The Nation Newspaper

Category: Idowu Akinlotan

  • Desertion, Boko Haram: Nigeria’s fragility underscored

    Desertion, Boko Haram: Nigeria’s fragility underscored

    In 2005, the National Intelligence Council (NIC), which is described as “The center for midterm and long-term strategic thinking within the United States Intelligence Community (IC)”, published a report of a one-day conference it convened to look at the future of sub-Saharan Africa. The conference examined a 15-year trend in the region and concluded that for Nigeria, any major event could upset its “precarious equilibrium.” The report did not rule out disintegration. Consequent upon the NIC report, the US military conducted a war game exercise in 2008 and also examined what should be the response of the US military should anarchy overtake Nigeria. There was no definitive prediction of a Nigerian break-up, nor any attribution of the predictions to the US government, but none of the studies undertaken by the US bodies ruled out that possibility. Indeed, in view of the security challenges facing Nigeria since 2009, and the country’s increasing fragility, it would require extreme optimism to rule out that frightful worst-case scenario.

    But that is precisely what Nigeria’s rulers have done. Rather than dispassionately examine the damning reports on Nigeria, especially the parameters used to arrive at the frightening conclusions on the country’s stability and cohesion, the rulers have dismissed the study, especially since it emerged it was not a US government study — as if it mattered by whom the studies were produced. Surely it has not been forgotten that in 1991, there was hardly anyone, intellectual or soothsayer, within or outside the US government, who predicted that the Soviet Union would disintegrate that year. Underscoring that universal ignorance, a US international relations expert, George Kennan, confessed that he found it “hard to think of any event more strange and startling, and at first glance inexplicable, than the sudden and total disintegration and disappearance … of the great power known successively as the Russian Empire and then the Soviet Union.” Everyone, including leading members of former U.S. President Ronald Reagan’s government described the Soviet collapse as “unexpected.”

    But Nigerians are enamoured of superstition and are fanatical about religion. Yet, irrespective of their private longings, revolutions are an integral part of history, happen periodically, and are often unpredictable. The spectacular and constantly irredeemable act of leadership malfeasance in Nigeria in fact makes the country more susceptible to fragmentation than any study anywhere has predicted. The absence of social, economic and criminal justice is enduring. The federal and state governments have repeatedly and callously undermined the constitution, abridged rights, promoted tyranny, exploited religious, ethnic and political cleavages, and hoped that by a strange alchemy they could deploy religious faith and conviction to dissipate the spectre of disintegration. They seem to think they are immune to the centrifugal tendencies, (especially the fashionable sectarian adventurism promoted by the Islamic State), overwhelming and inspiring fanatical elements in parts of the world such as Iraq, Syria, Libya and now Nigeria.

    Nothing makes the danger of destabilisation and fragmentation more pressing for Nigeria than the continuing threat posed by the Boko Haram Islamist sect, which has just declared a caliphate in Gwoza, Borno State, and seems set to heighten its territorial affront in the face of shambolic and feeble military response. And nothing exemplifies that feebleness than the strange and dramatic manner 480 Nigerian soldiers found their way into Cameroon last week after a particularly gruelling encounter with Boko Haram militants. Some analysts have described the movement of the 480 troops, almost a battalion strength, as desertion, the worst disgrace Nigeria has ever faced in its 54-year chequered history. On their own, however, military officers, presuming Nigerians to be incoherent, have described the embarrassment incredulously as either tactical manoeuvre or tactical retreat.

    Before the Soviet Empire and its accompanying Warsaw Pact alliance disintegrated, they did not face the kind of countdown Nigeria is confronting, a countdown where soldiers are reluctant to fight, their wives are protesting against the deployment of their husbands, and the national spirit is either inexistent or is substantially distorted. There have been one or two attempts at mutiny in barracks in Maiduguri, the Borno State capital, with military authorities blackmailing the discerning public into desisting from commenting on the collapse at war fronts. It will be recalled that Governor Kashim Shettima of Borno State was the first to raise the alarm that Nigerian troops were unwilling to fight because of poor motivation and inferior weapons. He was pilloried for his outspokenness, until soldiers themselves began to complain openly of being poorly armed, and their wives joined in the unprecedented revolt, never before seen in these parts.

    That the country is badly and incompetently administered is no longer in doubt. What is in dispute is the continuing promotion of the nonsensical viewpoint that Boko Haram is the creation of anti-Jonathan elements, a viewpoint championed by ruffians in the South-South and strangely and stupidly endorsed by elements in the Southwest. This viewpoint has in turn triggered the divisive demonisation of the North as a wholesale champion of Boko Haram, even though the sect was birthed during the presidency of Olusegun Obasanjo, a southerner, and acquired its terrifying streak under the presidency of the late Umaru Yar’Adua, a northerner. It apparently suits the Goodluck Jonathan presidency that that abhorrent viewpoint is promoted and reinforced by dangerous and malevolent reiteration. This was perhaps why the abduction of more than 200 schoolgirls from a secondary school in Chibok, Borno State, was politicised not by the opposition, but by the Jonathan government, which first doubted the abductions, and has approached the matter since then with undisguised, shameless and enervating impotence.

    Sadly, the government’s appalling strategy is anchored essentially on one leg: to defeat the insurgency militarily, a feat now looking increasingly complicated and far-fetched, and provoke the country with its disjointed and disfiguring triumphalism. As far as the complex factors that have engendered Boko Haram are concerned, such as injustice, economic deprivation, subversion of the constitution, political suppression and oppression, divisive use of religion and ethnicity, nothing has been done, and nothing is planned. Indeed, the abhorrent sub-plot of the Boko Haram insurgency, which is to use it for electoral ends, is nearly so complete that the Jonathan re-election team brutally hangs their campaign on blaming and demonising others — the opposition and the North especially — for its incompetence and impotence in forging a way out of the national morass. The consequence is that instead of the unity needed to direct the fight against the common foe, the country is more divided than ever, fighting one another, promoting fissiparous tendency even in the military, fostering ethnic and political resentment, while Dr Jonathan’s government continues to harvest the sympathy of some of the geopolitical zones which have concluded that Dr Jonathan is in fact being persecuted by northern oligarchs and a complicit faction of the Southwest elite.

    It is not clear why the Jonathan presidency is unable to rise up imaginatively to  both the insurgency in particular and the disequilibrium in the polity in general, or whether he in fact truly desires to challenge and defeat the insurgency and other problems plaguing the country. But I think Dr Jonathan’s government is widely despised for its lack of discipline and its poor intellectual endowment. It is unable to situate the Boko Haram problem in the global Jihadist context, let alone in the less complex domestic context, and is reluctant to appreciate that the sect needs to be examined closely to discover why and how it continues to grow in strength, why it is attractive to all manner of adventurers, why the army seems out of tune with reality, and why his political methods have discouraged and alienated a large swathe of the country. Worse, I fear that Dr Jonathan is not even interested in mustering the huge responsibility needed to understand and solve these problems. He believes that his method of shifting the blame for the insurgency on the opposition and the North will yield him votes, and his tactics of plundering the constitution for provisions and sundry authorisation to sustain and promote the acts of repression will strengthen his hands. He is not tempted to change, and perhaps, as galling as this may sound, may never change even as the country plummets to its most terrifying nadir ever.

  • Redefining full-scale war against Boko Haram

    Redefining full-scale war against Boko Haram

    This newspaper published a report last week of retired military officers campaigning for the declaration of a full-scale war on the Boko Haram insurgents in the Northeast. A battle line must be drawn, they suggested angrily. The report also added, perhaps hilariously, that some unnamed sources within the military disclosed that the 480 soldiers who ‘strayed’ into Cameroon last week and returned rather ignominiously were eager to return to Gamboru-Ngala, from whence they earlier fled, to give battle to the insurgents. It will be recalled that the Senate President, David Mark, some weeks back, also suggested it was time full-scale war was declared on the insurgents. The sentiment on full-scale war has been growing in the past weeks, especially with every reverse suffered by the Nigerian military. Even the former military ruler, Gen Ibrahim Babangida, has suggested that negotiating with Boko Haram was pointless on account of the sect’s facelessness. Some logic.

    We know the origins of the campaign for full-scale war, and the personalities behind it. What is unclear is where they got the impression that the Goodluck Jonathan government was yet to declare a full-scale war on the insurgents. If Nigeria is unclear about the war they are fighting in the Northeast, certainly Boko Haram and its commanders are neither burdened nor hamstrung by that semantic fog. As far as the insurgents are concerned, they are already engaged in a full-scale war with the Nigerian military, and are having a ball. Whether they are giving it their all is not clear. But by achieving some spectacular victories in recent months, even putting Nigerian troops on the run in a few areas as demonstrated by the Gamboru-Ngala debacle, the insurgents show their tenacity and contempt for terminological inexactitudes.

    If the Nigerian military will soon scale up their engagements against the insurgents, it will not be because they were unclear what tempo and quantum of war they have been fighting. I think their war effort has been hamstrung by a number of factors, among which are the poor quality of arms available to them, which they at first disputed and downplayed, the manner in which the leadership of the military has mishandled the issue of esprit de corps, the military’s own strategic and tactical shortcomings, and as some officers have confessed, their discomfort and puzzlement with guerilla/terrorism warfare. I believe the military has been fighting a full-scale war, and have given it their all. As professionals, they must not be seduced by the ignorant pitches of those who suggest that a full-scale war of a different hue could still be declared, perhaps one which will discountenance clinical and surgical strikes in favour of massive and indiscriminate bombardment.

    The disgrace of the past few months has been unprecedented. But both the military and the federal government must recognise that the brutal Sri Lankan model of total warfare, which Nigeria briefly flirted with, will complicate the problem. They must also situate the Boko Haram war within the global context of the war being waged by borderless or asymmetric warriors, such as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (Isis), now simply called Islamic State (IS). What is at play here is the contest of ideas and philosophies of government, the push and pull between liberalism and theocracy, and arguments as to how the almost total alienation in the polity can be addressed. Those who suggest full-scale war, apart from being grammatically inexact, seem to imply that once military victory is achieved — a doubtful proposition in the short term — peace and stability would be reestablished. Nothing could be more wrong.

    As I have suggested in this place many times, it is now more urgent than ever for the president, if he can manage it, to appreciate the harm the absence of a national spirit or national identity is causing Nigeria. I doubt his talent in this regard.  In addition, it is also very urgent that the country must be anchored on profound values and principles, among which are constitutional rule shorn of any abridgement or perversion, justice in all ramifications, and the fostering of unity around those great values. Nigerian rulers have for a long time been complicit in the destruction of these values and principles, and consequently there is no lodestar around which to build a country every Nigerian would be proud of. A military victory against Boko Haram, even though desperately desirable, will only offer us a temporary relief; it will not bring lasting peace or stability, nor the forging of a great nation.

  • Ribadu’s defection and sameness of political parties

    Ribadu’s defection and sameness of political parties

    On the 2011 presidential election, I voted for Nuhu Ribadu, former Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) boss and candidate of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), even though I knew he could not win. But I felt that more than any other candidate on offer at the time, including Gen Muhammadu Buhari, he was probably the most dynamic, charismatic, modern (both in depth of knowledge and cross-over appeal), and without ethnic, religious or ideological baggage. He in fact did not win, perhaps because everyone, including myself, knew he was young, impulsive, a work in progress, and a little somewhat idealistic, flighty and iconoclastic. Had he won, I would have been willing to offer my services to his government and the country in the assurance that my exertions would be both recognised and valuable.

    I always knew, however, that the young man was capable of curious rashness, not necessarily harmful to the country he so passionately craves to serve, but always counterproductive to the principles and values he wishes to be ennobled by. His defection last week to the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) after many months of speculations is not completely surprising. He was and still is a fine policeman and professional, but many of his admirers would wish him to be better anchored on the principles and values he adores but is unable to put into systematic thought and form. I am nonetheless unable to condemn Mallam Ribadu for the shocking political step he has taken, lured as he was by possible assurances from President Goodluck Jonathan or the PDP leadership to be made the PDP’s standard-bearer in October’s Adamawa governorship election.

    I have absolutely no doubt that should he overcome the stiff internal opposition in the state chapter of the PDP and is elected governor, the state would enjoy far more inspiring and productive leadership than many other states in the country have witnessed since their creation. His stewardship in Adamawa could also prepare him, ceteris paribus, for a shot at the presidency on a fortuitous tomorrow, when he probably would have matured. He would be in the news, and it would be mostly for the right reasons. And when he visits the State House in Abuja or appear at any other national event, he would be the cynosure of all eyes. Who knows, perhaps it was the lure of these possibilities that attracted Mallam Ribadu into taking last week’s fateful step to defect to a party he had consistently excoriated in the most brutal and waspish manner.

    Those who defend his defection, not to say Mallam Ribadu himself, have argued that his defection was not morally offensive, seeing that both the party he left and the one he has just joined have very few distinguishing features or redeeming virtues. In their opinion, the PDP and the All Progressives Congress (APC) are not far apart ideologically, have their fair measure of political follies and foibles, harbour as many political ragamuffins as the other, and subscribe unflatteringly to, or are burdened by, the same political appurtenances such as short-circuited internal democratic practices. Mallam Ribadu himself gave close hints he would be a good governor in the PDP as he would be in the APC had he remained in his former party and became a governor on its platform. I hope they let him become governor, for it is clear he joined the PDP for that reason. If he doesn’t, then he had better go to Siberia, for he would not be able to live down the humiliation.

    However, the view is unfortunately widespread that both the APC and the PDP are virtually the same. This is a heresy promoted by those who still smart over the sanctimonious effusions of self-confessed progressive leaders. In repudiating the view that APC is ideologically different from the PDP, such troubled consciences have argued that there are governors in the PDP that perform as good as, if not better than, some governors in the APC. They also argue that the APC has nearly an equal share of odious personalities as the PDP, a reasoning underscored by the shocking and mortifying defections of personalities like Femi Fani-Kayode and Ali Modu Sheriff into the progressive fold, when in fact there was and still is nothing progressive about the two politicians. More importantly, many leading APC men have also defected to the PDP with so much pianissimo calmness and distinctive élan.

    But perhaps the most vociferous proponents of the PDP/APC sameness theory are leaders of the Southwest factional elite opposed to the APC leadership. They argue, and have convinced themselves and others, that even if the APC is progressive, a fact they now dispute animatedly, it is after all not the only progressive party in the country. In fact, given the loathing which that factional elite nurse against the APC, they are more than prepared to dismiss the party as an impostor deserving of extirpation by the Jonathan forces. Recall that that factional elite lost the power struggle in the Southwest between 2003 and now, and have tried futilely to win back its position, if need be, in alliance with either the most odious characters in the region or the devil himself. The region’s, and by extrapolation, the national ideological conflict between progressivism and conservatism should be contextualised partly within the struggle for power and dominance in the Southwest.

    Mallam Ribadu may therefore have been seduced by the foggy understanding and consideration of ideology in Nigeria’s contemporary politics, a fogginess helped by the blurring of ideological lines in political recruitment and policy enunciation in the Southwest. As Femi Falana argued in an interview published last Friday in The Punch when pressed to explain the APC victory in Osun vis-a-vis the party’s loss in Ekiti, the APC had failed to differentiate itself in the idiosyncratically progressive policies and politics of the Yoruba states as exemplified by the Obafemi Awolowo era. While this is a valid observation, Mr Falana himself recognised that this weakness does not fully account for the sometimes anomalous behaviour of the Southwest electorate, or any other electorate for that matter. It must be recognised that there will never be a time when the parties in Nigerian politics will be so differentiated that it would be a question of evil and good, right and wrong. That belongs to the realm of fiction and, to some extent, theory.

    The fact is that whether we accept it or not, and in spite of the jarring presence of certain personalities in the APC who are at odds with the party’s ideology, the PDP is actually largely and essentially a conservative party. It has retained all the essential elements of conservatism since the Olusegun Obasanjo presidency, and has under Dr Jonathan reinforced that conservatism to the point of being reactionary, if not dangerously fascist. Anyone who can’t appreciate the PDP’s predilection for fascism is either blind or out of his wits. On the whole, however, and though it cannot be affirmed with certainty how it would conduct itself should it form the government at the centre, the APC has proved in the states it governs that it is more democratic politically and more progressive in its developmental imperatives. That it concomitantly and sometimes undesirably imposes less sympathetic tax and other fiscal regimes on the people do not detract from its progressivism, but only speaks to the progressive states’ policy dissonance.

    There may be nothing morally offensive about Mallam Ribadu’s defection, but there is nothing wise in it either. The former EFCC boss was not an ordinary member of the APC. He was the presidential candidate of the party’s precursor, the ACN. At that high level, policy and ideological summersaults are simply intolerable and inexcusable. No one could rise to a level where had he been elected president he would embody all that the party stood for ideationally, culturally, politically and socially, and yet saunter over to the enemy almost casually. By defecting, Mallam Ribadu gives the unsavoury indication he was neither persuaded about what his former party stood for nor convinced enough that the PDP he fought against in 2011 was the weak, banal and implacable organ his former party made it out to be. And though he retains our respect for his person and his ability, his defection nonetheless showed how tentative his principles and values appear to be, and especially that his often impressionable mind still needs a lot of work to refine and solidify it beyond the entrenched casuistry that vitiated his leadership of the EFCC.

  • Smirky Jonathan takes on conference sceptics

    President Goodluck Jonathan and his supporters are wildly exultant about the outcome of the national conference. In particular, the president has been irritably unsparing of his foes, whom he mocked furiously when he gave his remarks during the submission of the conference reports last Thursday. As far as he was concerned the conference succeeded, as he put it triumphantly, partly because he did not meddle in its deliberations and could not have meddled since he had no ulterior motives. Many trusting Nigerians, chiefly some voluble Southwest delegates who are battling their own private demons, echo the falsehood. The chairman of the conference, Idris Legbo Kutigi, a former Supreme Court justice, is however more restrained and magisterial, but Professor Bolaji Akinyemi even proffers reasons for what he described as the conference’s success.

    As a conference sceptic, and a proud one at that, one who unrepentantly distrusts Dr Jonathan’s motives, not to talk of his unprincipled conviction about and disinterestedness in the finer principles and building blocks of democracy, I find it difficult to explain the conference supporters’ hasty celebration. I do not understand why they are celebrating the very first step in the life of this boondoggle, as if all other conferences held since the 1970s miscarried during the discussions stage. Nor am I aware that conference sceptics predicted that the Jonathan conference would miscarry at the discussions stage, seeing that the delegates whose deliberations Dr Jonathan has falsely insinuated altruism, were handpicked.

    Dr Jonathan’s remarks show the depth of the problem confronting Nigeria. He has never been presidential in his approach to governance, and his statements have always been both uninspiring and inappropriate. In Thursday’s remarks, he spoke again with the boyish vendetta he is accustomed to, mocking and ridiculing his opponents, and failing to address their fears about why he convoked a conference he had moments earlier denounced in violent and acerbic language. He grinned mischievously, poked fun at his detractors, and indulged in fantasies about how the conference was an ambitious answer to the national question. He forgot that as imperfect as the current constitution is, the country’s problem is hardly caused by the letter of the constitution, nor even by its spirit. The problem has always been largely incompetent, immature, ignorant and selfish leaders. The conference did not address these other major attitudinal issues, nor could it have.

    In his remarks, Dr Jonathan had said: “The success of this conference has proved the cynics wrong in many respects. Those who dismissed the entire conference ab initio as a ‘diversion’ have been proved wrong as what you achieved has contrary to their forecast diverted our country only from the wrong road to the right direction. They said the conference would end in a deadlock as Nigeria had reached a point where the constituent parts could no longer agree on any issue.” It is not certain where the president got the misinformation that Nigeria’s constituent parts could not agree on anything, nor is it clear why he prematurely concludes that cynics have been proved wrong. As Justice Kutigi himself more wisely put it, previous conferences also successfully concluded their deliberations and submitted their reports.

    Though Dr Jonathan holds very high hopes for the conference report, so far, however, he has ruled like a tyrant, and, should he be re-elected, would continue to rule like one with unmitigated contempt for the constitution and the rule of law. If his supporters fail to see this, they are as entitled to live in denial as the president is entitled to nurture his chimera. However, the real battle over the conference will begin soon, going by how adeptly Dr Jonathan has prepared booby traps for Nigerians over the conference. First, he concocted the conference as a distraction, in spite of his tame denial, and designed it to raise political capital for himself for the 2015 polls. Second, as the most divisive president Nigeria has ever had, he is prepared to further divide Nigerians over the conference reports. He has said he will implement the conference recommendations that relate to policy matters, though his record in policy implementation and substantial reforms is questionable, and pass the constitutional recommendations, which are of course the most crucial of the conference’s three objectives, to the National Assembly. But both he and his voluble conference supporters, including jubilant and impetuous delegates, have already begun to insinuate that it would be unpatriotic for lawmakers to amend the recommendations substantially. Indeed, without legal basis, they even brusquely suggest that a referendum and a complete bypass of the legislature would not be out of place, irrespective of the fact that the legislature is already amending the constitution.

    How Dr Jonathan’s handpicked delegates can arrogate to themselves the supreme wisdom of knowing what we want, press ahead to suggest a silly, indefensible six-year tenure for the executive, and foolishly inspire the creation of 18 more states to compel acquiescence, all speak to their Nigerianness, if not Africanness, as a people without discipline, moderation, restraint, vision and commonsensical tolerance of the opposition. And with the collapse of the Labour Party, as witnessed in Ondo State, and also APGA in the Southeast into the PDP, the stage seems set for the massive betrayal and destruction of Nigeria by its short-sighted and ingratiating political elite. We owe it to future generations not to let them.

  • Osun poll: What next for APC?

    Osun poll: What next for APC?

    For a politician whose credibility is in doubt, and whose principles and values are in contention, the performance of Iyiola Omisore, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate in the recent Osun governorship poll, must worry both the All Progressives Congress (APC) and other political analysts. Though Senator Omisore got a huge part of that surprising vote from his Ile-Ife stronghold, thereby raising doubts about the fidelity of the balloting in those places, it is certainly not out of place to take cognisance of the electorate’s unpredictability and sometimes weirdness when they perform their civic responsibility. If in the 1993 presidential poll, Bashir Tofa lost his home state of Kano to M.K.O Abiola, it should not be regarded as normal that Southwest voters, who sometimes erroneously pride themselves as more sophisticated than any other electorate in Nigeria, should vote so bizarrely in favour of someone so controversial, so unqualified for high office, and so unprincipled.

    President Goodluck Jonathan defends his embarrassing militarisation of elections in the name of providing security, but he will be unable to do that in 2015, for the forces available to him are so limited that even if he wishes, there is no way he can pour troops into the states on the contemptuous scale witnessed in the Ekiti and Osun elections. The APC has promised to campaign against the militarisation of elections, it should go ahead, for there is hardly any Nigerian who is not embarrassed, even humiliated, by Dr Jonathan’s immature methods. However, while the APC must continue to doubt the president’s oath to conduct free and fair elections, seeing how boisterously he often fails to match words with actions, the party should not lose sleep over any attempt to militarise the polls. Dr Jonathan simply won’t be able to do it, not even if he succeeds in pacifying the restive Northeast.

    What should preoccupy the APC, and by extension right-thinking patriots, is how to respond to the increasing pedestrianism of Nigerian politics and elections. It is not only the Nigerian leadership that is incompetent and infantile, the voters themselves are probably far worse, with the Southwest electorate in greater ferment than any other geopolitical zone. For instance, consequent upon the loss of Ekiti, governors in the zone have started to roll back their principled and fairly well-considered stand on education, infrastructure and other policies. They have begun to enact mass surrender to the short-sighted and even whimsical needs of the electorate. Indeed, if they refuse to cut school fees, the truth is that the PDP opposition would simply promise to do it and sweep the polls. If they enforce their sensible stand on restricting the use of commercial motorcycles, the opposition would simply take advantage of what is now ludicrously described as a disconnect. Yet, the current, newly modified policy on education, particularly as it relates to cutting of school fees, is simply not tenable. The end is disaster, considering how the quality of education, like infrastructure, health and security, has been declining for decades.

    If things look dreary on the social and economic policy fronts for the APC, the party however remains unchallenged on one front: that of providing, in alliance with like-minded and principled politicians, ideological, visionary and sound leadership for the Southwest in particular, and the nation in general. It will be recalled that when Olusegun Mimiko won the Ondo governorship poll in 2012, there was a thunderous clamour by a faction of the Yoruba leadership – the same Afenifere faction that now unreflectively and selfishly allies with Dr Jonathan – for the projection of a new leadership for the Yoruba. They failed to understand that no one can give what he doesn’t have. Dr Mimiko has of course been unable to satisfy the longings of that faction. And when in spite of his mediocre talent and accomplishment, not to say temper and superficiality, Ayo Fayose won the Ekiti poll, the same faction began noisily to celebrate what they described as the impending change of leadership in the Southwest, a change they swore in June would sweep Osun into the PDP column and sound the death knell to the APC.

    Osun has been saved. But that is not to say that Ogun, Oyo and Lagos are safe. The APC must recognise that the pedestrianism undermining the polity in general is also wasting the Southwest even more. The electorate cannot be trusted to be sensible or futuristic, and in many ways their private envies, which, like the Afenifere faction’s, manifest in their hatred for APC leaders, will tempt them into the same fatalism and self-destruction that are convulsing the Middle East. Osun has been saved, but Osun is also in many ways different. The state appears impervious to the private demons gnawing at the livers of the electorate, and immune to the hobgoblins erected as scarecrows by a faction of the Yoruba leadership who implausibly see the PDP as their salvation. The APC must find ways to counter the religious card foolishly played by the PDP in the region, and the campaign of calumny directed at one or two members of the party’s leadership in Lagos. If Southwest voters had recalled the stagnation they endured under the PDP after 2003, they would have spurned the PDP’s advances in Ekiti and elsewhere. But memories are short, and the APC, in spite of its stellar performance in its Southwest states, is actually threatened by protest votes, with the non-performing PDP poised to benefit.

    Ogun and Oyo States must also find ways of uniting their party; and Osun, in spite of APC’s spectacular victory must recognise the need to find common ground with those who voted against the party. Indeed, given the needless controversies engendered by the APC government in Osun, one shudders to think what might have been had the PDP found someone less controversial and more brilliant and earthy than the obnoxious Senator Omisore. There is, however, no way the campaigns for the 2015 polls will not exert some influence on the voting pattern in the other APC states in the Southwest, for many issues will come up between now and the general elections. To that extent, the APC may not be in mortal danger. But following the Osun victory, the party must cleverly repackage itself, refine and make its message more succinct, rejigger its internal democratic processes and, knowing the limitations of the electorate, how they are often swayed by frivolities rather than substance, find a means of reaching out to them and meeting them on safe and common ground.

    The Osun victory is a relief to the APC. Now must begin the hard work of appealing to the sometimes superficial desires of an undiscriminating electorate without compromising the futuristic plans and noble principles of the progressive party. For, notwithstanding the propaganda of the PDP, and in spite of many conservatives and reactionaries joining their ranks, the APC remains Nigeria’s best chance at the moment to escape the chaos, madness and retrogression instituted and reinforced by the PDP in the last 16 years.

  • Fed Govt position on Boko Haram? Why, it’s guesswork all the way

    Fed Govt position on Boko Haram? Why, it’s guesswork all the way

    The Council of State will not be the first body to set a deadline of sorts for ending the Boko Haram menace. The police, military and President Goodluck Jonathan himself had before this latest surge of enthusiasm set their own deadlines, all of them assured that the sect would be vanquished on a given date. They have all been spectacularly wrong, of course, with Boko Haram repeatedly putting the noses of these casual soothsayers out of joint. But refusing to be discomfited by the failure of past soothsayers, the council has suggested that everything would be done to end the Boko Haram insurgency by December, some four or five from now.

    Addressing the press in company with a few other governors and top security officers on July 31, Governor Babangida Aliyu of Niger State suggested: “So, all the things came to the fore at the meeting and subsequently, each of us made it a deliberate resolution not to be bi-partisan or non-partisan, to support the President to make sure that we get rid of this insurgency and indeed suggesting that this should happen before December.” Why the governor and his colleagues, and indeed the entire council itself, do not realise the implication of setting a date is hard to fathom. Surely they must understand that the benefit of inspiring the public with unguarded optimism is less harmful than setting a date and Boko Haram provocatively exposing their impotence. Well, they have set a date; they must head to the guillotine and lose their heads or return with the heads of the Jacobins by December.

    But what is even more troubling about the Council of State resolution is this wisecrack from Governor Aliyu: “We must understand the boundaries of leadership and also the responsibilities that are involved. Leadership is not about beauty contest. In leadership, you must take difficult decisions and really go about implementing them.” The governor is nearly right. It is true that leadership has its responsibilities, and often these call for the taking of difficult decisions. But the problem with governments in Nigeria, as virtually all of them in the council are guilty of, and President Jonathan is even guiltier of, is that often the so-called difficult decisions are nothing but unwise decisions. Public policy in Nigeria is replete with foolish decisions. In short both the president and governors have taken more unwise decisions than they have taken difficult decisions.

    Take for instance the so-called difficult decision that confronts President Jonathan on the Chibok abductions. The president has at various times, and depending on his audience, minced his words, hesitated or despaired. Less than two weeks ago, newspapers quoted him voicing out his dilemma on that unsavoury topic of abductions. He argued he was unsure what to do; for whether he swapped the girls, and was accused of setting a dangerous precedent, or he attacked the girls’ captors, and was accused of reckless endangerment, he was certain to be damned. It appeared to mean he was more comfortable perching on the safe horns of a dilemma than deciding one way or the other what options he could live with. Alas, but almost certainly not finally, the president has for the umpteenth time conceded he had begun negotiating with Boko Haram through third parties. He had perished the inadaptable Sri Lankan ‘Total War’ strategy, which he briefly toyed with, and any other strategy for that matter.

    What is now clear is that whatever strategy would be found to resolve the Chibok abductions and end the Boko Haram war would come as a result of the president’s considerable fumbling and wobbling. There will be no scientific or rational plan to end the war, thus rendering the Council of State’s timetable capricious, insulting and provocative. Success cannot be ruled out, but it would be undeserving and probably against the run of play. Indeed, the remarks made by governors and state officials after the meeting raised more apprehension than it resolved fears. It became obvious why the country is misgoverned, and more especially why the president, upon whom officials doted and fawned, has become increasingly tyrannical.

    It is on occasions such as this, when the president seems to have his way without the restraining voice, conscience or remonstrances of the Council of State, that Nigerians appreciate the gratuitous rebuke past leaders like Chief Obasanjo and Gen Muhammadu Buhari sometimes hurl at Dr Jonathan. Rebuke is clearly not enough, as the mismanaged Boko Haram menace shows, but it can amount to something if politicians recognise the danger of supporting the president only because he appears to be punishing their regional or state enemies. It is also significant that Gen Buhari and Chief Obasanjo excused themselves from the meeting. They did not indicate why they were absent, whether inadvertently or deliberately. But their absence was significant. There are sadly too many members of the Council of State who can’t look the vengeful Dr Jonathan in the face and tell him he is wrong or insensitive. Nor, apparently was there any former president in last week’s council meeting able to tell the president he had misplaced his priorities and was leading the country down the blind alley of arbitrary rule.

    The president often encourages himself that the Boko Haram menace would soon end. He is right. Whatever has a beginning must end one day. But the fact is that he has done precious little to end the war or to even limit the sufferings the victims and the economy are enduring. Since he inherited the insurgency, the only seemingly bright idea he had brought into it is to set up the victims support fund, which some days ago raised the implausibly high figure of nearly N60bn. But both the fund and the amount raised pose two disturbing questions. To raise such a staggering amount, even in the cause of public good, should make economy watchers and tax analysts ponder just what kind of economic structure we run, and just how proficiently the system compels philanthropists to respect their obligations.

    Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, it is incredible that to fulfill its obligations to society, especially in emergencies and great moments of national distress, the government has often relied on the public-spiritedness of the rich segment of the society. Both in the great flood of 2012 and in the current insurgency, the Jonathan government has relied almost exclusively on donations, some of which are not even honoured, thus giving the impression of governmental benevolence. Rather than put legislation in place to compensate victims of terrorism as other societies do, the government has nothing in place to recompense the public for government’s failure to perform its constitutional duties of protecting citizens. This is why in Abuja and elsewhere, victims of terrorism find themselves lacking the funds to access the right medical care, even after the president or governor had visited and given empty promises. The government has no business organising charity for its people. That should be left to individuals, private organisations and NGOs.

    The country yearns for a concise and possibly multifaceted approach to quelling the insurgency. The strategy should include the speedy rescue of the girls from Boko Haram captivity, a captivity that has blighted the country’s image and sullied the reputation of the president himself. It should also include caring for victims of terrorism at government expense, while not ignoring victims who have become internally displaced or have become refugees in Chad and other countries. It should also crucially include understanding the issues that predispose the country to insurgency and shape its responses, as well as finding panaceas for present and long term challenges, a task that appears beyond this divisive and insular government. In fact at the moment, the Jonathan government has approached the insurgency and other threats to national security with all the desultoriness it can manage, with all the guesswork at its disposal, and with such abject half-heartedness that nearly everyone is left with the impression the government is profiting from the misery of the people.

  • Obama in retreat, legacy threatened

    Obama in retreat, legacy threatened

    When he assumed office in 2009, Barack Obama carried along with him into the American presidency a reputation for oratory anchored on substance and logic, and a freshness to explore alternative ways of doing things. He proved that his well-received keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention was not a fluke. Soon, too, he was marshalling efforts and innovations to tackle the recession that began before his assumption of office and which was sapping the sinews of American resolve and gnawing at the hearts of many American families. To crown his eventful first term in office, he ordered the operation that led to the killing of America’s number one enemy, Osama bin Laden, leader of the Al-Qaeda terrorist network.

    But nearly midway into his second term, when his reputation as a great leader should be made, when his legacies should be in construction, he has begun to appear a distracted man and a weakened president. He now seems vulnerably like a man in retreat, a retreat that seems also to be pulling his country along the same ignoble path. He boxed himself into a corner over Syria when he threatened to punish Syria if its president authorised the use of chemical weapons. But he balked when that happened, and gave the impression he was unsure who used the weapon, whether rebels or the government. But in reality, he was perhaps wary of taking steps that would lead to regime change, given the rise of extremist forces in that country and in the region. But the failure to punish the Syrian government led to a loss in esteem, first in the eyes of some of America’s allies in the region, such as Saudi Arabia and Turkey, and secondly even in the eyes of America’s age-old rivals, such as Russia.

    Worse, Obama’s hesitations probably transmitted a message of disguised impotence to other countries which began to assert themselves in various foreign policy adventures. And so whether in the Maghreb or in the Crimea, or in the highly troubled Middle East, the image of Obama projected today is one of a dithering president, or at best a distracted one who would order a Libyan intervention and tune off at the end of the campaign, or threaten a major backlash in Syria and then back down almost humiliatingly. No incident best exemplifies this dilemma as US policy towards Iraq.

    Not only did America base its intervention in Iraq on lies, without a thought for the implication of an acute disruption of the country’s power balance, the US followed up by abruptly abandoning the increasingly unmanageable country after many years of failing to pacify it. Leadership incompetence within Iraq itself pushed the country into a tailspin as jihadist elements began a fierce bid for power and territory. But rather than step in immediately to remedy the situation, the US has left intervention till very late. Now, no one can predict to what extent the damage can be reversed.

    If he must save his legacy and redeem his image, Mr Obama must begin to trust the instincts that helped him surmount the economic recession, push the now endangered Obamacare law through Congress, and get Osama bin Laden killed. He often claimed political and metaphysical progeny from Abraham Lincoln. But Lincoln, the intuitive iconoclast, trusted his instincts as much as he basked in self-reliant and luxuriant solitude. Lincoln was seldom wrong, but much more, he was often brilliantly prescient. Mr Obama has the intellectual wherewithal and its accompaniments; but he now needs an enormous amount of self-belief to renew his presidency, forge confidently forward, inspire himself by immersing in great biographies, and, as it were, rewrite world history in the few months left before his presidency becomes lame duck.

  • … As Iraq unravels

    A few weeks ago, in an opinion piece in the Times of London, former British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, tried to exonerate the United States, Britain and their allies from blame in the Iraqi mess. This is pure nonsense. Both America and Britain told atrocious lies to justify the war in Iraq, proceeded foolishly to execute regime change without any consideration for the country’s delicate and convoluted power balance, and have now abandoned the country to political and sectarian strife. The allies should not be allowed to engage in revisionism or escapism. They created the mess; they should sort it out. There was probably enough justification to invade Afghanistan; but there was no reason whatsoever to invade Iraq.

    Now Isis (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) militants are disembowelling Iraq and making the life of ordinary Iraqis a nightmare. The destabilisation has spread to Syria, could affect Kurdistan, and is certain to inspire fringe groups like Boko Haram, Muslim Brotherhood and others, all of whom have been seduced by Jihadist ideology. Things will definitely get worse in so many places, including Nigeria where a Machiavellian President Jonathan is unwisely and unreflectively stoking ethnic and religious passion in his fractious and tentative country.

  • The choice before Osun

    The choice before Osun

    Next Saturday’s governorship election in Osun State is strictly speaking between the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Any other party staking a claim to the state’s Government House is simply making up the number. Should PDP win, the party, and by inference, President Goodluck Jonathan, could create a roaring momentum that would be hard to stop going into the 2015 general elections. Not only would the party make a serious and plausible claim to reclaiming the Southwest for the PDP, as many of the party’s leading political philosophers suggest and desire, even Dr Jonathan, whose life and politics consistently defy gravity and logic, could feel considerably animated about his chances. The president’s life is full of happenstances; indeed, it relies on happenstances; and his politics, strangely energised by its mediocre pauses, now relies almost entirely on brute force, intimidation, harassment and constitutional subversion.

    But should APC win, as its beleaguered apparatchiks earnestly hope, it would check the heresy triggered by the Ekiti governorship poll, buoy up the party in general terms, create a fresh momentum for the opposition towards the 2015 polls, especially the presidential election, and arrest the PDP frenzy in the Southwest. In short, the APC needs Osun much more than the PDP does. Ekiti proved during the June governorship poll that the Southwest is not as ideologically driven as many analysts, including this columnist, hoped. Ideology is therefore unlikely to play a dominant role in shaping Osun’s electoral choices on Saturday. Instead, rather than party preference, Osun will more likely than not vote for personality. But secondarily, I suspect, Osun will also try to distance itself from the unwholesome factors that tarred the Ekiti poll, especially the specious reasons given to justify the revolt against Governor Kayode Fayemi.

    The contest in Osun will be narrowed down to a straight fight between Governor Rauf Aregbesola and Senator Iyiola Omisore. Both, it is obvious, have been tried in one office or the other; the former as governor, and the latter as a senator, former deputy governor, ruthless machinator, and maverick politician. Choosing between the two politicians should not present Osun with a hard task, though both gentlemen have an insatiable knack for courting controversy and for sailing near the wind. Governor Aregbesola is not unbeatable, for after all, I have had reasons to disagree with him vehemently, and still do; but it will require someone acutely cerebral, much calmer, more reflective and more genuine than the challenger. Senator Omisore is none of these, and no matter how hard he tries, can’t be. Indeed, the most poignant part of the challenger’s persona is his absolute lack of reflection, not to talk of his impatience, dangerous and intuitive iconoclasm, which he displayed in his numerous battles with the late Minister of Justice, Bola Ige, and complete vacuity. Like Ekiti’s Governor-elect, Ayo Fayose, who neither believes nor stands for anything substantial, Senator Omisore feigns disingenuous eclecticism by borrowing bits and pieces of disjointed ideas from all sources.

    In politics, it is said that you can’t beat something with nothing. But it happened in Ekiti last June where a hollow nothing beat a full something. The misfortune of Senator Omisore is to live in a state like Osun eager to buck the trend of the so-called PDP reclamation of the Southwest rather than in a vengeful Ekiti full of vendetta. Though he has tried his valiant best to put on the Fayose airs – of spontaneous roadside meals, of wisecracks and rural jocosity, and of a risible attachment to indefinable pragmatism – the fact remains that he is not Mr Fayose, and Osun is not Ekiti.

    Governor Aregbesola, on the other hand, and in spite of his fondness for leftist/Marxist regimentation, has managed to capture popular imagination in Osun. More, he is a workaholic, someone genuinely interested in affecting the course of history, in overthrowing the citadel of privilege, making a name for himself, touching lives, and demystifying governance. His passion sometimes makes him overreach himself, but he at least shows courage in tackling societal problems even at the risk of alienating sections of his society. I doubt whether Osun will punish him for this. Even after the election, the fight for societal redefinition will continue, and I think by and by, he will have to face reality and reach an accommodation with his critics.

    But perhaps the main reason I expect him to win is because Osun, more than Ekiti, recognises that the battle for the soul of the Southwest is raging fiercely. They recognise that if the tide is to be turned, Osun will have to set the pace, similar to what they did during the 2011 presidential poll. They recognise instinctively the consequence of the return of Mr Fayose. They know it is a harbinger of bad news for the zone, a return to vagrant politics, mediocrity, and social and cultural anomie. They know a vote for Omisore, especially with the unresolved Chief Ige murder for which he was at a time detained and even interdicted, will open the door for the return of Adebayo Alao-Akala and other underachieving politicians without programmes and without reputation. They know Senator Omisore and Mr Fayose will get the Southwest sucked once again into the vortex of another silly season.

    To prove that Ekiti made a grave error of judgement, Osun will likely and very sensibly re-elect Governor Aregbesola. It will not be a wholesale endorsement of all his policies in his first term. But it will be their way of repudiating Senator Omisore who is so unfit for high office it is inconceivable he is at all fit for anything. It will also be their way of showing the federal government that the unconstitutional madness of militarising polls does not intimidate them, let alone yield anything productive for the Jonathan presidency. Finally, it will be their way of showing they recognise that the disinformation and misinformation that perverted the Ekiti poll will not be accommodated in Osun. I endorse Governor Aregbesola without reservation. I would rather reason and disagree with an Aregbesola who can feel the weight of criticism, notwithstanding his sometimes inflexible approach, than a pliant and dissembling Omisore whose lack of character and distorted worldview make him inured to criticism and change.

  • Nasarawa lawmakers plan legislative coup

    Nasarawa lawmakers plan legislative coup

    Lawmakers of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the Nasarawa State House of Assembly are determined to procure the impeachment of Governor Tanko Al-Makura, even if it offends fair play, rule of law and constitutional provisions. They do not see the impeachment drive they are championing as a constitutional issue; they see it as a political matter, and do not appear to care what the end of it would be. Dissatisfied with playing the Scarlet Pimpernel in the past few weeks over their subterranean moves to impeach Governor Al-Makura, and still breathing imprecates against the governor and thirsting for more blood, they have resolved to oppose the seven-man investigative panel constituted by the state Chief Judge, Suleiman Dikko, to look into the impeachment allegations against the governor. They argue that the panel is made up of the governor’s loyalists. In other words, they do not trust the judgement and impartiality of the panel, but would prefer a panel certain to hang the governor.

    Last month, Adamawa State lawmakers had inspired a similar treason plot against the implacable Murtala Nyako, perhaps the only governor in the North to look President Goodluck Jonathan in the face and call him unflattering names. Having also offended the political juggernauts of the state, virtually all of whom loathe the finer principles of democracy – or perhaps can’t understand the concept – the former naval officer was already isolated and ready to be offered when the knives came out for him. The Adamawa legislature, however, did not simply plot an impeachment to right the wrongs attributed to the deposed governor, they engaged in the most atrocious machination ever conducted in any House of Assembly in Nigeria.

    Not only could they not agree on whom to impeach between the former governor and his deputy, Bala Ngilari, they were consumed by their common disregard for procedure and constitutionality. Former Deputy Governor Ngilari, they realised, did no wrong, at least nothing properly describable as impeachable offences. But they needed to get rid of him in order to bring about the crooked outcome they had designed. Eventually they tricked him into resigning on the excuse that it would be easier to enthrone him after their common foe, Admiral Nyako, was humiliated. But, as it turned out, the goal of the legislators was to enthrone the highly ambitious Umaru Fintiri, former Speaker of the House of Assembly. In essence, what took place in Adamawa last month was not an impeachment but a legislative coup.

    Nasarawa’s legislative coup is a little different. While it is not yet clear what their final objective is, that is apart from unhorsing the governor to seize the state from the electorate through the backdoor, the state’s 20 PDP lawmakers are, however, bent on deposing Governor Al-Makura by the most brazen legislative abracadabra ever. Since the constitution does not allow them the leeway they seek, they have sought to abridge, circumvent and humiliate it. This is why they want a panel that would do their private and unconstitutional bidding. This is why they are asking Justice Suleiman to disband the panel he had constituted and replace it with one amenable to their whims. It is not certain just what mettle Justice Suleiman is made of, whether he has the character to resist the legislative insurrection going on in Nasarawa, or whether he would succumb as supinely as the Acting Chief Judge of Adamawa did under the pressure of Dr Jonathan’s increasingly partisan Nigerian Army.

    What is clear, however, is that so far while the Nasarawa legislature has behaved lawlessly and irresponsibly, the state Chief Judge has confined himself to the ambit of the law. Tomorrow may bring new realities. But there is no reality that can erase the conviction that Nigeria has come under gunboat democracy, one in which the constitution is disregarded, and the president, his aides and party strategists are embroiled in the most pernicious subversion of both the constitution and democracy. We are blithely sowing the wind today; it is certain we will reap the whirlwind before long, for nature itself abhors the capricious and despicable politics being played by the president and his men.