The Nation Newspaper

Category: Jide Osuntokun

  • Confusing global trends

    Confusing global trends

    Many of us observers are confused about what exactly is happening and about to happen in the world judging by results and projected results and forecasts about future political situation in the world. Judging from the disastrous performance of President Joe Biden in his CNN debate against the Republican candidate, Donald J. Trump and the near certainty of him becoming president of the United States after the election next year and shift of global politics to the right and all the negative tendencies accompanying it, the entire global community especially the liberal wing of it, begins to tremble. We add to this the renewal of the mandate of Prime Minister Narenda Modi in recently concluded Indian election with reduced national support but still enough to form a government after bringing in some minority parties to form a ruling cabinet.  This leaves the 200 million Indian Muslims and other minorities in the cold as potential recruits for terrorists capable of destabilising one fifth of the world’s population in the South Indian subcontinent.

    In Africa, we witness the organised and managed victory in Egypt of President Muhammad Abdel Fattah Al Sisi which makes no pretence about human rights and any form of liberalism after stamping out the Muslim Brotherhood and consigning into prison until he died their leader Muhammad Morsi who was elected president of Egypt in a fair and legitimate election.

    In South Africa, President Cyril Ramaphosa has kept his job by bringing into a coalition to form a government, remnants of the white apartheid supporters in the Democratic Alliance party and the Inkatha Freedom Party of Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi in what can be called a rightist government far away from the revolutionary roots of the African National Congress of Nelson Mandela.

    In Europe, the snap election called by President Emanuel Macron has exposed the underlying rightist tendency growing in continental Europe from Hungary, Slovakia, Germany, Austria and now France in a big way. If this trend continues to grow in Europe, it may undermine the unity of the European Union (EU). The cause of the National Rally’s parliamentary group is being pursued by the 28-year old son of Italian immigrants Jordan Bardella under the overall leadership of Marine Le Pen who inherited the party from her father Jean Marie Le Pen. Although nothing is certain and won’t be certain until the second round of the French national polls take place on July the 7, there is however the possibility of President Macron being in a difficult cohabitation with the National Rally prime minister after the July 7 elections. This has several ramifications. The government will not be able to support as before the beleaguered government of Ukraine. With rising racism against black and non-white immigrants in France will grow resentment against the French people and call for dissolution of the colonial ties, despite so-called independence, with France from which they have benefited economically for almost a century. France without its economic exploitation of its neo colonial hold on Francophone Africa will be an economic drag on the EU and Germany will have to bridge the gap. This will put pressure on Germany and make attractive the nationalist program of the Alernativ fur Deutschland (AFD) party which aims at building a powerful nationalist Germany with consequences for the EU and the world.

    The EU is founded on France’s convergence of interest with that of Germany in securing the peace of Europe after centuries of rivalry between the two nations which had led to devastating wars since 1870. The new nationalism of the Rassemblement Nationale of Marine Le pen may unravel the peace of Europe and the world.

    If Trump wins the election next year, the alliance of America and right wing government in France will definitely ruin the chances of Ukraine remaining independent in its struggle with Vladimir Putin’s Russian federation and disrupt the boundaries of Europe imposed or negotiated after the disastrous Second World War.

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    With rightist governments in Slovakia, Hungary and France and possibly the Netherlands, the conservative nationalism which had been responsible for wars in Europe in the past is being let out of the bottle with the rest of the world being brought into their infernal and eternal conflict as it has been in the past. The only saving grace against the drum of war is the possible victory of Sir Keir Starmer, the successor to left wing extremist Jeremy Corbyn after 14 years of Tory rule in the United Kingdom. Even if Starmar wins in the United Kingdom, he will be politically isolated with only the chancellor of Germany understanding his centrist views and even then the German chancellor is in a weak situation because his coalition government at home is in a very shaky and precarious foundation. The British government’s voice would be muffled within the cacophony of rightist governments’ voices on the international scene.

    To add to the puzzle of elections and their possible impact on global events come the election in Iran to replace the late Ibrahim Raisi who fell in the line of duty when his helicopter crashed in northeast Iran where he was going to commission a water and hydroelectric plant a couple weeks ago. The election in Iran was not like the usual election we are used to but it was still an election between two members of the regime, the pro-reform candidate, Mashoud Pezeshkhian a 69-year old surgeon who favours opening to the world and conservative nuclear hard liner, Saeed Jalili. The contest is still guided by the inner council of the Islamic theocracy headed by Ayatollah Khamenei that rules the country. It will not really matter who the people want because the external political environment hostile to the Islamic republic would determine the reaction of whoever becomes the new president.

    If President Trump returns to the White House as being projected by the political pundits, the hostility of America to Iran would continue because nothing would have changed since Iran would not abandon its national interest and the nuclear programme which it hopes will guarantee the independence of the country as it has done to North Korea. In other words, the situation of conflict will continue and the weak Arab states will be forced to depend on the United States which will coerce them to reach a rapprochement with Israel after the destruction of the Palestinian entity in Gaza and the West Bank of River Jordan. The Palestinians will therefore be driven underground and would be like dormant volcanoes erupting whenever possible all over the world until the world treats them with respect.

    Where do all these events leave the world? What appears certain is that for years to come, we will be faced with uncertainty and insecurity. Force of arms have been proved not to secure mankind historically because the resentful whether subject minorities, persecuted religious minorities or economically deprived people, will always find ways to assert themselves in spite of whatever circumstances and consequences to themselves until they have justice. The oceans do not separate Europe from America as the history of the world has shown. Isolationism will not secure the Americas from consequences of European political difficulties nor will the rest of the world remain unaffected by problems in Europe, America Asia or Africa. It is not just that the problem in one part of the world has ramifications in all parts of our common global village, the world is so totally intertwined that events in one part of the world like the recent pandemic of Covid -19 so sadly illustrated, have tendencies of affecting the rest of the world. This should guide our approach to the problem of extremism in one part of the world. This is why events in America are of immense interest to the rest of the world because for now America remains a global hegemon. This is not to say events in other parts of the world are of no concern to common humanity.

  • Plus ca change plus ca meme chose: Between American and South African politics

    Plus ca change plus ca meme chose: Between American and South African politics

    I have been an avid watcher of American and South African politics since my first year in the university in 1963 and I had thought the promise for the world was the possibility of change in the two countries’ politics which I thought would usher in revolutionary changes in race relations for good in global politics. Recent events in the two countries have raised doubts in my mind about the course of events in global politics.

    Why I thought the two countries offered humanity the opportunity for change either peacefully or otherwise was because I saw similarities in the politics of the countries and the roles of race and the ability of man to rise above the racial demons that seem to dog mankind in the 20th century the most wicked of which climaxed in the Nazi holocaust against the Jews in Europe. The differences between the two countries are of course stark. America is a new country settled by Europeans and Africans after virtually wiping out the indigenous native tribes. The country was built on racial injustice against the natives and the forced labour of African slaves and the skill and genius of the white man. It is a vast country which had the chance and opportunity of satisfying the greed and cupidity of man if some balance could be forged between the acquisitive urge of man and man’s basic humanity of fairness.

    I thought with the right political leadership, this was possible. On the other hand, South Africa is both a white settler country in an old continent inhabited by hardy and tough black people who could not be easily wiped off the map. It presented humanity a fait accompli of a country built on the abundance of black native labour and black land expropriated by settler whites whose genius has brought some development without a sense of sharing and fairness.

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    How the two emergent countries were to resolve the contradictions in their countries presented mankind challenges which some of us have watched in the last 60 or so years with interest. Of course, South Africa does not have the resources and power of the United States but it however provides a paradigm, albeit on a smaller scale, on the possible resolution of a difficult human problem.

    In the 1960s, both countries presented a sharp racial divide which at that time seems to be an unbridgeable racial chasm. The South African situation did not present mankind simple political solution but a dire problem which only violence could resolve. The Americans between 1860 and 1865 had fought a civil war causes among which were how a so-called free society should not be a slave holding country. The victory of the North against the South did not resolve the problem because the problem continued in a most wicked form of political and physical segregation of the blacks who were herded to undeveloped parts of the South and when they migrated to the north, the urban ghettos replaced the slave plantations. But in spite of this, and with the right leadership, there were glimmers of hope for change. Violence is as American as apple pie is, so some violence was expected along the way for social and political changes in America.

    The emergence of the new African Congress and particularly the Umkotho we Siswe – “The Spear of the Nation” led by such young people like Oliver Tambo and Nelson Mandela marked the turning point of politics of liberation in South Africa from agitational demonstration to armed struggle illustrating the aphorism that when peaceful change is made impossible, revolutionary struggle becomes inevitable. This is the evidence of history.

    The 1960s in America and South Africa witnessed revolutionary confrontations between the forces of change and maintaining the status quo. The age was also the age of African independence and liberation agitation and these had impact on the politics of the people out of the power loop in the two countries. The blacks in the USA wanted enfranchisement and economic opportunities. In South Africa, they wanted the same thing and equality with the settlers which means ultimately, transfer of power to the majority black peoples. The whites in America were not faced with this choice whereas this was the choice faced by the settler regime in South Africa and it was a matter of fight to finish, surrender and or perish. Therefore their resistance was bloody and blatant.

    They even became, in the 1970s, a nuclear weapons state ready to bring Armageddon on not only South Africa but on the entire continent. They were aided in their acquisition of this lethal armament by right wing forces in America, Europe and Israel. There was no room for accommodation whereas in the United States, it was found possible to enfranchise the blacks and blunt whatever revolutionary fervour that was driving political agitation and agenda in the country. The result of this in the United States was the election of several black mayors and a few Congress men and women and a sprinkling of one or two senators but hardly any governor. This change certainly blunted the raging urban riots of the 1960s.

    The pressure of young black revolutionary movements and the civil rights movement led by Dr Martin Luther King  culminated in the civil Rights Bill of 1965 which despite its limitations has given black Americans a window of opportunity to be politically equal even if still economically deprived and dependent. No one can deny that progress has been made. The election of Barack Obama is a recognition of the black progress but which unfortunately has raised the banners of reaction, retrogressions and political and social segregation and violence in thought and deed manifested by Donald Trump and his MAGA movement.  The America of President Barack Obama now appears so distant in the past and the hope for a peaceful balance of races a forlorn hope.

    Events in South Africa moved rapidly from the country’s precipitously crashing down of the decades before the 1990s to a period which witnessed the release of Nelson Mandela from prison. From prison to the presidential palace, remains an epic story of what is possible as epitomised by the Mandela story in South Africa. The coming to power of the African National Congress and the installation of Nelson Mandela as president in 1994 remains one of the great landmarks in the history of African decolonisation and political change and transfer of power from an entrenched powerful minority to a majority that is economically and technologically unprepared for power. South Africa has therefore struggled on gingerly with the black majority incapacitated by the vagaries of economic reforms that have left the real power in the hands of the white minority thus creating a tale of two societies in one country bifurcated by race in which the haves and have nots have virtually remained the same as it was under the apartheid regime. The radicalism of the African National Congress has not translated into jobs, housing, land and economic empowerment of the black majority in South Africa. The recent loss of power by the  ANC and  its forming a coalition government with the Democratic Alliance, the Inkatha Freedom Party of Buthelezi and other holdouts of the apartheid era, throws us back to where the country was decades ago and it is an acceptance of the fact that the black majority needs the white minority to make progress.

    There may be nothing wrong with accepting this reality but it certainly gives room for thought that despite the sloganeering of the ANC, nothing really has changed and the blacks remain at the bottom of the ladder in South Africa.

    America and South Africa remain racially as divided as they have always been. South Africa from the evidence of the last election in which the most powerful national group, the Zulus voted for tribal Zulu parties, Jacob Zuma’s Umkotho We Siswe and Inkatha Freedom Party of the Zulu tribalism Buthelezi, is moving towards tribal politics which remains the bane of African politics and the cause for African underdevelopment which was why the settlers were able to divide and rule the country for centuries. Incredibly, America of Donald Trump is moving in the same direction of political tribalism in which many of his supporters are even denying that America is a democracy.

    Some argue that they have never been a democracy. This may be true but I have never heard this said by high ranking politicians before. If they are not a democracy then what is America then? Without shame, some say America is a republic others say it is a constitutional republic. Some Republicans including Donald Trump openly say if they lose the 2024 elections, there will be a civil war in the United States because they will not accept their loss. In a situation where the Republican Party is the party of the privileged whites and loudly announcing that America is “white country”, we seem to be back to pre-civil war America of a tale of two cities in the Dickensian terminology. We are all going to hell and we are all going to heaven!

    Nothing really has changed in America and South Africa, one country manifesting dictatorship of the racial majority while the other showing control and influence of an economically dominant minority.

  • Need for pro-poor development strategy

    Need for pro-poor development strategy

    The Holy Bible says we will always have the poor with us.  In Mark 14:7, our Lord Jesus the Christ, at a meal in Bethany in the home of a certain Simon, a leper when a woman poured precious ointment on him and some of his disciples more or less wondered whether it would not have been better if the Alabaster box of ointment had been sold and the proceeds given to the poor. Although Jesus was indicating he would soon finish his mission on earth while the poor will forever be with us, the statement remains eternally true. The Holy Quran in ch.39 :34 advises Muslims to spend for the general welfare of the umma but as far as Islamic scholarship goes, there is no caliphate, sultanate or kingdom that has operated on the abolition of poverty since the 7th century until now except perhaps  from what Muamar Ghadafi tried to do in his Libyan  ja’amarhiyyah.

    Philosophers of different variants have struggled with how to solve the problem of the poor. Even though Karl Marx was a baptised Jew, his scheme of socialism was not based on Christian charity but on the inevitable clash of the rich against the poor- the bourgeoisie against the proletariat which according to him is inevitable. Those who have studied the religious underpinnings of Karl Marxism have seen the Christian idea of utopia copied by Karl Marx in his proletarian utopia in which society will have evolved around a classless society based on each according to one’s need and from each according to one’s ability. Although Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, his collaborator would deny any association of their ideology with the Christian religion because they were not interested in spiritual things but in historical materialism. They were both atheists but at a time Marxism had as much following as Christianity or Islam.

    I watched a self-serving interview given by the present foreign minister of Mali justifying the emergence of the Association of Sahelian states of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger in opposition to ECOWAS or what remains of it and saying their new baby was the more authentic African creation than the present ECOWAS, which in his words, is a puppet of London, Paris and Washington. He made the point that the wars in the Sahel are manifestations of the failure, since independence by African countries following a development paradigm dictated by foreigners without the Africans looking inward to find out what was truly in their interest.

    Of course, there is no doubt that the West has stolen huge resources from us whether oil, gold, copper, diamonds and agricultural produce on top of human labour of slaves carried away from Africa since the Portuguese sailors first reached Africa in the 15th century. Our late colleague, Walter Rodney, in his book “How Europe Underdeveloped Africa” created a powerful legacy before he was brutally bombed out of this world in 1980 in Guyana to silence his revolutionary ideas. He had however brought new perspective to the question of development in Africa. 

    The curse of colonialism and neo colonialism is well known and the question which is always asked is what are we going to do about it?

    Before the December 2003 conference of Commonwealth Heads of states and Governments (CHOGM) here in Abuja Nigeria, there was some kind of a small committee set up by the  Commonwealth Secretariat headed by former Indian finance minister and later prime minister, the Oxford University-educated Manmohan Singh which met in London several times to critically look at the crisis of development in the third world part of the commonwealth. I believe this committee of six coming from New Zealand, the West Indies and Canada, I was a member representing Africa. The committee of experts was serviced by the Commonwealth Secretariat. We were charged with producing a report later published as a book entitled “Pro-poor development” to be considered for adoption in the Abuja conference to focus on development in the Commonwealth countries mostly in Africa the Caribbean and the Pacific island members of the commonwealth.

    There was no need to get bogged down with the definition of poverty. Our focus was on the countries’ inability to provide food, shelter, education, health and plan for their future. To be able to plan for the future, one must take care of the present and have a family whose size matches one’s financial resources and responsibilities.

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    I remember the chairman harping on the last issue as being fundamental and asking us to know that even in America where large family size was common in the past was no more the case and that the drastic situation taken by Indira Ghandi by castrating men after the first child which led to her murder was because she knew the only way India would develop was through radically curbing its ballooning population. The idea was then said to have provided veritable examples of that all developing countries following America and India, should embrace to save the whole world, the only known planet humanly habitable from explosion by carrying an overweight of population.

    In order words, pro-poor development includes embracing the doctrine of sustainability which had formed the kernel of Gro Harlem Brundtland report “On our Common Future” of 1987 in which the central theme was the poverty of the South and the conspicuous consumption in the North which was creating an unsustainable global development. This then means that the richer part of the Commonwealth had a moral duty to pull up the less developed parts through ASSISTANCE DEVELOPMENT in the form of grants, providing opportunities for educational training in their countries and also ensuring market accessibility to facilitate more rapid economic development.

    The poor countries were also encouraged to pull up themselves through their own bootstraps and to do something to curb their population growth despite religious and cultural opposition to whatever their governments may want to do. Since then, nothing much has happened except that India though still largely a poor country has left the ranks of the very poor in Asia and Africa. The challenge is for a country like Nigeria is to show the light so that the rest of Africa can follow.

    The strategy Nigeria should adopt is a radical approach to its population growth. The population policy of the government should be based on men and should clearly state that no man should have more than four children rather than asking women to limit the number of children. Of course this would be opposed by Muslim fundamentalists and possibly by other believers of other religions on the grounds that it is God who gives children. This policy change must be strictly enforced by states and preached by leaders of all religions. This will not be easy. No new idea is easy. It should also be backed by financial rewards of economic inducements to families that adopt rational birth control.  As I write, most highly educated Muslims are monogamous with small families because of economic necessity. The health ministries should also be strengthened to make birth control available to all those who want it. Our borders must also be guarded to prevent undocumented aliens flooding our countries from Chad, the Cameroons, Niger and people from Benin and the rest of West Africa as far as Guinea the Gambia, Senegal, Burkina Faso and Sierra Leone. We must build a country that will be a shining star to all Africa just as Japan used to be to the rest of Asia until China came around .This will be hard but we have to crack eggs to make palatable omelette.

    We must also rapidly take control of our natural resources both mineral and agricultural and forest resources which are still being carried away by Europeans, Chinese and Indians and their comprador agents among us. Through state capitalism, we must build up our economic base before embarking on massive mobilisation of current youth population roaming around our cities for development. China was able to leapfrog from poverty to relative wealth within a generation by mobilization of the population.

    If we have the money, we can buy appropriate technology from the rest of the world and we can also rely on attracting considerable numbers of our well-trained and endowed diaspora to assist our development.

    What has become very clear to us from experience and analysis is that we have no other choice to go to avoid national suicide than by focusing on the development of our youth who if not mobilized, trained and employed, will be available for our enemies who are presently funding terrorism, Jihadism and rural and urban banditry.  As a commentator recently said, those untrained hands would be made and trained to carry AK47. The present government must ensure that it is seen to be doing something about this not by appointing token members of the youth into cabinet position, useful as this may be, but it must go further than this to practical employment of idle hands for development. It may appear to be difficult but by doing what that great British economist John Maynard Keynes forced the British government by weight of his arguments to do by embarking on public works to create demands even if in the short run  may have inflationary effects but in future would add value to overall wealth through increased production.

    Why can’t all states and local governments embark on building roads, farms and mobilising all technical departments and engineering faculties in our universities in opening up the country and making the world realise that a new sheriff is in town? If we don’t do something as said by Maynard Keynes “we are all dead”.

  • As old national anthem returns

    As old national anthem returns

    Nigeria we hail thee

    Our own dear native land

    Though tongue and tribe may differ

    In brotherhood we stand.

    Nigerians all are proud to serve

    A sovereign mother land

    This is the first stanza of the old Nigerian national anthem composed by a certain Jean Lillian Williams, a Briton then living and working in Nigeria. This served as our national anthem from 1960 to 1978 when it was replaced with a new anthem. At the time of independence when the competition to write a national anthem was thrown open, the number of people with the capacity to compose a worthy anthem in English was severely limited so it was relatively easy for the English woman to run away with the prize. Secondly, a more radical government ought to have known that the nationality of the writer would in future pose considerable problems to a nationalistic generation. The British left Nigeria as Brian Sherwood Smith, the departing governor of northern Nigeria “always as friends”. The federal government headed by sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa had no reason to be sensitive about the British nativity of the composer of our national anthem after all, he felt the country was a “British intention and creation”. In the excitement and euphoria of independence, very few people apart from a few of our intelligentsia paid much attention to it.

    The structural deficiency of our country began to manifest as from 1962 when because of political problems, the carefully constructed federal political architecture of the country began to fray at the margins. This awareness became physically manifest when the military overthrew the civilian government of Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa which eventually led to massive killings of Ibos in the North in retaliation against Ibo military officers who were accused of targeting northern and western Nigerian officers in the military coup d’état of 1966 which had led to a counter coup by Northern officers in July 1966.

    The bitterly fought civil war between 1967 and 1970 led to much soul-searching and question for a new political beginning. The rehabilitation and reconstruction that followed the civil war led to creation of new states, fashioning out a new constitution and adopting a new national anthem on the eve of the military departure under General Olusegun Obasanjo from the political scene. The military regime of General Murtala Muhammed which came into office in 1975 rode on the wave of nationalism at home and abroad. It tried to clean the Augean stables of bureaucratic and political corruption at home and champion the cause of liberation and nationalism on the African continent and break away from subservience to western particularly British and American influence. This was noticeable in widespread retirements of top civil servants and financial support for liberation movements in Southern Africa and in Guinea-Bissau. It was part of this militant nationalism, at least in appearance, that made the Obasanjo regime change the national anthem in 1978.

    A committee of bureaucrats and university professors of English was set up to draft a new anthem. I remember a friend of mine, Kola Ogungbesan then teaching at Ahmadu Bello University, was one of them. The first stanza of the anthem is:

    Arise o compatriots

    Nigeria’s call obey

    To serve our fatherland

    With love, strength and faith

    The labour of our heroes past

    Shall never be in vain

    To serve with might and strength

    One nation bound in freedom peace and unity.

    I read somewhere that the command tone of the anthem smacks of militarism and that this was one of the reasons for jettisoning it. This is not a cogent reason because most anthems all over the world have some element of commanding the citizens to rise and do something. An example is the French national anthem which was fashioned in battle by those citizens who were marching to defend the young republic in 1789 from reactionary forces and their foreign supporters. The French national anthem La Marseillaise says:

    Allons enfants de la Patrie

    Le jour de la gloire est arrive

    Contre Nous de la tyrranie

    Letandard sanglant

    Etandezvous dans les campagnes, etc

    Meaning – Let’s go children of the fatherland; the day of glory has arrived to confront the forces of tyranny against us in our country.

    One of course can say we did not have that kind of reactionary forces arrayed against us but certainly during the civil war, Portugal, South Africa, Rhodesia, France and America had no interest in our national unity and survival as a country. In other words, I do not see any point saying the anthem of 1978 had a commanding military tone. The American national anthem celebrates the fact that their star-spangled flag still waves on the land of the free and the home of the brave.  The German national anthem is about “Deutschland Deutschland uber Alles” meaning their country before all others which is a call to defend Germany, a call which Adolf Hitler abused from 1939 to 1945. Patrioticheskaya pensya, the Russian national anthem has undergone metamorphosis with the change in Russian history from the USSR to now Russian federation, but the core has remained the same. It celebrates Russia’s huge size from the Arctic to the Caucasus and from Europe to the Japanese Sea and calls on its citizens to take pride in its glory and defend its integrity and primacy in the world. The Chinese national anthem “the March of the volunteers” harps on the mass revolt against Japanese occupation and the successor nationalist Chinese government propped up by the West which was eventually defeated and expelled to Taiwan.

    In other words, a country’s national anthem should reflect the experience and history of a country at a critical time particularly a decisive moment. It is in the nature of any serious nation to call to arms its citizens to be prepared in case it becomes necessary to defend it.

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    So our government in 1978 was following a well laid precedence in getting the old anthem jettisoned for a marching order in a world inhabited by sharks that were not particularly friendly and in a world where to be black meant less rights but most humiliating in our continent still then dominated by forces of colonialism, settlerism and apartheid.

    Now what has changed? Are we freer than what we were in 1978? Certainly not. We have seen our economy collapse under the jackboot of neo colonialism and our people barely surviving under rampant corruption and mismanagement and youth unemployment leading to breakdown of security. Can we seriously call our change of anthem the most pressing issue confronting us? It will be interesting to interrogate the genesis of the move to change the anthem. Should we not be facing the issue of over centralisation if we are really serious about demilitarisation of the polity? It seems most Nigerians now believe that the country is in a state of inertia because of our over concentration of power at the centre. This has destroyed healthy economic development rooted in cooperative federalism.

    Thank God it also seems we are now agreed on state and possibly local police as antidote to the bushfire of kidnapping and highway brigandage and urban robbery and thievery. These are the areas our legislature should focus on instead of the puerile changing of the national anthem which very few people care to sing even at football matches. What is very curious is that since 1979, to 1983, 1999 to 2023, we did not think about changing the anthem until now. Of course it can be argued that this long democratic period since 1999 was only democratic between the regimes of Umaru Yar’Adua and Goodluck Jonathan from 2007 to 20015 while the Obasanjo and Buhari’s administration s were part of the military regime that began in1983 interspersed by the civilian administrations of Yar’Adua and Jonathan. If this argument is accepted, then we must expect further unravelling of the military constitution imposed on Nigeria by Abdul Salami Abubakar in 1999.

  • Kano emirates family dispute

    Kano emirates family dispute

    It is a pity that what seems to be a seamless resolution of the  royal family dispute  in Kano is being blown out of proportion by outsiders who have no jurisdiction whatsoever in a situation that lies in the purview of the Kano State. The constitution gives all states control of traditional institutions in their territories. As far as the constitution is concerned, the federal government’s role in a situation of dispute is the maintenance of law and order. 

    The situation in Kano has strengthened the argument of the necessity of state police to permit states to enforce their directives and state laws. The deployment of police and other security forces such as the DSS and in extreme situations, the army, when the police cannot cope, belongs in the province of the federal government. We must try and avoid excessive use of force in what appears to be a civil matter. Kano can be combustible at times but at the same time, we must allow civil resolution to play out its own process before resorting to other methods. The situation in Kano must not be allowed to deteriorate to such a level for lives to be lost.

    The dramatis personae in the dispute are first or second cousins in the same dynasty. When Sir Muhammadu Sanusi 1 was deposed in 1964, his brother, Ado Bayero the Nigerian ambassador to Senegal was picked by the Sardauna of Sokoto who was then the premier of the North to succeed him and Muhammadu Sanusi was banished to Dutse, then a dusty garage junction on the way to Borno. The place has become an emirate and a state capital today with a faction of the Sanusi family maintaining a hereditary role in the emirate.

    Muhammadu Sanusi, the grandfather of Lamido Muhammadu Sanusi did not resist his deposition because he knew it could have been costly to the royalty which he held in high esteem. He went quietly into the darkness of descent from the Olympian height he had enjoyed as a haughty emir of Kano who was primus inter pares among all the emirs of northern Nigeria paying scanty regard to the supreme position of the Sultan of Sokoto, the titular head of what was a caliphate subservient to political overlordship of the premier of the North, Sir Ahmadu Bello who happened to derive most of his power from the electorate of Northern Nigeria but also from being a member of the family of the Sultan.

    When Muhammadu Sanusi 11 was deposed by Governor Ganduje about four years or so ago for what was called maladministration and insubordination, he too followed his grandfather’s example and went into exile in a dusty village in Nassarawa State until he was rescued via the court of law after a case was filed by his friends so that he could be granted right of where to live outside Kano. He relocated to Lagos with some of his family and after some time he got his spirit back and began to comment again on strictly economic issues which are his forte. Why can’t Emir Aminu Bayero in the interest of the dynasty go into the night quietly and find a useful thing to do for himself, the emirate of Kano and for the peace of Nigeria? If there is crisis in Kano, he and the Kano people will be the losers and what would he have gained at the end of the day? It is God who elevates and wherever we find ourselves, we should just accept and allow the will of God be done.

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    I have abiding interest in Kano for reasons of having many friends from there and particularly for my respect for Ambassador Aminu Sanusi, father of the incumbent emir, who I first met when he was our high Commissioner in Ottawa Canada and I was a graduate student in Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia in 1968. There was this horrible film “Afrika Adio” made by a studio in Italy by the racist propaganda machine of apartheid South Africa to denigrate the whole of Africa as a place of savages. It was a terrible film showing the Tutsi massacre in Rwanda and Burundi by their compatriots the Hutus, the fighting in the Congo accompanied by tribal massacres and the Biafran war and alleged massacres and other brutal fighting compared with the serenity in Portuguese Africa and other settler colonies of Rhodesia, Mozambique and Angola and apartheid South Africa. For us Africans who had no voice and who were thousands of miles away from our homes, this was a devastating blow and assault. Some of us surrendered to depression and melancholy. It was in this circumstance that as president of the African students union in my university, I wrote to Ambassador Sanusi telling him our serious situation because our fellow students looked curiously at us asking us questions annoying problems about cannibalism in our various countries. Ambassador Sanusi immediately prevailed on the Canadian government to ban the movie and he travelled to Halifax as a father would do to assure us of what the federal government of Nigeria was doing to prevent an occurrence like the one we suffered from. We remained eternally grateful to him. Ambassador Aminu Sanusi later served in China and other places before becoming permanent secretary of the Ministry of External Affairs during the Muhammad/Obasanjo military regime from where he left suddenly to Kano to become a district head and Ciroman. Unfortunately, he died rather young. On accidental meeting between us around 1982 or 1983, he had asked if I would consider writing a biography of his father, Sir Muhammadu Sanusi after my book on Sir Kashim Ibrahim to which I answered in the affirmative. His death subsequently ended what would have been an interesting academic exercise and contribution to Nigerian history. I state all this just to say I have had an abiding interest in the role of personalities in history and studying the role of important personages in our history would no doubt enrich our understanding of the past and the present of Nigeria.

    Back to the Kano emirate situation. There is nothing new under the sun, King Solomon wrote, and the deposition of Emir Aminu Bayero would not be the last in Nigeria as long as the constitution permits it unless the traditional rulers are constitutionally insulated from the overlordship of elected rulers. Before him the Alaafin of Oyo was deposed in 1954 by the Obafemi Awolowo government, the Olowo of Owo, Sir Olateru Olagbegi was removed in 1966 by the Brigadier Adeyinka Adebayo government of Western Nigeria; during the Abacha regime, the Sokoto State government removed Ibrahim Dasuki as Sultan of Sokoto. Going forward, traditional rulers should only be marginally involved in politics in theory and in practice. Those who want to eat with the devil must use a long spoon.

    Now that we are revising the constitution, there is a need to protect traditional rulers by having an appropriate constitutional provision for it. If we cannot respect them, we should abolish the institution like India did. But since Nigerians want their preservation, we must preserve them in truth and indeed. When politicians are in trouble at least in the local areas of the country where respect for traditional rulers is the highest, they rush to them for advice and support but as soon as they settle down and stabilise their regimes, the traditional rulers become dispensable.

    It is in the interest of the traditional rulers not to play into the hands of political rulers who enjoy using them. Traditional rulers should come together at least the important ones among them to constitutionally protect the institutions from political manipulation, use and misuse. This is the only way to avoid the recurring decimal of political leaders kicking traditional rulers around just to score points in their political competition. Before constitutional changes, traditional rulers should occupy their royal positions and keep silent no matter how much they want to correct the errors of politicians or else they will become victims of the vagaries of political development.

  • Death of President Raisi and seven others

    Death of President Raisi and seven others

    On Sunday, May 19, the helicopter carrying the president of Iran, Ebrahim Raisi, his foreign secretary, Hossein Amirabdollahian and a state governor and six other security men and officials of the Iranian government died on the hills of Azerbaijan province neighbouring the Republic of Azerbaijan when the Bells helicopter carrying them made a hard landing following a technical fault. There were two other helicopters in the president’s entourage. Those two landed safely after the crash. President Raisi was going to commission a hydroelectric dam that was to share power with the neighbouring republic of Azerbaijan.

    The cause of the accident which is still being investigated was said to be due to inclement weather. From what the news media showed the world, the fog in the environment of the fatal accident was so thick that one could barely see.

    The questions that have agitated sensible minds are why was the helicopter flying into the foggy weather in a hilly area where visibility was terribly low? What was the meteorological institution in Iran doing that it could not tell the pilot of the helicopter that it was unsafe to fly? Or was he told and he ignored the warning? The president’s security chief must have seen how bad the weather was and yet he allowed the pilot to fly the president of a major nation into a weather storm. The helicopter used appears to be a Bell helicopter purchased by the dethroned Shah of Iran Muhammad Reza Pahlavi in 1979 or earlier. Why was the president of the country using such an old helicopter? If this helicopter was refurbished, where did the parts come from because of the western sanctions on Iran would have made genuine parts difficult to purchase. Was the president of Iran so inconsequential that he would have been using an old helicopter? These are questions that the board of enquiry probing the cause of the crash must look into.

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    The message of condolence by the Italian prime minister, Ms Georgia Meloni is very significant. She praised the Iranian regime for not spreading any rumours about possible foreign involvement in the accident and the US Secretary of Defence,   General Lloyd Austin in a press conference, publicly stated that the outcome of the enquiry into the cause of the accident is being eagerly awaited. That is the way it should be because of the importance of Iran in the politics of the Middle East and what any irresponsible statement could have led to.

    The Iranian regime has demonstrated political stability expected of the country that is a proud inheritor of Ancient Persian civilization that predated its western competitors. Iran is of course not a democracy in the mould of western democracy.  President Raisi may not have been popular with the intelligentsia or the women of Iran. Nobody knows what the majority of its people want. But it is clear that all Iranians want to live in dignity unmolested and unharassed by the western powers especially the United States and Europe and their protégé Israel.

    Iran takes its Islamic religion seriously especially the Shiite brand of it and it is prepared to defend it against foreign influence. This was the reason for the Islamic revolution against the Shah in 1979 because, whether rightly or wrongly, the supporters of Ayatollah Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini felt the Americans were calling the shots. It was not just the Islamic fundamentalists alone who were against western influence, even western educated Iranians embraced the fervour of nationalism and were also prepared to support the Khomeini revolution. They may of course be disappointed by the theocratic state that emerged out of the revolution but they are not prepared, it seems, to embrace a western driven anti-Islamic and anti-nationalist revolution.

    The death of President Raisi is a national setback for the country. Outsiders accuse him of rigidity in his enforcement of conservative dressing and wearing the chador and covering the head by women and generally not permitting liberal democratic rights in the society and for not tolerating ethnic minorities like the Kurds in the Northwest. These are not necessarily Raisi’s policies but collective policies of the revolution and those around the Supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who appears to wield absolute power.

    Immediately the news of Raisi’s death broke, Ali Khamenei issued a statement that Raisi may be dead but the Iranian state remains and its government remained solid. He announced that the first vice president, Mohammad Mokhber becomes acting president. He also declared five days of mourning nationwide and that as the constitution of the republic requires a new election would hold on June 28 to elect a new president.  Because of the age of the Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei himself – 85, people have started wondering what would happen if he were to die because he has no deputy leader apparently because the leader did not want one even though he himself was the great Mohammad Khomeini’s deputy. There is no doubt that when the time comes the Islamic republic would rise to the occasion. President Raisi was thought destined to be the leader but apparently this was not meant to be. In the Islamic world succession to power has not always been difficult.  Immediate deputy or sons of the leaders have most of the time succeeded their fathers.

    As an observer of the international scene, I had watched and read the messages of sympathy by world leaders to the people and government of Iran. Up till the time of my writing this, I have not seen any message from the United States president. If it is true, this is unfortunate. This can be because the two countries embassies in each other’s capitals have been closed since 1979. Even though the Swiss embassy represents American interest in Tehran, that section should have been mandated to issue an official statement of condolences on behalf of President Joe Biden and the American people.  These things are done whether nations are friendly or not and this would have been an opportunity to reset relations between the two countries. States sometimes behave organically and Iran would have remembered American sympathy in future when America may need the support of Iran. One never knows? There are no permanent enemies or friends in politics among nations but permanent interests.

    The statements of condolences from Russia was very warm and sincere, Iran supplies most of Russia’s drones in its fight in Ukraine  and Putin’s statement made allusion to how President Raisi has facilitated warm and fraternal relations between Russia and Iran. Prime Minister Modi of India that gets substantial supply of India’s petroleum from Iran was no less effusive in expressing sorrow at the sad departure of President Raisi. President Xi Jinping of China who played significant role in reconciling Saudi Arabia and Iran expressed his sorrow as a genuine friend. Rishi Sunak of Britain and Ursula von Leyden the president of the European Union issued formal statements of regret at the death of Raisi.

    Maduro of Venezuela praised Raisi to high heavens. As to be expected Saudi Arabia, Turkey which helped in locating the wreckage of the helicopter and all major Islamic nations like Pakistan, Afghanistan, Malaysia Indonesia and Iranian neighbours in the Gulf either out of fear or as a result of genuine love, sympathised with Iran for the loss of their president. Those countries and entities like Syria, Yemen, Iraq and the Palestinians were open in crying over their loss. Expression of sympathy by Israel would not have been seen as genuine but I would not be surprised if Israel were to offer sympathy to Iran because the religion of Judaism demands we mourn with mourners and rejoice with those rejoicing.

    I am sure Nigeria has offered its condolences and if possible we should be represented at the final obsequies on Thursday, June 24.

    A final note on the Iranian tragedy. It was reported that our presidential plane broke down during an official visit of our president to the Netherlands. This to me is a national humiliation and should not be allowed to repeat itself. If we must show the flag we must do it properly. The presidential plane is not personal to any president and if the one we have is not airworthy we must buy another one.

  • Israel should end the slaughter in Gaza

    Israel should end the slaughter in Gaza

    These are difficult times globally. There is the ongoing brutality of the Russo-Ukrainian war leading to the death and displacement of millions of people who probably do not care where the borders between the two sisterly countries are drawn. The people there and their ancestors have lived in that place from time immemorial. The attempt by President Vladimir Putin to recreate a new Russian empire after the collapse of the USSR has led to his intervention not only in Ukraine but also in Moldova and in the Caucasus dismembering Georgia leading to the emergence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

    The genocidal conflict in the Sudan between the armed forces of the country (SAF) led by General Abdel Fattah al Burhan and the irregular forces of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) under the leadership of General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (Hemeddti), the man who was also the leader of the Janjaweed terrorist group responsible for killing millions of black Sudanese previously, has been going on for years and has led to the murder of millions of hapless Africans. The country has been destroyed and nobody seems to care that much. Not the Arabs, not the Africans and not the rest of the world except the puerile effusions from the United Nations’ Secretary General. War has been going on in the so-called Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) where the western communications and other companies particularly the EV carmakers are busy mining minerals needed for their new innovations and batteries and paying starvation wages for the poor Africans including children digging with their hands for rare minerals.

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    All across the Sahel region of Africa, wars and insurgencies against rulers working for western interests have been going on for decades while military rulers come and go and the lives of Africans are deemed expendable. There is raging insurgency war against the brutal military regime in Burma (Myanmar) which has led to millions of ethnic Rohingya expelled and millions of rebels killed in the country.

    In the Middle East, Yemenis are divided between the Houthis and the previously recognized legitimate government. Iraq has not recovered from American destruction of the country following the war to remove Saddam Hussein and its aftermath and a land of ancient civilisation has been handed over to sectarian chaotic leadership.  Syria under what is left of it under Bashar al Assad has been reduced to a shadow of its old self and the second largest city Aleppo has been bombed into Stone Age  and a glorious Arab civilisation has been brought down to a level of clannishness where a sense of nationalism is totally lost at least for now.

    Pakistan and Afghanistan do not know peace and Lebanon is virtually partitioned into two between the Christian and conservative Arab regime on one hand and militant and armed Shi’ite Hisbollah- the so-called “party of God”. It is necessary to highlight these conflicts in order not to give an impression that all other parts of the world is peaceful except Gaza where the self-inflicted conflict with Israel has been going for the past seven months with apparent Israeli determination to wipe out the Palestinians as a “final solution “to the Palestinian question. It is ironic that this kind of extermination of a people was faced by the ancestors of the Israeli people some 75 years ago.

    The breach of Israeli security by the Gaza Hamas rebels on October 7, 2023 during which about 1400 people were killed and kidnapped precipitated the ongoing conflict in Gaza. Everyone has said Israel is justified in fighting back and Israel has done this almost immediately after the surprise attack. Almost all the major powers backed Israel initially and those like Russia and China demurred, only to support on ideological basis, the Palestinians as a people fighting against colonial oppression. Even their support was tepid. 

    The Americans led by President Joe Biden virtually moved key American ministries like Defence and Foreign Affairs and the CIA to Israel to facilitate easy delivery of weapons to Israel and full deployment of American diplomacy at the service of Israel. The G7 was mobilised to support Israel and NATO’s intelligence was put at service of Israel. Even countries in Africa and Latin America at the prodding of the United States toed the American line. The Arab countries especially the big ones like Egypt and Saudi Arabia lay prostrate at Israeli feet at the behest of the United States. India and Pakistan perhaps reluctantly supported Israel. With this massive support for Israel, the Jewish state feels it could not do any wrong. It unleashed its own and cutting edge and American weapons on the Gaza Strip and sometimes the Western Palestinian territory on the Western bank of the river Jordan. By the second month of the war on Gaza, about 20 thousand Palestinians had been wiped off the face of the earth through artillery fire and aerial bombing using American weapons. By the fifth month, more than 30,000 Palestinians have been slaughtered. As of today, who is counting? A figure of 36, 000 souls have been lost.

    The Israeli government of Bilyalminu Netanyahu says he wants to kill all the Hamas militants but even America says more than three quarters of those killed are children, women and the elderly. The Democratic Party in America especially its left wing is in open rebellion against President Joe Biden and the universities in America are also in uproar against American involvement with Israel in committing open murders in the glare of the whole world. President Joe Biden is definitely embarrassed and his constant hypocritical pleas with Netanyahu to spare the civilian population of Palestine have been ignored. He is now threatening to cut off the Israeli government from some type of weapons that may be used in Gaza. This is laughed off by the IDF which says it has all the weapons it needs to prosecute the war to the bitter end.

    America has completely lost all influence with the Arab and non-Arab world. Whatever it says in the future would be completely ignored by most countries. Its recent request for military facilities in Africa has been virtually ignored by every country including our own at least openly. America apart from Gaza and the Palestinians would end up as the main victims of the Israeli war on Gaza. The American renewed efforts to reconcile Israel with Saudi Arabia, if it had gotten Israeli support through its humane policies in Gaza, would have altered the course of history possibly for good in the Middle East. An Israeli – Saudi Arabian rapprochement would have facilitated Israeli opening not only to the Arabs but to the Islamic countries like Pakistan, Indonesia and Malaysia.

    As things stand, Israel is going to make Biden lose the presidential election in November and earn Israel the hostility of the Democratic Party for years to come. The second coming of Donald J. Trump is too ghastly for many to imagine. The critical elements in global intelligentsia seem opposed to Israel probably because of the human tendency to support the underdog in this case the Palestinians, but more likely because of the ferocity of the inhumanity of Israeli attacks. The thinking is why beat up a Palestine that is down and prostrate? This is why countries like the Republics of South Africa and Ireland with their history of colonial resistance are in open arms against Israel and they are not alone; the vast majority of countries in the developing world in Asia, Africa and Latin America share the same feelings with countries openly opposed to Israel.

    The vote against Israel in the United Nations General Assembly to admit Palestine to full membership of the UN is an illustration of the support for Palestine and opposition to the bullying and oppression of the Israeli government. This is really sad because since the 1948 creation of Israel despite its complex and controversial moral foundation, Israel had always been favoured by virtually the whole world. If only for Israel to go back to some semblance of acceptability, someone should help Israel to stop the war because it has made the point that the Jewish state would rather fight to the death than surrender to any form of attack designed to destroy it. This point needs not be made at expense of the Palestinians who now face a genocidal onslaught as Israel moves to finish them off in Rafa.

  • Celebrating Professor Ayodeji Ladipo Banjo at 90

    Celebrating Professor Ayodeji Ladipo Banjo at 90

    Professor Ayo Banjo was educated at the universities of Glasgow, Leeds, the University of California at Los Angeles and the University of Ibadan. He had his secondary education at Igbobi College, Lagos and had had primary schooling at Oyo where he was born in 1934 on the grounds of Saint Andrews College to a highly educated father who had graduated from Foura Bay College, Freetown, Sierra Leone.

    He was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and his trajectory in life was determined by how hard he was willing to push himself because money was not the problem as it was for many of his compatriots. His illustrious father even rose to be a college principal and a parliamentarian representing one of the Ijebu constituencies in the Western House of Assembly thus having toes in the two critical agencies of growth and modernisation in Nigeria, the church and government. Ayo Ladipo Banjo comes from an illustrious family of five children, four boys and a girl and they all did well, his older brother was a famous medical doctor and his junior brother an academic librarian; the last of the boys was at the Ibadan Grammar School where he distinguished himself as a famous footballer who took to business as an adult. The oldest and youngest brothers have joined the saints triumphant unfortunately.

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    Ayodeji Ladipo Banjo who turned 90 on May 2 was former vice chancellor of the premier university of Ibadan. Bravo erudite Professor (emeritus ) of English Language at the University of Ibadan from where he took a voluntary retirement about three decades ago.  Having taught in one capacity or the other since 1966 and rising from the position of lecturer to senior lecturer, professor and head of department, Dean of Faculty of Arts, Deputy vice chancellor, acting vice chancellor for a year before becoming finally, vice chancellor from 1984 to 1994. He has been pro chancellor and chairman of the governing councils of the universities of Port Harcourt and Ilorin and the new Anglican mission-endowed Bishop Ajayi Crowther University ending finally as chairman of the governing council of the National Universities Commission.

    His career spanned a period of 60 years or slightly more. He can rightly be called “Mr Nigerian University”.  He is a recipient of several accolades and fellowships of the Nigerian Academy of Letters, (FNAL)  NNOM, National Order of Merit and a grateful country has honoured him with the title of Commander of the of the Niger (CON) the highest national honour for distinguished service to the country  in education.  He has been visiting professor of English to the University of the West Indies and held a visiting fellowship at Cambridge University. Not many people know about his role as a teacher of English in government secondary schools in the old government colleges including a stint at the Government College Ugheli now in Delta State where his late wife hailed from. Service as a secondary school teacher gave him the insight which informed his writing a successful book on English language at that level. The teaching of English to people whose mother tongue was not English apparently influenced his research interest at university. His life epitomises the statement that service deserves its reward and Nigeria has rewarded Professor Banjo with numerous appointments including serving as chairman of the board of literature award of Nigerian Natural Liquefied Gas (NNLG) and was also called to advise government on remuneration of university staff several times when university staff downed their “tools” so to say. In all these interventions, he has fought for the sector and refused to give up when his advice was turned down. He has been pained when universities were poorly funded despite government prodding of the sector to expand in the face of growing students applications for admission. He foresaw the founding of private universities but he expected their entry to be in an orderly fashion to complement government efforts in the area but not in the commercial trading fashion by which the expectation of making money had lured all kinds of characters into the venture which has led to duplication of academic and professional offering with little distinction or difference from one another.

    I have had occasional discussion with the iconic scholar on this and I know he is more passionate and pained by the unwieldy nature in which higher educational institutions has developed in Nigeria than those of us who have taken public position on this tragic situation.

    The University of Ibadan which he headed for practically 11 years was hobbled by the weight of non-academic distractions of provision of municipal services totally unrelated to the normal call of universities in other climes and places. Universities were for exchange of ideas and teaching of students without being burdened down by municipal inefficiency. How to return universities to its primary purpose of research and pedagogy was a problem faced by Banjo and his colleagues confronting militant trade unionism of academic and non-academic staff. Those at the helm of affairs in the universities who know what to do have surrendered to political interference and the desire to keep their wretched jobs while constantly threatened by those in government and their supervisory bureaucracy.

    Like the country the problem of the university has become hydra headed to the point of irreversibility, Professor Banjo remains a constant reference point in university administration like Professor Kenneth Onwuka Dike as vice chancellor of Ibadan and Professor J.F Ade Ajayi as vice chancellor of Lagos. He will continue to be remembered for his high integrity and transparency and commitment to good university administration.

    He and I live in the same area of Ibadan undistinguishable from other areas of poorly maintained roads. He lives in a simple house that unlike many Nigerians who have held high positions in the country is not different from those of his neighbours. He joins all of us in our neighbourhood association to contribute money to pay local security services, repair security gates and to plead for mercy from electricity provider to deliver power to struggling teachers who need to read to do the normal duties of professors. Forget about potable water; everybody has his or her own dugout well or borehole from which we all at least get water to clean our toilets and to wash plates and utensils in the kitchen while we buy bottled water to drink but we cannot bet our lives on the quality of the bottled water! Everybody who can afford it is a local government on his or her own providing water, electricity and security in modern Nigeria! 

    This reminds me of a story by late Professor Ladipo Akinkugbe, distinguished professor emeritus of Medicine in Ibadan who said after attending a conference in Oxford University in England, he went out to buy a pump and giant switch and spare parts for his generator followed by an English colleague who innocently asked him if he was into big time farming somewhere in the bush near Ibadan. When the English man was told what he bought were for his house he could not understand or believe him. Professor Banjo can be very funny especially when we discuss our neighbourhood affairs and how to “encourage “the NEPA people to remember us that we need light to remain relevant in our lecture rooms!

    On a personal note, when I was pro chancellor and chairman of the governing council of Ekiti State University, I invited him and Professor Kayode Oyediran, and Professor Olufemi Bamiro, all former vice chancellors of the University of Ibadan to help me choose the best vice chancellor for the newly amalgamated three state universities in the state. Of course they did an excellent job and when the governor who is statutorily the Visitor saw the calibre of the people involved, he said if Professor Banjo had a hand in it, he, the governor, would not vary the recommendation and he quickly acceded to my request by appointing Professor Dipo Aina, a first class soil scientist who elevated the university to a higher level by virtually rebuilding it

    Professor Banjo is big man academically and physically and there are unfortunately not many of his type in the current leadership of Nigerian universities. He has used his talents to help along with others to establish the Nigerian Academy of Letters of which he was the second president. Unless he was sick or engaged with state affairs, he has been a permanent feature of the Academy of Letters and the Academy remains eternally grateful.

    Live long, distinguished and iconic academic and university administrator and leader of men.

  • Some of the socio economic problems of Nigeria

    Some of the socio economic problems of Nigeria

    In recent times, our problems in this country, to use a religious terminology, are legion. Where does one start  in the enumeration of Nigerian socioeconomic problems and what are the possible solutions, or perhaps there are no solutions? People like me because of our advancing age should even thank our maker that we are still surviving in the hellish heat of Nigeria, where until a day ago those of us living in  the boiling bowl of humid  muggy Lagos area had given up on our expectations of cooling African tropical rains. Lagos, Sokoto and Yola share in common this unhealthy mugginess of their weather, but the overpopulation of Lagos makes the situation overwhelming. If we were a normal country, it would have been possible to enlist the help of electricity and technology to alleviate our suffering by either using electric fan or air conditioning. Just at the time of this heat wave, our electricity has collapsed.

    The minister in charge  of this important sector churlishly blamed the consumers of indiscipline in their use of electricity. He incredibly said we leave our  Frigidaire  and freezers on even when what we kept there are already frozen or cold. We sometimes hear people in Europe being told to conserve  power by switching off lights in rooms and empty spaces, but not from their freezers and refrigerators. The minister should not have been rubbing salt into our wounds for the non-availability of electricity. Lack of electricity is fundamental to our underdevelopment. Without electricity we cannot preserve agricultural products including dairy, meat, fish and poultry. Without the success of the electricity sector we really cannot tackle the problem of food insecurity. The same electricity problem affects education generally. Medicine and the medical sector like hospitals and various health institutions are seriously challenged. No country can progress without technological  innovation and industrialisation and these have to be driven by electric power availability. Without industrial growth and expansion , jobs will be scarce as they are in Nigeria. The deindustrialization phenomenon we have witnessed in recent years is tied to the unsustainable power generation in which individuals have to generate their own electricity using expensive diesel fuel and gas. I honestly do not know why gas should be expensive in Nigeria because we are busy flaring gas associated with oil production in the Niger Delta and heating up the environment and making the lives of people miserable, apart from killing the fishes and the soil by acid rain caused by precipitation after the flaring of gas.

    Lack of  electricity creates lack of jobs which fuels the rampaging unemployment and violence in society eroding democratic governance. It should be clear to any sensible person that all our plans are in vain unless we solve the problem of electricity. Since the First Republic, we have been trying to address what has now become a knotty  and recurring problem  for succeeding governments without success. It is either we are applying the same solution to the problem without changing our approach and expecting  different results which is the height of madness. The Obasanjo and Jonathan administrations built new power generating plants and adopted the business idea of privatization without success. This was  because they focused on distribution but not generation  and transmission of power and it stands to reason that there cannot be efficiency unless those who generate also transmit the power. To me a layman in this case, we should sell the generating stations to the states where  they are located and the business of  transmission and distribution should be sold to the states or business groups in the area  which generate the power. The present situation where power is generated and the distribution is centralised like in all our public institutions is not working.  In advanced countries power is not centralised, in fact if there is failure or collapse in one region another region can lend a hand until power is restored . By the way, what happened to the protocols on power entered into by Muhammadu Buhari and Angela Merkel of Germany by which the German  power company,  Siemens AG., was allegedly tasked with the power of overhauling our power infrastructure for the better performance like it did in Egypt? It cannot be that the agreement has been quietly terminated because of our non-performance and meeting our own side of the agreement. I hope our government understands the fundamental place of electricity in development. If we don’t understand this we will continue to witness the ongoing phenomenon of de-industrialisation whereby industrial giants continue to sell their storage facilities to church organisations and moving out of the country.

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    I have no problem with church growth hand in hand with industrialization. I cannot deprecate this because I am myself an elder in the RCCG and a confirmed communicant of the Anglican Communion. The church in Nigeria has proved itself. They have established schools, hospitals, universities and cities that work efficiently with water and electricity made available to those who live there and ready to pay . The church has been able to mobilise people and I believe they can do more if challenged.  Each of the big missions should be allocated huge hectares of land in each state of the federation to establish integrated agricultural settlements, growing food and tree crops for feeding their members and others and exporting surplus. By this they will be part of the solution of the problem of scarcity of food, unemployment, financial  and currency instability and insecurity. The same invitation to churches should be extended to Muslim organisations and believers in African religions . In this way, the government will be seeking positive contributions of religious groups who have proved themselves as agents of development.

    The socioeconomic problems of this country are so many that we must have a multifaceted approach to solving them . This is not the time to say one area is for government and the other is for the people and public or private sectors. If we are to survive ,all sectors of society must cooperate.

    In this regard the sub-national governments  must be challenged to show what they are doing with their federal allocations and internally generated revenues. Gone are the days when people should accept donations of motor cycles, sewing machines and a few roads here and there as so-called “evidence of democratic governance.” The states must be made to show what they have done to better the lives of their people from year to year. It is just ridiculous to go to states in the Niger-Delta and find no evidence of the additional 13% derivation they collect  on top of their federal allocation. It is no use everybody pointing accusing fingers at Abuja. Of course, the money going to Abuja is fuelling corruption at the center and this is why some of us have always called for structural reforms including revisit of revenue allocation. We should as a young country accept that continuing tampering with the constitution until we get it right is not to be deprecated . It is in fact evidence of our awareness that we have problems which are crying for solutions. Eventually we will get  to where we want to be . Those who argue otherwise are benefiting from the imperfections of the present  wretched constitutional grundnorm. Nigeria is not an old democracy like Britain or the United States. Even in these  two countries there are constitutional additions or fundamental judicial decisions which become parts of their constitutions .The unitary form of government in the United Kingdom has yielded to demands for some devolution  of power to Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland, with each nation having its own government while the Westminster government supervises all the regional governments. I believe I have made my point that the system of government is an organism that has to be watched and nurtured regularly until it is near perfect as a human creation.

    At the beginning of this write up I said our problems are legion . Yes they are. I haven’t mentioned the issue of potable water which are a given provision in many countries but no longer in our own and yet when we were growing up urban water supply was the norm rather than an exception. There is no end to the various problems we have in this country. I have only focused on a few pressing ones . Perhaps this present government without necessarily abandoning its duty in other areas  will just focus on the electricity problem and find a permanent solution to it .

  • Gathering storm of major blow-up in the Middle East

    Gathering storm of major blow-up in the Middle East

    It is generally known to observers of the situation in the Middle East that there are two armed camps watching each other and ready for war if their interests are threatened. One group is allied around Israel, and the other around the Islamic republic of Iran. Israel and Iran are directly involved, while others from a distance can afford to prevaricate while Israel and Iran do not have the privilege of distant observation or armchair strategic  analysis and planning. This fact makes the place dangerous for big power confrontation, with the tendency of being dragged into a conflict without proper consultation and consideration  The issues around which a state of belligerency can be declared is the threat to the existence of Israel on one hand, and on the other hand an existential threat to the Shia regime in Iran . This was not always the case until Iran became a Shia theocracy  in 1979, justifying its own raison detre as the destruction of Israel .

    The issues of religion is fundamental to the proper appreciation of the situation of the Middle East. It is home to the three monotheistic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, each laying claim sometimes to the same shrine – of course, with different interpretations. The  economic, strategic and religious importance of the Middle East and the place of Israel in protecting the interests of America and the West generally is intertwined with the defense of Israel  by America and the West, which feels obliged to do so as an obligation to it because of the West’s feeling of  vicarious responsibility for the holocaust during the Second World War. Iran enjoys  support either incipiently or openly  because of its  economic and strategic importance   and relevance  to countries like  Russia, China, Pakistan; and increasingly to India and the Muslim countries of the far east like Indonesia and Malaysia that are increasingly trying to challenge the western political and economic hegemony in the world .The Middle East is a keg of gun powder ready to explode at any time and every war there brings the world near  to a general conflagration because of the various interests ranging from  access to oil, gas military bases,  and because of religious and historical  considerations and aspirations.

    What happened on Saturday 13th of April, 2024  when Iran sent 300 waves of drones, cruise missiles and inter-ballistic missiles into Israel has its justification in the Israeli attack on an Iranian consulate building in Damascus  on April 1, leading to the death of important military officers, some of the rank of brigadier-general. This  Israeli attack on a diplomatic building was  in violation of international diplomatic protocol, which sees embassy buildings as sovereign territory of the sending country – in this case, Iran. Up till now Israel has not openly claimed that it was responsible for the attack, presumably because of the embarrassment of violating international law. Israel can, of course, justify the attack on the grounds that Iran military officers and personnel were in Damascus to direct Hezbollah in Lebanon to attack northern Israel in its mutual war against Lebanon, which has led to hundreds of thousands of Lebanese and Israelis fleeing their homes for safety in other parts of their country.

    Whether legitimate or not, this was the immediate casus belli for the state of belligerency which the Iranian regime declared that it would retaliate.  In similar situation when the American military killed the Iranian General Soleimani in a targeted drone strike on 3rd January, 2020 in Baghdad, Iran  in retaliation launched missiles against US military bases in Iraq, wounding 110 American troops. In the same vein, It became a matter of honour for Iran to take the step it took in sending the waves of  missiles and drones into Israel.  It appears Iran warned Israel of what was coming at it, so that the damage could be minimised. The arsenals were apparently shut down by a combination of Israeli, American, French, British – and  incredibly, Jordanian forces  for Iranian violation of its airspace – thus leading to no serious damage in Israel, which made President Joe Biden to phone the Israeli Prime Minister Bilhaminu Netanyahu not to embark on military retaliatory action because the United States apparently felt Iran’s attack was for the country’s internal propagandist purpose and not something to seriously hurt Israel. This reading of the Iranian action sounds reasonable, but Israel may not buy the American logic. The fact that the attack on Israel came directly from Iran, from Hezbollah-controlled southern Lebanon and Shia-controlled Iraq, and  from Houthis-controlled Yemen,  and Syria – all Iranian protégés – makes Israel position of being surrounded by enemies on all fronts makes Israeli decision to strike back understandable.

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    The confrontations between Iran  and Israel before now was through Iranian-sponsored allies and not by Iran itself. On the other hand, Israel had previously carried the war to Iran by assassinations in Iran  and elsewhere of scientists and military personnel involved in the development of Iranian nuclear program on the grounds that there is no nicety in the war that posed the question of life or death  to Israel, because it justly believes that the Iranian nuclear program was directed at making nuclear weapons aimed at the destruction of Israel. The  prime minister  of Israel has openly declared it that Israel will never allow Iran to make nuclear weapons. How he hopes to do this without a general war in the Middle East or universal nuclear disarmament remains to be seen. This is where we are at the time I am writing this article, but it is clear to me ,that we are at the cusp of a dangerous period in global history because if Israel attacks Iran frontally, Iran has promised to hit back.

    Unfortunately, the situation in the Middle East  has deteriorated to this level at a time of elections in the United States. The Jewish lobby in the US is so powerful that it can determine who wins or loses a presidential election. Both the Republican and the Democratic parties are beholden to the Israeli interests who have manipulated, whether rightly or wrongly, to present Israeli interests as those of the US. There are considerable American investments in Israeli economy, but particularly in its scientifically efficient research in medicine and military science and innovation from which the American military industrial complex benefits. It is this complex relationship between Israeli and American education, the military,  banking, finance, Artificial intelligence – the whole gamut  of futuristic development – that elevates the American-Israeli relationship to a situation where the Israeli tail wags the American dog. I think  President Biden did well to warn Israel that America will not join Netanyahu in waging an holy war against Iran, and what America says will be echoed by the leaders of the G-7. Israel may go on a tit-for-tat with assassinating Iranian scientists and military men in and outside Iran, and Iran would reply accordingly.

    What this Iranian attack  means is telling Israel  that it is reachable directly from Iran. This introduces a new element to the equation and this will be factored into Israeli determination not to allow Iran to become a nuclear weapons state.  One of the results of the situation now in the Middle East is that it frees Israel from any restraint in  its war in Gaza, and the Palestinians would bear the consequence of the whole world being seized with  preventing an Israeli – Iranian war rather than being concerned with what happens to the Palestinians in Raffah where the Israeli  military will mercilessly deal with them with no protest from the rest of the world. If the tragedy in Gaza leads to an Israeli agreement to a two-state solution, the case and cause for war between the Arab states and Israel may be removed for ever and Iran would have been isolated, because it would be a case of being more Catholic than the Pope.