The Nation Newspaper

Category: Jide Oluwajuyitan

  • Fani-Kayodes as crusaders

    Chief Remi Fani-Kayode loved his Yoruba race. He like other illustrious Yoruba politicians of his time such as Bode Thomas and S. L. Akintola would have no apologies to be regarded a Yoruba ethnic irredentist. His “introduction to Nigerian politics began in the early fifties with a series of articles which reminded one of Hitler Mien Kampt’” {Aiyekooto P 366). The exploits secured for him the leadership of the youth wing of Action Group (AG). He soon added a militant wing called ‘Mosquitoes Squad’ which relentlessly tormented Yoruba detractors notably NPC, NCNC and the colonial masters. As a politician, he was described by Victor Bisi Onabanjo as having “the courage of a mischief maker who knows how to exploit a situation”. But Awolowo loved him for his resourcefulness. In 1958, he moved the motion for Nigerian Independence on April 2, 1960.

    Femi Fani Kayode, his illustrious son also warmed his way into the heart of President Obasanjo with his well- researched newspaper articles. He like his father also never left anyone in doubt as to his commitment to the Yoruba race. Obasanjo appointed him a minister in charge of aviation. But he is remembered more as Obasanjo’s attack dog. He and his father demonstrated their love for Yoruba by celebrating the virtue in the aphorism “no permanent friends but permanent interest”.

    For instance, it is on record that after fighting Yoruba political enemies for about a decade, Chief Remi Fani Kayode in 1959, under the pretext that Awo considered him “brash”, decamped to NCNC where he took over Dennis Osadabey’s vacated position of leader of NCNC opposition in the Western House. He immediately unleashed his ‘mosquito squad’, on his former party. But following the prosecution and sentencing of some of its members by Premier Akintola, he alleged breakdown of law and order in the West. He joined hands with Dr Okpara, leader of NCNC, the coalition partner at the centre to press for declaration of state of emergency in the West. That was finally achieved in 1962 after he led the Western House NCNC members to join 10 Akintola supporters to create chaos in the Western House. For his pains, he was compensated with the Deputy Premier slot in January 1963. His relationship with Akintola who did not trust him because of his support for the carving out of Mid-west from the West resulting in the shrinking of Western Region influence was that of cat and mouse.

    But it did not take long before Chief Fani-Kayode, driven by permanent self- interest turned his back on NCNC as 1965 regional election approached. The two men that had invited outsiders to destroy the West in order to cling on to power now agreed that NCNC and Igbo were opportunistic. They aligned themselves with TOS Benson, Zik associate’s claim that “with Igbo and NCNC reputed bonds with NEPU in the north, UPP in the West, NPC in the centre and now AG in the Mid-west, they were behaving like a woman with four husbands who will never get respect”.

    It is on record that it was Fani Kayode who as the leader of Western Region NCNC, signed a petition alleging that “under Dr Ikejiani (Zik’s friend) two-thirds of vacancy of Railway Corporation senior posts were held by Igbo, three-quarters in Nigerian Ports Authority while they controlled Nigerian Airways, Ibadan University, Ibadan Teaching Hospital, Yaba Technical College and three quarters of foreign service postings”.

    Fast forward to the 4th republic, Femi Fani Kayode after Obasanjo’s tenure, first abandoned PDP and joined APC from where he deployed verbal arsenal at Jonathan predicting his inevitable loss of the 2015 election. His hostility against Jonathan did not last long. He ditched Obasanjo, swallowed his vomit with an alleged budget of about N14b to launder the image of Jonathan he had shredded in to tatters months earlier.

    Following the defeat of Jonathan, he constituted himself into a one man attack squad against the Igbo for daring to refer to Lagos as a “no man’s land’ – a heresy first championed by Jaja Nwachukwu in the 1940s. He was determined to put the Igbo in their place with publications of series of historical facts about the cultural achievements of both ethnic nationalities over time. But when he found himself in the same train with Igbo partakers in the Dasuki’s mismanaged $2.1b arms funds, Igbo ceased being a threat to Yoruba race. The real enemy of Yoruba, Igbo and the nation became Buhari and his Fulani ethnic group. He has now volunteered to lead a Christian crusade on behalf of the South-west, South-east and Middle Belt against the Fulani jihadists.

    While Fani Kayode is free to speak for others, he cannot speak for the Yoruba. Yoruba don’t fight religion war because they understand the role of religion in society and that without it society decays.  And long before the advent of Christianity and Islam, the two Abrahamic religion that had its root in sibling war of Isaac and Ishmael, the warring children of Abraham, we had our own concept of Supreme Being (Olorun Olodumare)  For us, (igbagbo baba ko gba omo la) the faith of the father does not guarantee the salvation of the son. Thus in a typical Yoruba homestead, you see a Roman Catholic priest, an Ifa worshipper, an Islamic  cleric and a professor of nuclear physics eating together.

    We also don’t see Fulani as enemies. Even if they insist they are our enemies, we will rather adopt Christ’s precept ‘love your enemies’ because it will be suicidal not to do otherwise. The Fulani supply 10,000 heads of cow to the Yoruba country every day in addition to Hausa tomatoes, pepper, beans and maize, supplemented with yam from Benue and Nassarawa while Fani Kayode’s close friends like Fayose are busy chasing cow and Fulani herdsmen around.

    As for Christian crusade against Muslim jihadists, Fani Kayode is also on his own. The first crusade initiated by Pope Unban1 in a sermon at the ‘Council of Clermont’ in 1098 has been declared a political endeavour and has long been treated as sacrilege by the church. Pope Francis in 2016 was in Bangui, Central Africa where he entered a mosque, removed his shoes and prayed facing east after which he admonished warring Christians and Muslims to see themselves as brothers seeking God’s salvation.

    Crusade died in about 1135 in Europe. Today churches in Europe are mainly preserved for African immigrants. Europe has left the Jews and Arab, their half-brothers to continue their sibling war of entitlement over the land God promised Abraham their great grandfather. Femi and his Christian fundamentalists cannot take Yoruba back to 1098.

    We do not disown our illustrious son and his illustrious father, “born in London, groomed in Lagos”. They are pride of the Yoruba race. In fact, with the above documented history of Fani Kayode family’s exploits and conquests, our Fulani compatriots should not foreclose the possibility of Fani Kayode becoming one of their dependable allies in no distant future.

    All we are trying to do is to reassure our Fulani compatriots that while Fani Kayode is free to lead the South-east and Middle Belt in a crusade, he does not speak for us. Yoruba will not line behind a man who after attending Fayose inauguration following a controversial victory says “God is really raising some very powerful men and women of faith with great testimonies, a prophetic calling and a powerful anointing in the murky sea of Nigerian politics”.

  • Stop playing the ostrich

    We are today reaping what we sowed. And now that the cost of arrogance, compromise and opportunism which have come to define our interactions since 1950 stares everyone in the face, all stakeholders in the Nigeria project must understand it is time to stop playing the ostrich. The greater burden however is on the APC government that promised restructuring while asking for our votes but coming face to face with the Fulani hegemonic power that has always had its way, now talks from both sides of the mouth.

    The Fulani hegemonic power seem to have been playing a game of poker with the destiny of the nation since 1950 when it first threatened secession except 50% of membership of the central house was conceded to the  north. It also insisted on holding on to Ilorin, a Yoruba city acquired through deceit.  The demands were met. The north again threatened secession in 1953 but withdrew her threat only after the introduction of the 1954 regional arrangement. At the London 1957 constitutional conference, Ahmadu Bello resisted attempt to carve out new regions for the restive ethnic groups within his region. It found a ready ally in the Zik. When Awo staged a tactical walkout over the minority issue and the status of Lagos, Zik compromised on all outstanding issues and came out to congratulate himself for preserving the unity of the country. In 1959, the Sardauna again had his way when Zik rejected Awo and went into alliance with NPC alleging betrayal by Dr Olorunnibe who had earlier refused to step down for him to represent Lagos at the centre and by Awo for denying him an opportunity to be premier of the west in 1952. In 1962, the Sardauna had the last laugh when Western Region was crushed by the coalition partners.

    The 1963 census result foreclosed the chances of the Igbo ever producing the leadership of the country through constitutional means and to prevent them achieving same through unconstitutional means, Ahmadu Bello who had sworn he would “never accept a head of state possessing any real power if that person might be a southerner” (Clark P.594), directed Lt. Col. Gowon to source for civil servants that could be drafted to join the military “to dilute many Igbo subalterns and captains” in the army. Gowon’s efforts did not yield many dividends.

    In January 1966, military officers sympathetic to Zik and NCNC struck eliminating northern military and political leaders. In July 1966, the northern military officers sympathetic to Ahmadu Bello and NPC struck, killing Ironsi, the Head of State as well as over 300 Igbo military officers. Of course their precondition for remaining within the federation was for the north to produce a successor to slain Ironsi. They had their way with Gowon emerging as the new head of state over and above his other seniors in the military after holding the nation hostage for four days.

    Gowon was succeeded by Murtala Mohammed, another northerner after the civil war. Following his assassination, Obasanjo who became head of state by default was also succeeded by Shehu Shagari who in turn was followed by Buhari, Babangida and Abdul Salami in that order. The annulment of MKO Abiola’s victory by Babangida, citing resistance from the military and opposition of the north produced Obasanjo as the only southern head of state between 1966 and 1999. But then Obasanjo who was roundly rejected by his Yoruba people as it turned out was the candidate of the military and the northern establishment. He was succeeded by Yar’Adua while Jonathan was an accident. And now we have President Buhari.

    These successive northern leaders institutionalised injustice by carving out 20 states and many more LGAs from one region as against 17 from the other three regions. More states and more LGAs arbitrarily created for the north meant more allocation of resources to the north at the expense of areas that generate the revenue.

    We have no evidence Ahmadu Bello’s opposition to an emergence of southern leadership was motivated by a desire to short-change the rest of the country. Ahmadu Bello who was considering the possibility of dredging River Congo to serve the north if deprived of access to the sea by Lagos was probably too proud and arrogant to envision or design a north that would be totally dependent on the south. It is on record that with the judicious deployment of internally generated revenue, he built Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Ahmadu Bello Stadium, and the biggest business conglomerate in Africa. While Nuhu Ribadu, the former EFCC boss was challenging the northern governors to account for all the billions they had collected since 1999 not too long ago, he reminded them that the resources  with which the former premier  implemented those projects was not more than what a local government now collects as yearly allocation.

    It can therefore be argued that Ahmadu Bello’s apprehension about conceding power to southern leaders was driven more by fear of re-colonisation of the north by a more educationally advanced and more economic vibrant south than a deliberate plan to confiscate the resources of others for the benefit of the north. If this is the new narrative after Ahmadu Bello’s death, the military and the current parasitic northern leaders who have continued to oppose the restructuring of the country even in areas as important as policing should carry the can.

    The reality today however is that we are all losers with the north which has produced eight of the last Nigerian leaders, presently controlling more states and  LGAs that collect free allocations from the centre as the greatest loser of all.

    The north according to the acting President has “the highest infant and maternal mortality rates in the country, the lowest rate of child enrolment in schools, the highest number of unemployed peoples and the highest level of poverty and faces the challenges of inter-ethnic and inter religious conflict including the Boko Haram terrorists” while UNDP reports shows that 72% of northerners live below the poverty line with 10m children out of school.

    The East lost its advantage of having 65% of their children in school as against 35% of Yoruba and 105 secondary schools to the West 25 which it secured between 1941and 1952 with the help of Zik. Besides losing about 1.5 million youths to the civil war, it also lost its dominance in federal institutions and establishments. The West lost its giant strides in education, industrialisation, and agriculture.in addition to its cultural values. Obasanjo’s mainstreaming has turned our youths to ‘area boys’ and political thugs. It is unsafe to for our elders to walk their streets while our children are not secure in their schools. The war has been brought from the North and the East to our door steps.

    Today the route back to the ‘path of Nigeria freedom’ we once rejected have unfortunately become even more treacherous.  Those who have held others hostage are afraid of a sovereign national conference. Some have suggested elite consensus. The problem here is that the current political elite are military creation with sharing of spoils of war as their guiding philosophy just like the military.

    There is also the Indian Model as suggested by Professor Banji Akintoye where appointed commission of experts submits their recommendation to political office holders for consideration and implementation.

    This is not the time to sit on the fence while National Assembly members that cannot be trusted over the salaries and allowances they pay themselves deceitfully claim tinkering with the present military authored unitary constitution is the same thing as restructuring. This, as Jiti Ogunye, a lawyer and social commentator argued during a channel television programme last Sunday, is like applying palliatives to a cancer patient while waiting for him to die.

  • Ruffians as parliamentarians

    These are indeed trying times for Nigerians who feel diminished by the resolve of our distinguished parliamentarians to bequeath their current values as acceptable standard for our youths. Already, the current 8th Senate with its leading lights such as senators Bukola Saraki, Dino Melaye, Ekweremadu, Abaribe and Bala Ibn Na’allah has been adjudged the worst in our nation’s history. Unfortunately, rather than try to prove those who have come to the sad conclusion that our nation has been hijacked by ruffians who freely deploy self-help tactics such as subterfuge, treachery, opportunism  and blackmail, wrong, they have continued to reinforce such assertion.

    And now as a ‘force majeure’, or as Melaye puts it, the ‘irremovable’ distinguished senators, literarily climbed the tree beyond the leaves last week when they openly threatened  the survival of a democracy Nigeria achieved through the sacrifice of  our heroes  past. They openly boast of having the power to impeach and replace the acting President by one of their own all in the pursuit of their selfish interest.

    First, the parliamentarians are at war with the acting President for criticizing their criminal act of padding the budget after the second reading. Second, they are enraged by the acting President’s claim that the presidency’s decision to retain Magu as acting chairman of EFCC despite Senate’s opposition is backed by the constitution.  On both issues, the Senate was wrong.

    First, public budgeting is the political tool with which government in power fulfills its electoral promises to the electorate and the major actor in budget preparation is the executive.  The legislature debates, examines and authorizes spending of public revenue. To avoid any ambiguity, areas of joint cooperation include implementation, monitoring, evaluation and reporting. To protect the interest of their constituencies, the legislature, like all other actors such as NGOs, pressure groups and international donors, are expected to lobby the executive at the budget preparatory stage.

    But what obtains in the last 16 years is padding of the budget in the name of constituency projects after second reading which under our law is a criminal act. To make matters worse, this was always done for selfish reasons. Last year, Abdul Mumin Jibrin, reacting to his removal as chairman of the appropriation committee following a claim he ‘unilaterally padded the 2016 budget to the tune of N4.1 billion to his Kiru/Bebeji federal constituency in Kano State, attributed his travails to his inability “to admit into the budget almost N30 billion personal requests from Mr. Speaker and the three other principal officers”. There is currently a pending  petition before the UN against House Speaker Yakubu Dogara  by SERAP claiming  ‘removal of critical projects and replacement of such projects with constituency projects, not only undermined the fight against corruption in the country, but also exacerbated extreme poverty’ of the same people on whose behalf Dogara and his House members pretended to fight.

    We also now know that about N350billion appropriated by the National Assembly in respect of about 2,516 projects spread across the country in the last five years never took off even after full payment had been made. On July 17, 2016, The Nation in a report titled “Constituency Projects – a ritual of monumental waste” summarized the result of a survey of 436 projects spread across 16 states of the federation by a Civic Technology Organisation-BudgIT. It listed on pages 9, 10 and 11, 211 projects such as water bore-holes, rural electricity and roads projects and primary health centres designed to alleviate the suffering of the poor but abandoned across 16 states of the federation. Rather than prove the report wrong or apologise to the nation, our parliamentarians, determined to continue with the monumental waste are threatening to carry out a civilian coup.

    Of course, the acting President also stands on a more solid ground in the case of Magu. If the parliamentarians’ opposition to Magu’s confirmation was not driven by self-interest as a result of Magu’s insistence on continuing with the investigation and prosecution of about 15 members of the Senate over financial malfeasance, the appropriate response would have been to challenge the President’s position in court rather than a threat to impeach and replace him with one of their own.

    To consolidate their position, those who insist our nation has been taken over by tough guys have also called our attention to the activities of our lawmakers since the inauguration of the 8th Senate on July 9, 2015. They have challenged us to find appropriate description for the action of someone who admitted that in order to secure his current position, he outwitted his fellow 51 APC elected senators by hiding inside a car in front of the Senate chambers while his colleagues were at a meeting with the President in another venue only to sneak into the Senate chambers to be adopted Senate President by acclamation by 49 opposition senators who share his values.

    They also cited the case of Ike Ekweremadu, his deputy who regaled Nigerians with the tales of how he planned with stalwarts of defeated PDP all through the night inside David Mark’s room to ‘literarily’ steal the office that by convention he had enjoyed for eight years rightly belongs to the ruling party with a majority?

    And since it is said Nigerians suffer from collective amnesia, they have also reminded us of the Senate’s recent war against the Customs Comptroller General. Instead of addressing the issue of multi-million SUV bullet proof car imported and cleared with forged documents, the Senate in the words of Itse Sagay “think they have power and decided to be unjust, oppressive and dismiss the interest of this country with levity and contempt” by ordering the Customs Comptroller General to wear uniform like a school boy. It turned out after they were forced to institute an internal probe by public opinion, that the multi-million bullet-proof SUV vehicle cleared with forged papers to evade the tariff accruable to government indeed belongs to the Senate President who was cleared of any wrong doing on the ground that the new addition to his fleet was imported on his behalf by a third party.

    They also reminded us of how Dino Melaye’s alleged false claim of being an alumni of Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) Zaria as well as that of many prestigious  universities across the globe was  resolved in his favour through a Senate  internal probe that confirmed he at least obtained  a third class degree from ABU Zaria.

    Finally, to consolidate their otherwise unassailable position, our attention was turned to Ekweremadu’s last week foreclosure of the outcome of INEC ongoing Melaye’s recall exercise. He insisted the Senate has in its kitty a new law which will render the outcome an exercise in futility.

    I am sure those who feel diminished by seizure of our country by  ruffians understand  no one can dare our all-powerful parliamentarians who are too quick to resort to tough guy self-help  tactics like accusing ministers of  “impinging on the privilege of the members of the National Assembly and inciting Nigerians against the parliament” for merely informing Nigerians of diversion of budgetary allocations from Lagos-Ibadan expressway and the 2nd  Niger Bridge to accommodate controversial constituency projects such as state roads, street light and boreholes.

    But much as it is difficult to checkmate our all-powerful tough guys, one thing they cannot stop Nigerians from doing is addressing them the way they are dressed.

  • Chinweizu’s Igbo/Yoruba rapprochement

    As against those who advertise Nigeria to the outside world as a zoo, I believe, stripped of the evil conspiracy of some selfish politicians, ours is a blessed nation and about one of the best countries in the world. Evidences abound. Our land is flowing with milk and honey with vegetable actually sprouting in front of houses and fruits all-round the seasons. We have huge human resources. Ours is a country where our children graduate as  medical doctors, lawyers  engineers  at between ages 22 and 23 without having to repay loans of $75,000 over a period of 15 years as most graduates do in the US. And with all our self-inflicted hardship, they move on to outperform their colleagues from other parts of the globe in the graduate schools in Europe and America. Ours is the only country in the world where an Igbo Lagos street hawker or his Yoruba vulcaniser counterpart will build a mansion in the suburbs of Lagos without being indebted to the banks for the rest of their lives.  God loves our country despite the fact that our churches and mosques harbour corrupt politicians who daily mock God and who the acting President a few days back, suggested must be exposed.

    The good news once again is that following the consultations of the acting President with the representatives of Igbo and their Fulani rivals, the tension that enveloped our country since the Arewa boys issued a quit notice to Igbo living in the north has disappeared.  His meeting with the five South-east governors, National Assembly members led by Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu and  Ndigbo Ohanaeze leadership, led by its President John Nwodo, and others has resulted in the denunciation of the campaign for secession being championed by the Nnamdi Kanu-led Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB).

    Alhaji Yerima on behalf of the Coalition of Arewa youths that issued a quit notice to the Igbo residing in the north has also issued a statement saying “We are happy that the Igbo leaders have taken a step to curtail some people who have been trying to hold the country down through their actions. Now that they have done what we expect of them, we would have to reconsider our position. We will meet and make our position known to the world.”

    After two years of tacit support for IPOB rascality and Niger Delta Avengers’ assault on our economy, the Igbo leadership, has once again conceded defeat to their Fulani rivals claiming it was all a strategy for demand for restructuring than a quest for secession.

    The temporary truce has enabled Chinweizu, an accomplished Igbo scholar to advance a case for a rapprochement of Igbo with the Yoruba. This according to him was sequel to the discovery of Zik’s threat of aggression against the Yoruba, in Joseph Appiah’s autobiography of an African Patriot, pp160-161. From the work, Chinweizu called our attention to an editorial in the edition of Nigeria’s West African Pilot of September, 8 1948, with the following ominous words: “Henceforth the cry must be one of battle against the Egbe Omo Oduduwa, its leaders at home and abroad, uphill and down dale, in the streets of Nigeria and in the streets of London and in the residence of its advocates”. The declaration according to him was in spite of existence of an Ibo Union.

    “For seven decades”, the Igbo according to him “have paid for Zik’s aggression against the Yoruba. The Cold War which Zik started made it possible for the British to install the NPC in power in 1959 when Zik refused to join with Awo to form the federal government. Concluding he admits: “We are not the innocent victims of Yoruba tribalism and hatred. The truth should inform Igbo attitude in seeking rapprochement with the Yoruba to escape imprisonment in Lugard’s Nigeria”.

    I sympathise with Chinweizu, a resourceful intellectual, who as colleague at The Guardian in the 80s, I have the privilege to call my friend.  First the Yoruba clearly understand that the Igbo elite only seek rapprochement whenever they have a temporary disagreement with the Fulani with whom they share a common world view. Secondly, what the Igbo need most is rapprochement with self. For decades, the Igbo of Nigeria suffer from persecution complex sometimes even when they are the aggressors as Chinweizu has admitted.

    The Yoruba clearly understand that in 1964, when the Igbo sought rapprochement with the Yoruba, it was because their Fulani estranged ally threatened to do to the East what they did to the West – dismemberment .Yoruba also remember Zik betrayed Awo during the independence constitutional conference in London by reneging on an earlier agreement to insist on carving out of regions for restive ethnic groups as a precondition for independence. He cast his lot with Ahmadu Bello who like Zik did not want his region balkanized.  Following Awo’s temporary walk out, Zik reached a compromise on all other outstanding issues and congratulated himself for preserving the unity of Nigeria. In 1959, as Chinweizu has observed, Zik betrayed Awo after misinforming his Igbo followers. In 1979, the Igbo cast their lot with their Fulani rivals. In 1993, the Igbo including Ojukwu, lined up with Fulani against the Yoruba.

    The second task is no less difficult. If it took Chinweizu who made his major contribution to knowledge over 40 years ago so long to acknowledge the documented truth about Zik’s aggression and series of misinformation against the Yoruba, it will take longer time to disabuse the minds of less endowed Igbos.

    How do you convince  an Igbo man that the 1964 joint rally at Mapo Hall Ibadan by Mrs. Awolowo and Okpara was not sufficient proof that Okpara cared for the Yoruba  except he is made to  peruse the documentary evidence of  Dr Okpara’s refusal to  recognize Alhaji Adegbenro as Premier of the West even after  the London Privy Council had ruled Akintola was properly removed by the Governor of the Western Region  choosing  instead to give  tacit support  to Chief Remi Fani-Kayode’s   assault on the Western House to justify his earlier  call for declaration of state of emergency in the west?

    My experience last Sunday in the Igbo-dominated Catholic Church where I worship convinced me of the enormity of the task before Chinweizu and other Igbo elite. The presiding priest who happened to be Yoruba had pointed out during the homilies, the futility of those trying to run from Nigeria to Biafra because the dreamed Biafra will be run by current Nigerians. He was literarily shouted down.

    Now they have to deal with ridiculous  tales like Awo’s support for Ernest Ikoli, an Ijaw man against Akinsanya, his fellow Ijebu man  during a Nigerian Youth Movement election makes Awo a tribalist; that Dr Olorunnibe’s refusal to step down for Zik after winning an election was a war against Igbo  which required Ozumba Mbadiwe to move the motion for ceding Lagos out West and for choosing to be governed by  a Yoruba man in 1952 at a time an easterner was ruling the east and a northerner,  the north, constituted a Yoruba declaration of war against the Igbo, an untruth  zealously promoted by highly respected Chinua Achebe. This has produced today’s Igbo mind-set where the demand by Lagos State for land rent on Igbo luxury mansions is interpreted by Igbo urban immigrants as an attack on Igbo race or a curse by the Oba of Lagos on those who would work against the interest of Lagos after enjoying all the opportunities Lagos offers as declaration of war against the Igbo.

    What the Igbo need first is lifting the burden of persecution siege. As for rapprochement, they have in the last 70 years demonstrated they share a common world view with their Fulani rivals as opposed to Awo’s ‘Path to Nigeria Freedom’ and Yoruba vision, which from experience of First Republic had promised a more egalitarian society.

  • Yoruba as accomplice in war against Nigeria

    The Acting President’s on-going consultation with stakeholders over the current tension triggered by the age-long Igbo and Fulani rivalry for the soul of our country provides yet another opportunity to once again interrogate our crisis of nationhood and find a way forward. Unfortunately, the ambivalent response of the Yoruba country whether through Pa Ayo Adebanjo’s old Afenifere or through  his sons’ Afenifere Renewal Group portrays Yoruba not only as an accomplice in the prolonged Nigerian nightmare but probably explains why she has since 1962 been exploited as ‘the beautiful bride’ by rivals who have shown through documented history, that they do not want the best for the Yoruba  who by their “afenifere” motto have always wanted the best for others as they wanted for themselves.

    In 1962, the two rivals whose philosophy is ‘no one gets what either of them cannot get’; out of sheer envy exploited the intraparty feud in Action Group to destroy the West.  To disrupt proceedings in the Western House, Chief Remi Fani Kayode, encouraged by the Premier of the Eastern Region who had repeatedly called on the federal government to declare state of emergency in the West over alleged maltreatment of NCNC members, with some 12 Akintola supporters, had “created uncontrollable disorder, ringing a hand bell, using the chairs as blunt and breaking the mace’ the rumpus by less than a dozen lasted for less than a minute”. But that was all the two rivals needed to declare state of emergency in the West. Awo who wondered during proceedings of the house why a storm in a tea cup should attract state of emergency when neither  Isaac Boro’s insurrection in the east  nor  the Tiv popular uprising in the north, suppressed only through deployment of soldiers led to declaration of state of emergency – was overruled. So was Enahoro’s warning  that “what had started ‘was ‘going to go much farther than perhaps most of us here today imagine” was equally ignored. Balewa went on to kill the First Republic and banish democracy on May 29, 1962 by a mendacious claim that “the federal government had been motivated solely by the desire to ensure that peace order and tranquility are maintained throughout parts of the federation”. He went on to predict a unitary system for the country in future. “There would be such a time when we would have a unitary government in Nigeria. It may be after me. This I am certain it will certainly happen…”  But Trevor Clark, his biographer faulted him claiming “Two things are undeniable. Both NCNC and NPC politicians wanted to break Awolowo’s personal hold on the West and the threats to their concepts of how Nigeria should be ruled” Trevor Clark, Pg. 547.

    The two rivals moved on to create Mid-west Region ignoring Awo’s amendment in a motion calling for the creation of nine additional states to pacify some of the restive groups in the country. Balewa, whose northern legislature was the first to vote for carving of Mid-west, later followed by Eastern Region, however later accepted responsibility during a House session – “I would like to make absolutely clear my stand, the stand of the federal government and the NPC in this matter. We are opposed to creation of new states. But if a particular tribe is foolish enough…we shall always see to it that they are broken up into bits”.

    With Awo in prison, the two rivals went on to share an orphaned Western Region, with NCNC taking control of Mid-west and remnants of AG members that escaped imprisonment to form UPGA under Dr Michael Okpara who had exhibited nothing but hatred for the Yoruba. And for the other, the spoil of war after the humiliation of subdued West was Akintola’s NNDP and Midwest Democratic Front which together formed the NNA alliance that fought the 1964 Obasanjo’s equivalent of “do or die election”. It turned out a strategic error by the surviving mainstream Yoruba political tendency which ought to have allowed Igbo to face the anger of a betrayed husband who with control of state power went on to rig UPGA out before the bitter electoral contest took off. For the 1965 marred election that turned the West into ‘the Wild Wild West’, Akintola resisted pressure to step down by informing Ahmadu Bello that he and Fani Kayode merely adopted the 1964 NNA template.

    With selective killing of NNA politicians and northern military officers by the January 1966 Igbo-led coup and the elimination of Igbo military officers in Lagos, Abeokuta and Ibadan by Murtala Mohammed and Theophilus Danjuma-led July vengeance coup, the two rivals once again turned Yoruba land into a battle ground.

    First the call by Yoruba leaders for withdrawal of northern soldiers from the West was ignored by Gowon while Ojukwu went on to seize a Nigerian Airways aircraft with which Biafra started bombing Lagos. Then Midwest, betrayed by Delta Igbo officers was overrun with Biafra troops moving to Ore and a letter from Ojukwu promising to appoint Banjo administrator of the West while Biafra will be free to appoint administrator for Lagos at the end of the expedition. This was what finally dragged Yoruba fully into the war but once again, without insisting on their own vision of Nigeria before joining forces with the Fulani to keep Nigeria one, they were outwitted at the end of the war.

    In 1993, a pan-Nigeria Abiola’s mandate was annulled with Babangida citing opposition of some Generals and the Fulani establishment to Abiola’s presidency as if they owned Nigeria. It was once again an opportunity for the Yoruba to reassess its membership of a federation where its citizens are treated as a conquered people. They were again outwitted with the choice of Obasanjo as representative of the Yoruba by the military and the Fulani establishment. It was not an accident that Obasanjo, rejected by the Yoruba, surrounded himself with Igbo politicians and became obsessed with implementation of Balewa’s 1962 unitary agenda through massive election rigging in Edo, Ondo, Ekiti and Osun in 2003 and his duplicitous institutionalization of May 29 , the date Balewa banished democracy in the First Republic as ‘Democracy Day”.

    In the ongoing consultations, it is only the Yoruba leaders that are yet to state what they want from the federation. The Igbo with an investment of N43trillion in the north, controlling an area as big as the whole south-east in the north, 100,000 shops in Kaduna, Abuja millelium cities and mansions, choice properties spreading from the slums of Lagos through high-brow Banana Island and the emerging Atlantic City, their Ezes in all Yoruba cities with some challenging First Class Obas like the Oba of Lagos and Deji of Akure and their young men controlling street trading in Yoruba urban cities and sales of staple food such as, rice , beans, pap and akara in the Yoruba remote villages, they have said no one is going to stampede them out of Nigeria. They are however resolute in rejecting Fulani herdsmen and grazing zones in their communities back home.

    Of course the Fulani wants the current status quo that allows free movement of Fulani herdsmen across Nigeria, sustains their advantage in the number of local councils areas that depend on free allocation from the centre, and of course their alleged control of 85% of oil well allocations. But as has always been the case, they have a meeting point with their Igbo rivals: a citizenship bill that proclaims forests and cities across the country a “no man’s land.”

    But what is the Yoruba agenda? Tragically, Pa Adebanjo, framed up and jailed for coup planning along with Ikoku and Enahoro by the two rivals in 1962 has been hosting the Igbos while BolaTinubu, his son driven into exile by Abacha and persecuted by Obasanjo for his opposition to his mainstreaming, has been on the side-lines. All that the Yoruba expected of them is to stick to the Yoruba demand for  a federation, where each group develops at its own pace without interference from others, or  as Awo put it, where “some people will not hold the cow for a few to milk”.

  • A nation held hostage

    Our dear nation has gone through very many difficult times. We’ve survived bloody coups, several rounds of ethno-religious violence; we’ve emerged even from a long and bloody Civil War” – Vice President Yemi Osinbajo.

    The warring Fulani and Igbo political rivals already know this. What Nigerians therefore want the acting President to tell the fortune-seeking Igbo political elite and their power-seeking Fulani rivals is that their unhealthy rivalry has held our nation down for far too long. Ironically while the duo pretended to be enemies, they have according to Brigadier General Alabi Isama, jointly ruled our country for the greater part of our independence.  Tragically, our nation has known no peace since 1962, when they unpatriotically undermined our constitution in order rule the nation according to their blurred vision of society.

    If we needed any reason to prove that the rivals are behind current tension in the nation, the well-crafted Monday letter to Osinbajo, and the measured response from Ohaneze settled that. The Arewa youth in the said letter had said the north cannot “afford to continue giving the keys to (their) cities to a people whose utterances, plans and arrangements are clearly geared towards war and anarchy”, as “Kanu and IPOB who preach hatred and war virtually every day, have not been cautioned by any Igbo leader”. We didn’t need to assume this was the case of the hand of Esau and the hand of Jacob as Fulani elders did not waste time before endorsing the statement.

    The Igbo political elite in its own response say – “That some individuals are pushing for self-determination in the South-east does not mean that the Igbo want to secede. The real situation is a protest against marginalization.” Since the Ibo political elite were not only influential during the administration of Jonathan who has confessed he was ‘caged all through his presidency’, one cannot divorce the madness and campaign of hate in the last two years from those who recently lost influence.

    After undermining our constitution, the two rivals first confronted themselves over the disputed 1963 census result. Outwitted by their rivals through the judiciary, the Igbo political elite understood that if democracy is game of numbers, the census returns figures for the north had foreclosed the possibility of an Igbo leader emerging through a constitutional means. Afterwards, what followed on the pages of newspapers was a campaign of hate with the Igbo dismissing the Fulani as ‘the kola-nut eating ignoramuses’ with the Fulani responding in kind about ‘half naked non-believers of the eastern forest’. This was the atmosphere under which the 1964 election was held. Again in the constitutional crisis thrown up by the disputed election result, the Fulani outfoxed their Igbo rivals.

    The first recorded Igbo victory against their Fulani political rivals followed the January 1966 Igbo led military coup which decimated the political and military leadership of the north. The victory however was short-lived as the Fulani came back with a vengeance in July 1966, mindlessly killing every Igbo military officer in sight. The civil war that followed (1967-70) ended in favour of Fulani political elite.

    By 1979, the Igbo political elite, often driven by quest for material resources and access to power have forgotten the scar of war as they became the ‘beautiful bride’ to Fulani-dominated NPN, an offspring of NPC of the first republic. Even rebel leader Odumegwu Ojukwu who escaped to Ivory Coast as Obasanjo closed on his last hold of Biafra, returned home to embrace the Fulani-controlled NPN. The romance between the two rivals again fell apart over sharing of offices and resources shortly before the 1983 election.

    In 1999, Obasanjo, the Fulani candidate was roundly rejected by his Yoruba people. Igbo political elite filled the gap. They featured prominently in his administration. They also exploited the clueless President Azikiwe Jonathan to the maximum building millennium cities and mansions in Abuja without remembering their south eastern states. Jonathan loss of power to a Fulani man has rekindled the old rivalry. They agonised not only because they are out of power but also because they lost the position of spare tyre they had always held to their Yoruba political enemy for the first time in our nation’s history.

    But who are the Fulani and the Igbo of Nigeria? The former were fortune seekers who came from Futa Jallon about 1804. Under the guise of purifying the Islamic faith that had existed for over 400 years, they overran the Hausa state.  But to underscore it was all about quest for power and quest for fortune, of the 12 leaders appointed by Othman Dan Fodio, all but one were of Fulani tribe .

    But the Fulani are astute politicians and empire builders. They adopted Hausa as the lingua franca while keeping their Fulfulde language, spoken only by the Fulani as language of power. Key influential members of the conquered territories are integrated through marriage, business and politics. Ahmadu Bello who was satisfied as the power behind the throne appointed Balewa, a non-Fulani minority who in his autobiography, had referred to his grandmother who had wished all Fulani sent away from their land or be killed, Prime Minister of Nigeria. The Fulani master stroke was deployed in July 1966, when the aggrieved mainstream Fulani military officers settled for Gowon, a Christian from Plateau state as Head of state.

    From the fortunes secured from the conquered territories, the Fulani overlords gave fish to the subjects rather than teach them how to fish. They eat food together from the same bowl while sitting on the bare floor with their subjects.  And because they have been programmed not to see the difference between the masters and the serfs, they are easy to mobilise to support and sustain the system that weighed heavily against them whether during elections, census exercises or even social upheavals.

    They became easy tools in the hands of their Fulani leaders which led to the killing of over 40 southerners. The northern mobs did not need more than the body language of their leaders in July 1966 before embarking to on mindless killings of those Igbo they believed openly celebrated the killing of their benefactors.

    The Igbo political elite on the other hand lack the political wizardry and the diplomatic astuteness of their Fulani rival.  For instance, despite claiming to have investment of about N43trillion in the north, they have for two years engaged on campaign of hate against the same north. They are not at peace with their neighbours including Rivers where the issue of Igbo abandoned properties had lingered on for about 50 years despite the fact that Ikwere Igbos produced the last three governors of the state. They are similarly not at peace with the Yoruba where they have always found acceptance.

    What they however also share in common with their political rival is the exploitation of their often vulnerable Igbo urban immigrants who need protection in a strangers land for political ends. For instance when Akinsanya, an Ijebu man and Zik’s candidate lost to Ernest Ikoli an Ijaw man and Awo’s candidate during Nigerian Youth Movement election, Awo was tarred with the brush of tribalism and the Igbo believed their leader.

    Although NCNC was a predominantly Yoruba, but the moment Zik lost a chance to represent Lagos to Dr. Olorunnimbe, another stalwart of NCNC, Yoruba became traitors to the Igbo cause. Zik as premier of East did not enjoy the support of mainstream Igbo who regarded him as Onitsha Igbo; but when the Yoruba in 1952 insisted they preferred Yoruba as premier of the West to an Igbo man, Igbo political elite claimed Yoruba started tribal politics in Nigeria.

    What unites the Fulani and their Igbo rivals who have over the years put the interest of their members above that of Nigeria is more than what divide them. Except the predatory political rivals who regard every part of Nigeria as “a no man’s land’, informed Nigerians know the cheapest way to tackle the menace of Fulani herdsmen terrorism, kidnapping and distribution of dangerous drugs is through state, local and community policing.

  • June 12, 1993: Saints and villains

    The declaration and celebration of last Monday June 12 as democracy day by the governments and the people of South-west states to mark the June 12, 1993 annulment of MKO Abiola’s pan-Nigerian mandate by General Babangida and some self-serving politicians offered Nigerians another opportunity to reflect on the heroic exploits of June 12 saints and the baleful legacies of June 12 villains.

    For those below 24 years of age who are too young to understand what June 12, 1993 stands for,  the date according to Joe Igbokwe  “reminds us of the most peaceful, freest and fairest election ever held in Nigeria since independence and celebrated and extolled by local, national and international observers and with the man who won the election and his deputy both Muslims; it was the first time in the history of this country Nigerians jettisoned both ethnic and primordial sentiments to elect leaders of their choice; there was no record of violence, intimidation, snatching of ballot boxes, multiple voting, rigging etc. There was no protest from any part of the country until IBB and his cohorts started brandishing ethnic cards to stop the silent revolution”.(Joe Igbokwe, Sahara Reporters  June, 2013)

    MKO Abiola as custodian of a pan-Nigeria mandate so freely given by enthusiastic Nigerians chose to make the supreme sacrifice rather than succumb to military intimidation. He was egged on by other principled Nigerians such as Abraham Adesanya, Adekunle Ajasin, Dan Suleiman, Commodore Ndubusi Kanu, and Bola Tinubu, Alani Akinrinade; among many others using NADECO as their umbrella body. They along with civil society groups openly challenged the desperate Generals on the streets of Lagos and in the international community. They constituted the forces which according to Senator Shehu Sani, “forced the military out of power and (later) rallied Nigerians to eject the PDP out of power.”

    Lined up against Abiola and his sympathisers were Babangida, Jeremiah Useni, Sani Abacha, David Mark who according to report allegedly threatened to personally shoot MKO Abiola if sworn in as president and General Oladipo Diya who while riding on the leopard’s back as Abacha’s deputy, had described the opposition NADECO as “Agbako”. The desperate Generals also had the support of notable Nigerians such as Obasanjo who said ‘Abiola was not the messiah Nigerians were waiting for’ but went on to become the greatest beneficiary of the June 12 coup He was brought out of prison and imposed as president by the disgraced military to pacify restive Yoruba nation and other determined Nigerians that wanted the military off their back.

    Obasanjo, according to Chief Frank Kokori, former General Secretary of the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers who was prominent on the streets with NADECO members and civil society groups over the struggle for June 12 which he claimed “removed the military completely from governance in Nigeria”, unilaterally fixed Democracy Day for May 29 in collaboration with his military clique and former dictators who are still behind the problems of Nigeria” in order to bury June 12 1993.

    We can add Chief Ernest Shonekan who Babangida imposed as head of an illegal contraption called Interim National Government to upstage his fellow Egba man in the same manner Dr. Moses Adekoyejo Majekodunmi, was  used as a stop gap by Tafawa Balewa during his illegal declaration of emergency in the West to allow  Awo settle down in prison before installing S. L. Akintola, his estranged deputy and  the Hausa-Fulani preferred choice for the premiership of western region without election to spite the protesting Yoruba.

    We also have in the list, Arthur Nzeribe and his ABN (Association for Better Nigeria) who after being barred by the courts from campaigning for extension of military rule went on to secure a midnight judgment from the late Justice Ikpeme to stop the election. The midnight judgment given in spite of a decree precluding the electoral empire from litigation was one of the reasons pathetic Babangida gave during a laborious television broadcast to justify the annulment.

    On the list also was Bashir Tofa, the candidate for the National Republican Convention (NRC) in the 1993 Presidential Election. Tofa who before his endorsement as candidate had been campaigning for  extension of military rule  was Babangida’s last joker to hold on to power. He refused to concede defeat despite having been roundly defeated all over the country including his Kano base. Speaking to reporters during the 21st anniversary of the historic election, he had said “the June 12, 1993 Presidential election was a fiction and its anniversary not worth celebrating”.  For him, “Only those who don’t have anything to offer to this country to move forward can still be talking about June 12 Presidential Elections”.

    We can add to the list, Tony Anenih, the erstwhile PDP ‘Mr. Fixer’ who was recently retired from politics by Adams Oshiomhole, the immediate past governor of Edo State. There was also Tom Ikimi, the chairman of Babangida’s other decreed political party who by refusing to concede defeat as NRC chairman landed the position of a foreign minister under Abacha.

    And finally we can add to the anti-Nigeria list the current members of the military created ‘new breed’ political elite who have not only failed to acknowledge the immense contribution of MKO Abiola and others who laboured for the enthronement of democracy but have in the words of Senator Shehu Sani, gone ahead to “share oil blocks to themselves, share positions to themselves, share national honour to themselves.”

    But our youths must not despair. Abiola has not died in vain despite the institutional conspiracy by military and the new political elite to deny him recognition.  One proof of this was last Monday’s recognition and celebration of his heroic contribution to the enthronement of democracy by his people. That he lives in the heart of his people is all that mattered.  For Shonekan, the impostor and Chief Obasanjo, a former military head of state, a two term Nigerian President and a respected African statesman who craves for recognition by outsiders, Edmund Burke has an advice – charity begins at home. One cannot be a good representative of outsiders if he is not first a good representative of his people. This perhaps explains why for a long time to come, both will live in the shadow of MKO Abiola among the Yoruba people.

    Already Babangida, who prides himself as the evil genius, can read the hand writing on the wall. Today, very few remember his birthday which at the height of his power attracted as many as 200 pages of newspaper congratulatory advertisements. Fewer remember August 27, 1985, the date of his palace coup against Buhari which his palace jesters had placed ahead of October 1, 1960, the date of our independence. And while he held sway as the Maradona of Nigerian politics, traditional rulers from all the over 450 Nigerian nationalities were falling over each other to give him and his wife traditional chieftaincy titles while vice chancellors of Nigerian  universities tried to out stage each other in conferring honorary degrees on him and his wife.

    Unlike MKO Abiola, his victim, who lives in the heart of his people and admired not by a few Nigerians for his supreme sacrifice in the battle for the enthronement  of democracy, Babangida is derided  for institutionalising corruption, abridging our political socialization process and destroying, in the words of Obasanjo, ‘all the values we hold dear’. If he is remembered at all, it is by private jet-owning multi-billionaires he created at the expense of Nigerians who in recent times have been trying to humour him as he ages in solitude inside his 45-room hill-top Minna mansion.

  • NJC’s affront

    Citing government failure  to take some suspended judges to court for over eight months  while  a backlog of cases piled up in their various courts, “ the National Judicial Council (NJC) early this week directed  some judges undergoing investigation or facing trial in courts to return to their duty posts.

    Government officials have been fuming over the NJC decision. The Special Adviser to the President on Prosecutions, Okoi Obono-Obla, informed  Nigerians that  the NJC is aware that the government has appealed in the case of  Justice Ademola  and of “the intention of the EFCC to file criminal proceedings against the other judges” and that the NJC took the action despite knowing that there are pending  “complaints, petitions from members of the public against these judges” only  gives  “the impression  that they (NJC members) are trying to protect some of these judges”.

    On his part, chairman, Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption, PACAC, Professor Itse Sagay, SAN, says the NJC has not used its discretion judiciously adding  that “The image of the judiciary is going to be severely damaged” by the  body’s action. Sagay also wondered if NJC ever bothered to consult. “with the anti-corruption agencies and the DSS, that arrested them in the first place?”  For a body that appears to be ready to protect the interest of its members as Sagay has observed, I think such a question is unnecessary. NJC has only exploited the indolence that has been generally associated with President Buhari’s ‘go slow administration’ that spent six months even when he was not sick to constitute a cabinet. Waiting for over eight months to take the judges to court after a sting action that led to the discovery of huge sums of money in their houses is all in character with an APC government that spent up to two years unable to constitute the boards of agencies of government it needs to prosecute its party policies. And equally working to the advantage of NJC is the endless and embarrassing inter-agency in-fighting and rivalry.

    The NJC and senior lawyers are widely believed to be behind the corruption of the judges’ .The NJC is also believed to provide a safe haven for the judges. In fact the DSS sting operation that led to the discovery of huge sums of money in the judges’ houses allegedly followed the failure of the former   Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Mahmud Mohammed, to act after one month on a letter detailing instances of criminal conduct by the judges. As the presiding chairman of NJC, he was said to have, refused to allow investigators to interrogate the judges.  It was also alleged in some cases, the NJC slaps corrupt judges with compulsory retirement but allows them to enjoy their loot.

    Justice Mahmud Mohammed, initially resisted government pressure and defied public opinion by refusing to suspend the affected judges. And when he eventually reluctantly “asked the judges to temporarily step-down from the bench pending determination of corruption allegations against them”, it was due to the pressure from the Nigerian Bar Association, NBA whose senior members openly boasted government would not be able to successfully prosecute the judges before any judge in Nigeria.

    Of course government cannot also pretend not to know on whose side the loyalty of Justice Walter Onnoghen was as vice chairman of NJC under Justice Mahmud. And if government had any illusion, they don’t need to wait for long”. Speaking during a thanksgiving service held at Methodist Church Nigeria, Diocese, Zone 3, Abuja, after his emergence as the substantive Chief Justice of Nigeria, he had said “The Judiciary is under threat. Judges and judicial officers, including myself are being castigated without giving opportunity to be heard, but God knows our heart”. His Senior Special Assistant on Media, Awassam Bassey, went on to issue a statement on his behalf to lament about media trial of judges and warning ‘politicians to desist from using the mass media to smear the good image of the nation’s judiciary in general, and the hardworking and honest judicial officers in particular.’

    It is however not an accident that the picture painted by the CJN is markedly different for that of the Acting President. Speaking  as the special guest of honour during the opening session of a ‘Conference on Promoting International Co-operation in Combating Illicit Financial Flows and Enhancing Asset’ in Lagos on Monday, Professor Osinbajo, also a senior lawyer  faulted the allegation of media trial insisting it is ‘corruption fighting back by  the treasury looters’ in order to legitimise their acts of corruption. He did not think there was anywhere in the world where the discovery of large sums of money in an air-conditioned room would not have made news headlines.

    Earlier, on Thursday last week, the Acting President, while receiving protesting members of the organized labour, had  also revealed alleged plots by some elements to wage war against the anti-corruption campaign of Buhari-led government. Nigerians that voted APC to power want solution and not lamentation about sabotage by the legislature or the judiciary. If APC does not know how to use political power, it can consult ‘clueless’ ex-President Jonathan, who in power ignored public opinion and sacked Justice Isa Salami for ruling against his party and went on to illegally remove the CBN governor for raising an alarm about possible theft of $20b from NNPC. He got away with immoral and illegal acts with the support of some fair-weather senior members of the bar who are also today on ground to defend those who have not been able to explain how billions crawled into their bank accounts.

    The point is if Jonathan as reigning democratic sovereign could deploy absolute power of the presidency to defend fraud and immoral act, how come a government of Buhari and Osinbajo who cannot be said to be clueless cannot with massive public opinion support, deploy the absolute power of the democratic sovereign for good of society?

    And for the benefit of those who have become slave to the rule of law, democracy empowers the democratic sovereign to deploy absolute power to solve society problems. Let us remind ourselves that there is rule of law in Russia where the democratic sovereign has by sheer intimidation forced all those who bought government companies without fulfilling the conditions for their sales to cede same back to government. There is rule of law in China where it is almost impossible to steal government funds without facing the consequences and of course, rule of law thrives in USA where bungling Trump, the current democratic sovereign, has fallen back on the democratic sovereign’s absolute power to fulfil his electoral promises to his far right conservative supporters.

    Those who must come to equity –  as the lawyers say even without believing it – must come with clean hands. Except in Nigeria, it does not happen in any democracy anywhere in the world that a tainted legislature or a tainted judiciary will dare the democratic sovereign.

    Nigerians want the acting President who while describing himself as a pastor a few days ago reminded Nigerians that no amount of prayers will solve our problem without action. In the age of globalisation, the ‘Ogbologbo” lawyer ex-President Obasanjo craved for can be sourced from Britain. And if our judges have decided to cast their lot with the bar and their clients holding our nation hostage, he has the permission of Nigerians to adopt the 1974 Buhari’s trick – crate and ship by air, some of the unrepentant corrupt politicians to Britain for the Ibori treatment.

  • May 29 and national question

    As has been the practice since 1999 when Obasanjo and the military institutionalised May 29, as ‘democracy day’, a move many Nigerians believe is a subterfuge to wish away the crisis of nationhood they had heightened with their misadventure into politics in January 1966, the celebration came up once again on Monday. The periodic hollow ritual which unfortunately has no bearing with the nation’s struggle for participatory democratic process has also been dismissed by many Nigerians including civil society groups as a   a celebration of the perfidy and tragic consequences of 33 years of military misadventure that destroyed our multi-party system, our political socialization process  and our social organization leaving behind an unworkable unitary superstructure and a new breed of politicians that breed nothing but corruption

    Speaking at the interdenominational church service to mark the day at the National Christian Centre in Abuja four days ago, acting President Yemi Osinbajo urged Nigerians to make sacrifices for Nigeria’s greatness drawing a parallel between the Biblical story of the good Samaritan and our self-serving  politicians.  Apostle Popoola, the presiding apostle of the Word Communication Ministries and founder of Christ Family Assembly Churches, who ministered during the service however struck the nail on its head by reminding us that 100 years after the amalgamation of the North and the South, the country could not continue to blame the imperialists for our crisis of nationhood. His advice to government, which like its predecessors has continued to play the ostrich despite making resolution of the national question a campaign issue during the election campaigns, is a revisit of the 2014 National Conference report which made some attempts at addressing our crisis of nationhood.

    The Acting President must be reminded that our crisis of nationhood has nothing to do with the people.  President Buhari, his principal affirmed this much during last year’s celebration of the hollow ritual when he declared “Despite the many years of hardship and disappointment the people of this nation have proved inherently good, industrious tolerant, patient and generous”. It similarly has nothing to do with the economy, one of the major pursuits of the Buhari’s government. Our major problem is politics. We cannot win the economic battle without first winning the political battle. An attempt to put the cart before the horse by our successive hypocritical governments since 1964 has only provided additional incentive for those benefitting from our nightmare to continue to hold the nation hostage.

    The successive military regimes in particular have since 1966 done everything including plunging the nation into an avoidable civil war that led to the loss of about two million lives except address the core issue of crisis of nationhood- which is about how our multiethnic, multi-cultural and multi religious society can live together in harmony and develop at their own pace without interference from the federating units.

    People and nationalities are products of their environments. The military and its apologists forget that Britain with hostile environment where life was once ‘nasty brutish and short’ thrives in the exploitation of weaker cultures using her wits, Germany on the culture of industry of her people, and France on her liberalism and celebration of the infinite goodness of man.  Run Britain, Germany, France, Turkey and Afghanistan with our own type of military imposed unitary constitution, with Turks and Afghans performing the role of local policing in Germany, France and Britain, what they will be confronted with is the same type of social dislocations currently afflicting our own multi-ethnic society. They will also have the equivalents of our self-serving warlords in Abuja who, answerable to none but to themselves came up with privatization and monetization; policies that allowed their members and their families to confiscate national assets built through the sweat and blood of the poor. There will be Afghan and Turks herdsmen who like our own Fulani herdsmen that justify killing, maiming and confiscation of farmer’s territories across Nigeria on the basis of a military-doctored constitution, will roam freely from Istanbul to Paris, tending their flock. Of course there will also be street hawkers turned millionaires to contest the ownership of the Queen’s royal palaces.

    However, to forestall culture clash, and prevent the chaos that have come to define our own co-existence since the deliberate sabotage of our independence constitution in 1962, Europe had after two devastating world wars resolved their crisis of nationhood by embracing federalism- a social philosophy which strives to liberate individuals and groups from the tyranny of the state and democracy, a governmental process or a method that guarantee self-actualisation of people within a community.

    President Buhari and the APC, if they wish to be remembered by history, still have two years to address the national question. All that is required is the political will. As a democratically elected President, Buhari remains a sovereign for the next two years. As a democratic sovereign in control of awesome apparatus of state power, he has a limitless power to implement his campaign promises He is unstoppable by political foes.

    Since democracy is nothing but a method that gives the sovereign a free hand to either deploy constitutional means, liberal strategies or even absolute power to effect changes in society, President Buhari and APC are not being asked to invent the wheel. They have examples of nations such as Malaysia, China, Russia, India and even the USA where reigning democratic sovereigns at different periods in their history adopted any or a combination of the above democratic methods they deemed appropriate for fulfilling their contractual electoral obligations to those who voted them into power. Such electoral promises include but not limited to liberating their people from poverty as we had in Malaysia, India, China or promoting political elite greed as we had under Bush that threw America into two avoidable wars  in order to create jobs by utilizing arms piled up in American warehouses; and Donald Trump whose chief economist, Gary Cohn told reporters after signing an unprecedented arms deal with Saudi Arabia that  ‘the goal of the $350b arms deal, is ‘to invest a lot of money in the US and have a lot of US companies invest and build thing over here”. It counts for little that the development will prolong the nightmare of people in the Arab world.

    The challenge of Buhari and APC in implementing their contractual promise to Nigerian electorate is not time. It is whether they have the political will.  The beauty of democracy is that Buhari as a democratically elected sovereign is invincible until he is replaced by another democratically elected sovereign.  It is only his successor who, if he has the support of the people, that can attempt to undo whatever Buhari decides to do within the next two years the same way Donald Trump is today trying to undo Obama policies such as ‘Obamacare’, Obama immigration policies, and his Middle-East as well as his NATO and climate change  policies, all within his first 150 days in office.

  • Kachikwu’s tales and DSS shadow-boxing

    Amidst gloomy stories such as ‘$480b stolen from Nigeria between 1960-2004’, (Chatham House report); ‘$182b lost through illicit financial flows between 2005-2014’, and other stories of billions allegedly traced to former chieftains of NNPC or abandoned at airports or Bureau de Change, the tales about NNPC’s giant strides and its achievements by Ibe Kachikwu, the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources ought to have come as some sort of relief to Nigerians. Speaking as a guest on a BBC Hard Talk in London only this Monday, the minister had assured Nigerians of self-sufficiency in the local refining of petroleum products by 2019. The refineries that were down before they came on stream two years ago, according to him ‘now produce about seven million litres a day’. Besides removing and renegotiating cash call deficit of over $6bn and moving NNPC into a profit-making organization for the first time in our nation’s history, he also announced the ‘signing of an agreement with the international oil giant, Agip, for the firm to build a refinery in Nigeria’.

    Undoubtedly, Kachikwu and the Buhari administration deserve commendation for the successes he claimed they have chalked up in the last two years. Unfortunately this however has been marred by the news of the arrest of Ifeanyi Uba, the chairman of Capital Oil and Gas Limited by DSS over an alleged theft of N11b worth of fuel deposited in his depot by NNPC. For many Nigerians, the development was enough evidence that the battle of NNPC often regarded as the most corrupt institution in Nigeria is yet to be won in spite of Kachikwu’s celebration.

    A statement by the spokesman for the DSS, Tony Opuiyo, claimed the arrest of Ubah was sequel to his alleged engagement in acts of economic sabotage which include stealing, diversion and illegal sale of petroleum products stored in his tank farm by the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). The DSS spokesman also affirmed that “it has been established that the products stolen amount to over N11bn. However, an unnamed  senior official ‘s of Ubah’s Capital Oil and Gas Ltd was reported to have said  the DSS was being economical with the truth as to the actual transactions between Ubah’s company and NNPC. Unfortunately with the baleful legacies of NNPC, it is doubtful if many Nigerians will swallow the DSS story that Ubah “stole and diverted petroleum products stored by the NNPC in his depots” without the collusion of NNPC officials, if that ever happened.

    But beyond this, what will be of concern to many Nigerians is the prospect that Kachikwu’s advertised successes  and others that will be chalked up  before 2019, may have no effect on the lives of ordinary Nigerians  if the nation is still going to be held hostage by tank farm owners after Buhari’s four years government of change. Nigerians have not forgotten that owners of tank-farms and their friends, the tanker owners were linked to the vandalisation of the over 400 kilometres of pipeline put in place by Obasanjo before he left office in 1979. If NNPC is unable to maintain the massive tank farms government built in Ikorodu or build new ones, undertakings that are much easier to accomplish than managing refineries, Kachikwu’s tales of giants stride made in local refining of petroleum products are not likely going to amuse Nigerians.

    Nigerians also remember what was in place when Obasanjo was sworn in as president in 1999. There was the NNPC Act 1977 which saddled the Minister of Petroleum with the responsibilities of “regulating and fixing petroleum product prices and supervising the MPR/DPR that has sole regulatory authority over technical standards, refining, and logistics in the sector”. There was also  the Pipelines and Product Marketing Company, (PPMC) which was set up in 1988 by his predecessor to “profitably and efficiently market refined petroleum products in the domestic as well as export markets, especially in the ECOWAS sub-region, provide marine services and also maintain uninterrupted movement of refined petroleum products from the local refineries.” Then following the swearing in of Obasanjo, artificial fuel queues sprang up overnight in our filling stations. Lawmakers who publicly complained they needed to recoup the expenses incurred in running for elections by selling their personal houses outwitted Obasanjo who was stampeded to set up the PPPRA through a bill, debated and passed within three months. Its mandate which was not markedly different from those of the two existing Acts was to “liberalise the downstream sector of the petroleum industry, privatise the refineries, deregulate and liberalise the imports of petroleum products and, generally, make the products available at reasonable prices”.

    It was obvious PPPRA was set up primarily to serve the interest of the new power wielders in Abuja and as it turned out, the new inheritors of power ensured the first recorded achievement of PPPRA was its fraudulent claim that it spent N2.1 trillion on phantom subsidy in 2011, a figure brought down to less than one trillion in 2012 following protest by Nigerians. Then there was the theft of N1.7 trillion according to House Committee probe report, in 2011 during the tenure of Ahmadu Alli, as chairman of PPPRA. It was perpetrated by politicians and their fronts who according to Audu Ogbe, a former PDP chairman, “never imported a bottle of fuel”. The body also went on to increase the number of fuel importers from less than a dozen to 128 as patronage to politicians and their fronts. We can also add PPPRA’s fraudulent claim that the nation consumed 60.25 million litters in 2011, a figure that also went down to 39.66 litres in 2012 followed intervention by the Lower House.

    Besides the overlapping functions of PPMC and PPPRA, it is obvious from the above that the stakes are very high for so-called beneficiaries of deregulation in the oil sector who in the last 16 years have instead of building refineries, chosen to fall over each other in erecting the largest storage facility in the world and rent same to NNPC. PPPRA which  has demonstrated greater commitments to importation of refined petroleum products as against making our own refineries work depends on the storage facilities of members of Depot Petroleum Products Marketers Association (DAPPMA) (Obat Petroleum is reputed to have the largest and most modern storage facilities in the world). It also patronises Independent Marketers Company (NIPCO) that has invested billions in storage facilities and a jetty in Apapa. It also relies to some degree on the services of Oando and Zenon petroleum companies that jointly control over 200 trucks and a jetty owned by Zenon.

    The stakes are too high for those who have made huge investments on tank farms and live as parasites in the last 17 years. They will remain hostage takers long after the expected Kachikwu’s attainment of self -sufficiency in local production. Since this cannot be wished away, Kachikwu and the government must find the political will to negotiate with these determined and unrepentant hostage-takers. The ongoing shadow boxing between DSS and Ifeanyi Ubah while NNPC behaves like an unconcerned onlooker, is enough evidence that the government has very few choices.