The Nation Newspaper

Category: Idowu Akinlotan

  • National Conference’s many controversies

    National Conference’s many controversies

    When this column tackled the proposed national conference idea on September 22, it was then just a rumour fuelled by the unexpected conversion of both President Goodluck Jonathan and Senate President David Mark to the idea of a dialogue between Nigeria’s interest groups. Since neither of the two leading politicians offered any corroborative explanation for their conversion to an idea they had long sneered at, suspicion was rife that both gentlemen, and perhaps their party, were up to some designs. The president’s first strong indication he had embraced the national conference idea was when he received The Patriots pressure group on August 29. Responding to his visitors, he had suggested he was reaching out to the National Assembly to persuade them of the need to convoke a conference. It was a little shocking to everyone, for the president was until then vehemently opposed to the idea.

    But nothing quite prepared the country for Senator Mark’s spectacular volte face. Three weeks or so before the September 17 resumption of the Senate from break, he had in August during the Nigeria Bar Association (NBA) conference in Calabar harshly denounced those calling for a conference. When, like the president, he became a convert, perhaps because the presidency reached out to him, he offered nothing by way of scientific explanation to justify his turnabout. It was, therefore, based on the suddenness of the conversion of the two leading politicians that this column warned three weeks ago that Nigerians needed to be wary of their subterfuges.

    However, since that warning, a lot has happened, the most remarkable of which was that a president who only last month merely flirted with the idea of a national conference suddenly told the nation on October 1 that a national dialogue would be held. Nothing was stranger than the fact that the announcement almost immediately generated a nasty controversy between what can be loosely described as supporters of the conference and its opponents. It must be clarified that opponents merely take exception to the timing, not the idea itself. On one side are those who appeared contented with the mere mention of a national conference, an idea they had championed for decades. It required little push to make them jump heedlessly on the bandwagon. And on the other side are sceptics who by years of experience, and possessing a knack for political subtleties, have suggested that the country should not give Dr Jonathan the benefit of the doubt until he offers convincing proof that his conversion is genuine.

    With the inauguration of the advisory committee, with the president’s seductive and soothing platitudes on the virtues of dialoguing, and with the ingratiating manner some members of the committee became proponents of the idea, the controversy is bound to become accentuated in the coming weeks, even as the dividing lines harden. The reason is not far to seek. Though the plain outlines of the president’s schemes are not yet apparent, with some suggesting he plans to use the conference both as a pernicious distraction and as a ploy to buy time, he was at least cunning enough, if not outrightly cynical, to saddle the responsibility of designing the conference’s framework on not only a Yoruba politician, but one who had whooped for the idea with theological zeal for years.

    Fortunately for everyone, the dividing lines cut across political affiliations. Though the All Progressives Congress (APC) has not officially responded to the conference idea, a national leader of the party, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, has daringly and unequivocally poured scorn on the decision to convoke a conference at this time. According to him, he sees nothing but subterfuge in the decision to hold a conference now, given its nearness to the next general election. In offering his radical and provocative view on the conference, Asiwaju Tinubu is not deterred by the fact the Southwest has for decades been at the forefront of championing the convocation of a national conference or that he could become the butt of fierce criticisms. More, he is even surprised that Nigerians could be so easily lured to support a project of indeterminate dimensions, one he described as a Greek gift.

    Predictably, he has been excoriated by proponents of the conference, many of them his bitter Southwest opponents, whom he knew would descend on him if he championed such incendiary views on the conference. For a politician of his stature, and given the nearness of the next general elections, not to talk of the huge ambition being nurtured by the APC to win the centre, it requires enormous amount of courage and risk-taking to contradict the majority and walk alone. Some leaders of the APC have, however, since embraced his scepticism, even if he still appears the most brazen of the conference’s opponents. The rump Afenifere, a Yoruba socio-political and cultural organisation, has impatiently dismissed any opposition to the conference in its condescending manner, and has fulsomely lent weight to it. Last week, the Awolowo Foundation also eagerly lent weight to the conference, suggesting it is both the right thing to do and also timely. Indeed, it is not even clear that many who support Asiwaju Tinubu are not doing so simply out of respect for him.

    As the advisory committee continues to sit, the scepticism, I am persuaded, is bound to grow, for many will begin to see the dangers and impracticality of holding such a momentous event close to an election year. Already, many commentators are beginning to wonder whether there is not in fact an agenda behind the sudden volte face of the president and the National Assembly leadership. For instance, during the inauguration of the conference advisory committee, the president himself cheerfully argued that the conference would reinforce the unity of the country. Is that a predetermined goal? Could the conference, which the president and the committee said would not have no-go areas, not call into question the unity of the country?

    More importantly, the opposition to the conference is hinged on two planks: the president’s suspicious motive, and his poor timing. Given Dr Jonathan’s fanatical desire to win a second term, and the mercenary zeal with which some of his aides are conjuring circumstances and ideas to favour that second run for office, it would be reckless to think the president is altruistic in championing the conference. And for a president who has waffled over what to call the conference, whether dialogue or conference, national or sovereign, or of ethnic nationalities or of class and social representatives it would be overly optimistic to suggest he is himself persuaded about what he plans to achieve with the exercise, or whether he would be willing to accommodate a radical restructuring of the country.

    On timing, only the most sanguine will suggest that a conference, which may not be held rancour-free, will lead facilely to a peaceful grafting of its decisions into the constitution before the next polls. There is no precedent, either pre- or post-independence, to demonstrate this grafting or implementation can be done surgically neat and easy. It is unlikely that the president does not know the dangers inherent in the process he is casually triggering. The suspicion is that he hopes to capitalise on the rumpus that may eventually accompany the exercise, with some suggesting that if it proves extremely difficult for him to fight for and win a second term, his plan may even be to extend his tenure as a fall-back option. At the least, it is also argued, he could use the conference to keep his opponents busy and distract them from his irresolute handling of the economic, social and security problems besetting the country.

    Dr Jonathan has a fondness for delegating the complex issues of governance to others, particularly committees, until the issues fall into abeyance. There is no proof he is not doing the same even now. If his speech during the inauguration of the conference advisory committee is anything to go by, as well as his October 1 Independence Day address, there is sadly nothing in them to suggest the president and his aides, and other experts drawn inexorably to his bureaucratic shenanigans, have had the time and intellectual resources to examine the steps he is taking on the conference. My suspicion is that very little time was spent on the idea, which in the first instance came either to him or to one of his aides impulsively. It seemed good, and it seemed it would lead to some desired outcomes, and so Dr Jonathan embraced it. There was probably no serious brainwork involved, no privately commissioned expert panels within the presidency, and no attempt to study what the pitfalls of a conference at this time could be, other than perhaps a historical basis for organising such a conference.

    If the presidency had reflected long and deep on the matter before going public with it, officials within the presidency and the National Assembly would have doubtless seen that courageous and deliberate legislative action to tackle the country’s structural imbalances would have made a national conference superfluous. And if in the hypothetical final analysis the conference report terminates at the National Assembly, the public will wonder why it was necessary in the first instance for ethnic nationalities to do the job of the legislature. There are many battles ahead. But until he encounters serious bottlenecks, the president will go ahead with the conference, for he will feel diminished to look back after putting his hand on the plough. Yet, it is hard to see how the exercise will not miscarry, for too many things are stacked against its success, not the least among which are poor timing, suspect motive woven into political ambition, lack of concise vision, and a disconcerting unwillingness to take strong and timeous steps to remedy the country’s diverse problems.

    The Southwest is the most enthusiastic supporter of the conference, and have been intemperate and credulous, in spite of all their learning and supposed democratic credentials, in dismissing opponents of the conference. But I am afraid they are being duped, as they have always been since the Second Republic when they reposed hope in a military overthrow of the Shagari government, and acquiesced to the imposition of Chief Obasanjo in 1999 as sop and conciliation to the Yoruba. Indeed, had fate not intervened, they would have had Mulikat Akande-Adeola as Speaker of the House of Representatives, thus completing the circle of servility and credulity begun when Chief Obasanjo, still energised by his fresh exit from government, foisted Patricia Etteh on the lower legislative chamber to the consternation of every judicious Nigerian.

  • Southwest governors’ unfinished agenda

    Southwest governors’ unfinished agenda

    In spite of the massive and commendable efforts by the progressive governors of the Southwest political zone to reclaim and redo their region in line with the civilising vision of their iconic past, they have proved strangely deficient in focusing on a few key issues necessary to safeguard their legacies and forge a great society out of the perverted crucible bequeathed to them by their wanton predecessors. The governors, working on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC), must now gradually begin to complement their fixation with infrastructural development with an equal or greater than normal fixation with creating a new social ethos. If the work of the governors is to endure, if their legacies should not be claimed by others or bastardised, they must be undergirded by a fundamental set of values by which the region is to be known and differentiated.

    I absolutely do not get the impression, by their works, utterances and dispositions, that the progressive governors of the region are quite able to draw the line between the development or recreation of the region’s broken infrastructure and the values necessary for the regeneration and refinement of the region’s essence. Somehow – I do not know how – Obafemi Awolowo had an instinctive feel for the ingredients necessary for the embodiment of the Western Region essence. Perhaps because he had a metaphysical grasp of the interrelationship between man and matter, he knew as a social alchemist how to balance economic development with human development. He knew, indeed, how to build the man and imbue him with definable and noble essence while anchoring those efforts on the foundations of physical and economic development.

    The Southwest governors have done substantial work, far more than necessary to win the next elections, in rebuilding the region’s infrastructure destroyed by decades of military rule and incompetent elected governments. Now, they will need to dig deep and show a greater appreciation of the interconnectedness between man and material things, and just how the two, in measured proportions, produce a great society. For in the end, it is not just schools, roads and hospitals that conduce to a great society, as indispensable as they may seem.

    I single out the progressive governors of the Southwest for mention in this piece because they seem to have at least a vague understanding of why it is important to build a great society. And they also seem eager to tackle one of the constituent blocks of building a great society – the troublous matter of infrastructure. But they seem baffled that in spite of their best efforts, not only are they still being heavily criticised, their states have neither changed fundamentally when put side by side other states nor have attitudes been reengineered in such a way as to create the desirable outcomes they are familiar with in foreign sojourns. They may make definite and perceptible efforts to rebuild their states’ infrastructure, but they unhappily discover for instance that in spite of their better efforts they still play politics the same enervating way other unaccomplished or even failing states in the country do. This failure is a reflection of the things they have either de-emphasised or are not doing at all.

    The progressive governors may not have noticed, but it is becoming increasingly clear, in the face of almost universal breakdown of law and order in the country, that the Southwest seems to be the last oasis of order and stability. While other regions have virtually broken down under the weight of religious cum ethnic and social revolts, with some even manifesting extreme and dehumanising forms of trade in human beings (or kidnapping), the Southwest has managed to maintain a semblance – only a semblance – of peace and civilisation. It is time the region’s governors began to take steps that are consistent with the desired fundamental changes in values in order to consciously build a society immune to the madness around them. Already, their insulator is being gradually eroded, as religious acrimony is creeping into social and political discourses in some of the states. Rather than seek to appease sectarian activists, the states must find ways to firmly and publicly distance government from religion. Appeasement of any kind will be counterproductive.

    While the Southwest has produced an integration agenda, an action that has inspired at least one other region, it has been unable to pursue its implementation with the same enthusiasm that informed the agenda’s formulation. This shortcoming is unlikely to be due to rivalry between the governors, for state boundaries are clearly delineated, and boundary disputes in the region are few and far between. I suspect, as I said earlier, that the governors themselves are not clear about what should be done to create a great society, or how and why a great society transcends roads, schools and hospitals. They do not seem to understand why they must enunciate different paradigms for democracy, for electoral contest, for the justice system, for taxation, for law enforcement, etc. In fact they need to appreciate why there should be some form of uniformity in these areas, in order to build or restore the civilisation that has stood them out for more than a century.

    It must be acknowledged that the Southwest will find it difficult to stand aloof from the morass around them, especially given the massive decline in competence and standards at the federal level and the erosion of values in high places. It is doubly difficult for the region, or any state for that matter, to be differentiated when the federal government itself, particularly through its electoral, security and law enforcement agencies, stands as a dangerous, if not insane, counterpoise to orderly and peaceful governance. But except the region makes conscious effort in creating a new social ethos, notwithstanding the countervailing forces around it, it will find itself drawn deeper and ineluctably into the vortex of mediocrity, confusion, examination malpractices, chaos and decay that have undermined the country in general.

  • Mark denounces national conference at NBA meeting in Calabar

    The amendment process to the constitution is a continuing one and the current exercise is contemplating an amendment to the constitution that will provide modalities for the making of a new constitution.

    “The 1999 Constitution (as amended) made provisions for its alteration. It did not make provisions for any new constitution. It is in answer to the clamour for a new constitution by vocal sections of the polity that an amendment to make provisions for how a new constitution can come about is being contemplated. In making these calls, suggestions for the process of making a new constitution have been made. These range from a constitutional conference to a ‘sovereign’ national conference.

    “The National Assembly recognises the right of Nigerians to aggregate, assemble or meet in any legitimate form or manner to discuss the affairs of their country and indeed encourages such fora as it is a constitutional right. A mark of such encouragement is the elaborate public hearings that have become part of our constitutional amendment process. We however have difficulties with the calls by certain sections of the polity for a “sovereign’’ national conference.

    “The 1999 Constitution (as amended) with all its imperfections, including its debatable origin, remains our grundnorm, our supreme law from which all other laws derive and expresses our sovereignty. It creates all the powers, institutions and authorities of the State to which we have all submitted. We have challenged its provisions in Courts of law established by it and obeyed the decisions of these courts. We have therefore ratified the constitution by our conduct. The 1999 constitution (as amended) is a reality. Consequently, where will the ‘sovereign national conference’ be deriving its sovereignty from, and under what framework? How will the conference be convoked and by whom and under what terms? I have been confronted by the argument that sovereignty derives from and belongs to the people. This is certainly beyond argument. How then do we get the people to confer sovereignty on such a conference? There are intractable issues to be addressed by the agitations for the ‘sovereign national conference’ and that is why I subscribe to the proposal for an amendment to the 1999 Constitution to provide for the making of a new Constitution.”

  • …Gives disingenuous support

    Let me counsel that we make haste slowly, and operate strictly within the parameters of our Constitution as we discuss the national question. We live in very precarious times, and in a world increasingly made fluid and toxic by strange ideologies and violent tendencies, all of which presently conspire to question the very idea of the nation state. But that is not to say that the nation should, like the proverbial ostrich, continue to bury its head in the sand and refuse to confront the perceived or alleged structural distortions which have bred discontentment and alienation in some quarters. This sense of discontentment and alienation has fueled extremism, apathy and even predictions of catastrophy for our dear nation.

    “A conference of Nigeria’s ethnic nationalities, called to foster frank and open discussions of the national question, can certainly find accommodation in the extant provisions of the 1999 Constitution which guarantee freedom of expression, and of association. To that extent, it is welcome. Nonetheless, the idea of a National Conference is not without inherent and fundamental difficulties. Problems of its structure and composition will stretch the letters and spirit of the Constitution and severely task the ingenuity of our constitutionalists. Be that as it may, such a conference, if and whenever convened should have only few red lines, chief among which would be the dismemberment of the country. Beyond that, every other question should be open to deliberations.

    “However, I hasten to add that it would be unconstitutional to clothe such a conference with constituent or sovereign powers! But the resolutions of a national conference, consisting of Nigeria’s ethnic nationalities, and called under the auspices of the Government of the Federation, will indeed carry tremendous weight. And the National Assembly, consisting of the elected representatives of the Nigerian people, though not constitutionally bound by such resolutions, will be hard put to ignore them in the continuing task of constitution review. But to circumvent the Constitution, and its provisions on how to amend it, and repose sovereignty in an unpredictable mass will be too risky a gamble and may ultimately do great disservice to the idea of one Nigeria.”

     

  • It turns out CP Mbu is actually governor of Rivers

    Since the officious Rivers State police commissioner, Mbu Joseph Mbu, began to lend himself for political uses, neither he nor victims of his insubordination have slept peacefully. His career seems fated to crumble like that of Assistant Inspector General of Police (AIG) Raphael Ige, who in 2003 led the abduction of Chris Ngige, then governor of Anambra State, but what does he care? He is inured to history and its harsh lessons. He boasts a high level of education from reputable schools, but in all his doings in Rivers State, he has shown nothing of the learning and character required of an educated officer and gentleman.

    But Mr Mbu, we all appreciate, could never on his own summon the courage or the recklessness to undermine the person or office of the governor of the state as he did last Thursday when he blocked the access of the governor and his august visitors to the State House. And like many of his colleagues, there is no incentive in the police conditions of service, nor flexibility in their training, to equip them with the character required to resist unlawful orders or to call their souls their own. Except I err gravely, I do not also think the urbane Inspector General of Police (IGP), Mohammed Abubakar, would give Mr Mbu orders to disrespect the Rivers State governor. If anything, I suspect that if it came to the crunch, the two, or any other police officer in their shoes, would simply and safely second-guess the presidency.

    But whether they were ordered to disrespect and subvert the elected governor of Rivers or not, or they second-guessed the presidency with intent to curry favour or secure promotion or not, the important thing is that Mr Mbu has acted and presented himself as the real, not even alternate, governor of Rivers State. He proves increasingly that he has more real power than the governor, and could even ruffle the feathers of the governor, if not singe them altogether, if provoked. That we elected the defiant Governor Amaechi, not the snivelling and grovelling Mr Mbu, is, to the police officer, a small theoretical inconvenience. Given the way he speaks whenever he crosses path and arms with the governor, it is obvious that Mr Mbu has assured himself that what obtains in the state, and in which he is not disadvantaged at all, is what historians describe as contrapuntal paramountcy. Cheeky analysts may even describe the balance of terror in Rivers State as a sort of dual mandate, where Mr Mbu draws his insidious and destabilising power from Abuja, and Mr Amaechi draws his legitimate power from the long-suffering and sometimes confused electorate. To our collective dismay, we know that the real power resides in Abuja, not in some vague and indefinable electorate.

    Someday, however, we will have a bright patriot as president. He will know what to do, and he will do them well. That day, alas, is not here yet.

  • Jonathan goes for broke

    Jonathan goes for broke

    Last Wednesday, President Goodluck Jonathan suddenly and unexpectedly axed nine of his ministers, all of whom, it appeared, were appointed through those now ranged against him in political battle. It is instructive that when the president was finally persuaded to substantially reshuffle his cabinet, he did so in defence of private political objectives and in ways that baffled presidency watchers. We do not know whether Dr Jonathan appreciates the irony that dogs his presidency; but to many of us it is clear that whenever he projects power it is mainly to advance ignoble causes. Indeed, I add that anytime the president yields to his often overpowering inclination to do wrong, it is in spite of the loftiness of the cause before him and to the detriment of his imposing and outsized office. It was with characteristic surliness, for instance, that he deployed the military to crush the January 2012 nationwide fuel revolt when all he needed to do was placate the electorate and gain political capital as he grudgingly reduced the price of a litre of fuel from N145 to N97. In last week’s cabinet reshuffle, Dr Jonathan adds imprecision to surliness.

    Perhaps tired of being punched and wrong-footed by his enemies, Dr Jonathan finally felt compelled to respond in a way that has left his aides struggling to rationalise what is obviously a baffling political move. Except newspaper reports quote presidency sources wrongly, it is known that the president and his aides are still negotiating with the Group of Seven governors and others sponsoring or inspiring them into intra-party revolt. But by moving against the G-7 nominees in his cabinet, it is not clear which the president values more: to root out those he suspects are disloyal to him; or to reconcile with the G-7 and restore peace and order in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). His priorities, however, seem already self-evident. It is obvious he intends to continue indulging his counterproductive pugnacity, a contentiousness that has been given fillip by the gerontocrats surrounding, captivating and seducing him to war. The president has enormous powers, they say, and it is both presidential and fitting to use them in such a manner that no one will be left with the mistaken belief that Dr Jonathan does not understand the nuances of power.

    Dr Jonathan does not interpret the grievances of the G-7 governors as proceeding from their exasperation with the leadership style of the PDP chairman, Bamanga Tukur. Nor does he think those grievances, even if they were substantial or potent enough, were genuine. Indeed, with the presence of the intrepid Governor Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State in the ranks of the so-called rebels, the president is sufficiently persuaded to believe that rebellion, rather than grievances, was the bane of the party. The president also gives the impression, without saying so, that the rebellion is driven by a combination of irreverence (some call it rudeness), opposition machinations and deliberate contempt for his person and ability, all of which are summed up in the unflattering and insulting opinion that he is unfit to rule. But rebellion, as he and his aides also secretly hold and whisper in pianissimo tones, should be crushed rather than mollified.

    When political battles are cast in military terms and symbols, such as Dr Jonathan and his brash aides have done, it portends danger for both the state and the combatants. For even harmless feints, which former President Olusegun Obasanjo is besotted to in his uncalculating and continuing obsession for relevance, can easily become a gritty test of wills from which it is impossible to climb down. Dr Jonathan has faced many tests since he assumed power some four years ago, but none of those tests has produced in him the maturity, reflection, astuteness and perspicuity great leaders acquire after passing through trials. On the contrary, every notable test he has faced and every dubious victory he has achieved has made Dr Jonathan more intransigent, less contemplative and given to romanticising brute power. Having thus allowed himself to be persuaded that he faced war against the rebel governors, and after having cast himself obliquely as a war leader who needed to take decisive and powerful steps to rein in dissent, Dr Jonathan has decided to go for broke.

    While it is incontestable that the many haphazard and unthinking policies of Alhaji Tukur spurred rebellion in the party, and while the president was more careless in overseeing the affairs of the party than he has deliberately courted trouble and disaffection, it is fair to say that his current temper is a reaction to the impertinent goading of the G-7 governors. By coming out with an alternative power structure on the day the PDP held its special convention in Abuja, and doing so with such secrecy as ridiculed, if not humiliated, the presidency and its coercive agencies, few failed to notice that the G-7 governors had also gone for broke. Given the stiffness of their conditions for peace in the party, it seems inconceivable that the rebellious governors left room for any peaceful settlement now or in the future.

    There is little doubt that the aggrieved G-7 governors drew first blood, and the president had to respond whether he liked it or not. What is in dispute, however, is whether in the circumstances the president has reacted with the decorum becoming his office and the restraint and circumspection he has claimed for himself for so long. By any standard, sacking nine ministers in one fell swoop is not only excessive and inexcusable, it is indicative of the president’s poor judgement in cabinet selection. It is also doubtful whether Dr Jonathan can convince himself, let alone the country, that the ministers he sacked were either incompetent or underperforming, or whether they were the only guilty ones. More crucially, even if he wishes to assemble a war cabinet for Poll 2015, as some now speculate, it is hard to see from where he would recruit those field officers who can deliver the easy victory he covets and who would not succumb to the rabidness and thoughtlessness of his man Fridays. Yet, it is well known in Abuja that it is his leadership style, not to say his lack of visionary depth, that predisposes his presidency to repeated mishaps, humiliation and crushing defeats.

    Any rebellion, such as the one triggered by the G-7 governors, is not strange in politics. In fact many established democracies, which run the parliamentary system, have witnessed the kind of political rebellion that is making Dr Jonathan froth at the mouth with rage. There will, therefore, always be rebellion, and presidents and political leaders must have the common sense and moderation to tackle it when it arises. Sadly, Dr Jonathan has approached the rebellion in his party with unseemly and demeaning comportment. Because he and his predecessors unwisely personified party leadership and have accreted enormous party powers to the presidency, it has been difficult for him and his predecessors to confine party disagreements to party boundaries. Instead, they have formed the bad habit of transferring disagreements to the presidency and foisting a needless crisis on the country, thereby threatening not only good governance, or indeed governance of any sort, but also peace and stability.

    Encouraged by sycophants, jobholders and some insensitive South-South political leaders and herdsmen of jaundiced votes, Dr Jonathan has embraced a fanatical and unyielding style of crisis management. We always knew he was not a democrat, nor, like Chief Obasanjo, can ever be, but his ham-fisted manner of conflict resolution and his monarchical approach to general politics have so polluted and prejudiced the atmosphere that for the first time, this column has started to fear that the foundation of Nigeria is threatened. The threat, it must be reiterated, is not because there is crisis at all, but because the men in power lack the reasoned agility to respond in ways that will reassure everyone that those in power are rational, patriotic and civilised people. One of the variables in the crisis is the 2015 presidential poll. Dr Jonathan, of course, has the right to contest in 2015, and that right can be advanced and defended intelligently; but his opponents also have the right to discourage him as much as they can without being subjected to unconstitutional, not to say autocratic, measures.

    I suspect that no one but fate itself can restrain Dr Jonathan. He will fight everywhere and every person, and he will spare nothing, not even the constitution, in waging his self-inflicted war. Democracy and its spinoffs are dispensable to him, for after all, he has never shown he understands what they mean. He has a vague notion of the greatness of the country he presides over, but that notion does not include its peace, stability, growth or superiority over other African nations. He knows a thing or two about what the presidency stands for, but his perception is coloured by the traditional African system of hero-worship, superstition and idolatry. This was why, for instance, he and his men took umbrage when his opponents described his style as kindergarten. So, let us brace ourselves for the worst or be prepared valiantly to reclaim our democracy, or what is left of it, from the hands of charlatans. Dr Jonathan, it is clear, is incensed by the seemingly harmless effort to limit him to a one-term president. He will do everything to destroy his opponents, and if need be, the country, not only because he has taken the fight personally, but also strangely because, for a 20th century man, he views politics and leadership from an antediluvian prism.

  • Arming ‘Civilian JTF’? Nothing can be sillier

    If not checked on time, the silly campaign to arm the ragtag militia formed by young, unarmed civilians in the Northeast to fight the Boko Haram Islamic sect could reach a crescendo and even persuade this sometimes brash government to accede to the request. Already, the Civilian JTF receives military escorts to conduct operations against members of the sect. It has achieved some notable successes, and there is hope in government and military circles that it could do much more if encouraged. For very sound reasons, I have never supported militias anywhere. I am unlikely to do so even now.

    It is bad enough that the Civilian JTF is receiving military help to conduct police operations, itself an admission of frustration by the military and a late concession to what many of us had argued was unproven allegations of large-scale support by the Northeast people for the violent sect. But to now suggest, as Mike Okiro, former Inspector General of Police and current Chairman of the Police Service Commission, does that the vigilantes be armed and kitted and placed under local police commanders is both derisory and irresponsible.

    The presence of the vigilantes is a reflection of the failure or inadequacy of the country’s security system. Mr Okiro opposes state police, but his call for the arming of the vigilantes and their placement under local police commanders is nothing but a call for the decentralisation of the police. Moreover, with all the training and discipline soldiers and policemen have received, they have sometimes worryingly displayed unmitigated cruelty and carried out extra-judicial killings. How would the country fare under armed and recognised vigilantes? In light of the activities of Niger Delta militants, openly repentant or surreptitiously active, and the Rwandan and Bosnian wars, could the Northeast vigilantes ever be successfully demobilised after the insurrection had ended?

    The Northeast Civilian JTF has no doubt proven their patriotism, even displaying unusual and remarkable courage under fire, and from ongoing military investigations, might have been betrayed once or twice. I applaud their courage; but I oppose the involvement of militias of any kind in security operations. Their involvement may thrill security men now, but it is a short-sighted thrill. It will boomerang in the long run. Surely we are not so bereft of deep thinking and of carefully working our way through crisis as to become enamoured of quick fixes and dangerously flawed solutions.

    What the Northeast revolt tells us is not just how inadequate our economic management is, but how anachronistic our security system has become. The revolt invites us to embark on urgent radical and comprehensive restructuring of the country; but we prefer to tinker. As the country’s leaders continue to dither, let us hope the day will not come when circumstances and other unforeseen dynamics would take the initiative from us and imperil our existence.

  • PDP crisis: No room for neutrality

    PDP crisis: No room for neutrality

    The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has not yet imploded; but it could do so in the coming months if the cracks in the party are further widened by insensitivity and mismanagement. As a few of its leading lights have warned, the crisis in the party could lead to its disintegration. It is not yet known whether those alleged by President Goodluck Jonathan camp to be behind the crisis anticipate the severity of the cracks and the turbulent course it is taking; what is, however, evident at the moment is that the disquiet felt by party leaders when the drama began is gradually yielding to panic as the disagreement worsens and spreads further afield than they initially foresaw. The president is thoroughly miffed by the crisis and is getting increasingly desperate; chairman of the party, Bamanga Tukur, who had long acted as a medieval tyrant, but is now talking like a modern autocrat, has become even more censorious; and other party elders have either seemed to snicker behind closed doors or chafe hypocritically to convey impression of concern.

    It is hard to determine right now whether the PDP will survive this turbulence, the worst since its formation, or since the party and its leadership were hijacked by the former president, Olusegun Obasanjo, and his scheming and fawning aides. What is apparent, however, is that even if it survives, the party is unlikely to retain the ferocious determination that has seen it talk and act recklessly against the constitution and public interest. A few of its leaders suggest the party will emerge from the present crisis stronger and more united. But already, its confidence has been shaken, and party bosses, like autocrats everywhere, have spoken temptingly of using the security forces against the breakaway factional leaders whom they describe as traitors and common felons. Given the points on which the two camps disagree, and the violent rhetoric deployed by them in digging in their heels, a rapprochement would almost certainly involve a loss of face on either side, if not political suicide.

    The war in the PDP may still be at its infancy, and may not yet manifest definite frontlines, but the demands of the two camps are at least candidly self-centred enough to enable a fair assessment of what the problem is and where the crisis seems headed. The breakaway faction led by former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar and Kawu Baraje demands the ousting of the party chairman, Alhaji Tukur, the resolution of the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF) in favour of the Governor Rotimi Amaechi faction, cessation of EFCC harassment, and the exclusion of Dr Jonathan from the 2015 presidential race. The Jonathan/Tukur faction disdainfully declines to negotiate Dr Jonathan’s right to contest in 2015, and more peremptorily demands the dissolution of the Atiku/Baraje faction and subjection of the faction to PDP rules and conflict resolution mechanisms.

    On the surface, it would seem these mutually antagonistic positions are the bane of the current PDP crisis, or civil war, as some have colourfully put it. After many interventions by top party officials and former presidents, and perhaps some cynically disinterested discussions between the warring camps, the stalemate has remained unbroken. No one had the right to insist Dr Jonathan could not exercise his constitutional right to run for the presidency in 2015, the president’s aides and supporters said forcefully. The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) could not be prevailed upon not to perform its lawful functions, others said in response to the demands of the Atiku/Baraje camp. Alhaji Tukur could not be sacked without recourse to due party process, his camp said triumphantly. As hardline as these positions are, they are, in my view, neither the cause nor the trigger of the current PDP crisis, nor yet the reasons for the trenchancy of the disagreements and the irreconcilability of the two positions. They are merely symptoms of a deeper, underlying morass that has eroded the foundation of the party and corroded the fabric that previously knit its members together.

    The party has not only split temporarily, and its top leaders shown little interest in reconciliation, it is also reported, subject to final corroboration, that seven governors, about 20 senators and 57 members of the Lower House have also indicated they were breaking ranks with the Jonathan/Tukur camp. This may be unsettling and irritating to the Jonathan rerun agenda. But even if reconciliation were to be secured in the coming weeks in spite of the undeniable acerbity of the two camps, it would still not solve the structural and leadership anomalies eating up the party and making it dysfunctional. Sooner or later the party was bound to implode. That that implosion seems to be coming earlier than expected merely underscores the gravity of the contradictions within the party, contradictions that were conceived, enacted and reinforced during the Obasanjo years. Three fundamental reasons account for the severity of the PDP crisis, and may explain why the crisis may be intractable at best or insoluble at worst.

    The first is that once Chief Obasanjo and his aides supplanted the moral minority that formed the core of the party, and vitiated the principles and practices that were designed to ennoble the party and make it formidable, the party began to list dangerously. Some of the party’s early chairmen were not perfect, and in fact a few of them lent themselves to be used to validate Chief Obasanjo’s unprincipled and dishonest grab for absolute power. But they at least exuded a breath of fresh air and embraced the general principles of democracy. Even in the giddy early years of the PDP, it was hard, for instance, to imagine a Solomon Lar or an Audu Ogbeh act like a proponent of electoral chicanery of the first rank similar to the flip-flopping Vincent Ogbulafor or the ingratiating Ahmadu Ali. Within Chief Obasanjo’s two undistinguished terms in office, the party transformed from a gentle and grasping conservative group, gingerly upholding its own moral and ideological principles, to an aggressive, remorseless and fanatical reactionary animated by, and even proud of, electoral fraud and all the base emotions and practices humans are capable of.

    Second is the simple fact that the anomalies and distortions first grafted into the country’s political system by Chief Obasanjo have been underscored, for 16 years, by varying degrees of political and especially electoral malfeasances which his successors perpetrated, from the wearied but now deceased Umaru Yar’Adua, to the distracted but disguisedly ruthless Dr Jonathan. By any stretch of imagination, it is hard to remedy 16 years of unbroken filth and falsehood. Indeed, as fate would have it, since 1999, Nigeria has been gifted three gentlemen who dedicated themselves, or were dedicated by their aides, to adding to the country’s misery. The present PDP crisis is, therefore, a culmination of 16 years of misery in the party, not just a haggle over 2015 presidential poll. I do not exaggerate.

    Third and most important factor exacerbating the PDP crisis is the unqualifiedly misshapen Jonathan government, which seems more adroit in worsening bad things than in bettering good things, whether they are principles, values or honour. Like Chief Obasanjo before him, he has done nothing spectacular about roads worth anyone ascribing the label of a legacy, but of course his argument will always be that he was not the architect of the decay. He has not offered the country a specific vision of what education should be, nor has he bettered what he met. Instead, he has met the decline in education with his idiosyncratic lack of honour, refusing to uphold the agreement his predecessor and himself entered into with the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) in 2009 and 2010. It would ground the country, his Information minister said apocalyptically. Dr Jonathan has done much worse, of course. Not only is he himself uninspired, he has not inspired anyone, and has had little interaction with artists, poets, scientists, social scientists, and other noteworthy intellectuals, local and international.

    It is this unremitting dullness of his government that has instigated revolt against him and the party, especially when patriots recoil in horror as they contemplate another four years of the Jonathan nightmare. Alhaji Tukur, I emphasise, is a mere cipher in the disagreement. I believe that if the Jonathan government had been spectacular in many respects and charismatic in more ways than one, few brave hearts would have had the courage to rise against him: indeed, it would have been suicidal. For then we would have had brilliant and unprecedented use of men and material, the forging of a stirring national identity that transcends tribe, religion and class, and the enactment of great policies driven by far-reaching visions of democracy, federalism, rule of law and public probity. Sadly for Dr Jonathan, any revolt against him now invariably acquires the distinct aura of patriotism, and rebel leaders, whether they fail or succeed, are likely to be canonised in the consciousness of the people. Rather than be chastened by the massiveness of the revolt against both his government and his person, Dr Jonathan and his doting aides appear set to go for broke by wielding state power against his opponents in absolute disregard of the constitution and elementary restraint and common sense.

    But even if he were to overwhelm his opponents and the dissenters within his party, there is nothing he can do— partly because he is not capable of it – to mollify the rage against himself and his government. Worse, because the modest amount of principles and values that made the PDP to cohere in its early days have been denuded by years of incompetent rule, it is unlikely that victory over his enemies will be sufficient to snatch the party from the jaws of confusion and disintegration. I had hoped that for the sake of democracy we were on our way to a two-party system, especially with the formation of the All Progressives Congress (APC). And though I concluded two weeks ago that the PDP was exhausted, I had nonetheless hoped that the muted patriots within its ranks could somehow rise up to retrieve the party from the hands of its charlatans. Now, I fear greatly that my hopes were misplaced, and that perhaps we would need to seek another party to duel with the APC, if the PDP and its leading lights cannot shake off the suicidal instinct to which their incompetence and sycophantic relationships seem to be leading them.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Iwu’s troubled conscience

    Iwu’s troubled conscience

    There is no indication Maurice Iwu, former chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), will read this piece. He says that having learnt from former President Olusegun Obasanjo the resentful and vexatious habit of not reading Nigerian newspapers, he feels disinclined to read what people have said and still say about his management of the 2007 general elections. Given the way he vigorously put it, even if we could find someone to read this piece and freely redact its highlights for his spurned consideration, he would still be unresponsive to a habit that has stood many enlightened people well since newspapers became a staple of modern civilisation. “This is my first public function since I left office as INEC chairman,” he began with a disagreeable hint of self-importance. “I learned one thing from my former boss Olusegun Obasanjo never to read newspapers or watch news…That is the only way to focus on what I am supposed to do.”

    For a professor who is presumably an expert on something, and whose life and works are supposed to be devoted to blowing up the delusions of the ignorant majority, it is curious what lessons, and what examples, his bizarre tastes are inexorably drawn to. To him, newspapers represent a distraction rather than a resource tool. By his admission, since he needs to focus on his tasks, which he paints grandiosely in the nothingness of imprecision, it is strange that as a former public official he does not recognise that one of those tasks is to respond to public assessment of his stewardship. But if he says he loathes reading newspapers, we must allow him the liberty of stewing in the juice of his own ignorance. This, however, will not deter us from judging his time in office or commenting on his remarks whenever he indulges in sophism, as he did last week.

    Indeed, he made a few tendentious remarks last Tuesday in Abuja during the public presentation of Amanze Obi’s book, Delicate Distress. For a professor who wishes to be left alone to focus on his job, it is surprising that he was unable to interpret properly what his main task was in 2007 when he umpired the general elections of that year. Said he: “In 2007, Nigeria didn’t want elections. It wasn’t about giving Nigeria an election. It wasn’t about who won or how ballot boxes were snatched. The challenge I had was to ensure that Nigeria remained one indivisible country. We did that and many people thought it was easy.” I will return to his dubious conclusion that Nigerians didn’t want elections in 2007, a claim he offered absolutely no proof to substantiate. For now, let us instead consider his interpretation of his brief in 2007. There is nothing in the provisions of the electoral act relating to his office or his responsibilities that grants him the exalted task of safeguarding the unity of the country. Instead, he was simply expected to deliver a free and fair poll. It is apparent that that singular misinterpretation of his assignment was at the bottom of the multiple malfeasances associated with his regulation and moderation of the general elections of that year. The challenge of sustaining Nigerian unity, as he inelegantly and conceitedly put it, was one he assigned himself. No one, not the constitution, not his paymaster, nor yet the electoral act gave him the job he so gratuitously defined for himself.

    Professor Iwu specialises in pharmacognosy, a branch of science that has nothing to do with politics, except of course metaphorically. It is a rather direct science and a branch of pharmacology dealing with the study of natural drugs or active substances found in plants. If he needs to apply logic in his speciality, it is certainly not the kind of intricate logic familiar to social scientists who deal with subjective and often imprecise human behaviour. On the contrary, plants offer very precise and clearly distinguishable morphologies, irrespective of whether we are dealing with its anatomy or its external nature. It is, therefore, not surprising that Professor Iwu has had to rephrase his assignment in terms familiar to his expertise, and in ways that suited and excused his abject surrender to the whims of his employers.

    Dissatisfied with not letting bad enough alone – and he would have done well to emulate his other illustrious predecessor, Humphrey Nwosu, who waited for about 15 years to make peace with his equally troubled conscience – Professor Iwu wondered why instead of criticising his performance Nigerians did not celebrate his ‘achievement’ of keeping Nigeria one. How grossly mistaken can one be! Not only did his criminal miscarriage of the 2007 polls gravely threaten the unity and stability of the country, it set the country back by many decades and still continues to dog its march to democratic nirvana. If Nigeria remained one after the 2007 electoral debacle, it was not because Professor Iwu advanced the cause of unity, or even knew how to, but because Nigerians were themselves either determined to stay together notwithstanding the multiple provocations from the Iwus and Nwosus of this world, or had surrendered to the insuperable and paralysing resignation Britain’s manipulations had brought upon them since independence.

    It is truly numbing how Professor Iwu excused his failings. He said the 2007 polls were not about who won or lost, or about how ballot boxes were snatched. If he had not recast his assignment in terms of the unexampled arrogance he was accustomed to throughout his five-year tenure, all the while pretending there was a nexus between his office and Nigerian unity irrespective of his failings, he would have understood perfectly that his job was to ensure Nigeria held a free and fair election; and that unity, often a by-product of a fair election, was not his to procure or guarantee. In his Abuja remarks, Professor Iwu reminded his audience it was not easy transiting from one elected government to another. He should be reminded that that transition took place without the help of his puny talents, twisted logic, and the recklessly flawed election he superintended.

    The most shocking remark he made last Tuesday was that in 2007, Nigeria didn’t want an election. We may never know why the professor told this awkward lie to himself. Would Nigerians have furiously fought and defeated Chief Obasanjo’s third term agenda if they didn’t want an election? Would they have turned out in their millions if they hated the ballot box as the professor suggested? If they didn’t want an election that year, but wanted Chief Obasanjo out of office, what replacement did they have in mind given the constitutional provision of term limit? It took 15 years after the June 12, 1993 presidential election for Professor Nwosu to summon the courage to admit the truth of the election he supervised. Perhaps eight years is still too early for Professor Iwu to admit the truth of the election he bungled, and his conscience not seared enough to push him into reconciling with the oath he took and into making peace with the country he betrayed.

    It speaks volumes, however, that last Tuesday the professor spoke fondly of Chief Obasanjo as the mentor from whom he learnt the execrable habit of living in denial and deprecating media accounts of contemporary events. Indeed, we hope that sometime in our lifetime, Professor Iwu will be prodded into remorse by the shrill wailing of the agitated scruples left in him, as Professor Nwosu was unable to stay silent in the face of the loud protestations of his conscience.

  • Sense and nonsense in Taraba

    Sense and nonsense in Taraba

    Governor Danbaba Suntai was obviously in pains as he disembarked from the aircraft that brought him back to Nigeria last Sunday. He is doubtless still recuperating, perhaps agonisingly slowly, from the injuries he sustained when the small plane he piloted crashed near Yola, Adamawa State last October. But whether that recuperation is fast or substantial enough to enable him resume his duties as governor is now mired in acrimonious debate. Neither at the airport nor anywhere in his state has Mr Suntai directly addressed the public. Instead, he has offered a few minutes of unconvincing taped video message to his state and the public.

    While Tarabans were still trying to make up their minds on how to view their governor’s return, and while the acting governor, Speaker of the State House of Assembly and a majority of the state’s lawmakers were steeling their nerves to resist the governor’s obsession with power, the controversy became even more intense and convoluted. Sixteen lawmakers, together with the Speaker and the acting governor, insisted there was no way the governor would be allowed to resume duty. He still needed medical attention, they said. He manifested clear symptoms of brain injury that would take a long time to heal, some medical specialists averred. Some Tarabans even concluded that the governor and his minders’ manoeuvres reminded them of the chicaneries of the late President Umaru Yar’Adua who was also too unwell in his last months in office to function as president, but was exploited by a cabal to wreak havoc on the country.

    If the Taraba drama were limited to the caricature it has become, we would safely enjoy it from the comfort of our homes. But with the determination of the anti-Suntai forces to unhorse the governor growing into a bitter struggle for power, and the pro-Suntai forces clinging desperately to power, the struggle could plunge the state into a violent and embarrassing confusion. On account of what he has manifested since his return, I really doubt whether Mr Suntai can still function as governor. He needs more care than he and his minders care to admit. However, the constitution contains provisions for resolving such difficult matters. I find it appalling that the House of Assembly, which obviously musters a majority to back the Speaker’s anti-Suntai point of view, evades due process and seems to embrace strong-arm tactics. Instead of tomfoolery, let the legislature constitute a medical panel to examine the governor’s ability to continue in office. I doubt whether in such an open case the empanelled doctors would betray their oaths by telling open lies. Nor do I think their conclusion would be any less self-evident than the clear incapacity of the hapless governor to perform the most gentle and menial of tasks.