The Nation Newspaper

Category: Sunday

  • Exasperated Peter Obi ponders LP exit

    Exasperated Peter Obi ponders LP exit

    Labour Party’s candidate in the 2023 presidential election, Peter Obi, enjoys fanatical following. But that fanaticism, to his immense satisfaction, is largely personal and not transferable to anyone or party. The Director General of the Obi-Datti Presidential Campaign Organisation in the 2023 elections, Akin Osuntokun, confirmed that unquestioning support in March when he declared in respect of the controversial March 23, 2024 LP national convention that nothing would be left of the party should Mr Obi and his Obidient supporters take their leave. Mr Obi knows where he stands in the party, and the centrality of his membership. LP leaders, especially Julius Abure who on March 27 contrived his re-election as party chairman at the national convention held in Nnewi, Anambra State, also know that without Mr Obi, the party would be grasping air. Worse, the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), which insisted it founded the party and had the uncirumscribed right to do with it as it pleased, knows that Mr Obi was their Godsend to relieve them of their ordinariness and save them from death throes in 2023.

    As this column predicted weeks ago, and continued to emphasise, Mr Obi has no stomach for an injurious intraparty fight, and no acumen for running one, let alone founding a party. Critics suggested that this writer was prejudiced, if not bigoted, and unfair to the ‘unimpeachable’ LP presidential candidate. The more this writer was assailed by critics, the more he enthusiastically swore that Mr Obi would soon show his true colour. In the event, his unravelling took place in a few dizzying weeks, instead of a few dramatic years. But as usual, Mr Obi tried his obfuscatory best to disguise his inability to withstand stress and endure pain. Last week, he finally made oblique reference to the most important subject matter unnerving the troubled LP – the party’s national convention and its aftermath. He said tersely: “I am still a member of the Labour Party and I don’t and will never engage in anti-party activities…I’m a Christian. Jesus said, when you go into a city, try to change them, live with them, fast with them. In the end, if you can’t, come out and even wash the sand that is on your shoes. He didn’t say go there and die with them. I tell you, I’m making spirited efforts to change them (LP), but I’m not going to die with them. That will not stop what we set out to do. We will try to change them (LP), if we can’t, we will leave them; we will not die with them.”

    Ignore Mr Obi’s repeated resort to religious identification, and his reiteration of his party membership. His heart is obviously no longer with the LP; it has left. His affections are now set on probably another party or person, or, God be praised, on a future coalition. He never looked like he would remain in the LP for too long, for unlike his fanatical supporters incapable of reading the weather, Mr Obi knew that he could not deploy the same ethnic and religious arguments he used to bamboozle the electorate in the last election cycle. Shorn of the casuistry he was so fond of all his life, and deprived of the political ecology that suited his divisive campaign tactics, he was already wondering how hurtful it would be to remain stuck in LP. Now the divisions within that implausible party, especially its division into three ungainly factions, have strengthened his instinct for political flirtations. The beleaguered Mr Abure may have cunningly reserved the LP presidential ticket for Mr Obi, but the 2023 LP presidential candidate is smart enough to know that if he remained in the LP he would not flourish, and also knows that his chances of even going into the next poll as a presidential candidate is slim.

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    What is beyond dispute today is that Mr Obi will leave LP in the near future. He had the opportunity to intervene firmly in the LP crisis, but he showed no inclination whatsoever. Had he possessed the political skill to forge a consensus, he would probably have brought the LP combatants to the negotiating table and hammered out a peace deal. He did nothing of the kind. Perhaps, being a practical man, rather than an ideological leader, he knew that it was a hopeless case trying to restructure the relationship between the NLC and LP. A little success had knocked the NLC and LP leaders sideways and weakened the bonds that bound them together. More success, such as winning a presidential contest, would provoke seismic changes in the party that no one, let alone the combative and salivating leaders of the foremost trade union, could manage.

    For Mr Obi, better to let bad enough alone. He knows the NLC men very well, and he knows that there can be no mollifying their anger and bitterness. And he also knows the bedraggled LP leaders well enough to tell that it would take something far more incendiary than the NLC breaking down the gates and smashing the windows of the party headquarters building to remove their snouts from the largess tantalising the union leaders and party apparatchiks. More importantly, he knows that even if peace were restored, the union and the party would soon be at each other’s throat on some ominous tomorrow. And coupled with his own disinterestedness in restoring normality in the party or imbuing it with a raison d’être, it is all but clear that staying put in the party and inheriting and fighting its amorphous cause would amount to tilting at windmills. Mr Obi may be a trader or anything anyone may ascribe to him, but at least he does not fancy himself a Don Quixote. That is why he can say with unrivalled satisfaction that he was ‘making spirited efforts to change the LP, but would not die with them’, seeing that he is neither a Quixote nor a martyr.

  • Crazy electricity tariffs

    Crazy electricity tariffs

    Last week, the National Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) approved a 240 percent increase in electricity tariffs for electricity distribution companies, otherwise known as DISCOs, to charge their elite or Band ‘A’ consumers. Instead of the previous tariff of N66 per kilowatt hour, the elite consumers, presumed to be incapable of resisting the punishment, will now pay N225KW/h for receiving up to 20 hours of electricity supply per day. The objective is to reduce this year’s electricity subsidy by about N1.14trn and enable DISCOs to pay for gas and maintain their machines.

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    There is of course something to be said for discriminatory pricing, like fair tax payments. But to do it in such a way as to punish the poor for unavailable electricity supply and also punish the rich for the inefficiencies of the DISCOs is truly galling. So, rather than move in the direction of general 24 hours per day supply, NERC’s message is that both the poor and the rich should be punished for the inability of the transmission and distribution companies to stabilise power supply. In short, NERC has focused inelegantly and narrow-mindedly on the theory of pricing without a corresponding consideration of the implications of such price increases on the economy at a time of stagnating wages, high inflation, low production outputs, and general frustrations. The timing is wrong, and the policy irrational. Could they not rather stabilise power supply and find the right time to proportionally raise tariffs across the various segment of electricity consumers?

  • SNAPSONG 216

    SNAPSONG 216

    To Mr. Afolabi, Vendor of Admirable Virtues

    Quick-witted

       Long-memoried*

    Master of the well-primed retort

       Who knows the hiding place

    Of poignant proverbs

        He dialogues in an accent

    Which bears the scent

         Of distant places

    For he has journeyed

         Through the sand and sound

    Of many climes, crossed long rivers

         And answered the summons of distant mountains

    Here sits he now in the throbbing centre

         Of Nigeria’s premier university

    His ware a running rainbow of tabloid tales

         Screaming dailies, and monthly mags

    In active war against the virtual competition

        Of the cyber platform, lean pocket lines

    And the long-necked curiosity

         Of the Free Readers’ Association

    Day in, day out,

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         Heavy rain or scorching sun

    His witty laughter never departs his lips;

         Ever present, his firm, humane comportment

    The tabloid’s tangled tales

        The politician’s perfidy,

    Mekunnun’s*** impoverished lament

        In print and pattern, bright and bold   

    You bring them all

         To our eyes and our ears

    With a diligence which doctors indifference

         A kindness which ennobles our world

    * Veteran newspaper Vendor at the University of Ibadan

    ** Signifying on I Is a Long Memoried Woman, Grace Nichols’ remarkable poem

    *** Common people; the impoverished.

    31-ARTS-APRIL-7-2024Download
  • Atiku and PDP’s battle royale

    Atiku and PDP’s battle royale

    In his remarks on Senegalese president Bassirou Diomaye Faye’s election, former vice president Atiku Abubakar admonished the Nigerian political class to form a coalition to dethrone the All Progressives Congress (APC) in 2027. He was explicit: “It is important to note,” he began didactically, “that last Sunday’s (March 24) election in Senegal followed the trend of that in Nigeria in 2015, that the opposition can, indeed, be victorious in an election conducted by the ruling party. And, for the opposition parties, the lessons are in agreement with my persistent call for our opposition parties to forge a coalition that is formidable enough to oust the ruling party if the salvaging of Nigeria is to stand any chance.” The Atiku statement was too short to expatiate on the lessons he supposedly learnt from the Senegalese election which seemed to have gingered his interest in embracing coalition as an electoral tool, but he issued it anyway and felt sufficiently inspired by that poll to anticipate a favourable outcome in 2027.

    The implication is that the former vice president already visualises himself as the presidential candidate of a coalition probably led by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on which platform he twice contested the presidency. After his initial stupefaction at his loss of the presidential poll last year, and after a fruitless bruising battle to get the courts to give him a victory he did not deserve, he has begun to address his mind to much saner electoral reality. Going by his statement on Senegal’s new president, Alhaji Atiku appears to admit that a coalition may always be needed to unhorse a formidable ruling party. He was gifted the silhouette of a coalition last year, and only needed to give it form and substance, but he frittered the chance away by calling the bluff of the Group of Five (G-5) dissenting PDP governors advocating for equity within the party, by his disregard for Peter Obi who he felt was undeserving of the running mate ticket a second time, and by his overconfidence in Kano State electorate despite not reaching a deal with the sulking ex-governor Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso. Assured by certain individuals and forces in the presidency, the former vice president went solo and came to spectacular grief.

    It is presumed that Alhaji Atiku has learnt his lessons, considering his decades in politics, not to say his self-assuredness that one day he would ascend to the presidency. By the next presidential election, he will be 81 years old. During the last poll, when he was 76, he was already lethargic, the boom in his voice less ardent, and his steps a little less jaunty but deceptively firmer than a shuffle. He knows, and both the country and leaders of his party also know, that he is not really in fine fettle. But his obsession with the presidency will cause him to do all in his power to actualise the dream. After eventually overcoming the grief of losing the presidential election, he has inevitably turned his attention to his party, the PDP, to reform and reposition it for the next polls. He is still highly regarded in the party and remains a deep pocket; but once determined steps start to be taken, ambitious politicians within the leadership rank will begin to unsheathe their swords. They respect the former vice president, but they see his electoral losses not as a learning curve for the gerontocrat, but as a humiliating reminder of their collective poor judgement and impotence, and as a burden to be expiated at all costs. Party leaders will, therefore, be torn between allowing him to inspire and champion the party’s reformation, despite his superficiality and inattentiveness to detail, or backing someone else less fractious, lesser known, probably more ideological and even mendicant.

    For now, party leaders are still stuck at the level of producing their next national chairman. Alhaji Atiku had stubbornly backed Iyorchia Ayu to continue as chairman of the party before the last polls in violation of their constitution, but party leaders and the courts finally undid the Benue politician. They will get the North Central zone to suggest a replacement, whether that replacement gets the blessing of Alhaji Atiku or not. A lot of manoeuvres should be expected. However, party leaders will probably take a cue from the All Progressives Congress (APC) which gave the ticket to Bola Ahmed Tinubu before the last presidential election even when he was not in control of the party. Secondly, the PDP is still stuck unimaginatively at the point of trying to identify fifth columnists in order to mete out punishment. There will be many suspects, but it is not certain that once they are identified they can really be punished on the deterrent scale the witch-hunters hope. Fingers will point in the direction of the G-5, for instance, but party leaders will be hard put to do anything more than ruffle their feathers. Nyesom Wike, former Rivers State governor and now FCT minister, will engage in his incredible straddle, and former Benue State governor Samuel Ortom will talk from both sides of the mouth; yet in the end, many of those opposed to Alhaji Atiku will court their favour rather than acquiesce to their punishment. Even the former vice president himself will in the end sue for peace rather than unsheathe his sword and start a war he can’t conceivably win or finish.

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    The effort to revivify the PDP will undoubtedly lead to a lot of fracas within the party. PDP observers see the fracas developing into a battle royale as a group of Young Turks boasting vigour and ideology take on the old guard steeped in conservatism and ossified tradition. Party leaders, including Alhaji Atiku who is adept at talking the talk, know that the PDP is still the leading opposition party. They may not play that leading role with panache or demonstrable brilliance, but they are far more engaging than the factionalised and superstitious Labour Party (LP) which noisily announced in January that they were fated to be the main opposition party. The former vice president is at the moment the only one speaking for his party. He will continue to do so until the party leadership struggle is resolved. He may leverage on the Donald Trump style of acerbic talk and indifference to old age, but in Nigeria, he will be hard put to ride roughshod over some of the state governors adamantly set against his taking the presidential ticket for the 2027 poll. It is indeed hard to bet on him, assuming he survives the initial fight within the party certain to break into the open soon.

    In order to determine who to concede the party leadership to eventually, party leaders will try to answer the question of who among the leading contenders for the 2027 ticket will best approximate the values of the party and stand a better chance of cobbling together the kind of coalition Alhaji Atiku has vaingloriously but belatedly spoken about. The former vice president had the best chance of weaving together that coalition last year, but he spurned the opportunity after giving his word. Party leaders are unlikely to trust him. Even if he means it this time, they will see his humility and concessions as self-serving and opportunistic; and they will interpret his practical politics demonstrated in his puzzling support for Dr Ayu to the exclusion of the G-5 as incoherent, irrational and instinctive. They will be in a quandary about how to ignore his wealth and readiness to bankroll his election, and they will also be frightfully aware of his selfishness in reining in his purse should he fail to win the ticket. In time, they will increasingly become keenly aware of some of his other attributes, many of them galling, such as his sense of entitlement, his secret belief in regional exceptionalism, and his essential divisiveness and maliciousness.

    Alhaji Atiku never really abjured coalition as an election tool; he only never gave a deep thought to it. From his reading of the Senegalese election – undoubtedly a poor reading, for the winners and losers alike went into the election with coalitions – and reimagining the coalition that saw off the Goodluck Jonathan government in Nigeria, he believes that only a coalition of parties can get him into the State House. He is wrong. First the mood must be right, then the moment, then the candidate, then the geopolitics. Senegal produced that magical convergence two weeks ago, leading the upstart coalition to defeat the bloated and complacent ruling coalition; for both had dichotomised the past and represented the future so sharply that there was little difficulty in embracing or rejecting what each exemplified. Despite his poor reading of the Senegalese election, it is somewhat reassuring that Alhaji Atiku at least appreciates the value of a coalition, and was even a participant in the 2015 Nigerian feat. It is his personal tragedy that he disavowed it in the last poll when it mattered most to his ambition. He will now face an uphill struggle to retain political relevance in his late 70s, and if his party allows him, fight the next poll in his geriatric 80s. Worse, if he overcomes those gigantic obstacles, he must then proceed to build a coalition at a time when he is most distrusted by party faithful, enfeebled by age, shackled by his corrosive and closeted fundamentalism, and slowed down by his antiquated ideas of modern economics and politics.

  • Conspiracy against the constitution in Plateau State

    Conspiracy against the constitution in Plateau State

    In a brazen display of political pride, both Governor Caleb Mutfwang of Plateau State and House of Assembly speaker Gabriel Dewan paralysed the State House of Assembly for months by refusing to swear in 16 All Progressives Congress (APC) lawmakers declared winners of last year’s legislative poll by the Court of Appeal last November. They pussyfooted until last Friday before mystifyingly swearing in nine of the lawmakers, including a Labour Party legislator. Thereafter the governor met the lawmakers, saluted their ‘independence’ and enthused over their legislative work. It became clear that the dithering in the legislature, which is still conducting business at the old Government House, was a conspiracy. It is unclear what ghosts haunt Mr Mutfwang. Does he fear being presented a majority APC House of Assembly? Does he fear being impeached sometime in the future by hostile lawmakers, in a replay of the childish wrangling in Rivers State?

    Hon Dewan is the only Young Progressives Party (YPP) member in the Assembly. He seemed a place-holder for the PDP but appears afraid of being impeached and replaced by an APC lawmaker. His emergence is obviously a product of shadowy compromises undertaken when the APC legislators had yet to win their case in the courts. Since last November, however, both the governor and the speaker have been ill at ease, and have stalled the inauguration of the APC members and engaged in a fruitless merry-go-round in the courts hoping that in light of the Supreme Court judgement validating the governor’s election, the Court of Appeal victory of the APC members could be reversed. The case is still pending. The APC lawmakers’ victory will, however, not be reversed, and Hon Dewan is merely chasing shadows. Despite the hostility of the Plateau public and their past but now waning animus against the APC over the same-faith presidential ticket, there is nothing anyone, governor or lawmaker or the public, can do to mitigate the severity and direction of the case. Indeed, there is a limit to which they can hedge their responsibilities.

    Hon Dewan’s procrastinations are unjustifiable but understandable. He has nothing to lose. What is perplexing is the governor’s flagrant disobedience to court judgement and the constitution. He has misled the Plateau public, muddled up the legal case against his party, engaged in self-help, and pretended not to be involved in the dilatoriness enacted by the obsequious Hon Dewan. No, the governor is culpable. He is behind the whole saga, and he continues to pull the strings. He is disrespectful of the law and sets a very bad example for future generations on public behaviour. He has also displayed poor judgement in a complicated matter that nevertheless beckons on him to rise to statesmanship and greatness.

    Are his fears of impeachment and perhaps lack of legislative cooperation real? They probably are. But then it is in the face of such dire antagonisms that leaders and leadership are forged. Unfortunately, Mr Mutfwang has chosen the easy way out: covertly assailing the courts, hoping for a legal deus ex machina, and generally stalling the process in the hope that some kind of unearthly solutions can be found. Neither he nor Hon Dewan has the right whatsoever to stall the swearing in of the lawmakers. Despite their high offices, they are not above the law and the constitution. Hear the governor waxing lyrical when Hon Dewan presented the exultant lawmakers to him: “Today brings me immense joy. I have always advocated for the seamless functioning of the three arms of government. Thus, it is gratifying to witness the House fully operational, poised to safeguard the interests of the people of Plateau State across various constituencies. Despite wrong accusations of obstructing the House’s inauguration, it is evident that the House is fully in charge of its affairs, and I commend you for that…” The governor knows he is lying. Did they not say the courts had stayed their hands?

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    The APC needs to sanction their consenting and conspiratorial lawmakers who broke ranks with their colleagues. They acted disreputably in the face of the governor’s divide and rule, and are thus unworthy of the positions they were elected into. It is even alleged that the nine had agreed to resign from the legislature after their swearing-in. If the governor will not do what is right, and the state’s attorney general will not advise him, it may be time the federal attorney general wrote the state, urging them to mend their ways. Too many childish actions endangering democracy are emanating from some states. For the sake of democracy and political stability, even in the face of the judiciary muddying the political waters, principal political actors should apply wisdom, eschew populism, and be prepared to sacrifice everything for the sake of unborn generations. Plateau’s top political actors, like Rivers State’s dissimulative leaders, have behaved most atrociously and egotistically.

    Mr Mutfwang should put a halt to the foolishness in the State House of Assembly. He is a lawyer who claims to be a man of faith; he can’t say he does not know what to do. Hon Dewan privately claimed his disinclination to swear in the rest seven lawmakers was due to certain documents at his disposal. Do those documents supersede the law and the constitution? And where on earth are Plateau State elders? If they can’t judge between the controversial jurisprudence of the appellate court in the matter of the 16 victorious APC legislators and the embarrassing self-help embarked upon by their governor and his conniving legislative allies as well as the disinterested public, it means they deliberately undermine the integrity of their eldership and the wisdom that should come with it.

  • JAGABAN 145: No magic wand to fix Nigeria, it’s got to be worked

    JAGABAN 145: No magic wand to fix Nigeria, it’s got to be worked

    It was another very eventful week, during which President Bola Tinubu did new things and said new things to re-communicate the core of his message to Nigerians and the world: we are in the age of ‘Nigeria-has-come-of-age’. During the week, a major activity of the President, which seemed to resonate universally in the country, especially with the younger generation and those who have attained parenthood, was the signing of the Student Loans (Access to Higher Education) Amendment Act 2024.

    It seemed to gain its popularity from the fact that it will be providing a rare opportunity for the most populated group in the country; for instance, the youth category of the Nigerian population. As at 2022, youth constituted about 70% of the entire population, meaning the most productive category is more in number, which was put at 151 million. For a visionary, such data is always a thing of interest. Should that population be left to its own device, just as the youth class has had to roll for long, I assume we know how ugly that can look.

    So in order to further make living and attaining decent livelihood easier for the majority, widen the size of the educated and equipped population he has always spoken about whenever he tries wooing foreign investors, he has initiated a law that makes acquisition of quality education and standard skills affordable and easily accessed. Speaking during the brief signing ceremony of the new Act on Wednesday at the State House, the President explained one of his thoughts on the new law; to make sure that no Nigerian, especially a child, misses out on the opportunity to choose a life through education or any other vocational training, at least not because he or she had been forced to quit because there is no opportunity. The new law erases that excuse.

    “We are determined to ensure that education is given the proper attention necessary for the country, including skills development programmes. This is to ensure that no one, no matter how poor their background is, is excluded from quality education and opportunity to build their future. We are here because we are all educated and were helped. In the past, we have seen a lot of our children dropped out of colleges and given up the opportunity. That is no more, the standard and the control is there for you to apply, no matter who you are, as long as you are a Nigerian citizen”, he said.

    That resonated really well with a large section of society, almost like cold water to a thirsty throat. It received a flurry of media attention, with a lot of analysis and all sorts of dissections. It received big acceptance because it is welfarist in nature; whatever brings succor to the people, lessen the price they will have to pay, always automatically receives universal attention.

    However, during the week, Jagaban did more and said more than just what we will benefit from Nigeria as its citizens. He went on to relive the evergreen aphorism of one of America’s most celebrated presidents, John F. Kennedy, who told Americans of his days, “ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country”. In the last few weeks, all through the Ramadan month, President Tinubu has been hosting various groups to Iftar, which is the Muslim’s fast-breaking meal. At each of the meetings, he has found the time, the voice and the right words to tell Nigerians, through his various guests, about his efforts to bring the desired Nigeria to Nigerians, telling us all the truth about what we need to do to achieve it.

    You will recall that I paid particular attention to one of his messages about two weeks ago, highlighting his admonition that we, as a people, need to wean ourselves off the easy, whiney approach to our nationhood. According to him then, we have found ourselves in this current unpleasant circumstance probably because we have failed to quit suckling many years into our nationhood, always expecting the price to be paid by others on our behalf. He pointed out how those other countries we look up to as models of growth and development have had to forge their current lives through sweat, blood and pains, how their snow was at some point blood-stained.

    Well, Asiwaju continued with this reformist efforts last week as he hosted the All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential Campaign Council (PCC) and the Independent Campaign Council (ICC) on Wednesday, and members of the Nigerian business community on Thursday evenings for Iftar. It was almost the same message, but like the previous ones, each message was carefully selected to take aim at specific issues. The similarity of these messages is pointing out the attitudinal and moral reforms we need to embark on as individual citizens, with spelt out target to be achieved. Admits to the unpleasantness that constitute us yet, but again the progress we are making.

    He took his time in both instances to remind Nigerians that though the initial phase of the economic reformation seems to be yielding some positive prospects, it is not Uhuru yet, this actually is the time to hit the iron the harder because it is still very hot. When facing the APC’s PCC and the ICC on Wednesday, he reminded them that fixing the country and giving the people hope was his campaign peg and that he means to deliver on his campaign promises, but then, making this happen needs the cooperation, focus, intention and commitment of everyone who answers the epithet ‘Nigerian’.

    “It is the hard job that you promised the people of Nigeria when you were campaigning for me, you promised them a good result. Didn’t you? That’s it, I have to work for it, no magic wand. I campaigned on hope, I have to rest on that hope and push for that hope for the joy of everyone of us. The economy is looking much better. Yes, we have challenges of inflation, but we will bring it down. When the exchange rate was going haywire, it looked like we were asleep, but we worked on it diligently, and it is going down; it is getting better. Borrowing was higher a year ago, but today, we are reengineering the financial landscape, and our revenue is expanding. And we are taking up our sovereignty and earning our respect back in the comity of nations,”

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    “Europe and America did not get to where they are today in one day, but through persistence and hard work, which takes time and consistent focus. Pray for Nigeria, think Nigeria. This is not play time. Let us believe in ourselves. We must ask questions. What is happening to our solid minerals? No rival wants you to be bigger than them. We must be dogged. We have to sort out our problem ourselves”, he said.

    When it was the turn of the business community, those he described as a very valuable part of his constituency, it was a similar message, though his message was to a very critical segment: the one percent of the one percent in charge of almost all of the nation’s wealth. Starting with an appreciation for their perseverance through the turbulence and acknowledging their very meaning to the nation’s economy, he urged for more cooperation for the nation’s sake.

    “I have no reason to underperform as the elected President of the country because I campaigned for the job. I cannot complain about the job. I appreciate the gesture, and what you have told me this evening is very inspiring. Cut the costs. Fix the bends. Summon courage. Save the money, but push the economy. We will be there. There are some countries that have failed. There are some countries that have succeeded. In our time, in my time, all of us must work together to succeed. Thank you very much.

    “There is no driver of the economy that is bigger than the private sector. If the private sector is not flourishing, there is no growth, no prosperity, no employment or development. No matter how flowery the speeches are, not even a mushroom will grow. Thank you for persevering. We are at a turning point in our economy. I do not have to do a quadratic equation to illustrate all of that to you. I just want to appreciate you for your endurance and perseverance”, he said.

    Besides playing the Prophet’s role, reminding us all of the parts we have to play, the President performed other roles; on Sunday, he received final comprehensive report of the Special Investigator of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and other related entities, Mr Jim Obazee.

    He reached to those who needed to be recognized on their special days. He congratulated the Awujale of Ijubaland, Oba Sikiru Adetona, who turned 64 years on the throne; celebrated the Olu of Warri, Ogiame Atuwatse III, who turned 40 years of age, describing him as the Renaissance Monarch; and attended the inauguration of the new President of Senegal, Bassirou Faye in Dakar, all on Tuesday. On Wednesday he joined other Nigerians to mourn a Labour leader and one-time President of the Nigeria Labour Congress, Comrade Ali Chiroma.

    On Thursday, he received a delegation from GAVI, the vaccine alliance, led by its Chief Executive Officer, Dr Sania Nishtar, at the Villa, making a vow that his administration will ensure no Nigeria child is left behind when it comes to vaccination against preventable childhood diseases. Then he celebrated one of his allies, the former Edo State Governor and Senator representing Edo North, Adams Oshiomhole, who clocked 72 years.

    On Friday, he received Letters of Credence from the High Commissioner of Jamaica, Lincoln Downer; High Commissioner of Australia, Leilani Bin-Juda; and Ambassador of Romania, Florin Talapan. He also appointed Engr. Uzoma Nwagba as the Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian Consumer Credit Corporation (CREDICORP), just as he constituted the Management Board for the Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND) with Mr. Akintunde Sawyerr as its pioneer Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer (CEO).

    Some have recently concluded that Nigeria, as a nation, especially among today’s generation, survives on cruise daily. This is fast becoming true of the Tinubu administration; there is always something exciting to talk or write about. The difference is this Jagaban Cruise is positive and focused. Hang on for next week’s dose of the Jagaban’s Cruise.

  • Constituency project: Is Nigeria truly fantastically corrupt?

    Constituency project: Is Nigeria truly fantastically corrupt?

    “Raja and I were seated opposite a hefty Nigerian, Festus, their finance minister. The conversation is still fresh in my mind. He was going to retire soon, he said. He had done enough for his country and now had to look after his business, a shoe factory. As finance minister, he had imposed a tax on imported shoes so that Nigeria could make shoes. Raja and I were incredulous. Festus had a good appetite that showed in his rotund figure, elegantly camouflaged in colourful Nigerian robes with gold ornamentation and a splendid cap. I went to bed that night convinced that they were a different people playing to a different set of rules.”

    – Lee Kuan Yew in ‘From Third World to First: The Singapore Story: 1965-2000’

    -The quote above reminds me of our dear friend of blessed memory, the irreplaceable, inimitable wielder of the pen and incomparable journalist,

    Gbolabo Ogunsanwo.

    He it was, who gifted me a copy of Lee Kuan Yew’s book, from which I first came across those words that very clearly put Nigeria beyond the pale.

    Gbolabo, no doubt, rests at the bossom of his Lord and Master, our Lord Jesus Christ.

    For the purposes of this article, I will only need the minuscule portion:”I went to bed that night convinced that they were a different people playing to a different set of rules”, from that long quote from Lee Kuan Yew because it not only so uncannily describes us, Nigerians, it clinically fits into the subject matter of this article – our thoroughly  unacceptable corruption.

    It would have been nice if that was all the evidence.

    But juxtapose the above with British Prime minister David Cameron, telling the Queen that:”We’ve got some leaders of some fantastically corrupt countries coming to Britain to attend the anti – corruption summit”. And by that he meant Nigeria and Afghanistan, which he further described as possibly “the two most corrupt countries in the world.”

    These are, no doubt, terrible ascriptions to have attached to one’s country.

    But don’t we, as Nigerians justify, even merit them by our outrightly immoral ways?

    This article should prove that, one way or the other. And for that, we have the Professor Bolaji Owasanoye -led ICPC to thank for the massive job the anti- corruption agency did, tracking our federal legislators’ constituency projects which, unbelievable as it sounds, started under the administration of the, no nonsence, President Olusegun Obasanjo and exposing them, each year,  cornering billions for constituency projects which they knew, deep down in their minds would, most probably, never see the light of day.

    Incidentally the USA, from where we copied our presidential system of government also has something comparable to constituency projects which we have since bastardised in Nigeria, thus affirming Lee Kuan Yew’s words that our politicians play to a different set of rules from that which apply in civilised climes.

    It is called Pork barrel spending in the U. S, and it means “an appropriation of government spending for localised projects, secured primarily to direct spending to a representative’s district”.

    But not a few American legislators (Congressmen) would be in jail today, if they treat such funds the way our legislators do with theirs.

    I now crave the indulgence of ICPC to quote, at some length, some of its findings on the corrupt uses to which Nigerian legislators put funds that would have been much better deployed, were such not ambushed  for a so- called constituency project.

    When ICPC began  tracking the projects, the idea was to “facilitate good governance, transparency and accountability through proper implementation of government projects across the country, in line with its preventive and enforcement mandates”.

    The tracking would, however, reveal lots of mismanagement of funds and the non, or shoddy, execution of projects that would have had great impact on the lives, and well-being, of ordinary Nigerians if  executed to specifications.

    “Of  the 524 projects under the first phase, 195 were education projects, while 46 were from the health sector. The implication of diversion, non execution,or mismanagement of the funds meant for development purposes, is that communities were  short-changed and unable to access life’s changing social services, thereby deepening and increasing  poverty level, increased diseases, heightened ignorance, spiraled criminality,  and widened social unrest in the country”.

    The exercise, not unexpectedly, uncovered a gross lack of synergy between outgoing and incoming legislators, (since they are self – help projects) such that projects initiated by the former legislator are quickly abandoned by the latter.

    Another corrupt act uncovered was collusion between sponsors’ aides, and contractors to defraud the country, as well as contract over-invoicing.

    Other key findings of the second phase exercise was that despite the annual appropriation of N100 billion for constituency projects, some projects, running into billions of Naira, were duplicated in different MDAs.This, did not only fuel corruption, it distorted national planning, leading to poor, and inefficient, budget performance.

     In the article  ‘Constituency Project Stink: How lawmakers pad budgets, and make billions’, (Vanguard, March 17, 2024),  Henry Umoru, an Associate Editor writes, quoting ICPC:

    “Analysing the 2021 National Budget alone across key sectors of education, water resources, health, power, science and technology, environment, works and agriculture, we found duplication to the tune of over N20 billion.”

    The report pointed out, for instance,  that the “contract for the construction and renovation of blocks of classrooms at a University Staff School in Taraba state, executed by a company owned, and operated directly, by a lawmaker”was   executed in locations that have no need for such projects.

    In another development, ICPC reported another infraction in the supplies of water rigs by a particular company to be executed in Taraba. The commission reported that “just two days after the award of the contract, ‘the said company’, wrote to the executing agency, the Lower Benue River Basin Development Authority, informing it that it was involved in some sort of arrangement with its sister company in respect of the execution, and requested that the contract sum be paid into the bank account of the company, owned by the sponsoring legislator, which was promptly done.”

    The ICPC  was also able to track a contract for the supply of 686 water pumping machines in Kebbi state, awarded to a company owned by the children of a lawmaker.

    The report reads: “Various other projects were awarded and executed in Kebbi by three other companies owned and operated by the biological children of the sponsor.”

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    Similarly,  ICPC  tracked a project for the supply of 19 units of 500KVA transformers in Delta State, two of which “were stolen and sold by an aide of the sponsoring lawmaker, while one was found kept in a private house since 2018.   

    The commission also cited a project valued at N149m for the training and empowerment of women and youths in Abaji, awarded to a relative of the sponsoring legislator.

    It was also replicated in Katsina state where the sponsor single-handedly executed the contract after which the project, said to have been valued at N49m, was changed from its form and devalued by the lawmaker.

    In another case, the supply of tricycles in Rivers state was an empowerment project where the sponsor allegedly used one of her cronies as the contractor. ICPC alleged that “while the contract was never performed, the contract sum of N30m was fully paid out”.

    An example was cited of the diversion of funds for an agricultural empowerment project in Osun State to a training programme on cattle rearing and the supply of cattle.

    The Bill of Quantities,  according to the report, indicated procurement and distribution of 250 cattles to beneficiaries.But in truth, “while the intended beneficiaries were trained, no cattle was given to them.Instead the lawmaker established a private ranch, using the cattles procured with government fund.”

    In Bayelsa state, an  investigation led it to another youth empowerment scam carried out by the sponsoring lawmaker.

    It alleged that some of the beneficiaries found on the list were randomly contacted, but none of them acknowledged ever receiving any grant”.

    Reacting to one of my two articles on the Abdul Ningi – National Assembly broohaha, a reader, a retired director with the Federal Government wrote as follows,  reflecting what I consider the view of majority of Nigerians on constituency projects:

    “In practice, funds for the so called constituency projects are merely warehoused by the legislators in friendly MDAs for the MDAs to go through the motions of observing the provisions of the Procurement Act in awarding contracts to persons they must have  nominated in the first place. In other words, the contracts are awarded to their fronts.Therefore, in most cases, no implementation is intended and no process to confirm implementation is ever put in place.

    The MDAs consider their part done once they have  observed the tenets of  the Procurement Act in awarding such contracts and only wait to also smile to the bank since they did not oblige for free.    

    Now if  a parsimonious President Mohammed Buhari, with all his faults, could, at least, frown at, and voice his dislike for this nauseating corruption, can President Bola Tinubu, with a renewed hope, afford to merely look on, unconcerned, while these nefarious practices are embedded in a budget to which he has his signature? Is there anyway Nigeria can avoid being described as  fantastically corrupt if these people continue in this fashion?

    Should Nigerians merely watch and lament?

    I believe, fellow citizens, that the least the President should do is, specifically, ask the anti- corruption agencies to do their job, no matter whose ox is gored or no matter how high the offenders.

    They must be made to have their day in court.

  • Rain (IV)

    Rain (IV)

    When I left Nigeria in 1973, my employer and sponsor then called the University of Ife was a Western State institution. That the university is now called the Obafemi Awolowo University is one of the unfortunate fall outs of the university being taken over by the Federal government. Through this impulsive takeover,  the university became a pawn in the hands of the clowns in Lagos and as the saying goes, the rest is history.

    The university was founded in 1962, after more than five years of careful deliberation by the government of the Western Region. After four years during which the university was plagued by teething problems caused mostly by the political disturbances which rocked the Western Region, Professor Hezekiah Oluwasanmi was appointed Vice Chancellor. Everything considered, it was he who set the university on the path of greatness from which we got the altogether too few of those golden years which set the university apart and for which she is still remembered. My own personal harvest from the Oluwasanmi years was the sponsorship which took me to Manchester as part of the staff development scheme, which over the years took two hundred or maybe even more of us to various world famous universities to cut our infant teeth in the world of academia. Those were heady days of glorious expectation which in turn registered the University of Ife as a world class institution. Unfortunately that season of euphoria was, by necessity, very short lived as the rain began beating us long before we expected it or prepared ourselves for its coming.

    In 1975, the Federal government,  drunk on its own dollar induced euphoria quite unadvisedly as it is now clear, decided to take over the running of all universities in the land at that time and the descent into mediocrity and chaos, especially at Ife was set in motion.

    Between 1966 and 1975 when he was rail roaded out of the university, the university was built up stone by stone by Oluwasanmi who had embarked on an ambitious programme of infrastructural building which has produced what has been described as the most beautiful university campus in Africa and one which could stand side by side and indeed toe to toe with any other university in the world. All throughout that period, state of the art structures were going up one after the other continuously, rather like it probably was in ancient Rome at the height of its pomp and glory. Even now, fifty years later,  as much as 85% or more of the structures you see around the university campus were built within that glorious period of Oluwasanmi’s stewardship. Such was the quality of work done on those rather weather beaten buildings that all they need now is an honest coat of paint to restore them to their pristine glory. You are never likely to see work approaching such quality in any public university now being built in the new Nigeria of our time. Furthermore, there is virtually nothing to show for the Federal presence on that university campus. The most significant contribution of a Federal government to the university came a little over a decade after the takeover when the name of the university was wilfully and cynically changed in the immediate aftermath of the demise of Chief Awolowo who for several years was the university’s Chancellor. One other consideration was that the university had been conceived and incubated at the time when the Chief was in full charge of everything going on in the Western Region. The university could have been named after him at the time as indeed the university in Zaria had been named after the premier of Northern Nigeria at the time. But the temptation to do so was resisted successfully. Years later, a craven Federal government casting around desperately for political dividends transparently bribed the people of the South west by changing the name of the university to that of a much beloved political leader. I don’t know if that government harvested any dividend from that transparent sleight of hand but only a few years down the line, the greatest opposition to that confused government came from the South west. Since then, virtually all our public universities have been named after politicians most of whom had  expired in many senses long before their demise. That is an issue worth thinking about.

    Going back to 1975, we return to the period of settlement in Nigeria. The government, trying to win the support of the people for the elongation of its devalued tenure, devised a formula for putting money directly into private pockets through the payment of the Udoji bonanza to everyone qualified to receive it. Not satisfied with this, the government, a continuation of the Gowon junta devised all sorts of populist measures and in doing so, quite destroyed the future of Nigeria as surely as the guillotine thousands of lives at the height of the French revolution.

    The university I returned to in 1976 was radically different from the one I left behind only three years before and unfortunately, most of the changes I met on ground were undesirable as far as I could judge. The wind of affluence which was sweeping through the campus approached the status of gale force winds and was sweeping away all forms of orthodoxy. By far the most conspicuous victim of change on the campus was the ousting of the very architect of all the positive changes which had occurred on the campus over a period of nine years. Professor Oluwasanmi, together with a few sturdy lieutenants had built a modern university virtually from scratch and had spared no quarter in doing so. What more, there was a great deal to show for their labour. In spite of this, the great man was unceremoniously booted out of office by men who were half his age and could not boast of a quarter of his experience of selfless public service. Part of one of the many structures going up on campus had collapsed inexplicably in the process of it’s construction killing one of the workers. A committee of enquiry was set up and Oluwasanmi was identified as the fall guy. He had to go, a sacrifice to faux sanctimonious posturing by people who would not have recognised selfless service even if it hit them across the face. By that time, the weather had already changed and we should have been reaching out for a conveniently placed umbrella as the rain fell on us with increasing fury.

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    By 1975 the dollars were rolling in unchecked and the problem of how to spend them wisely became pressing. I know very little about economics but even in my ignorance, I am aware of the butter and guns relationship. Butter is that edible stuff which makes a great contribution to the enjoyment of food whilst guns are well, guns. The money spent on butter is no longer available to be spent on guns and verse versa. The rulers of Nigeria at this time had the choice of spending money on social amenities which could contribute to development but instead decided to divert money into private pockets including, or perhaps especially their own. In 1969, just before the rains began, I spent nine months as a clerk in the Ministry of Finance at that time the most powerful Ministry in the land. The Minister was none other than Chief Obafemi Awolowo, second in command to the military head of state. The permanent secretary was Mr. Abdul Atta and on a few occasions, I had the privilege and thrill of seeing those venerable gentlemen waiting to take the lift in the lobby of Mosaic House, seat of the ministry in Tinubu square. In those days before the coming of the deluge we are still trying to cope with, neither of these gentlemen had an official car! A car, not the same car everyday, was sent to bring the minister to Mosaic House and take him back home again. As for Mr. Atta, he came to work under his own steam in a bottle green Mercedes 190D, a modest vehicle to match the standard of those days. Those were the days of the nation’s genteel poverty when resources had to be stretched to cover vast distances. That the country went through the Civil War without borrowing a penny suggests that the nation was under tolerably good management. With the coming of those dollars, all restraints were removed and there was enough to be thrown at everything rather in the manner of a drunken sailor let loose on an unsuspecting port city. To continue with the butter and guns analogy, the money could have been spent on building developmental infrastructure such as well equipped schools, railway system expansion, durable roads, building industrial capacity including the generation and distribution of electricity and modern  telecommunication systems, building up impressive academic muscle and security, to mention the most pressing. Instead, money was made available to pamper various sections of the great Nigerian public. University education was made free, ostensibly to cater for the children of the poor but the vast majority of those who profited from it were the children of the elites who with their freshly enhanced salaries could very well pay for the education of their children beyond the undergraduate level. Ironically, many of these people seeing the local university stumbling  from one crisis to the other elected to send their pampered children to universities abroad. Thereafter, the country was flooded with official cars so that government had to take over the responsibility of solving the transportation of a large number of civil servants. In the days of the odd and even number system in Lagos, some of these fat cats were provided with two official cars so that they could be brought to work everyday at government expense. This abuse of privilege has only expanded over the years until now when billions of Naira are incinerated from time to time as government functionaries are deemed unable to perform their functions in the absence of bullet proof SUVs. In 1969,the permanent secretary of the Ministry of Finance came to work in his personal car because he had purchased it with a government loan to facilitate his contribution to government business. Such common sense has long been banished from government thinking which is why we are now hard out to keep our ship from floundering in the sea of misgovernment which the rains lashing us have created.

  • A Flawed Titan…but a titan all the same

    A Flawed Titan…but a titan all the same

    A few weeks back, the founding president of Nigeria’s post-military Fourth Republic, retired general Olusegun Obasanjo, celebrated his eighty seventh birthday amidst pomp and pageantry. The encomiums and plaudits were rousing and heartfelt in most cases.

    One must have missed the one from the presidency. Nevertheless, the birthday boy excitedly soaked it all up. Obasanjo does not do things in half measure. Still full of energy and spunk although obviously losing volume capacity to advanced years, the birthday boy took to the floor capering, cantering and gamboling to the ecstatic delight of swooning admirers.

      Many of our ardent readers have been urging us to write about General Olusegun Aremu Obasanjo arguably the most successful soldier-politician thrown up by the turbulent milieu of Nigeria’s post-Independence politics while not actively taking part in any coup except by passive connivance. That happened on the night General Gowon was deposed when by his own admission the then Colonel Abdulahi Mohammed informed him that Gowon was a goner.

    When the columnist declined citing such interventions as strategically unhelpful and a needless foray into political controversies, the more vehement insist that not doing so is a willful abdication of national responsibility.  One of the readers, probably too young or  too obsessed with social media trivia,  put the reluctance to rank cowardice or the “parapo” politics of the Yoruba people.

       One can now reveal publicly for the first time that some while ago, one had been approached by a publisher and journalist, one of the finest in the land,  to review an autobiographical expose written by Obasanjo’s estranged first wife, Madam Oluremi Obasanjo nee Akinlawon.

    Hell indeed hath no fury than a woman full of righteous indignation. The book was so filled with incandescent rage and brimming with such insalubrious and salacious details that one had to decline reviewing .There must always be a limit to stirring up public obloquy.

    Given the circumstances which threw him up as an arms bearer of the colonial oligarchy and a postcolonial military institution that owed its originating summons to plunder and rapine of the local populace, Obasanjo has led a charmed life. Napoleon Bonaparte once noted that he valued luck above competence when it came to rating his generals. Obasanjo has been a very lucky man indeed.

      The colonial progenitor of that protocol of violence, the redoubtable Colonel Fredrick Lugard, pacified everything that could be pacified among the natives in Nigeria until he met his match in the Lagos coastal elite who fought him toe to toe until he was recalled after succumbing to a nervous breakdown which had its origins in an earlier disastrous tour of duty in India. He had fallen in love with a married woman.

      There are some exceptional figures of history, extraordinary personages whose personal conduct does not fit the prism of conventional ethical framework or mundane moralism. Obasanjo may well be one of these. Charles De Gaulle, the great French wartime leader, military genius, philosopher, muse of history and extraordinary prose stylist, called them “sacred monsters” obviously including himself.

       But De Gaulle was an abstemious moralist, a prude, and a stirring ethicist whose personal conduct in politics remains unimpeachable. During one of those long nights of intense contemplation with Andre Malraux, his beloved Minister of Culture and intellectual confidante, De Gaulle advanced the thesis that in France’s darkest hour of need circumstances always combine to throw up the right leader to lead the French people. As proof, he cited the example of Charlemagne, Joan of Arc, Napoleon and himself by honourable extension.

        We are talking of organic nations whose nationhood has been refined and processed through test, tribulations and triumphs across age and time and not artificial nations clumsily and inexpertly cobbled and glued together by colonial meddlers whose sole motivation appears to be overseas profit. Inorganic nations are only lucky to get it right once in a while by trial and often egregious error.

      The circumstances could not have been more disheartening in military-dominated postcolonial societies particularly in Africa. With their residual discipline, superior psychological stamina and reputation as professional managers of the instruments of violence and coercion on which the state relies, it was very easy for the early military conquerors of Nigeria to impose their will and whimsies on a demoralized, disorganized and disoriented political class.

      Watching the military consolidate their political annihilation of the Nigerian political class with the ascendancy of General Ibrahim Babangida was like watching some cruel blood sports whose outcome had been known beforehand. It was said that when some of Chief Awolowo’s surviving disciples approached him that something queasy and unsettling was unfolding the old sage from Ikenne simply told them that they would have problems with the young man. The titan promptly took his terminal exit.

      Thereafter, Babangida proceeded to banning , unbanning and debarring them from political participation in a war of attrition, exhaustion and intimidation which left them in complete disarray even as the now retired Brigadier Shehu Yar’Adua, a genius of feeding logistics and complex transportation, steamrolled them in their own electoral backyard.

     Meanwhile, the wily Owu general who would later profit most from the rout of the ancient political class was already lurking with intent closely monitoring the outcome of the struggle and the disposition of troops. Occasionally as the blood flowed, he would issue a note of caution and dismay even while being secretly thrilled by the comeuppance of the ancient Yoruba political class with their progressive claptrap and discomfiting self-regard.

     Cavorting and carousing with a man with such overawing credentials without taking the necessary precautions is like going to battle armed with a gold fountain pen. The pen will be used in drafting the obituary. Obasanjo is a man with formidable cunning and extraordinary native intelligence whose sleepy stare must not be misconstrued for loss of appetite for psychological profiling. Given to bucolic banters when truly in his elements, the earthy ribaldry can also be a staging post for deep psychic sieges. Even a casual meal is an opportunity for a psych-op.  

     If you rub Obasanjo the right way or if he takes a personal liking to you on the basis of antecedents, he can be such a wondrous and entertaining host. Meeting up with such a larger than life behemoth, a fascinating and intriguing personality can be a moveable feast of outlandish humour and rare historical vignettes.

           Our first meeting took place on a bright early October morning in some inner lobby of his vast farming estate otherwise known as Temperance Farm. One had arrived quite early for a meeting of Obasanjo’s baby, the Africa Leadership Forum, not knowing that the meeting had been rescheduled. The cancellation turned out to be fortuitous, affording one an excellent opportunity for a close up with the redoubtable master of political intrigues. In his rugged farmers’ outfit, the former military head of state cut the figure of bucolic peace and rustic contentment.

      “Ha, welcome, please have a seat. You know when you write, you remind me of people like Stanley Macebuh, Dele Cole and, and, and that other one they letter-bombed”, he opened with a deadpan expression which was truly chilling in its remarkable sangfroid.

      Ha? Alarm bells started ringing immediately. His oblique reference to Dele Giwa, the master journalist and exquisite prose craftsman, was even more destabilizing. Dele Giwa in his usual boyish enthusiasm and excitability  had told this columnist of sleeping on the same bed with the general any time they went up to the farm to spend time with him. If barely five years after his assassination he was now being casually added to the grim statistics  of state elimination, then God help us in this new venture. One chose to ride the bump.

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      As the conversation wore on with entertaining diversions from his farmhands including one of   Ghanaian extraction who had been accused of filching a couple of eggs, one noticed a slight discomfiture. Apparently, the old general occasionally enjoyed taking his breakfast on the bare floor but did not want to be marked down for uncouth and uncivilized conduct by his new friend who from all appearances and name must be an urban sophisticate from the bowels of Victorian Lagos. The general decided to take the siege to his visitor.

       “By the way doctor, where exactly are you from?” he suddenly demanded.

       “My place is somewhere between Ibadan and Ile-Ife”, one answered casually and offhandedly. The general felt relieved as the burden of expectation evaporated.

       “Is that so? Oh my God!! Please bring my food o jare!!! I thought it was all this Savage, Fernandez, Macgregor, Vera-Cruz, Bucknor and and Eric Moore,” the general exploded in bucolic mirth. But his mood darkened immediately as he remembered one big man from one’s town who had maltreated his niece in the course of a turbulent marriage which broke up eventually.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

    “Amoo, iyekan re se mi”(I have been offended by one of your kinsmen) the general rumbled in his deep Owu accent. “ One hands over one’s niece in marriage only for her to be treated so shabbily, so badly”. Luckily it was time to go on an expedition of the permanent site of Bells’ University.

      On a different occasion at the Gateway Hotel after a particularly bruising exchange between this columnist and Professor Akin Mabogunje about the usefulness of SAP and its allied belligerent regimen as well as the value of academic collaboration with an authoritarian military regime bent on presenting the nation with a democratic debacle, the general, our host, snatched the microphone.

      Clearing his throat rather lustily, he began: “ I thank those of you who are in government. I also thank those of you who have been in government”. Then shooting a wink in one’s direction, he delivered the hefty punch line. “And I also thank those of you who will never be in government!!”. When one later walked up to him and demanded clarification, he erupted in boyish self-amusement. “Your views are too radical”.

      Almost thirty five years later, it is no longer a question of who is right but who is left after the piecemeal devastation and despoliation of the nation on the economic, spiritual and political front. The general himself has been to prison and had emerged triumphant as a two-term president of post-military Nigeria. But you cannot plant cassava and expect to harvest yam.

     Obasanjo’s last three attempts to bend the nation to his procrustean will have ended in political disasters. First was his bid to alter the constitution to gift himself a third term which was an epic fiasco. Second were his two attempts to galvanize the nation in a political direction dictated by himself. They unraveled catastrophically. A nation is not a military garrison. That is history talking back to him without embellishment or recourse to self-help.

      It has been an epic slog to military and political stardom. The Owu-born general is definitely a titan of modern Nigerian history, but a severely flawed one at that. Now that all passion is spent, the old man owes the nation that has given him so much a parting gift. He should embark on a reconciliation drive with all known and unknown adversaries, which is the prerequisite for the elite cohesion Nigeria needs for open heart surgery. That is the path of honour and higher statesmanship. Many happy returns, sir.

  • Baba Lekki storms old NEPA office

    Baba Lekki storms old NEPA office

    A day after the announcement of the steep and astronomical rise in electricity tariffs, Baba Lekki was up in arms, fuming and fulminating against anything and anybody in sight. The old contrarian has been quiet of late, vowing never to criticize the new government until a particular time has elapsed. But his agony has been compounded by the fact that he had earlier in the week been forced to abandon a trip to the interior because thieves have made away with the whole transformer of his town.

      “That is what they call amodemaja, when you capture both the hunter and his dog”, Baba Lekki explained to a group of younger admirers, “or the assassination of light if you like”.

     But this misty morning, it was obvious that the old codger was in no mood for any nonsense as he forced his way to the head of the queue with the crowd giving him a wide berth as he murmured some torrid incantations. He was quite a sight to behold, dressed only in amulet-suffused warrior knickers which gave off a foul odour redolent of expiring porcupine. The lady in the kiosk quickly motioned for help from a suave, well-dressed young man who looked like the resident trouble-shooter.

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      “Ah big daddy, how can we help you this morning, sir?” the young man opened with a polite smile.

      “You better stop that saccharine nonsense. You are the one in need of help”, the old man snapped.

      “So, what brought you here today?” the chap inquired slightly jolted by the old man’s irate adversity.

      “I want you to tell me the meaning of this latest obscene scam, this indefensible rise in tariff!” the old man screamed, furiously stamping his left foot on the ground.

      “Ah baba, we don’t do scams here. We only do hikes”, the young man responded.

       “In that case, eku aiki na”, the old man retorted in surly contempt lapsing into Yoruba-Hausa lingo.

       “Baba, let me help you out. What is your band?” the troubleshooter demanded.

       “Ebenezer Obey”, the ancient contrarian whined.

      “No, I don’t mean musical bands”.

      “But you are the ones playing Musical chairs with Nigerians. When you changed your name to DISCO, I knew nothing good will ever come out of it”, the old man noted as he began walking away in anger and sorrow.

      “Baba, what is your NIN?” the young man shouted at his heels.

      “You are a nincompoop!” the old man blasted as he vanished in the crowd.