The Nation Newspaper

Category: Sunday

  • At last, APC exhales

    At last, APC exhales

    AFTER holding its breath for more than a year, the All Progressives Congress (APC) finally exhaled last week when the party’s caretakers grudgingly consented to a convention. The caretakers, with the improbable acronym of CECPC (Caretaker/Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee), attempted a last-minute rigmarole to defeat or postpone the convention, but the plot imploded in their faces. The convention was to have been organised six months after they were inaugurated in June 2020. But one postponement after another saw the caretakers expanding their mandate sans frontieres, and their tenure ad infinitum. All the political pirouette came to a crushing end last week after one dizzying week of feverish plots to buy time and sate party members’ yearnings with zonal congresses. Through the Progressive Governors’ Forum, the party put a stop to the dithering and machinations and, in league with the president, forced a March 26 date for the convention.

    There have been speculations as to why the Mai Mala Buni-led caretaker committee was unenthusiastic about the convention. Some say that many state chapters are still embroiled in crisis, despite months of what party leaders described as painstaking reconciliation sessions. There were also some mischievous suggestions that the caretakers themselves, in clear manifestation of conflict of interest, harboured political aspirations for which they were determined to sacrifice every principle known to man. And, finally, it was also believed that the caretakers made it their obsession to put mechanisms in place in the party, complete with irreversible faits accomplis, to preclude certain presidential aspirants from actualising their goals. Whatever their reasons, and no matter how far they have gone in consummating their goals, they must now subject themselves to the will of the party and ensure the convention holds as advertised. President Muhammadu Buhari had coaxed them to hold the convention in February, but they ensured by acts of omission that the plan miscarried.

    Last week also, the APC zoned party offices and seemed indirectly to have gone a step further than its rival, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), to zone the presidency. But the devil is in the detail, for a few party leaders, including the Kaduna State governor Nasir el-Rufai, have continued to waffle over the issue, insisting that zoning the presidency was not a done deal, and preferring to still leave the matter precariously open. The media, which immediately disseminated the news that the APC had zoned the presidency to the South, has not been as cautious as some APC leaders in drawing conclusions nor as reticent as presidency officials who have kept sealed lips about the president’s preferences. Indeed members of the two parties have begun to build scenarios around the 2023 presidential poll. They have zeroed in on which of the zones in the South appears best placed to win the party’s candidacy, while a few PDP leaders have imprudently suggested that the opposition party could not be hamstrung by the permutations and political dynamics in the ruling party.

    Sooner or later, both parties will have to make unequivocal statements about where they expect to pick their presidential candidates, whether from the South as many have read into the APC game plan or left open to all-comers as the PDP has agonisingly conceded. It seems for now that the APC may suffer fewer pangs than the PDP in making that delicate choice. President Buhari is from the North, and the APC will find it exceedingly difficult to justify that region’s retention of the presidency. Many party leaders from the North are of course not averse to retaining the presidency, but they will have a herculean task arguing for it and justifying it. Going by the furious attempt to delay the convention, few doubt that most APC leaders are destitute of principles. What the party has going for it is that, given its present power configurations, justifying a southern candidacy is enormously easier than angling for a northern standard-bearer. By sheer coincidence, northern presidential aspirants in the APC have smothered their ambitions in order to escape public and humiliating censure. This has left the field wide open to strong presidential contenders from the South.

    The PDP has different demons to contend with. Somehow they have been consistently wrong-footed in the past eight years or so since they were humiliated out of the presidency. The APC’s performance has not been stellar, but even in the ruling party’s shortcomings and failings, they have creatively reframed the narrative in such a way as to render their weaknesses in entrancing colours than the PDP has painted its achievements in gloomy colours. Worsening the PDP nightmare is the fact that just as they could not manage their successes for 16 years, frittering away early triumphs and advantages, and romping between the sheets in saturnalian delight, they have been even more woeful in coming to terms with their political tragedies, especially the ignominious defeat of 2015. Also compounding their woes is the vexatious and insurmountable fact that the South is to them a barren landscape in finding presidential material. Even if they surmount the curse of political geography, it is hard to see them overcoming the excesses of the few aspirants from the South.

    Does this make the 2023 presidential poll a foregone conclusion? Hardly. The APC is gifted with self-destructive impulse that unnerves its supporters and fascinates its officials and leaders. They are plotters extraordinaire, compulsive intriguers, and unconvinced ideologues who resent order, control and systematic thinking. Experts at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, except when properly restrained, they will as soon bewitch themselves with self-defeating legal adventures as engage in bloody jostles for meaningless agenda. It took them more than one year and a half to organise a common convention after an inexpert insurrection against their long-suffering chairman; there is no telling what other complications and odiousness they cannot inveigle their party leaders into committing. Their stamina always looked tenuous, and their resolve fragile, but what appears more alarming about them, that is, apart from their fratricidal longings, is their secret yearning for collective suicide. After repeatedly threatening to drown themselves in their seven turbulent years of leading and sometimes mastering Nigeria since 2015, who can tell whether one of these days they will not yield to their natural instinct?

    PDP leaders face a huge dilemma in the coming presidential poll. They will keep casting furtive glances at the APC, like a jealous housewife. What they will see will depend on their acuity in reading signals and decoding ciphers, for even APC apparatchiks make heavy weather of reading their inscrutable self. For outsiders to read them well, particularly a jealous outsider, he will require double the adeptness of APC members. But since APC leaders have now exhaled and crossed the Rubicon, and seemed to have got the zoning enigma right – that is if they leave well enough alone – they will try to make themselves unbeatable in 2023. They will, however, first need a chairman, whom they are poised to elect either indirectly or by consensus. And if they get that mystery solved and the chairman does not become a pawn in the hands of party schemers, why, the PDP will be forced to play second fiddle not only in the next poll but for much longer.

    But there is a huge question mark. There are indications that some of the leading figures in the party dread a strong candidate to carry their banner to the poll. Yet they want to win the presidency by having their cake and eating it. They can’t have it both ways. The president probably played a strong role in cajoling the party’s caretakers to fix the convention for March 26. He will need greater resolve to secure his legacy. Chief Obasanjo showed more character in office than President Buhari has done so far, and yet the former president was unable to influence the election of a worthy successor, leading to both the spectacular collapse of his party in 2015 and the obliteration of his legacy. President Buhari will need all the advice and help he can get to influence the election of a worthy successor, first as his party’s candidate and then as president. Pulling off this magic will considerably task him to produce the ingenuity many Nigerians are skeptical he possesses. But if he manages, despite himself, to do what is right he will have guaranteed the future of his party and the security and consolidation of his legacy.

    Ukraine upsets calculations

    NO one was left in doubt what the outcome of a war between Russia and Ukraine would be. The Russians, not to talk of their expansionist president Vladimir Putin who is nostalgic about the days of empire, will make short work of it. Arguments have been raised about the motives of the war and at what point Mr Putin would feel pacified. There are also suggestions that the war was motivated by the enormous economic resources in Ukraine, the strategic importance of the country to Russia, the creeping expansionism of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), the United State’s desire to resuscitate the Cold War and sabotage Russo-European economic and diplomatic relations, etc.

    While these factors may be important, other factors explain Mr Putin’s angry determination to restore Russia’s influence in the world. If Russia takes Ukraine, it will inevitably share borders with Poland and a few other NATO member countries. So it is really not about border contiguousness, or the existential threat constituted by NATO. Russia, despite its huge size, simply wants more living space, like China, a goal that is akin to Adolf Hitler’s ill-fated Lebensraum. The Russians may not be able to occupy Ukraine in perpetuity, but they want it a weak and dependant satellite. Its independence and political virtues seemed to mock their awkward democracy and the goal of recreating the Warsaw Pact.

    France and German live next door to each other even though they’ve been rivals for centuries. Russia and Ukraine could get along despite their differences and values; but Mr Putin is from a different era, and his knowledge of history is so benighted and circumscribed that he believes he can sustain his country’s misadventure in Ukraine for decades. He cannot; nor will his presidency last forever. He may be a military strategist and a passionate ‘Czarist’, but it is clear he still needs extra lessons in statesmanship to recognise that might has its limitations. Carving a sphere of influence like the US has done in the Americas is indefensible. The US Monroe Doctrine is an arrogant and reprehensible policy; it should not be used by Russia to justify intimidating weaker nations, as it seems prepared to do to Finland, Norway and probably Sweden, some of which were driven by fear of Russia into NATO arms. The lesson in all this is that every nation should simply get strong and be able to deter the big powers, for as far as the powers are concerned, and as Hitler demonstrated in 1939, one conquest is never enough.

     

    2023: The age factor again

    WEEKS after former military heads of state Ibrahim Babangida and Abdulsalami Abubakar spoke glowingly of allowing and enabling youths to take the presidency, of course democratically, ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo has added his voice to the same campaign. This column took issue with the former military leaders when they seemed unintendedly to inaugurate the Minna School of Politics by arguing in favour of age as a factor in leadership. As world history indicates clearly, age has not been a factor in great leadership: young and old leaders have demonstrated exemplary leadership skills or displayed gross incompetence despite their age. But regardless of arguments discountenancing age as a factor in sound leadership, the idea that Nigeria is in dire straits because old and lethargic people are ruling Nigeria continues to gain currency.

    Chief Obasanjo suggested at the Murtala Mohammed Foundation annual lecture last week that his generation should step aside for the younger generation. If someone like him still desired to contest the presidency or governorship, then something was wrong, he exclaimed. “We need to have an intergenerational collaboration,” he began cautiously, as if all he wanted was collaboration. “Fayemi (Ekiti State governor) said he was in primary school when Murtala and Obasanjo were there (in the State House). So, if people of the Murtala/Obasanjo era are competing with you as governor, then, something is wrong. The Murtala/Obasanjo group should be stepping aside. Whatever experience and knowledge we have, we should be able to give it to you and you should be able to give it to those coming after you…”

    The Minna-based generals spoke of youth as a factor in the presidency; Chief Obasanjo spoke of generational shift. A lot of imprecision obfuscates the references to youth and generation in the discourses of the former leaders. This obfuscation has trickled down the age ladder and now permeates discourses among younger politicians who want a celestial fiat to remove the elders ahead of them. They believe that their chances would be brightened with such flagrant display of political eugenics. The Minna generals, however, qualify their suggestions by restricting their presidential choices to politicians not older than 60 years. They are not incommoded by the arbitrariness of that age.

    Chief Obasanjo is famous for imprecision. He indulged it again when he spoke about his generation vacating the turf for the ‘generation coming behind’. What ‘next generation’ means in the context of his suggestion is hard to say. He is about 84, though he is not sure. Who then qualifies for those coming behind him when, demographically, a generation is understood to be on average about 25 years? Perhaps a 60-year-old politician? That brings his suggestion closer to that of the Minna generals who advocate for a president not older than 60 years. The obsession with age, perhaps triggered by the Nigerian experience, however, impedes a better understanding of what makes for great leadership, at least the kind of leadership capable of rescuing Nigeria from unremitting retrogression. They may not confess it, but none of the three generals who ruled Nigeria in the idealistic age of their dreams – Obasanjo at 39; Babangida at 44, and Abubakar at 56 – offered the country the kind of leadership they now enthusiastically recommend.

    The three ex-heads of state were unprepared for leadership when they took office; yes, including Chief Obasanjo at his election in 1999. Myriads of religious and ethnic factors complicate Nigerian politics, predisposing them to elect safe but incompetent leaders. How to reverse that trend should engage the newfound pundits advocating generational shift. By putting undue emphasis on age, however, they give the impression that other factors are inconsequential or secondary. Chief Obasanjo spent eight years in office without producing or preparing the ideal generation he fancies, not to talk of laying the right structural foundation for the growth and stability of the country. Gen Babangida also spent about eight years in office destroying what was left of the legacies of his predecessors and British colonialists. And after him was the deluge.

    Nothing precludes youths and coming generations from contesting the presidency. The constitution ensures that. But to hope for a day when political elders would voluntarily vacate the presidential space for the youths would be like chasing a chimera. It is unlikely to happen. That hope, however, plants the seed of rebellion in the minds of the so-called next generation who could begin to see every elder as a nuisance, and smooth-talking and charismatic ‘youths’ as the answer everyone must embrace.

  • How nepotism killed discipline in Nigerian public service

    How nepotism killed discipline in Nigerian public service

    When I started vigorously canvassing the candidacy of contestant Muhammadu Buhari on these pages towards the APC Presidential primaries of 2014/15, it was strictly on the basis of his well-known personal integrity. I was not unaware then, of his onetime visit to Governor Lam Adesina of Oyo state to protest the alleged killing of some Fulani herdsmen just as I have severally heard him described as a religious extremist. But none of these mattered one bit to me.  Instead, I knew that Nigeria was bedeviled by some terrible existential challenges that needed a General Buhari to confront and defeat. These, incidentally, were in areas where then incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan have failed spectacularly, namely: corruption, insecurity, as well as a flailing economy which, truth be told, was not doing too badly but needed some twitching.

    These, incidentally, were the very things General Buhari and his party, the APC zero-ed on in their CHANGE mantra. And who could have doubted them?

    I was particularly enthused by the contestant’s campaign line, namely: “if we don’t kill corruption, corruption will kill Nigeria”. That, coming from a renowned ascetic, the initiator of War Against Indiscipline(WAI), at his first coming as Military Head of state, a former minister of Petroleum Resources around whose neck not one allegation of  graft was hanging , and a retired Army general to boot.

    I needed no further persuasion to write then that: “Nigeria needed Buhari more than he needed Nigeria”.

    His friend, the late Professor Tam David West, my one-time senior colleague at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Ibadan, would later quote that in his book:  Buhari: the politics of age” –

    The above is a slightly edited quote from my article: ‘What Manner of Legacy Is President Buhari Erecting For Himself’, published 7 February, 2021.

    Seriously speaking, can I write the above quote today?

    I sincerely doubt that. Given what I have seen of President Buhari’s administration in the  past six years and a half, I probably would now write something like this: ‘General Buhari, way back 2014/2015, surely needed Nigeria to cast it  in his own world view – a Nigeria where Northerners are not only ‘numero uno’, but  master of all’. That, indeed, has been our experience and it has since eventuated in a Nigeria I am now extremely hard put to intelligibly describe.

    Looking back now, my saving grace is that the reasons which predisposed me to that conclusion then remain unaltered. These are President Buhari’s personal integrity, his incandescent honesty as well as his asceticism. In spite of  APC chieftains, to the last man, treating  him like a demi god, running to him for solution to each, and every problem confronting a party of over 40 Million members like he were a King Solomon re- incarnate, he has remained personally unbelievably, humble, and unaffected; instead despising the ingratiating collective obscurantism and genuflecting, even if, at bottom, self-serving and effete.

    The President deserves Nigerians’ collective praise because, were he so minded, they could have since turned him to a fascist. After all,  some people were not half as rhapsodised  before they started dreaming of becoming a life President.

    These facts notwithstanding, however, my fervent belief then that Nigeria’s insecurity would be history within his first term of four years, turned out completely misplaced, just as the country’s economy – particularly its foreign exchange management being very poorly handled – or how much is the Naira to the $ today – by a man some jokers are promoting as the President’s successor, has not, in any way, justified my hopes either.

    The most critical negative impact of President Buhari’s tenure, however, which is now certain to outlive his administration, and incidentally the reason for this article, is an unintended consequence of his skewed appointments which are so flagrant, even the Federal Character Commission constitutionally prescribed to ensure equity, has Northerners sitting as both Chairman and Executive Secretary. That position subsists today, despite an appeal to the President by a coalition of civil society organisations to revert to the usual practice of having one of the duo come from the South, as well as despite a suit filed by some Southern elders challenging the President’s marginalisation of the South in his appointments.

    The problem really is not the appointments, simpli cita, since the individuals so appointed are yet to significantly impact the North which accounts for about 76.3 per cent of Nigerians living below the poverty line in 2018/19. Nor is its security any better. Rather, the greatest impact of the appointments, many of them pure cronyism, is how they have negatively impacted discipline in the Nigerian public service since many of the appointees misread the President’s many Northern appointments to mean that the North owns Nigeria.

    Fortunately, just like His Eminence, the Sultan, Muhammadu Sa’ad Abubakar, there happens to be no evidence to suggest that President Buhari subscribes to the claim of the Fulani Nationality Movement (FUNAM) that Fulanis – read Northerners – own Nigeria.

    The Sultan spoke at some length on this  issue in Jos, on Friday, 7 February, 2020 at the celebration of the first annual Plateau State Forgiveness and Reconciliation Day, organized by the Interfaith Mediation Centre, where he described such claims as reckless and arrant nonsense. Continuing, he said: “I am the leader of the Usman Dan Fodio dynasty and I have never seen anywhere in the hundreds of books that Usman Dan Fodio wrote where he said that Nigeria belongs to the Fulanis. What he wrote about was the role of Islam in leadership, governance etc. His books don’t mention the conquest of any land or claim ownership of any territory, concluding that  such fake write-up was by those who don’t want peace in Nigeria.

    While the above is gratifying, coming from His Eminence, some senior Northern public officials certainly don’t believe it. For them, any Northerner in the employ of the federal government can do just about anything and get away scot free.

    A few examples should suffice.

    The salacious Abdul Rasheed Maina case should take the  cake here.

    The gentleman was the former Chairman of the defunct Pension Reform – yes Reform – Task Team, and after he had severally proved that he is a cat with nine lives, messing up, and harassing several top government officials and in the process making mincemeat of laid down procedures, he would only go down early November ’21, when Justice Okon Abang of an Abuja Federal High Court sentenced him to 61 years imprisonment after finding him  guilty of money laundering and stealing pension funds to the tune of N2 billion.

    Another titillating case is that of a former Executive Secretary of the National Health Insurance Scheme who considered himself far beyond discipline, regardless of whatever offence he committed.

    The Minister of Health, Isaac Adewole, had suspended  him- the Executive Secretary of the NHIS, Professor Usman Yusuf, for 3 months to pave way for an investigation into allegations of procurement of a N58M SUV without due process. He flatly refused the minister’s directive and, instead, queried who the hell he thought he was to have the temerity to discipline him. According to him, only the President could do that.

    Of course, he knew what he was saying. Or so he thought, as the President actually ordered the directive rescinded, thus asking the minister to shove it. Many thought Adewole should have resigned  but Yusuf’s days were numbered. Ten or so months later, he was sacked by the same President on the recommendation of the Board after he was found guilty of the allegations.

    The case of the super cop, Abba Kyari, one-time head of the Police Intelligence Response Team (IRT) also deserves a pride of place in how sacred cows denude discipline in the country’s public service. Much is still trending in his multi-faceted case so this reference will only be a small part of it. After the Police Service commission had suspended him on the recommendation of the Inspector – General of Police,  the police spokesperson, Frank Mba, a Commissioner of Police, said  that”The Inspector General of Police, Usman Alkali Baba, had on 2nd August, 2021 approved the posting of DCP Tunji Disu as the new Head of the Police Intelligence Response Team (IRT), as replacement for Kyari..

    So at what point were Nigerians told that Disu had again been redeployed, and Kyari returned to office?

    Hardball, in The Nation of Thursday, 24 February, ’22  captured this jigsaw puzzle  as follows in: ‘Between Kyari’s Suspension And Travails: “From the account given by the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) about Kyari’s alleged drug involvement, however, it remains to be seen how much effect being on suspension has in keeping a police officer away from active duty. Kyari has been on suspension and placed under a yet-to-be-concluded investigation …”But the particular drug case over which he is indicted by the NDLEA reportedly began on 21st January, 2022 when he allegedly initiated a call to an NDLEA officer that his team had intercepted and arrested some traffickers who came into the country from Ethiopia with 25kg of cocaine and proposed a deal to purloin 15kg of the consignment, leaving 10kg for the prosecution of the suspects. When he was eventually arrested by the police and handed over to the NDLEA, it was along with four members of his IRT team who are now on suspension”.

    “So, if Kyari has been on suspension since 2021, how come he still had IRT operatives under his command to execute the alleged drug plot? He certainly couldn’t have done that as an officer on suspension, functioning from outside the purview of official police operations. Or does being on suspension from police work have a different meaning from what is generally understood by being on suspension? If being on suspension does not hamstrung an officer from actively operating, we must wait to see what effect the latest rash of suspensions will have on the affected personnel”.

    Of course, suspension anywhere in the Nigerian public service means suspension, pure and simple, except, of course, when you come from the right part of the country when you are at liberty to do anything. Not even a DIG from southern Nigeria could have had authority over junior police officers while on suspension. And while Abba Kyari was this hard at work, what was DCP Disu, deployed with fanfare as Kyari’s replacement at the Police Intelligence Response Team (IRT) doing?

    Warming his table?

    So much for  discipline and equity in Nigeria.

     

  • The sense of an ending

    The sense of an ending

    It long last, and after a nerve-wracking rigmarole, the ruling party has finally done the needful. Its ruling caucus has technically zoned its presidential ticket to the south. Nigeria’s legendary ability to pull back from the brink of disaster appears to be at play once again. This was the path of honour and national duty to toe all along. But it appears that some hardliners in the party were bent on testing the water and the grit of their southern competitors.

    Even then, it is not a done deal yet. It may well be a clever feint, a ruse and a bold opening gambit in a consuming and absorbing game of political chess. It is the politics of exhaustion, stupid. This is not a game for political neophytes and mandarin technocrats, unless they are fronting. It may well be a tactical manoeuvre to throw the ball back at the southern stalwarts in a technical ploy known among the wily Yoruba as let the monkey kill itself.

    Whatever it is, you must give it to Nasir el-Rufai, the fiery and feisty governor of Kaduna State. This column has not always been a fan of el-Rufai’s politics and occasionally intemperate outbursts. But in this one, he came across as a honest, scrupulous and fair-minded broker.

    In announcing the decision on behalf of his colleagues, the governor made the valid point that in an assemblage of people with different personalities, worldviews and clashing ambitions, there is bound to be differences of opinion. What is important is to harmonize these views in the greater party and national interest taking cognisance of the political reality on ground and the prevalent mood of the nation.

    Whether President Mohammadu Buhari goes ahead and do the needful by assenting to the bill on his table is now beside the point and utterly irrelevant. A consensus has emerged that under his watch, Nigeria is likely to fumble and wobble its way to an electoral denouement or an outright democratic debacle, if our legendary political luck does not hold.

    Before the APC ruling caucus decided to announce its zoning formula to the world, several untoward developments had cast a tragic pall over the nation. A few of them can be taken in no particular order. First was the decision to postpone the APC party congress for the umpteenth time. It does not show the workings of an organic political party bound together by the same ideological strand.

    On the contrary, it shows a besieged phalanx of desperate office seekers unable to organize and close to terminal implosion.  The original strength of the party is also its subsequent weakness. It was a chaotic ensemble of disparate and ideologically incompatible elements united by a single minded resolve to unseat the ruling PDP which had become an albatross weighing heavily on the neck of the nation.

    The new coalition succeeded brilliantly in its quest, probably beyond the imagination of its moving spirits. But as we are all discovering to our tragic peril, regicide is one thing, building a new order out of the debilitating debris of the old order and away from the chaos of hegemonic party collapse is another matter entirely. In fact, regicide is the easier task.

    The victory party was barely over when the apocalyptic fissures began to stare everybody in the face. In a sense, APC is a victim of its own instant success. The party never had the chance to organize its sinews and to congeal and coalesce around a set of defining parameters and precepts. Rather than embark on this quest for distinct identity, the party began a wholesale mopping up of renegade elements from the PDP as its operative procedure, as if it is humongous size that matters.

    A deluded chieftain of the party was known to have famously proclaimed that all sins are forgiven and forgotten once you join the APC.  Photo-ops were arranged with elements whose names carry the badge of opprobrium and obloquy. With that, efforts to sanitize the polity became dead on arrival while the half-hearted attempts to curb corruption became a sick joke.

    The de-civilizing effects of the politics of the Fourth Republic and the utter collapse of the moral and spiritual anchor of the nation are here for everybody to see. The nation is in the grip of an institutional meltdown. The police force has been taken to the cleaners.

    When a hitherto wildly venerated super cop turns out to be an armed robbery kingpin, the national shock and trauma can be better imagined. But when it is now discovered that the same cop, ostensibly under suspension, has been operating and flourishing as a major drug baron and kidnap kingpin, we wonder who will lift the current pall of darkness over the nation.

    That so far no resignation has been offered from the top police echelon and none has been demanded shows an administration completely overwhelmed by the millennial rot. This present darkness is all-pervading and all consuming. Before our very eyes, the nation is steadily regressing into the Stone Age.

    The discovery of locomotive cannibals preying on rail infrastructure and dismantling newly laid tracks for base profit motive shows a society on its last gap to modern barbarism. The stomach infrastructure that we have not taken care of will take care of the modern infrastructure we delude ourselves to be laying.

    A superstructure cannot survive on a false structure. General Buhari spoke too soon and superficially when he was said to have observed that but for the new rail line, people would have been trekking from Lagos to Ibadan. It is only a question of time before that fate overtakes the nation. By then, the general would have reunited with his cows in Daura in all its pristine serendipity.

    It is now important for the general from Daura to understand and appreciate that there is only so much a man can do given his limitations. No leader can overcome the debilitating constraints of personality and specific insertion into the historic process. The former infantry general has given his best. As the lame duck hour dawns, what the general should do is to develop an acute sense of an ending and begin to plan for a honourable exit from power.

    As we have noted once on this page and at a public forum, the general needs to constitute a committee of his trusted friends, aides and well- wishers. The first thing the committee should do is to take a frank audit of his failings in power and to undertake a serious evaluation of the failure of the Nigerian political class and its inability to modernize the country politically or economically.

    With the door of restructuring firmly shut in the face of its proponents, and with barely a year remaining before the descent of the twilight zone of inter-presidency, the general should refrain from any costly political gambit that could torpedo the whole nation. He has wisely pushed the subsidy Armageddon to his successors. If we manage to avoid a Venezuelan slide into fiscal chaos or Zimbabwean currency meltdown, the country has enough resources for a swift recovery, provided the current circumstances can throw up the right leadership.

    Perhaps we should take a cue from our former colonial masters. The Brits are past masters of this genre, with their sense of an ending honed to perfection. From the time of William Shakespeare, British public figures have learnt how to deal with the fickle and unpredictable masses. It has always been a tense cohabitation with aristocratic disdain and wariness a perfect foil for popular terror and the ill-will of the hoi polloi. Every politician prepares for the day when mere anarchy will be loosed upon the world.

    When Winston Churchill was asked why he was only responding in a rather tame and tepid manner to the wild cheering and swooning adulation of the people at a victory parade, the great British statesman responded that if he was being marched to the execution stakes, the same masses would be on hand to mock and denounce him. Shortly after leading his people to their greatest victory ever, Churchill was ousted from power.

    The sense of an ending requires a combination of tact, decency, honour, good humour and immense self-esteem. Such is the importance attached to this unwritten code of conduct in British politics and letters that Frank Kermode, a great literary critic of the last epoch, penned a classic collection of essays with the main title, The Sense of An Ending.

    Kermode had risen to literary stardom from a provincial and very unpromising background, having trained in a red brick university. But despite the subsequent critical acclaim, celebrity and a prestigious chair, the shy, diffident and urbane gentleman never forgot who he was or where he was coming from.

    In the no-nonsense cloak and dagger world of British politics, it often amounts to a fatal error of judgement for a politician not to read correctly where the wind of change is blowing. It is not an unusual sight to see a dethroned prime minister hurriedly evacuating No10 Downing Street through the backdoor as the triumphant victor swept through the front door.

    It was a very tearful and forlorn Margaret Thatcher that headed for Buckingham Palace to tender her resignation after being ousted by her own backbenchers in a typically British political assassination. Among the galaxy of political gladiators, the dour and ordinary-looking John Major was the least fancied to succeed her. Yet he trounced better credentialed opponents.

    Five years later and hours after the selfsame John Major was worsted by Tony Blair, he was sighted at the Oval Cricket grounds drinking  warm beer and munching fish and chips. But after winning three straight elections in a row Tony Blair himself was almost physically bundled out of Downing Street by his longsuffering successor who could no longer put up with his shiftiness and reluctance to honour a gentleman’s agreement about power-sharing. Gordon Brown, a fearsome Scot with a permanent scowl, was already prowling with intent.

    A sense of an ending requires a sense of history. From the evolution of human societies, it is strong institutions as handed down by strong people that always make the difference between order and chaos. Even angels cannot thrive or survive in a state of nature.

    Institutions are there to restrain corrupt and perverted individuals however strong or powerful. While Donald Trump was huffing and puffing about not leaving the White House, all he needed was a look around him to conclude that he would be bundled out like a common trespasser at the appointed hour.

    In the ethical chaos and institutional collapse of postcolonial Africa, rare is the leader with the sense of an ending buoyed by a deep immersion in history. The bulk of Nigeria’s post –independence leadership has been particularly remiss in this wise. They have demonstrated an appalling lack of judgement and a chronic inability to rule according to constitutional requirement even in a civilian setting.

    After famously reneging on his promise to return the country to civilian rule, the otherwise affable and urbane General Yakubu Gowon began to stall and stonewall until he was flushed out by his outraged colleagues. In his first coming, General Buhari could not even be bothered about any democratic programme. Having been thwarted in his bid for an unconstitutional third term, Obasanjo spent his remaining days in office embroiled in a fearsome power struggle with his estranged deputy which beclouded and sullied everything else.

    Sixteen years after and twenty three years into post-military civil rule, Nigeria is transiting to a fresh civilian regime amidst the context of widespread institutional anarchy and gross party mismanagement. Such is the fear and trembling combined with ethnic loathing and fearsome mutual distrust that not even the leading presidential candidates can show their full hand for fear of executive reprisal and official disincentives.

    The sense of an ending is abroad and apocalypse is on the horizon. We must summon the original spirit of our old founding fathers and their noble mantra of give and take. As we approach the last bend in a turbulent river, here is wishing the navigators the very best of luck and good fortune.

  • And now the Putin Pandemic?

    And now the Putin Pandemic?

    The world is barely out of one pandemic when another has struck. In the early hours of Thursday, the unexpected became the unavoidable as Russia launched a full scale military invasion of Ukraine pounding its principal cities from the land, sea and air. It was a fearsome onslaught honed to precision by years of relentless preparation.

    Despite the loss of empire, it is obvious that the Russian military machine remains as ferocious and conventionally impregnable as ever. All the western powers could do for now is to rail and rant in helpless fury. Vladimir Putin is a military gambler of the highest order and distinction. It is now obvious that the west misunderstood and underestimated the chilling resolve and capacity for punitively proactive strike by this former KGB apparatchik.

    After the Russian invasion, the entire post-cold war global order lies in tatters. It is the return of the repressed. It is a return match and the old Russian bear growls furiously again unnerving the west even as hordes of refugees litter the Donbas region. Putin says he wants to “demilitarize and de-nazify” the region as an act of enlightened self-protection. This is bound to resonate very well with the local Russian populace who still bear the institutional scars and horrific national memory of the Nazi invasion.

    In the epic battle of Stalingrad, over three million Russians perished defending their fatherland. Russia says, and rightly too, that it cannot afford to have a Ukraine as a NATO member and with its nuclear warheads beaming down its territory. In all fairness, it is akin to having Soviet nuclear warheads in Cuba. The handshake would be slipping beyond the elbow.

    The Ukrainians themselves are badly and bitterly divided. While a sizeable proportion favours cooperation with Russian on the grounds of old umbilical ties, many others are for western-style democracy away from the neo-Tsarist autocracy so beloved by Putin and his pan-Slavic acolytes. The ideological divisions do not make for national unity of purpose in the face Putin’s blitzkrieg.

    Putin is mute and immutable where it comes to western concerns and interests. The western powers have not taken time to understudy Putin and what drives his maniacal insistence and single- minded tenacity. Neither have they shown a deep immersion in Ukrainian history. For centuries, Ukraine has been an integral part of the old Russian Empire, treated like a Slavic province with organic ties of shared ethnicity and consanguinity to the Russian homeland. Nikita Khrushchev, a Soviet ruler of consequence, was a Ukrainian by birth. Stalin himself was originally from Georgia.

    The Russian ruler is a coldblooded Slavic supremacist who dreams of new Russian empire with himself as an absolute Tsar.  He has already built up a formidable foreign reserve and is not likely to be fazed or deterred by actual sanctions or threats of such. It begins to feel like the Cold War again. But let us get real. You cannot step into same river twice. It is a new global order staring us in the face. And it requires thinking out of the diplomatic red box.

  • Abba Kyari triggers police angst

    Abba Kyari triggers police angst

    One minor scandal is enough to down the ordinary police officer from his flight. Some other officers need more than one major scandal to make a dent on them. It has taken two major scandals to draw reasonable attention to the life and career of Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) Abba Kyari, until his suspension, leader of the controversially celebrated Police Intelligence Response Team (IRT). Hopefully, notwithstanding his gilded position in the Police Force, the scandals will acquire enough amperage to down or irreparably damage him. Last July, the Police Service Commission (PSC) ordered his suspension after the United States Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) indicted him together with notorious fraudster, Ramon Abbas, alias Hushpuppi. Between last July and when Mr Kyari went on another caper this January, the police dilly-dallied over the controversial officer’s case, particularly the request by the FBI to have him extradited to the US. After what seemed interminable investigations, the PSC, citing unsatisfactory reports, ordered another round of investigations. The second round of investigations was still in the works when, like a villain fated to destruction, Mr Kyari embarked on a drug scandal captured on video by the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA).

    What makes Mr Kyari’s case extraordinarily outrageous is not that it has taken two scandals to undo him, one of which was his self-immolating and audacious January drug gambit, but that the police pussyfooted for nearly seven months to take decisive action on his case. They had ignored series of complaints against him while he led the special anti-robbery squad in Lagos. Secondly, and perhaps even more perverse, for an officer on suspension and facing an international indictment, it was curious that Mr Kyari still had enough latitude during that suspension to continue to perpetrate all sorts of malfeasances. The implication, in case this image disaster is lost on the police, is that Mr Kyari was treated with kid gloves because of his connections, or because he had compromised many other officers. What does this do to the morale of diligent, ethical and hard working officers?

    Another implication is that while still suspended, his case was inexplicably not handled by the police hierarchy with the sobriety and gravity it deserved. In short, it could be interpreted to mean that favoured police officers are hardly or often not properly supervised. Worse, for Mr Kyari to continue carrying out selected duties in one form or the other during suspension, and with some of his subordinates acquiescing to his orders, knowing same to be illegal, implies that the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) is not as tight and disciplined a professional law enforcement body as it publicly presents and sometimes asserts vehemently.

    Compounding this abominable and nationally embarrassing situation is the jostle between the police and the NDLEA over a fairly straightforward case. The police did not demonstrate enough outrage, and should not have spared Mr Kyari at all, assuming other extraneous considerations had not intervened. It enabled the NDLEA, just emerging from its own lethargy and years of somnolence, to exult over the matter. But if the drug agency had not publicised the case through a press conference, would the police have surrendered their wayward officers? And rather than quietly lick their wounds, the police again pushed the envelope by insinuating the culpability of NDLEA officers in the drug caper that finally brought Mr Kyari down.

    Not one to suffer fools gladly, the NDLEA responded in kind by asserting the sanctity of their investigations and reiterating the indictment of the arrested police officers. The scandalous fact that the suspended Mr Kyari led the ill-fated operations should have restrained the police authorities from seeking to make NDLEA an institutional co-accused. It is humbling enough that the police felt mortified by the adverse public perception expected to follow the unusual scandal; but what they needed to do was not to seek illicit relief in involving the NDLEA in the saga, but to pursue brilliant and effective ways of reassuring the public that Mr Kyari did not typify the police force, nor that the police routinely brooked favouritism in handling malfeasant officers.

    Unfortunately, the presidency cannot also be absolved of blame in the saga. Nigerians witnessed the spectacle of the PSC crossing swords with the police in late 2020 over the recruitment of constables into the Police Force. The battle, which ended in litigation, quickly became one of who really controlled the police. The Court of Appeal resolved the matter in favour of the PSC. However, if the presidency paid attention to the disaster unfolding over the Kyari/Hushpuppi/cocaine cases, it would have been alert to the urgent need for a presidential overview and review of the Police Force in its entirety. The presidency probably hid behind constitutional provisions to allow agencies such as the police enough latitude to function without constraints. But the men involved are appointees of the president.

    Now, much more than the police, the nation is affected by the sordidness of the case, a sordidness that has sadly assumed global dimension. In the eyes of the world, the case portrays the Nigeria Police as an undisciplined organisation, the government as incompetent and inadequate, and the presidency itself distracted or, worst, conniving. It has led to speculations that there is a grand plot to help the ‘favoured’ Mr Kyari evade extradition. Whether true or not, and whether justice is served in Nigeria or abroad, the case calls for a more attentive, disciplined and objective government, atop which sits the presidency. If they could respond fiercely and promptly to the killings of 22 Ondo-bound Muslim travelers in Jos last August, they have a responsibility to maintain the same tempo in all other cases involving threats to law and order.

    PDP govs’ Ghanaian parley

    Dissatisfied with the lack of result from their many meetings in Nigeria, some PDP governors, reported this newspaper, travelled to Accra, Ghana, last week to continue their deliberations over how to zone the 2023 presidential ticket. The governors had gathered in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State to celebrate Governor Duoye Diri’s second anniversary, and spontaneously decided to hop to Ghana in search of a consensus. If the air in Nigeria was not salubrious enough, might that of Ghana be of help? The meeting, which according to the report held between Tuesday and Wednesday, probably thought so.

    Agreeing to a zoning formula, particularly in reference to the presidential ticket, has been especially difficult for the PDP. So far they have toyed with zillion scenarios, and have drawn blank. Those from whose palms the party feeds are interested in running for president. To them, if not now, when. Their collective answer is ‘now’. This explains why northern governors are pitched against southern governors, with hardly a room between.

    They will eventually hammer out a deal in the nick of time. Since they can’t all be president at the same time, something must therefore give. But for now, for as long as there is still elbow room, the PDP governors will play hard ball. And as time goes on, they will realise that their disagreements have nothing to do with the air they breathe, and that until altruism takes over, there would be no balm in any Gilead, no matter where it is located on the map. As Shakespeare elegantly put it in his play Julius Caesar, “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars/But in ourselves, that we are underlings”. The governors are responsible for their own stalemate.

  • APC: Is CECPC working towards an inconclusive convention?

    APC: Is CECPC working towards an inconclusive convention?

    Is CECPC’s intent to superintend over who emerges the Presidential candidate of the party that cast in stone they can deliberately conduct an inchoate convention?

    If not why the footdragging, the near complete lull, in putting processes in place?

    Are we up against some party wreckers in case they cant have their way?

    I have written severally on these pages indicating that  from its inception, I never had faith in the Governor  Buni-led Caretaker Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee (CECPC) because it arose from  a deep seated plot which not  only saw off a Chairman of the party together with its entire National Executive  Committee but ended up gifting it to a cabal that has since been scheming for the control of whoever emerges the candidate in the 2023 APC Presidential primaries. Fortunately for the party, my personal feelings does not amount to anything. Even after President Muhammadu Buhari had put his feet down, insisting that  the party convention must hold in February and the committee had followed up by  announcing 26th of the month as the date,  snippets of what’s currently going on suggest that  the committee is still   foot dragging and if it cannot find a way out of the President’s directive, it could, very well, deliberately work towards an inconclusive, or even a failed convention just so the committee would end up conducting the party’s presidential primaries. Just as Senator  Orji Uzor Kalu gave this indication last month, Imo state governor, Hope Uzodinma,  this past week, on a visit to the Villa, repeated   that 26 February, 2022, may, after all  not be sacrosanct.

    Unfortunately, the CECPC and its controllers would appear to have completely failed to learn from the pitfalls of the Peoples Democratic Party which, groggy with power after 16 years in office, it started to take Nigerians for granted and learnt the hard way. Good enough though, everything shows that the PDP people not only learnt their lessons but know exactly what they are saying when they boast that they would remove APC from power, come 2023.

    And why do I say so?

    For its convention of 30 – 31,October, 2021, the PDP on Friday 17 September 2021, inaugurated a 279-member National Convention Planning Committee headed by the Governor of Adamawa State, Ahmadu Fintiri. The committee, which was inaugurated by the then  Acting National Chairman, Chief Yemi Akinwonmi, had as its secretary, the Oyo State Governor, Seyi Makinde, and Governor of Bayelsa State, Senator Douye Diri, as the Deputy Chairman. The Ag Nationa Chairman appealed to members of the committee to build on the successes recorded during their 2018 Port Harcourt convention    which he said was adjudged “the best ever  by any political party in Africa” in reply  to which governor Fintiri assured that they would not disappoint but surpass in quality. In contradistinction to the PDP,  on 19 December, 2021, even as the PDP convention was still the talk of the town, the All Progressives Congress through the Secretary of its Caretaker/Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee, Senator  John Akpanudoedehe, announced    that the committee had, “at its 18th regular meeting on Monday, December 20, 2021, deliberated on various national and party matters and resolved, among other things, to set up a sub-committee on budgeting ahead of its February 2022 convention. But as has become its norm,  not much has been heard  since. Meanwhile, that is by a committee managing a party of over 40 Million members, a ruling party to boot, in far less than two weeks to a make or mar convention, so described because of the many contradictions bedevilling the party, now far worse than before the CECPC came on board. Typical examples are the dispositions of the Aregbesola and the Lai Mohammed factions in Osun and Kwara states, respectively, both of which did not  predate the CECPC.

    Lest it be assumed that I have anything in mind besides the interest of the party, and to show that I am not the only party member discomfited by the shambolic performance of the CECPC, I crave the indulgence of my readers to quote, at some length, from the public letter which a no less traumatised party member addressed to President Buhari on the same issues.

    Let me, however, quickly say that unlike him , I do not believe that Governor Mai Mala Buni is strategising to become the party chairman. On the contrary, I believe that he is in cahoots with persons who are, indeed, more powerful, and influential, than him and whose wishes he cannot not whimsically disdain, or outrightly refuse.

    Writing under the caption:APC CONVENTION: CARETAKER OR UNDERTAKER, Salihu Moh. Lukman   wrote as follows in his open letter  published on 15 February, 2022:

    “Your Excellency  every committed leader and member of our great party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), is very apprehensive that with less than two weeks to the scheduled February 26, 2022 National Convention, preparations are very low key, to put it mildly. There is no indication that sub-committees have been set up to drive processes of organising the Convention. Every day, we wake up with different stories about wether governors will be meeting to decide on zoning or they are going to be meeting with Your Excellency. Communication from the Caretaker Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee (CECPC) is very poor and hardly gives confidence that the leadership of the CECPC, especially the Chairman, His Excellency Mai Mala Buni and the Secretary Sen. John James Akpanudoedehe are making any effort to mobilise all leaders, members and Nigerians sympathetic to the party as part of preparations for the National Convention.

    Based on the schedule of the Convention, as issued by the CECPC Secretary, Sen. Akpanudoedehe on January 19, 2022, sales of forms to all aspirants is supposed to commence February 14, 2022. As of today, February 15, 2022, forms are not available anywhere, and the excuse from all available sources is that unless zoning of offices to be contested are decided, forms will not be available. Why has the CECPC not concluded zoning by now?

    Looking at the schedule of the Convention, the CECPC is expected to publish Convention Sub-Committees on Saturday, February 19, 2022. The question is, have the Sub-Committees been set up, and are they already working? If they have, what are these Sub-Committees and who are the members? If not, when will they be set up? What are the details of these Committees and their mandates, which is to be implemented within less than one week to the Convention?

    Your Excellency, the way the CECPC is approaching the organisation of the National Convention gives enough ground to suspect internal sabotage. Is leadership of the CECPC working to ensure that the Convention doesn’t hold on February 26, 2022? Recall that initially, the Convention was scheduled to hold December 28, 2021. Through consultations, it was moved to February 5, 2022. Unfortunately, we found ourselves, as a party, in the embarrassing situation of having to contend with speculation about an alleged ambition of His Excellency, Mai Mala Buni to manipulate his emergence as the substantive National Chairman of the party, which informs his reluctance to organise the National Convention and handover to an elected leadership. Even while consultations were ongoing, leading to the decision to move the Convention to February 26, 2022, there were media speculation that the leadership of the CECPC want the Convention moved to either May or June 2022. Some sponsored media campaigns were openly promoted to canvass for these positions. Although the alleged ambition of His Excellency Mai Mala Buni to emerge as the substantive National Chairman is very difficult to believe, however, with the way the leadership of CECPC under his watch is sluggishly handling the organisation of the National Convention, it gives strong credibility to the speculation.

    As things are, the CECPC leadership is using sophisticated strategies to force the hands of party leaders, including blackmail and wildcat promises of electoral opportunity to emerge as candidates of our party for the 2023 elections. This is very unfortunate and must be redressed urgently. Your Excellency, as the moral leader of our party, and one of the leading initiators of the merger negotiations that produced the APC in 2013, you never demanded automatic ticket to emerge as the Presidential candidate of our party. You contested with other four aspirants in the December 10, 2014, in a keenly contested primary election in Lagos and became our Presidential candidate. That was the orientation you provided. Why should the leadership of the CECPC be setting the stage for destroying a veritable democratic tradition, which was one of the important attractions that guaranteed our party the historic victory of the 2015 general elections?Your Excellency, we are faced with a very critical situation, as a party. Sadly, we have some leaders in our party, including the leadership of the CECPC who believe that they can manipulate every situation to impose their choices on the party without going through the necessary processes as established in the constitution of the party. We can’t be a party of change and overlook situations whereby these very leaders continue to take us and the country back to the dark days when party politics is reduced to a circus. This is a very painful reality, which must be urgently redressed.

    Your Excellency, beyond manipulating situations in the party to impose their choices on party leaders, members and Nigerians, these few party leaders led by the leadership of the CECPC are very intolerant of criticisms. Consequently, debates are hardly taking place in the party. The leadership of the CECPC has also ensured that meetings are hardly taking place. The only meeting now taking place is the meeting of Progressive Governors Forum (PGF). So long as meetings are not taking place, ability of leaders and members of the party to hold the leadership of the CECPC accountable will be weak. Conscious of the fact that party leaders and members are weak in holding them accountable is about the only reason they have a strong self-belief that they can continue to succeed in manipulating situations in the party to their advantage, including undermining the National Convention of the party.

    Many party leaders and members are greatly at pain that, as a party, we are sinking deeper and deeper and in more and problems. A Caretaker Committee, which is expected to open a new democratically vibrant life for the party, facilitate internal party contests, is more and more becoming an Undertaker Committee working to end every democratic life existing in the party by blocking  internal party contest. Everything in the party is being reduced to decisions of some party leaders. If the Comrade Oshiomhole-led NWC was highhanded, intimidating and trampling on the democratic life of party leaders and members, the CECPC led by His Excellency Mai Mala Buni is administering poison, thereby destroying every democratic practice in the party and preparing every stage for the burial rite of APC as a party. This may sound harsh, but it is the sad reality.

    Your Excellency will have to  take every urgent steps to rescue the party from the reprehensible leadership of the CECPC. The fastest way that can happen is by ensuring that nothing is allowed to prevent the National Convention from holding on February 26, 2022. In addition to ensuring that issues around zoning offices and setting up all the Sub-Committees for the Convention are decided immediately and sales of forms to aspiring candidates should also commence immediately.

    I have no doubt that one of the legacies Your Excellency will want to bequeath to this generation of Nigerians, and indeed future generations, is a truly progressive and democratic All Progressives Congress (APC). May Allah (SWT) guide Your Excellency and all APC leaders to put APC back in the direction of providing the needed political leadership to facilitate politics of change in Nigeria. Amen!”

    What more can I add, except to say that the way CECPC and its minders rush to the President, they would long have forgotten they were ever in office if they were managers in the private sector.

     

  • Aregbesola’s incredible outburst

    Aregbesola’s incredible outburst

    Former Osun State governor and current Internal Affairs minister Rauf Aregbesola is not known for moderation. He showed this trait once again last week in Ilesha when he publicly denounced All Progressives Congress (APC) national leader and former governor of Lagos State, Bola Ahmed Tinubu. Asiwaju Tinubu mentored Mr Aregbesola. But all the mentoring counted for nothing last week as the angry minister, frustrated by his failed ambition to take over the Lagos APC machinery and the Osun APC leadership, denounced his mentor in unprintable, venomous terms. He believes he has solid grounds for dismissing his mentor, whom he accused of deceit and pride, and went on to solicit God to punish and dethrone his mentor from his peacock throne.

    During his governorship, Mr Aregbesola was the apple of Asiwaju Tinubu’s eyes. He could do no wrong, and the former Lagos governor was prepared to sacrifice anyone, anything and anybody to placate the irascible former Osun governor as often as he took umbrage. The separation between the two was so spectacular and so unexpected that there are reports a few national lawmakers and governors are said to be mediating a truce. They need not bother. Even though the dispute had been simmering since last year when Mr Aregbesola’s bid to control the nerve centre of the Lagos APC was thwarted by Asiwaju Tinubu himself, no one expected that the disagreement would boil over to untethered and unmitigated vitriol. It did, and there are speculations as to why it happened.

    Mr Aregbesola is no longer influential in Lagos politics, having lost his Alimosho base. Osun is his last redoubt, and he seems dangerously close to losing influence in the state and becoming an outsider. To lose both Lagos and Osun is unimaginable and detestable to him, in fact a political death sentence he is unable to contemplate, notwithstanding his ministerial position. He is, therefore, fighting an existential battle, probably his last. Governor Gboyega Oyetola, who was for eight years his chief of staff, and has endeared himself to the people of Osun by his policies and attention, is merely caught in-between the fireworks. Mr Aregbesola, therefore, has the unpleasant and herculean task of diminishing the national and overarching influence of Asiwaju Tinubu as well as preventing Mr Oyetola from securing the candidature of the APC in yesterday’s governorship primary. He was optimistic he could pull the stunt. How he hoped to do that with a detachment of civil defence officers and a captive audience held in thrall by his sorcery is hard to understand.

    When he publicly fell out with his mentor, Mr Aregbesola expected those who sympathised with Asiwaju Tinubu to come after him with the vilest language possible. Most commentators have been too shocked to do so. There were a few comments here and there, some endorsing his tactics and gloating over irreverence, and others taking sides with the APC national leader. It will serve no purpose to hate the former Osun governor, let alone abuse him roundly. He has the right to fall out with his mentor, disagree with him ideologically, even denounce his politics to the point of defecting to another party. That Asiwaju Tinubu mentored him does not mean that the former Lagos governor holds a permanent lien on his politics and person. What caused the national shock is the style by which Mr Aregbesola mediated his disapproval of his mentor, a style that now obviously reflects his own failings and flaws than the overbearing politics of the party’s national leader which he described in last week’s Ijesha and Iwo rallies as offensive and divinely punishable.

    It is of course unlikely that God, whom Mr Aregbesola importuned in cavalier language last week to help destroy his chief enemy, would come to his aid by punishing the former Lagos governor. It is in fact instructive that a few days after the minister flew off the handle, the monarch of his town, Oba Adekunle Aromolaran, hosted Gov Oyetola and, without mincing words, heartily denounced the minister, assured his guest that his second term ambition was non-negotiable, and sarcastically condemned the minister’s rascality. There will be many more such denunciations, not simply because Mr Aregbesola disagreed with his mentor, but also because of the unexampled and off-putting way he vented his spleen. It is possible Asiwaju Tinubu angered his mentee, but to so immoderately hurl invectives at him, complete with scornful songs, exposes the fragility and uncouthness of the mentee more than the overbearingness of the mentor. There are many ways to skin a cat; and there are many civil and enlightened ways to part ways with friends and mentors. Other than his captive audience, few other Osun people and politicians would take sides with their former governor. They will continue to see him as uncultured, unmanageable and unconscionable.

    Months before the courts finally decided in Mr Aregbesola’s favour in the election dispute between him and former Governor Olagunsoye Oyinlola, a top member of the Osun elite based in Abuja spoke to this writer on phone about the case. Mr Aregbesola would win, he said ruefully, but we have doubts about whether he is cultured, cosmopolitan and stable enough to justify expectations. His eight years in government proved the skepticism of the Osun elite right. There was no political, social, religious or economic experiment that Mr Aregbesola did not attempt. He knew a little of everything, from Marxism to Sufism, from democracy to fascism, and from Einstein’s theory of relativity to particle physics, and he constantly tyrannised his cabinet and legislature with half-baked theories about everything, including recondite theories about the creation of the world. He posed as a social and political liberal, but he was fundamentally a dictator and a closet religious fanatic.

    It was not surprising that he left Osun a detestable figure on account of his utter lack of empathy, a major reason his party struggled to win the governorship election four years ago. He engages in revisionism by persuading himself to believe the lie that the last poll was a close call because candidate Oyetola was imposed. It is not true. Not only did Osun resent the former governor’s education and social policies, particularly his erasure of legacy schools, imposition of abominable school uniforms, and a cluttered and wasteful school feeding programme, they reviled his lack of taste and culture, his abysmal and cruel approach to payment of salaries, his delusional projects, and total lack of sense for sense. It led the state into a quandary in the last poll to the extent that they were unsure whether the bohemian, Ademola Adeleke, would not be better than anyone else, even a genius, associated with Mr Aregbesola.

    It is not surprising that Mr Aregbesola, contrary to his boasts, came to grief at yesterday’s governorship primary. Given Mr Oyetola’s strides, it is inconceivable that Mr Aregbesola’s pick, Moshood Adeoti, could win. The minister’s faction of the APC, which he insists is the main body of the party, half-heartedly began psyching up themselves to use strong-arm methods. Their failure was predictable. The governor has appeared to do enough in his first term to make the second term a formality. He earned it, in the fulsome words of Oba Aromolaran, by his competence and empathy. More significantly, the governor has throughout his first term been placatory and diplomatic, ensuring that in the midst of scarcity, the dignity of Osun people was not compromised by delayed salaries and benefits. Mr Aregbesola cannot erase his own abysmal record. What legacy was he then speaking of when he railed against Mr Oyetola’s lack of fidelity to his predecessor’s programmes and policies?

    Nigerians and the social media have been in uproar over the minister’s fight with Asiwaju Tinubu, who incidentally is also the first APC bigwig to declare his interest in the presidency. They use the bitter and acrimonious separation between the two as an example of the failure of the party’s national leader to rein in his protégés and retain their loyalty, a failure they say should disqualify him from seeking the presidency. The commentators have significantly been less censorious of the abject failings of the minister. Parting of ways between mentors and mentees in politics particularly is not uncommon, as Nigeria’s recent political history from the First Republic demonstrates. There will be many more.

    Judging from the Interior minister’s scurrilous reiterations during a rally in Iwo, his main grouse was not even with the governor. He knew there was little he could say to convince Osun people wearied by his anarchic years in office to reject Mr Oyetola. But he knew there was so much to say when Asiwaju Tinubu is dragged into the controversy, as Edo State’s Godwin Obaseki did last year by invoking the spectre of the meddlesome godfather. Such a tactic was, however, unlikely to gain traction in Osun. Yesterday, whatever Mr Aregbesola did, his candidate was bound to lose the primary, and the minister’s demystification and isolation may be now complete. More, after the primary, Mr Oyetola has seemed to do enough to win the main July governorship poll. It will not be because of his closeness to Asiwaju Tinubu, as the Interior minister has futilely campaigned, but because he has largely met the aspirations of the people of Osun. After July, Mr Aregbesola will finally confront the fate his boisterous but heedless politics has sentenced him to, a fate which from hindsight seemed ineluctable when his mediocre administrative ability began forcing Osun State to ski off-piste.

    Sadly, the Interior minister, like other Tinubu mentees, appears to think it is a mark of courage, independence and dignity, even integrity, to defy one’s mentor and call him names. Perhaps the mentor deserves some of the name-calling. But it is remarkable that Mr Aregbesola’s defiance, which is rather common with Southwest politicians, is a poignant reflection of the inability of the mentee to intelligently manage his differences with his mentor. Honour demands patience of the mentee, and civility demands a mentee should manage his separation with decorum. But neither virtue has seemed to impress ambitious Southwest politicians, nor lead them to the adoption of great principles. Potential political mentors will then wonder whether it is not counterproductive to invest in future leaders. But they must keep on investing in the future, regardless of frequent betrayal. It is their duty, a duty the likes of Mr Aregbesola must never be allowed to deter or extinguish. Perhaps out of a dozen men, the laws of probability would produce one great mentee with the character, intuition and wisdom to know when, as Otto von Bismarck once said, to touch the hem of God’s mantle, no matter how briefly, as He thunders through the pages of history.

     

    Convention: APC battles many conundrums

    Though unintended, the All Progressives Congress (APC) has continued to make the headlines by both its shambolic party organisation and passion for plotting and intriguing against one another. This is in contrast to the leading opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) which got its act together last October but has found it difficult to press the advantage of its renascent spirit to dominate the news and set the tone. Apart from the zoning brouhaha over which both parties are mired, the ruling APC, led by a caretaker committee, has for nearly two years been unable to organise a convention. It had been given six months to carry out the assignment. A little over two weeks ago, it tentatively and grudgingly set a February 26 date for the fiesta, that is, next Saturday. There is little to indicate it is ready for the convention; not one brick has been laid upon another. In fact, there are now suggestions that the convention could be postponed by another two weeks. But really, no one knows how many weeks postponement would satisfy the grand panjandrums of the APC.

    If they manage to resolve the issue of convention date, they will next run smack into the plot to disenfranchise their national lawmakers whom they want excluded from participating in electing the party’s executives. The interim leadership of the party, not the APC constitution, is thought to see the lawmakers as a potential threat capable of thwarting the desired outcome of the convention as envisaged by the party’s interim leaders. Only the APC can explain why a caretaker committee would be keen on amending party constitution, and how that amendment would be carried out in flagrant violation of the constitution they have begun recklessly to disrespect. The caretakers no longer seemed fazed that they are seen as a group of schemers and plotters. Their private goals are also no longer hidden; but it is not clear whether they themselves now understand how to achieve those goals or what those goals even portend both to their private interests and party objectives.

    Should the party and its scheming caretakers scale the hurdle of the convention – and scaling it they must – they will next contend with their presidential primary upon which, like the PDP, they have erected feeble but scabrous panoply of zoning permutations. Should they throw it open, or should they zone it? And if it must be zoned, is it to the North or South? The PDP is stuck in that unresolvable logjam, having by a freak of nature inspired more credible northern presidential aspirants than southern aspirants. And while the PDP justifies its greed in the name of merit and continues to gloat over not having and not being hamstrung by a northern president in office, it is uncertain which leprous leg the APC would stand on to either defend the absence of zoning or justify the emergence of a northern candidate.

    But there is a final conundrum the APC caretakers must be interested in resolving: the issue of who becomes their chairman next Saturday or any other hypothetical day they fix for the convention. Leading members of the caretaker committee have ‘zoned’ the responsibility of determining the party’s elected chairman to the president. A few governors have seconded the idea. Imbued with such daunting and ingratiating responsibility, the president must now find a way to eschew his natural instinct to be indecisive. It is puzzling that the party reduced itself and all its fancy footwork since June 2020 to just one option – that of ceding responsibility to produce their next chairman to the president. But there it is in inelegant colours. The party, alas, does not have a mind of its own, nor a roadmap by which to design and bequeath to its long-suffering members a great party for the day after tomorrow.

    The APC is a seething cauldron already. It will remain so for a while longer. Its leaders have skillfully manoeuvred to fan the flames consuming the party in order to make it seethe all the more. There is, therefore, no telling what other ambush the party will spring, or how after being weighed down by many entanglements, it hopes to disentangle itself from its self-created maze. With so many state chapters still singing discordant tunes, it remains to be seen how the party would pacify its ranks in order to finally get the leeway to train its guns on its more organised enemy, rather than euthanising itself.

  • Julius Berger – Taking a giant step? Nigeria’s government still paying lip service to agribusiness?

    Julius Berger – Taking a giant step? Nigeria’s government still paying lip service to agribusiness?

    Elated and excited to have my holiday in the land of the Kiwis– New Zealand – in the year 2015, uppermost in my mind was to hold in my arms my first grandson, Oluwasemilore AdejolaJesu Ekundayo. In the course of my traversing Auckland (similar to Lagos, the former capital city of Nigeria), and environs, I came to discover farmlands with many sheep laced with houses. I pointed the attention of my son, Dr. Samuel Ekundayo, to these litanies of farmlands. He retorted by saying: “Dad, one day possibly all of us will become farmers as these are the wealthiest set of people in the land.” I was not only surprised but shocked by his statement. He told me that these farmers also own estates. My mind raced back to Malaysia where I resided and did my PhD research for three years, from 2009 to 2012. The oil palm plantation owners trading in oil palm derivatives for years suddenly became wealthy as their farmlands were becoming nearer to towns and cities. The value of the land spiraled resulting in a boom for these farmers. The farmers expanded to new frontiers in rural communities. Developers swoop on the plantations near the towns and cities and in a jiffy, they became super rich through investment in real estate development; some from their own toils, and others through labour of their progenitors or forefathers.

    Cheering news from Julius Berger’s Agrobusiness venture targeting cashew processing

    It is cheering and gladdening reading of the engineering construction giant, Julius Berger Nigeria PLC, taking a trip, though viewed by many as risky, into the unpopular foray of agribusiness. Why agribusiness? This columnist will want to respond with a clever quip: why not agrobusiness especially in this day and age when the supposed boom in crude oil prospecting, production and processing is gradually turning to doom? The big picture Julius Berger is seeing is to have zero-waste processing of the cashew – exhausting the entire value chain – and so cash on the opportunity of sharing from the humongous 6 billion dollars ($6b) global market provided through the production, processing, packaging and marketing of cashew. Julius Berger (JB) in putting action to their words have already commenced, before alerting the press, on the construction of an ultra – modern plant in Epe, Lagos State. This is expected to be commissioned in earnest. This is very strategic for JB.

    This columnist while at Harvard Business School (HBS) studying strategy execution learned that one way for firms to only survive but thrive in any business environment is not by management harping on command- and – control techniques. Professor Robert Simons encapsulated it thus: “But command – and – control techniques no longer suffice in competitive environments where creativity and employee initiative are critical to success.” It is remarkable that JB is diversifying, applying innovative control systems, from engineering construction, the company’s main turf, into agrobusiness. It is also gratifying and gladdening that the firm, JB, has done a lot of homework in not just getting any plant into the country but one that will ensure zero – waste operational practice thus enunciating and enhancing sustainable business practice.

    One point worth pinpointing here is that JB is not just involved in production of cashew nuts for export. Nigeria has taken part in this atavistic way of doing business in the agricultural sector way back to the days of our political progenitors – Azikiwe, Ahmadu Bello and Awolowo – associated with raw palm oil, groundnut and cocoa export. Never again, should Nigeria tow that inglorious trajectory! It is upsetting and worrisome that two African countries mainly grow the plant used as the main raw material in producing the popular Lipton Tea. Up till now, these countries naively export this dried raw tea to the United Kingdom for processing; thereafter resulting in global distribution, marketing and sales fetching that country humongous profit annually while Africa bleeds in poverty and underdevelopment. Whose fault? One cannot but corroborate Cassius in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar who pontificated: “the fault lies not in our stars, but in ourselves.” Simply and squarely stated, we, Africans, have refused to put our brains to work. The fault lies at our doorstep! I will chip in this timely advice to JB management: the finished products should target African markets starting with certain West Africa countries. It is high time Africans arose for Africa’s development; no super power would come to do this for us.

    Governments in Nigeria: When are they going to stop paying lip service to Agribusiness?

    This columnist is mostly at a loss as to why, in most cases, both the federal and state governments in Nigeria are seemingly paying lip service to agribusiness and agro – allied industrialization. It is puzzling and pitiful! The discovery and exploration of oil blinded and blunt our reasoning and rationality even as climate change and gradual jettisoning of fossil fuels globally is staring all oil producing countries in the face. In the next 10 years, the world’s demand for oil would greatly reduce whether Nigeria likes it or not. What will Nigeria do? Diversify or die! This has been my blunt and scary advice!! One way out is proactive agribusiness and/or agro – allied industrial development. The governments at all levels should show more proactiveness and offer mouthwatering incentives. This can be in the form of public private partnership (PPP) arrangement that could involve offering and clearing expanse of land, granting of tax holiday for up to 5 years, government holding equity of not more than 40% in some investment to ensure investors wields more power, etc. It is noteworthy to commend certain effort by some states’ helmsmen such as Dr. John Kayode Fayemi, incumbent Ekiti State Governor, in establishing the Ikun Ekiti Diary Farm and Professor Ben Ayade, the Cross River State Governor, in founding the Cross River Seeds and Seedlings Factory. More of these initiatives and innovation are needed to boost food security, employment generation, internally generated revenue (IGR), foreign direct investment (FDI), earning foreign exchange, gross domestic product (GDP), poverty alleviation, etc.

    Replicating New Zealand’s and Malaysia’s Models

    In the introduction to this article, this columnist made mention of his holidaying in New Zealand in 2015. It is noteworthy to succinctly state that one of the starting points for New Zealand’s economy to gain traction was the early days investment in special sheep breeding. This type of sheep boosts wool production. Sheep produced was locally processed but subsequently exported as the market grew. Presently, New Zealand, is less than 5 million in population but boasts of up to 25 million special sheep species! Nigeria can take cue from this especially the state governments. Each state could focus on one to three items as raw materials for agro – allied industries to be sited within the state.

    Secondly, Malaysia is a shining example from the time of the historical visit to Nigeria. It was at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), Ibadan, the eyes of Malaysians were open to the good in the oil palm seed. Presently, through innovation and research studies, Malaysia has unique species of oil palm seeds that could yield fruits in 24 months! Surprisingly, Malaysia, apart from producing bleached oil (referred to as vegetable oil in our market, the King’s brand), the country is also producing diesel from oil palm processing! One point to highlight here in emphasizing the political gain of the government quest into agro – industrialization in that country, Malaysia, is that the rural dwellers have been made rich and consequently keep voting massively for the central government in any election year. They loathe migrating to Kuala Lumpur or any of the cities but rather flock to these cities to enjoy during holidays or special festivals. The opposite is the case in Nigeria. Thus, in Malaysia, it was a strategic and sagacious political master stroke investing in agribusiness, and later agro – industrialization, though its occurrence was overtime.

    Conclusion

    In concluding this piece this week, this is a clarion call to other business entities to diversify into agribusiness and agro – industrialization like Julius Berger. In addition, the states, and even local governments, could initiate aggressive and proactive inculcation of agribusiness as a means of diversification from depending on oil revenue which is nothing but a mirage. This columnist is not stating that agribusiness or agro – industrialization is the only way out of the socio – economic quagmire the country has found herself. Firms and governments could explore investment opportunities that equally abound in information communication technology (ICT), tourism and health care delivery. In health care delivery, kudos should be given to Afe Babalola University, Ado Ekiti, for foraying into cerebral medical research, building capacity of personnel, procuring and installing infrastructure to ensure sustainable medical practice, possibly adjudged the best in Nigeria presently. In capping this piece, our country’s leaders should divert the ship of state off the cliff through innovative and creative maneuvering. Kudos to Julius Berger! Notable businesses in this clime should follow suit!! The time is now!!!

  • FOR AYO BAMGBOSE (1)

    FOR AYO BAMGBOSE (1)

    In the Beginning was the Void

    And the Void was Silence

    And Silence spawned Seven Intimations

    And Seven Mists, and the form-

    Less Inarticulacies of errant Winds

    The Sun knew not yet its sky

    Earth was flat fare and liquid riddle

     

    And the Universe quaked into Chaos;

    From the liquid loins of the Wind

    The Vowel was born

    And the Vowel was all flesh, all flair

    From the silent bone of the Mist

    The Consonant erupted into being,

    All hard, intemperately mute

     

    And the Consonant quaked into the Vowel

    And the Vowel melted into the Consonant

     

    And the Syllable was born

     

    *                       *                  *

    And the Syllable begat the Word

    And the Word begat the Phrase

    And the Phase begat the Clause

    And the Clause begat the Sentence

    And the Sentence begat the Paragraph

    And the Paragraph begat the Discourse

    And the Discourse begat Meaning

    And Meaning begat the Universe. . . .

    (Cont. next Sunday)

  • Ban on use of generic emails

    Ban on use of generic emails

    LAST Wednesday, the Federal Executive Council (FEC) approved the National Policy on the Government, Second Level Domain aimed at safeguarding official communications by using government top-level domains.

    Based on the approval, the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Isa Pantami, disclosed government officials must now migrate from using generic domains in their websites and their emails to the “second level under the government top-level domain”.

    What this decision means is that the use of private emails like yahoo.com, hotmail.com, gmail.com and others for official communications by government officials would no longer be allowed. Any official communications the Minister explained must be (by) using official email; dot government dot ng.

    If those in charge of communication policies in the country were alive to their responsibilities and other top government officials are as digitally knowledgeable as they should be, the above decision should have been taken and enforced long before now.

    It’s a shame that for so long, the practice of using generic email addresses has been allowed without the implications being obvious and even when it is, those in charge didn’t take the necessary measures to save the country from the embarrassment of exposing to the world, the digital illiteracy that exits at the highest level of government.

    I have always been concerned that ministries, departments and other agencies use generic emails as their contact in their letterheads and advertisements.

    Even when they have official websites and emails, they find it convenient to use generic emails as some private organizations do. I once told a government official why the use of generic emails is not proper, but he couldn’t be bothered. As far as he was concerned, what was important was that the agency can be reached and it didn’t matter whether it is through generic or official emails.

    The ready excuse for not using official emails most times is that when usually poorly maintained websites break down, mails don’t get through. The benefits of using official emails listed by the minister, including preventing our cyberspace from being compromised, promoting our national identity, enhancing our global recognition and more public confidence in messages from government agencies are valid.

    Hopefully, the new policy will not be one of those that not much gets done about them after they are pronounced and those in charge initially give the impression that they are serious about ensuring the necessary change.

    The circular for migration and implementation promised by the Minister should be issued immediately and monitored. Under the existing arrangement, many official communication and documents are lost when the passwords of the emails are known by those who should not have them or not some officials refuse to disclose them when they leave office.

    In other instances, such emails are hacked and used to send mails to deceive and defraud unsuspecting people. If government agencies use only official emails, the safety of official communication will be guaranteed and there will be no need to doubt if they are real or not.

    This policy should not apply at only the federal level, all other tiers of governments should also adopt best practices in digital communication.

    For this policy to be effective, it will be necessary to ensure that the websites of the ministries, departments and agencies are well maintained and updated regularly. There must be training for all levels of staff to be able to comply with the new policy in their internal and external communication.