By Idowu Akinlotan

 

The All Progressives Congress (APC) cannot pretend not to know that its future and survival are on the line. Like their predecessors, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), they will continue to live in denial until it is perhaps too late. Having won the elections in 2015, obviously against the run of play and in a spectacular fashion, and repeated the feat a second time in 2019 rather very unscrupulously, the APC is throwing caution to the wind, and enacting probably the most undemocratic practices the country has seen since 1999. But somehow, and incredibly, they seem blissfully unaware of the dangers they face, not to talk of being troubled by the contradictions they themselves have managed to trigger when the democrats among them helped them win the elections only for the disbelieving antidemocratic forces waiting in the wings to seize the reins of government.

No, it was not always clear that the APC had a critical mass of democrats in their midst, enough to project and sustain their ideals and philosophies, at least the ideals and philosophies they have noisily pretended to. But by some incredible display of political sorcery on their part, Nigerians in 2015 believed the lie that the then opposition party boasted enough democrats in their midst to propel Nigeria to great democratic heights and also possessed the capacity to neutralise and reform the Goodluck Jonathan government’s undisciplined approach to governance. APC leaders and their spokesmen were avid political salesmen, and Muhammadu Buhari, their champion at the time, had been recast as a repentant military autocrat and budding democrat. His natural reticence and his inability to frame his new status in persuasive logic surprisingly worried only a few people.

But barely five years into their ironclad rule, the APC has begun to feel invincible, careless and conceited. Like their predecessor PDP, they imagine they will be in office for decades, or even for eons. They were never good at translating their manifestos into actions, and had even become expert at repudiating many of their promises, yet they think they have enthroned an unassailable lead to render the opposition party disoriented and discouraged. Projecting power viciously and remorselessly, they are blinded to their own weaknesses and can’t see how anyone or party or group can unseat them. For, in their view, even the very act of trying to unseat them democratically has now been equated with treason. Their first four years ought to be about reframing their core existential logic and redefining the identity and ambitions of their country. Instead, they have redefined their weaknesses as inconsequential and portrayed their strengths as insurmountable.

More than 90 percent of their leaders are antidemocratic, and their followers have become indistinguishable from the rabble that flattered the PDP into self-destruction. Yet, they have remained unruffled by the chaos around them. In internecine battles and sycophantic dribbles, the party’s leaders and members have also turned intra-party and partisan politics into a needless re-enactment of cultural and sectarian wars and bitter struggles. Right before their eyes, their party, despite the best efforts of their flawed chairman and other patriots, is resembling less and less the party they idealised at their founding in February 2013. They planned to run a more cohesive and disciplined party, far better than the PDP ever contemplated. That ambition has remained unrealised, and may probably be unrealisable. They plotted to disgrace the Jonathan government’s democratic image, describing it as shameful and unbecoming of the country and the largest political party in Africa. Increasingly, they have instead become even more unrepentantly authoritarian.

So, in effect, there is no adroitness evident in running the ruling party, little adherence to intra-party rules and regulations, no commitment to democratic principles, no idolisation of inspiring philosophies, and not even a scintilla of attachment to the kind of enduring reforms that would stand the country in better stead now and in the future. Apart from its sane early days, a higher degree of charlatanry appears to be taking over the party. Once in office, they have become intolerant of criticism, despise the constitution and the rule of law, and a few of their elected and appointed leaders have elevated themselves above the country and its laws. If the APC is to survive, however, they must imbibe the right values and do things properly and differently. They have ruled for less than five years, but the country has become tired of them because neither the economic lot of the people nor their democratic rights have improved in such a way as to endear them to the party. There is a chance of course that the economy might become less unstable and even more amenable to the laws of economics. In spite of them, however, especially given their sometimes contradictory and desultory policies, the standard of living of Nigerians may improve. But it will not be by the margins they have dreamt of or romanticised in their frequent statements to the media, regardless of the untidy and unprincipled reshuffle of their economic teams in a manner destined both to choke an already ponderous presidency and to mystify a president whose grasp of economic issues are at best rudimentary.

Despite the complaints against the PDP, Nigerians were reluctant to see the former ruling party suffer the electoral tragedy that befell them. They brought the tragedy on themselves. Equally, it is in the interest of Nigerians that the APC should do well, help remould the country, and establish the solid foundations for democracy which the PDP failed to lay in its inglorious 16 years in office. The APC seems a little distracted by the politics of 2023, given the way the presidency and a few governors have been jostling for influence and power and positioning one another for the near future. If they are capable of eschewing the partisanship that is undermining both their resolve and the modicum of principles they still clutch to, they must find ways of returning themselves to the founding principles they clumsily projected at birth and which many Nigerians unconsciously but too trustingly embraced.

They imagine that building roads and elongating rail networks, or even growing the economy by a healthy percentage, will help them reposition the party in the minds of the people. This is a futile assumption. Growth may attract accolades in the short run, but it will not entrench the party or even stabilise the country, let alone position it for lasting greatness. No party and no leader in history has achieved the milestones the APC dreams of without engaging the fundamental ideas that conduce to nation or empire building. Without a guiding philosophy, which takes into cognisance the country’s identity and ambitions, no country or empire can achieve greatness — not even the Roman Empire, Greek Empire, Babylonian Empire, Ottoman Empire, and a host of others. They simply must stand for something great, noble and inspiring. And they must possess the discipline to remain faithful to the ideas and philosophies that shape their founding and existence. That is the only way to make a lasting impression. The APC, however, wants to buck that trend despite history’s massive examples. Indeed, more and more, the party seems to be embracing the ignoble principles and distorted ideas that led to the collapse of empires than the noble principles and ideas that led to their rise.

At the moment, there is nothing in the Buhari presidency and the APC that indicates any hunger for a great and ennobling idea or philosophy. There was a whiff of it when the party was founded; but there was no whiff of it when the Buhari presidency was inaugurated. Between 2015 and now, both the presidency and the ruling party have dealt with the issue of ideas and philosophies contemptuously. They will, however, need to deal with them not with the grossness that pollutes the air in the government and the party but with the finesse and enlightenment that energise and inspire a thinking and farsighted government. It is not clear whether they can; all that is known is that they must find a way to do it, to understand and respect the rule of law no matter how painful or injurious to their interest in the short run, and to obey the constitution unreservedly without the chicaneries and subterfuges that have become their lodestar.

Indeed, their legacy and reputation are hinged on their ability to appreciate the factors that predispose a country to greatness and long-term stability. Here the structure of the country is paramount. It is hoped that the Buhari presidency possesses the education to know that a building could not stand if the foundation is weak or inappropriate, or if the structure of the building itself is flawed. Can the Buhari presidency boldly say Nigeria’s structure is sound, and that the problem is just the people’s attitude, as it has often argued? Even the Value Added Tax (VAT) controversy must tell a thinking government that it is misguided in its assumptions and destructive in its conclusions. Raising VAT at this point shows lack of depth and purpose. Much more, however, it also shows how iniquitous the country’s so-called federal structure is — that is assuming the APC and the Buhari presidency still believe in federalism — that they force states which produce and therefore pay VAT to underwrite the slothfulness and inefficiency of states which do not produce goods and indeed specialise in erecting strictures inimical to production.

If the APC and the Buhari presidency can find the discipline and wisdom to get the country’s structure right and learn to obey the laws of the land, they must then find a way to turn their attention to restructuring their party to make it more responsive to the needs of members and the country, away from the grovelling before presidents and governors that shames Nigeria’s democracy. It is a fact that nearly all APC governors are not democrats, as amplified by the atrocious manner they interact with their Houses of Assembly and the judiciary. The president has little interest in democracy and probably can’t even conceptualise it. But they will need to define who they are, what they believe in, and how to find a connection between their identity and beliefs on the one hand and the aspirations and identity of the country on the other hand. The party has always made laws to regulate themselves. But they have often needlessly tinkered with those laws to serve short-term and sometimes nefarious goals. Altogether, increasingly, they have emptied their party of its soul and brutally subordinated its carcass at the federal and state levels to the president and the governors. The APC, like the PDP before it, is now proudly empty of soul and purpose.

To therefore ask the APC to rediscover itself, assuming it ever had a personality that reflects purpose and ideology, may be asking for too much. But except it embarks on that noble search, it will also flounder like the PDP. Indeed, this is the time for the APC to carry out that exercise of self-examination and rediscovery, a time when antidemocratic politicians and officials have virtually swept the party and the presidency off their feet, a time when the constitution is now held in abeyance and tyranny is knocking at the nation’s door, a time when the sectionalists in government and party think only in terms of private, pecuniary and aggrandizing ideas, not national, altruistic ideas. The Buhari presidency will of course not last beyond its constitutional limits, even if it manages to achieve something. But the party will outlive him, just like the critics whom both the party and the presidency detest will outlive them.

The tragedy enveloping the APC is the same tragedy that undid the PDP. When the PDP took office in 1999, it had the misfortune of antidemocratic politicians swiftly taking and occupying the commanding heights of government, and with time, swallowing the party too. Lightning has struck twice, alas, unconventionally in the same place. When President Buhari and his APC won the 2015 elections, they immediately turned over the reins of government to antidemocratic players who are doing horrendously with the country as they please, recriminating and criminalising critics who point out the folly of their ways. Neither Chief Olusegun Obasanjo nor Mallam Umaru Yar’Adua nor Goodluck Jonathan is writing the history of Nigeria under the PDP. Critics and historians are doing the writing. No matter how badly they are badmouthed and hauled before judges for treason and other silly crimes, critics and historians will also write the history of Nigeria under the APC. It is up to the APC to reform or die physically and figuratively.

That death would be inevitable as long as they keep confusing the scaffolding for the building, reshuffling their economic teams in the false hope that brilliant technocrats could atone for the lack of depth and industry assailing the presidency, overlooking the timidity and complicity of the National Assembly as they impotently beg the president to mediate between them and intransigent presidential appointees, and tolerating and refusing to punish bureaucratic perverseness such as was experienced when the secret service invaded the legislature and the executive branch deployed judicial caricatures to overthrow the chief justice. Chief Obasanjo and Dr Jonathan ruled as if there was no future, or that when that future catches up with them they would not be hoist with their own petard. Now the APC and its leaders are displaying the same short-sightedness, believing that the fiefdom they have created will preclude them from paying for the laxity and anarchy they are engendering.

If the country is too timid to ask the APC and the dispirited and distraught PDP what visions of the country they have, and though Nigerians think they voted their government into office but are too deferential to take the presidency to task on their imperious and angry approach to governance, the ruling party itself must try to assemble men and women who, after studying the histories of great empires and kingdoms, can help the party and country envision tomorrow. The party has less than two or three years to remedy the confusion they have enthroned. Few trust them to do anything imaginative, however, especially seeing the way its leading functionaries have talked about and begun to scheme for 2023; but the country has an obligation to hope that the immense damage they have caused the nation can still be addressed, especially considering the manner the PDP imploded after its deserved loss of the presidency.

 

*First published September 22, 2019

 

Idowu Akinlotan

 

IN his broadcast two Mondays ago, President Muhammadu Buhari suggested to self-determination agitators that both the National Assembly and National Council of State were the “legitimate and appropriate bodies for national discourse”. He was careful not to commit the two bodies to the task of restructuring, having limited them to a one-stop roundtable for apparently palliative discourses. Restructuring would presumably be among the topics for that discourse, not the only or major one. Said the president: “The National Assembly and the National Council of State are the legitimate and appropriate bodies for national discourse.” In the preceding paragraph, however, the president had given a small concession to the nation, to wit, “This is not to deny that there are legitimate concerns. Every group has a grievance. But the beauty and attraction of a federation is that it allows different groups to air their grievances and work out a mode of co-existence.”

If the president truly believes that legitimate concerns exist, and every group has a grievance, it is striking that he still takes a rather detached view of the anomalies that buffet the republic. Given the severity of the concerns and grievances, which neither he nor his advisers, nor yet any Nigerian, no matter how conservative, can pretend to be unaware of, it is doubtful that redressing those problems could be done satisfactorily and expertly within a consistent, coherent and expansive visional framework of the two bodies he referenced. Over the years, the National Council of State, apart from being simply and often ineffectually advisory, has no backward or forward linkage with Nigerians. Yes, the constitution provides for it; but it is in fact absolutely nugatory in the face of Nigeria’s imperial presidency that has rendered virtually all institutions, if not every official, both elected and appointed, impotent.

But, as the president puts it, there is appropriately the more legitimate and active National Assembly to moderate discourses and sometimes, too, mediate political disagreements through consensus building and puzzling compromises. The parliament may be a great forum to ventilate opinions and dissect issues, and has sometimes produced political palliatives of exemplary strength and finesse, but the president may have been hyperbolic to argue that it enables the country to work out a mode of co-existence. Beyond helping to display and direct his fierce but misplaced and misdirected anger, the broadcast incorrectly assumes that Nigeria operates a federation, which he theoretically describes as a beauty.

Last week, this column dismissed the speech as full of bombast and rage. There is nothing to suggest that an even more careful reading would not lead a cautious reader and writer to come to the same, if not worse, conclusion. What is, however, more troubling is the fact that the president obviously assumes in his broadcast that the agitation for restructuring is at bottom needless rabble-rousing that really does not require his involvement and leadership. He further assumes that the legislature could produce the searing vision, and the altruism and breathtaking ideals necessary to rework the Nigerian system to make it an enduring one. He is terribly mistaken. Few parliaments anywhere in the world are capable of undertaking that kind of ennobling assignment. So far, the Nigerian legislature has proved absolutely and spectacularly incompetent to do such a job. Perhaps on a fortuitous tomorrow, they might acquire the capacity.

President Buhari, it seems, knows quite clearly that neither the somnolent Council of State nor the constantly scheming and complacent legislature is up to the task. What is even clearer is that, from the broadcast, the president snickered at the concept of restructuring. He thinks, as indeed many others do, particularly across the Niger River, that what is required is slow and long-term tinkering. If that were to be the case, the president is right to insinuate that the legislature could carry out that responsibility, for that slothful pace is suited to their inexpert and off-putting style. Overall, the president’s speech has given the country a final indication of his unusual preferences. He is not interested in restructuring, and he sees everyone who agitates for it with a gravity and urgency that discomfit the polity to be a rabble-rouser deserving of the government’s strong-arm response.

If the country would downplay the confusion over the definition of restructuring, as they really should, the question will boil down to who between the legislature or executive can best champion the great task. Since it is indisputable that the question of restructuring involves the country’s superstructure, the foundation upon which the country must be built so that no political or economic tremor, no matter how high on the Richter scale, could bring it down, it seems also settled that the Nigerian legislature cannot perform that task. Consequently, the country needs a visionary with a depth enriched by history to find the right tectonic plates and soil structure upon which to build a vibrant Nigeria. The visionary can of course not do it alone; but he must produce the skeleton, drive the debate and find the right compromises.

President Buhari seems inappropriate for the task, given his well-known limitations, but it does not diminish the task, nor does it rule him out as a man of noble conviction with the gift of seeing into the future. If he can manage to see into the future, and if he can finally be persuaded to accept that the present structure is inadequate for both the present and the future, he will appreciate the urgency and onerousness of the task. More, he will realize how inadequate the institutional bodies, which he thought could carry out the task, are. It is only then he would place in the proper perspective the agitations in the Southeast against which he is needlessly emotionally wrought-up, and the cries of restructuring in the Southwest against which he stands ungainly immovable.

But whether he agrees or not, and whether his aides and advisers coax him or not, the unshakable fact is that, at the moment, it is only the executive that can drive the restructuring effort. If the president fails to drive it peacefully, he must be prepared to stand against it militarily. The first option holds immense benefits for his image, legacy and the polity. Unfortunately, he cannot hope to win should he embrace the second option. The future is against both his perception of restructuring and any military effort should he try one. No one must fool himself to think that that Nigeria is a federation, let alone a workable one. It is not. Indeed, it runs an ugly and asphyxiating form of unitary government.

The problem with restructuring is not its definition. Definitional confusion is simply a ploy by political jesters to defeat the purpose of restructuring. The first step is to agree that the present structure is both inadequate and inoperable in Nigeria, given the country’s rich and variegated history. Should it then not worry the country’s leaders that the search for a fitting and workable structure has not abated since the First Republic? Has Nigeria not tried two systems of government and at least three constitutions, some of them so reworked that they became futile? Has the country not witnessed a civil war, sailed near the wind of many violent upheavals on countless occasions, one of which even metamorphosed into a full-scale Boko Haram rebellion? Just what total breakdown of law and order must it take for Nigerian leaders to reach deep into their spirits to find justification for a new structure?

Both France and Italy were, just before and after World War II, battling serious constitutional gridlocks. France produced the far-sighted Charles de Gaulle who recognised the weakness of the Fourth Republic constitution and fought tooth and nail to produce a new, workable one, even once relinquishing power to drive home the point that if France did not restructure and produce a new constitution, it could not hope to grow into a strong and confident nation in the future. Because of its success, France has remained a stable democracy; while Italy has continued to run a game of thrones. Admittedly, de Gaulle was a deep thinker, author and military theorist, and he could engender both the discipline and intellect needed to rework the French system and produce the Fifth Republic constitution. So far, President Buhari has been unable to find the patience and open-mindedness these times call for.

No Nigerian president at this historic juncture should fail to study other constitutions and acquaint himself with other nation-building efforts. The stability of a country and the progress it makes depend on its structure and grundnorm. President Buhari and his aides, apart from familiarising themselves with the French experience, must also find time to study the politics and efforts that underpinned Japan’s post-war constitution. The president would like to recall that just as Gen. de Gaulle virtually authored the French Fifth Republic constitution, another general, Douglas MacArthur, virtually drew up the skeletal framework of the Japanese post-war constitution, which, once fleshed out, has remained remarkably prescient. It takes brilliance, discipline, vision, altruism and far-sightedness to judge the moment, recognise the problem, and produce the confidence and boldness needed to redirect a country. If President Buhari declines the job, and equates the cult-like following he receives in some parts of the country with approval of his policies and methods, he will soon find that the country will move on without him. For the issues confronting the country are urgent and deep-seated.

In 2015, this column campaigned for the then candidate Buhari. It went on to foretell his victory, for it was inconceivable that the undisciplined Goodluck Jonathan should win a second term to pilot the affairs of Nigeria with the reckless abandon that became his trademark. This column will hazard another informed guess: If President Buhari should continue to set himself against the effort to remake the country, the country will move on without him, remake itself, and find a formula or formulae by which the peoples and religions of this country can co-exist. No one should indulge in the fantasy of thinking that Nigeria is a federation, or that the equally undisciplined National Assembly can inspire and author that noble future of the country’s dream. It won’t happen, despite the many constitutional amendments on stream.

 

*First published September 3, 2017

 

By Idowu Akinlotan

It is widely believed that President Muhammadu Buhari is not the writer of his speeches, and perhaps rarely contributes to the writing or editing. But notwithstanding the many experts who work on them, and regardless of whether the speeches reflect the president’s ideas or not, they will always be controversial. His January 1, 2021 speech is not different. It was admittedly a little better than his Independence Day address, which in turn was better, even if lexically more chaotic, than his Democracy Day address, but it somehow sunk to the same unenviable depth of policy and ideological emptiness. There is no proof that if the presidency should recruit a brilliant speechwriter of uncommon gifts his speeches in the remaining years of his presidency would naturally acquire the force and beauty many analysts have come to associate with presidents.

How can a gifted speechwriter give order to a presidency that lacks order and conviction? How can he chart a policy path in warrens crawling with contradictory and half-baked ideas and policies? And how can he imbue the president himself, on whose behalf the speeches are made, with the lofty and stirring beliefs and visions the people consistently yearn for? And in a presidency where competing and ambitious officials are jockeying for dominance or at least preeminence, how can a low-ranking speechwriter stamp authority and direction on every speech, especially when he has no way or power in determining what tangents the president would fly off during his few extraordinary extempore deliveries? The task is daunting. If the president could not bring order and gravitas to bear on his speeches and presidency, it would indeed be presumptuous of a speechwriter to attempt that soaring ambition. So, till the end of his presidency, there will be chaos in the president’s speeches. The president has probably reconciled himself to this fact or he is too unaware of the dynamics of the whole problem.

Fortunately, for all its drawbacks and weaknesses, President Buhari’s speeches have never tried to be pretentious. His countrymen are not inspired by his elocution; but much more, they are not also misled or captivated by any newfangled ideas. They are used to hearing stark and sometimes contradictory statements, and have, like the president, become accustomed to being fed the same monotonous and sometimes apocalyptic threats and drivel by a leader who is at bottom a provincial politician whose worldview has become narrow and hegemonic. Both the president and his countrymen are helpless, and will have little choice than to endure the few years left in his second term, almost like being compelled to orally take two chloroquine tablets thrice daily. Overall, on a note of caution, choose to read the president’s speeches rather than watch his broadcasts. You would suffer fewer distractions and distress occasioned by his unusually accented pronunciations.

As is usual with the president’s speeches, his January 1 address begins with unsubstantiated generalisations. The country has survived more than 60 years together to the bafflement of pundits, he says gleefully, and will continue to “actively grow that indivisible Nigerian spirit that has enabled us, year after year, decade after decade, to weather all stormy waters and emerge stronger and better where others have fallen and disintegrated”. Then he adds the undisguised optimism that, “This nation, this Nigeria will survive and thrive.” It would have been helpful if he had given his listeners the foundation upon which he was erecting that hope of a glorious future, especially when there is no indication of hope anywhere. He speaks of his government possessing a listening ear to the grievances of youths, but adds the clincher that while the administration listens, it will only be to the cries of stakeholders committed to the unity of the country. For him and his administration, unity trumps everything, and is indeed the fulcrum upon which the policies and direction of his government must balance.

He speaks stirringly of Nigerian youths, acknowledging in about seven paragraphs that their feats are mentioned worldwide and his administration will do everything to encourage them. He says nothing about why it took protests to recognise their talents and contributions, nor does he say anything about what better ways exist for the youths to channel their energies and grievances. It is clear their protest shook his administration, and he feels the urgency to address them in saccharine prose to retain their loyalty and harness their commitment to Nigerian unity. He does not also say why for decades no Nigerian government has consciously set out to harness the potentials of the youth, nor explain why they have been ignored in healthcare, education and other social programmes and engagements. He says nothing about why Nigerian youths must seek opportunities in foreign shores in order to achieve anything significant. The seven paragraphs devoted to the youths indicate nothing about any deep and abiding conviction of the president and his administration. Little will change after the address since the administration does not have a policy and intellectual core to distil and execute great and ennobling programmes.

Two more paragraphs are devoted to the reopening of the country’s borders, ending a 16-month closure that was costly, needless and pigheaded. Neither in this speech nor any statement by any government official, including the Customs Service and the Finance ministry, was anything said about what it cost the country to close its land borders for so long. They spoke and wrote propaganda about what the country saved, how the closure energised rice production, and how arms smuggling was reduced to the barest minimum. No one of course believed them, nor was anyone oblivious of the indirect impact of the closure on the cost of food and other businesses. More importantly, if disingenuously, neither the president nor his aides spoke about what the country lost by shutting land borders, nor why suddenly, against the run of play, they were reopening the borders in what is clearly an admission of failure.

Indeed, there is nothing in the president’s address to show that any lesson had been learnt. Here is how the president put it: “With the recent opening of our borders, we expect that the pent-up demand of legitimate cross-border and international trade will boost the fortunes of the many small businesses and agricultural enterprises that depend on Nigeria’s trade and commerce. The message to our West African neighbours is that Nigeria is once again fully open for those willing to conduct business in a fair and equitable way.” Did the country need more than one year border closure to reach this banal and futile position? As a matter of fact, what has changed? Are rice and arms no longer smuggled? Is the answer border closure or stricter regulation and policing of the borders? Now, the borders have been reopened, but there is nothing visible on ground, apart from the admission of failure of policy, to show that policing of the borders have been strengthened and the relevant agencies retooled, retrained and reinvigorated. Absolutely nothing. The borders were shut, and the government went to sleep after that foolish and unwarranted surgery.

President Buhari devotes additional five or so paragraphs to the subjects of corruption and banditry, and attempts only in one of those paragraphs to admit the nexus between insecurity and poverty. However, he downplays the impact of widespread violence, admitting reluctantly that inter-communal harmony is indeed threatened. It is, however, not only inter-communal harmony that is threatened, the very existence of the country itself is also threatened. The president has become dangerously complacent and platitudinous on security matters, swearing for the umpteenth and irresolute time to rejig national security. In the opening paragraphs of his address, he speaks of the country’s unity as a given existential variable; this has sadly led him to the flawed conclusion that no matter what happens, that unity can only be threatened, but that Nigeria’s resilience would help the country to triumph. He is not the first leader to embrace complacency in public policy and goals, not to say draw, if not rest his government on, wrong conclusions. Emperor Nero of the Roman Empire and many others did. President Buhari will not be the last of the tribe.

In the closing paragraphs of his address, he invites everyone to go along with him in helping the country march forward. It does not seem that he has inspired them to accompany him, but he sends out that invitation anyway. The indication today, which he did not speak to, is that few people are with him in that journey, and most of them have even started to question the destination of that journey. They hear him speak constantly and glibly about unity and stability, but they have rarely seen him take any deliberate step in that direction, nor hear him declaim on the subject with the depth and foresight of a great leader. In fact, today, they see only an absentminded leader who is sometimes capable of fitful shows of extreme insularity, who finds it difficult to envision the future or appreciate the consequences of his own misguided policies, and who has reduced governance to the use of force only when his private interests appear threatened.

Given the mood of the country, and the widespread threats facing its existence, it was expected that the president would talk substantially of justice as a prerequisite for peace, stability and inclusion. But he said nothing about justice. Indeed, as his many speeches show, and as his policies and actions over the years also indicate, he has treated justice as an alien, someone or something he is completely uncomfortable with, a topic that gives him the jitters. In the entire address, he mentioned the judiciary only once, and it was to encourage them to go along with him in his now enervated anti-corruption war. It is pointless discussing the topic of justice with him, seeing that his administration has immersed itself in a plethora of unjust applications of the laws of the land while he himself has stood out conspicuously as the most resolute rampart against justice. The reform so badly needed in the judiciary seems to have been foreclosed, while that third arm of government will continue to be treated as a tool to entrench power not to dispense justice, to harass and intimidate not to lighten burdens and promote liberty, and to advance the privilege of a few not to promote the interest of the many.

By Idowu Akinlotan

It is an understatement to suggest that Nigerian leaders are unprepared for high office. For over 10 years they have battled insurgency ineptly and are no nearer knocking the crisis into a cocked hat. In the middle of the insurgency, they have even adopted the harebrained idea of rehabilitating and, as they put it unconvincingly and scornfully, deradicalising Boko Haram militants, despite the poor attention given to fighting troops, displaced persons, and those widowed by the war. The counterinsurgency policy of the government exemplifies the total misplacement of priorities, and gives an indication of the poverty of leadership disabling the country. There are of course other disconcerting emblems of the poor leadership undermining the peace, stability and development of the country.

*N400bn for COVID-19 vaccines: The government plans to spend this whopping amount to procure vaccines to tackle this new and frightening plague. However, the proposed budget for the health sector in 2021 is N632bn, and N340bn in 2018 to get a comparative picture. The actual release may be smaller. Between 2006 and 2018, capital expenditure proposed for the health sector only reached N60bn in 2013. All other years were considerably smaller. How does any government defend N400bn for vaccines for a disease that has so far killed about 1,300 people and infected less than 85,000? Meanwhile, everyday, some 2,300 under-five-year-old and 145 women of childbearing age die from preventable causes. Neonatal mortality rate is also about 37 per 1000 live births or 250,000 every year. In addition, Malaria killed about 95,000 in Nigeria alone in 2018. These figures have not triggered the same kind of panicky response as COVID-19. Worse, Nigeria takes all its cues from Europe and America to formulate a national response to COVID-19. When the developed countries went for a lockdown, Nigeria heedlessly followed suit but without implementing relevant safeguards. Now Europe is rushing vaccines into the market, and Nigeria is waiting for the same vaccines rather than developing its own.

*The NIN frenzy: Suddenly, the Nigerian government woke up in December to require its citizens to, in two weeks, link their National Identification Number (NIN) to their phones or else their SIM cards would be blocked. The directive had earlier been given and ignored in February 2020. Foreigners were expected to update their SIM with their passports. On the surface, the objective is not misplaced. But the problem is that the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) was simply not ready for the whole circus, having created a ponderous and laborious system of identity card registration. To give a two-week deadline, now extended to February, was not only foolish, it was reckless. Like the shutting of land borders, the government simply looked at the benefits of the scheme to the detriment of the huge attendant cost, not to say their own inefficiency. Apart from the dangerous crowding at NIMC registration centres in the age of COVID, the cessation of SIM card registration and all other ancillary businesses have been deeply affected. Is there nothing that can be done right in Nigeria? This, by the way, is the third time a national identity card scheme would be implemented. But every time the project miscarries, the people are left holding the short end of the stick.

*APC BoT: Like everything else about the party and the government it heads, the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) is reportedly proposing to amend its constitution to scrap its Board of Trustees (BoT) and replace it with an Elders’ Council. Since it took office, the party has been unable to inaugurate its BoT. They hope that changing that nomenclature would help them overcome their dithering. They have not considered why their BoT has been difficult to inaugurate, but they seem sure that once their constitution is amended, their hesitations would end. If they succeed, as they hope, and discipline is restored in their party without a corresponding enthronement of justice, why, there is nothing they cannot do henceforth, including going to the moon on a glider. Is it any wonder that of all the reforms they contemplate, and of all the programmes they formulate, justice and fair play have not been among their watchwords? If they can hardly lead themselves, how can they hope to lead the country?

By Idowu Akinlotan

Rumours of Goodluck Jonathan revival began to run rife recently when some northern politicians suggested that the former president could be drafted to run for the presidency in 2023 on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC). Proponents of the idea, nearly all of them northern irredentists and hegemonists, were said to have calculated that a second Jonathan presidency would limit the time the North would be out of power after 2023, if the region must relinquish office. The calculations were of course too far-fetched to gain traction or currency, and too few people were converted to that heresy. In 2023, zoning or no zoning, southern unity or no southern unity, the North could not hope to hang on to power without recognising the incalculable cost of doing so. Northern and southern powermongers are not so stupid as not to know the cost of sustaining hegemonic hold on power, especially in a federation, and at a time when President Muhammadu Buhari has shown both the possibilities and limitations of nepotism.

Few believed the rumours about a Jonathan political resurgence or second attempt at the presidency. They believe instead that the APC would try to court his support to keep the ruling party in office in 2023 rather than keep the North in power. Dr Jonathan’s resurgence may in fact be completely unrelated to keeping the North in power or mounting the stool himself a second time. In any case, the rumours have died down, probably permanently discredited, regardless of the praise songs many politicians have composed about him in the past three weeks or so. But he is nevertheless enjoying resurgence, whichever way it is viewed. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, says the Roman poet, Sextus Propertius, in Elegies. And in the face of a ruthless and inscrutable hegemonist sitting regally and detachedly in office in Abuja, many more political hearts are likely to grow much fonder in the distressing and apocalyptic months ahead. Accordingly, opinions about the value of the Jonathan presidency are likely to ebb and flow in contradistinction to the manner and vigour President Buhari practices his political sorcery in Abuja.

Two examples of how some Nigerians are rethinking the Jonathan presidency may be fairly representative. There may be no substance to their laudation, but as sentimental as they are, Dr Jonathan’s praise singers give the impression of how superficial and gullible politicians are, and just how deeply unpopular and ineffective the Buhari presidency has become. Apart from the APC delegation that visited the former president at his Abuja residence during his 63 birthday celebration in November, the public presentation of a book written in his honour by Bonaventure Melah, a former Managing Editor of Daily Times, afforded a number of public officials the opportunity to rhapsodise about his leadership qualities. Two of those rhapsodies are particularly evocative, one from the glib and comical Dino Melaye, a senator in the 8th Senate, and Governor Abdullahi Ganduje of Kano State, the sometimes immoderate and controversial Kano politician who suffers no remorse in calling a spade a spade.

Senator Melaye may not be taken seriously, especially going by the infantile skits and dithyrambs his prolific mind inspires him to compose from time to time, and his constant buffoonery, but he rarely can be accused of being outrightly mendacious. Frivolous, a little fib now and again, given to hyperbole and insensible, undiscriminating selection of political battles, not to say his private and public lack of morality, he nevertheless retains an obsession with country that is in tandem with his private obsession with luxury. That obsession with country sometimes leads him to objective conclusions on issues and political personalities. This is where Dr Jonathan comes in, the former president who was previously excoriated by Sen Melaye in trenchant prose and phrases. The easily excitable senator was also at the book launch, leaving the public to guess whether it was a freak of nature to have him say all he said about the ex-president, or whether the book presenters were privy to his change of mind on Dr Jonathan.

In any case, he gave an agreeable remark on the ex-president on December 15. Said he: “I Senator Dino Melaye, I want to  say openly here that after many things that have happened and events that have unfolded in recent times, I want to say openly here that once I was blind, now I can see. In 2017, I was arrested eighteen times — there were more times in 2018 — and between then and now, I have been taken to court on twelve different cases, and out of those cases, we have won eleven of them.  And that only one that borders on attempted suicide.  I wonder how someone like me who likes cars and love life so well would want to kill himself.  President Goodluck Jonathan, I want to say that on behalf of all of us who shot blindly, we are sorry. The one that I later wondered why you did was that phone call. I sometimes wondered that if you had not made that call, we would not be where we are today. But after I saw what is happening in America, where President Trump is saying I no go gree (I won’t agree), I can now see the reason for that call. There are very few people like you.I pray for that anointing…” Sen Melaye probably took a number of people by surprise with what he had to say, but what he said undoubtedly resonated with many Nigerians. The Kankara, Katsina State, teenage schoolboys had just been abducted and were still in captivity, and many northern chiefs and politicians were delivering scathing rebuke of President Buhari’s style and policies. The South was also still in a lather over the galling manner the president had alienated them from the decision-making process, not to say the overpowering manner the administration’s ineffectiveness was endangering the polity, making life miserable for everyone, and predisposing the country to either anarchy or revolution. It doesn’t need half the intensity of Sen Melaye’s rebuke of President Buhari to be convinced that the administration had lost direction in a way its predecessor never dared. Dr Jonathan never prosecuted the war against Boko Haram with the suavity of a great leader, and had even resorted to the use of mercenaries, but on the same problem, President Buhari has been chaotic, complacent, gloating and less effective. And, as the senator concluded, despite the president’s consistent reiteration of his democratic credentials, his administration had been the most cynical, abrasive and dictatorial since 1999.

Dr Ganduje may not be as robust and melodramatic as Sen Melaye in reappraising Dr Jonathan, but he was no less effusive and evocative in his remarks on the same day. “I agree with those who call you an angel for conceding defeat,” he began extravagantly. “I salute you for that. You have made a name not just for yourself, but also for Nigeria, Africa, all developing countries, and for democracy. So, I salute you.” Still inspired, the Kano governor zeroed in on a few salient leadership subjects and remarked the far-sightedness of Dr Jonathan. Said he: “Boko Haram succeeded because they had the almajirai base for easy recruitment and indoctrination. But we salute you for what you did in that regard. We are multiplying the new model of almajiri schools in Kano. That is an important legacy you left for us. The removal of Sanusi Lamido Sanusi is another legacy you left, but it created bad blood in Kano. I personally felt he should have spoken to you privately about the issue of the missing public funds he reportedly discovered so that you could look into the matter without alerting the looters or creating unnecessary public outrage…However… when a familiar scenario began to play out in Kano… I applied the ‘Jonathan medicine’ (sacking from office) for a similar purpose, on the same ‘disease’ and on the same ‘patient’.” Dr Ganduje came under blistering attack for his sarcastic dismissal of the deposed emir, and for what some described as his tasteless put-down of a fallen traditional ruler, but he was simply lauding the ex-president more than he was characterising Emir Sanusi.

Hearing first-hand the boisterous recantation of his former critics and opponents, and having also read in recent months the comparisons between his administration and that of his successor, much of it in his favour, Dr Jonathan, in his response, began buoyantly to declaim on the rubrics of leadership with a passion and insight few people ever associated with his administration. According to him, “The best way to assess a leader is to look at the philosophy behind his leadership. For elected people, political parties are supposed to have ideologies, but even within that persuasion, leaders must have their individual visions. I always don’t think about leadership at the level of a President or Governor based on infrastructure alone. Anybody who has money and is not a big thief would definitely provide that for the people. Apart from that, how else do you assess a leader, his thinking, his vision for leadership? My interest was to change the society through education. No matter what we do to elevate Nigeria, without education the society would find it difficult to change. That was my personal view. That was also why I intervened in the almajirai case. We needed to elevate them above that level, because of the many social problems they were causing. I strongly believe that if there must be a change in Nigeria, we must be competent scientifically and technologically, because technology rules the world today.”

It may be uncharacteristic of Dr Jonathan to philosophise in the manner he did at the book presentation, seeing of course how little of such intellectual trimmings he displayed during his presidency; but he is absolutely right that the impact of leaders must go beyond building bridges and roads. Neither Caesar Augustus nor Napoleon Bonaparte is today remembered for the roads and hospitals they built, but for their grand ideas, and how inexorably they influenced the thinking and way of life of their people, changing and impacting them for generations. President Buhari has spent the better part of his presidency demolishing or undermining the institutions that should safeguard Nigerian democracy and reorient and reinvigorate the people’s confidence in the system going into the future; it will, therefore, be impossible for him to talk of a legacy except in the narrow, deprecative sense of empowering a section of the people to lord it over the rest. The Nigerian system is inchoate. It began to be developed haphazardly by ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo in 1999, but he was too undisciplined to solidify and strengthen the system or make it endure. Until Dr Jonathan alluded to it in his remarks two Tuesdays ago, few knew he even understood such leadership nuances. But perhaps he merely failed to articulate what he knew, and refused to surround himself with the right people to help him enunciate and promote his leadership ideals. President Buhari has not pretended to know what philosophy Dr Jonathan preached, and won’t be bothered to even try.

Nigerians have a sense of general incompleteness when they assess Dr Jonathan. He always seemed capable of propounding and projecting the highest or even complex ideals, such as his concession call after the 2015 president poll, but he also appears capable of the most engaging submission to the gravest error and fantasy. He was the most educated Nigerian president ever, a contrast President Buhari’s disinterest in education has painted in graphic, humbling and tragic colours. But the strength of character the ex-president was unable to show in office, even though he seemed to understand and idolise it, cost him, his legacy and administration dearly. He will always be better than his successor, in gamesmanship, tolerance, appreciation of democracy and how a system works, and for his humanity and empathy, but any revival of his attributes will only be temporary because it will be inextricably linked to and underscored by his successor’s corresponding lack of depth and potential. Dr Jonathan enjoys some sort of revival now; this can only be because President Buhari is wilting in a vacuum as he leads a headless presidency that is beginning to unravel, a presidency which politicians with an eye on 2023 will and must increasingly ignore if the republic is to be saved.

By Idowu Akinlotan

In an interview with the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) shortly after the Kankara abductions ended Thursday night, President Muhammadu Buhari finally came to the same exasperating conclusions the country had reached many years ago when insurgency began to be compounded by banditry. The nation’s security chiefs, the country believed and the president summed up, had not given their best to solve the problem of widespread insecurity. It is remarkable that the president captured the feeling rather well, and unusually and cryptically off the cuff. “I meet them,” he began dejectedly, “we have security meetings from time to time, they must be very clear of my instructions. Their effort is not good enough for me.” Then he sermonized: “Our responsibility, I said, is to secure this country for all the citizens to do their businesses without any problem. We haven’t achieved that yet. We’ll keep on trying. We have a lot of work ahead of us and some of the things we may not say because I don’t want to compromise the security and the efforts being made by the law enforcement agencies, but really we are acutely aware of our responsibility; our responsibility is to secure the country. So we have a lot of work to do.”

Before the president’s plaintive remark last Friday, the public had long concluded that the Buhari presidency had become dysfunctional, its lethargy worsened by the passing of former chief of staff Abba Kyari. His replacement, the more cerebral and less conspiratorial Ibrahim Gambari, a professor of International Relations, does not seem to possess enough chutzpah to affect the policy and direction of the administration, hence the confusion and ad hocism. The dysfunction was still evident up to last week when the president couldn’t understand the value, or even optics, of visiting the Government Science School from which more than 300 students were abducted by bandits. He needed to visit the school, interact with agitated parents of the abducted schoolboys, and speak strength and resilience to the country, together with confident assertions about retooling Nigeria’s security system and safeguarding the entire nation. To let that opportunity pass without a whimper was unforgivable. To suggest it was deliberate, as the Information minister Lai Mohammed implausibly argued on Friday, stretched logic to its inelastic limit.

The abducted schoolboys have been released, as the government insisted, without payment of ransom. The Zamfara government, which has been accused by the All Progressives Congress (APC) of conniving at banditry, helped in negotiating the release, prodded, it seemed, by Katsina State government led by the truly distraught Governor Aminu Masari. Whether ransom was paid or not, the boys are back home and safe again. But schools in many parts of the Northwest will remain closed for a while, a propaganda and strategic gain for Boko Haram which unconvincingly attempted to appropriate the abduction and school closure as a part of their campaign to denigrate and hamstring Western education. Eventually, sometime later, the schools will reopen, but the issues that led both to the closure of schools and the abduction of young schoolboys will remain untouched by reason and policy. Untouched by reason because neither the federal nor state government has outthought the bandits. Untouched by policy because there is hardly any; or when there is, it is often eclectic and devoid of passion and conviction.

In the past few years, Nigeria has faced one of its worst existential crises in a long time. Confronting it, the Goodluck Jonathan government had preferred to tinker with the grave national contradictions facing the nation: a warped constitution, ethnic rivalry, religious bigotry, irresponsible politicking, etc. The Jonathan tinkering gave a semblance of something being done to ameliorate the crisis of nationhood. But while Dr Jonathan tinkered, his successor, President Muhammadu Buhari administration, has been in denial: that the problem is exaggerated, that deployment of force would be the magic bullet, that the country’s structure was not disjointed, and that the government seldom errs because it knows everything. Thus while the tinkerer quickly became disillusioned by the ineffectiveness of the military in the fight against insurgency, and thus deployed mercenaries to curb the north-eastern malady, the denialist threw money and weapons at a problem that had already metastasized. Insurgency may have drawn oxygen from social and economic alienation; its solution does not lie only with social and economic inclusiveness. Both the problem of insurgency and the solution to insurgency are intrinsic to the structure of the country. Instituting the appropriate structure will limit the power and effect of insurgency as well as birth and invigorate the social, economic and political tools needed to curb or even extirpate insurgency.

In the same way, banditry, which probably inspired the Kankara abductions and has led to an orgy of bloodletting in the Northwest, will require more than just economic inclusiveness, growth and development to stanch the flow of blood and starve the anarchic groups of recruitment. The Buhari administration has had an appalling record of economic policies; but even if it knew what policies to adopt, even if it had top class economic managers and thinkers, it may be too late to produce and implement relevant and comprehensive measures. In his NTA interview, the president did not give indication that other measures apart from military and law enforcement solutions are needed to end the troubles and paralyses ravaging much of the North and to a large extent the rest of the country. The president needs to come to the inescapable point that something more than superficial measures may be needed to tackle the overwhelming insecurity weakening his government and exposing the country to fragmentation.

In the middle of his first term, the president came across as having abdicated his powers to his chief of staff. Whether that perception maligned him needlessly or not, there was a strong feeling that the narrowness of his government’s base could not have been the product of the essential President Buhari whose private feelings and mannerism indicated a detribalized and religiously liberal leader. In fact, few have remained convinced that the Buhari administration could be broadened to offer leadership to a new Nigeria where no one is oppressed or alienated. In the past few months, however, the fear of the damage a government with a narrow base could cause has given way to utter confusion and paralysis. Whether at the government or party level, the increasing sense of anomie is unlikely to be assuaged by any solution.

In the referenced NTA interview, the president moaned that he had held series of meetings with his security chiefs. This grumbling is typical of a fundamental poverty of ideas and a terrifying lack of resolve in the face of danger. If he held meetings with his security chiefs, what did they discuss? Could he not tell, as a commander, when his security chiefs reached the end of their tethers? What covenant did he sign with them that he could not find the courage to look for other security chiefs? Worse, the president’s grumbling also indicated that he had a simplistic one-track solution to a multidimensional and evolving problem threatening the nation. Many non-state actors, not to talk of exponents of asymmetric struggles and wars, now think tantalizingly that the president is actually not in control of his government and the country, and is seemingly incapacitated by both a lack of resoluteness and a more disturbing lack of capacity.

Some may interpret his conclusion that the effort of his security chiefs was not good enough for him as a sign that he would soon dispense with their services. Nothing is certain. But whether he takes action or not will not obviate the damage his long-term dithering has caused the nation and his own image. He is now viewed as an indecisive leader, one unflatteringly desensitized to the threat the security chiefs’ lack of urgency and depth has cost the country. Why the president failed to see that even the image of his generals had been badly affected by their long stay and diminishing impact in office is hard to explain. Yet, even if he replaces them today, the problems of insurgency and banditry have so escalated that it would be shocking should the president think that more arms and deployment of troops would solve them. It requires a president with depth, and aides that are dispassionate, nationalistic and knowledgeable to design structural solutions to save Nigeria. That president is not in office yet, and those aides do not yet walk the corridors of power.

Indeed, just as the Kankara schoolboys were being released from their monstrous abductors, a Zamfara monarch was being bled insensate by another band of bandits. Insecurity is so widespread in Nigeria, and insurgency so unmitigable that no superficial solution would be adequate to address them. Governor Masari did his best to resolve the abduction crisis, but it is surprising that the import of the abduction seemed lost on the president considering that a few hours after he touched down in Katsina, his home state, the bandits swooped on his state and led the 344 boys into captivity. The bandits taunted him, dared him even, but as usual he spiritualized the problem by mocking his mockers and insisting that God, in getting the boys freed, fought to save his image from traducers. President Buhari is inscrutable. Given his failings, he is unlikely to understand the full import of the insecurity crisis ravaging Nigeria. And if he and his aides cannot understand the dynamics of the ongoing crisis threatening to tear the country apart, how can they be trusted to find solutions?

Despite the conflict pitching them against one another, Nigeria’s political elite seemed to have come to the conclusion that all they can do is manage the Buhari administration to the end of its tormented second term. It can’t be improved, they sigh, and can’t be imbued with the political expansiveness and spirit of inclusion needed to build and lead a great nation. Even across the parties, they know that the president is not in control of his party in which he has whimsically and unconstitutionally intervened depending on what external pressures he is susceptible to. They will, therefore, keep up a semblance of politics in the country; but they will be open to realignments and new ideas, and they know more than ever that it would be counterproductive to wait till 2022 to begin the moves for a new republic and nation. But if they inherit a nation at all, they will have in their feeble and calloused hands a country knocked silly and groggy by years of abuse, suspicion and incompetence. Ridding it of 60 years of filth — of which banditry, insurgency and the Kankara abductions are just minute symptoms — and remedying its poorly knit structure will be the long-term preoccupation of the inheritors.

 

For Sam Nda-Isaiah (1962-2020)

 

The obituaries of Sam Nda-Isaiah written by some of by his friends and colleagues have been forthright and touching. They remind us of his stutter, his temper, his impatience, his wit; but they also point at his empathy, his brilliance, his daring, his candour, his philanthropy. Almost universally, they describe a man who touched lives and lived life to the fullest, a man whose gale of laughter sometimes resembled the peal of thunder, a man who at 58 left rather too soon when he seemed formed, like his late dad, to go on and on. His obituarists have done a great job painting for us the essential Nda-Isaiah, and have made his passing all the more traumatic for those who knew him, befriended him, or benefited from his large-heartedness.

I knew him in his teen years as a friend and classmate of my younger brothers. We lived in the same estate built purposely as staff quarters by the New Nigerian Newspapers (NNN), where his dad and my dad worked. While he kept his friendship with my brothers, he quietly gravitated towards me partly because of our common, almost fanatical, love for Sesame Street, a children’s educational series on television in Kaduna at the time. It was striking that in discussing the Muppet characters of Sesame Street he began to show his fierce competitiveness, disputing, indeed jousting, with me on who between the two of us better fit the characters of Ernie and Bert, two Muppets who were not only best of friends but displayed contrasting attitudes. Ernie was open and vibrant, full of trickery and mischief. Bert, on the other hand, constantly wearied by his friend’s troubles, tended to be exasperated and sometimes avuncular. Ernie was thus the more popular among children and youths. Mr Nda-Isaiah coveted the Ernie character, and insisted I should be Bert. I would have none of it, though coincidentally Bert, like myself, is taller than Ernie.

Till he passed on, we never quite discussed what he thought of my intervention in his educational progression after secondary school, whether he was grateful that I helped alter the direction of his educational pursuit or he regretted it. I had meant to raise the issue with him one day in order to know just what he thought. When he was to fill his JAMB form, he had decided to ask my opinion. I asked him what he had in mind, and he replied that he preferred University of Jos. He would do quite well reading Pharmacy at the University of Ife, I countered. He was skeptical. Going south never crossed his mind, he had said anxiously. Besides, he added, they would probably not give him admission, coming as he was from across the River Niger. I insisted and dared him to hold me responsible, for as I argued, he was bright enough to go to any university of his choice in Nigeria. Eventually, he relented, swearing to hold me responsible should his admission quest miscarry.

But perhaps he was grateful after all. Twice, I recall, in his first and second years at Ife, he would travel to visit me in my university. But no sooner he arrived than we launched into fierce arguments on any subject under the sun. He was the first eager polemicist I knew who stuttered. That, however, never inconvenienced him. But whether that impediment drove him into relentless fierceness and a general unwillingness to lose an argument is hard to fathom. He was contemptuous when he thought he had won, often declaring victory unilaterally, and bristled when you thought and spoke as if you had the upper hand. Always self-confident, optimistic, and imperious, he was consequently willing to take on all-comers, boldness and traits that obviously accompanied him into middle age, drove him into politics and a humiliating presidential contest only he thought he stood the chance of winning, and made him exude the iconoclasm strange to us south-westerners, calling those far senior to him in age by their first names. I was flabbergasted when he called the late Abba Kyari by first name in my presence. He thought nothing of it.

We drifted apart in his years of running the Leadership newspaper. I took things for granted, always believing that he would be there into his seventies and eighties. That is one of the strange ironies of life. Had I suspected in any way how soon he would depart, I would have been far closer than I was, appreciating his joie de vivre, his unrestrained laughter and sense of humour, his ephemeral anger, his good heart, and his optimism. He possessed qualities that will make it intolerable for his friends to contemplate his departure, and his family harder to reconcile with their unquantifiable loss.