The Nation Newspaper

Category: Sunday

An Executive Outcome in Russia

While this column was away, so many things happened on the global stage to remind us of unfinished business and of the New World Disorder predicated on the collapse of the Soviet Empire and the decline of America’s global suzerainty.

But the construction of a new global hegemony takes its time and decades to figure out. It will be foolish to ever imagine that the old superpowers are completely finished. Both America and Russia can still pack a thunderous punch. A sprightly donkey in its prime is still no match for an ageing hamstrung horse when it comes to racing.

   In a testy exchange with James Boswell, his lifelong collaborator and faithful Scottish amanuensis, Samuel Johnson, the Dean himself, once exploded that there was no point in settling the order of precedence between a flea and a louse. Both are undesirable vermin.

Johnson was an infamous snob and English supremacist who often ticked off Boswell with cruel condescension over his Scottish antecedents. Boswell once ruefully and tearfully pleaded with his master that he could not help being a Scot. “Sir, that is what a great many of your countrymen cannot help”, Johnson shot back with merciless abrasion.

But it would seem that in this matter of settling the order of precedence over two age-old professions, Johnson has a point. Which is the world’s oldest profession? Prostitution or mercenary arms- bearing? Both mercenary soldier and the prostitute belong to the same profession. The prostitute sells his/her body while the mercenary soldier offers his military endowments for sale.

   While prostitution has a claim to being the older franchise since it has been with us from the dawn of human society, mercenary soldering is not far behind. Every great army had its mercenary corps, either as expendable storm troopers or as dependable guards of the rear.

Read Also: Ukraine, Poland to boycott UEFA competitions with Russian teams

Some of the greatest soldiers that the world has known started out as mercenaries. But can “comfort women” abducted against their wish to service servicemen during wars be called prostitutes? And can a soldier who demands for wages for fighting to defend the geopolitical integrity of his nation be anything other than a paid patriot?

It is within this semantic quagmire that one must situate the tragedy of Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Russian mercenary patriot who recently perished as the aircraft bearing him and some principal members of the Wagner Group to St Petersburg exploded mid-air spluttering to earth in a huge fireball.

A reconditioned thug and serial criminal in an earlier incarnation, the highly combustible fellow had seen several memorable and stirring actions at the behest of his country on several fronts as a paid volunteer. But he ran afoul of the Putinist state and the rest can best be described as an executive outcome.

Remember Executives Outcomes? It is a private military outfit founded in South Africa in 1989 by Eeben Barlow, a former Colonel in the South African Defence Force. Its main aim was to prevent state decapitation in Africa by irregular forces. Before it was liquidated and reestablished in 2020, it saw action both in Angola and Sierra Leone and was quite helpful in preventing the capture of Freetown by rebel forces during the country’s civil war.

But a mercenary group remains a mercenary group. Prigozhin was a brave and plucky fellow, but he was not very intelligent. Military threats are useful only when issued against a weak and irresolute enemy and not a punitively proactive modern Russian state whose reputation for coldblooded reprisal against errant nationals remains unequalled in the annals of state elimination.

You cannot bluff your way past a hard and ferociously determined hyper-statist like Vladimir Putin. By challenging Putin and the Russian armed forces to a duel, Prigozhin had merely signed his own death warrant. It was like a man who challenged his own chi to a wrestling contest. It was only a question of time before his prayers were answered.

It was the sharpest and clearest suicide notice in the history of individual confrontation with an imperial and imperious modern state. As a stern survivalist who places much premium on his own leash on power, Putin knew that to ignore the open challenge from the former pickpocket was to open a gaping hole in his own escutcheon.

   Despite its bluff and bluster, it was not as if Prigozhin’s ragtag mercenary force represented any serious threat to Putin. The danger was that his temerity could trigger a far more definitive eruption from the Russian armed forces which could upend the tenure of the former security kingpin. With the brutal manner of the elimination of the boss of the Wagner group, it is now obvious that Putin’s successor is unlikely to come from regular and normal elections or from Russia’s atrophied political and civil society.

Two provisional conclusions can be drawn from this development. Liberal Democracy as it is known in the west is dead and buried in post-Soviet Russia. It never stood a chance on a barren patch shot through with the vestiges of oriental despotism. Second, all the talk about “end of ideology” and the dawn of a new phase of human existence was mere western propaganda, dead on arrival.

Ideology survives and thrives in Russia and it is powered by a Pan-Slavic hyper-nationalism. With the murderous stalemate in Ukraine and Putin’s imperious and moody assertiveness everywhere else, it is proving far more potent and dangerous to western civilization than old communism. It is the cunning of history once again.

October 1, 2023
Ms Martins on Obasanjo: A portrait

English novelist and critic, Samuel Butler (1835-1902), found the persons and characters of Scottish historian and essayist Thomas Carlyle so revolting, and his dutiful but irksome Welsh wife Jane Welsh Carlyle so offensive, that he famously quipped: “It was very good of God to let Carlyle and Mrs. Carlyle marry each other and so make only two people miserable instead of four.” Biographers suggest that Mr and Mrs Carlyle loved each other intensely but frequently quarrelled, with the wife often mulling divorce but sighing in the same breath that she could not bear the thought of separation. (Mr Carlyle authored the enthralling tome “History of the French Revolution”, which Mark Twain once said no one should die without reading). Today, however, the focus is ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo and Ms Taiwo Martins, and their romantic escapades, complete with public demonstrations and equally public squabbles. Perhaps they were well paired and thus made each other miserable. After all, both have had very chequered romantic lives.

Mrs Obasanjo fired the first shot on September 17 when she took issue with the man who fathered her sons. She declaimed against his humiliation of Oyo State chiefs at a public function in Iseyin, Oyo State, two days earlier. In her rejoinder titled “Oyo Kings: A plea for forgiveness” she says: “I want to publicly state here that on behalf of the family, the children, the wives, the grandchildren and all members of the family of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, l am offering a big and genuine apology both spiritual and physical to all the kings of Oyo State, all the kings of Yoruba land and the entire Yoruba race both in Nigeria and Diaspora. Please, l beg for permanent and eternal forgiveness and pardon from all Yoruba sons and daughters worldwide…”

Never one to take any provocation lightly, Chief Obasanjo berated Ms Martins, as she is now known, denounced her apology, refuted her wifely label, and insinuated she was unhinged. But angry over the repudiation, not to say the description of her as being unstable, she launches into a fiery and unflattering character portrait of the former president whom she describes as insatiable, unappeasable, irritable and envious. She reminds him of the dynamics of their relationship, and insists that his portraiture of her was influenced by his being scorned by her, despite repeated entreaties. She is not deranged, she insists; on the contrary it is Chief Obasanjo who is. According to her, “…it must be noted that any leader like you who justifies indecency, humiliation of leaders, talks and acts like a tout or an area boy with uncouth mannerisms, shows us his mental state…”

Read Also: Obasanjo should apologise to monarchs, says Afenifere

Ms Martins then launches into a political tirade against the former president, perhaps an indication of her exposure, and a pointer to why Chief Obasanjo found her cosmopolitan enough to father her sons. It is hard to fault her. She says: “You are the real problem, troubling Nigeria, the people of Nigeria, troubling families and homes and the society at large. God gave you long life, good health, made you famous, gave you wealth, made you three times President of Nigeria, yet you couldn’t give us beautiful roads and 18 or 24 hours electricity which others could build on. All you do is fight, fight, fight every president who comes to power after you instead of embracing them as your loving children to be mentored, supported and guided by you to give us excellent service that will bring comfort to us all in the whole nation. The only leaders you couldn’t cage or render impotent in Africa are the current Presidents of Nigeria, Tinubu, and that of Rwanda, Paul Kagame.” Phew!

Surprisingly, almost as if the security agencies ignore the former president’s incitement of youths and other political actors over the 2023 presidential election, Ms Martins preempts him by cautioning those being misled into insurrection against the constitution, a goal the former president has not hidden from public view. Says Ms Martins: “Please Charly Boy, Donald Duke, Sahara Reporters, the youths of Nigeria and others – l appeal to you humbly – don’t join forces with Daddy Olusegun Obasanjo again to bring war and chaos into Nigeria in order to remove President Tinubu. God gave the Presidency to Tinubu, not man. Daddy Olusegun Obasanjo was made President in 1999 by the North. Generals Babangida, Abdulsalami, my twin brother, Chief Kenny Martins, and many others provided the money, the people, the support nationally and internationally, and all needed resources and platforms to become president, and he betrayed them all. He rewarded them with evil…He didn’t win the election. When he now wanted third term, God shoved the evil, ungrateful Obasanjo out. Today he will not allow us to breathe.” Ms Martins says so much more, revealing information and characterisation that could only come from someone who knew the former president at close quarters.

It is not certain that Chief Obasanjo will listen to any admonition. To him and others, the presidential election has not ended, and will not end until either his group or the winners of that election are destroyed. It is against such zero-sum game that Ms Martins ends her admonition homiletically. According to her: “Daddy Olusegun Obasanjo, stop your rantings; you are an old, wounded, dying, roaring lion. Stop barking. Let me and my children live; stop afflicting me and my children because you now hate me. Let us breathe in Nigeria. God will judge you soon. My family and I have supported you powerfully. At close to 90, you are fighting President Tinubu. You fought Yar’adua, you fought Jonathan, you have fought every President in Nigeria since you left Dodan Barracks. Are you the only ex – president we have in Nigeria?” Indeed, at close to 90, the now frail but no less bilious and self-satisfied former president will not relent. He is unbothered about his end. He seems perfectly the only man, misanthrope, and former president capable of sustaining rage and bitterness to the very end. Most people at the age of 70 have abandoned their truculence. Chief Obasanjo’s has become more potent.

October 1, 2023
France’s Niger Republic dilemma

For all its decades of subordinate relationship with France, Niger Republic enjoyed no special privileges. Nearly three months after the palace coup in that arid and impoverished Sahelian country, France has grudgingly decided to comply with the coup leaders’ quit order. On the whole, more than a century of imperialist control of Francophone countries is ending on a dismal and ignoble note. Mali, Guinea, Burkina Faso, and now Niger, are out of the French orbit. The severance will have devastating consequences for all the parties. And, sadly, it has taken the military and their coups to engineer that seismic change. But it will take a while to know who will suffer the more between the neocolonial ruler and former colonists.

Read Also: Still on ECOWAS dilemma in Niger Republic

French West Africa is likely to substitute France with either China or Russia or both. That abysmal substitution is unlikely to augur well or end well. President Tinubu of Nigeria has warned about that substitution; but neither he nor the rest of West Africa can do anything about it in the near term. More than a century of pillage cannot be corrected overnight. Had the new military rulers been equipped for civil governance, there would have been hope. But they are full of rhetoric, are as incompetent and shortsighted as the civilian elite they replaced, and are destitute of vision. West Africa should brace up for a cataclysm in the years ahead.

October 1, 2023
Justice for MohBad

Who extinguished this ‘Light’ at his prime?

Although there are still clouds over the circumstances under which Ilerioluwa Oladimeji Aloba, aka MohBad died on September 12, events since his death have proved that he was more glorious in death than he was while alive. No thanks to his killers for this latter glory if indeed he was killed.

Apparently, such person/s must have underrated the strength of his followership in Nigeria and beyond.

At the last count, MohBad had appeared on Times Square’s billboard in New York, thus qualifying him, even if post-humously, to join the league of top celebrities like Davido, Wizkid, Burna Boy, Tiwa Savage, Tems, etc. The ‘Imole’s’ billboard message reads: “Will be remembered forever, MohBad. Legends are never forgotten. R.I.P.”

MohBad, 27, was a former artiste of Marlian Records, owned by Azeez Fashola aka Naira Marley. But they fell apart in February, last year. Since then, MohBad never knew peace. It had been from one bully attack, allegedly by agents of Marley, or another.

Understandably, the circumstances surrounding the musician’s death have continued to spark controversies on social media and among concerned Nigerians. Indeed, there had been protests in several parts of the country asking for justice for him and his relatives.

Naira Marley happens to be the biggest suspect in this alleged murder, and for some reasons. Indeed, he needs more than nine lives to free himself from the court of public opinion on this matter. Already, he has continued to lose followers on social media as a result of this sad incident.

Marley has never appeared to me to be a law-abiding individual and he seems larger than life obviously because of some influential Nigerians that are usually on hand to get him out of trouble whenever he runs into one.

Far back as 2019, when he was barely 19, it was reported that he was wanted by Lewisham Police in England for crimes ranging from robbery to sexual assault on a night bus. He even reportedly boasted that he had been arrested 24 times while living in England. Listen to him: “Lemme tell you, you don’t know me. I have been arrested 24 times in England and I am not doing any other type of music. No slow songs, no love songs, just street music,” he reportedly told ‘The Guardian’.

And, if you are still in doubt about his personality, let me also remind you that he was arrested by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in 2019. “Yes, he is with us. He’s not the only person; he had some other persons also arrested alongside (him). They were arrested in relation to advance fee fraud — Internet-related cases and all of that,” the commission’s spokesman, Tony Orilade, said.

Well, we may not be able to nail Marley on account of this because no court of law has yet pronounced him guilty of the charges.

But then, it is instructive that a young man like him had been arrested 24 times abroad as he boasted himself. Pray, who are his friends because, as they say, ‘show me your friends and I would tell the kind of person you are’.

We should not forget that even as recently as June 13, 2020, the controversial singer embarked on a non-essential flight from Lagos to Abuja and back to Lagos the same day for a musical concert, in defiance of the ban on inter-state travels by the Federal Government, as part of the COVID-19 safety measures. This was barely two months after he was indicted for showing up at a party which Funke Akindele, an actress, organised in honour of her husband, Abdulrasheed Bello, also known as JJC Skillz, in April, despite COVID restrictions.

So, something must be wrong with a man Marley’s age, to have this kind of unsavoury record so early in life. That such a man is role model to many young Nigerians tells how much values have sunk in the country. In the past in Yoruba land, you would find parents literally skinning their children alive if they found them near the shadow of a person like Marley, not to talk of being in his company.

As a matter of fact, I wonder how he came about the name ‘Marley’ because the original Marley that we knew was a ‘prisoner of conscience’, as opposed to this our own variant.

I have no problem with someone who wants to be a deviant, but I have a problem where that deviancy is all about the bad and the ugly, like Naira Marley’s.

However, whilst the aforementioned points could have been issues in themselves, they would not be sufficient to nail him for MohBad’s death. The reason he is a major suspect is his strained relations with MohBad, a former signee of his record label.

As recently as October 5, last year, MohBad had raised the alarm on X (formerly Twitter) over what he described as a “physical assault” on him by Marlian Records.

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Hear him: “Just because I want to change my manager which is their brother, see what they did to me at Marlian House,” he tweeted in a video, showing bloody bruises on his body. He asked for help in the thread saying, “I am dying inside”.

Indeed, it was alleged that the singer was repeatedly intimidated and assaulted at different times by members of the Marlian Records label until his death. And this was so brazenly done in a country that is supposed to be governed by laws.

Even MohBad’s wife was said to have been beaten for refusing to sell balloons infused with drugs. Some of these stories may jolly well be wide speculations, but they fit into the personae of Marley.

MohBad went through a lot and from reports, he had too much than his age and fragile frame could carry. And why? Because he called it quits with a recording company!

After suffering in silence for so long, MohBad decided to escalate his predicament to the police via a petition on June 27. The police apparently did nothing. May be if action had been taken then, MohBad would still be alive. So, who were those who received the petition? They need to tell or explain what they did and give reasons if they did nothing.

It is a thing like this that makes many Nigerians believe that the police cannot be trusted to handle a matter like this professionally, except someone at the top is interested. Would the police have treated the petition with levity if it had come from an influential Nigerian?

Perhaps this was why the Lagos State government decided to involve the Department of Security Services (DSS) in the investigation to unravel who and or what killed MohBad.

Moreover, could there have been any chilling significance in some of Naira Marley’s lyrics, like sending “men to God”, etc?

However, Naira Marley may, as a result of all this background be the prime suspect in this matter, but that should not foreclose investigations into other possible areas, also as per what is already in the public domain; fact or fiction.

In a matter like this, everyone is a suspect until the wheat is separated from the chaff. Everyone, including MohBad’s father, Joseph Aloba. One may sympathise with him for losing his son, but then, there were some steps he took, especially the hurried burial organised for his son immediately after he was said to have died. He said he decided to bury him the next day because that was the custom in Yoruba land.

“In Yoruba land, his corpse is not the kind to be kept when both of his parents are still alive,” he said.

The father needs to be questioned. Yoruba culture is not enough justification to bury someone like MohBad in a hurry, especially given the circumstances surrounding his death.

So, was the hurried burial a result of ignorance on the part of the father? Was it poverty? Or both? We need to know.

Lest we forget, there were some reports about all not being well between the mother-in-law and MohBad’s parents. She was said to be in firm grip of the marriage, taking vital decisions and so on. She was even accused of being responsible for the lack of proper care of the dead talent’s parents by their son.

By the way, where is MohBad’s wife in all of these? She seems nowhere in the picture in a matter she should be the centre of attention. Granted that she might be grieving, she cannot be completely silent on a matter that youths in several parts of the country have shown tremendous interest and solidarity. Her silence or near-silence is unusual. We need to hear from her, too.

It is however heartwarming that the Lagos State Police Command had exhumed MohBad’s corpse for autopsy. We are only awaiting the result. The command also confirmed the arrest of the ‘nurse’ who reportedly administered an injection on him prior to his demise. We are just being told that she is not a registered nurse. Was MohBad aware of this?

These are all commendable steps, all the same.

So far, Lagos State government seems to have done the best thing in the circumstance. The governor had sent his deputy to visit the relatives of the deceased. The state government has promised to take responsibility of the child left behind by the singer, Liam Imole Aloba. It should match action with words in this regard.

The presence of two high officials of the state government at Thursday’s candlelight procession for the deceased was also a good way of showing solidarity with the fans and family of Mohbad.

But the point must be made that the search for the real truth and nothing but the truth on this matter cannot be over until it is over. The investigations must be transparent and the report compiled without fear or favour.

If MohBad was killed, his killers must be fished out and prosecuted, no matter who they are. Nigeria should not be allowed to descend into a jungle, which is what happens when perpetrators of heinous crimes like this are shielded for whatever reason.

September 24, 2023
Deputy governors’ moments of angst
- By Idowu Akinlotan
Whichever way they turn, deputy governors appear to be damned. Damned if they do anything; and damned if they don’t. No story brings this dilemma to the surface as dramatically as the plights of Ondo State deputy governor, Lucky Aiyedatiwa, and Edo State deputy governor, Philip Shaibu. Both are currently perched dangerously on the horns of a dilemma, considering how quickly their governors have turned against them, and with the voluble and unpredictable Mr Shaibu groveling more farcically than the fairly tactless Mr Aiyedatiwa. But whether tactless or unpredictable, both deputy governors face an uncertain future and the prospect of impeachment. In Edo the governor, Godwin Obaseki, accuses his deputy of crass ambition packaged to undermine the state’s zoning succession formula thus endangering the chances of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in next year’s off-season governorship election. In Ondo State, Governor Rotimi Akeredolu returned from a three-month medical leave with a vengeance to cut his allegedly malfeasant deputy to size over charges of gross misconduct.

Whatever the Edo and Ondo deputy governors are going through is of course not countrywide. Most deputy governors have not fallen out with their bosses, having creatively interpreted the constitution to deny themselves of any willpower. Indeed, they are at their governors’ beck and call, with each deputy governor burying in varying degrees his pride and character. On the whole, they cut a pitiable sight in their subsumption of personal ego and character to their bosses’. However, someone like Mr Shaibu had thought he could force the hands of Mr Obaseki, especially considering how the governor himself ‘forced’ the hands of his former boss and mentor, Adams Oshiomhole, now a senator. Apart from the politics and dynamics regarding which Edo senatorial zone should present the PDP’s governorship candidate, Mr Shaibu believed he could in fact generate different political momentum his boss would find irresistible, if not even admirable. His naivety led him into audaciously kick-starting his preparations for Poll 2024 by energising the state’s grassroots before calculating the cost of Mr Obaseki’s opposition.

The situation in Ondo is comparable. For the reticent and undifferentiating Mr Aiyedatiwa, it is not clear whether he would have dared to bite the bullet had his boss not gone away for an extended and cryptically uncertain period. There were whispers among the governor’s pickthanks that the deputy/acting governor was too ambitious. Mr Aiyedatiwa’s opponents even psychoanalysed him by reporting to the hospitalised governor that his deputy did not wish him to return from medical leave, and that his disloyalty was so provocative and flagrant that it led him to try asserting himself upon an unwilling staff and cabinet. Secret and antagonistic reports flooded the governor’s hospital room, concentrating his bile, inflaming his rage, and turning him into an explosive device upon his return. Weeks after his return, Mr Akeredolu exploded a depth bomb on Mr Aiyedatiwa’s head without even waiting to investigate his deputy’s alleged perfidy. It was obviously enough that the already controversial deputy, whose home front is frazzled by domestic dissent, was tactlessly and openly assertive.

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Edo’s Mr Shaibu has unglamourously tried to walk back his short-lived revolt against Mr Obaseki. He had talked tough one day, and moderated the next day; went to court another day, and withdrew his suit on yet another inglorious and ignominious day. Perhaps he felt the Obaseki administration was in any case near the end of its tenure, and the governor had become a lame duck. It was a gross miscalculation. Mr Obaseki is not a democrat, nor a politician incommoded by the niceties of the rule of law. He fights to the bitter end, and his opponents must have the commonsense to also fight him to the end, if they are not to be humiliated. The governor would be eager to bite off his opponent’s ears in a boxing ring if he felt threatened, as he in fact did to the previous House of Assembly whom he compelled to fly at half-mast virtually throughout their tenure. For a man whose politics and war tactics lack finesse, he is not the kind of politician with whom a shoddily prepared and half-hearted combatant would like to grapple. But Mr Shaibu entered the ring with tattered gloves, shoes without laces, and weight that was suicidally featherweight. Predictably, the governor made short work of him. Even at the onset of Mr Shaibu’s rebellion, it was unthinkable that he stood a chance of winning. Mid-way into the combat, the outcome was no longer in doubt, especially when Mr Obaseki turned up the screw a little by exiling the governor to a nondescript office outside the Government House. Mr Shaibu realised too late that a deputy governor is only as important as the governor makes him. Now, he is attempting to worm his way into the confidences of a clearly and enthusiastically vengeful governor. A few days ago, the deputy governor grovelled in an unspeakable way that can only elicit the governor’s contempt. Mr Obaseki will simply sneer at him.

Mr Aiyedatiwa does not stand any chance in Ondo. If Mr Obaseki was reluctant to go the route of impeachment, and will probably not do so, for his deputy is already spent and disgraced, the generally litigious Mr Akeredolu suffers no trepidation in the courts. The Ondo House of Assembly has begun impeachment moves, and the deputy governor is already put on notice for gross misconduct, an infraction whose interpretation the courts have ceded almost entirely to the legislature. Mr Aiyedatiwa does not stand a cat in hell’s chance of surviving the onslaught. The question is whether Ondo will beat other states’ impeachment records. Indeed, the deputy governor’s only chance of surviving the sally from his enemies is to rally the party’s national leadership, assuming those ones are minded to weigh in.

There are suggestions that some constitutional improvisations can be found to make deputy governors more relevant and less prone to rebellion. If lawmakers can’t resolve the local government autonomy conundrum, they cannot also resolve that of endangered deputy governors. Let every deputy governor get wise and find a way to survive, even if it means leaving behind in his home every impediment to his survivability, including his character and personality. The alternative is too grim to contemplate.
September 24, 2023
2023: Not an idle moment for Nigeria

Last week’s widespread protests and candlelight processions in some states organised in memory of musician Ilerioluwa Aloba, alias MohBad, probably left many people in their 40s, 50s and above reeling. Until his death at 27 and the controversy surrounding the circumstances of his passing, very few older generation Nigerians ever heard of him, let alone listened to his music. Indeed, quite paradoxically, he may have achieved fame at his death. The puzzled generation of elders should not try to know or appreciate his genre of music; it will worsen their bewilderment. Fortunately, his death had substantially nothing to do with the government or law enforcement agencies, except perhaps tangentially, and protests over the circumstances of his passing were designed more to cajole relevant ministries and agencies of government into investigating those who might have contributed in one sinister way or the other to his untimely exit.

2023 began on a high; it appears ready to go in a blaze of crises. Indeed, examined more closely, it is uncertain this year can be compared with any other year since Gen. Sani Abacha expired in June 1998 and MKO Abiola also died in controversial circumstances a month later. Right from the break of dawn in January 2023, mysteries and convulsions have wracked the country and left the people winded. Even seers did not anticipate these seismic events, through their daily conjurations, sorceries and mathematical deductions, nor, by genuine prophecies, saw and warned about what were soon to befall Nigeria. And whether Nigerians like it or not, they will keep on experiencing similar and breathtaking events till the close of the year. No one knows what October holds in store, nor November, nor yet December. It is safe to surmise, however, that there will be additional convulsions in the weeks to come, perhaps more tumultuous than the previous nine months, but obviously no less impactful, dramatic, and apocalyptic. If not another musician dropping dead in reflection of the unfathomable tastes of the youths, then perhaps the birthing of some extraordinary electoral phenomena from politicians’ Ouija boards.

Who could have guessed that as 2022 faded away in the harmattan haze of December that the Nigerian government would inflict an improperly conceived and poorly digested currency redesign as a Christmas and New Year’s gift between December 15, 2022 and January 29 (later extended to February 10) 2023. They did, and they defended it with gusto, impounding the people’s money and barring them, on pain of suffering and death, from having access to cash. And of all the economic policies ever conceived on planet earth, who could have guessed that such horrendous sufferings were designed to thwart a certain political succession process or produce a particular objective favourable to a powerful clique. They inflicted hasty currency change on the country, ignored widespread suffering, conducted the elections some 10 days later and in mid-March in a fouled atmosphere, but unprecedentedly still failed to get the outcome for which they produced an earthquake, despite being helped by all the forces humans could muster, spiritual, ethnic, and class.

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And then, contrary to projections, predictions and incitement, all of which held Nigerians in suspense, both the elections and the May 29 inaugurations held peacefully. The country is surprisingly on an even keel despite immeasurable privations, and despite one cataclysmic event following another, and on and on. Absolutely not one dull moment. Edo wanted to impeach its deputy governor, Philip Shaibu, for insubordination and disloyalty, but Governor Godwin Obaseki dithered. Perhaps he recognised it would amount to overkill, for after all, his deputy was guilty of nothing more than overweening ambition. But in a system where gross misconduct is left to the interpretative laxity of governors and the Houses of Assembly, impeachment becomes considerably easy. If Mr Obaseki dithered, Ondo State’s Governor Rotimi `dolu would not put his hands to the plough and look back. He has tried to distance himself from the impeachment process launched last week by the ingratiating legislature, and rested his alibi on the metaphysics of his debilitation and recovery from a grave illness, but no one is buying his excuses. His deputy, Lucky Aiyedatiwa, is a goner except heaven intervenes.

And just as the country was still reeling from the Edo and Ondo conundrums, out came the Kano governorship dispute judgement with a bang. At least four senior Kano State government officials close to Governor Abba Kabir Yusuf of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) had threatened fire and brimstone against the judges should the case be decided in favour of the petitioners, the All Progressives Congress (APC) and its candidate, Nasiru Gawuna, but only one was sacked. Nevertheless, by a unanimous decision, the three judges hearing the case delivered their judgement by zoom and dared the worst. The judges reasoned that Sections 63 and 64 of the Electoral Act 2022 dealing with the issues of the integrity of ballot papers and the validity of votes compelled them to give judgement in favour of the APC. The state, long considered to be one of the two closest to the idea of civic culture, and split almost evenly between the two feuding parties, has since been on tenterhooks sharpened by the irreconcilability and fanaticism of their leaders.

States may be paranoid about opponents, real or imagined, and are immersed in impeachment frenzies, but they cannot hold the candle to the federal authorities. Before the courts began to shock petitioners and respondents in the states, they had first dealt a crushing but predictable blow to the presidential election petitioners, to wit, ex-vice president Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and former governor Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP). If any serious analyst thought the case could be decided otherwise, he must of course be hallucinating. The first, second and third runners-up in the February presidential poll all belonged to the PDP one year before the poll. But months before the poll, they split into three, while a fourth consisting of five governors also carved itself out of the lump, making four factions going into the election against a united APC. The courts had little trouble, despite the huge and inciting campaign against the judiciary and the persons of the justices, to come to an emphatic and unanimous decision. That decision will not change on appeal. But meanwhile, the PDP candidate has kept the public entranced with a tangential court case in the United States over the president’s university certificate.

Even if no previously little-known musician drops dead, and is exhumed and autopsied, still, watch out for the courts. They will keep everyone on the edge of their seats till December. Former president Olusegun Obasanjo will continue to bait anyone that crosses his malignant path, whether Yoruba chiefs or an incensed former wife, and he will do his best to incite youths against the establishment, and speak darkly and conspiratorially to the coup instincts of the military. He has become more theatrical as the years go by, but he is unfazed by public perception of his private and public morals. Only now do analysts understand why Gen Abacha jailed him after an impromptu trial. And just in case boredom looms in the weeks ahead, trust Kogi, Imo and Bayelsa elections to spice things up in November. Then the losers will head for the courts, and the circus will start all over again and keep roiling. Maybe next year will be calmer. But for 2023, it has been one giddy, unequalled and furious year.

September 24, 2023
OBJ skewers ex-wife

Shortly after ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo’s ex-wife, Taiwo Martins, published a curious and dramatic apology begging for ‘eternal and permanent forgiveness’ from the Yoruba on behalf of the entire Obasanjo clan for allegedly desecrating the crowns of Yoruba chiefs in Iseyin, Oyo State, over a week ago, the former president issued this memorable putdown. “The attention of former president, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo has been drawn to a statement purportedly…issued by…Ms. Taiwo Martins as the author… For the records, Ms. Martins has two children, Jonwo and Bunmi, for Chief Obasanjo, but (we want) to say emphatically that she is not his wife nor a member of the Obasanjo family. Her posturing as Chief Obasanjo’s wife is false and that of an impostor…It must be noted that the state of health of Ms. Martins is known to all and sundry and whatever she says or does has nothing to do with Chief Obasanjo as an individual or the Obasanjo family as a whole.”

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With that, the angered woman’s apology goes up in smoke, but not before issuing the most withering riposte anyone has given yet against a former president so enamoured of cuckoldry that he completely obliterates the boundary between vice and virtue. Worse, Nigerians now have a controversial and hesitant peep into the state of Ms Martins’ mental health. The feud with the Iseyin chiefs is harvesting many scalps: the reputation of the Oyo feckless chiefs, the sense of judgement of the amoral Chief Obasanjo, and the delicate image of a livid Ms Martins.

September 24, 2023
A MOTHER’S PRAYER FOR HER DAUGHTER (2)

Sit down here, my beloved Daughter
Sip every drop of the honey
From my mouth

If men boast about their sun
Tell them the truth about your moon
If they crow about
The fury of their fists
Let them know about
The power of your proverb

Remind them
Of the breaking Waters of the Beginning
Of the Fire which burns without flames
Of the single morsel that fills the mouth.. . .

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Sit here with me, beloved Daughter
Together let us crack the kernel of the word
The not-so-wise praises the river
Without remembering its source
They sing all day about
Conquering kings and emperors
Without a word about
The hand that rocks the cradle

(Concluded)

The Gender of Justice

In brave conference rooms
And their plenary sessions
They argue all day
About the gender of thunder
Male rivers, female stones

They say very little
About the gender of Justice.

September 24, 2023
In and out and their in and out

The Thrills and Perils of Punditry

I we return to these exertions this morning with considerable relish and trepidation. Relish because it often gives one secret thrills to be part of an elite corps of literati who shape human consciousness and are at the cutting edge of civilization in one’s society.

   Not everyone is so opportune or endowed by nature. Often, one must give back to society in full the special bequeathal of nature with malice towards none and with charity to all. The message supersedes the messenger. The encomiums and commendations one often receives; the awe and reverence from total strangers and the anonymous writers association of Nigeria make it worth the pains.

   The sad obverse of the coin is the rise of the commentariat of adversity, a new type of sewage journalism which combines class and ethnic angst and thrives on the most uncouth language and bovine rudeness. It gives and takes no quarters. The wild primitive anger and aggression make the bone to creak. Exhibiting a neurotic, hate-filled contempt for the old ethos of the profession, it fakes deep and lies cheaply and is not in the least embarrassed when called out.

It beats the imagination that in the name of free speech and democracy, people could go to such lengths to prevent others from airing their own legitimate views. This paradox of authoritarian freedom-fighting is too finely nuanced to make any impression on them. And since they operate from the ethereal zones of national consciousness, no amount of pleadings and remonstration can rein them in.

Two things account for this untoward sociological meltdown. First is the revolution in the means and mode of mass communication which makes everybody with access to the computer a journalist. An army of ferocious fighter ants has taken up permanent residence inside the computer keyboard, stinging and stunning many of their opponents to silence and stupefaction.

With this massive influx and the proliferation of partisans, the ethos which held the old profession together has been flushed down the drain. While this has kept governments on their toes, it has also forced them to resort to more undemocratic means of mass control including the refinement of the mode of hegemonic domination and power praxis.

The other development is the increasing polarization of the nation along ethnic, political and religious lines. This is due to the mismanagement of diversity. Nigeria has never been more bitterly divided in its postcolonial history than at the moment and the National Question more sharply accentuated. Deepening economic woes will compound the cocktail of resentment unless government quickly comes up with some meaningful amelioratives.

As we write, a posse of security operatives comprising of people from different sections of the armed forces had been ambushed and completely decimated somewhere in Imo State which appears to be the epicentre of the insurrection. The east bleeds and the nation hemorrhages. Nobody seems to command the trans-generational authority which age, wisdom and achievement tend to confer anymore.

    In Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, the breakdown of authority and the passage to anarchy is presaged by a nervous insecurity and the fear of doing or saying what is right. Thus Ezeudu, the oldest man in the village and its most decorated warrior, could only go to the home of the hero in the dead of the night. “That boy calls you father. Do not take part in his death”. Those who argue that elections do not solve National Questions and may only exacerbate them may have a point.

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   In contemporary Nigerian journalism, a week away from your table can seem like two decades. Despite giving a long notice of going on a well-deserved leave, the conspiracy theory began surfacing all over again barely two weeks into the disappearance of column and columnist.

Some alleged that one had been sighted heading back to the village at the back of a trailer. Others claimed that one had been banished to outer Siberia by the new powers that be on the ground that one sounds like a potential coupist. A third group insisted that one had been offered a choice between exile and hemlock. It always feels as if one is part of a sizzling epic movie.

Sometimes the inquiries can be dramatic and of an intensely personal nature. An adored protégé of snooper, now a professor of English at Ife, who recently charged the columnist with the equivalent of ideological decrepitude and got the roasting of his life seemed to have lain low for some time.

   Then he erupted again wondering when the aging duelist would return to the ring. Snooper responded that he was still nursing the bruises and hen-like scratches from his likes. The doyen is equipped to withstand bruising encounters, the impish rascal retorted, with literary patricide obviously on the menu.

And it could get very hilarious. Another former student of yours sincerely, now a notable columnist with the Nigerian Tribune, wondered when his former teacher would print a card bearing the insignia of “F.O.P” (Friend of the President). Anybody who remembers the political misadventure of Otunba Fashawe from Owo in that respect can come to their own conclusion.

   Apropos of that, when yours sincerely finally made it to the fabled Aso Rock to felicitate with the current occupant, one had remarked to the president that it was his first time in that hallowed sanctuary of the Nigeria state. The president chuckled and noted that it was because one had been playing opposition politics all his life.

Far more poignant was an exchange with an intellectual fan and dedicated reader of this column, a head of the department of Political Science in one of our northern universities. The gentleman who sometimes fires off well-judged and well-reasoned rejoinders to the column accused the writer of depriving him of his intellectual nourishment on Sundays and wondered how much longer the famine would last.

   The frenetic and frenzied pace of events in Nigeria as they unfold, the lunatic cadence of existence and the sheer perversity of certain developments make it impossible for many not relocate to the realm of malignant fantasy. As they say in America, stuff happen all the time in this remarkable land.

   There are things happening in contemporary Nigeria which would have been unthinkable a generation earlier. There is hardly enough time left to take in all these developments in their cascading and contradictory momentum. Our wager is that the country is roiling in the confusion and combustion that must presage radical change.

The truth is that there is no truth in the pure sense of the word. People of power and with power simply impose their version of the truth and ask everybody to get on with it. It does not matter what you feel. Whether you truly believe in what you are told or you don’t, you must get on with it. In the long run, what matters is for individuals to identify a set of precepts by which to live and hold on to this tenaciously till the bitter end. The unprincipled life is not worth living.

In the course of human evolution from our animal cousins, the true heroes of society are often not the wielders of transient power but those who set out to raise the barrier of human consciousness and the bar of public probity in such a way that humankind is able to lift itself to a higher telos. Despite the persistence of human savagery, the startling advances human civilization has made in the last millennium has been due to the heroism and the self-sacrifice of these exemplars. No society can inch forward without authentic heroes.

Let us leave with the paraphrase of Leon Trotsky, one of the greatest revolutionists of all time. “ As socialists we want a socialist world not because we think the world will be any better—such claims are best left to dictators—, but because we feel that the moral imperative in life is to raise the human condition even where this means no more than that human history has merely progressed from farce, monstrosity to tragedy itself.”

Trotsky lived and died by his own credo. He was never going to surrender to what he thought was evil. Credited with some of the most astounding victories of the Red Army in the desperate struggle to establish communism in Russia, he resisted Stalinist autocracy until he was expelled from Russia. When the end finally came in Mexico, he charged furiously at his assailant who had gained entry by deception even as blood spurted from an ice axe stuck in his cranium.

September 24, 2023
So long, Monsieur Jacques Foccart

As French dominion in Central and West Africa begins to unravel in a fiery cocktail of coups and social combustions, we cannot but recall the life and times of Jacques Foccart, the master French spook who masterminded his country’s intrigues and sinister manipulation of its African holdings (pun is intended) for the greater part of three decades until he died in 1997.

He was the ultimate Mr Fix-it. Furtive, ruthless, coldblooded and point-devise, Foccart “ran” his African boys so well that peace reigned supreme among the native honchos. Anyone that stepped out of line was threatened with the Ruben Um Nyobe treatment. Nyobe was the Camerounian political leader who was shot and killed by a French special agent deep in the forest of his home region in 1958 and his horribly disfigured body dragged through the forest just to make a point.

The Dark Continent became a hunting ground for the aristocratic elite of the country of Liberte, egalite and fraternite. African diamonds flowed freely to the Parisian saloons and its lithium, uranium and copper extracted cheaply and with African labour were sold on the international market at premium price. Some humans were obviously not part of the deal of the French Revolution.

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   Some centuries ago, L’Ouverture Toussaint, the great Haitian revolutionary leader of African descent, warned the new French aristocracy not to replace the aristocracy of class they had just overthrown with the aristocracy of race. But the great man was stuffily ignored. For his pains, he was impounded and taken into custody.

   As the last bastion of French dominion faces a humiliating meltdown reminiscent of the military disgrace the South East Asians handed out to them in Indochina almost seventy years ago in Dien Ben Phu, you begin to wonder why those who claim to be at the cutting edge of civilization have refused to learn from history, particularly their own history. Stuck in their old military convention about what was tactically possible, the French military leadership was outwitted and their forces made to eat the crow.

   When the French authorities insisted that they would not obey orders from the coup leaders of Niger Republic on ground that it is a government of constitutional usurpers lacking in legitimacy, they had forgotten that modern governance in France itself rests on the military coup launched against the dissolute French revolutionaries by General Napoleon Bonaparte in 1799. It was famously dismissed as a tragedy by Karl Marx.

As the tide of history turns once again against his beleaguered country in what must be a great reckoning on the arid patches of Sahelian Africa, the young, callow and inexperienced Emmanuel Macron must be wondering when another Foccart will come to the aid of his country as it heads for the canvas. But there is time for everything under the sun. So long then Monsieur.

September 24, 2023