The Nation Newspaper

Category: Jide Oluwajuyitan

  • #Northisbleeding protest and conspiracy of leaders

    #Northisbleeding protest and conspiracy of leaders

    With a whirlwind protests which first started in Kano  before spreading to other northern cities dovetailing into #Northisbleeding  Abuja protests that called for a declaration of a state of emergency in  the frontline states of Niger,  Sokoto, Zamfara, Katsina and Kaduna and replacement of their governors  with military administrators, the chicken has finally come home to roost. The northern leaders, including former heads of state, politicians, traditional rulers and religion leaders have for long played the ostrich.

    Commenting on the new re-awakening, Sulaiman Abudulazeez, speaking for the Coalition of Northern Groups, CNG, admitted that “most of the informants and beneficiaries of the profits of kidnappings live in our midst and in most cases, are people known to the communities. For instance, in some states, traditional leaders and politicians and even top state actors have been severally fingered in connection with most crimes being committed around them”.

    It is also on record that Northern leaders, including state governors, are known to have said, tongue in cheek, that bandits constituted lesser evil when compared with secessionist agitations in the Southwest and Southeast.

    While many prominent northern leaders live in denial, it has been   southern self-determination groups such as the Afenifere, Ohaneze and the Ijaw National Congress that regularly paid solidarity visits to victims of mindless killings in the middle belt states  that have become professional wailers that cry louder than the bereaved.

    For instance, in October 2020,  why the south was up in arms against government over general insecurity in the country, northern elders passed a vote of confidence on President Buhari despite five years siege of Boko Haram insurgents, herdsmen and bandits on north-central, northeast and northwest.  While an overwhelmed Buhari government was trying to tackle those who have made the country ungovernable, it  was apparent  those in government who should be pathfinders for their people seem to be more interested in exporting northern problems to the south.

    From Emirs who lionize herdsmen by asking them to disobey the laws of their host states, to those who mischievously justified the bearing of AK-47 rifles by herdsmen, those who conferred citizenship of Nigeria on immigrant herdsmen and to elective office holders – the poor masses of the north are only instruments for winning election or for bargaining over sharing of revenue allocation.

    The traditional rulers on their part having been settled with 5% of LGA allocation initiated by the military, now only lead their subjects for communal prayers jettisoning their other important traditional roles which include ‘mediating between the people and the state, enhancing national identity, resolving minor conflicts’ and of course the most important function of the emir in the Hausa-Fulani traditional political system -leading their armies to wars.

    With exception of a few Emirs including the Sultan of Sokoto and Emir of Muri in Taraba  State Abbas Tafida who issued a fatwa to Fulani herdsmen declaring “Because of this unending menace, every Fulani herdsman in this state have been given 30 days ultimatum to vacate the forests. We are tired of having sleepless nights and the hunger alone in the land is enormous and we will not allow it to continue”, others lead from behind.

    In fact, in some states, traditional leaders just like politicians have been accused of collaborating with bandits. For instance, troubled by the report of Mohammed Abubakar, chairman of the committee set up by Governor Bello Matawalle to find solutions to banditry in Zamfara State, from June 2011 to May 29, 2019, which claimed that over N3 billion was collected by bandits from 3,672 victims whose relatives as ransom from relations of abducted victims in the state, the governor actually asked political leaders and emirs to swear by the Quran to prove they are not conspirators.

    Despite Niger State being the home state of two former head of state- Ibrahim Babangida and Abdulsalami Abubakar, the state has been under bandits’ siege for the past seven years.  Bandits operate unchallenged in 18 out of the 25 local government areas of the state.  In 2016, 36 bloody attacks were carried out in about 70 communities across the three local government areas of the state. Over 50 people were reportedly killed with 12 others kidnapped and N5million paid by victim’s relations as ransom while 2,600 cattle were rustled.

    Ibrahim Babangida, the source of the nation’s current political and economic problem, is holed up in his hilltop palace far away from the maddening crowd. Turning a blind eye to the tragedy unfolding in Niger State, a leader who annulled the most credible election in our nation’s history won by MKO Abiola, his friend, after eight years of ‘transition without end’,  seems  more interested in empty pontification about the colour of our 2023 presidential candidate.

    Abdulsalami Abubakar who probably hops to his farm in helicopter has neither spoken about the Niger tragedy.  The last time he spoke during   a one-day forum organised by a group known as the ‘Search for Common Ground’, it was not about Niger but about what he described as “clashes between Fulani herdsmen and peasant farmers in four states – Plateau, Nasarawa, Kaduna and Benue in 2016, the cost of which he put at 2,500 deaths, 62,000 people displaced; and the loss of N13.7 billion in addition to 47 per cent of the internally-generated revenue”.  Abubakar spoke of clashes pretending not to know what was going on in those states were summary executions of harmless and helpless subsistence farmers sometimes while sleeping in their huts at night.

    Showing little predisposition towards ending the mindless killings by Boko Haram, herdsmen and bandits, some northern political leaders seem determined to export the northern self-inflicted crisis to the south.  One clear evidence of this was the coordinated attack on Governor Rotimi Akeredolu of Ondo State following his ultimatum to criminal herdsmen illegally occupying his state’s reserved forest. Garba Shehu, the Senior Special Assistant to President Buhari on media matters, issued a warning admonishing him to opt for dialogue since the constitution of the republic guarantees the right of every Nigerian to live in any place of his choice.

    He conveniently ignored the futility of dialogue with bandits who according governors Masari of Katsina, Bello of Bauchi, Matawale of Zanfara and El Rufai of Kaduna, often renege on undertakings with El Rufai literarily canvassing for execution of indicted bandits. And for Bello, herdsmen are free to bear AK-47 riffles which he said they need for self-defence against cattle rustlers.

    These warring northern politicians however kept their peace when Abbas Tafida, Emir of Muri in Taraba issued a 30-day ultimatum to herders terrorizing residents of his state declaring in anguish “Our Fulani herdsmen in the forests, you came into this state and we accepted you, why then will you be coming to towns and villages to kidnap residents, even up to the extent of raping our women?”

    Similarly, when 17 southern governors met in Asaba, and  resolved to ban open grazing and movement of cattle by foot, long after some northern governors had done same, Malami, the AGF unable to rise above ethnic sentiments declared that open grazing ban is the same thing as Northern governors banning spare parts trading in their own region

    #NORTHISBLEEDING: reawakening has finally exposed the hypocrisy of leaders who instead of protecting those on whose name they fraudulently rode to power would rather export their social problems to others precisely because they are incapable of loving their neigbours as themselves.

  • Consolidating Buhari’s gains in the railway sector

    Consolidating Buhari’s gains in the railway sector

    While answering questions on Channels Television programme, “Hard Copy” last week, Rotimi Amaechi, Minister of Transportation, ever chatty, was in all his elements as he regaled Nigerians with President Buhari’s achievements in the area of rail development. The Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) he proudly announced, rakes in “N300million per month from the Abuja-Kaduna train, currently running Lagos-Ibadan from the money we are making from Abuja-Kaduna rail service, and paying back over N100 million monthly to the Federal Government.”

    An unsolicited clarification from the Debt Management Office that loans from China to Nigeria, which presently stood at $3.59bn, constitutes only 9.4 per cent of the country’s total foreign debt stock of $37.9bn and that the loans did not require any national asset as collateral since they were largely concessional, secured for Amaechi some relief from critics who believe we are on a path to replacing British neo-colonialism with China’s.

    But no one can begrudge Rotimi Amaechi for his wild celebration of President Buhari’s achievement in rail development. Nigeria railways which started in 1898 with its first 96km Lagos Abeokuta portion has been haunted since the end of the civil war in 1970 by twin problem of government mismanagement and inadequate manpower which found expressions in lack of maintenance of rail and locomotive assets and rapid decline of NRC which employed up to 45,000 Nigerians between 1954 and 1975.  Buhari changed that narrative.

    As it turned out, Babangida’s ‘railway revolution’, widely promoted by the then NRC sole administrator, Chief Samuel Ogbemudia and a captured section of the media, was nothing beyond repainting of old coaches. Ogbemudia was to later in 2005 admit he and Babangida  took the nation for a ride when he told AIT  that  the poor state of the corporation was due “to the activities of a clique in the road transport sector  who had urged him not to revive the rail sector because they had invested heavily on the purchase of trailers. (This Day, 21 August 2005). That perhaps explains why although the 327km Warri-Ajaokuta-Itakpe line was launched by Babangida in 1987, while he and the military politicians that succeeded him, according to Mazi Jetson Nwakwo, one-time acting managing director of NRC did nothing including replacing some of the wagons dating back to 1948”, it was to the credit of Buhari that the project was completed some 31 years later.

    It was the same story with the 168km Abuja-Kaduna line, conceived by Obasanjo and started in 2011 by Jonathan. It remained a dream until it was also completed in 2016 by Buhari.  We can add the 157km Lagos-Ibadan line also conceived and launched twice by President Obasanjo. It also remained a dream for 12 years until Buhari reactivated it in 2016 and completed it in 2020. It was also to Buhari’s credit that  the 44.7km Abuja Metro line, whose contract Obasanjo  awarded May 2007 and President Yar’Adua started in 2009  was completed  by his government in 2018, some 12 years later

    Resourceful Rotimi Amaechi, the face of President Buhari in the above string of success stories deserves appreciation of Nigerians. No one should downplay the commitment of one of the few round pegs in round holes in Buhari’s administration that successfully midwifed the implementation of our rail development national policy thrust that had defied the valiant efforts of six previous presidents.

    Ironically, it is precisely on account of Amaechi’s successes that if I were asked by President Buhari who hardly listens to anyone because of his mind-set, I would readily advise he be redeployed from the Ministry of Transportation. Amaechi cannot manage success. He has the proclivity of squandering away his own hard-earned victories because he is deficit in human relations management. There are already bad omens.

    But before then, let us look at how Amaechi managed his past victories starting with Peter Odili, his godfather who made him Speaker of Rivers State House of Assembly following his successful management of Rivers militant groups despite Obasanjo’s capturing of a faction he used as a balance of terror to secure his presidency. Amaechi was to later become governor through the judiciary, the Uzordima’s Imo State way. He went on to become a powerful, jet-flying performing Rivers State governor. Then he fell out with Odili his godfather who allegedly sponsored, Nyesom Wike, Amaechi’s own  godson and the new head of the militants against him, reducing Port Harcourt, our once beautiful garden city into a city of blood in the run up to the 2015 election.

    APC, the once the dominant party in Rivers has been in disarray since 2015 following Amaechi’s leadership tussle over the control of the Rivers APC apparatus with former Senator Magnus Abe group that had accused him of playing ‘politics of exclusion’. They have spent the greater part of six years moving between appeal court and supreme court with occasional dose of violence as was the case in July this year when Abe faction accused “members of the APC loyal to  Rotimi Amaechi of unwarranted and senseless attack on  members of APC in Ogba Egbema Ndoni Local Government Area (ONELGA) of Rivers State,”

    It is the same story with NPA. After the initial success we were told was recorded with the appointment of  Hadiza Bala Usman as Managing Director of NPA , she was suspended, following the minister’s March 4, letter to President Buhari alleging that  the yearly remittance of operating surpluses by the NPA from 2016 to 2020 was “far short of the amount due for actual remittance”. Nine months on, the report of the probe is yet to see the light of the day apparently because of disagreement between Amaechi over his ministry advertisement to select qualified audit firms to conduct the exercise” and the auditor general  who insisted “reputable professional audit firms are already being engaged by the Board in line with the enabling Act”.

    Now back to the current ill-omens.  Shortly before Amaechi’s last week celebration, precisely on November 17, Nigerian Union of Railway Workers (NURW), after accusing the minister who they claimed walked out on them during a meeting, of high-handedness  shut down railways across the country in what was termed ‘a warning strike’, for three days. Their grievances according to Innocent Ajiji, their President-General: They are the most poorly paid among all the parastatals in the Ministry of Transportation with a take home of N26,000 a month; While passengers and goods  they ferry in their trains  are  insured,  they that operate the train are not insured; Their conditions of service, they claimed  was reviewed last in 1983  among other complaints.

    Of course, we must not succumb to the blackmail of workers especially in a nation where with the exception NNPC, PPMC that earned humongous salaries and our National Assembly that cornered 25% of our annual budget, most government workers including university lecturers who according to their spokesman now double as cab drivers  will admit their monthly pay cannot take them home. But I am not sure if anyone including the highly paid lawmakers, the major beneficiaries of the Kaduna Abuja rail service who allegedly turned down ministry of transportation budget twice, can fault the above listed demands of NRC locomotives drivers.

    Happy workers are productive workers. We can therefore not wait until we start to experience sabotage from exploited locomotive drivers before coming to the aid of resourceful but loquacious Amaechi who is not expected to give what he does not have. The president I am sure can also not afford allowing Amaechi to squander what will probably be his most enduring legacy.

  • Tomori’s ode to our glorious past

    Tomori’s ode to our glorious past

    I feel Professor Tomori’s pains over the loss of our beautiful country and its glorious past where, with government provision of an enabling environment, honesty, probity  and hard work  determine how fast one climbs the social ladder. Speaking in an emotion-laden speech, penultimate Monday at the National COVID-19 Summit in Abuja, Tomori, a world-acclaimed professor of virology, who is proud to have been entirely minted in the old Western Region, Government College, Ugheli; Ahmadu Bello University, and University of Ibadan, all in Nigeria, had said “Mr. President, the generation of Nigerians we have today is much smarter than my generation. Give them one-tenth of the enabling environment opportunity which good governance gave my generation, and Nigeria will be donating vaccines to poor Europe as India is doing; Nigeria will be providing loans to China, and not the other way round”.

    For Professor Tomori: “COVID-19, Lassa fever, yellow fever, monkey pox and cholera” are not the enemies but mere symptoms of greater malaise which finds expression in our  continued underdevelopment and backwardness nourished by unpatriotic, self-centred corrupt and shameless leadership.

    For our today’s frustrated youths, Tomori’s ode to our glorious past was evidence that we once had an organized society as against the anarchy that today defines our social interaction whether in politics, business transaction, herdsmen torching subsistence farmers’ houses in the night or burning of buses along with their passengers by bandits.

    How did our much cherished past turn into a nightmare before our very eyes? How did we squander away the promises and abundance of possibilities of a glorious future after a smooth take-off? What are those forces that truncated our triumphant march on “Nigeria Path to freedom”? And why are we finding it so hard to retrace our journey back after 55 years in the wilderness?

    Our founding fathers including Obafemi Awolowo back in 1947 admitted Nigeria was ‘a geographical expression’ while  Tafawa Balewa in 1948 described her as ‘a British intention”. Zik, who out of political mischief insisted our differences was exaggerated by accident of colonial rule, was reminded even by the colonial masters that ‘we are a  multi-ethnic nation where some groups are social, some anti-social and where the Bantus of the Benue valley are different from the Hausa Fulani of Zaria.”

    It was for this reason that our constitutional development starting with the 1954 Lyttleton constitution, to the 1957 independence constitution gave each region powers over law and order, education, economic development, social welfare and public information.” This was the platform upon which our glorious past, Tomori so poetically eulogized was built.

    But driven by greed for power to serve self and not necessarily the masses on whose back they rode to power, the Igbo and Hausa Fulani political elite solemnized a marriage of convenience in 1959. Their first act of betrayal of the new nation was the undermining of the constitution by 1962 just to derail the West’s giant stride.  By 1963, the coalition had collapsed, predictably over sharing of perks of office.

    It was obvious the interest of ordinary people did not feature in their bargaining. For instance, Eastern Region which by 1953 had 65% of her children in primary school as against 35% of the West, 105 secondary grammar schools to West’s 25 made no significant improvement while the marriage of convenience lasted. The Igbo ministers in Balewa’s government  were more interested in exploiting their participation in government to raise personal fortunes that would allow them  build ‘palaces of the people’ among the squalor  of the poor inhabiting ghettos that defined most Igbo urban jungles and rural areas of the period.

    While ordinary Igbo got little or no value from the coalition, and the only legacy of NPC, the main coalition was that of “labourer born labourer and almajiris sired almajirirs”; the opposition AG’s half a million primary school enrolment, on the other hand went up to one million pupils, secondary school with 25 with less than 7,000 students to 139 with over 84,000.

    Dumping NCNC its junior coalition partner, whose serving ministers refused to step down following directive of their party,  NPC the controller of the honey-pot at the centre dangled the carrot at a faction of opposition AG which Akintola, the embattled governor, found irresistible. He was to justify his position with Igbo domination of the Balewa-led federal government, making jokes about “ Ikejiaani, Iketaani, Ikerinani” while Yoruba was completely missing. Our self-serving political actors eventually infiltrated the military resulting in the January and July 1966 coups that finally led into an inevitable civil war.

    Our glorious past was dealt the final deadly blow by Obasanjo’s dismantling of all social and economic institution he inherited in 1975 while his centralization of institutions that had stood the test was to lead to paralysis in the universities, along other institutions of society. Driven by greed, the political elite constituted itself into a powerful pressure group  to influence who gets what and when in the sharing of our common patrimony through ill-executed Babangida’s commercialization and Obasanjo’s privatization policies.

    Many, after taking over the commanding heights of the economy went on to establish their own media outfits to propagate the values of economic liberalization and promote their own variant of market economy where government was the source of capital injected to the business concerns including banks, insurance, telecommunication, hospitality and the power sectors before they were sold off, according to a House of Representatives probe report,  at ‘give away prices’ to the new owners.

    It is therefore not an accident those who have benefitted or are still benefitting from the ongoing anarchy continue to insist they don’t understand the meaning of restructuring, fiscal federalism or devolution of power. Tragically, it was this hypocritical president’s crowd that was entertained by sobbing Tomori during his latest outing.  But Tomori is in good company even if public sobbing changes nothing.

    Obafemi Awolowo one of the architects of the glorious past, the subject of  Tomori’s melancholy,  after  creating enabling environment for Ughelli College, free education, free health services and other pro-people policies struggled through  the rest of his life to replicate them in the rest of the country. For his pains he was imprisoned for 10 years by those who boasted he would be too old by the time he returned to question how they govern Nigeria. Some of his lieutenants including Chief Tony Enahoro, Abraham Adesanya, Michael Ajasin,  Bisi Onabanjo who out of frustration suggested the colonial masters be invited back, all failed in their quest to re-create the West in  the rest of the country the enabling environment responsible for the miracle of the West between 1952 and 1962.

    Those who blocked ‘Nigeria’s path to freedom’ prefer darkness to light. Awo himself likened them to ‘a few people holding down a fattened cow that is being milked by some powerful individuals. They are in politics as kingmakers, in business as monopolists and in churches, mosques and traditional institutions. Their laws are our laws.

    Nigerians have no illusion about the invincibility of these owners of society who messed up President Obasanjo and his PDP between 1999 and 2015. But Buhari was thought to be uniquely placed to confront those who have continued to hold Nigeria down because of his record as defender of the nation’s interest against IMF and World Bank during his first coming as military head of state and his passion for Nigeria.

    Above all, since Buhari has nothing to lose, many informed Nigerians had expected him not only to confront those holding the nation down but also resolve our political problems through creative application of absolute powers of an elected sovereign.

  • EndSARS: Fighting shadows…

    EndSARS: Fighting shadows…

    I sympathise with Governor Sanwo-Olu of Lagos State who in spite of his valiant effort at finding solution to the demands of the EndSARS protesters continues to experience stress and strain. Tarred with the same brush of mistrusts as President Buhari who has credibility deficit on account of his failure to implement his party policies or apply reasoning towards resolving the killer herdsmen, open grazing and bandits crises, Sanwo-Olu has become a target of anti-Buhari political enemies across the nation.

    I am sure Sanwo-Olu realizes he was target of misplaced aggression.  He therefore during his last week’s emotion-laden broadcast appealed to the good people of Lagos to read in between the lines while warning  those “treating their own prejudices as deeper truths instead of the superficial lies they are”, choosing to take perverse delight in playing unhelpful games of cynicism and suspicion and clinging to beliefs that do not carry the weight of verifiable evidence.”

    And what are the facts?

    By allowing the EndSARS protesters locate their camps at Government House, Alausa and Lekki Toll Gate was evidence enough that Lagos State government identified with their cause. That the governor’s dialogue with the youths resulted in his serving as their ambassador carrying their demands to Abuja was also no doubt evidence of the youths’ confidence in his sincerity. That Sanwo-Olu outwitted the president’s anti-reasoning ‘loyal gate keepers’ including Malami, without whom the president cannot breathe and secured victory for the youths with the president acceding to all the youths demand including the dismantling of notorious SARS was also historic.

    But all Buhari’s foes who were caught unawares by Sanwo-Olu’s breakthrough did  was to focus on Buhari’s credibility deficit to  lionize  our largely uninformed youths who did not understand the social and economic implications of shutting down Lagos that provides daily succor for millions of unskilled workers who will starve if caged for a week. In addition, Buhari’s political foes mischievously focused on how much revenue the managers of the LTG  was cornering every day,  forgetting to remind our impressionable youths that it was suicidal to lock down Lekki which  is not only home to Dangote Refinery, the biggest in the world but also harbours the Lekki Free Trade zone and provide safe havens for le crème de la crème of Nigerian elite including mega bank and  multi-media owners, retired Generals, industry chiefs and top bureaucrats whose laws are our laws.

    At two weeks, the owners of society started to see the LTG siege as a nuisance.  Unfortunately, because the siege was led by amorphous group of  our talented artists/musicians whose role in society cannot be underestimated  but unarguably no substitute for social engineers, ‘the salt of life’ without whose efforts society decays,  expectedly ended in confrontation with police and the soldiers, controlled by owners of society through  the state. Then the hypocritical media and their sponsors that had expected ‘massacre’ started shouting massacre without waiting for evidence.

    Governor Sanwo-Olu worked the night moving from hospital to hospital to confirm the number of deaths but he announced with relief the following morning that there was no massacre. But quoting social media terrorists, journalists including CNN from far away Atlanta continued to insist hundreds of imaginary massacred bodies were secretly carted away by military vehicles. Buhari’s political enemies, victims of selective perception with imaginary figures of casualties in their heads rejected the governor’s report.

    The governor who had originally inaugurated a Judicial Panel of Inquiry to investigate allegations of police brutality committed by the disbanded SARS in the state, saying ‘as a matter of good faith and a sincere commitment to uncovering the truth of what happened on October 20, 2020, “constituted a panel of individuals that we believed were independent, credible, and representative of the various stakeholders with a respected jurist as chairman”.

    The tainted report of the panel was leaked to the press by its pro massacre members who seem to have hijacked the panel to satisfy the long held view that Buhari’s administration is evil, anti-people and likely prone to covering up the massacre of the nation’s youths. Elaborate interviews were held and threats were issued against those who will question their own colour of the truth so that the official release of the white paper only becomes nothing but a fait accompli to consolidate old prejudices and lies.

    While admonishing those who ‘take perverse delight in playing unhelpful games of cynicism and suspicion’ Sanwo-Olu insisted that the decision of his government would be based entirely on the law, the weight of evidence and an unblemished respect for the truth”.  He thereafter released government white papers which declared that “The inconsistencies and contradictions in the entire JPI report concerning the number of persons, who died at LTG on 20th October 2020, and their cause of death rendered the JPI’s findings and conclusions thereon as totally unreliable and therefore unacceptable.”

    For instance even while the JPI attested to the fact that there was nothing contrary to that of Professor Obafunwa, that only one person died at LTG of gunshot wounds on October 21, 2020, names of  nine protesters allegedly killed sprang up on pages 297-298 without the JPI offering explanation regarding circumstances of their deaths.  And the JPI Report also went on to award compensation to only one out of the alleged nine listed as ‘deceased’, which showed that the JPI itself had doubts as to the deaths of eight”. An explanation by a member that the employment of the word ‘massacre’ was supported by its dictionary meaning and not by evidence only brought more obfuscation.

    Again our youths have some lesson to learn from the EndSARS debacle.  First, Buhari is not responsible for the misery of our youths. Soludo back in 2013 had warned that whoever took over from Jonathan would face the current crisis. The challenge before Buhari in 2015 therefore was to resolve our political crisis, the source of our economic woes. For frittering such a unique opportunity, he has a date with history.

    Those egging on the youths to fight Buhari on the basis of his credibility deficit and those manufacturing ‘massacre’ to take over Lagos are jointly responsible for our youths’ misery.  It was they who in the name of Babangida’s commercialization policy sold public enterprises that once guaranteed jobs for our young graduates to their cronies.  The same privileged group during Obasanjo’s presidency jettisoned both the World Bank recommendations and example of privatisation in France and Britain and sold government interest in the banks, communication, media, hospitality business, airlines, insurance oil companies to themselves. Driven only by greed, the new owners today pay their workers who are mostly casual workers slave wages. Like in other business concerns seized from the state, the privileged elite, who are today exploiting Buhari’s mismanagement of our crisis of nation building to divert attention from their criminal conspiracy against our youths, are the same people that live like princes spending billions that should have been spent on workers welfare including gratuities in the name of profit.

    Secondly, the youths who cannot give what they don’t have must study hard to understand the nature of our problems. The federal system the country eventually adopted was the brainchild of 20 Nigerian law students in 1920. Those who carried out the revolution in the West were youths who did not only understudy how their forbears managed society by becoming chiefs, they were involved in intensive  intellectual engagement to come up with alternative policy thrusts in order to outwit NCNC, the dominant party in the West and to convince the colonial powers they were ready for self-government.

  • Julius Berger and agony on Lagos-Ibadan Expressway

    Julius Berger and agony on Lagos-Ibadan Expressway

    Julius Berger was once again at work last Sunday. The setting was the ubiquitous Lagos- Ibadan expressway that has for the greater part of the last 20 years become some sort of a torture chamber and a haunted route for millions of Nigerians moving to or out of Lagos from all other parts of the country. The initial mandate was for Julius Berger to reconstruct the 127 kilometres expressway that took less than three years when it was first etched out of a deep mangrove rain forest and commissioned towards the dying months of Obasanjo military regime in August 1978. That task has however so far defied Obasanjo and his PDP’s  16 years of  mis-governance  including the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan which in 2013 re- awarded  the contract to Julius Berger Nigeria and Reynolds Construction Company Limited at a sum of N167 billion and of course Buhari and his APC’s six years of buck-passing.

    I am not sure there is any other thing that has alienated President Buhari from Nigerians than the non-completion of the Lagos-Ibadan expressway. This is the busiest inter-estate expressway connecting all parts of Nigeria and which, according to Clement Oladele, Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC)’s sector commander, caters for “no fewer than 16 million passenger during the festive period”, with about 1.8 million vehicles , 72% of which are commercial vehicles, plying the road between December and January every year. The agony on the road is the agony of all Nigerians.

    Julius Berger represents everything that is wrong with the nation. It  shares all the negative attributes of the Nigerian governing elite – impunity, insensitivity, greed and lack of empathy for Nigerians they often treat as subjects as against citizen.  The agony and nightmare experienced by Nigerian motorists who last Sunday spent about eight hours between the Redeemed Camp and Lagos as a result of traffic gridlock deliberately created by Julius Berger was only one of series of repeated assault on Nigerians for which the company has ever been held accountable.

    Ad what was the story?

    The Federal Controller of Works in Lagos on Sunday morning, announced a six-day traffic diversion on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, starting from Monday, to enable Julius Berger, the contractor handling section one of the project, to lay asphalt between Arepo and Warewa, a distance of one and half kilometers. But between 9am and 10am that morning, “about three people who wore Julius Berger apron used a bulldozer to carry barricades to effect the blockage. With total contempt for Nigerians, Julius Berger, a contractor which thinks it is doing us a favour created a gridlock 24 hours before the commencement of work on the affected portion of the road.

    With Julius Berger’s partial shut-down of the Magboro and Warewa, Ogun State ends of the highway, “thousands of travellers’, according to a Punch report, “moving inwards Lagos State and those bound for Ogun State were trapped at the various bottlenecks”, while an overwhelmed Federal Road Safety Corps officials stood aloof even as “motorists struggled to wriggle their way out of the logjam”.

    But such contempt for Nigerians is in Julius Berger’s character. Back in 2016 when it embarked on the work on the long bridge, but for the outcry of Nigerians, it initially ignored suggestions that pathway at the beginning of the long bridge be graded in addition to grading of the bad portion of the road between Kara area and Berger so that vehicles could be diverted to the side lane to provide relief to motorists while Julius Berger worked at its normal snail speed.

    Read Also: Truck crushes three to death on Lagos-Ibadan Expressway

    With President Buhari’s  efforts at managing our diversity, ensuring security  and stabilising the economy under repeated attack by his  political enemies and other concerned Nigerians, one area he believes will be his lasting legacy is the ‘rebranding of road networks in the country’. A huge chunk of the loans his administration secured has therefore been channeled into rebuilding the nation’s collapsed infrastructure in general. Addressing guests during the opening of a recent two-day Mid-Term Ministerial Performance Review Retreat at the Presidential Villa in Abuja, the president expressed delight that ‘‘the PIDF projects including the 11.9km Second Niger Bridge, 120 km Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, 375 km Abuja – Kaduna – Zaria – Kano Expressway and the East-West Road are advancing remarkably and   are expected to be completed within this second term of our administration.’’

    But the unending agony of motorists on Lagos-Ibadan expressway now threatens to derail that dream. It was perhaps in recognition of this and the series of delays in the completion of the project that the House of Representative Committee on Works, led by its chairman, Abubakar Kabir, during their oversight visit to roads in Lagos and Southwest on Tuesday, June 1, issued a May 2022 ultimatum to the contractors handling the rehabilitation/reconstruction to complete the project.

    Raji Fashola, the president’s resourceful Minister of Works also understands the implication of the continued delay in the completion of the road on the legacy of his principal.  Back in September, accompanied by Governor Abiodun of Ogun State, he was for the fourth time this year on the inspection tour of progress on road. Fashola during the assessment tour praised the contractors, Julius Berger for having covered “ long-range, citing the lengthy kilometres covered from Ogere, Sagamu, Kara and to Lotto flyover”.

    Work on the Lotto flyover bridge which as far as eyes can see only spans across the expressway has taken over three years with motorists sometimes spending more than one hour of struggling with trailers and fuel-laden tankers to cross that portion of the road even when many at time, little or no activity was going on. I think instead of humouring, Fashola should remind Julius Berger that in February 2020, it took only 10 days for the Chinese authority to build a two-storey Huoshenshan (Fire God Mountain) 1,000 beds Hospital on  the outskirts of Wuhan City to serve exclusively as a treatment and quarantine centre for patients with the 2019-nCoV virus.

    I have searched without finding a difference between Julius Berger and Reynolds Construction Company Limited, the two contractors handling the reconstruction of the expressway. Both have nothing but contempt for Nigerians. I drove from Ibadan end of the expressway to Ife by-pass on Thursday and Friday last week, each trip lasting about one hour. But beyond the traffic gridlock compounded by pot holes Reynolds did not bother to fix, most of the expressway was opened up with motorists, motorcyclists, pedestrians enveloped by red soil. It is not known how long Ibadan residents and those traversing the city will face such ordeal especially since it is obvious no one is thinking of the health implications for those whose only crime is that they live or travel through the city.

    But we know why contractors treat us as sub humans and why Julius Berger cannot but treat German citizens with anything but civility. Professor (Mrs) Angela Merkel, their immediate past leader, while in office, walked with her husband to the grocery store while wives of local council chairmen and state legislators here are driven to the market in official car accompanied by AK-47 wielding police officers.

  • Journalists as self-proclaiming heroes

    Journalists as self-proclaiming heroes

    Government has immense and unrivalled powers and authority. In democracies, they are headed by elected sovereigns whose powers can be likened to that of a Leviathan.  The reason society needs a fearful sea monster is because it is inhabited by wild animals whose abiding philosophy ‘is the survival of the fittest’, where the weak dies and strong survives. The most powerful among them want unrestrained freedom to preside over an empire of slaves. Driven by the evil spirit of acquisitiveness and the desire to dominate their environment, men who are generally insane, therefore needed to be kept in check. The only institution that can do this is government whose very end is moving man and society from the state of liberty and license, of enmity and destruction, to that of peace and safety where those who have properties can enjoy them without fear of molestation. Government’s goal is pursuance of the greatest good and happiness for the greatest populace.

    The paradox however is that the rest of us that need protection most from the owners of society not only often see government as enemy, but also forget we are  the government. For instance, we have consistently blamed our economic travails on government, forgetting it was our economists who first told us that for our economic growth, we must embrace import-substitution through which we supply raw materials to multinationals to satisfy the consumption patterns they had created. It was our own economists that told us there was no alternative to structural adjustment programmer (SAP) which led to the collapse of our budding industries, taking our exchange rate from N1 to more than $1 to today’s over N500 to $1. It was Chukwuma Soludo as CBN governor who killed small banks and championed mega banks that today declare multi-billion naira profits through exploitation of workers who are paid slave wages as casual workers.

    Behind most of our today’s divisive issues of our politics, are the political scientists. They recommended the proscription of our political parties and their replacement with military-decreed two-party system which will “evolve from the grassroots, give equal right and opportunities to all Nigerians irrespective of wealth, religion and status”.  Under Obasanjo, an aberration where a federal government funded local governments that are not accountable to the centre,  which Chukwuma Soludo said is the only one of its kind in any federation in the world, was their baby. As Aso rock professors during Babangida’s reign, they accused those who implemented free education and free health programmes in the first republic of insincerity claiming “they have been deceiving our people as they were deceived during the First and Second Republics”.

    Instead of admitting we are the architect of our own misfortunes, we accuse government of the most unimaginable sins. And most guilty are the journalists who pretend not to understand the media is owned by those who have cornered more than their proportionate share of the national resources and needed platforms to protect their warped world view. It must be admitted that Nigeria’s current youths were on a good start with their EndSARS protest in October 2020, with government acceding to all their demands even though they did not have a clear understanding of our problems. But the goodwill of many supporters was frittered away with the media introduction of subliminal message about  the huge amount of money that managers of the Lekki Toll Gate plaza rakes in daily just to score political point on behalf of their  owners who in the absence of debate, bargaining or healthy competition have resorted to institutionalised fighting. They did not say when it became a crime to make money from government even as their proprietors make billions promoting fraudulent politicians through news commercialisation and conferring of honours on dubious bankers on money bags.

    The tragedy is that while making a living by serving multi-billionaires and power manipulators who daily cheat and break the law, we assume the moral high ground trying to pull down government.

    How else does one explain the virulent attack on Lagos State government and, the inquisition of government lawyers who pointed out some discrepancies in the unsigned leaked report of Lagos Judicial Panel of Inquiry on Restitution for Victims of SARS Related Abuses and Other Matters, last week? While Governor Sanwo-Olu set up a four-member committee to raise a white paper on the submitted report, the media houses have written editorial while some electronic media actually embarked on what was more or less an inquisition of those who dismissed the leaked report as “pure distortion of glaring facts and cannot, in the face of in-depth probe and sophisticated analysis, stand the test of time”.

    The media found an ally on Ebun Adegboruwa who admitted he was invited to join the panel on the basis of his credibility but now accuses Lagos State government of sponsoring attack on his person.  He has argued that “it will be unfair and improper for Lagos State to be a judge in its own cause, by seeking to review the report of the panel.” If the government that sets up the panel cannot issue a white paper, he did not say who should. Both the media and Adegboruwa also gave the impression that it was Lagos State that was behind the attack on one Miss Kamsiyochukwu Ibe said to “be a prominent EndSARS protester who testified before the panel”.

    Of course there are evil men in government. There are similarly overzealous men in government. There are constituency projects scammers. There are pension thieves. But we can yet not do without government. I spent about 30 years in the media where gratuity was gratuitous rising to the highest pinnacle one can reach. I spent just about five years in the public university retiring with a monthly pension of N11,000 and more importantly, access to medical care for minor ailments while most of my media colleagues depend on goodwill of others for their medical needs. But it must be said this is not limited to the media. It is the story of larger Nigerian society where the policy of the vicious men that control the jungle is survival of the fittest or the law of the jungle.

    Finally, the media must stop misleading the youths who today see government as enemy. They must be encouraged to join politics at local level like their forbears did. Ahmadu Bello started at the local government level. He was framed up for financial fraud by his political enemies until Bode Thomas rescued him through the judicial process. Awolowo, Rotimi Williams Akintola, Ajasin, Tony Enahoro all first became chiefs to learn how their forbears managed their society over the centuries. Being used to fight institutional war at Lekki Toll gate was therefore diversionary.

    And as for social media tigers, we have seen their limitations after the Arab Spring in North Africa and the Maghreb notably in Libya that has descended into a Hobbesian society where life is nasty, brutish and short. Egypt today is ruled by an emergent twenty-first century Pharaoh; Tunisia where after the initial euphoria, is today ruled by a dictator and Syria and Yemen, each at war with itself.

  • Nation of scammers and gamblers

    Nation of scammers and gamblers

    For reneging on some of his party promises, his mismanagement of our crisis of nation building, treatment of corrupt elements in his party with deodorant, his slow response to bandits and terrorists’ declaration of war against Nigerians, his provincialism which has exacerbated tension among Nigeria federating nationalities, Nigerians cannot wait for Buhari to go in 2023. Those who promoted his candidacy and aided his election in 2015 have been accused of railroading Nigerians into boarding a ‘one chance bus’. But it is not difficult to read hypocrisy into Buhari bashing by Nigerians who are in the main, scammers and gamblers

    And as Joseph De Maisre once observed: “In a democracy, a people deserve the leaders and the government they get”. The truth is that as a nation of miracle seekers without faith, fortune seekers without sweat, and outright scammers and swindlers, what we were looking for in 2015 were politicians who fitted well into our paradigm of leadership. Because of our mind-set, we all settled for President Buhari and Vice President Osinbajo, two prayer warriors who like many of us, but unlike leadership of Israel and Saudi Arabia the home of our two Abrahamic religions, believe prayers without cease is the panacea to societal problems. We knew Buhari and Osinbajo before we voted them into office. We cannot plant cocoyam and expect to reap yam. We must admit we are all gamblers.

    Our descent into unthinking morons started with the advent of the military that destroyed our socialisation process which often starts from the home, through schools, churches, university and larger society where the media set the agenda. Before their misadventure into politics, families valued honour and integrity. Children were admonished to remember the children of whom they were. They were made to imbibe value of hard work and told a child brought to the world who does not strive to be better than his parents are brought to the world in vain. Our youths back then believed “ise logun ise” (hard work is the only panacea to poverty’. The churches and the missionary schools they set up as well as the nationalist schools, by their teachings and actions consolidated these values. Besides salvation, the missionaries were dedicated to grooming men of honour and integrity. Missionary schools like Christ School, talks of “boys of spirit, boys of will, boys of muscle who with hard work and character cope with anything”, St Joseph celebrates, Ring of the battle call of duty, Unfurl the flag of faith and Toil”; Kings College talks about being “Nurtured in the class room in our youths, Where we learn to learn chivalry and truth”. Igbobi College asks “Give me a torch which shall shine, where ever there is an Igbobian, there also is a noble Nigerian”. Loyola College stands “for truth and knowledge and strives for perfection”.

    Admission into the university and recruitment into the bureaucracy were based on merit. There were no imperatives of quota system, federal character or religion affiliations.  Our gradual descent into a nation of scammers and swindlers started with military’s wrongheaded public policy thrusts. With S. G Ikoku  and his pretence to socialism as the federal commissioner of education,  Gowon found a reliable ally in government take-over of missionary schools from their Roman Catholic, Anglican, Baptist and Methodist missionary owners, expunged religious teachings  and wrecked original structures of their schools.

    But since there is no vacuum in nature, from the wreckage sprang evangelical churches, promoted by intellectual and other elites protesting against stringent rules of some of the orthodox churches.   Exploiting the ignorance, poverty and lack of consciousness of our people, they introduced selling of grace and healing for a price which went on in the Catholic church before the emergence of Martin Luther, a German professor of theology, Roman Catholic priest, author and former Augustinian monk before the Protestant Reformation leading to the age of enlightenment some 500 years ago.

    Read Also: Buhari: Bandits shouldn’t think they can’t be crushed

    Decadence soon crept into the new churches driven by love of money with prosperity prophets dwelling more on wealth creation than drive towards salvation. There were other aberrations including the emergence of charismatic groups in the catholic church who claim to speak in tongues, asking the blind to come for blessing and healing during mass and introducing raffle draw to raise funds during harvests, a euphemism for gambling which is one of the seven mortal sins in the Catholic church doctrine, just to raise funds at harvest celebrations.

    The moral decadence in the church, the oldest social institution in the world soon led to moral decadence in the larger society. The new churches take the form of cults to which notable members of society from captains of industry, bankers; top civil servants university chancellors must belong to be relevant. All our socialization agencies from parents, schools, including universities, churches and the media freely promote the new decadence. Parents who spend most of their time in house fellowships and night vigils have little time to teach their children beyond speaking in tongues, fasting and praying for some imported toys while those that  brought Christianity to us teach their own kids science and mathematics to equip them towards becoming  future inventors and  manufacturers .

    Many of the teachers double as pastors. Many university professors paid and saddled with responsibility of raising youths as critical thinkers are themselves pastors. Leaders of the media that are expected to set agenda for society are also pastors who when not engaged in commercialization of news are busy promoting or celebrating thieving governors, fraudulent bankers and other dubious leaders of industry. They do more damage by giving adequate coverage to aberration such as a university vice chancellor welcoming their impressionable new students to citadel of learning where critical thinking is the a major pursuit with praise worship during which pastors as scammers  speak on such topics as power of prayers to resolve all problems including their parents broken marriages.

    What the scammers do not tell our youths who hardly read the Bible is that Saudi Arabia, home to one of the Abrahamic religions we embrace are trying to conquer space after turning Dubai to a paradise and that Israel that despised and murdered Jesus Christ, her most illustrious son and our saviour that today practices agriculture in the air, controls everything from arts, literature, science, computer and even targeted assassinations on behalf of those who can pay for their services.

    We have today become a nation of scammers  where churches, lottery business, betting  and  Interactive Online Gaming/Mobile Vas Operators  have become the most thriving industry  displacing and taking over corporate headquarters and warehouses of  once-thriving pharmaceutical, automobile accessories, textile, electronics and many others industries in Ilupeju, Ikeja and other parts of Lagos . To underscore the importance of gambling, the government has set up the National Lottery Regulatory Commission (NLRC). Gambling or playing a game of chance has been legitimized by government.

    As a nation of swindlers where, according to Thomas Hobbes “a man is a wolf to another man” find expression in the recently collapsed Ikoyi Towers which has so far claimed lives of about 40 people including  Femi Osibona, a pastor and  owner of Fourscore Homes. Many of the flats were said to have been sold for between $1m and $5m to Nigerians.

    A nation of scammers and swindlers get the leadership they deserve.

  • Between Dino’s and Adeyemi’s theatrics

    Between Dino’s and Adeyemi’s theatrics

    Senators Dino Melaye and Smart Adeyemi, of Aiyetoro and Iyara, neighbouring villages of Ijumu Local Government of Kogi State are masters of the theatrics with their now very familiar display of excessively emotional and dramatic behaviour in and outside the floor of the National Assembly. Nigerians missed the theatrics of the former who, when not adorning a PhD academic gown to the National Assembly to justify his third class B.Sc. certificate in Geography form ABU, he was being wheeled from police station to court room or taking a flight from the police by hiding on top of a tree for a night with his car parked at the foot of the same tree.

    What Nigerians missed in the former, they gain in the later that has now turned weeping on the floor of the assembly or during interaction with journalists to an art. Both love youths and know how to inflame passion. They are leaders the leaderless EndSARS that the “soro soke’ (say it loud) generation never had.

    As proof of absence of deep philosophical belief or even the usual politicians’ versatility or brinkmanship, when asked why he was in politics, Dino Melaye who   probably has never read about President Kennedy’s admonition to American youths – “Ask not for what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country” said without much reflection that he “was in politics to ensure the youths of Nigeria get their own fair share of national resources”.

    If any proof is needed to show Adeyemi, his Ijumu compatriot, who also claims to be in politics “to talk truth to power” is an actor, his interventions on the floor of the senate during which he has chosen to weep over poverty, unemployment and general insecurity, problems he and his APC party were elected to resolve or his recent lamentation over the fate of Ajaokuta Steel Complex during which he avoided all the facts presented to the public by his party, is all that is needed.

    His latest interaction with reporters which has since gone viral on social media was in form of a melodrama. For the fate that befell the Ajaokuta’s derailed project, he started by blaming Ministry of Health for no other reason that it budgeted N200m to procure mosquito nets; then it was the turn of those who favoured infrastructure to wealth creation during the budget preparation, and finally, President Buhari’s economic team whose competence and loyalty he questioned. And forgetting he is part of government, he wants all of us to join his crusade to fight the government in which he is an integral part.

    But assaulting our sensibilities, Senator Adeyemi pretended Nigerians do not know that, of all arms of government, executive, legislative, judiciary and the press, the fourth estate of the realm, the legislature without which funds cannot be spent is the most important. Believing  Nigerians suffer from collective amnesia, he assumed Nigerians have forgotten that not long ago, the chairman of appropriation committee of the House had accused  leadership of the assembly of diverting money from national projects to sink boreholes in their farms, that the House  threatened Works and Housing Minister Raji Fashola and even the vice president for reminding them that it was unpatriotic to divert funds budgeted for the reconstruction of the all-important Lagos-Ibadan express-way that has been on since 1999 to their pet community projects and that Nigerians, victims of their years of abuse of their oversight functions, will no more know that the legislature know what to do if it disagrees with budget from ministry of health or from any other ministry for that matter without resorting to drama or playing to the gallery.

    Read Also: Smart Adeyemi’s hypocritical posturing

    And as part of the drama, Smart Adeyemi who along with his colleagues earn between N8million and N12 million monthly in form of salaries and other allowances making them the highest paid lawmakers in the world, after his crocodile tears want short-changed Nigerians including the poor, the unemployed and unpaid pensioners to join overpaid lawmakers, who move around in bullet proof SUVs protected by lorry load of security men in the crusade to bring down the government in which they are an integral part.

    Senator Smart Adeyemi was right about the duplicitous role his fellow political elite members played in the tragedy of the Ajaokuta Steel Company Limited, incorporated in 1979, and whose steel mill was said to have reached 98% completion in 1994, with 40 of the 43 plants having been built. He was also right that the project was embarked upon as a strategic industry, a job creator that would directly employ about 10,000 staff at the first phase of commissioning and with the upstream and downstream industries engaging not less than 500,000 employees. But he was wrong for trying to distance himself from the conspiracy of our self-serving politicians who derailed the project in order to continue importation of steel into the country.

    A part can’t be holier than the whole. It is on record that the National Assembly played a leading role in the war against Nigeria during which Nigeria’s total investment of over $100b was ‘dashed’ out according to a House probe report in the name of Obasanjo and PDP’s mismanaged privatization programme. Like many thriving companies including in the manufacturing, banking and hospitality sectors in which government had controlling shares, sold at next to nothing to members of the political, economic and military class, the Ajaokuta on which government had sunk $5b was ceded to a concessioner without conditions.

    The scandal forced President Umaru Yar’Adua government to cancel the 10-year concession granted Global Steel Holding Company, three years into the agreement. GSHC then took Nigeria to the London Court of Arbitration where the case dragged on for eight years.

    Resolution came in 2016 with the signing of the Modified NIOMCO Agreement, which ceded the complex back to the federal government and NIOMCO to Global Steel with the then Minister Fayemi saying “Now there is seven years left of the concession and all that we have done is to allow Global Steel come and complete the concession.”

    President Buhari, we were told seized opportunity of the 2019 Russia-Africa Summit in Sochi to  discuss the resuscitation of the Ajaokuta Steel Plant with President Vladimir Putin on the basis of a Government-to-Government agreement with funding from the Afreximbank and the Russian Export Centre. The agreement was said to have led to the inauguration of the Ajaokuta Presidential Project Inauguration Team APPIT in May 2020 by Secretary to the Government of the Federation SGF, Boss Mustapha.  Under a  memorandum of understanding (MoU) between Russia and Nigeria, the resuscitation will be financed by state-owned development institution, Russian Export Centre, to the tune of $460million, while Cairo-based, African Export-Import Bank (AfreximBank), is expected to commit about $1 billion

    The minister for mines and steel development is on record as saying that everything to get it running is already in place, including all the raw materials required for its production process and that barring unforeseen circumstances, the federal government is hopeful that the Ajaokuta Steel Mill will become operational by 2022, after many decades of inactivity and over $6 billion in investment.

    Senator Smart Adeyemi last week ignored the above information presented to Nigerians by his APC party while calling on Nigerians to join him in his crusade against those who took Nigerian government to court. If the senator disagrees with his party, instead of theatrics, he, as one of the highest paid lawmakers in the world, can take up the battle on behalf of Nigerians who do not know those behind Global Steel Holding Company.

  • Party oligarchy and democracy

    Party oligarchy and democracy

    Parts of the selling points for democracy is that it is an antidote to tyranny and other forms of autocratic tendencies associated with monarchy, oligarchy and other forms of government because of its transparency.  But the rough road to democracy itself is through political parties, properties of an oligarchy of a few powerful individuals who see political parties as investment for higher dividends.  The mistake we often make therefore is to assume political parties,  often  a  refuge for all manners of ‘selfish interest’ groups, are  haven of angels on a God’s mission to protect the less privileged from their oppressors.

    The truth is that political parties are owned by investors, made up, on advanced democracies, of aristocrats, former office holders, current and aspiring office holders.  Here at home, the Nigeria National Democratic Party, (NNDP), the first political party in Nigeria formed in 1923 was owned by Herbert Macaulay. In the run up to independence, National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC) was inherited by Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe and his fellow elite members; Action Group (AG) was owned by Obafemi Awolowo and his fellow old western regional elite members  while the Northern People’s Congress (NPC) was owned by Ahmadu Bello and his fellow northern conservatives.

    Unfortunately, this was a fact lost on our ill-equipped military who upon their violent take-over of power, attempted to sever the umbilical cord between the mother and the baby by barring past owners of political parties from party formation. The irony was that those who preached ‘ownerless’ party or party without ‘founders but of equal joiners’ ended up imposing their own decreed political parties.

    First was Babangida’s short-lived decreed NRC and SDP; then Abacha’s five parties (five fingers of a leprous hand) for which he was their sole presidential candidate and then Abubakar Abdulsalam midwifed PDP, a party described by John Campbell, former US envoy as  ‘an elite cartel at the centre of power in Nigeria that came together  for sharing of oil rents and political spoils’.

    The party between 1999 and 2015, lived that creed with its oligarchs made up of retired soldiers and their new-breed politicians engaged in vicious battle over the sharing of the nation’s resources through privatization, monetization and constituency projects policies or through cornering of about 20% of the nation’s annual budget as salaries and allowances.

    While what they described as “family quarrel” over stolen national resources went on for 16 years, PDP agenda  including roadmap to stable electricity,  agricultural revolution, end of massive importation of foreign goods as well as fight against corruption under Obasanjo;  President Yar’Adua’s seven-point agenda as well as President Jonathan ‘transformation Agenda’, remained a mirage.

    APC is tarred with the same brush. Many frustrated Nigerians have said the only difference between PDP and APC is that the former is an institution where all Nigerian looters graduated from and the latter their post-graduate school. In  August 2013, the All Progressives Congress unfolded its own 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. Like the PDP, the party with its  control of 65 seats in the 109-seat senate, 190 of the 360 lower house seats and  about 21 of the 36 state governors after the 2015 victory failed to deliver on those goals.

    In October 9, 2000, the late Professor Sam Aluko identified  a cabal made up of  fuel importers as being responsible for importation of fuel and had advised that “Total PLC that manages 17 refineries all over the world should be invited to fix our own”.

    Eleven years after, and six years of APC, none of the refineries works.

    But unlike PDP that brought  to the fore their family war over illegal sharing of our resources including the $180m Halliburton contract scandal, the N1.7t fuel subsidy scam (Bukola Saraki was the whistle blower), $16b power generation scandal, the national identity card scam for which a serving minister went to jail, the derailed Nigeria-China railway project, the Kaduna Refining and Petrochemicals Company (KRPC)’s N700b annual loses in addition to  the loss of a whopping N12 billion annually on staff  salaries of a company that has almost been converted to a container making firm, (Report of Magnus Abe, chairman of the Senate Committee on Petroleum (downstream), the APC ‘fights corruption among his supporters with deodorant’.

    In fact, APC has been expanding its shareholder’s base by welcoming into their party, those PDP members put on trial for corruption by PDP between 2003 and 2015. ‘Join APC and your sins will be forgiven’, once chorused Adam Oshiomhole, one-time APC chairman. ‘We cannot stop sinners from going to church but prevent them from taking over the pulpit’ added Babatunde Fashola, Minister for Works. Ababakar Malami, the Attorney General of Federation and Minister of Justice even tried to smuggle into the civil service, an accused fugitive offender indicted by the National Assembly report for embezzlement of pension funds.

    If anyone is still in doubt political parties are owned by investors, the bitter battle over the souls of the two leading political parties during their recently concluded congresses and convention was all that is needed. Nyeson Wike, the self-confessed chief financier of PDP since the party lost power in 2015 celebrated his victory by displaying his dancing skills. As for the APC, although President Buhari out-witted other shareholders after the 2019 election by imposing his own man and relocating the headquarters to Aso Villa, the battle for the soul of APC in the states by party oligarchs was no less fierce.

    Read Also: Hamzat: we’ll continue to deliver dividends of democracy

    In Rivers State, Senator Magnus Abe insisted during their parallel congresses that he, unlike his rival, Rotimi Amaechi, was a founding member of APC. In Ogun State, incumbent Governor Dapo Abiodun believes Amosun has lost part of his investments by engaging in anti-party activities during the run up to the 2019 election. In Osun, Governor Gboyega Oyetola tried to impress it on Minister Rauf Aregbesola, his predecessor that all politics is domestic.  In Kwara, the battle  to dethrone Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed  by Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq  was premised on lack of transparency in the disbursement of campaign donations.

    In Kano State, Governor Abdullahi Ganduje leveraged on his being the chief financier of the party in the state in his battle for supremacy against Senator Ibrahim Shekarau.

    While democracy is antithetical to dictatorship, the owners of the political parties without which democracy can thrive are oligarchs. We have seen dictatorship of the party at play in advanced democracies such as USA where the Republican Party has become Trump’s party and where Biden cannot get his party agenda through because of in-fighting among vested interests in his Democratic Party. Nearer home, we remember how ineffective Prime Minister Balewa left the nation rudderless as he waited for arrival of Ahmadu Bello, the principal shareholder in NPC from pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia by which time it was too late to save the First Republic.

    To therefore think the time will come when the current oligarchs that own PDP and APC will place our interest before their investments is to live in a fool’s paradise.  I can hear them say the Bible has not said they should love others more than themselves. The law of nature which allows the strong to feed on the week is on their side.

    For our youths, the future of the nation who desire change, form your own party like your forbears did instead of EndSARS or IPOB terror or better still,   join PDP and APC and out-invest the reigning oligarchs as some of the current governors are trying to do.

  • Anifowose: Farewell to a good man

    The glories of our blood and state

    Are shadows, not substantial thing;

    There is no armour against fate.

    Death lays his icy hands on kings.

    Sceptre and crowns   must tumble down.

    And in the dust be equal made”.

    James Shirley (1596-1666) with his Death the Leveller tries to tell us about the ephemeral nature of worldly success, victories, power and influence. The only thing that outlives us all is our good deeds. And since everyone has a date with death, Ernest Hemmingway, (1899-1961), a 1954 Nobel winner in his 1940 novel For Whom The Bell Tolls admonishes us not to ask for whom the funeral bell tolls,  because as part of mankind,  each human death affects all of us.

    Although it was the turn of Professor Anifowose who was laid to rest last Saturday in Ijeda near Ilesha, his passage however was a sad reminder that the bell tolls for each and every one of us. Every transition therefore is an opportunity for introspection about how our lives in terms of charity, compassion and sympathy impact on others we are in a position to help.

    Prof Remi Anifowose was a self-made man who achieved greatness through a dint of hard work.  He was at the Methodist Teachers college Ifaki-Ekiti between 1959 and 1960 from where he moved to the Methodist Teachers College Sagamu for his Grade II Teacher’s Certificate between1963 and 1964. He combined his teaching job with studying at home through Rapids Result Correspondence for his Advance Level GCE certificate which aided his admission to the University of Ibadan in 1966. Not ready to rest on his oars after graduating in 1969, he sought and secured admission to University of Manchester where he completed his Masters and Ph.D. in a record time in 1973.  The same year, he joined University of Lagos where he was to spend the next 34 years teaching and mentoring students.

    A lifelong relationship with late Professor Anifowose started as a Ph.D. candidate in the early eighties. Professor Adeoye Akinsanya, my supervisor had relocated to Ilorin. Then the late Prof Oyediran who agreed to take me on, at a critical point of the work went on sabbatical to the US.  Shortly afterwards, the relevance of my work in the Department of Political Science became an issue.

    But Anifowose, my second supervisor came to my rescue by pointing out that ‘politics is communication’ since the whole idea of the modern nation state is nothing but a ‘decision and control system’ in which the communication media becomes an instrument for waging a battle of consciousness, citing Deutsch, Dudley,  Coleman, Rosberg, Claude Ake  Lucien Pye and  Karl Marx himself who insisted ‘the  idea of the ruling class are in any every epoch the ruling idea’.

    From there it was a smooth ride to my defence for which he had warned – ‘Don’t stop talking except you are stopped because it is your work’!

    But those were the days of committed scholarship and mentorship. It was the days of  Adele Jinadu, Moyibi Amoda, Oye Oyediran, Bolaji Akinyemi, Stephen Odugbemi,  Alaba Ogunsanwo  Jide Coker, Ben Amunoo,  Godfrey Nweke.  Those were the days lecturers played leading role in the formulation and implementation of public policies and foreign policy objectives. Those were the days lecturers instilled confidence rather than fear in their students. It was from Prof Adele Jinadu I first heard professors and Ph.D. students are colleagues, the only distinction being that the latter are ‘junior’ colleagues. It was that generation of committed scholars and mentors that told us that the preoccupation of every professor should be how to reproduce himself in his specialized field and thereafter step aside to work under his former student.

    That Anifowose lived that credo was self-evident with the presence of his academic children, grand-children, great-grand-children and great-great grand-children at Ijeda last Saturday. Representing his academic children were professors Derin Ologbenla, the current HOD, Browne Onuoha, a former HOD, Maduabum, Mudashiru, Unfondu and Dr M M Fadakinte. Also there to bid him good bye were his academic grand-children  including Dr. Laja Odukoya the immediate past  Acting HOD, Dr GSM Okeke, Dr. Emmanuel Onah, Dr. Fedinard Otto, Dr Augustine Eneanya  Dr Lara Quadri, Dr Kayode Esuola, all associate professors in the department. Professor Anifowose’s academic great grand-children were also fully represented in Ijeda by   Dr Dele Ashiru, the current ASUU chairman, Dr Awosika,  Dr Salami, Dr Akintola  Benson, Dr Akinwale, Dr Manuwa, Dr Nwachukwu, Dr Popoola, Dr Henry Otoighile among others. And of course among his great-great-great academic grand children at Ijeda were Ebenezar Ishola, Vera Amaechi and James Nwali.

    Professor Anifowose, regarded by many as ‘one the best hands in the academia’ lived a fulfilled life as a teacher, mentor and an accomplished scholar. He was a man of peace who freely gave his time that others may excel. He was an embodiment of compassion. He was a man of generous spirit.

    His colleagues of over 50 years from University of Ibadan spoke of his humanity.  To Emeritus Professor J. Bayo Adekanye who believes ‘The Nigerian Political Science community has lost a gem’,  ‘he was a good, honest, unassuming  and a  committed academic”. For Emeritus Professor JAA Ayoade ‘the late Anifowose was given to a life of humility and frankness. He was down to earth and courageous. In his academic life, he was painstakingly in search of truth. His judgment was ever fair and objective”.

    For Professor Osaghae Egbosa, ‘the powerful intellect in him never missed the opportunity to engage in a combat, but he was ever so friendly and nice. He was a good man’. And to Professor Adigun Agbaje, ‘he will for ever live in his heart in the role he played in his academic development just as many and uncountable others would fondly remember him’, while Professor Femi Mimiko saw him as  ‘a compelling scholar and most distinguished gentleman’.

    Prof Solomon Akinboye, former Dean of University of Lagos Post graduate School  who was also at Ijeda last Saturday spoke of ‘his commitment to scholarship and dedication to service’ and of  how Anifowose took special interest in grooming him when he joined the department in 1991 as lecturer II.  Dr Henry Otoighile who represented the 1982 set expressed immense gratitude of his set for the nurturing they received from Prof Anifowose which he said was the foundation for the giant strides they have made in society.

    With this type of home recognition and the testimonies coming from the best in our field, I am sureAnifowose will sleep well in his grave for living a life of service.

    And finally, as Chief Moluyi Oluwatoye his childhood friend and Professor  Solomon Akinboye, his protégé attested, Professor Remi Anifose was until his death committed to his Methodist faith. Besides living his footprint on the sand of time, they both hope to see him on resurrection day.

    For the consolation of his immediate family and extended academic family members, let us conclude this tribute to Professor Remi Anifowose with John Donne’s (1572-1631) most famous poem:

    “Death be not proud, though some have called thee

    Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so”.

    Die not, poor death, nor yet

    Canst thou kill me…”

    Because the soul lives on after life, people will awake to eternal life after death, leading to the death of death itself.