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Category: Sunday

The mode of surplus extraction changed and corruption became the glue that holds things together: notes for young compatriots (1)

f course, I was not yet born in 1929, the year of the famous Aba Women’s Revolt against the warrant chiefs that were the agents of colonial rule in eastern Nigeria. Nonetheless, I have read as much as I can on the fateful events of that signal rebellion against unjust taxation in pre-independence Nigeria. But I was already born and was a young man during the General Strike of 1964 that almost brought down the government of Abubakar Tafawa Balewa; beyond that, the strike also nearly ended the whole bourgeois political order constituted by all the ruling class parties in the country. Indeed, 1964 was my last year in secondary school and at that stage of my very early adulthood, I had come to an awareness of progressive class politics; I had come, so to speak, to a consciousness of the fact that if you want to understand the underlying causes of injustices and distortions in the wealth and poverty of nations, you must pay special attention to the mode of surplus extraction by the political and economic elites of a society.

It was the Agbekoya Revolts of 1968-69 that finally seared this fundamental fact that the mode of extraction of social surplus by governing elites is the foundation of all politics into my consciousness. In the very midst of the Nigeria-Biafra civil war when a state of emergency banning all strikes and protests was in force throughout the country, the farmers and peasants of the southeastern part of western Nigeria rose up in armed rebellion against the state and its agencies. Emergency or no emergency, civil war or no civil war, these farmers and peasants had had enough. The whole economy of the country at that point in time, national and regional, was based primarily on the so-called cash or export crops the production of which overwhelmingly rested on the labour of farmers and peasants. Which is why the literal translation of the term “Agbekoya” means “farmers reject exploitation and suffering”. In one of the most spectacular acts of armed operations by the Agbekoya militants against the state, they marched on the city of Ibadan, stormed the central prisons at Agodi and released most of the prisoners.

Protests, demonstrations, rallies and strikes – and in some cases armed uprisings organized either by the working or the non-working poor – are more or less permanent features of all modern societies. These features of social and political earthquakes are more common and more pervasive in modern nations and societies in which the poor are made to endure severe and degrading forms of exploitation by their elites. For most of its existence as a nation, Nigeria has been such a nation of great exploitation of the poor.

From my primary school days in late colonial Nigeria to my early adulthood in the late 1960s when I was an undergraduate at Ibadan, virtually all the protests, demonstrations, strikes and armed uprisings in our country were connected to the direct appropriation of surplus produced by farmers and workers. However, by the mid-1970s when I returned from graduate studies abroad to take up a lectureship at my alma mater to the mid-1980s when I was one of the leaders of ASUU, things had changed drastically. But the change was due neither to the mere passage of time nor to the indisputable factor of new and younger generations coming into the historical scene. Rather, what had changed was the fact that the mode of surplus extraction had undergone a sea change bringing in its wake new logics and forms of protests, strikes, demonstrations and insurrections. Let me explain.

If I am not misreading the historical facts, the massacre of peasants in Bakolori, Sokoto State, in 1980, was about the last major brutal crushing of a peasant revolt based on rejection by the peasants of dispossession of their land, their primary means of production, of livelihood. Long before the Bakolori massacre, we had gone through horrendous social upheavals leading to and culminating in the civil war itself in which blood flowed freely through both state and non-state violence – pogroms, ethnic cleansing and alleged genocide. Unlike, the General Strike of 1964, the Agbekoya Revolts and the Bakolori uprising, none of these pre- and post-civil war upheavals had anything to do with the direct appropriation of surplus produced by the labour of farmers and workers; rather, in one form or another, they all had their roots, directly or indirectly, in the politics of the appropriation of wealth from offshore crude oil production as the primary source of social surplus extraction by our political elites.

For Nigerians born after 1980, the year of the Bakolori massacre, the benchmark expressions of social upheavals are – in no particular order of priority – Niger Delta militants; ASUU strikes; and the jihadist terror campaign of Boko Haram. To this list, we should perhaps add the periodic cycles of massacres between “indigenes” and “settlers” in some states of the North, principally Plateau State. There is of course a vast incommensurability between these expressions of social discontent in oil-rich but poverty stricken Nigeria. Indeed, given my own personal political and ideological history and experience, I would be the first to shudder at bringing ASUU strikes into the same orbit as Boko Haram and the settler-indigene massacres of Plateau State. [Parenthetically, I might note here that it was the fact of recently encountering the prominence that Chimamanda Adichie gives ASUU strikes in her latest novel, Americanah, that once again brought to my attention just how big ASUU strikes have become in the national imagination] The line that connects ASUU strikes to these other bizarre and horrendous expressions of social discontent is the simple but profound fact that the mode of surplus extraction by our endlessly corrupt elites has changed fundamentally from the means of exploitation that precipitated the General Strike of 1964 and the Agbekoya Revolt. In other words, this line takes us from direct exploitation of the products of the labor of farmers and workers to vastly expanded surplus extraction from the labor of a few thousands of oil rig workers, the great majority of them working offshore.

I do not wish to overstate this change in the mode of surplus extraction in Nigeria in the last thirty to forty years. Farmers and farming communities are still producing the bulk of food consumed in the country, even if supplementation through food imports is constantly rising. And in spite of continuing drastic declines in the utilization of installed industrial capacities leading to shrinkage of industrialization for light consumer goods production for the whole West Africa region, Nigeria is not Gabon, it is not the Central African Republic; we still have magnates who make their wealth from industrial and commercial activities. But in the course of my lifetime, things have changed profoundly with regard to how most of the rich make their wealth and correspondingly how the poor and the dispossessed are made penurious and alienated. And it so happens that since the median age of Nigerians is 19, the vast majority of my compatriots happen to be those who were born after 1980, the year of the Bakolori massacre. As I earlier observed in this piece, Bakolori was the last great revolt waged – and crushed – on the basis of direct exploitation of farmers’ and worker’s labour or means of production.

The most obvious and deleterious consequence of the change from extraction of surplus from direct exploitation of labour to derivation of vastly expanded surplus from offshore oil production is that both wealthy Nigerians and the state made in their image no longer feel any great pressure to respect workers’ and famers’ labour in particular and all labour in general. In my youth and within the radical circles in which I moved, we took seriously the slogan, “labour creates wealth”, almost like an article of faith. Perhaps to a lesser degree, so did the rest of the society, the governments of the regions and the government at the centre inclusive. Labour creates wealth. You have to treat labour with respect, fairness and dignity, even if sometimes you were forced to do so through demonstrations, rallies, strikes and armed uprisings. And if labour is the source of wealth, labour is also the source of value. And as the source of value, labour is what holds everything together; it is the cement that keeps the building blocks of social cohesion securely in their places within the united whole. Again with the proviso that I do not wish to idealize or romanticize the past, I would nonetheless argue that with all its imperfections and terrible crises that ultimately led to a harrowing civil war, the Nigeria of the first half of my lifetime so far was based on this principle.

As noted in the title of this piece, I am addressing this essay primarily to younger compatriots, those of the generations that came after the great sea change from the direct exploitation of the products of labour as the source of surplus extraction by our elites to oil wealth based mostly on offshore production as a source of accumulation that seems to have little or no need for the labour of the vast majority of the populace. In plain terms, the Nigeria into which our younger compatriots were born and are being born is a Nigeria in which the elites, by an overwhelming consensus, feel and act as if labour and value do not matter, at least as long as the oil keeps flowing. It is a Nigeria in which social discontents and upheavals not only keep rising but are also taking ever more bizarre and terrifying forms.

There are many reasons for this, but one big factor we must bear in mind is the fact that with the disappearance of labour and value as the linchpins of social cohesion and national unity, corruption has become the glue that keeps the society together. In lieu of equitable distribution of the social surplus through respect for and fairness to labour, corruption has become the primary means of redistribution without which everything would finally cave in. But corruption can never be a socially beneficial means of redistribution of wealth. And neither can it serve as a strong, durable glue for social cohesion. This observation, this claim will be the starting point for next week’s continuation of the series.

Biodun Jeyifo

bjeyifo@fas.harvard.edu

February 23, 2014
Gov Shettima, Boko Haram and Nigeria’s future

When Governor Kashim Shettima of Borno State hurried to Aso Villa last week to warn the president and country what terrible dangers his state and the entire Northeast confronted in the Boko Haram menace, he said a number of things that gave the impression of a paranoid speaking in hyperboles. The Boko Haram insurgents, he said plaintively but with a lot of deliberate and calculated animation, wielded more sophisticated arms than those issued to our soldiers. In addition, he wailed, the insurgents were more motivated than our troops. He was an incurable optimist, he summed up, but that didn’t make him so stupid as to deny the reality on the ground in the Northeast. And that reality, he added, was deathly and ominous.

The governor’s frantic visits stand in contrast to the unimaginative, if not lackadaisical, approach of President Goodluck Jonathan to the anti-terror war. In the early months of the insurgency, the president had shown considerable ambivalence. He vacillated between strong-arm tactics one day and conciliation another day. On some occasions, he described the insurgents in flattering but quizzical terms, and on other occasions he painted them in petrifying colours. When sufficiently inspired, he promised to fight them with all he had, but in the face of the sect’s sanguinary determination to plunge the country down the red gullet of war, he cowered behind his Aso Villa redoubt to celebrate the country’s Independence Day.

No president ever gave such ambiguous, embarrassing and cowardly signals. And no president ever failed so disastrously to ready and inspire his people for a noble war. The consequence is what the country is facing today. Not only is the insurgency raging fiercely, the presidency and even a majority of Nigerians have failed to appreciate the urgency of the threats the country is contending with and the roots of the revolt. It is true that the Northeast is the poorest part of Nigeria, but it is a cumulation of years of neglect by regional and federal governments, a neglect they will have to combine to combat. However, it is even truer that the insurgency is given fillip by the government’s longstanding and dangerous neglect of justice in all its ramifications.

Shockingly, regional and federal governments have not learnt any lesson regarding the denial of criminal, social and political justice. They have not learnt any lesson on equity and fairness between religions and between peoples. The society is riven by conflicts and by deliberately sponsored bigotry. Hearing Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau declaim on religion and society recently, it became clear just how woefully leaders in those parts had failed to build a responsible society with the right values. With his governance style and now abrasive manners, Dr Jonathan is even doing much worse, nurturing and promoting a society completely shorn of justice, equity and fairness. How could his troops feel motivated to fight Boko Haram with as much dedication and decorum as Governor Shettima hopes, when they are not part of a society we all have reasons to sacrifice our lives for, a society where to serve as an example a Stella Oduah is promptly punished for infractions, and a Sanusi Lamido Sanusi is not unfairly cudgelled for stepping on powerful toes?

February 23, 2014
Okon to return Sanusi’s documents

On Thursday morning while Snooper was having an early morning reverie on the state of the nation, Okon barged in panting breathlessly.

“Oga, he don happen. Dem come dumbu dem mosquito mala for Shakara Bank, abi wetin dem dey call am sef? “ the crazy boy chortled.

“Okon get lost, it is not possible. The president does not have such power,” Snooper snarled, waving the crazy boy away.

“President no get power. Oga, what if power come get president?” the boy snorted and slunk away. Later in the day after the earthquake had sunk in, the mad boy returned to press home his advantage. This time, he was dressed in flowing babanriga. Before Snooper could say a word, Okon had opened fire.

“Oga I wan quickly reach Kano make I return dem kulikuli and goro dem mala forget for office,” the mad boy crowed.

“Okon, be careful. There is something foul and nasty in the air,” Snooper warned.

“Na mala shit be dat.” the crazy boy snorted.

“Sanusi will challenge Jonathan in court,” Snooper noted without conviction.

“Ha oga, mala no dey play Challenge cup. Dis no be time for yeye grammar,” the boy shot back.

“Okon, get lost, now, now now” Snooper screamed.

“Oga, you dey say progress no dey for Naija. But Ijaw man come dey wire mala like dat. Na so him be before before? Small time now Efik houseboy go dey hammer dem Yoruba masters.” Sensing the dawn of the dreaded apocalypse, Snooper sprang up. Okon fled.

February 23, 2014
State of osun: Bishops for hire

For purposes of whatever may be coming to some of our churches, if any, from the U.S, must we continue to denigrate that which is ours?

In his article, ’Osun and Traditional Religion: A Bishop’s Howler’, the erudite scholar, Professor Moses Akinola Makinde, did such a marvellous job of dissembling Bishop Mike Bamidele’s misdirected shibboleths as they concern Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola’s wide ranging educational reconstruction in the state of Osun that it becomes almost superfluous to weigh in again at all –See P. 73, The Nation on Sunday, February, 2014. However, while Professor Makinde was content with taking only an intellectual view of the Bishop’s convoluted views, I am by far more inclined to see the man’s dirty politics of name-calling. He won’t be the first Bishop in this game since it looks like hiring Bishops –call them Rasputins – by some Southwest politicians has become a fad. The other day, it was Hon Opeyemi Bamidele carrying a nonagenarian retired Bishop on a farewell visit to his erstwhile political leaders, and the reader wins nothing for correctly guessing which Osun politician might have our Bishop on his payroll in the instant case.

Since I had no previous knowledge of Bishop Bamidele, and in order not to be unduly judgmental, I decided to google-search him. The little I found on him was quite instructive. Left to him, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola is the devil itself, and, ipso facto, ill-suited to be the number one citizen in the state of Osun. What pointed, unmistakably, to this was his UTube presentation titled: Light Make Different.

In that short presentation, paganism, which he accuses Aregbesola of encouraging in the state, is presented in the most lurid of terms; it is not only the opposite of light but it is out to kill and destroy. You need not be told that in the Bishop’s thinking, devotees of traditional religion are destined for the hottest part of hell. This, he, therefore, hangs on Aregbesola who, many sensationally allege, is too much of a Muslim, as leading the good people of Osun into. Many readers of this article will be whispering under their breath: ‘touch not my anointed, do my prophet no harm’, but what exactly do you do when an otherwise very articulate Bishop forgets all about comparative religion, a study of which should have enabled him do a helpful comparison of the doctrines and practices of the world’s religions in order to have a deeper understanding of human beliefs and practices regarding the sacred and the divine.

In completely writing off Yoruba traditional religion, a man who many expect to educate and enlighten is busy obfuscating, for what purpose only he knows.

Let me now tell our Bishop how the Yoruba traditional religion is regarded outside our shores even as our ‘men of God’ choose to be more white than the white man. I document below, two eye witness accounts of events that put a lie to the mindset of the Bishop Makinde’s of this world.

The first is by U.S-based Bunmi Fatoye-matory who recently wrote as follows on ekitipanupo:

‘I and my hubby, a scholar of Yoruba religion, are living in Berlin this year. Berlin, Germany, is the last place I expected to find Yoruba religion and culture, but there it is. We found the Orisa temple, called Candomble by the Brazilians in a very nice neighbourhood in Berlin. It was very elegant and inviting just like it is in Brazil. The founder is a Brazilian priest who has lived in Berlin for a long time. We attended the ceremony for Iyansan, known to us at home as Oya. The crowd was mostly white and some few black Germans and Brazilians. There were songs and dances for each Orisa and that night Osun, Iyansan and Ogun came down to possess the initiates. They danced, they spoke and they offered blessings. The crowd in this place was educated, writers, film makers, anthropologists, etc. many of whom are initiated. They paid obeisance to the gods and we all danced. The officials who address the gods all spoke YORUBA. These were not Yoruba people. I later introduced myself to the Pai de Santo, the priest, and he showered me with that special honour and attention given to me as a Yoruba woman and as a person from the home of Osun, Igede. Since then, I have had several requests from the devotees to be taught Yoruba. Writing further, Mrs Fatoye- Matory said: ‘Folks, in the 21st C., Yoruba religion is becoming a World Religion and the torch bearers are not Yoruba people. Either in Cuba, Brazil, or many cities such as Miami, New York, Berlin, Port of Spain and Lisbon, our gods and goddesses are marching on in spite of the desertion by their children, without the advantages of missionaries or The Book. I met two Danish guys who came from Copenhagen to attend the ceremony. They are initiated even though there is no temple in Denmark yet. Yoruba people – obviously the likes of Bishop Makinde – are spreading Abrahamic Religions around the world; some of them are mutilating their names to get

rid of the evidence of their families’ ancestral Orisas. Many refuse to teach Yoruba to their children. Europeans and Latin Americans of all races are thirsting for our gods, language and traditions. Only Eledumare knows where this is going. One bit of hope is the response of Diaspora children. Across U.S. Colleges, many of them are interested in connecting to their roots. They are learning the languages of their ancestors and researching the traditions.’

‘Yes, indeed, my sister’, interjected Professor Akin Oyebode, a Law Professor of international repute: ‘I recall watching the cultural troupe of Cuba in Moscow in 1967 rendering songs to Obatala, Sango and Yemoja in heavily Spanish-adulterated Yoruba but still somewhat understandable to my humble self. In fact, a former Cuban Ambassador once told me that the Yoruba religion and culture were more authentic in Cuba than Nigeria…So, I’m at one with you on the passion of the African Diaspora for their roots.’Now, has it occurred to our Bishop that the Yoruba culture and language are thriving in as far afield as Brazil, Cuba, Portugal, the West Indies –where there is a town called ‘Beokuta, according to our own WS -, even in the United States of America? Does he know that this ensures the indestructibility of the Yoruba language and culture even where, back at home, our elite no longer like to speak the language to their children because it is considered infradig if their 4-year old does not speak English?

Has it occurred to Bishop Bamidele that in an age when the Southwest is fervently preaching fiscal federalism and taking it gingerly to the national conference, only agriculture can dwarf tourism as our main source of revenue in Yoruba land? For purposes of whatever may be coming to some of our churches, if any, from the U.S, must we continue to denigrate that which is ours? Probably unknown to the Bishop, many of our states in the region have poured billions into tourism development and both Osun Osogbo and Ikogosi in Ekiti are already showing what a milch cow tourism could become for us.

And as a passing shot, our reverend gentlemen, not just the Bishop, should either be content with their tithes or remove their cassocks and join partisan politics.

They will be more than welcome.

February 23, 2014
Conference modalities: citizens versus subjects (3)

The central question that must not be ignored is whether such selected delegates have any reason to be accountable to specific nationalities

The conclusion to last week’s piece is that though the nationalities should be the major stakeholders in the forthcoming national conference, it has been severely short changed by the modalities released by the presidency for the conference. The nationalities colonised and amalgamated (not federated) into Nigeria had been marginalised by the presidency and made to yield the position of influence to selected members of the ruling and propertied class. It is expected that pro-special stakeholders would readily remind me that all the people going to the conference have their origins in the country’s nationalities, regardless of whatever other interests they may have.

The central question that must not be ignored is whether such selected delegates have any reason to be accountable to specific nationalities. If they have to be accountable at all, it would be to their sponsors or nominators. The possible effect of a national conference that is dominated by special interests is that the recommendations may not be far-reaching enough to achieve sustainable unity and democracy in a multinational federation. With a decree-like resolution to replace the option of a popular referendum by the provision that the conference should determine how to integrate its recommendations into the existing constitution through the mechanism of the national assembly that is currently dominated by PDP, the signs of a conference that may not achieve much are too unmistakable to ignore. Up till the eve of the conference, the ruling party has not made any statement of affirmation or rejection of the conference brought into being by the president. If the PDP is not openly committed to the conference, it is not inconceivable that the national assembly dominated by the party may ignore or water down whatever recommendations are sent to it from the conference.

With a national conference conducted in consonance with modalities now in force, the scenarios are varied. Conference recommendations that cannot be given teeth through a referendum can produce a few cosmetic amendments that may be acceptable to a national assembly that has been interminably engaged in assembling its own amendments to the military constitution that has shaped post-military governance since 1999. If recommendations include items too radical for a conservative legislature to handle, the possibility of resorting to the national assembly’s efforts to amend the constitution will become high. Should the conference fail to garner support from 75% of delegates, then the country would be back to similar experience that obtained at the end of Obasanjo’s conference, when the regional delegates just ceased to meet after selected delegates from the Northeast and the Northwest said that they had no contribution to make because they were not aware beforehand that the conference was going to modify the architecture of governance in the country. Another scenario (God forbid) is that the conference may not be able to come up with any recommendations until the end of the year, thus getting in the way of the election and making it necessary for the president to suspend the conference until after election. In other words, the country may still be saddled with the 1999 Constitution in its entirety until the 2015 election is over. With a conference with a majority of delegates being nominees of various interest groups, citizens would have no power to call them to question nor the courage to hold the few delegates from nationalities responsible for any confusion or lack of progress.

As discouraging as these scenarios may be, there is still no justification for nationalities to be absent from the conference. The possibility that a conference or any meeting may fall through does not provide sufficient condition to stay away from it, as doing so makes failure automatic and immediate. Nationalities that believe that there is a need to create a new constitution to drive the country’s diversity in unity should prepare for the conference with determination to make it a success, despite the bleak scenarios identified earlier.

If for nothing else, the conference will provide another opportunity for the country’s nationalities to exchange their frustrations about the near failure of the Nigerian state while proffering suggestions on how to turn the corner from failure to success by identifying without apology elements of a flawed political structure that the 1999 Constitution represents. For too long, many nationalities have minced words about what is wrong with the country and what should be done to move the country in the right direction. The conference may encourage all nationalities to let each other know what each would accept or reject in terms of how to move the country away from a unitary model that has hobbled it for decades. All these may not at the end of the day amount to creating a new constitution, but they will give ample chance to nationalities to externalise their political subconscious and exteriorise hidden fears and suspicions that undermine a culture of peace, progress and sustainable unity. If at the end of such honest discussion of the worries and desires of each nationality nothing concrete happens, at least a more solid ground will have been laid for future national conferences.

Most of the countries that have succeeded in creating federal constitutions have taken time to get there. Belgium started as a unitary and centralised polity in 1831. It evolved into a federal state in 1970, improved its constitution to enhance its federalism in 1993 and has amended its constitution 29 times since 1994. Switzerland, another federal state as a confederation as far back as 1833, created opportunities in 1866, 1872, 1874, and 1999 to transform its constitution to a federal one. Germany has improved its federal constitution several times between 1948 and 2006. United Arab Emirates became a federation in 1971 and have amended its federal charter twice in 1979 and 1996. Ethiopia, the world’s youngest federal state with the most radical constitution with respect to self-determination rights for nationalities, achieved a federal constitution that declared the country an ethnic federal system in 1994 after decades of unitary rule. The United Kingdom ran its multiethnic state as a centralised one for centuries until it began the process of devolution largely at the instance of the insistence of Scotland for home rule. It is largely the consistency in the commitment of citizens to constitutional changes that matters more than the opportunity given by any particular government to dialogue with or without constraints.

While delegates selected to represent nationalities should go to the national conference with optimism and enthusiasm to end the politics of domination, often euphemistically named as politics of unity by beneficiaries of the current unitary constitution, they should not be disappointed if this attempt does not solve once and for all the country’s political problems that also spawn economic and social problems. The experience will certainly serve as another rehearsal for a conference that will restore true political and fiscal federalism.

Concluded

February 23, 2014
The crucifixion of truth

With Sanusi’s sack through the back door by President Jonathan, like Justice Salami’s, who is next?

Do not get carried away by the title of this piece. Nothing in it suggests that the immediate past governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, who was suspended (actually sacked) by President Goodluck Jonathan on Wednesday, is a saint. In Nigeria, who is a saint?

A statement signed by Reuben Abati, the president’s spokesman, said inter alia: “ Having taken special notice of reports of the Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria and other investigating bodies, which indicate clearly that Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi ‘s tenure has been characterised by various acts of financial recklessness and misconduct which are inconsistent with the administration’s vision of a Central Bank propelled by the core values of focused economic management, prudence, transparency and financial discipline …” the Federal Government had no choice but to suspend the CBN governor.

One thing that is not funny about the so-called suspension is that it is a case of the pot calling the kettle black. The Jonathan administration is deficient in all the qualities it has outlined as constituting Mallam Sanusi’s sins. Which financial recklessness is greater than the one in which our foreign reserves and even the excess crude account are being depleted voraciously without any tangible thing to explain the depletion? And this in spite of the fact that crude prices have been soaring far beyond budgetary projections! If the government is talking of core values, what constitutes its own core values? Does transparency exist in the government’s lexicon?

As a matter of fact, this is the main reason why Mallam Sanusi incurred the wrath of President Jonathan. The CBN boss, had raised certain fundamental issues about the way billions of dollars are missing from the government’s coffers and, instead of the government thanking him (even if that is not his duty), he was asked to resign. As someone who knows his right, he refused. It was clear at that point that the President would take his pound of flesh.

A predictable President Jonathan did last Wednesday. But we need to be worried, especially when dangerous precedents become a predictable pattern. I must confess that some of us heard something akin to what eventually happened to the CBN governor more than three weeks ago. What was in the air then was that the CBN governor would just get to his office and be barred from going in by security agents, and without any explanation, perhaps beyond the usual ‘order from above’. May be those who were to hatch the plot figured that might not go without incidents and so decided to wait for a more auspicious time. That came Wednesday when the former governor was in Niamey to attend the conference of the West African Currency Zone with other governors of the Central Banks in West Africa. Sanusi was reported to have hurriedly left the venue of the meeting shortly after the Nigerian Ambassador to Niger confirmed to him the directive suspending him by the presidency.

When, the other time Justice Ayo Salami was the victim of presidential recklessness, we thought it was his (Salami’s) business. All we offered then was a feeble resistance. Even when the judiciary that took the matter to the President (apparently in error) said it had found nothing against the former President of the Court of Appeal and that he should be recalled from suspension, President Jonathan looked the other way and ensured that Justice Salami retired from his so-called suspension.

The danger in our docility or nonchalance on matters like these is that impunity will continue to beget impunity. It is already happening. This paper’s editorial on Mallam Sanusi’s sack on Friday took us down the memory lane when it said that Alhaji Shehu Shagari took time out to address the nation when, during his time, N2.8billion oil money was said to be missing. This was the result of the outrage in the entire country. These days, worse allegations of corruption involving billions of dollars are treated as if they are not unusual. Indeed, Nigerians are no longer shocked by public officials stealing in millions, the vogue now is to steal in billions since hell would not be let loose.

But these are too dangerous precedents that should not be encouraged in a democratic setting. The stark reality is that fascism is fast creeping in. President Jonathan does not need to tell us that he is neither Pharaoh nor Herod; his actions have spoken louder than his voice to give us an idea of his true personality. And the situation can only get worse with the 2015 elections getting closer because most things happening in the country, particularly on the political and economic plains, including the removal of Mallam Sanusi, are all about the 2015 elections. Nigerians who felt the 2011 elections gulped money would see that the next general elections would gulp even more. What was spent in 2011 would be chicken feed to what would be spent next year. And that money must come from somewhere. All kinds of books would be cooked because there won’t be any heading for such expenditure anywhere in the budget. We may start to feel the negative impact of such unearned income on the economy by the third or fourth quarter of the year. Now that Mallam Sanusi has been fired, the allegations may die naturally because not many people would want to suffer the same fate. In all these, Nigeria is the loser.

Be that as it may, by saying that he suspended Mallam Sanusi, President Jonathan has merely fooled Nigerians. He is only being clever by a quarter, not even by half. It is a slap on our faces because what has happened means that the President knows that he has no power to sack the CBN governor by virtue of section 11, subsection 2(f) of the CBN Act, without at least two-thirds of the Senate members concurring. Yet, he does not like his (Sanusi’s) face (or is it his guts?) and so decided to throw him out with impunity. If all he did was suspend the former CBN governor, why the unholy haste in announcing an acting CBN governor only to follow it up with the nomination of his replacement?

This kind of decisiveness in not vintage President Jonathan, except when the matter concerns people whose faces he does not like. We know how long it took us to get him remove his former Minister of Aviation, Ms Stella Oduah, despite the weighty allegations against her. The other, his petroleum minister, Diezani Alison-Madueke, whose case is even worse than Oduah’s remains on the beat years after Nigerians have come to see her ministry as an epitome of corruption.

The truth of the matter is that whatever arbitrariness the CBN Act sought to prevent by insulating the apex bank’s governor from an overbearing executive would have been defeated if the bank boss can be suspended the way President Jonathan has done. People get away with these things because they are hardly challenged. It is on this score that I support Mallam Sanusi’s decision to challenge his suspension in court. Even a baby lawyer would know that if you lack the power to remove or sack, you cannot have the power to suspend in this situation, and especially in our kind of clime where government specialises in satanic subterfuge even as it lacks the capacity to deliver good governance. Obviously, the President too might be aware of this point but decided to go ahead with his plan in the hope that Mallam Sanusi would challenge him in court. Given the snail speed at which justice travels in the country, his (Sanusi’s) term would have elapsed by the time the case is decided. In which case, the President would still have had his way.

It is high time Nigerians rose against this reign of impunity. With two vital parts of our lives – the judiciary and now the CBN – being gradually subdued as it were, we may find it difficult to differentiate between good and bad, or morality and immorality, at the rate this government is perverting the system. Ideally, one would have hinged hope on the Senate but the Upper legislative house as presently constituted cannot be trusted to stop the rampaging government. Otherwise, the starting point would have been to ask it not to confirm the appointment of Zenith Bank boss, Godwin Emefiele as Mallam Sanusi’s successor. Whatever sins Mallam Sanusi might have committed, due process ought to be followed in addressing his case. We should not leave our fate in the hands of any overbearing executive. At the rate we are going under this government, truth would soon join the long list of essential but scarce commodities.

February 23, 2014
The walking deaf

If we had a government, we would have just said ‘Dr. Jonathan, please clean up this noise’

I have a horror of horror films; so I must confess I have never sat down to watch the TV series from which I have adapted today’s title, The Walking Dead. I understand however that it has a bit to do with some zombies eating up another set of zombies. Just like real life, no?! Howbeit, I just could not resist concocting my title pun from that title as you can see above. Generally, though, I regard horror films as being spawned from idle, devilish minds with insufficient grasps of reality. Reality is not made up of horror stories. It’s a lot worse. I’m sure you have heard the phrase ‘life imitating art’ or ‘art imitating life’? Well, it’s true, both ways. I mean, what else can we call the recent firing of the Central Bank governor, Sanusi Lamido, by the presidency if not life imitating art? If someone had put the entire scenario on stage, everyone would be rolling in laughter, throwing legs in the air and howling heads off. But it did not happen in the theatre; it happened in real life. There is just so much laughter you can throw at life. Luckily, I had warned you at the beginning of the year to be a good boy’s scout and be prepared. Anyway, that’s not why we are here today; so let’s move on.

Wait, though, let me tell you about another of my horrors. Have you noticed how horribly hot the African sun has got lately? I tell you, it’s a blistering horror story! When I venture out into it these days and I deign to look up at the sky, I am quite convinced the Almighty has turned up the volume of the rays just to let us know something. Do you know what that something is, ‘cause I don’t? Anyway, listen, I think we need some concerted effort to enable us do some talking to the sun, and maybe tell it how much we really don’t like the way it’s getting things done these days. So, how about it?

Oh yeah, I do have another horror, and its noise, particularly the ones that tend to blast the sleep out of your eyes in the night or in the morning. I wrote about this before but it does not appear as if anyone heard me, perhaps because there has been so much being noised abroad lately. Let me start with the early morning ones. There I am, stretching out my paw about to grasp the check of two million Naira made out in my name and suddenly, a blast rends the air into two separate halves and I think the heavens are trumpeting my win. The persistence of the shrill eventually wakes me up and I check my palm to find nothing, only some earfuls till I realise I’ve been dreaming. Oh no, it’s not the skies, it’s my Muslim brothers calling for prayers. What’s worse, now, there is a multiplicity of such extremely loud calls saying different things and all coming from many loud speakers in the same neighbourhood from around 5.00 am to as long as 7.00 am till I wonder. Now, one loud speaker has added a sermon to its own calls. This is just not fair, I mumble, as I stare at the horror of it all in my pillow.

Then there are the churches. There are my Christian brothers and sisters who persist in conducting their vigils right inside my ears. On some designated nights, the drum taps begin gently enough just as we not so holy ones are preparing for bed. Gradually, the taps begin to grow into gentle beats and I am thinking, not bad. Suddenly, however, someone seizes the microphone and all hell is let loose. I would like to think it’s the demons flying out into outer space but the ratatat of the drums do not resemble demons, only some terrible noises threatening to throw me out of bed. The reason is that the voice that cracks into the air does so like whips and the drums refuse to be outdone by lady nightingale; they pick up their own tempo until they reach a crescendo where they are consumed into an ecstasy. Then you can feel both singer and drummer directly jostling for the inner recesses of the meshed wires of the microphone. The church walls cannot contain them; the very air cannot contain them and the wind helps by dispersing the sound right into my pillow which in turn distributes them into my ears. I don’t know about you but between the two religionistas, I have become The Walking Deaf. What is that? WHAT DID YOU SAY?

Honestly, I no longer know what our religionists are about: scaring the living daylights out of me or raising me to a higher level of spiritual consciousness. If the former, I think they are succeeding very well. I am now going about with eyes rounded from sleep deprivation; legs dragging behind me from sleep deprivation, and a dull appetite from, you guessed it, sleep deprivation. Actually that is what bothers me most: my appetite that is now no longer as sharp as it used to be. Indeed, it is no more than a shadow of its former self. I don’t want to tell you what I used to consume in a day; that would be bragging. I can only tell you that I can now no longer eat more than two meals, and that, my friend, is bad news indeed. Forget what my doctor said.

Wait, there is yet a third dimension. Many, if not all, record sellers feel it is their bounden duty to suffuse the air with the harmful decibels of sound as they advertise their special numbers on the air at all times. Worse yet, the advertisements are at the highest volume which are most unfriendly to the ears. The noise is so deafening there is no hearing yourself speak or even think. That’s right; you walk away from the environment looking more like a zombie than a human; hence The Walking Dead.

If the two religions mean to raise my spiritual consciousness, all I can say is that they are going about it the wrong way. They are not thinking of the third option. That option says that it is possible for me to prefer to commune with my creator through a QUIET snooze in the morning, you know, those early morning hours when you get the promises of a car, house, wife, husband, jet, etc. from your maker.

What both religions are producing right now are unnecessary noises which are no credit to worship and are only contributing to my appetite loss. You know the other things noises do, don’t you? Well, let’s see. According to doctors, when we’re exposed to harmful noise either from being too loud or too prolonged, then we can develop hearing loss. When the sound is repeated, such as a loud all-night night vigil, the ears can begin to lose their power. Ask the doctor nearest to you how loud sounds can also affect your blood pressure and your appetite, you know, that doctor who doubles as your spouse.

Listen people, it is a well known fact that the government has very little respect for us. It does not need us for anything except taxes and sometimes, only sometimes, to vote. Actually, I suspect the government can do without us all together. This is why all we have is each other; that is also why we must look after each other. If we had a government, if we had a president, we would have just said ‘Dr. Jonathan, please clean up this noise’. In the absence of that, we can only plead for some mutual respect. Please, let’s have less noise.

February 23, 2014
Stop Boko Haram now

I was tempted to join in debate over the surprised suspension from office of Malam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi as Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria by President Goodluck Jonathan last Thursday but I would rather not.

Much as Sanusi’s suspension is a major issue considering the controversy it will continue to generate in the weeks ahead, I have been haunted by the picture of children among victims of the renewed attacks by the Boko Haram insurgents in Borno State that I would prefer to dwell on the worrisome endless killings in the North East region of the country which requires the urgent attention of the federal government.

They looked forlorn in tears and uncertain of the future ahead of them. With details of the horrifying attacks unleashed by the terrorists on some villages where they escaped from, the trauma the children and other victims must have been subjected to is unimaginable.

It is difficult to understand why any group would engage in this act of inhumanity to man in the name of whatever cause they claim to be fighting for. Hundreds of innocent persons have been killed and injured while others have been rendered homeless by the group which have not only claimed responsibility but has threatened more attacks.

So much lives and property have been wasted that more than ever before urgent steps must be taken before the insurgents chase everybody out of Borno, including the Governor Kashim Shettima who claimed that the gunmen are better equipped than the men of the Nigerian Army on ground in the state.

I was not surprised by the reaction of the presidency which must have been scandalized by the Governor’s statement despite the various resources and men deployed to stop the carnage.

Instead of engaging any claim and counter claim over the situation in Borno and other states where the insurgents have been wrecking lots of havoc, the affected states and the federal government must close ranks and find a lasting solution to this major challenge which has brought the country into focus in the international community for the wrong reason.

The federal government can definitely not be accused of not being committed to ending the crisis. It must be admitted that the presence of the residents in the battle areas has hindered the Nigerian military from launching an all out onslaught to smoke out the insurgents.

It is apparent that the military is trying hard to minimize the civilian casualties and the nature of this delicate assignment for the Nigerian armed forces has to be appreciated.

The scary situation playing out in Borno which may spread to other parts of the Country if not quickly checked must have informed the resolution by the House of Representatives to call for the relocation of the Army Headquarters to Borno.

While there may be no need to relocate the army headquarters over this matter, there is need for better strategies, equipment and men to effectively prosecute this War against the Boko Haram group which seems determined to make the North Eastern States, if not the whole North ungovernable.

Whatever should be done to stop the Boko Haram must be done. The group must not be allowed turn the country or any part to another Somalia.

February 23, 2014
Going to meet Pa Michael Imoudu

To Ojavun-Emai deep in the rural bowels of good old Edo State for some bucolic pleasure and rapture with nature. This is the famed old Bendel countryside with its alluring rolling hills, its magical forests, its breathtaking scenic beauty and the sheer expanse of arable lands. This is the land of brave men and women who do not take hostages with their sharp and sizzling tongue.

In a situation of national strife and confusion, there is nothing more healing and therapeutic than escaping to the countryside. It acts like a soothing balm to frayed and frazzled nerves. In the post-colonial nation, the city is where it hurts most; the city is where it is most dangerous; the city is where the pathologies of the urban denizens are most pronounced and most severe; the city is the citadel of lost souls. See Paris and die, as they used to say.

There are even more compelling reasons to leave the city and head for Ojavun-Emai via the famed Sabongida Ora. The treasures and jewels in this part of the country, both human and natural, are inestimable, to put things in a rather oblique manner. And yet despite having journeyed all over the nooks and crannies of this vast nation, this is one magical corner that had so far eluded yours sincerely. Several opportunities missed, it was beginning to look like a rendezvous permanently postponed, until last Saturday that is. When are we going to see the land of Michael Imoudu?

But let us cut to the chase, drop this sentimental waffling, and get to the real reason for going to Ojavun-Emai. As everybody knows, in journalism there are two major disincentives: Censorship and self-censorship. The one is more direct and overt, invariably arising from threats from the powers that be. The other is more covert and oblique, almost certainly arising from warnings from the inner powers that be and the natural human instinct for self-preservation. The antennae of trouble advises you to avoid certain topics and issues.

It was Sonala Olumhense, the notable Nigeria journalist and aficionado of fine music, who coined the classic phrase for self-censorship in the eighties. He called it going to Afghanistan. Whenever the home terrain gets too hot, the discerning journalist escapes to some forgotten and misbegotten corner of the globe for some safe topics. But it may well be that the remarkable Ishan pen-pusher spoke too soon. Nigeria is big enough to accommodate strategic detours. Why go to Afghanistan when you can go to Sabongida Ora? Internal self-deportation is better than external self-expulsion.

The country is certainly getting more interesting by the day. The stakes are being dramatically raised. It is going to be a desperate scrape. This week in faraway London and on Bloomberg, the old bruiser from Owu dropped another bombshell to the effect that Jonathan agreed to spend only one term. That one is presumably for international consumption. The battle line is sharply drawn. Obasanjo is the Joe Frazier of contemporary Nigerian politics. Once his mind is made up, old Smokin Joe would keep coming at you until you dump him on the canvas that is if he doesn’t fell you with a sledgehammer. See folks? I will rather be in Sabongida Ora.

Only last week in this column, we published what was purported to be Okon’s own snipers’ list. An avid reader of the column who goes by various aliases but most notably Tata or Iska Countryman promptly shot back: “Oga Snooper, I worked hard to get your name off the list” To his minatory mentors, Tata argued that it was no use killing the messenger because it brings bad luck. After conceding Snooper’s divine skills as an obituarist, the internet cricket warned Snooper never to mention the word revolution in this column if he doesn’t want his name back on the dreaded list.

Well, there is no point mentioning revolution when the real stuff is already with us. Last weekend as soon as the Arik flight landed in Benin, one could sniff revolution in the air. The old city of Benin is draped and emblazoned in revolution. Twice in the last four years in this column, we have had to draw attention to the slow transformation of this historic city from a sleepy rustic municipal village to a glittering metropolis.

This Saturday morning as one began to make his way from the sexed up airport through the city and on to the outskirt, you have a feeling of a complete transformation. The colonial clutter and cataract were gone. This was not the clogged up agrarian catastrophe you knew by heart in the seventies.

The streets of Benin are wide and well-paved again, just as the dazed and dazzled Portuguese explorers met them in the fifteenth century. There is a feel-good atmosphere everywhere. Snooper is reliably informed that even the great and wise old king of Benin has flatly insisted that even if the walls of the ancient storied palace have to make way for modernity, so be it. Thank you very much sir.

You soon got the imprimatur of the man running the show even inside the bus taking you to Sabongida. The big brother is watching you. Like Bakayoko, the epic character in Sembene Ousmane’s Marxist novel, God’s Bits of Wood, Adams Aliyu Oshiomhole is everywhere and nowhere in particular. But you feel his overpowering presence everywhere. Oshiomhole is an African big brother: tough but compassionate; caring but not careless. It surely takes a tough man to rein in this tough breed.

Inside the bus, Louis Odion, the intrepid and feisty Edo Commissioner for Information, had been running some colorful, abrasive and irreverent commentaries particularly about the political dinosaurs that held the state to ransom. But the driving was getting in the way. The rogue driver, a comically mustachioed fiend if you have ever seen any, could not care a hoot about the august personages he was ferrying. Piking no pass piking, as they say in that corner of the country. After a particularly nerve wracking feat of dangerous overtaking, Louis finally snapped. “I will report you to Comrade”, he shrieked at the devil. This seemed to have calmed him down immediately. Comrade is not for camaraderie when it comes to indiscipline.

Snooper is very familiar with the landscape and topography of the old Bendel country side, its flora and fauna and its memorable mix of vegetation. After a few acute remarks about where the road was leading and the rural intersections ahead, Sam Omatseye remarked that his footloose majesty seems to know everywhere in the country. Needless to add that some of the journeys tell their own story and the tragedy of modern Nigeria.

Almost 30 years earlier, we were on the same road to bury Dele Giwa in his ancestral village. Snooper remembers that on the road leading to Fugar and Agenebode, Adesua, a former student, miraculously materialised like a beautiful mirage on the side of the road among the crowd waving Dele an emotional goodbye. A few years earlier, Snooper was a regular fixture on the same road.

This time around, it was as a gesture of solidarity with the Nigerian Tribune and the African Newspaper group. Alhaji Umoru Omolowo was the police commissioner in the old Oyo State during the infamous electoral heist of 1983. He retired from the force shortly thereafter. But as a gesture of punitive indignation, he had sued The Nigerian Tribune for defamation in his hometown of Okene.

Tribune’s lawyer, Barrister Akin Ige, is a great crony and Snooper could not abandon the poor chap to the mercy of the fierce masquerades of Okene. It must be said for posterity that in court, Alhaji Omolowo was ever polite, courteous and solicitous of our wellbeing. The case eventually collapsed. So much for the rigid binary divides of Nigerian politics.

By now, we had arrived in Sabongida Ora. There was something eerily unsettling in the air. The place was exactly as one had dreamt about and imagined. There was a feeling of Déjà vu. Rustic, idyllic villages nestling in the commodious expanse of agrarian paradise. All over the community, you noticed several glinting, freshly coated red-roofed school buildings standing side by side with the dilapidated pigsties that passed for schools in the old era.

Again, Louis Odion was very helpful. The administration of the wily Adams Oshiomhole had deliberately left the old buildings as a museum of educational atrocity to remind the people that they were once held in bondage by educated barbarians. The point is well made. Oshiomhole is a wizard of telling tropes and searing symbolisms.

Lest we forget why we were actually in the rural nirvana. We had come to Ojavun-Emai to pay our last respects to the late Madam Elizabeth Okheren Ifijeh, beloved mother of Victor Awolowo Ifijeh, the Managing Director of Vintage Press, publishers of The Nation newspaper. Huge banner posters of mama beaming a winsome and most beatific smile adorned the entire route.

For Victor who has distinguished himself in the cloak and dagger world of Nigerian print journalism, it was also a triumphant homecoming. The ever retreating and self-effacing Victor would have found the whole thing a tad overwhelming. A man of muscular Christianity and much humility, Victor is rare breed in the pompous and egoistic world of Nigerian journalists.

The funeral was now getting to the processional hymn. Will the real Adams Aliyu Oshomhole show up as advertised? Suddenly, the ground erupted. And there was the real McCoy, sleek and agile like a pint-sized political panther in the jungle. The crowd swooned in rapturous ovation as Adams jumped down with his legendary contempt for protocol.

The last time Snooper saw him he was carrying his own luggage at Terminal Five in Heathrow. When questioned, Oshiomhole told Snooper that he was heading for Miami for an Edo reunion. But unlike the anonymous ambience of Heathrow, the governor is a folk hero to the rural folks here.

And trust the man to know exactly what to say to the crowd. To wild acclaim, he had promised the community a huge water reservoir that would meet their crying need. For a long time to come, the good people of Edo would not be in hurry to forget Oshiomhole. What would the iconic Pa Michael Imoudu say to this development? That one of his own local descendants achieved an infrastructural revolution in his own home state without the textbook workers’ uprising and revolution? The answer is up there in the air. For now, so is Adams Aliyu Oshiomhole. It has been a good trip to the old Afemai Division.

February 16, 2014
Jonathan’s late salvoes

President Goodluck Jonathan may have eased out four members of his so-far uninspiring cabinet, and seems set to bring in more notable persons, but it is doubtful whether the reshuffle will have quite the remarkable momentum he hopes to create for his performance as president and his re-election campaign. His Chief of Staff, the much reviled and hated Mike Oghiadomhe, has been shoved out. So, too, were the haughty Stella Oduah of the Aviation ministry, the officious Caleb Olubolade of Police Affairs, the imperious Godsday Orubebe of the Niger Delta ministry and the relatively unknown Yerima Ngama, Minister of State for Finance. Having watched with macabre delight the effect the reshuffle was having on the country, the president, reports suggest, is now seized by a frenzy to draw more blood. Converted to bloodlust and energised by the sanguinary effect of sacking his men, the president will probably do a little more, if not at a high level, then at a more sober and lower level.

The president is believed to be prepared to bring in well-known persons, some of them retired generals, former governors, senators and technocrats. Many think his new team is more likely to be accurately described as star-studded, and he himself seems to have rediscovered the zest to tinker with things. He will also probably think he is in the process of assembling a team that will deliver the presidency to him once more, that is, if the truculent and bellicose former President Olusegun Obasanjo does not derail his wagon. My private thoughts are that Dr Jonathan’s cabinet reshuffle is motivated by wholly expedient reasons, nothing to do with performance, public morality, or even ideas.

His paradigms will not only remain the same, woolly and stifling as they have been since he assumed office, they will also fail as usual to achieve any significant purpose. The problem with the Jonathan government, as everyone knows, is not just a case of long-lasting policy inconsistencies, accentuated by bureaucratic in-fighting; it is a case of acute absence of a solid inner core around which his governing paradigms could coalesce. So, the reshuffle as well as the selection of new cabinet members will neither be dictated by any attempt to reinforce the ideas that underpin and propel his government nor be geared towards demolishing his image as a bumbling president and recasting him as a statesman or a charismatic leader. When he assumed office, there was no indication of a genuine conviction about what and how his government should look like; there is nothing at the moment to indicate such a conviction has been birthed.

As a matter of fact, Dr Jonathan has shown over the few years that his leadership style is marked by a noticeable reluctance to do what is right and a marked stubbornness to amend what is wrong. He waited almost forever to get rid of Mr Orubebe even after it had become obvious the minister specialised in fomenting animosities in the Niger Delta than making friends for the president. Dr Jonathan also demonstrated an unrestrained foul mood in disciplining Ms Oduah after her serial indiscretions had all but alienated virtually everyone in the Aviation industry, civil society, and an incredulous international community stupefied by our government’s slothfulness. It is not clear what Dr Ngama’s faults were, or why the president should skip the head of that ministry and hit upon the seldom-seen and little-known Minister of State.

Left to Dr Jonathan, and had circumstances not pushed him to act, there was no way he would have unhorsed Ms Oduah. He proved quite reluctant to do what was right when he stuck adamantly to Bamanga Tukur, the arcane gerontocrat who turned both the PDP and reason itself on their heads. Until it became impossible for him to ignore the uproar triggered by Alhaji Tukur in the ruling party, the president was determined not to touch the former party chairman. Whether now, in the past, or in the future, Dr Jonathan will neither act out of conviction nor out of principles. On many occasions in the past he had acted solely out of expediency, dithering and pussyfooting all the way; he will continue to do so until the end of his presidency, whether or not he gets a second term.

Closely leashed to his often expedient way of handling grave matters is the fact that the president always acts when it is too late. When he finally and reluctantly removed Ms Oduah, he had left the matter to fester every badly until there was no honour left for him in the ugly incident of the armoured cars scandal. It had been expected the president would act firmly and expeditiously by sacking Ms Oduah and sustaining the integrity of the presidency. Instead, he left the matter for far too long, and tongues to wag ceaselessly, before he stirred himself. Whether he convinced himself his re-election chances were threatened by his lack of principles and promptness, or others persuaded him he risked a second term by doing nothing, we may never know. But at least we know he is a skilful procrastinator, one with an eye perpetually on the main chance.

Some of the names bandied as candidates for ministerial appointments are gentlemen the country is familiar with. They are strong, may add value, even if nominal, to the Jonathan presidency, and are ordinarily not bad choices. But for a government devoid of positive qualities other than the character of nothingness it both embodies and engenders, and for a government that values expediency over principles, these ‘strong’ men may end up adding nothing to the government, not even in an election year, contrary to the president’s expectations. Indeed, we should expect more procrastination, more surrender to expediency, more sacrifice of everything valuable on the altar of politics, and less adherence to the cause of anti-corruption, justice, fair play and equity. These, in short, typify the essential character of the Jonathan presidency. This character will not change in a million years, and it must shock the rational mind that any talented politician should invest his accomplishment and person on a government whose primary and primordial notions take on life only when mediocrity and farce manifest.

February 16, 2014