The Nation Newspaper

Category: Idowu Akinlotan

  • Why Acting CJN?

    Why Acting CJN?

    AT its emergency meeting of October 11, the National Judicial Council (NJC) recommended Justice Walter Onnoghen to President Muhammadu Buhari for consideration as the next Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN). He was to succeed Justice Mahmud Mohammed due for retirement on November 10. A few days before the former CJN retired, the president was yet to act on the recommendation. He neither said anything about the recommendation nor forwarded the name of the nominee to the Senate for confirmation. Eventually, he decided to swear in Justice Onnoghen in acting capacity. So, today, though the constitution envisages that a situation may arise to justify an acting CJN, it is still unclear why the president chose that option when he had enough time to forward the recommended name to the Senate, and the NJC decision was not in any way deadlocked.

    It is both wrong and unfair for the president to be silent on the matter. It breeds a lot of speculations and rumours about the president’s intentions. One of such speculations is that the acting CJN is corrupt. But when the Department of State Service (DSS) recently raided the residences of some judges, and Justice Onnoghen’s residence was rumoured to be involved, the secret service immediately issued a rebuttal, saying: “The service would want to clearly state that it has never invited Justice Walter Nkanu Onnoghen for investigation, neither is he being investigated by the service.” If the justice is not being investigated and there are neither petitions nor evidence of corruption against him, why was his name not forwarded to the Senate for confirmation? If the president is yet to make up his mind, surely he will have his reasons. What are they?

    The other speculation involves the politics of appointments under President Buhari. Should Justice Onnoghen be confirmed, he would be the first CJN from the southern part of Nigeria in 29 years. So, even if the president has genuine reasons not to want Justice Onnoghen as the substantive CJN, he has sufficiently given indication by his somewhat narrow base of appointments that suggests ethnic preferences that he is neither altruistic nor nationalistic. Many Nigerians will see his reluctance to heed the NJC nomination as further proof of his sectionalism. Had his appointments been representative, and had Nigerians seen him as a patriot and national unifier par excellence — someone completely blind to ethnic and religious considerations — he would have been able to convince Nigerians about his objections to the appointment of a substantive CJN, in case he has any. For whether he likes it or not, it is clear his refusal to immediately forward Justice Onnoghen’s name to the Senate has nothing to do with administrative laxity on his or his team’s part.

    Sooner or later, the president will have to do or say something about the CJN. Silence is not an option. He will either forward Justice Onnoghen’s name to the Senate soon or tell the country why he is hesitating. Judging from his actions and appointments since his assumption of office last year, and the discomfort and anguish these have caused many people, the president will find it extremely hard to justify approving a different CJN other than Justice Onnoghen, especially because the next in line to the Cross River State-born jurist hails from the North. Appointing an acting CJN is unprecedented. The constitution that makes provision for this option does not envisage that without reason, and suddenly, the president can simply embrace that discomfiting alternative, particularly in the judiciary.

    In the past few months, the Judiciary has been assailed on every side by law enforcement agencies and critics. While the former CJN and all other stakeholders acknowledged judicial corruption and the terrifying implication for the cause of justice, they nonetheless tried to defend the judiciary’s independence, sensing that far beyond the issue of corruption, the third arm of government was under invasion. Justice Mohammed barely sustained the independence of the judiciary during his tenure. How far the acting CJN will defend that independence remains to be seen, for he is assuming office at a time when jurists need all the wisdom in the world to navigate the treacherous rapids upon which the judiciary could easily capsize or shipwreck entirely. In acting capacity, the CJN could be tempted to concede too much, for his legitimacy is already called into question by the nature of his appointment. The power and prestige of that office are gradually being eroded. Indeed, in his first speech after being sworn-in, Justice Onnoghen assured the president of “…The fullest cooperation of the third arm of government in the continuation of the war against corruption and misconduct in the judiciary.” Those who have pressured the judiciary into some form of penance and rectitude in the past few weeks expected such an ingratiating statement. But to the judicious, that statement is fraught with a lot of anxieties.

    It is not the business of the judiciary to support or oppose the policies and programmes of the government of the day. Their duty is to dispense justice, pure and simple. By promising support, the wary could read troubling meanings into the acting CJN’s statement, fearing that the judiciary could begin bending over backwards to accommodate the judicial malfeasance of a Buhari presidency that shows itself increasingly intolerant of criticisms and dissent, whether from those who genuinely disagree with government policies, whom the presidency scornfully labels as naysayers, or those who caution against the presidency’s frightful meddlesomeness in the judiciary, but whom the government dismisses as part of the corruption force fighting back. The acting CJN’s statement may, therefore, be more troubling than its denotative meaning. Under the Buhari presidency, especially at a time many Nigerians are carried away by emotions rather than substance, the country desperately needs a truly independent and ethically sound judiciary. The acting CJN must not be tempted to give in to the government in any way in order not to justify the fears of many Nigerians that the acting appointment is nothing but a tool to subjugate the judiciary and ensure compliance. Justice Onnoghen needs to be resolute in the cause of justice and in the defence of the independence of the judiciary.

    In any case, since President Buhari has not explained why he prefers an acting CJN, no one can say for sure what his motives and intentions are. This is dangerous. Yes, somewhere along the line, Nigerian governments imbibed the habit of appointing acting Inspectors General of Police (IGPs); but that nonsense has not filtered into or at least become a habit in the army because of its harmful implications for national security. Appointing an acting CJN is unprecedented and totally undesirable, except of course the government has ulterior plans similar to those of the Borno State government under former governor Ali Modu Sheriff. Senator Sheriff today poses as a nationalist and patriot, but as governor he supervised a disgraceful agenda of ethnic chauvinism in the appointment of his state’s chief judge.

    Since the constitution provides for an acting chief judge, the Borno State government kept appointing chief judges in the state in acting capacity, though they were indigenes, until eventually the gangling Justice Kashim Zannah, a Kanuri, came up and was promptly confirmed as the substantive chief judge. Justices Ibrahim Shata Bdilya and Adzira Gana Mshelia, a woman, both acted for three months before being shunted aside. Both Justices Bdilya and Mshelia, a woman, are now in the Court of Appeal. Both are non-Kanuri Christians and believed to come from Hawul Local Government Area. It was even suggested that given the intensity of the terrible politics of the time, had any of the two Borno judges been Muslim but non-Kanuri, he or she would have been sidelined.

    It is hoped that the Buhari presidency is not acting out this deplorable script. That is why the president must speak up. Justice Onnoghen, who is probably aware of the chicaneries arrogantly enacted in the Borno State judiciary, will also hope that he is not a pawn in a convoluted game of chess. This is why he must intensify the work begun by his predecessor, Justice Mohammed, to cleanse the judiciary of corruption and fiercely defend its integrity and independence. The constitution provides for a three-month acting appointment, which can be extended only once. Justice Onnoghen should ignore whatever secret plans anyone might have, and instead focus on the task ahead. Let him face the cause of justice, and let him leave Nigerians, to the extent that they can be trusted to be discerning, to face up to the government on the curious and insensitive politics of the appointment of the chief justice.

    It is not just the history of the judiciary that is being written in these trying times. Given the presidency’s refusal to comply with court orders on those admitted to bail and the appalling genocide being perpetrated against the Shia community in Nigeria, for which there will of course be accountability sooner or later, the history of this government and its chief protagonists is also being written. That history will tell of pretentious and disreputable leaders who have neither instinct nor vision for nationally unifying ideals; of an impotent police force which engages in handwringing and genuflection before traditional rulers as paedophiles snatch underage girls from Kano and Katsina streets, forcibly convert them to a different religion and marry them off in sex-crazed obsession with children; of a state judicial system such as Kano’s that criminally connive at the murder of a 74-year-old woman, Bridget Agbahime, bludgeoned in the presence of her husband and other credible witnesses; and of a country being provoked into anarchy by jaded, extremely parochial and offensive ideas and policies. Hopefully, the Justice Onnoghen matter will not be added to the needless complications that have put the country’s nose out of joint.

  • Kano Shiites violence and looming darkness

    DURING last Monday’s symbolic Arbaeen trek by Shiites in Kano, nine people were reportedly killed when violence broke out between policemen and the sect. Eight of the dead were Shiite members and one was a policeman. The police had warned against any procession, citing security reasons, but the sect embarked on the trek, also citing freedom of religion reasons. The state’s police commissioner, Rabiu Yusuf, who spoke to the press after the violence, claimed that the sect blocked roads, inconvenienced the public and were armed ‘to the teeth’ with bows and arrows, machetes and catapults. A day later, the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Idris Ibrahim, justified the killings, insisting that the sect members were armed and the police had a responsibility to maintain law and order and defend themselves.

    The two police officers argued that rather than criticise the disproportionate force employed by the police in tackling the Shiites, they expected Nigerians to appreciate the sacrifice policemen make to keep the peace. Religious freedom, said the IGP incredulously, should be limited to places of worship only. It was apparent policemen had preconceived ideas of how to tackle the obstreperous Shiites far above the rights vouchsafed sect members by the constitution and way beyond the menace the police, presidency and members of the public think they constitute. The Kano killings, a disturbing progression from the December 12-14 Zaria killings in which soldiers killed and buried 347 Shiite members, and the October attacks orchestrated by the public and the police in Sokoto, Kano, Katsina and Kaduna against sect members during one of their processions, seem to illustrate how unprofessionally and provocatively the government is handling the Shiites crisis.

    What is not in doubt is that the All Progressives Congress (APC) governments at the federal and at many states levels do not have an inspiring idea of how to handle dissent and deviancy. Very quickly, and when sufficiently provoked, they often dispense with the law and the constitution. In Zaria last December, they argued that the Shiites were attempting to constitute a state within a state. How that deviancy, even if proved, justified the killing of 347 people, many of them women and children, is not clear. Why the Kaduna State government summarily also proscribed the Shia movement in Kaduna State, and Plateau State followed suit, is also hard to explain. Of course the inanity of the proscription is already dawning on the state governments. They will need extraordinary amount of killings, indeed genocide, to exterminate the sect. Such gargantuan atrocity is no longer possible. Indeed, even the Zaria killings, and perhaps too, the new Kano killings, will sometime in the future be the subject of a major probe. The masterminds of those killings and the governments which connived at them will be called to account.

    Unfortunately, Nigerians have been lulled into acquiescing to the killings on the grounds that the Shiites are a problematic sect. It is true that the sect, especially during symbolic processions, has been insufferable and imposing. It is also true that some state governments have been frustrated by their seeming impotence in reining in the very expressive and muscular sect. But it is incumbent on the government to intelligently find ways and methods of keeping the peace rather than resorting to genocide. Instigating the public to attack the sect, as happened in Kaduna, Katsina and Sokoto, leading to the death of some 13 Shiite members, is shocking and deplorable. Killing them, as was done in Zaria last year and Kano last week, is nothing but genocide for which the law enforcement agents and their minders will be called to account. Moreover, the sect’s leader, Ibrahim el-Zakzaky, has been detained without trial and without warrant for about a year in open defiance of the law and the constitution.

    What is even worse is that with each state-sanctioned deadly crackdown, the sect is being goaded into defiance until, if care is not taken, they respond violently. It happened with Boko Haram, which sadly the police themselves precipitated when they extrajudicially murdered sect leader Mohammed Yusuf and two others. The trial of the policemen accused of that extrajudicial murder has virtually grounded to an indefensible halt. The country is in uproar in many areas, with more revolts either breaking out or planned. The law enforcement and security agencies are stretched to the limit. What wisdom do Nigerian leaders need to rein in deviant citizens that they cannot find in past examples of mishandled revolts?

  • Trump and fateful U.S. election

    Trump and fateful U.S. election

    ONE of the reasons the United States of America is pejoratively called the policeman of the world is its insistence on global adherence to the values and virtues that have ennobled humanity over the centuries. The policeman was not always the best law and rights enforcer, and sometimes he showed himself to be clay-footed, but he projected human rights in ways that endeared him to many counties, made him denounce Chinese and Russian abridgement of those rights, caution and cajole African countries to embrace strong institutions instead of promoting strongmen, and often try to coax or discipline the rest of the world to embrace libertarian values. In short, the U.S., despite its own weaknesses and appalling race records, rose over the last hundred years to become the conscience of the world, especially when juxtaposed against Europe’s equivocation, malleability and vacillation. Whether acknowledged or not, it was this zeal to promote and defend human rights and other great human values that have propelled America to world leadership. Military machines are a small part of that greatness.
    But that position is today threatened by the Republican Party’s Donald Trump’s victory in last week’s presidential poll. Hillary Clinton of the Democratic Party lost. Mr Trump’s life and ideas, if they are worth anything, brutally and arrogantly refute the foundations of America’s greatness. The vacuum a Trump presidency will, therefore, create will not simply foster fascist regimes, it will also obliterate any obstacle to authoritarianism, whether in Asia or more accurately in Africa, especially in places where there is no genuine democratic conviction. Even before Mr Trump won the election, some African countries had prepared their exit from the International Criminal Court (ICC), fearing that the court unfairly targets them. That exit may now be hastened. Since Mr Trump never believed in women’s rights, press freedom and the rights and liberties of minorities, his dangerous proclivity will encourage African countries like Nigeria already struggling with the constraining concept of the rule of law to pussyfoot.
    Worse, in the near future, there will be no one to fill the vacuum the US. under Mr Trump will be creating: not China, not Russia, and not Europe. The U.S. may be confronting a major tragedy of untold proportions with the assumption of office of a businessman and politician who finds the inspiring philosophies and uplifting examples of the great framers of the American constitution an inconvenience, but the tragedy is worse for Africa whose rulers have never felt comfortable with constitutions they love to amend for entirely selfish reasons, or the rule of law, which they foolishly believe limits their elbow room to impose law and order. The scale of the tragedy will begin to manifest in the next one year or so as more countries take the liberty to enact and inspire their own cocktails of repressive measures to whip their countries into line, as the Filipino president Rodrigo Duterte has already done. With the emergence of the vacuous Mr Trump, there will be no one left to give voice to the voiceless, and no one found to defend the defenceless. With so repugnant a personality promoted into the White House by essentially economic and racist reasons, it is no exaggeration to say that American prestige and power will start to erode, and with it the signal virtues that had shaped human development in the past few decades, and which America was its chief custodian.
    Commentators have focused almost exclusively on Mr Trump’s personal failings to justify their intense disapproval of him. He had trounced their darling candidate, Mrs Clinton, whose foibles are, however, not as shocking or off-putting as that of the Republican Party’s candidate. But in the end, even if reluctantly, the outraged world which had looked to the U.S. for leadership and had expected a fairly predictable and cerebral person to occupy the White House, has no choice but to concede to American voters the right to put anyone they like in office, whether that choice is sensible or not. The almost universally reviled Mr Trump will now have the distinguished honour of sitting on the chair once occupied and ennobled by George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.
    There are fears the president-elect will be unable, even incapable, of ennobling that distinguished chair. As many leading U.S. newspapers have said and defiantly reiterated in excoriating editorials even after the election, the president-elect ran a most divisive and appalling campaign that bore disturbing parallels to German fascist propaganda in the 1930s. But he won, obviously because his campaign and what he stands for resonated hugely with the electorate, especially the disaffected, anxious and dispossessed middle-class working American families, many of whom some analysts suggest would probably have voted for the Democratic Party presidential aspirant, Bernie Sanders, had the Vermont senator been picked. But whether Mrs Clinton’s loss had to do with her seeming inability to develop a resonating message or her character flaws, or with Mr Trump’s destructive manipulation of base and bigoted emotions, or with the meddling of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), or with other more arcane and complex issues, both external and local, the Democrats lost the election and must contend with that fact, including how to rebuild their party’s platforms going forward.
    Whoever won the election would have had to contend with an obviously bitterly divided America. The idiosyncratic Mr Trump will naturally have a much tougher job of healing those divisions since he was in fact the major exponent of the polarisation certain to convulse the American system for a long time to come. His spontaneity, abrasiveness, coarseness, not to say his indefensible attitude towards the media, women and minorities, are bound to reverberate throughout the system. Mr Trump, as president-elect, should naturally be transforming from a campaigner to president, assuming he is capable of that separation. But there is nothing he has said or done before and after his victory that gives hope he is in fact capable of separating the two contrasting and presumably conflicting personalities: one so repugnant it is hard to imagine it on the American throne, and the other so abysmally flighty it is frightening to imagine what damage it could do to American prestige internationally. Either way, U.S. voters may soon discover they have probably bought a pig in a poke.
    The American voter knows where the shoe pinches him, and therefore has the right to choose a president who may not necessarily fit into the perspectives, and cater to the sensitivities, of the rest of the world. But it is dangerous when, despite the developments around the world, that voter appears inured to the political events around him, especially events that have far-reaching consequences for U.S power and global peace. No candidate who understands the components of U.S. power and global dominance can afford to undermine or disregard his country’s media, or sneer at the values the country has projected over the decades, many of which have become universally accepted. By electing Mr Trump, American voters have not seemed to demonstrate the discriminating, nuanced and breathtaking understanding expected of citizens of a superpower country. They are not infallible. Nor does it seem they gave too much thought to the control insidiously exercised by outsiders on their electoral process through WikiLeaks and the alleged Russian-inspired hacking of the Democratic Party computer servers and Hillary Clinton’s emails.
    Post-election protests will not reverse the outcome of the election. They’ll only probably remind Mr Trump that the country is more divided than he thinks, and perhaps also compel him to recognise that more people actually voted for his opponent than his electoral college dominance implies. It is not obvious he would be restrained by that fact, nor by the widespread protests against his victory. He is also unlikely to understand the implications of the resurgent and probably destructive nationalism his election will engender. That nationalism was triggered by Brexit which saw the United Kingdom exiting the European Union (EU). That nationalism, which the U.S. under Mr Trump will domesticate and encourage, may sweep through Europe dealing a final death blow to multiculturalism and the balance of power that had seemed to sustain peace on the continent for many decades. That nationalism, which may gradually morph into some form of isolationism in the U.S., will, however, be unable to anticipate and checkmate the nationalism of competing powers such as Russia and the stable and prosperous China. In fact, it may even partially weaken the intricate network of alliances and military coalitions that have guaranteed world peace and stability.
    The U.S. president-elect cannot give what he does not have. Regardless of whether he surrounds himself with competent aides or not, and assuming his presidency is not hijacked like that of George W. Bush was captured by the demagogic exponents of the New American Century, Mr Trump will continue to his erratic, bombastic self. That self is, sadly, fundamentally at odds with the principles and practice of democracy. And though the simple arithmetic of his election cannot be questioned, that self really possesses instincts that are wrongly placed to detect just how pervasively his person and views chip away at the enduring symbols and ramparts of American superpower status.
    Disturbingly, many analysts are beginning to fear that the cracks they see in the U.S. may be reminding them of Rome in the Fifth century, Macedonian Empire after Alexander the Great, and even Britain after World War II when a paranoid Winston Churchill mournfully complained that the exhausting and debilitating military victory achieved over Adolf Hitler had sapped Britain of its vitality and transferred global dominance into the hands of the U.S. That country across the Atlantic, added Mr Churchill gloomily, might be too naive or too inexperienced to understand the Soviet Union, and too bewitched and undiscriminating to understand the complex nuances of the geopolitics of power. Might history be repeating itself, or had finally a moron taken the White House who is both incapable of ennobling the American seat of power and of being ennobled by it, no matter how much the system tried?

  • Ondo governorship poll of controversies

    Ondo governorship poll of controversies

    IN their response to allegations of orchestrated fiddling with delegates’ votes during the All Progressives Congress (APC) primary election, leaders of the party simply brushed off protests by three aspirants whom they said did not do enough to substantiate their complaints. The three — Olusegun Abraham, Ajayi Boroffice and Olusola Oke — felt so aggrieved that they distanced themselves from subsequent party activities. The party’s preferred candidate, Rotimi Akeredolu, who is also believed to be a sort of lightning rod for a budding faction of the party based in Abuja, has felt so confident about victory in the November 26 poll that he has carried on regardless of the feelings of the aggrieved troika. Yet, the troika commands such a large following in the state that it is near impossible for candidate Akeredolu, a lawyer and senior advocate, to win without their support.
    But whether Mr Akeredolu would win or not, it is chastening that the APC has not felt the need to discharge the burden of justice evoked by the primary election, let alone convince the three aggrieved aspirants that they had legitimate concerns about the motives of the party in skewing the primary in one person’s favour. Mr Akeredolu’s backers felt so emboldened that they even organised a photo opportunity for their candidate with the president sometime last week. Could that translate into victory? It is doubtful, for the only man really scouring one rural community and town after another is Mr Oke, who is also a lawyer and grassroots politician. He is candidate of the Alliance for Democracy (AD) to which he defected.
    The two Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) factional candidates, Jimoh Ibrahim from the Ali Modu Sheriff faction and Eyitayo Jegede of the Ahmed Makarfi faction, are embroiled in a bitter struggle to get the Independent National Electoral Commission’s final approval. The governor, Olusegun Mimiko, is with Mr Jegede. Consequently, the two disputants’ campaigns have been constrained by the court cases hanging on their necks. With Mr Akeredolu not really a dyed-in-the-wool politician, and Messrs Jegede and Ibrahim playing cat and mouse, it has left the field and the whole excitement to Mr Oke. Should he secure the tacit support of both Messrs Boroffice and Abraham, it could make him the man to beat on the 26th. That is of course assuming that the pusillanimous INEC can manage to conclude the election and ensure fidelity to electoral principles and procedures.
    What is, however, most important in the Ondo poll is the confusion plaguing the APC. Not only has the party’s leadership in Abuja been hijacked by forces which also betrayed Kogi State in the last governorship election, it is now also clear that the party is engaged in an internal struggle to demystify one of their own in a campaign that makes party leaders subordinate party principles to private and selfish goals. If this is not terrible enough, then consider that the party, by disavowing internal justice, is also showing that its mantra has nothing to do with the great and lofty philosophies it has propagated since 2013, but the practical and grasping philosophy of intrigues and subversion to secure personal advantage.
    This column usually endorses a candidate for important elections irrespective of their outcomes. It has decided to endorse Mr Oke, whether he wins or loses. The reason is that right from the inception of this column, it has never sided with injustice, especially one so flagrant and insulting as the one that produced Mr Akeredolu. Should Messrs Boroffice and Abraham decide to bury the hatchet to ensure APC victory, this column will still gladly side with Mr Oke to underscore the point that yielding an inch to unfairness, not to talk of one triggered by a determination to punish or outwit a faction of the party’s leadership, is embarking on a dangerous misadventure whose consequences cannot be gauged. But why not Mr Ibrahim or Mr Jegede? Mr Ibrahim is a spoiler in the mould of Donald Trump of the U.S. He stands grandly and obtrusively for nothing. And Mr Jegede, despite his geniality and sophistication, is a stooge of Dr Mimiko, the obtuse thinker and non-performing governor whose tainted support is a negation of the little political morality his protégé claims to possess and represent.

  • Abdication far from Buhari’s mind

    Abdication far from Buhari’s mind

    FOR two days last week, the media overplayed President Muhammadu Buhari’s mournful admission of the frustrations he faced when he assumed office in 2015. He had wanted to ‘abscond’ when he discovered that the treasury was almost empty, he told members of Course 38 of the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS), one of the few occasions he spoke keenly and eloquently outside a prepared text. He, however, probably meant abdication. For no president absconds; they abdicate if sufficiently pressured. But beyond the meaning of his words, the media were also puzzled whether he meant what he said literally, or he was simply underscoring his disappointment by reaching over the top to shock his audience, or perhaps more intriguingly he was indulging in one of his often arcane jokes. It is hard to tell which one agitated him.
    If the passion with which he schemed for a return to the Nigerian presidency is factored in, including his experiences during three failed presidential campaigns between 2003 and 2011 that made him weep on one occasion, it is unlikely the president had abdication on his mind. Perhaps he was joking, then. It is true some of his jokes are difficult to disentangle from his fiery and mocking putdowns of the despised modern ways he regularly frets about and the loathsome counterculture that makes him so uneasy and sometimes susceptible to gaffes during foreign press conferences; even then his talk of possible abdication in his early days in office seems incongruous. He was doubtless numbed by what he met in office in May 2015, and disturbed that his long-standing view of what it meant to rule a country was being dealt a massive blow. But what in fact ailed him was finding the right words to convey to his esteemed audience the confusion that enveloped him when he saw the shredded treasury.
    That distinguished audience of the National Institute, the Nigerian equivalence of the French Enarque, of course knew enough not to take his statement at face value. They knew he spoke facetiously, even if he were to insist, like he did when his wife, Aisha, took him to task on his administrative style, that he was dead serious when everyone else thought his view on women was anachronistic. So if abdication was never on his mind, and he was not telling a joke, what else could be the matter? for the use of the word ‘abscond’ was quite a serious thing to contemplate. He was right to note that crude oil prices fell from the dizzying heights it reached under his predecessors, and he was even more forthright to moan over the lack of sustainable investments in all facets of the economy.
    But much more fundamentally, the ‘abscond’ statement was a disturbing window into his unconvincing worldview on politics and governance, and perhaps too his person. He apparently sees governance as a simple process of allocating huge and readily available resources to easily ranked needs instead of the rather difficult and complicated process most economists know it to be. He fails to see governance as an opportunity for a leader to respond to both scarcity and surplus with equal zeal, and the character to be stoical in the face of the dangers that accompany such challenges. When he thought of abdication, he apparently showed quite openly why his presidential campaign last year was based on fallacies and make-belief; that he did not commission a study of the country’s finances and prospects; and that he did nothing in his decades out of office to re-examine the paradigms that doomed the military regime he led between 1983 and 1985.
    Worse, he seemed to give indication that even after winning the election, he did little to prepare himself to assume office with the promptitude and diligence the desperate occasion demanded. He could not have pretended he did not know he won because his predecessor was judged a failure, nor that signs everywhere did not give ample warning that the economy had been ruined by sloth and corruption. To then assume office and be flustered by an empty treasury, to the extent of even contemplating abdication, is a self-incrimination like no other.
    There are not many aspiring leaders petrified by challenges. And there are fewer still so naive as to foreclose big and epoch-defining challenges coming along. To approach leadership with the enervating mind-set of being elected to preside over a boom is to prepare to underachieve or simply muddle along. Great leaders are forged on the anvils of crises and in the storms of conflicts and clashes of expectations. They may not have all the statistics and full descriptions of the problems they meet or expect, but they come equipped to make such a definitive impact upon their countries that when they leave office, their societies are changed forever. To contemplate abdication is a sign of weakness, a dangerous indication that somewhere in the leader’s mind lurk defeat, rage and extremism in a lethal, seething brew. It also indicates that the chances of embracing desperate but unworkable solutions are high, and that reverses and failures will heighten the whining and blame game.
    In that same speech before the National Institute Course 38, President Buhari demonstrates his aversion to a multidisciplinary approach to solving Nigeria’s problems. Whenever he speaks about the country’s problems, it is to whine about former leaders’ incompetence and dereliction of duty. He does not see the problems as a bigger and better opportunity to develop a creative, workable paradigm and comprehensive framework for remoulding the country’s politics, economics and society. Yet, he needs an integrated solution, one that recasts the foundations upon which to rebuild and restructure the entire system like no president has ever done. Simply returning oil to its primacy in national revenue or regaining economic equilibrium and stability will not erase the country’s problems or propel it automatically to greatness.
    President Buhari has not often spoken profoundly on tough issues within and outside the country. He may not even have all the wisdom or energy required to redo the country. But he must possess the intuition to assemble the right people to do the work, and must nurture the right instincts to accurately gauge work done. So far, he has ignored the party that brought him into office, and neglected party programmes and manifesto. Through a few aides, he micromanages a country of about 180m people, a people of different religions, cultures, parties and ideologies. Governing a 21st century society is not the simple job of militarily dictating untried policies that were regnant in the last century. Today, societies are unravelling along many dangerous fault lines. A leader without the knowledge and charisma to engage ethnic and religious groups, not to talk of fringe groups as well, and find an acceptable national mean and fulcrum upon which to rebuild and balance a just, egalitarian and inclusive society, is simply wasting time.
    The unvarnished fact is that President Buhari’s extempore speech of last Thursday to NIPSS Course 38 is a grave and disturbing indication that he has not started the arduous task of moulding the society he dreams about. Yet, that task is urgent. More, he needs the best brains from all parts of the country, political parties, religions (including sects), and ideologies. If he can’t find the discipline, detachment and good sense to understand what he needs to do and how to assemble the men and women able to accomplish the task, he will himself become a lost cause. After all, the inelegant, oversimplified and sometimes disdainful manner he has approached the constitution, rule of law, reform and cleansing of the judiciary, and handling of difficult and even deviant elements within the society, show how inadequately he has prepared both for Nigeria and the 21st century.

  • CJN Mohammed departs in a blaze of controversy

    CJN Mohammed departs in a blaze of controversy

    IN four days, the tenure of the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Mahmud Mohammed, will end. That tenure began two years ago in November 2014 without any indication of the turmoil that would engulf and nearly consume it in the closing weeks of his tenure. Judicial insiders will remember how keenly the outgoing CJN defended judicial independence, guarding it against encroachment from the executive arm especially, almost to the point of seeming to be indifferent to the salient issues of corruption buffeting the judiciary. What the public may not know, however, is that even before the turmoil of the past few weeks, the CJN had laid the framework for a new ethical regime for the judiciary. But the framework came out only after the huge scandal that ensnared two Supreme Court justices, among some other judges, came into the open. Nor do most Nigerians, judges and lawyers know what transpired behind closed doors as the CJN battled the president over the latter’s attitude to the judiciary. Perhaps Justice Mohammed will tell his story much later.
    By cruel fate, what many will remember Justice Mohammed’s tenure for is the dramatic manner seven judges became victims of what the secret service described in flowery language as a sting operation. In one dramatic moment, the Supreme Court, once revered by all, was dragged in the mud over allegations of crass commercialisation of justice. Those few dreadful days exposed the Supreme Court like never before, showing some of the justices to be poor in judgement and erudition. Those feverish days, too, showed that the judiciary had been left to rot for too long.
    The 70-year-old Taraba State-born Justice Mohammed has kept a very dignified and quiet demeanour throughout the turbulent closing weeks of his tenure. He will continue to be respected for his fierce defence of the judiciary, especially the brave manner he stood up to a rampaging and indiscrete executive arm. But there is no doubt he is bowing out in a blaze of controversy, with his dream of a strong and ethical judiciary all but shattered, and his retirement blighted by regrets of a lost paradise. It is left to his successor, expectedly Justice Walter Nkanu Onnoghen, to pick up the pieces of a judiciary torn to shreds by internal failure, external humiliation and public distrust.

  • Win or lose, Trump sullies America’s reputation

    Win or lose, Trump sullies America’s reputation

    WIN or lose, Donald Trump, candidate of the Republican Party in this year’s presidential election, will cast a long shadow over the global reputation of the United States of America. The erratic, brash and braggart billionaire businessman has affected the U.S. so deeply that the world is puzzled whether they ever knew that country as well as they thought or the media projected. Few gave Mr Trump any chance of blitzing his way through the Republican primaries. By a combination of bluster, invectives, nonconformism, clever deployment of disinformation, and sheer braggadocio, he did what many thought he couldn’t. He bested the opposition within the Republican Party and, as the perfect political iconoclast of this election, virtually took the party’s ideologues and apparatchiks to the cleaners. Should he win, the U.S., not to talk of his party, would be changed, possibly forever, in ways even Americans themselves would find astonishing.
    Mr Trump’s progress has been phenomenal. He started as a rank outsider, and has remained and frolicked in that position. For much of the campaign, he alienated Republican leaders, defied the establishment whether in politics or business, scorned Washington, and provoked into fury key political demographics like women and minorities. Yet, his appeal has not only been sustained, it has even flourished. Until about two weeks ago, he was virtually fighting alone, and was trailing in the polls. Now he has shocked pundits by outperforming his Democratic Party opponent, Hillary Clinton, in proportion to the efforts, resources, personnel and support put into the race. In contrast, Mrs Clinton has had the entire Democratic Party machine behind her, the support of all living U.S. ex-presidents, a disproportionate number of former intelligence chiefs, the creme de la creme of the entertainment and sport industries, the intelligentsia, and nearly all world leaders minus Russia’s Vladimir Putin. Yet, the race is an astonishing dead heat.
    But the 2016 presidential election is more a reflection of the real America than a barometer of the persons and values of the candidates. The two candidates are a study in stark contrast, so the choice of who to vote for ought not to be as complicated as the general impression of the two candidates’ repugnant manners. A vote for Mr Trump will be clearly an endorsement of divisiveness, hate and bigotry, and a nostalgic attempt to retain the political and cultural demographics of a bygone era. On the other hand, a vote for Mrs Clinton will be an endorsement of the steadying sameness of the conventional but stultifying politics that has dominated and shaped American life for a long time, and the paradoxical safety which that politics represents. The world probably wants that predictability and safety. But, apparently, a huge number of Americans long for something else: some sort of revolution, some sort of change, perhaps a beguiling insularity and nationalism.
    It is, however, significant that at a time when increasingly unstable global politics needs a strong, perceptive and dependable U.S. to provide leadership, no matter how imperfect, the American voter appears to be inured to the shifting dynamics of an unstable unipolar world, an aggressive Russia attempting to rebuild a bipolar world, a fracturing Europe confused about the future, and much of the rest of the world agitated, unstable or impoverished. In short, world leadership may be up for grabs, and it is precisely at this inauspicious time that America is unsure which direction to head: Mr Trump’s eclecticism, erraticism and lack of profundity; or Mrs Clinton’s reflectiveness, depth and global perspective. That they find themselves in this quandary is a testament to the shifting tectonics of American politics which the winner will have to grapple with in the years to come. The outcome of that internal struggle, like next Tuesday’s election, is by no means certain.

  • Segun Oni’s blather

    Segun Oni’s blather

    IF there is any doubt what the President Muhammadu Buhari thinks of his leadership style in relation to the rule of law and the war against corruption, Segun Oni, Deputy National Chairman (South) of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), dispels it. As a top leader of the party, he should know the goings-on in the party. More, he seems absolutely convinced of the rightness of their cause and the appropriateness of their methods. In his view, which he expressed enthusiastically to the press in Abuja recently, the rule of law is not only an inconvenience, it is also a hindrance that must be tinkered with or disposed of for a while.

    His view, which will be examined below, tallies with that of the president himself, and it is a view that is gaining alarming currency in the government, especially among key agencies and ministries such as the Department of State Service (DSS), the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), and unusually the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF). It is also a view that is long-standing with the president and scarily coterminous with his 1984 view on the press. What is becoming clear is that the government is persuaded about jettisoning the rule of law for a time in order to give fillip to the anti-graft war. How to bury the rule of law for a season is their main worry. They have convinced themselves that the corruption war cannot be fought within the constricting ambit of the rule of law, and have thus begun a desultory attack on it as well as a selective and narrow deployment of its probosces.

    The Buhari presidency senses that the tide of public opinion appears to have turned in their favour, and are therefore minded to take the extraordinary measures needed to project their forceful approach of sweeping the Augean stables. Already, their opponents and critics are being selectively hounded, and security agents have brushed aside protests and squeamishness from certain quarters to enforce their own interpretation of the law. Insidiously, the judiciary, which has admittedly affronted public trust for years, is being gradually made amenable to the government’s whims even as the nation watches the spectacle of haughty government officials characterising President Buhari’s administrative style as incontestably unique.

    Mr Oni, a former Ekiti State governor, is even more open and assertive in declaring that the federal government is left with no other option but to brush aside the rule of law for a time. The rule of law, he declares magisterially, is inadequate for the tough demands of the moment. But he declines to say how long the suspension would last. Hear him: “If the rule of law is left to be what it is, nothing will be happening. If you leave this war in the hand of people who would not be able to prosecute it, it means we give up and God forbid that we should fail. People are talking about rule of law and so on. How much have we achieved by rule of law? Are they saying there is no corruption? If there is corruption, what has been achieved in terms of stopping it? Or we should now say we cannot stop it? Then we should institutionalise it. At one stage, there must be a stop. In Rawlings’ Ghana, he applied certain measures. God forbid that in Nigeria. Maybe we should leave things until people get so frustrated and resort to self-help. Things cannot continue the way they are because everybody knows the corrupt people, but everybody is keeping their voices low even when they know corrupt people.

    “Don’t lawyers know corrupt judges? Don’t judges also know corrupt judges? If the system within the judiciary is unable to deal with this, so nobody should talk? People would get so frustrated that the people out there would come out in arms against the whole system and God forbid that. So, what we are trying to do now is to prevent the collapse of the whole system and people taking laws into their hands. If the National Judicial Council (NJC) had been able to deal with the issue of corruption decisively in such a way that people are very confident, I am sure this would probably not be necessary. But not much has been done and people are frustrated. The whole system is complaining; people are complaining. I want to see how Nigerian judges or lawyers could raise their hands and say, there is no corruption.

    “Nobody has defended the system so far. Even the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) has not defended the system and say there is no corruption. What people are talking about is how we are going about it. Let them come up with alternative ways of achieving that. Once they tell us, we assure you we will fish out all corrupt people out of this system within six months. Give us this time, then there would be no need for any extra measures. But if we don’t have such assurance from anywhere, we have to continue to do what we believe is the right way to go about it. This is an extra-ordinary circumstance and people should see it as such. From the reaction so far, I think that people are happy that we are taking the fight to the doorstep of corruption.”

    But is it really true that the anti-corruption war is incompatible with the rule of law? Only the Buhari presidency and its host of eager sycophants believe that nonsense. The first thing this coterie did was to frame the narrative in such a way that the corruption war and the rule of law are seen to be mutually exclusive. Pursuant to this unimaginative and narrow-minded view, those who warn of the consequences of flouting the rule of law are cast as opponents of the war. This is sheer disingenuousness. Mr Oni sheepishly and cynically asks how the rule of law can be reconciled with the anti-corruption war. Had he been a democrat in word or deed, the answer would not be as mystifying as he lets on.

    The impression that Mr Oni and the Buhari presidency give is of a government that is at once distrustful of the rubrics of democracy and incapable of thinking its way through what their imaginations have erected as constitutional barriers to the anti-graft war. Democracy is a rigorous concept that needs discipline to practice, even when that discipline costs its adherents private and public benefits, including broken hearts, bruised egos and forfeited material objectives. For many African leaders, nay Third World leaders, there is nothing as frustrating as the often slow grind and imperious, lumbering rules and methods necessary to sustain democracy, when other quick and more immensely satisfying measures are cheaply available. Though Mr Oni is not the first top APC leader or anyone connected with the Buhari presidency to mention the Ghanaian example with romantic fondness, it is nonetheless very troubling that he is beguiled by the brutal and ultimately questionable method Jerry Rawlings embraced in ‘sanitising’ Ghanaian society.

    It is urgent to raise a standard against such brutal methods, for the Buhari presidency, DSS, EFCC, AGF and now APC leaders, not to say many other Nigerians, are calling for the diminution of the rule of law and the enthronement of the rule of man, supposedly for a short time. It is not clear how they hope to get that harebrained idea passed into law, or why they repose so much confidence in President Buhari’s judgement. Will the scheme pass through a National Assembly that is already thoroughly frazzled by the immense extra-constitutional powers being wielded by the president? Or do its proponents hope to intimidate all the other arms of government to limit or abandon their opposition to the presidency’s obssession with self-help? Or perhaps, as the presidency continues to shrink the frontiers of the rule of law, and as he meets with the hosannas of an unquestioning but approving public, it proposes to incrementally chip away at the freedoms of the people. Whatever plans they are toying with, it is evident that somehow, the government will embrace the circumvention of the constitution in the anti-graft war if officials suspect they can get away with their stratagems.

    It will hardly matter to the proponents of the daring measure, including the unreflective Mr Oni himself, that once the plot is actualised, it will be impossible to restrain those who might hijack or misuse it. It is all the more insulting for the former Ekiti State governor to insinuate that other than a temporary suspension of the rule of law, there is no other way to fight the war, or that if there is one which he sarcastically says he is not aware of, the public should disclose it. But they took an oath to protect and defend the constitution. If they can no longer guarantee fidelity to the constitution, they should relinquish office. Nigeria will not be blackmailed. For the umpteenth time, this column will reiterate to a government that bluntly refuses to listen or consider alternative options that corruption is a systemic problem that cannot be fought in fits and starts or by draconian and unmethodical style. How on earth is a completely broken down vehicle, to which Nigeria is likened by popular acclaim, repaired? Simply by replacing one tyre?

    It is not only the entire criminal justice system that is broken, though the government often acts as if only a part of it is, the present economic, social and political structures are also completely and perversely broken. Worse, because they are absolutely and unmistakably intertwined — and this point must be emphasised over and over again — the government needs a holistic re-engineering of the system to fix the malaise. Damn the talk of force, and damn the idea of the suspension of the rule of law. The problem Nigeria is actually contending with is that there is little thinking and debate going on in government. Everybody is worked up and posturing. Everybody is reading the president’s lip and body language. And worse, there is hardly any genuine democrat in government, at least not in the APC nationally and in most of the states they govern.

    Comparisons are odious, the English say, but it is a question of time before commentators begin to wonder in metaphors whether Egypt does not hold more fascination than the chimerical Promised Land the APC talks about tongue-in-cheek. For if they cannot wage a social crusade without mounting an assault on the constitution, how can they be trusted to inspire a Hammurabic code for Nigeria or restructure the polity without extinguishing life altogether. Readers of this column will remember that in endorsing Muhammadu Buhari for the presidency last year, it gave a qualified approval suggesting that he could be trusted with the country’s money, but not with its freedoms. It appears in retrospect that even that endorsement was lavish.

    It is unlikely any student of history will not be alarmed by the All Progressives Congress (APC) government’s increasing desire for extra-legal measures to tackle what is believed to be Nigeria’s dire situation, especially the corruption malaise. Among many other examples, the historian will recall the terrible turmoil Germany experienced in the 1930s and how it was exploited by the Nazis to entrench fascism, of course with the ardent initial support of the business, political and military elites. He will recall that Germany groaned under the yoke of reparations consequent upon the Treaty of Versailles, general economic depression, and political impasse that was tending towards anarchy. The historian will also recall that by a careful mix of propaganda and stupendous economic revival, which some parts of the world hailed as the ‘Munich Miracle’, the Nazis rose to dominance and sustained that dominance by one of the most repressive propaganda, military and state police machineries ever. The lessons of history must not be lost on Nigeria.

    Among legal practitioners, a group that ought to know better, the review of the Nigerian government’s ongoing war against corruption has been mixed. Focusing on certain aspects of the corruption war and farcically holding other factors constant, many legal minds have asked for the public to take an indulgent view, if not give total approbation, of the war. But some bold and circumspect others have been wary and have asked for extreme caution and restraint in the war, especially after the recent exposure of the brazen commercialisation of justice right up to the Supreme Court. In the media, the review has seemed to lean towards caution, but with some very vigorous exceptions who call for strong-arm tactics against what they describe as unyielding and highly-placed enemies of the state. The Buhari presidency itself has sometimes oscillated between extreme and strident measures one day and vague and reluctant concessions to the rule of law another day. But it has left no one in doubt where it generally leans.

    This is no time to dilly-dally. Despite the blackmail suffered by those who denounce President Buhari’s brusque and militaristic style, it is time all men of goodwill stood up and emphasised to the government and its security agents and chorus men that birthing a new ethos could be done with aplomb by a careful calibration of measures that balance the preservation of the rule of law and democracy on the one hand, with a firm and unrelenting war against corruption and other malaises that undermine governance and progress on the other hand. It is simplistic to see these two main goals as mutually exclusive. They are not. If because of lack of depth they cannot find the paradigm that balances and accommodates these admirable goals, as Mr Oni has painfully shown by his diatribe against patriots, then they have no business remaining in office. Fortunately, the constitution leaves entry into office and exit quite enticingly open.

  • CJN, NBA president and embattled jurists

    CJN, NBA president and embattled jurists

    NO scandal has so thoroughly shocked and bewildered Nigeria in recent years as the case of the seven judges against whom the secret service has launched extensive probes and a ‘sting’ operation. The interrogations of the jurists, sometimes downgraded to interactions, have continued. So, too, have the embarrassments. With each passing day, more revelations are emerging of poor judgements (not of court judgements, as may be imagined) by Supreme Court justices who ought to personify and exude juristic expertise and integrity, of overzealousness by state agents whose macabre delight in people’s misfortune often propel them to excesses and the creation of gaping loopholes, and a presidency quite unable to appreciate the enormity of the tragedy inflicted on the polity and the opportunities the scandal presents for deft and nuanced handling of national affairs.

    The ‘sting’ operation is a tragedy for the Supreme Court in particular, and a depressing affair for the National Judicial Council (NJC). The Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Mahmud Mohammed, has tried to keep a regal detachment, and has struggled to walk a tightrope between the pressure to cleanse the judiciary, which he says he believes in, and the almost certain invasion and erosion of the independence of the judiciary which the executive arm appears to be fomenting. Last week’s NJC statement indicates that the secret service did not avail anyone but itself of the details of the investigations undertaken against the judges. The statement stopped short of insinuating that the government seemed inspired by perverse, ulterior motives. But eventually, the CJN will have to recognise that he had been outfoxed and must assent to the recusal of the accused judges, as the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) president Abubakar Mahmud, suggested on Thursday. Mr Mahmud had at first been unadvisedly combative until he realised that the lower rungs of the NBA were up in arms against the status quo dominated by those they describe as irresponsible seniors who had embraced and profited from judicial corruption.

    If President Muhammadu Buhari understood the implications of the judicial tragedy his country faced, the depth of systemic corruption in Nigeria and the ramifications of the whole saga, and had he also been capable of the altruism he often immodestly appropriated for himself and displayed a grasp for the tempered and foresighted bureaucratic expertise a complex democracy needs, he would have handled the problem differently and perhaps with more aplomb. But the president lives in a dualistic world of right and wrong, with nothing in-between, and of law and order interpreted simplistically and offensively. With the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Department of State Service (DSS) training their guns on the judiciary, it is a question of time before they erode the independence of the third arm.

    The NJC has tried to fight back, but its punches have been ineffectual primarily because of lack of public support. In published statements and advertorials, they have presented their own side of the story, and have done it admirably well and somewhat persuasively. As a matter of fact it is evident they came to their conclusions on the affected judges based on the facts before them. But there seems to be a chasm between what the public and the DSS guess or know and what the NJC acknowledges. The CJN has groaned under the pressures, and appears minded to dig in the more. He should resist the temptation to remain inflexible, as galling as the events and campaigns of the past few days might be. The judges themselves, particularly Justices John Inyang Okoro and Sylvester Ngwuta, have given their own sides of the story, sides that have tried to drag in as many people as possible into the scandal, and revealed unpalatable truths about the precipitous decline in the dignity, integrity and competence of the Supreme Court.

    The story is still developing and it must, therefore, not be suggested that the ‘sting’ operation was unimpeachable, or that the justices are guilty of corruption. The public must wait for the DSS to reveal all it has, including tracing the sources of the money recovered from the judges. It must be established whether the money is proceeds from corrupted judgements, and if so, which: Rivers or Kogi, or elsewhere? The two justices have blamed politicians and other people for their woes, including making serious allegations against serving ministers. Their accounts have so far not been corroborated. In fact, the words they penned do not seem the logic and erudition of senior judges, and have remained unpersuasive and rather desperate and impolitic. The jurists should have maintained a dignified silence. But by revealing how they met with politicians and how politicians visited them, even if true, showed how low the Supreme Court has sunk. It is unimaginable that such cavalier, deliberate meetings could have taken place a few decades ago when the Supreme Court seemed to be at its apogee.

    The terrible mess is still being unearthed. It will get messier, and more people will be implicated. The full unpalatable truths about the perversion of justice in Nigeria, the appallingly low calibre of some of the judges, and the excesses of a government inebriated by its unchallengeable power, may yet come to light as the standoff continues. The genie is, however, already out of the bottle, and the country must brace itself up for more sordid details. Meanwhile, the CJN should put a lid on the scandal by ordering the loquacious justices to keep quiet. They have not inspired anyone by their drivelling. As the NBA president also suggested, the judges should recuse themselves and submit to the legal process. That recusal cannot be at the instance of the judicial organ, as the NJC sensibly pointed out a few days ago citing relevant provisions of the constitution and its own rules; it should be at the instance of the embattled justices, as the NBA president has suggested. An impasse will not help anyone, let alone the NJC and the CJN who have been unfairly perceived as tolerant of judicial corruption. As long as the stalemate continues, the secret service will intensify its media trial, the jurists will blunder the more, and the public will happily but uncarefully align with the DSS, EFCC and the government.

    But what should be uppermost in the mind of every patriot is how to remould a country that has broken down in virtually all areas. The task cannot be accomplished overnight, nor easily, and certainly not by the Buhari presidency whose strange and often dogmatic way of presiding over the affairs of the country continues to rile the judicious. That task, indeed, will be accomplished by a leader who has a brilliant and comprehensive grasp of the dynamics and complex interplay of forces destabilising the country — a leader who has an overarching view of where and how the country missed it, and how lost grounds can be reclaimed, a leader who, despite his private misgivings and loathing and prejudices, can see far into the future: a future of strong institutions unfettered by the control of strongmen, populists and propagandists.

  • Redeeming Aso Villa from witchcraft and other powers

    Redeeming Aso Villa from witchcraft and other powers

    IN an impassioned piece recently, former spokesman of ex-president Goodluck Jonathan, Reuben Abati, took on the topic of witchcraft and other strange and extra-sensory perceptions hobbling the highest seat of power in the country, Aso Villa. In the piece, he recounted many first-hand experiences which many would dismiss as too controversial to be true or downright superstitious. Some of the stories are admittedly so poignant that they cannot be waved off. Dr Abati is also sufficiently senior in the media world and learned as a Ph.D. holder to be described as delusional. No matter what anyone thinks, there are indeed forces and powers everywhere, and man has often felt his own insignificance due to the strange, inexplicable occurrences that surround him and sometimes vitiate his efforts or even thwart his lofty purposes and ideals. Aso Villa, like many other houses and even offices, cannot be immune to those forces and powers. Nor, given the fondness of some Nigerian presidents for dabbling in the occult, is it expected that the seat of power will not be a haunted place.

    For the scientist, Dr Abati’s essay may not have strong probative evidence to support his deductions and conclusions. But for anyone who lived under the Gen. Sani Abacha military government, the essay reminds them in some curious ways of the self-indulgences and depravities that pervaded the seat of power. However, this piece is not really about demons and demonolatry as they relate to deaths and sicknesses and other forms of pernicious ailments suffusing Aso Villa, for that would be delving into religion, a sore and argumentative point for many commentators given to empiricism. The most important part of his essay for this column is his transfixion with demonolatry as a possible explanation for the many policy mishaps that agitate and destabilise the seat of power.

    Hear him: “When Presidents make mistakes, they are probably victims of a force higher than what we can imagine. Every student of Aso Villa politics would readily admit that when people get in there, they actually become something else. They act like they are under a spell. When you issue a well- crafted statement, the public accepts it wrongly. When the President makes a speech and he truly means well, the speech is interpreted wrongly by the public. When a policy is introduced, somehow, something just goes wrong. In our days, a lot of people used to complain that the APC people were fighting us spiritually and that there was a witchcraft dimension to the governance process in Nigeria. But the APC folks now in power are dealing with the same demons. Since Buhari government assumed office, it has been one mistake after another. Those mistakes don’t look normal, the same way they didn’t look normal under President Jonathan. I am therefore convinced that there is an evil spell enveloping this country…”

    Dr Abati seeks extraordinary explanation for the inscrutable change that comes upon a president once he is ensconced in Aso Villa. The explanation is much simpler than many Nigerians think, for the problem is hardly the spiritual ambience of Aso Villa, but the content of a president’s character. Dr Jonathan, whom Dr Abati served as spokesman, never had a reputation for decisiveness or discipline, nor ever manifested depth of understanding of, and mastery over, complex issues. Bereft of those gifts, there was little Dr Jonathan could do to intuitively grasp the options that would work on a figurative today and tomorrow. Leadership is not just about winning elections, assembling a team, residing in Aso Villa and dishing out orders. The leader himself is the key. And his character, brilliance, charisma and vision all have roles to play in mitigating his weaknesses, and helping him to enthrone farsighted plans and policies on the country.

    The problem with ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo’s presidency, for instance, was not Aso Villa or the demons supposedly crawling or wafting around the place. A cursory reading of his wife’s book and his own penny dreadful books will reveal how poorly equipped emotionally and intellectually this narcissist was in office. He was an accident waiting to be inflicted upon the country. Once inflicted, he immediately ran riot with improperly digested policies, personal indiscipline, poor vision of where the country should be, and an exaggerated impression of his own qualities and views.

    In and out of office, Gen Abacha was an unfettered evil, a sybarite given wholly to pleasure and larceny. He had no principles except that of a libertine, and he subscribed to no values except those of a dissolute and rambling traitor. He personified evil, walked evil, and manifested evil. He did not need to battle evil. He carried it with him everywhere he went, whether to conference tables where he rarely made an appearance or whore rooms where he frequented and luxuriated.

    Dr Abati says he has noticed the same tendency to make mistakes in the Buhari presidency, and tries to illustrate his conviction with President Buhari’s unerring bent for policy mishaps. But President Buhari’s failings and weaknesses are a product of his constricted worldview, not of any spell. No demon made him assemble an insular kitchen cabinet, nor imbue him with arcane sense of humour. No demon made him adopt a pugnacious style that overlooks policy complexities and nuances. No demon made him repose confidence in force rather than consensus and diplomacy. And no demon made him stagnate, 30 years out of office, in educating himself on the topics of globalisation, modern economics, the role of women in modern societies, governing a complex, multi-ethnic society, and appreciating the place of political parties and programmes in governance. He, rather than demons, is responsible for his own foibles. He of course possesses other gifts and attributes, not to talk of personal discipline, but they are suited for other times and situations.

    Some of Dr Abati’s claims and observations may very well be indisputable, but many others are misplaced and misconceived, and it is clear he does not expect his essay to meet the scholarly rigour he is doubtless familiar with and quite rightly enamoured of. But he can take consolation in the fact that his essay was widely disseminated and discussed. There is no fate worse than being ignored. As many Nigerians also know, there is hardly any leader who has not battled forces beyond their ken and control, as Napoleon, Hitler and others had attested centuries ago, but it did not stop them from achieving great things or transforming their societies. For as Cassius moaned to Brutus in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar (Act 1, Scene 2), “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves…”If a president fails, as Dr Jonathan, Chief Obasanjo and others are judged to have been, Nigerians must blame them, not demons, even if the demons in Aso Villa levitate tables, chairs and other unmentionable parts of the human anatomy.