The Nation Newspaper

Category: Sunday

A culture of disputation and controversy

Whether Alhaji Umaru Musa Yar’Adua’s election is sustained or not, President Olusegun Obasanjo now knows it is clearly impossible for him to stay on in office. His ambitious manoeuvres to extend his tenure have been roundly and comprehensively defeated by the collective and unanimous spirit of Nigerians. Because of this, he hasn’t been as sprightly as he used to be or as radiant as his modestly passable looks could manage now and again. He has engaged in a feverish award of stupendous contracts and defended it as one who knows he has but a short time. But he knows he is going all the same. He has disembowelled his lay and clerical critics with as much venom as he used to produce in his early days in power, but he knows he can’t conceivably stay in power. He has begun to feel the same panic Gen. Ibrahim Babangida felt in his last weeks in power, and he is greatly discomfited by it. His smiles are less broad, his jokes lack colour and bite, and even the amiable rural aura that bathed them are thinner and inauspicious. He is more morose these days, more bitter against his traducers, and though he has not aged beyond his real (not official) age, he is distinctly ageing and aged.

Obasanjo hasn’t been quite as composed as even his critics would like. This tremulousness often comes with the realisation that one hasn’t lived up to expectation. And nothing illustrates this nervous composure as his winding defence on Monday of the April general elections and his rage against his critics, chief among whom was apparently Pastor Tunde Bakare. Though a newspaper reported that the president was unfazed by the criticisms against his administration, it was clear from his recent looks and the lack of passion and conviction behind his arguments that he felt unsettled by the much more vigorous and acerbic criticism of the foreign media. He tried to mitigate the effect of the criticisms from abroad by granting interviews to any sundry reporter who cared to travel down, but they were still unsparing. They not only wrote off the elections as fictitious and fraudulent, they even described him as a failure.

In the next two weeks and some days, Obasanjo will be going back to his expansive and now thriving farms and gilt-edged investments all over the country. He expects, naturally, to retire on good standing, a fulfilled, self-satisfied and adored statesman. I doubt whether his wishes can be granted. He is vow very wealthy, of course, but he has lived all his life posturing as a good and courageous man without taking one sound step to justify the name. Those steps he considered courageous were nothing but bold steps to alienate his friends and harden his enemies. As for whatever goodness he felt he had, no one knows about it, indeed, no one has seen it. Worse still, he will go back to his farm deprived of the customary goodwill that often accompanies a retiring leader loved by his people. Nor will he have many friends to accompany him home. Even the billionaires and millionaires he has made early in his government and in the closing weeks of his presidency will carefully read the lips of his successor to know whether to fraternise with him or to freeze him out of their circles. He seems destined to retire to solitary and somnolent existent as well as bucketful of lawsuits and acrimonious controversies over land and shares, some of which were extracted on the pain of incarceration.

His views at the commissioning of the new wing of the National Assembly complex on Monday are quite instructive. His most salient view on the occasion is a typical reflection of the philosophical foundations upon which he has constructed his life, guided his ambitions, and wrestled his enemies. According to him, it is in the character of the Nigerian to whip up sentiments, controversies and disputations over elections. He had observed this since 1959, he said. Beyond the mendacious characterisation of the Nigerian as habitually quarrelsome and insatiable, Obasanjo seems to be saying in another more vigorous breath that bureaucratic incompetence was ingrained in us. And so as he counsels us to accept our character of being controversial and disputatious and not allow anyone to come and say ‘rubbish’, he also defends slothful electoral conduct.

President Obasanjo has always been a poor student of history, perhaps because he is military-trained engineer. At the said commissioning, he asserted that “this was one election we had where nobody is talking about North or South… where nobody is talking about Christian or Muslim, and where nobody is talking about ethnicity as a factor.” The president is very forgetful. During his own election both in 1999 and 2003, none of us could recollect ethnicity or religion being a factor. He was a Christian as Chief Olu Falae, Alex Ekwueme and a few others were Christian.

If he forgets his own election, the best election ever conducted in Nigerian in 1993 was perhaps the best chance we had to lay the ghost of religion and ethnicity to rest. Nigerians elected their candidates in 1993 without talking of the divisive factors Obasanjo thought was absent from his poorly planned, heavily manipulated and incompetently conducted 2007 elections. It was in fact his military constituency that arrested that political growth and sophistication. And from what we heard, it was an intervention he nodded and winked at. The president also failed to understand that a more pressing evil – rigging and manipulations – had distracted the electorate from looking at and discussing the other factors surrounding the elections. Obasanjo’s government never wanted the elections to be free or fair, otherwise commentators would have looked at the value of a Jonathan Goodluck on the Yar’Adua ticket compared with the electoral weight of, say, Senator Ben Obi on the Atiku Abubakar ticket. Contrary to the opinion of the president, we did not make any progress in 2007. None whatsoever.

It is ironical that Obasanjo ruled Nigeria for eight years but does not understand what Nigeria’s political culture Nigeria should be. Put more simply, he is unable to explain the functions of a political party in a country where there are other political parties and various interest groups. At the National Assembly complex commissioning, the president said of the PDP: “We as a party, we formed the party in such a way that the party will work in close collaboration with the members of the PDP and the Executive who are products of the PDP.” The president must be reminded over and over again that he was neither at the formation of the party nor has he tried to imbibe the spirit and culture of the party. One the contrary, he led a ruthless takeover of the party and sacked all the principled political leaders who founded and led the party to its first victory in 1999.

This takeover explains why the party no longer has a moral or philosophical core, nor any principled leader to rally the country behind the ideals of the party. It explains why its leaders promote the principles of party brigandage, elevate expediency over morality, and canonise godfathers, strongmen, garrison commanders and a motley menagerie of political thieves and compromisers. It explains why even Obasanjo himself is more fanatically PDP than patriotic, though he is president of about 150 million Nigerians. Why the president can’t see these weaknesses of his, why he can’t rise above the pedestrian philosophy of a village party official, why he can’t tell the difference between party and country, is hard to tell.

These disabilities also explain why the foreign media have just arrived at the conclusion long reached by the local media, that Obasanjo did not make a success of his presidency. He was weighed down by party expediencies, bogged down in the maze of bitter fights with his friends, enemies and other passers-by, and entangled in many self-created moral, religious, cultural and political contradictions.

We must hope that the in-coming National Assembly dominated by the PDP will not be swayed by the president’s uninformed admonitions that the senators and representatives must show unalloyed loyalty to the PDP. Their loyalty, if we must remind them, is to the nation and its constitution. Their bond with their political party is to promote, not impose, the principles and ideals of the PDP, and to see how Nigeria can best be shaped into a great nation within the ambit of the PDP platform. The PDP legislators should discountenance the president’s threats and intimidation. If he was used to giving unlawful orders when he was in the military and he found soldiers to carry them out, he should be reminded that his broken reforms, discordant ideas and collapsed values all reflect his inability to comprehend the fundaments of politics and democracy. He will leave office with his head bowed, his heart bleeding, his mind suffused with regrets, and, if he likes, shudder at our mocking conclusion that he was a soldier and farmer who found himself in the wrong vocation at the wrong time.

•First published on May 13, 2007 under the headline “They say it’s our culture to be disputatious and controversial.” Palladium is under the weather and, feeling nostalgic, he wants readers to regale themselves with this piece from over five years ago.

December 23, 2012
Security Council: Text of Resolution 2085(2012) on Mali

The Security Council,

Recalling its Resolutions 2056 (2012) and 2071 (2012), its Presidential Statements of 26 March 2012 (S/PRST/2012/7), 4 April 2012 (S/PRST/2012/9) as well as its Press Statements of 22 March 2012, 9 April 2012, 18 June 2012, 10 August 2012, 21 September 2012, 11 December 2012 on Mali…

Reaffirming its strong commitment to the sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity of Mali,

Recalling the letter of the Transitional authorities of Mali dated 18 September 2012 addressed to the Secretary-General, requesting the authorization of deployment through a Security Council resolution, under Chapter VII as provided by the United Nations Charter, of an international military force to assist the Armed Forces of Mali to recover the occupied regions in the north of Mali and recalling also the letter of the Transitional authorities of Mali dated 12 October 2012 addressed to the Secretary-General, stressing the need to support, including through such an international military force, the national and international efforts to bring to justice the perpetrators of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in the north of Mali;…

Taking note of the final communiqué of the Extraordinary Session of the authority of ECOWAS Heads of State and Government held in Abuja on 11 November 2012 and of the subsequent communiqué of the African Union Peace and Security Council on 13 November 2012 endorsing the Joint Strategic Concept of Operations for the International Military Force and the Malian Defence and Security forces;…

Emphasizing that the Malian authorities have primary responsibility for resolving the inter-linked crises facing the country and that any sustainable solution to the crisis in Mali should be Malian-led;…

I- Political process

1. Urges the transitional authorities of Mali, consistent with the Framework agreement of 6 April 2012 signed under the auspices of ECOWAS, to finalize a transitional roadmap through broad-based and inclusive political dialogue, to fully restore constitutional order and national unity, including through the holding of peaceful, credible and inclusive presidential and legislative elections, in accordance with the agreement mentioned above which calls for elections by April 2013 or as soon as technically possible, requests the Secretary-General, in close coordination with ECOWAS and the African Union, to continue to assist the transitional authorities of Mali in the preparation of such a roadmap, including the conduct of an electoral process based on consensually established ground rules and further urges the transitional authorities of Mali to ensure its timely implementation ;…

3. Urges the transitional authorities of Mali to expeditiously put in place a credible framework for negotiations with all parties in the north of Mali who have cut off all ties to terrorist organizations, notably AQIM and associated groups including MUJWA, and who recognize, without conditions, the unity and territorial integrity of the Malian State, and with a view to addressing the long-standing concerns of communities in the north of Mali, and requests the Secretary-General, through his Special Representative for West Africa, in coordination with the ECOWAS Mediator and the High Representative of the African Union for Mali and the Sahel, and the OIC, to take appropriate steps to assist the transitional authorities of Mali to enhance their mediation capacity and to facilitate and strengthen such a dialogue;

4. Condemns the circumstances that led to the resignation of the Prime Minister and the dismissal of the Government on 11 December 2012, reiterates its demand that no member of the Malian Armed Forces should interfere in the work of the Transitional authorities and expresses its readiness to consider appropriate measures, as necessary, against those who take action that undermines the peace, stability, and security, including those who prevent the implementation of the constitutional order in Mali

• Palladium says Nigeria must insist on a political process in Mali before any adventure into that country. Surely we are not naïve to think war with AQIM can be fought and won over a short period.

December 23, 2012
The demonisation of democracy

(Being the chairman’s opening remarks at the annual lecture of the Centre for Constitutionalism and Demilitarisation held on Saturday, December 8th in Lagos)

The revered guest lecturer, Professor Tim Shaw, distinguished and illustrious Nigerians in the audience, exactly nine years ago when I was invited from America to give the inaugural lecture of the Centre for Constitutionalism and Demilitarisation, the atmosphere was quite different. After almost two decades of brutal military misrule, Nigeria was experiencing a fine spell of civil rule and democratic governance. The economy was buoyant. After a long period of absence, the habits of civil and democratic conduct were beginning to take root in the land once again.

At that point in time, there had been some hiccups in the system. The executive and the legislature, particularly, the lower house, were beginning to flex their muscles. Political Sharia had reared its ugly head. There had been some acts of executive highhandedness and even lawlessness, particularly in the brutal official reprisal at Odi. There were also muffled complaints about an absentee president who usually returned from long trips abroad to put some spanner in the works.

But everybody was united in the belief that these minor problems were very surmountable, that some of the infractions were inevitable side-effects and consequences of the authoritarian culture of military rule, that Nigeria will comfortably ride the bumps of adversities. By his personal conduct at that point in time, the president, retired General Olusegun Obasanjo, had shown a zero tolerance for corruption. It was the belief of many that even if Obasanjo did not achieve any other thing, once he was able to rein in the monster of corruption every other good thing would follow.

Today, it is sad to observe that we seem to have moved from a situation of great hope and expectation to one of utter dejection and despondency. What seems to be going on at the moment is a demonisation and demystification of democracy as the best system of governance ever devised by the human political imagination. Nigerians, particularly some sections of the political class, are bent on giving democracy a bad name in order to hang it.

But if the political class are bent on committing political suicide, Nigerians have a right to retrieve their country from them before they push it over the cliff together with themselves. All those who suffered greatly in the process of enthroning this civil rule must be prepared to mount a vigil for democracy. The danger signals are there for all to see.

In contrast to the current parlous situation of the nation, nine years ago seemed like an unfolding paradise. This time around, almost everything that can go wrong in a fragile nation and a more fragile democracy has gone wrong and without powerful countervailing institutions.

As it was the case in the First Republic, we have a military stretched to the limits of its fabric and professional tether by internal security operations. We have a bitterly divided political elite. We have a situation in which a section of the country has been rendered virtually ungovernable by armed insurrection, with the other sections besieged by social, economic, political and religious vampires and vultures.

But now in addition to these ancient woes, we have the alarming situation in which ordinary and normal military postings are judged and condemned through the prism of religious and ethnic coloration. We have warlords and powerlords jostling for contention. We have a ruling class that has become a byword for a bizarre and berserk variant of kleptocracy. Never in the history of this country has the run on the Exchequer been more openly defiant and in your face, particularly at the centre.

The rot has been steady and systemic and did not begin with Goodluck Jonathan. But he has contributed his own valiant quota even where it can be logically argued that he had inherited an unlucky conjuncture. Since the advent of civil governance in 1999, increasingly costly and astronomically prohibitive elections have produced increasingly cruel travesties leading to democratic regressions rather than the consolidation of the democratic process. Civil rule in Nigeria has produced electoral results which cannot stand scrutiny or the elementary tests of integrity. The paradox is that the more costly and prohibitive the elections, the less satisfactory have been the outcome.

The widely disputed elections of 1999 cost a paltry 8.6 billion naira. Four years later in 2003, the figures had jumped to an outlandish 45 billion naira. The result was an electoral terror which was widely condemned by both the local and international communities. The figures for the 2007 elections have been wisely kept from public scrutiny, which speaks volumes for the transparency and accountability of the officiating government and the integrity of the entire process.

It was the first time Direct Data Capturing machines were used in the annals of elections in Nigeria. But it is instructive that when the then boss of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Maurice Iwu, attempted to demonstrate the efficacy of the new gadget before the national assembly, the result was a monumental fiasco with the machine not being able to capture any data. Nevertheless, Iwu went ahead to order thousands more of the malfunctioning contraption.

In the event, the 2007 elections have been adjudged the worst in the history of the nation and probably in the history of humanity. Ballot-snatching, illegal candidate substitution, whimsical disenfranchisement of large sections of the electorate, computer-assisted generation of fake results, vote-switching, criminal manipulation of results and larcenous fabrication of figures became the order of the day. The disputes arising from that inglorious charade were still ongoing four years after. It was the most fraudulent electoral chicanery ever foisted on a people. Many years after, Nigerians are still shell-shocked by the brazen audacity of it all.

Such was the scale and magnitude of this electoral heist that discerning and perceptive Nigerians began to whisper about the abolition of the Nigerian electorate. The former president, Olusegun Obasanjo, himself famously described the election as a do or die affair. The brutalisation of the average Nigerian psyche by this egregious effrontery has led to an abiding national trauma and widespread fear of the electoral process.

In a sense, President Jonathan’s election seemed to have restored the hopes of majority of Nigerians in the ballot box. Although there were still widespread allegations of irregularities, particularly ballot-stuffing, vote-inflation and under-age voting, the outcome was adjudged by local and international observers as reflecting the wishes of the majority.

But thereafter, Jonathan seems to have stumbled from one major political and economic blunder to another. As each new day brought in a fresh wave of revelations about massive scams and unimaginable heists, the authority and legitimacy of government have suffered incalculable damage. The reputation of democracy as a government of the people by the people and for the people has been dealt a fatal blow. So also has its twin legacy as the vehicle for the greatest good of the greatest number.

In the long run, this brazen kleptocracy will lead to voters’ apathy and an ultimate loss of faith in democratic governance as a means of ameliorating the human condition. In a worst case scenario, the situation may topple into anarchy and the worst form of social miscreancy with unimaginable consequences for both nation and democratic process.

Many have pointed at the lopsided structure of the country, particularly the overconcentration of power at the centre, as a disincentive to genuine democracy. A few have pointed at the residual and lingering efficacy of the despotic and authoritarian African traditional culture. Many more have ascribed it to some innate psychological conditioning which makes Africans predisposed to undemocratic conduct. It takes a long time for democracy to take roots among traditional non-democrats, it is cautioned.

Whatever it is, it is now important for all men and women of goodwill to come together to mount a vigil for democracy in Nigeria. The collapse of the current democratic experiment in Nigeria may result in the eventual collapse of the country. If and when that happens, the humanitarian catastrophe for the subcontinent will be of apocalyptic magnitude.

But if Nigeria can be persuaded to reclaim its destiny as the potential hub of progress and development for less humanly and naturally endowed African countries, it may yet be the African century. For the moment, that hope looks foolish and forlorn. Thank you all.

December 23, 2012
Titans and the Titanic

AS the political space in Nigeria opens up to fresh possibilities, intense political jockeying has also commenced all over the country. Across the length and breadth of Nigeria , the usual actors are at it again, forging fresh alliances and trying to weld together a shattered national consensus. It is a party of giants. Political titans are on the march again. But the great river of human affairs flows on endlessly and ceaselessly. This time around, impersonal titanic forces also abound, ready to overturn the apple cart.

It is in the nature of political ferment to generate their own controversies. We have received numerous responses to last week’s piece titled Four Yoruba and Nigerian Avatars. While many hailed the piece for its captivating logic and flair, a few described it as a seminal analysis of four of the problematic personages who have dominated Yoruba and Nigerian history in the past sixty years. For snooper, what is intriguing and interesting is how most of the commentaries came to agree with our evaluation, particularly of the Owu-born retired general.

This morning, we publish two sample commentaries, one from a professor of Communication Theory and the other from a reverend gentleman. Once again, they both end up with the same posers. But since former president General Olusegun Obasanjo is quite in the news these days as a result of the ongoing political permutations and realignment of forces, we republish this morning a piece first published in very early 2006 just as the Third Term fiasco was about to explode in the general’s face.

This piece, once again, confirms why the imaginative projection of a fiction writer is sometimes superior to the late insight of political scientists. It is not for nothing that Sigmund Freud regarded Fyodor Dostoevsky, the great Russian novelist, as the master and mentor who saw it all before him. Although almost seven years old, the following piece resonates with the dynamics of power play and the futility of clinging to power in a country with a microplurality of contending and mutually contradictory power-centres.

December 16, 2012
Just before dusk in Nigeria

(An evening embedded with Babalegba)

Anarchy, the natural successor to democratic regression, had arrived dressed like a five-star general. The mood of the nation was foul and filthy. There was a murky intemperance everywhere. Colourful things were happening which stretch the boundary between reality and fiction to its elastic limits. A constitutional mayhem was unfolding in the old “wild, wild” West. Insurgents in the Delta had dramatically raised the stakes: oil spilled and so did blood. The north had become ominously sullen, the kind of sullenness presaging desperation. The entire south was in noisy ferment. The ruling chief himself was a study in volcanic distemper, erupting at short notice with the pristine violence of a bear at bay.

Things could not just go on as usual. Everybody was expecting something to give. If it was a question of aborted hopes, the country could live with that. In its short existence, the ill-starred nation has had to cope with many betrayals and aborted hopes. Somehow, and like a stumped lover, it had always found the strength, the fierce energy to move on. But this time the omens of national regeneration were not very bright. While the naira was being carted away from the treasury, something fundamental had also taken place. The spirit of the nation appeared to have decayed, too. Having passed the point of morphine-assisted rebirth, Lugard’s contraption was expiring before our very eyes.

I told an old acquaintance who was quite familiar with the routes to the old Yoruba interior that I needed to see the chief with immediate effect——as they say in the military. I was bearing an important message from a great crony of his. All my friend had to do was to deposit me somewhere around Wasinmi. I will find my way to the chief’s palatial enclave by routes known and unknown. .

Ibogun-Olaogun is an idyllic rural village, a hanging orchard of palm fruits, oranges, bananas, plantain and semi-wild breadfruits running riot in prolific and prolix progeny. The only paved road in the community had been hurriedly rehabilitated for the umpteenth time and it looked like an aberration of modernity in a rustic paradise. I hardly had time to take in the expansive sitting room with its mementoes of global conquests and capitulations to crude vanity when the old man barged in. We had not seen in about eight years, not since he decided to return to the palace, and not since he triumphed against all popular odds.

As he charged past me, he stopped dead in his track as a whiff of belated recognition overtook him and his drawn exhausted visage lit up with contempt superimposed on panic. Bitter resentment welled up inside him as he eyed me with angry disdain.

“Ta l’omu omo were yi wa sibi?” he growled in Yoruba. (Who brought this lunatic here?)

“I have not come here to be insulted. I have a message for you”, I snapped, determined to carry the battle to him as usual. He had been startled by the vehemence and shrill ferocity of my response. But the old soldier, a past master of psychological warfare, was unfazed.

“I say who brought this lunatic here? So you have finished writing all your rubbish, abi?”

“And I say I have not come here to be insulted. First, your friend said I should tell you that each time in your career that you alienated your true friends and surrounded yourself with sycophants and palace jesters you have always paid dearly for it. And this time will not be different”, I shouted back.

I could see that he had suffered a serious deflation. Ever since he barricaded himself in within a wall of unreality and monomaniac delusions, nobody had taken him to the cleaners like that. He mumbled something and then mused half-aloud to himself.

“That one, I sent some money to his wife in lieu”, he mumbled to himself.

“In lieu of friendship?” I asked with a sarcastic leer as I leveraged my psychological dividends.

“Were ni e se. A foolish and unwise professor. Professor my foot!!!” he screamed.

“Listen, you told a friend of mine that I am a stupid man, a professor of idiocy….ojogbon ti ko gbon paapaa”. I shouted at him.

“And am I lying? Am I not right? All the rubbish you have been writing, where has it taken you? All the stupid things the likes of you have been saying in your papers, am I still not the leader? Am I still not here? All of you cannot remove one piece of hair from my body. The termite only plans but it cannot eat stone. Wo, let me tell you, you are`all doing yourself, not me”.

Buoyed by this self-induced myth of invincibility, he seemed to have regained his devilish sense of humor. He began to sing a famous juju song and to canter round the expansive sitting room like a victorious local generalissimo , giving me the occasional satanic look of triumph.

Bi eni bi eni

Ara yin le nda loro

Ara yin le nda loro, emi ko

Bi eji bi eji

Ara yin le nda loro

Ara yin le nda loro, emi ko……….

“Temi deni” I called out to him with disarming familiarity and by his childhood nickname as a way of reminding him of his humble beginnings as a gravel-loading yokel. He gave me a curious look of disbelief and concern.

“Kilowi?” (“What did you say?”) “Ani omo ale ni e se”, ( you are a rogue of ambiguous paternity), he raved with affable relish. I now saw an opening and chose to press home my advantage.

“The last time we were both here, this palace was not there. I understand things are also very rosy in Otta. You seem to have done well for yourself oo”, I observed.

“Siddon there. Those who partake in the cooking of pepe must eat a bit of pepe”, he replied cautiously, looking for a trap.

“So what was the grouse against IBB then?”

“Ha, that one, that one”, he began warily, “ that one, na dede nde’ku. Iku nde dede,” a famous Yoruba saying which suggested a duel unto death between two formidable adversaries.

The great chief is a man of famously mercurial temperament and even more notorious for sudden and abrupt shifts of moods. He was now eyeing me with towering distrust, as if he had been admonishing himself for being rather too friendly with a traitor, an enemy combatant. He was about to raise the stakes but I beat him to the offensive.

“You know looking back, my only regret is that I didn’t allow that boy to rough you up in London when you first got out of jail”, I said looking at him directly.

“Don’t we know who sent him? “he began with malicious relish, “ your NADECO professors, OPC stalwarts, Odua thugs, Afenifere infidels, ignorant Nobel Lawrence(sic). Mo siti fo epon gbogbo yin!!” ( I have smashed your testicles)

“But…” I began, but allowed convulsive laughter to overtake me.

“Shut up. Are you not one of them? In fact why am I talking to this idiot?” His mood shifted suddenly again from adversarial violence to cunning deflation and sadistic baiting. He eyed me with a look of superior disregard.

“By the way, awon baba re Afenifere nko?” (How about your Afenifere fathers?)

“Don’t even go there!!” I snapped. He began to laugh uncontrollably at my obvious discomfiture. He eyed me with paternalistic and patronising contempt.

“When I heard that they named you secretary, I said foolish boy see where all the grammar, all the grand theory have led him, a seer who cannot see his own future, kai , kai”. He began to sing and canter about again, a very ominous native song about the fatal entrapment of the elephant.

“A o merin joba

erekuewele

“A o merin joba

erekuewele

Gbogbo wa pata ka lo merin joba

erekuewele.

Then he stopped abruptly again. He eyed me with savage amusement.

“You know those old men who call themselves Afenifere. Ijo ti mola ti nfun won legba nilu yi (since the malams have been oppressing them in this country) For the first time you have somebody who has brought their tormentors really to heels, and they are not grateful. All they know is gra gra; no strategy. Without ever saying so, I have avenged all the humiliations of the tribe. Now they find themselves in league with people like Gambo Jimeta”

He had pronounced the name of the former Inspector General with such spite and contempt, and with such a curious native inflection which suggested something completely different. I pointed his attention to this, but he pointedly ignored me.

“When I ask Nuhu Ribadu to open the book on that one, he will run to Futa Jallon.”

There was a momentary pause as I watched him completely consumed by hatred and vindictiveness. He reminded one of some malignant self-indulgent deity; an aberrant personality, but a truly magnificent aberration with an elemental force of personality.

“You have so many enemies and not much time left”, I observed.

“Who told you”, he snapped

“So, this third term thing is not dead!” I lamented.

“Ti nba tun gbo to lenu re, o si gbo tam tam laiya re.”he snarled.(If I hear any word beginning with “t” from your mouth, you will hear something exploding in your chest with the sound tam, tam.)

He was by now, a menacing sight to behold. Towering frustration compounded by impotence was written all over him. Something must have been telling him that his time was up. But here was a man who had wrestled with history before and was determined to have another go, his very strength becoming a profound weakness and a source of potentially fatal tragedy for the nation he owes so much. I moved for the kill.

“A wise man should have known that a nation is a permanent work in progress. Even if you stay for fifty years, there is only so much that can be done. A great leader focuses on a specific project and then cultivates a cult of heroic example to serve as a benchmark for coming generations. You did that in your first coming. Unfortunately, this time around circumstances have overwhelmed you.”

He lurched forward in an attempt to grab me, and as I briskly side-stepped him, I hit my head against something. I opened my eyes to a sepulchre-white world. It had begun to snow heavily in New York.

December 16, 2012
Re: Four Yoruba and Nigerian Avatars

Snooper is at it again, in his elements in “Four Yoruba and Nigerian Avatars.” Clinically incisive, especially your characterisation of “The Four”. Yes, “Obasanjo…is arguably the outstanding political games-master”, sugbon , “elewon maa..nloga.” Ask him about “The Lion of Bourdillon”, whose heroic exploits in our political firmament are still unfolding. We pray he would not falter. Just fire on, Tatalo Alamu, we will be reading and enjoying you. ——Feyisola Famutimi .

This writing business, osa, often dreary and torturing, is like prospecting for gold. You came close to a prize find in the second essay on Yoruba avatars dripping with rich insights. A book on such lines will be seminal. How does Asiwaju fit into the picture? Professor Ayo Olukotun.

December 16, 2012
The horrible year 2012 (1)

President Jonathan woke up the first day of this annus horribilis to give Nigerians a gift from the very pit of hell

So horrible has the current year been for Nigeria and its hapless citizens that even though my distinguished senior at The School –read Christ’s School, Ado-Ekiti, Emeritus Professor Jide Osuntokun, had his last two columns devoted to the morbidity aspect of this subject, I still could not shy away from the subject. All I succeeded in doing, therefore, is translate ‘Annus Horribilis’, my original title, into its anglicised form.

Happily too, we are looking at the subject from different perspectives.

Without the slightest doubt, my readers know that neither Professor Osuntokun nor I own the patent to the cryptic epigram, Annus Horribilis’. Rather, it belongs to Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth 11, of England who, on the 40th anniversary of her coronation at Guildhall, London, on 24 November, 1992, decided to bring to the public space, the views of one of her trusted correspondents who had described the year as such.

‘Thank you’, intoned Her Majesty, the Queen, ‘this great hall has provided me with some of the most memorable events of my life. The hospitality of the City of London is famous around the world, but nowhere is it more appreciated than among the members of my family. However, 1992 is not a year on which I shall look back with undiluted pleasure. In the words of one of my more sympathetic correspondents, it has turned out to be an ‘Annus Horribilis’. I suspect that I am not alone in thinking it so. Indeed, I suspect that there are very few people or institutions unaffected by these last months of worldwide turmoil and uncertainty,’ concluded her incandescent Majesty.

This 3- part article which should round off the column for the year will commence with something of an analysis of the horrible events that shaped the world, but especially our own corner of it, during the year, the second will interrogate the roads, which if taken would have, most probably, turned things around significantly while the third, and final part, will showcase those few areas of the country where we have seen courageous examples of leadership demonstrated.

Not even the first part will attempt to limit the horrible happenings to our unfortunate country. As you read this, Syria is burying its own innocent children, needlessly despatched to the great beyond in a most unreasonable internecine war; the young Afghan girl, Malala Yusufzai, a 14-year-old education rights activist, shot by a Taliban gun man on her way home from school in the Swat Valley region of that blighted country, is still in a London hospital being treated for head injuries; just as Hurricane Sandy showed Americans that there is more than elections, even in democracies, the way it mowed down everything on its way in a deluge that so easily reminds one of Hurricane Katrina; that demon which, but for God, would have swallowed up our own Niyi Osundare. We thank God for little mercies.

Meanwhile, Greece is in a shambles, humbled by a protracted debt crisis that has thrashed the reputation of some leading world economists and politicians the West believed they could rely onif push came to shove, economically speaking, that is. Nearer home in Central Africa, the Democratic Republic of Congo lies flat on its belly. The list goes on, but our emphasis today is on the only country we can legitimately call our own –the ruined and heavily violated, modern day ‘Garden of Eden’, given the resources it pleased God to endow it with.

As if propelled by some evil spirit, President Jonathan woke up the first day of this ‘annus horribilis’ to give Nigerians a gift from the very pit of hell –withdrew a so-called oil subsidy, which has since turned out to be nothing more than the colossal sums of money the well-connected – election financiers, families of PDP top men and sundry hirelings – had fraudulently fleeced from our common purse. The whole country went into a tailspin with extra-judicial killings by trigger-happy police men as the icing on the cake. A convulsion erupted with conscientious men and women, leading lights of the Nigerian civil society, the trade unions, renowned artists, musicians and the hoi polloi, thrown into the mix, all leading to a truly horrendous melt down. Happily, and for once, the National Assembly, especially the lower House, rose in defence of the powerless. The reverberations are still here with us as the federal government continues to use decoys to mess up every attempt to get to the bottom of the rot in the oil sector. Without a doubt, that cesspool will not dry up soon since government is adept at rubbishing every committee report aimed at sanitising the industry; just so, their behind can be protected.

To further demonstrate how horrible the year has been, Nigerians only fortuitously got to know through a foreign medium – the Wall Street Journal to be precise – that the Jonathan government had entered into a whooping N5.6 Billion contract with militants to guard oil pipelines. Since lies have a short life span, it soon transpired that never in our history has oil theft in the country reached its current levels in spite of that humongous contract and the rumoured employment of some 5000 militants. Meanwhile, nobody in government has told Nigerians that the Navy, whose primary duty it is, has been annulled from our books. And while Dr Doyin Okupe could talk animatedly about a jump from 1.8mbpd to 2.6mbpd, he has not volunteered a word about the high level oil thefts and the consequent plummeting of daily production to levels achieved before the contracts.. This way, it will be reasonable to suggest that loyalties are already being surreptitiously bought and caressed, ahead the next set of elections knowing full well that Boko Haram will not stay idle when the jockeying begins for political supremacy between the North and the South-South.

This therefore takes us to the issue of security of life and property, failure in which respect, we should be able to conclude that this president has failed; no matter what else he got right. The three menacing threats here in order of their seriousness are the Boko Haram menace, kidnapping and armed robbery. Beginning from the last, one can conveniently say now that nowhere is safe in this country, irrespective of what time of day you are out there or even when attempting to sleep in your own house at night. All our roads are infested with the menace and whole streets are ransacked by hordes of armed robbers who may, in fact, have written ahead that they will visit since they are fully aware of the state of preparedness of our under-funded police force. In the Ijebu area of Ogun state, nay, in any part of the South-West, God forbid a bank open for business when the ‘boys’ have announced their coming. This has gone on for years now without the police having an answer. Without a doubt, the yuletide period will most probably be .worse.

For some areas of the country, kidnapping has become an industry –real big business- and it has been suggested that in the South-East, as much as N750 Million is made per month from this horrendous evil. One interesting development had been that in the South-South where kidnapping started, deaths of victims are a rarity. This was because they were satisfied once their sponsors, which at a time allegedly included serving state governors, told them to simply hold on to their victim in the sure knowledge that money was coming.

To be continued.

December 16, 2012
America’s petroleum and Nigeria’s future (1)

Nigeria will never be the same again after the United States becomes an exporter of petroleum

Two of the regular readers of this column have asked me to comment in the fashion on the implications of the news that the United States will by 2020 become the largest producer of petroleum in the world and that many multinational oil companies are bent on reducing their investment in Nigeria’s oil exploration and exploitation. I would have preferred to ignore this request on the ground that I am not an economist and thus not intellectually equipped to make economic forecasts, if my readers had not given me the permission to give their question just a commonsensical approach, given my lack of expertise in economics.

It is my belief that Nigeria will never be the same again after the United States becomes an exporter of petroleum. But the country will not go under because of this and may very well finally have an opportunity to escape what Michael Ross calls the Oil Curse: the view that countries that are not developed before discovering the black gold are more likely than other countries to have less democracy and less economic stability.

There should be little concern about American, French, and Dutch oil companies selling some of their business in our country’s oil sector. That there are buyers for such business indicates that the business is not dying and that Nigeria may still earn some foreign exchange from whatever oil business is sold by multinational oil companies. The minister of finance’s disclosure that foreign oil companies make 43% of the revenue from oil while Nigeria makes 57% shows that many oil companies are likely to continue their business in the country. In addition, the fact that China has already replaced the United States as the biggest importer of Nigeria’s crude oil also indicates that buyers of the Nigeria’s oil are likely to be around for years to come.

What is likely to constitute a major challenge to the country is the news that the United States will become the largest supplier of petroleum and gas by 2020 as a result of United States’ capacity to obtain light crude and gas from shale formations through fracking. The possibility that fracking may become available in other technologically advanced countries (including China and India) should be the greatest source of worry for Nigeria, especially its economy and polity.

Since petroleum export accounts for over 80% of Nigeria’s revenue, it is logical that the loss of the 12% of Nigeria’s sweet light bought annually by the United States is going to lead to reduced revenue. Already, in contrast to US import of 11% of Nigeria’s light in 2011, United States’ import from Nigeria in 2012 is put at 5%, a reduction of about 50% revenue flowing into Nigeria from the United States annually. By 2020, the United States may not need to buy one barrel of oil from Nigeria. Moreover, increase in US oil export is also likely to reduce the percentage of Nigeria’s oil imported by other countries. The news that Russia is building pipelines to make delivery of its petroleum to other countries including Germany more cost effective and faster than it used to be will certainly reduce the volume of oil imported from Nigeria worldwide. The discovery of oil in many countries, including the fact that Somalia may have more oil than Kuwait will certainly lead to a glut in the oil market and decline in revenue coming to all oil-exporting countries.

The bad side of reduction in revenue from oil for a country that is largely dependent on oil export is that there may be less money for infrastructure development. Electricity, road and rail transportation will be affected adversely by the flow of less revenue to the country. Consequently, the country’s chance of starting new industries may be hampered substantially. Such situation will fuel further migration of manufacturing companies to other countries with better infrastructure in West Africa or elsewhere on the continent.

Correspondingly, there will be less funding to education by government at all levels, since all the three tiers of government depend on revenue from oil export. The current situation of decline in the quality of education in the country is, more likely than not, to worsen. Consequently, the country’s competitiveness even within Africa will diminish, thus creating the scare of vicious cycle of underdevelopment. The rate of unemployment will also increase nationally. Economic activities in the informal sector (responsible for over 50% of the country’s economic activities) will also decline.

On the good side, there will be less corruption in the country. The demands on dwindling revenue will increase to the point that government at all levels will be more aggressive on taxation. This will increase citizens’ awareness and resistance to stealing of their taxes by their leaders. The current nonchalance by citizens about the stealing of public funds will be replaced by citizens’ anger and hunger for accountability and good governance. The attitude to public funds as deriving from manna and not from contributions from citizens as tax will disappear. Citizens will be more concerned and sensitive to those they elect to rule them; become more critical of the civil service and more aggressive in their demand for transparency and accountability at all levels of government. For example, serious struggle against emoluments to elected officials at federal, state, and local government level will become part of government-citizen relations.

Furthermore on the good side, Nigerians and their leaders will stop hoping for miracles, as the source of economic miracle in the economy will have diminished too much for responsible political to risk not countenancing, as it has been the case for decades since large-scale export of petroleum. As the country struggles with the problem of revenue decline, citizens and their leaders especially will see the sense in shifting their focus from derivation and revenue allocation to production and revenue generation from agriculture in all the states of the federation, as it used to be before discovery of petroleum at Oloibiri. State or regional governments, rather than the federal government, will become drivers of development. And the political structure and culture of the country will be more prone to transformation than it has ever been since 1966.

To be continued next week.

December 16, 2012
Let Sambo have his N14bn palace

It was such bad news when on December 6, the Senate Committee on the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) rejected plans by the FCT Administration to spend an additional N9billion to provide infrastructure at the residence of the Vice-President. Then the newspapers went to town the next day with sensational headlines, depicting our country as a poor one which could not afford to splash a mere N14billion on the official residence of its Number Two citizen. The project was awarded in 2009 at a cost of N7billion. The Federal Capital Development Authority (FCDA) initially wanted N9billion more, but had to scale it down to N6billion plus, perhaps after the intervention of the Bureau for Public Procurement.

For once, I was compelled to agree with our Minister of Information, Labaran Maku, that it is the media that should be blamed for projecting the country in bad light, thus influencing outsiders’ perception of what is happening in the country. Instead of descending on the senators who want our vice president to live in some ramshackle house, the media started faulting the additional funds requested for the laudable project. What a pity!

Now, when an important decision is about to be taken on an equally important personality like the country’s Number Two citizen, one expects those taking the decision to advance impeccable reasons why theyson advanced by the Senate committee? Senator Smart Adeyemi who led members of the committee to the project site said the amount was huge, considering the abject poverty in the land. “The National Assembly is not going to appropriate additional N9bn for the project, especially at a period in this country when people cannot get a square meal. The N9bn is far more than the original cost of the project”. We cannot blame Smart for having such a low esteem of our vice president. He is from Kogi State where tailor, carpenter and some pilot once held sway as governor. So, this parochial mindset must have influenced his decision.

Smart is talking as if he is just back from Germany or the US, or wherever. Who in Nigeria does not know that contract variations have become part and parcel of us and we hardly review contract cost down here? Again, imagine a ‘learned’ legislator like Smart talking about people not able to ‘get a square meal’ and the abject poverty in the land. He should tell us when last a government provided Nigerians that square meal a day. I left the university in the mid-‘80s and I know that people had been going on all kinds of methods to reduce their food bills, even since then. We had ‘0-1-1’ and ‘1-0-1’ (the first meaning minus breakfast, plus lunch and dinner; and the second: plus breakfast minus lunch, plus dinner). This is the way it has been at least since the ‘80s. Whereas before then, parents had enough to give their children and they were always confident to ask the children if they were satisfied. These days, most parents merely ask whether the children have eaten. They would have taken off before the children start complaining that the food is not enough!

Again, Smart talked about ‘abject poverty’, is he pretending not to know that is what governments have been spreading in the country for the past few decades? And they are now talking as if it is the fault of the vice president that there is abject poverty in the land. I guess that people like Smart are advancing all these reasons because President Goodluck Jonathan and his team are largely democrats with human kindness flowing in their veins. Imagine if it had been in the Second Republic, Smart and his colleagues would have been put where they belong by some outspoken public officials who would have asked them whether they have seen any Nigerian eat from the dustbin yet. It was the then President Shehu Shagari who was quiet; but he had ministers and other subordinates that were garrulous. As a matter of fact, one of them was so loathed that they organised for him to be ‘crated’ home from Britain, but for some eagle-eyed British police who aborted the plan.

The senators ignored all the explanations of the executive secretary of the FCDA, Adamu Ismail, who tried all he could to make the senators see sense in the idea. The man said the place needed furniture, fencing, two protocol guest louses, a banquet hall and security gadgets. According to Ismail, these were omitted by those who conceived the project. Now, tell me, which of these is our vice president not entitled to? Is it the furniture that you want to disagree with? Or you want to say the man should not be protected with a fence as thick and strong as the wall of Jericho in these days of high profile kidnappings and bombings? Are two protocol guest houses too many for the vice president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria? Are the senators also saying the banquet hall is unnecessary? We should realise that those who prepared the initial estimate are human beings likely to forget that these items were not included in the original project. Or, they must be some other Smarts who believe in Spartan lifestyle for our vice president!

In view of all these points, we should show understanding for why the supplementary budget for the project is higher than the original estimate. All these items could not have been provided with the initial N7billion! Moreover, what if technologies have changed between when the contract was awarded and now; would we want our vice president’s palace to be fitted with yesterday’s technology, today?

Now that the Senate committee has made Ismail look incompetent, how will another FCDA official come again next year to ask for another variation, this time including the cost of transporting all the needed items to site? And the cost of painting, electrical fittings, bottled water and champagne and stuff like that? And what of the cost of the cassava bread that the vice president will eat? And the exotic fura de nunu to wash it down?

These are what Smart sat in judgment over and declared, rather off-handedly, that “Fourteen billion Naira to me is huge for the Vice-President’s house. If you are even talking of N10bn, that would be understandable …”. When has the simple question of budgeting suddenly become this rigorous in the country? Have Smart and Co. forgotten that here, we don’t simply spend, we sink money into projects? How come we find it difficult to sink a mere N14billion into our vice president’s lodge? Since when has that paradigm changed? These senators should come off it! They should not infect our vice president with their poverty-stricken mindset. In case the senators do not know, some of our leaders are like my friend who always reminds us that he had been taking Irish Cream since he was in his mother’s womb; whenever we tease him that he has a poor man’s mentality. We should appreciate our leaders’ sacrifices by at least spoiling them a little.

The reasonable thing that Senator Smart should have done was to have asked Ismail to ‘take a bow and leave’! All hope is however not lost. Thanks to the empathetic vice-chairman of the committee, Senator Domingo Obende, who urged the officials to submit the details of the additional scope of work for which the fund was required to the committee for scrutiny. Scrutiny? Don’t start smelling any rat. And never ask what the senators have been doing since.

December 16, 2012
Beyond Mrs Okonjo’s rescue

With denials heaped upon denials, some even amounting to classic refutation, we may never know whether ransom was truly paid to secure the release of Professor Kamene Okonjo, the abducted mother of the Finance minister, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. And if anything was paid, we may still never know for sure just how much, perhaps after protracted haggling, was eventually paid. Was it N10 million, as some sources say, or was it a little over that figure? Indeed, how many of us would be so stouthearted as not to yield to the blackmail of parting with money to secure the release of a loved one? If a man could resist blackmail when the ‘merchandise’ is an octogenarian, could he resist without panicking if the commodity were his young bride?

So, whether anything was paid or not, the Finance minister’s family must be relieved that their mother is now free and safe. The trauma will undoubtedly live with them for a long time, and the Goodluck Jonathan government, if it is capable of any delicate feeling, will feel the humiliation of a distasteful strike hitting close to home. At least the victim is now free and safe; therefore to blazes with morality and principles. Few are, however, going to believe nothing was paid, especially judging from the manner Queen Okonjo strolled into freedom. As the police acknowledged, the elderly woman was released, not rescued. In spite of the avalanche of security agents that descended on the small town of Ogwashi-Uku in Delta State, Professor Okonjo was held by the kidnappers for about five days. The kidnappers evidently got in contact with the family, and some sort of discussions took place between the kidnappers and the Finance minister’s family. Those discussions, or as the police elegantly put it, pressures, led to the release of the 82-year-old queen.

The police may not be equipped to fight the sophisticated crimes they frequently confront, but in the case of this high-profile kidnap, they at least honestly admitted some of the details surrounding the ugly incident. They were not too keen to entertain the fanciful theories some commentators were bandying about in which they suggest that what was essentially a simple kidnapping was in fact a classic political weapon to force the government to embrace wrong policies. It would be far-fetched indeed for any group to hope it could compel the Finance minister alone, no matter how influential she is, to redirect government policy on fuel subsidy payments, or modify any other policy for that matter, simply because a close family member had been abducted. The police believed Queen Okonjo was kidnapped for ransom, and they said so simply and plainly. They were also honest enough to admit she was released rather than rescued, though some dramatic shootouts a little removed from the actual kidnapping were reported to have taken place, leading to the death of an alleged kidnap kingpin.

What humiliates every Nigerian is not just the helplessness he feels in the face of bold and innovative criminal gangs, for which the poorly equipped, distracted and disoriented police are sometimes unfairly blamed. Nor is the problem just one of a lacklustre presidency that appears increasingly incapable of responding structurally to the complex challenges of the times. I think that more than anything, the problem is that this government, like all the ones before it, is negligent in appreciating the gravity of the problems confronting it and in summoning the willpower and wisdom to respond to them.

The federal government, which unadvisedly retains total control over law enforcement agencies (See Box), should naturally and agilely respond to security breaches like kidnapping with all the means at its disposal. Instead, it has right from the beginning treated kidnapping leisurely and with indiscernible air of resignation. It displays indignation only when children and top government officials and their families are victims, as if one Nigerian is less human than the other. The Okonjo-Iweala’s mum’s kidnapping deeply embarrassed the presidency; but surely even the government could not claim to be inured to the anomalousness of deploying, as it were, an armada to tackle a rather simple case. The security agencies not only overwhelmed the town in search of the kidnappers, by arresting 63 people in one fell swoop, they became almost irrational. Once again, for an admittedly good cause, and as they are wont, government agents exhibited the idiosyncratic excesses that tend to undermine the citizenship of Nigerians. It was lazy, reckless and counterproductive to herd so many Nigerians into detention in order to prise one doubtful tip from them. The net was disrespectfully cast too wide. But I fear that government officials will miss this nuanced point.

More salient, however, is the Jonathan government’s disconcerting lack of appreciation of the foundations upon which a government must anchor its policies and responses. No one will believe ransom was not paid for the release of Mrs Okonjo because the Jonathan government has not shown the will and wisdom to make it a cardinal policy not to negotiate with terrorists and kidnappers, and to make it unlawful for anyone to do so privately or otherwise. By announcing its readiness to negotiate with Boko Haram Islamic fundamentalist group, the government showed it lacked the spine to stand its ground for the things that ennoble humanity. It has, therefore, become convenient for the police to feign ignorance of negotiations with kidnappers, as they did in the Okonjo kidnap saga. According to them, they have a policy of not negotiating with kidnappers, and were thus not part of whatever negotiations took place between the Finance minister’s family and the kidnappers.

Kidnapping will continue to flourish in one form or another for as long as there is no government courageous enough to draw a red line against that crime. The lowly will be abducted, as the high and mighty will fall victim. Kidnapped women will be violated, with families keeping mum over the cruel fate that would befall their loved ones, and children will be brutalised and traumatised. Some will lose their lives, and some parts of the country will remain tense, insecure and volatile, despoiled by kidnappers, its populace dehumanised by government agents who can’t tell the difference between citizen and alien, freedom and servitude, and between democracy and autocracy. Above all, knowing how alone they are, victims’ families will strenuously ignore the impotent government and enter into amicable and productive negotiations with kidnappers.

The only option left for victims of kidnapping, such as Brig Oluwole Rotimi’s family, is to appeal to the government to deploy as much resources as it cheerfully did in the Professor Okonjo case. Government officials said pressure on the kidnappers, not ransom, led to the release of the abducted queen. The people would like to see more of that pressure applied in subsequent kidnap cases, for kidnapping will not cease overnight, especially given the report that ransom was paid to secure the release of the powerful Finance minister’s mum. If the powerful could pay ransom, so reasoned the populace, who could withstand the kidnappers?

If only the Jonathan presidency could see the futility of its attitude towards kidnapping (plausible deniability) and terrorism (constructive engagement), it would appreciate why it needs a backbone to fight those twin crimes with the enlightened and principled doggedness great governments are known for. If he finally decides to stand and fight, it will be bloody, it will even expose the weaknesses of his security machine and publicise the incompetence of some of his men, and it will test his nerves. But in the end, as history ineluctably underscores, sometimes in surreal imagery too powerful to put into words, he would succeed, and his government, which has failed so disastrously to regenerate the country economically and re-engineer it politically, would be defined by the courage with which he met the most important security challenges of his day.

December 16, 2012