The Nation Newspaper

Category: Jide Oluwajuyitan

  • Buhari and survival of APC

    President Muhammadu Buhari during last Friday’s meeting of the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the All Progressives Congress (APC)  in Abuja charged the leaders of his party to work hard towards ensuring the party survives beyond his administration. History, he said would be unkind to the party leaders if the party collapses at the end of his administration. He went on to admonish the leading lights of the party to respect the wishes of their constituents who he said should not be taken for granted because “they know what they are doing”.

    “The messenger”, as advocate marketers will say “is the message”. The truth is that if anyone has taken his party or Nigerian voters for granted, it is President Buhari who by his body language gives an impression he was doing the party that sponsored him for an elective office and Nigerians that voted him into office, a favour.

    The expression of concern for the survival of APC, the platform through which the president secured power after three failed attempts through other platforms, many will argue, is belated. It was the president, goaded on by sycophants that betrayed the party after his 2015 victory. It was the president that failed to provide effective leadership for a party he treated more as a distraction than a vehicle with which he rode to power. And  it was the president’s disdain for his party and distrust for politicians that paved the way for the take-over of the party by Bukola Saraki and his like-minds senators who went on to make the country ungovernable for four years. In fact,  to many objective observers, it was President Buhari’s inability to outgrow past serial betrayals by politicians in military uniform and those in ‘agbada/babanriga’ that deprived him of the much-needed politicians’ support for effective governance of the country for the greater part of his first term. Unfortunately, he sowed the wind; it is his party that will reap the possible whirlwind in 2023. The president therefore, more than the leading lights of his party, poses greater threat to the survival of APC in 2023.

    “I swore by the holy book that I would go by the constitution”, the president told his party’s leading lights last week as a way of dismissing insinuations that he, like ex-President Obasanjo before him, was nursing a third-term agenda. While most Nigerians will agree the president as a man of character will never embark on such laughable endeavor, many will however readily admit President Buahri has been faithful neither to the constitution in other regards nor his party manifesto.

    Admittedly, we are a society of law-breakers where those who have no regard for rule of law want protection under rule of law. Driven by his blind fury to deal decisively with those who want freedom without responsibility and at the same time want to preside over an empire of slaves, he has in a number of cases betrayed his impatience with the rule of law. His alleged provincialism is of course also a betrayal of the federal character provision in our constitution. No matter how good intentioned his actions are, his APC party will have to answer for his constitutional breaches in 2023.

    The president secured  much needed support during the 2015 election from some critical  segments of the country because of APC’ s provision for restructuring in its manifesto as  solution to our unresolved national question. Following his victory, the president ignored this election promise just as he did the report of a face-saving committee set up by his embarrassed party that recommended devolution of power from a dysfunctional centre, state  and community policing as immediate answers to  increasing insecurity, banditry, kidnapping and other crimes which constituted an affront to the  legitimacy of his government.

    It is the primary role of political parties in a participatory democracy to collate and channels views of the voters to government they install. The party therefore becomes the channel through which the electorates speak to their government. Neither APC nor the electorate can be regarded as participants in President Buhari’s government which many believed, was hijacked by a mafia during his first term. Again it is not President Buhari but his party that will be on trial in 2023.

    The president’s 2019 victory was secured from two major geo-political zones of the country where the president enjoys a cult-like followership.  He secured the needed minimum support in the Southwest geo-political zone but lost South-south, Southeast and North-central geo-political zones. The outcome of the 2019 election was almost a replication of that of 1964 that led to a constitutional crisis which contributed to the 1967-70 civil war. The challenge that awaits APC in 2023 if a northern candidate emerges is how to resolve what the late Senator Okadigbo described as the ‘arithmetic of Nigeria politics’ – a situation where the north or two geo-political zones from the north decide the fate of the country if we accept democracy is a game of numbers.

    Read Also: Buhari to APC leaders: party must not die after my tenure

    Because of Nigeria’s unique ‘arithmetic of politics’, Buhari was invincible in 2019 in spite of his mishandling of  the mindless killings of Nigerians by Fulani immigrants from West African countries, the unrestrained comments by his close aides which seemed to have emboldened those waging war against our compatriots and the arrogance of some northern politicians who openly canvassed for conferment of citizenship on stateless Fulani immigrants from west African nations through  taxpayers’ supported RUGA programme. All these will surely haunt APC in 2023.

    Finally, “History will be fair to us if the APC remains strong and not only holds the centre but makes gains in the states”; the President had told stalwarts of his political party during the said Friday meeting.  Political party, Sigmund Neumann once argued presupposes identification with a group and differentiation from another”. Many will readily agree that it is difficult to make a difference between APC and PDP with the ongoing crisscrossing of many politicians facing criminal charges between the two parties.

    There are more parallels. PDP was once big, strong and appeared invincible and in fact boasted it would rule the country for an uninterrupted 60 years. They did everything except addressing   our crisis of nation building.

    Today, like PDP, APC is big. It controls the centre and about 25 states. But rather than embark on constitutional amendment to resolve the national question, the party seems to be more interested in waging PDP’s unfinished constituency projects’ war with the presidency. Nothing has been said about the outrageous salaries and allowances the 8th National Assembly awarded themselves. It has been business as usual.

    Both have failed the true test of a political party which is fixing both the political agenda and policies of a ruling party. Both have not been known to be receptive to public opinion without which democracy can flourish. Both are committed to the interest of only their members. Except President Buhari changes the narrative, a common fate awaits both in 2023.

  • Security votes as ‘disguised theft’

    Many concerned Nigerians have expressed misgivings about the abuse of security votes by Nigeria political elite operating at all levels. Unfortunately, public opinion which is the pillar of democracy in most participatory democracies counts for little here. Perhaps this explains why  the   Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) last week once again took it upon itself  to file a lawsuit in the Federal High Court, Abuja “seeking leave to apply for judicial review and an order of mandamus to direct and compel President Muhammadu Buhari, Senate President Ahmed Lawan, and Speaker of the House of Representatives Femi Gbajabiamila to disclose details of allocations, disbursement and spending of security votes by the federal government, 36 state governors and 774 local governments between 1999 and 2019.

    With the increasing “lack of effective protection of the rights to security and welfare, life and physical integrity of millions of Nigerians” despite yearly disbursement of N241.2 billion, SERAP believes Nigerians need to be reassured  constitutional provisions which compel  government to protect all Nigerians as against few people in government is not being carried out in reverse.

    SERAP seems to speak to the fears of apprehensive Nigerians who watch helplessly as both the federal and state governments deplore security votes for the protection of government, its officials and their family members at the expense of those who traded their freedom for government’s protection.   They see elected officials as well as government appointees move around with lorry loads of police escorts even when they are on social outings.  Nigerians daily observe obscene scenes of law-abiding Nigerians chased off the road by gun-wielding police escorts to protect wives of powerful ministers and elected officials on the way to the market or to the salon. While this massive misuse of security votes by government officials goes on, the level of insecurity, violence, kidnappings and killings in many parts of the country is at an all-time high.

    Unfortunately like every self-inflicted problem in our society such as the current unworkable unitary superstructure foisted on a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural and heterogeneous society which requires simple solution such as retracing our steps back to the ‘Nigeria’s path to Freedom’ never taken, a few powerful and influential members of the political, economic and military elite who are benefiting from our tragedy insist we must trudge on even when it is obvious we have lost direction.

    And those who clearly understand that a multi-cultural society cannot thrive on a unitary constitution that allocates 68 items to the centre, 30 as concurrent with no residual list are equally playing the ostrich. They admit the constitution is deficient but insist governors can work round it to provide service. But where is the incentive to provide service? And why should most of our governors without vision sacrifice a system that rewards indolence for the type of sacrifice Chief Anthony Enahoro needed to make during the first republic to ensure the first television in Africa was ready for commissioning within three months?

    Where is the incentive to be resourceful when a dysfunctional centre doles out funds to local governments that constitutionally do not report to it? Chukwuma Soludo, the former CBN governor once said Nigeria is the only country in the world where such happens. And why should state governors be accountable when the centre that has taken over their functions dole out funds every month. Ex-President Jonathan once argued the states can only ask for accountability from their governors if the governors are spending their taxes. That perhaps explains why our governors are so powerful. They are accountable to neither their states where they sometimes owe several months of salary arrears nor answerable to the federal government because even with the defective 1999 constitution, the federal government is not superior to the states.

    And precisely because they are as equal and coordinates both involved in what someone describes as “security votes as disguised theft”, the federal government cannot dictate how states dispense their security votes which range between N4b and N24b annually.

    It is on record that Babangida’s  administration ‘initiated the corrupt culture of maintaining a huge monthly security vote virtually as personal pocket money’ during his fraudulent eight years of ‘transition without end’. He freely deployed funds as patronage in the guise of providing security especially after the failed Orkah coup. The 1994 Okigbo Panel report on the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) claimed $12.2 billion was diverted to off-budget accounts during Babangida’s regime. His successors have tried to build on his baleful legacy.

    Using security votes as a decoy, Abacha stole the country blind during his war against NADECO, his regime’s nemesis.

    Abdulsalami Abubakar built on the legacy of Abacha. Besides the allegation of Hamza Al-Mustapha, Abacha’s powerful chief security officer that his regime used security votes to allegedly bribe Yoruba Obas in order to assuage their raw feelings over the death of MKO Abiola, their son and the winner of the 1993 election who died mysteriously under his watch, what was left of the national reserve of $7.1 billion he inherited from Abacha at the end of one year was $3.1 billion.

    It was widely alleged that the Obasanjo administration freely deployed security votes to rig the 2007 elections considered the worst election in the nation’s history. It was also widely speculated that the N50b voted for members of 6th assembly for his failed third term bid must have come from security votes since it was not captured under any heading.

    The huge sum of money in foreign currency ex-President Jonathan allegedly shared out to Yoruba Obas, some urban ethnic groups and proscribed Oodua militant groups were believed to have come from security votes. Transparency International claim President Buhari’s security votes increased from $46.2 million (N9.3 billion to $51 million (N18.4 billion in two years 2015-2016.

    On the whole, a May 2018 report by the body titled “Camouflaged Cash: How Security Votes’ Fuel Corruption in Nigeria” provided a damning report about abuse of security votes by successive Nigerian leaders. It says in part: “Security votes’ are opaque corruption-prone security funding mechanisms widely used by Nigerian officials. As a relic of military rule, by which certain federal, state and local government officials are allocated funds to disburse at their discretion”, it claimed “security vote spending exceeds 70 percent of the annual budget of the Nigeria Police Force, more than the Nigerian Army’s annual budget and more than the Nigerian Navy and Nigerian Air Force’s annual budget combined”.

    Again as it is with our unresolved national question, but for the greed of our political elite, the solution to abuse of security votes is simple. General Abubakar promulgated the 1999 Constitution. Section 14 (2b) states explicitly that the security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government. The second schedule of the constitution also makes the federal government exclusively responsible for the security of the country, as well as the police, armed forces, and border control. The simple solution would have been a revisit of the 1999 constitution by the elected representatives of the people in Abuja.

    But as if to confirm there can be no redeeming grace among Nigeria political elite, our lawmakers join their counterparts in the executive in “disguise theft” through a salary structure that positions them the highest paid lawmakers in the world. And five months into the 9th Senate, it is obvious a part cannot be holier than the whole. Nigeria political elites suffer from the same affliction.

  • NYSC’s misguided youths and their warring pastors

    Last week, it was reported that the authorities of Nigeria’s National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) decamped one Miss Tolulope Ekundayo, from Sagamu Orientation Camp in Ogun State for insisting on wearing skirt as against trouser which she claimed negated her Christian faith. The NYSC Director in Ogun, Mrs. Theresa Anosike, however defended NYSC position saying “ by insisting on wearing skirt instead of trouser, Ekundayo acted against the undertaking which she had earlier signed along with her colleagues on dress code.’’ She also disclosed that the misguided young lady swore she “will rather forgo the service year than wear the kits.’’’

    Development later confirmed she was egged on by her father and her pastor.  Not long after boasting to the NYSC authorities that the person her father sent to pick her was on his way, a man who “identified himself as Apostle Adenuga Otaru of the Antioch Church, Sagamu, who also doubled as chairman, Remo chapter of the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria, turned up and signed an undertaking to take the girl away.

    And within the same weekend and for a similar reason,  two female corps members – Okafor Love Obianuju and Odji Oritsetsolaye, – were said to have been expelled from the 2019 Batch C Stream 1 in Ebonyi NYSC camp . What runs parallel between the Ekundayo, Okafor and Odji cases was the encouragement of their Pentecostal pastors. In fact in the latter case, the  Christian Association of Nigeria’s (CAN) Special Assistant on Media and Communications to the CAN President, Rev. Adebayo Oladeji, issued a statement  to warn that the ‘two ladies should not be victimised for holding on to their faith.’

    First, logic would have suggested the wearing of long trouser in mosquito invested camps where these young girls and other members engage in various sporting activities and paramilitary training which involve climbing, running and jumping would have made more sense except that we also know that for Nigeria, Christians and Muslims clerics and their poor miracle seeking youths, there can be no meeting point between reason and religion.

    But let us first examine what the Holy Books say about dressing. All the holy books especially those of the Abrahamic religion- the Torah, the Holy Bible and the Holy Quran demand of women is decent dressing. Thus First Timothy 2:9-10 admonishes women “who profess godliness to adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty”. First Corinthians 6:19-20 also advises women to “glorify God in their body by dressing modestly and not provocatively” to prevent men lusting after them because their “body is the temple of the Holy Spirit”. Similarly, the Holy Quran (7:26] says “O children of Adam, we have provided you with garments to cover your bodies”, stressing that “the best garment is the garment of righteousness” while in 24:31, God orders the women to “cover their bosoms whenever they dress up”.

    Most scholars believe Hijab as a dress code therefore has nothing to do with the Torah, the Bible, Islam and the QURAN. It had its origin in Greco-Roman culture, of women wearing the veil and men, head-cover, a cultural practice adopted by the Jews who wrote it in the Talmud and later by Christians while the Hadith book writers, after the death of Prophet Mohammed took after the Jews as they did with other Jewish traditions.

    The purpose of religion in society according to Judaism, Christianity and Islam, the Abrahamic religion we subscribe to in this part of the world, as demonstrated by Jesus Christ, the Messiah and the greatest social crusader the world has ever known as well as Mohammed, the last prophet, is promotion of peaceful co-existence to avoid bloodshed between the privileged avaricious few (the 1% that control the resources of the world) and the underprivileged majority in society.  Jesus Christ underscored this when He said to the pastors of His day “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees; you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices – mint and dill and cumin. But you have neglected the weightier matters of the law, justice, and mercy and faith, and for serving as blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel (Mathew 23:23-26).

    Read Also: Why we evicted Corps Members from Ebonyi Camp- NYSC

    Jesus seems to be speaking of today’s Nigeria prosperity prophets and pastors who exploit the fears of the most vulnerable, especially the youths in our society. They abandon their primary role of providing the moral tone desperately needed to create a moral society and are busy breeding Christian and Muslim fundamentalists who when not fighting with authority over the right to wear veils in law courts, are engaged in fruitless struggle over wearing of skirt in mosquito invested NYSC camps where youths undergo some form paramilitary and other forms of physical training.

    In the circumstances where Jesus admonished his rebellious Jewish kinsmen to “give on to Caesar what belongs to Caesar”, our pastors are sponsoring rebellion of youths against the state. And for maximum effect, they are adopting blackmail as a weapon.

    Today their battle-cry is ‘“In this country, religious right is an inalienable right that must be respected”. Or “If our government agencies have no regard for the way people worship God, then it means they are satanic”. And they are advising affected corps members to go to court, citing the way the Muslims sued the Nigerian Law School over the hijab controversy.

    The pastors have however not told Nigerians how decisions of some state institutions to enforce dress code constitute a breach of religious rights of Nigerians.

    Unfortunately, our nation is the greatest loser. As students in the universities – fertile ground for great and sometimes grandiose ideas, who are being trained to manage society, the youths are expected to be at home with all the religions of the world from Pre-historic religion or belief in Supreme Being and fear of the unknown to Egyptian belief in afterlife; Judaism and its Babylonian origin; Christianity and the mystery of the incarnation and Divinity of Christ; Hinduism and Law of Karma, Buddhism; Confucianism; Taoism and Shintoism. Tragically our youths hardly read anything. The result is that prosperity prophets, pastors and Imams become pathfinders for those who by virtue of youth are expected to curious, discerning and adventurous.

    And as products of our universities,  youths are regarded as the  ‘salt of life’, saddled with onerous responsibility of managing society, through policy conceptualization, policy formulation and implementation  that will determine the fate of children yet unborn, those in school , the working population and the aging. That we have a dysfunctional system and a decaying society is precisely because our bureaucracy is populated by ill-equipped youths.

    Tragically, our warring pastors and Imams, who are currently engaged in unproductive arguments over the wearing of veils and trousers don’t believe our young girls have anything to learn from Israel, (the chosen people) where religion is not allowed to stand in the way of reason and consequently lead the world in science, commerce, arts, literature and communication and Saudi Arabia where girls serve as pilots of some of the world biggest commercial aircrafts and jet fighters.

     

    ‘Logic would have suggested the wearing of long trouser in mosquito invested camps where these young girls and other members engage in various sporting activities and paramilitary training which involve climbing, running and jumping would have made more sense…’

     

  • In defence of Okoi Obono-Obla

    Whether the battle is fought with ‘deodorant or with insecticide’, President Buhari’s commitment to war on corruption has never been in doubt. His refrain has always been –  “if we don’t kill corruption, corruption will kill us”. Because of a mindset that everyone is a thief until he or she can prove his innocence, he was during his first coming as military head of state unable to make a distinction between   politicians who spent state resources to set up private banks, marry new wives and those who spent such resources to build universities and provide infrastructure for their people. They all without discrimination got long jail sentences ranging from 100-200 years. He has remained focused despite being described by political enemies as one-issue president. Fighting corruption is what Buhari probably wants to be remembered for.

    But now we are in a democracy which allows for  dissent even within his kitchen cabinet just as it provides a breeding ground for people like Obolo-Obla , former chairman of the Special Investigation Panel for the Recovery of Public Property (SIPRPP)  who  shares his passion for and mindset on anti-corruption war.

    Following its inauguration by the then Acting President Yemi Osinbajo in August 2017, Obono-Obla  went after everyone –lawmakers, judges, public servants  including those working in the offices of the vice president and the Secretary to the Government of the Federation. He asserted albeit without proof that “most of the buildings in Abuja are owned by directors in public service” and threatened to recover from ‘’‘public officers who have assets that are beyond their legitimate earnings’’.

    By October 2018, Okoi Obolo-Obla was reeling out list of his achievements: recovery of N4 billion and $7 million in cash as well as physical assets by the Special Presidential Investigation Panel for Recovery of Public Property (SPIPP) in its various operations. He said the $7 million was recovered from the previous management of the Nigeria Export and Import (NEXIM) Bank who had “illegally placed” it in Heritage Bank. The naira component of the recoveries, according to him, include N533 million and land valued at N1.5 billion also from the former NEXIM management. He also reported the recovery of  N24 million misappropriated by some directors of the National Theatre, and two hectares of land worth N2 billion, belonging to the National Council for Arts and Culture (NCAC). Other recoveries include 86 assorted vehicles valued at N500 million from a director in the Federal Ministry of Power, Works and Housing. He also claimed the panel was “investigating the failure of a contract awarded to a company to dredge Calabar Channel, after the company had received 12 million dollars.”

    A gale of petitions greeted the announcement. Ten of them were sent to the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice Abubakar Malami for investigation. His report found Obono-Obla guilty of alleged ‘abuse of power, intimidation and harassment of innocent citizens’. With threat of arrest by EFCC and ICPC, he went into hiding from where he has been appealing to APC and the president who gave him a difficult task which he faithfully implemented and to Nigerians he said must understand the campaign of calumny is all about corruption fighting back.

    And what were the charges? Two cases were sent to Obono but he went on to unilaterally investigate 50 cases. But many will argue what Obono deserves for his resourcefulness is commendation and not condemnation. And by the way, did he by any chance discover evidence of corruption in the 50 cases he unilaterally investigated? His accusers were silent on this.

    Obono was also accused of working with a team of 100 policemen including one ASP Suleiman who was carrying out investigation without the knowledge or approval of the panel. But Obono-Obla, many will argue is not the IG and could not have assigned 100 policemen to himself without the approval of the IG or the president and commander-in-chief. And even if he had applied his wits to seduce 100 policemen to wage war on corruption, most observers would think the endeavor was for a good cause for which he deserves commendation. After all, we are daily driven off the roads by police escorts protecting senators facing criminal charges in courts and daily assaulted by distressing scenes of armed policemen following India and Chinese boys to fish markets or those with AK-47 in one hand with another hand holding umbrella to shield wives of big men from inclement weather in the market.

    Other charge includes unauthorised investigation of judges. Obono’s tormentors say the “singular act by the chairman of the panel could easily have been misconstrued as a form of intimidation and interference by the executive on the judiciary, contrary to the principles of separation of power”. But Nigerians can see through this type of hypocrisy. They understand Obono-Obla was only trying to establish his loyalty by what his principal not too long ago did when DSS men invaded houses of justices of the Supreme Court in the dead of the night raking in millions in local and foreign currencies as exhibits for their trial.

    Okono-Obla was also accused of appointing Mr. Victor Osita Uwajeh as a private investigator, despite the fact that the person was facing prosecution by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC)”. But is anyone saying Osita cannot earn a living because he was facing EFCC charges? That will amount to double standard. Nigerians are aware of 21 senators, which represented about 21 per cent of the 109 lawmakers at the 8th upper legislative chamber who were earning their living as senators while facing criminal charges in the courts or were under intense investigation or interrogation by the security operatives or anti-graft agencies. They include the 8th Senate President, Bukola Saraki, the deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu who the Okoi-Obono-Obla-led presidential panel had on March 21, 2018, filed an ex parte motion against seeking an order of interim forfeiture of his 22 houses pending the conclusion of the investigation. Others were Godswill Obot Akpabio currently President Buhari’s minister, Kashamu Buruji, Joshua Chibi Dariye, Alhaji Abdullahi Adamu and Ahmed Sani Yarima among others.

    In any case, with the endless war of attrition between EFCC, DSS, NSA and other security forces including the military, how does Obono-Obla’s tormentors expect him to make sense out of the chaos and absence of co-ordination that seem to define President Buhari’s security architecture?

    Obono also stepped on powerful toes for what was described as “attempted arrest of the executive secretary of TETFUND with a truck of mobile policemen” and the arrest of the Deputy Director (Maintenance) in the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation. And finally, Obono was accused of “Flagrant acts of disrespect, indiscipline and insubordination against members of the panel” and of tampering with his WAEC result and ‘parading a questionable academic credential’.

    We have no evidence Obono’s advertised vices and alleged certificate forgery in anyway impeded his performance as ant-corruption crusader. In any case, certificate forgery is a problem common with Nigerian politicians and identified cases have always been referred to the courts and not ICPC.

    The irony is that Malami who wasted millions of taxpayers’ money in a failed attempt to re-integrate Abdulrasheed Maina who EFCC described in court on Monday, October 4 as ‘not a responsible citizen but a fugitive of law who stole about N3billion pensioners’ fund” back into the bureaucracy through the back door and was rewarded with a ministerial appointment for his pains, is the one deciding the fate of Obono-Obla whose only sin from evidence presented to Nigerians so far is over-enthusiasm.

  • Leaders as Nigeria’s nightmare

    By Jide Oluwajuyitan

    BudgIT, a social enterprise with special focus on accountability and transparency in governance, last week in a report titled, “State of states 2019,” confronted us with the disheartening truths Nigerian leaders have refused to acknowledge: Out of the nation’s 36 states, only Lagos, Rivers and Akwa Ibom states could finance their recurrent expenditure independent of federal allocation. The report also confirmed only 19 states could meet their expenditure with internally generated revenue and federal allocation. With these depressing facts, it is a question of time before the bubble bursts if we fail to address our crisis of nation building.

    That many of the states and LGAs are not viable is no news to many informed Nigerians. But more intriguing however is the hypocrisy of our leaders who have continued to play the ostrich, giving an impression that the alternative to fiscal federal arrangement or restructuring of the country along the lines of sustainable development is through the current unfair and unjust sharing of confiscated federating groups’ resources by a dysfunctional centre that places low value on principle of derivation.

    It is on record that in  July 2015 President Buhari  approved a $2.1bn (£1.4bn) intervention package through soft loans from the central bank, and dividends paid by the state-owned natural gas agency for about  bankrupt 12 of Nigeria’s 36 states  that owed their workers more than $550m in salaries and allowances. Similarly in July 2017, Yari as chairman of governor’s forum had led governors representing the South-south, Northwest, the North-Central,  the Southeast;  the Northeast; and  the Southwest, to appeal to  the president for the release of the 50 per cent of the Paris Club loan refund so that the funds could be built into the 2018 budgets of the state governments. In all, a total of N1.75tn was disbursed to states as extra-statutory ‘bailout’ fund between 2015 and 2017. That 33 states remain insolvent despite this government financial engineering  is evidence enough that the 1999 constitution which many have described as a ‘military decree’  foisted on the nation in the last 20 years has not only failed  but has further accentuated our crisis of nation building.

    Unfortunately while those who love the nation have called for a restructured Nigeria with a new constitution that reflects our diversity as against the current one (with 68 items in the exclusive list, 30 in the concurrent and none in the residual) which is only federal in name, our successive leaders- presidents, governors and National Assembly lawmakers have since 1999 played the ostrich.

    It is increasingly becoming clear that Nigerian current leaders like their predecessors since the run up to independence in 1960 have been responsible for the nightmare of Nigerians who naturally look up to their leaders for direction. It is part of our documented history that while our founding fathers were scheming to outwit one another in the run up to independence, it was the colonial masters who after reminding them of our diversity, promoted as parts of British policy thrust, a regional arrangement that “secured for each separate people, the right to maintain its identity, its individuality and its nationality and its own chosen form of government which have been evolved for it by the wisdom and by the accumulated experiences of generation of its forbearers”. The constitutional changes of 1954, 1957 and the 1958 Lancashire debate at which October 1, 1960 was chosen as the date for our independence were midwifed by them. The 1963 republican constitution we crafted on our own was rooted on the above stated British policy thrust.

    The tragedy of 1966 and the civil war (1967-1970) were traceable to the recklessness of our political leaders. It was the deadly intrigue among the warring political leaders that brought in self-styled ‘custodian’ of our constitution who, overwhelmed by social problems they were ill-equipped to comprehend, subverted the 1963 republican constitution. And their legacy:  the current unwieldy and unviable 36 states and 774 LGAs.

    Leaders at other levels including governors and National Assembly lawmakers, the major beneficiaries of the present unviable structure have since the birth of the fourth republic in 1999 also continued to play the ostrich while major stakes-holders in the Nigeria project including Afenifere, Ohanaeze, the Middle Belt Forum, and representatives of other ethnic groups whose resources had been confiscated by a dysfunctional centre insisted on a return to a pre-independence federal arrangement.

    Long before last week’s BudgIT report,, Chief Emeka Anyaoku, a former secretary-general of the Commonwealth, like many other concerned Nigerians had warned that ‘the present   36 federating units and the federal capital territory, each with its full paraphernalia of administration, spending disproportionate amount of its resources on recurrent expenditure’, is responsible for the collapse of education and health sectors and infrastructural decay’. The most appropriate structure of governance for Nigeria, according to him should be a return to a ‘true federation of six federating units with each developing at its own pace, and with the proceeds from “God-given” national resources.

    It is not that concerned Nigerians underestimated the arduous task of nation building especially with the baleful legacies of some military adventurers and fortune seekers who fraudulently claimed they “sacrificed their present for our tomorrow”; successive governors without no vision beyond Abuja monthly allocation and security votes they don’t have to account for, a National Assembly populated by the highest paid lawmakers in the world and the economic parasites who cornered privatized public enterprises and rake in billons from their oil well allocations. Nigerians fully understand that for this parasitic Nigerians, there can be no incentive to change. But many had thought President Buhari was historically ordained to free Nigerian from the parasites holding the nation to ransom.

    Sadly, even with restructuring prominently featured in APC manifesto and with the report of the party’s committee on restructuring presented to him with fanfare; President Buhari has continued to feign ignorance claiming tongue-in -cheek that “There are too many people talking lazily about restructuring in Nigeria. Unfortunately people are not asking them individually what they mean by restructuring…. They are just talking loosely about restructuring. Let them define it and then we see how we can peacefully do it in the interest of Nigerians.”

    With last week BudgIT’s damning report on the state of our unviable and unwieldy structure however, President Buhari needs no further clarification on restructuring. Now that he has been told that despite his periodic financial intervention totalling N1.75tn as extra-statutory  ‘bail-out’ funds between 2015-2017, 33 states cannot still finance their operations, it is hoped he understand that if he fails to undo what some of his fellow soldiers of fortune in ‘Nigerian Army of anything is possible’ did to Nigeria between 1985 and 1999 and the betrayal of Nigeria through privatization and monetization policies by ‘new breed’ military baked politicians that breed nothing but corruption between 1999 and 2018, it is him and the verdict of history.

  • ASUU, government and politicisation of universities

    By Jide Oluwajuyitan

    It is no longer news. The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) is set for another strike, again.  Its grouse with the federal government this time around is over what it called the ‘government’s planned imposition of Integrated Personnel Payroll System (IPPIS) on its members’. Last Sunday, the chairman of the University of Ibadan (UI) chapter of the union, Professor Deji Omole,  said while ASUU was not against accountability and prepared to assist the federal government in designing the appropriate template to address the peculiarities of university lecturers in the IPPIS, ASUU members are not ready to accept the adoption of what he called “the World Bank-designed exploitative template” threatening to resist any attempt by the government to violate existing laws and autonomy of the university.

    There is already an established pattern. ASUU for some strange reasons often claim equality with its employers. The body accuses government of inefficiency without admitting many of its members as undergraduates and graduate students were products of the said government inefficiency. ASUU also wants us to believe it loves university students more than government that spends millions of naira on each university graduate. And whenever it fails to get what it wants, ASUU goes on strike for weeks and sometimes months forgetting that the victim at the end is the quality of our university education.

    Undoubtedly, government has failed the universities in terms of funding. But from our experience in the last few years, I am not sure Nigerians are deceived when ASUU claims it loves Nigerian university students than government. For instance, how can the current showdown which followed a reported directive of President Buhari that any worker not on the IPPIS would no longer get salary be said to be in the interest of Nigerian university students? Yet the first reaction of ASUU to the development was to summon an emergency National Executive Council (NEC) meeting where it agreed that the union should begin mobilisation of members for an action against the government.

    ASUU members more than anyone else know the processes government policy goes through and the role of actors especially experts/academics and technocrats in government policy formulation and implementation. Since lecturers are most likely involved in the policy formulation, it is not likely ‘the government template would enslave intellectuals just because “it does not make provisions for payment of arrears on promotion, study leave allowance, responsibility allowance, among others’ as ASUU alleged.

    Blackmail and mischief are weapons ASUU freely deployed during its endless wars with government. The 70 years retirement age for professors has been in operation for a number of years. Now ASUU says part of its reasons for the planned strike is to prevent the federal government from using the new template “to phase out university lecturers above 60 years”. In the absence of any evidence, one cannot but read mischief to such claim by ASUU.

    ASSU has also accused the federal government of hatred for university lecturers for “introducing what they called   “illegal policies that negatively affect the smooth running of the universities”. Again, I think ASUU is overreaching itself. It is not in a position to declare the policy of the government, its employer illegal. ASUU also says while it is “not against accountability on the part of the university administrators, it insists government should not be allowed to destroy public universities in its purported claims of fighting corruption.” ASUU is also not in a position to tell government, its employer how to fight corruption. He who pays the piper after all, dictates the tune. In any case, federal institutions are generally known to be centres of corruption and if the federal universities are not part of the mess, it is not ASUU but government that will provide a clean bill of health.

    ASUU is not any less guilty for the rot in our public universities. There is too much politics going on in our public universities. It was perhaps on account of mismanagement of our universities  that the founder, Afe Babalola University, Ado Ekiti (ABUAD), Chief Afe Babalola during the 10th Founder’s Day and 7th convocation ceremonies of the university last week revealed he  “purposely established his non-profit university to expose the rot in Nigeria education system and raise the bar of functional and quality education”, advising ‘university must be free to carry out research, look for funding, set criteria for admission, rather than depend on the government’s intervention.’

    Many share the view that if ASUU for instance gets off the back of University of Lagos, the institution has everything to be more successful than ABUAD, today’s pacesetter.  Unfortunately while fronting for their fellow political, economic, military elite that want their children by all means in University of Lagos, ASUU for instance falsely claims to be the vanguard of the masses insisting students of University of Lagos, the University of First Choice must not pay school fees. Meanwhile 80% of students of the institution are children of the elite. 50% of new intakes into the university who did not meet JAMB cut-off marks are brought in through pre-degree programme where their parents  are made to cough out as much as N400, 000. But by ASUU logic, at 200 Level, these students join the league of children of the poor who pay just about N25,000 as school fees.

    What the first generation universities need to run their institutions like ABUAD is federal grant which by the way should be extended to all state owned public institutions. And without the federal government and ASUU meddlesomeness, University of Lagos will not need more than a third of the current non-academic staff forced  on it as a result of what Prof Temitope Alonge,  the immediate past Chief Medical Director, University of Ibadan College Hospital (UCH), during ABUAD’s 7th convocation lecture entitled: ‘The Pearl in the Pack’ describes as “over bureaucratization of universities setting by the political elite which have reduced virtually all public universities to critical outposts for building political clients and extending tentacles”.

  • Maina, Malami and the unanswered questions

    By Jide Oluwajuyitan

     

    Abdulrasheed Maina, former chairman of the Pension Reform Task Team was in the news again last week. He is back to haunt Malami, the minister of justice who in spite of the scandal surrounding his surreptitious attempt to smuggle fugitive offender Maina back into Ministry of Internal Affairs fortuitously retained his position in President Buhari’s new cabinet. Now let us take a journey through memory.

    Maina had been  accused of fraud by EFCC and indicted by both House and Senate probes but remained invincible. While he attended public functions with President Jonathan, protected by police escorts, the then Inspector General of Police told the two houses Maina could not be found. Maina finally sneaked out of the country in 2013 with allegation of mismanagement of over N24billion pension funds hanging on his neck. He was declared a fugitive offender while 29 assets worth N1b he allegedly owned were seized by EFCC.

    If Maina had powerful friends in high places during Jonathan presidency, he has proved to be no less influential under the Buhari government of change. An attempt was made to smuggle him back into the Ministry of Internal Affairs with all his entitlements reinstated. Both Winifred Eyo-Ita, the then Head of Civil Service of the Federation (HoCSF)  and Joseph Oluremi, the acting chairman of the Federal Civil Service Commission (FCSC),  confirmed sighting the AGF letter directing Maina be reinstated.

    On October 24, 2017, the senate mandated its committees on public service, internal affairs, anti-corruption, establishment and judiciary to probe the circumstances of Maina’s return to the country and the public service. Mallami, the justice Minister through a case (FHC/ABJ/CS/1206/2017 went to court to seek an interim injunction restraining the National Assembly and its agents, from holding a hearing session on the reinstatement of Maina. Justice Binta Nyako of the federal high court in Abuja however struck out the ex parte motion on Monday, January 8, 2018. Reacting to the judgment, Aliyu Sabi Abdullahi, chairman 8th Senate Committee on Media and Public Affairs had wondered why Malami rushed to court, “if he had no skeleton in his cupboard”.

    But as it later turned out, Malami had visited fugitive offender Maina in his Dubai hide-out shortly before the surreptitious attempt to reintegrate him back into the bureaucracy. The minister claimed he got clearance from security agencies and National Security Adviser, Babagana Monguno before his meeting, arranged through a third party with Maina in Dubai, United Arab Emirate (UAE) where he was availed of further information on recovery drive and individuals involved.

    Parts of the gains of his secret visit he said include  his findings that: “pension fraud was beyond Maina”, involving  ‘a syndicate that cuts across all sectors, including serving and retired public officers, including members of the National Assembly,  involved in cornering N3.7b monthly from pension funds.’ Other gains according to him include the discovery of “over 116,000 ghost workers responsible for N829m monthly spread across 29 bank accounts” and the fact that ‘Maina was part of the syndicate until things fell apart between them’.

    Malami also told Senator Emmanuel Paulker’s committee and the Aliyu Madaki-led House of Representatives ad hoc committee investigative hearing on the disappearance, reinstatement and promotion of Maina that “about 270 properties comprising of real estate and motor vehicles one of which is a mansion worth N1 billion situated at No 42 Gang Street Maitama Abuja under the custody of the EFCC were shared among top officials of the commission, friends and family members.”. Concluding, Malami had said with reckless finality “These properties are under the custody of the EFCC. The properties as we speak have been shared among top officials of the commission, friends and family members, including lawyers of the agency.”

    But EFCC challenged the minister’s claims stating very clearly that “All the pension fraud assets that are in the recovered assets inventory of the commission were products of independent investigation by the EFCC, for which Maina and his cohorts had no clues. If Maina or any government official witnessed the sharing of any recovered pension assets by any official of the EFCC, they should be willing to name the official, the assets involved; when and where the ‘sharing’ took place”. And questioning Malami’s competence, EFCC stated: “in view of the consistent display of public ignorance about the profile of recovered assets by even those who should know, it is important to state that it is impossible for anybody to share such assets”.

    As the war of attrition between EFCC, NIA and DSS apparently encouraged by Malami took a new dimension with contradictory DSS reports that helped Saraki’s led 8th senate to reject the candidacy of Magu as EFCC substantive chairman, Maina again disappeared without trace. And unfortunately, so were the celebrated gains of Malami’s Dubai’s secret trip at taxpayers’ expenses. Although we have no reason to doubt  Malami’s claim that the trip was in ‘the larger interest of Nigerians’, I am not sure Nigerians were told of the outcome of “investigation into the pension fraud in some key Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDA)”, his claim of “of over 116,000 ghost workers responsible for N829m monthly spread across 29 bank accounts” and his assertion that “‘Maina was part of the syndicate until things fell apart between them” , which he claimed his office began. Is the syndicate still in business?

    Minister Malami now has an opportunity to answer all the intriguing questions and with last week’s Maina’s arrest  along with his son in an Abuja hotel by the Department of Security Services (DSS) after allegedly sneaking to the country from  his ‘secret hide-out’ in Dubai where it is on record, the minister once held a meeting with him. And since Malami can no longer feign ignorance as to where Maina was hiding all along, he might wish to tell concerned Nigerians why seeking international help to bring Maina to Nigeria to face justice was never an option.

    To ensure Malami provides answers to these troubling questions, providence has ensured he was, against all expectations, re-appointed Minister of Justice. And now providence has also ensured it was while well-connected Maina was in the custody of DSS, that the Nigerien Government alerted Nigeria’s   Federal Government of the strange discovery of about $1.7million cash in his Niamey home. And preliminary investigation by the NIA and the EFCC, we are told ‘suggests that Maina knows about it because the apartment in question used to serve as one of his hideouts in Niger Republic.’

    Nigerians might also wish to know why Malami who as minister of justice exploited the same apparatus to locate Maina in Dubai and attempted to smuggle him back to the bureaucracy could not use the same to locate Maina’s other hide-out in neigbouring Niger Republic.

    Failure to provide answers to these questions might force Nigerians to agree with Junaid Mohammed, who in a New Telegraph interview of October 26, 2017 admonished Nigerians not to ‘allow the Maina matter be swept under the carpet’ that Malami’s secret visit to Maina in Dubai was informed by a secret agenda and that the then minister of internal affairs, and the DSS as an organization, were openly complicit in the Maina affair”.

  • Buratai’s call for spiritual warfare

    By Jide Oluwajuyitan

    I sympathise with Lt. Gen Tukur Buratai, our Chief of Army Staff, who has come under severe criticism for advocating spiritual warfare to counter the evil doctrines of Boko Haram insurgents as a prelude to resolving our crisis of nation-building at a recent seminar titled “Counter insurgency and violent extremism in Nigeria through spiritual warfare”. It is perhaps lost on Buratai’s attackers that  we are a praying nation of miracle seekers led at different periods by  elders statesmen like  General Yakubu Gowon of “Nigeria Pray” fame, General Obasanjo who publicly declared his policy thrust and its implementation would be determined not by voice of expert advisers but that of God,  and in recent times by Goodluck Jonathan who hopped from church to mosque in Nigeria and synagogues in Jerusalem with thieving government officials in need of redemption  and, currently, by the duo of President Buhari who tries to remain faithful to  his five times daily prayers as prescribed by the Holy Quran and his deputy, Osinbajo who hardly misses any of his important weekly programmes such as “Power must change hand and Holy Ghost night” holding at his Lagos-Ibadan express road Redeemed Church headquarters. He not too long ago publicly attributed his miraculous escape from a helicopter crash in Kogi State to the prayers of his spiritual father, Pastor Adeboye. They also seem to have ignored the fact that we are a nation of prayers warriors and miracle seekers with the biggest Roman Catholic Seminary in the world located in Imo State and the largest Pentecostal church in the world located in Canaan land in Ota Ogun state.

    Of course, Buratai’s call for prayers cannot be regarded as a sign of weakness. He has in the last five years fought an heroic war driving out Boko Haram insurgents from about two dozen LGAs they carved out of Nigerian territory as their caliphate, stopped their incursions to Abuja, Kogi and other parts of the Northeast before declaring Boko Haram insurgents  ‘technically defeated’ and their ability to visit terror on Nigerians ‘greatly degraded’.

    When  Nnamdi Kanu left his London comfort home to hold governors and youths of Southeast hostage, Buratai was on hand to launch  ‘Operation Python dance’ that drove him out of town and out of Nigeria. He was also on hand when the Nigerian Police insisted the invading herdsmen who killed, maimed and seized conquered middle-Belt farmlands after chasing their surviving victims to IDP camps were ghosts. And when in recent times, Yoruba and Igbo criminal elements in the name of Fulani herdsmen without cows embarked on mindless killings and kidnapping in the mangrove forests of the Southwest, it was Buratai we turned to.

    Buratai has no doubt given his best to the nation. But for President Buhari who doesn’t seem to understand that government is a science, he along with his tired and drained colleagues with very little left to contribute after attaining retirement age should be having their well-deserved rest.

    If Buratai who had first-hand experience of the forces behind our crisis of nation building at a period the police claimed albeit falsely that those killing Nigerian were ghosts, a fraudulent claim Nigerians were almost believing until some powerful emirs and the Minister of Defence held brief for the killers, mooted the idea of spiritual warfare, the  events of the last three weeks must have vindicated his stand that  a nation that has chosen to live in denial needs other approaches beyond deployment of Ak-47 rifles and fighters jets .

    Let us start with the tragedy of Zamfara State.  It will be recalled that the killing of 203 people and kidnapping of 685 persons in the first quarter of 2016 in Zamfara led to the launching of Operation Sharan Daji (Sweep the Forest), Operation Harbin Kunama (Scorpion Sting) and Operation Diran Mikiya (Eagle Fighting), and the stationing of a full battalion of Special Forces in Zamfara State by Defence Minister Brig-Gen. Mansur Dan Ali (rtd) who is an indigene of the state. This was followed by the launching of ”Operation Maximum Safety” with 510 police personnel and 40 patrol vehicles”. Added to this was  a “Joint Intervention Team of about 1000 police personnel comprised of seven mobile police force units headed by an Assistant Commissioner of Police, counter terrorism unit (CTU), federal special anti-robbery squad (FSARS), anti-bomb (EOD) squad, and conventional policemen”. Their mandate: “rout-out, arrest and prosecute armed bandits, vicious kidnappers for ransom and cattle rustling gangs operating in some parts of the state.

    In 2018, a DIG was deployed there with three surveillance patrol helicopters and crew members to coordinate the operation to completely rout-out all armed bandits from Zamfara and other contiguous states”. That was not all; there was also the employment of 1,700 charmers to join the civilian joint task force to tackle bandits, kidnappers for ransom and cattle rustlers. Finally, after all the show of power, a deal was signed with Zamfara bandits.

    Even without any evidence all these formations have ceased to operate in Zamfara, the unexpected and the in-explicable happened in Zamfara last week.  Three local government areas including Mayanchi and Maru were sacked by 300 AK- 47 wielding bandits riding 150 motorcycles after an encounter that led to the death of seven soldiers.”  They, according to Yusuf, The Nation’s insightful reporter, operated from Thursday night to Friday morning, before moving to Mayanchi petrol station where they re-fuelled their 150 motorcycles, stole N300, 000 sales proceeds from the fuel attendants and impounded a truck with which cattle seized from herdsmen were ferried together with looted foodstuffs and 300 cows into their Birnin Gwari base. Unarguably, Zamfara’s ongoing struggle is beyond banditry.

    The second event is the attempt by some powerful Fulani  politicians led by Bala Mohammed, governor of Bauchi State to confer citizenship on stateless Fulani immigrants first through RUGA and now through National Livestock Transformation Plan (NLTP) which Malam Garba Shehu, President Buhari’s Senior Special Assistant (SSA) on Media said are the same, minus Vice President Osinbajo’s semantics. Governor Bala Mohammed speaking on a Channel Television programme last week did not see any reason why immigrant herdsmen accused of mindless killings of Nigerians by Nigeria-based herdsmen that had lived for decades with their fellow Nigerians should not be allowed to benefit from NLTP programme funded by Nigeria’s taxpayers. According to him “The Fulani man is a global African person.  He moves from Gambia to Senegal and his nationality is Fulani; and so we cannot just close our border and say the Fulani man is not a Nigerian”.  This perhaps explains why Southern and Middle Belt Forum (SMBLF) out rightly rejected the policy dismissing it as ‘divisive and smack of domination and conquest of sections of the country by a section.

    Last week’s Zamfara tragedy that went on for about 13 hours without interruption from the police and other security formations in Zamfara took the same pattern with mindless killings and seizure of territories in the Middle Belt without anyone, including those found in seized territories, questioned or arrested; abduction and ferrying of over 200 Nigerian Chibok school girls with buses for over three hours inside Nigerian territory to insurgents hideout in Sambisa forest and Buni Yadi’ selective killings of students of a technical school that went on for a whole night without help from the police and the army.

    The cheapest route to resolution of our crisis of nation building is restructuring, devolution of powers, resource control and community policing. Unfortunately we have continued to live in denial deluding ourselves that what is needed to resolve our crisis of nationality is spiritual intervention.

  • Trump and disintegration of American political ethos

    Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) in his “Democracy in America” made two generalisations about the American political system. First, what constitutes democracy in America, according to him  is a kind of instinctive adherence to equality and second, that moral- the totality of customs, values, principles, habits, public opinion and beliefs had a greater influence upon American democracy than its laws and its physical environment. America has since gone ahead to build a political ethos that celebrates the virtues of equality and morality and the values of American system –stability and majoritarian rule. This long established political ethos is what has shaped the actions of political actors and American citizens in the last two centuries. Unfortunately it this political ethos that has now come under serious threat in the last three years of Donald Trump presidency. His declaration, last Monday following American congress institution of impeachment process against him, that America will go into civil war if he is impeached  is a confirmation of how badly damaged the American political ethos is.

    Trump who was endorsed before the 2016 election by various white nationalist and white supremacist movements and leaders  including David Duke, a former Ku Klux Klan Grand Dragon won by assaulting the otherwise  enduring  American political ethos. First, he threatened the very foundation of the American electoral system by insisting he would only accept the outcome of the 2016 election if he won. He then went on  with a strident appeal of ‘let us take our country back’ to white, blue-collar, working class and those without college degrees  to defeat his opponents  in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania with only 77,000 votes despite losing the popular votes to Hilary Clinton by over three million.

    He has demonstrated after the election that he has little respect for the truth or rule of engagements. He has so far refused to file his tax returns as required by law. He has no apologies for identifying with white supremacist neither has he shown any remorse for demonising immigrants especially Mexicans as “criminals, drug dealers and rapists’. And, just as he promised his base during the 2016 election, he has gone ahead to ban Muslims from some Muslims countries from entering America.

    Trump has operated in the last three years with total disregard for political ethos which is what allow groups to reach a consensus on common goal. The result is a nation divided and endless disagreements among arms of government especially the executive and the Congress where compromise relationship is the only safeguard against instability. Trump must win all wars including intra-party feuds by means fair or foul. With his triumph over his party, the GOP is today cast in Trump’s image. For American neighbours – Canada, Brazil, Venezuela, and Haiti, the fear of Donald Trump is the beginning of wisdom. Europe, American traditional allies was not spared. Trump has no apology for attempting to undermine the unity of Europe with his open support for right wing politicians and UK’s Boris Johnson who is bent on taking Britain out of Europe, deal or no deal. Trump is at war with nearly all American trading partners-China, Japan, Germany, Canada and Brazil.

    President Trump is currently engaged in a war of attrition with the American Congress after declaring “we cannot ignore our oath of office to defend the Constitution of the United States from all enemies, foreign and domestic.” Last week, the Congress set up an impeachment process against him.  Speaker, Nancy Pelosi accused President Trump of appealing to a foreign country to rake up dirt against Joe Biden, his possible opponent in the 2020 election.

    But, Trump who has nothing but disdain for political ethos is not giving up without a fight. Although the whistleblower is part of part of American political culture, President Trump on Sunday evening called for the outing of a whistleblower and railed against other individuals including Adam Schiff, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, who he wants “questioned at the highest level for fraud and treason.

    Trump’s political base and the emasculated GOP, now cast in his image continue to support him. For instance, the party has refused to comment on a joint US Intelligence Community review of January 2017 that confirmed that “Russian President Vladimir V. Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election with the goals to undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency.”

    The party has ignored the outcome of Mueller’s inquiry and his testimony before the Congress to the effect that “the investigation found that the Russian government interfered in our election in sweeping and systematic fashion”;  that “The president was not exculpated for the acts that he allegedly committed” and that Trump’s attempt to have Mueller’s investigation fired constitute possible obstruction of justice”. And even with 30 defendants charged for committing federal crime and with seven convicted, the GOP has kept its peace while Trump insisted the Mueller inquiry was a witch-hunt.

    The New York Times and People magazine’s coverage of claims by multiple women that came forward with new stories of “sexual misconduct, including unwanted kissing and groping” have no impact on GOP and many of its Pentecostal Christians. There was similarly GOP’s complete silence on the March 2016  open letter from 120 conservative foreign-policy and national-security leaders, including  Eliot A. Cohen, Max Boot, and Daniel W. Drezner, which condemned Trump as “fundamentally dishonest”.

    With the disintegration of political ethics and president Trump making no distinction between truth and falsehood while acknowledging that he encouraged Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate former vice president Joe Biden, his potential 2020 opponent;  with a whistleblower’s complaint accusing White House officials of trying to hide the account of the conversation in a server intended for national security secrets, and with the GOP regarding politics as an end in itself, the fear is that Trump who out of government threatened to reject the result of 2016 election except he won, may not accept the outcome of 20120 election if he loses.

    From Trump’s activities in the last three years, the only discernible difference between Trump and harassed leaders of developing democracies such as Mugabe’s Zimbabwe, Zelensky’s Ukraine and Nicholás Maduro’s Venezuela is that while the political ethics of the latter support perpetuation of leaders in office after losing elections, America’s political culture that has endured this past 200 years forecloses such practice. But with the destruction of American political ethos, there will be no restraint on Trump if he decides to adopt the strategy of Saudi Arabia, North Korea and Russia’s dictators whose companies he seems to enjoy. This possibility is not far- fetched taking into consideration the observation of Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s former fixer at the end of his congressional testimony in February this year. “Given my experience working for Mr. Trump,” Cohen had said, “I fear that if he loses in 2020, that there will never be a peaceful transition of power.”

    Add this to the current unfolding Trump/ Zelensky scandal; it is not difficult to identify the footprint of a potential dictator. As Steven Levitsky, of Harvard University and the co-author of ”How Democracies Die” puts it: “Autocrats don’t lose election because they take steps to rig it well in advance, by blackmailing electoral authorities, jailing opponents, and silencing unfriendly media outlets.”

  • Sanwo-Olu, deplorable roads and criminal okada riders

    Protecting the interest of the ruled, especially the middle class- teachers, journalists, lawyers, doctors and other professionals, is the best safeguard against government instability in any society. And once those basic needs of the governed are met, government can do no evil. This explains why our highly educated youths and skilled professionals are moving in droves to Canada and other western societies where these basic needs are secured despite the prospect of ending up as slaves in the service of capitalist slave drivers that own those societies. And what are these basic needs for which many Nigerians are prepared to trade their freedom for enslavement in foreign lands? Good schools for the education of their children, security of life and properties and of their families at home or in the streets, regular supply of electricity and water and affordable health care system.

    Today, the governed are not even asking for all these basic needs which were taken for granted in Lagos and some parts of the country until the collapse of the first republic in 1966. They have been scaled down because of our crisis of underdevelopment.  With the collapse of public schools and government tertiary institutions, the governed especially in Lagos spend the bulk of their earnings on sending their children to private schools and higher institutions at home or abroad. They generate their own electricity, are responsible for their own water supply as well as their own security and that of their communities. What the governed expect from their government is therefore limited to clearance of refuse, provision of roads, and protection from unruly ‘okada’ riders and sick ‘danfo’ drivers on those roads. Sadly, the few expectations have been met more in default by immediate past and current Lagos State government.

    Governor  Sanwo-Olu admitted this much  while marking his first 100 days in office on the on September 5 in an event grazed by top chieftains of the All Progressives Congress, traditional leaders, members of the state executive council, civil society, market leaders, students, and youth group. According to him “On assumption of office, we were confronted with major challenges, including traffic management and environmental sanitation. Potholes dotted our highways and heaps of refuse were common sites in our communities. And traffic situation became a source of concern to residents.” He wants Lagosians to believe his declaration of emergency on traffic management and transportation in the state through an executive order “has brought about significant relief to the residents of the state”.

    It is doubtful if many Lagosians, not least, the opposition PDP that dismissed the governor’s outing as “a fanfare of failure”, share his sentiment. In this group are  residents of  potholes dotted Ikeja and its environ, Agege, Ikotun, Ejigbo, Ikorodu, Apapa, Gbagada, Oshodi, Magodo 1, Egbeda, Ipaja, and Abule-Egba; Ikorodu community with huge heaps of un-cleared refuse and motorists who are daily robbed inside traffic gridlocks by okada riders. Obviously the governor is unaware that what has so far defined his four months administration is the chaos and anarchy created by okada riders inside traffic gridlocks on Lagos highways.

    As much as one might wish to sympathise with Sanwo-Olu for inheriting a regime of pot-holes, un-cleared refuse dumps and the takeover of Lagos major roads by okada riders from Ambode who abandoned governance the moment he failed to secure his APC’s party ticket for a second term, but then one remembers he has not only been part of government since 2003, he had two clear months to prepare for Ambode’s failure of governance. In any case, this is the fourth month of Sanwo-Olu in government and there is no evidence the Lagos State Road Traffic Law of August 2, 2012 which restricts the operations of commercial motorcycles on about 475 out of the over 9,000 roads in Lagos State which is today being breached by commercial motorcyclists who ride against traffic on major high ways and express ways has been repealed.

    The governor is also not unaware that most crimes in recent times have been linked with activities of unruly okada and tricycle drivers. Just last Monday, Lagos State Police Commissioner, Zubairu Muazu disclosed 11 notorious traffic robbery suspects arrested by the police on September 14, at Igando area of the state and the notorious armed robbers who specialised in snatching phones, money and other valuables from unsuspecting members of the public, mostly where there were traffic gridlocks “ operate mostly on motorcycles”. According to him, “those arrested all confessed to be responsible for series of robberies at traffic points, bus stops, around Yabatech, Yaba, Ejigbo, Igando-Ikotun, Ipaja and Isolo areas of the state”. In all, he disclosed “19 Lagosians have been murdered in Lagos and 31 armed robbery attempt foiled in one month, a ‘huge reduction in violent crimes over the last few months”. If Sanwo-Olu is troubled by these statistics, the governed are yet to see that in his response.

    Sadly, the tepid response of Sanwo-Olu to the menace of motorcyclists so far was the questioning of 123 Jigawa youths ferried to Lagos along their 48 motorcycles in a trailer on August 31 by his Lagos State Environmental Sanitation and Special Offences Task Force. Ferrying of northern youths and motorcycles to Lagos by northern governors who claimed it was their own answer to mass unemployment dates as far back as 2012. Neither the governors who are under pressure to provide jobs for largely unemployable illiterates nor the desperate marginalized youths who are in search of greener pastures can be blamed. What attracts them to Lagos, the economic capital of the country is what daily draws other poor, jobless youths from other geo-political zones of the country to Lagos.

    What Governor Sanwo-Olu needs is a more creative approach to the menace of unruly and criminal okada riders whose operations had been banned even by some northern states.  He also needs to take a cue from Fashola who called the bluff of okada riders even when they had the support of the then President Jonathan whose party attempted to use them to destablise Lagos.

    Fashola was also not waiting on the public to send pictures of pot-holes through indolent civil servants.  Some three years back, I wrote a piece about the menace of touts and police men on Mile 12-Ikorodu road who ferried their unsuspecting victims to a location behind Agric Bus Stop in Ikorodu where they give their victims after hours of standing in the sun a Hobbesian choice of paying bribe to bail themselves out and going to pay fine in Oshodi which will take about two days while their impounded vehicles attracted demurrage. Two weeks after the report, some indolent men who claimed to handle public complaint for Ambode called asking me to furnish them with more information. Fashola would have driven to the identified location incognito. It is also on record that Marwa ensured that any identified pot-hole in any part of Lagos was attended to within a week while uninspiring Oyinlola before him blamed the deplorable state of Lagos roads on scarcity of bitumen.

    Sanwo-Olu as an executive governor is not obliged to retain political hangers-on and indolent bureaucrats who undermined Ambode’s efforts to meet the scaled-down demands of the Lagos’ governed.