The Nation Newspaper

Category: Sunday

  • Intervention for Gaza and Lagbaja’s final rest

    Intervention for Gaza and Lagbaja’s final rest

    The week started for President Bola Tinubu abroad this last week. It was the week he took a day official trip to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, where he participated in the extraordinary Arab-Islamic Summit in Riyadh. He left Abuja on Sunday, participated in the summit, made his national statement and returned to Nigeria on Tuesday, a rather brief, but impactful outing. Though with a tendency to get the religious minded, whom we have in excess abundance, feeling either uneasy or exuding a victor’s mien, one whose faith has found the colour of superiority, the outing was for much more and a greater objective for Nigeria and its President.

    While he was in Saudi, Tinubu, within the one day scheduled for him to be there, achieved more than just one goal; besides stating what Nigeria’s national opinion on the developments in the Middle East is, especially as it affects the ongoing Israeli activities in Gaza, he ensured to pursue one of his objectives as Nigeria’s President, which is all about bettering the economy and the lives of Nigerians.

    On Monday, when it was time for him to express Nigeria’s point of view about the situation in Gaza, he did not spare those who should share the responsibilities for the carnage that has unfolded for more than a year in the Palestinian region. To start with, whatever the name of what is happening to the people of Gaza currently might be, or what the seemingly justifiable premise is, it has lasted for far too long, considering the magnitude of human casualty and the level of damage (pictures coming out of the place are some of the most disturbing our humanity has seen in recent history).

    It was a straight call to all sides; the aggressor super-power Israel, which has chosen to wield the hammer against the errant mosquito and the hypocritical Hamas, and its backers, who were either too short-sighted to realise their unprovoked October 7, 2023 aggression on Israel would not go without a heavy response, or did not just give a hoot what the effect of their action would be on Gaza and its people, whom they chose to use as human shield. He did not spare the global community especially those that occupy the front row of global politics, who rather than taking real action to prevent the ongoing massacre from the onset, or halt it when it was becoming the genocide that everyone is currently witnessing. He favours action over weak, hypocritical pity-party displayed from different corners of the globe.

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    His call was to all that must take the required step to stop what is going on, save what is left of the people of Gaza, just for humanity’s sakes. He called out to the feeling of humanity in all leaders, painting a picture of what life has become for the defenceless, the weak; civilians, mothers, children, people who merely wish to live their simple, everyday lives, go to their work or farm in the morning, return to their families who will receive them back home with cheery open arms, sharing the dinner together. For children to be able to live normal lives; go to school to learn and experience a normal childhood. Just to be able to live the simple, uncomplicated life, like children in other parts of the world.  

    “The conflict in Palestine has persisted for far too long, inflicting immeasurable suffering on countless lives. As representatives of nations that value justice, dignity, and the sanctity of human life, we have a moral obligation to collectively bring about an immediate end to this conflict. It is not enough to issue empty condemnations. The world must work towards an end to Israeli aggression in Gaza, which has persisted for far too long. No political aim, no military strategy, and no security concern should come at the expense of so many innocent lives.

    “In a rules-based international order, States have the right of self- defense. But self defense must take proportionality into account, in line with global legal, diplomatic – and moral – frameworks. An entire civilian population, their dreams and futures, cannot be dismissed as collateral. Humanitarian aid is not a privilege — it is a basic human right. No individual, regardless of nationality, ethnicity, or religion, should be denied access to the aid in times of crisis. We must also ensure that humanitarian workers on the frontlines are safe to carry out their mission in Gaza”, he said.

    He did not just throw tantrums over what he considers inhuman and unfair, he suggested solutions and ways to heal the hurts and the mend dilapidated state of relations within the region. He said Nigeria has always favoured dialogue over test of might, coming from our domestic and regional backgrounds. He noted though that for the dialogue, to achieve a lasting solution, must target a two-state resolution.

    “The two-state solution stands as a beacon of hope, representing the rights of both Israelis and Palestinians to self-determination and peace. It is not just a diplomatic article of faith; it is a vision grounded in the principles of equality and mutual recognition. Achieving this vision requires a commitment to dialogue and respect for history. We all know this conflict did not begin on October 7th 2023. It can only be resolved through principled compromise, based on appreciation of the proper context. This conflict, in the cradle of history, is so visceral that the ripples of division spread far and quickly. The corrosive impact of the images of endless violence, repeated on a billion smart phones around the world is huge. We need to find new pathways to peace, without delay”, he said.

    On the sidelines of the Summit, President Tinubu found the time to pursue other goals in the interest of Nigeria. He had a meeting with the very influential Saudi Crown Prince and Prime Minister, Mohammed bin Salman. The meeting was focused on Nigeria-Saudi Arabia diplo-bilateral discussions and before it was wrapped up, the President already got his host praising his administration’s reforms, drawing similarities in what is unfolding in Nigeria with what he is doing in Saudi Arabia.

    A statement issued by Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Mr. Bayo Onanuga, described the atmosphere of the meeting: “The two leaders explored potential areas for cooperation, particularly oil and gas, agriculture, infrastructure and the constitution of the Saudi-Nigeria Business Council. Nigeria wants an agreement with the Saudi government over a proposed $5 billion bilateral trade facility between the two countries.

    “The Saudi Agricultural and Livestock Investment Company (SALIC) invested $1.24 billion in 2022 to acquire a 35.43% stake in Olam Agri, one of Nigeria’s leading agricultural firms. Talks are being held so that SALIC can have more stake in the company. The Saudis hoped the investment would make Olam one of the biggest agro-allied businesses in the world. The Crown Prince commended President Tinubu’s economic reforms, noting similarities to his steps to strengthen Saudi Arabia’s stability and development when he became Prime Minister. He also assured Nigeria of his support and promised to motivate his team to realise the various areas of partnerships discussed at the meeting”, the statement said

    He returned to the country on Tuesday after the event and he sure has since devoted his time to domestic issues. There were activities reported in the media through the course of the week; he presided over the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting on Thursday, made new appointments, as well as some other unreported activities.

    However, the final burial ceremony of the late Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant General Taoreed Abiodun Lagbaja, on Friday got Mr. President to come out and express his thoughts about a man he described as “A Soldier’s Soldier”, leading the crème of Nigeria’s elite class; the political, bureaucracy and the military, to honour the man who shone for just a while as the nation’s number soldier, but who lost to the personal battle with nature. In honour of this Officer and Gentleman, he led the top echelon to the National Military Cemetery in Abuja, the final resting place of Lagbaja.

    As the nation gathered to honor a man whose life epitomized courage, dedication, and service to Nigeria, President Tinubu led the rain of tributes, describing the late Chief of Army Staff as one of Nigeria’s finest, a soldier whose commitment to the nation and his troops set him apart.

    He emphasized that Lagbaja embodied the highest ideals of military service. Rising through the ranks after enrolling in the Nigerian Defense Academy in 1987, he reached the pinnacle of his career in June 2023 as Chief of Army Staff. During his service, Lagbaja held several prominent positions, including General Officer Commanding of Headquarters 82 Division and Headquarters 1 Division. His leadership was instrumental in reshaping Nigeria’s approach to counter-insurgency and anti-banditry operations, earning him widespread respect within the Armed Forces and beyond.

    Lagbaja’s career was not only defined by battlefield achievements but also by his commitment to the welfare of his troops and their families. He advocated for better support for soldiers, championing the clearance of long-standing life assurance benefit backlogs for the families of deceased personnel. This effort, along with his hands-on approach to leadership, earned him admiration from all ranks of the military. His tenure was brief, but transformative, as he worked tirelessly to strengthen the morale and resilience of the Armed Forces.

    The loss of Lagbaja, the President noted, is a profound reminder of life’s uncertainties. Despite the sorrow, the late General’s legacy offers strength and inspiration to those he left behind. His contributions to national security and his unwavering dedication to Nigeria will serve as a guiding light for the Armed Forces. President Tinubu called on the military to honor Lagbaja’s memory by continuing the work he began, securing the nation with the same courage and determination that defined his life.

    To immortalize his contributions, the President posthumously awarded Lagbaja the national honour of Commander of the Order of the Federal Republic (CFR). This gesture underscored the nation’s deep appreciation for his service and sacrifice. Lagbaja’s journey from a modest upbringing to the highest echelons of the military is a story of resilience and patriotism that will inspire future generations.

    As the ceremony concluded, the President expressed gratitude to Lagbaja’s family for sharing him with the nation. The late General’s widow, Maria, and his children were assured that his sacrifices would never be forgotten. While the nation mourns, Tinubu emphasized the importance of looking forward, carrying on the late General’s mission to secure and unify Nigeria. He noted that Lieutenant General Lagbaja leaves behind a legacy of selflessness, courage, and exemplary service, ensuring that his memory will endure in the hearts of Nigerians for generations to come.

    The final interment of the Soldier’s Soldier concluded the week on yet another solemn note. However, the new week, which is expected to be mostly spent in Brazil, should be brighter with more bloom.

  • DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM? The Honorebu Who Slapped the Law

    DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM? The Honorebu Who Slapped the Law

    SNAPSONG 237    

    The Honorebu’s first question

         Was preceded with a very Honorebu slap

    So loud his neighbours thought

         It was a thunderclap

    “Who are you, wretched driver;

         What madness drove you

    To disturb my Honorebu leisure

         In the middle of an empty day?

    In my Honorably acquired mansion

         Where, between booze and boast,

    I churn out the bills which beget those laws

         That have turned Nigeria into a Paradise”

    The second slap came with an imperial swagger:

         “How dare you! Do you know who I am?”       

  • Obaseki’s final, unreflective broadcast

    Obaseki’s final, unreflective broadcast

    A day or so before Senator Monday Okpebholo was sworn in last Tuesday as Edo State governor, his predecessor Godwin Obaseki attempted image laundering through a vainglorious broadcast detailing his achievements. The broadcast exemplified his love for hyperbole. He didn’t end up speaking about many achievements, nor covered too many subjects, but he was at least intense and seemed absolutely but uncritically self-satisfied. It mattered little to him that the public thought little of his achievements, hence their repudiation of his candidate Asue Ighodalo of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) whom he tried to foist on the state in the September governorship poll. Any other outgoing governor would have used the broadcast to reflect on what he did right and what he did wrong, but the self-assured Mr Obaseki sees himself as infallible, a virtuoso of political and social engineering who transcended the mediocrity of the Edo rabble. The outcome of the election and the resounding repudiation of his candidate should have presented him the opportunity to engage in deep reflections. But characteristically of him, he spurned all entreaties offered him by nature and politics.

    In the very first paragraph of his address, Mr Obaseki spoke blithely about ‘achieving the monumental transformation of our dear state’, a feat he believed was made possible by the ‘vision, health and courage’ God gave him. It is unlikely he exaggerated. He didn’t seem to lack courage, at least going by the hundreds, if not thousands, of Edo political and traditional leaders he alienated. He also seemed to have enjoyed robust health; but if he was ever challenged in that region, it was nothing alarming or worth the public fretting over. As for vision, it is a word used flippantly by every tinhorn politician, a misunderstood concept that so many, including the highfalutin Obaseki himself, misconstrue and consistently misuse. Perhaps there was a scintilla of vision in the few daring changes he claimed to have midwifed in governance, but in the truest meaning of the word vision, there was little extraordinary or lasting about the changes. He appeared convinced the changes would last, but like many things about him and his ideas, he is always thoroughly mistaken. Overall, and still speaking about God in the idiosyncratic religiosity of Nigerians and their leaders, it is reassuring that his address was in a sense measured as he did not dare speak about wisdom. God gifted him courage, vision and health, he enthused; but he was silent on the most important virtue needed in leadership: wisdom, which he incontestably lacked.

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    Referring to particulars, he spoke about the dire need from the outset to do a ‘systems reset’ in Edo in order to ‘rebuild institutions’ and ‘return Edo to past glory’.  To this end, he boasted, “we needed to build strong institutions, not strong men or godfathers.” Of course, in the end, he also tried to transform into a godfather of some sort, but floundered in drawing a difference between his style and his predecessor’s, Adams Oshiomhole. To win re-election in 2020, he had accused Mr Oshiomhole of being a godfather when the latter denounced his highhandedness. Mr Obaseki, who is neither moderate nor modest, continued: “I’m very proud that Edo parades Nigeria’s most advanced public service…a civil service that is nimble, fast, responsive, future focused, private sector facing and technologically compliant.” Given his well-known tunnel vision and his appalling incompetence in drawing comparisons, how on earth could he tell that the Edo civil service he tinkered with had suddenly become the ‘most advanced’?

    If in eight years of governing Edo Mr Obaseki could not boast of anything worth anyone remembering, it would be a disaster for even a man so self-absorbed. No one can deny that he had a little impact on the state’s industrial sector, or on growing the state’s economy from N10bn to N25bn, assuming his statistics are not self-serving, or on growing the state’s Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) to ‘peak at N85 billion by December…’ Despite Edolites thinking little of his achievements in the technological sector, it must be conceded that he was no pushover. The problem, however, is that he construes the insignificant much he has done as entitling him to some measure of greatness, or to an approximation of unexampled leadership, perhaps by global standard. He is mistaken. But as he plaintively put it in his address, perhaps equating his administration to the philosopher-king category: “Unfortunately, recent events and the conduct of certain elements in our democratic space have shown us that the light which democracy and good governance beams can be dimmed. However, it can only be for a while. I fervently believe that any attempt to foist illegality and injustice on a democratic system cannot endure, because the wish of the majority will always prevail.”

    It is ironical that Mr Obaseki was oblivious to his self-incriminating statements. Did he not think that the wish of the majority he alluded to in his address prevailed in the last governorship election, and did that majority not fear that he was trying to foist illegality and injustice on them? He spoke of the fear of dimming the light democracy and good governance beamed, a dimming he derisively attributed to the conduct of certain elements in our democratic space. But he was unapologetic about deliberately and dictatorially barring over a dozen elected lawmakers from taking their seats in the Edo House of Assembly for years, or about getting his deputy, Philip Shaibu, impeached for expressing interest in succeeding him. Absolutely, Mr Obaseki was no democrat. To now speak of his fears that the light of democracy was dimming on account of the activities of certain unnamed elements is to thumb his nose at the public, feign ignorance at the degradations he brought upon the legislature, and demonstrate his recklessness and contempt for a liberal ethos.

    In the concluding part of his address, it was time for salutations and applauses. He said, without a hint of compunction: “All these achievements which I have enumerated and the progress we have made in the last eight years will not have been possible without the support which I received from a wide range of patriotic sons and daughters of Edo State, both at home and in the diaspora. It would not have been possible without the support of our development partners, clerics and our religious leaders who prayed for us ceaselessly. It would not have been possible without the blessings of our traditional rulers.” Such infernal lies. When he presumed to recognise ‘patriotic sons and daughters of Edo’, it is understood that he drew a dichotomy between his sycophantic crowd and his hated critics. Other than that, it is hard to understand what he meant by ‘clerics and religious leaders who prayed for us…’, when in fact he and his wife exploited, for political reasons, a willing and ingratiating church that poured scorn on a ‘miserly’ APC candidate Okpebholo who was unable to match the generosity of the PDP candidate and his godfather. It is even harder to comprehend what he meant by the ‘blessings of our traditional leaders’, when everyone squirmed at the audacity with which he fought the Bini monarchy to a standstill over nondescripts.

    For electoral advantage, Mr Obaseki punned Lagos, suggesting that Edo could not be made to conform to the mores of the former federal capital on whose financial milk he was suckled. He is back to Lagos whose ample bosom accommodates his anonymity as well as shields him from the menaces and scornful looks of Edolites. He should have chosen a different destination. In the opening paragraphs of his address, he acknowledged that the curtains were being drawn on his reign. Yet he governed the state as if the day of departure would never come. Clearly, given the temper of his address and the inelegant but blatant phrases he deployed to conceal his lack of contemplation, he will continue to miss the point about what it means for curtains to be drawn on a leader’s time in office. Have the lives of his people been changed forever in unmistakable, almost permanent way? Let him answer this poser honestly, if he is capable.

  • Watch Trump on China and Iran

    Watch Trump on China and Iran

    For those who think President-elect Donald Trump’s foreign policy will puzzle the world, they haven’t seen anything yet. Yes, he is eccentric and narcissistic, and most of his policies, whether foreign or domestic, are eclectic, but the world is going to struggle valiantly to make sense of where he is going or where he is coming from. There is settled evidence that he embraces authoritarian leaders, as he amply demonstrated in his first term between 2016 and 2020, but the Chinese and the Iranians he loathed so much are neither democratic nor liberal in the sense Western countries understand the concepts. So, the world will scratch their heads to find rhyme or reason in his hatred for one dictatorship and love for another dictatorship.

    Mr Trump will take office in January, and the hysteria within and outside his camp will reach fever pitch. But between now and that time, the cabinet he is cobbling together will both give a clear picture of how his foggy mind works and demonstrate just how deep into the morass he is willing to plumb. Americans are waiting with bated breath; so, too, is the world. For now, there has been no appointment he has made that has inspired anyone. In his first term, many of his appointees did not last because they struggled to reconcile their innate goodness with the coarseness of the president, his lacerating uncouthness. But in his second dispensation, most of his appointees will be men and women who have abjured their beliefs, appointees eager to outdo the president in excesses, bigotry and ribaldry.

    In his first term, when he was unconvinced about the integrity of his political mandate, when he was still assailed by doubts and unsure whether his bigoted nature should be given free rein, Mr Trump’s domestic policy was caked in vitriol and codified in a wild and improbable amalgamation of gender insensitivity and racial bigotry. This time, with a resounding electoral acclamation that stunned the world and beggared belief, Mr Trump will be less restrained, if not openly enthusiastic, in unfurling his racial manifesto upon America as a great emblem of assertion and dominance. America will feel his rolling thunder; but the world, particularly Iran and China, will experience his misanthropy the more. Both

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    countries already know enough to brace themselves for the great impact. Prepare also for such inscrutable and unexpected deals like the 2020 Doha Agreement between the United States and the Taliban who were yet to return to power in Afghanistan at the time. The misogynistic Taliban, now ensconced in power, have already congratulated Americans for not electing a woman president.

    It is not clear that now or in the near future Americans will be able to explain why authoritarian Russia, especially President Vladimir Putin, seems to be Mr Trump’s kryptonite, why the US president seems seduced by the infantile dictatorship of North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, and what the implications of seeming to reject globalism will mean for America. Watch keenly what Trump does in foreign policy, for both America and the world are unlikely to ever remain the same. Great tectonic shifts are afoot; they may not be choreographed or coherent, but the world will undergo stress in peacetime that it never underwent in wartime.

    Mr Trump views China as a loathsome and evil competitor, almost as if America could not exist and remain great along with an inevitably rising China. Expect strains of unparalleled dimensions, strains that will incrementally pour cold water on the diplomatic relations between the two countries, particularly as the president-elect has picked a China hardliner, the Florida senator, Marco Rubio, as Secretary of State. Iran pursued a regional dominance agenda to the irritation of many Middle Eastern countries. With America growling at her, Iran will be unable to replicate the verve with which it pursued its proxy wars and policies under the Joe Biden administration. They won’t forget how curtly Mr Trump denounced their foreign adventures, particularly their nuclear policy, and they won’t forget the re-imposition of heavy sanctions after Mr Trump in his first term exited the US-Iran nuclear deal in May 2018. With a chastened and chafing China on the sidelines, and a consenting Russia eager to have an understanding with America on the Ukraine logjam, Mr Trump may feel emboldened to bait Iran and even take direct action. Iran will then discover how indeed limited its options are, or how restricted its elbow room is.

    Sen Rubio, the incoming US foreign policy czar, may be a centrist, but his view of China as an enemy, his favourable disposition towards NATO, and his readiness to align with Mr Trump’s practical if unprincipled approach to Russia and the war in Ukraine may offer some steadiness and balance to the president-elect’s chaotic view of world politics. But these attributes may also single him out as a potential early defector from the Trump presidency. Of all Mr Trump’s foreign policy actions, the world should watch China and Iran with far more keenness than even NATO or Russia/Ukraine, or the US-Mexico border/immigration issues, considering that many of his picks for cabinet positions are ‘non-traditionals’ who lack experience and expertise in the areas they are to oversee.

  • Arab Summit’s revealing communiqué

    Arab Summit’s revealing communiqué

    Last week, the combined meeting of the League of Arab States and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation took place in Riyadh and ended with a lengthy and verbose 38-point communiqué. The kernel of the decisions reached by the summit centres on Palestine and the concept of a two-state solution made urgent by the Israel-Gaza war. The summit calls for a ceasefire in the more than one-year-old war of attrition going on in the blighted city-state, the recognition of undivided Jerusalem (Al-Quds) as the ‘eternal’ capital of the State of Palestine; the condemnation of Israeli ‘aggression’ in the annexed Golan Heights of Syria, help for Lebanon to deal with the humanitarian crisis following the Israeli-Hezbollah war, and support for the campaign to make Palestine a full member of the United Nations, among other decisions.

    The communiqué is hardly worth the paper on which it is written. Yes, the conferring states have genuine concerns for what is happening in the region, and are keen to have the raging war contained, but in summary, the summit was playing to the gallery. They know the impossibility of practicalising the resolutions they have drafted, and are even more aware of the intransigence of both sides in the Palestinian conflict. So both the summit and the communiqué are designed to placate the Muslim populations of the countries which met in Riyadh on November 11.

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    Even though the communiqué was strongly worded, the summiteers were just playing politics. The only country that initially gained from the crisis in the Middle East was Iran which funds the three main regional militia groups of Houthis in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Hamas in Gaza. As far as most countries which gathered in Riyadh last week are concerned, the rising profile of Iran worried them much more than the Israeli aggression they wrote about so grandly. The Wars in Gaza and Lebanon, and the bombing raids in Yemen and Syria have completely devastated the Iranian proxy war machine and given the rest of the Middle East a breathing space.

    Should they have cause to gather again soon, the Arab Summit will still secretly hoodwink everybody, and run with the hare and hunt with the hounds. They all know which side their bread is buttered, and will be extremely reluctant to countenance any outcome that leaves Iran or its proxy militias strengthened.

  • A solemn week on account of Lagbaja

    A solemn week on account of Lagbaja

    It was a very emotional week for the nation, more especially for the House Number 1 and its current landlord. Nigerians woke up on Wednesday to the news of the demise of the Chief of Army Staff (CoAS), Lieutenant General Taoreed Abiodun Lagbaja, who was said to have died Tuesday evening. Lagbaja, who had been out of circulation for some weeks due to an undisclosed illness, was appointed to the position by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in June of 2023, shortly after he was sworn in as President. Since Lagbaja was his appointee, who was considered to have held the position very well, President Tinubu took on the responsibility of informing the nation of the tragic development.

    As it is standard with his weeks, a schedule had been out and had run its course for Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday was meant to have the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting. However, having announced the death of Lagbaja earlier that morning, it was no surprise when Vice President Kashim Shettima announced to a well attended Council that the President had decided to call off the meeting they were all there for. “Honourable ministers, this is a message from the President, he has suspended today’s Council meeting in honour of the Chief of Army Staff. May his soul rest in perfect peace. Let’s observe a minute silence in his honour”, the Vice President said.

    Besides calling the meeting off, President Tinubu, in a statement issued almost about the same time the meeting was being called off, directed that all flags be flown half mast nationwide for a week, signifying the importance of the man Lagbaja and how much his death hurts the nation, if for no other reason, for the fact that most Nigerians will remember him as the CoAS who was already achieving significant success in the fight against the various murderous criminal groups terrorizing different parts of the country.

    Ironically, earlier on Tuesday, the President decorated the acting Chief of Army Staff, Major General Olufemi Olatunbosun Oluyede, with the Lieutenant General rank at the Presidential Villa. Oluyede was on October 30 appointed to act in Lagbaja’s absence. The unfortunate situation, that’s the untimely death of Lagbaja, pretty much halted normal weekly activities for the President because right from the moment he called off the Council meeting on Wednesday he went low-key, doing whatever was left for the week away from the office.

    However, before Wednesday other very important activities on his schedule had happened. For instance, on Monday, he swore in seven new ministers, those whom he had previously nominated in his cabinet reshuffling, which he did a few days back. You will recall that the President finally commenced the long anticipated changes to his cabinet; he dropped five persons, redeployed ten to new positions and nominated seven new persons, whose names he sent to the Senate for screening. All the seven nominees were screened and approved for the cabinet. He swore them in on Monday at a colourful ceremony at the Council Chambers of the State House.

    Those sworn in were Idi Maiha as Minister of Livestock Development; Yusuf Ata as Minister of State for Housing and Urban Development; Dr Suwaiba Ahmad as Minister of State for Education; and Bianca Odumegwu-Ojukwu as Minister of State for Foreign Affairs. Others were Dr Jumoke Oduwole as Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment (Trade Investment); Dr Nentawe Yilwatda as Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Reduction; and Muhammadu Dingyadi as Minister of Labour and Employment.

    The swearing ceremony was the opportunity he needed to prepare the minds of those he was just recruiting. He would not allow then just come in to face shock. He told them that they will be criticized, insulted and some will even call for their heads over developments that have defied answers or solutions for ages.

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    However, even as curiously difficult as the assignment may seem, he reminded them this is an assignment that will be requiring them to sacrifice. The import here is that though you will be giving your time, freedom and cares, which ordinarily you will want to get appreciated and paid for, this one is not likely to come with the expected, as a matter of fact, the situation is so precarious you will have to see all you will give to the office as a sacrifice and when it is a sacrifice, you should know it will cost you and you will not get an immediate return.

    He remembered to remind them that they are coming into public office at one of the most challenged times of Nigeria’s history, so their service is actually meant to be a sacrifice, working with all their strength, not expecting much in return, immediately. This is a time their best will be required, working at break-back speed and rate, without looking back or resting because much work is required. At the same time, he made them aware of the fact that it is not all for nothing because at the end of it all, by the time the stability and good country are achieved, there is going to be a reward; names written in gold, to be remembered as the builders of the new, prosperous Nigeria.

    “You will… (face) criticism and abuse. Don’t worry, stay focused, stay resilient. Your thanks will come with the history of growth and prosperity for this country. It is my joy and honour to be part of you, to be responsible for over 200 million people in this country. I appreciate the fact that you have taken the Oath of Office and ready to serve your nation at the time we are facing the challenges of economic growth and others like security challenges. It is not easy to find just the unique people that will surrender their lives, freedoms and other responsibilities to serve their nation in this time of challenges. The moment is challenging, the present situation calls for a very serious commitment, yours is a duty to serve and that is what you’ve got to do.

    “We have stopped the scavengers, we are going to stop completely the profiteers and smugglers of our resources across the country. We are not going to run away from our responsibility, we are going to face it as we have been facing it head long. With you as members of this team, I am proud and honoured that I am leading you and we will lead to success and prosperity. I am sincerely happy that you are here today to be part of this very committed team of Nigerians who have been working tirelessly since 17 months when we assumed the responsibility of governing this country. You are called upon to join the team to rescue this country. Service is the hallmark of this human endeavour, you are being called upon to serve”, he said.

    Same Monday, the President stepped into a situation that was already escalating into a serious national crisis, which was already setting the stage for another north/south disagreement scenario.

    You will remember the #EndBadGovernance protest and how it panned out. The protest wore some colours not really recognizing what we have always known with protest patterns in the country. In the past, protests were usually a southern thing, defined along the public/government disagreement line, basically local.

    However, the August protest became more profound and rather violent in the north this time around. Then for the first time, protesters introduced a strangely foreign dimension to it; in Kano and Kaduna especially, protesters were seen wielding Russian flags, passing a subtle message. From hindsight, it was easy to decode where the Russian message was coming from; northerners have some affinity with our Sahelian neighbours; cultural, linguistic and religious affinities, factors that informed the sympathies found among northern Nigerians for Niger, Mali, Guinea and Burkina Faso when the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) decided to isolate and sanction them when they fell under military rule.

    These are countries colonized and still being largely run under strong French influence, a factor which informed the coups, coups believed to be clandestinely sponsored and aided by Russia, for whatever reason. So when during our August uprising we suddenly started sighting Russian flags in the hands of our compatriots close to the Nigerien borders and not too far from the other military junta-led neighbours in the Sahel, it was not difficult to decide what was happening and the response of security forces was swift, arresting both the flag-wielders and those sewing them.

    That was how it started, all capture in pictures and videos, however, the story changed during the week when the media started depicting a new narrative; the Nigerian government arraigning minors as protesters. The CNN report was the most vivid of all, seeming like intended to achieve an agenda. A report by the American news channel, published on Sunday, November 3, had the headline “29 children may be sentenced to death for protesting against cost-of-living crisis in Nigeria”. The agenda seemed to work because on Monday the President directed the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice to work for the release of the offenders.

    “You saw what happened in the courtroom and as a result of that Mr. President, because of his very deep commitment to democracy and the rule of law, and without prejudice also to whatever legal processes there are and on the other hand, on the human part of it, he has directed that some

    announcements be made. I recall that I had short briefing with Mr. President early this evening and he has directed the immediate release of all the minors that have been arrested by the Nigerian Police. Without prejudice to whatever legal processes there are, the President has directed that all of them be released immediately”, the Minister of Information and National Orientation, Alhaji Mohammed Idris, announced at a briefing on Monday in the State House.

    That was followed up on Tuesday with a handing over ceremony of the discharged 119 accused persons, among whom only about four or five minors could be sighted, to Kaduna and Kano state governments. Later on we started seeing pictures from Kaduna, of state government officials handing off N100,000 cash and iPhone handsets to the discharged.

    You can still search for videos and pictures of the carnage visited on Kano, Kaduna and some other northern states by some of these persons. But then, those in the vanguard of the narrative, aimed at inciting another crisis, whipping the regional/ethnic sentiments, got their prize because Tinubu saw through the agenda and would not allow it fester, thus his swift response.

    There were visitors on Tuesday, like the Bayelsa State political and traditional leadership, led by Governor Douye Diri, who said they came to thank him for the appointments given to some of their sons and daughters, like that of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, now occupied by Mrs. Didi Esther Wason-Jack. There was also the visit of the Delta All Progressives Congress (APC) chieftain, Chief Ayirimi Emami, who also came with a file of concerns for his Itsekiri people, also on Tuesday.

    It is a new week and we need to wait to see what it will hold.

  • Nigeria and the Botswana elections

    Nigeria and the Botswana elections

    On 30 October, 2024, the opposition Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC) led by Duma Boko defeated the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) which had been the ruling party since 1966 when the country gained independence. The incumbent President Mokgweetsi Masisi of the BDP who was seeking a second term in office, having first assumed office in 2018, conceded defeat before the vote count was completed, and called and congratulated the winner, Duma Boko.

    On 1 November, 2024, Masisi said: “For now, the evidence is overwhelming. We lost this election massively … And we need to come to terms with it, and make space and give opportunity to the newly elected leaders, and respect them and support them, so that they can succeed, because it’s Botswana’s success that’s most important.” He also declared: “Starting from tomorrow or, as in my discussion with the President-Elect, at a time convenient to him, we will begin all administrative work to facilitate the transition and I assure you that I will not take any actions to hinder or slow down this process.”

    Interestingly, it was former Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan who was appointed as the African Union Election Observation Mission (AUEOM) for the Botswana elections, and Masisi’s experience must have resonated with him. In 2015, President Jonathan had himself lost a presidential election, in Nigeria, to a new party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), that was formed from a fusion of some opposition parties and elements. Like Masisi, he had conceded defeat before the completion of the tallying of votes, and had congratulated Muhammadu Buhari, the candidate of the APC.

    In President Duma Boko’s first public speech on 1 November, 2024, he said that he was not just the President of UDC, but of the whole of Botswana. He also remarked: “I pledge with every fiber of my being that I will do everything I can not to fail, not to disappoint, appreciating always the enormity of the responsibility bestowed upon me by the people of this republic. It is their government … and I approach it with all the humility I can muster. And so, that is why I lay myself open to criticism. Even if it is acerbic and fierce and vicious, I’ll listen and heed and try always to do what is right for the people, by them and for their country.”   

    At a meeting he and Masisi held with senior government officials on 5 November, 2024, the new President also said: “Botswana has demonstrated to the whole world that the accolades that we’ve enjoyed as a shining example of democracy were more than well-deserved. … [If] I had respect, and I did, for the former President, my respect for him reached the stratosphere. … We may not appreciate the seriousness, the enormity and the profundity of what he has done.” He noted that if it had been in some other countries, they would have been “embroiled in conflict, civil strife, because an incumbent refuses to accept an outcome.” He then remarked with adulation: “Not in Botswana. Not with this former President. And for that we are eternally grateful.”

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    Three noteworthy features of the Botswana elections are Diaspora Voting, Early Voting and Independent Candidacy. Diaspora voting allowed registered citizens of Botswana to vote in their countries of residence outside Botswana. Early voting was limited to and allowed election and police officers (who are normally on duty on election day) and Diaspora voters to cast their votes before 30 October, 2024. Independent candidacy allowed citizens who did not wish to be affiliated with any political party to contest elections, and one independent candidate actually won in last week’s national assembly elections. Nigeria has lessons to learn from Botswana, which is a country of 2.7 million people, with respect to these admirable features of multi-party politics.

    It would be highly beneficial for Nigeria, like Botswana, to adopt the advance voting system and expand its beneficiaries to include election officials, security personnel, local observers, transporters, journalists (who are often posted outside their registration areas or constituencies during elections), and just about any eligible voter who, for one reason or the other, may prefer the option. Moreover, introducing Diaspora Voting into the Nigerian system would be of immense value, especially if the opportunities for it to be abused, manipulated or undermined could be curtailed. Furthermore, making provision for independent candidacy in the Nigerian electoral system, as is the case in Botswana, would expand the democratic space.

    On 30 October, 2024 in Botswana, local government elections were held concurrently with the parliamentary and presidential elections, indicating a mainstreaming of the local government elections and administration, and leaving little room for the kind of obscene manipulation of local elections by state governments that is being witnessed now in Nigeria. If there’s still merit in having elections on two days, Nigeria should consider having local government, State Houses of Assembly and governorship elections on the same day, subsequent to making the tenure of local government administrations four years.

    In Botswana, as pointed out in the South African Development Commission (SADC) Electoral Observation Mission (SEOM) report on last week’s election, voter accreditation was done manually, thereby elongating the process. This is unlike Nigeria’s electronic voter accreditation system which reduces accreditation time considerably. Moreover, in Botswana, as SEOM noted, votes were not counted at the respective polling stations where the votes were cast, but were conveyed to designated counting/collation centres. This exposes the votes cast to sundry risks including ballot box snatching, ballot box stuffing and malicious votes destruction. In the Nigerian system, these risks are minimised, because votes are counted and the results are announced at the polling stations, and party agents are issued official copies of the results instantly.

    From the official results issued after counting votes at a polling station, as happens in Nigeria, a party has a fair chance of knowing its relative overall performance, even before the official declaration of final results. Moreover, counting votes at polling stations reduces the risk of results alteration or falsification; and where such electoral fraud occurs, and the victims choose to challenge the fraud at an election tribunal or court, the official results issued at the polling stations come in handy as significant evidence. It would therefore be beneficial for Botswana to adopt this time-tested system.

    Botswana witnessed a “seismic” election result and a “whirlwind” transition of power. The President-Elect was sworn in in a simple closed-door ceremony in the office of the Chief Justice, a few hours after the concession of defeat. So, as the victor assumed office immediately, the person the people of Botswana knew as President in the morning of 1 November, 2024 had become “former President” a few hours later, on that same day. The public inauguration followed, a week later, on 8 November, 2024.

    President Duma Boko had earlier contested and lost elections for president in 2014 and 2019. After each defeat, he girded his loins and continued the struggle. Neither he nor his supporters marched to the Botswana Defence Force (equivalent of the Nigerian Army) headquarters to incite the army to takeover government. And neither did they set up a global propaganda machinery to defame their country nor set up a complex web of sabotage to bring Botswana down. And they didn’t ascribe all of their troubles to the desire by the ruling party to create and perpetuate a one-party state.

    In the 2009 general elections, the BDP won 45 out of 57 parliamentary seats (where 31 seats were required to be declared winner). The remaining 12 seats were shared among 4 opposition parties. In the 2014 elections in which Duma Boko’s UDC, formed in November 2012, contested for the first time, BDP won 37 seats, UDC came second with 17 seats, and another party won the remaining 3 seats. In the 2019 elections, BDP won 38 seats, UDC again came second with 15 seats, and the remaining 4 seats were shared by 2 other opposition parties. Then came the fateful 2024 elections and, by the morning of 1 November, UDC had won 35 seats, and BDP had won a mere 4 seats, making Duma Boko President. The heroism, tenacity and focus of Duma Boko and the UDC provide a great model for Nigeria’s jumpy and inconstant, nectar-seeking opposition.

    In a congratulatory message, Nigeria said: “As Botswana remains an important ally and partner, Nigeria shares the hopes and aspirations of the brotherly government and people of Botswana, as they delve into the next chapter of their nationhood.” It is hoped that the country would assiduously promote its strategic interests in Botswana, as Nigeria has a lot to learn from it with respect to the protection and management of mineral resources and animal husbandry. The latter is particularly important due to Nigeria’s creation of the new Federal Ministry of Livestock Development.

    As former British Prime Minister Theresa May reminded us, “compromise is not a dirty word.” This is what Botswana’s former President Mokgweetsi Masisi may have realised so clearly now, considering the effect of the very high level of acrimony and mutual grandstanding between him and Ian Khama. Crisis had developed between Masisi and Ian Khama who was his immediate predecessor and whom he had served as Vice-President from 12 November, 2014 to 1 April, 2018. Khama said that the crisis resulted from the disloyal and autocratic tendencies of Masisi, but Masisi said that it resulted from Khama’s attempts to interfere with and undermine Masisi’s government.

    At the peak of the reconciliation-shunning crisis, Khama had to go into exile fearing for his freedom and for his life. He then boasted that having made the big mistake of supporting and handpicking the ‘deceptive’ Masisi as president in 2018, he was going to ensure that Masisi did not get a second term in office in 2024. So, for the 2024 elections, Khama campaigned vigorously around the country, especially in BDP strongholds, not necessarily for his own Botswana Patriotic Front to win, but for Masisi’s BDP to lose. With the loss of Masisi’s second term bid in the elections that held on 30 October, 2024, Khama’s threat has proved to be no mere grandstanding.

    It would be recalled that a 17 December, 2023 article titled “Wike and Khama; Fubara and Masisi,” in this column, highlighted the correspondence between the feud between the former Governor of Nigeria’s Rivers State, Nyesom Wike, and his successor, Siminalayi Fubara, and the one between Botswana’s Ian Khama and Mokgweetsi Masisi. As Khama threatened to stop his successor Masisi from getting a second term of office as president in 2024, Wike boasted that Fubara would not get a second term as governor in 2027. Khama’s threat has proved to be no empty boast. Will Wike’s also be more than huffing and puffing? Time will tell.

  • Nigeria: Three issues to ponder

    Nigeria: Three issues to ponder

    In this piece I shall be drawing my readers’  attention to three critical issues which Nigerians must, henceforth, begin to seriously interrogate as development, in all its ramification, continues to kiss our country bye.

    Granted that none of them concerns the current astronomical cost of living,  they are yet things we can  continue to neglect to our eternal regret, if not ultimate peril since they are that fundamental.

    Writing about how the near total parental neglect of children’s education, especially in Northern Nigeria, is the sole precursor of the recent presentation, in court for trial, of some extremely destructive minors in his column in The Nation of Thursday, 7 November, 2024, under the title ‘Underage rioters and presidential pardon’,

    Emeritus Professor Jide Osuntokun wrote, inter alia:’Why were underage children demonstrating in the first place? Where were their parents? Government should follow their release with knowing what kind of homes they come from. It could be they don’t even have homes they can call their own,  and are perhaps street urchins, as we find in many of our towns today.

    The time has come for our various governments, particularly states, and local governments, to develop policies to face this problem before they get out of hand. This lumpen proletariat are the stuff of violence and revolution in the future”.

    “Why were these children not in school where they should be learning a skill or acquiring knowledge that may be useful to them in the future? Since when has it become the responsibility of children to engage in political action in this country? Who were the people goading them to go to the streets? What kind of legitimate punishment can a society inflict on these errant children without appearing inhuman and harsh”? “We have remand homes for these kinds of children but are they available all over the country?

    My church, the Redeemed Christian Church of God, has these kinds of homes in some parts of the country. Government should join such missions to make the system effective and more encompassing.  Is the fact that so many children were involved in these demonstrations not a manifestation of failure of parents and government to have institutions that will prepare our country for the future”?

    “What can we do, going forward in terms of overhauling our educational system so that our children can develop a sense of civic responsibility?”

    Of all these questions, all of which are eloquently germane to the issue Professor Osuntokun was writing about, only the very last one, namely, “what can we do, going forward in terms of overhauling our educational system so that our children can develop a sense of civic responsibility?”, is relevant to the purpose of this piece  and the relevance goes, far and beyond minors, encapsulating our entire educational system which renders even the most educated of us almost completely useless to the needs of our country.

    My job here is simple as all I have to do, is press into service, some individuals, (and a medium) who have, in the past interrogated the issues and left behind for humanity, some seminal thoughts.

    We begin with the highly regarded Professor Sophie Oluwole of the Department of Philosophy, University of Lagos who had a good look at many of the demons tearing at Nigeria’s throat, setting us back in every direction.

    She counselled as follows:”I have BSc, I have Master’s, I have PhD…, I’m a professor. What can you do to make yourself better ?

    This is the bane of the problems we are facing in Nigeria today.We must change the Nigerian Educational Curriculum to include Degrees in Vocational Trades.

    Similar to this is that, there should be a law regulating the number of children a family can have and it should not be more than a maximum  of 2 or 3.

    It is our failure to control our inner minds that makes us bring religion/culture into having many wives and children, especially persons who can not reasonably feed themselves, and are thereby,  causing all manner of nuisance all over Nigeria.

    Governments should also stop increasing retirement age from  60/65 years when  young graduates are roaming the Streets, looking for jobs.

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    25 years is enough for a government worker.

    Let our children/youths breathe.

    They are the future of this country. Failure to obey, and continuing with these self destructive practices will automatically doom Nigeria”.

    In ‘Nigeria: What Manner of Education’, the writer of a recently trending WhatsApp post looked at how beggarly Nigeria has become in respect of literally every aspect of life, but particularly  in matters of infrastructural development and wrote as follows:

    “Russia to build rail tracks for Nigeria.

    “China to build roads and bridges for Nigeria”.

    “India to import rolling stock to Nigeria and help Nigeria with its ICT development”.

    “Germany to build new power plants in Nigeria, US to provide vaccines to Nigeria”.

    “UNDP to provide grants to Nigerian farmers and improved seedlings”.

    “Bill and Melinda Foundation to provide Malaria vaccines to Nigeria”.

    “Turkey to build garment factory in Nigeria”.

    “England to build new oil terminal in the Niger Delta region to help Nigeria mine its oil…etc”.

    He then asks:

    What is the relevance of our education in this country if we cannot use it to solve even the minutest of our problems as we see daily in the meaningless   harangues in the National Assembly, and elsewhere?

    Or when last did any law of beneficit to Nigerians proceed from the National Assembly to the President’s table for his assent?

    All we hear, and see, is the National Assembly mutilating budgets  to make room for some useless, hardly ever executed, constituency projects.

    Finally, happily a timely warning has come but not from any of our several Universities of Agriculture, ministry of Agriculture, or any regulatory organ of government, but from a conscientious citizen who is very knowledgeable in his trade, and believes he owes it a duty to positively impact Nigeria in his own little way.

    I write here of Tunde Fabunmi, Founder/CEO of Bee Conservation  Project, who has counselled as follows regarding the kind of fertilisers being imported into Nigeria.

    In his mail to me titled ‘Can You Help Tell The Federal Government?’, he wrote:

    “What is the message for the Federal Government of Nigeria? The message for the Federal Government is about the kind of fertilisers being imported for Nigerian farmers. What is wrong with fertilizers being used in Nigeria? It contains high level of calcium. What is the health implications of calcium – rich fertilizers? They are: 1. The intake of magnesium is  lowered in our foods due to  calcium – rich fertilisers being used by our farmers;

    2. High calcium fertilizers increase the risk of cardiovascular diseases ( stroke, heart attack & hypertension), all of which were not as prevalent in Nigeria before the craze for chemical fertilizers as input in farming overtook us;

    3. High calcium fertilizers increase the risks of diabetes, a rarity in Nigeria when farming was purely organic.

    Low magnesium, and high calcium not only trigger diabetes, they also make diabetics prone to fatty liver, heart disease, atherosclerosis and retinopathy- which is a major cause of blindness for diabetics.

    In a study in the United States, the death rate due to diabetes was four times higher in areas with low magnesium in water level compared to areas with high level of magnesium in the water.

    4. High calcium fertilizers increase cases of suicide which was rare in Nigeria in the past, compared to what it is today.

    Several studies have shown that the lower the magnesium in both soil and water,  the higher the rate of suicides.

    5. High calcium fertilizers increase the risk of Parkinson disease which is increasing in Nigeria today.

    Incidentally, the countries from which we import these fertilisers are now aggressively campaigning against their use in their own countries, instead clamouring for organic farming.

    The question can then be asked: does farming really need fertilisers?

    Organic – dry leaves and cow dung –  Yes.

    But Chemical fertilisers – capital No.

    The agenda of those selling chemical  fertilisers to Africa is sinister.

    Quite unlike our forefathers, many younger Nigerians now contend with low quality health status and a shorter life span.

    At the moment, there are about 300 children currently battling with cancer in a hospital in Lagos. The question can then be legitimately asked:

    do we have  universities, properly so called,  or  mere POS in Nigeria?

    I ask this question because integral to the presence of  universities in any country is the need to conduct researches that will guide positive human development in all its ramification.

    Nigerians must now clamour for a ban on the importation of chemical fertilisers which not only  drains our foreign reserve but causes an epidemic of chronic diseases.

  • Democracy on trial (I)

    Democracy on trial (I)

    All over the world, people are waking up to the news that Donald J. Trump has completed the greatest political comeback in the history of politics, both American and global. He has, seemingly in the face of great odds been elected the forty-seventh president of the United States, only the second person to have been so re-elected after losing a previous battle for election for a second consecutive presidential term. The first man to be so elected was Grover Cleveland, the first Democrat to be elected President of the US since the end of the American civil war. This, it has to be made clear was at a time when the Democratic Party was the party of segregation and right wing extremism. Ironically, he too, like Donald Trump had entered the White house under a cloud of having raped a woman, an act he was accused of committing long before he became a candidate for the position of president. In his own case, he was not only accused of rape but was fingered by his victim as the father of the son who was born as a result of the enforced union. Grover did not deny having carnal knowledge of the woman involved but insisted that what happened between them was as a result of mutual consent. He then  flatly denied that he was the father of her child. When the accused continued to make a nuisance of herself to the future POTUS, he used his not inconsiderable powers to bring about her incarceration in a lunatic asylum and blithely went on his merry way to plot his way into the White House. The rest, as the saying goes is history but it shows that some of the people who have been president long before Trump have been far less than stellar characters. Indeed, it looks as if the more things change, the more they remain the same.

    Many of the people around the world who took the trouble to look into what was going on in the US over the last hundred days or so may be surprised by the result of the presidential election. They have observed how the entry of Kamala Harris into the presidential race raised the level of excitement associated with it. Before the visibly exhausted Joe Biden retired from the campaign, it was clear or, at least apparent that Trump was coasting to victory practically everywhere. With the coming of Harris however everything changed overnight. Money from multiple sources started flowing into her campaign at an unprecedented rate and voter registration shot up through the roof. She was not just a breath of fresh air, she was like a shot of oxygen into a furnace and was confidence personified. The endorsements started pouring in and life long Republicans from every neck of the woods began pledging their vote to a clearly resurgent Harris/Walz ticket. Trump, on his part appeared to have become increasingly unhinged as he issued a string of invectives against people he labelled lunatics and lowlifes. Everything seemed to be going swimmingly for the Democrats except that the bottom line was that the result of the election was always given as too close to call. And that was the greatest takeaway from all that was going on. What did Harris have to do to pull away from Trump and take a commanding lead? As long as this did not happen, Trump was ahead given that Trump had warned that the only result he was going to accept was victory for himself. If Harris was going to win, it had to be by a landslide and the possibility of that was clearly not on the cards.

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    I acquired a sharp consciousness of global events in the sixties, clearly the most iconic decade in recent human history. It was the first time that the world began to acquire the status of a global village, stitched together as it had become  through both print and electronic media. All over the world, young people were directly connected to each other as never before and my generation was the first to react as one to global trends and could go further to direct those trends as no previous generation had ever been able to do. Many of those trends were coming out of the USA and in many ways we were all becoming Americanised. Although I joined enthusiastically in that trend, my own focus was on the plight of those we called American negroes in those days.

    For me, more than anything else the sixties was the decade of the civil rights movement in the USA as it coincided neatly with the winds of charge which were sweeping all those colonial powers out of Africa. As far as I was concerned African independence was hollow as long as our brothers and sisters across the Atlantic were not accorded full human status which in fact they were not enjoying at the time. In many parts of the USA including all the country below the Mason-Dixon line, black people were strictly segregated from whites with whom they could not share any municipal amenities. On buses, they were restricted to the back and were excluded from restaurants, hotels, public swimming pools, decent schools and were in the main, not allowed to vote in any elections, local, state or national. The world seems to have forgotten that the 1964 presidential election was fought between Lyndon Johnson and Barry Goldwater, an arch segregationist who was resolutely and bitterly opposed to any concession to black equality. As late as that period, it was still a crime for black and whites to marry across racial lines! It is now nearly unbearable that it was only in the sixties that things began to change slowly and that with a great deal of pain and effort on the part of black Americans.

    Perhaps the most promising period for blacks in America was immediately after the civil war when the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments freed the slaves, gave citizenship rights to all those born in the USA and conferred the right to vote on black people respectively. From 1865 to 1877, a big, beautiful window of opportunity opened for the blacks to exploit social, economic and political opportunities in a period which has come to be known as the Reconstruction. During this period, the newly freed blacks flourished as they have not done at any time since then. They were voted into political posts at local, state and national levels and were allowed to become part of what we now call the American dream. Hope broke out among them like a rash of boils and spread just as quickly at a time when their freedoms were being guaranteed under the shadows of guns wielded by the United States army. That army that had fought to liberate them from the tyranny of slavery. As things turned out, it was too good to last. After the 1876 presidential elections, a deal was struck between Northern Republicans and Southern Democrats which led to the withdrawal of the army from the South and the ascension of Rutherford Hayes to the presidency. With army protection withdrawn, blacks were left to the mercies of the former slave owners and their white lackeys who devised a life of living hell for the blacks in their midst. The tortures of that hell have since been ameliorated but those fires are yet to be extinguished which is why the fight is far from over.

    The situation for blacks in the South was excruciating as they were brutally periodically lynched by white mobs right down until the forties. Any black man who stepped out of line by as much as an inch paid with his life. Lynching was the linchpin of white policy towards blacks in the South whilst in the more sophisticated North, they frequently resorted to inter-racial riots in which many more blacks than whites were killed.

    By the middle years of the sixties, most of the news coming out of the US was about civil rights and my curiosity about that country was at fever pitch. At a time when most of my contemporaries were impressed by the music, Hollywood films and the glamour of American life as depicted in glossy magazines such as Life, I was consumed by empathy for my cousins across the Atlantic. They were represented in my consciousness by the incomparable Muhammed Ali who was not just a supreme athlete who demonstrated a performance excellence which shone with uncommon brilliance but demanded respect for black people everywhere. He had won a gold medal at the Rome Olympics but was not served in a restaurant in his hometown of Louisville in Kentucky on account of the colour of his skin. That is how backward America was in 1960 and I took notice of it. When Ali was banned from boxing for refusing to, as he put it, go ten thousand miles away from home to shoot some coloured people he had no quarrel with, I felt positively outraged on his behalf.

    The first Black slaves to disembark on American soil arrived in 1619, at a time when all the European colonies which had been founded in America were floundering badly, most of them on the verge of terminal collapse. It cannot be a coincidence that their fortunes changed thereafter and they began to prosper on the back of the free labour extracted under the most degrading conditions from enslaved Africans. From 1619, a caste system with whites at the top and blacks nowhere was instituted and it is this system which privileged whites are fighting tooth and nail to maintain more than four hundred years later. That is the enormity of the load which Harris, a black woman married to a Jew has been carrying on her back. It has  proved to be far too heavy for her to carry.

    One thing clear about this election is that issues and positions did not matter in the end and all the money spent on getting messages across to people was money wasted. Looking at the communications from both sides it seems that nobody was really listening to whatever it was that was being flung at them even when the information was coming directly from the candidates themselves. Harris was all for explaining her positions on different issues. The more she talked however, the more open to criticism she became. Trump, on the other hand traded in crude insults, casually throwing oral bombs in the general direction of those who has anything he considered to be against any one of the many things he did not approve of. He did this secure in the knowledge that he could get away with anything that popped into his head. One can say that he was impartial in the distribution of his insults. As for any sensitivity to truth, that was completely absent at every level of his rambling  discourses. The most memorable takeaways from his face to face encounter with Harris was his confident assertion that immigrants were eating the pets of the people who lived in Springfield. All normal people would have dismissed that with a negligent wave of the hand but not his avid, or perhaps rabid supporters who not only believed him but took steps to make life uncomfortable for the people who had been outed as dog eaters.

    The election was also not about personalities as the two candidates are worlds apart in terms of their exhibited personalities.  Trump portrayed himself as self centred and totally lacking in social values. The denigration of his opponent’s worth as a human being was as tasteless as it was remorseless even though there is probably no one who can step out to give him any character reference at any point in his life.

    The election was not about experience in any sphere of service. Trump has served in the highest office in the land but the record of his office is better forgotten and it seems that most people have forgotten his accomplishments or lack of them in his four year stint in the White House. His mismanagement of the COVID pandemic is enough to disqualify him from holding any responsible office anywhere. Given that record alone, it is impossible to guess correctly why he has once again been called upon to manage the affairs of the USA for another four years.

    This election was not fought on the grounds of moral principles because Trump has not demonstrated his respect for principle, moral of otherwise at any point in his careers and this being the case, he has never been held to account in respect of any of the promises he has made at any time.

    This election circle has come and gone and Americans on their own volition have decided to elect Trump to run their affairs for four years. Unfortunately for the rest of us, America is a superpower, the only superpower and so we are bound to be affected by whatever Trump decides to do with the enormous power at his disposal. He was impeached twice the last time he was in office. Who says he would not break that record this time around?

  • Weep not for America

    Weep not for America

    Unlike many Nigerians, I was not in any way excited about the just-concluded presidential election in the United States of America, right from the beginning. I knew that many of us in this part of the world anticipated a Camara Harris victory. I also knew that many of us would weep louder than the bereaved if Donald Trump eventually triumphed. In our minds’ eyes, including many of the pollsters in America, Trump could never have won. I don’t blame such people, after all, it is said that people see what they want to see.

    Now that the election has been won and lost, many of us are not happy with the result. I can understand if Americans are sad. But what is our own, such that we have to now remind the Americans and the world what they know: that Trump is an ex-convict? How can an ex-convict be the world’s Number One Citizen? Story!

    Democracy is about numbers. In terms of both the popular votes and the Electoral College, Trump, the Republican Party candidate, clearly trumped our favourite Harris of the Democratic Party. With 74,333,299 popular votes (50.7 per cent), he defeated Harris who had 69,857,510 (47.7 per cent). And, in terms of the Electoral College, Trump had 295, 25 more than the required 270, while Harris had 226. This was clear shellacking.

    So, come January 20, 2025, Trump would be sworn in as the 47th president of God’s own country, barring unforeseen circumstances.  He would be the first former president to return to office in more than 130 years, and, at 78, the oldest person ever so elected to the office.

    Let me state that I have never admired Trump until now that he has won and outsiders are complaining more than the Americans. If that is the choice of America, what is their own? Those who have the locus to determine their leader have spoken; let us respect rather than query their choice.

    After all, when we hold our own elections here, flawed as they usually are, and Americans tell us they are flawed, we tell them to mind their business. Why should their election give us sleepless nights? Why do we find it uncomfortable to live with the result of their polls simply because we don’t like the man, Donald Trump?

    Many of us don’t like Trump because he called blacks people from ‘shithole’ countries. Please, tell me, which of our attitudes present us differently? When I was a child, Nigerians merely went abroad, notably to the United Kingdom, to study or for vacation. They never went there with the intention of staying put.

    Then, we had good schools, good hospitals such that a Saudi Prince once came for treatment at our then prestigious University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan. Now, no water. No light. No road. Nothing that can make life comfortable. And, we think the solution is in running away to other countries that were transformed by people who made all the sacrifices that make their countries better today.

    Many Africans and blacks generally are ready to take any risk to travel to America, even if to go and be washing plates or corpses there. Many have died on the Mediterranean Sea and still counting, in their desperate bid to get out of their countries. As a matter of fact, people go to church for special prayer to facilitate their travelling abroad to live. So, if their countries are not what Trump said they are; why such desperation to ‘chicken out’ or ‘Japa’, as we now call it in Nigeria? Even our leaders prefer going abroad for medical treatment, to gifting us good hospitals. Our doctors are leaving in droves, yet no one seems to care.

    We are angry with Trump instead of with ourselves. A Yoruba proverb says ‘eniyan buburu mo; eni to maa so fun lo nwa’ (a bad person knows; he is only waiting for the person to tell him so). Do we need anyone to tell us that our continent is ‘shithole’? If our continent is not ‘shithole’, why are we leaving it for what we ourselves call ‘greener pastures’? Is it because God has not designed us for good life comparable to any elsewhere?

    And why do we have to be so hypocritical about some of these things? Those who are wondering what Trump forgot in the White House that he wants to return to take should ask the question again now. The fear of our people in America is so palpable that pastors have had to treat many of their prayer requests to escape Trump clampdown specially.

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    That is for the churches that are saying their own publicly. I want to believe that market would be booming for the Moslem clerics and ‘Babalawos’ too this time around. ‘Ki lo de’? Because one country held election and elected the candidate of their choice! Why should Nigerians catch cold simply because a Trump MIGHT sneeze? Are you not confirming his statement that you are from ‘shithole’ by so doing?

    Again, why should we be angry that the Americans want to take charge of their country? Even here in Nigeria, how much space are the Igbos yielding to other tribes in the southeast? At every election cycle, the Yorubas in the southwest generally, and Lagos in particular, are apprehensive of Igbo ‘takeover’ of Lagos. Both tribes take whatever they consider as reasonable measures to protect their heritage from falling into the hands of the other tribe.

    If both the Igbo and Yoruba are these passionate about their heritage, why would anyone complain that majority of American voters have voted for a man with an agenda that is dear to their hearts? Mind you, some 23.8 million of migrants (about 10 per cent of the U.S. electorate) have naturalised, meaning they can vote, according to the Pew Research Center. At the rate even Nigerians are leaving their country in droves, the figures can only become more frightening if the brakes are not applied, with the possibility that it is only a matter of time for America itself to be like some of those countries whose citizens are now seeking refuge in the U.S. (If you like, keep luxuriating in the belief that America (like Lagos?) is ‘no man’s land’). The owners of America have taken over their country.

    We need someone to let us know the limits of some of our actions or inactions. Sometime ago, some Nigerians in Canada protested because they were sleeping in the cold outside. Are their compatriots not sleeping under bridges and in other open spaces right here at home? If there is no longer space for you in a foreign land, do you now have to protest as if it is their responsibility to provide for you, whatever happens? Yes, you may say they have some rights under international law. Fine. Then let your country apply the principle of reciprocity. Simple. At any rate, didn’t Nigerians send Ghanaians away when economic crunch came, and vice versa? Isn’t there xenophobia in South Africa? So, how come we want to insist that governments of far away countries provide for us what we cannot insist our home government should make available?

    Some years ago, a colleague of mine and I went to interview one of the governors in the south-south. We were stunned when the governor said he only gave ‘okada’ riders in the state a short notice, with January 1 of the following year as deadline, to leave the state capital. The governor said on that day, he drove himself round the state capital and, lo and behold, there was no single ‘okada’. He said he could not believe his eyes and decided to repeat the inspection the next day; thinking may be the ‘okada’ riders were off the roads because they were in New Year mood. The second day, nothing. Third day, nothing. That was the end of ‘okada’ in that era.

    Guess what? None of the ‘okada’ riders protested. All they did was put their motorcycles in the next bus coming to Lagos. It was in Lagos that they raised hell simply because the state government banned them from plying certain routes, even though they were free to ply others. So, why are we like this?

    May be it is the Trumps of this world that are the divine instruments to wean us off our lethargy about where God designed us to be. When Trump tightens the noose, Britain stops people from bringing their entire families to the United Kingdom just because one member of the family is there as a student, etc., then, we would be compelled to know how to demand and insist on good governance at home instead of how to ‘Japa’.

    The way some of our pastors even celebrate this exodus is the most annoying. They do it in a way that would make one think that God made a mistake in making us Nigerians. Instead of praying for God to do whatever it would cost Him to make Nigeria great again; they do it in a way that makes it look like God has given up on Nigeria. 

    A man emerged victorious in an election in which he defeated his challenger by over four million votes; an election which by many standards was free and fair; one in which there was no snatching of ballot-boxes, one devoid of violence, one in which no election official was accused of altering election results despite the fact that the polls took days to conclude, and some people are still complaining about the outcome!

    Even if Trump ends up failing, that should be the business of the Americans; let them stew in their own juice. After all, how many times have we made wrong choice at the polls ourselves? Heavens have not fallen. As a matter of fact, some of our failed leaders have had several attempts to re-sit and repeat; but they kept failing. That is why many of our people found themselves abroad. So, why should it be news that Trump failed if he did?

    At any rate, when a man survives four known assassination attempts on his way to a particular goal, as Trump did, (two during the recent presidential campaign), you need to watch such a man. Chances of getting to his destination are high. If the bullet of the July 13 attempt that hit his right ear had happened to Harris, those of us in this part of the world would still have been condemning Trump for it, with or without proof. Well, that may be because of his past record of violence, though. But because it happened to Trump, we have since moved on.

    All said, it would be wishful thinking that most of these countries would perpetually keep their gates open to whosoever it may concern. It is only a matter of time for a wealthy man in the midst of six wretched-of-the-earth to chair the league of the poverty-stricken (olowo kan laarin otosi mefa; oun ni alaga won).

    Americans have made their choice. Let no non-American weep for America over Trump’s victory. Let them weep for their home countries instead.