It has been more than two years since Russian president Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine in order to achieve the goal of Greater Russia. Helped by Western powers, Ukraine has beaten back the invasion and largely stalemated the war. Its chances of holding out indefinitely, in the absence of a negotiated settlement, are, however, farfetched. It was in the midst of this increasingly interminable war that Mr Putin has orchestrated a fifth electoral landslide against his mimic opponents. He will be in office for another six years, his health and safety permitting. By standing for this election and leaving nothing to chance, the Russian president has clearly indicated that he is unwilling to leave office alive. Mr Putin will be 77 by the next election, much younger than the United States president Joe Biden who, should he win the November poll, will be 85 at the end of his second term.
No one knows exactly how the Russo-Ukrainian war will end. Should military assistance from the US resume, the end of the war may still be some way off. If not, it could end quicker than many people fear. But whether Russia wins or not, Russo-Ukrainian relations have been damaged severely. However, every rational interpretation of the war suggests that it is a vain, rather than strategic, war for Russia. Should it win, it will nevertheless be unable to keep the trophy for too long. Occupation will be costly, not only in the short term, but also in the long term. Victory will also not deter NATO, as Mr Putin expects. Five or six of its neighbours are NATO members, and some three more are pro-West. It cannot conceivably fight and conquer them all.
Senegal has a population of a little over 18 million people, and Singapore about six million. These very modest population figures have not deterred some Nigerians from deprecating their country of about 220 million people in light of those two countries. Senegal never came under military rule since becoming independent in August 1960 after dissolving its union with Mali (French Sudan), but it has had little to show for decades of independence other than a fairly stable democracy severely tested in the past two decades. Singapore, which is at once a city, capital and state, has been a phenomenal economic, social and political success. But it remains geographically small and demographically compact. If it must be compared with Nigeria, such comparisons must be guarded. For decades, many Nigerian social and political commentators have belittled Nigeria in terms of the Singaporean experience. Now they are also deploring Nigeria‘s democracy in terms of some perhaps transient Senegalese success.
Senegal’s stable but sometimes troubled democracy must be lauded. But two things about Senegal should restrain Nigeria’s exuberant commentators who specialise in comparing generally unlike terms. Firstly, despite having a modest population, more than double that of Israel, Senegal’s economy has underperformed compared to Nigeria’s. According to 2023 estimates, Senegal has a nominal GDP of a little over $31bn and per capita of $1,714, compared with Nigeria’s nominal GDP of $390bn and per capita of $1,755. Secondly, despite Nigerian democracy being repeatedly truncated by inept military rulers, the country has stabilised in the past 25 years, and looks set to consolidate democratic rule. Senegal may have a unicameral legislature and run a parliamentary system, which some revisionists believe is superior to the presidential system, nothing suggests that recent political developments and appointments would give Senegal the upper hand, let alone confer greater stability upon it.
Though Nigeria needed a coalition of political parties to win the 2015 presidential election, and losers in the 2023 presidential election are contemplating the same formula, Senegal with its presumed superiority in political development, has also thrice needed coalitions both to win elections and reelections as well as govern. Exuberant Nigerian analysts whoop over the new Senegalese president’s youthful age – Bassirou Diamaye Faye is 44 years old – but he was fairly unknown and untested, compared to his mentor whom he has appointed as prime minister, Ousmane Sonko, 49. Mr Sonko placed third in the 2019 presidential election and is well known. Mentoring each other and forming a coalition to win an election are a different kettle of fish from governing harmoniously. With Mr Sonko more tested and more charismatic, there are no guarantees that the relationship between the two would be stable and progressive in the face of dire and continuing economic hardship, especially with Mr Faye gently walking back his fiery speech and position on Senegal’s financial links with France.
Initial appearance may be deceptive, and Mr Faye may eventually become a revelation, but for now no one can determine conclusively that both the president and his prime minister would go the long haul if the economy proves unamenable to every known panacea and the president needs a scapegoat. Mr Sonko put Mr Faye forward for the presidential election and backed him with all the powers of the coalition, but the months and years ahead will show how wise that arrangement has been and whether the cooperation between the two would not turn out to be contrapuntal. Singapore and Nigeria do not suffer the inhibitions of two heavyweights sharing office, and their political systems, parliamentary and presidential respectively, are not circumscribed by any expedient agreements or even coalitions. Indeed, Singapore’s ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) governs with lesser parliamentary majority than it did decades ago (about 61 percent winning tally in the 2020 election to nearly 90 percent in 1968), while Nigeria’s winning tally managed to cross the 50 percent level in the last presidential poll; but the former’s economy and to some extent its politics and military, unlike the latter’s, are inextricably and dangerously intertwined with the West.
There is so much to be said for Nigeria, despite its chequered history. It may not have risen to the greatness and independence of say China, but it has the potential to rise phenomenally under certain conditions far much quicker and steadier and more durable than both Senegal and Singapore. At least, with high absorptive capacity and transformative review of trade policies and regulations, Nigeria retains the capacity to expand far more broadly than Singapore. Even discounting the monarchical undertones of Lee Hsieng Loong’s emergence as Singapore’s prime minister in 2004 at the age of 52 (he is the son of founding prime minister Lee Kuan Yew), he was like Mr Faye at 44 and Mr Sonko at 49, a young leader when he took office. Mr Loong is now 72 years old, and continues to preside fairly efficiently over the affairs of Singapore. For Nigeria’s fawning commentators to arbitrarily deploy age as a factor of governance or of winning elections is both dishonest and irrational.
Analysts who continue to deprecate Nigeria are invariably endorsing sentiments, poor understanding of political science, and wild generalisations of international relations. Nigeria may be assailed by many demons, but it is unhelpful to view its prospects in terms of the neatly compartmentalised understanding of other countries, many of them far smaller geographically and demographically. Two major problems dog Nigeria, thus limiting and even stultifying its development and stability. One is its inability to devise the right political structure that should help undergird its stability and growth; and two is the related influence of a ponderous and toxic mix of ethnicity and religion. These limiting factors are not unassailable. Singapore’s storied secularism demonstrates why those negative factors can be defeated, and Senegal’s generally disciplined approach to ethnicity demonstrates why Nigeria, if it tries harder, can overcome its limitations.
Despite the turmoil in the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Ondo State, the ruling party appears poised to retain the State House in Akure. This is not surprising. Ruling parties are extremely difficult to beat, whether they are wracked by splits or weakened by ineptitude. Ondo State may again prove to be the archetype of that peculiarly dissonant kind of politics that disregards the internal combustion and failings of the ruling party. The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the state has strangely been jinxed, unable to summon the vigour and tenacity needed to take advantage of the APC’s turbulence and weaknesses, but the ruling party has been even more unsettled as a result of the conflict that followed the sickness and passing of their former governor Rotimi Akeredolu. Both parties are unworthy of the state, but the public will focus more on the APC, believing, perhaps superstitiously, that whoever takes the governorship ticket next weekend will win the November governorship poll. They are right, except something truly seismic occurs. But in Nigeria, whose political tectonics are fairly stable, seismic activities seldom occur, not even when a daring coalition inspired by APC dreamers and upstarts demolished the complacency of the PDP in 2015.
Ondo is on the horns of a dilemma. Whatever happens in the APC primary, even if the most hated aspirant should take the ticket, they will eventually rally round their hypothetical devil rather than enable the Teflon saints of the PDP to snatch the throne. The PDP fears this sombre inevitability of APC winning despite the madness coursing through the ranks of the ruling party, and APC leaders, nearly always complacent, appear to love and embrace the fact that PDP and APC infantrymen have resigned themselves to this unwholesome possibility. While the PDP has been fairly somnolent in the struggle for the ticket between former deputy governor Agboola Ajayi and Eyitayo Jegede, the APC has spewed molten magma of hate and abuse and ladled them on every passerby. As the countdown to the primaries begins, all attention is, therefore, riveted on the APC, which indigenes expect will shape for good or bad the destiny of the state for the next four years.
There are predictably more than a dozen contestants on the APC platform. The APC is not only ruling Ondo, it is also ruling the nation. The factors of incumbencies are thus expected to be unleashed in all their fury. But of the squabbling lot, three or four contestants stand any reasonable chance of taking the APC diadem. Governor Lucky Aiyedatiwa, yes the same vacillating, impulsive and controversial politician, leads the pack. Hard on his heels is Jimoh Ibrahim, the mercurial businessman besotted to a string of degrees from great institutions. Then coming in their wake are the lesser-known aspirants like former Finance commissioner in the state, Wale Akinterinwa, and serial contender Olusola Oke, a lawyer and senior advocate. By sheer heft and purse, the race will likely be a two-horse fight between the governor and the garlanded Mr Ibrahim. Whoever wins between the two, or even among the four, will doubtless receive total support. It is thus a waste of time trying to determine who will win. It is far better to talk about who should not win.
Both Mr Akinterinwa and Mr Oke, by their temperaments and sturdiness over the years, will make far better governors than Mr Aiyedatiwa or Mr Ibrahim. But regardless of what they do or say, and notwithstanding their amiableness and capacity, their chances are not very bright. Since he became governor, and some say even way before, Mr Aiyedatiwa has schemed for the November poll. He is thus the frontrunner, in far more advantageous position than the more resolute and relentless Mr Ibrahim. As governor, he has virtually neutralised or compromised the opposition to his assuming office. Nearly all Ondo office holders are working for him, and a sizable number of lawmakers who felt revolted by his audacious scheming have reconciled themselves to his aspiration. Mr Aiyedatiwa has retained in his cabinet nearly all the officials he inherited from the late Mr Akeredolu; their fate is now tied to his success, firstly in the party, and secondly and most implacably in the governorship poll. They may not like him, and continue to squirm over the manner he treated his benefactor, but their interests have now become coterminous with the governor’s. Convergence of interests has a way of concentrating minds and amplifying ambitions. The inherited officials are not immune to the blandishments of the governor or the perks of office and, as incurable optimists, are unconcerned about whether the governor will honour his word after the poll. Mr Aiyedatiwa’s private morality is perhaps as controversial as his public morality, but the inherited officials will give him the benefit of the doubt. He might very well be a saint.
It is not impossible for Mr Ibrahim to win the primary. But that will depend on two major factors: whether he is willing to outspend the governor; or whether the APC members are sufficiently horrified by the unflattering behaviour of the governor towards his previously bedfast benefactor. The two variables are impossible to measure accurately. Unfortunately for the state, while Mr Ibrahim, should he win, will be a pig in a poke, the governor has shown little mettle and more aversion to principles. Would APC voters risk Mr Ibrahim’s behavioural unknowns or endure four years of Mr Aiyedatiwa’s dreadful judgement? No one but the APC members can tell. So, in short, Ondo APC will ruefully cast glances in the direction of Messrs Akinterinwa and Oke, but wave them away. Circumstances will make them to grimace as they weigh the governor and Mr Ibrahim on a faulty scale which poor health and death had forced Mr Akeredolu to pass on. For all his lawyerly leadership, Mr Akeredolu died intestate as far as the politics of Ondo is concerned.
It is not clear why Ondo has been repeatedly blind to Mr Oke’s huge talent; nor does anyone but Mr Akinterinwa know about his being the late governor’s legatee, as he claimed. But both politicians occupy the lower rungs in the people’s estimation. There is, however, one thing Ondo cannot pretend not to know: Mr Aiyedatiwa’s brittle personality and poor judgement. The APC members may discount his lack of finesse and judgement, but they cannot say their connivance would not cost them dearly. If they were made of sterner stuff than the rest of the Nigerian electorate, they would repudiate the governor with all their might and all their being, and opt for a safer and more predictable future for their state. Former Rivers governor Nyesom Wike bemoans the duplicity of his successor Siminalayi Fubara, deploring the latter’s lack of gratitude. In Ondo, while the hapless Mr Akeredolu pined away on sick bed, Mr Aiyedatiwa exhibited a part of him to the world which discomfited the entire state, including the opposition, and left the ruling party truly flummoxed. Had he behaved most inspiringly, observing due political etiquette in all its grand ramifications, he would have made his election both at the primary and governorship levels a fait accompli. Should Ondo APC endorse him this weekend after all of him has been exposed in disquieting colours, the party will not get a second chance to deplore his fecklessness or show their aversion to his vulgarity.
In his remarks on Senegalese president Bassirou Diomaye Faye’s election, former vice president Atiku Abubakar admonished the Nigerian political class to form a coalition to dethrone the All Progressives Congress (APC) in 2027. He was explicit: “It is important to note,” he began didactically, “that last Sunday’s (March 24) election in Senegal followed the trend of that in Nigeria in 2015, that the opposition can, indeed, be victorious in an election conducted by the ruling party. And, for the opposition parties, the lessons are in agreement with my persistent call for our opposition parties to forge a coalition that is formidable enough to oust the ruling party if the salvaging of Nigeria is to stand any chance.” The Atiku statement was too short to expatiate on the lessons he supposedly learnt from the Senegalese election which seemed to have gingered his interest in embracing coalition as an electoral tool, but he issued it anyway and felt sufficiently inspired by that poll to anticipate a favourable outcome in 2027.
The implication is that the former vice president already visualises himself as the presidential candidate of a coalition probably led by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on which platform he twice contested the presidency. After his initial stupefaction at his loss of the presidential poll last year, and after a fruitless bruising battle to get the courts to give him a victory he did not deserve, he has begun to address his mind to much saner electoral reality. Going by his statement on Senegal’s new president, Alhaji Atiku appears to admit that a coalition may always be needed to unhorse a formidable ruling party. He was gifted the silhouette of a coalition last year, and only needed to give it form and substance, but he frittered the chance away by calling the bluff of the Group of Five (G-5) dissenting PDP governors advocating for equity within the party, by his disregard for Peter Obi who he felt was undeserving of the running mate ticket a second time, and by his overconfidence in Kano State electorate despite not reaching a deal with the sulking ex-governor Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso. Assured by certain individuals and forces in the presidency, the former vice president went solo and came to spectacular grief.
It is presumed that Alhaji Atiku has learnt his lessons, considering his decades in politics, not to say his self-assuredness that one day he would ascend to the presidency. By the next presidential election, he will be 81 years old. During the last poll, when he was 76, he was already lethargic, the boom in his voice less ardent, and his steps a little less jaunty but deceptively firmer than a shuffle. He knows, and both the country and leaders of his party also know, that he is not really in fine fettle. But his obsession with the presidency will cause him to do all in his power to actualise the dream. After eventually overcoming the grief of losing the presidential election, he has inevitably turned his attention to his party, the PDP, to reform and reposition it for the next polls. He is still highly regarded in the party and remains a deep pocket; but once determined steps start to be taken, ambitious politicians within the leadership rank will begin to unsheathe their swords. They respect the former vice president, but they see his electoral losses not as a learning curve for the gerontocrat, but as a humiliating reminder of their collective poor judgement and impotence, and as a burden to be expiated at all costs. Party leaders will, therefore, be torn between allowing him to inspire and champion the party’s reformation, despite his superficiality and inattentiveness to detail, or backing someone else less fractious, lesser known, probably more ideological and even mendicant.
For now, party leaders are still stuck at the level of producing their next national chairman. Alhaji Atiku had stubbornly backed Iyorchia Ayu to continue as chairman of the party before the last polls in violation of their constitution, but party leaders and the courts finally undid the Benue politician. They will get the North Central zone to suggest a replacement, whether that replacement gets the blessing of Alhaji Atiku or not. A lot of manoeuvres should be expected. However, party leaders will probably take a cue from the All Progressives Congress (APC) which gave the ticket to Bola Ahmed Tinubu before the last presidential election even when he was not in control of the party. Secondly, the PDP is still stuck unimaginatively at the point of trying to identify fifth columnists in order to mete out punishment. There will be many suspects, but it is not certain that once they are identified they can really be punished on the deterrent scale the witch-hunters hope. Fingers will point in the direction of the G-5, for instance, but party leaders will be hard put to do anything more than ruffle their feathers. Nyesom Wike, former Rivers State governor and now FCT minister, will engage in his incredible straddle, and former Benue State governor Samuel Ortom will talk from both sides of the mouth; yet in the end, many of those opposed to Alhaji Atiku will court their favour rather than acquiesce to their punishment. Even the former vice president himself will in the end sue for peace rather than unsheathe his sword and start a war he can’t conceivably win or finish.
The effort to revivify the PDP will undoubtedly lead to a lot of fracas within the party. PDP observers see the fracas developing into a battle royale as a group of Young Turks boasting vigour and ideology take on the old guard steeped in conservatism and ossified tradition. Party leaders, including Alhaji Atiku who is adept at talking the talk, know that the PDP is still the leading opposition party. They may not play that leading role with panache or demonstrable brilliance, but they are far more engaging than the factionalised and superstitious Labour Party (LP) which noisily announced in January that they were fated to be the main opposition party. The former vice president is at the moment the only one speaking for his party. He will continue to do so until the party leadership struggle is resolved. He may leverage on the Donald Trump style of acerbic talk and indifference to old age, but in Nigeria, he will be hard put to ride roughshod over some of the state governors adamantly set against his taking the presidential ticket for the 2027 poll. It is indeed hard to bet on him, assuming he survives the initial fight within the party certain to break into the open soon.
In order to determine who to concede the party leadership to eventually, party leaders will try to answer the question of who among the leading contenders for the 2027 ticket will best approximate the values of the party and stand a better chance of cobbling together the kind of coalition Alhaji Atiku has vaingloriously but belatedly spoken about. The former vice president had the best chance of weaving together that coalition last year, but he spurned the opportunity after giving his word. Party leaders are unlikely to trust him. Even if he means it this time, they will see his humility and concessions as self-serving and opportunistic; and they will interpret his practical politics demonstrated in his puzzling support for Dr Ayu to the exclusion of the G-5 as incoherent, irrational and instinctive. They will be in a quandary about how to ignore his wealth and readiness to bankroll his election, and they will also be frightfully aware of his selfishness in reining in his purse should he fail to win the ticket. In time, they will increasingly become keenly aware of some of his other attributes, many of them galling, such as his sense of entitlement, his secret belief in regional exceptionalism, and his essential divisiveness and maliciousness.
Alhaji Atiku never really abjured coalition as an election tool; he only never gave a deep thought to it. From his reading of the Senegalese election – undoubtedly a poor reading, for the winners and losers alike went into the election with coalitions – and reimagining the coalition that saw off the Goodluck Jonathan government in Nigeria, he believes that only a coalition of parties can get him into the State House. He is wrong. First the mood must be right, then the moment, then the candidate, then the geopolitics. Senegal produced that magical convergence two weeks ago, leading the upstart coalition to defeat the bloated and complacent ruling coalition; for both had dichotomised the past and represented the future so sharply that there was little difficulty in embracing or rejecting what each exemplified. Despite his poor reading of the Senegalese election, it is somewhat reassuring that Alhaji Atiku at least appreciates the value of a coalition, and was even a participant in the 2015 Nigerian feat. It is his personal tragedy that he disavowed it in the last poll when it mattered most to his ambition. He will now face an uphill struggle to retain political relevance in his late 70s, and if his party allows him, fight the next poll in his geriatric 80s. Worse, if he overcomes those gigantic obstacles, he must then proceed to build a coalition at a time when he is most distrusted by party faithful, enfeebled by age, shackled by his corrosive and closeted fundamentalism, and slowed down by his antiquated ideas of modern economics and politics.
In a brazen display of political pride, both Governor Caleb Mutfwang of Plateau State and House of Assembly speaker Gabriel Dewan paralysed the State House of Assembly for months by refusing to swear in 16 All Progressives Congress (APC) lawmakers declared winners of last year’s legislative poll by the Court of Appeal last November. They pussyfooted until last Friday before mystifyingly swearing in nine of the lawmakers, including a Labour Party legislator. Thereafter the governor met the lawmakers, saluted their ‘independence’ and enthused over their legislative work. It became clear that the dithering in the legislature, which is still conducting business at the old Government House, was a conspiracy. It is unclear what ghosts haunt Mr Mutfwang. Does he fear being presented a majority APC House of Assembly? Does he fear being impeached sometime in the future by hostile lawmakers, in a replay of the childish wrangling in Rivers State?
Hon Dewan is the only Young Progressives Party (YPP) member in the Assembly. He seemed a place-holder for the PDP but appears afraid of being impeached and replaced by an APC lawmaker. His emergence is obviously a product of shadowy compromises undertaken when the APC legislators had yet to win their case in the courts. Since last November, however, both the governor and the speaker have been ill at ease, and have stalled the inauguration of the APC members and engaged in a fruitless merry-go-round in the courts hoping that in light of the Supreme Court judgement validating the governor’s election, the Court of Appeal victory of the APC members could be reversed. The case is still pending. The APC lawmakers’ victory will, however, not be reversed, and Hon Dewan is merely chasing shadows. Despite the hostility of the Plateau public and their past but now waning animus against the APC over the same-faith presidential ticket, there is nothing anyone, governor or lawmaker or the public, can do to mitigate the severity and direction of the case. Indeed, there is a limit to which they can hedge their responsibilities.
Hon Dewan’s procrastinations are unjustifiable but understandable. He has nothing to lose. What is perplexing is the governor’s flagrant disobedience to court judgement and the constitution. He has misled the Plateau public, muddled up the legal case against his party, engaged in self-help, and pretended not to be involved in the dilatoriness enacted by the obsequious Hon Dewan. No, the governor is culpable. He is behind the whole saga, and he continues to pull the strings. He is disrespectful of the law and sets a very bad example for future generations on public behaviour. He has also displayed poor judgement in a complicated matter that nevertheless beckons on him to rise to statesmanship and greatness.
Are his fears of impeachment and perhaps lack of legislative cooperation real? They probably are. But then it is in the face of such dire antagonisms that leaders and leadership are forged. Unfortunately, Mr Mutfwang has chosen the easy way out: covertly assailing the courts, hoping for a legal deus ex machina, and generally stalling the process in the hope that some kind of unearthly solutions can be found. Neither he nor Hon Dewan has the right whatsoever to stall the swearing in of the lawmakers. Despite their high offices, they are not above the law and the constitution. Hear the governor waxing lyrical when Hon Dewan presented the exultant lawmakers to him: “Today brings me immense joy. I have always advocated for the seamless functioning of the three arms of government. Thus, it is gratifying to witness the House fully operational, poised to safeguard the interests of the people of Plateau State across various constituencies. Despite wrong accusations of obstructing the House’s inauguration, it is evident that the House is fully in charge of its affairs, and I commend you for that…” The governor knows he is lying. Did they not say the courts had stayed their hands?
The APC needs to sanction their consenting and conspiratorial lawmakers who broke ranks with their colleagues. They acted disreputably in the face of the governor’s divide and rule, and are thus unworthy of the positions they were elected into. It is even alleged that the nine had agreed to resign from the legislature after their swearing-in. If the governor will not do what is right, and the state’s attorney general will not advise him, it may be time the federal attorney general wrote the state, urging them to mend their ways. Too many childish actions endangering democracy are emanating from some states. For the sake of democracy and political stability, even in the face of the judiciary muddying the political waters, principal political actors should apply wisdom, eschew populism, and be prepared to sacrifice everything for the sake of unborn generations. Plateau’s top political actors, like Rivers State’s dissimulative leaders, have behaved most atrociously and egotistically.
Mr Mutfwang should put a halt to the foolishness in the State House of Assembly. He is a lawyer who claims to be a man of faith; he can’t say he does not know what to do. Hon Dewan privately claimed his disinclination to swear in the rest seven lawmakers was due to certain documents at his disposal. Do those documents supersede the law and the constitution? And where on earth are Plateau State elders? If they can’t judge between the controversial jurisprudence of the appellate court in the matter of the 16 victorious APC legislators and the embarrassing self-help embarked upon by their governor and his conniving legislative allies as well as the disinterested public, it means they deliberately undermine the integrity of their eldership and the wisdom that should come with it.
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, 72, has a mystique about him. Narrowing it down mainly to his policy successes, amply exemplified by his ongoing tentative recalibration of the Nigerian economy and politics, will be grossly unfair. This writer seldom does a copious examination of his policies, considering that even tyrants sometimes stumble into great policies and occasionally mange to rebuild and transform their broken countries. However, President Tinubu has chalked up over the years some spectacular policy successes worthy of consideration, not least when he was governor of Lagos State, and remarkably too outside office when he assigned himself the prefectural but unconstitutional role of inspiring and coaxing the state and his successors into a disciplined army. The writer made a tangential reference to this insubstantiality of the Tinubu essence on March 17, 2024 when he commented on Gen. Christopher Musa’s national admonition on the power of the spoken word with respect to the peace and stability of Nigeria.
To, therefore, attempt barely nine months into his first term to discuss and celebrate President Tinubu’s policies, or to excoriate him on the same score, is to open oneself to accusation of flattery or prejudice. It will take time, hopefully shorter than expected, for his policies to mature and deliver results or miscarry. Policies have their gestation periods; those enunciated by the president on his assumption of office, or any leader for that matter, are not exempted. What is, however, unhidden, no matter how carefully a leader tries to conceal it, is his character make-up, his intrinsic, essential person. That intangible self endures well after everything else is dissipated, and that essence is not vitiated by wealth or poverty, praise or persecution, or background or status. It would be unkind to look at President Tinubu’s 72 years on earth strictly from his policy successes or status attained. These are of course notable policy triumphs intertwined with his person, but they are too limited to give a proper understanding of the man, his politics or leadership.
President Tinubu’s governorship in Lagos gave only a small glimpse of his person; the last presidential campaigns gave an even far better glimpse of the kind of person he really is, especially how closely he approximates the algebra of leadership. Unlike ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo and a former United States president Calvin Coolidge who both seemed propelled on the wings of luck or celestial interventions in their affairs, everything about President Tinubu has seemed anchored on the deliberateness of his plans and actions. Gifted with boldness that flows from intuition, and borne on the wings of fate that transcends his will, he has faced great risks, braved incredible challenges, and taken on formidable enemies. Here he finds himself in fellowship with some of history’s great leaders, not only in Africa but also in Europe, the Americas and Asia. Had he come at a different era, he would have been a military conqueror, dreaming campaigns of conquests over vast lands and territories, his fallibilities and sometimes failures assuaged by the sanguinary thrills of battles and victory parades.
To become the president of Nigeria last year, he overcame two daunting obstacles. The first was the opposition within his party and conspiracies by his party that were religiously and ethnically curated for years before being unleashed upon him months before the ruling party welcomed any aspiration to the throne; and the second was the opposition by the general populace to any aspirant or eventual candidate connected with or presented by the All Progressives Congress (APC). No earthly political calculus favoured President Tinubu, either as an aspirant, at a time he was deeply loathed by his friends and fellow party men, or as a candidate, when he was overwhelmingly reviled and mercilessly caricatured all over the country. It was abnormal in those circumstances for anyone to throw his hat in the ring. One might conceivably swim against the tide; but his intuition led him inexorably into that abnormal unthinkability of swimming against rapids and waterfalls, sometimes maintaining contemplative silence in the face of general doubts by family and long-term friends and associates, and at other times demonstrating the fitful effervescence of someone who had just consulted the gods. His forte, it is increasingly clear, is political gambling, which some detractors and aides sometimes interpret as unbearable cocksureness and inflexibility. (Chief Obasanjo once infamously quipped in his accustomed colloquialism that he backed Labour Party’s Peter Obi because he needed someone he could reprove. Candidate Tinubu, he was convinced, was inured to reproof). It was, therefore, unsurprising that on the day aspirant Tinubu consulted with then President Muhammadu Buhari regarding his intention to contest the presidency, and then proceeded to announce his aspiration to a motley assembly of jaded pressmen, he was accompanied by only his media adviser, Tunde Rahman, with both of them looking forlorn and probably wondering what they were getting themselves into, or what demons they were unleashing.
President Tinubu loves life and has enjoyed it to the fullest, a paradox for someone so normally contemplative, a politician not dissuaded by the inevitable paralysis that often accompanies too much thinking. But this is one of the enduring conundrums of his mystique, that such a man who loves life so consummately and dances to and interprets the talking drum, can also summon the chutzpah to produce a winning and yet nuanced same-faith presidential ticket that baited and tamed the religiosity of conclaves of opposition bishops and Pentecostal preachers driven into frenzy by his political audacity. Few knew he could win; but he won and then spurred many more rounds of angry detritus of prophetic offerings from clerics. At first glance, everything about his life seemed designed to consign him to unremitting ordinariness. But not only has he achieved the impossible by winning the presidency against an opposition that would have long broken any other person of lesser mettle, he has also walked incredibly more surefootedly beyond the first few tentative months that could equally have crippled probably anyone else. Fathoming the mysteries and mystique of his trajectory so far does not lend itself to casual analysis using popular analytical tools.
One more explanation can be hazarded. Despite the security challenges upending parts of the country, and the economic hardship that sometimes makes the country to nearly keel over, not to talk of the contrived opposition by powerful interest groups still stunned by his victory, the undecipherable mystique that imbues his person with strength and ennobles his policies may yet produce the magic powerful enough to animate his success and ensure that once the curtain falls on his presidency, Nigeria would never remain the same. For him to transcend the incredible opposition that assailed his presidential ambition, regardless of whether you like him or hate him, may be an indication that he seems tuned to the spiritual wavelength of forces imperceptible to the human mind. Should President Tinubu prove adept at riding on God’s coattails, not withstanding his occasional policy missteps, no one may stop him from climbing the heights he has envisioned.
Would he, like President Buhari wailed in his early weeks in office, also yield to the despair that sometimes accompany winning the presidency as a septuagenarian? President Tinubu’s gait is of course not as strong or brisk as when he was in his 40s or 50s as governor, and his elocution has sometimes seemed tortured; but the vigour of his mind has not been attenuated by age nor his zest for life and leadership wearied by the ravages of time. He was a distinction student at the university, and later a keen and exemplary accountant and auditor. That combination affords the owner a forensic and logical mind incredibly capable of grappling with normative science. Added to his passion for politics and newly acquired indifference to the foibles of men, and being a bit of an adrenalin junkie, he will see his new age as a challenge to be confronted not evaded, a reason to live and lead, not a trigger to evade or abdicate. He has matured considerably as a septuagenarian, has acquired the sangfroid and sharpness great leaders are noted for, and his definition of loyalty and friendship has become less idealistic and convoluted. He will in fact do much better now than when he was governor, especially considering that the cruel and stifling opposition he faced on the road to the presidency had mollified his temperament and made him more resilient and more keenly aware of his place in this era.
Since abduction of schoolchildren became popular with bandits, the federal government has been unable to come up with an effective response to rein in the crime. Nigeria’s security agencies are both overextended and in many instances poorly equipped to deal with the ubiquitousness of a crime that continues to traumatise families, embarrass the government, and lower the esteem of Nigeria in the eyes of the world. The problem has festered so badly that suspicion is rife about the real reasons for the government’s impotence. For a genre of crime that began way back under the Goodluck Jonathan presidency, it is shocking that no effective panacea has yet been developed. It remains to be seen whether the Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration will buck the trend, for it has also been left reeling and unrespited from many brazen abductions. Predictably, controversies have trailed the freedom of the 137 Kuriga, Kaduna State, schoolchildren abducted by bandits on March 7 and freed some 17 days later in Zamfara State at a location nearly 100km away. There was confusion as to whether they were released or rescued. But that was nothing compared to the speculation of whether ransom was paid or not, especially in the face of the administration’s determination to preclude ransom payment.
Some reports indicated that ransom was paid. The federal government denies the reports. But far beyond the dispute over ransom payment is what the government proposes to do to stem the tide of school kidnappings which, more than any other kind of abduction, expose the government’s impotence. How it approaches every ‘rescue’ effort will determine whether it will finally be successful in eradicating the disease. No ‘rescue’ effort since 2014 has been carried out with the panache that deters kidnappers and bandits, or raises the esteem of the country. The Chibok, Borno State, abduction was haphazardly and half-heartedly resolved with ransom payments that left about one-third of the 276 schoolgirls taken by Boko Haram in April 2014 still in captivity, perhaps never to return home. The 110 schoolgirls also taken from Dapchi, Yobe State, in February 2018 exposed the government’s shambolic approach to school security and handling of the kidnapping crisis. They were freed about a month later after ransom was paid, and there were no lexical confusions about ‘rescue’ and ‘release’.
Schoolchildren abductions began in earnest in the closing months of the Jonathan administration. But they have surprisingly metastasised under the Buhari government which flaunted its stentorian approach to civil administration. Under Dr Jonathan, kidnapping was talked about in whispers as politically mischief. Such suggestions were later dismissed under the Buhari government as fictional. The inability of the two administrations to curb the crime triggered suspicion that they were actually inept. If the Tinubu administration is to avoid such a contemptuous characterisation, it will need to break the mould, review its strategies beyond the mere deployment of a school protection force, sneer at lexical paradoxes, free itself from thralldom to the military as exampled by the Okuama reprisals and honours, and generally outthink bandits as well as their presumed political, economic and military sponsors and collaborators. The Kuriga abduction should afford the administration the opportunity to devise a more effective and systemic approach to dealing with a malaise that has suffocated the nation for years.
The Tinubu administration may have negotiated the ‘release’ or plot the ‘rescue’ of the Kuriga abductees, but like the bandits who kidnap at will, it is not bound by any hypothetical deal that constrains it from devising holistic plans to defeat both banditry and kidnapping, not only in the Northwest but also elsewhere. In line with this, it is time for the administration to put together a team to propose a solution. It is unlikely that a solution could be found that would not involve locking down states and communities where abductions are carried out. And if the bandits make a quick get-away, as they often do with surprisingly effective logistics and planning, including infiltrating the security services, reconnaissance flights should pinpoint their hideouts which should then be besieged for as long as is required. Recruiting and training a school protection force is symbolic, tokenistic and unworkable. The government will never be able to staff the protection force on a scale that would deter further attacks on isolated schools in remote, inaccessible villages.
In order to honour the 17 officers and men of the Nigerian Army who lost their lives in an ambush at Okuama, Ughelli South local government area of Delta State, on March 14, the federal government announced a string of national awards, house gifts for their families, scholarship for their children, and timely payment of their benefits. The gesture was a profound way of honouring soldiers who pay the ultimate sacrifice. In any military in the world, a soldier giving his life for country is often regarded as the highest form of sacrifice. The federal government was, therefore, right to acknowledge the sacrifice of the 17, and even righter to look for ways of honouring them. If victorious football teams could be honoured with houses, why exclude national heroes who give their lives?
In principle, honouring the slain men was the right thing to do. The problem, however, is whether those honours were not misplaced. The military and the country honour their heroes in ways not denoted in material terms; the government should have stuck to that style. It opens up a whole gamut of controversy to single out for attention and reward one type of sacrifice over another. Scores of military men lose their lives in other theatres without attracting the kind of attention bestowed upon the Okuama-17. The government should have waited until all controversies surrounding the killings were resolved before proceeding to garland the slain men. There was no need for hurry. More importantly, the government should have stuck to military tradition, even if that tradition had been undermined in the past.
The many battles within the Labour Party (LP) and between the party and its surrogate mother, the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), have exposed the timidity of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and law enforcement agencies, particularly the police, in their handling of political discord. INEC registers and delists political parties based on constitutional provisions. Strangely, on the long-running skirmishes within the LP, the latest of which came to the fore last week between NLC and LP leaderships, INEC has remained impassive. The police have over the years been swift in tackling intraparty rascality, in many instances shutting down party secretariats until the courts decided; but in the case of the LP, for reasons not clearly stated, they have been flatfooted, allowing crimes and malfeasance to be committed at will. No one is sure what scale of conflict must occur in the LP before the relevant agencies put their foot down.
In managing an economy driven to ruin over the past one decade or two, the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) has appeared beleaguered. It runs the federal administration, and through the attorney general’s office, everything involving party conflicts that border on breakdown of law and order or self-help falls within its remit. But it has seemed content to watch the LP pulverise itself into a coma. Why help an enemy intent on destroying itself, especially after that enemy exhibited vacuity and total lack of ideology and principles? Intervening, the APC probably fears, might shift the focus away from the brigandage happening in the LP to the supposed meddlesomeness of an intolerant and discourteous ruling party. It probably reasoned that if it had intervened when the NLC/LP condominium was up in arms against the Lamidi Apapa faction, it would have robbed the country of the current spectacle contaminating the party in its entirety and deprived citizens of the ringside seats they covet to behold the weaknesses and vacillations of the party’s former presidential candidate, Peter Obi. But perhaps the various agencies empowered by law to intervene in intraparty conflicts are holding their peace because the constitution and Electoral Act already made provisions for the resolution of such conflicts. At what point then do these agencies deem the affected parties, in this case the LP, to have lost control?
The LP is split into three ungainly and paradoxical factions. The NLC component remains the mafia don, the godfather and surrogate mother wrapped into one faction. It would stop at nothing and does not respect any law or convention in maintaining its stranglehold on the party. It boasts of no ideology other than the promotion of workers’ welfare, but it feigns to run a national party committed to regenerating and reforming the country. How it hopes to carry out that inspiring task without structured and coherent ideas is not spelt out in clear terms. The second faction is the Mr Apapa/Abayomi Arabambi faction whose casus belli are the alleged crass ethnicisation of the leadership of the party by Mr Obi and the NLC president, Joe Ajaero, allegations of illegal substitution of candidates in the last polls for which more than N2bn was reportedly deployed, and the NLC president’s undue militancy and disrespect for the rule of law. With the LP national chairman, Julius Abure, now crossing swords with the cantankerous Mr Ajaero, a third faction has now been formed headed by Mr Abure himself, an incredibly wily, obstinate and hugely underestimated politician. In summary, the LP is now balkanised into three factions, and its disputed leadership comprises one meddlesome NLC president and an ineffective and unideological former presidential candidate, Mr Obi. Can they resolve the logjam?
In nearly every piece on the LP in the past nine months, this column had suggested that the party would implode sooner or later, and that Mr Obi, who is been framed as the next political messiah on account of essentially his parsimoniousness and nothing more, was clearly punching above his weight. The column insisted that Mr Obi had always been a political joiner, never a founder of any party; and that when he joined any party, even his loyalty could not be taken for granted. Worse, said this column, Mr Obi had no administrative acumen to run any party, let alone a political party formed by deeply fractious and unprincipled unionists unfortunately led today by a militant opportunist. Even if the LP is sustained into the next polls, concluded this column, the diminution of ethnic and religious politics, and the probable resolution of the country’s economic crisis, would rob Mr Obi of any campaign leg to stand on. In the event, the economy is responding to treatment, and the LP, because of its lack of a steely core, is being subjected to implosive legal, administrative and ethnic triggers. More alarmingly, if Mr Ajaero does not restrain himself, the NLC might suffer collateral damage from his noisome forays into the LP.
The NLC president, in strict disregard to the law and the constitution, argues that the LP is owned by, rather than formed by, the NLC. As a result of that faulty premise, and perhaps because NLC leaders and workers won’t abdicate the prospect of building a formidable political machine and enjoying its perks, he led the NLC into taking the law into their hands when he went after the Lamidi Apapa faction last year. Last week, he again inspired the NLC into another insurrection to take over the offices of the LP. The police and INEC are predictably mute. In the fight he is leading against Mr Abure, his former ally, the NLC president has made the Freudian slip of accepting that the NLC is politicised. They were not content with forming a party, they are also deeply involved in running it; and if push comes to shove, they would gladly dethrone and enthrone party chairmen and leaders. Last week, in the heat of the battle with Mr Abure, the NLC president said he had no political ambition, and had not filled any form to so indicate. But he indeed has political ambition to the extent of using all the resources of the NLC to promote the interest of the LP. In his fight against the Bola Tinubu administration, he has clearly been unable to draw a line between his interests in the LP as an opposition party and the deployment of NLC instruments to fight both intraparty and inter-party wars.
Mr Ajaero constantly overreaches himself. By flagrantly deploying NLC instruments to wage war against opponents, he risks fracturing the trade union and provoking leadership rebellion. He thought nothing of deploying NLC instruments to lend a helping hand to the LP candidate in last year’s Imo State governorship poll, until he was brutalised and humiliated by a throng of roughnecks. For months, he has also employed the same abhorrent tactics to fight the Tinubu administration over workers’ welfare. In his daily harangue to the administration, it was all too clear he had become incapable of differentiating LP from NLC, and union matters from partisan politics. No matter the setback he encounters in his many internal and external wars, Mr Ajaero will still be incapable of the moderation and finesse many have insinuated into his cause. There will be no one to restrain him, not the NLC leadership, and not Mr Obi. Instead, the former LP presidential candidate will watch carefully which way the cats are jumping before taking the partisan plunge. Judging from his statements so far, many of them bland and noncommittal, he thinks Mr Ajaero and the bellicose NLC will have the upper hand.
Yet, regardless of the constitutionality of the NLC president’s position, Mr Obi appears very likely to distance himself from Mr Abure who served him dutifully during the last polls. In any case, the former presidential candidate has little patience for legal and administrative niceties. Once he sees which way the cats are jumping, he will align. And if the ship is sinking, he will follow the rats. It is dangerous opportunism; but he sees it as impeccable optimism and expediency. Mr Ajaero’s men have now taken over NLC offices and left Mr Abure with the short end of the stick. Why would anyone back the leprous Abure horse? When expediency rather than principles determine the course of action, there is no telling just what depths of infamy the LP would plumb in the months ahead as the neophyte which presumptuously prides itself as the main opposition party continues to unravel.
The siege of Okuama and controversial questions
Since militants murdered four military officers and 13 soldiers in Okuama, a sleepy Urhobo, Ughelli South LGA community in Delta State of perhaps hundreds of residents, neither they nor the army has slept. The community is deserted, according to Governor Sheriff Oborevwori, and much of the surrounding settlements, down to Igbomoturu in Bayelsa State, are in lockdown. Surrounding communities have declared Okuama indigenes, many of whom are stranded in swamps and nearby forests, persona non grata for fear of military reprisal. The military, however, said it would deliver ‘measured response and injurious consequences to the perpetrators’ of the gruesome killings, insisting that stories of burning villages and military reprisals were mere propaganda. Perhaps concluding that the crime scene was still an active military operational area, the governor has not visited Okuama, but has ordered the affected communities to give up the suspects.
There are too many conclusions already on the Okuama tragedy. The Defence Headquarters insists the murders were a communal conspiracy. The governor insinuates that there could be some attempts to shield the perpetrators of the violence. And most commentators, citing the sacking of Odi, Bayelsa State, and Zaki Biam, Benue State, during the Olusegun Obasanjo presidency, as examples have reconciled themselves to the logic, if not legitimacy, of military reprisals. And nearly all analysts, including advertorials by Urhobo and Ijaw groups, not to say the feuding Okuama and Ikoloba communities whose boundary conflict triggered the murder of 17 military personnel, have struggled to distance themselves from the murders, condemned the killings in very strong terms, and prayed for the successful apprehension of the killers. In fact, it has been difficult for anyone to counsel the military to be restrained in its response, given the increasingly gory manner in which the army is framing the brutal killings. The federal government said the murders were an affront to Nigeria’s sovereignty, while the National Assembly charged the military ‘to smoke out the outlaws’ who perpetrated the barbaric killings. Given the mood of the country, it is difficult for anyone to talk of on the one hand and on the other hand. The scale of the killings and the barbaric mutilation of the bodies of the slain soldiers make it even much more difficult for anyone to be objective. But a few commentators have tried to swim against the tide.
The scale of the military reprisals is not yet fully chronicled. Whether the manner in which the troops are executing their mission is provocative or not is not clear, but it is already established that the soldiers were ambushed and wiped out. The country’s official response was likely to start from that ugly and tragic premise, and as expected, it did. But like Odi and Zaki Biam where troops and policemen lost their lives by the dozens, the military reprisal unfortunately overshadowed the tragedy, solved nothing, could not even instill fear in the hearts of those tempted to take on the army, as banditry and Boko Haram have shown, and no lessons were learnt and no attitudinal changes were effected either among the increasingly militant populace or among troops themselves. The Okuama murders are truly and monstrously tragic. But it was another chance for the military to adopt a different template of combating this kind of provocation. There are no indications that it even contemplated a different template, preferring instead to ride on the instinctive wave of popular sentiments that condemn and damn the insolence and audacity of civilians and militants.
Regardless of whatever template the military uses or does not use, whether diligent and painstaking law enforcement sleuthing or brute deployment of force, the killers will be apprehend. Someone will always snitch. Putting the suspect communities on lockdown is, however, not the problem; the problem is the reluctance or inability of soldiers to distinguish between the innocent and the guilty, an indication of the ongoing polemical contest between the democratic norm of being considered innocent until proven guilty and the military norm of being deemed guilty until proven innocent. Then there is of course the allegation of military high-handedness, which the army hopes would be expiated by either the shocking scale of the crime or the inevitable success of apprehending the suspects. That method has been used over and over again, in Plateau State when a retired major-general, Idris Alkali, was brutally murdered in 2018, and elsewhere. The problem is that after all is said and done, the military’s image is often sullied. For whether they accept it or not, or whether it makes sense or not, how a crime is solved is as important as the solution itself. The tactics of militants and brutal, sadistic killers, such as the Okuama militants, whether they were local youths allegedly led by Endurance Okodeh, aka ‘Gen.’ Amagbein who has denied the charge, or mercenaries from elsewhere, must always be objurgated. The military has a responsibility, even in their justifiable anger, to be inured to the tactics of the beasts that perpetrated the Okuama killings. This is not just nicety; it is the surest way of dealing with crimes and provocations while retaining the love, admiration and respect of the civil populace. The police are being compelled by the law and the proficient actions of the civil society to abjure torture; that abjuration must be nationwide, institutional, unapologetic and total.
The loss of 17 officers and men of the Nigerian Army is truly disheartening. The slain men will never return to their families. Those who survive them in the army, including the rest of the country, have a responsibility to avenge them lawfully. But the military has an even greater responsibility of inquiring into why and how their men were deployed in Okuama, and why to secure the release of one abducted Okoloba man or placate boundary dispute between the Ijaw and Urhobo, a battalion commander, two majors, and a captain had to lead 13 soldiers into a fray quite beneath the status, and far removed from the training, of the Nigerian military. The military must inquire into the cheapness of their death, whether they were ambushed or not, and learn lasting lessons. Wiping out such a highly trained contingent in peacetime does no credit to the nation. The slain officers and men will not return, and as the authorities said, would be buried as heroes. Many more soldiers are deployed in almost all the 36 states of the nation, especially in the face of mounting insecurity. The Okuama deaths must, therefore, be investigated from the military point of view in order to ensure that next time, in more defensible deployments, no contingent dies so cheaply. The military owes their men that much, and the country a sophisticated precedent in interdicting a beastly enemy.
It will take more than Gen. Christopher Musa’s gentle admonition to wean Nigerians off their insatiable desire to curse their country and leaders. They are too ethnically and religiously polarised to care how much their harsh, dismissive words affect their country. In his remarks at a seminar organised by the Defence Correspondents Association of Nigeria late last month, probably the most appropriate forum and time to explicate the power of words, the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) took a few minutes to draw the attention of Nigerians to their unguarded and self-destructive use of words. The gentle counsel should benefit the individual as much as profit the country as a whole. But perhaps it will take a structured and systemic education on the power of words to cause a change of orientation. Gen Musa’s counsel is incontestable; but few, it is certain, will pay heed.
The general did not say where he got the wisdom, or whether he routinely practices it, but it is a pearl nearly as powerful as that of thoughts which hark back to the ancients. Many individuals and countries, as the general implied, have ignored the salience of the spoken word to their peril. Taken together with what a person thinks and how he allows those thoughts to undergird his life and actions, the spoken word forms an indispensable part of the intangibles that have the untrammeled potency of determining success or failure, life or death. The reason is probably much simpler than anyone imagines. The world was created by the word; and the word proceeds from thoughts and imaginations. Gen Musa knew that if he was to get any mileage from his exegesis, he would need the forum of media professionals. He got that forum last month, and he used it to maximum effect.
His explication requires extensive quotation. Said he: “There must be a nation before you can even discuss it. Sometimes I find it very hard to understand when I hear Nigerians speaking evil about their country. We must learn how to be positive about our country…We must wish our country well and our leaders well. When they err, let us call them to question and provide solutions. It’s not always just about negative criticism. When you’re calling for God to punish your leaders, you’re not helping the growth of your country. The budget of America for this year is over $800 billion for defence. If you look at our budget, convert it to dollars. I’m sure you know, do the math, you know how much we’re getting. Americans produce what they need. We don’t. We need to buy sometimes. Even when you have the money, sometimes you don’t get what you need. So you can understand the environment we’re operating in. Insulting or wishing evil on your country does not mean you’ll get better. Diminishing someone else’s life does not mean yours will prosper…”
The lives of some of history’s greatest men testify to the vitality and indispensability of the spoken word. What made the difference for these great men was not just their self-confidence, a virtue undoubtedly integral in some ways to their successes, but more quintessentially what they said about themselves flowing from what they thought and believed about themselves. Napoleon Bonaparte never thought he would die in battle, proving it repeatedly, particularly at the Battle of Lutzen in 1813; Gen Douglas MacArthur said it loud and clear at the Island of Corregidor in the Philippines during World War II that the Japanese enemy hadn’t yet made a bomb with his name written on it, and then declaring when he was being evacuated that ‘I shall return”; Hitler was convinced about his ineluctable fate, believing he was a child of destiny, and suggesting his immortality after the umpteenth attempt on his life at Wolf’s Lair in July 1944; and Charles de Gaulle and Saint Joan of Arc also spoke about the divine force behind their persons and leadership. All these men believed in and spoke about their stars and their special assignments, over which mortal man, they were convinced, had no influence.
A few perceptive observers suspected that when the then presidential aspirant Tinubu spoke about his turn in Abeokuta in 2022, couching it as emi lokan in the Yoruba language, he was not referring to a Yoruba sectionalist agenda, but a personal divine agenda, one in which he had unshakeable faith. Yes, he also made reference to awa lokan, but he was merely locating his ambition, his divine purpose, within the purview of his ethnic background, much like de Gaulle who saw himself as an incarnation of both Saint Joan of Arc and Napoleon Bonaparte. Nearly everyone but himself thought Senator Tinubu would lose his party’s primary, or the presidential election, should he scale the formidable obstacles erected by his party. His closest confidants gave him no chance, and it is doubtful whether family members did not also write him off. Indeed, did he himself, outside of his words and assertions, privately believe he could win? But he spoke victory and saw himself occupying Aso Villa, and Nigeria as a part of the world created by the word of God responded to aspirant Tinubu’s words and produced from the invisible the dynamics that propelled him into the State House.
Nigerians may not pay heed to Gen Musa’s admonition, but he is right. No nation, and no individual, can rise to greatness without speaking greatness over themselves. The army general is obviously conversant with the Bible’s Book of Proverbs, Chapter 18 verse 21, which says that death and life are in the power of the tongue. This profound quote, long familiar to the ancients, is the fulcrum upon which any nation’s or individual’s ambition and success is balanced. The Book of Job Chapter 3 verse 25 also recounts the fear that paralysed the life of Job, despite his wealth, when he said that the thing he greatly feared (disasters and tragedies) had come upon him, implying that negative thoughts and words left unchecked do have horrendous impact on lives and nations. Indeed, the New Testament Bible anchors any miracle or sign and wonder on what the individual says.
Great statesmen and past leaders shame the current generation by their depths and sagacity, and by their deep spiritual insights and beliefs, sometimes unaffected by religion. I think therefore I am, said the French philosopher René Descartes; I believe, so I say the word, says the Bible. Each person and nation, concluded Gen Musa in his admonition to the Defence correspondents, must be guarded in the words they speak, for words are spirit and life. Thoughts and words are the hammer and the anvil between which greatness and success are forged. Will Nigerians take the general’s admonition and begin to speak greatness and stability into their country, or are they too polarised to care, prompting them to speak baleful, self-fulfilling prophecies over their country? Given the highly toxic campaigns of the last elections, not to talk of the bitter and recriminative aftermath, it is not clear they will.
Even before the 2023 election results were fully collated and announced, some Nigerians, including incredibly former leaders who should know better, had begun to call for the truncation of democracy through a coup d’etat, exemplifying the loathing they nursed for their country. When that seemed far-fetched, they switched to calling for a bloody revolution, believing that only enemy blood would be shed. When that call also seemed unattainable, they opted to curse their country, unmindful of the fact that their peace and prosperity could not be extricated from their country’s. But since no man but the mentally unhinged hates himself, perhaps it is time the individual took Gen Musa’s admonition and ran with it. Who knows, if families prosper, the country could indirectly also prosper and develop. A family cannot be greater than its imagination, nor can a country soar above its vision. No one can have anything other than what he has spoken into his life. It is an irrefutable formula backed by centuries of tragic proofs involving countless leaders and families hung on the scaffold of their ill-spoken words.
