The Nation Newspaper

Category: Sunday

  • No candidate adopted by the Chief Ayo Adebanjo faction of Afenifere has ever won a presidential election

    No candidate adopted by the Chief Ayo Adebanjo faction of Afenifere has ever won a presidential election

    The highly regarded Chief Ayo Adebanjo, a control freak, now has in his hands, the Afenifere he has always craved; the one he could carve in his own image, control and direct. You doubt this, look round those surrounding him, and ask yourself how representative of Yoruba states they are.  And for an encompassing history of Afenifere, and how much some people had wanted it to be under their grip, I urge the reader to please get any of the following books: Clapping with one hand: June 12 and the crisis of a state nation and The open grave: Nadeco and the struggle for Democracy in Nigeria, both authored by Hon Olawale Oshun,   Chairman of  the Afenifere Renewal Group ( ARG).

    Equally, always wanting to be more catholic than the Pope, Chief Adebanjo this past week, rail -roaded his Afenifere faction to a Press Conference where he announced their endorsement of  Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Labour party.

    This was at a time when Ohanaeze Ndigbo, said “It will be childish” to do so.  If Ohanaeze would not endorse Obi, isn’t this Afenifere faction logically being childish?

    This, of course, is not the first time Chief Adebanjo is backing a political party, and a people who, historically, did everything to hamstring the presidential ambition of Chief Obafemi Awolowo – Adebanjo’s sole route to political fame – even though he is forever talking of his unmatchable closeness to the Avatar. Not even when the husband of Awo’s grand daughter was on a ticket did Chief Adebanjo feel reluctant to work against a party that is largely supported by Yorubas. He calls it principles, but I call it ETANU.

    Much about that later.

    In 2015, he tied his faction to the apron strings of candidate Goodluck Jonathan because he said the man would restructure Nigeria,  exactly what he is saying of Peter Obi today even though nobodu can quote the Labour party candidate on restructuring.

    But what did Professor Bolaji Akinyemi say recently about President Jonathan and Chief Adebanjo’s promise?

    Hear him:

    “But when he (Jonathan) then lost courage, we divided the result (of the 2014 confab) into three quadrants; one of which needed executive approval. All he needed was to sign it, but he didn’t. I then met him and asked him to implement his own part, and he said, ‘Oh, I am coming back to the office. When we get in, we will do so”. “And I said, ‘Sir, you’re not God. It’s only God who decides who sits on that chair. He only took it to the National Assembly when he lost the election. And of course, the National Assembly would not sign a document by a president who had lost an election”.

    Of course, not even that calamity would mollify Chief Adebanjo who believed he could do whatever with Afenifere.

    It was to Atiku Abubakar he next carried it.  Meanwhile, here was an Atiku who never had the nerve to canvass restructuring anywhere in  Northern Nigeria, and had, apart from boasting he has three Igbo daughters, twice chosen Igbo running mates thereby, unequivocally, demonstrating his love for Ndigbo over and above the Yoruba. But not even that too meant a thing to Chief Adebanjo as long as he can oppose whichever party majority Yoruba were rooting for.

    But trust him to say he was acting on principles.

    Ask me what advantage Yorubas ever derived from his political exertions, and I’ll say he got for us, from President Jonathan, a tokenist appointment – a literally meaningless, as at the time – Chief of staff which went to  Gen Jones Oladehinde Arogbofa (Rtd) who was by no means half as effective as the president President Jonathan’s kinsman,  and  Special Assistant on Domestic Matters, Waripamowei Dudafa.

    If to play the lackey to President Jonathan in 2015, Afenifere engaged the candidate at a meeting in Akure, what exactly has Chief Adebanjo, acting alone, discussed with  Peter Obi, this time around, concerning Yorubas ahead the 2023 election, in a putative government Yoruba will be completely absent in its leadership cadre? I guess it is enough that it is Chief  Adebanjo taking Yoruba to the promised land via  their new OHANIFERE, handing them  over to our Igbo bretheren just like Col Emeka Ojukwu asked of Col Banjo when he would have conquered the West with the help of biafran soldiers.

    What, indeed, can be better?

    It is called acting on principles, and the presidency would be handed to Ndigbo on a platter, even if the people are, themselves, prepared to compete.

    Fortunately, however, Chief Sehinde Arogbofa,  the Secretary General of Afenifere, in a 2019 interview, tells us below exactly how Afenifere’s endorsement  of a candidate should  proceed: Question: What is the position of Afenifere on the quality, credibility and capability of the current presidential aspirants?

    “We are still watching the aspirants, but one thing is imperative for whoever we are going to adopt. Such a person must not just talk about restructuring but he must be prepared to do the restructuring in a way different from the 1999 constitution. We are also looking at the characters of the aspirants because we don’t want to be deceived again…”

    So where, or at what point, did Chief Adebanjo get from Peter Obi, the guarantees for which he has literally, single handedly endorsed his candidacy as a “one leader, and a hundred followers’ diktat? Can he quote Obi’s views on restructuring for Nigerians to see? What are Obi’s views on the 1999 constitution? In case chief Adebanjo is unaware, here it is – quoting Obi in a television interview:” The(1999) constitution might have its own problems but our constitution is not what is keeping us where we are today, it is bad leadership. Not withstanding the constitution, you can drive everybody along and still make the country productive”.

    Read Also: Over to you, Chief Adebanjo

    Pray, does that look, anywhere, like Chief Adebanjo’s views on the 1999 constitution which he has severally described as: ”fraudulent; did not articulate the collective will of the Nigerian people, having been imposed on the nation by the military”?

    Also, in contradistinction to Chief Adebanjo’s endorsement, and somewhat, allying with Chief Arogbofa, let us see the processes Chief Olu Falae, whose cause Chief Adebanjo championed at the infamous ‘De Rovans’ debacle orchestrated by the Afenifere Control Group, said an endorsement  should go through. Speaking through CAPT M. A. RAJI(rtd), his personal Assistant, while  denying that he has, or was one of those who claim to have endorsed Peter Obi, declared as follows:”The attention of Chief

    Olu Falae CFR, GCON has just been drawn to a publication that has gone viral in which the former Secretary to the Federal government is quoted as saying that he is supporting the candidature of Mr Peter Obi as his preferred choice in the 2023 Presidential race. Although, Chief Falae admitted that he said that it was true that the South East has not had the opportunity of being Nigeria’s President, it is for them to persuade other Nigerians that they can offer something better than candidates from other geopolitical zones. It is not an automatic slot that can be filled without other important considerations. Chief Falae never canvassed or claimed to be supporting Mr Peter Obi of the Labour Party for the 2023 race. As a responsible leader, Chief Falae will consider all important parameters, including capacity, experience and proven track record before endorsing a candidate. This correction is necessary in order not to mislead the public. It is necessary to await the programmes and manifestos of the political parties and their candidates before arriving at a particular candidate to support”.

    A million thanks to the Baale Oluabo of Ilu Abo, and the Gbobaniyi of Akure, Chief Olu Falae.

    He is, indeed, a master of process.

    So I ask: If Chief Falae has not endorsed Obi and we have not read anywhere that our highly regarded elder statesman, Chief Reuben Fasoranti – who treats me like a son – has done so, which Afenifere is Chief Ayo Adebanjo planning to turn to a Peter Obi plaything?

    Where exactly can Nigerians read Peter Obi’s views on restructuring, which views  Chief Adebanjo claims fetched him  Afenifere’s endorsement, even ahead of Ohanaeze’s?

    Yorubas are no fools and those conversant with the political history of the Yoruba, especially since the translation, to higher glory, of the Avatar, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, would know that Chief Adebanjo is not  being driven by principles,  no matter how many times he claims that, but by what Yorubas call ETANU, as I indicated above.

    In 2011, he had backed candidate Muhammadu Buhari, and his ‘numero uno’ subaltern, the much missed Yinka Odumakin,  of blessed memory, was Buhari’s campaign spokesperson. In 2015, they took Afenifere to candidate Goodluck Jonathan promising that Yorubas would vote for him because of restructuring, but as it turned out,  PDP did not even make restructuring a campaign issue. It , therefore, fell to Afenifere alone, to sweat all over the entire  Southwest, preaching to the converted about restructuring.

    Ditto 2019, when they again took Afenifere to Atiku Abubakar, a man who only mouths restructuring, but cannot canvass it anywhere in the core North.

    If of a fact Chief Adebanjo is being driven by principles, and Atiku Abubakar is a candidate in the 2023 election, why is he not endorsing him again? Is it that  he so loves Ndigbo?

    He must really be more Ndigbo than Igbos because as you read this, not many politically consequential Igbos have endorsed Peter Obi.

    Again,  isn’t this being more royal than the king?

    Rather than being driven by principles, the following is what is playing out.

    Chief Adebanjo, and our eminent, and highly regarded elders of Afenifere used to be the go to people in Yoruba land. We, indeed, swore by their names, and they were the nearest to our pantheon of gods or local dieties.

    But no more.

    No thanks to the then young and audacious Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who sent them all to political Siberia in Yoruba land since  the Avatar’s glorious departure.

    As governor, in his first term, there was no inanity they did not visit on him as they severally stood him up for hours at meetings, questioning him.

    But Chief Bisi Akande – former Osun state governor and the first Chairman of the APC,  did not just call Bola Ahmed Tinubu the ‘strategic thinker’, and devoted a whole chapter to that subject in his Autobiography: Bisi Akande – My Participations, Pages 477 – 484.

    Tinubu is the quintessential strategist.

    He waited and bidded his time. And that time came in 2003 when then President Olusegun Obasanjo sold the entire Southwest leadership of AD, sans Tinubu, a pig in a poke – deceived them all, and ensured he installed PDP governors in all Southwest states, except Lagos during that year’s general election.

    Whether at meetings to which Obasanjo came dressed up, to curry their favour, or to the particular one which he attended wearing only shorts, to put all the Yoruba ‘eminence greese’ present in their place once he had successfully screwed them, Tinubu gave them all a wide berth. Never attended one.

    But subsequently deploying enormous resources, and putting his  Attorney-General, Prof Yemi Osinbajo, now Nigeria’s Vice President, to the arduous task for which he sent him to the UK , Tinubu got the services of Adrian Forty, the most experienced finger print expert in the entire United Kingdom, who worked with 63 policemen ,to unravel the PDP rigging, using Forensic science. He used it  to demonstrate in court, how the elections were rigged through massive thumb printing and thus enabled Tinubu to retrieve Ekiti, Osun, Ondo and Edo states from PDP, thereby shaming everybody who had a hand in bringing that odium on Southwest’s progressive political history.

    That  was how Tinubu became their infernal enemy and a subject of great envy who some of them would do anything in their attempt to put down but rather than go down, its been upwards ever.

    Since then, they had fabricated  stories upon stories, cooked up various alliances, all in an attempt to reduce Tinubu’s political influence in Yoruba lañd but all had failed.

    And will continue to fail as the Lord liveth because Tinubu means well, not only for Yoruba land, but for Nigeria.

  • Let ponmo be

    Let ponmo be

    Govt should address Nigeria’s major problems instead of thinking of banning this popular delicacy. Ponmo ko lo kan.

    Like other bad news, the report that the Federal Government was contemplating banning ponmo came as a rude shock to millions of the delicacy’s lovers. This is not the first time that such proposal would be made public, though. I do not know the time it all started, but I know that sometimes in the 80s and 90s, we were told the imperative of banning the delicacy. I remember I had at least reacted to the proposal with an article titled ‘Ponmo for life’. In that article, I made it abundantly clear that as for me and my household, nothing can separate us from ponmo. Not sickness or anxiety; or ban; not even affluence because I love ponmo not necessarily because I am poor but because I chose to love it. I still stand by that decision.

    It would appear that the Director-General of the Nigerian Institute of Leather and Science Technology (NILEST), Zaria, Prof. Muhammad Yakubu, stirred the hornet’s nest this time around when he said that the institute and other stakeholders would be approaching the National Assembly and state governments for a legislation to ban the consumption of cow skin. This, according to him is necessary to revive the moribund tanneries and leather industry in the country.

    I thought Yakubu was going to tell us something different from the usual puerile reasons those before him had given for the ban. But he didn’t. As usual with Nigerian officials, he merely recycled the old and better-forgotten reasons: em, en, ponmo has no nutritional value. We have always heard that and it never took the proponents of that position far.

    By the way, why do we like to recycle bad things in Nigeria? There is nothing Nigerian public officials would not recycle, except those things that would add value to our lives. They recycle worn-out excuses over anything under the sun. Remember the fuel subsidy debate. That was how they kept on trying to force subsidy withdrawal down our throats, telling us what they consider its advantages without telling us why their country that God gave crude oil must be importing petroleum products. Our public officials even recycle themselves when it is clear that many of them are unfit for their various positions. But we have not succeeded in recycling waste to wealth. We cannot recycle garbage to give us the much needed electricity and so on.

    Sorry for that digression. It was called for, though.

    As I was saying, Yakubu said when we eat ponmo, we are merely exercising our jaws. That we gain nothing from the exercise. Hear him: “To the best of my knowledge, Nigerians are the only people in the world that overvalue skin as food, after all, ponmo has no nutritional value. ”

    I dare say that it is fallacy to say that “Nigerians are the only people in the world that overvalue skin as food”, as Yakubu tried to make us believe. There are other places where ponmo is delicacy. At least Google told me so: “Cow skin/Cowhide also known as kpomo is the covering of a cow processed and used for cooking many delicacies in West African countries like Nigeria, Ghana, Togo, Cameroon, etc, and also in West Indian and the Caribbean.”

    Even if Yakubu was right that we are the only ponmo-loving people in the world, what is wrong with that? What is wrong in believing in something and standing by that decision, irrespective of whether we are the only people in the world that believe in it or not?

    Read Also: Seven reasons to avoid eating Ponmo

    But ultimately it turned out that it is not for any altruistic love for the rest of us that Yakubu wants ponmo banned. Rather, he and his co-travellers want to kill our dear ponmo to save their own livelihood. Yakubu said our love for ponmo is partly why tanneries in the country are comatose. “If we get our tanneries, our footwear and leather production working well in Nigeria, people will hardly get ponmo to buy and eat”, he said. I wouldn’t blame Yakubu for advancing his personal interest. After all,

    the NILEST that he heads was set up to promote leather production in the country, in line with provisions of the Agricultural Research Institute Act of 1975. What I detest is his attempt to kill our own joy so he and his co-travellers could be happy.

    The truth of the matter is that Yakubu and Co. can never go far. Like their predecessors, they would soon meet a brick wall. This is because, even among the elite, the proposal to ban ponmo cannot fly. One, the ban, if ever there is anything of such, will not work. Just as the puerile arguments for subsidy removal (for a crude producing country that imports refined petroleum products), we have been hearing news about what the proponents of the ban call the bad aspects of ponmo. It’s like calling a dog a bad name in order to hang it. More importantly, are we saying there are no billionaires in this country today who cannot do without ponmo? The fact of the matter is that ponmo has grades. I have the locus to speak on it. I have eaten ponmo and I have eaten ponmo. So, I know what I am talking about.

    Further research indeed makes me understand that ponmo “is a good weight loss meat that is unique with less calories and tastes nice when properly cooked in dishes.” To this, I can testify. There was this popular joint on the old Oregun Road (now Kudirat Abiola Way) some years ago, where we used to relax after a hectic day’s job. The woman who owned the joint was selling only ponmo which we usually washed down with whatever drink we bought. The woman deserved a national award for her dexterity in preparing the cow skin. It was so well cooked and garnished with pepper and other condiments. It was so tantalising that the joint attracted even managers of companies and other executives on the fairly eyebrow road. As a matter of fact, hardly would you get to the place without buying the ponmo, whether it was in your original plan or not because of the open invitation that the display of the delicacy offered from the show glass where it was tantalisingly displayed. As big as the show glass was, the contents would almost always be exhausted by about 7 o’clock in the evening. I used to think that a beer joint cannot fetch money without pepper soup until I tasted the Oregun Road experience. The thing is for you not to taste it. Once you did, you got hooked to it. In our days as children, our parents would tell us that such experience could teach a child to steal!

    Be that as it may, it is clear from public reactions to the depressing news that the Buhari government does not need any expert to tell it never to contemplate banning ponmo unless the government wants to think or behave like someone who plucks leaves and puts in his mouth in the presence of the deaf. Such a person is courting the trouble of the deaf (eni ja ewe senu penren, iyen  lo nwa ijongbon odi). Whoever has seen the deaf in an angry mode will agree that that is not the best of troubles to court.

    I know that there are issues with the way ponmo is processed in some places. The tyres they use in preparing it, which could make people susceptible to cancer and so on. But beheading is not the solution to headache. To ban ponmo on account of such crudity would be like killing a fly with a sledge hammer. It is analogous to calling for a ban on vehicles because of road crashes. Several other edibles are treated in the same unhygienic and crude manner. I often see the way cassava flour, yam flour, etc are dried on bare concrete by the roadside whenever I am travelling. What the situation calls for is continual enlightenment on how to better process these items to make them safe for human consumption.

    Meanwhile, those who want ponmo banned should understand one thing: and that is that each time they contemplate it, they never go far; in no time the matter fizzles out. Nigerians see it as storm in a tea cup. As a matter of fact, the more they keep telling Nigerians what they consider to be the disadvantages of the delicacy, the more ponmo continues to get more converts. There must be something beyond the ordinary to this.

    I seize this opportunity to assure my fellow ponmo lovers that our popular delicacy is king in its own right; even if it does not wear a crown. And no man born by a woman, or who dropped from the sky or sprang up from the soil can ban it. Ponmo ko lo kan. Nigeria has so many problems that require more urgent attention. Even if it means going barefooted to preserve the sanctity of ponmo, we are ready to go barefooted.

    Anyone whose existence of ponmo is threatening his or her life or livelihood should creatively think of an alternative to it as source of raw materials for their job. This is the age where creativity makes all the difference. If cow skin is no longer available to make shoes, they should look for something else or perish. They should not kill our delicacy in the process of finding a way out of their own predicament.

    Yakubu himself seemed to recognise what he and his colleagues are up against when he said that, “At one point, there was a motion before the two chambers of the National Assembly, it was debated but I don’t know how the matter was thrown away.” I can assure him; this one too would be thrown away. If the poorest country in the world bans ponmo, what then would be the fate of the millions who cannot afford something else?

  • Finally, the campaigns begin

    Finally, the campaigns begin

    It will take a few more weeks, perhaps two to three, before the 2023 election campaigns really gain momentum. The All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) are still enmeshed in the balancing act of constituting their presidential campaign councils. If disharmony still lurks in their councils, they will summon all the diplomatic tact necessary to paper over the cracks. They will, however, meet with varying degrees of success. But once underway, they should be able to match and outpace the feisty Labour Party (LP) crowd, though majority of voters will not bother about rallies, let alone road walk. The LP is a small party with a dreamy and pertinacious presidential candidate, Peter Obi. Because he embodies and now revivifies a party that was initially doomed to anonymity, his presidential campaign council will neither be prone to serious disharmony nor complicated. Take Mr Obi out of the party, and the LP dreadnought will sink under the weight of its insignificance and vacuity. Somehow, the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) has begun to recede from the political space and the electorate’s consciousness. If its leaders do nothing to reawaken it from slumber, it will fade altogether.

    The leading contenders for the diadem still remain the APC and the PDP. Since May and June when they had their primaries, party leaders and candidates, including voters, have engaged in feverish calculations over the possible outcomes of the coming polls. They are right to analyse the geopolitical colourations of the voters and try to assign weights to the zones. They are also right to second-guess the country on what the prevailing moods are, whether they favour the same-faith ticket of the APC or embrace the Fulani North ticket of the PDP. Indeed, they cast furtive and anxious glances at the menacing strength and chances of the LP, but they are unlikely to be considerably fazed by Mr Obi’s doggedness, at least not until the battle is truly and irrevocably joined. However, all the parties who imagined they stood a chance of making a strong showing at the presidential poll or even winning it when the spadework started earlier in the year may have begun to reassess everything anew.

    PDP devotees are unsure how their party’s chairmanship controversy would be resolved, but however it is resolved will definitely impact their presidential bid. Iyorchia Ayu, their beleaguered chairman, will be consulting party leaders to determine his next move. He is loth to relinquish his position, and the candidate, Atiku Abubakar, is especially fond of Dr Ayu, the indispensable tool for his coronation as standard-bearer. But the southern wing of the party led by the intransigent Rivers State governor Nyesom Wike advocates for rotation in favour of a chairman from the South, preferably the Southwest. The southern wing’s campaign resonates with many party members and leaders, though some have already reconciled themselves to the status quo. If Alhaji Atiku is merely playing hardball, and is in fact willing to let go of Dr Ayu, the party will hope that significant damage had not already been done to the party fabric by the needless controversy. Mr Wike himself, as the soul of the internal opposition in the party, will also have to determine that he had not taken his rebellion too far to the point of no return. If reconciliation is done and a southern chairman emerges, it will remain for the Wike crowd to do some introspection on whether after all is said and done Alhaji Atiku can ever be trusted again. The governor had dismissed him as unreliable and divisive; would his concession, should it happen, not be interpreted as Machiavellian?

    As the campaigns rev to life, LP’s Mr Obi has opportunistically scheduled repeated interactions with Mr Wike and his camp. But the Rivers governor is more astute and calculating than his volubility or irreverence suggests. Given his politics and assertiveness, it is not clear what his instincts tell him. Can he flourish in the midst of Mr Obi’s crowd to whom even the LP candidate is a captive? The aspirations of the LP supporters are decidedly not ideological; they are coloured by impatience, brusqueness, intimidation, and perhaps other ignoble interests. Students of leadership, not to talk of students of politics and history, are privately dismayed by the predilections of the crowd around Mr Obi, not to say the candidate’s own amorphousness and controversial idealism. Mr Wike has been unable to reach realistic accommodation with APC leaders and candidate, despite a few rounds of negotiations, and despite sharing many tendencies with Bola Ahmed Tinubu. It would be surprising to see him in bed with Mr Obi with whom he is truly and inherently dissimilar.

    The APC also boasts of some rough edges. Their presidential primary and the victory of Asiwaju Tinubu were textbook perfect. Both the organisation and outcome of the primary came against the run of play. Few expected them to have it so spectacular; but they did. However, constituting their campaign council has been fraught with arguments, secret memos and misunderstanding partly caused by remnants among the party leadership whose egos had been bruised. Worse, the party’s campaign will have to walk the tightrope of gauging just how gingerly to distance itself from the controversial records of the Muhammadu Buhari administration and at the same time profit from the undeniable achievements of the same administration. Alhaji Atiku and Mr Obi will run against the Buhari record, and their campaign will resonate with a chafing and disgruntled public. Asiwaju Tinubu cannot, and should not, lest he should alienate the sizable Buhari supporters who have remained grateful to him for single-mindedly promoting and supporting their idol in 2015 and 2019. The APC, notwithstanding its same-faith ticket, will acknowledge the work it needs to do in promoting political and religious inclusivity, but emphasise, project and appropriate the phenomenal work done in infrastructural and agricultural renewal.

    Apart from the geopolitical dynamics expected to influence the outcome of the February poll, which at the moment favours the APC, focus will rest heavily on how believable the candidates are in respect of their campaign promises and how convinced voters are that their leadership, if they take the reins of power, would be transformational. Alhaji Atiku is largely conservative and has shown no demonstrable depth in managing large political entities or in envisioning the great society. As for having the courage of his convictions, Mr Wike says the former vice president cannot be trusted. His flip-flop over the open and disgraceful murder of Deborah Samuel in Sokoto State in May indicate how amoebic his principles and values have become in his desperate bid to preside over Nigeria.

    Mr Obi has been more fortunate in believability, and has even begun to think he can win. He projects honesty and sacrifice as the twin credo of his politics. For his supporters who put their privations in Nigeria down to dishonest and corrupt leaders, this Obi trait appears to be all they want and need. The LP candidate has shown little fidelity to statistics, which he shoots at the public while inebriated by the glibness of his rhetoric. His two terms as a state governor, he continues to emphasise, were noticeable not for economic or industrial transformation of Anambra but for frugality. He proposes to preside over 200m Nigerians but has not propounded any significant economic ideas and models capable of transforming Nigeria. How he hopes to persuade the public to vote for him when he has not managed to persuade himself about what he believes or hopes to do is a mystery. He is satisfied that his supporters are not a questioning lot, and that they have only a vague notion that once an honest person takes office, somehow the jigsaw would fall into place. He also seems satisfied that his supporters do not demand substance from him; and when he makes his inevitable statistical slips, they either ignore his failings or downplay his fallacies.

    But in the end, the votes will be determined geopolitically, particularly by the silent majority who have neither adapted to the religious rhetoric inundating parts of the country nor succumbed to the extravagant rallies and fierce statements made by some of the candidates. Of the three leading contenders, Nigeria’s power brokers, who herd votes, will determine whether to risk supporting Alhaji Atiku and inadvertently endorse the alienation that is certain to lead to schisms in the polity as a result of putting another Fulani man in office. Even the Christian brethren who have wailed against the same-faith ticket and gravitated towards Mr Obi will wonder whether they would not inadvertently put Alhaji Atiku in office. (After all, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has done little to mitigate the egregious parochialism of the Buhari administration). They will have to decide whether to follow the self-centred agenda of Babachir David Lawal or Hon Yakubu Dogara, or the histrionics of Prophet Isa El-Buba, all of whom have dangerously whipped up emotions over the APC ticket. (See Box).

    The campaigns have just begun, but the suspicion is that the country’s power brokers and their captive electorate fear that the PDP ticket would invariably promote alienation and ultimately destabilisation, while the LP ticket, with its feisty support base among some youths across the nation as well as Southeast voters, might in the final analysis engender and reprise the kind of conflict that led the country to a maelstrom decades ago. They may have reservations about the APC ticket, and even feel or suspect that the ruling party’s candidate may be too strong-willed to be malleable, but they may see him as the safest bet for the future. The weeks ahead will determine whether they are right and whether they can truly hold their captive voters in leash long enough to do their bidding.

     

     

    Dogara, Babachir Lawal and The Crusades

     

    Once it became clear that the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate Bola Ahmed Tinubu would not be picking a northern Christian running mate, former House of Representatives speaker, Yakubu Dogara, and former Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Babachir David Lawal, immediately flew off the handle. They have since formed a pact to cause their party as much distress as possible. At first, they began by trying to forestall the choice, but failed. Then they tried to get it reversed when a Muslim placeholder held out that possibility. Again they failed. After the choice seemed to have become cast in granite, they still held out some little hope that somehow, along the line, a miraculous reversal could materialise. But their political barometer malfunctioned. Any political watcher of moderate gift should have suspected that the APC standard-bearer had no choice, for reasons already discussed here and elsewhere, but to go to the presidential election with that kind of ticket.

    Both Hon Dogara and Mr Babachir are APC members. Once they failed to prevent the choice of same-faith ticket, it was expected that they would reconcile themselves to their party’s choice. Their recalcitrance implies that they will continue to dare their party until something gives. Since the ticket can’t and won’t be altered, the only thing that will give is for the duo to embark on a fishing trip to other parties or be forced to leave the party. The party won’t allow them to do damage from within. There are already reports that they might be looking in the direction of the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the resurgent Labour Party. But the PDP standard-bearer is the vacillating Muslim northerner, Atiku Abubakar, a former vice president, almost the perfect antithesis to their vaunted crusades against religious domination and intimidation. It would be difficult for them to embrace the object and personification of their pet animosity. Reports of their flirtations with the PDP may thus be exaggerated. Labour Party’s standard-bearer, Peter Obi, a former two-term Anambra State governor, is their only other bet.

    Hon Dogara and Mr Babachir have assigned themselves the responsibility of hoisting what they claim is the Christian banner in the North, and have whipped up negative emotions over the APC’s presidential ticket, and threatened Armageddon to boot. But the more their party appears to ignore them, the more incensed they have become. Unfortunately for them the party is even more determined to ignore them, knowing full well, all things considered, that both men have little electoral value, only name recognition. The dissenters also recognise their limitations and have sensibly but futilely hidden behind the banner of the Christian North to pummel their party. In meetings after meetings, and from one church to another, sometimes aided by the renascent politician and Christian activist and politician, Mr Obi, both Hon Dogara and Mr Babachir have tried to rouse Christians in the North into fury and rebellion. There is of course no doctrinal basis for the war they are fighting, nor political logic to the rebellion against their party, but it seems their only chance to remain relevant. Increasingly, however, they seem to be fading from view. Their hysteria, it turns out, has had minimal effect, notwithstanding the boost ubiquitous social media platforms hostile to the ruling party have given their campaign.

    The 2023 campaigns began a few days ago. But contrary to the expectations of the combative duo, the sentiment against the APC’s same-faith ticket has become tamer and tamer, driven in part by the fact that few states in the country are really conflicted about the issue. The Southwest is secular and have laboured to see same-faith ticket as an issue. Instead, the region has focused on other areas of the campaigns and the strengths and weaknesses of the candidates. The Southeast is too focused on Mr Obi’s unexampled run, including his efforts to court disaffected PDP dissenters, to be agitated about the religious complexion of party tickets. The South-South, on the other hand, has been fixated on the political soap opera written and enacted by Rivers State governor Nyesom Wike against the PDP to bother about the APC ticket. The Northwest sees the ticket as a win-win, and both the North Central and Northeast have been more bemused by the hoopla over the ticket than angry. They seem vaguely aware that both the former speaker and SGF are fighting for themselves, not for Christians as they pretend to be doing.

    Mr Babachir, for instance, is a self-confessed Christian and champion of the faith. But that is as far as his Christianity goes. Given his bitter and acerbic denunciations in the past few weeks, it is at least consoling that he is in fact not an agnostic. He could easily have been worse. For a self-confessed champion of the church, there is, however, nothing in his private and public life, not now and not in the past, that resembles anything close to the Christian standards he professes to be fighting for. He is indifferent to the virtues of patience, love, kindness, and forbearance, among others, and has badmouthed Christian bishops for seeking clarifications from APC standard-bearer. Hon Dogara, on the other hand, has been less strident but no less vehement. It is striking that the two gentlemen have not seemed discomfited using wholly secular and intemperate tools to prosecute non-secular objectives. In the weeks ahead, their campaign will likely taper off. Christian apprehension about the politicisation of religion in Nigeria, particularly the subterranean attempts by one religion to secure advantage over others or even dominate the public sector, is real. But there is no consensus as to how to achieve a level playing field, and it is doubtful whether the crusading duo’s methods are realistic or effective.

     

     

     

     

  • Prompt salary payments

    Prompt salary payments

    The proposed bill before the House of Representatives, seeking to prohibit late payment of wages and salaries as well as underpayment by employers in the country sponsored by the Speaker, Honourable Femi Gbajabiamila, is very commendable and long overdue.

    The bill which has been passed for the second reading is proposing fines and punishment for delays in payment of salaries or breaches of contracts by employers, including one-month imprisonment for any employer who owes salaries for more than 60 days.

    Among various sections, the bill in Section 2 provides that “Every employer of labour in Nigeria, whether private or public, and whether it is employing any worker on permanent or contract basis must ensure that all payment of wages, salaries, pension and all benefits to workers are paid promptly without delay weekly, fortnightly monthly, quarterly or yearly as may be agreed by parties in the contract of employment of the additional individuals”.

    Section 3 (1a,b,c) also prohibits employers from making arbitrary deductions from the wages or pension of workers unless expressly provided in the contract of engagement.

    Considering the prevalent practice in the country where employers, including the government at various levels, default in payment of their staff among other infractions of the labour laws, the proposed bill should be given urgent consideration and passed into law.

    There are many private companies, organizations and agencies of government where staff are owed for months and are still expected to perform their duties. Owing salaries is gradually becoming the norm and no longer an exemption. It’s bad enough that many employers are not paying commensurate salaries for the input of their staff and it’s even unfortunate that they make it seem that they are doing their staff a favour by paying them when they choose to.

    Arbitrary deductions contrary to the agreed conditions of service are now the order of the day in many organisations with workers at the mercy of employers taking advantage of the dire economic situation in the country to exploit them. To further underpay their staff, security companies for example impose all kinds of fines for alleged offences and deduct them from their meagre salaries.

    Even for official deductions like pensions and tax, many employers don’t pay the relevant authorities. The implication for the workers is that they are unable to benefit from such deductions after retiring or leaving their employer for whatever reason.

    Because of the lack of legislation like the proposed bill, employers don’t feel an obligation to pay their staff as regularly as they should and are not afraid of being penalized.

    A Nigerian newspaper publisher notorious for owning staff salaries and other entitlements once launched his publication in South Africa. The publication ceased publication after a few months when he could not pay monthly salaries in accordance with the laws of the country. The same publisher like many other media owners are owning their staff for months in the country while they are hypocritically reporting violations of the rights of workers in other sectors.

    While some employers may be unable to pay salaries promptly due to low patronage or not making enough revenue as they used to, some are simply living large at the expense of their staff.

    Hopefully, as soon as the proposed bill is passed, proper enforcement of the provisions will ensure that workers are paid as at when due. Workers deserved their wages as at when due and should not be unjustly denied as is the case presently in many sectors.

    It’s really sad that many people work for years and they have nothing to show for it because their welfare is not prioritised by their employers who use and dump them without the necessary law to protect their interests.

    Well done to the Speaker for initiating the bill. We need  more bills like this that shows that the law makers understand what the ordinary Nigerian is going through and what should be done to protect their rights and priviledges.

  • FOR NIGERIA AT 62

    FOR NIGERIA AT 62

    (A Nigenue* ditty)

    Land of the Lordly Niger
    And the Blessed Benue

    Whose waters throb
    With diverse shoals

    Whose virtues labour
    To undo our drought

    Whose delta oils the engine
    Of our heady strivings

    Lordly Niger
    Blessed Benue

    Teach us the magic
    Of your ageless confluence

    ————————–

    * Niger + Benue = Nigenue

  • Prophet Isa El-Buba’s tirade

    Prophet Isa El-Buba’s tirade

    Prophet Isa El-Buba is the president of EL-Buba Outreach Ministries, Int. (EBOMI), with headquarters in Jos, Plateau state, Nigeria. He is one of the many Christian leaders in recent years that have become politically active. A recent video clip of his ministration showed him swearing at and cursing those who dissented from his political views. He insisted on his political convictions and justified his political activism on the premise that the discrimination against Christians in Nigeria had become excessive. In the viral clip, he singled out the All Progressives Congress (APC) for mention, denouncing the party for presenting a Muslim-Muslim ticket for the next presidential poll. Apart from heartily and gloomily cursing Christians who planned to vote for the APC ticket, he swore that he would actively participate in electioneering. It was not surprising, therefore, to see him embracing Peter Obi’s Labour Party. He had made good his threat.

    Right before the eyes of this generation, the Medieval spirit of The Crusades (1096- 1295) has berthed in Nigeria. Not only did the prophet curse, he also walked his talk by showing up mid-September at Mr Obi’s rally/fitness walk held at the Rwang Pam Township Stadium in Jos, the Plateau State Capital. Addressing the rally, Prophet El-Buba said, “I want to appeal to Nigerians not to vote for corrupt politicians who have looted our treasury. Vote for people who have the interest of the common man at heart.” It was, of course, indefensible that the prophet showed up at a partisan political rally, but if he had limited his admonition to advocating for electoral and behavioural purity, his partisanship would have been overlooked. But true to his label as a radical Christian cleric, a fierce appellation he earned before he converted to Christianity, he bellowed: “That is why we have decided to throw our weight behind Peter Obi, the Labour Party presidential candidate because we have seen what he has done as Governor of Anambra State and his antecedents show he is someone that can bring us out of the woods.”

    It is not clear which is giving birth to which. Just what did Mr Obi do as a two-term governor that merits the prophet’s praise? As governor, Mr Obi elevated what he now describes as honesty, but more accurately parsimoniousness, as an administrative and policy feat. His eight years in office not only failed test, his administration was marked by nitpicking, insularity and paranoid attention to minutiae.  If the prophet sees anything remarkable in Mr Obi’s administration, neither he nor even the former governor himself has been able to effectively communicate it. His social media campaigns have of course been scintillating, and youths in many parts of the country have rallied behind his banner. But beyond that, the rest is empty void. Prophet El-Buba obviously wishes Mr Obi to be remarkable, and it is that wish that has given birth to his conclusion that the governor shone when he governed Anambra State.

    Then the prophet gave the clincher: “We came here to pray for a better Nigeria,” he intoned in his characteristic preachy language, “and also sensitise the citizenry about the upcoming elections.” He is not telling the truth. They didn’t go to the stadium to pray for Nigeria but to conduct a political rally, and also partly demonstrate fitness as their banners announced. Nigeria is indisputably in dire straits, but it beggars belief for a preacher of no mean standing to conflate a political rally with old time revival gathering. There are enough scriptural reasons to warn preachers who occupy the office of Christ’s ambassadors off politics, but Prophet El-Buba is probably too angry with what he sees in the country to hold his peace any longer. He must have also convinced himself that he had his congregation all locked up in Labour Party, with no room for dissent of any kind, and should any dissent crop up, it must be on pain of his horrendous curses.

    Sadly, top Christian leaders in Nigeria are themselves engaged in one form of political endorsement or another. They did it under ex-president Goodluck Jonathan, including cursing dissenters, and are now doing it again, having not learnt any lesson from overreaching themselves in direct opposition to Christian exegesis. There is, therefore, no one to warn Prophet El-Buba against his excesses and iniquitous insistence that his congregation be herded into his political column willy-nilly. There is no one to gently admonish him that his Christ would not curse anyone because of political dissent, having given His life a ransom for them. There is no one to tell the prophet that if God gave His only begotten son to die for the wicked, it would be sheer folly for anyone to curse those for whom Christ made such profound sacrifice. Alas, there is no one to tell the Jos-based prophet that by aligning with a political party, and cursing those who would not agree with him politically, he had made Christ’s death of no effect, and that worse, he had become so familiar with Christ to the point of dragging Him along to rallies.

    The Evangelicals burnt their fingers during the last United States presidential election. The Nigerian Pentecostals, who champion the current crusading and partisan fervour, are replicating the same error and misstep committed by their brethren in the US. In becoming fully politicised and making political support a doctrinal issue, the church seems to be abjuring the great and profound virtues and principles of their faith that made it possible to bring down empires and subdue kingdoms. Prophet El-Buba belongs to a group of radical and opinionated clerics who fight for the political kingdom rather than the souls of men. If it has become so easy to curse those whom Christ came to redeem and bless, simply because of political dissent, and regardless of how God loves everyone, including dissenters, Christ, the personification of love and blessing, is being compelled by the modern Nigerian preacher to take the back seat.

    Putin as uncanny reminder of Hitler

    Russia’s President Vladimir Putin committed two major shocking leadership blunders in the past few weeks that have triggered uncanny comparisons between him and Germany’s World War II mastermind, Adolf Hitler. Firstly, Mr Putin has threatened mass destruction, using nuclear weapons, against Ukraine because of embarrassing setbacks in battles along the extended frontline between Russia and Ukraine. Threatening mass destruction, and swearing it was not a bluff, speaks to his readiness, if not ghoulishness, to use the apocalyptic weapons, even if he eventually balks at using them. To not flinch at causing so much pain for doubtful, ephemeral and questionable goals indicates complete callousness. Hitler did not flinch at causing mass deaths, as the holocaust showed, and he had no remorse whatsoever. Mr Putin is cut from the same cloth, notwithstanding his genuine apprehensions about NATO expansionism and national security threats.

    Secondly, Mr Putin has annexed four conquered Russian-speaking Ukrainian regions. This is a misplaced and shortsighted imitation of Hitler’s execrable policy of Lebensraum (or living space). How the Russian leader, with all his years as president, has not acquired the wisdom to know that such forceful takeovers do not last is hard to explain. He should ask himself the stories of Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia (now Czech Republic) which Hitler’s Germany annexed based on the 1938 Munich Agreement, and Alsace-Lorraine (now Alsace-Moselle) in France which Germany also annexed in 1871 after the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871. Why he thinks his annexation of Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson in Ukraine would last, assuming he won the war, is incomprehensible. Hitler used the annexation of Sudetenland as pretext to launch a world war that consumed between 40m to 50m people (some estimates put the figure at over 70m), or nearly three percent of the world’s estimated population of some 2.3bn people at the time. Mr Putin has spoken carelessly and recklessly of provoking a world war simply to save face. He does not seem to bother about the millions who could be consumed in the war. He will not last.

  • Fumbling and wobbling to conclusion

    Fumbling and wobbling to conclusion

    For the umpteenth time, Nigeria is celebrating its independence anniversary in a dark and sombre mood. There is a foul distemper in the air. Everybody is cross with everybody and all are working at cross purposes. Except for solitary triumphs in the areas of sports, music, arts and fashion, there is no feel good factor which invigorates and reassures many other nations that have found themselves in equally distressing circumstances.

    You cannot blame anybody for crying after they have been thoroughly whipped. Nigerians have taken a bad beat, as the Americans will put it. Only their legendary toughness, an inbred resilience combined with an elastic capacity for suffering, has kept many going. Never in the history of the country have so many man-made adversities come together at once.

    Just consider these. The kids have been home from the universities for eight months and still counting. The economy is prostrate. There is an administrative bankruptcy the like of which has never been witnessed in the history of the nation. Given the unprecedented bloodletting and other existential nightmares, the country seems to be on an auto-pilot to the zone of extinction.

    Never has the country been so badly and bitterly polarized. From the possibility of elite consensus, we have now arrived at the probability of elite disruption of the electoral process. On all sides, there are parasites of religious passion and vermin of political implosion fanning the embers and rallying their supporters to the rampart.

    Readers of this column must remember that on several occasions, we had warned about the dangers of electoralism which does not make a dent on major aspects of the National Question. Once our politicos allowed themselves to be boxed into the corner, structural contingencies and hegemonic conspiracies will take over returning us to familiar circumstances in which elections are held but nothing is resolved.

    Read Also: Cultural genius and national delinquency 

    Now the chickens have come home to roost. Perhaps for the first time in the post- Independence history of the nation, we are going into an election without a substantial elite consensus. The old power blocs are in disarray. As the gyre widens, the falcon can no longer hear the ancient falconers.

    It is symptomatic of this confusion that the lionized Afenifere patriarch, Chief Ayo Adebanjo, could be rooting for a candidate of rogue political provenance and even more suspect ideological pedigree without feeling the pulse of other elite segments of his people or caring a hoot about ancestral memory and sub-ethnic sensitivities in a multi-ethnic polity roiling in perpetual animosities.

    Meanwhile and as if to emphasize the strategic futility of this particular gambit, the apex political organization of the old titan’s preferred candidate are stonewalling about the political and economic value of their own son. Unfortunately, this makes the Afenifere grandee very vulnerable to the charge of the instrumentalization of politics for the purpose of vengeance and vendetta.

    As for the old northern feudal hegemonic bloc, they are equally discombobulated by developments. They have had it up to the hilt with Buhari’s ethnic revanchism which has come at the stiff price of the imminent disintegration of the nation. But they are afraid of what is to come after him.

    You cannot keep a people down without staying down with them. For the first time, the Nigerian selectorate have their political wits completely scrambled. Despite the grandstanding, the huffing and puffing by one or two of them, it has been impossible for them to come up with a viable candidate. Their comeuppance seems to be around the corner.

    Unlike the national unifiers they claim to be and despite the fruitless covert dalliances, some of them are rooting for disruption while some of them are hoping for a historic gridlock. How this will help them, or save them from retribution when the storm breaks remains to be seen. After this election, the political graveyard will be filled with the bones of indispensable people, to recall Charles de Gaulle.

    We will return to these issues shortly.  We have decided to step aside this morning to share with readers a piece written to commemorate Nigeria’s forty seventh anniversary fifteen years ago. In order to have a fuller grasp of where we are and where we are headed, a retrospective glance is inevitable.

  • Cultural genius and national delinquency

    Cultural genius and national delinquency

    Is there a connection between national literary gifts and political backwardness, between poetic exuberance and national delinquency?  To pose the question in another way, why do some nations produce outstanding creative geniuses only to come a sad cropper in the husbandry of human resources and visionary political engineering?

    These are the questions that exercised the mind as Nigeria marked its forty seventh-independence anniversary on the first of October. Once again, it was time for introspective angst among enlightened Nigerians. The bleak mood was perhaps justified. Roiling from its latest self-inflicted crisis of electoral malfeasance, Nigeria seems destined for the scrap yard of failed nations.

    When Oscar Wilde was asked why he thought Britain never stood a chance in a war with France, the Anglo-Irish wit and hell-raiser famously declared that it was because the French wrote perfect prose. There was an element of truth in this seemingly eccentric assertion. Compared to the literary figures and cultural icons thrown up by France at the end of the nineteenth century, the British literati were hewers of wood and drawers of water.

    Yet it was the dour and predictable Britons that produced the enduring human institutions. The Germans were even crueler and mercilessly supercilious in their attitude to British cultural and intellectual endeavours. Compared to the outstanding thinkers thrown up by a unified Germany, the Hegels, the Marxes, the Feurbauchs,  British philosophers of the late nineteenth century were provincial nonentities sunken by the leaden weight of intellectual timidity and the facile superficialities of Empiricist philosophy.

    Yet where it mattered most the British were light years ahead. While Bismarck, the Iron Chancellor, was still trying to bring the Germans together under a unified state by the middle of the nineteenth century, Britain had already achieved stable nationhood for almost two centuries.

    While there were no Rousseau or Voltaire to raise the literary and philosophical stakes, Britain was ahead where it mattered most, particularly the strategic capture of Canada and the gritty elimination of continental influence in North America as a whole. As for an America dismissed as a primitive cultural backwater by the European haute couture, it was to become the military and economic lord of Europe by the beginning of the twentieth century.

    The connection between politics and letters, between creative output and national destiny has been well documented. But not so the intriguing disconnect between vast surplus of creative genius and political and economic underdevelopment. To pose the question concretely is to come face to face with one of those ineluctable mysteries of the nation-state paradigm. How can the country of the Soyinkas, the Achebes and those wonderful Benin bronze masters also be associated with arrested political and economic development? A rational inquiry is mandatory.

    Surveying contemporary Nigeria is thus like surveying the extant ruins of the old Roman Empire. Amidst the catacombs of self-inflicted ruination, there is evidence of grand dreaming, of Utopian longing. Amidst the massive wreckage of hope and aborted destiny, there is evidence of great poetic exertions, of furious summons and fiery sermons when it was probably too late. As Shakespeare will put it, there is some architecture in the ruins.

    If a nation’s destiny were to be determined by the verbal gifts and the rhetorical razzmatazz of its founding leadership, Nigeria ought to be a nuclear power and first class First World economy by now. Just take a sample. From the blistering anti-colonial ripostes of an Herbert Macaulay, the magnificent magniloquence of an Nnamdi Azikiwe, the deep philosophical ruminations of an Obafemi Awolowo, the grim apocalyptic hectoring of an Anthony Enahoro,  the cerebral hecklings of a Mokuwgo Okoye,  the terse anti-colonial genuflections of an Adegoke Adelabu, the keen witty repartees of an SL Akintola, the dignified cadences of a Tafawa-Balewa, to the caustic excoriations of a later-day Bola Ige, Nigerian first generation leaders seemed to have had the knack for turning politics into pure poetry in motion.

    Read Also: Fumbling and wobbling to conclusion

    But poetry is merely a passion, and one that can be put to clearly subversive use if not well-harnessed. This is probably one of the unstated reasons why Plato evicted the poet from the People’s Republic. A nation needs more than passion to survive and to flourish. It needs great will and great strength of purpose.

    The stage for this embarrassment of literary gifts was probably set by the anti-colonial struggle itself. It was led by the nascent, feisty and fiery Nigerian press. Dominated by returning freed slaves and Brazilian immigrants who had seen enough of the weaknesses and failures of the metropolitan society, they were not going to be fazed by colonial viceroys. It was a great cultural war whose thunderous echoes and brilliant ripostes resonate till date. To read some of these fierce exchanges even today is to be transported to a world of exemplary verbal ingenuity.

    To be sure, not all the subsequent verbal fireworks are wrought from the imaginative reservoir of these great political dramatists. Sometimes it is the great occasion demanding great eloquence and getting it. Such we see in Anthony Enahoro’s motion for self-governance or his famous intervention on the declaration of emergency in the old west. We see it in the forbidding eloquence and chilling prophesy of Chief Awolowo’s  Allocutus before he was sentenced for treasonable felony.

    It rears its fine Roman head again in Zik’s celebrated philippic against his political tormentors in the Second Republic, his earlier treatise on diarchy and his literary slugfest with Anthony Asika. Finally we glimpse the historic nature of the occasion in M.K.O Abiola’s speech rejecting the annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential elections. It was a tour de force of heroic defiance which guarantees Abiola’s sacred place in the literature and history of rebellion against military tyranny.

    To be fair, even the military that are hardly famous for their gift of the garb cannot be left out of this illustrious pedigree. Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu’s solitary broadcast is a rousing revolutionary sermon brimming with anger and Armageddon. Buhari’s speech to the nation on the occasion of the termination of the Second Republic remains a classic of its genre, endlessly quoted till date. So is Murtala Mohammed’s fiery put-down of western powers over their meddling in Angola.

    Yet it should be clear by now that the stunning eloquence, the verbal accomplishment and the grandiloquent grandstanding of our founding fathers sit greatly at odds with the revolting shambles of a nation they seem to have bequeathed succeeding generations of Nigerians. How can men and women with such powerful imagination beget such a miserable and squalid nuisance? And how did such a supremely gifted country end up in the slough of despair and despondency, and with the current pedestrian rabble lording it over a hapless citizenry?

    When all has been said, Nigeria is not an ordinary country. Nigeria is a profound tribute to the power of the colonial imagination and its self-subversive genius. If Nigeria did not exist in the colonial imaginary, it would have had to be created as a post-colonial necessity and as the ultimate test for the black multitude. The only other country that resembles Nigeria is the Belgian Congo, the hobbled central African giant. But the Belgian Congo is not a willed creation but an instance of primitive seizure by King Leopold of Belgium.

    While assessing the strengths and weaknesses of the leading presidential contenders of the Second Republic, Stanley Macebuh had noted that if Azikiwe were to be elected, eloquence and rhetoric would flourish again. To many, it seemed an obscene and provocative affront. Yet Macebuh might have been stalking a bigger beast. Rhetoric does not feed a nation, but people do not also live by bread alone.

    It has been noted that the great Zik was not a man of details, nor was he possessed of a practical transforming mind. But with his equable, even-tempered nature, such a figure could have been preserved as the ultimate symbol of national unity, dreaming great dreams in bold rhetorical brushes while leaving the practical business of transforming the country to visionary workmen.

    Forty seven years later, the needed political restructuring which will allow Nigeria to optimise the complementary gifts of its various nationalities and their elite factions continue to elude the nation. In the event, it is their worst vices and most vicious proclivities that are on national parade as coerced cohabitation produces its toxic pathologies.

    Having failed the elementary test of nation-building, having found the colonial state an insurmountable monstrosity in all its alienating rigour, the political elite have taken refuge in the political equivalent of poetic license. Put to callous work, poetic license thrives in feverish and fiendish plots against the nation, in cynical bonhomie. When he was accused of chopping money, the late SLA famously asked whether anybody’s grandfather could ever swallow coins. He rested his case.

    It is the same imagination that produced the great speeches that also produced creative carpet crossing, clinical coups, annulment, the twelve two thirds legerdemain, sharia, misapplication of funds and digitalised rigging. The result has been one of the more memorable hellholes of humanity. The Nigerian evil genius is at war with the genius of the Nigerian nation.

    In many respects, contemporary Nigeria recalls pre-revolution Russia in all its momentous contradictions. To many perceptive observers of the era, it was a great irony that a nation roiling in miseries and subhuman degradation could also throw up the greatest literary artists of the century.

    The country of Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Turgenev, Chekhov and Pushkin was also a country of appalling brutalities and inhuman suffering. Engels put it to the fact that economically backward nations could also play first violin. But the obverse of the coin is equally chilling. When a resident diplomat of the period was asked what he thought the Russians did best, he sighed in wry exasperation and then exclaimed: “They steal!”

    Perhaps, then, this is as good as any other time to return to the first principles of nation-building, to the foundation of social and political justice upon which great nations are built. It is time to restructure and to recreate Nigeria in order to properly harness the creative gifts and imaginative fecundity of its people.

    While Nigerians continue to enjoy and lap up the verbal resourcefulness of its errant political leadership, other apparently less gifted African countries have moved ahead, devoting their creative resources to genuine nation-building. They may not be throwing up potential Nobel laureates in literature, but they are building great harmonious communities out of the turbulent contradictions of colonial intrusions. Unlike the tortured fabulations of the great but alienated artist, Ghana, Botswana, South Africa and perhaps Tanzania are concrete works of art in progress.

    In the end, it is perhaps pre-revolution Russia that may yet provide the golden key to the Nigerian conundrum. In a brilliant, apocalyptic forage into the future, an ordinary Russian of the twenty first century was asked for the names of the Russian pre-revolution leaders. “Weren’t these people minor political officials during the time of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky?” the bemused national replied. It is not unlikely that the same fate will overtake Nigerian leaders of this dismal period.

    • First published on October 1st 2007

  • Nigeria @ 62: Nigh new Nigeria?

    Nigeria @ 62: Nigh new Nigeria?

    “If bad and inexperienced politicians control power in Nigeria, my wealth may turn into poverty, and I am not ready to become a poor man.” – Aliko Dangote

    It was in 1972. This columnist departed his hilly hometown, somewhere tucked in the south west section of Nigeria, for Ibadan, the then capital city of Western State. It was an experience exuding elation and excitement beyond description for a village boy making such a euphoric entry into the city having heard a lot of fascinating stories about Ibadan and Lagos – two cities he yearned or longed to visit or reside in! The trip from the hinterland of Ekiti to Ibadan was a pleasurable one with fewer vehicles on the well tarred road. The greenery of the uplands adjoining the stretch of inter – town highways and roads was so alluring as well as adoring to be ignored. Yours sincerely settled in Ibadan with a close relative who doubled as my guardian. Life was good in those days of yore as power outages occurrence was seldom, and shorter in duration, if and when they occurred as the Electricity Corporation of Nigeria (ECN) was better managed. Our water taps were not dry either as water supply, though not regular, was not in short supply from the Asejire Water Works, near Ibadan. Moreover, foodstuffs items were really affordable for my guardian who was a junior level civil servant of Western State. We were eating the best of meals as yours sincerely would be the one going to the market to get food items and sometimes cooked for the house having undergone the proper tutelage. Notably, and of significance to this essay was the information platforms of those days of yore. The radio, television and newspapers – nothing of digital social media as we enjoy these days! There were two newspapers that my guardian subscribed to – the Sunday Times and New Nigeria. The latter was a delight for my guardian and he encouraged me to be an avid newspaper reader as a primary school pupil. He instructed me to read the New Nigeria newspaper as well as novels to better my mastery of the English language. It paid off as I was later representing my secondary school in debate and essay competitions even from my penultimate years in the college. The New Nigeria newspaper! Wondering now, why the tabloid should be named: New Nigeria? What was new in Nigeria then? Or, were the visioners who set up the tabloid envisaging the emergence of a better country than what was being savoured at that season of life? Can one wish, albeit regrettably or inopportunely, a reverting to such a time as in the early and mid-70s? Are we truly nearing a New Nigeria of the dreams of our forefathers, in colour, content and context with the vagaries of the plethora of problems pillorying this country presently that could apparently dim the hope of incurable optimists imagining a beautiful, better and brighter Nigeria?

    Let Leaders Learn

    There is no gainsaying the fact that our political landscape lacks real and rugged transformational or servant leaders that Nigeria is in dire need of at this time to usher us in that New Nigeria that our forefathers envisioned. There are many transactional leaders or dealers in political garments: they are in the scene for pecuniary cum partisan gains, not really about the betterment of the people. It is high time many of our aspiring political leaders lined up to learn leadership processes, philosophies and practices. The true heart of leadership is altruistic – selfless service. In addition, leadership is about vision. Moreover, leadership is not only influence but the ability to embark on a journey carrying along other participants – followers – focusing on a mutually agreed destination. In essence, leadership is a journey; if undertaken without followers, such a leader would just be on a walk! In the private sector, globally, leaders are trained within organizations and even sent to certain high-grade institutions like Harvard, Oxford, Cambridge, etc. It is unsettling and naive for aspiring political and public leaders to think that they can lead successfully without the requisite training to prepare and package them. It was Harvard University, Kennedy School of Government Professor, Barbara Kellerman, author of “Bad Leadership: What It Is, How It Happens, Why It Matters?”, that once curiously posited: “Why is it that we educate and train our doctors and lawyers with great care and competence, but not our leaders.” Not done, she submitted succinctly and saliently: “The American military … recognizes that to be effective it must educate leaders, train leaders, and develop leaders.” Any one still wondering why American soldiers can hold their own anywhere, anytime or anyhow duty beckons? If Nigeria would stop stagnancy and steer the ship of state towards a better rather than a battered Nigeria, it is high time our aspiring leaders deemed it fit to learn leading ethos not just within the four walls of schools but in organizations and public offices, whether they are aspiring to be voted as chairmen of local government councils, state or national assembly members, governors or president! It should be as sacrosanct as that in order to nip in the bud the emergence of upstarts that could down Nigeria into a leadership abyss drenched and drowned in tears and throes!!

    Fitting Functional Followership

    As 2023 beckons, it is imperative on the followers to wake up to their functional roles and responsibilities in the polity and politicking process even as the campaigns commence from 28th of September 2022. If leaders need education and enlightenment, to become fitting and functional, followers within the polity also need political education and engineering to choose wisely at the polls. Is it the time for followers to play into the whims and caprices of the dealers in leaders’ garb by accepting overtures thrown at them? It is upsetting and unsettling to see some analysts siding with these set of followers pandering to these transactional leaders (dealers) citing or fixating on poverty as the raison d’être for such indecorous and odious mannerism. In essence, it is not just leaders that needs to be trained and equipped, followers need enlightenment and education that will empower and embolden them to become fitting and functional followers that cannot be induced or coerced to electing bad leaders, though wealthy, but lacking and lackadaisical in competence, character, capacity, capability and charisma. In order for Nigeria to accomplish and achieve the dream of a “New Nigeria” of her forebears, as 2023 beckons, functional and fitting followers must arise to be active in the electioneering campaigns by interfacing, interacting and interrogating aspirants or flagbearers jostling to be elected irrespective of their political parties. Who are they? Where are they coming from? What are they presently doing? Do they have professions or careers? Have they served in organizations or public offices meritoriously or creditably before? Do they have mentees or proteges they have worked upon in the past, and presently are working upon? Where are those mentees or proteges now? What are their vision statements, core values and strategies? What are their seeming trajectories in the ladder or lattice of leadership hitherto?

     ”Lessons Learnt”

    In the emerging field of Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL), students and scholars have professional lens depicting developmental deliverables in terms of policies, plans, programmes and projects. These are otherwise referred to as interventions. Invariably, these are visible to followers or citizens as there are key performance indicators (kpis) culminating in outputs, outcomes and impacts in tracking or monitoring these interventions. MEL practitioners and scholars, in going through the cycle and closing the loop, adopted a terminology referred to as “Lessons Learnt (LL).” In essence, LL contextualizes the content of: What works? What does not work? Why it works? Why it does not work? The bottom-line tinkering, if our case in Nigeria would not be as a barber’s chair often engaged in motion without movement, then, we should be asking retrospective or reflective questions in line with LL. Truth be told, as it is said and stated in Yoruba common parlance: “omode gbon, agba gbon, ni a fi da ile Ife” (meaning: the combination of the sagacity of the gray headed as well as that of the toddlers culminated in the founding of the ancient town of Ile – Ife, the cradle of the Yorubas), it is high time altruistic aspiring leaders and functional followers came to real terms in collaborating to move Nigeria forward and upward. The more we (followers) tolerate bad leaders to hoodwink us, the more we seemingly and surreptitiously sink Nigeria into the abyss. Reading the lips of the richest man in Africa, Aliko Dangote, who posited thus “if bad and inexperienced politicians control power in Nigeria, my wealth may turn into poverty, and I am not ready to become a poor man”, one would have thought that the wealthy also worry! However, the wealthy in the likes of the Dangotes, Elumelus, Otedolas, Alakijas, Dantatas, Ezes, Adenugas, Danjumas, etc. should be more wary in waddling through the world of wild wilderness of politics and politicking in Nigeria. This columnist’s tinkering is that Dangote and co-travelers should be more concerned about our common patrimony rather than their personal possessions. If they all reason to tow this line of thought, which is not too late anyway, then, they would be more fixated on educating, enlightening, emboldening, empowering and ennobling more followers to become fittingly functional so that in the process of time, some of these citizens will aspire to core and crucial leadership positions. In my four years sojourn in Singapore, this columnist could see Lee Kuan Yew’s instinct in inculcating and institutionalizing leadership development programmes with a view to raising many leaders within the public service and going further in enrolling certain cerebral citizens, in their youths, into such high-grade schools such as Raffles College, Singapore to groom them for future leadership roles. To this columnist, if adopted or adapted in the context of Nigeria, this is one sure path to a better and brighter Nigeria; a New Nigeria, possibly with more progressive, prosperous and positive prospects than the prime perceptions of our forefathers. These patriotic frontline wealthy men and women could champion this crucial and core course of action that could enhance our common trajectory towards a glorious New Nigeria! It could be nearer than one could imagine!!

    • John Ekundayo, Ph.D. – can be reached via 08155262360 (SMS only) and drjmoekundayo@hotmail.com

  • Wike goes for broke

    Wike goes for broke

    Rivers State governor Nyesom Wike, 57, gave indication even before he became governor that he was a mercurial politician, charismatic in a nondescript way, and sensitive, spunky and gregarious. In his first term, how was it that the country mischaracterised the essential Wike, defining him strictly only in terms of his bickering with his predecessor, Rotimi Amaechi, and dismissing him as a gadfly? He was in fact well into his second term in office before this ‘vintage wine’ from Rumuepirikom, Obio-Akpor, and son of Reverend Nlemanya Wike came into his own. During the Covid-19 lockdown, he was flamboyant, combative and hysterical. He threatened the federal government, elbowed oil companies, and enacted one of the most dramatic policing of lockdowns Nigeria had experienced. In the end, however, he relented, but not before the genie had left the bottle and Mr Wike had come firmly into the national consciousness as a bold and impudent politician, surprisingly blessed with the gift of the gab.

    Since May when the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) oligarchs plotted the victory of former vice president Atiku Abubakar to become the party’s standard-bearer for the 2023 presidential election, Mr Wike has weekly and sometimes daily waxed eloquent about the treachery he alleged was committed against him by the said oligarchs. Firstly, he said the party chairman Iyorchia Ayu was the arrowhead of a plot by retired military generals and other woolly-minded politicians to deny him victory and give it to the undeserving and politically nomadic Alhaji Atiku. Money changed hands, he alleged, and presidential aspirants were coerced to step down for one another until the contest invariably became a two-horse race which he lost by a proud and decent margin. Since that ‘chicanery’ came to fruition, Mr Wike had not ceased to cry foul. Every step he took and every demand he made had been effectively countered by the oligarchs. He was made to lose face, and lose sleep. He saw his enemies in his dreams, and imagines them at his bedside, their scary faces contorted, threatening and menacing.

    Aah, but Mr Wike is no pushover himself. Not only has he lashed out verbally at his enemies, and flung his figurative fists at them wildly, he has exposed their secrets and made them blanch with horror at all the dirty secrets he has unveiled. They would not let him sleep; nor would he let them. Indeed, the last few weeks have been tumultuous, with Mr Wike lunging at his enemies and his enemies stonewalling in bitter riposte. The more he expressed his horror and disgust at how badly they had misused him to sustain the party and forced him to hold the short end of the stick, the less accommodating and amenable they became. He was denied the running mate position, and the chairman who hails from the North continues to sit pretty in office. Everything Alhaji Atiku had promised him – three things he claimed – has remained unfulfilled. Every time his enemies in the PDP took one unfavourable step against him, he lashed out at them twice with more venom. Ultimately, Mr Wike said, everyone should know that Alhaji Atiku would be an unreliable president should he be elected; he could not be trusted to keep his word.

    Mr Wike is, however, backed by a group of governors with the same trenchancy as Alhaji Atiku vacillates in the midst of his cavorting supporters and oligarchs. The standard-bearer and his trusting oligarchs tenaciously hold on to the party, and are moving dangerously close to completely ostracising the Rivers governor, insisting that he is too volatile and uncooperative to be managed or associated with. Mr Wike is incensed that, in addition, the party leaders are wooing his main backers away from him. A few of his backers will stand with him through thick and thin, but he cannot be sure that they will all remain faithful to the friendship he has cultivated with them and nourished with all he has got. More, some of his vacillating backers will look at him warily, wondering whether he would not come at them hammers and tongs with the same verbal pirouettes with which he has skewered Alhaji Atiku and the party, and the same infelicitous songs and dances upon which cadence and rhythm he has continued to excoriate them. How can they forget that just as he had exposed his enemies, laying their innermost secrets inelegantly in the open, he would not do the same thing to them? And God save the reputation of anyone who has benefited from his largess.

    In his press conference last Friday, Mr Wike expertly deployed his effervescent and coruscating wit to devastate Alhaji Atiku. He stopped just short of asking the country not to elect Alhaji Atiku, for as a lawyer, he knew too well his party’s constitution to open his flanks to party leaders to move directly against him. He was satisfied with their feigning movements and feeble thrusting, confident that it left him with nearly all the advantages. So he has stopped short of open rebellion, and in consonance with the democratic spirit, has cleverly gone only as far as heresy. Now, whether they will apply the same fire at the stakes to burn a heretic as they would use tornado nails to crucify a rebel remains to be seen. Mr Wike has moved his positions continuously as circumstances have made him to shift ground, but the party has remained hardened and implacable. He was denied presidential ticket, lost the running mate ticket with which he was tantalised, and even the southern shift of the chairmanship has proved a bridge too far. To him, these are moral issues that do not admit of equivocations.

    No one can predict how the fight would be resolved, not the hesitant Alhaji Atiku, not the adamant Dr Ayu, and from all indications, not even the pugnacious Mr Wike. The damage to the party’s administrative, crusading and moral fabric is undoubtedly immense. However, the bone of contention is as plain as daylight. If the party can’t yield the chairmanship to the South, it will be safely conjectured, even if a few of Mr Wike’s backers become turncoats, that the fight would be irresolvable. The party’s Board of Trustees (BoT) is mediating the disagreement, a disagreement already complicated by the exit of the Wike group from the party’s presidential campaign council. It is not, however, clear what they are mediating in a case Alhaji Atiku himself was alleged to have privately acknowledged was uncomplicated and morally straightforward. Unfortunately, there can be only one outcome: Dr Ayu’s resignation or Alhaji Atiku standing pat. If Mr Wike’s group is not placated, the PDP will face disaster. Mr Wike, it is now abundantly clear, will not give up the struggle, no, not by a mile. In fact, given how irate he has become, no one is sure he will relent even after Dr. Ayu had taken hemlock.

    Former party chairman Uche Secondus, who was virtually foisted on the party and then also virtually singlehandedly removed by Mr Wike, is alleged to be exultant that the Rivers governor had finally met his match and got his comeuppance. There will be many more within the PDP who would irritate the boisterous governor. In a searing press conference cum media chat last Friday, the governor had lashed out at his enemies and prophesied that the party was fated both to defeat and ruin. More ominously, he indicated he would do his best to deliver victory to PDP candidates at all levels in the state, leaving party leaders in suspense regarding what he would do at the presidential election. They are not too dimwitted not to understand his insinuations. In turn, however, they have warned of him of dire consequences. But he dares them with glacial indifference and contempt. With Lagos and Kano largely out of their reach, and now possibly Rivers, PDP’s presidential hope may have dimmed considerably, leading the respected Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) publication of Britain to predict doom and defeat for the party. But faced with catastrophe, a point that often impels men to do and absorb the unimaginable, it is not certain that the PDP and Alhaji Atiku would not begin to think the unthinkable and visualise throwing in the towel. The gnarling Mr Wike has them by the jugular; that is bad enough. To also allow him strangulate them in the nether regions down below would be pain in excess of their forbearance.

     

     

    Buhari’s last UNGA address

    President Muhammadu Buhari must have struck a chord when he told the 77th United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York last week that his address would be his last to the august body, while a new face from Nigeria, a new president, would be addressing the 78th UNGA. Much more than anything he had said or done, his unflagging commitment to the peaceful transfer of power devoid of tenure elongation under any guise may in the end be his most remarkable contribution to democracy and stability in Nigeria. His predecessor Goodluck Jonathan was also committed to the smooth transition of power, and despite running into a storm during the polls, had behaved nobly. So, the president has been admirably quite insistent on handing over the reins of power at the expiration of his second term in office. Doubters earlier scoffed at his promise to respect term limits, probably instigated by the shenanigans of previous Nigerian governments, but President Buhari has left no one in doubt where he stands on constitutional term limits.

    At UNGA, the president was explicit about where he stands on term limits. He restated this same resolve when last June the condescending former Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain asked him on the margins of the 26th Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) whether he would run for office again. “Another term for me?” he had growled, “No! The first person who tried it didn’t end very well.” But just in case there were skeptics among his audience at the 77th UNGA, President Buhari anticipatively insisted the thought had not crossed his mind. He had added poignantly that “We believe in the sanctity of constitutional term limits and we have steadfastly adhered to it in Nigeria. We have seen the corrosive impact on values when leaders elsewhere seek to change the rules to stay on in power.” But respecting constitutional term limits, as laudable as that is, is not the best democratic bequest possible. Again, the president recognised this dilemma and suggested in the same address that Nigeria was championing democracy and the rule of law in the West African sub-region. Said he: “In Nigeria, not only have we worked to strengthen our democracy, but we have supported it and promoted the rule of law in our sub-region. In The Gambia, we helped guarantee the first democratic transition since independence. In Guinea-Bissau we stood by the democratically elected Government when it faced mutiny. And in the Republic of Chad, following the tragic death of its President, the late Idris Deby Itno in the battle field, we joined forces with its other neighbours and international partners to stabilise the country and encourage the peaceful transition to democracy, a process which is ongoing.” Of course, the president left out the inconvenient details of the mismanagement, frustrations with, and lack of immediate success in dealing with the coups in Mali, Guinea and Burkina Faso.

    Many analysts view the president’s boast of promoting the rule of law in the sub-region as a bit of an exaggeration. Opposing a few coups d’état is not exactly the same thing as promoting the rule of law. Whether in Nigeria or elsewhere, President Buhari’s record is a mixed one at best. His ambivalent and paternalistic policy towards Nigerian judiciary is perhaps the best reflection of the president’s self-confessed respect for the rule of law. Few legal analysts will agree with him on his self-acclaimed promotion of the rule of law, whether as it relates to the deposition of a chief justice, some questionable court judgements, or even the rights of individuals unlawfully incarcerated. The president’s record in this dispensation has of course been far better than his record as a military ruler. But in the end, just as his predecessor Olusegun Obasanjo belatedly discovered, legacies go beyond the superficial gestures of mouthing rule of law and democracy phrases. The president will be praised for submitting himself without coercion to term limits and allowing primaries and elections to be conducted in a free and fair manner, for as he told UNGA, “We have invested heavily to strengthen our framework for free and fair elections”, but it is unlikely analysts will fall into a swoon over his vaunted promotion of democracy and rule of law.

    In his address, President Buhari also called for debt cancellation for developing countries facing fiscal stress. He is unlikely to be heeded. Making the case for debt cancellation was perfunctory. He had said: “Indeed, the multifaceted challenges facing most developing countries have placed a debilitating chokehold on their fiscal space. This equally calls for the need to address the burden of unsustainable external debt by a global commitment to the expansion and extension of the Debt Service Suspension Initiative to countries facing fiscal and liquidity challenges as well as outright cancellation for countries facing the most severe challenges.” Whether he meant to include Nigeria in that miserable bracket is unclear. But in the closing years of the Obasanjo presidency, in 2005/2006, Nigeria exited the Paris Club by achieving unprecedented debt relief of about $18bn (out of a total debt of about $31bn) after paying $12bn to creditors. Today, Nigeria is fully back into peonage, owing over $40bn to creditors, with debt service in excess of $2bn. It is okay to advocate for debt relief, but it is not clear whether Nigeria is qualified; and if qualified, whether it would not return to its vomit a few undisciplined years after relief.

    President Buhari’s UNGA address does not break new grounds in content, advocacy and logic, at least in a way that is consistent with farewell speeches. Of course it cannot, not simply because it would be unprecedented, going by the controversial records of the president’s years in office, but because the country itself has been unable to rise to the occasion. As a former United States president Richard Nixon argued, the greatness of a leader is inextricably, though not ineluctably, linked with the greatness of his country. No matter how brilliant and resourceful a leader is, without a corresponding demonstration of economic and military power and inventiveness, he and his country are bound to rate poorly. With Nigerian leaders showing a lack of capacity to ennoble the office they occupy, it is not surprising that the office has also been unable to ennoble them. As he gave his last address to UNGA, it would have been appropriate for the president to ask himself whether he would be missed, not only by the global body, but also by his countrymen when he bids them farewell in a few months to come.

     

    *Anya, not Anya, a correction

    The photograph of the respected scientist and boardroom guru, Prof. Anya O. Anya, was inadvertently used on this page last week to illustrate the column even though he was not mentioned in the piece. We meant to use the photograph of the controversial and acerbic linguist, Prof. Uju Anya. The mix-up is regretted.