The Nation Newspaper

Category: Jide Oluwajuyitan

  • President Buhari needs help

    In less than three weeks, it will be a year since Nigerians vengefully voted out President Jonathan  for presiding over the pillaging of our country, confiscation of our patrimony, unleashing  Boko Haram and Niger Delta insurgents on Nigeria and running a government of ‘delegation by abdication’; a president who was never really in charge. But nine months into APC administration, many are saying as against governance, what they see is creeping dictatorship and offensive indolence from a government of a party dominated by young and vibrant intellectuals from whom people expected nothing short of miracles.

    The leadership of APC, an amalgam of the fine and the ugly, unfortunately underestimated the level of mischief of some of its members and the desperation of its defeated PDP opponent. Determined to destabilise APC, they embarked on a mission of creating a ‘Leviathan’ out of politically naïve Buhari. It was not an accident that it was a PDP stalwart, Shamsudeen Usman, a Minister of Finance and National Planning at different times that first reminded Buhari that the contribution of Tinubu and the Yoruba to his victory was over-exaggerated.

    Suddenly Buhari who contested with Dr. Chuba Okadigbo as running mate in 2003 and lost; in 2007 with Edwin Ume-Ezeoke who after losing abandoned him to join the ruling party describing Buhari as ‘having no electoral value in ANPP’; and a man who contested with Tunde Bakare in 2011 and lost but won in 2015 using the APC platform was described as an asset to the party that made him president after his fourth attempt.  PDP sympathetic newspapers lionized Buhari and demonized Tinubu and went ahead with crooked logic that Saraki’s treachery against APC was to protect Buhari from the overweening influence of Tinubu.

    And when Pa Akande called attention to the despicable activities of some self-serving northern elite who love neither Nigeria nor Buhari, the conversation became bizarre. What do the Yoruba want, they asked on the pages of their papers. Suddenly we were told, Bukola Saraki, whose father not too long ago publicly admitted he was a descendant of Fulani migrant from Sudan, is Yoruba. Toyin, his wife we were reminded is also Yoruba. What else, they asked, do the Yoruba want in Buhari government in which Professor Yemi Osinbajo, a Yoruba man is the vice president.

    Slowly and steadily, those who tried to frustrate the emergence of Buhari as president soon created a Leviathan out of him. Buhari, a man with heart of gold who learnt very little from intrigues of politicians in his ANPP days probably believed those who claimed they were protecting him from the overweening influence of Tinubu and APC. Lionised, he was to declare at his inauguration: ‘I belong to no one’. He went on to declare he was ready to work with anyone who emerged as leader of the National Assembly, thus shooting himself in the leg as that paved the way for its take-over by PDP men in APC cloak.

    As against a think tank, Buhari like all oligarchs surrounded himself with short-sighted people who are more interested in protecting what they think the north is currently benefiting from our federation, the only one of its kind in the world where according to Soludo, ‘the centre doled out monies every month to Local Councils that are not accountable to it’. Surrounded by those subservient to him while distancing himself from the party oligarchy that can question him probably account for the paralysis or what critics describe as indolence. For instance, it took Buhari about six months to constitute a cabinet.  And now nine months after inauguration, over 500 small governments that in reality drive activities of government are in the hands of PDP appointees who do not share APC philosophy. Add that to the fact that nearly all the chairmanship of critical committees of the National Assembly are controlled by PDP.

    All the university boards with the exception of the 11 new ones where even the president’s recent intervention was mismanaged by his subservient kitchen cabinet are still in the hands of PDP sympathizers. Professor Jerry Gana who has been in government since 1984 who donated N5b on behalf of his unidentified friends to Jonathan’s re-election bid was in University of Lagos over the week end to pontificate. Omeri, Stella Odua’s deputy as chief mobiliser of Jonathan election, a man who worked hands in glove with the likes of Dasuki trying to sabotage the 2015 election was in government until recently. Even for its symbolism, people like Gana and Omeri ought not to be seen representing APC government of change.

    It is probably because everyone is watching the body language of the Leviathan while governance receded to the background that accounts for the re-emergence of fuel queues, with independent oil marketers impetuously declaring on television that NNPC importation of 80% of fuel will not solve our problem because NNPC has no storage facilities, long after Nigerians expected Buhari to have ended such national embarrassment. It probably explains the inability of Dr. Kayode Fayemi of solid minerals ministry to act on the scandal that was the sale of Ajaokuta and call the bluff of some Indians currently holding the country to ransom. It is the only plausible explanation for why Fashola (the president foreman) think building toll gates and increasing electricity tariff take precedence over supply of prepaid meters or informing the public of the obligation of the 60 licensed Independent Power Producers (IPPs) to consumers after negotiating tax free ‘importation of gas-related machinery and equipment’ and bail out of more than half a billion naira with the last administration. And finally, it is perhaps why Lai Mohammed, Minister of Information and Culture has been going around doing the job of EFCC and that of the president’s Senior Special Adviser on Information, telling us the number of those in court facing EFCC charges and defending the president’s trips abroad instead of focusing on just the culture component of his ministry which has the potentials to generate billions in foreign exchange for the country.

    It is apparent every APC member seems to have been bitten by the ‘Leviathan bug’. No one, including the party oligarchy has been able to look at Buhari in the face and tell him the truth. Must the President spend all his time travelling now because we have problem?  Obama inherited two wars and a debt of 16trillion dollars piled up by his predecessors. He sat back at home and did the job. In our own case, our foreign debt is only about $10b. This cannot be a death sentence for a resilient people made up the good, the bad and the ugly that has stolen about $200b kept in already identified banks in the Middle East, Europe and Americas. Outside of Buhari’s first round of foreign trips to the US, UK, Germany and France to thank their leaders for their contribution to our peaceful transition, all other foreign engagements can be handled by our foreign minister whose name unfortunately few Nigerians can remember. And no one has asked the president why he needed more than nine months in office to fulfil his campaign promise of selling off the inherited Presidential Fleet of 10 aircrafts or convert them to form the nucleus of a national carrier and save the country of billions we lose to foreign carriers.

    And what is the way forward since failure is not an alternative? I think Buhari needs help. Modern government is a science and democracy is a game of consensus and compromise where delegation without abdication has been found more productive than centralization which produces nothing but paralysis. Tinubu should tell the president the secret of his success in Lagos. Buhari should allow young people trained in science of modern government run the show while he provides cover with his integrity and honesty, virtues Nigerians know he has in abundance but which they are aware are not enough to make him a successful president just as they were not enough to win him the presidency during his first three attempts.

  • Dealers as leaders: The Putin example

    Blackmail is the new game for the ‘dealers as leaders’ in Abuja. It is a new tool for those haunted by their past. It is a weapon freely deployed by those who have been challenged to prove their loyalty to the nation. Those accused of betraying the trust of the people resort to it rather than defend their honour. Confronted over the misapplication of $2.1b loan for military hardware, Sambo Dasuki saw the hands of Muhammadu Buhari in his travails. If such antics fail to fool anyone, his alleged confederates remind the people that Buhari has spent close to a year in office fighting only corruption. And while they engaged in profligacy spending N300m to buy toys before the passage of the budget, some self-conceitedly declare: ‘It is time Buhari delivers on his campaign promises and stop blaming GEJ’.

    Or how about hilarious resolution shortly after its inauguration calling on Buhari to start implementing his N5, 000 social welfare campaign promise for the unemployed with immediate effect.

    Blackmail is also often used as a pre-emptive measure. Following the invitation of Bukola Saraki’s wife by EFCC, the House of Representatives swiftly produced a Dr. George Uboh who alleged that Ibrahim Lamorde, the then EFCC boss diverted over N1trillion the anti-graft agency recovered from treasury looters. When the Code of Conduct Tribunal, (CCT) insisted on trying Saraki, the senate president for alleged false asset declaration, his 84 ‘like-minds’ senators provided evidence to show that Danladi Umar’s personal assistant, Ali Abdullai Gambo, was docked by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, (EFCC) sometime in August, 2013 in Abuja for receiving N1.8m from one Taiwo Rasheed allegedly on behalf of the tribunal chairman.  And when Obasanjo accused the upper house of corruption, there was a ready defence. They were merely following the footsteps of their father who they alleged bribed them back in 2007 during his third term debacle. For maximum effect they revealed that Obasanjo, nine years after leaving office, signed the Abuja Rail contract without an MOU or a design.

    The purpose of the subtle blackmail according to Lai Mohammed, the Minister for Information and Culture was to delay prosecution which for the high profile politician takes between seven years and infinity. The sad thing is not the resort to subtle blackmail to delay prosecution but the real tragedy is that Buhari is yet to start the war on corruption. All he has done so far is attacking the symptoms of a deep rooted malaise unleashed on our nation through Babangida’s Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) and Obasanjo mismanaged privatisation programme. The former allowed Babangida’s ‘army of anything is possible’ to pillage our land like a conquered territory resulting in the betrayal of the vision of our founding fathers. Part of the fallout is the depreciation of our naira from Babangida’s pre-structural adjustment programme value of N1 to US$1 to today’s over N300 to the US$1. With the latter, Obasanjo presided over the sales of  N100b assets acquired over 50 years (1958 and 2008) for a paltry $1.6b to dealers and wheelers who embarked on asset stripping to buy private jets and build skyscrapers instead of running the industries they bought at next to nothing, efficiently.

    The scandals surrounding the sales of Cocoa Industries Limited under the Babangida liberalisation policy and the Ajaokuta steel complex during Obasanjo privatisation drive easily call to question the loyalty of the two leaders to our nation. Ikeja Cocoa Industries was established by Western Region’s visionary leaders. It was a product of sweat and blood of Western Region’s cocoa farmers whose farm produce were heavily taxed through the marketing boards to raise funds for executing the ‘free education’ programme of the region as well as build a solid economic base to absorb its products. Unfortunately, Bode George, Sasaenia Oresanya and Mohammed Lawal, as Oodua military governors sold 60% of the then 24 years old company valued at N97, 958,000 by Messrs Onakanmi and Partners to Emerald Packaging Limited, owned by an investor from Kaduna State for N9m. Some other Oodua owned companies suffered similar fate.

    Nothing demonstrates the betrayal of our nation than the total lack of transparency in the purported sale of Ajaokuta steel complex to an unknown Indian company. Part of the BPE report on negotiation with the preferred Indian investor who was undoubtedly fronting for our politicians read as follows: “This concession which saw the taking over of ASCL undervalued to the tune of about $300m and Itakpe was one of the biggest scams’. GSH was to pay nothing to the government but expected to inject its funds to revive the plant with some of the following conditions:  the Federal Government should give GSHL two oil blocks; that GSHL be allowed to be lifting crude oil from Nigeria; that the Sapele Power Plant be given to GSHL to operate; the Concession of Delta and Warri Ports to GSHL to operate and that the supply of Natural Gas to GSHL must be at “competitive and reasonable tariff”. GSHL offered to pay N5.00 per cubic meter of gas as against the market price of N30.00). It also inserted in its conditions that “gas price should be kept reasonable and consistent.”

    Britain sold the idea of privatization to us. But unlike Britain where all segments of British society theoretically benefitted from Thatcher’s privatization programme, our people suffered double jeopardy.  At the regional level, youths were robbed of the wealth built through the sweats of their grandfathers. At the national level, inherited national patrimony which was to be held in trust for our children was shared by the military, their fronts and their groomed ‘new breed’ PDP politicians that bred nothing but corruption.

    And what is the way forward? I think the starting point is resorting to subtle blackmail – the tool those who have stolen our nation blind now find very effective. In this regard, to take the war to those who have mortgaged the future of our children. Buhari who has so far been restricted to fighting symptoms should start by setting up a body to investigate what has become of our assets confiscated under the reign of one-eyed kings- Babangida and Obasanjo. Assets of those who engaged in asset stripping to buy private jets and build skyscrapers can be auctioned with the proceeds deployed back to rebuilding the industries so as to create jobs for our teaming youths. Let me confess, I don’t own the patent to the above recommendation. Russia does.

    Russia under Gorbachev and Yeltsin went through our recent experience when she was forced by the West to embark on uncontrolled privatization in spite of her weak institutions. Few unpatriotic criminals cornered the wealth of Russia. Russia became a candidate for aids from the West.  Putin adopted the above subtle blackmail. He was maligned and accused by the West of human rights abuses and of tampering with freedom of the press. Putin will not allow those who do not believe in rule of law hide under same to continue the rape of Russia. Today, with millions of Russians youth back at work, Putin is not only immensely popular at home, he has moved on to reestablish yesterday’s candidate for western aid as an undisputed world power.

    We have no alternative than take control of our economy from dealers as leaders, importers of toothpicks, Morocco ‘Titus’ fish, South African chicken, Vietnamese rice, Italian ceramics, and US junks manufactured in Taiwan.

  • In defence of Modu Sheriff

    Poor Ali Modu Sheriff. He has been going through severe strain and stress since his emergence as chairman of PDP. Those who hate his guts do so with a passion. Those who love him deployed state funds to lease aircraft to ferry lobbyists across the country to appease his enemies.  But PDP BOT is adamant. It says ‘Sheriff is not suitable as national chairman of the PDP’. Ayo Fayose says ‘his emergence at this time is the best thing in the present circumstance’. Sheriff himself is resolutely determined to stay put. ‘I do not plan to resign, I will not resign’ he has declared. Femi Fani-Kayode and Doyin Okupe are blowing hot and cold.

    But the question is, if not Sheriff, who else? He is a man of great wealth. But many believe Sheriff like other products of Babangida School of democracy who saw politics as investment, invested heavily in politics in 1999. This has yielded bounty dividends. He was a two-term governor of Borno State and one-term senator. And finally, as a member and former chairman of APC Board of Trustees (BOT) until 2014, I think he is adequately equipped for a controversial job many have likened to that of an undertaker.

    In any case, if  we are talking of an association  of rancorous group of men permanently engaged in war of attrition over sharing of spoils of office, a group described by  John Campbell as ‘an elite cartel at the centre of power in Nigeria with no ideological or programmatic basis, but simply as essentially a club of elites for sharing of oil rents and political spoils’ and not of a political party, with ‘disciplined membership and programmes for the promotion of collective good’, I cannot see a man more eminently qualified than Sheriff, a man of drifting loyalty.

    Apart from Fani-Kayode’s unproven allegation and libel that Sheriff masterminded the ‘killing of Mohammed Yusuf, the erstwhile leader of Boko Haram, by our security forces whilst in police custody in 2009 just so that he wouldn’t live to tell the whole world who gave him the funds to set up his murderous cult’, Sheriff in my view is by far is more honorable than most PDP past chairmen. Records before Nigerians clearly show that apart from the late Sunday Awoniyi and Audu Ogbeh who retained their integrity after serving as PDP chairmen, Sheriff seem to be head and shoulder taller than all others. Ahmadu Alli as PDP chairman presided over the theft of N1.6 trillion through fuel subsidy scam.  Ogbulafor, Nwodo and Tukur ended their tenure mired in controversies over allegation of financial fraud and nepotism.

    And if his offence was that he decamped from APC to PDP only in 2014, that is a crime his tormentors and supporters are no less guilty off. Fani-Kayode himself has moved in and out of PDP. While still in APC, he once wrote off Jonathan claiming his “chapter has been finally closed by OBJ with his letter”; predicted “All Progressives Congress, APC, would form the next government at the centre” and wrote off PDP saying “PDP as we once knew her has gone forever; the ship has hit the rocks and she has sunk to the bottom of the sea; she is dead and buried”. That was before Jonathan offered him the lucrative job of Director-General of PDP Presidential Campaign Organisation, (PDPPCO)

    Fayose moved from PDP to Labour. He only moved back following Jonathan’s alleged provision of $37m state funds and a number of soldiers shipped from Anambra and Abuja to execute what a PDP former secretary, Dr Temitope Aluko described as a coup against the Ekitis during the state governorship election. As for Olusegun Mimiko, he is a serial ‘decampee’, whose motto appears to be ‘water has no enemy’.

    In a desperate attempt to undermine the integrity of Sheriff, Fani-Kayode says a man with link with Boko Haram is not qualified to run the affairs of a party like PDP founded by ‘men of great vision, courage and good character’ such as General Ibrahim Babangida, President Olusegun Obasanjo, Vice President Abubakar Atiku, Chief Tony Anenih, President Umaru Yar’Adua, President Goodluck Jonathan, Chief Bode George, Col. Ahmadu Alli, Chief E.K. Clark, Professor Jerry Gana, Dr. Chuba Okadigbo, Chief Ken Nnamani. Apart from searching without finding any record of Sheriff’s disservice to the nation, one is tempted to ask, what are the legacies of Fani-Kayode’s PDP men of great ‘vision, courage and good character’?

    Babangida introduced SAP against the advice of informed Nigerian intellectuals. It resulted in the collapse of our budding industries and reduced Nigeria to importers of the labour of other societies. Obasanjo and Atiku mismanaged the privatization programme selling off $100b assets Nigeria’s founding fathers built up between 1958 and 1998 for a paltry $1.6b. Nigeria lost everything hotels, airlines, insurance firms, Ajaokuta Iron and steel industry, fertilizer company, and  Eleme Petrochemical plant  built with taxpayers’ $2.4b but sold for $215m as well as the World Bank projected seven million jobs.

    Anenih as minister of works allegedly diverted About N300b budgeted for roads during Obasanjo’s first term to fight the 2003 election by PDP. The verdict on Jonathan’s government   by Adewale Maja-Pearce in a piece titled. “The Nigerian Status Quo” written for the New York Times on November 16, 2014, that “The (Jonathan) government is widely seen as the most corrupt since independence from Britain in 1960” resonates with Nigerians and the international community. Bode  George was jailed and later exonerated by the Supreme Court for helping some of his PDP friends as chairman of the Nigerian Ports Authority. Ahmadu Ali as chairman of PDP, presided over the theft of N1.6t through fuel subsidy scam. Chief Edwin Clark hijacked President Jonathan and reduced a man who secured a pan Nigeria mandate in 2010 to an ethnic irredentist in 2015. Jerry Gana, a one time   university geography teacher had until 2015 been part of every government in power since 1983. He donated N5billion on behalf of his unidentified friends to the doomed Jonathan re-election bid. Both Dr. Chuba Okadigbo, Chief Ken Nnamani were accused of financial malfeasance as senate presidents. Behold Fani-Kayode’s PDP men of vision and character.

    Those currently weeping louder than the bereaved fearing PDP’s descent into factional chaos will deprive the country of much needed opposition voice should wipe their tears. An association of wheelers and dealers that as a ruling party raped our nation for 16 years through dubious self-serving policies such as privatization, monetization, setting up of PPPRA to import fuel instead of ensuring we refined our own fuel domestically cannot as an opposition party perform the patriotic role of ‘keeping the APC on track, influencing public opinion, and providing a shadow for the ruling party’.

    PDP doesn’t deserve to survive. Even Dr Doyin Okupe, who reaped abundantly as a leading member of PDP has come to terms with the terrible fate of his party. According to him, “if it is the divine will of God that our present masters must kill PDP, then by the Grace of God we shall yet tarry at the graveside to bid it farewell.”

    Why must people now weep louder than the bereaved? Please join me in congratulating PDP for appointing an undertaker.

  • Noble profession and its ignoble actors

    John Austin defines law as ‘a rule laid down for the guidance of an intelligent being by an intelligent being having power over him’. In other words, the law by the privileged few is the law of society. It is an instrument for the protection of their disproportionate share of the national resources. Although the constitution says we are equal before the law, but as George Orwell reminded us a long time ago, ‘we are equal but some are more equal than others’. This is why human laws have been said to be the expression of political relation of the individual within society. Plato says ‘they are like spider’s web which catches the small flies but the great break through’. In Nigeria as elsewhere for the underprivileged and disconnected, ‘equality before the law’ is a myth. If those assigned the ignoble role of perpetuating injustice whimsically call theirs a noble profession, I don’t think we need to begrudge them for dressing themselves in borrowed robes. We know who lawyers are and they know themselves.

    But as our noble Itse Sagay pointed out last week, what makes the difference in all societies are the few noble men among those destined by virtue of their profession to perform ignoble role. Unfortunately, the current Supreme Court judges by virtue of their recent bizarre judgment in Rivers and Akwa Ibom, in which they pretended not to understand the difference between authenticating voters through accreditation with card reader machine and actual voting, do not in his view belong to this few gem of society.

    For him, the ‘perverse verdict’ reached by the Supreme Court judges through an application of technicality that is in conflict with justice, in Rivers and Akwa Ibom are ‘a major setback to democracy and the rule of law’, especially when according to him, ‘everybody knows that there were no elections in those two states and “that people like Wike climbed into the governorship seat over dead bodies and over blood of human beings’. He seems to be saying such verdicts have parallels only Plato’s ‘forest of monkeys rather than habitable place for men’. Sagay, a very decent man is concerned about the pursuit of justice.

    But Wike and his group did not approach the Supreme Court to seek justice. They were out to protect their resources. In the pursuit of their objective they have also demonstrated they are not afraid of blood. In fact they had threatened more blood in case the Supreme Court upheld the Appeal court’s verdict of a re-run. Wike spilled the beans with his reaction to Sagay’s attack. ‘The people of Rivers State’, he said will ‘never give up their sovereignty’ and ‘will prevent APC desperate attempts to politically dominate our people and plunder the resources of [our] land’. He made it clear ‘Niger Delta states would prevent outsiders from having a foothold on their land in future’. Having earlier narrated how he secured his victory, he declared with an offensive finality that Sagay cannot ‘re-litigate a settled matter’, because his victory was settled. The not particularly distinguished Supreme Court judges gave Wike and his group what they wanted.

    Sagay also spoke so passionately about  the Nigerian judiciary as if we do not know it has been  largely dominated since independence by those driven by greed to pursue justice by juxtaposing lies with truth as if both are complimentary and judges whose verdict sometimes give an impression they are anarchists. In an attempt to destroy the Action Group (AG) in 1961, the judiciary supported the illegal probe of the National Bank which was a ‘regional issue over which the federal government had no power’. Following the intra-party AG feud in 1962, it shamelessly ruled in favour of S. L. Akintola, the embattled premier of the west, a verdict later upturned by the Privy Council in London, the then highest judicial body. In 1962, it colluded with NCNC/NPC coalition to illegally declare state of emergency on the West.

    The Nigerian judiciary also in 1962 demonstrated its bankruptcy through its ignoble role in the Balewa-contrived Coker Commission of Inquiry into Statutory Corporations in the Western Region and the prosecution and conviction of Awo for treasonable felony.

    Those allegedly driven by their greed or ambition to serve as government lawyers were Chief Michael Okorodudu who had just decamped from AG following the loss of his contract as Western Region commissioner in London, Kehinde Sofola, NCNC member and opponent of Awo in his Ikenne town and Sobowale Sowemimo, who till them worked as a junior under Fani-Kayode who upon becoming leader of opposition after decamping from AG started calling for the declaration of state of emergency in the west.

    In 1963, the judiciary betrayed the NCNC and the Igbo by claiming the census crisis was ‘a political issue’. Realising that there was no way they could achieve power constitutionally with the census returns, the East lost faith in the country and started thinking of secession.

    In 1966, the self- serving judiciary advised Ironsi to take over power instead of swearing in the most senior surviving minister following the disappearance of the Prime Minister Balewa. In May 1967, the leading members of the judiciary drafted the Unification Decree 34 with all its known consequences for a heterogeneous and multi-ethnic society.

    In 1993, the judiciary was used by Babangida to justify the annulment of the 1993 election. For a prize, it provided an escape route for a totally discredited Babangida regime by crafting an Interim Government decree which paved the way for the installation of Ernest Shonekan to spite MKO Abiola another Egba man who had won a national election. In 1994 when Justice Dolapo Akinsanya threw out Babangida’s interim contraption along with Shonekan, the judiciary rallied round Abacha who ruled with iron fist for five years.

    If PDP has ravaged the nation these past 16 years, it was not without the support of the judiciary. It supported vote rigging. (Mike Igini, a former Edo Resident Electoral Commissioner told Channel Television last week how some SANs claimed improvement in our electoral system will deprive them of easy source of money). Its senior members supported those who wrecked the banking sector. They feature prominently in the privatisation programme and the fuel subsidy scam. They shielded many lawbreakers who have since moved from desecrated Governors’ lodges to the hallowed chambers of the National Assembly as lawmakers.

    All our woes stem from the greed and ignoble actions of men of the noble profession. In office, ex-President Jonathan claimed he was not to be held responsible for the slow pace at which the wheel of justice grinds in our country. Last week, President Buhari identified the judiciary as the only threat to his war against corruption ‘because of long adjournments currently being imposed on all cases of corruption’. The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has called for the reform of the judiciary and in fact canvassed for the establishment of special courts to try corruption cases.

    Unfortunately, unlike the other arms of government, the executive and the legislature, that periodically test their legitimacy through elections, the judiciary is answerable to none. In fact we have been warned of a possible descent into chaos and anarchy if those performing ignoble acts are sanctioned. Last week, scores of Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SANs) followed their colleague detained for an ignoble act to court to sue EFCC. Chief Kehinde Sofola a second Republic Attorney General and one time vice president of the Body of Benchers during the June 1993 crisis issued a statement saying Nwosu’s NEC ought to have obeyed Justice Bassey Ikpeme’s unpatriotic ruling. He has elsewhere expressed the view that the executive cannot probe the judiciary because ‘the executive, the legislature and the judiciary are equal’. Yet he is on record as having declared that ‘the primary duty of the judiciary is to protect the judiciary’. It will appear our nation is at the mercy of those who perpetrate ignoble acts under the cover of a ’noble’ profession.

  • Ekiti tragedy as Obasanjo’s legacy

    The sickening confession by Dr. Tope Aluko that in effecting what he described as a coup against the people of Ekiti, they “went into the election with 1,040 recognised soldiers and another batch of 400 ‘unrecognised soldiers’ brought from Enugu by a serving senator from the South-East;  raised 44 special strike teams brought in (with) Toyota Hilux buses from Abuja and Onitsha and made special stickers for the vehicles that conveyed members of the strike team with  each of them given a black band for identification” was but a confirmation  of the hijacking of our nation by PDP brigands. For 16 years, PDP and its leaders operated with impunity, engaging in war of attrition and assassination of their members over the sharing of offices and our resources.

    Fayose said we should look at the messenger and not the message. But there are compelling reasons to believe Aluko is a witness of truth. First Aluko confessed he and Fayose have been friends for 40 years. The closer we therefore look at these two friends, the more the possibility of agreeing with the saying by our people that ‘‘it’s only a thief who can accurately identify the foot print of another thief on a stone”.  For lying under oath at the tribunal claiming ‘the election was free, fair and credible’, Fayose wants Aluko committed to prison for three years for perjury. That Fayose’s Freudian slip, in itself, is all that is needed to confirm Aluko’s claim that the election was sham. But Fayose himself is no less guilty of perjury according to his political detractors who reminded us he claimed in his nomination form that he had never been indicted by any panel of inquiry. If the Supreme Court ruled he was not properly impeached, that came eight years after the event and long after filling the nomination form.

    There are other compelling reasons why we cannot doubt Aluko’s claim that Fayose, after purchasing his victory in the primary with Jonathan misapplied $2m state funds, went back to tell the president that there was no way he was going to win the election without the use of the military.  Here was an impeached former governor, chased from pillar to post by EFCC for alleged financial and murder charges and who in his own words, “flee (sic) with all (his) property left in the Government House, and taken to court about 59 times aside the 45 days (he) spent in detention”, pitched without an agenda against a performing incumbent few months after losing a senatorial contest. Little wonder, Fayose was to describe his victory “a rare miracle” and his “return to government as not common in history”.

    But Obasanjo is the source of Ekiti people’s nightmare. Precisely because of his contempt for them and their pursuit of academic excellence to advance in the social ladder, Obasanjo who self-conceitedly claimed he achieved on a platter of gold what Awo could not achieve through a life-long struggle, probably saw imposition of Fayose, considered half-literate by his people, a way to humble the Ekitis. In total disrespect of the feelings of the people, Obasanjo also sent Brigadier Olurin his kinsman to supervise the rigging of the 2007 election. The task was made easy with the exploitation of the intra-party feud in ACN by Obasanjo and PDP. Dissident ACN members, misled to believe they were out to prevent Tinubu from cornering the resources of the state  were armed with large sums of money, vehicles, communication and logistics to aid the rigging of the 2007 election later nullified by the courts. By the time Fayemi retrieved his stolen mandate, nearly all the legacies of Awo and his successors had been erased. The state College of Medicine which professors Oyebode and Oyebola tried to nurture had been traded for Fayose’s fraudulent poultry project. Christ School, one of the earliest and best secondary schools in Nigeria secured less than 30%success in WAEC examination. Other public schools suffered worst fate. This is the genesis of the present generation of Fayose’s area boys, ‘okada’ riders and political thugs. After four years of valiant effort by Dr Fayemi to prevent a repeat of the tragedy that befell a whole generation of our children, Dr. Aluko has now confirmed how he along with Fayose and some other Ekiti people colluded with outsiders to sabotage that effort.

    But Obasanjo and not Jonathan, a master of political subterfuge who merely used Fayose to settle scores with his estranged godfather, should be held responsible for the coup staged against our people. He set the precedent during his 2007 ‘do or die’ Ekiti battle and its rerun supervised by another spineless Egba woman. Jonathan alleged commitment of $37m to his own variant of ‘do or die’ 2014 pacification of Ekiti by all means was only an improvement on the unspecified massive deployment of funds through ACN dissidents in 2007. If  Jonathan and PDP subdued Ekiti with 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 in 2014, Obasanjo and PDP in 2007 provided ‘security, logistics and communication’ to break the will of Ekiti people.

    Aluko was only confirming what we all heard and saw on national television when he said ‘we used the military to block all routes in the local governments and prevented APC chieftains, including former Rivers State Governor, Rotimi Amaechi from coming into Ekiti. So we ensured that no APC chieftain was in sight on Election Day. We provided polling agents for the APC in most of the polling units so we had no problem getting them to sign election results in the units’. It was a known fact that Fayose, Obanikoro, Adesiyan and Chris Uba reduced Ekiti to a conquered territory on Election Day in 2014.

    But as said on these pages two years ago, weep not for Ekiti but for the nation.  Bode Thomas in the fifties canvassed for regionalism in order to save the Yoruba country from the rule of a one-eyed king. The tragedy is that the whole country has been afflicted by a spectre of one-eyed king, a euphemism for incompetent leaders since independence. While the west burned in 1966, Balewa waited patiently for Ahmadu Bello who returned too late from his pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia. The bungling after the failed 1966 coup by ill-equipped Ironsi led to the civil war. The destruction of the bureaucracy and the university, the two major institutions that sustain the survival of society by Murtala Mohammed and Obasanjo who were ill-equipped to manage society is responsible for today’s corruption in the civil service and the collapse of our university system which once ranked with the best in the world. In 1979, Obasanjo who claimed the best didn’t have to win the election supported Shehu Shagari whose only ambition was to become a senator. Shagari smoked away while the economy of the nation was wrecked by his NPN led by Akinloye. We have had an Ibrahim Babangida whose regime Obasanjo dismissed as a government ‘deficit in honour’. Babangida destroyed all our values and institutionalised corruption.   We have had Abacha, a common thief whose obsession seemed to crudely ferry raw cash with boxes from the central bank. We have had Obasanjo, widely regarded and rejected as a one-eyed king by the Yoruba but wildly celebrated by the rest of the country as messiah. His legacy in the last 16 years is the seizure of our country by PDP brigands headed until recently by Goodluck Jonathan, his godson.

    The way forward is restructuring of our multi ethnic and multicultural society so that each group can decide who manages its affairs. Ekiti must be allowed to decide if it wants to be ruled by Fayose, his thugs and ‘okada’ riders just as Delta should be allowed to choose if they want to be ruled by militants led by Government ‘Tompolo’ Ekpemipolo. The beauty of federalism is that it liberates groups and individuals from the tyranny of the state.

  • Obasanjo and his PDP children

    Once again, Obasanjo did what he does best. Adorning a toga of the conscience of the nation, he embarked on a crusade on her behalf. In a  letter dated January 13, he wanted  Bukola Saraki  the Senate President and his counterpart in the Lower House to look into  ‘the mind-boggling expenditure going into cars, furniture, housing renovation which he said were ‘veritable sources of waste and corruption’; the ‘different disingenuous ways and devices the legislature employed to overturn the recommendation of the RMAFC in order to hike up for themselves that which they are unwilling to spell out in detail’; and challenged them to “have the courage to publish its recurrent budgets for the years 2000, 2005, 2010 and 2015 to enable comparisons made between their emoluments and those of their counterparts in Ghana, Kenya, Senegal and even Malaysia and Indonesia who are richer and more developed than we are.

    Many have wondered what qualified Obasanjo for this periodic crusade which he first embarked upon shortly after handing over power voluntarily to Shehu Shagari in 1979. Fate ceded that role to Obasanjo.  For instance others fought the civil war, he took the glory. The assassination of Murtala Mohammed in 1976 threw him up. He faithfully implemented the transition programme and thereafter became a respected international statesman. He was to later exercise tremendous influence on the administrations of Shehu Shagari, Ibrahim Babangida and General Abacha who sent him to Gashua prison.

    Our country is also unique in many respects. Nigeria is the only known federation where you could become an elected president twice without being sponsored by any of the federating building blocks. With such a feat, akin only to climbing the palm tree from the top, leaders like Obasanjo can, in defiance of all known sociological state model builders’ postulations that a man is first a product of a family before becoming a member of a group, believe he can indeed climb the palm tree from the top by being a Nigerian first and Yoruba as an afterthought. Obasanjo probably actually believes he is ‘Mr. Nigeria’. Not his wife’s book that detailed his humble beginning or his dearest daughter, Iyabo’s public chastisement about thinking he owns Nigeria could cure him of the illusion that without Obasanjo, there will be no Nigeria.

    And by virtue of being PDP leader in and out of office since 1999,  Obasanjo can lay claim to the title of ‘ father of all the corrupt elements that have held our nation to ransom since 1999’. After all, the 22 elected PDP governors in 1999 out of which 17 were indicted for corruption by 2008, all the successive PDP chairmen, senate presidents and speakers of the lower house  between 1999 and 2015 address Obasanjo as ‘Baba’. Of course Saraki and Dogara of the Senate and the House of Assembly are Obasanjo’s PDP grandchildren. His house was Saraki’s first port of call after trading off the victory of his party in order to usurp the senate presidency.

    Obasanjo, knows Saraki the target of his crusade this time around like the palm of his hands in the same manner he knows his other illustrious, some will say notorious, children such as Diepreye Alamieseigha, Odili, Ibori, Igbinedion, Okupe, Fayose, Daniel, Jolly Nyame, Joshua Dariye,  Boni Haruna, Mu’ azu, Chris Uba who locked up governor Chris Ngige, like a common criminal over the sharing of confiscated Anambra government funds and ex-president Jonathan who says stealing was not corruption. But does Obasanjo expect Saraki to give what he has not got?

    Well, Saraki also seems to know his father and how to massage his ego.  Like a son who knows how to manipulate his father, Saraki praised President Obasanjo ‘for his consistent role in always reminding those of us in government about our responsibilities to the general public and offering timely advice where necessary’. He was however silent on his father’s accusation of  massive corruption, greed, impunity and lawlessness at the National Assembly  as well as his claim that most members of the 469-member assembly were receiving constituency allowances without maintaining constituency offices as the law requires of them.  Saraki then went on to speak vaguely about the senate’s commitment ‘to good governance, transparency, accountability, due process and responsiveness to the economic reality of our nation’.

    On his part, Dino Melaye’s reaction to Obasanjo’s letter seems to reflect his special endowment-capacity to play the clown and the reflective. Unfortunately most people who watch his theatrics on television trying to justify abandoning his senate duties to accompany Toyin Saraki to EFCC’s office or to justify his role in the invasion of CCT along with 84 senators during the senate president’s arraignment for false declaration of assets will most likely associate him with the former. Few remember Melaye had the presence of mind during the obscene N8.64b National Assembly wardrobe allowance controversy to tell his colleagues ‘they cannot be talking about change and this kind of money in this country now when people are hungry.’

    But tragically, following Obasanjo’s warning that ‘‘it will not only be insensitive but callously so for leaders, who call for sacrifice from the citizenry to live in obscene opulence’, the same Senator Melaye, like a clown comically says: ‘Our leader has mistaken the 8th National Assembly as the same National Assembly that defrauded him in 2007; that is those who collected his money and refused to implement the third term agenda… I appeal to Baba that we are not the ones please. After nine years of that bribery saga, the first of its kind, I expect forgiveness to have taken place”. He also said: “There was the case of bribery introduced by the Obasanjo regime in the desperate attempt to remove Speaker Ghali Umar Na’Abba from office then. In fact, there was an open display of that bribery money on the floor of the House”. Concluding, Melaye asks; “I hope this is not in an attempt to cover up and distract attention from the Halliburton and Siemens corruption allegations?’’ But if one may ask the irrepressible Melaye, what has this clowning got to do with the massive corruption Obasanjo claims is going in the National Assembly?

    The truth however is that slippery Saraki, clowning Dino Melaye along with cunning Obasanjo, their father, are all parts of the problem and can therefore not be parts of the solution. The challenge before our nation is how to move beyond the baleful legacies of Obasanjo and those of his PDP children that breed nothing but corruption.

    The starting point is for APC oligarchy to take control of their party and use it as weapon for development as has been done in all developed democracies. Nigerians voted for APC because it promises change. Their job will be made easier if they allow all the senators that do not share their party’s world-view to join PDP.

    Now with the success recorded with the card readers, politicians now know Nigerians don’t actually suffer from collective amnesia as they had made us to believe. Those greedy clowning senators who want Nigeria taxpayers to cough out N8.64b as wardrobe allowance and the Saraki ‘like mind’ senators who think Saraki as number three citizen of the country owes Nigeria no explanation as to the source of the massive wealth he allegedly amassed between 1990 and 2009 should be given a choice to re-join PDP and await the verdict of voters in 2019.

  • Nigeria, Clark and his children

    Pa Kiagbodo Edwin Clark, an elder statesman and former Commissioner for Information in the Gowon’s post-civil war administration is an illustrious Nigerian. On account of his immeasurable contributions to the development of the country especially his Ijaw nation, as a teacher, bureaucrat and politician, he is in fact regarded a ‘Nigerian treasure’ by admirers of his brand of politics which thrives in the exploitation of the secret fears of his Ijaw people.

    As a man who often prefers to swim against the tide of popular opinion, he encouraged and supported Gowon’s controversial unilateral declaration that 1976, the scheduled year for hand-over of government to civilians had suddenly become unrealistic. For betraying the commitment he made to the people, Gowon, a hero of war and peace and author of ‘no victor no vanquished’ was humiliated out of office.

    Pa Clark has not changed much in the last 50 years. Ex-President Jonathan was his latest victim. Encouraged by Pa Clark to bite the fingers that fed him, he reneged on solemn promise and commitment he made to his party and Obasanjo his godfather to do only one term. Jonathan, who secured a landslide victory over Buhari in 2011, was humiliated out of office losing in four of the nation’s six geopolitical zones in last year election.

    When Obasanjo who single-handedly made him governor, vice president and president wrote an 18-page letter accusing his godson of maladministration, corruption and incompetence, Clark left the message and attacked the messenger describing the letter as ‘contemptuous and treasonable’ and insisting Nigeria does not belong to Obasanjo. For asking Jonathan who weirdly claimed ‘stealing is not corruption’ to rein in his thieving subordinates, Clark, the self- appointed ‘President’s father’, asked Obasanjo who he claimed had only N20,000 in his account after coming out of Gashua prison, to explain the source of his wealth after eight years as President. He did not forget to remind Obasanjo of the Halliburton bribe scandal and the Siemens corruption cases’ that happened under him.

    Last week, precisely on January 22, Edwin Clark once again chose to swim against the tide of public opinion. In the midst of sordid disclosures of how $2.1b ‘Dasukigate’ slush money meant to equip our out-gunned soldiers fighting insurgency was shared by PDP stalwarts, Clark wrote a 10-page letter to let President Buhari know why he must not humiliate his Niger Delta children notably Government Ekpemupolo, alias Tompolo and embattled ex-NIMASA boss, Patrick Akpobolokemi, accused of mismanaging N3.4b of public money. He wrote glowingly about Tompolo who he described as ‘a civilized Nigerian who can never be part of the renewed bombing of the pipelines in the region’. He disclosed that Tompolo was the most level-headed of all the Niger Delta militants who but for his inadequacy in formal education would have been appointed into government. He admitted lobbying government to secure for him the lucrative multi-billion oil pipeline monitoring contract because of his experience of the creeks.

    Then In the same letter, Clark tongue-in-cheek says ‘I totally condemn the vandalisation of oil and gas pipelines and will give you 100 per cent support for whatever action you take to bring the culprits to book’. The question Nigerians should ask Pa Clark is why he did not accord Jonathan his son such support to stop a daily theft of crude oil which  Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala , the former Finance Minister put at 400,000 barrels a day.  And while Clark was blowing hot and cold, Tompolo who EFCC’s  lawyer, Festus Keyamo claimed turned down EFCC invitation and court summons, chose to write a letter directly to President Buhari claiming he had no knowledge  of NIMASA’s stolen N34b.

    Unfortunately for father and son, when  EFCC commenced trial of a Patrick Akpobolokemi, the former NIMASA boss and five others before Justice Ibrahim Buba of the Federal High Court Lagos last Friday, Nigerians who thought they had seen the worst of PDP men in the sharing of Dasukigate’ blood money were dumbfounded with the testimonies of Chukwuemeka Benjamin, a fashion designer who told the court how his company,  Extreme Vertex Nigeria Limited received N546,000,000 from NIMASA for a service that was never executed.

    We are all victims of Pa Clark and his Niger Delta children – the errant politicians and the misguided youths, who cannot appreciate life is about ‘quid pro quo’, ‘give and take’ or service traded for something of value. The militants collect N65,000 for doing absolutely nothing. They are probably unaware that many youths in some parts of the country work in the farms or hawk pure water sachets to see themselves through secondary school, while many undergraduates of University of Lagos do laundry work at weekends to support themselves. Of course they are probably not aware many university graduates earn less than N50,000 in most places including newspapers houses in Lagos. Yet one of the apprehended armed gangs specialising in raiding of banks in Lagos last week confessed N65, 000 paid to militants was not enough to support his lifestyle without oil bunkering and armed robbery.

    If Clark’s ill-educated militant children do not know they need to earn their N65, 000 pay, his senior errant children, the governors who collect the 13% derivation without accountability do not fare better. Why should some governors that collect in one month what some states collect in one year not guarantee the security of facilities located within their states? They along with Pa Clark who claimed Tompolo is deficient in formal education should be held responsible for the fate of Tompolo and his other deprived Niger Delta youths. It took Awo less than 10 years to implement free primary education and establish world-class University of Ife in spite of the impediments put on his way by Clark and his Ijaw elite he claimed chose to align with the north 50 years ago. It is not an accident that Niger Delta’s marginalised armed youths who engage in crime share the same fate with their marginalised northern counterparts who spend 10 months in the bush every year looking after cattle owned by the elite.

    But how do we liberate ourselves from Clark’s children – the armed militants who not only destroy facilities they are paid to safeguard in the creeks, but also attack innocent people in Lagos and his governors who say stealing public fund is not corruption? As we have always said, we cannot reinvent the wheel. All we require is a leader who can properly articulate our crisis of nationhood. Federalism is the social philosophy that liberates groups and individual from the tyranny of state and selfish state actors.

    With fiscal federalism, those who say stealing is not corruption can take control of their golden egg and pay 50% tax to the federal government. Those who cannot lay golden egg will revert back to land. After all Nigeria was once world greatest exporter of groundnut and palm oil and seventh in cocoa. The billions we currently waste on amnesty and for providing security by militants and soldiers to keep the restive Niger Delta youths under control can be deployed as agriculture subsidy. That is what happens in Malaysia and Thailand from where we import rice that had been kept in the silos for upward of 10 years.

    With oil selling at about $31 per barrel, now is the time to call off the bluff of Clark’s subtle blackmail of ‘Niger Delta lays the golden egg’ and that of other Niger Delta irritants such as Niger Delta Patriotic Alliance (NPDA) who says Buhari must allow criminals to operate freely in Lagos. Clark’s friends in the north who he claimed own all the oil wells can relocate to Niger Delta or South-south when we restructure if they so desired. Restructuring is the only answer to corruption, violent crimes, fake drug peddling and other social ills in a multi-ethnic society where groups operate at different level of cultural development.

  • Road to July 29, 1966

    We have been plagued in the last two weeks with conflicting tales of what happened on and before the coup day, January 16 1966. While some are busy selling untruths, some claim they are refraining from speaking the truth in order not to bring the past to pain. But last week, Dr Tanko Yakassai, who partook of the recent ‘Dasukigate’ slush fund’ to the tune of N63m as a mark of betrayal of our children who deserve to know the truth about our past and those responsible for our prolong nightmare whimsically and weirdly claimed the only crisis in Nigeria  in 1966 was an isolated ‘quarrel between the wife of the AG leader, Chief Awolowo and the wife of the man who succeeded him, his deputy, Chief Akintola’  besides what he also described as isolated clashes between the supporters of Awo in Tiv land.

    In the run up to independence, our nation was hijacked by the three dominant ethnic groups, their political parties and their political leaders who believed whatever they could not get cannot be good enough for the rest of the country. The rivalry unfortunately was all about protecting advantages of each group and the relevance of their actors. As Trevor Clark Puts it, ‘they did not see the federation as a shared inspiration but a devise to be manipulated their own region’s selfish purposes’.

    In the pursuit of this objective each of the three dominant groups, tried to exploit the fears of minority groups located outside their own regions.  Awo and his AG succeeded more in this regard among minorities in the north and east because of their party policy which supported self-actualisation quest by minority groups, a policy violently opposed by the north and the east. Awo made inroads in the warring Tiv land and in fact reclaimed large part of Adamawa for Nigeria from Cameroon with massive deployment of AG lawyers. He and his party also made in roads among the Efiks, Ibibio and Anang minority groups in the east that wanted liberation from the domination of their more aggressively industrious Igbo neighbours.

    Ahmadu Bello who selflessly served the poor and the rich alike in the north, sent  a number of children below ages of 10 to a British school and awarded post graduate scholarships’ obtainable in best schools in the world did not believe Awo and his AG that labelled him a feudal lord could love the north more than the northerners. He saw AG’s forays into his territory as an attempt to humiliate him by encouraging insurrections among those he was trying to rehabilitate who ordinarily were slaves by virtue of having being conquered by his grandfather. He once according to Trevor Clark, wondered aloud as to why the Yoruba who cherish their own tradition and Obaship would try to set up subjects against their legitimate rulers in the north. Awo, Ahmadu Bello resolved must be punished even if it meant denying him the justice he guaranteed among the least of his subjects in the north.

    Awo in contrast to Zik and NCNC who up to 1959 advocated for a unitary system, also advocated in his ‘path to Nigeria freedom’, a federal arrangement based on major ethnic groups. Ibo political elite whose people like the Jews need space to move around saw Awo as a threat to Igbo survival. Demonisation of Awo by the Igbo elite therefore began with the succession crisis in Nigeria Youth Movement. The contest for the presidency of the body following the resignation of Dr. K A Abayomi, was between Ernest Ikoli, an Ijaw and Samuel Akinsanya an Ijebu man. Awo an Ijebu man supported Ikoli an Ijaw on principle since the constitution of the NYM made provision for the vice president to succeed the president. Zik and the Igbo members of the body supported Akinsanya an Ijebu man. In the election Ikoli won. Then Zik pulled out all Ibo members accusing Awo of tribalism.  And because Zik said so, his Igbo followers believed him…

    The 1951, election was based on representation and not on partisan organisation. The electoral process was therefore according to Trevor Clark ‘a single chain that united the region with the central house together from the above and therefore believed ‘It was erroneous for NCNC to claim winning the 1951 western region election’. What happened was that Akinloye and his other Ibadan successful candidates got a better deal from Awo and his AG than from Zik who had insisted on becoming premier of the west instead of appointing a Yoruba NCNC member.   Awo was labelled a tribalist who prevented Zik from becoming premier of the west by Igbo political elite.

    Again In July 1952, members of the central house were to be elected on regional basis among its members. The constitution recognised Lagos as part of West. But Zik who decided to contest in Lagos since he was based in Lagos lost because Dr Olorunnibe his fellow NCNC member refused to step down for him. Again   Awo was blamed for Zik’s misfortune and Ozumba Mbadiwe indeed went on move a motion to remove Lagos from the western region. Lastly Awo was also accused of crime against Zik and by extension against the Igbos for failing to stop an AG member of Eastern House from Calabar who initiated a petition that led to Walter Suton commission of Inquiry’s indictment of Zik over the ACB scandal.

    The coalition partners seemed to have resolved to cage Awo shortly after independence. The AG intra-party crisis of 1962  provided an opportunity to illegally declare state of emergency in the west, send Awo to detention, reinstate constitutionally removed Akintola to  power without election at the end of emergency period and went on to rig the 1965 election in his favour. Following widespread violence and total anarchy in the west, those who declared state of emergence because less than 10 Akintola supporters threw chairs inside the Western House refused to act even after the meeting of University of Ibadan students with the Prime Minister on the 16th of November 1965.

    The 1962 and 1963 census crisis had already strained relationship between Ahmadu Bello and Zik who was given a horse by the former while their intrigue and betrayal of the constitution lasted. By June 1965, Ahmadu Bello had replaced Zik with Akintola who also received from him a ceremonial sword when the two met at Pategi during a Niger canoe regatta. By May 1966, with Awo in prison, chaos and anarchy in the west, Zik humiliated and rendered impotent, and the military, the custodian of our constitution infiltrated by politicians, the coalition partners had shot themselves in the leg.

    For instance, while Brigadier Ademulegun who supervised the pacification of the Tiv land was Ahmadu Bello and NPC’s choice as a successor to departing head of the military, the preference of Major General Christopher Welby-Everard was Brigadier Babafemi Olatunde Ogundipe. Ironsi of Sierra Leonean father and an Umuahia mother often wrongly regarded as an Igbo man was ‘no more than a fall-back third candidate, as the ‘least well-equipped militarily or intellectually’. But Zik preferred him to the other two more competent Yoruba candidates. He therefore, along with Mbadiwe, Okotie-Eboh Matthew Mbu and Pius Okigbo lobbied for him. Balewa sent Maitama Sule who was flown to Kaduna to persuade the Sardauna and Isa Keita who did not trust the Ibos. Ironsi was promoted in April 1965.

    Questions have been asked as to why the coup plotters allowed the escape of Ironsi, their prime target before entering the venue of a party he attended along with other officers who were later killed. Questions have also been raised as to why Nwafor Orizu, contrary to the provision of the constitution failed to swear in the most senior surviving minister with an excuse that he was waiting for directive from holidaying Zik. And finally it was curious a General Officer Commanding, would after suppressing an insurrection insist on power being ceded to him to guarantee the safety of the surviving ministers, his employers.

  • ‘Dasugate’ brings Falae’s past to pain

    Olu Falae, Secretary to the Federal Government (1986-1990) during the baleful years of  Babangida’s  ‘transition without end’ might have served as a Minister of Finance for a brief period in 1990 without collecting salary,  managed to keep the exchange rate at N7.50k to one dollar until his exit in 1990 when it went down to N70 to a dollar.  He was jailed as a NADECO chieftain by Abacha for standing by MKO Abiola during his failed battle to reclaim the victory freely and overwhelmingly given to him by Nigerians. Unfortunately these personal sacrifices and resourcefulness are not what will determine his legacies as a bureaucrat, banker and politician/elder statesman. Nigerians are likely going to remember him more as the intellectual pillar for Babangida disastrous Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) and a leader who partook of ‘Dasukigate’ slush fund to the tune of N100m ostensibly on behalf of his little known Social Democratic Party, (SDP), many believed, was sponsored by President Jonathan during the convocation of a self-serving  Confab by a drowning government  to undermine Bola Tinubu and his new Yoruba political leaders and in the process whittle down the influence of APC in the South- west.

    But as it is often said, truth is immanent. Like water, it will find its way to torment and deride its enemies. ‘Dasukigate’ has now provided an opportunity to critically examine not only the motive of sponsors of a fringe party like Social Democratic Party with little or no electoral value, the despicable and unpatriotic objectives of its promoters but also to examine how Chief Olu Falae’s intervention at a critical period in our history contributed to the frustration of young Nigerian professionals who fled the country to work as second class citizens in Europe and America. Despite Margret Thatcher’s introduction of VISA following Olu Falae and Kalu Idika Kalu’s SAP, we today have up to two million well-trained Nigerians in Britain. The effect of SAP has been more devastating at home. Today there are millions of frustrated well-educated Nigerians youths in their late twenties and early thirties, regarded by many as a lost generation, who are still tied to the aprons of their parents at an age their peers during the pre and post independent years had already assumed leadership.

    General Ibrahim Babangida,  Olu Falae and Kalu Idika Kalu back in 1986 decreed ‘there was no alternative to Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP)’, an IMF economic poison, designed by the developed economies to solve their own social problems by further impoverishing the underdeveloped economies. The late Professor Sam Aluko dismissed such claim as intellectual fraud insisting there was even an alternative to death. Eskor Tuoyo and his group of radical thinkers correctly predicted the fate that finally befell Nigeria- the collapse of our industrial sector and condemnation of Nigeria to net importers of labour of other societies while our own youths roam the streets.

    Falae, as an accessory to ill-conceived and badly implemented privatization and liberalization economic policy that allowed a few families, military men and their fronts to fraudulently corner our national assets is responsible for the disarray and a future of uncertainty of Nigerians in their early thirties who have opted or are eager to become slaves in Europe and America. Our frustrated youths who chose to ‘check out’ in droves through the desert and the sea have little to look up to following the confiscation of our national assets which started during the Babangida regime when for example, 60% of a company like the Ikeja Cocoa Industries Limited (CIL) which rightly belong to the children of poor western Nigeria cocoa farmers was sold to a newly registered  Emerald Packaging Company for a miserable N9m, an amount lower than the cost of land on which the then 24 years old manufacturing company minus its machineries, raw materials and their other assets were located. This trend was completed by Babangida’s laboratory-baked PDP ‘new breed’  politicians who traded off national assets worth about $100b according to El Rufai, one time BPE Director General, for less than  $5b between 1999 and 2014. Chief Olu Falae never took responsibility for his role as an accessory to crime of mortgaging the future of a whole generation of Nigerians.

    Now the past has been brought to pain with the ‘Dasukigate’ which revealed that N260m of the $2.1b earmarked for arms to equip our embattled military found its way into to the account of Tony Anenih, a PDP chieftain. Anenih had said in his defence that the money, only a fraction of over N400m he claimed to have spent on his own for the 2015 battle, was ‘a part refund of the money former President Goodluck Jonathan instructed him to release to some political groups for mobilisation and post-election peace advocacy’. Of the amount, he said Chief Falae, the leader and founder of Social Democratic Party got N100m,Chief Rashidi Ladoja, leader of Accord Party got N100m while the remaining N63m went to a group headed by elder statesman, Alhaji Tanko Yakassai . All the three elder-statesmen admitted the funds were meant to advance the chances of Jonathan in the 2015 election…

    But Chief Falae like most well-informed Nigerians knew that another four years of Jonathan would have been disastrous for nation, that during his over five years in office, he served none but self and PDP wheelers and dealers and that those desperate for his re-election and who were moving around the country selling lies called ‘transformation agenda’ to our people were led mostly by those indicted by various House probes for pillaging the country resources.  Having undermined the PDP constitution by contesting in 2010 and for reneging on an undertaking to do only one term, Chief Falae knew it was immoral for Jonathan to contest the 2015 election. Chief Falae similarly knew Jonathan’s attempt to exploit our religion and ethnic differences for electoral gain was a threat to national unity.

    At the Chief Falae’s Yoruba home front where leadership is earned and lost when leaders betray the trust of the people, he knew that by openly identifying with the likes of Ayo Fayose, Olusegun Mimiko, Gbenga Daniel, Bode George and Musliu Obanikoro, that he and his half a dozen fellow Afenifere oligarchs who behave like cult members have lost their grip on the Yoruba voters. More than anybody else, Falae knew his Yoruba people who Awo back in 1947 said would not vote for you because you are a Yoruba man if you have no policy that will positively affect his life, would not vote for Jonathan who besides marginalizing Yoruba that fought for his emergence, but also remained a clueless leader all through his presidency. Finally, Falae more than anyone knew that Yoruba, the only group that has remained faithful to the idea of a united Nigeria since independence despite their endless campaign for regional autonomy and workable federalism, would not vote for a divisive candidate who had become a threat to the survival of Nigeria as a nation of many nationalities.

    Why then did a brilliant and respected Falae, a man not known for greed go ahead to dirty his hands with PDP’s N100m bribe even with the full knowledge of the consequences of his action and the fate that awaits Yoruba leaders that swim against the general tide from an unforgiving followers? There are two plausible explanations in my view. He, like other members of Afenifere oligarchy was probably envious of the success of Bola Tinubu who with the support of young Yoruba intellectuals effortlessly retired them from politics after achieving what they had been unable to achieve during a lifelong battle –joining the Nigerian mainstream politics as an equal partner. It is also possible that our respected Falae had expected a repeat of the ‘Ekiti Magic’ and underestimated the resolve of Nigerians and the efficacy of the voters card reader which for the first time allowed votes to count. But either way, I sympathise with Falae. He knows the fate that awaits him. The Yoruba hardly forgive when leaders who they look up to for direction commit error of judgment.

  • Profligacy and prostrate economy

    President Buhari is unsettled by the obscene and ill-advised decision of the Senate to waste N4.7b on toys called state of the art, Sport Utility Vehicles (SUVs) disingenuously described by a self-serving Senate as “operational cars for its 109 members and the Lower house’s plan to, in the words of Leo Ogor, spend ‘about N4b’ on cars for its 360 members. An exasperated President who turned down the recommendation for a N400m presidential fleet and forfeited part of his allowances and had expected the lawmakers to take a cue from his actions has indirectly asked the public to go to court if the lawmakers fail to see reason.

    And come to think of it. Some of these lawmakers driven by greed and covetousness are former governors, ex-ministers, commissioners who from their submission to the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB), we know have fleet of cars and houses in Abuja and elsewhere. They have nonetheless gone ahead to collect car loans and bulk running allowances in advance. Curiously, one of them crying like a child whose ice cream has been taken away self-conceitedly told a Punch reporter: “does the president expect us to use our personal vehicles, bought with loans, to carry out oversight functions within and outside Abuja?”

    Another without thinking wondered aloud why the President thinks ‘spending one percent of the nation’s N4trillion recurrent expenditure to buy utility vehicles for a whole arm of government was too much.’

    Some of these self-serving senators are former employers of labour with private sector orientation. They should tell Nigerians whether they give their workers car loans, running allowance and buy them utility cars maintained by the employers. They should tell Nigerians if they pay their employers housing allowance, furniture allowance and clothing allowance among other allowances they immorally collect in advance. Do these fellows who are expected to find solution to our economic woes realize there are thousands in the media, public service and private sector who are being owed six to nine months arrears of salaries? Of course they don’t seem to understand that over 70% of our university graduates are roaming the streets.

    Buhari who has publicly declared that the cars he inherited  can last for another 10 years, and who needs all the time to face Boko Haram insurgency, mass unemployment and prostrate economy, the result of the collapse of the manufacturing sector occasioned by profligacy and cash and carry economic policy of the past PDP government has now decided to have a closed door meeting with these legislators who are behaving like kindergartens quarrelling over toys totally oblivious of the economic crisis the nation faces.

    Fortunately, Nigerians no more needed to be told why Saraki, Ekweremadu and Dogara, once upon a time PDP family members were so desperate to hijack the National Assembly, employing sometimes ignoble strategies to achieve their objectives. They all want business to continue as usual. Their first protest was over a suggestion that the scandalously $189,500 high salaries they inherited from the 7th assembly be scaled down. But now we know, like gluttons who consume immoderately, they want more for themselves.

    One way of doing this was an indefensible increase in the number of committees to ensure the largesse goes round. As Punch cynically asked in an editorial last week, ‘since committees are tied to the number of federal ministries “With a GDP $565 billion, (and) 25 federal ministries, what would 65 Senate and 96 House committees be doing? And for maximum effect, the paper went on to inform Nigerians that the Senate of long established federal systems like that of United States with a GDP of $17.9 trillion,  has only 20 committees, Australia with a GDP of $1.2 trillion 20,  the French with a $2.4 trillion economy, six,  and Germany with GDP of $3.3 trillion 21.

    The 8th Senate seems to be confirming the fears of those who argue that as an offshoot of the 7th Senate presided over by David Mark, Ekweremadu and in which Saraki was an influential member, it cannot bring joy to our people. In spite of the outrageous and scandalous earnings of $189,500 per lawmaker which the influential Economist of London, described as the highest in the world, unfolding events seem to confirm it as an accessory to crime against Nigeria.  In spite of their SUVs, we did not see them in the besieged North-east where two million Nigerians have been rendered homeless living in camps. Mark and Ekweremadu did not think their oversight functions included raising alarm when the CBN ferried $2.1b raw cash in 11 boxes to President Jonathan NSA’s office where instead of buying arms for the military, it was shared by PDP members to fight the 2015 re-election contests.

    Newspapers also reported over the weekend that government is planning to spend N5b this year ‘on providing official residences for Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, Senate President Bukola Saraki and House of Representatives Speaker Yakubu Dogara’. The budget  indicates the Senate President complex will receive an allocation of N502.5m while the official residence for  House of Representatives Speaker Dogara  who we are told currently lives in a private house received a modest N1, 035, 652,

    Nigerian taxpayers would rather Osinbajo remains in Aguda Guest House which housed all the past vice presidents since 1999 except for Atiku Abubakar who opted to stay in one of his houses in Abuja when asked to vacate the house of the Chief Justice of Nigeria he was occupying. With an expenditure of N2.1b according to a report by Ini Ekot (Dec 28, 2013), going into upgrading facilities in the Aguda Guest House  between 2012 and 2013’,  it should be good enough for our humble vice president.

    Even if the budgeted N3b is for the completion of the N7b VP mansion  which was derailed by Smart Adeyemi committee over the request by  a former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Bala Mohammed, his FCDA Executive Secretary Adamu Ismail for an additional N9b to ‘provide furniture, fencing, two additional protocol guest houses, a banquet hall and security gadgets’, Nigerian taxpayers would rather Osinbajo remains in Aguda Guest house while the mansion is converted into commercial use to earn  funds badly needed for development.

    As for housing the current National Assembly leaders who we know have mansions in Abuja from their submissions to Code of Conduct Bureau, I think it will be immoral to put additional burden on taxpayers. First it is on record that in 2013, FCT proposed N50b budget provisions “for the designing and construction of the residences of the President of the Senate, David Mark; his deputy, Ike Ekweremadu; the Speaker, Aminu Tambuwal; and his deputy, Emeka Ihedioha”.  Nigerians have not been told what became of the mansions occupied by their predecessors or the ones the above men occupied until May this year. If the properties in accordance with PDP immoral monetization policy have been sold to their occupiers, Nigerians would expect the proceeds from the sales deployed towards building new ones instead of imposing additional burden on taxpayers.

    Some of our current office-holders have beaten the record of Ozumba Mbadiwe’s Ijora land deal where he bought government land at reduced rate and sublet back to government. Today they renovate government houses with taxpayer’s money, sell to themselves and turn around to ask government for accommodation. We have no evidence the current office-holders seeking accommodation fall into this category but this is a widespread practice the media exposed since Babangida’s era.

    But I however think there are one or two lessons about public morality and propriety we need to learn from those from whom we copied democracy. In contrast to our public office holders, parliamentarians in Britain, a few years back, who took the advantage of low rent in government quarters to sublet their London flats out, were forced to apologise to the public. The world watched defeated Gordon Brown drive out of 10 Downing Street in his own old rickety car leaving behind his official British made Jaguar for David Cameron, his successor.