The Nation Newspaper

Category: Ropo Sekoni

Nigeria’s unity: praying plus planning

What is absent in General Gowon’s much needed homily is the need to plan, in addition to praying

There is no doubt that America’s prediction that Nigeria is likely to get ruptured from inside by 2015 is already making Nigerian patriots tremble. From pronouncements in the print media in the last few weeks, it is clear that it is not only media pundits that are worried about the dwindling capacity of the country to survive all the problems militating against it by and beyond 2015. In particular, former military leaders who should know the importance of intelligence reports appear worried to the point that they have to assure ordinary Nigerians that they are not worried by America’s prediction that the country that they had lived to keep together in the last forty-seven years on their own terms may assume a character that is radically different from the unity-at-all-costs mentality and unity-is-the-only-issue mantra that Nigerians have been fed on since the Nigeria-Biafra War.

General Obasanjo in his own case has affirmed that Nigeria is not going to break regardless of how American sign readers of other nations feel, adding that the threat to the country’s peace and progress has been occasioned by the lack of discipline of the political class that succeeded his own generation. One of Obasanjo’s military successors, General Ibrahim Babangida, has also assured Nigerians that there is nothing to worry about regarding any prediction from the planet about the fragility of Nigeria by or beyond 2015. Most recently, the country’s second military dictator, General Yakubu Gowon, added his voice to the rhetoric of or verbiage of peace in the face of threats to peace that have engulfed the country for a few years.

If there is any military dictator whose voice is likely to be palatable to Nigerians, General Gowon must be one of such leaders. He was the military leader who supervised the war to keep Nigeria one between 1967 and 1970. He was a military leader who tried to restructure the country without puncturing or rupturing its cultural diversity. He created the foundation for the six geopolitical zones that many of the leaders who came after him have been afraid to accept as a possible model for managing the country’s diversity. Dividing Nigeria into twelve states in Gowon’s time brought about the seed of what Nigerians clamouring for true federalism today refer to as Southwest, Southsouth, Southeast, Northcentral, Northeast and Northwest regions or zones. Though he did not fire a shot himself, General Gowon spent his most productive years as a soldier dealing with threats to Nigeria’s territorial unity.

Nobody should then be surprised that it is General Gowon’s assurance about the need for Nigeria to turn all negative predictions about its future as one united country into ashes that appears most passionate and religious about Nigeria’s unity in the face of threatening adversity: “Every Nigerian should stand against the claims. If every one of us believes that it will not happen, then it will not. I believe God will not allow such to happen. Nigeria Prays (Gowon’s NGO of intervention in the country’s problems for the past few years) is really praying against such; that’s the reason this group came into existence.” General Gowon added with conviction: “Nigerians at home and abroad are very concerned about the crisis that is rocking this nation. We believe that only prayers can solve it. If you love Nigeria the way I love Nigeria, and if I love Nigeria the way you do and we have faith, then we shall overcome.”

What is absent in General Gowon’s much needed homily is the need to plan, in addition to praying. Praying is not as important as finding methods to make Nigeria achieve its goal of unity, peace, and progress. We need to revive some measure of humanism that was applied to the threat to Nigeria’s unity after he became the country’s military head of state. At that time, the country’s citizens were enjoined by his administration to pray to God to keep Nigeria one while those in the position of leadership under Gowon went on the drawing board to work out plans to make the job easier for God to do. We bought arms from other countries, sent emissaries to other countries to appeal to them to assist Nigeria, sent soldiers to fight in what was Biafra, and also created 12 states out of the four regions in existence at that time, to give a region to the Igbos while also giving a cultural space to the so-called minorities in the old Eastern Region, today’s South-south, the region or zone that produced the current president.

To just ask Nigerians to leave everything in God’s hands in a country that is overtly divided by Boko Haram and zoning of the presidency to the North and the South-south is to move away from the injunction of giving unto God what is God’s and unto Caesar what is Caesar’s. All the threats to the existence of Nigeria today are attributable to human action or choice of action or inaction, rather than to temptation by God. Militants in the Niger Delta asking for more money or inducing amnesty are not doing this on God’s account.

Similarly, Boko Haram enthusiasts calling for Sharianisation of a multi-religious state-nation are not doing this on Allah’s behalf. Even those who say that the turn of minorities from the South-south to rule in 2015 or of the section which Prof. Ango Abdullahi called the country’s majority from the North must not be blocked are not acting because God wants anything of such. Even incurable federalists calling for regional autonomy or devolution of power to states or the regions are not necessarily working for God. All of these groupings are working for their own interests in a country with competing or conflicting interests. There is a sense in calling on God to touch the souls of each member of the various groups and equip each of them with the spirit of compromise, a pre-requisite for peace and development in a multinational society and a democratic polity.

The challenge of the moment is for former military dictators, most of whom designed the Nigeria of our time, and the civilians that are jostling to rule or control the status-quo to also listen to citizens and hear them well on workable templates to peace and progress in a country blessed with diverse cultures and values. This is the time for Nigeria’s leaders-military and civilian– to recognise human capacity to affect the human condition without necessarily forsaking the importance of God’s ultimate power to bless the choice made by human beings. This is a good lesson of the enlightenment that must not be forgotten by any nation seeking peace and progress in the era of modernity.

August 25, 2013
Obasanjo’s sociology zero zero zero?

Who are the examples in Obasanjo’s generation that represent the norms subverted by the generation that succeeds Obasanjo’s?

General Olusegun Obasanjo stood sociology on its head a few days ago when he posited that the younger generation (younger than his own) failed Nigeria and Africa. As reported in The Nation, Obasanjo theorised “that his generation led the way with purposeful, progressive, visionary leadership marked by accountability and probity while the younger generation of leaders failed to continue with the good legacy that his (Obasanjo’s) generation left.” It is what Obasanjo has refused to acknowledge that raises questions about his own sociological knowledge or imagination, more specifically, about what is expected in all societies to be the responsibility of the older generation in the development of the younger generation.

Now that Obasanjo has identified the generation that has damaged the chances of Africa to grow and compete with the rest of the world, it is pertinent to ask some questions. How were the members of the generation after Obasanjo socialised? What is the role of Obasanjo’s generation in the socialisation of the generation that has, in the words of Obasanjo, become a generation of deviance from the norms embodied by Obasanjo’s generation? Who are the examples in Obasanjo’s generation that represent the norms subverted by the generation that succeeds Obasanjo’s?

Historically, Obasanjo’s generation came to power on account of fighting corruption perpetrated by members of the generation before his own or of members of his own generation who happened to have had access to political power. Is this an indication that the generation before Obasanjo was also bad or did Obasanjo’s generation lie to citizens when they accused their predecessors of corruption? The regime that succeeded Obasanjo in 1979 was led by people in a generation older than Obasanjo. Again, this group was removed from power by members of Obasanjo’s generation on account of what they called corruption under the presidency of Alhaji Shehu Shagari. Shortly after, another group from Obasanjo’s generation booted out the regime that was manufactured by members of Obasanjo’s generation to replace ShehuShagari, and the rest is history.

Sociologists and anthropologists all over the world believe that it should not be easy for a generation to castigate the generation after it for not acting normatively. It is generally believed that no generation emerges on its own into a cultural space. Each generation is groomed directly or indirectly by the generation before it. Each citizen is believed to be a product of socialisation or enculturation. This process includes the transfer of values from one generation to the one coming after it. This is done through schooling, through transfer from the older generation of what is considered acceptable and unacceptable behaviour in society. In addition, members of the younger generation learn by imitating the actions of those before them. In effect, apart from whatever is induced by genes, enculturation accounts significantly for what a citizen does or fails to do in his adulthood. While some section of a citizen’s behaviour or misbehaviour can be blamed on genetic inheritance, so much of it is blamed on the values in circulation when a citizen is growing up.

Going by elements of sociology and anthropology with respect to the role of an older generation in the moulding of the generation after it, members of Obasanjo’s generation cannot be absolved from dereliction of duty with respect to the values or lack of values passed to the generation after them, even if we have to accept without incontrovertible evidence the claim that Obasanjo’s generation was saintly and stellar as rulers of their countries.To beef up Obasanjo’s claim that the generation after his own prevented Africa in general and Nigeria in particular from growing up, it is important to examine the kind of legacy that the generation of the saints left behind.

Under General Obasanjo’s supervision, the constitution of Nigeria was changed from a federal constitution to a quasi-unitary one. This meant that powers and responsibilities including moral supervision of politicians by citizens, possible under the regime of devolution of powers in the years preceding the coming of Obasanjo to power, were withdrawn from regions and concentrated at the centre. The centre with no direct relationship with citizens became at the instance of Obasanjo the locus of power and resources, and the site of corruption and impunity. Institutions of learning, a major agency in the business of socialisation, were summarily transferred from the supervision of regional authorities to a federal one that had no known values to protect and promote. Moreover, members of Obasanjo’s own generation also introduced a policy that prevented older politicians from seeking power, on account of their understanding that older politicians were attached to the cultures of the nationalities that constituted Nigeria before the coming of military autocracy and the imposition of a unitary constitution. The new breed political class was a creation of the type of military oligarchy presided over by General Obasanjo.

Apart from General Obasanjo’s proclivity to praise himself, and by extension, his generation in politics, the matter of why Nigeria or Africa is in a mess today cannot be explained via generation bashing. It has to be viewed as a systemic failure. Mugabe belongs more to Obasanjo’s generation than Dariye does, just as Mandela belongs more to Obasanjo’s generation than Tinubu does. Generation bashing is an over simplification of the problems besetting governance in Africa. It is like profiling or stereotyping. Nigeria and most of Africa have had their own share of good and bad old and young politicians.

If age is everything, Obasanjo would not have picked Dr. Goodluck Jonathan as vice president to UmaruYar’Adua in 2007, as there were many much older politicians with interest in becoming the vice president at that time. Not including President Jonathan in his list of young people who have failed Africa is an indication that, though Jonathan is one of the youngest presidents in the world, he is still considered a good choice bequeathed to Nigeria by Obasanjo.

Sociology or Anthropology 101 links older and younger generations in the preparation of citizens for socially adjusted citizenship at all levels; for nurturing by the older generate of the younger generation to sustain the values that keep societies going and predispose them to improvement; for members of an older generation to accept their duties and obligations in the failure of members of the younger generation after them for any moral decline, caused by failure to transfer right values to the new generation. Social continuity in all societies does not derive from a saintly father having a satanic son to succeed him or from an angelic mother raising a devilish daughter.Social continuity thrives on a sociological understanding that comes to terms with the existence of an umbilical cord between generations. To praise a good father under whose nose a bad son has grown is to promote Sociology zero zero zero.

August 18, 2013
How flammable is Nigeria?

Nobody wants to leave Nigeria for as long as the oil continues to flow, regardless of predictions from prophets inside and scientists outside the country.

In the last two days, leading politicians in our country have been reacting to predictions that Nigeria stands the chance of internal combustion. In 2013 (a few weeks ago), the United States’ Army College suggested that nothing in recent times has changed the prediction in 2003 by the US Intelligence community that Nigeria might break by 2015. Local geopolitical forecasters have also been worrying that Boko Haram also has the capacity to accelerate Nigeria’s disintegration. But in response to the end of Ramadan celebration (Eid-el Fitr), President Jonathan and one of the founding leaders of All Progressives Congress (APC), have taken their time to reassure Nigerians that there is no cause for alarm, despite the country’s appearance of flammability.

In his own message to the country’s Muslims, President Jonathan reassures citizens of the country’s stability and ‘unbreakability’: “We are not even exploiting our diversity because of the myopic views about situations. Christians and Muslims are brothers and sisters and we must live together. Those who are predicting that this country will separate based on our fault-lines as at the time of amalgamation by 2015, they will know that these predictions will not be true.” Correspondingly, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu called for prayers to ensure that “the predictions of doom, hardship, political instability and religious intolerance will not come to fruition,” adding: “Nigeria is not a broken case. It is redeemable and only the people can make this change happen by voting right and wisely.” Nigerians must feel encouraged that two of the country’s leading politicians are not cowed by predictions about the country’s break-up.

A recent book by John-Andrew McNeish and Owen Logan, titled Flammable Societies: Studies on the socio-economics of Oil and Gas includes an essay by Femi Folorunso: “A country without a State?: Governmentality, Knowledge and Labour in Nigeria.” Flammable is used in the book to refer to the socio-economics of oil and gas. But Folorunso in his own essay uses flammable in two senses: metonymic and metaphoric. He addresses the metonymic dimension by underscoring the impact of exploitation of oil and gas on the life of the average Nigerian. He also uses ‘flammable’ connotatively when he addresses the theme of a country without a state, a political space that appears bound to failure because of bad governance.

Predictions cannot break a country. It is the action or inaction of those charged to govern a country that can cause its disintegration. Nigerians have no reason to be afraid of predictions coming from home or abroad about the future of the country. Several soothsayers and prophets in Nigeria have predicted doom for too long, without any of their predictions coming to pass, particularly predictions by religious prophets who are wont to laying claims to prescience and clairvoyance. Nigerians have gotten used to local Cassandras whose forecasts of doom for politicians and the polity have generally come to naught.

What Nigerians have not gotten used to are predictions from outside the country by professional analysts who attempt to bring the predictive power of science on their forecasts. The prediction in 2003 from the U.S. Intelligence community and the latest one from the U.S. Army College must have gotten the attention of Nigeria’s leaders. When the 2003 prediction first came out, General Olusegun Obasanjo dismissed it as nothing for anyone to worry about. Again, the recent one from the U.S. Army College seems to have gotten to our leaders. This explains why two of the country’s most important politicians, Jonathan and Tinubu, have chosen to use this year’s end of Ramadan festivities to reassure citizens not to panic and to remain as optimistic about the territorial integrity of their country as they have always been since 1960.

Citizens ought to know by now that Nigeria cannot disintegrate, despite the recurrence of political, social, and economic storms the country experiences intermittently. The reasons are not far to fathom. oil and gas, natural causes of combustion, serve as lubricants to oil and grease the creaky joints of the Nigerian State-nation. There are two sides to the coin of greasing of the engine of the Nigerian State. On the one hand, members of the ruling class derive too much benefit from oil and proceeds of oil for them to want to push the country into the sea. Those from various parts of the country who own oil blocks and have acquired property in prime lands in different parts of the country from oil and gas know better than they show when they threaten fire and brimstone. The saying that Nigeria knows how to avoid disaster and disintegration is not an exaggeration. Most of the country’s political and cultural leaders know where their bread is buttered. Many of them will even be afraid to want to rule a Nigeria without petroleum.

On the other hand, the average Nigerian is able to live on just one dollar per day, not because of efforts by the government, but as a result of the existence of oil and gas in the country! Without oil and with the kind of government the country has been saddled with since the 1970s, it would not have been possible for any Nigerian to eat on a daily basis a loaf of bread or a plate of rice without any form of protein. The little that trickles down from the class that perceives itself as the owner of Nigeria is another thing that has prevented disintegration. It is not surprising when scholars raise the issue of Resource Curse in relation to Nigeria’s petroleum and mismanagement of the country that both leaders and followers retort with: “Thank God there is oil.” Nobody wants to leave Nigeria for as long as the oil continues to flow, regardless of predictions from prophets inside and scientists outside the country. And no matter how hard the polity is heated or security is challenged by Boko Haram, Niger Delta militants, and even the country’s Kidnappers Incorporated, nothing untoward is likely to happen to our republic of petroleum. Nigerians have reasons to believe their president when he says there is no cause for alarm. They should know that it is a waste of intellectual and emotional energy to think or write that Nigeria is on the brink, on account of its many crises of bad governance and under-development.

The country’s political rulers and their cultural counterparts know that it does not matter what they do or not do, the country has come to stay, for as long as oil flows from the wombs of the land and its adjoining sea. Our leaders know that they do not need to respond to what Femi Folorunso characterises as the impact of governance on sovereignty, citizenship, and development in a country troubled by resource curse. Even citizens themselves have been numbed or dumbed down by the manna from petroleum and gas. It appears that nobody needs to worry about anything, for as long as Nigeria is able to sell enough oil to lubricate the engine of its continuity as a state-nation. The country’s (taken for granted) territorial integrity will be further guaranteed by free and fair election in 2015, if only to give citizens unfettered choice to choose those to govern them.

August 11, 2013
APC and new energy for democratic culture

What is new about APC is that it is a group of politicians from different corners
of the country who have sworn to commit to political progressivism

The registration of the merger of four political parties into APC must be welcome news to lovers of democracy. The coming of APC has not brought to an end the existence of mushroom political parties in the county. But it has substantially reduced the number of parties that are in serious contest for the opportunity to govern the country. After the merger, apart from APC and PDP, there will still be some political parties masquerading as contenders for federal or state power, but such possibility does not diminish the fact that Nigeria is, with the arrival of APC on the political landscape, a polity with two main political parties. We congratulate politicians who have submerged individual egos and ambitions to merge into a party that is capable of serving as an alternative to the ruling party.

What is new about APC is not the fact that politicians from various parties and regions are making efforts to work together for the sake of Nigeria. In the first republic, the northern ruling party, NPC, worked in an alliance to rule the country with the NCNC. It was an alliance of two out of three regions. The alliance left the dominant party in the Western region in loyal opposition. It was good for the country then that there was a party known for principle and ideology to serve as loyal opposition. Our democracy would have thrived if there had been no attempts by the ruling party then to turn the country into a one-party state, and the rest is history.

The second republic also witnessed an alliance for the sake of sharing political offices between the dominant party in the North, NPN, and its counterpart in the East, the NPP. Again, UPN, the dominant party in the West chose to serve as opposition party. Again, the democracy of the second republic did not collapse because the opposition failed in its own role. Collapse came because the ruling party was incapable of governing the country effectively. It, after ruling in an effete manner for four years, still felt that it needed to rig the election to return to power in 1983. After returning to power, it was incapable of solving most of the problems facing the country, just as it could not in its first four years, and the rest is history.

Babangida’s military autocracy brought a new political culture to the country. Whatever was the motivation, Babangida decreed into being two political parties, best known as a-little-to-the-right and a-little-to-the-left political constructions: NRC and SDP. The existence for the first time in the country’s history of a two-party system made options easier for voters who had had to choose at least from three region-driven political parties. It may not be clear why the 1993 national election was the freest and fairest in the history of the country, but it is not too far-fetched to assume that the clear-cut ideological positions of the two parties: one besotted to nurturing the status-quo and the other committed to transformation, must have helped voters to make their choices.The country’s opportunity to move away from its troubling political past was destroyed, not by the fact of two clear choices, but by Babangida’s decision to neutralize the advantage of the two-party structure that he brought into being. It is not surprising that Babangida is visibly happy with the registration of APC. It must remind him of the opportunity that was allowed to be lost in 1993.

To say that APC is the first experiment of its kind in the country is to indulge deliberately in hyperboles. The PDP was formed as a trans-regional political group of individuals besotted to sustaining a political culture that had not moved Nigeria forward, from the time of NPC to NPN. What is new about APC is that it is a group of politicians from different corners of the country who have sworn to commit to political progressivism. In other words,unlike the self-acclaimed national party before it, which is interested in business as usual, APC appears to be poised to engage the spirit of change, and to do it with men and women from across traditional ethnic and religious lines. The merger that creates APC means that there are two broad groups of politicians in the country: those who believe that Nigeria is okay as it is and those who believe the country needs change on many fronts.

Progressive politics is not about the opposite of what a non-performing political party does. A new governance model requires that there are new paradigms to be created and used to change the country for the better for its citizens. Commitment to social justice and equal opportunities is fundamental to any genuine transformative agenda. Such commitment is needed to drag Nigeria from its pre-modern state to modernity. There must be some stick-in-the muds that are likely to insist that all that is needed is for the country to get a new party with men and women who are ready to work for (and not against the interests of) the masses in terms of building physical infrastructure and creating jobs. The problem that has made it impossible for Nigeria to transcend the stasis of the last five decades concerns the distribution of power in the country. More specifically, it pertains to the need to interrogate existing distribution of power in our multicultural and multi-religious ‘state-nations.’ To attempt to do this is to make effort to solve the main problem facing the country: ensuring economic, social, political, and cultural justice.

Confronting the largest party in Africa (a political grouping that perceives itself as born-to-rule at least for sixty years!) requires the sizable energy that APC certainly possesses and appears ready to deploy. As the APC continues to mobilize and galvanize citizens around the message of change, it must continue to urge its Think-Tank to think out of the box of Nigeria’s ‘nothing-is-wrong with our constitution or the structure of governance and that all that is required is to get supermen and women among us to be president and governors.’ APC must not ignore the call for true federalism, more so if it wants to achieve a noticeable measure of economic, social, political, and cultural justice in a country constituted by many nationalities.

The enthusiastic welcome of the news of INEC’s registration of APC, demonstrated in several cities a few hours ago, indicates the intensity of the hunger of citizens for change, not only of content but also of form. Nigeria has for too long been structured and designed as a funnel that leaks from the top or the head. Over concentration of power and resources on the central government has turned states into mendicants carrying bowls to the central government for most of the funds used to keep most of the States alive. The age of bottomless revenue from petroleum may be coming to an end sooner than we are ready to apprehend. Diversifying (without appropriate infrastructure) the economy to withstand the shock from the fact that some of the biggest buyers of our oil are now becoming some of the biggest sellers of the product that sustains us is likely to take much longer than one or two post-PDP administrations.

A unitary model of governance that is sustained by donations to states from the central government will continue to undermine efforts to move the country forward. This appears to be the era for not only a strong central government but also for strong state governments. In other words, one of the challenges facing APC, which PDP has ignored, is readiness to pluck the courage to re-design the template of governance, to return a truly federal system to Nigeria.

August 4, 2013
Renunciation of citizenship: matters arising

A central constitution should reflect core values common to all the parts of the whole

There are minor and major matters arising from the Senate’s recent attempt to cleanse the 1999 Constitution of gender bias or discrimination with respect to constitutional provisions on eligibility of citizens to renounce Nigerian citizenship. Some of the matters address surface issues while others make visible some aspects of the constitution that stand federalism on its head.

With respect to surface issues, one matter that has arisen is the attempt by Ondo Central Senatorial District voters to invoke the sovereignty located in the citizenry. They had rightly called their senator to order and to find out why he voted for an issue that attempts to subvert their long-standing values. On his part, the Senator has rightly opened up by acknowledging that he voted in error. As there is no human being that is above mistake, it is expected that the enlightened voters in Ondo Central would have no difficulty accepting their senator’s open acceptance of acting in error. What is reassuring about the Akure town hall meeting with their senator is that voters and their senator came to an agreement on whose views should determine representative’s voting pattern in a democracy.

Unlike the focused discussion between the senator and stakeholders in his constituency, another matter pertains to the claim by senate spokesmen that the section of the constitution at issue is an innocuous one that has nothing to do with underage marriage, which is deemed to have been overtaken by the Child Act of 2003 which states inter alia: “No person under the age of 18 years is capable of contracting a valid marriage and accordingly, any marriage so contracted is null and void and of no effect whatsoever.” Section 29 (4) may not be as innocuous as senators who argue that the matter they considered had nothing to do with child marriage imagine. Is the section at issue not inconsistent with the spirit of the Child Act of 2003 or vice versa? If the act being invoked is superior, then the provision that a married woman shall be deemed to be an adult and thus eligible to renounce her citizenship should not have arisen, on the account that if the person wishing to renounce her citizenship is an underage woman who happens to be married, such marriage should in tune with the spirit of the Child Act of 2003 be null and void and of no effect whatsoever.

If anything, the principle of constitutional supremacy well captured under the General Provisions section: “If any other law is inconsistent with the provision of this Constitution, this Constitution shall prevail, and that other law shall to the extent of the inconsistency be void. It is conceivable for constitutional strict constructionists to argue that the Child Act of 2003 that says any marriage by any woman under 18 is null and void and the section of the Constitution that says that a woman regardless of her age who is married shall enjoy the privileges of an adult: renunciation of Nigerian citizenship, are inconsistent. Should this happen, Section 29 (4b) might be deemed to be superior to the Child Act of 2003.It is, therefore, right for the senate to opt to remove the section 28(4b), to obviate any ambiguity and to also make the provision gender-neutral.

Another matter that has arisen most recently is the acceptance by the President of the Senate that the senators were blackmailed into re-inserting the provision that women who are married regardless of their age should be deemed as adults, even when they are not up to 18 years of age. More reassuring is the Senate President’s promise that the senate would look for opportunities to reverse itself on the decision to retain the provision at issue in the constitution, after having failed to do so as a result of blackmail.

One matter arising that appears to have escaped the attention of the media and media pundits is the confusion inherent in the 1999 Constitution itself, especially its unwillingness to reflect the federal character of the country. It is not surprising that this aspect is overlooked by commentators who do not want to be seen as raising issues about the country’s diversity and the possibility of such interrogation’s capacity to heat the polity. But the voting patterns have unearthed the issue of the failure of the current constitution to reflect the country’s cultural diversity. But the fact that only two senators from the South (one from Edo and the other from Ondo) out of the 73 senators voted to retain section 29(4b) indicates visible ideological or value differences between the North and South of the country, a natural illustration of cultural diversity.

If the provision of this section pertains to religious sensibilities, many of the senators from the South are Moslems and should have voted for retention of section 20(4b). It must be cultural: one section of the country appears to believe that women should have the same rights as their male counterparts, including the opportunity to acquire education that can enrich their citizenship and humanity. The other section appears to favour a constitution that gives men the opportunity to marry women who have not attained the age of majority while also wishing that female victims of underage marriage should keep some of the privileges that accrue only to citizens above 18 years of age. It is important for a federal constitution to allow parts of the whole to keep values that are dear to them without giving the impression that such values apply to other sections of the federation. For example, in the United States, California does not accept capital punishment while Texas does. Conflict is prevented by allowing each state to have its own constitution.

A central constitution should reflect core values common to all the parts of the whole. Embedding culture-specific practices of a section in a national constitution shows bias. The section that allows women who are married to have the privilege of renouncing their citizenship while other women or men of their age in other cultures do not have that privilege is clearly partial to the cultures of Northern Nigeria. Given the history of the current constitution as a document that was imposed on the nation by military autocrats, it is not unexpected that such provisions exist in a constitution authored by military dictators. What should not be expected in the second decade after the exit of military dictatorship is for elected lawmakers to assign a sacred status to a constitution imposed on the nation, even if this had happened through blackmail,to cite the Senate President’s assessment.

The fundamental issue calling for attention is the rightness in having a federal constitution that reflects only the values of a section of the country. Whatever might have been the motivation for Senator Yerima’s objection to removal of section 29(4b), the result of the votes to uphold Yerima’s objection or blackmail suggests that Yerima must have spoken for about half of the nation, the section of the country that produced 71of the 73 votes cast to sustain Yerima’s position. If anything, what happened in the senate in respect of section 29(4b) indicates that the current structure of governance cannot be made any more federal by the lawmakers elected under the 1999 Constitution. It may be better for political leaders to stop playing the Ostrich on the issue of the demand for a properly negotiated constitution, first for the country as a whole and, second, for each of its constituent parts.

July 28, 2013
An economy of mounting agbana and aggravation

There is no better way to describe the economy induced for citizens by government’s incompetence, inefficiency, or nonchalance with respect to governance over the years than to borrow a Yoruba concept, agbana to describe it. Agbana refers to a spiritual state that is generally believed to be induced by others with the sole aim of preventing the victim of the affliction from becoming economically or financially buoyant to the point of being solvent, regardless of the size of the income that flows to the victim. The victim is spiritually manipulated to the point that he spends funds available to him or her in such a way that there would be no surplus to enable him or her do any major investment capable of improving his or her financial position. The goal of inducers of agbana is to frustrate or demoralize the victim, to make him or her incapable of higher financial achievement. Although most people today believe that agbana is a pre-modern concept, but a close look at the poor organization of Nigeria’s infrastructure suggests that the government is an inducer of agbana for the citizenry.

The first example of agbana pertains to supply of energy for citizens and even institutions. Companies which manufacture products and in the process require electricity are forced to depend on diesel-powered generators to do so. Whenever such companies find out that they can hardly break even, they migrate to other West African countries. The citizen-rich or average-also requires electricity to live in a modern way. He or she needs light to see in the dark hours, to watch television, to pump water if and when there is water, to iron clothes, etc. Without any visa to migrate to other countries, the typical Nigerian has to buy generators, buy diesel to power the generators, and pay generator repairers, who also need to buy generator repair kits every month, to keep the generators going.

Furthermore, the middle-class Nigerian needs to buy gadgets that one does not see in other countries: an alarm system to signal availability of electricity; another device that houses various colours of electric bulbs to indicate the presence of electricity on the electric cables that enter the house; another contrivance to indicate that the voltage of the electric current coming into the house is not over the 220 volts for which most of the household items were designed by their overseas manufacturers; inverters to store electricity for later use when the Power Holding Corporation of Nigeria does its hourly power rationing; automatic switch systems to change from public electricity supply system to the generator mode; and, of course, uncountable stabilizers attached to each electric or electronic gadget, from refrigerators to electric kettles. The not so lucky Nigerian has to stay alert to run in and out of his or her room to change from the electric mode to the generator mode, and this can be twenty times a day, depending on the whims of those in charge of distribution of electricity.

As if this is not enough, any person living in the Nigerian space also needs to pay monthly bills to the PHCN. It does not matter if the citizen enjoys any supply of electricity from PHCN in the month for which he or she is billed. Any surprise that the average Nigerian looks rougher than citizens from neighbouring countries? Those who are broke by the middle of the month ignore the shame that going to work or appearing in public space in clothes that need to be ironed brings, shrugging their shoulders when they notice that people give them critical or querulous looks.

The typical middle-class Nigerian also buys water from water merchants who dig private boreholes from which they supply water in ‘tankers’ to the financially above-average person. Economically below-average individuals buy their water from labourers who call themselves water vendors. Poor ones carry buckets of water from the neighbourhood water vending centre to his or her room before or after the day’s work.Generally, plates used for serving food at local restaurants are poorly rinsed because of scarcity or the cost of water. Any surprise that there is too much stench in public buses within and between cities? Generally, many citizens do not have enough water to have proper baths that are required in a tropical environment.

The story is not different for citizens with cellphones today. All service providers in the country serve as inducers of agbana. Citizens buy recharge cards but they are unable to get any benefit from such cards. When they use the cards to make calls, the calls are aborted most of the time, usually leaving the message: “The number you are calling does not exist.” This happens when a wife calls her husband whose number she should know, unless she is insane. When a caller is lucky enough to get through, the transaction is cut midway into a sentence. The story is not over. The telephone service provider on the other side still sends a cryptic message: “The cost for your last call is so and so.” It does not matter if the parties on the line succeed in saying anything to each other. Any surprise that Nigerians are the loudest telephone users in Africa? Telephone users have been conditioned by sub-standard service to shout themselves hoarse, if they are to succeed in making any telephone conversation.

We are at a point in which our public health experts and social-psychologists need to be encouraged to find out why the average life expectancy in Nigeria is 52, one of the lowest in the world. This short life span may not be caused only by poor nutrition and poor health care. It is more likely to owe so much to the psychological impact of a daily life that is filled with anxiety and frustration that the country’s decrepit infrastructure induces. The oversize temperamental outbursts of the average Nigerian in relation to other citizens in sub-Saharan Africa cannot be due to diet as some thinkers are wont to pontificate. Most West Africans eat more or less the same food: yam, cassava, plantain, and rice that form the staple of most Nigerians. The ubiquitous anger of the average Nigerian must have some connection to the aggravation that haunts the average Nigeria on a da-to-day basis on account of the country’s socio-fugal infrastructure.

Apart from constitutions, the basic thing that joins citizens to their governments in most parts of the modern world is infrastructure. In Nigeria the government has been more efficient in giving reasons why the infrastructure is bad than it is in providing adequate facilities for citizens to lead a life that is life-affirming. There seems to be very little difference between the quality of public goods provided directly by the government, (such as roads) and services that have been privatized, such as telecommunication. The consequence is that the typical Nigerian is made to pay for services he or she does not enjoy, be it electricity or telephone. The distancebetween the citizen and the government in the country is likely to continue until the government accepts that some of the priorities of citizens must be part of its own priority.

July 21, 2013
Another season of anomie?

Why should anyone be annoyed when outsiders say that Nigerians are not capable of sustaining democratic culture?

At 52 years of age, Nigeria is experiencing another troubling season of anomie. The first season came at the hands of a civilian government; the second and third at the instance of military autocrats, and the current one under the watch of a civilian president whose mission or motto is transformation.

The title of this essay is a partial borrowing from the title of Wole Soyinka’s book on the politics of evil that led to the Nigerian civil war. Granted that the events described in Soyinka’s book are more gory and scary than what Nigerians are expecting currently, there is no doubt that the state of normlessness that prevailed in Soyinka’s book, A Season of Anomy, is rearing its head again in our own time.

During Nigeria’s first season of anomie in 1962, some individuals in the federal government and their cronies in the government of Western Nigeria were bent on removing politicians who they thought were not ready to play ball with them by joining the ruling party. In pursuance of this goal, some lawmakers in the Western House of Assembly in Ibadan were induced to play thugs inside the hallowed chamber. They broke the mace, threw chairs at other legislators to draw blood from their heads, etc. Alhaji Tafawa Balewa’s government quickly declared a state of emergency in Western Nigeria. Balewa’s reason was that he needed to prevent Nigeria from sliding into anarchy as a result of mounting political differences between Chief Obafemi Awolowo and Chief Ladoke Akintola. Balewa chose his friend, Dr. Moses Majekodunmi, to function in the place of the premier of the region. What started as a regional or state problem then festered until it became a nation-wide problem, which culminated in a political experiment that later brought Nigeria to decades of military autocracies, and the rest is history.

The second season of anarchy came in 1966 after the first coup d’etat that removed the elected government of Alhaji Tafawa Balewa. During the first six months, Gen. Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi introduced the second unitary government in the country, after the one introduced by Lord Frederick Lugard. In July1966, another coup d’etat came to undo the rule of Ironsi, leaving in its wake a major crisis principally in the Northern Region. Igbo men, women, and children were killed in large numbers by angry northerners, to the extent that Lt-Col. Emeka Ojukwu called the killings genocide or pogrom. This led to the civil war, and the rest is history.

In 1993, General Ibrahim Babangida fomented another crisis that was bound to lead to anomie, by annulling the freest and fairest election in Nigeria. General Sani Abacha came to flush out the interim head of state installed by Babangida to calm the Yoruba or Egba area that made it possible for Abiola to be a Nigerian citizen. The struggle for restoration of Abiola’s mandate by NADECO, NALICON, and other pro-democracy organisations in Nigeria and abroad created a situation of instability in the country. Abacha ruled with brutality and prepared to become a civilian president at the end of his tenure as military dictator. The tension pushed the country close to the edge, and the rest is history, part of which explained how the country came to having elected president, governors, and legislators in the saddle today.

Nigeria is now at the entrance of another door to anomie. Five lawmakers were reported a few days ago to have imported thugs to the House of Assembly of Rivers State to collaborate with them on a thuggish project: terrorise and replace the duly elected speaker of the State’s House of Assembly. In the process, the five lawmakers (out of a total of 32) sacked the speaker of the assembly and replaced him with one of them. The newly selected speaker had started functioning before the arrival of majority of members of the assembly. A brawl ensued between lawmakers on the side of respect for the constitution and five legislators on the side of abuse of the constitution. The act of terrorism thrived in the state assembly in Port Harcourt, as if law and order had broken down in the city or in the country. There were no security officers to prevent the disorder that brought embarrassment to the state in particular and to the country in general.

It is not clear at the time of writing this piece what the motives for the action of the five lawmakers who attempted to violate the constitution of the land were. As expected, the Inspector-General of Police had promised to investigate, in order to find out who broke the law and recommend what to do to such persons. It is not clear how long the investigation is to take, but the result of the probe promised by the IGP is worth waiting for, given the enormity of the violation that took place in the Garden City three days ago and given the disruption and instability that similar acts in the past had caused the country.

Most patriotic citizens would not have expected that the country would come again to its present low in relation to the rule of law. Not after what it took many citizens to bring democracy back to the country. Not after the death of so many people in the process of wresting the country from military dictators and restoring democracy. Not after the gloomy prediction that Nigeria could disintegrate by 2015. Not after the life of the country had been endangered for about two years by Boko Haram. To be repeating what happened in Ibadan 50 years ago is tantamount to remaining on the same spot since 1962 in terms of political morality and progress. With such evidence of stagnation, why should anyone be surprised if foreigners predict doom for our country? Why should anyone be annoyed when outsiders say that Nigerians are not capable of sustaining democratic culture?

There is a saying among the Yoruba: When one’s neighbour chooses to eat vermin, one must warn him or her about the bad consequences, not only for the sake of the eater of vermin, but also for the peace of the neighbour, as the coughing and sneezing would not allow the neighbour to sleep at night. Some of the lawmakers in the Rivers State House of Assembly are metaphorically eating a vermin and the consequences, if the act is not properly and quickly addressed in a legal and constitutional manner, be too serious for the entire country to deal with.

Given the current state of Egypt just two years after the coming of civil rule and democracy in that country, Nigerians need to call their rulers to order. In particular, the President and the National Assembly need to act fast and right, to prevent the country from descending into another political abyss. Such intervention should be in addition to the investigation promised by the IGP. Such intervention is needed urgently, in order to prevent the rascality or banditry in the Rivers House of Assembly last Tuesday from ballooning into a national crisis, such as similar misbehaviour in Ibadan in 1962 did.

July 14, 2013
National Assembly and politics of policing Rivers State

A situation where a Police Commissioner distorts facts does not augur well

The National Assembly is not wanting when it comes to intervening in matters of governance within the jurisdiction of the executive branch of government. This is as it should be in a context of separation of powers. In both parliamentary and presidential systems, it is generally the responsibility of the legislature to monitor the use of executive power, in order to ensure that the citizenry is not shortchanged by wielders of executive power. It is, therefore, not surprising that some members of the House of Representatives are already mobilising others to get involved in preventing a crisis of governance looming in Rivers State, illustrated most graphically by the face-off or rivalry between the elected Governor of Rivers State and the Commissioner of Police deployed to the state by the federal government. As usual, the federal legislature is not departing from the tradition of scratching the surface of problems, as it chooses to cure rash instead of leprosy.

The House of Representatives has set up a 14-person committee to liaise with the Police Affairs Commission, the Inspector-General of Police and the Rivers State Government to fashion out ways of improving relationship between the police posted to Rivers State and the state government. In a quick move to confirm that the goal of the Assembly’s intervention is to avoid the cause of the problem and focus on the symptom, the lawmaker who raised the motion said: “The motion was meant to find means of guaranteeing safety of the people of the state based on the prevailing circumstances because a former militant has raised the alarm that there is a build-up of arms in the state. This is not good for the state because both the governor and the police chief can guarantee their own safety but the safety of the masses is not guaranteed.” This statement was made after the lawmaker catalogued instances of altercations between the governor of Rivers State and the Commissioner of Police in the state, rather than between citizens and the police.

It is conceivable for anyone who prefers to deal with the perfunctory aspect of problems to see the tension between Rivers State’s governor and the commissioner of police in the state as a personal matter. But a deeper look at what is happening in relation to law enforcement cannot but reveal the innards of the country’s flawed design of law enforcement. What the tension between GovernorAmaechi andCommssionerMbu suggests is that the same thing can happen to other governors. It may appear as if the issue emanates from personality conflicts between Amaechi and Mbu, but viewing the problem more analytically should reveal that it is not the persons of the two individuals that is at issue, it is the philosophy that a federation can have a state governor without powers to secure or enforce laws in his or her state that requires immediate and honest attention by federal legislators.

As it is being speculated in the media, it is possible that what is at stake in the tension between the presidency and the governor of Rivers State over the matter of who won the recent election of chairman of Nigerian Governors Forum may have sparked uneasiness between the governor and the commissioner of police. To quote sections of the constitution, as the mover of the motion for legislators’ intervention in the tension in Rivers has aptly done: Meanwhile, Section 14 (1)b of the Constitution …empowers the governor to give directives to the Police Commissioner, but in this instance, the question is, ‘has the governor given such directive?’ appears to be more interested in quibbling than in solving the fundamental issue thrown up by the possibility of a police commissioner calling a state governor a dictator.

What is the basis of the optimism that a police commissioner that has called a state governor a dictator should be expected to listen to directives from such governor? It is the kind of constitution that the country has which makes it possible for a police officer to call a governor a dictator. It is generally those who elect public officers that have the right to tell such officers that they are dictators when they have evidence for such claim. We have been witnessing that kind of right in Egypt in the last four days.

A state governor in a democratic context has the mandate of his constituents to rule. Ordinarily ruling a state involves collaborating with lawmakers to establish laws and enforce such laws. In Nigeria, an elected governor only has a right to sign laws enacted by state lawmakers and no more than that. He or she is not in charge of enforcing such laws, even though he is the chief executive officer of the state. It is the police force under the monopoly of the federal government that is directly in charge of law enforcement all over the country. The police commissioner or even the police recruit in any of the states is responsible to the Inspector-General of Police, who, in turn, is responsible only to the president.

The fundamental problem that should interest federal legislators, who also happen to be considering at present amending the 1999 Constitution that gives the federal government monopoly over policing in all the states of the federation, is what lawmakers should x-ray rigorously. If it is possible for a governor who is also a member of the ruling party at the federal level to experience the kind of frustration that Governor Amaechi has been reported to experience from the federal commissioner of police in his state, lawmakers need to embark on proactive legislation, capable of preventing other governors from having with police officers posted to their states, disagreements that can compromise security of citizens. If a fellow member of the ruling party at the centre that controls law enforcement nation-wide experiences any frustration from the hands of the commissioner of police in his state, then it is only God that can save governors from opposition parties.

According to Sebastian Roche in a monograph on Federalism and Police Systems, democracy as a culture should have a space in the design of police systems. Democratic policing includes creating and supporting a police system that sees, as its primary duty, the protection of the freedom and human rights of citizens. A democratic police system cannot exist in a federal union in which only one tier of government monopolizes law enforcement, as it is in the current constitution.

There is a Yoruba proverb: if you throw a cutlass down one million times, it will land only on its flat surface. The flat surface of the 1999 Constitution, which federal lawmakers have suggested several times since their one-day interaction with selected citizens over constitutional items slated for amendment, is the exclusive power given to the federal government over security and law enforcement. It is possible for Governor Amaechi to overcome what he sees as his present predicament, after reaching some understanding with members of the ruling party at the center. But what happens to him in relation to the commissioner of police in his state today can and may happen to other governors, for whatever reasons.

And this will not happen just because the current president is less benevolent than he should be. It may happen because federal lawmakers appear not to be as concerned with creating benevolent institutions and structures of governance as they are about using their resources to act as fire fighters. What is more important is to prevent outbreak of fires. To do so requires that our lawmakers do more rigorous analysis of the constitution they claim they can amend to the satisfaction of all Nigerians, by giving Nigerians the freedom to determine the extent of powers they want to assign to states in a federation run by civilians. Our legislators need to come to terms with the fact that the federal and state governments are coordinates. As coordinates, no side should have the power to post police officers to either side, except in the situation of war. Contrary to the assumption of the 1999 Constitution, federal lawmakers need to realize that the federal government is not synonymous with the federation and thus cannot afford to continue to serve as the bouncer at the gate of the country’s security system.

July 7, 2013
Terrorism and tinted glass phobia

The country’s security gurus have not shown how many terrorists have been nabbed operating from vehicles with tinted glass

Who says that Boko Haram has not changed the lifestyle of Nigerians? That person should ask car owners, not only those that look tense when they are on a bridge or Nigerian Christians that are afraid to go to church on Sundays and their liberal Islamic counterparts who are no longer enthusiastic about going to pray in public mosques on Fridays. The latest group to ask this question is Nigerians who are now being harassed for using cars with tinted glass that engineers in other parts of the world manufactured after years of innovative thinking and research to save human skin from over exposure to sun rays. Managers of the country’s security need to be asked why they have unearthed a law created under military dictators under an elected government.

Terrorism is a major challenge for governments all over the world. It has led to creation of special agencies in some parts of the world. There was nothing like Homeland Security in the United States in the years before September 11, 2001. Since the creation of Homeland Security, millions of air travelers have learnt how to leave their belts at home to reduce the pain of going through security checks in all airports of the world. Even women obsessed with their femininity have had to live with small volume of face powder, small amount of perfume, and sometimes without toothpaste if they want to travel without hassles. It is therefore not strange that Nigeria’s security chiefs have gone into the archive of laws created during the era of military dictatorship, to fight the rise of Islamic terrorism in the country.

What is strange is that the archaeologists of military laws have not given citizens good reasons to believe that they are not just being capricious or arbitrary. No data have been provided to show any link between terrorist acts in the North and vehicles with tinted glass. Smokers did not have to complain about being prevented from carrying their matches or firelighters with them on the plane, after the experience of shoe bombers or the botched attempt of young Nigerian international terrorist to light the bomb under his underwear a few years ago. Air passengers all over the world who are lovers of peace and order have not complained about ordinances that forbid them to carry machetes, knives, and bows and arrows into aircrafts. The connection between these dangerous items and in-flight terrorism had been made clear to passengers and non-passengers.

What has not been made clear to Nigerians is the connection between tinted glass on the two rear sides of cars and the killing of innocent people by Boko Haram bombing of the UN office in Abuja, churches, motor parks, and police stations. The country’s security gurus have not shown how many terrorists have been nabbed operating from vehicles with tinted glass. They also have not shown citizens, particularly car owners how many explosive devices have been recovered by police from cars with tinted glass. Innocent citizens in their millions need to be told how many guns have been shot and how many bombs have been thrown from moving cars with tinted glass since the emergence of Boko Haram. It is necessary for the police to use data obtained from such heinous crimes to enlist the support of innocent Nigerians who had taken loans to buy cars with tinted glass made by their manufacturers abroad.

Reports have indicated that Islamic terrorists had thrown bombs from motor cycles while some had shot innocent citizens from moving bicycles. Is the change in our security protocols going to ban motorcycles and bicycles? Nigerians have been told that Boko Haram bombers have used empty houses and occupied houses to store explosive devices and powerful assault guns. What is the attitude of the Inspector-General of Police to thousands of such houses in the north and south of the country, board them up? Invoking an obsolete law in the books against owners of cars with tinted glass is reminiscent of erecting road blocks as a means of fighting crimes. It is obsolete and may be counterproductive.

In a war that requires cooperation of civilian population, policymakers in the security sector need to know how to cultivate citizens. They should not create policies that anger or antagonize citizens unnecessarily. Asking car owners to obtain special permit for using cars that they had duly registered and for which they had paid duties to Customs is similar to punishing or blaming the victim. Anyone that drives an unregistered car in the country has committed a punishable crime. It should not be criminal for citizens who have paid customs on their vehicles and paid for registration with their local government or the Federal Road Safety Commission to use those vehicles. It should be safely assumed by citizens that Customs department, FRSC, and the NPF are interlinked and are agencies that share common interest in the country’s security.

In the fight against Boko Haram, our rulers need to learn from good policies and practices in other countries that have security challenges from Islamic terrorists or any other category of terrorists: Ensure that cars do not carry tinted glass that is in excess of what is allowed in other parts of the world and ensure that security officers are given gadgets that can see through tinted glass from a distance. It will be less expensive for the federal government to acquire such devices than to have to respond to litigation seeking refund of huge sums of money to citizens who own duly registered vehicles. It is worth stressing that when the law being excavated by the police was made, it was to give special protection to military governments without mandate to rule. Even in those days when civilians were prevented from buying cars with green and jet black colors, and owning cars with tinted glass, military rulers were exempted from the rule, an indication that the law was not to fight crime but to accentuate privileges of new class of rulers.

Thomas Paine and David Thoreau at different times had warned makers of bad and oppressive laws about the danger in making such laws. They had argued that human beings have the capacity to resist or disobey unjust laws. The National Assembly should not engage in panel beating an unjust and unreasonable law inherited from decades of military dictatorship. What senators need to do is to jettison the law against the use of cars with tinted glass, not to ignore attempts by the police to make citizens pay twice for the same product.

•This piece is being republished after observing that policemen and women are back to harass car owners on highways for driving cars with tinted glass and without proper permit to use such cars, weeks after declaration of emergency and deployment of full military action that have been reported to be ridding the country of Islamic terrorists by the day.

June 30, 2013
New road-side policing?

One point arising from the replacement of NPF with FRSC, VIO, and NC men on the roads is the increasing harassment of citizens

A few months ago, the current Inspector-General of Police did what most Nigerians had considered impossible. He put an end to police roadblocks across the country. At the beginning, most Nigerians did not believe he would have the courage to keep toll-collecting police officers off the highways and intra-city roads. But as soon as it became clear that the no-nonsense IG was ready to fire road-blocking police officers, Nigerians heaved a sigh of relief and praised the IG for his braveness. A few months after this micro revolution, citizens are back to harassment by new groups of uniformed men on highways and city roads.

Members of the Federal Road Safety Commission appear to have succeeded members of the Nigeria Police Force on road-side duties. FRSC red-capped men and women are now as ubiquitous on all roads between towns as the federal police withdrawn from the road a few months ago. Just like the police before them, FRSC officers stop moving vehicles on the highway and on streets within towns that are clearly not federal roads. Like the NPF men and women, FRSC officers dutifully ask for drivers’ licenses, vehicle registration, insurance papers, fire extinguishers, etc. They even stop and delay drivers whose tail lights are out.

I rode with a brother recently. He was flagged down on the Lagos-Ibadan highway around noon. After producing every document requested of him by the FRSC men, he was told that the passenger-side rear light “was not working.” My brother responded that this must have just happened and that he would fix it in Ibadan. I expected the FRSC men to give him a warning, but they quickly handed my brother a N2,000 ticket, asking him to turn in his driver’s license. Of course, several mini-buses that were stopped did not experience much delay. They were quick to stretch their hands to the men in red caps. My brother blamed me for refusing to sit at the back. He was right; all the cars with one or two persons at the back were ignored by the officers. I quickly learnt my lesson and chose to sit at the back (at the so-called owner’s corner) on our way back.

On our way back from Ibadan the same day, we saw another law-enforcing group. These were Vehicle Inspection Officers (VIO). Like the FRSC officers we saw in the morning, they too were there to ensure safety on the road. Five or so buses were stopped in front of us. Even though we were not flagged down, I got down out of curiosity to ask one of the bus drivers what the problem was. The VIOs were asking commercial bus drivers the same set of questions that we were asked in the morning by FRSC officers. One of the officers came to ask me for my identity and why I had stopped without being asked to do so. I told him I just wanted to know what they were doing on the highway. He told me with a stern look, “doing our job and please do not block the traffic sir.”

Even on Ikeja roads, FRSC and VIO are competing for attention or business. It is not uncommon to come across these men and women within half a mile on the same road on the same day in Ikeja, particularly on Olowopopo Avenue and Agidingbi Road. As if the FRSC and VIO are not enough menace on the roads, men of the Nigerian Customs are also stopping moving vehicles on Funsho Williams Avenue, Ibadan-Ife and Sagamu-Ore roads, to name a few. In their own case, Customs men claim to be searching for smuggled goods. They ask drivers to produce their customs papers, even when the vehicles carry proper registration documents. One Customs officer even accused me between Araromi-Obu and J-4 of driving a car that must have been undervalued, saying “the amount paid on the car was rather small.” I assured the officer that I bought the car in Nigeria from someone who had used it in the country for more than two years before I bought it. I was luckier than other road users. The chubby customs officer released my papers.

One point arising from the replacement of NPF with FRSC, VIO, and NC men on the roads is the increasing harassment of citizens, particularly commercial drivers. It does not make sense to save road users from the menace of one armed force and put them in the jaws of men and women of three other forces. There must be better ways for Customs men to prevent smuggled goods from entering the country. This is why there are ports of entry into the country. Customs officers checking for smuggled goods outside the airport or in places that have no borders with other countries must have ulterior motives.

Citizens need to be properly educated about the roles of FRSC and VIO. Are they competing agencies? At the beginning, FRSC officers were to enforce speed limit on highways. VIO was principally responsible for ensuring that those who obtain drivers’ licenses are certified to do so. These two agencies now behave like customs men. They wait outside their offices to ascertain that drivers have proper documents. FRSC men no longer enforce speed limit. They are not even properly equipped to do so. There are no radars to ascertain that drivers are driving within speed limit. There are no signs to indicate speed limit from zone to zone. Unlike what obtains in other countries, there is no agency that certifies periodically that vehicles are safe to be put on the road. In other places, vehicles are checked for mechanical fitness and emission control and certificates are issued for passing such inspection. Para-military men and women are not given beats on the highways to do this.

Withdrawing the black-uniformed federal police from ‘Wetin-u-carry/wey your particulars’ beats that often turned into unofficial toll gates for police offices and the enthusiasm of traffic-related officers that have succeeded the traditional police: FRSC and VIO as road-side police only deepen the lack of democratic policing in our country. The kind of exotic English or crude pidgin (all designed to draw money from the pockets of road users) that federal traffic policemen and women speak does not fail to push the average citizen to say ‘but what kind of country do we live in?’

My experience on my way to and from the heart of Yorubaland in the two weeks has compelled me to re-publish this piece which had appeared earlier on this page.

June 23, 2013