The Nation Newspaper

Category: Sunday

  • Between ourselves and our institutions and between Marx and Rousseau: election eve reflections (1)

    Between ourselves and our institutions and between Marx and Rousseau: election eve reflections (1)

    Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances but under existing circumstances
    Karl Marx

    Man is born free but he is everywhere in chains. One man thinks himself the master of others, but he remains more of a slave than they are.
    Jean Jacques Rousseau

    The thing caught in Nte’s trap is much bigger than Nte.
    Chinua Achebe

    It is of course pure guesswork whether or not we are actually on the eve of the 2015 election cycle in our country. On December 24 every year – and after year – we know we are at the eve of Christmas. But there is no such natural certainty with the current election cycle in Nigeria. We were on the eve of the institutionally fixed presidential election on February 13, 2015. But ten days before that date, the elections were postponed for six weeks. Now as we move closer to the postponed dates of March 28 and April 11 for the presidential and governorship elections, the only certainty we know is that institutionally, the elections can be further postponed only at the risk of moving too dangerously close to open and blatant flouting of the Nigerian Constitution. This is because constitutionally, elections in our country MUST be held no less than 30 days before May 29 that is the date for the reinstatement of the incumbent government if it is returned to power or the inauguration of a new administration if the opposition candidate wins.

    In a country in which the institutional foundations of governance and accountability are so weak as to be virtually non-existent and so dysfunctional as to be close to what we see in the failed states of the world, we cannot be certain that we are now finally on the eve of the 2015 elections. The question that arises from this tragic dilemma on which the future, indeed the very survival of our country depends is the classic one of whether the problem is with our institutions or with us as Nigerians and, more fundamentally, as human beings. Put differently, the question we might ask is this: Is it in ourselves as Nigerians in particular and human beings in general, or is it in our institutions that must look for the reason why, with all our wealth in human and natural resources, there is so much violence, insecurity and suffering in our country, especially for the majority of our peoples? If we improve our institutions, will Nigerians behave differently and be on the whole a happier people, or do we first have to change who and what we are before we can expect to see meaningful and beneficial changes in the functioning of our institutions?

    It is very important to raise the discussion of this question to the level of the phenomenon of humanity itself because Nigerians are, for perfectly understandable reasons, quite often too predisposed to see all the things that are wrong with us as a people and with the functioning of our institutions in isolation from what has happened and is happening in the rest of the world. We may not be used to hearing this said or written about us, but we are part and parcel of some of the worst things in human beings all over the world and in the functioning of the institutions of society in modern history. Let me explain what I mean by this observation.

    Although for a completely different set of reasons and with also very different ends in mind, I am for instance struck by just how similar Republican politicians in the United States are to Nigerian politicians in general in how far they were willing to go beyond and against their country’s political institutions when they recently brought the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to address the U.S. Congress in order to both embarrass Obama and weaken or even cripple the Presidency. As I write these words, I have in mind the last ditch battles that the Presidents of both Brazil and Argentina are waging to save their careers from the gargantuan political and moral corruption that has totally engulfed their administrations. It is true that that neither of these two ladies – yes, the incumbent Presidents of Brazil and Argentina are both female – has gone as far as Goodluck Jonathan in corruption, waste and squandermania, but the similarities in the weaknesses of both human and institutional foundations of governance and accountability are quite striking. And if it is the Nigerian military on which you wish to focus for the brazenness with which it has allowed itself to be used by thugs, charlatans and moral cretins in power, there are many countries around the world in which you will find fellow travelers with our corrupt generals, Pakistan, Yemen, the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan being examples that come readily to mind. And on perhaps the most important issue of all, this being the terrible and often unspeakable suffering that the great majority of the citizens of a country experience from the combination of human and institutional failings of a cynical and criminal nature, Nigeria is in an unholy league with other countries of Africa and the world as the Central African Republic, South Sudan, Libya, South Africa, Haiti, Syria, Pakistan and Iraq to name just a few countries which might be deemed to logically belong in this particular morally and institutionally maladjusted league of nations.

    I make these comparisons for both pragmatic and philosophical reasons that actually happen to be closely linked. On the level of pragmatics, it is very important, I believe, to trim the likes of Ayo Fayose, Musiliu Obanikoro, Doyin Okupe and Chris Ubah to size. These are among the most arrant of the self-identified, maniacal kingpins of the nefarious PDP struggle to make our country’s 2015 election cycle either a non-event or a total failure. It is important, I believe, to let Nigerians know that such power-crazed people have surfaced in other countries of the past and the present throughout the world and have often been soundly defeated. When you tear off their masks of invincibility and reveal the mere human faces and failings of such unconscionable brokers of unjust, corrupt and brutish power, you raise the bar of their success far above their capabilities. Philosophically, it is important, I think, to realize that much has been said throughout modern history about the question that drives these reflections, the question of which do we change first, ourselves or our institutions. For this reason, we do not have to start from scratch; we do not have to reinvent the wheel. All we have to do is add to the inherited discourses. Permit me, then, to approach this topic through the three epigraphs of this essay from Marx, Rousseau and Achebe respectively. Since charity, as the saying goes, begins at home, let us begin with our own writer and thinker, Chinua Achebe, and his fascinating parable of Nte and the thing caught in his trap.

    The symbolic brilliance of Achebe’s parable of Nte and the thing caught by his trap that is far bigger than himself is revealed by the fact that in the novelistic setting of this parable, the character in the tale sees things only or primarily through his or her own perspectives and interests – as we all do in life. This is why what starts as a potential good fortune – catching a very big quarry in his trap – turns into a nightmare for Nte because the trap is his and his alone. However, if Nte is willing to share the meat of the ensnared quarry with his neighbors, he can call them to his aid and the quarry is no longer frightening. Before the collective will, guile and wisdom of the entire community, the thing that is caught in Nte’s trap loses its terror. Projecting to a wider frame of reference from this particular reading of the parable, we can say that like Nte, nations and the human community as a whole will always catch something in our trap that is bigger than anyone among us. In the crises of the 2015 election cycle in Nigeria we seem to be deeply afflicted by this Nte conundrum in which the collective unity that could avert a potential catastrophe eludes us. This where Marx and Rousseau come into the discussion.

    It used to be thought that Marx and Rousseau stand at two extreme polar opposites in the debates over which is more primary, human nature or the institutions of society, in how happy or unhappy we are. Marx, as may be seen from the quote from his famous monograph, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, placed the emphasis on objective circumstances: we do not make history, we do not achieve our happiness as political and historical subjects on the basis of our individual wills or desires. On the other hand, Rousseau in the famous opening sentences of The Social Contract emphasized an original freedom in our natural condition which, having been ensnared by social institutions, must be won back by a new social contract that places maximum value on this original freedom. We know now that things are far more complicated than the dichotomy between these two views indicates. We know now that we are both objects and subjects of history and politics. Furthermore, we know that being object and subject each entails both positive and negative things. For this reason, our opening or driving question turns out not to be a matter of “either or”. In other words, it is not a matter of you have to change from within before you can change social institutions or vice versa.

    I hope I am wrong, but in my opinion, far many more Nigerians think that the change has to come first from within before we can get our rulers and our compatriots in their tens of millions to obey laws and act justly, decently and in the public good. I see the present moment as a uniquely auspicious moment in which to begin to change this unspoken but iron-clad predisposition of Nigerians. Thus, concretely, I pose the question of who among genuine, independent-minded patriots in our country today think that we first have to change a Fayose, a Chris Ubah or a Musiliu Obanikoro from within before we can make the constitutional and institutional arrangements that we have give us fair, clean and credible elections? This will be our starting point in next week’s concluding essay in the series.

     

    Biodun Jeyifo

    bjeyifo@fas.harvard.edu

  • Patience’s fears

    Patience’s fears

    Are the guilty afraid?

    Except for the fact that her jokes are sometimes dry and insensitive, Dame Patience Jonathan’s interventions in her husband’s campaign have been as intriguing as they could be. But, when I say intriguing, I mean intriguing in reverse, because, virtually everything she said recently on the podium could be used, as they say in the police station, against her. Take for example her speech at the rally of the Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP) women wing in Ado-Ekiti, the Ekiti State capital on Monday. She said “What did they forget in Aso Rock? If you vote the PDP and Jonathan, it would be better for you. If you vote the APC, you will go to prison. How can you jail somebody for 300 years? I’m not ready to carry food to my husband inside prison oh!”

    Now, if Mrs Jonathan is wondering what someone forgot in Aso Rock, does she not feel we should also ask what is it that is making them this desperate not to want to leave the place? I know she had said everybody who goes there does two terms; so, they too should be allowed to do theirs. No one is saying they cannot do two terms but the thing is not automatic. What Mrs Jonathan wants is for us to return her husband unopposed. Unfortunately, there is no such provision in the constitution. They have to work for the presidency. It is difficult for one to blame the First Family though; this is the first real election they would be having in their lives. So, one can understand their desperation and frustration with the turn of events. Perhaps if Nigerians had been as perceptive as they are today in 2011, the Jonathan administration would not have taken them for granted as it has done.

    The point I am making is that Mrs Jonathan does not have the moral right to ask what anybody forgot in Aso Rock. They know how many churches they had attended to pray to retain their hold on power in recent months. That is for the ones we can see or know about. Some Senegalese Islamic clerics were in Aso Rock in May last year to pray for peace and an end to the insecurity challenges in the country. A few days ago, it was also reported that the Witches Association of Nigeria has thrown its weight behind the president’s reelection bid. As I said, there is no way we can verify some of these other connections, like that between the seat of power and the witches. We do not know too whether the wizards would go with their female counterparts. So, for someone whose husband has traversed the places the president has traversed, the question of asking what anybody forgot in Aso rock does not arise.

    Then in Lagos on Thursday, the president’s wife said at another rally where she addressed PDP Lagos women at the National Stadium, Surulere, Lagos, among others, that “I want you to know that a lion cannot give birth to a goat, a lion can only give birth to a lion, and Dr Goodluck Jonathan has delivered Jimi Agbaje to deliver Lagos. What Goodluck Jonathan is doing at the federal level is what he has asked Agbaje to reenact in Lagos State, if he wins the election. Nigerian women your messiah has come, so vote freedom for yourself in Lagos.” Some comic relief?

    But I could hear Lagosians’ thunderous “we reject this in Jesus’ name”. How can any serious person say Lagos should witness the kind of paralysis that is at the centre? Could it be that those who do not know that the Jonathan presidency is a monumental failure are doing so genuinely? Or many of them are being mischievous and are only supporting the government because of ‘stomach infrastructure’. And I hear a lot of that has been going round in dollars as the campaign enters injury time.

    But there is good news for Mrs Jonathan that is afraid of a Muhammadu Buhari presidency because she might have to be taking food to her husband in prison if the retired general wins the forthcoming presidential election; that fear should have evaporated with the assurance by General Buhari’s wife, Aishat, that they are unfounded. Mrs Buhari said the job to be done would not leave time for the kind of witch-hunting that Mrs Jonathan is afraid of. “For those that are campaigning, saying that he (Buhari) is coming to jail Nigerians, I don’t know what their fear is. But they shouldn’t be afraid because we are all yearning for change”, Mrs Buhari told some women in Benin, Edo State, on Thursday.

    But tobe frank with ourselves, Mrs Jonathan said some home truth. The few corrupt elements who are milking the country dry are afraid of Buhari presidency because their hands are too dirty not to imagine where their next destination would be, particularly if the ‘crutches’ that have been supporting them, that is the Jonathan presidency, are suddenly sacked from power. Indeed, former President Obasanjo said that much sometime ago, that the main reason President Jonathan himself is afraid of Buhari is because of fears the retired general might send him to prison on account of corruption. But there is reasonable ground to be afraid. This is one of the few backward countries where someone would enter either State House or Aso Rock shoeless and in the next few weeks, he is into some sudden, inexplicable opulence. Buhari had been so many things in this country, yet, when he told us what he is worth, many people who had not been anything near what he had been are wondering how come someone could be that stupid not to have made so much money for himself and for his generations unborn.

    For sure, with Nigerians’ experience with President Jonathan, any contender for elective posts in the country who thinks he can gain cheap sympathy by saying he was shoeless as a boy can never smell the office, because experience is the best teacher.

    Again, we should understand the fear of people who are afraid of going to prison in Nigeria; the point is, they have left the prisons to degenerate and they are afraid of having a taste of what they have been serving many Nigerians who have the misfortune of being in the jailhouses. But, I want to believe that Nigerians, in their usual magnanimity would not mind conceding to our very important citizens who may be jail-bound for the atrocities they committed against the country that they should apply to serve their terms in the International Criminal Court (ICC) prison. That is a much better place, where they would have almost all their comfort except probably their freedom of movement. Their ilk there would gladly receive them. And, per chance the president ends up there, his lovely wife does not have to entertain any fear as she would not be saddled with the responsibility of taking food to him in the ICC facility.

    In this wise, the ICC should begin to expand its prison because, for the first time in our country’s political history, the court may have some very important guests from Nigeria after these elections. The desperation for power has become so unusually intense as even the Awujale of Ijebuland, Oba Sikiru Adetona, observed during President Jonathan’s visit to his palace on March 12.

    Perhaps some lessons would have been learnt if General Ibrahim Babangida and his colleagues who annulled the June 12 1993 presidential election which Bashorun Moshood Kashimawo Abiola was set to win, had been punished. We have to insist that some people cannot impose leaders on us. The idea that some of those in power today would hand over to anybody but Buhari is arrant nonsense. If that is the choice at the polls, anyone who attempts to stop him from being sworn in as they did June 12 must be severely punished.

    Happy voting.

  • For the love of country

    For the love of country

    During the oil subsidy crisis, he thoroughly bad- mouthed Yorubas and canvassed that non-Yoruba elements in Lagos, who he claimed are more than Yorubas, should gang up against their hosts

    While some of us continue to relish the past and insist that our leadership position is not threatened, the more discerning among us realise that failure to correctly appraise the situation could only be calamitous to the destiny of the Yoruba people. The truth of the matter is that the lives and destiny of over 30 million souls cannot and should not be trampled upon by reprobates, renegades, revisionists, and impostors. The contemporary self-proclaimed spokesmen and supposed protectors of our people just have to cease and desist from their sanctimonious and opportunistic crusade and become true subscribers to the common cause’.

    The Jurisprudential Professor of Professors, Akin Oyebode, in his lead paper at the authentic  Pan -Yoruba Summit in Ibadan,  Thursday, 19 March 2015.

    ‘For the love of country’, ‘for the love of country’ etc. So goes one of the multibillion naira television adverts of President Goodluck Jonathan urging Nigerians to vote him for another term of four years with his duplicitous government that keeps assuring foreign envoys of peaceful elections while for two whole months it has continued to deny visas to over twenty foreign journalists from such stables as the influential The Telegraph, The Times and Channel 4 News; something that should take no more than two weeks. Candidate Jonathan showed the extent of his love for Nigeria and Nigerians this past week when he inspired the country’s wretched of the earth, to lay Lagos prostrate.  Earlier, another  phalange of these  miscreants, operating  under the aegis of  the  anti-Nigerian ragtag organisation which  recently publicly launched vehicle and driver’s licences, as well as what it called the  passports  of its still-born Biafra Republic without a whimper from the  security agencies-  by the way,  dollarized Afenifere should try doing the same  for Oduduwa Republic  to gauge  the real depth  of Jonathan’s love for  Yoruba. Unlike them, however,   those under the lead of the carpenter completely shut down  Lagos and laid  it  prostrate for hours,  causing  the citizenry untold hardship. The scallywags, members of the outlawed Oodua People’s Congress (OPC), who had long become thugs -for hire, brandishing assorted guns and live ammunition, broken bottles  etc, with the PDP- police and  DSS, even soldiers, watching in amusement, smashed their way through Ikorodu Road,  laying waste everything on its way, including APC billboards.  With the resultant traffic snarl, Lagos was completely crippled for a whole day.

    In his desperation, President Jonathan showed, through these characters, that he would not mind a version of Boko Haram sprouting in Yoruba land the way they brandished live ammunition without a single security operative raising an eyebrow. Coming so soon after  the  president included  both Fredrick Faseun and Gani Adams  in his reckless pipeline surveillance contracts, both factions of the Oodua People’s Congress have shown  themselves no better  than mercenaries as they were  campaigning for  the president’s re election  which they believe  the INEC chairman’s sack, even if  in total disregard  of laid down procedure, will guarantee. And I ask, what exactly is driving President Jonathan into this paranoia: love of country or an eagerness to cover up the massive looting under his watch?

    And this is what baffles about his Lagos/ Yoruba politics. During the oil subsidy crisis, he thoroughly bad- mouthed Yorubas and canvassed that non-Yoruba elements in Lagos, who he claimed are more than Yorubas, should gang up against their hosts.  During the current campaigns, he has met with literally every ethnic group residing in Lagos, preaching the same serpentine hate message. Yet, both within and outside Lagos, he has spared nothing in presenting as a Yoruba friend; romancing Afenifere and heavily compromising all, but few of Yoruba Obas. Such duplicity!

    Happily, Yorubas know their friends just as they know a Greek gift. The historic desecration of Lagos by the OPC, in a complete reversal of roles by a group founded primarily to defend Yoruba land, will haunt them eternally. This shameless, mammon-induced perfidy will, forever, scare them. How they can so easily shred whatever remains of their tattered integrity since they came under the tutelage of the likes of former Ogun State governor, Gbenga Daniel, simply confounds. It must be mentioned here, for emphasis, that the treaty which ended the Kiriji War in 1886 forbade Yorubas fighting against themselves. Their action is, therefore, an abomination the consequences of which will not escape.

    Nigerians must go out on 28 March, 2015 to show that they are not deceived by this type of ‘love of country; by voting out candidate Jonathan.

    Six weeks was only a decoy for rigging

    Readers of this column must have read me say, severally, that PDP cannot win a mere local government election without rigging. The coming elections will be no different, only the rigging method will change. With Capt Sagir Koli, through the Ekitigate tapes, blowing the cover off the military, at its rigging best, which the likes of Obanikoro had relied upon for victory, and INEC’s PVC and Card Readers now a fait accompli, they are already gunning for new methods.  This is precisely what inspired the postponement even after the Council of State had okayed it. My auditory nerves have been on active mode since the Ekiti photocromic rigging, waiting for these shameless riggers.  The answer came shortly after the president’s visit to one major Yoruba town.  A megalomaniac politician, who, of course, should know the finer details of the plan talked too much to those he believed were his supporters. That was how we got to hear that card readers would be sabotaged and that under no circumstances would President Jonathan hand over to General Buhari. All signals are also to be jammed by agents of the PDP on 28 March, 2015.

    Incidentally, it would appear the APC also picked up this information and it’s Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, has since addressed a press conference during which he gave more details which included the name of the Israeli fixer contracted to supply 750, 000 units of fake Card Readers which will be planted on PDP members at the polling centres to jam the INEC Card Readers. Olisa Metuh, PDP’s Publicity Secretary, on a Channels TV appearance with Alhaji Mohammed on Thursday, 19 March 2015, had no answer to this allegation.

    Traditional rulers on wonder errand for President Jonathan

    Nigerians woke up Wednesday, 18, March 2015, to read that the president has sent traditional rulers on some mundane errand across the country; an abomination in the first place. This was, however, not completely surprising having just returned from shaking hands with most of their Southwest colleagues. After all, one good turn, they say, deserves another. Divided into 11 groups, their mission is simple: regardless of the fact that elections have not yet been held, talk less of knowing what the results will be, just go where I send you, seat them down and plead that they accept whatever the outcome, no matter the sanctity of the process. In my opinion, no self regarding person, however hungry, should have accepted this formless assignment.  This is why not a few Nigerians have reasonably read meanings into this misadventure. Granted nobody wants a recrudescence of the 2011 post-electoral conflagration, but how do you explain this graceless job?  What exactly do President Jonathan and the PDP have in stock for Nigerians?

    And what are they agitated about after signing a Memorandum of Undertaking supervised by two of Africa’s greatest international diplomats, Emeka Anyaoku, former Secretary-General of the Commonwealth and Annan, a former United Nations Secretary-General? What is President Jonathan or the PDP afraid of?  Why do they think they have to beg Nigerians to accept the outcome of what everybody expects to be a free, fair and transparent election? Is this a case of the guilty becoming sleepless ahead  of what would surely be the consequences of a compromised election; no matter  what force is arraigned against a cheated  people? I think it is important these royal errands ask why this has become a necessary enterprise.

    Or does it have anything to do with the rumour making the rounds that Nigerians are about to experience June 12, all over again?  Is it true that we could soon have procured, a court judgment at the 11th hour, on Thursday or Friday -26/27 March, 2015 – invalidating the use of card readers?

    I feel certain President Jonathan loves Nigeria much more than to have it incinerated.

  • Too late in the campaign to ‘talk federalism’?

    Too late in the campaign to ‘talk federalism’?

    What is wrong is for Yoruba groups to confuse the demand of the Yoruba for restoration of federalism with the recommendations of the 2014 national conference convened by President Jonathan.

    With apology to my other readers, this column today will focus on persistent questions in the last few days from my politically-charged readers about the place of federalism in a presidential campaign that is supposed to be about good governance, anti-corruption, national security, employment, etc.

    On ‘why it is the Yoruba people that are shouting loudest about federalism this close to the presidential election,’ there is nothing wrong with any nationality or region choosing to introduce an issue or agenda that is of significance to it at any time during the campaign. The Yoruba have been in the forefront of the demand for restoration of federalism since Alao Aka-Bashorun popularised the phrase ‘Political Restructuring’ of Nigeria and Chief Enahoro’s Movement for National Reformation, NADECO, and PRONACO included the matter of sovereign national conference in the list of demands during and after the struggle against the last phase of military dictatorship. In another sense, it is conceivable that the absence of federalism has thrown up such problems as corruption, unemployment, lack of security, etc.

    There is also nothing wrong with Yoruba political or socio-cultural groups choosing to bring the issue of federalism into the campaign at this point. In fact, to not do so now is not to be sufficiently honest with the next administration, regardless of who wins the election. What is wrong is for Yoruba groups to confuse the demand of the Yoruba for restoration of federalism with the recommendations of the 2014 national conference convened by President Jonathan. Even President Jonathan himself said several times that he did not convene the conference to gain any political advantage but to provide a platform for a national dialogue. This may be why President Jonathan had not campaigned on the strength of his involvement in the campaign in regions other than the Southwest until his supporters in the Yoruba region sponsored special campaign events on the conference.

    That other concerned citizens and groups (such as the Yoruba Assembly) have joined the fray of discussing federalism almost on the eve of the presidential election is also in order. It is important for the two presidential candidates to be made aware of minimalist and maximalist positions on the matter of federalism and to know the difference between those who are clamouring for devolution of a few administrative functions and those who seek fundamental changes in the sharing of power and responsibilities among federating units and the central government. It is proper for each of the presidential candidates to know the specific demands of each of the constituent units of the country, ahead of voting and assumption of power. Electoral democracy is not only about those seeking power to present a programme of action to the electorate, it also allows citizens to bring their own programmes to the attention of those seeking to govern them. Thus, bringing the issue of federalism back to the table at this time is in order.

    What is out of order is for any group to claim that the recommendations of the 2014 national conference represents what the Yoruba want in 2015 and beyond. That two Yoruba groups plan to meet on the same day (one in Lagos and another in Ibadan) to push the matter of federalism into the campaign rhetoric is not unusual. The Afenifere and its supporters have a right to sell the Jonathan conference to voters, but they are wrong to say that the recommendations from the conference represent what the Yoruba want from the next political dispensation. Nothing is also amiss about the Yoruba Assembly, an organisation that has championed in the last few years the call for genuine federalism, to remind Yoruba people about which programmes to push to the table of the next president and the next legislature, as no president can unilaterally restore federalism.

    The Yoruba Assembly must let voters know the views of Yoruba self-determination groups on recommendations of the 2014 national dialogue, as stated by its promoters below:

    “States can now create employment and develop their own states. Each state can have its own constitution, its own police force, can have its own prison service, can create its own local governments and in addition, in the economic domain, solid minerals that had been the exclusive preserve of the federal government since independence, have now been brought to the concurrent list; creation ofself-funding regional institutions” in order to encourage developmental efforts among cooperating states”

    a.           Creation of  Self-funding Regional Institutions among Cooperating States

    Recommending a self-funding economic agency without fiscal federalism that gives the power to raise revenue for development at the sub-national level is nothing more than self-deception. A country in which the states or federating units depend on allocation from the centre cannot call itself a federal system. None of the federations in the world: Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Spain, Switzerland, United Arab Emirate, and the U.S.A., operates on the model of state dependency on allocations from the centre recommended by the 2014 national conference. A self-funding regional institution is another bureaucracy to occlude the removal of the power of sub-national governments to generate revenue for its own development and pass some of such revenue to the central government for national projects.

    b.           States as “federating Units” that can have their own Constitutions

    Insisting that existing states are federating units without giving any consideration to economic viability of such units is to deliberately endorse the erosion by military dictators over the years of the political structure and government system upon which the peoples of Nigeria obtained independence as one country in 1960. It should be left to a plebiscite in each state to determine if it wants to join other contiguous states to form a region or remain as discrete units with constitutions. What is the use of the power of writing a constitution given to a state that has to go the central government for monthly allocation? What is significance of a suffocating federal presence in each state for citizens’ human and civil rights and good governance?  For example is Ekiti State today, where we now have 6 legislators in control of the State Assembly as the majority while the remaining 17 are considered minority because the centre is supporting that abnormality, a federating unit or a subjugated one? It will be an insult to the memory of Chief Obafemi Awolowo for any group to say that the recommendations from the conference have complied with the federal system that Chief Awolowo practiced in Western Region and upon which he struggled to demand improvement in his writings.

    c.            Each State can create its own Local government.

    If the central government will retain and disburse all the funds for local governments, it is dishonest to say that the power to create local governments at the state level is a gain in the direction of federalism. The reluctance to move away from the structure imposed by military dictators instead of returning to the autonomy of each state to fund its local governments is what makes the 2014 national conference a distraction that must not be passed to the next administration by Jonathan or Buhari. This represents further distortion of the federal system.

    d.           State Police

    State police is a consequence and not the cause of federalism as supporters of the Jonathan Conference want people in the Yoruba region to believe. Right now, states depend almost entirely on federal allocations to pay their workers’ salaries. State police is to be funded from received allocations at the same time that the number of states is to move to 54. We have also been told that the allocation accruing to the centre is reduced by 10%. But the increase in the number of states would have already made nonsense of the increase to states, as 54 states (rather than 36) would still share the new percentage of allocation to states. Reducing or increasing the amount of allocations is not fiscal federalism by any stretch of imagination. Such determinations are precisely what is wrong with the unitary system the Jonathan conference has ‘panel beaten’. Fiscal federalism proceeds from the shared control of economic and fiscal policies by national and sub-national governments.

    Nigeria before and after elections needs contestation of ideas to improve governance of the country. The Yoruba Assembly should have no apology for challenging exaggerations about the significance of the 2014 national dialogue.

  • How to remove jigger

    (Baba Lekki solves a political riddle for the nation)

    A few days after Okon made irreverent and saucy remarks about some Yoruba obas collecting dollars, particularly about a dullard and his dollars being easily parted, Yoruba nemesis caught up with the mad boy. In horrible and excruciating pains, the crazy boy had limped into Baba Lekki’s presence in his new found hideout under the bridge that separates the two Omole housing estates in full view of a police patrol unit. As usual, the old curmudgeon was enveloped in a thick pall of smoke from prohibited weeds and was having a hell of a time so to say eyeing the police people with sublime contempt.

    “Baba, you still dey smoke dis yeye tin when Okon wan die? Dem ogbologbo Yoruba oba don curse Okon. I no fit sleep for night again. I get dis yeye tin for my left toe which dem Yoruba dey call jega. De thin wan call kill me. For night him dey crawl gbigigbigi and him dey cry for food. He be like if say he wan chop Okon finis sef. I go see one yeye Yoruba herbalist for Gbagada and him say make I dey rub dem thin dey call aboniki. Naim I come beat dat one silly. Him come dey cry say him be tailor for Majidun” the mad boy moaned in considerable distress.

    “Okon, you are a fool. You have what is known as jigger,”  Baba Lekki crowed with considerable relish at the boy’s discomfiture as he eyed the boy’s distended toe.

    “Baba, weda na jiga or jega, I no sabi dat one, na dem foolish Yoruba witches sabi. Baba so how I go remove dis yeye tin?” Okon groaned.

    “You send it on terminal leave prior to full retirement. That way the pains will subside and so will the polls”, Baba Lekki interjected with icy and magisterial malice as his lips parted into a sadistic grin.

    “Baba let we tell you. I no dey care about dem gbarogudu grammar. I dey pains. He be like if say dem dey put sewing machine inside my head”, the crazy boy yelled at the old man, a tad threateningly.

    “Okay, okay Okon, to remove jigger please remove your dirty trousers and cut off your leg from the hip with a cutlass”, Baba Lekki intoned with a mischievous twinkle.

    “Baba, no be say Oko kaput be dat?” Okon queried with a rueful look.

    “Ha, if you no sabi how to remove Jega you must sabi how to cut your leg”, Baba Lekki rumbled with malignant mirth. At this point, there was a loud explosion and some shouting in the distance.

    “Baba, he be like if say dem OPC people don dey come. I been dey hear say dem Jonathan come give dem plenty cutlass and obonge gun and boku coffins. As dem kill dem Yoruba people make dem dey put dem for inside coffins”.

    “Kai, kai I no wan enter dem coffin. Dem carpenter boy dem dey call Gani no sabi make better coffin again. Him don chop dodo and obokun fish and him head no correct again”, Baba Lekki shouted and scampered away, leaving Okon stranded with his jigger.

  • This desperate descent into chaos

    That Monday, as the constitution was again suspended by the state … Mount Olympus bent its knees so that the country could slide easily into the sea; and it did

    Along the way, Nigeria’s various governments appear to have had only one thing on their minds: just surviving, even if at the expense of the people. It seems they have always existed just not to be booted out by any of the waiting predatory groups of adventurers making forays into just any territory that promises wealth, fame and power without borders. On account of this preoccupation, dear reader, your average governments have never had your or my past, present and future on their minds. I think they have left all that to you and I to plot out in the best way we can. This is why most of us have now taken to providing all our own amenities like water, electricity, roads, hospitals… Right now, I am trying to see how to apply for a licence to declare my house a local government HQ. You ask if I can do that? Yes, but wait a minute now; let me just check the country’s constitution which we do not seem to understand nor care much for.

    In truth, not many of us have paid much attention to that constitution. The blessed thing is supposed to guide our thoughts, words and deeds as a nation, keep us within the bounds and borders of reasonable stupidity and careful abandonment of sense, and assist us not to wander, somnambulant style, into the territory of our insane neighbours. In truth, all our neighbours are always insane and we are always sensible, right? Anyway, the constitution is supposed to guarantee that even though we belong to a small microcosm of defined monkeys, we are housed within well-defined walls of human authority.

    Strangely though, our successive governments always swear to uphold it yet they make light of the strength of the constitution to transmute us into something reasonably resembling human beings. In short, they do not let the thing make us human. They thwart it, manipulate it, mishandle it and bandy it around as if it were some weightless tome. Indeed, they seem to have turned its weighty matters into chaff so weightless it is blown around by nothing heavier than breeze.

    If the blessed constitution were to go around with a cane, nearly every one of us would have been thwacked in our behinds with great gusto. There are enough evidences and then some to show how we as individuals and governments have defied due processes of instituting and removing people into and from offices, blocked others’ roads, and made life miserable for others. There are enough evidences and then some to show inappropriate appropriations, misappropriations, financial misgivings, governmental recklessness, and so on. Now, to top up all these inappropriate behaviours, the state is actively engaged in encouraging the growth and sustenance of sectional militias.

    States as a unit normally flee from situations that bring about the disintegration of the law. This means that the state normally comes down heavy on any unauthorised group of people who arm themselves and behave in a military fashion such as fighting an individual or the rest of the country. This is why the rest of the country has ostensibly been up in arms against the boko haram. I say ostensibly because there are many things we the people do not seem to understand regarding the state’s response to that group. It would appear that, rather than quash the group, the state has been doing some abracadabra with it (the group, that is) for reasons best known to it (the state, that is).

    Lately though, Nigeria has been showing some hard-to-understand sleights of hand with the other militias resident within the walls of the country. To begin with, that militias exist within the country is bad, very bad. It is worse that, rather than go all out to exterminate them with the force of the law by hurling the constitution at them, the state appears now to be doing business with them; it is giving them contracts! Seriously?!

    There was first the Niger Delta militant force which constituted itself into a fighting force. True, the region had its legitimate grievances of utter and callous neglect by the country, especially as it produces the nation’s resources at great cost to it. I would be equally aggrieved if I were that region. This column has reiterated that the response of the government was not well thought out or thought through. That region had legions of grievances, many of which could be replicated in other regions of the country. The thing to have done was to spread the resources round the country in an even way such that no one would feel left out. Any mathematician would tell you that whatever you do to one side of an equation must be replicated on the other side to achieve balance at the end. So please don’t think I’m the bright one here; it’s the mathematicians.

    By giving people pay-outs in the name of amnesty, the country is only breeding a set of louts not primed for self-sustaining work, a result that time only will reveal in all its immensity. As it is now, youths from that region are not being taught to regard integrity as a necessary aspect of personality development. They are being taught to look down on work as something others do to keep their (i.e. the youths) souls together. In short, the country is corrupting the souls of these youths. How do I know this? From my little corner of the country, I hear that there are specific hotels in Abuja which house these youths doing nothing from morn till eve but ‘just spending money.’

    As if that were not enough, this government has gone ahead to give them ‘pipeline protection contracts’; another name for another set of pay-outs. Alarmed, the rest of us have looked on. Then the government has gone on to not only recognise a hitherto banned militia, the OPC, but has also given it its own share of the national contract to also ‘protect pipelines’. Seriously, where are we going with all these state dole-outs?

    It seems that Nigeria is running into chaos with ‘automatic alacrity’ and gusto. It became obvious last week Monday when a part of the city of Lagos was seized hey presto by a collection of overpaid, overindulged and state-pampered groups in the name of a protest. The constitution is clear on the conduct of assemblies and groups. That Monday, that constitution was again suspended by the state as the group not only brandished weapons but shot randomly in the glare of the police who not only did nothing but escorted them around. In the name of the law, there should have been some arrests; but that day, Mount Olympus bent its knees so that the country could slide easily into the sea; and it did.

    As I have always maintained on this column, an election is only an election. God willing, this country will outlive many elections yet. The prayer is that the country will still serve many generations. Yet, many of us will lie on our death beds in old age wondering what all the fuss was about, what all the desperation was about. At that time, we will wish for a return of time to correct things but time would not grant us that wish.

    There is still time to rescue the country and the time is now. It starts by honouring the contents of the constitution, not throwing it to the dogs on account of one person’s ambition or desperation. Let us be officials and gentlemen in the matter of the elections and in all else. All that make for eye-sores and ear-sores should be done away with. Remember, there is God o, even in elections.

  • ING to GNU: sheer waste of time

    ING to GNU: sheer waste of time

    The past few weeks have seen Nigeria seething with rumours and plots of interim government, many of them quite fanciful and far-fetched, and a few somewhat plausible. The plots proceeded from the palpable fear that President Goodluck Jonathan would have lost the presidential poll had it held on February 14. Fearing that he would lose, and determined not to hand over power to successors he was believed to have described as unworthy, the president was alleged to have concocted a series of plots to enthrone an Interim National Government (ING) supposedly backed by many eminent Nigerians. Among those who lent credence to the rumours of ING plots was former president Olusegun Obasanjo who colourfully denounced the suggestion and castigated the Jonathan presidency for even contemplating it at all.

    Though the Jonathan presidency quickly dissociated itself from the ING plots but left strong hints it was not averse to the idea, there was enough amperage in the rumours to link former military president, Ibrahim Babangida to the plot. It is curious that in the heat of the plots and rumours Gen Babangida ignored the controversy. However, late last week, in a lengthy and circumlocutious refutation, the Minna-based general swore he had nothing to do with the suggestion, adding that there was no similarity between the ING he set up in 1993 and the political conditions of today. There was no need for the truncation of democracy now, he said gravely, for he could neither see nor envisage a stalemate. Let us give him the benefit of the doubt.

    But just as the ING idea was being buried, especially with President Jonathan’s upbeat feeling that the postponement of the polls had given his flagging campaign fresh impetus, and he was now in pole position to win, a new heresy called Government of National Unity (GNU) seems suddenly to be taking root. The heresy is, however, in fact an old one. Flamboyantly bandied about in 2007 after the late President Umaru Yar’Adua won a notoriously flawed presidential election, the GNU was believed to be a bait to entrap, neutralise or even destroy the then Action Congress (AC) party, the political precursor of Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), and latterly a constituent part of the All Progressives Congress (APC). The idea collapsed under the weight of the Yar’Adua government’s many contradictions.

    The new GNU is poignantly suggested by the otherwise eminent Project Nigeria Movement (PNM), a coalition of civil society groups led by Ben Nwabueze, a respected constitutional lawyer and activist. The idea, which appears poised to gain ground, is anchored on the fear that the tight race between the incumbent and his main challenger, Muhammadu Buhari, a former military head of state and cult figure to his supporters, could explode into a conflagration either during or after the election. This anxiety is not without foundation, though the GNU suggestion is both impracticable and indefensible. Just as the idea of interim government is silly, the suggestion of unity government is even worse. They are both based on false and unsustainable premises.

    Professor Nwabueze’s group has offered reasons, including the fear of electoral stalemate, that could precipitate a political explosion, and they all appear sensible. However, they assume that both the APC and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) have common grounds upon which to anchor a unity government. The fact is that apart from the viperous campaigns that have sundered friendship and fouled the well of trust between the two major contestants, there are absolutely no philosophical, political or personality reasons for the two parties and challengers to come together. Both are located in the two extremes of Nigeria’s political continuum, with the PDP a smorgasbord of arcane and conflicting developmental agenda amateurishly encapsulated in the so-called transformation agenda, and the APC representing an alloy of rigid, ideological and formulaic approach to development and politics.

    Not only will GNU smother the concept of opposition from which the presidential system, and indeed any democratic system, draws sustenance, it will also create an unhealthy political environment that will see whichever party is the junior partner engulfed and strangulated. In the final analysis, as Zimbabwe recently illustrated with the improbable cohabitation of President Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, the political environment will be further poisoned, and positions hardened and rendered irreconcilable. Rather than run away from the ghosts that haunt the body politic, it is perhaps time to confront them. There are no common grounds between the two parties, for one represents the distant anachronisms of our sordid and disreputable past, and another a sense of hope and progress, no matter how faint or brittle. Both cannot cohabit in the same space, for one must necessarily yield ground to the other if the country is to make progress and achieve stability and peace.

    The country is aware that one of the reasons for the Buhari resurgence is the increasing appreciation that Dr Jonathan has fallen dangerously short of the standard of leadership required to heal Nigeria’s fractiousness, whether ethnic or religious, manage the economy innovatively, tackle the country’s security nightmares, restore confidence in Nigeria’s regional leadership and continental standing, and harness Nigeria’s potential and rally the people behind great causes. The APC has indicated it has no confidence in Dr Jonathan’s ability to innovate, and has even lesser confidence in his appreciation of the major issues affecting and afflicting the country. To ask the APC to jump into bed with a leader that exhibits no leadership traits, someone they have long concluded could never rise to the level needed to renew the country, is to ask the opposition to commit political suicide.

    But the resentment between the two candidates and their parties is mutual. To hear Dr Jonathan declaim on critical national issues is to get a robust sense of his antipathy towards the opposition, his almost total ignorance of modern systems of government, and the blame game he has mastered. In his opinion, his opponents sponsored the 2012 fuel subsidy removal protests because the protesters received refreshments, the media was too critical, making him the most abused president ever, and Boko Haram or any other social or economic revolt was always the manifestation of one conspiracy or the other. With such an unyielding mindset, with such boyish obsession, and with the continuous fulminations of his high-strung wife, Dame Patience, it is impossible to expect that the moderation, restraint, depth, compromise and consensus needed to drive and sustain a coalition government can be engineered by Dr Jonathan to enthrone the needed national peace and stability the Prof Nwabueze group hankers after so desperately.

    As long as Dr Jonathan heads the GNU, the conflict that would assail the coalition government would be unmanageable and even insuperable. Resentment would grow apace, and the inspiration and innovation that had been lacking in the president for more than five years, and which are necessary to remake and energise Nigeria, cannot obviously be produced simply because a GNU was emplaced. The interim national government was an obnoxious, despicable idea; a government of national unity is an even more unrealistic proposition. It will not work. More, it undoubtedly cannot work.

  • The longest fortnight

    The longest fortnight

    Suddenly, six weeks have become a fortnight… the longest fortnight in the history of the country. The postponement of an event however unpleasant is a poor substitute for its outright cancelation. A thousand years will eventually become a thousand seconds. As the nail biting countdown to the most explosive election in the post-colonial history of the nation begins, one must be chastened and sobered by the shocking finitude of time. If only time can stay still, autocrats would have added it to their list of captives.

    By now, President Goodluck Jonathan would have discovered that a postponement of six weeks might have been enough to gain some strategic respite, particularly to recover his poise and pull some stunts against an opposition that would have been stung by the sudden turn of events. But it is not enough to scramble what has been fecklessly unscrambled; or to attempt to cobble together a new hegemonic power formation in the country.

    Jonathan had a whole six years to will this new power bloc into being by forging new alliances; by building bridges and by breaking out of his ethnic cocoon to create a pan-ethnic charter for the nation. The time was ripe; the opportunities were abundant. For a fleeting magical second, the moment seemed to have met its man and its match. But he bombed it spectacularly. You cannot give what you don’t have. Unprincipled expectation is the bedmate of promiscuous optimism.

    A few months into the Jonathan presidency, it ought to have been clear to all but the most hardy optimists that it was all a horrendous scam.  It was obvious that the new ruler lacks the discipline, the diligence, the application, the visionary impetus, the intellectual wherewithal and the psychological stamina and steeliness to administer a complex commonwealth of two hundred million souls tottering at the edge of despair and despondency.

    Jonathan’s charm offensive of the past three weeks, particularly in the South West and his singularly offensive and obscene attempt to buy his way back into electoral reckoning by massive bribery of the political elite and agents of influence must rank as the worst instance of presidential delinquency in the annals of electoral corruption in Nigeria . With this in your face , I don’t care impunity, there can be no further proof that the Nigerian president does not care a hoot or give a damn about the sanity of the political system or the survival of the nation itself.

    It has been observed that a person should keep his friendships in a state of constant repairs. How anybody in a few weeks can cobble together a dominant power consortium that can withstand the tumultuous revolt of the Nigerian multitude that we have on our hand remains a perplexing mystery even to the most accomplished of political witchdoctors. It is said that politics is the art of the possible, but even in politics, certain things are simply impossible.

    The presidential gallivanting, the executive walkabout and the dollar spree even as the naira, the ultimate symbol of national sovereignty, was tumbling in the market would have been unnecessary if Jonathan had done the needful. At the onset of his presidency, Jonathan had at his beck and call the active base of the traditional South West activists and progressive politicos who fought a relentless and slogging campaign to validate his presidency.

    He could also have tapped into the dormant resentment against the feudal arrogance of an oligarchic cabal bent on sabotaging his ascendancy. But all the goodwill was frittered away in a jiffy as Jonathan retreated into an ethnic igloo to be surrounded by tempestuous tribesmen and other recuperating revanchists.

    As for the wise, wily and formidably discerning Yoruba obas who are rumoured to be beneficiaries of Jonathan’s dollar deluge, if they didn’t know what to do, they wouldn’t be on their fathers’ throne the first instance. Past masters of the cloak and dagger politics that come with empire building, they are also astute readers—bar one or two feckless ones—of the dominant political mood of their people. After almost a thousand years of an unending battle of will and wits with the populace in which many of them paid the supreme sacrifice, they know where the balance of power resides. They will collect and then they will recollect.

    As the Jonathan presidency slouches towards a momentous finale, the entire country lies in ruins and smouldering wreckage, spiritually, politically, economically and militarily broke and back-broken. At no other point in the country’s history has the nation faced more dire prospects of economic annihilation. At no other point has Nigeria been at the military mercy of neighbours.

    Never in its history has Nigeria been confronted with and wracked by such intra and inter-religious animosities and conflicts. Never have the political elite been this riven and polarized along the fearsome fault lines of region, religion and ethnicity. It has even become impossible to get the various factions of the political class to agree on the minimum precondition for the conduct of election.

    Never has an election brought out the worst in our people, thanks to a political campaign that has been unprecedented in its rancour and distemper. Not even in the run up to the infamous 1964 general elections which was boycotted by the UPGA party did we witness such intense bitterness and animosity within the ruling class. It was a bitterness that fed directly into the subsequent violent military mutiny, a momentous pogrom and inevitable civil war.

    As we have seen in Nigeria and more recently in Kenya and Cote D’Ivoire, whenever the electoral process is marked by intense hostility and a lack of elite consensus on the basic rules, we may be sure that the outcome is already vitiated by political adversity. When a four-star general and one of Nigeria’s most decorated soldiers and a global citizen in his own right is summarily cashiered for attending the birthday celebration of his former commander in chief who also happens to be the political benefactor of the current commander in chief, we can be sure that the gloves have come off and the battle line sharply drawn.

    This past week, Ben Nwabueze, the respected constitutional lawyer, has advocated a coalition government or a government of national unity to manage what promises to be a momentous post-election tempest. If this is not a wily kite flying on behalf of an embattled government, then it is a case of trying to shut the stable door after its equestrian inmates had bolted. For it presupposes, against all evidence to the contrary, that there might still be a semblance elite amity after such a polarizing and divisive election.

    In the unseemly circumstances that we have found ourselves, a ruling coalition or a Government of National Unity is possible and feasible only under strict international supervision and after the tempest might have blown off. Under similar circumstances in Kenya,  Mwai Kibaki, the old Gikiyu fox, summarily terminated the results as they rolled in and declared himself elected.

    In Ivory Coast, Laurent Gbagbo simply barricaded himself in after he had lost the presidential election until he was flushed out of his underground bunker with the aid of French forces. As if to confirm the looming apocalypse, international emissaries have been coming in and out of Nigeria like doctors in an emergency ward, trying to appeal to the political class to save the nation from imminent perdition.

    Their grim, unsmiling and taciturn visage tells its own story. In any case if anybody misses the import of all this, the unscheduled but widely publicized visit to Aso Rock by one or two members of our own equivalent of the 1922 Committee of the British parliament should tell those who know how to read tea leaves that once again, the nation is on the cusp of momentous events.

    As he rues the ruins and wreckage of the country gifted to him in a moment of spite and hubris by the man who is the most influential and arguably the most controversial personage of the Fourth Republic, the otherwise genial and affable Goodluck Jonathan must be wondering what happened and the road not taken. Never in the history of the country has a ruler snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in this manner. But this is not the time to continue to excoriate the formerly shoeless boy from Otueke. This is the time to put on our thinking cap about how to extricate the nation from the debris of another historic cul de sac.

    There are times when sharpening contradictions suddenly mature, forcing a nation into a fundamental rethink about its future. This is the moment of the grand gridlock. In a sense, Jonathan himself is a victim of the post-colonial condition in a way the colonial imaginary that founded Nigeria and the colonial imagination that powers it along could not have envisaged. This is the moment when colonial malice meets post-colonial malignancy. Having been thrown into the chessboard as a helpless and hapless pawn, Jonathan has shown that he has other ideas.

    As sober students of history would attest, nothing is completely without some value, not even the most horrendous human experience. As a matter of fact, there are some radical philosophers and historians who push this view to the bitter conclusion that nothing good can come out of history. It is just a record of random brutality and contingent cruelty. As a British historian, floored and flawed by facile empiricism, would put it, “history is just one fxxxx  thing after another.”

    But history is ultimately and in the last instance structured in such a way that perplexes us and challenges the rigour of the dialectical imagination. It may well be that the paradoxically revolutionary dimension of the Jonathan administration is to expose for all to see, the huge racket of the neo-military civilian fascism foisted on Nigeria by retreating military barons. But having exposed the hoax, Jonathan has shown that he lacks the revolutionary nobility of spirit, the cerebral endowments and the political stamina to force through a new charter for the nation.

    This is the basis of the historical conundrum in which we have found ourselves. Even if Jonathan spends the next hundred years in office, he is unlikely to make a dent on the deep rot, the political malaise, that afflicts Nigeria.  What is not there is simply not there. National transformation is not a function of empty sloganeering.

    Transformation is deeper than mere change because it involves a deeper, more integrative, more holistic and more deliberately systematic reordering of a society towards a new orientation and a new set of values. As it is, the paradox of our situation is that change is now required in order to even begin to think of transformation.

    The last patriotic duty Jonathan owes a country that has given him so much is to leave quietly if he loses the election fair and square. He must resist the temptation to play the biblical Samson. Thereafter, he must be accorded the respect and dignity accruing to a former head of state, of a man untested and untried who ruled Nigeria in very difficult circumstances and who tried his very best, only that his best was enough. If he cannot lead the way, he has at least taken explosives to the house of cards. The Nigerian ruling cabal must rue the day they invited a neophyte of power nuances to hold the fort for them.

    The next fortnight is going to be the longest night indeed for Nigeria. It is going to bring out the worst or the best in Nigerian. There is no point in demonizing and scape-goating poor Attahiru Jega and casting ethnic slurs on a very patriotic Nigerian. As readers of this column would testify, we harbor reservations about the way and manner of Jega’s appointment, but this has never extended to questioning his integrity. Never in the history of the nation has a man been saddled with a more onerous and difficult duty of electoral umpire. Jega should be allowed to do his job without any further let or hindrance.

    One of the lessons that Nigerians must take away from the current crisis is the fact that as a complexly variegated country with diverse ethnic nationalities in different and often divergent modes of economic, spiritual, intellectual and political production, Nigeria is powered along by a micropluralism of power centres which induces a negative equilibrium which can only be disturbed or disrupted by a conventional power formation at its own peril. This is Jonathan’s undoing, just as it has been the undoing of Obasanjo, Abacha and Babangida before him.

    A negative equilibrium is a tense equipoise of countervailing forces; an unstable ensemble whose stability is dependent on the dynamic instability of its elements. Only a new revolutionary power group led by complete outsiders or what Antonio Gramsci has described as the emarginati, people from the margins, can shatter the order by inaugurating a new order.

    In the absence this revolutionary countervailing power formation, and while still waiting for the arrival of a pan-Nigerian critical mass, it is worth restating that any Nigerian ruler who is a product of the old status quo must keep his friendship in a state of constant repairs. As Jonathan will learn in about a fortnight, scrambling for votes at the eleventh hour is not the sign of a man who has learnt the elementary lesson of politics.

  • Thank you, Awujale

    Thank you, Awujale

    Oba Adetona has done what is expected of a traditional ruler of repute

    Oba Sikiru Adetona, The Awujale of Ijebuland, deserves commendation for the candid remark he made during President Goodluck Jonathan’s visit to his palace on Thursday. It is not all the time that we have traditional rulers speak truth to power. I met the Oba for the first time at Ijebu-Ode Grammar School in the early ‘70s. I cannot remember what exactly he came for then, but I remember he told the story of how he became Oba and also mentioned something about appreciating whatever gift his children gave him, despite the fact that he is blessed himself. When you deduct about 40 years from the Oba’s age, you would know he must have been extremely young then. And he was extremely handsome, too. Even at his age, he is still any lady’s man, no pun intended. But these are not matters for today.

    The Awujale deserves commendation not just for the frank speech but because of his consistency in such matters. The president had gone to the palace in continuation of his tours to traditional rulers in the southwest. I said it about three weeks ago when the president was in Lagos to meet some traditional rulers, that none of the Obas would dare tell their subjects to vote for the president or any other person for that matter because it is wrong to do that. One is even at a loss as to why the south west has suddenly become a tourism centre for the president at this point in time. President Jonathan seems to have made a fetish of such tours as if the Obas would, at the snap of a finger, order their subjects to vote for him. In Yorubaland, gone were those days.

    The Yorubas respect their monarchs; but the respect is reciprocal. Any Oba that makes the mistake of asking his subjects to vote in a particular way, and especially for President Jonathan, knows he is courting trouble. A prominent traditional ruler in Yorubaland, who only said something suggestive of supporting General Ibrahim Babangida after his annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential election won by the late Bashorun Moshood Kashimawo Abiola, knows what he went through in the hands of the Yoruba people. As the Awujale noted, the Yorubas are too sophisticated to be led in the nose on who to vote for during election by any Oba. “In Ijebu here, it is not possible for any Oba, not even in Yorubaland, to go out and say vote for this, vote for that; that person is looking for trouble. But give them the opportunity to present their programmes so that people can make up their minds on what to do. I think this is a very sound democratic principle and that is what I have decided to do, to give you the opportunity of meeting with the people”.  It couldn’t have been better said.

    Then President Jonathan did what he knows how to do best: gave himself pass mark on road infrastructure. He said railway is back; but didn’t say what type of railway. He also said his administration has tried “both in the tertiary level, or what we call health tourism”, etc. Then he assured that if reelected, he would implement the report of the National Conference.  Earlier, when responding to a demand by the Dagburewe of Idowa, Oba Yinusa  Adekoya, who spoke on behalf of the Ijebu Traditional Council, President Jonathan said he would take the appointment of an Ijebu in his cabinet “very, very seriously” if reelected.

    If the president went to 30 palaces in the southwest and all of them made a similar request, he would promise to do something for them all yet, we all know that the constitution is clear on how ministerial appointments should be made. In several other places, President Jonathan had promised heaven on earth things that he could not do in the best of times when crude oil was selling at good prices.

    Perhaps the icing on the cake as far as President Jonathan’s visit to the Awujale’s palace is concerned was the monarch’s admonition to his subjects to vote in only people with the genuine interest of the people at heart; honest people with integrity and the fear of God. “Each time I have cause to talk to our people, I have always told them, in the churches and mosques that when you’re going to vote, make sure you back your sons and daughters who will give something back to you; not the ojelus (looters). Those who will be honest with you, who know the way of God; those are the people you should vote for; not those who will give you two, three spoons and mortgage your future. It is not right”. This is what, in Yorubaland, is called oro sunnukun (food for thought). I wonder how the president and his entourage would have felt at the point the Awujale was making. Clearly, they must have been disappointed if their visit was to get his royal endorsement.

    Oba Adetona’s speech reminds one of the visit of President Jonathan to the revered Oba of Benin,  Omo N’Oba Erediauwa, during the Edo State governorship election in July 2012. The Benin monarch was as candid as he could be when he was reported to have told the president to allow the wish of the people prevail in the election. As the Awujale rightly noted, the coming elections are about the most tension-soaked we are having in about 55 years. Although no one has used the expression ‘do-or-die battle’ as former President Olusegun Obasanjo did in his time, the point is, this is the real do-or-die battle. But why? Why?

    Even the Moroccan king, HM King Mohammed V1, was not left out of our dirty political tricks. That country’s authorities had to say the monarch declined a telephone conversation with President Jonathan because the monarch too realised the implications of such conversation at this point in time. “The king has actually declined the request of the Nigerian government because it is part of the internal electioneering” (in Nigeria), a statement from the Moroccan authorities said. Yet, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Abuja last Monday denied that the Moroccan monarch turned down such a request. It insisted that the president spoke with the Moroccan monarch. “This information is absolutely not correct as the president did in fact speak to the Moroccan monarch … both leaders spoke extensively over the phone on matters of mutual interest and concern”, the ministry said despite the Moroccan authorities’ denial that any such conversation took place. The ministry said it would respond after getting a directive from “higher authorities to do so”. But it was President Jonathan himself who responded, days after, that he never had any such conversation with the Moroccan monarch!

    So, what happened? An investigation had been ordered and we await, as usual, its findings. But to show their disgust about the whole thing, the Moroccan authorities issued two statements within 24 hours and crowned what it called “unethical practices” (diplomatically avoiding to say that the Nigerian government lied) with the recall of its ambassador in Abuja for consultations. Although the same Ministry of External Affairs said the conversation (that the president said never was) was not to confer any political advantage on the president and his party, Nigerians know better. What else could it have been all about, especially given the Moroccans’ claim that “there has never been a telephone conversation” between the two leaders?

    Does this not show to what extent we are prepared to ridicule the country just for the sake of elections? If we must wash our dirty linen, should we do that in public? So, there is none of our institutions that would not be rubbished all for these elections? Now, it is the turn of the foreign affairs ministry, the most unexpected quarters.

    However, by now, it ought to be clear to President Jonathan that no monarch can get him more than his (monarch’s) own vote, that is if the monarch is so pleased to. But hold it, what could have been responsible for the president’s newfound love for Yoruba monarchs? Could it be because they are believed to have ‘authority’ on their tongues or in their staff of office?  All said, the Awujale deserves praise for living to the high standards expected of monarchs of repute like him. Little wonder he is one Oba that receives the prostration of countless other Obas. Oba Adetona has done what many spiritual fathers would not do.  Kaabiyesi o!

     

  • Jonathan’s desperate forays into Southwest

    Jonathan’s desperate forays into Southwest

    It was largely the activism of the Southwest that made his ascension to the throne in 2010 possible, and he could not have won as fluidly as he did in 2011 without either the Southwest’s indifference to the Buhari presidential campaign of that year or their tacit cooperation. Yet more than five years after that momentous poll success, President Goodluck Jonathan has exhibited nothing but contempt for the Southwest, passing them over for top appointments. In-between, during the 2012 fuel price hike protests largely inspired by the politically conscious Southwest, Dr Jonathan again showed nothing but scathing disdain for the highly critical region, describing the Lagos elite as enervated and pampered, and their children spoilt brats who wastefully rode two or three cars, guzzling a disproportionately huge portion of the country’s oil resources. And in Ibadan, while campaigning at Mapo Hall in 2011, he described the Southwest progressive leaders as rascals from whom the region must be delivered. In particular, at the 52nd Independence anniversary lecture in Abuja, Dr Jonathan made shockingly ignorant remarks on the fuel subsidy protests, which in distorted logic he said were sponsored.

    Dr Jonathan has never been at ease with Lagos, though he now courts them. During his 2011 campaigns, he tried to rouse ethnic hatred by suggesting openly to non-natives that if they banded together they could defeat the candidate of the ruling party in the state. The campaign failed, but it has not stopped him from pursuing that same horrifying tactics, nor discouraged him from again reaching out to ethnic groups within the state as well as wowing Lagosians themselves with promises of future projects. Perhaps he is even secretly appalled by how easily members of the Southwest elite can be compromised by contract largesse and other forms of inducements.

    Throughout his first term, he never did anything major or strategic for Lagos, but he is back expecting the state to vote for him in March. Worse, other than fixing a few roads, he has done nothing concrete for the Southwest, but he has spent nearly the whole six weeks extension of the electoral timetable appealing to the region to support his reelection. Indeed, it was only a few months to the elections that he appointed a Yoruba official as his chief of staff. Otherwise, citing his displeasure with the region’s critical view of his government and the rebuff of PDP’s Mulikat Adeola-Akande as Speaker of the House of Representatives, he ensured no Yoruba appointee was among the top 15 positions in his government. After all, the region is a den of opposition, and its pungent media, with their fumigant tentacles spread all over the country with sanctimonious lack of grace, too unfriendly, too imperious, too acerbic.

    If he had appointed Yoruba men and women into key government positions on his own volition, and had cited key projects in the region, he could justifiably campaign on the bases of these friendly and statesmanlike gestures to wow the region for votes. With no achievements to hawk, and with beggarly outstretched hands, he has embarked on a furious electoral drive targetted at the region’s grovelling traditional elite using the false face of Yoruba leadership and cashing in on the divisions and power struggles going on in the region. He has reportedly seduced Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC) leaders who, in exchange for pipeline protection contracts, have promised him support, as if the region could be sold and bought so cavalierly in transactions masterminded by half-wit and unprincipled traders masquerading as politicians and cultural icons. And those whom he cannot seduce, he has unleashed defamatory attacks on their persons in the hope that he can alienate them from their supporters and party support base.

    Dr Jonathan’s Southwest converts have thus deliberately refused to focus on his weaknesses, which are legion and alarming, and on his absolute lack of finesse, diplomacy, intellectual depth, and sound judgement, not to say his abiding suspicion and even hatred for the Southwest elite and their many organs such as the media and democratic structures that define their essence, persons and history. The converts are not discomfited by the unsavoury fact that Dr Jonathan is unreasonably promoting militant groups and other ethnic militias to usurp the functions of military and paramilitary organisations.

    In spite of all these depressing manoeuvres, the real Southwest is likely to see through the Jonathan shenanigans. They will recognise that voting for Dr Jonathan is endorsing incompetence, and that voting for, say, Jimi Agbaje, no matter their unhappiness with the progressive leaders of the region, is in fact enthroning the likes of Bode George and Adeseye Ogunlewe and other scoundrels. The region is likely to recognise that should Dr Jonathan be reelected, he would enact the worst economic policies ever seen in these parts, for his government has already crippled the economy and is barely struggling to cover the mess until the elections are over. Wiser counsel is likely to prevail, for the prohibitive and burdensome cost of reelecting Dr Jonathan far outweighs the discomforts of voting Gen Buhari with all his chequered history.