Category: Idowu Akinlotan

Idowu Akinlotan

Five days before the Edo State governorship poll, former All Progressives Congress (APC) national chairman and also one-time governor of the Edo State, John Odigie-Oyegun, issued a statement denouncing fence sitters in the election. “There is no room for fence sitters” he asserted vehemently. Yet the sum of his five-paragraph statement was that he sat grimly on the fence himself but encouraged voters to do otherwise. Recalling how President Muhammadu Buhari sat on the fence in the 2019 elections by suggesting that the electorate should vote for him in the presidential poll and vote their conscience in some state polls, Mr Odigie-Oyegun asked Edo voters to also vote their conscience.

In 2019, President Buhari was described as noncommittal and even disloyal to his party when he balked at supporting his party’s candidates in a few governorship elections. But he got away with murder. Mr Odigie-Oyegun also hopes to get away with murder at yesterday’s governorship poll by feigning neutrality. It is not certain he will come out unscathed, but few Nigerians were fooled by his supposed nonaligned status. He was governor of the state, and was presumed to possess above average talents in administration as well as proficiency in English Language. But his controversial statement, which was published on September 16, was not so clever. Every sentence dripped with vindictiveness and revenge. And every paragraph reeked of hatred for his successor, Adams Oshiomhole, the controversial but affable politician dethroned from the chairmanship of the APC by a combination of presidential insouciance and juridical insurrection.

Mr Odigie-Oyegun denounced any purported statement made by him in the run-up to the poll, accusing social media denizens of playing renegades. In hindsight, it seemed the fake statements alleged to have been issued by him was designed to draw him out into the open to declare his stand, a stand already gleaned by his enemies from his body language. In any case, days before the election, and perhaps sensing which way the cat jumps, he summarily declared his position, described that position as neutral, but was unable to disguise his open insurrection against his former party and in particular, Mr Oshiomhole, whom he continues to view as the principal architect of his downfall as party chairman. As malleable as Nigerian politics is, it is hard to see the two former chairmen reconciling after this election, regardless of the outcome.

When in 2019 President Buhari became the party’s principal fence sitter, this column warned that such an act of subversion enacted in high quarters was bound to spawn an adders’ nest of imitations. With the admonition of Mr Odigie-Oyegun to Edo voters to vote their conscience, that act of elevating political revenge to dizzying levels is bound to become integral to the APC in ways that may yet see the party unravel. Should the APC go ahead to win the Edo poll, Mr Odigie-Oyegun’s not-so-illustrious political career, already in its twilight, will flicker out into nothingness and see him mummifying not only in the state but also nationally. Should the APC lose, Mr Oshiomhole’s troubled political career will enter a period of extended turbulence from which he can only emerge by the skin of his teeth.

Paragraphs two and three of Mr Odigie-Oyegun’s statement betrayed his commitment to Governor Godwin Obaseki who defected to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) only weeks before the governorship primaries. The former APC chairman said he had counselled his party, which was at the time under the leadership of Mr Oshiomhole, not to mistreat Mr Obaseki. But they turned deaf ears to his advice and forced the governor out. Swooning over Mr Obaseki, the former chairman argued that the governor “stood bravely for the dignity and pride of his people”. Mr Odigie-Oyegun never suspected that his observations could be both misplaced and exaggerated. The governor had alienated a cross section of his party, which explained why he resented the party’s decision to conduct direct primary and led him to explode depth bombs under his party’s leaders. To, therefore describe him as standing for the dignity and pride of his people was putting too fine a point on what is clearly controversial.

The third paragraph was even more direct and revealing. Describing the people as sovereign, and alluding to Mr Oshiomhole as subversive of that sovereignty, he encouraged the voters to exercise and protect their democratic rights. Their votes, he crowed, would underscore their right to pick a governor, forgetting that indeed whatever those rights were could be influenced by persuasion engendered through politicking. By lauding Mr Obaseki and denouncing other influencers, presumably Mr Oshiomhole and his cohorts in the APC leadership, Mr Odigie-Oyegun was clearly but unconsciously playing the godfather too. He is of course at liberty to deploy influence, which he has done probably splendidly, but it is sentimental and cynical of him to disapprove of any other person projecting the same kind of political influence. When he suggested that the people’s votes would make clear their right to choose their governor, the former chairman was not just stating the elementary obvious. He was in fact suggesting that voting for anyone other than Mr Obaseki would indicate a tainted vote and dictation by someone else. There can be no worse subversion of the APC and a better campaign for the PDP, all this coming from a current member and elder of the party, indeed a former chairman.

Apart from stoking the embers of conflict within the APC, Mr Odigie-Oyegun’s controversial statement also indicates that the struggle for the soul of the APC will continue for some time. That struggle is shaping into a war, and that war will intensify in the months ahead. It will transcend the outcomes of both the Edo and Ondo polls, and will shape the present and future of the party. With the inability and inexperience of the president to farsightedly do the right thing by the party, the APC’s fratricidal battles will weaken it and make it less competitive in the years to come. Too many of the APC’s governors and leaders have indicated their disenchantment with the Edo scenarios, particularly the temporary upper hand secured by Mr Oshiomhole. They will not mind losing the state to the PDP, and have even worked against victory. To shoot oneself in the foot is a habit now clearly and distinctively APC, a culture begun by the president and is now morphing and ossifying dangerously in the lower rungs of the party.

Later today or early tomorrow, the outcome of the poll will be known. Mr Odgiie-Oyegun glosses over the implication of the votes, in the same manner as the PDP and Mr Obaseki had largely successfully framed the election as one of godfathers and godsons rather than one of achievements and potentials, or of democrats and autocrats. Contrary to the former APC chairman’s view, voting Mr Obaseki will clearly entrench the governor’s middling achievements and enthrone high-handedness, two dismaying culture APC rank and file who put him in office in 2016 have identified and warned about. Voting Osagie Ize-Iyamu into office, an action insufficiently and awkwardly sold by his supporters and leaders, would probably be a clear chance for a new beginning. He is unlikely to be as dictatorial as Mr Obaseki, and probably keener and more driven in etching his name in gold. It is strange that neither the APC nor the PDP had spent quality time saying the right things and selling the right goods, with the latter pretending that a godfather’s opprobrious vote was enough to damage the poll, and the former unsure whether courting their godfathers was not the equivalent of infamy.

Idowu Akinlotan

It is not in the nature of the Information minister Lai Mohammed to let any provocation go unanswered, not to talk of the state failure indignity he believes Chief Obasanjo had offered President Buhari. Responding recently at his idiosyncratic best, laced with his usual flowery propaganda verbiage, Mr Mohammed rhapsodises the patriotism and capacity of the president, and dismisses the intervention of the former president. Said he: “Nigeria today faces a lot of challenges. But whatever situation the country has found itself in, things would have been much worse but for the deft management of resources, unprecedented fight against corruption, determined battle against insurgency and banditry as well as the abiding courage of Mr President in piloting the ship of state…Nigeria today is not a failed state, but a nation that is courageously tackling its challenges and building a solid infrastructure that will serve as the basis for socio-economic development, a nation that is unrelenting in battling insecurity and working hard to ensure greatest prosperity for the greatest number of people…They aggravate the national fault lines with their angry and unguarded actions and rhetoric, forgetting that while national fissures are amplified at a time of dwindling economic fortunes, what is needed to foster peace and unity is not reckless elocution but responsible and responsive leadership, the kind being offered by President Buhari.”

In the view of Mr Mohammed, President Buhari salvaged the country through “deft management…, unprecedented fight…, determined battle…, abiding courage…” And for the president’s critics? Why, the problem is their “angry and unguarded actions…, and reckless elocution…” There will in short be no end to Mr Mohammed’s propaganda and mendacity, for in the service of his idol, both of these vices are naturally transformed into virtues. But the main points of Chief Obasanjo’s observations? Again these are lost in the moraines of Mr Mohammed’s circumlocutions. At the end, the divisions remain, and are reinforced by a president whose glacial indifference to criticisms numb and astonish Nigerians.

Idowu Akinlotan

Presidential spokesman Femi Adesina has predictably responded to ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo’s scathing criticism of President Muhammadu Buhari’s divisive tendencies. That response, like Chief Obasanjo’s initial remarks, has in turn been heavily denounced by those who felt that more and more Mr Adesina was proving incapable of saying or doing anything right. Chief Obasanjo had in early September during a dialogue in Abuja on moving Nigeria away from tipping over described the country as fast drifting towards a failed, badly divided state. His remarks were generally well received, though nearly everyone who commended his perspective blamed him for sowing the seeds that have led Nigeria to a sorry pass.

Just like the Information minister, Lai Mohammed (See box), Mr Adesina insisted that Nigeria’s divisions predated President Buhari. While not disproving the country’s disunity, the spokesman seems to even absolve the president of blame without advancing any argument or proof. Said he during a Channels Television interview: “Nigeria had always been divided right from amalgamation in 1914. Nigeria is an inconvenient amalgamation but we have kept at it and we have worked at it. And I tell you that there is no time in the history of this country that the country was not divided. But then, we have kept at it and we are trying to make it work. As at 2015 when President Buhari came, Nigeria was terribly divided; divided along ethnic, religious and political lines; divided along language; divided hopelessly and terribly. That is the division that President Buhari has been working at. But you see that a number of people, instead of letting harmony return to this country, thrive and luxuriate in widening the gap between Nigerians. They play politics with everything. So, if they say Nigeria is divided today, it is because Nigeria has always been divided. And all efforts to unite Nigeria and Nigerians never worked. When Nigerians come to a decision point that we must live together, we can’t wish anybody away, then we will be working towards being a nation.”

Mr Adesina is characteristically acerbic, and has spoken and acted as if he will not someday return to the civil society from which he came. He admits the divisions, even though he disputes the possibility of state failure, and blames all past leaders, especially the immediate past president Goodluck Jonathan. He insinuates, perhaps correctly, that Chief Obasanjo himself contributed to the divisions. He also insists that the divisions came with the unification package in 1914. Having admitted these divisions, it beggars belief, which was the main point of Chief Obasanjo’s diatribe, that President Buhari has done nothing to reunite the country or ameliorate the impact of the divisions. Instead, as Chief Obasanjo asserted, the president has grossly exacerbated the divisions. The former president was specific. Mr Adesina should have dwelt on those specifics and disproved them.

Mr Adesina has lost his sense of taste and smell, and cannot differentiate between black and white anymore than a person who is colourblind. No amount of logic, not even the elementary two plus two equals four, can convince him of the arithmetic sanctity of integers, let alone integral calculus. Chief Obasanjo rightly observed that on President Buhari’s watch the country had become hopelessly divided and was fast drifting towards state failure. It is also true that the president has worsened the divisions and virtually moved the country to the precipice. If Mr Adesina disputes these observations, if he insists these divisions predate the Buhari presidency, what does he have to say about the president’s adamant refusal to reverse the trend? The president has been in office for more than five years; what step has he taken to arrest and reverse the divisions and the drift towards state failure?

Mr Adesina may loathe Chief Obasanjo, basking as many in the presidency have done in recent years over how President Buhari had in their opinion looked Chief Obasanjo in the face and survived the deadly stare, but he can say nothing logical to prove that President Buhari has not worsened the country’s divisions. The country is undoubtedly deeply divided. Nigerians must now hope that they can survive the implacable seeds of distrust and fear sown in the past five years by a presidency Mr Adesina seems immoderately enamoured of.

By Idowu Akinlotan

Since the signing into law of the Companies and Allied Matters Act, 2020 by President Muhammadu Buhari in early August, neither the government, including the president, nor the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) has known peace. The 604-page, 870-section Act traverses a wide legal territory, but surprisingly confounds and fixates the country in just a few sections, to wit, Sections 823 to 839. CAN and the church in general, however, take umbrage at essentially Section 839 that provides for the suspension of the trustees of an association and the appointment of interim manager(s).

More than any other non-profit organisation, including mosques, the church is up in arms against any legal or administrative attempt by the government or its agents to tamper with the running of the church. Indeed, incendiary remarks have laced the position of many church leaders against the new law. There is no doubt that stricter regulations, in one form or the other, are required to govern the operations of non-profit organisations. And there is also no doubt that CAMA 2020 is not perfect, and may yet be tinkered with to erase any misgivings about the intentions of the government. But given its peculiarities, not to say its immense wealth more than any other non-profit organisation in Nigeria today, the church will likely continue to feel targeted.

Despite the law being generally impersonal, some church leaders have questioned why a government which has been unable to run any of its ministries and agencies with the same profundity, vision and honesty as the church presumes to regulate their betters and even inflict their own abysmal standards and incompetence on the church. They also wonder whether the government is not prompted by envy to wade into and inevitably weaken the running of an increasingly prosperous church. The government will of course not address these posers. But whether on the whole the government and the National Assembly can be persuaded to address all or nearly all the misgivings of the church remains to be seen.

Even if they are mistaken in interpreting key provisions of the new law, the church is, however, right to fear the devil in the detail. They know by instinct that sometimes the problem is not the letter of the law but the spirit and implementation of the law. They know that sometimes the motivation behind a law can be unimpeachable, but everyone comes to grief when the law confronts its interpretation. In short, CAN fears that given the decay and inefficiency of Nigeria’s criminal justice system, the corruption of judges and how easily they are pressured or compromised by the wealthy, the influential, and the government, what is at play is often more than the bare provisions of the law.

Worse, they rightly fear that given the increasing diminution of Nigeria’s secular principles and Nigerian rulers’ appalling inclination to proselytise, CAMA 2020 could easily be turned on its head in the hands of a messianic ruler. That Western societies, particularly the United States and the United Kingdom, regulate and discipline charity/non-profit organisations does not imply that the same provisions in the hands of a non-secular Nigerian government would not be perverted. Western societies have become secular extremists, and their justice systems more institutionalised, reliable and dependable. On the other hand, Nigeria has become a non-secular extremist with the capacity to foment rebellion in a non-profit organisation, while the justice system perches dangerously on the precipice of collapse. It would be unhealthy for CAN not to attempt to get the law reworked to integrate safety nets for their members.

By Idowu Akinlotan

Two Saturdays from now, Godwin Obaseki, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governorship candidate and Edo State governor, will be squaring up with Osagie Ize-Iyamu of the All Progressives Congress (APC). The battle promises to be brutal and life and career defining. Both candidates defected from each other’s former political party: Mr Obaseki from the APC to the PDP, and Mr Ize-Iyamu from the PDP to the APC. Former APC national chairman, Adams Oshiomhole was instrumental to the savage blows both came to when they first crossed swords in 2016 on the platforms of their erstwhile political parties, and is still the main factor in the grudge match both will fight on September 19. In 2016, despite Mr Oshiomhole’s overbearing influence, Mr Obaseki, widely regarded as less charismatic than his opponent, a pastor and politician, eked out a narrow win. With the former APC chairman now ensconced in Mr Ize-Iyamu’s corner, it remains to be seen whether incumbency would amount to anything for Mr Obaseki.

Both candidates may be engaged in frantic last-minute campaigns, but it seems Edo people have already made up their minds. Whether those minds can sufficiently communicate their decisions without the ambiguousness many outsiders read into their politics is, however, not exactly known. Mr Obaseki has strongly and even effectively framed and weaved his political narrative around Mr Oshiomhole, virtually discounting Mr Ize-Iyamu’s popularity and earthy and ecclesiastical appeal. At virtually every campaign stop, the governor frames the election as one of freeing the state from the pernicious grip of a godfather and dictator. He has spoken somewhat of his achievements, but he has been careful not to put too much emphasis on whatever those achievements are, partly because they are neither substantial nor noteworthy. Though he has repeatedly alluded to his reverence for the constitution, he has in his campaign been very reticent about speaking up for the rule of law or defending the rights of Edo people.

On the other hand, Pastor Ize-Iyamu has harped on the paucity of Mr Obaseki’s achievements in four years, insisting that the governor had been brutal, tyrannical, disrespectful to the constitution, and unable to record inspiring infrastructural achievements on the scale exampled by Mr Oshiomhole. Tangentially too, the APC candidate has yielded significantly to Mr Oshiomhole in the party’s campaign, and resisted the cynical and dismissive characterisation of the former governor as a godfather to whom the APC governorship candidate supinely deferred. Mr Oshiomhole was recently dethroned as the APC national chairman, a task Mr Obaseki studiously applied himself before defecting to the PDP. The former APC chairman knows full well that the governor’s re-election would probably sound the death knell to his politics and relevance. He has, therefore, poured himself into the Ize-Iyamu campaign as if he is the candidate. He and the APC candidate are banking on the wholesale alienation of many Edo and APC elites to trounce the PDP.

Many of the issues that will circumscribe the September 19 poll were already raised and probably decided during the primaries. In June, shortly after the APC denied Mr Obaseki the ticket by screening him out of the list of contestants, Palladium examined the politics and hopes of the governor, and concluded that his goose was all but cooked. It is uncertain if that process can be reversed even in a state-wide election. Stated below are the reasons Palladium offered for his pessimism about Mr Obaseki’s chances:

“Outside Edo State, Mr Obaseki has a lot of sympathies. His main enemy, Mr Oshiomhole, is not liked by too many people for his feistiness, abrasiveness, coarseness and effrontery. In Edo, however, opinion on the former governor is mixed, with a large percentage ready to tolerate his boyish jokes and rural candour than stomach Mr Obaseki’s gloomy and aloof dictatorship. Nothing is likely to shake the opinion which outsiders have of Mr Obaseki as the underdog in the contest, or as the technocratic governor determined to safeguard the patrimony of Edo and deal a permanent blow to the godfather concept. Inside Edo, however, from an optimistic beginning when Mr Obaseki was regarded as a breath of fresh and somewhat polished air, in contrast to Mr Oshiomhole’s offensive lack of polish, the state has gradually begun to reassess their views of the two politicians at a time when the governor’s politics and outlook are beginning to unravel.

“Mr Obaseki is an unprincipled person and politician. He was at liberty to oppose Mr Oshiomhole as much as he likes, and had the right to attempt to redefine and reconfigure Edo politics along modern, inspiring lines. He was free to guard the state’s treasury and, if he chose, limit the influence of one man over the affairs and politics of the state. But he needed not only wisdom to carry out those noble goals, he also needed exquisite politics, taking care in the process not to tyrannise the state or impose a worse form of coarseness. For the two or three years in which he fought Mr Oshiomhole and obviously the state APC, he displayed no scintilla of principles or wisdom. He blew hot and cold, fighting one day without rhyme or reason, and trying to make peace the next day without compunction. Most of the fights were not only absolutely needless, they also indicated his awful sense of timing.

“In the weeks before the screening of spirants that led to his disqualification, Mr Obaseki had attempted to coax a peace deal from his embattled chairman, rallying many sympathetic APC governors behind him, and visiting the leaders of the party, including the president. The unprincipled show of desperation was touching and troubling. Fight to the death if you must, especially if you believe in your cause, and be prepared to lose honourably if it came to that. Not Mr Obaseki who tried to run with the hare and hunt with the hound. The governors rallied for him alright as he wished, and party leaders were sensitive enough not to ruffle his feathers or spurn his blandishments. But it was clear even then that neither the leaders nor his fellow governors could save him. He had nailed his colours to the mast as far back as late last year, and particularly in March when he openly associated with the dubious effort to overthrow Mr Oshiomhole. If it did not occur to him what dangers he courted because he had become an incurable optimist, it was plain to his fellow governors and party leaders that planning but failing to dethrone a party chairman in an election year was both unforgivable and a clear signal for bloody revenge.

“Years before the putsch against Mr Oshiomhole, the Edo governor had fought and alienated the state’s APC leaders and rank and file, and had tried to achieve a needless and artificial dominance of the state. In the process, he tried measures and methods that even the maligned Mr Oshiomhole would have flinched from. He demolished his opponents’ houses, barred or disrupted the political rallies of his opponents within the party, decapitated grassroots party mobilisers, suspended party leaders, intimidated many others, including Mr Oshiomhole himself, blocked entrances to houses, ordered the APC chairman to seek approval before visiting Edo, shut out from inauguration 14 state legislators in favour of his 10, and gleefully and paranoiacally subscribed to such measures that neither accorded with commonsense nor aligned with democratic principles. Nothing resembling democracy or anything inspiring came forth from Mr Obaseki. On top of all this, he constantly blew hot and cold, taking umbrage at the slightest provocation. No, Mr Oshiomhole was not his problem, regardless of how convincingly he shaped the narratives against the national chairman for the consumption of non-Edo people. He was his own worst enemy.

“Unfortunately for Mr Obaseki, gradually the Edo people were growing weary of his antics and his vituperations. Soon, they were tired altogether. The enemies he had inspired against himself were no longer just members of the APC but also members of the PDP, and even independents. At first they did not mind the governor taking on Mr Oshiomhole, but they wished he would do it within the ambits of the law and common sense. They were uncertain of how he should take on those whose snouts were permanently locked on the state treasury through union activities; but not too long after, they were beginning to be unsure whether he did not nurse some other ulterior motives in that ungainly and unequal battle. They also initially thought he had the undiluted support of the Benin monarchy, but soon, their doubts began to assume high voltage. Then when he finally exceeded himself and took on virtually everybody, they were fed up with his irrational wars and malignant, incandescent rage.”

Having adduced these reasons, Palladium concluded: “…Except Mr Oshiomhole says something nasty and costly, and the APC candidate in the September poll makes a very bad gaffe, the chances of defeating them are not very bright, notwithstanding the apocalyptic conclusions of those in the APC who wished them obliteration. The APC national chairman’s (he was still chairman at this stage) speeches may lack grace and refinement, but he remains gregarious and a down-to-earth person, virtues that somewhat excuse his failings and make him a less repugnant figure.”

To re-elect Mr Obaseki is to ignore his poor judgement, disagreeable personality, obnoxious politics and frothy realities around him. He has said and done enough to lose, and in fact does not deserve to win. Should he win, however, he will not be less disobedient to the constitution, nor let his malignant hatred for the state’s powerful elites abate. He has portrayed himself a technocrat, a wholesome gatekeeper to the state’s treasury, a defender of the people’s rights and privileges. For a governor and politician who is naturally autocratic, this is sheer delusion. He will not get better. He can only get worse. He may have framed his campaign around the rescindment of godfathers, but he has done much worse than a godfather, and spoken and acted narcissistically and autocratically like someone around whom everything must revolve.

Mr Ize-Iyamu may be untested, and his rhetoric difficult to practicalise once he wins the election, but he seems like a team player. There may also be no proof that as governor he would not fall out with the constantly importuning Mr Oshiomhole. But he is charismatic, is not an individualist, is eager to develop Edo State, and has an earthy, democratic touch to his person and politics. He lost in 2016 partly because he made a gaffe about his friendship and loyalty to the Igbinedions. But in that gaffe lies the undergirding essence of a man who is loyal to his friends and mentors. Palladium endorses Mr Ize-Iyamu and hopes he has done enough to convince Edo people he would be his own man and a better governor.

 

Idowu Akinlotan

 

Forty years after his death in 1980, and more than any other oba in the Southwest, the reign of Oba Adesoji Aderemi, the Ooni of Ife, still resonates with many south-westerners. That reign lasted for all of 50 years, enough to accommodate first and second terms of eight presidents. Under the American-style presidential system, which Nigeria inexpertly borrowed and began, with many hiatuses, to clumsily operate since 1979, five presidents have since presided over the affairs of Nigeria. Oba Aderemi’s reign necessarily provokes an enduring paradox that transforms the mystery, chemistry and complexity of leadership into a veritable arcanum.

By the admission of Obafemi Awolowo, eminent statesman and Nigerian immortal, the reign of Oba Aderemi (1930-1980) brought development and modernity to Ile-Ife in what passes for the so-called bread and butter and roads and bridges dividends of democracy which politicians are besotted to today. But it was not what he attracted to Ile-Ife, cradle of the Yoruba race, that made the Ooni a legend. His reign witnessed the first private secondary school in Nigeria and attracted a university, the University of Ife (Obafemi Awolowo University), to his domain. But it was not these firsts that also set him and his reign apart from other less visionary leaders. In his tribute to the Ooni, Chief Awolowo remarked how supportive of the Action Group policies and programmes Oba Aderemi was. Still, it was not even this support, as remarkable and great as it was, that made him a legend.

What set Oba Aderemi apart was his uncanny and subliminal understanding of the nuanced building blocks of leadership. Chief Awolowo tangentially referenced this quality, but was probably too awed by the Ooni’s sagacity and unerring judgement to extensively dwell on it in his books. Both men were kindred spirits, and both, especially Chief Awolowo who documented his forays into politics and government, proudly recognised how uncommon and transcendental their leadership perspectives were. In none of his many seminal and original books, some of which skirted the boundaries of philosophy and explored his political life and woes, does Chief Awolowo offer his audience a close examination, or at least a glimpse, of the intangible forces and elements that ennobled his perspectives and choices. Had he chosen to, he could doubtless have helped millions of his admirers and followers to understand better what drove his life and politics, and explicated the otherwise inscrutable mind and farsighted ideas and choices of Oba Aderemi.

Chief Awolowo was unlikely to be the most intelligent or hard working politician of his day. But he towered above his contemporaries by his uncanniness and farsightedness. Oba Aderemi, despite being a preeminent oba, was unlikely to be the most regal of the obas of his day, nor the only one with interest in politics. But his perspectives, choices, determination, conviction, decisions and sacrifices, including putting his throne on the line many times, were ennobled by an intuitive, if not mystifying, grasp of contemporary and exigent issues far above the common level. As Chief Awolowo put it in his tribute: “Some people demand honour from their fellowmen, and sometimes, by sundry devices, succeed in forcing and enforcing it. Others, who are very rare in their breed and number, command honour: they evoke it; they deserve it; and they do so because of their profound, worthy and abiding contributions to the welfare and happiness of their fellowmen, and the greatness of their fatherland. OBA ADESOJI ADEREMI belongs to this latter breed of mankind.”

The fortieth anniversary of Oba Aderemi’s passing should, therefore, afford students of leadership another opportunity to examine the factors that forge a great leader, in the hope that perhaps some of those who have ruled Nigeria or who aspire to the presidency might learn a lesson or two, assuming they have the seed of great leadership in them needing to be planted and watered. Before attempting a consideration of those factors and reminding everyone the sorry pass to which Nigeria has come, it may be relevant to look at a few examples of just how some of Nigeria’s rulers got their leadership so wrong.

After many trials and errors lasting nearly two presidential terms, with some of the trials and errors judged to be well-placed policies and programmes, military head of state Ibrahim Babangida came to a dramatic and life-defining fork in the road in 1993 when history beckoned him to either uphold or annul the presidential election of that year. It is inconceivable that Oba Aderemi would have failed that test, or that Chief Awolowo, despite his alleged regional bias, would have failed to weigh the consequences of being caught on the wrong side of history. But almost effortlessly, Gen Babangida chose the wrong side of history, a choice that continues to haunt him and the country till today, despite their indifference and pretences. With that fateful choice, the general forfeited the opportunity to be a legend, the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be the farsighted leader that helped the country diminish, if not completely extinguish, the ethnic and religious fault lines that continue to hobble national existence and debilitate politics.

Gen Babangida’s successor, Sani Abacha, another army general and military head of state, was too hedonistic to care about history. In 1999, when Olusegun Obasanjo assumed the presidency, nature and heaven presented him a clean slate to write a great name for himself and his country. He was tireless though embarrassingly and indefensibly presumptuous, and he was gifted with stamina and a lot of opportunities many leaders would offer anything to get even half of. But despite the natural and celestial conspiracies that urged him to greatness, and despite being spoilt for choice in terms of burgeoning national revenue and clement international environment, this most naturally obtruding and interposing of men single-mindedly planted himself between his fondness for self-absorption on the one hand and the tantalising apotheosis heaven reserved for so undeserving a man on the other hand.

It was expected that in 2007, after presiding over the country for eight years, President Obasanjo would through his glimpse of history set the right tone and tenure for political succession and democracy. For someone who had postured so extravagantly as a messiah, it was shocking that he organised and presided over the worst succession in Nigerian history, save perhaps the President Shehu Shagari re-election politics of 1983 that brought out the beast in the country. Neither Yakubu Gowon, another general and military head of state (1966-1975), nor Goodluck Jonathan (2010-2015), regardless of his successful and peaceful transfer of power to an opposing political party, made the right calls in their years in office, exhibited sound judgement, understood the coded messages of history, and envisioned their country decades and possibly centuries after their rule.

In his tribute to Oba Aderemi, Chief Awolowo enthused about the unerring judgement of the Ooni of Ife. So, what made the oba unerring in judgement as a leader, especially as the radical traditionalist everyone came to recognise him to be? The question can be extracted and applied to other leaders: why was Winston Churchill, despite his numerous political, military and racial foibles, almost alone among his peers in sensing the dangers implicit in Nazism and Adolf Hitler’s irredentism? France and Italy after World War II had almost similar defects in their constitutions; why was Charles de Gaulle so persistent in condemning the French Fourth Republic constitution, even describing it as incapable of guaranteeing the stability and greatness he thought was France’s manifest destiny? In fact, he had to wait for more than 10 years to see the fulfilment of his prophecy. How did Nelson Mandela grasp the futility of revenge after apartheid began to collapse in South Africa, especially at a time when many African National Congress (ANC) leaders, including Winnie Mandela, thought some form of revenge was not inappropriate?

It is crucial to inquire into how leaders take decisions and persist in sometimes unpopular but ultimately prescient course of action. Chief Awolowo recounted Oba Aderemi’s abhorrence for violence, but it did not detract from his sound, often radical, judgement, while Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, and even Abraham Lincoln saw the indispensability of violence and realpolitik in the pursuit of greatness or the promotion of an idea. How do these leaders come to their decisions? How did Nebuchadnezzar discover the sound judgement of Daniel, a Jewish slave, and bother himself about what the world and his empire, Babylon, would look like after his reign; and why were both Alexander the Great and Augustus Caesar consumed by the passion to lead and expand their empires? Most importantly, what are the ingredients that made most of these great leaders hunger for a great legacy that deeply impacted all areas of national life — from justice to politics, from economy to infrastructure, and from social engineering to the philosophical ramparts upon which their empires were moored? No single answer suffices. But, clearly Chief Awolowo saw some of these elements in Oba Aderemi’s reign, and in contrast failed to observe it in Nigeria’s presidents and heads of state.

In one of his books, ‘Leaders’, former United States president Richard Nixon attempts to answer the puzzle.  Says he: “When the curtain comes down on a leader’s career, the very lives of the audience have been changed, and the course of history may have been profoundly altered…Great leadership requires a great vision, one that inspires the leader and enables him to inspire the nation. People both love the great leader and hate him; they are seldom indifferent toward him. It is not enough for a leader to know the right thing. The would-be leader without the judgement or perception to make the right decisions fails for lack of vision. The one who knows the right thing but cannot achieve it fails because he is ineffectual. The great leader needs both the vision and the capacity to achieve what is right. He hires managers to help him do so, but only he can set the direction and provide the motive force.”

Explaining further, the former US president suggests that, “Some leaders do, as individuals, tower over their contemporaries…They have to be able to see above the mundane and beyond the immediate. They need that view from the mountaintop. Some people live in the present, oblivious of the past and blind to the future. Some dwell in the past. A very few have the knack of applying the past to the present in ways that show them the future. Great leaders have this knack.”

Then giving a concrete example to illustrate his argument, Mr Nixon sums up: “Great leaders are the ones who first see what in retrospect, but only in retrospect, is obvious, and who have both the force of will and the authority to move their countries with them. De Gaulle in the 1930s did not yet have that authority, but he demonstrated the qualities that would be crucial when he later got it. MacArthur in the 19940s had this authority. If de Gaulle had had the authority sooner, and if Churchill had had it in Britain, the history of Europe might have been different, and there might have been no world war II. De Gaulle and Churchill were, in the 1930s, ahead of their time — or tragically, Europe had not yet learned the hard way that they were right.”

President Nixon may not have answered everything, but Nigerians will gasp in horror at how the lack of sound leadership led them to a civil war in 1967, and how even poorer leadership has made their country a global laggard, consigning their population to poverty, division, ethnic supremacist struggles, religious extremism, and general political paralysis. Chief Awolowo dwelled on and enthused over Oba Aderemi’s sound judgement. It is tragic how a lack of judgement seems to be driving Nigeria to another round of general instability, division and fragmentation. The country is suffering from widespread insecurity, with skirmishes breaking out in nearly all parts of the nation, and law enforcement and military forces stretched to breaking points in their sometimes desultory efforts to put a lid on social, religious and ethnic revolts whose causes and courses the leaders have no clue how to tackle. As President Nixon argues, a leader needs the right judgement and perception, qualities Nigerians must ask themselves, in light of the next presidential election, whether their current and aspiring leaders possess these virtues or not.

It is indeed puzzling that any student of leadership could imagine that given how Nigeria is structured, not to say its abysmally poor quality leadership, a positive change would occur soon. It will take a miracle. The reality confronting the country is that, instead, a gradual descent to chaos is unfolding. The structure is wobbly and unsustainable; leaders have poor self-esteem and education; policies are targeted at satisfying private or primordial interests; law enforcement and security agencies are a spent force designed to satisfy the wrong interests; and there is widespread lack of discipline, cohesion and vision. Building roads and bridges, as indispensable as these are to economic growth and the people’s wellbeing, will not cure the inadequacies of leaders whose judgement and perception on key national and developmental issues remain poor.

The widespread insecurity ravaging Nigeria should propel the country’s leaders to re-examine their country’s national and existential paradigms, understand and properly contextualise the myriads of problems afflicting the polity, and summon the discipline and the will to produce a lasting difference. But as it is, Nigeria will have to look beyond 2023 to find leaders with the depth, judgement, and intuition to alter the course of national history. This will, however, not happen in the near term. Indeed, given the disintegrative forces rapidly, remorselessly and relentlessly tearing the country apart, almost without check, patriots must hope that the country will be sustained through the coming years until hopefully, without the infusion of sentiments, competent leaders can be elected, leaders who after the curtains come down on their time in office, have changed the people for the better and profoundly altered the course of history.

Idowu Akinlotan

In critical letters to the living and sarcastic condolences to the dead, former president Olusegun Obasanjo writes with unprecedented, sometimes ghoulish frankness. He is scathing, unsparing and often long-winded. But when the subject of the condolence became former Ogun State senator, the late Buruji Kashamu, and the addressee happens to be Governor Dapo Abiodun of Ogun State, the former president suddenly became unusually pithy, but without compromising his customary corrosiveness. The flamboyant and controversial senator, the subject of Chief Obasanjo’s mordant wit, died on August 8, and as if the ex-president was waiting for the deceased’s last breath, he rushed out a condolence letter on the same day. He couldn’t wait a minute longer, not even to allow for an autopsy in case one was needed. Having spent the last few years bitterly jousting with the senator, the former president seemed determined to pursue the deceased to the grave and to continue the mortal combat.

Anyone could take issue with Chief Obasanjo as he flouts culture, but few could deny him the right to pursue his quarry to the grave, or bar him from dismissing the 62-year-old former senator’s entire life with all the contempt and hypocrisy imaginable. Former Ekiti State governor Ayo Fayose and eminent lawyer Femi Falana were among many public commentators who felt uneasy about Chief Obasanjo’s style, but Nigerians are more likely to keep in mind the former president’s surreal break with tradition than the reasonableness of those who object to his message and style. Knowing how popular Sen Kashamu was, as evidenced by the unprecedented crowd at his burial, Mr Fayose dropped the dark hint that the former president was unlikely to elicit such passion either by his dying or by his presidential legacy. The former governor knows a lot about the ex-president, but even he underestimates Chief Obasanjo’s indifference to scorn.

In the condolence letter, Chief Obasanjo was cruelly but characteristically frank. He thought nothing of the departed senator, and said so cryptically, even insinuating some philosophical conjectures about the subject of afterlife. After many years of co-opting Sen Kashamu into ignoble political schemes, Chief Obasanjo did not say exactly when he experienced the epiphany of knowing the deceased to be an unbearable and loathsome character. Said Chief Obasanjo gleefully in the letter addressed curiously to the governor, as if he expected Mr Abiodun to remedy the senator’s escape from justice: “Senator Esho Jinadu (Buruji Kashamu) in his lifetime used the manoeuvre of law and politics to escape from facing justice on alleged criminal offence in Nigeria and outside Nigeria. But no legal, political, cultural, social, or even medical manoeuvre could stop the cold hand of death when the Creator of all of us decides that the time is up.” The former president should have dispensed with the use of the word ‘alleged’. However, there are not many Nigerians who can speak their mind so brutally and so frankly like him. Indeed, it is doubtful whether there are two Nigerians who can imitate Chief Obasanjo’s irreverence and indifference. He is probably in a class of his own.

It is meaningless scrutinising the various sides of the quarrel between the former president and the late senator, or setting the propriety of Chief Obasanjo’s bilious rage against Mr Kashamu’s controversial wealth and person. The death of an enemy often settles grudges, but as Mr Falana sensibly posits, and as Chief Obasanjo growls, there is nothing in African tradition that bars anyone from speaking ill of the dead or the living. Indeed, as many commentators reacting to the former president’s rage have said, neither ignoble birth nor ignoble death should be celebrated or accommodated. At death, even a corpse can be banished. Chief Obasanjo, despite the hypocrisy of his condolence message, has solid grounds to write what can pass for a blistering epitaph on Sen Kashamu’s tombstone. It is doubtful whether anyone with the former president’s stature has ever broken societal and conventional icons as brazenly and as remorselessly as he has done. Even if it can be explained why he did it, who can guess what inspired him?

It is suggested that the bitterness between the two gentlemen and the long history of discord between them, particularly the humiliating manner the conflict weakened the hands of Chief Obasanjo in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and prompted his exit from the party, were responsible for why he pursued the senator to the grave and spat on his tomb. There is some sense in this. But the former president is also known both to have few friends and to suffer from the debilitating curse of not being able to keep them. His sense of loyalty is widely believed to be very defective or fragile, considering how easily his worldview and commitments morph and fluctuate as the spirit seizes him. More, he is also believed to be very vindictive, holding grudges for long periods, treating the weak with contempt, railing against the strong, and inured to all spectrums of human emotions to the point of becoming an unfeeling ogre. Many of his few friends still with him are said to warn those who tangle with him never to let go, beg, or try to reach accommodation. He is precisely the sort of man an enemy must fight to the bitter end, the friends warn; for whether he is appeased or not, his view of his enemies is unlikely to change in life or in death, let alone be moderated by either religion, culture, convention or any extraneous or extenuating circumstances.

Chief Obasanjo’s reply to Mr Fayose’s sentimental drivel about the former president’s legacy shows clearly what he thinks of himself and the country he had been privileged to govern twice or even thrice. The former Ekiti State governor had warned the former president to be prepared to be scorned in death, unlike Sen Kashamu who was hero-worshipped by thousands of those he helped and fed while alive. Mr Fayose governed Ekiti twice, but it was not because he had depth or sense, nor whether his judgement was unimpeachable. He was a governor with a highly defective moral compass, a perfect exemplification of the abysmal rot that has overtaken Nigerian politics. For him to draw a parallel between the raucous and rapturous manner Sen Kashamu was mourned by his friends and supporters and the prediction that Chief Obasanjo could be isolated in death as he is nearly abandoned in life, is indeed troubling and indicative of the former governor’s unrestrained shallowness.

The former president, knowing himself very well, sensibly responded to Mr Fayose’s sentimental projections, insisting that he didn’t care how he would be mourned or buried. Perhaps it is not that Chief Obasanjo does not care. He probably does. But he has lived all his life recklessly and scandalously and suspects that he could not possibly get what he believes he merits. And he knows that if nothing else, he would at least get a state funeral, which is more than can be said for all his chief enemies combined. When his time comes, as indeed he has often acknowledged, it is not clear how many of his family members will mourn him. In his family, he is all but isolated. Mercifully, he has done very little to create a political family, else he could also suffer the indignity of being spurned by that class of invariably betrayed supporters. Without a natural family to mourn him as a united body, and shorn of a political family to immortalise him or publish and advance his thoughts, if he had any, Nigerians would love a ringside seat at the former president’s funeral to compose and sing his epitaphs.

But what really explains and inspires the searing condolence letter on Sen Kashamu? This column can hazard only one guess: the classics. Chief Obasanjo, as rustic as he sometimes seems, with all his earthiness and bucolic jocosity, his undiscriminating taste for women and ardour for music and dances, is at bottom hungry for learning. His letter-writing frenzy in fact points at his fervour for the classics, for in the distant past, writers joust with one another in epistolary flourish. He may be a military engineer, and does not have the depth he would love to possess as a statesman, but he covets the passions and gifts of great writers. He could have left Sen Kashamu well alone in death, for that is one enemy less. But having probably come across the altercations between famous writers, particularly their insolent disregard for death and the grave, Chief Obasanjo craved to have the last word, maybe the last laugh too, in the inimitable manner and merciless skewering only the classics delivered.

This speculation about what inspired Chief Obasanjo may not be as far-fetched as some think. Before penning his vitriol on Sen Kashamu, is it not possible that the former president had perhaps come across the soaring but cynical epitaph written by Soame Jenyns on Samuel Johnson, yes, the same ponderous Johnson described by Horace Walpole as “making the most brutal speeches to living persons”?  Said Soame on Johnson:

“Here lies Sam Johnson: — Reader, have a care,

Tread lightly, lest you wake a sleeping bear:

Religious, moral, generous and humane

He was: but self-sufficient, proud, and vain.

Fond of, and overbearing in, dispute,

A Christian and a scholar — but a brute.”

If, before assailing Sen Kashamu, Chief Obasanjo had not encountered the classics, especially their masterpieces in verbal putdowns, then the former president is more original and much smarter than he has been given credit.

But whether he was acquainted with the classics or not, by boldly going scurrilously epitaphic where Nigerians and angels fear to tread, Chief Obasanjo must now be numbered among the great obituarists of modern Nigeria. He may have little by way of published obituaries to boast of, but he is a pathfinder, a hypocrite no doubt, but a courageous one nonetheless. Who, for instance, could fail to be inspired by this indirect epitaph on King Charles II, published anonymously in 1769 under the ‘Junius letters’ in The Public Advertiser, England, and directed against a son of the king: “It is not that you do wrong by design, but that you should never do right by mistake. It is not that your indolence and your activity have been equally misapplied, but that the first uniform principle or … genius of your life, should have carried you through every possible change and contradiction of conduct without the momentary imputation or colour of a virtue; and that the wildest spirit of inconsistency should never once have betrayed you into a wise or honourable action … You may look back with pleasure to an illustrious pedigree in which heraldry has not left a single good quality upon record to insult or upbraid you. …  Charles the First lived and died a hypocrite. Charles the Second was a hypocrite of another sort, and should have died upon the same scaffold. At the distance of a century, we see their different characters happily revived, and blended in your Grace. Sullen and severe without religion, profligate without gaiety, you live like Charles the Second, without being an amiable companion, and, for aught I know, may die as his father did, without the reputation of a martyr.” This was written to the Duke of Grafton 1769, and published in Nancy McPhee’s Book of Insults.

Or consider this other putdown on the waspish but towering literary figure, William Hazlitt, by the Quarterly Review in 1817: “He abuses all poets, with the single exception of Milton; he abuses all country-people; he abuses the English; he abuses the Irish; he abuses the Scotch. … if the creature … must make his way over the tombs of illustrious men, disfiguring the records of their greatness with the slime and filth which marks his track, it is right to point him out, that he may be flung back to the situation in which nature designed that he should grovel.”

And this fine and final example from Samuel Taylor Coleridge, still on Mr Hazlitt, this time after the wasp’s passing:

“Under this stone does William Hazlitt lie,

Thankless of all that God or man could give,

He lived like one who never thought to die,

He died like one who dared not hope to live.”

Chief Obasanjo and the few supporters left in his corner may consider it sacrilegious for Nigerians to wish that some of this country’s great literary figures would outlive him. Yet, the former president has outlived most of his enemies. It would be a tragedy should there not be left a few great literary minds who knew him very well and can write the finest and most excoriating obituaries and epitaphs on the truculent former president, the all-knowing, completely inured, and friendless Chief Obasanjo. He tells Mr Fayose that he does not care what anyone says about him now or after his passing. He is probably trying to take the wind out of any obituarist’s sail. But really, what hurting words could they pen about a man who in life has proved so resolutely indifferent to his family’s vituperations as well as to the nation’s diatribes? He had the greatest opportunity of any Nigerian leader to set the foundation of democracy in the Fourth Republic but scandalously blew it by setting in motion undemocratic succession, a process that has left Nigeria with a slew of incompetent monarchs masquerading as leaders. Alas, such an unfeeling man was elected twice into office.

No thanks to Chief Obasanjo, Nigeria is today witnessing a culmination of high-handed presidency where the president grumbles about not taking the option of unleashing the military and police to subvert popular will in PDP states. It is not clear how the president failed to understand that by voicing that alternative at all, he was opening himself to the greatest indictment ever, and in the same breath issuing dire warning to the country that its democratic gains so far are indeed tenuous and fragile. Chief Obasanjo’s controversial epitaph is remarkable and will not be forgotten in a hurry. It helped to focus on the tragedy that has overtaken Nigeria when a man like Sen Kashamu can be canonised by ignorant and undiscriminating public. But whether Chief Obasanjo’s soul and conscience have become incurably calloused or not, his epitaph will be written by connoisseurs of language who would show him no mercy nor care a hoot what he thinks or feels, alive or dead.

By Idowu Akinlotan

One of the key decisions emanating from last week’s National Security Council (NSC) meeting at the  presidential villa is the readiness of the government to rejig the nation’s security apparatus. It is not clear whether the rejigging concerns the architecture or philosophy of the country’s security. Given the nature and posture of many African countries, especially Nigeria where gross misunderstanding of national security exists and is confused with regime security, last week’s security council decision may not be more than the usual tinkering with the country’s security apparatus. The entire country is virtually up in flames, and the northern part is festering with all manner of low-grade battles and skirmishes, much of these either self-inflicted or indulged by leaders conflicted about their attitude to the nation and definitions. The situation does not demand tinkering with the architecture, it demands a fundamental reappraisal and total restructuring of the philosophy of national security. The suspicion, however, especially given the narrow ethnic and religious base of the members of the security council, is that the government will probably be misguidedly preoccupied with rejigging only the apparatus (equipment and systems) of national security.

Many optimistic Nigerians read the news of the decision to rejig the country’s security system to include, among other nebulous things, the preparedness of President Muhammadu Buhari to sack the nation’s security chiefs. It is not certain that the president will go so far, but whether he does or not will not be surprising. If he sacks them, it is long overdue. If he retains them and saddles them with additional responsibilities and targets, it will merely conform with his innate conservatism. He vacillates over appointments, taking all the time in the world to put a team, any team, together, and will predictably be loth to dispense with the services of those he had painstakingly and cautiously assembled into his team. His cautiousness is seldom about assembling the most culturally and ideologically diverse security chiefs, but about finding officers who can intuitively interpret, identify or merge with his deeply nuanced and sometimes esoteric objectives. Once he finds them, it is always a herculean task to let them go simply because voices have been raised against them across the country.

After the NSC meeting, the National Security Adviser (NSA), Babagana Monguno, a retired major-general, paraphrased the president’s decision in the following words: “What the President said was virtually a reaffirmation of what he said the first time. Yes, Mr President said you are doing your best, as far as I’m concerned, but there’s still a lot more to be done. I’m more concerned about the promise we made to the larger Nigerian society and I am ordering an immediate re-engineering of the entire security apparatus. This is something that I believe will be done in a very short time, but I just want us to keep hope alive. I know how everybody feels, I know how Nigerians feel.”

If Gen Monguno’s account is a faithful recollection of what transpired at the meeting, and is also an accurate recollection of the president’s view, then both the president and the NSA minced their words. Neither of them seemed to have accurately painted or understood the severity of the problem at hand, nor comprehensively reflected the pains the people are enduring all over the country in the hands of bandits, kidnappers and even the law enforcement agents themselves. Remarkably, for such a gargantuan security problem that has been allowed to fester for so long, neither the president nor the NSA summoned the boldness and candour to determine exactly what they thought of the capability of the security chiefs to put an end to the country’s security nightmare. They left the public to read their lips, to second-guess them, and perhaps to make themselves happy by believing that the sacking of the security chiefs was imminent.

The National Assembly has surprisingly been more candid in assessing the security chiefs. The lawmakers want them replaced in order to allow new hands and fresh insights drive the battle against criminality and insurgency. They have sometimes waffled and equivocated between calling for the sack of the security chiefs and campaigning for better funding and equipment to enable them prosecute a more efficient war. But on the whole, they think new faces and fresh hands would do the trick. How that would be done when the entire philosophy of national security is so warped and insular, and when the political structure of the country itself is so constricted and distorted and predisposing to chaos, is hard to explain. Supporters of the security chiefs flippantly argue that it would be unwise to change the security chiefs in the midst of battle. To suggest they cannot be sacked in the thick of battle is a mendacity that has no historical basis or antecedent.

The lawmakers and the public must, however, be clear what they want. If they are content only with sacking the service chiefs, which they may very well get if the pressure on the president becomes unbearable, then they should be prepared for only ephemeral impact on the horrific bloodletting drenching the country. Unfortunately, even in terms of rejigging the physical security apparatus, there is little to show that in the past five years the government has demonstrated a clear understanding of what needs to be done, or how to establish and work the nexus between insecurity and the deteriorating socio-economic conditions of the people. Despite its vaulting ambition, and regardless of the obsession with blaming previous governments for the ills plaguing the country, the Buhari presidency has struggled with economic policy, abandoned the social re-engineering the country desperately needs, and treated the need for political re-engineering, aka restructuring, with utmost contempt.

Insecurity does not occur in a vacuum. In none of their expositions have security chiefs or agents of the government expressed a clear understanding of the political, social and economic contexts triggering insecurity. They often give the impression that more troops, more arms, perhaps a curfew now and again, and pressure on traditional chiefs and political leaders to rein in their subjects and supporters would do the magic. This nonsensical proposition has gone on for many years, while insecurity has flourished unchecked. Despite more guns, insecurity will not be ameliorated by military and police deployments, deployments now clearly worsened by an insular, close-minded understanding of the problem by federal and state officials. Security issues need broadmindedness to analyse, understand and address. It is impossible for the Buhari presidency, by its inexplicable appointment of security and service chiefs from one part of the country, to appreciate all the cultural, religious and social dimensions of the problem, no matter how hard they try.

So far, there has also been no concerted effort to isolate and explain, let alone rejig, the philosophical underpinnings of national security. This shortcoming explains the government’s imperturbability over the infiltration of the country by al-Qaeda and ISIS elements whose undisguised insurrectional objectives were recently laid bare by United States intelligence services. Though military authorities insist the news was old story, they were careful not to dispute its veracity, nor have they offered any explanation as to why the obviously relentless incursions probably took advantage of the deliberate official laxity at Nigerian borders. Because Nigeria’s national security lacks philosophical anchors, it explains why the government asserts and justifies the transnational nature of the Fulani over the peace and stability of the country. In embracing their strange paradigm, there was no attempt to understand why a religiously (99.8 percent Muslim) and ethnically (85 percent) homogenous Somalia of about 15 million people collapsed into state failure that has lasted for about 30 years, nor explain why they think it is impossible that local Fulani could in future not be displaced by migrant Fulani.

The absence of a philosophical anchor also explains why the Southern Kaduna security challenge, very tragically rephrased by both the Kaduna State and federal authorities to justify or excuse violence of genocidal dimension, has persisted for so long even in the face of public criticisms. And what of the rehabilitation and reintegration of Boko Haram militants and the government’s unfeeling insistence that in order not to risk further attacks beleaguered locals should compulsorily reabsorb their former tormentors, all this to the evident disadvantage of locals who were neither adequately rehabilitated nor restored, nor even equipped with skills to live a little better than the squalor in which insurgent attacks had consigned them? Given state and federal connivance, not only will skirmishes continue and flourish, larger revolts masterminded by international terrorists, whether al-Qaeda or ISIS, will become inevitable. No one else, except perhaps the government, would see the proliferation of attacks in the North and the rash of criminal madness undermining the South and sapping the country of its vitality and remain equanimous or engage in the fruitless polemics of determining who attacked first, who is on the defensive, whether the attackers are fuelled by drugs, or whether the attacks are between farmers and herders.

However, to find that needed philosophical anchor for national security, the government must first summon the discipline and depth necessary to define the country, its peoples, its essence, its ambitions, and its place in the world. It would help to see Nigeria beyond the crude attempt to position one nationality above the others in the security and civil services, beyond putting national resources at the disposal of culturally contiguous neighbouring countries, and beyond loathing, alienating and denigrating other groups for the purpose of creating a superior race. It has never worked, and where it seemed to work, it has never lasted. It is a futile and ultimately disruptive exercise.

Whether the next president will eschew the offensive insularity of today in favour of the inclusiveness the country desperately needs will depend on his worldview and vision, and if he can honestly ask whether Nigeria is a nation, whether the people are pursing the same goals, and whether the leaders are capable of the altruism and global vision Nigeria’s founding fathers could only dream of.