ekiti-Ondo? Pray why is such planned railway not extended between Oyo State (Ibadan) and Ekiti State (Ado-Ekiti) to Ondo State (Akure)? Pray how will these economic benefits extend to those neglected states? Pray how do they benefit from economic integration so orchestrated? Indeed, this deliberate policy has further shifted the operations of companies like Lafarge Wapco Cement, Dangote Cement etc who operate enormously heavy duty trucks and trailers to the neglected states to further destroy the few federal roads and those being reconstructed by these neglected states from their meager funds. You need to travel Ilesha-Akure-Owo-Benin road to see the daily carnage. Ekiti State is completely caught off between Akure and Ado—Ekiti unless you go via Akure-Igbara Oke-Igbaraodo-Ado in a circular way. Why should Okitipupa-Ondo-Akure-Benin road not be dualised? Or the Akure-Ado-Ekiti-Omuaran road from the same SURE-P? More questions are begging for answers.

    The Role of SURE-P As an instrument of nation-wide intervention development strategy.

    In its decision to remove oil subsidy, the Federal Government set up a subsidy withdrawal organ (SURE-P) which is to use the proceeds for financing development projects nationwide While each state is free to use its own share for projects of its choice, the federal share is to cover the whole federation in key areas. SURE-P, in concept, coverage, and policy implementation discriminates against the Southwest, especially the Core Southwest as shown in SURE-P documentation.

    Item 2.9 List of Road Projects: of the 1,326km roads, the 295km allocated to SW/SS covers Benin-Ore-Sagamu dual carriage way. It should be observed that the Benin-Ore-Sagamu dual carriage way has always been in the annual federal budget for the past 20 years. The NATION of Saturday 16th February 2013 page 6 has the story that the Federal Government has obtained fund from the SURE-P to construct the dualisation of Abuja-Benin Road. Yet the federal authorities are aware of the appalling state of federal roads in middle and core S/W (Ondo-Ekiti-Osun): Akure (Ondo State) to Ilesha in Osun State. The same is true of Iyamoye (Kwara State) to Omuo, Ikole, Ogotun in (Ekiti State) to Osun State. Ekiti State has the shortest federal roads in the federation and yet not one km of these roads is considered worthy.

    Item E1:33 Irrigation Projects: 19 irrigation projects are listed with 4 going to NE, 3 for NW, 3 for SE and 3 for SS. The two listed for SW go to Ogun and Oyo State as if those are the only states in SW. The Ero Water Dam and Lake, covering 11kilometres in Ekiti State is one of the largest water/irrigation projects in Nigeria established at the same time as those listed above in other parts of the country which are to benefit from SURE-P. Why should it not qualify for SURE-P like others listed above?

    Item E2:34 Rural and Urban Water Supply Projects: The little Osse mentioned in Ekiti State is put there merely to demonstrate federal presence and involvement. The Ero Water dam mentioned above can combine both irrigation for agriculture and water supply while Arinta Water falls should quality for tourism under the federal scheme. Item 36&37: Selected Power Projects: What is needed here from the Federal Government is a second 132/33KV power substation project in the northern part of Ekiti and the urgent completion of the on-going one which is no more adequate for the state capital not to talk of its adequacy for the whole state. If the Federal Government can embark on all these projects with or in addition to SURE-P funds, why is none of the federal roads as shown earlier in these core southwest not receiving federal attention?While our legislators must continue to be vigilant and alive to their responsibility to the electorate, they must not underestimate the power of policy formulators who deliberately and mischievously plan and execute such policies of discrimination to their sectional advantage. That is why I appreciate the action and vigilance of Senator Femi Ojudu (Ekiti Central) in detecting the fraud in the 2013 budget proposal for road construction where one or two roads in other states were shown as Ekiti State roads.

    Senator Femi Ojudu should go and take a critical look at the Dredging and Canalisation work at Ureje River under the Federal Ministry of Environment in Abuja. The contract was awarded for N1.2billion and reported to have been completed and paid for in 2010 whereas no work has been done on the site which is already overgrown with weeds. The contractor who quoted for N890 million for the job lost out.

    I have at my disposal a list of 44 Water Pump Projects by the Federal Ministry of Water Resources for Ekiti Local Government areas in the 2012 appropriation act which a detailed examination shows are mere repetition of previous years’ appropriation. Yet there is the impression that the projects for the bore holes have been executed and completed. That brings into question the role of Benin-Owena River Basin authority in Ekiti State development.

    Walls have ears, windows have eyes.

     

    MUYIWA IT’S YOUR DAY.

    With thanks to the Almighty God, here’s wishing my dear friend and brother, Chief Olumuyiwa Runsewe of Singafrique Engineering Ltd, Lagos, happy birthday as he celebrates the 65th of his glorious and chequered life today. Long may you live in great health, my brother.