The Nation Newspaper

Category: Sunday

  • Reactions

    This week, dear reader, I present some reactions to some recent discussions presented on this spot. As usual, I have tinkered with them a tad to make them flow more fluently. Please remember that they are the views of the writers, so I take no responsibility for them, any more than the editor is prepared to lay down his head for mine.

    Are we not burdened enough that we must yet add learning French to our problems? (14th February, 2016)

    write in reaction to Oyinkan Medubi’s submission on page 16 of The Nation newspaper on Sunday February 14 2016. Permit me to debunk some of the reasons given for discouraging the learning of French in Nigeria.

    1. The French language is not being proposed in Nigeria “for the sake” of our neighbours but for own sake! It is in our interest to take back the jobs our francophone neighbours have taken up on our own soil. I know that some French and francophone embassies in Nigeria employ drivers, porters and other cadres from outside Nigeria as they are unable to find French speaking Nigerians to take up these positions. Meanwhile, the average Francophone is bilingual (speaking both English and French) and can take up jobs anywhere in Nigeria and beyond.
    2. Learning or speaking more languages does not mean Nigerians will not be “able to think straight”! On the contrary, the more languages you speak, the better for your intellect as “the limit of a man’s language is the limit of his world” (Anonymous). I have met people who speak 6 – 8 languages and who count among the best in their chosen professions. As a matter of fact, most technologically advanced countries make their children learn at least two foreign languages while in secondary school. More languages make you wiser.
    3. You also mentioned lack of funds for training teachers of French, writing textbooks and developing teaching aids. France helped in the past and is still willing to help, provided we ask.
    4. Concerning keeping our national affairs secret from foreigners, I am yet to know of any country with modern media (no matter the language used) that has succeeded in keeping such secrets. What we need is to be equipped (linguistically) to hear more nations’ secrets (especially our neighbours) for our own security. How many Nigerians periodically tune to a neigbouring francophone radio or TV station for their news? But they listen to ours because they learn both English and French!
    5. We cannot over emphasize the economic and political advantages of French in Nigeria. Lack of competence in French is one of the reasons Nigeria has not been able to produce a Secretary-General for the United Nations while Ghana has produced Koffi Anan! How many Nigerians are competent to do what Ibn Chambers is doing in ECOWAS? To gain our rightful place as the giant of Africa in international diplomacy, French is the answer!
    6. If other world powers are jealous that Nigeria is adopting French as one of our official languages, let them give Nigerians scholarships to learn their languages too! (German, Japanese, Chinese, etc.)
    7. Where there is will, there is a way. Whether we learn French or not, Nigerian languages will continue to die as long as parents do not speak it at home to their children. I am well versed in French and English and yet all my children speak and write Yoruba fluently because my husband and I encourage them to do so. I know many people that French has opened doors for and taken them far in life and who will continue to encourage everyone they come across to learn it. Learning French will help to alleviate Nigeria’s unemployment problems among our youth. It can NEVER add to Nigeria’s problems! (M. A. (Mrs.), Akure).

    Kidnapping, Plc. (20th March, 2016)

      Your deeply touching piece, KIDNAPPING Plc., of March 20, 2016, really opened up a raw truth about our nation’s present security status. A band of outlaws holding most part of a nation, normal everyday hard-working families, professionals, to ransom and it seems we can do nothing. The president had made fighting corruption and insecurity part of his major agenda in seeking the presidency. Apart from confronting the insurgency in the north-east, the malaise of vicious kidnapping largely in the south has been left to fester. There seems to be no direct policy thrust as yet.

    The police seem to be confronted by the huge scale of this monster but I know their anti-kidnapping squads along with the DSS have recorded good success in apprehending many of these villains. But the scale of the problem is huge. There presently seems no security plan in place to forestall and prevent citizens from being kidnapped. It is hard. More so, there are security reports that it seems certain leading players in society have a hand in this crime. I was told in confidence by an urbane police officer of the calls he gets from high quarters to release on bail some of the miscreants arrested. A security officer told me how lawyers stormed their office when once they apprehended a notorious kidnapping kingpin, requesting for his bail. Yes, senior lawyers.

    What the police and the DSS need is to be equipped technologically to wipe out this scourge. It also needs a figure like the American J. Edgar Hoover, who led his FBI to rid America of anarchists and the mafia scourge. Nigeria’s government just needs to make this fight a priority and get that certain bold person like Commissioner M. of the EFCC, who is fearless and knows no big shot, to be given the necessary backing to lead this effort to end this nightmare. While we wait for the government, let us keep praying we don’t fall prey. It seems all we can do now is to pray. (C. C. Barrister).

    Reading through your article now, Kidnapping, Plc, you did not in even a sentence mention the biggest kidnap saga (the Chibok girls) in your write up. It’s all about your family and town. Kwot! (S. from Kaduna. 2348051466606)

    Hello, Oyinkan, I read your article in… about kidnapping. It’s very informative. God will bless you. You can now see why people are agitating… Mrs. O. 2348069133729

    Good day total sister, in a given environment of poverty, sordid character must take place. Our worst enemy are Police and NEPA. (Prince G. 2348093778665)

    PU: Yeah, I’m all right, folks, thanks for asking. The gentleman who thought I had been unduly self-absorbed on the kidnap of my family member should please read some past editions of this column in this newspaper and he will find many discussions on the Chibok girls’ disappearance.

    Can there really be equality of the sexes, ever? (13th March, 2016)

    Ma, your postscript of 13/3/16 coming from a lady was very instructive. God could have made us like worms or snails if He meant equality. He meant balance or as you better defined it, equilibrium. More grease. (O. O. 2348153469101)

    Dear Madam Medubi, you are one of the reasons I buy The Nation every Sunday. I enjoy your column. Your article, ‘Can there really be equality of the sexes, ever?’… was, to me, a masterpiece. It educated me a lot on this vexed issue of gender equality. Your perspective was so sensible and effervescent. Great article… (O. N. Abuja 2348092055256)

    Aunty, your article on female equality refers. My own case as per finesse in the home is the opposite. My wife sees nothing wrong if she brings tin plates to the table with fried eggs for my guests and I, even though I have lovely crockery. So? (2347054570637)

    PU: Thank you for your kind words, sirs. I like it when people tell me I am sensible. It makes me think I am a little better than Cleopatra who kept a snake by her for a rainy day! Anyway, my word to the last commentator is that he should not despair; he should just pass all that lovely crockery to me.

  • Emir of Kano on ‘Awuff’ political economy and re-structuring

    Emir of Kano on ‘Awuff’ political economy and re-structuring

    But contrary to quick interpretations of Emir Sanusi’s call for structural reform, there is nothing in his statement at Olabisi Onabanjo University to suggest that the emir is by this statement recommending the kind of restructuring that can lead to re-federalisation of the country

    Two key concepts in today’s title are ‘Awuff’ or Awuufu in the Yorubanised version of this Pidgin concept and political economy. Political economy in this context is to be understood in its simplest form as how a country is managed or governed, taking into consideration political and economic factors that serve as dominant drivers of the country’s economy and by extension its polity. Awuff, a word recently given additional conceptual energy by Prof. Akin Mabogunje, is akin to ‘Manna’ in biblical terms. It refers to the power of a free good (that arises not from the sweat of a people but as a good bestowed on the people by nature or any generous agency), but which in its plenitude drives economic, political, and even social behaviour of the people with such endowment. The interest of this page today is to amplify the thoughts of Prof. Mabogunje and the Emir of Kano on concepts that seem to have driven the political organisation of this country for about half a century.

    It is remarkable that two of Nigeria’s seminal professionals: Professor  Mabogunje, one of the world’s most cited development experts and Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, the emir of Nigeria’s most metropolitan and cosmopolitan emirate and former governor of the country’s central bank chose to discuss the country’s major motivation in the country’s journey to modern governance, particularly in the current context of what looks like a gradual evaporation of  petroleum, the principal driver over the years of the country’s Awuff political economy. Even though Professor Mabogunje’s use of the concept focused on how easy flow of petrodollars fostered corruption, indolence and wastage at the institutional and personal level, the description of the character of Nigeria’s political economy by the Emir makes direct connection between a Manna economy and the 36 state structure that many Nigerians including modern and traditional cultural leaders as inevitable to the country’s unity.

    Given the professional pedigree of Prof. Mabogunje and the Emir of Kano and their knowledge of the country’s political economy, it is instructive that both of them have chosen to call for a review of the pivotal role of petroleum in the country’s political economy and culture. The intellectual intervention of the two leaders in their respective professional domains has called for an end to the decades of denial that had characterised political discourse in the country. Most of the time, especially in the decades of military government, the emphasis has been on the need to use the country’s resources to promote military dictators’ understanding of unity in a plural society.

    In the decades of military rule, no effort was spared to create a political structure that was driven by manna from petroleum. The four regions in 1966 grew by leaps and bounds to 36 states in 1996, all at the instance of military dictators. Each state was created to make use of the awuff from petroleum. The Emir has been unequivocal about the huge influence of petroleum revenue on the political construction of the country: “If you really reflect on the problems of this country, it seems to turn common sense on its head….You sometimes wonder if anyone needs to tell any group of people that if you are a poor country, you do not need 36 governors, 36 deputy governors, with members of house of assembly, commissioners and advisers, special assistants, a president, a vice president, 36 ministers, special advisers, federal legislature and so on….Simple arithmetic will tell you that if you have that structure, you are first of all doomed to spending 80 or 90 per cent of everything you earn maintaining public officers. It is really common sense but it seems to be a problem for us to understand it….If you don’t free up the resources and put them up for capital projects, you are laying the foundation of what we are seeing today. We need to have structural reform.” (My emphasis)

    Though not totally new in the country’s Unity discourse, the Emir’s analysis of the creation of 36 fragmented states and 774 local governments as receptacles of monthly revenue allocations to over 100 subnational units seems materialist and superior to idealist thoughts that the more you create structures that take governance to small unviable units, the more united Nigeria’s unity would be guaranteed.  But contrary to quick interpretations of Emir Sanusi’s call for structural reform, there is nothing in his statement at Olabisi Onabanjo University to suggest that the emir is by this statement recommending the kind of restructuring that can lead to re-federalisation of the country. Structural reform of the country to prevent waste can also mean asking for further unitarisation of the country in a manner reminiscent of Major-General Aguiyi-Ironsi’s decree that attempted to end the federal system upon which the country obtained independence from Great Britain. Admittedly, the emir did not have to spell out the details of his idea of restructuring or reform in just one speech at the Ago-Iwoye event.

    While it may be reassuring to advocates of federalism in the country that the Emir of Kano, the second largest state in the country according to the last census, has called for restructuring, it may be an over interpretation for his call for reform to be seen as the emir’s enrolment in the registrar of advocates for re-federalisation. But the brave call by one of the occupants of the top echelon of traditional political and cultural power in the country should not be missed by incurable federalists like the writer of this column. Nigeria’s future beyond petroleum is not just about sustaining 36 largely unviable states, it also includes re-thinking the funding of 774 local governments, all under the guise of promoting a third tier of governance. Nigeria is the only country of its size on the globe with almost 800 local governments that are funded separately from the states or provinces that contain them. There is no doubt that Awuff-guzzling third tier of government, like its 36 second tier level, would not have arisen if it was not for huge rents collected from petroleum exploitation, put at the disposal of unelected engineers of the Nigerian state during the military era.

    Efforts by the Buhari government to embark on shuttle diplomacy to increase the price of oil through reduction of supply is understandable as a short-term solution to the sudden drop in government revenue arising from collapse of oil price in the international market. But it is better for the country’s rulers to think like Professor Mabogunje and Emir Sanusi: that the end of the ethos of fossil energy may have begun and may stay with us on and off for decades to come, if not on account of temporary glut but also as a result of a new creative destruction from innovators of environmentally sustainable development scientists and ideologues, particularly in the West with the possibility of similar innovators emerging from China and India.

    The kind of restructuring that Nigeria needs, as it gets ready to create a new economy that is driven by agriculture and manufacturing, is one that reconceptualises how to sustain national unity, not through centralisation of power and functions in Abuja or fragmentation of states fuelled by funds from centrally collected revenue from solid or liquid minerals but through commitment to fiscal federalism. It is not likely that without the usual flow of revenue from oil the country will be able to sustain 36 state bureaucracies and 774 administrative centres designed to consume whatever is allocated without the power to generate enough revenue internally to pay for administrative agencies that leave little impact on the welfare of citizens in most of the states and local governments. Instead of hoping that oil will rebound and bring its easy funds that had driven Awuff political economy at the institutional and personal level to the extent of making the country a huge cafeteria for mindless consumption and wastage, governors of the states and local governments that are not likely to survive without regular transfer of funds from Awuff federation account should join forces with the Emir and like-minded believers in the imperative of restructuring the country. Most of the governors need to know that talking about increasing IGR is not likely to yield anything substantial, without a new political structure that is similar to the ones that worked before the intervention of military dictators in the design of the country’s architecture of governance. Fortunately, such policy option cannot be against the spirit of President Buhari’s idea of unity, given his manifesto that commits to “initiating action to amend our Constitution with a view to devolving powers, duties and responsibilities to states and local governments in order to entrench true Federalism and the Federal spirit.”

  • State of nature

    State of nature

    Can Black people handle the modern nation-state? As the twenty first century finally gets into its mighty strides, there has been no shortage of drama and excitement. There have been a couple of “revolutions” against the old order. The Middle East has been on a permanent boil. Externally induced wars have seen to the end of Iraq as it came to be known after colonial surgery in the wake of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.

    As a fallout of the fratricidal confrontations in Iraq, Syria and Libya, a humanitarian catastrophe the like of which has not been seen since the Second World War threatens the very foundation of the nation-state in Europe. The whole world is becoming a very unusual place even for its leading nations.

    The nation-state paradigm which has brought humankind its most spectacular achievements to date appears to have reached the end of its tether. Nobody can be sure of what will replace it and how this will be done. We live in interesting times. This is about the only thing one can vouchsafe for now.

    In a sense, it is obvious that this is going to be a shorter century than the twentieth century which the great historian, Eric Hobsbawm, has described as the shortest century in history. Times and epochs appear very short and fleeting when galloping and breathtaking events unfold mercilessly and with a cruel and relentless tempo. If we ever thought that the remarkable twentieth century was “short”, this one promises to trump all records.

    The grim irony cannot be lost on European statesmen and its philosophers of human progress. The very naïve belief that the international order of nation-states imposed on the rest of the world by European states after the treaties of Westphalia and Utrecht will bring peace, progress and prosperity to humanity by osmosis and by heroic imitation now lies in ruins and among barbed wires in a vast no-man -land across old Carthage, the Middle East and the outer fringes of Europe. The ghosts of colonial cartography have finally arrived at the banquet of imperial impunity.

    But if gold can rust, what will dross do? In the beginning, this century was touted as Africa’s own century and the golden opportunity for the entire Black race to struggle free of the millennial savagery imposed on the continent by colonial conquest and confiscation. Ever since the middle of the fifteenth century, an entire continent and race have been reeling from a coordinated and systemic subjugation from Europe and the Middle East which virtually destroyed its traditional political institutions, its traditional belief system, self-confidence and its mode of apprehending and making sense of reality which have been in place for over a millennia.

    In the place of this ancient system, Africa was saddled with inchoate and incoherent political institutions which further distort the African psyche, an absurd legal and judicial system which lacks the rigour of applicability and the terror of deterrence, and a religious arrangement which has seen to the rise of spiritual predators and hypocritical vendors and vultures of venality all over the continent. Hell is on earth and it is here on the African continent in its most troubling manifestation.

    This is the root cause of the trouble with Africa and a gargantuan mishmash and mismatch like Nigeria. To be sure, other peoples and races have been conquered and subjected to systematic pillage before, but they have managed to retain their ontology and fundamental cosmology, yielding only to change that is organically driven and internally powered by local forces at play. No African nation can overcome crippling limitations imposed on Africa by the nation-state paradigm except its talented first eleven are allowed to roll up their sleeves and set to work.

    Africa was never designed as a congeries of nation-states. The Berlin Conference of 1884/1885 in which the “virgin” continent was carved up parceled among the colonial adventurers attests much to this fact. The entire continent was compulsorily and forcibly acquired as a market and trading outlets for European goods. Till date, many African countries, long after the departure of the colonial masters, still behave with true fidelity to the founding charter.

    Yet despite this crippling genetic disability, there was much hope for Africa at the beginning of this century. The optimism was not entirely misplaced. South Africa had finally shaken off the yoke of the monstrous system of apartheid. A new Black elite redolent of hope and possibilities was in power. After almost two decades of the most vicious military despotism, a new democratic dawn arrived in Nigeria just as the new century was birthed. Angola had seen off the cheerfully bloodthirsty Joseph Savimbi.

    A few African countries, particularly Ghana, Botswana, Senegal, Tanzania and Mozambique were also stirring. If only these countries, particularly Nigeria and South Africa, could achieve a linkage of soul and system, then they could serve as the much needed economic hub for the entire continent. The Black person was on song once again.

    Unfortunately, sixteen years into the new century, the hope has spectacularly dimmed. Libya has unraveled under the weight of internal contradictions, leaving many sub-Saharan countries unprotected from the scourge and menace of al-Queda and ISIS. The Arab spring has eventuated in even more authoritarian and paternalistic regimes. With Jacob Zuma, South Africa is stalling and struggling to regain the old magic of the founding patriarchs of the post-apartheid settlement.

    But it is the Nigerian tragedy that is most compelling. Nigeria remains a classic example of how not to run or organize a nation-state except it is a state of nature where everything is short, nasty and brutish. But it is precisely because of this abject nature of human irresponsibility that primitive human kind resolved to put their destiny in the hands of a law-imposing Leviathan.

    Despite the euphoria surrounding the departure of the military, the nation appears to have suffered a complete and comprehensive institutional implosion. None of the three arms of government appears to have been spared. In fact if a fraction of the daily menu of outlandish revelations are to be believed, one can  safely say that the nation has been  saddled with the worst breed of elite vermin ever thrown up by the entire continent.

    It is clear then that under the present circumstances, Nigeria isn’t going anywhere. The damage to the national psyche and fabric has been overwhelming. There is despair and despondency abroad. An eerie disorientation has settled on the nation. Victims applaud their victimizers, in a startling display of what is known as the Stockholm syndrome. A group known as Bring Back Corruption is advocating a return to the shameless old order. As it was in the beginning with old colonization, so it is now with the new colonization.

    But one thing should now be clear from the creeping anarchy and lawlessness.  If the major culprits of this historic heist ever go Scot free or with a slap on the wrist as a result of our derelict legal and judicial system or some shabby political compromise, we can be sure that the Hobbesian state of nature will be a child’s play compared to what may overtake us. The signs are already there in the bestiality, the economic cannibalism, the do or die politics and the flagrant disregard for the sanctity of the human flesh.

    In the light of this, we must now reframe our founding question. Can the Black person ever do nation-states? Certainly not under the current format and structure. In Nigeria, the whole structure has to be comprehensively reworked. The structural logjam places an impossible burden on messianic intervention and the lone visionary. While we must applaud General Buhari’s sense of duty and abiding patriotism, it is now obvious that the Nigerian project requires a total revisioning and reworking to bring the country at par with the dictates and precepts of a true nation-state.

    Nigeria cannot be described as a failed state because it was never designed to work for Nigerians in the first instance. As Chief Obafemi Awolowo famously forewarned as far back as 1945, creating a country is different from creating an organic nation. The humungous mess we are saddled with bristling with enemy nationals and mutually unintelligible cultures cannot be so described except as a cruel joke among political scientists. Nation-building is not a tea conference.

    As it is today, with nothing standing between its primordial instincts and aborted modernity, the post-colonial state in Nigeria is a hybrid monstrosity gradually reverting to a state of nature where hunter-gatherers prevail, no matter what decorative garbs they wear to the cannibal festival. This is the ultimate political psychosis where a state is primitive in soul and psyche but wears the gaudy apparel of modern governance. As an overriding state task, President Buhari must urgently gather a group of wise Nigerians to apprise him of the dangers facing the country and the immediate way forward.

    In order to highlight the critical nature of the trouble with the country, we bring our dear readers a passage from The Remains of the Last Emperor where the following dialogue ensued between the hero and the psychiatrist-protagonist.

    “Doctor, what will happen when madness is finally eradicated from the world?” he muttered at him. The doctor stopped abruptly and then turned towards us.

    “Wouldn’t that be madness?” he began calmly. “We are not saying that madness should be eradicated. All we are saying is that some lower forms of madness should be exchanged for higher ones. Think of us in a hundred years to come still fighting corruption, armed robbery and the wastage of our best and brightest a time when we should be concerned with how to guarantee equal social opportunities for all with maximum political liberty.”(p.81)

    Twenty four years after these words were written and sixteen years into the new century, Nigeria is battling with even more vicious forms of corruption and armed robbery and other social vices even as we continue to waste our best and brightest.

    As the columnist writes this, reports came from Rivers State that an army major and some enlisted men had been shot and killed by brigands while they were on patrol to curb the activities of political thugs and economic miscreants who have turned that area into Nigeria’s axis of evil. It doesn’t get more depressing.

    Where is Thomas Adeoye Lambo who famously advocated a psychiatric evaluation for all prospective office holders in this country? As a youth, Lambo was once known to have worn a mask to his rich mother’s stall thinking that he was beyond recognition. But the matriarch quickly recognized the masquerade as her own son. As at this moment, not even the colonial political midwives would recognize the nightmare that is Nigeria.

  • Justice Haliru’s welcome boldness

    Justice Haliru’s welcome boldness

    Not since a Supreme Court justice blew his tops sometime in 2007 over ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo’s meddlesomeness (in either the Rotimi Amaechi governorship qualification case or ex-vice president Atiku Abubakar’s presidential qualification case) have Nigerians seen a judge so angry at officialdom as when Justice Yusuf Haliru of an Abuja High Court blasted the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for trampling on the constitution. Last week, Justice Haliru had taken on both the EFCC and the Nigerian Army in the case of the enforcement of the rights of Col. Nicholas Ashinze detained since December. The detained officer, a former aide of Col. Sambo Dasuki (retd.), was first locked up by the EFCC without charge or bail, and then handed over to the army, which also locked him up without charge or bail.

    A furious Justice Haliru had exploded thus: “The EFCC is a creation of the law. The court will not allow it to act as if it is above the law. It is remarkable to note that the motto of the EFCC is that nobody is above the law, yet they are acting as if they are above the law. The EFCC Act is not superior to the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The respondents in this matter have not behaved as if we are in a civilised society. They have behaved as if we are in a military dictatorship where they arrest and release persons at will. The respondents —the EFCC and the Army— I must be bold to say, have behaved like illiterates. Why has the 1st respondent kept the applicant without bringing him to court? Why was the applicant, being a serving military officer, who could be easily reached, not granted administrative bail? Or is it that the applicant has been found guilty and already serving his jail term? Nobody should be subjected to the whims and caprices of the EFCC. The essence of the rule of law and constitutional provisions is to ensure a just balance between the ruler and the ruled, between the powerful and the weak. Though the EFCC has the responsibility to investigate financial crime, it must, however, conduct its operations in accordance with the rule of law. The court is empowered to guard against improper use of power by any member of the society or agency, EFCC inclusive.”

    It is impossible to render Justice Haliru’s view on the issue, and in the matter of individual rights and justice, better than he has framed it himself. His view is weighty, balanced, succinct, bold and magisterial. If the Col. Ashinze case had not taken place in the context of increasing high-handedness of the Muhammadu Buhari presidency, Justice Haliru would still have been right and measured to declaim upon the matter before him in the manner he did. That the case is heard in the current abysmal atmosphere of creeping executive and bureaucratic excesses makes the eminent judge’s candour even more attractive and indispensable. The judge begins by acknowledging the credo of the EFCC, a credo which by the way, and right from inception, they never had the culture of respecting in their messianic pursuit of the anti-graft war. EFCC assumes that because it offers a great service to society by fighting those who plunder the country, the public should naturally and unquestioningly rally behind them, whether evidence hold up in court or not, and whether adequate investigations have been done or not.

    Justice Haliru follows up by reminding the anti-graft agency that the EFCC Act is not superior to the Nigerian Constitution that guarantees the rights of citizens and determines under what conditions those rights can be suspended or forfeited. This point is lost on many Nigerians who, in their patriotic concern for good and ethical governance, often embrace and acquiesce to executive excesses and lawlessness. The eminent judge then descends on both organisations, describing them as behaving like illiterates living and operating in an uncivilised society. Finally, in case some Nigerians forget the role the judiciary plays, just as the Buhari presidency appears to do, the judge reminds everyone that the courts are empowered to guard against excesses and oppression, and to stand between the weak and the strong. That, the judge concludes, is the essence of the rule of law. It is this rule of law that sets the civilised society apart from a barbarian society.

    It is, however, unlikely that anytime soon, Nigerians will appreciate Justice Haliru’s umbrage. They are hurting too much to care what happens to the rule of law. Their patrimony has been so alienated by a few rich and powerful people that they can’t care less what measures, civilised or not, decent or brutish, are meted out to the offenders, most of whom had been tried and convicted before ever they were charged in court. The misery and squalor in which they dwell, which are attributed to the actions of a malfeasant few, have triggered such great animus in them that they conclude that the constitution and the laws of the republic need unorthodox, even authoritarian, help to preserve and promote. Left to the public, the EFCC and the army, the suspected offenders are all guilty simply because the EFCC or the government has declared them so. Having been declared guilty, and on account of the grief and misery they are alleged to have brought upon the country, it is considered that they no longer deserve civilised treatment. The same barbarous way in which the corrupt attacked the country’s treasury, say the EFCC and those who support their extraordinary methods, make them deserving of barbarous treatment. But in the opinion of Justice Haliru, such methods would reduce the country to the hideous level of the miscreants.

    At a time when President Buhari intriguingly declared the judiciary his main headache, at a time when the EFCC was running rampant on the rule of law and promoting the belief, without necessarily saying so, that the entire judiciary was corrupt, at a time when only a few people in the country subscribed to the need to defend institutions and not succumb to mass hysteria, at a time when virtually all lawyers and judges were quaking in their boots lest the EFCC train their guns on them, it was courageous in the extreme for Justice Haliru to explode a depth bomb beneath the EFCC and the army. Both oganisations, not to talk of the Department of State Service (DSS), apparently inspired by the presidency’s indifference to the judiciary and the rule of law, were increasingly becoming arbitrary and authoritarian. The two organisations view any attack on them as an attack on the state. And they equate any attack on their methods with defending corruption and the corrupt. Even in the murkier days of Goodluck Jonathan, such a horrendous equation was not directly and flagrantly voiced or espoused.

    Justice Haliru has courageously done the judiciary a world of service. The EFCC and the army needed taming. His trenchant dismissal of the two organisations’ methods — not their functions, as he was careful to point out — reminds everyone the risk the country runs when an agency begins to trample on the rights of those who have not been tried, let alone convicted, and the rights of those who by deliberate and injurious propaganda have been virtually pronounced guilty and undeserving of civilised treatment and protection of the constitution. The judge carpeted both organisations because he was smart enough to see through their ploys. When the EFCC feels the pressure of the courts and the rule of law, it releases its captives to security organisations with a more robust and sinister contempt for the law, such as the army and the DSS which believe that without them and the sacrifice they make, the republic would be doomed. This was what the EFCC did with Col. Dasuki (retd.), whom they passed on to the DSS, and Col. Ashinze, whom they handed over to the army, two powerful organisations that now act as appellate jailors.

    Until Justice Haliru seized the bull by the horns, judges were in a panic to avoid the waspish tongue of the EFCC; and because of the bind Ricky Tarfa, a lawyer and senior advocate, found himself, lawyers tiptoed around the anti-graft agency and spoke in whispers near its officers. In fact, for many months until now, it was perhaps only the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Mahmud Mohammed, who stood up to the presidency and the rampaging anti-graft agencies, warning of the danger of wholesale condemnation of the judiciary. He acknowledged that like other institutions, there were some undesirable elements in the judiciary deserving to be exposed and punished. But he also said he was appalled by the undiscriminating manner the judiciary was being harassed, intimidated and denounced.

    How, in their enthusiasm to clean up the country, President Buhari and the anti-graft agencies became inured to the dangers of provoking incalculable damage to the judiciary and even instigating public loss of faith in that vital institution is hard to explain. The first task of a president is to protect the three arms of government in line with the oath he took to defend the constitution, promote their independence despite any shortcoming or misgiving, and recognise that democracy could not survive without the stabilising and restraining influences of the tripod. Justice Haliru clearly articulated this point, and the CJN voiced his concern as well under his breath. It is indisputable that corruption endangers everything, but like every surgeon knows, how a disease is extirpated also matters. This is why chemotherapy kills healthy and cancerous cells together, and is therefore not too effective a therapy; but surgery in the hands of a skilled surgeon helps to remove bad cells and leaves healthy ones. What the fight against corruption calls for is a president and his anti-graft agencies operating as skilled surgeons, with especially a visionary president quite capable of finding the titre value of his policies in his crusades against entrenched interests and dangerous habits. If they cannot offer that expert and discriminating service, they have no business occupying the positions they have been voted or appointed into.

    It is humbling that rather than reinforce who the country is and what great and noble values and principles it stands for, its leaders have wilted before its first real existential challenge since the civil war. Like his predecessors, especially Chief Obasanjo and Dr Jonathan, President Buhari has ignored the fact that a man is defined not just by what cause he fights, but more importantly by how he fights. And when the man triumphs, it is important to see whether he will exhibit nobility or manifest coarse triumphalism. Should President Buhari continue in his present course of fighting brutally by hitting below the belt and biting in the clinches on the excuse that the mill of justice grinds too slowly for his liking, he will not only have  defined his presidency, he will have defined Nigeria and made her a laughing stock around the civilised world, far worse than the corruption he speaks loathingly about. Chief Obasanjo couldn’t define who Nigeria was; nor did Dr Jonathan. This was why both presidents could not do lofty things nor achieve far-reaching and futuristic milestones. Can President Buhari define Nigeria? Can he describe the country’s values which no provocation would make her abandon? Does he see Nigeria better than all other countries, a position he would give his life, now in its twilight years, to pursue; a position he would not allow to be mitigated by tribe, religion, partisanship or class?

    Justice Haliru’s explosive message should encourage those who work in the temple of justice to defend their great institution. They will of course need to weed out from their midst those who subvert the cause of justice, and must neither defend nor protect those who take money to pervert the cause of justice. But they will also have to stand up to the predators who desecrate the temple of justice, whether they occupy executive, legislative or appointive offices. For it is clear that many of those who deprecate the judiciary today are at bottom haters of democracy using the pretext of a few corrupt judges and lawyers as casus belli to compel the courts to do their bidding. By all means, let the judiciary do internal cleansing and support the prosecution of errant lawyers and judges; but more poignantly, let its paragons fiercely defend their independence and resist the mindless plots to subordinate the judiciary to the executive.

     

  • The exposures and the arrests are legion; but there are no convictions, no recovery of the loot yet in sight

    The exposures and the arrests are legion; but there are no convictions, no recovery of the loot yet in sight

    The recent exposures probably far outnumber the arrests but still, the scale of the arrest of high public officeholders for corruption is probably without precedent in the history of Nigeria. Moreover, the arrest of public officials for corruption is higher in our country today than any other country of the world at the present time. Simply stated, in its twelve-year history, our national anti-corruption agency, the EFCC, has never been busier than at the present moment. Prior to now, exposures of corruption of mindboggling proportions had been the main thing, but now the arrests come right on the heels of the exposures, even if only a small fraction of those exposed have actually been arrested, charged and are facing prosecution. I think the question that arises from this extraordinary development concerning Nigeria’s special place in the contemporary worldwide war against corruption is the following: will we conduct the war against corruption in such a way that we will be able to teach the rest of the world somevaluable and lasting lessons about how to wage a concerted war against corruption and not only win but win decisively? Of course, this in no way obscures the fact that the outstanding moral and social objective of the anti-corruption war that our country is waging at the present time is justice for a looted nation and its teeming, pillaged masses. In other words, the point I am advancing here is that we should be asking both questions together: what to do to be victoriousin the struggle for justice in the war against corruption and how such a victory might serve as a teachable model for other countries of the world.

    One reason why these two questions should be posed together is the fact that Nigerians as a whole seem relatively assured that the looters and their supporters will lose the war. This is in part wish fulfillment, the thinking behind it being the fanciful belief that the looters and their allies will lose because we very desperately want them to lose; and moreover, justice, morality and decency all demand that the looters should lose. But as I have repeated many times in this column, both the Nigerian government and people in general vastly underrate what it will take to win and win decisively against the looters and their allies. This is because legend and myth as a dedicated and indefatigable anti-corruption crusader preceded Buhari to office. Indeed, prior to his electoral victory and eventual assumption of office, there were stories doing the rounds of the national grapevine to the effect that as soon as Buhari was pronounced the victor in the presidential elections, all the looters would board their private jets, take flight and escape to safe havens abroad. However, in the post-election period in the real world, nothing remotely close to this fantastic scenario took place. The looters not only did not take flight, they stayed and they are fighting back mightily, with great help from their allies in the Nigerian Bar and Bench. Moreover, at least in these early rounds of the legal battles, the determined and organized band of lootersand their allies are declaring a stalemate if not an outright victory. This is because in the majority of the cases in the law courts, they have been granted bail and they have succeeded considerably in deploying delaying tactics to prolong the trial of their cases, if possible permanently. At any rate, the looters have given every indication available to them to give notice to Buhari and indeed the whole country that this is a battle they have fought before, a battle they know how to win.

    Thus, beyond the myths of Buhari’s credentials as an anti-corruption crusader and beyond the wish fulfillment that we will win the war because justice and morality is on our side, the onus in this war of maneuver is for the government to demonstrate that it knows what it will take to defeat the looters, obtain their conviction and recover a sizeable proportion of the pillaged loot of trillions of naira and hundreds of billions of dollars. In other words, too much of the government’s present credibility and high ratings in the legal war on corruption come from exposures and arrests of lootersbeyond anything we have ever seen in this country; too little is coming from a perception that the government is conducting the war effectively and knows what to do to assure victory. Permit me to make a few observations in support of this claim.

    In all fairness, the most charitable remark that can be made about the government’s prosecution of the looters in the law courts is that slowly but gradually, there are signs that a plan, a method, a sort of strategy is beginning to emerge from the overwhelming sense of a shocking lack of coordination in how exposures and arrests are being made and prosecution begun against alleged looters. There are at least FOUR separate and distinct arms or agencies of the government all working together at the same time, but without a sense that they are all working in sync, that they are all on the same page. The concerned agencies are the EFCC; the office of the Solicitor General of the Federation (SGF) working under the direction of the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF); the Nigerian Police; and the office of the Director of State Security (DSS). To date and as far as I am personally aware, no public announcement has ever been made to give a report on the number of arrests made and the individual and collective size of the loot stolen. Are all the prosecuting lawyers working together as a team and under the guidance of a “command center” located in the SGF’s office? Your guess is as good as mine, compatriots!

    As everyone knows, there is a lot of anger and frustration among the members of this prosecuting team that bails are being granted to virtually every accused looter and stays of proceeding are still being granted, even though this runs counter to the law of the land as enshrined in the Administration of Criminal Justice Act of 2015 (ACJA). This raises many troubling questions. Why is the government keeping quiet about this and silently licking its wounds of disappointment and frustration? Why has not a single statement or declaration been made about what the government will do about this crucial development? Why have press and media houses throughout the country not been brought into a widespread and sustained reporting and discussion of this rampart and willful disregard of the provisions of ACJA by many if not most of the trial judges? Why have the names of the defense lawyers and trial judges disregarding ACJA not been published, not to “shame” or disgrace them, but to give them the chance to explain why, as far as they are concerned, ACJA might as well be a bill awaiting passage in the National Assembly and not the de facto and de jure law of the land that it is? Why the silence, why the perplexity of the government prosecuting team before these onslaughts of the looters and their allies on the Bar and the Bench? Are these not the signs of a rudderless and uncoordinated team fighting only with the fatuous weapon of the wish fulfillment that it will win because justice, morality and decency are on its side?

    All is not lost and questions like those I am posing in this piece are being posed by many other commentators, pundits and activists all over the country. And there are signs that the government is listening; indeed, there are also signs that some of the trial judges are listening. [This past week, the trial judge in charge of the case against Olisa Metuh gave warning to Metuh and his lawyers that they have already used THREE of the FIVE adjournments of postponements to which they are entitled under ACJA]. Against the background of this development, the Sagay advisory committee could play a very crucial role in both the outcome and the educational possibilities in how Nigeria conducts this epic war against corruption. Technically, the Sagay Committee is not one of the agencies responsible for making exposures of looting, arresting looters and coordinating their prosecution in the law courts. No, the Sagay committee was not designed to do any of these particular things. What it is mandated to do, what it must do well, is in fact provide the moral and intellectual framework within which the war against corruption can be won and converted to a lasting instructional value for not only our country but the whole world. In other words, the task of the Sagay committee is that it must be the mind and the superego of the war on corruption: it must show that all is not simple and uncoordinated improvisation in Buhari’s war against corruption. If it fulfills this task, the Sagay committed might well show that Nigeria has something to teach the rest of the world in the current global anti-corruption war. I suggest that it must start posing the questions that the government prosecuting team is not asking, thereby enlightening the country and the whole world about the content and the lessons of this epic war against corruption that will, for good or ill, define the epoch we have just entered.

    Obasanjo and his”toothless bulldog” insult to the EFCC

     

    Just at the very historic moment when the EFFC is making far more disclosures about looting in our country and far many more arrests of alleged looters than at any previous period in the country’s history, along comes Olusegun Obasanjo to declare that the EFCC is a toothless bulldog whose bark is worse than its bite. What does he exactly men by this astonishing claim? Should it be regarded as one more instance of Obasanjo’s verbal and political charades that are best ignored completely?

    I confess that I am more inclined to the latter view. Obasanjo loves being in the news; he has a severe case of what could be described as the “relevance anxiety syndrome”. By this, I mean that he is so egomaniacal about his standing in the public affairs of this country that he cannot bear to be out of the view of the public for less than, say, three months at the least.And so since everyone is talking endlessly about the EFCC’s frenetic exposures and arrests of looters, what could be more irresistible for our Babasale of Egomania than to attack and ridicule the EFCC?

    I don’t think we should be satisfied with this response to Obasanjo’s attack on the frontline anti-corruption agency.And this is precisely the point: Obasanjo is attacking the agency, he is ridiculing it because the agency is making all these exposures, all these arrests. From this, we can conclude that Obasanjo is deeply troubled by Buhari’s war on corruption, if indeed he is not directly opposed to it.More insidiously, Obasanjo is perhaps saying that the arrests, the exposures will achieve nothing at all. If that is the case, it is now left to the EFCC and the Buhari administration to give the lie to Obasanjo’s insult by demonstrating that their bite will be as ferocious as their bark. In other words, when and if the convictions and the recovery of stolen loot start happening, the last laugh will be on the Egomaniac of Ota. QED

    Biodun Jeyifo                                                                                                                 bjeyifo@fas.harvard.edu

  • Re: This “Change” is killing us

    Re: This “Change” is killing us

    Dripping with bile and inundated with a list of how, 10months after, Nigerians now wallow in unprecedented suffering, I was moved to ask whether some people really thought they elected  a magician, a Professor Peller  who, with a silver bullet, will cure Nigeria of all  her  problems at a go.

    This past week was a particularly interesting one on our e-forum as we discussed the above topic which was the caption of an open letter to President Muhammadu Buhari. Dripping with bile and inundated with a list of how, 10months after, Nigerians now wallow in unprecedented suffering, I was moved to ask whether some people really thought they elected  a magician, a Professor Peller  who, with a silver bullet, will cure Nigeria of all  her  problems at a go.  There has,  of  recent, been a slew of such letters, incidentally, literally all authored by persons from the same part of the country; some claiming they prefer  the Jonathanian regime of  corruption to what now obtains in Nigeria. Since I do not have their permission, contributors’ names, except mine, will not be given. In summary, the letter, like others, is a damning critique of the Buhari administration and, corroborating its claims, a member wrote: ‘Buhari has a one-year grace period, starting from his inauguration. A grace period for him to demonstrate performance inertia. The masses are not happy with him so far. His electoral value has been dwindling in the last six months”. He was immediately challenged by another to speak for himself and not for the generality of  Nigerians. Wondering why anybody would take these 3-a penny letters and their authors seriously, a Diasporan member interjected : “these  wailing wailers are also the thieves who are being exposed and tried. It would make sense for them to wail. It wouldn’t make sense for us to listen to them. A ruined Rome was not built in a day. The Ebelechukwu disciples ruined Nigeria. It would take years to rebuild.” Stung by that massive shellacking, the member who had given President Buhari a year of grace hit back, widening the canvass to take on both Buhari and his party headlong: “the southern division of APC is not really in power. They have been checkmated by their northern associates within the party. Chief Oyegun, Chief Akande and Alhaji Bola Tinubu have been very quiet for some time. They are probably attending a refresher course on political theory and political strategy, in preparation for 2019. In terms of memorandum of understanding on power sharing, party ideology, party manifestos and cardinals, the APC merger was not properly consummated. The party never thought that they could win, hence their poor preparation for governance. Also, APC as a party thrives on propaganda. The effects of their poor conceptualisation of governance are apparent now. If a selected team of southern APC members are deeply involved in the kitchen cabinet of this government, Buhari will not be making these avoidable mistakes. In public, as in business administration, when a manager assumes a position of authority, he/she inherits the associated assets and liabilities of that institution or position. Blaming your predecessor is not acceptable because it is expected that you will take charge, you will start on a clean slate and perform, based on predetermined goals and objectives.” Performance evaluation in an organisation, he said further, “is not based on EFFORTS but on RESULTS. All these blame game and name calling are mere propaganda.”

    It was at this point I weighed-in showing my disappointment with both the president and his party even as I appreciate the militating factors, especially Jonathan’s Augean stable and the slump in oil prices. I wrote: ‘I agree with many of the points raised but disagree where you think that after 16 years, and the bottomless hole PDP put Nigeria, a successor party would simply close its eyes to the past. Where in the civilised world is that done? What killed off Jeb Bush campaign if not the consequences of the Bush wars? In view of  the government’s avoidable errors, however, many must have seen the president’s mistake in appointing an insular,  literally all-northern kitchen cabinet which has shut him out of much needed  quality advice as many of these persons are inexperienced  in public service. Their incompetence has merely opened  wider the doors to the likes of El Rufai and sundry northerners we may never know, calling the shots in almost total exclusion of those from the South, who not only  helped in conceptualising the merger, and did as much as any other person, if not more, in ensuring its victory. I also agree with you that those mentioned in your post seem hardly involved in decision making today. The result is that whether or not President Buhari contests in 2019, this is bound to have serious repercussions for the APC. Indeed, with the ruckus in Kaduna and Kano, we are already beginning to see ambitious northern politicians angling for that position ahead of 2019.  Matters will become more worrisome for the APC when you factor in the likes of Saraki, with his many problems which he says are political, Dogara, with how he generously gifted PDP members chairmanship of critical House committees, as well as their soul mates in the National Assembly and elsewhere, who are now most probably already out of  the party. These are some of the reasons PDP can now begin to hope ahead 2019 although that is bound to be a chimera given how prostrate they laid the country in their 16 years of the locust. Unlike you, I see nothing wrong in not fully adumbrating all the issues among the merging political parties ahead of their victory as defeating a powerful, seemingly omnipotent Jonathan  and the octopoidal ‘largest rally in Africa’ was enough motivation. Their victory, I surmise, should have strengthened the bond amongst the merging political parties. Unfortunately, there were a sprinkle of the likes of the ever ambitious Sarakis and the Dogaras who have since successfully widened their grasp through political enticement. Ever scheming and conspiratorial, they gifted a defeated PDP, via the likes of Ekweremadu and Akpabio, such positions and inherent powers it now looks like APC is, indeed, the opposition party. About the only way out for the APC, is for the president to know that he may belong to all, but not all belongs to him or love him. He must go back to those God used in bringing this dispensation about.

    Of a truth, mistakes were made on both sides. Even if Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu had some recalcitrant younger colleagues with whom he disagreed, he should have used his well known perspicacity to win them over; not try to deny them the opportunity of being part of a government to whose victory they hugely contributed, as was widely believed. Agba ti o binu, lomo e npo jojo – it is the elder who forgives that has children/followers aplenty. Asiwaju, like Uncle Bola Ige, had intended to do, i.e return to the Southwest to shore up the Alliance for Democracy (AD) before he was cut down by enemies of the Yoruba race, should now reconcile with these young men who I know appreciate him and hold him in great esteem. He is a Lodestar, our undisputed Pathfinder and, as he preached at the launch of Chief Lanre Razak’s autobiography this past week, he must continue to make that sacrifice. Once he has solidified the home front, then he can go out, pan-Nigeria, and together with other leaders of the party, help put out the fires now simmering in places like Kano, Kaduna and Edo. Ondo State, in particular, should be of concern to him as APC must win the coming governorship election. There is need for a very transparent, totally unimpeachable process to be put in place. It is only in these ways that APC can re-invent itself, and help President Buhari to succeed. Finally, I must make the point again, that the president must remove all appointees of the last administration holding critical positions because their loyalty is to the former president and his wife – as they all made good in those posts but they should be replaced only by persons from their states of origin who believe in, and would like to see President Buhari succeed. A lot of sabotage is still going on in government as we saw in the budget padding and it remains completely inexplicable that the president refused to sack those found complicit in that horrendous act. The president must also be guided by the Federal Character Act in his future appointments if he wants to be seen as president for all’.

  • Kidnapping, Plc.

    Kidnapping, Plc.

    My freedom can and should therefore not be taken away from me by anyone just because he is unemployed, greedy for great gain, aggrieved, poor, or just plain wants to marry me

    Today, my blood is boiling. I am therefore boiling mad because my family and town were threatened by the activities of kidnappers. But, I get ahead of myself.

           This morning, I received this message on my phone and I am taking the liberty to reproduce it for you here. As usual, I have tinkered with the spellings and all to make it readable.

    Please pay attention; something is happening in Abuja and Lagos now. People dressed like policemen stop cars and ask for particulars. Please on no condition should you let them in your car, they are kidnappers. Once they enter, they tell the driver that they are going to the police station. They end up taking the person elsewhere and ask the person to call someone to come and bail them with a ransom. It just happened to two people this morning. Also be cautious when taking cabs at night…

            Just a few weeks ago, we wrote on this subject of kidnapping on this column and since then this dastardly trade has expanded. Obviously, very little has been done about it; this is why it is now operating like a fully established and registered company would – in the open. I am not giving up; I will continue to write about this in the hope that others will join me to shout about it until the police wake up and do something, if only to clear their name from the stink.

           Often, I muse to myself that each regime we have had in this democratic leg has left something distasteful for us to swallow in this nation. Pa Olusegun Obasanjo’s era left us the Okada commercial motorcycle to strain at, and it has been a very hard swallow for us all since then. At that time, Obasanjo as the president really needed something to show he had the people in mind all the while.

           The problem then was that the electricity situation was dismal indeed and people were watching each other dozing over their tools in their shops – carpentering, vulcanizing, pepper milling shops, etc., — and also cursing their situation. Unfortunately, rather than give us good train services, the then presido chose to liberalise transportation ‘so that many people would be employed’. I think I heard someone mutter something like it was cheaper for him. Anyway, that is how it came about that those Okada people have perpetually been getting between our feet, or err… tyres.

           Then the era of ex-presidents Yar’Adua and Jonathan came. The Yar’Adua years were too brief for him to have left something for us to get stuck on but the President Jonathan era was too full of glitz and glamour not to have left something in our throats. In that era, electricity was still scarce; people were however no longer staying to doze in their shops. They had their Okada business to fill the roads with like termites.

           With so much money flying around (dollars, pounds, and sometimes Naira) in the Jonathan years, it was too much to ask some of us not to think up ways of catching some of it. It came down to a choice between begging Jonathan to allow them join in the spraying circle and taking to kidnapping. With hindsight now, methinks it would have been cheaper to have begged, but I thought I heard someone mutter again that the circle was too small. Today, the unfortunate effect of the Jonathan glitz and glamour has metamorphosed into Kidnapping, PLC.

           Kidnapping is now a business for many, complete with veterans. People don’t even think twice about just getting up and depriving others of their liberty, not minding that this is a highly criminal offence comparable to murder. All too often, the kidnapping leads to murder but the state is not making as if it cares. Many families are grieving over this issue but the state is too silent for my liking. I can bet you that right now, many families are running around looking for money to ransom a family member from kidnappers. AND THE STATE IS SILENT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

           Last week, my family (and my town, never mind where it is), was thrown into that anguished running around over the kidnapping of not one but three citizens of the town, including my family member and everyone felt so helpless. They had been travelling along a Nigerian route between Edo and Kogi States. What astonished and frightened me most was the information that the kidnappers could not turn up at first at the agreed point to collect the ransom they demanded because they were busy trailing the relatives of another victim they had just ‘taken’ and from whom they hoped to get more money. Can you just imagine this?!

           What the deuce is going on? Is this a country or what? How is it that the mother or father (I cannot recall which one now) of a serving minister is kidnapped and the country cannot rise up against that crime to stamp it out once and for all? How can a former minister be kidnapped and the state get him released, then become somnambulant over the crime?!!! I don’t get it! It is definitely not enough for the police to suddenly swing into action in the case of a kidnapped known figure and leave the remaining families in this land of 170 million people to their own fate. This is not fair. Someone said Nigeria is now officially a failed state; that is why this kind of thing can go on. I find myself agreeing reluctantly.

           Now, it has got that people are using kidnapping to solve their problems. To solve unemployment problems, turn to kidnapping; it requires no capital or credentials. Can’t get a girl to marry? Kidnap one, a la the story of Ese. Soon, everyone will be kidnapping everyone else in this country till you become either a kidnapper or a kidnapped. Indeed, before you know it, wives will be kidnapping husbands until those ones release sufficient housekeeping funds. I tell you, this is no laughing matter.

           There’s a theory that says the police are heavily complacent over this matter because many of them are involved. Don’t ask me how, I don’t know. I don’t even know how sound that theory is. All I know is that the police have not done much to get to the root of this problem. They are not giving me sufficient confidence that when I go on the road, I will not be kidnapped along the way; and when I sit in my house, no one will enter and ask me to come and be kidnapped. Seriously!

           My freedom is already guaranteed in the Nigerian Constitution, like many other constitutions. It tells me that it is my inalienable right as a citizen of this country. This means that it recognises that I am a human being not a goat or a chicken that has no will but only that of the person who pays for it or steals it. The constitution is thus acknowledging that I cannot be stolen away by some philistine for any reason. My freedom can and should therefore not be taken away from me by anyone just because he is unemployed, greedy for great gain, aggrieved, poor, or just plain wants to marry me.

           Most importantly, we citizens should insist that the police, National Assembly and Presidency beam their search lights on some hot kidnapping spots. For instance, in many recent kidnappings, Okene in Kogi State seems to have featured prominently. Remember a justice, a trade unionist, and many others have been taken while travelling through and around the town in recent times; so were my family member and townsmen. Right now, there is a part of Kogi State being terrorised by kidnappers. Someone should give us some answers soon.

  • Emir of Kano on ‘Awuff’ political economy and re-structuring

    Emir of Kano on ‘Awuff’ political economy and re-structuring

    But contrary to quick interpretations of Emir Sanusi’s call for structural reform, there is nothing in his statement at Olabisi Onabanjo University to suggest that the emir is by this statement recommending the kind of restructuring that can lead to re-federalisation of the country

    Two key concepts in today’s title are ‘Awuff’ or Awuufu in the Yorubanised version of this Pidgin concept and political economy. Political economy in this context is to be understood in its simplest form as how a country is managed or governed, taking into consideration political and economic factors that serve as dominant drivers of the country’s economy and by extension its polity. Awuff, a word recently given additional conceptual energy by Prof. Akin Mabogunje, is akin to ‘Manna’ in biblical terms. It refers to the power of a free good (that arises not from the sweat of a people but as a good bestowed on the people by nature or any generous agency), but which in its plenitude drives economic, political, and even social behaviour of the people with such endowment. The interest of this page today is to amplify the thoughts of Prof. Mabogunje and the Emir of Kano on concepts that seem to have driven the political organisation of this country for about half a century.

    It is remarkable that two of Nigeria’s seminal professionals: Professor  Mabogunje, one of the world’s most cited development experts and Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, the emir of Nigeria’s most metropolitan and cosmopolitan emirate and former governor of the country’s central bank chose to discuss the country’s major motivation in the country’s journey to modern governance, particularly in the current context of what looks like a gradual evaporation of  petroleum, the principal driver over the years of the country’s Awuff political economy. Even though Professor Mabogunje’s use of the concept focused on how easy flow of petrodollars fostered corruption, indolence and wastage at the institutional and personal level, the description of the character of Nigeria’s political economy by the Emir makes direct connection between a Manna economy and the 36 state structure that many Nigerians including modern and traditional cultural leaders as inevitable to the country’s unity.

    Given the professional pedigree of Prof. Mabogunje and the Emir of Kano and their knowledge of the country’s political economy, it is instructive that both of them have chosen to call for a review of the pivotal role of petroleum in the country’s political economy and culture. The intellectual intervention of the two leaders in their respective professional domains has called for an end to the decades of denial that had characterised political discourse in the country. Most of the time, especially in the decades of military government, the emphasis has been on the need to use the country’s resources to promote military dictators’ understanding of unity in a plural society.

    In the decades of military rule, no effort was spared to create a political structure that was driven by manna from petroleum. The four regions in 1966 grew by leaps and bounds to 36 states in 1996, all at the instance of military dictators. Each state was created to make use of the awuff from petroleum. The Emir has been unequivocal about the huge influence of petroleum revenue on the political construction of the country: “If you really reflect on the problems of this country, it seems to turn common sense on its head….You sometimes wonder if anyone needs to tell any group of people that if you are a poor country, you do not need 36 governors, 36 deputy governors, with members of house of assembly, commissioners and advisers, special assistants, a president, a vice president, 36 ministers, special advisers, federal legislature and so on….Simple arithmetic will tell you that if you have that structure, you are first of all doomed to spending 80 or 90 per cent of everything you earn maintaining public officers. It is really common sense but it seems to be a problem for us to understand it….If you don’t free up the resources and put them up for capital projects, you are laying the foundation of what we are seeing today. We need to have structural reform.” (My emphasis)

    Though not totally new in the country’s Unity discourse, the Emir’s analysis of the creation of 36 fragmented states and 774 local governments as receptacles of monthly revenue allocations to over 100 subnational units seems materialist and superior to idealist thoughts that the more you create structures that take governance to small unviable units, the more united Nigeria’s unity would be guaranteed.  But contrary to quick interpretations of Emir Sanusi’s call for structural reform, there is nothing in his statement at Olabisi Onabanjo University to suggest that the emir is by this statement recommending the kind of restructuring that can lead to re-federalisation of the country. Structural reform of the country to prevent waste can also mean asking for further unitarisation of the country in a manner reminiscent of Major-General Aguiyi-Ironsi’s decree that attempted to end the federal system upon which the country obtained independence from Great Britain. Admittedly, the emir did not have to spell out the details of his idea of restructuring or reform in just one speech at the Ago-Iwoye event.

    While it may be reassuring to advocates of federalism in the country that the Emir of Kano, the second largest state in the country according to the last census, has called for restructuring, it may be an over interpretation for his call for reform to be seen as the emir’s enrolment in the registrar of advocates for re-federalisation. But the brave call by one of the occupants of the top echelon of traditional political and cultural power in the country should not be missed by incurable federalists like the writer of this column. Nigeria’s future beyond petroleum is not just about sustaining 36 largely unviable states, it also includes re-thinking the funding of 774 local governments, all under the guise of promoting a third tier of governance. Nigeria is the only country of its size on the globe with almost 800 local governments that are funded separately from the states or provinces that contain them. There is no doubt that Awuff-guzzling third tier of government, like its 36 second tier level, would not have arisen if it was not for huge rents collected from petroleum exploitation, put at the disposal of unelected engineers of the Nigerian state during the military era.

    Efforts by the Buhari government to embark on shuttle diplomacy to increase the price of oil through reduction of supply is understandable as a short-term solution to the sudden drop in government revenue arising from collapse of oil price in the international market. But it is better for the country’s rulers to think like Professor Mabogunje and Emir Sanusi: that the end of the ethos of fossil energy may have begun and may stay with us on and off for decades to come, if not on account of temporary glut but also as a result of a new creative destruction from innovators of environmentally sustainable development scientists and ideologues, particularly in the West with the possibility of similar innovators emerging from China and India.

    The kind of restructuring that Nigeria needs, as it gets ready to create a new economy that is driven by agriculture and manufacturing, is one that reconceptualises how to sustain national unity, not through centralisation of power and functions in Abuja or fragmentation of states fuelled by funds from centrally collected revenue from solid or liquid minerals but through commitment to fiscal federalism. It is not likely that without the usual flow of revenue from oil the country will be able to sustain 36 state bureaucracies and 774 administrative centres designed to consume whatever is allocated without the power to generate enough revenue internally to pay for administrative agencies that leave little impact on the welfare of citizens in most of the states and local governments. Instead of hoping that oil will rebound and bring its easy funds that had driven Awuff political economy at the institutional and personal level to the extent of making the country a huge cafeteria for mindless consumption and wastage, governors of the states and local governments that are not likely to survive without regular transfer of funds from Awuff federation account should join forces with the Emir and like-minded believers in the imperative of restructuring the country. Most of the governors need to know that talking about increasing IGR is not likely to yield anything substantial, without a new political structure that is similar to the ones that worked before the intervention of military dictators in the design of the country’s architecture of governance. Fortunately, such policy option cannot be against the spirit of President Buhari’s idea of unity, given his manifesto that commits to “initiating action to amend our Constitution with a view to devolving powers, duties and responsibilities to states and local governments in order to entrench true Federalism and the Federal spirit.”

  • Baba Lekki and Okon solve another national riddle

    As the Ese Oruro and “Yellow” Yunusa amatorial imbroglio continues to divide the nation along religious and cultural lines, Baba Lekki has been conducting a scientific inquiry into the subject with professorial solemnity. Okon had caught up with the old Marxian contrarian virtually naked under a tree at Okokomaiko complaining about the scalding heat even as smoke belched out from his massive pipe.

    “Baba, na dis gbana go kill you. Old man like you dey smoke like dem area boys for Campos”, the crazy boy shot at the old man.

    “Ha Okon he get as he be. Dis one na better hemp from Mokore in Area Five. Wall no dey fear fire. As dem Yoruba people dey say, make we dey get use to fire because of hell.” The old crook sniggered and burst into a deranged hiccup.

    “Baba make we get serious. He be like if say dis dem fine Yellow Yunusa boy, na for jail he go do wolima with dem Ese girl. At this point, the crazy old man stood up and began to sing an old Yoruba Muslim wedding ditty.

       Baaadaraimo, baadaraimo

       Aboniyawo seyawo

       Hun…. badaraimo.

    “Baba, he be like if say dis gbana don scatter your head patapata”, Okon crowed as he eyed the dancing delinquent dotard with mirth and affected disdain. The old man sat down and eyed Okon with a scholarly frown as he switched to flawless Queen’s English.

    “Okon, I am very much ashamed to be in this company. Nigerians are an idle and unthinking lot. What is happening is the religious mystification of economic poverty, period”, the old man noted.

    “Gbuaaaa!!” Okon screamed with feigned indignation. “Baba dis grammar too much. I know say you dey cram dem dishionary, but Okon na illostrate”.

    “You see Okon”, the old man began with a worried mien. “Those poor children ought to be in school. This is how we perpetuate poverty. Why is a so called eighteen year old boy only thinking of marriage when he should be in school? And why is the girl also not in school? This is what we have been telling these people. It is marriage as modern slavery which leads to endemic poverty. The two juveniles are victims of an evil system. The charge should be amended to read, State Delinquency versus Juvenile Delinquency”, the stoned sage concluded.

    “Baba in dat case equation don balance becos as dem mala people dey wire small girls old Yoruba women also dey wire small pikins. He get time like dat when I dey live as young boy for Mushin and he get one fat old Yoruba woman who go dey call me, “oko mi, oko mi”. So I come ask wetin “oko mi” dey mean sef and dem say na my husband. Naim I come pick race kia kia”.

    “Okon go away. You are a fool. I deal in facts and not palm wine bar gossip”, the old man said as he chased away the crazy fellow,

  • Transition and trauma

    Transition and trauma

    May you live in interesting times, the wise and inscrutable Chinese often say. But there are interesting times and there are interesting times. Some interesting times are so enervating of the spirit,so denuding of the will and so degrading of the human personality that you secretly wish that you were born in less “interesting” times. In a fit and feat of amnesia, one privately longs for the old status quo and its degenerate stability.

    Change is too simple and innocent a word to describe what has beenhappening in Nigeria in the last few weeks and particularly in the past few days. The change mantra, with its naïve automatic alacrity, cannot envisage such a complex phenomenon as regression in progression and stirring in stagnancy. The old order expires, but the new is yet to come fully alive. Monstrosities crawl into the vacuum. This is the lot of all societies in a state of traumatic transition.

    Change, with its rosy optimism and belief in a better and more humane society, is too sweet and compromised a word for such circumstances. For it is not a done deal yet and victory is not assured. It is a close run thing and it could go either way.  Everywhere you turn, forces of the ancient status quo are up in arms, fighting a desperate rearguard battle in what can be described the last sigh of dinosaurs. One thing is certain, if the enemies of change prevail, the unborn and even the dead are not safe.

    The Nigerian condition reminds one of what Jean-Paul Sartre, the great Frenchphilosopher, once memorably described as “the binary praxis of antagonistic reciprocity”. Your opponent lands a heavy blow and you respond in kind. Sartre could be describing the human condition, particularly in post-colonial Nigeria. You can never be sure of these things, but it was Sartre who once famously described Negritude as “anti-racist racism”.

    A cynic has actually gone as far as insinuating that with the above quote, Sartre was actually describing all marriages in general and his own in particular. It will be recalled that Sartre’s marriage to the great Simone de Beauvoir who was his equal if not superior in intellect and acuity of perception was based on what we propose as contractual infidelity.  You cheat on me and I cheat on you, no wahala. The only time Sartre ever took jealous umbrage was when he discovered that Simone had done it with Albert Camus, the matinee idol writer and playboy-philosopher ,hours or days after they met.  Some blows hurt more than others, and Sartre was actually describing boxing.

    But to return to Nigeria and concrete reality, how can you convince a man who had endured being without electricity for over a week and who had spent the preceding twenty four hours hunting for fuel like a foraging municipal rodent to accept that change is finally with us? What kind of change is this when the absolute misery index of Nigerians has shot up like hypertensive blood pressure? With no food, no fuel and no light anybody preaching the change mantra will be lucky to escape without substantial physical damage.

    On Thursday, having been dislodged from the house by the stench of collapsed refrigeration, snooper attempted to reach Ketu to get some fresh fruits at least. The market remained shut. The carnage was a scene out of the apocalypse. The stench of rotten tomato and putrefying onions assaulted the lungs. Yet it had suddenly become impossible to go back as a nasty and monstrous traffic gridlock had suddenly materialized. You begin to wonder how much more a nation can endure before something snaps.

    It never rains but pours. As it happens in all societies in the final phase of traumatic transition, all the contradictions we have ignored or that have been bottled up startbobbing and weaving at us in repressed aggression. As soon as we thought we have escaped a major political crisis, an even more aggravating crisis of virtual economic and infrastructural collapse hits the nation.

    Meanwhile while we are tending to this, a crisis of cultural andreligious values steals the limelight. But before we can say Jack Robinson, architectural impunity stares us in the face. Add to this the painful loss of a valued member of the cabinet and his family in a show of impunity and crass negligence on the road which sits oddly with the change mantra.

    And this is not talk of the clear and present danger IPOB constitutes or the implications of resurgent terrorism in the Niger Delta. At the international level, the swift countermand of General Buhari’s overly optimistic assessment that the Boko Haramgroup is no longer operating on Nigerian soil by the American commander on ground is a painful reminder thatour little local difficulty subsists.

    In philosophical parlance, this is known as overdetermination, a situation in which things no longer obey a simple cause and effect logic but in which diverse contradictions jostled for ascendancy in a condition of multiple causes and consequences. Take the following but in no particular sequence or order:  the naira tailspin which has virtually grounded economic activities, the strike by oil workers, the industrial lock-out by some power discos, the Yunusa versus Ese Oruro imbroglio, the ethnic flare up at Ketu market, the collapse of the Lekki skyscraper and the loss of the much admired James Ocholi.

    You get a sense of a government besieged and embattled on all fronts by conflicts many of which are not of its own making. We cannot because of this urge a reversal of the irreversible momentum of history. To do that is to play into the hands of the forces of religious, regional and cultural reaction and regnant retrogression and the enemies of progress. Changing a multi-ethnic nation riven by polarities is never going to be a tea party. We can only hope that the retired general is fully conscious of the overdetermined contradictions he is tinkering with.

    The obverse of the coin is equally interesting and intriguing. For the first time in the history of the country, you have a civilian government militantly committed to ridding the nation of the scourge of corruption and embezzlement going about the business with chilling almost cold-blooded resolve. A pan-Nigerian gaggle of top officials have been docked for various criminal infractions. A serving senate president is desperately battling for his political life. The sight of a former Chief of Defence Staff and a three-star Air Marshal being remanded in Guje prison is not a normal spectacle in these climes.

    The opacity and lack of transparency in some of these arraignments may not warm the heart of those who expect a more evenhanded and just approach. It may also mean that matters are still very much atthe level of symbolic import rather than a deep psychical cleansing of the society. But by that very token, matters might have slipped out of General Buhari’s hands. The revolutionary concussions unleashed on the Nigerian society by these unusual developments and the counter-revolutionary reprisals they seem to be provoking mean that some time to come, Nigeria will be in a state of turmoil and radical unease.

    The government needs a crash course in the history of societies in a state of traumatic transition. A nation like Nigeria steeped in systemic corruption and decadence requires a thoroughly systemic and conceptual approach which attacks the root and branches of corruption at the same time.  Nobility of purpose and the integrity of the arrowhead may not be enough. The situation calls for a pan-Nigerian mobilization rather than messianic one upmanship. God forbids if the Nigerian helmsman were to fall dead at this minute, that may very well be the end of the change project.

    The greatness of a leader is measured not just by personal sterling qualities but by the quality of apostolic followership he has nurtured. There are times when a just and noble cause can be lost due to ineptness and sheer inertia. The Spanish civil war was a classic example of how superior strategy and superior artillery can overwhelm a noble and progressive cause with a little help from international conspiracy. General Frank Franco was so sure of his fifth column already embedded that he took his time entering Madrid.

    General Buhari needs to be reminded that this is not an ordinary crisis of the state but an organic crisis of nationhood. An organic crisis occurs when there is complete institutional collapse or when the ruling class has failed in a major venture for which it has enlisted the populace. The Nigerian ruling class has failed in the project of democratic and economic development of the nation and the harmonization of its ethnic, religious and cultural disharmonies. This is why the various manifestations of the multi-dimensional crisis are mounting on a daily basis. The president needs all the help he can and must summon.

    The resolution of an organic crisis is not and cannot be foreordained. If progressive forces in ascendancy falter, other forces in operation and contention may impose a nastier and even more deadly solution. A stalemate cannot be contemplated even where it assumes the garb of a modification of vision and ambition. In this duel unto death, the post-colonial political theatre and its endemic skirmishes is akin to a coliseum of Roman gladiators in which a clear winner must emerge for the society to move forward.  The binary praxis of antagonistic reciprocity is in operation.

    This is why the death of a priceless and invaluable asset like the late James Ocholi must be regretted. It was a needless waste of outstanding human capital which exposes some of the internal contradictions of the change project.  How a federal minister came to be driven by an unlicensed rogue and in an official vehicle without correct tyre pressures is a security nightmare which sits oddly with the driven determination of the government to end the culture of impunity and lawlessness that permeates every sector of the society.  One will not be surprised to discover physically challenged drivers in the employment of the federal government.

    Ocholi was a star revelation during the ministerial hearing. This society would have benefitted greatly from his forensic brilliance and intellectual forthrightness. His loss attime when his country needs him most is a painful reminder of unfinished business. May his soul rest in peace.