The Nation Newspaper

Category: Idowu Akinlotan

  • Nigeria’s democracy worth defending

    Nigeria’s democracy worth defending

    Nigeria’s democracy was never more threatened than immediately after the February 2023 presidential election. The threats were multilayered. Those who lost the poll headed for the courts, tried to browbeat the judges through orchestrated campaigns to shame them, suborned foreign courts and organisations to sanction the delegitimisation of the poll, incite public and civil society insurrection, attempted to arrest the conclusion of the electoral process, campaigned for and instigated coup d’états, and sponsored street protests of all kinds using the unions. That democracy has lasted for some 24 to 25 years, though it sometimes wobbled badly along the way, is of no significance to the plotters. Their main goal was to destroy democracy than celebrate the longevity of a process that seemed to have disinherited them, nor were they keen on getting bogged down in debates about whether what would replace the democracy they resent met civilised standards. Their last gasp plot was the deployment of hunger and hardship concerns to instigate violent street actions – not protests as Amnesty International persistently conflates – capable of overthrowing democracy.

    After about 18 months of feverish plots to undermine democracy, the plotters appear to be ready to give up and instead focus on organising themselves for the next polls. They may not have relented in sabotaging public facilities, such as electricity transmission lines and towers as well as national facilities in order to discredit the administration, but they are quietly turning their attention to the internal affairs of their opposition political parties. The jostle for positions of influence is gently beginning, but there will be no commensurate fight to reform or sanitise party platforms and fine-tune party ideologies. Neither of the two opposition parties, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Labour Party (LP), has cleaned up its act, but they hope that by some magic, their parties would suddenly become better organised and more appealing to the electorate. They hope they can palliate the unhappiness of internal dissenters and smother the fires within. Hope may be irrelevant in delivering needed solutions to the parties, but they will keep hope alive for want of a more scientific approach to the crises that have baffled them for two agonising years.

    It is too early to tell how sanguine the anti-democratic forces would be about their chances of surviving the next two years intact, let alone flourishing, until the next polls. They are limited in every area of politics, and are stymied by their almost total lack of imaginativeness. Indeed, two factors will in summary determine how well they can respond to the changing dynamics of Nigerian politics. Firstly, the PDP and LP presidential candidates in the last poll, former vice president Atiku Abubakar and former Anambra governor Peter Obi respectively, probably feel a sense of emptiness gnawing at the back of their minds, particularly their political ideas and platforms. Alhaji Atiku will be 80 years old at the next poll, and neither he nor his family can tell what kind of deterioration will come upon him or unnerve him. Already, despite retaining his age-old truculence and intransigence, he has become lethargic. Mr Obi deployed ethnic and religious politics in the last poll with devastating aplomb. But the Bola Tinubu administration has taken away the religion leg of that infamous pair of weapons, leaving only the ethnic card for the former governor. Mr Obi will be unable to exploit the remaining isolated card as ferociously as he did in 2023. The Southeast may be clannish, but they are not stupid. They read the trends diligently and will be painfully aware that the ethnic card alone will not fetch their champion the presidency, assuming he contests.

    But a video shared on X (Twitter) last Saturday may perhaps hold some promise for Alhaji Atiku’s and Mr Obi’s supporters. In the video, the former vice president hosted Mr Obi to a breakfast in Yola, Adamawa State, prompting, despite the incongruity of the event, discussions about an impending coalition between the former candidates. They had aligned in 2019 on the PDP platform to fight the presidential election of that year against ex-president Muhammadu Buhari, but were trounced. The joint ticket failed mainly because it could not find a platform that resonated with voters. In the 2023 poll, however, Mr Obi’s platform was as passionate as it was evocative; but delinking from Alhaji Atiku made both candidates vulnerable to the APC’s divide and rule tactics, and a great thrashing. Speculations about the purpose of the Yola breakfast may not be far off the mark. They indicate that some form of alliance may be in the offing, for the two gentlemen have recognised that going into any presidential electoral war individually was a recipe for disaster. That disaster is certain to reoccur if the two politicians do not join forces. Even then, they may yet discover that forming a coalition takes hugely away from their individual appeal. It is not clear why Alhaji Atiku uploaded the video, instead of Mr Obi. What is, however, clear is that the former vice president still entertains the chimerical hope that he could still run for the presidency at 80. He obviously hopes that President Tinubu will make more enemies than friends in the months ahead, and the economy would go into a tailspin, in order to facilitate the chance of beating the All Progressives Congress (APC) in 2027.

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    Secondly, the anti-democratic forces, aided by saboteurs of power grids and other facilities and policies, will hope that the economy will not respond to all the medications administered by the Tinubu administration. Should hunger, exchange rate, inflation and insecurity remain on the front burner months to the election, they would hope the formation of a political coalition could finally unhorse the administration and doom its chances in the next poll. But that is hard to bank on even for politicians as indurate as Alhaji Atiku and Mr Obi. Current economic indicators, not to talk of the immense potential of other far-reaching and radical measures like the hated tax reform bills, seem to show that the economy is both on the mend and remains responsive to medications. It may sound propagandistic, but official statements by the administration’s economic managers suggesting that the economy has turned the corner and is on the mend may be right. Exchange rate has not worsened as many analysts projected, and inflation has appeared to reduce its furious pace. Balance of trade and economic growth have remained positive, and other drivers of negative economic indices appear to have been tamed. Insecurity has also declined significantly. Hardship and hunger remain, but in the next 12 to 18 months, they are unlikely to be as ferocious as they have been in the past months.

    Hamstrung by their own identity crises and internal wrangling and limitations, and disappointed by an economy cautiously churning back to life, both the PDP and LP, in coalition or singly, will struggle to find vulnerable parts in the ruling party. They will point at the ruling party’s sometimes chaotic approach to national challenges, and they will be right; but they will also be unable to deflect attention from their own self-generated chaos and mediocre politics. Their misery will be worsened by the extraordinary performance of some governors eager to transform their states and prove more than a point, not only on account of the politics of reelection, but also on account of genuine appreciation that fame can be easily procured with showpiece works in the age of social media. Niger State’s Governor Mohammed Umar Bago, Kaduna’s Uba Sani, Enugu’s Peter Mbah, Imo’s Hope Uzodinma, Anambra’s Chukwuma Soludo, Katsina’s Dikko Umar Radda, and Benue’s Hyacinth Alia, among a few others, have shown exemplary aptitude for deft politics as well as brilliant developmental strides. They were among the reasons the frenetic desire to torpedo Nigeria’s democracy did not resonate beyond a few angry and pampered cities and elites.

    Rivers State may return to the medieval era, and the Southwest to strange mental and physical inertia, but the boldness and inventiveness of the Tinubu administration, assuming it can restrategise its flailing palliative policies, not to say the inspiring stories from some of the states, will help democracy retain its potency and lustre. Critics will still have a field day as long as hunger and hardship continue to defy solutions, and the political opposition, hungry for power, will be unsparing and ill-tempered. Even then, Nigeria is unlikely to return to a time when a few people will procure military insurrection or instigate anarchy, no matter how precarious the country’s condition. If the system could withstand such aggravated hardship as the Tinubu administration’s retooling policies have unleashed, without becoming vulnerable to a coup d’etat or embracing unconstitutional and repressive measures to curb criticism and disaffection, then democracy may have a bright future in these parts and be worth defending and refining.

  • Tinubu, France and Francophone West Africa

    Tinubu, France and Francophone West Africa

    Last week’s state visit to France by President Bola Tinubu was an unusual diplomatic engagement, the first after more than 20 years since a Nigerian leader, Olusegun Obasanjo, undertook that kind of visit. Its impact will be felt not only in Nigeria as business deals are hammered out by both countries, it will also reverberate across West Africa partly because of the strained diplomatic relations between France and the three Francophone West African countries of Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger Republic. The visit is a logical progression from recent trade and diplomatic statistics between the two countries. Apart from being France’s leading trading partner in sub-Saharan Africa, Nigeria is now in pole position to exploit the vacuum created by the exit of the Francophone West African countries estranged from the French orbit.

    Nigeria is hungry for capital and investments in high-tech. France has lost not only three Francophone West African countries, it has also lost its influence in Chad, where that country has ended decades-old defence cooperation, and lost Senegal which has also served notice to France to remove its base and troops. To complete the humiliation, Chad did not even bother to inform France ahead of its decision, and has signaled its preparedness to join Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger in the Russian orbit. Since last year, Russia has been replacing the departing French forces in the region, and is helping the West African countries, which severed relationship with ECOWAS last year, to fight hardened jihadist insurgents in the Sahel. President Tinubu’s state visit to France is coming hard on the heels of that major shift in West Africa’s diplomatic tectonic plates.

    But President Tinubu will have to manage his country’s proposed deepened relations with France with more finesse than he managed the coups d’etat in the three Francophone countries. France’s reputation for financial exploitation, if not expropriation, of its former West African colonies has inspired the hostility of many Africans. Already, on social media, there were unfounded rumours of France seeking to establish a military base in Nigeria after being kicked out of its three former colonies. With the number now rising to five where France has lost its foothold, some had feared that France would desperately seek a replacement. Since the abrogation of the Anglo-Nigerian Defence Agreement of 1958-1962, Nigeria has not countenanced any foreign military base on its soil in any form. Inviting France to site a base in Nigeria is obviously not in consideration.

    There are no indications at all that France has any stated or unwritten intention to site a military base in Nigeria. On the contrary, given the buffeting the Nigerian economy has received from domestic mismanagement, what is uppermost in the minds of Nigerian leaders is deepened and mutually beneficial economic relationships in diverse fields including agriculture, mining, trade, technology, cultural exchange, and other kinds of investments. Indications coming from the Franco-Nigerian Business Council are that many profitable business deals are being finalised.

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    President Tinubu is right not to toe the line of the five countries estranged from France. Nigeria does not have the unpleasant experience referenced by the Francophone West African countries which soured their relations with France. Instead, it is embracing a different paradigm pursued by other countries including China since 1978, Singapore, Malaysia, Japan, South Korea, Turkey, and even long before them, Russia under Catherine the Great. Nigeria, like these other countries, needs Western technology and business practices to develop its domestic technical capacity and drive output and growth. If other countries could absorb what they need from foreign investors without compromising their cultures and political systems, Nigeria should find out how they balanced their sometimes competing and conflicting needs.

    The state visit to France may also have been influenced by the personal relationship between Presidents Tinubu and Macron, a relationship that dates back to 2002 when the French leader worked as an intern in the French Embassy in Lagos and President Tinubu was Lagos State governor. Such a relationship generally conduces to trust and confidence in hammering out sweetheart business deals between two countries. The United States and Britain had that special relationship for decades, even though it may currently be fraying at the edges; and China and North Korea have enjoyed it for decades since Kim Il-sung took power in North Korea, among many others. If Presidents Tinubu and Macron could lay the basis for a mutually beneficial and paradigm-shifting relationship, the two countries, particularly Nigeria, could yet sing a new song in years to come. They must not allow the sour relations between France and the four Francophone West African countries and Chad dictate the tone and tenor of a newfound cultural and economically beneficial friendship. Nigeria must not inherit or be influenced by anybody’s grudges.

    More importantly, Nigeria must be clear about what it wants, what should be the objectives of the new relations with France, and why it needs to contextualise that relationship within the ECOWAS scheme of things. Since the debacle of managing the military takeovers in Mali and others, Nigeria has seemed to lack surefootedness in its diplomatic dealings in West Africa. Being paralysed or somnolent is counterproductive. From the responses of Senegal and Chad, the sub-region and parts of Central Africa, are unlikely to remain the same. Nigeria should urgently rally the remnants left, find common grounds and common purposes, and inspire a new West Africa in all areas of human, economic and diplomatic cooperation. Mali and others are tired of anyone pricking their consciences. They prefer relations with amoral states disinterested in lecturing them on democracy, human rights, systems of government, or even corruption. Good for them. But for the rest of West Africa, which should be the example for the continent as a whole, it is important to create a region that is both ethically and economically vibrant. If President Tinubu manages to walk the tightrope of the deepened relations with France, he will be inspiring the remaking of a region blighted by poverty, bad governance and instability.

  • Ondo, Edo and APC’s electoral future

    Ondo, Edo and APC’s electoral future

    Last Wednesday, the national chairman of the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), Mamman Mike Osuman, declared that the group would back northern candidates in the 2027 elections. Except the media reported him unfairly and inaccurately, he was ambiguous in approximating the northern socio-cultural group’s preferences. He referenced the Bola Tinubu administration’s unpopular policies and the hardship and hunger inundating the country, but he was careful not to specify names disfavoured by the ACF nor offices they might wish to contest. Though the Forum’s Board of Trustees suspended him a day later for making unathorised statement on behalf of the group, he had given dark hints about the direction the ACF might head some two years down the line. Said Mr Osuman, a lawyer and senior advocate, with flourish: “…It is not in doubt that the North is currently under siege. Our dear region is not only being viciously attacked by bandits, terrorists and kidnappers but also by sinister devices like disproportionate considerations and inequitable treatment.”

    In the fortuitous months ahead, it is unlikely the old political North will see the Bola Tinubu presidency the same way they see it today. Apart from the president indulging the region beyond measure, it is also expected that the badly bruised and battered economy might begin to turn the corner. To that extent, the ACF’s BoT was probably sensible and more restrained in not declaring support for any aspirant or party. They may sometimes be instigative in their speeches, but they often wait to see which way the cat jumps before they cast their lot with a candidate. Nothing of course suggests they won’t eventually ditch President Tinubu, but they are unlikely to do so as spontaneously and peremptorily as Mr Osuman has ill-advisedly done. Sometimes too, the old North criticises and threatens as a form of pressure to get more concession from any presidency constituted by a southerner. Whatever their ultimate aim, the ACF chairman probably let the cat out of the bag too soon. He was unlikely to have voiced sentiments not prevalent among northern leaders, but it will still take more than a year before the old North’s definitive view on 2027 is known.

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    The All Progressives Congress (APC) is probably aware of the electoral booby traps ahead of it, whether placed by northerners, or other regions, or even by enemies within. They may in fact already be toying with various countermeasures defeat the enemy and hold on to power beyond 2027. This is where their victories in the Edo and Ondo governorship elections put them in a quandary. If they had lost either or both states in the September and November polls, it would have been seen as a perfect and karmic referendum on the Tinubu administration, particularly its hated economic measures and probably despised appointments, with the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) buoyed by the ruling party’s setbacks. The conundrum, unfortunately for the APC, is that its victories in the two states have been conveniently explained away as signifying no referendum on the Tinubu administration. Analysts often take solace in the axiom that all politics is local. This may sound trite, but it adequately explains the two recent governorship elections as far as the APC is concerned.

    In the Edo poll, the APC was largely united and focused on returning to office, while the PDP was disunited, with the former governor, Godwin Obaseki, calling everybody’s bluff. The APC put the matter beyond contention by winning 11 local government areas and 291,667 votes to PDP’s seven LGs and 247,274 votes, a significant 44,000 plus margin. In Ondo, the APC victory was even more emphatic, with its candidate, the untested and sometimes flighty Lucky Aiyedatiwa, winning all 18 local governments and over 360,000 votes to the PDP’s 117,845 votes. Taking together with the November 2023 reelection of APC’s Hope Uzodinma in Imo State and APC’s Usman Ododo election in Kogi State also in November 2023, President Tinubu can boast four trophies that came seemingly against the run of play. Had those victories come with the run of play, with a great and revving economy, no one would have doubted the unassailable position of the president going into the 2027 poll. It would, however, make the administration complacent, for officials love burying their heads in the cloud rather than having them singed in the cauldron of public anger and criticism. President Tinubu’s men should, therefore, probably count themselves lucky that the administration and the public are unable to attribute the recent electoral triumphs to anything spectacular done by the administration.

    Indeed, if elections were held today, given the state of the economy (petrol price, exchange rate and inflation), the supposed skewness of the president’s appointments in favour of the Yoruba, particularly Lagosians, and the awkward reversals of certain policies and close staff appointments, the president and his APC would be hard put to eke out even a slim victory. If in addition the opposition could get their act together and rally behind a great candidate, defeating the APC would be almost certain. Fortunately for the ruling party, few voters are likely to make up their minds how to vote in 2027 until probably late next year or sometime in 2026. President Tinubu has of course not inspired too many people by his style of administration, but he has sensibly pushed the country through its worst moments early in his government in order to give himself some breathing space in the years ahead, especially close to the polls. If he is fortunate enough to have an economy well on the path of recovery in 2025, with exchange rate, fuel price, and inflation rate doing great, he will sound more plausible and convincing in pushing the APC agenda.

    The relentlessly rhetorical National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu, last week pontificated on President Tinubu’s invincibility. He of course exaggerated, and indeed sounded ingratiating. But while the president is good at keeping many balls in the air, two major factors will determine the shape of 2027. One is the shape of the economy in the next 18 months and how smartly the president cleans up his controversial and mystifying appointments, and two is the shape of the political opposition, taken holistically. Should the opposition remain fragmented and bad-tempered in the next 18 months as it is today, it would head nowhere, whether with the superficial Peter Obi as a point man or the bilious Atiku Abubakar as the leprous fist. The two factors stated above were at play in the Edo and Ondo polls; they will greatly influence the course and outcomes of politics and elections in the years ahead. Even if the economy does not recover as significantly as many Nigerians hope, President Tinubu and his APC will probably still do much better than expected should the opposition remain divided and mediocre. But two years is still a long time off, enough time to dig heels in, make amends, or build new platforms and coalitions.

  • Engaging Obasanjo on his ideas, not person

    Engaging Obasanjo on his ideas, not person

    By now, nearly everyone knows that the person of former president Olusegun Obasanjo cannot be changed by abuse or by any form of unwholesome exposure of what he has done or not done, in the past, present or even future. He is set in his ways, and this old man, as they say, is not for turning. In far away United States, at a Chinua Achebe Leadership Forum lecture he delivered at Yale University in Connecticut, he was at his didactic and sermonising best. His recorded lecture, which spoke more to the Obidient worldview than anything else, was provocatively titled Leadership failure and state capture. He needed no other baiting to be at his pontifical worst. After many decades of the former president serially and periodically pontificating on the same narrow subject, Nigerians should be used to his style and methods. Whatever he says about any issue, whether diagnostic or prognostic, has absolutely nothing to do with whatever he does. Academics love to talk about praxis, the execution of ideas. Chief Obasanjo has no interest whatsoever in any such convergence; indeed he has contempt for bridging any divide. Whoever wants to take the former president to task should simply concentrate on what he says rather than the chasm between what he says and does.

    He supposedly spoke on leadership failure and state capture, but much of what he said was frustratingly platitudinous. Apart from saturating his text with authorial references, and undergirding the address with unashamedly narcissistic comments, it is not clear whether his audience did not labour to wade through his quotations to find one pearl or gem worthy of the subject matter. The topic was grand and engaging, even though distinctly Obidient; but unfortunately, Chief Obasanjo lacked the depth of understanding and rich background to explicate the subject. Forget about his person or his style as military head of state and elected president, his treatment of leadership failure was simply far too superficial to attribute to anyone who had ruled Nigeria for a cumulative period of about 11 years, the longest of any past Nigerian ruler. His ideas on leadership have not changed one jot for the better over the years; instead they have worsened, aggravated by comparisons with his successors and predecessors, and weakened by a stubborn refusal to be introspective or learn from past great leaders. Unable to really diagnose the problem, he quickly transitioned to his suggested remedies. But here too he fell on his sword.

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    Perhaps his instincts tell him what his audience wanted to hear, and he was not one loth to serve them the menu they craved. To tackle leadership failure, the first thing he recommended was strengthening democracy, without resolving the conundrum of which comes first, the chicken or the egg. His previous analyses of democracy ended in his suggestion that Nigeria should develop a homegrown democratic model, again without elucidating on both its rubric. So, how does a country strengthen a democracy it does not know? And, worse, how does a country tinker with or restructure a democracy whose model it has not settled on? And if homegrown, what are its component parts and its anchors? The French Fifth Republic, the American 1789 constitution, the Chinese reforms begun after the death of Mao Zedong and the castration of the Gang of Four? At Yale, Chief Obasanjo did not structure his ideas, but merely clamoured against the 2023 elections for being a ‘travesty by all rational measures’. He allowed his private longings and sanctimonious disregard for facts to get in the way. He equated his unfulfilled but visceral preference for Peter Obi’s Labour Party (LP) candidacy with the weakening of democracy.

    Quoting the Pew Research Center, The Carnegie Foundation, and the Electoral Knowledge Network, he identified three planks upon which to strengthen democracy, to wit, legal, administrative, and political. Flowing from these planks, he advocated the wholesale dismantling of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), insisting that the agency was the fulcrum of democracy. To achieve this radical goal, he offered nothing substantial or rigorous other than the trite counsel about finding men and women of integrity. Had he been consistent with his homegrown democracy idea, which he nevertheless failed to concretise, he would have achieved a little bit of profundity and contributed to knowledge. It was clear he blamed INEC for the loss of his dear candidate, Mr Obi, but offered no rational or legal basis for coming to that unguarded conclusion. How he expected a largely unphilosophical, regional and religiously divisive party to win the last presidential election is extremely difficult to understand. And for a man who had ruled Nigeria for so long, he was shockingly unable to appreciate the legal reasoning that validated the disputed February 2023 poll. Indeed, moments later in his keynote address, he was to excoriate the judiciary for his unfulfilled dreams.

    On the subhead of ‘rebuilding the judiciary’, Chief Obasanjo was withering, theoretical and even facetious. “The Judiciary in Nigeria is a very pale version of its once internationally esteemed self,” he began magisterially. “Politicians after rigging elections openly ask their rivals to ‘go to court’ in Nigeria because they are aware that they have completely compromised the Judiciary system. A number of Judges are in the pockets of wealthy politicians and individuals and make judgements – not based on the law of the land but to the highest bidder. This, my learned audience, is one of the most effective strategies of State Capture – discussed next – that must be excised from Nigeria like a surgeon cutting out a malignant cancer.” His pet LP, not to say the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), his former political party which he disassembled by his undisciplined approach to politics and governance, won some cases in court. But as long as his preferred party and candidate lost the grand prize, and regardless of the logic of the justices, the judiciary was hopeless.

    He rounded up his lecture with a short dissertation on state capture, but managed paradoxically to make his analysis sound like his governing manual during his three terms in office. He could of course not resist a kick to the groin of his old nemesis, President Bola Tinubu, whom he described as the quintessential proponent of state capture; but by personalising and vulgarising his analysis, he undermined the integrity of his address, reflected the poverty of his worldview, was condescending to his audience, and ended up playing almost entirely to the gallery. Mercifully he did not travel in person to Yale. It would have been a sheer waste of money and time to have had to travel over such a huge distance to deliver an unglamorous and commonplace address.

  • Kwankwaso’s paranoia

    Kwankwaso’s paranoia

    Of all the demons gnawing at the North’s liver, New Nigerian People’s Party (NNPP) leader Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso‘s problem is Lagos State’s alleged effort to colonise the North. Speaking at the convocation ceremony of Skyline University in Kano last Sunday, he argued that the former federal capital had become meddlesome. He said: “Today, we can see very clearly that there are significant efforts from the Lagos axis to colonise this part of the country. Lagos wouldn’t allow us to choose even our Emir. Instead, they want to impose their own Emir on Kano. Today, we are aware that the Lagos young men are working so hard to impose taxes and take away our taxes from Kano and this part of the country to Lagos. Even the telephones that we make or register here in Kano, efforts are there to take all the taxes to Lagos. Even our sons and daughters who have bought factories, many of them here in Kano and northern Nigeria, and even banks, somehow, are forced to take their headquarters to Lagos because taxes will now have to go to Lagos. Lagos, today, feels they are the only Nigeria, interfering in other states’ affairs. We will not tolerate such actions here in Kano…”

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    It didn’t seem an easy accusation for Mr Kwankwaso to make for obvious reasons. But repeatedly using Lagos axis interchangeably with President Bola Tinubu, he argued that Lagos (or President Tinubu) was expropriating the North through taxes, imposing emirs, and generally attempting to become the centre of the universe. This would be resisted, he thundered. He was indirectly making reference to the controversial tax bills before the National Assembly, and his unhappiness over the stalemated struggle for the Kano emirship. Mr Kwankwaso tried to become president in 2023. He has the right to nurse any kind of ambition. But to make facile and superfluous arguments on the tax bills without any financial exposition, and to surmise Lagos/Tinubu’s domination politics without evidence, not to talk of ignoring the incitement his statements constitute, disgrace his ambition and question his leadership credential. Surely, there is a limit to paranoia.

  • Obaseki’s final, unreflective broadcast

    Obaseki’s final, unreflective broadcast

    A day or so before Senator Monday Okpebholo was sworn in last Tuesday as Edo State governor, his predecessor Godwin Obaseki attempted image laundering through a vainglorious broadcast detailing his achievements. The broadcast exemplified his love for hyperbole. He didn’t end up speaking about many achievements, nor covered too many subjects, but he was at least intense and seemed absolutely but uncritically self-satisfied. It mattered little to him that the public thought little of his achievements, hence their repudiation of his candidate Asue Ighodalo of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) whom he tried to foist on the state in the September governorship poll. Any other outgoing governor would have used the broadcast to reflect on what he did right and what he did wrong, but the self-assured Mr Obaseki sees himself as infallible, a virtuoso of political and social engineering who transcended the mediocrity of the Edo rabble. The outcome of the election and the resounding repudiation of his candidate should have presented him the opportunity to engage in deep reflections. But characteristically of him, he spurned all entreaties offered him by nature and politics.

    In the very first paragraph of his address, Mr Obaseki spoke blithely about ‘achieving the monumental transformation of our dear state’, a feat he believed was made possible by the ‘vision, health and courage’ God gave him. It is unlikely he exaggerated. He didn’t seem to lack courage, at least going by the hundreds, if not thousands, of Edo political and traditional leaders he alienated. He also seemed to have enjoyed robust health; but if he was ever challenged in that region, it was nothing alarming or worth the public fretting over. As for vision, it is a word used flippantly by every tinhorn politician, a misunderstood concept that so many, including the highfalutin Obaseki himself, misconstrue and consistently misuse. Perhaps there was a scintilla of vision in the few daring changes he claimed to have midwifed in governance, but in the truest meaning of the word vision, there was little extraordinary or lasting about the changes. He appeared convinced the changes would last, but like many things about him and his ideas, he is always thoroughly mistaken. Overall, and still speaking about God in the idiosyncratic religiosity of Nigerians and their leaders, it is reassuring that his address was in a sense measured as he did not dare speak about wisdom. God gifted him courage, vision and health, he enthused; but he was silent on the most important virtue needed in leadership: wisdom, which he incontestably lacked.

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    Referring to particulars, he spoke about the dire need from the outset to do a ‘systems reset’ in Edo in order to ‘rebuild institutions’ and ‘return Edo to past glory’.  To this end, he boasted, “we needed to build strong institutions, not strong men or godfathers.” Of course, in the end, he also tried to transform into a godfather of some sort, but floundered in drawing a difference between his style and his predecessor’s, Adams Oshiomhole. To win re-election in 2020, he had accused Mr Oshiomhole of being a godfather when the latter denounced his highhandedness. Mr Obaseki, who is neither moderate nor modest, continued: “I’m very proud that Edo parades Nigeria’s most advanced public service…a civil service that is nimble, fast, responsive, future focused, private sector facing and technologically compliant.” Given his well-known tunnel vision and his appalling incompetence in drawing comparisons, how on earth could he tell that the Edo civil service he tinkered with had suddenly become the ‘most advanced’?

    If in eight years of governing Edo Mr Obaseki could not boast of anything worth anyone remembering, it would be a disaster for even a man so self-absorbed. No one can deny that he had a little impact on the state’s industrial sector, or on growing the state’s economy from N10bn to N25bn, assuming his statistics are not self-serving, or on growing the state’s Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) to ‘peak at N85 billion by December…’ Despite Edolites thinking little of his achievements in the technological sector, it must be conceded that he was no pushover. The problem, however, is that he construes the insignificant much he has done as entitling him to some measure of greatness, or to an approximation of unexampled leadership, perhaps by global standard. He is mistaken. But as he plaintively put it in his address, perhaps equating his administration to the philosopher-king category: “Unfortunately, recent events and the conduct of certain elements in our democratic space have shown us that the light which democracy and good governance beams can be dimmed. However, it can only be for a while. I fervently believe that any attempt to foist illegality and injustice on a democratic system cannot endure, because the wish of the majority will always prevail.”

    It is ironical that Mr Obaseki was oblivious to his self-incriminating statements. Did he not think that the wish of the majority he alluded to in his address prevailed in the last governorship election, and did that majority not fear that he was trying to foist illegality and injustice on them? He spoke of the fear of dimming the light democracy and good governance beamed, a dimming he derisively attributed to the conduct of certain elements in our democratic space. But he was unapologetic about deliberately and dictatorially barring over a dozen elected lawmakers from taking their seats in the Edo House of Assembly for years, or about getting his deputy, Philip Shaibu, impeached for expressing interest in succeeding him. Absolutely, Mr Obaseki was no democrat. To now speak of his fears that the light of democracy was dimming on account of the activities of certain unnamed elements is to thumb his nose at the public, feign ignorance at the degradations he brought upon the legislature, and demonstrate his recklessness and contempt for a liberal ethos.

    In the concluding part of his address, it was time for salutations and applauses. He said, without a hint of compunction: “All these achievements which I have enumerated and the progress we have made in the last eight years will not have been possible without the support which I received from a wide range of patriotic sons and daughters of Edo State, both at home and in the diaspora. It would not have been possible without the support of our development partners, clerics and our religious leaders who prayed for us ceaselessly. It would not have been possible without the blessings of our traditional rulers.” Such infernal lies. When he presumed to recognise ‘patriotic sons and daughters of Edo’, it is understood that he drew a dichotomy between his sycophantic crowd and his hated critics. Other than that, it is hard to understand what he meant by ‘clerics and religious leaders who prayed for us…’, when in fact he and his wife exploited, for political reasons, a willing and ingratiating church that poured scorn on a ‘miserly’ APC candidate Okpebholo who was unable to match the generosity of the PDP candidate and his godfather. It is even harder to comprehend what he meant by the ‘blessings of our traditional leaders’, when everyone squirmed at the audacity with which he fought the Bini monarchy to a standstill over nondescripts.

    For electoral advantage, Mr Obaseki punned Lagos, suggesting that Edo could not be made to conform to the mores of the former federal capital on whose financial milk he was suckled. He is back to Lagos whose ample bosom accommodates his anonymity as well as shields him from the menaces and scornful looks of Edolites. He should have chosen a different destination. In the opening paragraphs of his address, he acknowledged that the curtains were being drawn on his reign. Yet he governed the state as if the day of departure would never come. Clearly, given the temper of his address and the inelegant but blatant phrases he deployed to conceal his lack of contemplation, he will continue to miss the point about what it means for curtains to be drawn on a leader’s time in office. Have the lives of his people been changed forever in unmistakable, almost permanent way? Let him answer this poser honestly, if he is capable.

  • Watch Trump on China and Iran

    Watch Trump on China and Iran

    For those who think President-elect Donald Trump’s foreign policy will puzzle the world, they haven’t seen anything yet. Yes, he is eccentric and narcissistic, and most of his policies, whether foreign or domestic, are eclectic, but the world is going to struggle valiantly to make sense of where he is going or where he is coming from. There is settled evidence that he embraces authoritarian leaders, as he amply demonstrated in his first term between 2016 and 2020, but the Chinese and the Iranians he loathed so much are neither democratic nor liberal in the sense Western countries understand the concepts. So, the world will scratch their heads to find rhyme or reason in his hatred for one dictatorship and love for another dictatorship.

    Mr Trump will take office in January, and the hysteria within and outside his camp will reach fever pitch. But between now and that time, the cabinet he is cobbling together will both give a clear picture of how his foggy mind works and demonstrate just how deep into the morass he is willing to plumb. Americans are waiting with bated breath; so, too, is the world. For now, there has been no appointment he has made that has inspired anyone. In his first term, many of his appointees did not last because they struggled to reconcile their innate goodness with the coarseness of the president, his lacerating uncouthness. But in his second dispensation, most of his appointees will be men and women who have abjured their beliefs, appointees eager to outdo the president in excesses, bigotry and ribaldry.

    In his first term, when he was unconvinced about the integrity of his political mandate, when he was still assailed by doubts and unsure whether his bigoted nature should be given free rein, Mr Trump’s domestic policy was caked in vitriol and codified in a wild and improbable amalgamation of gender insensitivity and racial bigotry. This time, with a resounding electoral acclamation that stunned the world and beggared belief, Mr Trump will be less restrained, if not openly enthusiastic, in unfurling his racial manifesto upon America as a great emblem of assertion and dominance. America will feel his rolling thunder; but the world, particularly Iran and China, will experience his misanthropy the more. Both

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    countries already know enough to brace themselves for the great impact. Prepare also for such inscrutable and unexpected deals like the 2020 Doha Agreement between the United States and the Taliban who were yet to return to power in Afghanistan at the time. The misogynistic Taliban, now ensconced in power, have already congratulated Americans for not electing a woman president.

    It is not clear that now or in the near future Americans will be able to explain why authoritarian Russia, especially President Vladimir Putin, seems to be Mr Trump’s kryptonite, why the US president seems seduced by the infantile dictatorship of North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, and what the implications of seeming to reject globalism will mean for America. Watch keenly what Trump does in foreign policy, for both America and the world are unlikely to ever remain the same. Great tectonic shifts are afoot; they may not be choreographed or coherent, but the world will undergo stress in peacetime that it never underwent in wartime.

    Mr Trump views China as a loathsome and evil competitor, almost as if America could not exist and remain great along with an inevitably rising China. Expect strains of unparalleled dimensions, strains that will incrementally pour cold water on the diplomatic relations between the two countries, particularly as the president-elect has picked a China hardliner, the Florida senator, Marco Rubio, as Secretary of State. Iran pursued a regional dominance agenda to the irritation of many Middle Eastern countries. With America growling at her, Iran will be unable to replicate the verve with which it pursued its proxy wars and policies under the Joe Biden administration. They won’t forget how curtly Mr Trump denounced their foreign adventures, particularly their nuclear policy, and they won’t forget the re-imposition of heavy sanctions after Mr Trump in his first term exited the US-Iran nuclear deal in May 2018. With a chastened and chafing China on the sidelines, and a consenting Russia eager to have an understanding with America on the Ukraine logjam, Mr Trump may feel emboldened to bait Iran and even take direct action. Iran will then discover how indeed limited its options are, or how restricted its elbow room is.

    Sen Rubio, the incoming US foreign policy czar, may be a centrist, but his view of China as an enemy, his favourable disposition towards NATO, and his readiness to align with Mr Trump’s practical if unprincipled approach to Russia and the war in Ukraine may offer some steadiness and balance to the president-elect’s chaotic view of world politics. But these attributes may also single him out as a potential early defector from the Trump presidency. Of all Mr Trump’s foreign policy actions, the world should watch China and Iran with far more keenness than even NATO or Russia/Ukraine, or the US-Mexico border/immigration issues, considering that many of his picks for cabinet positions are ‘non-traditionals’ who lack experience and expertise in the areas they are to oversee.

  • Arab Summit’s revealing communiqué

    Arab Summit’s revealing communiqué

    Last week, the combined meeting of the League of Arab States and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation took place in Riyadh and ended with a lengthy and verbose 38-point communiqué. The kernel of the decisions reached by the summit centres on Palestine and the concept of a two-state solution made urgent by the Israel-Gaza war. The summit calls for a ceasefire in the more than one-year-old war of attrition going on in the blighted city-state, the recognition of undivided Jerusalem (Al-Quds) as the ‘eternal’ capital of the State of Palestine; the condemnation of Israeli ‘aggression’ in the annexed Golan Heights of Syria, help for Lebanon to deal with the humanitarian crisis following the Israeli-Hezbollah war, and support for the campaign to make Palestine a full member of the United Nations, among other decisions.

    The communiqué is hardly worth the paper on which it is written. Yes, the conferring states have genuine concerns for what is happening in the region, and are keen to have the raging war contained, but in summary, the summit was playing to the gallery. They know the impossibility of practicalising the resolutions they have drafted, and are even more aware of the intransigence of both sides in the Palestinian conflict. So both the summit and the communiqué are designed to placate the Muslim populations of the countries which met in Riyadh on November 11.

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    Even though the communiqué was strongly worded, the summiteers were just playing politics. The only country that initially gained from the crisis in the Middle East was Iran which funds the three main regional militia groups of Houthis in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Hamas in Gaza. As far as most countries which gathered in Riyadh last week are concerned, the rising profile of Iran worried them much more than the Israeli aggression they wrote about so grandly. The Wars in Gaza and Lebanon, and the bombing raids in Yemen and Syria have completely devastated the Iranian proxy war machine and given the rest of the Middle East a breathing space.

    Should they have cause to gather again soon, the Arab Summit will still secretly hoodwink everybody, and run with the hare and hunt with the hounds. They all know which side their bread is buttered, and will be extremely reluctant to countenance any outcome that leaves Iran or its proxy militias strengthened.

  • Protesting minors outplay political leaders

    Protesting minors outplay political leaders

    It was a sordid drama in two parts. Firstly, there was the November 1 arraignment in court, where about 119 youths, including some 29 minors, were charged with treason and nine other offences. They looked gaunt and malnourished, and as if choreographed, a few of them collapsed in court, perhaps due to exhaustion and hunger. The collapse and their famished looks gripped the attention of the media and the world, which slammed the notoriety of the Nigerian government for mistreating little children. That is the sad declension Nigeria has been confined under the All Progressives Congress (APC) administration, wrote many media and legal analysts feigning horror and anguish.

    The second act was even more outlandish. Having been released to go and sin no more, all the charged protesters were bathed, spruced up, and presented before the high and mighty in the State House auditorium in Abuja just days later. Rather than run the gauntlet as their offences richly deserved, they were met with a guard of honour, passed between rows of dignitaries, some of them governors, others principal officers of the National Assembly, all brimming with smiles, surprisingly shaking the hands of the freed protesters, and in one or two cases, even engaging in backslapping. Of course, nearly all of them were subsequently released to their governors who would go on to contend with identifying or locating their guardians.

    In both Acts I and II, the estimated N300bn damage wreaked by the released protesters and others not arrested during the August 1-10 protests was easily forgotten. The victims of the violence, including shop owners and government offices, will take time to recover or heal. But in the meantime, the protesters not only received pardon, they were treated with tenderness through what the country’s chief law officer Lateef Fagbemi and Vice President Kashim Shettima described as the magnanimity of the fatherly and grandfatherly President Bola Tinubu. Some analysts compound the public’s misery by threatening to sue the government if some of the protesters, particularly the minors, were not rehabilitated. They cite constitutional corollaries to underpin their threats.

    Two observations flow from the absurd theatre that played out over the arraignment and discharge of the 119. One, unlike countries serious about law and order as well as public safety and the image of their countries, it took about 90 days to decide to charge the youthful offenders. That tardiness is not unusual. It takes far disturbingly longer in other circumstances to charge and prosecute other offenders, given the ponderousness and gross inefficiencies of the Nigerian justice system. In comparison, the charging of the August 1 protesters was almost a record. Indeed, had the youths been charged expeditiously, most of them would by now be doing penance for their crimes, the adults among them in correctional centres, and the now celebrated minors in welfare or borstal homes. Instead, the court incident and the surrounding drama needlessly became a cause célèbre.

    Two, it took the judgemental fury of Nigeria’s undiscriminating social and traditional media to magnify the ghoulish appearance of the minors as if only the 30 or so minors were involved in the sordid story. The federal government may have panicked and released everyone involved, but the problem began with the tardiness of the investigators, prosecutors, police officials, and the Internal Affairs ministry all of whom had a role to play in feeding and looking after the detainees, particularly the minors. The Nigerian justice system is notorious for mistreating suspects, many of whom are wrongly detained and treated as convicts, while congestion and underfunding have complicated and slowed the administration of justice. That these youthful protesters were released does not imply that the underlying anomalies that fed the uproar over the minors will be looked into and corrected. The hysteria has come and gone, and the federal government has rid itself of the curious gaze of the global public, its primary concern. The suspects were arrested from Abuja, Gombe, Kaduna and Kano, among others; would the right political and legal lessons be learnt all over?

    By approaching the case of the 119 protesters so shambolically, if not offensively and amateurishly, the government and the rest of the country must brace up for the inescapable consequences. As a matter of fact, since religious riots began to pockmark the region, some northern governments have for decades been consistently loth to prosecute rioters and violent protesters. The police would arrest offenders, but the state governments would show little interest in prosecuting them, until they were released. That culture of dangerous permissiveness, compounded by poverty, has permeated the region and predisposed it to the massive insecurity wracking the North today. Kano governor Abba Kabir Yusuf told reporters in Abuja last Tuesday he was not even aware of the arraignment of the minors. Kaduna governor Uba Sani seemed pained by the whole affair, probably musing over the implication of letting off suspects without even the customary and ineffectual slap on the wrist. After pondering the massive damage done by the protesters in the state, Borno has proceeded deliberately to charge some of the protesters. At least for now the state gives no indication it would brook nonsense or pull its punches. Hopefully, it will stand its ground and prosecute the suspects as well as jail those found guilty without any consideration for Abuja’s lily-livered approach to law and order.

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    Apart from exposing itself to more instability and social chaos by its indulgent approach to lawbreakers, the North, which is now believed to be in the throes of another jihadist group, the Lakurawa, could very well be the undoing of Nigeria if it continues its decades of poor attention to socio-economic development of the region. Northern governors have met repeatedly over the crises inundating their region, but it is not clear how appropriate their diagnoses and remedies have been, not to talk of whether they can muster the political will to apply the law and put their money where their mouths are. In releasing the protesting youths and minors unconditionally, the federal government has not helped the North by failing to force the region to hold itself accountable for its inaction, inequities and a sad history of ethnic and religious discrimination alien to the regions foundational politics under Ahmadu Bello.

    The Nigerian media may have overdramatised the case of the famished minors charged in court on November 1, and the government may have set up inquiries to find out what went wrong and what should be done to remedy the problem, but until there is a conscious effort to reform the entire gamut of the justice system and diligently apply ACJA, the judicial and political mishap enacted early November to the embarrassment of all Nigerians as well as the challenge to law and order would persist. It is possible that the protesting youths and minors knew little about the implications of calling for a military overthrow of Nigeria’s elected government, or flattering Russia by asking them to be involved in Nigerian affairs, or even being nothing more than ignorant and dispensable tools in the hands of powerful interests, but nothing suggests in Nigerian laws that they cannot or should not be held accountable.

    The federal government should have retrained itself from intervening in the case at the trial level. It could intervene to get the children, and indeed all suspects, treated with dignity, to be well fed and looked after, but to arrest the trial as it has done by withdrawing charges against them midway will be an incentive to mount constant challenge to law and order. If after the trial had been summarily concluded the government pardoned the prisoners or reduce their sentences, that would have been less disruptive to the justice system. But to discharge the defendants imperatively does not inspire the rest of the country to obey the law. As far as Nigerian laws are concerned, there are ways to deal with adults, and there are also ways to handle minors. The government should let the law take its course first before rushing in to placate an indignant public.

  • Trump’s portentous presidential win

    Trump’s portentous presidential win

    With 295 electoral votes to Vice President Kamala Harris’ 226, and 73.47m popular votes to his opponent’s 69.13m votes, former president Donald Trump took the November 5 presidential election anticlimactically, rubbing the noses of pollsters in the dirt. Polls had predicted a very close race, neck and neck they said, and, in some instances, too close to call. It turned out by and large to be a mini drubbing, accentuated by a Republican senate victory of some eight seats difference (53 Republicans to 45 Democrats). Not only was the entire race not close, it shattered nearly all the myths about the United States of America, particularly regarding the quality and depth of their democracy and the moral and philosophical foundations upon which it was constructed and had rested for more than two centuries. Questioning the direction of US democracy in recent years was a heresy; now, questioning its survivability has become a statement of fact, if not received wisdom.

    Mr Trump is at the centre of the recent whisperings and concerns about the health and longevity of US democracy. Whether in his first term (2016-2020) as the 45th president or his campaign for the second term, the president-elect was easily the most scurrilous, divisive, meanspirited, and one of the nastiest American politicians to occupy the White House. There is no denying his popularity and the integrity of his victory or the votes that fetched him the presidency, but he was and remains paradoxically everything no American, including those who voted him in, would want their children to be. His victory admittedly instantly lowered the country’s political temperature, for the losers were gracious in defeat more than he was magnanimous in victory. Had he lost, many feared, and he himself and his supporters had threatened, that the US would have faced Armageddon. There was nothing redeeming about him, his personality, his considerably tenuous arguments and logic, and his completely jaded and superficial ideas. But his electoral victory remains a statistical and political reality.

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    Chastened pollsters and political analysts, of whom there is a multitude, have suggested a number of quaint factors for Mr Trump’s victory. These include the economy which is facing a daunting inflationary spiral, immigration nightmares, particularly at its southern borders, believed capable of diffusing and ultimately diminishing the whiteness of America, the evangelical right which took umbrage at the Democratic Party’s ‘amoral platform’, including the defeated party’s ‘offensive’ interpretation of women’s reproductive rights as well as their position on LGBQT. And then there are the superannuated and militating factors of race (Vice President Harris is all but black), and gender (she is a woman and America is arguably not ready for a woman president. If they spurned white Hillary Clinton, with all her achievements and profundity, why would they entertain Mrs Harris after having been seduced for eight ‘galling’ years by Barack Obama?

    In the years ahead, assuming Mr Trump leaves the American economy in one piece, and democracy fairly unscathed by his brutishness at the end of his second term, the US system will still be tested in unexampled ways, probably far beyond its elastic limits. Everything since the emergence of the president-elect, first in 2016, has exposed American democracy – as if it needed any help – as shallow, probably lacking in depth, if not unremarkable. Centuries of slavery and racial bigotry have not done the country well while they have weakened its global credibility and undermined its moral fibre and arguments. Their technological advancement and capacity to wage war made them superheroes, but they have done little to disguise their uncouthness and religious hypocrisy. The election of Mr Obama in 2008 and perhaps the presumptive election of Mrs Harris were thought to offer redemption for American democracy and social cohesion. Unfortunately, not only did Mr Obama’s election lead to a lasting backlash against blacks and other civil rights gains, the repudiation of Mrs Harris confirms that whatever progress was made before 2016 was only knee-deep.

    Mr Trump’s style and peculiarly waspish tongue are not expected to change significantly for the better in his second term. In his first advent, he rode roughshod over the polity, skewering civil rights, operating and speaking fascistically, denouncing and alienating the media, and dismantling the world order, particularly Western alliances and values that had stood his country and Europe well since World War II. On the germane global security issues needing the placatory and remonstrating interventions of the US, Mr Trump had repeatedly and consistently skied off-piste, dismaying the Western alliance, romancing and romanticising authoritarianism, and in general turning the world, not to say his cabinet, upside down. Yet, his first term came at a time of general tranquility. Should he maintain the foul tempo of his first term, a tempo that has terribly disquieted the world and petrified his enemies, there is no telling what new belligerent schemes he would dream up, against his friends and enemies alike. The world is today fevered by wars and crises of apocalyptic dimensions, a condition that needs not only a tested hand but a wise, prudent and even-tempered statesman, unfortunately, Mr Trump is alarmingly not any of these. But if his victory last week, after a galling and deflating four-year hiatus, has unexpectedly conditioned him into unaccustomed quiescence, there is a small chance he might browbeat warring global factions into some tentative peace, no matter how short-lived. Few hold out such fanciful hopes, however, especially because he does not seem cut from that cloth; but who can tell?

    But there is one inalienable factor in his politics that is beyond any dispute: his racism, both borne out of his flawed and dysfunctional background and also propelled by his violent and unrelenting so-called MAGA (Make America Great Again) support base. In consonance with the demographics of those who voted for him, the racist overtones of his politics will neither change nor be attenuated by exigent political circumstances. It is, however, important not to draw very simplistic conclusions about those demographics, whether they pertain to age (more young people voted Harris than Trump), or race (more Latino men and white men and women voted Trump), or general perception of who between the two is a stronger leader who can manage crisis better and handle the economy more satisfactorily. Even though Mr Trump’s leadership perceptions during the campaigns were more elementary than his opponent’s, and his projections of his competence more based on superfluities than anything measurable, he managed overall to create the impression that he is what America and a crisis-ridden world need at the moment.

    But far beyond interpreting what the voting demographics say, America and the world must brace up for a very turbulent ride by a new president who is essentially shallow, confused, and morally and ideologically unmoored. As this column consistently maintains, America will implode rather than be defeated in battle, a prospect that may convulse a shaky world already difficult to police by any superpower. The evangelicals who repose their trust in so fragile and flawed a politician to achieve the required moral transformation they pine after, and the acquiescent Michigan Muslims who incongruously expect him to bring peace to the Middle East, not to talk of the pedantic Nigerian Christian right who see him as a rampart to forestall the sexual deviancy invasion of their private nightmares are setting up themselves for a heartbreak. All three groups see him as a champion for their cause; but does he know God, and does he even care about God, especially being himself an avatar of extreme moral monstrosities?