The Nation Newspaper

Category: Jide Oluwajuyitan

  • Self-serving vs. selfless service

    When they took power, the soldiers, matched out on a straight path towards their vision of a good society, but the mission became more elusive, the closer they came towards it – Robin Luckman.

    The Action Group at its Executive and Parliamentary Council of July 1953 attended by Bode Thomas,  SLA Akintola, Rotimi Williams, Obafemi  Awolowo, Anthony Enahoro and others agreed  that the ‘extreme confederalist eight-point demand of the north be accepted in order to guarantee the independence of the regions and allow the north to discover secession doesn’t pay’. Enahoro and Okodudu had argued against confederal arrangement.  Awo, a federalist who however toed his party line reasoned that the problem of the country was not regionalism but the interference of the centre in the affairs of the regions. That became a self-fulfilling prophesy in 1962 when Ahmadu Bello, who according to Trevor Richard, at the height of his power presented a gift of a horse to Zik and the Holy Koran to Tafawa Balewa declaring, he has like his great grandfather, divided the country among his trusted children, coerced the duo to remove one leg of the tripod that had held our nation together. This was done through an illegal declaration of state of emergency in the West and imposition of SLA Akintola who had been disciplined by his leaders as Premier without election. He also had the backing of the centre when he went on to declare himself premier against the wishes of the majority of his people in 1965. Rioting and violence quickly followed.

    That was the excuse an ill-equipped albeit patriotic Nigerian military politicians who saw themselves as custodians of our constitution that was under attack needed to intervene ostensibly to save Nigeria from self-serving politicians who had betrayed the spirit of our constitution. Without requisite educational training, the needed compass in the management of society, the soldiers tried to navigate an unfamiliar terrain. As Luckman observed above, their disastrous outing in January and July 1966 were missions in self-destruction.  From 1967 to 1970, they plunged the nation into a civil war. The achievements credited to the military under Gowon like the Lagos second bridge, the Onitsha Bridge, expansion of net work of roads were all conceived before independence in 1960.

    The bungling soldiers, burning with patriotic fervour once again descended upon themselves in 1975. This time around, ill-informed and ill equipped Murtala  Muhammed and Olusegun Obasanjo destroyed our universities and the bureaucracy, the two institutions that sustain society.  And tragically, instead of looking at 1962 when the rain started beating us, we simply replaced the parliamentary system inherited from the British with American Presidential system ignoring the fact that our problem was not the constitution but the men who would operate it. Obasanjo, playing god has since publicly admitted supporting the presidential bid of Shehu Shagari whose ambition was to be a senator in 1979. By 1983, Shagari smoked away while Akinloye and NPN wheelers and dealers once again brought the nation to it’s knees through profligate consumption.

    Babangida, Gusau and Abacha, as ex-President Shagari has since revealed, carried out the coup against his government and only brought in Buhari because of his integrity. But Buhari took responsibility for the crudity of his ill-informed military junta’s retroactive laws that resulted in the murder of some Nigerian drug pushers and the obnoxious Decree Four that led to the imprisonment of Tunde Thompson and Nduka Irabor of Guardian newspapers for reporting and publishing the truth that they claimed embarrassed government. And without understanding the forces at play in our society, the junta went all out for politicians without making a distinction between governors who used state funds to build universities for their youths, governors who expended state resources to build new houses and marry new wives, and those governors who took foreign loan which never got to Nigeria but kept in banks in Europe. As it was in 1966 and 1975, they waged war against their superiors.

    But once again in the night of many knives, Buhari was deposed by those who put him in power. He was clamped into prison for three and half years. From prison, he had an opportunity to watch, obviously in disbelief as members of his junta now at the helm of affairs released jailed journalists, appointed others senior advisers and ministers. He watched as those who only yesterday supported his rejection of Nigeria membership of OIC, the IMF loan and its conditionalities  declared ‘there was no alternative to SAP’ (Structural Adjustment Programme) which later resulted in ill-advised privatization and the sharing of the nation’s wealth among soldiers and their fronts. He watched in pain as Babangida and Abacha took the nation through a fraudulent 13 years of ‘transition without end’. And he has since 1999 observed from close quarters how PDP pillaged our land like a conquered territory.

    Motivated more by a desire to serve, he contested the presidential election as the candidate of the All Nigeria People’s Party (ANPP) in 2003. He was defeated by President Olusegun Obasanjo.  He didn’t have money to buy justice. Before the end of 2007, nearly all politicians who rode on his back to power had deserted him for PDP. Again in 2007, he was outfoxed. Frustrated, he abandoned ANPP and in 2010 formed CPC, according to him “as a solution to the debilitating ethical and ideological conflicts in the former party.” In 2011, the over 12million votes he garnered without money and a national platform but just on account of his integrity was not enough to match Jonathan’s over 22million votes. And realizing elections are never won on the basis of righteousness, he joined forces with ACN, ANPP, a faction of APGA and a faction of PDP, groups he would have ordinarily dined with using a long spoon. He secured an historic victory by defeating incumbent ex-President Jonathan in four of the country’s six geopolitical zones on March 29.

    To paraphrase Joanna Baillie, a 19th century British poet, ‘there is always a survivor in the destruction of a noble line’. Buhari seems to have been specially prepared for the task ahead. By an irony of fate, Buhari once confessed that but for Ahmadu Bello who in the cause of his selfless service to his people picked him up from the village without any connection, he would never have had the advantage of joining the military. Fate beckons on him today to see where our nation derailed in 1962. He is adequately equipped for the onerous task. Joking during his recent visit to Prime Minister Cameron of Britain about those the junta he headed jailed unjustly 30 years ago, he had made reference to his own unjust incarceration.  He has been betrayed by his military colleagues. He has equally been betrayed by politicians. He has been a military governor, a minister of petroleum and a Head of State. Unlike 1984, he today has a deeper knowledge of Nigeria and her diverse cultures. He is conscious of the baleful legacies of the Hausa Fulani, Igbo and Yoruba parasitic elites who were only out to serve selves rather than provide services to the people. He can attach weight to the advice coming from Obasanjo, Danjuma, Babangida and others who have been beneficiaries of an aberration we call a federation. Nigeria is the only federation in the world where the centre gets involved in education, health, agriculture, and decides how local councils manage the affairs of their remote communities.

    Of course Nigerians that voted for Buhari have faith in his ability to ensure those who stole the country blind through fraudulent fuel subsidy deals, crude oil theft, and fraudulent privatization and monetisation policies return their loot. But the major challenge lies in the political will to tamper with the structure that supports and sustains self service as against selfless service as we once had it. As Edmund Burke, in a manner of speaking says, we cannot climb the palm tree from the top. Unfortunately that exactly is what Nigerian politicians and their young multi-billionaires’ fronts have been doing. If the current system where politicians without character in Abuja decide who from Daura secures admission into the military school in Zaria was in place during the first Republic, President Buhari  by his own admission would have remained a herdsman in Daura and the cause of history would have been different.

  • Saraki’s Senate as offshoot of Mark’s

    The morning shows the day. I suppose by now it is an open secret that the current Saraki/Ekweremadu’s 8th Senate is an offshoot of Mark/Ekwerenmadus’s 7th Senate, adjudged by many including the highly respected Economist of London as ‘the most expensive senate in the world’ which concentrated attention on the welfare of its members while the executive ran the nation and its economy aground.  We need no further confirmation than Ekweremadu’s sickening revelation that the June 9 treachery and opportunism were packaged by leading members of PDP and executed right inside the sitting room of David Mark. Next was the confession of the Senate President that he hid inside a small car from 6 am till 10 am when he walked into the Upper chamber where 49 PDP and about seven APC senators adopted him senate president while 51 of his APC colleagues were at another venue for a meeting with the president . This was an improvement on an old PDP strategy adopted for the botched attempt at impeaching Tambuwal who was prevented from entering the National Assembly along with his colleagues who had to scale the gate to prevent the already seated PDP lawmakers from executing their plan. And lastly the series of bizarre developments in the upper house last week has further confirmed where Saraki’s loyalty resides and the gods he worships.

    The senate president who had earlier denied his party the right to choose its leaders in the upper house in accordance with its 16 years old convention, did not only allow PDP to nominate its minority leader, he bent the rules that precluded green horn senators from holding such positions in order to accommodate former Akwa Ibom governor, now Senator Godswill Akpabio, his pillar of support in his war against his party. And as if to spite President Buhari who had after their party’s meeting directed that party supremacy should be respected, a number of APC senators, probably in anticipation of lucrative committee chairmanship positions, joined their PDP counterparts to pass a vote of confidence on Saraki and Ekweremadu and their actions to date. The motion was moved by a PDP member on the floor of the chambers. And finally, long after the senate president’s wife who was drilled by EFCC over some alleged contracts deals had “reaffirmed her willingness to assist the EFCC and expects that the spirit of this enquiry will follow the global standards and principles of open democracy, transparency and impartially”, Saraki’s senate decided that their most pressing duty was a motion warning EFCC to desist from harassing the wives of senators. And if unknown to us, the ‘Saraki like mind senators’ have agreed to embark on a crusade to defend the people against EFCC harassment, they will still not escape public resentment for failing to pass a resolution or accompany ex governors  and others that have kept dates with the organization in recent weeks.

    From these bizarre events, it is now apparent that despite blackmail by Saraki and Ekweremadu’s powerful supporters and their media, the fears of the majority of the members of APC oligarchy about Saraki’s capacity to successfully anchor the change Nigerian voted for on March 28 have not been misplaced.  And Nigerians who massively voted for change can now make a distinction between Saraki and his PDP supporters who want to continue business as usual and President Buhari, a man of honour and integrity;   Tinubu, a political genius and a Yoruba leader trusted by his people, Oyegun, a perfect gentleman; Audu Ogbe, a man of principle who remains the only past PDP chairman not enmeshed in financial scandal;  Amaechi, a leader who will always call a spade by its proper name,  and Tony Momoh, a man who will stand by what he believes in. Nigerians have faith in these great Nigerians.

    It is for this reason they must not be afraid to change the course of our history by confronting the twin evils of treachery and opportunism that have bedevilled our nation since 1962 when an illegal state of emergency was declared in the West and Dr. Majekodunmi, Tafawa Balewa’s friend and personal physician was appointed as administrator of the West to upstage Alhaji Soroye Adegbenro, the legally appointed premier. The argument then was that Yoruba should allow peace to reign since Majekodunmi was also another Egba man. The 1965 violence and ‘operation wet e’ had its root in 1962.

    In 1966, a military coup wiped out the warring politicians and the most senior military officers. The purge was sectional in conception and execution. Ironsi who inexplicably escaped the military purge suppressed the military insurgency but insisted on being made head of state as a precondition for his protection of the surviving ministers. The nation tolerated the opportunism. Ironsi carried on business as usual turning a blind eye at those who carried out sectional killings of military and political leaders. The pogroms of July 1966 stemmed from January 1966 opportunism.

    As it was in 1962 and 1966, so it was in 1993 when Babangida annulled the most credible election in our nation’s history won by MKO Abiola.  Babangida reached out for an Ernest Shonekan, another Egba, and man to upstage MKO Abiola. Those holding our nation to ransom then as today saw nothing wrong with Shonekan’s opportunism. But in less than six months, the court dismantled Babangida illegal contraption paving the way for the emergence of Abacha.  Abacha’s five years brutal war against Nigerians stemmed from 1993 Shonekan’s opportunism

    This is the time to break the vicious cycle of the twin evils of treachery and opportunism that have bedevilled our federation since independence. Buhari and APC can do without those opportunistic senators who have opted to join PDP to continue business as usual. It is obvious these traders care less about Nigerians.

    One of other reason APC has nothing to fear is because there is not going to be much to share since with Buhari  stealing government funds will be regarded as corruption.  What brought those who have turned the upper house into a trading ground will ultimately put them asunder. It was the crisis over sharing among PDP members during the fraudulent privatization programme that sparked off accusation and counter-accusation of who was more corrupt between President Obasanjo, and Vice President Atiku Abubakar.  Saraki himself was the whistle blower over the fuel subsidy scam. It was PDP that in turn informed Nigerians that Joy Oil, the company in which Saraki allegedly had interest also benefitted from the fuel subsidy fraud. And finally it was Kwara PDP leadership that claimed responsibility for writing the petition that led to Mrs. Toyin Saraki’s current travails. And while commending “the EFCC for its resourcefulness and painstakingness’, PDP Kwara also congratulated itself saying “We are particularly delighted that our painstaking efforts at chronicling the monumental heist that defined the eight years, almost uneventful rule of former Governor Bukola Saraki in Kwara, has not gone unnoticed.” The weeks ahead hold surprises for those who have held the nation down for so long. All the nation needs from President Buhari and his APC is leadership.

  • Like Fayose, like Wike

    Like Fayose, like Wike

    Governors Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti and Nyesom Wike of Rivers are two of a kind. They share some parallels. Both are men greatly admired by ex-President Goodluck Jonathan and his wife.  For the former, Jonathan was prepared to risk everything including honour and his presidency. Leaving nothing to chance during Fayose’s gubernatorial battle in June 2014, he deployed his Minister for Police Affairs Jelili Adesiyan, junior Minister of Defence, Musliu Obanikoro and Brigadier General Aliu Momoh  to lead a contingent of 12,000 mobile police men, 15,000 NSCDC personnel, 26 sniffer dogs, two aircraft at a time the nation lacked resources to confront Boko Haram that had seized a sizable portion of our territory and holding about 300 school girls abducted from their dormitories in captivity.  Fayose went on to secure a landslide victory through what is today known as ‘Ekiti-gate’, defeating Fayemi, the high achieving incumbent in all the 16 LGAs of the state. For the latter, in an election marred by violence, supporters of Patience Jonathan, some of whom once described her as ‘messiah’, ensured he won by a wide margin of 1,029,102 votes to Dr  Dakuku Petersides’s measly 124,896 votes to secure a victory now being hotly contested at the election tribunal in Abuja. In return, the duo loves the ex-president and his wife in equal measure. They could follow Jonathan and his wife into battle blind-folded.  For Jonathan’s March 28 failed re-election bid, Fayose fought without grace. He was like the proverbial stubborn fly that follows the corpse to the grave. He was ready to sink with Jonathan. And for Wike, fighting Jonathan’s personal wars was a greater honour than serving the nation. As Minister of Education, while universities and polytechnics went on strike for close to a year, he was able to create time to be in Port Harcourt every weekend mobilizing thugs and ex-militants to, as he put it ‘ensure the president was not disgraced in South-south’. And he delivered on his promise.  Of the 1,584,768 total votes cast, Jonathan secured 1,487.075 to Buhari’s paltry 69,238 in Rivers.

    Both Fayemi and Amaechi set high standards in the delivery of the dividends of democracy.  And since Fayose and Wike who effortlessly secured landslide victories without agenda have very little to offer in terms of clear policy perspective, their common strategy was to start attacking the integrity of their predecessors in office right from the inauguration ground. Fayose first claimed the “N3.3bn new Government House is Fayemi’s show of wickedness to Ekiti people,” He further claimed the facilities in the lodge which he described as “out-of-this-world luxury” were provided for Fayemi, his wife and children. He also alleged “what was spent on their bedrooms, toilets and bathrooms will be in the region of N100m”.

    But in a live interview monitored in Ado-Ekiti the Thursday after his inauguration, Fayose invited all, the Islamic and Christian prophets in Ekiti, for the cleansing of the Government House. At another thanksgiving service held at the Ado Ekiti Central Mosque the following day, he informed the congregation “I am for the masses. I’m not in a hurry to go to the Government House. Those who want to go there can go there and enjoy themselves; how will governor put electricity in his house and the whole town is in darkness?” Fayose was not done. “Shouldn’t such funds expended on the hilltop edifice have been used to resuscitate the moribund textile factory in Ado-Ekiti that was turned to lock-up shops to provide employment for our teeming youths?” He had asked his audience.

     Like Fayose, like Wike. The only difference was while Fayose’s tantrums was about the alleged N3.4billion his predecessor spent in building a new governors lodge, Wike’s antics was about the vandalized Rivers State Governors Lodge. While addressing his congregation during a post inauguration thanksgiving service on Sunday, May 31, he said: “As I speak with you, everything has been vandalized. I will not enter the Government House in the next two or three months. There is no vehicle in Government House, not even one”. He continued “all the bullet-proof doors, furniture, crested carpets, curtains and windows had been stolen by the former administration”. The following day, Wike took some selected journalists and some PDP stalwarts including national chairman, Prince Uche Secondus; former deputy governor of the state, Engr. Tele Ikuru; former Minister of Sports, Dr. Tammy Danagogo the state chairman of PDP, Chief Felix Obuah, among others to the residential quarters, offices and the banquet hall where key furniture, television sets and electrical accessories had been vandalized.  Chief Felix Amaechi Obuah soon followed with a statement which “unequivocally condemns such childish and criminal action of former Governor, Amaechi”.  Then the Rivers State Police Command issued a statement claiming the recovery of three coaster buses, two 306 Peugeot, two hummer buses and one 306 Peugeot’ parked in a unauthorised yard’, which turned out to be mechanic garage.

    Reacting to Wike antics, Amaechi implored the Rivers people to ask Wike whether he was conversant with ‘what was in his former bedroom before now, to conclude that the bedroom was looted?’ or whether he spoke ‘with or review with the Permanent Secretary of Government House, who is the chief accounting officer’. And finally Amaechi wanted the Rivers people to know “that on Friday, May 29, Wike had barred some key officials of Government House, including civil servants from accessing the place. 48 hours later, he started shouting ‘vandalisation and looting’; I left the place intact. If there’s any vandalisation or looting in Government House after I left, Rivers people should ask Wike what happened.” It is Wike’s words against Amaechi’s. One thing that is not in doubt however is the fact that Rivers is home to many thugs and militants who often operate freely. And from the targets of various acts of violence before and during the election, it was clear Wike commands their loyalty.

    In the interim, Wike has secured N30 billion loan in 30 days. Asked to justify a policy of N1b a day by Wike’s administration, one of his top officials told Channel Television reporters something to the effect that, the governor should be praised for achieving so much within a month with the loan.… “This office when we moved in had nothing. Even the central carpet had been taken away…”

    I hope Fayose, who has been chasing Fayemi around the country for allegedly spending N3.4b to build a new government house knows he owes him an apology in the light of his ‘30 days governor N30b loan’ soul mate whose expressed reason for the huge loan is rehabilitation and furnishing vandalized government lodge. But Fayose has more to worry about. By October, he would have spent one year in office, enjoying the luxury including the N50m bed he had claimed Fayemi designed for the comfort of his family. ‘The moribund textile industries’ remain moribund. Ado Ekiti like other Ekiti towns remain in darkness while contrary to his undertaking, he has been sleeping in ‘governors house lit up with electricity.’

     To borrow Fayemi’s apt description of Fayose’s theatrics at the height of his persecution, the antics of Fayemi and Wike have been more of ‘comedy of errors and theatre of the absurd’.

  • Only the truth can liberate us

    Reacting to my pieces Ekweremadu’s opportunism and Atiku’s apostasy, and June 9: Fallout of clash of cultures, many readers accused me of being fixated with the Igbo and their leadership’ as if there were no leadership problems in Yoruba land. Others accused me of bigotry, xenophobia, dismissing both articles as ‘hate filled orchestrated campaign against a people’. The relief however was that it is not hard to imagine that such comments like –  ‘’You are a fool to say the Igbo thrive more in other peoples country; Have we taken over your fathers village or is Abuja a Yoruba country” could only have come from an uninformed mind.

    Alas, little did this critic know that the Igbo have indeed become a threat to women in my village who are in fact now gearing up to re-enact the first women protest in Nigeria when Calabar women embarked in popular uprising against the Igbo women who took over from the natives in the sales of bush meat in their remote villages. The difference is that while the Calabar women confronted Igbo women,  the targets of the planned women uprising from my village are  able bodied, heavily built and physically intimidating Igbo young men who have taken over the sales of yam , corn, okro, pepper – all hitherto exclusive preserve of our women and mothers. And if my insolent critic really wants to know: our mothers don’t care if Igbo take over Abuja. They care more about their villages. They are also worried about Igbo disrespect for our traditional rulers. The other day, they took up arms against our revered Oba of Lagos whose only fault was threatening those who would work against the interest of Lagos with ancestral curses. And but for his quick intervention,  they would have used Igbo block vote to snatch Lagos for PDP just as they did in Abuja recently when they used their block vote to deprive APC the clear majority given to them in the National Assembly by the electorate.

    That is not the only reason why we cannot but talk about the Igbo. They have claimed to be descendants of the Jews.  And like the Jews, they are not only very stubborn, they are very resilient. They don’t like enjoyment. They detest our ‘owanbe’ parties. They love ‘suffering and smiling’ (apology to Fela). Like the Jews, they control the commerce of wherever they settle. Even in bad behaviour, they excel. When they dabbled into ‘danfo’ driving in Lagos, they outwitted the traditional insolent ‘danfo’ drivers in bad behaviour. When they took over ‘okada’ business in Lagos, they became more aggressive, threatening motorists on the roads. They mobilized their members against the Lagos APC government who quickly relaxed some of its laws shortly before the election. In far away Ekiti, Governor Fayose is said to be in love with Igbo Okada riders. They came in very handy during his war against his state lawmakers. Igbo Okada riders along with the local thugs manned the borders to prevent the marooned lawmakers from sneaking to town to do their jobs.

    The fear of the self-professed Igbo descendants of Jews is the beginning of wisdom because when they sneeze, the nation catches cold. But as argued earlier, the fault is not in the Igbo man but in his culture. It was not an accident that Ekweremadu celebrates unscrupulousness as shrewdness and an amoral behaviour as politically right. He has even tried to draw a parallel between his opportunism and similar events in our past history such as the self-serving coalition between the NCNC and NPC in 1959, and NPP and NPN alliance in 1979 both of which collapsed over sharing of perks of office. I am sure, Ekweremadu, the usurper, would be delighted to know that Richard Sclar in his Nigeria Political Parties: Power in an Emergent African Nation and Trevor Clark’s autobiographical work – Sir Tafawa Balewa ,The Right Honourable Gentleman’ have helped him to document some other parallels.

    Zik, according to Sclar, was the only Igbo man during the inaugural meeting of NCNC shortly before it transformed into a political party in 1944 and assumed the leadership of NCNC following the death of Macaulay in 1947 without a whimper from the Yoruba majority. But Zik saw nothing wrong in ceding the NCNC presidency to Okpara when he vacated the position as against Fadahunsi, the candidate of TOS Benson and his Yoruba group. Similarly when Zik also vacated the Senate Presidency in 1960, he ceded the office not to any of the Yoruba NCNC stalwarts but to Dennis Osadebey. Trevor Clark also documented another parallel. Dr O Ikejiani had just lost his appointment with the University College Ibadan because his PhD turned out not to be in the requisite area of Microbiology he had claimed before his appointment. But Raymond Njoku immediately took a memorandum to the Council of Ministers suggesting Dr. Ikejiani as successor to Emerson, the outgoing chairman of the University Council. Upon becoming Governor General, ‘without receiving ministerial consent and against the advice of the collegiate council which voted 8-2 against Ikejiani’s choice, Zik unilaterally approved his appointment as chairman of University Council that had just dismissed him’!

    Trevor Clark also documented the power struggle for the succession to the British out-going head of the Nigerian military, Welby-Everard, who had recommended Brigadier Ogundipe as an officer who could hold the military together. His second choice was Brigadier Ademulegun. His only reservation about Ogundipe was on account of his politics. He had led the Tiv operation and was the Sardauna and the NPC candidate. By his assessment, ‘Aguiyi-Ironsi of a Sierra Leonean father and an Umuahia mother was the least equipped militarily with narrowest background’. But Ironsi was Zik’s candidate.  Zik along with Mbadiwe, Okotie-Eboh and Mathew Mbu and Pius Okigbo lobbied Ribadu on behalf of Ironsi. Finally, Maitama Sule was flown to Kaduna on the order of Balewa to go and persuade the Sardauna who accepted with a warning that ‘Nigeria will regret it’.  Ironsi’s promotion was announced in March 1965, the Sardauna was killed in the January 1966 coup under the leadership of Ironsi. But it must be noted that anthropologists however have warned that all these actions sometimes considered  reprehensible by some groups, do not make Igbo culture which has sustained peaceful coexistence in their communities for centuries, inferior to other cultures.

    It was perhaps for this reason that to the British – “It was clear that Nigeria if it was to be a nation, must be a federation with as few subjects reserved for the central government as would preserve national unity”. Thus following Oliver Lyttleton suggestion of May 20 1953, representatives of the three dominant Nigerian regions were invited to London to redraft the 1951 constitution in such a way as to provide for greater regional autonomy and the removal of the power of intervention of the centre in the matters which will be placed within regional competence between July and August 1953. This was the elixir for the monumental achievements of the federating units between 1953 and 1960, the golden era of our nation.

    For instance in 1960, 60%of our Gross National Product and 85% of our exports were agricultural. We were the world’s largest producer of groundnut and oil palm and seventh in cocoa. Each region managed its own affairs. In 1960-61 financial year, the West with a population of seven million generated 29 million pounds and decided to spend 16 million on capital expenditure and 17 million on recurrent while the East with a population of eight million  generated 16 million and opted to spend seven million on capital and 15 million on recurrent. The north with a population of 18 million spent 10 million of her earnings on capital and 18 million on recurrent.

    Truth is the only thing that can liberate us. Like the Indians, Russians, Canadians, and even Britain that gave us a template almost 60 years ago, we must come to terms with our own demons. Unfortunately those behind our travails these past 60 years have continued to label all those that call attention to our missed path to greatness including the late sage, Awo a ‘tribalist’. What they have been unable to do however is invalidate the British thesis, or suppress the self-evident consequences of ‘the path to Nigeria greatness’ not taken.

  • June 9: Fallout of clash of cultures

    Sometimes, even an adversity is not without an advantage. One painful lesson from June 9 National Assembly (NASS) disgrace and APC disaster is that we are once again reminded that we are a nation of many nationalities with different world views. What the Fulani see looking at June 9 from their own cultural prism is different from what the Igbo see. What the Yoruba see is different from both. Where the Fulani see pragmatic politics in action and the Igbo, business deals, what the Yoruba see is treachery and outright theft. The fault is not in their stars but in their cultures.

    Bukola Saraki’s father claimed he was a descendant of a powerful Fulani hegemonic ruling class that migrated from Mali some 150 years ago. And for the Fulani, struggle for power is an obsession. And for its pursuit, as in war, all is fair and foul. This perhaps explains why Saraki does not see trading off the victory of his party to satisfy his ambition as a national disgrace and personal tragedy for a politician with eyes on the future. He does not believe he owes the nation an apology, or his party an explanation. He has in fact moved on to consolidate his hold on power by ignoring the directives of his party on the composition of National Assembly (NASS) principal officers. In this regard, not even the fact that his father became senate leader in a house where his father’s NPN had only 35 of 95 senators in the Second Republic counted for much. Saraki shares a common bond with Abubakar Atiku, another Fulani whose pursuit of power makes him move with the winds behaving like a woman with five husbands with loyalty to none. As a pragmatic Fulani trader of power and influence, Atiku has already reminded his APC colleagues that politics, as war, may not always produce the expected result. Despite strident denials by his aides, his eyes are already set on 2019.

    For the Igbo for whom everything is business, June 9 fiasco is an opportunity to do business which allows for reaping from the sweat of others. Ekweremadu was in all his elements telling Nigerians how the deal to usurp what rightly belongs to others was negotiated in the dead of the night by well known PDP dealers and wheelers. For him and his Igbo nation, immorally snatching the deputy senate presidency was just another successful business deal which called for celebration. And indeed, drums were rolled out while Enugu was shut down to celebrate what they described as ‘snatching victory from the jaw of defeat’. Neither the Ohaneze nor any notable Igbo man has publicly condemned Ekwerenmadu’s opportunism. If anything, the rank and file of Igbo people who have nothing to show for Ekwerenmadu’s eight years as deputy senate president have declared anyone that asks him to drop what he has immorally taken, an enemy of the Igbo nation.

    For instance, the South-east caucus (55 federal lawmakers, including all the Senators and members of the House of Representatives,) after rising from ‘a crucial meeting ‘noted with a deep sense of concern the orchestrated attempts to malign and undermine the highly esteemed person and office of the Deputy President of the Senate, Ike Ekweremadu”. They accused his critics of pursuing ‘narrow political interests over and above the larger interest of peace and equity in the country’.

    The youths are not left out. From Umuahia, the national president of Ohanaeze Youth Council (OYC), the youth wing of the apex Igbo socio-cultural organisation, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Mazi Okechukwu Isiguzoro has issued a statement asking the All Progressives Congress National Leader, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, and other “anti- Igbo forces in APC” behind the plot to remove Ike Ekweremadu as the deputy senate president to retrace their steps or face the wrath of Igbo youths. Similarly Comrade Patrick Afuberah, Secretary General, Ndigbo Youths Organization (NYO), a pan-Igbo youth group has in a statement said “The calls from some APC Senators and leaders for the resignation of Ekweremadu as Deputy Senate President is unacceptable to us and in fact an insult to the Igbo race.”

    From far away Jos came a statement signed by Dr. Ugo Ihekuna and Chief Elvis Chukwu, President and, Secretary General of another Igbo socio-cultural organition – Izu-Umunna Cultural Association, and a think-thank of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, saying ‘it will hold President Mohammadu Buhari and the All Progressives Congress responsible should anything happen to the Deputy Senate President, Senator Ike Ekweremadu’.

    But as against what the Fulani north and the Igbo east saw, looking at June 9 from their own cultural prism, what the Yoruba west saw was markedly different. Where the Fulani saw real politics, the Yoruba saw treachery. Where the Igbo saw business deals, they saw outright theft. The wages for the former is banishment and the later contempt. Were Saraki to be Yoruba, he and his off springs face the prospects of sharing the fate of Afonja, who driven by his ambition sold out to Alimi who later  upstaged him  leading to the loss of Ilorin to the caliphate. But as indicated above, the fault is not in their stars but in their different cultures.

    WE are back to where we were 85 years ago when the white man first asked us to look at ourselves in the mirror. We claimed our cultural differences had been exaggerated by accident of colonial rule. We chose to live in denial. It was the white man who reminded us that ‘Just like the Scandinavian of the Baltic, the Slavs of Bulgaria are different from the Semitic people of Egypt and Morocco, the Hausa of Zaria are different from the Bantus people of the Benue Valley,’   the 200,000 Ogonis who escaped from the tyranny of South Africa Chaka the Zulu, the Effiks, Ibibios, the Igbos, and the Yorubas, all of who were at different levels of cultural developments. They spoke of ‘the cannibals of the mama hill, the unsocial Mumuyes of Muri Province and of naked warriors” of the inner eastern tropics.  They even at the period dismissed the idea of one Nigerian nation as dangerous.

    In an address to the Nigerian Council on December 29 1920, Hugh Clifford, the then Governor General of Nigeria asserted that the British policy was to support ‘the local tribal institutions and the indigenous forms of government based on the ‘social institutions which have been evolved for it by wisdom and by the accumulated experiences of generations of its forbearers’. As if Clifford saw our today in 1920, he added “if suddenly the impossible were feasible’, that those separated by difference of history, traditions, social, political and religious barriers were indeed capable of being welded into a single homogenous nation’, it would be a disservice to the concept of national government which secures to each separate people the right to maintain its identity, its individuality and its nationality Today, eighty five years after this warning, and forty three years after our selfish and greedy new inheritors of power derailed the workable federal arrangement  that held so much promise for our nation at independence, we are confronted by clash of cultures which Clifford predicted would become a threat to the concept of national government if not well managed.

    It is a shame that without the towering figure of the white man, we have been unable to manage our affairs since 1962. Our parasitic ruling class who shared among themselves and their family members the conglomerates set up by regional governments in the 50s and the federal governments since independence have continued to promote the current unworkable system that produced a Bukola Saraki as Senate President. With the experiences of Canada, India and even Europe to copy from, it is time we face our own demon.

  • Nigeria crisis of leadership

    Pastor Sam Adeyemi, a leadership consultant reminded our political leaders without character and their warring colleagues during a Channels Television programme last week that leadership ‘is service, sacrifice and compassion for the people’. Some five decades earlier, Obafemi Awolowo posited that ‘the aim of a leader should be the welfare i.e. the physical, mental and spiritual well-being of the people whom he leads.’  But Awo, known for calling the spade by its proper name, also told his desperate colleagues then jostling for power some home truth. ‘Given a choice between the white man, the traditional rulers and the educated elite’, he said, ‘the average Nigerian would choose the white man first because with him he was sure of fairness and justice’. The people’s angst against the traditional rulers, he continued, followed their acquisition of new powers without the attendant checks and balances that existed in the pre-colonial era. As for the new educated elite, the people found it difficult to trust them because of their greed and dishonesty. Incidentally, not even the departing British had faith in the ability our political elite to hold the nation together. Speaking before foreign policy association in New York City on January 19, 1945, Oliver Stanley reminded them that “it is the British presence alone which prevents a disastrous disintegration and British withdrawal today would mean for millions a descent from nascent nationhood into the turmoil of warring sects”.

    That turned out to be a self-fulfilling prophesy. In 1962, less than two years after their departure, the northern and eastern political class decided to impose a leader on the West. They threw the West into a political turmoil with its attendant violence, deaths and loss of properties. According to Trevor Richard, ‘to cut Awo to size’, they created Mid-west out of West while suppressing the self-actualization quest of 11 national groups made up of 3.2 million Efik/Ibibio/Annang, 700,000 strong Ijaws, 220,000 Ogonis and 8.000 Ngenis and others totaling 5.3 millions(1963 census) in the COR areas of the Eastern Region. The new inheritors of power pushed the nation into war over sharing of offices. They annulled the most credible election in our nation’s history. The brought a decline in the quality of leadership manifested in 16 years of PDP reign of impunity and bare-faced stealing. The masses majority of whom live below $2 dollars a day watched in disbelief as the political elite in the name of privatization and monetization shamelessly shared our national patrimony among their members. They stole N1.7 trillion in the name of fuel subsidy. They shared billions earmarked for rural electrification project. They cornered a disproportionate share of the annual budget making themselves the highest paid lawmakers in the world.

    Two weeks ago, without caring about the example they were setting for our children, Bukola Saraki admitted to reporters that while 51 of his elected APC colleagues were waiting at another venue to honour an invitation from President Buhari, he ‘sat inside a small car parked in front of the assembly from 6am until 10am’ from where he walked into the assembly hall where he was adopted senate president by 49 opposition and eight APC senators. Ekweremadu had no qualms narrating how he was helped by PDP stalwarts to hijack the senate vice presidency that by convention belong to the ruling party.

    As if the acts of indecency and lack of character evident in the narrations by our new leaders was not enough assault on our sensibilities, reactions by some of our respected public opinion moulders were no less tragic. What do we make of Olisa Agbakoba’s ‘‘you cannot blame Saraki because he simply capitalised on the situation as an astute politician’; Chekwas Okorie of UPP’s ‘sanctioning Saraki and Dogara will hurt the party more than it would hurt the people involved’ because APC NEC has more northerners” and Abubakar Tsav’s description of protesting outwitted 51 senators as those who ‘are interested only in monetary aspect of position’. Others have even reduced Chief Adebisi Akande’s “Most northern elite, the Nigerian oil and other business cartels, who never like President Muhammadu Buhari’s anti-corruption stance, are quickly backing up the rebellion against APC with strong support by fuel subsidy barons”, to fighting for Yoruba interest.

    Undoubtedly, the latest betrayal by our political elite was only symptomatic of the crisis of leadership that has bedeviled the nation since the destruction of regional political parties that served as recruitment and training ground for national leaders in 1966. And I think it affords us another opportunity to look back and see where the rain started beating us. Why was the Sardauna who never had an opportunity of university education faithfully and selflessly served the people of the north, sending northern youths without discrimination to the best universities around the world and others to military institutions? Why was Awo who sold water, fire wood, worked as house boy, road mender and plank seller to train himself at home and supported by his wife to finish up law degree in London at almost 40 years of age able to mobilize Yoruba young elite born with silver spoon such as Bode Thomas, Rotimi Williams and Fani Kayode to reposition the Yoruba race within a decade? Why was Zik able to facilitate the admission of eight Ibos, three Ibibio’s (sponsored by their people) and one Yoruba who worked for his press to his Alma Mata, Lincoln University in 1938? The simple answer is that they all like the Jews took pride in serving their own people.

    Our founding fathers accepted the challenge that we are a nation of many cultures and different world views. Nigeria today is not markedly different from what it was about 70 years ago precisely in 1947 when Awo described her as ‘a geographical expression’ or when in 1948 Balewa described it as ‘a British intention’. The desire of all Nigerian nationalities making up the federation at independence was to have a nation of their own within the greater Nigeria nation. Thus when Action Group was formed in Owo April 25, 1951, the party’s motto was “United through federation, freedom for all, and life more abundant”. And when NPC was inaugurated in Kaduna By Balewa, Ahmadu Bello, Dr. Dikko, Makama Bida, Abubakar Iman and Yahaya Gusau in September 1951, its manifesto focused on  “regional autonomy within a united Nigeria’ and its slogan was ‘one north, one people, irrespective of region ethnic and religion”. Each group managed its own affairs and sent to the centre those that best represented their world view. The Yoruba sent Bode Thomas, Arthur Prest and S.L Akintola, a rabid Yoruba irredentist who became a thorn on the flesh of the colonial masters and other ethnic groups who called for his substitution by someone with a broader national outlook, a request Awo turned down. The East reached out for their best- Alfred Nwapa, Eni Njoku, and Okoi Arikpo and the north, Balewa Kashim and Muhamadu Ribadu. They all turned out as good representatives of their people and equally as great Nigerians.

    Leadership itself is a function of a people’s culture. Thus to the Yoruba, Awo is a hero, for the same reasons he was to the Igbo a villain.  To the Yoruba where the culture dictates that a defeated General commits suicide, Ojukwu who escaped to Ivory Coast shortly before the end of the war and returned to join NPN and the forces he once fought against was a failed leader. But it was for those same reasons he was canonized a saint by his people. To the Lagos noise makers, Ahmadu Bellow was a feudal lord, a British stooge for asking for the delay of independence, but to the thousands of his uneducated subjects he saved from second colonization by southerners, especially the Igbo that dominated all major institutions before independence on account of western education, he was a saint.

    We have lived in denial for about 50 years. It is time to face our demon. The answer to crises of leadership, like crisis of identity, underdevelopment and others that have bedeviled our federation since 1966 is restructuring. Those who argue otherwise are probably those benefiting from current anarchy. And for those who still underestimate the value of culture, they should take a closer look to find out the magic behind the roaring success of ‘African magic’ from DSTV marketing directors.

  • Why APC must wield the big stick

    What Buhari, Tinubu and their colleagues are being called upon to do is not just an inauguration of a party to win an election. What these times call for 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 the Britain 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”.

    The above was an unsolicited advice to APC, in a piece titled ‘What Nigerians expect of Buhari and Tinubu’ dated January 31, 2013 following its registration. It stemmed from a critical analysis of our 50 years in the wilderness starting with the destruction of the budding modernizing political parties that heralded in our independence in 1960 by the  ill-informed military, the13 years experiment under Babangida and Abacha’s ‘army of anything is possible’ that arrogantly and fraudulently claimed it could decree political parties, and 16 years of PDP, described by John Campbell as ‘an elite cartel with no ideological or programmatic basis, but simply as essentially a club of elites for sharing of oil rents and political spoils’ .

    Besides state formation which gave the western world almost 400 year’s head start, modernizing political parties served as major instruments for their socio economic development and industrial revolution. We were also on course in the pre- and post independence years when with the instrumentality of NPC, as modernization agents,  Ahmadu Bello  ‘with an annual budget of N44m which is less than what a local government collects today, maintained law and order, built Ahmadu Bello University, Ahmadu Bello Stadium and the NNDC conglomerate in addition to well paved roads’. This contrasts with today’s North where according Nuhu Ribadu, the erstwhile anti-corruption Czar, ‘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’. And similarly, Awo through the instrumentality of AG as a modernizing agent was able to revolutionalise agriculture through farm settlement scheme, prosecuted free education, free health for children and built industrial estates and the first television in Africa.

    If APC is to fulfil its historic role of turning what it has painstakingly put together after personal sacrifices into a modernizing agent despite the June 9 Saraki coup described by professors  Itse Sagay, the nation’s conscience as ‘a victory for impunity, a victory for fraud and a victory for political desperation and indiscipline’ and Anwalu Yadudu, former Dean of a Faculty of Law, BUK,  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’,  it must today wield the big stick.

    Buhari and APC must be ready to work with those senators who are ready to be part of history. There have been too many marriages of convenience and betrayals .The First Republic was wrecked by haggling sharing of positions by NPC and NCNC coalition partners. NPN and NPP suffered the same fate. June 12 was traded off by self-serving political leaders. New PDP pulled down PDP over sharing of confiscated national patrimony. Now even before a template for change is set, Saraki who capitalized on the absence of 51 of his elected APC colleagues, traded off the deputy senate seat which by convention belongs to the majority party and got adopted as Senate President by 49 PDP and eight APC ‘like minds senators’. He has gone ahead to consolidate his hold on power by relying on the opposition to deny his party the right to choose its majority leader in a house controlled by his party by 60 to 49. Saraki’s arrogance and disdain for APC leaders portend danger to the health of APC. It will amount to a betrayal of millions of Nigerians for whom ‘hope rises eternal’ if APC oligarchy fails to wield the big stick and allows history to repeat itself.

    Nigerians find Saraki’s action repulsive. But even more hideous was Ekweremadu’s sordid revelation about those behind the surreptitious PDP takeover of the two houses during his celebration of his pyrrhic victory two weeks back. Without restraint, he had disclosed to his enthusiastic supporters in the East how ex-President Jonathan was briefed about the immoral act and how his blessing was secured from far away New York. He told us Tony Anenih was the consultant and adviser to his group. The ‘wheeling and dealing’, he revealed took place inside David Mark’s sitting room (he probably meant his luxury hotel suite paid for by the taxpayers  since Mark had no official house having earlier allegedly bought off the senate presidential mansion through PDP monetization policy.) Ekweremadu also spoke of contributions of other PDP leading light like Uche Secondus, the PDP acting National Chairman, who vigorously campaigned against the use of ‘card readers’ during the last election. Others whose name he did not mention like Governor Olusegun Mimiko of Ondo, Ayo Fayose of Ekiti and Atiku Abubakar, we all saw on national television  as they moved around mobilizing nPDP or read their congratulatory messages to Saraki even after the party leadership had declared his action treacherous.

    By contrast, Nigerians who massively voted for Buhari and APC can make a clear distinction between APC leaders, Ekweremadu’s PDP sponsors who also doubled as Saraki’s trading partners. In spite of our celebrated collective amnesia, frustrated Nigerians could not have forgotten so soon that they only recently voted out Jonathan  for presiding over monumental corruption, and five years of reign of impunity; that David Mark along with Ekweremadu for eight years jointly presided over the most expensive legislature in the world where half a million naira was cornered by each senator  as dressing allowance in a nation where the minimum wage of N18,000, has been in arrears in payment for about eight months in at least 20 of the 36 states; what of the role of Anenih ‘the fixer’, in the suppressed ‘Heineken Lokpobiri Senate transport probe report which alleged that from 1999 to 2009, some N645 billion was spent on 4,752 kilometres of road; short-changing the government to the tune of N49 million on each kilometre of road purportedly constructed.

    It must still be fresh in their memories that Saraki himself was chased out of PDP that accused him of contributing to the collapse of the banking sector through alleged mishandling of depositors monies in his father’s defunct ‘Societe Generale’ and the defunct Intercontinental Bank where multi-billion naira loan was allegedly mysteriously written off; that Atiku Abubakar has never been loyal to anyone including ex-President  Obasanjo who was alleged to have prostrated  to stop him from derailing his second term; that Mimiko who joined PDP ‘governors without character’ who proclaimed 16 greater than 19, like Atiku cannot be loyal to anyone but himself and of course Nigerians know Fayose is the sole administrator of Ekiti who stood by while his thugs beat up a judge presiding over his case, deployed the services of the same thugs to chase out 19 of the state legislators  out of town while he ran the state as sole administrator.

    And if only for the above baleful legacies of PDP leaders, APC oligarchy should entertain no fear of backlash from Nigerians if it wields the big stick. It will only hasten Saraki’s exit who will be compelled to rejoin the ‘like minds senators’ while APC is allowed to fulfil its historic role. For embattled APC oligarchy and irrepressible Saraki, it will be a win-win situation.

  • Ekweremadu’s opportunism…

    Our nation is at the mercy of foxy politicians and their godfathers who daily assault our sensibilities because we are bereft of elder-statesmen who have the moral voice to call a spade by its proper name.  Yakubu Gowon who could  have spoken forcefully against what is going on in our society, if only for the sake of our children, is engrossed in endless prayers while those reap where they did not sow contrary to  God’s  injunction,  celebrate fraud as accomplishment.

    Bukola Saraki has been going around visiting leaders to justify what his party has appropriately described as a treacherous act. Ekweremadu has retired to the East to celebrate what was described as ‘snatching victory from the jaw of defeat’ after fraudulently accepting an inducement from a Saraki who was willing to sell the victory of his party. David Mark and Atiku Abubakar have been wildly celebrated by their supporters and the media as astute politicians. And for PDP and its freeloaders that did not see stealing government monies as corruption, stealing 60-49 Upper House victory Nigerians freely gave APC is a ‘victory for the independence of the legislature…’

    Ike Ekweremadu belongs to a segment of Igbo elite with a history of betrayal of uninformed members of their Igbo nation who look up to them for direction. His group including Ohaneze mobilized their people to vote against Buhari and against change. He admitted that much while celebrating his pyrrhic victory in Enugu last week. “Igbo have no regret for the way they voted; if they have the opportunity tomorrow, they will do it again”, he boasted. Then turning to APC whose stolen mandate he was celebrating, he said “We are prepared to work with APC and President Buhari; we will help them to ensure that corruption is reduced to the barest minimum and that the security issue is addressed. We will help them to ensure that our economy will rebound; we will also help them to ensure that there is employment for everybody. But so long as they deviate from this noble principles, and decide to chase shadows, I can assure them, they will get what they are looking for”.

    For Senator Obinna Ogba, the re-election of Ekweremadu is “a major victory for the South-east because   ‘there is no way you can share all these positions without taking the Igbo into consideration”. At the end, it is all about sharing. It has nothing to do with Nigerians who have been short-changed after voting for ‘change’ or the Igbo whose name is being used in vain to immorally acquire power.

    To further justify his immoral act, Ekweremadu assaulted the memory of Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe, a foremost Nigerian nationalist and one of the founding fathers of our nation, by asserting that “in the 1960s when NCNC went to election and lost to NPC, Zik had to negotiate himself back to power and became the President of Nigeria”; and that “In 1979, NPP (Nigeria Peoples Party) that was so dominant in the East lost in the presidential election; Zik and his colleagues also negotiated himself back to power and Edwin Ume-Ezeoke became the Speaker of the House of Representatives”. This is nothing but revisionism and a great disservice to the memory of Zik. From the available literature, we have no evidence that Zik’s NCNC went into alliance with NPC because of what Zik stood to gain personally. If he was driven by personal ambition, a more rational choice of alliance would have been with AG whose leader, Awo had already conceded the office of Prime Minister to Zik. I think history will judge Zik more as a man who sacrificed personal ambition to preserve the unity of Nigeria as well as protect the interest of his Igbo people who like the Jews thrive more in other peoples’ countries.

    Similarly it was apparent Zik was dragged out of retirement in 1979 by a group of self-serving Igbo elite who wanted to ride on his back to achieve their political ambition. There was no evidence he personally benefited from the NPP and NPN 1979 coalition. Zik is also on record as calling on Igbo ministers serving in Balewa’s government to resign following the collapse of the NCNC and NPC coalition in the first republic. He did the same following the collapse of NPP and NPN in the second republic. Zik, like most of his contemporaries might have tried to protect the interest of Igbo nation within the greater Nigeria nation, there was no evidence he tried to exploit the Igbo nation for personal political gain.

    …and Atiku’s Apostasy

    Atiku Abubakar is a unique  Nigerian  who took a shot at the Presidency only three years after retiring from the customs ‘placing third after MKO Abiola and Babagana Kingibe in the Social Democratic Party (SDP) primaries’. In 1999, Obasanjo found him irresistible and made him his running mate.  His ambition to upstage and prevent Obasanjo from his second term forced President Obasanjo who felt betrayed by a trusted ally to swear Atiku would not succeed him. An unforgiving Obasanjo literarily chased him out of PDP.

    He took refuge in Tinubu’s AC where he secured a platform to pursue his ambition after the Supreme Court had overruled his disqualification by INEC on the ground that he ‘had been indicted for financial misconduct by an investigating panel set up at Obasanjo’s behest’. He crawled back to PDP, abandoning Tinubu and his ACN after losing the election. APC provided for him a refuge when he once again fled PDP that had shut him out of the 2015 presidential race. There were rumours he was on his way back to PDP after losing the APC primary to Buhari . On March 17, Special Adviser to President Goodluck Jonathan on Political Affairs, Rufai Ahmed Alkali. while receiving members of 120 support groups loyal to Atiku who were defecting to the PDP, said “Atiku is a PDP man to the core but he has gone on vacation and I believe one day he too will come back to the part.”  Atiku later gave details of the President’s Jonathan surprise visit to his house at midnight on Friday, March 13. According to him, President Jonathan who had pleaded with him on three separate occasions to leave the All Progressives Congress (APC) said “I need to go back to PDP because we built the party together and we are its founding fathers and that we needed to go back and rebuild it.”

    Then Atiku refused to attend Buhari’s campaigns claiming he had ‘told General Buhari’s campaign organizers that if they do not invite him to the rallies, he would not attend’. Speaking in an interview with BBC Hausa on Friday, March 20,  he claimed there  are minor irregularities in connection with the system being followed by the campaign team of General Buhari ‘.

    Now after giving open support to Saraki accused of disrespect for President Buhari and of trading off his party’s victory, Atiku issued a statement expressing  his “unalloyed commitment to the Buhari administration’’. According to him, “the recent outcomes of the National Assembly elections, contrary to insinuations are products of interplay of politics, (since) “in politics, it is a mistake to expect fixed outcomes”.

    What is not in doubt in all this is the fact that Atiku loves neither Tinubu nor Buhari or cares a hoot about APC which he is ready to dump if PDP offers him a platform for 2019. Atiku’s only obsession is to become the President of Nigeria. He will betray anyone that stands in between him and his dream.

  • Custodians of ‘Change’

    Last week, June 9 like June 12, 1993 and May 29, 1999, was another date Nigerians who fought for change were shortchanged in Abuja by those who see everything including fuel subsidy scam, abuse of import waivers, importation of fake drugs and substandard goods that kill our people and our industries, sharing of our common patrimony among privileged groups and outright stealing of government funds which by their definition is not corruption, just as business.

    It was a day morality took flight at the sight of political expediency. Driven by his ambition and sense of self-worth within APC, Bukola Saraki developed an indispensability complex. He was contemptuous of his party chairman, vice president and president. While 51 of his colleagues were  honouring the President’s invitation, Saraki who had  already struck a deal with the opposition was adopted Senate President by eight APC and 49 PDP senators who for their pains, got the senate deputy president position which by convention is an exclusive preserve of the ruling party. Elated, PDP has since described grabbing power immorally as ‘victory for democracy’.  For Senator Ita Giwa, the sordid act of electing Ike Ekweremadu by their block vote of 32 (total votes was 54), the South-south and South-east that never voted for “change’ will ensure Buhari runs ‘an inclusive government’. Well, reaping where you did not sow is not uncommon among Nigeria’s fraudsters and miracle seekers. But Itse Sagay, a refined legal mind and a respected intellectual did not see such bizarre act by shameless politicians as a ‘victory for democracy but as a victory for impunity, a victory for fraud and a victory for political desperation and indiscipline’.

    But first who is Bukola Saraki.  He is a scion of the illustrious Oloye Olusola Saraki. Alhaji AbdulGaniyu Folorunsho Abdulrazak, a former Nigerian Ambassador to Cote d’Ivoire, who claims to know his antecedents, insists he was sired by Alhaji Muttahiru Saraki an Egba man from Abeokuta. What is not in dispute however is that the elder  Saraki was a very resourceful trader who rode on the back of the Fulani and the Yoruba  to build his political and financial empire starting with securing the juicy retainership of Nigerian Ports Authority and the military establishment under the then Ministry of Defence, barely after qualifying as a medical doctor, as a defeated candidate for House of Representatives in 1964; a senator and senate leader 1984, the owner of defunct Societe General Bank and other businesses which thrived in Lagos.

    Bukola, merely continued what his father did in Kwara for half a century. He effortlessly imposed his own candidate as governor of Kwara. Like his father, his strength is in cutting deals by playing the Fulani, Yoruba ethnic and religious cards. For him, all is fair in business, politics as in war. And that was exactly what played out in Abuja last week which threw APC and Nigerians that had laboured tireless for change into a national mourning.

    But to be fair to Bukola, he has never pretended to be a democrat or a progressive. It was the PDP politics of ‘dog eat dog’ which is often over sharing of the stolen resources that drove him to the embrace of APC. Acting as the whistle-blower for what finally became the fuel subsidy scandal, he had during his motion of September 13, 2011, said ‘This chamber owes it to Nigerians to unravel and explain how in one accounting year, we are expending N1.2 trillion on petroleum subsidy, which is 14 times the value of capital budget for the power sector in 2011’. He told his colleagues: ‘The motion is not targeted at an individual but about the level of wastage, corruption, and lack of transparency’. Infuriated PDP stalwarts and their siblings later implicated in the theft of about N1.7 trillion by the fuel subsidy probe, immediately resolved to prove Bukola is not holier than other PDP members. They first accused him of running down his father’s bank through mismanagement of depositor’s funds even when Bukola’s father had not solicited for their help. They then linked him with unserviceable N21b bank loan from the defunct Intercontinental Bank. Then on April 26, 2012, the then Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Abubakar approached a Federal High Court in Abuja to press charges against him for conspiracy, forgery and stealing following a petition by Joy Petroleum, over the use of fronts to withdraw N6b in the company account domiciled then in Intercontinental Bank. Saraki later got some relief when the then Attorney General advised against taking any action against Saraki and his aides over the bank issue, since from the records available to his office, Bukola Saraki had not committed any offence to warrant such trial.

    As an astute politician and trader like his father, Bukola  had a formidable team of PDP dealers and wheelers representing the Nigeria ethnic and religious  spectrum for his last week epic battle. There were Fulani, Igbo, Yoruba, Tiv, Edo and Ijaw at his service. There were Muslims and Christians. Leading the pack was the former Governor of Zamfara state, Senator Ahmed Rufai Sani Yarima, of ‘political sharia’. He nominated him. There was also the former governor of Akwa Ibom State, now a senator. He will be remembered as the leader of the 16 ‘PDP governors without character’ that claimed 16 were greater than 19 in order to steal the victory of Amaechi after a Governors’ Forum election. There was also ‘water has no enemy’ Segun Mimiko of Ondo State who was also ex-President Jonathan’s point man for stomach infrastructure in the South-west. Also, there to be counted was an embarrassment called Ayo Fayose of Ekiti. The duo were in Abuja to cut their nose in order to spite their face by playing ‘Afonja’ through  anti-Tinubu sentiments to prevent the emergence of those regarded as Tinubu and by extension Yoruba candidates as National Assembly officers. It was also said that these two characters also warned their former PDP members now in APC that voting for Tinubu candidates would pose a threat to the president. Tony Anenih aka Mr. ‘Fixer’ was also on hand to advice on the straw voting is taken by PDP senators on the eve of the inauguration to ensure cohesion of the party. Of course the plan to continue business as usual in spite of verdict of Nigerians on March 28 was planned, supervised and executed right inside David Mark’s house, the man who presided over the most expensive National Assembly in the world for eight years during which virtually everything including our values collapsed under the weight of massive corruption and impunity.

    Buhari is owned by APC party oligarchy, Nigerian voters who have faith in him and of course a segment of the media often maliciously described as those on “Tinubu’s pay roll’ or ‘sell out to Fulani oligarchy’. By interpreting government actions to the voters, they de-legitimised Jonathan and PDP dealers and wheelers to whom President Buhari has now out of indiscretion of “I can work with any leader chosen by the National Assembly’ rendered ineffective the clear majority given to his party.

    Thirty-one years ago, Buhari rejected the IMF loan. We produced our own grains.  We refined our own fuel; he was at the verge of stabilizing our economy. Then out of indiscretion, he thought he could manage society by just being righteous without playing politics. That led to the institutionalization of corruption during Babangida and Abacha 13 years of rule by their ‘army of anything is possible’ and 16 years of PDP nightmare.  Buhari cannot rely on those who have no faith in him.

     

  • Buhari and corruption in the LGAs

    President Buhari at his inauguration two weeks ago identified some of the enormous challenges facing the nation as ‘insecurity, pervasive corruption, the hitherto unending and seemingly impossible fuel and power shortages’. Others include Boko Haram, the Niger Delta situation, and unemployment especially among young people’.  While admonishing us not to ‘succumb to hopelessness and defeatism’ and insisting ‘We can fix our problems’, he also assured us he was going ‘to tackle them head on’. For Nigerians, who struggled against all impediments erected by PDP to secure their permanent voters card, and waited long hours to ensure their vote counted, ‘hope rises eternal in the human breast’. Their faith in Buhari to make a difference in their lives after 16 years of locust by PDP remains unshakable.

    But the president who vowed the ‘Federal Government under him would not fold its arms and close its eyes to what is going on in the states and local governments, not least the operations of the Local Government Joint Account’ even after admitting the constitutional limits to powers of each of the three tiers of government must realize winning the election is just the beginning of the task ahead. He must be neck deep in politics because democracy is a game of bargaining. To maintain an air of aloofness while PDP surreptitiously took over the leadership of the house is not reassuring.

    Undoubtedly, corruption in the LGAs is just a symptom. The fundamental problem that supports and sustains corruption at all tiers of government is the unwieldy and unviable 36 states and 774 LGAs structure.  The president can do very little except the structure is changed. For this to happen, the president has to be a politician because those who are expected to change it are the same set of people benefiting from what Charles Soludo, the former CBN governor recently described as ‘a dysfunctional unitary system’ often  erroneously referred to as a federal system. Tinkering with the structure as the National Assembly has tried to do in recent times is not the solution. And for President Buhari to assume 36 states and 774 LGAs can be monitored is to assume the president is still being haunted by his military antecedents.

    Monitoring 36 states that survives on handouts from Abuja is an impossible task. Even if the president opts for that unviable option, he will still have to first sponsor a bill to the National Assembly to redefine the relations between the federal government and the states assemblies empowered by the constitution to create LGA and ‘to hold officials of local government accountable for management of financial resources’. The state assemblies unfortunately have often in the name of promoting financial accountability in the LGAs only ensured appropriations are appropriately and legally made from Abuja without institutional arrangement to guarantee judicious disbursement of such resources.

    The federal government on its part has its own demons to face. Holding to 51% of the budget allows the federal government to deploy huge resources in form of patronage to some departments that are better handled by the states. How, for instance, does the president intend to stop leakages in UBE across the country? The government appropriates billions to the Federal Ministry of Agriculture annually even when it does not control land. Instead of first asking the northern states for their preferences, an irresponsible federal government in control of huge resources embarked on building new universities for the northern states even when 50% space in the existing ones are taken up by southerners and students of Middle Belt states. Precisely because the federal government that controls over 51% of our resources and is not accountable to anyone, it is spending over N9.2b to import cooking stoves for rural women ostensibly to fight desert encroachment in a situation where urban dwellers have no access to kerosene. Roads infrastructure, the health sector, agriculture and education etc, that can be better handled by the states are held onto by the federal government because they are veritable source of patronage and corruption.

    Fighting pervasive corruption at LGAs , the states or even at the federal level is an impossible task under the present structure, a product of military adventurers determined to control society using the only method they know – hierarchical control from the top to he bottom. They created states and LGAs without any known objective criteria. The military baked ‘new breed’ politicians that inherited power either as highest paid lawmakers in the world, state governors that never  bothered about how to generate revenues but preside over billions including security vote  they don’t have to account for, and dropouts who earn more than university professors as councilors are determined to sustain the structure. Charles Soludo, a former CBN governor also recently threw a challenge. He wants anyone to give him ‘examples of federal systems in the world where the local governments directly receive statutory allocations from the federal government and with statutory powers to spend as they wish without performance-based criteria attached to such receipts.

    We can also add there is nowhere in the world where the centre creates LGAs for states or regions. It is like climbing the palm tree from the top which is only possible in Nigeria. How can the president fight corruption at LGAs when their creation is in itself fraudulent? Or how does one explain Kano with lower population than Lagos having twice the number of federally funded LGAs than Lagos?

    Local government itself as a ‘veritable agent of local service delivery, mobiliser of community-based human and material resources, organiser of local initiatives in response to wide range of local needs and aspirations, and provider of basic structures and conditions for grassroot participation in the democratic process’ must reflect the local idiosyncrasies of the local communities.

    Until now when in the name of democracy and even- development contingent on sharing of  oil rent, local developmental activities are handed over to social misfits or known rascals, community affairs among many groups in the country were handled mostly by respected members of the community usually on voluntary basis. This was the philosophical basis for the consensus among our founding fathers and the colonial masters that indigenous form of government was to become the basis of self government in order to ensure ‘each group develops at its own pace without interference from others’.

    Buhari as a former military man understands the philosophical base of the current structure which stemmed from military idea of total control and sharing of resources of conquered territories. He has an historic opportunity of not only fulfilling the expectation of those who expect reparations from those who looted our resources and shared among themselves our common patrimony but also of putting an end to our nightmare by working towards removing a structure designed to sustain corruption which was arrogantly imposed on the people by a self-serving ‘army of anything is possible’.