The Nation Newspaper

Category: Sunday

  • Tinubu, Bode George and conciliation

    Tinubu, Bode George and conciliation

    AFTER notable Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) leader and former Ondo State governor, Bode George, threatened to go on exile should President-elect Bola Tinubu win the presidential poll, few people expected there would be any kind of conciliation soon after the polls or days to the swearing-in ceremony. But instead of setting a date for his self-proclaimed exile, Lagos woke up last week to news of some All Progressives Congress (APC) leaders visiting Chief George to broker peace between him and the president-elect. In the delegation were Tajudeen Olusi, a prince and head of the Lagos Governance Advisory Council (GAC); Ishola Olorunnimbe, a former judge; Adejoke Adefulire, a special assistant to the president; and Sen Kofoworola Bucknor-Akerele. The delegation made a huge impression on Chief George, but it is unclear they thawed the ice.

    The former Ondo governor has been a strident critic of the president-elect, and has sustained the fusillade since the Supreme Court quashed his conviction over alleged corruption during his time as Chairman of the Nigeria Port Authority (NPA). He had seized every opportunity, reasonable or otherwise, to attack Asiwaju Tinubu since then. He kept up the tirade all through the election period, strafing and bombing the president-elect with all verbal cannons he could lay his hands on. Since he is fecund in the use of language, and boasts some learning, it has not been difficult for him to assail the president-elect with incomparable effusions. He slashed Asiwaju Tinubu before last year’s APC primary, lacerated him before the elections, skewered him during the polls, and concluded that there was no way the former Lagos governor could win.

    Mystified that the president-elect still won, and suddenly aware of the cost of fulfilling his threat to go on exile, Chief George has begun to hem and haw. Instead of his unequivocal statement to leave the country should Asiwaju Tinubu win the presidential poll, an outcome that initially seemed so far-fetched that it made political pundits refuse to hedge their bets, Chief George immediately began qualifying his threat. The president-elect had not won yet, he groaned. The threat to go on exile, he explained curiously, was contingent upon the winner being sworn in. When he gave wing to this mystifying explanation, there was already a groundswell of activities promoted by former president Olusegun Obasanjo and many others in the Labour Party (LP) and the PDP to launch street protests intent on undermining both the poll results and swearing-in. And when it finally dawned on him and other agitators that the swearing-in could not be abrogated, Chief George has been at sixes and sevens.

    The Prince Olusi team of peacemakers, it appears, is a reprieve for Chief George. No one has come out clearly to say whose bright idea it was to find a common ground between the cantankerous Chief George and the long-suffering Asiwaju Tinubu, nor who is being reprieved, the malignant attacker or the benign victim. But characteristically, the former NPA chairman and PDP leader has spoken tentatively about the prospect for peace between him and the president-elect, a prospect his visitors and himself had equated with peace in Lagos. The Olusi team, which Chief George admitted he respected so much, leaned on their host to congratulate the president-elect to signpost an end to skirmishes. He demurred, naturally, perhaps not to be seen as being too eager to make peace or desperate to seek an escape route from his self-inflicted wounds. He would respect the president-elect as Nigeria’s president after the courts had declare him legitimately elected, Chief George said. He was careful to avoid committing to himself.

    Unexpectedly, reported the social media, which Chief George is yet to corroborate, the former NPA chairman’s wife threw a spanner in the works when she announced that she would resist any attempt by her husband to congratulate the president-elect. Clearly, if the statement attributed to her is true, the old animosities have remained unaffected by any peace moves, and they clearly run far deeper than anyone supposes. Regaining his wits too, Chief George himself was quoted on social media as saying that his children were unimpressed by any attempt to make him congratulate the president-elect, regardless of what the courts say. The PDP leader is thus perched precariously on the horns of a dilemma. He may respect those who had tried to reconcile him and Asiwaju Tinubu, and may even be at bottom desirous of ending more than a decade of animosity, but he seems surrounded by hawks adamantly opposed to any rapprochement. How would he walk the tightrope in the weeks and months ahead?

    There is on the one hand the option of making peace with the president-elect and on the basis of a favourable court decision congratulating him; but there is also on the other hand the noxious option of swallowing his pride and heading for exile to honour his word spoken in a moment of rash and radical posturing and expectation. Neither option, it seems, is really pleasant. Both are galling. But he will have to embrace one, even if it kills him, since he can’t have his cake and eat it. Compared to his dilemma, the Greeks would fare far better sailing between Scylla and Charybdis than Chief George would do opting for an alternative.

    Read Also: Tinubu returns ahead inauguration

    The only honour evident so far in the noisome transaction between the APC leaders and Chief George is that no one can say unequivocally that the peacemaking was at the behest of Asiwaju Tinubu or Chief George. Indeed, Prince Olusi and his team admit responsibility. At the moment, there is, however, nothing to suggest that Chief George is eager to leave the country; he made his rash exile statement at a point when, all things considered, nothing indicated, except to the most sanguine, that Asiwaju Tinubu would win the presidential poll. But having made the statement, and poised to be hoisted with his own petard, the eminent Lagosian and PDP leader may in the end issue an anodyne statement neither congratulating the president-elect after the court processes nor suggesting he intended the rhetorical war to continue. It is unlikely that in his twilight years as an active PDP leader and politician, the opposition party will give him cause to declare or prosecute any kind of bullish war against President Tinubu. This may sound like defeat to him and his supporters, but his future reticence, if not lethargy, may be the only compromise he is capable of making to stave off exile and humiliation.

    LP’s unending political saga

    The two sides to the long-running political drama in the Labour Party (LP) cannot be right at the same time. Both know it, but perhaps one more than the other. The Julius Abure side, backed virtually openly by the party’s presidential candidate, Peter Obi, and remorselessly and contemptuously of the law by the leadership of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) headed by Joe Ajaero, has been temporarily ousted by the courts. Despite this side’s legal status, the party has kept up a string of illegal actions that cast doubt on their political bona fides and preparedness to govern. The other side led by the vocal and pertinacious Lamidi Apapa, former deputy national chairman and now acting national chairman, has tried valiantly to uphold the courts’ decision. But it seems everywhere he and his team turn, the courts and other law enforcement institutions have been chary of upholding the law, and Mr Apapa himself has seemed more catholic than the pope in trying to get the law upheld and strictly applied.

    Last week, the animosity between the two sides blew open again, a strident notch from the smouldering trench warfare they had waged. There was a dispute about who should seat where in the chambers of the presidential election petition court, with the Obi crowd seated first and unmovable. Neither the court nor the police felt overly concerned about enforcing the law. The tribunal took the harmless way out by recognising only the LP presidential candidate as perhaps the chief litigant; and the police who should have arrested troublemakers outside the court when they manhandled Mr Apapa only felt obliged to escort him to safety. Consequently, the threats against Mr Apapa have badly escalated obviously to the bemusement, if not indifference, of the police.

    In short, weeks of trampling the law underfoot by the increasingly militant Abure and Ajaero crowds have attracted no recompense from the law. They broke into LP offices, swore at their opponents, promised hell, and despite concluded police investigations indicting the Abure side of forgery and perjury, no legal or political consequence has befallen them. There will clearly be no end to impunity in this awful saga at least in the foreseeable future.

  • Beating BAO’s benchmark

    Beating BAO’s benchmark

    “My commitment to Ekiti: I cannot afford to fail … I don’t want to fail. We have to seize the opportunity … I don’t want Ekiti people to turn round and hate us – impact must be made in Ekiti. My desire is to be a Governor of all … “– John Ekundayo, in tete-a-tete with the Governor Elect, Mr. Biodun Abayomi Oyebanji, 30th June 2022, Lagos, Nigeria. “Remember this: You are the benchmark of your success – you define it. Don’t let anyone else define it because if you do, you will fail. Appreciate those who support you and challenge those who don’t.” – Martina Navratilova

    Funnily but factually, this week edition will be commencing with an episode exemplifying an epithet that took place in a survey engineering class in the Civil Engineering Department of the then University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University), Nigeria in the early eighties. What was the epithet about? It was referred to as a ‘local attraction’. It was during the class and practice of compass surveying. Actually, local attraction is a phenomenon describing the deviation of the magnetic needle from the true magnetic north due to the presence, within the precincts of electric wires, steels rails, iron buildings, steel tapes and other magnetic materials; some, possibly, hidden under the earth. Going out to the field to carrying out our practical surveying, students, due to our youthful rascality soon ascribed local attraction to the sight of beautiful ladies within the precincts of surveying. One will start hearing; I could have got the accurate survey if not because of too much “local attraction”! What has this moniker or sobriquet got to do with this week’s edition of the “Followership Challenge”? It is significant because just as the true north in compass surveying is analogous to right direction to meeting target in fulfilling the overarching objective or arriving at your goal, so is benchmarking. What depicts a benchmark? In engineering survey, the term benchmark originally comes from the chiseled horizontal marks that surveyors created within certain stone structures within the precincts of surveying, into which an angle-iron could be placed to form a “bench” for a leveling staff, thus ensuring that a leveling staff could be accurately repositioned in the same place in the future. In essence, the main objective of benchmarking is to create new methods or improve current processes to meet another higher standard; it is therefore not a one-time effort but a continuous process improvement encompassing gleaning and learning from the best organizations and institutions. In the light of this, leaders who benchmark their performance, look for inspiration and guidance from the best. In developmental terms, this is the germane nugget behind benchmarking in organizations and governments.

    Ab initio, this piece started with an anecdote fixating on local attraction. How does it relate with benchmarking? One globally acknowledged giant in the game of tennis, Martina Navratilova, was emboldened and emphatic in her stand and stake, not minding whose ox was gored, when she vociferously opinionated thus: “Remember this: You are the benchmark of your success – you define it. Don’t let anyone else define it because if you do, you will fail. Appreciate those who support you and challenge those who don’t.” Candidly, one is the real benchmark or gauge or basis of one’s success or achievement in life as one has the onerous duty of defining, depicting. demonstrating and describing it. To Navratilova, one sign of failure in one’s life assignment is allowing others to define your benchmark for you. Navratilova, however, was of the view that mentors and coaches who supported you should be appreciated whilst those who see nothing good in your outing should be stunned and silenced with your performance! This is also in sync with the Holy Writ. The ancient Book states: “… but they measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise.” (2 Cor 10 verse 12b). This columnist once served under a leader that would not want to hear that you have done your best. To him, you must beat your best in performance!

    Benchmarking BAO’s Best

    “Ekiti State Governor, Biodun Oyebanji, has charged people of the state to stop comparing his administration with that of his predecessor, Kayode Fayemi. Oyebanji described the comparison as inappropriate and absolutely unfair in all its measures, saying he doesn’t feel good about the comparison.” -Nation, 13th May 2023.

    This columnist was part of the stakeholders present at the epoch-making event of the 200 Days in office of Governor Biodun Abayomi Oyebanji (aka BAO). The KOMT Hall, Ido Ekiti, venue of the stakeholders’ summit was overflowing with major stakeholders from all over Ekiti making the event resplendent with pomp and pageantry. Governor Biodun Oyebanji was both ecstatic and elated reeling out, albeit in humble mien, the report card of his administration alluding, inter alia, that Ekitikete sent him on an errand since they voted him as their chief servant on June 18th 2022. However, he was emotionally emphatic that social media crusaders and campaigners should stop comparing him with the erstwhile Governor John Kayode Fayemi who claimed is his revered leader. Even in 4-legged relay race, each runner has unique style of running his race; hence political jobbers and rabble rousers should stop comparing Oyebanji to Fayemi or Adebayo or Fayose. BAO should be allowed to run his own race, and in his own pace! This columnist will want to let BAO know, and be always reminded, that he is the only one competing with himself. In real terms, he should be prepared, in the next 100 days (reporting time table chosen by him), to better or beat his performance of 200 days in office across the 6 Strategic Actionable Pillars (SAP) stated in his social contract with Ekitikete (manifesto). Simply and squarely stated, Biodun Abayomi Oyebanji (BAO) is in a race with himself!

    It will be recalled that BAO campaigned statewide declaring vehemently his 6 Strategic Actionable Pillars: (1) Youth Development and Job Creation; (2) Human Capital Development; (3) Agriculture and Rural Development; (4) Infrastructure and Industrialization; (5) Tourism, Arts and Culture; and (6) Governance. The state helmsman reeled out contents of his report card to the ecstatic stakeholders. Highlights of the pillar-by-pillar presentation depicted up to N31 Billion had already been paid out in form of salaries, pensions and gratuities to deserving beneficiaries from October 2022 till April 2023. On record, as part of the social investment scheme of the BAO’s administration, it was on record that 1,950 beneficiaries are receiving ten thousand Naira (N10,000) monthly as stipends. All these steps were taken to strategically, in the word of the man in the saddle, reflate the Ekiti economy. In all, BAO promised to build strong and virile institutions.  

    Muttering Missing Matters

    In the spirit and letter of BAO bettering his benchmark, Ekiti is adjudged the safest state in Nigeria; expectedly should be an attractive destination for investors and holiday makers even as Ikogosi Warm Resort is agog with modern facilities presently. The roads linking the resort are being upgraded and the tourist spot is soon to be linked with the national grid – possibly within the next 60 days! Cheering news!! However, in the report card of Oyebanji, little was said or stated regarding security. It is on record that within the last 3 months to the event, few infractions had been witnessed in Ekiti; kudos to proactive measures of intelligence gathering and operation of the Amotekun Corps and the Nigeria Police working synergically. Albeit, more still needs be done to completely cripple and checkmate insecurity especially and specifically within the border communities of Ekiti. In this vein, the citizens, Ekitikete, needs be reminded, just like Singaporeans were once reminded by their government, that incidence of “Low Crime Does Not Mean No Crime”. Going this route, all traditional rulers, community leaders and Ekitikete should be sensitized about security issues and relate well with security officials to avoid unnecessary impasse. In addition, it was emotional and exciting hearing BAO speaking about the role of the cooperative society her mother belonged to in ensuring his foray into tertiary education. However, conspicuously missing was the mention of cooperative farming in Ekiti. My late father lived and died in Ido Ekiti; before his demise at the age of 103. He did not benefit from any governmental support all the years of his tedious farming; likewise, many of his colleagues of that era. Moreover, this columnist will want to propose, if not already in the pipeline, an Agribusiness Summit, to possibly happen between August and October 2023 to precede the next planting. In addition, one of the giant steps taken by BAO was the recruitment of 1,300 teachers into the state’s primary schools whilst another 500 will soon be recruited into secondary schools in the state. However, there is pointy question to be asked: was there a Need Assessment (NA) study prior to this recruitment? Conducting a NA will depict where there are overcrowding of teachers, locations of dearth of teachers, factors favouring migrating to urban or rural areas, strength of teachers, cerebral acumen of teaching workforce, etc. Hence, there is the need to carry out NA before the proposed recruitment of 500 secondary school teachers, if one has not been done already.

    Read Also: Stop comparing me with Fayemi, Oyebanji tells Ekiti people

    Concluding Comments

    Equally cheering to the ears was the news of the Primary Health Care (PHC) Centres in all the 177 Wards in the state receiving an upgrade support of N4 million within the near future. If, and when, this is accomplished, health care will come nearer the people as health is wealth. This step will lesson the burden on the general and teaching hospitals in the state. Presently, one after the other, the General Hospitals in the state are receiving a phase lift. Moreover, curricula of both primary and secondary education will soon be revamped. The next 100 Days should be decisive and definitive on this as the new session takes off in September 2023. It is useful to reiterate the need to introduce vocational and digital skills into both primary and secondary education in order to make graduates master of at least one skill useful to the society even if not going further to polytechnic or university thereafter. It was elating hearing that in regard of Youth Development and Job Creation, a whopping 80 million dollars support is on the way for Ekiti and some other states in Nigeria with a view of turning the intellect of these youths to capital. In addition, the Ekiti Sport Commission Bill is almost on its way to the Ekiti State House of Assembly (EKHA). The next stakeholders’ summit will hold in Ekiti South Senatorial District marking Oyebanji’s 300 Days in office – just 65 days short of a year in the saddle! How time flies? It is instructive for the organizer to take cognizance that the summit is owned by the stakeholders. Hence, it is imperative for them to be allotted ample time to comment, critique and question government’s interventions. Going forward, the people recognized to speak should be randomly picked so as to receive genuine feedback from the stakeholders. In fact, next time, the Governor should feel free to even beckon on few individuals not picked by the moderator; this would go a long way in adding fun and bonding with the constituents.  

     In surmising this piece, unknown to many, BAO before assuming the mantle of statesmanship on 16th October 2022, had rolled up his sleeves to serve with a difference. This columnist in a tete-a-tete with Biodun Abayomi Oyebanji (BAO), on 30th June 2022, before he was sworn in as the Governor of Ekiti, exuded so much charisma, courage and confidence as he succinctly and saliently stated: “My commitment to Ekiti: I cannot afford to fail … I don’t want to fail. We have to seize the opportunity … I don’t want Ekiti people to turn round and hate us – impact must be made in Ekiti. My desire is to be a Governor of all …” All said and done, benchmarking him against any mentor, coach or teacher is unfair and upsetting to his person, pedigree, profile, placement and position. Even in Biblical parlance, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Saviour and Redeemer of mankind fed 5,000 people, excluding women and children, but it was his once timid mentee or protégé, Peter, who after receiving the baptism of fire, preached a single sermon in a day that attracted a whopping 5,000 converts. Unprecedented! It was a new record!! Did not the master and leader say, “greater works than these shall he do?” (John 14 verse 12). Breaking it down, does doing greater works tantamount to the protégé greater than the principal? Definitely, not so. Please, let BAO be BAO whilst he should strive to surpass his best! Ekitkete do not expect anything less!!

    John Ekundayo, Ph.D. – Harvard-Certified Leadership Strategist, and also a Development Consultant, can be reached via +2348030598267 (WhatsApp only) and drjmoekundayo@hotmail.com

  • Labour Party: You cannot put something on nothing

    Labour Party: You cannot put something on nothing

    Sadly, several of the comments left the issue of the interview to probe or suggest motives, inferred from my response on “investment” that I am opposed to Peter Obi’s ambition and therefore committed a “crime” for which the punishment is internecine abuse and harassment even to my family. “Some people even suggest that the gunmen who went to attack a checkpoint at my hometown on Saturday12th November but were gunned down was part of the mob reaction” – Anambra state governor, Charles Soludo

    It will be nice if, in view of the above, the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) will please stop these ruffians – with ‘crab mentality’ – from coming to the court lest Obidients, IPOB and sundry Unknown Gun Men turn the place to a killing field.

    Peter Obi, his Obidients and their sundry associates have, since INEC declared Ashiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu winner of the February 25, 2023 Presidential elections, shouted themselves hoarse over what they like to call a ‘stolen mandate’. Readers of this column will remember that I have long ago written on these pages that Peter Obi, the Labour party presidential candidate who would later place a distant third in the elections – behind the winner and Alhaji Atiku Abubakar of the PDP – had no path, whatsoever, to victory. I had equally written that there was no way he was going to secure 25 per cent of votes in more than 16 states. My third prediction, cognizant of the fact that he would, as is the practice in the Southeast, be credited with a minimum of between 85 – 99 per cent of votes there, was that it would still be of no moment in his illusory hope of winning the election because the entire voting population in the entire 5 Southeast states would, at best, equal that of one single state in the NorthWest or the Northeast where he is almost practically an unknown.

    And it happened!

    But give it to him – thanks to his Christian brethren and Igbo ubiquity – he ended up scoring the millions I had imagined were far beyond his ken.

    But even that could only place him two million plus votes behind the winner, Ashiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

    They have since made all manner of claims as to how Obi’s votes were under- reported and credited to the APC.

    Read Also: JUST IN: Labour Party factions clash after tribunal proceedings

     Nigerians have since asked that they place that before the tribunal, complete with a tabulation of the votes he scored in the 36 states and the FCT.

    It is fascinating that one of the States where Obi claims that this happened is Lagos state. On the contrary, however, what is in the public space, sourced from the blog of somebody who is unlikely to be anti – Labour party, and which shows that Obi did not win Lagos state, is as follows:

    In my article: ‘The Peter Obi Revolution That Atrophied Midway’, 26 March, 2023, I wrote: “Talking about a miracle reminds me of an interesting WhatsApp post I saw during the giddy days of a supposed Labour party victory in Lagos.

    It reads as follows: “LindaIkejiblog Official INEC Result for Amuwo Odofin LGA in the Presidential election”.

    Whoever shared it commented as follows:“Amuwo Odofin!!!

    Please check the number of Regisrered Voters – 322,600 and the number of Accredited Voters 57, 530.

    Add Obi’s 55, 547 to Tinubu’s 13, 318! Don’t even bother with the rest! We are beginning to see how Obi “won” Lagos”.

    But I bothered with the rest. I did the additions of all party votes, and the following is what I got:

    “Total number of registered voters – 322.600.

    “Total number of accredited voters – 57,530.

    Votes: 

    APC – 13, 318

    PDP –    2, 383

    LP    –  55, 547

    Others –   1, 161

    Total votes cast – 72, 409

     Reg. voters          -57,530     

    Over voting          14879″.

    What does the Election Tribunal do in cases of over voting? It automatically cancels the election.

    Therefore, if you take away LP’s 55,547 votes from its overall tally in Lagos, it becomes obvious that Labour did not win in Lagos.

    The Amuwo Odofin incident must have been repeated elsewhere in the state.

    But how hollow Labour party really is showed up in the subsequent elections when, the youths, the bishops and the pastors, have abandoned the sinking Titanic.

    In the Southeast where Obi had high 80’s & 90’s in the Presidential election, 4 out of the 5 states completely deserted him just as he woefully lost to APGA in Anambra where he was governor for 8 years.

    Now we hear he is raising issues on Rivers and Imo state results.

    The respondent’s lawyers should equally ask questions, not only on the entire Lagos state election, but on all Southeast states because that is an area where election officials, native to the region, were literally all held captive by the illusion of helping to produce a Nigerian president of Igbo extraction even when their politics remains completely insular.

    So from where did Obi secure his much lamented mandate?

    In the Christian areas where he weaponised religion, working in cahoots with the likes of Babachir Lawal, the votes he got were soon ‘eaten’ up and subsumed by the huge figures the APC recorded in the NorthWest and the North central.

    The  election results for Labour and APC are summarised below: LABOUR PARTY.                           

    President- 0 

    Senate – 7 seats.                  

    House of Reps -34.                

    Governor- 1                         

    State Assembly seats- 38.      

    Grand Total labour-80.                   

    APC                                                                

     President- 1.                          

    Senate- 62.                          

    HOR- 177.                            

    Governors Elect- 16.           

    States Assembly-534.       

    Grand Total APC- 790    

    If Labour party could secure victory in only 7 senatorial districts, out of 109, in an election that took place, same day and same time, where was Obi’s victory in the Presidential election expected to come from?

    Can he put something on nothing?

    Or are they so logic challenged?

    It is this logical reasoning, which is not common among Obidients, that led one of them, in a WhatsApp post, to ask Peter Obi why, rather than provide figure showing how he won the election, all he put across to the election tribunal are how the President – Elect emerged candidate of APC, and why he was declared elected when he did not score 25 per cent of Abuja votes. Funny enough, not even the five who recently filed a case at an Abuja High court against the President – Elect being sworn in, for not scoring 25 per cent of Abuja votes, even though lawyers, or have lawyers representing them, knew that apart from the Abuja issue already being before the election tribunal, there is a subsisting court decision to the effect that Abuja is  the equivalent of any other Nigerian state and, therefore, has no such superior status as is being arrogated to it.

    So I ask Obidients: Quo vadis?

    While this question goes, primarily, to Obidients, it also applies to Ndigbo in general. I am darn too small to attempt answering a question directed at such an unarguably brilliant, sagacious and enterprising Igbo race.

    Let us, therefore, press into service, a very educated and patriotic Igbo gentleman to help us.

     I refer here to former Enugu state governor Chimaroke Nnamani who has spared considerable time thinking through the problem with contemporary Igbo, as he attempts to offer a way out of the Igbo conundrum. 

    Below are some of his views in an interview captioned “Reflect On (the) Looming Reality of Tinubu’s Presidency” which I enjoin interested persons to Google.

    Said the senator:“The fact that a government can be formed with virtually zero input from Igbo land saddens me. It means that the Igbo leadership has failed. The wrong people have led us; jobbers and mediocres have led us. When you get to the table, jobbers and mediocres negotiate for us because the Igbo man appears to be intimidated by intellect.

    We were in total control – the army, the police, external affairs, banking industry, the economic sector; name it. Ndigbo were number one in this country, today it is arguable whether we are three or four. Remember we were in control, University of Lagos, University of Ibadan, University of Nigeria, but we lost everything. Others have done everything possible to displace Igbo intelligentsia, so that those who argue for us are  not intellectually equipped. Those who have no certificate were talking for us. The Igbo first eleven never showed up in the past sixteen years in this country. It was a gradual emasculation of the Igbo man. So traders or political frauds, fronting for people outside Igbo land are those we now associate with speaking for Igbo. The mediocres had no political ideology as they move from one party to the other. Privateers, people looking for one tariff or another, one contract or another; they became the Igbo elite. False elite, planted by outsiders. Igbo man now has to seek acclamation from outside Igbo land”.

    And so on and so forth.

    And for the solution, he says: “We need to have Igbo citizens’ conference! Who can facilitate such a meeting? Chekwas Okorie can do it. Ogbonnaya Onu can do it. We have to enter into the sanctum of power. Whether it is UPP, PDP or PDC, we have to find a way and gradually walk ourselves back to the centre of Nigerian politics. What are the criteria for attendance?

    Merit and intellectual content of a man, brain is power. You can solve problems with brain, man is not just a mass of flesh; it is intellect. We want to send our best; not the confirmed mediocres. Mediocres that pander to the whims and caprices of non-Igbo; who seek acclamation in Abuja, carrying Ghana-must-go bags there, and come back to become leaders”.

    But will the Obidients who think they already have an Igbo messiah in Peter Obi listen to this voice of reason? Beyond that, what of the infernal fear of the different killing groups who predominate Igbo land and who all seem to rally round Obi in the mistaken view that he is the messiah? To say anything contrary to the dominant view in the region about the election is to earn a death sentence. So in a thousand years these people will, surely, still be chorusing ‘Tinubu must not be sworn in’.

  • May 29 nightmare

    May 29 nightmare

    It’s apparent that some Nigerians are having nightmares about the swearing-in of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu as the President and Commander In Chief of the Federal Republic of Nigeria on May 29, 2023.

    Having been declared the winner of the February 25, 2023, presidential election by the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC), there should be no controversy about him being sworn in on May 29 in accordance with the country’s constitution, but some groups and persons can’t imagine the oath of office ceremony holding on that date.

    According to them, it’s better that every legal contention over Tinubu’s victory of be resolved in his favour at the Election Tribunal and courts before he should be sworn in.

    During the week some persons were reported to have approached the Federal High Court in Abuja with a suit seeking to halt the scheduled swearing-in of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential candidate.

    The group in a motion ex-parte it filed alongside the suit marked FHC/ABJ/C5/567/2023 was said to have alleged that Tinubu, who was declared President-elect by the INEC lied on oath about his possession of a Guinean Passport among other claims.

    In an interview with Channels Television, the Vice Presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Senator Datti Baba-Ahmed had asked urged the chief justice of Nigeria (CJN), Olukayode Ariwoola not to participate in the swearing-in of Tinubu as president over what he described as a “violation” of the constitution.

    Baba-Ahmed claimed Tinubu failed to fulfil the requirements stipulated in the section of the 1999 constitution (as amended) for election to the office of the president by not scoring 25 per cent of the votes in the Federal Capital City, Abuja.

    Read Also: Tinubu will overcome legal battles, others, says cleric

    There have also been references to Kenya where disputes over the presidential election are resolved before the winner is sworn in as it is in the recent case involving President Williams Ruto.

    While it may appear tidy to conclude the legal disputes over elections before the swearing-in of Tinubu as some persons are canvasing for, there is no constitutional basis for such calls.

    There is no precedence in the country when the swearing-in of anyone declared validly elected has been delayed because there is a case against them at the Tribunal or court.

    What we have had at the state and federal levels is the swearing-in of the winner while the aggrieved candidate can pursue his or her case to the Supreme Court.

    Outgoing President Muhammadu Buhari had his days in the Tribunal and courts when he lost in the presidential elections he contested before he eventually won.

    His filing of petitions in the Tribunal and cases courts did not delay the swearing-in of former Presidents Olusegun Obasanjo, Umaru Yaradua and Goodluck Jonathan.

    It’s curious why the advocates of the halting of the swearing-in are making it seem as if this will be the first time an elected person would be sworn in while the case is still at the Tribunal or court.

    It doesn’t matter how long any sworn-in winner has been in office. If the election is invalidated as we have seen in some instances they would automatically lose the position and make way for whoever is said to be the winner.

    While so much fuss is being made about Tinubu’s swearing-in, the same case is not being made against the swearing-in of state governors and legislators whose elections are being contested at the Tribunal.

    As the former president of the Nigerian Bar Association, Olisa Agbakoba and others have rightly noted, the inauguration of Tinubu on 29 May 2023 is bound to happen under our constitutional process.

    Democracy is based on the rule of law and whoever is contesting the legality of the election of any candidate needs to obey the rule of constitutionalism.

    There is no point in giving anyone the false hope that the inauguration can be halted as long as no one results to any unconstitutional means. It’s a dream that cannot come true.

  • Towards regeneration

    Towards regeneration

    • The terminus of termites

    In poverty-stricken multi-ethnic nations, the most serious discords are fuelled by elite competition for increasingly scarce national resources. With General Buhari openly wondering how things could go so awry under his watch, and given the allegations of mindboggling corruption swirling around many important functionaries of the outgoing administration, we seem to have finally arrived at the terminus of termites.

    But out of utter destruction and devastation comes the possibility of rebirth and regeneration. Nation-building is an open project. This is why it is far more important to concentrate on what can still be salvaged. The most potent threat to national stability is food insecurity. However, there is a sense in which food insecurity is always inevitable in a condition of generalized violence or in circumstances in which the entire country is embroiled in multi-dimensional armed conflicts.

     Either in antiquity and even more in our modern world, food security plays a pivotal part in guaranteeing the stability and progress of any society. This is why starvation is often regarded as a most terrible weapon of war. There is no army however proficient that can fight on an empty stomach.

    In May 2021, the entire Chinese society rose as one to honour the departure of one of its iconic heroes. Yuan Longpin was an agronomist known as the “father of hybrid rice”. His contribution to the development of the first hybrid rice varieties was considered crucial to the success of the Green Revolution in agriculture which allowed China to be self-sufficient in rice production for the first time in its modern history.

       This was considered a matter of national pride for the Chinese people. A nation that cannot feed itself is considered an international embarrassment and a den of scavengers. Yuan Longpin went to his final resting place smiling and with multiple national honours from a grateful people. No African country, however big or commodious, has been near this breakthrough.

    At a time when many countries are already deploying drone technology, satellite surveillance of farmsteads and robotic intelligence for irrigational purposes, most African nations are still stuck at the level of subsistence farming with rudimentary implements. The yield and output are so miserable that they can hardly feed the nuclear family. It may be useful to make a historical detour at this point.

    While the idea of a modern Israeli State in the Middle East was being mooted by the western powers, a splendidly clairvoyant even if a tad cynical British statesman was known to have advised the perplexed Arab leaders of the time to allow the Sephardic Jews and their cousins to settle among them because the area would achieve food sufficiency in a record time.

    Today barely seventy five years later, the modern state of Israeli has achieved food sufficiency in all areas and exports the surplus to the rest of the world. But for the endless strife in the region, Israeli could have been feeding the whole of the Middle East. It has been due to collective discipline, courage in the face of daunting adversities and the capacity for unrelenting scientific domestication of nature. The world waits for no laggard society.

     It is hard to surmise whether the Israeli gambit was just a one off or a dress rehearsal for future forcible occupations or compulsory resettlements, after all one of the contending options was to resettle the Jews around present day Uganda. This option was probably discarded because the choice of location no longer availed the imperialists the opportunity to set the Israeli cat among the Arab pigeons in a Middle East still in turmoil after the collapse of Ottoman suzerainty.

       Nothing much has changed since then, only the reconfiguration of global forces. The world is still divided between conquering nations that impose their will and conquered nations that must meekly submit to the will of the masters. Britain has since then gone on to expel the Argentines from the Falklands after military confrontation even as China brought Tibet to heel, decimating its culture and civilization while deliberately altering its demographic forever.  Russia is aiming to do the same thing in Ukraine.

    Read Also: Transition Council rolls out Tinubu, Shettima inauguration programme

        Despite its size and incredible climatological clemencies when compared to Israel which is located mainly in the desert, Nigeria is not in the race. With the core east of the nation virtually paralyzed by violence and with armed banditry returning to the central stage on the eve of General Buhari’s departure, the incoming administration may find itself battling renewed insurgencies rather than tackling food insecurity. 

      The evidence and facts on ground are so clear and incontrovertible that they require no intellectual or creative amplification. Elite competition for scarce national resources is a direct consequence of an open looting of national patrimony  which no longer cares whether the national cake is baked or not. Just grab what you can.

       But this cannot go on forever. We are approaching a point when there will be nothing left to loot. This is the terminus of termites. When we get to that point, two things will happen, either separately or in conjunction with each other. State implosion in which the elites come to blows: an armed confrontation which will make Sudan looks like a child’s play or the Port Au Prince of “Commander Barbecue” whose horrific level of de-civilization and dehumanization can only be glimpsed from apocalyptic fiction.

      There is only one possible reprieve on the horizon, and that is if visionary governance takes hold in this land which immediately begins to set things right, particularly at the level of a vertical and horizontal reintegration of a battered country and a swift reorientation of elite impulse and the general populace alike. It takes a lot of balls and general bloody-mindedness.

      As we have demonstrated earlier, food security takes the pole position in the hierarchy of human needs and the architecture of insecurity. Our people hold that when hunger is removed from poverty, poverty is vastly degraded. Even in advanced and sophisticated societies, it is axiomatic that you must eat first before you can philosophize. The most tasking of mental exertions demands nourishment, unless one is a hunger artist.

      It is our mismanagement of modernity that has led us to this sorry spot, a liminal, limbo-like existence where the old rural communities are now viewed as times of idyllic bliss and contentment. In those agrarian communities, the communitarian mode of living saw to it that no one went hungry. Even the vagabonds and the ne’er do well were provided for and captured in the interweaving safety valves of familial, public and philanthropic benevolence. They must have sensed that they were paying for their own security.

    But in postcolonial Nigeria, the heady and heedless rush to the cities, the phenomenon of unplanned and chaotic urbanization, particularly within the context of accelerating de-industrialization, and the increasing inability of paid employment to pay livable wages, have spawned a new generation of urban déclassé, hungry and angry and ready to vent their spleen on anything or anybody. Hunger is a real phenomenon in our cities and it turns many into ready recruits for all manner of anti-social exertions.

    A visionary government must set in immediate motion, the process of recall and the depopulation of our cities ridding them of their poisonous human effluence. Those who have no means of livelihood and who have no visible business in the city must be encouraged to return home. Better still, considerable incentives must be given to those willing to be resettled in special farming communes to be set up in designated states across the country.

      Despite boosting agricultural output in some areas, the agricultural policy of the Buhari administration appears to be too unstructured and ad-hoc to make a permanent dent on the country’s needs. Some usually perceptive people are celebrating the return of corn to the market with the advent of the rainy season, forgetting that it is not supposed to be missing in the first instance and the fact that no serious nation ever leaves its food fortunes to climatological vagaries.

      This is the realm of primitive fetish and the superstitious inanition that have hampered Nigeria’s and Africa’s scientific food production for ages. While growing up, one’s mother insisted that if you happen upon a field of mushroom, the spread and stretch will dramatically expand if you immediately hurl some pebbles at the grey patch of delicious fungus.

      There was double jeopardy at work here. It was not only a case of hoping to reap where one did not sow, it was also a case of applying “native technology” to a process already completed. Almost seven decades after this wonder discovery of African science, certain species of mushroom have already completely disappeared from the system.

    Rather than solely relying on enterprising individuals, government must now consider the possibility of going into large scale industrial farming either alone or in partnership with blue chip companies. As we have seen in the case of the outstanding and iconic Chinese agronomist, collective efforts matter a lot in this kind of national project.

     But individual geniuses are often decisive. Government must partner with and encourage our various institutions of agriculture, animal husbandry and fisheries to come up with cutting edge research adapted to local conditions which will optimize the yields in their various fields.

    One will be shocked and scandalized if such researches are not already ongoing. On a recent trip to the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta after delivering the convocation lecture, one had been amazed and impressed by the staggering array of local products emanating from the university. But the extremely parlous condition of our university system renders such efforts isolated and not fit for general purpose except for the benefit of academic promotions.

    Nothing short of a comprehensive blueprint for a well-coordinated National Agricultural Revolution will do at this point. Such a policy must involve a national buy-in by the people as well as the elite and must be accompanied by mass mobilization in which all available land is cultivated and made productive.

     At a point when land-starved countries like Singapore are taking to in-house farming, the vast productive and alluvial landmass in Nigeria which remains largely undisturbed and in a state of primeval bliss is nothing but a universal scandal which the rest of the world eyes with covetous design.

       As we said, national food security depends on other securities, particular peace and stability anchored on some broad national consensus. No country can achieve food security when it is permanently at war with itself and when it is plagued by multi-dimensional insurgencies. This is the conundrum of elite dyspepsia that the incoming administration will have to address.

  • Seun in the eye of the storm

    Seun in the eye of the storm

    This is not quite a saga. From its origin in Icelandic Literature, the saga is a tale of epic heroism and superhuman bravery brimming with outlandish derring-do. Seun, the iconoclastic son of the iconic and equally iconoclastic cultural gadfly and musical genius, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, has been in the news lately, many will say for the wrong reasons.

    Unless one is a social deviant and anarchist, there is a lot that is outlandish about all this, but not much that is heroic. The facts speak for themselves. Seun was reported to have rammed the vehicle of a uniformed policeman. An altercation ensued and Seun lost his cool. His fists spoke louder than his voice and the young man reportedly struck the policeman without the dazed and bemused cop responding to the affront.

    Strangely enough but given the Kafkaesque world of contemporary Nigeria, they seemed to have made up with the officer following him home and collecting the sum of twelve thousand naira to repair his damaged vehicle. If Seun thought that was the end of the matter, it has turned out that he was profoundly mistaken. The policeman was recording everything and he headed straight to the station to report the incident and tender his exhibits.

    As the video went viral, the Inspector General was said to have been so outraged that he ordered the immediate arrest of the culprit. Thinking probably that he was going to visit the police for a friendly chat, Seun found himself handcuffed and thrown into a cell before being taken to court the following day.

    However brave and nonchalant he may appear, Seun himself would have been alarmed by the unprecedented outrage and condemnation which have greeted his assault on a man in uniform. Despite the evidence of continuing police brutality against many innocent Nigerians, many citizens consider Seun’s infraction as the ultimate in civic insolence and social delinquency. It goes to show Nigerians are essentially law-abiding citizens who wish to live in peace in an orderly and better organized society.

    We must thank God for small mercies. There is no calamity however great which does not leave room for some thanksgiving. Had Seun tried to assault an armed policeman in more civilized climes, the confrontation would almost certainly have ended in tragedy. Despite the massive outflow of public sympathy in this matter, the police must not revert to their default setting.

    Read Also: Seun Kuti’s lawyers accuse police of flouting court order

    The assaulted policeman was said to have lapsed into a coma after reporting the incident. Haba!! The hostility to Seun is wholly unnecessary and unprofessional. It gives the impression of a premeditated attempt to settle some ancient scores which would not do police image any good.

    It is good to know where Seun is coming from. He combines the famed iconoclasm of the Kuti clan with a street irreverence and cynicism which come from the inner-city bowels of Lagos and its “dangerful” underworld. Unlike the other Fela siblings who exude fine upper class breeding and bourgeois civility arising from a cloistered and sheltered upbringing, Seun has had to make his way from Idi-Oro and the rough and tumble world of Kalakuta Republic. 

    But this has not taken away a natural brilliance and striking intelligence. Yours sincerely once engaged the chap in a long discussion about Lagos and the problem of urban disorder at a place on Bourdillon Road.

    Sober and extremely well informed about the sociology of urban chaos, Fela’s boy asked whether one was aware of the phenomenon of undocumented vagrants and uncaptured hoodlums who spread murder and mayhem in Lagos only to disappear into the inner-city caverns. Some of them even push their victims off the Third Mainland Bridge before jumping into the lagoon. It was a scary proposition.

    Seun should have borrowed a leave from his illustrious father. Fela began his storied career by cocking a snook at the Lagos upper class society and its bourgeois values. Then he bought a brand new Benz which he loaded with firewood and could be seen driving around Lagos inside the grotesque spectacle. Then he changed his name. After that he founded the Kalakuta Republic which ended in tears and a tear-down.

     At the tail-end of his life when Fela was told that General Bamaiyi, the fearsomely whiskered and dreaded boss of NDLEA, wanted to have a word with him, the Abami man pooh-poohed the idea as utter nonsense. But when he was informed that the no-nonsense soldier was planning to storm his house, Fela quickly dressed up and noted. “ Dis one no be bamaiyi. Dis one na baamaayi”. (Just role on with it)

  • No tears for Ekweremadu

    No tears for Ekweremadu

    Nigeria’s ‘distinguished senator’ sent to prison in the UK. A lesson to our political class.

    Something told me intuitively when the story broke last year that Senator Ike Ekweremadu, Nigeria’s former deputy senate president, his wife, Beatrice, as well as one Dr. Obinna Obeta, their consultant, would end up in jail over the organ harvesting plot that they were arraigned for in June, last year. The plot involved a 21-year-old young trader that was trafficked to the UK from Nigeria, with the aim of using his kidney for Sonia, daughter of the Ekweremadus who had kidney challenge and required regular dialysis. Ekweremadu the father was jailed nine years and eight months, his wife bagged four years and six months while the medical doctor got 10 years in prison. They were all found guilty of the crime in March and eventually sentenced at the UK’s Central Criminal Court, known as the Old Bailey on May 5.

    According to prosecutors, the victim was flown to the UK after he was offered about €7,000 (about N6.5million). He was also assured of getting a job in the UK. He was never told that he would have to give his kidney in return. But for the curiosity of a medical consultant who called off the planned transplant because of the suspicious circumstances surrounding it, the deal would have been done and the young man probably left in the lurch after, as there was nothing on ground to cater to his needs after the Ekweremadus must have got what they wanted. Justice Jeremy Johnson who sentenced them said “Ekweremadu was totally indifferent to aftercare for the victim.” The young man reported the matter to the police who took it up from there, culminating in the historic sentencing on May 5.

    “This was an horrific plot to exploit a vulnerable victim by trafficking him to the UK for the purpose of transplanting his kidney,” Joanne Jakymec, Chief Crown Prosecutor, was quoted as saying.

    It is tragic that Ekweremadu, Nigeria’s former deputy senate president for 12 years, is the first person to be convicted under UK’s Modern Slavery Act, ironically by the slave masters themselves. Such was Ekweremadu’s fall from grace, to paraphrase Justice Johnson who sentenced him, that Det. Supt Andy Furphy, head of Metropolitan Police  modern slavery team described the convictions as the “proudest moment in 25 years of policing.” Why won’t it, especially when a Nigerian big man is the guinea pig.

    It is similarly instructive that the case lasted for only about a year. In Nigeria, if the matter must get to court at all (that is if it is not treated as one of those spoils that the political elite are entitled to), it would drag on interminably. As a matter of fact, we would still be trying to ascertain whether the Ekweremadu involved is actually the former deputy senate president. After which lawyers would seek all manner of injunctions in order to frustrate justice. What I am saying is that justice in Nigeria is not blind as it should be; it can still see through the veil that covers the face of its symbol, especially where the high and mighty are involved.

    But certain things should gladden the hearts of ordinary Nigerians in this matter. One is the fact that the judgment clearly demonstrates that all children are equal. This is a thing though that many of our political elites cannot stomach, even if they cannot say it in public. There are so many things they want to do privately which they would never want in the public. They think their own children are superior to other children, hence, they see the latter more as mere statistics that can be done away with whatever, whenever, however. Mere commodities that can be purchased, at best.

    Secondly, we have seen how systems that work can easily demystify those we revere here in Nigeria. Ekweremadu was hitherto addressed with such flowery adjective as ‘distinguished’, a thing that he does not deserve if we check the dictionary for the actual meaning of the distinguished word. The judge made some other statements to this effect but I don’t want to go into such details so it won’t be an overkill. Mercifully, the owners of the English language that we abuse here without compunction, especially when the high and mighty are concerned, have given us the appropriate meaning of the word ‘distinguished’ by sending  a ‘distinguished senator’ of the Federal Republic to prison.

    If the word ‘distinguished’ were to be a living thing, it definitely would celebrate the judgment as one of the best things to happen to it. It would have been joined by its ‘friends’ like ‘His/Her Eminence’, ‘Royal Majesty’, ‘His Excellency’, etc. that are not eminent, majestic or excellent in the true sense of the words here. They are the real beneficiaries of the judgment.

    Let me tell our political class more bad news. Some of them will still go the way of Ekweremadu. Ekweremadu had a whole of 12 years to positively impact healthcare in Nigeria but did little or nothing in that regard, apparently because he, like the others, can always jet out of the country for medical tourism. Please don’t tell me such crab as a tree does not make a forest. These people have a way of getting whatever number of trees to make a forest where their personal interests are concerned. Where there is the will, there will always be a way.

    Nigeria is one of the countries that spend so much on its public functionaries, especially the law makers in the National  Assembly who, aside what the law  prescribes as their pay also award themselves all kinds of mouth-watering allowances and perks that you cannot find elsewhere. Indeed, once you have served in the public space in Nigeria, you want to become the liability of the Nigerian taxpayer till death do you part. So, people move from governor to senator, to minister and continue recycling themselves in those positions forever. It would not have been a problem if the taxpayer gets commensurate return for the investment.

    This is a country where we have a sitting president who, as far back as the early 1980s complained bitterly in a coup speech that our hospitals were mere “consulting clinics”, but has done little to improve the state of those hospitals in his eight years in office. If we had medical experts to consult then, they are no longer there, having trooped out of the country in search of greener pastures. To rub salt on our injury, that president’s labour minister, unfortunately a medical doctor too, apparently taking advantage of our short memory, said the exodus was a blessing to the country because we would make money from their exit to other lands!

    The truth of the matter is that it is easy for Nigerian public functionaries to run foul of the law anywhere. One, they are some of the most travelled in the world; they would always find cause to travel out. If they are not out to learn how to run local governments, they would be there to treat knee injury or to pick their teeth. In fact, travelling out has become not only routine but status symbol for them. ‘Awoof’, as they say, ‘no get bone’.

    Moreover, our big people are not used to obeying laws. As far as they are concerned, laws are not meant for them. Even if they somehow get into trouble, they pick their phones and the matter dies naturally. It was the same mentality that drove Ekweremadu’s organ harvesting plot. Unfortunately, he forgot that UK is not Nigeria. Over there, the law is indeed no respecter of persons. Not even their own Very Important Personalities (VIPs).

    Just imagine if what Ekweremadu tried to do in the UK happened in Nigeria. By now, the matter would have been swept under the carpet. And if it seems to be potentially messy, the young man at the centre of it all would have to find a way to take extra care of himself so that something would not do him; or so he just does not disappear without trace. But over there, he was given all the necessary care and protection needed. Even now, he seems scared of returning to Nigeria because of the possible consequence of making himself available as the vehicle through which a Nigerian big man became prisoner abroad, when, in actual fact, that big man is the architect of his own misfortune.

    It was good that President Muhammadu Buhari did not succumb to the cheap blackmail to join the plea-for-leniency wagon as some of Ekweremadu’s colleagues and his kinsmen wanted. No rational human being that was following the case would ever make such plea. Just imagine the way the judge described a former senator of Nigeria!  The truth is, beyond the show of concern for a fallen colleague, Nigeria’s political class must begin to think of how to make their own country work so that history would not repeat itself, and also to avoid the situation of the dead weeping for the dead (oku nsunkun oku, abarapa nsunkun ara won). They should be ashamed that ‘Japa’ syndrome is gaining traction in their time. Rather than continue to weep for Ekweremadu, they should weep for themselves because it may be turn by turn for them, henceforth. Nigerians were not running away from their country in the past. They only used to travel abroad to study or for leisure and not with the intention of bidding bye to their country forever due to bad leadership.  

    My empathy goes to the underdog in this matter. That was one of the things I learnt from the Late Chief Gani Fawehinmi (SAN), that where the issue is between the big man and the poor, he would always find the law for the poor. Even in this matter, as had been made clear from the judgment on Ekweremadu, anyone with conscience does not have any choice but to pitch one’s tent with the young man, not just because he is the underdog but because his poverty would have been exploited by the same Ekweremadu who once had the opportunity to make laws for the betterment of his life.

    I don’t have issues with parents concerned about their daughter having kidney problem and trying to get her out of it. That is what true and responsible parenting is all about. But I have issues with the crude and inhuman system adopted by the Ekweremadus. So insensitive; highly inconsiderate. It was all about ‘me, me’, ‘our daughter, our daughter’. They did not care a hoot about the victim. As if their own child has two heads.

    The former deputy senate president is a lawyer; he should know the appropriate process to get a consenting transplant donor for his daughter. Jakymec put it better: “The convicted defendants showed utter disregard for the victim’s welfare, health and well-being and used their considerable influence to a high degree of control throughout, with the victim having limited understanding of what was really going on here”. Justice Johnson even observed that the former deputy senate president was a senator when the upper legislative house passed the bill proscribing the crime he committed.

    The fact is; these foreign countries know much about what is happening in Nigeria and if they are now serving our big people the comeuppance for their actions, it should not surprise us. They may actually become the ultimate nemesis that God would be using either to change the minds of our political elite for good, or to send them to prison. People who have turned this country to the hell that it has become do not deserve to be roaming the streets free, not to talk of flaunting their largely ill-gotten wealth. They should be kept like the hungry lions that they are, in decorated cages abroad. After all, the prisons over there are far better than what the political class call correctional centres here in Nigeria, in Africa.

  • Onyema: Patriotism personified

    Onyema: Patriotism personified

    One of the anchors of the interview programme on a television station that interviewed the Chairman of Airpeace Airlines, Mr Allen Onyema weeks ago must have been disappointed with the answer he gave when he asked him a question that could have made him complain about not being appreciated by the country.

    He was asked what motivates him to keep offering to fly Nigerians stranded in various countries back home, as he again offered in the case of Sudan, even when he has not been given a national honour for his past gestures.

    Instead of feeling unappreciated, Onyema said he considers it a privilege to be allowed to contribute his quota to the rescue efforts by the federal government.

    “My willingness to evacuate Nigerians stranded in war-torn Sudan for free is not a publicity stunt but born out of the love I have for Nigeria. I am compelled to help because Nigeria cannot afford to lose her citizens in that country. It would be my own commitment to making sure that the stranded Nigerians in the war-torn country are safe,” Onyema stated.

    Undoubtedly, Onyema, who contrary to the claim of the anchor holds the national honour of Commander of the Order of the Niger (CON),  believes in not only asking for what the country can do for him, but he is also interested in what he can do for the country without asking for any compensation.

    If he had not offered to evacuate the Nigerians stranded in Sudan as he has done in past instances including in South Africa and India, he would not have been liable for not being considerate of the plight of those stranded. He is not obliged to offer the assistance he has been offering, he just happened to be a patriotic businessman who understands the need to support the country when it matters most.

    Onyema’s gestures should be commended and encouraged instead of being reduced to a weapon of fanning embers of ethnic divide in the country as some have tried to do in continuation of the bitterness over the results of the general elections.

    Many more who are in a position to offer to help in times of crisis should be urged to do so, irrespective of which part of the country they are from and who needs the assistance.

    Those who are still angry over the election results should know the limits of seeing any gesture from an ethnic perspective and promoting false narratives just to make whatever point they want to make.

    Thankfully, Onyema knows better and will not be a party to those who want to turn his well-intentioned gesture into settling political scores.

    As Onyema himself admitted, the federal government has been very supportive of his airline being given approval to fly many international routes without being discriminated against because of where he comes from.

    What has helping other countrymen out of dire situation got to do with the tribe of the helper or those who needs assistance? Who knows whose turn it would be tomorrow?

    It’s the duty of the government to come to the aid of citizens of the country anywhere in the world in crisis times, but any individual or organization able to help should not hesitate to do so as Onyema through his company has done.

  • Soyinka and Peter Obi’s visit

    Soyinka and Peter Obi’s visit

    The Labour Party (LP) presidential candidate, Peter Obi, has contrived to keep himself in the political limelight by travelling around the country for visitations, by tweeting on a lot of issues including his suit against the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential election victory, by rapprochement with organisations and individuals, whether they are religious groups or social critics, and by joining some state governments in celebrating anniversaries. Since he was primed for the last elections, and having enjoyed unparalleled exposure, raised status, and some national significance, he has been unable to step down his incandescent political ‘transformer’. From all indications, he will continue to politick into the foreseeable future until confronted by a political force majeure.

    He has a captive audience that is derided in some quarters as the Obidient family. But it is a label Mr Obi’s vociferous and impertinent supporters proudly but ironically wear as a badge of honour, given its pejorative meaning. The LP candidate enjoys the attention; and he secretly revels in the captive and fanatical army of defenders eager to give their social media eyes and limbs in his defence. Some analysts insist Mr Obi himself has become a hostage to this army of supporters, but others suggest that if he is willing or convinced he still retains the power to smother their temper and fanatical displays. What is, however, incontestable is that he is at the head of that army, titular or real. He will not mind making amends for their ferocious attacks, partly because they are not an organised or structured army, but he will do nothing to dampen their sanguinary fury.

    Indeed, the issue of making amends or reconciliation was at the heart of the latest controversy between Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka and Mr Obi. A few media organisations had reported the LP candidate’s last Sunday visit to Prof Soyinka using the word ‘reconciliation’ or ‘amends’ to describe the purpose of the visit, and implying that the laureate was being reconciled with the Obidient family that had in early April assailed him for condemning the LP presidential running mate, Datti Baba-Ahmed, as fascistic in his utterances against the judiciary. Mr Obi did not of course use the word ‘reconciliation’, nor did his host, the eminent professor. But that word filtered into the media reports nonetheless, and it rubbed the professor up the wrong way. Though Mr Obi may not have used the offending word, however, media professionals can be forgiven for inferring it from his Sunday tweet reporting the visit.

    In the flattering tweet, the LP candidate had said: “I visited one of Nigeria’s most revered figures and an international literary icon Prof Wole Soyinka. Prof Soyinka has been my father whom I hold in very esteem for what he has achieved and stands for in the struggle for a better Nigeria.  His reputation as a fighter for justice and equity in our society has been legendary and we will never ignore them. I had a very useful and enriching discussion about his aspirations for a better and greater Nigeria, and he shared a lot with me about his dream for a greater, and more inclusive Nigeria. I reminded the Nobel laureate of the huge price he paid just before the outbreak of the civil war, fighting for the cause of the Igbo. I cherish this Sunday visit which was intended to erase the needless misconceptions about the relationship between the great icon and the Obidient family.”

    There it is, in black and white. Mr Obi presumed a relationship between Prof Soyinka and the Obidient family, a relationship that does not exist, as will be shown presently in the professor’s response to that tweet. Furthermore, the LP candidate also spoke of erasing ‘needless misconceptions’ about that putative relationship. To erase misconceptions is ultimately to amend relationship or reconcile foes. The media, while not being blameless in the whole saga, simply drew conclusions and allusions from the LP candidate’s tweet. Since his hefty showing in the last presidential poll, Mr Obi has become both grandiloquent and somewhat megalomaniacal, a status presumption that triggered Mr Baba-Ahmed’s defiant and unsupportable vituperation against the president and the judiciary in early April when he dared them to swear in the winner of the presidential poll. The LP candidate’s presumptions about himself are gestating and fathering many farfetched ideas in his mind.

    Prof Soyinka was less ambiguous and evasive in his response to Mr Obi’s tweet and media reports on the visit. As a lover of humanity and democracy, he felt an obligation to give the LP candidate a hearing, regardless of whether he suspected the politician’s motives or not. But he was not going to suffer fools gladly when, as must have been guessed, Mr Obi once again crossed the line. Here is what the professor said: “Before it gains traction and embarks on a life of its own, I wish to state clearly that the word ‘reconciliation’, inserted into some reports of Peter Obi’s visit to me yesterday, Sunday, May 7, is a most inappropriate, and diversionary invocation. Let me clarify: I know the entity known as Peter Obi, presidential candidate of the Labour Party. I can relate to him. I know and can relate to the Labour Party on whose platform he contested elections. There are simply no issues to reconcile between those two entities and myself.  However, I do not know, and am unable to relate to something known as the ‘Obidient’ or ‘Obidient Family’. Thus, albeit in a different vein, any notion of reconciliation, or even relations – positive, negative or indifferent – with such a spectral emanation is simply grasping at empty air. During that meeting, attended by two other individuals only, the word ‘reconciliation’ was never bruited, neither in itself nor in any other form. It simply did not arise.  By contrast, there were expressions of ‘burden of leadership’ ‘responsibility’, ‘apology’, ‘pleading’, ‘formal dissociation from the untenable’, all the way to the ‘tragic ascendancy of ethnic cleavage’, especially under such ironic, untenable circumstances.  Discussions were frank and creative. The notion of reconciliation was clearly N/A – Non Applicable. It was never raised…”

    Phew! Obviously peeved by how irrationally and remorselessly LP’s social media warriors have behaved, Prof Soyinka went on to say a few other weighty things. Anyone sensible enough knows what he thinks of the Obidients, and what he probably now thinks of the direction of Nigerian politics, particularly in terms of opening up the ‘dark, putrid recesses in the national psyche’. Whether Mr Obi has that depth to appreciate those issues and their irritating nuances is not altogether clear. But it is doubtful, especially given his incredibly superficial interviews, statements and responses during the presidential campaign, both in Nigeria and overseas, that the LP candidate possesses that ruminative capacity.

    It is now abundantly clear that Mr Obi is not willing to dissociate himself from the Obidient family, nor is he willing to give short shrift to their intemperate attacks against his opponents. From time to time he will issue tame rebukes against them, but those rebukes will be couched in homilies and innuendoes so inoculated of vigour as to be useless and futile against a disease rampaging and undermining the body politic. He will prefer to visit victims of the Obidient family’s attacks than ensure their change of behavior and cessation of cyberbullying. There is little anyone, not even Prof Soyinka, can do now to curb the malady. The disease must run its course before it is extirpated. There are not many statesmen, leaders and politicians who will balk at heading an army of fanatical supporters driving a society insane and putting fear in everyone. Don’t count Mr Obi among the few. No one takes on the LP candidate and his ambition without drawing flak from the Obidients. They have shown how far irreverent and scurrilous they are willing to go for him. He will, therefore, not repudiate them; not now, not in the future, not anytime soon. Mr Obi designed his visit to Prof Soyinka to give fillip to his political junkets and to subtly legitimise the Obidient family which he proudly heads. His attitude and style, not to say his weaknesses and indulgences, explain the full spectrum of his politics. He can do no other. The suit against the APC presidential victory and the insidious manner he triggered ethnic and religious cleavages are merely incidental and secondary feeds for his gross objectives.

    Anti-inauguration lobby losing steam

    On May 29, about two weeks from today, a new administration will be sworn in. For some groups, particularly the losing side in the last presidential poll, it is a galling prospect that the All Progressives Congress (APC) is returning to office. Symbolised by President Muhammadu Buhari in the past eight years, the party had performed less than stellar on too many issues and fronts. It had inspired the most divisive eight years of any administration since the onset of the Fourth Republic in 1999. Nigerians had drifted apart so steadily in the past years that a chasm now exists among them. While the party may have outperformed its predecessor Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in infrastructure, it nevertheless underperformed in so many other key and indispensable areas, including macroeconomic stability and debt management issues. And when, close to the polls, the party inflicted upon itself mortal wounds and many unforced errors such as the naira redesign policy and intraparty turmoil, many Nigerians thought it was all over for the APC. But the party defied projections and emphatically won the presidential poll, took the senate uncontroversially, performed creditably in the governorship and House of Representatives polls, and, against all odds closed ranks at crucial moments, notwithstanding the kerfuffle over the principal officers zoning and consensus issues.

    The anti-inauguration lobby was birthed ominously after the parties conducted their primaries in 2022 and the ruling party opted for a Muslim-Muslim ticket. There was nothing at the time to suggest that the APC would win the presidential poll; but commentators, clerics, and ethnic leaders fulminated on the prospect of a same-faith ticket winning the presidency. It would not happen, they swore. But once it happened, they again swore there would be no swearing-in. It was unsurprising that in the immediate post-election period, a lobby arose that vowed no inauguration would take place even if it needed the intervention of heaven. But what if heaven had already given approval and indicated that it did not need crusading men to midwife God’s plan and purpose for Nigeria? Just last week, after weeks of intense and unseemly but futile campaign to thwart the inauguration had lost steam, Catholic Archbishop Emeritus John Cardinal Onaiyekan revived the campaign against inauguration by questioning the logic and morality of swearing in the winner before the courts had had their say. He was shouted down, and his attention drawn to the culture of swearing in winners since 1999 while court cases lasted.

    Hot on the heels of weeks of intense incitement by powerful Nigerians suggesting to the PDP and LP to embark on street activism as a means of undermining the inauguration, no one was sure when the sagging anti-inauguration lobby would flame out. The PDP plotted and encouraged street protests in addition to their legal action, and the LP spoke so much violence that bordered on treason and insurrection. Even now, both opposition parties are advocating televised coverage of their suits against the APC victory, disingenuously believing that live coverage would either castrate the justices or hamstring them from delivering justice. Live coverage is unlikely to happen, the street protests will flag, and the powerful inciters will lose zeal. If leading clerics like Cardinal Onaiyekan are unable to recognise that their styles and methods are antithetical to and irreconcilable with the principles and values of Christianity to which they had subscribed all their lives, to which service they had brought decades of deep learning and mysterious exegesis, no political apostate, however ignorant, deserves to be pilloried or crucified.

    A week or two before the fateful presidential poll, LP and PDP supporters wearied by the prospect of APC triumphing at the polls dreamt up the impotent idea of investing the Federal Capital City (FCT) votes with a golden veto alien to the constitution and completely strange to common and legal sense. Suspecting that the APC was weak in the FCT, they began suggesting that a winner must secure 25 percent of the votes in two-thirds of the states plus the FCT. Why not 25 percent in two-thirds of the states plus the most populous state, the most oil-rich state, or the largest breadbasket state? The inanity of that interpretation has happily also seemed to peter out. There is practically nothing left to repose hope in to stall the inauguration, except perhaps some apocalyptic prophecies of tragic occurrences to either wipe off the APC candidates from the face of the earth or inspire events that would prompt the country into war. The civil war and tragic disruptions in Sudan and the state failure of Somalia have taught the anti-inauguration lobby no lessons at all. Even the abominable and counterproductive annulment of 1993 has offered them no useful lessons of deterrence.

    Meanwhile the transition is proceeding apace. Elected lawmakers and governors from all the political divides are upbeat about the political process and are looking forward to inauguration. Unlike the anti-inauguration lobby, the elected politicians, Christians and Muslims alike, know that their tenure of four years is just a heartbeat away. They secretly scorn the PDP video shows and the fanatical LP social media posts. They are unable, like the rest of Nigerian, to understand how the nihilism being sponsored by the anti-inauguration lobby would profit anyone, including the discredited lobby and their powerful sponsors. The outcome of the court contest over the presidential poll is predictable. Everyone knows this; the justices themselves know it; the outgoing administration, despite the herculean effort to affect the initial outcome of the presidential poll before it happened in February, knows it; and the world knows it. May 29 will come and go. Nigeria will not collapse. And the cause of democracy will be served, not necessarily by the mere act of inaugurating a new administration, but by the observance of and fidelity to the electoral process and the constant resort to national renewal through the dialectic of democracy.

    APC and battle of principal officers

    Predictably, the ruling APC is embroiled in controversy over the zoning of the top four offices of the National Assembly. The fiercest contention revolves around the zoning by consensus of both the Deputy Senate President and the Speaker of the House of Representatives to the Northwest, leaving out the North Central. The party is lucky to have about three weeks grace before the inauguration of the 10th Assembly to put its house in order. They probably will. Egos will have to take a back seat, and campaign promises will have to be modified if the party is not to lose everything altogether on the floor of the Assembly should they go into the elections disunited. The 10th Assembly is much more diversified and outspoken than the previous Assemblies, and hence potentially more fractious, opportunistic and irritable.

    There are already whispers of emerging cabals preparing to hold the new administration in thrall, a carry-over of the nefarious and toxic manner the outgoing administration was leashed by powerful and implacable forces that refused every entreaty to relent. That fear is probably exaggerated. Paying campaign debts may equate with caballing, as the National Assembly is demonstrating, but no subsequent administration will likely subject itself willingly or reluctantly to the rule of cabals as the outgoing administration did. The North Central is clearly disadvantaged in the allocations, and the Southeast has been left holding the short end of the stick as a result of its poor politicking and paradoxical sense of entitlement; but the new administration will try to reach accommodation with them, and in the end, after the initial hesitations and halting steps, the APC, like the PDP before it, will find its footing. The party will be reluctant to want this storm in a teacup to transform into the Roaring 40s or Screaming 60s.   

  • Tinubu and burden of history

    Tinubu and burden of history

    President-Elect Bola Tinubu sighs whenever he acknowledges his difficult relationship with the social media. Perhaps he will one day do a sod-turning ceremony to mark a thaw in how netizens perceive him and his government. But for now, he is equanimous about social media, almost in fact indifferent; and they return the compliment by resenting him. They will scrutinise every word he utters, either privately or publicly, sensible or not, and they will second-guess him or concoct stories about him. His visit to Rivers State on May 3 and 4 is an example of how fraught his relationship is with the social media. He had bantered with his host, Governor Nyesom Wike, declaring that he owed him nothing in response to the request to be refunded the money spent building flyovers. But the social media took it both as a repudiation of the friendship between the president-elect and the governor, and an indiscrete humiliation of Mr Wike.

    The president-elect’s jousting with social media will be nothing compared to what he will experience once he is sworn in as president. He will be burdened far more by history than by the constant and deliberate misinterpretation of his banter. The traditional media, save two or three newspapers and a few other broadcast media, view him with suspicion. They may not embrace the reckless and pugnacious culture of the social media, but they will haunt him with a ferocity that is perhaps unequalled since 1999. The traditional media may also not necessarily concoct adversarial stories about him, but they will look often hostilely at his statements and assign relevance, weight and meanings to them in a way that leaves no one in doubt where their sympathies lie.

    For instance, while commissioning the Magistrates’ Court Complex in Port Harcourt, the clearly excited president-elect asserted that Nigerian unity was inviolate. Said he: “That is what I intend to do in all policy formulations coming up. I promise Nigerians that the unity of this country is not negotiable. That is what Wike and I are promoting jointly. I promise I will be fair to all.” These were no doubt sound sentiments, especially coming from a man whose political instincts are so razor sharp that he knows the political predilections of South-South states. Those states may not be as progressive as some have conjured or even be as altruistic as they have impressed on everyone, but by voting often and mostly for parties at the centre, they signal their unalloyed support for national unity, afraid to be caught between the anvil of an eternally resurgent Southeast and the fissiparousness of the republican South-South states. Historically, the South-South had voted conservative (National Party of Nigeria; PDP), but is now gradually tending towards the APC. Their lodestar is more spatially defined than ideological centred.

    But by surrendering to the wisdom of his instincts, the social and traditional media have mocked the president-elect and wondered whether his non-negotiable talk is not a total and unedifying repudiation of his avowed struggle for restructuring. They have begun to wonder whether he was not sounding like the incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari and all past presidents and military heads of state whose sing-song and battle cry was ‘Nigerian unity is non-negotiable’ instead of justice. They will watch his every word subsequently, and try to match it with his previous positions, especially when he was in the opposition. They will fling history at him, and dare him to explain his apostasy.

     The hostile media will also be mystified by the statement he issued to commemorate the 13th anniversary of the death of his friend and one-time political associate, Umaru Yar’Adua, a former president. The president-elect had sworn: “As a friend and political associate I cherish the fond memories of honesty, steadfastness, patriotism and excellence in public service left behind by the late Yar’Adua both as governor of Katsina State (1999 to 2007) and president of Nigeria (2007 to 2010). As I prepare to take the reins of leadership of this country on May 29, I am determined to follow the good examples set by leaders like Mallam Umaru Yar’Adua who showcased exceptional sense of propriety and selfless service to our dear country.” But that is precisely where the problem lies: his conception of the essential Yar’Adua versus the impression the adversaries have of the late president.

    As far as history goes, which as some say is mostly written by victors, the late president was not impactful. There were indications he meant well as president and leader, but the side of him social media and adversarial commentators see is one hobbled by sickness and lethargy. But the president-elect sees a far more otherworldly and endearing side. Being his friend for many years and belonging to the same political family, the president-elect is probably right that the late president did so much good in his short reign than many others did in their long reigns. President-elect Tinubu will, therefore, always have the burden of explaining his allusions, banter and choices. He has already indicated firmly that he will not yield to the blackmail and harassments of social media; he is right, he has little choice than to stand firm. But he will be burdened.

    Buhari defies lame duck status

    Once a president-elect emerges, it is conventional that a sitting president gradually takes the back seat, fading away quietly, and sometimes mummifying. When Muhammadu Buhari was elected, his predecessor, Goodluck Jonathan, hardly lifted a policy finger. He tried to do a few things, naturally, but a hostile media as well as the aides of the incoming president began issuing dire warnings. He became hamstrung, despite making feeble protestations. As stormy and obtruding as former president Olusegun Obasanjo was, and despite singlehandedly foisting the late president Umaru Yar’Adua on the nation, there were certain decisions and policies he was reluctant to take.

    President Buhari was, therefore, widely believed to be heading for lame duck the moment Bola Tinubu was elected president. But shockingly, and given the adverse political atmosphere unfavourable to the president-elect – two parties are fighting his election, and the presence and activities of spiteful and obnoxious social media – the president has carried on blithely as if he would rule beyond May 29. He at first planned a census for May, fixed the removal of fuel subsidy for the same May, now shifted to June, and has awarded wage increases, secured or securitised more loans, including ways and means from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), promoted public officials, and filled board vacancies. He has done everything but stayed lame duck.

    Is he right to carry on as if he would rule beyond May 29? Theoretically, yes, because there can’t be two presidents at the same time. It would indeed be contrapuntal. But the commitments he is entering into, some of which would shackle the incoming government, are both unrealistic and unhealthy. Commonsense and public service etiquettes ought to dictate to the president to slow down considerably, especially weeks to a change of baton. Neither the president-elect nor any member of his team will gently admonish the president to show restraint, assuming he doesn’t already know what is required of him. The media have been aghast; but having mostly fought the president-elect to a standstill, they have been chary of calling President Buhari to order. They are painfully unable to reconcile themselves to the facts surrounding the election, that it had been fought, won and lost.