The Nation Newspaper

Category: Sunday

  • Trajectory 2023: Troublous trifecta?

    Trajectory 2023: Troublous trifecta?

    “To start with, our public finance is currently hobbled by the enervating trifecta of low revenues, mounting debts and growing petrol subsidy. There is hardly a miracle that can reverse this overnight or a soundbite that can poetically make them vanish from 29th May 2023.” – Waziri Adio, Thisday, Sunday, 17th April 2022.

    Who succeeds President Muhammadu Buhari come 29th May 2023 is topmost on the agenda presently in political discourse and debates in our dear country, Nigeria? Candidly, Nigeria is seemingly smothering economically taking cognizance of statistical metrics glaring analysts in the face. These are crystal clear signals that even before passing the baton come 29th May 2023 to his successor, Buhari, should as a matter of priority, consciously steer the ship of state out of troubled waters. It is as crucial as that even though many political gladiators eyeing Aso Rock are seemingly grandstanding without reflecting on the onerous duty peradventure any of them eventually mount the saddle. It was my friend, Festus Akanbi, Deputy Editor, Thisday that jolted me into writing this piece when few days ago, he chatted me up and demanded answers to daring questions bordering on oil subsidy vis – a – vis the World Bank release as touching Nigeria’s public finance and debt sustainability.

    Moreover, while ruminating proffering answers to his probing questions, Waziri Adio’s column in Thisday of Sunday, 17th April 2022 caught my fancy. I was apparently arrested by a paragraph in his treatise. Do aspirants jostling for Buhari’s job know what are the issues at stake bordering on security, power generation, unemployment, oil subsidy, oil theft, infrastructure, education, health, etc. “The bigger the head, the bigger the headache” (apology to late Chief MKO Abiola). Adio succinctly and saliently captured the moment when he adroitly pontificated inter alia: “to start with, our public finance is currently hobbled by the enervating trifecta of low revenues, mounting debts and growing petrol subsidy. There is hardly a miracle that can reverse this overnight or a soundbite that can poetically make them vanish from 29th May 2023.” In this edition of the “Followership Challenge”, borrowing the diction of Adio, this columnist would want to fixate, in the trajectory to 2023, on the trifecta of repugnant revenue, debilitating debts and paranoid petrol subsidy. These are core and cogent issues that all serious contenders in the trajectory to 2023 should confront whilst the followers also have to really engaged these aspirants or contenders to see how they can strategically steer the ship of state without blaming the predecessor for the plethora of problems inherited, after all, a successor to any office inherits both the assets and liabilities. In the past, the All Progressives Congress (APC), as the opposition party, was lampooning and lambasting the People Democratic Party (PDP), the then ruling party. The opposite is the case presently as PDP blames APC for the ailing economy whilst the ruling party ascribed it to years of the locust of the PDP in power. Enough of buck passing! This is not leadership!! Leadership provides direction to solutions resulting in mutually acceptable outcomes. Surmising it succinctly, leadership is a journey involving participants – leader and followers – heading for a desired destination.

    Taming The Trifecta

    As at the time of going to the press, the price of crude oil in the international market was hovering around $107.91, no thanks to the Russia – Ukraine internecine war. Nigeria is supposed to be raking in revenue in dollars but the reverse is the case. The menace of oil theft with the concomitant low production of crude oil turns the supposed gain to gloom. Nigeria’s government should go full steam against the oil thieves and curtail them before grounding the country. Moreover, the present administration should apply brakes to further borrowing. It is an open secret that much of the borrowing is expended on the rail infrastructure which if care is not taken will mortgage our future to China and other creditors. Presently, not less than 95% of our revenue is expended on servicing debts. Why should we borrow more? It is unwise! In addition, the World Bank recently raised a red flag that continual funding of oil subsidy by the government may jeopardize our public finance and debt sustainability. Is this not apparent with a humongous budget of four trillion Naira (N4t) to fund petrol subsidy? It is truism that withdrawing subsidy on petrol may be politically suicidal especially in the eve of an election year. What is the way out of this conundrum should be of utmost preoccupation in the mind of any serious contender for the presidency?

    It is high time Nigeria’s Federal Government thought out of the box for homegrown solutions to this perennial malaise of oil subsidy palaver. Firstly, it is vital to economically, as a policy, diversify and disinvest from oil forthwith. Plunging a certain percentage of oil earnings of this year in prospecting for a new oil field in the coming year is not sensible as the world is even shifting from fossil fuels and demanding for compliance with sustainable actionable steps. It is imperative to diversify away from oil. In this vein, the handlers of Nigeria’s economy should provide a level playing field as well as strong political will to diversify our economy away from oil. The Buhari government has toed that part but not with strong traction in its trajectory. More proactive, progressive and passionate steps are needed to steer the ship of state away from sinking! The remaining one year could still be explored and exploited to sagaciously stem the tide. It is doable.

    Secondly, Nigeria could strategically unleash her latent Diaspora resources at a time like this! What stops Nigeria from establishing a Diaspora Development Bank with such audacious goals as offering collaboration opportunities in foreign direct investment (FDI) to Nigerians in Diaspora especially in startups in Fintech, ICT, Pharmaceuticals, Medicals, Agribusiness, etc.  For instance, Agribusiness will enhance export resulting in increased GDP, creation of new jobs and jerking up the value of the Naira. Why this upbeat about Diaspora’s capability? In 2021, the World Bank projection of Diaspora remittance inflow for Nigeria was surpassed, amounting at a time to a whopping $14.2 billion within nine months ending September 2021!

    Thirdly, Nigeria needs to genuinely and patriotically review her import list with a view to discarding some items on the list, especially those that are locally produced. I read recently of the government at the centre lowering tariffs on imported vehicles and I was wondering, are we putting on our thinking caps in a dipping economy with a galloping value of the Naira? It is widely known that much pressure has been on foreign exchange needs whether for medicals, educational, industrial, commercial, governmental, etc. Hence, it is inconceivable to be lowering tariffs on any imported item presently unless they are core and cogent reasons which the Federal Government fails to offer. In fact, any serious government at the level of our tottering economy vis – a- vis the unpleasant exchange rate of the local currency, Naira, will review myriads of items on the import list and pruned the list to checkmate undue pressure on the demand for forex and simultaneously offer a new lease of life to local industries producing same items with a view to grow and boost the economy within the nick of time.

    Postscript – APC and PDP: Hope Rising?

    The outcomes of the meetings of both the National Executive Committee (NEC) and National Working Committee (NWC) of the ruling party, APC, in unanimity, decided to conduct the primary elections of the party through indirect primary method. In essence, delegates of the party, from all the nooks and crannies of the country, will be the determinant factor in who emerges as the party’s presidential candidate. This will be the norm for the gubernatorial, national assembly and house of assembly elections across the thirty-six states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). Earlier, the top leaders of the main opposition party, PDP, had equally coalesced their conversation on the adoption of the same indirect primary for the choice of their presidential flagbearer for the 2023 election. This columnist recently was appealing to the leaders of the two most popular parties – APC and PDP – to toe the line of reason and jettison the controversial contraption called consensus. This columnist is both elated and excited that the duo are going this route of indirect primary as it is one way to develop and deepen our nascent democracy. However, there should be a level playing field and a generally accepted list of delegates so that at the end the process will be adjudged fair and square by both party members and observers. May the best candidates emerge. We are following and flowing along.

    • Ekundayo, can be reached via 08155262360 (SMS only) and drjmoekundayo@hotmail.com
  • An afternoon with Iku Baba Yeye

    An afternoon with Iku Baba Yeye

    To the ornate and historic Aafin in Oyo for an equally historic encounter with the reigning monarch, His Imperial Majesty, Oba Lamidi  Olayiwola Adeyemi 111, Iku Baba Yeye this cool Saturday afternoon preceding Palm Sunday. Whenever there is a power crisis in the land, you do not go to the current locus of power but to its old source and origins.

    This afternoon, the much-storied Oyo metropolis wore a serene and calm look, befitting the sanctuary of a powerful but circumspect ruler.  The Oyo palace is structured like an unfolding museum with the most ancient buildings fronting and yielding place to more modern constructions that housed historic human relics.

    On getting to the main building, you are welcomed by a polite and friendly prince who is introduced as the last son of the late Alaafin Adeniran, the father of the current king. Inside an adjacent building colonial era automobiles belonging to many Alaafins of remote antiquity lay in various states of posthumous dereliction.

    Only somebody with a vast sense of history could have pulled off this fascinating panoply of the ancient and the modern. By popular consensus, the reigning Oyo sovereign is a master-historian; a gifted scholar-monarch deeply versed in the history of his people and a major league political polemicist who cannot be toyed with even by Ivory Tower hidebound chronologists. His power of recall and photographic memory are a tad short of the miraculous.

    The Alaafin recalls people, events and places with the ease and facility of an ancient griot. Nothing escapes his razor-sharp intellect and astonishing power of observation. Fifty years into a momentous reign which benchmarks some of the most turbulent events in Nigeria’s military and post-military history,  Iku Baba Yeye is still going very strong.

    The current palace is not the abode of those ancient Alaafins of mysterious valour and even more mysterious allure. That one lay in ruins more than a hundred kilometres to the north west of the current site. This current Oyo owes its existence to the visionary zeal and ruthless vigour of its founding monarch, the former Prince Atiba, a direct ancestor of the ruling monarch.

    A wealthy and well-connected son of Alaafin Abiodun Adegolu, one of the most consequential Alaafin to rule the ancient empire, Atiba was already very well known in the area for his business exploits. Richard Lander, a British adventurer travelling through the territory at the time of Abiodun, spoke of well-trained superbly fit archers taking their turn in a shooting practice near the heart of the well-defended town.

    This was Oyo Empire at its zenith. Decline and desuetude set in not long afterwards. The centre could no longer hold. The routing of the forces of the empire by invading Fulani cavalry is regarded by historians as one of the greatest calamities to have befallen the Yoruba people since the beginning of recorded history.  Two hundred years later, its echoes continue to reverberate across the Yoruba landscape and to shape the people’s tumultuous postcolonial politics.

    It was said that the then Prince Atiba was one of the earliest to realize that as a result of internal contradictions the great empire had come to the end of its tether. Even before the military debacle, he had begun shrewdly and astutely gathering the remnant reins of power around himself, rallying the surviving princes and Oyo notables to his banner of a new beginning.

    It is said that all political entities have their sell-by date. No power on earth can stop the march of history or the supplanting of an old order. A new Oyo emerged from the ruins of the old Oyo with Atiba as the undisputed master and new law giver. It was an astonishing feat of self-reinvention for which the Yoruba race ought to be grateful. The empire is dead, long live the empire.

    But Johnson, the master chronicler of Yoruba history and his successor-brother aka Ajani Ogun who are often accused of Oyo-centrism and sub-ethnic hegemonic exceptionalism, were not so kind in their epic history of the Yoruba people. They made a short shrift of Atiba obliquely calling him out for deliberately collapsing his flank in order to facilitate the military rout of Oyo army by Fulani horsemen.

    Whatever may be the case, it is clear that the new Oyo owes its existence to the visionary resourcefulness of this strategically savvy and diplomatically astute scion of the ancient empire. A power-master without commensurate military knuckle, Atiba was to endure decades of military contumely and ritual humiliation from a succession of dominant warlords from the new Ibadan military hegemons until colonial intervention put paid to their hegemonic pretension.

    This cool and demure afternoon, the Alaafin sat casually clad but radiating the unmistakable aura of imperial power and authority.  There is a mystifying veil about this royal personage which speaks volumes about royal breeding and its alluring mystique.

    Like all secular deities of consequence, the Alaafin is mystery personified: all-knowing and all-seeing but enveloped in a wall of strategic silence and royal reticence. As age and power refined an early tubbiness, his royal highness increasingly reminds one of a playful elderly hawk with its talon hidden from sight.

    One has been on his royal highness case for quite some time. As an apprentice journalist one was present around March 1971 when the Nigerian Tribune, an implacable ancient foe, wrote an editorial condemning his choice as the new Alaafin.  The editorial, titled, We Shall Be Back to Square One hinted of a return match which must restore parity.

    All hell was let loose around midnight. Brigadier Adeyinka Adebayo was having none of that nonsense. The people at the helm of affairs of the newspaper had forgotten that in every newspaper house, there are state moles who usually deliver daily contents to the authorities ahead of schedule. It was a fatal error of judgement. Alhaji Aminu’s building which housed The Tribune at Adeoyo was surrounded by gun-toting and fierce-looking soldiers who put the newspaper to siege and sacked the entire place.

    In the ensuing melee and disorderly retreat, yours sincerely found himself in company of others running helter-skelter in the direction of the adjoining Sapati (Shepherd) Hill. Very well ahead and already hugging the precincts of the Minor Seminary at Oke Are was an intrepid and enterprising reporter who later distinguished himself as an Infantry Colonel of the Nigerian Army.

    Gabriel Ajayi, one of the greatest generals the Nigerian Army never had, was to have his illustrious career terminated on trumped up charges of plotting against General Abacha. He never recovered from the trauma of protracted detention and unjust incarceration. The night he died, he had cried to his maker like Ken Saro-Wiwa to release him from the hell that was Nigeria. After a successful operation, a blood clot had detached itself and lodged firmly in his lungs.

    His royal highness, Oba Lamidi Adeyemi himself barely escaped General Abacha’s murderous dragnet. The exiled Nigerian community rallied. Snooper recruited his uncle in law, an accountant who was Abiola’s classmate and landlord in Glasgow, to the cause and he went to work using his vast network of connection with the British establishment. With Nosa Igiebor in exile in London, the intrepid Tell magazine also did a cover to alert Nigerians about the impending anti-royal heist.

    When yours sincerely reminded his royal majesty about the incident, he nodded grimly and gravely, like somebody trying to forget a nightmare. Now twenty six years after, Nigeria is approaching another epic emergency which may dwarf all the earlier emergencies. How a country manages to sleepwalk to tragedy with such amazing punctuality beggars all beliefs. Something must be said about a nation being structurally rigged against rationality and modernity.

    The Alaafin is very clear and far-sighted about the origins of the political crisis gradually enveloping the nation. But he is more worried about the prospects of leading Yoruba political gladiators tearing at each other unto death as the elaborate game of political chess progresses. The Yoruba proverb asserts that when two children are trying to fell a tree in a forest, it is the elders who know how and where the falling log will land.

    It is of grave concern to him that the traditional conflict resolving mechanism among Yoruba pre-colonial political elite did not appear to have survived the colonial incursion. It has led to a situation of looming anarchy and chaos. This is why care must be taken to handle the burgeoning crisis of succession if the country were not to dissolve in an apocalyptic meltdown.

    Oba Lamidi Adeyemi hints of a clearly well thought out and brilliant panacea for the warring children of Oduduwa. But this is not for public consumption. As a precondition all the political combatants must demonstrate a spirit of give and take before coming to the negotiating table.

    Fifty one years after Alaafin’s coronation as the paramount traditional ruler of his people, the Nigerian nation and the colonial successor-state appear to be permanently embroiled in a crisis of nationhood.

    This unending and unceasing run of conflicts is enough to wear down even the stoutest and most determined of rulers. It is an implicit vote of no confidence. But Oba Adeyemi is unfazed and undeterred by the turbulent exigencies of nation-building. He has continued to contribute his considerable intellectual quota to resolving the crisis of federalism that has haunted the nation since independence.

    When the conversation turned to the issue of the nexus between Yoruba traditional pharmacology and power politics, the Alaafin is particularly illuminating. In Yoruba traditional politics any ruler who was deemed to have exhausted his goodwill and the limits of his historical and political possibility was asked by the representatives of his people to do the needful. To facilitate the process of self-elimination, the monarch is called aside and presented with a calabash containing a powerful poisonous substance.

    Right from youth, yours sincerely has been very curious to know the nature of this powerful substance. The  Alaafin, supremely versed and well-acquainted with the recondite politics of his people, believes it is a local species of the opium flower. When he was asked to expatiate on this, Iku Baba Yeye responded with a devastating smile of complicity. This columnist chose not to press his luck.

    Oba Adeyemi also eulogised the power and efficacy of Yoruba traditional healing. In those days upon a snake bite, the offending snake is summoned by the local medicine man and ordered to suck out its own poison thereby fatally infecting itself in the process. The head was summarily lobbed off and thrown into a pouch after which the medicine man would vanish without trace.

    It was getting dark in Oyo and it was time to leave this wise and learned monarch, a pride to his people, his nation and the entire Black Race. If only our contemporary politicians could imbibe half of his wisdom and learning and just a fraction of his concern for his people and good breeding! As usual, Oba Adeyemi asked his aides to bring copies of latest intellectual endeavours. He had thrust a personally embossed copy to yours sincerely. It has been a great evening in Oyo.

  • Okon romances Shakirat, as Baba Lekki unfolds MRN

    Okon romances Shakirat, as Baba Lekki unfolds MRN

    To the Olobeloloko Canteen of Shakirat, aka Iya Abolere, on the outskirts of  Ipaja Village for a rousing meal of grilled porcupine and pounded yam served with Elegede and woorowo vegetable marinated by crushed mushroom of an aromatic variety found in only that part of the country and at a particular time of the year. Gastronomic legend has it that the mushroom was brought by Egbado or Yewa people fleeing from the ravages of the brutal King Gezo of Dahomey in the mid-nineteenth century.

    A day after the historic Senate vote, a leglessly drunk Baba Lekki was sighted in the neighbourhood distributing leaflets announcing the arrival of a new political movement named MRN. When the old contrarian was accosted by undercover police agents to tell them the meaning of MRN, he went berserk with rage and insolence.

    “Oga shine una Zombie eye well well. MRN na Movement for the Recall of Nigeria. Abi when dem vehicle get factory fault no be say you go recall am make dem factory fit am or finish am?” the old crook demanded from the security agents who strangely asked him to carry on.

    It was such a delight to escape the political bedlam through the suburban backdoor to the Lagos country side and its amazing beauty of a landscape and soothing vegetation. Strange things are happening in the country. Some other groups are distributing leaflets about an e-country. Snooper is familiar with e-passport, e-ticket and e-visa. But what does e-country mean? We put the question to Okon who made a short shrift of his boss.

    “Oga as I no sabi book, how I go know?” the mad boy taunted. “But how come you no know say e-country mean exit country?”

    “And what does that mean?” snooper growled.

    “He mean say country don exit, which mean say he no dey exist again, obodo don kaput”, Okon retorted with malicious gusto. For once the mad boy seems to be making a whole lot of sense. But people of his ilk are also part of the problem. With his incessant demand for a pay hike and paternity leave, Okon had become a nuisance and a source of domestic terror. When snooper asked the mad boy how he proposed to cater for the children he was siring, he had shot back that since nobody catered for him, everybody must find their way.

    “Oga as dem Yoruba people dey say, when cow no get tail, na Baba God dey help am fight flies”, the mad boy snorted as he tucked into a bowl of rice and beans.

    But to think of leaving Okon behind is to find him in front of you. The previous day the crazy boy had arrived home nursing swollen eyes and phenomenally inflated lips. When snooper asked him about the source of his injuries, he replied that he had just escaped kidnappers. Unknown to snooper Okon occasionally visits Ipaja to extort money from Shakirat under the guise of providing protection from kidnappers.

    Snooper had hardly settled down to the wondrous meal when Iya  Abolore, a big bosomy lady with elephantine girth, trundled towards us beaming her usual conspiratorial smile.

    “ Ha oga dat your boy Okon, na real olosha, He come yesterday with them e-boys. I give am food and money but him say I never give am real food. As him dey look me one kind, I come hit am with dem heavy spoon, but as dat one no do I come pound am with dem yam pestle naim him oga and dem exit boys come carry am go. When him reach heaven make him dey go do dat kind yeye nonsense with women who old pass him mama”, the woman chanted breathlessly.

    It was then that snooper understood why Okon had been economical with the truth about his injuries. The shame of his misadventure would not allow him to come clean. A revolution is truly upon the land.

    First published in 2017.

  • 2023: Is APC southern presidential candidacy a ruse?

    2023: Is APC southern presidential candidacy a ruse?

    What piece warned that if he (President Buhari) failed, it will be on account of his Fulani kinsmen who saw his presidency as an opportunity to consolidate their hold on Nigeria. Unfortunately, nothing has changed. His abdication of his responsibilities to a crusading team only led to the collapse of governance with immigrant herdsmen, bandits and insurgents making the country ungovernable”.

    “Last week’s call for Buhari’s resignation by Baba Ahmed of the Northern Elders Forum (NEF) because “we cannot continue to live and die under the dictates of killers, kidnappers, rapists and sundry criminal groups have deprived us of our rights to live in peace and security”, captured the anguish and fears of Nigerians, especially Northerners who are not only unsure of their tomorrow, but scared of another one year of President Buhari’s platitudes”.

    “President Buhari’s crusading team is a refuge for his ‘loyal gate keepers, political appointees, Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeder Association, the umbrella body for Fulani Herdsmen that threatened to resist anti-grazing laws in some 75 Local Government Areas in 21 states shortly after Buhari’s election, and their patron Emirs who, from their fiefdoms, encourage herdsmen to disobey anti-grazing laws of their host communities”.

    Ordinarily, one would have expected that rather than joining the long queue of Southern APC presidential contestants, these people will calm down, and wonder as to why President Muhamadu Buhari would like to see power out of Fulani hands, at this point in time, when his entire administration had been largely devoted to Fulani exceptionalism.

    Or why would

    nearly all his consequential appointments, literally his entire security apparatti, his policies, including that in which he has his greatest achievement, that is, railway transportation architecture,  at very heavy borrowing, which had to terminate in a foreign country, all now be put, in the foreseeable future, in the hands of a non Northerner(Fulani preferably) given all we have seen of the  usually toxic relationship between former Presidents, and their successors?

    Did these ever- excited Southern contestants ever  asked  themselves why it was that easy zoning the  presidency to the South in the APC?

    Or what what exactly do they think would  have happened if interested Northerners were as adamant as those in the other party? I hope to God they  did not think that any Northern politician was influenced, one way or the other, by the Southern governors saying that the presidency must be zoned to the South.

    The more germane question in all these,  however, is this: does President Buhari seem to these people who are about  dropping a humongous N100M nomination fees, like one who would like to undo all he has done for his people?

    If these self – consumed Southern politicians who seldom read, and pay scant attention to things around them, Fulanis on the other hand have, from time immemorial, been a highly intellectual race, which depends a great deal on their intelligentsia. That is why many marvel at how they romance power, always to their advantage and to the chagrin of others. It is the power of their intellectual group e. g, the Kaduna Mafia, which they respected a lot.

    One thing many are ignorant of  is that in spite of all that President Buhari has done for them, Fulanis still consider themselves endangered species in Nigeria.

    Let us, for instance, press Ahmadu Shehu, PhD, into service here.

    Writing in an article he titled: ‘Fulani  As Endangered Species In Nigeria’, he claims:”It is generally considered an impossible hyperbole when the current trajectory of ethnic profiling against the Fulani people in Nigeria is linked with the road to Kigali. But, except something drastic is done, for most dispassionate observers, this is as sure as the sun rises from the east. Therefore, as Mbororo (i.e. a herdsman), I write from experience to call the attention of Nigeria and the world to the danger facing not only the Fulani but also millions of Nigerians who look like them. With this article, I hope to save the world from escapism and blame-game when our negligence eventually allows the deed”. …Today’s Nigeria is to a Fulani what Rwanda of the 1990s was to a Tutsi. The prerequisites for the looming disaster have been met and are consistently, persistently and comprehensively being propagated, promoted and disseminated. Of this, the world must not claim ignorance. Despite their historical contributions to the Nigerian and African civilisations, the economic value chains they have helped sustain and subsidise for centuries, the scholarship they have institutionalised on the continent, and their passionate, patriotic contributions in the creation and growth of this entity called Nigeria, the Fulani are today being commodified and dehumanised in deliberate ethnic profiling. Like the Jews in Europe, Fulani folks are the herders of Nigeria, holding the largest share in the country’s livestock sector”.

    Master of the hyperbole, not to call him names, he continues: “Unfortunately, this cultural means of livelihood has fallen under persistent attacks and other bigoted attempts to impoverish the herding population. Once the most prosperous, most self-reliant and wealthy in northern Nigeria, millions of the Fulani people have become destitute, impoverished by the twin evils of bad governance and climate change. The results of this are apparent: many have turned to criminality as means of survival. Instead of treating the root causes of this menace, the Nigerian governments at all levels have resorted to criminalising every Pullo and whoever that looks like “them”.

    The “master trickster” proceeds at his incredible ingenuity: “At every checkpoint of the Nigerian security agencies, one demography is a primary target: The Fulani. The state that has deliberately refused to educate and enlighten them, despite being the highest tax-paying single ethnic group, has turned its security agencies into lions that hunt and extort these vulnerable citizens without discrimination. Police stations, prisons and other detention centres around this country are filled with innocent, young Fulanis without being charged or tried”

    I think somebody should tell this gentleman exactly who preferred feudalism to education and ensured that the children of the poor – their current nemesis – did not go school. In case he doesnt live in Nigeria, he needs be told that though Fulani herdsmen attack in hundreds, maiming and killing, the Nigeria police is dexterous in never arresting any – and you know why – but in the unlikely even that they arrest and charge to court, they hardly ever get convicted. And that is where such a case is not summarily terminated.

    But more substantially, who would believe that Dr Shehu was talking of the same people the reverred Sultan of Sokoto, HRH Muhammadu Sa’ad Abubakar III, was referring to when he said “seven to eight out of every ten kidnappers arrested in Nigeria are Fulani”. Coincidentally, His Eminence said this in Abuja at a meeting of the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders’ Association (MACBAN). And it is the exact same people the Emir of Muri , Abbas Tafida,  gave a 30 day ultimatum to leave the forests in Taraba State, or face consequences for allegedly being involved in killing, kidnapping, and raping residents”.

    So why all these backgrouding?

    For me personally, I have not stopped to marvel at President Buhari’s indescribable insistence at having Senator Abdullahi Adamu as the National Chairman of the APC.  Here is  a man who few weeks to the convention had not even shown any interest in contesting but was, rather, leisurely resolving disputes in the party; a programme designed as a never ending one, to give some people some advantages, whenever it was the severally postponed convention, finally held.

    I scoured the internet to locate what must have so fervently recommended him to the president.

    Below is what I got.

    “Nobody can stop the government from acquiring land anywhere in Nigeria. Government is government. If anybody thinks he is violent, ýgovernment has monopoly of violence,”.

    Senator Adamu said that at a public hearing organized by the Joint Senate Committees on Agriculture and Rural Development and National Security and Intelligence  while vigorously defending herdsmen  and making a case  for the establishment  of grazing reserve routes, nationwide, long after the governors of Kaduna and Katsina had denounced this 17th century mode of herding.

    You would never have thought that Adamu was once a state governor, and know a thing about ownership of lands in  states.

    Add the following to all the above,  and the purpose of this article would have been served.

    I quote from the Vanguard newspaper:”One time governor of Niger State, Dr. Babangida Aliyu, has said that Northern governors, under the auspices of the Northern Governors’ Forum, NGF, agreed to deliberately work against the second term bid of Jonathan”.”He said the decision was informed by what he described as Jonathan’s failure to honour an agreement he had with them in 2011″. When former Governor Jonah Jang of Plateau state controverted this in the Vanguard of 18 April, 2021, it was merely to say that not all of them did so. It is necessary to mention that in order to fake unanimity, the PDP leadership decided to print only ONE Presidential nomination form which contestant Jonathan picked, and must have felt convinced that he was coasting home.

    For the APC in the 2023 Presidential election, I urge: UBERIMA FIDEI, that is utmost good faith. But then, to the contestants, I say: eternal vigilance, is the price of liberty.

  • Northern elders and Buhari’s resignation

    Northern elders and Buhari’s resignation

    It is distressing trying to rationalise the federal government’s paralysis in the face of the Plateau and Benue killings last weekend. About 130 people died from the twin invasions, probably perpetrated by bandits, herdsmen and other ethnic militias. The killings served as a context for the Northern Elders Forum’s call on President Muhammadu Buhari to resign. The call is justified, even legal; but it may not be expedient. This was not the first time the exasperated leaders of the Forum, speaking through its spokesman, Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, would be asking the president to resign. Dr Baba-Ahmed had repeatedly voiced the concerns of the Forum, concluding that the president had displayed no initiative in combating the massive breakdown of law and order in many parts of the country, particularly the North. The train attacks of recent months, the last of which turned bloody last month, not to say wholesale abductions of Nigerians carried out by bandits in the Northwest and other freelance criminal elements in Southern Nigeria, underscored the justness of the call despite the presidency repeatedly taking umbrage.

    Still, Dr Baba-Ahmed explained why the Forum had to repeat its call to the president to step aside. Said he: “The administration of President Muhammadu Buhari does not appear to have answers to the challenges of security to which we are exposed. We cannot continue to live and die under the dictates of killers, kidnappers, rapists and sundry criminal groups that have deprived us of our rights to live in peace and security. Our constitution has provisions for leaders to voluntarily step down if they are challenged by personal reasons or they prove incapable of leading. It is now time for President Buhari to seriously consider that option since his leadership has proven spectacularly incapable of providing security over Nigerians. Our forum is aware of the weight of this advice and it is also aware that we cannot continue to live under these conditions until 2023 when President Buhari’s term ends. Killers and other criminals appear to have sensed a paralysing vacuum at the highest levels of leadership and they grow more confident and acquire more competence in subverting the state and our security. Nigerians have shed enough tears and blood without appropriate response from those with responsibilities to protect us.”

    The Buhari presidency is nearly seven years old. Within that time, it had failed to demonstrate competence in managing conflicts of all kinds, whether they are interethnic, religious, or even political. The gains in the battle against insurgents in the Northeast have seemed to come from internal schisms within insurgent groups, between Boko Haram and Islamic State in West Africa Province (ISWAP). The Nigerian military, however, suggests the gains result from their pressures on the insurgents. Whatever the reasons, such gains have not been replicated against the bandits in the Northwest, leading to speculations of official complicity propped up by ethnic affiliations or significant security collaborations. The NEF does not concern itself with what the reasons are for governmental failing. To the group, it is sufficient that the Buhari presidency has seemed incapable of responding to the killings in various parts of the country, including in the Southeast where chaos seems to be simmering.

    NEF is not the sole representative of northern opinion on any issue, let alone on the Buhari presidency. What is more, southerners also sometimes find it hard to distinguish between Dr Baba-Ahmed’s personal opinions, though he takes care to identify them as such, and the Forum’s considered and endorsed opinions. Often, however, his views have seldom deviated from the Forum’s, and have in fact mostly lent credence to the body’s generally progressive perspectives on national issues. Asking President Buhari to resign, as sensible and justified as that is, may not be representative of the North. The call should be taken as symbolic, to underscore the group’s pained impression of the president’s failings and declining effectiveness. The call, above all, is an indication of the Forum’s frustrations with the presidency’s flatfootedness, indeed a final indication of their despair that the Buhari government can be redeemed. After years of failing to respond appropriately to crises, preferring to propound excuses upon excuses, and justifications after justifications, the presidency had finally, it seems to the Forum, shown clearly that it had no further idea what to do to stanch the flow of blood all over Nigeria. The Forum appears scared that the country could in fact be tipping over to the abyss. Other groups also nurse such fear.

    Nevertheless, it is doubtful whether President Buhari’s resignation can obviate the impending apocalypse. He is not the only problem with a truly and obviously dysfunctional presidency; the problem is more accurately located in the ideas and machinations of a cavalcade of gross opportunists who seized control of the nerve centre of the presidency in 2015 but knew little what to do with the immense monarchical powers they inherited by default. The president may embody the problem, and may also be a significant contributor and amplifier of the decay and paralysis in government, but the problem is in fact far more transcendent, structural and foundational than NEF or many aggrieved Nigerians seem to suggest. Briefly speaking, the problem is outside the framework of the presidency’s architectural composition, and is located within the country’s religious and ethnic milieu. In addition, until a significant restructuring of the country is undertaken, with substantial power devolved to the country’s constituent parts, running the country along the jaded unity which the country’s many presidents have heedlessly espoused for decades will always end in fiasco. Indeed, had the president founded his government on sound philosophical, ethical and inclusive principles, contending with and resolving banditry and insurgency, in the unlikely event they arose, would be far easier than the heavy weather he has made of it.

    In 2015, the country drove a soft bargain to secure the services of a president they genuinely thought had not transmogrified as his detractors warned. Since winning the poll, however, he had embarked on proving his haters right. Contrary to the suggestions of NEF, the country will have to manage him till next year. Having spent almost seven years belaboured by the president’s strange political and administrative orthodoxies, Nigerians can afford to have him for a few more months, as precarious as those ominous months might be. President Buhari will of course ignore NEF’s call, as one of his spokesmen signposted last week; but should he heed them, he would not depart with his vice president, Yemi Osinbajo, the less emboldened, less resolute and more uninitiated politician from the South. The country remembers the political complications President Umaru Yar’Adua’s death in 2010 caused Nigeria; no one is prepared for that sort of thing anymore, not even by Doctrine of Necessity or, in 1960s parlance, acts of omission. Instead of calling for the president’s resignation, NEF should pressure him to do what is right, even if he would not listen.

    Census 2023 reckless

    The National Council of State on Thursday decided, among other things, to okay a national census for April 2023 after the general election. Before then, explained the National Population Commission (NPC) director-general, Nasir Isa-Kwara, a pilot census would be conducted in June this year. The last census was conducted in 2006, suggesting that the country had been relying on projections for national planning. Preaching to the converted, Mr Isa-Kwara adumbrated reasons a census was indispensable to planning. He was theoretically right.

    But for the Council of State to suggest a census for April 2023, immediately after what is certain to be a contentious election, must be really bold, optimistic and reckless. There has been no census that was not controversial, and rather than be used for planning, a noble aim that is nevertheless often defeated by the shenanigans that accompany it, it had been deployed for political purposes, to shore up ethnic exceptionalism and electoral advantage. Census needs to be conducted periodically; but if at the best of times that could not be done without bitterness and acrimony, why is the Council fishing in troubled waters, especially at a time of dire national financial predicament, unmanageable insecurity and collapsing economy?

    Firstly, the sting needs to be taken out of the census before it can be conducted successfully without rancour. To accomplish that goal, it is necessary to remake the country in such a way that politics, resource allocation and elections would not be about dominance, ethnic or religious. Given how badly the economy has tanked, and the people deeply impoverished, of what use was the disputed 2006 census to a profligate and clueless political leadership? Nigerians had remonstrated with the Buhari presidency, in light of the goodwill that accompanied it into office, to boldly redo the country. Instead, it stuck fanatically to the disused and futile template that has coaxed the country to the precipice. One prediction can be ventured: the census, if it holds, would be wasteful and end in controversy.

     

    Osinbajo, Bakare and other 2023 tales

    Nobody knows when Vice President Yemi Osinbajo first thought of contesting the 2023 presidential election, whether the idea came from him independently or it was planted in him. But months ago, despite every attempt to dissuade him from going ahead with the project, including deploying moral, political and religious arguments, it was always clear that he would bite the bullet as well as chew the cud on it and cap it with a toast. His fervency on a subject that is at the best of times difficult and complex for even the most nonchalant of fellows was not infectious; it was bewildering. He knew his ambition would pit him against his mentor and former boss, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the ruling party’s national leader and former governor of Lagos State; and he also knew that many people would raise eyebrows, regardless of whether he sees him as mentor or not. Moral questions would be asked, and possibly too, religious questions, considering that the eminent professor is also a pastor. It must reflect either courage or lack of circumspection on his part to so blithely dispel his misgivings and forge ahead with his plans. Surely he must have some misgivings about his ambition despite putting his hand to the plough.

    Even when Prof. Osinbajo acted for the president for months on end, few thought he would develop the ambition to succeed his boss. He has, probably because he sees himself, in the words of his political assistant Babafemi Ojudu when explaining his volte face, that his association with Asiwaju Tinubu was mutually beneficial, a political and social symbiosis from which primeval well both giant brains took life-sustaining drink. It is difficult to find other plausible explanations. The vice president is egged on by a few well-connected persons and many others who resent the former Lagos governor. Now, the die is cast, and the presidential primary will in a matter of weeks decide whether his ambition will gain traction or not. It is also not known whether he has weighed the consequences of failing to clinch the nomination, or whether any other thought besides winning the nomination had crossed his mind.

    At the other end of the spectrum, another pastor, Tunde Bakare, claims to have received prophetic message that he would be Nigeria’s 16th president/head of state. Prof. Osinbajo’s ambition stands on one visible leg; that of Pastor Bakare stands on no visible leg at all. However, like another pastor, Kris Okotie of the Household of God Church who ran for president a whopping four times, both Prof. Osinbajo and Pastor Bakare may in fact believe they are standing on invisible celestial legs unobvious to the human eye and comprehension. Neither of the two gentlemen has a political structure; if nominated, they will hope to rely on the ruling party structure, the kind that propelled ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) into his 1999 win. If it worked in 1999, could it work again in 2023? It is unlikely; but that is where the ecclesiastical convictions of the two pastors come in. Both men incredibly appear assured of victory, in the same way Pastor Okotie asserted with all vehement dubiety that God had ordered him to contest the presidency on the four occasions he vied and failed.

    Nigerians are not only curious, they are also sceptical. They are unsure of the humbug about God asking anyone to contest, as the serial failures of those who attributed their secular longings to God’s mandate have proved. Nigerians instead find it disconcerting that these pastors, having not paid their political dues but merely relied on their eloquence, seek to insinuate their ambitions to God, belittling Him with a capacity and willingness to reward slothfulness. Politicians plant, water, and then hope God or nature, depending on their beliefs, would give the increase. Nigeria’s ecclesiastical politicians evade planting, skip watering, and are conjuring increases in the same way prosperity doctrine has been perverted within the iniquitous world system. Set against the background of recent church involvement in politics, complete with indescribable theological justifications, the pastors wait for promotion to the presidency. Prof. Osinbajo’s membership of the APC is of course taken for granted. On the other hand, few knew about Pastor Bakare’s membership of the ruling party. As one of Nigeria’s prominent pastors, and seeing how engaged he is in ecclesiastical duties at the highest level, not many Nigerians expect that he would combine his calling with partisan politics.

    Despite his enthusiasm and the zeal that heralded his declaration of interest, Prof. Osinbajo’s presidential ambition will be hamstrung by many obstacles and considerations. His expectations that certain forces within the party would cobble a consensus in his favour and give him the nomination on a platter will remain a chimera. Not only will there not be a consensus in producing the party’s presidential candidate, notwithstanding the galling example of the party’s chairmanship election outcome last month, party politics is far more intricate and interwoven than the vice president imagines. Pastor Bakare’s ‘Project 16’ presidential bid is even far more illusory and is hinged only on expectations of God’s intervention and imposition. Yet, he has not convinced anyone that God is as indulgent as he, a pastor, pronounces on politics with Old Testament exegetical liberty. In short, neither of the two gentlemen has done enough, prepared enough, or outthought every other person enough to get the nomination, let alone win the votes of Nigerians scarified by the lethal intrusion of religion into politics. They have had to contend with the proselytizing zeal of the incumbent, not to say his disruptive and contaminative messianism, and have had it up to their gills. From now on and for the foreseeable future, they will yearn for a confirmed secularist and liberal, not another zealot.

  • So what would have to happen to make Buhari declare state of emergency anywhere in the North?

    So what would have to happen to make Buhari declare state of emergency anywhere in the North?

    Facts are facts, they are sacred and immutable, and so must be told without mincing words. These are very dangerous times in Nigeria. The Buhari government overwhelmed, no matter the spin. The Nigerian condition today is gangrenous. I did not say cancerous because all politics is local, which accounts for the serious variations between the South and the North.

    Much about that anon.

    So much happened in the past one month that anybody who loves Nigeria must now be thinking of what fate lies ahead of it.  No longer do we require a Professor Chukwuma Soludo, as he did in a series of exchanges with Dr Ngozi-Iweala in 2015, to know that whoever succeeds President Buhari would face torrid times ruling. If Soludo was talking then of macro- economic challenges, what President Buhari’s successor would face will certainly have to do with Nigeria’s very survival as we know it.

    Nigeria is on tenterhooks.

    It  is therefore a surprise, that if on 18 October, 2006 President Olusegun Obasanjo could, proactively, declare a state of emergency in Ekiti, then about the most peaceful state in the country, even without as much as a pint of blood shed therein, claiming he did so “to stop the state from descending into anarchy and threatening the security of Nigeria”, President Buhari could, in the face of all the horrendous killings happening all over the country, but especially so in the Northern states of Kaduna, Plateau, Benue, Zamfara and others, still need to be persuaded to do the same if only to nip the killings in the bud.

    This past week, some of Nigeria’s most respected religious leaders poured cold water on the likelihood of the 2023 elections holding as scheduled. But worst of it all, and not for the first time, was that the highly regarded Northern Elders Forum (NEF) advised President Buhari to resign from office.

    Speaking through its spokesperson, Dr Hakeem Baba Ahmed, the Forum said that “The administration of President Buhari does not appear to have answers to the challenges of security to which we are exposed. We cannot, they continued, “continue to live and die under the dictates of killers, kidnappers, rapists and sundry criminal groups that have deprived us of our rights to live in peace and security. Our Constitution has provisions for leaders to voluntarily step down if they are challenged by personal reasons or they prove incapable of leading. It is now time for President Buhari to seriously consider that option, since his leadership has proved spectacularly incapable of providing security for Nigerians”.

    These, indeed, are weighty words from a very respected organisation but the President has to be seen doing something beyond meetings with security Chiefs. Just as promises or condolences messages to bereaved families will no longer do.

    It is either we have a country or not. Should we not have a country even if Amnesty International and other do – gooders, would continue to shout themselves hoarse, blaming the victim of terrorism, which Nigeria has since become? Why, rather than getting its citizens killed daily, should Nigeria not be able to turn its Tucano’s on these killers and carpet bomb them out of existence as El Rufai, the Kaduna state governor, has severally advised?  Must President Buhari wait until Nigeria becomes Afghanistan? Why not wipe out a people who kill without mercy, especially so that we have a well-trained, though overstretched army, which has the fire power to make insecurity history in Nigeria? Or is President Buhari constrained by religion and ethnicity, which will then tantamount to a dereliction of duty? Are we suffering from a Stockholm syndrome, seeing how thousands of Boko Haram killers are being re-integrated into society?

    And, worst of all, why does the Northerner citizenry just sit down watching the carnage going on, unabated; around them, unconcerned?

    Is it because they neither question authority nor elders, even if wrong?

    Nigeria would be so different today if these horrendous killings were happening in the South. ‘nough said.

    Where are the Emirs, the billionaires, the elite but, especially the women – wives and mothers? What, for God’s sake, are they doing to help President Buhari call out these children of evil or must these killings continue, ad infinitum? How exactly do they see life, precious or dispensable?

    Is it culture or consanguinity?

    How do they think the world sees them? What is the council of traditional rulers and Ulama, especially the latter, doing to rein in these devils many of who worship in their mosques?

    I urge the North to rise up today, do something or large swathes of the North may soon find themselves as refugees in lands unknown, because these uncircumsticed killers are dead serious.

    It is not a curse.

    These are the reasons I believe that President Buhari ought to have long declared a state of emergency in those now totally unsafe states in the country. Such will significantly assist our fighting forces to more easily do the required reconnaissance to monitor the movements of the killers, isolate and keep them off their supply of, especially petrol, and, thereby render them hors de combat.

    We must appeal to President Buhari’s love for Nigeria and sense of duty, demonstrated severally at extremely difficult and challenging times in the past, to declare these required emergencies today and give Nigeria a new lease of life.

    Now back to my point about all politics being local. Even though APC has failed totally to fulfil its campaign promises at the National level – an issue members of the Buhari government now angling to succeed him, must be ready to explain to Nigerians – it is not so in many states where APC states have performed.

    That is why I will eagerly campaign for the APC towards the governorship election slated for June 18 in Ekiti state because the government of Governor Kayode Fayemi has performed creditably. The party has, as its candidate for the election, a young man, Biodun Oyebanji who I know will equally perform to the admiration of Ekiti people.  Biodun has age and vitality on his side, in addition to having the requisite training and experience, having had his tutelage under two of the consequential governors the state has been privileged to have in her turbulent political history.

    He also has Governor Fayemi’s sterling performance to run and ride on.

    I have been a ring side observer/participant, and should know.

    I remain ever proud of what Governor Fayemi has done for Ekiti. A development expert himself, it is no surprise that several international development agencies are busy funding several projects in the state. For instance, the World Bank is funding the N3.7B Ero Dam, the largest water project in Ekiti State, which will provide improved water as well as solve defecation problems.

    This in addition to financing some 635 micro-projects in the 133 communities in the state. Also, because Ekiti is adjudged as one of the best implementers of its projects, the World Bank recently approved for it, a grant in excess of $20M in its post- Covid stimulus fund, surnamed NIGERIA CARES project. This is not to forget the Ikun Ekiti Dairy Farm in which the state is in partnership with Promasidor which has since invested over $5M into what is now a fully operational livestock/ milk production company.

    Or his monthly subsidy stipends to the elderly – the first of its kind in the country – from which thousands of our elder’s benefit.

    I am equally excited that the hopes I expressed concerning his wife, the First Lady, Erelu Bisi Fayemi, in my article: ‘ELECT ONE, GET ONE FREE’ on these pages on Sunday, 19 June, 2011, have uncannily more than come to pass.

    Let me quote at some length from the piece, written over a decade ago:

    “ BOGOF, meaning ‘buy one, get one free, was an aphorism made popular in the Clintonian era in the United States of America, largely because of the symmetry between President Bill Clinton and his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton. “… and I make bold to say that with respect to passion for Ekiti people, and the state’s socio-economic development, the only difference between Dr Fayemi and his spouse, is that the latter was not voted for by the good people of Ekiti.

    With two Masters degrees in History and Gender Studies from the Universities of Ife, Ile-Ife, and Middlesex University, U.K, Erelu Fayemi has recently been recognized as one of the world’s leading 100 personalities working for the interest of women and children. Only last Friday, June 10, 2011, she drew a large crowd of who is who, at the launch of her Ekiti Development Foundation, EDF. She is, of course, not new to this type of structured philanthropy, having founded the African Women’s Leadership Institute which has trained over 5000 women all over Africa as well as co-founded the African Women Development Fund, which has supported over 800 women’s organizations in 42 African countries.

    She established EDF to do the following in Ekiti state:

    Support initiatives which will economically empower women and youth by providing capital on revolving basis for co-operative societies; support civil society organisations, promote the rights of women and enhance their leadership capacities, as well as encourage women political participation and focus on health care, education and give financial assistance to women with multiple births as she has, indeed, been doing before the launch and not a penny of these would come from state funds.

    Erelu has not stopped. Rather, she has since “influenced the passage of six bills into law at the State House of Assembly, all of which have enhanced the status of women and children and protected them against victimisation and dehumanisation. They include: Gender Based Violence Law, Equal Opportunities Law, HIV Anti-Stigma Law, Treatment, Care and Protection Law for Sexually Abused Minors and Gender Composition Law which affirm 35 per cent representation for women in political positions. Her Obirin Kete Cooperative Scheme has “provided 3,544 poor women with access to credit facilities to boost their businesses, while also serving as a platform for a virile political participation for women”.

    It will not be superfluous to mention that I have sat, severally, at all night long committee meetings interrogating ways of improving the lives of the generality of Ekiti people. Interesting at these meetings, is how she would, like our great father of blessed memory, and former governor of Ondo state, Chief Michael Aiasin, who would sit through a whole day’s meeting without drinking water or as much as going to pee, Erelu would sit ramrod straight, all attention, while some others, to stay awake, would be quaffing coffee, like it was going extinct – a thoroughly hard working author of many books.

    The above is the interesting scenario, Dr Olayemi Oyebanji, by God’s grace, will seamlessly step into, come October 2022, to take ownership, and sustain the wonderful legacy Erelu has laid. This is why I urge all my Ekiti compatriots, as well non- Ekiti residents, registered to vote, to once again troop out to Vote APC, Vote BAO, Vote Continuity and Vote for enhanced security, peace and continuing development in our dear ILE UYI, ILE EYE.

    Victoria acerta.

  • EARTH DAY

    Everyday is Earth’s

    Earth is everyday’s

     

    But this day is the day

    Of the bell and the gong

    Of solemn awakenings

    And the hurt which comes before the herb

     

    Wounded trees bleed in the forest

    Lynched lakes congeal like rancid potions

    A poisoned sea foams

    At the edge of a million mouths

     

    Who dare forget

    The day the River caught fire

    And the Mountain lay crushed

    Like a mound of hapless cake

     

    Yellow rains, crimson dew,

    Broiling winters, freezing summers

    A perforated sky leaks red tears

    Into the basin of thinning rivers

     

    A tropical madness unclothes the streets

    New-born babies surprise the cradle

    With double heads. A heartless Science

    Has sowed the wind; see how we reap the storm

     

    Where are the silk-petalled flowers

    Birds with feathers of paradise

    Air clean like the breath of a mountain spring

    Dust which speaks the language of the human skin?

     

    This day insists that we

     

    Restore the frog to its pond

    The dew to its grass

    Man to his mind

    Earth to its future

     

    ——————————

    *April 22 every year

    From Days, HEBN Publishers, pp.96-97

  • Aliko Dangote @ 65

    Aliko Dangote @ 65

    Writing on Alhaji Aliko Dangote, chairman/chief executive officer, Dangote Group, affords one an opportunity to  unwind and break from the vicious cycle of commenting on the same depressing issues about Nigeria and its lackluster governments. At least, once again, it gives one another rare opportunity to say something refreshingly different about Nigeria. It is another opportunity to remind the world that has written Nigeria off (and unapologetically so) that something good can still come out of the country.

    I always mention it as a fact when writing on Dangote, that he is one Nigerian entrepreneur no one can ignore. Whether you like him or not, the fact is, you cannot ignore him. Dangote has become a household name in Nigeria because of his resourcefulness. Even his ‘arch-enemies’, where they are angry with him and boycott his cement, they must be eating his indomie noodles. Where they don’t like the taste of his indomie, they cannot afford to do without his sugar. Where you don’t like his sugar, you have his salt to contend with. This man was able to identify the cheap but essential needs of Nigerian homes and ventured into producing them at a time when others were probably eyeing bigger things for the elite, and it has paid off for him. The little drops of water he has been able to get from both the poor and the rich consuming those essential products, taking advantage of the large market in the country, have ended up becoming a mighty ocean in the course of time.

    For me, we should use every auspicious occasion to celebrate this man who is a source of pride not only to Nigeria but the African continent.

    But, despite the fact that I believe Dangote should be celebrated as much as possible, I doubt if I have written up to five articles on him in my entire journalism career spanning three decades plus. The reason is simple: it gets to a point when you begin to sound patronising. But, if I may ask: why not? If you cannot sound patronising to Africa’s richest man whose source of wealth you largely can trace or explain, then who are you going to sound patronising to? Our politicians, some of who took oath of office in bathroom slippers today only to step out of their respective government houses in golden shoes tomorrow, moving around as if they were born with golden spoons in their mouths?

    Presently, Dangote has businesses in 10 African countries. He is a philanthropist par excellence. Indeed, if he is Africa’s richest man, I think  it is partly because he understands and practices the principle of prosperity. Generosity. This has nothing to do with religion. Dangote has been giving back to the society through various corporate social responsibility programmes and projects, sometimes in multimillions, sometimes in billions.

    With a net worth of $14.3billion as at April 15, 2022, Dangote is the 132nd richest man in the world. If the best of our universities is ranked at number 401-500 globally in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings today, at least our richest man is seated comfortably in the 132nd position in the cocktail circuits of the men of means. That should somewhat comfort us. It takes a lot to be in the midst of such men.

    Astoundingly, however, despite his greatness and opulence, Aliko Dangote has only three children, at least according to Forbes. It is immaterial if Forbes is right or wrong. If Dangote has 100 children, he can train them to any level they want without sweating. Yet, the man is from Kano, Kano State, in the northern region of Nigeria, where illiteracy is rife and, when combined with its twin brother, ignorance, has led to the breeding of millions of Almajiris, euphemistically referred to as out-of-school children.

    Yet, it is in the same region that you find several pedophiles. Yet, it is in the same region that some people who have a little change when compared with Dangote’s stupendous wealth, are breeding like rats. The other day, a member of the National Assembly proudly announced the arrival of his 28th child and his colleagues congratulated him instead of making him realise that he is a potential part of the problems of the region – abandoned children (that they are now exporting to other regions). Many of the children who ended up being abandoned when their parents could not sustain them again are the ones now revolting against the system that pauperised them because they are no longer convinced that Allah has created them as second-class citizens only good to be exploited for elections by the elite. We should condemn the practice whereby people use their ‘third leg’ indiscriminately to commit havoc all over the place in the name of culture, as if culture is cast in stone. These temporary money-miss road have to take tutorials on family planning from Dangote.

    That Dangote is a phenomenon is confirmed by Forbes: “Aliko Dangote, Africa’s richest person, founded and chairs Dangote Cement, the continent’s largest cement producer. He owns 85% of publicly-traded Dangote Cement through a holding company. Dangote Cement has the capacity to produce 48.6 million metric tons annually and has operations in 10 countries across Africa. After many years in development, Dangote’s fertilizer plant in Nigeria began operations in mid-2021. Dangote Refinery has been under construction since 2016 and is expected to be one of the world’s largest oil refineries once complete.” Even Forbes describes his source of wealth simply as “cement, sugar, self made.” This means it is traceable.

    Soon, this would include petrochemicals when his refinery, the largest in Africa, roars into full operation. This means Dangote would soon realise that though sugar and cement are sweet, oil, is definitely sweeter. It was the Late Chief Moshood Kashimawo Abiola that was once quoted to have used that expression. Abiola was a successful businessman too; he had a flourishing media outfit, among several business concerns. But when he ventured into oil business, he was said to have exclaimed that “publishing is sweet, but oil is sweeter!”

    Still talking about oil. The whole country is waiting for Dangote Refinery to take off. With its about 650,000 barrels per day capacity, the refinery is expected not only to meet our national fuel needs but still have sufficient to export. Even the Nigerian government which owns four refineries that it has no clue as to how to run profitably appears fixated on this world-class facility without necessarily saying so. Ceteris paribus, this should impact our exchange rate since it is said that we spent about $1.04 billion on fuel imports last year, down from $1.32 billion in 2020. But I am not that upbeat. The Buhari government does not seem to understand how a  modern economy runs. However, I would want to be proved wrong when the refinery comes on stream and we no longer have cause to import fuel, and we are able to save foreign exchange because that is one of the things that can save our children from the debt peonage that the government has thrown the country into.

    If you are interested in Dangote’s secrets, then hear this: “Nigeria is one of the best-kept secrets. A lot of foreigners are not investing because they’re waiting for the right time. There is no right time,” the man once told Forbes. These are indeed words on marble. But it is one thing to know secrets, it is another to know how to plug into or take advantage of them. Dangote saw the secrets and took advantage of them. I salute the man’s courage. Where several others are waiting for the right time, which, according to Dangote may never come, he has no time for such luxury. He knows that where there is no pain, there is no gain. Where there is no cross, there is no crown. Life itself is all about risks; I mean reasonable risks. If we sit him down and ask him to tell his story, he surely would have a lot to tell about the vicissitudes of business and life, generally. It definitely could not have been a bed of roses all through. Obviously, one of the things that have made the difference for Dangote is the ability to take reasonable risks. That is one of the hallmarks of a genius.

    Another is that he never despised humble beginnings. Again, hear Forbes, “Dangote’s grandfather was a successful trader of rice and oats in Kano, Nigeria’s second largest city. Dangote told Forbes that when he was young, he bought sweets, gave them to others to sell, and he kept the profits.”

    Such is the extent of Dangote’s greatness that this newspaper did the unusual by publishing an editorial on him at 65 on Friday. The debate as to whether 65 years is a landmark was there quite alright, but it did not take time to resolve. It was argued, and members agreed, that 65 could jolly well pass for a landmark. But, if I know this paper well, that does not mean every Tom, Dick and Harry that clocks 65 would merit its editorial. What facilitated the Dangote editorial was the man’s unparalleled antecedents as well as what he means to the nation. If we spend all the time talking about politicians most of whom are not adding value to our lives but are interested in power for their selfish ends, then no stone should be spared celebrating Dangote.

    I remember reading somewhere years back, (probably when I wrote on the man’s 60th birthday or when he made public his intention to set up a refinery) that he asked that his first million dollars be brought to his house and he slept with it overnight. I doubt if he could sleep well that night. But I want to believe that would be the last day bad dreams would ever visit that house. Prisoners, they say, have bosses. Even bad dreams would not wait to be told that that house had become a no-go area, henceforth.

    I know at this juncture some people would want to know what my view is about Dangote Group assuming the face of a monopoly. I am happy to say my view on that has not changed. Dangote has never been in government. If he has been able to find favour in the eyes of successive governments, it is because he knows how to play his card. It is not Dangote’s job to make anti-trust laws to ensure his conglomerates do not become larger-than-life. It is the duty of government to provide a level-playing field for all players, and if it is not doing that, Nigerians must pressure it to do.

    But I cannot end this piece without expressing the usual fear I always express about Dangote’s conglomerates. Although audacious and ambitious, I always ask myself when will this expansionist tendency be enough? That is whether diminishing returns would not begin to set in on his business empire when that empire becomes unwieldy. On this, I am always guided by some ancient empires, like old Ghana Empire.

    We must wish Dangote well. To do otherwise means trouble for Nigeria because of the hope he offers for the country, the thousands of direct and indirect  job opportunities he has been able to create. The good public relations he has been able to gift Nigeria in the comity of nations, etc. But, much as I wish Dangote long life and prosperity, and also wish his conglomerates well, I still feel it is about time he reviewed his expansionist tendency to enable him concentrate fully on what he has on ground, with a view to consolidating it. It is high time he started thinking about a post-Aliko Dangote era. He should know that human beings are not equally endowed.

    Ten kings. Ten eras.

  • The leadership question cum consensus contraption

    The leadership question cum consensus contraption

    “I don’t have any anointed candidate for 2023. Work very hard to win the ticket …” – President Buhari speaks from the Federal Executive Meeting (FEC) meeting of 13th April 2023.

    In a particular hamlet, the oracle spoke regarding two men, who were incidentally friends and contemporaries that either of them would emerge as the king in the future while the other one unfortunately would end up a servant. The one that was favoured by the oracle to become king beat his chest confidently and changed his lifestyle forthwith. He was already living as a king with people swarming around him and he in turn expended his resources in extravagant and exuberant riotous living. On the other hand, his friend that oracle did not favour relocated to another hamlet and changed his lifestyle. Getting to the new location, he decided and disciplined himself to ensure poverty was a forgotten phenomenon in his life and family. He decided to invest in a large acreage of farming applying a great knack of decision, discipline, diligence and dedication. Within a few years, he emerged the wealthiest farmer in the whole hamlet. Traditionally, his place of abode normally picks the wealthiest farmer as the de facto king of the hamlet. He was summoned and surprisingly crowned king. Simultaneously, his contemporary and colleague who had the oracle’s endorsement had gone bankrupt and in the process of salvaging the pieces of his life together had to resort to eking out a living through serving another wealthy farmer in the same hamlet where he grew up! It was a shameful and subjugating experience for him. What is the import of this story to the present political conundrum of consensus threatening the well – being and wellness of the two most popular political parties – APC and PDP?

    2023: Leadership Conundrum

    Presently, there are eighteen (18) political parties in Nigeria. Taking cognizance of findings of research of past elections conducted from 1999 till 2019, it has been discovered that the president always emerged from either of the two most popular parties. It has been the norm in the 1999, 2003, 2007, 2011, 2015 and 2019 elections. It will be seemingly situated come 2023. In essence, the President of Nigeria, all things remaining the same from now till the time of the election early next year, will either emerge from the presidential candidate of APC or PDP. It is therefore imperative for followers to be involved in the issues relating to the process, procedure and policy guiding who will emerge on the platforms of these two parties as the candidate of either of them will eventually lead this country. It is as sacrosanct as simply and succinctly stated in this piece!

    The duo of this columnist and Professor Vincent Anigbogu of Institute National Transformation were involved in a discourse tagged “The Leadership Question” on Channels TV, Sunrise on Saturday 9th April 2022. It was surmised that Nigeria’s political space has been largely bestridden by political gladiators who were mostly not prepared or envisioned to lead. In fact, many of them were not even passionate about taking over the batons of leadership when few “owners of Nigeria” (apology to Chief Dele Momodu) beckoned on them to prepare to sit on the saddle. In essence, over the years, even after the many military incursions and interregnums, many of our leaders were thrusted on the country by few powerful personalities and principalities, some of which are resident in Ota, Minna, Ibadan, Kaduna, Kano, Enugu, etc. Is anybody still wondering why over the years Nigeria has been apparently ruled and ruined by accidental governors and presidents? It is high time the teeming millions of followers, in this season of democracy, woke up the sleeping giants within them, and take their positions in national politics and politicking. In this context, this columnist shifts the blame largely on the elites among the followers. The elites are enlightened and educated but unfortunately most of them are diametrically ignorant and docile in political education. They should eat humble pie and be ready to be educated. This is the reason that politicians court and mobilize artisans, traders, okada riders, maruwa riders, commercial drivers, market men and women, etc. Take it or leave, these set of people understand the game and they play it with the politicians in a win – win scenario. However, the context is changing with churches, mosques and traditional worshippers urging their members to fully partake in politics. This columnist was watching the revered Daddy GO, Pastor Enoch Adejare Adeboye. He was passionate recently in a global telecast to his church members responding unapologetically to those opposing the RCCG prodding her members to take more interests in politics. The revered cleric had one cogent punch: “Witches are urging their members to participate in politics and elections, so I should not urge my people to participate? (sic)” What a poser?

    2023: Candidacy and Consensus Contraption

    In less than 60 days the primary elections in 18 registered political parties would have been over! It is high time Nigeria’s followers needed to wake up from slumber and seize the moment even as primary elections across party lines take place next month – May!! Whoever emerges take the flag of the party and fly it to the proper election in early 2023, be it presidential, gubernatorial, national assembly or house of assembly election!!! For now, this column will fixate on the presidency. It is knocking at the door but many are seemingly uncaring and unconcerned about the processes, procedures and personalities involved. This is the ‘real’ election before the election! Possibly, the raison d’etre of politicians referring to it as the shadow election.

    As it is being mooted, both All Progressives Party (APC) and People Democratic Party (PDP), are angling for consensus candidacy, as the mode, for the primary election to choose their presidential candidates. In a political party setting: what is a consensus? In an attempt to sustain the peace and progress of a party, leaders usually resort to offering players or participants, in electoral contests or appointment to offices, equal consideration by seeking their input and concerns. Even as these leaders welcome all diversities of ideas and opinions to help the team arrive at an agreement with the aim of keeping the majority happy. In a context such as this, some of the leaders, forging a way ahead, had to forget their own dreams and desires in order for the group or party to move forward. In the two most popular parties, APC and PDP, can any discerning mind distinctly declare that the intended mode of consensus earlier applied during their convention toed this line? Will the consensus to be adopted in the coming primaries be in sync to the premise depicted here? I doubt it! It is likely going to connote slight or seeming shade of autocracy similar to the APC convention of 26th March 2022 in which President Buhari, within a few days to the convention, threw up a candidate that later expressed that a month to that convention, he (the candidate) was not aware that he would be the anointed candidate of the party! Is that a true and thorough consensus? This route should not be taken in arriving in the presidential primaries in both APC and PDP else Nigerians should prepare for an “accidental” President come 29th May 2023!

    The question could be asked at this juncture: Is consensus the same as majority? Saliently and squarely put, in consensus, every opinion counts; it accounts for dissent and addresses it. Consensus does not always accommodate dissent. This is one negativity associated with the consensus mode of running elections. In a nascent democracy, such as Nigeria, indirect primary with terms and conditions, should have been adopted by the two political parties. However, how can party leaders forestall and frustrate foraging money bags hijacking the outcome to their advantage in a poverty ridden environment as ours? It is containable and doable if the political will is there! There are strategic sagacious steps that can be adopted and/or adapted to checkmate and cripple corrupting this electoral system.

    Concluding Thought

    It was gladdening and cheering that President Muhammadu Buhari in chairing the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting within the week stated inter alia :”I don’t have any anointed candidate for 2023. Work very hard to win the ticket …” The veracity of this statement will be tested to decipher the sincerity of the President who rhetorically was of the same body language days to the Convention of his party, APC. President Muhammadu Buhari urging aspirants to work hard to win now is a good signal towards making the race competitive. However, many observers and analysts are treading cautiously knowing that the power brokers within and around Aso Rock may come up with a last mistake calculation and conjecture that only they could conceive that could invariably change the calculus. In the course, Strategy Execution, this columnist underwent at Harvard Business School (HBS), Professor Robert Simons emphasized and wrote on the “Seven Strategy Questions.” What is germane in these questions is that they equally lead to seven implementation imperatives that are sustainable in all contexts. The last of the questions: “What are strategic uncertainties that may keep you, as the boss, awake at night (sic)? In concluding this piece, one sure point that might keep sleep away from President Buhari is: “Who will I hand over to on 29th May 2023?”  On the other hand, in the PDP, it would likely be for the Chairman, Dr. Iyorchia Ayu, to wake up at night and tinkered aloud: “Who among our aspirants can wrest power and position our party as the ruling party come 29th May 2023?” There may be follow up questions. Hence, Professor Simons’ admonition and advice is for operating managers in organizations tinkering to align thus: “Everyone watches what the Boss watches.” In essence, it is sagacious for all chieftains within the ruling party, APC, to watch what President Muhammadu Buhari is watching! Peradventure, he is still looking for a sign or symbol. However, with the array of contestants and gamut of preparation of few of them in both APC and PDP, the best option to get democratically elected candidates should be through the adoption of a moderated indirect primary method that all stakeholders would adjudge as fair and square otherwise there might be concomitant consequences that may threaten the composition and configuration of both APC and PDP within the coming months. A word is enough for the wise! Time is ticking!!

    • Ekundayo can be reached via 08155262360 (SMS only) and drjmoekundayo@hotmail.com

  • The failure of success and other perplexing paradoxes

    The failure of success and other perplexing paradoxes

    Elite politics, particularly in postcolonial Africa, is usually a complex and complicated affair. It is futile and foolish to judge what is actually going on by its surface manifestations. In the cloak and dagger world of African realpolitik, what is shaping up as a lethal sledgehammer may eventually end as a ritualised gesture of obeisance and capitulation.  But there are times when the signals of trouble and the smoke of imminent combustion are too strong to be ignored.

    Make no mistake about this. The house of Oduduwa is on the boil. There is much commotion and caterwauling in the political space. The presidential sweepstakes has been reduced to an outlandish bazaar with a plethora of rival claimants shadow duelling before the main tournament. Even in traditional societies, the contest for the royal stool is usually marked by more dignity and decorum.

    In a widely referenced Afenifere Inaugural Lecture held on March 15, 2004, this writer posed the troubling question: Why is it that after each successful mobilization of the Yoruba people by progressive forces, the wheels tend to come off the mobilising vehicle? Is this a reflection of a flaw in Yoruba historical and sociological conditioning as a result of a contradictory pull of the forces of political, economic and spiritual modernity?

    Does it mean that the progressive tendency in Yorubaland cannot manage success? Are the lure of office and the spoils of victory usually too strong for the centre to hold? Or does it mean that despite all pretensions and appearances to the contrary, the progressive forces are not really different from the conservative phalanx they seek to supplant by bruising propaganda and intellectual razzmatazz?

    It is to be noted that not even Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s much lionized Action Group was exempt from this political schizophrenia. Confronted by the conundrum of postcolonial modernity and its associated pathologies, the Action Group simply unravelled into its royalist, conservative and progressive components with Awolowo taking a sharp lurch to the left while Akintola and associates rallied the conservative pragmatic banner. It ended in disaster.

    The same political drama came to the fore, or was about to during the Second Republic. The UPN was only saved by the bell of military intervention. The creaking noise of imminent disintegration could already be picked off by the discerning. Rumours were rife of a certain Awolowo arch-loyalist who was being lured away from the group by the wily feudal powerbrokers on the grounds of proven competence and correct religious affiliation.

    After Abiola’s famous presidential victory, the same scenario repeated itself. While a section of the progressive forces that rallied to ensure Abiola’s victory decided to collaborate with the military/feudal complex, the true progressive forces were having none of that. They subsequently made life impossible for the military junta.

    But after the comprehensive victory of progressive forces in the old west following the retreat of the military to the barracks in 1999, the surviving progressive component was rocked by a series of crises which led to the disintegration of their party with generous assistance from the federal authorities led by a Yoruba son. Chief Bola Ige was to lose his life in the fractious disputations and bitter infighting.

    Now in 2022, we have arrived at a similar conjuncture. The unappeasable demon of Yoruba political self-annihilation has returned to demand its ritual appeasement once again. A people globally acknowledged for their culture and political sophistication have once again arrived at a point where the periodic tiff among their political elite has now mutated to a situation of civil war among the dominant progressive elite. And even after they have come to power at the centre for the first time in their history?

    Is the historic handshake across the northern Niger now turning into a bone-crushing anaconda embrace? The master-puppeteers are laughing hysterically behind the wall of contrived silence. But it is going to be a very short laugh indeed. The merchant of expired merchandise has finally arrived at the supermarket of prohibited commodity. Those who believed that Nigeria’s salvation lies in a historic partnership of contrasting visions of society have been given a brutal short shrift.

    The post-military Fourth Republic has brought out the worst in our political class. As this column never tires of reiterating, the spate of party crisscrossing and shameless defections is an indication of politics totally devoid of ideology or any ideals. It reminds one of Robert Musil’s famous novel, The Man Without qualities, a zombie-like cretin given to the pursuit of personal pleasures at the expense of societal wellbeing.

    In the jungle of primitive political impulses, the organising principle is sheer lack of principles and the ruling authority is disordered reality. There is no paddy for jungle as they say. In this African political leprosarium, all fellow feelings of empathy and compassion are completely denuded. In the ethical wasteland, how anybody expects another person to be loyal to him is a matter of intellectual puzzlement.

    But let us get this clear. After this alliance, the dominant Yoruba group will return to base more polarized and bitterly divided than at any point in the last seventy years. The infighting is likely to be more vicious because some of the emergent political warlords have acquired the means and capacity to keep and sustain private militias. The social media is already deeply embedded.

    If it is of any comfort, however, it can be said that the north itself has not fared any better with the region politically, spiritually and economically prostrate and its elite bitterly factionalized, its vast landscape blitzed beyond recognition even as it continues to hold off rival claimants to the throne. The ethnic nationality question is embedded in the National Question. One cannot be resolved without the other.

    In the past one week, this columnist has been inundated with requests by readers asking him to comment on the current political infighting and the jostling for the presidential ticket among the Yoruba political elite. A most concerned clergyman friend and great admirer informed the columnist that he was eagerly awaiting his judicious intervention.

    These requests are made based on the belief that yours sincerely has his ears close to the ground in the Yoruba political terra firma or that one is close to the source of power. However, it must be noted that the role of the columnist is different from the role of the politically engaged. One must never be confused or conflated with the other. For the columnist comments are free as long as facts are sacred. But for the strategically savvy reticence is often of superior eloquence than drooling flippancy and mere verbal incontinence.

    Of the virtues that separate humanity from the lower species, honour and loyalty to friendship occupy the apex position. This writer holds very dear the sacred principle of fidelity to friendship no matter the circumstances and no matter the abhorrent behaviour of the other party. What is important is to hold on to your personal values and stick to the standards you have established.

    To stab a friend in the back in his hour of need is one of the most sacrilegious acts humans are capable of. But there are times when the code of honour comes into violent conflict with the code of loyalty to personal friendship, particularly where the fate of an important component of the Black race is concerned.

    For example, every true Black intellectual of this perilous age must fight on the side of the people and pitch for progressive emancipatory politics. Where a political party promises progressive policies only to jettison such policies on the first crow of the cock, such a party must be severely sanctioned and considered unworthy of public trust.

    But to sanction does not mean to abandon the original progressive platform, particularly in the absence of a viable Third Force and in a situation where the clear alternative is a pack of unprincipled and obviously unrepentant political jackals eager to resume the freeloading and feeding frenzy where they signed off.

    Readers of this column must attest to the fact that in the past seven years, it has never hidden its disaffection and radical dissatisfaction with the policy somersaults of the ruling party and the conduct of its apex leadership, irrespective of their ethnic origin, creed or religion. But group cohesion and the collective viability of a people must not be sacrificed at the altar of hegemonic pranks.

    This is why all the gladiators must be brought to a negotiating table where a honourable deal can be hammered out. No one can come out a triumphant winner in the looming fratricidal bloodletting.  The presumptive winner will be so badly weakened and compromised by the consuming contention that he will end up a Quisling to the cause of an emancipated Nigeria or a jaded overall loser that will be brought back home in a political body bag.

    In the current delirium of treachery and the quicksand of personal perfidy, all the loose talks of betrayal will evaporate, all the frenzied and fanciful name calling will disappear, only to be replaced by the betrayal of a people and all the sufferings and trauma that have marked the struggle for the progressive emancipation of the Nigerian people from the clutches of medieval tyranny and a retrogressive worldview whose depredations and devastation of modern Nigeria can no longer be hidden from public view.

    Unless this is the desired outcome, unless they have been reactionary moles all along in the service of the historic persecutors of their own people, this is the time for the principal combatants to sheath their swords and allow calm sober reasoning to supersede irrational sabre-rattling.

    Unfortunately, one suspects that the horse might have bolted from the stable. It is impossible to adjudicate in a political dispute fought without higher principles and without any visionary template for the urgent transformation of a fallen nation. With the hitherto progressive components going in different directions in the pursuit of irreconcilable ambitions, there is likely to be a complete mutual evisceration before any reconfiguration of a new order can take place.

    In the light of this overwhelming tragedy, can we still deny that the historic collaboration between the north and the west of the nation was a political error of unimaginable magnitude? This is a poser of such dialectical density that it cannot be answered in a simple yes or no format. The historic collaboration which resulted in the victory of the APC at the centre is not the result of a pan-Nigerian concert of all the contending power blocs.

    Even if it is driven by consuming personal ambition, it is a product of a historic consensus between factions of the hegemonic power formations in the nation. It can be argued that in a multi-ethnic country fissured by various divisions such amity of all contending blocs is a political impossibility without a structured elite consensus.

    The signal lesson to be learnt from all this is that forging a workable and viable nation from the colonial bedlam we have inherited is more important than consummating power alliances based on exclusion and marginalization. The excluders will also be excluded eventually. In postcolonial nations, elections and electoral victories cannot be regarded as prime instruments of nation-growing.

    History will be measured in its praise of the driving proponents behind the alliance to the extent that it tried to break the historic deadlock between contending power-formations. As such, it is an imperfect harbinger of a more visionary reconstruction of the Nigerian political space based on inclusivity and the de-marginalisation of the constituent units.

    This must come very soon if Nigeria were not to dissolve into unwieldy components. The glaring failures of the past seven years show just how dire the situation has become and the fact that Nigeria can no longer be sustained along the old unitary formula. General Buhari in all probability is the last ruler of old Nigeria.