The Nation Newspaper

Category: Sunday

Hey, death sentence for attempted murder? Come now…!

Life is too short to go seeking some heavy redress for attempted things. Nearly, they say, does not kill a bird; no one goes home to cook a bird he nearly killed. The army must be merciful

Formerly, first of all, if anyone made any attempt on my life, I would certainly want the state to take action! I would not even want the state to ask questions or legalise the issue. I would ask and plead that the person be incinerated just to convince him that my life is not worth the trouble of getting his hands dirty. I know; by the time he finds out, he will be slightly dead. However, when I read of the sentence passed last week by a Nigerian military tribunal on the twelve soldiers who mutinied in the north eastern part of the country and all the events that led up to it, I sort of had a rethink. Hold on a bit, I’ll tell you my rethink later.

Secondly, I gathered from many knowing ones that military codes are a little less forgiving than civilian ones. According to the military books, the code of discipline endorsed by all recruits demands that any and every act of rebellion will be regarded as a threatening force of corruption which will be countered by the more superior force of cleansing. In other words, the books will be hurled at the individual, without giving any quarter. Have you ever had a book thrown at you, literally? No joke, I assure you. It is no less painful metaphorically. I understand the army does this to ensure that everyone within the file and rank has enough discipline not to make him turn his gun on his neighbor for sneezing at him from behind.

Moreover, I have been a major supporter of the Nigerian army. I have written before that I have great faith in it even though there are times I cannot make head or tail of its actions. For example, I believe the army could have routed the ragtag army of the boko haram in its early days but for the fact that something went horribly wrong: it became an avenue for a few up there to milk the country. So, by this default, we still have boko haram with us today, and by some other default action or inaction, some soldiers are even now fighting for their lives in more ways than one.

These facts, nevertheless, have not stopped the outpouring of outrage against that death sentence since it was given, and for good reason too. Many people are in consternation, given that the war against the boko haram has not been won and yet here we are playing around with soldiers on the drawing board: place some in the war front, some to guard some frolicking politicians, some to face the firing squad… All hands needed in that war, which appears to be shifting grounds and tactics daily, have not quite been gathered together. To now put to death some able bodied fighters for snapping at their commanding officer with their gun is, to put it a little humanely, not quite the thing to do.

True, it is disobedience. It is mutiny. In any language, disobedience and mutiny should not be tolerated. I hate it when my dog disobeys me. However, there are many things the army needs to take into consideration, for the sake of fairness, and commute that death sentence into something less grave-like. As the saying goes, come now, and let us reason together on this…

To begin with, we must remember that it is only in Nigeria that everything is different. For instance, Nigeria is at a real war right now, yet Nigerian soldiers are used to guard politicians who are not in any more danger than the rest of the citizens, except maybe by their insouciant pilfering! Under what circumstances should any sane military authority authorize that? Frankly speaking, it is the most spectacular and bewildering fact I have ever heard regarding the armed forces. So, I want to tender that the military authorities opened the door of other worldliness, inordinate gains and personal profits by renting soldiers to guard politicians; the soldiers are only now marching through that door.

It is only natural that soldiers guarding politicians would have been introduced to a lifestyle that is most antithetical to the Spartan requirements of military life. Once this kind of room has been given in the armed forces, it is only natural that other kinds of ‘rooms’ would follow. Whichever soldier, including those at the war front, has not been so favoured would want compensation wherever he finds himself. To thus be denied such compensation is to court righteous anger.

In this instance, that righteous anger frothed even more by the information that many of the allowances of the soldiers were not being made readily available to them. In short, they suspected that some ones were playing around with those allowances while they were away defending the sanctity of the nation. I mean, fair is only fair in any language. The universal law is that a labourer is worthy of his hire, even more so if he happens to be a soldier defending his country. But there’s worse.

Reader, let us both imagine ourselves on ground at the time of occurrence of the event. Here were soldiers, we are told, who would prepare to go to battle with the few gears the country allowed them and their battle plans as well. But what would they find? Their ancient kits highly insufficient compared to the enemies’ ultra-sophisticated and modern kits (betrayed by the country) and their plans already known to the enemy who would be waiting for them in an ambush (betrayed by their leaders). I ask you, how many betrayals can a man take in one circumstance?

Now, there are rumours that the said GOC who was at the centre of the debacle has been retired, transferred or dismissed, we don’t know which and it hardly matters. There are two things to note here. One is that it means he, the target of the attempted murder, did not die, was not injured and is hale. I am not a lawyer but I do believe there is no law in the world that sentences a man to death for attempted murder. Besides, there is no sign the murder would not have taken place if they had meant to do that. In other words, it is probable that they never meant to commit murder. Now, who on earth dares refuse me my law degree?

The second important thing is that the authorities took a step which signals an acknowledgement and an admission of a few things but it is not up to me to tell you what those are. In my book, two plus two nearly always makes four, so find your own four. So, let’s face it, the nerves of these young people were raw, what with unpaid allowances, betrayal at all fronts and the corpses of their colleagues being returned to them daily with some discourteous ‘With love from the boko haram’ notes! In their place, what would you do; what would you do?

I am hoping, as many Nigerians are, that the army authorities would look at the extenuating circumstances surrounding the mutiny of the soldiers and commute the death sentence into something less scary. It would appear to me that someone was, or some ones were, testing the faith of these soldiers.

That brings me to my rethink. Life is too short to go seeking some heavy redress for attempted things. Nearly, they say, does not kill a bird; no one goes home to cook a bird he nearly killed. By the same token, no one should be killed for something he nearly did. As Portia said in The Merchant of Venice, the army must be merciful.

September 28, 2014
Oyedepo: The secret of a man

One of the most profound quotations by the President of the Living Faith Church Worldwide, popularly known as Winners Chapel, Bishop David Oyedepo, which I have held on to dearly since becoming his disciple in 1994 is that “the secret of a man is in his story.

“If you don’t know the story of a man, you can’t know his secret,” he says once in a while whenever he speaks about the secret of his success in ministry and other endeavours.

“ You need to know how my heart pants after God to know my secret. We do nothing in this ministry except as directed by the Lord.”

Last Wednesday at the midweek service of the Church in Lagos, Bishop Oyedepo reiterated the importance of obedience to divine direction which he emphasised has been responsible for the various accomplishments credited to him.

“I would have missed God’s plan for my life if I had been stubborn to heavenly vision for me. Following God can sometimes appear to be madness in the eyes of the world, but I am happy to be mad to follow God’s plan for my life.

“I am what I am by the grace of God and nothing else. You will see the futility of strength, plans, capacity when you are off God’s plan. It takes natural meekness to walk in God’s plan. I thank God for giving me the grace to obey his commandments at every stage of my life and ministry,” Bishop Oyedepo stated.

I testify that Bishop Oyedepo who turned 60 yesterday is indeed a man of God whose story is that of having abiding faith and trust in the Lord to do exceeding and abundantly beyond human comprehension.

Unlike many others who have been distracted by various factors from fulfilling their vision, Bishop Oyedepo has remained focused on his calling and left no one in doubt about his commitment to fulfilling the mandate he received to “liberate the world from every oppression of the devil.”

Coupled with Bishop Oyedepo’s unwavering faith in God’s vision for his life through practice of various biblical principles is his excellent approach to whatever he does, he doesn’t believe in half measures and, notwithstanding being a preacher, he says prayer can’t replace planning.

Former Head of State, General Yakubu Gowon, was right when he stated in his congratulatory message that Oyedepo has exceptional ability to organise, motivate and mobilise Christians for God’s service and for the good of mankind.

Not only has his ministry impacted positively on the spiritual and moral lives of members of his church and others globally, his contribution to the improvement of the standard of education in the country is a good example of how churches can contribute to the overall development of the society.

His story of emerging from a humble background and becoming a world class preacher is a confirmation of that verse from the book of Proverbs in the Bible that “seeth thou a man diligent in his business, he will stand before kings and not mean men.”

Happy birthday, Prophet of our generation and servant of the Lord Almighty.

Sent from my BlackBerry® Smartphone, from Etisalat. Enjoy high speed internet service with Etisalat easy net, available at all our experience centres.

September 28, 2014
PDP’s endorsement of Jonathan

On the day President Goodluck Jonathan was endorsed as the sole candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for next year’s presidential election, party heavyweights behaved so surreally it was difficult to tell what we were witnessing: a tragedy, a comedy, or a tragicomedy. The party has a right to adopt whomever they wish, and in whatever fashion that tickles their fancy. As expected, and in spite of the rigmarole of the Transformation Ambassadors of Nigeria (TAN) — that raucous assemblage of merrymakers — the party has let the other shoe fall. In the eyes of the PDP, Dr Jonathan is incomparable, irreplaceable and indefatigable. He is their messiah, their magician, their avatar. So surreal were their statements and actions during the party’s National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting in Abuja last Thursday that some observers half expected that by a metaphysical sleight of hand, they were poised to get the rest of us — other political parties, the millions uncommitted, and the naysayers — to endorse the president. Certainly, PDP leaders looked like they would have been delighted to make Dr Jonathan the first democratically elected Nigerian president to be unanimously adopted by all of us as the sole candidate.

The ridiculousness of their actions did not strike them. By the last count, the party’s TAN rallies had collected over eight million signatures asking Dr Jonathan to contest, with the fecund South-South indescribably coming up with over four million of those signatures. But while rallies were yet to hold in the Northwest and the restive Northeast, party leaders impatiently ramped up the play. First was the party’s Governors Forum led by Dr Jonathan’s hatchet man, Governor Godswill Akpabio of Akwa Ibom State, who announced excitedly last Tuesday that the governors had adopted the president as sole candidate. Hard on his heels was the party’s National Working Committee (NWC), which animatedly followed suit. And then came the ageless terracotta warriors of the party’s Board of Trustees (BoT), whose fevered brows had been burrowed by years of apostasy and betrayal, also concurring. The icing on the cake was the said NEC endorsement which was solid enough to draw the president out of his shell in contrived amusement and feigned bewilderment.

Governor Babangida Aliyu of Niger State was spectacular on that day. Having been called upon to speak on behalf of PDP governors by the remorseless Olisa Metuh, the party’s publicity secretary who could defend any side of an argument with equal and detached plausibility, the didactic Dr Aliyu ribbed his comrade-in-squirming, Jigawa State governor, Sule Lamido, to signify his presence and apparent concurrence. He seemed to be saying that if the upstart Mr metuh would put him (as a governor) on the spot, he was determined not to be left on the hot stove alone with unshod feet. A nuanced game was on; but it was not immediately clear the president and others at the meeting appreciated its delicate shades of joke and mischief. Recall that shortly before some PDP governors defected to the All Progressives Congress (APC) in November last year, Dr Aliyu was the leader of the subversives, and the polemicist and theorist, Alhaji Lamido, manned the ideological rampart. But on the day the rebellion matured, both Dr Aliyu and Alhaji Lamido cited some extenuating circumstances and abandoned their defecting PDP comrades at the barricades.

Last Thursday, both men were put on the spot, and they had the distinguished honour, not to say anguish, of assenting Dr Jonathan’s endorsement, the former by his comic overkill, and the latter by his discomfiting silence. But by any colour, apostasy is apostasy. PDP BoT’s Chief Anenih, perhaps the most unprincipled politician in the country, a man for whom party and ideological differentiation is nothing but rank stupidity, was there to fix his cadaverous gaze on the PDP top brass, as if whipping them into servitude and rebellion. Reporters wrote that the PDP convention in December would be expected to confirm these endorsements. That is an understatement. The convention will confirm the endorsements, not be expected to. No one who loves his life in the PDP will attempt to oppose Dr Jonathan, either as a practical democratic joke or out of conviction. He will be crushed. And even if Dr Jonathan were to ask someone to pretend to oppose him in order to give a semblance of internal democracy in the party, the hapless fellow would still resist the temptation, for he would not be sure he was not been set up for destruction.

Were the endorsements to be limited to the PDP, we could take consolation in the fact that the party really never had a soul, nor that even if it did, it still could not call it its own. The Southeast, as if the zone had inhaled some kind of esoteric gas, has chorused their loud endorsement. Indeed, an uproarious celebration is on in that region of forbidden republicanism to validate Dr Jonathan. Surprisingly too, a large but quite misguided section of the Yoruba elite has also endorsed Dr Jonathan, citing their distrust for and distaste of northern feudalism, and a fear of the invasion of religious dervishes from the North. The Yoruba have a talent for projecting their internal struggles onto the national plane, even as some of them, for economic reasons, such as pipeline protection contracts, are prepared to sell their souls to the devil. In the few months before the great plebiscite, there will be many more endorsements and betrayals, for it seems as if the country has lost its mind.

The Dr Jonathan endorsement and the way it has been procured reflect a dispiriting and unnerving fact about his government and Nigerian politics. The culture had been building since the unethical and anti-intellectual years of the Olusegun Obasanjo presidency. The processes are now maturing. No one, not even Chief Obasanjo, has compromised the political elite as adeptly and with much devilry as Dr Jonathan. The Southeast is tamed and disembowelled by economic and bureaucratic baits. The South-South has reached the apogee of selfishness and errantry, with the region a virtually lawless economic ‘free trade’ zone of stolen oil worth some $8bn annually. The Southwest is laid prostrate by greed and powermongering, its long-lasting culture of race suicide reactivated. And a large swathe of the North tired of the rot, having itself promoted humungous rot during their ascendancy, have begun to sell their consciences.

As the country under Dr Jonathan takes firm and deliberate steps towards tyranny, what we see in the mirror is a reflection of the president’s mental picture of what kind of country he prefers to govern, and a mental picture of himself. To him, and under him, Nigeria has become an eclectic pastiche with no purpose, drive or direction. And he himself has become, whether deliberately or accidentally, a dangerous, budding dictator determined to herd the country into one suffocating pen — a country speaking with one voice, looking in the same direction, thinking the same way, regimented, devoid of soul, and unable to savour the modern joys and accomplishments of life. Between the Governors Forum, TAN rallies, PDP endorsement, and the national conference, among others, the betrayal of the country appears complete. Now, more than at any time in our history, we need a miracle to make Nigeria snap out of its self-induced stupor.

September 21, 2014
Nigerians below the age of 50 and “the end of the world as we know it” syndrome

Out of relative obscurity, every generation must discover its mission and either fulfill or betray it.
Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth

Nigerians below the age of 50. Without any deliberate intention on my part, this has become a phrase that I often use in this column. In the series that preceded this week’s essay and ended last week, I went into great detail on the ramifications of that phrase for our country’s future. I gave many facts, anecdotes and figures to try to prove to “Nigerians below the age of 50” that far from being one of the most corruption-ridden nations on the planet, our country once experienced a period when corruption existed on a fairly low, manageable scale in our society. In other essays in the seven years since the column has been running, first under a slightly different name in The Guardian and now in The Nation, I have used this phrase, “Nigerians below the age of 50” with reference to other indications of the unending downward spiral in the quality of life for the great majority of Nigerians, with a corresponding decline in the moral and spiritual health of the nation, all of this in about the last four decades and half when an overwhelming majority of Nigerians alive now were either toddlers or were not yet born. In this week’s essay, I would like to now subject this phrase and the ways in which I have used it to a critical review.

In the first place, I would like to strongly assert that in most societies of the world and virtually throughout recorded history, nearly every generation has felt that things are not what they used to be, that values are in decline and that restorative actions have to be taken to salvage the sustaining and enduring aspects of the outer and inner lives of the collectivity. This phenomenon is what I call in the title of this piece, “the end of the world as we know it” syndrome. This syndrome or idea is a perennial one in the arts, literature and culture of all the societies of the world. As an idea, it pervades the social fabric depicted in the two great novels of Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart and Arrow of God. In the former, which is set in the 19th century, I was once startled to read an observation of Okonkwo’s maternal uncle, Uchendu, that stated that the generation of Okonkwo was a generation of “stay-at-home” provincials that no longer travelled as constantly and as widely as his generation and that of Okonkwo’s father did. Indeed, the phrase, “the end of the world” hardly ever means the literal, physical end of time, history and experience; what it really nearly always means is “the end of the world as we, members of a particular generation, know it”.

Without knowing it, have I been using this phrase, “Nigerians below the age of 50” that is so ubiquitous in my column in the tradition of the other phrase, “the end of the world as we know it”? Perhaps, but I would argue that only very minimally so. There are some modes of behavior, some standards of comportment that were prevalent in my youth that I no longer see in the behavior and values of young people nowadays that I rather wish were still around. That’s about it. Definitely, I hope that my readers have not, consciously or unconsciously, been reading my use of the phrase, “Nigerians below 50” as a conservative tool with which to align the ways of today’s youth to the ways of my own youth. As I have always pointed out many times in this column, I write for the most part for “Nigerians below the age of 50” with a view to communicating to them my desperate hope that if things were once much better in our country, they could be better again, or indeed be much better than anything my generation ever experienced.

One of the most important points that I wish to put across in this review of my use of this phrase, “Nigerians below 50”, is the fact that generational differences don’t mean much to me, they don’t occupy a privileged place in my thought. For me, the differences that have been used to cause a lot of harm in our country and our world are not differences between generational cohorts. Rather the differences that have been used to prevent human progress and happiness in our country and across the world are those based on race, gender, ethnicity, religion, geopolitical region and especially, class and access to social power. In this regard, let me state clearly that it is not the fact of difference (or differences) in itself that cause lack of progress and unhappiness; rather it is the use, the manipulation of difference and/or differences that we have to contend with. Indeed, we can safely assert that generational differences as a cause of the crises that we currently face in this country is relatively very unimportant. The proof of this is the degree of cooperation across the generations within the political class in our country in colossal acts of looting, wastage and mismanagement that have become well known all over the world. At one stage not too long ago, there used to be talk of our need for a “new breed” of politicians. Well, the “new breed” came and they were in many respects as bad if not worse than the “old breed”. And indeed, one fundamental fact of human life and political reality is that within each and every generation there are good and rotten apples.

Think of the following concrete illustration of this assertion: Chris Uba, Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi, Dimeji Bankole, Raji Fashola, Nasir El Rufai and Modu Sheriff all belong to the same generational cohort! Chris Uba’s blatant godfatherism is so crude, so intellectually backward and politically retrograde that it often causes great embarrassment to his own political party, the PDP; Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi is one of the few shining lights of reform in the present political order. Dimeji Bankole speaks heavily – and sometimes with affectation – with an Oxbridge accent, but he was one of the worst and most wasteful Speakers of the House of Representatives we have ever had; Raji Fashola is quite easily the most able technocratic governor we have had in the country since 1999. And finally, Modu Sheriff and Nasir El Rufai. Sheriff, like Chris Uba, knows no distinction between lawfulness and lawlessness in governance; consequently, he has moved quite easily and effortlessly from one desperate and monstrous political brinksmanship to another. By contrast, El Rufai is doing everything he possibly can to prove to himself and to the country that a politician can break away and turn a new leaf from the worst parts of himself and his political comrades.

There is one sense in which my use of the phrase, “Nigerians below the age of 50” could legitimately be said to have distinct and perhaps even intentional generational connotations and this is the sense in which I place great value in conversations within and across generations. In concrete terms, often when I write in this column about prevalent realities, values and practices in the country when we were young, I try as much as I can not to be sentimental, not to be self-righteous on behalf of my generation. Indeed, in my mind, I think and hope that I am also addressing members of my generation who are still alive and who care about where the country is headed. The justification for this concern is that I fear very much that nostalgia and sentimentality dominate the ways in which members of my generation speak about the past amongst themselves and to members of the younger generations. “Ah, when King’s College was still King’s College”! “At U.I. of those days we used to have our rooms cleaned and our clothes laundered for us”! “The roads and bridges that used to be built by the old Public Works Department (PWD) are so much better than the roads that contractors build now”. “In those days, you could travel across the length and breadth of the country without fear of encountering any armed robbers on your journey”. “Do you know that there was a time in this country when electricity supply was not erratic?” These are all literally true, but the mode of their evocation completely decontextualizes them from the social relations of production that made them possible in the first place, especially relations of paternalism and inequality.

My greatest concern in my use of the phrase, “Nigerians below the age of 50” is thus that we should leave out nostalgia and sentimentality in the conversations we are having within and across the generations. It is perhaps symbolic of the argument that I am making here that History as a subject is no loner taught in many of our schools. For it is history, the passage from one period or epoch to another, that I have in mind when I use the phrase I have been reflecting upon in this essay. I am not entirely sure that we have moved from one era to another between the time of my youth and the present moment of my late or senescent adulthood. History is not the mere passage of time; it often simultaneously involves an advance and a retrogression – as in the phrase one step forward, two steps backward. At any rate, when I write to “Nigerians below the age of 50”, my hope is that what I write about will give them a bit of historical information or knowledge that will empower them. History also paradoxically sometimes involves one step backward and three steps forward. That pattern of historical change and dynamism always entails the empowerment of youthful generations with important lessons of history. Thus, I remain completely open to the possibility that out of the ranks of “Nigerians below the age of 50” there might arise the agents of this particular form of historical transcendence.

Biodun Jeyifo

bjeyifo@fas.harvard.edu

September 21, 2014
The Synagogue tragedy

With 80 people dead in a single incident, maybe govt will now do something on building collapse

Prophet T.B. Joshua of The Synagogue, Church Of All Nations (SCOAN), is many things to many people. To some, particularly his faithful abroad, he is a powerful man of God. The rate at which people troop to his church from all parts of the world, including the civilised world, has made some people to liken him to a prophet who is without honour in his own country. This conclusion derives from the fact that many Nigerians do not see Prophet Joshua as a spectacular man of God; that is if they even believe he is one at all. Even many Christian leaders avoid him like the plague, whether they are of the orthodox churches or the Pentecostal ones. So, in a sense, Prophet Joshua is in a world of his own.

A good example of this is the seizure of Nigeria’s $9.3m in South Africa, meant for an arms deal which the Federal Government claimed was genuine transaction. While the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) has been vocal in defending its president, Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor, who owns the plane in which the arms money was transported to South Africa, its voice is yet to be heard on the Synagogue tragedy. I guess this is because Prophet Joshua is not a CAN member. But what happened transcends membership of association; it was all about human lives, a reason for which I thought CAN should have at least commiserated with the families of the departed. I guess that, in spite of their professed Christianity, they would be saying in their hearts, ‘serves him right. Why didn’t he foresee the disaster or avert it’? This should not be the spirit. Anyway, it is for this reason of ‘my Christianity is holier than yours’ that I have always shied away from writing about Prophet Joshua and his Synagogue. For me, faith is a personal thing and people should have the right to believe what they want to believe.

That was my position, at least until Friday, September 12, when the guest house that was under construction for the church’s foreign guests collapsed in Lagos. With the kind of casualties recorded from the disaster, about 80 people dead and over a hundred injured, it would amount to criminal silence not to comment on the way some of our religious houses do things . Quite expectedly, when such disasters occur, people blame them on everything and everyone else, but themselves. That was why Prophet Joshua missed the point when he blamed the collapse of the guest house on a strange aircraft that had hovered over the place shortly before the building collapsed. Even if we are to believe his theory, that would not be the starting point to address the issue. It is not even a question of whether the materials used on the site were of good quality, or sub-standard. The most appropriate place to start is whether he had permission to build the kind of edifice he was constructing before disaster struck.

Perhaps the first time I would have commented on The Synagogue was a few weeks back when it was reported that some Ebola victims from outside the country might be considering going there for healing. As a matter of fact, some accounts had it that Patrick Sawyer, the man who brought the disease into Nigeria on July 20, had Prophet Joshua on his mind for healing and was probably Synagogue-bound. It was good that the Lagos State government saw the looming catastrophe if such visits had been encouraged and promptly intervened to persuade Prophet Joshua against receiving such visitors. Mercifully, the prophet saw reason with the government and announced to Ebola victims who might be contemplating visiting The Synagogue that he would rather come to their respective countries to pray for, or with them. I am ready to work with you. I love my country and I will be ready to work with you. Even if it is a rumour, there is need to secure our environment to ensure that it is safe, he had told the government delegation. What a big relief to those of us with little faith and of this perverse generation! Isn’t our generation perverse indeed?

But Prophet Joshua’s Synagogue is not alone in this impunity of building without permit. Many of the Pentecostal churches are probably culpable of the same lawlessness, or some other kinds. Last year, some of the workers in a Pentecostal church attacked some Ogun State tax officials who had gone to the premises of a nursery school located within their church premises to demand that the school pay its tax obligation of less than N2million. The school is a commercial venture but, rather than pay the tax, which was years in arrears, some of the overzealous workers pounced on the tax officials, beat them black and blue and even detained some of them. The matter was apparently swept under the carpet when the founder and leader of the church apologised to the state government.

One does not know where these church leaders got their example from. Jesus Christ, our model as Christians even paid tax. “Give unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and unto God what is God’s”, he had preached. But most of these churches, in spite of their being stupendously rich, do not want to pay anything into government’s coffers. And many governments do not want to confront them apparently for fear of political or whatever backlash. The same reason Prophet Joshua’s church was still opened for service the Sunday after the incident, in spite of the calamity caused by a building he never obtained permission to build. It is surprising that most of these church leaders see themselves as being above the law. Otherwise, why would men of God embark on construction works without relevant permit? Prophet Joshua even tried; at least he got approval to build a three-storey building, the problem was that he unilaterally changed his mind to make it six! Some of his colleagues would not even tell government that they are embarking on any building project, not to talk of obtaining the requisite papers for it.

Unfortunately for us, The Synagogue disaster has been internationalised because many South Africans were victims and that country, quite unlike Nigeria, cares for its citizens. As a matter of fact, in spite of the cordial relations between both countries, there is disagreement on the number of South Africans killed in that tragedy. The belated claim by the Lagos State government about the collapsed building, and even the main church auditorium not having the requisite papers would be a big embarrassment to the outside world that in Nigeria, anything goes. This is the same government that would mark for demolition kiosks and small buildings not having the requisite papers, even in the remotest parts of the state, such that one would be wondering whether the state’s officials are omnipresent. So, no official of the state government saw that Prophet Joshua was biting more than he was legally permitted to chew until tragedy struck on September 12?

Obviously, the matter boils down to the point I have consistently made in the last three or so weeks, that we do so many wrong things for political expediency. It’s like many of our governments are ready to stoop to the base standards of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), for political reasons. An ordinary phone call to Nigeria from South Africa if the story of the $9.3million arms deal had been otherwise, was enough to kill the matter. Afterall, how many arms deals had been swept under the carpet in the country? This would be difficult in South Africa because of the relatively high level of development of structures in that country. It is therefore good news that Zuma, in spite of our fears that he is not any shade better than our own rulers here, did not allow his country’s laws to be trampled upon by a lawless ‘giant’. Even if the South Africans release the money eventually, the point has been made and Nigeria has been sufficiently embarrassed as a lawless country. This would not be new to the outside world though; but it would have reinforced that belief.

All said, buildings have been collapsing in the country killing one person, 10 or 16 people, etc. After the initial threats by the governments, the matter dies down only for the same process to repeat itself when the next building comes down. Maybe now that at least 80 have died in a singular incident, 80 lives gone would spur our governments to view the matter with the seriousness that it deserves. My heart goes out to the relatives of the dead. I wish the injured quick recovery and pray that the dead rest in peace.

Nigeria sure needs martyrs, but those who died in a collapsed building that did not have a valid building plan cannot qualify for martyrs as The Synagogue and Prophet Joshua would want us to believe. That is akin to Boko Haram insurgents committing murder and encouraging others to do same in order to make Al-Jannah.

September 21, 2014
Confab: Opening its political balance sheet (4) The Yoruba factor: Towards the next confab

What should have ended as a Nigerian problem has been given a Yoruba flavour by residual forces in Afenifere who have made burnishing the image of the recent conference their responsibility. Of all the nationalities with representatives at the conference, it is largely the Yoruba (through a select group of its elders at the conference) that has since the end of the conference made the conference look like a Yoruba issue.

Historically, the Yoruba have been in the forefront of the struggle for functional and sustainable federalism in the country. This was made possible by the insight and vision of Chief Obafemi Awolowo, who was prescient enough to know that no multinational state is likely to avoid political instability and economic stagnation without adopting a federal system of government that allows each nationality to refine its culture while cooperating with other nationalities in the union to build a formidable nation-wide economy and polity.

More recently, NADECO leaders made convocation of a sovereign national conference to de-militarise and re-federalise Nigeria an integral part of the struggle for restoration of the mandate given to Chief MKO Abiola at the end of the 1993 presidential election which was later annulled by General Ibrahim Babangida. In a sense, if the Yoruba appear to cry more than the bereaved with respect to the recent national conference, Yoruba elders (particularly residual Afenifere forces) who complain about opposition to the Yoruba demand for a return to regionalism are not completely out of order for feeling the failure of the national conference more than any other nationality involved, including the Niger Delta nationalities whose resources are still denied to them as much as they have been before the conference.

Now that the euphoria and the remorse over the recent conference seem to be dying down, it is appropriate to use this page to have a dialogue with Yoruba people across age and class about some of the things that need to be done if a majority of Yoruba people in Nigeria want to have a national conference that can bring federalism back to the country. If it was not clear before, it has now become clear that the Yoruba region was not adequately prepared for the last conference. Such lapse should be avoided next time.

First, at a time that Yoruba political and cultural leaders should have been busy consulting and mobilising the Yoruba population, they were pre-occupied with two initiatives that turned out to be counterproductive. The first wrong initiative was that those in charge of political control of the Yoruba region based their assessment of President Jonathan’s sudden decision to organise a national dialogue on what he stood to gain from doing so, with very little consideration for what the Yoruba could do to take advantage of President Jonathan’s sudden conversion from “nothing-is-wrong with the 1999 Constitution” to the imperative tore-launch Nigeria a few months to another presidential election. Even though APC’s view that the conference was a distraction that was not likely to yield any progress in the struggle for federalism finally turned out to be prescient, the party could have encouraged its leadership in the Yoruba region to assist citizens to prepare for the conference, rather than leaving the space of mobilisation to a handful of Yoruba elders who, for obvious reasons, preferred the top-down approach of working with PDP leaders to direct consultation with Yoruba people. The choice by Yoruba elders not to mobilise the population was not necessarily for lack of electoral value on their part. It must have to do with the rapport the group had gained with the presidency during the planning stage of the conference.

Secondly, Yoruba elders who virtually took over the initiative of the Yoruba Assembly hitherto under the leadership of General Alani Akinrinade by establishing a top-down initiative first in Ijebu and later in Ibadan, left the people behind in their negotiations (on behalf of Yoruba people) for a Southern Position with selected leaders from the Southeast and South-south. By giving the impression of a consensual southern position on how to re-federalise Nigeria, such Yoruba leaders also gave the impression that the Yoruba saw the conference as a platform to antagonize the North, to the extent that the support of North-central states for devolution at the 2005 conference virtually disappeared in 2014. There is no better way to illustrate this than the tone and content of the position paper of the North (as a monolith) at the conference.

In addition, by choosing to negotiate on behalf of Yoruba people without any mandate, Yoruba elders in favour of the conference ignored the people of Lagos Island in particular and Lagos State in general in the bid for regionalism. Assuming that most of Lagos State: Badagry, Epe, Ikeja, and Ikorodu were part of old Western Region, they forgot that Lagos Island had a separate status of its own for almost 80 years and might need to be assured that joining the Yoruba region would not be to their disadvantage. Even places like Badagry, Epe, Ikeja, and Ikorodu have been with Lagos State for too long for any serious group negotiating for a new federal system to take their consent for granted on matters of self-determination.

But reducing the failure of the conference to achieve more than cosmetic re-federalisation to lack of cooperation between residual Afenifere forces (now in PDP) and APC leaders misses the big point about lack of preparation on the part of the Yoruba for the last conference. Asking for federalism in a country that has been unitary for over 30 years requires more than reconciling two ideologically opposed groups, PDP and APC. If Yoruba people sincerely desire a federal system that is based on regionalism, there is a need for a better strategy than just scheming with Igbos and Ijaws in the name of southern solidarity. It is important to realise that what is good for Igbos and Ijaws with respect to federalism may not necessarily be good for the Yoruba, and vice versa.

First, Yoruba citizens who genuinely want a federal Nigeria need to create a third force that is distinct from the two major political parties that currently house most Yoruba voters: APC and PDP. The third force should not be a political party but a political movement that is devoted to the struggle for re-federalisation of Nigeria, just as NADECO struggled against military dictatorship without kowtowing to NRC or SDP. From the start, the movement should be a bottom-up initiative. It should be an organisation that spends its energy on mobilising Yoruba citizens on the subject of what type of Nigerian Union the region wants to be a part of. It must be a movement that has every sub-ethnic group of the Yoruba in its leadership cadre, with such members not having immediate interest in political power under the present dispensation of unitary Nigeria.

Part of the tasks before the movement is aggressive re-education of every region of Nigeria on the benefits of federalism. No section should be treated as irredeemably glued to keeping Nigeria as it is. There is no doubt that the North is favoured by the present and unitary arrangement, but it is not true that most northerners are benefiting from the way Nigeria is structured today. It will be the responsibility of the movement to re-educate individual northerners, easterners, and south-southerners on how federalism can improve their opportunities in life, especially in Africa that is being modernised more by globalisation than by efforts of individual nations.

There is so much for Yoruba federalists to learn from the Scotland experience. Even if the Scotland vote turns out to be No, the point has been made that the political structure of the United Kingdom can no longer be the same. This has been borne out by the promise by the British Prime Minister and leaders of other major parties in the UK during the last days of campaign for and against Independence vote for Scotland that more powers will be devolved to Scotland and other nations within the United Kingdom in the event of a No vote. It took Scotland over 300 years to reach this point. Yoruba citizens and their leaders who are sincerely committed to the cause of regionalism need to know that there need not be shortcuts to any place worth going. Many Yoruba leaders took the shortcut to reach their goals at the last conference. We should now stop crying over spilt milk and look ahead to another conference, if regionalism is our goal in a federal union.

September 21, 2014
Periscoping the ideal APC presidential candidate (1)

Given the fact that corruption is our greatest problem in Nigeria, one that even pushed Boko Haram to what it has now become, Gen Buhari’s integrity should count positively for his candidacy.

Justifying its tag as truly macabre, this past week showed, unambiguously, that PDP will stop at nothing to bring Nigeria down with it. Nigerians woke up early in the week to read about the PDP governorship aspirant in whose account $50,000 was allegedly found –how the godfathers must be missing Mr Ibori; soon after, it was the turn of a Judge of the U.S Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, Justice Charles R. Norgle, to cause the eminent PDP Southwest poster boy, Buruji Kashamu, the total indignity of having to waste money on a newspaper advert just to tell Nigerians that he will ‘fight till he gets justice’. Judge Norgle had refused Kasamu’s motion to be acquitted in an earlier indictment of importing drugs to the U.S, but rather held that should Kasamu ever come to the U.S, voluntarily or not, he could be put on trial in the Federal District Court in Chicago.

You would have thought that was enough for one week of what the APC has appropriately described as PDP’s ‘series of global ridicule to which it has subjected Nigeria and her people’.

Then popped up the mother of all ridicules, when a plane allegedly bought for evangelism was, instead, converted to laundering money , ferrying $9.3 million dollars to South Africa, accompanied by two Nigerians and an Israeli contractor. The money has since been ordered seized by the South African Assets Forfeiture Unit.

All these are only a small fraction of PDP’s corruption ridden government and it is the more reason Corruption should be a key subject of APC’s campaign to tackle this government. Nigeria had never been this corrupt. It is for this reason I focus today on who the ideal APC Presidential candidate should be. I hereby invite interested Nigerians to send me their views in not more than 800 words.

Below are the views of Abiodun Ayodele, a young Nigerian publisher, who has a good grasp of strategy.

Under the title: APC AND THE 2015 PRESIDENCY, he wrote:

“Can APC win the 2015 Presidential election?

Yes. Can APC lose the 2015 Presidency, in spite of, having the potential to win it? Yes.

The 2015 Presidency is in APC’s hands to win or lose, and hardwork or lack of it, as well as creativity or lack of it will determine which way.

The APC national hierarchy as presently constituted is in good hands with the Chairman, Chief Oyegun and his Deputy, Chief Segun Oni being former state governors. Lai Mohammed a lawyer with impressive thinking and writing ability is also there but has the team demonstrated the capacity to prosecute the 2015 elections to victory?

So far, not convincingly.

The Chairman says APC is ‘maturely engaging President Jonathan but what does this mean or amount to with the President? Is it a compromised silence to hurt the interest of APC in 2015 or a lack of capacity to prosecute the 2015 presidential election to victory?

Either way, it is unthinkable that APC, and the Nigerian people especially, would be happy to allow President Jonathan continue in office beyond 2015. Why would a grossly incompetent leadership be allowed to continue to drag Nigeria further down in corruption, vision-lessness, poverty, and the daily loss of thousands of innocent citizens in all manner of untamed conflicts?

The Oyegun team’s ‘silence’ has given fillip to the PDP to monopolise the airwaves like a colossus. They now daily insult the Nigerian people on television networks with their huge lies of achieving so much in office! The PDP now confidently deceives the people to believe that there is no person more capable than Jonathan for 2015 and, in truth, who will blame them for making these wild claims when the nearest opposition party seems to be taking a nap? (Apologies to Sabela Addide of The Punch newspaper)

WHO SHOULD FLY THE APC FLAG?

The simple answer to this poser is that evidences of previous electoral contests affirm that the most acceptable of APC’s likely candidates, and who can surely win, even massively, is General Muhammadu Buhari (rtd).

Why General Muhammadu Buhari?

The truth is that here is an honest man who is also known for honesty of purpose, and to date, no Nigerian has come up against him with any shred of a shady financial deal in all the positions of responsibility he has held in the country. The APC hierarchy can do a simple arithmetic to confirm this assertion or what did AC, and later A C N candidates in the presidential elections of 2007, and 2011 score against him?

General Muhammadu Buhari’s major electoral weakness has been his weak campaigns that were characterized by very poor publicity of his personal qualities and his unalloyed commitment to the public good, which he continues to demonstrate by drawing attention to how people in government have turned themselves to ‘authority stealing’. (apologies to late Fela Anikulapo-Kuti).

Most Nigerian youth are not aware that General Muhammadu Buhari was once a Nigerian Head of State and that he neither stole public funds, increased the price of petrol , nor allowed corruption to thrive in government, unlike what currently obtains in all the three tiers of government.

General Buhari has the personal weakness of always keeping quiet over damaging allegations against him, and, his campaign teams, over the years, have not been hard working. The campaign teams have, instead, always tended to conclude, naively, after losing an election that the general is probably not wanted by Nigerians and so would always be rigged out by PDP. They say these things only to hide their laziness and inability to put all material facts about General Buhari in the public domain to secure him the people’s vote. A Redeemed Church pastor friend that voted for General Buhari in the 2011 election told me he adjudged him the only candidate deserving of his vote at that election. I have also been privileged to listen to a top company executive after the 2011 poll complain of Nigerians’ folly in electing the current president. He said he voted General Buhari. These two people are Yoruba. Others I have met told me they voted General Buhari at

the 2011 poll. No wonder he scored nearly 10% of Lagos votes in 2011 in spite of literally not campaigning here in the South. Any greater evidence of Buhari’s electoral acceptability? General Buhari can partner with persons like Professor Utomi, Governor Okorocha, Femi Falana (SAN), Prof. Akin Oyebode, or a notable Company Chief Executive or academician and the team would be more than convincing to win”.

As my own little contribution, for now, let me add that I think the general’s campaigns had lacked adequate funding and his overall logistics suffered thereby; weaknesses which an APC well-funded, issues-based campaign should effortlessly cure. For instance the CPC was primed to have won at least two or three additional states in the governorship election in 2011 but for lack of funds and inadequate logistics.

Given the fact that corruption is our greatest problem in Nigeria, one that even pushed Boko Haram to what it has now become, Gen Buhari’s integrity should count positively for his candidacy.

September 21, 2014
South Africa, Nigeria’s $9.3m arms deal and Oritsejafor

Both the Nigerian government and Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) president, Ayo Oritsejafor, have struggled to wriggle out of the scandalous arms deal involving the smuggling of $9.3m to South Africa. So far, they have not succeeded. But given the fact that the President Goodluck Jonathan government was also unsuccessful in wriggling out of the $10bn or $12bn unaccounted oil money, it is not clear both the government and Pastor Oritsejafor will care what anyone thinks. The smuggled money was flown into a small airport Northwest of Johannesburg, South Africa, in a chartered jet by two Nigerians and an Israeli on September 5.

The scandal of flying $9.3m undeclared into a foreign land is bad enough even without the other smaller but no less potent scandals associated with the smuggled dollars. The plane used to ferry the undeclared money into South Africa was said to be owned by the CAN president, who is also President of the Word of Life Bible Church, Warri, Delta State. He however tactically denied ownership. The plane, he says, is owned by Eagle Air Company in which he has residual interest. But, more, he added, the plane had since last month (only last month!) been leased to Green Coast Produce Limited, which operated the plane at the time of the scandal. Using the platform of CAN, Pastor Oritsejafor then accused the All Progressives Congress (APC) duo of Lai Mohammed and Nasir El-Rufai of smearing his reputation, insinuating also that the attack on his reputation had religious and political undertones.

The bad-tempered CAN release defending Pastor Oritsejafor contains elements that sadly showed that CAN has become politicised and indefensibly entangled with the world system. Said the press release signed by Sunny Oibe, CAN’s Director of National Issues: “ Our attention has been drawn to the desperation of some elements working for a particular political party within our society to tarnish the image of the President of Christian Association of Nigeria, Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor. They are working for the All Progressives Congress and they are not unknown to us. Let Nigerians have this background for them to judge themselves. These shameless characters including a former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Mallam Nasir El-Rufai and National Publicity Secretary of All Progressives Congress, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, went to UK to embark on an image laundering for their political party, the APC…”

More brazenly, the intemperate CAN statement also concluded: “ The report (that both Dr Jonathan and Pastor Oritsejafor encourage Boko Haram) is a well organised orchestrated plan, all because of their desperation for the 2015 general elections. If not for the blindness and intellectual myopia of some Nigerians, people of the calibre of El-Rufai shouldn’t be taken seriously and should not be walking on the streets….El-Rufai is more of a Street Boy whose history and antecedents are very much known. He has been the person defending Boko Haram…We are waiting and we can assure you that at the appropriate time, he and his allies will pay dearly for it. The international community sees APC as an Islamic party; instead of El-Rufai to deny that, he was busy orchestrating spurious propaganda against Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor.” In short, CAN is saying PDP is Christian, and APC is Muslim.

However, neither the Jonathan presidency’s clumsy response to the $9.3m arms deal scandal nor Pastor Oritsejafor’s side of the story, nor yet CAN’s statement, has detracted from the scandalous maze. The undeclared money was obviously not sourced from a grocery store; it passed through the banking system one way or the other. The messengers were also representing the government, not themselves. In addition, the huge sum passed through the airport, and the supposedly eagle eyes of the relevant border agencies, which intercepts much smaller funds, could not detect it. And both Pastor Oritsejafor’s defence and CAN statement also showed what slippery slopes the clergy tread when they walk on Caesar’s highway, conducting secular business in the typically Caesarian fashion Pergamos made famous in Revelation 2, and in the ethical and idolatrous quicksand that today entraps church doctrines, church politics and church business, making them indistinguishable from the world system.

Quite apart from the facts and fiction surrounding the $9.3m scandal, it is indeed curious that Pastor Oritsejafor little appreciates how unhealthily politicised CAN has become under him, and how dangerously parochial he and the body have become in throwing their lot with Dr Jonathan, thereby promoting schism in the church and in the body politic, and disavowing and polluting the doctrinal purity that have sanctified, promoted and defended their faith over the centuries.

September 21, 2014
Lessons from the Scotland vote

Successive governments have had to keep a vice-like grip on the people’s throats lest they unwittingly let fall or vomit what is in their minds; so referendums are not allowed, and sovereign national conferences are not allowed

Sometime ago, I carelessly walked into an argument over the then on-going national conference. To counter the vociferous opinion that that confab was the real thing, I made it out, at the shrillest point of my voice, that the conference would not achieve much, if anything. For one thing, I said, it was not sovereign; for another, everything about it looked too controlled, so the thorniest parts of our national existence would not be so easily resolved. Then, there was too much close monitoring that did not allow too much good old plain speaking which the state of our national affairs desired and demanded. Most importantly, it was a duplication of the jobs of the national assembly members. Neither party was ready to acquiesce to the other; so the parties settled on not leaving an inch to the other in anything. From thence, I watched as people got into passions nationally over some of the topics and concluded that these people were merely taking their lungs out of the cupboard for some good ol’ airing and exercise. Nothing would be agreed on, like my argument.

My negativism notwithstanding, I still felt some kind of let-down when the conference reports seemed to have been tossed to the serving ministers to go and study for possible implementation. I just thought, come now, these things deserve a little more respect than that. I mean, they deserve to be hoisted, mounted and made to sit on some national shelves so that we can all gaze at them for a while. During their sit-ins, they will of course gather some dust and become venerable. They can even grow to become tomes. After a while, we can beat the dust off and give the tomes over to another panel to examine and then… Who knows? But to give those consecrated things to serving ministers straight off …?

Come now, you and I know that most, if not all, the serving ministers are politicians or wards of politicians representing and even serving different interests. Most importantly, they are loyal to their pockets and their boss, the president. No problem in that, but that’s where the problem is. We all know that the president, like the ones before him, is not inclined to rocking the Nigerian boat. I think it has something to do with the size of that boat. Any boat that can take one hundred and sixty million people or so is a serious boat that should not be rocked lightly. Seriously, though, in matters like this, when the boat will be rocked, it will, particularly when the wind gets violently wild, and it is best not to wait for that time.

That is what Scotland did, or is it Britain now? It perceived that the winds were turning the seas rather frothy in Scotland and interpreted the movements to be some disquiet growing in the land. Rather than appoint people to go and sit in some place and decide in their own wisdom (or lack of it thereof) on some of the grievances, it simply initiated some steps that culminated in the vote for independence last week. Britain asked the people of Scotland to decide once and for all whether they wanted to stop being part of the union with Britain, Wales, etc. Not too surprisingly, the people voted no to independence.

We have so many things to learn from that exercise. First and foremost, it is time that Nigerians learnt to stop being afraid of the results when the masses are asked to speak their mind. There has been a morbid fear in the land from the colonial governorship periods right down through the military and democratic eras that if Nigerians are left to speak their minds, the sky would fall or the world would end. Therefore, successive governments have had to keep a vice-like grip on the people’s throats lest they unwittingly let fall or vomit what is in their minds. Referendums are not allowed. Sovereign national conferences are not allowed. In that hostile environment, how can truth be allowed to surface?

When you read through comments on national news in cyberspace, you’ll find the truth about the country: that people are not at all comfortable with the way things are; that there are people still debating whether the country should break up or simply adopt regionalism, etc. These are signs of disquiet that the confab did not settle and which the country is appearing to sweep under the carpet. Instead of addressing such things, the leaders have taken to frothing and lathering up the embers of religion to divide the nation till you don’t know whether Nigerians are worshipping God or worshipping religion.

So, Nigeria has found itself waddling along on a series of lies, untruths and falsities in all spheres, cooking up census figures, national statistics, national data, scuttling projects and figures aimed at national development, etc. We quite forget though that no group of people can be controlled forever. Somewhere along the curve, something always gives: Hitler heaved, Stalin heaved, Lenin heaved, Myanmar is heaving … Ever heard of that aphorism, No condition is permanent? Well, it’s true.

We need to learn to respect when conditions demand changes. Not all changes need to be violent but one thing is sure: chance and fate will not be subject to the plowman’s vice. Nigeria’s present structure has been felt by many to be problematic and nearly not controllable. Reason dictates that part of the problem may arise from how the country is constituted and the over-centralisation of the nation’s affairs. Yet there is some reluctance to face either problem.

The leaders should consider that Nigerians are already used to absorbing each other’s poisons – just look at the merry-go-round of stereotypes – so they would probably be reluctant to part with each other should a referendum be conducted. Let them hope that will count for something. Nevertheless, the privilege to choose must be open, simple and unambiguous. It will not do to continue to force people to stay glued together unhappily until they break out in violence. The Scotland vote went without violence; so can our own affairs.

State affairs need to be simplified to allow everyone’s participation. Just look at the simplicity of the referendum for an independent Scotland: Yes or No. That simplicity not only allowed most of those concerned to participate, it allowed the results to be unambiguously clear to everyone. In Nigeria, people are deliberately kept out of national affairs by state refusal to educate them or make them at the least literate in even their indigenous languages. Now, can anyone tell me how many indigenous newspapers are published in Nigeria? Very few; papers that is, not people. That means more than eighty per cent of Nigeria’s illiterate community, which is more than half of the country, do not know what is going on, cannot contribute to what is going on, and do not understand the complexities of what is going on in the country. To make any meaningful progress, we need to simplify things for these people and for everyone’s sake.

Even more importantly, the simplicity of that exercise should teach us too that voting can be made simple, is not a do-or-die affair, and is not supposed to choke the very existence out of Nigerians. Voting should be a matter of yes, we want this person or no, we abhor this person for this position. That not only gives respect to the electorate, it also respects the heart of the democratic process. More importantly, it makes clearer the reason for electing anyone at all: to take decisions on the behalf of the community.

September 21, 2014
Ebola: Nigeria forfeits regional leadership

In the past few decades, and particularly under the Goodluck Jonathan government, Nigeria has yielded its strategic position in regional leadership to others. Nothing exemplifies this surrender as the Jonathan presidency’s attitude to combating Ebola Virus Disease in West Africa. When the Liberian Patrick Sawyer unwisely exported Ebola to Nigeria in late July and infected some Nigerians, an angry President Jonathan described him in very harsh language. The president was justifiably angry, but whether he acted right by using unflattering language, given Nigeria’s position in Africa, is another thing entirely.

At an Interfaith Conference held in Abuja in August, Dr Jonathan, ever insensitive to Nigeria’s continental and regional standing, had described Mr sawyer as a ‘crazy’ man. Having thus described the dead Mr sawyer in unpresidential language, Dr Jonathan had no chance to establish and affirm Nigeria’s regional leadership in combating the epidemic. The lot fell on foreigners.

First to rise up to the occasion was Cuba which sent 165 health workers to Sierra Leone to help in the control of the disease. Next was the United States, which is deploying 3,000 soldiers to Liberia to help the desperate country build medical facilities and train health workers to combat the disease. Sulking Nigeria is immobilised by fear and poor leadership. We ought to have condemned Mr Sawyer in civil language, and then rather than being churlish, ought to have proceeded diligently to marshal every effort in Nigeria to lead a regional attack against the epidemic. Other countries have now sadly supplanted us while we wallow in self-pity and leadership mediocrity.

September 21, 2014