The Nation Newspaper

Category: Sunday

  • Buhari’s puzzling appointments

    Buhari’s puzzling appointments

    President Muhammadu Buhari’s seemingly grudging gesture in appointing a few southerners into the presidency and security staff can neither escape attention nor censure. Of the 12 or 13 appointments so far in the presidency, only three have gone to southerners. If appointments to the nation’s security network are added, the number of southerners rises to five out of a total of about 20. It will be interesting to find out how the president’s mind works on this curious issue. He approved the appointments, indeed, he made them. But does he have the presence of mind to appreciate the troubling message the skewed appointments convey about his worldview, and to the country and his party, the All Progressives Congress (APC)?

    Until last Thursday, many commentators had given the president the benefit of the doubt on the structure and motive of his over 30 general appointments. After the recent appointments, some six in all, few analysts doubt any longer how his mind works or what his perspectives are. They still see him as upright, honest and eager to remake a country battered by more than six years of the Goodluck Jonathan presidency. In fact they will rather have him fighting corruption and sloth in public office than anyone else. But they probably no longer see him as the presumed nationalist of their hopes and imagination, nor conceive of him as the one who will be Nigeria’s moderniser and unifier. In just two or three bouts of appointments, President Buhari may have demystified his government and person.

    The signs had been there all along. Top Nigerians, some of them former presidents and former governors, had been uncomfortable with the president’s narrow circle of friends. He had a tendency to stick with those he knew and trusted, they said. He rarely experimented nor ever imbibed the wide-ranging relationships that conduce to great governance in a multi-ethnic, multi-religious and very plural and complex nation like Nigeria, others volunteered. Even this column, which fanatically advanced his interest before the elections, muttered under its breath about whether Candidate Buhari had overcome the provincialism and exclusionism that hobbled his past or were ascribed to him by his critics and detractors. Might there be no one else who could galvanise the society, especially the critical mass of voters in the North, to sweep Dr Jonathan out of office? The answer, sadly, was no. And so Candidate Buhari won the support of this column, notwithstanding the reservations.

    Whatever his past, whatever was ascribed to him fairly or unfairly, and whatever bad names he had been called, there is nothing in the appointments he has made so far that justifies what he has done as a presumed and corrective patriot. The culmination of  the appointments is that Nigeria will in the foreseeable future, perhaps all of four years, have to cope with a presidency that will be distinctly northern in outlook and culture, in the same reprehensible and damaging manner the Jonathan presidency was distinctly Niger Delta/Southeast. Surely, President Buhari must recognise that one of the major reasons Dr Jonathan was repudiated by a chafing electorate was the fact that his parochial aides fouled the presidency in a manner completely irreconcilable with 21st century dictates. Why would President Buhari ignore the lessons of history?

    This must be quite an unsettling time for the APC. For, in the end, they will have to both manage the backlash that will follow these appointments and struggle to keep their fractious party together. After the riling intraparty controversy that nearly fragmented the ruling party and the National Assembly in June, it was hoped that the president would take sensible and measured steps in addressing both the apparent exclusion of the Southeast in the scheme of things and the token recognition given the Southwest, the region that inspired, structured, energised and harmonised the anti-Jonathan and anti-PDP coalitions. Instead, even the mistakes never made nor contemplated by the PDP, nor yet by Dr Jonathan, as poor in leadership as he was, are being flagrantly committed.

    Assuming President Buhari is convinced he disdained better options, it is doubtful whether there is anything he can do in the short run to remedy the situation. He cannot rescind the slanted appointments he has just made; and there are no more key and powerful presidency and security positions to fill. Worse, once a negative impression of the Buhari presidency has taken root, thus confirming the scepticism of those who doubted the so-called political and attitudinal reformation the president claimed he had undergone, it is unlikely that the hard opinion of Buharisceptics would thaw anytime soon.

    What is probably worse is that the political opposition to President Buhari and the APC will now feel emboldened by the sudden realisation that this Achilles indeed has a vulnerable heel. No amount of remedy can dispel the accusation of bias levelled against the president. There are hundreds of other positions waiting to be filled. But the president has already lopsidedly filled the key positions with northerners. All that remains is for this negative impression of him to harden. Every step he takes will then be viewed from that distorted prism. His policies may be sound, and his appointees, tilted towards the North as they are, may be among the best technocrats the country can boast of, but he will be denounced for permitting that skewness, and the value of his policies and the true worth of his appointees will be held continuously in doubt.

    Probably the most acute part of the national embarrassment flowing from the appointments is that President Buhari will now be seen as running and nurturing a presidency that is anything but Nigerian in outlook, and a kitchen cabinet he trusts absolutely but is not ennobled by diversified and inspiring perspectives of issues. After ruling Nigeria as head of state and running for the presidency four times, President Buhari was presumed to recognise the need to make the presidency largely reflect the cultural and political pastiche of Nigeria. He failed to understand this. He should be worried. His supporters suggest that by the time he is through with the remaining appointments, Nigeria’s colourful diversity would manifest. Perhaps. But to the embarrassment and dismay of the circumspect northerners he has appointed, that diversity will be absent at the highest level of the presidency.

    The problem is not that President Buhari has malevolently assembled a constricted presidency, or that he naturally wishes to exclude the rest of the country from his inner circle. Indeed, those who served with or under him in the military have attested to his sense of fairness and patriotism. The real problem is that he has spent most of his active years cultivating or mentoring a very restrictive circle of friends, mentees and subordinates. He apparently prefers to have close to himself those he can trust and feel comfortable around. It is not, therefore, that he is taking the wrong steps by design, as some Southeast politicians have alleged, but that he seems precisely the sort of leader who would do right inadvertently. For a complex society like Nigeria, that orientation is clearly intolerable, and to the Southeast, indefensible.

    Notwithstanding the most copious amelioration of the situation, including vouchsafing the remainder of the so-called juiciest ministerial and MDAs positions to the Southwest and Southeast, the president must have no illusion that any such amelioration can expand the worldview and perspectives of his presidency. Since he assumed office, this column, among many other analysts, had wondered which shadowy personalities were behind his policies and decisions in the absence of a cabinet. These policies and decisions, it was already manifesting in the weeks since he became president, did not gesture appropriately to the wider needs and cultural and political sensitivities of the country. It may get worse now that presidency and security positions have been all but filled up.

    The foundation of a government is as important as the structure of governance erected on it. Yet, no Nigerian government has attracted such dreadful unease over appointments as the Buhari presidency has managed in a few momentous weeks. Had he availed himself of appropriate advice, had he assembled a kaleidoscope of technocrats and politicians, it is unlikely he would have made the kind of appointments he made last week and before. Indeed, it is likely he would have avoided the fiasco in the National Assembly that is certain to dog his presidency for some time, not to talk of the current, unseemly controversy over presidency positions. Commentators did their best to warn the president of the growing slant in his appointments a few weeks ago, especially after he announced his new security chiefs. By ignoring them and going ahead to make the even more controversial appointments of last week, it seems clear the president knew what he was doing.

    President Buhari knew what kind of presidency he wanted. He has now consciously assembled it, and must live with it. His worldview will very likely remain constricted, unable to benefit from the variegated exchange of ideas and backgrounds that diverse presidential aides give. His perspectives will also doubtless be coloured by the philosophies and textures of the men he has assembled to work in close quarters with him. He and his supporters and party must now hope that the foundation he has laid for his presidency, from which he hopes to govern the country adroitly, will sustain his cumbersome vision of a remade and thriving Nigeria. He has his work cut out for him. If he gets away with this unprecedented experimentation of skewness, he will be a lucky man indeed. What is not certain, however, is that he can deliver on the great country the people envision, a country that retains the Buhari legacy after his time in office, renders superfluous the laying of another foundation many years down the road, and is able to offer Africa leadership because it had itself mastered its own cultural, religious and political complexities.

  • Bishop Kukah’s grandiloquence: A mere rearguard face-saving effort

    Bishop Kukah’s grandiloquence: A mere rearguard face-saving effort

    The Peace Committee having been denied the joy of playing a Job’s comforter to now President Muhammadu Buhari, is merely out on a fishing expedition, eager, always, to protect the object of its adulation as well as its raison d’etre.

    Tatalo scored the bull’s eye when in ‘The Trial Of Bishop Kukah’, (The Nation, 23 August, 2015) he wrote:  “Let it be bluntly and baldly stated that this committee, the Nigerian Peace Committee, that is, is not about peace at all. It materialised as a last ditch ruling class initiative to force General Buhari to accept dishonourable defeat and hence to stave off the revolutionary turmoil and anarchy that would have accompanied electoral miscarriage…’ Indeed, I make bold to say that it was, essentially, the apogee of the many schemes  put in place by the core Jonathanists and  their acolytes like  Afenifere  to hoodwink  Nigerians  into silence after gifting an undeserving President Jonathan a second term. Granted that it would be uncharitable to suggest that Afenifere is not serious about restructuring, they were well aware they sold the idea of a national conference to a most unwilling President Jonathan who would later show his utter revulsion for the event by failing to do anything about those aspects he could, very easily, have effected by a mere stroke of the pen.  Yet they wanted him to win and would do everything to secure that victory. For Afenifere therefore, the national conference was seen as a ‘deu ex machina’ to guarantee Southwest votes go to Jonathan.  That intended victory must also be sustainable because only then would Afenifere get out of its decades- old consignment to political Siberia in a region where they used to be the undisputed leaders; its most important reason for supporting Jonathan. In the certainty of that victory, to get which the PDP had other schemes to eventuate, and about which Afenifere may have been completely unaware, they had to help Jonathan prevent any post election conflagration as we saw in 2011. Because of the urgency of that victory, Afenifere raised no objection, whatever, to the president’s intent to inundate the country, especially the Southwest, with soldiers and masked members of the Niger-Delta Volunteer Force. Not even when Asari Dokubo threatened to level the entire Southwest did we hear a whimper from Afenifere. Jonathan’s victory, without a repeat of the 2011 post-election conflagration was uppermost in their calculations and for this reason, we would have some international diplomats come on a ‘salvage mission’.

     Aside Afenifere, PDP was, of course, certain of its candidate’s re-election. Many were the strategies, legal and otherwise, put in place to ensure it. Up until the eve of the election, when the respected Professor Chidi Odinkalu weighed in, supporting deployment of soldiers all over the country in a democratic election, the Ekiti model, which failed in Osun because we were fast in unravelling what happened at the Ekiti election, and the yeoman’s effort to frustrate them, was to be the template.  Nigerians have since come to know the details, courtesy Captain Koli’s Ekitigate tapes. For a confirmation of this claim, I quote from my article titled: “It Will Be Most Unlike PDP Not To Rig The 2015 Election,” of  4 January 2015 in which I  quoted Musiliu  Obanikoro ( a major player in  the Ekitigate saga) in an interview boasting as follows: ‘I can tell you that we are going to win. The president is going to win BIG; we are going to clear the Southwest. You can mark today’s date and quote me.” I invite the reader to note Obanikoro’s emphatic arrogance. As at that date, Nigerians have not known anything about the tapes.

    While the PDP was scheming, APC was working on much surer ground, a fact which enabled Dr. Femi Olufunmilade, a member of its Presidential Campaign Council to observe as follows in a recent interview: “The schisms within the PDP and the support of innumerable groups across the federation and the Diaspora were there to ensure victory. Many youth organisations, trade unions and so on lined up behind the Buhari-Osinbajo ticket. It was a rainbow coalition that cut across ethnicity, religion, region, class, professions etc. A unique feature of the ticket was that the talakawas, the lower class, the very poor in society gave their time, money, and intellect to it. It was unprecedented. I recall that when my campaign team of the Buhari-Osinbajo Support Organisation (BOSO) campaigned in the Ibarapa region of Oyo State and we offered to pay some local folks to paste the Buhari-Osinbajo posters we took along, they rejected our money and felt somehow insulted.”

    Incidentally, this widespread cult following was also being observed by some people in the other camp. Such persons knew that to rig the presidential election would be tantamount to inviting a conflagration far worse than we saw in 2011. This, I suspect, was how the former U.N Secretary-General, Kofie Anan and his former Commonwealth counterpart, Chief Emeka Anyaoku, suddenly emerged on the scene. It must be recalled, however, that this was soon after Prof Bolaji Akinyemi, with clear sympathies for Afenifere, proposed the signing of a MOU between the two leading presidential candidates. Integral to the proposed memorandum of understanding was the suggestion that the two candidates should sign that their supporters will, willy nilly, ACCEPT WHATEVER THE RESULT(caps mine) of the election.  Because I have never seen or heard anything like this before, I soon reacted to the suggestion. On these pages, Sunday, 18 January, 2015, I queried: “Is this diplomacy or duplicity? Nobody wants violence but how has PDP shown it won’t rig the election, being in power? Will the president deploy soldiers, policemen, militants in masks or not? Why didn’t the diplomats or Professor Akinyemi emphasise transparency and integrity of the electoral process? Left to me, this accord is a carte blanche to PDP to rig to their hearts’ content. I am sure something preposterous is afoot and APC had better wake up.” In my view, these were all attempts to mollify Nigerians into quietude after candidate Buhari would have been mindlessly rigged out and I believe this was when the Peace Committee was birthed; aimed at giving a victorious, re-elected President Jonathan, a safe landing, devoid of any of our usual post-election bloodletting.

    I could be wrong, anyway, but this is the logical deduction I can make from the extant circumstances.

    With Muhammadu Buhari’s victory having become obvious hours before the close of vote tabulation, wringing a congratulatory telephone call from the defeated candidate to the winner became about the only remarkable thing the peace people could do. And the success of that must, to a great extent, be attributed to the massive and totally uncompromising stance of the UK and the U.S whose ambassadors were on ground, literally, eye ball to eye ball. To this must be added Olusegun Obasanjo’s earlier, and very timely, warning to President Jonathan about the not too pleasant circumstances of President Laurent Gbagbo of Côte d’Ivoire.

    Given this background, it should not surprise Nigerians that Bishop Kukah has since experienced a reverse Pauline conversion which took him away from the Nigerian hoi polloi and dropped him, ‘dead’, on the side of the oppressors. But there is something more about this Peace committee. According to the inimitable Olatunji Dare in his article: “Between ‘national icon’ and iconographer” (The Nation, 11 August, 2015) the Peace committee Chairman, in a newspaper advert, recently congratulated Chief Tony Anenih as follows on his 82nd birthday: “A leader of uncommon achievement, keeper of the peace of the nation, a political heavyweight and mentor to the upcoming generation; an elder statesman and a leader of indomitable mien. No doubt yours has been a life of consistent hard work, total commitment to higher principles and unalloyed loyalty to the national cause.”  Conceding that all this is true of the elder statesman, and given what Nigerians know about the relationship between Chief Anenih  and former President Jonathan, I ask, is it likely  that the Peace Committee  could ever lend its  weight to a probe of  former President Jonathan? I doubt.

    Nigerians should, in the light of all these, take Bishop Kukah’s grandiloquent disavowals as nothing more than blowing an empty wind. The Peace Committee having been denied the joy of playing a Job’s comforter to now President Muhammadu Buhari, is merely out on a fishing expedition, eager, always, to protect the object of its adulation as well as its raison detre.

  • Derailing of Nigeria: the smaller picture (2)

    Derailing of Nigeria: the smaller picture (2)

    Within the country, a visit to passport offices across the country often reveals that the Immigration Service is also engaged in sharp practices but only in a way more subtle than that of the police on inner-city streets and highways.

    There has to be a general recognition that this crisis (corruption) is moral as well as economic. It is, indeed, a perfect illustration of the economics of morality—the absence of a sense of propriety, of restraint and of right and wrong, was not just obnoxious, it was economically disastrous.—Fintan O’Toole

    The first part of this column last week argued that as much attention as is being paid to the big picture of political and bureaucratic corruption by President Buhari needs to be paid to less elaborate corrupt practices that exist within the security forces and other agencies. Today’s piece will conclude the series on what appears to be minor corrupt practices but which call for as much effort on the part of the Buhari government to initiate an elaborate process of ethical re-engineering, without which no modern nation can thrive.

    On the topic of uniformed officers using their positions to defraud citizens and the state, the two agencies not covered last week: the Customs and Immigration Services do not generally fare any better than the Nigeria Police Force, Federal Road Safety Commission, and military units assigned to perform civil duties that we covered last week. Nigeria in the last few decades has been one of a few countries in which Customs officers act as highway police. It is common practice to see Nigerian customs officers on highways that are farther than 100 miles from the coast or any international border. Customs officers, such as are found on the highways between Lagos and Ibadan, Ibadan and Ife, Ijebu-Ode and Ore, Ore and Benin, for example, stop not only vehicles carrying containers but individual motorists going or coming from work to check if they carry contrabands or goods that had not been duly cleared at the seaports or at the borders.

    Most of the time, motorists who get stopped end up being made to give some money to the officers who stop them. It will be more cost-effective for customs officers operating in the middle of the forest in many parts of the country to be deployed to seaports and highways that link Nigeria with other countries. If there were efficient and honest performance of customs officers, citizens or foreigners who convey containers on highways would have cleared their goods at the ports or at border posts before getting on domestic highways, thus obviating the need to post hundreds of customs officers to highways in the middle of the country to apprehend persons trying to evade customs charges. Citizens who are often flagged down by customs officers on the highways need to be saved from such harassment and exploitation. If the Customs Service is overstaffed, then the agency needs immediate rightsizing through deployment of redundant customs officers to other sectors.

    Similarly, customs officers in collaboration with NDLEA staff at international airports also harass citizens, not for carrying illegal drugs but for carrying food items that they want to consume in their destinations. Tricks used to create difficulties for travellers include asking them to go and obtain licence to take food out of the country, even when the food being transported is not in commercial quantity. For fear of missing their flights, such customers are often pressured to part with some money. Such harassment makes citizens lose respect for and confidence in the authority of customs and NDLEA officers who are deployed just to check the luggage of travellers exiting the country. No public servant should be given a chance to create the type of difficulties that citizens experience on their way out of the country at each of the country’s international airports. The technology for effective detection of cocaine and other illegal drugs has gone past two or three uniformed men or women rummaging with their hands through travellers’ bags, just to complain about small quantity of food in the luggage of travellers, especially those with children.

    Immigration officers appear to be more restrained than other agencies. Yet there are many cases of harassment by Immigration officers of citizens, particularly those coming back home on expired passports. Many of such officers appear ignorant of the general problem in Nigerian embassies abroad with respect to renewal or re-issue of passports. Even in places such as New York, Washington and London (second home to millions of Nigerians), Nigerian embassies are often unable to process new passports for citizens in good time for their travel plans on the excuse of not having in store passport booklets. Most of the time, such persons still get to enter the country after ‘greasing the palms’ of officers at the Lagos or Abuja end. Moreover, those who come to the country to obtain their visas at the entry point are not immune from harassment. Within the country, a visit to passport offices across the country often reveals that the Immigration Service is also engaged in sharp practices but only in a way more subtle than that of the police on inner-city streets and highways. Each passport office allows touts or passport contractors to run after potential applicants for passports right from the gate, marketing benefits of accelerated service. Unlike in other countries, such quick service attracts double the cost of a regular passport and receipt that does not reflect payment for accelerated service.

    Even traffic wardens in uniform are wont to take full advantage of their uniform to fleece motorists. It does not matter what names they bear from state to state, traffic wardens who are not full-fledged police also extort money from motorists for claim of infractions of traffic code. They too are in the habit of jumping into vehicles to negotiate traffic fines. In some instances, there is collaboration between police and traffic wardens to extort money from motorists. In addition, during the era of Sure-P’s special federal task force staff, citizens were also pressured to part with 200 or more naira, particularly on Lagos roads.

    All this is to draw attention of the new government to the abysmal level of ethical standards on the part of those employed to enhance security and safety of citizens. The culture of corruption cuts across income levels and across occupational lines. Those endowed with political and bureaucratic power make efforts to steal billions of naira, most of which President Buhari is already planning to retrieve. On their own part, those with the little power bestowed by the uniforms they wear steal whatever they can get from poor citizens. But the effects of formal sector corruption of ministers and civil servants and of informal sector extortion of citizens by police and other uniformed workers are similar. In both cases, citizens are robbed directly or indirectly. State authority is also eroded.

    Just as big-time thieves of state property rarely get punished and shamed to restore citizens’ confidence in the state, so is it rare to find erring police, immigration, and customs being subjected to the principle of crime and punishment. In societies where corruption is nurtured by impunity, citizens either become cynical or resigned to corruption as a way of life. The 2105 presidential election was a rebellion against kleptocratic governments in the country. While there are several individuals, groups, and non-governmental organisations that are already pleading with President Buhari not to probe anybody unless he is ready to probe everybody from the government of Balewa to that of Jonathan, there is no doubt that majority of voters who brought Buhari to power with their votes, though generally voiceless, are enthusiastic about the fight against corruption.

    But the war against corruption will remain half-hearted or half-won if it is directed solely at big-time looters. It will be in order for the Buhari government to involve citizens in the fight against corruption. Citizens may not be adept petition writers, but they know their neighbours who live above their wages and salaries. Opening special Ombudsman offices in state headquarters to collect information from citizens suspected of graft or extortion may be a good addition to the two major anti-corruption agencies. Moreover, the principle of crime and punishment needs to be invoked at all times. The best way to restore and sustain citizens’ confidence in government is to assure them that those who dare the state by violating its laws are punished accordingly. This is also the best way to promote compliance habit on the part of citizens.

  • Belonging to everybody and to nobody. How quaint!

    Belonging to everybody and to nobody. How quaint!

    The most memorable part of President Muhammadu Buhari’s inaugural address was his assertion that he belonged to everybody and belonged to nobody. It was interpreted that he had sent signals he would not be held hostage by any religious, ethnic or political interest. Given his antecedents and hurtful opposition campaigns during the last polls that alleged religious and ethnic biases against him, the memorable statement signposted some relief to many Nigerians. President Buhari had indeed changed, they chorused. He himself encouraged and wore the change toga extravagantly.

    Not many southerners will, however, accept that President Buhari has changed, or that he belongs to everybody and to nobody. In fact, the Southeast in particular has alleged that the president belongs unquestioningly to the North. Judging from their coverage of the president’s new appointments, the press also seems persuaded that his assertion of detachment from vested interests must be taken with a pinch of salt. After exhausting the security and presidency positions available, it must have become apparent where the president belongs. But don’t take the critics’ words for it.

    Only President Buhari’s speechwriters know why he appropriated the phrase. It was not original to him, and his inaugural address did not indicate that he borrowed it. He can, however, be forgiven, for the phrase was used in December 2003 by Sunday B. Awoniyi who was chairman and guest lecturer at a book launch on Muhammadu Buhari in Kaduna about 12 years ago. Chief Awoniyi was a Kogi-born politician and bureaucrat who was close to the late Sardauna of Sokoto and Premier of the Northern Region, Sir Ahmadu Bello, and was in 1975 permanent secretary at the Ministry of Petroleum Resources, Broad Street, Lagos, when the then Col. Buhari was federal commissioner.

    In the lecture, Chief Awoniyi contextually situated the paradoxes of his origin and politics, especially insinuations that he was at various times a Babangida man, a Buhari man, an Atiku man, or an anti-government man, and then declared: “It is a no-win situation. I want to say it loud and clear that I, Chief Sunday Awoniyi, am nobody’s man. I am everybody’s man. I am a Yoruba man and proud to be one. I am a Christian and glad to be one. I am from Okunland in the old Kabba Province of Northern Nigeria, now a state called Kogi State. That makes me a northerner…”

    Chief Awoniyi could in the context he used the phrase claim he was everybody’s man. It is, however, not certain whether in the context he used it or as far as his actions so far are concerned, President Buhari can claim to be nobody’s man.

  • Wanted: incorruptible judges

    Wanted: incorruptible judges

    The dearth of upright judges is lamentable

    Although I would have loved to see where the Chairman, Presidential Advisory Committee on Anti-Corruption, Prof. Itse Sagay, was quoted as having said the committee was finding it difficult to get judges of integrity to try those who looted our treasury, especially in the immediate past, I have no doubt he said so because he has not denied the report days after it hit the headlines. Definitely, Prof Sagay must have come across the report, or his attention drawn to it; so, to the extent that he has not denied it, I take it to mean that he was not misrepresented as many public officials are won’t to claim when they realise the import of what they have said.

    It may be an overstatement to say there are no more judges of integrity in Nigeria. This is because it is only if we do not walk far that we cannot find a squirrel with a hunchback; if we look close to the ground, it is not unlikely that we will see ants that are lame. So, I guess what Prof Sagay is saying is that judges of integrity are so rare in the country such that it takes time and effort to see them; which is bad enough. The rule should be that in the judiciary, we should be able to find so many good and incorruptible judges, and only a few bad ones because, among every 12 disciples, there will always be a Judas. But it seems the reverse is the case with us in Nigeria, with 11 Judases amongst every 12 disciples!

    To put Prof Sagay’s statement in context, however, we should not be surprised that we have found ourselves in this situation. It could not have been different in a country where we eat corruption and drink exotic wines to wash it down. We could not have got a different result in a country where we are trying to draw a line between stealing and corruption! That we can’t find enough good judges merely shows the depth to which the county has sunk.

    But nothing I have said should be misconstrued that corruption, whether in the judiciary or elsewhere in the country, started in the Goodluck Jonathan years. As far back as December 1993, the then Head of State, Gen Sani Abacha had appointed Justice Kayode Eso to head a panel on judicial reform. But the committee’s findings and recommendations were so radical that the government simply ignored the report, except for the aspect recommending the setting up of a National Judicial Council (NJC), a thing which was done six years later via the 1999 Constitution. This means that perverse as the Abacha government was, it saw the need to do something about the rot in the judiciary, even if ostensibly so.

    What I am saying is that Sagay has not said anything new. A few years ago, Justice Eso too had told us about the emergence of ‘billionaire judges’ after the 2007 elections. Of course, we knew that some of our judges were corrupt or corrupted in that era, what we did not know was that the corruption made some of them billionaires. But what would the politicians of that era not do in their desperation for power and influence? That was a period when President Olusegun Obasanjo allegedly said one of the ruling party’s governors (names withheld) could bribe God!

    We have seen instances where some judges gave permanent perpetual injunctions in cases that made an open mockery of the judiciary. But no one seemed to care, as the judges smiled to the banks.  I am yet to see any other country where public officials would go to court to ask that they should not be probed or investigated. Nigeria’s embattled former petroleum minister in the Jonathan era, Diezani Alison-Madueke, had rushed to court to seek an interim injunction ordering the House of Representatives to discontinue an ongoing investigation into how she allegedly squandered more than N10billion of public funds leasing private jets for two years. Mercifully, the judge who was earlier reported to have granted the injunction denied ever doing so.

    But the case of former Rivers State Governor, Peter Odili, is a good example. The former governor approached Justice Ibrahim Buba, then of the Port Harcourt Federal High Court and secured a perpetual injunction restraining the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) from prosecuting him or even investigating his tenure, despite the fact that he was alleged to have diverted about N100billion public funds during his tenure as governor. Eight years after, the EFCC is yet to discharge the injunction to allow for Odili’s prosecution.

    Interestingly, many groups, including the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), have been calling for a full implementation of the Eso panel’s recommendations. Even the Obasanjo government that promised to do something on it did not go far. The Justice Babalakin-led review panel, that was set up later, in line with the Justice Eso’s report, made ground-breaking recommendations for the radical transformation of the nation’s judiciary, including the establishment of a monitoring committee to monitor the performance of judges all over the country by requesting them to produce mandatory quarterly returns of cases completed by each judge to the Chief Justice of Nigeria. Other measures recommended to sanitise the system include the establishment of a system of monitoring and declaration of assets by serving judges, with a view to curbing corruption.  The panel also requested the NJC to make honesty and hard work the fundamental benchmarks for appointment to higher judicial offices. But how many of these recommendations have been implemented?

    What the integrity question in the judiciary has brought vividly home is that, as with other spheres of our life, the problem is not about a dearth of ideas about what to do to correct the lapses in the system, including the judiciary; rather, it is more about implementation. But the judiciary is the last place where we should tolerate corruption. To have corruptible judges at the temple of justice is to sleep under a burning roof. If the court is the last hope of the common man, it follows that we must have trustworthy, credible and honest people to dispense justice. Otherwise, the society is doomed. So that we are not doomed, the time is now for us to revisit the Eso and Babalakin panels’ recommendations. If the judiciary stinks, then all facets of the society suffer from that stench. The judiciary must be sanitised if we are to have a sane country. Otherwise, the war against corruption is dead on arrival. That is why we must support the Buhari government to cleanse the Augean stable so that we all can have a fresh breath of air in a truly transformed country.

  • Catharsis before closure

    Catharsis before closure

    Aristotelian drama in Nigeria

    As the Buhari administration settles down to real business, the consequences of the last general elections are beginning to unfold before us in all their ungainly profile. Once again, elite division and disorientation are shaping up in their ethnic, cultural and regional particularities. We are beginning to see a sneak preview of the antagonistic forces that will shape up to, and shape in turn, the contours of the new regime.

    Let us get this clear. We have argued several times in this column that in inchoate colonial contraptions conveniently described as nations, elections do not resolve National Questions. At best, they sharply accelerate the national contradictions or at worse they exacerbate them. While the Nigerian masses are swooning over the dramatic improvement in some aspects of their daily existence, there is a resurgence of elite mischief over the seeming ethnic and regional insularity of the president.

    There is therefore a sense in which it can be argued that President Mohammadu Buhari is both the nemesis and saviour of the Nigerian ruling class. As nemesis, he must purge them and whip them historically into line. As saviour, he can redeem them and save the nation from ethical implosion.  On this crucial point, we can only conclude with the great historians of the past that in human societies, there are certain periods when certain exceptional individuals encapsulate the drama and cruel dilemmas of the age. It is beginning to look as if Buhari is such an individual.

    Going forward in divinely ordained reprieve from the hangman’s noose, or going into well-deserved oblivion as it seems to be the secret wish of some sections of its errant ruling class Nigeria, as we know it, is passing before our eyes. No matter what happens or does not happen, this country will never be the same again after the second coming of the man from Daura.

    We must revert to our favourite Lenin quote: “There are decades when nothing happens and there are weeks when decades happen”. The old iconic revolutionist should know, having earlier lost his own beloved brother to the Tsar’s implacably proactive executioners. Revolutions do not suddenly erupt on the stage, and in a jiffy. They are usually a chaotic combination of remote and immediate causes.

    But because revolutionary circumstances represent a radical rupture with the past, they are usually accompanied by much tempest and turmoil. The world is no longer at ease. There is a foul and fearsome distemper abroad. As the old ruling class expires before our very eyes and the long-suffering masses finally find their voice, there is fear and trembling in the land. A drama of restitution is playing itself out. It is a chain of actions and reactions the end of which no one can foresee.

    For decades, Nigeria has been roiling in an organic crisis of state and nationhood.  An organic crisis, as this column never tires of reminding us, occurs when the ruling class fails in a major national endeavour or its own self-imposed mission. From the current chaotic mess, it is obvious that the ruling class has failed in the project of giving Nigerians a sense of genuine nationhood and has been utterly remiss in the economic empowerment of the desperate citizenry. It has accordingly lost its raison d’etre.

    The failure of a particular ruling class is not the absolute historical tragedy it seems as long as there is a viable and coherent alternative to step into the void and vacuum. This is where the problem seems to lie at the moment. The old order is dead, but the new is taking its time to emerge from the womb of time. It is a revolutionary situation without genuine revolutionaries. President Buhari’s messianic populism may just not be enough and being a democratically elected leader, he cannot revert to the draconian despotism of old or seek revolutionary measures to handle the situation without provoking a nation-threatening backlash.

    Yet if the sanitisation of the policy is stalemated by a recourse to legal chicanery or by a combination of ethnic and religious blackmail by desperate factions of the political elite, Buhari may be panicked into losing the surefootedness and assurance with which he has proceeded so far. As the dazed and traumatised Nigerian populace continues to bray for vengeance and restitution , the Nigerian post-colonial state is besieged and embattled on many fronts by non-state actors. It is a novel situation which is structurally, systemically and ideologically different from Buhari’s first coming.

    It is just as well, then, that the trope from the stage and acting comes in handy at this point. There are moments when dramaturgy imitates life and there are moments when life itself is indistinguishable from compelling drama. At this point, the Nigerian post-colonial state and its restive denizens resemble a vast Aristotelian theatre as the action approaches a climax.

    May the good Lord bless the ancient Greek. They were a wise and sober lot. Their tragedies were in fact barely disguised ancient morality plays designed to inculcate certain morals particularly the virtues of rectitude, humility, decency and sobriety in the citizens of that glorious civilization. When exceptional men and women who owe much to the society are brought low by their fatal failings, they must pay restitution. This is the ideological principle on which dramatic tragedy is anchored.

    This is what is known as catharsis. Ordinary people shudder at the plight and fate of extraordinary people and are bound over to be of good conduct when they witness how great men can be unhorsed and brought down to bare earth. No tragedy is complete without this cathartic expurgation of unwholesome emotions and desires as a way of moral rearmament for the entire society. No crime against humanity, irrespective of the status of the person in society, will go undetected and unpunished by the stellar array of ancient gods no matter how long it takes.

    This is why those who urge President Buhari to move on without exacting restitution and justice on those who looted Nigeria dry are dead wrong and profoundly mistaken. The poor people of this country and those who are crying from their untimely graves will not be silenced until they have seen justice done. The large scale and unprecedented burglary of the Nigerian exchequer has put Nigeria in an ethical cul de sac from which it cannot emerge without wholesale cleansing of the land.

    There can be no untimely closure until there is timely catharsis. Even if this is what Buhari manages to achieve in four years, it shall be said of him that a man once came to this land who laid the foundation for good governance and moral rectitude. Without this ethical salvation, Nigeria is doomed as a viable nation.

    Democracy is usually an elite driven affair.  For a long time, this column has been warning the Nigerian ruling class to put its house in order and to get its act together.  In every sane and sober society, the political elites act as the glue that binds the whole nation together. But when they allow pressures from down below and from the margins to overwhelm the political architecture of a nation, the ruling class loses the initiative to hostile elements and everybody is imperiled.

    There is every possibility of mob rule and mob justice.  This is what should concern the organic intellectuals of a decadent and retrogressive ruling class and all those fanning the embers of religious and ethnic opposition to Buhari’s sanitising imperative. There will be no place to hide when the dam of popular fury breaks as the solid wall is already breached—if the foul public mood is to be believed.

    In retrospect it can be seen that the feckless and heedless Goodluck Jonathan ruled the country in deliberate political extremis as if he was convinced that after him the deluge would be such that Nigeria would cease to exist as a viable entity. In his complicated simple-mindedness, Jonathan might have decided that he would be the last ruler of Nigeria as a corporate entity if he didn’t have his way in ruling the country in perpetuity. Only this can explain the psychotic state larceny that took place under his watch.

    But having failed in this Samsonine option, having failed in his bid to bring the national roof crashing on his head, the former president and his hench-people must be ready to pay restitution to the land. It will be unfortunate if this looks like or is seen as ethnic and religious witch hunting. Jonathan could not have come to power based solely on the votes and sole endorsement of his ethnic nationality. He was elected on behalf of the Nigerian ruling class. In civilised climes, the ruling class sacrifices its own once they transgress certain bounds. Every now and then, as an English wag famously put it, an admiral is quartered to encourage others.

    However, it may well be the case that Jonathan ruled the country in political, religious and economic extremity as a result of sullen resentment against past and howling injustice in the land. If that injustice cannot be redressed without opening a Pandora’s Box or resorting to extra-constitutional measures, a case can be made for letting the poor man and his accomplices off the hook once restitution has been made and stolen money recovered.  A genuine foundation for justice and equity would have been laid and Nigeria can start on a clean slate.

    But it is an ethical quicksand for General Mohammadu Buhari which would require utmost political sagacity and statesmanship rather than unwise self-righteousness. It will also require him looking out of the cultural conditioning of his immediate habitus. How does he balance the demand for prompt and instant justice of a political mob that has sniffed blood with the delicate architecture of a multi-nation nation that has endured five and a half decades of serial abuse in the hands of various political and military hegemonies?

    Perhaps history will be very kind to the Daura born former infantry general. Twice in his lifetime, it has been the unfortunate lot of this man to be called upon to salvage a nation after a major ruling class implosion and at periods of revolutionary combustion.  The first time around, aborted catharsis occasioned by the failure of Buhari’s corrective mission in particular and military messianism in general led to a thirty year wandering in the political wilderness for the country. This time around, the nation’s tattered and thread worn fabric cannot endure such a historic rigmarole. The consequences will be more immediate and far more devastating.

  • Okon takes the president to court

    As the historic trial of looters and freeloaders of the national patrimony gets underway, fierce legal fireworks are crackling across the length and breadth of the country. Trust Okon not to miss the epic legal melee. The crazy boy has cottoned in on the latest road show and has been as busy as a bee hauling and logging hefty tomes of archaic law books in and out of the house.

    “Okon, who is the owner of all these books? I hope you have not been burglarising some law chambers?” snooper demanded.

    “Oga sebi dem say dem wan try people? Small time all dem Yoruba lawyers for Lagos go dey look for dem yeye  gown. Abi stealing of dem evidence na evidence of dem stealing?”, the mad boy retorted.

    “But who owns these law books?” snooper  insisted.

    “Oga leave me o jare. Na dis one dem dey call contract stealing. We don tell Okechukwu make him remove all dem books for all dem law office for Lagos. Dem Yoruba lawyers go cry. Bayelsa trouble dey sleep, Fulani and Yoruba yanga wan wake am. We don tell una people say stealing no be corruption. When all dem mala and dem Oloye dey steal  all dem oil money you no dey complain. Opiya man come thief dem remaining dollar and dem wan jail everybody”, the crazy boy snorted.

    It was not surprising when Okon showed up early one morning with a retinue of riverine stalwarts and other menacing swamp-dwellers with an aptitude for fracas and urban affrays.

    “Oga, I don take dem Buhari man to court and dem say make I come now now”, the crazy boy drawled with a triumphant glee.

    “I see”, snooper grunted with muted relish, hoping that the mad boy will get his comeuppance in court. Even the normally contrarian Baba Lekki took a dim view of Okon’s prospects.

    “O ma se o, omode yi a w’ewon. It is a pity Ogunmuyiwa , Baba ewa ,is late”, the old man lamented.

    “Baba you don come again? Abi kainkain don scatter your head again? Who be dat Yoruba herbalist?” Okon demanded with a wicked grin.

    “Ha wereee! Ogunmuyiwa baba ewa na old magistrate. If him dey alive na for prison you go die”.

    After this sharp exchange, it was a sleepy and bleary-eyed snooper that followed the mad boy to the magistrate court as he was borne aloft by his rogue retinue chanting Efik war songs. As soon as we got to the court premises, snooper got a foretaste of what to come. With drunken gusto, Okon accosted a light-skinned policeman on duty.

    “Ah Yellow, no accidental discharge today oo. My change still dey with you”, the mad boy scoffed as the embarrassed cop quickly slunk away. The fireworks started almost immediately as the magistrate, a genial matronly enforcer and obvious veteran of many legal skirmishes, swept in and ordered proceeding to commence without any fanciful rigmarole.

    “Where is the plaintiff?” the magistrate demanded and Okon leapt to the floor.

    “Point of incorrection!” the mad boy screamed. “I no be plain thief at all and I no dey steal for dem plane. Na dem Haric people dey do dat nonsense and na  dem generals dey thief dem whole plane  “.

    “I see. What is your occupation?” the magistrate inquired with a polite smile.

    “Ha thank you my sister, uwannem maranma. Na only for Sikira dem give me dem certificate of occupation. I beg dem Fashola  boy sotey, he no gree. As he don comot office now, if him come play football for Surulere again I go wire him labalaba leg bad bad”, the mad boy shouted.

    “Look, what do you do for a living?” the magistrate demanded with a hint of impatience.

    “Ha, ha, my sister, I get dem oil block for Arepo after we come drive dem Yoruba people comot from dem area. Dem come with them egungun and I beat dat one too, silly silly. Abi na dem Diezani give me dat one too?” the boy demanded as laughter rocked the entire court.

    “In fact what is your locus standi in this matter?” the old lady demanded as she appeared to have lost her cool and patience with the impertinent lout.

    “You see make una no vex. I don tell dem Yoruba people sotey say locusts no dey stand. Dem dey bite. He get time like dat one I dey farm for Itigidi and dem locust come bite everything, dem even bite dem old man blokos”.  Okon sniggered.

    “This must be a mad fellow!  Case adjourned sine die” the ageing magistrate screamed as she packed her things and fled into her chambers leaving security people to throw out a screaming Okon.

  • How not to be a gentleman and other (un)social etiquettes!

    …The fine print of a larger law says gentlemen do not abuse the accounts of their offices or the other privileges of those offices. The finer print of that law says that abusers are liable to be called Common Thieves.

    I have many observations on the male race in Nigeria, mostly because I am not a member. My most profound discovery about them is that nearly every member of that group does not have a single idea what it means to be a gentleman. Just check out the traffic. Many men, even men-in-black, can be seen struggling for the right-of-way with every other road user, lady or ruffian. I have searched in vain for those I can call knights-in-shinny-armour to redeem the race. All I see around me are men in burnished armour. Nearly all of them appear to be versed in the veritable art of how not to be a gentleman. You are offended? Wait then till I ask you this: how many of our men, not counting your fashionistas, know how to sew a button on their most beloved shirt? Most Nigerian men cannot tell one end of the needle from the other. Yet, the book of etiquette says ‘a gentleman knows how to sew on a button’.

        For that matter, how many of our men know that a gentleman should always walk behind a lady, except of course when there is danger? There you are, none of you! Most men have no idea that they are supposed to walk in such a way that they shield their lady from all dangers, oncoming or from behind. Alas, your Nigerian men appear to need the shelter that women provide; that’s why they make women walk behind them. Yet again, the book says a gentleman always walks behind a lady.

        There is a rule in the book of social etiquettes that says men ought always to give their lady friends flowers to mark a variety of occasions: Christmas, birthday, baby bearing, apologies, weekend get-away, valentine, request-to-be-mine, apologies, valentine… Now, all those men who gave their ladies flowers this last valentine should please stand up. That’s what I thought: two men out of one hundred and something million (or whatever you think the population of the country is). Haba! Did you say something about giving flowers not being in our culture? Mmm! I always wondered why the Almighty caused the silly things to grow around here, seeing they are really not part of the culture of Nigerians. You know the way one would hold a baby’s heavily soiled nappy when it’s full of the stuff? That’s how a Nigerian male holds flowers when he is giving them to a lady. He thinks it’s more than his reputation can withstand to be seen doing that. The only time I received a flower in my house was the year I made a lot of noise about it. Since then, there has been a flowery silence.

           From this book of social etiquettes for men, I also see that gentlemen are not expected to leave dirty crockery around. Ha! That is the one I love most. I wait for the day when Nigerian gentlemen will finish their dinner and promptly see that there is no dirty crockery lying around, not just by instructing the little ones to deal with it but by rolling up their sleeves and plunging their hands into the soapsuds. In the meantime, we must continue to watch as Baba Wande finishes his dinner and slides off the table end of the conversation, in person, particularly when he ignores the thin voice of the woman wailing about ‘who will wash these plates’. Well, sometimes, the cuckoo waltzes home and daddy decides of his own freewill to clean up. Such days are rarer than finding ruby on the beach; that is why there usually is a song and dance about it when it happens. Even the neighbourhood knows there is something different in the air because the voice of the turtle is heard clearly in the land.

           Once, I came upon a woman who, unprompted, quickly explained that the father of the house was cooking dinner that evening. I never asked her. I rather think that she needed to explain why she was in the sitting room that dinner preparation hour, rather than in the kitchen. I have not been able to decide whether that was occasioned by guilt or a need to fill the time, that she had normally used for pottering around the kitchen, with words.

          By far the most profound of the How to be a gentleman’s rules is that gentlemen are expected to laugh and talk quietly. Actually, I think that is where we all fail, both men and women. This abuse of noise is something that is very Nigerian. From waking time to sleeping time in this country, there is no abating the noises buzzing and belching out of every religion-linked loudspeaker, record dealer, transport canvasser, beer parlour adherent, irate husbands, termagants, and all else. To a man (and woman), Nigerians are just mindless noisemakers. One day, we really should talk about why we have not all become The Walking Deaf in this country.

         Most importantly, my book revealed that real gentlemen do not abuse expense accounts while on business trips. This is the fine print of a larger law that says gentlemen do not abuse the accounts of their offices or the other privileges of those offices. The finer print of that law says that abusers are liable to be called Common Thieves. I don’t think this rule was written with Nigerians in mind exactly. If it was, then it has fallen flat on its face. Nearly every facet of Nigerian life is peopled with men who do not only abuse their expense accounts, they actually insult them. That exactly is the bane of public life in this country: the fact that Nigerians do not really know the meaning of the epithet Common Thief. Actually, being called common is an abuse that real gentlemen dread for it implicates plainly that one has no sense of refinement, is a black soul, or that one is worth less than the grass he walks on.

         Unfortunately for us all, Nigeria is not a class-minded society. Perhaps, once upon a time in its history, it used to be. At that time, there were behavioural expectations for every segment of the tribe. What qualified one for membership within that segment was no more than conformity to the rules. Aberrations were not only frowned at, they qualified one for exclusion from the segment. That was class behaviour. It did not depend on money; it depended on a certain mental tuning and keying in to a particular degree expected of one.

          Now, the diffusion that came through the modern life-style has restructured the society to the Haves and the Have-nots. The Haves are those who can rub two kobo together, say the magic words and bring out millions of Naira, while the Have-nots are those who do not know the magic words. Unfortunately, either by coincidence or luck, the magic words are known only to the nation’s leaders, the Haves who use them to abuse expense accounts, insult charge accounts, assault subventions, batter budgetary allocations and clubber the country. Now, those are the common thieves who cannot be called gentlemen. Does it then follow that the Have-nots are gentlemen? I honestly don’t know; do you?

          By the above accounts, therefore, a gentleman is someone who seeks to maintain class behaviour that hinges on responsibility. To say that Nigeria needs gentlemen in its public offices (and private ones too) is an understatement. Responsibility allows one to choose that action which can be called the thing to do, you know, the gentlemanly thing. That is what makes a society successful, when it can count on its public citizens to be real gentlemen.

  • Social media and good governance

    What has social media got to do with good governance and sustainable democratic culture in the country?

    This was the question I spoke on at a seminar organised by some former student union leaders in University of Lagos last Thursday.

    At a time the social media is increasingly coming under attacks due to abuse of the use of the platforms, its role can easily be dismissed.

    However, if carefully examined, social media has undoubtedly become a major tool for sourcing and sharing information. The excesses by some users notwithstanding, Facebook, Twitter and others have, indeed, been and will continue to be useful in ensuring good governance and sustainable democratic cultures globally.

    In the last sixteen years since the return to civil rule, the need for good governance and sustainable democratic culture has continued to be an issue of concern to ensure that the people get the dividends of democracy.

    There has been the cry for good governance in view of the inability of governments at various levels to meet the expectations of the people and wanton abuses of the rule of law.

    I need to state that good governance should be enacted at the level of student unions, campus associations and university administration. While some of us are very good at making demands on political office holders to live up to expectations, we are not able to show that we can do same in the groups we lead.

    I am always ashamed when I see some Aluta branded vehicles driving against traffic or when I read reports of corruption in union activities.

    Hitherto, the traditional media had been saddled with the responsibility of holding the government accountable to the people. The print and broadcast media as gatekeepers of information had been playing this crucial role.

    However, the coming of the new media has made it possible for not only the traditional media to be the main source of information exchange.

    With social media, which according to wikipedia are computer-mediated tools, everybody, including those in government and the citizens are now able to create, share or exchange information, ideas, and pictures/videos in virtual communities and networks.

    Unlike before when the government had a major control on information dissemination through ownership of some media organisations and was subjected to monitoring by only few traditional media, it is now virtually answerable to every citizen that has one social media account or another.

    Through major social media accounts, government activities are now subjected to more intense scrutiny with instant feedbacks from the people.

    It is not unusual these days for the traditional media to be forced to report issues it had earlier ignored when the social media continue to focus on them.

    For youths who make more use of the social media, they need to realise that the platforms are no longer useful for only social interaction, but for engaging governments and officials in the quest for good governance.

    Social media is power in their hands which they must not fail to use, but must do responsibly. The platforms make it possible to hold the government accountable in many ways and not allow the officials get away with false claims.

    Government agencies and officials who have social media account must realise that social media is a two-way communication and not only a channel for sending out information.

    They must be ready to respond to comments directed at them as promptly as possible through trained staff who should have access to up-to-date information.

  • Bishop Kukah’s firestorm

    Bishop Kukah’s firestorm

    No matter how much gloss anyone would like to put on the recent views of Bishop Matthew Kukah, especially his opinion on former president Goodluck Jonathan, it is undeniable that he has not shown enough discretion in many of the interviews he has granted the media. Some of the views were indeed incendiary, going both the mood of the country and the horrifying tales of graft perpetrated by officials of the last government. Given all he has had to say on the matter, the Bishop of Sokoto Diocese seems to have sympathy for Dr Jonathan, and appears to prefer that the man be left alone. Unfortunately for the bishop, no one wants to leave the former president alone, a baying for blood that is exacerbated by the worsening state of the economy, the hunger in the land, and the continuing constriction of the political space due to stalled appointments and lack of opportunities.

    Press interviews, by nature, do not afford the interviewee the luxury of long pauses and reflections. Even the best of politicians and officials, lay and ecclesiastical, are prone to gaffes, hyperboles and incendiary statements. To survive and flourish, therefore, media workers, particularly the broadcast media, prefer direct, live interviews where the true man often manifests in all his volatile and ugly colours, without garnishments, and with all his faults, warts and demons. In such interviews, the real, prejudiced, intemperate and maudlin man is often coaxed out, to the entertainment of the public, the dismay of the interviewee’s supporters, and sometimes the grief and humiliation of his family.

    In the now widely quoted Channels Television interview, Bishop Kukah let off a firestorm that may affect his image for a while longer than he would hope. He was absolutely himself — no pretences, no dissembling, no fear. But was he wise in his answers? It is hard to judge, for, sometimes, it is not so much wisdom that makes a man, but courage. In the interview, the bishop was doubtless courageous and brilliant, and he managed to say what he wanted to say, even if it rubbed the public the wrong way. In parts, he struggled to give the impression he was a patriot with a sound and unquestionable view of crime and punishment; but in other parts, he also laboured to prove that patriotism must be without hysteria, especially mass hysteria, and be balanced with the long-term interest of the country.

    For speaking his mind courageously on Jonathan and corruption, Bishop Kukah will in the foreseeable future continue to draw the ire of the public. The Channels interview was not his first on Jonathan and the corruption investigations. But he apparently felt the need to explain himself, and, forsaking the admonition to let bad enough alone, as the wise always say, he managed to worsen the situation by revealing his innermost thoughts on the matter. He had initially responded to allegations that the National Peace Committee sought audience with President Buhari to plead for Dr Jonathan in regard to the ongoing frenzy over the anti-corruption war. The public felt uncomfortable with his answer. Now, Channels Television asked why he thought it was a distraction to emphasise the investigation of corruption cases. His answer this time was even more provocative.

    Predicating his intervention on his priestly duties, a responsibility he insinuates is apparently answerable to heaven rather than to public opinion, Bishop Kukah defended his right to intervene on anybody’s behalf. Then, out of the blue, the bishop exploded: “And please let us not lose sight of what has happened in this country. Jonathan said it and I am sure Nigerians have heard it, that when we met with the Board of Trustees of the Peoples Democratic Party, they also made it very clear that not all of them were in support of the singular decision that Jonathan took (conceding electoral defeat) and I think that as Nigerians, we must become sufficiently serious and realise that that singular act is what has kept us as a nation. With all the billions and trillions in the world coming from the outer space, we would need to have a nation first. So, I think that even for that singular act alone, Nigerians must be appreciative of what President Jonathan did.”

    It was this response that infuriated many Nigerians. Their belief that Bishop Kukah and the peace committee had unpopular and unhealthy opinion of the hated Dr Jonathan was reinforced. They suggested it was perhaps true that the committee had soft spot for Dr Jonathan, a feeling that might have been caused by a deal reached between Candidate Jonathan and Candidate Buhari before the polls, a deal that was probably cemented shortly before Dr Jonathan’s famous concession. Whatever the case, it is no longer speculation that Bishop Kukah and the peace committee think exceedingly highly of Dr Jonathan’s magnanimity in conceding defeat, and in addition think that that singular act is unexampled and expiatory.  Said the bishop: “Even if you are going to go into a probe, it is not a substitute for governance and we are interested in the fact that every sane Nigerian must be conscious of the fact that it might be another person today and might be you tomorrow. And I think that we should not become so preoccupied with Jonathan to the extent that we forget the spectacular benefit that we gained under his presidency. Politics has ended, and now is the time for governance.”

    Bishop Kukah’s controversial but honest opinion is undoubtedly unpopular. While it is difficult for him and the peace committee to disguise their respect and possibly love for Dr Jonathan, a sentiment that may be unhelpful in fostering economic and political development of the country, not to say public morality, their view on the skewed focus of the government on ‘probes’, or what some have described as ‘public lynching of Dr Jonathan’, is no doubt a timely and critical observation. This incidentally is also the view of Anthony Olubunmi Cardinal Okogie, former Catholic Archbishop of Lagos. In the opinion of the cardinal, bishop and peace committee, while corruption investigations should go on in the background, the shape and structure of governance must come to the fore. The former must not be a substitute for the latter, they argue, and the latter must receive priority. Even if Bishop Kukah and the peace committee wrongly felt obliged to rescue Dr Jonathan from public lynching, their observations on the diminution of governance seems beyond cavil.

    Without saying it directly, perhaps because they feared it might be misinterpreted, the peace committee also tried to suggest that the peaceful change from one government and party to another is a salutary development that must be nurtured as much as the desire to recover looted state funds. Bishop Kukah advances two main reasons for this conclusion. One is that the committee fears that if the dynamics of calling to account a successor government is not well managed, the incentive for peaceful handover of power may be eroded, with all the deleterious consequences.  Two is that if the process of calling a preceding government to account is not handled with all the dignity and solemnity it requires, it may set a bad inquisitorial precedence for future governments, with no one sure who’ll be next. In other words, for Bishop Kukah, it is not everything that is right that is expedient. And when the bishop further suggested that the ruling party needed to be faithful over little things in order to deserve bigger responsibilities, he appeared to hint that a gentleman’s agreement was in place, and that that deal was probably being violated.

    Two weeks ago, in this place, this column suggested it was urgent and crucial for President Buhari to unveil his economic blueprint in order to dispel the feeling of tentativeness and ad hocism enveloping the country and the economy. It suggested that the president’s American trip should have been delayed until that blueprint was published, scrutinised and fine-tuned, and a cabinet put in place. The column concluded by suggesting that the Buhari government seemed to have placed undue emphasis on winning office than on preparing for office. In some ways, both Bishop Kukah and Cardinal Okogie are also saying that the unending and almost titillating talk of probe is caviar to the general. It is important to call the last government to account, given the huge amount of stealing that went on under Dr Jonathan, but it is even more crucial for the Buhari presidency to manage the process with all the solemnity, gravity, order and brilliance it deserves.

    This column may not exactly agree with the peace committee and Bishop Kukah on why the previous government should be scrupulously investigated, or whether the investigations should be conducted in a way that does not reek of witch-hunting, but there is no dispute on why it is urgent for the Buhari government to enunciate its economic, political and social manifestos, and elevate governance above the frenzied blood sport that the probes are threatening to become. President Buhari must strive for balance in everything, learn to discriminate between various public opinions and the many publics, and have the good judgement to set the foundation for how the Nigerian presidency should be perceived and judged both locally and internationally.