The Nation Newspaper

Category: Idowu Akinlotan

Buhari’s controversial speech

It was not compulsory for President Muhammadu Buhari to address the nation on his return from 103 days of receiving medical attention in the United Kingdom. After his first trip in January that lasted for some 51 days, he returned and went straight to work without any national broadcast. He could have done the same this time, perhaps give a few statements to newsmen at the airport, exchange banter here and there, and crack a few ready, ingratiating ribs with his handy jokes. But after choosing to address the nation on his return from a second medical trip, he had an obligation to select his words carefully, address the right issues, even if not copiously, show that he has had time to reflect deeply on troubling national issues, not to say on his detached and often distant style, and indicate that he had found the wisdom and appropriate combination of policies and measures to redirect Nigeria to the path of stability and growth.

If he gave the speech, it was because he thought he had enough oxygen in his lungs to speak clearly, while demonstrating enough conviction in his statements to pass his succinct messages on to a wearied and sceptical public yearning for a great leader. There was clarity in his voice and message, despite the foreboding terseness of the speech, and there was much more. His media aides were exultant about the speech, and the ruling party chairman, John Odigie-Oyegun, rhapsodised it with priestly reverence as an outstanding speech. Was it disturbingly laconic? For aides and party leaders inured to the dynamics of speech lengths and textures, it could not have been otherwise. Did it address the right issues and speak to the nation’s distress? It roared with the cosmic and telepathic precision of a lion-king returning to claim his territory, they chorused.

The elite prevaricated over the speech. But among the commonalty, opinions were much more diverse, reflecting regional and partisan biases, but overall slightly unfavourable. Whether the crowds that received him from the Abuja airport were rented or not, they showed enough passion in their assignment to disguise the motives behind their raptures. It is safe to say that 103 days away in London and from his desk did not diminish his appeal, but instead did his health much good. The enduring stamina of that appeal becomes even more extraordinary and baffling when considered against the backdrop of the additional 51 days he spent away in the same London for his first substantial medical trip. No matter how incapacitated he is, his diehard supporters are unlikely to ever blame him for anything, regardless of the state of the economy and the inevitable stasis acrimonious politics, sometimes promoted by his policies, statements and appointments, often engender.

The brevity of his speech appears deliberate. It was simply designed to read the riot act to a few promoters of discord, particularly those campaigning for separatism. By illustrating his speech with a discussion he said he had with the late Emeka Ojukwu, leader of the 1967-1970 Biafra rebellion in the Eastern Region, the president all but indicated that his chief animus was targeted at Nnamdi Kanu and his Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) self-determination group. A few days before the president returned, the Internal Affairs minister, Abdulrahman Dambazzau, had indicated that the government would be asking the court to revoke the bail granted Mr. Kanu on the grounds that the pro-Biafra agitator had broken the terms of his bail. There is no doubt he had. The campaign to get Mr. Kanu back to jail is almost entirely northern, including one by the northern youth coalition. A few days after the president returned home, the Justice ministry finally decided to approach the courts to formalise that bail revocation. The application is unlikely to be turned down. How long the tunnel Nigeria is about to enter will be and how dimly lit it is are difficult to determine at this point.

Whatever other things the president said in his short speech were simply added to elongate a speech otherwise already worrisomely and, despite the best arguments of aides and party leaders, indefensibly brief. The speech exposes two terrifying details. The first is that, irrespective of the president’s vaunted conversion to democratic ideals, he is at bottom averse to the liberal principles that undergird democracy. Reflecting his sour mood and impatience, the president suggests in the very first paragraph of his speech that questioning the collective existence of the nation amounted to crossing ‘national red lines’. This is a popular but wrong narrative. If Nigeria should break up, it would not be the first, nor the last. The separatist challenge to national unity that causes the president so much distress should have encouraged him to seek for an understanding of the factors predisposing the county to that problem, rather than venting his spleen. Clearly, the short speech was designed primarily to read the riot act to IPOB, set the stage for a massive crackdown on that group and any other similarly inclined groups, a decision the president passed on to the heads of the security forces the next day.

Far worse is the fact that the speech clearly and unequivocally indicated the president’s sole preference for law enforcement as a tool for securing national peace, unity and understanding. He shows no inclination to scientifically analyse the factors that engender the separatist campaigns that infuriate him, let alone decide and design options that would intelligently tackle and exterminate the malaise. The president says any disaffected group can ventilate their grievances within the ambit of the law. Since that ventilation began, how well has the government responded? No student of history or even science will argue that ignoring the remote and immediate causes of a problem would lead to a proper and lasting resolution of that problem. This column has restated times without number that the problem of Biafra separatist campaigns is far deeper than Mr. Kanu’s blather, regardless of his penchant for hate speech and melodrama. The problem is far more grievous than that, and opting only for law enforcement tactics, as the president has done, to tackle the campaign is both wrong-headed and short-sighted.

It is clear from his speech that President Buhari is unlikely ever to summon the discipline and effort required to find the root causes of the separatist campaigns in particularly the Southeast. His anger boiled over in the speech, and it in fact betrayed what many south-easterners and Niger Delta activists have long argued about the unequal social and economic relations in the country, a factor that makes the core North fear that its sentiments of entitlement, exceptionalism and patrician approach to politics are threatened by agitations that target and question the country’s unity. Mr. Kanu and his IPOB call for separation, the rest of the Southeast and South-South call for restructuring, the Southwest and much of North-Central also call for restructuring. If these cries register wrongly on the ears of the president, as they seem sadly to have done, he is unlikely not to be swayed by the wrong narratives that centre the agitations foolishly on one rabble-rouser.

In addition, the president fumes at agitators “daring to question our collective existence as a nation”. He also says in the same speech that Nigeria’s unity “is settled and not negotiable”. These sentiments are the product of his military background, not an indication of any democratic instincts. And when he speaks of “better to live together than live apart” as a product of national consensus, he seems unaware that he has no fact or statistics to buttress that sweeping assertion. The British were even more circumspect and farsighted about bequeathing a workable constitution to Nigeria, one that enabled the various peoples of Nigeria to grow in the same space without relinquishing their social, cultural and economic individualisms. Now, with a perverse 1999 constitution, one that is the product of a small cabal of military men, the president still speaks of an abstract consensus. There is no consensus anywhere. What the agitations in the Southeast and elsewhere indicate is the urgent need to re-examine the basis, structures and dynamics of that so-called unity. But the president and his advisers are not listening to the cries of the people. They have shut their ears to the people’s demands for honest reassessment and possible renewal of the country, partly because the core North is wary of where that effort would lead.

The second terrifying detail the speech exposes is the warped dynamics of the president’s decision. No president must take a major decision with far-reaching implications without consulting his advisers, and if it has something to do with safety and security of the nation, with his top security and law enforcement men. The speech does not give any indication at all that the president has a team of advisers that cut across the major ethnic groups of the country, complete with depth of intellect and wisdom. History is replete with empires that seek out the gifted and wise even from among their captives, who are then elevated into the top hierarchies of their bureaucratic, advisory and palace structures. President Buhari’s speech has major implications for the Southeast, whether this fact is admitted or not. How many advisers, not yes men, did he consult? And if they all concurred with the drastic steps he is determined to take, did he seek out a devil’s advocate to argue for the other side just in case he had missed any point?

What is even worse is the poignant message the photograph of the president and his security chiefs give to those who noticed the ethnic skewness of their membership. On Tuesday, the president charged his security chiefs to rid the country of the threats posed to Nigeria’s corporate existence by Boko Haram, IPOB, and herdsmen and kidnappers. Boko Haram is a long-standing disease that shows no sign of being extirpated soon; herdsmen-farmers menace is not a new thing, and was not even tackled with the urgency it demanded when the president had not yet travelled; and kidnappers, despite their madness, do not threaten the corporate existence of Nigeria. The target is, therefore, IPOB, a separatist organisation located in the Southeast. How many of the president’s security chiefs come from that region to help deepen or sharpen his options and final decisions? Gradually, the inability of President Buhari to expand and broaden his advisory base and security council will begin to manifest in hasty and counterproductive measures. Moreover, by charging his security chiefs to go after the malfeasant groups, the president has all but surrendered leadership of a campaign he should directly inspire, help formulate its structure, guide, and closely monitor, given its strict sensitivity. Too many things are being taken for granted, and too many things can easily go frightfully wrong in the national hysteria to, as it were, defend national unity.

It is preposterous to introduce into the unbalanced narrative of separatist agitations the supposition that the Southeast exploded in hateful, divisive campaigns because they lost the primacy they enjoyed under ex-president Goodluck Jonathan. So, is it right to suggest that the core North is now monopolising sensitive appointments because of their muted and unpleasant experience under Dr. Jonathan? The implication of this kind of narrative is that once a region or ethnic group ‘captures’ power, it should justifiably go ahead to skew sensitive and plum appointments in favour of its own people. Where would this tragic pirouette end, given that one group cannot hold on to power for all time?

President Buhari’s supporters, aides and party leaders can put as much gloss as they want on last Monday’s laconic speech. And they can read as much sanguine meanings as they want into it, especially the president’s incomprehensible and insensitive decision to fob off restructuring on the National Assembly and Council of State. The speech was, indeed, in content, brevity, refusal to take cognisance of other great and urgent issues, a bad one. It had no pretence to be called a good speech, let alone an outstanding one. It was hasty, angry rather than urgent, misdirected, and incapable of bringing about lasting peace and helping the president to run an inclusive government. It is shocking how many top Nigerians fall over themselves to praise a speech that neither attempted to fully understand and explain a very clear but complex problem nor to find a scientific and beneficial solution that would lead to the birth of a great, democratic nation. Worse, a few days later, the speech seemed to have inspired what may still turn out to be the birthing of a very illiberal environment in which, stealthily, Nigerians could begin to lose their rights and privileges in the noble but misdirected effort to rein in hate speech and what the government has concluded is its alter ego, terrorism.

The president is not under any obligation to make a national broadcast. But whenever he feels obligated to give one, it is important it must add value to the national discourse it pretends to lend clarity. Speeches reflect the inner workings of a president’s mind, bringing out the real man, much the same way impromptu interviews do. President Buhari may be too old to change, or to transform into someone other than who he really is. Yet, despite his pet prejudices and inattentiveness to the deep things of Nigerian history, his aides and advisers, assuming they have the presence of mind and the required chutzpah to challenge him over his weariful biases, should help mould him into at least something fairly agreeable to the national character of the people’s utopian dreams.

August 27, 2017
Fed Govt/ASUU: a tinkering that knows no end

IN February when the Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, inaugurated a 16-man team headed by Wale Babalakin to renegotiate the 2009 agreement the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) reached with the federal government, this column wondered aloud whether the exercise would amount to anything. It described ASUU as being too optimistic, too trusting, and perhaps too sensitive to public feelings, and the government too distant and too dissembling.

But beyond the particulars of the deal, which the minister admitted the government had failed to honour, are the general principles of the agreement with respect to how they undergird the rejuvenation of tertiary education in Nigeria. This column argued that for as long as both ASUU and government continued to fight over the funding of tertiary education instead of looking for a lasting and comprehensive solution, little would be achieved. Indeed, that February, ASUU president Biodun Ogunyemi made a statement suggesting that if care was not taken the renegotiation could end up a dream. Indeed, it has.

Last week, ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo sarcastically characterised the ASUU–federal government negotiations as a pernicious tonic for future industrial unrest. This column was not sarcastic in February. It was deadpan sceptical, arguing that neither the Goodluck Jonathan presidency nor the Muhammadu Buhari government had developed a comprehensive vision of education as the fulcrum of the overall national ambitions of Nigeria. That dereliction made negotiations on tertiary education funding and policies an abstraction. Without an overarching national objective for greatness, one that is centred on recognising the manifest destiny of Nigeria as the most populous black nation on earth, and one which must tie that destiny to black renaissance and black pride, education in Nigeria will remain a perfunctory exercise.

By going on strike once again, ASUU has simply conceded that the vaunted renegotiation in which they reposed so much confidence has broken down. Both the government and ASUU deceive themselves to think something great and positive would come out of this round of industrial unrest and possible compromise. The Jonathan presidency could have done great things with education in Nigeria if it had first propounded a stirring and profound national policy tied to the country’s anticipated greatness. Instead, poverty of ambition fed that government’s profligacy, and what was not wasted was stolen by officials bickering over the definition of corruption.

No one, not even ASUU, can attest to any profundity in the Buhari government’s education policy. And there cannot be a profound education policy that is not contextualised in lofty national ambitions. As this column indicated early in the year with respect to the call for renegotiation, both ASUU and government can haggle all they like and tinker with education as much as they want, all they are doing is nothing more than eking out miserable palliatives. Meanwhile, before their very eyes, education will continue to decay and decline, and Nigeria’s small competitive edge garnered some 50 years back will wither away inch by inch until a leader comes along with the discipline and vision to do something quite mighty in education. After all, 2009, when the controversial agreement was first signed, is just two years shy of a decade. The next decade is unlikely to be different.

August 20, 2017
From hate speech to hate song. What next? Hate poetry?

HATE speech, the new buzzword in Nigeria, is of course an overarching term that embraces speech, songs, poetry and even body language, and much more. Given the rate Nigerians are provoking one another without fear of retribution, and exuding deep-seated animosities and barely concealed rage, it is not surprising that a hate song composed so amateurishly but produced somewhat elegantly somewhere in the North has gone viral. The song excoriates the Igbo in unparalleled, inflammable language. After listening to the song and reading and digesting the lyrics, it is stupefying to note that such bigotry exists anywhere, and seems to be worsening, perhaps fuelled by the political and economic challenges facing the country, and also by what its composers believe is the intransigence of the Igbo.

For a region that produced and became enamoured of the sedate and languidly entertaining music of the legendary Mamman Shata and Musa Dankwairo, it is surprising that the anonymous hate song adopted the fast-paced rhythm of modern secular music and the single-stringed music of the griot, Dan Maraya Jos. It was composed to appeal to the young, insidiously indoctrinate them, and instigate them into a frenzy against the Igbo. On top of the usual animosity visited on groups who dominate retail commerce anywhere, the anonymous hate song definitely constitutes an existential threat to the commerce-inclined Igbo.

The hate song does not of course represent the opinion of the entire North, having been condemned in no uncertain terms by politicians like the former vice president Abubakar Atiku and many others, but those against whom the hate song is targeted can be forgiven if they can’t draw fine, distinguishing lines. Indeed, the hate song itself, like many other northerners, presumes the activities of pro-Biafra activists like Nnamdi Kanu to be quite and adequately representative of the entire Igbo people’s desire for an independent republic. In other words, it is not enough that stereotypes have constituted a danger to interethnic relationships; now, Nigeria must in addition contend with the almost casual and sweeping generalisations about a people. Thus when Mr Kanu began his activism, nearly the rest of the country assumed he represented both the overt and covert ambitions of the entire Igbo. The same fallacy will probably be associated with the anonymous hate song suffocating the social media, energising bigots and alarming the Igbo into circling the wagons.

The hate song does not reflect any form of fidelity to research, truth or grammar, including even the unorthodox grammar of music that takes liberties with words, meanings and rules. Its driving force is simply the unadulterated hatred it spews out against the Igbo. Not only does it tell an atrocious lie about the origins of the Igbo, and a much more incendiary distortion of the beginning of oil exploration in Nigeria, it also blames the Igbo for virtually all the economic, social and political problems confronting Nigeria. Given the rhetoric that instigated the countercoup of 1966, it is not surprising that the hate song repeated the untruth many Nigerians are conversant with, to wit, that the Igbo, rather than a few military coup plotters, orchestrated the controversial coup of January 1966. Nigeria is unlikely to ever disabuse the minds of those who blame many for the sins or actions of a few. It is the same mindset that is at the root of the disgusting racism that has permeated much of the world, and stoked slavery, colonialism, neo-imperialism and even terrorism.

To regard the anonymous hate song from the North as a variant of hate speech — which it is technically — is to dignify it and take the sting out of what is clearly the product of diseased minds. Other than the misrepresentations and misapprehensions in the song, there is nothing else in it but acidic abuse so vile that it must worry every Nigerian and make many wonder how deep and widespread such sentiments are in the North. The song is not a cry for restructuring or for any political amelioration of the fractious relationship between the peoples of Nigeria. It is a simple but horrendous provocation to war, much more violent than anything the uppity Mr Kanu has propagated or proved capable of. It is already on social media and perhaps downloaded into the private archives of many Nigerians. It will probably remain as a permanent testament to the derangement some Nigerians suffer from.

But far more disturbing are the implications of the hate song that are more intense than the lawlessness and war many people casually and fretfully imagine the song to be designed to provoke. The song is first of all primarily a reflection of the distorted and disquieting world view of many Nigerians responding inappropriately and immaturely to political and societal fissures. It is also importantly an indication of leadership failure and lethargy. The presidency’s responses to budding hate speech has been both desultory and incompetent. It not only mishandled the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) separatist campaigns by inadvertently canonising the brash and heedless Mr Kanu, it also treated hate mongers in the North with mystifying pusillanimity.

Indeed, Acting President Yemi Osinbajo has been curiously laid-back in dealing with the increasing national predilection for ethnic squabbles and bigotry. Until restructuring, however it is defined, is undertaken and the country is put on an even keel where ethnic and political differences do not threaten the polity, hate speech and separatist campaigns will continue and even intensify. Prof. Osinbajo needs to steadfastly and sure-footedly begin to combat the fratricidal and centrifugal tendencies which Nigerians are beginning to romanticise in both hate speech and self-determination campaigns. He is undoubtedly weakened by the constrictions implied by his acting presidency, unable to dare radical things, and incapable of moving against entrenched interests both in government and in powerful ethnic enclaves. However, neither silence nor his abiding interest in talking shop and philosophising about the country’s multifarious problems will tackle the burgeoning crises that confront his limited presidency.

Prof. Osinbajo must know by now that the executive bill on hate speech the government intends to forward to the National Assembly may not survive intact the withering attack and legislative whittling that often enervate bills. But beyond legislation is the fact that the government needs to act with despatch on the matters threatening to tear the country apart. One way to kick-start this is for the government to attempt an understanding of the foundations of the crises confronting the country. Nigeria operates a unitary constitution in the name of federalism. This conundrum must be addressed squarely. While President Muhammadu Buhari is widely believed to mean well for the country, assuming office with rigid ideas has led him it to adopt a non-scientific approach to governance and made him incapable of recognising the fact that politics imply accommodation and consensus. The government must return to basics, open up, run an inclusive government and extricate itself from its self-imposed cocoon.

If President Buhari delays in coming back from his medical trip, carrying out these remedial actions in his absence will tax the patience, intelligence and fortitude of Acting President Osinbajo. But needs must when the devil drives. Hopefully, the president will return soon and change his governing paradigm. If he does not return as early as Nigerians hope, and considering that there is no sentiment in government, for the fate of more than 180 million Nigerians is at stake, Prof. Osinbajo must put his shoulder to the wheel, brave the opposition, and begin to act more or less like he is president. His religion and genial disposition may make him loath to assert himself now; but he really has no choice if the country is not to go slam-bang down the hill.

It will require the canniness of an alchemist to determine whether Nigeria has left things to deteriorate for far too long than anyone can remedy. Since Prof. Osinbajo cannot don the accoutrements of a soothsayer but instead possesses only presidential powers as far as the eye can see, he must wisely begin to rely on the constitution to do what is right. Indeed, there is nothing to suggest that President Buhari will return with all the vigour of youth of his nostalgic excitement. But much more than vigour, what is paramount are the ideas and wisdom of age, of maturity, and of a visionary leader. The acting president must ask himself whether sending an executive bill on hate speech to the legislature is not a red herring when there are already enough laws to enable law enforcement agencies to arrest the purveyors of hate speech, particularly the composers of that inimitably sanguinary and unprecedented song against the Igbo.

It is shocking that a country with a police force, secret service, and Interior ministry cannot find the bilious composers of the execrable hate song against the Igbo. Is it that the law enforcement agents do not appreciate the implications? Or are they so inured to the lyrics as to place the song on the same pedestal as Mr Kanu’s infantile drivel? Mr Kanu was arrested and is being tried for a number of malfeasances. Even if the arraignment and trial are being done incompetently, at least the law is taking its course. It is inexcusable that those who gave the Igbo quit notice in June were left severely alone on the ostensible reason that it would further complicate ethnic disaffection and law enforcement. Why should anyone be surprised that hate speech merchants have taken the provocation a little higher by composing hate song? And if nothing is done still, no one should be surprised if many groups and ethnic champions take matters into their own hands in the full view of a weak, argumentative and divisive presidency.

The Interior minister, Abdulrahman Dambazzau, a retired Lt.-Gen., implausibly suggested at a press conference on Friday that the northern youths who issued the ultimatum to the Igbo disclaimed the popular interpretation of their quit notice, and that the security services, upon interaction with the evasive youths, were satisfied with their explanations. A second reading of the quit notice, however, shows convincingly that the wordings were nothing but the flip side of a long-playing hate record produced by the anonymous composers. Both the youths and the composers seemed to have worked together. That the security services put all the blame on the Igbo and appear to exonerate the northern youths is a pointer to just how deeply divided the country is. Considering the official apologia issued by the Interior minister on behalf of the northern youths, it becomes all the more urgent for Nigeria to find a way to produce a truly nationalist leader, a deus ex machina, one whose sentiments wholly transcend ethnic and religious cleavages.

August 13, 2017
Pro- and anti-Buhari demonstrators lather Abuja

ABUJA, the federal capital, has been entertained for some days with a pirouette of protests and fanciful police footwork over the quandary the ailing but apparently convalescing President Buhari has thrown Nigeria into. In one of the protests led by entertainer and activist, Charles ‘Charlie Boy’ Oputa and a few other actors and civil society veterans, the police melodramatically put down the protest on the first day only to somewhat relent the following day. Mr Oputa’s protesters insist that presidential tomfoolery over the president’s health should stop, and that if the president cannot return now and resume work, he should resign. A day later, another group, this time, pro-Buhari, has enlivened the Abuja space by anchoring their protests bewilderingly on the president’s salutary anti-corruption campaign, adding that those who wanted him to resign were members of the “corruption fights back brigade”.
Ignore the specious arguments about anti-corruption and pro-corruption. What is important is that, whether contrived or real, the president has supporters who probably deify him, and opponents who doubtless scorn his refusal to profit from his own counsel, the one he gave to the late former president Umaru Yar’Adua. Until President Buhari vacates office, both groups will cohabit in one form or the other, perhaps treacherously, or perhaps with healthy antagonism. However, the argument of those who counsel resignation is hard to resist. Like the rest of the country, they wisely observed that Acting President Yemi Osinbajo could never act presidential or independent for as long as the president’s absence casts a long shadow over him. Except they lie to themselves in the presidency, that observation is incontrovertible.
A group of Christian leaders recently published an advertorial suggesting, among other things, that the acting president be allowed room to perform the functions of his office. The group was widely castigated for apparently suggesting that the acting president was in a straitjacket. The purpose of Mr Oputa’s protests is to see whether they can force a resolution of that appalling dilemma. There is no way the acting president can assert himself as much as he would like, even within the delicate confines of politics and ethnic relations. But as to whether he will receive the hints, recognise that the country is close to the end of its tethers, and begin to take sound and forceful actions to salve the country’s wounds, there is not a chance. He will continue to walk a tightrope no matter how prolonged the protest by Mr Oputa’s group is.
Instead, President Buhari’s minders will likely take steps to bring back their quarry, restore the presidency regardless of its effectiveness in the face of daunting existential challenges, and put the noses of his opponents, whom they see more as enemies, out of joint. The acting president himself is smart enough to recognise the dynamics of the situation. He knows the real mandate is President Buhari’s, and not his. In presiding over the affairs of Nigeria, and no matter how deeply galling, he will have to clone the president as best as he can with the same disingenuousness and dry humour his principal is accustomed to exhibiting.

August 13, 2017
Promoting self-determination campaigns by default

DESPITE Acting President Yemi Osinbajo’s protestation to the contrary, and the continuing lambast of the sometimes disruptive activities of self-determination groups by many Nigerians, the meeting last Thursday between leaders of the Pan-Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF), led by Edwin Clark, and the presidency is the clearest demonstration that the nation’s binding cord has been stretched to its elastic limit. The group had insisted that if the region’s 16-point agenda was not met before November 1, it would pull out of discussions on peace and development. In the said meeting, the government responded with a 20-point agenda for the region, with a visibly impressed Chief Clark declaring satisfaction with the government’s plans. A few supposedly militant Niger Delta groups have, however, upped the ante, indicating that without devolution and restructuring, there could be no peace in the region.

If last Thursday’s meeting between the government and PANDEF was an acknowledgement of the general unease in the land, the continuing dissension between youth groups in the North and agitators from the South, mainly the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), indicate why the nation must urgently grapple with alienation and restiveness in many parts of the country. Indeed, while IPOB is still blowing hot and Arewa youths remain adamant about the October 1 quit notice given to the Igbo in the North, a Yoruba group, the Yoruba Liberation Command (YOLICOM), has come out with a declaration on Southwest independence, complete with flags and symbols. Indeed, self-determination is now very fashionable, but nonetheless troubling.

The presidency has been reluctant to acknowledge the real factors animating these self-determination groups and propelling their separatist campaigns. Yet without identifying and grappling with the factors responsible for these campaigns, the government’s mollifying tactics are bound to be short-lived. Even if self-determination campaign is noticeably popular in the Southeast, it is inaccurate to think that the youths in that region inevitably want war or that since those under 50 did not feel the impact or bear the brunt of the last war, they ineluctably find it easy to promote divisiveness and self-determination. This kind of analysis is unhelpful.

The first question to ask is why all of a sudden self-determination campaigns have assumed urgency in most parts of the South. While the economic downturn Nigeria faces is critical in understanding the problem, it does not explain why the Southeast, for instance, deprecates its exclusion from President Buhari’s first 30 or so appointments. The region did not vote for him in the last presidential election, but it does not explain why the Igbo seemed to have been excluded from key decision-making echelons, especially in the security sector. The economic downturn does not also explain why Southwest groups, including Afenifere, now strongly advocate and emphasise the concept of restructuring as a means of promoting the enthronement and practice of federalism. Nothing also explains why despite economic problems the presidency took so long in responding to the menace of herdsmen in the middle belt, southern Kaduna, parts of the Northeast and elsewhere.

The problem of running a unitary government under the pretext of federalism is a long-standing one in Nigeria. If more groups are suddenly becoming so agitated as to adopt desperate and hardline attitude towards the country’s dysfunctional political structure, it may be because the Buhari presidency has been unable to run an inclusive government, display genuine and convincing patriotism, and demonstrate an understanding of what the country’s problems are and the vision required to mend or even eliminate the exposed fault lines. Indeed, with political leaders like Nasir el-Rufai, in whom herdsmen, regardless of their brutality, find enthusiastic eulogist, the country appears in short supply of eminent citizens able to offer profound leadership.

Prof. Osinbajo has rightly dialogued with every agitated group that attracted his attention. But fine words butter no parsnips. Together with President Buhari, the acting president working with a revamped presidential team should recognise the fundamental problems undermining national unity and stability. If they can summon the brilliance, courage and dispassion needed to enact and execute the necessary remedies, they may finally put to rest decades of agitations set to get worse as the years roll by. It is sheer lack of wisdom to think that by merely saying the unity of Nigeria is non-negotiable, and sermonising and appealing to sentiments, and frightening the populace out of their wits with war stories, peace would be restored. It won’t. Worse, whether Nigerian leaders admit it or not, the country is running out of time, given the rash of self-determination groups mutilating the national psyche.

The times call for an ingenious, committed, brilliant, courageous and selfless leader, someone completely inured to religious and ethnic manipulations, someone with a transcendental and arcane sense of justice and social and political engineering. Neither the seemingly distant Buhari presidency nor the irresolute and self-seeking National Assembly understands the spirit of the age.

August 6, 2017
Age and presidency: Barking up the wrong tree

BY the time the constitutional amendment process moves to the 36 states, many of the alterations already passed by both chambers of the National Assembly could still come to grief. Thirty-three alterations were proposed; so far, the Senate and the House of Representatives have passed 27 and 21 proposals respectively. When the alterations get to the Houses of Assembly, they will probably suffer a few more blows, particularly because of the questionable quality of state lawmakers and their well-known opacity, not to talk of their timidity and low appetite for intellectual and visionary rigour. What is clear is that most of the alterations passed by both chambers simply do not address the factors that have predisposed the country to fractiousness and fissures. The reason is simple: what the country needs is a holistic change designed to make the country work in a dynamic and probably rhythmic way. The amendments passed so far seem ad hoc and disconnected, without a binding and driving core, and without a smooth, engaging and aerodynamic periphery to make it soar grandly.

Of all the alterations that have raised eyebrows, the country seems to be in a lather over the failure of the devolution red herring. That alteration failed in both chambers of the National Assembly, with many lawmakers and commentators blaming the unitary-minded lawmakers of the North. Astonished by widespread negative reactions, legislative leaders have promised that that alteration could still be revisited, but without a promise as to the certainty of its passage both in the parliament and state assemblies. There is, however, nothing to show that what the constitution needs is not a total re-engineering anchored on credible and visionary philosophies. There is nothing to indicate that the current effort is not merely palliative, a tinkering that seems guaranteed to sew a patch of unshrunk cloth on a new garment, a new wine in an old wineskin, with predictable and disastrous consequences. In the end, after what is certain to be acrimonious debates in the states, Nigerians will discover that the effort at rewriting the constitution will satisfy very few and exhibit none of the genuineness, rigour and vision that have hallmarked enduring constitutions in the great nations of the world. What is at play in Nigeria, in short, is either leadership cowardice or leadership short-sightedness.

The 1999 constitution lied to everyone, including itself. It is a unitary document camouflaged as a federal constitution. It ought to have been subjected to a referendum after it was written, but it was simply promulgated. It was a product of the cracked vision of a few people, many of them bereft of the rich histories of great constitutions and the factors that promote national ambitions and greatness. Neither its authors nor its promoters demonstrated the depth of understanding and iconoclasm that inspired the postwar constitution-making of Japan under Gen. Douglas MacArthur and France’s Fifth Republic under Gen. Charles de Gaulle. In 1999, Nigerian leaders and those who inherited a constitution they neither saw nor knew how to operate did the country a great disservice. Nothing has been done anywhere to remedy that awful document that is at war with itself and the nation. And rather than acknowledge the deep fissures endangering the stability of the country, and perhaps out of both ignorance and lack of patriotism, Nigerian leaders and lawmakers at all levels think and speak only of keeping the country united above everything else.

It is in the midst of all this that the proposal to lower age qualification to the presidency from 40 to 35 has received wide applause. On the surface, it is a sensible proposal, a needed alteration to widen the base of leadership recruitment. After all, three months ago in France, a 39-year-old just assumed office in the nuclear-armed country. Indeed, as many agitators say, if you are qualified to vote, you should be qualified to be voted for. Judging from the approbation the age qualification amendment has received, it will almost certainly pass muster with state legislators. Its authors as well as its proponents seem to think that by widening the base of leadership recruitment, which a lowering of the age qualification presupposes, the possibility of producing the right leader for Nigeria would improve. Those who nurse this hope are barking up the wrong tree. If for about 57 years the country was unable to produce even one inspiring president, there is nothing to suggest that lowering or raising the age bar would produce the magic bullet.

Lowering age qualification may animate youths and make them giddy with excitement, it however does nothing to affect the critical problems confronting the Nigerian leadership. Absolutely nothing. Age has nothing to do with the problem. Age is not the problem confronting President Muhammadu Buhari despite his plaintive remonstrance during a visit to South Africa in June 2015. His complaint, examined critically, was in fact a subtle admission of his lack of philosophical depth and grasp of modern and complex management principles. He complained of not possessing the strength and vigour of youth to tackle Nigeria’s problems, and wished that he won the presidency when he was much younger. In 1985, he was a much younger soldier; but there was no idea he propounded on the economy, politics and society capable of renewing, let alone revolutionising, the society he governed with totalitarian and unmethodical fiat. His ideas then were contradictory, presumptuous and impracticable. They still remain the same today. More importantly, what Nigeria’s troubles need is not vigour or strength, but ideas. For all the country cares, President Buhari can sleep for 20 out of 24 hours of the day. What is important is for him to generate the transcendental ideas the society urgently needs to remake itself.

The election of the 39-year-old French leader, Emmanuel Macron, may have given added fillip to the quest for much younger and daring leaders, but there is nothing to indicate that he possesses the breadth of vision, boldness and intellectual depth of some of his predecessors like Napoleon Bonaparte who took power at 35 and the 19-year-old intrepid and unprepossessing Maid of Orleans, St Joan of Arc, who promoted French arms outside the confines of office. There is nothing to celebrate in the age qualification alteration to the Nigerian presidency, and Nigerians must moderate their expectations. When Gen Yakubu Gowon, then a Lt.-Col., took office in 1966 as a 32-year-old military officer, it had nothing to do with his competence, nor even his age. His emergence was mainly an ethnic thing and a product of the internal politics of an army traumatised by cultural differences and power struggle. He may have led the union army to defeat rebellion, but a closer examination puts the victory down to many other factors. Moreover, his five years rule after the war did little to set the country on a visionary and irreversible path of growth and stability, not to talk of addressing and solving the factors that led the country to war.

As the table accompanying this piece shows, the average age of a few randomly selected Nigerian and African leaders when they assumed office was 42.8 years. As students of history know, for these leaders, success or failure was not age-specific. With the exception of Obafemi Awolowo who assumed leadership at 33, most of the rest took office in their late 30s or 40s, including Kwame Nkrumah (43), Kenneth Kaunda (40), Ahmadu Bello (44), Tafawa Balewa (45), and Jomo Kenyatta (72). But if it makes Nigerians happy, particularly the youths, the constitutional amendment on age qualification for the presidency should receive favourable hearing. However, if the older leaders failed for reasons unconnected with age, it is unlikely that the younger ones will succeed when the political, economic and constitutional environments in which they operate remain retrogressive and stifling.

In view of the role being played by youths today, especially the heedless ultimatum given to the Igbo in the North by the Arewa Youth coalition, the unstructured promotion of Igbo self-determination by superficial and impressionable youths like Nnamdi Kanu, and the copycat simulation of independence movements by many young radicals from other parts of the country, the prognosis for Nigeria appears bleak. Rather than produce leaders who can project Nigeria into the future, the country has managed to produce leaders — lawmakers, traditional rulers, politicians, businessmen etc. — who view constitution-making and constitutional amendments as an avenue for projecting either ethnic supremacy and exceptionalism at best, or partisan and private (such as immunity clause and expansion of the council of state membership) objectives at worst. The road to a great future is simply not being charted, let alone trudged.

August 6, 2017
Nnamdi Kanu as unlikely hero

SOME newspapers estimated the crowd that welcomed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) leader, Nnamdi Kanu, into Ebonyi State last week to be about 100,000 strong. Media establishments in Nigeria lack the scientific tools to confirm that figure. But obviously in defiance and violation of his bail terms, the young revolutionary has continued to travel, address supporters, meet with people in excess of the number specified on his bail, and suggest that it negated his rights as a human being and citizen to be gagged by a court. Mr Kanu is intransigent and impulsive; but he is popular and, more alarming to many Igbo leaders, that popularity is intensifying rather than waning. Except he does something spectacularly and grandly wrong and offensive, it is hard to see his popularity decline as long as Nigeria refuses to recognise the unworkability of the union.

Amazed by the huge support he received from Ebonyi on Monday, especially the almost unmanageable crowd that welcomed him into the state from neighbouring Enugu State, he roared that he would shut down the state for three days on his next visit. He gloated that the visit and the crowd convinced him that Biafra, the cause he and hundreds of thousands of Igbo people have dedicated themselves to in one form or the other, was unstoppable. In fact, many groups dedicated to the same cause have lent support to the IPOB campaign, increasingly assured that Biafra was, with each passing day, becoming a tantalising prospect. And with each passing week, a showdown of some sort appears to be looming between the region’s traditional political leadership and the young revolutionaries for whom Biafra is more than a romantic idea.

A few weeks ago, Mr Kanu made the precipitate announcement that the November Anambra governorship election was untenable without a referendum on Biafra. A few other groups allied with IPOB also suggested that if restructuring of Nigeria did not begin before the November Anambra poll, they would join IPOB to stall it and ground the whole region. That announcement was greeted with derision, with Mr Kanu himself doing a volte face and waffling about listening to the cries of his people and then modifying his opinion on the poll. But as he continues his tours, and as he perceives that power and influence in Igboland appear to be shifting away from the traditional political leaders whom every Nigerian is familiar with, he has stiffened his resolve on Anambra and reiterated his group’s determination to link the poll with a referendum on Biafra.

Igbo leaders have a battle on their hands. If they stare Mr Kanu in the face and blink first, they will lose respect and influence. Yet their minds and instincts tell them that Mr Kanu, despite his huge popularity and uncanny identification with and exploitation of the Biafra concept, is indeed a shallow, pedantic and untested megalomaniac. Their own reluctance to mine popular disaffection in the Southeast years ago, not to say provide the kind of leadership the region needed to secure its rightful place in the nation, made the rise of activists like Mr kanu feasible. If care is not taken, the activists could soon become militants. How to, therefore, confront Mr Kanu is the big dilemma Igbo leaders face. Worse, they must now struggle to reclaim the leadership they took for granted, but which is being chiselled away by groups like IPOB and the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB).

The more restrained and diplomatic Igbo leaders were not helped by the unctuous style of the Goodluck Jonathan government, which unreasonably positioned Igbo technocrats to be despised by their competitors in the corridors of power, and by the generally spiteful and antagonistic style of the Muhammadu Buhari presidency, which almost totally alienated the Igbo from the centre of power. Caught between a rock and a hard place, Igbo leaders must now walk a tightrope between coaxing an unwilling presidency to make concessions and kick-start the process of restructuring the federation, and weaning Igbo rank and file from the intoxicating utopia peddled by Mr Kanu. But even if Igbo leaders, in spite of themselves, possess that uncommon talisman, there is nothing to suggest they have the luxury of time. Mr Kanu and other pro-Biafra groups appear dead set on forcing the issue by as early as November when the Anambra election would hold.

Mr Kanu relishes his influence, particularly the manner of its growth. He is the main topic in Igboland today, and a hero among the common people. He knows how to entrance a crowd and give them the opium they crave, the intoxicant the traditional Igbo political leaders despise so ardently and offhandedly. Though his illogic and megalomania are smothered by his dubious eloquence, he has managed to sustain a distinct and irresistible charisma that takes advantage of these times and the people’s frustrations. Unhorsing such a fiery young man will be a tough job. What is even more frightening is that he feels impelled by the mood, if not the spirit, of the time to go for broke. He, therefore, seems smartly unwilling to postpone a showdown with the aging and distracted Igbo leaders, believing unsurprisingly that he could take them on, and defeat and supplant them. For a man so fiery and charismatic but quite intellectually and temperamentally ill-equipped for leadership, it would be a tragedy if that showdown were forced, not to say won by him.

The Igbo have a genuine cause to fight, especially in a dysfunctional nation so dismally unable to govern itself. But that cause requires the leadership of a robust mind (or a collegiate), one that understands what the moment demands, someone able to combine the spirit of an activist and the intellect and judgement of a courageous visionary. Mr Kanu is not that man, though he pretends to be. Igbo leaders have their work cut out for them. The best way to approach that historic responsibility is to ensure that Mr Kanu does not force the issue in November. They must buy time, put their house in order, and produce the right kind of leaders able to gently wean restive Igbo populace off Mr Kanu’s macabre gastronomic delight and ensure that in the ongoing national power and influence struggle the Igbo are not left holding the short end of the stick.

July 30, 2017
Buhari’s handlers manage presidency poorly

THE Muhammadu Buhari presidency obviously finds it difficult to learn from experience. Early this year, it took a number of trips by some Nigerian leaders to see the president in London to douse offensive speculations about his health. The visits got so unimaginative that the president was virtually reduced to a spectacle to be gawked at, as if sickness was a novelty, and a president’s indisposition a mystery needing to be deciphered. Yet, visit after visit did little to dispel ugly speculations about his health, with dissatisfied Nigerians, chiefly from the opposition, wondering why the president and his minders felt it was injurious to hide the nature and severity of the president’s health challenges.

On his return last March from his January medical trip, it was clear a second trip back to London was only a matter of time. In May, he was back in London as expected, very much agitated, and this time quite uncertain when his return to Nigeria would be. More than two months after his treatment began, and now feeling much better than he was when he had to travel urgently in May, his handlers have again begun to orchestrate fresh visits by Nigerian dignitaries to gape at their president. It is not clear what purpose they hoped to serve. If it was to dispel damaging speculations about his health, were there no better ways of doing it? Ekiti State governor, Ayo Fayose, had caused to be published very unflattering speculations about the president’s health, and a former minister, Femi Fani-Kayode had also asserted that, contrary to sanguine reports from the president’s aides, family and spokesmen, the president was in fact in worse shape than anyone imagined.

It then seemed the new round of visits were packaged to dispel hostile speculations coming principally from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Rather than come clean on the president’s health, and offer periodic updates on his recuperation, the ruling party opted for silence, half-truths and exaggerations. The opposition had asked the president and his aides to take advantage of their own 2009/2010 counsel given when the late Umaru Yar’Adua, a PDP president, was ill and sequestered in unknown places. The APC of course inexplicably spurned the counsel and instead began replaying the unintelligent and unrewarding recent past. And so, after five All Progressives Congress (APC) governors and the ruling party chairman, John Odigie-Oyegun, visited the president on July 23, complete with a photograph, opposition figures fired a broadside at the presidency, wondering what they were hiding. All the presidency needed to do was look for a more effective way of communicating the president’s ordeal to the public. Instead, they chose the incredible option of new rounds of visits, new rounds that unexpectedly begot fresh speculations. Three days after the visit, another batch of seven governors were ferried to London on Wednesday to ‘see for themselves’ the condition of the president.

It is both sad and strange that it somehow eluded the presidency that the problem they are having is not the president’s health, as troubled as it has appeared, and as persistent as many now fear it could remain. The problem indeed is how information about his ordeal is managed. A periodic update would have been adequate, after first coming clean on what ails the president. Second, a short video address to the nation would have been quite beneficial. Third, for a president touted as jovial and witty, a telephone conversation with his arch-accuser, Mr Fayose, addressing some of the issues the Ekiti governor consistently raised in the media, would have been terrifically disarming. It does not diminish the presidency to reach out to his main opponents or traducers. Similarly, it takes nothing away from the president to let his country know what ails him.

By shrouding his medical treatment in such bewildering secrecy, as if it was unpatriotic to question the health status of a public official of the president’s standing, he unwittingly allowed adverse speculations to rob him of the comprehensive goodwill and empathy Nigerians are quite capable of giving. At least, Nigerians empathised with ex-military president Ibrahim Babangida when he travelled to Germany to treat radiculopathy. By turning his health trips into a mystery necessitating his angry aides to abuse commentators, he also inadvertently opened the gate of hate speech to ingratiating groups such as associations of herdsmen and the president’s kinsmen and close supporters.

It is hard to imagine how such a simple matter could have been so thoroughly and needlessly mismanaged. Even if his aides had counselled secrecy, the president should have resisted them, seeing that he is the one elected to preside over the affairs of the country. By repeating in May-July the same appalling and obnoxious style that proved damaging to the image of the presidency in January-March, not to talk of all the bad-tempered exchanges between his aides, kinsmen and supporters on one hand, and general commentators, opposition politicians and sensible and forthright citizens on the other hand, the Buhari presidency shows itself to be rather awkward about running things, particularly nuanced policy and government issues. If they lack the simple judgement to manage this little matter with the aplomb required of them, how can they be trusted to manage the more complex affairs of a large and variegated country like Nigeria?

Should the president’s health challenge unfortunately persist, the presidency should be kind enough not to subject Nigerians to the same ignoble style that has reflected poorly on Nigeria’s image and exposed the presidency as inept at discriminating between two simple and parallel lines.

July 30, 2017
Obasanjo’s puzzling homilies

FORMER president Olusegun Obasanjo is so full of contradictions that it is sometimes pointless subjecting his world views and statements to analysis. The analyst will always be at a loss where to begin and where to end. With a mind so made up on virtually everything and everyone, the former military head of state and army general is unlikely to be edified by anyone’s contrary opinion or useful suggestion. But because he keeps shocking the public with his constant oversimplifications, it behoves that same long-suffering public to mind his views, take umbrage when necessary, vigorously disagree with him on occasions, and even though often futile, try to put him in his place. The former president’s strange homilies at a programme organised some two weeks ago by Christ the Redeemer’s Friends International (CRFI) of the Redeemed Christian Church of God is a case in point.

Chief Obasanjo is famous for his strident, cocksure views on everything, from politics to religion, and from governance to theology. He has heard it said many times that he is the best president Nigeria has ever had, and he has come to fully believe it. It reached a point during his two terms in office that he began to see himself as both indispensable and infallible. Blessed with a moral universe that is in a state of permanent flux, he often finds it difficult to recognise truths from falsehoods, and treats both as indistinguishable properties in his politics and theology. So when he told his patient CRFI audience that American media mogul and founder of CNN, Ted Turner, and Ford Foundation bailed him out with $150,000 after leaving prison broke in 1998, it was not unusual that he neither saw the moral contradictions in receiving the gifts nor appreciated the poor judgement of complaining about the size of Mr Turner’s monetary gift.

It was clear Chief Obasanjo meant his prison story ostensibly as a testimony to encourage others. It is a story he has dragged through tedious twists and repetitions that it is now almost done to death. It is a story he has treated so superficially that it is shocking that, for someone who confesses himself to be a statesman, he is unable to appreciate the deeper meanings and nuances of his prison journey. In his testimony, he said he visited Nelson Mandela to seek a validation of his intention to contest the presidency of Nigeria in 1999 after that ambitious seed was planted in him by meddlesome army generals. Seeking validation of any kind is of course not improper. Mr Mandela, one of the two eminent persons he said he met for advice, however, went into prison an activist, but emerged some 27 years later a statesman whose judgement on wide-ranging issues and knowledge of ethical leadership and leadership essentials had simply become ethereal. Chief Obasanjo’s prison journey paralleled Mr Mandela’s; the former ending with few or no lessons learnt, and the latter projecting with considerable aplomb the mystique of leadership.

No, Chief Obasanjo was indeed flattered to have been offered the presidency of Nigeria a second, undeserving time by a coterie of forces, most of them serving and retired generals, whose calculations had nothing of the altruism or profound ideology great nations deploy to achieve a great leap forward. His trip to consult with Bishop Desmond Tutu and Mr Mandela was perfunctory. He had no idea what to do with that presidency once he claimed it, nor did his sponsors; but his mind was virtually made up to seek the prize immediately the power brokers signalled their readiness to gift him the throne. He knew he would not need to lift a finger, nor spend a dime even if he had it, nor yet agitate his brain assuming it could be coaxed into some life and activity above the bucolic rudiments he was accustomed to. As former military leaders before him indicated by their vacuous reigns, what was significant for men of Chief Obasanjo’s ilk was claiming the throne, not what to do with it.

It is not clear what Chief Obasanjo meant by saying he left prison in 1998 broke. There was no record his extensive land holdings had been sold off completely. By the time he left office in 1979, his expansive farms and landed properties astounded many African leaders, including former Tanzanian leader, Julius Nyerere, who whispered to a confidant that Africa was in trouble with rulers like Chief Obasano retiring into such comfort after being in public service all their life. No one had the courage to inquire into Chief Obasanjo’s wealth on leaving office in 1979; it was enough that he even left, apparently of his own volition. What impoverished Chief Obasanjo during his inglorious stay in Gen. Sani Abacha’s gulag was his natural and unremitting niggardliness, his reluctance to spend as against his excessive and immoderate eagerness to acquire more. He was not generous with public funds, as indeed seems proper, but he was even less so with his own private funds. His behaviour is so objectionable that he neither mentored anyone at the philosophical level nor acquired a following by spending his wealth on anyone. If kings and princes tremble before him, it is more because of his nuisance value than any impact he has made on their lives and careers.

It is difficult to get between a man and his God. Chief Obasanjo said he was finally persuaded to contest the 1999 presidential election after reading the biblical story of Mordecai in the Book of Esther. In vain this columnist struggled to find any correlation between him and his biblical inspiration except perhaps the most liberal reading and interpretation of the sixth chapter of that book. Even then, Chief Obasanjo’s life before and after his ascension neither mirrored the exemplariness and morality of Mordecai nor drew lessons from that famous man’s ingenuity and diligence, not to say his triumph over his enemies. Chief Obasanjo is satisfied that the life of Mordecai mirrors his own, and that that life inspired him into conceding to those who pressured him to run for the presidency. More, he is convinced that God scripted his post-prison trajectory, a fact he fondly alluded to in a book he entitled Sermon from the Prison. It, of course, does not shock him that for so ardent an evangelist, as he confesses himself to be, his life in the State House at Aso Villa, and since 2007, has reflected none of the evangelistic ardour and profound morality he claimed to profess in and out of prison.

Nigerians, especially those in leadership positions, often deploy religion for totally selfish reasons. There is nothing anyone can say to dissuade them from cuddling their hypocrisy. It is particularly more astonishing that for Chief Obasanjo who professes so much religion, he thought nothing of leaving office in 2007 into the commodious and expensive surroundings of his Hilltop mansion and presidential library complex. He does not see a contradiction between the fundamentals of his religion and the social and political practices he engaged in while in office, including the half-truths, untruths and brazen, vexatious and malicious manipulations. In his eight years in office, he demonstrated other weaknesses and faults which by the most baffling chutzpah and indifference he managed to induct into his private theology.

Hopefully, when next he burnishes both his image and tries to codify his deeply controversial morality, his Christian audience should exercise gentle scepticism in judging his essence both as a fellow Christian and as a national leader. In his time in and out of office, not to say his penny dreadful autobiographies, Chief Obasanjo has not contributed anything substantial to the study of leadership. Indeed, in action and reflection, he is not capable of teaching anything. By examples and precepts, Mr Mandela on the other hand proved his legend. But by his lack of examples and absence of precepts, Chief Obasanjo proved his commonplaceness. If 20 years after his first tour as head of state, and now 10 years after his second tour as president, he is still unable to appreciate the deeper issues of leadership or understand the indispensable need for reflection, his self-description as a statesman may be a hopeless exaggeration. His winding testimony before the Redeemer’s Friends International indicates clearly why he must be engaged as often as he addresses the public. But more significantly, and for a man controversially described as probably the best leader Nigeria has ever had, his testimony amplifies the reasons for Nigeria’s backwardness and the little hope Africans or even the black man has in a very complex and increasingly ruthless and competitive world.

July 23, 2017
Nigeria must brace up for far worse oil troubles

WHETHER they like it or not, Nigerians will have to determine whether to restructure or break up. Visionless and typically unserious about the future, they get bogged down in definitional controversies, unsure what the simple and straightforward word ‘restructuring’ stands for. Glued together by crude oil wealth, and separated by ethnic and religious politics, Nigeria seems painfully unaware of the speed and magnitude at which the world economy is about to be redefined. Crude oil price has hovered at a level that causes tremors in the Nigerian economy. That frightening situation now seems set to get worse as the developed economies of Europe and Asia seek clean energy sources to drive their machines and light their homes.

In 2019, Volvo, the Swedish car maker, appears set to abandon the internal combustion engine which for over 140 years drove transportation and industries with all the concomitant noxious side effects. The car maker announced that Between 2019 and 2021, it would launch five new fully electric car models. A day after Volvo announced its revolution, France’s new president Emmanuel Macron has set a 2040 date to ban all petrol and diesel vehicles in that European country. Norway and the Netherlands have announced plans to ban emissions-producing vehicles by 2025. Germany is speculated to be prepared to ban petrol and diesel vehicles by 2030. India, which buys Nigerian oil in huge quantities, appears set to change from internal combustion engine also in 2030. The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, also suggests that in eight years, all petrol and diesel cars could face a 24 pound sterling charge to enter London.

The consequences for crude oil production and prices in a monocultural economy like Nigeria’s is unquantifiable. A new industrial revolution anchored on clean energy is afoot, and that revolution is certain to have huge political and economic consequences for Nigeria. Nigerian politics and government are anchored unwisely on oil politics. In the next few years, the folly of keeping the economy locked on oil prices and keeping politics hostage to the distribution of oil block patronage appear set to catch up with the country. There is nothing to indicate that in the few years it will take for oil prices to plummet dangerously lower than it has done now, Nigeria will prove capable of readjusting both its floundering economy and dangerously dysfunctional politics. The omens are indeed bad.

It is urgent that Nigeria must be restructured in such a way that ethnic nationalities can freely and willingly co-exist with one another. The current political structure, not to talk of the foolish nurturing of ethnic exceptionalism and destructive social and economic relations, is clearly and wholly untenable. Indeed, the restructuring must be far-reaching than previously contemplated if Nigeria is not to implode. Anchoring the existence of Nigeria on a mixture of religious and historical determinism, and casting that existence in granite, is extremely short-sighted. It is destined to fail. The world will of course not dispense entirely with oil in the next few years or a little over a decade and more, but the industrial revolution that new and clean energy sources are unleashing will make nonsense of the fundamental assumptions undergirding many national economies like Nigeria’s.

If Nigerian leaders are smart enough to appreciate the dangers ahead, they will see the urgent need to reflect very deeply on the political and economic structures they inherited at independence and had set high hopes on in the last five decades or so. Those structures are decaying and dying. It is up to the leaders to do something substantial and realistic about them and thus save the republic, or do nothing and allow the country to collapse along with the decaying and dying foundational structures that have proved incapable of sustaining an exploding and fractious population.

July 23, 2017