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Category: Sunday

  • Kwankwaso-Obi flight of fancy

    Kwankwaso-Obi flight of fancy

    While Rivers State governor Siminalayi Fubara was busy fulminating against his opponents in the midst of the supremacy battle between former vice president Atiku Abubakar and FCT minister Nyesom Wike, ex-Kano State governor Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso and ex-Anambra State governor Peter Obi were forging ahead uproariously in their anticipated political marriage of convenience. Speaking in Hausa in a video clip hosted on X (Twitter), the former Kano governor surprised Nigerians when he indicated his willingness to be Mr Obi’s running mate in the 2027 presidential poll should certain conditions be met. That possibility was briefly explored in 2023, but it was discarded as both unfeasible and farcical. Dr Kwankwaso, who was New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP) presidential candidate in the last poll, is mercurial and opinionated, while Mr Obi is superficial and bigoted. It would be hard for the two points of view to meet; but given their desperation for power, they have not stopped tantalising the electorate with the prospect of a joint ticket.

    It is not known why the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) felt compelled to respond to the rumour of a Kwankwaso-Obi ticket, seeing how absolutely tenuous it is, but they poured scorn on the idea and argued its unworkability. Indeed, perusing Dr Kwankwaso’s Twitter statement, and given the many direct and indirect caveats he alluded to, the idea of the two governors running on a single ticket seems terribly far-fetched. According to the former Kano governor, “I’m bigger than Peter Obi politically, I’m his elder brother, I’m a PhD holder, I performed better than him when I was a governor of my state. I’ve no problem with deputising Peter Obi, but only if certain conditions are met. We are willing to engage in discussions, provided that trust is established.” Having stacked the deck against Mr Obi, it appears non sequitur for him to offer to play a subordinate role to someone he indirectly denigrates. He did not of course indicate what conditions must be met for him to deputise Mr Obi, but two explanations emerge from his statement: either he never meant a word he said about running on a single ticket with the former Labour Party (LP) presidential candidate, or he knew that his unstated conditions could never be met, with the onus for failure resting squarely on the narrow shoulders of Mr Obi.

    Dr Kwankwaso of course exaggerates his worth. He may have a PhD, and is thus a little better ideologically moored than the former Anambra governor, but in terms of political size, it is hard to see the former Kano governor commanding anything more than a sizeable fraction of Kano. It is incontestable that as governor he performed better than his Anambra counterpart, especially seeing how indistinguishable and platitudinous Mr Obi was and has remained, but Dr Kwankwaso did not also leave Kano a considerably changed state than he met it, at least not on the ‘unforgettable’, howbeit illusory, scale of Caesar Augustus who “…found Rome a city of bricks and left it a city of marble”. When the two former governors differently campaigned for the presidency in 2023, neither made any serious reference to their legacies, nor spoke grandly to visionary ideas and projects. All the things they said and did were fairly humdrum and commonplace.

    By speaking to a possible joint ticket with Mr Obi, Dr Kwankwaso underscores the point everyone knows already, that an Atiku candidacy would be a tough sell in 2027, not only on account of his age and the attendant lethargy it brings, but also because of political equity. Rotational presidency may be an informal and fortuitous formula for national peace and stability, but it has seemed to serve the country fairly well as well as appeared to lower tension. Whether the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) leaders manage to heal the fractures in their party or not, it is unlikely Alhaji Atiku will be adopted as presidential candidate by any serious party. And if he is selected, it is unlikely he will command votes on the scale he managed in 2023. Dr Kwankwaso knows this, and even suspects that the country will be in no mood to break that North-South rotational formula. He is of course himself not a principled man, and he may be fishing for a coalition that will project him into higher office, but it is hard to see the joint ticket he waffled about with Mr Obi amounting to anything.

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    After regaining control of Kano, Dr Kwankwaso is predictably seeking other adventures, probably at a much higher political level than the governorship. Like Alhaji Atiku, everything about the former Kano governor is ambition and higher office, or at any rate, public office. He and his cohorts hijacked the NNPP, but they have neither turned it into an exemplar nor fine-tuned its platform or ideology to make it irresistible to the electorate. It will remain a special purpose vehicle for winning elections and maintaining relevance. Worse, he has not worked on himself. He is as truculent as he was years ago, and his ideology more amorphous than it is practical. His ad hocism and vengefulness bloomed during and after the Kano governorship campaign. And even though he is book intelligent, there is little else about him. He prides himself on his charisma, but that appeal finds fulfillment only in Kano State for reasons that should worry him. Yet he seems unaware of his many limitations, not to talk of his many illusions. Like many other politicians, he snickers at the fickleness of the electorate, believing that if the circumstances are right they could be led by the nose to vote for a ticket as implausible as the one he flirts with.

    Beyond the religion and ethnic factors, the distinctly unideological Mr Obi has no other issue to campaign with. Yes, he is a perfect fault-finder and an incurable idealist, but in 2027, he will have no grounds upon which to campaign. Like Alhaji Atiku in the PDP, his identification with LP is based on exploitation, not symbiosis. He neither shares affinity with the party nor does he have sympathy for it, whether it dies or lives, whether it grows or is stunted. It is significant that Mr Obi is not any less opportunistic than either Alhaji Atiku or Dr Kwankwaso, but this inconvenient fact will not discourage him from the grand posturing and grandiloquence that hallmarked his campaigns and public life. The former Kano governor gibed at him about his unremarkable time as Anambra governor, but he doesn’t care. After all, like his university certificate, he did not use his governorship legacy to campaign in 2023, preferring to stick to the inflammable issues of ethnicity and religion. In 2027, he will still not use his eight years in Anambra to campaign given the chance to be on any presidential ticket, notwithstanding whether the LP survives its ongoing war of attrition. And having not developed the interest in improving himself beyond the frenzied and unnatural manner he is seeking friends and contacts all over the country, and lacking in intellectual and analytical depth on all counts, he will be hard put to find and sustain issues on which to anchor his campaign.

    The LP foot soldiers have welcomed Dr Kwankwaso’s offer, with supporters of both politicians jousting over who between the two leaders possesses the higher market value. They are all tilting at windmills. Not only is an assessment of the two men too early, it is also unclear whether two years down the line, both of them would still possess any market value at all. They are not the best their states can produce or offer, and it is not even certain that regardless of their flaws they will have anything to recommend them.

  • Jonathan and Atiku on Rivers LG poll

    Jonathan and Atiku on Rivers LG poll

    The ongoing crisis in Rivers State is the perfect definition of imbroglio. The state’s political leaders, without exception, have managed to turn a perfectly simple political misunderstanding into a perfectly convoluted crisis. The problem is not helped by the state’s stakeholders’ lack of principles and elementary understanding of the issues they claim to be fighting over, including the democracy and the rule of law they have spoken relentlessly about. Two courts gave judgements on the local government elections before October 5 polling day, the Federal High Court sitting in Abuja, and a Rivers State High Court. The Rivers government and the state electoral commission headed by a retired judge chose which one to obey and speak about, while impugning the integrity of the Abuja judge.

    If the Rivers imbroglio was replicated in any other state, it would be potent enough to give them migraine. But not Rivers. Gluttons for punishment, they conducted the election while defying all rules of elections, got and announced results whose statistical details did not form part of the results declaration, swore in the ‘winners’ while deprecating them with bucolic ‘monkey proverbs’, reframed the LG election narrative as indicative of courage, and, together with their kept media, described the poll as affording the state a new beginning. The perfect miasma? Not quite. In Rivers, it does not just rain, it pours. For a state that now specialises in abusing judges and police top brass as corrupt and incompetent, it must now contend with the Court of Appeal which last week declared in a judgement that Martins Amaewhule and his 26 state lawmakers, all said to belong to former governor Nyesom Wike’s camp, constitute the legitimate legislature before whom the 2024 budget should be represented. Governor Siminalayi Fubara, who is adept at boxing himself into a corner, had the option to comply and leave bad enough alone. He has opted to appeal the judgement, hoping to save the three lawmakers he has used to legitimise all his actions. What if the Supreme Court should endorse the judgement of the lower courts, would the governor go ahead and declare a republic?

    The problem with Rivers is not the Wike versus Fubara jousting. That is small matter in the hands of brave and wise elders and counselors, regardless of the famed impetuousness of the former governor and the lack of depth of the governor. The real problem with Rivers is that it is destitute of leaders, while outsiders with national recognition have simply immersed themselves in the fray by taking sides and making snide remarks and baleful statements. The Rivers Elders and Leadership Forum led by former governor Rufus Ada-George encapsulated the problem as one of courage or a lack of resolve, especially in the face of Mr Wike’s obtruding politics. “We commend Fubara for his courage and determination in standing firm and resolute in defending the interests of the people of Rivers state,” they said jauntily. In no part of their statement did they attempt to deconstruct the events convulsing the state, or even make a cursory examination of the legal principles hamstringing the state’s politics and denying it resolution.

    Might some other top Nigerians have a different counsel for the increasingly hysterical Mr Wike and the apoplectic Mr Fubara? Former president Goodluck Jonathan who long ago perfected the art of fence sitting weighed in with his customary equivocation. On the day of the Rivers LG poll, he posted on X (Twitter) this considerably defanged statement: “I am calling on the National Judicial Commission (NJC) to take action that will curb the proliferation of court orders and judgements, especially those of concurrent jurisdiction giving conflicting orders. This, if not checked, will ridicule the institution of the judiciary and derail our democracy. The political situation in Rivers State mirrors our past, especially the crisis of the Old Western Region. I, therefore, warn that Rivers should not be used as crystal that will form the block that will collapse our democracy. State institutions especially the police and the judiciary and all other stakeholders must always work for public interest and promote common good such as peace, justice and equality.” Incredible? Why not. Dr Jonathan had the opportunity, as a former president, to call on some of Nigeria’s best lawyers and judges, serving or retired, to give him an impeccable opinion on what he chose to describe as conflicting judgements and on his fear about the collapse of democracy. Instead, he offered Nigerians a rudimentary opinion on the Rivers conflict, an opinion lacking in depth or breadth, an opinion coloured by the usual partisan prejudices popular with Nigerians and their media.

    Dr Jonathan did not really have an exceptional political career, having been elevated far above his acumen by the capricious former president Olusegun Obasanjo. It was unsurprising that the eminent zoologist saw little in the Rivers imbroglio beyond the Wike-Fubara contest. Perhaps former vice president Atiku Abubakar would see the wood for the trees, especially having traversed politics at a much higher level than nearly everyone in the Rivers crisis. Alas, his opinion also did little to explicate the crisis or offer a thoughtful perspective. In a statement he released a day before the LG poll, he said loftily: “The local government elections in Rivers State tomorrow stand as a beacon of hope, offering renewed vigour to constitutional democracy at the very core of governance. Undoubtedly, this election resounds as a powerful affirmation of constitutionalism and the rule of law, a cause that should rally the support of all true champions of democracy. It is a call to every believer in the democratic process to stand firm in defence of the people’s right to choose their leaders freely and fairly…I commend Governor Siminalayi Fubara for his courageous leadership.” The devil is of course in the detail.

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    Masked behind the beguiling rhetoric on democracy are two salient but uncomfortable issues which Alhaji Atiku simply glossed over. One, he believed the LG poll, even before it was held, affirmed constitutionalism and the rule of law. The former vice president is not worried about the dissonance between his wishes and the reality in Rivers, between the governor’s vaunted claims about the rule of law and his deliberate and consistent denunciation and usurpation of court judgements. The former vice president of course expects that by supporting Mr Fubara without recourse to caution, he could reclaim the state’s PDP structure for his next presidential race. It is evidently a ruse. Neither Alhaji Atiku nor the governor gives a damn about democracy or the rule of law. Two, the former vice president described the governor’s leadership as courageous. He naturally assumes that what the governor is providing for the state, despite the blather and scurrility, is leadership. And, courageous? Neither Alhaji Atiku nor Mr Fubara knows the meaning of the word. Superficiality and defiance do not in any way approximate courage. Watch the video of the governor’s recantation over the role of the police in the state after some hoodlums burnt a few LG headquarters. There was not an iota of courage in him, let alone leadership.

    Rivers politicians may have begun jostling for control of PDP structure, while at the same time both Mr Fubara and his mentor, Mr Wike, are not only at the centre of the crisis but also lack the patience and restraint needed to put the state on an even keel. The two combatants can even be excused for defying any move towards a resolution. But to have a former president and another former vice president unable to appreciate the ideals of democracy and the rule of law is damning and bewildering. It reflects why Nigeria is in dire straits, why a small matter like the Rivers crisis brings out the worst in Nigerian leaders, why fairly straightforward economic issues addle everybody’s wit, and why political leaders in the Rivers imbroglio could not even pretend to be discomfited by the conflation of personal political gains and public altruism, and why ungifted political mentors can only produce their kind instead of producing the next generation of competent and visionary leaders.

  • Labour Party sinks into labyrinth

    Labour Party sinks into labyrinth

    Last Tuesday, the Labour Party (LP) crisis got much worse than its stakeholders bargained. Justice Emeka Nwite of the Federal High Court in Abuja declared that the Julius Abure-led leadership of the party produced by the March 2024 Nnewi, Anambra State, national convention was legitimate. The judgement invalidated the 29-member caretaker committee constituted on September 4 by party leaders who met in Umuahia, Abia State, the only state governed by LP. Governor Alex Otti hosted the meeting. The leaders based their decision to sack the Abure-led National Working Committee (NWC) on a March 20, 2018 judgement by Justice Gabriel Kolawole which ordered the party to organise a convention in one year.

    Why did it then take about six years before the party finally roused itself to a solution that nevertheless failed to placate key stakeholders? It was not until 2022, said party leaders, that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) finally brokered a truce between warring groups in the party to give teeth to the 2018 court judgement. The convention would have been held one year after INEC’s intervention, had the 2023 general election not supervened. As it turned out, even the Umuahia meeting has also been invalidated by another judgement, leaving the party in the doldrums. According to the latest judgement, the Abure-led NWC followed due process in organising their convention, regardless of what INEC did or didn’t do. There was no contention about whether the Abure-led leadership expired last June. The contention was whether the Nnewi convention was valid. The Federal High Court, Abuja said it was.

    It will take days for LP leaders under the auspices of the Umuahia meeting to determine whether to appeal the judgement or not. If they do, it is not clear they will get the relief they crave. If they don’t, they will be signaling their preparedness to make the best of a bad situation. Why they may not get any relief is partly because they will have a hard time proving that they had the legal backing to convene the Umuahia meeting that presumptuously sacked Mr Abure and even more daringly constituted a 29-member committee, led by former Finance minister Nenadi Usman, to prepare grounds for a convention in 18 months. As it stands, the Umuahia 29 and the party leaders who inspired their creation, mainly Mr Otti and the party’s presidential candidate in the February 23, 2023 election, Peter Obi, are in limbo. Indeed, and incomprehensibly, the far-reaching communiqué was signed by both gentlemen, though they had no legal footing to produce something purporting to be legitimate.

    Both legally and politically, LP is now in a quandary. They can’t go forward, despite trying so hard to proceed, and they can’t go backward, because it is too galling and suffocating. They were yet to emerge from the bruising and bloody war with the intemperate leadership of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), their birth parent, when with the war still stalemated, they seem now compelled to open another front. Their former experiences were unpleasant, with NLC seeking to impose a diktat on the party, and the highly obstreperous Abure-led leadership doing its damndest to resist what they describe as trade union infamy. The wars are complicated and seemingly irresoluble due mainly to three factors. One, the NLC is today coincidentally led by an impatient and imperious union president, Joe Ajaero. His manners and politics do not readily conduce to conciliation or consensus. Opinionated and messianic, he believes he is always right and, more, that he is the perfect solution to any logjam.

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    Two, Mr Abure himself is cantankerous, sometimes dissembling and, beyond his genial outlook, actually difficult to browbeat or vanquish entirely. With Mr Ajaero on the opposite side of the divide, the two combatants are fierce and combustible. They could theoretically reach a consensus; but they are loath to do any give-and-take. They would rather fight to the death. Three, unfortunately for the party, they have a former presidential candidate who is larger than life, who is Fabian in his political conviction, and who dithers over infinitesimal matters. What is worse is that he has no legal standing in the party at all other than that he was once a presidential candidate, one who was gifted a platform with which he had no ideological or personal connection. When he signed the Umuahia resolutions that took drastic decisions on the party’s future, he stood on no ground at all, let alone a firm ground.

    Mr Abure is not going anywhere soon; he will continue to stand his ground until he dies in harness. Mr Ajaero, on the other hand, will remain as intransigent as ever. He is too messianic to explore consensus in managing the party’s crises. And Mr Obi is too flighty to be anchored on any political or ideological principles. He will follow the rats when the water reaches the upper deck, as indeed his exploratory discussions with the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP) are ominously foretelling.

  • EFCC, NFIU, ICPC and the Kogi red herring

    EFCC, NFIU, ICPC and the Kogi red herring

    Later this month, the Supreme Court will be hearing a suit filed by 16 states challenging the constitutionality of the laws establishing the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), the Independent Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), and the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU). Kogi State, unsurprisingly, belled the cat by filing the suit. Fifteen states have joined the legal action. They hope to prove that because the statutes establishing these three institutions appear to have their grounding in certain United Nations conventions, it would require processes other than the ones adopted by the drafters of the constitution to legalise their existence.

    It undoubtedly advances the cause of democracy when states or individuals challenge legal conventions and everything the public had taken for granted. Such peaceful challenges promote democracy and advance the cause of the rule of law. The Supreme Court is in short being called upon to determine one way or the other whether the aforementioned agencies were properly set up or not in line with the constitution. The top court is unlikely to fish for extraneous matters regarding the litigants altruism. The states wish to promote the cause of democracy. But given the identity of the litigant, particularly Kogi State whose former governor Yahaya Bello is embroiled in a rancorous battle with the EFCC, there is nothing to suggest altruism is involved. But on the surface – and this is what the court will probably concern itself with – this litigation is a good cause in the service of democracy. It stands little chance of succeeding, but at least the matter is being tested in the appropriate place, in a court that is perhaps unintentionally but fortuitously becoming a constitutional and policy court.

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    Nigeria’s 36 states lack checks and balances. Until the Supreme Court acted in defence of the local governments, on the prompting of the executive branch, the third tier was being suffocated. The state Houses of Assembly have also been castrated and turned into mannequins. It is institutions like the EFCC, ICPC and NFIU that still exercise some modicum of restraint on the wayward state administrations. Now, states consider that little restraint a yoke they wish to throw off. No one should let them, lest they all turn into the remorseless tyrants Rivers State is contending with.  

  • Many Rivers to cross

    Many Rivers to cross

    Once again, Rivers State has erupted in huge fireballs as anarchy and mayhem swept across many of its councils. Bodies littered the corridors and pavements as if hostile troops had just swept through. Elected council chairmen have elected to stay away from their offices creating an impasse of governance. As ungovernability and a breakdown of law and order loom, the dreaded phrase, “state of emergence” has crept into the lexicon of dominant discourse all over again. The fear of the main gladiators is not about the fate of democracy in the greatest conglomeration of black people but a change in the sitting arrangement at dinner and the positioning of apex predators at the buffet queue.

     Unfortunately, the wager is that this will not be the last eruption in Rivers State. There are many rivers to cross in Rivers and for a “more perfect” democratic process in Nigeria, potentially and arguably the greatest Black nation on earth, a tribute to the subversive imaginary of the colonialists and capacity for inventive self-undermining. It has been said that if Nigeria does not exist, a commodious and expansive nation like this will have to be willed into existence by visionary African emancipators to represent the Black person and his interest in the final working out of the occidental dominance of the universe.

      Readers should note that this column has not mentioned democracy but “the democratic process”. Given the recrudescence of military coups in many African countries, the authoritarian populist backlash against democracy in many European, Asian and Latin American countries and the threat of Donald Trump to turn America into an anti-democratic, authoritarian conglomeration of ethnic deadwood and underachieving racist bigots, the plight of democracy these days remind one of a quote often misattributed to Herman Goering, the late NAZI chieftain who transformed from an aviator hero of the German people during the First World War to a dope-crazed sybaritic punk as Hitler’s deputy. Goering was said to have famously exploded that whenever he heard the word culture, he always reached for his gun. It is to be hoped that the same fate does not overtake democracy.

      There is as yet no ideal democratic society anywhere in the world. At best, democracy remains a permanent work in progress. Dating back to the time of the Greek utopianists, the idea of people’s power(Demos and cratos) is an appealing and winning combination indeed, targeting the subliminal yearnings of all humanity for freedom. No human system has been put together, not even the Chinese authoritarian populism, that is superior to democracy in terms of its capacity for the egalitarian redistribution of societal privileges. It is left for each society to fashion out which mode of democracy is best suited to the pressing and urgent needs of their people based on the correct political architecture of the nation. A society engaged in a quest for democracy in the face of dire structural misconfiguration of the nation is engaged in a forlorn Sisyphean quest. Rapid economic transformation may blunt the rough edges for some time and lure the people into the quietude of self-sufficiency but they will rear their head again once acute scarcity due to political de-formation reappears.

       Why is it that Rivers State, the colonial jewel in Nigeria’s crown with its storied Garden City and glittering pearl of its postcolonial petrodollar possibilities, ever a recurring decimal of political violence and destabilization in Nigeria’s post-military Fourth Republic? Is there something about this unflattering development that is symptomatic of the democratic hiatus in Nigeria’s post-military dispensation? To be sure, gladiators on both sides of the political divide in Rivers State have cast themselves in heroic and iconic garbs. On the one side are those who believe they are acting as liberators of their people from the clutches of ethnic domination and tyranny. On the other side are those who purport to defend the rule of law and democratic order. Both are false garbs and nothing can be further from the truth. Political battles are often fought under certain occlusions which preclude actors from seeing themselves the way they truly are. The hard truth is that what is going on in the Rivers state is the struggle for the allocation of resources and who gets what and at what time. As it often occurs in politics, the end-result may manifest some of the stated ideals but only as by-products of the real contestation.

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       As our readers will attest, this column does not dwell on individuals or personalities. Individuals are important only to the extent that they illuminate the political and historical process. The classic summation of the materialist reading of historical developments is that people make history but not under the circumstances of their choice. In our commentary so far about the crisis in the Rivers State as it unfolded, we had cautioned the minister of the Federal Capital Territory to exercise some restraint and rectitude over his occasionally intemperate outbursts and barely disguised attempt to exercise political overlordship in a state whose reins of power he had willingly ceded to his political godson and self-designated successor, Siminilayi Fubara. If the optics of Wike’s political one-upmanship didn’t look too good then, the auguries have gone dire with the latest development. Please permit us to quote this column at some length.

    “It is not known whether Nyesom Wike, the current minister of the Federal Capital Authority, immediate past governor of Rivers State and –as some would insist—the de facto third term governor of the state, is trained to read political signboards or savvy enough to decode horoscopes of impending disaster. One thing is clear. The fascination of a moth with fireballs always leads to self-immolation” 9/4/2023. One line from that piece that continues to haunt even the writer in its prescience and premonition is this: “Despite his official protestations of peace and harmony, it is only a question of time before Fubara pulls the trigger”.

       Fubara duly pulled the trigger last week in what appeared to be a seamlessly choreographed political demolition of his former master and presumptive patron. He had managed to organize local government elections while his old boss was waiting for the law and the rule of law to come to his aid.  In the light of the overwhelming popular acceptance which seems to confer a solid legitimacy on the polls, the recourse to legalistic obscurantism may well be akin to pursuing historical chimeras. In the strange feudalization of politics in the post-military dominion, it is becoming an established tradition that the king must die for his successor to thrive, whereas in more traditional societies, a possible successor must be out of the sights of the reigning king or he will come to grievous harm. As Felix Houphouet-Boigny, the founding father of Ivory Coast, famously retorted: A Baole Chief does not know his successor. And he never did until he breathed his last, plunging his nation into a monumental crisis of succession which eventually led to civil war and a brief partitioning of the country.

      In Rivers State since the advent of civil rule and increasingly in the rest of the country, the successor must not know the former king. He must be killed off politically or perish in less amenable circumstances. Thus in the beginning, Peter Odili begat Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi his former PA and office boy who threw him off the cliff.  Rotimi Amaechi begat Nyesom Wike who tomahawked him in the manner of Red Indian head-hunters.  And now Wike begat Sim Fubara who ran him out of town wailing and gnashing his teeth with a carving knife sticking out. Having been demystified in his home base, no matter the outcome of the court case, Wike for now should avoid lending a helping hand to his numerous political adversaries.

      It will be extremely politically naïve and utterly presumptuous of the former governor of Rivers State to imagine that he can second-guess his current patron or corral him into underwriting his political misadventure. The former governor of Lagos State is an extremely dexterous and multi-dimensional political poker player who can deal several apparently countervailing cards at the same time. As the male servant in The Labyrinth of the General will put it: “ Only my master knows what my master is thinking about”. It is possible, just possible, that while Wike is completely obsessed and consumed by his political offensive against Fubara and his core supporters, his boss may be looking ahead to reaching political accommodation with the fourth largest ethnic nationality in the nation. The Ijaw people did not obstruct his path to the presidency. They looked the other way while controversial presidential election took place in the state.  With the South East already on a virtual war footing, alienating such an important ethnic bloc with its volatile and combustible personalities will amount to a costly strategic error in the rocky days ahead.

    We can now end by speculating on just what type of national legacy brings about the type of politics on display in Rivers State which is as mean-spirited just as it is murky and murderous. Needless to add that it is also generally symptomatic of political developments in post-military Nigeria. Like a virus that has infected the entire society, the type of guardroom and garrison politics bequeathed to the nation by the protracted stretch of military rule takes time to work out of the body politic. One of the outstanding deficiencies is the decline and death of ideology.  Ideology, or fanatical attachment and devotion to a set of ideas, is the glue that binds politicians of different and contrasting personality-types together in the name of an ideal that transcends individual peculiarities.

       Ideology is the secret weapon of the modern party. A rational human being just must believe in something and have a vision of the society they want. Parties without ideologies are nothing but elite conspiracies to appropriate power for the purpose of unfettered access to state resources. Up to a point, ideologies worked in the First and Second Republics in ensuring party cohesion and internal order. This was particularly true of the Action Group and the Unity Party of Nigeria. Until it was sundered by external pressures and the resurgence of personality differences, the Action Group was a modern wonder of cohesion, internal discipline and organizational acumen.

      Unfortunately, the inauspicious corollary of the collapse of ideology in Nigeria’s post-military polity is the sheer indifference and lethargic apathy to party cadre recruitment and rigorous leadership selection. Since nature abhors a vacuum, the yawning gap is filled by an ethnic revanchism of the most violent and virulent type and a growing cult of personality at all levels which conduce to a further problematization of the intractable National Question. In such circumstances, it is almost impossible to produce a transcendental leadership except by miraculous default which cannot be discounted given Nigeria’s legendary capacity to soar above the flames of its own self-immolation. Taken together, it can now be seen why there are still many perilous rivers to cross both in Rivers State and the rest of the nation.

  • Okon is floored by Saro woman

    Okon is floored by Saro woman

    Dawn brings several premonitions and its own apparitions. Nothing stalks an impoverished citizenry more than the fear of a new day. The dawn of misery or the misery of dawn strikes terror in the heart of those newly promoted to the brackets of the broke and broken. The fear is real and palpable. Nothing is more daunting than returning to the same urban déclassé you thought you had left behind, ages ago, or the prospects of being welcomed back to the garrets by the multi-ethnic underclass. There are people you have not seen in ages who welcome you back with genuine conviviality and much warmth. Unlike you they have never bothered with the rat race and are very happy with their unhappy lot, knowing fully well that the sewage rat never races far ahead of the slum cat. It is a question of time and timing.

       This Thursday morning, although dawn had broken, you were still curled up in bed with no incentive to get up, apprehensive that the people playing with petrol had come up with another punitive increase, the last one coming only the previous day. It was getting to crunch time and the least of your worries was your once leafy and gentrified suburb which had suffered a historic loss of status, category and classification due to a mammoth influx of hoodlums, vagrants, yobos, hobos, yokels and ethnic savages from the outer margins of hell. They loiter about and march up and down the streets in a threatening manner with daggers dangling out of their dishevelled pockets. They had materialized out of nowhere as if by some mysterious call up. The more purposeful had set up shop on all available spots, offering services ranging from ritual barbing, shoe-shining, car-washing, house-cleaning and the odd horticulture.

       All of a sudden, the early morning bliss was shattered by the noise of rowdy commotion just beyond the gate. At first you thought it was the usual antics of the crazy dustbin woman who usually wakes you up with a lisping torrent of subversive commentaries on the state of the nation. But upon drawing the shutter, it was the sight of Okon crumpled on the asphalt with the Saro woman pummeling him and screaming hysterically.

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       “Oga, come carry your boy before Saro woman kill am oo. Calabar boy don go carry firewood with dem mad red ants oo. I never see something like dis one. Man dey bottom and woman dey for top. He get as he come be oo”, the half-crazed dustbin woman screamed with satanic relish.

         “Stupid man. I don tell you say I don dey soak your garri, abi no be so?” the hefty woman from Freetown yelled in Creole lingo as she rained more heavy-duty blows on Okon, “if na your mama you fit hit am with useless Yoruba juju, abi?” the Saro woman insisted as she was pulled up by good Samaritans. Okon fled inside the house nursing a black eye and swollen lips. Snooper gave him the tongue-lashing of his life.

       “So Okon what happened? I thought you said you were a champion wrestler?” yours sincerely sneered.

        “Oga na Lamidi give man dem Yoruba juju dem dey call gbadigbadi. Him say anybody I whacked for him bottom him go follow me quick quick”. Lamidi Alekuso, the old NNDP thug who doubled as driver, quickly sprang to his feet.

         “Akanbi, no be so. I tell the nyaminrin man say ingredient never complete. With dem climate change and so so rain everyday leaves don they sleep for forest. Ewe sunko ni”, the old partisan of the wetie conflagration drawled in senile mischief.

         “Did you take his money?” yours sincerely demanded.

         “Ha, baba, if passenger no enter vehicle wetin concern Olomolanke?” ( truck pusher) the old crook from Akanran whined with a devilish grin and slipped away.

  • Snapsong 234

    Snapsong 234

    Another first day

         Of the tenth month

    Of another year

         And its caravan of memories

    Seasons come

         Seasons go

    But the sky looms above our dreams

         An umbrella with a thousand stiches

    How I wish I could shout “Happy Birthday,

         Dear Country”, dance all the way from

    Our Delta doldrums to our Sahel fringes

         To a national song free of “native” and “tribe”

    My tongue quarrels with my mouth

         The anniversary wine turns sour

    In my pensive goblet, as Hunger devours the land

         And bandits thrive in their impunitive exploits

    Corruption slays the sinews of State

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         Rulers fatten on prodigal excess

    While the ruled perish in preventable penury

         The best of our brains are fleeing in droves

    The Niger knows, the Benue believes

         A country so bountifully endowed

    But so mindlessly misruled, waiting, still waiting

         For the road from blight to Bless

    Snapsong-234Download
  • Obasanjo and Ladoja’s damning reminiscences

    Obasanjo and Ladoja’s damning reminiscences

    In the past one week, former Oyo State governor Rashidi Ladoja’s reflection on ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo’s presidency, and the statement by his former vice president, Atiku Abubakar, on rotational presidency showed how embarrassingly limited many Nigerian leaders are. The former VP had made a representation to the Senate Committee on Constitution Review suggesting, among other things, that presidential tenure should be limited to one term rotated among the country’s six informal geopolitical zones. It was a clearly mercantilist approach to solving the national question. Perhaps he still hopes that in 2027 he could take the presidency without the corresponding drawback of his age and the fear that should he desire a second term, it would gall and repulse the electorate. Like Chief Obasanjo who seldom gave deep thought to his actions, Alhaji Atiku is probably the most intransigent of politicians, if not also the most excessive and self-absorbed.

    Senator Ladoja is a perceptive and tenacious politician, an enigmatic leader who has accomplished so much in politics and in Ibadan where he is top on the line to the revered traditional throne. Days ago, on a radio programme, he gave insight into the direct role Chief Obasanjo played in how he was impeached as Oyo governor in January 2006 until his reinstatement some 11 months later after grueling litigations. It was not the first time he spoke about the former president’s perverse role in the impeachment. In 2019, when he marked his 75th birthday, he disclosed to the media that his opposition to Chief Obasanjo’s third term agenda triggered the said impeachment. “You just came out of prison and had no money,” he said he told the former president. “And with all those minuses, God said you would be the president for eight years; let God be the one who would decide the next president. He said ‘thank you very much, I appreciate it.’ He knew I told him the truth and I was convinced I told him the truth. At the end of it, he also said he didn’t even ask for a third term, which is not true. He did. So when I got home in the evening, the then Ogun State Governor, Gbenga Daniel, called and asked what I came to Ota to discuss with Obasanjo. I said I discussed the third term agenda with him. He said ‘Oh God, you have pinched Baba on his sore, Baba said he would turn you to a nobody.’ I said ‘if God allows him’.”

    Last week’s interview on radio was no less scathing. Here is Sen. Ladoja reminiscing about the impeachment moves against him in 2005: “You see, some people said, it was Alao-Akala, it was Adedibu. No, it was not any of them. It was Obasanjo. It was during the time of Ileya [Muslim festival Eid-el-Kabir]. We went to see Baba Obasanjo. I think it was on a Friday or Saturday that we went to see him in Abeokuta. I was there with Oyinlola, Daniel and Agagu. We did not call Fayose, because we knew that Fayose was Baba’s son. So they knelt down and I knelt down with them. They were begging him, ‘Baba, please, let Ladoja be’. Baba then said ‘Rashidi, go and resign!’ I said ‘No, I won’t resign!’  He said, ‘if you don’t resign, you would be removed’. I said ‘No, they cannot do it.’ He said ‘why’”. I said ‘because you cannot get two-thirds.’ He said ‘two-thirds my foot’ and then he left the place in fury. (Gbenga) Daniel ran after him.”

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    Still in doubt as to Chief Obasanjo’s sanctimoniousness? Sen Ladoja continued: “While we were reflecting on what we were going to do, myself, Agagu and Oyinlola, a man came in; it was the former World Court Justice, Prince Bola Ajibola. He said ‘what is wrong with you?’ He said ‘I know your problem. Your problem is that you don’t want Ladoja to be impeached. They (Oyinlola, Agagau and Daniel) said yes. Justice Ajibola said ‘well, I’ve talked about it to Segun, he’s just adamant. He said ‘but you’re leaders in your own rights. There comes a time when you must have to stand up and fight.’ …When eventually we got the judgement of the  Appeal Court, Baba said no. People said this is a declarative judgement; he retorted that they were going to stay its execution. And eventually, it stayed until the Supreme Court confirmed the judgement of the Court of Appeal.”

    Before 2006 was over, Chief Obasanjo had masterminded the impeachment of four other governors, to wit, Joshua Dariye of Plateau State; Peter Obi of Anambra State, yes the same Mr Obi he tried to railroad into Aso Villa last year, a goal he was even prepared to destroy democracy to achieve; Ayo Fayose of Ekiti State; and Diepreye Alamieyeseigha of Bayelsa State whom he almost hounded to death. None of the five, including Sen Ladoja, was impeached constitutionally. Apart from lying about his third term agenda, Chief Obasanjo also still feigns interest in the survival of democracy, albeit democracy with African touch. Few of his contemporaries are impressed with his style or principles. They know his style is abominable, and his principles inexistent. They thought he was fated to be a great leader, a president who would lay the foundation of a great and thriving Nigerian democracy, one who would make the country a continental leader and a globally competitive democracy. But he failed the test and has since gone on to posture, rail and flail, blaming everyone but himself for the country’s tragic shortcomings.

    It is not clear whether Chief Obasanjo will write his definitive memoires. If he does, they will be full of half-truths or outright mendacities, for nearly all his contemporaries know him to be fundamentally averse to truth and accuracy. It is strange that last year, the Machiavellian Mr Obi allowed himself to be brought under the wing of the former president. Perhaps they share much more in common than many Nigerians think. Sen. Ladoja himself came under the wing of celestial forces who paved his path in life with diamonds. His last hurrah in life will likely be even far more glorious, and he will likely not grieve the angels who cuddle and caress him. Not so, Chief Obasanjo. Probably the luckiest Nigerian alive, to whom legions of angels appear to be at his beck and call, including gifting him long life which, during Bishop David Oyedepo’s 70th birthday, he hinted would exceed 100 years, the former president has nevertheless shown only casual gratefulness for the angelic cares and absolutely no remorse for the evils and failings he had masterminded nearly every waking moment of his life. Sen. Ladoja has alleged how unworthy Chief Obasanjo is to receive honour and applause; let the old soldier rebut the allegation, if he is capable.

  • Protests, misconceptions and opportunities

    Protests, misconceptions and opportunities

    The federal government has not disclosed exactly how many protesters from the August 1-10 #EndBadGovernance action are still in detention, or what is being done about them other than a few haphazard arraignments. But some independent estimates, mostly by human rights organisations and other civil society organisations, suggest that over 1,000 might still be in detention in some nine or more states awaiting trial or freedom. The campaign for their release, some reports show, is being undertaken by a number of media establishments and CSOs, with some of these groups calling for the detainees’ unconditional release. There were no indications of any arrest during the largely symbolic and unenthusiastic Fearless in October protests organised in some states on October 1, Independence Day anniversary.

    Published reports about the August and October protests, both before and after, had been curiously inciting and patronising. The expectations of the offending media were, however, not met for many reasons. The organisation of the protests was shambolic, the reasons were tenuous, and the execution incompetent. The reasons included the restoration of fuel subsidy without any convincing economic argument, return to fixed currency exchange regime without any sensible argument woven around why currencies weaken or strengthen, and the release of Nnamdi Kanu against which nearly the whole of the old political North was dead set. Right from the beginning there was no consensus about the protests, despite the obvious pervasion of hunger and hardship in nearly all parts of the country.

    If the campaign for the unconditional release of detained protesters received attention nationwide and gained traction in the media, it was because the state and federal governments had been noticeably tardy in arraigning suspects, were slow in assembling evidence, and together with a ponderous and demotivated judiciary were inefficient in prosecuting the detainees. There is indeed a clear reluctance by state governments and the police to prosecute the protesters thereby allowing the media and many commentators to reframe the protest narratives away from the burglary, robbery and unmitigated violence that accompanied the protests in some states. Protests are a fundamental right, but the brazen criminalities that sometimes accompany them are not a right. Until the government firmly applies the law, violent protests that threaten and destabilise the polity will not cease. After all, there will always be reasons to protest, as long as the constitution guarantees that right.

    The October protest fizzled out partly because the government managed to uncover the destabilising plots that fuelled the August 1-10 protests. Disturbingly, no high-profile suspect is being prosecuted for inciting an insurrection despite the seizure of billions of naira and millions of dollars slush funds funneled to energise the action against the government and the country. In August, some states foolishly reasoned that the protests would be directed solely against the federal administration. The expectation proved shortsighted, for no sooner the protests began than all hell broke loose, without discrimination. Businesses were lost and properties looted and destroyed. On October 1, having learnt a few lessons, and despite the strangulating economy, Nigerians were predictably loth to embrace any street action with undetermined outcome.

    Had protesters sharpened their focus and limited it to, say, fuel subsidy removal, it would have stood some chances of succeeding. Comparing the August 1-10 protest to the 2012 fuel subsidy removal protests during the Goodluck Jonathan administration was, therefore, far-fetched. The 2024 protests were childish, amorphous, ineptly led, and unduly politicised. They were a clear example of good causes bastardised by hatred, bigotry and sundry ulterior motives. The economics of fuel subsidy removal are so compelling that it beggars belief that any group could seize upon the fatuous logic of inflation to galvanise a protest. In 2012, there were some intellectual underpinnings to the protest of that time and era. They proved shortsighted, but they made some sense. The leaders of the August and October protest made no pretence to logic or common sense. As this column has consistently argued, no administration will restore the subsidy. It is both senseless and counterproductive to do so. Where the present government errs is not in policy conception but in policy execution: some of the spade work that should assuage the misery of the people were either glossed over or casually applied.

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    The policy of floating the naira could also no longer be avoided, especially given the dire straits previous administrations had consigned the economy. A few factors influence the strength of any currency, but before the floating of the naira, previous administrations had ignored those factors because of the attendant pains. Lessons from the Asian financial crisis of 1997-1998, the Japanese Yen gyrations of 2008 to mid-2013, and the European Union break-up fears of 2010-2012 serve as potent examples of how and why currencies lose value and what could be done to restore sanity. Protesters mouthing piffle about artificially restoring naira value made nonsense of their arguments for street action. For them it became protest for protest sake. If protesters had a basic understanding of why currencies fluctuate, with particular reference to the naira, and had suggested ways to tackle the crisis, their protests would have gained considerable traction. Currency fluctuations, such as Nigeria is experiencing, has huge impacts on the economy, but it is nevertheless a reflection of the strength or weakness of the economy as a whole. Policy fiat would not provide the remedy, nor would the emotional nonsense about what the exchange rates used to be years ago compared to what it is today.

    After the massive breakdown of law and order during the August 1-10 protests in the North, Lagos stood the only chance of a fairly successful protest in October. But the interviews granted by some of the Lagos protesters showed they were a disgrace. They complained of hunger, but their indolence blinded them to why Southeast and northern youths made no such silly arguments. The Southwest youths adopted area boys tactics, grumbling and complaining about everything, while the Southeast youths worked their buttocks out in apprenticeship of all kinds, and northern youths stayed back on their farms or came down to the South to make significant inroad into the Okada and Keke businesses. The Nigerian economy is being reset, admittedly awkwardly; but only hard working and enterprising youths will take advantage. No one can abort the reset, and no one can delay it; not even with a thousand protests. The hardship is real, and the economy is in turmoil, but that is why youths must show ingenuity in navigating what is clearly a hard and treacherous economic and social terrain. Instead of complaining and whining about what the state has not done, it may be time for everyone to buckle up, particularly entitled Lagos ‘ebi’n pawa’ youths in order to envision a tantalising future. The war in Ukraine and the chaos in the Middle East will make life much harder for everyone. While protests may help the government to fine-tune policies and significantly cut costs, which they are yet to do, it is either Nigerians adapt or they die.

  • Fubara and the Rivers tragedy

    Fubara and the Rivers tragedy

    The problem in Rivers State is not whether former governor Nyesom Wike or Governor Siminalayi Fubara is right or wrong, particularly as shown by the controversial local government poll. The problem is not even Mr Wike’s obtruding personality and his sometimes flawed arguments and abrasive remarks. The real problem is the infantilism of Mr Fubara. The former governor imposes himself needlessly on his subordinates and mentees, including, sadly, the governor. But the governor is tragically a dictator of the meanest variety without the competence of a dictator of modest capacity.

    The Electoral Act spells out how the LG poll should be conducted, a fact rightly reinforced by the Federal High Court in Abuja. But having been wrong-footed, Mr Fubara has reframed the narrative away from what the constitution provides to what his fight with the former governor entails, a polarisation that unnecessarily veers into utter and disreputable leadership failing. The governor abuses the Inspector General of Police, curses his opponents, threatens everyone and any institution except perhaps the president, at least publicly, and just because he is governor, blithely pronounces every property, including the parliament and judiciary buildings as well as legislative and judicial quarters, in Rivers as his own. This is not sophistry; it is ignorance par excellence.

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    It is unlikely the Rivers LG poll will stand, regardless of the constitutional alibi Mr Fubara pounces on consequent upon the Supreme Court decision on LG autonomy. The law is the law, and it must be followed to the letter, especially in the absence of ambiguities. Yet, Mr Fubara is the product of Mr Wike’s incompetent leadership recruitment process. The former governor birthed a Frankenstein out of his disparate thoughts; it is his duty, assuming he can control his hubris, to manage the catastrophe he helped unleash on the state.