The Nation Newspaper

Category: Jide Oluwajuyitan

  • Lesson from Libya tragedy

    The result of the French, British and US breach of UN mandate in Libya, which was the protection of civilians in Benghazi, an objective which was achieved in March 2011 in less than 24 hours, “was political and economic collapse, inter-militia and inter-tribal warfare, humanitarian and migrant crises, widespread human rights violations, the spread of Gaddafi regime’s weapons across the region and the growth of ISIS [Islamic State] in North Africa”. This was the verdict of a scathing report by the foreign affairs select committee of British parliament three weeks ago. The report added that that David Cameron’s intervention in Libya was carried out with no proper intelligence analysis, drifted into an unannounced goal of regime change and shirked its moral responsibility to help reconstruct the country following the fall of Gaddafi. The report, like the Chicot inquiry that blamed Tony Blair for the Iraq tragedy, has also placed Libya’s descent into a failed state on the door steps of Cameron.

    This once again shows the hypocrisy of the West’s pursuit of neo-colonialist agenda in Africa while laying pretence to institutionalisation of western brand of democracy. Of course, if there was anyone serving as a stumbling block in the political and economic battle for the soul of Africa, it was Gaddafi. The West only exploited the UN resolution to seal his fate. The irony however was that if the goal of democracy – ‘a just and equitable social order’ which the West believes could only be achieved through a participatory democratic process that allows for accountability of leadership elected through free and fair election, Gaddafi’s Libya was unarguably one nation where that goal was achieved in defiance of those preconditions.

    Unlike America which holds pretence to being the most democratic nation in the world in spite of her unjust and inequitable social order which not too long ago compelled President Obama to remind his Republican colleagues – the hegemonic group in America – that the intention of their nation’s founding fathers was not to trade, the tyranny of Britain with that of few wealthy republicans, Gaddafi’s Libya had by far a more fundamentally just social order. Unfortunately just as it was during colonialism when  western powers scrambling for Africa in ‘search of gold and glory’ fraudulently proclaimed African societies with far superior social organization  the ‘white man’s burden’, so it is today in Libya.

    Gaddafi was said to have reminded the west and the Libyan opposition mob that he “inherited a desert nation which he turned into a forest where everything grows because of his world largest irrigation project, known as ‘the Great Man- Made River project’, to make water readily available throughout the desert country”. Gaddafi’s Libya was a nation ‘where everyone was provided with a decent home because home was considered a human right’ at a time many in Europe are homeless. In Gaddafi’s Libya, ‘newlyweds’ received grants to buy their own home, plus a $5,000 grant on arrival of their first child’. Gaddafi’s Libya ‘provided free health treatment for all its citizens’ unlike America, home of democracy where Obama with his party’s control of the Senate spent almost his entire first four years in office unable to secure 60 votes in a 95-seat American Senate to pass his ‘Obamacare’ that guaranteed access to Medicare for about 40 million under-privileged Americans. Gaddafi’s Libya “provided free education up to university level while those who are on scholarship in foreign countries got $2,500 as housing and transport allowance monthly.”  The Gaddafi education policy, which Libyan youths took for granted for over three decades was what Hilary Clinton, the American democratic Presidential candidate in the November election now promises American youths who currently spend up to 18 years paying loan after college. In Britain, less than 50 percent of the British youths could afford university education except for the brief period of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown Labour government, a trend that has since been reversed by Cameron conservative government.

    But the over-indulgent Libyan youths wanted freedom.  President Obama himself was in Egypt where he reminded Arab youths of the ideals of freedom even while claiming America was not about to impose her ideals on the rest of the world. After the ‘Arab spring’ that followed the speech, Libyan youths studying in Britain took to the street asking for an end to Gaddafi’s four decades of dictatorship.

    Gaddafi’s real crime was his leading role in the political and economic emancipation of African countries, causes to which he generously deployed massive Libyan resources. He was always ready to give support to African nations with distressed economies.  As recently observed by Dr. Mmaduabuchi Okeke of University of Lagos and an expert in the politics of North Africa and the Maghreb, ‘with the serious structural adjustment programmes going in major European countries  especially Greece, Portugal, Italy United Kingdom, France, Gaddafi simply replaced the West  in the battle for the economic soul of Africa’. He was committed to liberating African countries from the economic stranglehold of World Bank, IMF and Paris Club by providing interest free fund to the African Development Bank (ADB), African Monetary Fund (AMF) and African Investment Bank (AIB). This was seen not only as an affront but also as a threat to the economic interest of the west. The west thus resolved that a regime change that will force poor African nations back to their embrace was imperative. Unfortunately, most African countries on whose behalf the man regarded by the West as ‘the mad man of Libya’ fought, allowed the West to have its way.

    Our current economic crisis has however demonstrated abundantly that the West loves none but self. Nigeria needs only a $20b loan to jumpstart the economy. Instead of fulfilling the promise to repatriate the stolen funds warehoused in their banks, both Tony Blair as well as Christine  Lagarde the IMF Managing Director were in Nigeria at different occasions to prescribe that we swallow the economic hemlock that has not worked in their own environment.  Their foot-soldiers otherwise known as World Bank experts piled up pressure on the President, insisting on devaluation of the naira even while we import everything from tooth pick to food items and women’s artificial hair. Today the exchange rate is about N500 to $1. The fallout is that many are hungry; parents cannot pay their ward’s schools fees and employers of labour cannot pay salaries.

    I think even with the murder of Gaddafi who would have been too willing to loan Nigeria $20b out of Libya’s foreign reserve of $150b probably on condition he was allowed to build a few more mosques in the north, we are not totally helpless. First as suggested on these pages some months back, we can go the Russian way. Faced with similar dilemma, Russia ignored the West and the empty talk about human rights to retrieve from those who fraudulently cornered Russian national assets in order to create jobs for Russian youths. We have a list of those who cornered the nation’s $100b investment at a paltry $1.6b. We also have the list of those among them indicted by a House probe for asset-stripping.

    That $31m cash deposit and a chain of multi-billion hotels and houses have been traced to Mrs. Patience Jonathan, an ordinary civil servant is an indication Nigeria is not poor. For every Patience Jonathan, we have scores of permanent secretaries, PDP and APC members with dollar cash deposits, shopping plazas, hotels, and housing estates in Abuja. Those who like Patience Jonathan cannot account for the source of their assets should lose same to the state. We can plough the sales proceeds back to the economy instead of selling what is left of our patrimony to the same sets of people that brought us to the current state.

    I think by taking on the governors, serving lawmakers and civil servants  with chain of houses, shopping plazas, hotels and housing estates, the president will only be seen as protecting our young democracy from those who pose a threat to the attainment of democratic goal which, as we are told, is ‘a just and equitable social order’.

  • Ondo’s unfinished business

    The Ondos and Ekitis are two of a kind.  Impetuous, riotous and quick-tempered on issue of injustice with added reputation for violence against hawkish politicians. In the first republic when late Chief Remi Fani-Kayode said he and Akintola would win the election whether the people voted or not, they ensured those who sowed the wind reaped the whirlwind. In 1983, they ensured that the victory of NPN Omoboriowo attributed to what was tagged ‘NPN landslide and sea-slide’ victories, was short-lived. Fayose escaped in the booth of his car when the people took up arms following his impeachment during his first coming before coming back with a vengeance in 2014 supported  with President Jonathan’s awesome security apparatus and $1.4b slush fund ferried by Obanikoro in three aircrafts to carry out the pacification of the Ekiti land.

    Mimiko and Fayose, the PDP leading light in the states are also two of a kind. In an area where it is drummed into children’s ears from their formative years that “eiyele ki ba onile je, ba onile mu, ki osa ni ojo isoro) literarily meaning you must never betray your benefactor, they both have a history of drifting loyalty. Withdrawing his support for Sherrif, the embattled factional leader of PDP recently, an unrestrained Fayose came out to ask a rhetorical question: “If you promised to marry a lady and you discovered she was HIV positive a day to the wedding, would you go on with the wedding”. Unfortunately such is the weight Fayose and Mimiko his friend attach to loyalty in communities where loyalty is a cherished value. We could not have forgotten  so soon  how the duo, not too long ago foisted Sherrif on PDP in spite of warning by Femi Fani-Kayode, their soul mate  that Sheriif would be a liability to their party. But Sheriff, a veteran of political intrigue is not going to allow the duo have the last laugh. He has consequently reached out to Jimoh Ibrahim with whom Mimiko has an unfinished battle over Ondo which each sees as his fiefdom.  And Jimoh Ibrahim, a man never known to do anything in half measures has attacked Mimiko at his weakest-months of unpaid salaries of workers.

    Declaring self the new messiah for Ondo State workers, he had said “I will pay the workers within the first day of my 100 days in office. Non-payment of salaries by state government is the failure of innovation of states by governors. It is when you are innovative that you will be able to pay salaries. Those (governors) who are owing are not efficient. I’m not owing any of my workers”.

    Desperate Ondo workers are likely going to listen to whoever promises to lift their burden even if they are being hoodwinked. Unfortunately the media that should serve as a guide is heavily compromised. Jimoh Ibrahim knows as a publisher that the Nigerian media is a place where dogs don’t eat dogs. Media houses where salaries are seldom paid as at when due if paid at all lack the courage to remind him that many of his Daily Newswatch, Daily Mirror and even Global Fleet staff were said not to have been paid for several months. And of course no one is asking how a business man who after outwitting Virgin Atlantic to buy Air Nigeria which collapsed few months after collecting government bail-out will manage a more complex institution.

    However, scared Mimiko is still haunted by his last 2011 Akure Airport encounter with Ibrahim. As reported by The Compass of March 30, 2011, “When the governor moved to greet him, he pointed angrily in his face, shouting: Look, I am not interested in your greetings. I will ensure that we make this state ungovernable for you. Yes, you may be the governor. We may not be able to milk the cow but we can spill the milk. I said my own and I will deal with you and your bunch of rabble rousers. Yes, just wait”.  Mimiko, the newspaper added, escaped by scampering into his helicopter after which he later issued a statement saying “We want to warn that the era of gunpoint democracy is gone; the people of the state are no animals to be captured and caged at will. The police and other security agencies should take judicial note of Mr. Jimoh Ibrahim’s vow of violence and be on the lookout.”

    Mimiko and Fayose clearly understand that their caustic-tongued adversary, a ruthless fighter, is not afraid of a public fight. They have therefore decided not to take chances. Having dumped Obasanjo, their benefactor and squandered the goodwill of those on whose back they rode to power, they have opted to take their case to the patient God of the Christians who does not want the death of a sinner but his repentance. Last Sunday, the duo was together at the thanksgiving service at the 15th annual convention of the Riches in Christ Evangelical Mission to seek God’s help in the face of Ibrahim’s challenge. But for its tragic consequences, we would have taken their comedy of errors with a big laugh. After all, God is not mocked.

    But sadly we for instance now know, courtesy of Dr Temitope Aluko, the estranged PDP secretary in Ekiti that the vote of Ekiti people, long  maligned for voting Fayose under the influence of ‘stomach infrastructure’,  did not count since the result of the election according to  him had been prepared two days before the voting. We also now know courtesy of EFCC, that the people did not benefit from Jonathan $1.4b slush fund. While a fraction of it was expended on the security men brought in from Abuja and Enugu to perfect the scientific rigging,  the bulk of it was kept by Fayose who according to EFCC, expended it on  choice properties within his first three months in office. At a time when Mimiko served as Jonathan’s chief image launderer in the South-west, when dollars were moved around with boxes, and chieftains of PDP received billions, except Chief Olu Falae who admitted collecting a paltry N100m, ordinary  Ondo people were never part the dollar and naira bazaar.

    And while Mimiko and Ibrahim battle over Ondo which both have come to regard as a fiefdom continues, the unfolding tragedy in APC seems to have also reminded us that ’the beautiful ones are not yet born’. A panel set up by APC chairman confirmed the primary was rigged and recommended a rerun. The chairman however set the report of the panel aside and submitted Akeredolu’s name to INEC. Bola Tinubu, a national leader of the party publicly attacked Oyegun asking him to resign. Meanwhile demonstration by supporters of Dr Olusegun Abraham continues in Ikare over what they described as the theft of his mandate. Other contestants are threatening fire and brimstone. The question we should be asking is whether these guys are out to serve the Ondo people or themselves. Why has the quest to serve become ‘do or die affair ‘both in PDP and APC?

    Femi Okunronmu an Afenifere chieftain and Jonathan supporter in the last election has called for the dissolution of both APC and PDP as both according to him are party of looters. I however think we must keep the parties no matter how defective since we need parties as modernizing agents. What we should find answer to is why people go to government to steal. And the simple answer is that people steal what they think belong to others. After all, funds contributed for community projects are never stolen at the village level. If it happens, the culprits are ostricised.

    With restructuring and fiscal federalism, those who think they can get away with stealing from themselves are free to do so. The Ekitis and Ondos are the custodians of special palm wine and sacrificial dog needed to invoke the awesome power of Ogun, the god of iron, of thunder and of violent death. African Philosophy has taught us our small gods are potent if we have faith.

  • Battle to bring Edo back to N/Delta fold

    There is too much at stake for Adams Oshiomhole in the coming September 28 Edo election. As if his life depends on its outcome, he has embarked on a vigorous campaign across the state dancing, jumping and advertising his achievements. He says his is a battle for continuity against return to the Igbinedion and PDP years of the locust.  The governor’s battle unfortunately is not just against the entrenched interests in Edo State but against all those with a sense of entitlement in the Delta region  beginning with the militants,  their sponsors, who Ken Saro-Wiwa described as ‘vultures’,  who after impoverishing their people by converting the commonwealth to private use, move over to the courts to secure  perpetual injunctions as a shield against prosecution in a region where successive leaders since 1966 believe  ‘stealing is not corruption’.

    The recent shift in date of the election has led to fierce attack and intensification of hostility between the combatants. But if you asked me if Oshiomhole and his party are vulnerable in spite of his sterling performance, my answer will be in the affirmative. Beyond the bravado and shout of “PDP is dead in Edo and we are waiting for its burial”, Oshiomhole knows the outcome of electoral contest has never been decided on the basis of outstanding  performance or faithful implementation of party manifesto since rigging was introduced by ‘mainstreamers’ to the Western Region in 1964.

    Detailing how that election was rigged, Mr. Esua, ex oficio chairman of the western regional electoral commission in a letter to Governor Fadahunsi dated November 20, 1965 enumerated the strategies: “Refusal of electoral officers to accept nomination papers or failure to report for duty; announcements of candidates ‘elected unopposed’ without the commission’s prior clearance;  revocation of the appointments  and replacement of electoral officers; leakages of voting slips; refusal of returning officers to read the certificates of votes  counted at the place of counting”.  Akintola refused to back down when he, along with Akinloye, Ayo Rosiji, Akinjide and Fani Kayode met with Sardauna over the massive rigging insisting “what happened in his region was not different from what happened in other regions”. The method was improved upon by NPN to sweep away high performing UPN governors in 1983.  Obasanjo further modified it to sweep away ANPP and AD governors in 2003. Jonathan modernized it with an injection of $1.4b.

    Besides ex- President Jonathan whose ego was bruised by Oshiomhole’s refusal to demonstrate his loyalty by acting in the manners of Obi and Mimiko, the governor has also stepped on powerful toes in and outside Edo State. Starting from his Edo base, he has Chief Tony Anenih, ‘Mr. Fixer’, to contend with. Here is a man who was already an ‘institution’ long before Adams Oshiomhole manoeuvred his way into the textile unions where he made a living by shouting ‘aluta’.  He was by 1983, Edo State chairman of National Party of Nigeria (NPN) and took credit for helping Chief Samuel Ogbemudia take power from a very resourceful Professor Ambrose Alli in the days of NPN’s curious “land slide and sea slide’ victories in opponents strongholds.  By 1993, he was the chairman of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) which secured victory for MKO Abiola, a victory Anenih later traded away. He was Obasanjo’s Minister of Works accused by political enemies of expending over N300b budget for roads on the 2003 election during which PDP defeated ANPP and AD in their strongholds. He recently admitted to EFCC the disbursement of N260m from Office of National Security Adviser on behalf of President Jonathan to groups and individuals to influence the 2015 election. I present before you fellow compatriots, a great Edo man of ‘timber and calibre’, Oshiomhole has consistently taunted since President Jonathan in his magnanimity reined in his militants and allowed him win the 2013 election. Now with Anenih and Jonathan, a man who hardly forgives, joining forces, Oshiomhole knows the day of reckoning has finally come.

    Oshiomhole also has Chief Tom Ikimi, a former chairman of NRC, who rather than concede defeat of his party settled for General Abacha’s foreign minister as another home based  formidable foe.   He recently moved back to PDP from APC which he helped to put together when he lost the contest for the chairmanship of the party to Chief Oyegun. Ikimi saw the hand of Oshiomhole in his defeat.

    Another sworn enemy of Oshiomhole in Edo is High Chief Raymond Dokpesi, a media mogul and a former business partner of the late MKO Abiola and late General Shehu Yar’Adua (President Yar’Adua’s elder brother). He and his Daar Holding and Investment Limited has since  December 9, 2015 been charged to court for partaking in the sharing of money budgeted for weapons procurement for the Nigerian military but allegedly diverted by Dasuki Sambo, the then National Security Adviser, to Dokpesi’s Daar Holding and Investment Limited. Someone has to pay for the humiliation of one of the Edo untouchables. And the only person that fits that bill is Oshiomhole, the face of APC in Edo.

    Of course Oshiomhole’s greatest foe in Edo is Lucky Igbinedion who he had accused of stealing from the people. Although he merely addressed him by his new status of a convict, conferred on him by the court, his supporters even at that think Oshiomhole who made a living shouting “aluta’ before becoming governor should have some respect for an untouchable Benin ‘icon’.  Matters are not helped when Oshiomhole went on to boast about his recovery of over 200,000 hectares of land illegally dashed out to Chief Gabriel Igbinedion by his son, Lucky when he was governor. Oshiomhole has climbed the cliff. Civil society groups have demonstrated in Benin insisting Oshiomhole who has brought such a dishonor to a revered Benin family must be replaced by Ize-Iyamu who was Igbinedion’s Chief of Staff when Benin City looked like a war-ravaged city as a minimum condition for a truce.

    As if these are not enough domestic problems plaguing one small man of slight build, whose weapon is his caustic tongue, from the larger Delta came other formidable adversaries such as Princess Stella Oduah  and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala  both at the receiving end of Oshiomhole endless diatribes on corruption and incompetence.  Both women of means and influence are feverishly working to ensure Oshiomhole is roundly defeated on September 28 if only to teach him a lesson that ‘no man ever wins a woman’s war.’

    Ifeanyi Okowa and  Nyesom Wike, Oshiomhole’s Niger Delta brother governors,  both of whom he had advised to pay arrears of workers’ salaries in their states instead of mobilizing N2b to support Ize-Iyamu or sponsoring 8,000 militants to destabilise his state during the elections  are not amused. But they are resolved on one thing: Edo State must be brought back into the Niger Delta fold. This is a task that must be accomplished even if it involves applying the “Amaechi treatment’ which forced his supporters to run for their lives instead of coming out to vote for Dakuku Peterside, his candidate. All is fair in war. The objective is to ensure Ize-Iyamu rides into power even if it means on the blood of the people as Wike, according to Itse Sagay, did in Rivers.

    The battle line is drawn between  vultures, militants, men as ‘institutions’ and one small man of light build who arrogantly calls himself a ‘giant killer’, swearing by the lives he has touched and communities he has served diligently for eight years. The epic battle is set for September 28. The umpire and the security personnel, we hope will provide a level playing ground by guarding against the repeat of chaos and anarchy that accompanied the Port Harcourt war wrongly described as election.

  • Limit of ethical revolutions

    President Muhammadu Buhari on Thursday,September 8,launched the National reorientation campaign ‘Change Begins With Me’. It was a call ‘for attitudinal change in both our private and public life if we are to attain ‘a better society we will all be proud of.’ The new initiative according to government is a response to some of the problems bedeviling our nation which include ‘cultism, vandalisation of pipelines and other oil facilities corruption by public officials, thuggery and vote-stealing during elections,’ all of which government believes is responsible for ‘the total breakdown of our core values over the years’. John Odigie-Oyegun, the APC chairman while felicitating with Muslim faithful over the Eid el-Kabir season last Sunday also appealed to Nigerians “to be part of this campaign which according to him “will institutionalise the best practice and time-honoured values of honesty, hard work, patriotism, abhorrence of corruption, accountability and integrity in our everyday life,”as part of government bold move to repair our value system that has been badly eroded over the years’.

    I sympathise with President Buhari. There is no doubt that the author of ‘Nigerians have no other place to call their own’ wants the best for our nation. As the hope of Nigerians, impoverished through 16 years of mindless looting of our national resources by the political class, some of whom in some Asian nations would have been publicly executed for their crime against our nation, failure is not an alternative. I am sure the new modification to his change mantra which now insists the promised change will now start with the people, will not affect his rating by Nigerians who see him as a messiah sent to right the wrongs of the past. These high expectations of Nigerians, I think has however placed additional challenges on Buhari who can no more afford the luxury of his predecessors that failed to properly articulate our crisis of nationhood.

    From insight, we now know such wrong diagnoses was what led to the inauguration of President Shehu  Shagari’s ‘Ethical Revolution’ which did not stop his National Party of Nigeria(NPN) from wrecking the buoyant economy he inherited from Obasanjo in 1979 within four years through gluttonous consumption of foreign goods especially the ‘Akinloye brand’ of Champagne,  Babangida’s MAMSER, which turned out to be an ingenious strategy for institutionalisation of corruption by a self-styled ‘evil genius’,  Obasanjo’s Heart of Africa Foundation, and the Dora Akunyili’s directionless ‘rebranding Nigeria’ under Yar’Adua which did not stop  PDP men who publicly insisted on recouping  the funds expended on election  from aborting Obasanjo’s initiatives  in the energy sector and modernization of the rail system. The above initiatives along the President’s own 1994‘War Against Indiscipline’ (WAI) never achieved the advertised objectives because they were all directed against symptoms rather than the cause.

    Our crisis of nationhood requires political solution and not ethical revolution. Playing the ostrich by pretending otherwise is responsible for our economic crisis, infrastructural decay, and the collapse of the education and health sectors as a result of sabotage by those who have no faith in the nation. As it is often said, no true born deliberately sets out to destroy his father’s house. The question we should therefore ask ourselves is why the political class and the military elite have become the greatest threat to the survival of the nation. Why would elected lawmakers award themselves humongous salaries, embark on profligacy even in the midst of economic hardship, engage budget-padding to raise funds to buy personal estates in Abuja, convert our inherited patrimony to personal use, short-change the nation by supervising the sales of national assets that cost tax payers $100b for less than $1b, etc. – actions which they all know are injurious to the health of the nation.

    The answer is lack of faith in the nation by the political class. Unfortunately for us as a nation, not even the military, once the symbol of our unity  which first lost its innocence in January and July 1966 when it became an army of warring NCNC and NPC, an ‘army of anything is possible’ under Babangida and Abacha between 1985-1998,  an army that unilaterally tampered with the 1999 constitution and imposed Obasanjo as President, and an army where by 2014,  Generals shared allocations budgeted for procurement of arms to fight insurgency to acquire choice properties for themselves in Abuja while condemning their priceless assets – fighters to their untimely death, can be said to have faith in Nigeria. In other words, with the betrayal of the nation by the political class and the military elite, the nation became an orphan.  And unlike the long established nation-states of Europe where the hegemonic class, the owners of the state protect their states because of their stakes, what we have are parasites who do not give a damn whether the state collapses or not.  Awo likens the Nigeria state to a cow held down and milked by a privileged few to the detriment of everyone else in the society.

    All we have done in the last 50 years has been to focus on the symptoms of our crisis of nationhood, deploying such palliatives as NYSC, Unity Schools, quota system of admission to federal institutions and recruitment into the federal Civil Service and federal allocation of revenue generated by others resulting in disenchantment of restive segments of the society. We have also tried to play the ostrich by periodic resort to appeal to ethical revolutions which only served as diversionary tactics to allow the political class and the military that have lost faith in the nation to continue pillaging our resources. If 50 years in the journey to nationhood, we still cannot find our direction, we should at least have an idea of where we are coming from.

    Our founding fathers realised that beyond protection of life and property, people will freely trade their freedom and liberty only to states that can also protect their culture and values. As a compromise, they settled for three regions and later four each with its own collection of minorities  even though Awo according to Trevor Clark, Tafawa Balewabiographer, would have preferred a federation based not on “four regions but on ten major ethnic groups made up as follows:  13.6m Hausa and Fulani,(within which there were 32 northern minorities) 13m Yoruba, 7.8m Igbos,(within which there were 9 eastern minorities) 3.2m Efiks and Ibibio, 2.9m Kanuri, 1.5m Tivs, 0.9m Ijaws, 0.9m Edos, 0.6m Urhobos and 0.5m Nupes , as a reflection of our pluralism”.

    We cannot change inherited customs and beliefs. An attempt to forcefully do this through Ahmadu Bello’s 1964  and  Obasanjo’s 2003  ‘mainstreaming’ led to election rigging, violence, massive corruption and militancy. We are  a nation of many nationalities where everyone group want its own nation within the greater Nigerian nation-state where they will have control over their own lives, language, values and customs and resources . A state that chooses to remain tyrannical faces crisis of political participation and crisis of legitimacy as our country has witnessed over the years.

    There is a limit to ethical revolution. If we are genuinely desirous of finding a solution to our crisis of nationhood, we have the template of India, a more heterogeneous society to adapt with some modifications.

  • In defence of Magu

    In defence of Magu

    The ongoing battle of wits between EFCC’s Ibrahim Magu and NBA’s Abubakar Mahmoud over which of their two organizations Nigerians should trust became more intense with the former’s unrestrained sweeping reference to a “Bar populated or directed by people perceived to be rogues and vultures (that) cannot play the role of priests in the temple of justice”.  I don’t think Mahmoud should lose sleep over such sweeping generalization.   ‘Rogues and vultures’ we now know, are not the exclusive preserve of the bar. The ongoing sordid revelations from ‘Dasuki-gate’ have shown they have infiltrated all Nigerian institutions including the Press and the church that once served our people as model for moral rectitude.  What I think should worry the bar however is that the judiciary, unlike other institutions of state and more specifically, the press that has contributed immensely to the emancipation of our nation and consolidation of the democratic process, has remained the greatest threat to our survival as a nation. This, many have come to associate with greed among some senior members of the bar.

    History tells us that this small but powerful members were behind the 1962 bizarre judgment  against Action Group in the West, which  inexorably led to the collapse of the First Republic; exploited Ironsi inadequacies to foist Unitary Decree 34 of 1967 on the nation which eventually led to a civil war and aided Babangida with the interim contraption decree to deny the winner of a national election the joy of victory which although did not lead to a contrived civil war, but nonetheless resulted in a five-year savage reign of Abacha. We have also seen this past 16 years, a judiciary, that chose to shield those who confiscated our commonwealth without paying attention to the pursuit of justice without which a nation decays.  And until the passage in  2015 of the  Administration of Criminal Justice Act, we watched in dismay as  those facing  criminals cases of fraud, murder, and drugs  transited  from state government houses to the Upper house as senators with the help of powerful few that secured ‘perpetual injunctions’ from intimidated high courts judges. Ex-President Jonathan reduced this national tragedy to a comedy in 2014. Asked why those indicted by house probe for the theft of N1.6trillion,  many of whom had by then  become his campaign managers and fund raisers, were shielded from prosecution, he said he should not be held responsible for the slow pace at which the wheel of justice grinds in our country.   President Buhari has since identified the same powerful group as a threat to the ongoing war against corruption.

    In spite of this history of betrayals and of baleful legacies, Mahmoud during his inauguration as the newly elected NBA President on August 26 told Nigerians that “The Nigerian Bar Association commits itself to the fight against corruption in Nigeria. We will put our knowledge, our skills and all resources to combat corruption and reclaim the dignity of Nigerians and of our country”, he promised.   However, to guarantee the success of the bar’s planned new offensive against corruption, he canvassed for the withdrawal of the prosecutorial powers of the EFCC the only anti-corruption agency that has in recent times secured the conviction of some otherwise untouchables in society. He wanted the function transferred to another body that will not be reporting to the executive. He however  did not advance any argument to invalidate the unassailable reasons  the model builders of ‘the doctrine of separation of powers’ deployed to  justify assigning the control of such agencies to the executive, the custodian of state coercive power with corresponding responsibility of taming man’s animal instinct in order to guarantee peace in society.

    With the above unresolved fundamental question, Magu says those behind the attempt to deny EFCC the power to prosecute are ‘perfectly in sync with a cleverly disguised campaign by powerful forces that are uncomfortable with the reinvigorated anti-graft campaign of the EFCC and are hell-bent on emasculating the agency by stripping it of powers to prosecute with the tame excuse that an agency that investigates cannot also prosecute’. He believes there must be other motives since EFCC is only one of many government agencies that investigate and prosecute.

     Beyond this, he also wants Mahmoud to tell Nigerians why they should have faith in his prosecutorial superiority when he as the federal government appointed prosecuting counsel in the trial of ex-Delta State governor, James Ibori, at the Federal High Court, Asaba, bungled the case which EFCC lost in questionable circumstances while the same ingredients from that case were used to fetch Ibori a 13-year jail term in London.  Magu also informed Nigerians that the new NBA president “was also the commission’s counsel in the appeal against the infamous perpetual injunction from arrest and prosecution by former Rivers State Governor, Peter Odili, which is still pending before the Court of Appeal in Port Harcourt’, eight years after it was filed.

    Some think Magu is hitting below the belt. I don’t think so. Except in Nigeria, record of public service count for much for those who aspire for leadership at any level in democratic societies. Voluntary service to the disadvantaged and vulnerable in local communities and promotion of ideals that impact positively on society are in fact necessary requirements for leadership. President Clinton and Obama started their presidential journey by providing voluntary public service as young lawyers. Hillary Clinton, currently running for American Presidency, her husband claimed rejected his marriage proposal twice because of her commitment to the disadvantaged groups. And because of her devotion to the vulnerable in Arkansas where he was governor, President Clinton claimed his party leaders used to joke about whether a wrong Clinton had not been elected as governor.

    But Abubakar Mahmoud does not need a record of service and commitment to the well-being of vulnerable to emerge NBA President. This is probably why he thinks that his dismal record of performance as a government prosecutor like those of his other privileged colleagues who cornered the brief for the prosecution and defence of the over 200 fraudulent bankers responsible for the collapse of the banking sector out of which only four were brought to justice in a period spanning eight years does not preclude him and his colleagues from taking over prosecutorial power of EFCC.

    But Magu thinks otherwise. With such depressing record of performance, he wants NBA’s   Mahmoud to explain to Nigerians why he and his group  should take over prosecutorial powers of EFCC, the only agency that has in contrast secured a number of high profile judgments against some otherwise ‘untouchables’.

    When one considers the assertion of Chief Kehinde Sofola, a past president of the bar, that the primary responsibility of the bar is to the bar, it becomes difficult to disagree with Magu that “It is too much of a strange coincidence that the suggestion to strip the EFCC of its prosecutorial powers is being floated a few months after the commission, in unprecedented fashion, arraigned some senior lawyers for corruption”.

  • Police and new Lagos traffic laws

    Governor Ambode has in a little over a year  justified the confidence reposed on him by Lagosians who during the last election, chose him over  JimiAgbaje, currently engaged in a public brawl with Bode George, his ‘father’ over PDP chairmanship. I believe he has also so far proved he is a worthy successor to his trail-blazing predecessors. Ambode remains a silent operator allowing his creativity and resourcefulness to shine through the quality of governance. Determined to outstrip the giant strides of his predecessors, his Internally Generated Revenue (IGR)projected target for 2017 is N30billion, a great leap from the paltry N600m Bola Tinubu inherited in 1999 and even the humongous N17b he inherited from Fashola, his immediate predecessor. The Nation’s Sam Omatseye describes him as ‘Nigeria’s alpha governor’ whose Lagos ‘is the only vibrant state in the federation’.

    Ambode understands insecurity is the greatest threat to a mega city. His administration therefore went ahead in February to inaugurate a new traffic laws and relevant punishments in an effort to build on the security architecture he inherited.  Speaking on behalf of the governor during its inauguration, Mrs. Olufunmilayo Atilade, the Chief Judge of Lagos State was specific on the targets of the government new crusade. “Those who choose to make life difficult for other people, especially on our roads; those who engage in flagrant disregard or violation of traffic rules with impunity; break traffic rules at will and cause needless traffic snag, drive against traffic and beat the traffic lights, destroy traffic furniture and infrastructure, drive across the road median and through their lawlessness and irresponsible actions, daily inflict pains, grieve and sorrow on fellow citizens.” These “few recalcitrant and obstinate drivers and road users who impede businesses, maim innocent people or send people to their early graves”, the administration swore to battle on behalf of Lagosians.

    Some of the new 11 laws and their attendant punishment include ‘One-Way’ driving which attract a penalty of three years; abandoning vehicle on highway which attracts a fine of N50,000 or three years imprisonment, or both; Motorcycle riding against traffic, smoking while driving, disobeying traffic control, riding motor cycle without crash helmet etc. each of which attracts a fine of N20,000. Many believe the fines are harsh and the intended objectives – whether deterrence or to raise revenues for the state – are nebulous and unattainable. But most Lagosians trust Ambode and therefore have no quarrel with government over the new crusadeto free the people from the menace of ill-bred motorists. It was in this spirit I had sarcastically advised a neighbour who complained two weeks back that his daughter was fleeced of N6,000 for driving with expired vehicle licence by some policemen in Ikeja, an offence outside the new traffic laws, that he and his daughter must learn to be good citizens by having their vehicle papers renewed as at when due.

    Little did I realize the joke was on me until I became a victim last Friday. I was flagged down by one Inspector who by her name tag is probably from Edo North at about 2.30 p.m, a few metres from Ikeja LGA secretariat. I enthusiastically handed over all my vehicle particulars even though she had demanded only for my drivers’ license believing everything was up to date. Moments later she said she was impounding my vehicle because my vehicle license expired few days earlier. Before I realized she was not joking, a police sergeant who by his name tag is of Benin extraction was inside my car ordering me to drive to their station next to Ikeja LGA office.

    At the station, I met about a dozen others engaged in an on-going negotiation anchored by a fair complexioned police woman. My offence, which is driving with expired vehicle licence, I was told, attracts a fine of N20,000 at the Alausa mobile court. Being a Friday, if I failed to come back by 4pm, my car would be impounded until Monday with a possibility of it attracting a demurrage fine of N10,000. I could save myself all the trouble with an option of paying a police fine of N5.000. I craved their indulgence to collect the amount from a nearby ATM machine. They obliged.

    With the illegal police fine collected in the presence of everyone by the sergeant, my impounded car was released. In less than 10 minutes and armed with my renewed vehicle licence obtained from the LGA office next to the police station, I returned and insisted on reporting the extortion to the DPO. As expected, I was told I could only seethe officer incharge of traffic offences.  After patiently listening to my tales, he said neither he nor the DPO sent anyone to collect money on their behalf. He admitted however that there are rotten eggs in the lower cadre of the police but quickly added they were laid by the matured chickens currently in charge of affairs of the police. He then wanted to know if my mission was to retrieve my N5,000.But remembering the great Zik’s admonition that it is only a mad man who argues with an armed Nigerian police, I told him my mission was to find out from the DPO what is being done to stop the extortion of Nigerians which was going on with impunity under his nose.

    Aswe stood talking beside one of the new vehicles procured by Lagos State with public fund to wage the new crusade, harmless members of the public were streaming in and out of the office where bargaining and haggling take place before extortion. In the little over 30 minutes I spent in Ikeja Police station, I did not see a single “danfo” bus driver, the notorious traffic offender among those arrested for traffic offences. Of course none of the accosted traffic offenders needed to go to Alausa to pay fine. Not even a woman who was tongue-lashed and dismissed as ‘ the archetypal troublesome Benin woman who always wants to prove she knows the law more than the police’, for insisting that the FRSC and VIOare the two bodies empowered by law to arrest those who drive with expired vehicle licences and not the police, was sent to Alausa. The woman later confessed she parted with N6,000 for her own double-barreled offence- driving with expired drivers’ licence and expired motor vehicle licence.

    The Ikeja encounter I have since learnt is what goes on in police stations across Lagos. To prevent the Nigeria Police, which as structured can be loyal to neither the nation-state nor its constituent units, drawing a wedge between him and the Lagos citizens, Ambode must excuse the police from the handling of traffic offences while he embarks on massive investment in LASTMA.  First, traffic is a local affair all over the world except in Nigeria where the federal government, blinded by a desire to control all aspects of our life forgets that the answer to some of our current challenges such as gathering intelligence about members of avengers, checking the menace of the so-called Fulani herdsmen or cattle rustlers and consolidating the gains we have made in the liberated north-east is local policing.

    By the time the federal government wakes up from its slumber and realizes that restructuring the bungling and ineffective Nigerian police is inevitable, Ambode’s investments on LASTMA would have started to yield dividends for Lagos State.

  • Budget padding and its challenges

    Until disloyalty to the nation and the conspiracy against their constituencies which brought them together ripped them apart two weeks back, Speaker Dogara, and his estranged friend, Hon. Abdulmumin Jibrin, the former chairman, Appropriation Committee and the majority of the house members justified ‘budget padding’ by appealing to the provision of Sections 3, 24 and 30 of the Legislative Houses (Powers and Privileges) Act.  But that for many could only have been self-serving because the law on the public budgetary process is very clear. The motive of their framers is unmistakable and their logic, sound and unassailable. To the extent that a government budget is the political tool with which government in power fulfils its electoral promises to the electorate, the major actor in budget preparation is the executive. Other actors in the budgetary process have their specific roles clearly spelt out. The legislature debates, examines and authorizes spending of public revenue and to avoid any ambiguity, areas of joint cooperation between it and the executive are clearly listed to 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.

    Padding of the budget especially after the second reading is therefore a criminal act. Unfortunately, that seems to be what has been going on since the beginning of the fourth republic. When last May, the bubble first burst following the alarm raised by the ministers in charge of health and transport about the padding of the budget they submitted, the President refused   to append his signature. He was however blackmailed by the lawmakers and their apologists who accused him of insensitivity to the plight of the public that will suffer from his refusal to play politics and accommodate the excesses of the lawmakers.

    But as it is often said, ‘there is no perfect crime’. Two weeks ago, Jibrin’s swift reaction 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’,  was to attribute his travails to his ‘inability to admit into the budget almost N30 billion personal requests from Mr. Speaker and the three other principal officers’. He went on  to add that that the Speaker did not only divert a federal government water project to his farm but that he blackmailed an unnamed construction company to work on his Asokoro new mansion.

    Last week, a civil society group, SERAP lodged a petition against Dogara and his men at the UN 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 have also now  learnt that about N350b 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, this newspaper in a piece titled “Constituency Projects – a ritual of monumental waste”, listed on pages 9, 10 and 11, 211 abandoned budgets. It was the result of a survey of 436 projects spread across 16 states of the federation by a Civic Technology Organisation-BudgIT. Some of these projects include water bore-holes, rural electricity and roads projects and primary health centres designed to alleviate the suffering of the poor.

    This monumental fraud at the National Assembly is replicated in all the 36 states in the country where governors in most cases operate like sole administrators with state assemblies serving as rubber stamps. The 774 LGAs are not different. The local council chairmen who collect free allocation from Abuja are answerable to no one. The councilors many of who have been known to build houses within a year in office cornered the available road and culvert contracts that get washed away if and when implemented after one rainy season because of usage of substandard materials.

    Budget padding like some of our other crises of nationhood as many well informed Nigerians have told us is closely tied to our unwieldy and unworkable structure. This however is a fact those who are benefitting from the current anarchy including our over 400 highly paid lawmakers currently engaged in budget padding in Abuja and other parasitic politicians at the state and local council levels are ready to deny.

    Close  to a century after  the warning by the colonial masters that  we must as a multi-ethnic society with diverse cultures ‘allow groups to develop at their own pace without interference from others’, we have continued to play the ostrich. Sixty years after the collapse of the structure we inherited from our founding fathers, no Nigeria leader has been able to properly articulate our crisis of nationhood. But if we don’t know where we are going, we at least know where we are coming from. And this was exactly what Professor Banji Akintoye, a world celebrated historian tried to do in a recent lecture he delivered in Ibadan to celebrate the past peaceful co-existence of our various nationalities.

    In terms of world view, the Yoruba according to him has as its core value, ‘welfarism’. In most Yoruba towns, age groups engage in communal cooperative endeavours known locally as aaro whereby they jointly help their members to construct houses in turns. Women according to Prof Akintoye had their equivalent of aaro.

    What Awo and his group of Yoruba educated elite did, we now know, was to build on this core values. Free education was anything but free. Adult Yoruba who used to escape to the forest at the approach of tax collectors were heavily taxed whether they had children or not. Cocoa farmers were equally taxed through the marketing boards. The proceeds were used to prosecute free education and send brilliant western Nigeria youths to the best universities in the world. They built shoe, tyre, beverages and vegetable industries to add value to the farm produce of their farmers. They modernized the aaro concept with the establishment to housing estates and to cater for the taste of an emergent middle class. Of course, Ahmadu Bellow built on the values of his own people to establish the NNDC as the biggest business conglomerate in Africa, ABU and ‘one north one people’ where Christians, Muslims and various ethnic groups in the north coexisted peacefully.

    Sine no one deliberately sets out to destroy his father’s house, budget padding by elected legislators can only signify lack of faith in Nigeria. Unfortunately self-serving opponents of restructuring are not even prepared to appreciate that the whole essence of a federal arrangement is to make individuals and groups remain proud members of their small group within the greater nation.

    If I were an adviser to President Buhari who is currently seeking extra emergency powers, to tackle the nation’s economic problems, I will suggest he  ‘seeks first the of kingdom of politics’ as Nkrumah once admonished by leveraging on the trust he enjoys among Nigerians and use the unique opportunity he today has to undo what his colleagues – the ill-informed military adventurers did by restoring our beautiful country back to a workable, productive, and competitive federal arrangement that once made Nigeria a reference point as world greatest exporter of groundnut and palm oil, the country with the best bureaucracy in Africa, with the first television in Africa and with UCH Ibadan, as one of the best three teaching hospitals in the Commonwealth of Nations.

  • Taxing Abuja property owners

    Nigerian political office holders and their fronts with access to free state funds have come to be associated with irrational acquisition of properties they hardly inhabit, in and outside the country. “A large number of mansions in the most exclusive areas of London are owned by Nigerians”, the bemused British media once declared. As if to corroborate this claim, Kolapo Olapoju in a recent write up claimed ‘Google Earth virtual tour revealed that two Nigerians, James Ibori and Cecelia Ibru were among the world’s ‘six most notorious for acquiring valuable properties with stolen funds and corrupt means’. They are in ignoble league of Muammar Gaddafi, Mobutu Sese Seko, Imelda Marcos, and Teodorin Obiang, the son of President Obiang of Equatorial Guinea.

    It is hard to controvert such claim when one for instance is confronted with the fact that an incredible 103 properties in the United States, Nigeria, South Africa, Dubai and London were in 2009 seized from Cecilia Ibru, the former Managing Director of Oceanic Bank PLC who was also sentenced to six months in prison for fraud and ordered to hand over $1.2 billion in cash and assets; or when James Ibori, described by his London Prosecutor, Sasha Wass as “a thief in government house”, was credited with a fleet of cars such as armoured Range Rovers costing £600,000, £120,000 Bentley, £300,000 Mercedes Benz and  six properties in London, including a six-bedroom house with indoor pool in Hampstead at a cost of £2.2million and a flat opposite the nearby Abbey Road recording studios.

    And while we raged against David Cameron for describing our nation as ‘a fantastically corrupt country’, we were confronted with a UK Daily Mail’s publication of mansions owned by Nigerians in London which it described as “palaces of corruption”.  This was followed by the report of Global Coalition Against Corruption that claimed “about 57 other Nigerians including   Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, Joshua Dariye, the late Abubakar Audu, Chimaroke Nnamani, Lucky Igbinedion, Diezani Alison-Madueke and  13 ex-governors on trial for financial crimes, some former ministers either on trial or under investigation, some indicted top bankers’ may forfeit  their foreign assets”.

    Back home, EFCC in January this year announced the seizure of N10b properties owned by Alex Badeh just as it claimed it traced another $2.8m properties owned by his daughter to the US. In June, EFCC announced the seizure of 29 properties including an N980m shopping plaza, a N450m residential mansion, a N710m executive mansion and anotherN720m four-unit terrace in choice areas of Abuja from three ex-Air Force chiefs – Air Marshal Adesola Amosu; Air vice Marshal Jacob Adigun (retd.); and Air Commodore Olugbenga Gbadebo (retd.). EFCC followed with the announcement of the seizure of Fayose’s N1.35bn properties made up of four duplexes on Victoria Island in Lagos State and Maitama, Abuja.  This was soon followed by EFCC’s seizure of four houses worth N872 million from a former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Sen. Bala Mohammed, and three duplexes costing about N222 million in the Apo Area of Abuja from Shamsudeen Bala, his son.

    Although not a few Nigerians are outraged by EFCC scandalous revelations, they  nonetheless merely exemplify the depth of rot in Abuja where there is hardly any minister, governor  or a lawmaker who served between 1999 and 2016 who do not own a mansion, an hotel, an estate, a shopping plaza or a farm. We may therefore not in all conscience say that those EFCC has fingered are any more guilty than ministers and lawmakers who deployed  proceeds of budget padding or unimplemented constituency projects towards acquisition of choice properties in Abuja .

    Although because of the slow pace at which the wheel of justice grinds in our nation, (apology to ex President Jonathan) and since in the name of democracy, the law crafted by the political elite does not allow us question the source of new found wealth of political office holders who yesterday could only afford a modest bungalow after a life long struggle or those who had nothing before becoming lawmakers in their thirties, but within four years tour of duty became transformed into proud owners of multibillion Abuja mansions, I don’t think government is totally helpless.

    Here again, APC government is not being called upon to invent the wheel. All they have to do is borrow a leaf from the enlightened British political elite from whom we copied the liberal democratic process. Precisely because they understand that the well-being of the poor and the disadvantaged is the only safeguard for the safety of the leisured class who have taken more than their proportionate share of their nation’s resources, properties owned by the latter (including mansions bought by Nigerians with stolen funds) are heavily taxed. The tax returns are thereafter channeled into building of Council flats for low income earners in all the counties. The Local Council officials collect rent with which the council flats are maintained. And where some cannot afford the heavily subsidised rents in the council flats, government come to their aid and even provide food to ensure no one is without roof over his head or go to bed without food. They know this is the only way the rich can live in peace.

    With the rejection of the above tested path by an unenlightened Nigerian political elite  headed by Obasanjo, Jonathan and their greedy lawmakers who preferred to confiscate land and properties they held in trust for the poor between 1999 and 2015, what is expected of government of change is a new beginning, starting with the path never taken. It was for this reason Nigerians voted for change. Nigerians are opposed to lawmakers expending taxpayers’ money of SUV toys. Nigerians who saw the immediate past British Prime Minister, David Cameron drive out of 10 Downing Street after six years in office in his small personal car with his family are not asking for too much. But what they got in contrast under a government of change is a lawmaker Abdulmumin Jibrin, 39 who came out of thirty something million naira SUV Landcruiser and walked with a swagger to Abuja EFCC’s office to lodge complaints about alleged budget padding by 13 of his colleagues.

    Nigerians expect Buhari and APC to set a new tone. The mood of Nigerians after 16 years of Obasanjo and his PDP profligacy is that lawmakers who cannot ride assembled in Nigeria Peugeot vehicle as official cars should trek. Nigerians who voted for change expect cash-strapped Buhari and his APC government to take the census of property owners in Maitama and Asokoro areas of Abuja for the purpose of taxing the idle parasitic owners in order to bring relief to thousands without homes in Abuja without whose contributions the city decays. And finally the mood of Nigerians who voted for change is for APC government to copy the prevailing law of inheritance in a welfare state like Britain that allows imposition of taxes or outright confiscation of properties of idle children of fraudulent fathers who in their twenties and without visible source of income inhabit N300m mansions in Abuja.

    I think beyond blackmail, Buhari and APC have nothing to fear. If the push comes to shove, politicians who have defrauded their states as governors, the nation through budget padding which dates back to 1999 or their constituencies through unexecuted projects may be asked to explain the sources for the funding of their multi-billion Abuja properties.

  • Battle over Abuja prime plots

    What turned Abuja into one of the most expensive cities in the world is greed of our political elite. The vicious battle over Abuja priceless land by politicians who are ready to deploy stolen national wealth into building of mansions, estates and farms where they rear crocodiles has become more vicious in recent years. If we needed any further proof to show how greed has turned a beautiful concept of a city meant for all Nigerians by Justice  Akinola Aguda to a city hijacked by men without character, the planned trial of Mallam Bala Mohammed, the immediate past Minister for Abuja Territory provided just that.

    Following close examination of petitions against Bala Mohammed, some dating back to 2013, initial findings, according to EFCC showed that “the ex-Minister used fictitious companies to award contracts worth N1 billion in FCT; allocated 12 plots of land to his son and 37 commercial plots of land to his business front called Tariq Hammoud”, from which he reportedly made N8billion. They are also re-visiting the controversial N1 trillion Abuja land swap.

    But the travail of Bala Mohammed is a case of who should cast the first stone among our new breed politicians that breed nothing but corruption. If we ‘shine our eyes well’ (apologies to Adams Oshiomhole of Edo State), we will see that land profiteering dates back to 1999 when with PDP assumption of power, the Abuja land policy thrust like all other PDP government policy thrusts such as privatisation, monetization, fuel subsidy and even vehicle plate number modernization were designed and implemented for the benefit not of the people but of those in government and their fronts. Bala Mohammed is therefore no less guilty than past presidents, ministers, lawmakers and governors who have with stolen public funds turned Abuja to the battle ground of who erect the greatest number of mansions, hotels, private estates and private farms.

    What gave us an insight into the recklessness of the political class was the crusade embarked upon by an NGO called Purpose Driven Initiative (PDI), the whistle blower for Abuja land grab by ex-President Jonathan and his Minister for Abuja Territory.  In an advertisement titled: “Let us talk about corruption”, the NGO had regaled the public with the tales of how “A sitting President, Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, incorporated a company, Ebele Integrated Farms Limited in which he is a major shareholder on December 30, 2011 and applied for and was granted 94.04 hectares of land – Plot 1689 in Cadastral Zone EOS Aviation Village, Abuja on January 13, 2014. Apart from the fact that this was a breach of the code of conduct for public officers, the  whistle-blower claimed: “The farm house which sits on a hill top overlooking the airport at the nation’s capital with rest chalets and presidential conference rooms, and probably managed by Israelis  was said to be worth about $500m.” It was further claimed that crocodiles are some of the livestocks being reared at its aquatic farm.

    Rising in defence of President Jonathan and his minister, a pro- government coalition, New Generation Coalition, justified the breach of public trust by claiming that ex-president similarly also incorporated a company, Obasanjo Farms Nigeria Limited, applied and was granted a 100.12 hectares of land, Plot No.1 Cadastral Zone E09 Kuje, Abuja on June 27, 2005. But even among thieves, there is supposed to be honour, but it is not so with the PDP where Jonathan apologists claimed that, by allocating and signing Certificate of Occupancy for his boss, Bala Mohammed was only following the foot-steps of Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, Obasanjo’s FCT Minister who allocated land and signed Certificate of Occupancy for Obasanjo Farms Nigeria Limited on July 24, 2006″. If Obasanjo immorally grabbed 100.12.hectares, why can’t Jonathan also immorally grab 94.4 hectares, they seem to be saying.

    As it turned out, Obasnajo and Jonathan, the greatest tragedies of our time merely created a pathway for their ministers and lawmakers who after confiscating their official residences under dubious monetization policy jointly embarked on massive padding of the budget which started when Dr. Bukola Saraki, fresh from medical school with no relevant experience, was appointed by an all-knowing Obasanjo as special assistant on budgeting in 1999.

    If only for the breach of public trust, Nigerian would have wished the Certificate of Occupancy given to Obasanjo and his godson in respect of the land they grabbed be revoked and the duo sanctioned. But I think cash-strapped President Buhari should just re-evaluate the 200 hectares of prime land and mandate father and son to pay the appropriate economic rate plus the interest that would have accrued to government.

    And following in the footsteps of President Jonathan, the whistle-blowing group also claimed, Bala Mohammed, in clear violation of the 1999 constitution, incorporated Bird Trust Agro-Allied Limited on May 31, 2012. Minister Bala Mohammed was said to have also allocated a modest 40.4 hectares, Plot 1683 in Cadastral Zone E05 of Aviation Village in Abuja on April 11, 2014,” to Minister Mohammed’s company.

    The Secretary to Government, Anyim Pius Anyim was not left out. He and some powerful people in President Jonathan’s government according to Daily Trust investigation were behind the Centenary City Plc, a private company which set out to build a mega-city to commemorate Nigeria’s centenary celebration. The company grabbed for itself 1,262.27 hectares of prime land.

    Again confiscating a prime land three times the size of Maitama or Asokoro districts for private use by those in government and their fronts is greed at its worst form. But we desperately need money and since we are in an era of plea bargaining, government should just play the Shylock by insisting Anyim Pius Anyim, the chief promoter, Abdul Salami Abubakar, the chairman and Dr Ike Michaels the Managing Director, pay the N63 billion in land fees for the Centenary City project which Daily Trust claimed was waived by federal government.

    First ladies were similarly not left out in the vicious battle over Abuja prime plots.  Mrs. Turai Yar’Adua once went to court asking she ‘be paid N1.5 billion as general damages, N100 million as exemplary damages, N100 million as aggravated damages in addition to N261 million already paid for Certificate of Occupancy as well as N454 million paid for building designs’ over her revoked land which was reallocated to Mrs. Patience Jonathan ostensibly for public interest. Mrs. Jonathan also went to court through the Ministry of Justice. In the end Turai floored her rival when the court ruled “The defendants failed woefully to adduce any shred of evidence before this court to support their claims that the allocation of the land was revoked on overriding public interest”.

    But government in desperate need of cash must ascertain if Turai paid the correct charges. This call has nothing to do with the integrity of Turai or her husband under whom she secured the prime Abuja plot. It is just that Nigerians cannot trust any of the FCT ministers.

    And finally since we are cash strapped, government should revisit the illegal and immoral sharing of 29 plots of land in the Maitama District which according to Dino Melaye fell within an area designated for erection of tourist structure for foreign visitors. He listed as beneficiaries President Jonathan, former Justice Minister Muhammed Bello Adoke; ý former Bauchi governor Isa Yuguda; and former Acting National Chairman of PDP, Uche Secondus among others. Since many of these men already have mansions in Abuja, they should be heavily taxed if they must convert land earmarked for public use into private use.

    If we cannot take our nation’s capital back from veteran budget padding lawmakers and ministers who have pumped billions into turning it into the exclusive preserve of the rich, they should be made to pay heavy tax not only to maintain the city but to solve social problems of other cities especially in an age of dwindling economic fortune.

  • Restructuring and Military Avengers

    For many credible voices in our nation, the answer to our unresolved national question is a return to our 1954 structure, negotiated by our founding fathers ‘to promote the unity of Nigeria and protect the interest of diverse elements that make up the country’, with some modifications to reflect current realities. The open endorsement of agitation by some restive groups for self-actualization and ‘less centralised, less suffocating and less dictatorial’ central government by Atiku Abubakar seems to have brought a new focus on an old issue. The former governor of Kaduna State and leader of the Conference of Nigerian Political Parties, Alhaji Balarabe Musa, has added his voice. According to him, ‘a return to regional arrangement, where each region can create states they can cater for, would certainly reduce injustice and inequality among the people’. Emeka Anyaoku, the former Commonwealth Secretary-General has also renewed his call for ‘a return to the regional structure practiced in the First Republic, with the country’s six regions forming the federating units’. For Gen Akinrinade, “anyone that wishes Nigeria well and wants our states to develop will join in the growing agitation to restructure the country”. And reacting to the opponents of restructuring who have consistently said ‘Nigeria unity is not negotiable’, Wole Soyinka, regarded by many as the conscience of the nation has said the basis of our association needed to be renegotiated if we are to prevent a disastrous disintegration. Agreeing with him, The Guardian in an editorial in its edition of June 26, submitted “The present structure has bred identity politics of ethnocentrism, undermined national unity and patriotism, institutionalised corruption, violation of the rule of law and a dehumanisation of the people – antinomies that have led to state-led violence and enduring separatist impulses on the part of many nationalities that make up the country”. But long before now, other patriotic Nigerians such as the late Pa Tony Enahoro, Pa Adekunle Ajasin, two of our founding fathers, as well as human right activists such as Alao Aka Bashorun and Beko Ransome-Kuti, engaged in a life long struggle for a restructured Nigeria.

    While many concerned Nigerians agree with these patriots that Nigeria is just not working as presently constituted, the Nigerian military and their apologists who after destroying the inherited superstructure, imposed a unitary system, abridged the political socialization process, insisted on teaching Nigerians that started party system in 1923 how to form political parties, decimated the political class which was replaced with military- baked new breed politicians that bred nothing but corruption and wanted to maintain the status quo.

    Beyond these self-delusions, the Nigerian military have other reason to sustain the status quo. Studies have now shown that like their counterparts elsewhere in West Africa, who joined the military to climb the social ladder, they harboured deep-rooted hatred for the dominant groups in society such as the politicians, the civil servants and intellectuals they saw as the source of their marginalisation.

    In fact those first recruited by the British into what eventually became the Nigerian military from the north according to Ahmadu Bello ‘were slaves who ran away from their masters and labourers from the market places’. The status of a soldier was not better in the east. Professor Adekanye, quoting N. J. Miners called our attention to one Major Eze, who writing in the 1963 issue of old Nigerian army magazine after the Second World War said: ‘The army was a place for the illiterates and criminals whose duties were to kill and be generally brutal”. In the west, those who joined the military were considered rascals. Adekanye also told us the poor image of the military can be measured in terms of low remuneration; the army recruit was paid less than unskilled daily paid government labourer and the army members of the NCO earned less than their counterparts in the police.

    Like their counterparts in West Africa such as Liberia where Sergeant Doe, after taking over power, lined up, shot and dragged 11 bodies of President Tubman’s associates on the streets only to get himself  integrated into their Whig Party he had accused of corruption, Nigerian military also first murdered their benefactors, threw the political class into disarray, destroyed the bureaucracy and the university system ostensibly because of corruption but ended up paying themselves higher salaries,  awarding salaries for life to their Generals while many retired into life of opulence as owners of banks, captains of industries and owners of oil wells after murdering   benefactors they had accused of being ‘ten per centers’.

    The new acquired status provided Obasanjo an opportunity to appoint the 49 wise men that drafted the 1979 constitution which traded our inherited parliamentary system for a presidential system that unlike the former allowed him to be crowned President even after his rejection by his people.

    Babangida demonstrated his own complex by hilariously calling himself President after his palace coup, executed not because of his lofty vision for the nation but according to Buhari, to protect Gusau who was accused of corruption by the Buhari military junta. He humoured himself as the ‘Maradona’ of Nigerian politics, manipulated the political class, decreed two parties, institutionalized corruption through SAP, took the nation through eight years of fraudulent transition programme at the end of which he annulled the most credible election ever conducted in our nation won by his friend MKO Abiola.

    Abacha reduced the political class to comedians. For his own fraudulent transition, his five decreed political parties described as ‘five fingers of a leprous finger’ by the late Bola Ige were falling over each other to adopt him as their presidential candidate until he was visited by death, the leveller.

    General Abdulsalami Abubakar, using the same military tactics humbled the political class. The highly respected caustic mouth, Bola Ige who was credited with writing the PDP, APP and AD constitutions long after the military had decided to impose Obasanjo as President was no exception. He was tricked to lower his guard by Obasanjo’s patronizing “Bola Ige is the only Yoruba man I fear’ during the 1999 election he was programmed to win. His assassination as Attorney General of the federation inside his room remains unresolved.

    And of course Obasanjo did not disappoint his military constituency. PDP party chieftains became ‘garrison commanders’. Leaderships of the party as well as those of the two legislative houses were routinely shuffled like cards. The highly compromised legislatures often resorted to military tactics to outwit party members each just as the current leadership did in June last year.

    The nation cannot move forward with restructuring. The military and their fronts who become multi-billionaires in their late thirties, the senate where members who routinely pass resolutions to cover up alleged fraud, the lower house currently enmeshed in allegation of massive padding of the budget cannot be regarded as patriots that care about the future of our nation.

    We are therefore left with President Buhari who had restructuring as part of his 2015 campaign manifesto. He was voted President because Nigerians trusted him. He must remain faithful to his contract with Nigerians. Once a victim of betrayal by his military colleagues, he should know wealthy retired Generals and their fronts who insists “Nigeria Unity is not negotiable’ do not have history on their side. With those who have served jail term for corruption and others facing corruption charges in court openly canvassing for votes, it must be clear by now to the President that his lasting legacy will not be fighting corruption but a restructured Nigeria that prevents a disastrous disintegration.