The Nation Newspaper

Category: Jide Oluwajuyitan

  • Netanyahu, European allies as scourge of Jews and Arabs

    Netanyahu, European allies as scourge of Jews and Arabs

    The compromised international community and the rest of humanity must hold Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, his US and European allies responsible for both the October 7 brutal murder of about 1,400 Israeli soldiers, innocent women and children by Hamas terrorists and Israel’s retaliatory indiscriminate bombing of caged people of Gaza resulting so far in the death of over 3,000 Palestinian civilians including women and children.

    Netanyahu claims the Jews owned the land of Israel because they occupied it 3,500 years ago before the Arabs he described as colonialists exiled them from the land in the 7th century. That was just an attempt at revisionism. Jews, through Sarah and Arabs through Hagar were siblings. Abraham, their patriarch came from Ur in present day Iraq in search of a land he was told was flowing with milk and honey. His children, including Joshua waged vicious wars before securing a land which turned out to be a desert, with a ring of deep craters, hills and valleys of death.

    But Israel’s story is the story of migration in all societies. However, unlike other societies including America, Canada and Australia taken over by new invaders, Israel as admitted by Netanyahu had the support of Christian Zionist sympathisers and of course powerful European nations to take their land back.

    In 1947, the UN voted for Palestine to be split into separate Jewish and Arab states with Jerusalem becoming an international city. While Israel embraced the plan, it was rejected by the Arabs. With the help of powerful European nations trying to atone for centuries of savagery against the Jewish people in both central and eastern Europe, Israel overpowered the Arab and had by 1967 occupied East Jerusalem, the West Bank, Gaza and Sinai peninsula while Palestinian refugees lived in Gaza and West Bank, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. The status quo has remained the same ever since. 

    With the Norway Oslo Peace Process, Israel and Palestinians after years of bloodletting recognized the quest for self-actualization by both as legitimate and therefore recognized the right of each other for statehood. Not long after, Benjamin Netanyahu then opposition leader called the Oslo accord “a mortal threat to Israel”.

    With Netanyahu’s electoral upset in 1996, Israelis accelerated building of Jewish settlement in the occupied territories while frustrated Hamas organized suicide bombers to kill people in Israel. The Oslo deal eventually collapsed. Netanyahu, the longest serving Israeli leader perhaps after Moses has done everything ever since to prolong the nightmare of the Israelis and Palestinians.

    Read Also: Trump criticises Netanyahu as unprepared for Hamas attack on Israel

     Netanyahu’s strategy is the exploitation of the innermost fears of the Jewish people – the survival of their hard won state and preservation of their religion and cultural values. Desperate to retain power after some electoral setbacks in recent years, he formed an alliance with the ultra-right that has always opposed the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian crisis.

    The result was continued expansion of settlements in the Palestinian occupied West Bank. This was to lead to endless clashes between about 700,000 new Israeli residents and aggrieved Palestinians dispossessed of their homes and land. Netanyahu’s periodic police raid left over 300 Palestinians dead with as many in Israeli prisons. The immediate cause of current hostility according to Hamas was the storming of Al-Aqsa mosque, the third holiest site in Islam by Israeli police who took away some worshippers.

    Netanyahu celebrates Moses’ law of “an eye for an eye a tooth for a tooth” despite Ghandi’s warning that such will make the world go blind. He forgets the essence of Moses law for the rebellious Jews with hardened mind was to prevent disproportionate vengeance since one cannot find peace by hating and getting your own back but by forgiveness and grace.

    While Golda Meir, 4th Israel’s Prime Minister believed violence was not the answer to violence and lamented that while “Israel can forgive the Arabs for killing Israeli children, they cannot forgive them for forcing Israelis to kill Arab children”,  Netanyahu celebrates violence believing Israel was invincible especially after its acquisition of nuclear power with the support of America and Europe who stood against similar quest by other nations in the Middle East including Iraq, Libya and Iran.

    Golda Meir confessed “while it is true Israel won all their wars, Israel paid for them”. For her, a leader who does not reflect deeply before sending soldiers to kill is not worth to be a leader, because “there is no difference between the person who kills and the person who send him to kill, if anything the latter is worse”.

    But for Netanyahu who last week mobilized 350,000 Israeli youths that have known nothing but violence and intense hatred in the last 30 years, his strategy has always been an appeal to their sense of patriotism before sending them on a mission to bomb not just Hamas terrorists but  women and children that constitute two third of caged Gaza residents.

    Netanyahu understands that Israel is haunted by the spectre of the Holocaust. As Golda Meir puts it: “Israel itself is the strongest guarantee against another Holocaust. Israel was not created to disappear. Israel will endure and flourish. It is the child of hope and the home of the brave”.

    Netanyahu was seen last week lionizing some of the mobilized Israeli youths he was sending to Gaza on a suicide mission, which the Oslo accord he killed would have prevented.

    As for the US and Western Europe, history has shown they love neither both Palestinians, Israelis, Africans nor anyone but themselves. Their avowed solid support for Israel has largely been driven by guilty conscience. Precisely because of centuries of humiliation and persecution of Jews across Europe, they lack the morale courage to promote cause of justice as Israel, out of a sense of misplaced aggression and fear of another Holocaust, continues to visit sins of Europe on their caged Palestinian cousins in the occupied territories.

    It is on record that because Europeans envied the Jews because of their economic success during the middle ages. Jews were denied citizenship, of their rights and barred from holding posts in government and the military by European rulers. In both central and eastern Europe, they were treated as second class citizens confined to the ghettos.

    The 1096 crusaders terror and massacre were directed at the Jews. In the 12th century, Jews were falsely accused of sacrificing of Christian children at Passover to obtain blood for unleavened bread. 

    The resentment and religious prejudices that followed their economic and cultural successes led to their forced eviction from several European countries including France (1112), England (1290), Germany (1350s), Portugal (1496), Provence (1512), and the Papal States (1569). Those who refused to convert from Judaism to Christianity faced persecution during the 1492 Spanish Inquisition.

    For 27 years, Netanyahu has played politics of fear to remain in power. Europe’s centuries of anti-Semitic campaign led to six million Jews being incinerated during the Holocaust.

     It is therefore time for Jews and Arabs that have more that binds them together start loving each other.  On the negative side, I have searched without finding a difference between Hamas terrorist who slaughtered women and children and Jews who bombed women and children put inside a cage called Gaza from where there is no escape.

    On the positive side, they should remember that Abraham was the father of both Ishmael and Isaac; that Moses, the father of Hebrew religion was married to Zipporah, a Midianite Arab woman (Exodus  verse 21) and that Ruth  who became the grandmother of King David was a Midianite from  Moab, today’s Jordan ( Ruth 1.1.)

    Arabs and Jews are one and the same. They should stop killing their own children. As Golda Meir predicted: “There will be peace between Israelis and Arabs when they start loving their children more than they hate us”.

  • Obi and Atiku as true sons of their fathers

    Obi and Atiku as true sons of their fathers

    The battle for the soul of Nigeria, a beautiful country of wonderful people by self-serving leaders masquerading as messiahs has always been very fierce. This is why, for those who understand the nature of our crisis of nation-building, it should not come as a surprise that six months after an election won “round and square’ by President Ahmed Bola Tinubu, a victory upheld through a unanimous pronouncement of a five-man judicial panel, Peter Obi and Atiku Abubakar, his defeated opponents have not only continued to heat up the polity, they appear prepared to pull the roof down over their heads. And this they are doing through propaganda, misinformation, outright lies, and de-legitimization of his government and demonization of his person with the active connivance of a section of the media managed by politicians in journalists’ borrowed robes.

    A journey through memory will show that our nation has for long been haunted by our leaders’ ideology of ‘if I cannot have it, no one else must have it’. Following the rivalry between Nnamdi Azikiwe and Tafawa Balewa over who loved Nigeria most during the constitutional crisis that followed the 1964 disputed election, both lured the military into politics in 1966. Thus, two old men who hated each other ignited the fire that was to throw our beautiful country into a 30 months civil war in which over three million Nigerian youths who had nothing against each other killed themselves.

    It was the rivalry between Emeka Ojukwu and Yakubu Gowon over who was best suited to be Head of State that sparked off the war that finally truncated our political socialisation process; just as it was the rivalry between Ibrahim Babangida who claimed there was no alternative to the Structural Adjustment Programme and Muhammadu Buhari who believed such a policy was anti-Nigeria that eventually destroyed the foundation of our economic development.

    I am sure many Nigerians still remember that it was Babangida, the evil genius and Abacha who fraudulently claimed “for our future they sacrificed their present” that annulled the most credible election in our nation’s history, institutionalized an interim contraption and incarcerated MKO Abiola, the winner of the election who later died in captivity because according to Obasanjo, their accomplice, he “was not the messiah Nigerians were waiting for”!

    Desperate Peter Obi and Atiku Abubakar are therefore tarred with the same brush as Azikiwe and Balewa and other aforementioned self-proclaiming messiahs. The facts stare us all in the face.

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    Obi desperate to rule Nigeria after his two terms as governor of Anambra State on the platform APGA, jumped boat and became Atiku Abubakar’s PDP VP candidate in 2019. Sensing that the PDP rotation policy that favoured the emergence of an Igbo as PDP presidential candidate was going to be breached by Atiku, he jumped boat again, this time to the Labour Party.

    And the strategy of his witch doctors and godfathers including Pat Utomi, Charles Oputa, Akin Osuntokun, Dele Farotimi and his sponsors, Pa Edwin Clark, Ayo Adebanjo and Olusegun Obasanjo was to exploit the sentiments of his aggrieved Igbo ethnic group at home and abroad. He was also to play the religion card as he hopped from one big Pentecostal church to the other while Catholic priests in his native Anambra took it upon themselves to mobilise their congregations across town and villages.

    Their other strategies involved the use of the social media and demonisaton of the ruling APC over its choice of Muslim-Muslim ticket by Obimedia who regularly invited into their studios, Christian pastors without the spirit of Christ who were allowed to make incendiary statements.

    ‘Obimedia’ painted a picture of an invincible Obi. But while Obi won 95% of Igbo votes and about 50% of Christian votes especially in the middle belt region, he lost Muslim votes in nearly all the northern states. While of the three leading parties, Obi came a distant third, he insisted his mandate was stolen. As it was in 1964 and 1993, his unquestioning Obidients called on the military to take over while Obasanjo appealed to Buhari to stop counting of votes and institutionalise an Interim Government as he and Babangida did in 1993. When all failed, he decided to go to court to retrieve ‘his stolen mandate’.

    Meanwhile, the president-elect became target of campaign of calumny in the hands of ‘Obidients’ mob and ‘Obimedia’. From faraway USA where he was giving a lecture, Farotimi said to his audience “an indicted drug pushers was about to become president of Nigeria”. Back home on ARISE TV where he is always a toast, he, without restraint called the president names. Others that do not share Farotimi’s views did not escape his caustic tongue. “We Nigerians are shameless”, “the judiciary has ceased to be a court of law”; he has “zero trust in the capacity of the current Chief Justice of Nigeria to deliver justice’, all in the service of his Peter Obi, his messiah.

    It is not difficult to understand Atiku Abubakar’s desperation. He has come to be regarded a serial loser by Nigerians having contested for the presidency in 1993, 2007, 2011, 2015 and 2019. For the 2023 election, he was so desperate that he was prepared to break all rules including his party constitution which splintered PDP into ANPP, Labour Party and G-5 governors, with the first three garnering about 14m votes to the victorious APC’s  8,794,726.

    Ex-vice president Atiku Abubakar rejected former President Goodluck Jonathan’s admonition that “you, go home and rest or find something else to do, if the people you wanted to serve rejected you”. He similarly rejected the advice of Bola Tinubu, his estranged friend that he should return to Dubai from where he periodically came for election for a well-deserved rest after many heroic electoral defeats. He headed for the court where he lost.

      He decided to take his case to the Supreme Court. As part of preparation for this, he headed to Chicago University in faraway America to secure President Tinubu’s transcript and diploma. Atiku, desperate to hold onto any straw returned to Nigeria and held a press conference where he claimed Tinubu forged his diploma certificate. A section of the media without asking why a man whose transcript showed he was a first class product would forge a certificate, has continued to assault our sensibilities with Olisa Agbakoba (SAN) quoted by an online newspaper last Monday as saying “I am ashamed to see lawyers on television arguing one way or the other on the merits and demerits of the CSU matter,” while “calling out all media that tolerate the nonsense of adjudicating on TV and newspapers”.

    Obi who as importer of labour of other nations contributed to the collapse of our budding industries, the reason we have an exodus of our youths to other nations in search of greener pastures is not is tarred with the same brush as Atiku Abubakar who under Obasanjo presided over the sale of Nigeria’s total investment of $100b to PDP stalwarts for a paltry $1.5b.

    Obi and Atiku are in all respect true sons of their fathers. And as the Yoruba will say “you don’t begrudge a son for resembling his father”.  The tragedy of our country however is a section of the media that often try to mislead the public by calling a dog a monkey.

  • Nigeria @ 63: Break from pursuit of elusive vision

    Nigeria @ 63: Break from pursuit of elusive vision

    Nigeria, a product of compromise by our founding fathers who as representatives of the dominant groups in a nation of some 300-odd nationalities at different levels of cultural development, envisioned a nation where even though “tribes and tongues may differ, will grow in brotherhood”. Unfortunately this was replaced by our soldiers’ blurred “vision of a good society which became more elusive, the closer they came towards it” (Robin Luckman).

    For close to 60 years after the collapse of the first republic, we have done everything except retracing our steps back to where the rain started to beat us. Our successive leaders have never been short of lamentations during our independence anniversaries about missed opportunities, unfulfilled promises, abuse of rule of law, disrespect for human lives and mindless savagery by those who infiltrated through our borders and of course  corruption and economic strangulation.

     As a mark of departure, President Tinubu during this year’s anniversary, five days back, spoke of his commitment to “public sector reforms to stabilize the economy, direct fiscal and monetary policy to fight inflation, encourage production, ensure the security of lives and property and lend more support to the poor and the vulnerable”. His goal which is not markedly different from the unfulfilled hopes of his predecessors is a nation “where the abundance and fruits of the nation are fairly shared among all, not hoarded by a select and greedy few and a Nigeria where hunger, poverty and hardship are pushed into the shadows of an ever fading past”. Unfortunately his invocations like the lamentations of his predecessors are all but symptoms of our crisis of nation building.

    But once again, the occasion of our 63rd independence anniversary provides another unique opportunity to interrogate where we are coming from. This has become imperative since over 70% of our people including political actors, journalists, partisan youths masquerading as EndSARS crusaders visiting violence on public properties in Lagos and the self-styled ‘Obidients’, a euphemism for unthinking and intolerant mob who see only what they want to see.

     Nigeria, prior to the imposition of the British colonial rule and carving of it into a conglomeration of states, had over 300  ethnic groups with each of the ethnic groups maintaining a different and independent system of administration.

    The British, who according to Pa Ayo Adebanjo during his last Saturday interview by Channels TV conquered Nigeria as different groups; amalgamated the north and the south in 1914 and for ease of administration, institutionalised a unitary system. The West through its leader, Chief Obafemi Awolowo had raised an objection on the ground that Nigeria is “a mere geographical expression and not a nation in the sense of the Welsh, the British or the French. And because by nature, the Yoruba of the West are federalists, he had canvassed for a federal system where each group would develop at its own pace without interference from others. The northern hegemonic power wanted a confederal or a federal system they could control, perhaps to enable them create a home for fellow stateless Fulani across West Africa or as feudal lords, sustain their strangle-hold on the middle belt minorities that served as mercenaries during Uthman Dan Fodio’s conquest of the Hausa states. The East wanted a unitary system where landlocked Igbo nation that like the Jews thrive in other peoples land would operate without restriction.

    The British who believed it was their presence that had prevented a disastrous descent into a turmoil of warring groups, consolidated federalism through various constitutional engineering starting with Sir Hugh Clifford 1922 Constitution which abolished and replaced Lugard’s Nigerian Council with a new Legislative Council and an Executive Council; 1946 Richards Constitution which entrenched principle of regionalism by formally recognizing three regions as building blocks for a federal system; McPherson Constitution which created central House of Representatives with 68 members from the north and 34 each from the east and west; the 1954 Lyttleton Constitution which marked the beginning of direct elections to both the federal and regional legislatures in Nigeria and the Independence Constitution which consolidated a federal system with a Prime Minister and a Governor General representing the Queen of England.

    The 1963 Republican Constitution was a wholly Nigerian affair without the supervision of big brother Britain and it turned out to be the beginning of our nightmare. The constitution stripped the judiciary of its independence while the government granted itself power to declare state of emergency.

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    This was to be used to a devastating effect in 1962 when the federal government, to nail Awolowo, the opposition leader, declared state of emergency in the West where a few lawmakers were throwing chairs while there was no declaration of emergency in the north where the Tiv Middle Belt popular uprising had to be suppressed by the military or in the East where Isaac Boro-led insurrection was also suppressed by the military.

    The Sardauna had nothing but disdain for Awolowo who he believed was trying to undermine his authority in the north while Zik had an axe to grind with him for his role in derailing Zik’s ambition to rule the West in 1952.

    But for Zik, Awo’s incarceration was a pyrrhic victory as the crises over the 1962/63 disputed census, the constitutional crisis that followed the massively rigged 1964 election proved beyond any doubt that Nigeria was a “mere geographical expression”.

    It has since become part of our history that the January 1966 military coup which substituted our federal system with a unitary system was masterminded by Zik’s sympathisers in the military while the July 1966 counter coup was a vengeance coup by young northern military officers protesting the selective killing of their political leaders and senior northern military officers. The northern military officers and their civilian surrogates that have been in power for the greater part of our post-independence years midwifed the 1979 and 1999 constitutions, federal only in name but unitary in reality with 68 items in the exclusive list and without a residual list.

    As we celebrate our 63rd Independence anniversary, President Tinubu has expressed his commitment “to stabilizing the economy, fighting inflation, encouraging production and ensuring the security of lives and property as well as lending more support to the poor and the vulnerable”. All these can hardly be achieved under a blurred vision that has remained elusive even as his predecessors played the ostrich in the last 53 years.

    If we don’t know where we are going, we should at least remember where we are coming from.  As Punch editorial of October 1 warned: “Nigeria should stop its precarious existence and take the right choice of restructuring into a true federation with the 36 states as federating units. US think – tank, Brookings Institution, put it strongly: “Sometimes, nations face a stark choice; allow regions to federate and govern themselves, or risk national dissolution.”

  • The travails of the naira

    The naira is what 95% of Nigerians need to carry out their daily shores including putting food on their table and sending their children to school. Unfortunately, parasites waging war against our naira, their collaborating crooks in government and in the media and our foreign detractors often make us feel that without the almighty dollar which without any objective criteria they claim today exchanges for N1,000 to $1, Nigeria is doomed. But in truth, the naira in terms of its purchasing power is in high demand by our toiling but short-changed farmers in Nigerian rural communities in spite of the hysteria of parasites in the urban centres.

    It is on record that our naira, until a coordinated assault by crooks, parasites and their foreign sponsors, competed favourably with both the dollar and British pound sterling. I remember when I travelled to London for three weeks’ vacation as a young employee of the Guardian in 1983, my Personal Travel Allowance (PTA) was N500. But the real story was that when I finished spending the value of my travellers’ cheque, I went to Liverpool Street where those Indian traders accepted naira without any hesitation.

    Assault on naira started in 1986 with Babangida’s Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) which sounded the death-knell of our budding industries, the backbone of our naira. Olu Falae and Kalu Idika Kalu and other agents of our creditors who claimed there was no alternative to Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) spoke of ‘inevitable large scale programme of devaluation’ despite warning by professors Ricardo Fari of John Hopkins University and Sam Aluko of the University of Ife who insisted there was alternative to even death which he said was life.

    In November 13, 1986, the first-tier rate put the exchange rate at N2.80 to $1. By November 13, it has depreciated to N3.45 to $1 and by November 1990, it was N10.75 to $1. By July 1991 it was N11.32 to $1 forcing Augustus Aikhomu, Babangida’s military vice president to warn the CBN that “the value of the naira cannot be left absolutely to the whims and caprices of market forces”.

    Babangida went on to institutionalise corruption through the foreign exchange policies that allowed military men and their fronts to amass so much wealth with which they embarked on a wholesale importation of the labour of other societies.

    The parasites adopting Obasanjo, as their arrow head, took over power in 1999. With their privatization programme which according to a National Assembly probe, was nothing but a ploy to sell to themselves Nigeria’s total investment of about $100b  for a paltry $1.5b,  it was obvious, his administration merely continued the war against the naira from where Babangida stopped.

    The assault on the naira continued under Jonathan with his administration’s extension of tax waivers to parasitic car importers.  Our leaders continued to play the ostrich even as Michelin, Dunlop and some pharmaceutical firms relocated, ostensibly because of poor power supply to Ghana which ironically depends on Nigeria for her energy needs. We all played the ostrich pretending not to know that their relocation was due to uncontrolled importation of substandard tyres from China and expired tyres from Europe by dangerous and desperate parasites with the help of crooks in government.

    But no one puts this better than Audu Ogbe, former Minister of Agriculture in a speech he gave back in 2018 titled ‘the problem of importation’ where he concluded that “a ship load of rice translates to a ship load of unemployment.”

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    According to him “the tragedy of Nigeria began with SAP in 1986 when we  became importers of everything including milk, sugar, pencil, handkerchief and champagne, consumed more by Nigerian than any nation on planet earth according to Jacques Champagne  de Labriolle, the  French ambassador to Nigeria; and toothpaste and tomato paste which cost Nigeria $18m and $400m respectively annually.”

    Hitting the nail on its head, he had submitted that “someone is making sure you fail when you want to produce at home. These are people who can kill if they have a chance… these guys have seized this country’s economy; they have taken us a hostage and have no intention of giving up because this is a huge market… and they have taken control”.

    He did not forget to call attention of Nigerians to the unpatriotic role of (some crooks in the media), working for their principals, who with their publications try to demoralize Nigeria local farmers in the case of rice local production. For him: “To cure Nigeria malady will take a while and will take a strong government”.

    He was right. Both late Obafemi Awolowo and Dora Akunyuli had the foretaste of how vicious these desperate groups could be.  The former, for saying he would stop importation of second hand clothes if he won the 1959 election, had his helicopter stoned in Onitsha while the latter had a close shave with death when her car was sprayed with bullets in Onitsha because of her war against importation of substandard and fake drugs into the country.

     But Tinubu who has said we should not sympathise with him has his job well cut out. He already has the answer to the question of contribution of importers of the labour of other societies to our economy in our army of unemployed youths in Nigeria and thousands of others that have migrated to Britain and Canada where many of them do menial jobs.

    As to the source of the parasites’ foreign exchange, he like other Nigerians already know it is CBN which was converted into an ATM without a password under President Jonathan and Emefiele. It only got worse under Buhari and Emefiele.

    We also now know that some of those who secured CBN foreign exchange allocation for importation of raw materials often end up using such to import substandard products with the active support of crooks in government and cover up by crooks in the media.

    If you are in doubt, ask yourself how the prime suspect in the case of banned imported crusader medicated soap and Mekado soap which (contained mercury which can damage skin,  eyes, ears, brain, kidney and the nervous system”) with a street value of N1b who according to Professor Adeyeye,  NAFDAC boss, has not produced a bar of the soap in Nigeria since 2013, secured foreign exchange to import the soap seven times in 2021 alone with each consignment not less than three containers?(Guardian Sept 16, 2023).

     The battle to protect our naira must start with starving of parasitic importers of labour of other societies of foreign exchange. The president must also devise a means of protecting our local industries.

     Our own Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala the WTO  chair,  during a recent chat with CNN’s Richard Quest pointed out that that both the US and China, the world biggest economies have accused each other of protectionism. The truth is that the West that claims we are all equal in a globalised world subsidizes each head of cow owned by those in animal husbandry industry by $2 dollars. And going by World Bank claim that 70% of Africans live below two dollars a day, that would mean the life of a cow in the West is worth much more than that of a man in Africa.

    Our rural farmers that need the naira most can also be empowered by state governments buying off their farm produce just as government of rice-producing states in Asia do before exporting same to Nigeria several years later. Some of the savings made by withholding foreign exchange from parasites that bring only misery to Nigerian youths can be used to help the states set up cottage industries.

  • Tinubu’s northern exploits and the Igbo challenge

    Tinubu’s northern exploits and the Igbo challenge

    No one can replace Papa Anthony Enahoro and Awo but we can inculcate their ideas, their beliefs, their feelings, their irrevocable commitment, to humanity, to human progress and the development of our country”.

    This was Bola Tinubu celebrating chiefs Anthony Enahoro and Obafemi Awolowo, as   celebrated Nigerian visionaries who left their footprint in the sand of time. They served as role models and guiding star during his war with Obasanjo and the predatory buccaneers that held the old southwest hostage. Tinubu celebrated his victory over Obasanjo with the return the old West from Edo to Lagos to its old glory of a pacesetter administered in the main by men of ideas who understand that their own wellbeing is contingent on the wellbeing of their neighbours.

    Tinubu incidentally was not one of those that Pa Awo and Enahoro heavily invested on to carry on the battle. But his principled stand on divisive issues of Nigerian politics such as fiscal federalism, devolution of power, revenue allocation, credible census exercise, free and fair election naturally positioned him as the one to continue his father’s unfinished battle. Today, his illustrious fathers who in spite of their heroic efforts, could not spread their epistle to the critical segments of Nigerian society, will be proud of Tinubu’s exploits from their graves for winning over many of the  descendant of those who once persecuted them for spreading the light. The struggle for liberation from colonial rule and institutionalization of an egalitarian society might have sounded attractive; most northern leaders of the period were probably put off by Awo, Enahoro and their other members’ abrasiveness.

    Thus Enahoro’s March 31, 1953 motion for independence in 1956 left a permanent scar between the west and the north. Professor Banji Akintoye, not too long ago told a story of how a prominent northern leader accused the Yoruba of arrogance for trying to preach the epistle of ‘free education’ to the northern masses. “Who by the way told the Yoruba that the north wanted free education?”, the northern leader was quoted as asking not without a touch of some cynicism. Incitement of northern masses by their leaders against Akintola, the chief evangelist of free education to Kano led to the 1953 Kano riot with about 46 people dead. In Sokoto, Awo’s helicopter would not be allowed to land. A Sokoto convert who cleared his groundnut farm where Awo’s helicopter eventually landed paid the supreme price. Hawking his fathers’ same old wares during the 2023 election, Tinubu secured the bulk of the 2.7m votes that came from the northwest. The epistle was the same. What was different was Tinubu’s marketing skill.

    The Old West evangelists had underestimated the role of culture. They had thought the value of free education and other social policies will be so self-evident to be resisted by the north which they also believe will have no choice but embrace federalism because of the heterogeneity of the north where some state with 24 LGAs speak as many as 48 languages. They forgot that free education succeeded in the West because it is part of their culture and federalism because by nature, Yoruba are federalists.

    In spite of Tinubu’s gains in the north, he lost the critical voice of the Igbo without which Nigeria can make progress. History tells us that Nigeria is doomed without the critical voice of the Igbo. It was obvious from the outcome of 1959 election that the three dominant groups, Hausa/Fulani, Igbo and Yoruba have diametrically opposing world views. We can today see the hypocrisy in Dr. Azikiwe “with this giant step, Nigeria is no more a geographical expression” claim during the independence night cross-over celebration  at the Tafawa Balewa square on independence day in 1960. It was obvious by 1963 that “Nigeria was not a geographical expression’ only when the Igbo is inside.

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    Igbo response to the loss of influence during the 1964 constitutional confrontation between Zik and Balewa was no less duplicitous just as the method of taking control in January 1966 was disingenuous. And very little has changed in Igbo strategy during their reaction to PDP betrayal in 2023. It is perhaps only Igbo that would believe Obi their adopted candidate would win Nigerian presidency by fighting his former benefactors while also waging an open war against the west and its candidate.

     But if we need one more evidence that Nigeria is still a geographical expression, it was Igbo’s violent opposition to Tinubu’s candidacy in the 2023 election and continued questioning of his legitimacy by majority of Igbo in spite of judiciary’s verdict.

    Tinubu was roundly rejected in the east which gave Obi 95% of their to vote to Obi whose support spread among all segment of Igbo society, from the unquestioning ‘Obidients’, to elder-statesmen like Chukwuemeka Ezeife, accomplished intellectuals like Prof Pat Utomi who stepped down for him as Labour’s presidential candidate, to Igbo world acclaimed writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Except for the Igbo, most Nigerians understand why Obi couldn’t have won an election in which his party fractured into three on the eve of election in which ethnic and religious sentiments were placed in the front burner by major actors. 

    Igbo leaders have generally owned up to their control of commerce in the country. And since in commerce, profit is the driving force, cutting corners is a model. And this may include importation of substandard manufactured goods which has in recent years led to the collapse of our pharmaceutical, ceramics, automobile accessories, textile, batteries, electronics or their relocation outside the country. That this has become a threat to our survival as a nation underscore the need for us to ensure Igbo remains inside.

    The challenge before Tinubu is politics. It is not running abroad to seek foreign investors who at the end will be frustrated out of forced to relocate to Ghana by those who control commerce. And Tinubu’s job has been well cut out for him since we know what the Igbo want is a wholesale importation of everything even when they are given license to manufacture locally as was the case with a company that, according to Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye, the Director General of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), “has not manufactured one bar of the soap in Nigeria since the its registration in 2013”. Instead the banned soap ‘was imported seven times in 2021 alone and each consignment is not less than three containers with 4,500 cartons of the soap’.

    Instead of playing the ostrich, it is time to return to restructuring. Nnewi can become Dubai of Nigeria and destination for all those who want substandard imported goods including medicines. That will save those who control commerce the trouble of having to ask their customers for their preference between fake and original. With the pioneering work of Aminu Masari, Nasir el-Rufai and Abdullahi Ganduje, northwest naturally becomes the zone for animal husbandry. Of course the Middle Belt will remain the food basket of Nigeria. President Tinubu only needs a fraction of billions of naira frittered away under Buhari on fighting herdsmen sponsored and armed by those who hide under his government to serve other tendencies.

  • Obaseki vs. Shaibu: Dearth of democratic ethos

    Nigeria must not despair because of her current democratic challenges. We were in the wilderness for almost 30 years after the collapse of our first democratic experiment which lasted for barely five years. This was because most of institutions democracy that the new imported value system needed to function were absent or at rudimentary stage. Our independent legislature and judiciary easily caved in with the pressure of the executive shortly after independence. The press owned by politicians and tribal groups in fact contributed to the outbreak of the civil war. The abysmal performance of the press during our recently concluded elections only confirmed the usual aphorism that ‘the medium is the news’. Of course we saw how ethnic based civil society groups and their foreign sponsored counterparts openly quarrelled over contents of their reports.

     More than this, sore losers who shopped for political platform to contest elections and their unthinking ‘Obidients’ can hardly be regarded as people with faith in democracy or its ethos, described by Aristotle as ‘balance between passion and caution” of political actors. For democracy to thrive, according to him, political actors must be committed to a set of ideals if democracy is to be anything other than the tyranny of the majority.

     We must therefore congratulate ourselves for the giant strides we have made in the last 23 years in spite of the ongoing shenanigans in Edo State. Democracy is a difficult process as America recently discovered after over 200 years. In fact when democracy first became an idea some 300 years ago, philosopher Michel de Montaigne according to James Kloppenburg’s ‘Toward Democracy’, rejected democracy saying he did not believe ordinary people were capable of the self-restraint democracy required.

    In 2016, Adams Oshiomhole, the  then outgoing governor of Edo State, using power of incumbency, imposed Godwin Obaseki  at the expense of other APC stalwarts such as Chris Ogiemwonyi (former minister of state for works) former army general Gen. Charles Arihiavbare and former deputy governor, Dr. Pius Odubu as his successor. Asked by reporters on October 24, 2016 the reason for his blind faith in Obaseki, Oshiomhole had said Obaseki was “more competent than him and would bring more development to Edo”.

    Little did he realize that Obaseki like many other military-baked new-breed politicians is a man without character. At the centre of the struggle with his benefactor was the control of Edo State House of Assembly where their ruling party, the All Progressives Congress (APC) controlled all the 24 members in the state Assembly.

     To prevent Oshiomhole’s loyalists from taking control of the state legislature, the Clerk of Edo House of Assembly, Yahaya Omogbai, was said to have ushered nine members in a house of 24 lawmakers-elect into the chamber at midnight and read out Obaseki’s letter of proclamation with which Honourable Frank Okiye the governor’s anointed candidate for speaker was elected.

    Hon. Osifo and the 13 others went to court to file a case against the speaker and the eight others. While the case was in court, the seats of the 14 Oshiomhole loyalists were declared vacant by the minority factional speaker and was about to conduct election to fill the positions before he was stopped by the court. All efforts to find amicable settlement by the party, the National Assembly and the president were frustrated by Obaseki’s minority that was bent on holding on to what it illegally seized.

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    From then on Obaseki won all the battles. First Obaseki sought and got a relief from Justice Kolawole Omotosho’s Federal High Court Abuja to frustrate the Senate and the House of Representatives resolutions on the findings of committees led by Senator Sabiu Aliyu Abdullahi and Honourable Abdulrazak Namdas for the respective chambers to invoke section 11, subsection 4 of the 1999 constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria viz: “In the event that a new proclamation is not issued as recommended within the period of three weeks”,  the National Assembly was told “it could not compel Obaseki to issue another proclamation within the lifespan of an existing proclamation”. The court also ruled “NASS lacked the power to take over the functions of Edo Assembly or any other state House of Assembly in the country”.

    Obaseki who had earlier attributed the underdevelopment of Edo until 2006 to “non-state actors empowered by political class, collecting revenues as an alternative government and constituted themselves into an army that were used for political activities”, decided to partner with the same non-state actors as 2020 drew near.

    He then made peace with Chief Gabriel Igbinedion, the Esama of Bénin Kingdom and a chieftain of PDP  who was fought to a standstill by Oshiomhole for allegedly confiscating land and other resources of the state and whose son, Lucky Igbinedion, a two-term governor was indicted for financial crimes against Edo State. He also made peace with Chief Tom Ikimi, a former PDP stalwart, who retraced his way back after a short sojourn in APC. Igbinedion and Tom Ikimi, PDP stalwarts became Obaseki new godfathers.

    PDP withdrew its accusation through its publicity secretary, Chris Nehikhare that Obaseki was responsible for the “growing level of poverty, insecurity and unemployment”.  The party also swallowed its allegations that “commissioned” Five-star specialist hospital is still home to reptiles; Tayo Akpata University of Education, an unfulfilled political Greek gift, College of Agriculture Ogierieki, a victim of policy lip-service, the Gelegele sea port project is still a mirage and the industrial park is still at the MOU level”.

    Obaseki, a blind fighter went on to win his re-election bid on the platform of PDP but not before engineering the removal of his estranged godfather as APC chairman. Obaseki defeated his former godfather with the active support of Shuaibu who ensured that the 14 elected members of Edo State house were shut out of the house for four years.

    Now Obaseki, the blind fighter has stripped Shuaibu, his deputy of his official responsibilities including monitoring and reporting the collection of internally generated revenue and supervision of the sports ministry. He did not stop there; he sacked media aides attached to his office and relocated his deputy’s office to Siberia, all because Shuaibu expressed interest in succeeding him.

    What goes around comes around. Shuaibu has also been told by Senator Oshiomhole, that “APC has no room for internally displaced politicians (IDP) in search of a rehabilitation camp”. Obaseki like Shuaibu and their other military baked new-breed military baked politicians, are all men without character

    But we must not weep for Edo alone. Over 50% of governors elected on PDP platform in 1998 and 2003 were declared men without character by the courts that found them guilty of tampering with the resources of their various states. The first set of senators after the 1998 elections spoke openly about their desire to recoup their expenses on the election. Within three months they had come out with schemes through which fuel import licenses were allocated to over 100 companies fronting for them. A house probe was to later confirm the theft of about N1.7t through the fuel subsidy regime

    PDP and APC are no party of saints. Bukola Saraki damaged the fortune of his party by moving from PDP to APC. In APC, he admitted trading off the victory of his party to secure the senate presidency and when he fell out with APC, he again moved back to PDP. In his group were Tambuwal and Rotimi Amaechi, Tony Anenih among others.

    PDP, described as “a club of elites for sharing of oil rents and political spoils’ while APC its twin brother formed not on the basis of shared ideas, shared values, shared commitment, have left the nation with only military baked ‘new-breed’ politicians that lack character.

  • Keyamo’s agony and righteous indignation

    I sympathize with Festus Keyamo the newly appointed Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development. He was depressed by what he saw during his last week’s visit to Murtala Muhammed International Airport, (MMIA), Lagos, the nation’s foremost gateway and aviation sector’s major revenue earner. In his words: “The old international terminal, right from the toilet facilities to the arrival, departure halls, is an eyesore to Nigerians and foreigners. The lifts are not working and the passage is unwelcoming, and there is no air conditioner”. For him, it was also disheartening that “We have the new terminal but it cannot be used because it was designed without provision for big planes” while  “everywhere else not occupied by dead planes has been  taken over by powerful private aircraft owners”.

    It is not difficult to understand the minister’s source of agony. He must have seen records of a petition by members of the National Union of Air Transport to the leadership of the Senate in July 2013, which alleged that, just for consultancy works on the upgrade of the airport, “Messrs. Ngonyama Okpanum and Associates; Messrs.’ Design Union Consulting Ltd and Messrs.’ Triad Associates Ltd were awarded contracts for the sums of N99, 179,507.17; N60, 986,730.46 and N95, 520,011.93 respectively.  And for its actual upgrade, Zakhem Construction Nig. Ltd allegedly secured a contract at the sum of N920, 191, 147.58. For the first phase and N981, 900,300.45 for the 2nd phase, even though the petitioners swore “the entire Phase II is sheer duplication of Phase I.”

    The newly built but dysfunctional NMIA terminal was financed from the $500m loan from Import and Export Bank of China. And for the new minister, it is not any less depressing that before the nation could derive some joy from the $500m loan secured by Princess Oduah, penultimate past minister of aviation to cover  the rehabilitation of four other air terminals, her successor,  Hadi Sirika had approved the concession of two of them (Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport (NAIA), Abuja, and Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport (MAKIA), Kano, to the Corporation American Airport Consortium for an  $8.5m upfront payment for the maintenance of the two airports for the next 20 years.

    For Keyamo, it cannot also be a pleasant assignment reassuring Nigerians that since the $8.5m upfront payment is not enough to service the Oduah’s $500m Chinese loan let alone address the process of repayment, Nigeria will not share the experience of Uganda where in 2015, and Chinese Exim Bank took over Uganda Entebbe International Airport for defaulting in repayment plan.

    But perhaps more agonizing for Keyamo is the fact that he is dealing with informed Nigerians who are aware the $8.5 upfront payment may have been spent in advance by Hadi Sirika who on the same day he signed his concession agreement also signed through the Aviation Ministry, a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for the commencement of the African Aviation and Aerospace University (AAAU) in partnership with Abuja based University.  By that act, he has given license to FAAN to spend unearned money.

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    Keyamo must be warned that both FAAN and NCAA remains the scourge of the aviation industry and the reasons successive Minsters of Aviation since 1999 ended up in grief. The former is “statutorily charged to manage all commercial airports in Nigeria, provide service to both passenger and cargo airlines and create conditions for the development in the most economic and efficient manner of air transport and the services connected with it”. The latter is the agency charged with the oversight of the aviation sector.  Unfortunately both have failed Nigeria. Rather than serving Nigeria, the loyalty of the two bodies have been to domestic airlines whose interest they promote through government policy initiatives.

    For instance because of greed, corruption and mismanagement of the aviation sector by these two bodies, Babalola Borishade as aviation minister brought nothing but grief to Nigerians. Before he was finally dropped as aviation minister by President Obasanjo, about 320 Nigerians lost their lives in air crashes including the October 22, 2005 Bellview crash that killed 117 people, the December 10, 2005 McDonald DC 100 Sosoliso crash that killed 107 in Port Harcourt and the October 29, 2006 ADC Airlines on a scheduled domestic flight from Lagos to Sokoto, that crashed and killed 96.

    The then minister was in 2009 arraigned by EFCC on a 15-count charge of bribery and forgery covering alleged mismanagement of a N5.2 billion aviation safe tower contract along with others including Rowland Iyayi, a former Managing Director of the Nigeria Airspace Management Agency who is today a leading member of domestic Airline Operators opposed to the establishment of Nigeria Air.

    In the case of Stella Oduah, her downfall was masterminded by FAAN and NCAA public servants.   Although in her defence over NCAA procurement of two $1.6m BMW Bullet-Proof cars for her security before a House Public hearing in 2013, she attributed her travails to “entrenched corrupt and profligate individuals and entities who have caused the serious rot in the aviation sector, while for 38 years, our airports were a damning commentary on our status as part of the civilized world”. She however pretended not to know that the group she blamed for her travails was groomed by NCAA and FAAN public servants.

     Of course there is no evidence to support Oduah’s claim that she and “her team (NCAA and FAAN) changed the game in favour of Nigeria attaining her pride of place in the comity of nations”. If anything, Keyamo’s lamentation during his visit to MMIA invalidated such outlandish clam despite Oduah’s self-glorification, media celebration and conferment of Ikenga chieftaincy title by her people.

    Keyamo must be wary of not only NCCA and FAAN but crusaders who are saying because BA and Virgin Atlantic operate over 21 frequencies to Nigeria without any Nigerian carrier reciprocating the same privilege, “If Air Peace is not allowed to fly to London, then British Airways and Virgin Atlantic should be stopped from flying to Nigeria”.  I cannot see any wisdom in starting a battle we cannot win as Oduah sadly discovered while in office. At the end of the day it is Nigerians travellers that will suffer.

    Instead of playing the ostrich, I think we should first put our house in order. Is it true some of the airlines have problem with American authorities over the sources of their monies? Is it true some of our business men engage in unwholesome business practices, the reason some were kicked out of South Africa not too long ago? Is it true some of our business men driven by greed hardly follow rule of engagement in business practices?

    Finally, Keyamo must not succumb to the blackmail of domestic airline operators.  We need a national carrier not just because we have sunk N3 billion into the Nigeria Air project but because it is the most rational thing to do in our circumstances. We have since realized the likes of defunct ‘Okada, Al Barka” and Aero Contractors are no substitutes for Nigeria Airways. Like most of our seized public enterprises, we now know those who bought Nigerian Airways could not run it even with government bailout. We also now know that those who are swearing in the name of patriotism because Ethiopian Airline, which got the franchise to run the national carrier, was to have 49 per cent stake have by their past actions demonstrated their lack faith in our nation.

    With a national carrier, no matter who runs it, we will use our local currency and not be held hostage by IATA over foreign airlines trapped funds which in July last year stood at $464 million (N199.2 billion) but has now risen to $812 million.

     Give me an Ethiopian to run our national carrier and a Rwandan to run our refineries.  For Nigerians to be saved from Nigerians, we must make use of what we have if we cannot get what we want.

  • As the Bar battles EFCC over prosecutorial power

    As the Bar battles EFCC over prosecutorial power

    Yakubu Maikyau was sworn in as the 31st NBA president last Friday, August 25. Like most of his predecessors, he was conscious of the critical role of the judiciary without which a society descends into a state of anarchy where it ‘is the war of all against all’. Reading the mood of the nation correctly during his inaugural speech, just as he did during his first appearance on national television after his inauguration, he had expressed his concern for “terrorized, traumatized and pauperized Nigeria and Nigerians”. He went on to remind members of his noble profession of the need to protect the ‘voice of the legal profession’, which according to him “must speak against the terror in the land and the hardship that has taken over the lives of our people”.

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    Unfortunately, just as his predecessors did, the voice which he claimed “remains what is left of this country which cannot be emasculated” was misdirected into fighting a needless battle to whittle down the power of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) by restricting it to investigative duties while the prosecutorial function is ceded to the bar or to another new body entirely.

    Successive presidents of the Bar  as well as past attorneys-general have  adopted various strategies to emasculate EFCC despite the fact it can only be as independent as the supervising minister who has the last say on who to be prosecuted, wanted it to be.  It was on account of this open hostility of the Bar that EFCC in its statement of August 2016 took us on a journey through memory.  Back in 2005, Lanre Odogiyan as NBA president had called for outright scrapping of the EFCC during the Bar’s conference in Port Harcourt. That reactionary proposal was killed by some respected social crusaders including Chief Gani Fawehinmi who was present at the conference.  But Attorney General Michael Aondoakaa’s (Justice Minister 2007-2010) waged a silent war against EFCC.

    The battle was again brought to the open by Abubakar Mahmoud who during his inauguration in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, on August 26, 2016 as the Bar president called for reforms in the operations of the EFCC. He suggested that the anti-graft commission be made to only investigate while an independent agency carries out prosecution.

    His crusade was hailed by another former NBA president, Chief O.C.J. Okocha (SAN). “The principle that the BAR is trying to pursue”, according to him is that “with thousands of lawyers looking for jobs, these legal practitioners should be employed to act as prosecutors at all levels of prosecution instead of police”. In other words for a Bar whose responsibility is first to the Bar according to Chief Idowu Sofola, one time Secretary General  of the Bar, and its president (1980-82), it is a matter of jobs for the boys.

    Of course other senior members of the Bar seem to share the same mind-set. Only last week, August 24, Olisa Agbakoba, another  former  NBA president regarded as one of the pillars behind EFCC’s recorded success in its anti-corruption war suddenly remembered that EFCC as a ‘federal establishment  by virtue of being a creation of the National Assembly, cannot prosecute state offences and should not interfere in the affairs of state governors’. He has therefore urged the new Attorney General of Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice, Lateef Fagbemi, to ‘unbundle’ the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and restrict it to investigations while a new National Prosecution Agency should be established.

    But the word ‘unbundle’ has only one familiar ring in the ears of Nigerians – ‘corruption’ They  have not forgotten how PHCN was ‘unbundled’ after government’s injection of between $8b-$16b and sold at give-away price of just a little over $2b to clients of senior members of the Bar.

    Unfortunately, some of the arguments brought up by the Bar to support their needless war fly in the face of available facts. First, EFCC is convinced that the war against is “a cleverly disguised campaign by powerful forces”, and so called attention to Section 6 (m) of the EFCC Establishment Act, 2004, which clearly spelt out the powers of the commission as including: “taking charge of, supervising, controlling, coordinating all the responsibilities, functions and activities relating to the current investigation and prosecution of all offences connected with or relating to economic and financial crimes.”

    The anti-corruption body also wondered whether it was “not a strange coincidence that the suggestion to strip the EFCC of its prosecutorial powers is being floated few months after EFCC arraigned some senior lawyers for corruption?”

    Besides accusing many senior members of the Bar of accepting “tainted briefs” to aid looters by providing them with technicalities on how to avoid prosecution and conviction, EFCC also believes government cases given to some senior members of the Bar for prosecution were deliberately bungled. It cited two examples. Abubakar Mahmoud as “the federal government-appointed prosecuting counsel in the trial of ex-Delta State governor, James Ibori, at the Federal High Court, Asaba. EFCC lost the   case in questionable circumstances while the same ingredients from that case were used to fetch Ibori a 13-year jail term in London”.  

    Mahmoud according to the anti-corruption body was also the EFCC’s counsel in the appeal against the infamous ‘perpetual injunction from arrest and prosecution’ by former Rivers State governor, Peter Odili, which was still pending before the Court of Appeal in Port Harcourt’, eight years after it was first filed.

    Finally, Mahmoud was also reminded that of the over 200 fraudulent bankers responsible for the collapse of the banking sector, only four were brought to justice in a period spanning eight years when the brief were given to senior members of the Bar.

    Besides, the body wondered why the Bar that has not lived up to expectation wanted to change a winning team that has in one year recorded more convictions than all the states and federal ministries of justices combined. And it was for this reason EFCC anti-corruption lawyer Rotimi Jacobs (SAN) believes NBA president’s comment borders on ‘corruption fighting back’ especially after pointing out that of about 20 agencies authorized by the constitution to investigate and prosecute, only the EFCC is more prominent having secured over 1000 convictions since inception in 2004 which involved former governors, public servants and businessmen.

    Precisely because EFCC believes  there are some rogue elements in the Nigerian Bar Association giving the Bar bad name” which the Bar unfortunately have been unable to tame, it was of the opinion that a “Bar populated or directed by people perceived to be rogues and vultures cannot play the role of priests in the temple of justice.”

    It is apparent that even with EFCC holding prosecutorial powers, most of the briefs will still have to go to the senior members of the Bar. The only control it has and which the Bar wants to take away is its power to decide in the interest of Nigeria which of those ‘celebrated’ rogue elements in the Nigerian Bar Association, giving the Bar a bad name and that must be left out because of   their notoriety for ‘tainted briefs from well-known fraudsters or for betraying the very essence of law which is the pursuit of justice.

    This is why the joke today is on the Bar which must invalidate EFCC’s thesis that “the current self-serving campaign is intended to create a cabal of untouchables who can be investigated but may never be prosecuted.”

  • Planned regrouping of PDP, NNPP and Labour

    Chief Bode George, one time PDP deputy national chairman (South) was perhaps one of the few honest PDP elders that saw the party’s defeat in the last February presidential election coming. He had before the election warned against breaching of PDP constitutional rotational provision conceived by its founding fathers to promote harmony and sense of belonging. His warning was however ignored by those driven by greed for power with dire consequences including the fractionalization of the party into PDP, NNPP and Labour. Bode George who has continued to blame the defeat of the party on mismanagement by its leaders knew a house divided against it would not stand.

    After their self-inflicted tragedy, there were newspaper reports of discussion of possible merger between Labour Party, PDP and NNPP ahead of 2027. The truth is that the three are one and the same. As Bode George asked a while ago: Where is Obi of Labour Party coming from?” Obi after serving his two terms as Anambra governor on the platform of APGA joined PDP and became Atiku’s running mate in the 2019 election.

    But Atiku Abubakar, leveraging on voting population of the north, in breach of PDP constitution came out for the 2023 election. Peter Obi equally driven by greed like Atiku Abubakar resigned from PDP, relocated back home to also exploit the ethnic sentiments of his own aggrieved Igbo people who felt betrayed after faithfully serving PDP for about 24 years. Beyond vehicle for political power, both have no abiding faith in PDP.

    But the fault is neither in Obi nor in Atiku since  PDP was neither a political party driven by ideological orientation nor a political faction with interest or opinion different from that of the party. To John Campbell, a former American envoy to Nigeria, PDP was “an elite cartel at the centre of power in Nigeria with no ideological or programmatic basis, but simply as essentially a club of elites for sharing of oil rents and political spoils”.  PDP did everything including periodic ‘family quarrel’ over sharing of Nigerian resources” during its 16 years reign to validate Campbell’s thesis.

    At the onset of the 4th republic, contract for the refurbishment of Nigerian ailing refineries secured by PDP members was not implemented. Instead, they created artificial fuel scarcity to justify setting up of PPPRA, an instrument with which PDP leaders and their children defrauded the nation to the tune of about N1.7trillion under the fuel subsidy scam.

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    They also came up with self-serving monetization policy through which public servants immorally bought their official residences. Two stood out like sore fingers: Dimeji Bankole, a former Speaker of the House of representative  and David Mark, a former Senate President  who bought the Senate president mansion, built on 1.6 hectares of land, a national monument that was not meant to be acquired by an individual and was never reflected in the federal government’s gazette as required”.

    There was also the power sector reform.  It was launched by President Jonathan in Lagos on August 26, 2010. Then in August 2013, 15 companies made up of 10 Distribution Companies (DISCOs) and five Generation Companies (GENCOs)  paid $2.238b to  take over 60% of unbundled PHCN after federal government  injection of between $8.2-$15b of taxpayers money.  But who were these new investors and Disco owners? Records show they were mostly PDP stalwarts led by Professor Jerry Ghana.

    As Bola Tinubu, former governor of Lagos State and now Nigeria’s president observed during the 11th Bola Tinubu Colloquium: “The PDP administration shared our generation, distribution and transmission to their friends and cronies without very deep and thoughtful research and evaluation. It has now become pork chops”.

    The whole privatization effort between 1999-2014 was abused forcing the 7th Senate report of November 30,  2011 to direct the National Council on Privatization to “rescind the sale of Abuja International Hotels Limited (NICON) Luxury Hotel) as well as Sheraton Hotel and Towers;  investigation of the sales of assets of Daily Times Nigeria PLC  to Folio Communications Limited and its directors by anti-graft agencies and the sold assets recovered; that the Share Purchase Agreement of Volkswagen Nigeria Limited now (VON)  be rescinded while the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) was to investigate the economic crimes perpetrated against the nation by Barbedos Ventures Limited; that NICON Insurance PLC  and Nigeria Re-insurance PLC should refund N900 million and one billion Naira respectively back to the federal government; that  the former Directors-General, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, Dr. Julius Bala and Mrs. Irene Nkechi Chigbue should be reprimanded by the National Council on Privatization; while the then Director-General, BPE, Ms Bolanle Onagoruwa be relieved of her appointment.

     But Nigerians have short memories. In any case, by 2023, Buhari had done enough to alienate those who gave him landslide victory in 2015. While those in government lived in denial, there was massive insecurity especially in the northern states where helpless Nigerians were kidnapped for ransom, killed or driven into IDP camps by terrorists who confiscated their homes and farm lands.

    There was also a reign of impunity. Godwin Emefiele, a CBN governor appointed by President Jonathan because of his sympathy for PDP wanted to contest for  Nigerian presidency on the platform of APC even as a sitting CBN governor. When he lost out, he unleashed violence on Nigerians. He disobeyed Supreme Court order that attempted to bring relief to Nigerians who had no access to their confiscated life savings. Frustrated Nigerians were up in arms against APC and its presidential candidate.

    The presidency was therefore just there for the picking by PDP. But PDP, haunted by its past and driven only by greed, frittered away the opportunity. While their total votes and those of their two family members almost doubled that of victorious APC, it was APC that scored the highest votes and met the constitutional spread requirement.

    Let the talk and regrouping begin, but not with the current PDP leading light who have always behaved like prostitutes. Atiku Abubakar has been running from one party to the other in search of a platform since 2007: Action Congress 2011; APC 2014 and PDP 2017.

    Aminu Tambuwal also once rallied round his supporters to breach his party (PDP) zoning formula ceding the speakership to the Southwest geo-political zone. He was elected speaker with 252 votes compared to government and PDP-backed Mulikat Akande-Adeola’s 90 votes

    Bukola Saraki is as audacious as he is venomous on the political battle field. He punished PDP by pulling it down for claiming he was part of N1.7 fuel subsidy scam. In APC, he traded off the victory of his party for senate presidency in what Itse Sagay back then described as ‘a victory for impunity, a victory for fraud and a victory for political desperation and indiscipline”.

    We have Obi, diminished not only by his opportunism, appeal to religion and ethnic sentiments, but also damaged beyond repairs by his unthinking ‘obidients’ who terrorize those who refuse to swallow their prejudices.

    Rabiu Musa Kwankwanso who won only his Kano State in the last presidential election shot himself in the leg by his short-sighted opposition to state police and his ‘National Grazing Reserves Bill’ (seeking grazing routes and reserves), as against ranching promoted by Southern Nigeria People’s Assembly (SNPA)

    Besides the struggle for 2027, the nation todays needs a viable opposition that can keep the ruling party on its toes. That task does not belong to those who brought PDP to this sorry path but to those who understand that political parties promote ideological or policy goals and also serve as modernization agents.

  • We betrayed Plateau State

    We betrayed Plateau State

    If the essence of government is the protection of life and properties of citizens, our successive governments, since 1999 should be held responsible for the travails of people of Plateau State. Beyond occasional skirmishes between herders and subsistence farmers, people of Mangu had lived in relative peace with their Fulani settlers until the institutionalisation of reign of impunity by President Olusegun Obasanjo at the onset of the 4th Republic and later by President Muhammadu Buhari and his loyal gatekeepers.

    Those indicted by a probe into causes of social dislocations between the two groups during Obasanjo’s presidency were left off the hook, an oversight that was to later lead to reprisal attacks. And while Buhari played the ostrich, those hiding under his government to serve other tendencies went to work. With the pacification of the north-central, MACBAN presented their demand if peace must reign in the country. 

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    In a statement jointly signed by Salisu Ahmadu, national president and Umar Shehu , national secretary of the body, they perceived the federal government as being unwilling to protect the interest of Fulani in Nigeria, Fulani in West Africa have been invited to raise funds and prepare for war. MACBAN’s northeast Chairman, Alhaji Mafindi Danburam insisted “Open grazing is our culture and you cannot wake up one day and stop me from practicing my culture”. Finally Fulani are prepared for war except the anti-grazing laws by various states are abrogated and replaced with federal government cattle colony policy with Fulani allowed to settle anywhere they desire in line with their culture.

    Nigerian stakeholders, the United Nations and Britain appealed in vain that Buhari applied the big stick. Despite the mindless killings of harmless farmers and confiscation of their farmlands while survivors languished in IDP camps, few people if any, were arrested let alone prosecuted.  The impression was that the attackers were invincible.

    The president’s visit to Plateau to commiserate with the people brought little relief as his appeal to victims to be good hosts appeared to have only emboldened the attackers.

    Nigerians did not get to know the identity of their assailants until Sheikh Gumi’s visit to the killers’ den deep inside Niger’s Tegina forest and Birnin Gwari forest in Kaduna State.  It was from him we learnt the bandits were invited by our own aggrieved vengeance-seeking Fulani compatriots.  It was from governors Bala Mohammed of Bauchi, Nasir El Rufai of Kaduna and Aminu Masari of Katsina and Abdullahi Ganduje of Kano that we learnt that the killer herdsmen are mostly Fulani criminals from neighbouring countries who found ‘Kidnapping for ransom’ more rewarding than grazing of cows.

    With the over a score recently killed at Farin Kasa and Sabon Gari communities in Mangu Local Council of Plateau State, fatality figure in the last two months has climbed up to 231. The figure for the last three months was put at 346 killed and 18,751 displaced according to Dr. Gideon Para-Mallam of Peace Foundation. Of the figure, about 200 came from Mangu. He also spoke of 2,081 widows, 6,066 orphans inside IDP camps of the affected areas.

    In fact, Istifanus Gyang of Barkin Ladi Riyon Constituency at the National Assembly has just confirmed that “over four villages have been added to the 45 that have already been over-run and are under forceful occupation and with thousands of survivals marooned in IDP camps”. 

    This perhaps explains why Dachung Bagos, the member representing Jos South and Jos East Constituency in the House of Representatives, is now urging residents to defend themselves. Although under section 14(2) (b) of Nigeria’s 1999 Constitution, the security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government. But “in the face of this kind of breakdown in the will and capacity of the government to protect the people and their communities, law-abiding citizens”, he says, “must organize to protect themselves.” In any case, “section 17(2) (b) of the constitution, recognizes “the sanctity of the human person” reinforced by section 33(2) (a) which makes self-defence lawful when undertaken in “defence of any person from unlawful violence or for the defence of property”.

    Little relief came from the president’s men. President Buhari’s first minister of defence, Mansur Dan Ali, to reduce tension wanted states to suspend the implementation of their Anti-Open Grazing Laws. His successor  Maj. Gen. Bashir Magashi (rtd. ), speaking against the backdrop of the abduction of 42 people, including pupils, from the Government Science College, Kagara, Niger State wanted Nigerians to defend themselves against bandits and killer herdsmen, perhaps with their bare hands.

    Buhari’s government continued to play the ostrich even as experts and students of federalism recommended state police as one way to finding solution to all Nigeria security challenges, given the acquaintance with the people and the terrain.  Northern governors’ initial opposition was initially led by Kano’s Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso who declared “All of us in the Northern Governors’ Forum, probably the 19 of us with the exception of one or two, are bitterly against the issue of state police”.

    But even when governors of Adamawa, Taraba, Bauchi, Gombe, Yobe and Borno, whose states were under siege settled for the establishment of state police at the 4th meeting of the Northeast Governors Forum on March 5, 2021, President Buhari who ‘knew what the people wanted without asking them’ shut it down just as he did when the 19 northern governors changed their position.

     The only tepid response to the menace of killer herdsmen regarded as the fourth most deadly violent group in the world came from the National Assembly through Senator Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso’s ‘National Grazing Reserves Bill’ (seeking grazing routes and reserves), which the Southern Nigeria People’s Assembly (SNPA) described as “an unfortunate elevation of what ought to be private commercial ventures into a national or government business”. It was dead on arrival as many southern legislators who believed it violated principles of federalism and in breach of the Land Use Act insisted ranching remains the best global practice in animal husbandry.

    If President Tinubu engaged in misplaced priority of trying to help Nigeriens fight for democracy and the unambitious National Assembly planning to spend N40b on toys called bullet-proof SUVs did not know about the plight of our fellow Nigerians languishing in IDP camps where they sleep on bare floor without mattress or blanket, without access to drugs and with many eating only once a day and sometimes going to bed without food, they can call for two television  documentaries that vividly  brought their plight to Nigerians last Sunday.

    If the president’s new security chiefs cannot clear out those who forcibly ejected our compatriots from their homes and farms to allow them return to normal life, begging as a strategy is allowed. He has at his service, Sanusi Lamido (MACBAN patron), Dr Sheik Gumi who enjoys the confidence of criminal herdsmen and of course the Muslim clerics that secured for him a face-saving victory from Nigerien military adventurers last week.

    As for our unambitious lawmakers, I am sure after watching the documentary, they cannot but see their lusting over SUV toys by the name of bullet proof cars as infantile behaviour. They might remind their public service counterparts in USA travel by public transport, share flat or sleep in their offices in Washington DC.

    Finally if the president and the lawmakers understand our challenges of insecurity, they will know they are running behind schedule in initiating a constitutional amendment to allow for state police.