The Nation Newspaper

Category: Gbenga Omotoso

  • Rio 2016 (The Nigerian paradox)

    Rio 2016 (The Nigerian paradox)

    Nigerians watching the Rio Olympic Games have been asking one question: where is “the Nigerian Spirit”?

    We have a way of rising from the lowest rung of the ladder to survive and triumph when the world has written us off. It is not just in sports; it is in all areas of our unique life. Politics. Busines. Academics. Wars. And more.

    With the seeming gradual disappearance of that never-say-die spirit, many are being forced to wonder: why the Nigerian paradox? Why should a country be so blessed – to the envy of many – and yet so poor – to the consternation of all? This is the question that sociologists have been battling for long. The mystery of a country blessed by nature and wrecked by the very hands that should nurture it like a rare flower tendered by a master florist.

    Is it all in our gene as some, without iron-clad proof, have derisively suggested? Is it poor leadership? Why poor leadership when we have men who can hold their own among the world’s best in any trade? When and how did we miss it? Can we regain our glory? When? In this generation?

    My apologies for the seeming digression. It has been a great time at the Rio Olympics. Against all odds, Brazil has staged an extraordinarily classy show that has kept the world singing its praise. Just before the games, the country was embroiled in social and political upheavals that kept many wondering whether it was ready to host the world. Life was tough for the man in the street and Zika virus was a big challenge. Petty thieves ruled the streets and politicians slugged it out in a do-or-die battle for the presidency.

    But, all that has been elbowed out by the Brazilian “miracle”, the world has fallen in love after seeing a great spectacle of an opening ceremony – enchanting and gripping – and some of the structures that are arguably the highest exhibition of architectural prowess. Indeed the land of samba has proved the bookmakers wrong.

    It is an exciting love affair. Records are being shattered and legends are being made.

    Jamaican sensation Usain Bolt has become the first man to win the 100 metres dash three consecutive times, breaking his own record. As he flew onto the finishing line, he raised his forefinger, obviously to tell the world that he remains number one. Of course, the world rose to hug a true star, the fastest man on planet earth.

    Michael Phelps of the United States became the world’s most decorated Olympian of all time, taking his 21st Olympic career gold. Fondly called “The Baltimore Bullet”, Phelps  carted home six gold medals at the 2004 Olympics in Athens, eight at the 2008 Games in Beijing and four at the  2012 Olympics in London. He returned to the pool in April 2014 after retirement to qualify for Rio where he has sunk his own records.

    South African star athlete Wayde van Niekerk smashed United States’ Michael Johnson’s 17-year-old record in the 400 metres when he did it at 43.03 seconds.

    Team Nigeria  has shown  only sparks of high class performance. We are yet to hit the medals table. But the sparks have indicated clearly that we do not lack the talents to excel on the global stage. No. The truth is that talents alone do not make success. The other key elements, such as right environment for training would-be champions, facilities, motivation and quality leadership, are missing.

    The soccer team, for example, has shown some strength of a champion. After a botched travel arrangement, it arrived in Brazil hours before its first match in which it beat Japan 5-4. It lost to Colombia 0-2 and beat Sweden 1-0, before humbling Denmark 0-2. It lost last  night 0-2 to Germany.

    “It was very difficult. We struggled to get here. But there is a oneness, a team spirit and a willingness to overcome,” coach Samson Siasia was quoted as saying. He was recalling the team being stranded in Atlanta.

    The story remains unclear. Some said it was cash palaver. Others said it had to do with currency conversion and transfer problems – transferring.money out of Nigeria could sometimes be like breaking a rock, according to knowledgeable sources.

    The team’s performance so far has rekindled sweet memories of 1996 when Nigeria beat Brazil after being down by three goals. It overcame another two-goal deficit to humble Argentina 3-2 in the final.

    Sprinter Blessing Okagbare did not make it in the 100 metres. The popular thinking is that our athletes run themselves out of the medals dais by participating in small races in which they get burnt out before getting to the big stage. All because they need cash for their upkeep.

    Table Tennis star Aruna Quadri did not get a medal but he made us all proud when he smashed his way to the quarter finals, the first African to make that feat. He beat Timo Boll, the former world number one and the number 10 seed in Rio. He was stopped by the world number one, Chinese Ma Long. His team mate Segun Toriala was honoured for his seventh Olympic  Games appearance.

    Chimerical Ukoga, the rower, reached the quarter finals, after putting her medical school on hold to represent Nigeria. Hers is a worthy story of patriotism. The first Nigerian representative in rowing schools in the United States.

    Boxer Efe Ajagba, Nigeria’s sole representative, lost in the quarter finals. He knocked out Trinidad and Tobago’s Nigel Paul in the first round. Nigeria has not won a medal in boxing since 1996 when Duncan  Dokiwari got a bronze in Atlanta. Ajagba won a bronze at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Scotland, 2014 and gold at the All Africa Games, 2015.

    These Nigerians and many others, who emblematise the Nigerian Spirit, surely would have done better in Rio, if they had been physically and mentally well prepared for the Games. Such preparations take at least four years, not the crash programme and emergency projects we do here. Not the kind of preparation in which more players are taken overseas than the number needed, with hotel bills sparking rows about who owes what and who pays.

    Winning at the Olympics is no 100 metres dash. It is a result of marathon preparations, guided by a foolproof policy geared towards producing champions and not carpetbaggers.

    Britain did not do well in 1996. They returned home and set their hands to the plough. They won the bid to host the 2012 Games. Now they are third on the medals table.

    The Asians are fast on the heels of the Jamaicans and the Americans in athletics. They are the undisputed champions in table tennis – a game that has its original home in England – thanks to years of sweating. There will be little surprise if they start dominating track and field.

    At the 1996 Olympics, Jamaicans were struggling to do well. They returned to the drawing board to build champions. They sent people to understudy the Americans and take advantage of the world class facilities there. Now there is a new generation of speedsters. Three Jamaicans ran in the men’s 100 metres finals.

    American greats have returned to colleges to raise new world beaters. Their focus: the 2020 Games.

    Here in Nigeria, every Olympic is a jamboree. We are the only country who still live in the past when “the important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win, but to take part” as the father of the modern Olympics, French educationist Pierre de Fredy, Baron de Couberlin (1863-1937) said.

    Our governments are blind to the great potential of sports to generate employment and revenue. The private sector knows its role in this, but there seems to be no plan to rally business for sports.

    Schools lack facilities. Even those exotic neighbourhoods that are the homes of the rich and powerful have no facilities. Little wonder most of our stars are from poor homes. Imagine somebody encouraging those kids who run after moving vehicles to sell mobile phone recharge cards and other items to take to sports.

    Sports Minister Solomon Dalung is quoted as saying he would not leave Brazil without a medal. “Let him seek asylum there, na im sabi,” a youngster said cynically.

    A fellow questioned why Sports and Youth should be lumped together in one ministry . Besides, he scorned the minister for, according to him, dressing like a retired soldier turned door man and a Civil Defence recruit awaiting his first set of kits. “That is what you get when you hire a lawyer to run sports in a country of many former great sportsmen,” he said dejectedly.

    How do we use the Nigerian Spirit to tackle the Nigerian paradox of a rich nation stricken by the Zika of poor leadership? Our leaders see – even if they do not, don’t they feel ?- how united Nigerians are when the national soccer teams are playing. Can’t they use this to close the yawning gap that has created the crisis of suspicion that has created such scary belligerents as Avengers, pro-Biafra activists and Boko Haram?

    How do we tackle the Nigerian paradox?

  • N5.5b housing scam: IGP promises to punish erring officers

    N5.5b housing scam: IGP promises to punish erring officers

    Acting Inspector General of Police (IGP) Ibrahim Idris yesterday vowed to deal with officers indicted in the N5.5 billion unfulfilled police housing scheme.

    He gave the assurance while responding to a question by a chief superintendent of Police (CSP) during his interactive session with personnel at his maiden visit to Lagos.

    The CSP said officers in 2006 paid N510,000 each, amounting to N5.5 billion for housing slots at the Police Estate, Idimu.

    He said 10 years after, the subcribers were yet to either get their accommodation nor money back.

    Idris, who expressed displeasure at the development, promised that investigation will be conducted, and those found culpable will be prosecuted.

    “We are going to run a transparent government. Nobody is going to be shortchanged. As a transparent institution, we have responsibility over you. Do not keep quiet when you are being shortchanged. Complain.

    “The money belongs to you. It is your right. So, you should not keep quiet. You needed the house than most of us because you are the one doing the work. You are the one in the streets, working under rain and shine.

    “So, you are the face of the police, not us because most times we are in our offices. You are the police, that is the reality. It is our duty to give you what belongs to you.

    “I can assure you that this will be investigated. We will look into it and deal with everyone indicted. They will also be prosecuted.

    “A policeman should own a house. We are going to provide affordable houses that you can pay up the mortgage within six years.”

    On stagnated promotion, the IGP advised officers on same rank for 10 years to write officially for elevation to their rightful positions.

    “If you have been on a rank for 10 years without promotion and have met all requirements, please, apply for your promotion. It is your right and it means the system has shortchanged you.”

    On the menace of militants, the IGP said plans were under way to ensure visibility policing on the waterways, from Lagos to Calabar.

    He said the Lagos State governor promised to provide gunboats and logistics for the marine police.

    “We want to adopt visibility policing. It is not just in Lagos but also down to Calabar. I spoke with the governor and he talked about providing gunboats. We discovered that there are not enough policemen on the waterways. We are going to enhance the Marine Police and we will deploy more officers on the waterways to serve as deterrence.”

    The IGP said he mandated all commands and divisions to establish Eminent Persons’ Forum (EPF) to meet once in three months and share ideas on how to improve security in their areas.

    “Policing is everyone’s business, that is why we are soliciting the support and cooperation of the people. The ratio of police to the people in Nigeria is quite low and so, we expect all to act as policemen where there’s no police.

    “The EPF is a community approach to solve security problems in communal crises. We believe it will assist us because most communal problems are based on suspicion and lack of trust.

    Idris also directed divisional police officers to treat petitions to them within 30 days.

    “It is compulsory for petitions to the division to be treated within 30 days. Any petition against an officer should be investigated.

    “We are going to reactivate the X-Squad. We have to restore the respect of the police. We must be an accountable police force and responsive. A police force that has no integrity it is not a police force. That should be our watchword.

    “You must be contented with what you have and manage it well. Do not use your power to arrest people because anyone who does that has violated the oath he took as an officer. It is compulsory for the police to partner the community because through partnership, issues are resolved. We must know that we are servants to the people. We are being paid to protect the people, and not to hurt them.

    We must be humane, accountable to the law and our creator.”

    The IGP warned policemen not to meddle in land matters, and protect the vulnerable populace, especially women, children and the elderly.

  • We are all guilty

    First, a confession. This is not my original thought. It is a subject of those occasional exchanges with my uncle, a retiree whose patriotism is remarkable. Unlike many others, he still indulges in the luxury of buying daily at least two newspapers.

    He called to find out how I was planning for a short break, which I had told him I would like to take. He was due to travel, but was worried about getting the forex to do this.

    The discussion veered off into the state of the nation – the trouble with the naira, leadership, governance, the future and all that. He concluded that three professionals are behind the fate of this country, troubling it and tossing it up and down like a leaf that has fallen off a tree into a river, its future left to the waves.

    “Who are they, sir?” I asked incredulously. He smiled derisively and replied: “Lawyers, journalists and economists.”

    “How?”

    “You don’t know? I will tell you. When people steal money, they run to lawyers, who defend them as if they did nothing wrong. And you journalists are not helping the government. I expect you to be less critical of this government because it is on a rescue mission. The mess is too much and can’t be cleared in a year. You know this but you churn out editorials that are so critical and I begin to wonder where you were two years ago. I don’t mean that all the newspapers are unsympathetic o”

    “This is interesting, sir. So, how about the third professionals o?”

    “Economists. They always talk theories that are far from reality. They are never realistic in their approach. Were they not part of the beginning of this crisis?”

    For a moment, I was gripped by a tough bout of laughter. A few minutes after the exchange, I reflected on it all and agreed that he was damn right. But, I do not feel that only these three professionals, who are guilty as charged in my uncle’s court, are the only ones troubling this country, blessed by nature, but cursed by the very hands that should nurture and nourish it.

    Lawyers defend blue murder. To them, the fountain of justice must soothe the throat of all – murderers, rapists and arsonists. All.

    A man confesses to committing murder, but his lawyer urges the court to free him because “ he was extremely provoked” to pull the trigger. If he fails to persuade the judge, he pleads “for leniency”. When all that fails, the prosecution insists that justice be served and the judge agrees with him, the defence pleads for the “mitigation of sentence”.

    Another confesses to robbing the state of cash, huge cash that is enough to build schools and hospitals, fight insurgents and pay our suffering workers. Lawyers – the ones called SAN; those are the best money can get, favourite of the rich and mighty because of their power to turn things around in a magical manner that keeps everyone exclaiming: ‘ah! Let’s fear God o’ – tell him to plead not guilty.

    They will, with so much passion and incredible certitude, tell the judge they object to the charge. If he rejects the objection, they urge him to disqualify himself from the case because, they will state boldly, there is a likelihood of his being biased because his cousin’s son was a party to a matter in a court of coordinate jurisdiction about ten years ago.

    If they see that this may not work, they will then ask the accused, the one who confessed to stealing but feels no sense of guilt, to surrender a negligible portion of what he has stolen. It is called plea bargain. No contrition. Nor remorse. He is left off the hook and he is told to go in peace and sin no more.

    The lawyer’s dexterity at using his skills to avert justice and pervert the principles of jurisprudence is not helping, but the question remains: don’t judges have the final say?

    Journalists don’t condone corruption and all the ills that ail Nigeria. No. The problem is that an average Nigerian loves the mob mentality. He would prefer that a thief gets jungle justice than being taken to court where he may get a slap on the wrist or be discharged for “lack of diligent prosecution”.

    The President Muhammadu Buhari administration is lucky. The criticisms have not been coming in torrents. They are trickling in, like the morning showers that caress the body before drenching it.  Besides, most of them seem to be in good faith. The scurrilous ones are understandable, coming from those who planned to rule for 60 years but lost steam in just 16 years of recklessness.They are entitled to their bitterness.

    The simple message is that, in fighting corruption, we should not lose our sense of justice and humanity. Nobody is safe when the state succumbs to the push to embrace a mob action, fast as it may be. If a court says an accused should be on bail, he should be let off so as not to give those turning it all into a rights issue a horsewhip to lash the government and its agents.

    Those crying that there is no economic direction should be more liberal in their criticism. The government has spoken about the past, where we are and where we are heading. Things are rough, for sure. But to say the government is unconcerned may not be right. Perhaps the treatment does not match the ailment, like pumping Panadol into a typhoid fever patient. He will never recover.

    Economists are busy propounding esoteric theories that do not work here. There is no accurate data for anything. This makes development tough to measure. Cash is stuffed in private vaults on farms, not in banks. Huge funds are diverted to private pleasures.

    In the immediate past administration, we had all manner of scatterbrained schemes and scams. You Win I Win, SURE-P and others that were founded on sheer expediency and never meant to endure, let alone boost the economy and better the lot of the citizenry.

    After the collapse of those schemes, we embarked on a face saving voyage and – without any thought for the future and based on mere juggling of facts and figures – we proclaimed ours  Africa’s biggest economy. Rebasing. It was as if we offended the gods. Ever since, the economy – and the people – have been writhing in pains. Rebasing has turned to “rebashing”.

    Now, we are in a recession. They say the contraction won’t last for long. Really?

    There is no need grabbing  these three professionals by the throat for our situation. We are all guilty.

    Consider the politicians who conceive policies for civil servants to implement. They make fanciful promises and paint the picture of an El Dorado, yet they deliver pains and misery.

    Besides, they soon after getting into office begin to swim in corruption. It used to be millions. Nowadays we hear of billions being shared by people desperate to remain in power, which they see as an end in itself and not a means to an end -better service delivery, justice, equity and a good life for all.

    Lawmakers are a wonderful lot. They get paid for sitting a few times in a year, but those who thought it was all about sitting allowances and influence peddling have now been proven wrong. Budget padding is here. When Buhari refused to sign this year’s budget, he was criticised as being stubborn. Now, our lawmakers are fighting over who injected extraneous financial matters into the all-important document. The new name is padding. Those who try to make it look innocent call it “insertion”, but the enlightened lot insist it is all a euphemism for corruption.

    The accusations are neither here nor there, but the sickening scenario portrays them as people whose accounts have been overdrawn in the bank of credibility. They are in the red.

    The upper chamber is hobbled by a corrosive test of integrity, its leadership accused of forging the rules that guided the controversial election that propelled them into their high offices.

    Civil servants are believed to be the ones showing the politicians how to steal. Contracts are inflated. Workforce is inflated so that somebody can collect salaries for ghost workers and pension funds are looted. Shame.

    The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has tried all the tricks in the book, yet the naira seems to be beyond redemption. The exchange rate is such that businesses that are import- dependent -many are – find it difficult to survive because they do not have the cash to bring in raw materials.

    You visit the bank for forex, but you return empty handed. The roadside mallam will at any time meet your need. This is not right. The popular accusation is that the bankers supply the mallams the cash they hawk at their own rates, which the official market is struggling to force down. Market forces have refused to force the parallel market to fall in line. Market forces have jammed street forces. What a battle of forces.

    We are all guilty. Every trade has its own bad guys. Musicians who deploy their creative skills to eulogise thieves are guilty as they celebrate rogues.

    How about accountants who doctor the books? Isn’t it said that stealing is successful only when the accountant is either hand in glove with the thieves or has fallen asleep?

    Auditors were there when fuel subsidy became a huge flea market of fraudsters, who drained the treasury of its blood, cash, and got us almost bankrupt until the government summoned – albeit belatedly – the courage to say “enough”.

    Unfortunately, when a time calls for understanding and patriotism, we deploy politics. The problem is not that of the leadership; the followership is also at fault.

    In other words, we are all guilty.

  • Survival (and investment) tips for these times

    Survival (and investment) tips for these times

    These are busy times for financial analysts and investment consultants. Oil prices keep tumbling. The capital market is battling to retrieve its reputation as a sure haven for investment. Budgets are being battered by the reality of the day. The rich are grumbling and the poor are crying. The Wall Street’s wall has indeed fallen flat.

    The wealthy and mighty get tight-fisted. They even fire their employees in a desperate and deft cost cutting move. Yet there are those who will be seeking new havens into which they can pump their fortune.

    In such an uncertain situation, the field becomes an open arena of hyenas and all manner of gangsters, tricksters and pranksters posing as financial engineers. Trust “Editorial Notebook” to weigh in at such perilous times. Here, therefore, are some survival and investment tips. It is all in line with this column’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and in the true spirit of good citizenship. Let’s get cracking.

    There have been reports of some of our compatriots acquiring large expanse of land in Abuja and other places, ostensibly for farming in response to the huge admonition to join the battle for diversification of the economy. Farming, we have been told, is in such cases a mere subterfuge. The real motive, we have learnt from a top source, is to build deep down in the heart of the farm a huge vault in which hard currencies are stashed away, away from the ever-prying eyes of Ibrahim Magu’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and lily-livered bankers who can’t keep a secret.

    Yes, banks don’t keep secrets. You deposit just a few billions and before you sign the teller they have leaked the small transaction to the EFCC, which expects you to be able and willing to explain how you came about the cash as if it is some forbidden substance, such as heroin.

    You don’t have to bury your hard earned money in the farm; that is crude. Neither do you need to build shopping malls and filling stations in your wife’s name. No.

    Britain seems to have buried its lofty idea of building a world class prison in Nigeria where our compatriots who have fallen foul of that country’s law could be brought back home to serve their term. The plan is to have such a facility in a quiet area. It will be air-conditioned, with sporting areas as well as food canteens that can compete with the best hotels in town, its chefs certified by some of the best hands in the trade. There will be giant television sets so that interested inmates do not miss the premiership and other shows, including the latest Nollywood movies. Clinics will be well stocked with good drugs, not the expired stuff you encounter all over the place. There will be doctors. That was the glamorous picture they painted for us.

    Why not invest in such a facility and turn it over to the government, which will most likely cry out soon that it cannot cope with the huge army of would-be convicts that are likely to arise after the conclusion of the numerous corruption cases that are in court? It is called Build, Operate and Transfer (BOT).

    The government, I can bet, will jump at such a plan, which will free its dwindling funds for other critical areas, such as the bad roads and unsightly airports.

    The Prisons will no longer need to hire vehicles to convey suspects to the courts. A little bird tells me that should plea bargaining fail to resolve many of the corruption cases in the courts, it will be time to concession the prisons – just as we have done with some of our key roads.

    An investment in a world class hospital won’t be a bad idea. Since the renewed anti-corruption war, there have been many complaints by some prominent suspects who claim to be suffering from one condition or the other. The ailments go by some esoteric names, such as sinus bradycadia. Incidentally, many of them were not diagnosed here in Nigeria where the facilities are lacking.

    Should plea bargaining become a hard bargain, many of our Awaiting Trial (AT) big men may decide to check into hospitals for a long rest, believing that time will strip the anti-corruption war of its bite. They will pay a fortune for such facilities that are comparable to the five-star hotels to which their lives have been conditioned. Sure they will.

    If the Dr Goodluck Jonathan administration had not been truncated by popular will, one of its key projects would have by now become a favourite of every household. Besides, it would have saved the treasury so much in foreign exchange. Will somebody invest in cassava bread?

    Many Nigerians seem to have suddenly realised that there is no need rushing overseas for summer holidays. The exchange rate has dampened the enthusiasm of many for the yearly ritual of summer travels. But airlines need not fret over the seeming low patronage. They can deploy their small  and old aircraft, create an artificial shortage of seats on their flights, offer some nebulous discount and, thereby, lure as many as possible to take to the sky again.

    As the wealthy need investment tips, so do the poor need survival tips. What with the failure of “stomach infrastructure” as state policy and potent weapon for votes harvesting. We have seen through it all, some people seem to be saying now as they sneer at those who lulled them to sleep with chicken and rice while they stuffed their vaults with the people’s cash.

    It is not compulsory to eat three times a day. Besides the fact that it is economical to cut down on food, we are told it is healthy. Reduce meat, especially beef. No more cow leg, roundabout and such tantalising stuff. Drink more (pure) water at the local buka.

    When you are done, don’t forget to grab an extra toothpick. Put it away in your pocket. When you step out of the canteen, pull the little stick out, put it in your mouth, strike it gently with your teeth and bite it intermittently. That way you announce the fact that you still feed well despite these hard times.

    With little hope that the electricity situation will improve – attacks on gas pipelines, controversial billing systems and all that – you can set up a mobile phone charging centre. Get a small power generating set, the type derisively called I beta pass my neighbour. It is cheap to fuel. No need for a shop. Just go to places where the power crisis is at its worse. Put the machine on your head. Without saying a word, a crowd of eager telephone users will mob you. You can then charge appropriate rates and smile all the way home.

    You will, in no time, discover that this is better than football betting, the Baba Ijebu type in which many have, strangely, found some succour. Now that commercial motorcycles (okada) are becoming endangered – no thanks to criminals who deploy them in their nefarious activities – it is time you learnt how to walk. Doctors say it is healthy. Those guys who trekked several kilometres to Abuja to mark President Muhammadu Buhari’s victory in the April election sure know their strategy. They will never feel the impact of the high petrol price. Besides, don’t doctors say it is healthy to walk?

    A cheeky fellow was asking the other day if people would still like to trek and scream Sai Baba! Will they?

    Feel free to use these success tips. They are free. You only need to acknowledge the fact that you got them from here when you hit it big. Best.

     

    Turkey’s future

    It is sad that Turkey’s political situation has snowballed into a major crisis. The world has united behind Turkey not because Tayyip Erdogan has been such a wonderful man – some insist he is a budding dictator – but there is a global revulsion against soldiers running governments.

    Erdogan has hastily blamed it all on the respected moderate Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen, who is on self-exile in the United States. Gulen, who denounced the failed attempt and reiterated his belief in democracy, thinks Erdogan may have plotted it all as a trap to smash the opposition.

    Most of the soldiers deployed in the so-called coup were merely told that they were going on a military exercise. As of the last count, Erdogan has sacked more than 8000 across government institutions. More than 7,500 have been arrested and 15,200 fired in the Education ministry. That is not all. In the Judiciary, 2,700 have been given the push; 140 Supreme Court members arrested and 1,577 deans of private and public universities asked to resign. There are more casualties.

    The death penalty is being considered for the soldiers who are suspected to have been part of the failed coup.

    The world should keep an eye on Turkey to ensure that Erdogan, who has taken over newspapers and jailed journalists, does not use this bloody chance to kill the opposition and become a true dictator.

  • The good cop who lost it

    The good cop who lost it

    Many Rivers State policemen are unlikely to forget February 11,2014 . That was the day they gathered at the expansive Command Headquarters in Port Harcourt to “pull out”   a chief some of them hailed as a damn good officer and a kind man.

    In the city, there was joy that the curtain had been drawn on an era of anxiety and confusion, when the line between policing and politicking became indecipherable.

    It was a mixed farewell indeed for Mbu Joseph Mbu, the former Commissioner of Police whose tenure had the distinction of being the most controversial ever in the history of the state.

    A master of drama, he can never be caught being sober. He does not pretend to be imbued with the reflective ability of a philosopher. Nor is he capable of expounding a progressive vision of a leader who knows the delicate nature of his job – in the eyes of many who were confronted with the ambivalence of an officer loved by his men and despised by many of those he was paid to protect.

    Presumptive and cocky, he huffs and puffs like an elephant in the jungle. He is boisterous and easily excited. Not for him the finesse and refinement of an officer who is proud of his epaulettes. He is proud and excessively discourteous, always willing to pick up a quarrel, ignite a fight and slug it out like a motor park tout. Cantankerous.

    But all that have changed – courtesy of last week’s tremor that hit the police, a momentous event that passed quietly like an orphan’s birthday, except for the whimpering of some officers who alleged that they were unfairly treated. A generation of Assistant Inspectors-General of Police – 21 in all – got the push to pave the way for Acting Inspector-General  Ibrahim Idris’ ascension to the seat.

    Among them is Mbu – I am sure you remember him – who long  after dropping the rank of Commissioner of Police for Assistant Inspector-General was still widely described with his old beat as former Rivers State Commissioner of Police.

    Deliberate inexactitude? Mischief? It is neither here nor there. But Mbu’s tour of duty in Rivers State will take a long while to forget, especially by those who were at the receiving end of his belligerence.

    He got caught up in – some insisted that he actually joined willingly to feather his own nest – the bitter struggle for power between the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the ruling party at the centre. Mbu would not tolerate any opposition to the PDP –led Federal Government, which was desperate to “capture” the state. When the Save Rivers Movement, a group backing then Governor Rotimi Amaechi organised a rally, Mbu sent his men to smash the gathering. When the protesters stood their ground, his men fired rubber bullets at them. Many were injured. Among them was Senator Magnus Abe, who was flown to Britain for treatment.

    When eight lawmakers in a 32-man House of Assembly launched a seditious attempt to impeach Amaechi, their hands were strengthened by the police. A fight broke out. Heads were smashed. By the time it was all over, those who failed in their nefarious bid to torpedo the governor became the complainant as the police grabbed those who foiled the bid.

    In no time, the political crisis in Rivers State dissolved into a battle over Mbu’s future. Amaechi and his sympathisers insisted that he must go. The then aspirant and now Governor Nyesom Wike led the touch-not-Mbu crowd. Rallies jammed rallies. Cudgel-for-cudgel, both sides battled to outdo each other.  The Senate deliberated on the matter and set up a committee that visited Rivers State. Mbu told them that he was just doing his job professionally.

    Then fate supervened. The tension could not be contained any longer. Mbu was moved to Abuja. He, however, remained cloaked in controversy. The leopard won’t just change its spots. He banned public rallies and dared the Bring BackOurGirls protesters campaigning for the rescue of the Chibok girls to march on the Presidential Villa. “My death threat worked,” he said gleefully after a blistering criticism of his threat.

    Nor were reporters spared of his maniacal tendencies. He invited an AIT reporter, Amaechi Anakwe (no relation of the Minister of Transportation), for describing him as “controversial”. The poor fellow was detained and charged to court even as many felt he was charitable to have described Mbu as “controversial”. He was that and more – going by his conduct – they insisted.

    As the last general elections drew close, the police – apparently in connivance with the Dr Goodluck Jonathan Villa – moved some officers round. Mbu was posted to Zone II, comprising Lagos and Ogun states. Reason: the PDP was eager to add Lagos to its shelf of trophies in an ambitious move to strengthen its vacuous claim to being Africa’s biggest party, as if size – not sense is all that matters.

    On arrival at his new posting, Mbu served notice that an interesting season was on the way. He said if a policeman was killed in the line of duty, he would ensure that 20 persons got killed in vengeance.

    Apparently in love with obfuscation, Mbu mixed up his concept of discipline with his belief in the Mosaic law of an eye for an eye. He told Ogun State Command officers: “If you love this job, the number one commandment is discipline. That’s why I said ‘don’t touch my policeman’. If you shoot my policeman, I will shoot 20 of you. I will shoot a hundred of you.”

    He preached hatred and spiced it up with violence. His messages were blood curdling . “Anybody who fires you, fire back in self-defence,” Mbu told his men, adding: “But don’t fire first.”

    Mbu later claimed to have been misquoted. He said he was simply advising his men not to be cowardly but to be guided by the Force Order 28 on the use of firearms. So much for honesty and integrity.

    To many, Mbu was vaulted onto that hubristic pedestal by sheer ambition. He would have loved to become the Inspector-General of Police. In that grim encounter with the Ogun State Command officers, he spoke of “being in a critical period, a period that this (sic) all our ranks are now shaky; either you’re promoted or you retain it or you’re demoted or you’re dismissed.” “So, it’s left for you to choose which one is better for you. For me, I want to maintain my rank and I want my rank to be increased (sic). I want to go up and be at the top.”

    Poor man. Now he must have realised the futility of a blind ambition, pursued blindly and lost blindly; never to be attained. What manner of IGP would Mbu have been?

    Mbu’s transfer to Abuja did not soften his stand on Amaechi. He told the man who took over from him at the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) of how he, a lion, tamed the leopard of Port Harcourt. In his usually obfuscatory manner, he said: “I advise you to carry the senior officers along in your administration.” But that was not his thought as he went on to say: “It is only a lion that can tame a leopard. I tamed the leopard in Port Harcourt. Each time he remembers my face, he would remember I tamed him.”

    To Amaechi, the innuendo was as clear as daylight. Not one to run away from a fight, Amaechi replied Mbu, calling him “a puppet who completely lacks the steel and strength of a character of a lion, and is rather a shameless, corrupt puppet and toothless attack dog of a woman”. No prize for guessing who the woman puppeteer was, dear reader.

    The likes of Mbu have given room to the police being the subject of deriding jokes, such as this that once appeared on this page:   “In an effort to determine the top crime fighting agency in Nigeria, the President narrowed the field to three finalists: DSS, Army and Police. The three contenders were given the task of catching a rabbit that was released into the forest. The SSS went in, placing informants all over the place. They questioned all plants and mineral witnesses. After three months of extensive investigation, the DSS concluded that rabbits do not exist. The army went into the forest. After two weeks without a capture, they burnt the forest, killing everything in it, including the rabbit. They made no apologies. The rabbit deserved it.

    “The police went into the forest. They came out two hours later with a badly beaten hyena. The hyena was yelling: `Okay, okay; I agree! I’m a rabbit! I’m a rabbit!`”

    Mbu should put all behind him and settle down to write his memoirs. Among others, he should try as he has always done to debunk the allegation that he deployed what his admirers described as his remarkable skills of a “grade one officer” in the selfish service of greedy politicians and their pompous wives. How about this for a title: “The good policeman who lost his way.”

  • Reps, rape and all that rap

    Reps, rape and all that rap

    Now that the frenzy that greeted the allegations against three House of Representatives’ members seems to have subsided, it is fit and proper to examine the matter dispassionately.

    I take it that you know what I am talking about. In case you don’t or you have lost track of it all – no thanks to the dizzying rate at which events occur here – here is a recap: United States Ambassador James Entwistle petitioned House Speaker Yakubu Dogara, accusing three Honourables of improper conduct, attempted rape and soliciting for prostitutes during a trip to the United States. Mohammed Garba Gololo (APC, Bauchi), Samuel Ikon (PDP, Akwa Ibom) and Mark Gbillah (APC, Benue) were members of a 10-man team that participated in the International Visitor Programme between April 7 and 13.

    “Galolo allegedly grabbed a housekeeper in his hotel room and solicited her for sex. Gbillah and Ikon allegedly requested hotel parking attendants to assist them to solicit prostitutes,” Mr Entwistle wrote.

    The three lawmakers are threatening to go to court to defend their integrity. Dogara has demanded proof of the allegations even as the House has mounted a huge probe of the matter, which has portrayed the lower chamber and its honourable members as aggressive philanders, whose accounts in the bank of decency and morality are in the red.

    Nigerians love salacious stories, especially those spiced with sex, the kiss-and-tell type. They squeeze it and squeeze it endlessly, like some orange, throwing away the seeds, sucking it all up until the last drop and then licking their lips to ensure that all the sweetness is captured. They gave the gentlemen no benefit of the doubt. They lashed out at the lawmakers for what they called their sexual peccadilloes. Some, without any scientific or sociological evidence, threatened to prove that their libidinous  peregrinations have been hampering the discharge of their onerous legislative duties.

    How?

    Weighty matters of state have been shoved aside by this titillating tale of lawmakers who, allegedly, would not zip up.  Wadata Plaza, headquarters of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), has become Fallujah, with the two major factions tearing at each other in an internecine war to capture it. The party has been wracked and wrecked by a terrible leadership battle that has imperilled its ability to stand as a sturdy opposition party.

    Hitherto respected men have been behaving like Ibadan touts taking over a motor park. Boko Haram is gasping for breath, its bestiality contained by our gallant troops. Herdsmen killings continue. Niger Delta Avengers (NDA) is on its hazy vengeance mission. Gone is the vociferous agitation for the government to name those who have been returning what they stole.

    As I was saying, the alleged concupiscence of our lawmakers has grabbed the headline. But, in my view, many of the comments have been either totally off the mark or out rightly subjective. When the matter moves from a barbershop talk to the courts, the truth will surely come out.

    Some of the comments have been romancing the past. Nostalgic. When lawmakers were not just presumptive but proactive, when they were worthy representatives of their worthy constituents, said some of the commentators, they had style. Those who loved wine had their choice from the best wineries, specially  processed to suit their delicate tastes and delivered in customised bottles on which their photographs were emblazoned.

    When they embarked on trips to either hone their skills or undertake some oversight duties, they took with them their bevy of beauties or got them delivered in the right specifications as part of a big package of some legislative privileges. There was no space for foreign women of easy virtue. No. In other words, our lawmakers had taste. They had style. Not anymore.

    But then, isn’t it too early for us to pass a judgment on a matter that is yet to go beyond mere allegations?

    The matter seems to have become an inflated balloon. I have been told that a group of women of easy virtue operating under an umbrella body which goes by the bizarre name, National Association of Nigerian Prostitutes and Allied Practitioners, briefed a Lagos human rights activist who is also a lawyer well grounded in commercial law. He is to take out a writ on behalf of these poor women, hereinafter referred to as his clients. He will be urging a high court to make:

    • a declaration that our lawmakers erred in law to have solicited for women in America when members of the association are here battling the prevailing economic crisis;
    • a declaration that the lawmakers, who are at the forefront of the “ buy Nigeria campaign”, are hypocritical, lacking in patriotism by attempting to fritter away scarce foreign exchange when the very materials they sought to purchase are here in abundance;
    • a declaration that by their alleged conduct and misconduct, the women’s fundamental right to making a honest living has been breached by the way and manner these Reps conducted themselves in the United States; and
    • a declaration that the women are entitled to generous compensation by the lawmakers as well as an order restraining the lawmakers, their servants, agents, privies and whomsoever designated as honorable from such acts of sabotage that are against the spirit and letters of the “patronise made in Nigeria” campaign.

    A source, who pleaded not to be named because of the sensitivity of the matter, has told me that the women will be asking a reputable accounting firm to establish how much it costs a day to procure the services of a woman of easy virtue in the United States. This, I learnt, the association will calculate based on the number of days the trio spent in the United States and work out at the prevailing naira/dollar market forces exchange rate  how much its members may have lost. This, I am told, will enable them know how much damages to ask for.

    What iron clad proof do the Americans have? In the case of Hon. Gbillah and Hon. Ikon, how reliable is the verbal account of some inattentive car park attendants? Is there a recording of their alleged solicitation? Are we sure some opponents of these gentlemen, who lost the last general elections have not gone this far to damage their reputation and tear their record of moral sanctity?

    Will the lawmakers be allowed to return to the United States to prove their innocence? I am told they are willing to go that far – unlike another lawmaker who the other day threatened to commit suicide should law officers seize and bind him and bundle him onto a plane bound for the United States where he is expected to face charges for alleged drug offences. He rushed to the court for protection. Now he is sitting pretty at the National Assembly, making laws for the wellbeing of fellow Nigerians and pontificating on President Muhammadu Buhari’s anti-corruption battle. Please, pardon the digression. I return to the serious matter at hand.

    Hon. Galolo, who allegedly grabbed a housekeeper, has been pertinacious in his denial. All questions pertinent to the situation must be raised to enable the discerning public get to the root of this matter. Is there a genuine video of the alleged grabbing? Did the housekeeper scream? If so, did her colleagues or other guests rush to snatch her from his grip? Where did he grab her – by the waist? From her back? By the chest? By the buttocks? By her laps?

    What was the weather like in Cleveland, Ohio, on the day of the controversial incident? Warm? Cold? If cold, how cold? Chilly; the type we call “weather for two” here? Cold enough for a Nigerian big man to request for a “wrapper” or “cover cloth”?

    These and other pieces of evidence will form the test of integrity to which these weighty allegations will be subjected to see if a prima facie case has been established against these respectable lawmakers. It is not enough for Amb. Entwistle to fire a petition. It is, after all, trite in law that affirmati non neganti incumbit probation; that is to say “the burden of proof is upon him who affirms – not on him who denies”.

    The popular thinking here is that the housekeeper did not realise the worth in cash – in dollars – of a Nigerian lawmaker. She would have smiled seductively. Ours are believed to be some of the best paid lawmakers anywhere. Sitting allowance, constituency project allowance, stewards’ allowance, mistress allowance, children’s allowance, bodi no be wood allowance, gardener’s allowance and all that. Could it be that the housekeeper felt the crashing oil prices might have affected our lawmakers’ enviable standard of living? This is neither here nor there.

    Like so many other serious matters of urgent and grave national importance, this American allegation has provoked many jokes among some disillusioned Nigerians, those who will not accord our lawmakers some credibility, no matter how little.

    There is the joke about a married woman who was found on a bachelor’s bed three streets away from her matrimonial home. Asked why she abandoned her family, she replied: “I’m sorry, I don’t know where I am; it was raining and the flood carried me.”

    Some patriots have, however, suggested that the aggrieved lawmakers should not take their case to the high court where it may drag on and on like a Lagos Bar Beach show, a circus. They should go to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the patriots have recommended, because, according to them, this is serious business. Shouldn’t they?

  • Let’s stop the sick joke

    Let’s stop the sick joke

    Former President Goodluck Jonathan seems so unpretentious you could vow he is like your next door neighbour. No airs. No ostentatious display of wealth. No professorial jargons of an exhibitionist academic. No boasting – except when he needs to remind us that to him we owe a world of gratitude for surrendering power to President Muhammadu Buhari instead of listening to the sharks who pressed him to hang in there even when it was obvious that it was time to throw in the towel. Poor fellow.

    There he was the other day in London sermonising on how he had fought corruption and how –irony of ironies- he had become a subject of investigation by anti-corruption agencies.

    “I did very well also to curtail corruption,” Dr Jonathan said, adding:

    “My approach to corruption was don’t make money available for anyone to touch. We made sure that the area of fertiliser subsidies was cleaned up and the whole corruption there was removed.

    “I tried to do the same in the oil industry, but the very people that were accusing us of corruption were the same people frustrating it; it’s unfortunate.”

    His Excellency had hardly left Bloomberg’s studio before the questions started coming in torrents from seemingly bewildered Nigerians and their friends. Which administration was Dr Jonathan talking about? Did he exhibit the courage needed to clean up the oil sector that had become a cesspit of corruption? Who are these people holding him by the neck and frustrating his bold bid to move even as they accused him of corruption? The same people who caged him for six years, as he once told the world?

    But Dr Jonathan was not done. He said in reply to a question: “Obviously, I’m being investigated.” Would he be found guilty?” He said: “I wouldn’t want to make certain comments because when a government is working, it’s not proper for immediate past president to make certain statements. I wouldn’t want to make comments on that; it’s not proper. After all these investigations, the whole stories will be properly chronicled.”

    Chronicled? Sure. The facts are already being assembled – in the courts where many who played key roles in the administration are saying all they knew about the stealing that went on as if it was a kind of sport in which the best thief would snatch away some golden trophy and then mount a city victory parade. Incredible. The chroniclers, I am sure, are already confused by the fact that it is all real. Masters of fiction are stunned by the surrealistic details.

    Huge cash being turned in voluntarily. A key security office turned into a mere cash machine dispensing cash to whoever had its not-so-secret code. A minister shelling out millions of dollars to bribe election officials. Phony payments for phony multi-billion naira contracts, including – wonders of wonders – prayers.

    All this and yet we are regaled with stories of how the administration fought corruption? C’mon Dr Jonathan, give us a break.

    We look forward to when our former president will take a break from the lecture circuit to write his memoirs. It will be quite interesting to know where he was when Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) leaders took a sledgehammer to the treasury, hammered their way through and ripped it open for the unbelievable pillage that left it bleeding to death. Besides, he should remember to put on record how he tried valiantly to let Nigerians know the difference between “corruption” and “stealing”. He may also wish to add the definition of what many Nigerians believe is a brand of kleptocracy – “lootocracy”.

    Interestingly, many of those PDP leaders who have done well for themselves are  now either battling to free themselves from imminent charges being prepared by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). Some are already in court. Others are being nostalgic about the past. They are romancing the past in which they saw life as one huge Lagos party that will never end. They have been threatening that in 2019, the PDP will –God forbid – return to power.

    A reporter asked elder statesman Ebenezer Babatope to assess Buhari’s first year in office. “I want to be honest with you, even though we are suffering, we have never encountered this kind of suffering before,” he said.

    With due respect chief, Nigerians know that Buhari is not the architect of their pains, which he is doing his all to stop by stemming the bleeding caused by the rapacious PDP. By the way, are PDP chiefs part of this suffering multitude? I doubt it. Whenever the condition in which we have found ourselves is discussed, it should be clearly stated that Buhari has got his teeth into clearing the mess of about 16 years in which PDP chiefs, at our expense, led a rollercoaster champagne life that would make Hollywood greats green with envy. They lived like kings and partied like movie stars. Nigerians said “enough”, kicked them out and handed Buhari the mandate to demolish the edifice of vices built by fraudsters, pranksters and gangsters parading themselves as leaders. Now the rebuilding has begun. It will take some time and patience, despite the hardship.

    I salute the courage of the PDP crowd. In other climes, a major calamity, such as losing power after 16 years – they threatened to keep it for at least 60 years, in the first instance – would have seen some committing suicide. Hara-kiri.

    Little wonder they have been grumbling and whining about how the Buhari administration has not been good to them. Senator Ben Murray Bruce has been all over the social media, complaining that a Department of State Services (DSS) official blocked him from shaking hands with Buhari during a dinner for lawmakers at the Villa. That was pettish of the distinguished senator, who has often been criticised for his inability to draw the line between an objective criticism and sheer bitterness and abuse of privilege that his blistering attacks on the Buhari administration constitute. He once offered to donate his salary to Osun workers. I wonder why he has not extended such a cheeky gesture to his home state Bayelsa workers who have not been paid for five months. Nor have the dying states’ pensioners got any such impetuous offer from the loquacious showbiz host turned senator.

    PDP governors who collected ecological funds and blew the cash have been exposed by the heavy rains that have caused floods in some states. All Progressives Congress (APC) governors were shut out of the revelry. Now such funds are not available to be easily diverted to oiling their fancies. And we say they shouldn’t grumble? Buhari, it should be noted, did not discriminate in the bailout funds for the states.

    They say the anti-corruption war is selective? How? PDP leaders’ blithe disregard for honesty and proclivity for impunity led them this far. They deserve to have their day in court; not those who knew nothing about the looting of the treasury.

    What those who blast the Buhari administration for its “slow pace”, especially in tackling our economic challenges, should think about is where we would have been if the PDP and its army of thieves had remained in the saddle.

    They should not talk only about what they think the administration has failed to do but spare a thought for its achievements in security, in the fight against corruption, in workers’ welfare (the bailout funds) and in the battle to save the naira –its present trouble was imminent, no doubt.

    Now, let’s stop the sick joke and put our hands on the plough to save our dear country. Have we any other?

     

    Stephen Okechukwu Keshi (1962-2016)

    I was barely two hours in bed at 5.12 a.m.when Sport Editor Ade Ojeikere called to break the news of former Super Eagles Chief Coach Stephen Okechukwu ‘Big Boss’ Keshi’s death.

    I recall how firm his grip was when I shook his hand. Ade brought him to my office at “The Nation” after an interview that preceded his appointment as the coach of the Super Eagles. I remember his broad smiles, his towering figure and his happy, carefree disposition. In a soccer-crazy country as ours, Keshi meant so much to the fans. Some saw him as bold, brash and brutal – in demanding his rights. But he was easily the most successful indigenous coach of our national team – and its longest serving captain.

    He had a great career, decked with trophies and accolades. Keshi was the first to lead the Eagles to the World Cup as a player, captain and coach. He was the first to win the Nations Cup as player, captain and coach.

    Keshi’s death was not just a family tragedy, coming about six months after his wife’s. It is a national calamity. May His soul find peace with the Lord.

  • Season of apologies

    Season of apologies

    When should a man say “sorry” for a perceived wrongdoing? When the wronged shows that he is hurt? Is saying “sorry” enough in all circumstances? When is an apology deemed to be a genuine exhibition of contrition; when it is dramatised in a manner that calls to question the remorseful man’s dignity, principle, pride and sense of self-worth? In other words, when does an apology become acceptable?

    But, dear reader, my apologies.This is not an attempt to embark on a winding, didactic monologue, keep you in suspense, bore you unnecessarily and waste your prized time. No. Neither is this a sermon on how magical the word “sorry” is. “Editorial Notebook” is simply moved by the manner of some apologies that have just been tendered – or discussed – by some of our prominent citizens, those self-conceited fellows to whom saying “sorry” seems to be a kind of aberration.

    Consider this scene: Dr Doyin Okupe, yes, Okupe, former President Goodluck Jonathan’s rumbustious public affairs man, the one who swore that Muhammadu Buhari will never be president (“call me a bastard if Buhari gets there,”  he once told a hostile audience in Britain) and one of the leading lights of the troubled Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), saying sorry – in style.  He and some associates visited former President Olusegun Obasanjo whom he had – with little or no provocation – tongue lashed as fastidious and pugnacious over his (Obasanjo’s) views about the Jonathan presidency. It was a private meeting, but somehow the photographs hit the social media.

    What a chilling and rare spectacle, an eyeful, if you don’t mind. The massive frame of a robust man rolling on the floor, like a punch-dazed boxer struggling to be saved by the bell. Obasanjo is sitting regally like a king, his hands resting on the glittering raised chair’s arms and his face turned away from the huge man kissing the canvass – to borrow the boxing writer’s language – pretending to be oblivious of the show of penitence going on.

    A reliable source, who swore by his late great grandfather’s honour that his cousin, who is a political associate of one of those fellows at the meeting, quoted Okupe as saying: “Baba, I’m sorry; have mercy. It won’t happen again. You remain my baba for life. E saanu mi. E gba mi o (have mercy on me. Save me o). Consider it as one of those hazards of our brand of politics.”

    Obasanjo frowns, his lips firmly closed. The source boasted that he could read the former president’s thoughts.”You, a prince who has refused to be princely. Waki-and-die. You and your man, the one who called himself your principal, thought you could embarrass me. Nobody can embarrass me. Yes. I’m ready to go konko bilo with you or anyone, so long as it concerns Nigeria’s health – if that is what you want.

    “Look at you now, rolling on the floor like an unrestrained  beer parlour client who has had too many a bottle. Just look at you. A prodigal son or what do I call this. Apology? Apology my foot!

    “Go and tell the man who sent you, your oga, that ungrateful boy…hum…hum(he clears his throat).Whatever he calls his name. Tell him that I, Okikiola Aremu Obasanjo, can never be embarrassed. Any day and any time, I dey kampe.”

    Why the theatricals? Was Okupe pleading with Obasanjo to save him from the impending interrogation by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), which claims to have traced N72m arms cash to him? Is the government of Benue State still threatening to reopen the books concerning a contract the prince was said to have abandoned after collecting a hefty mobilisation fee?

    Whatever it was, Obasanjo seemed to have been magnanimous. How? A flashback to those exciting days of Benue State politics. The 2007 picture remains as vivid as ever, a poignant reminder of our politicians’ nauseating antics. Former PDP Chairman Barnabas Gemade, the one who cursed PDP – that because of the injustice done to him, the party will never know peace –  addressing a rally, a microphone in his hand and his left foot resting on  Col. Joseph  Akaagerger’s body as he lay flat –on all fours–on the dusty and dirty ground, begging. He was seeking support for his senatorial ambition.

    By the way, where is Senator Akaagerger?

    The former PDP Board of Trustees (BoT) chairman, Chief Tony ‘the fixer” Anenih, was once quoted as saying that all sins can be forgiven, but political sins are never forgiven.

    Most “political sins” are traced to the lack of principle and greed, the “chop and quench” proclivity of our politicians. Is an apology a sign of weakness? To some, it betrays lack of confidence in one’s ability to fight. To others, it is an act of courage and humility, the hallmark of a gentleman.

    When should an apology be demanded? Is it right to demand for an apology when the truth hurts? When the other day in London British Prime Minister David Cameron described Nigeria as “fantastically corrupt”, all hell was let loose. Many insisted that Nigeria should demand an apology for that “collective insult”, but when reporters asked President Muhammadu Buhari if he would demand an apology, he replied sharply: “I’m not going to be demanding any apology from anybody. What I will be demanding is the return of assets. … This is what I’m asking for. What will I do with an apology? I need something tangible.”

    Buhari’s reaction doused the fire of a potential diplomatic row which Cameron’s faux pass would have ignited. Would he have apologised if Buhari had insisted?

    When former Borno State Governor Ali Modu Sheriff saw that his ambition to be chairman of the PDP was in jeopardy after his aides lampooned some party elders, he swiftly denied them and begged the elders for forgiveness. “As a well- cultured and astute politician, I would never make any comment that would ridicule the party,” he said.

    Apparently, his was an apology that went off target. Now, he is faced with a desperate battle to keep the chairman’s seat after the governors who had stood solidly behind him as he took on his opponents withdrew their support. Prof Jerry Gana, whom his aides accused of plunging the party into a N500m debt, and some members of the BoT are pushing that the door be shut against Senator Sheriff.  Rivers State Governor Nyesom Wike yesterday accused him of having  “a hidden” agenda against the PDP.

    The other day on “Facebook”, there was Ekiti State Governor Ayo Fayose decked out in a massive turban in Dubai, beaming, just as he was dressed when he visited an Ado-Ekiti mosque. Some said it was one of those Ballotelian stunts of his to grab the headline. Others said it was a desperate attempt to divert attention from the rumour swirling around his trip. It is neither here nor there.

    This being the season of apologies, will it be out of place to ask if Fayose would consider saying “I’m sorry” for claiming – without facts and figures – that Buhari planned to Islamise Nigeria?

    Besides, will the governor apologise for asserting – again, without facts and figures – that no Chibok girl was missing, now that one, Amina Ali, has been found?

    Will Pa Edwin Clark –happy 89th birthday, sir–apologise to his “son”, Dr Jonathan, for describing him as incompetent and lacking the will to fight corruption?

    When will the military apologise to President Buhari for that temporary loss of his certificates, which allowed the PDP to question his educational background and cast aspersion on his integrity – the very asset on which he built his battle for the presidency?

    Dr Jonathan has denied ever contemplating going on exile, as speculated –  in actual fact, affirmed – by some sources, who claimed that the EFCC was closing in on him for alleged corruption. Poor man. He says every time he travels, the rumour mill hits the overdrive – that he is seeking asylum. He says after serving Nigeria to the best of his ability, he has no need to run away. Will the peddlers of what the former President calls “a wicked attempt to link me with the renewed Niger Delta crisis” apologise to him?

    If “Editorial Notebook” has hurt you in any way, dear reader, here in this season of apologies and what music giant Fela Anikulapo-Kuti (God bless his soul) called “unnecessary begging” is my apology.  

  • Bloody love in hard times

    Bloody love in hard times

    Does anybody care about this terrible trend?

    People committing murder with ease. Many threatening to commit suicide and some actually committing suicide or attempting to end it all when they can no longer bend it.

    There are also many cases of husbands killing their wives and wives killing their husbands in a macabre reversal of deep and psychic spousal affection. The Sophocles era all over again?

    Why do people kill their loved ones? The reasons are as many as the stars in the sky, but how many of them are rational? Psychologists, psychoanalysts and psychiatrists really have their jobs cut out for them. But does anybody care?

    The other day in Ibadan, a lawyer reportedly pounced on her sleeping husband and knifed him to death. A court is sitting over the matter, even as the man’s family is crying for justice.

    In Benue State, a 17-year-old boy killed his mother for, according to him, being the architect of his libidinal problem “in the last few years”. It doesn’t get more tragic. He shot his mother after accusing her of witchcraft, the police said.

    I wonder what the Lagos dockworker whose wife’s body was found in their home after a row will be telling the police now. According to his friends, Mr  Lekan Shonde had accused his wife of infidelity before the light suddenly went out on her life . “He has never been violent. I have known him for the past 33 years and I can tell you he is a gentleman,” Mr Sunday Nwobi said of the suspect who is now in police custody.

    After learning of his wife’s death, Shonde reportedly decided to commit suicide, but his friends prevailed on him to surrender to the police so that justice could take its course. The authorities will have to rely on scientific clues to determine the cause of Ronke Shonde’s death , which her husband insists he did not cause.

    Why did Shonde contemplate suicide if he was damn sure he didn’t do it? Is it true he called the man with whom his wife had an affair? Will the police question the suspected philanderer? Shonde said he called his mother-in-law to say that he had decided not to kill himself and the woman said she had forgiven him.

    At what point do people decide to commit suicide? When do they try to give up? And why? Cowardice? Isn’t thinking about suicide an element of cowardice? Should a man be hopeless? Is suicide a symbol of bravery? How will the victim know what the world thinks about him? Is the “final solution” a sign of honour and ultimate defence of integrity? This is neither here nor there.

    Songster Tiwa Savage should be gathering the pieces of her shattered marriage now. First we learnt of her husband  Tunji “Tee Billz” Balogun’s attempted suicide. He chose a fantastic site – the top of the bridge that links Lekki and Ikoyi, where the rich and powerful move in exotic cars; not on Eko Bridge with all those funny passenger vans. Set to jump into the water, he decided to make some last calls –in place of a suicide note? – and, as if it was all planned, his pals stormed the place to dissuade him from jumping. He obliged them.

    In the manner of the kiss-and-tell stories that usually swirl around  celebrities, the budding entertainment impresario accused his wife of infidelity, ingratitude and betrayal. Besides, he said her mother was behind his fate – an allusion to some unstated and unproven psychic forces Tee Billz believes the woman possesses.

    Tiwa picked up the gauntlet. She painted a mesmerising picture of her former manager and estranged husband’s life. A rock star’s champagne life – of drug, wine and women. She said Tee Billz had put her in debt and she needed to salvage her career.

    Trust Nigerians, these love-turn- sour stories- some of them are major calamities, no doubt – have revved into action the remarkable fecundity of the Nigerian mind. It is all in an attempt to explain that some of the situations that propel couples to end it all are not as harmful as they seem if we are patient. Consider this sent to me by a friend:

    “One day oga decided to give his wife a surprise package. He moulded a big heart cake, with the assistance of the house help. The project took almost a whole day. Madam returned from work to meet the house help snoring. She was fast asleep.

    “Madam: ‘Silly girl, will you get up now! What have you been doing since morning?

    “House help: ‘Welcome ma. A beg; no vex. Me and Oga dey make love since morning. Na now we finish. Na im I sey make I lie down small …”

    There is also this that tries to define love, that seemingly phantasmagoric and gripping feeling to which men and women ascribe some of their behaviours, and death – the end of all. It says: “What is love? Love is when your husband catches you in bed with another man and says, ‘baby, dress up; let’s go home’. What is death? Death is when you follow him.”

    In other words, when a couple begin to hurl at each other allegations of infidelity, it is time to watch it. They need not wait for the “final solution” for the resolution of their differences. Once suspicion elbows trust out of a relationship, what is left?

    Tee Billz was lucky to have got people to dissuade him from taking that fatally final plunge into the dark, murky river to cool off in the hereafter. So was Senator Kashamu Buruji. Remember the other day how drug law enforcement agents laid a siege to his home in a controversial bid to seize and ferry him to the United States where they insist he is wanted for drug offences. The distinguished senator said he had no case to answer in America. When it was obvious the operatives were set to storm the house and ferret him out, Kashamu threatened to commit suicide rather than being bound and bundled onto a flight to uncertainty.

    Then th e courts supervened. Now the senator is sitting pretty in the National Assembly, making laws for good governance and well being of the country. He even finds time, despite the mental exertion that lawmaking demands, to occasionally issue press statements commending the Muhammadu Buhari administration’s anti-corruption battle, urging Nigerians to back it. Ah! If only truth could talk.

    There are people who commit suicide or threaten to wave the final farewell to the world for the hardship they face.  An Abia State civil servant has just hung himself because he had not been paid for four months. De Nwakwo had a family of four. He couldn’t feed them, according to reports on the incident. He left a suicide note for his family, which said he couldn’t foot his children’s education bill and could not afford to buy a dress for his wife to wear on Mother’s Day. “I have no other place to go ; no hope, nothing to give to my children to eat and no salary for the past four months. I am sorry I have to do this,” Nwakwo wrote. Poor fellow.

    Last Thursday in Lekki, a Cameroonian, Frederick Gino, climbed an electric pole and threatened to kill himself. A report said it was all to avoid a mob that pursued him after he was suspected to have burgled an apartment. Another quoted him as telling the crowd that had gathered to rescue him: “Give me N5million or I jump!” He was brought down and taken to the hospital.

    Was it all a stunt? As many asked, if Gino wanted to end it all, he needed not have taken the trouble of looking for a ladder to climb the pole  and causing a nuisance. Why didn’t he just take a stroll to a humming transformer and just give the hot machine a bear hug?

    Is the law that bars a man from taking his own life still alive?

     

    Cameron’s cameo

    British Prime Minister David Cameron has been under attack since the news broke of his description of Nigeria as “fantastically corrupt” during a discussion with the Queen and the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Right Rev. Justin Welby.

    Mr Cameron has not said anything new. What he has failed to say is that the Muhammadu Buhari administration is waging a war against corruption. He is forging ahead despite criticisms in some quarters of the style of fighting the war and what to his opponents is the utter neglect of other areas.

    Besides the fact that Cameron’s statement is undiplomatic and impolite, it is hypocritical. Most of those who stole Nigeria’s wealth live in Britain, their loot is kept in Britain, their kids school in Britain, their investments – mostly in property and stocks- are in Britain.  When Great Britain stops being a haven for looters, the greedy would have lost a great ally. And the time to do that is now. Cameron should lead the way instead of insulting Nigerians, most of who are living honest and clean lives.

  • Let our senators be

    Let our senators be

    Whenever the story of this republic is told, the Eighth Senate will surely occupy a big space – for what is generally believed to be its intransigence and utter insensitivity to its environment. But, is this true?

    Our senators have been savaged by a highly combustible social media mob for flimsy reasons, including incredibly their pay, which many who have little or no knowledge of lawmaking and its hazards have described as unnecessarily huge. Thankfully, those who have assigned themselves the sensitive task of knowing exactly how much our distinguished senators take home monthly have not succeeded in laying their hands on this highly flammable information with which they could set the country on fire and imperil our future.

    But for the hard times, our distinguished senators would have been pressing for all those privileges and allowances that they have graciously not awarded themselves. They include allowances for their wives, who some of them declared as part of their assets forms, their concubines, pets, gardeners, cooks, stewards, designers, who conceive those kingly dresses, the tailors who sew them, the washer men, who make the fanciful dresses always crisp and smart as befitting of a senator’s wardrobe, drivers, shoe shiners, barbers and – I almost forgot – their armies of thugs. Don’t they pay for these and more? Yet some people scorn them for being spendthrifts and undeserving of the little they take home.

    It is this same group of fastidious people who have been purveying the rumour that the National Assembly has refused to join the Treasury Single Account (TSA), which is being hailed for retrieving trillions of naira that would have been shared by ravenous public officials feeding fat on the system.

    Their proof is that if the TSA was embraced by the lawmakers, it would have been difficult for them to have spent without recourse to the budget N1.314b on glistening Sport Utility Vehicles (SUVs) at a time when many are out of jobs and hunger stalks the land. But let’s be fair: when has buying some choice items become seasonal, like planting maize?

    In vain did Senate Services Chair Ibrahim Abdulla Gobir (Sokoto East), the distinguished senator who handled the deal, explain that it was a testimony to the exceptional prudence of the lawmakers that only 36 Land Cruiser VXR V8 SUVs were bought at N36.5m per unit and not 109 units for each member of the Upper Chamber.

    He said: “Come to think of it, there is no minister that hasn’t got about three to four cars. One Land Cruiser, maybe a back-up and two Hilux cars. There is no director in the civil service that hasn’t got a car; there is no permanent secretary that hasn’t got a Land Cruiser. In fact, every House of Assembly member has either a Prado or a Land Cruiser and here is a senator you say he cannot have one Land Cruiser.”

    Poor man. His explanation, despite its lucidity, was like water off a dock’s back. It was as if the distinguished senator had committed treason. The pundits and self-appointed commentators descended on him. Some, obviously the decent crowd, said he was blabbing like an overfed baby. Others, the usually pugnacious and envious few who will never mind their own business, called him names as if he was a Lagos pick pocket caught in the act. Ah. Just because N1.314b was spent on cars?

    Don’t our senators deserve some respect? How do we expect them to go about their oversight duties – in rickety molue, Keke NAPEP and tuketuke, buses?Haba! Shouldn’t there be a limit to frugality and prudence ? How do we expect these people who have humbly agreed to serve their fatherland to do so like paupers, being senators of the “Giant of Africa”, “the largest democracy in Africa” and the continent’s biggest economy – a trophy that South Africa was clinging onto until former Finance Minister Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala devised the magical formula Rebasing with which we snatched it away.

    At the  peak of the intensity of the bitter criticisms against the purchase of the vehicles, some envious fellows, who obviously would do anything to set the people against the senators, obtained many of the lawmakers’ telephone numbers and mounted a desperate campaign to get their constituents bombard them with calls to drop the deal.

    “Don’t take that car. People are suffering and you guys want to buy jeeps? You represent me in Ekiti and we are watching. Ile ni apoti n joko de idi o(the seat waits patiently at home for the buttocks,” one told Senator Biodun Olujimi (Ekiti South).

    Apparently not one to shy away from a street fight, she replied: “Sit anywhere. If you voted it was not free. I paid every inch of the way. Get a job and earn a living, so you don’t keep issuing threats that you can’t enforce and you don’t keep invading the privacy of people. Only dirty people do that.”

    Mrs Olujimi has told of how her phone rings every minute. If indeed she paid her way to the Senate, will her constituents be fair, if they keep monitoring how she is exercising the mandate they sold to her? What right do they have to do that? Did she give them a receipt?

    Just a few days before they were accused of being insensitive to the ordinary Nigerian’s feeling, our senators rejected a motion to ban used tyres, sponsored by Senator Shehu Sani.

    Senators rejected the motion because the measure would compound the hardship in the land. Not everybody can afford new tyres, they said. How else can a group be compassionate? Yet, senators are pilloried for being greedy, lacking human feeling and discipline as well as a sense of service.

    The critics are not done. They have accused the distinguished senators of padding the budget with extraneous items, spiking some key projects, such as the Calabar-Lagos rail line, delaying its passage and, thereby, extending the fiscal and economic hardship that has gripped the land. Really?

    If a senator suddenly remembers that the public toilet in his town is crumbling and the roof of the town hall is leaking, what crime has he committed if he puts these key items in the budget to show that he is enamoured of his people?

    But it was never like this. Ministers used to lobby for their budgets to be passed and lawmakers obliged them with remarkable excitement. In fact, a former Senate President once told a permanent secretary who came to defend his ministry’s budget on behalf of the minister: “Your minister is not here? OK. Tell him last year we did not see his Coke. Even Mirinda we no drink. Tell him that when coming here he should add that of last year to this year’s. Then we will pass the budget.”

    Needless to say, the fellow’s ingenuity did not last. He was fired some months after for some financial malfeasance.

    By the way, where is former Senate President Adolphus Wabara; remember him?

    Since the trial of Senate President Bukola Saraki for alleged false declaration of assets began, his colleagues have been following him to the Code of Conduct Tribunal. This, say the critics, portrays the lawmakers as busybodies and idle hands who are unworthy of their seats. Won’t we be carrying our oversight duties too far when we tell our senators where to go and whose company to keep? Where are the fundamental human rights, including that of movement, to which we all subscribe?

    When the Senate Committee on Ethics summoned Justice Danladi Umar before whom Dr Saraki is standing trial over a petition in which His Lordship’s integrity was questioned, the lawmakers were dazed by a hail of attacks. Some people said the timing of the invitation was wrong: others said it was contemptuous and immoral. Being respecters of public opinions, the lawmakers withdrew the summons. Needless to say, the attacks are yet to cease.

    The senators, not given to sentiment, ploughed on. They announced that they were reworking the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB) and the Code of Conduct Tribunal Act. The attacks got more intense and hit a crescendo that forced the Senate to pull the brakes on the amendments. It was all  to please those who felt, again, that the timing was wrong, coming during Saraki’s trial. The question is, when will the time be right? Whose exclusive privilege is it to determine the right time?

    The other day at the Senate, Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu was in his office when a senior official of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) showed up to decorate him with the badge of a partner in the anti-corruption war. The simple ceremony sparked a bitter row between him and the agency, which minced no word in saying that the official did not get its blessing to honour Ekweremadu. The senator swiftly told the EFCC that he never lobbied for the honour that was dropped on his laps.

    Surprisingly, that little matter was the impetus those revisionists needed to pounce on Ekweremadu. They lashed him as they would a wayward school pupil for what they called legislative profanity. They claimed – apparently without any proof whatsoever, let alone some ironcast evidence – that Ekweremadu and others forged the Senate Rules to gain undue advantage in the controversial election of officers. They did not stop at that; they called for his trial. Is that fair?

    One would have thought that after conceding so much, our senators will be allowed to do their mentally demanding job in peace. Wrong. Now there is the “OCCUPYNATIONALASSEMBLY “ campaign and many are suggesting the seeming extremism of scrapping the Upper Chamber. I disagree.

    Let our senators be, if for nothing but for those periodical displays we see on television. Is it easy to find an assemblage of such eminent citizens entertaining us ordinary folks?