The Nation Newspaper

Category: Idowu Akinlotan

  • Boko Haram as our remorseless nemesis

    Boko Haram, with or without the ubiquitous Abubakar Shekau, has proved surprisingly good at holding captured towns. The terror group is described as ragtag, and its commanders untrained, unschooled and tactical improvisers. But in their desultoriness, they have composed, not a dithyramb, as we hoped, but a symphony of madness, bloodletting and extreme depravity, as we feared. Their setbacks, as the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) illustrates in Caliphate setting, serve merely as fillip for more daring and copious martyrdom, for more thirst and zestfulness for blood, for more commitment to anarchical causes.

    The Nigerian Army has sometimes found a way to blunt Boko Haram attacks, regain territories and even display tactical proficiency which a military of its size and stature is conversant with. But the army has been quite unable to summon the commitment and passion required to sustain the battle against the terror group, and the defensive capability needed to turn the tide. Boko Haram and its commanders believe in the cause they are fighting for, though they have sometimes conscripted child soldiers and other captives; on the other hand, Nigerian troops, given the number of court martial going on, have not shown the conviction necessary to fight and win.

    This is the pressing danger Dr Jonathan’s government faces. Last week, Mubi and surrounding villages in Adamawa State fell. Other important cities that have fallen in parts of the Northeast have not been retaken by government forces. Horrified by the scandalous abduction of over 200 schoolgirls by the terror group in April, a few countries offered to help. For inexplicable reasons, they have since abandoned the search for the girls and spurned any attempt to cooperate with our army. They cite the unwillingness of our troops to fight, corruption in the military, and human rights abuses. Whether these reasons were sufficient enough to dissuade them from helping Nigeria is not clear. But obviously the chances of retaking lost cities are for now not encouraging. Nor is it clear that indiscipline, as the ongoing court martial of scores of soldiers and their officers tend to suggest, is the bane of the anti-terror war. The problem is obviously much more fundamental.

    If we are not to wake up one morning to discover that entire states have been taken over by Boko Haram, now is the time to grapple with the uncomfortable reality of the war and the societal division that underpins it rather than the chimera the Jonathan government has pursued aimlessly in the past few years. Dr Jonathan must understand that the reasons for failure are not what he has incoherently advanced in public. It is not hostile press, opposition politics and politicians , undisciplined soldiers, and apparently it is not even cowardice of troops. If it is not too late, the government should find out why our troops are so poorly motivated, so uninterested in fighting, and so divided and uncommitted. Dr Jonathan and his government want all political parties, particularly the APC, and the rest of the public to join them unquestioningly in fighting Boko Haram because all of us would suffer should the enemy win. But Dr Jonathan and his government have been engaged in a relentless war against the opposition, a part of the public they believe is too critical, the media, and religious groups they imagine are fighting them covertly.

    Unable to unite the people behind him and, worse, unable to inspire them, Dr Jonathan has angrily taken out his frustrations on those who accuse him of being lackluster or incompetent. But no one has divided the society as bitterly as Dr Jonathan, pitting his South-South compatriots against others, turning Christians against Muslims, fighting lawmakers and state governments that do not do his bidding, in short, creating enemies in torrents rather than uniting the people and making friends even in trickles. Soldiers in the battlefields of the Northeast do not belong only to the president’s friends and party; they are a reflection of the entire society, a society horribly misunderstood, traumatised and almost entirely alienated by Dr Jonathan. So, how does he hope to win this unfortunate war? And how does he hope to win the presidential election against the run of play?

  • Tambuwal’s defection, Jonathan’s rage

    Tambuwal’s defection, Jonathan’s rage

    Except he and his aides, and perhaps a number of other people to whom the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Aminu Tambuwal, revealed his mind, no one else knows just how adequately the Speaker’s camp prepared for the furious reaction of President Goodluck Jonathan to the defection of the Sokoto State-born politician and lawyer. The Speaker himself knows the legal grounds on which he rests his provocative move, and may have in addition taken counsel from eminent jurists and other well-meaning and knowledgeable people in the country in order to come to a fair conclusion on the limits and possibilities of his defection. I also suspect that he took advice on what possible steps the president could take to counter what seems to Dr Jonathan a ploy to vitiate his re-election chances and render his hold on the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) embarrassingly tenuous. Perhaps, too, Hon Tambuwal worked the House of Representatives to shore up the support he has enjoyed from the lower chamber since he became Speaker.

    If Hon Tambuwal took all these precautions, he would know that Dr Jonathan, in spite of his tame exterior, is a doughty fighter who jousts with a viciousness that contemptuously disregards the law, mocks the constitution, and despises every other ethical consideration that recommends itself to fairness, common sense and human decency. Dr Jonathan, since he ‘tasted blood’ in January 2012 during the fuel subsidy protests, has let himself go in affronting even the tenuous conventions upon which our society was founded but now totters. Never once a systematic fighter, or one inspired by great causes and lofty goals, the president has happily ignored the civilized world as they flinch at his actions and utterances. He fights brutally, ruthlessly, arbitrarily, and unconscionably. This, then, was the man Hon Tambuwal provoked to fury by defecting to the All Progressives Congress (APC) last week. Let him be prepared; for since he became Speaker, and partly because of the circumstances of his adolescence and training, he has been unable to adapt himself to the appalling rules and predatory manners of the ruling party, not to say the deceptiveness and exhibitionism of Dr Jonathan.

    It is surprising that the police withdrawal of Hon Tambuwal’s security aides has become controversial. There is nothing controversial about it. The police themselves know they do not stand on firm ground to take the action they took against the Speaker. They cite a constitutional provision — Section 68 (1)(g); but there is nothing in that provision that enables or authorises the police to exercise the initiative they took so casually. Everyone knows that the cabal that rules Nigeria, with Dr Jonathan at its bitter core, has resolved they would stop at nothing to exterminate Hon Tambuwal, whether their action makes sense or not, or whether they are backed by law or not. They could do worse, as some reports suggest. The Jonathan crowd is expected to force a stalemate in the House of Representatives, tear the constitution to pieces, and let everyone know that the president should never be challenged, let alone wrong-footed. They have never been comfortable with the role of opposition parties in a democracy, but in their view  if they must tolerate them, they prefer to set the extra-constitutional rules by which they must operate.

    Other than a few lawyers and activists galled by the police action against Hon Tambuwal, some other activists, including the normally vocal Southwest interest groups, have spoken uncharacteristically in whispers, and hesitantly too. Their reticence seems to suggest they reluctantly condone the police action perhaps because the Speaker had joined the ‘wrong’ party, their worst regional enemy. But as this column has repeatedly warned, Nigeria is moving precipitously towards fascism, and the ominous steps that underscore this disposition are not being checked because the victims are other people, other parties, other crowds. Dr Jonathan has got away with too many constitutional infractions; if he gets away with this also, Nigerian democracy might begin to flounder, perhaps irretrievably. This is no hyperbole. We don’t have to like Hon Tambuwal, and we may loath the APC, but to turn a blind eye to Dr Jonathan’s frequent unconstitutional actions is to open ourselves, our businesses, our families and future generations to assault of the most heinous type.

    I do not think Hon Tambuwal should resign his position as Speaker. Let him instead test his popularity. Let the House of Representatives, acting independently in accordance with the rules of the House, determine the tenability of Hon Tambuwal’s position. Whether most of the members like their Speaker or not, I think they would however be unwise to cede their powers and veto, not to say their tastes and affections, to the misdirected Nigeria Police or the insular Jonathan presidency. Whether we like Hon Tambuwal’s defection or not, we must resist the presidency’s obvious manipulations of the House of Representatives. We must not feel guilty that Dr Jonathan does not appreciate the separation of powers doctrine, does not understand democracy as a concept, and is unable to appreciate the sanctity and indispensability of the opposition in sustaining and preserving our way of life and system of government.

    At a time when Dr Jonathan rides roughshod over the judiciary and undermines its effectiveness and independence, and abridges press freedom and free speech by impounding newspapers and obstructing their operations, and at a time when the Senate has become so pro-establishment that it has become so indistinguishable from the presidency, it is dangerous for the country and the members of the House of Representatives themselves to let the independence of the lower chamber be malevolently compromised. I feel like Cassandra already. But in the interest of Nigeria, Dr Jonathan must be restrained from continuing to jeopardise the peace and unity of Nigeria. He stubbornly sticks to his misfiring guns and his inoperable and undecipherable policies, many of them parochial, insensitive and paranoid. We must coax him into transferring his aggression and recalcitrance to fight the equally obstinate and vicious enemy, Boko Haram, against which he seems to have no answer and lacks the courage.

    What I find incomprehensible in all this, however, is why Hon Tambuwal has indulged in this high-wire politicking just to secure the governorship of his home state, Sokoto. That he needles the president remorselessly is not in doubt. That if he remained in the PDP he would be denied any ticket of his liking is also not in doubt. But given the cost of his defection, a cost that clearly transcends just the paper work involved or the principles he has had to sacrifice so much to sustain, it would have been admirable for the Speaker to take a shot at the presidency, a step I had advanced in this place and am prepared to defend and even promote. I recognise that seeking the governorship is safe and secure, and that if he should seek the presidential ticket of the APC and fail, he could be left with nothing. Notwithstanding his slight speech troubles, I have no doubt he has the eloquence, depth, wide perspective and character to seek the highest position in the land. He will bring to that office uncommon youthfulness, a can-do spirit, and a democratic disposition that none of his opponents, not even the gritty Gen Muhammadu Buhari, nor the uninspiring Dr Jonathan, would be able to gainsay.

    We must not lose sight of the danger constituted to the body politic by Dr Jonathan’s subversion of Nigeria’s security agencies, especially the subordination of the agencies to the ruling party. Nor must we lose sight of the fact that, so far, our democracy has been defended mainly by the Tambuwal-led House of Representatives. The incalculable sense of loss and futility we now feel viewing the president and his scheming aides plunder the House and defy the constitution would be cold comfort when time and events prove Dr Jonathan and his coterie of aides and advisers horribly wrong.

  • 2015: Propaganda and the road to fascism

    2015: Propaganda and the road to fascism

    All political parties indulge in one form of propaganda or the other. As the campaign for the 2015 polls begins, the use of propaganda will intensify. The All Progressives Congress (APC) will try to demonise the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and the PDP will respond vigorously. Already, using various political and non-governmental organisation (NGO) vehicles, the PDP has taken on the APC’s leading presidential aspirants, and made the party look like a congregation of loathsome politicians. The APC’s choice of targets is a bit limited. It trains its guns on just one PDP aspirant/candidate, President Goodluck Jonathan, who seems to grow in popularity as his leadership foibles multiply. Worse for the APC, it is unable to attack Dr Jonathan as heartily as it would like on account of the fact that he is president, and some decorum must be observed. Expectedly, however, with the elections a mere four months away, and as the parties get desperate, the APC will open a fusillade of verbal and political fire against the president, whether he constitutes himself into a moving target or stands immovably and implacably as a buffalo.

    But often propaganda morphs imperceptibly into fascism, especially in the hands of organisations and individuals who have found a way of disgorging it of its ethical core. And here Ekiti is the archetype, showing the way Nigeria is heading. It is easy to lose the import of what is happening in Ekiti in the partisan fog of politics. It is easy to dismiss criticisms of Governor Ayo Fayose’s methods and politics as tantamount to sympathising with the APC. However, the lurch to fascism is real and frightening, not only in Ekiti but nationally, notwithstanding the governor’s protestations to the contrary or his sanctimonious embrace of spiritual change and rebirth. Sadly, what is true of Ekiti is also true of the Goodluck Jonathan government, where propaganda is indistinguishable from fascism, and where tyranny is used interchangeably with liberalism.

    Having tasted blood before the June governorship election by deploying misinformation and disinformation to hoodwink the electorate, Mr Fayose has found the value of misleading the electorate to achieve predetermined political objectives quite entrancing. Thus hundreds of thousands of text messages were disseminated to convince Ekiti voters and anyone else straying into the line of fire that the former governor, Kayode Fayemi, had enriched himself and enriched his godfathers. Spurious claims of costly diversion of state resources by Dr Fayemi for personal aggrandizement were told in the text messages. The public believed. After the elections, the same Fayose team also told stories of how hundreds of millions of naira had been budgeted to subvert the inauguration of the governor-elect. On the basis of this unproven stories, Ekiti foot soldiers were whipped into a self-help frenzy to subvert the judicial process and frustrate the natural course of justice.

    Seeing how successful that method was, and recognising tantalisingly that all the new governor needed was to modify a formula that is proving so effective, Mr Fayose has arbitrarily assigned figures to how much his predecessor spent on certain items and projects, proceeded to denounce those figures without proof, and elicited curses and mob action from the people of Ekiti. They have uncritically swallowed Mr Fayose’s accounts, and are bewitched by his words and populist inclinations. Reminiscent of Nazi era propaganda, and like every fascist government throughout history, Governor Fayose’s men have also purveyed stories of the opposition’s plot to impeach the new governor, for which, according to them, hundreds of millions of naira had been set aside by opposition leaders. There are already demonstrations by hundreds of Ekiti people denouncing the said plot. There will be more such stories coming out of Ekiti in the following weeks and months, all designed to malign reputations, instigate the people into unlawful acts and achieve predetermined goals.

    This lurch to fascism is not limited to Ekiti as a state, nor to Mr Fayose as a person. In fact he seems to have been inspired by the Jonathan presidency, which is replicating the same fascistic style in many parts of the country, especially the Southwest. It was this style that made the Jonathan presidency embrace the Iyiola Omisore option for Osun. And it is this same style that is inspiring the return of Adebayo Alao-Akala in Oyo State, the Gbenga Daniel/Buruji Kashamu confederacy in Ogun State, and the Musiliu Obanikoro option in Lagos State. It was this sinister and cynical approach in the first instance that inspired the president into introducing Jelili Adesiyan and Mr Obanikoro into his cabinet. As events showed soon after, it was clear they were not brought into the Jonathan cabinet because they had anything to offer, seeing how roguishly they behaved during the Ekiti and Osun governorship polls. They were hired for a decidedly malevolent purpose, and they have not disappointed.

    The opposition cannot set the tone for the ennoblement of Nigerian politics; it is first and foremost the responsibility of the government. The opposition can only respond dignifiedly to the fluctuating mood and temper of the Jonathan presidency; but so far, they have not responded adequately enough to overcome the ruling party’s subterfuge. Indeed, given the temper of the Jonathan government, it is apparent neither the president nor his men understand which direction to head, or that as things stand decadently, they appreciate what must be done to bring about healing and progress. I do not malign them. Not only have they fumed and sulked against the independence of the House of Representatives under Hon Aminu Tambuwal, seeking to rein him in and castrate the lower chamber like they did to the Senate, they have also renewed their plot to replace the Speaker with the grovelling Hon Mulikat Adeola-Akande. They have found it difficult to understand that the health of Nigerian democracy is contingent upon the independence of the legislature and judiciary, and the principle of virile checks and balances without which democracy will be doomed.

    But perhaps the most damaging propaganda embarked upon by the Jonathan government is turning the table effortlessly against the opposition on the Boko Haram controversy. The terror group and its violent acts predate both the Jonathan government and that of his predecessor, former president Umaru Yar’Adua. But by some incredible feats of propaganda, the Jonathan government has made it seem like the insurgency was inspired by the North and executed by the APC, both as a religious and ethnic plot to make the country ungovernable for Dr Jonathan, and to indicate that no one else but a northerner could and should rule. Sadly, the propaganda has caught on, especially in religious circles and among the unthinking elite of the Southeast and Southwest.

    There is very little anyone can say to dissuade the PDP from intensifying its destructive propaganda, regardless of the cost to the county. It brings them much gain, and they will kick viciously should anyone try to smother their efforts and style. What stands in the way of the dangerous lurch to fascism and state failure is the opposition’s ability to counter the ruling party’s bitter and unconscionable propaganda. But if the spineless acquiescence of Ekiti to Mr Fayose’s trickeries is a judge, the opposition will have to look for other ingenious stratagems to demolish the PDP’s architecture of misinformation and disinformation, and to demolish the bastions of fascism they have begun to erect with shocking lack of concern for the peace and health of Nigeria.

  • Govt negotiates with ‘faceless’ Boko Haram

    Govt negotiates with ‘faceless’ Boko Haram

    It was an unusual volte-face. That is if you believe the Goodluck Jonathan presidency at any time ever had a principled or nuanced revulsion to negotiating with terrorists. The facts of the government’s approach to combating terrorism are, however, much plainer and simpler. They are now negotiating with Boko Haram over mainly the abduction of 219 Chibok, Borno State schoolgirls in a tripartite arrangement that sees representatives of the Nigerian and Chadian authorities speaking earnestly with representatives of Boko Haram or at least a faction of the terrorist group. The government was at bottom not really opposed to negotiating with the group, for it had no principles and no convictions about anything, but it was hesitant because it was not sure of a successful outcome. There was of course some disagreements between government officials over whether to negotiate or not, and the president had seemed chronically unable to make up his mind. But overall, the government recognised it lacked both the guile to rescue the girls and the muscle to defeat the terrorists. The delay in negotiating with Boko Haram is after all political.

    In fact, the Jonathan presidency’s war against terror had been undermined by impotence and vacillation. No concise or comprehensive strategy to fight terror was ever articulated by the government. As the terror group gained in prestige and territory, the government’s security agencies wilted in confusion and in-fighting. At a time, the government even began to fight the media for reporting the military’s shambolic response. After many years of confusion, the government has finally hunkered down to negotiating with Boko Haram, a terrorist group the president consistently and sneeringly described as faceless. Citizens and other intermediaries, including former president Olusegun Obasanjo, protested that if the government was sincere about negotiating, Boko Haram had a face. But Dr Jonathan stood angrily pat.

    It is not clear how the Jonathan government finally put a face to Boko Haram, or whether its volte-face had anything to do with the defection into the PDP of Senator Ali Modu Sheriff and the unusual meeting the president, the senator and Chadian President Idris Deby had in Ndjamena. No one also seems to know whether putting a face to Boko Haram and the ongoing negotiations do not have something to do with the general elections due to hold in about four months time. But whatever it was, Dr Jonathan has at last finally but belatedly recognised how Boko Haram looks like, who some of its leaders are, and that indeed the terror group can speak intelligible language. While it vociferously but without substantiation accuses the opposition for politicising the anti-terror war, it now seems clear that all along, it is the Dr Jonathan government that continues to manipulate the war, especially the rescue of the abducted Chibok girls. Surprisingly, the violation of a controversial ceasefire by Boko Haram elements has not weakened the government’s resolve to press ahead with negotiations.

    Instead, the government or its agents have shown clearer and more forceful persistence in blaming the opposition for the storm the negotiations have run into and the inability of the government to rescue the Chibok girls. There does not appear to be any logic to the accusations, but it has not prevented the government from suggesting that the presence of some All Progressives Congress (APC) members in the BringBackOurGirls (BBOG) campaign is proof the group had been infiltrated by politicians. This suggestion rests partly on the boast by an APC leader, Audu Ogeh, that his party identified with the noble cause the BBOG was fighting for. Oby Ezekwesili, a leader of the BBOG and former minister, had taken exception to Chief Ogbeh’s boast, thereby eliciting an apology from him. But another visible APC member, Hadiza Usman, a daughter of the famous historian, Dr Bala Usman, defiantly insisted she had nothing to apologise for. It was okay for her to belong to a political party, she asserted, and also fight a noble cause, irrespective of the government’s disingenuous politicisation of the cause.

    No one is certain how the Boko Haram negotiations will end, though there are talks the girls could be released tomorrow. But it is clear that the Jonathan government will do its best to salvage the discussions, bring it to some fruition because of the positive political spinoffs the release of the schoolgirls would engender for him, and try as much as it can manage to tar the opposition with responsibility for failure should the discussions end abysmally. The ruling party will also try to shift blame for letting the abductions last intolerably for more than six months, and for not having a strategy to defeat terrorism.

  • Fayose grieves the heart

    Fayose grieves the heart

    The euphoria that lathered his inauguration as governor a second time was overwhelming. Governor Ayo Fayose and the voters who put him in office after about eight years in the wilderness will expect that the euphoria will last, especially with the divine spin they put on October 16, the date he was impeached in 2006 and the date of his inauguration in 2014. He won by his earthy humour and disposition; he will expect that both qualities should suffice to keep him in office for the next four years, notwithstanding his glaring weaknesses as a policymaker and undisguised failings as a person. But there is no doubt he is riding high and magnificently on the crest of huge popularity accentuated by the surprisingly intense dislike the Ekiti electorate nurse towards the former governor, Kayode Fayemi.

    Mr Fayose was right to suggest during his inauguration that the more his opponents attacked him, the more popular he became. He attributed that popularity to his bucolic outlook, his simplicity and openness, his unpretentious cuisine, his unctuous embrace of alternative medicine, in short, his anti-modernist proclivities. He punctuated his speech with clear indications that pedestrianism would be the locus of his government. His speech was appalling and uninspiring, but the inauguration crowd whooped for more pearls from their new philosopher-king. Most of his critics regard him as unschooled and uncultured, but even by his own galling standards, his shocking inability to read his own speech was truly baffling. He struggled through every sentence and laboured painfully to enunciate words and concepts that seemed a pale above the ordinary, but the stadium where he was inaugurated erupted every time he delivered a futile and jocose wisecrack with his characteristic deadpan.

    If he could hardly read a simple speech in a state that prides itself as the Fountain of Knowledge, where every family is said to have produced either a graduate or a PhD holder, if not a professor, he at least instinctively knew how to inflame the booboisie with unmatched extemporaneousness. Indeed, he exposed himself badly and did injury to his person by sticking to a prepared speech. He did much better with off-the-cuff statements, for those crazy asides, those stirringly sweet nothings roused his audience to a frenzy. Had Dr Fayemi stuck to his urbaneness, that insufferable quality that was blamed for his disconnection from the electorate, and attended the inauguration,  as he should in a civilised society, he would probably have been mobbed, if not physically by the inflamed mob, at least figuratively by Mr Fayose’s withering and merciless putdowns.

    Ekiti’s brand new governor, as the PDP national chairman described Mr Fayose, extended his right hand of fellowship to the state Chief Judge and the media: to the former because he knew in his heart that his assault on the judiciary some two weeks before his inauguration was unprecedented and unforgivable no matter the subterfuge read into it, and the latter because, like President Goodluck Jonathan, he chafes at their relentless criticisms. His speech did not give indication what he intends to do with the judiciary other than promise futilely to make it the best, but what he did to it before his inauguration is telling enough to constrain that arm of government from practicing juridical Puritanism and adventurism. But his speech did indicate that he felt resentment towards the unsparing media, especially that section that needles him constantly, and would prefer that they were exterminated should the chance offer itself.

    There is absolutely no doubt in anyone’s mind, except perhaps his inauguration audience, that his style and person hark back to the Idi Amin era, where opponents are castrated and the media completely shackled. Mr Fayose will try to muscle the judiciary now and again, and will instigate the Ekiti booboisie against that section of the media he loathes. This newspaper, sources say, is number one on his list of enemies. But while we can from the distance lampoon Mr Fayose and spurn his blandishments, and are even prepared to defy him should he cause a total boycott of this paper in his budding fiefdom, it is not clear what quinine the eminent justices in Ekiti would be made to swallow in the coming months and years, especially seeing how he intimidated and humiliated them before his inauguration. Nor is it clear just how the Chief Judge, whose task is to guard and promote the independence of the judiciary in the state, will walk the tightrope in a government he knows at bottom to be dedicated wholly to the amenities and facilities of the street. Ekiti protests its right to elect whomever it wishes, no matter how unworthy, but we must also defend our right not to decay to the level circumstances and politics have pushed that intransigent and transfixed state.

    Dr Fayemi must have offended Ekiti so deeply that the electorate canonised Mr Fayose right from the inauguration stadium. The complete repudiation of Dr Fayemi’s cultured ways and the total embrace of Mr Fayose’s rusticity either signify the polarisation of the Ekiti society between the elite and the plebeians or reflect a gradual and insidious decay of that society. Not only did the governor act coarsely before his coronation, he also spoke like a roughneck during the ceremony, and in addition self-deprecatingly.  What is more, he bluffed and blustered, and while he half-heartedly offered peace, even attributing that magnanimity to divine inspiration, he left no one in doubt he preferred war. He ridiculed his predecessors, sullied the throne he had just mounted, displayed shocking ignorance, and prepared the ground for the projection of brawn rather than brain. He understands that any day and any time, the artisans and road transport unions that rally heedlessly to his cause pack a better and bigger punch than the state’s snooty elite.  He knows where to throw in his lot. For the next four years, the mob will rule Ekiti, and the hearts of the judicious will grieve.

    Before his electoral triumph, Mr Fayose was careful not to alarm the electorate with high-sounding programmes. At his inauguration, he was even more careful not to sound loftier than necessary. He offered Ekiti a mundane five-point programme, obviously nothing to fire the imagination, and nothing properly describable as visionary. He feels it is safe to be tentative and conservative. But I really think he merely offered what is within his competence, intellectually and physically. He was breathless as he read his speech, and seems to be driven more by his own imagination (which he made poetic reference to) than his body can endure, but he appeared supremely confident of his ability to inspire the people to accomplish anything within the framework of his private, distorted and unflattering philosophy.

    In retrospect, I think Dr Fayemi got his priorities and timelines wrong. Let him not insist he has not learnt lessons from his defeat. He misjudged the Ekiti electorate to be wise and enlightened and futuristic. But like their brethren in the Southwest, they are not. They are as susceptible to bribes as they are vulnerable to misinformation. Before the election, Mr Fayose’s team portrayed Dr Fayemi and the All Progressives Congress (APC) as working for Bola Ahmed Tinubu in Lagos, a spuriousness sold by Ondo State under Governor Olusegun Mimiko, and regurgitated by Bode George and other mischievous Southwest elements who either deliberately or ignorantly confuse inspiring a region to achieve greatness with exploiting a region for private ends. Mr Fayose repeated that spuriousness in his inaugural speech, asserting that the resources of Ekiti would under him be dedicated to developing Ekiti. Now, for all anyone cares, Southwest integration is all but dead. Most south-westerners never really understood it, and their governors approached it with exasperating gingerliness. With the mundane Mr Fayose in the saddle and the staid and underperforming Dr Mimiko genuflecting before Dr Jonathan in Abuja, I can see no future for Southwest integration.

    Femi Falana, lawyer, activist and humanist hinted after the attacks on Ekiti courts that some Ekiti elites might go into exile. I wonder what went through his mind as he listened to Mr Fayose deliver his inauguration speech, a speech in which he gave indication he would give no quarter to his opponents. More, I wonder how Afe Babalola, lawyer, educationist, philanthropist  and eminent Ekiti son felt as he watched Mr Fayose showcase his unenviable and unstatesmanlike skills at inflaming passions.

    I am persuaded that Mr Fayose will grant no quarter to writers like me, and I intend to pay him the same compliment.  Under the plebeians and Mr Fayose their champion, Ekiti will of course gradually unravel. We will be there to document the tragic regression. Mr Fayose sees divine hand in his return to office, attributes his resilience to his wife’s prophetic gifts, boasts of the unusualness of his return, which he says is unprecedented anywhere, and considers the coincidence of his exit and return dates as spiritually significant . Absolute piffle. As a student of history, I am sensible and pragmatic enough to know that Hitler couldn’t have taken office without divine help, as he himself indicated when his enemies tried to assassinate him. Nor could King Saul of Israel, Stalin of Russia and a host of other dictators have taken office without heaven’s involvement.

    Having elected Mr Fayose into office against the wishes of his critics and to the dismay and grief of the polished and cultured, Ekiti will stick to that questionable decision and even try to ennoble it. They will regard our criticisms, no matter how altruistic, as an assault on their democratic rights, and they will be prepared to violently defend their incomprehensible choice and inveigh against Lagos APC leaders for showing them up for who they are. I am persuaded that with Spartan equanimity, Ekiti will live with its choice, even if it cost them their civilization and reputation. Good. But we will also report that historical inevitability. So help us God.

  • Officer and gentleman Gowon at 80

    Officer and gentleman Gowon at 80

    He comes closest than anyone in Nigeria, alive or dead, to the universal definition of an officer and a gentleman. Though he was overthrown in humiliating circumstances at a relatively young age, having become head of state at 32 and ruled for about nine years, he has had the good fortune of outlasting his enemies and detractors. Indeed, not only is he aging gracefully, balding pate and all, he is gradually and robustly mummifying before our very eyes. General Yakubu Gowon is 80 years old, and seems set to chalk up many more years, still fit and sound.

    He assumed power in 1966 after the countercoup, but planned to relinquish power to a democratically elected government in 1976. In 1974, after leading the country through a civil war, he reneged. But given the acclaim that still follows him, his affability, and the huge respect given him everywhere he goes, the mind can’t comprehend what fame would have been his had he handed over power at the time he promised and laid a sound and solid foundation for democracy. Nevertheless, till today, he stands head and shoulder above every Nigerian ruler since independence, including the popular Murtala Mohammed and the chimerical Olusegun Obasanjo.

    Yet he has a blot on his escutcheon. The civil war years showed Gen Gowon an enormously courageous man. But his worldview since then, especially when things are collapsing around him all over the country in terms of corruption and evident misrule, is reflected in his preference for prayers and gentle admonition of the rulers of the day, even when tough rebuke would have been more appropriate. Here, the sanctimonious Chief Obasanjo betters him; and the more abrasive but now late Gen Mohammed trumps him. Dr Gowon is a man of enormous  humaneness and tremendous personal qualities. His leadership skills during the war were quite invaluable, and his contributions to the war effort and the consequent peace incalculable. But his geniality and profound empathy, not to say his continuing reluctance to serve as the country’s conscience, may consign him to a less inspiring but safe corner of our history.

    Given his outlook, he is unlikely to be able to fulfill the role of someone else of our profounder imagination,. But that is precisely the dilemma of his life: that the virtues that promoted him to sainthood in our gentle estimation have also conspired to vitiate his fame and achievement. That dilemma, even if it were possible to resolve, has unfortunately ossified around him, and will be interred with his bones. Nonetheless, this outstanding Nigerian, probably the best ruler Nigeria has produced, deserves to be celebrated much more than he has ever been.

  • Adamawa legislative coup miscarries

    Adamawa legislative coup miscarries

    Adamawa State politicians are shameless, particularly their lawmakers. Last week, a Federal High Court sitting in Abuja ordered the dethronement of Acting Governor Umaru Fintiri. He had taken office after he masterminded, as Speaker of the Adamawa State House of Assembly, the impeachment of the governor, Murtala Nyako. It was all but clear Hon Fintiri plotted the impeachment for the sole purpose of becoming governor. He of course served as the public face and arrowhead of the many plots concocted by top Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) politicians of Adamawa origin and the Goodluck Jonathan presidency exasperated by Admiral Nyako’s strident denunciation of the president. Hon Fintiri did not pretend to any altruism, and perhaps could not. There is nothing in him to show that on any state matter, or political issue, he can be high-minded.

    But as Hon Fintiri was betraying his oath as a lawmaker and displaying his greed as a power broker, the then deputy governor to Admiral Nyako, Bala Ngilari, was reinforcing his appalling lack of principles. He did not support his boss during the impeachment process, for he preferred to stay aloof. He could theoretically reserve his support and still maintain his principles, if he had any. But everything he did showed he had no scintilla of principles. Hoping to profit from the misery of his former boss, he had joined the plot by acceding to the request of the legislature to turn in his resignation. It was clear to the plotters that they would make heavy weather of impeaching both Admiral Nyako and Mr Ngilari, so they asked the latter to resign in order to facilitate his enthronement once the admiral was got rid of. He quietly and unethically agreed, and gave his resignation, which he freely wrote, to the Speaker. There was nothing in that undignified step to show he meant his resignation as a red herring or as a contrivance to ambush the plotters, as he tried to make out in court during his battle to reclaim office.

    As soon as Admiral Nyako was unhorsed, however, Hon Fintiri greedily claimed the governor’s office, clawed his opponents, including Mr Ngilari, and elbowed the PDP hierarchs who realised too late they had been upstaged in a state now seething with betrayal and plots. Recognising late in the day that he also had been betrayed, Mr Ngilari headed to court. There were enough grounds in his petition to undo Hon Fintiri, a conclusion even the most pro-establishment judge in the land would be hard put to ignore. Last week, the chickens came home to roost for Hon Fintiri, who is now struggling to reclaim his former position in the legislature. It is not certain he would succeed. But even if he does, it would not detract from his desensitised heart, nor from his execrable politics.

    Mr Ngilari is doing his best to convince the PDP top hats in Abuja, perhaps especially Dr Jonathan, that he would be their Man Friday during the 2015 presidential poll. He means it, for after all, he did not accompany his former boss into the All Progressives Congress (APC), hoping perhaps to profit from the doom Adimral Nyako was certain to come to on account of his unrelenting opposition to the president. The PDP leaders in Abuja, who had other plans for the State House in Yola outside of Hon Fintiri, came to grief but recovered their wits fast enough to throw in their lot with Mr Ngilari whom they think would be easy to beat in 2015. If Mr Ngilari is able to reconcile the warring and contentious elements in the state PDP, and is able to ingratiate himself temporarily with Abuja, he will lead the party to the next polls and await his fate in a state riven by feverish plots, betrayal and unethical politics.

    The legislative coup may have failed, so to say, but it has nonetheless introduced too many contending elements into the state’s political crucible to the point that stability may elude it for a while to come. While they were plotting against Admiral Nyako, ambitious governorship hopefuls in the state abandoned principles, remorselessly crossed party lines, and formed temporary alliances so tenuous that they defy reason. Buba Marwa, a former Lagos State governor, and a man who won reputation as a sound administrator, proved his frailty by oscillating recklessly between parties; Bamanga Tukur and Jibril Aminu, veritable party leaders with monarchical tendencies, joined the plots not to serve the state or help it fulfill lofty goals, but to enthrone their own children; and Nuhu Ribadu, hitherto recognised as one of the most implacable exponents of ethics in politics, also joined the plot from a somewhat aloof standpoint and has all but ruined his reputation.

    The media celebrate the political quirkiness unfolding in Adamawa State. They have not passed judgement on those who midwife the political and social maelstrom convulsing the state, and really do not need to. History will more competently pass judgement, and do it with such delicate aplomb that cannot be equalled, let alone surpassed. Mr Ngilari beamed expansively as he took his oath of office, an oath that means nothing to them in Adamawa, as it means nothing to Dr Jonathan and his co-conspirators in the presidency and PDP headquarters. Hon Fintiri is angrily plotting his way back into reckoning in the state legislature while training his guns on his Madagali local government area compatriot, Mr Ngilari. The pampered sons of the high and mighty in Adamawa, the scions of Alhaji Tukur and Professor Aminu, are for now ensconced in obscurity until they can decipher the shape of the warfare that is certain to break upon the state soon. And Mallam Ribadu, as this column predicted weeks ago should he fail to get the PDP ticket or even win the by-election, sits in rueful meditation, wondering what the gods have in stock for him.

    For now, development has come to a grinding halt in Adamawa. In the few short weeks Hon Fintiri usurped power, he dispensed largess copiously rather than govern, and would have continued to do so had the by-election held and had he won. The ingratiating and unprincipled Mr Ngilari can be trusted to open the barn and let all the foxes feed in the few months remaining of the Nyako mandate, assuming the former governor does not come back to reclaim his mandate. Between the rampaging behemoths in Abuja and the pugnacious monoliths in Adamawa, the fate of the state seems sealed. The patriot and the judicious in Adamawa will pray that after 2015, sensible and diligent leaders can attain office and give the state the leadership required to ennoble its politics and develop its economy. But given the crop of politicians swarming around everywhere in that infested region, the chances of a turnabout are not as bright as the mind can envision.

  • Ekiti judicial crisis: Jonathan finally speaks

    Ekiti judicial crisis: Jonathan finally speaks

    After Ekiti State governor-elect, Ayo Fayose, inspired the intimidation of the judiciary in Ekiti a few weeks ago, I wrote that it was necessary for Nigerians to wait for the reactions of President Goodluck Jonathan, given his oath to defend and uphold the constitution, the National Judicial Council, and a few other leading Nigerians. The NJC, perhaps for obvious reasons, was quick to respond. It ordered the reopening of the courts in Ekiti, asked for the police to both provide adequate security for the courts and investigate the crisis, and arrest those who planned and executed the attacks on the courts and their judges.

    The ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) also spoke fairly quickly. Through its spokesman, the unscrupulous Olisa Metuh, the party reiterated the allegations made by Mr Fayose suggesting that the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC), which lost the June governorship election, was planning to use the courts to subvert the swearing in of Mr Fayose. He saw nothing wrong with the self-help embarked upon by thugs acting on behalf of his party. He did not see the danger of the consequences of intimidating the judiciary, how it could predispose the country to anarchy, where everyone second-guesses the courts and takes unlawful steps to achieve or enforce private objectives.

    For weeks, the president kept quiet. Finally, however, Dr Jonathan has spoken, and what he had to say is truly depressing. By keeping silent over the grave attacks on the courts, attacks that horrified the rest of the world more for the tepid response of security agents and the government, the president is unaware he has spoken. He in effect has endorsed the attacks by conniving at it. Any other president would have moved speedily to protect the judiciary. But since he himself had once attacked the judiciary by prejudicially sacking a president of the Appeal Court, Justice Ayo Salami, it was inconceivable that he would be horrified by the attacks on Ekiti courts inspired and led by Mr Fayose.

    To reinforce the president’s unspoken but unmistakable views on the attacks, the courts ordered reopened by the NJC have been kept under lock and key by soldiers and policemen. The security agents are supposed to provide security for the courts as they reopen, but they have ensured they are shut even against a few of the judges who attempted to gain entry and resume work. The security agents hide under the strike embarked upon by Ekiti civil servants to defy the NJC and to keep the courts shut until Mr Fayose is sworn in. The country has not felt sufficiently outraged enough to compel Dr Jonathan to live up to the oath he took to uphold and defend the constitution. Politicians, unable to appreciate the enormity of the precedence being laid in Ekiti, hide under partisanship to excuse the anomaly. We are sowing the wind; and it is certain we will reap the whirlwind.

    It takes a visionary leader to see the damage to the body politic caused by the Ekiti attacks. It takes a leader to understand the dangerously sublime message being sent out by the attacks. It takes a deep leader to recognise that in a global village the madness shown in Ekiti and connived at at the highest level lowers us, and particularly the president, in the esteem of the world. The president has indeed spoken, and we must recognise that what he had to say is unflattering and humiliating to the black man. The consequences are unavoidable. They will come. And it is not only the victims of the court closure and attacks that will suffer; even the inspirers and executors of the attacks, not to say the presidency itself, will suffer much more.

  • $9.3m scandal: attack on Oritsejafor not attack on church

    $9.3m scandal: attack on Oritsejafor not attack on church

    In his response to allegations suggesting he was indirectly liable in the illegal haul of $9.3m cash to South Africa by two Nigerians and an Israeli, Ayo Oritsejafor, Pastor of Word of Life Bible Church, Warri, and President of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), equated the attack on him with an attack on the Church in Nigeria. This is an insufferable conclusion. After finally but belatedly acknowledging that the aircraft used to ferry the money to South Africa was his, but only leased to a third party, he then launched into a winding, threatening and provocative defence of his conduct, also attacking those he describes as his enemies and enemies of the church.

    Hear him: ‘In order to ameliorate the cost of maintaining the aircraft, I sought and got the permit to allow the aircraft fly in and out of Nigeria. Based on this, I leased the aircraft on August 2, 2014 to a company to run it. It was the lessee that entered into an agreement with the people who carried out the transfer of funds. Having leased the aircraft to the Green Coast Produce Company Limited, any transaction undertaken with the aircraft can no longer be attached to me. Inasmuch as I am shocked and distressed by the incident, I wish to appeal to Christians in Nigeria to remember that a war has been waged against the Nigerian church. This war is being fought on many fronts and this unfortunate incident is another dimension in the assault against the church. It is clear that those who manipulated this conspiracy desire to create a schism in the church. The media hype and the deliberate distortion of information that followed it confirmed that forces that desperately desire to cause division and disunity in the church are at work.”

    Pastor Oritsejafor was wrong to suggest he owed only the church an explanation for his conduct. As a preacher of the gospel, and obviously now as an economic player leasing jet and receiving incomes from it, he owes all of us an explanation. Indeed, he has not yet fully come clean, as his one-sided and heavily edited statement suggests. It is important to know the details of the lease arrangement with Green Coast, the revenues that have accrued, and how much tax has been paid. We recall that he at first only acknowledged a ‘residual interest’ in the jet, and was at first silent over whether it was the same jet he said a committee in his church presented to him for evangelism in 2012. Now that the jet is his, has he explained to the church how an evangelism jet, notwithstanding maintenance expenses, has suddenly become a commercial jet?

    When the controversy broke, he first got CAN to defend him. In a bad-tempered statement by the body, CAN displayed the worst forms of worldliness that even those who are not Christians would balk at. In the CAN statement, the body attacked politicians and especially the All Progressives Congress, and threatened obliquely that payday (electoral response, perhaps) was around the corner. The statement all but described the APC as an Islamic party, as if there were no Christians in the opposition party, and as if Christ had anointed one party above the other.

    But Pastor Oritsejafor may wish to disavow the CAN statement for its poor logic, though it is unclear why he would do that. His own statement is, however, equally riddled with threats, bad logic and intolerable pride. He would go to court, he warned, to deal with those who suggest the plane was gifted him by the president. By far the worst logic in his statement concerns his conclusion about the interchangeability of his person and the church. He sees the attack on him, the association of his person with the cash export scandal, and his indefensible closeness to Dr Jonathan as an attack on the church. But Pastor Oritsejafor is not the church, and given his serial blunders, worldliness and humanity, can’t be the church. Had he not become the personal chaplain of the president, had he not fished in the murky waters of politics, had he not insensitively tried to drag the entire CAN into the PDP, no one would have accused him of politicising or corrupting the body.

    A former CAN president, Anthony Cardinal Okogie, indicated in an interview two Saturdays ago that Pastor Oritsejafor had belittled CAN and unadvisedly pressed the body into service for a president who incompetently ruled the country. And contrary to what Pastor Oritsejafor says, no one is manipulating the private jet controversy to undermine the church. The controversy is entirely his making, and if the church is disunited, the pastor’s politics and style of leadership are entirely to blame. Today, it is clear Pastor Oritsejafor is more a businessman and politician than a pastor, more vituperative than temperate of speech, more divisive than unifying, more worldly than heavenly, and more contemptuous of his enemies than accommodating. So steeped in the affairs of the world has he become that he simply is unable to see just how much damage he is doing to the unity and sanctity of the church.

    Pastor Oritsejafor hopes to punish the opposition in the next presidential poll, and perhaps wishes God would inflict much additional punishment on those he considers the enemies of the church. But the pastor has no example in scripture to learn from — not Moses whose humility and grace of speech overcame potent and internal opposition to his leadership; not Elijah who retained his moral force by immeasurable self-sacrifice and spoke truth to power; nor Peter who condemned doctrinal pollution and worldly gain; and certainly not Jesus Christ whose beatitudes stand in direct and mortifying refutation of all that Pastor Oritsejafor exemplifies with uncanonical self-importance.

  • Mimiko finally defects, adopts implausible causes

    Mimiko finally defects, adopts implausible causes

    After many months of pussyfooting, Governor Olusegun Mimiko of Ondo State has finally defected from the Labour Party (LP) to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), putting himself out of his self-created misery. He was received into the ruling party on Thursday by, among others, Vice President Namadi Sambo, who is himself struggling to stay on the President Goodluck Jonathan ticket for the 2015 race, and Senate President David Mark, who increasingly sees and leads the Senate as an arm, not of government, but of the Executive branch. Last month, the chairman of LP, Dan Nwanyanwu, had indicated his desire to step down from the party’s top post, pretending to be fatigued by years of leadership. He probably took the decision because of Dr Mimiko’s defection.

    With the exit of Dr Mimiko from LP, the supposedly working class party will struggle to stay alive. It never operated as a left-of-centre party, nor was it even really ideological. It was at best pragmatic, and its policies and politics either ultra conservative or instinctive. In its truest essence, the party had no soul and was nothing but a vehicle in the hands of politicians equally ideologically and philosophically vacuous. From all indications, LP’s long foretold death will not entitle it to even a perfunctory requiem mass.

    Defections in Nigeria show neither rhyme nor reason. Dr Mimiko’s defection is, therefore, unlikely to raise any moral question. He has the freedom to take his affections anywhere, just as others have exercised theirs across party lines, and sometimes back and forth the same parties. Had Dr Mimiko not been helped by the progressives, he would not have become governor. But that hardly matters now. What is important is that he has returned home to the PDP, as the vice president says. Those who lured him back to the PDP expected he would help swing votes in favour of Dr Jonathan’s second bid to govern Nigeria. And as Senator Mark also suggested, with Dr Mimiko leading the charge, the PDP would make progress in its quest to pacify the Southwest and make it politically amenable to the PDP.

    As they received the Ondo governor, PDP chiefs were both upbeat and expectant, especially because they also have Ekiti in their bag. They perhaps do not expect to take the whole of the Southwest in the coming poll, but they are now confident they will make a huge impact, far beyond their expectations.

    After all, Dr Mimiko himself has said the real reason he is defecting to the PDP is to help Dr Jonathan win the presidency a second time. He has the right to support whomever he wishes, considering he has never really being motivated by any principled desire to cause a major social change in Nigeria or to contribute meaningfully to the restructuring and redefinition of Nigerian politics.

    But by far the most important effect of Dr Mimiko’s defection is the collapse of the consensus built around him by a faction of the Yoruba socio-political and cultural pressure group, Afenifere. The group had conceived him a new champion of the Yoruba, a champion around whom a new political force for the ‘liberation’ of the Southwest was expected to coalesce. That consensus was never really substantial even from the very beginning, nor was it ever imbued with any nobility. Now, it is all but doomed, for Dr Mimiko and others like him will now be lost in the Jonathan crowd, their expectations and hopes forfeited to the political subterfuge and constitutional chicaneries of the president. Dr Jonathan has no cause he is fighting, no principle so priceless he would die for, and no precept so sublime by which he wants to be ennobled. Neither does Dr Mimiko. It is perhaps fitting that both gentlemen have found each other, and have joined forces.

    It is clear that in their calculations for 2015 and their assumptions of the political behaviour and values of the Southwest, Vice President Sambo, Senator Mark and other PDP leaders appear to understand that the region is also suffering from a lack of philosophical core. Like the rest of Nigeria, a faction of the Southwest elite takes decisions and makes judgement that negate the zone’s historical antecedents. For them, it is no longer important that a president or governor is either underperforming or not performing at all. In fact, it is no longer important that the political leader they support should stand for anything.

    In defecting, Dr Mimiko had described Dr Jonathan as “…a President that is as focused as he is patriotic, (and heads) a team that has demonstrated so much promise in its commitment to democracy.” He could not be describing Dr Jonathan. In any case such dubieties have become commonplace in the Southwest, and the perversion of principles and ideas will obviously continue for some time to come in that apostate region and elsewhere.