The Nation Newspaper

Category: Sunday

The Editor bows out

He was our kind of person. You will always know your kind of person if you are truthful to yourself. Snooper mourns the passing last Tuesday of Chief Duro Onabule, aka double Chief. We were neither friends nor professional acolytes. But there was something about his proud carriage, his stubborn defiance and unapologetic disdain for political correctness which made a lasting impression on yours sincerely. Neither an obsequious placeman, nor a syrupy palace jester, he was every inch an Ijebu nobleman.

The late chief was born in September, 1939 in Ijebu-Ode to a humble family. His father was a newspaper vendor. Perhaps struck by a hint of future destiny or simply mesmerized by the famous men of letter who manned the profession that gave him is daily bread, Onabule senior promptly nicknamed his son “editor”.

And a notable editor and engaging columnist he did become eventually after steadily rising through the ranks. The story recalls the hero of Joseph Heller’s classic, Catch 22, who was named Major at birth. Upon joining the army, his superior commanders saw the opportunity for a practical joke. He was promptly promoted major. There the joke ended. The catch was that he could not be promoted any further. Colonel Major would have been an obtrusive joke taken too far.

For a proud self-made man like Duro Onabule, climbing up the greasy pole of journalism and all its arcane rituals, its occasionally self-abasing obeisance, could not have been an easy task. He was not a whizz kid like some of his famous contemporaries. With his middling education, he must have known that if he fell, there was nowhere to go but all the way down. He bore it all with uncommon fortitude and calm self-possession. His career is a study in scrupulous integrity and a proud defiance of gravity.

Read Also: Duro Onabule (1939 – 2022)

   It was from his editorship of Abiola’s Concord that he was said to have been “donated” to the new military president, the then Major General Ibrahim Babangida, as his spokesperson. He served his principal very well, with quiet aplomb, honour, dignity and unobtrusive integrity. This was the high noon of his career.

He discharged his professional obligations to the mercurial and ever-gaming general so well that man of the pen and manager of professional violence parted with mutual respect and much cordiality. Onabule himself had the outward discipline and focused reserve of the famous and archetypal Prussian general.

   Thereafter, he retreated behind a wall of icy reserve and disobliging courtesy. He was so tight lipped and self-restrained that he could not be caught in public making unwarranted commentaries. On the very few occasions that our paths crossed in public, the usually curt but not unfriendly exchange of polite formalities ended on a glum note of offside tactics.

   Yet as somebody deeply intrigued by the IBB persona and the confounding circumstances of the annulment of the freest and fairest election in the history of the country as well as the high octave military intrigues surrounding his last days in power, there remains many unanswered questions. Yet despite all attempts to cauterize it, the June 12 debacle remains an open wound for the country.

   For example, what did IBB think he was doing when four days after announcing his step-aside, he got the self-same double chief to announce from his Minna redoubt new service postings for the military. In the name of what authority was he acting? A posthumous beneficence to his surviving military acolytes after losing command?

It is interesting that the duo of Abacha and Diya swiftly countermanded the postings in the interest of service expediency. Abacha may be cerebrally undistinguished but he had a superior military brains than many of his better fancied peers. It ought to have been clear to IBB from that point on that Abacha was relentlessly inching his way to power.

It is obvious that the late chief carried with him many secrets to his final resting place. Like an ancient Yoruba gnome, he knew where the corpses and sarcophagus are interred or disinterred as the case may be. But the code of omerta is not for nothing. Despite his closeness to the deep state, Onabule took no hostages in his column. There were times that one felt he had taken his bristling hostility to certain Yoruba personages too far. But that is the essence of the man.

But despite all that, the late double chief was not without a puckish and impish sense of humour. When Newswatch magazine ran into a huge storm with IBB over its unauthorised publication of the report of the Political Bureau, the youthful Dele Olojede accosted Onabule for an interview at his Dodan Barracks redoubt. The double chief calmly fielded all the questions. But as Olojede was heading out, Onabule hollered at him: “By the way, where are you going to publish that?”

Unknown to Olojede at that point in time, Newswatch had been summarily proscribed by the military authorities for its infraction and daring contumely. The death sentence was later reduced to a six-month ban. Duro Onabule was quite a character. Last Wednesday, IBB returned the full compliment to his fallen friend in a brilliant and stirring tribute. May his plucky soul rest in peace.

August 21, 2022
Soyinka, Pyrates Confraternity and APC

Instead of admitting what his group did and showing contrition, leader of the National Association of Seadogs (NAS), aka Pyrates Confraternity, Abiola Owoaje, prefers to disparage those who feared that the group had become politically partisan, contrary to its founding creed. On August 4, NAS had organised a procession in Lagos State as part of its 46th Annual General Meeting, the climax of which was the incident captured on video interpreted as denigrating the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC). The mocking song was explicit, and could not be interpreted any other way. It was doubtless rehearsed, certainly not spontaneous or impromptu, and clearly calculated as a partisan intrusion into the already bad-tempered 2023 presidential campaign.

Because the video went viral, Mr Owoaje felt obligated to address the press to put to rest any insinuations of his group’s partisanship. Instead of laying the matter to rest, however, the NAS leader came across as evasive and cocky. Said he: “Quite contrary to the manner in which certain aspects of the video are being portrayed, no aspect of this procession or the event itself was political. Rather it was a typical climax of our annual general meeting. At no time in the history of this organisation has this event or indeed any of our events had any slanted political leanings. Let it be known that the National Association of Seadogs (Pyrates Confraternity) does not mock or discriminate against the physical condition of any person. It is an unfair characterisation and offends everything that we stand for. Indeed, this could cause offence to even our own members that are also unfortunately afflicted that this would never be condoned.”

Mr Owoaje must be living in denial, or calling everybody who has described the song and video as highly objectionable, an ignorant fool. The procession in reference portrays NAS as politically partisan. It is possible that for decades past NAS had refrained from being openly and indiscreetly partisan, but what the group did, very heartily it must be added, was nothing less than offensively partisan. He said NAS never mocked or discriminated against anyone’s physical condition, but that was what the group inelegantly portrayed during its Ikeja procession. And they did it deliberately, knowingly and blatantly. Then Mr Owoaje had the nerve to suggest that public interpretation of their offensive song could cause offence to NAS members. Really? Are they in fact so sensitive, but yet adamantly inured to the feelings of others?

What Mr Owoaje failed to admit is that NAS has clearly become partisan, and has been infiltrated by openly and remorselessly partisan members with preconceived political agenda. He dubiously disagrees that the processional song was derisive, while he tries unsuccessfully to put a gloss on it; and clearly neither he nor any of the group’s composers will accept responsibility for that appalling misjudgement. Now that they have been made aware of what they lacked the finesse and culture to acknowledge, can they be trusted to make amends? It is doubtful. They are already doubling down, and seem convinced that what they did, even though it cannot be interpreted any other way, did not amount to partisanship or a mockery of anyone’s physical pains. As Mr Owoaje provocatively and insensitively put it: “We understand that political merchants, desperately seeking media mileage are all over the place misinforming and twisting events to suit their political agenda.”

Read Also: Sheikh Gumi’s curious love of bandits

Indeed, the current NAS leadership takes issue with Professor Wole Soyinka, one of the seven founders of NAS in 1952, insisting that his reading of the video was mistaken. A few days after the video went viral, the eminent professor had issued a statement deploring the judgement of NAS and wondering what they hoped to gain by negating the group’s essence. He had said: “My attention has been drawn to a video clip making rounds on the internet of a dancing and chanting group, in red and white costume, purportedly members of the Pyrates Confraternity. The display acidly targets a presidential candidate in the awaited 2023 elections. Since the whole world knows of my connection with that fraternity, it is essential that I state in clear, unambiguous terms, that I am not involved in that public performance, nor in any way associated with the sentiments expressed in the songs. Like any other civic group, the Pyrates Confraternity is entitled to its freedom of expression, individually or collectively. So also is Wole Soyinka in his own person. I do not interfere in, nor do I attempt to dictate the partisan political choices of the confraternity. I remain unaware that the association ever engages in a collective statement of sponsorship or repudiation of any candidate. This is clearly a new and bizarre development, fraught with unpredictable consequences. In addition, let me make the following cultural affirmation. I have listened to the lyrics of the chant intently and I am frankly appalled. I find it distasteful. I belong to a culture where we do not mock physical afflictions or disabilities.”

Prof Soyinka even left a little room for NAS leadership to wriggle free from the tight spot NAS members had unwisely sung and danced their way into, suggesting that perhaps the video was stage-managed, yet Mr Owoaje simply flung that help back at the Laureate’s face. Sadly, now, NAS has made its stand clear, and where it belongs quite obvious. They should proudly own their effrontery, as indeed, they are entitled to, going by the disingenuous rebuttal they issued last week, no matter whose ox is gored.

Signs of national fracture

Nigerian commentators and the media pay delicate attention to the background of their exceptional sportsmen and scholars. Whether this is conscious or subconscious is hard to say. They paid attention to the background of those who did Nigeria proud at the 18th edition of the world athletics championship in Eugene, Oregon, USA, even though it was unnecessary. This unfortunate tradition is a long-standing one, harking back to even before the country’s independence. Then, also, high educational achievers, particularly at the secondary school level, are promoted by their ethnic groups as stars even when their families would prefer to be silent.

The emphasis on background to explain excellence has also caught on with the objects of such adoration themselves. In Nigeria’s deeply religious communities, it is not uncommon to hear an achiever attributing success to his God, almost as if worshipers of other deities are precluded from high achievements, or insinuating the primacy of his background as if that background has a monopoly of success and achievement. All this, however points to one thing about Nigeria: the country’s inability to transcend its differences and fault lines.

Clearly, until the country is restructured to create a stable and advanced society capable of harnessing and unleashing the potentials of its gifted children, the restraining hindrances of primordial fetters will continue to hold sway to everyone’s embarrassment. Can these great changes be fostered soon? Not likely. Business as usual still dominates the polity, and will likely continue to hold sway in the years ahead. It now seems like idealism to imagine a country where every citizen and especially its high achievers are seen first and foremost as Nigerians than through the prisms of their ethnic background or religion.

August 14, 2022
APC, PDP continue to groan

The 2023 campaigns are a little over a month away. They are expected to be kick-started towards the end of September. But other than the pretentious Labour Party (LP) that hopes to defy gravity by winning without a structure, platform or even ideology, the two leading contenders for the throne are at sixes and sevens in their parties, and sometimes at odds with the country itself. Their presidential primaries, more than the other tiers of primaries, have birthed a host of troubles for them. After many years of indulging terrorists, appeasing them or conducting futile negotiations with them, it seems the Muhammadu Buhari administration has recognised the urgency of taking the battle to the terrorists and pacifying them before the February 2023 elections. The two contenders for the ultimate prize, APC’s Bola Ahmed Tinubu and PDP’s Atiku Abubakar, are desperate to unite their parties behind them in order to run cohesive and fruitful campaigns.

Just weeks ago, the elections were starting to look doubtful. From all indications now, and regardless of every doomsday prediction, the elections will be held. The parties know this, and the candidates also sense it. They will, therefore, work on the assumption that the polls will hold. The country’s political and economic structures are incapable of inspiring growth, development and stability in the medium to long term, but until something is done about the way the country is untenably configured, the parties or anyone with ambition will work on the basis of the present configuration. Self-determination groups will naturally continue their agitations, but not even they can predict just how or when their efforts will yield anything, whether fruits, collapse of the system which they long for without a clue how to manage its potentially catastrophic fallout, or a new order. In a country of competitive ethnic and religious groups, some of them promoting exceptionalism, and others promoting hegemony, no one can be sure of anything should they let the chips fall where they may.

The APC may be trying to get over the hangover that followed its Muslim-Muslim ticket choice, and may even be frantic and anxious about it, but it is the PDP that is groaning the most about how to manage its post-presidential primary fallout. Lately, APC stakeholders have begun to whisper about unseating their chairman, the vacillating former Nasarawa State governor Abdullahi Adamu, and they appear eager to fish for other issues to divide their party, but for the PDP, the scorned governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike, has become quite a handful. He is not only teasing their temperament, he who had been accused of possessing the wrong temperament, he is also testing their resolve. Twice they scorned him in quick succession, first as presidential aspirant, then as running mate potential, but they implausibly hope to cash in, literally and figuratively, on his oil-rich state and population to fund their 2023 campaigns to secure victory. To Mr. Wike, however, it is not just the act of scorning him that is driving him up the wall, the way PDP leaders have been exultant in putting him down, and framing it in colourful and acerbic language, drives him insensate. The PDP leaders hope that his promise of staying loyal to the party, come what may, would be sufficient to prevent his defection to the flirtatious APC.

Mr. Wike may prove them hopelessly wrong. He is unapologetically flirting with the APC like a beautiful woman with many suitors, and has started to give top leaders of the ruling party primacy of place in the state’s public relations drive. APC leaders on their own also hold out the tantalising hope that his defection, which they long for with all their hearts, would solve their South-South electoral conundrum and put them in pole position for 2023. Gnashing their teeth due to Mr. Wike’s bellicosity and his cruel and remorseless baiting, but alarmed he might make good his unspoken threat, PDP leaders have waffled considerably, unsure what to do next, whether to call his bluff or to placate him. Their agony is worsened by the politics surrounding the zoning of the party’s chairmanship position. Iyorchia Ayu, their doughty chairman, comes from the same North as their now hobbled presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, quite contrary to their initial zoning arrangement before the former vice president usurped the party’s ticket.

Undoubtedly, both the APC and the PDP will overcome their present aggravations. They will be tested to the limit, and their opponents will stoke the fire against them, but as the campaigns loom, they will resolve their differences smartly or paper over the cracks clumsily. The APC’s Muslim-Muslim ticket is a fait accompli; it will be carried to the elections because the ruling party has burnt its bridges. It is not clear whether the whisper against their chairman will prompt them into open revolt; if it does, they will make short work of it and not lose any sleep. For the PDP, it is unclear why, on the chairmanship zoning issue, they want to have their cake and eat it. With the exuberant Mr. Ayu tasting the plum of office and needlessly embroiling himself in the election of the PDP presidential candidate, he has boxed himself into a corner and will be unable to convince anyone he should not step down for the position to rotate south. There are indications Mr. Atiku feels comfortable with Sen. Ayu as chairman, or at least shows a sense of loyalty to him for the role he played in the presidential primary; but in the end, sustaining the present iniquitous arrangement would be difficult.

Both the APC and PDP cannot pretend not to recognise how decidedly antagonistic the mood of the country is to them, particularly because they exemplify the old, decadent order. This frustration explains the electorate’s infatuation with former Anambra governor Peter Obi of the Labour Party. The hobnobbing will amount to very little ultimately, but it could prove somewhat harmful to either party. It means nothing to the electorate that Mr. Obi has enunciated little, embraced no discernible ideology, and continues to campaign mainly on the self-aggrandizing claim of frugality as a policy. Only the APC, despite its dismal record, and the PDP, despite its appalling past, stand any chance of forming the next government. Revolution could thwart that sanguine outcome, and general unrest could switch the pendulum; but it can be safely surmised that despite the agonies of the two leading parties, the LP will be missing on the day when the battle will be truly joined.

Train attack rescue options

Finally, Nigerians now know for sure why the doomsday option Kaduna State governor Nasir el-Rufai touted in respect of the use of lethal force against bandits has not been embraced by the federal government. At a meeting between himself and some representatives of victims of the Kaduna train abduction, President Muhammadu Buhari insisted that he rejected the option of force because he could not guarantee there would not be collateral damage. He would prefer to rescue everybody alive, he said wistfully.

According to him, “It is understandable that emotions typically run high; we have received several suggestions about the deployment of lethal military force in extracting those still being held in captivity. This option has indeed been considered and evaluated. However, the condition to guarantee a successful outcome and minimise potential collateral damage could not be assured and therefore that course of action had to be reluctantly discarded.” But, as this column asked a few weeks ago, was blitzkrieg the only forceful option available? What of besieging the bandits’ dens and carrying out surgical, Special Forces strikes?

It is true that even in surgical strikes there are no guarantees. But countries which embark on such a radical option know that armed rescue sends message to terrorists that they could not attack and hope to get away free. By not approving any kind of forceful rescue operations, as evident by the dithering that led to the massive abduction of schoolgirls in the Northeast in past years, schoolgirls now perhaps lost forever, terrorists were encouraged to second-guess the government and continue their campaigns of extortion and pillage. The el-Rufai option of carpet bombing is of course a hard sell, but not doing anything for months is even more difficult to defend.

It is also possible that the Buhari administration had embarked on a number of ill-fated options behind closed doors to rescue abductees, with terrorists either outsmarting the government or cynically double-crossing the administration. In the end, at least so far, the administration has met with limited and qualified success. President Buhari is right to deprecate bombing raids or lethal force, but he was wrong to give the impression that other than negotiations, many of which have miscarried badly, there were no other forceful options. However, at last, by taking the battle to the terrorists, the administration seems to be stirring.

August 14, 2022
Re-Osun, APC and unobtrusive Aregbesola

I read Palladium’s second installment on the Minister of Interior, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, after the All Progressives Congress (APC)’s candidate, the incumbent governor of Osun, Alhaji Gboyega Oyetola, predictably lost the governorship election of July 16 to the People’s Democratic Party (PDP). It is not flattering at all.

The author is unpretentious in his mission of inciting the APC leadership against the minister by blaming him for the loss of the state to PDP and worse still for antiparty activities. Palladium, at least in his last three columns, has been very unkind and mean to Aregbesola, viciously attacking his person in the most intemperate language, exhibiting a deep-seated animosity towards him. Yet Aregbesola was not a candidate in the election. He did not even vote.

From his columns, it is clear Mr Akinlotan has a very poor – or no – grasp of the Osun debacle and the self-affliction responsible for the governor’s loss in the election. His main arguments and excoriation of Ogbeni Aregbesola were unapologetically lifted from the laughable press statement of Mr Gboyega Famodun, the embattled chairman of the APC in the state. But every politics is local and except you have a very good grasp of the issues, a columnist runs the risk of looking ordinary, if not stupid, before the actors and those who are knowledgeable on the matter. I can just imagine how the people of Osun would have reacted, reading Palladium on Sunday August 7, 2022.

The loss of Governor Oyetola had been predictable (and predicted) not less than two years ago and had become apparent at least six months before the election. Indeed, a week before the polls, it had become inevitable. Though democratic elections must have an element of ‘bounded uncertainty’ to be credible, people living in Osun were fairly convinced that Oyetola would lose, except some miracle happened.

Governor Oyetola, out of hubris and political naivety, took defeat from the jaws of victory, literally gifting PDP the election. The seeds of the factors that culminated in the defeat of the governor were sown before his election in 2018, but instead for him to uproot them after his inauguration, he began to nurture and water them, until they bore him the fruits of his routing.

Governor Oyetola wrongly believed that then Governor Aregbesola did not want him to succeed him in 2018 and upon his inauguration, he began a systematic war of payback. He divided the party into ‘those-for-him’ and others. Government and party offices became the exclusive preserve of members of his Ileri-Oluwa caucus in the party. Others were excluded. He ran an exclusive system in a political party that should be free for all joiners.

The alienated members of the party formed a caucus named The Osun Progressives (TOP) in April last year. On May 14, they went to Ogbeni Aregbesola to offer him the chairmanship of the Board of Trustees, which he accepted. So, it wasn’t Aregbesola that formed TOP, but the excluded members of the party. This means that if Aregbesola had supported the governor without him reconciling with the aggrieved members of the party, he would still have problem with the election.

Still pursuing his exclusive political agenda, Governor Oyetola rejected all calls and entreaties for reconciliation. The party’s reconciliation committee came to the state after the party’s primary election was held and listened to both sides, but the governor rejected the demands of TOP for inclusion. The committee left in frustration. So, the veiled attempt to incite the party’s leadership is futile because they know the local situation that led to the loss. This much was acknowledged by the party chairman in his reaction to the result.

Oyetola pursued exclusive and vindictive agenda till the last day before the election, supremely confident of victory, without the support of his predecessor and a large segment of his party. When Asiwaju came to Osun on the Monday before the election and asked the governor’s men on their expectation, they told him they were sure they would win but what they were working on was to extend the margin of the win.

This hubristic and belligerent posturing runs against the grain of party politics when candidates approach election with a united front. This is a universal practice not unique to Nigeria. Donald Trump couldn’t get re-elected in 2020 because he alienated the Bush and the Koch dynasties in the Republican Party, concentrating on his nationalist front. Same happened to Mitt Romney, a Mormon, in 2012 when he lost to Barack Obama because the evangelicals stayed away from voting for him. Al Gore too lost his presidential bid to George W. Bush because of his alienation from Bill Clinton and his group in the Democratic Party.

Indeed, after the narrow win in 2018, Governor Oyetola and his men devised an ingenious argument that Aregbesola’s misgovernance was responsible for the not so stellar performance of the APC in the governorship election. This was to discount his contribution and any positive role he played in the election. It sounds so curious and a contradiction to, in one breath, accuse Aregbesola of being culpable for the narrow win; and after alienating and fighting him for nearly four years, to then turn round and blame his non-support for the APC candidate as being responsible for the loss to PDP.

Mr Akinlotan reminds me of the story of Joseph Stalin calling his successor, Nikita Khrushchev, on his sick bed in 1953. He warmly told him of the three notes he was leaving for him and a directive to open the notes only when he got into serious crises. He opened the first note few years later when he got into his first crisis. It read ‘Blame everything on Stalin’. Then later he got into a more serious crisis and opened the second note which also read ‘Blame everything on Stalin’. When he got into the third and very ferocious crisis, he opened the third envelop which this time read ‘Prepare three envelops’. The election was Oyetola’s third ‘very ferocious crisis’.

Mr Akinlotan sounds bitter, angry and inconsolable over the loss in Osun, reading the main piece, as he projected a thinly veiled partisanship in a fight in which he had (or should have) no dog. He, no doubt, is unhappy at an outcome that vindicated Aregbesola in a bizarre way.

Some people were bitterly disappointed that Adeleke won, meaning Aregbesola and his supporters were not disgraced on the outcome of this election. They had wished that Governor Oyetola would win and except Aregbesola came back to them, begging on all four, he would be consigned into permanent political irrelevance. The loss of Governor Oyetola has affirmed the legitimacy of Aregbesola and his supporters, to their chagrin. Palladium will now fall into this category and I don’t think he has done himself or his literary reputation any bit of good at all.

August 14, 2022
SNAPSONG 160

Ding dong ding dong

     Life’s bell rings

In loyal obedience to the clock

     A metallic din rides the crest

Of a shimmering noon

     Ploughing through the shards

Of a shy, uneasy day, aspects yet unclear

     As far as the ears can see

Our moon-old coins

     Have no time to shine in the sun

Food prices mock their boast

     Their inflated conceit, their tasteless pretence

Shadows, hungry shadows

     Long, lean, lingering mists

In the setting sun, dreadfully dark

     In the glare of the thirsty heat

What do we call

     Wardrobes without their robes

How so loud the silence of those

     Who stay mute in the land of evil

Ding dong ding dong

     Life’s bell speaks in diverse accents

But of what use are they

     In the country of the deaf?

August 14, 2022
Really scared

I’m trying hard not to be scared about the situation in the country, but the more I try not to worry, the more I’m confronted with the realities of the looming danger we face. I’m naturally an optimistic person, but the country is at a critical stage now when no one is sure what can happen sooner or later.

I pride myself on being a patriot who will as the words of our national pledge stated, be faithful, loyal, honest and serve the country with all my strength, but I’m no longer sure if the country cares about me in the ways I do.

Government officials and politicians can carry on as if all is well and there is no cause for any alarm, but the tension across the country is palpable.

We are literarily sitting on a time bomb on many fronts which we all know, but we are hoping for a miracle that it will not explode even when many don’t believe in God and are not abiding by His inductions which would have saved us from sliding dangerously into a crisis that can consume us as a nation.

Early this week I and some colleagues had the ordeal of listening to a data-based frightening presentation of the state of the country regarding the state of insecurity and some key development indices by the Executive Director of Africa Center for Development Journalism, Rotimi Sankore and we couldn’t clap at the end of the sobering gloomy reality he highlighted.

Unlike the data from international organizations which government officials are quick to fault, Sankore’s reality-check presentation was from the National Bureau of Statistics and state governments.

Read Also; Curbing insecurity, a collective responsibility

I and others had always known we are in what the Americans call ‘deep shit’, but we didn’t know it was as deep as the data revealed.

The insecurity in the country is so bad that anyone travelling by road on long-distance risks being kidnapped. Not even the train is safe with the kidnapping of passengers on the Abuja-Kaduna train, 31 of whom are still being held.

Kidnapping has become big business with various gangs extortion various sums of ransom from families of kidnapped persons and some being killed despite the payment of ransom.

Reading about people being killed by unknown gunmen, bandits and terrorists have suddenly become the norm as the Police and other security agents appear incapable of protecting lives and property as they should, despite their commendable efforts in bombing the terrorists’ hideouts.

Despite repeated assurances by President Muhammadu Buhari and directives to security chiefs, there doesn’t seem to be an end in sight to the endless kidnappings and bloodbaths. Not even the President himself is safe with the audacious threat to kidnap him too by the terrorists.

Apart from the security challenges, the economic meltdown Nigerians have to contend with has worsened the standard of living of the average citizens. The cost of living has skyrocketed with rising figures unemployment which has forced many professionals to seek more lucrative jobs abroad.

I listened briefly to a Twitter Space discussion on Thursday tagged operation JAPA (escape abroad) and many of the speakers living outside the country shared harrowing experiences that forced them to travel out and how they are earning and living better than they can ever be back home.

How do we convince the youths that their future matters when public universities have been shut for over four months due to the strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU)? Reluctantly I have opted to send my last child to a private university unlike the first three who attended the University of Lagos. I wish I didn’t have to do so, but I’m left with no option as the strike remains unresolved.

There are so many things to be worried about in this country. We cannot continue to pretend that all is well. Eru mbami (I’m scared).

August 14, 2022
2023: Tinubu’s twelve transgressions (Part 2)
The second term of the administration of Babatunde Raji Fashola, SAN, as the Governor of Lagos State, was winding up in May 2015 and this columnist was privileged to be part of the invitees to a special send off event of the then Honourable Commissioner of Budget and Economic Planning, Mr. Ben Akabueze (now Director General, Budget Office of the Federation (BOF)). It was towards the tail end of the fun-filled fellowship that Akabueze, in response to tributes, rose to speak. He started by paying glowing tribute to Asiwaju Bola Tinubu for the opportunity to serve in Lagos State. According to him, he was already in high-level talk with a notable personality in Nigeria then and the arrangement was for him to be part of the Anambra State cabinet. However, in a twist and turn of fate, Tinubu was swift and savvy in approaching him having known him while working in the banking sector earlier on. This was how he got appointed to the cabinet of Lagos State, an Igbo man, originally from Anambra. Such was the hunger and longing in Tinubu for cerebral, competent and capable men and women who can hold their own as he desires result-oriented leadership. This same trait was visible in Steve Jobs, co-founder, chief executive and chairman of Apple Computer, who opinionated thus: “the secret of my success is that we have gone to exceptional lengths to hire the best people in the world.” This columnist believes that Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu (BAT), if he eventually wins at the presidential polls of February 2023 and becomes the President of Nigeria, will still go the same route to hire the best to move the country forward irrespective of the region or religion of the personae involved.

Continuing from where the first part of this serial ended, in this second part, there are five other transgressions of Tinubu that will be pinpointed. Each of them bespeaks of the raison d’être many of his antagonists and accusers will not see eye to eye with him on political issues. However, if only they will be open-minded and objective, they would perceive that he has genuine and good disposition to positively impact the lives of the constituents. Counting from the last edition of this column, these are his remaining trespasses or transgressions:
1. BAT successful stronghold of Lagos: It is a known fact that counting from 1999 till date, Tinubu’s party, whether it was Alliance for Democracy (AD) or Action Congress (AC) or Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) or All Progressives Congress (APC), has been in the saddle as the ruling party holding sway in Lagos State, the Centre of Excellence. Equally many diehard opposition figures, such as Chief Olabode George, cannot perceive any ‘good thing coming out of the Nazareth’ of Tinubu. In fact, to such set of people, his transgression in this direction is seemingly unforgiven as Bola Ahmed Tinubu has deftly and dexterously decapitate and deplete the fold of the main opposition party, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in the state of Aquatic Splendour. No thanks to the savvy, sagacious and strategic steps of a tactician and politician in the calibre of Tinubu. Taking it too far, someone once pompously posited that it would be after the demise of Bola Ahmed Tinubu (BAT) before any opposition party would be able to win the gubernatorial seat of Lagos! Such was the grip Jagaban has on Lagos irrespective of the political party he belongs at any time!! The opposition, despite much mudslinging and maligning, Tinubu’s political personality, profile and popularity keep soaring over the years!!! The main opposition need to conduct a diligent research inquiry to decipher the secrets behind Tinubu’s strings of successes instead of vilifying and pillorying him. The best line to tag such strident adversary of Tinubu is in tandem with the postulation of Carlos Wallace, author and professor, who stated inter alia: “Don’t hate on someone whose hard work placed them on the road to success, while your envy and ill-intent put you on a path toward failure.”
Read Also: Yoruba elders to Tinubu: your victory in 2023 certain
1. Last man standing: The Afenifere, the Yoruba socio-cultural group at a time was synonymous with the party, Alliance for Democracy (AD). AD was the ruling party in the south west states of Oyo, Ogun, Ondo, Osun and Lagos. In the previous presidential election of 1999, the People Democratic Party (PDP), despite having a Yoruba man as the presidential candidate, in person of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, did not gain upper hand in that election in the region. However, in 2003, PDP, through seemingly deceitful deft moves of Obasanjo, wanted to have in-road into the southwest through an accord or alliance with the AD. It was mutually agreed that AD Governors would support Obasanjo in the presidential election while he would let them have their way in returning as helmsmen of their states for the second term. Bola Tinubu smelt a rat! He, in principle, did not follow the others in turning his state to PDP in the presidential election. He was the only and odd man out. That saved him as the others lost their seats in the bandwagon effect that attended to the presidential election. The Jagaban Borgu, Tinubu, was the only Governor that returned for the second term. Hence, the sobriquet: “the last man standing!” Till date, the erstwhile President Obasanjo and his ilk, in PDP, could not forgive Tinubu for denying them access to the juicy seat of Lagos. BAT could not be outwitted in that political game of wits!
2. Assembling and mentoring men and women: It is evidential and exemplifying of Tinubu’s strategic leadership sagacity to assemble cerebral, capable and competent men and women in their chosen careers. Such was the context and content of the cabinet of Lagos State when he was in the saddle as the Governor. In the state executive council meetings, robust and rigorous debates and discourses were regular resulting in sound decision making which overtime made Lagos to lead other states. This norm was passed down to successive governments in the state. Anyone still wondering why Lagos leads whilst others follow? Going further, Asiwaju Tinubu also mentor these associates, within the leader-follower dyad, in a Mentor-Protégé Relationship (MPR) resulting in moving from initiation to closure. There is no politician, within Nigeria’s context, who possesses many disciples and adherents in top positions in government from local to state to federal levels as Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu does amplify and exemplify. This supposedly should be why many should identify and team up with him in his aspiration in leading the nation but alas it is one line that his adversaries do not want to be publicised or propagated about his personality. To many of these adversaries, these men were already made, he only used them to achieve his own political goal. However, in seemingly “taking advantage” (like Singaporeans will say) of them, can any discerning mind objectively and independently find out whether these associates remained at the spot where they were picked up by Tinubu or moved up the ladder of leadership? This upward movement is empirically evident in the lives of Yemi Osinbajo, Raji Fashola, Ben Akabueze, Rauf Aregbesola, Femi Gbajabiamila, Lai Mohammed, etc. who were picked and polished by Tinubu and are still relevant in the leadership of our country today. Are there politicians alive today, within Nigeria’s context, possessing such men of substance and stature who were once his proteges or mentees?
3. A kingmaker should not desire the throne: Tinubu has been a kingmaker installing senators, governors and even presidents. He should be contented at that and not depicting an apparent indecorous or inordinate ambition by declaring that becoming the president has been “his lifelong dream”. This is one transgression of Bola Ahmed Tinubu (BAT). The question this columnist has been asking with no one responding with a cogent answer is: is it a sin to dream? Anybody can dream, even going to the extent of day dreaming! Translating the dream to reality is another kettle of fish!! Why should a kingmaker desire the throne? In the first part of this write up, mention was made about the 4th Prime Minister of Malaysia, Tun Dr. Mohamad Mahathir, who was recalled by popular demand from retirement when the followers were angst about the downward slide of the country as a result of bad leadership. He emerged as the 7th Prime Minister under the umbrella of a new party to the chagrin of the ruling party. He achieved this at the ripe age of 92 years!
4. Muslim-Muslim ticket: The main issue that could be considered as the rave of the moment in the party politics in Nigeria presently is the religious rationale or raison d’etre in choosing who to run with you in a governorship or presidential ticket. No thanks to the seemingly sensitive and scary security scenario in our country. The insecurity that started in the north east, spread to the north west, not sparing the north central, infiltrated the federal capital territory, and unfortunately, penetrating the southern parts of Nigeria with seeming coloration or stint of religious or regional agenda, as amplified under the Buhari administration, has changed perceptions of some elites into believing that religious balancing in sharing of political offices will provide antidote to checkmating extremism that ultimately results into violence, banditry or terrorism. Tinubu’s being a Muslim and choosing another Muslim, from the north east, as a vice presidential candidate has seriously pitched him against some religious zealots in Christianity. The argument many of these agitators should have fixated on is: to what extent has the existing Muslim-Christian ticket of the present administration doused or drenched insecurity or insurrection?
August 14, 2022
Nigeria has legion of issues to resolve; religion is not one

“When religion is used for political purposes, it empties religion of its eternal meaning and becomes just one more cynical method of acquiring power” -Very Rev Dr Okegbile.

On his now rave of the moment, POLITICS TODAY, Seun Okinbaloye, recently asked Governor Rotimi Akeredolu of Ondo state whether he would have remained indifferent if it was a party other than the APC – his party – that was fielding a Muslim – Muslim ticket in the 2023 Presidential election, to which he answered in the affirmative, stressing that what Nigeria needs now is competence that can be gauged from a candidate’s track record and, if I may add, a commitment, and the ability, to right the mistakes which have splintered Nigerians menacingly along ethnic divides.

On the same day Akeredolu was saying that, Governor Samuel Lalong, his Plateau state counterpart, and the APC Presidential Campaign Director – General, on a visit to the Villa, was also taken up by journalists on the same issue of Muslim – Muslim ticket.

Realising the single minded determination of some misdirected people, in cahoots with thousands of ethnic nihilists who, the other day, turned the otherwise well- intended effort to check police brutality, aka #ENDSARS#, to an agendum to incinerate Lagos plus, of course, a coterie of CAN members apparently unable to forget those giddy days of very profitable liaison with the Goodluck Jonathan government, to equate the Muslim – Muslim ticket to an Islamisation agenda, I consider it worthwhile to let them benefit from the very timely article below. I hereby crave the permission of the Very Rev. Dr Okegbile to have it published in full, in the hope that knowledge will set these naysayers free.

The much respected Man of God wrote as follows in

TINUBU BEYOND NIGERIA’S ISLAMIZATION:

“Twenty two years ago, I was sent by Methodist Church Nigeria to serve as Presiding Chaplain, Chapel of Christ the Light (Interdenominational), Alausa, and later at the State House Chapel, Marina, Lagos. My pastoral work at the chapel afforded me a close understanding and religious maturity of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, the presidential candidate, of the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC), and a former governor of Lagos, a state that is a microcosm of Nigeria in terms of religious diversity.

His matured management of religion as a way of life, ensured inter-religious harmony in Nigeria’s most industrialised state.

Asiwaju Tinubu’s composition of his state Executive Council was a model of religious harmony, trust and love in Lagos State. Nations fail not due to climate, geography or culture. In the words of leading academics Daron Acemoglu and James A Robinson, nation fails due to lack of ‘sound institutions that allows virtuous circles of innovation, economic expansion, more widely-held wealth and peace.’

Asiwaju Tinubu’s ability to blend economics, politics and history as a powerful and persuasive way of understanding wealth and poverty has potentials to place Nigeria on the path to peace and prosperity.

Thanks to God for the conclusion of all the political parties primaries and selections of candidates for 2023 general election in Nigeria. Asiwaju Bola Tinubu’s ‘hard decision’ and choice of a Muslim-running mate is not about Nigeria’s Islamisation or a look down on Christianity in Nigeria. Just as it is understandable and right for the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) to express our feelings and fears about the choice of Muslim-Muslim ticket, it is important to note that ‘when religion is used for political purposes, it empties religion of its eternal meaning and becomes just one more cynical method of acquiring power.’

Read Also: Nigeria: Can a nation divided by religion achieve 4IR?

One is very sad about the unabated killings and kidnappings especially against the Christians in Nigeria but we must be very watchful not to allow any blasphemous campaign aimed at provoking anger against the person and aspiration of Asiwaju Tinubu. With practical experiences and encounters with Asiwaju Tinubu and his wife, Senator Oluremi Tinubu, human life is very sacred.

Asiwaju Tinubu’s leadership vision for a better Nigeria is able to provide an assurance and commitment for Christian safety and freedom of worship. As a former governor who laid the 24 years development plan for Lagos State, Asiwaju Tinubu and his wife also instituted and hosted Lagos State annual Christian Thanksgiving Service at Lagos House, Marina, always led by CAN leaders. It was during the tenure of Asiwaju Tinubu as governor of Lagos State that Lagos State Christian Pilgrim Board was given a lifting up and constituted with members drawn across all the blocs in CAN.

I think CAN should give Asiwaju Tinubu the benefit of the doubt. This is based on the consideration of his political manifestoes, personal testimonies as a husband to a Christian wife and a pastor, Senator Oluremi Tinubu, and his openness to Christian community and leaders across Nigeria. Asiwaju Tinubu while serving as a governor of Lagos State did not stop her daughter, now Iya Loja – Folasade Tinubu- Ojo from being a member of a Christian church in Lagos.

I was introduced to Asiwaju Tinubu by Rev J Abimbola Odunlami, a former Conference Public Relation Officer, Methodist Church Nigeria. Upon my appointment as conference editor, Methodist Church Nigeria in 1993, I was put under the mentoring of Rev Odunlami. It was during one of my visits to Rev Odunlami’s residence at Victoria Island, Lagos, that I first met Asiwaju Bola Tinubu.

In 2000, under the leadership of Asiwaju Tinubu, Lagos State government sought the support of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Lagos State, to volunteer a Christian clergy for the pastoral oversight of the newly built Chapel of Christ the Light (Interdenominational), Alausa, Ikeja. Only two churches responded namely: Methodist Church Nigeria and Foursquare Gospel Church of Nigeria. I was sent by Methodist Church Nigeria and became the first presiding chaplain. Asiwaju Tinubu and his wife, Senator Oluremi Tinubu were very regular in the chapel worships at Alausa especially during state’s special functions.

Since the creation of Lagos State in 1967, there was no worship place built for Christian worship in the governor’s residence at Marina House except a mosque built by the past administrations. In 2003, under the leadership of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, for the first time, the State House Chapel, Marina was built and dedicated with all the CAN leadership in attendance. Asiwaju Tinubu’s support to his wife enabled her to pray and lead other Christian staffs and friends at the State House in the mid-week, Sunday worships, and monthly all-night vigil at the State House Chapel, Marina, Lagos.

Asiwaju Tinubu’s form of religiosity is filled with love and welfare of others, Christian or Muslim. Asiwaju Tinubu’s adherence to the tenets of religion is about the practice of equality that benefits ‘all because talent is no respecter of faith; intellect is not limited to one religion. Diversity enhances societies while insularity destroys it.’

Asiwaju Tinubu not only demonstrates religious tolerance, he accommodates and ‘believes in that cardinal principle of the Nigerian Constitution that no one should suffer discrimination on the basis of creed or opinion”.

Just as the nihilists were losing their heads, occupying social media space, spewing inanities came forth ‘a man for the moment’, a well- born Igbo, with a well- rounded education, and an elected representative of his people; a contemporaneous state governor with Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu to boot, to bear testimony to Tinubu as the “ hardest working Nigerian politician in modern history.”

I refer here to H.E (Dr) Chimaroke Nnamani, a senator of the Federal Republic who, despite the inherent danger, could not shy away from saying it as it is, even though he may now be a marked man back home.

Nnamani wrote, inter alia, as follows:

“Bola Tinubu, the 12th governor of Lagos State, was a co-governor with me (1999–2007). As colleagues we worked together in pioneering the first meetings of Conferences of Southern Governors which we interchanged hosting the first and second and visited Enugu for the meetings.

That meeting brought to the front burner issues of Federalism both Physical and Fiscal. I still remember the educative contributions of Gov. Bisi Akande.

I must confess of occasional envy as we interchanged ideas and implemented reform decisions. He had more resources and quickly implemented the full requirements of ACCESS to Justice reform project. Making the Lagos State Criminal Justice System, one of the best in Africa.

The Judges stopped writing physical notes. More advanced vehicles were provided and participation in Conferences guaranteed. Our two Attorneys General worked very closely. Mrs Gloria Egbuji steered us through Access to Justice Program, the now famous Dr. Joe Abah assisted and supervised, under the direction of DFID.

I recall a National Competition on Reform advances amongst States covering Governance, Transparencies, Budgeting and Ease of doing business. Supervised by the Economic Adviser to the President ( a guy from Benue State), DFID and other development partners also participated. Enugu emerged tops, followed closely by either Lagos State or the FCT. Enugu also established the first Poverty Reduction Study, Review, Guidelines and Implementation before the Federal Government or indeed any other State, verified by Dr Joe Abah, former DFID staff in Enugu. Enugu tried considering our Financial dilemma. The Justice system also paid close attention to Women and Children welfare.

Both governments pioneered Development Centers. For obvious political reasons he was denied due Federal allocations for years. He kept ploughing on! His Justice sector also provided jobs to many spouses of non Lagosians working and residing in Lagos. I had cause to engage with him on jobs for Enugu spouses. In the Education Sector he introduced Tutor General and raised the bar for earning by teachers. In Enugu we approved that Primary School Teachers could rise to level 16.

We also approved elevation for those who obtained graduate qualifications. I also admired his pupil Governor for a day. Somehow I never got to it. Tinubu also directly intervened in Enugu spouses who had issues as teachers. In the Health Sector,

August 14, 2022
In search of African avatars
With the dramatic ascendancy of General Mohammadu Buhari in the Nigerian presidential sweepstake and the restoration of electoral normalcy in a larger chunk of the nation, it has become fashionable to dream again about the possibilities for Nigeria in particular and the lost continent of Africa as a whole.

As this column keeps hinting, the omens about the Buhari administration itself are still not very clear. While some encouraging signals are coming from the retired general and former military autocrat, the incoming administration appears swamped and besieged by some deadwood and dinosaurs from the old order that are bent on stamping their accursed imprimatur on what should be a new beginning for Nigeria.

From the old volatile west, there have been some rumblings. Some starry-eyed idealists in league with cynical revanchists of the defeated ancien regime are dropping the heavy hints that the dominant political group in the west has sold the Yoruba nation to the Hausa and Fulani feudal oligarchy. It is alleged that a frenzied and wholesale northernization of the power apparatus is proceeding apace while ambitious and perfidious lieutenants of the man known as the Lion of Bourdillon are sharpening their knives for an inevitable confrontation.

Some of these political anxieties are worthy of analytical consideration. In and out of power, it is normal for any cohesive and organic power formation to bind and bond together. This resilience which comes from strong feudal ties and alliances and the superior capacity to organize itself and disorganize others as the occasion warrants is the secret and source of the strength of the old north. Once it identifies its interests, no other power formations in the nation comes close to the north in projecting and protecting its own.

Be that as it may, it will be very foolish and strategically short-sighted in post-military Nigeria for any power formation however dominant to imagine that it can impose its will and political eccentricities on the rest of the nation. Nigeria can never return to that past. Those who believe that this is still possible after Abiola and Abacha as well as those who raise the bogey of renewed ethnic domination are merely incapable of dialectical reasoning in all its rigorously paradoxical possibilities.

Rather than pointing at the inevitability of renewed ethnic domination, the political resurgence of General Buhari merely points at the ineluctability of a new beginning. Until things finally fell into place, the general had been at it for quite some time without any possibility of success even as his adversaries actually imagined that they had seen the last of the old warrior from Daura.

While the block voting from the core north certainly helped, it was the explosion in national consciousness and the dramatic expansion of public space and the global means of communication and public enlightenment that set the pace.

This is why this morning, this columnist solemnly appeals to the general not to allow himself to be captured by ethnic hawks and other tale bearers. The general should see himself as a product of a national upheaval, a pan-Nigerian coalition against evil governance and authoritarian misrule represented by the outgoing PDP government. If by any chance, Buhari is unable to fulfil his destiny as the man to lead Nigeria out of the wood, such is the current political ferment in the nation that many rival claimants would be thrown up by the crucible of contradictions.

Read Also: The Road Not taken

One of the key areas that must command General Buhari’s attention is indigenous knowledge production. Buhari will be the recipient of a thousand papers about how to reform and revamp our educational system but all this will come to naught if there is no fundamental capacity building attempt to indigenize our knowledge system. This is the key to all successful societies and nations from the western powers, China, Japan, India, the Asian Tigers and the advanced societies of the world.

The largest chunk of the Third World is powerless and backward and will continue to be powerless and backward because it lacks the production of organic and indigenous knowledge to power its political, economic , spiritual and technological development. Yet, the very notion of a huge chunk of Africa and some parts of Asia and Latin America as the Third World is steeped in remarkable ironies.

Before it became a veritable and enduring marker of backwardness and underdevelopment, it was the radical and progressive leaders of these countries such as Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and Surkarno who proposed the term at the Bandung conference as a way of distinguishing countries within their spheres of authority which pursued a middle of the road policy of mixed economy as against capitalist and socialist countries which belong to the first and second worlds respectively.

Yet after the collapse of the Second World and actually existing socialist countries, one would have thought the term Third World would itself disappear, but it has clung to these countries like an ugly limpet. The fact is that if knowledge is power, the production of knowledge is the production of power. Those societies that cannot produce organic and authentic knowledge will only produce powerlessness and utter poverty. This is because poverty of knowledge cannot lead to knowledge of poverty.

This poverty of knowledge is at the roots of Nigeria’s abysmal poverty and its continuous production of powerlessness in all its dimensions and ramifications despite outlandish oil riches. Unfortunately as the large scale looting of our national patrimony and the utter ruination of the economy confirms, you cannot redeem poverty of knowledge or gain knowledge of poverty by importing clever examinees from Harvard and other western citadels and sanctuaries of knowledge and power production. They will simply chew the cuds.

Unless they retool themselves or readapt their analytical skills, Harvard products must reproduce Harvard productions. These glorious citadels of western knowledge and learning and their productions are not meant for the easy consumption of non-western societies. They were not established to help Africa solve its spiritual, economic or political problems.

Knowledge and power production is not a charity ball. Every society must lift itself up by the bootstraps. Establishing ascendancy in human society is not a tea party. In the brutal and unremitting battle of knowledge production and its concomitant production of power, human societies without organic capacity for indigenous knowledge production must fall by the way side.

But you do not have to reinvent the wheel. The evolution of human society is marked and characterized by cross-fertilization of ideas with insights from one society or civilization acting as prodding insight for other human communions. Western knowledge production benefitted a lot from Arabic sciences which arguably took its impetus from Egyptian civilization.

The infusion of philosophical ideals and injection of scientific knowledge which allowed the West to overcome the Dark Age came largely from intellectuals, scientists and philosophers fleeing the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks. When a set of ideas is forcibly imposed on other societies such as we found in Western colonization, it is the equivalent of epistemological rape.

Yet rape victims often survive to play first violin. It is only in Africa that they appear unwilling to do so. Let us look at the career of two of the Third World avatars who made momentous contributions to springing their respective societies from western knowledge-trap. Although a Cambridge graduate, the late Lee Kuan Yew related to western ideas with considerable aplomb. He was not averse to cocking a snook at western civilization or sneering at what he considered its dubieties. As far as he was concerned Singapore is not America or England.

He once confessed to an interviewer that his greatest luck was that he was able to identify other colleagues who had the intellectual confidence and self-assurance to take apart any western concept or idea and then see how it can be adapted or discarded in accordance to the Singaporean reality.

With that, he was able to boost the indigenous knowledge production which transformed Singapore from a Third World colonial backwater to gleaming and glittering First World in one generation. It may help to recall that Yew was of ethnic Chinese stock. The Chinese often view western arrogance with the sublime contempt of the bearers of an older human order.

The other avatar is our own Obafemi Awolowo. Although a private student, Awolowo gained a degree in commerce in addition to his legal qualification. Yet through sheer mental discipline and extraordinary willpower, he was able to acquire a formidable knowledge of western society and institutions and by leveraging the insights gained, he acquired knowledge of a former colonial dominion which remains unmatched in its penetrating acuity and originality.

When Awolowo applied the knowledge acquired to his Yoruba people, he was able to frog march them to the frontiers of western modernity within a momentous decade. In terms of knowledge production and political consciousness, this epochal boost has placed the western region of Nigeria at the cutting edge of political sophistication and intellectual awareness. Perhaps the best compliment the west could pay to Awo was when a British prime minister described him as belonging to the first rank of administrators anywhere in the world.

Yet it needs to be stated that there is nothing preordained and inevitable about the ascendancy and triumph of western modernity over its other rivals. It was a function of random contingency, geography and the spectacular role sheer luck often plays in human and societal affair.

By the end of the tenth century China was the leading empire-nation in the world with its ocean-going liners and their fabled mastheads described by spellbound observers as huge clouds unfurling in the skies going as far as the port of Mombasa in contemporary Kenya. Artefacts recovered in that ancient port suggested Chinese presence dating back to the seventh century.

By the beginning of the twelfth century, Portugal had emerged as the first truly modern nation-state. But it was precisely at this point that the Chinese mandarinate became embroiled in a murderous power struggle with the feudal dynasty over the destiny of the nation which led to China being closed off to the outside world for centuries.

By the time the veil was lifted, the world had moved on. In the case of the Portuguese, geography and location led the intrepid sailor, Vasco da Gama and his successors, towards Africa and India rather than towards Latin America and its vast riches and vaster colonial possibilities.

Even then, the race to full western modernity was a ding-dong affair among western nations, with Portugal yielding ascendancy to Spain and with Holland economically trumping the Spaniards barely sixty years after gaining independence. England completed the military and economic rout of the early colonial powers only for England in turn to be militarily and economically shellacked by the emergent American superpower. In all these struggles for ascendancy, it is the nation with superior knowledge that always prevailed.

If it is of any comfort, we might as well add things have not always been this bleak and dreary in Africa. When the Portuguese adventurers arrived in the old Kongo Kingdom around present day Angola, they met a society vastly superior in organization and cohesion to the one they left behind at home. They loitered around listlessly, hoping to encounter the mighty army which underwrote this mighty empire.

Alas, there was no army, only a loosely coordinated and rudimentary fighting force not much better than a hunting pack. The emperor had no clothes on. The Portuguese could not believe their luck. They then proceeded to sack the kingdom with clinical cruelty. In the next few decades almost all the surviving inhabitants were captured and transported as slaves to the new colony of Brazil through the new slave port of Luanda.

The lesson to be learnt from all these encounters is that knowledge matters and human capital is the driving agency behind all societal advances. It will take at least three decades and three generations of unbroken progressive leadership to reverse the damage done to Nigeria and its capacity to produce its own organic human capital. We will be lucky if the damage is not more fundamental and irreversible.

It may well be the time to resume the search for African avatars all over again. Pandit Nehru once ordered that if India could not clothe itself, the proud nationals of the new country should go naked. Within a few years, India had achieved self-sufficiency in the production of apparels. Nehru was tapping into the subliminal pride of the people of an ancient empire. They would have recalled that Indians used to joke about the poor quality of western fabrics when western adventurers finally made it to the Indian subcontinent five hundred years earlier.

At this critical point, Nigeria and Africa need leaders who will mend the broken spirit and resuscitate the collapsed morale of the founding continent and original cradle of mankind. This is the crucial significance of what appears to be a new beginning in Nigeria.
- First published in 2015
August 14, 2022
The Road Not taken

Like all ancient empires, kingdoms and fiefdoms of yore, a nation is a perpetual work in progress. But it is not a permanent project in progression. Nations also have their time line to shape up or ship out as the case may be.

There is a time when irreversible decline arising from insurmountable contradictions sets in leading to mindless destruction of human and material capital. Death usually ensues. The notion that there is abundance of time to rectify human errors, an oceanic plenitude of opportunities for self-correction of avoidable lapses, is one of the dismal illusions of the postcolonial elite in Africa.

As the Buhari administration begins its final phase of disengagement, there is no better time to assess and evaluate the road not taken. This is not an opportunity for bitter recrimination but a chance to examine what could have been done in a better way; to apprehend what conduces to nation-building and what lends itself to nation-disablement.

We cannot grab the future without grappling with the immediate past. We must decide whether to build on the meagre and underwhelming achievements of the outgoing administration or to return the country to the years of the locusts and open the door to total disorder.

Unfortunately, the old ruling conglomerate has shown itself to be beyond soap and water; an irredeemable lot solely and soullessly obsessing with recapturing power without any transformative vision of the nation, a party that cannot even be trusted with abiding by the zoning formula which is its most sacred tradition and the signal bequeathment of its founding fathers to a beleaguered nation.

Read Also: In search of African avatars

There can be no doubt that when he came in the second time as a civilian leader, General Buhari stirred the hope and expectations of many of his compatriots. There was a pleasant and optimistic buzz in the air. There was an air of national rebirth and rejuvenation about. It was as if Nigeria had finally found the messiah it has been looking for all along. It was a magic moment, the magic moment of Mohammadu. But many were also those who demurred, dismissing the whole thing as a gargantuan media scam; an illusionist fantasia; a hollow apotheosis.

But General Buhari looked every inch the part: lean, piously ascetic, compellingly frugal and astringently abstemious, there was a fire of indignation and outrage burning in his eyes. How could anybody do this to such a gifted nation, he seemed to be asking. He was like an Old Testament prophet; a modern Daniel come to judgement and justice.

Seven years later, the jury is out and about to return its verdict. Whether it is completely damning or mildly reproachful remains to be seen. There are many hurting compatriots out there who believe and insist that the nation has been taken for a ride once again and that the serial gang rape continues, only a change of defilers. But as we have noted, this is not a time for recrimination but a time to reimagine the colonial Trojan horse away from the path of perdition and possible extinction.

This morning, as part of the process of nation-retrieval, we bring you a piece which heralded the second coming of the general from Daura seven years ago. In many respects, the article appears spot on in its dire prognosis. But if in retrospect, the optimism and faith appear misplaced and unwarranted, if it is shot through with promiscuous hope, the columnist accepts full culpability.

August 14, 2022