The Nation Newspaper

Category: Sunday

  • If Arase won’t do something about the police…

    If Arase won’t do something about the police…

    Nigeria is daily inundated with stories of police malfeasance, of so-called accidental discharge, extrajudicial murder, trigger-happy shootings and attendant cover-ups, torture, human rights abuse, and on top of these, ineffective policing. The police, it is clear, are a poorly equipped and poorly incentivised federal establishment. Indeed if states, which exercise little or no control over the security organisation, were not subsidising the operations of the police, it would in all likelihood have collapsed. But poor funding does not justify a large part of police malfeasance. Within the constraints of their operations, it is still possible to run a fairly humanised and fairly responsive police. They may not respond promptly to crime emergencies such as kidnapping and armed robbery because of infrastructural shortcomings, but they can at least control what happens at their stations where distressed citizens present their challenges.

    There are three ways to handle the declining efficiency and poor image of the police. First, the federal government must declare an emergency in policing to stem the infrastructural decay and operational and attitudinal rot in the Police Force. The government cannot pretend not to appreciate the abysmal level to which the police have sunk. The police need to be restructured, adequately funded and properly equipped —  just as efforts are being made to retrain and equip the military — and a firm and organised system of accountability must be instituted. It is not enough for offending policemen to shoot and kill indiscriminately, sometimes for as little as N100, and be dismissed and prosecuted. What of the dead, and the many who may yet die if the malady is not checked? Have dismissal and prosecution of errant policemen deterred other officers from committing casual murder in the name of the state? Clearly the problem is more fundamental than the pirouette of malfeasance, dismissal and prosecution. Senior police officers must be made accountable for the behaviour of their men.

    Second, the police leadership must find innovative ways of running the law enforcement organisation and enforcing discipline, including reliving officers of their jobs if they cannot control their men, to prevent the kind of appalling behaviour and impunity now rampant in the Force. The federal government may be reluctant to impose innovation on the police. That is why the police have an Inspector-General. Mr Solomon Arase should sit down with his men and other brilliant and knowledgeable experts to fashion out a way of funding, reorienting and rebuilding the police. The present system is absolutely untenable. Mr Arase must of course understand that if the continuous bad press the police are receiving does not change, it makes his leadership equally untenable. But he must not resign himself to the present situation. Where others have failed, let him prove he can be a success. Despite the handicaps, let him be determined to leave a great and enduring legacy commensurate with his high educational attainments.

    Third, the most practical option — and sooner rather than later, the country will come round to this — is to decentralise the police away from federal to state control, and also rejig the revenue allocation formula to reflect the new reality until such a time that economic federalism will be instituted. The fact is that in the past few decades, both the police leadership and the federal government have appeared to lack the will and ingenuity to run the police. It is perhaps time the Buhari administration summoned the courage to join hands with the National Assembly to recast the police as a state institution. The federal government can no longer fund the institution, and obviously cannot even think for it. It is time others attempted a more imaginative approach. The country is already witnessing paralysis in the police. But paralysis is simply not feasible in the present circumstances of deteriorating security situation and police impunity.

  • In the beginning

    I have been privileged to write as a columnist in all manner of  newspapers for close on four decades but certainly not in the continuous, unbroken manner I did,  first with Comet, and  now for a much longer period  for The Nation on Sunday, where I have not missed a week in some eight years.

    “Femi, a special day, a special landmark, all for a very special friend! We give God the glory for the journey so far. With you, what you see is what you get, no airs: uncommon candour, genuineness, consistency, loyalty and  an uncompromising embrace of your core values and beliefs, all fusing  in the patriotic zeal that burns brightly at the tip of your admirable  pen. Your effervescent personality is admiringly infectious. It is a privilege, and honour, to call you my special friend. My darling wife and l wish you happy birthday and the very best for the future in robust health, peace and God’s abundant grace. Pity we are not able to join you in the ‘knees up’ on Sunday. Do have a blast as we raise a glass or two to the ‘baffday boy’. – Dr Biodun Adu, a U.K -based Consultant Gynaecologist, and my very good friend, and classmate, at Christ’s School, Ado-Ekiti, obviously writing for all the 59-63 Boys.

     I have been privileged to write as a columnist in all manner of  newspapers for close on four decades but certainly not in the continuous, unbroken manner I did,  first with Comet, and  now for a much longer period  for The Nation on Sunday, where I have not missed a week in some eight years. My foray into  regular columnising had started with Niyi Oniororo’s, Akure-based,  totally irreverent  PEOPLES NEWS  which was the only community newspaper in the  old Ondo State of the early 80s; a period of great political ferment in our country. Suffice it to say that the state was volatile enough to have, unarguably, accounted for the demise of Nigeria’s Second Republic.  Dare Babarinsa, has since elegantly captured the era in the ‘House of War  in which this writer got a decent mention.  Of course, I had before then written regularly in THE SUNDAY TRIBUNE during the editorship of the erudite journalist, Banji Ogundele, and for the Sunday Sketch, when Uncle Jide Adeleye was editor.

     Niyi Oniororo and I had met early in life at the prestigious Christ’s School, Ado-Ekiti, where he was a year ahead of me. A scion of the Oniororo family of Otun -Ekiti and younger sibling of Comrade (Dr) Ola Oni of the University of Ibadan, Niyi was simply an enigma, absolutely in a class of his own. Given the thoroughly Christian bend of Christ’s School, it was obvious he was not going to complete his studies there.  But Niyi would not be an Oniororo if that little matter of an expulsion, over some boyish frivolities, was to delay him at all. He soon found his way to Eastern Europe and returned a few years later, a fire-eating, Marxist – Leninist and human rights crusader. I knew no door Niyi could not open and before long, he was sucked into the mix of the high and the mighty in government, something am still unable to explain.

    Working with the likes of Bayo Kumolu-Johnson, a medical doctor and human rights campaigner too, he soon found the National Council for National Awareness and became the Director of the National Orientation Movement on the brutal murder of General Murtala Mohammed.  A master at pamphleteering, Niyi wrote no less than fifteen books. Without a scintilla of doubt, however, PEOPLES NEWS was his magnum opus. It was published with hardly any regard for the extant laws of sedition or defamation.  He knew neither Jew nor Gentile; nor was anybody too big for him to hammer in his withering column. At varying times, he took on the state governor, the revered Papa Adekunle Ajasin, just like he would later descend heavily on Chief Akin Omoboriowo, the deputy governor.  He was as iconoclastic as they come!  Indeed, as a prosecution witness in a case instituted by Chief Omoboriowo against Oniororo, Chief Obafemi Awolowo testified that although he believes in freedom of the press, he had doubts as to Niyi’s journalistic intelligence. Said Awo: ‘I believe you wished me well in my political career, but your newspaper suggested otherwise. Your vicious attacks on the former deputy governor of Ondo State were not the right thing for the UPN.’

    However, those who accuse Niyi of being motivated by mercenary instincts certainly didn’t know him. He thought nothing of money.  I knew of days he did not have a dime nor did I benefit a penny writing for his paper.  Indeed, PEOPLES NEWS, published in Ibadan, and ferried weekly to Akure, was run absolutely on a shoe string and many a time, it took Niyi’s very doting wife to pay for the printing. Without a doubt, the fear of PEOPLES NEWS was the very beginning of wisdom for public servants in Ondo State simply because its publisher feared nobody, acting purely from inner convictions.

    On my part, the paper was very handy in drawing attention to a series of unethical things going on in some ministries and departments of the state government. There was, in particular, the pharmacy department which gave out outrageous contracts to some friends of some of the officials who usually came in from outside the state.  Aside my column in the PEOPLES NEWS, I was a regular face on the state television and had acquired a reputation for saying things exactly as they are.  This made me a recipient of several confidential information. Writing about such things, however, carried risks of their own as I was certainly not a Niyi Oniororo who, I sometimes believed, had a death wish.  For instance, I can  never  forget  the day I barely escaped  Bode Olowoporoku  who  came  to my house  with some people to protest an article I had written  against a  particular ministry  – not his own – where, unknown to the  highly regarded  commissioner,  some clandestine, anti-social activities were  going on.

    Sadly,  Oniororo would  die  a very painful death at the University Teaching Hospital, Ibadan,  Sunday, April 17, 2005, the consequence of a stroke he suffered consequent upon  the unresolved, very  gruesome death of  Yomi, his adorable and brilliant 29-year old  son, a  doctorate  degree  holder  who was  on the  staff  of  the National Intelligence Agency. The manner of Yomi’s death killed Niyi long before he joined the saints triumphant but he, no doubt, left his mark as a journalist of conscience. Niyi lives on in the many memorabilia he left behind as well as his sterling contributions to the campaign for human rights in the country in which he will, with considerable justification, be called a pioneer.

    My next major effort at column writing would be in the early 90s when an evening newspaper, floated in Lagos by the Ibadan- born Alhaji Balogun, had as its Managing Editor, my good friend, Banji Ogundele,  formerly of  Sunday Tribune. This again happened to be at a period of frenetic politicking. It was in the era of the two political parties – SDP and NRC, both the result of General Babangida’s harebrained political experimentations. My column here was so well received that a senior journalist, Segun Adelugba, wrote his project, in part fulfilment of his Post Graduate Diploma in Journalism at the Nigerian Institute of Journalism, Ogba, Lagos on it.  Hard hitting, it was a veritable space for propagating the superiority of the candidature of Chief M.K.O. Abiola, the SDP Presidential candidate, over and above his opposite number, Alhaji Bashir Tofar, of the NRC.  One issue which enjoyed considerable mention was who, between Alhaji Abubakar Atiku and Alhaji Babagana Kingibe should be Chief Abiola’s running mate.  The column unapologetically rooted for the more cerebral Kingibe to whom I had actually, earlier,  been introduced by his friend, and my senior at  Christ’s  School,  the Late  Leye Adegite, the  witheringly brilliant  Chemistry professor  of the University of Lagos, when  the idea of my becoming an aide to Baba, in the manner of  Ojo Madueke and the lawyer, Sola Akinyede, was mooted.  I, however, demurred because my sympathies were with the Chief Ajasin -led PSP, not the PDM though both would later merge in the IBB abracadabra politics. That little conscientious objection also accounted for my refusal to join in a PDM membership recruitment drive to Ondo State for which those who agreed were generously, financially rewarded, in my presence.

    • Culled from my forthcoming book: SIMPLY A CITIZEN JOUNALIST, in commemoration of my 70th birthday this past week.
  • The end of politics

    The end of politics

    As the end of politics as we know it upon us? Put in another way, the question becomes a double-barrel poser. Is the current refugee crisis in Europe and the poor leadership response to it so far a result of the devaluation of politics and the consequent attenuation of leadership?  And is the continent of Africa even more poorly served by this global poverty of leadership?

    It is surely a remarkable historical spectacle to find European leadership in the main listlessly fretting over and enormously frightened by the ultimate logic of globalization, a phenomenon which has benefitted their people and western civilization for so long. Could it be that nobody ever foresaw the fact that the abolition of time and space and the consequent hybridization of global populace would one day lead to a human armada which will threaten the very foundation of the nation-state paradigm which western civilization has foisted on global space from Afghanistan to New Zealand?

    You cannot eat your cake and have it. Famously described as “the universalization of the particular and the particularization of the universal”, globalization, like the internationalization of slavery in all its dire particularities, has served the metropolitan centre very well. But when the universal decides to converge on the particular that decides to universalize—in this case western modernity and civilization—everybody should be game.  By this logic, one cannot and must not be in a position to choose which aspects of globalization to obey or to reject.

    Prosperity also has its adversities. Those who lament the absence of great leadership in the west are not doing the proper analysis. Great leadership does not just emerge out of nowhere and from a great vacuum. It is usually as a response to deep systemic stress and institutional dysfunction. Charles de Gaulle always averred that in her greatest moment of need, France always throws up a great leader. As examples: Joan of Arc, Charlemagne, Napoleon Bonaparte and, by honorable inference, Charles de Gaulle himself.

    In the west, the great crisis of nationalism of the first half of the twentieth century which led to two world wars threw up exceptional leaders: Woodrow Wilson, the two Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Winston Churchill, Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky, Mao Tse Tung, Chou en Lai, Ho Chi Minh and a host of others. If we are not to slander ourselves, the corollary decolonizing project also threw up a string of African avatars: Kwame Nkrumah, Leopold Senghor, Ahmed Sekou Toure, Ahmed Ben Bella, Gamal Abdel Nasser, Herbert Macaulay , Nnamdi Azikiwe, Obafemi Awolowo, Ahmadu Bello ,Nelson Mandela and many others.

    The paradox of the current leadership paralysis in Europe stems from the fact that it is an end product of exemplary leadership of the past. When a society has solved, in the main, the problems of food, shelter and security for the populace, when the political class, despite wide ideological divergences, converges on certain core principles and a cardinal consensus which drive politics, such societies run on an auto-pilot which does not require great exertion and political imagination.

    In Great Britain for example, no matter how rabidly and radically leftwing a party claims to be, it cannot afford to toy with royalty and constitutional monarchy. By the same token, no rightwing structural reengineering however extreme and daring can do away with the abiding fundament of the welfare state. For the foreseeable future in America, no party in its right sense will dare put up a pure Muslim as its presidential candidate.

    Prosperity and the great industrial strides taken by western societies in the last century have led to the industrialization of politics itself or what we propose as political Fordism. Just as the Fordist factory overcame the problems of mass consumption through division of labour which turns the factory worker into a robotic cyborg without much initiative, political Fordism turns the laboratory of politics into a circus of mediocrity through the mass production of leadership wannabes.

    These are Pavlovian political pigmies, creeps of consensus and minimalist managers who are just there to oversee the odd sneeze and stutter in the production belt and the occasional lubing of the engine. Theirs is simply to maintain the status quo and not to engage in any harebrained scheme which may bring the belt and the illusionist fantasia to a shuddering halt. Just get on with it and stop whining about paradise on earth. The order of illusion requires the illusion of order.

    Yet as prosperity brings about greater inequality and greater inequity of opportunity , as the great tide of globalization brings hordes of the great unwashed to the banquet table, as contradictions open up between actual lived experience and the abracadabra of progress, the veil of illusion is torn off. Loud murmurings and great tremors rumble through the land.

    In America, the contradictions have opened the door for Donald Trump’s extreme rightwing hell-raising and Hitlerite hysterics.  In Great Britain, it has led directly to the emergence of Jeremy Corbyn, a classic contrarian and leftwing rabble-rouser, who has no time for elite consensus or conciliation.

    The historic wager is that as the storm breaks in the west and unless there is a dire emergency which puts matters beyond the reach of the populace, the wise and pragmatic voters of Europe and America will choose the golden mean and the middle way out between the xenophobic ranting of Donald Trump and the Communist phantasmagoria of Corbyn. But that may merely be akin to postponing the evil day.

    Postponing the evil day is also a strategy of containment, that is until the evil day refuses to be postponed a day longer. The paradox of human endeavours is that the evil day often opens the door to real visionary leadership. It is not by accident that the greatest government thrown up in Britain in the last century, Churchill’s War Cabinet, was a product of intricate elite pacting and consensus beyond popular franchise.

    In Nigeria, the absence of the core principles which drives a nation and the lack of elite cardinal consensus which guides the immanent destiny of an organic community of citizens with equal rights have continued to aid the devaluation of politics and the attenuation of sterling leadership. There are encouraging signs of proactive leadership in post-PDP Nigeria. But it is also becoming clearer by the day that unless something is done about the architectural configuration of the nation, we may well be jogging in the jungle.

  • The import of Saraki’s trial

    The import of Saraki’s trial

    It is significant that our Number Three  Citizen is undergoing trial

    Whether Senate President Bukola Saraki is guilty as charged of any, some, or all of the 13-count charge levelled against him by the Office of the Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF) or not is immaterial. To me, the import of his arraignment before the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT) on Tuesday is the significant thing at the end of the day. Dr. Saraki is the country’s Number Three Citizen. But that should count for nothing when allegations of the type made against him as senate president are concerned. Indeed, it is in our kind of country where such a consideration is an issue.  Elsewhere, even sitting presidents could be tried but for the immunity that many of them enjoy.

    So, the fact that Nigeria has come to a stage where its Number Three Citizen could be taken to court to account for his past actions, even while in office, is significant. This is a country that has thrived for too long on impunity and unless this tendency is checked, we can never make progress. Nobody should have the feeling of being above the law. For me, that is the icing on the cake in the matter.

    Senator Saraki has specifically been accused of making anticipatory declaration of House 15A and 15B, McDonald Road, Ikoyi, Lagos; failure to declare property on Plot 2A, Glover Road, Ikoyi, Lagos; failure to declare property on No. 1, Tagus Street, Maitama, Abuja (Plot 2482, Cadastral Zone A06, Abuja); failure to declare property No.3 Tagus Street, Maitama, Abuja (Plot 2481, Cadastral Properties Ltd) and claiming to own property on No. 42, Gerard Road, Ikoyi and earning N110,000,000.00 per annum on it at a time the property was under construction. Other allegations are: failure to declare N375m GTB loan converted to 1.5m Pound Sterling and used to purchase property in London; operating a foreign bank account; transferring of $3.4m from GTB to foreign bank account during his tenure as governor and failure to declare leasehold interest in No. 42, Remi Fani-Kayode Street, Ikeja, among others.

    But rather than face the issues, some Nigerians, as usual, are beginning to read political meaning into the trial. For me, this is neither here nor there. Much as this may just be true, it may also be only perceived to be so. But again, whatever it is should count for anything. What we should be bothered about is whether Dr. Saraki is in the dock for the appropriate reason/s or not. Unfortunately, Nigeria’s elite have a way of hiding under all manner of excuses when they are put on the spot. They are either alleging political persecution or flying the ethnic or religious kite, whichever suits them. Now, how does political victimisation answer the questions posed by Dr. Saraki’s arraignment? It is a matter of ‘did you’ or ‘did you not’? That, I think, is the issue and those alleging political victimisation know this too well. But that has always been the way our elite shielded themselves from trial in the past. Rather than address issues, they launch into the realm of irrelevancies.

    Indeed, but for the times that are fast changing with the fall of the ancien regime at the polls in March, Dr. Saraki had, before finally making up his mind to appear before the CCT, raced to the Federal High Court, Abuja, with an ex-parte application seeking to prevent the CCT from proceeding with his trial, the way the big people in the country used to frustrate the judicial process in the past under the guise of protecting themselves. We have one of them that has been under the cover of perpetual injunction not to be investigated for years!  As usual, the plank of Dr. Saraki’s argument was not that he is guilty or not, but that of technicalities. He wants the court to order that the status quo be maintained in the matter. “In the absence of any substantive AGF in the time being, this court (Federal High Court, Abuja) has the jurisdiction to direct parties to maintain status quo, pending the hearing of the motion on notice”. His argument is that since there is no subsisting AGF as provided for in Section 24 (1) of the CCB and tribunal, the charge against him by the official of the AGF before the CCT was null and void. Thus, we saw the usual resort to technicalities in the past that has had many cases of fraud and corruption in the country inconclusive, in some cases for years. It is these same technicalities that many people have exploited in the country to shield themselves from trial when their collaborators in other countries have already acclimatised to prison life.

    Watchers of our political development must have seen a recurring pattern in the reluctance of our big people to be called to question over the decades, particularly since the beginning of this democratic dispensation in 1999. The argument about persecution is taken to the ridiculous extent of alleging that someone is being tried because someone does not like his face. And I have always argued that we should be less bothered about that. What should concern us is whether the person being accused is guilty or innocent. But our big people want a utopian situation whereby all thieves would be caught at a time; another way of saying thieves should never be caught. I do not know any country where all the thieves were simultaneously rounded up. We should deal with situation as they arise. If the then President Olusegun Obasanjo had caught thieves that were his enemies and Umaru Yar’Adua had also caught thieves whose faces he did not like, the number of big thieves would have been drastically reduced in the country because people would be mindful of the possibility of the coming to power of a king that would not know Joseph. Of course no one would have expected former President Goodluck Jonathan to catch any thief because he did not see any. As far as he was concerned, the monumental corruption that went on unabated under his very nose was nothing to worry about; it was mere stealing! Notwithstanding, we would have fewer big thieves to contend with in the country today if his predecessors had caught the thieves that they could catch in their time, be they friends or foes. Many of the big people would have been serving their jail terms now.

    However, whether Dr. Saraki should step down from his exalted office or not is a different question entirely. That is purely a moral decision left to him since our laws presume an accused guilty until when convicted by a competent court. Although in our clime, accused are looked at scornfully; in some other countries, it is not so. One may not have felt comfortable having the country’s Number Three Citizen in the dock, with the media making the picture to tell the kind of stories that suited their fancy; some slanted the picture of the senate president in the dock to look like that of a trapped rabbit, etc. I still feel Dr Saraki should be left alone to take the decision as to whether he felt sufficiently embarrassed enough to want to continue in office or whether to see through the trial to the end. But the signal is good for our political and other elites; including bankers who fiddled with their customers’ money, that it is no longer business as usual. A man who stole a goat because he is hungry due to the activities of our corrupt rich that have made jobs disappear into the oblivion should not be sent to prison when those responsible for his plight are moving freely, in some cases, with police protection.

  • Still on Kogi election

    Still on Kogi election

    Many Kogites and non-Kogites who reacted to this column’s conclusions on the November governorship poll in Kogi State are in a quandary whom to support. While they admit that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Governor Idris Wada is less than effective as the state’s chief executive, they also acknowledge that the All Progressives Congress (APC) standard-bearer, Abubakar Audu, has been unable to make more friends on account of what they describe as his stuffiness and arrogance. Some rejoinders say it is difficult, if not impossible, to pick either of the two candidates in the poll. But neutrality is not an option. If a part of the electorate refuses to vote, another part will vote, and one way or the other, a choice will be made, and one of the two leading candidates will win.

    Even if it is acknowledged that the two standard-bearers are uninspiring, a careful consideration of their weaknesses and strengths should still help voters determine whom to back. Mr Wada may not be abrasive and impatient, or fiery and uncouth, but few dispute his lethargy and general lack of innovativeness. He is sensitive and won’t make you feel bad in his presence, but he is almost wholly unable to make you feel good by reason of the state’s collapsed infrastructure and hopelessness about the future. The abrasive and financially finicky Prince Audu, on the other hand, is believed to be unable to make the Kogi electorate feel good in his presence, though his supporters argue he has changed, but he makes the ordinary Kogite feel good about the state on account of his passion for development and modernisation.

    In short, in November, the Kogi voter will have to make a choice between pleasant personality and its concomitant underdevelopment on one hand, and unpleasant personality and development on the other hand. The choice is grim  and vexing, but it is unavoidable and must be made. In making the choice, however, the state must determine whether in the case of Mr Wada they can keep his pleasantness beyond the next four years and profit from it if he wins, an unlikely proposition, or whether they can limit the underdevelopment certain to accompany his victory to only his four years in office should he win. And in the case of Prince Audu, the voter must ask what economic and social value his pleasantness confer on the state in four years should he win, as opposed to what his developmental drive would bring not only for four irreplaceable years but also far beyond, especially given the fact that even today, more than any of his successors, his imprint is still solidly embossed on the state’s development.

    There is no ambiguity in the choice before Kogi. This column finds bad manners offensive, but it is not confused as to how to proceed in the face of the two choices facing Kogi. Prince Audu will woefully fail a pleasantness contest with Mr Wada; but it is hard to see the latter winning the more crucial and impactful developmental test with the former. Kogi will in November decide whether they want development or they want their ego massaged. If they choose ego over development in the face of the appalling realities of poverty and infrastructural collapse of the state, they will find it difficult to tell Nigerians they are not gluttons for punishment or that the shame of underdevelopment and poverty has not afflicted them enough. In four years, Kogi will be rid of both Mr Wada and Prince Audu, whoever wins between the two. But in four years, they will either be better for their choice or worse for it.

    A few rejoinders to this column also argue that Kogi West senatorial district peopled mainly by the Okun Yoruba will at best split their vote for the APC candidate. The reasons, they say, are that Prince Audu, in his customary brashness, once insulted the people and chiefs of the area, and that the politics of running mate and zoning of senatorial positions have pitted the Yagba side against their Okun brothers in Kabba/Bunu/Ijumu side. The rejoinders, however, admitted that of all the three men who have governed the state since 1999, Prince Audu’s government was the most impactful in Okunland. Indeed, they admit that while former governor Ibrahim Idris managed to establish a little presence in Okunland, Mr Wada has done nothing anyone taking the trouble of remembering. If in about four years Mr Wada did nothing for the Okun people, when he knew he would be needing their votes for another four years, what are the guarantees he would do something major and significant in the next four years when he would not be needing them thereafter?

    Notwithstanding the lack of sophistication of Okunland politics, it is still unlikely they will be confused as to whom to vote for. They will be reluctant to compound the historic error they made in campaigning for the new state of Kogi (created 1991), in which they found themselves unexpectedly outmanoeuvered and outgunned by the Igala from the Kogi East senatorial district. They will recognise that notwithstanding the uninspiring choices they face between Mr Wada and Prince Audu, their best bet is to throw in their lot with the man who spread development to their area, who had a great developmental track record, and who in 2011, had he been governor, would probably have supported the federal government in siting the only federal university in the state (Federal University Lokoja) in Kabba, the unofficial headquarters of Okunland. Prince Audu is still the Okun people’s best bet for power rotation and fairness. Mr wada is of no value to Kogi West.

    The Okun people will likely settle their differences over the zoning of the senatorial position, and will overcome their misgivings over the running mate issue, especially the false and misleading dichotomy over native and foreign Okun sons and daughters. They will know which side their bread is buttered, and they will reach deep into their souls and their illustrious past and do what is right. If they fail, as their contemporary fractiousness suggests, they will be compounding the error of Kogi State creation, and foreclosing a bright future for coming generations. Already, present day Okun people blame their fathers for the lopsidedness of state creation, dismayed by their forebears’ lack of foresight; it is important that a historic redress should take place now to correct a previous historic error.

    A few rejoinders also suggest that President Muhammadu Buhari would be contradicting his anti-corruption agenda by visiting Kogi to campaign for the APC candidate, Prince Audu. This is sheer piffle. President Buhari is not the law courts. Not only has Prince Audu not been found guilty of wrongdoing, the case, which has been on since 2013,, is a testament to the government’s prosecutorial mystery than Prince Audu’s adeptness at undermining or frustrating the law. President Buhari will put in context the more than N10bn alleged to have been stolen by Prince Audu at a time when the state’s annual budget under his tenure was considerably less than N30bn. In addition, Prince Audu was validly selected by the party to be its standard-bearer. The president will not fight that outcome, nor turn his back on his party’s ambitions.

    This column argues that based on Mr Wada’s poor performance and Prince Audu’s substantial developmental projects, the contest is unlikely to be indecisive. If the contest is based on whether Mr Wada is polite or Prince Audu is uncouth, then, of course, Kogi may be too far gone in errant politics than outsiders imagine. The state should keep its eye on the ball and vote sensibly for the sake of future generations. Kogi West, it seems, may finally do what is right. Kogi Central also has the capacity to disentangle the twisted skein with which Wada’s supporters seek to hamstring the state. And Kogi East, where Mr Wada hails from, is reportedly miffed by the governors inattentiveness to their pains. Mr Wada may get plenty of votes from people impressed by the comely and inviting visage of politicians, and from voters who can’t seem to appreciate the fundamentals of politics and balloting, but the votes will likely only be sufficient to spare him humiliation, not give him victory.

    Both the APC and Prince Audu should go out and reassure the electorate of his bona fides, of his newfound delicate manners, of his readiness to work and to respect the people’s rights, for the country and the state have changed so radically that former methods will get him into trouble, and of the long list of substantial work he did both in 1992 and 1999. He must resist provocations, and he must understand that if anyone is supporting him today despite his bad press, that support is based on nothing else than his developmental and financial management records. Mr Wada is not an option, and neutrality is a sterile and foolish exercise. Kogi should vote right in November and save themselves the humiliating embarrassment of being counted as one of Nigeria’s leading laggards.

     

  • Time to move away from excuses

    Time to move away from excuses

    Unlike the optimism of voters for change and enthusiasm of President Buhari to return a sense of order to the polity, civil servants and others in political office do not seem to be in a hurry to change from looking for excuses to mute irresponsible behaviour in government.

    One feature of the country’s culture of corruption is finding excuses not to do the right thing. This culture of impunity was not created by former President Jonathan; it just reached its pinnacle (or nadir?) under his presidency. Finding excuses not to do the right thing is also part of the culture of all categories of workers-from those in the formal sector to those in the artisanal and informal sector. Unlike the optimism of voters for change and enthusiasm of President Buhari to return a sense of order to the polity, civil servants and others in political office do not seem to be in a hurry to change from looking for excuses to mute irresponsible behaviour in government.

    The latest demonstration of excuses in our new government of change pertains to failure of over 300 MDAs to act in compliance with the presidential order that accounts of all government agencies be transferred to the Treasury Single Account in the Central Bank. Let us hear from the Accountant-General of the Federation who should know about the latest development on the presidential order: “As at today, I can tell you about 600 out of about 900 MDAs have keyed in. For the number of accounts I cannot categorically tell you because even the MDAs and indeed the federal government never knew the number of accounts. However the accounts are going on to the Central Bank of Nigeria and I believe very soon a position will be made available on the number of accounts that have been swept up.”

    Is there any better or worse way to illustrate resilience of poor governance than the statement from the Accountant-General? The AGF may have some excuse for not knowing how many MDAs there are in the country, because he is new on the job. But it is absurd that the MDAs and the federal government do not know the number of accounts. What the Accountant-General implies is that departments and agencies that keep public funds are not even sure how many accounts they have. The Accountant-General’s use of “about 900 MDAs and about 300 MDAs” in the quotation above indicates, if anything, the lack of seriousness in public service delivery. What does it take for our public servants to be able to talk in exact terms? A similar fear of exactness was displayed during the announcement of the last presidential election when one of the Returning Officers from the Eastern States had to be asked by the former INEC chair, Professor Attahiru Jega, if the man was reading from the text in front of him. Government officials, especially senior ones, should be able to talk in exact terms when and where figures are involved.

    But the uncertainty of the Accountant-General about the exact number of MDAs is not the focus of this piece on excuses. Today’s interest is about the Accountant-General’s need to convince MDAs that the presidential order on closure of multiple accounts is not directed against MDAs but for the purpose of increasing efficiency, days after the deadline to carry out presidential directives had passed. Of course, the order is directed at (and designed against) all government agencies that chose to open deposit accounts that nobody, not even the federal government has been able, according to the AGF, to count or verify.

    In normal polities, it should not have been necessary for the Accountant-General to plead with erring MDAs, days after the deadline for closure of multiple accounts: “The policy was never intended to impair the operations of MDAs; rather, it is intended to make them more efficient and to make cash available to government in a very centralised and consolidated manner. So, operations of MDAs are expected to move on as expected but MDAs must come forward in line with the directive and deadline given of Sept. 15 which has already expired. We are expecting them to come and enlist, enrol and identify users that will participate and key into their individual sub-accounts so that they can utilise their resources based on their budgets.” The president gave reasons for calling for a return to the Treasury Single Account when the directive was first made. It is important for heads of agencies to note that in a presidential system, the buck stops at the desk of the president. Heads of MDAs that are uncomfortable with the directive or unable to respond to presidential directives on time should be given the choice to resign. Nigerians are ashamed of a system that allows departments and agencies to open bank accounts the number of which may be too numerous for owners of the account to count or know.

    The claim that some MDAs are experiencing difficulties in following the presidential order is reminiscent of what many citizens believe is a staple of financial managers in the public sector: the tendency by those in charge of MDAs to keep public funds in many bank accounts, most of which are to yield personal interest for the privileged civil servants. In the era of Sani Abacha, some senior public servants including governors were believed to have put public funds in Finance Houses to produce interest for them. Some governors were even warned by Abacha against joining NADECO on account of having illegally deposited public funds in private bank accounts for personal interest. It is dangerous for the federal government to be shifting deadlines. To instil discipline in governance, the president needs to read the riot act to MDAs that had failed to meet the deadline to move all public funds in their care to the Treasury Single Account.

    Still on excuses, citizens are no longer in the loop on whether the police had finally submitted the investigation into the allegation of forgery (in the senate at the first meeting of the current senate) to the Ministry of Justice. A few weeks ago, the media was agog over the play of excuses between the police force and the ministry of justice. The former claimed to have sent to the justice department the full report of the investigation while the latter claimed that the first report sent to it was incomplete and was sent back to the police. The police shouted back that it had sent the final report back to the justice ministry. No reference was made to the mode of sending the report. But in the last three weeks, no information has been made available to the public about the location of the report of the said police investigation. As no reference has been made in the last three weeks to the existence of the report, the media may need to ask both arms of government about the whereabouts of the report of a very important investigation by the police.

    Police men on highways have again started to ask motorists to produce licence for tinted glass on vehicles imported into the country and for which owners had paid customs charges. I was stopped on Sagamu-Ore road last week. I told the policeman that the matter of tinted glass had died a natural death long ago. He told me he was not aware of any change in the position of the police on tinted glass, adding that the new Inspector-General had not made any new pronouncement on tinted glass. Should the IGP need to reassure his field officers on the highways that most countries imported to the country come with factory-built tinted glass, he should add a sentence on tinted glass to his post-confirmation speech on his policies to turn the police force around for the better. Voters for change are tired of having to live with the culture of excuses by government agencies.

    Even months after the exit of a government that did not care about laws and rules, persons accused of violating the law of the land are eager to accuse the current administration of witch-hunting or political persecution. What has happened in our country to the principle that every action has a consequence and every responsible citizen has to be ready to accept responsibility for his or her action? Individuals accused of unwholesome behaviour are encouraged by their supporters to cry foul, not about the substance of the allegations levelled against them, but solely about the involvement of their political enemies in drawing attention to their unlawful conduct. Mobilising men and women to engage in solidarity visits to courts says as much about the morality of those accused of wrongdoing as it does about supporters who choose to abandon their own jobs to accompany individuals accused of corruption or any other violation of the law to courts.

    Citizens who are used to corruption and impunity are likely to always find excuses for whatever they do. It is the levers of power in a paradigm-altering administration that will have to remain firm in their resolve to end impunity by not listening to excuses from citizens who are used to being above the law.

  • Pope Francis, the talakawa Pontiff: a man for our times, a man for all ages

    Pope Francis, the talakawa Pontiff: a man for our times, a man for all ages

    Alufa n’sonra, ijo n’ru [While the priest grows fat, the congregants grow lean and emaciated with hunger] A popular Yoruba wisecrack against priestly pursuit of riches

    It is Wednesday, September 23, 2015. I have just watched the television broadcast of the address of Pope Francis to a joint meeting of both chambers of the United States Congress. The Pope’s speech was stunning in the eloquence, wisdom and humility with which he took up the cause of the poor – the talakawas of this world – and the cause of survival of our planet as a common home for all of us, the denizens of planet Earth. The speech is over and I think hard. I think back to the entirety of my life and I conclude that I have never heard a more powerful and moving speech than this speech by Pope Francis. This thought, this realization is why I started writing my column for the week a whole two days before Friday, September 25, 2015, which would have been the deadline for writing and submitting the piece for this week’s column to my Editor.

    I am writing now because I want what I write to come straight from the powerful emotions stirred in my mind and imagination by Pope Francis’ speech to the U.S. Congress. As I begin to write, I think further: if I wait until Friday morning, what I write may be good and compelling, but it will not have the emotional force of what I am feeling right now, right after listening to the delivery of the speech. For in essence what I am feeling right now is this: this man, Pope Francis, (former Catholic Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Argentina, former Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglo) comes closer than any man I have ever met or read about to my sense of the spirit, the moral vision and energy that animated that man of Judea who was one of the greatest moral reformers and revolutionary visionaries that ever lived, this being Jesus Christ of Nazareth. As this thought takes hold of my mind with great clarity and conviction, I say to myself that if I don’t write what I am feeling about this speech right now, if I wait until Friday morning to write the column, I would perhaps have begun to think, perhaps like the conventional Christian that I am not, that comparing Pope Francis with Jesus is extravagant and hyperbolic, if not even blasphemous. With this particular idea in my mind, I continue to write, thinking that all I will have to do two days from now on Friday morning before sending the piece to my Editor would be to read it over, and make necessary corrections and revisions if any are needed.

    To be entirely truthful and perhaps even somewhat confessional here, this comparison of Pope Francis to Jesus Christ comes from a region of my mind that goes all the way back to my youth when I was a Christian who was drawn to the faith by the combined effect on my evolving moral imagination of some of the most vivid, inspirational and transformative stories of Christ’s ministry: the story of the preacher who asked his disciples to sell all their worldly goods, give up their monetary possessions and take up the vows of poverty as a non-negotiable condition of their acceptance into his ministry; the narrative of the militant anti-capitalist who took up the whip to drive and scatter the profiteering money-changers and usurers from the temple and its precincts; the account of the radical and inventive allegorist who stated that it would be far easier for a whole camel to be threaded through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God; the realistic and compassionate preacher who, before his famous Sermon on the Mount, fed the hungry and the destitute in their thousands, their tens of thousands; and the tale of the man who, in the greatest of his sermons, gave us those eight so-called “beatitudes” that are almost unmatched in the clarity and eloquence with which they articulated ethical and spiritual imperatives for a just, humane, simple but dignified life for each and everyone of us, most especially the poor, the talakawa.

    That was the composite image of Christ in my mind in the period of my youth as an activist in the Students’ Christian Movement (SCM) when I was the Secretary General of all the secondary schools in Ibadan that had chapters of the SCM. Today, Wednesday, September 23, 2015, nearly fifty years later, that image rose up again in my mind, except that it was not of Christ himself that I was thinking about but Pope Francis.

    It is not necessary for me to itemize the three or four central ideas expressed by the Pope in his speech that conjured this comparison with Christ in my mind. This is because, as important as these ideas are, it is the moral and spiritual framework within which Pope Francis articulated them that made the comparison possible, even compelling. I know no better way of giving the reader an idea of this moral and spiritual framework than by saying emphatically that while ordinarily political imperatives are extremely difficult to align with moral imperatives, the Pope in his speech made this alignment between politics and morality not only easy and logical but vital. And the manner in which he accomplished this task was incredible in its discursive elegance: he talked of politics in the loftiest of spiritual and moral terms. In other words, in an age in which in nearly every country in the world, nobody in his or her right senses would think of politicians as moral leaders of their communities, Pope Francis asserted, simply but vigorously, that this is what politics is or should be – the moral touchstone of mankind.

    The central ideas or themes of the Pope’s speech can be briefly summarized. One: the gap between the rich and the poor is growing wider and wider at the same time in which the ranks of the poor grow bigger and bigger; as a consequence, the poor in their millions or even billions in all the countries of the world are being excluded from all that is vital for life lived in dignity and freedom from want. Two: there is no need to be fearful of the “stranger”, the immigrant in our midst for nearly everyone in the Americas at the present time is a descendant of “strangers” and immigrants to the two continents, South and North America. The Pope extended this idea to what is happening in Europe now with the flood of refugees and migrants fleeing from their war-torn or poverty-stricken homelands and he took it upon himself to remind Europeans that they themselves have in the past fled from Europe in times of war or desperation in search of new lives in other parts, other continents of the world. Three: human activities are posing serious and possibly catastrophic dangers to the earth and our natural environment and if urgent and coordinated action is not taken now or soon enough, the very survival of our species will be doomed irreversibly. Four: human life is precious and sacred and should be protected at all stages and all in circumstances of weakness, impairment and peril. Capital punishment should be abolished in all the countries of the world and to the necessity that often arises to punish criminals in order to protect the society and the innocent from their misdeeds, we must add the recognition that rehabilitation is always possible for even the worst offenders. Five: in the pursuit of wealth and profits, the global trade in arms seems unstoppable; lethal weapons of mass destruction are quite easily acquired by nations, groups and individuals who absolutely make no secret of their intentions to use the weapons they buy either on defenseless populations or in pursuit of criminal activities linked with international drug trafficking.

    It will be readily seen that although these are issues and ideas whose moral and practical usefulness to humankind seems indisputable, they are in fact issues and ideas that divide the peoples of the world and all its nations into fiercely and bitterly opposing camps. This is why, on balance, though most commentators on the views of Pope Francis agree that a few of his views are conservative, especially those that pertain to matters of church doctrine, these commentators place the Pope far more solidly on the Left than on the Right. It would be disingenuous of me not only to say that I am in agreement with this assessment of the “politics” of the Pope’s views, but that it pleases me enormously that he is more Left-leaning than Right-leaning. However, the fundamental thing about the Pontiff’s “politics”, his political views is that they are solidly grounded in a notion and a practice of “politics” which powerfully calls out to the moral being in all of us. In other words, whether you are a woman or man of the Left or the Right, the Pope’s political views place your claims to being a moral being on the line. Only the most cynical, the most asinine men and women would abjure or give up their claims to being moral beings. This is the underlying power of the Pope’s speech to the U.S. Congress.

    That should be my last word in these reflections but there is one more factor to add. Like Jesus of Nazareth, this Pope is also a brilliantly strategic and pragmatic moral philosopher. Like Jesus, in his speech, Pope Francis grounded the moral framework of his political views on pragmatism and enlightened self-interest. Throughout the delivery of his speech, he made allusions to the golden rule: do unto others as you would have them do unto you. If you are haunted by the specter of poverty for yourself and your offspring, do not impose poverty on other men and women and their progeny. If you turn your back, your compassion on refugees and migrants now, know that you or your children and their children may one day also be refugees and migrants, as indeed your ancestors once were in these Americas, this Europe, this world.

    • Biodun Jeyifo

    bjeyifo@fas.harvard.edu   

  • Leadership devaluation in Nigeria

    The devaluation of politics and the attenuation of leadership in Nigeria have never been in sharper focus. Just compare the glorious NASS of the Second Republic with the sadly pedestrian and criminal rabble of the contemporary Nigerian senate and you must come to the gloomy conclusion that the Gaullist paradigm of exemplary leadership in moments of acute national crisis does not obtain here. It was meant for more organic nations. Otherwise, why does Nigeria always throw up its worst eleven in moments of great distress?

    Like the devaluation of a national currency, the devaluation of politics and the attenuation of leadership stem from many factors including grave external pressures, national profligacy in the management of human resources and sheer elite criminal propensity. This is usually compounded by biological coups, actual military coups, natural atrophy and the manipulations of power cabals and other organized conspiracies for capturing national privileges.

    Three significant developments in the Nigerian political firmaments in the past week are sharp pointers to the devaluation of politics and the attenuation of leadership in the country.  They are in no particular order: the arraignment of the Senate President, Olubukola Saraki, before the Code of Conduct Tribunal on sundry charges bordering on corruption, the abduction and subsequent release of Afenifere chieftain and former presidential aspirant, Chief Oluyemisi Falae, and the departure to higher glory of the Ikenne matriarch and relic of Obafemi Awolowo, Mama HID Awolowo.

    On face value, these events may appear unrelated and unconnected, yet they are profound tropes for the endemic crisis of politics and leadership in post-colonial Nigeria. In a sense, Mama Awolowo’s passing to higher glory represents a kind of closure and the possibility of a new beginning; a sad primer for a very turbulent period in Nigeria’s history when sterling qualities and exceptional leadership qualities are nearly not enough to politically triumph in the colonial cage called Nigeria. She was the First Mother Nigeria never had.

    The death of the redoubtable matriarch is a classic instance of how the most sturdy and valiant of humanity will eventually succumb to death or biological coup. Her life is a great profile in courage and indomitable will and of unconditional fidelity and devotion to a spouse and the cause espoused.

    It will be hypocritical to say that one always agreed with positions taken in Ikenne, particularly after the departure of the great sage, but HID was a leader of great endowments in her own right and there can be no discounting the dignity, forbearance and stoicism with which she bore her domestic travails and her husband’s political ordeals.

    If her cult of heroic example greatly warms the heart, they also point the way forward for a rejuvenation and redemption of politics and leadership recruitment in Nigeria. This is why the Saraki saga is such a huge dampener.  It is a sad day for the Nigerian political elite when the president of the senate and the nation third ranking political officer is hauled before a court on charges bordering on criminal self-enrichment.

    In court, Saraki looked flustered and flummoxed with all the bluff and bluster gone. There was a hint of distress and a whiff of disorientation. The superman has finally arrived at the supermall. The hitherto indefatigable and unflappable scion of the Saraki dynasty must be wondering whether he was in another country and whether this was truly happening to him.

    This is the moment when the bones of impunity were heard cracking and crumbling to deafening echoes of approval and approbation across the land. It is redolent of historic ironies and momentous contradictions. It sets in motion a dynamic that may never be rolled back. Nigeria will never be the same again. The genie of impunity has been flung on the wheel track of a moving train.

    If this historic arraignment and the unruly rumpus at the Ilorin praying ground on Thursday are anything to go by, we can be sure that a great Shakespearean tragedy is unfolding. This time around it is not the old shabbily dispatched King Lear that has come to Agbaji but the woods of Birnam passing Dunsinane as they arrived in Oke Suna to settle account with the heir presumptive and heir too presumptuous.  The Saraki dynasty and its sense of feudal entitlements have been struck a mortal blow.

    There may yet be something to salvage from this great drama of human greed and unworthy political ambition. If Bukola Saraki and his handlers know how to properly read the rustling tea leaves, this may be the time to dismount the high horse of self-destruction and throw in the towel in a rare and unaccustomed gesture of political nobility and high-mindedness.

    But if the embattled Senate President decides to stall and stonewall thus bringing further devaluation and international odium to Nigerian politics, if he decides to opt for the Samsonine option of bringing the entire roof crashing down with himself, he may be inviting more ruinous possibilities. This is a moment Saraki needs clarity and lucidity as members of Praetorian Guard begin deserting one by one. He that is ethically felled needs not fear being crushed by the wheels of justice.

    Yet it is in the nature of historical contradictions that the Saraki saga as well as the abduction and subsequent release of Chief Olu Falae should speak to a pervading national rot and insecurity as well as the possibility of national rebirth. It is heartwarming and a departure from Jonathan’s catatonic slumber that President Buhari gave the Inspector General a prompt marching order to find Falae’s abductors. It is even more pleasing to see the Akure chief personally rescued by a team led by the nation’s top cop.

    There are many who believe that Falae, by virtue of his heroic exertion during the struggle against military tyranny, ought to have won the 1999 presidential election. But the military had other ideas, preferring to hand over to one of their own who they believe had the minatory capacity to rein all centrifugal forces threatening the nation.

    In the circumstance,  it should have been a retired President Olu Falae relaxing  and reflecting in the ambience of his presidential library rather than going to farm on the morning of his birthday however noble a pastime this has become for the retired banker and former Secretary to the Federal Government.

    The contribution of protracted military rule to the devaluation of politics and the attenuation of leadership in Nigeria cannot be over-emphasized, neither can the shenanigans of an ethnically and ethically disoriented political class, its mode of leadership recruitment and its pattern of preferment. The deleterious combination of these factors has in no small measure contributed to the endemic crisis of nationhood that has hobbled a potentially great country.

    Going forward, it is obvious that Nigeria needs a new leadership ethos, a new paradigm of politics as well as a new architecture of the nation itself. Rather than wasting valuable time and scarce national resources in convoking another national jamboree in the name of a fresh national conference, the president should urgently gather a committee of eminent Nigerians who will look into the recommendations of all earlier conferences and make appropriate recommendations which can then be subjected to a national referendum.

  • Curbing sexual harassment on campuses

    I once asked a female student of a higher institution a question I knew the answer to assure myself my views on the issue is right.

    The question was whether it is true that lecturers sexually harass female students in exchange of marks?.

    Not only did she confirm that the allegations are true, she cited personal experiences and that of others she knew about.

    Contrary to denials, sexual harassment and rape cases are common in virtually all educational institutions, including the primary schools.

    Some lecturers are so notorious that female students have to device all manners of tactics to ward off advances or outright demand for what they think is part of their benefits for being lecturers.

    I remember a case of a Post Graduate student who was advised to meet her project supervisor in company of her husband who should offer generous financial gift to the lecturer to prevent him from asking the lady for sex.

    Those who don’t give in to the demands  and can’t pay in cash sometimes pay dearly for their refusal by being deliberately scored low. There are cases of students who have had to repeat a session just because they refused to subject themselves to the ‘evil ‘ demands of randy lecturers old enough to be their fathers.

    The recent case of a part-time lecturer in University of Lagos who raped an admission seeker which is being investigated by the institution is indicative of what some lecturers can do to satisfy their lust.

    A lecturer raped the daughter of his neighbour who was entrusted to him to assist in securing admission and shamelessly claims that he had the consent of the girl to sleep with her.

    There is another case being investigated in University of Calabar where a Professor of Law raped a student after offering her an opportunity to recopy a class text in his office.

    Like in the first case, some friends of the notorious lecturer are not denying that the lecturer had carnal knowledge of the student in his office, their defense is that the lady is morally loose. The Professor also claimed the act was consensual.

    What a shame that lecturers have turned their offices to ‘slaughter slabs’ on the excuse that the students offered themselves to them which is not the case in this two instances.

    Even if the students offered themselves, the question for the lecturers is whether  it is right for them to have sexual relationships with students? Is it morally justifiable to engage in such unethical conduct when they are married and have their own children.

    Thankfully, past students have come out in both cases to confirm that the two lecturers have an history of sexually harassing students.

    A top newspaper editor recently wrote put a lie to denial of allegations of sexual harassment by lecturers when she recalled how her project supervisor while she was an undergraduate was interested in sleeping with her and she declined.

    Those she sought  help from to appeal to the lecturer her to give the lecturer what he wanted told her to give the lecturer what she wanted . Her punishment for refusal was lack of the necessary supervision by the lecturer.

    If incidents of sexual harassment are to be curtailed in institutions, cases like the ones  above should be thoroughly investigated and the lecturers severely penalised to serve as a deterrent to others.

  • This season of unpaid wages is a little worrisome, no?

    Until there is a social security scheme in place, the government must carry its bloated burden and carry it well.

       There are so many things happening all at once that my pen, sorry, my fingers just cannot fly fast enough over the computer keys. What things? Have you been a stranger in these parts that you do not know these things? Are you like that man who was asked by a traveller how to get to a certain part of the city and he replied that he did not know since he was a stranger in the land and had only lived there for fifteen years or so? Or, are you like me (and I am sure there are legions of us) who hear these things as they whiz past our ears from the men folks as they talk to each other over our heads? Then, you can hear us go, our legion that is, ‘Ehn, so, who is facing charges now?’ ‘They say it’s Saraki.’ Ehn, so, who is Saraki?’ ‘The senate president.’ ‘Ehn, so, where is that senate? Hey, where is that child I sent to go and get me some pepper? Hen, can you believe the price of pepper in the market now…?’ Different strokes for different folks, they say.

            Well, folks, that is how I got to hear that the senate president is involved in some kind of tangle with the Code of Conduct Bureau and I said, good luck to them all. Me, I am involved in my own tangle with the dog. The blessed thing will just not behave. Someone said he probably does not even know he is a dog. I think I will take him to a psychiatrist.

             I also heard that President Buhari had not yet released his ministerial list, what with the promised month of September hurtling to its close; and I thought, what is he trying to do, draw out every breath from our lungs as we hold it in expectation? I heard too that as many as twenty states are still owing their workers many months of back wages even as we speak, and I thought, now, that is worrisome. Out of all these things I am hearing, the fact that people are not being paid is the one that worries me most.

           Let me state right out that I do not know the politics of this salary thing, because it appears to have come along with many considerations or even, I suspect, ideologies. There are rumours that playing helpless was the only way the states could force the federal government to share some money it had insisted on keeping hidden for a rainy day. Obviously, the states were not interested in rainy days; they preferred the raining day of the Naira. Some other rumours have it that the states felt that too much of their subventions were going into their monthly wage bills and were getting tired, and many other rumours. Like I said, I don’t know, but let us share a few things related to this problem.

           To start with, money is in short supply now in Nigeria. It is also true that Nigeria’s civil service is unnecessarily bloated but again, this is owing to the fact that she does not run any other social service scheme by which the government can reach a good number of her people with the country’s resources. So, as it is now, there are very few families in the land which do not have one relative or the other in government employ. Many will also not rest until they do. Until there is a social security scheme in place, the government must carry its bloated burden and carry it well.

            Following on the heels of that burden is the fact that the government by its own short-sightedness has nigh killed the private sector. Many have pointed out, including this column, that the greatest employer of labour in any healthy land should be the private sector made up of the large-, small- and medium-scale enterprises. In the absence of a good and independent economic market, most people have been schooled to believe that government employ is the ultimate. Naturally, under such a large and unnatural weight, the government, both state and federal, appears to be buckling under.

           It is this system that has also given rise to and encouraged all the corruption that we are currently battling in the country. The reason is clear I think. Anyone who can manipulate that system, since it has not been built on profit-making or national benefit, simply does so for ethno-religious benefit.

           Unfortunately too, about the time that the international price of oil dipped at the close of the Jonathan administration, the then minister of finance pronounced that the first casualty of that shortfall was likely to be civil servants’ wages. Many of us were rather bewildered that staff salaries should be the first target. Now that the state has kept its promise to target staff salaries, we still are.

           However, we are wondering why the atrociously high tastes of political leaders for instance have not been targeted. It is on record that Nigeria is paying nearly the highest wages to its legislature. A lot has been said about that already; I guess more will come another day. Today, however, we must reiterate what many, including this column, have said concerning the rapacious appetites of our elected state executives. We have said before that many of them, with few exceptions, have gone to their states not to build but to acquire things like private jets (I am told many are still on the queue to own one) and London houses. In bewilderment, we have watched our state executives’ acquisitive tastes go straight from sub-normal to abnormal without passing through Route Normal.

            Seriously, this must be telling us something. First, I believe that our state executives, and indeed, our political leaders must stop behaving like class bullies and hold themselves accountable to the people for their actions. They should please stop swinging their agbadas in our faces and curb their acquisitive appetites. Why should a state executive insist on owning a jet when people are hungry?

             A worker controls only the few thousands of Naira s/he is given as his/her wage. With this, he/she feeds his/her family, maintains his/her car/motorcycle/bicycle/feet (yes, everything needs to be oiled, even feet), pays school bills, maintains elderly relatives, pays health bills, builds a house (neither the state not bank will help), clothes him/herself, etc. When the few thousands do not come, everything suffers.

             State executives, on the other hand, control billions of Naira each month, heck some each week. With this, they are expected to take care of their states’ needs, pay wages and uplift their environment. From our general knowledge and experiences though, many of them have been content paying wages and upping their tastes; and when there has been a contest between paying wages and massaging their palates, why, many right thinking executives have upheld their private jets. This behaviour closely resembles that of class bullies who beat up the weak ones just because they can.

             The fathers of American democracy opted for it because they believed that truth can only be established from many mouths. Many Nigerians are presently not contributing their mouths to its growth in Nigeria because of hunger and ignorance. By not paying salaries as and at when due, our governors appear to be more interested in perpetrating that silence. This is what worries me.

             Too much is rotten in the state of Nigeria, and I believe the slowness and silence of the president have been due to this realisation. When the dust is cleared, I pray the president to please enable the private sector once again, not only to provide more credible labour opportunities but to encourage production for export earnings as well. Then we can call the soul of this country our own.