The Nation Newspaper

Category: Idowu Akinlotan

Gov Bello reinforces Kogi tragedy

WHEN the top hats of the All Progressives Congress (APC) plotted furiously to impose Yahaya Bello on Kogi State as governor in place of Abubakar Audu, the deceased winner of the 2015 governorship poll, the party and those who supported him were warned that they were about to foist a disaster upon the state. The warnings were ignored. Prince Audu’s running mate, Abiodun James Faleke, was the right and proper person constitutionally to inherit the mandate. But the Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, introduced a legal sleight of hand to undermine justice and help emplace the vile anomaly now blighting the state. To complete the conspiracy, Mr Bello’s supporters, many of them from his ethnic stock, jumped enthusiastically on the usurper governor’s bandwagon by describing the Abuja concocted mandate as a divine mandate, one that supposedly came from God.

Now, all the conspirators have since moved on and abandoned Kogi to its tragedy. Some of them are party officials from the Southwest who schemed to, in their opinion, checkmate what they saw as the ‘expansionist’ plans of former Lagos governor, Bola Tinubu. Others are governors from the Northwest and North Central who ignored the constitution and arrogantly swore that no Kogi Yoruba or Christian would govern the state. And others simply suggested that Kogi had a North Central identity to maintain, not a Southwest identity to acquire. The plots and intrigues did not make sense, but their authors were determined to thwart democracy, subvert the constitution, and annihilate the principles of justice. The plotters eventually triumphed, for most of them were in any case not Kogites who would suffer the consequences of imposing a total misfit upon the state.

Mr Bello is not just a misfit, he presides over a cabinet of grovelling and deluded misfits. The state is so horrendously misgoverned that all three tertiary institutions are shut, workers are not paid in harmonised fashion, with some being owed more than one year salary, elementary exercises like staff screening and verification came to a tortured end after three false and incompetent starts, and nothing properly described as elevated and visionary projects are being undertaken. It was in the midst of this retrogression, when workers and pensioners were dying of hunger, when the state was pining in agony sickened by the ineptitude inflicted on them by both Mr Bello and the APC in Abuja, that the Neanderthals in Daily Times, apparently marking their 91 years anniversary, conferred on Mr Bello a ‘good governance’ award. The paper, now a shadow of itself, claimed to be celebrating what they improperly called the ‘Times Hero Awards’.

Kogi State is probably the worst governed state in Nigeria. Its governor and cabinet have no idea what governance is all about. The cabinet is inexperienced, without ambition, has no design for the present or the future, is totally devoid of any feelings for dying, unpaid workers and shut tertiary institutions, and is incapable of conceiving even modest plans for the state as a whole. How Mr Bello, presiding over this mediocre cabinet and dysfunctional ministries, can be conferred an award by anyone beggars belief. That he received the award and celebrated it in his usual newspaper propaganda flourish is an indication of his relentless clowning and just how things have declined and decayed in Kogi.

Who will help Kogi after the APC in Abuja and scores of conspirators have betrayed the state? The anomaly of 2015 cannot be reversed until Mr Bello has spent his four years in office. He will of course not return in the 2020 election; but surviving till then is almost practically impossible for the tormented people of Kogi. But survive they must, even if thousands die. They were betrayed by the APC and Nigeria’s feckless and fickle judiciary, as the supposedly ethical and reformist government in Abuja turned a blind eye to the disaster plotted in late 2015. After surviving two incompetent governments before Mr Bello’s ascendancy, Kogi now lies prostrate. Only Abuja can call Mr Bello to order, assuming all the big political players in that scheming city are not seized by pangs of conscience and guilt. They can lean on him substantially to compel him to pay workers, reopen schools, fund hospitals, and reverse many of his silly and immature policies enthroned in a little over one year after he managed to stir himself from deep slumber.

Nobody else can help Kogi. Not the workers who are underfed and helpless; not the governor and his cabinet who lack ideas and imagination; not the House of Assembly which has been castrated and rendered voiceless and soulless; and not even the people themselves, given their initial inexcusable connivance at the enthronement of the spineless wonder, Mr Bello. If the APC should openly denounce Mr Bello, and President Muhammadu Buhari will return to Nigeria and, among other pressing matters, remember the tragedy his party has inflicted on Kogi and decide to call the governor to order, perhaps the state can be salvaged. For now, Kogi is in steep decline, unheeded and unaided.

May 21, 2017
Storm in Buhari’s semantic teacup

NIGERIA was in a lather last week over President Muhammadu Buhari’s medical vacation letter to the National Assembly. The letter dated May 7, 2017 was to notify the lawmakers of the president’s trip to consult with his doctors in the United Kingdom once again. Unlike before, this time the letter contained words that a few lawmakers, particularly Senator Mao Ohuabunwa (PDP, Abia North), felt were inappropriate. The observation was probably caused by the fact that in previous letters to the National Assembly, the president, quoting Section 145 of the 1999 constitution, indicated that the vice president would ‘perform the functions of my office’. This time, however, the May 7 letter indicated that the vice president would ‘co-ordinate the activities of the government’.

Senate President Bukola Saraki disallowed the semantic storm from overwhelming the proceedings of the day. The import of the letter was understood, he said, and since the letter cited the relevant provision of the constitution, there was no ambiguity at all. Neither Speaker Yakubu Dogara nor any member of the House of Representatives gave the matter any serious or speculative notice. The proper thing had been done, they apparently concluded. In a few minutes, both the senate and the lower chamber had been done with the matter, and had moved to other more pressing matters. But in the larger society, the storm brewed and legal experts met minds over the deeper and probably hidden import of the letter.

The lawmakers were right to have smartly and quickly dispelled that mild semantic confusion before it became turgid. The mood of the country, particularly the polarisation of the polity along generally North–South divide, could be soured by an extended and ill-tempered consideration of the ordinary and hidden meanings of the president’s letter. If on previous occasions the president wrote of the vice president performing the functions of his office, many were left wondering why the president would this time around want the vice president to co-ordinate the activities, not of his office, but of the government. The January 17 and May 7 letters are of course different, and the intentions behind them probably also different. There is no amount of semantic bullying that would convince the observant that the two are the same, or that since the constitution is clear on the matter, it does not matter what the president wrote.

A few commentators have blamed presidential aides who drafted the letter for the needless confusion. They assumed that the writer(s) were probably trying to avoid being monotonous, or that the meaning and significance of a part of the May 7 letter were lost on them. But the fear of those who felt uncomfortable with the letter is that the sentences could in fact have been deliberately crafted, even if the futuristic purpose to which its drafters intended to put it might not altogether be clear. Sadly, it is customary of Nigerians to paper over the cracks. So, rather than calmly and good-naturedly discuss the disharmony noticed in the letter, some commentators and angry Buharistas described the word usage in the letter as nothing but a storm in a teacup. This dismissive characterisation of the letter, they hoped, would put the matter to rest and help the country avoid a needless crisis.

The value of Senator Ohuabunwa’s observation is that if there is a next time, the presidency, or any other level of government making a recourse to the same constitutional cover, would write what they mean and mean what they write. The constitution is clear about what Section 145 means, and there should be no ambiguity whatsoever. But it was precisely the president’s May 7 letter that needlessly introduced elements of confusion. The problem is not the constitution, nor observers like Senator Ohuabunwa who felt disquieted by the president’s letter. There is virtue in making presidential communications simple, writing it simply, keeping it uncomplicated even if it becomes repetitive. Now, whether the president likes it or not, or whether he means a different thing from the sceptics’ interpretation or not, some Nigerians will read hidden meaning to the letter.

In Sections 147 and 148 of the constitution, which deal with the appointment of ministers and the business of government, the word co-ordination indeed crops up. In Section 148 (2)(b), the constitution provides that: “The president shall hold regular meetings with the vice president and all the ministers of the government of the federation for the purposes of — co-ordinating the activities of the president, the vice president and the ministers of the government of the federation in the discharge of their executive responsibilities…” So, co-ordination has its own constitutional significance elsewhere. The country may be bigger than any group of people or vested interest, as some have argued in order to calm frayed nerves, but it helps considerably when supposedly enlightened presidential aides communicate with the precision and altruism required of their positions. If they embrace opacity, they must not blame those who denounce their shortcomings or read meaning into their intricate phrases.

In many circles, the unspoken conviction is that complex politicking is afoot in the presidency, politicking that has become a tangled skein due to the president’s illness and inability to function optimally. Unable to attend both regular and irregular meetings, not many are convinced that decisions taken by him meet the standard constitutional requirement of presidential independence and sound judgement. And fearing that Nigerians were becoming inquisitive and nervous, presidential aides have started to fret, get defensive, and in some instances become unduly and even irrationally indignant. They have probably begun to feel the burden of heading off any campaign to get the president declared incapacitated.

However, Section 144 of the constitution makes it extremely tough to declare the president incapacitated. Given the mood of the country at the moment and the president’s popularity, not to say the cabinet that often speaks inaudibly and can’t call its soul its own, it is hard to see the executive council making a declaration indicating that the president can’t discharge the functions of his office. That declaration, should it be made, is expected to trigger the composition of a verifying medical panel. The country is, however, a long way from that process, notwithstanding the alarming signals the president’s illness gives.

Indeed, apart from suggesting that the president’s May 7 letter was designed to obfuscate the matter of his medical condition and also take attention away from possible machinations underway in the presidency consequent upon the president’s unending fatigue, it is unlikely that presidential aides who have gone to elaborate lengths to throw red herrings along the way would be eager to disclose the president’s ailment. They will not; and they will encourage the president not to reveal details of his condition in order not to give fillip to those who might wish to ‘play politics’ with his health. The constitution does not make it mandatory for him to shed light on his condition, so no one will take on that thankless job, and there will be no updates from anywhere on the matter. In fact, worse, should matters deteriorate, a resignation, such as some have prematurely called for, will not be likely.

The position is, therefore, clear. There will be no apologies about the use of words in the president’s May 7 letter, though it misled many and triggered a needless controversy. There will be no updates on the president’s health, regardless of the severity of his decline, should it come to that. Nothing radical or fundamentally new will come from Acting President Yemi Osinbajo, for it is the custom in such matters for someone occupying his position to tread gingerly. Some machinations will still continue in the presidency, for the president himself had cleverly structured the place in such a way as to constrict a caucus outsider. And despite the presidency’s shortcomings, everyone will hope for the sake of peace and stability that the president’s health hold up till 2019.

If in times like these it is judged inappropriate for the president’s opponents to speak harshly of him and his health, it seems even more indefensible for his supporters to speak of his re-election chances in some two years to come. President Buhari’s health is far from robust. To suggest in any way that he and his supporters should begin to entertain the possibility of his return in 2019 is not only insensitive, it is misplaced enthusiasm. There are unplanned, on the spur of the moment situations when a leader would sacrifice his life, position or office for his country in order to advance a cause or emplace an ideology. At such moments, nothing else would matter to the leader, not his comfort, not his health, not anything. President Buhari’s supporters and the successes he has achieved so far convince them he is that kind of man. Perhaps he is. But neither his May 7 letter, nor his appointments, nor even the structure of his presidency, nor yet his sometimes astonishing views, give sceptics the hope that he is or can yet be that man.

May 14, 2017
Revisiting Gov Ladoja’s impeachment

HE who has not read the interview granted The Sun newspaper yesterday by Hazeem Gbolarumi, a former deputy governor of Oyo State, does not know just how steeply Nigeria has declined or how close the country was a few years back to total moral and intellectual bankruptcy. Mr Gbolarumi was a personal assistant to the late strongman of Ibadan politics, the infamous Lamidid Adedibu. He later became deputy governor when he was foisted on both Governor Adebayo Alao-Akala and Oyo State after the impeachment of Governor Rashidi Ladoja in January 2006. As personal assistant to Alhaji Adedibu, and nothing more, Mr Gbolarumi was charged with the responsibility of leading the thuggish revolt against the elected governor. He successfully executed that villainy. He was thereafter rewarded with the deputy governorship position. Since then he has had about 11 years to reflect on the role he played in the saga. Excerpted below, from The Sun interview, is all the reflection Mr Gbolarumi appears capable of:

“Ladoja’s attitude irked not only Adedibu, but also other notable PDP leaders in Oyo State that time. They tried to call Ladoja to order but he snubbed all entreaties by these eminent party leaders including Chief Richard Akinjide, Alhaji Yekini Adeojo, and a former governor of the state, late Chief Kolapo Ishola. Even when the party summoned Ladoja to appear before a panel to defend himself against these allegations, he failed to appear before the panel.

“I remember many of these eminent party leaders expressing shock that they didn’t know that Ladoja could change like that after being elected governor. They were all disappointed. It was at that point that a decision was taken that Ladoja should be impeached. That he can’t be greater than the political party on which platform he got elected into office.

“So, the decision to impeach Ladoja was a collective one. The order to sack or impeach Ladoja was given by PDP leaders, after a meeting was held to discuss the issue. Adedibu was only saddled with the task of enforcing Ladoja’s impeachment. It was not just his own making. A lot of Nigerians who don’t know the root of the whole matter had been very unfair to Baba Adedibu. Adedibu, just like my humble self, only carried out party’s orders…

“Baba Adedibu is not alive today, but it would be unfair for people to continue to lie against him, and again if people like me, who played a key role in the whole saga, failed to set the record straight, that would be very unfortunate.

“I make bold to declare once again through this medium that the decision to impeach Ladoja was not taken solely by Adedibu. It was the party elders and leaders who mandated Adedibu to effect Ladoja’s impeachment. At the meeting where these leaders decided to impeach Ladoja, I was made the chairman of the task force to effect the impeachment. I was asked to lead PDP supporters, not just Adedibu’s supporters to Government House and Oyo State House of Assembly to sack ex-governor Ladoja and those lawmakers loyal to him. Thank God, I was able to execute the operation successfully.”

Here is the takeaway. (1) Mr Gbolarumi is unable to see that the impeachment was not really an impeachment but a coup against democracy planned and orchestrated outside the House of Assembly and for reasons that had nothing to do with constitutional infractions. (2) Gov Ladoja was impeached because he was not taking orders from Alhaji Adedibu and the party. Of course Alhaji Adedibu was the party. Mr Gbolarumi justifies the grounds of the impeachment. Nay, he gloats in them. (3) As proof of the disgusting use to which Nigerians have put religion, Mr Gbolarumi thanks God for enabling him to lead the thuggish revolt against an elected governor outside the provisions of the constitution. (4) The nullification of the impeachment by the courts and Gov Ladoja’s reinstatement were not sufficient to make Mr Gbolarumi remorseful or reflective.

As Mr Gbolarumi demonstrated in the interview, subverting the rule of law comes natural to many Nigerians. Ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo connived at the impeachment of Gov Ladoja, as indeed he connived at the impeachment of two other governors, both of which he excused on the grounds of fighting corruption. The Buhari presidency is of course also in its own unique way subverting the rule of law despite its protestations to the contrary. Either because of lack of discipline or lack of appreciation of the internal logic of the concept, many Nigerians still see the rule of law as a dispensable tool. It will perhaps take a disaster as gross as that which Adolf Hitler enacted in Germany in the 1930s and 1940s to convince Nigerians that neither business nor politics, let alone human rights, can flourish in the absence of the rule of law. Mr Gbolarumi is a disgraceful reminder of the dark era Nigeria wilfully, foolishly and actively participated in.

May 14, 2017
APC and Buhari’s health crisis

IN the coming weeks, the All Progressives Congress (APC) will continue to give the impression that its main headache as a political party is President Muhammadu Buhari’s health crisis. It will try to blame that personal crisis for its own partisan woes. Who knows, it may even attempt to put the country’s inability to forge ahead as a strong and united country down to the president’s continuing inattentiveness occasioned by poor health. After all, the interagency conflicts in the federal government and the bureaucratic and policy discords in the presidency itself have been conveniently and expediently but erroneously blamed on the president’s health challenges.

The president’s health crisis is a major challenge to everyone, country and party alike, and it undoubtedly affects everything. No matter what presidential aides and cabinet members say, and regardless of the optimism of his wife, Aisha, and the colourful tales of presidential spokesmen concerning his daily itinerary, the president cannot attend to state matters with the energy he would like, nor even with the kind of presence of mind the constitution takes for granted. After some weeks away from public glare, the president again emerged on Friday to participate in the Juma’at prayers in Aso Villa. It was meant to douse widespread public anxiety and social media frenzy about his health. But nothing will douse anything until the president comes to terms with the bad hand nature has dealt him, until he looks the country in the face and tells them what his problems really are, and until he convinces a majority that in one form or the other he is able to shoulder on with the admirable stoicism he has become famous for.

There is little chance he will do any of these, however. President Buhari has minders who are even more insular than he himself has professed, aides whose worldviews hark back to Nigeria of the 1950s, self-confessed powermongers who take delight in moving pawns wildly across cracked chessboards. The public will continue to second-guess their president. The online media, that irreverent assortment of feral reputation bashers, ascribe to him a cocktail of maladies which modern and even futuristic medicine would find befuddling. The traditional media, especially the print brethren, long wary of being accused of acting someone else’s script, have censured themselves into a near soporific state.

What was incontrovertible last Friday, however, was that the president, as he walked scores of metres to the State House mosque, was anything but agile, let alone witty as an aide incredulously said. The long walk to prayer was staged to deflect rumours and lessen anxiety. But the walk became a solemn, almost elegiac procession in company with edgy, anxious and, at the end, relieved aides. It was unnecessary to put a spin on a procession that unambiguously told its own story. Even if it is true that he is recovering, the president was on Friday still gaunt and a little listless. He gave the impression of someone making effort to satisfy a pesky and ‘needlessly’ curious public. No doubt, the outing was staged to take the sting out of recent criticisms and commentaries suggesting that the president should return to England for a follow-up treatment and perhaps extended rest.

Unfortunately, for a country in the throes of virulent ethnic competition, a competition accentuated by the president’s own disinterest — some say connivance — in the struggles between farmers and herdsmen, the very public health battles of the president have been flooded with silly and misplaced sentiments. To ask the president to step aside, if he is unable to summon the strength to govern with the passion required of him, is not being wicked. It is realism. The problems of Nigeria are gargantuan, and they require the serious, undivided attention of a man of wit and depth, a man in fine fettle. President Buhari has not given that attention because of his health, not because he does not wish to. He will therefore be criticised; and when he falls short, as indeed he has continued to do, he will be condemned, regardless of his health. A country of about 180 million people with the kind of aggravated challenges facing them cannot be held to ransom by a president whose health problems have become both a challenge to development and a distraction.

Hale or unhealthy, the president will not be handled with kid gloves. His minders should know that the destiny of 180 million people demands this kind of sometimes detached and even seemingly cruel treatment. There is no sentiment about a leader’s health in the face of a challenged country battling with serious existential crises. If a president is strong, his family and country admire his sprightliness and pluckiness flowing from the grace of God upon his life. But if he is constantly unwell, everyone, no matter how wicked, feels the pain with him, but craves to continue life’s arduous journey. Fortunately, the president and his minders do not execrate religion. They believe that life and death are in the hands of God, not in the hands of those who wish the president bad. Therefore, since everything is in the hands of God, the president and his aides must de-emphasise the motives of critics who demand that the presidency come clean on the matter. There is a limit to the hide and seek, for the general impression of a sceptical public is that the president is evidently unable to give the country the undivided attention the constitution expects of him.

President Buhari’s health crisis is receiving undue attention for many reasons, not simply because there are probably many critics in the North and South who wish him evil. His inability to put both the ruling party and the country on a sound footing after assuming office in 2015 meant that his weaknesses and failures would reverberate in places and corners he would find personally unsettling and distasteful. His failure in the APC is clear enough. As president, it should matter to him what happens in the legislature. But his party was for many months after his stupendous victory unable to reach a consensus on power sharing. That lack of consensus in turn mirrored in a nuanced way the absolute lack of philosophical grounding in the party. It was a party that lacked a history, as it were, and had no corresponding sense of a future, any future. It could therefore not define its goals coherently in a manner that binds time and space together in a seamless continuum, nor find the men to implement them. There was in short no grand theory of how to deploy legislative powers to achieve a grand (national) design.

The anarchy in the legislature and the yawning gap between the National Assembly and the people both suggest the absence of leadership at the highest levels of government. It was right for the president to decline to subvert the National Assembly as ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo ingloriously did for eight years; but it was wrong to distance himself from the politics of principal officers’ elections, especially because the APC had some rudimentary ideas of what it wanted. The ensuing vacuum encouraged ambitious lawmakers without a grand, national and overarching purpose to seize the initiative and stitch their will and way into the national tapestry. As a result, though the legislature has accidentally found the means and will to defang the executive’s budding autocratic manners, there is no synergy between the two APC-led arms of government. In two years, the president has not found a way around this quandary. Worse, the APC is virtually unable to function as a party needing to renew itself through internal elections, nor to fund its activities and visualise great goals and great ambitions. The consequence of the president’s health crisis is not unsurprisingly accentuated by the party’s dismal organisational failure.

If the ruling party is in disarray, the country, already buffeted on all sides by a convoluted range of problems, is in even more dire straits. Nigeria is at a juncture where a brilliant and visionary president should roll up his sleeves and work intensely and long hours to settle its structural problems, whether ethnic, politics or economics. The structures of the past five decades have simply become untenable. Even something as mundane as the president’s health crisis has alarmingly elicited a division between ‘his people’ in the North and ‘others’ in the South, and balkanised both regions into many fruitless and irritating fractions. These divisions are indicative of the president’s failure to grasp and immerse himself in the country’s real problems, and to propound ideas and concepts about how the disarticulation should be repaired. So far, unfortunately, only jaded views have come from the presidency. Indeed, even before threats and strong-arm tactics began to stream from Aso Villa, the president had all but indicated how he wished to proceed in governance by surrounding himself with only his ‘kindred’ who spoke one language and embraced one view.

With the country in confusion and the party in disarray and paralysis, it is not surprising that everyone sees the president’s health issues as the main impediment to stability and growth. Because of the qualified successes that have attended the anti-graft war and counterinsurgency operations, it is sometimes suggested that the president would have been able to tackle all other challenges had his health held up well. This supposition is not true at all. If the APC is in disarray and the country is wobbling, it is not simply because the president lacks the stamina to dwell on the problems. It is simply because the ideas and vision required for the task are inexistent. The country and APC could indeed run well despite the president’s health had he come to office with the right nationalistic and developmental visions and emplaced them urgently and early enough. The president’s poor health is merely a convenient tool for critics — a lightning rod, even — to show their dissatisfaction with the country’s sad state of affairs and how the president failed to prepare for the onerous task ahead despite his decades out of power.

May 7, 2017
PenCom leadership controversy and other incongruities

THE sack, midway into her tenure, of Chinelo Ahonu-Amazu, as Director-General of National Pension Commission (PenCom), and the repeated extension of the tenure of the permanent secretary of the Education ministry, Jamila Shu’ara, are indications of some of the incongruities assailing the Buhari presidency. Some critics, however, say the problem is not so much incongruity as impunity. Why the sack of the PenCom executive management team is contentious is not because the officials were sacked midway or that the government did not have the authority to take such measures, but because of the refusal to adhere to the provisions of the Pension Reform Act 2014. The government has not found it fit so far to explain or defend its actions.

Both the chairman and D-G of PenCom, if sacked midstream, are for example to be replaced by appointees from their zones in line with the Pension Reform Act 2014, Section 21 (2). The presidency ignored the law, sacked both, and refused to in effect do a substitution as demanded by the relevant law. In the Education ministry, Mrs Shu’ara retired in 2016, and there were replacements waiting in the wings. Instead, her tenure was twice extended, and despite heated controversy swirling around the matter, the extension was furthermore documented by the office of the Head of Service of the Federation and given force till February 2018. It was an exceptional treatment that the government simply refused to explain or defend. In fact, in the letter reappointing her, the government warned that it was an exceptional step that should not be cited as policy. This incredible affront is hard to understand.

The Education ministry is of course a hotbed of controversial appointments. In February 2016, the ministry had announced the sacking of 13 vice chancellors of mainly new federal universities, with some of them yet to complete their tenure. The excuse was that no enabling Acts backed their establishment. Though the Acts were later discovered, the error was not reversed. And no apologies were issued.

The Buhari presidency has consistently claimed to embrace the rule of law. There is no proof that it consciously tries to do so. When it has obeyed the rule of law, it has seemed to do so by accident rather than by design. Indeed the situation is so bad that it has flouted the law when there appears to be no special advantage in doing so. Some of the sacked 13 VCs were, for instance, on the verge of completing their tenure. More shockingly, it was puzzling to discover that a skewed number of the replacement VCs were appointed from the same geopolitical zone, not to say from the same university.

Mrs Shu’ara’s departure would not have injured the Education ministry in any way, regardless of how competent and ‘irreplaceable’ she is. And what would it have cost the government to appoint replacements for the chairman and D-G of PenCom from the zones the sacked ones came from as the Pension Act provides? These unforced errors are many and multiplying, to the point that it simply makes no sense to commit them. The only plausible reasons for some of these anomalous measures and appointments are that the Buhari presidency is either at bottom sectional, as critics have said, or that the president has deliberately or inadvertently ceded his powers to faceless persons and groups.

May 7, 2017
Jonathan reminisces about 2015, Obasanjo and Buhari

APART from bemoaning how things had come to such a pass for his family under President Muhammadu Buhari’s anti-graft war, ex-president Goodluck Jonathan also managed in one fell swoop to relive his 2015 election defeat by making extraordinary claims about his own sagacity and his enemies’ mischief and betrayal. He should have left well enough alone. Time was healing the country of the injuries his presidency inflicted on it, and memories were becoming distant about how he frittered away the beautiful chances nature and providence endowed Nigeria at a time of great oil wealth and wonderful opportunities. Even though his statements come from interviews published in Segun Adeniyi’s book, Against the Run of Play, and are therefore not a deliberate or calculated attempt to stoke passion once again, perhaps the time was not ripe at all for any serious reflection from him about his presidency.
But the genie is out of the bottle, and Dr Jonathan must now contend with the fury of his countrymen, many of whom have been quite profound and forthcoming in disparaging his five years or so in office. He must also endure the scorn of top politicians, including ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo, some of whom have been characteristically unsparing. Dr Jonathan had begun to mix well with his grieving party and to let his hair down in the midst of world statesmen, many of whom still genuinely laud his effortless concession of defeat in 2015. Then, this. Now, sadly, he must return to the starting block to discover new meanings to life, politics and the essence of things. He seemed to many of his supporters to be made of finer mettle than anyone had given him credit, but given the excoriation of the past few days following his defensive and rather bewildering assessment of his presidency, some of those supporters will wonder whether that mettle has been matched by any intellect, intuition or judgement on his part.
Dr Jonathan all but characterises his successor’s policies and measures as objectionable revisionism, and the anti-graft war, at least that part that touches on him and his family, as harassment. President Buhari’s spokesmen assert that no one is being unfairly targeted. The law, they say unconvincingly but probably rightly, will be allowed to take its course. It is understandable why Dr Jonathan feels belaboured and besieged. The late Gen Sani Abacha investigated and compiled a dossier on his predecessor, Gen Ibrahim Babangida, but was unable to go through with a private pledge to dock him and neutralise him. Had he been alive, his successor, Gen Abdulsalami Abubakar, would have been lacking in courage to expose and ridicule him. Chief Obasanjo inquired into the affairs of the Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF) over which a less than salutary dossier was compiled, but even he, as plucky as he claims to be and sounds, was unable to initiate a process of calling the then retired Gen Buhari to account. Had the late Umaru Yar’Adua summoned the courage to pore through Chief Obasanjo’s presidency with a fine-tooth comb, it is doubtful whether the Owu, Abeokuta chief would be as flippant as he is today.
To the public, perhaps the most offensive part of Dr Jonathan’s defence of his presidency, as contained in Mr Adeniyi’s book, is how he sought to justify his 2015 electoral loss. He explains away his lethargy in fighting corruption by suggesting that meticulousness naturally and beneficially slows down such a campaign and disentangles it from the dramatic frills with which his successor has festooned it. The evidence against his favourite minister, Diezani Allison-Madueke, was weak, he says, without explaining why he thinks the gargantuan edifice to corruption allegedly erected by the dashing minister should be discountenanced. He downplays the fact that graft was said to be rife in his presidency, and prevaricates over the abduction of more than 200 Chibok, Borno State, schoolgirls, perhaps the main reason the world rejected him for his slow response, complicit tardiness, and monumental lack of empathy.
It is not in a book such as the one written by Mr Adeniyi that Dr Jonathan should have defended his many theses about his presidency, why he lost the election, what he thought of corruption, the so-called international conspiracy against him and his presidency, his poor response to both the Chibok abductions and the Boko Haram war, and the allegations of clannishness levelled against him. It was poor judgement, given how unpopular he had become months before losing office, to embrace a constricted space to explain what perhaps needs more than two books to defend. His defence, however deep and copious he made them, were bound to receive poor response from distraught Nigerians angered by the slothfulness of his government and riled by the widespread ease with which many public functionaries helped themselves to public funds. Making amends will now be infinitely more difficult for Dr Jonathan, especially since Nigerians are no longer ignorant of the objectionable theses he will try to explore and promote in a subsequent book.
But whether the Buhari presidency should seize upon Dr Jonathan’s indiscretion in remonstrating with his successor to commence investigation and prosecution of the former president is controversial. This column had in the early days of the Buhari presidency denounced the new president for taking a softer stand on Dr Jonathan. The waste and financial malfeasances of the past should be dealt with, the column wailed, and if Dr Jonathan had a case to answer, must be called to account. The column made references to other parts of the world, and asked the new president to ensure that no one was above the law. But the president is today hamstrung by poor health and probably low attention span, and a cabal has allegedly seized control of the levers of power in the midst of a ruling party unable to get its act together, and a populace so tense and calcified by sectarian and ethnic bigotries that it is doubtful whether the system can withstand the kind of jolt Dr Jonathan’s prosecution will elicit.
Unlike other nations which have structurally come to terms with their heterogeneity, and others stabilised by their homogeneity, Nigeria has remained a mere ‘geographical expression’, apparently incapable of the wisdom and courage needed to remould the country. Neither the grouching Dr Jonathan nor any of his predecessors and successors have attempted to restructure the country into a truly federalist entity where ethnic or religious considerations do not stand in the way of peace, unity and progress. Dr Jonathan elevated clannishness to a dangerous height such that even the self-centred and narcissist Chief Obasanjo noticed and growled. President Buhari himself has been spectacularly insular, producing a kitchen cabinet from only one part of the country — one that speaks with one voice, one language, and one anachronistic and depressing world view. Whatever he does to Dr Jonathan, no matter how legally and constitutionally justified, will sadly be interpreted as persecution and probably subverted.
Moreover, with a security system deliberately structured to be dominated by the North, a Department of State Service (DSS) now unfortunately embroiled in allegations of clannishness in recruitment, a presidency that flouts judicial decisions at will, detains suspects without trial, and overall seems so edgy and poised to clamp down on the media and adverse reporting and essays, President Buhari seems to have his plate full. Had he the appetite to eat what he has served, and the ability to masticate with poise and elegance without literally chewing the cud as he has done in the case of the former National Security Adviser (NSA), Col Sambo Dasuki (retd.), perhaps the country would have the satisfaction and temper to absorb his foibles, help him along in his politics and anti-graft war, and tolerate his peccadilloes.
However, the suspicion is that the Buhari presidency has lost both the momentum and the initiative to do something major and substantial about bringing his predecessor to book. He didn’t promise to do that before assuming office, and perhaps has stayed true to his intentions. In the early days of his presidency, had he desired to investigate and prosecute Dr Jonathan, he probably would have had sufficient goodwill and energy to withstand the fallout. But nothing is ever foolproof. He wisely sidestepped that complication and left Dr Jonathan severely alone. There were, after all, Boko Haram to attend to, a shrinking economy threatening to slide into recession, and a troubled citizenry unnerved by crisis in the Niger Delta and kidnappers on rampage. To seek to satisfy the public now by dragging Dr Jonathan before a court will be nothing but brinkmanship. President Buhari will sensibly let that cup pass over him, not because it is right or lawful, but because it is probably expedient.
If President Buhari will not take Dr Jonathan’s unwise and insensitive bait, the impetuous Chief Obasanjo possesses enough chutzpah to take on the challenge. Also interviewed for the Adeniyi book project, the former president and retired general discloses a number of disturbing details about how Dr Jonathan was foisted on the country. Many of the details tear Dr Jonathan’s image to shreds, but they also indict Chief Obasanjo himself, showing how appallingly small-minded he is, how inconsiderate and selfish he is whenever he examines or engages himself with the concept of Nigerian leadership, and how opinionated, conceited and self-righteous he has always been. Indeed, going by Chief Obasanjo’s statements and arguments, it is hard to determine who is worse or more malevolent between him and Dr Jonathan.
Chief Obasanjo may be right to have described Dr Jonathan as someone overwhelmed by the office of the president. Even then, the latter would probably have embraced a more disciplined and successful approach to governance had Chief Obasanjo laid the right and enduring democratic foundations for the country. The former general says he worked tirelessly to get Dr Jonathan to reject Mrs Alison-Madueke as Petroleum minister without saying why. Though he failed, the minister nevertheless turned out to be an unmitigated disaster. Chief Obasanjo speaks glibly of Dr Jonathan repudiating an unsigned agreement with the North to serve for only one term, and how he cajoled presidential aspirants to forswear their interests in 2015. But the former general himself repudiated an unsigned agreement with shadowy interests in the North to serve for only one term, and compelled those who were to contest against his favourite pick in 2007, Mallam Yar’Adua, to drop out of the race on pain of being drawn and quartered, so to say.
In addition, Chief Obasanjo says in the book that he denounced Dr Jonathan for pardoning former Bayelsa State governor, Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, insinuating that the forgiveness probably had something to do with the offender’s ethnic background. But the former general also inexplicably pardoned former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Salisu Buhari, and failed to disclose to Mr Adeniyi that his opposition to Mr Alamieyeseigha was a long-standing and personal one, nothing connected with morality or law. Surprisingly, as smart as Chief Obasanjo likes to see himself, he nonetheless failed to see the irony and lack of sincerity in defending his imposition of Mallam Yar’Adua despite the latter’s poor health. The former president says he asked the late Katsina State governor to produce a medical report of himself, which he showed to a medical doctor who confirmed that the governor did not have kidney disease. Here was a president who controlled the secret service, Federal Ministry of Health, and many other agencies which could have given him all the information he needed on the sick governor; instead, he chose to dissemble and later defend his untruths and flagrant betrayal of the country. The same Chief Obasanjo does not balk at engaging lustily in finding fault with Dr Jonathan’s pretences and betrayal of Nigeria.
The book will doubtless have its highs and lows, and strengths and weaknesses. But this piece is based solely on the few published excerpts from the book, which interpretatively showed how unfit for leadership most Nigerian leaders are. The victory of the APC and President Buhari in 2015 may have been explained to a large extent in the book, and the Ondo-Akeredolu conundrum that obfuscated last year’s governorship election may also have been resolved. Despite these, other books will still come to shed more light on the disputed claims regarding the last general elections and other major national issues. Whoever their authors, and whatever the subjects, the enduring leitmotif will always be that somehow, Nigeria keeps producing incompetent leaders unfit to preside over the affairs of a complex and modern multi-ethnic and multi-faith country, leaders so mentally and philosophically barren as to be amply incapable of building and unifying a great and thriving nation.
The excerpts show the author, Mr Adeniyi, as fairly detached and not judgemental. Hopefully the entire book will substantiate that authorial and magisterial detachment and scrupulousness. When the curtains are drawn on the Buhari presidency, it is doubtful whether the ambitious authors readying themselves to do justice to the period between 2015 and 2019, presumably, will be able to sustain any level of detachment. They will be cruel and merciless, for the angst already roused by the abominable failures of the Obasanjo and Jonathan presidencies have triggered a passion and temper so incendiary that President Buhari will be lucky indeed if there should remain one or two of his legacies not singed by the authors’ furies.

April 30, 2017
SGF, NIA and a burdened presidency

THE suspension last week of both the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Babachir David Lawal, and the Director-General of the National Intelligence Agency (NIA), Ayo Oke, is not just a testament to the attempt by the Muhammadu Buhari presidency to reinvigorate the anti-corruption war, it is an even more unflinching indication of the disorientation afflicting the highest seat of power. Given the presidential pussyfooting over the muddied case of Mr Lawal, whom the senate had accused of gross wrongdoings and abuse of office, Nigerians had wondered whether any proof would come to show that President Buhari had the courage to walk his talk. That proof has belatedly come, but it appeared to have been coaxed out of a reluctant presidency that has formed the habit of circling the wagons whenever its political piety and hypocrisies are questioned.

Last December, the senate had accused Mr Lawal of masterminding the award of fraudulent contracts in the Northeast and profiting from the distress experienced by internally displaced persons, victims of the Boko Haram war. The lawmakers called for his removal and prosecution. But in January, the presidency stuck with their man and virtually exonerated him. This led to a four-month period of back and forth between the senate and the presidency, culminating in furious and bad-tempered exchanges between the two powerful arms of government. Indeed, it seemed against the run of play when suddenly, in the heat of the scandal involving the NIA, Mr Lawal was asked to go on suspension, almost as a balancing act. The former SGF himself appeared puzzled by the drastic action, for everyone knows, as well as he, that he belonged to a powerful group in the presidency.

The suspension of Ambassador Oke was a bolt from the blue. It followed the discovery by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) of about N15bn, mostly in foreign currencies, stashed in a so-called safe house in Ikoyi, Lagos. Alarmed that such a huge sum was in the possession of an arm of the intelligence agencies, and bewildered that the money was idle for about two years or more, the president was said to have indicated his resolve to finally reinvigorate his flagging anti-corruption war after first expressing dismay. There were unconfirmed reports that the intelligence community tried to close ranks to defend and save Ambassador Oke, fearing that there would be no end to the meddlesomeness of the anti-graft agency in dealing inexpertly with the arcanum in which the secret service operates. If there was indeed such an effort, it stood little chance of succeeding in the face of an embittered populace sick and tired of graft and the squalor and indignity Nigeria’s distressed economy had sentenced them.

The public is sold on the idea that the sacking of Messrs Lawal and Oke is an indication of the fairness and fearlessness of the anti-graft war. They are entitled to their obsessions. They however need to cling to this hope in a country where nothing seems to work, and where everything that goes wrong can sensibly be blamed on the monies stolen and therefore not available to be ploughed into developing infrastructure or paying workers. The EFCC chairman himself has avidly sold that opinion and thus justified the open show he makes of every recovery of looted funds. Even though the EFCC has no direct hand in the fall of Mr Lawal, the agency can take pride in the influence it has garnered in the past few years, and the endorsements it has received from inside and outside the country. The fall of the NIA D-G, directly attributable to the EFCC, is a spectacular coup in this regard.

Even then, President Buhari faces a great dilemma. The aggressiveness of the EFCC, its successes, and the approving remarks of the public rub off well on the presidency. Considering how passionate he is about promoting his mostly laudable agenda and programmes but how enfeebled he is by his uncooperative body, President Buhari has sensibly come round to also endorsing Mr Magu as one of the few bright spots in his otherwise lacklustre presidency. However, despite the denials by his aides, the president also knows that his presidency is not as united as he would have loved it to be. Aso Villa only gives a facade of unity. Underneath is a powerful undertow of forces and interests that is difficult to navigate even by the most diplomatic and surreptitious of men. The president is limited in ideas, and he has found the rapids and falls along the journey dismaying and threatening. Mr Magu is not the most diplomatic of men. He is brash, self-righteous and eager to engage in a fight. He has no desire to tiptoe around the presidency or around the job entrusted to him. He senses he is surrounded by enemies, but he does not care.

The DSS, claiming to be doing its work diligently and without fear or favour, had twice tried to unhorse the swashbuckling Mr Magu, probably in collusion with a miffed and pugnacious senate. Instead, it was Mr Magu that exposed and unhorsed the boss of one of the intelligence services, the Nigerian equivalent of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). It is a rare but dangerous feat made infinitely more explosive by the manner of the exposure. It could have been done better, more effectively, perhaps more secretively without diminishing the importance of the discovery or compromising even the assignment of faults and punishment. But Nigerians want blood, and they want it openly, copiously and extraordinarily. Mr Magu has no intention of denying them the catharsis they clamour for.

President Buhari may be enfeebled by illness, but his aides have no desire to slacken their competition for the souls of the president and the presidency. The cost of sacking the SGF and NIA will become evident in the coming weeks, and it is likely to be excessive and punishing. With the National Assembly untamed but scorched and dangerous, with the presidency itself divided along powerful interests despite denials, and the ruling party weak, divided and devoid of passion and energy, the Buhari government is probably the most uncoordinated in the history of Nigeria. The disunity is self-inflicted. Increasingly, more people and politicians will be persuaded that 2018 will be a momentous year, a year in which the post-Buhari era will coalesce and be defined by powerful and ambitious interests. The politicians will struggle to view all that is happening with disinterest, but they will not let up in their contingency plans.

One way or the other something will have to give. It is hard to see both the SGF and the NIA D-G returning to their offices. They may not be found guilty of violating any law, but they will be shoved aside for multiple indiscretions, perhaps for lapse of judgement. The senate has observed these developments with cautious concern. Mr Magu, their nemesis, appears to be on the ascendancy both with the public and the presidency despite the exhausting and excruciating stalemate he gifted the lawmakers. That stalemate benefits only the EFCC chairman. To break the stalemate, the lawmakers will have to go to the courts to secure a favourable interpretation of Section 171. But should that interpretation favour Mr Magu, the senate would be in a quandary how to proceed next, seeing that the presidency secretly harbours the wish of finding the formula to castrate the legislature, and many Nigerians want it sacked altogether.

Between now and next year, when the hands of the Buhari presidency would be considerably weakened by time and political attrition, the struggle within the Aso Villa, whether they like it or not and whether they confess it or deny it, will take on titanic proportions. It would be a miracle for that epic war to end in clear victory for any of the combatants. For unlike a military regime where one powerful person can determine a lot of things, democracy thrives on consensus building, and consensus rests on compromise, diplomacy and sometimes phony wars. Mr Magu’s enemies and friends now know clearly that the EFCC would be undiscriminating in its work. If that epiphany does not concentrate their minds as viciously as a death sentence stupefies a convict, and stiffen their resolve against him to the utmost, nothing else on earth can.

April 23, 2017
APC and the vanishing luxury of time

LAST Thursday, the All Progressives Congress (APC) once again cancelled a few meetings it hoped could help redirect the ruling party and impose some semblance of order. The cancellation of the National Caucus and National Executive Committee meetings came on the heel of the cancellation of the mid-term, non-elective convention of the party. That in turn followed a lot of disquieting happenings in the party, one of which was the inability of the party to constitute its Board of Trustees. They do not trust themselves, and do not even like themselves. Now they do not even want to talk to themselves. In effect, in the short run, they will be unable to do anything together that involves one or two organs of the party.

Last week’s cancellations, reports say, might have been caused by the inability of the president to either attend the meetings or oversee them. Other reports suggest that party leaders were afraid that if the underlying problems in the party could not be resolved before a meeting was called, the consequent falling out in the glare of public attention would do much more damage to the party and its image than the ignominy of cancelled meetings. How long party leaders think they can keep up the pretence is not clear. But they will do everything to avoid an open warfare, the kind of bitter and bloody final falling out that undid the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in 2013.

While it is true that disparate groups seduced one another to form the APC and seize power, the inability to manage the winning coalition was primarily caused by the failure of the president to administer the right political balm on the slight injuries that accompanied the victory. There is nothing in the horizon to show that the president now possesses that balm, nor that those to whom he entrusted his soul on inauguration day have the alchemy to manufacture one. With no one able to muscle the party into line or assemble a peace coalition, the party will continue to fray at the edges while competing groups watch tantalisingly as opportunities to do something great with their party fizzle out in the rain.

APC does not, however, have the time to fool around. If they cannot unite this year and forge a stronger bond, they will lose everything. President Buhari’s position is of course no longer tenable. What is still somewhat tenable is the party’s position as a governing coalition, especially given the amorphousness of the Teflon PDP which disintegrated once it lost power. The presidency had an opportunity to rein in the legislature, which the president’s detachment and amateurishness led him to concede wholly to Senator Bukola Saraki, but its reluctance to sacrifice the EFCC boss to the senate hounds has virtually closed that option. The presidency also had a great chance to concede the BoT chairmanship to an arm of the coalition whose pertinacity and vibrant ideological flourish appeared productive but admittedly frightening, but the hawks in Aso Villa and their outside accomplices squabbling over nomenclatures doomed that opportunity.

With nearly all doors now firmly shut in the face of the party, and unable to raise funds to finance its operations and ambitions, the APC is the equivalence of a dead man walking. If they cannot reconcile before the end of 2017, but hope they can cobble together a hodgepodge political grouping in 2018, they will be displaying brinkmanship no sensible politician must ever attempt. Hopefully, wise counsel will prevail, and Aso Villa denizens will dismount from their high horses. Hopefully too, the PDP will get rid of the Ali Modu Sheriff menace and put some order and life into their party. By 2018, when the luxury of time is fully expended, Nigerians should have the calm assurance that politics of substance will return. Flirting with another mega party is foolish, irritating and wearisome.

April 23, 2017
The Magu rigmarole

IN any battle between the constitution and any other law, it is indisputable that the constitution has the upper hand. Part 1 of the 1999 Constitution makes this very clear in Section 1 (3). “If any other law is inconsistent with the provisions of this Constitution,” it says, “this Constitution shall prevail, and that other law shall, to the extent of the inconsistency, be void.” In the matter of the twice stalemated Ibrahim Magu confirmation as chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, it is shocking that despite having thousands of lawyers and judges in the country, it has taken an awful long time to come to the rather simple and bland fact that the embattled acting anti-graft boss really does not need confirmation.
The public mind was fully adverted to this fact when Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, himself a law professor, recently reiterated the opinion of Femi Falana, activist lawyer and senior advocate, on the subject. Both legal experts referred everyone to Section 171 of the constitution which spells out unambiguously the president’s powers of appointment, and which of the appointments need senate confirmation. Subsection (d) in particular indicates clearly, without boring the public with a long list, which agencies do not need confirmation. A lawyer will need extraordinary inventiveness to exclude EFCC from a reading of that subsection.
However, the confusion, it seems, is that the EFCC Act of 2004 makes it obligatory for its chairman to be confirmed by the senate, perhaps because of the sensitiveness of the agency’s powers and work. Mr Magu’s predecessors were subjected to confirmation. Section 2 (3) of the Act stipulates that “The Chairman and members of the Commission other than ex-officio members shall be appointed by the President and the appointment shall be subject to confirmation of the Senate.” There does not seem to be any ambiguity in this provision either, except that it conflicts with Section 171 of the constitution. Had Mr Magu’s appointment not been controversial, had he been screened and okayed at his first appearance before the senate, the false convention would have been sustained.
So, why, despite knowing what the constitution says, does the vice president still grumble that the name of Mr Magu would still be forwarded to the senate a third time? Is it because he is not sure of his facts, or he is simply anxious to ward off a misunderstanding with the senate? “I agree with Mr Falana that there was no need in the first place to have sent Mr Magu’s name to the senate,” said Prof Osinbajo. “But we did so and it was rejected by the senate; but I believe that it can be re-presented.” Why would the Buhari presidency want to waste everyone’s time by re-presenting Mr Magu’s name again? Does it lack the courage to do what it deems right? The constitution is clear on the matter, and it is doubtful whether even the senate will argue to the contrary.
Does this column think the EFCC chairman should be subject to senate confirmation? Absolutely, for, judging from the enormous powers domiciled in that office, not to say the likelihood of abuse, it is not out of place to want the senate to have a say in who becomes the EFCC chairman. The public should be wary of judging the matter from the point of view of the present senate’s shenanigans, especially their ethical challenges, their often amateurish interpretations of their powers, and their predilection for picking a fight at the drop of a hat. It is indeed obvious that in a matter of weeks, the senate will talk of amending the constitution to fall in line with the provisions of the EFCC Act concerning the appointment of the anti-graft body’s chairman. No one should deny the senate that right.
A Yola, Adamawa State-based lawyer, Bello Bakari, is reported to have gone to court to ask for a declaration that Mr Magu does not need confirmation. The move is frivolous and vexatious, a sheer waste of time. Has the senate come out to insist, in the light of Section 171 of the constitution, that Mr Magu needs confirmation, and that failing that, they would take steps against the Buhari presidency? The fact is that most Nigerians, including this column, were ignorant of the constitutional facts of the case. It is unlikely that even Mr Magu himself knew he stood on solid ground all along. If the president and the vice president knew, they did not say. They were too anxious to get the senate’s approval than to check the constitutional standing of their controversial appointee. Even in bringing the matter to light again, the vice president has seemed to hedge, apparently willing to fulfil all righteousness by returning the name to the senate so that the legislature would not feel slighted. Now that everyone knows the fact, the country should move on. It is clear that Mr Magu does not need confirmation; let him begin work in earnest.
Notwithstanding this, there is no doubt that the Buhari presidency mishandled the Magu confirmation case appallingly. That ineptitude is not about to stop. It is absolutely ridiculous for the government to insist and give the impression that only Mr Magu can do the EFCC job well. If the senate rejected him twice, and the presidency is anxious to avoid a conflict with the lawmaking body, why not look for a credible alternative, someone less given to histrionics, someone more articulate? Unlike the inappropriate examples Prof Osinbajo gave of the confirmation of two or three controversial Donald Trump nominees in the United States, Mr Magu is encountering his own road blocks in a senate controlled by the president’s political party. It is the president’s own people who do not want Mr Magu, not even the opposition per se.
Worse, though the senate is not fond of the constantly impolitic Mr Magu, whom they think will put many of them in jail, if not humiliate them by his irreverence, the president’s kitchen cabinet as well as more than half of the security services, particularly the Department of State Service (DSS), simply don’t give a hoot which sewer the acting anti-graft chairman is thrown. In its volatile report on Mr Magu, the DSS did not mince word about his unsuitability for the office. They still stand by their report, despite Prof Osinbajo’s expiatory remarks about how the president assessed the stand-off between the secret service and the EFCC boss. Given last week’s raid on the alleged safe house of the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) in Lagos, where about $43m was recovered, the division among the intelligence services seems primed to worsen. Both the president and the vice president, it is now obvious, will have to swim against the tide to stand by Mr Magu.
This column shows preference for Mr Magu to do the EFCC job, for he brings an uncommon and impressive zeal to the job. But neither this column nor anyone should harbour the illusion that only Mr Magu can do the job. In his second appearance before the senate, Mr Magu was not impressive. He was not as responsive and graspable to questions as the querulous and censorious senate hoped, and he was unduly tense and discomfited. Unable to marshal the facts required of him, and incapable of the logic that bowls enemies over, the mischievous senate was happy to reject him a second time, and to safely lie that the rejection had nothing to do with the unfavourable DSS report on the EFCC boss. The Buhari presidency has no reason to flaunt its divisions and untidiness in the face of Nigeria. If the president had been firm on the matter and had done what he should do from the beginning, Mr Magu would not be facing a herculean confirmation battle, the kind that has polarised the country, fouled the well of trust in the presidency itself, and brusquely shoved a very unflattering image of Nigeria in the face of the world.
By appearing a little conciliatory over Mr Magu’s confirmation, the vice president may be telling the senate that the Buhari presidency is not averse to reaching an accommodation with the lawmakers. Infuriated senators, ash on their faces, will however see through the humbug. They note that the president has been preternaturally quiet, preferring to snigger behind the door. They also know that they are dealing with a confused, divided and disconcerted presidency, against which if they hold off sufficiently they might yet triumph. They know, all things considered, that a few months to kick-starting the intense 2019 race, it is a question of time before the presidency becomes desperate and begins to relent.
Above all, the senators know that neither the president nor the vice president is really politically astute. One has the bearing, blood and tendons of lifelong soldiering, a ramrod military figure quite unused to the amenities of indirect speech, sarcasm and metaphors; in short an anti-politician. He can on his own hardly win two states in a row, let alone a whole region or country. And they know that the other, Prof Osinbajo, is a technocrat par excellence whose conscience is swaddled by so much ethical draperies as to possess little of the joyous kind of politics that sends both party apparatchiks and grassroots into rapturous frenzy. To be relevant in the months ahead, both soldier and technocrat would need the realpolitik most senators are famously familiar with and thrive on. It is this unhappy realisation that makes the president to sink deeper into his accustomed aloofness, and the vice president to waffle in the face of a bitter, pungent and vexatious senate.
If they don’t have the stomach to engage the senate in a long-drawn-out fight, why do they insist on Mr Magu? The DSS gave them a lifeline to avoid drowning in political conflict, and the senate offered them a safe parachute to avoid the cliffs. The wiser political choice would have been to scuttle Mr Magu’s ambition and find a good and competent replacement, selling the new man as a dark horse of immense gifts, probity and eloquence. By electing to perish with Mr Magu, and resting its convictions on constitutional anchors, the presidency is saying that it trusts the whimsical and sentimental affirmations of the public. It must now hope that the public support which it counts on to delineate and calibrate its political reactions has enough tensile strength to beat the senate’s swords into ploughshares. Otherwise, by 2018, not even 2019, the presidency, which has routinely placed itself above the constitution, could become so isolated and taunted that it would see no other way to avoid humiliation than to fall on that same metaphoric sword it has wielded gloatingly and carelessly.

April 16, 2017
Surprise! Anti-corruption war yet to begin

IN a remark he made when the National Association of Law Teachers visited him last Tuesday, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo gave the apocalyptic warning that Nigeria would be in trouble if the anti-corruption war failed. “If we are not able to sustain the fight against corruption,” he said, “we will end in a very, very bad way as a nation…We have seen it in so many different ways that at almost every state, corruption fights back and fights fiercely.” It is a popular opinion in Nigeria that the war against corruption is raging, and that corruption is also fighting back. But this popular opinion is chimerical. What is raging is not anti-corruption war, but common, ordinary law enforcement, perhaps festooned with some exaggerated and rhetorical flourish.
It is shocking that despite all the arguments offered in this place, anyone could still insist on the current poor definition of corruption to mean the greed, sometimes superlative greed, of a few bad eggs stealing public money by different and dangerous artifices. Going by this limited definition, it is believed that naming and shaming the thieves, even much more than successfully prosecuting them, would amount to a war against corruption, a successful war, that is. Maybe it is time to look for a doctor and install him as the nation’s anti-corruption czar. At least he would recognise that a symptomatic high temperature is not the same as malaria parasites, and that stealing money is not the beginning and the end of corruption.
President Muhammadu Buhari began the war against corruption by avoiding a definition of the crime and refusing to explain its course. If his government had a robust and deep understanding of the subject, it would fight the cancer sensibly and robustly. He should have asked himself why corruption is endemic and persistent. Had he asked, he would have seen it way beyond its symptomatic appearance. He would have seen it as a systemic, structural problem which neither religion, as his government and supporters falsely and boyishly hope, nor sanctimonious admonitions as they desperately imagine, can tackle successfully. Law enforcement is of course good, and the country’s improving biometrics and database will be of tremendous help in nabbing high-profile looters.
But far more importantly, the government ought to have assembled some of the nation’s brightest minds to first attempt an understanding of the problem and a mapping of the structure of corruption before designing a pragmatic antidote. The team would have done a laparotomy of the problem to expose its inner workings within the nation’s cultural, religious, judicial, political and economic abdomen. They would find that the problem has become deeply ingrained, waiting to metastasise, and has become integrated into all corners of the body. They would discover that so far the wrong legal, political and economic drugs have been insensibly administered to no avail. They would discover that without fundamentally changing the structure and workings of the economy, realigning and remoulding the country’s political paradigms, and coupling both remedies to powerful social and ethical codes, the government would just be tilting at windmills.
No anti-graft war is being fought, for it is not only the embezzler of billions that is corrupt but also the embezzler of thousands. Both are propelled by the same principles. What exists now is just law enforcement. And as everyone knows, what restraint can the law pose to a man facing starvation, who is sick and can’t afford treatment, who is poor and homeless and incapable of funding his children’s education? Stealing or extortion begins with one delicate kobo. If Nigeria wants to fight an anti-graft war, it has a duty to first know the enemy before planning how to beat him.

April 16, 2017