The Nation Newspaper

Category: Sunday

  • Hurricane Kamala

    Hurricane Kamala

    I interrupt my series on British politics to bring you this article about Hurricane Kamala because that is what is going on in real time and in the way of hurricanes, nothing about them can be put off for the briefest second as they are not only extremely destructive but are also very fast. One minute they are doing their wild gyration far out to sea but in the next they are tearing off roofs far inland and depositing them much further inland. They come riding on the wings of fierce winds, followed by heavy rains which deposit tons of water on places where rains are not needed. They pass over very quickly leaving floods, broken houses and lot of tears in their wake. Above all, they are unforgettable which is why what is currently going on is in the category of a political hurricane. One minute, Kamala Harris was a dutiful, loyal deputy to the visibly ageing Joe Biden and presidential candidate for the Democratic Party. With the awesome speed of a hurricane, she was transformed into the president in waiting, depending on the result of an election taking place in less than eighty days. That is quick, very quick and is attracting attention not just within America but all over the world. It has even attracted my attention and that is of personal significance because I completely lost interest in the politics of the USA as soon as Donald Trump dragged everything into the sewer by winning the 2016 election. Until he was actually declared the winner of the 2016 election, I had dismissed him as a sick joke, a clown of Shakespearian quality guaranteed to provide cheap entertainment but not to be admitted into any polite society. That the keys of the city were entrusted to his care convinced me that the USA was just a country of hillbillies that had managed to acquire powerful nuclear weapons but lack the finesse to manage them safely. In other words, a great and pressing danger to the rest of the world. I shudder to think that for four years, the nuclear codes were in sole charge of a wilful infant who lived in a bizarre world of his own making, a man so unpredictable that a psychiatric examination should classify him as unfit to be in charge of any moving machinery. And yet, there he was, arguably the most powerful man in the world. There must be something frightening about democracy if after all the expenses of presidential elections in the USA, all that it throws up is a Trump. The rest of the world demands an apology for this egregious insult. That this certified buffoon is supported by roughly half of the US electorate beggars belief and is a pointer to serious danger ahead.

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    The first round of the Trump presidency came to an end in a blaze of infamy when his supporters, full of unrighteous indignation invaded Congress with the expressed intention of hanging the colourless Vice President, Mike Pence who was almost as deranged as his principal in a different kind of way. The invaders were determined to hang Pence to prevent him from officially confirming the result of an election which Trump had lost but which loss he had truculently refused to acknowledge. For the first time in the two hundred and fifty year history of the USA, the loser in a presidential election did not accept defeat and refused to  congratulate his victorious opponent. If you think that the threat to hang Pence was empty, you’d better think again. Those lunatics  travelled many miles, some of them, hundreds of miles to get to Washington with the sole purpose of hanging Pence and would have done so had they managed to lay hands on him on that red letter day. Trump and his army of unhinged supporters have, for close to four years continued to throw tantrums in the manner of a spoilt brat who had been deprived of his favourite toy or just exhibiting signs of his own destructive bloody mindedness.

    Outside looking in, it was clear to me that the Trump presidency was an unmitigated disaster in every way that it could be judged. He was hardly in office before he issued orders banning people he identified as coming to the USA from what he described as shit hole countries and his religious bias was as plain as the nose on his face as those shit hole countries were home to Muslims. That said, that statement has to be balanced by the fact that he was soon spitting venom against the re several st of the world including those countries which for decades had been allies to the USA in peace and war.

    Since he left the office of the POTUS, Trump has been making a great deal of noise, mainly telling anyone who cared to listen what a great person he really is. This is so clearly untrue that what we are dealing with here is a man in the throes of a serious pathological condition. And yet this person is still asking stridently that he be returned to the White House for another term in office. Well, even if he has been twice impeached, he is still well within his right to contest another round of election. What boggles the mind is that as at now, he has an even chance of winning and getting the chance to be inflicted on the rest of the world. It would not have mattered if he was trying to become the president of some obscure banana republic somewhere in the back of beyond. But the POTUS has such an immense capacity for mischief all over the world that all the more than eight billion people on earth may, at some point in time be affected by what the man in the White House does, especially on the African continent. In the past, Eisenhower authorised the murder of Lumumba even if it was carried out by Mobutu. Reagan, from the depth of his incipient dementia bombed Gadhafi and the job was completed by Obama who oversaw the murder of Gadhafi and the dismemberment of Libya. Various American presidents propped up Mobutu who had DRC in his pocket for several decades looting the country almost as thoroughly  as King Leopold, king of the Belgians had done in his prime. Unfortunately, who rules America is important to people all around the world. The situation is such that I think that somehow, the rest of the world should have a say as to who should be the president of the USA.

    The fitness or otherwise of Donald Trump should not be decided by political considerations alone. He is loaded down with so much moral baggage that he should not be considered for the post of dog catcher in a rural town in the Appalachian mountains. This is a man who by his own admission, is not averse to ‘grabbing women by the pussy’. He has gone much further than that as some women have come out to accuse him of rape and other forms of sexual predation. Being a billionaire, at least by his own boastful admission, he should be so much attractive to women that he should not have any problem with having women swarming over him for the privilege of giving him all the sexual satisfaction he wants. What do we have instead? He was reduced to paying a porn star rejoicing in the theatrical name of  Stormy Daniels for what she described as an all too brief roll in the hay. That in itself is not a crime but paying her a financial inducement for keeping quiet about it is not compatible with the dictates  of the law. It becomes a crime when the money used to silence the otherwise garrulous Miss Daniels came out of campaign funds, it became a matter for judge and jury leading to an indictment on thirty-four counts. His guilt has been proved and he is awaiting sentencing. I wonder how many of his enthusiastic supporters would accept this mean man as a son in-law and yet they are all willing to vote for him to become the POTUS. Things just don’t add up! The man appears to be heavily coated with Teflon to which nothing can stick. This is clearly not a quality that is compatible with the exalted office of the President of the USA. It only points to the fact that there is something large and rotten in the land. Should Trump win the coming election that would serve as confirmation that the rot has become irreversible.

    Given the job that he had to do, the POTUS is expected to be a man of at least above average intelligence. Whilst some of them had acquired formidable academic credentials some of them, we will not mention names here, some of them did not qualify to participate for any competition for intellectual gymnastics, only one in history can be described as ignorant. Donald Trump has not filed his tax returns neither has he allowed his academic transcripts to see the light of day. He has gone so far as to place an injunction against their release to the public. But, no transcripts are necessary to show that the man is as ignorant as a brush even if he boasts all the time of the awesome depth of his own mental acuity. There should be a competition to find the most egregious of his ignorant pronouncements but my own favourite is when he suggested that hurricanes could be nuked to prevent them from forming, displaying his ignorance of hurricanes and nuclear weapons in one short sentence. Other people are likely to remember other howlers that fell from the unguarded mouth of Donald Trump. In a world that is awash with information and the means of accessing it, there is no excuse for a man that stands within the glare of informed public scrutiny to remain wilfully ignorant and carry the burden of his ignorance with such aplomb.

    Trump is man who is just bad and transparently so but he also commands the fanatical support and adulation of millions of his compatriots. So many of them talk about him only in tones that should be reserved for proven deities. These people are the oxygen tank keeps his fire burning bright giving him the encouragement to hope for another go at being president. However, we should not forget that even in the election in which he was declared the winner he scored fewer votes than his opponent and has the electoral college system to thank for his unlikely victory. In other words, he is nowhere near as popular as he thinks he is.

    Throughout his life into which his political career is embedded, Trump has shown such contempt for women that I find it impossible to think that he could have demonstrated sufficient charm to convince one woman, let alone three of them to marry him and bear his children. It is therefore poetic justice that at this time, his greatest nemesis is a woman. In the same vein Trump has always shown his visceral hatred of black people and yet it is a plot of Shakespearian construction that one person who stubbornly stands between Trump and sweet repose is a black woman. Trump has always been vociferous in his condemnation of recent immigrants to America labelling them as murderers, rapists or both. It is therefore sweetly ironic that the figure he sees in his frequent nightmares these days is Kamala Harris, daughter of immigrants, one black, the other Indian, both of them with proven intellect with life long commitment to academic achievements. It is fitting that the person who now carries a visible and auditory threat of ending Trump’s political career is a second generation immigrant who through the power of the fourteenth amendment to the American constitution is 100% American. With all the rights and privileges of an American citizen. The point that seems to elude most of Trump’s bigoted supporters is that all Americans including the so called indigenous Indians are descended from immigrants, the only difference between them Nobeing the time and means of their arrival in America.

    Kamala Harris has arrived on the shores of America with the force of a hurricane and although the ignorant Donald Trump will try to drop nuclear bombs in her party as time goes on, she has demonstrated enough destructive capacity to blow him out of the water and send him scurrying back to Mar A Largo or into a prison cell no later than November 5.

  • The Ariwo Symphony

    The Ariwo Symphony

    Unending struggle for federalism in Nigeria

    The enduring impression of the man himself is of somebody perfectly at peace with himself, a man who views the world with the profound equanimity of a natural philosopher. The judge does not submit to, or subject himself to, the raw and raucous emotions of the rowdy masses. Whatever the wailing and caterwauling his ruling might have provoked, the judge must go placidly before the world. He cannot express a personal opinion and neither can he give vent to personal feeling without bringing down the template and the temple itself.

      The wise Yoruba people observe that a person’s destiny is often embedded in the cognomen they bear. (Oruko nroni) By the time he vacated the exalted office of the Chief Justice of the federation last week, Justice Olukayode Ariwoola had given his compatriots enough to chew and ponder on, particularly on the landmark ruling of the Supreme Court on what constitutes the federating units in a federation. But his Lordship would not be disturbed by the noise emanating from the gallery. True to his name, the retired jurist does not believe that the conclave of the wise should be deterred by the howling of the hoi polloi or that the famously rich should be prevented from enjoying the pleasures of their wealth by the impudent masses. (Ariwo loni, ariwo lola. Ariwoola)

        Forever class conscious, the Yoruba aristocracy has a fascinating way of dealing with noisy disturbance by simply ignoring it.  Aficionados of juju music will recall Ebenezer Obey’s classic panegyric for Jimoh Ajani Areago, aka Eji Omo Gbadero. As soon as the lead vocalist began chanting the effusive praise of the famed land speculator, the drummer picked up the scent in arresting concord and complementarity.

        K’ole yewon, rarara k’ole ye won

       Kole ye won bi Gbadero se nlogba

     I ba se’pe o ye won bi Gbadero se nlo’gba

     I ba sepe o ye won bi Gbadero se nlo’gba l’eko oo…..

     Asiri eko koni tu loju ewe

    And then the heavyweight but diminutive drummer, Mutiu Jimoh, weighs in:

     Omo Gbadero, dami dami dami

     Ariwo majesin kii p’alakara

      Dami, dami dami

       The noise of impertinent youth (majesin) does not kill the successful fried bean producer. Anybody who has witnessed how the hordes of rowdy youth often besiege the stall of akara women demanding for priority attention will appreciate what is meant by this. Ariwoola is unmoved by all the noise. A recent encounter with Ariwoola before he vacated office was as intriguing as it was revealing. As the crowd of distinguished guests pulled out of the hall after the last Democracy Day Dinner in Abuja on June 12, yours sincerely was pulled over just outside the hall by a police officer who firmly but politely informed one that his boss demanded our attention. The officer pointed in the direction of the pavement where an elderly fellow sat with a quiet and demure demeanor. He was clad in snow white traditional agbada complimented by snow white beard and moustache. Set against the background of state glamour and the frenzied crowd rushing to nowhere, there was something surreal about the calm composure of the elderly one. As one gingerly held out his hand, one was convinced that it was a case of mistaken identity. But it was not.

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       “Ranka dede”, one greeted thinking that the personage was of northern provenance.

       “Ariwoola ni oruko temi”, (My name is Ariwoola) the man calmly responded. Memory and recollection flooded in immediately. It was almost fifty years ago since one left him behind at the university. But there are some people you never forget.

       “Ha!! CJ, CJ!! Great Ife!!! I thought the beard was bigger than this!” one crowed.

       Further pleasantries and the promise of getting in touch, yours sincerely jumped into the waiting bus. A fortnight after Ariwoola’s departure from office and a few weeks after the Supreme Court ruling granting full autonomy and implied right as a federating unit to the local government, the din and uproar emanating from public reaction to the landmark ruling as well as widespread censure at what is considered the lowest ebb of integrity and probity in the history of the nation’s judiciary continue unabated.

    Some sections and fractions of the political class are yet to come to terms with what has hit them. While many believe that the federal authorities are merely gaming the system, leveraging on their power and authority to put opponents of their political suzerainty in their place by further unitarizing what is already a unitarist chokehold on the nation, the teeming supporters of the ruling believe that as the unit closest to the pulse of the people,   autonomy for local government means that the hour of liberation of the people as well as fast-tracked development at the grassroots level is at hand. Furthermore, by removing local government from the apron strings of thieving and authoritarian governors, a way has been found to curb their excesses and to redirect critical resources they have appropriated to the real people who need them.

      Not so fast. Opponents of the ruling countered that this is merely an attempt to demonize government at the sub-national level over the crime of corruption and mismanagement for which the federal authorities are equally culpable. For every governor accused of economic malfeasance, there are at least three federal officials under interdiction. In any case, the local government as an independent federating unit is a constitutional bugaboo not sighted anywhere in the written grundnorm.  Local council is not the same thing as local government. In America, people gather together to form their own association and then apply for funding. It doesn’t make them federating. The only federating units explicitly stated in the constitution are the federal and sub-national authorities. Nothing outside of this framework can be created or imported into it by a body supposed to interpret the constitution. 

      The most forward-looking and progressive-minded among the lot reject the ruling as an authoritarian and reactionary claptrap insisting that when you are in hole, you must stop digging. A nation clamoring  for liberation from the over-centralized unitarist stranglehold imposed by its colonial forebears despite the lip service paid to a truly federalized system on the eve of independence must not be seen loading the dice in favour  of a heavily centralized authority at the national level. Rather, political rationality and the drive towards modernity suggest that concerted efforts must be directed at loosening the vice grip of centralized tyranny which has made it impossible for the creative genius and enterprising spirit of the various people to be set free.

       These conflicting arguments merely reinforce the notion that no federation is ever given in advance. Rather than being given in utopian abstraction, a federation, however it turns out at a particular point in history, is defined and refined in action; in continuous agonistic contention by the political elite and occasionally by direct action by the people.  The outcome of these struggles is often different from what the protagonists and antagonists have in mind. Fresh limbs and arms must be found to continue from where others drop off. 

    Owing to colonial occupation and its postcolonial offshoot, federalism in Nigeria and most colonial nations is always a heavily hybridized product with direct imposition by colonial, military and even civilian authorities being pushed back by the people to make for a more amenable and beneficial outcome. If the current authorities succeed in imposing the “amended” federalism on the nation, it will be a reflection of the subsisting balance of forces and there is not much a visionary federalist can do about that. The wager is that it will not be the last of such amendments if it cripples the aspirations of constituting entities.

       The history of federalism in Nigeria is the history of unitarism handed down in various disguises and masks .Colonel Fredrick Lugard, the colonial progenitor of the new nation, did not have to pretend or dissemble that he was running a military garrison with little or no time for niceties or diplomatic finesse. He did so with exemplary brutality until 1918 when his disdain for the natives led to a mishandling of the Egba revolt against colonial government. At this point, even his patrons in Whitehall had grown tired of the old colonial warrior. He was recalled. A nation cannot be run like a military garrison. At the rate Lugard was going, he would have had to pacify the major nationalities of the new nation several times over before Pax Britannia could be imposed.

       Thereafter, the new country was run very much like a dual-state nation until the run up to independence. This was to prevent political contamination and the contagion of radicalism by southern anarchists who were up to no good. By the time the veil was lifted with the approach of independence, the damage had been done. Protracted alienation led to severe estrangement. Luckily for both colonial masters and their protégés, a new crop of visionary colonial officers came to the rescue based on fresh thinking. On the strength of widely divergent cultures, modes of production and differences of religion, they argued that it may be better and more productive for the three different regions to develop at their own pace and on their own initiative with a central administration serving as remote spur.

       Once this new initiative took hold as the new norm of governance, power was wrested from the traditional rulers and invested in the emergent political class to drive the project of modernity. This new arrangement immediately generated its own tensions and tragicomedy between the Deputy Leader of Action Group, Chief Bode Thomas who was named the boss of the Oyo Local Government and the incumbent Alaafin, Oba Adeyemi.  At the first meeting of the council, the flamboyant and dandified Lagos lawyer was alleged to have ordered the Alaafin to get up for him based on established order of protocol. The traditional ruler was said to have been so miffed by this calculated act of disrespect and rudeness that he was said to have placed a curse on Bode Thomas from which he died two days later. In bitter retaliation, the Action Group was believed to have contrived to get the powerful monarch dethroned and banished from his domain. He died a few years after in a condition of distressing poverty.

    It can be seen from the foregoing that ever since the amalgamation of the two Southern and Northern protectorates in 1914, the struggle for federalism and egalitarian redistribution of power in Nigeria has been marked by continuous strife and upheavals sometimes leaving bloody claw marks all over the protagonists. Sometimes, it ends in lone victory for the visionaries and sometimes in catastrophic defeat and precipitate retreat. The one unfolding before our very eyes will not be different.

    As the Tinubu administration joins the fray, it is important to reframe for the administration some of the costly milestones and important benchmarks in Nigeria’s unending struggle for a just and true federal arrangement. First no civilian government in the history of the nation with the exception of the First Republic has managed to fundamentally alter the structure of the federation. In the First Republic, the Balewa administration not only created the Midwest Region, it also managed to impose a state of emergency on an equally federating unit. Needless to add that both interventions, because they were fundamentally partisan and without much objective merits, ended in tears and the eventual destruction of the Republic. May the good Lord guide the administration in the right direction.

  • The Restless Atmosphere

    The Restless Atmosphere

    The title of this piece is not original to the columnist. It is borrowed from a Geography textbook for advanced learners quite famous at the beginning of the seventies almost fifty five years ago. Yours sincerely still remembers his Geography professor , the then Dr Lawrence Jeje, delivering a masterful appraisal of what happens when the atmosphere becomes restless. It is marked by a tectonic shift of unusual vehemence; a whirring of geological plates on a colossal scale leading to widespread disturbance of earthly stability. The average citizen is unperturbed by developments. But the experts wear a gloomy visage. This was one of those circumstances when ignorance is truly bliss.

      As it could be in Geography, so it is in contemporary History. The world has gone truly restless. Barely two weeks after we published a piece extolling Britain as a worthy example of a truly multi-cultural society, the country of good manners exploded in an orgy of mindless violence, mutual loathing and generalized anarchy. As pitched battles raged on the streets with law enforcement agencies clearly losing the initiative to hordes of unemployed, hungry and angry toughies radicalized by unrelenting social adversities, there was a brief possibility that things might tip over to complete anarchy. This was not the England we thought we knew. Years of sullen resentment against the system and homicidal rage incubating in many garrets and underground dungeons against the privileged classes battled their way to the banquet. They may not give up or give in easily the next time around.

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       It is not only in Britain that things appear to have gone awry. France barely escaped the scourge of rightwing despotism and only when its left , centre and moderate right operationalized  voting across board irrespective of ideological leaning. At the last count, Emanuel Macron was still clinging to the rope.  All over Europe, there is a fearsome right wing resurgence which does not brook opposition or some old notions of brotherhood or equality of race. In America, despite the withdrawal of Joe Biden from the presidential race, the American presidential election later this year promises to be the most divisive and rancorous ever. The feel good factor has deserted most countries as their citizens struggle with bills.

       This global crisis of biblical hunger, lack of shelter, erosion of spending capacity and absence of job security is being driven by an underlying shortage of hope and loss of faith in the capacity of humans to organize themselves and order their own affairs. The collapse of the big religions that the world has known is supplemented and complemented by the dramatic unraveling major ideologies across the global spectrum. Never in human history have humans felt more forsaken and abandoned to their terrible fate. The shortage of food on the table is accentuated by the absence of nourishment for the soul and the spirit.

      The world needs a deep make-over; a fundamental rethink and reappraisal of the role of government in our life. The turbulence and restlessness may well presage a profound global restructuring. The next wars will be wars of the mind; wars that will make nonsense of national borders and the current physical self-containment of humanity. It is when all avenues of development and capacity building are blocked that humans are forced to reimagine the fate of humanity. The human species is about to take another phenomenal leap.

  • Obasanjo more disillusioned than ever

    Obasanjo more disillusioned than ever

    Those who plan to write former president Olusegun Obasanjo’s biography will labour to make sense of his person, his philosophy and many jarring contradictions, and his times in office, both as a military dictator and democratically elected president. If the biographers want to be true to their art, they will find themselves skewering him on every page, and perhaps in every paragraph. Even the redemptive part of his leadership will, under their pens, turn out as a vice or caricature. After he relinquished office as dictator in 1979, no elected or unelected successor was ever good enough for him or the country, even though he masterminded the elections that cobbled the Second Republic’s constitution, produced his successor, and erected the 1979 political dispensation on quicksand. And after he left office as a two-term president in 2007, again, no one could hold the candle to him. Since then he has given everyone, his successors and public alike, the full length of his waspish tongue.

    Last week, he was again at his dogmatic worst in the presence of proselytising lawmakers who sought his endorsement for the constitutional amendment they hoped to sponsor. They are probably shamefaced by now. Led by Hon. Ikenga Ugochinyere (Ideato North and South constituency of Imo State), the lawmakers sought the former president’s buy-in, believing, strangely, that his support would go a long way in helping them push the agenda of one-term rotational presidency. Never one to shun the limelight, Chief Obasanjo welcomed them but poured cold water on their enthusiasm. Their goal, he said firmly, was both tangential and inconsequential to the real issues bedeviling Nigeria. He said: “The issue is not whether Nigeria should adopt a single six-year term or maintain the status quo. If the mentality of the people in governance does not change, then Nigeria will remain where it is. For me, the issue is for us to get it right. Whether we have one term of six years or two terms of four years, where it’ll work is our mentality. Our main problem is ourselves, and until we are taking care of ourselves it doesn’t matter. We may have one term of four years, one term of six years, one term of seven years, if it’s the same people and the same mentality and the way we do things then it won’t change. Yes, the system; yes, democracy. We have to rethink democracy. We have to rethink the form of government. But what about the character of the people in government? With all due respect, most of them should be behind bars, some should even be on the gallows and that is the truth.”

    In one long exhalation, Chief Obasanjo threw out the reform agenda of his guests and redirected them to the more salient issue of leadership character. Given the controversy swirling around Hon Ugochinyere and the NNPC probe panel he chaired, it is not clear whether the former president meant to fry any small fish other than the successor presidents he has loathed since he left office. On the surface, Chief Obasanjo was right about the inconsequentiality of term limits, and he may have even begun to rethink his specious argument about the need to rethink the liberal democracy bequeathed to Africans by Western powers. But it is remarkable that in his lengthy and didactic pontifications before his chafing guests, during which he boxed the air and thumped the table, he was not struck by a sense of irony that his eight unbroken and largely uneventful years as president did not afford Nigeria the benefit of his quaint moralising.

    Thereafter, Chief Obasanjo launched into what he considered the indispensable core of leadership, the issue of character. But no matter how hard anyone tries, they could never get the former president to define the term beyond his sophomoric platitudes with which he has inundated his longsuffering guests. He has written books, some of them panegyrics on his time in office, led Nigeria for about 11 years, and addressed the world, the continent, and Nigeria too many times to count on diverse subjects. But in none of these, whether in books or public fora, had he ever addressed the subject of character in its most intellectual, transcendental and nuanced sense. Undoubtedly, he frequently talks about character, belabouring friends and enemies in equal measure, as indeed he did to the besotted Hon. Ugochinyere and his co-travellers, but he suffuses his speeches and references with the romantic and rudimentary notion of what character means rather than offer the deeper, classical definition. Nor could he resist the sanctimonious urge to ask for the jailing of leaders who lacked the character he talked about, insisting laughably that “most of them should be behind bars”. Surely, he does not think he would be excluded from that hypothetical list, especially given his massive investments in lands, agriculture and education while still in office. He is like Nigerians who romanticise revolutions and coups d’etat, imagining that revolutions can be confined to test tubes, and coups could never lead to war, and they and their families are immune to the sanguinary and cataclysmic consequences of coups and revolutions.

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    Chief Obasanjo’s sweeping dismissal of other political leaders gives the impression he really thinks he is above suspicion. Such delusions are a consequence of his lack of introspection. Throughout the 10 days of protest in some states of Nigeria, a probably disillusioned Chief Obasanjo drew the attention of the administration to the dangers of not heeding the cries of the youths. He said: “As I have warned earlier, we should know that we are all sitting on a powder keg if we fail to begin to do the right thing. For instance, what the youths are demanding is very legitimate and should be listened to. Or why should they be denied what rightfully belongs to them? They make demands, and we are not listening to them. Many of them are frustrated, desperate, angry, and unemployed. What do we expect? They deserve to be given listening ears.” As a former president who unconvincingly claims to respect democracy and has spoken about reforming the country’s democratic system away from its Western straitjacket, he did not seize the opportunity of the visiting legislative reformers to denounce the idiocy of protesters calling for a coup, nor did he think it fit to denounce the obviously partisan call for the overthrow of the constitution. Most of the 15 or 20 demands of the protesters were unrealistic in the extreme; but Chief Obasanjo glossed over any jarring contradiction to instead sound the alarm while banging the table before his guests, engaging in outright mendacity, and feigning passion, patriotism and impatience.

    In the past few months, and in fact since last year when he hoped a revolution would sweep away the result of the 2023 presidential election, he has spoken pessimistically about Nigeria, democracy and the administration. There were no encouraging words from him, no attempt whatsoever to inspire the country into believing in itself, no attempt to rally the country behind great ideals to sustain and improve constitutional rule, and no indication at all that he expects the country sometime in the future to surmount the difficulties it faces. Everything from him has been about depression, discouragement, alarm, and catastrophe. If the country does not revolve around him, he always hoped his prophecies about its impending collapse would be self-fulfilling. But perhaps he is not even conscious of his pessimistic and dismissive characterisation of modern Nigeria, and he has drawn no lessons at all from the anomie in Somalia, the confusion in Kenya, the great example set by Britain in dealing with violent protesters and those who incite them on social media, and the global economic crisis from which Nigeria is certainly not immune.

  • Acquiescent National Assembly not helping democracy

    Acquiescent National Assembly not helping democracy

    The National Assembly is much sturdier than many Nigerians give it credit. Their lawmaking ability may be questioned and even ridiculed, but that is hardly the real reason they are viewed with suspicion and, in some cases, derision. They are not often fractious, notwithstanding the aberrant lawmaking of the 8th Senate under Bukola Saraki, the defiance of the House of Representatives under Aminu Masari (2003-2007), or the fiercely independent late Ghali Umar Na’Abba (1999-2003). They have been heavily criticised by former presidents, notably the self-righteous Olusegun Obasanjo who, despite posturing as the archetypal democrat, took the extraordinary step of intruding upon the independence of the National Assembly and whimsically dethroning some of the legislature’s presiding officers as well as his party chairmen. No matter what anyone thinks about the national lawmakers, and irrespective of the different ideological and nonideological political parties they belonged to, they have managed over the past two decades and more to balance their unity and methods on the fulcrum of their humongous budgetary allocations.

    Despite the critical mass of public opinion coalescing against them, displacing them from their luxurious perch will, however, not be easy. Backed by statistics and the damning campaign by top economists, including former CBN governor Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, Chief Obasanjo accused the National Assembly of consuming a disproportionate percentage of the national budget, estimated at about a quarter of all government revenue. But the former president did little to redress the matter when he was in office; instead he got between the sheets with them in a bid to secure their endorsement for a third presidential term. Since then, after his failure to set a great foundation for the Fourth Republic, succeeding presidents have kicked the can of legislative profligacy down the road. Ex-president Goodluck Jonathan sucked up to the lawmakers, considering how nervous he was in wielding presidential power in the midst of feuding religious and ethnic behemoths, until he was cuckolded by the legislators. Ex-president Muhammadu Buhari, probably Nigeria’s most taciturn leader, was too exasperated with their antics and intransigence to bother about their profligacy. Under the current Bola Tinubu administration, both the executive and the legislature have stalked each other, and are too chary of the risks of open confrontation, especially because in the eyes of censorious Nigerians, neither has kept their nose clean.

    But the wind of change may be blowing. In the past, some lawmakers had broken ranks with their colleagues and spilled the beans over their total emoluments, but the National Assembly always rode the storm and berthed safely, often with great mirth and backslapping. Now the storm is much severer, and the mood of the country decidedly and truculently foul. Riding it will require virtuoso surfing, which none of the presiding or principal officers have, having been weighed down by decades of pampering and indulgence. It is not certain what is prompting the self-immolation now begun in the legislature, but a few lawmakers seem bent on repudiating the ironclad solidarity that has pervaded the Assembly for decades. Last week, Senator Sumaila Kawu (Kano South) indicated that each lawmaker took home N21m every month, but added that it included running costs of their offices. The Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) has, however, clarified that each senator takes home a salary of about N1,063,860 per month. Kaduna’s Sen. Shehu Sani explained that during his time in the senate, each senator took home in salary and running costs about N13.5m monthly. There is really little or no controversy about the huge sums the lawmakers get, in salaries and running costs, whether all the components making up the allocation are available for each lawmaker to spend privately and directly or not. What angers the public is the huge cost of running lawmakers’ offices. They insist the cost must be considerably reduced in order to justify the sacrifices they are asking of others. In the alternative, Nigerians ask for a constitutional amendment to make the legislature unicameral, and emoluments restricted mainly to sitting allowances.

    Read Also: Tinubu orders reduction of Nigeria’s official delegation to UNGA

    But rather than get bogged down in needless controversies, the National Assembly should admit that they have been so battered by negative publicity over the decades that they are no longer popular, not to talk of being useful to both the president, whom they appear anxious to please, and the country, which they have provoked with their indifference. The executive branch at the national and state levels is being pressured to cut the cost of governance; the legislature needs to change tack and follow suit. They must not wait until the public and protesters seize the initiative from them. It is true that the huge amount allocated to lawmakers end up servicing their insatiable constituencies and contacts, but they are involved in an argument they cannot conceivably win. Wisdom should direct them to rationalise their costs in all legislative ramifications. Crucially too, it is time the presiding officers recognised the sensitivity of their offices. Speaker of the House of Representatives Tajudeen Abbas cannot afford the legislative faux pas he embroiled himself in last week before public fury compelled him to step down the Counter Subversion Bill, 2024 which he introduced late last month, perhaps without deep reflection. He has an office and a retinue of aides, not to talk of opportunities to sound many top-level politicians and intellectuals out on the integrity of his sponsored bills. Why didn’t he?

    It is also time Senate President Godswill Akpabio upped his game by conjuring the gravitas that befits his office and weighty bills under legislative consideration. He has tried to balance the interests of powerful groups and individuals in the senate, and has so far walked the tightrope delicately; but his cultural and elocutionary shibboleths have disabled him from rising beyond the provincial merriness he got away with as a governor. His borderline solecism, sometimes baffling laughter, forced humour, and completely tactless conclusions and poor judgement have denuded his senate presidency of all gravitas. The question he must address going forward is whether he can conjure the seriousness and studiousness his office absolutely requires, assuming he has it tucked somewhere in the inner recesses of his heart. Hon Abbas has some gravitas, but he too appears prone to careless wanderings and distractions.

    But more worrisomely, the National Assembly’s presiding officers have yet to appreciate and cultivate the sense of responsibility needed to enable the country and the president work on and pass impactful bills. Sen Akpabio was cavalier about the question of a new presidential jet, a subject he should have addressed with all legislative and placatory finesse in view of the anger on the streets; and both presiding officers were, to put it mildly, conspicuously maladroit in considering the bill on a new national anthem behind which they sentimentally goose-stepped. They have so far inadvertently shown themselves to be a couple of fawning legislative chambers destitute of a sense of history. Even if they must pass contentious bills, couldn’t they do it with class? It is time to put their shoulders to the wheel, acquire the excellence needed to court the trust and respect of Nigerians, and become keenly aware that the judgement of posterity can be cruel, unforgiving, and often irreversible. But if they are reluctant or incapable of self-examination and reform of the legislature’s bureaucracy and budgets, the presidency should cajole them; for in the end both democracy and the republic, which Nigerians have managed to sustain for about 25 years, are threatened by the legislative laxities, if not inanities, of decades.

  • EndBadGovernance protest: How Tinubu’s appeal mainly quelled the fire

    EndBadGovernance protest: How Tinubu’s appeal mainly quelled the fire

    It was yet another hectic week, leading into some ease. Compared to the one before it, this last week really brought some relief to all Nigerians, all as in everyone who has one reason or the other to be identified with the country. It was the week when both the led and the leader breathed a sigh of relief. The pages of the dailies bore it all; the carnage and sheer destructed that attended the end of the previous week, gradually waned as the new week dawned and the new one largely remained peaceful, especially in states that witnessed the fury of the protest-turned-riot at its onset.

    Although the abrupt slow-down of the protest last week owed so much to the tempo with which the destruction picked off from day one. A protest that was meant to stretch through ten days started out with tens of corpses and billions of naira worth of merchandises lost to theft and destruction, that was enough warning to any attentive community because if the action continue with that speed, it would mean that the mutually assured destruction (MAD) was built to go round for all, including the hero and the villain.

    So we all, as a nation, at least the right thinking lot of us, realised this could not be allowed to continue so the papers started reporting calls from all angles, including from those who were hitherto identified as enablers and cheerers of the protest. After day one, people like Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa (SAN) started calling for an end to the protest-turned-riot. Subsequent days saw the number depleting because there was no guarantee the rioters were going to be civil. Some states, like Kano and Kaduna, resorted to curfews.

    However, much more than the call for ‘fall back’ by the instigators of the protest-turned-riot call, the gesture-in-faith by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to address Nigerians on issues around the protest quelled much of the fire lit nationwide by the raucous action. On Sunday morning, the President made a nationwide broadcast, which was repeated twice through the day. Focused on the circumstances that have led to the hardship that occasioned the protests, Tinubu would neither beg the question, nor hide behind the needle, he said it as it was, especially why the bitter pills of reforms have to be the next option for us all, if we must survive as a nation.

    There is economic hardship, an offshoot of which is the pervasive hunger in the land. He is well aware of this and right from the moment he set out as President, he has made efforts to temper these or the circumstances that led to them. However, whatever wanted to happen has started happening, efforts and ideas of government notwithstanding, and it already had led to the undesirable, what then was the next line of action. He faced up to the people who elected him to lead them.

    He appealed to protesters to refrain from violence and destruction, acknowledging the pain and frustration driving the protests and emphasized his administration’s commitment to listening and addressing their concerns, urging Nigerians to work together to build a brighter future. He also highlighted his administration’s efforts to stabilize the economy, improve infrastructure, and create opportunities for young people, assuring that results would soon be visible and concrete. He cautioned against allowing “enemies of democracy” to use the protests to promote an unconstitutional agenda that would set Nigeria back on its democratic journey.

    The President also emphasized the importance of choosing hope over fear, unity over division, and progress over stagnation. He urged security operatives to maintain peace, law, and order while respecting human rights conventions, stressing that the safety and security of all Nigerians are paramount. By appealing for calm and unity, the President seeks to address the grievances of protesters while ensuring the nation’s democratic and economic progress.

    He reiterated his administration’s commitment to improving the lives of Nigerians, especially the youth, through various initiatives. He announced the processing of N45.6 billion for payment to students and institutions under the student loan scheme and the establishment of CREDICORP with over N200 billion to facilitate essential product acquisition. Additionally, he revealed the release of extra N50 billion each for the student loan and Credit Corporation from recovered crime proceeds.

    Read Also: Tinubu to grace Defence College graduation ceremony August 23

    The President further highlighted several initiatives aimed at empowering young people, including the IDiCE program, which has secured $620 million to create millions of IT and technical jobs. Other programme included SUPA, NIYA, and NATEP. He also announced the release of over N570 billion to states for livelihood support, nano-grants to 600,000 nano-businesses, and single-digit interest loans to micro and small businesses. Furthermore, he highlighted the construction of MSME hubs, which have created 240,000 jobs, and the signing of the National Minimum Wage into law.

    He also unveiled ambitious initiatives aimed at stimulating economic growth, including the inauguration of the Renewed Hope City and Estate, which aims to complete 100,000 housing units over three years, creating thousands of jobs. He announced incentives for farmers to increase food production, including the removal of tariffs and import duties on essential items for six months to drive down prices. These initiatives, as have been analyzed by different persons and authorities, demonstrate the administration’s commitment to improving the lives of Nigerians and driving economic growth.

    He did not fail to assure Nigerians that his administration is taking concrete steps to address food security and reduce hunger, revealing that he has been meeting with governors and key ministers to accelerate food production, targeting the cultivation of over 10 million hectares of land for essential food crops.

    He outlined a collaborative approach, where the federal government will provide necessary incentives, while states will provide land, to put millions of people to work and increase food production. This initiative aims to tackle food insecurity and ensure Nigerians have access to affordable and nutritious food.

    To enhance agricultural productivity, he said his administration has ordered mechanized farming equipment, including tractors and planters, worth billions of Naira from the United States, Belarus, and Brazil. He confirmed that the equipment are on their way to Nigeria, demonstrating his commitment to addressing food insecurity and ensuring a food-secure future for the nation.

    He also highlighted significant economic advancements made by his administration in the past 14 months. He noted that aggregate government revenues have more than doubled to over N9.1 trillion in the first half of 2024, thanks to efforts to block leakages, introduce automation, and mobilize funding creatively.

    The President pointed to increased productivity in the non-oil sector, reduced debt service from 97% to 68% of revenue, and clearance of $5 billion in outstanding foreign exchange obligations without adverse impact on programs. These achievements have given the government more financial freedom to fund essential social services like education and healthcare, resulting in the highest allocations ever to State and Local Governments from the Federation Account.

    He also highlighted progress on major infrastructure projects, including roads, bridges, railways, power, and oil and gas developments, which will create thousands of jobs and boost economic output. Additionally, he announced a resurgence in the oil and gas industry, with increased oil production to 1.61 million barrels per day and renewed investor interest, including two Foreign Direct Investments worth over half a billion dollars.

    Over all, President Tinubu’s appeal to the #EndBadGovernance protesters and their organizers was to suspend further demonstrations and engage in dialogue, reiterating his commitment to democratic good governance, respect for constitutional rights, and protection of innocent citizens’ lives and properties.

    He defended his economic policies, including the removal of fuel subsidies and abolition of multiple foreign exchange systems, as necessary decisions to reverse decades of economic mismanagement. He acknowledged that these decisions may have caused temporary hardship, but assured that they were crucial for the country’s long-term economic growth. He finally assured citizens that he is focused on delivering good governance, acknowledging that he is ultimately responsible for the country’s progress. 

    Of course the protests have virtually disappeared in most of the places where they were most violent, but then some copycats in the states that had been considered rather reasonable started steering up unrest, charging the country up again. This development has been attributed to the call by people like the Publisher of Sahara Reporters, Omoyele Sowore, who has consistently made calls for occupation of the streets and has been most active in the latest unrest. By the way, Sowore is making these current calls and giving the directives from the comfort of his home in far away United States of America.

    Meanwhile, a lot have happened between Sunday and this week, at least throughout the last week. For instance, besides every other thing, on Friday he was host to a group of eminent Nigerians and leaders of thought, led by former Secretary-General of the Commonwealth, Chief Emeka Anyaoku, at the State House. The elder statesmen and women came with what they consider as priority and which they want him to make his priority too. The group, known as The Patriots, wanted him to call another constituent assembly of Nigerians, an assembly that will point to the next focus, coming up with a new constitution, reflecting our plurality as a nation.

    However, as we all know that there is a primary focus of the administration, right from when it started out; Tinubu is sold to recovering Nigeria from the brink of economic capitulation. Though he is not opposed to the view of The Patriots, which draws its membership from all parts of the country, it would not have been an advisable to abandon the already set target, as a matter of fact, it would be a waste of time and efforts allowing a distraction (this is my personal view of this development though). But he listened and told them he would want to deliver on the primary goal of his mandate first, which is putting Nigeria on a stable economic footing first, then shift focus to other concerns.

    “The avoidance of chaos is necessary to build this country and move its aspirations forward for the benefit of all of us. I am currently preoccupied with economic reform. That is my first priority. Once this is in place, as soon as possible, I will look at other options, including constitutional review as recommended by you and other options”, the President said.

    Meanwhile, other events and activities still found space in the President’s schedule during the week. It was the week he met as well as made some appointments. For instance, he had to step a Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting down for a National Security Council meeting, a move that reflected his scale of priorities. Though the FEC was scheduled to sit, the mood of the nation was more like in need of something security attention.

    He also made some appoints for a number of critical federal agencies, including some under the Ministry of Education. For example, on Tuesday he appointed seven new heads of agencies and programmes under the Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development. Same thing went for the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), for which he appointed a new board and the Revenue Mobilization Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC), for which he appointed 21 new federal commissioners.

    He continued with the spree on Wednesday, appointing governing boards at three levels of the nation’s educational spheres. He appointed new governing councils for thirteen federal universities and tertiary institutions across the country; appointed new governing councils for six federal colleges of education across the country; and appointed new governing councils for the Maritime Academy of Nigeria, Oron, Akwa Ibom State, and the Nigerian College of Aviation Technology, Zaria, Kaduna State.

    It is a new week from today and new tasks would have been set before the President as part of his scheme at achieving his economic dream for Nigeria. We can only wait to see what the week will throw at the administration and the whole of the nation.  

  • An introspecting North

    An introspecting North

    In ethnically heterogeneous Nigeria, contest for privilege and patronage among the different ethno-political groups is constant, and any presumed disadvantage is perceived as deriving from the malevolence of the contending groups. So, the spokesperson of the Northern Elders Forum (NEF), Abdul-Azeez Suleiman, was reported by Sodiq Omolaoye, in a story titled “We regret voting Tinubu, won’t repeat mistake in 2027, Northern Elders fume,” in The Guardian (Lagos), to have declared on 9 April, 2024: “The North made a mistake in voting Bola Tinubu to the presidency in 2023, and it is unlikely that they will repeat the same error in future.” Suleiman was also reported to have said: “They will prioritise someone who is more inclusive, less controversial, and more aligned with the interests of all regions.”

    The Minister of State for Defence, Bello Matawalle, was reported by Leadership.ng to have reacted indignantly, in a 13 April, 2024 story by Tarkoo David titled “Northern elders, a burden to

    the region – Matawalle.” The Minister was quoted as saying: “The so-called NEF is more or less a political paperweight trying to embark on a destructive journey that will bring the North to disrepute for the group’s personal and selfish gains.” He was said to have further noted: “The group is seeking to erode other people’s rights in order to be recognised or made relevant in the scheme of things despite the failure of their sponsored candidates in the 2023 general elections.”

    The Minister also charged: “The NEF has not deemed it fit to seek audience with Mr. President to discuss issues affecting the Northern region despite the numerous challenges facing the region as rightly highlighted by the president and being addressed by him.” Moreover, he was said to have observed: “The group is yet to visit any of the ministers dealing with issues of security, agriculture, water resources, police affairs, education, health, budget, foreign affairs, or any head of security agencies in the country so far for firsthand knowledge of government programmes and actions.” He was also reported to have asked rhetorically: “So, who is the NEF to want to undermine the president’s victory and even threaten to unseat him?”

    It was in these circumstances, among other ethnic, regional and economic challenges, that a group of Nigerians declared that they had scheduled protests from 1 to 10 August, 2024. The organisers tagged the proposed protests “10 Days or Rage” or “#EndBadGovernance.” From the rhetoric of the organisers, the Federal Government of Nigeria perceived the scheduled protests as an undemocratic scheme to topple the democratically-elected Tinubu administration. As scheduled, the protests took off on the first day of August, and it saw unsettling vandalism, arson and killings in Northern Nigeria.

    In a 4 August, 2024 interview with ARISE News, Ahmad Sajoh, Former Adamawa State Commissioner for Information and Strategy, said: “[W]hat played out was not a perception of Asiwaju by the North. What played out is a clear indication of the abdication of the responsibilities [of] we, the Northern elites. … We have abdicated our role and responsibilities to empower our young people. We’ve allowed a large army of uneducated, out-of-school children walking about in the streets, without homes, without families, without imbibing any values … And, imagine, when they broke into the National Library in Kano, they took away everything except books; not one book was taken by anybody. That tells you that … their direction is totally different from whatever you’re thinking of. We have neglected education in Northern Nigeria.”

    Speaking further about these children, Sajoh said, “They have been the reservoir from where insurgents have been recruiting their army. They have been the reservoir from where bandits and kidnappers have been recruiting their army. … So, this is the kind of people we’re breeding in Northern Nigeria. … It’s a wake-up call to every Northern elite … that if we do not turn around this situation, if we do not address our out-of-school children, if we do not address the absence of skills in our children in Northern Nigeria, if we do not address the problems of unemployment by people who are uneducated, we will end up with a bigger crisis than we are facing.”    

    In a TikTok video which has been circulating widely for some time now, Vice-President Kashim Shettima recounted his friend’s story: “His wife and driver were driving through Kano City. And some young men came out and broke the windscreen of the car and told them in Hausa ‘Shegu, ku na jin dadi, mu mu na wahala’ (‘Bastards, you’re enjoying, we’re suffering.’) And those young men did not run away. It was my friend’s wife and driver that scampered away. And very soon, very soon, we’ll reach that boiling point unless we wear our thinking caps and work for the people.” How prophetic, considering the daring attempt by the protesters to overwhelm the security personnel and enter the Kano State Governor’s Lodge! And, how prophetic, considering the Kaduna protesters defiantly climbing and standing on top of a moving police Armoured Personnel Carrier and hanging on to its front, sides and back!

    Read Also: Northern youths pass vote of confidence on Tinubu, Akpabio

    Moreover, in a 6 August, 2024 interview on the ChannelsTV programme “Politics Today” with Seun Okinbaloye, Shehu Sani, former Senator representing Kaduna Central, said: “[T]he new dimension … was that a day before the last protest, money was shared to youths, and then Russian flags were also shared. That shows that the whole intent of the protest is not simply about the policies and programmes of the government or objection to the removal of subsidy, but there was an attempt to create an atmosphere where there would be an overthrow of the government. And when you have this kind of situation, you would see that there is someone writing a script for anarchy, lawlessness, and disorder.”

    Shehu Sani had earlier on 4 August, 2024 introspectively said in a post on his Facebook page titled “The North; After blaming others let’s probe ourselves”: “Most public schools are free, our young ones still don’t want to go to school. … Most parents in rural areas hand over their children to a religious teacher in the city and the religious teacher depends on the children to beg or steal in order to feed him and his family. For ethnic, religious and sectional reasons, we protected, defended, praised and refused to hold to account all our kinsmen who led the country at every wasted opportunity for over five decades. The bandits and terrorists that kill and kidnap our people and [prevent] our farmers from going to their farms and [prevent] our children from going to school are not from any country or from the South of the country; they came from our homes and from our families up North.”

    In a 25 September, 2023 article titled “The North and Tinubu’s appointments” in his column in Nigerian Tribune, Lasisi Olagunju noted: “President Bola Tinubu gave our country’s Minister of Defence and Minister of State, Defence to the North; he gave the North Minister of Police Affairs and Minister of State, Police Affairs; he gave the North Minister of Education and Minister of State, Education; he gave the North Minister of Agriculture and Food Security and Minister of State, Agriculture and Food Security. Again; he gave the North the Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare plus Minister of Steel Development and Minister of State, Steel Development. To the North, again, Tinubu gave Minister of Water Resources and Minister of State, Water Resources. I can go on and on … No part of the South has that privilege of having ‘couplet’ ministers managing key sectors. It is double, double blessing for the North. I don’t think any president has ever done that.”

    Olagunju also observed that with these North-located strategic appointments, it could be argued that “the cluster pattern is the President’s way of ticking problems and attaching them to localised solutions.” He then asks whether with these strategic appointments, the North “should … still have the mouth to complain of lack of official attention to its endemic insecurity? … [S]hould it still rummage for policies that will wean it off the blight of mass illiteracy and of having uncountable millions of out-of-school-children? … [S]hould we ever hear it lament high incidences of child and maternal mortality and epidemics of preventable diseases? The whole of the agriculture ministry is ceded to the North; the entire Water Resources ministry belongs to the North. We wait to see how it will use these to feed its dying, hungry poor.”

    Specifically regarding the problem of insecurity in the North, Usman Yusuf, a Professor and vocal member of NEF, said on 16 March, 2024 in an ARISE News The Morning Show: “We have a Vice-President, No. 2, who is from the North. We have a Speaker of the House, who is No.4, who is from the North. We have an SGF who is from the North. We have the senior-most military officer who is from the North. We have all the Ministers of Defence from the North. We have the Minister of Police from the North. We have the National Security Adviser from the North. President Bola Ahmed Tinubu would look at us and say, ‘You guys have no excuse not to bring peace to your land.’ So, it is up to us to look at ourselves in the mirror, we Northerners, especially those of us in government, and lock the door and say, ‘People, how do we take care of these problems?’”

    A 30 June, 2024 article by Suleiman A. Suleiman sombrely titled “The North in tatters” in Daily Trust outlined the bases of the Northern crisis: “First, an incline in religiosity has combined paradoxically but seamlessly with a precipitous decline in moral values right from the family level. Second, the traditional institutions, previously firm epicentres of Northern society, have been degraded by politics and the narrow-minded political ambitions of a few. Third, education, which should be a prized heritage of this very society, is either priced out of the reach of millions or lost its real value among many who have it. And where personal integrity was the default currency of all social transactions in Northern Nigeria to the envy and admiration of other Nigerians, money is the new god, such that people do just about anything in pursuit of it.”

    In this article, the focus has been on the North, especially considering the cataclysmic and yet ominous turn of events in the region during the “Days of Rage” protests. This however does not mean that the South does not have its own serious or related problems. In fact, the South needs introspection as much as the North does; and the growing introspective consensus in the North may even provide an emulatable template for our Southern compatriots.

  • In celebration of late Professor Femi Olaofe

    In celebration of late Professor Femi Olaofe

    Come Friday 16 August, 2024 the mortal remains of my cousin, the late Professor Olo’unfemi Olaofe, will be committed to mother earth after a funeral service at the St Andrew’s Anglican Church, Are – Ekiti, in a community where we were both born in the mid- 40’s but which, since Tuesday, 9 July, 2024 when he was kidnapped from his house in GRA, Ado – Ekiti, has become the indisputable capital of melancholy.

    Are-Ekiti, our serene and peaceful town in the Irepodun – Ifelodun Local Government Area of the state, is a community where you would, with considerable justification, make the biblical claim of everybody being his/her  brother’s keeper, and where, in my seven decades on terra firma, I have not witnessed a single communal strife.

    This is the town whose peace has since been so shattered it can no longer sleep, with the entire population hunkered down in vigils and 24/7 prayers, pleading that the Almighty God will hear our prayers and bring Femi safely back to a town he so deeply loved and gave his all. I cannot remember one single event that has so united us, even though, unfortunately, in an utter gloomy circumstances.

    It just couldn’t have been different because Femi was so uniquely unique in the town. No, not because he was a professor as Are- Ekiti can boast of dozens of  them, but because Femi simply did not deserve the manner in which he joined the Saints Triumphant. But not even that,  painful and depressing as it is, will stop us from celebrating one so dear, ever so worthy; indeed, an exemplar.

    Femi was home on that fateful day when those sons of perdition, since arrested, walked in apparently armed, seized and whisked him away in his own car which the police, which immediately began a search, would later find on the outskirts of Ado – Ekiti, the state capital.

    Read Also: Olaofe for burial today

    The long search thus began but, unfortunately, proved futile.

    In the course of the search, I made contacts with the Director – General of Ekiti state Homeland Security Agency who told me that everything was being done by the police and the state’s security apparati, to track down the kidnappers and rescue Femi, hinting however, that our rather loud approach, with a delegation of Are’s elite visiting some important state officials we believed could facilitate his rescue, wasn’t exactly the correct approach to a matter that should have been conducted in complete stealth, with only the security people involved.

    It was, in this manner, he told me, that they were able to rescue some Ekiti women who were kidnapped in Kwara state earlier in the year.

    I, however, told him  we have never had such an experience and were very eager to have him rescued from the claws of the vermins. It was in our belief that the visits would fast track his  rescue that they did all that. It is my prayer that we will never have cause to use the DG’s golden advice.

    I know exactly what I was doing when I doubly used the word ‘unique’ in describing Femi. An epitome of gentility, our departed compatriot would not hurt a fly. A man of strong principles and quiet mien, Femi was always an asset to whatever group he belonged.

    An absolutely brilliant scholar – the Olaofe’s are reputedly brilliant – with two other professors of Mathematics and Medicine – Femi was  self – effacing; no airs whatever. I never one day saw him get angry or lose his cool. We were close enough for me to know that.

    Apart from being in  Christ’s School, Ado – Ekiti, at about the same time, we were close, being cousins, any way, that on a visit to London during his graduate studies, my wife, and I, visited him and his adorable wife, Kike, also now of blessed memory, in Bath(UK), some distance from London.

    Femi was the go to person on many issues in our natal town but none would rival his commitment to our Church, St Andrew’s Anglican Church. A man of deep faith, Femi was an ever ready assistance to the church and as close as I am to our Vicar, news of many church programmes got to me first through him.

    Immediately I heard of his passing, I  telephoned HRH, Oba Jacob Boluwade Adebiyi, JP, The Alare of Are – Ekiti, to commiserate with him, personally, and through him, convey my condolences to the entire Are- Ekiti community, after which I reached out to Kunle, Femi’s son, to express my deepest sympathies to him and his siblings.

    If Femi was great at home, he was no less at his forte, the academic community, where he shone like a thousand stars.

    Celebrating Femi, Venerable Adeyinka O. Fasakin wrote inter alia:”With a PhD in Chemical Engineering and decades teaching Chemistry, and Applied Chemistry at the Ekiti state University, Ado – Ekiti, where he was once the Deputy Vice- Chancellor,  Prof Olorunfemi Olaofe left an indelible mark on the academic community and the lives of countless students. As a seasoned educator, he nurtured generations of chemists, inspiring and mentoring numerous PhD students who will now carry on his legacy. His expertise, and passion, for multidisciplinary approaches would have been invaluable to Nigeria as it strives to produce versatile chemists capable of driving innovation in manufacturing”.

    Although we lost Femi in very tragic circumstances, there will be joy in  heaven, where his soul lies in eternal peace at the bossom of his Lord and Master, our Lord Jesus Christ.

    Yes, Apostle Paul says we are not saved by works, but by “grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone”, but

    beyond a shadow of doubt, Femi was a faithful servant of God, who exemplified Christian values and compassion. His dedication to his faith in Jesus was incomparable, and evident throughout his entire life.

    With the assurance that he is now singing the Halleluyah chorus together with the Celestial Choir, it is now left for me to condole with all those he left behind: our highly traumatised Are -Ekiti community, young and old, his bereaved academic community to which he gave his all, the incomparably disconsolate Olaofe family of Are -Ekiti whose shining star he was, Ekiti state, mourning one of its great academic achievers and, of course, his amazing, over- achieving children, Tope, Femi

    Ronke and Kunle

    who must, forever, feel mighty proud of the prodigy who sired them, knowing full well that Femi and Kike – their loving parents – are together again, at the feet of Jesus.

    ADIEU Femi.

    Till we meet to part no more.

  • The British vote for change (IV)

    The British vote for change (IV)

    John Major was the third Tory Prime Minister in a row who rose through the ranks, from a humble working class background in one of the most class conscious societies in the world. Even then Major was the first of them who was not an Oxbridge graduate. Both Heathe and Thatcher had acquired a coat of polish from Oxford but Major did not have the benefit of formal higher education. His was a case of being at the right place at the right time to reap benefits which were closed to his more privileged colleagues, those who had been born with one type of silver spoon or the other in their mouth. It is worth noting that Thatcher has been the only Oxford graduate Prime Minister that was not given an honourary degree of her university on account of the hostility of her policy towards the British educational system during her tenure in office. It was an ineffectual but significant gesture from Oxford University.

    Predictably, one of the first major changes that Major initiated in office of the British Prime Minister was the scrapping of the poll tax on the horns of which his predecessor had come a cropper. Fortunately for him most of the policies enunciated by his predecessor were a reflection of her turbulent personality and could not be accommodated under the new management. And, although the lady, by her own admission could not be turned, Major understood the power of change and was not only ready to make necessary turns but made turning away from the abrasiveness of the past government a cornerstone of his own government policy.

    Since after the First World War, the Conservative and Labour Parties have constituted themselves into the political alternatives in Britain politics, the once mighty Liberal Party having been effectively derailed by the rise of the Labour Party. For a brief period in the early eighties, it appeared that a third option could insert itself into the political mix but, any hope of this was soon dashed as it became clear that the two dominant parties had more or less covered the political spectrum from the extreme Left to the extreme Right. The SDP/Liberal alternative was therefore rendered superfluous to the demands of the British electorate.

    Read Also: The British vote for change (II)

    Thatcher, because she had all of eleven years of unbroken rule and was faced by a weakened opposition, was able to create a country in her own image and it was clear that the country had been shifted decisively to the right. For example she had managed to curtail the power of the unions so effectively that union membership had dropped, in some parts of the country quite precipitously. This, together with the deindustrialization of Britain which had been the result of Conservative Party policies as well as the promotion of many  of the working class had reduced the influence of the Labour Party which could no longer make a call on the loyalty of it’s traditional support base. True, the Conservatives were not popular but at that point in time they appeared to be the obvious party of power in the land.

    Another factor that had to be taken into consideration was that whilst the Conservative Party appeared to be a well oiled machine, the Labour Party was in near total disarray. Even before the start of the Tory hegemony, the conditions within the Labour Party were not conducive to growth. The 1979 election which brought Thatcher to power was fought by the Labour Party under the joint leadership of James Callaghan and Michael Foot,  each of them representing the right and left wings of the party respectively but detracting from the ability of the party to confront the Conservatives with any hope of success. Major was a prime beneficiary of the lack of cohesion within the Labour ranks and he was able to win the 1992 general election in a land slide and an increased share of the popular vote. His opponent in this election was Neil Kinnock who had taken over the leadership of the Labour Party from Michael Foot, (older readers may remember that his brother Dingle Foot represented Tony Enahoro in his attempt to fight extradition from Britain to face treasonable felony charges in Nigeria). Foot had, within his brief tenure as leader of the Labour Party moved the party so far to the left that there was palpable fear in some quarters that the party had become unelectable in a country in which socialism was a dirty word. Given this situation, the first task that fell to Kinnock when he became leader was to pull the party as close to the political centre as possible. After several years of left wing dominance within the party, this task was going to be so difficult as to be labelled impossible. Slowly but surely however, the party, after a period of bitter, not to say bloody infighting, was rid of her most left wing elements, especially those of the Militant Tendency who subscribed to pure socialist principles and wanted Britain to give up her position as a nuclear power. In truth, the country was only a minor nuclear power at the time but the majority of the people were still seeking shelter under the delusion of a super power status and were not yet prepared to face the reality of their country’s vastly diminished capacity to mix with the big players who could reduce the British isles to a pile of rubble in a matter of minutes. In addition, to trying to match the Tories, Kinnock had to look over his shoulder at the SDP/Liberal coalition which was not only gathering steam but was threatening to relegate Labour into third place and replacing them as the opposition party in parliament. The election, when it came was a triumph for Major who led the Tories to a consecutive fourth election victory. The Tories did not expect such a crushing victory and the Labour Party members were relieved that their realistic fear of coming third did not materialise. In the end, the only real causality was Neil Kinnock who in the tradition of defeated generals figuratively fell on his sword by way of resigning from his position. This paved the way for the ascension of Tony Blair to the leadership of the Labour Party. On reflection, it is interesting to note that apart from Harold Wilson and Michael Foot, all the Labour Party leaders all the way to Gordon Brown were of either Welsh (Callaghan and Kinnock) or Scottish (Blair and Brown) ancestry. With the English in such a large majority, the significance of this should not be dismissed out of hand.

    Tony Blair is made up of so many parts that he seems by far to be the most complex political figure in Britain for a long time. If we restrict our attention strictly to his politics there are a series of contradictions to keep us occupied for a very long time.  By his own admission, he was initially drawn to socialism through the ideas of Trotsky, the man who was deputy to Lenin at the time of the Russian Revolution and a man of extreme and violent left wing persuasion. In time, he lost his faith in Trotsky. Subsequently he then moved on from being a Trotskyist to being a wide eyed Marxist  but ended up being the man who pulled the Labour Party, the party of Keir Hardie to the right of centre of British politics to form what came to be known as New Labour. Ironically, in doing so, he made the Labour Party electable again so much so that the party won the 1997 general election and paved the way for fourteen years of Labour Party rule. In the end, it took a coalition of Conservative Party and the Liberal Democrats to push New Labour out of power after the general election in 2012.

    Tony Blair’s performance as Prime Minister has received unalloyed praise from many quarters and was the envy of the Conservatives who feared that they could be shut out of power for a very long time. Unlike the other Prime Ministers of the period, Blair had a solidly middle class background, his father being a Law lecturer. He was also exposed to life outside Britain as he spent a considerably portion of his childhood in Australia when his father taught Law there. It is no surprise that he is a lawyer, also married to a lawyer. Unfortunately for his career as  British Prime Minister, be fell into bad company which led to his political demise.

    Blair was fatally attracted to American Presidents; first,  Bill Clinton and then George Bush II. It was he who convinced Clinton to send ground troops into Bosnia to put an end to the bloody career of Milosevic and his goons in that region. This intervention was a success as it brought peace to that region in the same way that he sent  British troops into Sierra Leone to stop the civil war there. Everything went downhill after that.

    When the twin towers in New York were brought down by terrorists in the infamous 9/11 incident, the American government of George Bush under the sinister influence of Dick Cheney the powerful Vice President declared war on terror, first on the Taliban in Afghanistan ostensibly for harbouring Osama bin Laden, the suspected mastermind behind 9/11. Next on the list of putative terrorists was Sadam Hussein who was accused of hoarding weapons of mass destruction. The Americans and their allies notably Tony Blair presented what turned out to be fabricated evidence for the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. On the strength of evidence presented to the UNO by the highly respected Secretary of State, General Colin Powell who was Chairman, Joint Chief of Staff of US forces during the First Iraq War, approval was given for the invasion of Iraq in an attempt to find and seize all weapons of mass destruction. The invasion was successful. Saddam was captured and banged for crimes against humanity and the George Bush wildly celebrated his victory over terror. But those celebrations were tainted by the failure to find any weapons of mass destruction for the simple reason that they did not exist. The fall of Saddam led to terrible sectarian war in Iraq in which hundreds of thousands of lives were lost and prepared the ground for the emergence of ISIS and other vicious groups which committed terrible crimes in many parts of the world including countries in Western Europe. Tony Blair was caught up in all the destruction unleashed by these events forcing him to resign his position of British Prime Minister. That position was passed on to Gordon Brown.

    Actually, the foundation for Blair’s resignation was laid several years before, even before he became Prime Minister. Both Blair and Brown were the rising stars of the Labour Party and were the best of friends who shared an office in Westminster and the ambition to become leader of the Labour Party and ultimately, the Prime Minister. They were also the prime movers of New Labour, the vehicle through which they were to realise their ambition to become tenants in 10 Downing Street. Although Blair was slightly the younger of the two, they somehow came to the agreement that he was going to have the first bite of the cherry but that he was going to resign the posts of leader of the Labour Party and Prime Minister and pass them on to  Brown in due course. However, no time was set for the changeover and in time, this led to some major disagreement between the two friends leading to an estrangement between them. Brown was perhaps the more cerebral of the two and it was he who as the Chancellor of the Exchequer masterminded the financial policies which served the Blair government well enough to maintain their supremacy over the Conservatives for fourteen years, the longest period of  Labour rule in British history. Working in tandem, the two of them formed a formidable pair with the potential to keep their party in power indefinitely. Fortunately for the Conservatives, the glue which bound the two of them together weakened over time and this was the crack through which the Conservative lizard penetrated their wall.

    • To be continued.
  • Symptoms of National Distress

    Symptoms of National Distress

    • On the need for a more equal society

    For a brief moment in the past fortnight, Nigeria lurched from one corner of the ring to the other like a punch-drunk heavyweight boxer looking for relief either from the referee or his own corner. The entire nation was about to be immolated in a social inferno entirely of its own making. Mercifully, the worst of the crisis seems to be over. Things have abated. The combustion, like all unstructured outrages, has consumed itself. Once again and for the umpteenth time, Nigeria’s legendary luck has intervened and the crisis seems to have receded, despite the subsisting anger and grief in many quarters, particularly in a sullen and angry north.

       No one can be sure how long the current reprieve or remission will last. It will be foolish to imagine that the forces of annihilation have taken a permanent bow from our crisis-suffused polity. In all likelihood, things will erupt again once the hostile forces have gathered enough strength and momentum to try their luck. It is a relentless siege against rationality and organic nationhood. We have been papering over the widening cracks and as the cracks continue to widen, the paper seems to have lost its adhesive capacity to unrelenting adversity. The patch-patch structure that has held the nation together in a state of precarious exigency has reached a stage of terminal stress.

       It would be equally foolish to think that the current administration will remain unaffected by the dramatic turn of events. President Tinubu has had his baptism of fire. Things are unlikely to be the same again. In order to effectively forge ahead, the former senator will need fresh votaries and new allies in the herculean drive to stabilize the nation economically and politically. Much will also depend on elite willpower and visionary drive. There is only so much a government—or any government at all– can do to re-engineer a society in the absence of elite amity.

      Some analysts observing the strange behavior of the dominant ethnic formations in the country during the last upheaval came to the interesting conclusion that Nigeria might have restructured itself with a natural and neat precision without any fuss or fanfare. As proof, they point at the widely divergent attitude of the various sections of the populace as the crisis unfurled.  While the north dissolved into a maelstrom of violence and looting, a weird somnolence and sheer apathy took hold in the east as the old western region, the former epicentre of civil rebellion and insurrection, witnessed a few hesitant and uncoordinated protests which soon petered out.

       It will be profoundly mistaken and intellectually remiss to view these developments as signs of natural reconfiguration. They are symptoms of national distress and instances of collective distancing and dissociation from the Nigerian project. The flagging off of Russian flags, the looting and vandalization of government property and the open calls for military intervention by wanton youth and assorted hobos and yokels are the hallmark of a hegemonic formation at the end of its tether and a feudal society in the grip of terminal disorder. It is to be noted that given the current mood of mutual hostility and bitter resentment in the country, were central authority  to give way at this moment, the endgame is likely to be characterized by a genocidal frenzy and apocalyptic bloodletting more reminiscent of old Yugoslavia than Czechoslovakia.

    President Tinubu has his work cut out for him. The next few months will test his capacity to keep the nation together and working. His legendary political skills and adroit footwork will face a stiff test. In the rally for the presidential sweepstakes, he proved particularly adept at outthinking and outmanoeuvring his opponents. Whether this will be enough to dissuade a restive and recalcitrant elite group from setting the national edifice ablaze remains to be seen.

    Read Also: PDP women demand removal of National Woman Leader Amina Bryhm

      So in the long run a lot will depend on elite capacity to forge a consensus about the way out of the economic, political and spiritual morass that has plagued the country for so long. But it is also obvious that elite unanimity cannot be procured at the expense of social and political justice without severe repercussions. Elite consensus in Nigeria is permanently undermined by elite criminality and political delinquency.  Even where you manage to plug the loopholes and the gaping holes of massive looting, you cannot ask elite criminals who have contributed to the economic adversity of the nation to take a bow and go while piling the load of retribution on the poor and needy without inviting a social calamity.

       Tinubu is socially smart and politically savvy enough to spring this trap of a perilous confrontation with the highly inflammable lower classes that have already sniffed blood. The president’s body language and actual language suggest that it is a risk he is willing to take, hoping and gambling that before long the fruits of his reforms would have kicked in to douse the social and economic tensions. But this is like attempting to square a circle, for it ignores the possibility and prospects of elite sabotage in a fractious, multi-ethnic and multi-religious conglomeration.

      Let us see how one of the remarkable Scandinavian countries solved this issue. Looking at a king’s mouth, no one would ever imagine that he once suckled at his mother’s breasts. The contemporary consensus is that Norway is a peaceful, prosperous and well-governed country. But up till the first decade of the last century, Norway was a backward deeply feudal society ruled by superstitions and retrogressive norms.

       That was when its elite got together in a pan-Norwegian concert insisting that their beloved nation cannot negotiate modernity on such outmoded and reactionary terms. They were not driven by radical malice which is often the bane of revolutionary social justice, but by the imperative of a more egalitarian society. They have never looked back.

      Today, in terms of social cohesion, national prosperity and feel-good factor, Norway is a recreated nation ahead of USA, Britain and France. This has been possible because Norway is a homogeneous country, linguistically, culturally and religiously speaking. It is easier to reach consensus in such a holistic entity than in fractured and fractious colonial nations bristling with mutually unintelligible ethnic groups.

      On a lighter note, but which is equally revealing. When the Dutch people after their war of liberation decided to settle for a royal family to reign over them they went for the family of a leading resistance fighter and installed them as their new royalty. No royalty anywhere in the world is more restrained, more people-friendly and progressively oriented than Dutch kings and queens. They knew where they are coming from and the provenance of their royal ascendancy. As Napoleon Bonaparte would cheekily put it: “ a throne is only a bench covered with damask”.

       Perhaps then this is as good as any other place to say a word or two about ideology and its role in the affairs of human beings. Ideology matters most in governance. It determines the structure and format of government as well as its outlook. Even when a person or a group say their position is non-ideological, that is an ideological position and most likely a complicity or collusion with the status quo. Readers of this column would have noticed an unwavering hostility and deep aversion to neoliberal economic fundamentalism and its IMF/World Bank prescriptions which have seen to the ruination of many developing nations.

    This columnist belongs to the liberal left, particularly its open, forward-looking non-sectarian segment. This position has not changed. Having been in the trenches since the age of fifteen, yours sincerely is not about to commit ideological suicide. The real issue with the Bretton Wood institutions is a lack of political wisdom and a deficit of emotional intelligence which has made it impossible for their chief priests to identify with the plight of the ordinary people in Third World who have been forced to bear the brunt of the callous mismanagement of their national patrimony.

         As a consequence of this background of social injustice and political inequity, economic deregulation often requires harsh political regulation to maintain its order, leading an unsuspecting society headlong into the arms and embrace of military despotism or civilian autocracy. The cost of administering economic shock therapy on fragile societies with a weak social fabric can be ruinous if not prohibitive.  For brittle colonial nations bristling with multi-ethnic animosities the tradeoff for the modest gains can be apocalyptic political and social upheavals and mutual baiting by ethnic groups which does not conduce to social harmony or organic nationhood.

     Creating a zone of affluence in circumstances of bewitching poverty or a new breed of billionaires in a condition of appalling deprivation will produce a toxic effluence which can overwhelm the entire society. Nigeria is not a homogeneous country like South Korea where even the authoritarian and seemingly untouchable chaebols are subject to vigorous private inquisitions to contain their excesses and continuous scrutiny by an indigenous patrol which brooks no nonsense from them.

      On the contrary, Nigeria may unwittingly be creating chaebol-like oligopolies without the traditional rail guards and the culture of shame and family honour which underpin this peculiar Korean contribution to capitalism. Witness the way the recent Dangote saga was assuming an unwholesome ethnic dimension or how earlier scandals have disappeared in the labyrinth of state perfidy.

      The upshot of all this is that Nigeria needs and deserves a New Economic Deal. Fortunately, there is opportunity in every crisis. President Tinubu should make use of the respite to go back to the drawing board in order to come up with a more socially responsive economic programme.