The Nation Newspaper

Category: Sunday

  • PDP civil war and Boko Haram

    PDP civil war and Boko Haram

    The latest skirmishes in what is shaping up to be a full-blown civil war in the ruling Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) ahead the 2015 general elections was headline news all through last week. There was former President Olusegun Obasanjo on CNN pontificating about the Nigerian condition and offering remedies for our many maladies.

    Consumed by patriotic zeal, he offered his most hard-hitting critique yet of President Goodluck Jonathan’s management of the Boko Haram insurgency, dismissing it as all stick with nary a carrot in sight. This was the signal for a presidential retort that it needed no “lectures” on how to resolve the conflict. Not the chummiest of exchanges between leading lights of the ruling party!

    Baba, as his fans call him, had forgotten that at Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) President, Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor’s, 40th anniversary ministry celebrations in Warri, Delta State, he had bragged about how his muscular intervention in Odi, Bayelsa State, broke the backs of pesky Niger Delta militants once and for all.

    Those comments were widely, and correctly, interpreted as an endorsement of the firm hand treatment for terrorists, as opposed to Jonathan’s vacillation between force and talk.

    To now turn around a couple of weeks later to denounce the president for not trying enough to understand why the Boko Haram killers are so bestial is mischievous – to say the least. It is a pointer that in the looming war ahead in the ruling party truth will not only be an early casualty; logic will also be turned on its head.

    Anyone investigating the short history of failed dialogue between the government and the insurgents will find that Jonathan and his administration have been anything but hawkish over the matter. Even in the face of the worst outrages the president was always advocating talks – much to the chagrin of many.

    His recent tough talk is not the result of any sort of Damascus Road conversion; it is rather the cul-de-sac into which the government has been pushed by harsh reality.

    The fact is nothing has happened in the battle against Boko Haram to make dialogue any more reasonable or plausible at this point. Of course, it is politically correct to back talks, and the advocates of dialogue have tried their best to paint those who take a different view as intemperate, sectional and partisan. Nothing can be farther from the truth.

    Dialogue doesn’t just happen: humans are not that reasonable. Combatants only come to the table when they realise that their cause cannot be achieved by force of arms. Sometimes they come to that realisation before the shooting starts; at other times it takes the sight of blood and devastation to bring them back to their senses.

    I should also point out that no legitimate government – no matter how peace-loving – will just scurry into talks with every outlaw or pseudo-freedom fighter the minute its authority is challenged. They will only do so when they come to the conclusion that they can no longer impose their will and authority over the territory they control.

    Talks with Boko Haram is further complicated by the fact that sect has since fragmented into several factions. Which do you begin to negotiate with? If you cut a deal with one band of goons, will the other faction uphold such an agreement?

    In these sorts of matters dialogue can only be a reward for reason, or the consequence of the insurgents proving themselves militarily. They have not done so, and have suffered so many reverses in recent times they have been reduced to carrying out their inhuman killings in isolated villages along the Nigeria-Cameroun border.

    They have not done anything that can be vaguely described as reasonable. They could for instance declare a short ceasefire as a window for negotiations. They could also say they will no longer target innocent, unarmed civilians. But they have done nothing of this sort but continue with what Pope Benedict not too long ago referred to as “savage acts of terror” whenever they get a chance.

    For me, all talk of dialogue is especially repugnant when the group we are supposed to be talking with has devoted itself to setting the country on fire using sectarian triggers.

    Some mischievous commentators have excoriated CAN President, Oritsejafor, in recent times for taking a tough stance against the so-called dialogue. In their desperate bid to appear politically-correct, they miss the point. If they would take off the blinkers from their eyes they may appreciate how a man in his position can take such a stance.

    Where else in Nigeria are adherents of any religion being set upon in a deliberate and systematic manner as is happening in the North-East today? Who has heard or been given anything that approaches a rationale for slitting a pastor’s throat before his congregants?

    After a series of deadly attacks in June last year, Boko Haram spokesman, Abul Qaqa, in claiming responsibility said: “We are responsible for the suicide attack on a church in Jos and also another attack on another church in Biu. The Nigerian state and Christians are our enemies and we will be launching attacks on the Nigerian state and its security apparatus as well as churches until we achieve our goal of establishing an Islamic state in place of the secular state.”

    If the sect is angry with the government over the killing of its erstwhile leader, Mohammed Yusuf, how do Christians come in? The president at that point was Umaru Yar’Adua – a Muslim.

    Some advocates of dialogue at all cost, and by all means, have even reduced the matter to the parochial level of arguing that even more Muslims than Christians have been killed by the sect.

    It is easy to play a morbid game of statistics, but silly arguments about which side has more body bags to show will not get us very far. The fact of the matter is this conflict is taking place in northern Nigeria where there are more Muslims than Christians.

    When these killers sow their bombs in Kano city, for example, anyone caught in the wrong place at the wrong time would be blown to bits. It wouldn’t matter whether they were carrying a tesbiu or rosary. Those killed become collateral damage in the process of Boko Haram terrorising the community. They didn’t die because the sect launched a war against Muslims.

    But there is evidence of deliberate, coordinated murder of Christians in their homes and churches from Borno to Kano to Adamawa. What is happening in the North is sinister; it is evil. It should be stamped out – not coddled. No one suggested dialogue with the Nazis who were exterminating people because of their race and beliefs; no one should suggest that with this sect.

  • On the nation’s unity or uniformity (1)

    On the nation’s unity or uniformity (1)

    Those in position of authority should know that injustice in one part of the country will affect others

    There is a trend in our country’s political discourse that is not receiving adequate attention. Northern leaders and sociocultural organiSations are leading a debate that is dangerous for the country’s unity but to which other segments of the country are paying too little attention. Spokesmen for the north are parading themselves as the sole protector of our federation’s unity.

    Since the exit of military dictatorship and the advent of civilian rule, northern political and cultural spokesmen have occupied themselves with strange definitions of unity in a federal system. For example, Arewa Consultative Forum has been clear in its opposition to calls for a sovereign national conference to write a new constitution that reflect the wishes and desires of the peoples of our federal republic. Since the beginning of post-military rule and imposition of the 1999 Constitution by the last military dictator, ACF has affirmed that there is no problem with the current constitution that other regions have asked to be replaced with a people’s constitution.

    On calls for devolution of power to states, ACF has been unmistakable in its objection to decentralisation of the country’s police system. It has argued pontifically that states (including those that are not northern) are not ready for state police or community police. ACF has even affirmed that allowing states to own police is dangerous to the country’s unity, arguing that existence of state police is capable of destroying the country’s unity.

    Nowhere is the pontification of northern leaders on what it means for Nigeria to be united more evident than in the ongoing opposition of northern states to the Petroleum Industry Bill. Several organisations and political leaders in the north have been unequivocal about the danger inherent in making companies engaged in upstream petroleum operations allocate 10% of profit to petroleum producing communities. One such example is the statement of Senator DanladiSankara of Jigawa: ‘It is clear the way it (PIB) was crafted that only one section of the country is being favoured to benefit. While no one is saying the oil producing states/communities should not benefit, such benefits should not be to the detriment of other sections. We will not allow it. This country belongs to us all.’

    Sankara further pontificates: ‘I don’t know how you are going to have peace where allocation of resources are so skewed in favour of one region to the detriment of other geo-political zones. The position of northern senators is in the best interest of the nation because what they stand for is equity and justice. The problem in the north is security challenges attributed to social and economic factors…. Our perception of PIB in the north is that the Bill is aimed at gradual disempowerment and impoverishment of other parts of the country. Those in position of authority should know that injustice in one part of the country will affect others.’

    It is not only Sankara that has spoken against any effort to give more funds to oil-producing communities in the Niger Delta, to rectify decades of damage and neglect suffered by that region under series of military regimes that robbed the region of the 50% allocation to derivation that was provided for up to the republican constitution of 1963, the last constitution in the country without the imprimatur of military governments. Chairman of the Northern Governors Forum has been reported to have hinted of plans by governors in the north to reject the PIB for not taking the special interests of the north into account.

    An unidentified northern politician has been reported in the media to have said in respect of the provision for special allocation of funds to petroleum producing communities: ‘This section will make several billions of naira for the development of the Niger Delta, in addition to the funds provided to the Niger Delta Development Commission and the Ministry of Niger Delta. You can see that the country is finished. That bill is meant to take care of the people of Niger Delta alone. We won’t support it.’

    All the foregoing references to opposition of northern leaders to calls for policies that can sustain federalism are not intended to question the right of leaders of and from the north to express their views on national issues. What is worrisome is the manner in which they confuse their sectional interests with the interest of the nation or federation as a whole, particularly the tendency to present the North as the sole custodian of the nation’s unity.

    Anything that is perceived not to be in the interest of northern leaders is viewed as dangerous to the country’s unity. Just as decentralising the central police is viewed as capable of destroying the unity of the country, so is allocating funds to communities in the Niger Delta to compensate for environmental degradation considered by spokesmen for the North as capable of finishing or destroying the country.

    Leaders from the North, the region which produced most of the country’s military dictators that destroyed its federal system and ended provision for 50% of revenue to regions of derivation give the impression that they are mandated to protect and promote the vision of military dictators in a post-military democracy. The policy of even development,which served as the guiding philosophy for military dictators to end the regime of 50% allocation on the basis of derivation, is not an inherent aspect of federalism. It is the same policy that led to the creation of 36 states and 774 local governments and the policy of distributing revenue from petroleum and gas to these units with little or no consideration for the damage that exploitation of petroleum has caused and continues to cause for the communities concerned.

    Northern political leaders need to familiarise themselves with policies and development in other federations around the world. In most federations, each federating unit is encouraged to develop on the basis of comparative advantage, not on the basis of even development that is fueled by sharing of revenue, as it has been done in Nigeria since the end of the civil war. Any section of the country that suffers because of exploitation of natural resources deserves to be given special consideration. The principle of equity and justice supports this. It does not support giving what should be used to protect such communities to all other regions, simply because such regions also belong to the same country with communities degraded by exploitation of natural resources.

  • Encounter with Kumuyi

    Encounter with Kumuyi

    Pastor Williams Kumuyi, the General Superintendent of the Deeper Life Bible Church, is a man of God in a class of his own. The former university don remains one of the few old time preachers of the gospel and an apostle of holiness whose call to ministry is not in doubt in these days when Church leadership has become an all comers’ affair.

    Not for him is the craze for titles, flamboyant lifestyle and other misdemeanour now associated with many who claim to be Church leaders.

    While some pastors will go to ridiculous extent to seek cheap publicity, like the current wave of churning out all manners of prophesies to draw attention to themselves, Pastor Kumuyi prefers to keep a low profile and focuses more on the teaching ministry which he believes is his major assignment.

    When I met him along with some colleagues on January 5 at the premises of the church headquarters in Ipaja, Lagos, he was his usual very reserved self. Dressed simply in shirt and trousers, Pastor Kumuyi did not jump at the opportunity to make any controversial statement for the sake of it.

    He did his best to respond to our questions on various national issues, choosing his words carefully, apparently not because he was afraid of offending anyone but to put the issues in proper perspectives from his own point of view.

    I was very interested in his response to why he doesn’t issue yearly prophesies or call to order some pastors who seem to be causing some scare through their sometimes contradictory prophesies. While not dismissing the prophesies since, according to him, God gave Christians various gifts including that of prophesy, Pastor Kumuyi thinks those who engage in this practice should avoid giving ‘situational’ prophesies which are informed by things happening in the country.

    He noted that some of the ‘doomsday’ prophesies may not be fulfilled since God is open to supplication from those concerned if indeed the revelations the pastors claimed to have had are true. While there is nothing wrong in warning against any real looming dangers, Pastor Kumuyi would rather Church leaders engage in admonishing the people to abide by God’s word and praying to avert any negative situation.

    Contrary to the impression that he is not involved in the activities of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), which has been very vocal about the plight of Christians in the country, and other Christian groups, Pastor Kumuyi said he does this as quietly as he can without getting enmeshed in the politics of running the organisations.

    Expectedly, he is worried about the attacks on Christians in the country and wants the government to take necessary steps to protect all citizens irrespective of their religious beliefs. He admits that there is cause to be worried about the state of the general state of the country and urged political office holders to ensure good governance at all levels to improve the standard of living of Nigerians.

    Not every Church leader can be like Pastor Kumuyi and they don’t have to be. But if there is anything many of them need to learn from a man like him, it is being humble despite the grace of God on their lives and whatever worldly accomplishments they have to their credit, instead of seeking unnecessary public acclaim.

  • Thank you, Deacon Ositelu

    Thank you, Deacon Ositelu

    If only death gives notice, I would have loved to see Deacon Ayo Ositelu, veteran editor and versatile sports analyst and commentator before he passed on December 9, while watching television, at least to say thank you for his inspiration and contributions to whatever I am today in my chosen profession. He would have been 70 on April 6. I met Mr Ositelu in 1985, when I joined The PUNCH as a sub-editor. I was only a few months old in the system when he, (as editor of the Sunday PUNCH) called me after reading one of my write-ups in the paper and gave me space in his title for a regular column. Then, I was still bubbling with this fresh-from-school radicalism that some people believe is yet to depart from me; but which I feel has been greatly tempered by age and maturity.

    I seized the opportunity offered by Ositelu’s invitation with both hands; indeed, it was a dream come true. And I would explain why. Since my secondary school days when I had made up my mind to study Mass Communication (I must confess I initially did not know what the course was all about then; I was just fascinated by the name, but fell in love completely with the choice when I saw it offered an opportunity to be a journalist and write on what we now know as ‘burning national and international issues’). I was so emotionally attached to Mass Comm. that when I was finishing my Advance Level course at the Federal School of Arts and Science, Ondo, and had to fill the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) form for admission into the university, I entered Mass Communication as my first and second choice, meaning there was no choice, really; it was Mass Communication or nothing. My friends thought I was mad because it was more difficult to enter the Mass Communication department at the University of Lagos then than it was to read Law. The tradition then therefore was for people interested in a course like Mass Comm. to take a relatively simpler course as second choice. I understood their fears and entered for the November/December GCE ‘A’ Level just in case I could not meet the required points in the May/June examination. Mercifully however, I did not have any cause to sit for the November examination as I cleared my papers in the May/June examination.

    So you can imagine how happy and grateful I must have been when Mr Ositelu placed on my laps, on a platter of gold, a thing I thought I was going to sweat to get. It was a great privilege and the search for what to call the column began. I remember it was at 124, Herbert Macaulay Street in Ebute-Metta, Lagos, where one of my friends and former classmates in the university (Olu Awogbemila) that we incidentally started work at The PUNCH same day then lived with his parents, that the brainstorming was done. All manner of names were joggled before we finally settled for ‘The Cyclone’. In no time, the name soon overtook my biological names, and some people till this day would ask ‘who is Tunji Adegboyega’ but would be surprised when they discover that Tunji Adegboyega and ‘The Cyclone’ are one and the same person.

    Of course the name of the column reflected my personality and most of the write-ups under it were blunt, no holds-barred and downright unsparing of the military leaders of that era, particularly the Ibrahim Babangida regime. I remember a particular piece titled “Killing by installments” which was on the contentious fuel subsidy that the Babangida regime too had insisted must go because petrol is ‘cheaper thatn Coke’ over which I was told some people were after me in the Babangida years. I can also remember Mr Ositelu asking me then to watch my back in all I did. True, that column lived to its name. What I cannot tell for sure now is whether my write-ups now are as caustic as those of ‘The Cyclone’.

    I pay glowing tributes to Mr Ositelu for identifying the potential in me at that early stage and giving me an opportunity to do what I had always longed to do when I least expected it could ever have happened. Like all mortals, Ositelu had his own failings even as far back as the mid’80s that I met him, but he was one editor who did not believe you had to lord it over people or send young journalists scampering to safety all because an editor is coming. He was simple, perhaps to a fault; and any apparel he wore – English or native – was spot on. Then his baby face and physique were things the opposite sex could not ignore. Ositelu was naturally handsome but none of these entered his head. That he would have been 70 in March is difficult to believe because he never looked that age.

    One thing Ositelu knew how to write on best was sports, and he did it to the very end. His death at his residence on Wednesday night shortly after watching a Super Eagles friendly match probably attested to his love for sports. Just last November, he served as the compere during the exhibition match between the Williams sisters (Serena & Venus) at the Lagos Tennis Club, South-West, Nigeria. He was a respected columnist whose write-ups commanded respect both at home and beyond.

    Once again, I pay my homage due to Deacon Ayo Ositelu, ‘Arena’ for short, foremost international sports journalist and former Chairman of Ejigbo Local Council Development Area. May his soul rest in perfect peace.

    Well done, worthy cops

    Tribute to a senior colleague

    It is not all the time that I write to celebrate people who perform their tasks. But not when those involved are policemen who more often than not get criticised as if that is all there is to the organisation that policemen represent. Today, I have cause to write about two policemen who came to my rescue about eight hours to the New Year. It was at the popular Sule Street Junction on Agege Bye-pass, Lagos, where a truck driver bashed my car on December 31, last year. Rather than wait, the driver sped off and I followed suit but could not catch up with him as he rebuffed all attempts I made to overtake him. Somehow, the policemen were coming from the Ikeja end of the road shortly before we linked the Lagos-Abeokuta Expressway from Agege. Apparently, they were on an assignment or just on routine patrol.
    But they just came to time because they saw the way I was pursuing the truck driver and (as they later told me after the driver had been forced to stop at Ile Zik end of the expressway, it was a woman in a ‘Danfo’ bus who witnessed the accident that told them to pursue the truck). The driver denied running away but could not satisfactorily answer questions as to how it took him that far to be apprehended, and by police patrol men for that matter! Anyway, the police gave me the necessary assistance and ensured that the driver could not get away before they left the place. I am talking about Sergeant Okoh Hassan and Ikhide (I can’t remember the other name); to both I say well done.

  • When the code goes red…

    The police cannot claim to be the peoples’ friend when what they dole out are not smiles but frowns, indifference and extortion

    Listening to the Governor of Edo State, Comrade Adams Oshiomole, go at the police the other day made me take a U-Turn on my diet of PU this week. I had intended to be all sugar and spice to you today, dear reader, so that we could continue our Merry New Year get-together. But here we are, being reminded, once again, what perilous times we are living in. So we are constrained today to feed on something more grating: a little hard talk. Listen, if the Nigeria Police that have existed for donkey years are just now launching or renewing their Code of Conduct, then something, as they say, is rotten in the state of …

    Once, I gave a Code of Conduct to my dog. In it, I listed the many things I did not expect a self-respecting dog to do. There was to be no barking all night and refusing to stop just because a lizard ran by him. There was to be no turning up his nose at any meal simply because he could not see a bone somewhere at the edge of the plate. There definitely was to be no running up to strangers to lick their feet instead of barking and frightening the daylights out of them. The dog was expected to do what was right in all situations such as choosing to stay and guard the house rather than chasing after a bird. Even I had to admit I had a beautiful product there, the code I mean, not the dog.

    But the blessed dog not only chewed through the code, it even chewed through my slippers. And I was wearing it. And I was standing in front of him. After eyeball-to-eyeballing him, I gathered that he expected me to go indoors and produce another pair of slippers but I chose instead to give him a renewed Code of Conduct. Verbally. ‘Bad dog, go!’ And I confined him to his house indefinitely.

    There is no denying that Nigeria is in a sorry state, worse than my dog, and as I have maintained before in this column, I personally hold the Nigeria Police responsible. The basis of existence of any group is the collective decision to live together in peace and unity. But the thing is, most groups anticipate that not everyone will bear that noble purpose in mind. While some do-good members would be standing, heartily reciting the country’s anthem and looking fondly at the flag, some other baddies would be quietly planning how best to dispossess them of their bicycles. That’s life.

    So, in anticipation of those differing in purpose and purity from others, most countries, I say, have laws. You know them, don’t you? They are those beautiful rules which keep criminals on their feet while you and I can go to sleep. Or they are supposed to. They are supposed to be those things that guide the conduct of everyone who swears membership of the group. Or so they tell me. They are also so important that there is a special group of people detailed to keep vigil over their sanctity. They call them the police. You know what that is, don’t you? It is that group that generally goes around and comes around and struts around, and that kind of thing, in their fine uniforms. So, whenever the code goes red into the danger zone, the first thing anyone should shriek is ‘Get the Police!’

    It is a truism that if you want to take over a strong man’s house, first bind him up one way or another. I am saying this again because I have said it many times before: if you want to break the spine of any country, first disarm its police, because a country is only as strong as its police. This is why I claim that the rot in this country has been possible only because the police have disappointed many who shrieked for them. I wrote a piece sometime in 2011 in which I recited the story of a lonely old woman in Britain who frequently tricked the constabulary in her neighbourhood to tea by pretending to have been robbed. The police obliged her. I also recited the story of a Nigerian man who was held up all night in his home by marauders, the head of which he found out next morning to have been, you guessed it, a policeman.

    The biggest problem confronting the Nigeria Police is the fact that they find themselves unable to inspire faith or trust in the people anymore because of their, well, odd ways. Indeed, it appears that from where the people are standing, the newly launched code should be for the people and should contain only one item: Beware of the police. Now, it’s gone so bad that if confronted by the police and armed robbers on a lane, many people would first take care of the police.

    Right now, many Nigerians who do not have policemen as family members cannot claim that the Police are their friend. Indeed, many will do everything they can to avoid any contact with them. One man had brushed against another person’s car. The aggrieved man came out of his car ready to assail his attacker, only to spot a policeman approaching them. Quickly, the two men shook hands, exchanged addresses and left the scene in a hurry. No, sir, they did not flee because they were afraid of the law; they fled because they did not want anyone taking aim at the jugular of their pockets.

    There is a lot wrong with the Nigeria Police which the IG needs to fix. The stories told by Governor Oshiomole are disheartening indeed. Needless to say, the man would not have gone public with those stories if he was not sure of his standing. Truth is, nearly every Nigerian has a story to tell about the way the police in their own land have treated them, and they are not very savoury at all. All these stories are unfortunately typified by the attitude of those two policemen who witnessed the lynching of the Port Harcourt students: cynical, detached and indifferent.

    I do not know what the new Code of Conduct contains, but I sincerely hope it addresses issues such as how to get people to make the police their friend. I close with a cartoon I respect very much drawn by Josy Ajiboye quite a while back. It depicts a man who runs into a police station in a panic to report to the policeman on duty that he needed help because robbers were at his house even as he spoke. ‘Wharra mess!’, cried the policeman. ‘Go and arrest them right now and bring them here,’ he instructed. Yet another cartoon showed the police as being not so indignant. The two policemen who had been reported to quietly explained to the distraught victim that there were no good tyres on their vehicle, there was no fuel in the said vehicle, and could the victim be so obliging as to help the police arrest the assailant and bring him, then they would deal with him?

    Whatever may be the reasons for the Nigeria Police to be so far from the people’s dreams and yearnings, the time has truly come for a REAL evolution. The modern world has many demands, and they include an up-to-the-minute constabulary that would not only be at the top of its game but one that can give the people a genuine smile of friendship. The police cannot claim to be the peoples’ friend when what they dole out to them are not smiles but frowns, indifference and extortion. Certainly, the code for the Nigeria Police is red, because they are not our friend.

  • In reality, 2013 presages 2015

    In reality, 2013 presages 2015

    There are laws governing war, as there are laws governing peace. It is the tragedy of modern Nigeria that its rulers can hardly tell the difference between the two, straining as they often do, perhaps for private convenience, to juxtapose one set of laws with another and, in the consequent moral haze engendered by their laxity, interchangeably applying the two sets of laws without any scruple and across all boundaries. Last year was an illustrious one for Nigeria for many reasons. This year will be an even more eventful one for all patriots, considering that we have in effect set up a country where officials, elected and appointed, have schooled themselves both by theory and practice to undermine the law or apply it selectively. This year, we will keep the form of democracy, but deny its substance. We will continue to make laws for orderly government, but circumvent them at will. We will struggle to regulate and grow the economy, but opt for intuitive rather than scientific methods. And, trust us, we will embrace religion the more, but neither our dogmatism nor our fervency will produce a concomitant benevolence of spirit or ethical rectitude indispensable to the growth and regulation of stable and peaceful societies.

    In particular, a few issues will loom very large this year much more than others, and the following two years will be shaped by how we respond to them. One of these issues is Election 2015, which the President Goodluck Jonathan government has ingratiatingly suggested is too early both to discuss and to manoeuvre over. But neither he nor his opponents will take the counsel of discretionary patience. The debate over whether Jonathan is qualified to contest in 2015 or not was smothered a long time ago. That debate will not reoccur. Nor will the question of his ethnic origins as a factor in electoral contest and performance rear its head, in spite of the fulminations of Chief Olisa Metuh, the emotive and impressionable Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) National Publicity Secretary.

    The dynamics of elections may be changing in Nigeria, with performers being rewarded with a second term, but that change is slow, tedious and unreliable. In any case, while the change is discernible in some states, at the federal level, particularly as it relates to the executive arm, that change is imperceptible. Indeed, it seems that at the executive level, a different set of dynamics is at play in the consideration of who is elected president. I have read analyses suggesting Jonathan is undeserving of a second term on account of his poor performance. Roads have not been built or maintained; hospitals have been left derelict; and schools are nondescript or in some cases even mothballed. Policies have not been as vigorous as under the imposing and bellicose Chief Olusegun Obasanjo government. And Jonathan himself has neither been inspiring nor surefooted. In consideration of these elements, many analysts and general commentators, including the scientifically disputatious and the jobholding aggrieved, have tentatively suggested the president is in danger of losing a second term.

    However, Jonathan’s re-election will have little to do with his performance as with the internal dynamics of his party, the PDP. He knows this, and his opponents within the party understand this. So, too, do the governors. They all know that once the party can somewhat close ranks and select a standard-bearer, the election is as good as won. This is why there will be fierce jostling and jousting within the party to either consolidate control of party structure or hijack it, as the Adamawa State example is indicating with dire consequences for everyone in the party. This year is, therefore, the time to take implacable control of party structures nationwide, and keep it impregnable until the next election, whatever it takes. Jonathan will worry about who controls the national PDP, and he will ensure it is not the governors, no matter what the party’s National Executive Committee (NEC) and National Working Committee (NWC) do. And he has Obasanjo’s presidency to learn from, including all the subterfuges and Machiavellian tactics of the former president.

    More importantly, in spite of saying 2013 is too early to begin politicking, Jonathan and his opponents know this year is probably the most conducive to do all the fighting and machinations. Next year will be devoted to reconciliation. Their chances of a clean fight and healthy reconciliation will be bolstered by their idiosyncratic obsession to control and share the country’s wealth. Once they have fought and settled, victory in the elections will be a question of each governor ensuring his state is delivered to the PDP column, either in comprehensive whole or in significant part. There will of course be compromises and consensuses; and there will even be cohabitations and plain unethical trade-offs. But in the end, especially judging by the dispiriting inability of the electorate to make enlightened choices, performance will hardly matter. It is not that it will not matter at all; the problem is that it may not matter in such significant quantity as to affect the outcome of the elections.

    The ongoing misunderstanding within the PDP will not snowball into fragmentation. There is too much at stake for all the disputants to endanger their collective future. If Obasanjo played hardball in Ogun in the last election, it was because he knew he would not, indeed could not, be affected by the outcome of the 2011 governorship poll. He knew that whoever won was likely to court him anyway, and could not afford to be as irreverent or suicidal as the then Governor Gbenga Daniel. In the current situation within the national PDP, Obasanjo will close ranks with his mentees in the party if the party’s grip on power at the centre should be threatened. And that threat can only materialise if the opposition unites and understands how to beat the behemoth. Emphasising PDP’s poor performance at the centre may be helpful, but it will not be sufficient to unhorse it. As recent elections in France, Russia and the United States have shown, a candidate or party must have the ability to appeal to the electorate’s emotions, and take advantage of certain shifting and indefinable properties on the ground that have shaped or are still shaping domestic politics. The paradox of politics in Nigeria is that a candidate’s performance must be extraordinarily good for him to use his records to win votes, but has to be extraordinarily bad for him to lose election. Most politicians, including Jonathan, straddle that delicate divide.

    Both Jonathan and Obasanjo know what is at stake. They will put a halt to their brinkmanship at the appropriate time. While the former will push matters to the limit to see how far he can go without upsetting the apple cart, the latter will pull on the party tethers to see how much concession he can wring for himself, lather his image and, as an extra, rub the noses of his enemies in the dirt. It is left for the opposition to recognise that while divisions within the PDP in the state could conduce to some electoral triumphs, that sort of division would be hard to find or exploit at the national level. In addition, the intense struggle to fill the vacant PDP Board of Trustees (BoT) position will end anticlimactically in favour of Jonathan. Neither Obasanjo nor the late Yar’Adua conceded the position to any powerful interest but their stooges. Even the much-hyped expectation of destructive internal schism in the PDP will not happen soon except the party loses a major election.

    But the PDP can indeed lose a major election. What is more, if Nigeria’s democracy is to endure and wax strong, the ruling party should lose the next poll. For instance, the party’s electoral potency could be vitiated if elections are compressed into one day. Compression will ensure there will be no room for bandwagon, or for a losing party to catch its breath and readjust its strategies mid-way into the polling. A one-day election will have salutary effect on the system, create a level playing field for all political parties, and lessen the potential for violence. It would in fact be immoral for any party to oppose the Independent National Electoral Commission’s suggestion for all the 2015 elections to be compressed into a single day.

    There is a sense in which all politicians recognise that 2013 presages 2015. The internecine feuds within the PDP can be likened to a shift in the earth’s tectonic plates. There will be metaphorical tsunamis, quakes, landslides and general geomorphological disturbances; but after brief hiatuses, the party will cool down and normality will be restored. The opposition, which is expected to merge and present a common front against the behemoth, must be ready to fight the PDP at its strongest. They must not base their calculations on a weak PDP. If the ruling party weakens, that should be regarded merely as a fortuitous event, a celestial chance to drive the knife deeper into its ribs. The last general election was probably the best time to unseat the ruling party, assuming key members of the opposition had not naively thought they could take on the giant without a strong alliance. I shudder to think what fate awaits the country and its young democracy if the ruling party, which has proved inefficient and immature in managing Nigeria’s human and material resources, should retain its hold on power for 20 years in a row.

  • The road to Igbo presidency

    The road to Igbo presidency

    Southeast should prepare for the future

    A few things stand in the way of the Igbo man or woman on the road to the presidency. One of them is the taste of power. Its sweetness excites the taste buds, courses through to the brain and flows down the rest of the body. It blinds and deafens and blocks all rationality. From Nigeria’s birth in 1960 to its 53rd anniversary, the Hausa have had the best taste of power at the top, whatever the system of governance. From Tafawa Balewa to Gowon to Murtala to Shagari to Buhari down to all the generals that came after, the North has savoured the taste of federal power more than any other region in the country. But this fact, however, has not dissuaded politicians and power brokers in the region from agitating for another shot at the top in the immediate, even in 2015. There is no shortfall of arguments for the Northern quest, none of which I need go into here. Ndigbo must come to grips with this fact. Put differently, an Igbo man’s ascent to Aso Rock will not come without profound opposition.

    Coming a miserable second in the power scheme of things are the Yoruba, one of whom, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, made it to the top first as an army general and then a civilian, giving him pride of place in power longevity. Still, the Obasanjo story does not seem to edify majority of readers from the region, largely because on both occasions of his ride to power, his kinsmen scarcely played any crucial part. The region will be happy to help send another of their own to Abuja in 2015. Ndigbo will do well, too, to note that.

    In the tripartite equation of the country, the Southeast brought up the rear. Since the dawn of the nation, they have had no candidate of their own at the top except the ceremonial presidency of Azikiwe. It hurts. So the Igbo quest for Aso Rock, even in 2015, is legitimate.

    Yet, Ndigbo are not the only ones with an eye on power at the centre. The so-called minorities desire the presidency as much as anyone. The Edo, for instance, will not turn down the opportunity if it presents itself. Nor will the Idoma.

    The quest for federal power is strong across the board, though it must be admitted that it is stronger in some parts than in others. But that is not the biggest hurdle in the way of Ndigbo. Their most telling challenge is internal, not external. It is not that other people want to snatch what they are reaching for. It is lame to continue to claim that certain people do not want the Igbo to govern; if any group of people can determine’ the fate of a nation till eternity without any challenge, they will do it. For as some have pointed out, no one relinquishes power easily or willingly. It is too sweet.

    The Igbo challenge is incoherence, a malady that is in no way domesticated in the Southeast, but which has continued to harm its people and their legitimate ambitions. There has always been a superabundance of national leadership material in the region, but at some point you begin to wonder if that is not in itself a problem. There is always the concern that where only one Igbo man is needed, with others backing him up, 10 or more may show up, each with scant support, and none getting the job. In this circumstance, there is no melody; only cacophony. In national politics, the best they get in this unflattering atmosphere is vice-president.

    To go beyond this point, Ndigbo must foster unity among themselves and put their best foot forward. While it is impossible for the entire Southeast to vote for one man (in fact it is even naive to hope for that) it is imperative for their candidate to garner overwhelming support from the region. But it does not end there, for all the votes in Igbo land and none from the other regions cannot take a Southeasterner to Aso Rock. The Igbo presidential aspirant needs appreciable ballots from other regions. To do that, he must reach out to them and quit posting the miserable, marginalised figure Nigerians are used to. The Igbo man must find his voice, his rhythm, his confidence. He must be bold again.

    The Igbo aspirant must have a vision for the country he wants to lead and present a well-thought-out plan for its growth. If others before him failed, he must not. His presidency must count, and not just make the statistics.

    The quest for federal power must start now but should target beyond 2015.

  • 2013: A year of infinite possibilities (2)

    2013: A year of infinite possibilities (2)

    Courtesy Dele Babatunde, a highly regarded former President of then University of Ife, Ile-Ife, Students’ Union and Victor Oladokun’s friend and contemporary at the university, I have been able to exchange pleasantries with the latter since last week’s article in this column. Victor must, however, be disappointed that Fola Aiyegbusi’s reaction to the article, far beyond my earnest hopes, had been archetypical, though certainly not enough to vitiate our high hopes for the country in 2013 and beyond.

    Wrote Fola: ‘Sir, without prejudice to the concluding part of your article, and while your comments are in line with my own thoughts, I would rather say Victor’s messages are a ‘mirage’. For the Southwest, it could look more like it; but at the federal government level, with President Jonathan at the helms, it is impossible. It is absolutely clear that he lacks the will: political, moral, or religious, to make a difference. Like I always say, Buhari/idiagbon exhibited these qualities in ‘84/85 and Nigerians followed. Let the attitudinal change campaign start this time again from the very top, and then we can be hopeful’’.

    On the basis of Oladokun’s very inspiring article, I had concluded my comments in the first part as follows: ‘Nigeria can be transformed. It depends upon you and I and it is attitudinal and therefore less dependent on President Jonathan though his personal life of sacrifice will facilitate and enhance the processes.

    Given President Jonathan’s well known inadequacies, I have sought, in that conclusion, to apportion to him only a miniscule part of all we would have to do as a people to re-jig our country and make it count among respected countries of the world. You do not have to hate Mr President personally to score him poorly on the following essentials of leadership if it intended to achieve outstanding results, especially, in a country like ours: Setting and achieving goals, identifying priorities, decisiveness in policy formulation and articulation; inspiring and motivating others, setting standards, and leading by personal example; the last being the only thing I asked of the President in the first part of the article.

    I still wonder what led President Jonathan to flying the kite of a 7-year single term, ‘from which he will personally not benefit’, as at the time he did. And only God knows how corrosive of his integrity as a trustworthy leader that single mis-step was as not a few Nigerians interpreted that move as absolutely self-serving given that nothing in our constitution stops a one-term president from contesting again. All he would have done, again, was make the judiciary a fall guy as was done in the case of Justice Salami where an outgoing Chief Judge thought nothing of being used.

    Since I do not believe that Mr President could be enough reason to delay our progress as a nation, especially in the business and technological arena, I remain persuaded in the following other parts of the Oladokun piece:

    OLADOKUN: PERSONAL GROWTH & DEVELOPMENT.

    In 2013 we saw hundreds of thousands of Nigerians breaking the barriers of cost, distance, and time by taking advantage of online educational portals such as Coursera, Minerva and edXJ that offer access to free online courses, lectures and events at Ivy League Universities including Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Yale, Princeton and a host of other colleges in fields as diverse as Mathematical Thinking, Operational Management, Fundamentals of Computer Programming, Computer Architecture, Leadership, History, Fundamentals of Personal Finance, Sustainability, Healthcare Delivery, Global History, and Artificial Intelligence, to mention but a few. In 2013, millions of Nigerians engaged in continual self-improvement without having to leave the shores of Nigeria or having to break the bank in the process.

    COMMENT: Nigerians, especially the younger and more educated ones, are becoming increasingly aware that they cannot tie their future to politicians, especially those belonging to the party that for over a decade has had their country in a stranglehold. Not that members of the opposition parties, especially in the National Assembly, have demonstrated any better traits other than together, as Professor Jide Osuntokun wrote in his last week column in The Nation, ‘paying themselves salaries and perquisites of office of over N25 Million a month; a sum that is unthinkable even in the United States, the richest country in the world’. What resources could have been used in making our universities world class are simply eaten up by this parasitic elite and their conniving future wreckers.

    I take together, the following from Oladokun’s inspirational article because, together, they answer to the complete absence of any sustainable youth empowerment programme by this PDP government just as they could , collectively, mitigate the totally irresponsible level of unemployment which is bound , very soon, to mushroom into an economic Boko Haram:

    OLADOKUN. YOUTH ORIENTED BUSINESS INCUBATORS.

    ‘2013 was the year that technology innovation made explosive strides from the high street to the backstreets of Nigeria. Creative entrepreneurs and NGOs planted visible IT & Business Incubators across the country with the goal of developing the ideas and concepts of thousands of creative young entrepreneurs. IT and digital media businesses led to the development of countless indigenous mobile and software applications for smart phones and computers, allowing young entrepreneurs to make generous profits in the process.’

    THE EMERGENCE OF ‘SOLOPRENEURS.’

    ‘In 2013, Nigeria saw the emergence of hundreds of thousands of Solopreneurs in IT, media, sales & marketing, computer graphics, audio and video post-production, professional proposal writing, and mobile app designs. Bucking a decades-old trend, hundreds of thousands of graduates and professionals began hiring out their skills, rather than seeking traditional employment.

    THE YEAR OF MERGERS: In business, professional sports teams, media companies, hospitals, NGOs, political parties, and even churches, mergers became the norm in 2013. In the process, wasteful duplication of resources was greatly reduced; strengths, skills and talents of the best minds were harnessed for greater efficiency; numerous newly merged entities began expanding the presence of their brands nationwide; while ‘excellence’ and ‘value’ began to take on new meaning’.

    COMMUNITY BASED CROWD SOURCING:

    ‘2013 was the year that funding networks collaborated in win-win joint ventures between creative business types and investors, with the goal of moving large numbers into gainful business ownership. Funding Networks of like-minded venture philanthropists came together to fund small and medium sized businesses that otherwise would not have been able to access traditional lending funds.

    VIRTUAL OFFICES MUSHROOMED. Instead of renting office space for a year or two in advance, many upwardly mobile entrepreneurs who do business on the go via computers or smart phones, began to lease Virtual Office space and facilities per block of hours or days for important meetings and teleconferences’

    I was delighted to hear Mr Gbanite, a Channels T.V Security commentator, allude to unemployment in a programme on security last week. Now, the Jonathan administration is overwhelmed by just one Boko Haram, but wait until Greek-like urban dislocations hit Nigeria’s major cities of Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt and Kano. And see what incendiary it will serve in Maiduguri and Yobe. Then those who make progress and development impossible in Nigeria would have to begin their self-deportation.

    Concluded

  • Pacesetting Ghana makes retrogressing Nigeria despondent

    Pacesetting Ghana makes retrogressing Nigeria despondent

    It is not just its stupendously high growth rate of 14% that underlines the quiet revolution taking place in Ghana, thereby shaming many African countries, including Nigeria. Even its peaceful violence-free elections make this West African country of 25 million people, which has made Nigeria a perennial laggard, undisputedly primus inter pares. From the election of Jerry John Rawlings, standard-bearer of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), in 1992 and his re-election in 1996, to the election and re-election of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) represented by John Agyekum Kufuor in the 2000 and 2004 elections, Ghana began to serve notice of its arrival as a force to be reckoned with on the world map of democratic countries. As if to prove that its political achievements were not a fluke, Ghanaians took another detour by returning to the NDC and voting in John Atta Mills in 2009, thus marking the second time power would shift peacefully from one party to another and from one elected government to another. Even the death of Mills did not prevent the consolidation of Ghanaian democracy, as the country once again peacefully elected his former running mate, John Dramani Mahama, as president a few weeks ago.

    By every yardstick, Ghana is regarded as a stable democracy. Ranked as the second least failed state in Africa, and 7th out of 48 sub-Saharan African countries in the 2008 Mo Ibrahim Index of African Governance, the country has become an investor’s dream, not to talk of serving as educational tourism destination for thousands of Nigerian youths. While Ghana has shifted twice between political parties, Nigerian ruling party politicians, who love to play God, have continued to emphasise their determination to stay in power for the next 60 years in the first instance. To underscore this obscene oath, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo in 2007 supervised probably the worst elections in Nigerian history, one in which he personally selected the candidates to run for the top office, and foisted them on the country. The result is that after four general elections, only one party continues to dominate power. The states are no better. Most of them have become one-party states, with supposedly elected officials acting unabashedly as feudal lords.

    To save ourselves continental embarrassment, it is absolutely essential for the country to change party allegiance. The present situation is both indefensible and unnecessary. It is time we reclaimed our sovereignty by ousting the Obasanjos and other one-party proponents who insist the country must head in one direction. It is time we tried another economic paradigm presented by a different political party. The current economic policy has only brought pain, poverty and stagnation. It is time we secured our freedom from mediocre leaders. The present coterie of leaders has nothing to offer but staleness and barrenness. It is time we moved on. And 2013 is the place to begin preparing for our own Velvet Revolution.

     

  • The unbearable lightness of the Nigerian being

    I hate people being happy when they should be unhappy,” Bernard Shaw famously complained. The great Anglo-Irish dramatist would have found a lot that is revolting and distressing about the perpetual happiness of our compatriots. There is an unbearable lightness about contemporary Nigerians, a gushing gaiety of spirit, a light-heartedness that puts a brilliantine gloss on the most tragic of circumstances. You begin to wonder whether any other people on earth could be more custom-made for punishment.

    When a global survey found Nigerians among the happiest lot on earth, everyone thought the poll had been rigged to make us look ridiculous and pathetic. How can people be happy in a hell-hole of unimaginable privation, of idiotic dysfunction and biblical suffering? But it does seem as if the poor chaps knew what they were talking about. Nigerians are as happy as a lark.

    Everywhere you turn, you encounter this sunny and rosy disposition, this remarkable capacity to refine and redefine pain and turn tragedy into a ridiculous farce. There are parties everywhere and every week. The dead are sent off with rousing pomp and panache. The newborn are welcomed with equal pageantry and cynical aplomb. If you cannot stay in your mother’s dark womb, you are signed on to the historical eclipse with remarkable hilarity. Omo tuntun alejo aiye, kaabo ku ewu.

    You are advised to drink to your heart’s content in this world, just in case drinking is prohibited in the next world. You are admonished not to invest in prolonged and protracted gloom because life is too short to be wasted on distracting and unproductive emotions. How long does a man hope to live that will make him procure for himself a dress made of iron?

    Don’t worry about tomorrow because tomorrow will take care of itself and if tomorrow does not take care of itself to hell with tomorrow. What the bird eats, the bird flies with. In any case, if the elephant cannot graze to its heart’s content in the forest, it is a shame on the forest. It is a desiderata of epic self-indulgence.

    Since a fish normally rots from the head, this light-headed frivolity has also infected Nigerian leaders who make fun of the nation’s misery. It can be seen in their tonnage of verbiage and inanities, in their sadistic glee as they watch their victims writhe in epochal agony. Like a snake charmer tormenting and torturing his serpentine wards, Nigerian leaders watch their subjects reel from the disastrous effects of their harebrained policies with relish and a vindictive smirk.

    You ask yourself when enough will really be enough. But you discover that the limit you see is not really the limit. There is some extra-capacity in the fabric to test the science of elasticity. But we all know that when a person with a natural smile is drowning everybody thinks he is smiling. The flailing arms may even be mistaken for a victory sign. The hirsute monkey also sweats but the tangled foliage of follicles absorbs the salty grime.

    In grim despondency, I went in search of the old master. Mourning what he described as the ultimate electoral genocide, he had of late been wearing a black band around his withered wrist in solidarity with the people. I met him this time at Eti-Osa ensconced in an abandoned canoe amidst rotting planks and decaying wooden hovels built on stilts. He eyed me with contempt and weariness.

    “Bros, what are you doing here? Has it come to this?,” I asked him with a sneer.

    “Oh boy, na condition com make crayfish bend oo. This time he be like if say water com pass flour,” he replied with a bitter smile.

    “Are you waiting to receive Yar’Adua?” I asked, openly taunting him.

    “Iya adura ko, baba adura ni. If the boy turns up here, he will end up among the seaweeds over there,” the old man snarled. I started laughing uncontrollably, but the guru was in no mood for such jolly frivolity.

    “Let me tell you something. If this farce stands, if this sacrilege is allowed, then this nation is finished forever. There should be no quibbling about that. Your national anthem will become an anthem of shame and disgrace, generations unborn will curse your memory and this nation will be permanently dishonoured in the comity of civilised countries.”

    “But….” I protested.

    “Just let me finish,” he snapped. “As for me, I know it is over this time around. But if I am to come back to this world let nobody make the mistake of sending me back to you flunkies. I will rather come back a real ape.”

    “Oh bros, but why an ape?” I asked him as he flung out his massive pipe and began to load it with the usual array of prohibited weeds.

    “Because an ape is still within the evolutionary scheme of things and can make much progress, evolutionarily speaking. But in your case, you seem to be out of the evolutionary loop. You are stuck in the middle of nowhere. You seem incapable of making progress as human beings and yet you cannot revert to the original status, so tory com get k-leg, as they say.” He had calmed down considerably and had now recovered his poise and philosophical equanimity. I saw an opportunity to unburden my heart.

    “Bros, what do you think is wrong with us as a people? We seem incapable of progressing politically and socially and yet we are making merry all over the place as if each day is the last day,”I asked with humility and concern. The old man looked at me with sorrow and pity in his eyes. I could glimpse his deep humanity for once. He knocked the tip of his giant pipe against the hulk of the boat with such force that the boat sagged and rocked like an ill-tempered camel.

    “You see, it is the equatorial oven that is to blame. To start with, things grow too quickly and die too quickly here, so there is a sense in which there is the permanence of impermanence, and this spreads panic among the people who are looking forward to some order and stability. Since their excess food rots easily in the tropical heat, your ancestors eventually found a way of turning it into alcohol which in turn led into an orgy of drinking and fornicating. So, in order not to confront the demon of impermanence, in order not to come unhinged, they resort to compulsory and compulsive merry making. That is why there are parties every day and everywhere. Without these parties everybody would have gone mad snarling and raving at each other ,or they would have lapsed into stony depression. So, this is as much a crisis of geography as it is of social order,”the old man ruefully and profoundly noted.

    His bleary eyes had gone misty. There were tears in my own eyes , too. Nobody has put the crisis in such perspective for me before, and I thanked him profusely. The old man was touched and marked by genius despite his eccentricity and madness.

    “When do you think this will end?” I asked as I rose to go.

    “When the equator cools down. Unfortunately by then, this phase of human existence would also have ended.”

     

    (First published in 2007)