The Nation Newspaper

Category: Jide Oluwajuyitan

  • Bakare and CAN as Buhari critics

    Pastor Tunde Bakare, the overseer of Latter Rain Assembly Church while delivering his State of the Nation address, titled ‘Roadmap to successful change,’ back in January launched a sweeping attack on some of President Buhari’s policies. First, he said “The CBN was contributing negatively to the Nigerian state by becoming a conduit for politicians to drain the nation.”  He  thereafter ‘demanded for the prosecution of those indicted in the damning report of the Farouk Lawan committee, a phenomenon he refers to as ‘Kleptoric kleptocracy unlimited’, where for instance, N999m was reportedly paid 129 times totaling N128,871,000,000 to some companies by the office of the Accountant General of the Federation.” He went on to remind the President that ‘with the non- prosecution of those indicted four years after; we didn’t need to wonder why corruption is so endemic and very pervasive in our nation today’.

    Bakare’s criticism is in pursuit of a better society. This is a crusade he started back in 1982 when he first launched his ministry. Bakare has intimidating credentials as a ‘prophet, lawyer, politician, a successful international businessman, an activist and servant of the people’.  His commitment to Nigeria as a social crusader with Nigeria will work in my time mantra has been attested to by no less a personality than Pius Adesanmi, a professor of Literature and winner of the Peguine prize for Africa writings.  According to him “Bakare  is Nigeria first and only liberation theologist who provides not just spiritual food and guidance for Nigeria but been in the trenches’ deploying and interpreting the gospel as a manifesto of liberation of the Nigerian people  from poverty injustice and all assorted  consequences of corruption and bad leadership”.

    Bakare, who has in his own words ‘moved from the pulpit to the street and to the podium” to make ‘propositional alternatives’ to government was the Convener of the Save Nigeria Group, (SNG) that fought on behalf of Jonathan on the streets of Abuja. Following the astronomical increases in fuel subsidy from N256.3b in July 2008 to N673b in 2010 under Yar Adua,  moving to N1.3 trillion in 2011 under Jonathan and N2.19t in an election year, Bakare was at the ‘Freedom Park’ in Lagos calling for the investigation of those ‘behind the colossal looting of our money’. His crusade paid off when a House of Representatives probe indicted some PDP leading lights and their siblings for the theft of about N1.7 trillion.

    We can therefore easily understand  Bakare’s righteous indignation that those who should be in prison to serve as a deterrent to others today under Buhari government of change enjoy the same immunity  as they did as Jonathan fund- raisers and campaign managers.

    The difference between Bakare and Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) as critics of government is very clear. Unlike Bakare  who has since 1982  had “the courage to say and do what he considered the right thing”  for our nation, his other CAN members  who kept their peace, sometimes not as innocent onlookers, while the looting of our resources  went on, have in the wake of economic recession ravaging the land found their voices. They have told Buhari to find solution to the nation’s economic woes instead of moaning over spill milk. I agree with our religious fathers. Wasn’t that the reason Buhari stood a chance against Jonathan after three failed attempts?

    The views are the same. From Tunde Adeoye the Bishop of Calabar Diocese, Anglican Communion, to Jacob Adetunmobi, Bishop of Ibadan South Diocese, Adeyemo, Bishop of Omu- Aran, Prelate of Methodist Church of Nigeria Dr. Samuel Uche, to the Bishops of the 19 northern states and Abuja whose spokesman, Revd. John Hayab ‘wants the government to embark on policies that show they love the citizen’, to the chairman and spiritual father of Cherubim and Seraphim Movement Worldwide (Ayo Ni o), Most Revd. Samuel Abidoye whose concern was that this year Christmas ‘will be the poorest Christmas celebrations in recent time” to Emeritus Archbishop Olubunmi Okogie, who saw ‘youth revolution because the people are hungry.’

    Although it is on record that some jet-flying prosperity prophets contributed to the current hunger in the land, the verdict of both Christian and Muslim clerics is that Buhari alone must carry the can. Dr. Saheed Ashafa, the president of Muslim students society of Nigeria,  blames the current economic predicament on Buhari while  the Chief Imam, Ansar-Ud-Deen Society of Nigeria, Sheikh Abdurrahman Ahmad says to  Buhari “ the hunger is real, you cannot continue to ask Nigerians to be patient , you cannot continue to preach to hungry people.”

    While they are all absolutely right, I however think we cannot afford a divided home through finger-pointing in view of the imminent danger hunger poses to our people. I therefore believe all hands must be on deck instead of blame game.

    Let us start with our Muslim clerics. In Lagos, Musliu Obanikoro, former minister of defence who has only been able to pay N140m of about N1billion he admitted he illegally took, is known in the Muslim community as generous giver to mosques and Muslim associations. This is the time he needs the help of his Muslim spiritual leaders most. They could make contributions or prevail on him to sell off some of his properties. A billion naira if stashed together according to our inimitable Olatunji Dare will be as high as the empire building in New York. If Buhari has that humongous stolen fund, it will surely go a long way in reducing hunger.

    The President of the Muslim Congress Dr. Luqman Abdul Raheem who claim ‘division within the President’s APC had increased hunger in the country’  can join hands with his fellow Christian clerics to appeal to Saraki who caused the division by trading off the victory of his party to retrace his steps. Senator Alasoadura (he whose armour is prayers); his able supporter, Dino Melaye who claimed to have made his fortunes through prosperity prophets, both Abdulmumin Jibrin, and Yakubu Dogara the Speaker, put asunder by ‘budget padding, are Muslim and Christian respectively. If division is the cause of hunger according the cleric, who are better placed to bring reconciliation than those who claim to hear the voice of God?

    And finally  an appeal to my own Cardinal Olubunmi Okogie who ‘saw a revolution going on underground because there is hunger in the land and some people are still crying for their salaries and not getting them” . He is right to blame Buhari for our economic woes. But since we are looking for solution to the hunger ravaging our land, Okogie who commands a lot of respect among his Niger Delta compatriots can appeal to the Niger Delta militants who are currently sabotaging the economy.

  • How Yoruba governors mortgaged our tomorrow

    First, an ode to politicians. Being a politician itself is a major nightmare. Because politics accommodates the cheat, the egoist and the unscrupulous, even those driven by noble objective are often tarred with the same brush. But politics is not all about intrigue. It is also about service and without the versatility and brinkmanship of those driven by noble objective to meet rising expectations of those without hope, society will descend to in to chaos. Those who chose to spend their time, talent and resources to serve society therefore deserve our gratitude. It must also be added that politics is even a more hazardous profession especially in our own multi-ethnic society where as Governor Ajimobi put it during the governors’ parley initiated by the Development Agenda For Western Nigeria, (DAWN), ‘We were coerced by the British overlords in the evergreen magical marriage of inconvenience called amalgamation of 1914 with nationalities and their different worldviews, different ideologies, different cultures, different political beliefs, soldered into one component by the British colonial masters’.

    This heterogeneity fortunately was acknowledged by the majority of our founding fathers except Zik who said our ‘cultural differences had been exaggerated by accident of colonial rule’.  That was why they settled for federalism with each group mapping out a socio-economic blueprint informed by the innate ingenuity of their forebears. To build on the ‘cultural welfarism’ which defines the world-view of the Yoruba, the starting point for Awo and his group was the result of a commissioned survey of Eastern Region which showed that the East had between 1934 when Zik returned to Nigeria and 1951, caught up and outstripped the Yoruba that was once ahead in area of education, with more secondary schools, more hospital bed spaces per thousand and more mileage of tarred roads. This informed the AG manifesto ‘of free education, free health and full employment’.

    Sadly, 64 years and 17 years into the fourth republic, after a group of Yoruba youths first exploited our uniqueness to build a secured future for their people, Ajimobi and his current governors of the Yoruba states are just coming to the realization that “the key to leveraging our uniqueness is the regional approach to dealing with our afflictions, overcoming our difficulties, as well as creating sustainable pathway to progress together”. Unfortunately this belated acknowledgement is coming after so much harm has been done that not a few including Dr. Olapade Agoro, the chairman, National Action Council (NAC), who says ‘the parley portrayed ambient culture of self-deceit, and insincerity   for deviating from western region self- sufficiency’, have much faith in the governors’ new initiative.

    The reason for cynicism is obvious. Our governors with exception of few since the fourth republic have behaved like locusts eating and sharing the proceeds of efforts of a more visionary generation.  Many believe the poor quality of leadership they give is but a reflection of lack of preparation for leadership. Unlike those Obasanjo (he once boasted of achieving what his better educated Yoruba compatriots could not achieve) picked from the streets and made governors, Awolowo paid his dues before becoming the Premier of the West. He was surrounded by men with quality education and of solid character such as Adekunle Ajasin, Ladoke Akintola, Remi Fani-Kayode, Bode Thomas, Rotimi Williams, Olaniwun Ajayi, Ayo Adebanjo, Abraham Adesanya, Oduola Osuntokun, etc. They were assisted by a think-tank consisted equally of men of solid character and of excellent academic achievements such Professors Hezekiah Oluwasanmi, Samuel Aluko, Banji Akintoye, Oluwole Awokoya etc.

    These young visionaries  set up the Western Regional Marketing Board in 1954 which  developed the cash crop industry in the west and together with other regional boards “became the dominant economic system in the Nigerian economy controlling 63% of the foreign exchange earned by the country in 1961”.

    They established the National Bank. They later bought Nabani Estates, a fully owned subsidiary of the bank and turned it to WEMABOD which became the biggest property builders and estate managers in the country. They went on to set up the National Investment and Properties Company Limited (NIPC). They also set up the Odu’a Investment Company Limited, which became Nigeria’s biggest conglomerate in the post-independent years with Ikeja Hotels Ltd, Vegetable Oil Nig. Ltd. and the Great Nigeria Insurance Company as some of its subsidiaries.  They did not only establish industries, they empowered entrepreneurs irrespective of political leanings.

    Tragically between 1985 when Babangida started his liberalization programme and 1987 when Obasanjo completed the sharing of Nigeria’s $100b worth of investment at a giveaway price of about $1.6b, many of the investments built through the blood and sweat of Western Region cocoa farmers and taxpayers were sold. Between 1999 and 2007, under Obasanjo’s new privatization policy similar to his “Commodity Boards Decree 1977” which destroyed the Western Region’s economy, Yoruba governors presided over the sale of some of the companies.  Equally taking the advantage of the Obasanjo’s government monetisation policy with which the political class confiscated our national patrimony at the federal level, some of the Yoruba governors descended on choice properties built by their predecessors. In the dying days of Adebayo Alao-Akala as governor of Oyo State, the Alaafin of Oyo reminded him that such malady was unacceptable within the Yoruba culture.

    In total disregard for the entrenched Yoruba culture of check and balance which had existed long before the advent of participatory democratic system, there emerged a new generation of Yoruba  governors who behave like sole administrators or sometimes as outlaws, locking up Houses of Assembly and chasing lawmakers out of town, governors who publicly fought over who was to buy government banks they did not establish, entangled in the Ikoyi choice government property sale scandals or hunted by EFCC for acquiring choice properties with stolen funds. Yet this is a region where neither Oduola Osuntokun (later died a school teacher) who  as a minister, supervised the building of the Bodija Estate , nor Awo, Akintola or Rotimi Williams have mansions  within the estate or within the Ikeja GRA also built by their government .

    Bola Tinubu, in spite of his personal political travails remains our political leader. As our revered Pa Adeyinka Adebayo reminded him not too long ago, “fate has put him in a prime position to determine to a large extent the direction the Yoruba people will go”. He must now deploy his political genius to mobilise those who have quietly and selflessly served the cause of the Yoruba race such as Wale Oshun, General Alani Akinrinade without leaving out ex-President Obasanjo (the “ebora of Owu) since in Yoruba cosmology, we can achieve nothing without first pouring libation to Esu the god of confusion. Tinubu was able to manage Obasanjo before the last election; he can do this again for the peace and progress of our people.

    And the time for action is now. The Yoruba, of the three dominant groups in the country, as Pa Adebayo reminded Tinubu, remains the weakest link. While our governors groom area boys and political thugs, the West’s economy has been taken over by the north and the east through Dangote and the Igbos; while our governors build airports, governor’s mansions and flyovers, industries are springing up in the East. While we once harnessed the energy of our youths through farm settlements and became self -sufficient in food production, we today depend on the north to feed ourselves. It is time to implement the DAWN agenda painstakingly put together by Yoruba professionals and intellectuals.

  • Protecting Obasanjo from his troubled PDP children

    Like many concerned Nigerians who are apprehensive about the adoption of military social engineering method as one-time antidote to social dislocations created by our military institution, I have railed and thrown tantrums at the military and Obasanjo, unarguably one of the most talented of his peers for close to 30 years starting with a piece titled ‘Generals and the ordinary man’ in The Guardian issue of December 12, 1987.

    However in view of the present stand-off between him and his troubled PDP children – the military ‘New breed politicians’ that breed nothing but corruption who today populate National Assembly – I have chosen to stand by Obasanjo, a veteran of many wars, starting with the battle over the still-born Biafra where he chased boastful Ojukwu of ‘no power in Africa can defeat us’ from Ihiala to Ivory Coast. He survived the drunken Dimka who assassinated Murtala Mohammed, his boss. He survived Abacha. He outwitted Atiku who in desperation to become president mobilized some governors described as ‘thieves in government houses’ by a British judge. He survived his carbon-copy daughter and her satanic verses in support of drowning ex-President Jonathan, who, lionized by Edwin Clark, the fair-weather self- proclaiming ‘president father’, stepped on the tail of a vindictive cobra of a god-father. I believe Obasanjo, whimsically dismissed as the ‘grandfather of corruption in Nigeria’ by a bunch of self-serving uncultured children whose National Assembly, in the words of their injured grandfather, ‘is a den of corruption by a gang of unarmed robbers’.

    But first, let us critically examine the issues. In his January 13 letter to Senate President Bukola Saraki and House of Representatives Speaker Yakubu Dogara, Obasanjo had accused the lawmakers of reckless spending and abuse of office, daring the lawmakers to open their financial records for external audit as the first step to returning to the path of honour. He advised against their proposed plan to purchase vehicles for oversight functions especially after obtaining car loans. One of the grandchildren he first appointed an adviser on youths, Dino Melaye, now chairman of the Senate Committee on Federal Capital Territory (FCT), spoke on behalf of his colleagues. It was the view of Saraki’s Senate that ‘it was Obasanjo who introduced corruption into the legislature’ while Dino, tongue-in-cheek asked: “I hope this is not an attempt to cover up and distract attention from the Halliburton and Siemens corruption allegations”.

    Last Friday, about 11 months after Obasanjo’s first warning, he once again told the lawmakers the truth they were not ready to hear. The National Assembly, according to him ‘stinks and stinks to high heavens. It needs to be purged. With appropriate measures, the budget of the National Assembly can be brought down to less than 50% of what it is today”. And finally, he reminded his PDP grandchildren that ‘The National Assembly cabal of today is worse than any cabal that anybody may find anywhere in our national governance system at any time. The National Assembly is a den of corruption by a gang of unarmed robbers.”

    Responding on behalf of his colleagues this time around, the chairman, House Committee on Media & Publicity Abdulrazak Namdas said “the list of his (Obasanjo) corrupt acts while in office is endless; unquestionably, he is the greatest corrupt person ever to hold office in Nigeria. He remains the grandfather of corruption in Nigeria”.

    Here, dear compatriots, is the verdict of Obasanjo’s PDP grandchildren on whose behalf he staked everything, his credibility, goodwill of Nigerians and those of respected personalities in the international community.  They have now been told that Obasanjo        ‘lacks the moral authority to discuss corruption or indeed abuse of office in Nigeria as he remains the most corrupt Nigeria on record.’

    I think, in our culture, it is only uncultured children that disrobe their fathers in the public even when they are wrong and the children are right.   Unfortunately for the lawmakers, they are wrong in this case. As proof of their grandfather’s corruption, they alleged he bribed lawmakers from day one as President in 1999; that he offered N50m to each lawmaker   in pursuant of his failed third-term agenda and that the floor of the National Assembly was littered with ‘Ghana must go bags’ filled with money. While Nigerians must be wondering what manners of children feel comfortable admitting receiving bribes from their fathers, it is on record that none of those who alleged they were offered N50m or a former Senate President who admitted between N10-N14b was raised for the failed third term agenda, told Nigerians the source of the funds since only appropriated funds was available for spending by the executive.

    They might have been right to stick to their argument that the National Assembly budget is high because the presidential system is expensive to run. But even then, they are the only people empowered by the constitution to change the system if, in their view, it has become a threat to our survival as a nation. They however betrayed their real intention through the Freudian slip of “The Budget of many agencies in the Executive Branch such as CBN, NNPC, NCC and allowances of junior staff in such organisations are higher than that of legislators”.

    And here also, they are at liberty to appropriate the CBN and NNPC budget and their salary structures. After all they have demonstrated they have regard for neither public opinion nor that of their grandfather who had advised against huge expenditures on expensive cars at a period when about 26 states of the federation owed salaries arrears of between six and eight months.

    Compared with his warring grandchildren, I think Obasanjo is a man of honour.  He has never denied being the father of PDP and by extension father of corruption. He took responsibility for their excesses. Adopting the strategies he finds convenient – intrigues and coups, he has tried to rein in some of his wayward children. He made Fayose but was the first to call attention to his alleged fraudulent poultry project. With the help of his friends in the international community, Alamieyeseigha, the late ‘Governor General’ of the Ijaw was hunted from France to Britain and finally Nigeria where he was indicted for corruption. He masterminded the impeachment of some of his thieving PDP governors in spite of impediments put on his way by of human right advocates.

    I think Obasanjo, a military genius imbued with a great deal of native intelligence, deserves our support in the battle against his misguided grandchildren who think the essence of politics is ‘who gets what, when and how’, and are ready to bite the fingers that fed them. Besides, Obasanjo has carried on his burden with philosophical equanimity (apology to Ray Ekpu). He has never for once denied he sired or spared thieving PDP children and grandchildren who believe stealing government money is not corruption. His method might have been unorthodox, but under Obasanajo, neither the National Assembly nor state houses provided refuge for criminals. Today we remember Obasanjo with nostalgia as those responsible for death of millions of Nigerians or condemn millions to refugee camps in their own country enjoy human right privileges not extended to such criminally-minded individuals in the advanced democracies we try to copy.

    And finally, in the face of unwarranted assault by his troubled children, I think Obasanjo needs protection from his PDP children and grandchildren responsible for the squandering of tremendous goodwill he took to government, who undermined his war on corruption by running Nuhu Ribadu out of town and derailed his power sector reform that was projected to give us 40,000MW in 2016 as against the current less than 5000MW.

  • Corruption: Beyond PDP and ‘Dazukigate’

    President Buhari’s resolve to do what he thinks is best for our country is not in doubt. Precisely because he genuinely believes if we don’t kill corruption, corruption will kill us, he is pursuing his war against corruption with unwavering resolve. It is just as well that the majority of Nigerians support the renewed crusade. He is not afraid to stand alone. If it had been otherwise, as he did during his first coming as head of a military junta when he was removed through a palace coup for refusing to listen to those who criticized his method of tarring with the same brush, politicians who spent government money to build s universities for their youths and those who spent their state money to establish private banks, as well as those who campaigned against the killing of drug pushers through retroactive decrees. Today it is most unlikely Buhari will sacrifice his goal for popularity or for a re-election in 2019.

    For  the first time in our nation’s history,  Generals who as ‘custodians’ of our constitution fraudulently claim ‘they sacrifice their present for our future’  have been shown to be nothing but soldiers of fortunes and are in court to defend their honour. Politicians who believe ‘stealing government fund is not corruption’ are having their days in court.   The Senate President has spent the greater part of the last 16 months in court over alleged false and anticipatory declaration of assets. His deputy has had a day in court over an alleged forgery of Senate rules.

    The judiciary is not spared.  Some judges of appeal and apex courts, the otherwise untouchables, have been shown to be men with feet of clay. The Buhari war on corruption is in full swing and anyone, friend or foe that stands on his path will be crushed.

    But corruption as Buhari has said several times is fighting back. That is not unexpected with some of those indicted by a House probe over the theft of N1.6 trillion through the fuel subsidy scam now pontificating about how to rebuild the economy and solve the country’s foreign exchange problems; with those who confiscated our national patrimony for next to nothing only to erect skyscrapers where rents are charged in dollars constituting the political class and with those who through ill-implemented privatization programme, confiscated $100b national investments for a paltry $1b and who after asset stripping now control critical sectors of the economy.

    But corruption is national malaise that defies party lines. With Buhari unable to move beyond ‘Dazukigate’ and PDP almost 16 months in control, most people thought the corruption war in spite of his resolve was doomed until what appeared a breakthrough in Fayose and Patience Jonathan’s alleged fraud cases last week. Long before Obanikoro’s recent confession that he indeed ferried about N1.3b to Fayose for the purpose of rigging election, Fayose had maintained donations for his re-election bid poured in from well wishers including Zenith Bank. (The bank has since denied making contribution). The anti-corruption body, according to a Punch newspaper report, has trailed Mrs. Moji Ladeji, Fayose’s sister to the UK over a N200m house located at 44 Osun Crescent, Maitama, Abuja, a highbrow area in the nation’s capital. The body also told us that Fayose’s house on Tiamiyu Savage Street, Victoria Island, Lagos, said to be worth about N1.1bn was the proceeds of kickback from government contractors – Samchese Nigeria Limited, Tender Branch Concept Nigeria Limited, Hoff Concept Limited and Calibre Consulting Limited

    In the case of Mrs. Jonathan, we were also told she probably owns the staggering $175m found in the account of Pluto Property and Investment Limited (PPIL), one of the four companies convicted by Justice Babs Kuewumi Abuja Federal High Court, on November 2 for laundering the sum of $15.5 million, which the former First Lady had claimed belong to her.

    While the chairman of the Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption (PACAC), Prof Itse Sagay, has said “some of the sections under the ICPC law, allow such amount to be forfeited to the state, if you found a sum of money like that and somebody claims it but cannot establish how he or she acquired it”, Mike Ozekhome has said that “Section 36 of the 1999 Constitution, presumes the innocence of a person accused of any criminal offence”, arguing that “It is the state or the accuser that should prove a crime beyond reasonable doubt”. Udenga Eradiri, of the Ijaw Youth Council (IYC) Worldwide has however added a new dimension by claiming just like Fayose that the bulk of the money under investigation was given to the ex-First Lady as a gift by her well-wishers and friends of her family by ‘virtue of her position as wife to former deputy governor, governor, Vice-President”. He went on to speak of persecution of the Jonathan family by those who are not happy with his rising profile.

    “There are other First Ladies in this country”, he concluded with a tint of sarcasm

    He is right. For instance Reuben Abati, the former senior media adviser to ex-President Jonathan in a piece titled “the Ikoyi Houses Scam in The Guardian on Sunday April 3, 2005 had wondered “how Mrs. Stella Obasanjo whose only known occupation is that of being the wife of President Obasanjo has managed to become so rich that she alone collected eight certificates of ownership of Ikoyi property for herself and on behalf of her relations?” (Obasanjo later cancelled the allocations).

    Similarly, in the celebrated case between  Mrs. Jonathan and Hajiya Turai Yar’Adua, her predecessor  over the disputed Plot 1347 at the Cadastral Zone A00, the  latter  as the Registered Trustee of Women and Youth Empowerment Foundation, WAYE told the court that her NGO   not only paid N184,529,438 as statutory Right of Occupancy  but that  N76,939,210 was also paid as building plan fees’ shortly after which it engaged a building company, Al-Cooks Nigeria Limited, to develop the property for N13, 516,013,797.58.  Turai, like Stella and Patience, were all housewives.

    But I think EFCC’s new approach based on information and intelligence gathering  as done in other democratic societies where the ‘Big Brother’ is always there to let the governed know they have no hiding place for anonymous  donors to questionable pet projects by those in government and their spouses, is a step in the right direction.  Developed democracies are nothing but George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four Stalinist state. The sinister vision of Orwell who had said after writing the satire “I do not believe that the kind of society I describe necessarily will arrive, but I believe that something resembling it could arrive” is today a reality in USA, Britain, Germany and other European nations where “Big brother is watching everywhere and freedom is curtailed, not merely by physical force but by a complete denial of privacy and by the control of all information”.

    Government today is a science. Politicians, soldiers, judges in developed democracies are humans with the same human frailties like us. The only difference is that there is deterrence for breaking the law because theirs is an Orwellian state while we have chosen to live in Orwellian Animal farm. Beyond ‘Dazukigate and PDP, Buhari’s greatest legacy in the war on corruption besides equipping the anti-corruption agencies  with necessary skills will be by investing in other institutions needed to run a modern democratic state.

     

  • Dino Melaye and culture of sharing

    After a critical examination of Dino Menaye’s interview in The Punch of November 6, titled, ‘selling my cars will not end recession, I have ordered for more’, in which he talked extensively about his goals in politics, the future of our youths, his wealth and weakness for cars, one cannot but come to the sad conclusion that we are probably expecting Melaye and all those below the age of 50 in charge of our affairs to give what they don’t have.  He, like many of his age, is a victim of military internal colonization that derailed our political socialization process which was replaced with a ‘‘culture of sharing’ of spoils of war after victory. The fault is not in them but in their stars.

    It was not a surprise therefore that Melaye in the said interview first celebrated in full measures his successes  measured  only in terms of his collection of luxurious cars which social media listed as including  a Lamborghini, Porsche and a Rolls Royce estimated to cost $450,000 (N89.5) million and, a new 2015 slingshot . Of course he also added a number of Abuja houses he claimed to have built before his inauguration as senator.

    Neither was it a surprise that when he was asked about his goals in politics, he without much reflection said he was “in politics to make sure that the youths of this country get their fair share in power sharing and resources of this country”.  He momentarily forgot we live in the same world where  John Kennedy,  the 35th President of United States once asked the American youths not to ask for what America can do for them but what they can do for their country, and that Kennedy’s forbearers, ( Thomas Jefferson  33, Alexander Hamilton 21 and James Madison 25) jointly put together The federalists and Democratic Republicans, the precursor of today’s Republicans and Democratic parties as modernizing agents before their declaration  of  Independence in 1776.

    Neither did Melaye, 42, obsessed with luxury cars remember that when NEPU was formed in 1950 by eight  young Hausa-speaking radicals, Aminu Kano was only 30 and Sa’adu Zungur 37;  that when AG  was formed on April 25, 1951with its motto  “unity through federation” and freedom for all”, Bode Thomas was 32, Williams 31, Awo 42 and Ajasin 43 and that when  (Jam’iyyar Mutanem Arewa,), Northern People’s Congress(NPC) was inaugurated in September 1951, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa the chief motivator was 39, Ahmadu Bello 41, Dr R A B Dikko 39,  and Yahaya Gusau  36.  Perhaps it will humble Melaye if he understands that some of these youths who put the nation before self had the opportunity of enjoying life to the fullest if they chose to. Thomas, William and Aminu Kano were children of aristocrats of their time. In fact Aminu Kano had to resign from government job in Sokoto to nurse the young party in Kano in order to differentiate it from other parties whose sponsors according to him only wanted power.

    Almost 70 years after Nigerian youths dedicated themselves to building political parties as modernizing agents while others wrote books about ‘Path to Nigeria Greatness’, Melaye when asked why he decided to sacrifice the interest of the party to please Saraki his friend, said “the party to me is just a vehicle for winning elections because no political party in this country is ideologically based”. We don’t need to search far as to why Saraki and Melaye saw nothing immoral in dumping the then sinking PDP after using it as platform to win election for APC just as they saw nothing wrong in trading off the victory of APC for Senate Presidency.

    Melaye who as an indigent student rose to become student union leader and later NANS president at ABU all of which influenced his appointment as a special assistant on youths, a position that gave him a breakthrough into national politics did not ascribe his sudden rise politically to hard work but says “I give all honour, glory and adoration to the Almighty God who has supreme control over the universe. I want to believe that God is the ultimate reason for where I am today”. That may well have been true. But telling his story of grass to grace and acknowledging the intervention of those God sent to open ways for him would have made more positive impact on our disillusioned youths.

    And as for the source of is stupendous wealth at such a young age, all he had to say was “”I am a transparent Nigerian”   adding ‘For a man who buys very expensive cars with his name labelled on the number plate, it is enough to tell you that he is clean’; The houses I have in this city (Abuja), I acquired before being sworn in as a senator. Hard work pays and the Holy Book says God shall supply my needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus. My source of wealth is heavenly, my purse is divine and it won’t dry up.’

    Again, almost 70 years after our youths made a clear distinction between service to God and service to state which yielded a bountiful harvest, Melaye and his other military ‘new breed’ politicians for whom sharing is the prevailing value, want our youths to accept the way to a secured and prosperous future is through prosperity prophets and Muslim clerics that promise miracles and break-through. They conveniently ignore God’s admonition that we must live by our sweats.

    Beyond fighting corruption, I think government must also now embark on a battle to let our youths appreciate the value of sacrifice and hard work while pointing out to them  the real threat to their future include   the military created ‘new breed’ politicians who after fraudulently confiscating our national assets embarked on asset stripping, derailed the  rural electrification programme, executed the theft of N1.6 trillion fuel subsidy scam and periodically masterminded budget padding.

    Sensitization of our youths has become more pressing because Nigerians are no more shocked that the ‘culture of sharing’ has become the prevailing value among our new generation of leaders. Vice President Osinbajo recently observed that in other societies, the idea of Generals, journalists and politicians sharing billions meant for arms at period soldiers were unable to defend their barracks let alone stop the mindless killing of innocent Nigerians by Boko Haram insurgency, would have forced people to the street in protest. Not even the alleged confession of a former Minister of Defence that he ‘misapplied’ funds earmarked for arms to rig election in Ekiti and Osun states has attracted a whimper from students.

  • Tinubu and the burden of history

    Last week on these pages, we made reference to the shadowy ‘Kaduna Mafia’ believed to have remotely run Nigeria with a pan-northern agenda since 1966. It is believed that the group imposed Obasanjo in 1999 despite his rejection by his Yoruba people at the polls. One proof of this was Obasanjo’s refusal to revisit the issue of restructuring after articulating same as possible answer to the ‘national question’ in some of his books. Besides the consensus among Nigerians is that fiscal restructuring that allows federating units to keep 50% of what they generate will go a long way in addressing our crisis of nationhood.  Unfortunately we continue to live a lie as a federation which Chukwuma Soludo, a former CBN Governor recently pointed out is the only one of its kind in the world where the centre allocates funds it does not generate to sub units it does not control.

    As we also observed , Buhari could not have been part of this shadowy group since it was the suspected members of the group that removed him from office, incarcerated him for three and half years and later derailed his first three attempts at the presidency until Bola Tinubu’s master stroke. Bewitching the South-west and some restive groups in the country with ‘restructuring’, Bola Tinubu in 2014 carried Buhari on his back around the country proclaiming him as the answer to our crisis of nationhood the same way powerful nations like Britain France and USA at different times in their history reached out to their tested retired Generals when their survival was threatened. Many Nigerians took Tinubu’s statement as commitment to restructuring. Buhari and APC thereafter won with a change manthra.

    For his exploits, it is believed Tinubu, the ‘jagaban’ of Nigeria politics was compensated with Buhari’s ceding of key positions in his government to ‘Tinubu Mafia’ in Abuja. A leading member is Vice President Osinbajo who only last week publicly acknowledged he was a nominee of Tinubu. The president we are told has absolute confidence in him. There is also Raji Fashola, Tinubu’s former chief of staff. He was not ashamed to admit Tinubu was his godfather. He went as far as the United Nations headquarters in New York to inform the world that Tinubu made him governor. As Buhari’s foreman, he controls a number of ministries including Power and Housing. There is also the Lai Mohammed, Buhari’s chief image launderer as Minister for Information and Culture. He was once Tinubu’s chief of staff. He graduated from ACN spokesman to APC information propagandist before emerging as member of Buhari’s inner circle. Of course there is also Kayode Fayemi whose alleged imposition by Tinubu in Ekiti led to a ‘Tsunami’ that tore Ekiti ACN apart with aggrieved party members joining PDP. There are other Tinubu protégés like Femi Ojudu, Abike Dabiri and others in the inner circle of Buhari’s administration. Tinubu as a talent hunter no doubt has confidence in all his products.

    But long after Buhari has handed over critical ministries needed for the success of his administration to ‘Tinubu Mafia’, in order to have time for the battle of his life-war on corruption, fifth columnists who weep louder than the bereaved saw only strained relationship between Buhari and Tinubu. What they have however overlooked is that Tinubu is not immune to the usual vagaries of resourceful politicians who are often misunderstood by the society they are called upon to serve. In most cases they are regarded as venal men who easily sacrifice honesty and probity in pursuit of naked ambition. They daily suffer from betrayals and intrigue of party members who are prepared to trade public interest for personal or group interest.  Yet the survival of society as an organized group depends on the versatility and brinkmanship of politicians like Tinubu.

    And for the mischief makers who are not socialized within the Yoruba culture, disagreement on approaches to set goals between fathers and sons in the face of new realities is an acceptable norm. That in any case was how Tinubu himself achieved the goal that had eluded his fathers for half a century. Although the Yoruba culture impresses it on everyone that a child brought to the world who does not strive to be better than his father is brought to the world in vain, children are also warned that ‘a river that forgets its sources soon dries up’. The empires of Oyo and Benin had their roots in Ife and up to the early 1940s the maximum rulers of both empires took oath of allegiance to Ife before mounting their thrones and had a part of them buried in Ife when they joined their ancestors.

    Tinubu has too much stake in the survival of this government to be detracted by those who do not mean well for the government and those who want relevance after rigging election with slush funds from ‘Dazukigate’. With APC in apparent disarray with no coherent policy on any issue, with the governors collecting security votes, riding bullet proof cars instead of made in Nigeria 405 Peugeot cars and APC lawmakers  neck-deep in padding scandal, what the nation expects of Tinubu is politics of ideas and not politics of ‘who gets what when and how’. The starting point as this column suggested when APC was first inaugurated is building the party into a modernisisng agent. This is not a task for Buhari who probably see it only as a vehicle for winning election to implement his pet project of war on corruption to free millions of Nigerians from economic bondage.

    Besides, this is the first time the Yoruba mainstream political orientation will feature in national politics at the federal level. With the control of key ministries that can make or mar Buharis’ administration controlled by Tinubu Mafia, I think Tinubu’s only  task at the centre is to drive it home to those he had groomed  that the failure of Buhari’s  government is not an option for him and for the Yoruba nation.

    I think the focus of Tinubu should thereafter shift to the South-west where with exception of Lagos and Edo, not much seems to be happening. An area that was once the pacesetter in the 1950s has ceded pride of place to other areas. Salaries of workers have not been paid for months. There is virtual collapse of the education and health sectors while the whole areas suffer from infrastructural decay. The South-west cannot feed its citizens while those who should be in farms constitute themselves into ‘area boys’, terrorizing citizens in town and villages while governors cruise around in armoured cars.

    And finally, I think Tinubu should henceforth surround himself with a think tank of independent thinkers and not office seekers to avoid a repeat of Ekiti tragedy and the do or die battle currently going on in Ondo State between well known members of his think tank. In the final analysis, it is his service to his people that will determine his place in history. If Awo his role model is today worshipped at home and described as ‘the best president Nigeria never had ‘ by outsiders, it is on account of lives he touched at home.

  • Buhari, APC and Kaduna mafia

    The general perception of some APC members including the Senate President, who should know better as one who had without grace hijacked the senate presidency, was that Buhari’s government has been hijacked by a cabal. Last week the President denied that Mamman Daura, his nephew has taken over his presidency. The problem however is that quite often perception is indeed a reflection of reality.

    At first the debate especially in the social media was the President’s perceived lopsided appointment into some sensitive positions. The focus however changed in recent months into Daura, the President’s nephiew. I am not sure if many really care about whether  Daura is treated as unofficial Vice President or Abba Kyari, a well known PDP stalwart who  who once rejected an offer to serve in President Buhari’s CPC, is now his Chief of Staff.  The President, it must be said has no constitutional limitation or moral constraints. In fact, this column once told critics of the President’s so much criticized pattern of appointment that Nigerians who earnestly wanted change and massively voted for him would not mind if agents of change come from his Daura village. But I think populating his kitchen cabinet and appointing PDP sympathizers with linkages to the all powerful “Kaduna mafia’ is what many APC members find insensitive and inattentive. Allowing the APC to be infiltrated by those with non pan-Nigeria agenda is not only a threat to the survival of the party but also the government.

    The Kaduna mafia, it was said, sprang up after the first coup that wiped out the political and military leadership of the north. Its agenda among others was to avenge the January 1966 assassination of their political and military leaders and the actualization of the dream of Uthman dan Fodio, the revered radical cleric whose dream after overrunning the Hausa states and sharing conquered territories among his sons and brothers, was to plant the sword at the sea. Although this was checkmated by Ibadan, Ahmadu Bello, the revered Sultan’s grandson, came near to achieving it  after the 1959 election when he gave Zik a horse and Tafawa Balewa, the Holy Quran  declaring with a sense of fulfillment that that he has, like his grandfather, divided Nigeria between his two trusted children.  Following the collapse of the alliance between NCNC and NPC, he had also tried to achieve the objective by exploiting the intraparty feud within the AG to prop up Akintola to whom he also gave a sword. The perception is that the mafia’s agenda which is to see Nigeria as the north with the south as its extension has been behind our crisis of nationhood since 1966.

    It is however believed by many that even if indeed the shadowy group exists, President Buhari cannot be a member neither can he be said to share its dream. First he is not trusted by the northern political and military elite. They all worked assiduously to derail his presidential ambition during his first three attempts. His only sin is preaching egalitarianism to the poor in the north. He succeeded at his fourth attempt because Bola Tinubu outwitted the group and Atiku, their candidate in their own game.

    It is also believed that the body as tested students of power simply hijacked Buhari as soon as he was elected. Observers believe it was not an accident that it was a prominent northern elite, former Minister of Finance and National Planning at different times under PDP  who  first falsely claimed Buhari  won the election without the support of Tinubu and his Yoruba votes. Northern political elite soon closed ranks to join Aminu Tambuwal the governor of Sokoto State and Atiku Ababakar to ignite a civil war within APC by encouraging Saraki and Dogara to disobey the directive of their party. And when Pa Bisi Akande, APC first chairman, alerted the nation about the dangerous game by some northern leaders with pan northern agenda, he was quickly labeled a Yoruba irredentist, the case of a pot calling the kettle black.

    It was also curious that with the President’s  kitchen cabinet in place, there was no cabinet six months after election neither were the boards of the over 500 governments the party needed to implement APC programme reconstituted. This column at a period alerted Nigerians that Buhari needed help when it appeared no one was ready to tell the President the truth. And when the ministerial list finally came out, there was no evidence the kitchen cabinet helped the President. The ministry of information clearly underscores this point.

    Lai Mohammed, a lawyer who has been in practice for close to 40 years, a former business man and a former airline cargo operator, is perhaps one of the most accomplished among the ministers. But as an APC spokesman who successfully talked his party to victory, he was a wrong candidate for the marketing of government programmes and policies. From the disposition of other ministers who fold their hands behind their back while standing before the President, the perception is that they may not be able to tell the President the truth about himself and style. Until last week’s disclosure by the Vice President that scores of Fulani herdsmen are in custody, the perception out there is that the Minister of Internal affairs was still watching the President’s body language.

    And then it was too much a coincidence that an attempt was made to rewrite history by the President autobiographers.  The perception, again, is that an attempt to downplay the contribution of Bola Tinubu to the success story of APC could only have been the handiwork of those with northern agenda. To say Professor Osinbajo became Buhari’s Vice President in spite of Tinubu as contained in the President autobiography is to say Tafawa Balewa became Prime Minister of Nigeria in 1959 in spite of Ahmadu Bello. Tinubu sacrificed his political ambition. The outcome of Buhari-Tinubu ticket would not have been different in Yoruba land where leadership is earned by service to the people and not by religious affiliation.

    There is also the perception that history is repeating itself. The first attempt at overrunning the Yorubaland was through the conspiracy of disloyal Ilorin-based Are Ona Kankanfo Afonja. The second attempt was through Fulani attempt to exploit the intra party feud between Awo and the Are Ona Kankanfo Akintola. Tinubu undoubtedly is a brilliant politician who like Awo is a political strategist who thinks very fast on his feet. Even those who do not see face to face with him are now saying an attempt to undermine his leadership of the West is a rehash of similar failed strategy designed by the Fulani to undermine Awo’s leadership of the Yoruba.

    Unlike Obasanjo who discovered only after his third term fiasco that some of his aides did not tell him the truth,  Goodluck Jonathan who claimed  after his 2015 electoral defeat  that he  was caged all through his presidency,  and unlike their wives  preoccupied with beauty therapy or building hotels and mansions and opening dollar accounts in fictitious names with  funds traceable to Dazuki’s mismanaged arms funds, I think President Buhari should regard stakeholders currently warning him about the threat to the party as patriots.

    The President must be reminded that party structure is needed not just for winning election but even more for the faithful implementation of party promises. He therefore needs to invest more on the party. He must be humble enough to accept he is not a politician, the major reason his previous platforms crumbled after every election. The party is the modernization agent through which developed societies achieved greatness. If Buhari, Tinubu, Oyegun Tony Momoh and their other colleagues mouthing change cannot build a party, they cannot build Nigeria.

  • America and the Trump challenge

    The difference between Hilary Clinton and Donald Trump, the two contestants for America presidency is clear. Nothing brought the difference home more vividly than their final appeal to the electorate after their last week final debate. Clinton advertised the record of her achievement in public service along with her manifesto: “…You know, I’ve been privileged to see the presidency up close and I know the awesome responsibility of protecting our country”, Clinton intoned with confidence.

    “I have made the cause of children and families really my life’s work; I will stand up for families against powerful interests, against corporations. I will do everything I can to make sure you have good jobs with rising incomes, that your kids have good educations from preschool through college. I hope you will give me a chance to serve as your president”.

    But from Trump, came a message of fear and of divisiveness: “We’re going to make America great. We have a depleted military. It has to be helped. We have the greatest people on earth in our military. We don’t take care of our veterans. We take care of illegal immigrants, people that come into the country illegally, better than we take care of our vets. That can’t happen… We are going to make America strong again and we are going to make America great again”.

    Perhaps the difference between the two also brought out the major weakness of democracy, the new god worshipped by more than half of the nations of the world. Free and fair elections, the hallmark of participatory democracy which often involve group bargaining or ‘a do or die’ approach – a euphemism for outright rigging as we have in Nigeria, sometimes throw up a nightmare. Here we have the experience of 2011 when we ended up with a Goodluck Jonathan who turned up to be a scourge of our nation. But even America, the home of democracy is not immune to this phenomenon. The process threw up a George Bush who did not know his left from his right and ended up committing America to two avoidable wars that turned Afghanistan and Iraq into failed states and foisted terrorism on the world.

    Writing for the New York Times back in 2008, Ian Kershaw, a professor of modern history at Sheffield University, and the author of Hitler, the Germans and the Final Solution reminded us how skilful politicians in the mode of Adolf Hitler proved adept at using democratic structures to erect forms of authoritarian rule and went on to advise on the need for international cooperation to restrain potential “mad dogs” in the world before they bite. Back then, he had Vladimir Putin of Russia and the late Hugo Chavez, of Venezuela in mind. That was long before the emergence of Donald Trump, a creation of disgruntled, racist, Islamaphobic, college uneducated white workers and their Tea Party that ignited what many have described as a civil war in the Republican Party. His emergence with is message of hate has sent fear down the spines of many in the world especially Western Europe with greater stake in who becomes the next American president.

    We must understand where Europe is coming from. The horrors of the Second World War foisted on the people through the follies of a mad man are still fresh. Unfortunately, there are just too many parallels between Donald Trump and Adolf Hitler, credited with the slaughtering of 11 million people including the six million Jews incinerated in a gas chamber.

    Let us start with the environment. There is a frightening parallel between the social dislocations in Hitler’s 1929 Germany and Donald Trump’s 2007 and 2008 US. Just as the defeat and humiliation of Germany in the First World War and the great economic depression provided a fertile ground for Hitler to exploit the misery of his compatriots for political power, Trump has tried to exploit the political divisiveness within the Republican Party following the loss of power to Barak Obama, international terrorism and economic insecurity, fallouts of George Bush misadventure and bad policies. But for Trump, the scapegoat is Obama. Lying without shame and sounding like Hitler before the Jew final solution, he says ‘we have problem in this country. It is called Muslims. We know our current president is one, he is not an American…They have training camps where they want to kill us; we want to take our country back’.

    Like Hitler, Trump does not believe in political parties. Just as Hitler used Nazism as springboard to take over power, Trump hijacked the Republican Party to secure the party’s presidential ticket. Just as Hitler didn’t believe the party needed to serve the people, Trump after using the party to achieve his aim, assaulted the core values and the soul of the Republican Party. Like Hitler, he humiliated the real leaders of GOP. And just like what Hitler did to his party leading members, Trump has attempted to stop Speaker Paul Ryan, the highest ranking Republican from getting re-nomination ticket.

    Hitler had a ‘barstadisation’ policy for children born in Germany but of non-German parents. He believed they were inferior to German children and cannot be given citizenship because citizenship was by blood of the Aryan race. Trump like Hitler is against the Fourteenth Amendment which confers citizenship on all children born in America. Trump wants all such children deported.   Reminded of his constitutional limitations, he says because the constitutional process is too slow, he would explore other methods if he wins.

    Both are against freedom of expression and the press is their whipping dog. If Trump like Hitler has his ways, the state should control the press and use it as instrument for propaganda. Both have no regard for the famous declaration of Thomas Jefferson, the American founding father and the principal author of American declaration of independence (1776) that “were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the later”.

    Trump’s ‘I am the only one who can fix America’ is not markedly different from Hitler’s delusion that he was ordained to protect the Aryan race. Just as Hitler blamed the Jews for most of the problems and evils in Germany as well as the world, Trump blames China for unemployment and Obama perhaps for stopping two wars. He then broke into lamentation: ‘Our country is in serious trouble, we used to have victories, not any more”.  How can Trump have victories when there are no more wars, if one may ask? Trump like Hitler, engages in rabid nationalism bordering on fascism.

    And finally, Trump and Hitler did not believe in democracy. For Hitler, ‘democracy will in practice lead to the destruction of a people’s true value’.  His plan as reflected in his ‘Mein Kampf’ was to “destroy democracy with the weapons of democracy”. In other words, secure power through democracy and then become a dictator because for him “One works best when alone” – a rejection of participatory democracy. Trump like Hitler probably wants democracy as a means to an end. There can be no other more compelling argument than his current attempt to undermine the foundation of the democratic process by insisting he will only accept the outcome of the coming election if he wins.

    As Matt Brundage has also reminded us, had “Hitler, the quintessential anti-democrat, who ascended to power as swiftly succeeded in World War II, he would have foisted his views and policies on an unprepared world”. American voters on November 8 have an opportunity to save their country and mankind from a dangerous man whose belligerence and ignorance may lead to Third World War.

  • Buhari Vs Judiciary

    President Buhari desperately needs our help and support because most well-meaning Nigerians believe the failure of his government is not an option. This has become more imperative in the wake of the current stand-off between him and the Bench and the Bar. He needs protection not only from those who do not know ‘there are many ways of killing a hen other than cutting the throat’, who according to his other half, have hijacked his government, but also from the same set of self-serving social crusaders and human right activists who not too long ago advised him not to consider the hijacking of the Senate leadership by Saraki and Ekwerenmadu a threat to his government but as an act of brinkmanship healthy for the development of democracy. They are now on the prowl this time around exploiting technicalities to demonise government and DSS while ignoring the pursuit of justice, which is the end of law.

    One thing Buhari has going for him in this stand-off is his integrity. As the chairman, Presidential Advisory Committee against Corruption (PACAC), Prof. Itse Sagay (SAN), recently reminded us, “A corrupt judiciary is an invitation to anarchy. It is a sin against humanity”.  We therefore, according to him, need a ‘judiciary with integrity and honour and the judiciary with moral authority similar to what obtained in the golden era Supreme Court  such as Eso, Oputa, Nnamani, Idigbe, Mohammed Bello, Obaseki  who freely ruled against military dictatorships’. It was also a relief to have been reminded by Prof Owasanoye of PACAC that “the National Security Act empowers DSS to arrest and to use reasonable force if the owner of the house resists. In this instance, they have followed the law.” At least one of the affected judges has so far admitted hearing continuous banging at his door but chose to retire to his bedroom and wait.

    Unlike some of our self-serving social crusaders who hide under the rule of law to protect criminals, other critics of DSS’ method and government reaction like professor Akin Oyebode, a noble lawyer and law teacher who is passionate about the role of law in society admitted in a recent lecture titled, ‘The Integrity of Law’, that ‘it seems the noxious fumes of corruption are now being smelt even within the temple of justice.’ A corrupt judge according to him “is worse than an armed robber and must be given the hemlock”. To protect the integrity of the judiciary, he has advocated substituting the ‘dysfunctional British approach to French approach’

    And as for those who claim DSS attack on alleged corrupt judges is a threat to democracy, I think they have chosen to ignore the fact that we live a lie believing we have democracy. Democracy cannot exist where one leg of the tripod that holds it in place –the legislature has been hijacked by self-serving clique. (Saraki narrated how he outwitted his 51 APC elected senators only to be adopted Senate President by the opposition while Ekweremadu publicly admitted how he and PDP stalwarts literarily ‘stole’ a position which by convention belongs to the ruling party with a majority). Add to this a judiciary without a moral authority and a press that is highly compromised, what you get is not democracy but a mirage.

    Instead of living a lie, the only option before us is to see democracy as a process that is attainable through a leader like President Buhari who is driven by good intentions. And for those who are quick to say ‘the road to hell is filled with good intentions’, I ask, show me one nation that has ever progressed without a leader who believes in miracles. Not China, not Japan, and definitely not America built on the conviction of leaders with good intentions. Besides Buhari’s commitment to fighting corruption, he has a good intention to pursue justice for the greater good of society. History has also shown the judiciary thrives more under such circumstances.

    Sobered by his prison experience and scandalized by the level of corruption his military colleagues left behind, Obasanjo probably believed he was the messiah (he had said MKO Abiola was not) destined to rid Nigeria of corruption and corrupt elements. He set up the EFCC as an anti-corruption body and started the crusade by putting an Inspector General of Police who had converted billions earmarked for the welfare of the police to personal use, in chains. Some of his ministers were imprisoned. One Senate President after the other faced corruption charges. More than two third of governors elected on his PDP platform were put on trial. He engineered the impeachment of Ayo Fayose and Dariye. With the help of his friends in the Amnesty International, Alamieyeseigha was chased from France to London where it was revealed he had ‘accumulated properties, bank accounts, investments and cash exceeding £10m in value’, portfolio of foreign assets which included accounts with five banks in the UK, accounts with banks in Cyprus, Denmark and the United States; four London properties acquired for a total of £4.8m; a Cape Town harbour penthouse acquired for almost £1m, , and almost £1m in cash stored in one of his London properties. He was eventually indicted by a Nigerian court.

    Some other governors dragged to court before leaving office in 2007 include  Danjuma Goje (Gombe), Jolly Nyame (Taraba), Joshua Dariye (Plateau), Orji Uzor Kalu (Abia), Saminu Turaki (Jigawa), the late Audu Abubakar (Kogi), Timipreye Sylva (Bayelsa), Murtala Nyako (Adamawa), Sule Lamido (Jigawa), Adebayo  Alao-Akala (Oyo), Rashidi Ladoja (Oyo), Chimaroke Nnamani (Enugu), Gbenga Daniel (Ogun), Aliyu Akwe Doma (Nasarawa), Attahiru Bafarawa (Sokoto), Abdullahi Adamu (Nasarawa).

    Then President Jonathan took over the reins of power with neither dreams nor good intention. He was hijacked by the same set of self serving human right lawyers and social crusaders. The cases were discontinued. The hunter became the hunted as Ribadu was chased out of the country. Ibori now serving a 13-year jail term got a reprieve from an Asaba court and installed his own preferred EFCC chairman. The result was the reversal of Obasanjo’s gains on corruption.

    If our society must move forward, we need strong leadership with good intention to checkmate criminal elements we all agree exist on the bench and the bar  which after admitting ‘the responsibility of the bar is first to the bar’,  engaged in commercialization of the old criminal act to shield thieves that have stolen the country blind.

    The reaction of NJC so far has confirmed the need for a strong leader with good intention to serve as deterrence to the judiciary that believes it is beyond reproach because of the doctrine of separation of powers. If indeed DSS resorted to self-help which is not the case in view of its powers as spelt out in the provision of the new Administration of Criminal Justice Act 2015, the NJC has also served as a judge in its own cases by dismissing investigated cases of corruption against judges by DSS. If anything, this position is validated by NJC’s current refusal to suspend judges in whose bedrooms huge sums of money, according to DSS, were found because it abhorred its (DSS) method.

    The effect of the absence of a strong credible leadership to serve as deterrence to the excesses of the judiciary is self-evident. Following the bizarre Supreme Court pronouncement on Fayose and its refusal to accept its infallibility as advised by the late Justice Oputa by taking advantage of evidence the military has used to sanitise itself, Fayose has come back with a vengeance, supervising thugs who beat up judges, chasing out elected lawmakers from the state and going into his state House of Assembly to approve his own budget. Last week in Port Harcourt, Wike who according to respected Itse Sagay, the election tribunal court, the Court of Appeal, except the Supreme Court, rode on the back of militants who preferred violence to the use of electronic voter card reader to power, was reported to have brought lorry load of thugs at 1 am to prevent the arrest of suspected corrupt judge.

  • Lagos and politics of envy and revenge

    Lagos, because of her allure is the beautiful bride of Nigerian fortune-seekers and political adventurers. For the Portuguese and the British fortune-seekers and the repatriates who needed a place under the sun, Lagos was a dream fulfilled. As an endowed city where people effortlessly build up financial fortunes, she was in the service of foreign immigrants like the Greeks who started by hawking wrist-watches on Marina Street later joined by other immigrants like the Oros of Kwara and Igbos of the East who engage in similar activities. And as a symbol of our ethnic diversity, it is city politicians who want to build political empire love and hate with equal passion. The problem however is that everyone wants to take the advantage of the opportunities Lagos offers without responsibility. Even the Ijaws tolerated by Lagos with their illegal structures and pollution of Lagos’ once beautiful shorelines is now holding Lagos to ransom by substituting fishing for ‘kidnapping for ransom’. To borrow Chinua Achebe’s famous line, ‘when calamity befalls the land, Lagos fortune-seekers run away, leaving the territory to the owners of the land who know how to appease their own gods”.

    That precisely explains why senators, many of whom first raised fortunes in Lagos with which they fought elections in their constituencies threw out Senator’s Oluremi Tinubu’s bill seeking “an Act to make provisions for federal grants to Lagos State in recognition of its (the state) strategic socio-economic significance and other connected purposes.” She had anchored her argument on self-evident truth that Lagos, “is home to the major ports that account for over 90 per cent of all maritime exports; that the city accounts for 86.2 per cent of companies income taxes in Nigeria and 56.7 per cent of Value Added Tax. She also reminded her colleagues that ‘the state bears the burden for the wear and tear of the federal revenue generating activities’.

    But Senator Aliyu Wamakko (Sokoto North, and Hope Uzodimma (Imo West) opposed the bill. The Lagos bill also reminded Senator Bassey that Calabar was once the capital of Nigeria. For him, if Calabar is not given a federal grant, Lagos cannot ask for one. Not even Senator Olusola Adeyeye (Osun Central), the Chief whip’s reference to the injustice in a system that grants Delta, Bayelsa and Rivers 13% of our resources as oil producing states but denies Lagos 13% of VAT she generated made any impression on his fellow senators who claim ‘rich Lagos will become richer’ forgetting that the well-being of Lagos is the  well-being of many of their state indigenes who make a living in Lagos either as white-collar workers, hawkers, truck pushers and okada riders.

    But politics of envy and revenge predates the current senators. It can be traced to 1861 when British fortune-seekers obtained a treaty of the cession of Lagos from King Dosunmu under duress only to drive away Kosoko his successor in order to take possession of Lagos land in a typical act of banditry. ‘By 1871, William Macgregor and Walter Egerton had consolidated this British act of banditry by sharing Lagos’ choice plots among themselves and their protégés – the repatriated slaves’.

    Then Zik came in 1934 and soon emerged the spokesman for urban dwelling Igbos. When his attempt to represent Lagos at the legislative council failed as a result of Dr Olorunnibe’s refusal to step down for him, he and his supporters started agitating for turning of Lagos into a federal territory. Ahmadu Bello, Emirs of Katsina and Gwandu and other northern leaders had their own private reasons for embarking on politics of envy and revenge against Lagos. Following the leakage of governors and ministers’ position on Enahoro’s motion for independence in 1953 by Bode Thomas and Samuel Akintola to the press, these northern leaders were humiliated at Iddo train station by Lagos mobs who called them British stooges. Ahmadu Bello, according to Trevor Clark, Tafawa Balewa’s biographer was so irritated that ‘in a mixture of petulance and pomposity said the mistake of 1914 has come to light…next time I come. I have sword in my hand”.

    Not even the sponsorship of Kano youths riot by northern leaders led by Inuwa Wada against Akintola’s proposed political rally in Kano which resulted in the killing by castration of 40 southerners by Kano mobs was considered sufficient revenge for the humiliation of the northern leaders. They threatened to go into a federation with French speaking Niger if Lagos was not excised from the West. ‘The future of Nigeria will be imperilled by anything but a loose federation, if the north must be tied to Nigeria; the central power must be minimal and regional power must be internally unfettered while Lagos must be reduced to some form of non-political common services agency’, the north insisted.

    But Obafemi Awolowo, at the 1954 Lyttleton constitutional conference in London in reaction to politics of envy and revenge of his compatriots against Lagos and the Western Region insisted on fiscal federalism arguing that ‘railway, harbour, civil aviation, banks, shipping, electricity and broadcasting must be taken off the exclusive list. He also insisted Lagos must remain part of the west while conceding ‘an Ottawa but not extra territoriality’. And when Awo, regarded as ‘the smartest thinker on his feet’, the leader of AG and NCNC southern axis with whom Zik exchanged endless notes during the proceeding made a tactical error of staging a walkout with AG over their demand, Ahmadu Bello said the conference should go on since the representative of 25 million other Nigerians were still present. Zik caved in on the issue of boundary adjustment and with Ahmadu Bello jointly decided the mode of election to the centre and appointment of the council of ministers. A whole municipal area was also carved out of the Western Region as the federal capital following the  reassurance of Chief Kola Balogun that there would be no outbreak of violence as threatened by Awo and AG. Zik later “paid public tribute to NPC and praised the north for participating in true federation” and boasted “it was the work of statesmen to bring peace, harmony and unity to Nigeria”.

    But Awo, regarded as the ‘greatest African patriot’ by Cecil King, Head of the London Daily Mirror group and managers of the Nigerian Daily Times but regarded as ‘stubborn rude and proud’ by the departing colonial masters, has been vindicated over his principled stand on fiscal federalism and status of Lagos. Two days after our Abuja senators threw out Senator Tinubu’s bill designed to bring relief to Lagosians, the Nigeria Ports Authority announced with fanfare that it raked in revenue of N25b in one month. Yet Oshodi-Tin-Can Island Ports road remains impassable and motorists and commuters face daily traffic gridlock while proceeds from the area are used to build bridges over land in Abuja.

    It was not also an accident that Ribadu and Yar’Adua were the only people qualified to be ministers of Lagos.; that federal ministers of work  such as Mamman Kontagora, Barbabas Gemade, Abdulkarim Adisa bulldozed areas they called slums displacing the poor to pave way for the privileged elite; that  Babangida and  Clement Akpamgbo, his Attorney General and Minister of Justice, came up with  Decree 52 of 1993 backdated to January 1, 1975 to confiscate 150 choice plots at the reclaimed Osborne road as parting gifts to his ministers.

    The final evidence to show Lagos is a victim of envy and revenge is the fact that Abuja federal capital territory, sustained by taxes not from Abuja or the north, has continued to be administered only by northerners without recourse to the principle that ceded leadership of Lagos as capital of Nigeria to the north in 1954.