The Nation Newspaper

Category: Sunday

  • No tears for sacked journalists

    I’m not as heartless as the headline of this piece suggests. I was very sad when speculations of the sack of editorial and other staff of a national newspaper were officially confirmed on Wednesday with the announcement of new appointments in the company.

    With the economic situation in the country, this is one of the worst times to lose one’s job without commensurate financial entitlements and compensation.

    After investing years of working and helping to build the conglomerates their former media organisations have become, summary sacking is not the way to reward the affected journalists.

    No journalist who is still employed in any other media organisation should mock those who have been sacked. If the prevailing situation in the media industry persists, “sooner or later”, more journalists will be sacked.

    Like a Yoruba proverb states, the death of one’s contemporaries is a warning that it may soon be your turn.

    I’m sad that my “prophesy” of last February when I spoke at the Lagos Council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists’ meeting has come to pass.

    “The retrenchment of many journalists will come sooner or later and there is nothing even the union can do about it,” I said, noting  that media organisations have to take painful business decisions if they are to continue to publish.

    As much as I’m pained by the sacking of journalists and wish I can reverse their “disengagement”, I suggest that their response should not be to indulge in any pity party or crying over spilled milk.

    I’m more concerned about how soon the sacked journalists can come to terms with their “hard luck” and start thinking and taking concrete steps to move on with their media career.

    It’s going to be tough finding new jobs as other media houses are barely managing to survive. Chances are that others may take a cue from the ones that have sacked their staff and throw more journalists into the labour market soon.

    Better late than never, this is the time for those sacked to take stock of their work experience and find out where their various media and non-media skills can be needed. You never know how much you can do until you find yourself in make or mar situations like this.

    Good luck if they are able to find another job soon, but if not, they should put on their thinking cap, think outside the box like it is usually said, and they may just be able to turn their situations around for good.

    This is the time to concretise some of those projects they have always had in mind but never had time to work on due to their former hectic job schedule. About a year before she was recently sacked, Kemi Ashefon formerly of The Punch had wanted to resign her job to run her Relationship blog but she hesitated.

    Her sack has forced her to take her professional destiny in her hands and she is grateful she was kicked out.

    When life kicks you, like when you suddenly get sacked, let it kick you forward.

    For those sacked and others still lucky to be employed, collaboration and partnership on project ideas may be necessary. We all have different skills and connections that are better harnessed instead of playing small alone when working together we can be major players in whatever we decide to do.

    I urge media associations to organise brainstorming sessions, training and retraining for members to be able to cope with changes in the industry which require new knowledge and skills more than what many of us have.

    I congratulate those who have been sacked. Why? They have the opportunity of starting earlier on a journey others who are still currently employed will embark on later.

  • Of popularity, notoriety and renown

    • The Nigerian seems to have one credo. Make some noise and people know you are there. Then, what happens? Oh, before you know it, you become the governor of a state.

    The more I write these few lines for you each week, dear reader, the more I have found that the popularity ratings of the column has grown. Not because the lines are good (if you say so, I don’t mind though) but because they are insistent on being heard. I thank you indeed for tolerating me the way you tolerate a mosquito. If you pretend long enough that it isn’t there, it might actually go away. So I find that many read me to get me out of their way and promptly settle down to ignore me. That is how the column has earned its popularity.

    Notoriety though I find comes mostly through politics. No, I don’t hate politics. I just don’t consider myself as being very politically conscious, more like a political somnambulant. Half of the time, I have no idea how many states in Nigeria have governors. Heck, half of the time I have no idea who indeed is the governor of which state. The other day, I heard that someone called Gov. Something had been removed as governor of a state in Nigeria by a tribunal. Who, I asked, is that? Which State is he governing? Someone said he is/was a governor. Yes, I read that, I replied, but who the heck is he? Everyone looked at me like I had lost it. The economy has finally got to her; they were thinking; a governor is someone everyone should know. And I went away thinking, how do they know all these governors when they seem to change every minute?

    The problem, I reasoned, is that many of my fellow citizens do not set out in life to be anything more than notorious. The Nigerian seems to have one credo. Make some noise and people know you are there. Then, what happens? Oh, before you know it, you become the governor of a state, a Representative, a Senator, a principal, a…. On what platform? The platform of noisemaking! But what has he achieved?

    So, there you are, I do not know politics, just like I do not know maths. Why, the other day, someone gave me a poser that sounded like one of those Satan uses to determine those bound to go to hell with him if they pass it. The test asked if someone were to offer to buy a goat for the sum of N2, 000.00 and the seller agrees to the price and the buyer brings out the money to pay for the goat, but the goat leaps up and snatches the money and eats it, then how much has the goat become? For reply, I made only one gesture: Cuckoo! Why should I give him the privilege to know I did not know maths, I reasoned?!

    So, you can imagine my horror when I heard yesterday that a senator had been taken to another court. I was really horrified. Please, I begged, don’t tell me I did not know that the senator was in one court in the first place. The fellow looked at me like I had mutated to some unrecognisable being. This is his second court and who knows how many more courts before he is through with us, I was told. I sat down in great mystery, wondering: where had I been all my life?

    Seriously, reader, you can’t blame me. I have been too busy tracking where all of Nigeria’s money had got to. First, I was reading that some two point something billion dollars had been shared among a few Nigerians who happened to belong to a political party. Naturally, my head had been swimming round those figures with me wiping my face many times a day to make sure I was not dreaming. Then I began to hear through confessions how the money was disbursed to various agents of the party; and the offers some of them made to return it, either through coercion or remorse. Naturally, I wiped my face some more trying to imagine which bank would contain enough storage space to receive these vast sums when they are converted to our very worthy Naira.

    That was when I began to hear stories of how a few top people in one of the armed forces had somehow contrived to convert hundreds of billions of Naira, meant for the upkeep of their own arm of the armed forces, to their own personal use. As I was told, they went as far as constructing an underground pit or latrine or soak-away (the story is not very straight around this corner) in the house of one to keep some of the monies while some nestled comfortably in the accounts of the wife of another. As these revelations were coming out, you can imagine that my face wiping had grown alarmingly to reach some worrisome proportions. I found I had begun to wash my face to be sure I was not dreaming, and also to be sure I wasn’t Pilate. I also wanted to see if the water would tell me why my fellow citizens would persist in settling only for notoriety when they could go for renown.

    Then I read about one DJ Obi, really known as Obi Ajuonuma, who had set out to etch his name in the Guinness Book of Records by ‘djing’ for a record two hundred and forty hours straight out. I wiped my face once more to be sure I was not dreaming. Could it be that there really is a Nigerian interested in actually making something of himself that did not put money first? Could it be that such an unnatural element who considers achievement over unnatural enrichment exists? Could someone be actually more interested in renown over popularity and notoriety? I say, I saw the picture, so I believed. I became encouraged.

    You see, it appears that most Nigerians are only interested in scrambling for loots. We all therefore seem to have forgotten that loots do not make a man. They make a man a common thief, less than the soil underneath an honest labourer’s slippers. We have said it again and again on this column that what makes a man is not the number of houses he owns (whether honestly acquired or not), or the number of private jets he owns (acquired properly or not), or the number of women or men they are able to sleep with.

    True, you have heard many people preach again and again that you cannot take it with you. Well, I’m here to tell you something different. You can take it with you. The only thing is that what you have here gets converted to a different currency when you die. The man who has worked only at stealing from the country may get to enjoy his loot here, but when he dies, the loot gets converted into his name which will become synonymous with notoriety. The man who actually works at achieving something may or may not enjoy his proceeds on earth; but when he dies, his name gets converted also into something akin to renown.

    What matters most in this world is what we do for a living, how well we do it and what we are able to achieve through it, no matter how little or how big. Achieving something through one’s efforts is a greater success than any amount of money that one can steal. It not only brings out the truly noble thing in one’s character, it enables a man to touch the lower tip of the universe. That man is able to reach beyond himself; that man is also the man who has been able to conquer his lowest instincts. Here’s to rooting for DJ Obi; hope he’s able to win his renown.

  • International NGO battles AGF on Kogi

    International NGO battles AGF on Kogi

    ON June 23, 2016, a respected and United Nations-recognised human rights organisation, Justice Action & Human Rights Protection International Network (JAHRPIN), published a full-page advertisement in this newspaper last Thursday regarding some of the judicial and political interventions of the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF), Abubakar Malami. It is incredible how the import of that advertisement escaped the attention of the Nigerian media. Shortly before the Kogi State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal gave judgement, the AGF had granted an interview to the Kaduna-based Liberty Radio/TV wherein he commented without restraint and with bias on the petitions pending before the tribunal. The NGO took the AGF to task, deprecating his prejudicial statements and wondering whether the coterminousness of his views with the judgement of the tribunal should not elicit deep concerns and investigations from the government.

    Hereunder is the kernel of JAHRPIN’s position:

    “….After the widely condemned misguided action of the Nigerian Attorney General with the INEC, at JAHRPI, we would have thought that the Nigerian Attorney General’s focus would have been to salvage the reputation of his office, but what happened thereafter is most shocking. Our records at JAHRPI showed that instead of the Attorney General to admit misgivings in his earlier pronouncements on INEC, he unapologetically rubbished the independence of the Nigerian judiciary by openly commenting on such a case, which was before the electoral tribunal. In fact, whilst the Tribunal was still undecided on what to do after hearing from all parties in the dispute, the Attorney General went public with his opinion or directives in a two-page interview as published in The Nation newspaper edition of Sunday, June 5, 2016. Unfortunately, the interview contained sufficient information to be readily categorized as influencing the Bench. In JAHRPl’s analysis, it is obvious that the Nigerian Attorney General did not avoid the risk of prejudging the pending litigations, which were undergoing careful examination of the facts and law underlying the cases by the Judges at the Election Tribunal. In every objective estimation and conclusion by JAHRPI what the Nigerian Chief Law officer did had the capacity and essential ingredients to hamper the chances of some contending parties getting justice in the case.

    “Without a doubt, the Attorney General acted in a manner that portrays him as having prodded these umpires to be partial. This assumption unfortunately turned into reality when few days after the Attorney General made his views public, the Electoral Tribunal ruled in line with the views of the Attorney General. If these were acts of coincidence, the conclusion by JAHRPI is that they were most unreasonable as it was a direct act of irresponsibility for the nation’s number one judicial officer to engage in actions of breaking the most fundamental legal principle of prejudicing a case.

    “At JAHRPI, we consider it highly regrettable that a country like Nigeria where the Constitution defines the role of the Attorney General, the duty of the Judiciary and the task of the INEC as completely different and independent have now been usurped by the Attorney General through many flawed remarks and notoriously wrong directives to both INEC and the Election Tribunal on the disputes in Kogi election, thus combining to be the product of Kogi elections.

    “Based on the totality of the Attorney General’s bias, at JAHRPI we do not believe that both INEC and the Judiciary acted independently without the pressing demands of the Attorney General. The evidence that the interference of the Attorney General was irresistible is evinced from an examination of the outcomes from the decisions of INEC and the Election tribunal. These decisions are clear indications that INEC officials fell short of their declaration to Nigerians to conduct their duties without partiality. On the side of the Election Tribunal, it is obvious that the decision of the Judges has pitched them against their judicial oath to administer justice without respect to persons.

    “In fact, even though the Nigerian constitution does not suggest that these institutions in any way need the advice or consent of the Attorney General to reach any decision on the Kogi issue, however, the Attorney General’s naked hostility to the independence of these noble institutions was clear as he obviously stretched the law beyond acceptable limits contained in the constitution by using his directives to supplant the law as well as the Nigerian Electoral Act 2010.”

    Pursuant to JAHRPIN’s pungent observations and demand for the re-examination of the Kogi election judgement and sanction of the AGF, Palladium has gone through the tribunal’s judgement again and juxtaposed some of its decisions with the earlier broadcast and published comments of the AGF on the Kogi petition. The similarities are too disturbing and unethical to be ignored. As the reader will discover from the juxtapositions below, it would be unreasonable to suggest that the tribunal was not influenced either directly or, as JAHRPIN said, coincidentally.

    AGF’S INTERVIEW AND TRIBUNAL’S FINDINGS

    1. ON LOCUS STANDI OF HON. FALEKE

    Attoney General of the Federation on Liberty Radio/Tv, Kaduna & The Nation on Sunday, June 5

    “So… what we are saying is that someone that has not participated in the primaries can definitely not benefit from the process of election”.

     

    Kogi State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal

    “It is also a fact that a complainant must be an aspirant who participated in the primaries that produced the candidates… Having analysed as above and the reasoning in the above cases, it is therefore this tribunal’s considered view that the Petitioner who has not been shown to have participated as an aspirant in the primaries of the APC for the choice of a gubernatorial candidate for the 21/11/2015 and 5/12/2015 elections lacks locus standi to challenge the nomination sponsorship and substitution of the late gubernatorial candidate of the 2nd Respondent”

    Pages 64-65.

     

    1. SUBSTITUTION ON ACCOUNT OF PRINCE AUDU’S DEATH.

    AGF

    The primaries had taken place in compliance with the timetable that was put in place… It is only logical that since you have a valid primaries (sic) that had never been subjected to petition or contention. The option is to revisit it and then if you want to be just and fair, you look for the second candidate in that process that has been legitimately and lawfully conducted by INEC.

    TRIBUNAL

    “… It is the tribunal’s considered view that the fact that the 2nd Respondent participated in the APC primaries and was the 1st runner-up as shown in exhibit R2 (8) to the late Prince Audu, the gubernatorial candidate of APC… it naturally follows that on the exigency of the death of the gubernatorial candidate of the party, that the party’s runner up in its primaries in the person of the 2nd Respondent will be an appropriate choice of candidate to substitute it’s deceased candidate in the circumstance, more so when APC was invited by INEC to substitute it candidate”

    Page 133.

    “To our minds, the 2nd Respondent having participated in the governorship primaries of APC and being the 1st runner-up in the election which produced the late Prince Audu as the winner is more qualified to step into the shoes of the winner of that primary election in the person (in replacement) of Prince Audu, now deceased, than the petitioner who did not participate in the governorship primary election and was never nominated by APC at any stage as its governorship candidate”.

    Page 139

    1. VOTES BEING WON FOR POLITICAL PARTIES

     

    AGF

    “In the case of Amaechi versus INEC it was made abundantly clear and again by the interpretation of section 112 of the Constitution that votes are cast for political parties… Arising from the issue of Amaechi was that votes cast are for the party simpliciter”.

     

    TRIBUNAL

    “The tribunal is not in any doubt that the said 240,687 secured through the candidacy of late Prince Audu and the petitioner belong to the party in whose name, the joint candidates secured the votes. To that end, the issue of transfer of votes to the 2nd Respondent does not arise. Consequently, it is the tribunal’s view that both the votes garnered at the 21/11/2015 election which was declared inconclusive and the ones general in 5/12/2015 belong to the political party who sponsored the respective candidates”.

    Page 141.

    1. ON INEC’S DECLARATION OF 21/11/2015 ELECTION INCONCLUSIVE

     

    AGF

    “Whether we like it or not the process was inconclusive arising from the position taken by INEC.

    …Again the election in its own right was declared inconclusive by INEC: So again note that it is the declaration of an election that creates a mandate, if results are not declared where will you get the mandate from?

    TRIBUNAL

    “The tribunal find (sic) from the facts available in the  instant petition that the election of 21/11/2015 was declared inconclusive by the 1st Respondent (INEC). This being the case, it is the tribunal’s view that no right can accrue from inconclusive election to the petitioner…Page 74.

     

    1. NON-DECLARATION OF HON. FALEKE AS DEPUTY GOVERNOR ELECT.

    AGF.

    “If supposing INEC had even declared Audu before his unfortunate death as the winner of the election and was sworn-in and then died, it is automatic that the deputy governor will step in”.

    TRIBUNAL

    “It is however obvious from the fact available to this tribunal that the facts in contemplation by section 181 of 1999 Constitution have not arisen in the instant case, as there is no evidence, documentary or otherwise presently before the tribunal to show that before the death of the APC gubernatorial candidate, Prince Audu, that the gubernatorial candidate and his deputy have been pronounced as governor and deputy governor-elect respectively.

    Pages 57-58

  • Federal Government to establish silo in Ado-Ekiti

    Federal Government to establish silo in Ado-Ekiti

    My trepidation arose from the fact that there is, already,  an abandoned 100,000 metric Tonnes Silo in Ado-Ekiti, owned by the same federal government evidence  of which is shown below in a public lecture I gave as far back as Thursday 19thSeptember 2013. 

    For the week, we are privileged to have, as part writer, Chief Samuel Bandele Falegan, a onetime Director of Research at the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, as well as the first Nigerian Managing Director of the Federal Mortgage Bank Nigeria. A trained economist, and committed patriot, Chief Falegan is the Atoye of Ado-Ekiti.
    I read with a great deal of trepidation and surprise, a newspaper report that, in its determination to promote and encourage agriculture, the federal government plans to establish a grains’ silo in Ado-Ekiti. My trepidation arose from the fact that there is, already, an abandoned 100,000 metric Tonnes Silo in Ado-Ekiti, owned by the same federal government evidence of which is shown below in a public lecture I gave as far back as Thursday 19thSeptember 2013.

    “INTEGRITY IN THE PUBLIC SERVICE AND ITS IMPACT ON PRODUCTIVITY”- Being THE 2013 ANNUAL PUBLIC LECTURE OF THE EKITI STATE CHAPTER OF THE FORUM OF HEADS OF FEDERAL ESTABLISHMENTS.

    There is a 100,000 metric Tonnes Silo estimated to cost N4 billion, started five years ago in Ado-Ekiti but, up till now, has not been completed. Much as Ekiti, an agrarian state, needs a grain storage silo, the uncompleted or “abandoned” silos raises doubts about the sincerity of those who conceived  it if, five years after the construction began, it is yet to be completed. Could it be that the N4 billion voted for it has been exhausted? In a recent interview with the contractors, apart from being doggy on pertinent questions, all I got was a mere promise to complete it as soon as money is made available. The questions which arise, therefore are these:  which one should come first, availability of, and potential surplus grains, for which there will be a need for a silo or should the provision of a silo precede availability of grains? Meanwhile, five yearly harvest seasons have passed without evidence of surplus grains in the state. That obviously raises the question  of credibility and  the sincerity of the promoters (may be, as Nigerians have  come to see since President Muhammadu Buhari’s coming,  those in charge have already  taken their “bite,” leaving the project to its fate).

     I chose the 100,000 metric “Tonnes project as an example of the waste and graft that dominated the past governments. I am convinced that the portion below quoted from that lecture is relevant to the illustration and the example I used.  That is also why one cannot but feel concerned about the obvious indifference to work which, in turn, results in lack of productivity leading to lack of vision, initiative or innovation.

     Ordinarily your work here, as officials of the federal government, ought to positively contribute to the growth and development of Ekiti. Let me pause and explain those two esoteric terms and explain the difference between them which, when not properly interrogated, are in conflict with each other. Economic growth is often measured in terms of a Nation, using such indices as Gross Domestic Product (GDP) or Gross National Product (GNP) or National Income (NI).  It is, however, possible for a nation like Nigeria to have Economic Growth without Economic Development especially when its components, at the state level are understated and grassroots/ rural development, job creation and poverty eradication are under-reported and need to be captured in computing the national data. The consequence in economic terms is that some indices such as population that are exaggerated or inflated in some states in the country, (as confirmed both by INEC and the Country’s Population Census Board) will lead to conflicting per capita income which can more than distort the nation’s growth rate. Nigeria, measured largely by its one crop-product of crude oil which contributes over 80 per-cent of its revenue, is reported to have been having positive and upward bound Economic growth of about 7 per-cent annually since about 2004 up to 2012, when it declined to 6.19% in the first half of 2013.  Yet when other indices like rural development, health, employment generation, road-network, education etc all of which are indices of Human Capital Development are absent, it may turn out to be negative such that these items being religiously pursued at the state level but not computed in the national data, will result in growth without development, understate its per capita income and overstate its debt profile as recently published by the Debt Management Office. Thus, growth cannot be real but artificial as measured by the traditional method if, and where, there is no development as measured by Human Development Index. Whereas positive development will be enhanced when growth is accomplished by the latter, it is in this context that we have to measure your assignment and mission to this state. May be you don’t appreciate  the fact that your mission to this state is meant to create jobs  and employment  opportunities, leading to improved quality of life as well as improved living standards through honest execution of the projects directed at the rural population. Not only did I send a copy of my lecture to the then Governor of Ekiti State, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, who in his characteristic and patriotic concern about public waste, reacted positively.

    I hope the Federal Ministry of Agriculture should be interested in knowing exactly what happened to the project to which a highly regarded patriot has brought to the public space through this article.

    PDP Senators Withdraw Support From The Buhari Administration

    Senators elected on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP announced, this past week, their withdrawal from supporting the Buhari administration over what they described as the government’s “belligerent attitude” towards its members. They will do that, they said, until the APC government ends its belligerent attitude towards PDP members. So what is this belligerent attitude, asking thieves to return their loot? Could this be their reaction to Buhari’s refusal to align with his predecessor’s ‘stealing is not corruption’ mantra? Could it be that asking them to come and justify how they believe that fraudulently forging their extant Rules to gift Saraki the senate presidency is no internal affairs of the senate as they claim? They even talk about coercion and intimidation as if these words have new meanings. Pray, how does asking these two adults to come and have their day in court equate to intimidation and how does answering to one’s actions transmute to a case against the senate as an institution? And, as if they are just waking up from a prolonged slumber, they are not even ashamed to deploy the very serious economic and security challenges confronting the country, as part of the building blocks for their so-called withdrawal of support for the government?  When did they become ceased of these challenges? How does their irresponsible quest for life pension and immunity for their leadership fit into these challenges or which of their humongous allowances, which make them rank as the highest paid legislators anywhere in the world, have they given up? And by the way, was padding the budget and throwing the list of ambassadors on the President’s face acts of support for the Buhari administration? Who has not seen that both legislative houses now barely form a quorum at plenary since Buhari made money for bills impossible? If these PDP senators know what is good for them, their withdrawal of support for the Buhari government should have kicked off with Ike Ekweremadu quitting office as Deputy Senate President. Without a doubt, these senators sure don’t know what Nigerians think of this 8th Assembly. Rather than bellyache, I think they should be happy to have one additional court to troop to in solidarity with their compromised leaders. Nigerians cannot wait to see that charade.

  • Not atheism but secularism working with ecumenism is the real issue – interlocutors please take note! [For Tai Solarin and Chike Obi, heroic secularist forerunners]

    Not atheism but secularism working with ecumenism is the real issue – interlocutors please take note! [For Tai Solarin and Chike Obi, heroic secularist forerunners]

    “I read your write-up (on “I went to church today…”) in flawless language with tears and sorrow. Retrace your steps back to Christianity and be born again without delay. Christ is the only way to God at the end of life here on earth… All who deny, reject or operate outside Christ are doomed forever as they will unfortunately spend their eternity with Satan in the Lake of Fire. Think of eternity, time without end, for ever, and ever and ever and ever…” This message was one among over a dozen that came to my email address in response to my column last week. I am not at liberty to reveal the name, the identity of the person who wrote this to me, but I assure the reader that it was signed by someone who claimed to be a pastor and an engineer. Since the name of this interlocutor matched the name on the email address, I presume that the person is who he or she claims to be, i.e. a pastor and an engineer. Ergo, he or she is a member of our social and cultural elite.

    Now, I have not the slightest doubt that this person, this interlocutor wrote me because I had revealed in last week’s column that I had once been a Christian. As a matter of fact, the response explicitly asks me to retrace my steps back to Christianity.Let me say also without any hypocrisy whatsoever that in expressing sorrow at what he or she perceives as the gravity of the spiritual crisis of my separation from Christ, this person probably meant well. But in a country and a world in which there are, respectively, millions and billions of Non-Christians”, what am I to make of his or herringing assertion that “all who deny, reject or operate outside Christ are doomed forever”?

    Of course, I do know what to think of this assertion: it is savagely intolerant and anti-ecumenical, especially in a country and a world in which there are millions and billions who are not Christians and indeed have their own “saviors” or divine personages. Of course, it is possible that this interlocutor did not think of this particular implication of his assertion. After all, he or she was speaking, pleading with someone who had once been a Christian. In other words, if I had said that I was once a member of the Moslem faith, in all probability I would have been ignored since the message was meant for fellow Christians, practicing or “lapsed”. Nonetheless, the charge of savage, anti-ecumenical intolerance remains: the distance that should normally exist between being a pious and devoted follower of Christ and a rabid exponent of religious extremism is, in this case, practically non-existent.

    It is absolutely important that the essential point I am making here be carefully and concretely spelt out in a manner that I probably did not do in last week’s column. Before the Second Coming of Christ, before those who are saved ultimately reunite with the Savoir in paradise, Christians are necessarily obliged to live in peace and unity with Non-Christians in a country and a world in which the Non-Christians happen to be in the demographic majority. This is not a matter of mere numbers; rather, it is a vital question of ecumenism, defined as the movement for the promotion of understanding and cooperation among diverse faiths and their constituted communities. Ecumenism sounds reasonable and desirable, but in actuality it poses extraordinarily tough challenges to all religionists, especially those of the three Abrahamic faiths, Judaism, Christianity and Islam. These three religions come from the same historic and cultural roots, but are extremely, even inordinately jealous of their separate and unique claims to the Godhead. This is why ecumenism has to be constantly and forever renewed and reimagined in every generation, between these three faiths and between them and all other faith communities in the world. I did not make this clear in last week’s column, but I now wish to place the greatest emphasis possible on it: atheism is not the real issue; rather, it is ecumenism in concert with secularism. What exactly does this mean?

    I stated in last week’s piece that for a very long time now, the essential question for me has been not whether one is a believer or a non-believer; it is what kind of human being one’s belief or unbelief makes one. Let me now make a crucial elaboration on this statement, this claim. I look carefully throughout history since the emergence of religion as a powerful institution in human cultures and I do not see a single instance when atheists have waged wars of conversion and/or physical extermination on religionists and believers. By contrast, the historical record is replete with savage wars between religionists, among the believers. Moreover, these wars were sometimes waged between believers of denominations within the same faith community: Catholics against Protestants; Sunnis against Shias. Indeed, this kind of war persists to the present time, the case of Boko Haram being an apt, if tragic example. This barbaric jihadist insurgency initially concentrated its campaigns against Christians, but facing denunciation and opposition from Moslem clergy, laity, elites and politicians, it turned on Moslems as well, bombing mosques and slaying Moslem worshipers in their dozens.

    It is not because atheists are morally superior human beings to religionists that they have never waged wars of conversion and/or extermination against believers. The reason is quite simple and rather mundane and undramatic: at all times and in all places, there have been too few of them!Moreover, those among atheists who sometimes choose to do battle with religionists do so only at the level of verbal and doctrinal jousts. I think I made it clear in last week’s piece that I am not an atheist of this kind: within a few years of leaving Christianity around the age of 20 or 21, I had realized that it is an exercise in futility to engage in disputations around the existence or non-existence of God. Moreover – and this is of the greatest significance – although I left Christianity, Christ himself remained for me one of the greatest historical personages that ever lived. His ministry was built around the cardinal principles of love, generosity of spirit, militant opposition to usurious accumulation of wealth and solidarity with the downtrodden whether they be Jews or Gentiles. As a matter of fact, Christ was one of the early secularists, as the third epigraph to this piece indicates: Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s… Of course Christ’s secularism was strategically conditioned by the historical fact that his ministry took place in an oppressed, colonial outpost of the Roman Empire.

    Nominally, the leaders and most of the followers of all the faith communities in our country embrace secularism. Whether they like it or not, all say that bridges of understanding must be built between the religious communities and the Nigerian state must strictly observe the constitutional separation between state and religion and on this basis must be fair and equable to all the religions. In reality however, the kind of faith professed and widely practiced in our country in at least the last three to four decades is hardly respectful of secularism and ecumenism. Again, I assert here as I did in last week’s piece, that on this matter, I speak from both personal experience and long, sustained reflection over the course of several decades. Some of the personal experiences have been mildly, even unintendedly comic as when siblings or acquaintances warn me darkly about actual or potential “spiritual attacks” from “enemies” that I neither know of, nor care to know about. Some experiences are vexatious, as when siblings insist on regularly texting me biblical quotes and short sermons in complete indifference to my assurance to them that as soon as I receive such text messages, I delete them unread. But some of these personal experiences take bizarre and outrageous manifestations as in instances when people willfully and opportunistically commit terrible wrongs against friend or family and then claim that it is the work of Satan, the work of “enemies”! I mean, people lie, they cheat, they commit stupid and harmful blunders and absolutely refuse to accept responsibility for their acts, claiming instead that all is not lost as God is in control!

    In a country like Nigeria at the present time, it is a great insult to God, to the presumed Almighty to say that He or She is in control! If this is true at all in any consequential sense, it could only be at a deeply personal level at whichdecent, loving and pious individuals live in peace and contentment, within themselves and with their fellow men and women. At the public, collective level of our associated existence as a country, not control but frenetic non-control is the manifest and overwhelming reality. As I stated last week, a simplistic, superstitious, grasping and avaricious religiosity dominates the spiritual landscape almost completely. The lines separating the holy days from ordinary days have been totally obliterated and the money changers now live permanently in the temples, in the holiest of the holy. Zoning of public from private spaces, of commercial from religious areas, hasmore or less disappeared. All days of the week are now “Sundays” and worship takes place at all hours of the day and night and with a noisiness loud enough to wake the dead. Self-trained and self-proclaimed pastors now outnumber men and women of the cloth with traditional training in well-established theological seminaries. Charlatans far outnumber clerics with genuine calling for spiritual pastorates. Above all else, as the mother of all the symptoms of this newfangled religiosity, is the fact that the sacred has now completely swallowed the secular: religion is now no longer a part of life, it presents itself as the integument within which life is enfolded. Please note that this is not religion as it is practiced in many other places in the world or indeed as it was practiced in our own country not too long ago.

    In conclusion, let me state emphatically that the profile I have given here is a compendium of symptoms, not an analysis of causes and probable solutions. That is beyond the purview of one or two essays in a newspaper column. Which is why, as a sort of indication of programme of action, this piece is dedicated to the late Tai Solarin and Chike Obi, heroic forerunners in the establishment of the practice of robust secularism in the public affairs of this country. Nobody remembers either of them for hisatheism; rather, it is for fearless and principled promotion of secularism for which they are remembered and venerated. May their legacy persist well beyond the present dark age of religious charlatanry, avarice and hypocrisy!

  • Immunity and pension

    Immunity and pension

    The steroids Saraki and Co. need to perform

    What many Nigerians are neophytes in the art of law making is evident in the way they have descended on our law- makers in the National Assembly in their desire to get immunity and pension for their principal officers. Definitely, those conversant with the arduous nature of their legislative functions would not think twice before endorsing the proposal. This is a thing that even ‘floor’ members of the House and the Senate should enjoy. We should therefore be grateful to them for putting our purse into consideration by saying that only their principal leaders, that is senate president Bukola Saraki, Yakubu Dogara, speaker, House of Representatives, and their deputies should be entitled to both privileges.

    Imagine the problem the current senate president is going through. If he had immunity, would he have been subjected to such ordeals? How do we want him to concentrate on his job with the criminal charge hanging on his neck like a necklace of stone? Now, we are complaining about the numerous challenges affecting Nigerians; even the lawmakers themselves are worried about all these issues that could have been ameliorated by legislations that Dr Saraki and Dogara would have brought to bear. But how does the man who is supposed to lead efforts to make laws to ease our burden stay focused when he is being bombarded with litigations bordering on his integrity?

    First, his accusers said he did not fully declare his assets. People think everyone is as poor as church rats; otherwise, they would not expect a man like Saraki to fill in the form all that he is worth. I want to believe that such form could not even have had enough space to accommodate all that Dr Saraki owns. And as someone who does not suffer fools gladly, one of  Saraki’s lawyers has replied such people that his client was richer than Kwara State, his state of origin, ever before he became governor. In other words, he has remained a man of means and not a man of straw for the better part of his life. In spite of this illumination on Saraki’s worth, many are still wondering about where he got the money from. Do you ask a housewife how she got pregnant?

    Ordinarily, the reply that Saraki was born with silver spoon in his mouth should settle the matter, but no; his political detractors insist he must be docked. So, they dusted the book of iniquities and slammed the embattled senate president with alleged forgery of senate rules which his colleagues feel is a ‘family affair’ that should have been an internal matter of the senators and among like minds if it ever occurred.  Were Nigerians happy to see their Number Three Citizen in the dock at the Code of Conduct Tribunal looking like a trapped rat in the cubicle? I guess, no. Now, if those criticising the National Assembly for wanting immunity for their leaders were in the shoes of the lawmakers, what would they have done? Would they have folded their arms and allowed such ‘coup’ by Saraki’s enemies to succeed, thereby encroaching on the powers of the hallowed legislature? And, in case that happens, who is the ultimate loser? Is it not the average Nigerian? In a country like ours where political detractors are prowling like wounded lions and looking for what to devour, we should expect that our lawmakers to rise in defence of their own who is immensely popular among them, even if disliked by many Nigerians.

    Now, if I may ask, what is the problem with immunity and pension for Saraki and the others? I guess many Nigerians are unhappy with the proposal simply because Dr Saraki is involved. What does he need the money for? This is primitive accumulation, they say. But, this is something some people who entered public office in bathroom slippers and many more that got their first pair of shoes from the dunghill had enjoyed a long time ago and are still enjoying. Why then should we deny someone who has been used to taking Irish Cream right from the womb such a privilege? As we speak, Governor Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti State who has positioned himself as the erstwhile ruling party’s enfant terrible is enjoying immunity; otherwise, he would have ‘seen himself’ as we say in my place. For our National Assembly members to be asking for it only now shows how considerate they can be. Could there have been a better way to show patriotism?

    And, rather than show gratitude by quickly saying ‘aye’ to the proposals and even make it take retroactive effect, (I guess President Muhammadu Buhari would like that!) in view of its coming this late, we began to criticise the well-thought-out ideas. Now, many of our senators are angry and they are spoiling for war with the presidency. What do we stand to gain from this? These are people who have been magnanimous enough to ask for immunity and pension for their leaders only, whereas these are privileges that all members of the National Assembly ordinarily should enjoy if our legislators were as unserious, primitively greedy and insensitive as many of us think they are. We should imagine the immense benefits this country has got from the 8th National Assembly in spite of all the troubles their leader has gone through in the last one year, especially with the executive arm that does not want to accept the coordinate nature of the three arms of government.  We should think of the many laws they have made for good governance in the country; their labour of love and all. What else can a people desire form their elected representatives?

    The way things are going, many of these senators may begin to think of turning in their resignation letters, which one should expect when people who expected to be appreciated are deprecated.

    But I plead with the lawmakers who may be contemplating this unusual move, in the interest of their constituencies on whose behalf they rake in billions every year, to take it easy. I know they have endured a lot of humiliation; they have been called all sorts of names, but they should understand. Like short people who do not appreciate God in their lives, many Nigerians do not know how lucky and blessed the country is to have some of the people we have in our National Assembly today – the distinguished senators and honourables. We want to throw away a talented Nigerian just because he (allegedly) forged rules to clinch a plum position in the National Assembly. We are also calling another member of the assembly who has been accused of living big on depositors’ funds, and probably funding his business empire with the ill-gotten wealth (did I say ill-gotten wealth? sorry, I am already being unfairly judgmental like many ignoramuses out there) all kinds of names. These are people we should assemble in a place to serve as think tank for the Federal Government. Let’s even assume the one accused of forgery actually committed the crime, is forgery that easy? It requires some ingenuity. Not to talk of continuing to reap the fruits of the alleged crime one year after. That, if you ask me, is no mean task.

    Then the one accused of ‘bigmanism’ at the expense of depositors, and his ilk to follow in the next few days, or weeks; we also need their brains because it is not easy to do such a thing and get away with it for so long. I ndeed, I am beginning to see the sense in the observation by people who say the Buhari presidency does not have an economic team. As a matter of fact, the government is not deficient in economic team alone; it is also in acute shortage of teams in other vital sectors of governance. And the reason is simple: the government is sleeping and backing where it should be facing. The very National Assembly that President Buhari should turn to for evil geniuses (sorry, geniuses)  to form the teams he needs to turn things around is where he is staging a ‘coup’, with a view to throwing out those that should form the fulcrum of his cabinet. A government that is fighting corruption needs the brains of people who know how to play all the legal, academic, and economic gymnastics to delay corruption trials. If you like, you can begin to insinuate that it was because these people do not want to be interrogated for the crimes they (allegedly) committed that they are looking for immunity; that is your business.  Nigerians are adroit at insinuating. So, the government does not have to listen to them in this matter. Lest I forget, may I humbly nominate Governor Fayose to be co-opted into the think tank, after all, he enjoys immunity already.

    However, in making the best use of these people for national development, the Federal Government must first confirm that they actually possess the capacity to commit the crimes they allegedly committed before considering them as replacements for the people presently manning some of the important ministries; that is probably the cutting edge that they have over some of the present cabinet members.

    And in case President Buhari is still not persuaded that he should consider Saraki and Co. for cabinet positions; he should at least leave them in the National Assembly, facilitate granting of immunity and pension to them, to enable them continue the good works they are doing. They should be allowed to bring to bear their wealth of experience and knowledge in the service of the Fatherland. They need immunity so they won’t be distracted by unnecessary litigations, like the ones Dr Saraki is facing. Moreover, if we do not give them immunity, they too would not avail the nation the secrets of impunity, which we sorely need to deal with corruption at this point in time.

    Then the pension: how else do you compensate people who have gone through such thick and thin for the sake of law-making but by handsomely rewarding them hereafter?

  • NASS, Saraki weary the Buhari presidency

    SENATE President Bukola Saraki has since last September been facing prosecution at the Code of Conduct Tribunal for alleged false declaration of asset. The case has witnessed many adjournments, not to talk of deliberate stalling through multiple cases filed in different courts to disqualify the tribunal chairman, Justice Danladi Umar. A few days ago, Senator Saraki again filed a fresh motion to disqualify Justice Umar on the grounds of some of the statements the tribunal chairman made in court. The courts, including this column, presume the senate president innocent, but it is now clear that he is determined to frustrate the case through all sorts of legal sleight of hand. If filing applications in different courts and appellate courts proved unable to frustrate the case as he wishes, his defence counsels would embark on the slowest and most frustrating and provocative cross-examinations. Senator Saraki seems by implication to be saying he does not believe he is innocent of the charges brought against him. And he doesn’t care.

    Now, to pile on the agony, the senate president and his deputy, Ike Ekweremadu of the PDP, will tomorrow be arraigned for allegedly forging Senate Standing Order 2015 in order to facilitate their elections as Senate principal officers. The election of principal officers had since last year become controversial, leading to the discovery of what the police and the Attorney General believe is a forgery. The nation’s chief law officer has finally and rightly given his consent for prosecution to be commenced. In response, an angry Senate has threatened to fight the President Muhammadu Buhari government through every legitimate means, especially by scrupulously conducting oversight functions with dispassion. There would be no more cooperation or cordial relationship with the presidency, they warned. For a long-suffering public subjected to an overreaching executive and underachieving legislature, it is of course good news that both arms of government appear to be determined to give the electorate full value for their votes.

    However, beyond the quarrel, something much more dangerous and fundamental seems amiss. This manifests in different ways. One, it is a tragedy that top national lawmakers appear completely oblivious of the weight of responsibility on their shoulders. Dr Saraki is deliberately and mischievously attempting to manipulate the courts and obstructing justice in his own personal case. Does he not know he is setting a bad example — by the way, just like the executive itself — of treating the justice system with contempt? It is true he is fighting to save his political career and stay out of jail, and he is entitled to achieve these with all the legitimate means at his disposal. But he has embraced extraordinarily bad measures, weakened the rule of law, foolishly blamed his political detractors for his woes as if that mitigates the severity of the charges filed against him, and sent signals to the rest of the country that it is okay to serve the public with lack of character and principles.

    Two, Dr Saraki seems prepared indifferently to bring the whole edifice down simply to save his own skin. He does not care that his insufferable attitude to the case undermines the entire system, brings the National Assembly to disrepute, vitiates the moral force lawmakers should possess, and sets a very appalling example for the youths of the country. He is undoubtedly presumed innocent; but he should allow the courts unfettered opportunity to adjudicate the case instead of entangling the judiciary with his unending rigmarole. There will never be a time when he will not have political detractors. Will he plead persecution every time he holds the short end of the stick, especially as a result of his own malfeasance?

    Three, by threatening not to cooperate with the executive and also harassing the Attorney General because Dr Saraki and a few others are to be arraigned for alleged forgery, the Senate has given indication it is not averse to blackmail. It is unbelievable that the Senate could openly endorse blackmail, as if the august body’s destiny is intertwined with the fates of the accused principal officers.

    What the CCT case has shown, and the forgery case is reiterating, is that too many unprincipled people have been elected into the legislature. Worse, it is also obvious that the lawmakers are led by principal officers with warped understanding of their legislative powers. They have neither demonstrated the character expected of lawmakers nor shown that they possess the kind of vision a great country needs. Indeed, from all indications, neither Dr Saraki nor Senator Ekweremadu, nor yet most national lawmakers feel compelled to change tactics and show a high degree of responsibility. They will fight to the bitter end; they will blackmail the presidency; they will harass the AGF; they will ignore the feelings of the electorate; and they will continue to argue that rather than the merit of the case against them, political detractors are behind their ordeals.

    Every Nigerian must be a great apostle of the rule of law. Therefore, both the presidency and the AGF must be encouraged not succumb to the Senate’s blackmail. Instead, they should help the courts to dispense justice as quickly and efficiently as possible.

  • Senate’s constitution: Are we all frogs in temperate water?

    If anything, most citizens perceive themselves as being dropped into hot water by those they have elected into office and thus feel compelled to jump out before they are killed.

    We tend not to seek or embrace meaningful change except in response to a manifest crisis that carries immediate and direct adverse consequences. The geneses of our latest cyclical crises prove that tendency. The distorted incentives of our financial industry, the latest generation of market bubbles, and our fiscal irresponsibility in the public sector each constitutes an example of the boiling frog phenomenon—a metaphorical reference to the asserted fact that a frog dropped into a pot of boiling water will immediately leap from it, but that that same frog, dropped into a pot of temperate water that is then gradually heated may perceive the mounting heat but will fail to respond to the magnitude of the mounting danger and ultimately will suffocate and will be boiled to death. The frog is us. Indeed, our very cleverness at rationalizing the irrational and denying manifest risks in our midst arguably makes this the age of the boiling frog.—Joseph Ferguson in Transparent Government: What it means and how you can make it happen.

    Ferguson’s stretch of the analogy of boiled frog to everybody may be too much for Nigerians, particularly when one remembers periodic resistance by many civil society organisations of venality, recklessness, and deception of many segments of the country’s elite. But it is no exaggeration that most of the country’s institutions, many political office holders, and their fulltime supporters in uniform or mufti for the past few decades have acted like the boiled frog described in the quotation from Ferguson above.

    The 8th Senate is one of the institutions that can be compared to the boiled dog. It has been mired in controversy since its birth. Some of its leaders are also facing a perjury charge in a court that is having huge problems to sit regularly enough to reach a judicial decision. Many senators have even prevented the senate from sitting promptly and regularly because such leaders find it more dutiful to accompany their colleague on trial for perjury to court, in the name of Nigerian Senate’s espirit de corps. In addition, some of the leaders of the 8th senate are also about to face allegation of forgery. And their colleagues in the country’s hallowed factory of laws are shouting foul at the executive branch, threatening to withdraw the support many senators in the opposition party in particular had generously bestowed on the president in his attempt to fight corruption.

    It is in the midst of these happenings that some senators have had time to propose amendments to the 1999 Constitution, the union’s Basic Laws that were crafted in the middle of the night by departing military dictators and unearthed after the first post-military constitution in 1999 as a fait accompli for the polity.Nobody who cares to observe the deception in the preamble of the constitution about all Nigerians gathering to weave the laws that are to guard and guide the life of Nigeria as a union would worry about the enthusiasm of the 8th senate to rush into amending a constitution perceived by many as not having the consent of the people.

    But true to a Yoruba saying: “there is no good way to prepare Ebolo(a deep-green vegetable with distinctive smell) that will get rid of its strong smell,” many in the 8th senate have, despite all efforts to get a new governance culture, embarked on the wrong cause: using their position of authority, not to champion any form of ennoblement but to push an agenda of self-enrichment at the expense of 70% of citizenswho live in grinding poverty. The current senate is making every effort to improve its conditions of service and work by granting leaders of the Senate and House immunity from investigation and prosecution while they are in office. As if this was not enough, another amendment is to build into the nation’s budget handsome pension benefits for the same set of leaders, for having taken great sacrifice of abandoning their jobs and business to spend their precious time to create laws for the progress of the country.

    Like the frog dropped into temperate water, the 8th senate must have been impervious to the risks of having the courage and lack of wisdom to incense citizens whose humanity must have been diminished by destitution in a country that should have been overflowing with milk and honey. Senators asking for immunity and pension benefits act as if the Nigeria of 2016 is the same that made it possible for previous elected wielders of executive and legislative power to do as they liked, in advancing their self-enrichment and protection from the nation’s laws. Fortunately, the immediate resistance by civil society groups and citizen journalists on the social media of attempts to reshape the constitution to boost senators’ power and enlarge their purse even after they cease to be useful to citizens illustrates that not all Nigerians are frogs dropped into temperate water. If anything, most citizens perceive themselves as being dropped into hot water by those they have elected into office and thus feel compelled to jump out before they are killed.

    To leave the realm of metaphor or analogy aside, in denotative language the attempt by the senate to put principal officers of federal and state legislatures on life-long pension earnings, regardless of how long they serve as lawmakers and in disregard of the country’s financial health and without consideration of the country’s superannuation policies, ought to embarrass and incense all patriotic citizens. There are many reasons why rational senators should not have thought of amending the constitution to give their leaders pension and immunity at a time of near economic emergency in the country.

    One reason is lawmakers’ refusal to be influenced by the hard facts of the nation’s financial crunch. It is no longer news that governments at all levels in the country are facing deep economic and financial crisis as a result of collapsing price of oil and unbridled stealing of public revenue garnered during the years of plenty in the petroleum sector. It is unpatriotic for lawmakers to ignore failure of 27 state governments to pay salaries of workers, including salaries of workers on minimum wage of N18,000 per months. On record, Nigerian lawmakers are the most highly paid lawmakers on the globe. They obtain, among other perquisites, wardrobe allowance; housekeeper’s allowance, driver’s allowance, furniture furniture, and even constituency allowance to perform executive functions while working part-time on legislative duties for which they were elected.

    Secondly, questions that are given critical consideration in better organised polities seem to have been ignored by lawmakers using the platform of amending the constitution to pass more funds to their leaders beyond their service years. Before such decisions are made in other places, the following questions are asked and answered: What is the total worth of the economy and how do recommended policies on pension income for lawmakers reflect the volume of the economy and the size of the nation’s wealth?  How does the wage and pension policy relate to current wage and pension policies of the country? Senators have acted as if the age of manna or awuff is still with us. It is understandable that when they decided to contest for their positions, oil revenue was abundant enough to make the adventurous take a loan to fight for election as a lawmaker.

    With respect to immunity to president and deputy president of each of the two legislative houses, why are senators trying to fix what has not broken? Every legislator is equal to the other. There is no reason to give senators, regardless of the offices their colleagues put them in, special protection from investigation and prosecution while serving as lawmaker. Parliamentary immunity, that protects lawmakers for whatever they say while in parliament, is enough for the job at hand. If the intention is for senators to have the privilege of leaders of the executive branch, the senators pushing for immunity may be reading the mood of the electorate wrong: Nigerians are likely to vote against presidential immunity, if senators make provision for a referendum on such matters. The first rule in nature is to have a sense of self-preservation. Senators are acting as if they have no regard for this rule by pushing for more benefits during the country’s lean years. This is the most appropriate time for the legislature to cooperate with the executive to bring back the years of plenty, before thinking of asking for more perks.

  • About these mirthless comedies …

    No state… has the right to introduce by force, cajolement or stealth, any ideological or objectification of faith into any part of its public institution, including school system, civil service, or other services. Public institutions must be assisted by the nation’s leaders to maintain their secular neutrality.

    I know from experience that tragedy produces its own comedy. If you don’t believe me, just take a look at Nigeria. It is a living proof of a tragic country. Nothing works. Yet from deep within its tragic bowels are coming out incredible acts of mirth that leave your body wracking helplessly in laughter. I tell you, they tempt you to go wake Shakespeare up and rail at him, ‘what do you mean by coming out with this watery stuff you call King Lear or Richard II? Come to Osun State; come to Kogi State; come to Ondo State; come to Kwara State; come to Yobe State; come to Zamfara State for the real thing called tragedy… I’m telling you if you hear the things going on in these Nigerian states, William, you will be sorry for your theatre. Pooh’.

    Take Osun State for instance. It is on record that the state is about the most known for its inability to pay its workers their earned wages. Rather than address that, however, it went about seeking how to go wake up a dog that could not really be said to be sleeping as that it was non-existent. The state government stealthily introduced religion into the school system via the dressing mode. And it has become one national question that will not go away.

              There are other questions that will just not go away, no matter how you shoo them off: Nigeria’s language problem, housing problem, and why it is that every cup of water I drink persists in adding to my weight are examples. But let’s leave those very serious questions for now and face something more comical, Osun State’s Comedy of the Uniforms.

    Now, you and I know one thing about religion. It is emotive. It is hysterical. It is also unreasonable. This was why many nation states that had some serious business of growing to do clipped its wings before sitting down to breakfast. I’m not saying they were right or wrong, but the old communist bloc did it very successfully. Indeed, Stalin was said to have been so successful he made himself a substitute item of worship. True, the people were not happy, but it kept them quiet throughout his tenure. People like that understood the true character of religion and men; men need something to worship (religion) and would usually allow it to run away with them until they forget the propelling motive in the first place (God).

    Perhaps, the Osun state government needed to distract the people for a while from the hunger in their stomach, I don’t know. The result of what it did has been a veritable tableau of the incredible consorting with the unbelievable. First, it was incredible that the government would introduce religion (either through governmental fiat, bill or the courts, no matter), knowing how divisive a matter it is, into the innocent school children’s lives. Secondly, it was unbelievable that the people would respond to the matter the way they have done.

    Honestly, the picture that has been given to the world of the state of things in Osun is that of a state in dire economic straits, and of a governor who insists on holding on to his private jet, like his favourite toy. We all understood that workers were being owed salaries of up to or more than eight months. We understood that the economic situation had become so desperate that one report said an unpaid worker opted to ingest a chemical in a gesture of suicide. So, I sort of imagined everyone walking around the state stooped, frothing anger in the mouth and grumbling emptiness in the stomach.

    However, when the matter of religion was introduced into the state’s public schools, it seemed everyone quickly started to walk erect again, the grumblings in the stomachs forgotten. Now, the people are still frothing in the mouth though but from a different kind of anger. So, we have a situation where the governor denies having issued any order as to what children should wear or not wear as uniform, the main religions in the state still dress up their wards as their faiths dictate, and chaos shakes hands with confusion in a gentlemanly agreement. Satan rules, ok.

    I ask, in all of these, where has learning been relegated to? I ask this because I want to imagine that with so much inter-faith conferencing and uniform comparisons going on, not much learning can be taking place, only tragic laughter is being produced. Everyone should be thoroughly distracted by the various colours being displayed in this mirthless comedy.

    Nigeria on paper and in practice is a secular state. No state, no matter how sectarian it might be, has the right to introduce by force, cajolement or stealth, any ideological or objectification of faith into any part of its public system, including school, civil service, or other institutions. Public institutions must be assisted by the nation’s leaders to maintain their neutrality for the sake of now and posterity. Their failure to do this will surely make this secular cookie crumble.

    One thing that is making me froth in the mouth though is another question that will just not go away. It is this question of politicians in the assemblies asking to be given pension and impunity. Did I just write impunity? I thought they were enjoying that already. Oh, they said immunity, eh, but it sounded more like impunity to me; I’m not deaf, thanks. I only wish our politicians knew just how much work there is to do.

    Each day, driving through Nigerian streets, one is accosted by an army of beggars of literally every hue and description, some being assisted by their employees or employers, you never can tell. Many of them are clearly materials for state intervention that is not forthcoming. They are usually cases of obvious cancers that are being taken through the streets because the patients and their relatives do not know what else to do. Yet, the government is quiet. The assemblies are quiet.

    I look forward to the time when we will have a truly mature national assembly that will not be fighting for impunity, immunity, pension or posts for itself. Instead, it would actually think about the people; it would fight to have a bill mandating the country, either through the state or directly, to take over cancer cases once the doctors establish its presence in an individual. This bill would make the state or country help the hospital to take over the management of that patient. I tell you, this would not only reduce the suffering of the people, it would actually make the people thaw a bit towards the assembly. As it is now, the people’s hearts are just one step away from being frozen over towards them forever.

         Besides, if pensions are doled out to politicians, who exactly would it go to and how many? A politician whose assembly tenure is interrupted once or twice qualifies for how many pensions? The other day, I heard that a local government chairman was wondering aloud why LG chairmen should not be given pension. I wondered too.

         Most importantly, we have said it on this column repeatedly that the 1999 assembly attracted a lot of grief from the people owing to the emoluments it fixed for itself. Even though that assembly provided the excuse that it had included pension and other things, no one was impressed. So, writing in pensions for elected politicians now into the constitution still sounds like a sleight of hand thing to do. It is just another mirthless comedy.

  • About these mirthless comedies…

    • No state… has the right to introduce by force, cajolement or stealth, any ideological or objectification of faith into any part of its public institution, including school system, civil service, or other services. Public institutions must be assisted by the nation’s leaders to maintain their secular neutrality.

    I know from experience that tragedy produces its own comedy. If you don’t believe me, just take a look at Nigeria. It is a living proof of a tragic country. Nothing works. Yet from deep within its tragic bowels are coming out incredible acts of mirth that leave your body wracking helplessly in laughter. I tell you, they tempt you to go wake Shakespeare up and rail at him, ‘what do you mean by coming out with this watery stuff you call King Lear or Richard II? Come to Osun State; come to Kogi State; come to Ondo State; come to Kwara State; come to Yobe State; come to Zamfara State for the real thing called tragedy… I’m telling you if you hear the things going on in these Nigerian states, William, you will be sorry for your theatre. Pooh’.

    Take Osun State for instance. It is on record that the state is about the most known for its inability to pay its workers their earned wages. Rather than address that, however, it went about seeking how to go wake up a dog that could not really be said to be sleeping as that it was non-existent. The state government stealthily introduced religion into the school system via the dressing mode. And it has become one national question that will not go away.

    There are other questions that will just not go away, no matter how you shoo them off: Nigeria’s language problem, housing problem, and why it is that every cup of water I drink persists in adding to my weight are examples. But let’s leave those very serious questions for now and face something more comical, Osun State’s Comedy of the Uniforms.

    Now, you and I know one thing about religion. It is emotive. It is hysterical. It is also unreasonable. This was why many nation states that had some serious business of growing to do clipped its wings before sitting down to breakfast. I’m not saying they were right or wrong, but the old communist bloc did it very successfully. Indeed, Stalin was said to have been so successful he made himself a substitute item of worship. True, the people were not happy, but it kept them quiet throughout his tenure. People like that understood the true character of religion and men; men need something to worship (religion) and would usually allow it to run away with them until they forget the propelling motive in the first place (God).

    Perhaps, the Osun state government needed to distract the people for a while from the hunger in their stomach, I don’t know. The result of what it did has been a veritable tableau of the incredible consorting with the unbelievable. First, it was incredible that the government would introduce religion (either through governmental fiat, bill or the courts, no matter), knowing how divisive a matter it is, into the innocent school children’s lives. Secondly, it was unbelievable that the people would respond to the matter the way they have done.

    Honestly, the picture that has been given to the world of the state of things in Osun is that of a state in dire economic straits, and of a governor who insists on holding on to his private jet, like his favourite toy. We all understood that workers were being owed salaries of up to or more than eight months. We understood that the economic situation had become so desperate that one report said an unpaid worker opted to ingest a chemical in a gesture of suicide. So, I sort of imagined everyone walking around the state stooped, frothing anger in the mouth and grumbling emptiness in the stomach.

    However, when the matter of religion was introduced into the state’s public schools, it seemed everyone quickly started to walk erect again, the grumblings in the stomachs forgotten. Now, the people are still frothing in the mouth though but from a different kind of anger. So, we have a situation where the governor denies having issued any order as to what children should wear or not wear as uniform, the main religions in the state still dress up their wards as their faiths dictate, and chaos shakes hands with confusion in a gentlemanly agreement. Satan rules, ok.

    I ask, in all of these, where has learning been relegated to? I ask this because I want to imagine that with so much interfaith conferencing and uniform comparisons going on, not much learning can be taking place, only tragic laughter is being produced. Everyone should be thoroughly distracted by the various colours being displayed in this mirthless comedy.

    Nigeria on paper and in practice is a secular state. No state, no matter how sectarian it might be, has the right to introduce by force, cajolement or stealth, any ideological or objectification of faith into any part of its public system, including school, civil service, or other institutions. Public institutions must be assisted by the nation’s leaders to maintain their neutrality for the sake of now and posterity. Their failure to do this will surely make this secular cookie crumble.

    One thing that is making me froth in the mouth, though is another question that will just not go away. It is this question of politicians in the assemblies asking to be given a pension and impunity. Did I just write impunity? I thought they were enjoying that already. Oh, they said immunity, eh, but it sounded more like impunity to me; I’m not deaf, thanks. I only wish our politicians knew just how much work there is to do.

    Each day, driving through Nigerian streets, one is accosted by an army of beggars of literally every hue and description, some being assisted by their employees or employers, you never can tell. Many of them are clearly materials for state intervention that is not forthcoming. They are usually cases of obvious cancers that are being taken through the streets because the patients and their relatives do not know what else to do. Yet, the government is quiet. The assemblies are quiet.

    I look forward to the time when we will have a truly mature national assembly that will not be fighting for impunity, immunity, pension or posts for itself. Instead, it would actually think about the people; it would fight to have a bill mandating the country, either through the state or directly, to take over cancer cases once the doctors establish its presence in an individual. This bill would make the state or country help the hospital to take over the management of that patient. I tell you, this would not only reduce the suffering of the people, it would actually make the people thaw a bit towards the assembly. As it is now, the people’s hearts are just one step away from being frozen over towards them forever.

    Besides, if pensions are doled out to politicians, who exactly would it go to and how many? A politician whose assembly tenure is interrupted once or twice qualifies for how many pensions? The other day, I heard that a local government chairman was wondering aloud why LG chairmen should not be given a pension. I wondered too.

    Most importantly, we have said it on this column repeatedly that the 1999 assembly attracted a lot of grief from the people owing to the emoluments it fixed for itself. Even though that assembly provided the excuse that it had included pension and other things, no one was impressed. So, writing in pensions for elected politicians now into the constitution still sounds like a sleight of hand thing to do. It is just another mirthless comedy.