The Nation Newspaper

Category: Jide Osuntokun

  • The march of time

    It is amazing how time flies. We age every second, minute and every day. Time is also a healer. I remember losing my loved ones, parents, siblings, even two prematurely born boys and above all, my wife, who departed this sinful life almost 15 years ago. I did not know I could ever get used to living without her. I also know how bitter I was when Sani Abacha detained me during the latter part of his inglorious thieving roguish regime. I probably would have been one of Abacha’s casualties but for the love I had for my wife.  I was so angry that I would have given up because I felt much injustice had been done to me for no just cause. After my detention, I was told that General Ike Nwachukwu, my friend of many years, the late Ambassador Hamzat Ahmadu, and Chief Ernest Sonekan pleaded for my freedom. While in detention for months, no provision was made for my feeding and money could not be smuggled to me by my wife because she did not know where I was. I suppose I was lucky that there was no bullet accidentally discharged into me. To treat a former ambassador of Nigeria the way I was treated remains unexplainable.  This reminds me of what Sir Kashim Ibrahim told me in 1982 when I wrote his biography that after the 1966 January coup d’état, he was simply flown to Maiduguri without provision for where he would stay and pensions for his upkeep. He told me he was expected “to just go and die” yet this was a man who from 1951 to 1966 was regional minister, central minister, governor of the whole of northern Nigeria. I do not know why a befitting federal institution has not been named after Sir Kashim Ibrahim.

    Back to my suffering in the hands of Abacha. Even though almost forgotten but how can one be expected to forgive even though our three monotheistic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam enjoin us to forgive our traducers? But we are human.

    At the beginning of each year, I always look back to examine my life and to see what I need to change in order to live a more perfect life knowing that I am not going to live for ever and also knowing my maker is numbering my days and no one knows when the owner of our days will say one’s time is up! When I hear about the death of friends, I always say it could have been me. The fact that I-am alive is the grace of the Almighty.

    My wife Abiodun Olayinka of evergreen memory would have been 70 yesterday, January 10. It just sounds so incredible that my young wife, if she had lived, would have been this old. I myself passed this threshold a couple of years ago but that was me. What does one say for one’s departed soul mate at what would have been a turning point in her life and mine. Will happy birthday not sound a bit out of place?

    But time ‘like an ever rolling stream/ Bears all its sons (daughters) away/ They fly forgotten, as a dream, dies at the opening day’.

    This is what a divine wrote about Our God in ages past and it is still true several generations afterwards. I say happy birthday to my late wife who remains unforgettable all these difficult years. One never knows the value of what one has until one has lost it. Marriage is for three things, sex, procreation and companionship. Sex would wane, children will leave but what endures is companionship. This is what widows and widowers have to go through without in their lives until the end. It seems women are psychologically stronger than men and I believe they can cope better. They are more skilled in domestic arts but most especially in taking care of their partners. I am not the type who could have remarried. For me the most terrible aspect of widowhood is loneliness and not having someone you can share your inner feelings with or someone who will stay with you for better, for worse, in times of health but most especially in time of sickness, in times of poverty and in times of prosperity. I find sleeping alone is the most challenging because you sometimes in your sleep imagine someone is besides you only to wake up to find that it was an illusion. Spousal loss should never happen to anybody and my prayer is that all couples should live together for a long time so that there is no long separation of souls.

    My advice to young couples is to try and live full lives without ever postponing enjoyment of their marriages till the future when in expectation there would be time after the children would have grown up and when whatever resources that are left after educating the children would be available for personal satisfaction and indulgence. We should all live modest lives and do whatever will make us happy within the restraint of our cultures and religions so that when we are old we can turn back and say “ I did it my way “. One of the most comforting things for me is the naming of two of my granddaughters Abiodun and Olayinka. My three year-old granddaughter sometimes talks about her grandmother “Abi” who she will never see except in her dream. But for me memories are for ever. Happy birthday dear wife and “emi oga”.

     

  • The 20th Kayode Osuntokun lecture

    Professor Kayode Osuntokun, one of Africa’s foremost neuroscientists passed on more than 22 years ago when the ovation of his remarkable life was loudest. He was only 60 years old. He was born on January 6, 1935. January 6 is the feast of Epiphany so the lecture today is holding close to his birthday. His death was a great loss to his wife and children and to us his siblings, and medical academy in Nigeria, Africa and the world. If he had lived longer, he could have been a candidate for the Nobel laureate in medical sciences. His life was a proof of the statement of the poet William Wordsworth that the “child is the father of the man” or what the poet John Milton meant when he said “childhood shows the man as morning shows the day”. He was a precocious child who by the time he was six years old had read the Bible from page to page. He was barely 17 when he left high school and this was a record time in those days when people went to school when they were really mature. His power of recall of events was prodigious. He was so totally organized that he kept documents and letters as if he was an archivist. I do not need to regale my readers about his prizes and awards all over the world and as being the first black person to achieve the various feats he attained in the field of medicine. He was recognized worldwide and an appreciative home land conferred on him the Officer of Federal Republic (OFR) and the Nigerian National Order Of merit (NNOM). He spent virtually his adult life at the University of Ibadan and at its University College Hospital (UCH) where he rose to the rank of Professor of Medicine in the subspecialty of Neurology at a young age and subsequently became the Dean, College of Medicine and later Chief Medical  Director. Two of his children and a granddaughter have followed his footsteps into the medical profession while three of his other children have wisely followed the much more lucrative fields of law and finance! The college of medicine has honoured him by naming one of the auditoriums  in the college “The Kayode Osuntokun Auditorium” where the annual lecture organized by the Kayode Osuntokun Trust chaired by his equally academically distinguished wife, companion and partner, retired professor  of ophthalmology, Professor Olabopo Osuntokun. Professor Kayode Osuntokun was not just a bookworm, he was also a sportsman who played soccer both in high school and at the University College. At one time he was the lawn tennis champion of the then Western Nigeria. Even though he was at heart shy and introverted, he nevertheless had a wide circle of friends with whom he was very close. He definitely left his footprints on the sand of time. He is certainly unforgettable. The World Health Organisation organized annual lectures in his remembrance but after a few of such lectures, the enthusiasm seems to have waned but the fire in Ibadan keeps on burning.

    There have been 19 annual lectures and symposium since 1996 when the lectures began. The lecture did not hold last year because the linchpin of these lectures, Professor Olabopo Osuntokun was under the weather and the Trust did not want to hold the parade, so to say, without the celebrant. Thank God for this year’s lecture. The lecturer this year is the globally distinguished virologist and former vice chancellor of the Redeemer’s University, Professor Oyewale Tomori. He was president, Nigerian Academy of Sciences and Fellow of American Academy of Medical Sciences. He has spent all his life in the frontier of discovering and finding solutions to the myriad of dangerous viruses that litter the African environment. Professor Tomori will be following the footsteps of other medically known and distinguished academics from Nigeria, the USA and the United Kingdom one of who was Sir Keith Peters,  Regius Professor of Physic (Medicine) in Cambridge who wrote when Kayode died “That as a young doctor, Kayode came to learn from us  in the United Kingdom, but by the time he died we were all learning from him”. What better accolade could one have expected from his colleagues? The lectures have not been limited to the Akinkugbes, Aminus,  Salakos , Esans , Adeloyes, Akpans, Kukus,   Oyebodes, Awojobis, Falusi-Ololade s and  other distinguished medical luminaries alone. Professor Akin Mabogunje brought his erudition to give a most insightful lecture on the dire social condition of Nigeria within which medical scientists operate. The lectures have been chaired by distinguished Nigerians  such as Chief Emeka Anyaoku, former Secretary-General of the Commonwealth and a distinguished international civil servant, the late Professor Tekena Tamuno, former vice chancellor of the University of Ibadan , Chief Folake Solanke  SAN,  Professor Bolanle Awe, Professor Olumide Lucas among others. The late Deacon Gamaliel Onosode also came a few years ago and contributed substantial amount of his hard-earned money to  assist the Kayode Osuntokun Trust in its support for research, and award of prizes to  the best student in Christ School  Ado Ekiti  in the WAEC examination and in the  best student in the  final  Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery examinations of the University of Ibadan. In his will and last testament, Kayode Osuntokun virtually gave all his hard-earned savings  from years of consultations at the WHO, guest lectures all over the world and earnings during sabbatical leaves in British and American universities and at the National Institute of Health ( NIH ) in the USA running to millions of naira in 1995. The prizes at Christ School and in the medical school are being doubled this year because of the declining value of the naira. The funds directly given to the University of Ibadan have been so totally mismanaged that the least said about it the better. At a time the money could not be traced in the university bursary. The traumatic effect on Professor Olabopo Osuntokun can only be imagined. The effect on me in particular was such that when I endowed prizes in Ekiti State and Redeemer’s universities, it was with trepidation and an academic colleague actually said I was wasting my resources. I hope this scenario is not a general phenomenon in Nigerian universities because if it is, it will discourage academics and others from bequeathing money to our universities. In civilized countries of the world, universities are run largely from such funds. My PhD was sponsored by the Izaak Walton Killam Trust /Foundation which were funds provided by Dorothy Killam to celebrate her most distinguished industrialist-husband by funding research in the universities of Alberta, Dalhousie and British Columbia. What has happened to the funds provided by the Kayode Osuntokun Trust in the University of Ibadan is most annoying and painful because the institution has betrayed the late Osuntokun’s hopes in the university. I know a few people who said in1995 when we read my brothers will that he should just have given his entire estate to his wife and children. When Professor Jide Bademosi, a distinguished neurologist was reluctantly appointed Kayode Osuntokun Professor of Neurology, he was for months never paid because the funds from the Trust had been muddled up. This is bad for a university of the age of the University of Ibadan of which as an alumnus I am proud. Perhaps all is not lost and the situation may yet be redeemable. But what happened in the University of Ibadan is a symptom of the general malaise not just in the Nigerian university system but in Nigerian life in general.

    Welcome to the Kayode Osuntokun lecture. One hopes that Nigeria of our dreams will one day be a reality. It is in this spirit that Professor Tomori’s lecture will be relevant. The chairman of the occasion is Professor George Fola Esan, distinguished haematologist and Christ School alumnus and one of the brightest persons I have ever known apart from Kayode Osuntokun and Tosin Lyon, MD a non-invasive cardiologist in Toronto who happens to be my daughter. It seems brilliance is in the Osuntokun gene!

    Finally, let me use this medium to remember two of my classmates and friends Dr. Omololu Odukunle and Otunba Noah Olutola Fadayomi, two distinguished Nigerians who joined the saints triumphant at the close of last year. May God rest Noah and Lolu’s souls in perfect peace.

  • Season’s greetings and musing

    This is the time of the year when I look back over my life with nostalgia. I remember that as a child I would be eager to find out what kind of shoes and clothes I would wear on Christmas day. In those days we did not eat rice every day as we now do in Nigeria. Rice was eaten during important feasts like Christmas Day , New year and Sallah( Eid al Adha or what we call in Nigeria Eid el Kabir).We jokingly dismissed rice as only good for birds. Of course whatever rice we ate was grown in Nigeria not in Chile, Peru, Thailand, India, China, America or Vietnam. Essentially Christmas was for children while New Year was for adults. I remember after my own family began to grow, how I made sure my children also had new clothes, shoes and wrapped up gifts to put around our Christmas tree pretending that Santa Claus aka Father Christmas came through the chimney after riding his reindeers from the North Pole bringing gifts to all children in the world.

    My kids were born outside Nigeria or grew up in foreign countries so they got into the culture of the West and its consumerism during Christmas. When my kids got home to Nigeria, I switched from celebrating Christmas with turkey to buying a goat or a ram so that they could enjoy tearing at solid meat like our Muslim compatriots during Sallah.  My wife and I used to wrap gifts for each other and left them with those of the kids by the Christmas tree .Those days are gone for ever what I have left are memories. Unfortunately, Abiodun my wife God chose for me is not here to share these memories with me. Whenever I say this, I involuntarily shed tears! It is well. While on this, I lost a good friend Funso  Alayande, son of Archdeacon Ladipo Alayande veteran principal of Ibadan Grammar school and from his mother’s line ,grandson of the late Anglican Bishop of Ibadan , Bishop Akinyele who was an older brother to an Olubadan, Oba Akinyele. Funso’s pedigree was impeccable and if things were normal, a man like Funso would have brought colour and class to the position of Oyo State governor. Our generation was indeed a wasted generation. At the time we should have made impact, soldiers took over our country in a buccaneering assault that finally ended in 1999 or has it really ended bearing in mind that Obasanjo and Buhari are a continuation of military rule.

    I was not at home when Funso died but my thought went to his family. Wherever I was in my peregrinations, Funso kept in touch and when I did not hear from him this time, I should have guessed something was amiss. Rest in Peace Dear friend.

    Archdeacon Dr. Akinwunmi Akinyemi, a physician and cleric, my senior and a prefect in Christ School Ado-Ekiti and older brother to Professor Bolaji Akinyemi, former Minister of External Affairs, also passed on. He was much loved at school. Even though a quiet man, he was strong willed and was a stickler for rules, regulations and principles. Just like Funso, Akinwunmi’s own father, Archdeacon Akinyemi was a veteran principal of Ilesha Grammar School and like Archdeacon Ladipo Alayande, he was also a politician in clerical robes rising to become a member of parliament in the First Republic. Adieu Akinwunmi Akinyemi . I know you will find rest in the bosom of father Abraham and at the feet of our Lord Jesus Christ. We should number our days when people close to us die.

    I sometimes wonder where Nigerian politicians get the courage to struggle for power which is transient and ephemeral. Already 16 months before the next election, people are already jostling for positions. Only God Almighty knows who will be around tomorrow. Not only  are they doing that , incumbent governors like the one in Ekiti State has chosen who will succeed him as if Ekiti State is a Rotten Borough to  be given to  a favourite as electoral passage to power. I am very pessimistic about our country because the right questions are not being discussed by our politicians. We are told that in 30 years’ time, Nigeria will have a population of one billion at current rate of growth as well as the porosity of our borders and growth of population of our neighbours in Cameroon, Chad, Benin, Niger and Togo whose people flock to Nigeria ceaselessly seeing Nigeria as their safety net for their surplus population. A friend jokingly chided me that what is my concern about Nigeria’s population growing to one billion when I would not be around. I have not seen any plans about Nigeria’s economy post hydrocarbon-dependent economy currently prevailing in our country. We are daily watching what the price of Brent crude oil is and celebrating the rise in our foreign reserves without thought of immediate collapse of the foreign exchange when the price nosedives.  What will happen to this country when to save planet earth, hydrocarbons as sources of energy are banned?

    I have not seen any serious debate on kidnapping which has rendered us imprisoned in our homes and watching our miserable lives pass by uneventfully. The National Universities Commission is still remorselessly licencing more universities when existing private ones have no students and are bound to close down one after the other. Our roads are impassable and the most economically important road in Nigeria the Lagos – Ibadan Road is caught up in politics while money for the road is being diverted by the Bukola Saraki-led Senate to digging bore holes in preferred places in Nigeria. Apapa and Tin Can Island ports are inaccessible with collapsed roads while Lagos State government has had to take over constructing access roads to the major international hub of Nigeria and West Africa – the Murtala Muhammed Airport .This eyesore of an airport has no ceiling from the finger to the main hall and all the escalators and conveyor systems have packed up, yet 60% of internally generated revenues come from these sea and airports and industries in Lagos. I think people in government need to take courses in economics to realize that if the economy of Lagos is buoyant, it will redound in Kano and Sokoto states. With the way things are done in Nigeria I am becoming pessimistic about our future and this is at a time when black peoples are being sold by Arabs in Libya. This is a case of history repeating itself in the re-run of the Trans Saharan slave trade. If I was advising Buhari, this is the time to divert our attention by a robust intervention in Togo to ask the juvenile Eyadema to go before millions of his people arrive in Lagos as refugees. They are already roaming around on Lekki – Epe Road. We need to shake off the inertia and immobilism that seem to pervade both our foreign and domestic policies.

    On a lighter note, let me share an experience with my readers on November 24 known worldwide as “Black Friday” which marks the beginning of Christmas shopping mania. I found myself in London. I told my host that I had a meeting with an academic colleague at School of Oriental and African Studies and that I would be returning later in the day. At around 6pm, there was stampede somewhere around Regent Street and Piccadilly’s circus. Rumours had it that there was shooting going on in the streets on this bitterly cold day. I was very far from the scene. I was in fact in the underground train returning to the home of my hosts. Everybody was now trying to find me and my relations at home and abroad were alerted that I had been caught up in the London bombing. Prayer warriors were summoned and were binding whatever daemons that might have taken over my life when eventually  I came out from the underground train and my phone started ringing I was chastised for wandering around when I should have been resting my old bones where I was staying. Actually it was a serious situation but I was nowhere near the Centre of the commotion. I now know how much loved I am. But one funny thing these days is that my oldest daughter almost acts as my mother believing I am not as smart as I once was. She is probably right. I cannot swear I can beat my four year old granddaughter in a one hundred metres dash yet I used to ask her father to stay well in front of me in running practice in those days.  Am I smarter than my grandchildren? Who knows? On a recent visit to Canada and carrying an IPAD, my three year old granddaughter snatched it from my hand and asked “Papa what’s your pass word?” Needless to say I was shocked. Our brain degenerates as we age so it is very likely that my grandchildren may be smarter than myself. I suppose this is our lot as mortal men!

    May God be with all my loved ones, with my country Nigeria and with all Nigerians. May our wishes in the New Year come true and may this our country fully realize its potentialities. And I say we should all in the immortal words of J F Kennedy ask not what our country can do for us but what we can do for our country. Merry Christmas and happy New Year.

  • Gathering storm in the Middle East

    It is strange that just as ISIS has largely been defeated in Racca, headquarters of their caliphate in Syria and routed from Mosul, the second largest city after Baghdad in Iraq the struggle between Saudi Arabia and Iran has gathered pace and is becoming dangerous to the point where Israeli Defence minister is openly calling on Saudi Arabia and the Arabs to join it in confrontation against Iran. Iran is the leading Shiite nation while Saudi Arabia is Sunni. Thank goodness Egypt has not come out to take sides yet, but when the chips are down, Egypt will not abandon fellow Sunnis in the confrontation with Iran. Outside the Middle East, there are of course Sunni Pakistan and Afghanistan which share borders with Iran. Any conflict based on this sectarian divide in Islam could engulf the entire Islamic world drawing in, Africa and Turkey the most powerful Sunni nation. There is hardly any part of the Islamic world where the division between the two sectarian tendencies do not exist.

    The division between Shiite and Sunni Islam is rooted in history. The beginning goes back to the dispute about succession to Prophet Muhammad who died in AD 632. The dispute was between supporters of Husain bin Ali who was a cousin to Prophet Muhammad and after marriage to Fatima the prophet‘s daughter Ali became his son in law and was therefore considered by Shiites the first imam of Islam. It was claimed that Ali was the preferred Caliph and his successor by Prophet Muhammad. His Companions (Sahaba) finally prevailed on Ali to become Caliph in 656 and was assassinated five years later in 661. But this was after there had been three other Caliphs beginning with Abu Bakre (Abdullah) a trusted companion who was also father-in-law to the prophet through Aisha the prophet’s wife. He became the first Muslim caliph and ruled over the Rashidun caliphate from 632 to 634. His claim to the caliphate seat was disputed by some of Muhammad’s companions who believed that the prophet had designated Ali as his successor.  The first four caliphs known as “the Rightly guided ones “ were Abu Bakr, Umar ibn al- Khattab, Uthman  ibn Affan and Ali ibn Abi Talib. All the caliphs were regarded as amir al muminin while the Shiites consider only Ali as the only legitimate caliph and Amir al Muminin. This straight forward historical struggle for power had now snowballed into sectarian and doctrinal schism in Islam. The Arab Muslim armies conquered Persia, now Iran in 651 which led to the decline of the Zoroastrian religion in Persia. Persia had been an advanced civilization before the Arab conquest. But this conquest has always given the Arabs a sense of superiority which no Iranian would ever accept.

    The most extensive Islamic caliphate was that of the Ottoman Empire in Turkey which covered parts of Arab lands in North Africa and the Middle East but not Persia/ Iran.  What is important to note is that apart from Egypt at a point in time, Iranians never conquered Arab land. But there is no doubt that Persian influence in the Middle East has been considerable in modern times in the face of absence of a pan Arab nation. It is now that Saudi Arabia is trying to rally Arabs against what it considers unacceptable Iranian power and influence.

    The defeat of the ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria)or ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) has extended Iranian influence to the borders of Saudi Arabia because the government of Iraq is largely a Shiite regime and there are Iranian military units fighting along with Iraqi troops. This fear made the Saudi regime not to have been too excited in the war against the ISIS caliphate in spite of the horrible crimes committed by ISIS against humanity.  On the South-western border of Saudi Arabia is Yemen where Iranian backed Houthis rebels are challenging the Sunni dominated legitimate government of Yemen. This is a country that has not been at peace for almost two decades. Yemen is quite close to Saudi Arabia. In fact Osama bin Laden, the leader of Al Qaida was an ethnic Yemeni. The Bin Laden family as represented by Osama’s father made all their billions in Saudi Arabia and have become a formidable family in construction and civil engineering sector in Saudi Arabia. The existential threat the Houthis pose to Saudi Arabia was the firing of a missile to Riyadh the capital of Saudi Arabia in October this year. In spite of Saudi Arabia‘s constant aerial campaign against the Houthis, the rebels have continued to wax stronger because of Iranian military backing. In Lebanon, the Shiite party of Hezbollah (the party of God) has continued under Hassan Nasrallah to dominate the country to the point where the Sunni Prime Minister Saad Hariri resigned suddenly for fear of being assassinated. He announced his resignation on a Saudi Arabian television station in Riyadh leading to the perception that Hariri was forced to do this and that he was in fact in Saudi Arabian detention.  Hariri has now gone back to Lebanon and the situation remains inchoate. The Sunni and Shiites in Lebanon are evenly balanced at 27% each making a total of 54% while the different Christians divided along sectarian groups constitute about 40%. Lebanon is a small complex country that exists at the sufferance of her neighbours. Saudi Arabia now feels the newly emboldened Hezbollah, fresh from military successes in Syria, has become the main power in Lebanon opening the doors to Iranian influence in Lebanon. The Sunni revolt  in Syria, hijacked by ISIS and Al Qaida has finally been put down  by a strange and complex uncoordinated military campaigns by Russia, the United States, the forces  of Bashar al Assad, Iran, Hezbollah and Syrian Kurds in the north of the country has confirmed the hold of  the Alawite/ Shi’a  sect of Bashar al Assad. This also has confirmed preponderant Iranian influence on another Arab country after Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen and then Syria. Even small Qatar is not out of the Iranian influence which has led to the United Emirates, Egypt and Saudi Arabia cutting off ties with Qatar.

    One of the reasons for Iranian apparent success is because unlike Sunni Islam, the Shiites have a hierarchical order of priesthood from Ayatollah to grand and supreme Ayatollah making mobilization easier. This kind of organization is absent among the Sunni. It is also debatable whether the Shiites are as numerically smaller than the Sunnis in Arab countries. It seems that even where the Sunni are in power, there seems to be millions of Shiites without political voice which have been suppressed for long and is just waiting to break out whenever the opportunity presents itself. Also perhaps the sectarian cleavage merely hides deep seated political divisions in Islamic countries. What is important to state is that Iran through Shiite Iraq and Alawite Syria has a land route north of Arab lands all the way to the Mediterranean.

    This is the situation which seems to make Saudi Arabia feel that Arabs cannot just kowtow to Iran. Analysts feel what is happening is that Iran just happens to back the winning parties in all these theatres of conflicts.  To be on the winning sides also means supporting the right causes. Iran is not a democratic country but practices some kind of guided democracy under a theocracy, whereas the Arab states are either monarchies or oligarchies of family and military rulers. There is not much choice between the two but power and money  for example in Saudi Arabia are concentrated in the hands of thousands of princes and others holding their positions as fronts or nominees of the ruling Al – Saud family. This kind of government is replicated in most of the Arab monarchies. Egypt did away with its monarchy in 1956 but it is run now by a military class headed by Field Marshal Abdel Fattah Saeed Hussein Khalil el- Sisi.

    Perhaps in reaction to the feeling of weakness and paralysis, the Saudi monarchy has decided to pass on power to a 31-year old crown prince Muhammad Bin Salman Al Saud.

    The young prince is moving at a frenetic pace of change in the kingdom. He has liberalized the lives of women. They will be allowed to drive, and take part in sports. Education is being made available to them. Some form of elections to elect local officials is being followed. The crown prince has decided to tackle corruption no matter whose ox is gored including several princes who are now cooling their heels in detention. He is also committed to reining in funding of Islamic extremism abroad. The most dramatic move is the decision to challenge Iran. He is building formidable Saudi armed forces through purchase of billions of dollars’ worth of weapons from the United States and Great Britain and other western countries. It is curious that Turkey is not on board as can be seen in Turkish support for Qatar that has been put at arm’s length by the Saudis. The Saudis have the support of President Trump who recently made a highly publicized and triumphal visit to Saudi Arabia when the Saudis ordered almost a trillion dollars’ worth of weapons. If war were to break out in the Middle East, it will be terrible and may bring Russia and the United States into conflict either directly or through their proxies. The fear of some in the West is that the rapidity of events may undermine the Saudi dynasty itself.

  • Let us stop our children perishing in Sahara and Mediterranean

    Let us stop our children perishing in Sahara and Mediterranean

    It has now become a regular occurrence for young Nigerians to be deported back home from different parts of Africa, Europe and the Americas. Some of them are part of the multitude being quartered on an island in Papua-New Guinea following refusal by Australia to allow their boats to land in their country. This uncontrolled migration of our people to near and distant countries has become an embarrassment for Nigeria and the African continent. Several Nigerians are in jail in China and many are facing capital penalties in some countries in South-east Asia and in South Asia where drug trafficking is punishable by death. I was surprised to read that Nigerians were also being deported from Iceland. What the hell is any Nigerian doing in frigid Iceland? Of course we know why this is happening. It is probably due to economic hardship at home and the breakdown of the extended family system which in the past provided a cushion against economic hardship. On top of this is the fact that our job opportunities are not expanding in tandem with the thousands if not millions streaming out of our secondary and tertiary institutions. Our educational institutions are not training people for self-employment but rather for the elusive white collar jobs in government bureaucracy and offices of commercial and financial institutions.

    Agriculture which would have provided a safety valve still employs antediluvian tools and implements our grandparents used to till the ground and expect young people to embrace the sector. These back breaking agricultural practices are no longer attractive to young people. Mechanization of agriculture seems to be one of the ways governments can help solve the problem of unemployment driving our young people to the perilous journeys across the Sahara desert and the Mediterranean Sea to Europe. While it is true that lack of opportunities at home is largely responsible for this dangerous migration and human wastage because it is well known that close to 50 percent of those who leave Nigeria reach their target countries safely, many die in the desert as a result of their unpreparedness for the harsh conditions in the desert. Others are killed by the various militant gangs roaming the open spaces not dominated by government presence. Many who reach the shores of the Mediterranean are thrown into the sea during the journey to Europe.

    What are the ages of these young people? We are told they are between 14 and 35. Some can neither read nor write. Some only have primary education while some are secondary school graduates who find it difficult to progress due to poor financial situation of their parents while others are graduates of our tertiary institutions like Advanced Teachers Colleges, polytechnics and universities. Quite a large proportion are underage teenage girls who are being trafficked into brothels in continental European countries. I personally saw young Nigerian girls lining the sides of intercity roads in one of my visits to Italy. In Paris and Rome, one is ashamed to see grown up men usually from francophone West Africa, southern Sudan and East Africa making nuisances of themselves hawking all kinds of stuff to tourists. This kind of sight is very degrading because it demeans the stature of the black man everywhere. One also finds this kind of people on the streets of New York selling all sorts of things that may be stolen goods. Nigerians have not gone this far. But I am told our people are already involved in the drug trade in places like Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. I do not know if any of our people have been killed in the President Rodrigo Duterte-led war against drug traffickers in the Philippines.

    Recently, the bodies of 25 young girls were discovered in the Mediterranean. Their ages range between 14 and 18. They were said to have come from Nigeria and Niger republic. But I suspect they were all Nigerians. The governor of Edo State also recently welcomed home about 100 deportees from Libya. Most of them were girls who I must say are lucky to be alive. In some cases, their parents sold their houses to give to these children for their transportation to Europe for work as domestics. This is what their recruiters told them. Some of these girls after having been duped were taken to shrines to take oaths of allegiances to their Nigerian patrons. If they succeed in smuggling them to Europe, they were beholden to work for them for years before they could become free to work for themselves. If caught they were forbidden to say a word to implicate their traffickers. This is some kind of modern slavery. What I find galling is that some parents either out of ignorance or poverty collude with those taking their children into slavery. Some of the girls also go into it with their eyes wide open knowing they are being recruited into European brothels. We knew this through the wonderful work Mrs Eki Igbinedion, the wife Lucky Igbinedion erstwhile governor of Edo State did when her husband was at the helm of affairs in the state. It is a shame that she was not encouraged to continue her work of enlightenment about this problem in the state as soon as her husband left power.

    The problem of teenage girls being recruited was and is still concentrated in a few states like Edo, Delta and Anambra states. No one is sure about why. But I suspect previous participants in this odious trade return home with money without telling the truth about what they went through to get the money and others then followed them. But why these states and other states in the south-east? My guess is that some kind of western education is much deeper here than other parts of Nigeria and because of the capitalist disposition of the people there, the desire for rapid upward mobility which only money can provide drive the people to want to have money by all means.

    Migration is a feature of human society. The so called push-pull factor drives people from one place to another. The problem nowadays unlike in the past is the rising tide of racism in the western world where people of different skin colour are not welcome. Even on the continent of Africa, we treat ourselves with hostility.  Ghana and Nigeria in the late seventies and eighties expelled nationals of each other back home as economic undesirables. Xenophobia against other Africans and particularly against Nigerians is the regular phenomenon in South Africa. With advancing technology and particularly robotics, there is a growing dearth of routine jobs for nationals of countries in the western world with the result of hostility to outsiders who come to compete with locals with the few jobs available. In short, there are no jobs except highly skilled jobs in technology, engineering, the biological and physical sciences and medicine and nursing. Service industries like banking, computer sciences and accounting still offer possibility of employment for highly qualified and knowledgeable Africans. The point I want to make is that long term prognosis of the horrible unemployment situation for our youth is not very good. This is not only sad but dangerous bearing in mind that perhaps 70 percent of our population is below 30 years of age.

    We have to make our environment investment friendly and embark on industrially adding value to our agricultural produce. We must also embark on mechanized agriculture to ensure food security and surplus for export. To avoid impending explosion, we as a people must prevail on our governments to face squarely this problem by investing our national resources properly not only to take care of the present population but those coming after us. The growing criminality in our countries is a pointer to what is to come if we don’t take care of our people and prepare for an uncertain future. The rampant cases of kidnapping, armed brigandage, armed robbery and violence everywhere as if we are already a failed state are manifestation of deep seated malaise in our country. The case of Nigeria is particularly concerning in the overdependence on hydrocarbons export which the advancing technology and the concern for the environment would soon make unprofitable. We must act quickly now that there is still some room to manoeuvre to declare a national emergency on youth unemployment and attendant violence. If we tarry, it may be too late a few years from now.

  • Stop establishing varsities which cannot be funded

    There was a report in the newspapers that the Senate has approved the establishment of a “Federal University of Medical Sciences” in Oturkpo the capital of Idomaland. This was on the heel of another approval of a “Federal University of Marine Sciences” somewhere in Izon (Ijaw) area of Delta State for which we are told N5 billion is being released. What are the reasons for this proposed action? The Senate president, who is a physician by training, said a university of medical sciences will increase the capability of our country to handle difficult medical problems and end what he described as medical tourism.

    I find it difficult to understand how a new university of medical sciences would suddenly sky rocket Nigeria to join the First World of medical sciences knowledge, capability and treatment of difficult medical problems. We already have at least close to 20 medical schools which are grossly underfunded. Reports have it that the budget of all medical schools and teaching hospitals in Nigeria is less than the budget of the presidential medical centre in Aso VIlla which we now know is underfunded and not functioning because what is budgeted for the centre is never released. If that is so, where will the money for this new medical sciences university come from?  What will be new in this new university that is not available in the existing medical schools that are not performing optimally because of underfunding?

    There was a time in our recent history when the University College Hospital in Ibadan was reputed to be one of the best teaching hospitals in the Commonwealth. We are all witnessing in our lifetime the gradual degradation of an excellent institution as a result of reckless establishment of other medical institutions instead of regular upgrading of an existing facility in tandem with advancement in medical sciences. The result of this duplication of financial effort and resources is the migration of hordes of people to India and other places for medical treatment and succour.

    Anybody knowledgeable about university education would know that a medical university is a complex process that could be as expensive as a conventional university. Apart from departments of premedical sciences, it would probably also need to have programmes in biological and physical sciences to provide training in the sciences. Then a wide variety of clinical science departments would have to be founded equipped and funded. This will have to be accompanied by a first class teaching hospital whose cost would run into billions of naira. I made this point when the former governor of Ondo State  Dr. Rahman ‘Segun Mimiko, a physician himself, at almost the tail end of his eight-year rule, suddenly established a university of medical sciences when the state’s two other universities in Okitipupa and Akungba were grossly underfunded.  The state will soon find out that it does not have the resources to maintain three universities.

    There is a medical school in the state university in Makurdi. I know of course the prickly relations between the two major ethnic groups, the Tivs and the Idoma. This is not enough reason for the federal government rushing in to establish a second university in Benue State thereby starting demand for two universities in each state of the union. The federal government already is already chaffing under the burden of funding of existing federal universities some of which were established during after dinner speeches.

    I have an idea of why this so called medical university is being foisted on the federal government. It emanates from pressure from the long-serving senator, David Bonaventure Mark. I have respect for the senator but I do not believe that he has the right to run the government from the opposition bench. I have many Idoma friends and I acknowledge the exceptional qualities of their people and I will suggest a better option must be found to support the ambition of the Idoma people for rapid development. Perhaps the senator should mobilize funds to establish a conventional or even medical university in Oturkpo. If this decision of a medical university gains traction, it will be against one federal university per state and there is already a federal university in Makurdi.

    The University of Marine Sciences in Western Ijawland is apparently one of the demands of the western Delta people for a specialized university as a condition for peace. Peace in the Delta has strategic and financial significance. Nigeria’s foreign exchange earnings come largely from hydrocarbons export. Substantial portion of this comes from the Niger Delta. For that reason, Nigeria is being blackmailed into establishing this so-called marine sciences university thus breaching the unwritten law of one federal university per state since there is already a University of Petroleum Sciences in Effunrun.  How different will this marine university be from existing Nautical College in Oron in Akwa Ibom State, another major oil-producing state that has been agitating for upgrading of the Oron college into a university? It seems to me that the federal government has no choice even though I believe the government is kowtowing to demands by militants. There is also what we can call “mission creep” in specialized universities which eventually become conventional universities. This is how the universities of agriculture in many parts of the country are now running conventional courses. I do not blame them because no university of agriculture in Nigeria can survive if it restricts itself to agricultural sciences alone. The same is true of the so-called federal universities of technology. Thus the one in Bauchi, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University, has metamorphosed into a conventional university with a medical university.

    The National Universities Commission has to take its job of approving the establishment of universities much more seriously. I know of course the NUC can be overruled and sidestepped by government for political reasons but there is need for this commission to assert itself and to let governments know that unplanned universities expansion without planning for teaching staff and continuous and consistent funding would lead to wishy washy products as unemployable outcomes. Establishing universities by the stroke of ministers’ pens or presidential largesse is the easiest thing to do but any good university needs serious planning. Perhaps one needs to call attention of our various governments to the Asquith Commission and Eric Ashby’s Commission that led to the establishment of first generation universities in this country and contrast it with the frivolous tendency now prevailing in Nigeria.

  • Moral and ethical standards in society

    There is a moral gale sweeping through the Anglo-Saxon world.. The whole thing started with revelations about how the movie mogul, Harvey Weinstein has used, over the years, his power and influence to sexually molest young girls looking for breakthrough in the movie industry in Hollywood in the United States.  Close  to 20 ladies have come out to accuse the same man of either rape or improper sexual conduct. The list of abusers is growing every day and it now includes Kevin Spacey; Dustin Hoffman, Brett Rather and James Tobback. The 80-year old radical film star,  Jane Fonda even testified that demanding sexual favours from young stars has been going on in Hollywood for as long as one can remember. These accusations have come on the heel of the sexual misdemeanors allegedly committed by Bill Cosby who in his famous Bill Cosby Show for decades presented himself as the ideal father and husband that both white and black audiences could associate with. He is now derided as someone who was drugging women before sexually assaulting them.

    The  distinction must however be made between sexual harassment and sexual philandering or people having affairs. Sexual molestation is when one exploits his or her power to demand sexual favours from an unwilling person or even making sexually lurid and suggestive jokes to somebody of the opposite sex or somebody with a different sexual orientation especially homosexuals and lesbians. Kevin Spacey for example was accused by somebody who as a young 14-year  old,   found Spacey trying to make love to him.  This was a horrible situation because the poor boy was straight. In all these accusations those accused have denied the accusations or have said most of their sexual relations were consensual. The police in California and New York are looking into possible prosecution of those accused. Very few American politicians have been accused yet unlike the gale sweeping through Westminster. There is the funny accusations against  President George W. H. Bush who at 93 was said  to have touched the buttocks of the women taking care of him after telling them dirty jokes. The old man had to issue statements of regret and apology to his accusers. I personally feel the old man should never have been bothered. My son Seyi feels differently saying old age is not an excuse for inappropriate behaviour.

    The case in Britain is totally different from what is happening in America. The Deputy Prime Minister Damien Green  is under investigation for inappropriate behaviour dating back a decade ago when “extreme pornography” was found  in his computer  during investigation of inappropriate sexual conduct.  The Defence Minister Sir Michael Fallon has already resigned for touching the knees of a female journalist Julia Hartley-Brewer some 15 years ago and apparently for inappropriate proposition to a female cabinet colleague. Another Conservative member of parliament, Dan Pouter has been referred to an internal party disciplinary committee for proper investigation. The Labour Party has its own problem. Clive Lewis, a member of parliament has been accused of groping a woman at Labour’s 2017 conference. One or two members of parliament have been accused of raping young interns or junior members in their offices or of inappropriate behaviour such as a minister sending a secretary to buy him sex toys in a shop in notorious Soho area of London. Sexual scandals are not new in British politics dating back to the John Profumo scandals of 1961. The then Secretary for War was accused of sharing a prostitute with a Russian agent. He resigned in 1963 because he was found to have lied to parliament. Recently Sir Edward Heath a former Prime Minister in the 1970s was posthumously accused of inappropriate relations with young boys. I remember John Major, sleeping apparently on consensual basis, with one of his beautiful ministers of state in 1990 or there about. The longest serving female Labour MP, Harriet Harman said this kind of behaviour cuts across all facets of life in the United Kingdom especially when people  having power deal with those below them. She gave a personal experience of when she was about to graduate some decades ago. Her lecturer called her and told her “young lady you are close to an upper second honours degree and to make sure you make that grade you have to sleep with me. The choice is yours”. She did not say what later happened. For those who think Nigerian teachers are lecherous, you better believe that inappropriate behaviour in tertiary institutions is global. The point must also be made that female students are not saints in this sordid drama.

    What I find intriguing is that the  current brouhaha  about sexual harassment is not likely to cut any ice in France. Infidelity and sexual promiscuity has been tolerated in France  since the time of the Bourbon dynasty to the present. President  Francois Mitterrand for example had a daughter out of marriage and proudly went about with her without anybody raising an eyelid.  The mother of President  Francois Hollande’s children was not the First Lady of France in the last regime and neither was he married to her or the First Lady. The Germans are like their British fellow Saxons who probably hypocritically put on a moral armour in public while  doing something different in their privacy. The Italians of Silvio Berlusconi would laugh at the prudishness of the British. Journalists and victims of sexual harassment in Putin’s Russia will be too afraid to accuse anybody in government because they may be sent to jail or worse.

    I wonder what will happen if there were to be a focus on people in power in Nigeria in their relations with women under them. This would cut across all spectrum of the society in government, bureaucracy, tertiary institutions, business, and even the holy orders  of Christian and Islamic traditions.

    I remember some incidents that make our situation a bit peculiar. In 1995, Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu led a delegation on behalf of the Abacha regime to the European Union. I was Ambassador in Germany winding down my mission to that country. The delegation sought a meeting with the German foreign office. I had to arrange it. We were given 15 minutes for the meeting. Ojukwu was the spokesperson for the group. After a rambling speech about the generosity of Abacha to Abiola in  detention, he dramatically said that Abacha allowed “four of Abiola’s senior wives to visit him every week”. The Germans with broad smile asked Ojukwu “How many wives does Abiola have?”

    The attitude in Asia is not much different. This reminds me of  what the minister of foreign affairs in the Philippines was said to have said to a  Philippine lady who complained to him during a visit to Saudi Arabia about being raped by her boss. He was said to have whispered to his aid without knowing that the microphone was switched on  that she should enjoy it. When the news got home, the minister was immediately fired.

    Although there is no universal norm of sexual relations, but we can all agree that no one should have the power to sexually exploit a fellow human being because of the position of power one holds. Even in marriage, one should not be able to exploit his or her partner sexually. A husband can technically be guilty of rape if a wife is forced against her will. As bad as we sometimes think  things are in Nigeria, people still maintain decent and respectable relationships with people of the opposite sex. I was in Redeemers University for 12 years and I can attest and affirm the fact that nothing of this sort occurred between staff and students. There were cases of improper relations among students. But this is to be expected among young people whose hormones drive them towards sexual relations. Unfortunately with the downturn in the economy in the country, girls and boys in order to survive, I am told, are forced to compromise their morals.Young people of today are less inhibited  as people of my generation. A former female student of mine told me she and two other former students were sharing an apartment in Lagos. I immediately assumed the other two were girls. I was shocked when she told me they were boys. I then told her that I found the situation a bit confusing to put it diplomatically. She explained that there were three different rooms, and that they shared a common kitchen and bathroom and toilet. She then said they were adults with knowledge of permissible boundaries. I then recalled my stay in Lillian Penson Post-graduate hall in the university of London in 1968. This was a mixed hall and my neighbour to the right and left were ladies. Since all the rooms were en suite, I never heard of any scandal through out my stay there yet coming from Nigeria where sexes were rigidly separated. I initially found the arrangement difficult to understand. It all boils down to discipline. Since we were all young and had no power or influence to exercise over others in exchange for sexual favours, the idea of sexual harassment did not come up. This is the crux of the matter. Sexual harassment is a manifestation of power.

  • Zimbabwe:  Soldiers who couldn’t shoot straight

    I have visited Zimbabwe twice in my life. I also once in 1988 met President Robert Mugabe whose people referred to as “Comrade Mugabe” as a way of identifying with him and his revolutionary and socialist pretensions. His Ghanaian wife Sally, a modest lady had unfortunately  died and he then married one of his typists, Grace Mugabe who is now derisively referred to as “Gucci Grace” on account of her love for shopping in high-end shops all over the world and buying designer products while her compatriots were suffering in the backwoods of her country. I was part of Nigeria’s delegation to the meeting of the Liberation Committee of the then Organisation of African Unity (OAU) followed by a meeting of the Commonwealth Foreign ministers committee which involved the foreign ministers of Australia, Canada, Guyana, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Zambia and Tanzania. This latter committee was set up to mobilize financial sanctions against apartheid South Africa as part of pressures on the then racist regime to embrace democratic principles of non-racial majoritarian government. Nigeria operated on three fronts in its worthy leadership of black Africans against white settler regimes in Southern Africa. First, Nigeria was a frontline state along Zambia, Zimbabwe, Tanzania and later Mozambique even though Nigeria was thousands of miles away from Southern Africa. This was a mark of recognition of the role Nigeria was playing in the nationalist wars in Angola, Mozambique, Namibia, Zimbabwe and South Africa itself not to mention the role the country had played in Zambia and helping stabilize Tanzania after a military rebellion in that country after independence. Secondly, Nigeria majorly funded the budget of the Liberation Committee of the OAU based in Dare salaam which was responsible for training military cadres of the various fighting forces of the liberation movements  in Southern Africa. Thirdly, Nigeria was a member of the Commonwealth Foreign Ministers Forum that sought to tighten the financial screws on South African businesses and government with the purpose of bringing down the economy of South Africa.

    As for Zimbabwe itself, the role of Nigeria was decisive in its independence. The African nationalist movement there had been led by the Ndebele patriot, Joshua Nkomo, leader of Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU) who physically towered above his contemporaries and the Reverend Ndabanigi Sithole, founder of rival Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) which was largely a party of the majority Shona people. Nkomo came from the minority Ndebele an offshoot of the South African Zulus who under their leader Lobengula ruled over the Shona majority before the adventurer Cecil Rhodes took over the country in the 1880s and named it Rhodesia after himself. So right from the beginning, Zimbabwean politics was plagued by tribal divisions. Sithole was later edged out by the much more ruthless and more educated Mugabe who had initially trained as a catholic priest. All efforts to unite the two rivals failed. In the meantime their adversary, Ian Smith declared what was then Southern Rhodesia unilaterally free from British control. The military government of Murtala Muhammed/Olusegun Obasanjo between 1976 and 1979 was right in the thick of events which eventually culminated in independence for Zimbabwe. Obasanjo once invited Joshua Nkomo and Robert Mugabe to Dodan Barracks in Lagos and locked up the two combatants in a room to a shootout apparently jokingly saying whoever survived will lead Zimbabwe to independence. The two gentlemen formed what is now ZANU (PF) which was a union of Nkomo’s and Mugabe’s forces. But it was the decision of the Obasanjo government to nationalize British Petroleum and Barclays Bank in Nigeria in 1979 that forced Margaret Thatcher to concede independence to Zimbabwe under majority black rule with entrenched minority rights protected by the constitution in 1980.

    Mugabe soon showed his ruthless hand when he accused the Ndebele of wanting to seize power. He unleashed his North Korean trained special forces on the Ndebele killing more than 20000 people and virtually destroyed Bulawayo the main town in Ndebeleland. In 1987, Mugabe did away with the constitution and proclaimed the country a republic with himself as president with wide array of powers. To wide jubilation, Mugabe seized white owned farms which was 90% of arable land in the country and distributed them to his party supporters who knew nothing about commercial agriculture. Agricultural production virtually evaporated and a country that exported agricultural produce suddenly became an importer. The mining sector producing cobalt and diamond was mismanaged with billions of dollars of revenue stolen. From that point on, the economy went down the slippery slope of collapse with the currency becoming worthless. At a point the currency in an unsustainable fashion was replaced with the American dollar becoming legal tender. This in a way exposed the total dependence of the country on external influence which was very hostile.

    The European Union under British pressure applied sanctions on the country and the EU was later joined by the United States. This drove the country into the hands of China which could only do just enough to precariously prop up the country. Zimbabwe does not have oil, timber or copper which are the things China looks for in Africa. The suffering of the ordinary Zimbabwean has led to a quarter of the country’s population migrating largely to South Africa and the western world where like all immigrants in recent times have become victims of xenophobia. While this was going on Mugabe’s family particularly his wife Grace and their young children have amassed huge fortune which they exhibited on expensive jewellery and champagne parties in South Africa. Mugabe himself to the embarrassment of his people and other Africans has always turned up at every International Organisations’ summit including the UN to read speeches and sometimes missed his lines or dozed off while on the podium. He junkets annually to Singapore for weeks for medical check-up while millions of his people at home die of AIDS.

    He has run a police state for 37 years and the people had no way of getting rid of him until now. He had wanted his wife, Grace to succeed him as president. The only obstacle to that scheme was his wily vice president, Emmerson Mnangagwa who had been cabinet minister in several portfolios including finance before becoming chief of security and vice president. Mnangagwa was also responsible for Zimbabwe’s military promenade in to the free-for-all fight in the Congo during which time he allegedly made good for himself vast amount of looted diamonds. Mugabe summarily dismissed him as he had done to others before him. This time around things went awry. Mnangagwa mobilized his own supporters in the defence forces who moved in and detained the president.  In a typical coup, the military would have announced the formation of a new government but this army which couldn’t shoot straight prevaricated and their overfed and old officers marched around griming with the bedraggled old president as if they were acting a stage play. It was really an embarrassing sight. The army strangely claimed they had not staged a coup d’état but simply moved to arrest people around the president creating problems for the country. The veterans also said the old man was being taken advantage by a young woman. Everybody expected Mugabe to go. Hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans demonstrated against him. They were promised the president would broadcast to the nation. A day before the broadcast ZANU (PF) expelled Mugabe and his wife and threatened an impeachment move against him in parliament.

    After prevaricating for four days and following the beginning of impeachment proceedings in parliament, the old geek finally resigned. The hope of many of us Africans is that his successor Emmerson Mnangagwa would have learnt a lesson and he will not overstay his welcome.

    As for me, my memory of Zimbabwe is that the country is an ungrateful country. At independence, Nigeria bought at 10 million pounds sterling, the only white owned newspaper, the HERALD as an independent gift. Since that time they have used the paper to ridicule and attack Nigeria. They always led opposition to any Nigerian candidate running for positions at international community. After all Nigeria did for her, there is no street in their capital named after a Nigerian leader or Nigeria itself whereas names like Kaunda and Nyerere are to be found. I remember the Babangida regime giving the country millions of dollars to host one important summit or the other in the 1980s. Now we have a joke of a military afraid to throw the blighter out and saying a coup is not a coup for fear of western or African criticism that are already fed up with Mugabe and ready to say good riddance to bad rubbish!

  • Growing personal insecurity

    There is no doubt that the economic decline in Nigeria and the general lack of accountability on the part of our leaders have created a disconnect between the various governments and the generality of the people. The ease with which people misuse or exploit their offices as if there were no checks and balances amazes reasonable and thinking people. The humongous looting of the treasuries by individuals demonstrate the breakdown of bureaucratic and government control system. This is undermining the integrity and legitimacy of the governments and their officials and consequently creating a vacuum in governance space which anti-social people and hoodlums are filling. The result of this is that those who can afford to hire personal security guards are doing so and those who cannot are resigned to prayers and luck that they will not be victims.  Even as we all know, one can hire policemen if one has the resources whether one is in government or out of it.

    Kidnapping has become so lucrative that those previously involved in armed robbery have shifted to kidnapping. People are routinely kidnapped on their way home from work or while sleeping at night or travelling between cities. Once kidnapped, those who are not killed in the process are traded as commodities and prices are put on their heads and if lucky after successful negotiations and payment of ransoms, they are released to their relatives while the police will issue dishonest statements that no ransom was paid. The situation is so bad that there are no longer sacred places that are respected by kidnappers. Churches and mosques now routinely hire guards and policemen whose loyalties cannot be guaranteed.  Our church in Ibadan has two layers of security, one by the police, the other by private guards. While praying to God for our security, we keep our eyes half closed in case we have to bolt away if we hear “fire on the mountain”. This is really sad. In the past, old people are spared but not any more; in fact they are increasingly becoming easy targets because of their cash value and the ease of catching them since they can neither fight nor run when accosted. The result of this is that those who live in cities cannot visit their villages where their ancestors are buried!  The environment is poisoned with fear; mere greetings by loud youngsters can lead to people running for dear lives.

    I once went home to Okemesi and as I was driving out of town, I was stopped right at the boundary between Okemesi and Esaoke by two middle aged men who had put across the road a barrier of a long stick full of nails to puncture the tyre of anyone who refused to stop.  I was very angry because I was rushing to Lagos. When I asked what the problem was, I was asked to show my tax clearance. I asked which kind of tax clearance? I was told that of Oriade Local Government. I told them I was a teacher at Redeemers University in Osun State and paid “pay as you earn” tax. They refused to budge. Then I felt, let me speak my local dialect to these people and that perhaps that would do the trick. When I spoke, I was shouted at and asked to speak English and that they did not understand Yoruba, my language. It then turned out that the people were non-Yorubas hired by the local government to force money out of anybody they could find by terrorizing them. At that point, I bluntly refused to be robbed. Suddenly I saw a solitary mobile policeman standing a few meters from where my driver and I were. I called him and introduced myself. His response was – “oga you are an old man, pay them their money and go away”.  I was shocked. I became deadly stubborn saying “the only way you will get money from me is over my dead body”. Eventually one of the boys knew the game was up and said “old man go away”.

    For a long time afterwards, I never visited my home town. Our compound at home where we had celebrated many Christmas parties and where the larger family congregates often when occasions demand has been robbed many times. So has the First Bank that serves my town Imesi and our sister town Imesi-Ile been robbed and the policeman guarding it killed thereby shutting down banking operations of the two towns. Sometimes we are told the young people robbing my home town come from a nearby polytechnic which I refuse to believe. But who knows? We are really in trouble!

    A friend of mine living in Abuja but who comes from the north-east told me a story that early in January 2016 he was driving to Bauchi from Jos and a policeman stopped him and asked for his papers. He assumed it was one of those “oga give us something now”. He brought out his wallet and attempted to offer something for the boys. To his surprise, the policeman said “oga don’t you know Buhari is the president?” He was pleasantly surprised and happy and drove off. President Buhari’s integrity matters to many of us who support him. As my nephew has clinically examined the coalition that brought Buhari to power in his write-up in Thisday, the southern intelligentsia was critical. This support was based on the confidence we have that Buhari is the only politician among the current ones who can clean the Augean stable of corruption in Nigeria.

    He must do everything possible to maintain this integrity and those around him, if they love him, must not do anything to undermine the confidence people have in him. Perception can sometimes be stronger than reality. There must be no room for doubts and if any assistant or ministers appear to undermine his campaign against corruption, such a person must be shown the way out and must be swiftly dealt with.

    The insecurity in the country is intricately linked with the corruption. If there is money in the coffers of government, we would have excellent infrastructure and with this the country will be open for businesses. But if it is a free for all kind of situation, then the insecurity will increase and the country will descend into warlordism where brigands carve up the country and reach some concordance with security agencies to fend for themselves. Unless something is done quickly, the Boko Haram insurgence will be replicated in other parts of the country not in form of religious rebellion but in form of criminal gangs that would be laws unto themselves.

    It is an open secret that people from the north-east living in Abuja can no longer drive through Plateau State to Bauchi for fear of being killed. They now have to go through Kano to Bauchi if they survive ambush in some parts of Kaduna State. Thus a journey of a few hours becomes a full day’s journey. South-easterners are marooned in Lagos and the South-west and hardly go home any more, not even at Christmas for fear of kidnappers. Even the peace in the South-west has been shattered by people from outside the area who have brought their nefarious business of kidnapping to the region.

    This among other reasons is why we have been calling for local or zonal police recruited from the local environment who know the place and speak the local languages of the people. This is no brainer! It is commonsensical. We cannot and must not wait until we are killed or kidnapped before we speak out because self preservation is the first law of nature. As presently configured the security agencies have failed and people do not feel safe any where any time whether in the night or in the daybreak, at home or at work in the city or in the country!.

    Unfortunately this insecurity has economic and foreign policy dimension. Investors are shying away from Nigeria, even our young ones are running away to foreign countries through indescribable and dangerous routes and means and our counsel and collaboration are no longer sought by those who hitherto were our partners. Our problem has gone beyond party affiliations. It is a matter of life or death and we must all stay here in Nigeria and find solutions to our problem.  Those of the opposition who gloat when something goes wrong in government should bury their heads in shame. As some people have said, 50 percent of the so-called APC government are from the PDP with the same buccaneering attitude to governance. So how can we expect fundamental change when only the president appears to be fighting a solitary battle and he is being pulled by the instincts of survival or self sacrifice in an environment laden with political mines?

  • My take on the Awolowo statue

    I have followed with keen interest the debate on the new Awolowo statue in Ikeja. On one hand, some people have dismissed the new statue on the grounds that it does not bear any resemblance or image of Chief Awolowo that they knew. On the other hand some have said the artist has a right and artistic license to bring his imagination to bear on his work.

    May I commend the Lagos State government for commissioning the work in the first place. I have always said our country must honour those who deserve to be honoured. Those who deserve to be honoured should be those who have made great contributions and impact on our lives. We have mythical figures like Oduduwa, Oranmiyan, Bayijiddah of Daura whose visages nobody knows. We have recent leaders of the 19th and 20th centuries that we can easily identify. They should not be politicians alone they should include leaders in commerce and industry, education and science, sports and entertainment.

    It is of course easy to identify our past political leaders without whom we would not have had our independence at the time we had it. And for those of us who are historically minded, there are leaders of the Nigerian area going back to as far back as the 9th century who deserve to be honoured. The only problem with the men of antiquity is that we do not know how they look. But we have pictures of some of our leaders of the 19th century like Usman Dan Fodiye, founder of the Sokoto caliphate, Alaafin Ladigbolu 1 of Oyo and Ooni Ademiluyi of Ile – Ife who were on their thrones when the white man came for example. We also have photos of Sarkin Mohammad Abbas, of Kano and king Jaja of Opobo and so on.

    In relatively recent times we have photos of Bishop Ajayi Crowther and later on, the photos of Sir Ibikunle Alakija, Herbert Macaulay,  Dr Adeniyi Jones, Ernest Ikoli,  Samuel Akisanya, H. O. Davies, Nnamdi  Azikiwe, Obafemi Awolowo, Kashim Ibrahim, Ahmadu Bello,  Samuel Ladoke Akintola, Michael Okpara, Ibrahim Imam, Anthony Enahoro, Joseph Sanwuan Tarka, Samuel Festus Okotie-Eboh, Aminu Kano, Saadu Zungur, and Adegoke Adelabu to mention a few.  I know the religion of Islam frowns at making representational image of God’s creation including man, but Turkey with its old and exceptional civilization permits this. There is no religious tradition in Christianity that is opposed to all kinds of art including imagining what God and our Lord Jesus Christ may have looked like to the artist.

    Now to the Awolowo statue. Some two or so years ago, some primary school children in Ikenne the home town of Chief Awolowo were asked who Obafemi Awolowo was and none of the children could hazard a guess except one intrepid little boy who put up his hand to answer the question. The teacher was relieved and asked the boy to educate his class of dullards only for him to say Obafemi Awolowo was a footballer. The teacher was surprised and was told by the boy that Obafemi played centre forward for Nigeria. This was how the teacher knew the young child’s Obafemi was Obafemi Martins. The little boy should not be blamed. Many of our university students do not know who the founding fathers of Nigeria are. We have spent most of our post-independence life under the military who apparently to keep our people disconnected from their past, banned the teaching of history in our schools. It is heartening to hear that the present government is trying to return historical pedagogy to our schools.

    This is where monuments come in. A visit to nearby Ghana will show us how this is done. The slave castles used by the Dutch slavers in the 16th to the 18th centuries are well kept and are visited by fee paying Black American tourists in their hundreds of thousands every year thus contributing to the Ghanaian economy. The residences of their colonial governors are still maintained and put to official use. The Race Course where Kwame Nkrumah proclaimed independence in 1957 still has the busts of Nkrumah, Ako  Adjei, Krobo Edusei and  Komla Agbedi Gbedemah standing there with correct-visages not as idealized by an artist. The Ghana government went all the way to Lincoln Pennsylvania to bring home the bed used by Nkrumah at the Lincoln University where he was a student in the 1930s having been predated by our own Nnamdi Azikiwe by almost a decade. His body and that of his wife Fatimah are preserved in a mausoleum in the Race Course.

    I remember visiting New Delhi sometimes ago and being shown the small bed Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Indian Prime Minister was sleeping on when he led a country of one billion people. It was not a golden bed but simple wooden bed without mattresses. Of course the bust of Nehru was the realistic image of the man as we see in his photographs. Any visit to the United States and either to the Lincoln column or the Kennedy centre would see the correct facial image of these two iconic presidents. Recently I was in the House of Commons in England and I saw the standing busts of British prime ministers from Walpole to John Major. I noticed the giant sizes of Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher which illustrates the bias of the officials of parliament to the Conservative Party. I was particularly impressed by the figures of Benjamin Disraeli and William Gladstone whose rivalry and competition dominated British politics for most of the 19th century. What you see in any public square in England is not the imagination of artists but the way their heroes looked not necessarily in sizes but certainly in their faces. There  is no doubt about the  likeness of these figures to the real people being celebrated at least for those from the 18th century to the present  when photos were available and those before that time were copied from painted images of their heroes.

    In Nigeria, we have no idea of how to preserve the past especially the recent past.  What have we done to our First Republic parliament? Our Prime Minister’s official residence is now an army officers’ mess!  The official residence of our Governor -General/ president was abandoned for years until it was recently handed over to the Lagos State government. The Premier’s Lodge in Ibadan has been converted to a High Court. The one in Kaduna is housing, I believe, the Gamji Foundation. The premier’s house in Enugu may have been put to other usage. The governors of the south-western states could have approached the estate of Chief Awolowo to buy his private residence which he used when he was premier of the West and convert it to Awolowo centre, open to the public to hold his library and memorabilia and to keep the flame of his memory burning.

    I acknowledge the fact that governments at various levels have honoured our past heroes. We have universities named after Obafemi Awolowo, Nnamdi Azikiwe, Ahmadu Bello, Abubakar Balewa, Ladoke Akintola, Michael Okpara, Michael Ajasin, Olabisi Onabanjo. None is yet named after Kashim Ibrahim, first central minister of education and governor of the whole of northern Nigeria. There are also roads and avenues named after some of them in Lagos and Abuja and other cities. In essence, their families cannot complain. Whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well. A statue should look like the one it is made to replicate. It should not be left to the imagination of any artist to tell us what Awolowo looks like whether sitting or standing. It is my considered opinion that this Awolowo statue should be removed and somebody who knows how to make a look-alike statue of Obafemi Awolowo be contacted and contracted to do it.