The Nation Newspaper

Category: Sunday

  • Mandela’s $4.1m estate

    Mandela’s $4.1m estate

    Again, our politicians have another lesson to learn from this man who shaped the world

    If ever a man fought for his country, it was Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela; if ever a man lived for his country, it was Nelson Mandela; if ever a man dreamt for his country, it was Nelson Mandela; if ever a man brought fame to his country, it was Nelson Mandela; if ever a man died for his country, it was Nelson Mandela. If ever there was anything called struggle, Mandela personified that thing. Indeed, the struggle was his life. He was in and out of jail for his country; harassed and humiliated by the apartheid overlords. The highpoint of his sacrifice was his 28-year tenure in prison, which was characterised by the cruelty of Afrikaner guards, backbreaking labour, and sleeping in minuscule cells which were nearly uninhabitable.

    Yet, this great man that many other great men could not unlace his shoes did not amass the kind of mindboggling wealth that many politicians who have had the privilege of becoming president on the African continent are wont to amass. It is another plus for Nelson Mandela that when his will was read last Monday, all he could boast of was $4.13million (£2.53m) in estate, with a substantial part of this coming from royalties on his books.

    The estate includes an upmarket house in Johannesburg, a modest dwelling in his rural Eastern Cape home province and royalties from book sales, including his autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom, first published in 1995. Signed copies of this autobiography have been collectible for many years. Indeed, a signed Easton Press edition of it sold for $7,000 on AbeBooks.com. This deluxe edition was published in 2000. Another signed Easton Press edition of the title also sold for $6,475 immediately the great leader died. Millions of the book had been sold worldwide and this translates to a lot by way of royalties.

    Of course one should not be surprised that Mandela was probably not worth more than this; (probably because, according to Executor Justice Dikgang Moseneke who spoke at the Nelson Mandela Foundation in Johannesburg, the 46m rand ($4.13million) estate was based on “rough and ready estimates” and the final amount could be very different.”We are yet to get down to the business of finding the asset, listing them and valuing them and accurately reflecting them. We have a duty to file a provisional inventory.”

    By African standards, this is a record low. African leaders are usually stupendously rich after a few years in government, without producing anything except poverty and squalor. Take Equatorial Guinea’s Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasongo for example. Mbasongo, according to reports by the U.S Permanent Sub-Committee on Investigations, personally siphoned as much as 700 million (USD) in state funds deposited at Riggs Bank in Washington D.C. We also have historic looters like Zairean dictator, Mobutu Sese Sekou and Nigerian Gen. Sani Abacha, both late, who funnelled billions of dollars into Swiss accounts before their demise. The only ‘commodity’ Abacha peddled was his military uniform.

    However, if all Mandela left was this modest estate (even if it could be slightly higher), it is understandable. Not for him the kind of ostentatious lifestyle that many of his colleagues on the continent are known for. And this is the irony; for, one would have expected a man who spent about 28 years in prison to want to make up for all he could not enjoy while in jail, be it in terms of wealth, wine or women. And no one could have denied him these because we all knew that he was imprisoned not for a personal cause but in the course of his struggle to free his people from apartheid. So, it would not be a bad idea for him to ask the South African taxpayer to foot the bill of such lascivious wassails.

    We would be ridiculing Mandela and South Africans generally if we say that Nigeria is yet to produce a man who could lay claim to having sacrificed 30 per cent of what Mandela sacrificed for South Africa, for Nigeria. Yet, we see all manner of characters making spurious claims concerning their contributions to the country’s development, whereas what they could, in all honesty, lay undisputed claim to is its underdevelopment. Standards have been falling in the past three decades, with things only getting worse by the day, leading to where we are today.

    In Nigeria, someone would enter government house barefooted or in bathroom slippers today and come out in golden shoes (that their salaries that we know can never buy) the next day. Many Nigerians will tell you that they do not have to spend eternity in power to hit their goldmine. They will ask for only six months and thereafter, their lives will never remain the same again. It is worse these days, when it seems, stealing has been liberalised and primitive accumulation pervades the land. People now steal without blinking an eyelid. Unlike in the Second Republic, those who steal now no longer steal in millions, they steal in billions. At the rate we are going, it is not unlikely that some people would hit (that is if they have not) the trillion naira mark of public funds that they have stolen or hope to steal.

    A typical ‘Nigerian Mandela’ would have insisted on life presidency after his release from prison. Mandela never did such a thing, despite his sacrifice for his country. As a matter of fact, after finishing his first term in office in 1999, there were pressures on him to seek a second. If he had wanted it, it would have been his with the snap of a finger. But Mandela refused to be led into that temptation; rather, he insisted on serving only one term. Some may say this should surprise no one because he was born into royalty; but many others in his shoes would have despised the revolution that he donated himself to for the easy life, after the prison experience. In Nigeria, people want to try third term even when the law says the maximum at a stretch is two.

    Mandela must have been led by the aphorism that it is good to leave the stage when the ovation is loudest. But in Nigeria, you find people who were unknown quantities before entering into politics wanting to stay put in power, even if they have to be carried on stretchers, with oxygen masks keeping them alive. I guess they won’t mind staying in office even after their demise; that is if ever death is in their reckoning!

  • Jonathan needs a role model

    Jonathan needs a role model

    President Goodluck Jonathan’s supporters and admirers think many of his critics are either deliberately offensive or are zealots of the opposition. They are wrong. His critics, who owe no one any apology, are simply disappointed with a politician they risked everything to support in his unsteady effort to claim the presidency when his predecessor was too sick to continue. The late Umaru Yar’Adua was of course a tested administrator and his mind sufficiently robust in terms of the ideals of politics to elicit profound admiration from both friends and foes, but his illness and the hijack of state power by shadowy figures led many to damn the consequences of trusting the untested Dr Jonathan with more powers than he ever countenanced in his meteoric and fairy tale rise to prominence.

    The principles those who fought for Dr Jonathan in 2010 promoted are of course unassailable, and they would be as eager to fight for them today as they did many years back, notwithstanding the disillusionment only hindsight is capable of giving. But given his almost total lack of inspiration, not to say his bland and offensive manner of railroading inchoate policies through the legislature and the bureaucracy, those who fought for him in 2010 are now almost sorry they did. The problem, it occurs to them, is not that Dr Jonathan is intrinsically bad, especially in the light of his often likable bursts of bucolic homilies. The problem is that since he assumed office, Dr Jonathan has not for once given any indication of one statesman, living or dead, whose style or ideas he admired, shared or is competent to redact.

    By training and by temperament, whether off the cuff or smuggled into his speeches by speechwriters, Dr Jonathan indeed only manages to give indication of someone who rose too rapidly politically to have the time to imbibe deep, noble and inspiring ideas of statecraft and leadership. Metaphorically speaking, his bones are perhaps too creakily dry to lend themselves to something delicate, lustrous and engaging. Other than his homiletic forays, no one has heard him declaim on any great issue with the depth, sagacity and nuance of a statesman. Could we therefore expect that far into his presidency and well into middle age, he is capable of the instinctive moulting familiar only to youths? I have my doubts. But this must not stop us from making recommendations to him.

    Africa does not have a long list of statesmen and great leaders – perhaps only Nelson Mandela in the truest sense of the word – but Dr Jonathan lives in an era when science and technology have obliterated boundaries. He has an illustrious global list to pick from, if he is capable. He is a zoologist by training. He will have to adjust a little to begin studying man in greater detail than he is accustomed to, beginning with history. He does not have to have a military background to choose well, nor is he required to be a lawyer or political scientist. All he requires are the discipline and the passion to learn and to imbibe the lessons of time and history.

    My private suspicion, frequently restated in this place, is that Dr Jonathan is too far gone to profit from this advice. Had he the gravitas and adornments that line the souls of great leaders, it is inconceivable he would have permitted, let alone perpetrated, the atrocious assault on the constitution still ongoing in Rivers State and elsewhere.

  • Okon submits his own snipers’ list

    Ever since the old public letter writer of Ota penned his historic missive to his former(?) political protégé accusing him, among other things, of having a snipers’ nest in readiness for any eventuality, the polity has not known any peace. Many other aspiring letterati—please permit the coinage—have joined the fray, including the man who ran away when General Abacha famously sacked the National Assembly in 1993. It doesn’t get more absurd. But this is Nigeria where even snails fancy themselves as powerfully horned animals.

    Every new trade in Nigeria invites its own tradesmen and traders. The letter industry has witnessed an exponential growth and is about to be quoted in the Stock Exchange. Snooper used to fancy Obasanjo as a writer among generals, but now we must grudgingly concede that the old one is also a general among writers. The great one once wrote Snooper a 40 page letter in connection with a bitter dispute over his role in the June 12 fiasco. It was dated 11th April, 1998 from Yola Prison.

    Meanwhile, trust Nigerians, there have been nominations and self-nominations to the august list. Our feisty friend, the turbulently loquacious Nasir el-Rufai, insists that he is way up on the list among other distinguished opposition politicos. A top journalist also insists that he has seen his name on the list. A man who claimed to have regularly taken Goodluck Jonathan out while he served as a corper in the sleepy rural town of Iresi has requested Snooper to find out if his name was on the list for being a repository of state secrets.

    As usual, having detonated his literary bomb, the great wizard has retreated behind a wall of stormy silence leaving the fray to landlubbers who do not know a thing about the military strategy of terror bombardment. In boxing, it is not when you hit a man that he falls. According to the infamous Mike Tyson, there are certain blows that take their time. Snooper once watched a boxer so disoriented by punishment that he went and sat on his opponent’s laps.

    In the circumstance, the mystery snipers’ list has become a national mystery. But trust the crazy Okon not to have any of that nonsense. On Friday morning, Okon dropped a list on Snooper’s table.

    “What is this?” Snooper asked in alarm.

    “Oga, na dem snipers’ list be dat. Na dem dey snipe, na dem dey snap, na dem dey spitfire and na dem dey cause katakata for Obodo”, Okon shrieked.

    “I see”, Snooper drawled and quickly went through the list. It was brimming with historical accuracies and seditious fallacies. In a dramatic twist, Jonathan was top on the list with Obasanjo coming second among many others. Snooper was frantic.

    “But Obasanjo has kept quiet”, Snooper observed.

    “Oga dat one na wicked Yoruba quiet. You no say when dem wicked Yoruba people wan kill person dem go keep quiet, like dem devil”, the mad boy snorted.

    “Asari Dokubo has just been questioned by the SSS”, Snooper continued.

    “Dat one na wetin dem Fela dey call army arrangement”, the crazy boy winked.

    “And Mbu Mbu has just been removed from command”, an exasperated Snooper cautioned.

    “Oga dat one na bad riddance to good rubbish. “, Okon drawled. On that note, Snooper quickly pushed out the mad boy in a frantic damage limitation effort.

  • Amaechi wins again!

    There is this saying in Yoruba land that if you pursue someone and you are unable to catch up with him, you beat a retreat. Unless you want to be like the tortoise that said in response to a question as to when he hoped to return from a journey, that he would return when he had been disgraced. The person asking the question could not believe his ears and repeated the question: “tortoise, I say when will you return from this trip”? And the tortoise replied again that he would return only when he had been thoroughly disgraced. Those of us who know the stories of tortoise know that that is its way. It is always clever by half.

    Those watching the unfolding scenario in Rivers State must have known that those who want to remove the governor, Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi are only wasting their time. When God installs, no man can remove. Where they should have seen this handwriting clearly except that they believe in wars and chariots, was in the very way Amaechi emerged as governor. Where were the entire Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) top shots, including the incumbent president, when the then President Olusegun Obasanjo wanted to deny Amaechi his right of being the party’s flag-bearer in the state in 2007? Obasanjo had said then that Amaechi’s candidature had ‘K-Leg’? They all sheepishly agreed with the then president, the same way they are blindly following President Goodluck Jonathan in the ‘Amaechi must go project’.

    Amaechi single-handedly took up his case and eventually got justice from the Supreme Court. Not satisfied, Amaechi’s enemies went back to the apex court, all in their desperate bid to remove him, but the court affirmed again on Friday that Amaechi is the duly elected governor of the state, thus throwing the camp of those who think today’s world is all about naked power into confusion. It is just the beginning. It is the same way that any non-performing government that is hoping to win the 2015 election by wars and chariots will be greatly disappointed.

  • Conference modalities: citizens versus subjects (1)

    Conference modalities: citizens versus subjects (1)

    Any constitution making for a democracy requires listening to all citizens as equal partners or stakeholders in the project at hand.

    It is not because a part of the government is elective, that makes it less a despotism, if the persons so elected possess afterwards… unlimited powers. Election, in this case, becomes separated from representation, and the candidates are candidates for despotism.—Thomas PaineThe Rights of Man (1791)

    Chief M.K.O. Abiola used to love a proverb during his struggle for restoration of his mandate after the annulment of the 1993 presidential election. The proverb goes thus in English: The goat of an old witch got lost. The witch was looking for the goat frantically and so were several members of the witch’s community looking for the goat. Neighbours of the old hag told her that she was lucky with the kind of neighbours she had, given the enthusiasm with which each of them was looking for her lost goat. The old woman replied: “I know my reason for looking for my lost goat and I know that each of the other persons looking for the goat has his or her own reason for doing so, but I may very well be the only person looking for the lost goat with no ulterior motive.”

    Abiola’s proverb summarises in many ways the responses to the holding of a national conference since it was mooted by President Jonathan, and more, recently since the release of the modalities for the conference by the federal government. Responses from different parts of the country indicate that the national conference is like the lost goat of an old witch, the whereabouts of which elicited a battery of interest group actions from various parts of the community. To continue with the analogy of the lost goat, Abiola did not find his lost goat. Nigeria will have to do things right if it is to find the lost goat of its federalism. So far, the conference modalities released by the federal government leave no hope that the country is moving any closer to solving the problem that has hobbled its development since the erasure by military autocracies of the federal constitution on the basis of which the country obtained independence in 1960.

    When President Jonathan suddenly announced on the occasion of the anniversary of the country’s independence in October his wish to convoke a national conference, various interest groups joined the debate about the rightness or wrongness of his decision. By setting up an advisory committee to assist him to plan the conference and in the process consult with Nigerians as citizens (not as subjects) to find out their wishes, various interest groups became enthused about the conference. Consequently, several citizens’ organisations and individuals participated with gusto at the interactive sessions with members of the advisory committee in several cities across the country. It is now not clear if the modalities released by the Secretary to Government a few days ago reflect the wishes of Nigerian citizens or only the interest of the managers of the country.

    Now that the president has accepted to invite less than 110 representatives of ethnic nationalities to a conference of 492 delegates to discuss the country’s constitution, it is no longer too soon to find out whose interest the conference is designed to serve. Is the conference meant to serve the interest of stakeholders/super citizens or the interest of subjects/minor citizens? Up until the Macpherson Constitution, the colonial government prepared constitutions for Nigeria without any reference to citizens of the nations amalgamated to form Nigeria. People in Nigeria were not considered citizens then by the colonial masters but only as subjects for whom a constitution must be written by their masters or owners. Is Nigeria returning to that model over half a century after independence? Or, is the presidency adopting the political culture of giving limited suffrage to citizens without wealth as it was the case with the development of suffrage in Britain and the United States centuries ago? This question has become necessary in view of the undue weight placed by the federal government on stakeholders who range from former heads of state to military officers, former speakers of legislatures, traditional rulers, and professional bodies at the expense of the citizen’s right to choose his or her representative.

    It is obvious that most of those in the category of stakeholders include those who contributed, collaborated, or condoned the re-construction of Nigeria away from the federal system of government upon which the country became an independent country in 1960. Is the thinking of the federal government shaped by the notion that it is largely the group that created the problem to be solved that can solve it effectively and that regular citizens are not central to the search for how they want to live together as diverse cultures in one country? Is the thinking in the presidency that those in power are not likely to achieve anything if they do not pander to the desires of those being referred to as stakeholders? Is it that most Nigerians at the interactive sessions with the advisory committee members indicated preference for a conference dominated by members of the nomenclatural class, referred to as stakeholders in the statement on modalities for the national conference? Or, do the modalities reflect the federal government’s unique way of responding to the country’s plurality?

    Whatever the motivation for the modalities may be, there is little doubt that the relegation of ethnic nationalities to the back burner in a conference that is to work out how to make the country’s unity sustainable is the wrong way to go. The refusal by the federal government to allow regular citizens in the various nationalities elect all the representatives to a meeting to compare notes on how to make Nigeria peaceful, stable, and united may be tantamount to taking the wrong turn at the beginning of an important journey that is time-sensitive. Let us borrow the late Prof. Sam Aluko’s analogy to assess the decision to hold a national conference dominated by super-citizens or stakeholders as distinct from citizens: For a man who is going to Okitipupa from Ife to turn in the direction of Ibadan and thereafter chooses to speed up, the faster he goes the longer it will take him to get to his destination. Electing to convoke a conference of stakeholders in which representatives of ethnic nationalities are in the minority is similar to making the wrong turn and then choosing to speed up thereafter.

    Any constitution making for a democracy requires listening to all citizens as equal partners or stakeholders in the project at hand. It is when choice of modalities are derived from what citizens prefer that such decisions can be deemed to be democratic, not when forces of centralism crowdout citizens’ wishes with corporatist whims. Even if the preference from the country’s managers is for territorial federalism (German type) and not for ethnic federalism (Ethiopian type), the locus of power to choose should still rest with the citizenry, not with faces of traditional or modern power or professional qualifications. There appears to be some interminable fear of ethnic nationalities in the decision to obscure ethnic representation with that of super citizens or stakeholders selected largely by the president and governors. The country has been through this route before, without being able to deal with the challenges of development and the building of a modern state.

    The evidence of a conscious or subconscious effort to avoid confronting the fact that Nigeria is essentially a country made up of ethnic nationalities is a syndrome that is over half a century old and one that has put Nigeria at the disadvantage it seeks periodically to remove through a string of conferences.

    To be continued

  • How not to celebrate Valentine’s Day!

    ‘Twere no bad thing if you stretch out your hairy paw in love and friendship to all men (and women too), not just those making sheep’s eyes at you

    To tell you the truth, dear reader, I am experiencing too much anguish of soul now to be able to wish you a happy Valentine’s Day. The anguish was caused by some distressing pieces of news I read during this last week. Two of them concerned the raping of two little girls to death by men old enough to be their fathers, uncles or teachers while the third concerned the ‘punishment’ meted to some women for stealing. They had peppery substances inserted into their private parts in the market place by men! These are just unprintable behaviours that should actually attract capital punishment, national outrage and mourning, and me downing my pen for a month. But then I remembered that today marks the beginning of the valentine week and I cannot go through the year without wishing you a happy valentine. If only the editor would let me stop here so I can go and mourn for the country which has gone berserk but, sadly, I have to write on and hopefully, you also have to read on.

    The worrisome thing is that one of the child-rapes is said to have occurred somewhere in the north while the other took place in the south eastern part of the country. What then is this, I asked myself – national representation? Apart from the fact that instances of rape appear to be increasing, it also appears to be spreading very fast around the country, particularly of little tots. Can you just imagine the anguish those little things endured? It is as if the Nigerian male, educated or not and of any religion, has suddenly come to the realisation that he really does not need permission, spending, courting, asking-for-the-hand or even buying valentine cards any more. He can just take what he needs from any female – as young as a few months only or as old as a century.

    It is difficult to know how and why there has come to be this sudden upsurge in this act – perhaps globalisation, or too much and too easy an access to the media, especially the internet, or a virus. Yet, February 14 is the period when we remember the martyred life of all the saints called Valentine whose legends are known. They showed us how we should love, help, nurture and care for each other. These days, people all over the world prefer to spend, spend, and spend on gifts, gifts, and more gifts to celebrate the martyrdom of the saints. So, it’s that time of the year when we send out and receive anonymous gifts from silent admirers, friends and foes in commemoration of how these saints showed love a long time ago. Oh yes, your silent foe can give you a gift too. Do you remember that dent you found on your car after you had left it parked on the road to run an errand? That’s right; it came from your anonymous foe: a silent valentine’s gift.

    Certainly, this is not how to celebrate Valentine’s Day as a nation: through rapes, and governmental silence. There has been no word on either of the child-rapes from the law enforcement agents under whose jurisdiction the crimes were committed; no word from the local government chairmen, state governors or even the presidency. Yet, we have a presidency that is ever so quick on the uptake when it perceives that people are mucking around with their bad name. The authorities have not shown that they are not governing a conclave of goats and sheep but human beings who feel the pain being inflicted upon them by the elements those same authorities have failed to control. They have not shown that they are trying to contain these errant knaves whose libidos have gone on a rampage. They have not done what St. Valentine would have done.

    Now, no one is quite sure again just which St. Valentine is responsible for this holiday as many legends have sprung up, claiming the day for many Valentines. But does it really matter which one? I don’t think so. What matters is what we have come to glean as the lesson each of the legends represents. There is first of all love. This is the most difficult lesson for the Nigerian to comprehend because he/she has become overly consumed by a phlegmatic disposition where that emotion is concerned. Rather, the yawning black hole where love should have sprouted has been replaced by an insatiable appetite for money and inflicting the most grievous psychological/economic/physical lacerations on his/her fellow countrymen and women. This means there is no love, no care, no fellow-feeling.

    This lack of love is why people shut their fuel stations against other people no matter the amount of fuel in the holds of their buried tanks. The idea is to make more illegal money off those countrymen when the scarcity begins to bite. It is also why you cannot get anything done in any of the nation’s secretariats, whether state or federal-owned, if you do not first release some money even to the lowest member of the working cadre therein. It is what is responsible for the fact that employed big men and women now ask unemployed youths to first bring hundreds of thousands of Naira to them before they can employ them. I assure you that it is for the same reason that this country now pays out trillions of Naira in oil subsidy. Yes, Nigerians love their neighbours all right, but only if they can fleece them to the bone. The only problem is that everyone is so busy fleecing everyone else that one morning, some Nigerian will wake up to find out he is now fleecing himself. That’s right; he would have run out of victims.

    St. Valentine was about self-sacrifice. According to one of the legends, Priest Valentine helped soldiers become betrothed to their beloveds, an act that contravened the rules of the occupying force then. Anyway, that is not important. What is important was that the priest was willing to sacrifice himself to make someone or others happy. Very few Nigerians come in that mould now. The general mould rather has been that Nigerians willingly sacrifice others for their own conceit; they are your regular ‘let me live and let others die’ people. If you don’t believe me, just watch the Nigerian at work. Oh, they would put James Bond out of job ‘one time’, because he would not need to lift a finger – just his purse.

    Above all other qualities that Valentine bequeathed to the world is the spirit of courage. You know what that is, don’t you? It’s when you do an incredibly brave act without being allowed to think first, because you’re sure you would not do it if you were allowed to think first. It’s not as if Nigerians are strangers to the red or blue or green badge of courage. They’ve got plenty of courage all right, but only when it comes to defrauding, embezzling, killing or just generally causing mayhem. Nothing doing, sir, when it comes to your courageous acts of saving others, helping others, providing for others or assisting little girls and old women to reach home without being assaulted.

    It is Valentine’s Day once again, and it is time to remember not just the ones we love but also the ones who need love. Practically every Nigerian needs our love right now, considering how low our national morale is. I think we all need some pick-me-up and ‘twere no bad thing if you made a habit of stretching out your hairy paw in love and friendship to all men (and women too) all the year, not just to those making sheep’s eyes at you.

  • The place of visionary leadership in economic development

    The place of visionary leadership in economic development

    The period between 2010, when governor Fayemi assumed office as state governor, and now, has witnessed an incomparable development in the industry in Ekiti

    “The vision is clear, the mission is here. It is to make poverty history in our land. While this is going to be a daunting task, it is not an insurmountable challenge …” – Governor Kayode Fayemi.

    Well, well, well. It’s election season again in my dear native Ekiti and my readers know only too well that I never shy away from reporting the evidences of my very eyes as far as governance in the state is concerned.

    I do this, ever so often, because even the most accomplished recorder of events will still find himself/herself falling short of adequately capturing the multi-pronged impact the government of Dr Kayode Fayemi has made on a state which, a few years back was, with considerable justification, referred to as the land of ‘one week, one trouble’. For the opposition, or even the ordinarily unconcerned, what I am doing here is either a hagiography, or at best, an over blow. But whoever knew Ekiti then – a mere three and half years ago – and now, as the popular Ajegunle crooner, Daddy Showkey, recently confessed in a publication, the difference will be very clear. The Collective Rescue Mission has, as promised at the very beginning, ‘taken Ekiti far beyond its most recent wounds’.

    However, even in spite of the near regularity of my writings on the state, and the belief that I had a kaleidoscopic view of the developmental efforts of the Fayemi administration, it still took the perspicacity of a young friend of mine, a Special Assistant to the Governor, to draw my attention to how integrity, vision and a single-minded commitment to the larger picture on the part of a leader, could lead to a quantum leap in private investments in a country or state. The case of Ekiti is simply astounding, as I will attempt to sketch in this write-up.

    Up until the 2009 re-run election when the distinguished Senator Iyiola Omisore barely shied away from getting involved in a public affray occasioned by his inability to secure accommodation at the government’s Fountain Hotel, which had itself actually been run down until it got concessioned to the E.11 group, it was a herculean task for any visitor to Ado-Ekiti to get a decent accommodation for the night outside of the Pathfinder Hotel which was the first of its kind in the state. The situation was in spite of the yeoman’s efforts of individuals who had braved investing in the hospitality industry in the state.

    However, the period between 2010, when governor Fayemi assumed office as state governor, and now, has witnessed an incomparable development in the industry in Ekiti. Today, tens of billions of naira have been poured into building eye-popping hotels that will be a pride to the ecosystem, whether in London or New York. Hotels like Midas, De Jewels, Delight and Prosperous Hotels and Suites (to be commissioned 8th March), and many more springing up, belong to very educated, well travelled entrepreneurs, who knew quite well that Abuja, Lagos and Port Harcourt would have fetched them higher returns on investment were they to have gone to those more affluent cities. But solely out of the implicit confidence they have in the Fayemi administration, they opted to partner with this visionary governor who, given another four years, would have transformed an otherwise, completely agrarian economy to a financial hub of sorts. These gentlemen, the far-sighted investors that they are, could, however, not but have been massively influenced in their investment choices, by the absolutely mind- blowing transformation Governor Fayemi has brought to bear on the Ikogosi Warm Spring Resort which today ranks amongst the best tourist attractions in the country. From a run down, three-a-penny school- children -visiting resort, Ikogosi, of the legendary cool and warm water, has literally sprung to life: so much the world renowned poet, Professor Niyi Osundare –a proud Ekiti – one of whose poems graced the last London Olympics, could not demur from hosting a night of poems for an appreciative audience by the spring- side.

    These investors, knowing full well that the newly commissioned Resort, situated within the vicinity of the Warm Spring– where natural warm spring meets and flows side by side with cold spring and surrounded by natural beauty such as hills and lush grounds and complete with appropriate facilities, would soon be a home away from home, and a haven for both local and foreign, well heeled tourists, have quickly tapped into what is bound to be a highly financially rewarding tourist industry in the Nigerian hinterland. What place to benefit the most, if not the state capital, Ado-Ekiti? This is what visionary leadership can do for a state that ranks second lowest on the federation account list. This is nothing but ingenuity, and it is one reason Ekiti will, again, vote Fayemi for another four solid years to continue the good work he has been doing on their behalf.

    Investors in other areas of the economy are not lagging behind either. Mindful of the peaceful environment until some miscreants attempted to breach it, and conscious of the unprecedented presence in the state, of international development partners eagerly supporting the efforts of one of their own in whom they have implicit confidence, Ekiti State has also witnessed significant investment in other areas..

    The Odua Investment Company Ltd, almost for the first time, immediately jumped into the fray and in partnership with the Fayemi administration, brought from the dead, the old and forgotten textile industry, Ado-Ekiti, which was turned into a re-branded Ekiti Odua Enterprise Development Centre where hundreds of young Ekiti unemployed graduates are now learning new skills. The icing on the cake is that the young graduates are given take-off grants to start life as a budding employer of labour. Odua has since upped the ante by partnering with the state government in establishing the College of Technical and Commercial Agriculture in Ado-Ekiti.

    And talking about agriculture, a state that had nil agriculture-related enterprise at the commencement of the Fayemi administration can today boast of several which, put together, are valued in billions of naira with all the possibilities of employment, increased economic activity and additional IGR. These include the UNDP Ero/Itapaji Irrigation Scheme, a Cassava Processing Factory at Orin Ekiti, the Fount par Food Processing Company at Ikole Ekiti, Spectra’s Plantain Chips Company, Ikere Ekiti, the sprawling Tomato Farm at Iyamero- Ekiti owned by Datlex, the about-to-commence FMS Cassava Farm at Ako –Ekiti as well as Oke-Ako Ekiti Farms Ltd.

    The following organisations have also made their highly valued entry into the state’s economic sector:

    Metropolitan Motors Ltd, a Lagos-based indigenous private sector company which has established a modern Auto Mobile Service Centre as well as an Auto Mobile Training School and Genuine Spare Parts Mart, the Chinese Anli Plywood Company which established a Plywood/Doors/POP Industry at Iluomoba Ekiti already slated to be commissioned in March, 2014, the China Ocean Construction Company with its recently established Plywood/POP/Door Industry at Omuo – Ekiti and its Ceramic Tiles Industry at both Isan and Ijero -Ekiti which will soon take off. Also, Ceratec Ltd of Belgium has, in conjunction with ODUA Investment Ltd and the State Government, resuscitated the long moribund Ire Burnt Bricks Industry, now scheduled to be commissioned in April, 2014. A Croatian company is setting up an Aluminum Smelter company at Orin-Ekiti just as Shoprite (Ekiti Mall), by Topway Ltd, is about making an entry as it has done in Lagos and Ibadan but far ahead of its plans for other states in the Southwest.

    To many in, say, Lagos, Abuja or Port Harcourt, these may look minuscule, but when you realise that the Fayemi administration inherited an industrial ‘tabula rasa’, these represent a giant move towards completely turning the state around economically.

    Four more years will see Governor Kayode Fayemi do that and much more.

  • Talakawa in the richest country in the world: reflections on Obama’s State of the Union Speech 2014 (2)

    Talakawa in the richest country in the world: reflections on Obama’s State of the Union Speech 2014 (2)

    I readily admit the unexpected irony in the real life event and experience that gave rise to the subject of my reflections in this series. In a time and a climate that made me feel so far away from home, Obama’s State of the Union Speech for 2014 surprisingly made me feel that, with regard to the fundamental moral and economic questions concerning the wealth and the poverty of the nations of the planet, I was actually so close to home that it actually began to feel as if I was still at home. In concrete terms, Obama’s speech made me realize that, as in Nigeria, there are legions of talakawa and almajaris in America. Moreover and again as in Nigeria, their ranks, their numbers are growing.

    I do not of course wish to ignore or even downplay the vast differences between Nigeria and the United States, especially with regard to the all-important question of the structure of the relationship between wealth and poverty in the two countries. My point is precisely that because, as in weather and climate, there are vast and seemingly incommensurable differences between the two countries, we should not allow ourselves to miss or ignore the remarkable similarities between the two societies. By this, I do not mean the rather abstract and hackneyed saying that human beings and human communities are the same everywhere. In very precise terms, Obama’s speech made me see so clearly as I had never done before that even though America is the heartland of global capitalism and Nigeria, with all its oil wealth, is one of the most perilous peripheral capitalist countries in the world, the things that drive poverty and inequality in the two countries are remarkably similar.

    Well, to convince the skeptical reader that my central argument in this series does not ignore the vast differences between the United States and our country, Nigeria, let me detail some of the most important and definitive differences of economy and society in the two countries. In gross domestic product – GDP in its shortened acronym form – the difference between Nigeria and the United States is like comparing the summit of the Himalayas to the lowlands of the world that are barely above sea level. Think of it: 15. 68 trillion dollars (US) to 405 billion dollars (Nigeria). Put in terms of population sizes, this means that while the population of the United States is roughly two times greater than that of Nigeria, the total value of goods and services produced in the United States is about thirty-two times greater than the total value of goods and services produced in our country annually. Which is perhaps why the per capita income – average personal income per year – of the United States is, at 42,953 dollars (2012) so vastly bigger than Nigeria’s per capita income of only 1052 dollars (also for 2012).

    There are even more startling indices of great difference between Nigeria and the U.S. in economy and technology that ought to caution us not to simply lump the two countries together when we are talking of wealth and poverty and the quality of life. For me, one of the most crucial differences is the fact that while the United States is the foremost country in the world in terms of research and development (R & D), in the last two decades, Nigeria’s infrastructures and performance at all levels of education have declined exponentially and our country’s status as a scientific and technological society in the modern world has hit rock bottom. Certificates from Nigeria’s universities are now regarded with dubiousness of their quality almost throughout the world. Indeed, quite recently, institutions and organizations based in the United States that are responsible for organizing examinations like the GRE (Graduate Record Examination) and the SAT (Standard Aptitude Test) have cancelled all Nigerian centers for conducting their examinations and as a result, Nigerian candidates for the examinations necessarily have to travel to Ghana to take the tests!

    The consequences of differences between the two countries in these particular areas are nothing short of truly sobering for in the modern world in all the regions and nations of the planet, poverty and inequality find fruitful environments to grow and fester in educationally, scientifically and technologically backward countries. We are becoming one of the most educationally backward countries not just in the world, but on the African continent itself. Only a Nigerian whose patriotism is as obdurate as it is ignorant will fail to recognize and worry about the fact that gradually and seemingly inexorably, education, science and technology are being driven out of the organization of life in our society, to be replaced by an otiose, idolatrous and infantilizing religiosity that pervades all aspects of life in our society.

    In the face of such vast and consequential differences between the United States and Nigeria, it would seem that it is mere dogmatic anti-capitalism to insist in seeing in Obama’s State of the Union Speech intimations of similarities and even common causes and connections between the talakawa and almajaris of the two countries. But this is not the case. The most persuasive reason for saying this is that there are many capitalist countries in the contemporary world that are radically different from the United States and Nigeria with regard to how they deal with poverty and inequality, countries like those in Scandinavia and South America where everything possible under the framework of capitalism is being done to lessen the gap between the haves and have-nots. And there is a country like China- which I have visited several times and in which I have done extensive internal travels – in which a form of state capitalism, with all its problems and crises, is doing a lot to substantially eradicate poverty if not wipe it out. Thus, the real motivating factor in this series is not a spurious and dogmatic anti-capitalism; rather, it is the need for us to recognize and engage the things that are remarkably similar between Nigeria and the United States in spite of the many differences that I have identified and discussed. In bringing the series to its conclusion, let me now briefly identify the major expressions of these similarities, common causes and connections between our two countries and economies.

    In the present historical phase of capitalism as a global phenomenon, the central ideological, political and ethical divide is between, on the one hand, progressive and democratic forces that want to regulate capital so as to hold it accountable to the needs of the public good and economic justice and, on the other hand, those forces that would go to the limits of institutional legality and the ends of the earth itself to keep capital unregulated. The powers that be and the hegemonic political systems in Nigeria and the United States are, at least for the moment, dominated by the forces of both relative and absolute deregulation. In both countries and their economies, privatization has achieved something of the status of an orthodoxy, a fanaticism that is secular in its uses but religious in its discourses and mystifications. And in both countries, privatization is nothing but another name for the massive transfer of wealth to a few hands at the expense of the overwhelming majority of the population.

    In Nigeria and present-day United States, the dominance of capital over regulation and the public good receives its greatest cover or protection from monumental levels of corruption that have legality and institutional authority and prestige behind them. In the United States, this is best seen in the widely discussed fact that big financial services enterprises like hedge funds and investment banks cheat their clients of hundreds of billions of dollars and get away with it. How does the same process operate in Nigeria? Well, from chairmen of local councils to executive state governors all the way to the presidency, hundreds, trillions of naira are stolen and looted in plain sight and nobody is punished, nobody goes to jail. Transparency International consistently ranks Nigeria as one of the most corrupt nations in the world; it is time for that organization to recognize the United States, in the legal and institutional cover that it gives to corporate greed and cheating, the most corrupt country in the world.

    One of the things that I personally find endlessly intriguing in contemporary discussions of poverty and inequality in the United States is the claim, hardly disputed by anyone on the Left or the Right, that 1% of the population corners the lion’s share of the wealth that is produced in the country. Isn’t this rather like Nigeria where 7 out of ten live below the absolute poverty line and if you extend the poverty to relative then the figure approaches 9 out of ten? To this question can be added the observation that in both Nigeria and the United States, these horrendous income gaps are stoutly, cynically defended by the rich and the powerful. In the United States, the over-affluent 1% proportionately pays less tax than most of the income groups in the country and in Nigeria it has been as long and futile to know exactly how much our legislators are paid as it has been to stop them from cornering the lion’s share of our national wealth.

    Since I wrote the first essay in this series last week, a monster snowstorm has hit large parts of the United States including the part in which I live and work, the Northeast. Climactically, it is a long, long way from home. But when I reflect on the things that I have discussed in this series, I find that the moral and ideological realties of the place I call home and the country of my sojourn indicate that I am really in the same climate, the same season of despair for so many in the face of obscene wealth for the few. The hope, the aspiration is that the other climates and seasons in the world wherein poverty and inequality are being greatly reduced may spread to the length and breadth of the planet. This will require more than a pious hope; it will require looking beyond the superficial differences that mask so much that unites us in this world.

    Biodun Jeyifo

    bjeyifo@fas.harvard.edu

  • Realpolitik and the Real Polity (1)

    Realpolitik and the Real Polity (1)

    (For Pa Abdulkareem Adebisi Akande who walked the entire distance)

    Realpolitik is the urgent engagement with the practical and pragmatic necessities of politics as opposed to its idealistic possibilities. The world as it really is is quite different from the world as it ought to be. The real polity, with its throbbing contradictions, is totally different from the imagined and imaginary polis.

    In its primal sense, realpolitik often comes across as brutal and amoral politics totally devoid of principles and ideology. Yet it may also be the case that realpolitik is based on a brilliant and visionary reconstruction of existing reality which leaves us breathless and stranded in the way it opens up new vistas and engenders a shift in the very paradigm of political engagement.

    Why is it then that our current situation is so eerily reminiscent of events preceding the first coup and culminating in a civil war? For a moment, one can be forgiven for thinking that we are living in a time-warp. Yet you also know that you cannot step into the same river twice. The solutions of fifty years ago are no longer applicable or practical. Except as an absolute endgame, our good old military friends have also written themselves out of the script.

    As it is today, the few remaining Nigerian patriots must be troubled and worried about the state of the nation. The minimal gains of independence, the long and costly struggle against military despotism, the brutal battle for the enthronement and entrenchment of the sovereignty of the electorate, are about to be frittered away. At no other point in its history has the country appeared more religiously riven, ethnically fractured ,politically divided and economically polarised. The fault lines are being daily dug up by elderly idols of the tribes.

    In such circumstances, it is not surprising that we are witnessing what can only be described as the tribalisation of the nation or the rise of ethnic siege mentality. Everybody is retreating to the safety zone of their ethnic igloo in the face of pressing and real danger, and a pox on those who are perceived to be fooling around with other ethnic groups, particularly members of “enemy” tribes.

    The fears are not irrational. In any multi-racial or multi-ethnic society, a siege mentality develops when hostile circumstances force a sudden and sharp accentuation of primordial consciousness and ethnic self-awareness. The fear of the other parades as the fact of human existence. Generally, this can be extended along religious lines in spiritually divided societies. Brotherhoods and fellowships abound in order to define and delineate non-brothers and no-fellows. The result is often genocide and/or concentration camps such as witnessed in early America ,South Africa and Germany or civil wars such as we have seen in many countries.

    The power-equation in Nigeria is getting more interesting by the hour. With the northern power brokers ranged in a mortal political duel with their former minority collaborators, the rump of the old Igbo bloc is in tactical alliance with the minorities who hitherto regarded them as oppressors. Meanwhile, the dominant Yoruba political faction , the legal and logical inheritors of the mantle of the defenders of minority rights in Nigeria, have found themselves in tacit alliance with their former arch enemies.

    It doesn’t get more mixed up. One quick lesson. We may be back to 1966, but the order of battle is not the same. The old forces have been dispersed and scattered to the winds only for them to be brought back in a new configuration. A second lesson. The war for the soul of a country is a long-drawn affair with constantly changing tempi and theatre.

    This obvious fact notwithstanding, it is the case that in times of renewed emergency, it is the old order of battle that veterans remember. You cannot blame them. This is why the current alliance of the dominant Yoruba political faction and the old conservative core north is viewed by many as ill-motivated and completely misbegotten.

    There are many well-regarded Yoruba patriots who view this association as nothing but ideological betrayal; a political union forged in hell and brokered in opportunism, the ultimate cohabitation of strange bedfellows. Many view this alliance as an attempt to deliver the Yoruba nation bound and gagged to the same “auld enemy” they have fought off with great ferocity and tenacity for the greater part of four decades. Many old Yoruba political warriors still bear the scars.

    These misgivings and apprehensions are weighty and not without their merits. But more often than not, they are also a product of superstition, ignorance and plain political mischief. To be sure, the confrontation between the Hausa/Fulani power masters and the dominant Yoruba political elite looms large in the history of modern Nigeria either in its direct engagement or the wars of proxies. But there has not been a permanently fixed Yoruba political adversary. Nor have the Yoruba people been fixated on a particular path to national freedom and development to the exclusion of others.

    In the run up to independence, the dominant Yoruba political elite found themselves in a deadly struggle with the emergent Igbo elite as they tried to wrestle the control of the old West from the NCNC. So entrenched was Zik in Lagos and the rest of the region that even majority of the Yoruba Lagos elite dismissed Awolowo and his group as “separatists and Pakis”. Like radical insurgents, Action Group eventually overwhelmed the Yoruba cities from the interior.

    It was only after this victory that Awolowo turned his attention to the rest of the country and particularly the north in a heroic but quixotic quest to extend life more abundant to the whole of Nigeria. An attempt to secure an alliance with the east was sternly rebuffed by Zik who was still nursing old wounds. After this, Awolowo decided to take on the feudal masters in a direct confrontation. The ensuing titanic struggle and the destruction of the First Republic, military coup and eventual civil war still frames and dominates Nigeria’s post-colonial memory.

    But Awolowo and his group did not have it all to themselves. As it is usually the case with confident and self-assured political elites, a radically different perception of reality led to an open split and schism in the Action Group. As far as Samuel Ladoke Akintola and his followers were concerned, the main problem of the ascendant Yoruba power bloc was not the feudal north and its master class but the avaricious, overly ambitious and ever grasping Igbo elite.

    Akintola was comfortable with northern domination and supremacy as long as the west got its due. His battle cry was the memorable anti-Igbo elite slogan: “Ekiniani, Ekejiani, Eketaani”. On his last day on earth, the late master of devastating innuendo had gone up to the Sardauna for guidance about the way forward in the enveloping mayhem. Later that night, he was to succumb to Captain Nwobosi and his men, despite his putting up a stiff resistance.

    Many Yoruba patriots still see this guarded collaboration with dominant power and federal authorities as a classic example of realpolitik—and they are gaining new converts from old enemy war camps in a significant play of signifiers across ancient binary divides. But the politically focused see it as a classic misreading of historical signal, an attempt to pursue old enemies long after the order of battle had changed and long after the political realities on ground had mutated to new challenges.

    Pursuing the dominant Yoruba political elite in all its inevitable mutations as it picks its way through the minefields and open-ended trenches of post-colonial Nigeria is a mind-bending exercise. The political gaming requires the skills of a magician and the dazzling dexterity of a trapeze artist. From guarded collaboration with the old north during the civil war, the old opposition resumed with fury as soon as Chief Awolowo quit the cabinet in 1971 right up to the military coup of 1983.

    Thereafter, a hide and seek game of wary collaboration and guarded withdrawal commenced between the Yoruba elite and the military proxies of the northern feudal master-class, culminating in the annulment of the June12, 1993 presidential election after which the tense truce broke down completely. The subsequent rise of General Abacha and the degeneration of military rule to sheer state terrorism, the murder of Abiola in prison and General Abubakar’s ambiguous restoration of parity and Yoruba honour are firmly embedded in the national consciousness as part of the folklore of the struggle against military tyranny.

    In the current republic, the Yoruba have risen against the presidential ambition of one of their most famous sons only to tactically endorse his return to office four years later in 2003 when it became clear that the old adversary from the north was bent on torpedoing him. But three years later, they rose in fury against their son when it became obvious that he was bent on perpetuating himself in office. While the dominant fraction of the Yoruba political elite were generally indifferent to Umaru Yar’Adua, they were implacably opposed to the attempts by a feudal cabal to stall and stymie the process of installing his successor once it became clear that the Katsina nobleman was no longer in a position to rule.

    It can be seen that the dominant Yoruba political elite —as dynamically constituted at any given point in history—- have fought many battles in the history of Nigeria. It is not always a particular or fixed adversary. The Nigerian post-colonial state is a permanent arena and theatre of unending warfare. The Yoruba culture places premium value on fairness and justice. The current battle is not about any Hausa/Fulani oligarchy but a new oligarchy of the creeks.

    Three years ago, the Yoruba and Nigerian electorate voted for political justice over the equally competing and compelling claim of social justice. It was felt that no matter the social inequities that plague the nation, the question of political inequality that Jonathan represents was far more pressing and threatening to the continued existence of the country.

    Three years later and five years under Jonathan’s watch social injustice has deepened in the nation and political inequality has worsened. With his astonishing incompetence, his totalitarian crudities and the uncivilised ethnic-baiting of some of his aboriginal henchmen, Jonathan has proved a far more pressing and immediate danger to the continued existence of the country.

    Ordinarily, a deep sense of shame, embarrassment and disappointment with himself ought to have precluded Jonathan from asking for our mandate again. But this is Nigeria where ethnic agenda often overrides collective national interest. If Nigeria were to survive its current adversity, the will of the Nigerian multitude must be asserted over the rising tide of ethnic hysteria.

    (To be continued next week)

  • The ‘Suntai video’

    The ‘Suntai video’

    Those behind the ‘video’ have succeeded in reviving the issue

    Any discerning person would have known that the purported video that made the round last week showing Governor Danbaba Suntai of Taraba State as having acknowledged that he cannot take over the affairs of state yet, must have known that it was a phantom video. It is not that those managing the governor could not have done such, but at least not again. What is involved is more than bread and butter, and this calls for more caution after initial failed attempts to properly position their principal.

    Appearing in a video recording which was posted on YouTube, Suntai, who was surrounded by some of his aides was, in the purported interview which lasted two minutes and 20 seconds so incoherent in his response to the questions posed to him. For instance, when asked whether he was fit enough to resume his job as   governor of the state, Suntai in a shaking and low tone replied, “I can tell you that it is well with me to return to my office simply because I want you to support me. You know the truth; I am not well at all to return to office as I am now”, etc.

    I guess those behind the video knew that their antics might be detected after all, but what they have succeeded in doing is to revive the Suntai matter and bring it back to our consciousness. They know that Nigerians have short memories and that we often move on after making storm of some issues. So, if the aim of those behind the video was to remind us about the ailing governor, whatever the motive, they succeeded. At least, we now remember that there is one governor who was touted as being able to function when he is probably still nowhere near being well for that office.

    It is really unfortunate that Nigerian politicians don’t learn. After the late Alhaji Umaru Yar’Adua experience, one would have thought we would never again be treated to shenanigans, especially when public officials fall sick, for whatever reason. In Yar’Adua’s case, all kinds of tricks were played by those who were profiting from his sickness. They concocted all sorts of lies; used all forms of tricks until God himself brought the entire nonsense to a denouement.

    More than three years after Yar’Adua’s death, we are back to square one with the sickness of Governor Suntai. Suntai who was involved in an air mishap in October 2012 spent about 10 months in hospitals in Germany and United States of America, where he was treated for the injuries he sustained from the crash.

    After much pressure from home, he was flown back to Nigeria in August 2013, with the intent of assuming the governance of the state. However, his state of fitness soon became a contentious issue. And this became clear, with all kinds of interest groups resorting to the same old tricks to sustain their personal interests at the expense of the state.

    When Governor Suntai returned into the country last August, one of his associates said he was mentally alert, contrary to speculations that he had lost his memory. The proof for this, according to the associate, is that the governor recognised everyone by name. So, that was all that was required to proof that the governor was not an invalid! The same governor who was said to be ready to take over then could not even talk on arrival at the airport. Anyone with eyes knew that the picture of the returning governor in the media then was not that of someone who was ready to take over anytime soon.

    Before now, we had been shown Governor Suntai when he reportedly went fishing. I had cause to ask if such a ridiculous show was necessary because, rather than enhance the governor’s case, it worsened it. The picture we saw was like a caricature; even a robot would have fared better. The question on the lips of many people then was: must people go to this extent to be in power?

    As I have always said, if only Nigeria’s politicians could devote 30 per cent of the time they spend pursuing power to purposeful governance, this country would be a far better place. But what we have are people who want power for the sake of it; and when handed the power, they keep abusing it because they don’t know what else to do with it for the general good.

    The question we need to be asking ourselves now is: for how long can an elected official – governor, president or whatever be out of office on health ground? That is a fundamental question that the constitutional amendment must answer. This is necessary not because one is callous but more due to the fact that in situations like this, it is actually not the person that is sick that is benefiting; it is the hangers-on who do not want the honeymoon to end. At a point, Alhaji Yar’Adua could not even recognise anything, yet, some people benefiting from his illness said he was performing official functions; some even argued that he could do that even from the moon.

    Those who say Governor Suntai is responding to treatment (he has been doing that even before he returned from abroad in August) should bring him out again and let Nigerians see his state of health. If Governor Suntai was too weak and tired to talk on arrival in August due to the stress of his journey, what is he weak and tired of now? As governor, Suntai is no longer his private self; he is now a public figure and we need to be updated on his state of health periodically if he must remain governor in Taraba.