The Nation Newspaper

Category: Jide Oluwajuyitan

  • Fuel subsidy: The real enemies

    Buffeted from all sides by vicious vultures, the government last week finally caved in to the demand of advocates of deregulation by increasing   pump price of petroleum from N87 to N145. The increase, according to Lai Mohammed, Minister of Information was inevitable, citing as reasons the dwindling foreign reserve, the reduction in crude production from 2.2m bpd to 1.65 bpd because of vandalisation of oil pipelines by sponsored elements and the fact that the N16.4b needed monthly for subsidy was just not available. We can add the sabotage by independent oil marketers who openly declared that importation of over 70% of oil consumption requirement by a government that refused to give their members foreign exchange will not bring an end to long queues at filling stations because NNPC is dependent on their storage facilities.

    The government has other off-shore detractors starting with Forbes and Bloomberg magazines that described Buhari as ‘obstinate’ for refusing to devalue the naira and take IMF loan, their principals including the IMF itself and other western leaders like David Cameron who survives on proceeds of stolen funds warehoused in their countries and of course those who stand to lose from government’s ban on 21 items gulping $12b of our foreign exchange every four months. Unfortunately, Buhari and his cash-strapped government need cash from even his detractors to finance a deficit budget of N2 trillion. Hence instead of apology, he appealed to Cameron to return our cash. His efforts at making beneficiaries of funds illegally taken out of the CBN vault with boxes, vomit what they all admitted was shared, is not receiving the support of some judges and some unpatriotic senior members of the bench. The Arab world he turned to for cash to implement his N2b budget deficit, have said, as players in the global financial market,  access to their loans is also tied to IMF ‘conditionalities’.  China of course was not ready to give cash but projects.  And reparation of stolen funds creatively deployed by some western countries to solve problems of social dislocations in their societies is a slow process.

    Unfortunately, in what is nothing but an act of misplaced aggression, those of us,  whose battle Buhari is fighting at his old age, are being misguided by  Labour that looked the other way while salaries of civil servants including doctors were unpaid for six  months by 26 states of the federation while the current lawmakers engaged in profligacy. Meanwhile our real enemies, the political elite and their trader-capitalists who have since 1999 waged war against the impoverished poor earning between N10,000–N18,000 and the middle class have continued to behave as if they are doing us a favour by serving us.

    While the lowest paid workers may now have to spend their take home pay on transportation, going by the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC), each of the of the 109 senators earns N19.26m. His House of Reps counterpart earns a little less. This is apart from quarterly office running cost put at N192million per senator per quarter while their House of Representatives counterparts received N140 million (2009 figures). They also get about N500,000 as wardrobe allowance, N202, 640 as newspapers/periodicals allowance, recess allowance of over N200, 000. They collect interest-free car loans. They have official cars fuelled by taxpayers. In the past they executed multi-million constituency projects. They take severance package which is in millions after four years while pensioners are unable to collect their pension years after retirement. About 21 of them are ex-governors who after mouth-watering severance packages of houses, cars and cash still collect pension as well as scandalously high salaries.

    It was these self-serving lawmakers that started our nightmare shortly after Obasanjo’s inauguration in 1999. The inauguration was followed by long queues in filling stations as a result of artificial scarcity created by cash-strapped politicians who claimed they sold houses to fight the 1999 election. Obasanjo’ s award of contract to refurbish the refineries was sabotaged by the politicians who failed to deliver after collecting contract payment. Then a self-serving bill for the establishment of PPPRA was promptly  passed into law and quickly assented to by Obasanjo within three months, February to May 2003. Its mandate was to ‘liberalise the downstream sector of the petroleum industry, privatise the refineries, deregulate and liberalise the imports of petroleum products and, generally, make the products available at reasonable prices.

    But PPPRA became tool for political patronage. The body then went on to increase the number of fuel importers from less than a dozen to over 148 made up of PDP stalwarts and their siblings. In 2011, it inflated consumption of imported petroleum products by N1trillion. A House probe was to show later that these PDP stalwarts and their siblings allegedly stole about N1.7 trillion through fraudulent practices including forging of government documents to receive subsidy without ‘importing a bottle of fuel’. Thirteen years down the line, PPPRA with staff strength of 249, and a 22-man strong board, earning salaries and allowances of N57.9 billion per annum, serves only the interest of those that set it up. It is not a surprise that one of their former board members has been linked with the Panama scandal.

    Sadly, by the time Buhari was throwing in the towel last week, some of their other baleful legacies include dysfunctional refineries, the collapse of the  over 4,000 kilometres of oil pipeline commissioned by Obasanjo in 1979, as well as  government-owned fuel tank farms with PPPRA now dependent on the storage facilities of members of Depot Petroleum Products Marketers Association (DAPPMA) with some boasting of the largest and most modern storage facilities in the world and the Independent Marketers Company (NIPCO) that has invested billions in storage facilities.

    While the nation frittered away about $30b on fuel subsidy between 2011 and 2012, an amount enough to build several refineries, at the time, Dangote’s $14b refinery which will come on stream in 2018, will not only meet the nations demand for fuel consumption but also put an end to 100% importation of fertilizer. “Today, Nigeria imports 100 percent of its fertilizer, but when we finish, Nigeria will be the largest exporter of Urea and Ammonia in Africa, and it will meet our total domestic requirement and save foreign exchange”, Dangote recently declared. His director has also confirmed “The refinery is the largest single line in Africa’, with refining capacity of 650,000 barrels per day (bpd), production of 750,000 metric tons of polypropylene per year and 2.8 million tones of fertilizer per annum,” Adding his own voice, Emefiele  the CBN Governor said “it will fetch Dangote about $6b foreign exchange earning which will bring relief to a nation that until Buhari’s courageous moves last week  was spending about 38% of its reserve on subsidy.”

    Labour has a duty to let those it represents know that Buhari is not the enemy but David Mark, Ekweremadu, Saraki, Gbajabiamila who awarded themselves generous pay for oversight function they performed in default, their colleagues who engaged in on what Obasanjo once called ‘theatrics on the floor of the National Assembly’ over subsidy removal when there was no subsidy appropriation. We can add subsidy cartels that stole N1.7t,  those who according to ex-Governor Peter Obi “were paid for vessels that were not anywhere near the Nigerian waters”, the  25 marketers who were  ordered to pay back N382 billion to the government following the findings of the presidential committee that looked into the disbursement of the fuel subsidy fund, vandals engaged in vandalisation of oil pipelines and their patrons  and finally some of those unskilled or dubious Nigeria- trader capitalists  who are richer than Nigeria and now threaten the system with the idle $20b kept in domiciliary account.

  • Beleaguared PMB needs our support

    IMF, ill-famed for creating instability in underdeveloped post-colonial states to mitigate effects of social dislocations in the western societies, is waging a silent war against Buhari following his rejection of its bitter pill designed to further impoverish Nigerians.  As it was in 1984 when he did not only reject its Greek-gift but questioned the veracity of claimed Nigeria’s indebtedness and in fact went on to commission Chase Bank to carry out a verification exercise, Buhari is once again under a coordinated attack by IMF, its agents and its foot soldiers.  Kemi Adeosun, his Minister of Finance told them in far away France that if the Nigerian economy is sick, we will find a local cure. Perhaps as part of the local remedy, she late last week, on ‘Sunrise Daily’, a Channels TV programme, presented a Buhari economic plan designed  to eliminate waste, fight corruption, and make savings (instead of borrowing money to pay salaries as it has been for years) and placate those keeping Nigerian stolen wealth to repatriate them.  But apparently, the only thing acceptable to IMF and its western patrons in custody of looted Nigeria funds which Femi Falana estimated to be in the neighbourhood of $200 billion is outright devaluation of the naira so that we will be forced to join other troubled economies such as Ghana, Kenya and Angola that have swallowed the IMF bait. But to Buhari, with inflation as high as 20.20% and Labour agitating for minimum wage of N55, 000 even when about 26 states of the federation have been unable to pay the  N18,000 minimum wage, devaluation is a one-way route to bankruptcy and an invitation to share the terrible fate that befell Greece.

    Unexpectedly, IMF has deployed its foot soldiers. Even after the CBN governor had announced the depreciation of the naira from N155 to N197, Lamido Sanusi insists the country is only postponing the evil day. Oby Ezekwesili says Buhari’s policy is ‘archaic and opaque’ because according to her, we are ‘moving away from one-digit inflation and six percent growth of the Jonathan era. But what they did not tell Nigerians is that it was growth without development, growth without investment in infrastructure, growth where Egbin station has only two of its six turbines functioning, growth where NNPC could not maintain the four aging refineries nor government owned fuel farm in Ikorodu, growth where our defence industry in Kaduna re-bags rice while its counterparts in South Africa manufacture fighter jets.

    As for Kalu Idika Kalu, another IMF alumni, what the minister of finance presented as economic plan is no plan because he cannot see macro-economic indices like market determined exchange rate, increase tariff and taxes that will create opportunity for Nigeria to have access to ‘lending institutions and commercial banks like KFW Group of Germany, UK Export Finance Bank, Coface Bank in France, World Bank with the capacity to give long term loans for capital projects’.  He cannot understand why the government is afraid of devaluation when according to him, we have gone beyond devaluation. But what he has not told Nigerians is the inevitability of reduction in consumption if we increase VAT from 5% to 15%. He was also silent on the consequences of devaluation in an economy where inflation is already as high as 20.20% and Labour’s agitation for N55, 000 minimum wage when 26 states are finding it difficult to pay a minimum wage of N18, 000.

    But Idika Kalu has since his first coming as finance minister (1985-86),  like his fellow apostle of market driven realistic exchange rate such as Chu Okongwu (1986-1999), Olu Falae (1990-1990) and Abubakar Alhaji (1990-1993) insisted on what he described as ‘the inevitability of large scale programme of devaluation’ in spite of  warnings back then by even some western economists such as Ricardo Fari of John Hopkins University and Jaime de Millo, then a world Bank official  that the wholesale devaluation of our naira will not help our situation. They dismissed Obasanjo who took the battle to Columbia University where he dared Nigeria creditors and apostles of  devaluation to start charity at home by adopting ‘law of demand and supply’ by jettisoning ‘protectionism’ against Japanese goods and subsidy on their agricultural produce’ as a ‘frustrated chicken farmer’.  Tragically, their  first-tier rate of N2.80 to $1 in November 13, 1986, had by 1991 nose dived to  N11.312 kobo to $1 prompting  a warning by Augustus Aikhomu the then military vice president that the  ‘the value of the naira cannot be left absolutely to the whims and caprices of the market economy”. Twenty six years after and with the battered naira  standing at about N350-$1, their search for market determined realistic naira value continues.

    It is fruitless reminding apostles of ‘market driven realistic exchange rate’ who do not believe globalization is another name for slavery that models that failed in the West where the laws  are no respecter of anyone will not work in our environment where laws for our lawmakers are a means to an end? {Even the current 8th Senate according to the police manipulated its rules to achieve a desired outcome).

    For our purpose, let us examine only one institution- the Bureau de change, widely believed to be owned by those that drafted the laws guiding its operation. The (CBN), revised minimum capital requirement for Bureau De Change (BDC) operations is N35million with another N35m mandatory cautionary deposit to be deposited in a non-interest yielding account in the CBN. Because it is widely believed they are fronting for powerful people who have made cheap money from government, they don’t have to explain the source of dollars they dispense.

    How can we then have a realistic market driven naira exchange rate when although dollar is not our legal tender currency, imperial governors collect allocations and channelled same through Bureau de Change? How can supply and demand law determine the realistic exchange rate of the naira when the travails of the naira is closely linked with the unwholesome activities going on in the Bureau de change? Here, unlike the west, Bureau de change owes no one explanation when they get directive from Dasuki who after collecting $2.1b directly from CBN vault in boxes direct them to pay party functionaries?

    Add this to the fact that some individual Nigerians and companies who have over $20b deposit in their now frozen domiciliary accounts are also said to be behind the agitation for a market driven realistic exchange rate of N301 to $1. This amounts to double jeopardy for all Nigerians because if we apply Professor Bolaji Akinyemi’s thesis, there is no Nigerian billionaire who can in all conscience claim he has not exploited the state.

    And finally for a realistic exchange rate, I don’t think Nigerians need to leave the battle only to Falana who in spite of sabotage by his professional colleagues, has threatened to sue an embattled Buhari if he settles for loans instead of retrieving looted funds.  Currently at war with IMF and its western patrons and its Nigeria foot soldiers, Bureau de change and their unpatriotic Nigerian patrons and the greedy $20b depositors who want a pound of flesh, Buhari needs our support in his deadly battle with vicious enemies and understanding while he continues his current banana-peel approach to decisively rein in enemies of our nation.

  • Governors, lawmakers and Fulani herdsmen

    Last week on these pages, we talked about Yoruba governors who wear Awo’s cap without imbibing Awo’s character and philosophy. I think they have their parallel all over the country especially in the north where Ahamadu Bello, Awo’s contemporary, with an annual budget of 44m pounds, lower than what each of the 414 LGAs in the north today collects as allocation, according Nuhu Ribadu, “maintained law and order and ensured effective security of life and property, built Ahmadu Bello University, Ahmadu Bello Stadium, NNDC, the largest black-owned conglomerate in black Africa;  built many textile factories, good roads, marketing boards, efficient water supply etc” while the 19 northern  governors sadly  have nothing to show for the N8.3 trillion they  got from the federation account between 1999 and 2010″.

    While Awo and Bello as Premiers, stayed  at home,  studied and proffered solutions to the problems of their people, many of today’s imperial governors spend more time in Dubai, Britain, US, Jerusalem and Saudi Arabia purportedly sourcing for investors or shamelessly using taxpayer money to fulfill their religious obligations. Some even chose South American islands as their own destination. But we now know from the Panama papers that some governors use some of the Islands as safe havens to avoid payment of taxes on alleged stolen state allocations badly needed to checkmate the menace of Fulani herdsmen that have turned part of the Middle Belt into a killing field in the last seven years.

    Unfortunately, northern governors and their lawmakers believe the federal government is the answer to all their problems. This is probably the only reason why 19 northern governors whose major reason for being in government is the protection of life and properties, will last week disingenuously claim the Fulani herdsmen problem have to be resolved by the federal government. Speaking on behalf of Northern Governors Forum, Kashim Shetima, their chairman insisted ‘the crisis goes beyond Fulani herdsmen and as such, the country must collectively work towards a solution’. He did not forget to introduce an odious comparison between Fulani herdsmen’s atrocities and kidnapping in the South-east  without making a distinction between the target of the latter which are  Igbo victims of the tyranny of their own leaders who made fortunes by bargaining in their names and the target of the former who are victims of state tyranny with an unjust land allocation Act which has reduced them to subsistence farmers in small parcels of land not yet confiscated by government to satisfy the rich.

    Now the patrons of Fulani herdsmen, Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Associations speaking through Nuru Abdullahi and Ardo Ahmadu Suleiman, their leaders in Plateau and North West Zone arrogantly say the federal constitution which allows land to be taken from the poor for the use of the rich, gives them access to any land in Nigeria. To show there is unanimity of thoughts on the issue by northern politicians, Hon Sadiq Ibrahim (Adamawa APC) on April 13 sponsored the National Grazing Routes and Reserve Bill which seeks the establishment of a commission to control and manage grazing routes and reserves in all parts of the country. The commission will be expected to undertake a physical/geographical analysis of land use in each state in order to ascertain the best and most appropriate place to locate the federal government reserve and route within the state.

    Defending the bill during a Channels TV programme, Sadiq warned of the consequences of not passing the bill which include but not limited to the possibility of northern farmers driven by search for water overrunning the south in a matter of decades.  He forecloses the possibility of the north taking its fate in its own hands even after pointing out that Saudi Arabia a desert nation, has the largest cattle ranch in the world.

    Sadiq also attributed the mindless killing of farmers and armless children and women by AK47-wielding Fulani herdsmen to the fact that  most children sent out of their homes as early as their ninth birthday to herd cattle not necessarily owned by commercial cattle farmers but by uncles and cousins spend their formative years bonding, not with man but animals.

    The fundamental question to ask northern governors and their federal lawmakers, beneficiaries of the foresight of Ahmadu Bello who 60 years ago went round towns and villages of northern cities selecting underprivileged children including President Buhari for schools, is why they have not seen it as a challenge to end the lives of misery of nine-year-olds hijacked from their poor parents and forced to spend the most critical formative years  in the bush looking after cows owned according to Sadiq by ‘uncles and cousins’, who most certainly have their own children in the best schools in and outside the country?

    Shetima’s Borno State before the outbreak of Boko Haram insurgency had only about 30% of children of school age in schools. It was not markedly different in many parts of the north where when nine year olds are not uprooted from their families to spend the rest of their lives in the bush, they are roaming the streets of northern cities as almajiris. Until the bold step taken by the former Kano State governor to provide an alternative choice to Kano street urchins and the introduction of ex President Jonathan’s nomadic schools, we have no records of efforts made by other northern governors to stop labourers siring labourers.

    But the northern governors don’t have to look far to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait and Israel where desert regions produce enough food to feed themselves and parts of Europe. Many of the governors who are now in APC should ask Tinubu, Fashola and even newly elected Ambode how they have been able to manage the peculiar problems of their state without federal government support.

    While the northern governors exploited the defective federal constitution to unfairly corner more LGAs and more federal allocations, Lagos State went on to create more Council Areas. The state in spite of a vindictive federal government creatively increased its IGR from pre- 1999 N600m to about N16b. The state set up LASTMA to tackle the traffic gridlock associated with urban centres in spite of a vindictive federal government that set up a parallel body made up of political thugs to confront Lagos State officials on federal roads. The state was the first to set up an Independent Power Plant. The pilot scheme took three years instead of three months because of a vindictive federal government fearing ‘Lagos might become like London”. Lagos State wanted state police to address peculiar urban problems as obtained in all federations in the world. The 19 northern governors that equally needed state police to address their own peculiar challenges of porous borders joined the federal government to kill the initiative. Lagos State did not give up. It went on to creatively make use of the same Nigeria Police to tackle the problems of violent crimes in the state. Fashola started the miracle of Oshodi; Ambode has completed it. Today, if you are caught loitering in Oshodi, you will be picked up by the police. And finally to ensure food security as well as prevent jobless immigrants taking on to crime, Ambode went to Osun State to lease land for agriculture. Two weeks back, he signed a Memorandumý of Understanding to establish a commodity value chain that will boost food processing, production, and distribution with Kebbi State.

    The 19 northern governors who are busy passing the buck, their lawmakers who are sponsoring bills to shift their responsibilities to others, and Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Associations who are threatening to unleash armed Fulani herdsmen on poor farmers must be reminded that in a federation, states have the constitutional duty of defending their citizens. And states who like Lagos cannot creatively do that through LASTMA or the police are at liberty to employ the services of vigilante groups because states exist primarily to protect lives and properties of their citizens.

  • Yoruba governors and Fulani herdsmen

    There are some discernible parallels in the response of Nigerian Police and the Yoruba governors to the menace of Fulani herdsmen. The only difference is that while the former has been hypocritical, the later has been comical. For instance the Inspector General of Police, after almost seven years of mindless killing of armless men, women and children without anyone being brought to book, now says the police will “continue to monitor them, degrade them and continue to amputate them whenever they come up”. Perhaps now that the police have pledged to do the job for which they are paid, it will not be out of place to remind IG Arase that if the report of the judicial inquiry instituted under Jonah Jang of Plateau in which a former IG was indicted cannot be revisited by the police, he has the latest Agatu massacre as a lead. At least the Gan Allah Fulani, which is the umbrella body, for Fulani herdsmen, has taken responsibility for the Agatu killings.

    For the South-west governors, their response has been as absurd as it has been comical.  While the battle rages, Fayose who seems incapable of appreciating the challenge facing the Yoruba people is amusing himself sharing “ponmo” (cow skin) with his grassroot supporters in local markets. Mimiko has been holding clandestine meeting with aggrieved farmers and elders who are preaching secession.  Aregbesola is said to be targeting production of 10,000 cows per annum while his counterpart in Ibadan has been dissipating energy on the biggest abattoir built in Ibadan by his political rival. The feelings one gets from the discordant notes is an absence of a coordinated effort at responding to the challenges of meeting the demand of those, who like the Epicureans, consume 10,000 heads of cows daily in case forces of demand and supply force the principals of the embattled Fulani herdsmen, driven only by profit motive, to seek a more profitable market.

    But first an ode to our South-west politicians. Being a politician itself is a major nightmare. It is often a call for rejection of candour, honesty and acquisition of special skill for the exploitation of our common infirmities. It also calls for brinkmanship to balance the interest of those impoverished by their class members without endangering the health of group members or posing a threat to their ill-acquired fortunes if they are to avoid  ‘the Saraki treatment’ after becoming the whistle-blower in the N1.6trillion fuel subsidy scam. To be a successful politician is to be faithful to Adedibu’s precepts which include engaging in public brawl or swearing falsely by the Holy Koran.

    How many of us who pontificate on the pages of newspaper are like Bode George, prepared to go to jail for helping party members? How many can, with the help of thugs attack a judge in his court premises, chase out elected law makers of town, take over the House of Assembly to pass an unread budget ? How many critics have the guts to collect $34m of taxpayer’s money from a president who says ‘stealing is not corruption,’ for the purpose of rigging an election? How many of us can, with Awo cap delicately balanced on our heads, join ‘PDP governors without character’ to publicly declare 16 greater than 19?  How many of us can, like Fayemi, Opeyemi and Oni, men whose dressing is incomplete without Awo’s cap delicately balanced on their heads, engage in a brutal war of attrition over the governorship seat  and after losing it by default  move to Abuja, seat of power as champions of Ekiti cause? How many can like ex-Governor Daniel of Ogun lock up the state House of Assembly and rule like a sole administrator?

    Our new political leaders are no doubt versatile, daring, courageous, adventurous and very ambitious.  It is just that their best is not good enough for the Yoruba. In this regard, they have the records of their predecessors who regarded public service as sacrifice to contend with. They are being challenged by the standards set by Awo, Bode Thomas, Rotimi Wlliams, Adekunle Ajasin, Osuntokun, Adesanya, Enahoro etc, all honourable men who cooperated to form a formidable class with faith in a common destiny and a single purpose of creating a more egalitarian society in the Yoruba country. They served selflessly. When Oba Adesoji, the then Ooni of Ife was rejected by the colonial masters as representative of Yoruba, no other Yoruba was ready to step into his shoes until the colonial government was forced to swallow its pride. When Akintola, who Awo said could debate the same topic from both sides and win, became a thorn in the flesh of the colonial masters and those he then regarded as northern feudal lords, was asked to be replaced, Awo said he had searched without finding any more competent man to represent the Yoruba. Akintola retained his seat. This is precisely why many believe the struggle for power and influence by many of our today Yoruba politicians are not motivated by service and altruism.

    And one way of validating this thesis is the ongoing menace of Fulani herdsmen and the challenge of 10,000 cows a day. Rewind back to 60 years ago. Awo and his group encouraged their compatriots who wanted to eat cow to domesticate one. They imported cow adaptable to the Yoruba environment from Argentina. In the Second Republic, Ajasin a leading member of that set of visionary Yoruba leaders established the Otun Cattle ranch. Ex-Governor Segun Oni was the only person who had the presence of mind to have revisited the project. But half of the cows he imported from South Africa died while the project collapsed under Fayemi.   Our new leaders seem to prefer the philosopher’s cap to his philosophy.

    The current Fulani herdsmen incursion to the South-west is an economic war by the elite and the response can only be economics. We run a capitalist system which is about the survival of the fittest. A group of privileged northern elites and others from the rest of the country invested heavily on cattle farming with the aim of harvesting huge dividends. Instead of establishing ranches, they opted to maximize profit by hiring and arming underprivileged children who must graze the cattle until they get to their designated market in the South-west. Within the capitalist system we operate, the Fulani’s herdsmen share a common fate with underpaid factory workers or underpaid journalist.

    When there is a demand that cannot be met locally, there must be supply usually in the form of imported labour of other people. The answer to the menace of Fulani herdsmen is therefore local production to meet demand and not secession. What the Yoruba want is a more organized federation without the tyranny of a centre trying to decree the education of our children, the water they drink and the air they breathe. Yoruba is receptive to other Nigerians who live by the rules and equally thrive among strangers in far away Sokoto, Kano, Jos and Minna.

    Our governors are not doing enough. We must be able to feed ourselves. As suggested on these pages not too long ago, Tinubu must return to Lagos to coordinate the activities of governors who unfortunately have been made Leviathans by the Nigerian constitution. His first responsibility is to the Yoruba. Awo who was a mere regional premier and Ahmadu Bello who rejected the option of becoming the Prime Minister in order to serve his people today live in the hearts of their people.

  • Cost of not disowning Saraki

    Again, let us remind ourselves how we got to this sorry pass. For ease of administration, the framers of our constitution expect the ruling party with a majority to produce the Senate President and deputy.  But Saraki after cutting a deal which ceded the deputy senate presidency to the opposition, capitalized on the absence of 51 of his elected APC colleagues to be adopted Senate President by 49 PDP senators and eight APC senators. Itse Sagay described Saraki’s coup as ‘a victory for impunity, a victory for fraud and a victory for political desperation and indiscipline”, while Auwalu Yadudu, former Dean of a Faculty of Law, Bayero University Kano dismissed it as ‘lies in the face of democratic ideals’ since Saraki’s emergence stemmed from ‘a flawed election by a fraction of yet-to-be-constituted Senate.

    With the unwavering support of 51 betrayed APC senators, this column had suggested APC should wield the big stick by disowning Saraki for his perfidy. But the party decided to play the ostrich and by default gave Saraki time to cut further deals with some marketable commodities driven only by greed in the Senate.  With power of patronage obtained albeit immorally, Saraki soon had 82 ‘like minds senators’ who shared his world-view in his pocket. But last week, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, the National Chairman of APC was reported to have foreclosed the possibility of the party losing the senate presidency to the opposition but was also quick to add ‘sometimes, for change to take place, there is price you have to pay. So losing the position may be sacrifice for change.” Unfortunately what Oyegun is now trying to do is locking the stable door long after the horse had escaped. The party lost the control of the Senate the moment Saraki, the veteran dealer sold the deputy senate seat to the opposition.

    APC decided to play the ostrich long after Saraki, who was haunted out of PDP over haggling over sharing of loot (He was the whistle blower in the N1.6trillion fuel scam involving some PDP leading lights and their children who in turn identified a company in which Saraki had an interest as beneficiary) had made a choice of returning to his vomit. It was obvious to discerning Nigerians except APC leadership that Saraki’s strategy was to adorn APC toga of change while working feverishly to undermine the party’s anti-corruption war with the connivance of defeated PDP national wreckers. Had APC wielded the big stick, Saraki would have been fighting his current battle with CCT not as the third most powerful figure in APC government but as part of discredited PDP that looted Nigeria through NNPC, PPPRA, privatization and monetization policies. Saraki would have been in the midst of his unpatriotic PDP members who shared $2.1 loan meant to buy arms to fight insurgency that has killed over 18,000 innocent Nigerians and rendered about two million others refugees in their own country.

    APC is therefore responsible for the nation’s current nightmare. Most Nigerians knew a Saraki/Ekweremadu Senate as an offshoot of David Mark/Ekweremadu Senate that looked the other way while their PDP members stole the country blind would continue business as usual. Predictably, the Senate remains a senate of shame while the House remains house of deals. An institution whose essence besides making laws, and amending budget or repealing public policy is to guarantee freedom and prevent tyranny is intolerant of dissent even among its ranks. While Saraki supporters insist the call on him to account for deals he made some 12 years earlier is an attack on the Senate as an institution, Marafa who disagreed claiming “What is happening in the CCT is personal to Saraki and has nothing to do with his position as the Senate President’ was recommended for suspension Senator Anyawu-led committee.

    The 2016 Budget was submitted to the House in December last year, Audu Ogbeh, the agriculture minister and his team early this week discovered 386 “strange” projects worth N12.6billion reportedly inserted by the National Assembly in the ministry’s budget proposals. That was not before the House had reduced ministry’s budget proposals fromN40, 918 billion to N31.618 billion to accommodate their own constituency projects which for years served only as conduit pipes. The Minister of Transport raised an alarm about the cancellation of the Lagos – Calabar rail project. We now know it was partly to accommodate Dogara’s N3b constituency projects as well Abdulmumin Jibrin, Chairman, House Committee on Appropriation’s constituency projects such as provision of tricycles, town halls, classrooms, solar street lights, and pedestrian bridges. This is the mindset of those who adopt ethnic balancing to impoverish the north by pretending to fight for the north. This was what informed Nuhu Ribadu’s (former EFCC chairman) sad conclusion that ‘the 19 northern state governors and the 414 local governments have nothing to show for the N8.3 trillion that accrued to them between 1999 and 2010.’

    Sadly in both Houses controlled by APC, it is business as usual.  Ex-governors as senators are drawing N1.2m pension along with their undisclosed huge salaries that rank as one of the highest in the world and greedy lawmakers after obtaining car loans, went ahead in spite of Buhari’s call for caution to buy 108 exotic cars at a cost of N35.1m a unit at a time about 25 states of the federation cannot pay the minimum wage of N18, 000. In return for their pains, we have  a  National Grazing Reserve Bill which will establish a National Grazing Reserve Commission (NGRC) using federal government fund to acquire farm lands from the 36 states of the federation for private cattle farmers, perhaps as compensation  for the killing of thousands of innocent Nigerian farmers by Fulani herdsmen already declared by the UN as one of the deadliest  terrorist groups in the world  with nothing being said about their victims;  the Senate Committee on Ethics, Privileges  and Public Petition headed  by an Anyawu, notorious only for following Saraki to  Code of Conduct Tribunal, summoning the chairman of the Code of Conduct Tribunal, Danladi Umar who had just ruled that Saraki’s trial for alleged falsification of assets will run on daily basis, over a petition against his assistant. And there is also an on-going self-serving attempt by the two houses  to amend the Code of Conduct  Bureau  Tribunal Act and Administration of Criminal Justice Act, all aimed at sabotaging President Buhari’s anti-corruption war.

    But Nigerians who performed their own patriotic duty of voting out inept and corrupt PDP government are holding Buhari and APC responsible for their nightmare. If Saraki had been disowned after demonstrating he cannot be a trusted ally in the battle for change, disillusioned  Nigerians would have been reassured that the current raging battle is between forces of darkness  that  shared our national patrimony  and mortgaged the future of our children and forces of  light trying to usher in the much desired change. But APC cannot afford to fail those who have internalized its message of hope.  The party must reinvent itself by publicly disowning Saraki and his fellow travellers in the Senate of shame and in the House of deals. Impoverished Nigerian victims of PDP’s 16 years crime against our nation are tenaciously holding on to Jega’s Permanent Voters Cards, (PVC), and a veritable weapon against greedy and self-serving corrupt politicians.

  • Saraki’s real enemies

    For Bukola Saraki, who like his illustrious father, is a successful trader and peddler of influence, nothing is impossible. He has never experienced failure.  But now buffeted by one misfortune after the other, it seems his first taste of failure is not too far away. Unfortunately, instead of looking at himself on the mirror to see how his past has come to haunt him, he has continued to attribute his current travails to his political detractors especially his party leaders and elected colleagues who publicly disapproved of the underhand tactics he employed to emerge as Senate President.

    His trial after his controversial emergence as Senate President started with observation by his colleagues in the Senate that the Senate amended rules employed for his election  was forged, a claim confirmed by the police after investigation. That was quickly followed by the invitation of Toyin, his wife for questioning by EFCC over her handling of some contracts while her husband held sway in Kwara as governor. But this didn’t appear to have anything to do with Saraki’s aggrieved colleagues as the invitation according to EFCC was on the strength of a petition by Kwara PDP alleging unwholesome practices. And  Saraki  himself was soon to be dragged before the Code Of Conduct Tribunal for prosecution over ‘13 counts of false and anticipatory asset declaration which he made at the beginning and at the end of each of his two terms as governor’. Here again, as the commission has pointed out, the action was on the strength of ‘several petitions from various groups including  ‘Kwara Freedom Network’, all bordering on abuse of office, misappropriation of public funds and money laundering’.

    And when the case finally opened last week, the commission disclosed it found document from Saka Tinubu Saraki’s office containing the list of properties he allegedly “purchased from Presidential Implementation Committee on Government Properties and some that were bought from the Central Bank of Nigeria”. Michael Wetkas, a detective with EFCC told the tribunal how Saraki as governor diverted Kwara State government funds to pay loans he took to buy the properties. The commission also claimed Saraki paid back the loans with Kwara State government’s fund through his aides, one of whom lodged between N600,000 and N900,000 in the former governor’s account 50 times on a particular day. And when Saraki, a veteran deal maker finally takes the defence seat, it will be interesting to see the weight he will attach to ‘political detractors.’

    Wetkas last Wednesday also told the tribunal that ‘Saraki collected salary as the governor of Kwara State for about four years after completing his second term in 2011’, a charge the Secretary to the Kwara State Government, Alhaji Isiaka Gold, has denied insisting Saraki was only collecting a pension of N578, 188.00 which increased to N1, 239,493.94 monthly from October, 2014 as other past governors in the country.” Until the tribunal says otherwise, we have no reason to doubt Mr. Gold’s claim.  But if it is insensitive for a former governor-turned-senator to collect N1.2m as pension along with a senator’s huge salaries said to be highest in the world, Saraki alone bears the moral burden.

    But Saraki’s long and harrowing Wednesday did not come to an end until Wetkas had presented documentary evidence showing that “First offer letter by the Presidential Implementation Committee to buy  the  property at 15A and B McDonald Road, Ikoyi, which Saraki claimed to have  bought through Carlie Investments Limited in March, 2000, was dated November 23, 2006.’ And if the tribunal eventually finds that to be true, how can APC and some of its elected senators who were themselves victims of Saraki’s most audacious deal of his political career-trading away his party’s victory, be held accountable for a deal Saraki struck 15 years earlier?

    But Saraki’s witch-doctors are at liberty to say anything no matter how asinine in order to earn their pay. If they insist Buhari, Oyegun, Tinubu and the Unity Forum senators are behind Saraki’s travails, an offshore dimension was introduced last week.  A German newspaper, Süddeutsche Zeitung, identified  four assets ; Sandon Development Limited, a vehicle used in acquiring a property on 8 Whittaker Street, Belgravia, London, in 2012;  Girol Properties Ltd, which was registered on August 25, 2004 (a year after Mrs. Saraki’s husband became governor of Kwara) in the British Virgin Island (BVI); Landfield International Developments Ltd., registered in the British Virgin Islands on April 8, 2014, with  Mrs. Saraki as sole shareholder; and Longmeadow Holdings Limited,  which Saraki claimed belonged to  his wife’s rich and famous family, were actually his and were only held in trust for him by his wife.

    And now for those who talk of witch-hunting, our people have said if there are no cracks on the wall, there will be no hiding place for a lizard. A witch has always been suspected to be on the prowl since 1990 when Saraki allegedly got involved in an N9b deal which eventually led to the collapse of Societe Generale, a bank in which his father held controlling shares, and in 2009 when Erasmus Akingbola alleged that Saraki’s multi-billion naira deals contributed to the collapse of his bank.

    I am not persuaded anyone should weep for Saraki because God Himself decreed we must reap what we sow. Saraki sowed the wind and he is now reaping the whirlwind. That he is haunted by his past is the truth he and some other fortune-seekers in the Senate have tried to reject. It is not an accident that the petition against Saraki, like the one against his wife, emanated from Kwara long before Saraki’s June 2015 deal. Authors of the petitions have owned up and in fact thanked EFCC for acting in the interest of the exploited people of Kwara. That he had to be whisked away by the police from stone-throwing juveniles in Ilorin praying ground during the last SALLAH celebration was enough evidence to show that the exploited citizens of Ilorin who assemble every year and made to struggle for a few naira notes thrown at them have become disillusioned. Kwara is an area Oloye Saraki, Bukola’s father had treated like a personal fiefdom for over 50 years before his son, a more vicious business man who bulldozes everything on his way, forcefully seized it, sending his father to untimely retirement, and some will say death.

    If I am therefore asked, I will say Saraki’s enemies are not his political distracters. Saraki’s first enemy is Saraki himself. We can then proceed to add others like his friends who argue from both sides of the mouth claiming, ‘Dr. Saraki will not allow any distraction to take him away from Presidency of the Senate since an accused person is presumed innocent until he is found guilty’ while insisting Danladi Umar, the chairman of the Code of Conduct Tribunal cannot try Saraki because he has petitions filed against him at the House of Representatives and the Senate. Others include his unpatriotic ‘like mind senators’ who because of their greed wanted to make Nigeria ungovernable for Buhari by ‘stealing’ the deputy senate presidency which by convention belongs to the ruling party.

    And finally we can add those who accuse a section of the media of being anti-Saraki and of helping Buhari to fight his anti corruption war ignoring the fact that there is no society where the press is neutral on social issues. They conveniently forget that not too long ago, another section of the press celebrated economic vampires, substituted Shettima’s truth with Okupes lies about the state preparedness of the military and for a price, provided platform for criminals and also justified Saraki’s perfidy with specious argument that he was protecting Buhari from the overweening influence of Tinubu and the Yoruba.

  • Taming Fayose and the judiciary

    Fayose has become not just an Ekiti nightmare and a national embarrassment but also a bad advertisement for the country in the international arena. Speaking recently during an intellectual engagement, at the University of Lagos, a visiting US scholar instinctively said America has its own equivalent of Fayose in Donald Trump, the Republican front runner in the November race for the White House. Both are easy preys to political enemies that have variously described them as ‘vacuous, rabid, hallucinating, lacking in depth, and having an infantile mind’. Substituting notoriety with popularity, Fayose often takes impetuous decisions such as dancing naked on the street without him realizing it.

    Last Wednesday was one of such occasions when Fayose during a workshop to promote women participation in politics, said without feeling – ‘I don’t know if there are missing girls. It is a political strategy, because I don’t think any girl is missing. If they are missing, let them find them’. As far as he is concerned, the Oby Ezekwesili-led #BringBackOurGirls campaigners that drew the attention of the international community to the plight of the abducted girls, are office seekers.  But what was galling, was that this was coming only two weeks after a high ranking British foreign service official disclosed that the abducted Chibok girls were indeed sighted inside Sambisa forest few days after their abduction.

    But first who is Ayo Fayose who was first foisted on Ekiti by Obasanjo in 2003? Before he was impeached in 2006, his tenure was marked by unprecedented level of violence resulting in the assassination of some prominent Ekiti sons. He later confessed, he ‘had to flee, (some claimed in the booth of his car) with all his ‘property left in the Government House’. He was apprehended by the EFCC and accused of financial mismanagement along other criminal charges. And  in his own words, “During the seven and half years of political wilderness, I was taken to court over what I knew nothing about 59 times, aside the 45 days I spent in Ikoyi Prisons during my trial by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC)”. In 2011, he lost a senatorial election contest to Babafemi Ojudu with a margin of over 30,000.

    But the turning point came in 2014 when he allegedly received $2m from ex-President Jonathan to outwit his other PDP candidates in their party’s primaries.  And for the ‘coup against the Ekiti’, according to Dr Temitope Aluko, his alter ego and self-confessed partner in crime, ex-President Jonathan provided $37m  and  ‘1,040 recognised soldiers and another batch of 400 ‘unrecognised soldiers’ brought from Enugu in addition to  44 special strike teams brought in (with) Toyota Hilux buses from Abuja and Onitsha.’ The April 2014 battle was led by the then Minister for Police Affairs Adesiyan, Musliu Obanikoro, junior minister of defence, Brigadier General Aliu Momoh  with another contingent of 12,000 mobile police men, 26 sniffer dogs,15,000 NSCDC personnel’.

    It is on record that as governor-elect, he was accompanied to court by thugs who beat up the judge presiding over his eligibility case. He also employed the services of the thugs to chase 19 elected members of the state House of Assembly out of town while he ran the state with seven PDP members. His hand-picked cronies went on to win the subsequent election into the state and national houses of assembly having driven serious contenders out of town with the help of thugs. The opposition went to court to contest Fayose’s election on the basis of his constitutional banditry, his status as an impeached governor, and the use of military to win the flawed election. The Supreme Court however upheld Fayose’s election.

    In his inaugural address, Fayose offered ‘peace, prosperity, and progress, employment, food, and stomach infrastructure’. You can put tar on the road but if I don’t have a car and I’m hungry, then that tar is meaningless’. And in pursuit of his government policy of stomach infrastructure, he eats ‘boli’ roasted plantain and drink agbo ‘jedi’, (native concoction for pile) on the streets with his grass root supporters. Last December, he directed all civil servants across the state to come to Ado Ekiti for some cups of rice and chicken. Many spent a whole day only to receive chicks instead of chicken. Today, a state that introduced N5, 000 social welfare packages for the elderly under Fayemi is battling with unpaid five months salary arrears.

    Fayose has always tried to divert attention through repeated attacks on the person of President Buhari who has so far ignored his asinine theatrics. Perhaps the search for attention explains Fayose’s ill-adviced decision to play politics with the abducted Chibok Girls which has become a national tragedy. The irony is that like those PDP stalwarts that shared $2.1b loan earmarked for military hardware to fight the insurgency, Fayose who allegedly got $37m and about 30,000 security personnel to rig the 2014 election at a time our ill-equipped soldiers could not even defend their own barracks is culpable for the abduction of these innocent children.

    But who is to tame Fayose with the Supreme Court saying its hands are tied by its earlier flawed ruling despite the fresh evidence that showed the 2014 election was a sham (the military authorities retired Brigadier Momoh who anchored the rigging of the 2014 Ekiti election)? The buck stops on the table of Buhari and his APC- a party in government but not in power.

    The model builders that came up with the doctrine of ‘separation of powers’ spoke of ‘checks and balances’; but the theory in truth was designed to be a balance of terror. Both the legislature and judiciary are institutional tools which the executive as temporary custodian of state powers needs to manage society for good or bad over a given period often specified by the constitution.

    In the last 16 years, PDP as the ruling party has been able to use the judiciary as an accomplice in their members’ betrayal of our nation. Either in the electoral theft of opponents’ mandate, the collapse of banking sector and the stock exchange, oil subsidy fraud and the mismanaged of the privatization process, or the systematic looting of the nations resources, the judiciary played a supportive role. With the introduction of plea bargaining by the judiciary, enemies of state emerged from temporary detention to become governors, senators, king-makers and god fathers. Those the PDP power wielders could not bend in the judiciary, they break. Thus we had a Justice Isa Salami who was unjustly suspended and prematurely retired for ruling against PDP in Edo, Ondo, Ekiti and Osun states.

    Besides the bizarre Supreme Court ruling in Ekiti and Rivers which seem to literarily challenge the people to embark on self-help, the judiciary appears not to be enthusiastic about the executive’s current war on corruption.  For instance all that was asked of Bukola Saraki, the Senate President was to defend himself against allegation of false declaration of assets. But this he has evaded in the last eight months with the connivance of the judiciary that has tried to undermine the Administration of Criminal Justice Act (ACJA) of 2015. The judiciary behaves as if it is not vulnerable.

    That the tail is now wagging the dog with the likes of Fayose saying Buhari and APC have no capacity to rule, is the fault of President Buhari and his APC. The executive’s control of the awesome apparatus of state power is a reminder that the doctrine of separation of powers does not envisage the judiciary or even the legislature acting as if they are answerable to none.  If President Buhari and Odigie-Oyegun, the APC chairman, unfortunately, both non politicians, are however having problem as to how to wield power, they can consult Obasanjo, Jonathan, his godson and their PDP or create time to read Niccolo Machiavelli the founder of modern political science for his advice on the brutal reality of building a state. It is an affront for those who ought to be behind bars to test the resolve of custodian of state power.

  • Nigerians want Buhari to be magician

    For the benefit of Ibe Kachikwu and other ministers who do not know how their cars and generators are fuelled, let me relive my experience in the filling stations between Thursday and Sunday last week. I had missed Dr. Kachikwu Wednesday’s ‘I am not a magician capable of conjuring the availability of fuel’ because I left Lagos early to attend the inaugural lecture of a colleague at Babcock University.

    On Thursday morning, I opted to return home and work from my library after almost three hours of fruitless effort to join Lagos-Ibadan express road through Otedola estate gate as a result of traffic gridlock created by those engaged in panic buying of petrol and possible sabotage by independent oil marketers trying to exploit Kachikwu’s gaffe.

    But the option of working from home was aborted by lack of electricity. I then chose to walk across to a nearby filling station with a 10 litre keg. What I ran into was a fierce battle between motorists, hundreds of men and women with kegs and others with their generators. Disappointed, I returned home opting to sit in front of the house since staying inside was not a choice because of the heat. My experience on Friday and Saturday was not different except that on Saturday, some gun-wielding policemen had joined the desperate crowd.

    Initially I thought they were drafted down to provide order but it turned out they were also in search of fuel for their patrol vehicles. Relief finally came for me on my way from Mass on Easter Sunday. I got fuel into the car after about two hours on the queue but the station manager insisted he had an order not to sell into kegs. We moved to the next filling station where a young nursing mother I later discovered was a reporter with Radio Nigeria fought her way through the crowd to drag the station manager down from his office. She got 20 litres for herself and 10 litres for her senior professional colleague.

    As we moved to where we parked our cars, a young woman with about four months old baby pleaded with the Radio Nigeria reporter that she also be introduced to the station manager who had by then escaped from the surging crowd. But sighting the reporter’s baby in the car, she reached for her bag of wits and said all she wanted as dowry for her cute baby girl was 10 litres of fuel. The two nursing mothers were still engaged in serious haggling as I drove off. This sobering experience exemplifies what ordinary Nigerians are going through all over the country where pump price of a litre of oil is reported to range between N150 and N170. Whereas before what Bola Tinubu described as Kachikwu’s flippancy and as arrogance by some others, it took less than an hour to fuel your car at petrol filing stations and with a tip of about N200, your jerry can be filled up.

    But it is now pure academic whether Kachikwu’s indiscretion fuelled the current panic buying by desperate Nigerians or created an atmosphere for sabotage by independent marketers who had publicly claimed government foreign exchange policy which limited the share of their members importation to 20% compared to NNPC’s 80% would not provide succour for Nigerians since their members control all the storage facilities needed by NNPC. The buck stops at the table of President Buhari who appointed Kachikwu who the APC National Vice Chairman, South-south, Prince Hilliard Eta claimed “ ‘has not entirely cast off the orientation of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP where he was”, and, who the Trade Union Congress’ (TUC) has advised to resign honourably. It is on record that Kachikwu, since his appointment, has made a number of controversial pronouncements that were out of tune with APC policy statements.

    It is however a strange coincidence Kachikwu’s greatest supporters in his current travails are the likes of Chief Ebenezer Babatope, PDP BOT member, and Niger Delta Indigenous Movement For Radical Change, NDIMRC as well as NNPC which claims to be ‘working with Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN), oil majors and over 1,000 NNPC staff, nationwide to ensure we overcome the obstacles in the distribution of the petroleum products’.

    But what is not in doubt is that Kachukwu, who like Okonjo-Iweala, is a creation of the media which often erroneously believe success in the private sector will necessarily translate to success in government. But such comparison can be odious. In the World Bank as in Kachikwu’s oil multinational company, decisions are collegiate.

    Matters are not helped by the fact that those the media oversell often become arrogant. Okonjo-Iweala, a creation of the media, who was said never to have read economics as a first degree insisted on earning salary denominated in dollars before accepting Obasanjo’s ministerial appointment as minister of finance. She resigned when she was deployed to another ministry. And it will be recalled how she arrogantly talked down on protesters of fuel subsidy removal informing the uninformed Nigerians why government owed it a duty to pay those who spent their money to supply fuel to government.

    It turned out she was paying those who allegedly forged papers to collect about N1.6 trillion from government. The story with import waivers was not different. Under the watch of Okonjo-Iweala, who with the media never did wrong as minister of finance and coordinating minister of the economy, the CBN was turned to an ATM machine by President Jonathan and the office of the National Security Adviser became a piggy bank for PDP dealers and wheelers. President Buhari however now has an opportunity to prevent the emergence of another arrogant media created Okonjo-Iweala who thinks Nigeria owes him gratitude for agreeing to serve.

    As for the independent marketers who were in disarray after Buhari’s election but now insist government policies cannot work without them, I have searched without finding their contributions to the economy.

    They collect our scarce foreign exchange to import fuel at a mark-up price; the Nigerian taxpayers foot the cost of demurrage in case of unexpected problems in the ports. And when government delays payment, taxpayers are called upon to defray interests they incurred in their banks. In the circumstances, one does not need to be a World Bank expert to know that those who fry and package plantain chips and their counterparts in the pure water business contribute more to the economy than those who have become a leach on the economy.

    Nigerian miracle seekers voted Buhari because they wanted him to perform magic. This is not an impossible task because modern human management itself is a science governed by the same scientific laws which many consider as magic. Buhari therefore doesn’t need to be reminded by the Trade union Congress (TUC) that those who claim not to be ‘magicians capable of conjuring availability of fuel’ cannot help him fulfil the aspirations of miracle seekers that voted him into power.

  • Patrons of Fulani herdsmen

    Who is going to stop the rampaging Fulani herdsmen?’ In case you don’t know who they  are, The Punch editorial of March 13, called our attention to the 2015 Global Terrorism Index, which named the Fulani militants not just ‘a terrorist group but the fourth deadliest in the world’. For its blood-thirsty exploits, it has to its credit the death of 1,229 lives in 2014 including 200 in Galadima in one day. Unfortunately, from the body language of those with the constitutional authority – the president, governors, police and even the military, it will appear we are not in a hurry to stop their deadly exploits and endless harvests of deaths.

    President Jonathan for the greater part of his presidency played the ostrich claiming even with his control of the awesome apparatus of state power, his administration was unable to determine if those behind the deadly attacks on helpless women and children in the Middle Belt were Fulani herdsmen. Long after his public endorsement by Alhaji Abdullahi Bodejo-led Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore for re-election in Aso rock, wearing Fulani herdsmen apparel and cap to match, Jonathan continued to deny the existence rampaging Fulani herdsmen.

    In 2015, the people of Egba village in Agatu Local Government of Benue claimed about 90 of their compatriots were killed by Fulani herdsmen. The then state police commissioner, Hyacinth Dagala, insisted ‘only 30 corpses were recovered’ as if that was a relief to the bereaved families. But neither for the 90 nor the 30 deaths was anyone apprehended or prosecuted. In May 2015, Governor Gabriel Suswan narrowly escaped an ambush by Fulani herdsmen. All a governor who could not protect himself or his citizens could do was to lament the fate of ‘displaced farmers and their family members who live in refugee camps in Otukpo, Ojantele, Ataganyi and Ugbokpo.’

     On March 5, Fulani herdsmen from Loco and Doma in Nasarawa State according to a news report, ‘in combat gears, armed with the trademark AK-47 rifles, invaded several villages and farm settlements in broad daylight, gunning down children, women, men and the elderly alike and from Aila to Obagaji, Akwu to Odejo, the invaders burned down houses, churches and police posts..’ The harvest of deaths that followed, according to Paul Ede, who led the coalition of protesting civil society groups to the National Assembly was about 400. The invaders after chasing out about 7000 farmers and their families from their homes took over the villages with their 5000 cows, a development the state police commissioner has since confirmed. Buratai, the Chief of Army staff on his part says “I have heard from the commander about the existence of criminal elements who engage in cattle rustling. The crisis here is unfortunate, the farmers and herdsmen fighting must not be condoned’. Of the attack, David Mark, who was Senate President for eight years while the crisis festered says – “Nothing whatsoever justifies this brazen act of destruction meted out on the people of Agatu. My heart bleeds.” He then went on to apply the usual PDP palliative – donating ‘mattresses, bags of rice, blankets, cooking oil cartons of noddles, large mats, magi cubes and cooking salt among others’. In all, little has been said of those who now live as refugees.

    The deadly terrorist group has since 2011 embarked in mindless killing of defenceless women and children in the Middle Belt. Between 2011 and 2014, they took over many of communities in the four local government areas of Guma, Gwer-East, Buruku and Gwer as well as Tom-Anyiin, Tom-Ataan, Mbaya and Tombu in Buruku Local Government Area of Benue. In 2013, the group was credited with mindless murder of about 60 women and children seeking refuge in church in Plateau state while those who went out for their funeral a few days later including serving senator, Gyang Dantong, and, Gyang Fulani, the Majority Leader of the Plateau State House of Assembly, were equally murdered.

    But the perpetrators of these heinous crimes cannot be ghosts since they often take possession of conquered territories. And if the police are looking beyond the heavily armed herdsmen who are said to be mere tools in the hands of the real owners of the cattle, they didn’t need to look far. Saleh Bayeri, the interim national secretary of Gan Allah Fulani association, an umbrella body of Fulani associations, provided the needed lead. While granting an interview to PREMIUM TIMES shortly after the attack, he had blamed the Agatu people for starting the crisis on April 20, 2013 when they invaded the compound of one Sehu Abdullahi where they killed him and carted away over 200 cows. The current hostility according to him started following the beheading of “a prominent Fulani leader, Ardo Madaki, who was invited to the palace of the district head of the area on the grounds that a solution is being sought to the problem,” I don’t think the police need any other tip if they want to find out the sponsors of the March 5 mindless killing.

    But why is it difficult to tame the Fulani herdsmen? Adejoh speaking to reporters recently seemed to have struck the nail on the head. The ‘herdsmen’, he says “ are not the owners; but are merely working for some rich big men who have refused to build ranches and use irrigation to grow grasses to feed their livestock; but chose to unleash  millions of their cows and herdsmen on the farmlands of poor and defenseless people of Benue”. And here lies the real tragedy. Both the herdsmen and defenceless farmers are victims of privileged elite who after sending their own children to the best schools in and out of the country, arm children of the less privileged to perpetrate heinous crimes against poor subsistence farmers. Those in authority are probably indifferent because it is poor against the poor.

    Ironically, using the poor as canon fodders by the elite is a common phenomenon across the federation.  In the South-west are the area boys and ‘okada’ riders who double as political thugs for those who promise them stomach infrastructure after mortgaging their future through years of misrule. From south-eastern states come thousands children of the poor who cannot read or write deployed to hawk substandard or fake imported products on the streets of our major cities. Of course they find their parallels in thousands of the children of the underprivileged, including ex-militant warlord, ‘General Tompolo Loaf’, who Pa Clark recently told us did not have enough education to secure government job, armed by self-serving advocates for ‘resource control’, to confront soldiers in the creeks or the Niger or police on the streets of Port Harcourt.

    In a federal structure, the federating units are in theory not inferior to one another or to the central government. But what we have now are states as private fiefdoms where individuals are richer than the states. We run a federation where Nasarawa cannot provide ranches for its herdsmen and where Benue State cannot protect the lives and properties of her citizens from rampaging lawless Nasarawa Fulani herdsmen. The sponsors of Fulani herdsmen who are rich, powerful individuals with power of patronage to decide who becomes governors, commissioners, ambassadors simply fill the vacuum.

    To ensure federating units are in a position to perform the most elementary of their functions-protection of life and properties of their citizens, we must restructure the federation. A strong Middle Belt with state and local police will be in a better position to secure lives and properties of its citizens. In 2011, Buhari made restructuring a campaign issue. He must not be distracted by the powerful forces who are beneficiaries of the current unviable structure. It is perhaps the only lasting legacy Buhari can bequeath on Nigeria.

  • APC insensitivity and the rest of us

    The recent outing by Segun Oni, Obasanjo’s surrogate who was removed  by the judiciary after 42 months as governor of Ekiti state, as APC Acting National Chairman, was not only a demonstration of APC’s insensitivity to its supporters but also an assault on the sensibilities of Nigerians that not too long ago, watched in shock as APC allowed David Mark, often regarded as ‘a veteran of coup plotting’, operating according to Ekwerenmadu from inside his sitting room all through the night along with PDP stalwarts, surreptitiously hijacked power, which Nigerians worked so hard to secure. But for the underestimation of the desperation of PDP leaders trying to cover their past by APC leaders, Nigerians never voted for a National Assembly that will spend N300m on toys while over 20 states of the federation are unable to pay a minimum wage of N18, 000, or a senate where 83 elected senators will lock up the senate chambers in solidarity with one of their members who has a case before the Code of Conduct Tribunal.

    Yet APC, at the beginning held so much promise for Nigeria. At its inauguration, this column in a piece titled ‘What Nigerians expect of Buhari and Tinubu’ (Thursday Jan 31, 2013), had said: ‘What Buhari, Tinubu and their colleagues are being called upon to do was not just an inauguration of party to win an election since that job has been made easy by PDP’s self-inflicted damage, but an inauguration of a modernising party to replace the current political parties moulded in the military image, with garrison commanders as party leaders’. What the times called for, the column added ‘are men with eyes on history; men who would emulate the federalists Hamilton and Adams, the Republicans Jefferson and Madison of USA of the 1790s, the British enlightened elite that established parties as modernizing agents after Britain’s reforms of 1832, their French counterparts who did the same after French revolution of 1789 and the Japanese leaders after the Meiji Restoration of 1867’. We can now also add Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev United Russia Party of 2001.

    But sadly, three years down the line, APC leaders are yet to take control of their party. The betrayal of the electorate by APC started immediately after a victory it did not work hard enough to earn.  Buhari and Tinubu, men of great faith trusted men of little faith in their party instead of adhering to the advice of Nicollo Machiavelli, the 16 century Italian diplomat and political theorist, to the Prince, on how to acquire and hold on to power. Before the duo knew what was going on, Atiku Abubakar, Bukola Saraki and Dogara, all PDP men in APC cloak, working hand in gloves with David Mark, APC had been thrown into disarray. The party does not seem to have fully recovered from that initial shock.

    At a time Buhari and Tinubu should have re-established  their control over their party by expelling Saraki,  Dogara and their discredited sponsors, Buhari said the treatment for an eye sore was not eye removal obviously unaware the two eyes had been blinded. That provided an opportunity for Saraki and other PDP men in APC cloak to consolidate their position by substituting the party’s choice of leadership of the two houses with their own choices. They went on to corner as many chairmanship positions of important committees of the two houses as the ruling party. They also went on to spite the ruling party by bending the house rules to accommodate ex-Governor Godswill Akpabio, Saraki’s major backer as minority leader.

    Segun Oni’s emergence as acting chairman of APC, to many observers is indefensible. This is not to say Oni is not eminently qualified for the position. Oni by all means is an illustrious Nigerian. In fact in my criticism of his tenure as governor of Ekiti State, my argument was that by orientation, disposition and my knowledge of him in our ‘Great Ife’ days, he was too refined to be associated with what we today know as PDP 16 years’ legacy. For me, ‘that his attempt to serve his people ended in disaster was due more to the Nigerian factor than personal failings’.  He  was a victim of desperate godfathers such as Obasanjo and Bode George, who imposed him as PDP candidate despite coming third in his party primaries, employed the services of General Olurin, Maurice Iwu and Madam Ayoka to fraudulently proclaim him governor after an electoral defeat and went on to procure the services of pliable judges that secured for him victory after victory at the tribunals until the Appeal court declared his 42 months in government illegal .

    In a piece on this pages dated  December 5, 2010, I had described Oni as a ‘man with a persevering spirit, who  while in office  was not overbearing but had carried himself with dignity even as he fought with stubborn doggedness, the crime of illegitimacy’’. “Of all the South-west governors, forcefully and fraudulently imposed, Oni was simply the best behaved”, the column concluded. But if there are people who consider the a above appraisal is value-laden, Dr Kayode Fayemi, whose mandate was usurped for 42 months has also personally acknowledged Oni as a man who ‘chose honour in spite of opportunity to cut deals with the presidency’ and collect billions to build palaces’ among the squalor of his people like some ex-governors have done.

    But Segun Oni’s personal attributes cannot obviate the reality that he was removed by the judiciary for illegally occupying the governorship seat of Ekiti for 42 months. If APC therefore respects the sensibilities of its supporters and the feeling of decent Nigerians, Oni’s controversial antecedents ought to have precluded him from holding the high office of Deputy National Chairman or acting national chairman of APC, the acclaimed party for change. APC reserves the right to play the ostrich and pretends it does not know Obasanjo hardly sows where he will not reap in ten-folds or that Atiku, his former deputy, and APC stalwart is not a man obsessed only with becoming Nigerian president, but the party has to respect the sensibilities of discerning Nigerians that voted for it because they made a distinction between it and PDP.

    However, in the final analysis, APC must not fail. The consequences of failure are unimaginable. If Buhari and Tinubu therefore wish to be remembered by history, they will have to take control of their party from the garrison commanders and turn it to a modernising agent similar to what obtained in pre-independent Nigeria. With prostrate economy and our children’s abridged future due to self-serving liberalization and privatization policies of the military and its offshoot-PDP, there can be no better time for a modernising party that can confront hooligans who confiscated our national wealth for private use just as Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev have used their United Russia, a party without ideology formed  only in 2001 and controlling only 238 seats of the 450 strong state Duma to turn Russia from candidate for Western Aid to an undisputed world power. The choice is before them.