Category: Jide Oluwajuyitan

President Buhari in pursuit of what he hopes would be his two enduring legacies- ‘fighting corruption and ensuring free and fair election’ had without restraint not too long ago,  asked “Nigerians to vote for any candidate of their choice from any party” in the election coming up in two days’ time. And until the ongoing Emefiele’s wicked and sadistic assault, Nigerians have continued to have an enduring faith in their country despite eight years of high inflation, growing rate of unemployment and general insecurity across Nigeria.

Last week, two controversial Nigerian politicians, Lai Mohammed and Femi Fani-Kayode made some statements which I think are worth interrogating. The former revealed that President Buhari despite his apparent lack of enthusiasm has in fact always supported his party and party candidate – Bola Ahmed Tinubu in the election coming up in two days’ time while the latter told Nigerians that have been trying to find an explanation for their ongoing hardship arising from the illegal and immoral confiscation of their savings to blame those he describes as the “Agbor mafia” for their nightmare.

 Although it is not often one agrees with these two controversial politicians, but this time around however I think their logic is unassailable.

First, President Buhari has been described by Nigerian opinion leaders variously as “a nationalist and a man with a good heart”,  “a detribalized person that means well for Nigeria”, a man of integrity and transparency, praised for  his “life of commitment, dedication, patriotism, and honesty” by Bola Ahmed Tinubu, his party’s candidate.

And after eight years of monumental borrowing to execute his infrastructure projects, I think Buhari would rather want a successor that will protect his legacy rather than a return to PDP’s 15 years of the locust. Atiku Abubakar, his fellow Fulani rival  who has made it clear he would not mind selling anything including the Lagos-Ibadan express road, the Second Niger Bridge, East -West road and even the rail lines, to raise funds for  aspiring young entrepreneurs can surely not be his a choice.

This is because from the benefit of hindsight, Nigerians now understand what Atiku means by entrepreneurs. We know they include those young men and women – who specialize in importation of the labour of other societies including ceramics, electronics, textile, pharmaceutical etc.  And we must not forget Atiku’s former vice presidential running mate, Peter Obi’s favourite: wine. As it was back then, they will probably get tax waivers if Atiku wins.

For Buhari, I think it is not about repaying those who laboured to make him president after three heroic failures as grumbling Adam Oshiomhole was recently trying to say. It is about his legacy. I am sure that is why the president is making up for missed opportunity to follow Tinubu around on the campaign train in Nigeria, with a pre-recorded messages from far away Addis Ababa, Ethiopia reassuring Nigerians that “Tinubu is a true believer in Nigeria, who loves the people and the development of our country and who would build on his (Buhari) achievements having demonstrated his commitment to the development of the country and the well-being of its people.”

Just as for Tinubu, Buhari’s endorsement no matter how late is a great asset, I also agree with Lai Mohammed that “it is preposterous to even suggest that Mr President, as APC leader is equivocating on his support for APC presidential candidate.”

It is also difficult to invalidate Femi Fani-Kayode’s ‘Agbor mafia thesis”. Because  Buhari suffers from  messianic complex, even as an  elected president, he acts as if he is living in an age of feudalism  where ‘the lords’ value  honour and loyalty of their serfs who must be bound by oath of allegiance. This was why he was easily captured by the likes of Godwin Emefiele, a master of political subterfuge.

Because he serves Buhari like a slave as CBN governor, Emefiele can do no wrong. He became a card-carrying member of APC. He procured N100m APC presidential candidate form, over 500 branded campaign vehicles supported by three aircrafts and went to court to defend his right to contest for the Nigerian presidency as a sitting CBN governor.

President Buhari did nothing until Emefiele was outwitted by a rival cabal and decided to embark on a vengeance mission against APC. This perhaps explains why his currency-swap a few months to an election has been described by Fani Kayode as nothing but fraud. For him: “Asking everyone, both rich and poor, to give up their hard earned cash and you refused to give them full value in return was never a currency swap. It was a currency grab and a classic 419”. And “taking old notes and refusing to give promised new ones or directing us to put our money in the banks and live by bank transfers when 65% of the Nigerian people do not have a bank account is nothing but 419 scam”.

As Lagos, Ogun and Rivers and Ondo states boiled over scarcity of new naira notes with about 15 lives lost across the country, Governor Akeredolu believes Emefiele misled the president. First there were no new notes to go round. Then contrary to Supreme Court ruling, the president extended the validity of the N200 note, which represented 7% of currency in circulation for 60 days while the N1000 and N500 notes representing 82% in breach of Supreme Court ruling were said to be no more legal tender.

For Governor Akeredolu, disallowing access of Nigerians to their savings after confiscating them “conveys the deplorable impression of contrived subterfuge manifest in the official confiscation of legitimate deposits of the people in banks”.

We have since seen other governors visiting their rural communities to appeal for calm. In Lagos State, Sanwo-Olu has empathized with Lagosians over the hardship being experienced with the currency swap and asked the residents to remain law-abiding and avoid all forms of violence, arson and rioting. He approved 50 per cent reduction of transport fares across the state-owned transportation system.

We have seen a trending video of CBN bus with CBN executives including  Mohammed Alli, and some armed men visiting  Tundun wada, Bunkuri and   Rano LGAs of Kano State to allow local people swap their old notes as narrated by ARISE correspondent, Ayo Aransaye.

Punch newspaper reported thousands of depositors besieging Lagos CBN office as elsewhere in the country. To calm nerves, there were reports of commercial banks, including First Bank, GT Bank, Access Bank, Fidelity Bank, UBA, Lotus Bank, Sterling Bank, among others, advising their customers to bring the N1,000 and N500 old notes to their branches.

 And even with many Nigerians now drawing a parallel between Emefiele’s current effort at derailing the 2023 election and the ignoble role of Arthur Nzeribe during the 1993 June 12 debacle, ARISE group continues to defend Emefiele just as it did when the Minister of Finance first raised concerns about the implementation of the currency-swap policy.

As if to further validate Fani-Kayode’s thesis, as late as Monday January 27, ARISE GROUP, in spite of overwhelming evidence of hardship of Nigerians who cannot withdraw from banks or make transfers, continue to insist the currency swap debacle is about APC governors’ search for currency to buy votes.

In their new variant of journalism, they are now the defenders of President Buhari they claim was betrayed by his APC governors that challenged him for disrespecting Supreme Court ruling. I think Fani-Kayode has rightly identified those waging war against Nigerians.

There is a Yoruba aphorism that says ‘no true born sets out to deliberately destroy his father’s house’. Most often, we are defined by our actions. Jesus Christ, our Lord and the greatest teacher the world has ever known while explaining the process of identifying false prophets also applied a similar metaphor: “By their deeds you will know them”: (Matthew 7:16)

Some two weeks back, Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna spoke of a cabal in the presidency working against the interest of APC and its presidential candidate.  And when Babajide Otitoju of TVC wondered whether it was not time to unmask members of the cabal, he literarily asked him to read his lips by saying ‘we will do that by defeating them in February election just as we did during last year APC primary when an attempt to foist a candidate on APC was thwarted’ by a coalition of progressive northern governors. 

And if that lead is not enough to expose those behind the war of attrition in APC, interrogating those behind APC war that has now been extended to all Nigerians with or without bank account, will confirm that with Godwin Emefiele’s currency swap fiasco, Lai Mohammed’s double talk and Abubakar Malami’s political subterfuge, APC and the rest of us need no enemy. For selfish political consideration, they seem determined to stand against all efforts by men of goodwill to save APC from itself and the rest of us from collateral damage.

 The 36 state governors, under the aegis Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF), having observed that “The speed of implementation of the policy is a recipe for anarchy in the country”, and therefore in its February 6, 2023 letter, “urged President Buhari to extend the deadline for the implementation of the old naira notes swap”.

There was a World Bank warning that the “inability of Nigerians to access the new naira notes may influence uncertainty ahead of the February 25 and March 10 elections in the country.” There was also the Supreme Court seven-man panel led by Justice John Okoro, who in a unanimous ruling, granted an interim injunction “restraining the federal government, CBN and their agents and commercial banks from implementing the February 10 deadline.” 

The National Council of State, professional bankers and economists have spoken in the same vein especially with Emefiele’s reported admission that our local mint lacks the capacity to print more new notes beyond N400b already injected into the system after mopping up about N2 trillion.

The three APC stalwarts are however unimpressed. And rather than listen to voices of respected opinion leaders including the Sultan of Sokoto who has called on President Buhari to “douse tension because  ‘people are hungry and angry because of lack of money’, and Governor Okezie Ikpeazu of Abia who has warned that  ‘the crisis may lead to anarchy if not addressed quickly”, Godwin Emefiele,  Lai Mohammed and Abubakar Malami seem to have more faith in their APC political foes.

And those encouraging them to keep digging deeper into the hole include their sympathetic media, PDP stalwarts including Abubakar Atiku, and Governor Obaseki who says “Edo State government has no problem with the policy”. Others include ‘the Civil Society Central Coordinating Council (CSCCC) led Obed Okwukwe,  the 14 of the 18 registered political parties and Justice Eleojo Enenche (FCT), High Court who ruling on a motion by four Action Alliance (AA), Action Peoples Party (APP), Allied Peoples Movement (APM) and National Rescue Movement (NRM) restrained President Muhammadu Buhari from further extending the deadline.

By ignoring the Supreme Court judgment which many have described as an opportunity for APC to avert an impending anarchy as frustrated depositors openly attack banks and bankers while allying themselves with an order that restrained Buhari from ending the nightmare of Nigerians, Mohammed, Malami and Emefiele who have now painted a picture of Buhari as a leader with no empathy for his people, seem to be on a mission.

Nigerians still remember that following the sack of Sanusi Lamido Sanusi over his alleged sympathy for APC, the major consideration for Emefiele’s appointment as CBN governor by President Jonathan was his presumed PDP sympathy. And President Buhari has retained him. And in office, it has all been more of politics than economics. His response to the deteriorating state of the economy was to register as a card-carrying member of APC in his Delta State ward. His sponsors rumoured to include a serving minister and a media mogul understands very clearly that by offering its platform to a sitting CBN governor to contest for presidency, APC as a party was doomed.

But forced out of the race by combined forces of public opinion of those who worry about the health of our nation including APC northern progressive governors, Emefiele came up with his currency-swap brainwave ostensibly to fight corruption and insurgency, which of course he knew would be music to President Buhari’s ears. Emefiele after falsely attributing the currency swap fiasco to currency hoarding by commercial banks was to admit misleading the president and the nation.

For Lai Mohammed, the strategy was to assault our sensibilities. After showing no enthusiasm in the Supreme Court judgment, that allows his principal to do the right thing, he has now come alive with a high court ruling that tied the hands of his principal. He now blames the opposition for APC self-inflicted crisis saying “their actions are a clear evidence that the opposition has turned this whole issue into a political game, preferring to make Nigerians suffer more on the altar of an unconscionable political gamesmanship.” He now describes them as “unscrupulous opposition parties who have decided to legally hamstring (his principal) from providing any relief for Nigerians suffering from the cash crunch”.

Can someone tell Lai Mohammed to give us a break? Since President Buhari will not talk, ministers including those driven by selfish ambition give the impression they are reflecting his mind-set.

Malami is tarred with the same brush. As Attorney General and Minister of Justice, he has always misled the president. Whether it is the issue in of pre-independence grazing routes, Amotekun, comparing immigrant armed herdsmen illegally occupying southern reserved forests with Igbo traders in northern cities, selective ‘sting operations’ including midnight invasion of houses of Supreme Court justices, etc., he continues to falsely swear in Buhari’s name.

And now long after his senior professional colleagues have stated the true position of the law in relation to the Supreme Court ruling, Malami, as in character, is looking for technical reasons to undermine the judgment. “What we have at hand is a situation where the central bank was not joined as a party”. “So, we have given considerations to diverse issues, inclusive of the issue of jurisdiction … within the context of compliance, we shall challenge the ruling… it is all about the rule of law,” Malami rambles on.

If these men are not serving other tendencies in Buhari’s government, the true test of their love for the president and the country will be finding a way to lift the ongoing siege on Nigerians who are starving because Emefiele confiscated their monies.

In the ongoing war of attrition among APC stalwarts who are prepared to pull down the country along with themselves, we have all become victims. But we know those ministers who by their actions have shown they are not part of us.

For close to two weeks, I have succeeded only once in transferring N20,000 from my bank while I am indebted to different people including my mechanic who spent N65,000 of his money to repair my car.

A few weeks to the election, our two dominant political parties are in turmoil. For the PDP, just as it was in 2013 when the Kawu Baraje-faction of G7 Governors made  up of Babangida Aliyu (Niger), Abdulfatah Ahmed (Kwara), Chibuike Amaechi (Rivers) and Rabiu Kwankanwso (Kano), Sule Lamido (Jigawa), Aliyu Wamakko (Sokoto) and Murtala Nyako (Adamawa) demanded that President Goodluck Jonathan must drop  what they described as his ‘third term’ plan”, so it is today as PDP G5 aggrieved governors Nyesom Wike (Rivers), Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi ( Enugu), Okezie Ikpeazu (Abia)  Samuel Ortom of Benue and Seyi Makinde of Oyo are opposed to the candidacy of Atiku Abubakar quoting Section 7(3)(c) of the PDP constitution which  demands rotation party positions.

 There is no cheering news from APC either.  The harrowing experience of Nigerians arising from badly handled fuel subsidy and currency change policies in an election month finally forced the party to admit that there are “some stakeholders hoarding allocated products in order to cause artificial scarcity to create panic buying, for their own selfish interests”. Candidate Bola Tinubu, blamed by some Nigerians for his party’s mismanagement of our crisis of nation-building even though he was never part of government has also cried out saying – “They are creating artificial fuel scarcity, they are saying they want to increase fuel price to N200, we will end fuel scarcity, whether there is fuel or not, we will go and vote and we will win. This is a superior revolution”

 A political party is an organized group desirous of taking over government through election. By nature of investment, it is often a private property of an oligarchy of few. Their ultimate goal is to the control of both the executive and legislative arms of government so that they can develop and implement policies favourable to their group. Their strategy includes recruiting and campaigning for candidates seeking election into public office. 

A distinguishing characteristic of any political party beyond a desire to conduct the business of government is a consensus on sum total of fundamental values and sentiments of members. This is called political culture which is often transmitted from one generation to the other through a process of political socialization. A person’s political orientation and behavioural patterns are not inborn but acquired through families, schools, peer groups, mass media and political parties.

This vital aspect of the political process was what was destroyed by our uninformed military leaders who also went on to ban our modernization political parties, replacing them with fractions and gangs headed by garrison commanders who preside over squabbles on the sharing of our commonwealth among its members. 

Nigeria’s first political party was Herbert Macaulay’s 1923 Nigeria National Democratic Party (NNDP) , a response to Hugh Clifford 1922 constitution. It’s defined objectives included seeking of a “municipal status for Lagos, local self-government, compulsory primary education, non-discriminatory private economic enterprise and Africanisation of the civil service”.

The foundation of NPC was laid by educated and dedicated northern youths, first, through the Bauchi General Improvement Union and Youths Special Circle of Sokoto in the mid-forties. Both metamorphosed into Jam’yyar Mutanem Arewa, Northern Nigerian Congress (NNC) in June 1949 through the efforts of Dr. A. R. Dikko and D. A. Rafih. The main objective of NPC as stated by Dr. Dikko, its first president, was ‘fighting ignorance, idleness and injustice’ in the northern region’.

The Action Group (AG), nurtured by Obafemi Awolowo and other young educated elites of Western Region which besides its unstated purpose of reducing the influence of Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe in the West, had a well-articulated manifesto which promised free education, free health, and full employment among many others was inaugurated in August 1950.

Babangida, instead of correcting the mistakes of his predecessors by allowing normal evolution of political parties through free association of those who shared identical interest and values, decided to cut the umbilical cord between a mother and a baby by banning old politicians before decreeing two political parties, SDP and NRC, in the image of the military. His political parties of equals without joiners and founders turned out to be a ruse to fritter away N40b on party headquarters and on futile attempt at teaching democracy during his eight years of ‘transition without end”. Abacha came up with, the UNCP, CNC, NCPN, DPN and GDM which late Bola Ige described as” five fingers of a leprous hand” all of which later adopted Abacha as their presidential candidate even before he publicly declared his interest.

The PDP emerged with neither philosophical foundation nor ideological orientation from the G-34, an assemblage of retired Generals and their military contractors during General Abubakar’s 11-month transition programme. APC dominated by Buhari’s privately owned  CPC and  Tinubu’s ACN with faction of  PDP disgruntled G7 governors came together to fight the 2014 election. Like PDP. it also has no philosophical foundation or ideological orientation.

 That perhaps explains why Obasanjo’s eight years roadmap:- stable electricity,  agricultural revolution, ending massive importation of foreign goods, fighting corruption, like  President Yar’Adua’s seven-point agenda and President Jonathan ‘Transformation Agenda’ and Buhari’s 2013 eight-point cardinal programme- devolution of power, accelerated economic growth and affordable health care, electricity generation, war against corruption, food security,  integrated transport network and free education” brought little relief to Nigerians.

As military created newbreed politicians, members of both APC and PDP and of course its affiliate, the Labour Party, suffer from the same affliction-behaving like army of occupation sharing loots of conquered territories.  Nigerian lawmakers remain the highest paid legislators in the world.

While PDP sold Nigeria’s total investments of over $100b to themselves for a little over $1.5b,  their children forged documents to defraud the country to the tune of N1.7 trillion under the dubious PDP fuel subsidy regime “without importing a pint of fuel” according to Audu Ogbe, one time PDP chairman.  PDP has also now told us that a situation where Nigerians cannot get fuel even at amount above the subsidized rate after NNPC was said to have incurred N2.6 trillion subsidy claim is as a result of what it described as “criminal racketeering” under APC government. We have no reason to doubt PDP’s claim.

As creations of military created new-breed politicians, the difference between APC and PDP is blurred.  In fact, the former’s current chairman, Abdullahi Adamu  was until recently, a PDP stalwart while the latter’s  chairman, Iyorchia Ayu was not too long ago a stalwart of APC. And for military groomed ‘new breed “politicians like Atiku Abubakar who has moved from PDP to APC and now back to PDP and Peter  Obi, who moved from APGA to PDP and now back to Labour, water has no enemy.

Our problem is politics. Economics, insurgency and other insecurity challenges are but symptoms.  And what we need to retrace our way back to where the rains started to beat us is an elite consensus. The challenge of Nigerian voters in 2023 therefore is picking a president with brinkmanship to exploit the innermost infirmities of our suicidal political elite to see that it is in their enlightened self-interest to return to where the rain started to beat us.

President Buhari jetted out to Senegal where he plans to participate in Dakar International Conference on agriculture after commissioning some landmark projects in Lagos State last Tuesday. That he was undertaking the trip even as fuel scarcity which started towards the end of last year bites harder once again confirms his failed administrative style of ‘delegation by abdication’, a euphemism for absence of governance. Probably humoured by his “loyal gatekeepers” serving other tendencies in his government, Buhari on whose table the buck stops as an elected president, has continued to behave like a feudal lord presiding over the affairs of his subjects. Unfortunately, this was the messiah his people craved and voted for only to be only to be left at the mercy of wild wolves who fraudulently swear by his name.

Buhari’s unnecessary trip at a period many Nigerians were spending the night on queues while struggling to procure government’s N160 per litre subsidised fuel at between N184-N400, perhaps explains why he lost the goodwill of millions of his fellow compatriots. But then this has been the feature of Buhari’s close to eight years reign.

Miyyetti Allah wrote him a 72-page letter even before his inauguration in 2015, threatening to make the country ungovernable except their demands of free open grazing all over the country was met. Buhari left the fate of besieged Nigerians in the hands of Miyyeti Allah sympathisers and his “loyal gate keepers” serving other tendencies in his government. Even as they unleashed terror killing 72 in one day and confiscating conquered subsistence farmers territories, Buhari could not resist quoting his ‘loyal gatekeepers’ herdsmen sympathisers who had blamed the victims for being bad hosts and for altering the old colonial grazing routes.

Buhari’s “loyal gatekeepers” similarly had the last say on the issue of open grazing. Southern and the Middle Belt states banned open grazing. The Northern Governors Forum,  according to Nasir El Rufai  also “took a position on open grazing as not a sustainable way of livestock production”, adding that his own government had already embarked on a N10b ranching project, backed by CBN with N7.5b.”

Yet President Buhari ignored the National Economic Council (NEC)’s 2018 National Livestock Transformation Plan (NCTD), a N179 billion 10-year initiative, to embrace in May 2019, his “loyal gatekeepers’ controversial Rural Grazing Area(RUGA), most Nigerians believed was designed to compensate immigrant Fulani herdsmen involved in mindless killing and confiscation of victim’s landed properties.

It is also on record that Nigerians vehemently opposed rehabilitation and compensation of repentant killer herdsmen as proposed by Sheik Gumi and some of the president loyal gatekeepers. As it has turned out, the latter’s specious and iniquitous position has since become part of government policy thrust with disastrous consequences for the nation following coordinated and targeted attacks by terrorists on military formations and prisons.

Set in his ways, President Buhari has also adopted the above template for addressing the ongoing fuel crisis. He has since November last year left Nigerians at the mercy of those holding them hostage viz: the Major Oil Marketers Association of Nigeria (MOMAN); the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC), the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN), and the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA).

MOMAN attributed the lingering fuel scarcity in the country to high costs of vessels and inadequate trucks to deliver petroleum products from depots to filling stations across Nigeria. They claim ‘high logistics and exchange rate costs continue to put pressure on their operations with ripple effects on the pump price.’ They complain of “inadequate number of trucks to meet the demand to deliver products from depots to filling stations nationwide”.

Unfortunately, the marketers did not tell Nigerians what happened to old trucks in use or if there has been an increase in consumption despite head of Custom’s dismissal of current bandied figure of consumption as a scam. They complain about high cost of dollar making Nigerian consumers to wonder if naira has ceased being a legal tender especially since the product in question is in Nigeria.

The NNPC, perhaps Nigeria’s greatest scourge, on its part blamed the fuel queues in Lagos, Abuja and other states on some ongoing construction projects which caused diversion of vehicles. Since NNPC could not even maintain its depots, MOMAN’s chief executive officer, Clement Isong, claimed it was “working with the NNPC Ltd. to improve the distribution of petrol across the country by “doing depot to depot check-in and check-out to enhance efficiency, in addition to logistic supply meetings with NNPCL”.

And this is as IPMAN also linked the distribution crisis to the vandalism of depots belonging to the NNPC Limited.  IPMAN president, Chinedu Okoronkwo also explained that since 80 percent of NNPC depots have been vandalised, the product is now being kept in the depots of private individuals, who bear the cost of transporting the product from the ports to their depots.

Spokesmen of these institutions have continued to speak from both sides of the mouth. For instance, while scarcity persists despite the government’s repeated claims it had enough petroleum products in stock, the industry’s regulatory body, the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA), spoke of insufficient supply.  IPMAN also announced through its deputy president, Zarma Mustapha that the volume of products supplied to marketers at the loading points has dropped by about 50 per cent. But he then went on to accuse the private depots of contributing to the nightmare of consumers for “not giving the product as it is being regulated by the NNPC”.

Of course Nigerians are being swindled. How does one explain MOMAN’s apology to Nigerians for the pain they cause Nigerians, and their declaration that “Our members have again agreed to extend depot loading hours as well as keep strategically situated service stations open for longer hours to ease access to fuels for our customers”? Where, if one may ask, will the new supply come from?

But if anyone is still in doubt as to those holding us hostage and their long term objective, MOMAN provided that by declaring that “A final resolution to these challenges will be the full deregulation of the petroleum downstream sector to encourage liberalisation of supply and long-term investments in distribution assets…urging the government to work towards this end goal”.

For 15 years of PDP politicians’ reign, private depots were the major channels for defrauding Nigeria. Close to eight years of Buhari and his loyal gatekeepers’ government of change, Zarma Mustapha has also fingered them as biggest source of leakage. The difference however is that under the Jonathan presidency, we were treated as citizens while under Buhari and his “loyal gatekeepers”, we are being treated as subjects.

The objective of both regimes however is the same: fleece Nigerians while both suffer from the same affliction – absence of governance.

Obasanjo wants our youths to forget the past: treasonable felony, Tiv riot and its handling, first military coup and its aftermath, second military coup, araba, pogrom and the civil war” and move forward in mutual forgiveness. Haunted by their past follies, Obasanjo and his fellow  ‘mainstreamers’ who live in denial, want our youths to forget yesterday as if tomorrow is not the summation of yesterday and today. No wonder they stopped teaching of history.

But I think our youths need to know the truth. And since it is only the truth that can heal us, some facts of our recent history are worth re-stating for the health of young Nigerians.

 We are a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural society.  Some of our ethnic nationalities including some ‘cannibals inhabiting some hilltops, the anti-social tribes and some naked warriors of the jungle’, as Hugh Clifford (Governor of Nigeria 1919-1925) pointed out, were at different levels of cultural development. It was for this reason, the British colonial policy which he espoused during his 1920 address to Nigerian Council was for “a regional government that secures for each nationality each separate people, the right to maintain its identity, its individuality and its nationality and its own chosen form of government which have been involved for it by the wisdom and the accumulated experiences of generation of its forbears”.

The dominant Yoruba political ethnic group in the west embraced federalism, the dominant Igbo ethnic group in the  landlocked east,  wanted a unitary state since they thrive wherever they find themselves while the Fulani hegemonic power in the north wanted a confederal system  where their socio-economic and political control of conquered 14 Hausa states would not be threatened. The British, using stick and carrot approach, forced the three dominant ethnic groups to adopt the 1957 Independence Federal Constitution. 

But for his commitment to oppressed minority groups in the north and east whose quest for self-actualisation he supported, Obafemi Awolowo, as opposition leader had to pay a price for his audacity. NPC/NCNC coalition started with their sponsorship of a bill that will empower the prime minister to declare a state of emergency as well as detain without trials anyone considered a threat to the health of their government.

With Attorney-General and Minister of Justice Dr T O Elias’ advice that, “if the constitutional authority of the regional government has broken down, the person to determine this, is parliament, only parliament”, a parliament  that did not declare a state of  emergency in a region where an insurrection had to be put down by the military, was stampeded to declare a state of emergency in the Western House over throwing of chairs by a handful of S.L Akintola’s supporters.

Realising the federal government had no power to interfere in the affairs of a region, two “Bills For an Act to make provisions for a Commission of Inquiry to probe the National Bank of Nigeria Ltd’ and the other entitled ‘Commission and Tribunals of Inquiry Act 1961’ that empowers the prime minister to institute commission or tribunals of inquiry on any subject” were passed by the coalition on July 20, 1961. On July 21, 1961, just a day after, a Commission of Inquiry into the Affairs of National Bank, the major financier of Western Region’s economic and political activities was set up.

For the coalition partners who did not want to be questioned as to how Nigeria was run, Awolowo as opposition leader must be put out of circulation.  An opportunity came with his London lecture where he had called for “the abrogation of Anglo-Nigerian Defence Pact, the removal of vestige and influence of Britain and call on federal government for a well-defined economic objectives and development programmes”.  Minister of Defence, Muhammadu Ribadu insisted the lecture was subversive and “has certainly gone beyond reasonable limits and borders on treasonable action”.

What followed was ‘Coker Commission of Inquiry’ described  by Awolowo as ‘cruel quasi-judicial machine, deliberately constructed by the powers-that-be for the oppression, persecution and total destruction of a political rival… its conclusions were  a parade of naked and unabashed injustice, inequity and inhumanity dispensed under the auspices of a tyrannical reign, a reign of terror, of arrest and search without warrant, of restriction and detentions of persons without any specified charge”. (Awolowo: Adventures in Power: The travails of democracy and the rule of law”. PP 296 -297)

And the charge:  “Awolowo between 1960 and 1962, conspired to commit felony to wit; to levy war against our sovereign Lady, the Queen in order to intimidate or overawe the Governor General”. With seven out of the 53 prosecution witnesses’ testimony, Awolowo was found guilty and imprisoned for 10 years.

Then darkness fell on the nation. His political foes confronted themselves over the outcome of disputed 1962/63 census headcounts and the rigged 1964 federal election. The ensuing constitutional crisis forced each group to seek the support of the military.

The younger military officers, mostly of Igbo ethnic group who carried out the January 1966 military purge, killed all eight northern military offices and  assassinated  Prime Minister Balewa and Ahmadu Bello. No Igbo political leader or any of their over 30 military offices was killed. Ironsi, of Sierra Leonean father and Igbo mother who emerged as new Head of State was caged by Igbo politicians who misled him into promulgating Decree 34 of 1966 that turned Nigeria into a unitary state.

Ahmadu Bello University students who saw this as a ploy  for a take-over of Nigeria by Igbo elite, already  controlling the military, bureaucracy, universities and other government parastatals, embarked on demonstration later hijacked by hoodlums who carried out mindless killings of innocent Igbo northern urban immigrants.

The July 1966 vengeance or Araba coup led by Murtala Mohammed and Yakubu Danjuma led to the death of Ironsi and Adekunle Fajuyi , his host in Ibadan as well as many Igbo military officers. With Yoruba land which had less than 50 foot soldiers turning to theatre of war, Yoruba leaders called on Gowon for evacuation of non-Yoruba soldiers from the west, a demand Gowon obliged.

Yoruba was however to be dragged to the war when Ojukwu, instead of defending his Biafra under siege from northern front, started bombing strategic locations in Lagos, followed by sacking of Benin where he planted an Igbo administrator before setting out for invasion of Lagos but was stopped in Ore.

After the war, those who threw Nigeria into darkness from 1962 to 1970 regrouped to form a coalition of NPP/NPN in 1979, with Ojukwu the Biafra war hero returning from exile to join the coalition. In 1983, the coalition rigged the presidential election in what was described by Walter Ofonagoro as ‘‘landslide and sea-slide victories in opposition strongholds”. In 1999, they came under PDP umbrella and proclaimed Obasanjo, rejected by his Yoruba people where he lost in his polling booth, a messiah.  For 16 years, they ate with their 10 fingers.

 Indeed as against Obasanjo’s hypocritical cry of Igbo marginalisation,  Alabi Isama in his ‘Tragedy of Victory,’  insists the Igbo and the Hausa/Fulani jointly ruled Nigeria between 1959 and 2015 when the former  lost her ‘beautiful bride’ position to Yemi Osinbajo.

Crafty Obasanjo only cares about Obasanjo. He probably knows his endorsement and appeal to ethnic and religion sentiments by Obi who jumped from APGA to PDP and from PDP to a faction of factionalised Labour Party may not be enough to secure him the presidency in 2023.  But Obasanjo, if only to remain relevant doesn’t appear to mind  goading uninformed youths towards embarking on our own equivalent of American January 6 storming of Congress by Trump election deniers or last Sunday storming of government building by pro-Bolsonaro protesting election results in Brazil.

Precisely because history is not taught in our schools, our youths who hardly read but spend most of their time on social media have become targets of heretical doctrine by leaders like ex-president, Olusegun Obasanjo, driven in the main by his “fake nationalism,  precarious patriotism and his vaunting ambition to be the centre of our universe”(Akande).  

Last Sunday, about eight years after publicly declaring himself a statesman, he threw himself once again into the murky waters of partisan politics by publicly endorsing Peter Obi for the 2023 presidential race. Although he says none of the leading contestants is a saint, he however says “in terms of ability and performance, vision and character, Obi is the only one to take Nigeria back to where it was at the height of my Presidency and immediately after”.

First, Obasanjo’s choice of Obi should not surprise anyone. For Obasanjo, nationalism is not driven by altruism. He just wants to remain the only star in the firmament.  He cannot support Tinubu for the same reason he did not support Awolowo in 1979. It is obvious that a leader whose protégés include Ayo Fayose and Gbenga Daniel wants to remain the only Yoruba star.

Obasanjo also always reap where he had sowed very little. He wrote My Command without acknowledging sacrifices made by 3rd Marine Commando commanders before he came to claim victory.  He wrote Not My Will to disparage Obafemi Awolowo who he said could not achieve what he, Obasanjo, got on a platter of gold without admitting he was a beneficiary of the goodwill Nigerian reserved for slain Murtala Muhammed. MKO Abiola paid the supreme sacrifice for democracy and for eight years he did not acknowledge Abiola heroic sacrifice. Femi Falana, Tunde Bakare  and some Yoruba waged war against pro-Yar’ Adua group led by James Ibori  that attempted to deny Vice President  Jonathan his constitutional rights, but Obasanjo took all the credit as president’s godfather.  Obi’s victory or loss will not diminish Obasanjo’s status as a nationalist. 

Now let us interrogate Obasanjo’s era he wants Obi to return Nigeria to.

 Between 1999 and 2003, Obasanjo tried to turn Nigeria into a one-party unitary state, rigged four governors of southwest states out of office and deployed military tactics to destroy AD and ANPP opposition parties. During the 2007 elections, the level of rigging was so scandalous that the main beneficiary, President Umaru Yar’Adua, according to Professor Bolaji Akinyemi, had to inaugurate the Uwais Committee to review Nigeria’s electoral system. Obasanjo waged endless wars against his hand-picked presidents – Yar’Adua and Jonathan – who he traded for Buhari and his APC in 2015. Their sins: trying to ensure the buck stops at their table.

Obasanjo’s government institutionalised corruption.  First, Nigerian got no relief from contracts worth billions of naira awarded to PDP stalwarts for the refurbishment of our refineries. Then lawmakers who claimed they were anxious to recoup funds they expended on election through sales of their properties created artificial fuel scarcity to railroad Obasanjo into signing into a controversial law which increased the number of fuel importers from about four to over a hundred. And this became an instrument through which children  of PDP chieftains defrauded  the federal government to the tune of about N1.7 trillion in the name of fuel subsidy ‘without importing a pint of fuel” in the words of Audu Ogbe, PDP’s onetime chairman.

National Assembly probe confirmed that between $8b and $16b was expended in the energy sector under Obasanjo before it was unbundled and all generation and 10 distribution companies sold to known leading PDP stalwarts in 2013.  Nigeria’s total investments of about $100b between 1960 and 1999 were also sold in the name of privatization to PDP stalwarts under Obasanjo for a paltry $1.5b according to a National Assembly probe report. And when there was little left to sell during Goodluck Jonathan years, federal landed properties dating back to the colonial period across Nigeria were sold at give-away prices to PDP stalwarts in the name of dubious monetization policy.

Finally, following the monumental stealing that took place during Jonathan administration, both Chukwuma Soludo, Obasanjo’s CBN governor and Ngozi Okojo-Iweala, Minister of Finance predicted a recession and hard times for whoever took over from Jonathan in 2015.

One is not sure whether with the above baleful legacies, Peter Obi actually agreed with Obasanjo that the way forward is a return to Obasanjo years of the locust. It is perhaps on account of this fear as well as efforts to protect our youths from Obasanjo’s false narrative that two critical Nigerian otherwise conservative voices have reacted to Obasanjo’s assault on our sensibilities.

First was Professor Bolaji Akinyemi, a former Nigerian External Affairs Minister who said he finds the idea of someone “who created problems for us and then come back and present (himself) as a problem solver” difficult to swallow”. There was also a former member of the House of Representative, Usman Bagaje who admonishes the youths to first “examine the record of anyone making recommendation”, adding “I can’t find his endorsement trustworthy because I was  at the National Assembly when he attempted to extend his tenure by changing the constitution”.

Still playing the ostrich Obasanjo has also identified those he claims “are preaching division, segregation, separation, and want to use diversity for their own self and selfish interest as enemies of the nation”. He also  “wants the youths to forget our different wrongs or mistakes of the past: treasonable felony, Tiv riot and its handling, first military coup and its aftermath, second military coup, araba, pogrom and the civil war, all in the 1960s”.

Unfortunately Obasanjo and his military adventurers have continued to live in denial instead of confronting the truth.

Our nation has since 1966 been haunted by the derailment of the federal arrangement which our founding fathers believed was best for us as a multicultural and multi-ethnic country.  Sadly, Obasanjo was part of Gowon’s regime that first “created 12 states without a rhyme”. He and Murtala Muhammed then went on to calibrate the nation into 19 states without objective criteria.  He had influence on Babangida regime that increased the number to 30 unviable states to please cronies.  It was Obasanjo military regime of 1976-1979 that amended Decree 13 of 1970 and Decree 9 of 1971, which took away states residual functions to the centre, and became the foundation for Decree 21 of 1978 which increased the exclusive list from 45 in the 1960 constitution to 68 in the 1999 constitution.

Obasanjo’s LGA as third tier of government was not informed by a desire to develop the local areas but aimed at central control. This perhaps explains Chukwuma Soludo’s observation that “Nigeria is the only federal system in the world where the centre funds LGAs that do not report to it”.

 Multiplication of government departments and bureaus ‘merely to find jobs for the boys’ according to Obafemi Awolowo, has made “the work of government to “become unduly complex, inextricably tangled, extremely unwieldy and wasteful and productive of disharmony and discontent among the people”

To end our nightmare, we cannot escape restructuring our country into a viable federal arrangement, an enterprise that requires an elite consensus.  The challenge before our youths beyond Obasanjo’s hypocrisy, ethnic and religious sentiments, therefore is to see who among the contestants fills the bill. 

 Democracy and the federal arrangement are like Siamese twins. One cannot function without the other.