The Nation Newspaper

Category: Sunday

  • SNAPSONGS 169

    SNAPSONGS 169

    Be careful the way you fight your enemy
    For even the most well aimed arrow
    May sail back for the tenderest spot
    On the sender’s chest

    Think twice before throwing blind missiles
    Into a crowded marketplace
    For the sharpest of your rocks
    May land on your mother’s head

    A mean man lost out
    In a tussle for noble honours
    Belched out crazy curses and vapid abominations
    Then paid the rainmaker a fortune

    To drown the entire village
    But when the sky answered his prayer
    Only his house went down the hill
    With the tameless torrents

    The village Songbird saw it all
    From the top of the tallest tree
    Waking up next day with a fitting song:

  • Atiku Abubakar: Desperation is your name

    Atiku Abubakar: Desperation is your name

    Were General Musa Yar Adua to resurrect today, indicating he wanted to contest for the presidency of Nigeria, those who know Atiku Abubakar, his old protégé well, contend that the latter would also announce his own interest in the post. This is the spirit that has seen Atiku contesting for the presidency since the 90’s, and for him, anything goes. Let us briefly sketch his 30 plus years odyssey, trying to actualize that ‘Maraboutian’ chimera. I am not going to be original here, as I would rather, respectfully, press into service, his one-time boss, ex- President Olusegun Obasanjo who saw him close up for 8 years as well as the inimitable journalist, Louis Odion, who has spent some quality time, studying the enigma called Atiku Abubakar.

    The contributions from these two distinguished Nigerians will show, very clearly, that nobody should be surprised when, before the entire Northern ‘eminence grise’, people who , eager to build a virile, peaceful and united Nigeria, had chosen to interrogate presidential candidates regarding their programmes, and plans, for the country, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar could only utter the following utterly unstatesmanlike drivel, following upon Hakeem Baba-Ahmed’s simple question as to why Northerners should vote for him: “What the average Northerner needs is somebody who’s from the north and also understands that part of the country and has been able to build bridges across the country”. “This is what the Northerner needs, it doesn’t need a Yoruba or Igbo candidate, I stand before you as a Pan-Nigerian of northern origin” – a most unfortunate response from a veteran presidential candidate, and a former Vice President to boot.

    Of course, haven’t the Holy Books say that from the abundance of the heart, a man speaketh?

    That is the Alhaji Atiku Abubakar some people are dying to sell to Nigerians as a unifier, as if the word has changed its meaning, even as his party, the PDP, is in unspeakable turmoil. Without a scintilla of doubt, and as will be attedted to by the testimonies in this article, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar is obviously being driven by an un-tameable desperation to be Nigerian president. This apparently is not because he has anything of note to offer a country in desperate need of rebuilding and re-engineering, but just so he could say his Marabouts are right again.

    Even as Vice -President, Atiku was more concerned with upstaging his boss and becoming the President as he had been promised by those who had once, uncannily, predicted his political trajectory.

    Ex-president Obasanjo, therefore, had the following to say, and has promised never to change a word of it, come rain or shine, about his Vice: “Without seeking my view or approval, he started planning the installation of Chuba Okadigbo as the senate president. I did a background check on Chuba including his past as a student and made enquiries about him in the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) under (President Shehu) Shagari and no one would recommend him for the post of senate president. “I left Atiku to go on his chase while I carried out a meticulous and detailed investigation and background check on each senator from the South-east. The one that appeared most appointable was Evan Enwerem. I canvassed the senate across the board for his election and he was elected. Atiku did not expect it and he felt sore. He began to strategise for Enwerem to be removed and Chuba Okadigbo to be installed. His strategy worked because I was at the Abuja airport to receive a visiting head of state when the news reached me that the Senate had impeached Enwerem and elected Okadigbo. I was not perturbed. I came to understand from some senators including Florence Ita-Giwa, who later became my Special Adviser/ Liaison Officer to the National Assembly, that Atiku distributed US$5,000 each to some senators to carry out the ‘coup’. “That was the beginning of bribing the legislature to carry out a particular line of action to suit or satisfy the purpose or desire of an individual or a group.

    The National Assembly had tasted blood and they would continue to want more. From the day I nominated Atiku to be my vice, he set his mind not for any good, benefit or service of the country, but on furiously planning to upstage, supplant or remove me at all cost and to take my place”.

    “That was what I brought him for, but he was impatient and over-ambitious. He was not ready to learn or to wait. His marabout, who predicted that despite being elected as governor, he would not be sworn in as a governor, which happened, also assured him that he would take over from me in a matter of months rather than years”. “All his plans, appointments of people and his actions were towards the actualisation of his marabout’s prediction. Once I realised his intention and programme, I watched him like a hawk without giving any indication of what I knew and letting down my guard. I could not succumb to the distraction, diversion and malevolence of an ambitious but unwise deputy”.

    If that was eons ago, let us see Atiku in contemporary times in the exhilarating words of Louis Odion, writing in: ‘Atiku: The Peril of inordinate ambition’, (The Nation, 16 October, ’22) where he wrote, inter alia:

    “Atiku is a conflicted bigot, consumed by inordinate ambition. He remains a bare-foot slave to an empire the Nigeria of the twenty-first century has outgrown. In 2011, he battled Jonathan for PDP ticket, on the argument that the ‘North has not used up its two term slots’, following Yar’Adua’s death in office on May 5, 2010. (In the meantime, forget that he stubbornly refused entreaties not to go to court when the same Umar Yar’Adua was declared winner in 2007 in the spirit of ‘northern solidarity’ and fought like a wounded lion up to Supreme Court”.

    “But he got a shellacking at the PDP primaries in 2011. In 2014, he, still driven by that inordinate ambition, again led the rebellion of nPDP to evacuate PDP in protest of Jonathan’s bid for 2nd (3rd?) term; that it was ‘the turn of power to shift to the North’ for the ‘sake of justice and equity’. In 2018, realizing he stood no chance against President Buhari’s winning 2nd term in 2019, he migrated back to PDP. Of course, he suffered another shellacking in 2019. With the power of Dollars, and a thoughtless invocation of the ethnic card at PDP’s May primaries, he overpowered Southern contenders (like Wike) to the presidential ticket”.

    While Northern politicians, even of much sterner stuff, like the APC Northern governors, were more concerned with fairness, equity and the unity of Nigeria and, therefore, conceded the party’s presidential slot to the South, as Governor El Rufai said Sir Ahmadu Bello and the Northern founding fathers would have wished, Atiku would, in Odion’s words: “sacrifice national unity, put a knife on the fragile thread that holds Nigeria together, in the desperation to rig the fulfilment of the long-standing prophecy by marabouts (according to ex-President Obasanjo) of ruling Nigeria some day”.

    But that is not all we see in the character sketch of the man who believes he ‘just must rule Nigeria’, as Nyesom Wike, a PDP chieftain and Governor of Rivers state, has severally attested to Atiku’s unreliability. For instance, Wike said:”Now, when we finished our convention, the candidate of the party ( Atiku) came to see me in my house in Abuja on Monday, around 10:30am, and said ‘Listen, I want us to work together. Ayu must go.’

    “I asked him why, and he said because when a candidate comes from the north, the chairman will come from the south. Today, Ayu is in office as PDP Chairman. Thanks to the same Atiku’s unreliability.

    But there are other instances of his double dealing.

    Speaking at a meeting with PDP stakeholders from the South-East in Enugu on Tuesday, September 27, Atiku said he was “interested in repositioning the region to play bigger roles in the country’s survival”, noting that “because of his love for the region, he twice chose Igbos as his running mate; and has now, for the third time, chosen another”. Therefore, dclared the man who is adept at trading the Nigerian presidency: “I confidently say, I will be your stepping stone to becoming president”.

    But before the cock could crow, listen to Atiku talking to an estranged Governor Nyesom Wike.

    If the promise to the entire Ndigbo was on Tuesday, September 27, 2023, Atiku soon turned tail, full circle, and the promise to the Southeast evaporated, pronto.

    Of course, for good reasons, he would say.

    Worried by the danger posed to his presidential ambition by the camp of the Rivers State governor, Atiku thought nothing of offering Wike the same presidency, on a platter come 2027, on the one condition, however, that he must agree to sheathe his sword, and support him in the 2023 election. That was when both men met in Abuja in a fresh bid to patch up their differences. Thus vanished, in a twinkle of an eye, his promise to the entire Ndigbo nation..

    Lo ba tan, as the Yoruba would say. End of story.

    Pray, is this the same man going all over Nigeria, asking to be our president?

    God forbid.

    He must perish the thought because we won’t know when he would sell Nigeria to whomsoever he chose, and there would be nothing we can do about it, as character is key. I honestly do not think there is a better way of ending this article than as Odion did his own when he wrote:”This presidential ‘candidate of habit’ will soon find again that the Nigeria of his depraved, bigoted dream no longer exists”.

  • The world according to Beelzebub

    The world according to Beelzebub

    On the perils of the nation-state paradigm

    From all indications, it appears that Beelzebub, the prince of devils, is upon the world. The entire globe is roiling in crisis and confusion. No part of the globe seems exempt from the phenomenal disorder.  It is just as well if everything ends in Great Britain where modern democracy first stirred with Oliver Cromwell infamous dismissal of parliament swiftly followed by the execution of the reigning monarch.

      Several centuries later, it feels as if the spirit of Oliver Cromwell has returned to haunt Britain, this time not as an avowed regicide but as a grim reaper of regnant executives. The nation-state paradigm appears to be unraveling at the seam.

     For a moment last Wednesday evening, Britain’s famed and iconic House of Commons was in danger of dissolving into a house of commotion as restive members chafed and snagged at Liz Truss’ heels following a heated debate which put a question mark on her competence and ability to lead the nation.

     By the time it was put out on Thursday morning that Graham Brady, the leader of shadowy and mildly sinister 1922 Committee, was on his way to Downing Street, it was obvious that the fat lady was about to sing once again. The eerie feeling of Déjà vu became reinforced as the public address system was wheeled out. Britain was about to have its third leader in six months. The world’s most competitive democracy was beginning to show signs of terminal stress. 

      Meanwhile as British democracy was openly combusting, the entire world looks on in stunned silence and disorientation as Russia takes Ukraine apart in saturation bombing the like of which has not been seen since the Second World War. Thrice in three decades, the Russians have willfully altered the global geopolitical cartography and still counting.

      As usual, and not unexpectedly, Africa appears to be the worst hit. The benighted continent is already reaping the whirlwind of the Ukrainian debacle in terms of skyrocketing energy bills, soaring wheat price and runaway stagflation. But since those who are already down need fear no fall, it is in the most advanced and civilized parts of the world that the pain and anguish are being felt the most.

      Yet it bears observing that once again, and as it has been the case since this epoch of absolute western dominance, Africa is a passive and inert receptacle of world-historical developments. As keen readers of this column will testify, we have been shouting from the rooftop that the nation-state paradigm is fraying at the edge. Unanticipated historical developments have rendered the paradigm frazzled and fraught.

      Establishing its own ascendancy as Europe gained unrivalled and unchallengeable global dominance from the fifteenth century, the nation-state paradigm seems to have exhausted its possibility. Whether it will come unstuck from sheer superannuation or whether some instances of extreme human heroism will force it to yield ground to emergent, far more humane and apposite mutations is what remains to be seen.

       As we write this, France is convulsed by widespread social unrest caused by critical fuel shortage, rising inflation and mounting immiseration of the populace, particularly the hordes of unemployed and homeless. With the unfinished business of class inequities and racial discrimination simmering right below the surface and with the far right doing its best to stoke the embers, France seems to have its back to the wall.

     In the case of Germany, it is facing a loud murmur of disapprobation from hard-pressed citizens over its liberal attitude to economic and political migrants. Long hailed as a model of humane integration of refugees, the government is facing a severe backlash from the far right and extremist groups often wielding the swastika who believe that the joke has gone on for too long. Italy has just elected its first proto-fascist government since the hanging of Benito Mussolini and his mistress.

      In America, the avuncular but occasionally bewildered Joe Biden, is facing the prospects of mid-term electoral blues or even annihilation as a resurgent, neo-fascist rightwing bent on turning America into a vast Bible belt and a totalitarian anti-democratic nirvana ramps up. It will make Hitler cringe in his bunker.

      It doesn’t get more bizarre in the midnight of the nation-state paradigm. With the hulking and sulking shadow of Donald Trump chomping and chaffing at their heels, the chances of the country of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson transforming into a Banana Republic under an unhinged caudillo must not be discounted.

      With the fate of the prime minister now sealed and her departure imminent, not many of Britain’s refined and normally civilized denizens can still recognize their country in the disfigured ill-tempered bedlam that has overtaken the entire society in the wake of the fiscal chaos that erupted after an attempt to tweak the economy went awry.

     What began as the summary defenestration of the Chancellor of the Exchequer has now snowballed into a full blown crisis of governance and leadership recruitment. With Boris Johnson, the disgraced former prime minister, making the early round of betting as the rogue joker, it doesn’t get more surreal and self-indicting for a ruling class that was once master of the entire universe. 

      It is obvious that if Britain were to suffer further economic implosion as a result of deepening political instability, the agitation for Scottish independence is likely to resume with increasing vehemence. The Scottish people who voted largely to remain in Europe voted narrowly to remain in the union because of the economic advantages and opportunities accruing. If those were to disappear, it will be sayonara to the United Kingdom. 

       All these little local difficulties can be traced to a nation-state paradigm in traumatic throes. Beware of success, for success often embeds in its bosom the seeds of ultimate failure. The nation-state is arguably the most powerful and innovative instance of territorial domination and domestication to have come out of the ruins of the old empire-state. It facilitated rapid industrial development and institutional innovations which pushed the human race forward towards a particular telos.

      But it also engendered a destructive rat race and a self-obsession among nations which make them prone to strife and bitter competition leading to wars and unending violence. After five hundred years of uninterrupted supremacy as the principal mode of organizing territorial space, the nation-state paradigm is unable to cope with the new realities and contradictions of a world polarized by competing civilizations and countervailing consciousness.

     While the civilized world does not want unserviceable refugees and economic migrants swarming and swamping them from the hell-holes of humanity, it is not averse to facilitating the continuous hemorrhaging of priceless talents from Africa and the rest of the Third World to boost its own economy and human capital.

      Very rarely do contradictions driving the global geopolitical system come together to achieve the effect of a perfect storm as they have done in the third decade of the twenty first century. We can isolate only three. First was the calamitous Covid-19 pandemic which held the entire world in evil thralldom and which in likelihood is a spin-off of the destructive rat race among leading nations of the world.

      As we all witnessed, the inability or unwillingness of the leading nations to share intelligence and collaborate about how to end the incubus prolonged the trauma for the entire human race. Less endowed nations are still reeling from the catastrophic side-effects and baleful aftermath. No one is sure of when the next scourge will come. As flies are to wanton boys, so have the developing nations become for the leading nations of the world. They kill them off for their scientific gaming.

       Second is the ruinous invasion of Ukraine by Russia whose terrible side-effects have devastated the global economic outlook as soaring energy bills, rising food costs, stunted growth, mortgage collapse and massive infrastructural deficits trigger a wave of panic and unrest in many western societies. An affronted rump of the old Russian empire is bent on reclaiming part, if not all, of the geopolitical advantages it claims to have lost to western dubiety as the Soviet Union unravelled.

      Vladimir Putin, who has claimed that the collapse of the Soviet Union was the most potent geopolitical catastrophe that has befallen his nation in the modern era will not be placated until the badly limping nation-state paradigm is upended. As we write, Kamikaze drones believed to be of Iranian provenance are pulverizing Ukrainian cities, thus rendering the possibility of a negotiated settlement more remote.

      The possibilities of a proxy warfare broadening the scope and scale of hostilities are not that remote. If the military stalemate persists and Russian prestige is further eroded, Putin may reach for the ultimate weapon. A nuclear holocaust will put an end to further speculations about the fate of the nation-state paradigm.

    Finally, the scourge of global warming triggered by unrelenting tampering with the eco-system, unrestrained deforestation, the sharp rise of industrial effluence and the gradual humanization of hitherto uninhabitable and inhospitable arctic wastelands have induced a monstrous deluge which is capable of overwhelming fragile nations without self-insulating capacity.

     This week, apocalyptic pictures of drowning humanity and flailing hands as they disappear forever surfaced in the media. From Islamabad in Pakistan to Yenagoa in Nigeria, dazed and disoriented citizenry, their homes having been swept away, camp out in fetid pools waiting for help that will never come.  There is something grimly biblical about the misery and human suffering. It feels like Noah without Noah’s ark.

       The continent of Africa, in its postcolonial incarnation, appears to be worst served with the monstrous political contraption imposed on it by colonial conquest. All the gains of the decolonizing project which briefly united many of the warring, mutually countervailing communities boxed together in a colonial cage and forced them to entertain the prospects of unity in diversity against a common tormentor have now evaporated into the winds, leaving behind mutually hostile nationalities working at cross purposes.

       Unable to reform the colonial monstrosities and photocopies of organic nations handed down to them African elites are at the end of their historic tethers waiting for a miracle which will never come. Mutual cooperation for mutual good has been thrown out of the window. The organic unity which existed among certain pre-colonial communities and kingdoms has been thrown overboard.

      Having gone through three different types of colonial rationalizations, namely Belgian, French and Portuguese, the two Congolese nations and Angola will find it hard to be convinced that they all originated from the ashes of the old Kongo kingdom. Only common sense prevented Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia from coming to blows over the construction of a dam across the River Nile by the Ethiopians.

      So it is then that when the Cameroun people are forced to release excess water from their Lagdo dam, they cannot care a hoot whatever happens to their laggard neighbours to the south. If they refuse to build their own dam to absorb the water, let them stew in their watery Waterloo. The result has been the apocalyptic debacle unfolding in the Niger-Benue confluence. Yet these were all pre-colonial neighbours and contiguous communities.

       What Africa needs now is a reinvention of the avatars of the African project of decolonization, the Nkrumahs, the Nassers, Sekou Toures  and the Nyereres who have the visionary capacity to look beyond the confines of the colonial pigeon-holes to see the bigger picture for the Black person. The nation-state paradigm in Africa has reached a perilous conjuncture, just as it has in other parts of the world. But it is Africa that will once again bear the brunt.

  • Defanging EndSARS anniversary

    Defanging EndSARS anniversary

    TWO Octobers ago, thousands of protesters thronged the Lekki Tollgate in Lagos State and seized it as a symbol of their struggle against oppressive and venal policing and law enforcement. Unfortunately the struggle quickly metamorphosed into something more sinister and nefarious. The protests convulsed other parts of the state as well as many states in the country, but they were less impactful and significant as a social movement in the North. The regional dichotomy encouraged the Muhammadu Buhari presidency to suggest that the protests were designed to subvert his administration in order to bring it to disrepute. His suggestions exaggerated the impact and popularity of the protest, not to talk of its objectives, but the truth soon came out that the North experienced a slightly different but nevertheless still significant kind of policing.

    Last Monday, the Lagos Lekki corridor experienced a watered-down version of the protests of two years ago. A more diminished crowd of nostalgic protesters again thronged the Lekki Tollgate to remind Nigerians that the protest had not yet experienced a closure. It was not altogether clear what they meant, for as it happened two years ago when the protest was hijacked by people with ulterior motives, last week’s reenactment again insinuated the variegated political undertones of the EndSARS protest. Two main planks of the hijacked protest and the anniversary are discernible. Firstly, the protest in 2020 became perfused with concocted and utterly unproven stories of massacre and dead bodies. But a little over one year of panel inquiry dominated and inspired by civil society and human rights activists negated the story of a massacre, distressingly suggesting that when the protest was hijacked it was perhaps for a thinly veiled political agenda.

    Secondly, and closely leashed to the first plank, is the undiluted animosity of the EndSARS crowd to the regnant Lagos political establishment. When the protest broke out, it quickly became political. Barely two years down the line, it is even more remorselessly and undisguisedly political. The Lekki corridor, probably angered by the tolling of the Lekki Expressway, the only major tollgate in Lagos, has quietly begun to acquire the reputation of a rebellious and anarchical enclave. The corridor resents what its denizens say are the oppression and high-handedness of the law enforcement agencies of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), the Nigerian Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), and the Police Force. The three agencies, say Lekkians, have stereotyped the corridor as an anarchical enclave of cultists, yahoo-yahoo boys, alias scammers and 419-ners, and all manner of drug lords and criminal masterminds laundering money through dubious fronts.

    It is not clear whether the corridor harbours more drug lords and scammers per capita than the rest of Lagos or even Nigeria, but the daily raids by law enforcement agencies and their alleged high-handedness give the unwholesome impression that the corridor had become an irredeemable enclave. Recent raids have unearthed a number of high-profile drug lords and scammers to the embarrassment of law-abiding residents along the corridor. The stereotype will become reinforced, and protests by residents along that corridor may repeatedly be conflated with the angst of lawless drug czars and scammers resistant to security agents and desperate to create a community of people not answerable to the law.

    But what is even more damning is the attempt by desperate individuals and politicians wishing to embed their objectives within the otherwise noble ideal of campaigning for law enforcement reforms. Before the protests, the law enforcement agencies, particularly the police, had become unmanageable, corrupt and unaccountable. Extortion, cruel use of torture and rights abuse were the order of the day. Two years down the road after the very turbulent protest, the reforms have still not come, and the law enforcement agencies have hardly budged beyond a notch or two. The 2020 protest was, therefore, justifiable, and the anniversary last Monday even more so, at least theoretically. But one of the reasons for the poor results from the protest is the simple fact that the protest was hijacked and politicised. It was conceived as an action to compel the federal government to reform its law enforcement agencies, but it quickly became an action against one man, a politician.

    Sadly, the distortion of the EndSARS protest and objective persists, not only among the ordinary Lekkians, but alarmingly and disappointingly among clerics. In 2020, the clerics lent their weight to the protest, despite the obvious hijack of the incipient social movement, and despite the bastardisation of its objective. More worrisomely, and even openly, the protest is now being comingled with the course and objectives of the Labour Party. For instance, last week, the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) national coordinator, Emmanuel Onwubiko, who subconsciously functions as an LP advocate, advised Nigerians youths not to vote for the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, for allegedly inspiring the killings at the tollgate. Forget the fact that the killings were not proved and had become apocryphal, but there is nothing anywhere to suggest that the police and the army accused of masterminding the killings were answerable to Asiwaju Tinubu. But many activists and Rights groups toe the infamous line of Mr Onwubiko. They tell themselves a lie, repeat the lie constantly in the fashion of the Nazi Party propagandist leader, Joseph Goebbels, and have begun to believe their own lies.

    Just as in the beginning of the EndSARS protest in 2020, when the protest was hijacked by politicians, HURIWA and others, including, surprisingly the National Association of Seadogs (NAS), have become openly partisan and particularly pro-Peter Obi. All gloves are off; campaigners can no longer disguise their objectives. In fact, examined closely, the public will discover some other disturbing and divisive undercurrents in the Lekki Tollgate controversy. These will be exposed in due time. But for now, it is time the government began to take to task those using dubious accounts of events to incite the public. The constitution guarantees freedom of speech; it does not guarantee freedom to concoct stories and incite. If the campaigners allege, then they must be made to prove.

    Atiku’s London photo ops

    AFTER APC presidential candidate Bola Ahmed Tinubu, PDP presidential candidate ex-vice president Atiku Abubakar is the most vilified. His political snafu last week calling on northerners to vote only him was followed by a snap trip to London. A report alleged that he did not just travel to London for the heck of it but because he collapsed from unstated cause(s). Asiwaju had been through all that, and had had to ‘give proof of life’ repeatedly. After every false report was rebutted, it was imagined that the APC candidate’s traducers would feel a sense of remorse for carrying libelous news about him. No, not a chance. Instead, the attackers had self-righteously doubled down and even felt justified in formulating subsequent attacks.

    Alhaji Atiku has also had to produce ‘proof of life’ by organising photo ops in London and Paris, complete with the rambunctious Dino Melaye at a diner, and in another instance with a small coterie of foreign reporters. There is nothing wrong with copycatting, of course. If the PDP would exhume Sen Melaye, why, the APC can also match that unearthly method by recalling its own sarcophagi, of whom Femi Fani-Kayode, a former minister, appears to be the archetype and matching counterpoise. Sen Melaye is riding extremely high in reckoning in the PDP. Mr Fani-Kayode will be wondering when he would also be elevated to the stars from his current amorphous standing as a two-bit spokesman. But why is it that Alhaji Atiku, despite his best efforts, has not been able to shake off that glacial and foreboding look from his face?

    There will be more foreign photo ops in the weeks ahead, and especially as the campaigns hot up. If Rivers State governor Nyesom Wike could junket abroad with his co-rebels in the PDP just to powwow, an exercise that could be done with as much effectiveness and panache within Nigerian borders, who would tell Alhaji Atiku not to produce foreign proofs of life. After all, the only candidate among the top three not producing any proof of life is Labour Party’s Peter Obi. Running perhaps a distant third, eclectic and often mundane, he seems content to be challenged to provide proof of idea and ideology because he has none.

  • Dangote and Obajana Cement dispute

    Dangote and Obajana Cement dispute

    On October 5, armed men of undetermined origin invaded the Obajana Cement Plant (OCP) owned since 2002 by Dangote Industries Limited (DIL), injured some staff members, damaged a part of the plant, and forced the company’s closure. The invasion was attributed to agents of the Kogi State government which had been in dispute with the owners over the company’s shareholding structure. In disputing the ownership of the cement company with the Dangote group, the state government had not been forthcoming regarding the number of shares Kogi State held. No one thought the invasion was spontaneous, it was probably orchestrated; and no one believes that ordinary indigenes of the state, without being prompted, took up battle to force the hands of Dangote Industries simply because indigenes owned shares in the company.

    Of the three groups, which include the invaders, the state government, and Dangote Ltd, only DIL has clarified the current state of the cement company’s share structure. As implausible as it sounds, DIL insists it had owned 100 percent of the company since 2002, though the cement company had been incorporated since 1992. When it took over the company upon the invitation of the state government, Obajana Cement existed only on paper with no land cleared for building the plant or equipment purchased. It was a virgin company, insists DIL. Furthermore, said the Dangote group, it allocated five percent of the equity to the state government should they want it and pay for it. The state did not redeem the interest, DIL clarifies.

    The Kogi State government’s side of the story has been shrouded in impenetrable mystery. It neither came forward to disclose its interest in the company nor has it displayed documents indicating how the company was founded. But it insists that OCP should come clean and table before the questioning public all it knows about the founding of Obajana Cement, all the while insinuating that DIL was less than wholesome in its dealings. The state also accused DIL of asset-grabbing. Compounding the matter was the fact that a few days after, a part of the Kogi State House of Assembly, which had taken the front seat in contesting the ownership of OCP, went up in flames. DIL of course declaimed involvement, while the state government promised only to get to the root of the fire incident. But the whole affair was an eerie reminder of the burning of the Reichstag building, home of the German parliament, in February 1933 four weeks after Adolf Hitler was sworn in as Chancellor of Germany. But perhaps comparisons are odious.

    The federal government through the National Security Council has waded into the controversy, though it lacks the reputation for impartiality or adeptness in negotiations, as the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) conundrum dismayingly showed. The presidency has shown partiality to the Kogi State government, particularly its governor, Yahaya Bello, who professes to be the errand boy of the president and would give his life for him. That perhaps explains why Mr Bello has seemed to get away with murder in some of his dealings in the state as he routinely violated the rights of indigenes and other Nigerian citizens, and flagrantly undermined the battle against COVID-19 through the deployment and advocacy of preposterous epidemiological regimens. Mr Bello is accused of resorting to self-help in the search for a solution to the OCP controversy; could the presidency call him to order if he is indicted? It finally did so, last week, ordering the reopening of the firm, and with Kogi State finally and sensibly promising to litigate the disagreement.

    Read Also: Obajana: Kogi drags Dangote to court as FG orders plant’s reopening

    On the other hand, Aliko Dangote, reputed to be the richest man in Africa has tentacles spreading all over Nigeria, in and out of government. Even if Kogi State can prove wrongdoing against DIL, it is not altogether clear that the federal government can sharply reprimand the top businessman. OCP has become a big business in Kogi, one of the biggest, and a nationwide business player. It employs directly and indirectly thousands of workers. It could of course not remain closed for too long. If the federal government couldn’t broker peace, the courts should. Indeed, in the first instance, Kogi was expected to head for the courts to get relief for its grievances. But Mr Bello is not the litigious type, nor does he have patience or preference for the rule of law. Perhaps he fears that, like himself, Mr Dangote also has tentacles that permeate every area of national life, including the judiciary, and it would be futile to cross swords in a civilised fashion with a man they insinuate is a ruthless businessman.

    But there is also a third perspective about the dispute over the cement company’s ownership structure. DIL has produced evidence of how it came about 100 percent ownership of the company. If the company is right, it does not necessarily follow that such ownership structure is moral, especially given the fact that the company was wholly incorporated by the state government. It is, therefore, possible that at the transference of ownership, some form of collusion might have been enacted. Or in the desperation to get the company up and running, incompetent state officials might have willingly and foolishly ceded everything to DIL. This reminds Nigerians of the tragedy that befell the Ajaokuta Steel Company and the out-of-court settlement Nigeria clumsily reached Global Steel Holdings, an Indian company originally asking Nigeria for $5.3bn for breach of contract. The settlement cost Nigeria about $496m though the Indians would have had to pay Nigeria penalties had Nigerian officials waited only a few weeks more before terminating the contract.

    While in the Ajaokuta Steel debacle collusion and incompetence were indicated, it is not clear what happened in 2002 between DIL and Kogi State. Perhaps the same Nigerian disease afflicted the negotiators and suffused the transaction. In any case, regardless of the intensity of the controversy or who might be wrong or right, or even the implausibility of the transaction, it is humiliating that a state government could so blatantly and criminally engage in self-help, and instead of the law enforcement agencies investigating and bringing the invaders to book, the presidency has tried to mediate the misunderstanding.

    Controversial national honours

    Some 450 Nigerians and foreigners were conferred national honours last Tuesday out of about 5,000 nominees. It seemed the pruning was well done, and indeed quite a significant number of honorees deserved their awards. It will be the last the Muhammadu Buhari administration will be organising before his second and final term ends. But neither his honours’ list nor those of his predecessors since the beginning of the Fourth Republic have escaped censure or controversy. The problem, clearly, is not because the list is sometimes fairly long, especially seeing that the categories are many anyway, but because of the also striking presence of many political functionaries – some of them governors, others legislators, heads of agencies or security and law enforcement bodies, or even political aides.

    Many Nigerians are nonplussed. Apart from being an elected or appointed public official, what else qualified some of these political leaders for national honours? It is impossible for the government to defend some of the curious names on the list. But they won’t even bother. In the past, some of the awardees had failed to justify the honours, and indeed even undermined the good done them by the state, because they never actually had the reputation that matched the honours. Every time national honours were conferred, including the most recent, there had always been sharp criticisms. Interestingly, except on rare cases, the previous administrations were never bothered about the public’s reservations. The depressing story of undeserved honours will, therefore, continue ad infinitum, ad nauseam.

    Two reasons account for the curious names on the lists. Either the government lacks the character required to be rigorous in selections or it lacks the elementary discipline to abide faithfully with the yardsticks necessary for unimpeachable selections.

  • Charity continues abroad

    Charity continues abroad

    When a public official like the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, accuses the Nigerian media of lack of patriotism for concentrating on the negative aspects of the country in their reports, he forgets incidents such as the one we are going to look at today in this column. By the way, where is Mr Mohammed? He appears to have gone into hibernation. Or is he on sabbatical or something? Whichever it is, whoever knows where he is should extend my sincere greetings to him. As we say, ‘long time no see, long time no hear from him’. I miss him a lot. I am sure millions of Nigerians miss him as well. He too must be missing us.

    As I was saying, Nigerian public officials who accuse the media of lack of patriotism because of the negative stories about Nigeria that dominate the media space often forget two things; first that the world is now a global village and second, some of  these unsavoury developments about Mr. Mohammed’s beloved government and country happen outside the country, which make it impossible for them to be swept under the carpet.

    Take for instance, the pathetic case of 117 Nigerian students in The Philippines who have spent 10 years for a programme that should last four years. I am talking about the hapless beneficiaries of the Nigerian Seafarers Development Programme (NSDP) whose story went virile in a video shared on Twitter a few days ago. They were in The Phillipines to study Marine Engineering and Transportation under the NIMASA-NSDP scholarship.

    The NSDP, an initiative of the  Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) commenced in 2009. It was basically designed to address the shortage of trained and certified seafarers in the Nigerian maritime industry. A good initiative, if you ask me.

    But Nigeria is never short of good initiatives.

    The problem is that they mess up the initiatives almost as soon as the ink that was used to draft them dries up on paper. Civil servants and politicians in no time corrupt the process for personal gains. Otherwise, why would an initiative that began in 2009 start having hiccups barely three years after?

    These students must have leapt for joy when they began the programme in 2012. Little did they know that that was going to be the beginning of a 10-year sojourn in a foreign land. Never would they have imagined that cash would be their problem, given the fact that the sponsor of the scholarship, NIMASA, is a cash cow that is capable of rendering surplus funds to government coffers as we witnessed some years ago. So, money would not have been its problem; if it had any problem, it is probably how to spend it. And we have seen evidence of that irony in its handling of the case of these cadets.

    It was when the cadets were pushed to the wall, as it were, that they decided to protest at the Nigerian Embassy in Manila, that country’s capital. They were however not allowed to do what one of them called “simple demonstration”. Security personnel were brought in to prevent them from entering the embassy. One of them said rather pathetically, that “This has lasted for 10 good years, I have wasted my life, 10 years of my life and many of my colleagues also in this same programme. Now finally we are here for the last lap where we would get our license and go back to Nigeria, yet…”

    Read Also: Awaiting deployment of NIMASA’s N50b Modular Floating Dock

    But some of the students saw the ‘Nigerian factor’ coming early enough and quickly jumped off the NIMASA boat. Indeed, one of such persons, Abraham Samuel, who reacted to the video lamented that “a programme that began in 2012, 10 years later people are still languishing and suffering at home. I for one can say that NIMASA failed in making the programme a success, most of the persons in The Philippines are self-sponsored and only because they got tired of waiting for NIMASA and had to look for every means possible to kickstart their lives; I am one of such people.”

    The embassy’s response to all of this was an epistle that explained little or nothing. It accused the students of being unruly. As a matter of fact, the embassy’s defence of its uncaring attitude towards the cadets can be summarised in two sentences: first the students did not book an appointment with it before staging their peaceful demonstration and two, they did not obtain the necessary permission from that country’s authorities as demanded by their laws before embarking on the protest. The embassy that is supposed to be the ears and eyes of the Nigerian government said in a statement that “And as such, the Estate/ Barangay reserves the right to prohibit persons from entering the premises without an appointment.” It added that policemen came into the picture because “the unruly cadets were disturbing the peace of the residents in the area and obstructing vehicular traffic.”

    The embassy added that its officials went to meet with the “defiant cadets” at the entrance of the estate to listen to their complaints “which were delivered in a very insulting and demeaning manner with no regard for the government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria on whose sponsorship they were in The Philippines in the first place.” Pray, has the Nigerian government itself not insulted the students and dehumanised them by making them embark on what was worse than the Israelites’ journey? Or how does one explain that a four-year programme would last a whole decade? Not even Medicine would have taken them such a long period to learn. If the Nigerian government had not advertised scholarship for the programme, those of the students interested in the course would have entered as private students and if they did not have the means, they would at least have remained in their own country where it is possible for a four-year academic programme to drag for eight or more years. They would not have to face such dehumanisation outside Nigeria.

    In summary, the embassy’s response to the students’ plight was as sad as it was disturbing. It was most disgusting. No empathy. Not even an enemy camp would have been more callous. How many of the embassy officials’ children were involved in the peculiar mess? Put differently, how many of their children ever experienced such inhuman and ungodly treatment? These are people who, like the embassy officials’ children, have a future ahead of them.

    That the embassy used the word ‘unruly’ at least twice in its statement to describe the students’ attitude shows how rude and unruly the embassy itself is. It makes one to ask whether these are career diplomats or the officials are the usual Nigerian ‘job-for-the-boys’ round pegs in square holes personnel.

    But the Nigerian embassy in The Philippines is not alone in this shabby treatment of their compatriots. We are constantly inundated with similar reports from many of our embassies, whether in Africa or outside the continent. What many of the embassies have done is export the uncaring and insensitive style of government at home, abroad. If the home government is bad, such can only rub off on its adjuncts wherever they may be. Given the import of the principle of extraterritoriality in international relations, the embassies are extensions of the Nigerian space. May be that explains their replication of the bad governance at home, abroad!

    For sure, the embassy in The Philippines cannot say it was not aware of the cadets’ pathetic story before the last incident that went viral. The cadets had in August complained bitterly of neglect and non-payment of their allowances, hence they were unable to pay their rent or meet other obligations. In view of our experiences in other Nigerian embassies abroad, it is not unlikely that the cadets had communicated with the embassy on their proposed peaceful protest without having any response.

    It is now that the matter has become a national embarrassment that NIMASA too says it would send a fact-finding team to The Philippines to monitor the unfortunate development. Every Nigerian who understands the mystery of our kind of governance knew this would be the next step. The fact-finding team would have to get estacode and other perks, avoidable costs if things had been allowed to run normally. Then their findings would be reviewed by another high-powered committee and so on. Even in the days when foreign students were still coming to study in Nigerian universities on scholarship, I cannot remember the number of times such fact-finding teams were sent to Nigeria from those countries despite the fact that they did not have the advantage of information technology that has simplified virtually everything we do today.

    Is NIMASA saying it does not have a record of what has been paid so far for each of the students and what they are owing? Again, why would the agency be talking as if it does not know that governance is a continuum? Or, what does it mean by “the matter predates this administration?”

    It is rather unfortunate that the bread that the Nigerian government had asked these cadets to come and take has turned to stone and the fish turned to serpent, in contradiction of the Holy Writ, by this uncaring attitude, which is common with many Nigerian students on government scholarship. No serious nation would do such to people it considers its future leaders. Why would youths bubbling with ideas have to grow grey hairs and moustache before finishing a four-year programme?

    The unfortunate thing is that despite the embarrassment that this matter has caused Nigeria, chances are that those responsible would go scot-free. This is the kind of experience that had led some stranded Nigerian female students to take to prostitution abroad while the males among them had turned to crime, jeopardising their health and future in the process. It would seem the Buhari administration has developed thick skin to anything called national embarrassment which naturally should warrant strong punishment. This is why there can never be an end to such humiliating embarrassment. But we would continue to sit on a keg of gunpowder for as long as we keep treating matters like this with kid gloves.

    The anti-corruption agencies must wade into the matter. We need to establish that some people are not feeding fat on these cadets’ misery. Such a thing cannot be ruled out in our kind of country where the dog knows how to feed its puppies but won’t hesitate to sink their canines into others’.

  • ASUU, Ngige and Gbajabiamila

    ASUU, Ngige and Gbajabiamila

    Nigeria owes a debt of gratitude to the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) for finally succumbing last Friday to pressures and blandishments from all sides to conditionally suspend their eight months strike against their better judgement. They know by history and instincts that whatever agreements the federal government reaches with the union is often not faithfully honoured. What they cannot tell is how soon the government will throw them under the bus, or what tonnage of bus would mangle them. The union knows that in the past two decades or so, there has been no agreement reached with them that was honoured beyond the initial commitment, or at best after a second tranche had been grudgingly executed. Yet, they stood their ground for eight whole months. It is not often that teachers of theories and principles live out their dictums. But reassuringly, given the wasteland of principles which Nigeria has become, a group still exists that can be trusted to courageously stand by what they teach and believe, and this despite the criticisms of many well-intentioned opinion moulders and statesmen.

    The country also owes the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, a debt of gratitude for wading into a fight that was strictly speaking not his, nor that of the legislature. There is of course much more to his involvement than the public has been told, but since he is the public face of the negotiations between ASUU and the legislature, he must be singled out for mention and lauded for his painstaking thoroughness. Hon Gabajabimila did not always look nor sound like someone who would make a success of his assignment as head of the lower chamber, especially given the despairing compromises that saw his emergence as speaker and the entire National Assembly as the lapdog of the controlling Muhammadu Buhari presidency. Not only has the speaker measured up adroitly as a principal officer, he has been measured in his tones, sparing in histrionics, and has obviously become a dealmaker and consensus builder. It is true he has shown no philosophical bent in his assignment nor exuded significant profundity in managing the lower chamber, but he pursued the negotiations with ASUU with single-mindedness until a truce was reached. Few critics gave him a chance, but he delivered where others had failed.

    But what shall the country say to the Buhari administration for allowing this costly and utterly needless strike to continue for a whole eight months? The deal reached last week was not so unearthly that its terms could not have been reached two weeks into the strike, had the presidency demonstrated passion for education and loyalty to the constitution and the affairs of the country. But the administration first allowed the lengthy flexing of muscles, then it lapsed into suspended animation, and finally watched with bemusement as both the Labour and Employment ministry and the Education ministry tangoed over who had the ultimate right to disentangle the ropes with which the strike was knotted. A month or two into the strike, it seemed as if the administration would finally in exasperation wade into the fight and call everyone to order. Four months into the paralysis, the administration inexplicably switched off. And months before the 2023 defining polls, one in which the ruling party had so much more to lose, the administration and its phlegmatic leaders fecklessly sat idly by as the frustrations built up and impressions and speculations ran rife that the ruling party aimed to deliberately lose the elections.

    It is not clear yet what kind of pressures Hon Gbajabiamila brought upon the administration, or why the fatalistic administration eventually had second thoughts about crashing the ruling party’s election vehicle, but whatever the reasons, the country must, it seems, heave a great sigh of relief and thank the president for acceding, however grudgingly, to the few concessions needed to get the strike temporarily resolved. Given the reluctance, if not disdain, in which the administration holds agreements, there is of course little hope that anything substantial will be done to uphold last week’s deal with ASUU in the long run. But since the president agreed among other concessions to waive the ‘no-work, no-pay’ rule in order to find common grounds with the union, he must be lauded, even if reluctantly. Well, at a time when everybody is reluctant about everything, Nigerians must also find the good humour to applaud the administration. Embedded in the final agreements are, however, snippets as to how to subsequently fund tertiary education, but these snippets are in turn seeds for future upheavals in the education sector, particularly because the embedded snippets are so disjointed and incoherent that it is hard to see how they could be implemented without seismic shifts in national culture and public policy.

    Since the beginning of the Fourth Republic, no administration has done a phenomenal job in grappling with the dynamics of the education sector, particularly in terms of funding, ownership and operations of public tertiary institutions. The old and existing paradigms have become truly dysfunctional, absolutely inoperable. And with a political system that is draining, enervating, and also parasitic, little resources get allocated to tertiary education. The agreement reached last week with ASUU says nothing about finding the equilibrium in public finance that would make it possible to run a cost-effective political system which allows for proper funding of the public sector. To devolve the costs to an increasingly pauperised populace is nothing but an invitation to future destabilisation. The evil day has simply been postponed. Hopefully, the next government will thrash the infantile assumptions that undergird the FG/ASUU agreement of last week and produce a more enduring roadmap to higher education as well as find a more productive paradigm for the entire public sector.

    Finally, what indeed shall the country say to both the Education and Labour ministries who bear direct responsibility for prolonging the ASUU strike for about eight sickening months? There was a brief moment when the Education minister, Adamu Adamu, seemed animated enough to want to take over the negotiations with ASUU. But that fleeting moment was soon shot down by the more loquacious and grandiloquent Labour minister, Chris Ngige, citing some arcane International Labour Organisation (ILO) rules. The Federal Executive Council (FEC) has not always given the impression to the country that its debates are robust or that they do not engage in the constant and irritating habit of reading the lips of the president before making contributions to policy matters. So, by some interpretative sleight of hand, Dr Ngige easily got the upper hand, monopolised the negotiations with ASUU and proceeded offensively to talk down to the union, shoot down many of their proposals, and ultimately balkanise them by registering countervailing university unions.

    Not only did Dr Ngige bully the Education ministry on the grounds of the so-called ILO rules, the aloofness and reticence of the presidency also enabled him to turn the negotiations into a contest of wills from which he was determined to have the last and dominant say. Had he the power to subvert the involvement of the legislature, especially seen how he had insulted them at some of their committee hearings, he would have sought for ways to shut out Hon Gbajabiamila for being meddlesome. In any case, in addition to balkanising the union, an action that may still be upturned by the courts, Dr Ngige also sought the destruction, neutralisation and entire capitulation of ASUU. The House of Representatives ensured he achieved only a limited part of his objectives, and even that could in the end prove to be a chimera. Both the country and ASUU should not imagine that Dr Ngige is through with them. He will continue to imprecate them and the agreement, and he will snort contemptuously at the agreements cobbled together by the union and the government as well as seek a pretext against them, if possible to upturn the deal or vitiate it. It is in his character to scoff at anything and everything that does not massage his grandiose ego.

    Read Also: Varsities set to come alive as ASUU ends eight-month strike

    ASUU may have conditionally suspended their action, and are gloomy about the few concessions they had wrung from the prolonged strike, but even they are sensible enough to know that this is probably the last strike they will embark on in the life of this administration. The National Assembly, which has found the affected mannerisms of Dr Ngige both provocative and off-putting, will do their best to retain and honour the 2023 budgetary components of the federal government deal with ASUU, but they are unlikely to be able to force the parsimonious Finance ministry to back the deal with sufficient cash when the time comes. As for the Buhari administration, which is basking in belated achievements on the security front, particularly the pacification of the Northeast and Northwest, it will congratulate itself in reaching the deal with ASUU or, more accurately, in signing off on the deal with the union. The administration will not feel bound to do any follow-up, for as it is wont to say, if there is no money, no one should expect the government to kill itself. Nigerian youths and students will naturally move on from this unfortunate debacle, having lost in many cases years of their lives idling away. If their parents who are even more profoundly impacted by this strike will not eschew sentiments in their voting behavior but will endorse glib talkers and greenhorns, then they haven’t seen anything yet.

     

    Stalemates in APC, PDP campaigns

    Adamu and Ayu

    After being challenged by the flurry of street rallies deployed to devastating effects by the Labour Party’s Peter Obi shortly before and after the ban on campaigns was lifted, the disquieted APC and PDP are beginning to settle down to the drudgeries and complexities of organising and funding their bid for office in 2023. Seeing his dainty rallies take off in different parts of Nigeria and how they disarmed sceptics, Mr Obi and his supporters naively imagined that street rallies were all it took to win elections. Indeed, at a point in those giddy few days of rallies, the LP candidate imagined he had won already. But after rallies by the other parties had proved even more overwhelming, the LP had begun to confront painful reality with less optimism.

    But despite surmounting the challenges of the rallies, the Peoples Democratic Party less so, the two leading parties have made heavy weather of constituting their Presidential Campaign Councils (PCC). The LP is of course not left out of the fractiousness at the PPC level, but the dissonances in the two main parties have proved more telling and ominous. After series of complaints, the PCCs are being expanded inordinately to accommodate many journeymen and exaggerated tacticians who imagine, quite fancifully, that membership of the PCC would invariably qualify a person for notable appointive positions after election victory. Manifestos are also been reworked or tweaked, and probably harmonised with their parties’ unimplementable and overarching manifestos. And in a crazy instance in the LP, the uncontroverted statement of a PCC member is being used to lynch him. Startlingly, the victim excuses the intraparty mob action, even insinuating that he made the controversial statement because his oath of office enjoined him to some measure of perfunctoriness.

    The campaigns are thus stalemated for now. The PDP is harried by the Nyesom Wike bombast, with the Rivers State governor raising many pertinent questions neither the presidential candidate nor the party as a whole has been able to answer. Mr Wike is remorseless in pushing his party, the PDP, to confront and wilt before the moral questions of the day, to wit, how to redeem promises and how to engender fairness and equity. The party is equally adamant, and is unlikely to cave in over whether party chairman, Iyorchia Ayu, should step down or not. They won’t contemplate his resignation, they say; and Mr Wike retorts that there will then be no rapprochement.

    If the LP machine is bogged down in the mud of amateurishness, and the PDP is trapped in the follies and insincerities of their making, the All Progressives Congress (APC) has not proved to be immune to its own intraparty foibles. The party chairman, Abdullahi Adamu, like the now taciturn and melancholic Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, is still ruing the defeat caused by his backing the wrong horse during the party’s presidential primary. Despite himself and the best intentions of the campaign group, he continues to manifest a form of disgruntlement that seemingly slows down the pace of the campaign. There are also others in the APC, governors and opinion moulders alike, who appear discomfited by the confident posture of the party’s presidential ticket. They are for now standing aloof from the campaign. While the APC may be able to mollify the anger of its furious members than the PDP can conciliate the raging bulls in its ranks, however, ultimately, it is the ruling party that has so much more to lose precisely because it is the frontrunner. All dynamics favour the APC winning. For the LP, the greenhorns in the party, including their impressionable presidential candidate, will continue to engage in one compromise or another until it lacks elbow room to yield ground.

    Whether they like it or not, and in a week or two, the parties will leave behind them the uncertainties and hesitations enveloping their campaign councils and begin to forge ahead. They may, with varying degrees of success, walk with unsteady gait or run on spent steam, but in the end, faced with the urgency of the campaigns, they will wobble and fumble on. The two leading parties in particular already know, in the words of Mark Twain, that they will either all hang together or, most assuredly, all hang separately. The APC is keenest in recognising this solemn zero-sum fallacy.

     

     

    CJN and political pressures

    Sometime in September 2019, former Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) Ibrahim Muhammad complained that the judiciary’s lack of financial independence hamstrung the administration of justice. He was right, even though, as events would confirm nearly three years later under his administration, financial independence did not invariably mean financial prudence. But something much worse than financial hindrance is bothering the judiciary. After he was sworn in last Monday, Olukayode Ariwoola, the new CJN, pleaded that in order for justice to be dispensed politicians should desist from pressuring the judiciary.

    According to him, “Politicians should allow the judiciary to function…Law is not static, and that’s why you have seen that the National Assembly continued to amend the laws and it is the laws that the courts apply to the facts available. We shall continue to do justice, if only Nigerians will allow us to perform and function without any pressure.” It is hard to rationalise the jurist’s complaints. All over the world, pressures are always being brought upon judges, either by politicians, moneyed class, or governments. There will always be pressure, and it is called corruption.

    Maybe what Justice Ariwoola should do is ensure first of all that men and women of character are appointed into judicial offices, people who can resist the lure of money and withstand political pressures. Appealing to politicians to desist from bringing pressures upon the judiciary is pointless; let the CJN ensure the right men are appointed into office, and that they resist and even punish those who bring the pressures. It is not idealism.

  • EKITI: Enter Excellent Era!

    EKITI: Enter Excellent Era!

    On my Unique Value Proposition (UVP), I have been a major player in both the private and public sectors; and my eleven years’ experience in governance has exposed me to the nuances of governance and also being a private sector person, it has also exposed me to the pains and issues in the private sector. One thing we are going to do, we are going to run a very smart government; we are going to rely heavily on the use of data because our margin of error must be reduced. We do not want to play with the future and aspirations of our people. So that our government would run smartly. We would do more with less. We are conscious of the precarious situation of our country; we are conscious of the dwindling federal allocation to states.  We also know that expectations of the people keep increasing on a daily basis, so we must be able to navigate all these curves and deliver on the promises we have made to our people. And we can only deliver this by doing more with less, by prioritizing issues that will give happiness to the greatest number of our people; and by reducing wastes in governance; and by also ensuring that we rely more on the use of technology; and reduce our error margin to the barest minimum.” – Biodun Abayomi Oyebanji, Nation, Sunday 12th June 2022.

    Fast-forward to 16th October 2023, Oluwasusi, has to be in Ado Ekiti for a conference spanning three days. Incidentally, Oluwasusi, was born and bred in Aramoko Ekiti. He is therefore familiar with the rugged and hilly terrain of Ekiti countryside. Recalling his experience a few days later is worth sharing. He decided to put his vehicle on the road thinking after the conference he will be able to touch base with his kith and kin in his hometown, Aramoko. He had prepared for the worst scenario regarding the state of the road especially as nearing the border with Osun State, from Efon – Alaye Ekiti enroute to Itawure. It was surprising to notice the smoothness of the road from Efon – Alaye inward Aramoko through Itawure, hitherto notorious for painful and pathetic potholes. In addition, driving through Aramoko to Igede – Ekiti to Iyin Ekiti was equally smooth and sweet. Finally, traversing on the dual carriageway from Iyin Ekiti to Ado Ekiti (already constructed by the preceding administration of Dr. Kayode Fayemi), was similar and soothing to the body like a journey on Lagos – Ibadan expressway. A worthy point to note: on arrival at the welcome signpost to Aramoko, Oluwasusi looked at his wristwatch: it was 10am on the dot having departed the ancient city of Ibadan, his base by 6.30am. In continuing his journey, he viewed at a distance, about 500 metres, an apparent welcome road signal welcoming him to the state capital, Ado – Ekiti. At this point, he looked at his wristwatch again: it was 10.20am. Unbelievable! Not yet done, he drove through the arterial and inner roads within the capital as the venue of the conference is along Ikere Road. Oblivious of the policy of the state government to rid the roads of potholes, it was easy motoring all the way with quality junction improvement at naughty and hurting junctions and intersections. Oluwasusi was shocked to discover that there are less okada riders on the road. He noticed a cream of new taxis and buses plying routes and less young people selling wares around the main market square of the capital. Eventually, he arrived at the venue of the conference at 10.35am. To his bewilderment, there was ample time before the commencement of the conference billed to start at 11.00am. In essence, travel time within towns in the state, and within the seat of power – the capital – has greatly reduced facilitating commerce thus boosting the economy, overtime, referred to in developmental diction and semantics as outcome and impact. Oluwasusi was so elated and excited to be in Ekiti, in the near future, with his friends to explore and exploit the allure of the upgraded Ikogosi Warm Springs Resort as he was informed of the state-of-the-art facilities awaiting tourists at the resort by some participants at the conference. Oluwasusi, was told by one resident at the conference that there is a new sheriff in town whose word is his bond!

    BAO: Exemplifying Excellence?

    Every city, state or country has a story. It takes value – laden leadership to ensure followers are carried along in that journey transiting their story to glory in a mutual context in which participants – leader and followers – are fixated on goals. If goals are to be achieved within a leadership context, there must be a proactive, progressive and practical approach. Simon Kolawole, ace columnist, captures this in a way: “development stems from a plan covering policies and projects along with timelines and deliverables.” – (Thisday @ Sunday 18th Sept 2022). In developmental diction akin to the emerging field of Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL), policy will dovetail into plan; the latter will devolve into programmes; and ultimately, the intervention of government that most citizens see, projects. It is good to visualize the sequence: policy, plan, programmes and projects. This essayist was part of teeming supporters of Biodun Abayomi Oyebanji (BAO) present at the epochal event at the famous Archbishop Biodun Adetiloye Hall, Ado – Ekiti on Tuesday 26th April 2022 where he unveiled his manifesto to Ekitikete. Inherent in the well-articulated and scripted document are the 6 Strategic Actionable Pillars. Will BAO prove skeptics wrong in actualizing these 6 pillars of development? If he, and his chosen team, work assiduously and smartly as he promised during his electioneering campaigns, then an Oluwasusi within a span of 365 days – One Year – will feel, see and embrace dividends of democracy beyond singing slogans.  How can he get this done? It starts by getting the round pegs in round holes – capable, competent, cerebral and credible men and women must be in positions and placements in government.

    Read Also: Its time politicians give Ekiti a respite

    In the opening to this essay, BAO was quoted when this writer interviewed him which was published 6 days to the 18th June 2022 gubernatorial election, he succinctly and saliently stated inter alia: “we are going to rely heavily on the use of data because our margin of error must be reduced. We do not want to play with the future and aspirations of our people.” It is gladdening hearing that BAO will not want to fritter away the golden chance that Ekitikete granted him as he himself is fixated in bettering the lots of the people irrespective of party leaning. In essence, and in this vein, it is good to ensure, from the outset, that proper and accurate baselines are established. What are baselines? In developmental diction: it is where you are now before starting any activity. Simply and squarely stated. Where, in the identified 6 Strategic Actionable Pillars, is Ekiti placed? Reading his lips: he intentionally wants to run a government that will explore and exploit data whilst simultaneously reducing waste and enhancing productivity with the utilization of modern technology. It is crystal clear that going this route will result in “delivering happiness to the greatest of Ekitikete.”

    Ekiti: Encountering Excellent Era?

    Why is this essayist upbeat about BAO?

    Aftermath of the 18th June 2022 election, BAO, knowing my pedigree in developing and executing strategy, approached me to work with my team on his 6 Strategic Actionable Pillars. The term of engagement involved breaking the manifesto down to outputs, outcomes and impact over a four-year period. It was accepted pro bono due to the affection for Ekiti – my home state. Initially, I took the assignment with little excitement as some political office holders’ often display unseriousness to rigorous and robust research cum planning assignments involving hours of cerebral thinking and tinkering. Unexpectedly, at the concluding of the 1st phase of the assignment, it was my intention that we meet in Ado – Ekiti, BAO shocked me by retorting our meeting place should be in Lagos so that none of my team members would logistically find it difficult to be present. I was surprised! He came with his own high powered select team including a serving senator. The meeting went on for hours. He did not leave us to attend to any guests or issues throughout! Thereafter, two other meetings were called and it was the same pattern. In all the three meetings, he arrived earlier than the agreed time, making me remember the mantra of one of my mentors: “a man of destiny keeps appointment.” The result of these meetings; and other interfacing and interrogation among experts and scholars led to the production of the framework developed to cater for expected Outputs, Outcomes and Impacts when BAO’s 6 Strategic Actionable Pillars are broken down so that Ekitikete can relate to his interventions in the 6 Core areas: 1. Youth Development and Job Creation; 2. Human Capital Development; 3. Agriculture and Rural Development; 4. Infrastructure and Industrialization; 5. Tourism, Art and Culture; and 6. Governance.

     

    Ekitikete’s Eyes on BAO

    Today, 16th October 2022, being the day of the Lord – Sunday – is not only candidly coincidental but consequential in the annals of history and in divine calendar of the Almighty even as the Holy Writ surmises it as “the day that the LORD has made and we will rejoice and be glad in it.” (Psalm 118 verse 24). In concluding this piece, it is good to let Oyebanji know that even as he is very generous and gracious in heart, he should be prepared to know how to relate and deal with personalities who are not progressively minded whilst, in his own words, “prioritizing issues that will give happiness to the greatest number of our people.” In this wise, he should be prepared to step on toes as his progressive and proactive policies, plans, programmes and projects may offend the sensibilities of some people. However, the end – outcomes and impacts – will justify the means! He should not only spot talents but utilize them. He should headhunt for ideas; one area is inherently good at. I remembered a time when he told me to find the telephone number of somebody used to critiquing government’s policy and pass it to him. He went further in offering names and telephones numbers of resourceful and credible people to add to the “Ekiti Project Team” that is being run on WhatsApp for his assignment. He possesses such a large heart knowing that ideas rule the world!

    Drawing the curtain on this write up, it is useful to revert to the Oluwasusi’s story at the outset of this piece. In just One Year – 365 Days – from today, where will Ekiti be? Will many Oluwasusi’s, Ibidun’s, Egbeyemi’s, Akintunade’s, etc. have similar sweet stories to tell in traversing or travelling from one town to another? In the Oluwasusi’s story, we could see modern Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) exemplified and amplified in ordinary man’s language. In that little story about 4 out of the 6 Strategic Actionable Pillars of BAO show forth like little twinkle stars – Youth Development and Job Creation; Infrastructural Development; Agriculture and Rural Development; and Tourism, Arts and Culture. If in concrete terms, an Oluwasusi or Egbeyemi or Ibidun or Akintunade could feel, see, touch and embrace the outcomes in tangible forms as enunciated at the outset of this essay, one year from now, then, it is a result-oriented development, otherwise, it is a ruse! This writer in concluding finally will pinpoint a portion of the lyrics of a popular song in Ekiti dialect which my late mother, of blessed memory, cherished: “ero yeye ooo, oju yeye hi ooo oko” (meaning: many eyes whilst admiring, are also watching your footsteps). May BAO not take a wrong step that will tantamount to playing “with the future and aspirations of our people,” as mouthed by him a few days to the polls that made him sign and seal a social contact with Ekitikete!

    John Ekundayo, Ph.D. – Harvard-Certified Leadership Strategist, and also a Development Consultant, can be reached via 08155262360 (SMS only) and drjmoekundayo@hotmail.com

     

     

  • Its time politicians give Ekiti a respite

    Its time politicians give Ekiti a respite

    The incubus of demagoguery unleashed itself in a way it has never done in any other state in Nigeria. Ekiti became the laughing stock of the nation, the hellhole of country bumpkins ruled by fiat and fear, subservient like oxen who adore their yoke. Friends and compatriots from other states called me, asking, with a combination of shock and disconcertment: hey Niyi, what happened to the Ekiti spirit we used to know; where is that enlightened bearing, that admirable pride, that stubbornly interrogative audacity, that have come to distinguish the Ekiti character for so long? How could Ekiti’s once impregnable rampart against political manipulation have collapsed so calamitously? Why were Ekiti people so mindlessly satisfied with so little? How could demagoguery have succeeded and spread so blissfully in the state of university professors?” – The Poet Laureate, Professor Niyi Osundare, in ‘Still In Defence of Values’, a lecture he delivered on 15 October, 2018 to mark the second inauguration of Dr. John Kayode Fayemi as Governor of Ekiti state.

    There will be such tremendous joy all over Ekiti today as home boy and governor – elect, Biodun Ayobami Oyebanji  (BAO), gets sworn in as governor of the state. To many, therefore, the title of this article would seem like a dampener. But it needn’t be as all I’ll be doing here is lay the foundation for a plea to our politicians, to take off their “knee from the neck of Ekiti people,” who they have taken through all manner of odyssey since 2003;  that is, directly after the administration of the Omoluabi governor, Otunba Niyi Adebayo, the first executive governor of the state when the state last had any modicum of peace in her politics. Since then, among our politicians, it has been ‘bo ba o pa, bo ba o bu lese’, in a state that is the most homogenous in the entire country. This unfortunate situation must now come to an end for the sake of the people who politicians claim, even swear, they want to serve.

    Enough is enough.

    These politicians, most of  who, at a point, were all members of E- Eleven, a social club, must now go right back to the basics, and rediscover whatever it was that saw them operate happily together, in harmony for years, as only that can restore peace to Ekiti politics.They must give this all it will take if they are truly out to serve Ekiti, and not on a mission in pursuit of self love. The time has come for them to bury the hatchet and allow the state to enjoy a new lease of life in which brothers and, of course, sisters, will relate, first and foremost, as partners in service, to a prosperous and flourishing Ekiti.

    Today, 16 October, 2022 should be the most ideal day for this plea.

    Of course, I am in no way suggesting that whoever is a litigant in a court case should go and withdraw same, as that will tantamount to saying that the aggrieved should better resort to self help. Nigeria is a country of laws and going to court,or the tribunal, is the constitutionally prescribed method of adjudicating whatever wrongs they believe they have suffered. Rather, all am saying is that given the multiplicity of challenges facing Nigeria today, when for more than 6 months now, the NNPC has not been able to remit a penny to the federation account, not to mention insecurity which has rendered farming,  our people’s main occupation – extremely dangerous, the least any lover of Ekiti can do is ensure he does not further complicate, in Ekiti, the difficulties that now confront all the states in Nigerian without exception.

    With what Ekiti people have gone through since directly after the referenced 2003 date, there is no way anybody would believe that no Nigerian state is half as homogenous as Ekiti.

    So what, other than ego, is the problem, the casus belli, between these our esteemed politicians?

    A solution has now got to be found to whatever it is. The politics of the state has, for over a decade and a half, been pretty atavistic, and has, as should be expected, very negatively impacted the state’s overall development. I have never stopped imagining what ekiti would look like today if only 6o per cent of its  political elite were ad idem, working together, in one mind for her development.

    Read Also: PHOTOS: First aircraft lands in new Ekiti airport

    This must be why Osundare went further in his referenced lecture to say that:”A frightful lot has happened to Ekitiland since 2001 when my first Values lecture engaged the attention of my fellow Amoye Grammar School alumni. Our state has see-sawed from light to darkness, darkness to light, and back to darkness again, as we fumbled from gubernatorial tenures marked by civility and visionary idealism to others characterized by primitive despotism and medieval barbarism. We became the only state in Nigeria clamped down under a state of emergency and humiliated with the imposition of a unilaterally appointed sole administrator, even in a civilian dispensation”.

    He said more: “Most, if not all Ekiti politicians, appear to have forgotten everything about the values Ekitis were renowned for in the past. Values, which he said, play a vital role in the determination of what society categorises as acceptable behaviour which, in turn, shapes what gets described as abominations or taboos”.

    He actually believes, as I do, that taboos no longer exist for many an Ekiti politician , as all that now matters is electoral victory, achieved no matter how.

    It will surprise the reader to know that many of these Ekiti elite politicians are not even on speaking terms.

    I can only ask why?

    Before I am misunderstood, let me repeat again, as I never fail to do in my writings, that Ekiti politicians, in their personal capacity, are Omoluabis but, unfortunately, most of them simply refuse to let this impact their  politics, with serious socio – economic consequences for the state.

    It was all the above that inspired the article ‘Ekiti: I Ask Again Must Our Politicians Always Fight To The Death?’ (13 February, 2022) in which I wrote as follows:”Thematically, since the totally unexpected defeat of Otunba Niyi Adebayo in 2003, after only his  first term, successive governorship elections in the state, as if Ekiti is under a curse, has always been something of a fight to the death among the contestants. Most astonishing is the  fact that the protagonists have always been brilliant young men  you  would have believed would lay a solid foundation  for a thriving, and prosperous, Ekiti. Incidentally, some of  them did find their way to the governorship seat but were buffeted by intractable intra, and inter – party squabbles which ensured that whatever they managed to achieve as governor, could possibly have  been quadrupled had they operated in an atmosphere of relative peace. This scenario, which started in 2003, has remained with us ever since, to our eternal shame”.

    There are other instances when I have tried, both on these pages, and elsewhere, to personally  moderate, or get some other highly regarded Ekiti icons, to help in ameliorating the sad situation. For instance, I recall once writing to three eminent Ekiti sons, all of them  Senior Advocates of Nigeria, with a plea that we work at the problem together. These gentlemen are all respected by successive Ekiti governors, irrespective of party, but they all excused themselves on the grounds that they would not like to get involved in Ekiti politics.

    In  the article ‘Putting an End To The Ekiti Conundrum’ – 7 June, 2015 –  I wrote,  inter alia:”The result is that Ekiti has regressed even more than some states of the country where guns had been booming for years. We have had an emergency administration declared, had a one day governor, just as there had been murders and attempted murders, linked to politics. On the positive side, though, we have had some citizens, and others from outside the state, who during our  saner intervals, came to Ekiti to invest billions, especially in the hotels and tourism sub-sector. Today, however, they must be ruing the day they decided to invest in Ekiti as clients have completely drained out as a result of the unending crisis. There’s no way I could have thought that things would get so bad ten persons would be kidnapped in Ekiti within a space of two weeks, as we saw recently.

    I did not stop at writing an article, but went ahead to contact, not less than 15 highly regarded Ekiti  leaders  and distinguished  individuals , whose names I need not mention here, to help in facilitating peace between the warring parties for the sake of  Ekiti people and the development of the state.  One direct result of these contacts was the joint meeting called by Chief Deji Fasuan of the Ekiti Elders’ Committee, and the rump of the Committee for the creation of Ekiti state. Aare Afe Babalola, who I did not contact, later called another Elders meeting both for purposes of restoring peace to a beleaguered Ekiti to which every entry had been barricaded”.

    Happily, as Osundare did not fail to mention, there were instances of relative peace when a lot was achieved in terms of infrastructural development. However, rather than being one offs, Ekiti must now design a minimum 50- year, uninterrupted peace period which we will all devote to Ekiti development, working peacefully together, across party lines.

    To this end, I intend to very soon,  contact some persons with whom I shall plead that we pull together, an all- embracing larger group, from which a task force would emerge to design the Ekiti El Dorado (EED).

    Let me conclude this piece with a hearty congratulation to Governor Biodun Oyebanji , our own omoluabi governor,  who could not have been better prepared for the office, having served under two of the most consequential Ekiti governors.

    The good lord will be your guide and Guardian and keep your family safe, as you give of your very best to the good people of Ekiti.

    Amen.

     

  • Election as national plebiscite

    Election as national plebiscite

    The forthcoming presidential election is so consequential that it can be regarded as a plebiscite on the future of Nigeria. Here are the reasons. Despite some negligible gains here and there, Nigeria’s political and economic cultures have reached a point of exhaustion, having evolved in a particular negative direction where growth and development are no longer feasible. Any further attempt to pursue this course is the path of self-destruction.

    A plebiscite is an advisory referendum on whether a nation should jettison the past and chart an entirely new course. For such to take place means that the nation is still somehow holding together despite the tempest and nation-consuming circumstances. Invariably, a referendum takes place when a nation has virtually reached the point of no return; an ethnic cum religious census in which its fate and continued existence hang in the balance.

    Every human society, in the course of its historical evolution, reaches a point when old answers will no longer do for fresh historical posers, and when emergent contradictions such as rapid urbanization arising from population explosion, demographic reconfiguration issuing from aging and dying off suddenly pose a serious challenge to the old order. In such circumstances, the wise people of society must put on their thinking cap.

    Unfortunately for Nigeria, the demons of national demolition pursuing the nation are unrelenting in their determination to bring it to heel. A referendum does not steal upon a nation. It is usually the manifestation of the failure of elite consensus which would have been building up and playing out for quite some time.

    As the presidential campaigns take off, many members of the political class do not seem to appreciate what is in the offing. When you combine widespread social unease arising from hunger, insecurity and mass unemployment, with the possibility of elite disruption of the electoral process, you have a classic recipe for terminal implosion.

    With the mindboggling revelations of the scale of oil theft by both state and non-state actors in the riverine areas of the nation, the economic and political woes of the country seem to have assumed a novel and damning dimension.  A local wit summed up the development for yours sincerely with devastating pungency during the week. “You see, shark no dey hunt shark. Tompolo na government and government na Tompolo”.

    Government Ekpemupolo, aka Tompolo, the new prince of the Niger Delta, is a hard-dying fellow indeed. Up till this moment, he seems to have lived a charmed life. As an outlaw and rugged denizen of the creeks and their labyrinthine waterways, he has survived years of hostile state surveillance and relentless artillery bombardment only to emerge from open hiding as a hero and model citizen.

    In his current incarnation as a lawful agent of the state and supreme protector of oil facilities, the sparce, supremely self-assured fellow  has made a lot of startling revelations about state collusion with criminal elements and officially enabled diversions without as much as a rebuttal from the authorities. Meanwhile while Government and government are at it, Angola has already outpaced Nigeria in the oil production sector.

    Gabon and Equatorial Guinea seem to be piling up all pressures. If they maintain their national stability under their authoritarian regimes, it is only a question of time. With revenues accruing to the federal authorities dramatically declining as a result of this siege, it should be clear that Nigeria is bleeding to death economically. It will take a drastic change of direction to reverse the trend.

    As the criminalization of the postcolonial state proceeds apace, the entire nation-state is beginning to resemble a vast crime scene or a bazaar of medieval engorgement. In a recent profile of Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party, a foreign magazine openly dismissed the country as a kleptocracy. With their war chest bulging with proceeds from the “Exclusive List”, it should not come as a surprise that the combined wealth of some non-state actors outstrips the sovereign wealth of the nation. It doesn’t get more scary.

    Between state and non-state actors, there is a convergence of criminality in which the state has become a horrific joke. With the north already laid waste by banditry and kidnapping, nothing can be more destabilizing to a nation either politically, economically or even spiritually. The slow economic strangulation of the nation can only eventuate in anarchy and stateless anomie.

    When the combined estimates of munitions and military grade weaponry in the arsenal of individuals and non-state organizations alike outstrip what the government can boast of, the stage is set for this lethal hardware to be deployed for general duties.

    If it is the protection of the traditional state monopoly of the instrument of coercion that has led the federal authorities to consistently turn down the legitimate application of the Amotekun corps for military grade weaponry to guarantee the safety of life and property in its area of jurisdiction, it should be obvious that the horse has already bolted.

    Read Also: FG to civil servants: Be above board in 2023 election

    What is actually unfolding is a fate worse than peaceable restructuring or even resource control. If this can be happening under the watch of a president with a military background, one must shudder at the grave responsibility accruing to the incoming government of “pure” civilians. If care is not taken, and if urgent steps are not put in place to recuperate the essence and raison d’etre of the state, nothing will stop the nation from an apocalyptic meltdown resulting in warlord enclaves and anarchic fiefdoms.

    As many commentators have essayed, the disintegration of Nigeria will lead to a humanitarian catastrophe of world-historic magnitude. The entire West Africa corridor will be overwhelmed by the refugee crisis. Once it has been fundamentally scrambled by adverse circumstances, it will be extremely difficult to put Nigeria back as one single, unified unit.

    The unitarist vision of Nigeria isn’t going anywhere. Not even after a thousand elections and stage-managed transitions. In this hour of distress and dire emergency, what Nigeria needs is a visionary statesman of uncommon mettle and courage and not somebody with the misbegotten mindset of hegemonic domination.  Nigeria does not need a tribal panjandrum but a heroic bridge-builder who can persuade the vital components to sheath their sword and see the bright possibilities.

    As we have noted several times in this column, Nigeria is a wonderful tribute to the self-undermining genius of the colonial imaginary. If it did not exist in their imagination, the idea of a huge nation serving as a Mecca of self-actualization for the teeming population of the oppressed and marginalized Black people the world over would have had to be willed into actuality by existential necessity.

    But Nigeria is taking too long to gel and come together. The human toll is becoming prohibitive. As an early colonial outpost and with its skilled emigrants on manumission from Brazil, its haul of modernized recaptives streaming in from Sierra Leone, its posse of enterprising indigenous people and the dash of Arab zeitgeist infiltrating from the Sahara Desert, Nigeria ought to prove a brilliant melting point; a wonderful conurbation of underprized and undervalued humanity.

    So far so depressing and disappointing. The obvious strengths have proved to be the source of manifest weaknesses. Occasionally, the brilliant possibilities glimmer and shine through like a lone candle before being snuffed out by the combined forces of overwhelming darkness. Nigeria is proving the Black person’s Waterloo in the inability to nurture and grow a viable nation; a Pandora box of roiling and self-subverting contraries.

    Like an impoverished bricklayer saddled with poor material, the political realist of the Nigerian condition must work with what is available rather than what ought to be available. It is a historical verity that people make history but not under the circumstances of their choice. Historical conditioning and structural contingencies often make it impossible even in better managed societies to throw up their best leadership materials. Only those with the means and the will to power often prevail.

    This is why it is important to continue to struggle for a better society, whatever the glaring deficiencies and imperfections of the moment. Democracy is never given or granted on mere verbal request. The tree of democracy is watered by the blood of many martyrs, unsung, unknown and uncelebrated. They are like discarded pawns and sacrificed knights in a consuming game of chess.

    Whatever its glaring imperfections and frank anomalies, the Fourth Republic has come a long way. From the abolition of the electorate, the jarring visibility of the selectorate, vote-snatching, candidate-garnishing and ballot box-switching, we have arrived at a point where votes are beginning to count and where increasing voters’ awareness and consciousness of civic responsibility have dramatically reduced such primitive anti-democratic practices.

    The Nigerian electorate has arrived at the threshold of new possibilities. This has been made possible not because the Nigerian ruling classes at both the national and sub-national levels have suddenly become a Father Christmas dispensing electoral munificence to the people. The concession has been wrested at the cost of a vicious struggle in which many perished and several amputees of democracy litter the terrain.

    Despite its massive militarization of governance procedures, its manifest imperfections and glaring contradictions and the antecedents of its helmsman as a military dictator, it will be said of this outgoing regime that it contributed immensely to this deepening of the democratic process.

    Some will argue that this only happened after Genaral Buhari’s appetite for democratic conquest has sated. However that is, it can also be pointed out that after all some of his predecessors couldn’t care a hoot about whether the nation dissolved in an anti-democratic inferno.

    This conditional pass mark will however depend on whether the administration passes the litmus test of conducting a free and fair election whose outcome is acceptable to the generality of Nigerians. The Nigerian multitude, with its hordes of disaffected déclassé and unemployed youth, appear to have sniffed blood. A wise ruler knows when the game is up for electoral gaming. General Buhari seems to have his instincts in the right place, except some hubristic fancy overtakes him on the home stretch.

    All things considered, the coming presidential election will be so consequential that it will determine Nigeria’s future and whether it remains one entity or not. It is an opportunity to steer the nation in a different direction. Let those who are saddled with the responsibility take note.