The Nation Newspaper

Category: Sunday

  • The presidential interviews

    The presidential interviews

    After a significant absence from television interviews, President Muhammadu Buhari once again spoke to Nigerians last week. This column had suggested last June after he gave Arise Television a highly controversial interview that he would neither gain nor lose anything by granting any more interviews, and would in fact do well not to grant any interview again until his tenure ended. But he granted two interviews anyway, in short order, and has managed, as predicted, to stoke public dismay at the way he fudged questions on the economy, complicated political and cultural issues, and veered off course on many critical questions pertaining to statistical indicators. But there is mercifully a respite. Despite his pious outlook, he has stayed somewhat clear of religious controversies in all his interviews. The two interviews granted to Channels Television and Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) last week may not be the last in the 17 months left of his tenure, but they will likely be the most impactful before he leaves office. They dealt with wide-ranging issues on politics, elections and economy, and his answers opened a window into his worldview and leadership. Researchers will find them useful.

    When he gave an interview to Arise Television last June, and stirred the hornets’ nest by the way he handled the questions posed at him, it was thought that his aides would lean on him to foreclose any further interviews until his term expired. This column also tried to coax him away from further interviews, not simply because of the manifest absence of substance in his answers, but also because his primordial instinct constantly suffused his perceptions. Neither he nor his aides regarded public admonition. He has now given two interviews; he will probably still give a few more before May 2023, especially when his presidency becomes truly lame duck, and his opinions become nugatory. It is too late to press him against any more interviews, and nothing he says in further interviews will damage him or his presidency beyond what Nigerians recognise and wince at. What is clear is that over the decades, his ideas and perceptions have changed very little. They will not change significantly between now and next year. He had decades out of office to reexamine and refine his ideas; he declined the invitation and stood pat, an ossification that the last two elections had rewarded handsomely.

    President Buhari is said to be a man of his word, as an officer and gentleman, and as a pious person and leader. But as time and current events in the All Progressives Congress (APC) have shown, not to say ex-governor Bisi Akande’s book, he has never denied himself the luxury of interpreting and modifying his promises in the peculiar but sometimes mystifying manner that is his custom. It must be said of him, for a man often regarded as inflexible and even autocratic, that he has never met an interviewer’s probing questions with the anger, sanctimoniousness and justifications of his predecessors. When ruffled, ex-president Goodluck Jonathan’s lips quivered with subdued fury, his voice rising in measured harangue against those who held the views framed into questions by his interviewers. In interviews, ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo was a bear and a tiger rolled into one. He was capable of railing at his interviewers and even insulting them, and also quite eager to speak condescendingly to everyone, including and especially Nigerians. President Buhari seldom raises his voice and has little appetite to vent his spleen at mischievous interviewers, but his fury is reserved exclusively for secessionists. No matter how provocative and antagonistic your questions are, as long as you do not profess secession, he will answer you with measured cadence or, better still, head off in a totally different direction. There is often little substance in his responses, but he will not intimidate or insult the interviewer.

    On the whole, both the Channels and NTA interviews, despite not being substantially different from past interviews, are troubling and revelatory. Alarmingly, the president comes across as still nestling in the past, is uncomfortable with the present, and is deeply suspicious of the future. For obvious reasons, the Channels interview is more revealing. No interview would be complete without a question on the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) leader, Nnamdi Kanu.

    Asked whether he was contemplating a political solution as urged by Igbo leaders last year, the president bristles uncharacteristically. He had given conciliatory indication last November when Igbo leaders under the aegis of Highly Respected Igbo Greats visited him that though they asked for a difficult thing regarding the release of the IPOB leader, he would consider their request. The Igbo leaders promised to placate and rein in the angry young man and turn his fierce rhetoric into dulcet tones; but they showed no proof how they hoped to perform that magic. Perhaps President Buhari saw through the whole gambit. In any case, he turned defiant at the question on Mr Kanu’s release and insisted that the judiciary should have the last say. The judiciary, he insisted implausibly, if not entirely mendaciously, was one institution he would not dare to interfere with. He easily forgot how he and his aides stalled the elevation of Walter Onnoghen to the apex court leadership, and then extrajudiciously plotted his downfall. And he also forgot how his presidency disdained court judgements on ex-National Security Adviser (NSA) Col Sambo Dasuki (Retd.) and the Shiite leader Ibraheem El-Zakzaky.

    If Channels had not asked a question on state police, its interviewers would have been remiss in their assignments. They did, but the president’s response was expansively and archaically circumlocutory. He was expected to give a brief analysis on the current state of insecurity in Nigeria and the factors that predispose the nation to breakdown of law and order. And he ought to cap his analysis with futuristic solutions, including the option of state police, indicating whether he favours it or not, and if not, why not. Instead he circumnavigated to a largely colonial past that harked back to the period of indirect rule, where native police and traditional chiefs worked together in bucolic serenity, sometimes oppressively, and at other times effectively. He invited the country to interrogate why the past system now seems unworkable. Incredibly, he omitted the almost revolutionary changes which have drastically altered the structures of society, economy and politics, and failed to link these changes with the indispensable need for new and futuristic paradigms, technologies and structures to combat new manifestations of crime. And if state governments would not allow local governments to function as designed by the constitution, said the president triumphantly, they would be incapable of allowing state police to function as designed by an amended constitution. This attempt at syllogism fails so badly that it is pointless to respond.

    And then there came the almighty question on relentless clashes between herders and farmers. Few expected the president to change his opinion on the subject, seeing that he also owns cattle and finds the rustic and anachronistic life of herdsmen captivatingly romantic and beguiling. He said nothing of significance about farmers, nor addressed why food prices are skyrocketing; instead he sought by the force of law and arms a return to the cul de sac which past grazing routes and grazing grounds implied. He made no exploratory arguments about modern grazing methods, including ranches and the positive spin-offs in milk and beef production. Alas, he wants grazing routes and grazing grounds to be urgently reclaimed by force and amply funded for, in his opinion, that would be ‘bottom-up’ approach. He must, however, decide whether his already chequered presidency can afford the disruptive, one-sided and impracticable option he is dogmatically selling as a sure cure. Most of the grazing grounds are gone, and his 17 months left in office will be too short to reclaim them. The grazing routes are also heavily circumscribed and impossible to delineate again and protect. There is little he can do, even with the questionable gazette he and his Justice minister have spoken eloquently but errantly about.

    One more from Channels Television, and then to NTA. The president spoke on the subject of his successor whose identity he prefers to keep close to his chest for now. Should he let the cat out of the bag, he feared, the candidate could be eliminated. The president’s logic is inscrutable. In the first instance, there is nothing wrong with backing someone for the presidency. What is problematic is imposition. And as influential as he is in the party, it would be befuddling to imagine that he fears bringing that influence to bear on the party in the same way he brought it to bear when he and his men plotted the dethronement of former party chairman Adams Oshiomhole. He will have to campaign for a candidate in the presidential election, and he knows it will be far easier should his party present a candidate who warms the cockles of his heart. But reading through his response carefully, it seemed in some ways that he said he wasn’t backing any aspirant. Put that down to language inexactitude. The truth is that he has someone in mind, but perhaps fears that opposition to that someone might be so intense within the party that the aspirant could be ‘eliminated’ from the contest, not killed. Is he so secretive that his aides and confidants don’t already know?

    But whether the president likes it or not, he will have to zero in on an aspirant, if he has not already done so, and back that person to the hilt. He must learn from the mistakes of Chief Obasanjo who backed weak candidates, foisted them on the party, and rigged them into the presidential office. The consequences were far-reaching not only for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), which went on to lose the presidency eight years later, but for the country which was so destabilised that it nearly went under. Worse, the economy nosedived, and today nearly all the brilliant achievements of the Obasanjo era have been wiped out, all because he imposed weak candidates he erroneously thought would do his bidding. At best, President Buhari has had a mixed bag of achievements to boast of; at worst, the country can’t wait to see the end of his presidency, notwithstanding his controversial and debt-fuelled legacy in infrastructural renewal.

    Many Nigerians have already made up their minds about President Buhari’s place in history. There is little he can do to change their minds in 17 months. But there is much he can do to ensure a competent successor who would protect his legacy, come rain or shine. He cannot of course impose anyone, and must be tactical about revealing his preferences at the right time, as he said in the Channels interview, but he is right to worry in the NTA interview about how history would view him after his departure. When he remarked that he didn’t expect Nigerians to appreciate him after leaving office, he was acknowledging his keen awareness of critics’ unfavourable opinion of him. But by adding that he wanted Nigerians to appreciate he had done his best, it is also a plaintive cry for recognition and understanding. The only thing standing between him and that recognition is the competence of his successor. The president may have been parochial almost all through his presidency, but he must prove skeptics wrong by enabling power shift to the south, diminishing the role religion plays in elections, controlling the overweening and often undemocratic influence of pampered governors, neutralising the selfish and insular roles former presidents like Chief Obasanjo play in succession, and coaxing the country into a future that is much fairer and juster than the one he has nervously tried to cobble together for eight years.

    The president’s admission that all is not well with his party, the APC, reflects his inexpert handling of party affairs, if not his culpability. He had sanctioned the unlawful, court-induced dissolution of the Adams Oshiomhole-led party executives in 2020 despite the latter leading the campaign that won him re-election months earlier. There were a few things wrong with the Oshiomhole-led executives, but they were not consequential enough to engineer the wholesale expurgation of party leaders whose commitment and passion for the party were never in doubt. More than a year later, the interim executives are hard put to deliver a better party for the members, let alone one capable of trouncing the opposition in an election year in which social media, vicious and dirty campaigns, and poor reasoning and judgement could play influential role in producing the next president. The president has warned that if the interim executives can’t get the party to do what is right, the opposition might have a walk-over. He is right. Not only did the Mai Mala Buni-led interim executives initially toy with postponing the February convention, after at least two postponements, they have also unleashed a plethora of plots and intrigues upon the party designed to reshape the convention and deliver a predetermined outcome for the presidential contest.

    As the president said on the NTA interview about age not being on his side, there is suspicion should the convention produce a lousy outcome and the party goes into the next elections divided, a possibility looking increasingly realistic, he might resign himself to the inevitable defeat. His mind is pretty much made up about the hereafter. He believes he has done his best, even if he is not applauded, and he thinks he will survive unscathed if the PDP wins the presidency and unleashes anti-graft officers on APC chiefs. He may not say this to his party chiefs privately in the direct and inelegant way he is used to, but he will use this scenario, as he appears to be doing already, to beat them into shape, and their swords into ploughshares in a manner of speaking. Whether they will listen is another thing entirely, particularly the governors who seem to have the upper hand today but lack the savvy, ingenuity and vision to appreciate how dangerously close to the wind they are sailing. If they have not already realised it, it is one thing to plot a coup within the party, it is another thing to run the party soundly. Sadly for them, the president’s performance in office has not been stellar, and they may have no coattails on which to ride into office in 2023 if they do not get their act together in the selfless manner expected of them in both the national convention and the state and federal nominations.

  • Ekiti ‘22: In order not to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory warring APC chieftains must sheathe their swords

    Ekiti ‘22: In order not to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory warring APC chieftains must sheathe their swords

    “We shall reach out to all party members, young and old, male and female, create alternate platforms to actively engage the young people and our women, not only for winning elections, but for advocacy, policy formulation and the design of a new development agenda for the party.

    “We shall return the party to vigorous discussions; pay serious attention to new thinking and the implementation of policies and programmes that will secure and improve the quality of life of all Nigerians” – Senator Iyorcha Ayu, PDP Chairman.

    I urge my distinguished readers to read the above and compare it with what is happening in the APC under the Governor Buni-led Caretaker and Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee among whose functions is to reconcile members in the several state chapters where crisis is fast consuming the party. Like in its convention planning function, failure is writ large. Ayu’s  speech, and the Buni-led committee’s perfunctory performance, recently led me to write as follows in a piece which I subsequently discarded: “I have watched, with utter  trepidation, as it daily looks to me like there is a real possibility that a party, which Nigerians  happily sent packing a few years ago, might just find its way back to power, not for anything it has done positively, but principally because the ruling APC  is  taking Nigerians for granted: what with its  dilatory leadership and the unceasing bickering tearing many of its state chapters apart? Concluding my discarded piece, I wrote: “I will, therefore, advise APC leaders to see Ayu’s withering attack (I have deliberately left out  the expletives in this piece) as the best tonic for the party’s re-invigoration because, truth be told, it has completely slept on almost all its electoral promises to Nigerians as was ably captured in the Daily Trust Editorial Opinion of Sunday, 12 December, 2021, titled: “Life Has Lost Its Value Under Buhari’s Nigeria”.

    It is just as well that the article didn’t get published, so my homily therein, can today be directed at my state chapter which is presently in the thick of the primaries for the must win, June, ’22 governorship election. When PDP chieftains boast that they would upend APC in 2023, all they are telegraphing is the chaotic situation in many of its state branches, the reason they say the party may soon unravel.

    Of course, it needs no gainsaying that contestation for power is the spice of politics, especially in an election year. One is, therefore, not unduly perturbed at the election related – acrimony in both Osun and Ekiti chapters of the party but for the overall good of the party and, indeed, for its  long time survival, its warring chieftains in both states will have to re-strategise, eschew discord and sheathe their swords. In either state, there are many capable hands who can step into the shoes of the current governors but, with the best of intentions in the world, each state can only have one governor at a time. Therefore, utmost caution is advised lest acrimonies at the primaries come back to haunt the party.

    As far as Ekiti state is concerned, let me say, a priori, that my overriding concern, as it is for Nigeria in general, is peace. It is only in a peaceful atmosphere that the people can thrive and socio-economic development go on apace. Or truth be told, what development can anybody be talking about in Zamfara state today? I am in a pole position to know that most of those aspiring to be governor in Ekiti have made considerable  contribution to the growth, and acceptance, of APC in the state, and should, therefore, need no lessons on what we have suffered in the hands of a ruthless PDP,  dating back to the days of former President Obasanjo’s ‘FEHIN GBE PON’ when  APC’s victory, then as ACN, whether at elections proper, or at supplementary ones,  and right through the courts, were  egregiously scuttled, until that glorious day in 2010 at the Appellate court, Ilorin, when truth trumped all the lies of the ruling behemoth. We must remember those days and realise that  it is time in Ekiti we abandon our penchant for: kaka k’eku ma je sese a fi sawa da nu, meaning – just spoil it all. It never helped us one bit, even as we had one day governors and Obasanjo inflicted an inchoate impeachment on us, both of which completely arrested the state’s socio- economic development.

    Another election cycle is here. Must we go the same rout again?

    Why must we, whether prior to, or after the primaries, as usual, throw caution to the winds and allow all manner of predators to lay siege to a party we have all nurtured through thick and thin, and which, without a scintilla of doubt, has positively impacted each, and every one, of Ekiti’s 131 towns , villages, communities, even settlements, especially during the first, and current term, of Governor Kayode Fayemi, claiming that we care not, whatever happens to the party? Just because it may not be our turn this time around? Who among us knows who will emerge the candidate? After all, it is not for nothing that it is said that man proposes but God disposes. Who of us knows God’s time table for our lives? This is why we must always shudder from fighting to the death. Besides that, if post-election patronage is the issue, the sky is vast enough for a million birds to fly, unhindered.

    No, not at all. I am not in the least trying to oversimplify the issues involved in a massive election like the one we are going into: the hopes and ambitions, the expenses, mental and financial, nor am I oblivious as to how deeply people feel about the issues they are canvassing. I have, personally, been privileged to be involved in some of the most intricate electoral crises in Ekiti. I was one of the about 12, or so, individuals who attended the last ditch effort to reconcile then contestants Femi Ojudu and Opeyemi Bamidele, both of who were literally ‘ready to do just about anything’, (for which reason, and to the knowledge of the governor, I had to call our leader, Ashiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, very late the night before, to kindly intervene by speaking with both Femi and Opeyemi after Dele Alake had honourably quit) to be the senatorial candidate of the party. At the meeting were former governors Bamidele Olumilua now of blessed memory, Otunba Niyi Adebayo and Governor Fayemi, but  so difficult ,and intractable was the matter that at a point, the two of them were holed up in an adjacent room in the hope that they would amicably resolve the issue by themselves. Today, they have both been senators of the Federal Republic, showing how miraculously God works; His ways totally incomprehensible to us human beings and further showing why we need not fight to the death for anything, whatever.

    Nor was that, indeed, the most serious of our election ‘mini wars’, in the state. The crisis-ridden, and very dangerous 2018 primaries, at which some twenty plus contestants could be said to have been arrayed against a single opponent, will easily take the cake. Difficult as it was, good sense prevailed, and as soon as Dr Fayemi emerged winner, he did not allow the cock to crow, the following morning, before he hit the road, visiting each, and every one, of his co contestants. It still surprises many today that not a single one of those other contestants decamped to another party. More interesting was the fact that, to the last person, they were all involved in the candidate’s subsequent campaign.

    That is what peace can do.

    One thing  the party leaders have to do now is caution those people who are writing terribly scurrilous articles against the presumed ‘enemies’ of their principals/candidates, just so they can be noticed when, in reality, they are on a frolic of their own since nobody sent them. As members of the same party, let our campaigns be decent so that whoever emerges the candidate will have the support of all when most needed. Bad words hurt, and should, therefore, not be part of our lexicon.

    I know, for a fact, that there is no personal enmity between Governor Kayode Fayemi, Senators Femi Ojudu and Tony Adeniyi, all my highly respected and close aburos, that they cannot all forgive, and forget,  and return to the ‘status quo ante bellum’, in their relationship. These are  persons I knew to be very close and, in fact, the first two were, indeed, 6 and 7. I know that the three are  very passionate about Ekiti and  should they strike a rapprochemore today, tomorrow morning will see the heat in the party  go down several decibels. I mention these names strictly because they are the arrowhead of the two main groups in the party, and not because I under rate or disrespect the others nor that the issues they are canvassing, e.g. Southern candidacy, are not important. We must be reminded that the primary election, no matter now vociferously each person makes his case, is nowhere comparable to the election proper, being intra party. We must, therefore, avoid roughening up anybody’s airs as we will need all hands to be on deck for the real thing. We must appreciate that we have a wily, and very dangerous customer as our main opponent come June, 2022. Like Chairman Ayu of PDP promised, the party is already working at reconciling its warring Chapters. That could have consequences for us here in Ekiti where we now have to factor into our calculations, PDP’s ongoing attempt at reconciling the Fayose and Olujimi factions. Fortunately, they no longer have the wherewithal to do what they did in 2014, when the sitting President told the Army Chief of staff that he was, himself, the PDP candidate in the Ekiti governorship election, expecting the Army Chief to decode that, which he did with all the consequences.  But knowing them, we must not allow any lingering issues, or any larger political issues outsourced from outside Ekiti,  to be the harbinger of doom for a party that has served Ekiti well. If we all work together, and not allow fifth columnists to wreak havoc within/ amongst us, running with the performance of our sitting governor, Dr Kayode Fayemi, alone should effortlessly eventuate in our party claiming the diadem in the June ’22 election.

    The 2022 governorship election is a MUST WIN for the APC in Ekiti. And all hands must, therefore, be on deck. I therefore plead with all my compatriots in the APC, whether as leaders, individuals, groups, contestants or sponsors, in the name of  God, and everything you hold dear, to let us all work with one mind for our party’s victory. God will frustrate whoever may wish to deliberately work against our collective aspirations for the party in the June ’22 election.

    Amen.

  • Nigeria 2022: Permutations, postulations and projections (Part 2)

    Nigeria 2022: Permutations, postulations and projections (Part 2)

    “One of the deepest mysteries of modern Nigeria is how so big a country, filled with so many well-educated people manage to spend so much time getting nowhere…The military depredations…. would matter less…but Nigerian democracy, when occasionally it surfaced, was never a shining example of the genre.” – Economist of London

    Thinking and tinkering about the title of this week’s article brought up a peculiar episode that took place when this columnist was a teenager living with his senior brother and guardian. As the last born, there was a wide age gap between this columnist and his first born (brother). The place of abode was the city of Ibadan at that time in the early 70s. My guardian was a lover of football but definitely not in love with pool betting. Those years were the hey days of Rangers International Football Club, Enugu; Kano Pillars Football Club, Kano; Mighty Jets Football Club, Jos; WNDC (later IICC Shooting Stars) Football Club, Ibadan, etc. This columnist and guardian would listen to radio commentaries of football matches with the trio of ace commentators: Ernest Okonkwo (of blessed memory), Tolu Fatoyinbo and Emeka Odikpo displaying and depicting fitting narratives of the matches as if listeners were literally present at the various stadia watching the game!

    On a particular day after listening to the commentary of a football match, a well-known cousin to one of our neighbours, came to our abode – “face -to – face” room designated apartment with a coded message. He first intimated his cousin with it. He then came with his cousin, an elderly man, held in reference for his maturity on issues, by my brother and guardian. What was the coded message about? It was about three coded winning numbers! My guardian was unmoved and unfazed by such too good to be true winning numbers. He made light of it as he was not used to pool betting. Our elderly neighbour convinced my brother to play with not just any amount but a big amount as he would win big. My guardian gave it a thought and trial by consenting to his counsel and staked with an amount that was not as high but sizeable. We were all looking forward to the outcome. Saturday came and all the three number were indeed, according to the permutation, successful winning numbers. My brother was so elated and was expecting the windfall! He was already planning and making projections regarding how he would expend his new fund until something unexpected happened! Our neighbour’s cousin walked into our apartment in a despairing and dejecting manner. What happened?  He came to tell awful story of how he failed to take the game to the Face -to – Face Pool Betting collation centre after collecting the money to play the game from my brother (guardian)! Seemingly, hell was let loose!! There was a pandemonium within and around the house as my brother was ready to do everything possible to collect his full returns on his purported investment as he had made some postulations going forward into a new phase of life. It was a hope dashed as community of friends and neighbours prevailed on my brother to ensue and pursue peace in allowing brotherly love continues! He acquiesced even though amidst angst. The import of this story: may the hopes of many followers going into 2022, having been persuaded by pastors, prophets, clerics, imams, relatives, friends or events of 2021, be not dashed as it took place in the episode aforementioned. Follow me.

    APC and PDP: Possible implosion in 2022?

    This year is a year of the primaries preceding the elections of early 2023. In essence, much of the political activities that will shape and show how 2023 will fare will take place this year. How prepared are our political parties? How prepared are the followers? The two major political parties, All Progressives Congress (APC) and People’s Democratic Party (PDP), are embroiled and enmeshed in intra-parties’ spar and squabbles, the end of which, if not checkmated and crippled could be disastrous for both parties. Worse of the two is the ruling APC. It is already being scrolled on the screen of the grapevine that the party’s national convention may no more hold in February as was earlier scheduled. If it is true, then, the Governor Mai Mala Buni-led Caretaker/Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee of the party has failed the party. The 13-member committee, seemingly strange to the APC constitution, was inaugurated on 25th June 2020. It was initially set up to be ad hoc in content and colour. Presently, one and half years, the extraordinary and apparently ‘plenipotentiary’ committee is waxing stronger by the day! Should the convention date be shifted again, then, it could be projected that the controlling and commandeering cabals in the ruling party is hell bent in holding the party by the jugular playing defensive, akin to the game of football in the dying minutes! Who knows, the Buni – led ubiquitous committee may draw out the joker of consensus candidacy thus vetoing any election via direct or indirect primary even as Mr. President asserted on his Channels TV interview of 5th January 2022 that there is a third route – consensus candidacy. Followers are watching and warming up to this political brinkmanship peculiar to our nascent democracy. This columnist will like to remind, apparently admonish, the APC founding fathers that the same way PDP was drunken with power in 2013 to 2014 that led to its implosion, the APC is heading to that inglorious route and it seems speedily as the clock ticks in 2022. However, PDP founding fathers could do themselves some good by seeking rapprochement through calming frayed nerves of members. In addition, these fathers of the party need to do a re-branding peradventure the party will be sellable to the followers in 2022. Whether these chieftains of the party consent or controvert this columnist’s counsel is better tested in the party carrying out an independent inquiry or research study to decipher and discern the thoughts of the followers in the polity as par the standing and status of the party.

    Possibility of a 3rd force emerging to wrest power?

    This columnist is fixated on the two political parties come 2023. What of other parties? Do they not stand the chance? In the past elections from 1999 till 2019, it has been either of the candidates representing any of the two most popular political parties emerging as the President and with most of the Governors belonging to the two parties. There are empirical evidences regarding this that could not be faulted by any analysis. As a followership scholar, this columnist will pontificate that until the followers are more enlightened and educated, the status quo ante remains. My counsel to National Consultative Front (NCF) comprising of the cerebral Professor Pat Utomi is to re-think, re-invent, retreat and re-strategize. In reality, the NCF should go to the grassroots and be more engaged with followers, who though may be educated naturally but are ignorant politically. These elites are pains in our neck when it comes to matters that matter to the heart in Nigeria. It is a truism that most of us elites are fixated on what will bring in money for us. Period! Hence, NCF, should seek to empower, engage and embolden followers to participate without inducement in the electoral process. Subsequently, they could seek alliance and seeming merger with like-minded political associations.

    Kudos to Governor Babajide Olusola Sanwo-Olu

    Yours sincerely was the guest on TVC News Breakfast on one of the days this past week to analysis the Magodo land tussle that went viral and made the recurring issue of restructuring to rear up its ugly head again! The system we are running is more of unitary that federalism though the constitution in colour paints Nigeria a federal republic. However, when one opens the book titled Nigeria, the contents depict in unmistakable context unitary system of government bequeathed to us by military interregnum and incursion! Who is afraid of state police? Who is frighted of true fiscal federalism? Which federalism globally is synonymous to Nigeria’s model? When will this country heed the hunter’s whistle so that our case will not be like the Yoruba proverbial dog that wanders into the wild wilderness and could not hear the warning whistle of the hunter! The cerebral elder statesman and legal luminary, Chief Afe Babalola, SAN, warned in a press release this past week that there may be no more Nigeria after 2023 if the present archaic and antiquated constitution is used in conducting the 2023 elections. How will this happen in this present political quandary and conundrum we have found ourselves when even minor amendments to the constitution is taking forever to effect with the present National Assembly (NASS)? Back to the Magodo saga, kudos to Governor Babajide Olusola Sanwo-Olu in the matured manner of management exhibited in handling the issue. If left to flounder with few powerful state actors sitting in Abuja, it would have resulted in the loss of lives and limbs. One statement that Governor Sanwo-Olu made that should be commended was that all parties in the matter are his subjects. This is akin to the thinking of a genuine servant leader seeking to build a community of people of shared vision and values. This is commendable.

     

    • John Ekundayo, Ph.D. – Harvard-Certified Organizational Strategist, and also a Leadership Development Consultant, can be reached via 08155262360 (SMS only) and drjmoekundayo@hotmail.com
  • Nigeria to Benin Republic by rail

    Nigeria to Benin Republic by rail

    HOW does it feel travelling by rail all the way from Kajola/Idi-Iroko border in Nigeria to Benin Republic? One may not be able to answer the question directly because the opportunity for such experience has never been provided. And if the taste of the pudding is in the eating, then one may have to experience such a ride before coming to the conclusion about whether the experience is worth it or not. However, much as this assertion of ‘experience is the best teacher’ holds true in many cases, it does not in any way nullify the Yoruba saying that even if one has never given birth to a child before, at least one sees fowls with their chickens trailing behind them.

    We may not be in a position to tell how it would feel cruising from Nigeria to Benin Republic by rail because no such possibility exists as at now, but then, those of us who have had cause to travel on other routes by rail know that it is a pleasantly different experience.

    Take the Lagos-Ibadan route by rail for example. I used to travel on the Lagos-Ibadan  Expressway frequently but have had cause to reduce this drastically since the commencement of railway linking the two state capitals, last year. There is no doubt that the rail service has taken some heat off the ever-busy expressway. This is the way it should be. Although some people feel the N2,500 being charged per passenger for the journey is rather high, what they seem to have forgotten is the convenience and comfort enjoyed in the train – the air conditioner, no checking of particulars by policemen, Federal Road Safety Commission’s officers and other security men on the road, which encroaches on passengers’ travel time. The journeys in the train are scheduled, with predictable departure and arrival times. Moreover, accidents are near zero in the trains. Just as unnecessary traffic snarls are a rare occurrence on train journeys.

    These advantages and even more would be experienced if the Federal Government favourably considers rail line from Nigeria to the Republic of Benin. Aside the fact that this is in tandem with President Muhammadu Buhari administration’s dream of developing the rail network across Nigeria and beyond (Kano-Maradi rail network), it would also facilitate commercial and other activities along that route.

    At present, road transportation is the main choice of travelling between both countries. This is not adequate, considering the level of commercial and other activities going on in that axis. Moreover, this comes with its implications for climate change. If road transport is complemented by rail services, it would reduce carbon emissions on our roads, thus achieving a major objective of climate change.

    Aside all of these, rail services would mean more options for travellers on that route as it has done for the Kano-Maradi Line. Ideally, multi-modal transportation is the best in any situation because it makes more choices available to travellers. With multi-modal transportation, transport fares are likely to be reduced because transporters would be aware of competition, unlike when movement of persons and goods is done essentially by road. Transporters are at liberty to charge arbitrarily because they know that commuters have no alternative. The other advantage flowing from this is that availability of rail services along those international routes will prolong the lifespan of roads as well as reduce the cost of road maintenance in the country. This is because many of those who hitherto had no choice other than travel by road now have the train option. This is good news, especially now that the country is cash-strapped and thus needs to manage available resources judiciously. There will be lesser complaints about bad roads and money that would have been used to put the roads in shape can be freed for other competing purposes.

    Perhaps the greater advantage in this regard is the haulage of goods that would now be better done by rail. In the case of the Kajola/Idi-Iroko-Cotonou rail line, this would be a big relief to the ever-busy Apapa-Oshodi Expressway, as most of the goods coming in through the neighbouring ports would now be carried by rail. Since the plan on ground is to link the Apapa ports to connecting railway in the Lagos metropolis so that haulage can be taken off the Apapa-Oshodi Expresway, it would be a seamless movement from Cotonou to the ports in Lagos, and consequently to their respective destinations in the country.

    This will not only prolong the lifespan of the busy road but also be a big relief to Nigerians who experience a lot of traffic on it. In recent years, there have been several failed attempts to move away the heavy duty vehicles that presently congest the ports and roads in the Apapa axis, making travelling on the artery nightmarish. As a matter of fact, a time there was, when many businesses in the Apapa axis either closed shop or reduced the number of times they opened just because of the traffic challenges on the busy road which made many people spend longer periods on the road than in the office. To date, this still impacts heavily on haulage costs from the ports to their respective destinations. Indeed, it was discovered that the cost of importing most of the items from abroad was chicken change compared with the cost of transporting them within the country. We know the terrible state the Apapa-Oshodi Expressway is in now, as passengers and commuters generally dance ‘palongo’ on it because of the huge potholes on most parts of the expressway, especially toward the Badagry end. Rail option to Cotonou will definitely relief the road of much pressure, thus prolonging its lifespan and that of travellers and commuters, generally.

    We cannot also forget the social and environmental nuisance that the drivers of the articulated vehicles and their conductors constitute by defecating on the road that has become their homes, all in their desperation to meet up appointments in the ports.

    There is also the international dimension which makes the Kajola/Idi-Iroko-Cotonou rail line attractive, if not compelling. One objective of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) is to ensure free flow of goods and services among member-countries. This has remained a dream, what with the numerous security checkpoints along the border towns and roads leading to the border areas. Investment in rail services across borders will thus help boost trade in the ECOWAS region.

    This is significant because, among the 15 members of ECOWAS – Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Niger, Cape Verde, Ghana, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, Guinea Bissau, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Liberia, The Gambia and Togo – Nigeria accounts for about 65% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). In actual terms, the country accounts for $448.16bn of the region’s $687.66bn GDP. Likewise, Nigeria accounts for a significant portion of the region’s 386,908,402 total population.

    Another major advantage of the cross-border rail services is elimination of the frequent and often fatal clashes between security agencies and people in the border communities. This had sometimes led to avoidable tension among the otherwise friendly neighbouring countries.

    So far, we have not talked about the massive direct and indirect jobs the project would create because it is a massive job spinner. Many people, including engineers, technicians, accountants, administrative cadres, etc. are going to be recruited, thus taking some of our youths seeking employment off the unemployment queues. Moreover, many rural areas will be opened up as the train would naturally pass through several places and railway stations would have to be created where the trains will pick and drop off passengers. This will also boost commercial activities as opportunities would now arise for all manner of people like food vendors and other traders, etc. to bring their wares to the railway stations to sell. The reduction in unemployment will naturally rub off positively on crime rate.

    A germane question that readily comes into mind at this juncture is whether the Nigeria-Benin Republic rail project can pay its way. The answer is not far-fetched: yes, it can. This question is important because, given the economic downturn that has seen the nation’s revenue drop significantly, only regenerative projects with real economic values should be embarked on by the government, either using public funds or loans.

    Rail services from Nigeria to Benin Republic will create a window of rail network interconnectivity across Nigeria through Lagos-Ibadan-Maradi rail network. Kajola/Idi-Iroko to Cotonou rail line makes sense first because of Ogun State’s proximity to Lagos. Moreover, Ogun State, with Idi-Iroko, an existing international border town through which the network is expected to pass already has a railway terminal, (the Yemi Osinbajo (Kajola Railway Station Terminal). This explains its appellation of ‘Gateway State’.

    Again, Lagos and Kano are the two prominent commercial nerve centres in the country.  The Kano-Maradi rail project has taken care of the northern axis. The anticipated Kajola/Idi-Iroko-Benin Republic rail project will take care of the south. There is no doubt that the interconnectivity is desirable and feasible, its viability is also unquestionable.

    Even at the present level of commercial activities, the project is worth it. Not to talk of the expected volume of trade, which, no doubt, is bound to increase when the project becomes operational. The indices are looking good and it is only a matter of time for the money-spinning potential of the venture to be felt. As a matter of fact, the success of the Nigeria-Benin Republic experience will point the way to extending such rail services to other parts of the subregion.

    So, what are we waiting for? The ball is in the court of the Federal Government.

  • THE DELTA SINGS BETWEEN THE TIDES

    THE DELTA SINGS BETWEEN THE TIDES

    The river no longer
    Sleeps in its bed

    Its pillow is now
    A cradle of broken skulls

    Legendary JP
    Cannot count the casualties

    In the frightened waters,
    Though season after season

    He has watched the moon toss and turn
    Like the proverbial reed in the tide

    The Nun, ravaged by ruthless rigs,
    Now crawls tiredly towards the sea

    Even as her remnant virtue
    Lingers languidly in Okara’s majestic verse

    When last did you hear the moans
    Of Omoja whose beneficence nourished

    Ojaide’s songs when his years were young
    And the rains were rich and real?

    Crying creeks, violated valleys
    Toxic cocktail of cannibal cartels

    Quenchless, like Ifowodo’s Oil Lamp
    Blinding, like Ikiriko’s Oily Tears

    We all thought it was oil
    But Bassey saw the blood behind the boom . . . .

    Dark days
    Nights fraught with flares

    Omens without Amens
    Strange like a seven-headed plague

    *From Green: Sighs of Our Ailing Planet, the author’s new book of poems.

    Direct references to J.P. Clark’s A Reed in the Tide; Gabriel Okara’s ‘River Nun – III’; Tanure Ojaide’s ‘In the Omoja River’; Ogaga Ifowodo’s The Oil Lamp; Ibiwari Ikiriko’s Oily Tears; Nnimmo Bassey’s We Thought It Was Oil But It Was Blood.

  • IPAC wrong on direct primary

    IPAC wrong on direct primary

    In the next one or two months, the National Assembly will have reworked the Electoral Act Amendment Bill to expunge the controversial provision on direct primary in order to facilitate presidential assent. The bill had been forwarded to the president last November, but he declined assent on the grounds, among other reasons, that mandating political parties to use only direct primary for nominating candidates violated both party and constitutional provisions. The president’s response was largely affirmed by the public after three or four weeks of dizzying and acrimonious debates. The Inter Party Advisory Council (IPAC) was among persons and organisations that supported the president withholding assent. However, IPAC anchored its support for the president on defective reasoning that should not go unchallenged.

    In the opinion of IPAC National Chairman, Yabagi Yusuf, Nigeria is unripe for direct primary. It is not clear how he arrived at this conclusion, which he voiced at a media briefing in Abuja last Monday, but he was certain that direct primary is perhaps too arduous and complex to implement at this stage of Nigeria’s political development. He did not elaborate. As he put it, “We are of the view that, much as we may cherish its perceived benefits, the country, at this stage of the progress of its democracy, does not appear to be sufficiently ripe and prepared for the direct primary election model in the selection of political party flag bearers.” Mr Yusuf was right to back the president withholding assent on the bill over the issue of direct primary, but to suggest that Nigeria was unripe for a nomination method it had in fact used in various forms in the past is not only inaccurate, it is a gratuitous insult. What is so complex about direct primary, or expensive, or predisposing to insecurity?

    Many Nigerians opposed the provision of direct primary in the bill simply because they thought it was not the business of the legislature to impose it, not because the method is hard to implement, or costly, or complex, or premature. There is nothing wrong with direct primary mode of nominating party candidates, as indeed Mr Yusuf himself acknowledged. It is probably, though not indisputably, better than indirect primary and consensus modes. It is also probably the most democratic. But regardless of its merits, it is strictly the business of the political parties to determine how they want their candidates nominated, not the business of the legislature.

    Some analysts and critics are aggrieved with the president over his withheld assent because they hoped the provision on direct primary would clip the wings of imperious and meddlesome governors who have acquired so much power in their parties that they lord it over everyone, including the lawmakers who have been rendered almost puny in the affairs of their parties, and particularly in primaries. Sadly too, for many grieving analysts who had hoped that assenting the bill with the direct primary provision would help entrench democracy and provide level playing fields in the parties, they think that with the president’s refusal the governors now have the upper hand, and the hated Justice minister Abubakar Malami has been vindicated. Critics are right to conclude that expunging the direct primary provision has probably strengthened the hands of the despised governors and the suspect democrat, Mr Malami. But there is no justification to endorse the provision so as not to be seen to be endorsing the governors or Mr Malami.

    Thankfully, national lawmakers have seemed to bowed to the reality. They will neither override the president’s veto nor make any deliberate effort to push the amendment as it is. Legislative leaders have promised to rework the bill in such a way that the president will find nothing else to object to. The lawmakers, like the IPAC chairman, have focused exclusively on the merit or demerit of the direct primary provision as a factor in the presidential assent controversy. For the umpteenth time, it must be stressed that the problem is not whether the mode is the best or too advanced for Nigeria. The problem is not also whether direct primary is costly or not, for after all, the Independent National Electoral Commission is to monitor not organise it, nor is the problem a question of security or even Covid-19 pandemic fears.

    The main issue is whether the legislature should make laws on it or not. The National Assembly has not answered that question, and may in January begin to work on the bill without deigning to answer the question. But they must now come to terms with the limits of their constitutional powers, as indeed they will also soon find out that while they can vet the executive branch’s budget estimates, they cannot in the same breath introduce new elements into the budget, prompting the dilemma of who would in turn vet the legislature. It is close to the classic barber paradox: “A village has a barber in it, who shaves all and only the people who do not shave themselves. Who shaves the barber?” But there are many geniuses in NASS; surely they can find one lawmaker who will solve this conundrum.

    Eulogising Bashir Tofa

    The obituarists who last week assumed the onerous task of eulogising the late Bashir Tofa, candidate of the defunct National Republican Convention (NRC) defeated by MKO Abiola of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in the 1993 presidential poll, made heavy weather of the task. They cast Alhaji Tofa as a statesman, irreplaceable nationalist, true patriot, and many other superlatives. Perhaps he was all these, fundamentally and intuitively. Maybe he was even undoubtedly these and many more. After all, when it was clear he had lost the election in 1993, especially in view of his home defeat in Kano, he conceded defeat, until he was prevailed upon by the powers that be to recant.

    It is not surprising that he was at bottom a decent man: he was an author, a brilliant one at that who wrote copiously but deliberately, not out of necessity, in Hausa language. And he did a damn good job. Why he opposed the 2018 decision by President Muhammadu Buhari to honour Chief Abiola and declare June 12 as Democracy Day is hard to fathom. It jarred against his essence. And though he was defeated in the 1993 election, he would lose nothing by the president’s 2018 declarations. Alhaji Tofa’s death reminds everyone, politicians and all those in authority alike, that there is an end to everything. What endures is the name each person has made for himself. As Shakespeare said loftily through the mouth of Marc Anthony in the play Julius Caesar, “The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.” It is inconceivable that so fine an author as Alhaji Tofa would not take that saying to heart in ordering his politics as he sought nearly vainly to order his life and bridle his tongue.

  • The polemicists, Obasanjo and Clark

    The polemicists, Obasanjo and Clark

    Their arguments about who owns the oil in the Niger Delta region may not qualify as the controversy of the year, but they typify the continuing frustrations faced by Niger Deltans and the unending nonchalance of Nigerian rulers. More than sixty years after oil was discovered in the troubled region, the country is still unable to find the right formula by which the oil could be mined without jeopardising the interests of the region. The combatants in the controversy are ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo and former Information minister Edwin Clark, the former as irritable and imperious as they come, and the latter impatient and iconoclastic. Responding to Chief Clark’s dismissive characterisation of the former president as spiteful because he insists Nigeria, not Niger Delta, owns the oil in the region, the former president takes the legalistic view that until the constitution is amended or the federation dissolved, mineral resources found anywhere in Nigeria belongs to the whole country, not the location where it is found. He quotes Section 140 of the 1963 Constitution referenced by Chief Clark as proof to justify his position. Chief Obasanjo is right to assert that Nigerian constitutions, including the current one, appropriated mineral resources to the country, regardless of the distortionary activities of states like Zamfara in gold mining.

    Chief Obasanjo, sadly, does not stop at proving his case legally and constitutionally, nor empathising with the blighted region for the decades of despoliation that rendered the Niger Delta generally unlivable in the midst of plenty. Apart from needlessly and mendaciously burnishing his achievements and credentials as a nationalist, military head of state and later elected president, not to say his years as a military commander during the civil war, the former president also unscientifically argues that had federal forces lost the civil war, the Niger Delta would have lost all claims to the oil in their region, with Biafra taking everything. How he comes to that dismaying conclusion is hard to tell. It has taken decades, and at horrifying costs, to concede the little Nigeria allocates for the development of the Niger Delta. Nothing suggests that had Biafra won the war, similar or bigger concessions would not have been made to the oil region in the many decades after the war.

    Chief Clark on the other hand takes the ethical approach to the whole saga, a perspective misconstrued by Chief Obasanjo probably because of some of the errors contained in the former Information minister’s open rebuke. As far as dates, figures, percentages, and other facts are concerned, Chief Obasanjo has the upper hand, and Chief Clark will have to sharpen his records well in order to contest the arguments of those who hide behind the exactitudes of the constitution to perpetrate injustice and unfairness. Nigeria has been unfair to the Niger Delta because the constitution partly enables such unfairness. It is, however, in the power of the country’s political authorities, as years of negotiations suggest in discussions to revise the derivation formula upward, to ensure that the Niger Delta is not disadvantaged in the mindless and greedy expropriation of the region’s mineral resources. Chief Clark may not have articulated his points well, surrendering in some instances to sheer emotionalism, but the Niger Delta is right to fume against pollution and skewed allocation of mining licences. The region has borne, and is still bearing, a disproportionate and stifling cost of Nigeria’s oil mining.

    It is remarkable that about three years as military head of state and eight years as elected president did not afford Chief Obasanjo the opportunity to closely reassess Nigeria’s national question. In debunking Chief Clark’s ‘parochial’ approach to oil ownership, he lionises those who fought to keep Nigeria one without any consideration of the issues over which the war was fought, except to insinuate that the Niger Delta was getting the best deal under the present arrangement. He speaks of how his presidency was fair to the oil region, almost as if he was their main champion, and as if no one could do better. Even the Odi, Bayelsa State, massacre carried out only months after he assumed office in 1999 has receded into distant, expiatory memory. He extols his own character with his customary pharisaical doublespeak, describing himself as God-fearing and respectful, and all but insisting he has no guile, since he is not ‘hypocritical, inconsistent, and unstatesmanlike’. And forgetting how he had repeatedly excoriated President Muhammadu Buhari in letter after letter, he accuses Chief Clark of using ‘uncouth and offensive’ language in his open letter.

    The critical question is whether the Niger Delta has felt well treated by Nigeria in the mining of oil in the region. The answer is of course no. Could the situation be ameliorated? The Niger Delta answers yes, citing their campaign to raise derivation to 25 percent. Chief Obasanjo, on the other hand, sidesteps that question and does not provide any extraordinary insight into how the oil region could have been better treated in a country wholly and foolishly dependent on oil receipts. If eleven years in office didn’t lead the former president into original thoughts on how to politically rearrange the country, his feelings occluded by inordinate sense of entitlement and self-glorification, they should have at least led him to produce original ideas on how to enthrone a fair economic arrangement for the country, assuming he has the capacity to disambiguate those two complex and intertwined issues. After he concluded that Biafra would have given the Niger Delta a much worse deal than Nigeria is giving the region, Chief Obasanjo virtually shut the door on the oil region, in much the same way, but less hostilely, the Buhari presidency has treated the Niger Delta. There won’t be change now or in the near future, and when men of caliber like Chief Clark leave the scene, it will be even much worse for the region which will be deprived of notable champions. Discovering oil in the Bauchi Basin will not lead to any attenuation of the hostile and predatory treatment inflicted on the Niger Delta.

    Both Chief Obasanjo and Chief Clark raised pertinent issues about the mining of gold in Zamfara, particularly the offensive manner it was exhibited right under the nose of a quiescent and lethargic federal government. For strange reasons, little is likely to be done to correct the Zamfara anomaly. There are many other economic anomalies in the country; but as long as the oil in the Niger Delta continues to flow, and the price remains fairly stable or is worth the effort, and fossil fuel is still in demand, the Niger Delta will continue to hold the short end of the stick. They will look on wistfully as some parts of the country are turned into mimic Dubais, and they will complain in vain about the pollution and degradation they have been sentenced to. As Chief Obasanjo cynically infers, the region must swallow its pride and reconcile itself with the dynamics of the oil industry and thank God it is not much worse for them.

    CDS Irabor and insecurity

    Until Nigeria gets its definitions and concepts exactly right, they will always be confused about the scope and magnitude of their objectives in fighting insecurity. There is no doubting the commitment of men and women in the security services who have been put in charge of dealing with the country’s security challenges. The problem, however, is determining exactly what is expected of them, and how far they can go. For instance, speaking at the decoration of newly promoted military officers in Abuja last Thursday, the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), Gen. Lucky Irabor, gave an omnibus charge to the men of the services in their battle against insecurity. Said he: “You need to escalate your level of commitment, your level of efficiency and effectiveness because if 2021 is challenging, I like to assure you that 2022 will be more challenging and that is the reason I like to call on you to please brace up because you must at all cost take away every form of insecurity in our land.”

    He is right to anticipate increasing challenges this year, following on the heels of the unquantifiable challenges of 2021, and he is also right to demand higher degree of efficiency and commitment from the promoted officers. But to expect them to ‘take away every form of insecurity in our land’, perhaps simply by the force of arms, is not only expansive, it is clearly unrealistic and unattainable. The military could not execute that order even if they had the power. The reason is the quantum of factors that constitute insecurity in the country, factors that include social, cultural, religious, political and economic. Not only is it a mistake to saddle the military with the task of combating sundry crimes like kidnapping and armed robbery, it is a bigger misdirection of effort to deploy them in tackling crimes such as kidnapping and even cultism as they have sometimes been tasked with.

    Gen. Irabor can expect so much from his men, and in addition charge them to be effective and efficient, but it is inconceivable that they can stamp out insecurity in its every form. It dissipates the military, weakens them professionally, overstretches them in deployment, and dampens their morale when they are unable to successfully execute orders they are not trained and even equipped to deal with. That they carry heavier firepower than any other security and law enforcement agency wields is no reason to deploy them in tasks that clearly distract their professional training.

     

    Speaker Gbajabiamila embraces reality

    If anybody is in doubt what the National Assembly will do with the Electoral Act Amendment Bill when lawmakers resume from recess in January, they only need to read between the lines and decipher House of Representatives Speaker, Femi Gbajabiamilla’s interactions with the press in Lagos last Thursday. The Speaker was at his constituency last week to commission some projects when reporters asked him about the fate of the troubled bill, particularly concerning the direct primary provision that has seemed to endanger that highly publicised piece of legislation. Though he did not have the final say, he said cautiously, the legislature might expunge the direct primary provision from the amendment in order to get it represented to the president for assent.

    Few Nigerians have been vociferously in favour of the needless amendment compelling all political parties to use the direct primary mode in nominating their standard-bearers. Most of Nigeria’s enlightened opinion leaders were reluctant to embrace a piece of legislation that seemed to take sides in the episodic dispute between governors and lawmakers over who controls their parties. Those who supported the amendment never bothered to ask what would happen if on a hypothetical tomorrow direct primary became the bogeyman for lawmakers and a useful tool in the hands of governors to whip the lawmakers. Would they again amend the constitution? Thankfully, civil society organisations are cautious about the amendment and, after the president withheld assent, have quickly asked the legislature to do away with it in order not to endanger the whole amendment believed to be crucial to the next set of elections.

    On Friday, the Senate President, Ahmed Lawan, weighed in and did not substantially differ from Hon Gbajabiamila. Considering the way the legislative leaders handled the inflamed passion that followed the president’s refusal to assent the bill, it was clear they never gave thought to overriding the presidential veto. It was not just their natural affinity to genuflect before the executive that led them to smother the debates and adjourn sittings; they had probably reconsidered their dispute with the governors as unworthy of the gravity lent to that piece of legislation, and perhaps the fact that not too many Nigerians seemed enchanted by the superfluous amendment anyway. When the country finally heard from Sen Lawan, his views on direct primary was as conciliatory as those of Hon Gbajabiamila. For both gentlemen, that piece of troublesome legislation is not worth jeopardising the cosy relationship they had built and sustained with the executive over the years.

    That Nigeria’s typically censorious civil societies and so many other opinion moulders could disregard the provision of direct primary in the bill must be an indication that few wished what should normally and customarily be a party affair to be elevated into a national affair. Before NASS reconvenes this month, passions will have cooled considerably. Legislative leaders have seen reason; lawmakers will also come round eventually. There is no contrivance by which the direct primary provision could be resuscitated, nor can anything be done to stop the depletion of the ranks of its proponents in the legislature. The mode of nominating candidates is strictly a party affair, just like other modes, including indirect primary and consensus. It is pointless entering into a debate on which mode is the best. Each party knows it owes the electorate accountability; wishing to find favour in the next polls, they will deploy the best and most acceptable and rewarding mode of primary for their party. And if against all odds they nominate unpopular standard-bearers, regardless of the mode of primary deployed, they will fall on their swords.

    It is reassuring that legislative leaders can read the pulse of the country. Voters want lawmakers to desist from micromanaging political parties; it is not their business. Hon Gbajabiamila has been forthright in claiming responsibility for inspiring the idea of legislating direct primary, and is sensible enough to know when to throw in the towel. Even though in his interactions with the media last week he still managed to confuse the rejection of legislatively imposing a mode of primary on all parties with his arguments about the beauty and unassailability of direct primary, he probably now understands that no one is quarreling with direct primary, or any other type of primary for that matter. What everyone is saying, disregarding populists who ascribe all kinds of motives to those who oppose the legislation, is that how political parties nominate their candidates should be left to the parties.

  • DESMOND TUTU

    DESMOND TUTU

    The stars lament his passing

    From Soweto’s seething streets to Bora Bora

    Kings, Queens, and Presidents flood the sky

    With tributes and purple garlands

     

    There goes a man

    In whose middling physical frame

    Throbbed a giant heart. Prophet who divined

    One complex rainbow in a land

     

    Ripped a-p-a-r-t by colour creed

    He saw the Buddha in his Bible

    The fallow intersection between

    The Cross and the Crescent

     

    The Healing Wisdom of Orunmila*

    Whose universe is a house of a thousand rooms,

    His metaphor came from the sky

    Looming umbrella above our common heads

     

    *

    Truth and Reconciliation

    Reconciliation without Truth?

    When a savaged country needed a brave man

    To clean up its monumental mess

     

    It unleashed an avalanche of horrors

    Whose telling un-plugged the tongue:

    Widows embraced their husbands’ murderers

    Orphans shook hands with those who dispatched their fathers

     

    Between the Forgiver and the Forgiven

    Between the incubus of partial amnesty

    And the absolution of evil

    There lies the aching complexity of Conscience without Contrition

     

    To forgive and forget

    To forgive and never forget:

    Which path leads to eternal damnation

    Which, to the endless cycle of violated Justice?

     

    Your Truth, Noble Shepherd,

    So straight, so Ubuntu, steered a nation

    Out of its self-inflicted carnage. But the scars remain

    Stubborn maps on the landscapes of our memory.

     

    You taught the world

    The largeness of Love

    The inevitability of Courage

    Hope which sustains the Dream

    ——————

    *Yoruba deity of divination, philosophy, science, and wisdom

  • Nigeria: In all circumstances we must thank God

    Nigeria: In all circumstances we must thank God

    Happy New Year to my highly esteemed readers. It is my prayer that the good Lord will, in the new year, give us reasons not only to smile, but to laugh heartily all year round. We certainly do not deserve less given what we have all gone through in the last few years. I therefore urge you, and all patriotic Nigerians, to join me in praying that the Almighty God will guide aright our leaders, especially the President, who is the Father of the nation, in their onerous state duties. I particularly wish the President well.

    I was initially going to write this week on ‘Arewanistan’ and #Northisbleeding, the former being Bishop Hassan Kukah’s expressed hope that the North will not become another Afghanistan, while  the latter is the Northern youths’  belated attempt at protesting against anything that seems, in their view, to rub Northern leaders the wrong way.

    But then this is the season of goodwill, and good tidings, and I need not seek to be misinterpreted in any way, especially so early in the new year; today being the very first time you’d be holding a copy of The Nation in your hands in the year of the Triple Two (2022).

    We shall  therefore go spiritual today believing that praying to God, and praising him are efficacious in all circumstances. Indeed,  Praise is the greatest form of prayer.

    Roman’s 12:12 speaks to: “Rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation; continuing instant in prayer”. What then about Praise? Thessalonians 5:16-18, says: Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.

    What does the Bible say about praising God in hard times, the type we are going through in Nigeria today? In Psalm 34, David reminds us that we should praise God through the good times as well as bad times. Praise, he admonishes us, should fill our hearts every day, no matter our circumstances –particularly when we are going through seasons of great trials. “Praise God in the storms, through the battles, and when life gets hard”. Then you may ask: What happens when we praise God in difficult times? Of course, we gain new hope, remembering that God is in control and that He is always working for our good. He is

    never surprised by the things that come our way because he knows all, and sees all. He is never taken by surprise: no, not by the floods killing in thousands worldwide,  not the tornados, the type that recently ravaged a city in America, nor the Covid -19 pandemic, and its sundry variants which, for the past two years have devasted the world, turning it completely upside down,  and making the abnormal normal.

    It is in these circumstances we must learn to always praise the living God. As Nigerians, given our level of suffering – the grinding poverty, the indescribable insecurity, and the fact of life in our country having become  short and brutish,  we can, understandably, choose to disdain praising God because as the Yorubas say: ebi ki wonu k’oro mii woo, meaning that when you are hungry, you can hardly think of anything else besides food. We can justifiably remonstrate against our leaders, both at the national and sub national levels who, through their errors of commission and omission, have railroaded us into harms way.

    But that would, indeed, be the mother of all foolishness.

    In fact, we can do that only if we choose to close our minds, and eyes, to all that is happening, not only around us in Africa, but the world over.

    At this juncture, we will have to go back a little, into Nigerian history, at a time when you were proud to say you are a Nigerian, and not now when the world remembers us, first and foremost, for the number of our compatriots butchered daily and sent to their early graves, and that is on the few occasions when the bereaved families can give their departed member a decent burial.

    Read Also: 2023: Unveiling contenders and pretenders for Buhari’s job

    It has not always been so in this country.

    In the good old days of Nigeria, when our foreign policy, for instance, was such that we could not only dream big, but project a new world order, Prof Bolaji Akinyemi, as Nigerian Foreign Affairs minister, initiated what he called a CONCERT OF MEDIUM POWERS. Sixteen in number, the countries were selected on the basis that they each exercised considerable regional influence in their own part of the world. These countries, among them, Brazil, Argentina, India, Sweden and Switzerland, were now expected to “act together in mediatory capacity in pressing global conflict-situations, as well as act as a bridge between competing interests in the international system” so as to enable its membership exert greater collective influence in world affairs”.  So seriously was Nigeria taken in the fledgling organisation, that at its maiden, exploratory meeting in Lagos,  attended by all the sixteen countries in March 1987, the initiative was named “The Lagos Forum”.

    That must sound like ancient history today!

    I apologise: that Nigerian diplomatic exploit of the golden 80’s is not the issue today. Our interest in it centres on only two of the sixteen- Brazil and India – two countries which, unlike Nigeria, have made giant strides, since that date,  in all areas of human endeavour – science and technology,  industrialisation, health, education, even space science. For instance, in 2008, India launched as many as eleven satellites and went on to become the first nation to launch ten satellites on one rocket. Brazil, on the other hand, with agriculture as the base of its economy, has today become a major world supplier of automobiles, producing nearly two million vehicles per year. Her other major manufactured products include electrical machinery,  medicines, chemicals, aircraft – yes aircraft – steel, food products, and paper.

    Iwopin Paper Mill, Epe in Ogun state, was effectively killed by Nigeria’s successive federal governments.

    But all the above not withstanding, when you hear the monumental destruction Covid-19 wrought in these two countries, there will be no doubt, whatever, in your mind, that Nigerians must ceaselessly praise God, whatever our circumstances.

    But first things first.

    God Almighty was definitely at work, and guided President Muhammadu Buhari in his choice of the members of  his 12- member Presidential Task Force on Covid-19. Most unlike what we have become used to in his other appointments, he appointed ‘round pegs for round holes’, with the following persons as the moving spirit behind the PTF, and since then, they have not looked back in their delivery of quality service to Nigeria and Nigerians: Boss Mustapha, Secretary to the Government of the Federation, as Chairman, Dr Sani Aliyu as National coordinator,  Dr Osagie Ehanire, the sitting minister of Health and, in particular, the brilliant, and extremely hardworking Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu, whose sterling exertions in executing the policy decisions of the PTF could not have gone un noticed  by the World Health organisation, as Director- General. Ihekweazu, an epidemiologist and public health physician,  has since been appointed the  World Health Organization’s assistant director-general of health emergency intelligence.

    With the stupendous work done by the PTF which has an unfettered access to the President, enjoyed his confidence and had almost all the needed support from the President, Nigeria was spared the gory sights Covid – 19 wreaked in both India and Brazil.

    It will be most ungodly to delve into the ravages of the pandemic in both countries – especially its death tolls and the excruciating last hours of the patients,  as even the CNN had to plead for viewer discretion before relaying the coverage done in India by its reporter, Clarissa Ward.

    In both countries, there were huge shortages of oxygen, hospitals were heavily overwhelmed and highly short staffed that many who could as much as reach a health facility never had a doctor attend to them.

    Brazil is the third-worst affected country in the world and there was shortage of everything imaginable. I hate to write this, but the dead were being delivered to graveyards day, and night, with tractors being deployed to fill up the graves. It was no less heart rending in India where the huge population did not help matters.

    Such was the anger in both countries that their Presidents, both allies of former U.S President Trump, are now having a torrid time of their lives. The Brazilian senate’s 1,180 page report on Jair Bolsonaro’s handling of the pandemic is damning . It chronicles not just bad leadership but “wilful and lethal acts of folly, carried out by a Donald Trump mini-me, who sacrificed lives on the altar of his own unfounded presumptions. It recommends that President Bolsonaro face criminal indictments for a catalogue of actions and omissions that may have led to as many as 300,000 avoidable deaths”.

    In India, more than 750 million people were, at a point, under lockdown. In New Delhi, public transportation, including the metro and rickshaws, were suspended, all shops, factories, places of worship and offices shut down, interstate travel stopped and borders with neighboring states closed as people were required to stay put in their homes. Prime Minister Narendra Modi would most probably pay for all these at the next election.

    Yes, we had lockdowns here in Nigeria too, but where would you and I be today, if Covid -19 had assumed the Indian or Brazilian proportions in Nigeria. India’s GDP grew at 8.4% in Q2 2021-22 while that of Brazil is projected to reach 5% in 2021, showing how much better organised and far more provisioned than Nigeria these countries are, but yet suffered such horrendous ravages from the pandemic. So where exactly would Nigeria be today, but for God? Like many expected in the West expected to see in Africa, shouldnt we have been  picking bodies on the streets of Nigerian cities and villages?

    Indian government’s official death toll of people lost to Covid as of July, 2021, believed to be massively under reported, is 414,48while in Brazil, it is put at 615,744, at about the same time of 2021. Of Nigeria’s total of  241,513 reported, 3,030 were said to have died. As in India and Brazil, there must have been considerable under reporting here in Nigeria too, since many of those who died never reached hospitals, while many who did in both India and Brazil  didnt even have  doctors to attend to them.

    With our other afflictions in Nigeria- hunger, daily killings, rapes and kidnappings – how, if not for God, could we have coped with COVID-19 ravages, the kind the world saw in India and Brazil, even in Britain, the U.S and in the epicentre, China? We are not in the least gloating, but merely laying the foundation for, among others, one reason why, in Nigeria, we must learn to always thank God in all circumstances.

    Here’s wishing all a peaceful and prosperous 2022.

     

  • Nigeria 2022: Permutations, postulations and projections (Part 1)

    Nigeria 2022: Permutations, postulations and projections (Part 1)

    “It doesn’t matter where you are coming from. All that matters is . . . where you are going” – Brian Tracy

    Reminiscing this columnist’s days as an undergraduate in the then University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University), proudly referred to as “Great Ife!”, one cannot but cherish the campus culture of discipline and diligence in the early eighties. In this period of time, Great Ife was a signature school with such shining stars of student politicians such as, Femi Falana, Wole Olaoye, Femi Kuku, Sola Ebiseni, Lanre Arogundade, Greg Obong – Oshotse, Leke Sanusi, etc. The socio-political life was full of fun with the Oduduwa Hall (main entertainment centre of the citadel of learning) oozing out with fun and frees of entertainment – no dull moment; whether one was in harmattan or rain semester! Yet, the academic life – spartan, self-denying and stringent – aping such institutions as Harvard, Cambridge, Oxford, etc., aimed for excellence in diverse fields such as education, arts, medicine, technology, and social sciences. Equally blessed was Ife with such cerebral scholars such as Professors Wole Soyinka (Nobel Laureate), Ladipo Adamolekun, Wande Abimbola, Biodun Jeyifo, Dipo Fashina, Biyi Afonja, Makanjuola, G. A., Adesanya Grillo, Omolade Adejuyigbe, Fola Lasisi, Olusola Ogedengbe, etc.

    The university (Ife) was, in those years, known with many slangs and cliches. Of particular significance and relevant in this context is NYSC. To the uninitiated or novice, NYSC is an acronym for National Youth Service Corps. However, to the original “home born and bred” of Great Ife, it meant another thing entirely. NYSC was a slang term for “Now Your Suffering Continues”. Hence, in bidding any graduating student goodbye to the then most beautiful campus in Africa, Ife, the usual cliché was to vociferously say to him or her: NYSC! It was an unusual exchange of banters mixed with cheers between undergraduate and graduating students exiting the campus for the compulsory one-year national service. In the context of our dear country Nigeria, as we have transited into 2022, if one is to saliently and succinctly analyze the trajectory of events of 2021, seemingly some Nigerians would, in jeering and joshing mannerism, shout to high heavens: Now Your Suffering Continues, or simply: NYSC! Do you agree? Dear eminent readers, let us follow and flow along by reflecting on the events of 2021 as the premise of our possible permutations, postulations and/or projections as the ship of our state is steered through the unsparing, unkind, and unstable socio-economic and political muddy and murky waters of 2022.

     

    Electoral Act Amendment: Any Ray of Hope?

    Still in retrospect and reminisce of Ife, this columnist could recollect the electioneering process in the students’ union electing its executive members without any furore. In the then University of Ife, all students were members of the union. Hence, every student, at the point of registration, were made to compulsorily pay the union fees. The electioneering process was usually full of entertainment and excitement as well as laced with rest, relaxation and respite from the rigours of academic life Ife was wont and wired around. There was the “press night” where the articulate campus journalists would fire salvos of questions at contestants to decipher their intelligence on a range of issues. Finally, the “speech night” would follow. The speech night, most often, used to be the decider for any candidate: flounder or falter, the candidate already could be singing his or her nunc dimittis even before the first ballot was cast!

    Read Also: 2023: Unveiling contenders and pretenders for Buhari’s job

    The nagging and naughty issue of indirect and direct primaries, as perceived by strata of the citizenry in the bill forwarded to the President, had stalled the endorsement of President Muhammadu Buhari. In vetoing the bill, the President cited cogent reasons such as high cost of conducting direct primary which the bill favoured; discrimination (as each political party should be left in deciding which option to adopt; this is debatable to some followers in the polity); and security issues that could accompany endorsing direct primary. In my perspective as a follower, as it was made known in my appearances at both the Arise TV (Morning Show) and TVC News Breakfast this past week, these reasons are seemingly puerile, pecuniary and pedestrian in context, content and colour taking cognizance of the fact that the incumbent President Buhari is a beneficiary of direct primary in the election that returned him to power 2019. Going back to the Ife electioneering process, it is high time our electioneering process became a season of excitement and enjoyment, and not of one laced with cancerous corruption and criminal concerns. Direct primary would have allowed grassroot participatory democracy to take root, in that, candidates emerging from the process would reach out to all party members in attempts to sell their programmes rather than to “selected” delegates who are prone and programmed to the whims and caprices of super – rich politicians or moneybags who are ready to literarily “buy” delegates. It is a known fact that indirect primary turn delegates to semi – gods overnight with their votes going the way of the highest bidders. In essence, if direct primary has been adopted, it would give room for the contestants or candidates to be tested and tried with the possibility of scrutinizing and screening their profiles and pedigrees in order not to elect accidental local government chairmen, assembly members, senators, governors, and president as we seemingly have done from 1999 till date. In 2022, will the National Assembly (NASS) do anything tangible with the Electoral Act Amendment bill, in such a way as to factor in the preference of their constituents rather than pandering to the wish and will of few politicians within the corridors of power, especially state’s helmsmen as being peddled by some analysts? Time will tell! Alternatively, will the NASS courageously collaborate in disannulling the veto of Mr. President? Seemingly, the comportment, charisma, constitution, capability and capacity of the 9th Assembly do not seem to concur to such tinkering. Time may prove this columnist wrong whether the NASS has such temerity and audacity.

    Appropriation Act 2022: Query for Lawan and Gbajabiamila!

    It is a truism that governments all over the world can borrow to finance capital projects. However, there should be a framework in place to pay back such loans. Equally true is that past governments at the centre had been involved in procuring loans. Disturbing and nauseating to the citizenry is the penchant for borrowing of the present President Buhari’s administration. As at the time of writing, First News online, reported “Nigeria’s indebtedness rising to uncomfortable level” with the experts in the corridors of power proudly pontificating that Nigeria has the capacity to borrow more! Is debt a thing to be proud of? Why cannot Nigeria, my beloved country, possess the capacity, competency and capability to increase production in order to enhance her economic indices such as IGR, GDP, attracting more Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), promoting, processing and packaging more goods and services for export?

    It is unthinkable in a world ravaged by Covid 19 with economies of countries plummeting that our eminent men and women of both the green and red chambers in their queer wisdom surreptitiously and subterraneously add virtually one trillion naira more to the budget and went on recess with high hopes that the President will assent the bill thus becoming an act of the NASS. It was apparently well timed and it was like the Presidency would not want any dilly – dally and dithering, thus pandering to the perception of the NASS members. It is unfortunate that there was no seeming parley between the NASS and BoF before the President assent to the bill as the news filtered in as this columnist was about

    writing this piece that the endorsement would be done by Mr. President on Friday 31st of December 2022! In this vein, as you are reading this piece, the bill has turned to an act!! Where is the pilot maneuvering us into the seeming cloudy and stormy weather of 2022? This pilot could seemingly smell and see rough weather of oil subsidy removal; unending increase in cooking gas prices; incessant rises in diesel prices that many industries depend on to be operational (many are not even talking on this and manufacturers just pass the customers the unpredictable price increase almost on a weekly basis); the probable increase of electricity tariff; and the palpable unsavouring protests that could arise from all of these especially the removal of oil subsidy. It is instructive for the government at the centre to heed the warning of the World Bank on the need to reconsider raising the tariff on electricity in the country as it could injure our fragile economy.

    The duo of the heads of the NASS should explain to the citizens what necessitated the whopping or humongous addition of nearly One Trillion Naira into the budget (source: the Financial Markets Department of the Central Bank of Nigeria, half-year activity report for 2021). What are the sound economic reasons that the technocrats in the Budget Office of the Federation (BoF) could not decipher or discern that only the eminent people of both chambers could see on high towers as economic seers of the Covid 19 economy? Are they aware that we could not sustainably, as a country, fund the estimates the President presented to the NASS in October 2021without recourse to borrowing heavily? Are they conscious that presently the debt profile of Nigeria stands at not less than N13 trillion Naira? As a follower, this columnist expects answers to these questions. This column will still go further on this as responses are awaited from the offices of the highly respected Senate President, Dr. Ahmed Lawan, and the Honourable Speaker, Mr. Femi Gbajabiamila. Good to apply a pause here and now.

    APC and PDP: Fasten Your Seat Belt!

    Currently, there are 18 registered political parties in Nigeria with over 100 more new applicants jostling for registration by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC)! What a country!! However, for this purpose of this article, the most popular political parties will be fixated upon. Suffice to succinctly and saliently state here that the duo of APC and PDP should fasten their seat belts as we arrive at the precincts of the year 2022. Going further inside 2022, the year of the primaries, the political weather would be somewhat cloudy; more would depend on the sagacity and strategic moves, mannerisms and maneuverings of the leaders of the parties in piloting them out of the projected rough, rowdy and riotous weather of 2022. More to read in the next edition of “Followership Challenge”. This columnist will expect your candid feedback as you take keen interest on this page in the coming weeks.

     

    John Ekundayo, Ph.D. – Harvard-Certified Organizational Strategist, and also a Leadership Development Consultant, can be reached via08155262360 (SMS only) and drjmoekundayo@hotmail.com