The Nation Newspaper

Category: Gbenga Omotoso

  • Hell of a country

    Hell of a country

    NATURE seems to be furious nowadays.

    The floods in Nigeria have spared neither the rich nor the poor, submerging homes and businesses, turning many into refugees and scavengers. Canoes are gliding over flooded asphalt lines that used to be roads. People are dead. As the fear of an apocalypse stalks the land, many are rushing to check the holy book, asking: the days of Noah and his ark again?

    But Nigeria is not alone in suffering this anger of the elements. Super storm Sandy has been pounding some parts of the United States, killing people, uprooting trees and smashing them on cars, flooding streets to submerge homes and disrupting power supply. The cataclysmic effect of it all has strengthened the spiritualist’s thought of a world coming to a grievous end and many are screaming: “Oh no; not now, Lord!”.

    There is, ironically, a comical side to the furious floods. Nollywood’s old kids, the naughty Aki and Pawpaw, visited the displaced people’s camp in Asaba, Delta State, shaking hands with the people who lined the road to welcome them. It was hilarious seeing the “kid stars” carrying kids they are barely taller than.

    Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan said he brought them to the camp to address the displaced people because of his experience when he once visited in the night. He said the people never bothered about his presence as they stayed hooked onto the television, watching the pranksters, Aki and Pawpaw. So he decided to bring them to the camp to address the people. It was a hit.

    With the disturbing news of storms and floods have come stories of human disasters and wickedness, of graft and greed. Those who have got an insight into the Ribadu Committee Report are shaken at the level of corruption in the oil industry. There is no trace of $183million signature bonuses paid by oil companies. Shell is said to be owing N137.57billion for gas sold. Addax’s debt is reported to be $1.5billion in royalties. Between 2002 and 2011, $5billion is said to have been lost in oil sales to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).

    Petroleum Resources Minister Diezani Alison-Madueke has said the “final” report, which was compiled by a 21-man revenue task force, is not final because it needs the government’s input. There are also Governance and Control and the Refineries task forces, according to the minister, who said a team had been set up to examine the various reports. It is after the team is done that the issues in the Ribadu Report can be addressed. Now, what is that?

    Why has the rot in the oil industry taken this long to uncover? Who are the big cats feeding fat on this? Isn’t this a case of leadership deficiency? Who supervises the NNPC?

    The Presidency, after lashing those commenting on the report, has said it is yet to get the document and that nobody indicted will be spared. Good talk. But, can we match our talk with action? Can we really go all the way and clean up the rotten system?

    Even as we examine the Ribadu Report, the Halliburton scandal – remember this? – has suddenly resurrected. President Goodluck Jonathan is said to have directed that the book be reopened, two years after the investigation was surreptitiously dumped. The fresh probe is said to have been initiated because of the United States’ insistence that those indicted in the $240million bribe-for-contract scandal must be punished before Nigeria can recover the seized $180million bribe cash. But, there are unconfirmed reports that the President is under pressure from two former heads of state not to reopen the case.

    Will Dr Jonathan go ahead with the case? Who are the people asking him not to? Why should it take America to nudge us to action, even as we make a huge noise about fighting corruption? Why do we always allow corruption to slap us in the face before we start boasting of fighting back?

    After a brief lull, the suicide bomber returned last Sunday, striking at a Kaduna Catholic church. It was like a Hollywood movie scene; full of action, deadly action, but real. Kids were the worst hit. Eight people died; scores were injured.

    The implacable Boko Haram sect is believed to have been the architect and executor of the violence. The world keeps wondering what Boko Haram’s anger is all about. Perhaps there would have been no Boko Haram, if the police had not executed its leader, Mohammed Yusuff. Perhaps.

    The sect has the right to demand justice. In fact, there can’t be peace without justice. This is the point that many of our leaders got wrong in their Sallah messages. They urged us to embrace peace and pray for the unity of our dear country. Can there be peace without justice? But, this is not to say any group, no matter how versatile in violence, should take the law into its own hands. No. I think it’s time for Boko Haram to change its tactics.

    The wickedness continued in Plateau State where unknown (?) gunmen killed six patrons of a drinking bar enjoying the local brew, burukutu. A week before last Sunday’s attack, two men had been killed in the community, Gindin Akwanti, in Barkin Ladi Local Government Area. They were on their way from the market when their assailants pounced on them.

    In Onitsha, a four-man gang shot dead a car dealer, Chief Emeka Ekwerendu, in broad daylight; 7.30am. The gang trailed their victim to a school where he dropped his kids. They shot his vehicle’s tyres, taking it off control. It hit a parked vehicle and got stuck. The assailants then shot Ekewerendu, opened his car’s boot and carted away a huge sum of money.

    Why do people kill for money? Would the chief have resisted his assailants, if they had asked him to surrender the cash? Was it robbery or assassination? Will the police get the killers?

    And talking about the police. They lost five men in Ogun when robbers ambushed a team responding to a “distress” call. How will the police differentiate a fake distress call from a genuine one? Poor guys.

    In Abuja, a senator and a former governor are quarrelling over who wears the father of Boko Haram crown. The State Security Service (SSS) is questioning Senator Ahmed Khalifa Zanna about his relationship with a suspected commander of the sect, Shuaib Bama. Zanna says the man, his nephew, was not arrested in his Maiduguri home, but in former Borno Governor Ali Modu Sheriff’s. The ex-governor fought back, saying the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) senator is “the engine-room” of Boko Haram, which, according to him, the lawmaker nourished through his hajj-by-road programme.

    Why did Sheriff wait till now before speaking? When will the SSS question him, in the light of the new allegation? Could this be why some people insist Boko Haram is all politics?

    Also in Abuja, there is the seemingly needless quarrel over the oil benchmark for the budget. The executive says it should be $75. The Senate says no; $78 is appropriate. The House insists on $80. I doubt whether the common man knows how this row will better his lot.

    Amid the natural and human calamities, Nigerians continue to see everything as a joke. I don’t blame them. There is so much to cry over; they may have been losing gradually that human feeling that provokes tears. Now, they laugh at their leaders. Consider this sent to my mobile by a colleague:

    “Three former leaders – from UK, US and Nigeria – went to hell. The first asked the devil to allow him make a call to London to inquire about the country’s welfare. He spent five minutes on the telephone. Satan billed him $5million. The ex-US leader also made a call and spent eight minutes. The bill: $8million.

    “Then, the ex-Nigerian leader called Abuja. He spent two hours. ‘How much be my bill?’ he asked Satan. ‘$1,’ he replied. Surprised, the former leader said: ‘But I stayed longer than them.’ Satan smiled, saying: ‘Calling hell from hell is not expensive; it’s a local call.’”

    So long!

     

    A governor and his hobby

    GERMAN doctors are battling to save the life of Taraba State Governor Danbaba Fulani Suntai, who crashed an aircraft last Thursday. His five passengers are begging to also be flown overseas.

    When Suntai got his licence at the Nigeria College of Aviation Technology (NCAT) in 2010, this newspaper splashed his “initiation” pictures on its pages. His Excellency, decked in a shirt and a tie with a pair of brown trousers, stood erect like a soldier as an official emptied a bucket of water on him. What a ritual!

    People have been wondering what may have happened. Was the weight of office too much for the mind to concentrate on the risky but exciting business of flying? Who owns the aircraft; another of His Excellency’s toys? Will Suntai fly again?

    I often wonder how things that are made for man’s comfort easily become agents of pains. May the Almighty restore Suntai’s health. And may the authorities listen to the distress call to fly the others out for treatment. Amen!

  • Brutes, beasts and bullets

    Brutes, beasts and bullets

    JUST how much more can a country take?

    Furious floods washing away lives and property that represent so many years of sweating and toiling, sparing neither the weak nor the mighty. The President’s home in Otueke is submerged. The once strange staccato sounds of guns firing bullets are now common. Streams of blood all over as more and more gangs of brutes and beasts stalk the land.

    Piles of natural and home-made disasters. Calamities upon calamities. Just how much more can Nigeria take?

    When Boko Haram, the insurgent group, murdered National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) members in Bauchi last year, we all vowed it would never happen again. Little did we know that the worst was on the way. On National Day in Mubi, Adamawa State, some unknown gunmen stormed a community hosting students and, in a most absurd manner, killed 40. They called out the victims’ names one after the other, shooting them dead as they showed up. Some had their doors smashed, dragged out and shot. Three University of Maiduguri students were also killed on that day. The motives for these killings remain unclear.

    From Mubi, the absurdity moved onto Aluu community in Rivers State where a mob lynched four University of Port Harcourt (UNIPORT) students for allegedly stealing mobile phones and laptops. The police alleged that the community’s chief supervised the savagery. The police got a distress call and stormed the scene only to beat a hasty retreat. One of the suspects said a policeman actually joined in beating up the boys; another was pleading that they should be spared, he claimed.

    It was a bad day. The police said reinforcements came too late and that they couldn’t save the “UNIPORT Four” because the mob pelted them with stones. Were they not armed? Couldn’t they have shot into the air to scare away the mob? Didn’t they carry tear gas? At what point did they call for help? Why was the community leader not allowed to speak at the press conference where the suspects were paraded?

    In Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, Itohowo Offiong Asuquo, a student of Uyo City Polytechnic, stabbed his cousin Uwana, whom he accused of stealing his phone. Asuquo found his phone, but the row that followed the incident turned bloody when he allegedly stabbed Uwana. He died. What is there in a telephone – or any material thing – to kill or die for? How will Asuquo be feeling now, assuming that he has some conscience?

    Before the Mubi and Aluu madness, there had been other exhibitions of pure insanity. Four NNPC engineers, who were sent to Arepo, Ogun State, to mend a vandalised pipeline from where thieves stole petrol, were murdered. This, the corporation said, is responsible for the shortage that has shot up price to between N100 and N110 in Lagos. Who killed the “NNPC Four”?

    Just last Sunday, it was the turn of a Kaduna State community to taste the wine of absurdity. Unknown gunmen killed 24 in Dogo Dawa in Gwari Local Government Area in what some believed was a reprisal for the losses suffered by a gang of robbers. A man, who is described as a “thief catcher”, and his two children were killed. The gunmen cut off his wife’s hand. The villagers had earlier organised a resistance against the robbers whose operations were crippled for three months. They returned in fury to spill blood, the blood of innocent villagers said to be returning from a mosque. Where were the security agents? Is Dogo Dawa so far from where help could have come? Doesn’t this kind of horror strengthen the case for state police?

    Add these to the massive canvass of blood in Jos where whole families,including babies, have been murdered. Gradually, we are losing our claim to decency and respect for human life for a disgusting descent into savagery–the jungle world of animals.

    How do you explain the case of a 20-year-old girl who was raped and disfigured by her assailants. Ruth Simon was returning home in Jos on September 23, according to The Sun, when two depraved youths grabbed her, pinned her to the ground and raped her. Disturbed by her screaming, one of the youths whipped out a knife and slashed off her lower lip. The police are holding a welder, John Akwara, and searching for a man who is believed to be his accomplice, Ezra Dachalon. It will be nice to find out why the duo did this to a poor housemaid. But, what can we say in a season of absurdity?

    Amid the aberrations , two Ogun State traditional rulers dragged royalty into the gutter, brawling like “area boys” at a police station in Itori, Ewekoro Local Government. Oba Fatai Akamo, the Olu of Itori, was said to have slapped Oba Adisa Akinremi, the village head of Lapeleke, following a disagreement over some traditional matters. What kind of royal anger led to this royal show of shame? Even nobility is not spared in this season of madness?

    In the flood victims’ camps, the depravities are hard to comprehend. Displaced women and girls are being raped in Benue. There are allegations that some of the officials whose job it is to cater for these traumatised people are the perpetrators of such unconscionable acts. Who will stop them?

    Even as the abnormalities go on, Nigerians are seeing some comic relief in the tragedy. Aluu community has become the subject of jokes. Consider this sent to my mobile by a friend: “Here is the news…Boko Haram condemns Aluu killings. Spokesman Abu Qaqa says, ‘this is pure wickedness’.”

    And this on a friend’s telephone: ‘ If you’re my friend and you’re from Aluu, please, I know we haven’t quarrelled. Biko, just delete yourself before you say I stole your BB charger.”

    Then, there is this other one with the picture of two young lovers looking passionately into each other’s eyes. The man asks the woman: “Are you leaving me because I’m from Aluu?” The woman replies: “Yes, my love. The youths may say I stole your heart.”

    Philosophers are finding it difficult to explain what is going on in Nigeria.

    Neurologists, such as Dr. Njideka Okubadejo of the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), say many Nigerians have mental disorders. Does this explain the hell we prepared? Social scientists ascribe it all to the effects of a collapsed system in which values have been killed and buried. Spiritualists, who see this life as a cycle, believe that the strange events we are witnessing are signs of a closing cycle, which they insist the holy books have predicted. In other words, in their views, the end of time is fast approaching.

    Political scientists are talking of a failure of an overwhelmed leadership that is swimming in a pool of social and economic challenges. They compare Nigeria to a car with an overheating engine, even as the radiator and the fans that keep the cooling system in place are functioning. The engine, they stress, will get knocked if experts do not move fast. But the question remains, who will save Nigeria, the black man’s pride and hope? Who?

     

    As Ondo votes…

    In two days, Ondo State residents will go to the poll to elect a governor. I have been following the hustings, talking to my friends and relations in the Sunshine State. They say of all the parties, three – Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) and Labour Party (LP) – are serious.

    PDP is wracked by a fratricidal war of attrition that has evoked the imagery of a torn umbrella. A torn umbrella is useless. It can’t provide shade against the sun or stop the rain from soaking its owner.

    Labour symbolises hard work and the dignity that goes with it. But, the popular thinking is that the labourers are weak and fagged out, having been poorly compensated with poor service delivery. Who wants to labour in vain? LP is buffeted by internal rancour that has sent many of its leading lights fleeing the labour room. The party has promised to do all that it promised but failed to do in more than three years – roads, schools, hospitals and more. Will it get another chance? Doubtful. Why? Its account seems to have been overdrawn in the bank of credibility. It is in the red.

    ACN is offering action. And change. The template is ready – in Osun, Lagos, Oyo, Edo, Ogun and Ekiti– and working. If I had a vote in Ondo, I will surely cast it for Rotimi Akeredolu, a tested lawyer, a fighter and a great defender of the poor. He will not betray the trust.

  • When the President speaks

    When the President speaks

    How goes it, comrade?”

    “All is well my brother; He is on the throne.”

    “There you go again. Who’s on the throne now? That’s how you launch into mysticism and religious mentalism to stop an important intellectual peregrination.”

    “Please, please, spare me; spare me. I haven’t recovered from the Sunday morning presidential admonition from the Villa. The long, sterile sermon in the church and then Monday’s somehow mendacious Independence Anniversary speech that has raised so much dust.”

    “Mendacious? How dare you? That was a well crafted speech. Were you looking at the messenger, instead of receiving the message?”

    “Haven’t you been in town? They say the President didn’t get it right when he said that Transparency International noted that Nigeria is the second most improved country in fighting corruption. The organisation said it never made such a rating. Opposition parties are latching onto that to lash the President, saying he should apologise to Nigerians for deceiving us. A lying President? Oh! I don’t believe it. Who wrote the speech? Was there no editing?”

    “I didn’t know that was what you were driving at. But that wasn’t the only incongruity in the presidential speech.”

    “You’re right boo. Didn’t he say that several government programmes and projects are creating wealth and millions of job opportunities for our youths? Where are the jobs? He cited the You-Win programme. I haven’t seen anyone who has won it; have you? The local content initiative in the oil and gas sector; is that subsidy? All we hear are oil kids and their billion naira subsidy deals. Every rich man’s son is into oil and gas, even if he has never been to the Niger Delta.

    “And the Agricultural Transformation Programme. Many have asked me: what is so called? The cassava bread initiative? How many have had the rare opportunity of having a bite of the bread? What’s the taste like? What’s the price like? For rice importers, everyday is Christmas; they are happy.”

    “ My brother, na wa; my hand fall. And those figures. What the hell are they actually indicating? Who understands them?”

    “Oh that! He said Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has grown by 7.1 per cent and people have been asking me: where is the growth? You see, there is a kind of disconnect. What does the man in the street know about GDP? He wants to feel falling food prices, crashing transport fares and dropping school fees; not some esoteric figures that, in his view, symbolise the elite conspiracy to deceive the masses and obfuscate the real, hard, solid facts he confronts every day.

    “Nigeria,” said the President, “has become the preferred destination for investment in Africa, ranked first in the first five host economies for Foreign Direct Investments (FDI), accounting for over 20 per cent of FDI flows into the continent. Besides, there are over N6.8 trillion commitments. Haba! Who are the mean chefs who cooked up these figures? The figures we have, but where are the facts? The Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) says it has 249 new members. Is that a foolproof thermometer to gauge the economy’s temperature? What has happened to those once vibrant textile factories where thousands earned a living? How fares the N70 billion textile revival fund? Will Dunlop and all others that fled the stifling environment here return? I’m just sick of it all. All figures, no facts.”

    “Look, my brother, Dr Jonathan doesn’t want to be pessimistic, you know. He needs to deliver a message of hope and give the impression that the ship is on the right track.”

    “I understand, but the hyperbole. That Nigeria is the investors’ haven? Who invests in a country troubled by merciless kidnappers, armed robbers and blood thirsty fundamentalists, who murder innocent students and ordinary folks looking for means of survival? Who?”

    “But the President says many Nigerians have acknowledged that there has been a significant decline in the spate of security breaches.”

    “You see, that is what we’re saying. Where is the truth in that? Who are these Nigerians? If the Villa crowd and their friends are safe, does that mean other Nigerians are safe? Why don’t they ask the parents of those defenceless students murdered in their sleep in Mubi? Why don’t they ask the families of Delta Commissioner Hope Eghagha and his slain police orderly’s? Have they checked with the family of the slain Borno Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice, Zanna Malam Gana? The former Prisons chief Ibrahim Jarma. Lagos bureau de change operators who were killed in the bloody Sunday shooting spree. The Kano Civil Defence chief, who was killed alongside his wife and three-year-old kid. Businessman Oddi Nweze. Missing TV presenter Rasaq Aremu Gawat. And many others who never thought death would come so early and in such a brutal manner right in their homes or on the street.”

    “These are the cold facts. The figures are scary. We’ve lost count. When people were going about with knives and daggers, we did nothing. Then they started carrying locally made guns. We did nothing. Now, they bear AK-47 rifles, pump action guns and grenades as well as bombs. Everyday is like going to war, a war we know nothing about. A senseless war waged by senseless people against a senseless system.”

    “You’re right. But don’t you see politics in all this? Didn’t some people say they’ll make the country ungovernable for the President?”

    “I understand you. You see, my brother. I’ve reflected on the matter. There’s politics of security and security of politics. When the two clash, the result is the extremism that we see and feel now. So, these times call for no sophistries and duplicity. No. It’s time for action. Today you say you’re talking with angry sect leaders to whom life is all about blood and death; people who have vowed never to be placable; tomorrow, guns boom. More deaths.”

    “Yah! We all feel it, my dear. That’s our country for you. But, my point is that it’s wrong for people to hang it all on Jonathan’s head. He can’t do it alone.”

    “That’s what you people always say. The theory that one person can’t change a nation is strange. Why are leaders elected if they can’t change things? It is when they are seen to be changing things radically that others follow, not when they are lethargic and lackadaisical. When you sought our votes, you kept yelling ‘I, I and I’. Now, you say ‘we; I can’t do it alone’ and ‘there are many Nehemiahs in the National Assembly (really?), in the Federal Executive Council, the Judiciary’. There are those who insist the President should be a preacher; one is being forced to believe them.”

    “In those early days of the administration, Dr Jonathan was so proud of his respect for the rule of law and due process. He no longer romanticise them. What happened?”

    “What a question. Anyway, how do you expect him to go on singing rule of law and such niceties when the National Judicial Council (NJC) has been scorned by the Executive. The NJC, several months ago, recommended the reinstatement of Appeal Court President Justice Isa Ayo Salami, but the Presidency has been sitting on the matter, appointing an acting head for the court, even as it has been said again and again that the NJC has the final say on the matter. Is that rule of law? You see, leadership is about courage, vision and sincerity. Truth. Justice. When these are lacking, what you have is like a truck with flat tyres; you push and push and push but it won’t move. May the Nigerian truck not lose its tyres. “

    “Amen!”

    Otedola: Not so fast, Reps

    The House of Reps is at it again. It has set for itself the spurious task of probing how Femi Otedola paid his N141b debt to the Asset Management Company of Nigeria(AMCON), according to spokesman Zakary Mohammed. To do this, the House will take some time off another crucial mission – that of raising members’ allowances to N7m per quarter (Isn’t that peanuts for such hardworking men and women of integrity?)

    It’s no news that the frontline businessman accused Farouk Lawan of collecting $620,000 bribe from him. Lawan, one of the leading lights of the House and self-styled anti-corruption crusader, is to face trial. This has brought the House to ridicule and opprobrium from which it may not recover so soon.
    Otedola was owing AMCON; he has paid. What is the business of our dear Reps in that? Would they have loved Otedola to stay a debtor for ever? When will the House spare a thought for Boko Haram? When will kidnapping and robbery get a mention? Who owns the assets Otedola pledged for the loans; the House? Of what use is this probe? Probe for probe sake? Shouldn’t other debtors be encouraged to follow the Otedola example? Is this score-settling or crime-cracking? I’m tempted to believe the former is the case, not the latter.
    But don’t our Reps have some shame?

  • Of fuel and other crises

    Of fuel and other crises

    POOR Dr Goodluck Jonathan.

    I wonder what the President will be telling Nigerians on October 1, the National Day. Will he deliver a message of hope to a people who are weary of tightening their belts and enduring more of the pains they are feeling? Will he reel off a long list of achievements – laced with cold statistics and esoteric figures – which the average Nigerian cannot identify with?

    In vain have I searched the neighbourhood stores for a loaf of the cassava bread, which has become regular on the presidential breakfast table since it made its debut a few months ago. Those who have been privileged to have a bite tell me the taste is great, but the question remains: when will ordinary folks get the loaf? The You Win – what a name – programme may be a revolutionary tool for addressing poverty among women, but where are the beneficiaries?

    These and more may be on the list of the administration’s achievements, but one item that has regularly featured will, without doubt, be missing this time. Fuel.

    From Abuja to Sokoto and Kontagora; Calabar and Lagos to Umuahia, the queues are lengthening. A litre costs about N150 in Ekiti and Ondo states. In some parts of the North, it is about N200. Incredible! The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) says the scarcity is artificial, caused by inscrutable people who vandalised a pipeline. An attempt to repair the pipeline that was ripped open in Arepo, Ogun State, was resisted and three engineers were killed, the NNPC said. Now, it is using trucks to move fuel.

    But, the popular thinking is that the corporation has not told the truth. Our refineries, old, often sick and vulnerable, cannot supply all that we require. And now, marketers who import fuel to bridge the gap are not paid.

    The bold attempt to expose and punish those who have turned the subsidy regime into a bazaar of fraud and robbery – every young man with a glittering briefcase and a sharp Oxford Street suit is an oil and gas executive – has somehow compounded the pains it was supposed to remove. The Petroleum Product Pricing and Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) has done a lot to separate the original from the counterfeit, but the Ministry of Finance is yet to pay those who have passed the PPPRA test . The banks are holding such marketers by the throat and there is no cash for them to import more fuel. This is where the problem lies.

    Marketers are being owed some N100 billion. The debts, according to the Ministry of Finance, are being verified. Can this go on ad infinitum? Do we really have the cash to pay? If we have exceeded the budget for subsidy because we under projected, why won’t Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala go back to the National Assembly to ask for more money? Ego? The fear of what the World Bank will say, having warned about budget deficit and balancing to bring down recurrent expenditure and shore up capital expenditure?

    Whatever the situation may be, we need not go back to those days when men slept at filling stations. No. Those who have been found to have defrauded the system should face the law and those whose bills have been verified should be paid right away. Nigerians do not deserve another fuel crisis, considering its agonies.

    It is unfortunate that the government blames everything on everybody except itself. Just on Tuesday in Abuja, the President, in a remarkable flashback, blamed the Occupy Nigeria fuel subsidy protests of January on a particular class who he accused of manipulating the crisis. I disagree. When petrol price jumped from N65 a litre to between N138 and N200 on New Year’s Day without a corresponding increase in workers’ pay, the masses didn’t need any prompting to resist what they saw as an act of crass wickedness.

    As it was then, the subsidy removal argument remains puerile and galling. The government said it spent N1.3tr on fuel subsidy last year. The cash, it said, should have gone into reviving our dead infrastructure, but it went into some people’s pockets. To end the robbery and make fuel smuggling unattractive, fuel price must go up. Some strange logic. The public kicked, saying: why don’t you go after the fraudsters?

    The government, as lethargic as ever, seemed reluctant to seize the suspected criminals. As it dithered about it all, the National Assembly moved in. It set up a probe of the subsidy scam. The exercise has spawned more scandals.

    As I was saying, Dr Jonathan recalled the fuel price protests. He said: “There was a demonstration in Lagos…somebody was giving pure water that people in my village don’t have access to, well packaged bottled water, expensive food that ordinary people in Lagos cannot eat. They hired the best musicians to come and play and the best comedians to come and entertain in that demonstration.

    “Are you telling me that demonstration is coming from the ordinary masses of Nigeria who want to communicate something to their government …?”

    What message was the President trying to pass on? That a spontaneous mob action that will result in cataclysmic losses of human and material resources is better than a peaceful rally to appeal to the government’s conscience that it should never be against the people? That even with the senseless price increase that would have resulted in higher prices of goods and services the people had not had enough?

    Didn’t the demonstration achieve its aim, with the roll back of the fuel price and the subsequent exposure of the subsidy cartel? Is it true Otueke – host of a huge construction site that is a federal university, among other projects – folks do not have access to sachet water ? Haba! Mr President, spare us the hyperbole.

    The government must look inwards for its enemies – remember the President said Boko Haram had infiltrated the government – instead of blaming every headache and catarrh on the opposition. If the opposition keeps quiet, even as the government fumbles and stumbles, where then will be the place of politics? If Dr Jonathan thinks he is going to get some peace from the opposition, that is building a castle in the air; they will keep pummeling his actions and inaction. He is the one who should convince the world that he has a strategic vision to address all that ails this beautiful country of confounding complexities.

    The infrastructural deficit remains as staggering as it was at the inception of this administration – safe for some jump in power supply, which some hawks in high places are trying to reverse with their greed and mercantile disposition.

    Apparently tired of it all, lawyers in Abia State, launched a unique protest on Tuesday. They designated the Enugu-Port Harcourt Expressway a “valley of death” and challenged the state and federal governments to wake up to their responsibilities. The lawyers, decked out in rain boots and their customary black-and-white court dress, marched in Aba right on some of the bad roads. Can it be more bizarre?

    Health workers in federal institutions are on strike, pushing for better pay and a more conducive working environment. In aviation, thousands of jobs are gone, even as the government sets its priority on building 11 more airports. What for?

    The Jonathan presidency may be remembered not for its creative approach to resolving the numerous problems that assail Nigeria, but for its capacity to –perhaps innocently or deliberately or ineffectually – create more trouble. Perhaps.

  • What manner of dialogue?

    What manner of dialogue?

    WHERE is National Security Adviser (NSA) Sambo Dasuki? The gentleman seems to be so quiet nowadays.

    When Col. Dasuki got onboard, he launched a bid for dialogue with the Jamaatul Ahlis Sunnah lidaawa wal Jihad, otherwise known as Boko Haram (Western education is a sin). The sect has been leading a bloody campaign against its perceived enemies. Thousands are dead; many are injured.

    With a brief lull in suicide bombings, we all thought that, indeed, dialogue was on. How wrong we have been! The eerie, spine-chilling sounds of flying bullets from booming guns are being heard again. Borno State Commissioner for Justice and Attorney-General Zanna Malam Gana was killed on Tuesday. Former Prisons boss Alhaji Ibrahim Jarma was shot on Monday. He died on Tuesday. The Acting chair of Maiha Local Government, Adamawa State, Lawan Datti, was shot dead on Monday by gunmen believed to be Boko Haram members.

    What kind of dialogue is going on? Dialogue of bullets, bombs and blood?

    But Nigerians, apparently, tired of it all, have resorted to sardonic jokes about the situation. A friend sent this to my mobile:

    “A man was arrested in Lagos by LASTMA officials for driving on the BRT lane. He was fined N50,000. Despite his begging, the officials refused to release the car.

    “Okay, may I know where you are towing my car to?” the man asked.

    “We’re taking it to Alausa,” replied one of the officials. “Ha-ha-ha-ha,” the Fulani laughed. The officials were surprised.

    The man brought out his phone and began to speak: “Abu Qaqa, Ina kwana?(Good morning in Hausa).

    “No sir! In less than 30 minutes, it will explode. The car has been arrested…

    “Only 20 out of those new bombs are inside the car…They are taking the car to Alausa! I am coming back to Yobe alive now. Thank you sir. Greet other faithful for me o.”

    He rounded off his imaginary call. When he looked back, there was no LASTMA official in sight. He entered his car and sped off, saying: “Shege! Dan borouba…Waka!”