The Nation Newspaper

Category: Sunday

  • America’s blood lust and the bombing of Syria

    In reaction to the American Secretary of State John Kerry’s assertion before the Senate Foreign Relations Commitee that Al Qaeda (in the guise of the Al Nousri Front) is not playing a leading role in the fight against President Bashar Al Assad’s government in Syria, Russia’s President Vladimer Putin said ‘’we assumed that we were dealing with decent people. Kerry lies openly. And he knows that he lies’’. My admiration for Putin has soared.

    I am equally proud of the decision that the British Parliament has taken not to join in the attack on Syria. Prime Minister David Cameron has been badly humiliated and this is a great triumph for Ed Milliband, the Leader of the Opposition. Kudos to my friend, Mr. George Galloway MP, for his brilliant and stirring speech on the floor of the House of Commons on this issue. I must confess that the only speech that has moved me as much as Galloway’s in recent times was the riveting speech delivered by the Irish MP, Mrs.Clare Daly, on the floor of the Irish Parliament when she described President Barack Obama as a ‘’war criminal’’ and a ‘’murderer of children’’.

    The resolution of the British Parliament gives us hope that sanity may eventually prevail in a world that has proved to be increasingly insane. Yet sadly it appears that America is as eager to go to war as ever. As the assault on Syria is about to begin please take note of the following words- the biggest mistake that President Barack Obama will make in his distinguished political career is to strike Syria on the false and contrived premise that Al Assad has used chemical weapons against his own people.

    What we are witnessing today is the laying of the foundation and the planting of the seeds for what will eventually be World War 3. I am not suggesting that the military strike on Syria will witness the beginning of World War 3. What I am saying is that it will lay the foundation for it. I believe that the war itself will come at a much later stage and probably long after both Obama and Putin have both left office. However, the military action that America is about to embark on in Syria will be the first step on the road to that terrible final conflict. After they have struck Syria, nothing will be the same again and we shall finally be on that long-awaited conflict-ridden slippery slope to Armageddon. And after that war has been fought and won, historians will have cause to say that the brutal, unjustifiable, indefensible and illegal attack by Obama’s America and her allies on Syria is where and when the die was finally cast. They will say that that is when the Americans finally crossed the line of no return.

    Nothing describes the frightful situation that we are faced with today in the Middle East better than the words of Mr. Dmitry Rogozin, the Russian Deputy Foreign Minister, when he said, just a few days ago, that ‘’the west handles the muslim world like a monkey handles a grenade.’’ The events and bloody carnage that we are about to witness being unleashed by America and her allies on Syria, a relatively small country of 22 million people, will be so brazen, so vicious, so chilling and so ruthless that for the first time in world history Russia, Iran and China will come together, finally pick up the gauntlet and muster the courage to say ‘’no more’’ to American lawlessness, manipulation, deceit, double standards and butchery. At that point there will be no going back and, slowly but surely, one thing will lead to another in the Middle East and the conflict will spread until the final conflagration comes.

    Yet many have bought into and wholeheartedly accepted the American propaganda that Al Assad has used chemical weapons against his own people. It is in the same way that they bought into the propaganda that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and chemical weapons that he was about to use against his own people and the rest of the world. They bought into that propaganda just as they bought into the propaganda that 911 was carried out by Osama Bin Ladin, just as they bought into the propaganda that Muammar Ghaddafi was a monster that was about to kill all his people, just as they bought into the propaganda that Obama was the Messiah who wanted to spread democracy in the Middle East, just as they bought into the propaganda that Hosni Mubarak had to be removed to bring stability to Egypt, just as they bought into the propaganda that Tunisia would be better off with an islamist President, just as they bought into the propaganda that Iran is evil, just as they bought into the propaganda that the Saudis are angels, just as they bought into the propaganda that Israel can do no wrong, just as they bought into the propaganda that there was no coup in Egypt, just as they bought into the propaganda that Hamas must not be recognised, just as they bought into the propaganda that Hezbollah are terrorists and just as they bought into the propaganda that Lebanon did not deserve to be stable and must be nothing more than a weak and crisis-ridden buffer-state which exists at their pleasure.

    I suggest that those that have bought into all this ridiculous propaganda take the time out to listen to what the distinguished and respected American General Wesley Clark (the man who had the distinct privilegde and honour of leading the NATO forces in Europe during the attack on Slobodan Milosovitch’s forces in Serbia and Belgrade in the 90s) said in 2007 about America’s intentions in the Middle East and about how those plans had been hatched as far back as 2001. He claimed that just two weeks after 911 America had taken the decision to remove the leaders of no less than 7 Middle Eastern countries by any means necessary in order to fully secure the Middle East. He actually listed those countries. Today, and for the last 5 years, we are bearing witness to everything that he said would happen and those things are unfolding before our very eyes.

    Finally, let me make two two points. Firstly, there is absolutely no evidence to suggest that it was Al Asssad’s forces that actually used the chemical weapons that were unleashed on the civilian population in Syria the other day and it could well have been the rebels that did it. The fact that Assad’s troops were also affected by those weapons tells me a lot. No sane leader poisons his own soldiers with sarin gas. And he certainly does not do so on his own doorstep, on the day that international weapons inspectors arrive in his country and in the middle of a war which he is on the verge of winning. Secondly the fact that America and her allies have decided not to go through the U.N. Security Council on this matter makes whatever action they take against Al Assad and Syria manifestly illegal. It violates every rule of international law and it creates yet another bad precedent. Quite apart from that, South African President Jacob Zuma’s words were instructive when he said ‘’if nations were to attack other nations without going to the UN Security Council to get a mandate there would be many wars in the world’’. Zuma has hit the nail on the head.

    In any case, who appointed America as the policeman of the world? Who annointed her as the spokesman for the international community? The Security Council was established to prevent precisely the type of illegal and arbitary use of power that the U.S. government is about to unleash on Syria. No country should be allowed to play God. The truth is that America has gone beserk and the power it wields today has caused many that are in positions of authority over there to be reckless and delusional. There is an evil agenda that is unfolding before our very eyes, which many people that are not discerning enough to recognise. Many have argued that the rebels could not have launched the chemical attack because they did not have the heavy weapons, the know-how or the capabilities to do so. This is hogwash. The Syrian rebels can do anything and muster or use any kind of heavy weapon as long as their American friends and Saudi allies are ready to help them. That is the bitter truth.

    The fact that the rebels are led by brutal cannibals and Al Qaeda islamists and that the American government is in an unholy alliance with such beasts tells me everything that I need to know. Obama is ready to get into bed with even the devil and do just about anything to get rid of or discredit Al Assad, including turning a blind eye to the use of chemical weapons against Syrian civilians by those rebels and then blaming it on the Assad regime.

    The assumptions that many have made about what is true and what is not true in Syria are simply wrong. Yes chemical weapons were used and many people were killed but the question is who gave the order and what was the motive for such a heartless act? In the May 6th edition of the Washington Times newspaper it was reported that Mrs.Carla Del Ponte, the former International Court For Criminal Justice prosecutor and a respected member of the United Nations Independant International Commission Of Inquiry On Syria told Swiss TV that ‘’there were strong concrete suspicions that Syrian rebels that were seeking to oust Al Assad had used the nerve agent sarin.” This lady certainly seems to know what is really going on but who is listening to her? Permit me to end this essay with an interesting contribution from Mr. David Icke. He said- ’’these genetic liars are so desperate to bomb the Assad regime into history. This is because the global plan to subvert and conquer the Middle and Near East has had its timetable scuppered by the Syrian Government’s refusal to fall in the wake of a civil war’’.

    As Sir Winston Churchill once said, ’’the truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is.”

  • We must bring basic literacy skills to the doorstep of all citizens, or die trying

    Dear reader, today is World Literacy Day. You know what that means don’t you? It is the day people examine themselves and seek a genuine answer to the question: how would I like to be that man or woman in my village who looks at the letter S on a page and declares ‘my goodness, how like worm it looks! Will it crawl out of the page?’ I know I would cry. If I cannot recognise the letters on a page, how on earth am I going to read the instructions on my favourite cereal pack?

    I have always regarded illiteracy to be a little like that poem by the nineteenth century poet, John Godfrey Saxe entitled ‘The Blind Men and the Elephant’ based on a story said to have originated in the Indian subcontinent. As you can guess, the poem is not only famous, but it has been used to illustrate many things, the most famous of which is the fact that truth has many sides and there is a need to respect other perspectives outside of our own. The poem tells us that six blind men examined the elephant and declared it in turn to be a fan, spear, wall, rope, snake and tree. Worse, each of them was sure he was right. Now, the point is not so much the perspectives which were all wrong but the fact that each was so wrong and so sure! That is just one of the things that illiteracy does to one. It makes you blind like the blind men. For instance, I ask myself, were they unable to apprehend the elephant because they were blind or were they blind because they could not apprehend the elephant? Are you confused? Good, so am I. There is nothing like blindness to make people stumble.

    No doubt, literacy has many advantages. For one thing, you must be very literate to persist in reading this column for many readers have told me many times to tone down my English so that they can read what I have to say. But I don’t trust Nigerians; if I were to go lower than this, I fear they are not altruistic enough to say, ‘Come up higher’, you know, like you tell someone who deliberately humbles him/herself so that he/she can be elevated in front of a crowd. Nigerians will just forget me there. So, this is not a very good example. But what about traffic signs? Oh, you would not believe just how many people think that the one who has the right of way at a roundabout is that one who gets there first, such as the donkey, Okada rider, mule, taxi, etc. Believe me, I often cannot tell the difference.

    As I was saying, many advantages attend literacy. Only the literate crowd in Nigeria knows for instance that all governments are insincere with the truth and the economy, and are ignorant to boot. That’s funny, because the government also thinks that the people are insincere with the truth and the economy, and are ignorant. Clearly, people who go into government suddenly develop severe bouts of illiteracy, but who’s to know? That’s why we’ve had all kinds of brain-deprived policies: selling mobile phones instead of tractors to farmers; changing licences and vehicle number plates three times in a year, increasing fuel prices once a year, and other policies not mentally well enough to be mentioned. Forgive me if I exaggerate … I am not exaggerating? You mean, all these happened? Well, who would have believed it?!!! Wait till I tell my dog. ‘Mr. Bones, have you heard …’

    Jokes apart, we have said it again and again. This government would write its name in gold if it began to take the literacy problem in this country more seriously. There are far too many people in the land who cannot read and write. There are far too many people in the land who cannot count, read newspapers or sign their names. But they can read the currency very well. Now, let me tell you something. Failing to read a newspaper in a day, literate or not, is failing to contribute to the development of the country because one would not know what is going on, react appropriately by taking the right steps and generally help to stop the bad guys in their tracks. When I heard the rumour that our president was in the habit of looking down his lucky nose at Nigerian newspapers, I gulped. Had he never heard the expression, keep your friends close but your enemies closer by visiting, playing, eating and dying with them, etc., eh? But I’m glad he has since repented. No? Oh you!; you must be one of those enemies he really needs to keep close.

    On the other hand, illiteracy is not an excuse for the failure to know what is going on in one’s country for where there is a will, there is a way. It was said that the early settlers in America found ways of improving themselves by attending night schools when the day’s work was done. That way, no one could get the better of them financially, socially and most important of all, politically. So, they were often to be found at that time with a hoe in one hand and a pencil in the other, even if only to have something to bite on in the times of stress or depression. On the other hand, Nigerian illiterates are simply content to remain so because they feel no particular pressure to acquire the alphabet or numeracy. They wake up in the morning, bring down yesterday’s agbada down from its hook, sling it on, tuck their hands inside its folds, step outside their huts and just follow their nose to where the nearest aroma of food is wafting in from, which is usually a politician’s compound.

    It has often been said that Nigeria runs a diversified economy. What that means is that the rural folks, who constitute the largest group in the illiterate class, have many sources of income. They get some perks from the village politician representing them in government; they also get ‘something’ from their close relatives who are rich and who are obliged to share or their reputation in the village will not be worth a kobo. Believe me, every family has a ‘rich’ relative. Then, they get a little ‘something’ from their sons and daughters who come ‘home’ from time to time and bring all the riches in the city for them. If you had all these diverse economic sources, would you be inclined to shift from your behind too? I know I would not.

    The government has to move – crane, digger, and all – to make the illiterate know and believe that they need literacy in order to add more meaningfulness to their lives. It must activate the adult literacy unit of its programme to bring people out of the realm of darkness into the marvellous daylight of literacy. The government, and all of us, must aim toward making “Literacies for the 21st century” a reality by bringing basic literacy skills to the doorstep of all citizens, or die trying.

    Everyone has a part to play too. You can regularly read aloud to your children from story books instead of leaving their imagination to what they can get on “Tales by Moonlight”. In your family, you can also do literacy adoption: help bring a child into literacy by reading to him/her regularly. In your neighbourhood, you can adopt an adult to teach the basic literacy skills to. We must somehow ensure that the light of literacy placed in our hands lights up someone else’s lamp.

  • Oladeji Fasuan: The consumate administrator at 82

    Oladeji Fasuan: The consumate administrator at 82

    Chief Fasuan’s working life reads like a history of the economic cum industrial
    development of the old West Region, and later, that of Ondo and Ekiti State

    When I last wrote about Chief Oladeji Fasuan, a man of razor-sharp intellect, he was 77 and that was on 7 September, 2008. He has since added five more glorious years of solid and continuous service to the nation, Nigeria, to Ekiti state and to the Are-Afao community of Ekiti state which I have the divine privilege of sharing with him. A man of many parts and gargantuan capabilities, Chief Fasuan will answer his Maker serving God and humanity. His illustrious contribution to the industrial growth of Western Nigeria in the golden Awolowo days, his service in Ondo state, especially during the administration of Papa Adekunle Ajasin, and his unequalled contribution to the Ekiti state creation, have all become folklore just as his sterling, and continuing service to our Alma Mata, Christ’s School, Ado-Ekiti, will remain indelible. Without a doubt, the word ‘service’ can, with considerable justification, double as his middle name.

    I always consider it a privilege whenever I have the opportunity of paying deserved tribute to those of our icons who have, in their life time, left their names on the sands of time. I have done so for many which include, but are not limited to: Chief Alex Olu Ajayi, Chief Fola Alade, Chief Dele Falegan, Prince Juli Adelusi Faluyi, Professors Banji Akintoye, O.O Akinkugbe, Bolaji Akinyemi and Jide Osuntokun, Chief (Dr) JGO Adegbite and my inimitable Primary School teacher, Chief Fajana; men whose names command instant recognition from the services they have rendered to humanity in their various callings. These writings have been motivated , never by any sense of patronage, but by the Yoruba saying: yin ni yin ni, ko le se mi – meaning that where you show appreciation, you do not only encourage that person to do more but you are, indeed, asking others to emulate these good deeds towards God and humanity. Without a scintilla of doubt, Chief Oladeji Fasuan deserves this decent mention in this highest circulating newspaper in the country -The Nation.

    Chief Fasuan eagerly, indeed with a sense of pride, admits his humble beginnings. It is for this reason that his forthcoming autobiography is titled: The Back wood Boy -Scaling through Accidents of Life -An Autobiography. It has therefore been through God’s grace and by dint of hard work that he rose to become what he is today. Born to the family of Samson and Alice Fasuan of Afao-Ekiti on September 6, 1931, he attended St Andrew’s Primary School, Are-Ekiti, between 1939-45 and sixty eight years later today, he still carries with him his first school leaving certificate, eloquently attesting to his incredible care about things that matter. He proceeded from there to Christ’s School, Ado-Ekiti, ’46 -51 and for his higher education , he attended the University College, Freetown, Sierra Leone, where he was between 1955-59, graduating with a B.A ( Econs) degree. He later attended, at various times in his chequered professional career, some short but specialized courses like that at the Economic Development Institute of the World Bank in ’72 and earlier at the Universities of Ife, Ibadan and Pittsburg, United States of America.

    As I wrote in my 2008 article, Chief Fasuan’s working life reads like a history of the economic cum industrial development of the old Western Region, and later, that of Ondo and Ekiti States , all rolled into one. The result is that apart from the executive positions he held in such institutions as the Western Region Investment and Credit Corporation (IICC), where he served as General Manager, same as he would later hold at the Ondo state Investment Corporation , he was Permanent Secretary in such key ministries as Economic Planning and Statistics, Chieftaincy Review Commission, Agric Credit Commission and, later, General Manager, Ondo State Water Corporation . He also served on the boards of the O’dua Investment co ltd, West African Portland Cement, Nigerian Breweries, Dunlop among many others and was chairman , Odua Textile Mills, Ado-Ekiti and Owena Motels Ltd. At the federal level, he served between ’99 -2004, as Commissioner on the Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission, Abuja. His various communities have also tasted of his public spiritedness. A three time Chairman of the Christ’s School Board of Governors, he was member, later chairman of the Ekiti government Advisory council between 2003-2006, member, Ekiti state joint account committee, 2004-2006, the same time he was chairman, Ekiti Elders Committee and Baba Ijo, St David’s Anglican Church, Afao -Ekiti, from 2002 to date.

    Important as all these are to Chief Fasuan, nothing compares to his Chairmanship of the committee for the creation of Ekiti (1991-1996) which he regards as the climax of his public service and the fruition of the Ekiti struggle for self determination which had started way back 1876 with the Kiriji wars which pitched the Ekiti Confederate Army against Ibadan. Chief Fasuan’s incomparable exertions towards that historic achievement have been severally commended. Among those who have done this is His Royal Majesty, Oba Rufus Adejugbe, the Ewi of Ado-Ekiti who wrote about Chief Fasuan as follows:’ In the cause of our interactions, I discovered that chief Fasuan is a very pleasant individual, an upright man who does not only want people to work with him openly without any secret agenda, but also that people should place their cards on the table face upwards. It is on record that his tireless and heroic efforts contributed immensely to the creation of Ekiti state. I see Chief Deji Fasuan in the likes of Sir Winston Churchill, Abraham Lincoln, Ghandi and Nelson Mandela. These are people who gave up the comfort and pleasures of the world in order to build up others and make them comfortable in life. Such people are Christ-like. They are men who aimed at higher values and pursued them relentlessly, not minding the sacrifices until such values are attained. Such people are heroes and sources of inspiration for all times’.

    At 82, Chief Fasuan does not suffer fools gladly. A highly informed commentator on public affairs, his latest contribution to public discuss was the one on the raging controversy over whether or not Local Governments should be granted autonomy; a thoroughly harebrained idea of the National Assembly which is apparently indulging in an unnecessary fishing expedition because its members simply do not know how best to serve the Nigerian nation. In chief Fasuan’s views, not only should the federal government have nothing to do with Local Governments, that tier of government should, indeed, be scrapped as only the state and the federal are the federating units. It is his belief that local governments add no value, but rather, that they are centres of corruption. It is the view of this columnist that all monies going to states should, in fact, go to the states and that it should be left to states to create the number of Local Government areas it desires and administer them without the slightest intrusion by any other arm of government. Indeed, for maximum effectiveness, Local Governments should be structured as extensions of the State government with the primary duty of helping it deepen good governance and development but certainly not as centres of opposition. Their creation should therefore be an executive action since there are instances where the ruling party does not have a majority in the state House of Assembly. This obvious truism, which we demonise and run away from, is the lone reason state governments do everything to win elections in ALL LGA’s, including the latest exemplar in Kwara State where the PDP candidate was declared winner in the re rerun election in the Offa LG in spite of the fact that the opposition, APC candidate won in 11 out of 12 wards. As long as anything other than what is being suggested here is in place, Nigeria will continue to have problems with regards to that tier of government. Autonomy being canvassed by the National Assembly is in total contradiction to the constitution which grants states the right to create Local Governments. Or what type of autonomy from the mother is the National Assembly canvassing for the child?

    – Chief Deji Fasuan is the Jagunmolu of Ado-Ekiti and the Agbaakin of Omuaran, Kwara state.

    Here is wishing him long life in glorious health.

  • El-Rufai redux? – The message, the messenger and the skeptical, unbelieving audience

    El-Rufai redux? – The message, the messenger and the skeptical, unbelieving audience

    Redux: (adj) brought back; resurgent. The Victorian era redux.
    Dictionary.com (online)

    I was totally unprepared for it, the deluge of comments that I received by email on the article that was published in this column last week on Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai. By a very long shot, this was the largest body of comments that I had ever received on any single or particular week’s column since I began writing the series nearly seven years ago, first in The Guardian (under a slightly different title) and then in The Nation since March this year. As much as the sheer volume of the comments that people sent to me, I was also surprised by the fact from their names, one could see that the writers of the comments come from all parts of the country. And as if that was not enough, there was the additional fact that almost without any exception, all the comments expressed very negative sentiments and opinions about El-Rufai, many of them with scathing and unforgiving anger. Indeed, it is instructive to go over the contents of some of these comments.

    The most common themes in the comments concerned what their authors deemed El-Rufai’s penchant for hypocrisy and opportunism. As an illustration of this allegation, those who leveled the accusation against El-Rufai stated that now that having decamped from the PDP and is in the APC, he has started to praise or even hero-worship General Muhammadu Buhari, whereas when El-Rufai was still in office and in the PDP, he had said of the retired general that on the basis of his performance when he was in office as military head of state, Buhari was “permanently unelectable”. Others talked of venality and self-seeking. One comment that came from a prominent civil rights advocate was sanguine in reminding me that as of this very moment, El-Rufai is in the courts of the land being prosecuted for corruption, having earlier been indicted by both chambers of the National Assembly for corruptly enriching himself while in office. Others talked of thoughtless and wasteful highhandedness while he was in office, especially as the FCT Minster. They talked of how the monetisation policy of the Obasanjo administration was used by El-Rufai to sell housing units constructed specifically as permanent residences for members of the National Assembly while they were members of parliament, with the result that subsequent members of the National Assembly had to be accommodated at exorbitant costs at government expense. And so it went on and on, the mountain of outrage and anger at El-Rufai in and out of office.

    As I pored over these comments, it was not difficult for me to come to the conclusion that El-Rufai is most definitely one person that many people love to hate, in the words of that well-known and overused phrase. Moreover, from what I have read, both from and about him on the internet, it appears that El-Rufai himself not only seems to invite violent negative feelings toward himself but he actually delights in doing so! In this respect, El-Rufai seems to me to be the obverse of the Honourable Patrick Obahiagbon who greatly delights in drawing condescending, mocking laughter toward himself while one may say that El-Rufai likes to attract vituperative and condemnatory anger toward his person.

    Like Obahiagbon, it seems that hardly any attention is paid to the actual contents of El-Rufai’s articles, speeches and blogs. Definitely, not a single one among the dozens of comments on last week’s article in this column on El-Rufai that came to me via email said anything at all on the actual contents and the claims made in “Stunted Potentials Hobble Our Nation”, the article that I extensively discussed last week. In other words, it seems that the “messenger” being so objectionable to so many people, there is little or no regard for the “message”. As I happen to believe that there is much to ponder carefully in El-Rufai’s recent articles and lectures, I think this is unfortunate. In other words, it is my contention that the question of the gap, the disjuncture between the “message” and the “messenger” in El-Rufai’s writings should lead us not to the conclusion that what we confront in him is an embodiment of the all too common phenomenon of the public figure that everybody loves to hate but, rather, the reality of a monumental credibility problem. This is a credibility gap, a trustworthiness problem that in this particular instance attaches to the public persona of El-Rufai but that, on another level, he shares with most members of our political class. This is what I wish to discuss briefly in what follows.

    On any account, the public lecture that El-Rufai gave in May this year to the Ikeja Branch of the Nigerian Bar Association is masterful in its detailed identification and concise analysis of many of the problems and crises that we face as a nation and a continent at the present time. Given as this year’s contribution to the annual Alao Aka-Bashorun Memorial Lecture and titled, “Impunity, Injustice and Insecurity: What Is the Role of the Law?” the lecture graphically explored the scope and depth of such issues as unprecedented levels of poverty in Nigeria at the present time; the chasm of social inequality that separates the few rich from the rest of the society; youth unemployment, its grandiose scale and equally grandiose frightening ramifications; and the deep divisions that are deliberately and opportunistically manufactured by our political elites. What was even more moving about the lecture was that it traced these issues beyond their abstraction as “problems” and “crises” to their effects on our individual and collective humanity as a people. And quite remarkably, the anger of El-Rufai in this lecture toward members of the political class is so stark, so overwhelming that, but for the fact that one knows that all this is coming from El-Rufai, one would have thought that these were the words of a radical activist, a revolutionary who had completely broken, not just with the PDP but the entirety of the Nigerian political class. As a matter of fact, several times during the lecture, El-Rufai invoked the names of both Alao Aka-Bashorun and Gani Fawehinmi as the departed avatars from whom he had obtained a mandate to speak truth to power in our country.

    In a similar vein, though on a more limited scope, this is the same order of discourse, the same universe of deeply humanistic and egalitarian values that we confront in such other recent articles of El-Rufai as the one discussed in this column last week, “Stunted Potentials Hobble Our Nation” and “Fiscal Responsibility Commission – The Sleeping Watchdog”. In both of these articles, El-Rufai takes on the voice, the persona of the Nemesis of all that is monstrously corrupt, wasteful and comatose in governance in our country, especially as this negatively impacts the lives of the majority of our peoples. And as I remarked in last week’s column, it is particularly noteworthy that El-Rufai in these articles is magnificently impatient with our leaders; he is insistent on the fact that we are in a race with time and with all the better organized and more humane nations and societies of the world. Several times as I read these articles I asked myself the following questions: Where is all this coming from? Why did El-Rufai not say these things and act upon them when he was in government? What does he expect all those who are very familiar with all the things he did and did not do in office, in government, what does he expect them to think of the born-again moral reformer and social revolutionary that we confront in these recent articles? Famously and with an extraordinary emblematic power, on the road to Damascus, Saul of Tarsus, who had vigorously persecuted the Christians, experienced an epiphany that was to transform him into Paul, the Apostle on whom the future of Christianity, that then much despised religion of the poor, ultimately depended. On the road to 2015, will El-Rufai act according to the classic schema of this Pauline script? Will he truly, truly cast his lot with the poor and the marginalised, the millions of unemployed youths of our country and our continent? Or is he merely appropriating the critiques and the vision of all those in our country who, over the decades, have consistently and unwaveringly stood by the side of the majority of our peoples?

    Perhaps these questions redundant, precisely because sadly, tragically, our peoples are not famous for holding their politicians to their word, their promises. And I must admit that I am the very first to concede that the questions may indeed be completely redundant in the Nigeria that we all know only too well and are living through. I confess also that at a certain level, I am as infected as any compatriot reading this piece with the virus of the deep, unbelieving skepticism of the mass of ordinary Nigerians toward nearly everything coming from their social and intellectual elites, most especially the election-cycle promises and visions of our politicians.

    This means that in the end, these questions do not constitute the last word on this issue of El-Rufai’s credibility problem. If there is a last word, look for it in both the run-up to and the aftermath of 2015. El-Rufai is at the moment out of office and is rather beleaguered. Let us wait to see if the rhetoric, the born-again visions will outlast this current phase in his career. More importantly, let us wait to see how many in the ranks of the APC he can and will carry with him in the rough roads ahead if, against all the odds, he decides to stick to the Pauline script of genuine and profoundly life-changing epiphany. I confess that I am not holding my breath.

    1.8% Bested by 0%

    A few weeks ago, I remarked playfully in this column that if in the future I ever came across any results in national secondary school certificate examinations around the world that were worse than the 1.8% passing rate in the NECO exams of 2009, I would bring such finding to the notice of the readers of this column. I was sure that everyone recognised that I made that remark playfully because I thought that it was impossible to get anything “better”, as I ironically put it, than a passing rate of 1.8%. In other words, I was sure that I would never need to fulfill that promise.

    Well, I regret, deeply regret, to inform the reader that we now have something that has surpassed that record. And it is not 1.2% or even 0.8%; it is 0%. This took place in Liberia three weeks ago in the national entrance exams taken by secondary school students for entrance into the University of Liberia. Reportedly, of the nearly twenty-five thousand students that took the exam, not a single one passed. Passing in this case was measured in exactly the same terms as in NECO: at least five subjects including English and Mathematics.

    If it offers the reader any consolation, let me also report that, unlike the near total indifference with which the NECO debacle of 2009 was met in Nigeria, a national outcry of anguish greeted the Liberian catastrophe three weeks ago. This, I hope, shows that if we send Patrick Obahiagbon to commiserate with the Liberians on the terrible failure rate of their students in English, he will not find a welcoming party at the airport.

    Biodun Jeyifo

    bjeyifo@fas.harvard.edu

  • Education and democracy: training the future generation 1

    Education and democracy: training the future generation 1

    A popular government without popular information or the means of acquiring it is but a prologue to Farce or Tragedy or perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance, and a people who mean to be their own Governors must arm themselves with the power of knowledge.- James Madison
    There is but one method of rendering a republican form of government durable, and this is by disseminating the seeds of virtue and knowledge through every part of the state by means of proper places and modes of education and this can be done effectively only by the aid of the legislature.—Benjamin Rush
    It is only when the minds of men have been properly and rigorously cultivated and garnished, that they can be safely entrusted with public affairs with a certainty and assuredness that they will make the best of their unique opportunity and assignment.-Obafemi Awolowo

    Today’s piece is the first of a series on an issue that should be of serious concern to lovers of a united and progressive Nigeria: educating and training those who are to keep Nigeria going. The three quotations overleaf by two of United States of America’s founding fathers and one of Nigeria’s founding fathers capture the themes that circumscribe the articles on education and democracy in this column for the next few weeks.

    Given the arguments— pros and cons— that attended to the recent strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), it should not require a great measure of brilliance on the part of the average Nigerian that the country is not giving enough attention to the most important ingredient that can sustain its unity and predispose it to sustainable democracy and development. When government spokespersons rest their argument against provision of credible higher education on lack of funds, the average citizen needs to get worried about what awaits his or her children in a country that is a part of a modern world driven by knowledge. The articles planned for the next few weeks are designed to express concerns about the way to provide proper education that can keep our country together as a democratic federation in a global political and economic ethos that is driven by freedom and innovation.

    Some of the questions once asked by Bertrand Russell and John Dewey will be repeated in the series, with the hope of stimulating discussion on what true patriots of our country need to worry about as they prepare their younger ones for life beyond them in a country that appears to have been at the crossroads for too long with respect to how best to educate the citizenry in a highly competitive global environment. Put simply, the issue that education has a role in making democracy a workable system and that democracy has a role in making education profitable to the individual and the community in which he or she lives will be repeated in the discussion in the next few weeks on what the government and the citizen need to do to save the country’s democracy and federation.

    Nigeria is not without its own thinkers and doers in the area of systematic promotion of the symbiosis between education and democracy. Chief ObafemiAwolowo and Chief AdekunleAjasin in particular had given deep thought to the role of education in nation building and in the making of a modern and progressive nation and citizenry. The initiation and funding of free primary public education in Western Nigeria in 1955 demonstrated and still demonstrates Chief Awolowo’s conviction that democracy might be a mirage if citizens (voters) are not educated. Using proceeds from taxes, initially paid grudgingly by citizens, as well as from proceeds from lottery in the 1950s to fund primary public education at a time when there was no trace of petroleum certainly underscores a rare commitment to education as a means of sustaining democracy and a way to prepare citizens for a meaningful life in the era of modernity.

    Most of the citizens from the Western part of Nigeria in the generation of this writer are largely products of Awolowo’s free primary education provided by a combination of properly coordinated public and private or sectarian schools in the 1950s. In the assessment of nationals and foreigners in the field of higher education, there were few, if at all, complaints about the quality of education in Nigeria until the late 1970s or early 1980s. Education started to decline in Nigeria under military autocracy between 1983 and 1999. It should not surprise anyone if military dictators had no use for education for citizens, on account of the fact, that a highly educated citizenry could become too critical of authoritarianism. But there is no reason why an elected government should be afraid of giving proper education to citizens during a period of democratic rule. However, the quality of education in the last fourteen years of post-military rule has not improved considerably for citizens to believe that Nigerian military dictators are more averse to educated citizenry than elected civilians that succeeded them in 1999.

    The parlous state of education in the country at present recalls the Yoruba proverb: Oro sunukunojusunukun la fi n wo o. This translates roughly in English to a desperate problem requires a desperate solution. Providing the right type of education to sustain Nigeria’s democracy, development, and federation certainly calls for creative thinking on the part of all stakeholders: parents, students, federal, state, and local governments, and most especially the legislative branch of government at all levels. Attempting to amend a constitution that is riddled with confusion in respect of creating an educational culture and system in the country without paying any attention to how to re-design education in the country is similar to looking away from dealing with how to create a realistic and efficient security system in the country.

    Like the issue of law enforcement, educating and training the Nigerian child to the point that he or she can feel safe, self-confident, emboldened to express his or her opinions and live by the wish of the majority in a competitive global environment requires more than expressions of commitment to the promotion of a knowledge society in the country. It calls for fresh and deep thinking on how to create an educational system or systems that can support aspirations of Nigerians to thrive in the modern global market. Consigning education to the realm of buck passing and bashing the professoriate may not solve the problems that have contributed in large parts to Nigeria being 145th on the Global Competitive Index and being 146th on account of poor primary education in the country. It is the legislature at all levels and the civil society across state borders that must lead a new discussion on the way forward, while lovers of inclusive political and economic institutions in the country pay attention to the need for a new strategy on how to educate Nigeria’s citizens.

  • The case against fake auto parts and tyres

    Last Thursday, I was invited as a speaker at the Auto Tyre Day organised by Automobiles and Road Safety Initiative. The topic I was asked to speak on was the effect of fake auto parts and tyres on the economy.

    My first reaction to the invitation was to ask to be excused since I didn’t consider myself a road safety expert. I, however, accepted the invitation when it occurred to me that as a motorist or driver virtually everyone is a stakeholder on motoring issues.

    The celebration of the day, though not as popular as other well known ones, is necessary considering that safety on our roads should be paramount to all of us.

    Road accidents in Nigeria, which has led to the death of many innocent people, are on the increase and there is an urgent need to halt the alarming development.

    The theme of this day: Be Tyre Smart, Play your part is very instructive. It is a clarion call on all of us not to be smart in the negative way but to comply with necessary regulations on the use of tyres.

    It requires that we should use the right tyres all times and take necessary precautions.

    The value of the Nigerian auto industry as at 2011 was put at N12.5billion as against N750m in 2001, according to some auto industry stakeholders.

    However, an average of more than N500 million is said to be lost to fake parts annually. To be sure, fake parts business is a global problem and not just peculiar to Nigeria. After all a majority of the fake parts are imported sometimes by unscrupulous businessmen who reportedly tell their foreign partners to manufacture sub standard parts.

    Dr Oscar Odiboh an auto consultant vividly captures the challenge posed by the menace of the fake products when he said in a paper he presented at an occasion like this: “A car is made up of an average of 14,000 parts and each can be faked,” adding that “ for each car part, there is an average six versions in Nigeria.”

    A visit to Ladipo will confirm this assertion with the open sale of fake parts and tyres while mechanics and touts encourage vehicle owners to buy fake parts with all kinds of spurious claims about second hand parts and tyres being better than new ones. My question is usually which new ones are they talking about, fake or genuine?

    Undoubtedly, the reign of fake parts has stunted the growth of auto dealership in the country and encouraged indiscriminate sales of second hand motors.

    In many ways, fake parts have a lot negative impacts on a growing economy like ours where regulations are not effective and can easily be sidetracked by corrupt government officials at the ports and unpatriotic business men who are more concerned about the money they can make than the dangers to the lives of vehicle owners and other motorists.

    The obvious challenge is that safety on our roads is compromised as the rate of accidents will keep increasing when the lives of the people could have been saved if more vehicle owners shun the patronage of fake parts.

    With fake parts and tyres, there is a huge loss of revenue by both government and sellers of genuine parts. Those who import the fake products are sure not to pay taxes expected of them which should be paid to the government. For sellers of genuine parts they will experience low patronage and will not easily recover their investments.

    There may be need for waivers for importers of genuine parts to reduce the high cost of genuine products in the local market due to the present multiple taxes and charges which force the dealers to sell at generally unaffordable prices.

    Whatever the case, like the Yoruba will say, Ohun ti o da o da (What is not good is not good); fake auto parts and tyres are not good and can kill not only motorists but the economy.

  • PDP crisis: No room for neutrality

    PDP crisis: No room for neutrality

    The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has not yet imploded; but it could do so in the coming months if the cracks in the party are further widened by insensitivity and mismanagement. As a few of its leading lights have warned, the crisis in the party could lead to its disintegration. It is not yet known whether those alleged by President Goodluck Jonathan camp to be behind the crisis anticipate the severity of the cracks and the turbulent course it is taking; what is, however, evident at the moment is that the disquiet felt by party leaders when the drama began is gradually yielding to panic as the disagreement worsens and spreads further afield than they initially foresaw. The president is thoroughly miffed by the crisis and is getting increasingly desperate; chairman of the party, Bamanga Tukur, who had long acted as a medieval tyrant, but is now talking like a modern autocrat, has become even more censorious; and other party elders have either seemed to snicker behind closed doors or chafe hypocritically to convey impression of concern.

    It is hard to determine right now whether the PDP will survive this turbulence, the worst since its formation, or since the party and its leadership were hijacked by the former president, Olusegun Obasanjo, and his scheming and fawning aides. What is apparent, however, is that even if it survives, the party is unlikely to retain the ferocious determination that has seen it talk and act recklessly against the constitution and public interest. A few of its leaders suggest the party will emerge from the present crisis stronger and more united. But already, its confidence has been shaken, and party bosses, like autocrats everywhere, have spoken temptingly of using the security forces against the breakaway factional leaders whom they describe as traitors and common felons. Given the points on which the two camps disagree, and the violent rhetoric deployed by them in digging in their heels, a rapprochement would almost certainly involve a loss of face on either side, if not political suicide.

    The war in the PDP may still be at its infancy, and may not yet manifest definite frontlines, but the demands of the two camps are at least candidly self-centred enough to enable a fair assessment of what the problem is and where the crisis seems headed. The breakaway faction led by former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar and Kawu Baraje demands the ousting of the party chairman, Alhaji Tukur, the resolution of the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF) in favour of the Governor Rotimi Amaechi faction, cessation of EFCC harassment, and the exclusion of Dr Jonathan from the 2015 presidential race. The Jonathan/Tukur faction disdainfully declines to negotiate Dr Jonathan’s right to contest in 2015, and more peremptorily demands the dissolution of the Atiku/Baraje faction and subjection of the faction to PDP rules and conflict resolution mechanisms.

    On the surface, it would seem these mutually antagonistic positions are the bane of the current PDP crisis, or civil war, as some have colourfully put it. After many interventions by top party officials and former presidents, and perhaps some cynically disinterested discussions between the warring camps, the stalemate has remained unbroken. No one had the right to insist Dr Jonathan could not exercise his constitutional right to run for the presidency in 2015, the president’s aides and supporters said forcefully. The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) could not be prevailed upon not to perform its lawful functions, others said in response to the demands of the Atiku/Baraje camp. Alhaji Tukur could not be sacked without recourse to due party process, his camp said triumphantly. As hardline as these positions are, they are, in my view, neither the cause nor the trigger of the current PDP crisis, nor yet the reasons for the trenchancy of the disagreements and the irreconcilability of the two positions. They are merely symptoms of a deeper, underlying morass that has eroded the foundation of the party and corroded the fabric that previously knit its members together.

    The party has not only split temporarily, and its top leaders shown little interest in reconciliation, it is also reported, subject to final corroboration, that seven governors, about 20 senators and 57 members of the Lower House have also indicated they were breaking ranks with the Jonathan/Tukur camp. This may be unsettling and irritating to the Jonathan rerun agenda. But even if reconciliation were to be secured in the coming weeks in spite of the undeniable acerbity of the two camps, it would still not solve the structural and leadership anomalies eating up the party and making it dysfunctional. Sooner or later the party was bound to implode. That that implosion seems to be coming earlier than expected merely underscores the gravity of the contradictions within the party, contradictions that were conceived, enacted and reinforced during the Obasanjo years. Three fundamental reasons account for the severity of the PDP crisis, and may explain why the crisis may be intractable at best or insoluble at worst.

    The first is that once Chief Obasanjo and his aides supplanted the moral minority that formed the core of the party, and vitiated the principles and practices that were designed to ennoble the party and make it formidable, the party began to list dangerously. Some of the party’s early chairmen were not perfect, and in fact a few of them lent themselves to be used to validate Chief Obasanjo’s unprincipled and dishonest grab for absolute power. But they at least exuded a breath of fresh air and embraced the general principles of democracy. Even in the giddy early years of the PDP, it was hard, for instance, to imagine a Solomon Lar or an Audu Ogbeh act like a proponent of electoral chicanery of the first rank similar to the flip-flopping Vincent Ogbulafor or the ingratiating Ahmadu Ali. Within Chief Obasanjo’s two undistinguished terms in office, the party transformed from a gentle and grasping conservative group, gingerly upholding its own moral and ideological principles, to an aggressive, remorseless and fanatical reactionary animated by, and even proud of, electoral fraud and all the base emotions and practices humans are capable of.

    Second is the simple fact that the anomalies and distortions first grafted into the country’s political system by Chief Obasanjo have been underscored, for 16 years, by varying degrees of political and especially electoral malfeasances which his successors perpetrated, from the wearied but now deceased Umaru Yar’Adua, to the distracted but disguisedly ruthless Dr Jonathan. By any stretch of imagination, it is hard to remedy 16 years of unbroken filth and falsehood. Indeed, as fate would have it, since 1999, Nigeria has been gifted three gentlemen who dedicated themselves, or were dedicated by their aides, to adding to the country’s misery. The present PDP crisis is, therefore, a culmination of 16 years of misery in the party, not just a haggle over 2015 presidential poll. I do not exaggerate.

    Third and most important factor exacerbating the PDP crisis is the unqualifiedly misshapen Jonathan government, which seems more adroit in worsening bad things than in bettering good things, whether they are principles, values or honour. Like Chief Obasanjo before him, he has done nothing spectacular about roads worth anyone ascribing the label of a legacy, but of course his argument will always be that he was not the architect of the decay. He has not offered the country a specific vision of what education should be, nor has he bettered what he met. Instead, he has met the decline in education with his idiosyncratic lack of honour, refusing to uphold the agreement his predecessor and himself entered into with the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) in 2009 and 2010. It would ground the country, his Information minister said apocalyptically. Dr Jonathan has done much worse, of course. Not only is he himself uninspired, he has not inspired anyone, and has had little interaction with artists, poets, scientists, social scientists, and other noteworthy intellectuals, local and international.

    It is this unremitting dullness of his government that has instigated revolt against him and the party, especially when patriots recoil in horror as they contemplate another four years of the Jonathan nightmare. Alhaji Tukur, I emphasise, is a mere cipher in the disagreement. I believe that if the Jonathan government had been spectacular in many respects and charismatic in more ways than one, few brave hearts would have had the courage to rise against him: indeed, it would have been suicidal. For then we would have had brilliant and unprecedented use of men and material, the forging of a stirring national identity that transcends tribe, religion and class, and the enactment of great policies driven by far-reaching visions of democracy, federalism, rule of law and public probity. Sadly for Dr Jonathan, any revolt against him now invariably acquires the distinct aura of patriotism, and rebel leaders, whether they fail or succeed, are likely to be canonised in the consciousness of the people. Rather than be chastened by the massiveness of the revolt against both his government and his person, Dr Jonathan and his doting aides appear set to go for broke by wielding state power against his opponents in absolute disregard of the constitution and elementary restraint and common sense.

    But even if he were to overwhelm his opponents and the dissenters within his party, there is nothing he can do— partly because he is not capable of it – to mollify the rage against himself and his government. Worse, because the modest amount of principles and values that made the PDP to cohere in its early days have been denuded by years of incompetent rule, it is unlikely that victory over his enemies will be sufficient to snatch the party from the jaws of confusion and disintegration. I had hoped that for the sake of democracy we were on our way to a two-party system, especially with the formation of the All Progressives Congress (APC). And though I concluded two weeks ago that the PDP was exhausted, I had nonetheless hoped that the muted patriots within its ranks could somehow rise up to retrieve the party from the hands of its charlatans. Now, I fear greatly that my hopes were misplaced, and that perhaps we would need to seek another party to duel with the APC, if the PDP and its leading lights cannot shake off the suicidal instinct to which their incompetence and sycophantic relationships seem to be leading them.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • The comic tragedy in Taraba

    The comic tragedy in Taraba

    Suntai has passed all the tests given to him, yet, the legislators say he must go!

    Nigerians who have been wondering that something must be wrong with us as a people simply because Governor Danbaba Suntai of Taraba State returned to the country, seeking to resume his duties as governor after undergoing treatment abroad for 10 months apparently do not know what they are saying. They say the man is too frail to govern, given the impression they caught of him in the newspapers on Monday. Whatever gave them that impression? Are they doctors? Have they not heard that appearance could be deceptive? How did they expect a man that returned to the country only the day before, after about 12 hours air travel, to look? Those of us who have been to the airports at all know that it is no mean task undergoing such a long journey. Unfortunately, most of those analysing the situation have never been to the airports before; not to talk of travel by air.

    Our teenage stowaway, Daniel Ihekhina, even knows better, having travelled in the wheel compartment of Arik Air flight on August 24 for about 35 minutes without paying a dime! At least he now has an idea of how it is to fly. If he wasn’t as exasperated as His Excellency after his trip from Benin to Lagos, couldn’t that have been a function of his age and the short duration of his trip, compared to His Excellency’s. At any rate, has it ever dawned on those saying Suntai is unfit to govern that His Excellency could have been playing a stunt at the airport? How can anyone in his right senses ever suggest that the man needed ‘human crutches’ to alight from the aircraft as if he was some load carelessly placed on a bench that could easily fall off?

    Such people must have forgotten that there is nothing new under the sun; and that there is nowhere people don’t pack fowls at night. What has Suntai done that is new? He has only taken after the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua. What is wrong in a man leaving a place to go treat himself and returning after he feels he is well, or when he feels his position is threatened? Those who think Suntai cannot return to his desk must have forgotten too that when Yar’Adua was confronted with the same situation, his aides told Nigerians that he could rule from Saudi Arabia; indeed from anywhere under or over the sun.

    Madam Suntai and his (Suntai’s) handlers have not taken things to such a ridiculous extent. Rather, the man is here body and soul. They say he has not talked since he returned. The constitution does not say a governor must talk after returning from such a journey; it only requests that he transmits a message to that effect to the state house of assembly. At any rate, it is not even true that the governor has not talked since he returned; newspapers reported on Tuesday that he answered ‘Amen, Amen’ even if in low tones, when Adamawa State Governor Murtala Nyako visited him last Monday. When they see that the excuse that the governor is not talking is not flying, they say they have not seen him since his return. Again, is that important? Should they not be satisfied that Madam Suntai who is licensed to see the governor inside out is giving them a blow-by-blow account of how ‘oga at the top’ in the state is faring in the bedroom of power? Anyway, which of all these is a constitutional requirement?

    Now, imagine the man they say is unfit to govern; the same man has just dissolved his cabinet! If it is true that the governor could not respond to stimuli after 10 months’ treatment abroad, how come he was able to know that the entire pack was unproductive? Even if you insist that he was briefed only after his return, it still takes some soundness of mind to comprehend such briefing. Can an infirm governor do such a thing in our kind of country? This is a thing that even governors and presidents that are thought to be fit shy away from because of the political backlash. I won’t be surprised that Suntai’s enemies will also latch on to this and say that he could only have done this less than 72 hours after returning from his medical trip because he is not of a sound mind. Now, what use is a sound mind that cannot fire an entire cabinet if that cabinet is suffering diminishing returns?

    And, in case you are still in doubt that the governor is as fit as a fiddle, it was reported that he spoke briefly on video on Wednesday, four days after returning from his medical sojourn He also reportedly met with the legislators that had insisted he must address them if truly he is still capable to govern. As a matter of fact, we were told he called their names without mixing them up! If you are one of those saying Suntai did not perform even when he had no medical challenge, what you may not understand is that there are people like that: who spring a surprise when people have written them off. Suppose Governor Suntai is one of such persons?

    Honestly, we should be fair to His Excellency. In spite of all he has done to convince especially the state legislators that the plane crash has not reduced him to a vegetable; they are not in any mood to listen. Such is life; no matter what you do to such people whose minds are made up, they don’t listen. If you like buy mansions for them, they won’t budge; if you buy exotic cars for them, they still would not yield. The only thing that can satisfy them is to yield ground to them. But Governor Suntai should forgive all those who have been wishing him evil. He is even lucky his case is not like that of the First Lady whose property some of her aides had sold off when she had a medical challenge a few months ago. Quite magnanimously, she has forgiven those who thought she would not return alive. If the First Lady could do that, why not Governor Suntai? Such detractors may know not what they are doing.

    Certainly, there are certain things the constitution never envisaged. One of them is that a governor/pilot would crash an aircraft, and thus did not make provision for how to handle such situation. But how many women in Madam Suntai’s shoes would want to let go that easily? Baba ta ni ise wu? (Who loves poverty?)If in spite of all I have said you still feel I have confused, rather than convince you about the indispensability of Gov Suntai, or you still see what is unfolding in Taraba State as shenanigans, or you are still asking the foolish question as to why we are like this, that, according to former President Olusegun Obasanjo, na your toro (that’s your business).

    What many of us do not know is that people who had been governor since they were in the womb cannot be denied that right simply on account of an ailment that has held them down for only 10 months. What is 10 months in the life of a state where the life of the state chief executive is the issue? And, who says a state cannot be grounded on account of such an insignificant occurrence?

    But Nigeria is probably the only place where a governor has to subject himself to this kind of ridicule just to remain in power. We are all living witnesses to ‘Yar’Adua Part 1’. Now, ‘Yar’Adua Part Two’ (as someone said on the internet) is unfolding before our eyes. What I know however is that when you have not seen ‘The END’ after watching a movie, then, that movie has not ended. Certainly, we have not seen the end of the show of shame in Taraba. What I dub ‘The Suntai show’.

  • Senseless about Syria

    Senseless about Syria

    Blind to consequence, the aggressor thrusts into war, unaware that he approaches the gates of hell.

     

    Once extinguished, life becomes utterly irretrievable in the normal course of events. Thus, lethal warfare is a most somber matter; yet, too often, it is the province of the arrogant and foolish who from haughtiness or incapacity cannot properly gauge the attendant danger. War entices cowardly and diffident leaders into convincing themselves they must war to disguise the character flaws that trouble them. Into one or more of these categories fall the leaders of the three western nations – America, England and France – so bent on bombing Syria for alleged use of chemical weapons.

    This Western trio for years has itched to sign the death warrants of the Assad regime. They no longer have to tolerate that itch. With the weapons allegation, they now rush to scratch from existence this government they long have detested.

    Zealots of neo-conservative geopolitics in Western capitals have plotted to topple the houses of Hussein (Iraq), Gaddafi (Libya) and Assad (Syria). Toss in those unruly Iranian Shi’as as the ultimate objective. Already two targets have fallen to western intervention based on claims that later proved worse than false; they were fraudulent. Hussein’s Iraq was engulfed by massive war to rid that nation of weapons that did not exist. Its people still feel the bite of war and pinch of scarcity that war produces. The nation stands one major incident away from fully-outfitted civil war.

    The West intervened in Libya, allegedly compelled by the humanitarian principle of a responsibility to protect innocent civilians from their despot. The claim rang hollow when made. In hindsight, it was purely counterfeit.

    Western assertions that Gaddafi threatened to massacre Benghazi were fabricated pretexts to kill his regime and the man himself. The man never made the murderous exclamation. The lie justifies the vigorous bombing campaign that ensued, establishing a rather curious foreign policy tenet. The West will eagerly bomb a people to protect them from the violence of their government. The outcome of this distorted logic is to heap more pain and suffering on those who already have sampled the sour chalice. Under Gaddafi, Libyans had little freedom. They did have a semblance of social order and economy activity. Today, they have not gained freedom but have forfeited social order and economic activity as well. Western intervention has been a sad bargain for them. Theirs is now a land where political violence and economic depression are the daily fare. The West has abandoned the nation to its fractious aspects. Curiously, the responsibility to protect civilians that so provoked Western nations to chase Gaddafi into is grave seems not to endure with a sufficiency to establish a peace worthy of its name. The West used this rationale to unseat the enemy. Once the enemy is vanquished, the West blinds itself to the people’s suffering. In truth, the West cares little that civilians may perish. Its interest concerns in who kills them. If the killer is a foe, the West deems the action inhumane. If committed by an ally, the killing is considered the inescapable collateral damage of governance in a dangerous neighborhood. Why this curious and strange inconsistency?

    The answer is simple. The ability to kill means the actor has eminent dominion over the subject people and place. The West seeks not to end killing but to rob its enemies of their lethal dominion in hopes of bestowing this power in a particular nation to those who would do the West’s bidding. Instead of being a new tool promoting justice and humanitarian mercy, the principle of a responsibility to protect civilians has become a caliginous device undermining the doctrine of noninterference in the domestic affairs of other nations. The powerful now use this new doctrine to encroach against nations that offend them. They speak in the tongue of angels but the motives behind their deeds are as sullen as the excesses of a bygone era.

    If Assad should drown in the swell of civil war, Western arch-conservatives will rejoice. They will be three-quarters of the way to their dream of a politically conservative, economically pliant Middle East. Oil stocks and global shipping lanes will be secure for the near future. Israel will be also rid of an enemy. With Assad gone, only Iran remains as an obstacle. Already the rationale to crumple Iran – the nuclear specter – has been established.

    This neo-conservative dream refuses to die although it is so and outdated that it disserves America’s imperial interests. Still, this vision influences Western foreign policy. Thus, part of America’s foreign policy establishment will ally with known terrorists such as al Qaeda and its cousin, al Nusra, although these groups have been more actively opposed to America than Gaddafi’s Libya or Assad’s Syria. Staunch neo-conservatives are so fixated on their old designs that they don’t truly understand how much the world has changed. In a bid to oust these established regimes, the hard-line neo-conservatives are willing give the more radical anti-western groups a chance to seize power in these strategic nations. Not only are the neo-cons blood hungry, their incarnadine lust cripples their capacity to think logically, endangering their interests as they rush headlong toward war.

    Less rabid neo-conservatives realize the danger of abetting al-Qaeda and its franchisees. President Obama, that avowed fan of the President Bush, camps with this more straight-laced conservative group. He wants Assad subdued but is wary of handing the keys to the palace Syria to extremists as he has been done in Libya.

    The melding of staunch and cautious neo-conservative thought has produced a most cynical policy. America does not seek the quick departure of Assad, fearing that radical elements will most profit from the void created. Thus, a policy has been fashioned to keep Syria in perpetual war, where neither side is strong enough to win nor so weak as to fold. Aside from the gold star of replacing Assad with a compliant American lackey, this “plan B” best protects Washington’s interests. Far from freeing the Syrian people from violence, American policy aims to make violence a way of life in Syria as it has become in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Somalia and the Congo.

    Statements of western leaders have been illuminating. Try as they can to peal the bell of humanitarian concern, their words reveal the ugliness inside hidden. British Foreign Secretary Hague proclaimed self-righteously that the world act because this was the first instance of chemical weapons use in the 21st century. Hague must do better at reading the newspaper and spend less time mesmerized by his own harangue. This is not even the first chemical attack of the year. There was an earlier attack in which dozens were killed. At that time, the West hoisted their arms in protest until the UN inspector concluded the opposition had deployed lethal sarin gas. The West quickly discounted this outrage, pressing the international media not to report it. American and its sidekicks were not truly interested in deterring the use of chemical weapons. They were more interested in finding a pretext to delve further into Syria to shift the balance of power.

    If genuinely upset about chemical weapons, Western nations already would have bombed themselves for committing this transgression. When white phosphorus and depleted uranium are used in certain ways during military operations, they are classified as weapons. Such use is prohibited under most reasonable interpretations of international conventions. Yet, America used them and napalm in Iraq. Israel, the nation that purported provided America the communication intercepts implicating the Syrian government in the latest incident, resorted to white phosphorus against Palestinians during the 2008-09 Gaza uprising. None in the West clamored to sanction, much less bomb, Tel Aviv. The thought of America delivering a military blow to Israel for using illegal weapons so transcends the imagination as to be laughable.

    Statements of American officials have been reprobate in their lack of clarity. Explaining the rush to war, President Obama maundered, “In a nation with the largest stockpile of chemical weapons, where they have been allied to known terrorist organizations in the past, where over time their control of chemical weapons may erode… these chemical weapons could be directed against us. We want to make sure this does not happen.” This statement is a potpourri of tortured reasoning. It will be recorded as one of Obama’s lesser, most naked moments when he bared the emptiness of his character. That he could make this statement only a day after his keynote address commemorating the 1963 March on Washington and Dr. King’s “Dream Speech” shows that Obama either lacks a memory or is a man with a most elastic moral composition. For him, right is not what you seek to find; it is merely what you say it to be.

    According to Obama’s logic, Assad needs to be bombed because he is losing control over chemical stockpiles. This loss of control may soon allow terrorists to acquire use the weapons against America. This generates a few questions. If Assad has lost control over the weapons, why is America so adamant Assad directed this particular strike? If terrorists can imminently acquire these weapons and use them against America, doesn’t that mean they also have the ability to use them in Syria where the weapons are based?

    On one hand, America alleges the opposition did not have the ability to launch this attack. On the other hand, America alleges segments of the opposition have the ability to use these weapons against America. Both statements cannot be true.

    Bombing Assad, will secure the chemical stockpiles. Bombing will further loosen his hold, rendering the stockpiles more vulnerable to plunder by radicals. Bombing Assad enhances the possibility of al Qaeda acquiring the weapons. In other words, American action will turn these fears into a self-fulfilling prophecy. This, in turn, will allow the American military corporate condominium to further frighten the American public by claiming terrorists now hold lethal chemical weapons. This will be used as a rationale to increase security and police state tactics in America. Just wanting to be kept safe, the public will cower, dropping its inchoate concerns about internal surveillance and eavesdropping. The military/security machinery will further invade and erode American democracy, stone by stone, civil liberty by civil liberty. The American public will be as much a victim, albeit indirectly, of the bombing as the Syrian people.

    While America rushes headlong into the bog, England temporarily rescued itself with a touch of sanity. PM Cameron wanted to join President Obama in this martial recreation. In a stark rebuke to the rashness of their leader, Parliament ruined Cameron’s war designs. The rebellion in parliament against Cameron’s warmongering shows that democracy still works on occasion. The true heroes were those parliamentarians of his Tory party who placed national interests above party loyalty. English people are tired of war. After Iraq, they are wary of being dragged into a fray based on dubious, hastily drawn conclusions.

    Hoping to go into war with his junior partner Cameron, like the fictional heroes Batman and Robin, Obama is left to go it solo like the mythical cowboy hero, the Lone Ranger. Sure, the French want into the fray but that is a puny consolation prize. The French have a big appetite but hold a rather small cup and saucer. They can collar and bully weak African nations but Paris is no longer a genuine world power. The Gallic bull is but an old, flabby cow.

    One feels some sympathy for Obama. Judging by his unintelligent stammering, his heart is not in this. But the weight of the military and political apparatus pushes him toward war. He is too weak to resist although the claim against Assad smells dubious. That Assad would launch attacks likely to invite a Western response when he was clearly winning the war makes little sense. Assad was eager to attend peace talks in Geneva where negotiations would memorialize his military gains. Why would he risk all on a tactical outburst of no military consequence? That he would do this the very day weapons inspectors arrived on his invitation makes even less sense. Also, if America truly wanted to get to the truth of the matter, why did it apply high-level pressure to dissuade the UN from carrying out the inspection of the incident?

    While the international media has joined their financial sponsors in hastily concluding that Assad is the culprit, reasonable alternative theories must be investigated before a conclusion can be had on a matter freighted with such consequence. As President Obama implied, Assad may have lost control of portions of his stockpile in the miasma of war. Such weapons do not wonder the streets ownerless. Someone quickly assumes possession. Others may have gotten hold of them.

    Clearly losing the war, the opposition has much to gain by staging an attack then blaming Assad for the carnage. This would compel the West to increase their support and attack Assad, thus rescuing the opposition from impending defeat. Western clandestine agencies have been operating in the Syrian theatre for months. These agencies have the assets and guile to stage this operation while casting responsibility toward Assad. Moreover, these agencies also have motive to do this. Should their governments join the battle against Assad, the importance of these agencies will increase as will their funding.

    Assad is malign soul and he might well have commissioned this tragedy. However, his guilt is unlikely and thus far unproven. Even if he did this, American intervention will cause more harm than good. To engage in a policy that encourages perpetual war weakens America’s already dwindling legitimacy. To do so in the face of broad global opposition is to make a mockery of the international legal system America purports to champion.

    In retrospect, President Obama must rue the moment he said that use of chemical weapons in Syria would be a “red line.” Rarely has a leader placed himself, his nation and an entire region in such a predicament with the careless utterance of two words.

    I have no idea of the line’s true color but Obama certainly straddles a line separating caution from rashness and the arrogance of dumb power. It is tragic that the mighty are rarely wise. Much grief could be eliminated. By uttering this dangerous flippancy, Obama assured the world that chemical weapons would be used. Now he feels he must strike Syria or his credibility is at stake. This is silly.

    Credibility is not at stake. Vanity is. Obama has killed bin Laden, bombed Libya, Yemen and Pakistan and Afghanistan into smithereens. No one questions his love of bombing real and imaginary foes. To argue that he must act because he said he would act is to impose an adolescent form of reasoning on the world’s most elevated seat of national power. It is a request begging us to forgive the original folly (issuing the unwise threat) that we may also adopt the mad logic of fighting for the sole reason of not losing face. In any event, Obama should not worry of loss of face. His actions through all of this shows he has two faces. The man has, at least, one to spare. Better to lose face than lose the slim chance of peace.

    A minor tactical strike by America accomplished little. After the massive post-incident media and political buildup, a tactical incision would be worse than nothing. Arch conservatives would be biting at his heels and head to do more. He will comply as he always has. The logic of America’s illogical position requires that it strike repeatedly and with such force as to alter the balance of power which now heavily favors Assad. The more America invests itself in this melee, the more it must defeat Assad. The more it must defeat him, the more America must invest itself in war. This Nobel Peace Prize winning president has just purchased a pivotal seat in someone else’s war with the very words of his own mouth. Those who would rule the world should first control their tongues and the heady exuberance the muscle and might of high office often bring.

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  • South West APC leaders must beware

    South West APC leaders must beware

    “People who always want to have their ways at all cost and never provide better arguments but rather want to force their petty ideas on others are anarchists and pocket despots who will ultimately fail’ -AWO, during the Omoboriowo crisis  in Ondo state, exactly 30 years ago (1983).”

    Something is afoot in the South West APC and it is guaranteed to negatively affect the party if its leaders will not face up to it and deal squarely with it now that they still can. I am not one to speak from two sides of the mouth as neither my being Ekiti, nor having the rare privilege of being educated at Christ’s School, Ado-Ekiti, will permit it.. I have written previously on this page about the PDP’s plan to encircle the South West in a pincer-like movement, effective 2014, using mostly disgruntled or over ambitious ‘members’ of the progressive camp who, our leaders, unfortunately, believe are beyond reproach. And if care is not taken, these ‘gentlemen’ will, before their very eyes, emerge the Labour Party gubernatorial candidates in their respective states and there would be nothing they can do.

    Something tells me this is a well-funded PDP project being coordinated by two Southwest governors, one serving, the other ex. At the recent launch of Prof Ropo Sekoni’s book at the Muson Centre, Lagos, one of these individuals, confessed that much to both Professor Akin Oyebode and myself. And this is where a too trusting Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, whose name, one of them keeps dropping at the drop of a hat, readily comes in.

    Without a scintilla of doubt, but behind his back, I must have used close to a million words defending Tinubu at several fora in the past 10 years, all because I believe in what he represents. And this has nothing to do with my writing for The Nation newspaper. Anyway, The Nation was not established 10 years ago. I have told all who care to listen how, long before he became governor, he had been promoting and extending the frontiers of democracy. I have written about how he mobilised and sent, both Hon Wale Oshun and now, Senator Femi Lanlehin, with funds to a West African country to assist in the campaign of a presidential candidate long before he became governor. Today, hardly does any official event happen in Lagos without representations from Ghana and Sierra-Leone, owing largely to his political reach. And, but for him, nobody knows where exactly Obasanjo would have left Yoruba land. I never cease to pray that the good Lord will continue to lead him aright. Directly on his handling of the removal of Hon Bamidele as Chairman of the Ekiti ACN Caucus in the House of Representatives, an event for which many Nigerians commended the discipline and orderliness in the party, Opeyemi gleefully came back to Ekiti to tell his few followers that Asiwaju merely came to Ekiti to play politics and that he supports his aspirations all the way. Though we know this is what Fela would have called shakara, such talk, unfortunately, emboldens his misguided supporters who, unknown to Asiwaju, have also been assured of federal support in matters involving the police.

    Full scale disturbances have therefore occurred each time Ope visited the state with APC members always being at the receiving end because it is also a PDP plan since the Police Affairs Minister, an Ekiti and a wannabe gubernatorial candidate, is on orders to deal with APC members.

    In respect of this plan, I recently wrote somewhere as follows: ‘We are inching toward the final denouement. This scenario will soon play out in both Ekiti and Osun States where elections are due next year. Starting innocuously, sleeping agents of the PDP, who are otherwise APC ‘members’, but inexorably destined for the Labour Party will, acting as agent provocateurs, mess up the current peace in the South West. The police, in turn, would thereby get the alibi they need to arrest and detain, indefinitely, targeted leaders of the APC as has happened to the Interim APC Chairman, Mr Jide Awe. Now, the plot has shifted to the governor’s Special Adviser on Security, who usually foils their many evil plans and whose town, Iyin -Ekiti, was the latest of Hon Bamidele’s hot spots, backed by members of the Dr Fasehun wing of the OPC. Reminds one of the new UPN!

    The plot is aimed at crippling the APC ahead of the 2014 election. If they succeed in Ekiti, Osun will be next. It is all a strategic bating which is not the brainwave of dunderheads, but a well-choreographed scheme of evil geniuses hell bent on having the South West under their stranglehold again. Indeed, mere writing about them is dangerous enough, but write we must if democracy must survive in this land.

    In a private letter to Hon Bamidele this past week, Igede-based Abiola Olufemi affirmed that the legislator had actually started holding nocturnal meetings all over the state long before the Appeal Court decided in favour of Fayemi, all in the hope of contesting against him. He wrote him in 2011:’ You were sending rice and vegetable oil all around the state and preparing the ground for your contest as you thought Fayemi was going to lose at the Appeal Court. But to your amazement, Fayemi became governor and rather than support him, you were too bitter about the senatorial ticket given to Ojudu. That was why you started branding Fayemi a non-performer, bandying about 2006 census figures in order to pillory the governor. I was so miffed that I had to react with an article I titled “Opeyemi Bamidele’s Selective Amnesia”. Rather than change, you granted more than ten interviews within two days, sounding more hysterical than ever. Like many of your concoctions, you claimed that the leadership had not endorsed Fayemi.

    For the avoidance of doubt, you have as much right as anyone to aspire to be governor. But I ask: were you truly attacked? In this computer age, social media and the lot, you failed to provide a single photo or video evidence of the attacks. Where are the scars or the wounds? Where are Jaruu’s marks on you? I don’t really like him, but I don’t also think you should demonise him in your attempt to make Fayemi look bad! The latest claim of attack from your camp has its roots in an incident that happened at a party in your hometown of Iyin-Ekiti on Friday, 23 August, 2013. Jaruu was uncharacteristically cool under your boys’ provocation but Niyi Apase who came later with his fellow members of the Gani Adam faction of the OPC couldn’t stomach it when your Fredrick Faseun faction of the OPC attacked him. You saw it all, but never called them to order since it would make a good spin for the tabloid.’

    I quoted that letter at some length for the reading public to know the truth about these many ‘attacks’ on Opeyemi. I know, first hand, both in his quest for the Senate and this one, that party leaders sincerely pleaded with Hon Bamidele to take things easy. In the Senate case which he never ceases to claim he won, I know, as a member of the ACN state screening committee, appointed by the National Chairman of the party, that the election was inconclusive as the rerun never took place owing to threats of ‘war’. In the current case, I am equally aware that long before the party leaders came to Ekiti to endorse Fayemi, both Chief Bisi Akande and Asiwaju Bola Tinubu met with the duo and actually believed they had settled it all, but Opeyemi did not do any of the things he promised the party leaders.

    In conclusion, I will like to plead with those close to Hon Bamidele to let him know that he needs no alibi to move to another party, if he must, to fulfill his ambition rather than take us back to those rancorous days of the PDP in Ekiti.