We were all starry-eyed boys when we entered Ahmadiyya College (now Anwar-ul Islam College), Agege, in January 1973. By the way, there were two sets in 1973; the first came in, in January and the other in September. Today, those two groups make up the Anwar-ul Islam College Agege Old Students’ Association (ACAOSA 77/78 Set), which is celebrating the 40th anniversary of our exit from that great school between December 14 and 16, this year. Ahmadiyya, pardon me, if I continue to refer to our school by that name because that is what most of us are used to, is a Muslim boys only school and I daresay the most popular among the Ahmadiyya Group of Schools. We came in when the college was about to celebrate its 25th anniversary in April. The school will be 70 next year. We came from different backgrounds to seek knowledge, which the school was more than ready to impart to us. It was the era of sound and intelligent teachers, who knew their onions. They had no choice because they worked under a principal, Alhaji J.A. Gbadamosi aka Oga who brooked no nonsense. I write today in honour of a member of my set, Gafar Sulaiman popularly known as Sakayama, who turns 60 tomorrow. Sakayama was a toughie in those days. He has not lost his toughness even in old age. In our school days, you will only find him in the midst of hard people and where the lily livered will never venture into. Our seniors knew him to be tough and they normally dealt with him in a special way. But Sakayama was and is still fearless. He took on many seniors without fear and at times even asked some of them if they could challenge him to a fight if they met outside the school. Has Sakayama changed? Well, in some way, he has. The ‘there is nothing anybody can do to me look’ has been replaced with that of a man, who has seen a lot in life. Age is a funny thing indeed. So, Sakayama, happy birthday as you join the sexagenarian club. May you glitter as diamond as you mark your Diamond Anniversary. Gbogbo wa nbo lola o.
Category: Lawal Ogienagbon
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Mugabe’s disGraceful end
For Robert Gabriel Mugabe, it all ended on Tuesday as he left office in disgrace after losing the opportunity to go with dignity. For one week, he held his country up as he rebuffed the army’s entreaties to bow out.
The army, which struck last Wednesday, has behaved responsibly so far in order not to give the world any excuse to condemn it. The army struck to restore law and order because Mugabe was running the country like his personal fiefdom. Ironically, it is this same Mugabe, who with other revolutionaries, fought the British imperialists to free the then Southern Rhodesia from the colonialists’ grip.
When Zimbabwe became independent in 1980 and Mugabe took office as its first prime minister (PM), it was the dawn of a new era for the country. Hopes were high that things will look up for Zimbaweans. They were no longer under any overlord but were being governed by their compatriots. Unknown to them, Mugabe had a different agenda and that was to perpetuate himself in power.
From PM, he became president in 1987 and in the series of elections that have followed since then, he was always returned to power. He was planning to elongate his tenure by making his wife Grace his successor when the military intervened. His plot backfired because he tangled with another veteran revolutionary, Emmerson Mnangagwa, who knows all the intrigues surrounding power. If Mugabe had not moved against Mnangagwa, he probably may not have run into trouble. Anyway, you do not toy with someone called “the crocodile”, which is Mnangagwa’s nickname, without paying the price.
Following his sack by Mugabe as vice president, ‘’the crocodile’’ retreated to plan his return in a bigger way. He, Mugabe and the army chief Gen Constantino Chiwenga have known themselves since their revolutionary days. The freedom fighters had grown from guerrilla warriors to political leaders. They saw their country as their personal kingdom and they prevented others from smelling power.
Their compatriots got a raw deal from them. Mugabe, 93, became power drunk and he did not want to leave office again. His cup became full when he moved against Mnangagwa, the 75-year-old former security chief. Mnangagwa’s constituency would not allow the slight to go unchallenged. Quietly, the ousted vice president moved to South Africa to plot his return, with the Chiwenga-led army on his side. Mugabe suddenly found himself all alone as his erstwhile allies turned against him. Not even Gucci Grace, the power behind the throne, who he was propping up to succeed him could save him when the time came for him to go.
The military has been playing it cool with Mugabe because first he is a comrade (in the struggle for Zimbabwe’s freedom) and second because coup is no longer fashionable in Africa. The soldiers have been restraining themselves from doing anything to incur the wrath of the world. But one thing is clear the world is united on the need for Mugabe to go. He has not lived up to the mark of a freedom fighter. He was a freedom fighter who ended up as a dictator. It is so, so unfortunate.
Out of respect, the army asked him to resign, but he refused, insisting on hanging on to power. But he suddenly threw in the towel when moves to impeach him were initiated. The people trooped out to celebrate his long overdue exit on Tuesday. To them, it was good riddance to bad rubbish. May his likes never be seen on this continent again.
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Adieu Ekwueme
If there was a gentleman in politics, Alex Ifeanyichukwu Ekwueme was the one. He was cut of a different cloth. He was not your typical Nigerian politician whose stock-in-trade is to line his pockets. To Ekwueme, Nigeria came first and he did everything to enhance the Nigerian project. He took to politics at a time it was not fashionable for professionals to play the game and he acquainted himself well. Meek and soft spoken, Ekwueme’s geniality was not weakness. Rather, it was munition for winning people over. Those who came across Ekwueme always spoke about how strong will he was once he had made up his mind on something. As simple as he was, he trod where angels feared to walk. In the Second Republic during which he served as vice president, he assisted President Shehu Shagari tremendously and shone like a star. He did not come into politics for what to eat. He came to serve and to make a difference. Ekwueme was a dove in the midst of the hawks that made up the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) on which crest he and Shagari came to power.
His four-year tenure as vice president was enough to launch Dr Ekwueme to political limelight. His harsh experience in prison after the 1983 coup led by then Maj-Gen Muhammadu Buhari did not deter him from playing a prominent role in the nation’s political evolution on the return to democracy in 1999. He was among the founding fathers of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), which held power between 1999 and 2015. But he would be remembered most for standing up to Gen Sani Abacha when many politicians were falling over themselves to endorse the dictator to transmute to civilian president and remain in office for life. Ekwueme and some like minds rejected Abacha outright. It still remains a miracle how he survived the Abacha horrendous years This great man passed away on Sunday in London during an illness. He was 85. Nigeria has lost a great man, the likes of who, are rare to see. Like all legend, his epitaph was written long before he died. Former Supreme Court Justice Samson Uwaifo whose tribunal tried him and Shagari after the 1983 coup said of him: “Dr Ekwueme “left office poorer than he was when he entered it, and to ask more from him was to set a standard which even saints could not meet”.
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Before NJC signs off on Salami’s case
NOTE : OVER six years ago, Justice Ayo Isa Salami faced one of the hardest times of his life. He was hounded out as President of the Court of Appeal (PCA) by the government of the day for standing for justice in the Sokoto State governorship election dispute. Nigerians watched in awe as some of his fellow judges in the National Judicial Council (NJC), especially the then Chief Justice Aloysius Katsina-Alu, joined hands with the government to deal with him. But the stone, which they rejected has become the cornerstone of the house. Justice Salami has returned as chairman of the NJC committee on looters’ trial. This column, which was first published on February 17, 2011, is being rerun today in honour of the man who stood for justice at the risk of his job. All thanks to the reader who reminded us of the column.
The National Judicial Council (NJC) may face its stiffest test yet since it was established. For NJC, the case between the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Aloysius Katsina-Alu, and President of the Court of Appeal (PCA) Justice Isa Salami will, to a large extent, determine its continued relevance in its watchdog role for the judiciary. Will it come out with its head held high or bowed in shame? Time will tell.
In their wildest imagination, those who mooted the idea of ‘elevating’ Justice Salami to the Supreme Court never thought that he would fight back the way he did in the face of the plot to render him ineffective. Really, how effective will Justice Salami be at the Supreme Court? Will he be more useful in the highest court in the land or at the appeal court?
No doubt every worker looks forward to being promoted but what many abhor is when they are offered sinecure positions. The planned ‘promotion’ of Justice Salami is nothing but a ploy to humiliate him, to make him serve under those who were once his juniors and put him at the mercy of the CJN. In the Supreme Court, he will only sit on cases if and when the CJN deems it fit to include him in a panel. He won’t wield the sort of power he wields now in the Court of Appeal at the Supreme Court and the learned CJN knows this too well.
Beyond justice Salami’s planned ‘promotion’ is the intrigue surrounding the whole thing and his grace allegations of impropriety against the CJN. The plan to move him ‘upstairs’ was hatched by a few people, who felt that his continued stay in the appeal court is not in their political interest. Now politics and justice do not mix. Where they mix, there will be a miscarriage of justice. This is what the CJN did not avert his mind to before joining the plot to ‘promote’ justice Salami in order to ‘strengthen’ the Supreme Court. Justice Katsine-Alu, his man in the Federal Executive Council (FEC) and their political godfather in the Senate knew what they were up to when they conspired to get Justice Salami out of the appeal court.
That is all what the ‘promotion’ is about – to get Justice Salami out of the appeal court at all cost. Unknown to them, Justice Salami may look quiet and simple, but he is not stupid. He moved many steps ahead of the conspirators by going public with his case and followed it up with a suit at the Federal High Court. But we all know how terrible and mean people can be in their determination to achieve their aim. The steps Justice Salami has taken may count for nothing to them because they think they have the power and means to run him out of the Court of Appeal, if they so wish. But will NJC look on while Justice Salami is being maltreated? I don’t think NJC should just watch and allow Justice Salami or any judge for that matter to be messed up by the authorities.
This matter will have to be eventually resolved by NJC, which unfortunately is headed by Justice Katsina-Alu, who is a party to the dispute. In law, a man cannot be judge in his own case. Will this principle apply in this case? Or will it be jettisoned because of Katsina-Alu? Whether or not the averments in Justice Salami’s affidavit in his suit against the CJN are true, is not relevant at this stage. The court will decide that. Eventhough there is no petition before NJC accusing the CJN of any wrongdoing; the allegations made against him by Justice Salami are too weighty to be ignored. As a judge, Justice Salami knows the implication of his action, so he couldn’t have made those allegations for the sake of it.
Are those allegations true? This is one question that I have been asked over and over again by people. The issue even cropped up in one of our editorial meetings. As a party to the suit, NJC is also aware of these allegations. The NJC is a constitutional body created to ensure sanity in the judiciary. It has disciplined many judges in the past for one offence or the other. But it has never been faced with a situation whereby its chairman stands accused of interfering with the administration of justice. This is a litmus test for NJC. It cannot afford to shut its eyes to these allegations just because its chairman is at the receiving end.
Unfortunately, NJC is already showing its bias in the case. It is leaning towards the CJN. An advertorial in this paper last Friday shows its thinking on this matter. To NJC, the planned ‘promotion’ of Justice Salami is still on the cards, even after he has rejected it. In one breathe, NJC said a nominee has the right to reject the appointment, just as Salami did, but in another breathe, it said it would not consider the PCA’s nomination because of the case he filed in court.
Part of NJC’s advertorial reads:
- NJC…. In accepting or rejecting the advice of the Federal Judicial Service Commission (FJSC) takes several factors into consideration, one of which is if the person put forward by FJSC is available and willing to be recommended to the President for appointment.
- Council confirmed that the opinion of a candidate shortlisted for appointment to the Office of a Justice of the Supreme Court is usually not sought. However, Council firmly resolved that the name of any person who has signified in writing that he or she does not want to be considered for appointment to the office of Justice of the Supreme Court will be withdrawn from the list of person submitted to it by the FJSC.
- FJSC acted within its constitutional powers when it considered all the four candidates, including Justice Salami, for appointment to the Supreme Court bench.
- It was, however, noted that the candidature of Justice Salami was sub judice as the Council is one of the respondents in the suits filed in the court. Therefore, the advice of the FJSC on appointment of Justice Salami was not considered by the Council.
Why didn’t NJC withdraw the name of Justice Salami from the FJSC list since he has rejected the ‘promotion’ offer? Why is NJC hiding under the cover of the cases in court in order to achieve the aim of some people to get Justice Salami out of the appeal court by all means? NJC should be above board in this matter. It should not do or be seen to do anything in support of either party. It must be just and fair. The issue is no longer that of ‘promotion’ but the alleged interference of the CJN in a case before the Court of Appeal.
Did the CJN ask Justice Salami to disband the panel of justices that heard the Sokoto governorship election dispute? Did the CJN ask Justice Salami to direct the Panel to decide against the appellant? These are some of Justice Salami’s allegations, which should be probed in the NJC tradition of ensuring that all is well in the judiciary. In the past, NJC recommended the removal of some judges for lesser offences. It cannot afford to do otherwise in this case, whether or not there is a petition before it. On the other hand, if Justice Salami’s allegations are found to be wild and frivolous, NJC should not hesitate to punish him. That is if this case does not end in the usual Nigerian way – a sudden withdrawal of the suit without going into the merit of the matter.
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At the crossroads
Ever since independence has there been such a hot debate as to the future of Nigeria. Many are not satisfied with the present arrangement; they feel shortchanged in a country to which they believe they are making enormous contributions, but are not getting a just reward. Whether in the South, East, West or North (S.E.W.N) as All Progressives Congress (APC) stalwart Asiwaju Bola Tinubu tagged it, the sentiments are similar.
To the north, the other sections are better off than it and so also do the other sections see one another. All the sections believe that they are marginalised. If that is the case, who is marginalising who then? The fact is whenever other sections are not in power, the next thing they cry of is marginalisation. So, if the north is in power, it is not marginalised. If the south, east and west are also in power, they are not marginalised. But once they are not in power, it is marginalisation.
We should not dismiss the fear of those shouting structural imbalance because marginalisation goes beyond one section lording it over others. Even among people of a particular section, there are cries of marginalisation. In a state with diverse ethnic groups, not all the people get along because they do not trust one another when it comes to the issue of power. Every ethnic group will prefer to hold power rather than trust it with the others because of the fear of marginalisation. If kinsmen cannot trust themselves, what do we expect of the larger society?
We have tried so many things to correct this social imbalance. Former Presidents Olusegun Obasanjo and Goodluck Jonathan held national conferences during their respective tenure to find a way out of this problem. The reports of both conferences did not see the light of day. They are gathering dust where they are kept. Moreover, there is no consensus on which of the reports we should settle for. Those who attended the Obasanjo conference are flaunting their report as the panacea for the nation’s ills. Delegates to the Jonathan conference believe that the adoption of their own report will settle all our problems.
As we turn 57 on Sunday, the national question has yet to be settled. What do we do with Nigeria as presently constituted? Is it restructuring we want? These posers, among many others, gave rise to the clamour for restructuring. What is it about this restructuring that it has become a singsong in the polity? We will not do justice to the issue by giving it its ordinary and dictionary meaning. The restructuring Nigerians are clamouring for goes beyond reorganising a set up to enhance efficiency and cut cost.
The restructuring Nigerians are seeking has to do with the way they are governed. What powers should devolve to the three tiers of government? What happens to the resources of the nation? How should the resources be shared? Who gets the lion’s share – the central government or the states, where the resources are found? To some, restructuring is all about state police, to others, it is resource control or principle of derivation. Yet to others, it is true federalism or devolution of power.
As we turn 57, may we find the grace to turn this bend in our national life without turning everything upside down.
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The miracle boy of Chibok
ALI AHMADU IS just six, but he has a strong will. He is alive today by the grace of God and his own will to live. Boko Haram did not mean well for the boy when some of its members ran over him with their motorcycles in 2014 in Chibok, Borno State. The incident happened few days after the insurgents abducted over 200 pupils of the Government Girls Secondary School in the early hours of April 15, 2014.
Ali broke his spinal cord and he was left in that state in the bush for days. No treatment, nothing. People gave up on him because they thought his case was hopeless, but the small boy did not give up on himself. Where others saw despair and a bad case, he saw hope and life. This was why when he was being taken to Dubai on September 14 for corrective surgery, he called on God in Hausa repeatedly to let him walk again.
Since He is God that answers prayers, He granted Ali’s wish. The boy successfully underwent surgery and he can now walk again. The surgeons gave him 14 days to get back on his feet after the operation, but he surprised them all when he rose on his feet after seven days and began to walk. He is a child of promise and since he is back on his feet, nothing can stop him again. Many thanks to the foundation which footed his hospital bill. By your humanitarian gesture, you have made a bold statement that what matters at the end of the day is our service to humanity and not the wealth we amass.
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A wrong path
Nnamdi Kanu burst on to the scene from nowhere. Like Daniel Kanu of the Abacha for president fame, he saw an opening and grabbed it with both hands to change the course of his life. All we were told is that Nnamdi Kanu was one of the lieutenants of Raph Uwazuruike, founder of the Movement for the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB). But he was said to have fallen out with Uwazuruike following irreconcilable differences.
Kanu started his own movement. He had learnt the ropes from master. So setting up in business was not difficult. He did what all people with such mission do. Kanu first established a radio station in London. He jammed the radio wave of other stations back home in order to reach his people. His people were the Igbo at home and in the Diaspora. But he needed those at home more because he knew he could only realise his Biafra dream with their support.
For you to believe in his cause, you must be part of the struggle at home, which he knew was not going to be easy. But he played on his people sentimental attachment to Biafra to rally them round himself. The average Igbo man, whether old or young, man or woman, is forever tied to Biafra. Even the youths among them who do not know the story of Biafra, the creation of the late Chukwuemeka Odumegu-Ojukwu, go gaga once the name, Biafra, is mentioned. What makes Biafra turn the head of the Igbo?
The Igbo are not the only marginalised ethnic group in the country. If we look around us, we can even argue that their lot is better than that of many other ethnic nationalities. What will the almost forgotten minorities in the country say if the Igbo claim that they are being unfairly treated? The fact is the Igbo boxed themselves into the corner they are today. They are the architects of their own problem. Before Ojukwu came up with the Biafra idea in 1967, the Igbo were at the commanding heights in every area of human endeavour.
They were in commerce, politics and the military. Anywhere you turned to, you found the imprint of the Igbo. But we live in an interdependent world. The Igbo thrived in what they did because they enjoyed the support and understanding of others around them. The Igbo did not depend solely on their fellow Igbo to survive. They lived, worked and played with people from other parts of the country, who extended their hands of fellowship to them. They broke that bond with Biafra. We may say that Biafra in 1967 was a child of circumstance; an accident of history, but can we say that of the Biafra Nnamdi Kanu and his ilk now want to create?
What Kanu does not seem to realise is that Biafra as a nation is dead and buried. He and his co-travellers can only ruminate on what would have been if Ojukwu had succeeded. Kanu is free to dream about having Biafra. And the truth is Biafra as a nation will forever remain a dream. The Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) should stop deluding itself about recreating a republic of Biafra 47 years after the hurriedly put together nation surrendered to Nigeria. Biafra was defeated in a war it instigated, but today, it is not being treated as a conquered nation because of the magnanimity of former head of state Gen Yakubu Gowon.
After the war, Gowon declared that there was no victor, no vanquished and initiated what he called the three Rs (reintegration, reconstruction and rehabilitation). The process is to ensure the reintegration of the Igbo into the society and that process has been on in the past 47 years. War is not a good thing. It took us three years to fight the civil war, but for nearly 50 years, we have been trying to make peace without success. This is why it is unwise of Kanu to have exhumed the ghost of Biafra. He did not think about the consequences of his action and the painful thing is that those who should have dissuaded him either kept quiet or tacitly supported him.
Kanu took the wrong path and the elders of his region rather than call him to order to save their zone lined up behind him as their new found messiah. The young man has broken the laws of the land with his misguided mission. What does the Igbo want? Can they not bring their demands to the table? There can be no better time than now when the conversation is all about restructuring for the Igbo to make their grievances known. But, as we have argued in this space before, secession, which Kanu is advocating, is not the same thing as restructuring.
Secession is a treasonable offence and there is no government anywhere in the world that will allow that because once the secessionists succeed they will take over power. Fela did not do a quarter of what Kanu is doing today before his music empire – Kalakuta republic – was razed by soldiers in 1978. His offence : creating a republic within a Republic. There cannot be two captains in a ship. That is not possible. How can there be a Biafra republic with its own head of state in a sovereignty like Nigeria? This is the implication of what Kanu wants to do.
If the Igbo do not want to be part of Nigeria any more, there are better ways of making their position known. And I do not think that Kanu or his creation, IPOB, can speak for the Igbo on such a grave issue. In any case, many Igbo seem to be happy with their union with Nigeria. But unfortunately, they are afraid of speaking out against Kanu for fear being attacked. Is that the leader they want? A leader that will cow the young and old into submission?
The Igbo do not seem to know what they want. If they do, they won’t have waited for Operation Python Dance before letting Kanu know that he was playing with fire with his romance with Biafra. Now, he has gone underground after creating a problem for his people. That is what they all do when their activities catch up with them. I appeal that we use this to pull his ears and allow him to return home or wherever he likes to pick up the pieces of his life.
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Chibok boy with nine lives
Only the will to live and the grace of God could have sustained little Ali Ahmadu up till now. He was three when the dreaded Boko Haram insurgents returned to his community, Chibok in Borno State. As usual, they came to loot, rape and kill. Three or so days earlier, they had invaded the Government Girls Secondary School (GGSS) and abducted over 200 pupils. Unknown to many in the country, the insurgents still had the nerve to return to Chibok to wreak havoc again.
While the nation was worried over the abducted girls, Boko Haram went on another murderous mission to Chibok. The sect cared less about the storm generated by its action. To the group, it had done nothing – it was all part of its script to cause chaos and make the country ungovernable. Since the government of the day pretended that no girl was abducted in Chibok in the wee hours of April 15, 2014, it is not surprising that it kept quiet when the insurgents went back few days later.
There was bedlam that day as they went after the villagers, who took to their heels. They ran helter-skelter without any particular destination in mind. All they wanted was to get to somewhere safe in order to avoid the wrath of Boko Haram. Expectant mothers with children strapped to their backs and also pulling one or two other kids along were a spectacle to behold as they ran for their lives. There was no help in sight; they just ran blindly to wherever their legs took them. It was another black day in Chibok, but the incident went unreported.
However, the story of that fateful day is taking another dimension because of six-year-old Ali. Perhaps, the toddler was kept alive by God so that we will forever remember what happened not only to him, but also countless others that day. There is no record of the incident anywhere, but what other evidence do we need once we see the wheelchair bound Ali, who epitomises the hell the Chibok people went through in the hands of Boko Haram. We do not know the hour that Boko Haram struck, but Ali’s pitiable picture tells plainly the story of the sect’s atrocious act. As Fela would say, they left sorrow, tears and blood.
But Ali survived the evil act at a cost. His spinal cord was broken. We do not know what happened to his expectant mother. Did she deliver the baby? Her mother and baby alive? Was Ali the only survivor in his family? A mother’s love cannot be quantified. All Ali’s mother wanted was to get herself, son and unborn child to safety. But as she ran from the invading fundamentalists, she fell and Ali fell off her back and the terrorists overran the boy with their motorcycles.
Narrating Ali’s pathetic story in Abuja on Sunday before the boy and his aunt, Mrs Hannatu Madu, left for Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE), founder of GIPLC Nuhu Kwajafa said : “With mother and child seriously injured, Ali was kept under a tree for about three days without any form of medication. He was bleeding from mouth and nose. Ali has remained bedridden as a result of his spinal cord injury”. GIPLC and the Dickens Sanomi Foundation are collaborating to ensure that Ali walks again to fulfil his destiny. It is a miracle that he has survived up till now giving the condition under which he has lived since he broke his spinal cord.
That he did not die under those circumstances show the grace of God upon his life. Besides, the boy has also shown uncommon will to live. He has held on to hope in the last three years and we can only join him in prayers that his corrective surgery will be successful. Ali came to limelight few months ago when Vice President Yemi Osinbajo received him and some Chibok leaders at the State House in Abuja. May be, the foundation got to know about his case during that visit. The foundation has embarked on a worthy cause and we pray for a happy ending.
As little as the boy is, he knows how dire his condition is and he has been praying to God for healing. Before his trip, he prayed repeatedly in Hausa : “Ina so insake tafiya da kafana…Don Allah ataimakamu…Don Allah. Ina so in je makaranta”. (“I want to begin to walk with my legs again. For God’s sake, assist me. I want to go to school”).
What an irony. Those who wanted to kill him are campaigning against western education under the guise of propagating Islam, a religion which enjoins its faithful to seek knowledge even in distant land. As he has prayed, so shall God do unto him. May Ali walk back home on his legs.
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Like America, like Nigeria
HATE. This four-letter word evokes fear wherever it rears its ugly head. It is an ugly word and it leaves a lot of ugliness in its trail after the clash of hate-mongers. Unfortunately, the innocent, those trying to restore order in those times of madness, are usually the victims.
Hate is a bad thing. It leaves an otherwise rational person totally mad and unreasonable. At that particular moment, nothing and nobody matter to him. All he wants is the head of his perceived enemy. And who is this enemy? He may be none other than the guy next door with whom he has lived for years.
Hate sheds us of our humanity. It brings out the beast in us as we bay for the blood of our compatriots. It is a momentary madness which leaves a people, a community, a country with colossal damage. A damage that cannot be repaired for ages. Ask the United States. America knows the prize of hate, yet it has not been able to prise itself of the monstrous devil. The White hate the Black, who they refer to as people of colour. Tell me, is white not also a colour?
Hate in America did not start with what happened in Charllotesville last month. It predated Charllotesville and woke America up to the fact that as great as it is its past will always come back to haunt it if it does not address this issue of racial discrimination once and for all. Race is at the heart of America’s hate. The White have been pushing their so-called supremacy over the Black for centuries. They believe that they own the land and with a president in Donald Trump, who has promised to win back their country for them, the ‘supremacists’ have renewed the racial war.
As a country, we do not have racial issues, but the hate that is eating us up is a big threat to our unity. We have always looked out for one another and tried as much as possible to be our brother’s keeper. Everywhere is home to every Nigerian and President Muhammadu Buhari reiterated this fact in his August 21 broadcast after his return from London. Until the civil war, a product of hate, which broke out in 1967, we were one big family living under the same roof. For three years, brothers killed brothers in a senseless war.
Though, we came out of the bitter enterprise still a united nation, the bond of brotherhood was broken. Since 1970, we have been barely tolerating one another. It seems as if we are in a forced union because at every turn, we have regularly heard about those agitating to secede and those threatening to blow up oil installations from which we derive our national wealth. The civil war was to protect the unity of Nigeria. It was our way of saying no to secession, no to disintegration, but some people want to fake us back to that dark past. Some elements in the east are still living in the past. They want to resuscitate Biafra. Led by the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), the separatists are not letting up on their agitation.
This agitation is causing disaffection in the land. They may not be the harbinger of hate which seemed to have engulfed the country, but their actions have in no small manner stoked the fire. The major problem we are facing is that the elders who should call them to order are under their spell. These elders were around during the civil war when many of these young agitators had not been born and they knew what their region went through then.
Rather than help these youths in their ill advised mission, methinks, they should summon the courage to let them know that they are playing with fire. The youths may have their reason for seeking to leave the commonwealth, but they should do so within the ambit of the law. Training a so-called security service in the bush is not the way to go. Who is the security outfit preparing to engage? That is treading the path of perfidy. IPOB’s threat to secede from the union on May 27 to mark the 50th anniversary of Biafra was uncalled for. It was taking agitation too far because it bordered on treason.
The Arewa youths counter threat to flush the Igbo out of the north by October 1 in response to IPOB’s threat was absolute nonsense. IPOB was not speaking for all Igbo, though the group may delude itself that it has the back of its people. When the chips are down, the Nnamdi Kanu-led IPOB will know that it is on its own. Instead of making hate speeches, Kanu, who is out on bail, should obey the terms of his temporary freedom not to be in a gathering of more than 10 people or engage in political activities.
Kanu, like every other Nigerian is not above the law. Contrary to his believe, heavens will not fall if his bail is revoked for defying court order. People greater than him were detained in the past without the country going up in flames. His case will not be different. Our leaders share in the blame of what is happening today. They are fond of keeping quiet in the face of what Wole Soyinka calls tyranny. They do not want to offend their kinsmen by being seen to be critical of them. But how will our kinsman know that he has crossed the line if we who are close to him do not tell him. The wicked, says a Yoruba adage, knows he is wicked; he is only waiting for who to tell him.
Do we want to end hate in the land or do we want it to grow to the level where people kill themselves in the streets as it often happens in the US? It is a tough call, but we can conquer hate if we collectively choose to speak out against what is wrong and not wait to do damage control after the harm has been done.
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Not the poster woman
Women take pride in their honesty and, if you like, their holiness in comparison to men. Nothing gives them more joy than to snigger at us that they are better managers of men and materials. Nothing that is kept with them will ever go missing, they say. As our mothers and wives, we fawn over them. I daresay that a household is incomplete without a girl child. They start fighting for attention right from the cradle. It is as if they have been told that they must not yield ground to men if they wish to succeed.
Though the weaker sex, women pack a lot of power. Men dare not do some of the things they do. There are many things that a woman will do and people will overlook. But, if a man tries it, he is done for. Women can use their gender to make or mar society. Where women come together for the good of all, society progresses but where they are divided, things will not work fine. Women know how to manipulate us. They use their innate power to get what they want.
Besides, they can get away with anything all because they are women. They are delicate, precious, enchanting and cunny. Women can save and they can kill. There is no man born of woman who can escape their wrath once they set a trap for him. In the past, we looked down on them. We relegated them because we considered it a man’s world. Their job then was to take care of the home and warm our beds. They had their duty cut for them. When the men talked, they listened. Or better still, they stayed in their rooms with their children until they were sent for.
Gone are the days when women were sent for before they came out. These days, they lead the way. In some instances, men play second fiddle to them. Our women have come of age. In this modern era, gender is no obstacle to the height any one can attain, whether man or woman. Like their counterparts elsewhere, the Nigerian woman has grown socially and politically. They have their eyes set on the ultimate political office – the Presidency. There is nothing stopping them from gunning for that exalted office, if they feel they have what it takes to hold the post.
Elsewhere, we have had women leaders. So, our women will be in good company if their dreams of leading Nigeria come true. We have the women who can hold down the job. Their counterparts who did it elsewhere and are still doing it in some countries do not have two heads. But do our women, that is those aspiring to political leadership, have the impeccable character of the Golda Meirs (Israel), Margaret Thatchers (Britain), Sonia Ghandis (India), Corazon Aquinos (Phillipines), Ellen Sirleaf-Johnsons (Liberia) and Angela Merkels (Germany) of this world?
I ask this question because of what two women who found themselves in office between 2010 and 2015 did. The story has not been fully told, but the little we have heard is disturbing. One was the First Lady, Dame Patience Jonathan, the other was Petroleum Resources Minister Dame Diezani Alison-Madueke. Mrs Alison-Madueke went overboard in her spending of public funds. She used the money just the way she came across it. Since it was free money, by her own reckoning, she felt she could do whatever she liked with it. She acquired a princely sum, but today, she cannot enjoy the wealth because of her health challenge.
Why then did she amass wealth when she knew she was ill? I am not rejoicing over her predicament. Far from it, I am just ruminating over the futility of some of the actions we take when we do not know what wil happen tomorrow. If Mrs Alison-Madueke knew that things will end this way, she would not have bothered taking our money the way she did. The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) is hard pressed today trying to locate where she kept all the money in dollars, pounds, euro and naira and the property she acquured across the country and abroad.
The agency has been able to trace some, which the court has said should be forfeited to the government. Rather than keep quiet, Mrs Alison-Madueke is going about, claiming that she is being persecuted by EFCC. Persecution in what sense? When did it become an offence for a public officer to be asked to return what she allegedly acquired illegally? As a mother, wife and daughter, Mrs Alison-Madueke is supposed to have milk of kindness. Did she show that kindness the way she handled public funds?
No, she did not. She misappropriated the money meant fi2r our collective good and today, she is crying persecution when the people should be calling for her crucifixion. We have seen how former leaders who misbehaved in other climes were treated. They ended up in jail after their tenure since they had nowhere to run to. From London, Mrs Alison-Madueke has been throwing stones at home, alleging that she was accused of what she did not do.
So, who owns all the billions of naira and millions of dollars and pounds said to have been found in her accounts? The money just walked in there, I suppose. What about the property she was said to have acquired? Well, someone is surely lying between her and EFCC and I am sure it cannot be the agency. What will it gain by wrongly accusing Mrs Alison-Madueke instead of going after the real culprit? Everything is not about beauty. What is the essence of beauty if not matched with integrity, honesty and the fear of God? Indeed, everyday is for the thief and one day is for the owner.