The Nation Newspaper

Category: Sunday

Still in search of excellence

( In Praise of the Alamu man)

Remember him, the Alamu man? Oh yes Snooper does and with much adoration and admiration. If you lived in the old Oyo State in the late seventies and early eighties and you were a buff of broadcast journalism, you can never forget Smolette Adetoyese Shittu-Alamu. With his rich mellifluous Ghanaian baritone rumbling in the background, the Ghana born ace broadcaster brought an intellectual flair and knowledge-based entertainment to broadcast journalism in that part of the nation.

After the creation of Oshun State in 1991, Smolette relocated with his immense talents to his home state and its broadcasting imperium from where he retired from the topmost echelons only recently. He was an instant hit in the Snooper household with the spouse often calling her husband the Alamu man. Snooper had long been intrigued by the man behind the mast, as they say. When we eventually met, one was even more impressed by the man’s humility, his reticence and stout refusal to leverage his immense popularity for a mess of political pottage. This is an unusual Nigeria.

A few weeks back, Snooper again ran into the old crooner in Ilase, deep in the rural entrails of Oshun State at the Thanksgiving Service of Pa Ajayi, beloved father of Modupe Gbadebo-Ajayi, former Editor of Sunday Times and one time Managing Director of the old Sketch empire. Before you could say Jack Robinson, the Alamu man had thrust into Snooper’s palms a copy of his memoirs with a glowing inscription to the other Alamu. The memoirs was appropriately titled: In Search of Excellence.

It is a riveting read. Snooper now understands where Smolette is coming from. This is the laudable quest of one man as he struggled for personal and professional excellence in the face of official and unofficial adversities; full of sweet victories and bitter personal defeats including a shocking examination deflation which deprived the author of early university education against all expectations and predictions.

For Snooper, the hero of this memoirs is the Alamu father. An illiterate, Pa Alamu grew up in Ghana and taught himself how to read and write. He became a professional litigant traversing all the courts in the region. By sheer force of personality and dint of hard work, he was also able to acquire stupendous wealth which he used to train all his children. As colorful as ever, he once deposed to a court when it became impossible to determine which of his numerous cases he was pursuing at the particular moment.

“My Lord, I no come for cocoa case. Cocoa case e die over one years ago. No, I no come for cocoa case sir. I come for summons to show cause!”

As self-effacing and humble as ever, Smolette believes that he is the least confrontational and most amenable of the great man’s numerous offspring. But reading through this memoirs even Pa Alamu would applaud his son’s grit, courage and integrity. This is inspirational stuff and a moveable literary feast.

March 2, 2014
Is the ‘Coordinating Minister’ title a misnomer?

There are tens of such massive thefts you begin to wonder what exactly any minister is coordinating in this corruption cesspit of a government

The more you look at literally every department of government becoming a cesspool of corruption, the more you wonder if anybody is truly in charge of the Nigerian economy. Add insecurity, and you wonder if the country itself is simply not on autopilot. The more you see seemingly untouchable mandarins messing up key sectors of the economy, the more confused you are about whether or not President Jonathan knows that the buck really stops at this table. Happily, one area where there could be no confusion, however, is in what exactly should constitute the responsibility of a so-called Coordinating Minister of Economy. Who then is a coordinating minister? By my Encarta Dictionary definition, this should be the one who organises a complex enterprise in which numerous people are involved and brings together their contributions to form a coherent or efficient whole. So, how effectively or competently has Dr Okonjo-Iweala performed her functions of coordinating an economy in which almost every funding initiative has been turned to a cesspit of corruption? Or to ask a more direct question: was she promoted over and above her competence? Is her supervisor, the president, adequately or properly overseeing her work or is the Nigerian system that congenitally corrupt that it is impossible to make a success of the job?

Where exactly lies the problem of an economy that presents with so many fault lines as the one we have?

It will be extremely difficult to question the qualification of Mrs Okonjo-Iweala, a PhD holder in Economics, former World Bank President who has also had several years of cognate experience part of which involved shaping up the economies of some third world countries like ours. Is she otherwise being undermined by more powerful colleagues who she dares not as much as attempt to question, however perfunctorily they are performing in their equally key ministries?

If that is the problem, why would she not, as she once did when serving under an imperial President Obasanjo, simply resign, head back to the U. S or elect to go into the murky waters of Nigerian politics? Only Mrs Okonjo- Iweala can answer these questions but she needs be told that the more she hangs on amidst this bravura of kleptomania, the more she risks a diminution to her integrity since the economic leakages occurring thereby are opening Nigeria up to international opprobrium. A good example of this embarrassment is the recent hasty suspension of the Central Bank Governor. While I hold firmly to the belief that there shouldn’t be any public officer the president cannot discipline, the process is of great moment and it must be seen to conform with constitutional provisions. I wonder if the Coordinating Minister is aware that, had she been alive to her responsibilities, there should have been no argument,

whatever, about the balances on the country’s bank accounts or about how much NNPC made or how much it remitted to the federation account. These are figures she should obtain by the mere pressing of a computer button. Let us briefly quote Professor Bolaji Aluko in his Mid-week Essay on the Sanusi conundrum in this regard: ‘Oil is the life-blood of Nigeria, and NNPC its conduit – and a JP Morgan account, its custodian. But she is sure that NNPC has a foreign account – or foreign accounts – since it trades abroad, but NOT sure whether it is JP Morgan or not, nor has she EVER seen such a statement. Granted she is not the Auditor-General, but, for crying out loud, this is where the greatest single amount of money that goes into the Consolidated Revenue account comes from. I would be curious to see that statement of account – either directly from NNPC, from the Auditor General’s Office or, indeed, from JP Morgan itself. Episodically, I shall see/ask, why out of the X trillion Naira in the account, only Y trillion Naira was paid into the federation account last month. NNPC should be infinitely more transparent, and the Finance Minister, much more curious.’

Given the Coordinating Minister’s less than serious engagement with her responsibilities therefore, should it surprise us that literally every funding initiative of the Jonathan administration has been turned to a watering hole by these smart Alec’s? When you see the oil subsidy racket of 2012 and think you had seen the worst, then pops up the humongous multi-billion naira pension scam. As you are wondering what exactly your president is doing in office, then comes the totally bewildering NNPC accounts. They are so bewildering you know neither how much oil is pumped or exported daily, nor how much of what was received had been credited into the NNPC’s open or shadowy accounts or transferred, as constitutionally prescribed, into the federation account. But you are actually just beginning to see the tip of the iceberg in this circuitous corruption racket that now runs the national government.

Going by The Nation’s Editorial of Monday, February 24, 2014, titled ‘Plundering Woes,’ none of this government’s mind-boggling rogueries equals what they have been doing with the Service Wide Vote (SWV), especially in its devil-may-care impunity, in the sure certainty that nothing will happen to them, the perpetrators which could go right up. Designed primarily to make provision for financial emergencies of government, the SWV has been turned into a criminal conduit pipe. And we have the House Committee headed by Hon. Solomon Adeola to thank for discovering how N4.7 trillion was spent, as against a vote of N2.1 trillion approved between 2004-12. To give only two examples, the authorities of the National Teachers’ Institute, Kaduna, were alarmed when, on December 31, 2012, they suddenly had a bank alert informing them of a credit of N791M at a time it had not requested for any financial assistance. They promptly paid it back into government coffers. More amazing, however, was the Budget Office claim that it paid N5 billion to NAFDAC whereas the agency claimed it received only N365 million. The National Boundary Office would later completely deny ever receiving any N2 billion from the same Budget Office just as Chairman Giade of the NDLEA said the agency received nothing of the N65 million penned against it. There are tens of such massive thefts you begin to wonder what exactly any minister is coordinating in this corruption cesspit of a government. Concluding, the editorial said “if the presidency does not account for, and punish the felons who perpetrated these acts, we doubt whether the new vote of N1 trillion will be deployed for its rightful purposes by entrenched gluttons of government believed to be working in cahoots with the presidency’. If the Jonathan administration ever wanted to fight corruption, this should be the starting point. Just allow the anti-corruption agencies take

in the appropriate Director-General of the Budget Office and officials of the respective banks which transferred these sums and they should be singing like a canary. The National Planning Office cannot even account for a penny of its own N400m largesse since it has, apparently, all gone into thin air.

With these non-exhaustive instances of leakages in the economy, it is obvious Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala has been coordinating nothing. And if she had been doing that, it has been so poorly coordinated that she hardly deserves a day’s pay. She is too highly regarded, home and abroad, to continue to play at this level.

March 2, 2014
The mode of surplus extraction changed and corruption became the glue that holds things together: notes for young compatriots (2)

It the end of last week’s first essay in this series, I made the claim that when crude oil replaced export or cash crop production (together with industrial production of light consumer goods) as the medium of surplus accumulation by our political and economic elites, corruption became not only gargantuan and rampant but in fact became the means of massive distortion of income and wealth redistribution throughout all layers of the society in every part of the country. To this claim it is necessary to add a caveat, a qualification. It is not crude oil production itself that caused this epochal shift in how the social surplus is appropriated in our country, in how people became rich or poor. Crude oil production for export in and of itself has nothing inherently corrupting in it. Unlike Nigeria, many oil-producing countries of the world did not automatically and massively become corrupted by oil wealth. Examples are Norway, Venezuela and even some of the Middle East oil producing countries like the United Arab Emirates. As a matter of fact, historically speaking, in some countries of the world, oil wealth has greatly reduced the gap between the rich and the poor, between the powerful elites and the teeming majority of the given country’s urban and rural poor. Corruption has not vanished in such countries; indeed, it has not vanished in any country in the world and will probably never disappear from the face of the planet. But corruption has not in Venezuela or Norway or the UAE Gulf States become the glue that holds the society together in lieu of fair and just redistribution of wealth when oil wealth came to those countries. Why and how did this come to pass in Nigeria? That is the fundamental question.

In responding to that question as the primary topic of this continuation of the series that began last week, I must again stress that my reflections in the series are primarily addressed to the younger generations of Nigerians, especially those born after 1980. Any Nigerian who had come of age by that date knew a vastly different country. Corruption did exist, and sometimes in quite spectacular forms and expressions. But it did not remotely have the chance, the now seemingly inevitable reality of being the means of the redistribution of wealth and hence the glue that keeps everything together in economy and society in the oil-rich but poverty stricken country the country we now know and perforce have to transform.

The root cause of the epochal shift of corruption in the political economy of Nigeria can be simply put: with oil wealth, surplus accumulation by our elites that was not based directly on the exploitation of farmers and workers became possible. Yakubu Gowon’s infamous statement in the period is particularly relevant here: money is no longer our problem, he said; our problem is how to spend it. Concerning that infamous statement, I have often thought that Gowon would have been right if he had only added the word, “wisely”. That is to say if he would have said something that posterity would never forget if he had said our problem is how to spend our new-found oil wealth wisely. But he did not say that and the reason he did not was because he was bragging petulantly about Nigeria’s emergence as one of the most important oil producing countries in the world; he was saying that with our new-found oil wealth, the powerful nations and forces in the world and in particular the West, could no longer condescend or dictate to us. Alas, that portentous statement of Gowon reveals a lot of what he personally and virtually all of our political and economic elites do not know about the production and maintenance of true wealth, as distinct from illusory wealth in all the nations and among the peoples of our planet. This is the fact that, all expressions and forms of waste, squandermania and conspicuous consumption duly acknowledged, true wealth in our world is always tied to the production of real, life-enhancing and humanizing value. Let me explain.

To create true wealth, you must work, you must create value. It helps in particular if your work either enhances existing value-creating work or indeed creates new ways of making work better and more productive. And it so happens that currently in our world, we are living in an epoch in which unprecedented innovations in technologies of knowledge production and the micro-processing of tools, appliances and operations of production in all areas of the circulation and exchange of goods and services between the planet’s regions and nations are the primary engines of wealth production. In the great universities, research institutions and frontline innovative “research and development” corporations of the world, new techniques of producing knowledge and making work more prodigious are being discovered and introduced into the marketplaces of the planet. The results, the ramifications are not always unambiguously positive and people all over the world still have to fight for equality of opportunities, justice and dignity. But it does help a lot if one’s nation and region of the world is abreast of these developments, these innovations in how real and sustainable wealth is produced. It is almost banal to say that our country, Nigeria, lags far behind in these developments. The cause, unambiguously, lies in the fact that oil wealth in Nigeria brought with it a massive devaluation of work as the creator of true wealth and value, especially when corruption became the means of an atrociously unfair and unproductive redistribution of wealth.

I now come to the specific issue of corruption as the means of wealth redistribution in oil-rich Nigeria. In this regard, I find the statement made by the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo as the Federal Commissioner of Finance at the end of the Nigerian-Biafran civil war portentous. What was the statement? Awolowo said, with his characteristic dry sarcasm, that as far as he was concerned as the Finance Commissioner, no soldier died in the civil war because from start to finish, every kobo of every soldier’s salary was paid. The statement goes to the heart of the fact that in oil rich Nigeria, you not only don’t have to work to earn legitimate money, sometimes you don’ t even have to be alive! Beyond this, you don’t have to work; you don’t have to create value to become immensely rich and well-off. I think most adult, thinking Nigerians know this fundamental reality of their oil-rich but poverty stricken country. Everyone knows that it is not what you know, it is not what you can truly contribute that matters; rather, it is a question of who you know, what connections you can make with the rich and the powerful in whose hands lies the control of the oil wealth. And everyone knows that everybody wants to join the winners, those who are making it even in the midst and the thickness of widening circles of poverty. There is even an evangelical, Pentecostal denomination known, precisely, as “Winners”. But if this is all a well-known and widely discussed reality of wealth and poverty in our country in the last three and half decades, what is not fully appreciated is the fact that when things have gone this far in a country, it signifies that corruption has become the means of wealth redistribution and therefore the glue that holds everything together, a glue that we must dissolve completely the sooner the better.

One of the reasons why corruption in oil-rich Nigeria is not generally and widely recognized for the atrocious means of wealth redistribution that it is can be traced to the fact that it is often confused with or explained away by link with genuine aspirations for growth and development throughout Nigeria, especially in the vast hinterlands of the land. Let me give two particularly crucial examples: state creation and the often resultant or accompanying creation of state universities.

At the onset of oil wealth in Nigeria, there were four regions and about twelve universities in the country. As the oil wealth began to flow abundantly placing us in the position of the sixth or seventh largest oil-producing country in the world, we very rapidly moved from the four regions to twelve states, then nineteen states and then finally the current thirty-six states. Concurrently, the twelve federal and regional universities grew at an astronomical rate to dozens of universities as each new state created one, two or three more universities in each state, all within the space of slightly more than two decades. In the modern world, no other country in the world has seen the same rate, number and rapidity in the creation of states and state universities. The ostensible justification was the legitimate aspirations of our peoples everywhere in the country for bringing political administration and education closer to our localities and communities across the length and breadth of the country. But the actual results do not in the least indicate that those legitimate aspirations have come anywhere close to fulfillment. Indeed, in precisely the same period, poverty, economic marginalization and political alienation of the masses of our peoples have increased tenfold in nearly all parts of the country. Meanwhile, what has really happened is that the national cake has been further shared, further redistributed among the elites throughout the country. Every single state administrative bureaucracy in the country has grown beyond rhyme and reason and redundancies and sinecures abound aplenty. Indeed, in most states, recurrent expenditure which consists primarily of the payment of salaries and emoluments, run as much as three times the size of capital expenditure for real growth and development. And in the universities, a vast professoriate has been rapidly created with the result that quantity now far outweighs quality, as every single professor reading this article knows deep down in his or her consciousness and conscience.

The profile that I have given of state and state universities creation as means of corrupt wealth redistribution is a profoundly saddening thing for me to state. But it needs to be said, especially as this profile constitutes the tip of a vast iceberg. In next week’s concluding essay in the series, I shall indicate other instances, other ramifications of what I have shown with the profile of state and universities creation. And I shall also give an indication of what we might do or should begin to do about the problem, the crises.

Biodun Jeyifo

bjeyifo@fas.harvard.edu

March 2, 2014
Making Nigeria thrive after its first centenary (I)

There is a need to create a country in which the primary stakeholder is the citizen

Building a country is much more than superintending its survival. It demands ensuring that it thrives. Many of us who believe mere survival is worth celebrating on account of testimonies from African countries in deeper malaise than Nigeria regarding the fact that Nigeria is doing better than most African countries should know that it is a brainless thing to use failure as benchmark for one’s output. The advantage of a humanist view of life is to strive to belong to the group that is doing well by engaging in perpetual self-amelioration.

We could have survived several crises: civil war, inter-ethnic violence, increasing desertification, several military dictatorships, sectarian violence, etc. That kind of survival is not a sign of success. Nigerians need more than a country that is using its energy to survive crisis; they need a home in which they can thrive. As we round off the celebrations of one century of creation and survival, let us think and work towards a second century that is marked by peace, freedom, prosperity, democracy, and opportunities for all citizens. There is no better opportunity to do this than to use President Jonathan’s version of a national conference to solve all the riddles needed to defeat the Sphinx of failure that has been around the country for decades.

It seems that all the six regions have finalised their list of delegates to the Abuja conference. According to the Governor of Niger Delta, speaking on behalf of the 19 governors from the former Northern Region, the North has prepared its position for the conference. The Southeast and South-south regions had also concluded a meeting in Calabar at which they took a position on behalf of both the former Eastern Region and a portion of the old Western Region amalgamated one century ago. On February 27, the core of the former Western Region met in Ibadan to take a position on what to carry on behalf of close to 40 million citizens in the region to the Abuja or Jonathan conference. No sarcasm is intended for calling the conference Jonathan conference. We had had in the past Richard’s, Littleton, Macpherson, and Abubakar? Constitutions. This is just giving unto Caesar what is Caesar’s.

There has been so much talk about the country’s unity. We have been at it for one century already. Those selected as delegates to the conference should not waste time to anchor the conference on unity. The only No-Go Area clearly spelt out by the Okurounmu Committee has already settled the issue of unity. Even President Jonathan’s recent Centenary Address has been unequivocal about the country’s unity. He has said there was no mistake about the amalgamation of 1914. Nigerians are not complaining primarily about the fact that the over one-hundred nationalities are in one huge country. They are complaining about the fact that the country is not working in a way to assist them to make sense of their lives in economic, political, and cultural terms. Many Nigerians expect that the conference would move from the decades of amalgamation under military rule and in the last fourteen years to one of federation. The issues for serious discussion no longer include the unity of the country. They require concentration on creating a functional federation and right conditions for the federation and its parts to realise their potentials.

Despite decades of oil and gas exploration and exploitation, over 70% of Nigerians live in poverty and fear about the future of their children. If this signals anything, it is that anchoring the growth and development of a country on selling petroleum and sharing the proceeds among tiers of government from day to day may not take a country of over 160 million people out of the woods of underdevelopment and poverty. It will be worthless for delegates to go to Abuja to argue for more money to the states from proceeds from petroleum and gas. Doing this for almost half a century has not yielded any substantial progress, except that it has spawned a few billionaires whose source of income almost invariably derives from access to political power. The stupendous wealth of the few from revenue allocation that derives from revenue garnered from a ‘rentier’ culture has created resource curse, rather than resource blessing for the nation. For regions or states to dwell on a better way to share the wealth oozing from petroleum is to misuse the opportunity of a conference that is long overdue.

The challenge is for delegates to come up with new ideas about how to generate revenue for the whole country and its federating units and how to create a social contract that gives responsibilities to those who are charged to govern and the citizens they govern. There is a need to create a country in which the primary stakeholder is the citizen. The way to do this is to borrow ideas and methods from developed and democratic countries. Taxation is the effective device in modern nation building to create a bond between the government and its citizens. Delegates should pay attention to the need to move all forms of taxation, apart from mineral royalty tax, to the states, which in turn is to pass to Abuja the percentage agreed upon to keep the federal government running well. The argument about derivation versus allocation can also be put to rest through taxation. Once the federal government collects substantial tax on mineral royalties, the remaining revenue from mineral exploitation should be reserved for the states in which the minerals are exploited.

The reason for the federal government and other states in the federation not to share whatever is left of revenue from mineral exploitation to the states of origin of such minerals is at variance with the theory of even development or of opposition to uneven development as a source of conflict and violence. For decades, military dictators popularised the theory of even development, on which they based the policy of sharing revenue from petroleum to all tiers of government and at the expense of communities damaged by mineral exploitation. Even several governors in the post-military era have argued about too much money going to certain oil-producing states, just as apologists for Boko Haram have taken pains to theorise that poor revenues to some northern states have spawned terrorism by persons who feel alienated and pauperised.

It may be possible for a few states and a few million citizens in other oil-producing countries to live as parasites, but it will be difficult for an entire country of 170 million people to thrive on the culture of parasitism made possible by petroleum exploitation. The Jonathan conference must move away from further entrenchment of the culture of parasitism to creation of a national culture of productivity. Doing this will save governors and their citizens from having to wait in the fashion of mendicants for allocations from the central government that supervises or even occasionally acts as the owner of the federation account. The central government will no longer need to make a job of allocating funds to 36 states and 774 local governments. It will also throw up a central government with limited responsibilities, as distinct from a central government that prefers to act as jack of all trades.

In addition, citizens who pay taxes from their income or business to keep the governments alive will be less alienated from governance and more empowered to monitor the government they fund. Citizens and elected officials will become partners or joint stakeholders in the project of nurturing a modern multiethnic state. It is common knowledge that most countries in which Nigeria’s rulers in the era of dependence on petroleum buy and hide mansions fuel their civilisation with tax revenue. There are just a few countries that live on and off petroleum. Such countries have small populations. Even many of such countries are becoming productive economies. U.A.E., the country that hosts at least 500 Nigerians daily, is one such example. Many other petroleum-rich countries are already planning for a civilisation beyond oil, in response to fast changes in pattern of ownership of oil across the globe. The time that Nigeria is about to re-design itself for the future calls for a new polity that is driven by a social contract anchored on tax revenue.

March 2, 2014
Of course, the president is liable for everything!

If you are commiserating with the president as I am, then it may turn out that, perhaps, you and I understand his job better than he does

One of the contributors to last week’s essay on this column berated me for insinuating in the essay that it was the president’s responsibility for cleaning up the noise pollution in the country. The writer went on to insist that we should stop the habit of piling every known and unknown responsibility on the president, insisting that there are a few things we should be able to do on our own. I would have been half inclined to agree with my esteemed reader’s view but for a tiny winy bit of things which some might call nonsense and some might say are of some national significance. Like it or not, everything still stops at the president’s table.

You, reader, are not raising a new objection because it’s been raised before. When our Obj. was in government, he was said to have been angry that every failure in the country was being attributed to him, including if a woman failed to conceive. He did not understand then. Now I think he does and he it was who, in his famous Epistle to Aso Rock, held the present president liable for everything happening in the polity. Obviously, the shoe is on the other foot now; well it is if someone else is wearing it.

Actually, if you are commiserating with the president as I am, then it may turn out that, perhaps, you and I understand his job better than he does. I, for instance, now understand that if chickens refuse to lay eggs, I hold the president responsible for it. Don’t you know? If chickens are not laying, it is because there is no longer any security in the land. Anyone familiar with chicken behaviour knows that they need absolute peace and quiet to lay any eggs, just like any other human being, you know, when you go to do your business in the mornings in the toilet, if you’re lucky, or bush, if you’re not. Anyway, if a woman cannot conceive either, why, it is the president’s fault. Who is responsible for security in the land? Now tell me, how many men worried about security can think of making any babies when your average boko haram is shooting sporadically into the air anyhow now?

Just look at the example of the fifty-nine school children killed by boko haram shooters in Buni Yadi, Yobe State; not to talk of the thirty-seven people killed even more recently in Adamawa State. Guess whose table that buck rests at: that’s right – the president’s. He is the one who can give the order for all this to stop. Definitely, he cannot give in to their demands that all schools be closed in the country or that the nation should convert to Islam. However, his is still the responsibility and initiative to convince the killers that one really should sit down and think seriously before putting an end to any human life, for money or for game. The reason is that, for sooth, none of us here can manufacture a toe nail. All that cloning business is really only replicating what exists. Only the Almighty can make from nothing. So now, are you surprised that everyone is calling on the president to end all the destruction of Nigeria’s present and potential human resources?

Believe me, governments all over the world are responsible for the level of sanity in their respective lands. Now, you and I know that many things can contribute to this sanity problem. There is first the ability of every individual to believe that waking up in the morning and assaying forth into the sunrise to make a living is worth the effort. I tell you, there are many people closer to you than you think who do not see any reason why they should. Well, for one thing, there is the fact that all their efforts may not produce enough food for the day for them and their dependents. Then there are other things such as fears: of the unknown, of crowds, bridges, rivers, valleys, and even of going outside. Do you know that there are people who are afraid of what would happen to them outside so they do not venture outside their houses? Sick, ehn? Then, there are the extraneous factors such as the sanity levels of others like vehicle drivers, civil servants, fellow workers, noise levels… One of the first thing the new government of a country did recently somewhere in a not-too-remote world was to clean up the noise level in the cities. So yes, it is the president’s duty to reduce noise; just pass a law against it, that’s all.

Let me tell you other bucks that stop at the president’s table. You will agree that many events have been tumbling over each other in a mad rush to out-do the other. There had been first talk of fifty billion dollars missing from the coffers of the NNPC and the nation. Then the figure came down to thirty. Now, it appears to have settled on about twenty billion dollars missing from the coffers. When I translated the money into Naira, I realised it came to trillions of Naira, enough to give the country an effective rail system. You tell me if you don’t think there’s something fishy going on in the land as usual. Worse still, even ICPC is washing its hands of it, insisting that it cannot ‘probe’ and ‘unprobe’ it. I added that last bit, but it did say that it did not have the competency to look into it. Can you just imagine that? What accounts can be so fuddled that it can’t be unfolded? I imagine though that what the body was really saying was that the NNPC issue was a no-go area for it; the issue is so deep that the ICPC is really out of its depths on it.

Rather than attend to all these – national and personal fears, noise level, missing billions of dollars, shooting of children and adults everywhere in the north – I say rather than attend to all these, the government is busy celebrating a centenary which no other person in the country understands. Naturally, with the president at the head of these celebrations, one can only assume that they are to his pleasing. In fact, the celebrations are so pleasing to him that I hear the organisers are even giving out honours now. Imagine that: to be honoured at an event one only wants to gape at in incredulity. It’s still a wonder that my name has not been included. Well, really, when you think that the country is even now in the throes of agony over how nothing in it is working, you honestly do not want to think of celebrations. Instead, you want to take a minute and pause over the country: to systematically restructure or to systematically dismember. It’s a little like reversing the ‘To be or not to be’ formula. Any which way, the answer will still be a slap in the face. Celebrate kini?

Yes, dear reader, the president is liable for everything. He is liable for the police not working effectively; for electricity supply not being regular, for water supply not being regular, for food being expensive in the market, for roads being impassable and in particular, the ones leading to my village, for bad odours or noises in the air, for bad weather, etc. Obviously, the vision of the country that the president had when he vied for the presidency included one of doling out trillions of Naira in oil subsidy yearly to cronies, celebrating unendingly and fighting well-meaning friends. These are things we should focus on putting an end to.

March 2, 2014
Of threats and Boko Haram

Students’ massacre: Time to wipe out the sect

With The killing of 59 students (so far) of Federal Government College, Buni Yadi, Gujba Local Government Area of Yobe State, on Tuesday, at least three questions become pertinent, again. The first is: what does Boko Haram really want? And the second, what have innocent students got to do with whatever the grievances of the sect are? Above all, how effective is the existing structure to curtail the dangerous sect?

According to a resident, “The attackers started the operation around 12:15 unperturbed until after 4 am; the students were slaughtered and fired with guns … I counted 39 corpses” he said, adding: “It was too horrible because, some of the students were slaughtered, some were burnt inside the hostel”. Unless one has eaten the head of a tortoise (it is believed in Yoruba land that people who eat such lose whatever regard they have for human life) one must feel touched by this kind of report, especially because the victims were children. These could have been anybody’s children. Now, their parents must be regretting their decision to send their children to that school. Who knows how many promising children had been so killed over some senseless reasons? With this kind of attack, life in that school can hardly ever be the same again. Indeed, no one should be surprised if parents with children in other schools in that part of the country start withdrawing them en masse because they would be the ultimate losers should anything untoward happen to their wards. All they can hope to get are the usual comforting words and assurances that the government is on top of the situation! And, as they say, “he who wears the shoe knows where it pinches”.

And to think that this is not the first time the sect members had wreaked havoc on innocent students! Just before dawn on July 6, 2013, the gunmen attacked a government-run boarding school of 1,200 students in Mamudo village, Yobe State, killing at least 42 people, among such other attacks.

It is against this backdrop that one should see the frustration of Governor Kashim Shettima of Borno State who claimed that Boko Haram fighters were “better armed and better motivated,” than the troops fighting them. This would appear to have been confirmed when on Wednesday the Boko Haram bloodletting extended to Adamawa State where the terrorists, armed with rocket-propelled grenades, nearly sacked four communities. Soldiers reportedly ran for cover on seeing the sheer number of the terrorists! If it was true that the insurgents burnt banks, shops and filling stations in their desperate search for food and cash, as the military authorities claimed, then they (insurgents) might not be better motivated. Perhaps the issue is that they are more committed to whatever they see as their cause.

The point is that even if what Governor Shettima said might have been undiplomatic, it should be seen in the context of someone who sees it all. President Jonathan who is in the safe confines of Aso Rock in Abuja is unlikely to appreciate the gravity of the situation on ground as much as the governor. That was why the president ought not to have upbraided the governor as he did when reacting to the governor’s comment during his media chat on Monday. As the man on the spot, the governor sees and feels the pinch more than President Jonathan who relies more on briefings from his military officers, who may choose to let him into only what they feel like letting him into. If the president felt bad about the governor’s comment, and so reacted angrily the way he did, then, he too was guilty of whatever offence Governor Shettima might have committed. President Jonathan’s comment that he would see if the governor would be able to stay in the Government House if the soldiers were withdrawn from the state for one month, is unnecessary as it is un-presidential.

Governor Shettima might have over-reacted, but he spoke the minds of millions of Nigerians. It was because of Boko Haram that the Federal Government imposed a state of emergency on three northwestern states of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa on May 14, last year. The expectation then was that this would curb, significantly, the activities of the deadly sect. The first round of the emergency lapsed in November and was renewed for another six months, in line with constitutional stipulations. Now, it is about nine months since emergency was imposed on the three states, yet, the activities of Boko Haram do not seem to be abating. If anything, the sect is becoming more audacious, dispatching many defenceless people, including especially innocent students who have no idea of what the sect members want, and who contributed nothing to whatever might be the grievances of the sect members, to their untimely graves.

And here is the president getting angry at a frustrated governor who expressed worries over what is going on in his state. If President Jonathan must be reminded, provision of security is the very basic responsibility of any government properly so-called.

Is it not worrisome that Boko Haram members would hold a whole school to ransom for hours, without any form of resistance or assistance from those who were supposed to provide security for the people? How come the sect members would go in convoys without the security men noticing, not to talk of stopping them? How come we are always closing the stable door after the horse has bolted? How come it is those who should have responded by repelling the sect members that are the very ones who reel out for us the number of casualties, tell us how the ‘invasions’ went and why they could not deal with the situation until it was too late? Is the president himself not tired of repeating the same graveside oration each time these unfortunate incidents occur? Is he not tired of giving us assurances that the government is in control when people see little in that regard?

Nigerians will keep asking questions whether the president likes it or not, if only for the fact that human lives are involved, and secondly, because of the humongous amount of money that has been sunk into our attempts to rein in Boko Haram. This year alone, no fewer than 350 persons had been killed by Boko Haram. And that is for those whose identities were made public. It excludes the figures of military casualties too.

The fact that students were hit this time around is enough to attract attention, and many eminent Nigerians have condemned the attacks as senseless. The international community has done the same. Even the Senate President, David Mark remarked that “It is also curious that under an emergency rule, when security operatives should be on red alert, this mayhem still persists. Honestly, this calls for soul-searching and I believe the security authorities must rise to this challenge”. Speaker of the House of Representatives, Aminu Tambuwal, echoed a similar sentiment:”While we must all join hands to bring this insanity to an end, we must, however, bear in mind that we are running out of excuses in our responsibility to our citizens”.

The Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant-Gen Kenneth Minimah told the Senate Committee on Defence and Army that the army would soon defeat Boko Haram. For sure, General Minimah is aware that he is not the first military top brass to give such an assurance. Others before him made the same pledge. Yet, here we are! We have reached a stage where the military authorities should stop threatening to quell Boko Haram. It’s high time they carried out the threat. When Boko Haram is finally quelled, we would not need any military officer to announce to us. We would all see and feel it because it is that palpable.

March 2, 2014
Boko Haram menace

Between last Sunday when my last piece titled Stop Boko Haram Now was published and last Friday night when I wrote this week’s piece, the insurgents in North Eastern part of the country have gone on rampage leaving no one in doubt about their determination to advance whatever cause they claim to be fighting for.

Last Tuesday, the terrorists in one of their bloodiest attacks left 59 school children dead when they struck at the Federal Government College, Boni Yadi, Yobe State. Even before the country recovered from the shock of the mindless attack on innocent students, they struck again in neigbouring Adamawa State killing at least 37 persons.

On Friday, there was panic during a condolence visit by the Adamawa state Governor Murtala Nyako to some victims of the recent attacks when Boko Haram men were said to be heading for the venue. Gun shots were fired into the air by security men to protect the governor from any possible attack. It is uncertain where next the insurgents would strike as the situation appears helpless despite assurances by the federal government that security measures are being taken to stop the endless killings.

My heart goes out to the families of the school children and others who have so far lost their loved ones in various attacks. The students have paid the ultimate price for what they knew nothing about. Last year, students of a School of Agriculture in the same state were also killed a dawn raid. It’s inconceivable why the terrorists have chosen to make the students their target. If not for any other thing, it confirms the evil stuff they are made of while claiming to belong to a religious sect.

Until the situation is really brought under control, it may no longer be safe to allow schools in the endangered areas to remain in session. While it is important for the students to acquire education, their lives are more precious. Except their safety can be guaranteed, which doesn’t seem certain presently, the students should not be exposed to further danger.

Much as one appreciates the efforts of the federal government through the military forces to checkmate the terrorists, a lot still has to be done to prevent the insurgents from having a field a day killing residents of the affected states.

It is evident that tactics being used by the Joint Task Force is not achieving enough result and new strategies have to be adopted before more havoc is wrecked by the insurgents who seemed determined to make the states ungovernable.

Nigerians are tired of being told by the federal government that it is on top of the situation when hundreds of persons continue to get killed by the rampaging Boko Haram gunmen who have the least regard for the sanctity of life. Whatever urgent steps that need to be taken have to be acted on urgently in the face of the war declared against the country by the insurgents.

If the country does not have the capacity to combat the terrorists as alleged in some quarters, it should not hesitate to seek necessary foreign support.

The affected states and the federal government have to be more committed to ending this crisis once and for all before it consumes us all. The issue should not be politicized by any group. There is no need to trade blames. What we need is the solution.

March 2, 2014
A Freezing Evening with Murtala Mohammed

It has been unseasonably cold in England. An icy fog lays a brutal siege on the entire country from Inverness to Portsmouth. The ambience in Birmingham is grey and dreary as country and people are frozen into a vast mass of drooping icicles. It is the worst winter in thirty years, and February is the cruelest of months. Even this late in the year rather than retreating, General Winter has been advancing.

Trapped inside the house by a ferocious sleet storm and wrapped up like a Siberian wayfarer, Snooper has hit the bottle on the rebound. Our comforter is a vicious Austrian liqueur known as Stroh”80″. Known otherwise as the spirit of Austria, It is eighty per cent alcohol and a sip could take a bull out in a second. I often wonder why the immensely cultured but imperious Austrians are allowed to do this to the civilised world. But then, there are many things the Austrians will want the world to forget.

The generous provider of this heady spirit is an Aeronautical Engineer friend of Kogi extraction who is based in Birmingham. A hilarious and witty fellow, our man once told Snooper of how he took a bottle of the strong stuff home as a Christmas present to the Oba of his town who happens to be his cousin. Kabiyesi often boasts of his drinking prowess. A few hours later when the engineer returned to the palace to retrieve a document, his royal majesty had passed out on the bare floor with his staff of office lying on top of him.

For intellectual comfort, Snooper has been reading excerpts from the interesting memoirs of Engineer Akindele, the first Director General of the Nigerian Telecommunication. It is riveting read which shows how things used to be with the civil servants and civil service of yore. But by far the most interesting revelations in the memoirs concern Akindele’s memorable encounter with the tempestuous and unpredictable Murtala Mohammed both as Head of State and as Akindele’s supervising commissioner at the Ministry of Communication. At a point, Akindele was so exasperated by Murtala’s bullying antics that he blurted out in Yoruba that his own child was three years’ older than the menacing Mohammed.

The straight-laced bureaucrat thought he was making an uncomplimentary comment beyond Mohammed’s linguistic ken. Little did he realise that the mysterious warlord spoke and understood Yoruba perfectly well. A few years later, in fact on the eve of Mohammed’s assassination, Akindele almost took to his heels when Obasanjo asked him in Yoruba language whether he had forgiven them for the shabby manner the government treated him, only for Mohammed to retort in Yoruba: A si nbe. (We are still pleading with him)

Although still very controversial with regards to many aspects of his distinguished career, particularly the pogrom in Asaba and the infamous burglary of the exchequer in Benin, Mohammed has long been canonised as the nation’s most iconic leader. It is also arguable that had he lived longer, Mohammed would have unraveled as deliberate and painstaking statesmanship became unamenable to his short-fused hell-raising and impetuous grandstanding. But give a man his dues. Mohammed was kind, humane, charitable and ever ready to make amends when and where his conduct or the policies of his government might have caused harm or grievous damage. Here was a noble ruler.

From a very unflattering background reeking of supremacist arrogance, Murtala made a dramatic transition to a bold and visionary conception of the nation as an organic community of equal stakeholders. From a sectarian warmonger dripping with religious and regional prejudices, he became a Pan-Nigerian patriot of unusual mettle. It was an apostolic conversion of Pauline proportions. At a very grave time when Nigeria is once again in danger of fracturing along regional and religious lines as a result of the antics of a visionless and greedy cartel, Mohammed’s dynamic and visionary leadership commends itself to an endangered nation.

These were the sober thoughts that engaged one’s attention as the ferocious sleet storm raged outside and one took a hard swig of the spirit of Austria. Suddenly, the last sentence of an e-mail one had been reading on the computer screen shattered the icy complacency. “Sir, at this moment, President Yar’Adua is flying back home and is due back in the early hours.”

“Coming back to where and to what?”, Snooper screamed at the computer screen in towering rage. The source of the news being too authentic and impeccable, one was left to impotent fury and implacable disgust. Forgetting how scantily dressed one had become in the intervening hours, one rushed out of the house and into the receding snow storm.

It was bitterly cold outside. Snooper swept past the adjoining streets not knowing where one was going. As the fury slowly subsided, the icy frost began to bury its chilly fangs deep in the body. It was as if one was beginning to have an out of body experience as outlandish creatures from outer space started crowding the vision. Out of nowhere, a middle-aged man appeared, smartly dressed in a navy blue French conductor suit. The military swagger and the swashbuckling gait was unmistakable. It was the old general. It was Murtala Mohammed.

“Talk of the devil,” Snooper mumbled in muted excitement as the teeth clattered away. In edgy contempt, the general ignored his new-found companion and then launched into a bitter tirade about the weather.

“Kai, kai, it is bloody cold. Shege. Doualla, bani taba. Akoi Benson and Hedges?,” the general growled demanding for a stick of cigarette. Snooper quickly pointed at a huge neon sign prohibiting smoking.

“Walahi, I will soon prohibit that your useless mouth for you,” the general cursed.

“:No, no no, it’s not me, it is the whiteman. They have their strict rules and regulations,”Snooper protested.

“Listen, I hate these stupid Oyinbo people. They are bloody hypocrites. They brought corruption and cheating to us and they keep calling us crooks. May Allah forgive them,” the general fumed.

“Is that why you only took bribes from them?” Snooper demanded.

“My brother, one bad turn deserves another,” the general began with a crooked, much endearing smile. “By the way how did you bloody rogue come by that? You have been reading classified material, eh? Yaro barawo ne?”

“No, no no. I have been reading Akindele’s memoirs,” Snooper corrected.

“Ah that old bugger, is he still around? He is a good man but I almost shot him. I overheard him cursing my mother in Yoruba,” the general growled.

“I never knew you spoke Yoruba language,” Snooper marveled.

“Ajoke, my wife is half Yoruba,” the great warlord noted wistfully.

“General, how about a drink at Old Orleans at Broad Street?” snooper offered.

“Drink ke? I am a devout Muslim, you know,” the general protested.

“I also know something else. There was a famous restaurant in Lagos which was your watering hole. For years after your departure they use to take adverts to celebrate your patronage,” Snooper noted with a sly wink.

“You are a real sonobabitch, you know. Okay, we’ll have a drink, but the Stout here is not as stout as the one back home. The one here is totally useless, like the people. I’ll have Johnnie Walker instead,” the General crowed with boyish enthusiasm.

“By the way, General, Umaru is back”, Snooper said more like a complaint than anything else.

“Who is Umaru?”, Murtala replied in genuine ignorance.

“Umaru Yar’Adua,” Snooper replied.

“What does he do for a living, and is he related to Shehu?”, the general queried.

“He is our president, and he is Shehu’s brother. Obasanjo left him there after returning to power two decades later.” I replied.

“Hmmmmm. That must be the boy calling himself 007,” the general began with a sardonic smirk on his face. “I don’t want to be uncharitable but has Nigeria now become a James Bond film? I know Shehu as a noble and first-class officer, loyal to the core. If he were to be around, I would not have been killed. Your yeye brother ran away. But this Umaru???”, the general brooded uneasily.

“He is being supported by some northern elements who claim that the presidency is the north’s birthright till 2015 and that nothing should be done to disturb the arrangement,” Snooper noted without much passion.

“Those lot again!!! I never allowed them near the seat of government when I was in power. They are an idle lot, forever seeking for relevance and power. If I have my way, I will put them on the farm settlement near Bagauda Lake,” the general growled.

“They are led by a man called Inua Wada,” Snooper observed.

“Kai mana, but that is my own uncle,” Mohammed blurted out.

“I was wondering, too,” Snooper croaked with some mischief.

“You see, the problem is more fundamental. By the way, what did Obasanjo himself forget at the State house that he was looking for?” Mohammed snarled.

“He forgot to mess things up properly. Now for the first time in the history of the country, we have three presidents at the same time: An Acting President; an inactive President and an active President,” Snooper noted with muted relish.

“I see. What is Theophilus Danjuma doing about the nonsense?”

“Danjuma and Obasanjo are no longer on speaking terms,” Snooper replied.

“What ? You know sometimes it may be better to die young. Longevity is a curse in Africa”, Mohammed reflected with misty eyes.

“What the colonial Army put together, post-colonial oil blocs have torn asunder,” Snooper cynically pressed on even as a sad Mohammed ignored him.

“And where is Akinrinade in all this?” Murtala growled.

“He is out in the street protesting against all of them,” Snooper replied.

“I see. It is a total disaster then. It is Abagana all over again. I must thank Sub-Lieutenant William Sheri for not missing his target. A country where Alani is a protester on the street is not worth living in”, General Murtala Ramat Mohammed noted and began moving away.

“General, what about the drink?” Snooper protested.

“To celebrate what?” Mohammed snapped. “But let me tell you this. Those of us who have killed for Nigeria and have been killed for Nigeria hold all of you responsible for this mess, this disgrace of the blackman.”

The ferocious sleet storm was still raging in Birmingham. Luckily, the automatic heating system had come on unfailingly, rousing Snooper from his catatonic stupor. The computer screen was still flashing with the lone apocalyptic message: Umaru Yar’Adua is on his way home.

February 23, 2014
Jonathan’s impunity

For the duration of his hyperactive and fairly controversial tenure, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi never quite won my unalloyed support for some of his critical policies as Central Bank of Nigeria governor. Under him, for instance, the CBN’s acts of charity rankled in many regards. His banking reform measures were also implemented with a flamboyance and uppityness that left me wondering whether his unduly feisty approach to banks and banking regulations was not more appropriate for tinseltown than for apex banking. Then he often talked nineteen to the dozen, when restraint and reticence would do, and projected himself as the ultimate Nigerian iconoclast, a sort of business and class egalitarian indifferent to the accoutrements of the wealthy as he was not incommoded by the lowliness of the classless.

Indeed, as some elements of the report prepared against him by the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) indicated, Mallam Sanusi, who was brusquely suspended a few days ago by President Goodluck Jonathan, might be inadequate in some respects and needed to painstakingly convince his traducers his integrity was not sullied by any identifiable form of financial and regulatory brashness. Perhaps he still will. But whatever might be said of the suspended CBN governor, no one could accuse of him of a lack of dignity and character. I had reservations about some of his policies as CBN governor, but I never stopped respecting him for what he stood for and how pluckily he fought for what he believed. He called his soul his own and displayed a robustness of principles seldom seen in public office in these parts.

In contrast to the dour integrity shown by Mallam Sanusi in public office, Dr Jonathan has handled power most obliquely and impiously, if not with the irritating absolutism of a monarch. The president claims to have suspended Mallam Sanusi and describes the process as innocuously routine, but everything surrounding the suspension indicated the dismissive finality of a sack. Not only was the former CBN boss removed, his temporary and permanent replacements were hastily named with a temerity that reeked of political insensitivity and unconstitutionality, and with such absolute lack of grace and class that leaves one wondering how it was possible for Dr Jonathan to demean the Nigerian presidency to such level of pettiness.

Again, in contrast to his dithering over the proven allegations against former Minister of Aviation, Stella Oduah, and in consonance with the subterfuge evident in the suspension of former President of the Court of Appeal, Justice Ayo Salami, Dr Jonathan has choked and undermined the constitution by removing Mallam Sanusi in contemptuous disregard for the law. The excuse he gave for sacking the former CBN boss is that he breached some financial rules. But in reality, the removal was probably due to the president’s exasperation with Mallam Sanusi’s volubility and irreverence. The suspended CBN boss had complained bitterly at least twice about the NNPC’s unorthodox bookkeeping methods and financial malfeasance. And the complaints had elicited intense controversies and triggered insinuations that the Jonathan presidency condoned corruption, body language and all. But the snag is that the oil agency reports to the Minister of Petroleum, Diezani Alison-Madueke, one of Dr Jonathan’s favourite cabinet members, if not the most favoured minister. Two attempts to reconcile the books of the NNPC merely reduced the gaps, not eliminated them, and gave impression the agency was nothing but a sinkhole and a conduit for funding the politics of the ruling party.

By peremptorily sacking Mallam Sanusi, Dr Jonathan has finally given indication he will henceforth not be distracted by the constitution in the pursuit of his ambition to govern Nigeria along absolutist lines. Though he was careful not to cite any constitutional provision in sacking Mallam Sanusi, perhaps knowing full well that no such provisions existed to back him, it was nonetheless clear that he gave indication his action was lawful. But there is no conceivable way of reading or interpreting the CBN Act, as amended, particularly the applicable Section 11, to back the president’s action. It is intriguing that any lawyer, not to talk of any rational person, could suggest that the said provision could be construed any other way. Section 11 is not only clear and direct; it is not ambiguous at all. The president himself knew this.

The CBN Act doubtless empowers the president to remove a CBN governor if necessary, but that power is circumscribed by and contingent upon the approval of two-thirds of the members of the Senate. The president completely discountenanced this provision and went ahead to do the unthinkable. We may not like Mallam Sanusi, but if executive, legislative and judicial actions are to be based on whom we like or dislike, we would have complete chaos. Dr Jonathan, it is clear, is besotted to some of his ministers. Anyone that challenges his favourites pokes a finger in his eyes. When Dr Jonathan suspended Justice Salami and we failed to get him to reverse himself, we unwittingly approved the president’s resort to self-help. If we fail in checking this new impeachable breach of the constitution, we should ready ourselves for more flagrant breaches of the constitution in a tension-soaked election year.

The sacking of Mallam Sanusi is not just a case of the president getting rid of a headache; it is an indication of the underlying methodology of the Jonathan presidency and an example of his dreadful unease and impatience with the restraining and civilising leashes of the constitution. Dr Jonathan, I have said repeatedly, lacks the depth and idiosyncratic understanding to appreciate the kind of democracy Nigeria should run, and the kind of country we should have, one that should serve as example and provide leadership to the rest of Africa, and one that should challenge even the most democratic country in the world. Lacking such understanding and discipline, Dr Jonathan has constituted himself and his government into a tyranny run by a camorra of friends, avaricious aides and petulant family members. We are in far worse trouble than we imagine, especially in an election year, for the president has more dangerous concoctions on tap.

If we look forward to any salvation, it will certainly not come from the presidency. Those characters in the presidency are too far gone to be redeemable. If we look to the legislature, we would have to ponder which direction to go: is it to the House of Representatives or to the Senate? If it is to the House, it is satisfying to note that that assembly of men is fairly radical and of some use. But the constitution does not give them the kind of powers that would make them tame the president in the face of a grovelling and ingratiating Senate. And if it is to the Senate we look, we would be seeing nothing but a chimera. The Nigerian Senate is a party to the conspiracy to undermine the constitution, blissfully unaware that they are in effect undermining their own very existence. They see themselves more like an arm of the ruling party, nay, a department in the Jonathan presidency. They will do nothing radical or altruistic; and they will not lift a finger in the defence of the people or the constitution.

Might the judiciary be of any help? Mallam Sanusi has already indicated he would be seeking help in its hallowed precincts. But litigation produces its own paradoxes. By going to court, Mallam Sanusi will be denying us a confirmation of the Senate’s infamy and conspiracy with the Jonathan presidency. The Senate will cite the case in court and decline discussions on the unlawful act of suspending the CBN governor. And since there is already an acting CBN governor, as it were, it would not matter whether the Senate declined to confirm the president’s nominee, Godwin Emefiele. The president can afford to wait it out. So, too, disingenuously, can the conniving Senate. In June, after Mallam Sanusi’s natural tenure expires, Emefiele’s confirmation will be done, and it will seem natural and unimpeachable.

I restate once again that the problem is not Mallam Sanusi’s competence or style. The problem is that he raised fundamental and disquieting concerns about financial disparities in that most disturbing of arcana, the NNPC, and the fact that the president in sacking Sanusi acted most precipitately and brutishly by assaulting the constitution. If we condone these infringements, we will not only be exhibiting our powerlessness in the face of intense financial impropriety on the part of government agencies, we would also be signalling to Dr Jonathan that his monarchical tendencies, his contempt for the constitution, his demeaning attachment to a few of his cabinet members and his lawless predilections will be winked at. Dr Jonathan has taken the first awful steps in the direction of Somalia, Central African Republic, Sudan/South Sudan and Democratic Republic of Congo. It is no exaggeration to say he has thus taken us closer to the precipice than at any other time in our anguished and chequered history, including the civil war era. Should we indeed be compelled to endure four more years of Dr Jonathan and his lawlessness, as some pundits are projecting, there is no telling what horrifying fate the country would meet.

February 23, 2014
Furies of February

(Muri on my Mind)

The furies of February are here with us. February is a callous month. It is the month when all illusions are shattered; when all old hopes are buried. New demons appear, while old demons refuse to disappear. If anybody thought that the Boko Haram scourge was going to be a quick fix, the past week must serve as a cautionary tale. For the first time in its history, Nigeria has been sucked into the borderless orbit of an international war. It is a war that stretches from Niger through Chad, Cameroons, Mali, Libya and all the way to stateless Somalia.

We repeat. The Nigerian military forces were never trained, prepared or equipped for this kind of combat. We have to learn by the hoof of savage contention. Meanwhile, Nigerians, tossed and trussed in the inferno of state evisceration, are praying for a hero to rescue them, no matter where the fellow comes from. But it is not the heroism of an individual that will save Nigeria this time around. It is the collective heroism of all Nigerians.

Last week marked the thirty eighth anniversary of the assassination of Murtala Mohammed. He was also thirty eight when he fell. Had he lived, Mohammed would have turned seventy six on November 8th. Ten years earlier, the tempestuous general had been the arrowhead of a bloody counter coup in which the initial war-cry had been “araba” or secession. But he was to undergo an acute transformation to become a militant champion of a united, progressive and corruption-free Nigeria. Many of his implacable critics would retort that it was only because the old parity had been restored.

That is neither here nor there. It is not how a person starts out that matters but how they end up. Mohammed was both hero and antihero; liberator of national will and libero of oppression; shaman of military terror and statesman of equity. But by his sterling example, he has shown us that it is possible for the innate goodness and humanity in all of us to triumph over personal demons. If it were to put its best foot forward, the dissolute Nigerian political class may yet redeem themselves and rescue the nation.

This morning, and by popular demand, we republish an ethereal encounter with the legendary general which first graced this page exactly four years ago.

February 23, 2014