Category: Jide Oluwajuyitan

By Jide Oluwajuyitan

The Nigerian Army of “anything is possible” (apology to General Saliu Ibrahim) is the curse of Nigeria. They destroyed virtually everything they touched from the nation’s vibrant economy through ill-advised commercialization and mismanaged privatization process, the educational system by trading away meritocracy for quota system of admission and our political socialisation process through proscription of disciplined modernisation parties and decreeing of two parties without founders but ‘equal joiners’.

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

Neither Oshiomhole nor Obaseki has told Nigerians the cause of their war of attrition, viciously fought without consideration for the health of their APC already riven between the party oligarchy made up of founders, former office holders including ex-governors Simon Lalong, Ibikunle Amosun,  Abubakar Yari and  Rochas Okorochas who wanted their own pound of flesh following Oshiomhole’s uncompromising stand on the 2019 APC primaries, and the young Turks who have their own ambitions.

But Nigerian remember Oshiomhole’s vigorous campaign for Obaseki. It was as if his life depended on the victory of his godson.

Since most outgoing Nigerian governors always try to influence their successors, the speculation then was that Oshiomhole was trying to cover up his tracks.

Even as the vicious fight takes its toll on god father and godson, instead of the bomb-shell as to what Oshiomhole was trying to hide, all Obaseki has said even after his resignation from APC was that he was out to protect the resources of Edo State.

Sympathisers of the godfather seem to be angry at Obaseki for biting the fingers that fed him. On the other hand, many who swore on Obaseki’s name including Emeka Nwachukwu who wrote a piece for The Guardian recently believes Obaseki “is being fought by enemies of the state because he refused to share the patrimony and resources of Edo State amongst a predatory group of godfathers and political thugs”.

But we must not lose track of what sparked off the war between Obaseki and his estranged godfather. At the centre of the struggle was the control of Edo State House of Assembly. All the 24 state legislators in the state are members of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).

To prevent Oshiomhole’s loyalists from taking control of the state legislature, nine out of the 24 lawmakers met at night to inaugurate the assembly and elected Okiye as speaker. Osifo and the 13 others went to court to file a case against the speaker and the eight others.

While the case was in court, the seats of the 14 Oshiomhole loyalists were declared vacant by the factional speaker and was about to conduct election to fill the positions before he was stopped by the court.

All efforts to find amicable settlement by the party, the National Assembly and the president was frustrated by Obaseki’s minority bent on holding on to what it illegally seized.

But beyond playing the victim, I think Nigerians would want Obaseki to answer some questions. His supporters say he was trying to prevent Oshiomhole who persuaded Edo people to vote for him in 2016 from breathing down his throat.

Was it before or after the midnight coup by his nine supporters and his inauguration of the assembly? Why was he desperate to take control of the house when there was no indication of conflict between him and his godfather that has just helped him to victory? How did he fall out with 14 elected members of the house even before its inauguration? If all Obaseki was trying to do with the midnight coup against his own government was to protect the scarce resources of Edo from his godfather, why is he trading a godfather that has no history of treasury looting for professional PDP looters that had been indicted by the courts for leaving Edo State like a war-ravaged city before Oshiomhole took over?

In a participatory democracy, the party is supreme. How come Obaseki who was faithful to the rules of the party on whose back he rode to power suddenly found the same rule so objectionable that he was prepared to destroy the instrument which brought him to power?

With all Oshiomhole’s shortcomings, what no one can take away from him is that he has tried to bring sanity and discipline to a party that had no direction under John Oyegun, his predecessor.

Why is Obaseki colluding with “empire builders and fiefdom owners” who were caged by Oshiomhole for trying to use the party to serve self and their families? Why did Obaseki believe he will not be haunted by his certificate issue if fielded by PDP, his new party which first raised the issue in 2016 when he only escaped by the whiskers through court technicalities?

But let me say that Obaseki is not under inquisition. He has not broken any rule of engagement of new-breed politicians that have come to define the fourth republic. In fact, he is in good company. In his Edo home state, we still remember Tony Anenih who as chairman of Babangida’s decreed Social Democratic Party (SDP) sold off the victory of his party.

Tom Ikimi, his NRC counterpart rather than accept his party’s defeat gracefully buried Abiola’s victory by accepting to serve Abacha’s dictatorship as foreign minister. We also have in the same Edo State, John Oyegun, the immediate past chairman of APC who has been fueling the crisis within APC in his Edo State to spite Oshiomhole, his successor.

But it must also be admitted that military-baked new-breed politicians are not the exclusive preserve of Edo State which is but a microcosm of Nigeria.

Over 50% of governors elected on PDP platform in 1998 and 2003 were declared men without character by the courts that found them guilty of tampering with the resources of their various states.

The first set of senators after the 1998 elections spoke openly about their desire to recoup their expenses on the election.

Within three months they had come out with Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) through which fuel import licenses were allocated to over 100 companies fronting for them. A house probe was to later confirm the theft of about N1.7trillion through the fuel subsidy regime.

And of course, long before Obaseki was a Bukola Saraki who damaged the fortune of his party by moving from PDP to APC. In APC, he admitted trading off the victory of his party to secure the senate presidency and when he fell out with APC, he again moved back to PDP.

Other high-profile members of new-breed politicians include Aminu Tambuwal and Rotimi Amaechi. Both seem to be more loyal to themselves.

It is not therefore a surprise that our new breed politicians in the National Assembly whether PDP or APC are adjudged the highest paid lawmakers in the world.

But blame not Obaseki, Saraki, Tambuwal and all other military baked “new-breed” politicians. The fault is not with them but in their stars.

The military, having destroyed our political socialization process and imposed their own values ‘new-breed’ politicians even when equipped with certificate from Babangida’s School of Democracy cannot give what they don’t have.

Agents of political socialization such as the family, school, peers, the media, are under assault. Parents that are expected to influence the development of their children’s political orientations only know the military, PDP and APC.

The school environment is toxic with cult member’s wars. Our children don’t read newspapers and you switch on the television our musicians are singing about making money without working.

By Jide Oluwajuyitan

Last Sunday harsh criticism of President Buhari’s handling of our security challenges by the Northern Elders Forum (NEF) has once again brought to the fore the debate about the need for alternative approach to the handling of our crisis of nation building. The forum’s criticism of President Buhari’s administration did not come as a surprise. The forum worked against his ambition during his first three failed attempts to win the presidency and supported him neither in 2015 nor 2019. The case against Buhari according to Abubakar Atiku who got the forum’s backing in 2019 was that Buhari is not Fulani enough. He was probably considered too independent minded while his romance with the poor convinced them he was not going to be a president of law and order which are necessary to sustain a caste system especially in the north.

If there was a surprise at all, it was the government spokesmen resort to name-calling. After all, the forum merely stated the obvious. The ‘recent escalation of attacks by bandits, rustlers and insurgents”, they claimed “had left the people of the North completely at the mercy of armed gangs who roam towns and villages at will, wreaking havoc”. The body went on to accuse “the administration of President Buhari and governors of losing control over the imperatives of protecting people of the North, a constitutional duty that they swore to uphold.” And finally it was their view that  “the people of the North had never experienced this level of exposure to criminals who attack, kill, maim, rape, kidnap, burn villages and rustle cattle, while President Buhari issues threats and promises that have no effect”.

The Presidency’s response to the grave allegations was the dismissal of the forum as “a conglomeration of fake elders” whose “antipathy against President Buhari, and its preference for another candidate” could not stop the president’s re-election in 2019. But for the presidency, it did not just rained but poured during the week, in spite of its scathing acidic words.

Early in the week, there was a massive demonstration by Katsina indigenes who reminded the president that Abuja is not his father house just to let him know charity begins at home. A few days later, the Indigenous People of Katsina based in Abuja issued a statement saying Katsina residents now live in perpetual fear and are not sure of the safety of their lives and property. As they put it: “we have watched with a heavy heart how our people are being slaughtered like sheep and goats,…watched helplessly how communities are being invaded and how families and kindred are being wiped out by bandits while security agencies appear helpless.”

It was also in the same week, Senator Abubakar Kyari (Borno) took the case of his people to the senate. He narrated how the latest Boko Haram attack on a village in Gubio Local Government Area of Borno State on June 9 left over 90 persons killed and over 50 critically injured.

Senator Ali Ndume who admitted the killings that had been going on in the last 11 years in the north has been complicated  by added issues of banditry, herdsmen conflicts  and other security challenges in the North-central.   He urged the Federal Government to “immediately begin the implementation of the recommendations of the report of the Senate Ad Hoc Committee on Nigeria’s Security Challenges as a way of addressing the nation’s current security challenges”.

It must be said that Katsina, the President’s home state, which has been under siege in the last four years shares similar fate with southern Kaduna where bandits, insurgents and herdsmen received settlement funds from government only to seize  Kaduna-Abuja roads for several months forcing travellers to use train or airline;  Taraba, where Theophilus Danjuma, former Defence Minister after accusing the police and soldiers of aiding the killer squad, called on Nigerians to embark on self-defence to protect their lives and properties. In Benue, Plateau and Nasarawa, the mindless killings have become periodic rituals. In Zamfara the deployment of police and army formations, tanks, fighter jets and helicopters has not stopped mindless killings.

As against a government coherent strategy to confront the above tragedies, government spokesmen as usual reassured us that the president “is steadily and steadfastly focusing on the task of retooling Nigeria”.  I am not sure Nigerians have problems with President Buhari’s good intentions and his commitment to the Nigerian project. What Nigerians have problem with is strategy.

The president’s response has similarly brought little relief. According to him, “ending insurgency, banditry and other forms of criminality across the nation is being accorded appropriate priorities and the men and women of the Armed Forces of Nigeria have considerably downgraded such threats across all geopolitical zones”. Not many Nigerians who have become used to the president’s sanctimonious sing-song since 2016 will take that seriously. The president also spoke of how “the security agencies can nip in the bud any planned attacks in remote rural areas”. He did not say how they will do this with his unyielding opposition to state policing.

And finally, the president revealed that “the government had expanded the National Command and Control Centre to 19 states of the federation, resuscitated the National Public Security Communication System and commenced the implementation of the Community Policing Strategy.”

Solution to our crisis of nation-building is not more centralisation but more devolution of power. Except for the northern governors including those of the besieged states, Nigerians want local policing and not community policing controlled by the federal government.

In the north where Fulani constitute about 20% of the population, all emirs just as all governors, national assembly representatives and state houses of assembly members are said to be predominantly Fulani. The Fulani emirs and chiefs owned all the land while Hausas according to some recent studies own land only as a tenant of the local chief and must pay rents in form of produce every year. It is therefore understandable while northern governors are opposed to local policing.

President Buhari however has a unique opportunity to change this narrative in the north because of the support he enjoys among the ‘talakawas’ that consistently gave him 12 million northern votes since his involvement in presidential contest, the reason he was detested by the northern hegemonic class. The ongoing revolts in Sokoto, Zanfara and Katsina are evidence enough that the current caste system in the north where 90% of the 10 million of out of school pupils are children of the poor is a recipe for more violence in the near future.

It is also now clear that the old strategy of integrating a few non-Fulani through marriage, business and politics can no more serve the needs of 21st century northern Nigeria. Tafawa Balewa, a southern Bauchi minority whose grandmother according to Richard Sclar, his autobiographer wanted all Fulani out of their area or killed emerged prime minister only to fight Ahmadu Bello’s wars against Awo instead of Nigeria’s battle. In 1966, while the west was burning, he waited patiently for the premier of the north to return from Saudi Arabia before declaring state of emergency as demanded by students of the University of Ibadan. The waiting became too late for him and for the country. Like him, Gowon and Babangida fought wars on behalf of the northern hegemonic class. Buhari perhaps still has an opportunity to be remembered as a Nigerian leader.

Jide Oluwajuyitan

President Buhari in January this year directed the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment to establish agro-allied industry in each state of the federation.

According to Mariam Katagum, the minister of state, the plan to establish agro-allied industry in each senatorial district in the country is part of government’s effort to achieve food security and stimulate economic activities.

She also spoke about the textile industries where over 150 textile firms responsible for about two million jobs were forced to fold up due to smuggling of textile goods. CBN governor, Godwin Emefiele estimated the cost to the nation as an import bill of over $4bn

This commendable initiative is the right step in the right direction. I think it was Simon Kolawole of Thisday that reminded us not too long ago that the solution to our food problem is not in directing everyone to the farm but in adding value to some of our farm produce.

Akinwunmi Adesina of African Development Bank was also recently quoted as saying he was looking forward to the period Africa would be able to produce chocolate and sell same to 300 million Chinese as against the current exploitation by the west.

The truth is that our food security and general prosperity lie in adding value to our farm produce as against commodity trading that has impoverished African nations for three centuries.

For instance, it has been said the total revenue accruing to Cote D’Ivoire, the world biggest exporter of cocoa is less than 10% of the profit made by just one chocolate manufacturer in the USA.

Buhari’s new endeavour is also in line with the dreams of our founding fathers notably Ahmadu Bello, the premier of the North during the first republic who set up the biggest public enterprise conglomerate in Africa and Obafemi Awolowo, his counterpart in the West who set up the Oodua group that became the backbone of the region’s development efforts.

It is also on record that the federal government between 1960 and 1997 invested about $100 billion in public enterprises.

But throwing borrowed funds into agro-allied industries if we don’t first address the reasons why those public enterprises set up by our founding fathers collapsed and bring to book those responsible for disposing off $100b worth investments for a paltry $1billion will amount to hitting ourselves with a hammer a second time and expect a different result.

This column along with many other well-meaning Nigerians had pleaded with the president after his inauguration in 2015 to revisit and place on record for posterity, those behind the collapse of those enterprises as well as the main beneficiaries.

What the president was asked to do was not new. President Vladimir Putin revisited the sales of public enterprises in Russia and compelled those who were not faithful to the terms of sales to return same to government.

Putin’s initiative led to creation of millions of jobs for Russian youths and the economic recovery of Russia that was at a period a candidate for foreign aid.

Chief Obafemi Awolowo once spoke of the greed of the Nigerian educated elite and their dishonesty. According to him, given a choice between them and the colonial masters, ordinary Nigerians would choose the latter because with them they are guaranteed of justice and fair play.

A journey through memory will readily confirm the Nigerian political, economic, intellectual and military elite are the curse of Nigeria.

Babangida, in order to consolidate his position after he and M K O Abiola had been used to depose recalcitrant Buhari in 1985 surrounded himself with some Aso rock political and economic professors.

Knowing what Babangida wanted, the former convinced him he could decree political parties and also cut the umbilical cord between the old politicians and their political offspring while the latter fraudulently claimed there was no alternative to Structural Adjustment Programme despite warnings by the likes of respected Professor Sam Aluko who maintained  there was an alternative even to death.

And that was the intellectual legitimacy Babangida needed to embark on sale of federal government owned companies with directive to his military state administrators to do same in the name of commercialization.

Thus Ile Oluji Cocoa Industries was sold at give-away price while Cocoa Industry Ikeja was sold at an amount less than the cost of the land on which the industry was located, not to the children of cocoa farmers whose fathers’ sweat built the company, but allegedly to Babangida’s bidder from Kaduna State.

The southwest military administrators led by Bode George were said to be instrumental to the buyer’s securing of bank loan.

Using Margret Thatcher’s 1979 privatization exercise in Britain as justification, President Obasanjo and his PDP at the onset of the fourth republic sold off those enterprises Babangida could not sell before he was disgraced out of office over the June 12 debacle.

However, unlike  Thatcher’s British  privatization scheme through which about 50 public enterprises were sold to about 10 million shareholders of Britain’s 52 million population bringing over 50 billion pounds to government purse, our own Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) under Obasanjo, Atiku and El-Rufai according to report of a House probe, merely “supervised underhand dealings by privileged groups as shown by the sale of Daily Times, NICON, Nigeria Airways, Nigerian Newsprint Manufacturing Company (NNMC) Oku Iboku and Aluminum Smelter Company of Nigeria (ALSCON) Ikot Abasi”.

Peugeot Automobile Nigeria Limited (PAN), Volkswagen of Nigeria Limited (VON), Anambra Motors Manufacturing Company (ANAMMCO) Enugu, Steyr Nigeria Limited Bauchi; National Trucks Manufacturers (NTM) Kano and Leyland Nigeria Limited Ibadan in the 70s, although not sold but were mismanaged by the elite.

Automobile plants designed to produce 108,000 cars, 56,000 commercial vehicles, 10,000 tractors, 1,000,000 motorcycles and 1,000,000 bicycles annually with a prospect of providing an estimated 300,000 jobs collapsed.

The thriving automobile support industry including Michelin, Dunlop and 16 battery manufacturing firms spread across Nigeria from Ojota, Lagos Trade Fair Complex, Nasarawa Kaduna, Jimeta-Yola, in Adamawa State, Oluyole in Ibadan and Nnewi in Anambra suffered similar fate.

Importation and smuggling of used cars, sub-standard or used tyres and batteries, from China, Korea and Turkey have become thriving industries among Nigerian elite that ran the automobile industry aground.

Criminality and lawlessness thrive in Nigeria because of absence of governance. There has really been no governance since the end of Obasanjo’s presidency in 2007.

It is worse under President Buhari who has done everything to delegitimise his own government by some of actions and inactions.

Those who are importing the labour of other societies into the country while our own children roam the streets for job are not ghosts.

Past successive government as well as Buhari’s current administration simply lacked the political will to confront those who place their personal interests above that of the country.

The setting up of agro-allied industries in each senatorial seat of the 36 states is desirable but as our people say – the virus that afflict the vegetable lives within the vegetable.

With President Buhari’s ‘government of delegation by abdication’, the end products of his proposed agro-allied industries may not withstand an assault from unrepentant enemies that destroyed our once thriving pharmaceutical industry through flooding of Nigeria market with substandard drugs, the automotive support industry with the popular Michelin and Dunlop tyres the Exide and Ibeafo batteries with China-faked substitutes and the sabotage of the textile industries costing the nation an annual import bill of over $4bn.

By Jide Oluwajuyitan

Ayo Fasanmi, 95, Reuben Fasoranti 94 and Ayo Adebanjo 92, old Awoists and pillar of Afenifere Yoruba cultural and political movement are honourable men. As noble men, they are a pride to the Yoruba nation. Unfortunately, they recently allowed inconsistent men who once swore by Buhari’s name, Tinubu’s name and Afenifere Renewal Group’s name to desecrate the inner shrine of the cult-like cultural association and the centre could no longer hold.  Today, the duo of Fasanmi and Fasoranti, with great pain to us, their children, lead different factions of Afenifere while youths who once looked up to them for direction drifted into over 70 disparate groups speaking with different voices.

To the Yoruba, the commitment of our noble Afenifere cult members to the Yoruba cause has never been in doubt. It was their commitment to the unity of the Yoruba people who are by nature federalists that resulted in the giant strides in education, agriculture and industrialisation their people made between 1952 and 1962.

But I am sure our revered fathers also know Yoruba never had leaders they could not handle. Sango fought wars and won territories after territories, S.L Akintola was an unapologetic Yoruba irredentist and Bola Ige was dearly loved by the people but they were all left to literarily commit suicide when they took the support of their people for granted.

I am also sure our revered fathers know their people cannot be led by the nose. Awo, the sage as far back as 1947 had said the Yoruba would not vote for you because you are Yoruba if you don’t have policies that can positively impact their lives.

To the credit of Awo and our surviving noble Fasanmi, Fasoranti and Adebanjo, who had the foresight to educate their people, the stakes are today higher. More than any other time in their recent history, the Yoruba after being liberated from darkness have become critical thinkers in addition to being discriminatory voters.

In 2011, Yoruba helped installed Jonathan president. He spent the next four years marginalising Yoruba but only went to Sagamu on the eve of an election to flag off the construction of Lagos-Ibadan expressway which this column back then described as a ‘road show’. He set up a Confab where Femi Okunronmu played a vital role to show he identified with Yoruba quest for restructuring. The report was never implemented.  But the Yoruba people waited patiently for 2015 to pay him back with his bad coins despite the directive of our revered Pa Fasoranti and Ayo Adebanjo.

It was the same story in 2019 when they campaigned against Buhari. The rejection of their directive by the people was not an act of ingratitude but a confirmation of what Awo the sage said back in 1947 that the Yoruba cannot be led by the nose.

Yoruba desperately wanted the restructuring of the country. But they instinctively knew it was not going to come from Obasanjo who was the major beneficiary of the current chaos that literarily allowed him to climb the palm tree from the top by becoming an elected president without his Yoruba political base. They couldn’t have suddenly forgotten Pa Ayo Adebanjo’s confession that Afenifere was sold a dummy by Obasanjo in 2003 when he exploited their quest for restructuring to rig all the Yoruba governors with the exception of Lagos out of office. They did not forget Obasanjo did the same thing during the 2007 election regarded as the worst in our nation’s history which forced President Yar’Adua, the major beneficiary to set up the Uwais Commission. Relief only came to the west when Afenifere Renewal Group, instead of adopting the old Afenifere ‘operation wet e” approach to election rigging, chose to approach the judiciary through which stolen mandates in Edo, Ondo, Osun were retrieved. The Yoruba also remembered Pa Adebanjo after the judicial victory praising Bola Tinubu for liberating Southwest from Obasanjo and his PDP.

Yoruba who hardly forget remember how Obasanjo has been pandering to the demand of the north since his first coming as Nigeria military Head of State in 1976. To consolidate his position, Yoruba did not forget he sacrificed General Olutoye.They remembered all his policies were geared towards appeasing the north over the death of Murtala Muhammed. They remembered that as against introducing  policies such as building more schools and training more teachers to address the educational challenges of the north that was according to Richard Sclar, Tafawa Balewa’s biographer, 70 years behind the south at independence, he initiated policies such as quota system of admission to tertiary institutions to slow down the south. As evidence of ill-will against Yoruba, Obasanjo took over regional economic and educational institutions including universities. For the discriminatory Yoruba voters, Obasanjo’s endorsement of Atiku in 2019 actually sealed his fate and our revered leaders’ intervention was a huge joke.

Election is the most important variable in a democracy. Election must be won before any discussion of a party agenda. After the 2003 and 2007 election debacle, Afenifere Renewal Group seemed to be telling their fathers that they were the best equipped to win election. And they did. They also went into an alliance with a conservative north and for the first time in the nation’s history participated in running the federal government. The answer to President Buhari’s incompetence is not quitting but in working to ensure his success.

The above narrative is important to let the trio of Fasanmi, Fasonranti and Adebanjo realise they are held in high esteem by grateful Yoruba they have served selflessly for over 70 years. They should see it as a honour that the people they liberated from darkness have in addition to being discriminatory voters become critical thinkers.

But their task is not done. They must provide leadership to the over 70 disparate groups currently speaking with different voices for the Yoruba nation. Since it is part of our culture that a child brought to the world who does not strive to be better than his parents is brought to the world in vain, they cannot afford to throw away the baby with bathwater.

All the groups are important starting with the Afenifere Renewal Group, the brain behind DAWN and Yoruba Academy and a group that has also demonstrated its capacity at winning elections and making friends outside the Yoruba nation; the Yoruba World Congress, an umbrella for Yoruba in diaspora. Professor Banji Akintoye who had worked closely with the group for over 25 years while in the US was recently elected leader in absentia by majority of the over 60 Yoruba groups that met in Ibadan. The population of Yoruba in the diaspora especially in South American countries where Yoruba language is recognized as official language and Yoruba religion has large following is said to be over 50 million. There is also OPC and some militant groups. Our revered fathers have a duty to reassure our angry and frustrated youths who today think secession is the answer to self-determination that we are a resilient and reflective people that choose its own wars. The Yoruba do not want the disintegration of their country but want for others what they want for themselves within a Nigeria that is efficiently managed. They must have good news for Papa Awo when they finally join him in the beyond.

Jide Oluwajuyitan

The mood of the nation today allows Buhari to ignore the elders, and if he so desires, seek from his Daura village a minister for Federal Capital Territory who would not cede prime Abuja land to a sitting president, his wife and secretary to government, ministers of petroleum and finance who will not jointly preside over the theft and disbursement of N1.7trilion to fuel fraudsters; a minister of internal affairs who will not fleece young job seekers of over N1billion and end up supervising state murder of some of them through sloppy arrangement”.

That was this column’s September 2, 2015 call on President Buhari to ignore the reactions of Professor Nwabueze, Pa Edwin Clark and Pa Okunronmu to his first wave of appointments which they claimed heavily tilted towards the north.

With the level of incompetence displayed by President Buhari’s APC government in managing our crisis of nation-building in the last five years, many will today readily admit we have merely replaced the impunity and recklessness of Jonathan and his ministers with the impunity, sectionalism and cronyism of Buhari and his ‘loyal gate keepers’.

The basis of my optimism in 2015 was Buhari’s promise to make a U-turn from a 50-years journey through an uncharted dark alleys that led to nowhere  and return to Awo’s “Path to Nigerian freedom” never taken, which guarantees social justice for our multi-ethnic society that shares some parallels with India where smaller ethnic groups that cannot stand on their own form a federation within India federation of big ethnic nationalities.

Most of those who voted Buhari in 2015 strongly believed the author of ‘Nigeria has no other country they can call their own’ and who Maitama Sule in 2015 described as: “a Nigerian with sense of justice and fair play”; was out to enthrone social justice.

If he ever erred, his miracle-seeking supporters thought, it would be on account of impatience to see the country attain her potentials. Even those he had jailed in 1984 for reporting the truth that ‘embarrassed government’ gave him another chance.

Disagreement over ethnic and religious representations are but symptoms of crisis of nation-building associated with multi-ethic, multi-lingual and multi-religious state like ours.

Quite often, the answer to unity in diversity is a workable federal arrangement that will guarantee freedom, liberty and equality for every linguistic group, making up the federating state. This is never achieved through coercion, the option chosen by the military since 1966.

And this is why all the self-serving military social engineering efforts such as JAMB, quota system of admission to tertiary institutions and federal character in recruitment and appointment have become of sources of disharmony than foundations of unity.

But what went wrong? First, President Buhari has shown no inclination towards governing the country. He instead chose to abdicate governance to loyal gate-keepers who were not equipped for modern art of governance and who probably never shared his pan-Nigeria passion that won him the 2015 election.

Forgetting the buck stops at his table, he allowed his warring self-serving ‘loyal gate keepers’ to substitute bureaucratic systematic processes and organized hierarchies that are necessary for maintaining order and ensuring maximize efficiency with arrogance, impunity and favouritism.

The Presidency was in chaos. Without reference to the acting President, Lawal Daura organized mid-night invasion of Supreme Court justices’ houses and later the National Assembly.

Abubakar Malami without clearance from anyone went to Dubai for a meeting with Abdulrasheed Maina, a fugitive offender on the run from justice after an indictment by a probe set up by the National Assembly. Malami even attempted to smuggle him through the back door into the bureaucracy.

Forgetting that participatory democracy in a multi-cultural, multi-lingual and multi-religious setting  makes interventions of constituents groups and individuals in political decisions and policies that affect their lives imperative, the gatekeepers started to exploit the president’s weakness including studying his body language to fill key positions not on the basis of merit but tribe and religion inclinations.

Yusuf Magaji Bichi from Kano was appointed on September 14, 2018 to replace Matthew Seiyefa from Bayelsa who had replaced Lawal Daura, a prominent member of Aso Villa house of commotion. Some elders from Southern Nigeria and the Middle-Belt claimed six competent senior hands in the State Security Service, who were from the South were bypassed to appoint Bichi, a northerner who had retired from the service.

On September 14, Zainab Ahmed replaced Mrs Kemi Adeosun who resigned over NYSC certificate scandal as finance minister.

The trend continued with the replacement of Babatunde Fowler as chairman of Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) with Muhammed Nami and Dakuku Peterside as Director-General of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) with  Dr. Bashir Jamoh .

Punch newspapers in its August 1, 2016 editorial called attention to what it described as President Buhari’s ‘unprecedented sectionalism’.

According to the editorial, “the president ‘ring-fenced himself with appointees from his northern constituency; recruited a retired military officer to man the Department of State Services; imposed a personal acquaintance as Chief of Staff, and loaded the other security and law enforcement agencies heavily in favour of northerners  and ‘in spite of public opinion, he replaced the immediate past Inspector-General of Police, a Southerner, with a Northerner, an Assistant Inspector-General whose ascension induced the retirement in one fell swoop of 21 DIGs and AIGs who were senior to him.’  The paper had advised the president to “rise above primordial instincts and become a father to all Nigerians”.

On August 10, 2016, a coalition of Christian groups raised an alarm  not just  about the lopsided appointments in the security services, but also about what was described as the privatization of  the education key positions including the National University Commission, (NUC) the polytechnics, Colleges of Educations, TETFUND, JAMB, NTI, NABTEB and UBEC controlled by northerners.

A prominent member of the northern political class and Second Republic lawmaker, Junaid Muhammed on his part had described the situation where about seven names he alleged are the president’s relatives, constitute the power behind the throne in the villa as the “worst form of nepotism in the history of government in Nigeria.”

But as indicated above, nepotism, favouritism and lopsided recruitment and appointment are but symptoms of crisis of nation-building which according to ex-President Obasanjo “must be given continued attention to give every citizen a feeling of belonging and a stake in his or her country”.

Even with our First Republic’s three regions (later four), there were struggle for federal positions. The response of the Western Region to the control of federal institutions such as Yaba College of Technology, University of Lagos and University of Ibadan by Igbo, the junior partner in the NPC/NCNC coalition was to set up University of Ife to cater for the interest of her people. That was possible because we ran a fiscal federalism.

Fair and equitable representation helps in managing crisis of nation-building. But what reduces tension in a multi-ethnic society is a workable federal structure that guarantees social justice for all citizens.

There is no part of our country that is today guaranteed peace with the export of insecurity and almajiris to other parts of the country by the same north that controls most of the security formations and seven of the eight key positions in the education sector.

By Jide Oluwajuyitan

Ibrahim Gambari, Nigeria’s former permanent representative to the United Nations (UN) and a former foreign minister (1984-85) last week replaced the late Abba Kyari pas President Buhari’s chief of staff.  He promised to serve the president to the best of his ability by offering him his “loyalty, competence and support”.

Both Gambari and Kyari to whom he narrowly lost the position in 2015 share the same world view with President Buhari. The only difference perhaps is in approach. The president had described his late chief of staff as ‘a loyal gate keeper’. Gambari, was no less a loyal gate keeper because although shut out of the presidency after losing the contest,  he unofficially remained part of President Buhari’s administration, using his wide contacts in the diplomatic community and the media to launder the image of a president which was continuously under assault as a result of the selfish interest of those that caged him.

I suspect it was out of frustration Professor Ganbari called me early in March 2015 to discuss the piece titled “President Buhari needs help” published on March 3, that year. He had said his attention was drawn to the piece by Professor George Obiozor, the former Nigerian ambassador to the United States. All through the discussion, he kept on repeating why it was necessary to bring the piece to the attention of the president. I had wondered after the discussion why Professor Gambari needed to inform anyone before passing an opinion he considered helpful to the president. The answers we now know lies in Abba Kyari’s gate-keeping style which did not preclude shutting-out even those who carried Buhari on their back on his way to the presidency.

The main thrust of the piece that close to a year after Nigerians vengefully voted out Jonathan who was never really in charge and his government of ‘delegation by abdication’, as against governance, what Nigerians saw was “creeping dictatorship and offensive indolence from a government of a party dominated by young and vibrant intellectuals; that some self-serving northern elite who love neither Nigeria nor Buhari were trying to make a Leviathan out of Buhari; that ‘as against a think tank, Buhari like all oligarchs, surrounded himself with short-sighted people who are more interested in protecting what they think the north is currently benefiting from our federation; that modern government is a science and democracy is a game of consensus and compromise where delegation without abdication has been found to be more productive than centralization which produces nothing but paralysis”. And finally, the piece reminded the president that he would need more than “integrity and honesty, virtues which were not enough to win him the presidency during his first three attempts to become a successful president”.

Very little has changed. Many of these observations are as true today as they were five years ago. The good news however is that Gambari, having spent all his life proffering solutions to crisis of primordial attachment and feeling of group identity among warring nations, has his job clearly cut out for him. He is uniquely placed to help Buhari change the course of history.

First, Gambari understands communication is critical to the political process. Buhari is not a Leviathan or an Emir but the servants of the people having been democratically elected. ‘The master’, Jesus, the greatest social crusader said ‘must become the servant’. President Buhari must speak to defend his position on any issue. That is the only way to earn legitimacy in a democracy.

Let us remind Professor Gambari where communication would have made a difference. Some seasons ago, Fulani herdsmen from Loco and Doma in Nasarawa State ‘in combat gears, armed with AK-47 rifles, were said to have invaded several villages and farm settlements from Aila to Obagaji, Akwu to Odejo, gunning down children, women, men and the elderly leading to about 400 deaths. Paul Ede, who led the coalition of protesting civil society groups to the National Assembly claimed the invaders after chasing out about 7000 farmers and their families from their homes, took over the villages with their 5000 cows, a development the state police commissioner also confirmed.

In his own intervention, retired General Theophilus Danjuma, former Minister of Defence described what is “happening in Taraba and other states as ethnic cleansing “which needed to be stopped if we are to prevent the nation from the fate of Somalia”. Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar in a statement had argued that: “Labeling the attackers as Fulani is wrong. Fulani people are peaceful and live in harmony with other ethnicities. To call the killer herdsmen Fulani was according to him, was a misnomer”. Supporting him, Governor Nasir El Rufai of Kaduna told us that killer herdsmen were “non-Nigerian Fulani from Niger, Mali, Chad and other such places”. Long before this, Fulani herdsmen, had been rated by Global Terrorism Index as the fourth deadliest terrorist group in the world, coming after Boko Haram, ISIS and Al-Shabab. Of course, the perception in the absence of a coherent response from government was that the president was protecting his Fulani kinsmen.

In democracy and even in dictatorship, public opinion is everything. And   because government is built around people’s sentiments, leaders can only ignore public opinion at their own peril. As Abraham Lincoln, the 16th American president, warned: “Public sentiments is everything. With it nothing can fail. Against it nothing can succeed. Whoever moulds public sentiments goes deeper than he who enacts statutes or pronounces judicial decisions”. Our history is full of relics of those who ignored public opinion. Gowon ignored the general sentiments of Nigerians about 1976 as the handover date by the military and became marooned in Britain where he joined fresh undergraduates to queue for food. Buhari despite his crusade for a better Nigeria, ended up in prison in 1985. Babangida who exploited public opinion to secure power moved from disaster to disaster after rejecting the popular sentiments of Nigerians.

Professor Gambari from his works at the UN knows that social dislocations in the world are caused by social injustice. Nigeria has been haunted by a spectre of injustice since 1962.This is why an angry Pa Ayo Adebanjo has been consistent in his demand for a restructured Nigeria  with a federal constitution which he said was the agreement reached by our founding fathers and sanctioned by the colonialists in London in 1954 and implemented in 1960. He has been unequivocal as to what his people want out of Nigeria: “autonomy, within Nigeria as an independent entity, self-sustained but not subservient to any part in a true federation.”

Besides ethnic representatives such as Pa Ayo Adebanjo of Afenifere, Prof Nwabueze and General Theophilus Danjuma , other eminent Nigerians such as Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka, who served 30 months in detention during the civil war, Emeka Anyaoku, former secretary general of Commonwealth of Nations, Balarabe Musa, ex- governor of old Kaduna State have asked for a restructured Nigeria, an intervention President Buhari dismissed as “those involved in loose talk”.

Gambari is uniquely placed to let those who kept on insisting ‘Nigerian unity is not negotiable’ understand they constitute a greater threat to the unity of the country.

Finally, as against those who study the President’s body language before acting, Gambari is uniquely placed to remind him of Maitama Sule’s 2015 admonition: “You are a Nigerian with sense of justice and fair play; Do justice to us, do justice to them and do justice to everyone…With justice you can rule Nigeria well. Power remains in the hand of infidel if he is fair but not in the hand of a believer if he is unfair.”