The Nation Newspaper

Category: Sunday

What befuddling tomfoolery is this now?!

If the FIRS would pay such people a visit, find out their businesses, slap them with a tax so befitting no earthly tailor could match it, then we probably would become less befuddled or even be cured of our tomfoolery

Tomfoolery, says my encyclopaedia, is silly behaviour; and befuddling, goes the same authority, means causing someone to be confused. To be honest, I am so confused by the silliness of Nigeria’s wise rulers and business class that I think it is time to bring out my bag of hows. How come that, according to news reports, some of Nigeria’s rulers and business men, have been able to donate more than N6 billion towards the building of a deanery for the president’s homeland church?! How possible was it for the president of my country to be looking on while those figures (money that is, not the people) were being thrown around and he was not in consternation as I am now?! Just how large can that deanery be that it would require that much money? And just how on earth am I going to explain this to my grandchildren, eh?!

Truth is, anyone can do what they like with their money; it is after all, their money. When someone decides to put his/her money under his bed rather than take it to the bank, he is exercising his full rights over it. When s/he decides to give out every penny of the billions he owns, he is still exercising his full rights. Some businessman somewhere in the world was said to have one day become very sick of having so much money and seeing so many people with nothing to eat that he decided he had had enough. I would have liked to tell you that he then had the poor swept off the streets so that he would no longer have to look at them, but that would be my own story, not our man’s. Our man decided to wind up his business, he gave large chunks of his fortune away and used the remaining to start a food kitchen where the poor could come and eat and where he himself served.

When an individual decides to write his/her birthday party invitation on the nation’s bank notes, s/he is exercising rights that are stolen, cause, as any idiot can tell you, the notes belong to the central bank while the rights to use it legally belong to the holder. I think I’ve reported once that some party girl somewhere in our south-west here once did just that. She decided to send out invitations for her twenty-first birthday on the nation’s highest currency then of fifty naira. Luckily for us all, the police quietly stepped in. We never did find out what happened to those notes. So, anyone who decides to give the president’s deanery any sou, s/he is freely using his/her rights to do so. But we object seriously because that right infringes on our collective sense of what is full and empty. It is not right that while two-thirds of the country is empty in stomach, money should be thrown over our heads by the full in stomach as if we don’t exist. It’s not right.

Someone said the monies donated have been used to serve God. Truly, I cannot comment on this because it is only God who knows who is serving Him. I do know, however, that if the almighty had a say in the matter, he would ask that the president should just take what he needs for his deanery and send the remaining to others still struggling to erect their own church walls, like err, mine. But then, who is the almighty to say anything in matters like this? So, back to breaking our backs, folks, as we struggle on to raise the walls of our worship tents.

One thing is clear. Those stupendous monies have come from people who have gained immensely from the president’s office. Don’t praise me. Saying this does not particularly make me a genius; I am only repeating what others have said because I am rather good at that. But seriously, I don’t care about anyone gaining from the office of the president. What gets my goat is this public show of gratitude. Why must these people show us so blatantly that they have got the president’s ear and we have not? Why must they rub it in that because we don’t have billions to dole out for any cause at all, we don’t get our photos taken with the president? Oh, how I hate these show-offs!

Anyone who has studied the business clime of Nigeria knows for sure that, for good or bad, the federal government has managed to tie every venture in Nigeria around itself and itself around every venture. So, no one can breathe now without the government knowing about it. This of course translates to the fact that the government allows those that it loves to take in more gulps of air than others so that those ones will know how to be grateful in times of contribution so that they can be allowed to take in more gulps of air so that they can be eternally grateful so that … Get my drift? Then you’re doing better than me. I guess what I am trying to say is that launching times are often gratitude times; something you and I can never understand because it is too much like watching the ping-pong of table tennis. Your head is swivelling so much following the ball that you soon lose any idea of who is winning; you just know that if you stand there watching for too long, you will be the one losing.

The trouble in all this, and this is where I suspect the people’s umbrage derives its strength, is that these gratitude times are ultimately tied to the people’s fortunes. What wealth the government doles out to the privileged few does not belong to it but The People who have given it to the government to hold in trust for it (the people that is, not the government). So, when large figures are flying around national news organs, The People’s heads threaten to burst and indignant exclamation marks escape from their mouths: ‘Whar a heck!; why were we not invited to this event?!’ The people know that even though they have not been partakers in the ping-pong of business and money, ultimately, they and their children will have to pay for it. They know that they are the ones losing because all the figures flying around are really theirs, and they have no idea where they are going (the figures, not the people).

To me, the real culprit in all this is the tax office, or the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS). In a good country, where there is adequate reverence for law and order, there would be some officers of FIRS who do not sleep but are perpetually on the lookout for anyone who wants to play the fool with the nation’s money. Their beady eyes would immediately alight on such a figure, note his/her name, place of abode, and times of playing the fool and to what tune. Then those fine gentlemen and women would pay such a one a visit, politely ask what line of business s/he was in to accrue such an amount and then literally slap him/her with a tax so befitting no earthly tailor could match it, no matter how close the person was to anyone. Honestly, that is how we can become less befuddled or even be cured of our tomfoolery in this country. In the absence of that, all the president’s beneficiaries continue to exercise their rights to be grateful citizens, even if at the expense of us all. They also continue to rake up enough goodwill to warrant greater cause for future gratitude world without end, Amen.

March 24, 2013
Corporal punishment for the corpulent prince

Oh dear, oh dear, it is Alapansanpa in Aso Rock. Anybody familiar with Ihe cultural history of Ibadan must surely remember the dreaded masquerade and its infamous ambidexterity when it comes to wielding the native atori whip. The victims are known to weep and wail far into the night from complications arising from post-flagellation trauma. Not a few have ended up with distorted and permanently corrugated buttocks.

There are weeping generals and there are whipping generals. When snooper famously announced that actual reality in Nigeria had retired him from fiction writing, not a few thought that this was a premature and unwarranted termination of noble labours. But reality in Nigeria has continued to make fiction look like a poor cousin: inferior and famished.

Has anybody noticed that mum has been the word from the prince and lead Alsatian of the Aso Rock presidential menagerie-since the impossible and implacable Dr Mohammed Junaid famously declared that he once personally witnessed our own Doyin Okupe of the Agbonmagbe royal lineage being subjected to merciless presidential flogging by former president Olusegun Obasanjo? Or is it snooper that is hallucinating as usual? What further indignities must a man suffer in a legitimate forage for the next meal? What a plebian assault and insult!

It may however be that in this matter, canine discretion is the better part of valour. A few months back, snooper witnessed the two political medicos square up to each other on television. With his visage permanently frozen in fiery contempt, snooper knew that it was only a question of time before the Moscow trained medic raised the ante.

The affable and amiable Remo prince is right to keep mum on this matter. As a Moscow trained doctor, the Kano stormy petrel must have had more than a passing acquaintance with the ways of the KGB or the OGPU, the old Russian all-purpose police. It is not unlikely that he might have recorded the tumultuous shellacking for posterity. If care is not taken the fire-spitting contrarian may yet release the pummeling proceedings to Nollywood under the title, The Pacification of A Prince of the Upper Majidun River, with the sub-title, The Labours of A Lacerated Labrador.

Snooper will like to have the last word on this one but not the last stroke of the cane from the old general. Obasanjo is known to wield the whip with a soldierly sternness and a monstrous mien of private pleasure. He once famously flogged a security man for mishandling a crowd and his victims are known to take to a shuffling crouch. Anytime you see the prince walking with a crouching gait, it may well be as a result of spinal lesions occasioned by corporal and corporate beating.

March 24, 2013
Ex-convict in our hearts

In a time like this, Nigerians will always remember the late Fela Anikulapo-Kuti. If Fela were alive, he would have dedicated a special album to the uncommon presidential pardon granted Chief Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, the former Governor of Bayelsa State, on March 12. Chief Alamieyeseigha, for the record, is an ex-convict. I guess the lyric of Fela’s release would be something like this:

Fela: Alams, you jumped bail;

Alams: Yes, I jumped bail;

Fela: Alams, you be thief;

Alams: Yes I be thief, but the government say I no be thief;

Fela: Alams, you corrupt;

Alams: Yes, but the government say I no corrupt;

Fela: You disguised as a woman in the UK to jump bail;

Alams: em.. em.. that one get as e be, but em … em… e no be true, etc.

Never mind the fact that Fela is now dead, the truth is that he left behind powerful messages, some of which have proved him to be one of the greatest prophets Nigeria never anointed. Fela was a prophet. He died August 2, 1997, that was 15 years before. But we should not forget his ‘Government magic’. President Jonathan’s pardon for Chief Alamieyeseigha is one such magic. Since we cannot analyse the pardon because it defies logic, the kind that only the President and his colleagues in the National Council of State (NCS) understand, then it must eminently qualify as magic; precisely, government magic.

Of course, Chief Alamieyeseigha was not the only ex-convict pardoned by the President; he only happened to be the most celebrated. And we should understand why. Chief Alamieyeseigha is not only from the President’s home state of Bayelsa, he is also President Jonathan’s ‘political benefactor’. So, we cannot put him in the same category as Mr. Shettima Bulama, an ordinary former Managing Director of Bank of the North. Other ex-convicts pardoned included Gen Oladipo Diya, the Chief of General Staff during the reign of military dictator Gen Sani Abacha, former Managing Director of the Bank of the North, Mr. Shettima Bulama, who was also convicted of fraud; former Chief of Staff, Supreme Headquarters, the late Gen Musa Yar’Adua; former Minister of Works, the late Maj.-Gen Abdulkareem Adisa, who was also found culpable in the alleged coup that landed Diya in prison. Others included ex-Major Bello Magaji, Mohammed Lima Biu and former Major Segun Fadipe.

As we know, even ex-convicts have category. An ex-convict Bulama would put his mouth in what a friend calls ‘permanent position of shut up’ when his senior ex-convict in the person of Chief Alamieyeseigha is talking.

But my understanding of presidential pardon is that it is usually for prisoners of conscience or political prisoners. But to grant such to common thieves similar to the one on the left side of Jesus on the Cross is, to say the least, disgusting. This was the same Alamieyeseigha who jumped bail in the UK where he was held for alleged money laundering. He ran back home and expected to triumphantly return to his seat as governor but for public outcry. Those saying he did plea bargaining and forfeited most of the ill-gotten wealth to the government missed the point. Alamieyeseigha did not do that on his own volition; he had no choice at the time he did. At any rate, it was not as if he was penitent; he even said he did not want to contest that decision then because age was no longer on his side. In other words, he never admitted he stole. So, why are they now ‘calling dog monkey ’ for us, as if we were not all living witnesses to this shameful episode? Indeed, this is the reason why I am pained. The President did not have to explain why he pardoned Alamieyeseigha; after all, he once told us that he did not ‘give a damn’ about his declaration of assets!

It is unfortunate that Doyin Okupe, the President’s special assistant on public affairs, confused us the more, rather than convince us, when on Wednesday the government found its voice, through him, to defend the indefensible. He spoke about the President taking the decision alongside the NCS as if the people in the council are not Nigerians that we already know. Whenever we talk of the NCS and try to make an issue of it, I laugh. I laugh for the same reason that Okupe gave while defending the presidential pardon, that the council consists of some of the country’s ‘most distinguished personalities who could not have been mistaken in its action’. The question I have always asked myself is, why are we like this if really these people taking these essential decisions on our behalf are truly ‘some of the country’s most distinguished personalities’? If they are of impeccable wisdom as Okupe and others like him want us to believe, they all would not have slept facing the same direction on a matter as contentious as the one under consideration. The very fact that the matter has generated this heated debate nationwide is enough dent on the wisdom of their decision and it probably shows that we have always overrated them, or they have always overrated themselves.

So, how is what the President did different from the judiciary which frees high profile criminals in the country only for them to get their comeuppance abroad? If government could set Alamieyeseigha free, why do we blame people who invade our jail houses with the intention of setting free those held there? Has President Jonathan ever considered the effect of this particular pardon on the country’s image abroad? Now, government officials would be blaming journalists and people who see nothing good in the country when the backlash comes, without being honest enough to accept that it (government) is responsible for the negative image because of these kinds of decisions. With a decision as this, how would President Jonathan feel in the company of world leaders when next he travels out? This is the same President who said he cannot grant amnesty to ghosts, but is now granting presidential pardon to common thieves. Does that tell us anything about the government, and by extension the ruling party? Remember, just about three weeks ago, one of their anointed who should know said their party harbours more Judases than genuine disciples. Isn’t this a vindication of that assertion? The same President Jonathan who is now compassionate when the matter affects one of his own has kept a judge of repute out of his office for months for no just cause, even after the National Judicial Council that rightly or wrongly took the matter to him has said the man is without blemish.

I can live with the pardon granted those accused and convicted of coup plotting. After all, coup plotting can only be illegal in a democratic setting. The Abacha government that Diya and others were accused of plotting to overthrow was in itself an illegality. In case we have forgotten, a court pronounced its precursor, the Interim National Government, that much. At any rate, many of us were sad about the coup, phantom or real, that they said Diya and others planned, for the simple reason that it failed; thus denying Nigeria the noble service of terminating a government that was unwanted at home and distrusted abroad.

All said, if this is what the PDP wants to continue doing and still hope to return to power in 2015, then the party has a lot to contend with. As I have always noted, a fowl that is excreting in a pot is merely spoiling its final resting place. President Jonathan might have had his way on the pardon for Alamieyeseigha, but we will continue to have our say. Chief Alamieyeseigha remains an ex- convict in our hearts. And that is what is most important.

March 17, 2013
The wages of arbitrary rule

It is a normative freefall in Nigeria. When a society experiences a combination of anomie and normlessness, the captive denizens exhibit a certain numbness of feeling and weariness of the soul arising from sheer ethical disorientation. There is a growing effrontery and shamelessness emanating from the seat of power and governance. A feral compulsion is abroad as the state of nature returns. And since the normative grid around which human societies cohere and coalesce has collapsed, everybody is openly hunting down everybody. It is called social cannibalism.

The ongoing erosion of the templates of democratic rule in Nigeria bodes ill for the former British colony. Arbitrary rule has become the norm in the nation. The dangerous but sure fact about arbitrary rule is that it often provokes its own dangerous and arbitrary reaction. As general arbitrariness takes on specific arbitrary rule mutual cancellation often results. We are not there yet, but we are slowly creeping towards it. When and if the current democratic experiment collapses, it is surely going to take Nigeria as we know it along with itself. This is the danger of democratic rule superintended by a non-democratic elite.

As the societal rot and official corruption accelerate, and as arbitrary and despotic rule takes firm roots in the nation, it is now as clear as daylight that the dominant Nigerian political class can no longer avoid a historic retribution. No one is sure of how and when this will come about. But one thing is now very clear. As it happened in the First and and Second Republics, the national contradictions thrown up by the dissolute and feckless nature of the political class can no longer be solved or resolved under the rubric and template of “normal” democratic rule without some extra-constitutional tinkering with the current structure and political configuration of the nation.

There is an urgent need for a national referendum about certain nation-disabling fundaments which have hobbled Nigeria’s march to authentic nationhood and rendered governance at the centre very amenable to despotic arbitrary rule and the tyranny of jungle justice. Why is Jonathan behaving true to type and like all Nigerian civilian and military despots despite the much rhapsodized pan-Nigerian mandate that swept him into power?

Jonathan’s personal imprimatur in the current phase of the national crisis has been very disturbing, marked as it is by a feckless and reckless disdain for consensus building and the childlike relish with which he seems to delight in cocking a snook at the nation’s dominant power blocs. It may be that Jonathan probably knows what many do not know that Nigeria is an unviable proposition. He has detonated quite a few explosives, and he is not done yet, probably until Mount Vesuvius arrives in Abuja. A product of arbitrary and whimsical messianic delusion, he has shown remarkable courage and consistency in exposing the hollow hubris of those who foisted him on the nation. They will be licking their wounds for a very long time.

As this column never tires of insisting, Jonathan is not the problem. We must move beyond individual manifestation of national contradictions if we are ever to arrive at the real source of our problems. Take the case of the state pardons that have once again exposed the ethnic, ethical , political and economic fault lines of the nation. The fact that four prominent former rulers of Nigeria stayed away from the Council of State meeting at which Jonathan steamrolled his pardon request ought to tell its own story. But the president was not going to be fazed by the subtle blackmail of his predecessors.

The irony, however, is that this black market convening of the Council of States does not give the highest advisory organ in the nation the dignity and gravitas it deserves. It also exposes a dangerous dysfunction in the body which cannot endear it to fellow citizens or commend it as a group of revered arbiters. Had General Abdulsalaam attended the meeting, he would have been able to throw light on the precise and specific status of General Diya and co and helped to resolve the legal conundrum. Jonathan would have saved the state much public ridicule and scorn.

Ordinarily, state pardons ought to reflect certain guiding principles which promote core national values. The whole exercise must be informed by a drastic objectivity and impersonal rigour which promote the institutionalisation of the rule of law and social justice. They must not be informed by personal consideration, disdain for the moral health of the society or by political clientelism.

On several fronts, Jonathan’s pardons fall far short of this. Yet we must learn to disentangle the good from the bad and ugly. In several respects, Jonathan ought to be commended for showing courage and statesmanship in granting state pardon to the victims of the 1995 and 1997 purported coups against the government of General Sani Abacha.

Some of these illustrious officers paid a terrible price for merely daring to speak truth to power, particularly in the wake of the annulment of the June 12 presidential election. A few of them were merely the victims of professional rivalry and envy and of General Abacha’s vengeful brutality and dark paranoid furies. Today, many of them remain walking shadows of their former selves, hobbled forever by the excruciating physical torture and mental torment they were subjected to.

An army that lost its way in the political jungle is a monster indeed. This pardon ought to have come much earlier as a culmination of the process that led to the Oputa Panel and an act of national closure to an inglorious epoch of military rule. But for some inexplicable reasons, both the process and the outcome were aborted by their initiator. It would appear that General Obasanjo’s judgement and sense of justice were beclouded by vengeful animosities and personal vendetta.

The problem with this inability to rise above petty animus to a statesmanlike enunciation of national principles is that it is also a function of arbitrary rule. There is covert and overt dimension to arbitrary rule as we have seen in the Justice Salami saga. An arbitrary ruler may decide to keep quiet in the face of strong social and political currents in the society, thus hoping to profit from the ethical chaos of a country he ought to provide leadership for. This kind of arbitrary rule sets the template for future arbitrary rule and the reign of anomie.

If we are looking for the wages of arbitrary rule, we need not look very far. There is a way in which the immediate past always returns to haunt the present. The Alamieyeseigha saga is a classic instance of political nemesis arising from arbitrary rule. Here is a man who has been sinned against as much as he has sinned against his own country and people. Whatever his economic crimes and as heinous as these might have been, Alamieyeseigha ought not to have been removed from office by a kangaroo assembly.

It was setting a marble template for arbitrary rule. The former governor of Bayelsa State ought to have been allowed to serve out his term as stipulated by the letter of the constitution before being arraigned, provided his economic crimes and the international embarrassment he caused the nation were the real reason for the furious animus of the powers that be. The problem with putting down durable institutions is that it does not allow personal sentiments to get in the way of social justice, nor does it permit private grievances to pursue public rectitude and order.

As this columnist cautioned Malam Nuhu Ribadu then, the kind of noble relief he sought for the nation against economic predators was only feasible in a genuine revolutionary situation and not under a democratic dispensation with entrenched guidelines and legal stipulations. A phantom revolutionary situation has a way of provoking genuine counter-revolutions, consuming its starry-eyed idealists in the process.

But the poor Malam was too far gone in this drastic miscognition of subsisting reality. In the event, Nuhu Ribadu himself was to become a victim of arbitrary rule, hounded out of his job and eventually out of uniform with his former patrons utterly powerless to do anything about it. For a moment, Ribadu himself became an absconding fugitive from his beloved fatherland. The problem with arbitrary rule is that once it is set in motion, it becomes an impersonal fascist terror guillotine which cannot recognise its original owner; an equal opportunity decapitator.

There are more ominous ironies in the air, and those who have ears let them hear. It was the arbitrary and unconstitutional removal of the former governor of Bayelsa that paved the way for Goodluck Jonathan and provided him with an unstoppable momentum to the nation’s presidency. Now, the falcon can no longer hearken to the falconer; the monkey marionette has become his own monkey. Arbitrary rule is the name of the game and you cannot blame Jonathan for sticking to a winning formula.

So far so good. By granting pardon to his benefactor and former godfather, Jonathan has also set himself up in the jungle of arbitrary rule. Jonathan is mixing politics and grim political calculation involving personal gain with public order and social justice. His outburst and unpresidential diatribe against the perceived enemies of his former boss show how desperate and arbitrary things have become in the country. In the face of public obloquy Jonathan ought to have maintained a dignified silence.

The political reality is that Jonathan needs the former Squadron Leader to secure his home base in the looming and inevitable showdown with Nigeria’s dominant power blocs and its fractious factions. Whatever his economic infractions, Alams remains a local hero among his people for his sterling contribution to Niger Delta emancipation. The traditional kingmakers of Nigeria have their back to the wall on this one. Before the current reign of arbitrariness exhausts its possibilities, there will be a lot of wailing and caterwauling in the land. Those who set the template for arbitrary rule and their acquiescing godsons will receive their comeuppance in the fullness of time. That is the iron law of the post-colonial jungle.

March 17, 2013
The Alamieyeseigha pardon

I do not expect President Goodluck Jonathan to reverse or revisit the executive clemency he granted his former boss, former Bayelsa State Governor Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, last week. He will ride out the storm of controversies generated by the pardon and other pardons; and he will likely grant a few more, equally or surpassingly controversial, before his time in office is over. So, let us ignore the controversies surrounding the pardons, such as the presidency’s poor recordkeeping that led to the late Gen Shehu Yar’Adua being pardoned twice, or the controversies swirling around the list of the pardoned, which we all know was expanded probably as an afterthought to legitimise the main beneficiary of the Jonathan pardons. Let us instead focus our attention on the pardon granted the former Bayelsa governor and the undue emotionalism surrounding the issue.

It is a given, as former United States president Bill Clinton argued in 2001 when he tried to defend the 140 pardons he granted on his last day in office, that “The exercise of executive clemency is inherently controversial.” I, therefore, do not expect that Jonathan would grant pardons without eliciting some controversies or attracting attacks, some of them vicious. Nor do I expect that considering the general nature of pardons, they would be extended only to less grievous offences or less recognisable individuals. I have no problem with the lawfulness of the pardons Jonathan has granted, though it is a different matter altogether whether he adhered to the rules and regulations governing the exercise. But whether the president followed established procedures or not, he has the constitutional right to grant pardon, irrespective of the nature of the crime, and whether it is murder or fraud.

Unlike the United States that has a copious history of controversial pardons and commutations, Nigerian leaders have been fairly laid-back, even stingy like Preisdent Barack Obama, in granting pardons. Surprisingly, it is the same US that first took potshot at Jonathan’s pardons. According to a twitter posting by a US embassy spokeswoman in Nigeria, Deb Maclean, the US was deeply disappointed by the pardon granted Alamieyeseigha. This was followed by another terse statement from a US State Department spokeswoman, Victoria Nuland, who warned ominously that the pardons could cause the US to reassess the kind of assistance it granted Nigeria in the latter’s anti-corruption war. She, however, stressed that no sanctions or punitive measures were being undertaken against Nigeria. However, Nigeria has in turn deplored the meddlesomeness of the US in its internal affairs and even invited the US Deputy Chief of Mission in Abuja to receive the Nigerian protest.

Interestingly, the Alamieyeseigha pardon is not even half as controversial as some of the pardons and commutations granted by Clinton. In the case of Clinton, and with references to the clemency granted the oil mogul, Marc Rich, and the commutation of the sentences of 16 members of the Puerto Rican terrorist organisation, FALN, who set off bombs in New York and Chicago leading to the death of six people and maiming of dozens of others, a bitter US Congress investigated the pardons but found no wrongdoing. Marc Rich had been jailed for tax evasion to the tune of $48m and 51 counts of tax fraud. Like the Marc Rich case, the Alamieyeseigha pardon is without prejudice to any ongoing investigations or future fraud cases the authorities might bring against him.

But as Clinton wrote in 2001 in his defence of the pardons he granted, “The reason the framers of our Constitution vested this broad power in the Executive Branch was to assure that the president would have the freedom to do what he deemed to be the right thing, regardless of how unpopular a decision might be. Some of the uses of the power have been extremely controversial, such as President Washington’s pardons of leaders of the Whiskey Rebellion, President Harding’s commutation of the sentence of Eugene Debs, President Nixon’s commutation of the sentence of James Hoffa, President Ford’s pardon of former President Nixon, President Carter’s pardon of Vietnam War draft resisters, and President Bush’s 1992 pardon of six Iran-contra defendants, including former Defense Secretary Weinberger, which assured the end of that investigation.”

I have no doubt that Jonathan acted within his powers. However, he was not as altruistic as his aides seemed to suggest. His prime objective, it seems to me, is driven by both political calculations for 2015 and the fact that Bayelsa and a large swathe of the South-South are covered by an ethical fog influenced by Niger Delta militancy and decades of appalling degradation of the oil regions. Both the ethical fog and the environmental degradation suffered by the oil regions, as well as the contumaciousness that these have unleashed, all but guarantee that the definition of financial cum political morality in Nigeria will vary from one region to another. Expectedly, Jonathan is not immune to the influences of his background, nor has he been able to extricate himself from the sometimes narrow and short-sighted uses of presidential powers and the even narrower cultural confines and prejudices of his adolescent years.

Critics have slammed the president for pardoning Alamieyeseigha, thereby jeopardising his government’s anti-corruption war. But the criticisms ignore two important facts. One is that the former Bayelsa governor, who is sometimes referred to as governor-general of the Ijaw, is immensely popular in his region. Jonathan is not unmindful of that popularity, and he apparently seeks to take political advantage of it. Even in the days when Chief Olusegun Obasanjo troubled Alamieyeseigha, militants came to his rescue by denouncing the rest of the country and the media for singling out their hero for abuse. He had not done a fraction of what others did, his supporters grumbled.

Second is that, except I err gravely, the Jonathan government has never really embarked on any anti-corruption war, whether in part or in whole. He has not even verbally campaigned against corruption, partly because he is not as hypocritical as the Obasanjo government that either selectively campaigned against corruption, using his enemies as case studies, or believed that corruption was something others, particularly non-PDP members, indulged in. Unlike Obasanjo who could defend good and bad with equal passion and plausibility, Jonathan is realistic enough to appreciate that the present configuration of Nigerian politics does not conduce to a corruption-free society or any high-sounding moralising campaign. His boyish innocence makes him fundamentally uncomfortable with any anti-corruption sloganeering.

Neither the political uproar nor the moral outrage that has visited the Alamieyeseigha pardon will produce presidential contrition. The reason is not because the constitution is defective or that it grants more powers to the president than he can judiciously use. Indeed, it is for people like Alamieyeseigha that the clemency provision is interred in our constitution. If not Jonathan, then some other president will use the provision on a hypothetical tomorrow to achieve some controversial ends. The reason the president will not be contrite is also not because his natural tendency is to underpin his policies and actions with questionable ethics, for he seems altogether shorn of any ethics, preferring instead to moralise on the minor political and constitutional issues of the day while dodging the great issues capable of defining his presidency.

Rather than seethe with anger on an anti-corruption war the president has shown absolutely no inclination to fight, seeing that no one could imbue an inexistent war with a grand notional purpose, the country should instead concentrate on the more nuanced national crisis that the pardons have seemed to underscore. That national crisis centres on the poor judgement Nigerian presidents have exhibited over the decades. Jonathan could have waited until the closing days of his presidency, whether he wins reelection or not, to grant as many controversial pardons as pleases him, but he chose to do it now perhaps because of political desperation or pressure. The 2015 polls will show whether he has shot himself in the foot or not. He has been accused of half-heartedly waging war on corruption; but by pardoning his former boss, he goes beyond half-heartedness to confirming he has no interest in any war except one that would furnish him victory in the polls at all cost.

I see no point in all the uproar over the pardons, except to note the depressing fact that it manifests the president’s poor judgement and perhaps incapacity to take great decisions. In this controversy of state pardons, Jonathan will conveniently and excusably hide behind the constitution. It is in fact those who rail against the president’s pardons that inadvertently give the impression they are vengeful and unforgiving, and confirm why Nigeria’s penal system and penal institutions pursue a criminal to his grave rather than reform him. The uproar also shows that Nigerians have only one view of a criminal: that once he is crucified by the law or by public emotions, his soul is forever damned. If the president has good PR managers, he will turn the table against his critics. But if the critics emphasise the point that the president’s choices are nearly always fallible, they may not be saying anything new, but they will be reiterating the sombre view that whenever Jonathan displays firmness and shows initiative, he unalterably fails to rise to the occasion.

March 17, 2013
Baba Lekki unfolds his coat of arms

Whilst we are still on the subject of whimsical and arbitrary rule and its self-perpetuating dynamics, it is proper to report that arbitrary violence is a logical fallout of arbitrary rule. Arbitrary rule is an act of psychological violence against the populace. Accustomed to the routine and wanton cruelty of arbitrary rule, arbitrary violence takes root in the society as everybody luxuriates in the superiority of brute intimidation.

Last Tuesday as snooper was making his way through the vehicular maelstrom of Matori, a group of desperate urchins sitting atop a moving train and armed with stones the size of boulders were aiming their hand propelled grenades at passing vehicles. One of the crude missiles landed just behind snooper and made such a clattering noise that the fear of the lord was driven into everybody. Nobody could have stopped a moving train. This is as close to Hades as it could get on earth.

A few days later, snooper was still ruminating on this apocalyptic meltdown when he was confronted by a most outlandish sight in the kitchen. It was a glum and gloomy Baba Lekki wearing a huge outsize coat with its front pockets bulging with poorly concealed weapons of mass destruction. His face was grotesquely swollen with a massive lump superimposed on what used to be his nose. He looked like somebody who had just managed to extricate himself from a giant rodent trap with telltale wounds. Snooper was secretly enthralled by this remarkable discomfiture of the old contra and master of anticipatory violence. But all efforts to draw him out about the nature of his plight failed woefully.

“Okon, which one be this one again oo, or has your baba become a comedian?” snooper asked gleefully, casting a wicked glance at the human fiasco in the kitchen.

“Oga, dis one no be matter of comedian ooo. Even dem comedian dey cry for Lagos, becos palaver no be dem play and anikura come pass alawada. You know say Eko na wicked place. He no good make dem small yeye boys dey beat old man. Na dem beat baba sotey for Idumota him head no correct again. You no see how him Yoruba nose come big pass him mouth? Na dem panel beat am silly silly. He get one kata Yoruba welder boy for Oshodi. Him name be Kamoru. Na him dey beat dem people. Efen police sef him dey beat dem. He come beat dem policeman like dat he come shit for uniform”, Okon retorted, eyeing Baba Lekki with a wicked grin.

“Okon, so why is he wearing this big coat?” snooper asked, trying hard not to burst into laughter.

“Na him native insurance be dat one. Inside one pocket baba get dem heavy stones, inside another him get dem blade and dem jack knives and inside dem top pocket him put dem Awka pistol and dem Yoruba juju. If Baba hit dem elephant with dat one elephant go kaput”, Okon sniggered.

“Men, this is anarchy”, snooper exclaimed.

“Anarchy ko, inaki ni”, Baba Lekki rumbled at last with violent scorn even as he sulked like an infant.

“Okon, tell him not to come to this house with this coat again”, snooper ordered with a comic frown.

“Ha oga, I no fit tell am dat oo. Baba say na him coat of army be dat. You no say baba be old soldier for dem Congo. Na for Congo dem wild monkey come bite him head fiam fiam and baba him head no correct again “ Okon snorted.

“I said coat of arms and not army coat”, Baba Lekki groaned as he wobbled out of the house to snooper’s immense relief.

March 17, 2013
The limits of pardon

President Goodluck Jonathan seems to like courting unnecessary controversies which keeps denting the image of his government. If not, how can he or his aides justify the surprise state pardon granted the impeached governor of Bayelsa State, Diepreye Alamieyeseigha?

From one controversy to the other by him or his ‘born again’ wife, Dame Patience, the President continues to fritter whatever is left of the goodwill he initially enjoyed when he was elected.

He has a way of sometimes leaving many of his sympathisers, including myself, speechless with some of his controversial decisions, which make one to wonder if he really cares about the implications of his actions.

With the various challenges the federal government is battling on all fronts and the need to enjoy the support of as many as possible, the presidential pardon for his former boss, who was convicted for money laundering and other serious corrupt offences in 2007, is uncalled for.

The President must know something we don’t all know to justify the surreptitious manner of getting the Council of State to endorse his hidden agenda of granting the pardon to Alamieyeseigha and others, which some of those present at the meeting are now faulting.

If the president thought he could placate Nigerians by including the names of the former governor under whom he served as deputy along with some retired military officers who were jailed for a phantom coup, on the list of those pardoned, he now knows better.

No amount of defence by his Senior Special Assistant on Public Affairs, Dr. Doyin Okupe, can convince anyone that the president does not have a personal interest in exercising his right to grant pardon to those who at one time or the other have been punished for an offence against the state.

Okupe has really been at his best churning out all kinds of justification for Alamieyeseigha’s pardon, including the laughable one that the former governor had used his political and stabilising influence in the Niger Delta region to ensure high volume of crude oil export by the country. The irrepressible spokesman is obviously stretching the truth too far for want of good reasons for the pardon.

Interestingly, Okupe quoted Lord Denning as saying that “the purpose of punishment is not to destroy the offender but to reform him and deter others.” Alamieyesigha should be grateful that he is not languishing in jail for the offences he committed. Granting him pardon is clearly not the way to reform him or deter others from corrupt practices.

If President Jonathan is really serious about his anti-corruption crusade, he should not have pardoned the former governor, who was convicted for stealing public fund or any other person like the former Managing Director of the Bank of the North, Shetima Bulama, who misappropriated bank funds.

Clearly, President Jonathan is very desperate to help his ‘benefactor’ to erase his shameful past records, which explains why military officers who had earlier been granted clemency are now being pardoned.

Time will tell what the real purpose of the pardon for Alamieyesigha is for, but President Jonathan will go down in history as one leader who sacrificed the desire of Nigerians for a corruption-free nation by pardoning his former boss who was found guilty and jailed for corruption.

March 17, 2013
Between amnesty and state pardon…

I hope I will not soon be telling any FRSC man who stops me, the government is giving amnesty to killers and pardoning plunderers and you are holding me for answering a phone call in traffic?

I hope I will not soon be telling any FRSC man who stops me, the government is giving amnesty to killers and pardoning plunderers and you are holding me for answering a phone call in traffic?

Not long ago, I wrote that the Maina saga of N195 billion had got to be the limit my shock absorbing system can take, cause I thought how much else was there? Plenty more, it seems. Since then, my system has reverberated from the shock of many more high voltages. For instance, I found that you can cook an entire cow in the microwave; you can walk to Timbuctoo without the aid of a camel; a deaf and dumb can sing on Broadway, my dog can stand on his hind legs and dance to music, and yes, yes, yes, the government can grant pardons to state plunderers. Anything after that, as they say, is cheesecake. I mean, when you think you’ve heard it all, something bigger comes along, yet, we keep on swallowing our tea, sandwiches and roll-ups of amala. Life goes on, eh?

First came a request from the north that the country grant Boko Haram members amnesty and, like everyone else, the shock of it reverberated right across my teeth. But then, as usual, I recovered in time to think ‘Ah ha, Ah ha! Now, we have arrived at exactly where we were headed from the start.’ It has been obvious to many observers that the northern elites had wanted a replication of the Niger Delta amnesty programme for their own youths in the north for quite a while. However, in creating that organisation, the elites forgot to give the manual of behaviour: do not throw families into needless grief, and do not begin to go after your own. But, here we are, after the group has thrown many families into grief and mourning across the country, they are looking for amnesty, the kind granted in the Niger Delta.

No one needs any crystal glass to see that the activities of the two groups are as different from each other as the north is from the south, but that is not our focus now. Our focus is the use of the word ‘amnesty’ itself. No, do not fear, I am not about to give you an English lesson, just to point out that the granting of an amnesty to the ND militants in the first place was misplaced. Clearly, when you take to arms, it is because something is wrong and that is the only way you can point it out, not unless of course you are so taken by consternation as I once was at the sight of a fire that all I could do was gawk like a fish and point at the sight while trying and failing to mouth ‘F-f-f-f-f…’ So, the government should have reasoned that if there was a problem somewhere, there was the likelihood that there was a problem elsewhere. In other words, it was wrong for the government to have trained its binoculars on just the problem volcano, forgetting that other dormant volcanoes might just be waiting for the right time to explode.

More importantly, the contents of the amnesty programme itself leave many of us scratching our heads. Why should the government sponsor youths to go abroad to study courses that are available in the country? It amounts to a complete separation of state when one section is given too many handouts, even if that section produces a great deal of the country’s resources. It would have been better to translate such awards to social amenities such as schools, effective rail and electricity systems. This would let every section of the country be treated fairly and equally when everyone is given equal access to these privileges. That is good governance.

Bad governance is giving the ND youths monetary gifts, much of which is squandered on licentious living, instead of training them to live worthy lives of work and great achievements. Bad governance is also keeping the ND area underdeveloped and in perpetual darkness while claiming that the area is too difficult a terrain to govern. Yet, the rest of the country enjoys electricity powered by gas from the region. If everyone were to enjoy the commodity equally, no one would feel compelled to cut off the supply since he knows he will also be affected. Therefore, paying off the restless youths of the ND and failing to develop the region is tantamount to giving sweets to crying children just to keep them quiet. In a while, the sweets will melt off and the crying will resume. It is better to point the child to the kind of behaviour that can earn him or her as much sweets as he or she can take independently.

Back to the Boko Haram request. I think we are all inclined to say that the north started the Boko Haram problem, so let them fix it. The truth is that in so many ways, their activities have affected the rest of the country. Many among us can no longer take as much as forty winks of a night; imagine, many are now reduced to taking only thirty-eight or so. Many churches cannot even now pray with their eyes closed but must perpetually watch their gates or place policemen there so that no unwanted visitor comes driving up the wall. Haba, that is just so sacrilegious. So, we cannot wash our hands off them, but a firm answer should be that first and foremost, every drop of innocent blood that has been shed must be accounted for.

However, the government needs to watch out. Soon, the western part of the country will also want the benefits of amnesty, and then the east, and then the middle belt, and then the middle-middle belt, and then the south-south east, and then the south-south-south west, and then the south-south-south east … Look, it was wrong for the government to have started the programme in the ND without considering that someday, some others like me would get up and demand their own share. There must be ways of getting off this train though before it crashes. Oh, I forget, it is already crashing. Just look at how Alamieyeseigha was granted state pardon. And that’s the second kettle of fish.

The government just loves fishing in troubled waters, does it not, considering the way it moves from one boiling pot to another? If it is not renaming universities with long standing names, it is granting state pardons to people with whom the country has had long standing grudges. I believe that anyone can be pardoned; I have always believed in second and third and fourth and more chances but please, there is a time for everything. And this is not the most auspicious time for this kind of pardon. Things are too dicey, corruption is irritating everyone’s nose and daring all of us to hell, and state functionaries are behaving as if they exist on a different plane and jetting around the world like sparrows. So yes, everyone is sore right now and the atmosphere is as thick and dry as a tinderbox, ready to explode. All it just wants now is for someone to strike a match…

As I said before, my shock absorbing system, and that of the country, appears on the surface to be insensate but I suspect that beneath that thin veneer of invulnerability is a system that can scream, shout and throw tantrums and someday will say enough is enough! I hope I will not have to retort to the next Road Safety man who accosts me for answering the phone in traffic: the federal government is giving amnesty to killers and pardoning plunderers and you are holding me for answering a phone call in traffic? But I won’t be alone; I know many of my fellow countrymen will join me.

March 17, 2013
Remembering my teacher Pa Festus Fajana 15 years after his translation

Pa Fajana, solid and gregarious, was a kind and jolly person.

Like the evil that men do, the good also live after them. So it is with the elementary school teacher who made the greatest impact on me and whose corporeal bastinado, once inflicted on the soles of my feet, I shall never forget. That story is told anon.

Keen to know him?

Please come with me as I introduce the late Chief Festus Olorunsola Fajana, through the eyes of his erstwhile bosses. Of him, Chief J.B.C Adetola, his Headmaster at St Paul’s Anglican School, Odo-Ado, Ado-Ekiti, wrote “Festus, a very loving student of mine who became one of my very loving and amiable friends. He was loyal, dedicated, trustworthy and honest; Papa A.A Abiodun, the unforgettable Headmaster of Emmanuel senior primary school, Ado Ekiti , never known to spare the rod wrote: “Festus Fajana until last year December was a pupil of Emmanuel primary school, Ado Ekiti, under me.

He was the school senior prefect a post always entrusted to the most reliable boy…”. His Principal, and later, Regional Minister , Chief J.E. Babatola said: “Festus Fajana attended the Ekiti Divisional Training Teacher College Ikere Ekiti, when I was the Principal. He was a stolid character and a kind- hearted man who won the confidence of both staff and students. As a result of his remarkable display of good sense I made him the College Senior Prefect in his final year and he discharged the duties of the office creditably’. That was not all, as Prince Owolabi, my own Headmaster at the United School, Are-Afao, Ekiti, where Pa Fajana taught me, and who would later become the Oluyin of Iyin -Ekiti wrote: “Mr. F.O Fajana had been a teacher, trained and certificated, under me for a period of one year. He is honest and diligent” but the following must be the icing on the cake: J.A Adeokun, his Headmaster at St Louis Anglican School, Ikere-Ekiti, wrote on 22nd November 1961: “He is reputed to combine certain evident qualities like a keen sense of diligence, honesty and tact; he is ambitious and dynamic, a real leader: responsible and cultured; but to be moderate in the issue of this recommendation, one should be constrained to leave the applicant for a further character study to prove the veracity of my honest recommendation.”

As to the veracity of his recommendation, Pa Adedokun can rest easy in his grave because nobody who ever knew my teacher would doubt any of his words. Nor was this surprising as he had been brought up in the strict orthodoxy of an Anglican, at the homes of both Chief James Ajibade, the first Baba Egbe of St. Paul’s church, Odo Ado, and that of Rev. Obaweya of Igede Ekiti; was baptized on 7th July 1947 by Rev. Canon Adeyinka and confirmed in a Eucharist liturgy celebrated by the Very Revd. S.O Odutola, in 1953.

Besides his Christian upbringing, my teacher born, 14th April 1928 to Pa Ayegbusi Fajana and Madam Abigail Ibidunt Alege was a scion of the redoubtable Aremo Ogunbiyi Agoketorunse whose dynastic origin dated back to the pre- Ewi era and is believed to be the only cabinet chief who does not prostrate before the Ewi. His own father, Ayegbusi Fajana, an intrepid hunter, was reputed to have killed not only warthogs, but also Buffalos and Leopards and had special ‘ijala ode’ and panegyrics sung for him.

Late Papa Festus Fajana, a professional teacher, capped his professional training with a stint at the University of Lagos where he studied Pre-school and Nursery Education. He once toyed with the idea of joining the Nigerian police but he quickly dropped the idea and stayed put with his first love -teaching -where he touched and molded thousands of lives, amongst them today are professors, medical doctors, accountants, administrators, lawyers etc, as he taught in various towns dating back to the old Western Region.

It was at one of these various towns, Are-Ekiti, my home town, where he arrived in ’58 that I was privileged to be one of his favourite pupils. The story can now be told of that totally strange bastinado. Pa Fajana had believed that if none of his final year pupils would head straight to secondary school, Oluwafemi Orebe would. I then took the entrance examination to one secondary school which I passed, but did not attend the interview as it fell on the same date with the entrance examination of another school which I preferred. He did not know this until the interview results were out and I did not go to him to report my ‘success’. He was livid, but didn’t think twice. He asked late Major Bayo Olorunfemi, a classmate, to fetch him a sturdy cane. At my outstretched hand, he laughed and asked me to raise up my right leg while the same Olorunfemi and another boy held me up, to receive six strokes on the sole of that foot. However, I knew it was out of love, and concern, and so never begrudged my teacher.

Pa Fajana, solid and gregarious, was a kind and jolly person and was very much loved in the twin towns that co-owned our school. He became much more famous when he became the Headmaster on the departure of Papa Owolabi to ascend to the throne of his fathers at Iyin-Ekiti. He was among the most popular teachers of my era as a primary school pupil in my town, in the same league with Headmaster Akeredolu, Aketi’s father, who was astonishingly handsome and popular..

On retirement from teaching, Pa Fajana went fully into the service of his community. Among other things he was Proprietor, Ita Eku Community School, Secretary, Ado-Ekiti Anglican Parish, member, governing council, Ado Grammar School, Executive Officer, Board of Pensioners, Ado-Ekiti and Chairman, Ifelere Thrift and Co-operative Society.

He joined the Saints Triumphant on 19th of March 1998, survived by children and grandchildren who can justifiably be proud in the imperishable legacies he left behind.

Adieu, my worthy and unforgettable teacher who, we are comforted, is resting at the feet of his Lord and Master, our Lord, Jesus Christ.

OF POLICE COMMISSIONER YINKA BALOGUN (Rtd)

Police Commissioner Yinka Balogun (rtd), the dashing, one-time nemesis of Nigerian fraudsters, as Head of the SFU division of the Nigeria Police, is a gentleman in, and out of, uniform. Recently retired as the helmsman at the Edo State Police command, we became instant friends as soon as we were introduced to each other by Dr Kayode Fayemi, the Executive Governor of Ekiti State from where Yinka headed to Edo, prior to his glorious retirement from service. As a result of space constraint, not much can be written here of this genial gentleman who was once strongly rumoured to succeed Nuhu Ribadu as Chairman of the anti-graft agency, EFCC. Suffice it then to recall only two of the sterling commendations Nigerians have been heaping on this exemplar of a police officer:

‘I believe you must have been watching on the Channels TV, the pictures of the dilapidated structures at the Police College. Ikeja,. May be the other Police Colleges in Nigeria are also in similar parlous state. I will always remember the legacy of excellence you left at all Police formations you headed in Lagos, Abuja, Ekiti and Edo states before your honourale retirement from service. How I wish you had headed one or two Police Colleges in the country. I am sure you would have applied your usual Midas touch to transform them to beautiful places to behold and the policemen who passed through your tutelage/discipline would have profoundly made our nation proud.

Nigeria is the loser that a disciplined, honest, patriotic and highly cerebral officer like you did not become IGP’.

And this one:

”Shame on us! Tears roll down in my heart when I remember all the efforts to put things back on track, especially police, ICPC and EFCC. I am still in shock you did not become the Chair of EFCC or Head of Police Academy. I am honoured to be your friend’.

The trail-blazing Lagos State, if not Nigeria, will need the services of this cerebral -an author – very experienced gentleman, in its totally commendable and continuing efforts at securing the life and property of its citizenry. Over then to the indefatigable ‘Class Captain’ who I know is reading this. And congratulations on that which President Clinton has perceptively described as ‘an ingenious engineering feat’ -The Eko Atlantic Project.

March 17, 2013
Our amnesty and pardon culture

Having to pardon Alamieyeseigha for his role in the Niger Delta suggests that we may need to do the same thing for Onanafe Ibori if he too chooses as an Urhobo leader to help prevent young people in Delta State from stopping the flow of petroleum.

Two words are rife today in political governance and public communication in our country. Both are words that are used by powerful men to give the impression of solving fundamental problems in the country. These words represent policies that the federal government in particular believes can put an end to some of the basic challenges facing the country’s security-economic, political, and physical. In consonance with the proverbial Nigeria Factor, these words quickly assume magical powers capable of serving as panacea to all problems. The words are Amnesty and Pardon.

When the youths of Niger Delta chose to carry arms to reinforce their leaders’ demand for economic justice some years back, the federal government came up with amnesty as the way to end a long-standing problem. Niger Delta militants that were fighting for more revenue to oil-producing states and communities were persuaded to receive special stipends in lieu of what should have come to compensate the Niger Delta for ecological disaster spawned by oil drilling and gas flaring. Unlike the political demands of Niger Delta leaders that were ignored for years, the militants were assuaged with amnesty payments, special scholarships, and occasional contracts to high-profile militants. For Niger Delta militants to qualify for amnesty payments, they were asked to hand over their guns to federal government agents in exchange for forgiveness for attempting to disrupt the flow of oil. Of course, the issue of economic justice to the Niger Delta remains unsolved after granting of amnesty to militants who agreed to surrender their weapons.

Shortly after implementation of amnesty payments to thousands of militants, a new group emerged in the North, Boko Haram (Western education is sin). This group hit the ground harder than Niger Delta militants. Boko Haram has for about two years acted as terrorists in every sense of the word, killing innocent Nigerians and non-Nigerians. In response to Boko Haram, high-profile Nigerians are calling for amnesty as a way to restore peace and security to the country. The case for amnesty has been built on mass poverty and illiteracy in the North: the birth-place of Nigeria’s foremost terrorist group. It is being suggested that empowering and educating the masses in the North will pacify Boko Haram warriors and end the culture of terror in the country.

The belief that amnesty has solved the problem of the Niger Delta must have influenced the thinking of leaders who now believe that amnesty would also end the challenges created by Boko Haram. Amnesty as panacea to the country’s problems focuses not on resolution of conflict but on assuaging the feelings of individuals by giving them material inducement to abandon the cause that led to physical struggle against the Nigerian state. It does not matter to proponents of amnesty as panacea to Nigeria’s social problems if those given amnesty actually change their orientation or if the cause that led to militancy or terrorism that is to be doused by amnesty is addressed. Apart from President Jonathan’s statement that he is not ready to negotiate with ghosts, he too seems to believe that amnesty is an option for his government to end the security challenge posed by Boko Haram. Having been a part of the government that used amnesty to address the demands of Niger Delta militants, it is not surprising that the President thinks that amnesty is an option to change the minds of Boko Haramists, once they show their faces.

It is, therefore, surprising that the presidency is using the pardon of Diepreye Alamieyeseigha to warn the country that amnesty given to Niger Delta militants has addressed just symptoms rather than cause. Giving official pardon to Alamieyeseigha is, according to the presidency, in the interest of Nigeria’s economy: “Alamieyeseigha is a foremost leader of the Ijaw nation, and his political and stabilising influence in that region has impacted positively on the overall economy of the nation, bringing crude oil exports from the abysmally low level of 700,000bpd to over 2.4 million bpd, …Therefore, it is obvious that, Alamieyeseigha has been a major player since his release from prison in ensuring that the blood that runs through the artery of the Nigerian economy is not cut off.”

The import of the statement above is that President Jonathan needs to pardon Alamieyeseigha, to prevent the country’s oil-dependent economy from dying. In other words, the first governor of Bayelsa must have been helpful in ending the fight of militants against Nigeria before the adoption of the policy of amnesty. We are also being told that, without Alamieyeseigha’s freedom to interact with Niger Delta militants, the flow of oil may be stopped, with the consequence of killing what holds the country together: uninterrupted flow of petroleum. The presidency is unequivocal about letting Nigerians know that President Jonathan is doing Nigeria a big favour by giving his former boss official pardon. The fact that Alamieyeseigha was convicted for crime against the state is no longer as important as the role that he can play in ensuring that militants in the Niger Delta are kept at bay.

From the role the presidency claims that Alameyeseigha is playing to keep the country’s economy afloat, it is clear that even the over cited amnesty has not worked. If anything, it has only addressed the symptom of the problem that led youths to carry arms against the state for neglecting the oil-producing states of the Niger Delta. In addition, the fear that new militants may spring up if Alameyeseigha is not given the freedom and respect to rein in potential militants suggests that amnesty is not an effective way to respond to calls for justice in the Niger Delta. It is also conceivable that if amnesty is given to Boko Haram terrorists, it may not work beyond bribing terrorists temporarily to abstain from violence.

The right approach to solving problems is to face the cause and not symptoms of such problems, as we have done in the last few years. We threw money at Niger Delta militants but failed to put an end to demands for principle of derivation. Instead, we were able to pay off militants at work at that time without having any way of preventing other younger people from becoming militants, thus having to need perpetually the service of Alamieyeseigha to ensure the flow of petroleum. We are also being encouraged to give amnesty to Boko Haramists, without ensuring that they denounce their desire to extend Sharia all over Nigeria; their hate of Christians in a multi-religious and multiethnic country; and the sect’s opposition to Western education or civilisation, the origin of Nigeria itself.

We will not be able to fight corruption if we have to pardon corrupt politicians for being in a position to appease militants, just as we may not be able to fight religious bigotry if we only choose to give amnesty to citizens that have waged war against the Nigerian state and its citizens. Having to pardon Alamieyeseigha for his role in the Niger Delta suggests that we may need to do the same thing for Onanafe Ibori if he too chooses as an Urhobo leader to help prevent young people in Delta State from stopping the flow of petroleum. The federal government needs to address problems frontally instead of treating symptoms.

March 17, 2013