I don’t remember how the year 2022 began but I remember whatever the excitement attended it did not last long before Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia invaded Ukraine, a sovereign but weaker country on the spurious pretext that the country wanted to compromise Russia’s security by moving towards the European Union and NATO.

Later on, he added that he does not only want to protect and defend the interests of Russians at home but also the interest of ethnic Russians abroad. This means, if necessary, invading neighbouring countries such as Moldova, Georgia and threatening the Baltic states of Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia. This had disastrous consequences on the whole world.

The disruption in global trade caused inflation all over the world and food inflation particularly in the third world because of increase in the prices of grains, vegetable oils, hydrocarbons as well as cost of shipping and insurance. The upshot of all this is the added threat of global insecurity and the constant nuclear rabble rousing by President Putin and his aides. The war is still going on and no one can say yet how it will end. The world lived under the trepidation of a possible nuclear Armageddon till the end of December.

December has come and gone but the month witnessed a harvest of deaths. On a personal level, I lost my brother-in-law, Tunde Adekoya who died in his flat in London. Tunde and I were friends before I ever met her sister, Biodun, who later became my wife. She passed on almost 20 years ago leaving an unbridgeable void in my life. Tunde’s death brought to me pains of the past. He was a great guy handsome like “abiku” as the Yoruba would say and he unfortunately put a lot of importance on his good looks. Beauty is ephemeral and no matter one’s beauty, age has a way of weathering it!

I pray Tunde’s restless spirit will find eternal rest in the bosom of father Abraham.

It was about the same time that Tunde died that I received the news of the death of Professor George Obiozor, a very dear friend. Obiozor and I have come a long way. We shared the same views about the need for our country to go back to true and fiscal federalism by a total restructuring of this benign country if it wants to survive. Gorge up till his last breath dismissed the thought that Nigerian unity was “non-negotiable “. I agreed with him and would go further that there is nothing sacrosanct about any human institution that cannot be tinkered with.  Neither the Nigerian constitution nor the Nigerian state itself is a papal bull endowed with any notion of infallibility. So we have to renegotiate this constitutional order or grundnorm  under which we live because we are all free and we would not allow any human contrivance to hold us in slavery.

George Obiozor got his PhD in 1974 in the Ivy League University of Columbia in Political Science in New York. George was a student of power in the Nigerian sense. This was why right from Shehu Shagari’s regime through Babangida, Abacha, Jonathan and Obasanjo, he remained relevant crowning his political promenade with his election as president of Ohanaeze Ndigbo. Unfortunately he had not yet made his mark there before he was snatched by the cold hands of death. He served as Director General, Nigerian Institute of International Affairs. He at a time served with me as adviser to the Minister of Foreign Affairs. He was also briefly adviser to military president, Ibrahim Babangida on international affairs. Under President Obasanjo he was ambassador to Israel and later to Washington, United States.

George was gregarious man who was never shy to say anything as he saw it. He was also a demonstrable man who would even hug a military president in the public without a second thought about its appropriateness. George, to put it mildly, lacked the suavity of a typical diplomat and was not moved by any linguistic put on or affectation in his use of the English language which he wrote very beautifully. His political hero was Ozumba Mbadiwe, cabinet minister “extraordinary and plenipotentiary” under Shehu Shagari with whom George shared the bombast of English expressions.

Most of us his friends will miss his candour and straight forwardness which is missing in political discourse in Nigeria. With George you at least know where he stands. He once told me that when political appointments are made in Nigeria, the first instinct he had was to find out whether there were Ibo names and how many and in what ministry or agency of government. If we are honest, don’t we all feel the same in these days of ethnic and religious chauvinism and irredentism?

The last time I saw this remarkable man was at a lecture he invited me to give on “Nigerian nationalism “under the auspices of the Ohanaeze Ndigbo at the NIIA on November 21, 2022. I did not know that was going to be last of him I would see while alive. Rest in perfect peace, George and those of us sill on this side of the divide will never forget you in our struggle to build a just and equitable country.

Some prominent global figures from the world of religion, journalism and sports passed on towards the end of the year. No one who had ever lived in the United States in the last 40 or so years would not remember the domineering figure of Barbara Walters, whose interviews on television lifted up or pushed down politicians in America. She blazed the trail for female journalists in the United States. Because of her gender, top politicians had to be polite to her and so she got away with asking difficult questions without batting an eyelid. She was courted as royalty by public figures who were afraid of being put on the spot by her penetrating questions to which most aspiring politicians were subjected to.  Barbara Walters, the inimitable and unforgettable Iron Lady of television journalism died at the ripe age of 93. Apart from Walter Cronkite, I do not know of any other television personality that can be compared with her; certainly not the uppity English man David Frost.

Pope Benedict the XVI, the Pope Emeritus, the very first pope to retire and to live in a monastery in the Vatican died at the ripe age of 95. Pope Benedict was a conservative theologian who believed in the sacrosanct traditions of Roman Catholicism and tended to look at any deviation from it as heresy. The point of questioning the practice of celibacy was a no go area. He was not particularly excited about the unity of Christianity and he believed the doors of the one holy apostolic and Catholic Church was open to all believers. He was not an apostle of ecumenism. He had many enemies within and without the church and some of these dug out the fact that as a child he was drafted into the youth brigade of the NAZI party in his native Bavaria, Germany, an event which he apologised for and pleaded that he was as an innocent child. In his last testament, he begged whoever he may have wronged in life to forgive him and hoped that the Almighty God will accept him into His abode in heaven.

Finally the last on my list of unforgettable people who passed on in 2022 is Edson Arantes do Nascimento known globally as PELE.  There is nowhere in the world where the name of Pele is not known. Indeed Pele brought glory and recognition to Brazil as no other person in the country’s history. Pele made football a global game because every person wanted to be like the man with those two wonderful feet and mental aptitude to score goals even from impossible angles. He helped his country to win the World Cup thrice and laid the foundation of the reputation of Brazil as a country with the best reputation in football. Politicians courted him and he was once appointed a minister so that politicians could bask in the glow of his glory.

Unlike Muhammad Ali, one of the greatest athletes that ever lived, Pele did not wear the fact of his black race on his sleeves. He let his feet do the talking. He avoided the issue of race like a plague but his skill and ingenuity made white Brazilians a little bit more tolerant to their black citizens and gave the wrong impression that race was not an issue in Brazil as it is  in the United States and the Anglo Saxon world and the European and Asian world. He has been unfairly criticized for not being vocal and aggressive on the race issue but people have different approach to issues and Pele’s strategy remains his own unique way of dealing with an eternal issue. Pele would be remembered for his contribution to global peace through sports.

During our civil war he came to Nigeria to show us how football is played and seriously hoped his coming would have facilitated the coming of peace. Of course peace came not because of Pele but the thought of it by this great man adds to his overall legacy of greatness and the place of sports in global peace and governance.

Chinua Achebe in his Nunc Dimitis and reflecting on the decline of Nigeria sorrowfully moaned about the present as contrasted with the immediate post-independence Nigeria by saying “There was a country” apparently in contrast to what we all are living through now. A country that has seen its prestige and influence whittled down by corruption and incompetent political leadership. Yet at independence, the sky was the limit. This was after the national rally of all our people demanding freedom in what the most articulate of our leaders, Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe called national Risorgimento. We may not have been involved but we were very much aware that our future was being determined. We knew we had to work hard to inherit what Dr Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana called the political kingdom.

Unfortunately the euphoria of independence was terminated shortly afterwards because of the fissiparous political tendencies and intolerance that culminated first in the breakdown of law and order in the Western Region and the Middle Belt Region of Nigeria ultimately leading to the coup d’état of January 15, 1966. Since then, the forces of division and political and religious brinkmanship led to a civil war from 1967 to 1970 during which more than a million people died directly from military operations, collateral damage and starvation of civilians.

Rather than resolving the question of division in the country, the civil war has in fact exacerbated the problem. The growth of the national economy following the rapid rise in crude oil production and price led to the injection of billions of petro dollars into the economy. With this came unbridled corruption and materialism in the country. With the size of the economy came the struggle to seize political power by all means possible by both the military and political leadership of the country. No means was considered illegitimate in the struggle to the detriment of the country nationally and internationally. The apparent wealth of the country attracted international attention to the country. The military leadership rose to the occasion by funding the struggle for decolonization and fight against racism in Southern Africa and also supporting worthy causes in the African diaspora particularly in the Caribbean. Those were the golden years of Nigeria’s diplomacy.

The idea that these were the golden years of the country is of course debatable but there is no doubt that the presence of Nigeria was felt in the places where it really mattered. But the unstable political situation at home and the coming and going of political leaders vitiated the success of Nigeria’s diplomacy. In the meantime, the forces of division at home continued and have resulted into the weaponisation of religion and state capture through ethnic irredentism.  The weaponisation of religion has led to the rise of jihadist movements in the northern part of the country apparently encouraged by some religious fanatics who have now lost influence with those whom they initially inspired to rip the country apart because of religious cleavage. Now it seems the falcon of religious fanaticism cannot hear the falconer. This is where we are today and the days of glory of the past have become a dream and recovery of a once glorious past is now a forlorn hope.

On individual level, after independence, we worked very hard especially those of us in secondary schools. Our goals were to enter the universities in Nigeria. Initially there was only the University of Ibadan but later on, real universities were established in Ife, Zaria and Nsukka by the three regional governments.

The emphasis is on “real universities” unlike the present mushrooming universities more like high schools masquerading as universities! The federal government then added the University of Lagos to Ibadan as a federal institution. People entered these universities through serious competition and there was no question of entering them through who you know or through the back door. Something like that was unthinkable then. The number of students in these five universities was quite small and not more than 50,000 in all. Jobs were also available in industries, commercial houses, governments at either state or federal levels, the police and armed forces and in the universities either as administrators or trainee academics and the teaching profession. Salaries were moderate and sufficient for one to move on gradually up the social and material ladders. Everyone bade his or time and there was no rush to accumulate wealth through fraudulent means. It was a time of contentment.

At a social level, young people went to parties in each of our parents homes when we had something to celebrate like birthdays and examinations successes. We were not religious but we went to church and mosque. Boys generally dated girls for the fun of it and I believe girls did the same. We broke each other’s hearts through this regrettable action. Many of us today on reflection regret this. When we began to get married, we still continued with our reckless and irresponsible behaviour.

I remember the culture of “Idawo” or “bathing a new baby” which pervaded Lagos life in the 1970s during which men gathered round to party when madams went to deliver babies in hospitals. Before their return, friends of the husbands would quickly assemble in the new father’s house with female friends to celebrate in the absence of the owners of the homes. I don’t know how and from where this culture came but it was a common phenomenon in southern Nigeria at the time. Most of the time it was a harmless letting down our hairs but it should never have been tolerated. Incredibly our wives knew about this frivolity and simply bore it with equanimity. We lived what to me was a riotous life but to what end and for what purpose?

When I remember these things, I am always happy that the present generation does not indulge in such frivolities. The 1960s were culturally rich in music and the arts generally. There were great musicians like Bobby Benson, Victor Olaiya, Roy Chicago, Eddy Okonta, Rex Lawson, IK Dairo, Fela Ransome –Kuti (Anikulapo- Kuti) and many others. This was the era of African writers like Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka and host of others who populated the African Writers Series of Heinemann publishers. Perhaps we were influenced by the joy of living characteristic of those years. But we were not materialistic. We were content with owning a car and waiting to own a house in due season. We did not witness the mad rush for money until after the civil war and petrol dollars overnight came into our country and both country and citizens became raging mad!

The age of corruption began with the end of the civil war but it did not become the monster it is now until 1979 when the military handed over power to civilians and it appears the civilian government was bent on beating the record of the military in its primitive accumulation of wealth.  From 1979 to the present, corruption has become the norm in public and private life. Common national patrimony is usually cornered by a few in what has been appropriately named state capture in South Africa. The sad consequences of this situation are that with the collapse of morality has come the collapse of security. The poor people in the country have become hooligans, kidnappers, brigands, highway robbers, cold-blooded killers masquerading as jihadists and herders and are demanding for their share in the national wealth which has been appropriated by a few in the name of the many unlettered and uneducated masses who only matter during  time of elections because of their votes.

We seem to be boxed in and we don’t know what to do. Some of us know we must restructure the country and follow policies of redistribution of wealth through social welfare schemes which will be better done at the sub national level rather than through the leviathan of an unfeeling and unaccountable federal bureaucracy.

We now know the futility of our past actions. The rich cannot sleep because the poor are awake because of hunger. The rich cannot travel on the roads for fear of being waylaid. The many houses the rich have corruptly acquired are lying fallow because the economy has collapsed and there are no more paying tenants. In short the rich can no longer enjoy their legitimate or illegitimate wealth.

May I commend the story of John D. Rockefeller the founder of the famous Rockefeller family who was burdened down by his enormous wealth and was dying of an un-diagnosable illness. He was given a few months to live and he decided to give most of his wealth to endowments, universities, charities and cultural centres. After doing this and to his amazement, he lived for years before his final call. This is my advice to all those burdened down by the weight of earned and unearned wealth in our country.

There is excitement in our country as we move towards February 2023 when an election will be held to herald in a new government at the federal and some states’ level. This is normally seen as a process of democratic renewal and renaissance. My prayer is that we will have a transformation of our current situation and a new era will dawn in our country. I personally would have wanted we have a careful look at our current situation and honestly ask ourselves if the structure of government in Nigeria is responding to the myriads of problems we have in the country and if the answer is that there are lacunae in the superstructure which we need to close, we should be honest enough to close them.

I am not one of those who will glibly say the question of unity is non-negotiable. Only fools will say a human institution based on disputed constitutional document is perfect and cannot be improved. In the United States of America whose system we appear to miserably mimic, there have been several amendments to the United States constitution after their own civil war that terminated in 1865. Even at the present, they are constantly amending their constitution.  In fact, there have been 11,000 proposed amendments to the constitution and only 33 have been ratified. The first 10 amendments known as the BILL OF RIGHTS were ratified in 1791 and the last amendment was as recent as the 33rd amendment in 2020 which aimed at curbing political interference by government and its large agencies and institutions. This was an unusual amendment which was ratified by voters directly rather than going through the tortuous amendment process. Some of these amendments came through judicial review of the constitution through landmark cases and legislative processes.

In our own case, we cannot argue that the question of unity is non-negotiable when in fact we fought a bitter civil war to try and negotiate our association when dialogue failed. The fact that the federal forces won the war at considerable loss of lives and at a serious dent to our economy indeed prove that a permanent peace must be made to avoid a recurrence of our problems of association so that constituent bodies making up the federation would have a stake in keeping the union going. Our independence constitution which was negotiated between 1957 and 1959 is just too young to be seen as sacrosanct and immutable. Even the Act of Union between Scotland and England dating back to 1707 is now being challenged by the Scottish National Party through periodic referendums. Countries like the old Soviet Union (USSR), Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and nearer home, Ethiopia, the Sudan, Cape Verde and Guinea Bissau and Somalia have broken into independent states peacefully or by war. We learn from history in order to avoid repeating it.

One of the problems I have with democracy is the recruitment process of leaders for which the people are then called upon to ratify through periodic elections. In Ancient Greece particularly in the city of Athens, democracy was through direct elections by free citizens of those who offer themselves for service. When Jean Jacques Rousseau was trying to suggest the democratic option to save man who though “born free but was everywhere in chains”, it was direct democracy that he came up with for his native Geneva. In other words, representative democracy is a poor copy of Athenian democracy. Even in representative democracy as practised everywhere, only the rich have the wherewithal to offer themselves to their parties and nations in selection and elections respectively. Political parties which do not necessarily evolve from all the people but from the few articulate educate citizens, the so-called critical mass as it were, are basic to the electoral process.

It is doubtful if some political parties are democratic in their formation, operations and governance. Nigeria seems to follow the American paradigm where mostly rich people can be elected to federal and state congresses. A poor man cannot be elected to the office of a dog catcher in the USA which parades itself as a paragon of democracy. Here in Nigeria, those interested in contesting elections have the hurdles of finding nomination fees of millions of Naira before they can be considered. And when they win at the party level, they face the hurdles of the real election against opponents of other parties and the electorate that sometimes have to be cajoled or bribed to vote for the candidates that offer the best financial inducements.

Political choice is also dependent on political party affiliation which means an independent candidate stands no chance in a million of winning elections. The result of these hurdles is that the people are usually presented not the best choices available. This is how repugnant candidates like Donald Trump, Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil, Victor Orban in Hungary  and Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines and going back to recent history, Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini  emerged through the so-called democratic process. In the case of Hitler and Mussolini, once elected they remained in power until killed by opponents or through suicide in the ruins of their castle to self-glorification.

It is obvious to me that democracy is not near perfect as a means of government. But it is probably the best system we have for guaranteeing to a certain extent, the freedom of the citizen and as Americans will say, eternal vigilance is the only way to guarantee freedom. If the people are not aware of their rights, a democratic ruler could easily metamorphose into a dictatorship. Periodic elections alone do not guarantee a democracy. Perhaps as important as election is, the rule of law is fundamental to the survival of democracy.

As admirably advocated and argued by the Greek philosopher Plato in his book “The Laws”, the rule of law is critical to good governance in the absence of a philosopher king.  In most democracies apart from Great Britain, written constitutions form important grundnorm for democratic governance. Democrats have over the years embraced this credo in their search for democratic governance. The press, pressure groups, separation of powers, freedoms of religion and association are also of fundamental importance to democratic rule.

I hope our hopes and expectations will be met next year when we transit from the present government to the new one. But there is no guarantee of getting the best people into office at all levels.

 

Niran Adeniji @ 80

Let me use this opportunity to congratulate a distinguished dental surgeon Dr Niran Adeniji, an old boy of Kings College and University of Lagos who turned 80 last Tuesday. Niran comes from Ibadan and Abeokuta and from two distinguished families of the Ejiwunmi and Adeniji of Ibadan. His brothers Tunde and Goke and two sisters Mrs Taiwo  and Mrs Thompson are like members of my own family. Papa Adeniji was a jolly good fellow who indulged us as youngsters in Ibadan and gave us the latitude of using his car to go to parties in Ibadan and surrounding  nooks and crannies without knowing how many of us packed ourselves in one car most of the time driving under the influence!

Niran was an ace footballer in Kings College and a fantastic sports administrator on the national level. In recent times, he has developed interest in politics. One can only wish this gentleman to the core, good luck in his new interest. Congratulations brother!

By Samuel Akinnuga

If there is any one quote I have thought about the most this year, it is this one by V.S Naipaul: “The world is what it is; men who are nothing, who allow themselves to become nothing, have no place in it.”

In a sense, I can say it’s my favourite of this year because of the profundity in the message. I often think of my country and what it has become whenever the quote comes into my head. We find ourselves in a situation no one could have accurately predicted some 20 years ago considering the sheer level of promise this country held. It has taken almost everything from the average Nigerian to find the strength to continue.  One often wonders how Nigerians manage to survive. The youth, who are supposed to be future leaders of Nigeria, are determined to avoid it. They have devised ways to make themselves happy and hopeful (not in the country, but of their chances of survival and maybe success), sane and savvy, in spite of all the frustrations they have to contend with on a daily basis.

For most of our young, the idea of a fatherland means next to nothing. You only need to get into a conversation with a Nigerian to realise that the ‘future leaders’ are so uninterested in the Nigerian project. And this is no cold-hearted exaggeration. It is the hard truth. For the majority of Nigerians – young and old – the realities are harsher. Millions of us don’t know where the next food will come from. Millions of us are living with our dignities at a distance. Sad.

In the midst of our deep-seated failings, one matter that has become quite distressing is what has now been popularised as ‘japa syndrome’. Simply put, to japa is to leave Nigeria without the plans of ever returning. The japa phenomenon has become the most appealing promise to many young and middle-aged Nigerians. It is more so for the working class professionals who see no future here. To my mind, it has assumed the status of a pandemic, but it appears we don’t realise it, yet. You only need to see the queues at the offices of the International Organisation for Migration or the international airport on a daily basis to get the message it is not a fluke. The wave is real. Some people, including ranking government officials, have tried to dismiss the wave of Nigerians leaving to pursue opportunities on the basis that they are an insignificant percentage of the Nigerian population. These people miss the point. Who are the people leaving: are they loafers or people who don’t have jobs? Are they mostly unskilled people who cannot be gainfully engaged in any enterprise? The profiles of a significant number are people who can ideally lead decent lives here. Many of them have well-paying jobs.  The doctors are leaving, nurses are leaving, engineers are leaving; IT experts are leaving; professionals in a wide range of disciplines are leaving. Leaving in droves! And what is better proof of the level of immediate impact than the complaints by employees who are losing talent on a basis so rapid that they can’t keep up with the pace?

As it is, almost everyone knows someone who has left, is planning to leave, or would leave if the opportunity shows up. For those who don’t share their japa plans, there is the constant suspicion that they are up to something until it is proven. Before the end of the year, it is likely that many more would leave. The pattern is also likely to continue into the new year. You could literally be discussing with a friend or colleague one second and the next, you are told that they have left the country. Of course, you know what that means. They have bolted, many with their families, and the idea of returning is not even up for consideration. A majority keep their japa plans so close to their chest that you find out that they have left just like others in your circle – via a post on social media, or a text informing you of the new development. This has strained many relationships.

With all the uncertainties, one can understand why anyone would choose not to share. But these things have ripple effects. Many relationships have been strained. Many employers no longer have the motivation to train for the long term out of fear that every employee is a potential japa candidate. The other day, a friend shared with me how a colleague resigned from work with “immediate effect” via a text message. He was at the airport at the time. The line was tried several times unsuccessfully. The gentleman had bolted, but ensured all company property in his possession was returned. I have heard other stories, but none is any pleasant.

In recent times, the opportunity for postgraduate studies in many countries in Europe, North America and elsewhere has become the pathway to ‘escape’ with the most guarantees. Again, some argue that this situation presents ample opportunities for those who choose to stay. This is partly true, if the assumption is that those who left did so only in the pursuit of better opportunities. In that case, that would only be normal. Alas, that is not the case for most. They’re not just off in pursuit of better opportunities abroad. Rather, they are leaving because they look to the future and they see nothing. This is what should worry any right-thinking, passionate Nigerian.

We are in a fix: a situation where the ‘future leaders’ of our country are more than willing to take a leap to begin life in another country (or continent) so far away from what used to be home for them. They don’t mind the discomfort of adjusting to a new environment, the pain of being away from loved ones, or likely incidents of racism. They would put up with almost anything just to be away from here. They are willing to bear the burden because they believe, deep down, that being there is far better than being here. They are willing to stake everything in the promise of a place that would, at least, cater for their basic needs while they focus on making the place their new home. They chose to leave because as Warsan Shire aptly put it, home “won’t let them stay.”

This is not exactly an appeal not to leave, for those who have chosen to do so, as the title may suggest. I did not intend it to be. In any case, there is almost no appeal strong enough to convince anyone whose mind is made up to leave, to reconsider. Their mind is even further steeled by the evidence of the dismal socio-political realities. It is true that not all of us can leave. And it is also true that not everyone would leave even if given the opportunity. But the questions are: what kind of Nigeria would we be living in? And what kind of Nigeria would we be living with? Time will tell.

Our country is in need of some soul-searching and a conversation with itself. And as I think of Naipaul’s words and the inherent message, it is clear to my mind that Nigeria doesn’t have as many lifelines anymore.  This country has got to mean something to its young, and we need to address this with a spirited sense of urgency. If we lose the best of them, then we would have lost our place in the world. There is no coming back from that.

On Tuesday  November 15, while the G-20 meeting of the most economically developed countries in the world consisting of countries making up the G-7 namely, the USA, Canada, Great Britain, France, Germany, Japan and Italy, and the second most economically and militarily powerful country , second to the United States, China, and other important countries like Indonesia, India, Russia, South Africa, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, Argentina, Australia, South Korea, Mexico, Turkey and the European Union were meeting in Bali  Indonesia, a missile hit a village in Poland on the border of Ukraine. The president of Ukraine with little evidence concluded that this was a Russian attack on Poland, a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO}. He had apparently expected this to trigger Article 5 of NATO that an attack on one is an attack on all. This would have meant that the United States, Canada and the western alliance in Europe would have been immediately at war with Russia. This would have changed the military equation on the ground and Russian territory from the Urals to Vladivostok would have been targets of attack.  The Russian population that has been virtually insulated from the horrors of the war would have been given a taste of what they have been dishing to Ukraine since 2014. Without resort to nuclear weapons, Russia would conceivably have been destroyed or defeated. What China would have done in this scenario is not clear but China would not have been a mere observer if war was going on at its borders with Russia in Asia. There is some kind of treaty of friendship between China and Russia although it is not clear how much importance China attaches to it even though Vladimir Putin says it is an “eternal treaty of friendship”.  The fear that if it was true that Russia was deliberately targeting Poland, then the war was assuming a new dimension. This was what led President Joe Biden to quickly dampen the excitement in Ukraine that the United States was studying the situation and that what seemed to have happened was that an Ukrainian missile intercepted an oncoming Russian cruise missile and the fragments of the Ukrainian missile fell on the border of Ukraine with Poland unfortunately killing two polish villagers. This was also quickly confirmed by the polish prime minister who has in recent times come under withering campaign in Russia of being afflicted by anti-Russian virus. The Secretary General of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, knowing fully well that a war between NATO and Russia was unwinnable quickly called a press conference to calm things down.

Yet the Ukrainian president to the embarrassment of Biden and the NATO alliance stuck to his gun that the missile that hit Poland came from a Russian cruise missile. He was pacified by members of the western alliance blaming Russia for the incident because if Russia had not subjected Ukraine to a barrage of missiles, there would have been no need to intercept one of them. Of course this is not the same as an attack by Russia on a NATO member. If the West were to attack Russia, rather than for Russia to surrender, it would unleash its nuclear arsenal on the West and since the Americans and possibly the French and the British have second strike capability, they would respond in the same measure as the Russians. This would then have been a war to end all wars and as Albert Einstein whose theory of relativity facilitated the development of the nuclear bomb by J Robbertt Oppenheimer said, human civilization would not survive a nuclear holocaust and that if there was a 4th World war, it would be fought with sticks and stones because man would have returned to the Stone Age if he survived the direct impact of nuclear war and the collateral damage of radioactive fallout. This would confirm JF. Kennedy’s dictum that in the event of a nuclear war, the living would envy the dead! This was what president Joe Biden must have realised while the Ukrainian president Volodymyr  Zelenskyy could only think of the military advantages that would facilitate the victory of Ukraine  over Russia and presumably the end of this cruel war unleashed on a small country justly struggling to be free.

The desperation of the Ukrainian president was due among other reasons to the fear that there may be some form of ennui and tiredness in the Western alliance because of rising economic and political problems at home. Britain, one of the countries that had supported Ukraine by training thousands of its troops was haemorrhaging under economic and political problems with high inflation and shrinking economy. France and Germany and  the European Union as a whole are also having serious problems about energy supplies while even the Almighty United States is reeling under high inflation and high energy cost. The recent mid-term elections in the USA were expected to have led to virtual wiping out of the Democrats with a wave of Republican Red. This did not happen and the whole world can breathe a sigh of relief. The former President Donald J. Trump has been weakened by the fact that most of the crazy people who could precipitate a civil war in the United States and that he supported and sponsored were rejected by the American electorate. Even though Donald Trump has thrown his cap into the ring of electoral politics against 2024 presidential election, he would probably fail again if the Democratic Party is smart enough to retire the doddering old Joe Biden who is foolishly threatening to contest in 2024 when he will be 82. It seems there was some kind of calculation in the Kremlin that the Democrats and President Biden would be so weakened that the United States would back off from supporting Ukraine. But as events have turned out the western support for Ukraine at least for now remains unwavering and Putin’s expectations of Republican Congressional gains have not materialised so we are basically back to square one.

Whatever the situation on the battle field may be, whether Ukraine is winning in critical areas and rolling the Russian army back to Russia, the war on the whole is not sustainable. While losing on the battle ground, Russia is now waging a cruel war against civilian infrastructures and thereby paralysing the electricity grid of Ukraine and putting the lives of over 10 million people in wintry jeopardy. Russia is such a vast country with unlimited resources and manpower compared with Ukraine.  The history of Napoleon’s and Hitler’s defeat by “General Winter” in the vast area of Russia should be a lesson on anybody who wants to fight a drawn out war with Russia.

The days of David defeating Goliath belongs in the Bible. Ukraine just has to be realistic and find a modus vivendi in its relation with Russia. It is not likely that the United States will risk everything to support Ukraine against a nuclear weapons state like Russia. Ukraine is now in a better position militarily to negotiate and sign a peace treaty with Russia without losing much face. Ukraine is not likely to get all its territories back, certainly not Crimea. Ukraine should be supported to maintain its borders with Russia with small adjustments in the Donbas region to allow those ethnic Russians who want to go to Russia to do so and Ukraine should also foreswear its ambition to join NATO, the fear of which drove Russia into this ruinous war and hopefully Russia in the name of good neighbourliness can be persuaded to join the European Union and the United States and Canada in the rebuilding and reconstruction of war-damaged Ukraine. There is not likely to be a winner in this war; the whole of mankind has lost in the Russian pursuit of an unjust war against a small neighbour whose unrealistic dream of total independence in an interdependent world was egged on by the West.

Last week, I called the attention of our governments to the growing banditry, kidnapping for ransoms and rampant killing of innocent travellers on our roads. As a regular user of the Lagos – Ibadan so-called expressway under what seems an unending reconstruction since 2007, I noticed with much appreciation and gratitude particularly to the Oyo State government that has taken action by deploying Amotekun and federal police on their own section of the expressway. This leaves Ogun State government to do the same. The Oyo State government must also be complimented for action on other roads in their state.

The federal police must be ordered to the roads all over the country by the state governors who are constitutionally the “chief security” officers of their states. Any state police commissioner refusing to follow orders permitted by the constitution should be reported to the Inspector General of Police and the president as well as the House of Representatives and the Senate of the Federal Republic. We need to force this issue until a clear cut definition of who is responsible for the protection of the people’s lives and property is made. If the police cannot secure us then the army must be called for assistance. These are not normal times for prevarication.

As taxpayers, we deserve to call on the appropriate authorities to do their jobs.  We should all say something when we see something is wrong.

The issue of state and local police have been debated ad nauseam. It seems there is a consensus of opinion that the time has come to decentralise policing in the country. This is what happens even in unitary states not to talk about a so-called federal state like Nigeria being run as a unitary state. Even in Great Britain with centuries of being a state has not only metropolitan police force in its capital but also county police forces as well as regional forces in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

In Canada apart from the federal Royal Mounted Police, each province and city has its own police forces. In the United States, states, cities, counties and even universities have police forces which work in concert with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). In Germany, each state has its own police while the federal police is largely responsible for securing the federal republic against subversion.

Even small federal states like Switzerland and Belgium have state and federal police forces working in concert to secure the state.  Even in our history as a country we have had before federal, state and native police forces.

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The argument that state or local police forces could be misused by state and local authorities does not hold water. Are those in charge of the federal police in Nigeria not human beings susceptible to the same impulse as those in the states? There are so many instances in the past when the federal government has used the federal police to intimidate state officials including state governors in the past. The point to make is that a few bad eggs in the past cannot derogate from the utility value of local policing. Local people speaking the same language and knowledgeable of the geography and history of their locality are definitely going to be more useful in keeping and maintaining the peace of their area than people posted from other parts of the country who do not speak the local language and who have no respect and sympathy for those they are supposed to be policing. The argument for local policing is so evident that every reasonable person should support it. Those opposed to it are those having secret agenda. If it is a question of funding, many of the states already donate millions of naira to federal police posted to their states in addition to federal budgets.

The Lagos State government previously put in place the mechanism for additional security funding through the security trust fund actively supported by the private sector which has a stake in the maintenance of law and order as a necessary environmental condition for business. It seems the government either has not enough funds for this because not much has been heard about the security fund in recent times. May I suggest that a state law needs to be passed to streamline the procedure for collection, investment and use of this fund on a regular basis.  Other states in the country can follow suit. Perhaps Lagos State government needs to be reminded that it has not constituted its own Amotekun and joined in the defence of the homeland. It should borrow a leaf from the vigorous example of Ondo State in this regard.

The protection of the Lagos-Ibadan expressway should be a joint effort of Oyo, Ogun and Lagos states. Disruption of flow of traffic on the road will have severe effect on the economy of the Southwest in particular and  it will also impact negatively the economy of the northern  states and  the South-south and the Southeast because this expressway is the nerve centre of Nigerian economy, linking every part of Nigeria to the ports of Lagos.

The Ogun State government needs to take the security of Owode Local Government Area (LGA) much more seriously. The section of the expressway from the Redemption City to Lagos has been taken over by motorcyclists whose identity and nationality are not clear. What is clear is that the hundreds of thousands of them constitute a danger to the people of this area and to themselves.  These people have no respect for the laws of the land which they flout recklessly. They drive recklessly against the traffic colliding with each other and law-abiding motorists. Any foreigner visiting Nigeria and seeing this will think our country is a country of lunatics. Motorcycles have been weaponised to cause mayhem in the northern parts of Nigeria and one hopes these wild motorcyclists are not an advance wing of an incendiary force in the making.

The police should find out who these people are and from where they came by registering them so that if something untoward happens in the future, we will know what to do. I am sure the government of Ogun State knows that their state is being overrun by foreign elements on motorcycles. Most of those banned in Lagos have simply moved to Ogun State. There should be no problem if these people would behave well. But one witnesses hordes of them speeding against oncoming vehicles on the expressway while the Federal Roads Safety Corps appear to be overwhelmed. When one of these lawless people is killed or wounded by motorists driving according to the road regulations, the motorcyclists usually embark on retribution on all other motorists by smashing their windscreens and wounding them in what usually takes the form of class war and a free for all fight in which innocent people are overwhelmed or killed by apparently insane drug addicts riding wildly on motor cycles. One hopes this expressway will soon be completed so that Lagos and Ogun states can jointly solve this lawless situation by running buses on the route profitably because of the growing population of this area.

We are in the 21st century and we should be able to provide means of transportation for our people. The sight of five or six people each on commercial motorcycles (Okada) is not a good advertisement for our country. These are the little things foreigners see and come to the conclusion that we are not part of civilised humanity or that we are a shade below homo sapiens. What will it cost to provide enough buses to move people from one part of the exploding suburbs of Lagos to the city? Do we need foreign technical advice to point out this absurdity of using motor cycles as mass transit? This is happening in a country where the Accountant General of the Federation is standing trial for looting N109 billion. Imagine the number of buses this humongous amount will buy for distribution for the whole country. A country that permits this kind of crime needs a lot of soul searching. We have arable land and yet millions of young people are riding motorcycles as means of mass transportation. Lord have mercy.

A Nigerian-American, Tope Owolabi, was in August abducted near Ogbomoso by kidnappers. The young man came to Nigeria to invest in the hospitality business in his ancestral home of Ogbomoso, Oyo State before he was kidnapped and subsequently murdered even after a ransom of N5 million had been paid to the kidnappers. The criminals have not been caught, as I write. The body of the murdered Owolabi was taken back to the United States for internment by his American family. 

Neither the Oyo state government nor the Nigerian government has said anything about their determination to catch the heartless criminals responsible for terminating the life of this young and enterprising Nigerian-American. Yet the federal government and the president went with a huge delegation to the United Nations General Assembly, UNGA, in October with the justification of attracting American direct investment without doing anything to tighten the security loophole in Nigeria.

Judging by the country-wide insecurity with the situation in the north, a great concern for everyone expecting foreign direct investment to increase remains a pipe and delusional dream. The economic situation in the rural areas of the country is dire indeed. Farmers in many parts of the country dare not go to their farms for fear of being murdered. There is little incentive to sow seeds that they will not be permitted to harvest. The Middle Belt which is the bread basket of the country has been rendered a no-go area by herders and other criminally minded kidnappers and killers on the prowl. Whatever food that is harvested in the area cannot be moved to the centres of consumption in the south and the far north because of virtual blockade of the highways by kidnappers and killers who after collecting ransom kill their victims for apparently no reason but for the joy of killing and bloodletting.

The situation is becoming incomprehensible to many observers. The question being asked is what do these criminals actually want? What is their plan after bringing the country down after the success of their campaign of terrorism? As it stands today, many people cannot visit their homes outside the big cities which are now armoured stockades. Essentially, people are marooned in places like Lagos, Ibadan, Abeokuta, Osogbo, Akure and Ado Ekiti in the southwest. Outside Benin, Asaba, Warri, Yenagoa, Port Harcourt, Uyo and Calabar, only intrepid travellers dare venture out. The situation in the Southeast is not better and most of the people are cowering in their homes in the  state capitals and trying to avoid being killed by so called “unknown gun men”, armed herders and kidnappers and some renegade members of the IPOB (indigenous people of Biafra).

The story is the same all over the North. Not even Abuja is safe.  There is neither safety nor security outside such fortified capitals like  Jos, Makurdi,  Lafia, Minna, Ilorin, Bauchi, Sokoto,  Birnin-Kebbi, Katsina, Kano, Dutse, Damaturu, Maiduguri, Yola and Jalingo. The entire Zamfara is a no-go area and this has been the case for almost a decade and internecine war between the Fulani and other tribal minorities and Hausa has been going on and life has become short and brutish. It is amazing that the Nigerian state and economy soldiers on when in fact it is no exaggeration to say the Nigerian state has failed. The responsibility of government is to secure peoples’ lives and property.  People like me can no longer go home to pray at the graves of our parents. We now send money to strangers to keep the resting places of our loves one clean and not become eyesores. Yet in our culture, this is the only honour the living owes the dead! People who still make interstate and intercity travels do so at the risk of their lives .Yet life must continue.

Two weeks ago, Professor Adigun Agbaje and four students, two girls and two boys and a middle aged man were kidnapped along Lagos – Ibadan expressway, just some few kilometres from Ibadan. Reports have it that the terrorists were apparently looking for a foreign investor in some kind of avian industry in the area. The inability of the terrorists to locate their target led them to blocking the high way and kidnapping and killing at random of innocent and unsuspecting travellers who are trying to make a living in the collapsed economy of this benighted country of ours. At the end of this tragedy, the highly cerebral political scientist, Adigun Agbaje and others were kidnapped and spirited away into the forest between Ogun and Oyo states. A demand of N50 million was placed on their heads. 

Where on earth will a poor teacher find such a humongous amount of Naira? After the intervention of concerned people, the professor was released and some of the other victims were released after apparently paying a huge ransom. One of the encouraging side effects of this tragedy was the instant mobilisation of funds by his colleagues at home and abroad to save the life of the unfortunate professor who narrowly, as it turned out, escaped from being shot on the head. This would have been the second high profile killing in Oyo State in recent times while both federal and state governments lie prostrate.

Yet we have policemen, soldiers and the Amotekun self-help irregular force which the federal government has decided to render almost useless because it has refused to let the states arm them while herders and criminals carry Kalashnikov precision rifles and yet state governors, according to the constitution, are the chief security officers of their states.

Why can’t the governors test the meaning of “chief security officer” in the law courts? We are hopefully still in a state of laws and not yet under a dictatorship. Why should we put all hopes for our lives on a poohbah distant from our day to day security concerns as if we are slaves?

In the 1970s, our highways had highway patrols mounted by the police on a 24-hour basis. Is the hand of the police force shortened that it can no longer protect us? What is the use of having a police force that cannot keep the road arteries of Nigeria protected and safe from ragtag armed irregulars? The Ibadan-Lagos expressway under construction since 2007 is the lifeline linking the North and the main port  of Lagos and also connecting the same ports with the East, the South-south and the western hinterland with Lagos. If this road is rendered useless by the action of kidnappers and killers, then Nigeria is finished!

The police should be ordered to reintroduce the highway patrol on all major roads that worked in the past and if needs be, they should be supported by the army. We are at war and the country’s security forces should be put on war footing until this countrywide state of siege is lifted. Habeas corpus should not operate in the tackling of the terrorists and summary punishment including capital punishment should apply to kidnappers until the situation subsides. The governments, both state and federal, should not allow the insecurity to deteriorate to a level where people will resort to self-help.  We are rapidly approaching the tipping point .Enough is enough.