The Nation Newspaper

Category: Sunday

… As Iraq unravels

A few weeks ago, in an opinion piece in the Times of London, former British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, tried to exonerate the United States, Britain and their allies from blame in the Iraqi mess. This is pure nonsense. Both America and Britain told atrocious lies to justify the war in Iraq, proceeded foolishly to execute regime change without any consideration for the country’s delicate and convoluted power balance, and have now abandoned the country to political and sectarian strife. The allies should not be allowed to engage in revisionism or escapism. They created the mess; they should sort it out. There was probably enough justification to invade Afghanistan; but there was no reason whatsoever to invade Iraq.

Now Isis (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) militants are disembowelling Iraq and making the life of ordinary Iraqis a nightmare. The destabilisation has spread to Syria, could affect Kurdistan, and is certain to inspire fringe groups like Boko Haram, Muslim Brotherhood and others, all of whom have been seduced by Jihadist ideology. Things will definitely get worse in so many places, including Nigeria where a Machiavellian President Jonathan is unwisely and unreflectively stoking ethnic and religious passion in his fractious and tentative country.

August 10, 2014
The choice before Osun

Next Saturday’s governorship election in Osun State is strictly speaking between the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Any other party staking a claim to the state’s Government House is simply making up the number. Should PDP win, the party, and by inference, President Goodluck Jonathan, could create a roaring momentum that would be hard to stop going into the 2015 general elections. Not only would the party make a serious and plausible claim to reclaiming the Southwest for the PDP, as many of the party’s leading political philosophers suggest and desire, even Dr Jonathan, whose life and politics consistently defy gravity and logic, could feel considerably animated about his chances. The president’s life is full of happenstances; indeed, it relies on happenstances; and his politics, strangely energised by its mediocre pauses, now relies almost entirely on brute force, intimidation, harassment and constitutional subversion.

But should APC win, as its beleaguered apparatchiks earnestly hope, it would check the heresy triggered by the Ekiti governorship poll, buoy up the party in general terms, create a fresh momentum for the opposition towards the 2015 polls, especially the presidential election, and arrest the PDP frenzy in the Southwest. In short, the APC needs Osun much more than the PDP does. Ekiti proved during the June governorship poll that the Southwest is not as ideologically driven as many analysts, including this columnist, hoped. Ideology is therefore unlikely to play a dominant role in shaping Osun’s electoral choices on Saturday. Instead, rather than party preference, Osun will more likely than not vote for personality. But secondarily, I suspect, Osun will also try to distance itself from the unwholesome factors that tarred the Ekiti poll, especially the specious reasons given to justify the revolt against Governor Kayode Fayemi.

The contest in Osun will be narrowed down to a straight fight between Governor Rauf Aregbesola and Senator Iyiola Omisore. Both, it is obvious, have been tried in one office or the other; the former as governor, and the latter as a senator, former deputy governor, ruthless machinator, and maverick politician. Choosing between the two politicians should not present Osun with a hard task, though both gentlemen have an insatiable knack for courting controversy and for sailing near the wind. Governor Aregbesola is not unbeatable, for after all, I have had reasons to disagree with him vehemently, and still do; but it will require someone acutely cerebral, much calmer, more reflective and more genuine than the challenger. Senator Omisore is none of these, and no matter how hard he tries, can’t be. Indeed, the most poignant part of the challenger’s persona is his absolute lack of reflection, not to talk of his impatience, dangerous and intuitive iconoclasm, which he displayed in his numerous battles with the late Minister of Justice, Bola Ige, and complete vacuity. Like Ekiti’s Governor-elect, Ayo Fayose, who neither believes nor stands for anything substantial, Senator Omisore feigns disingenuous eclecticism by borrowing bits and pieces of disjointed ideas from all sources.

In politics, it is said that you can’t beat something with nothing. But it happened in Ekiti last June where a hollow nothing beat a full something. The misfortune of Senator Omisore is to live in a state like Osun eager to buck the trend of the so-called PDP reclamation of the Southwest rather than in a vengeful Ekiti full of vendetta. Though he has tried his valiant best to put on the Fayose airs – of spontaneous roadside meals, of wisecracks and rural jocosity, and of a risible attachment to indefinable pragmatism – the fact remains that he is not Mr Fayose, and Osun is not Ekiti.

Governor Aregbesola, on the other hand, and in spite of his fondness for leftist/Marxist regimentation, has managed to capture popular imagination in Osun. More, he is a workaholic, someone genuinely interested in affecting the course of history, in overthrowing the citadel of privilege, making a name for himself, touching lives, and demystifying governance. His passion sometimes makes him overreach himself, but he at least shows courage in tackling societal problems even at the risk of alienating sections of his society. I doubt whether Osun will punish him for this. Even after the election, the fight for societal redefinition will continue, and I think by and by, he will have to face reality and reach an accommodation with his critics.

But perhaps the main reason I expect him to win is because Osun, more than Ekiti, recognises that the battle for the soul of the Southwest is raging fiercely. They recognise that if the tide is to be turned, Osun will have to set the pace, similar to what they did during the 2011 presidential poll. They recognise instinctively the consequence of the return of Mr Fayose. They know it is a harbinger of bad news for the zone, a return to vagrant politics, mediocrity, and social and cultural anomie. They know a vote for Omisore, especially with the unresolved Chief Ige murder for which he was at a time detained and even interdicted, will open the door for the return of Adebayo Alao-Akala and other underachieving politicians without programmes and without reputation. They know Senator Omisore and Mr Fayose will get the Southwest sucked once again into the vortex of another silly season.

To prove that Ekiti made a grave error of judgement, Osun will likely and very sensibly re-elect Governor Aregbesola. It will not be a wholesale endorsement of all his policies in his first term. But it will be their way of repudiating Senator Omisore who is so unfit for high office it is inconceivable he is at all fit for anything. It will also be their way of showing the federal government that the unconstitutional madness of militarising polls does not intimidate them, let alone yield anything productive for the Jonathan presidency. Finally, it will be their way of showing they recognise that the disinformation and misinformation that perverted the Ekiti poll will not be accommodated in Osun. I endorse Governor Aregbesola without reservation. I would rather reason and disagree with an Aregbesola who can feel the weight of criticism, notwithstanding his sometimes inflexible approach, than a pliant and dissembling Omisore whose lack of character and distorted worldview make him inured to criticism and change.

August 3, 2014
More trouble along the border

Whosoever arises by a lie will fall by the truth

write this piece with all intentions of dealing with the border crisis in the United States. However, I am compelled to return to Ukraine for I hear the loudening drums, and these drums beat nothing save war.

The covers of most major American magazines feature ominous pictures of Russian President Putin will even more ominous headlines appearing under the masthead declaring him an international pariah, the rogue leader of a rogue nation. I just witnessed a horrid television interview of a former American ambassador to the Ukraine, advocating the incision of an armed international force into eastern Ukraine ostensibly to secure the MH17 crash site. This preposterous notion would surely turn the Ukrainian civil war into an international one and yet was not brazen enough for the envoy. The former diplomat argued that tougher economic sanctions against Russia were inadequate. Blaming every wrong thing and every drop of blood in Ukraine on Russia, the man called for an international military coalition to war against Russia.

The irony that this mongering for the third pan-European conflagration in a century came from a man currently holding a senior position in an organisation bearing the title, “Institute for Peace” seemed not to dawn on the CNN hirelings interviewing him. Perhaps their blindness was because CNN’s parent company had just published a Time magazine edition branding Russia and its leader as pariahs. Consequently, these reporters never questioned the conclusion that Putin and the Ukrainian rebels were culpable for the plane’s downing. For people so obsessed with assuring that no nation challenge America’s global expansionism a great and dangerous transformation has come over them. They now find, in war, the solace the normal heart finds in peace. They long for a world where there is no disagreement and no enemies. This world will not materialise because of the high wisdom of their ways or rule. They seek to accomplish this world by blowing up enough countries that they will be left with no more enemies to face.

The tragedy’s most likely explanation is the rebels downed the plane, mistaking it for a Ukrainian army transport plane. While this is the most plausible and least sinister explanation, it does not make this positive. Evidence adduced, thus far, is inconclusive as to the identity of the wrongdoer, let alone the motives behind the act. Thus, the chorus of Western officials and corporate media figureheads ascribing the act and the most heinous motives to Russia and the rebels does compound disservice to the pursuit of truth and peace at a time when both are most needed.

Putative presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, trying to spark life into her sagging public persona after a lackluster book tour and several verbal gaffes about the extent of her family’s wealth, has taken to the interview circuit, launching her own fulsome projectiles at Putin. She paints Putin as a war merchant who bears full responsibility for the aerial calamity. Her reasoning for pinning the devil’s tail on the Russian leader is as superficial as were her reasons for backing the Iraqi war. Because Putin has not lashed himself to the American juggernaut, he is an evil tumescent that must be excised.

As a reward for such crudity of thought on such complex things, the Anglo-American corporate media has bestowed to her a secular halo; but that false diadem cannot wash the blood from her hands. Comparing their records over the past decade, Clinton looms as an undisciplined hustler for war and the expansion of American power beyond the limits of global peace and historic propriety. Next to the Clintonian war lust, Putin stands as a model of the restraint that old world Realpolitik commands from its disciples.

He may be cold and hard; however, his military exertions have been limited to his own territory (Chechnya) or its borders (Georgia and Ukraine). Regarding Georgia and Ukraine, he has adhered to what was Russia’s traditional defensive posture even before the doomed Napoleonic invasion. Russian has always sought a line of neutral, if not servile, states as a buffer protecting it from encroachment from superior Western European military technology and power. That Western leaders feign shock at Putin neither means they are disingenuous or are so grossly ignorant of history that they should forfeit office before plunging the world into a war that the scantest respect for history would have caused them to avoid.

Meanwhile, Clinton has lent full-throttle, zealous support to every needless misadventure America has entered since she happened upon the public scene. As senator, she endorsed the fraud in Iraq. As Secretary of State, she led the hawks in the Administration into convincing President Obama that bombing Libya into ruination was a humanitarian imperative. The fallacy of that logic has become painful obvious even to America. This weekend, Washington evacuated its embassy staff from the maelstrom its belligerency created. After retiring, she joined league with those pushing for America to war against Syria. However, plaintive cries from Clinton and others about the Sarin gas episode are heard no longer. The shouting has subsided because the truth leaked in bits and pieces proved awkward for Clinton and her ilk. The Sarin gas attack most likely was hatched by American allies seeking to bring America into the conflict. It did not come from Assad, apparently.

However, there is no word of apology from Clinton and the American establishment and no sign of introspection at the near fallacy of rushing into war. Instead, theirs was a mad dash to the next crisis. This time Ukraine, and, this time, Russia must be taught a lesson for navigating a foreign policy that did not render it a vassal to American interests.

Thus, the Anglo-American media has launched an unfettered propaganda war against Russia and the eastern Ukrainian dissidents for downing MH17. Rarely has such a weighty conclusion been globally published based on so little evidence. There was more incriminating evidence against Saddam than against Putin at this stage. We all know how that earlier farce turned out.

The priests of war have gathered at their highest altars, preparing to sacrifice truth so that the clouds of war might once more gather over Eastern Europe. This ground has seen too much war and blood over the centuries. If possible, it should be allowed to recover and see no more. Before we led to a hasty conclusion that might march us into war, the facts should be carefully examined.

Thus far, the major evidence of rebel and Russian culpability is based on the faulty logic that since the Russians have the Buk missile system and the plane was likely downed by a Buk, then the Russians or their rebel allies caused it. What the media conveniently forgets to add is that the Soviets not the Russians manufactured the Buk. The system was stationed in every part of the former USSR. When the USSR fractured, Buk systems were inherited by the new nations. Ukraine was one of them. Thus, forces loyal to Kiev could have downed the plain with one of their launchers. They had the means and the motive.

Downing the plane and blaming it on the rebels, Kiev could exploit the resultant international firestorm by seeking to place greater pressure on Russia to jettison its support for the rebels. Conversely, there was no advantage the rebels would gain by willfully targeting the aircraft.

Days after the attack, Western media was flush with pictures of a Buk missile launcher purportedly being swiftly moved to Russia. This was alleged literally to be the “smoking gun,” the exact instrument that shot the deadly projectile. There may be something very wrong with the picture. According to the rebels and Russia, the city in which the picture was taken was under Kiev’s control. If so, then unless the Ukrainian military is apt to give free passage to enemy heavy armaments, the pictured Buk system belonged to the government, not Russia, not the rebels. If this were to be the smoking gun, the gun may fit the holster of the Ukrainian government.

Even President Obama’s verbal formulation that the missile was fired from within territory controlled by the rebels is vague. Donetsk is the seat of the rebel administration, yet Donetsk currently undergoes such heavy shelling by government artillery that people hurriedly flee, carrying as much as their frightened arms and their vehicles can tote. Donetsk is under rebel control but areas near it, which the Donetsk rebels claim as their own, are effectively in the hands of advancing troops and their artillery batteries, the modern–day battering ram. A parcel of land may be “within rebel territory” but actually in the hands of government forces aided by heavy weapons such as artillery and Buk missile ensembles.

A senior Ukrainian government military figure added greater doubt regarding the identity of the culprit with his unusually frank admission that the rebels’ Buk launcher did not have the requisite radar complement. This means the rebels could not accurately get a radar lock on to a plane flying at high altitude. For the rebels to shoot down a plane flying over 30,000 feet would be an uncommon stroke of ill fate. Conversely, Ukrainian missile batteries feature the missing radar component.

Then there is the alleged taped transcript of rebel commanders gloating over the plane’s downing. There is good reason the tape is no longer being touted as evidence. Several forensic experts have found it to be fabrication, a cut-and-paste job hastily assembled from prior conversations of rebel commanders. This trick is the latest in a line of misinformation operations by Kiev such as the fake decree purportedly issued by the rebels obligating Jews to specially register with the rebel administration.

Perhaps, the information that advises extreme caution comes from the small minority of American journalists and government whistleblowers courageous enough to refuse joining the throaty, vociferous procession to war. Robert Parry, a respected investigative reporter who helped uncover the Iran-Contra scandal in the 1980’s, reports an American intelligence source stating that official satellite imagery suggests the missile was fired by the Ukrainian army. Perhaps this revelation is one reason the American government has refused to acknowledge, let alone publish, satellite imagery although it was an open secret that American satellites continuously monitor the Ukrainian theater.

Plying a soft retreat from the harsh rhetoric of war and unsubstantiated conclusions of Russian wrongdoing, a leading American newspaper let slip toward the end of an article that an American intelligence source indicated a “defector” from the Ukrainian army fired the missile. That a single person set the launch is rather a clumsy explanation to digest, like a mouse trying to swallow and elephant’s leg. Moreover, a true defector would not control such a vital piece of hardware. Apparently, some American intelligence sources believe the missile emanated from a Ukrainian army vehicle; they seek to levy the blame at some mysterious, disgruntled soldier to detract the onus from the Kiev government itself. How convenient. Bias still infects them. Thus, they seem willing to lie to again cover the lie soon to be exposed.

Another mystery is the flight path of the ill-destined plane. Western media reported the plane took this dangerous route to save fuel. This is a canard. Ukrainian air traffic control diverted the plane from its usually path, sending it northward over the war zone and toward its encounter with catastrophe. The Kiev government says the plane was diverted because of bad weather. Yet, if the choice were between thunderstorms and flying over a war zone, dodging a bit of rain would be preferable to dodging an armed projectile.

This official explanation does not hold water. An Air India plane was flying minutes behind MH17. The Indian pilots report hearing Ukrainian traffic controllers divert the Malaysian craft to hostile territory. If due to foul weather, the Indian plane should have received the same command since they were on the same route. The weather could not have been foul for one but not the other.

Adding to this mystery is the fact that Ukrainian security services rushed to the Kiev airport immediately after the downing, confiscating all traffic control recordings and heretofore has not release any of them.

Here, I apologize to Malaysian airlines. I initially fell victim to the media’s misinformation about the airline flying this route to shave fuel costs. The media shaved the truth and used the airline as a convenient fall guy to present a false narrative about why the plane was where it reasonably should never have been. Malaysian Airlines was not as callous as I stated last week.

It may have been a tool in a lethal deception.

The dark badge of callousness instead goes to Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. While he plays no discernible role in Ukraine, he took advantage of the air tragedy to advance his incarnadine schemes. Upon learning the plane went down, Netanyahu unleashed his ground assault on Gaza. He did so knowing corporate media would focus its ire and outrage on Russia and the Ukrainian rebels. This would divert criticism and attention from his brutal policy. While MH17’s downing seems the product of error, what Israel has done is premeditated cruelty. The Israeli claim of provocation rings empty. The Palestinian’s military efforts have been futile and relatively harmless. The Israeli assault is highly disproportionate to danger faced. This has been willful slaughter, decimating more innocent civilians than purported Hamas members, decimating almost three times more people than the MH17 disaster.

It seems Israeli policy has disintegrated to the point where the only good Palestinian is a dead or a fleeing one.

Back to Ukraine.

Much hangs on which side downed the plane. This means the truth will likely never be known. Again, that the rebels committed this as a tragic error is most likely explanation. However, there is enough doubt and countervailing information to make one pause. A prudent person would withhold judgment. Moreover, judgment about the propriety of the wider conflict — the civil war between the government and the rebels – should be made independent of culpability for the aerial tragedy.

In that case, one must weigh whether the rebels have a right to contest the writ of the government in Kiev just as the leaders of that government recently contested against and ousted the elected Yanukovych government. Given the wider international context of the war, one has to judge whether the West’s policy of extending EU/NATO to Russia’s westernmost borders is an excellent innovation that will promote security and prosperity or is it a guise to isolate and weaken an increasingly strong and independent Russia. The West is racing against time and thus must exploit the uncertainty around this incident to compel Russia to brake its support for the rebels. In a few months, the summer and autumn will cede to winter. If the weather turns bitter cold and snowy, the military activity will subside, allowing the rebels to more firmly secure their hold on what they currently possess. Also, Europe will be in dire need of Russian gas and thus will have no stomach for imposing greater sanctions on the supplier of such a valued and timely commodity.

In other words, one must decide whether Putin behaves like a relic in his adherence to traditional Russian policy and Realpolitik or has he positioned himself on the tip of a needle as a strategist. Is he trying to balance the need to avoid a conflagration that might engulf an entire continent with his desire to establish his nation as a power at the center of an international alignment challenging the global hegemony of American power? He and the Chinese had hoped to make the challenge via reform of the global economic system. However, his refusal to side with America on geopolitical issues such as Syria, Iran and European missile systems has brought war to his border’s edge.

He has proven himself to be the best geopolitical strategist among those now operating in the European theater. This includes the Americans. However, his craftiness may not be enough to overcome the more powerful West’s preference for larger battle. If not, we may be on a slide toward a war that would have been incomprehensible merely ten years ago. Peace is in jeopardy. Pray that it endures. Cherish it while it lasts.

Once again, I failed to address the American border crisis. I surely will cure this omission next week.

08060340825 sms only

August 3, 2014
Let Aregbe do it again

Osun August 9 election on my mind

Only the uninitiated will attempt to compare the state of affairs in Ekiti with that of Osun State, particularly with regard to the June 21 governorship election in the former, and the fast approaching August 9 gubernatorial election in the latter. One undeniable fact about Governor Rauf Aregbesola of Osun State is that he is a grassroots man to the core. Indeed, the impressive crowds that have been attending his rallies since his campaign for reelection started have been confounding the opposition, particularly the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) whose members have been alleging that the crowds are rented. But they know deep down their hearts that they are lying. Such is the allure of the man, Rauf Aregbesola: downright factual; no pretence.

Aregbe, as he is fondly called, understands the language of the grassroots as he knows the lines on his palms. He knows his people just as his people know him. This is one major hurdle that those who might want to repeat what they see as the ‘Ekiti feat’ in Osun State have to contend with, come August 9.

Aregbesola’s mission statement is encapsulated in the six-point integral action plan of his administration. One is ‘Promotion of functional education’, under which the decayed educational infrastructure in the state is being gradually replaced while at the same time ensuring quality control. His government has reclassified schools into elementary school (five years); middle school (four years) and high school (three years), against the national policy of 6-3-3. This radical departure was informed by the government’s belief that pupils need more time at the middle school so as to prepare them for maturity into high school. The state has had to build 25 mega schools in order to bring children from diverse backgrounds together to learn in a conducive atmosphere. However, political jobbers have criticised this policy on the alleged ground that it constitutes an erasure of religious lines, especially in schools with bias for religion. Mercifully, the tension that initially attended this policy has since given way, with the government’s explanation of how it came about, i.e. that it was the idea of Prof Wole Soyinka’s team, designed as a way out of the education decay that the state was in when Aregbe took over.

Of course, other aspects of the Aregbesola government’s educational programme include the one nutritious meal given free to 254,000 primary school kids daily under the state’s O-MEAL Programme. This is to help develop their brains as well as serve as incentive for them to go to school. In addition, it is a way of getting ready markets for farmers in the state to sell their farm produce that is used in preparing the meals. Then the Opon Imo or ‘tablets of knowledge’ that have been distributed to about 150,000 secondary school pupils in the state. The tablet has 56 e-books, 10 years of past West African Examinations Council (WAEC), National Examinations Council (NECO) and the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) questions, as well as the Holy Bible, Holy Quran and traditional religion content. This is saving the government huge sums of money under its free education programme.

The other legs of Aregbesola’s action plan are banishment of hunger/unemployment, enhanced security/welfare, restoration of healthy living and promotion of communal peace, etc.

Aregbesola knows the importance of the agricultural sector and has done so much in so short a time that farmers would not forget him in a hurry. He has liberalised access by farmers to soft loans to improve their yield and lessen their burden; he has also complemented this with good roads to enable the farmers transport their produce with ease to the market. Indeed, it is in the area of road network that the governor, an engineer, has brought professionalism and ingenuity to bear. All over the state, the administration is building durable roads and rehabilitating dilapidated ones. And, in order to ensure that the state gets value for its money from the contractors, some of whom are notorious for disappearing after collecting mobilisation fees, the Aregbesola administration insists on delivery of the roads before paying the contractors. The benefit here is that roads are constructed to specification since the contractors know that they would not be paid if they deviated from the terms of the contract.

In like manner, new hospitals are being built all over the state even as old ones are being renovated and all equipped to enhance the free health treatment for a section of the people. The government has also taken away from the streets a lot of youths who otherwise would have been jobless and thus constitute social menace to law-abiding citizens. Although there is still work to be done in this regard as it is impossible to mop up the huge number of jobless youths that the government inherited, the fact is that through its O-YES Scheme, the government has reduced their numbers significantly by about 40,000.

The security agencies could not have had it better as the Aregbesola government has done a lot for them by way of empowerment, to ensure peace and reduce criminality in the state. The government has assisted the security agencies with some 125 patrol vans, among other things.

Of course, like most other performers and change agents, Aregbesola has had his own unfair share of criticisms. Like the typical woman who, for lack of what to say, says it is in her husband’s house that she would sleep tonight! Where else could she have slept? Even if she would sleep in a place where she is not supposed to, could she have made that a public service announcement? For lack of what to say, the few but vocal critics of the Aregbesola administration say he is a religious bigot. One would ordinarily have ignored such idle criticism but for the fact that those who want to succeed the governor are so desperate that they can cook up anything. In a situation where people celebrate the replacement of an administration, not for non-performance, but on the flimsiest of excuses, it is good to put all the cards on the table to enable the electorate, who should be the ultimate deciders in the August 9 governorship election in the state sift the wheat from the chaff. The truth is, the composition of Aregbesola’s cabinet does not support this claim. In the 34-member cabinet, only 12 are Muslims just as we have only 12 Muslim permanent secretaries of the 32 in the state. With regard to the state house of assembly with 26 members, only nine are Muslims.

Through his robust management of the economy, the state internally generated revenue (IGR) has grown from N300million that the administration inherited in 2010 to about N1.5 billion monthly. Thus, the government has been able to steer the economy from its near-bankruptcy in 2010 and is still doing the ‘balancing act’ in a predominantly civil servant state despite the drop of its revenue from the federation account from N5billion to about N2.5billion monthly. The oversubscription of the Sukuk Bond from its envisaged N10billion to N11billion is a measure of investors’ confidence in the state economy; so is the other N60billion bond out of which N30billion had been drawn.

This is only a fraction of what the man, Rauf Aregbesola, has done in Osun in less than four years. He has literally breathed life into virtually all sectors of the state that were dead when he took over the reins of government after a protracted legal battle to reclaim his mandate from the PDP usurpers. What makes these achievements particularly praiseworthy is the fact that Osun is not a rich state. It is a predominantly civil servant state, one in which few resources are being chased by overwhelming demands. Yet, Aregbe has been making sense in spite of the financial limitations. Positive developments that hitherto were thought to be unimaginable have become possible in the state.

So, “a good turn”, as they say, “deserves another”. It is time for Osun people to tell those who have nothing to offer to steer clear of governance in the state. What the state deserves now is the continuation of the streak of successes that it has been witnessing since Aregbe’s administration took over. It is only unfortunate that people who should be in jail in decent climes are some of those now seeking to rule a progressive and pace-setter region like Nigeria’s south-west. That tells us something about the depth to which the country has sunk, especially under the PDP.

August 3, 2014
Taking risks to enhance life, justice and human dignity; taking risks that waste human potential, create suffering and perpetuate insecurity

[Being an expanded version of remarks at a banquet for Wole Soyinka, Government House, Port Harcourt, July 30, 2014]

As we gather here tonight in celebration of Wole Soyinka’s 80th birthday, his first major play written when he was in his mid-twenties, A Dance of the Forests, is being rehearsed for performance in Tel Aviv in a Hebrew translation. About two weeks ago, the U.S.-based Nigerian theatre director who is in charge of the production, Segun Ojewuyi, sent an email to Soyinka and myself in which he gave a gripping account of life in Tel Aviv at the present moment and equally important, how this very early play of Soyinka had found a new and unbelievable relevance to the unfolding human tragedy in the struggle between the Palestinians in the Gaza strip and the state of Israel. A Dance of the Forests is a complex play whose theme or “message” cannot be rendered in one sentence, one paragraph even. But it is safe to say that at the heart of the drama of the play is a visionary projection of the tragedies and the suffering that a people – any people in the world – can expect that choose to ignore the lessons of their history. Soyinka wrote and staged this play over half a century ago and now in Gaza and Tel Aviv, in the West Bank and Jerusalem, it turns out that the play might have much to teach the Jewish and Palestinian peoples as they grapple with the disregarded lessons of their history. It is likely, tragically very likely, that another fifty years from now, in another part of the world, this same play will be performed under similar circumstances. Ladies and gentlemen, fellow Nigerians, that is the quality of the artistic vision in many of the works of the man whose 80th birthday anniversary we are marking at this state banquet tonight.

As excited as I am that A Dance of the Forests has found a new if poignant relevance in Tel Aviv and Gaza, that is not the primary reason why I use this fact to highlight the power of Soyinka’s artistic vision in this tribute. On the contrary, I cite the play and its current production experience in the Middle East for a completely different reason. Let me state this simply: almost more than any other literary work of Soyinka, A Dance of the Forests marks perhaps the most outstanding thing about WS as a dramatist, thinker and activist and this is the fact that he has a propensity for taking great risks, artistic and political. All his greatest works in drama, poetry and fictional prose are nothing if not works of considerable experimentation with form, ideas and modes of expression.

With regard to political activism, we know that he was charged, tried and acquitted for the radio incident of 1965 and so we cannot try him all over again, but we know he was the gunman! Compared to other risks he has since taken, that was indeed, only the beginning and rather small compared with other risks he went on to take. Anyone who has read the last three out of his five books of memoires, The Man Died; Ibadan, the ‘Penklemes’ Years; and You Must Set Forth at Dawn, knows what I am talking about here. Indeed, if Soyinka is one of the greatest avant-garde writers of African and world literature in the second half of the 20th century, this is largely because of the artistic risks he was always willing to take. Similarly, the risks he took as one of our continent’s great political activists and human rights campaigners have been nothing short of legendary.

But if WS was always naturally predisposed to taking artistic risks and making political gambles, the most important thing to note is that he took risks and made gambles for justice, equality of opportunity for all, and human dignity. This is the heart of my short tribute tonight. And so let me repeat it: the great artistic and political risks that Soyinka has taken in his 80 years have been in the cause of and for the advancement of justice, equality and human dignity. I say this, indeed I emphasize it deliberately and strongly, because human beings and communities take risks all the time. As a species, we are fundamentally predisposed to take risks all the time, small risks and huge risks. However, unfortunately, most of the risks that we take as individuals, groups and collectively as the human species are taken in the pursuit of selfish or petty interests that place us above others, siblings, relatives, friends, and co-workers.

More grandiosely, within the nations of the world, the rich and the powerful take risks in order to secure and consolidate their domination or even enslavement of their fellow men and women. In all these myriad cases of taking risks to secure unfair and immoral advantage or power over others that is a big part of human individual and collective life, the risks always come back to haunt the risk-takers. That is the big irony between taking risks for human progress and taking risks to perpetuate human suffering. Very few countries in the world show ample and graphic illustration of this point as does Nigeria.

It is not usual in the analysis of the terrible crises that bedevil our country at the present time to see these crises as the products of taking risks, not for justice, equality and human dignity but for entrenching suffering, insecurity and injustice. But we must start to see and fight these evils as the products of risk-taking of the most alarming and calamitous kind. Trillions of naira are looted with total impunity – what is that if not taking the risk of generating suffering for the generality of Nigerians? Billions of petrodollars are squandered – what is that if not taking the risk of a dire and bleak future for our youths and those yet unborn? In place of rational, enlightened and civilised discourse, what we get from both the official and unofficial megaphones of the powers that be is the tendency to rationalize and explain away the retrograde policies and actions of our rulers – what is that if not taking the risk of creating and maintaining bitter, self-destructive divisions between the ethnic and regional communities that make up this country?

Nobody is safe, nobody is protected from the suffering, injustice and insecurity that such negative and foolish risk taking creates, not even the wealthy and the powerful themselves. The Boko Haram insurgency is perhaps the ultimate proof of this. But there are legions of other “proofs” confronting us in this country. Don’t we all, rich and poor, face the same hazards of roads that are death-traps? Don’t we all face the shame and disgrace before the international community and the world caused by what foreign visitors in our midst see of the quality of life for the vast majority of the people in our country? Who is protected from the belief that Nigeria is one of the most corrupt and unregenerate countries in the world in spite of its oil wealth, indeed because of its oil wealth?

And yet this country has not been without women and men willing to take risks to make things better for their communities and all of us. In this very state where this banquet is being held tonight we have the supreme examples of Isaac Adaka Boro and Ken Saro Wiwa. In the colonial era, many radical politicians, labour leaders and intellectuals took risks to win our freedom from foreign rule. This tradition is even truer of the postindependence period. Gani Fawehinmi went to jail innumerable times in defense of the rights of the masses of ordinary Nigerians to a decent life and a secure future. I have mentioned the examples of Isaac Boro and Saro Wiwa. Bala Mohammed gave his life in the fight against the forces of reaction and misrule in our country, especially in the North. To the end, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti was unrelenting in his war against military autocracy and its civilian collaborators.

This profile is consistent with what obtains in other parts of the world and throughout human social and political history. I state this fact in order to underscore the need not to isolate the extraordinary case of WS, the need not to idolize him. He is part of a great tradition in our country and our world. At the heart of his turbulent life and career is the fact that he has always taken risks, as an artist, thinker and activist, for justice, equality and human dignity. He has been extraordinarily lucky to have survived the dire possibilities of many of those risks, so much so that one colleague, Professor Itse Sagay, has said that death is afraid of him. Well, I hope so. And I hope that 10 years from now, death will still be afraid of him and when we gather to celebrate his 90th birthday, the risks that WS has taken in his life and career for human progress and human dignity will be far more evident in the lives of most Nigerians, Africans and human beings all over the world than the risks that our rulers continue to make in the perpetuation of suffering, injustice and insecurity.

Biodun Jeyifo

Port Harcourt, July 30, 2014

bjeyifo@fas.harvard.edu

August 3, 2014
Femi Fowode (1948 -2014): We lost a friend, brother and gem

Femi was, forever, a gentleman; picked quarrels with nobody and lived for others

What you are about to read below are testimonies by two friends of our dear departed brother, Joseph Olufemi Fowode, who was born into the family of Rev. Michael Fowode and Taiwo Odeniyi in Ijebu Igbo on May 28, 1948 and whose heart-wrenching translation to join the saints triumphant happened a few days ago in faraway Houston, Texas, USA. He attended St. Joseph’s College, Ondo, from 1963-1967, and the University of Ife, Ile-Ife, graduating in ‘75 with a combined Honours degree in Politics, Philosophy and Economics. Femi would later be elected a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel Management of Nigeria.

How exactly do Muyiwa and I, or any of his many friends, begin to write or talk about Femi in the past tense? When some six months or so ago we all, in the glittering company of his family, friends and well-wishers, gathered at his son’s wedding in Lagos, little did we know Femi was doing all those delightful dance steps for us as a final good bye. Except that he never stopped agonising over the inevitable absence at the event of his bosom friend, the late Deji of Akure, HRH Oba Adebiyi Adesida Afunbiowo II, who was to have been the Royal Father of the day, but had a little earlier joined his ancestors, there was no single dull moment. His Uncles, Professor Ayodele Ogunye, the industrialist Oba Otudeko and his brother Sanu, Chief & Mrs Kola Daisi, who Femi proudly told me years back were his ‘in loco parentis’, the way they doted over him, and others too numerous to mention, were like a cocoon wrapping him around just as the distinguished family of his spouse, friend, sister and confidant of many years, Hajia Fausat Olayide Fowode, was there in full glamour to honour the Fowode family. It was a class act and there could have been no asking for more except that we now know Femi must have insisted on that wedding taking place in Nigeria in order to signpost his last hurray because our friend was everything like a meteor; igniting everywhere you find him with warmth, love and impeccable camaraderie. Femi was simply awesome. What he lost in size he more than made up for in bonhomie, conviviality, kindness and above all, empathy. No wonder, my wife was ever so fond of humorous ‘Daddy Fowode’.

Mention your problem to Femi and it instantly becomes his, never sparing a moment, an effort, even resources to ensure you come out good. Each time I was in Houston, Femi instantly became –what I called him – ‘my driver’ – because my children, who I was visiting, saw me only when Femi decided to return me to them as he would have taken me round town all day. The minute I arrived Houston, Femi virtually went on his vacation. We never stopped talking about his absolutely smart children all of who graduated from college ‘magna cum laude’, and it was in Mummy Fowode’s beautiful Day Care Centre two of my grandchildren had their first taste of school life.

Wrote Olumuyiwa Runsewe:

Femi Fowode Goes Home – To Heaven.

“Contrition Twines Me Like A Snake……”

“MAU” – J. P. Clark.

“One of the most famous lines and contributions of Professor J P Clarke to poetry readily came to mind a week ago when the shocking news of Femi Fowode’s passage in faraway Houston, Texas hit me through one of his children. I was tempted to replicate the deep sorrow felt by J P Clarke as he saw cows being led to their predictable slaughter at Sango, Ibadan in the early 60s. After those initial shouts of “Oh, my God, Oh my God, Femi is Gone” something in me suddenly woke me up to the reality on ground. Come to think of it, Femi Fowode was a good man, a fantastic human spirit, a complete gentleman, a humour merchant and a man who would never pick up a quarrel with anyone.

My close friendship with him started about 45 years ago when he was at the University of Ife and I at the University of Ibadan. Through him, I got to know almost everybody that was somebody at “Ife”. It was through him I met Femi Orebe, Sunmade Akin–Olugbade, Ishola Filani and many others whose friendships endure till today. On graduation, fate smiled on him as he landed a very lucrative job at Lever Brothers Ltd. Lagos, under the direct supervision of the celebrated management guru, Dr Michael Omolayole. Within a short time, he became a Senior Manager and feeling sufficiently equipped with the Unilever experience, he opted for greener pastures. With his brilliance and dedication to work he would later work at the West African Batteries Ltd, Prime Merchant Bank, where he headed the Human Resources department, Credit Commercial Bank LTD and as Deputy Managing Director, Famad Shoe Manufacturing Co Ltd (formerly Bata Nig. Ltd). It was the last post, he relocated with his family to the U.S in 2001.

Femi’s marriage to Fausat Olayide from the famous Animashaun Family of Lagos is made from heaven. She was to him, like Don Williams’ words “Bread when he was hungry, a shelter from trouble winds, his anchor in life’s ocean, gave life to his children, and most of all, was his Best Friend”.

Adieu, my bosom and loyal friend, Femi Fowode. You lived a good life but God loves you more. Good news is, you left for your children a bountiful cheque of honour and goodwill, from where they, and generations yet unborn, will tap. You saw all of them beyond the point of fear. Yours was a life well spent. May you continue to rest in the bosom of the Creator.”

I am certain that as they read this, many of our friends, especially those back from our Ife days will not only be shell-shocked but might even drop a tear or two. Femi was absolutely unique the ready way he made friends. I felt the sorrow in Prince Eddy Adeniran, aka Dodonzo’s voice, when I told him on phone just as Bayo Williams was lost for words. I just hope the other Prince, Sunmade Akin Olugbade, is not just getting to know of this through this medium. He will miss a heartbeat. He and Femi were that close. However, to all Femi’s friends I can say with all certainty that our friend, and brother, by the grace of God, has gone to be at the feet of Jesus to rest eternally because he lived a Christ-like life. As Muyiwa noted above, Femi was, forever, a gentleman; picked quarrels with nobody and lived for others. He was as witty and generous as he was considerate.

To the family he left behind we need not remind them who Femi was as his life was an open book. He was as devoted to the wife as he doted on his children. And without a doubt he left them happy memories to last nine lives.

May the good Lord rest his soul. Amen.

Last note: Interested friends can send commendations and testimonies for onward transmission to Mrs Fowode @zurielle2009@gmail.com

August 3, 2014
Decoding Chibok monetisation narratives

Nigerian politicians and their aides use president and presidency as synonyms when it suits them and as antonyms when they prefer

The Premium Times first broke the news of 100 million naira gift to the mothers of kidnapped Chibok girls. In the first story on this initiative on the part of the presidency, a representative of one arm of government – the legislature – confirmed that he was at the meeting of selected Chibok mothers at which envelopes (probably brown ones in a country where brown is the colour code for corruption) were distributed to participants at the important meeting that came months after it should have, had the president not been otherwise too busy fighting other aspects of the Boko Haram menace. But the presidency has been quick to deny that any envelopes were distributed at the end of the meeting and that no money (let alone 100 million naira) was given to anybody. The two men behind branding and re-branding of the president: Doyin Okupe and Reuben Abati quickly came to throw light on the story before the president’s political enemies blow it out of proportion. Doyin Okupe characterised the story about the president giving money to Chibok delegates “as absolute falsehood that is unknown to the president.”

One has to be a critical reader to make sense of anything said by or about politicians in our country, especially in relation to money. It is not just a Jonathan presidency’s problem; it has been with us for some time. When some money was found in Barkin Zuwo’s official residence at the end of the second republic, nobody in the country knew exactly how much was found in the politician’s house until Barkin Zuwo himself cried out to tell the nation that the money in his house was much more than what was reported, adding courageously that nothing was illegal about finding government’s money in government’s house.

Much later in the country’s political life, General Sani Abacha called traditional rulers to have a meeting with him when he was preparing to transform from a military dictator to a civilian ruler. Abacha and his advisers felt that he needed to meet with traditional rulers to persuade traditional rulers to talk to their subjects (in a supposed republic) about the need to accept Abacha’s metamorphosis. At the end of the meeting, there was a news report to the effect that envelopes exchanged hands with handshakes. Many people at the meeting and those who were not in any way near the venue of the meeting denied that anything of the sort happened. It took the Osemawe of Ondo Kingdom then, the late Itiade Adekolurejo, to announce to the media that he was given a big brown envelope containing naira notes and that he was not the only person to receive such gift at the end of the meeting.

Now that we are in an ethos of monetisation, it is not clear why anybody would deny that his principal gave money to less privileged citizens. After all, monetisation, a concept popularised during the presidency of Obasanjo, had acquired multiple meanings since its outing by the Obasanjo presidency. In its formal sense, it means giving money to cover job-related benefits that the government or any employer is contractually under obligation to give to employees. In its popular usage, Nigerians have come to see monetisation as a literal word to serve as synonym for its metaphoric version: stomach infrastructure. Chibok mothers who have complained about not getting enough or anything out of the largesse supposedly distributed by the presidency have no reason to feel ashamed for crying out loud about being cheated. Such mothers, despite their remoteness from Abuja, must have heard of the folklore of ‘money losing weight’ from one government agency to another. The folklore in the past was that even statutory allocations lost weight between Abuja and state capitals.

What is surprising about the country’s latest monetisation narrative is that the presidency appears afraid of being linked to monetisation in this instance. Abati’s variant of the story is that the president would not offer anybody bribe. His status forbids that? The presidential media aide also added that there was no time for anybody to distribute envelopes at the end of the meeting and that no envelopes were distributed during the meeting while the president was in attendance. Those who admire the president are likely to accept the presidency’s statement hook, line, and sinker. But those who do not are likely to wonder how long it would have taken to pass out envelopes to participants at meetings. But whether Chibok mothers and girls were gifted money at the meeting should not be a matter to encourage anyone to cast aspersion on the president’s character. It is safer for the peace and unity of our country to assume that our president would not do a thing like that. If he had wanted to do such a thing, he would not have waited for 100 days or the coming of young Malala to do that.

It is the presidency that needs to throw more light on this issue. Citizens are already confused about too many things. Some of the women at the meeting have affirmed that they received money ranging from 200,000 to 7,000 naira while others complained of being left out of the Santa Claus rounds. Worse still, a member of the federal House of Representatives, Pobu Bitrus, also a member of the Chibok legislative constituency, confirmed to the media that Chibok mothers received envelopes: “After we met with the presidency,(not necessarily with the president, my emphasis) the parents were given some money in envelopes. That’s all. All other things they are saying about N100 million, I don’t know about that.” Nigerian politicians and their aides use president and presidency as synonyms when it suits them and as antonyms when they prefer. Reporters need to probe the legislator further to confirm which one: the person or the institution, if this story is to be decodable.

The lawmaker was clear about parents receiving envelopes containing money at the end of the meeting. What he was not sure of is how much was involved. How important is the information about the exact amount given to Chibok mothers? In most countries, the issue would not be about how much was given to assist women whose daughters have been in captivity for over 100 days. The point that calls for public scrutiny or discussion is why any envelope was given to parents whose daughters the whole world is trying to help liberate from the claws of terrorists, whilst those whose children had been killed by Boko Haram terrorists have not been compensated in any noticeable way.

Had the presidency decided that the Chibok mothers needed some financial assistance to help tide them over this period of pain and inordinate waiting for their daughters, there would have been nothing illegal about such decision. All that would have been required in other climes would be for the government to take a decision and raise vouchers to cover such expenditures. After that, the envelopes would have been given out in front of the camera. This would have earned the presidency and even the president (regardless of whether he took part in taking such decision) some political mileage among citizens. Individuals who are sensitive to the needs of the parents of the abducted girls must have been assisting the parents in cash or in kind since the innocent girls were abducted. There should be nothing wrong with reinforcing the generosity of individuals with that of the government. All humane governments across the world have ways of assisting citizens in distress, especially when such citizens have no contribution—direct or indirect—to their predicament. Is the presidency afraid of being seen as generous and soft, even when the occasion demands softness, especially after showing hard and raw power in Ekiti last month?

But if the lawmaker who told the nation in a straightforward language that Chibok mothers, who are members of his constituency, were given envelopes by government officials turns out to have created a fictive tale, then there is need for a probe to determine any trace of malice in Honourable Bitrus’ eye-witness assessment of what happened at the end of the meeting between the president and Chibok mothers. Allowing two representatives of the federal government, one from the executive branch and the other from the legislative wing to get away with saying two diametrically opposed things about the same event of significance to the public is dangerous to nurturing a culture of transparency. Certainly, the two sides cannot be right if they choose to hold on to their views of what Chibok mothers received from their hosts a few weeks ago.

August 3, 2014
Nasarawa lawmakers plan legislative coup

Lawmakers of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the Nasarawa State House of Assembly are determined to procure the impeachment of Governor Tanko Al-Makura, even if it offends fair play, rule of law and constitutional provisions. They do not see the impeachment drive they are championing as a constitutional issue; they see it as a political matter, and do not appear to care what the end of it would be. Dissatisfied with playing the Scarlet Pimpernel in the past few weeks over their subterranean moves to impeach Governor Al-Makura, and still breathing imprecates against the governor and thirsting for more blood, they have resolved to oppose the seven-man investigative panel constituted by the state Chief Judge, Suleiman Dikko, to look into the impeachment allegations against the governor. They argue that the panel is made up of the governor’s loyalists. In other words, they do not trust the judgement and impartiality of the panel, but would prefer a panel certain to hang the governor.

Last month, Adamawa State lawmakers had inspired a similar treason plot against the implacable Murtala Nyako, perhaps the only governor in the North to look President Goodluck Jonathan in the face and call him unflattering names. Having also offended the political juggernauts of the state, virtually all of whom loathe the finer principles of democracy – or perhaps can’t understand the concept – the former naval officer was already isolated and ready to be offered when the knives came out for him. The Adamawa legislature, however, did not simply plot an impeachment to right the wrongs attributed to the deposed governor, they engaged in the most atrocious machination ever conducted in any House of Assembly in Nigeria.

Not only could they not agree on whom to impeach between the former governor and his deputy, Bala Ngilari, they were consumed by their common disregard for procedure and constitutionality. Former Deputy Governor Ngilari, they realised, did no wrong, at least nothing properly describable as impeachable offences. But they needed to get rid of him in order to bring about the crooked outcome they had designed. Eventually they tricked him into resigning on the excuse that it would be easier to enthrone him after their common foe, Admiral Nyako, was humiliated. But, as it turned out, the goal of the legislators was to enthrone the highly ambitious Umaru Fintiri, former Speaker of the House of Assembly. In essence, what took place in Adamawa last month was not an impeachment but a legislative coup.

Nasarawa’s legislative coup is a little different. While it is not yet clear what their final objective is, that is apart from unhorsing the governor to seize the state from the electorate through the backdoor, the state’s 20 PDP lawmakers are, however, bent on deposing Governor Al-Makura by the most brazen legislative abracadabra ever. Since the constitution does not allow them the leeway they seek, they have sought to abridge, circumvent and humiliate it. This is why they want a panel that would do their private and unconstitutional bidding. This is why they are asking Justice Suleiman to disband the panel he had constituted and replace it with one amenable to their whims. It is not certain just what mettle Justice Suleiman is made of, whether he has the character to resist the legislative insurrection going on in Nasarawa, or whether he would succumb as supinely as the Acting Chief Judge of Adamawa did under the pressure of Dr Jonathan’s increasingly partisan Nigerian Army.

What is clear, however, is that so far while the Nasarawa legislature has behaved lawlessly and irresponsibly, the state Chief Judge has confined himself to the ambit of the law. Tomorrow may bring new realities. But there is no reality that can erase the conviction that Nigeria has come under gunboat democracy, one in which the constitution is disregarded, and the president, his aides and party strategists are embroiled in the most pernicious subversion of both the constitution and democracy. We are blithely sowing the wind today; it is certain we will reap the whirlwind before long, for nature itself abhors the capricious and despicable politics being played by the president and his men.

August 3, 2014
Let the people be

History is what hurts. In the end, perhaps nothing can beat the profound wisdom of that pithy observation .The impersonal and unfathomable forces of history are such that they often mock our bravest and boldest attempts to alter the course and trajectory of events. What eventually confronts us may well be the very opposite of our wish and what we have willed into existence. Yet despots and dictators persist, thus accelerating the process that will end in the mutual ruination of the contending classes.

When we rig elections, we alter the wishes and collective aspirations of the people. It is not only democracy and development that suffer collateral damage. The principal casualty is the insight we deny ourselves into the intriguing and perplexing dynamics of a fraught postcolonial society, the demographic shifts, the political turns and twist, and the emergent sociology of contending nationalities in a multi-national society.

Of all the hostile take-over bids that we have witnessed in the history of the country, and in the history of overbearing federal administrations, none is as chilling and hair raising as the one currently unfurling in the South West of the nation. Despite the obvious friendliness and affability of the Yoruba people, there must be something about their political society which induces federal panic and irrational fright.

Once again, it is the South West that is the target of this hostile take over bid. The omens are dire indeed. The paradox is baffling, and it speaks to the core contradiction of a bitterly polarised nation. In order to have elections, the entire region must be placed on a war footing. But we must take due historical cognisance of the grave import and the collective danger this rampart militarisation represents for the nation.

In 1979 as soon as it became obvious even to the blind that the NPN roller coaster was unstoppable , Professor Sam Aluko issued a statement which cut quickly to the chase. “In the unlikely event that the UPN does not win at the centre”, Aluko began and we now paraphrase, “the already elected UPN governors must henceforth concentrate their energies and talent on the states they had won in order to turn them into models of good governance which the rest of the country would find irresistible when the next election would be called in four years”.

It was like dressing the likely in an unlikely garb. Aluko might have been indulging his streak of plucky and eccentric irreverence. The elections so far declared at that point showed the NPN in an unassailable lead. But the statement was also an ironic tribute to Aluko’s faith in the democratic destiny of the nation and in the rationality of the electoral process.

With Awo firmly in charge, leadership by example became the credo and mantra of the UPN governors. Without an exception, they rolled up their sleeves and went to work. From the dashing and workaholic LKJ in Lagos State to the scholarly and methodical Ambrose Alli in the old Bendel, the UPN states rapidly seized the imagination of the nation as models of purposeful governance. Working with the same master plan and vision, they were a study in coherence and party cohesiveness.

But rather than learning from this local model, the ruling NPN had other ideas. The very notion of purposeful governance in any enclave of the country showed them up as irresponsible buccaneers. And since they cannot build, they must disrupt and disorganise those who can. Two years into the return of democratic rule, they organised a banishment through impeachment for Balarabe Musa, the implacably radical governor of the old Kaduna State, who had been a thorn in their flesh.

This turned out to be a mere dress rehearsal for something more potent and destabilising. By the time the 1983 elections came up, the NPN had perfected its hostile take-over bid of opposition stronghold. When the smoke cleared, they had made away with both Oyo and Ondo States in the very heartland of opposition supremacy. The violent upheaval and its poisonous effluence eventually led to a military take over. The country was back to square one.

It may be useful to go further back in history. In 1954, the ruling Action Group lost the federal election in the region to the opposition NCNC party. The people of the region, particularly the urban denizens, fell for the hostile propaganda that the Action Group was there to deprive them of the proceeds of their punitive toil even as it imposed on the populace a taxation regimen of abundant misery and harsh exploitation. The anarchist credo was that no tax was the best taxation and the people fell for the seductive lore.

The defeat turned out to be a blessing in disguise because it accurately mirrored the feeling of the people, whether justified or not. But rather than collapse in crushing defeat and rejection, the Action Group rolled up its sleeves and went back to explain itself and its programme in a more effective manner. Luckily for the party, the gains of its massive modernisation and transformational project had begun to trickle in. The West had never had it so good. The doubts evaporated and the party recorded a resounding victory in the next general election.

But the ruling coalition could not abide the social engineering feats of its progressive rival. In what was to become a tested template for future counter-progressive operations, it engineered a fracturing of the Action Group early in 1962 and subsequently followed this up with a parliamentary putsch that saw the ruling party become an opposition in its own redoubt.

The nature of political crime is such that you have to keep committing even more egregious crimes in order to cover up the original crime. Both the 1964 federal election and the 1965 regional election were so violently and intolerably rigged that it became obvious that the federal authorities had abandoned all pretences to electoral sanity. The sovereignty of the electorate became a sick joke; a solidarity of the disenfranchised.

Unlike the refined vaporisations we are witnessing, the methods employed were so crude and primitive that the ritual of voting became a desecrated farce. The West descended into an orgy of violence and anarchy. A violent military take over became virtually inevitable The result is the complete decapitation of all political institutions in the nation whose telling effects can still be felt till date.

Yet, it can be seen in retrospect that apart from institutionalising political corruption and imposing the selectorate on the electorate, the ultimate outcome of this culture of colossal rigging has been the enthronement of what was feared in a more potent and insidious manner. The annulment of the 1993 presidential election which was the hallmark of supersonic rigging led directly to the emergence of an Obasanjo who has proved more fatal to the old northern establishment in a way an Abiola presidency could never have, and circuitously to a Jonathan who may well provide the coup de grace.

It has also removed from political contention the north’s ultimate political joker: the military party. Had an Abiola or an Awolowo in particular been allowed to rule, their rational humanism would have allowed a feudal North to deal with the consequences of deliberate underdevelopment in a more humane manner than the radical anarchy we are currently witnessing.

Electoral irrationality produces political irrationality which in turn leads to a completely irrational society. Now the North is trapped between a Jonathan presidency with its legendary cultural insensitivities and a Buhari presidency which will put the fear of the lord into the North’s surviving feudal dinosaurs. Any wonder then that we still do not know our presidential flag bearers six months before a nation-defining presidential election?

In 2003, the South West gave Obasanjo the tacit nod and acquiescence to do the needful in the region to retain the presidency but to leave the region alone to pursue its independent political fortunes. It was a sophisticated political message. But Obasanjo blatantly misread the small print to mean an endorsement of the electoral subjugation of the entire region. The irony was that had Obasanjo left the AD severely alone, it would have imploded from its own internal contradictions, being a motley assemblage of outpatient ideological schizophrenics and progressive reactionaries.

But by biting more than he was asked to chew, Obasanjo gave fillip to the more organised elements of a dying organisation and a causus belli. With the obvious failure of his mainstream mantra, the region was up in arms against Obasanjo by the time of the 2007 election. This was ostentatiously rigged. It was Obasanjo’s parting shot of defiant contempt for his own people.

But by the 2011 election, the entire region went after Obasanjo’s political jugular. Thus the fate that the proud and tenacious Owu warlord was trying to avoid, that of a two time leader of Nigeria without any political constituency, overtook him with iron severity even in his own backyard. What Shakespeare calls the whirligig of time has brought its own revenge.

Let Jonathan ponder on the turbulent history of the country. Nigeria may be an impossible colonial contraption, but there are certain imponderable equations insinuated into its grand architecture which makes it impossible for a despot of any hue to hold sway for long. The ethnic alliances of today are not what they were in 1999, not in 1979 and certainly not in 1959. In January 1966, the entire Western Region lay blitzed and cowering under the onslaught of the federal might. But by October of that very year, it was the same West that was adjudicating between the North and its former collaborators and hatchet men.

The president should learn from history if he does not want to imperil his own fortunes as well as the political fortunes of his people in a post-Jonathan polity. As we can see from the foregoing, rigging and hostile take over bids which amount to forcibly tampering with the destiny of a people have a way of returning the compliments in an even more devastating manner.

August 3, 2014
Okon submits application for paternity leave

It has been raining cats and dogs in Lagos. The sky looks like a bereaved old woman who has wept herself into a wrinkled sunken mass. Whether this is a divine metaphor for the state of the nation or some apocalyptic forewarning, Snooper cannot say. Nature can also be profligate in its bounties. The rains are part of some ancient fertility rites, a boon for baby boomers, in a manner of speaking.

But you can trust the indefatigable Okon to cotton in on the act. On Saturday morning, instead of preparing early breakfast, the rogue Romeo barged in with a bulging file brimming with dog-eared receipts and assorted counterfeit bills. Before one could ask what he was up to, the crazy chap erupted.

“Oga, since dem Fashola people don see reason, I wan apply for dem multiple paternity leave. I get dem four women who dey carry pikin for Okon”, the mad boy snorted.

“Meaning what?” Snooper snapped.

“Na dem papa born dem and na me give dem belle”, Okon retorted with a fiendish grin of self-satisfaction.

“Okon, go away, you are a fool. The law recognises only monogamy”, snooper explained, suppressing his mirth.

“Oga dat one na burukutu law. I no dey do dem mahogany. Mahogany na hard wood. Okon dey fire only dem rubber bullet.” Okon sneered.

“But still, four women in a row!! Okon, since when have you become a baby factory?” snooper asked in jest.

“Ah oga, dat one I sabi well well”, Okon began with a satanic wink, “he get time like dat when I dey do night shift for dem baby factory for Oko Oba. One night dem come bring eleven girls from Abakaliki like dat and dem say make man start work. As I come dey drink paraga for manpower, dem mad ibo girl come seize dem bottle and come hammer Okon him head. Naim I come pick race like dem antelope for Itigidi. Dem ibo crooks still dey owe me for overtime, but I no fit go near dem place lailai”.

“Case closed”, snooper crowed with a measure of satisfaction.

“Ha, oga I hope dis dem paternity thin no be dem offside trap. You know dem Fashola boy na good footballer.”, Oko noted fearfully.

“Why?” snooper demanded.

“Becos dem never give me dem Certificate of Occupation for Shikira. I don waka sotey for Alausa, and na so so promise. If only I fit take dem Abakaliki girls there make dem teach dem sense”, Okon lamented. On that note, snooper quietly pushed out the crazy boy.

August 3, 2014