The Nation Newspaper

Category: Sunday

  • Wike, Ayu and war in PDP

    Wike, Ayu and war in PDP

    FOUR days after former Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) chairman Iyorchia Ayu drew first blood by suspending a few leading members of the party for anti-party activities, and a day after his Igyorov Ward in Gboko local government area suspended his membership of the party, a Benue High Court ordered him to stop parading himself as PDP chairman. In almost one fell swoop, Dr Ayu’s controversial tenure came to a crushing end. The party’s Deputy National Chairman (North), Umar Damagum, has stepped in with the support of the PDP National Working Committee (NWC). The orchestration of Dr Ayu’s ouster followed a similar pattern deployed against former All Progressives Congress (APC) chairman, Adams Oshiomhole, in 2020.

    With the defeat of Atiku Abubakar in February, it was expected that ‘civil war’ would break out in the leading opposition party. But combatants barely waited for the smoke of electoral war to clear after the governorship polls before they unsheathed their sabres. Noblesse oblige required Dr Ayu to quietly fall on his sword, having led the PDP to another slaughter in its third election attempt to regain the throne. Instead, he attacked his grandiloquent enemies first, and was cruelly put to the sword instantly. The court may have adjourned hearing to April 17, but it is all over for the former chairman. He will now be addressed in the past tense, a victim of the third in the series of defeats suffered by the opposition party.

    The suspension of former Ekiti and Katsina governors, Ayo Fayose and Ibrahim Shema respectively, has of course been reversed without much ado. Dr Ayu’s dethronement may not have followed the party’s constitution, for Article 57 (7) limits the ability of ward executives to suspend national officers, and in any case the court was yet to adjudicate, but once the ex parte motion brought by an interested party to the dispute succeeded in shoving the chairman aside temporarily, it was game over. The pugnacious Rivers State governor Nyesom Wike will now have cause to smile, for he was the chief architect of the campaign to put Dr Ayu’s nose out of joint. It is not clear that Mr Wike pulled the strings in the events that transpired in Benue State, but all eyes are on him both to hear what he has to say on the dethronement and how next the PDP would proceed.

    If the suspension of Messrs Fayose and Shema, et al, was the first shot in the war within the PDP, and the second was the inglorious and rapid manner Dr Ayu was hoisted with his own petard, the third obviously will be how the PDP’s NWC will navigate the waves certain to block their path sailing forward. Dr Ayu was really never popular in the party, especially after he refused to relinquish the chairmanship position after the party’s presidential primary last May. Unfortunately for him, those who could have rallied to his help, including Alhaji Atiku and Governor Aminu Tambuwal of Sokoto State, are preoccupied with their own problems. The presidential candidate simply can’t fathom why he should spend money and time fighting a war that is, going forward, of little benefit to him. And Mr Tambuwal, hobbled by the defeat his anointed governorship candidate suffered in the March 18 poll, is too politically unsettled and his hands weakened to go into any battle now. He has neither the stamina nor the funds to saunter into war.

    But these are just early days in the PDP civil war. The combatants may be fairly well known, but they are yet to be neatly divided into fighting camps; nor is the war front clearly delineated yet. Coalitions of willing fighters, some of them returning and outgoing governors, will have to be formed in the weeks ahead, and an agenda worth pursuing will have to be cobbled together. Nothing is by any means guaranteed. Mr Wike may sometimes appear like an obtruding politician, and his speech and ideas, sometimes also grandiose and peremptory, but there is no doubt he will be a factor in the war. How far he can go remains to be seen, especially if the task of cobbling coalitions does not end quickly before May 29. If the war gets protracted, serving governors may bring out heavy guns against former governors, since the PDP is, despite its failings and contradictions, actually a pan-Nigerian political party. It does not have a single mastermind, nor a single philosopher. It must, therefore, always answer to a collegiate of thinkers and activists. Indeed, the party will likely yield more to those who can provide the funds to run it. No one at the moment knows who those financiers might be, other than of course to suspect serving governors.

    What matters now is that Mr Wike and the other vocal and aggrieved section of the party have got their revenge. In their combat with Dr Ayu, they are having the last laugh. Alhaji Atiku will be of no help to anyone now or in the medium run during the duration of his legal case against his election loss. With 25 percent in 21 states instead of in 24 or 25 states, it is hard to see his suit against the APC succeeding. Success in that suit is the only thing that will rekindle his interest and cause the PDP to renew their bond with him. Mr Wike was at the head of the group of five governors who battled Dr Ayu to submission. The G-5 is also laughing last. More, the group will clearly retain its relevance, even though no one is sure just how strongly the core that binds them together will continue to cohere.

    Obasanjo on discrimination against Igbo

    EX-PRESIDENT Olusegun Obasanjo customarily offers little corroboration for his wild summations. Speaking at the one-year anniversary of the Chukwuma Soludo administration in Awka, Anambra State, two Saturdays ago, the former president decried what he believed was the continuing discrimination against the Igbo in Nigeria. He offered no proof for his conviction save that when he appointed both Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala as Finance minister and Charles Soludo as Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor, someone came to him to denounce the appointments using the ethnic argument. Igbophobia exists, he says, and it remains, it persists. Meanwhile, he continued, both appointments were probably the best he made during his presidency.

    He is entitled to his beliefs and self-adulation. What is not in doubt, however, is that he neither imbued Nigeria with the right philosophy of governance nor inculcated in his special appointees any ideology or school of thought to turn them into credible and lasting disciples. He gave nothing, and the so-called disciples received nothing. Yes, a few things bind him and some of his appointees together, but those things were neither solid nor unforgettable. What is even worse is that he never feels obliged to substantiate or defend his pithy and often wayward remarks, such as his conclusion that Igbophobia continues to this day.

    Decades ago, the Yoruba also embraced victimhood, insisting with a tinge of entitlement that the nation owed them a living and must cede the presidency to them. It never happened until M.K.O Abiola experienced the epiphany that to win a presidential election, a candidate must build bridges, nurture networks, and help others to succeed through self-sacrifice, in addition to enunciating a philosophy of life and government. Presto, Chief Abiola won the 1993 presidential election, an election that was tragically aborted with the collusion and connivance of men like Chief Obasanjo himself. Some 30 years later, Bola Ahmed Tinubu dusted up the Abiola template by devoting about three decades to practise the same craft. Again, deploying the same tactics with minor modifications helped another Yoruba man to win the February 25 presidential poll.

    Both Chief Obasanjo and the Igbo appear to be waiting for a time when the country will with one accord gift the Southeast the presidency, as an entitlement, considering that the Igbo are regarded as one of the tripods upon which Nigeria rests. Sadly, it will never happen until a detribalised Igbo man appreciates the dynamics of the Nigerian presidency, recognises that it is not a one-year project, and begins to take measured and consistent steps to actualise that dream.

    Well, Chief Obasanjo is never one to reason a matter through logically and philosophically. Specious, self-aggrandising, shallow and often pedantic, he will continue to muddy the waters, instigate malice, and incite one group against the other. If the Igbo feel flattered by his dangerous incitement, they will wait for far longer than they imagine to win the presidency.

  • The autumn of patriarchs

    The autumn of patriarchs

    • On the fall of political dynasties in Nigeria

    The feast of the passover :-

    It is early April in Nigeria but it is beginning to feel like late autumn. It is the autumn of patriarchs or the harmattan of Baba Arugbo, the ancient one. There is political mystery in the air. It reminds one of the final rites of the Methuselah python deep in the mountain gorge as it finally expires in a haze of senile hallucinations and torrid whimpering like a toddler. The earth often quakes at this seminal event, and at the imminent departure of a sacred monster.

    Amidst the rancorous din and noisy defamation of character that have marked the collapse of elite consensus in Nigeria, something else has been happening in the political theatre which ought to attract attention. Whether this development is a healthy sign of political emancipation in Nigeria or it signposts our inability to grow stabilizing anchors for our postcolonial institutions remain to be seen. But it shows why again Nigeria is too big and chaotic to be detained by regular storms.

       The evisceration of political dynasties in the nation has proceeded apace. What began as a faint trickle has now assumed the status of an avalanche. And given the outcome of the last elections, it shows no respect or fidelity to religion or region of origin.  One thing that can be quickly established from all this is the fact that when the chips are down the Nigerian political mob is no respecter of anybody or of feudal privileges in politics for that matter.

    And so like a bloated and overripe fruit, political dynasties have continued to fall in Nigeria like dominoes in a political power play. There is a sickening thud to the crash. It doesn’t feel or sounds like an epochal event. Nevertheless, there is something manic and unrelenting about it all, like the staccato burst of machine gun firing. Democratic monarchy is dying in Nigeria even before it was born.

    Our colonial conquerors set a lot of premium by the rites of family succession, whether political, industrial, military or otherwise. The secrets of ascendancy are often passed down the line. Nothing must be done to disturb or disrupt the family heirloom. When Alexander Dumas, the famous French novelist, was asked by his son which one of his productions he considered the best, the great man retorted:  “Ah! It is you, my son!!!”

    This was in the same France which has produced the two Bonaparte—Napoleon and Luis— two epochal rulers from the same family who were to fundamentally affect the destiny of their beloved country, almost sixty years apart. One had been famously described as a tragedy and the other a farce by the brilliant and irascible Karl Marx.

      Nothing lasts or endures in tropical Africa. Between them, the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn devastate and destroy. Plants bloom rapidly only to perish rapidly as their beauty is being celebrated. It reminds one of the fate of Aboliga, the gifted man-child in Ayi Kwei Armah’s The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born, who grew to full manhood the very day he was born only to die later the same day.

       It may well be that something more fundamental or genetically ordained is at play: a founding sorcery which has proved impossible to exorcise and which exercises its baleful influence at the highest level of governance in Africa. It is the curse of Mlungu. It was said that as the great King Chaka lay dying in the open field, speared to death by his treacherous siblings, he had told them that they plotted in vain because Mlungu was coming to disband all of them. Mlungu was the white man. And he did.

     This political riddle should be of interest to our researchers and political scientists. Except in native monarchy and other rigidly delineated systems of governance, the tradition of political dynasty and structured succession within the same family appears so remote in postcolonial Africa that we might as well be talking of another continent entirely. Yet in Europe, Asia and the Americas, it is so common and prevalent that it appears so natural and seamlessly woven into the system.

    While France could boast of the two Bonaparte, England still cherishes the memory of the two Pitts, the younger becoming prime minister only in his twenties. The young Winston Churchill venerated his father Lord Randolph so much that he dreamt of nothing but equaling his political success in life.  He not only did but surpassed his father’s record becoming arguably the greatest Englishman of the epoch. In the same country, a family trade can trace its illustrious lineage three centuries back and still counting.

        Perhaps it is the greatest political irony of our time that it is in republican and revolutionary America that the idea of political dynasties has taken deepest root in contemporary civilization. The Americans love and worship their political royalty to distraction. It was as if they were paying deep psychological and spiritual ablutions for the political regicide of their forefathers and ancestors.

    The fascination with nobility of lineage is not just restricted to politics. It often extends to other professions, particularly to the military. About five decades earlier in 1975, the accession of General George Patton’s son ( 1923-2004) as commander of his father’s wartime division was greeted with much hoopla and celebration in America. It was as if old “blood and guts” himself had come back to relive his wartime heroics.

      For a people whose ancestors claimed to have left feudal hanky-panky behind them in medieval Europe, this obsession with its trappings often comes across as the return of the repressed. In the South of the new nation, the emergent class of rich farmers and affluent landed gentry developed such a refined and cultured lifestyle that their European counterparts could only wince in envy.

    The obsession with cultural superiority and a leisured lifestyle powered by slave labour was to lead to conflict and eventual civil war with a rapidly industrializing and forward-looking northern political elite which saw no need for slave-holding. It was a fundamental collision of ideological temples which could only be resolved with one side vanquished.

      But even among this new American aristocracy, there was a superior caste, or an aristocracy within an aristocracy which owed a lot to race distinction rather than money. Despite their money, fame and glamour, the Kennedy clan were still regarded as carpet-baggers and bootlegging bounders by the Boston Brahmin.

    On a scale of social preference, people of Irish descent were regarded as belonging to the lowest rung of the ladder of human evolution. The ultimate joke was however on the Bostonian aristocracy. With their people-friendly, progressive and libertarian politics, the Kennedys have had a far more meaningful impact on contemporary American society than any upper class Boston family.

    Having sacrificed two illustrious members of the family to the cause of a forward-looking and more egalitarian American society, members of the Kennedy family are better regarded than any contemporary Massachusetts family and are routinely referred to as America’s first family. Nobody seems to remember their lowly Irish provenance. They have proved their mettle in war and peace.

      It can be argued that this stability of ideological temperament and outlook in most advanced democracies in the world acts like a leveraging anchor on regular politics, preventing an ideological meltdown or a descent into political anarchy and chaos.

    No matter what happens in the wider theatre of human endeavor, you can always be sure of what a professed leftwing party is capable of, or how an acknowledged rightwing group will react in moments of extreme constitutional crisis. Sometimes rather than adapt to emergent realities, these parties prefer to go into extinction defending their rampart to the last man in what is known as the Masada Complex among the Israeli.

       This impregnable solidity and bearish strength of state party formations in advanced democracies often spawn extreme rightwing and left-leaning groups making extremist demands on the system which would have been impossible except in circumstances of revolution or acute social convulsions.

    But they hardly make a dent on the system and are often consigned to the margins of politics where they make their noise while the majority have their way. Often, their blistering critiques provide an opportunity for the state party formations to reimagine or reinvent themselves.

    This was precisely what happened in Britain in the eighties when a breakaway faction of the Labour Party provided an excellent cover for the trio of Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, Robin Cook and other ideologues to reengineer the party in a fundamental fashion which made it very electable again after the Thatcherite tragedy that befell it.

  • The decline of King Lear’s heirs

    The decline of King Lear’s heirs

    The optic of ideological stability underpinning regular politics in advanced democracies is about the best way to view the sharp decline in the fortunes of dynastic politics in Nigeria. Except in the feudal north where religion and cultural orientation play a major role in shaping the worldview of the political heirs of the tradition, the dynamics are more fluid and unstable in the south where everything is up for grab as a result of the social instability engendered by the colonial irruption.

    In the volatile South, Oedipus is very much awake and on the political rampage. As a result of political pressures, political dynasties suffer implosions before finally crumpling. Political heirs abjure the ideological tradition of the family and openly turn coat. In some other circumstances, the inheritors deepen the retrograde and reactionary tendencies for which their families are known, thus setting themselves up for eventual political execution.

    Nothing exemplifies this crisis of dynastic politics in contemporary Nigeria more than the Saraki Saga in Kwara State, a normally stable and conservative state hugging the northernmost borders where the Yoruba dominion ends as they comingle with a raft of self-assertive minority nationalities. Into this combustible mix must be thrown the Fulani seizure of the Ilorin Yoruba throne about two centuries ago. It is a loss which elicits permanent angst and rumbling among a section of the populace.

    If the Saraki dynasty believed that what happened to it some years back with the overthrow of its political dominion was a mere fluke, its virtual annihilation in the last series of elections showed that the people of the state actually meant business. The red card was stern and unforgiving. It was the last sigh of the Jemma federation and the Okesuna masses.

    There can be no doubt that the founding father left behind a stable and seemingly impregnable throne for his son to inherit. Olusola Saraki was the ultimate grandmaster of feudal politics in all its arcane rituals of permanent networking and abiding munificence to the poor and needy. As they say, Abu’s money must be used to entertain Abu up to a point. The good old doctor was a maestro; a trapeze artist of uncommon skills and supremely adept at the fine calibrations that feudal politics demands.

    His son, Bukola, with his imperious mien and self-assured swagger cannot be said to have inherited the common touch from his illustrious father. Cut off from his roots at a tender age, he appeared too aloof and standoffish to work any magic on the sweltering and pulsating crowd, or to endear himself to their rustic ways in a manner of speaking. There was also something mildly offensive and reprehensible about his self-centered political outlook which was not calculated to win him many friends at the national level.

    In the end, it was the father who actually pulled the trigger by insisting on fielding his daughter, Gbemisola, as the successor to the son. It proved a bridge too far. Manipulated by his own manipulations, it was a reckless political gamble; an act of historical self-immolation. The problem with political gamblers is that they never know where and when to stop even when the odds are overwhelmingly stacked against them.

    A conservative, feudally-ordained and gender apprehensive society can only take as much from a man they have given so much. It was King Lear in Agbaji, as this column famously noted at the time. Bukola merely provided the costumes, the grand stage, the cast and the fireworks for the political funeral of his great father. The funeral pyre is still smouldering in Agbaji.

    It is too early to say whether what is unfolding in Kwara and in the country at large traces the great arc of a movement towards full political emancipation, or whether it is a mere exchange of a feudal baboon for a medieval monkey in the interim. Both are possibilities. The people are no flaming red-eyed revolutionaries or anarchists. Judging by the name given the mass movement which dislodged the Sarakis, what drives the irate masses is an abhorrence of excesses. O to gee means enough is enough.

    While the Ilorin emirate has been sedate and civilized about it all, wisely avoiding getting drawn into political controversies that can invite the ire of the restive masses, the new governor is proving to be a more consummate power player and a skillful bridge-builder very well -schooled in the politics of elite networking.

    As the late Odolaiye Aremu, the famed exponent of dadakuada music will put it, if a man is well beloved by his people, he can as well sew for himself a dress made of leaves and he will be greatly applauded.

  • The Peter Obi revolution that atrophied midway

    The Peter Obi revolution that atrophied midway

    According to Section 77 (2&3) of the Electoral Act 2022, Peter Obi is not a member of the Labour party. As a result, he is not qualified to contest the February 25, 2023 presidential election on behalf of the party. Section 77 (2) says every political party must have/maintain a register of its .members in soft and hard copy.

    77(3) says each party SHALL MAKE THAT REGISTER AVAILABLE TO INEC NOT LATER THAN 30 DAYS BEFORE THE DATE FIXED FOR ITS PRIMARIES, CONGRESSES OR CONVENTION. 

    PDP screened its presidential candidates on April 29th, 2022. Peter Obi participated in the screening and was cleared to contest. He even displayed his provisional clearance on social media.

    He resigned from PDP on Thursday May 26th, 2022 and joined the Labour party the following day, that is, on May 27th, 2022.

    Labour party conducted its presidential primary on May 30th, 2022 and produced Obi after Professor Pat Utomi’s voluntary withdrawal.

    According to section 77(3), quoted above, Labour party must have submitted its comprehensive register of members to INEC 30 days before its presidential primary.

    By calculation, 30 days to May 30th, 2022 was April 30, 2022. (But) As at April 30th, 2022 when labour party submitted its party register to INEC, Peter Obi was a member of PDP meaning that his name could not have, simultaneously, been in the Labour party’s comprehensive register submitted to INEC.

    The questions that then arise are:

    Can a person who is not a valid member of a political party contest as its presidential candidate?

    Can a political party nominate a non member as its candidate in the presidential election?”

    The Presidential Election tribunal will see interesting fireworks in the days ahead – Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa (SAN) in ‘PETER  OBI IS NOT THE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE OF LP’.

    Unknown to most Nigerians whilst the Labour Party was aggressively weaponising  ethnicity and religion as its dual path to the presidency, it was nothing but a house built on sand, and  certain to collapse, sooner or later.

    For that, and some other reasons, it should not be a surprise to Nigerians that ‘Obidientism’, as revolution, like the Russian 1905 Leaderless Revolution before it, will finally die unsung, albeit, after its loud, boisterous and riotous beginning especially in pentecostal churches where Peter Obi became a constant, and on the  social media, where its adherents, the Obidients, were spewing insults like insults were going out of usage.

    Nigerians have, since after the governorship and state legislative elections, began to ask the following questions:

    What became of Peter Obi who, after shining like a thousand stars at the presidential election, suddenly went limb at the governorship and state legislative elections?

    What of the noisy clan of the Obi-Media Inc?

    Where are the whining television anchors who did nothing besides excoriating APC, and its presidential candidate, as if that was the way to harvest votes for the 62- year old man they were doing everything to re-package like he was 40 something?

    Who would have believed this is a guy who ended a 2- term governorship almost  a decade ago with his name emblazoned in the PANDORA PAPERS?

    Every minute you watch them, you’d see them pink- eyed, like they were about going lachrymose. There is, indeed, the one with the permanent scowl, always presenting like he was lecturing Nigerians.

    So what do they do now, having been proven to be more royal than the king? 

    So involved and trenchant were they, you would readily know they were at a commissioned job.

    What a helluva, but friuitlesss, job they ended up doing.

    And we ask: what became of their exertions, daily having for guests, only those they know shared their jaundiced perspectives? Indeed, Nigerians have it on Governor Wike’s word that they once had as guest, somebody who kidnapped the wife of a Southsouth monarch. You only just have to share their views.

    It was that bad.

    There were also those ones on WhatsApp platforms who suddenly became emergency medical practitioners, forever diagnosing all manner of morbidities.

    I personally shared two platforms with some of these individuals and, honest to God, they could make you puke. Thanks be to God, I have long made the undertaking that I was not going to lose a single friend on account of any politician, qua politician. But that did take an effort because you read them, sometimes, and you’d wonder if logical thinking has not been banned.

    Indeed on one of the platforms, we are already asking if the gentlemen had since gone on exile, ahead of the big PDP chieftain who owns the patent to voluntary emigration,  in case  a particular individual gets elected president.

    I digress.

    So what became of Mr Peter Obi’s popularity after the presidential election in which he shone so brightly. That was, of course, before the final debacle of a third place, despite the deluge of opinion polls which had him as the unmatchable winner?

    I am, of course, not unaware of the fact that failure is an orphan. But exactly what happened after that incredible Tsunami: from Lagos to Makurdi, Nasarawa to Jos, Benin to Asaba etc, sending many a sitting governor scampering? Need we talk about Lagos, the epicentre of gun – ho Pentecostalism where group nativity also thrumped common sense, to eventuate in what Nigerians would soon know was no win at all.

     You won’t believe this, but there is already a trending WhatsApp video   showing some happy – go lucky   youths hoisting the IPOB FLAG at, of all places, ALAUSA, the Lagos state capital.

    You can then begin to imagine from that incident, what remarkable re-engineering Lagos, if not the entire adjoining Southwest, would have seen, were our half brother to have repeated the Obi ‘miracle’ in the state.

    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 is most unlikely that the very reliable, LindaIkejiblog to which it was allegedly credited would have pulled it down, being so very popular.

    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.

    I actually bothered with the rest, did the addition of all party votes, and the following is what I got:

    “Total number of registered voters – 322.600.

    “Total numberof 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 election in the affected place.

    I am not the judiciary but please take away LP’s vote here from the party’s overall tally in Lagos and see whether it still wins in Lagos state.

    This, obviously, cannot be a solitary incident and you then see how hollow Datti Baba- Ahmed’s boast on television last week about how LP won ‘yanfun yanfun’ everywhere in the country is.

    But how hollow, and effete, Peter Obi and the Labour party really are showed up most glaringly in the subsequent elections of 18 March when, apparently, not just the youths, but also the bishops, have abandoned the over – celebrated sinking “Titanic” aka Labour party.

    Even in the Southeast where Mr Obi had scored in the high 90’s in the Presidential election, 4 out of the 5 states gave him a wide berth.  Labour’s sole governorship victory was in Abia. It was worst in Anambra state where Obi was governor for 8 years but all they mostly remember him for were lifeless bodies of some youths flowing on a river.

    No, far be it that am saying he murdered them, but a king in a prosperous era is never forgotten, ditto the obverse.

    Yet they’ve vowed not to let Nigeria rest which reminds you of the child who says her mother would not sleep.

    Worse defeat is certain to befall the Labour party in future unless it finds a creative way of exorcising Mr Obi from its midst.

    For one, he is too much of a tribalist to lead a Pan – Nigerian political party.

    As governor of a state in the absolutely enterprising Southeast region where Nigerians from every part can flourish he, allegedly, not only banished Hausa traders, he discriminated between Catholics and Anglicans, as well as sent home to their respective Igbo states, all non – Anambrarian public servants.

    What leader does that?

    Less than a week to the Presidential election of 18 February, the council of state Chairmen of the party came out publicly to announce that the party couldn’t win any election, citing his clanishness.

    Many may not know it now, but Nigerians will, in future, celebrate his, and his party’s rejection at the polls.

    As a friend of mine put it “he weaponised religion, especially the anger over same faith ticket as well as the frustration of the Nigerian youths”.

    Worse, however, is that he also brought on board, as his Vice Presidential candidate, a Datti Baba – Ahmed who is likely to be far worse than him, judging by what he demonstrated on a TV station this past week.

    My friend, who also watched him, described his performance as follows:

    “I was appalled at the sheer depravity of his encounter on TV- the tone, dimension, elixirs etc were scenes from a horror film. He turned the interaction into a call for anarchy, military takeover and a liquidation of the Nigerian state. All because he lost an election.

    And concerning the anchor who watched on sheepishly as Baba – Ahmed ranted, he wrote: “he watched with utter helplessness, bewilderment and even confusion, as his guest turned the station to a platform for anarchists, fascists and demagogues. His inability to call him to order reflects very badly on him as a trained journalist”.

    Nigerians will, in future, have every cause to thank God for sending the duo back wherever they came from.

    In the meantime, they’ve gone to the Election Tribunal merely to further humor their pastor backers and their dear Obidients, as well as, but most unfortunately, the elders who, by endorsing him, called their own judgment to question.

  • SNAPSONG 184

    SNAPSONG 184

    • Miscellaneous Mementos

    Those who shun the beauty of Virtue

         Pave the way for the emboldenment of vice

    The night lingers much longer for those

         Who deride the possibility of the day

                      *

    They set free the message

         And set the messenger on fire

    Words drop from the courier’s mouth

         Like a hail of live coals

                      *

    The world is still learning

         How to make a half-man whole

    Little drops of rain

         Will make a mighty river

                      *

    Let’s talk now

         About the scar

    Which survives the wound

         Then, the wound which foretells the scar   

                      *

    Raging fire in

         In the smoker’s throat

    Swollen laughter

         On the orator’s lips

                     *

    I will never stub my tongue

         On the outcrop of a stubborn word

    Who doesn’t know the proverb

         Is the paragon of inexhaustible wisdom?

  • Lagos: Lackadaisical lodestar?

    Lagos: Lackadaisical lodestar?

    At the public presentation of the book written after my PhD research study titled: “FASHOLA – Out of Africa: Reinventing Servant Leadership To Engender Nigeria’s Transformation”, Fashola succinctly stated, as captioned in the November 15th 2013 publication of the Nation newspaper, inter alia: “The Nigerian dream is not elusive. It is because we have not confronted and felt about what it has become for us. We haven’t defined it. The American dream is more attractive to us. But the Nigerian dream happens here every day. It is the Nigerian dream that makes me stand here” (Reference: https://thenationonlineng.net/nigerian-dream-elusive-fashola/). There are similar stories of ordinary Nigerians who came, confronted and conquered within the cosmopolitan city, and today are shining stars in their own right irrespective of ethnic, tribal or religious background. I will return to this story in the course of this essay.

    EKO Akete, ilu ogbon” meaning “Lagos, the land that teaches wisdom.” Is this lodestar losing its locus standi politically partly due to laidback or lackluster leaning as a result of ignorance of her origin or root especially on the part of the bulging youthful urban and semi-urban population? Are the Eko elites not part of this lackadaisical crowd of alienated onlookers in a keenly competitive modern political market? Is the magnanimity of Lagos not been taken advantage of by others even as the modern Lagos, a megacity, is home to diverse clans and culture? These are some of the posers for the real and true Lagosians to reflect upon as you read this treatise.

    Lagos, to this columnist is a miniature Nigeria: virtually all ethnic groups and tribes are dwelling in Lagos seeking opportunities. Lagos has been a place where the average Nigerian’s dream could be a reality. Lagos has produced stars in  sports, entertainment, arts, education, politics, religion, media, etc. with many of these coming from the hinterland. In essence, Lagos is home to all Nigerians, even West Africans are flourishing in this cosmopolitan metropolis. This columnist’s life is a shining example. I was involved in a research study in the far away East Asia nation of Malaysia in 2010. Yours sincerely was opportune to be divinely connected, through an email, with the then Governor Babatunde Raji Fashola, SAN, who facilitated my research study to be conducted on the followership perception of his leadership style in governance. Nobody connected this columnist to him! In the course of the research, I interviewed him in his office at Lagos House, Alausa, Ikeja. Thereafter, this columnist was graciously offered a scholarship to complete his PhD research study in Malaysia. The scholarship came with a bond to serve Lagos for one year. Subsequently, I was offered pensionable employment. This columnist retired from the prestigious Lagos State Civil Service in January 2021 after serving meritoriously. What is the import of this story to this write up? This columnist was born and bred in a town in Ekiti State. I did not even do any schooling in Lagos all my life! However, I was offered both scholarship and job. This is one magnanimity of Lagos. At the public presentation of the book written after my PhD research study titled: “FASHOLA – Out of Africa: Reinventing Servant Leadership To Engender Nigeria’s Transformation”, Fashola succinctly stated, as captioned in the November 15th 2013 publication of the Nation newspaper, inter alia: “The Nigerian dream is not elusive. It is because we have not confronted and felt about what it has become for us. We haven’t defined it. The American dream is more attractive to us. But the Nigerian dream happens here every day. It is the Nigerian dream that makes me stand here” (Reference: https://thenationonlineng.net/nigerian-dream-elusive-fashola/). There are similar stories of ordinary Nigerians who came, confronted and conquered within the cosmopolitan city and today are shining stars in their own right irrespective of ethnic, tribal or religious background. I will return to this story in the course of this essay.

    Lagos: Magnanimity Turning To Misfortune?

    In an exchange with an indigene of Lagos State shortly before the election, she was exasperated with the political atmosphere that she lamented in Yoruba common parlance thus: “Se a pe eniyan wa jeun, ko si di onile lowo mu ni?” (Meaning: do you invite someone to dine with you as the host, and the invitee is attempting to hold your hand from reaching your mouth?) I could not but agree with her. However, democracy is inherent with dreams, desires, and dangers; interested personae and parties could use whatever they possess at their disposal to play the game; at times reasoning or rationalization is jettisoned on the altar of religion, regional, tribal, or patrimonial preferences. How do we get quality leaders who are capable, competent, credible and cerebral in such a context? It could be complex and complicated like in the context of Lagos at the last elections. Retrospectively, if all the elections were held same day, as was pointed out last week in this column, the incumbent helmsman in Lagos, Governor Babajide Olusola Sanwo-Olu would have won hands down, without much harangue, as the profile of the other two contestants were nothing to write home about taking cognizance of opinion polls conducted before the presidential election of 25th February 2023. The bandwagon effect syndrome of the presidential election rubbed off on the profile of the Labour Party (LP) candidate in the gubernatorial election. It clearly manifested the laidback and lackadaisical latitude of Lagosians in the presidential election. Analyzing the scenario: the total number of registered voters in Lagos State was 7,060,195, whilst 6,214,970 people collected their Permanent Voters’ Card (PVC). It is dismal at the presidential declaration of result to see that the winning party, the Labour Party (LP) garnered 582, 454 while the ruling party in the state, All Progressives Congress (APC), polled 572,606. On the other hand, in the gubernatorial election, the winner changed hands as the APC garnered 762,134 votes whilst the LP got 312,329. In all, even though more votes were polled for the APC’s candidate, Babajide Olusola Sanwo-Olu, the bottom line is that most voters were lackadaisical as if what was at stake in the 18th March gubernatorial and house of assembly elections did not matter! Juxtaposing the voters’ turnout with total registered and total number of followers or voters who collected their PVC, it is disheartening that less than 25% of them actually participated in each of the polls. What could be the raison d’etre for this lacklustre performance? Could it be apathy, ignorance, lack of faith in the system or discouragement? The government of Lagos State needs to torchlight this as it has been a saddening recurring decimal in the Centre of Excellence in previous elections. However, kudos should be given to public servants in the gubernatorial and house of assembly elections as they seemingly saw what was at stake and were fully mobilized to make their voices count with their votes all over Lagos State wherever they were domiciled in State of Aquatic Splendour. Anyone still wondering why the amiable and affable Governor Sanwo-Olu (referred to by his admirers and adherents as “Sanwo-Eko”) promptly gave them a raise to appreciate their perceived political positivism?

    Lagos: Lessons Learnt?

    In monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL), there is a moniker frequently utilized referred to as “lessons learnt”. In this context, MEL scholars examine “what works; what does not work; why it does not work” in any given intervention where certain results are expected. Coming to context: in the case of Lagos, what are lessons learnt, not just in these elections of 2023 but in previous elections. It is high time, the leaders of thought in Eko Akete gathered together cerebral minds to objectively inquire and interrogate this trend. This should not be glossed over as it was done in the past after the ruling party emerged victorious at the polls. In the next elections, the ruling party should expect stiffer competition, possibly exemplified and amplified by the opposition filliping and flashing ethnic, tribal, regional or religious cards laced with currying the bulging youthful population to their side. Democracy could be direly dirty as the master players know that ultimately it is a game of numbers. In essence, the incumbent Governor Sanwo-Olu should actually, and in earnest, redouble his efforts as though his second term has begun now! The youthful population angst against the system should be promptly, proactively and progressively addressed. Government should practically initiate policies, programmes and projects that should be monitored, to address these yearnings and leanings of the youths. In addition, the education curricula of the state owned schools from primary to tertiary should inculcate the knowledge of history of Eko Akete as many of us in Nigeria are unfortunately disconnected from our roots. It is the saying of elders that “odo to ba gbagbe orisun e, a gbe”, meaning “a river that is cut off from its source will ultimately cease flowing”. This columnist had his first degree at the then University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University) where it was customary to graduate, as a science and applied science undergraduate, one must attend and pass the course: “African History and Culture”. It is high time we went back to that, not only in Lagos but every state in Nigeria, so we do not become like that proverbial river that forgot its source!

    In concluding this treatise, I will be going back to my Lagos story. Having enjoyed scholarship laced with a glorious job experience in the civil service, can I contest for a political office in Lagos? In democracy, it could happen if I play well my part with the people, not seeking for a sense of entitlement. The onus lies on the people to push for my candidacy. This has happened severally in Lagos politics starting from the First Republic till date! Does that make Lagos all comers affair for any Tom, Dick and Harry to aspire to lead? The modern trend of politics and politicking should make Lagos leaders of thought to depict the premise of belonging in Lagos, to wit: who is the real Omo Eko Akete taking into cognizance the constitution of Nigeria and cosmopolitan diversities of Lagos where you have the Hausas, Fulanis, Efiks, Igbos, Itsekiri, Edo, Ijaw, Ibibios, Igalas, Urhobo, Ishan, etc. The cultural diversities of Lagos, have always been, and should be productively harnessed going forward, as one major strength of the megacity. Politics should not put this asunder whilst the hospitable and accommodating mien of the Omo Eko Akete should not be abused or taken advantage of. Then, it would be a win-win situation like the Asians are wont and wired in business interactions. There is a case in point in a town in Ekiti where a young man was put forward for a councillorship position even when his father was a known Fulani. His father, having lived in that town for almost 30 years, was counted as part of the community. He won and became a councillor; however, both father and son played their community role very well and the town’s elders unanimously concurred to his aspiration. In another context in the southwest part of Nigeria, one prominent and wealthy man was supportive of a man becoming governor. The man eventually won and wanted to reward this man by appointing him his Chief of Staff. The new helmsman met a brick wall! He was promptly told that the father of the man was from a neighbouring state and not a free born of the town he claimed in that state. This led to the man in the saddle changing his mind as he did not want to be involved in an avoidable political mess at the advent of his administration.

    In surmising this treatise, this columnist will tell a short witty story of a hunter as related to him by his father. There was this famous and audacious hunter of elephants (called “ode aperin” in Yoruba). He had done many exploits in hunting. Now old, he was mentoring his son. One day, he told him plainly and pointedly, as a dexterous hunter, in an attempt to kill an elephant, what is expected of him to do. He simply and squarely stated in Yoruba: “ti o ba koju si e, ta; ti o ba ko ehin si e, ta; ti o ba ku iwo nikan, tun ero ara re pa”, (meaning: when it faces you, shoot; when you see his side, shoot; and when it backs you, shoot; however, when you are alone, think twice before acting). Eko Akete, ilu ogbon! Eko, O ni baje o!! O ba je ti!!!

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

  • Life lessons from presidential election

    Life lessons from presidential election

    After the 2015 General Elections, I wrote an article titled Ten lessons from election coverage which I urged journalists to take note of, reflect on, and take necessary steps to enhance their careers.

    Three of the ten points I wrote on were Politicians are not worth fighting for, Objectivity still matters and the Need for social media policy.

    Reading through my 2015 article and reflecting on the just concluded elections, I can say my counsel and observations back then are still valid.

    The lessons I will like to harp on from the recent elections are life lessons about what it takes to achieve any goal or come close to it.

    You can claim what you think you deserve and work hard to get it.

    When the President-elect, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu made his declaration that it was his turn to be the next president (Emilokan) on the platform of the All Progressive Congress (APC), some people felt it was wrong of him to say so noting that the highest office of the land should not be anyone’s entitlement.

    However, based on the political ‘investments’ he has made over the years, including spearheading the political alliance that brought President Muhammadu Buhari to power, he was very sure he deserved to be the candidate of his party and went all out to win the ticket despite seeming animosity against his ambition from top quarters within the party.

    There are times when you can’t afford to keep quiet about whatever you think you deserve, especially when you sense you may be wrongly denied. However, before you make such a declaration as Tinubu did, you must be sure you have what it takes to get what you think is yours.

    The opposition to your desire will definitely be more when you leave no one in doubt that you want to take what you claim to be yours, but if you are strong enough to ‘fight’ for your ‘right’ you can get it as Tinubu did.  A closed mouth as they say is a closed destiny.

    Some risks are worth taking

    It was a big political risk for the President-Elect to think he could win the presidential election on a Muslim -Muslim ticket in a country so religiously divided between Muslims and Christians.

    However based on his political calculation and that of his supporters, they reckoned it will be easier for him to win the much-needed support of the north with large votes than to take the risk of being ‘politically correct’ by having a Christian running mate.

    The opposition to his candidacy by Christians was expectedly much which explained why he lost in some states his party have won easily in the past.

    In the end, he won the election which is being contested by the first two runner-ups.

    In life, success sometimes depends on how much-calculated risk one is ready to take. Not taking risks can be risky, while taking a well-thought-out risk may be worth it.

    Dare to win

    By the normal political projections, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Mr Peter Obi was not expected to perform as well as he did in the recent presidential election.

    Against Asiwaju Tinubu and the candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) Alhaji Abubakar Atiku and no nationwide political structure, his chances amounted to trying to reach for the moon.

    As it turned out expectedly, he did not achieve his dream, but his performance impacted the political landscape that he has become a major political force to reckon with in the country.

    Despite all odds, there are times when one has to be daring and not easily give up. One may not achieve his or her ultimate goal, but the first attempt may be the stepping stone needed to remain in the reckoning when next another opportunity comes.

  • The long revolution revisited

    The long revolution revisited

    • Why Democracy takes its time in Nigeria

    Now that the elections are over, we can begin to pick up the pieces and commence the process of rebuilding bridges that have been destroyed by sectarian passions. It is not going to be easy. At the moment, Nigeria is a dangerously divided place.

    In bitterly polarized polities, post-electoral reconstruction and rehabilitation are never an easy task. Elections are not designed to manage national schisms. Sometimes, they tear open the suppurating wounds with prospects of further bleeding and a messy mingling of gore and pus.

    But this, ironically, makes the process of cleansing and healing faster. There is no point in hoping that a gaping injury left untreated may heal on its own. Gangrene and sure death often follow. Since democracy has not found a better way of gauging the mood of the people and aggregating the will of the nation other than through periodic voting, we must get on with it, hoping that constant practice and eternal vigilance will lead to “more perfect” elections.

    The phrase “long revolution” captures the strange and contradictory ways history progresses in the direction of higher evolution of humanity. It is in fact an oxymoron, or what a friend will dismiss as an oxymoronic balderdash. A revolution is a brisk, brutal and bloody affair, usually over in a matter of hours, days or at most a week. How then can you have a “long revolution”?

    But there you have it. Historical development does not obey the law of straightforward linear progression. Neither does democratic progress. There are detours, digressions and diversions along the way. Unfolding events often do not make much logical sense. It is only when things are viewed from a long retrospective glance, rather than a short prospective query, that the longer sense of it all begins to emerge.

    There is no country in the world as yet that approximates the ideal of democracy. Countries are said to be more democratic or less democratic depending how far they retain a fidelity to certain cardinal features of democratic rule, such as freedom of speech, respect for gender equality, freedom of association and gathering, freedom of the press, respect for the rule of law and periodic elections. While a few countries in the advanced democracies pass muster, others trail in many significant aspects.

    The last election in Nigeria was quite a revelation and it accurately reflects the dilemmas and dialectic of democracy in a troubled country. It was a topsy-turvy and contradictory jumble indeed with bright prospects in some spots and equally dim possibilities in others. Many western sources dismiss the whole election as a farce; a costly charade. One went as far as insisting that what is going on Nigeria is not democracy but an electoral autocracy.

    This may be true in the shortest run, but it fails to take on board the longer perspective that electoral autocracy is unsustainable in a multi-ethnic and multi-religious nation. Nigeria’s genuine friends abroad must nudge the country in a healthier direction rather than firing destructive salvoes which may tip the country into anarchy and chaos. It took Britain almost four hundred years to achieve full suffragette and in America the blacks were denied voting right for almost three hundred years.

    Perhaps more helpful and constructive was the Washington Post which gave criticism and praise in equal measure. While deploring the violence, the occasional ballot-snatching, the widespread thumb printing and abduction of electoral officials, it also praised the poll for its surprising openness, its competitiveness and smashing of stereotypes. The paper concluded by recommending the Nigerian model as worthy of emulation in a subcontinent where gun-toting soldiers are back on the rampage.

    Judging by the last elections, Nigeria may be teaching the world a lesson in the uses of adversity: how multi-ethnic nations can convert the stumbling blocks of multi-ethnicity and religious polarization to the building blocks of competitive and countervailing self-rule or multivalent democracy. All the glaring fault lines that have hobbled Nigeria’s march to organic nationhood reared their head in the last election.

    But by some devious logic, the deployment of the ethnic card in certain quarters provoked an equal if not greater degree of ethnicization in other quarters; the weaponization of religion provoked an equivalent degree of religious mobilization in some quarters and cultural animosity bred cultural animosity, all eventually cancelling out each other. As this column warned a few weeks earlier, the circling of electoral wagons in some quarters was bound to induce a similar psychosis in other quarters.

    This is the tragedy of the “Obidient” Movement despite its veneer of youthful idealism and the promise of mass mobilization with a pan-Nigerian momentum. But you cannot give what you don’t have. It has nothing to offer beyond the political neurosis of its wild and screaming adherents as they roil in hate and petty animosities. In the coming weeks as its momentum finally splutters to a whimpering halt, it will be discovered that its driving agenda is too restrictive and constrictive, redolent of political 419.

    Beyond opportunistically tapping into a cocktail of ethnic, economic and demographic resentments, it has no broad liberating vision of the nation beyond an anarchic disruption of the process. Nor has it been able to come up with any radical blueprint for the economic transformation of the country beyond mouthing syrupy shibboleths. With the youths deserting in droves as their mind adverts to the gigantic swindle, the movement will be drained of its subversive energy as the leaders eat the crow.

    Minority populations in multi-ethnic nations must learn how to deal with bigger entities rather than flexing ethnic and religious muscles in an electoral war which can only end in humiliation. The countervailing electoral neuroses simply cancelled out each other and it is the candidate with the least polarizing baggage that must prevail. That was how the presidency was won and lost.

    The last election showed a country in a state of electoral flux. But it also confirmed that after winning three presidential elections in a row, the ascendancy of the ruling APC government is no fluke, whatever its internal problems.

    While nursing its wounds, the PDP also managed to punch a massive hole in the APC escutcheon by virtually annihilating the ruling party in the two western Yoruba states of Oyo and Osun, hitherto regarded as the bastion of progressive politics. Politics having been substantially de-ideologized, it is how attractive a personality is to the electorate that now seems to matter more than doctrine. It is a deep psychological injury for the APC.

    The ascendancy of the politics of personality has led to the dramatic rise of new kids on the bloc. There is a twenty five year old legislator-elect from the north. He was said to have drawn the ire of an important member of the legislature by lampooning him in the social media. Rather than mourning and bemoaning his fate, he carried the battle to his tormentor by contesting against him. He won.

    All over the country, many political giants with feet of clay have been toppled from their high pedestals. Dynasties have crumbled. Temples and templates of authority and entitlement have collapsed without warning. The Saraki political monarchy in Kwara seems to have been eviscerated by hostile forces besieging the castle. After a political career distinguished by betrayals and unrelenting perfidy, Aminu Tambuwal seems to have met more than his match in Sokoto State.

    When social contradictions mature and reach their tipping point, nothing can stop the implosion. There is a delightful play of ironic portents across rigid binary divisions. Who in his right political sense would have thought that it was the conservative, feudal and gender-unfriendly north that might produce the first authentically elected female governor in the whole of the country?

    That was going to be the case until Senator Aishatu Ahmad relentlessly advancing rollercoaster was suddenly halted outside the gates of the gubernatorial mansion in Yola. But the genie is already out of the bottle. For a woman in a male-dominated and unfriendly environment, this is quite a significant feat. No matter what happens in the subsequent supplementary election, things will never be the same again on the plains of Adamawa.

    The rise of a culture of political iconoclasm in the conservative north and other regions of the nation is bound to give fillip to and deepen the entrenchment of a more democratic way of life, particularly in the north.  This is as long as it is realized that a conservative and feudal culture cannot transform into a full blown democracy overnight and in one fell swoop.

    It must be noted that the departure of ideological politics from these climes holds very dark and dire portents for political developments in the nation. Unlike the situation in the First Republic and up to a point in the Second Republic, the devaluation of ideology in politics owes its origins to the incursion of the military who seem to fear all “isms” more than ISIS itself.

    Yet the uncontestable fact remains that all wise countries and matured democracy hold the ideological delineation of political parties very important for the forward march of their political culture. Politics is essentially a bitter and brutal contestation for power which enables the allocation of resources and values to take place.

    It is ideology that gives politics the veneer of refinement and sophistication which in turn cloaks politics with the aura of nobility and sacrifice. When the gloves come off, politics is a brutal struggle for raw power in which no weapon fashioned for offensive is considered morally or ethically offensive.

    This is why the deployment of ethnicity, cultural grandstanding and the weaponization of religion become principal weapons of politics in ideologically neutered societies with grave consequences for national cohesion and inclusive politics. The effect of this ideological meltdown on the polity is better imagined. It is the vacuum that has encouraged rogue groups to come forward as putative liberators of a nation in distress.

    As soon as it is practicable, the new government must set about a comprehensive reorganization of the ruling party and imbue it with an ideological soul and spirit which will distinguish it from other parties. Without a guiding ideology, politics is stripped of its magical gloss of civilization and enlightenment. Idols of the tribe crawl out of the woodwork.

    This ideological re-engineering of party formation in Nigeria should not be an exercise in doctrinaire dogmatism. The world has long left that behind. Rather, it should be an economic and political roadmap for plotting Nigeria’s path back to its founding destiny as the leading black nation and beacon of hope to many injured and marooned Black souls all over the world.

  • Two exemplary patriots

    Two exemplary patriots

    • Kudos to Dr Michael Omolayole and Pa Jaiye Ojeikere

    This columnist often cultivates and covets the company and counsel of the elderly who have seen it all. When everybody else has given up on Nigeria, it is particularly heartwarming to see two distinguished nonagenarian patriots who have seen far better times in their youth and adulthood still pitching for the country and raising its beleaguered flag for all to see. They don’t make ultra-Nigerian nationalists like these anymore.

    One of them is Pa Dr Michael Omolayole, veteran industrialist, distinguished board guru and veteran labour intellectual. The other is Pa Jaiye Ojeikere, retired surveyor, iconic public servant, a primary schoolmate of the Nobel laureate and beloved father of Adetokunbo Ojeikere, the Group Sports Editor of this newspaper. Pa Ojeikere is an avid reader of this page and sometimes offers helpful and illuminating comments from his Benin homestead even before snooper wakes up.

    In their nineties, the two titans offer intriguing and contrasting paradigms of exemplary patriotism in the Age of Despair. While Pa Omolayole is the self-assured public servant and public intellectual who occasionally speaks his mind without minding whose ox is gored, Pa Ojeikere is the classic bureaucrat: reticent and retreating while undertaking his civil obligations with seriousness and methodical rigour.

    Last Monday, the phone rang while yours sincerely was ruminating on the currency redesign fiasco. It was Dr Omolayole with his measured Anglophile cadences and rich velvety voice quite strong for a man in his late nineties. He wasted no time on formalities.

    “We must thank God and providence that the elections were staggered”, the old man noted cryptically without offering any further elucidations. Before one could ask questions, the veteran industrialist had waded into the pool with fiery resolve.

    “Now listen carefully to what I have to say. You can quote me because I am not afraid of anybody. I am speaking through you because as they say, when you want to address a deaf person, you do it through his relations who can hear”, the old man rumbled.

    “I understand papa”, was all yours sincerely could offer.

    “You see, the outgoing man is not a listening person. In governance, humility is the mother of all virtues. A government in power loses credibility and elections when it cannot be held down to its words. A lot of promises were made and not kept by this outgoing government”. Pa Omolayole noted.

    “Hmmmmm, papa” was all yours sincerely could offer.

    “I hope the new man is not like that. He should listen”, the old man declared flatly. He then alluded to the tragedy of the demented Reverend Jones who was listening to an inner voice which ordered him to ask his followers to commit suicide before following suit himself, leaving an apocalyptic pile of human remains and a sickening smell.

    In a parting shot, the veteran labour intellectual referred to ASUU as a permanent migraine afflicting the nation for over thirty three years. It was only in Nigeria, despite devolution of power and delegation of responsibility,  that governments negotiate with people who are not their direct employees. The real employers of university teachers are the governing councils.

    The old man gave the hilarious example of Wahab Goodluck who after a dispute with Lever Brothers of Nigeria went over to the headquarters in England to complain. His wily hosts adopted him as a person on a courtesy call. After wining and dining him even as they took him round the factories, they ordered him to return home to settle with his employees. Dr Michael Omolayole was gone in a jiffy.

  • Post-2023 polls: PDP’s close shave

    Post-2023 polls: PDP’s close shave

    EARLY last week, after results of the March 18 governorship elections in 28 states began to trickle in, it seemed the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) was completely undone. By Monday, the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) was cruising away with 15 states to the PDP’s six, a difference of nine. But as that politically dreary week drew to a close, the PDP had salvaged a few more states to bring its total haul tentatively to nine. The preceding presidential election had seen the PDP, which was fractured into four angry and irreconcilable parts, trounced. The party was outdone, outclassed, and outthought so comprehensively that even its defeated standard-bearer’s recourse to litigation appeared to be nothing more than a face-saving device to ameliorate the damage done its pride by the APC defeat. For the 16 years it spent in office between 1999 and 2015, the PDP was unable to manage its success and power. Defeated repeatedly since 2015 over three election cycles, it has proved even more inept at managing its defeats.

    Once again, the PDP has begun a knee-jerk response to the terrible defeat it suffered in last month’s presidential election and the equally unflattering governorship poll. Lightning, it seems, is going to strike the same place twice. The ink was not yet dry on the result sheets of the two sets of elections, and details of the polls as set forth by the electoral body, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), were yet to be made available, before PDP leaders led by the presumptuous Iyorchia Ayu began wielding the big axe against those it believed sabotaged the elections for the party. To that end, the party has suspended former Ekiti and Katsina States governors, Ayo Fayose and Ibrahim Shema respectively, as well as former Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Anyim Pius Anyim. They were accused of anti-party activities and shoved aside.

    It was assumed that after failing a third time to win the presidency the PDP would engage in deep soul-searching to find out the reasons for its poor performance and defeat. Such a reflection needed to be done scientifically in order to ascertain the panaceas needed by the party to re-engineer itself. In 2015, tried as hard as many well-wishers did, including this column, to nudge the defeated PDP to the path of rectitude, the party preferred to paper over the cracks, ladled out a generous dose of lavender to suppress the cadaverous stench coming out of its body, and thirsted after the sorceries of all sorts of journeymen and a mixed multitude of tinpot political messiahs. The rambunctious Ali Modu Sheriff, a former Borno State governor, waved his talisman before the gaping rabble of the PDP who were seduced by the magic for three months in 2016. The staider and humourless Uche Secondus followed quickly in 2017, oblivious of how effectively science always trumped magic, as he stupefied party members with his somnolence for four years, convinced that after the rancourous leadership of his predecessor, they would be grateful for some peace and quietude.

    Finally, the inimitable Iyorchia Ayu sauntered in, cold, detached and full of deceptive bombast. He combined the fiery meddlesomeness of Mr Sheriff with the distressing iciness of Mr Secondus to produce an unrecognisable amalgam totally unsuitable to the needs of a confused and dying party. Of course, the party was humiliated a third time. They will be finally entombed if they fail to pay heed to the crying needs of their party. After the 2015 defeat, they needed to purge their ranks, fine-tune their ideology and renew their platform; instead they went for unprofitable quick fixes. In 2019, they ran for the presidency with returnee politicians and borrowed ideas, and again came to spectacular grief. And in 2023, having not learnt any lesson, but yet reposing hope and confidence in all sorts of political trickeries backed by colluding cabals, it was not surprising that each of their fractured parts was worsted separately and comprehensively.

    But wonders never end. Defeated thrice in eight years, they now need reflection and patience more than ever. Instead, the gasping and grasping old guard of the party is pushing the panic button, flailing, cursing, scapegoating and suspending leading members stigmatised as agents provocateurs. So, rather than fall on their swords, those who have led the party to defeat over and over again have taken the quixotic option of lashing out at phantoms. They may have preempted the rump of the party by lashing out at presumed enemies, but they are unlikely to get away with the hasty measures. They were served a reprieve by the admirable number of states they have taken or held on to, in addition to their share of the off-cycle election states, to wit Osun, Bayelsa and Edo, but they have shunned the golden opportunity. It is unlikely they will have the last laugh. The civil war within the party is just about to break out. The war will be fought brutally, cold-bloodedly and remorselessly. The combatants will not take prisoners.

    Three defeats in a row are enough to nudge the party in the right direction. A new party leadership may yet rise from the rubbles of defeat, and they may begin flexing muscles in the coming weeks and months. Like a big bank, the PDP is too big to fail. Labour Party (LP) was a flash in the pan, lacking the ideology and personnel to constitute, whether alone or in collaboration with others, the opposition to the ruling APC. So, for now, no one can take the place of the PDP. The PDP standard-bearer in the last presidential poll, ex-vice president Atiku Abubakar, is too enfeebled and unmotivated to summon the funds and energy needed to rebuild the party. He will be away for much of the time. The task of rebuilding the party will fall on much younger and sturdier politicians, some of them governors, others ex-governors. They will soon congregate and push out the sniveling old guard. Wait and see. For as former Ekiti State governor, Ayo Fayose, said last week in reaction to his suspension, the panic measures being taken by PDP leaders are the last kick of a dying horse. He couldn’t be apter.

    Binani: The revolution that nearly was

    SOME days ago, when unsubstantiated reports gave the Adamawa State governorship election victory to Senator Aishatu Dahiru Ahmed (also known as Aishatu Binani), the 51 years old Adamawa Central senator was jubilantly believed to have broken the glass ceiling. It was a significant breakthrough for women, exultant analysts suggested. And for that electoral triumph to occur in northern Nigeria was described as revolutionary in scope. Adamawa has produced a slew of women senators: Senator Grace Folashade Bent (Adamawa South, 2007-2011); Senator Binta Massi (Adamawa North, 2015-2019); and now Senator Binani (Adamawa Central, 2019-2023).

    Two things are very significant here. One, all Adamawa’s senatorial districts have produced women senators in a state with majority Muslim population. Something is clearly happening in Adamawa State in terms of its closeness to approximating the civic culture. No other state in Nigeria, not even in the so-called cosmopolitan and Christian states of the South, has achieved the Adamawa feat. Two, one of the three women, Sen. Bent, hails from Osun State but married to an Adamawan, while a second, Sen. Binani, has pitched very strongly and confidently for the governorship. Days ago, she was thought to have won, and had even begun receiving congratulatory messages, before the election was declared inconclusive.

    Before the election stalemated over disputes concerning votes from Fufore local government area, Governor Ahmadu Fintiri had 421,524 votes to Sen. Binani’s 390,275, a difference some analysts believe may be unbridgeable. But whether the supporters of the senator celebrated too early or not, they can take pride in how their amazon has fared in this election season. In nearby Taraba State, another woman, the late Aisha Alhassan was elected senator representing Taraba North senatorial district between 2011 and 2015. After her senatorial tenure, she also contested the 2015 governorship, lost, won back the seat at the election tribunal, but lost it again at both the Court of Appeal and Supreme Court.

    Sen. Alhassan may have lost the Taraba governorship poll, and Sen. Binani may have an uphill task winning the Adamawa governorship election, but given the trajectories of women politicians in the former Gongola State, which now comprises Adamawa and Taraba, something clearly revolutionary and heartwarming is afoot in those hilly and politically advanced and pacesetting regions. The country had better pay attention.