Category: Lawal Ogienagbon

IT was the last news I expected to hear as I settled down at work last Sunday. On my mind was my schedule for the week when my phone beeped, indicating that I had a message. I excused the person in front of me as I took out my phone to read the message. The message was short and sharp : ”Veteran Daily Times production craftsman Toyin Makanju alias TMak has died in Lagos, aged 65. He died at his Surulere, Lagos home”.

I was shocked by the news and I promptly called Mr Tunde Ipinmisho, my boss at the Daily Times, who sent me the message. Mr Ipinmisho told me that he learnt of TMak’s death from Tunde Rahman, my friend and collaborator at the Daily Times, who is about starting his own paper, Southwest Post. I quickly contacted Tunde, who told me of how he also learnt of TMak’s death last Thursday. TMak, by the way, was our boss at the Daily Times, where he worked all his life. He started as a rookie and left as a master.

TMak was a master of his art. He knew journalism inside – out. He was an all – rounder, but production was his forte. Give TMak a good copy and you have made his day. TMak was among the best and brightest on the Production Desk. As Production Editor, his brief was to plan the front page, a job, which he did excellently for years. Even when he became the Deputy Editor, he was still charged with the planning of the front page. This responsibility was a show of the management’s confidence in TMak’s ability.

Everybody, whether young or old, called him TMak or TMakay and he reacted warmly to such greetings. TMak was always lively. There was no dull moment with him. He worked hard and played hard. His principle was if there was work to do, it must be done well, and if there was no work to do, then the boys can have a roll. The Production/Sub Desk of the Daily Times was a mini empire because of the calibre of people on it. They were men who could hold their own against their peers in the industry.

These were men who believed in their own capabilities and as such were sure of themselves. You cannot shake them unless you can convince them that you are right and they wrong. This reminds me of the queer unwritten policy ran at the Daily Times then. By virtue of this rule, stories on the inside pages carried no bylines, no matter how good they may be. As reporters, we tried to find out why this is so, we got no plausible reason. All we heard was the Daily Times is no place where ”cheap” bylines are given”.

Even on the prime front and back pages, reporters got bylines, courtesy of the production editor. So, in a way, the reporters’ fate was determined by the production desk. Reporters did not like this at all, but credit must be given to the production men for acting as professionals when the occasion demanded. Even though some reporters go to them for their bylines to be used, they use their discretion, judiciously, to give bylines to those who do not solicit for it but who deserve it based on the quality of their stories.

It is better to steer clear of TMak than to look for his trouble. He was not scared of a fight, but he was worried about being perceived as a coward. Among his set, he was closer to our own generation of reporters at the Daily Times because he easily related with us. You can ask Tunde Rahman, Tunde Olusunle, Segun Ayobolu, Hakeem Bello, Charles Oni, Abideen Igbehin, Yomi Omotoso, Mac Durugbo and they will tell you that TMak was not a boss but a mentor and a brother.

TMak was friendly, jovial and hardworking. He did not allow his relationship with others, no matter how cosy, to affect his job. When a reporter did well, he told him and when the reporter did not do well, he also told him. You see the best side of TMak when he gets a good copy. From his seat at the end of the Newsroom, he will holler : ”Who is this reporter?”. On seeing the reporter, he will tell him : ”You have made my day with your story. It is well written”.

TMak should know a well written story if he saw one because he rose through the rungs of the ladder. He joined the Daily Times after leaving school as a reporter, moving from sports to entertainment and music and production desks. He shone like a star on all the beats he covered, especially sports, where the late Babatunde Oshuntolu (Esbee), the Group Sports Editor, trained him. Till he died, TMak was grateful that he passed through the late Esbee’s hands. The late Esbee, according to TMak, was a no nonsense boss, who believed a reporter must have a grasp of English to be able to do his job well.

Fortunately for TMak, he worked in an organisation like the Daily Times, which recognised excellence. When the Daily Times reached its apogee, it had many titles in its stable. The Lagos Weekend and Sporting Record were two of such titles.TMak edited both titles before he became the Production Editor of the Daily Times. His production wizardry reflected in the planning of the front page of the paper throughout the 1990s. All the pages TMak planned had the mark of his ingenuity and mastery. Those were the days of production men that made the media industry tick.

TMak may be dead, but his works live on in the pages of the Daily Times and in the hearts of many , who appreciate excellence. TMak was good, damn good, on the job. His likes are rare to come by in a profession, where merit should be the norm. Today, the funeral rites for TMak will kick off with a Christian wake at his 11, Oshinkalu Close, Surulere, Lagos home, at 5pm. Tomorrow, his body will lie-in-state at his residence from 8am. A funeral service follows at the Surulere Baptist Church, Ojuelegba, Lagos, at 10 am. His remains will be buried at the Ikoyi Cemetry.

Death, so cruel I saw Toyin Obadina last some months ago when he was considering joining us here. When he came to me, he wanted to know at what level he could come in. I told that was up to him because it depended on what he had in mind. ”Where do you think you can come in?” I threw it back at him. Having known Toyin on the beat as a judicial reporter in the 1990s I knew his capabilities, but I wanted him to say what he wanted. He said he had discussed with the Editor, who wanted him to come in and be handling production for the business desk. Since I did not know him as a production person, I asked whether he could do that job, he said he could. But, he added, that was not what he wanted. “So, you know what you want”, I interjected, “why don’t you let him know your mind and see what can be done about this issue once-and-for-all”. He took his leave after our conversation. And I never knew that was the last time I will see him. Last Saturday morning, Toyin was shot on his way home by yet-to-be-identified hoodlums. He was said to have branched at a bank to make use of its Automated Teller Machine (ATM) following which the hoodlums robbed him of the money and also shot him. He died from gunshot injuries at the hospital. What a painful way to go. After all these years of struggle, see how it has all ended. It is a cruel world. My heart goes out to Toyin’s wife and children. I pray that God will grant them the fortitude to bear this irreparable loss. Adieu, Toyin.

Politics, they say, is a game of numbers. Soon, we will see how true this altruism is. And what other place to carry out this test than the National Assembly, where the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) are fighting tooth and nail to assert their authorities. Before it suffered a reversal in fortune, the PDP enjoyed a clear cut majority in the Assembly. It could call the bluff of the other parties where a simple majority was needed in the passage of a bill or in deciding certain resolutions.

So, whenever PDP members agreed on any matter, it was as good as settled because, invariably, that is the way the house would go. The PDP had a good run while the fun lasted. It ran rings round the other parties in the Assembly; it was the lord of the manor. Wasn’t it? Now, the chicks have come home to roost and the PDP is counting its teeth with its tongue. From the look of things, except it plays its card right, it may be in for a hard time until the next elections, which are around the corner.

Things started slipping out of the hands of the PDP at its 15th anniversary celebration in Abuja last year. The event held in the heat of some of its members demand for the removal of Alhaji Bamanga Tukur as the party’s chairman. The members were led by some governors and a former chairman of the party, Alhaji Kawu Baraje. They carried out a coup of sorts against the party at that event as they slipped out to announce their breakaway from the PDP. They, however, left a window for reconciliation.

They gave the party the conditions under which they will remain in the party. Their major demand was the resignation of Tukur. Being President Goodluck Jonathan’s man, many thought the Group of Seven Governors as it was later come to be known was asking for too much. Tukur resign? Political watchers thought this was an impossibility because his resignation may signal the crash of the much – touted second term ambition of the president.

The president, the North believes, wants to return to office in 2015 despite his so – called tacit agreement with the region to do one term. Tukur is believed to be on the same page with the president despite being put there by his people to stop their common ‘enemy’ from getting a second term. With Tukur standing firm and Jonathan, initially reluctant to let him go, five of the seven governors defected to APC, altering the power equation in the National Assembly.

What this means is that the PDP has lost its majority in the Assembly and the party is uncomfortable that it is now at the mercy of the opposition, which seems to be on the verge of becoming the majority. Though the APC may not be the ruling party at the national level, it has more than before become a force to be reckoned with by the ruling PDP in the day-to-day running of government. When APC sneezes now, the PDP catches cold. The APC is no longer the APC the PDP used to toss around. The shoe, as they say, is now on the other leg. Whether it likes it or not, PDP now has to dance to APC’s tune.

In politics, there is beauty in numbers. You do not need to tell that to PDP because until now it knew what it did with its then overwhelming majority in both chambers of the Assembly. Having lost that majority, which has wider implications for the principal offices it occupies in the Senate and House of Representatives, the party is running from pillar to post to stop the APC from enjoying the fruits of being the majority party in the Assembly, as outlined in its Standing Rules.

Besides, it is the legislative practise worldwide for the majority party to occupy the major parliamentary leadership positions. What is the essence of being the majority party if that party cannot exercise such power not only in name but in deed. A majority party solely in name is a democratic aberration and there is nowhere in the world that this is tolerated. A majority party which loses that status should be gamely enough to appreciate that fact in order to grow our democracy.

To seek to resort to underhand tactics in order to stop

the emerging majority party from enjoying the fruits of that position is an assault on democracy. Our politicians should learn to play the game by its rules, but will they? The problem is that they hate losing or being on the losing side. Well, whether they like it or not, politics is either you win or lose. They should stop seeing it as a win – win game all the time; they should appreciate the fact once in a while, they are bound to lose. When that happens, they should not try to bring the roof down on our heads.

The situation in the Assembly is not something for PDP to break bones about; it may lose sleep over it though, but that is the price it has to pay for not playing its internal politics right. Must it then vent its spleen on APC for capitalising on its political miscalculation to strengthen the progressives’ number in the Assembly? No, it cannot do that. What it should do is to return to the drawing table to see how it can stop further depletion in its rank.

Trying to stop APC from mounting the leadership saddle in the Assembly through its bolekaja method will not help matters; it will only end up overheating the polity. But does PDP care?

Reason prevails

So, the Save Rivers Movement (SRM) can hold a rally in Port Harcourt without any problems! What happened in the Garden City last Saturday speaks volumes about our police. Why were they blocking the group all this while from holding its rally? They claimed that they were doing so because the group did not obtain police permit. It was all bunkum. They were only unnecessarily getting themselves into a political matter that did not concern them. Police Commissioner Mbu Joseph Mbu was a proxy fighting a war that did not concern him. He should leave politics for politicians and concentrate on his police job in his own interest. Kudos to the Inspector – General of Police (IG) Muhammed Abubakar for his intervention that allowed the rally to hold. That is how it should be. The police should be insulated from politics. We thank the IG for allowing reason to prevail.

Up Nigeria

By the time you read this, our game with Ghana would have been won and lost. So far, the Super Eagles have put up a superlative performance in the ongoing CHAN Cup in South Africa. My bet is on the Eagles to win the trophy this weekend having defeated the Ghana Black Stars yesterday. Our boys may not have started well, but they have improved with each game. Did you watch their match against the Atlas Lion of Morocco? Coming from three goals down to win by 4 – 3 is the stuff of which champions are made. What is more, it was the die – hard Nigerian spirit that was on display. This spirit will see us win the Cup. Up Eagles!

Things have been wrong in Rivers State for almost a year now, all for the wrong reasons. I say wrong reasons because a party to the Rivers crisis knows that it has no reason to be waging a war of attrition against Governor Rotimi Amaechi. Since February, last year, the state has known no peace. It has been one day, one crisis in the Garden City all because some people in Abuja are no longer comfortable with Amaechi being in the saddle.

But must Rivers and the people be made to suffer because of the perceived ‘sins’ of one man? That is assuming if he has done anything wrong. At the risk of being accused of bias, I say that the governor has done nothing wrong, except if it is a sin to stand up for what one believes in. Amaechi may have offended them without knowing when he complained that the East – West Road is a death trap because of the delay in completing it!

For his boldness in calling a spade a spade and not a farming implement he incurred the ire of Niger Delta Minister Godsday Orubebe, who started the campaign that Amaechi was criticising the project because he was interested in the 2015 presidential election. When Amaechi moved to the Port Harcourt Waterfront in his bid to beautify the place, all hell broke loose. They accused him of demolishing houses without sparing a thought for the owners.

Most of the house owners are Okrika, who have a powerful kinswoman in the First Lady, Dame Patience Jonathan. When she visited Port Harcourt sometime last year, she took on Amaechi over the issue. Her Excellency accused Amaechi of demolishing houses without compensating the owners. The governor, she said, knew no other word than ”demolish, demolish”, adding : ”If you demolish everywhere, where will the people go”.

That was the start of Amaechi’s problem with the first family as Dame Patience rebuffed every move by the governor to explain things. She denied him every right of reply. Since then, there has been no love lost between them. Dame Patience is being fussy over nothing. As the mother of the nation and the most prominent Rivers woman in high office today, there are better ways of handling issues, especially those pertaining to her state.

And that is not by being hostile to the governor. As we have said here in the last two editions, there are better ways of relating with the governor of your state, whether you are wife of the president or not, Respect, they say, begets respect. If the first lady does not throw her weight around, she and Amaechi will hit it off. But if she chooses to be bossy as she is now doing, things will not work at all and Rivers will be the worse off for it. We are already experiencing that with the kind of Commissioner of Police she got posted to the state. Since his coming, Mbu Joseph Mbu has not left people in doubt about his mission.

From all indications, Mbu is executing someone’s agenda and since he was deployed in Rivers on the instrumentality of the first lady, it is obvious on whose side he is. This Joseph is unlike his namesake in the Bible, who won Pharaoh’s heart by his fortrightness and candour. The biblical Joseph was a great dreamer and an interpreter of dreams, but the Jonathans’ Joseph is a killer of dreams and a perpetrator of havoc. He should, however, not forget that there may come a Pharaoh (even though Jonathan once said he is neither Pharaoh nor a General) who does not know his Joseph. If it could happen in the Bible, it can also happen here. May we remind Mbu that he is a law officer, who should be impartial where there is a dispute between two parties. It is sad that Mbu has not lived up to the expectations of his office. He seems to have forgotten that he owes his commission to the Nigerian people and not to any public officer, who will leave office one day.

Mbu too will eventually leave office, but what will be his legacy, if he continues to run the Rivers State Police Command the way he is presently doing? I don’t know how long he still has left in service, but if he wishes to go further in his career, he has to change his ways, except if he is saying that he is satisfied being a commissioner until he retires. It is high time Mbu stopped seeing himself as a major-domo of the first family and act truly as an officer of the law, who will uphold what is right and just.

If the truth must be told, Mbu has not been fair to the Save Rivers Movement (SRM) and Amaechi so far. While he is treating the Nyesom Wike – backed Grassroots Development Initiative (GDI) with kid glove, he is applying iron hand on the SRM because the group enjoys the support of Amaechi, who does not see eye to eye with the first family. Is that how to be a police officer? Mbu knows the answer to this poser. The police pride themselves in being the people’s friend. Unfortunately, we cannot say that of Mbu going by what we have seen of him; we will rather remove the r in that word and see him more as a fiend.

Isn’t that what he really is? If a police chief like him can stand idly by and allow hoodlums to attack law abiding citizens as it happened in Port Harcourt last Sunday during the SRM planned rally can he be said to worth his uniform? If a police chief like him can sanction the use of force, whether minimum or maximum, to disperse a proposed peaceful rally can he be said to be fit for that post? The world once had a butcher of Baghdad – the late Saddam Hussein of Iraq – who ran his country with an iron fist, but we all know how he ended.

At the height of the late Hussein’s madness, life meant nothing to him; he killed people at will, including his son-in-law because he was power drunk. The Arab world surely has them. Today, Bashar Assad of Syria is following in the late Hussein’s footstep. Are these Mbu’s role models? I am sorry to say that he is treading the path of perfidy if he does not retrace his step. What I don’t understand is why the police chose to look the other way when hoodlums descended on SRM members on Sunday? Is it no longer their job to protect life and property?

Up till now, the Inspector – General of Police (IG) has not queried Mbu on what happened? Is that how to run an institution? We can only hazard a guess here that the IG’s hands are tied because Mbu is well connected. But what do we say of President Goodluck Jonathan, the apostle of peace, who has deafeningly kept silent in the face of the mayhem in Port Harcourt last Sunday? Yet, the president says he does not want people to shed blood over his political ambition.

How do we reconcile his statement with what is happening in Rivers? Now, Amaechi has served notice that he would be at the rescheduled SRM rally in Port Harcourt on Saturday. As the chief law officer of his state, the goverrnor’s movement cannot be curtailed by anybody. He is expected to be protected by virtue of his office. Will Mbu provide Amaechi that protection on Saturday or will he let loose his men again on defencelsss citizens? Those who love Mbu should advise him to retrace his step now because the end of yes – men is not always something to cheer about.

What is happening in Rivers State brings to mind the blood-chilling developments in the polity during the Second Republic. The National Party of Nigeria (NPN) was in power and to rein in the opposition, the party resorted to jackboot tactics. It seized control of the police and turned the institution into a tool for hunting and hounding law abiding citizens. With the Asiwaju of Ogbomoso in Oyo State, Sunday Adewusi, as Inspector – General, the police played their role well.

The police even overdid things in the bid to serve their master. They overreached themselves in killing, maiming or arresting and hunting down those perceived to be the enemies of the government. They lacked nothing in doing their job. Where the military, the constitutional protector of the nation’s territorial integrity, lacked the wherewithal to discharge their duties, the police had everything. They had, among others, armoured personnel carriers (APCs), which were deployed in some streets to instil fear in the populace. Yet, the police say they are our friend. With a friend like them, who needs an enemy?

These APCs were just there to show the opposition that the government has what it takes to checkmate them if they fell out of line. Falling out of line does not necessarily mean that you may have done something wrong, it is something defined by the police and NPN. They have their own definition of falling out of line and that is ”undue criticism” of the presidency or slawarts of NPN on whose pay roll many police officers were. The height of it all was the use of the police to rig the 1983 elections, which eventually led to the sacking of the Alhaji Shehu Shagari – led PDP government.

Thirty years after, we are walking the same road again. The police have always been a spoiler in the political history of our country. They seem to enjoy supporting those in power forgetting that they are an institution, which should uphold what is right and do justice to all men, whether political heavyweight or not; whether rich or poor. Our police like taking the easy way out. They prefer being on the side of those who have the power to determine their fate rather than discharge their duty without fear or favour.

It is because of fear that the inspector – general (IG) will turn his face the other way when those in power are trampling upon the rights of the citizens. The IG knows what is right but will not act out of fear. Why then is he the IG? This shows how timid our policemen are. It is because of their timidity that those in power order them around as if they are servants. No, the police are nobody’s servant. They are officers of the law, who deserve the respect of both the prince and the pauper. Unfortunately, the police have sold themselves to the powerful and mighty.

They foam from the mouth at the sight of these people. It is as if their lives depend on the say so of politicians and the powerful. That is how cheap the police have become and nothing attests to this fact than what is playing out in Rivers

State, where the Commissioner of Police, Mbu Joseph Mbu, has turned himself into a tin god. Mbu is today the most powerful police officer because of the special job he is doing for the first family in that state. His brief is to make life difficult for Governor Rotimi Amaechi and he seems to be on a roller coaster.

He has even done more than he was asked to do. Yet, he is not tired. Did you hear what he said after Sunday’s shameful display by the police during which Senator Magnus Abe was shot? Boasting on Channels Television during the station’s primetime news, Mbu said : ”If we used live bullets, you know the implication. If a live bullet hits your hand, it will shatter the hand and if it hits the neck, the person is gone…I asked policemen to subdue and take over the place (venue of the planned rally where Senator Abe was shot)”. For effect, he added that the rally, where Governor Amaechi formally declared for the All Progressives Congress (APC), was held without police approval, but the police just looked the other way.

Mbu was saying in effect that he could have also shot at and teargassed those who attended that rally, among who were former Head of State Gen Muhammadu Buhari, former Lagos State Governor Bola Tinubu and APC Interim National Chairman and former Osun State Governor Bisi Akande, but was restrained by forces beyond his control! That would have been the height. But, he could not carry out his heart’s desire because even a mad man knows where to stop. Mbu, who from his name may be from the popular Mbu family of Cross River State, has become a terror of sorts in police uniform. He should stop dragging the name of that poular family in the mud.

He has become so powerful because he has the ears of the president and his wife. I will not be surprised if he no longer takes his orders from the IG, but from the Presidency. He should not allow his closeness to the first family to becloud his professional sense of judgement. What did those who gathered at the Rivers State College of Arts and Science on Sunday for a Save Rivers Movement (SRM) do wrong? When did it become illegal to hold rallies? Is Mbu, a whole police commissioner, unaware of a court verdict that people can gather without police permit?

Mbu should be called to order before he does further havoc. He has shown us the kind of officer he is – an officer who can shoot at will in order to satisfy his paymasters. Little wonder, we have so many cases of extra judicial killings involving the police. It is a terrible thing that someone like Mbu is heading a state command. Now, they have sent him to the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS) in Kuru near Jos, Plateau State, when he should be asked to go. Let him remember that the Jonathans will not be in office forever.

So long, Tukur!

Today, the fate of Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Alhaji Bamanga Tukur will be determined. Will he remain as PDP chair or will he be removed? The signs are that he may be removed. Tukur had since lost out as PDP chair, but was being sustained in office by President Goodluck Jonathan, who still had good use for him then. Now, he has to go, as predicted by this column on January 2. Tukur’s cup is full. Will he be able to summon courage and throw in the towel rather than wait until he is removed with ignominy if he insists on following due process? How many of his predecessors left office under due process? None. So, how does he expect his case to be different?

It all started as a battle for supremacy. Who controls what in the oil-rich Rivers State? Politicians are ever interested in power. They want to control everything and everybody, even a sitting governor in his own state. This is the situation Governor Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi has found himself in the past two years or so. We can understand when politicians try to grab power anyhow, but what do we say of those who want to imitate politicians just because they are married to a politician?

Amaechi’s major headache is not his fellow politicians but the wife of the president, Dame Patience Jonathan, who feels that the governor must kowtow to her just because she is from Rivers State. As a Rivers indigene, the First Lady, as a matter of right, should be interested in what is going on in her state. Her interest, mind you, should centre on how she can contribute to its betterment and not to disturb its peace.

Unfortunately, Dame Patience is more interested in the politics of Rivers than in its development. She wants to be the de facto governor and turn Amaechi to her puppet. The governor is resisting that move. He says he is not ready to be a figurehead, but to serve and exercise the powers of a governor, who was duly elected by the people. For standing up to the First Lady, Amaechi has been called names. He is said to be stubborn and a wife beater. The second charge the governor will address himself.

But if I may ask, what is bad in being stubborn in standing up for your right? Should a man act stupid in the face of oppression? Should he keep quiet when his right is being trampled upon? If the First Lady were in Amaechi’s shoes will she allow herself to be dictated to? What is happening in Rivers is not healthy at all. Everyday, it is one crisis or the other and all because certain people led by Dame Patience want to be in charge.

If she is so hungry for the governor’s office, then she should try her luck at the poll in the next election? To that, I am sure her loyalists will say as the president’s wife she cannot do any other job than being first lady. Good, if that is the case, why does she want to govern Rivers through the back door by making things difficult for Amaechi? Or why did she accept her appointment as a permanent secretary in Bayelsa, her husband’s home state, where she was working before providence smiled on the family, if she knew her hands are really full as first lady.

Since her fortunes changed, Dame Patience’s outlook about life should also have changed. But, no, she still finds time to hanker after little things; things, which naturally should not attract her attention because of what God has done for her. All she needs do by virtue of her position is to court Amaechi and not to seek to ride roughshod over him because she is first lady. We have had many first ladies and we never saw them fight their state governors as Dame Patience is doing for political space.

When two elephants fight, the saying goes, the ground suffers. This is what is happening in the Rivers debacle. The people are the ones bearing the brunt of the political face off between the Jonathans and Amaechi. The president, naturally, is supporting his wife. Since the president has many people looking up to him for survival, these people have joined the fray on his family’s side. These are ministers, members of his party and lawmakers in the national and state assemblies.

These people are supporting the first family not because what the Jonathans are doing is good, but because it is in their political interest to do so. This is why there may be no end to the crisis until probably after Amaechi leaves office in 2015. My fear is that after he leaves office, they may still be hunting him all over the place. Now, Amaechi enjoys immunity. Once he leaves office and no longer enjoys immunity, they are likely to come after him, with allegations of certain illegalities committed while in office. Whether they will be able to prove their allegations is a different matter, but they will harass him to no end.

For now, the people cannot sleep with their two eyes closed because they don’t know what may happen next in this fight of goliaths. The police’s role in the matter leaves much to be desired. Police Commissioner Joseph Mbu has so far shown that there is no love lost between him and Amaechi. Mbu does not see anything good in Amaechi and if he has his way he is ready to take the governor in today. The police, which should be the mediator in this matter, is clearly partisan. They are tilted toward the side of those against Amaechi and this is obvious from what is going on in the Rivers State House of Assembly.

In the Assembly, which has not been able to sit for months now, we have 25 members, who are on Amaechi’s side, seven others are supporters of the Supervising Minister of Education, Nyesom Wike, who has virtually become Dame Patience’s handbag. Under the aegis of his Grassroots Democratic Initiative (GDI), Wike and his cohorts want to turn their state upside down to satisfy their mistress. Democracy is a game of numbers. With 25 members, the Speaker Otelemaba Dan-Amachree – led group deserves the protection of the police.

But what t do we have? The police are on the side of the minority. They have stopped the majority from sitting following a court order despite having extracted an undertaking from the group to be of ‘’good behavior’’. Harry Bipi, who is parading himself as speaker, and the leader of the seven-man group refused to sign such an undertaking. What should that have told the police? It should have told them that the group is a spoiler. It is aiming at a breakdown of law and order so that in the words of Etche Local Government chief Reginald Okwuoma, ‘’a state of emergency can be declared in the state’’.

Okwuoma’s statement followed the bombing of a high court in Okehi, which in his council, on Monday, hours after a similar incident at another high court in Ahoada East Local Government Area of the state. Can we say the council chief is blowing hot air? Is it not obvious from goings-on that the central government has some evil intentions concerning the state? The bombing of those courts within hours of each other speaks volumes about the government. Yet, they are denying that there is no ‘’political watch list’’. Let them say that to the marines.

It is that time of the year again when we do stock taking. We take a retrospective look at what happened in the past and then project into the future. We do this as individuals, corporate bodies and nations. We use the past to assess the present and define the future. I don’t know if this is still in fashion; it also used to be a time for resolutions. I remember those days when an old year is about winding down, we start making resolutions of our do’s and don’ts for the coming year.

It is funny recalling these things now. What were our resolutions, if you may ask? They ranged from the sublime to the ridiculous. Someone will shout on top of his voice from one corner of our room then in the hostel : ”I will stop smoking next year”. Another person will take it up from there : ”I will stop chasing girls next year”. It will go on and on like that, as if these were the issues most important on earth. But for us as little as we were then, they were because they were issues which defined our very existence.

Now we are men and no longer boys. Things have changed and we too have changed. Those things that define our existence now are quiet different from what they were those days. We no longer think in terms of our individual selves but now do so as people charged with the responsibilities of managing others. We now think big, so to say, and no longer small. We worry more about our country and how we can contribute towards its betterment.

In 2013, which has about six hours left to go into oblivion as I write this, Nigeria, like other nations, went through its ups and downs. Will 2014 be better? This is the question many are pondering as the year rolls into its second day today. What will Nigeria look like in 2014? I will surmise a guess here using data available from 2013. I am not clairvoyant but I will try and gaze into the crystal ball and see what 2014 has for Nigeria. We get to a certain stage in life where we try to see the fiture if not through our powers but through the aid of those gifted to do so.

Banquo, the Scottish warrior, found himself in that situation on returning from battle with Macbeth in Shakespeare’s play titled Macbeth. After the three witches made some predictions concerning Macbeth, Banquo was constrained to ask them : ”If you can look into the seeds of time, and say which grain will grow and which will not, speak then to me, who neither beg nor fear your favours nor your hate”. Can this reporter, though not a wizard, now look into the seeds of time and say which grain will grow and which will not in Nigeria in 2014.

Of course in 2014, the national conference will hold as planned by the Jonathan administration, but it will lead to no where. My fear is that the planned talk may be aborted, even before it starts. Between now and February when it is expected to start, we don’t have much time left. The government is planning for a conference of over 500 delegates and for now it has not told us the modality for picking these delegates. Will they be handpicked? Will they be elected? Election is out of the matter because the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has its hands full with the coming general elections in 2015. Don’t be shocked if the planned conference is shifted till 2015, that is if President Goodluck Jonathan wins a second term.

At last, in 2014, the day we have been waiting for will come when the president tells the nation about his political future. Will Jonathan run in 2015? I make bold to say here without any fear of contradiction that the answer is yes and by June or July we will know where the driver is taking us as it concerns this matter. So far, the president has resisted all moves to get him to declare his stand on the matter. To do so now, he said, might lead to overheating the polity. But his body language (ah! that again) shows that he is more than interested in a second term.

Unknown to the president, he played his hand when he deposed to an affidavit in a suit challenging his right to seek re-election in 2015. In that affidavit, he swore that he has the right to seek a second term if he so wishes after his current tenure. I quite agree with Mr President that we cannot deny him his right on the basis of the so – called gentleman’s agreement he reportedly had with his party’s governor’s in 2011. What has agreement got to do with it when the issue at stake is ambition; vaulting ambition at that? It goes without saying that Jonathan will run in 2015.

To justify his decision, he will tell us that he cannot sacrifice the right, which the Constitution grants him to seek a second term in order to satisfy the North, which is leading the campaign against his return to power in 2015. There will be more trouble for the president in 2014 from within his party. He will part ways with the Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, in order to bring those against the shipping magnate to his own side, but it will be too little, too late. Whether or not he dumps Tukur, Jonathan is walking on thin ice.

PDP will continue to be depleted in 2014. Its five governors, who defected to the All Progressives Congress (APC) are gone for good. The party is not likely to win the case it instituted against them in court, going by the Supreme Court’s decision in the Atiku case against former President Olusegun Obasanjo and PDP. Still talking politics, Governors Kayode Fayemi and Rauf Aregbesola of Ekiti and Osun states may be re-elected into office based on their first term achievements. The opposition will put up a stiff challenge, but the governors are, as book makers will say, good to go for a second term.

The economy is it, any day, any time. The Federal and state governments will continue to bandy words about the management of the economy, especially the handling of the Excess Crude Account (ECA), which holds a lot of our money once there is a rise in oil price in the international market. The central government is somehow cagey about throwing the book open for the governors to see because it knows the danger in doing that. With an election year in clear sight, the government knows what it is doing by keeping the ECA under wraps.

For sometime now, the monthly allocations have not been shared among the three tiers of government because there seems to be nothing to share. This has put many states under serious strain, with some not paying salary regularly and others owing workers. Unless the government opens up on the true position of things, the matter may remain unresolved in 2014. By now, Jonathan may have made up his mind on who to appoint as Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor after Mallam Lamido Sanusi leaves office in June. Who gets the job? Aigboje Aig – Imoukhuede? Tunde Lemo? Kingsley Muoghalu? I bet you, whoever gets it, will the the president’s man and not another Sanusi, who will be writing letters, on some supposed missing oil money.

2014 is another World Cup year. We are drawn in our group with Iran , Bosnia and Argentina. From the draw, one may be tempted to say it is an easy group. But the experts here say that is not so. Going by FIFA ranking, we are the least rated in our group. Despite that, as I told Ade Ojeikere, the Editor of SPORTING LIFE, our sister paper, I am sticking out my neck for Nigeria to qualify for the round of 16 from that group and go ahead to win the prized trophy. Patriotism, uh! Happy New Year.

At times like this when things happen at dizzying pace, a reporter is left with no choice than to go with the flow. In the past few days, so many things have happened in the polity that will naturally interest a reporter. But before he has the chance of writing on one, another may have happened, throwing him into a quandary on how to tackle the subjects. Does he take them one by one or lump them together as one to ensure currency?

It is a matter of the writer’s choice and style because there is no hard and fast rule to the game. The general rule is that the issue or issues must be current and topical. Thus, this reporter’s approach this morning is to look in totality at some of the issues that cropped up this festive season. Already our leaders have sent us goodwill messages to mark Christmas, which was yesterday and will repeat the ritual next week to mark the New Year, but do they do what they preach?

Some of our leaders speak in a roundabout way. They say one thing and mean another. That is the way of men. We talk as we think. The scripture puts it succinctly : ”For as a man thinks in his heart so is he”. This much was reflected in the exchange of letters between President Goodluck Jonathan and former President Olusegun Obasanjo. In the letters, both men did not pull punches; they fought hard and dirty. Obasanjo accused the president of so many things.

Jonathan denied all the allegations, putting Baba, as lawyers would say, to the strictest test of proving those claims. The president did not stop at that. He also levelled his own allegations against Obasanjo. Among others, the president said corruption, which Obasanjo accused him of encouraging, did not start under him. ”That corruption is an issue in Nigeria is indisputable. It has been with us for many years. You will recall that your kinsman, the renowned Afro – beat maestro, the late Fela Anikulapo – Kuti, famously sang about it during your stint as head of state… Even in this Fourth Republic, the Siemens and Halliburton scandals are well known.

”The seed of corruption in this country was planted a long time ago, but we are doing all that we can to drastically reduce its debilitating effects on national development and progress”, Jonathan said. The president washed his hands of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) crisis, accusing Obasanjo of leading those who instigated the feud. Baba, the president added, cannot extricate himself from the problem of general insecurity in the land. ”In terms of general insecurity in the country and particularly the crisis in the Niger Delta, 2007 was one of the worst periods in our history.

Jonathan also denied asking four presidents in Africa to prevail on Baba to support him for another term in office in 2015. ”Your claims about discussions I had with you, Governor Gabriel Suswam (Benue State) and others are wrong, but in keeping with my declared stance, I will reserve further comments until the appropriate time”. Interestingly, Baba has resolved to cease fire. Having said what he has to say, Obasanjo says he is moving forward. Rivers State Governor Rotimi Amaechi picked up the gauntlet from there. Even though the president has denied placing about 1000 people on ”political watch list”, Amaechi claims to be on that ”list”.

At the All Progressives Congress (APC), ”mother of all rallies” in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, on Monday, Amaechi declared before a crowd of his supporters : ”I read the president’s letter and he said ex – President Obasanjo should prove the 1000 names on the watch list. I am number one on the list. They want to kill me, but they have no God. The God we worship will protect me…” As governor, Amaechi must know what he is saying. He may not be in the good book of the president, but that is not to say that he will not be privy to certain privilege information. And no other person than those expected to be monitoring him will be passing such information to him. As we asked last week, we are constrained to ask again today, are Nigerians safe under this president?

This question is borne out of the fact that if some top Nigerians could fear for their lives, there should be general cause for concern before things get out of hand. We should not wait until the harm is done before we take action to prevent loss of life. Jonathan may have been put on the spot, but what do you make of Baba’s precious daughter, Iyabo’s letter to her beloved father? Senator Iyabo tore her dad apart in that letter. If she was not known to the public, we may have been tempted to say that she could never have been Baba’s daughter because no child dare address his father that way.

Senator Iyabo is not saying anything different from what her younger brother, Gbenga, once said about their father. This shows that there is a big problem in the Obasanjo family. We all have problems in our families. The only difference is that we do not make ours a public issue like the Obasanjos. It is not too late for the family to mend its cracked walls. Another letter writer, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor Lamido Sanusi, was hard put to prove his claim that $49.8 billion of oil money was ”missing”. At a reconciliation meeting in Abuja involving him, Finance Minister Dr Ngozi Okonjo – Iweala and others, the parties came to the conclusion that the money was not missing, but that certain amount of money could not be ”accounted for”.

Dr Okonjo – Iweala put the ”unaccounted for” amount at $10.8 billion; Sanusi said it was $12 billion. Whether $12 billion or $10.8 billion, there is something oily about this oil business somewhere and only the CBN, the finance ministry and Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) can lead us out of this cul de sac. Where is the ”unaccounted for” amount, whether $12 billion or $10.8 billion? Or don’t we deserve to know where our money is?

The Apo killings keep haunting us despite our security agencies’ plan to make it an open and close matter. No fewer than eight persons were killed when a combined team of soldiers and State Security Service (SSS) operatives stormed an uncompleted building in Apo in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), where the deceased were squattering. The Chief of Army Staff, Lt Gen Azubuike Ihejirika, has just told us that his men killed those people in ”self defence”. Unfortunately, the deceased, who should react to his claim, are dead. But I find it difficult that those people fired at the soldiers and others knowing full well that they had been surrendered.

The army chief is saying this now to justify these extra – judicial killings. The SSS, which began this story of these men being Boko Haram suspects, has since piped down, probably after seeing that it did not handle the assignment in an intelligent manner. There was no reason for these people to have been killed in the first place, if our security men had enough intelligence before embarking on that mission. The deceased, who were described as migrant and menial workers, had lived in that building for at least two years before they were killed. Where were our SSS and soldiers all this while? Our security men should do more of intelligence to prevent crime and not to take rash action of killing people and later tag them as criminals.

Instead of looking for excuses to justify their action, the army and SSS should apologise to Nigerians, especially the bereaved families, while the government should explore ways of compensating their people. Can the Senate now see that it acted hastily in putting a seal on the Apo killings?

I cannot end this without wishing you compliments of the season and thanking you for being there for us. May we have a fulfilling and rewarding 2014.

Everything he did he did forthrightly and he was always conscious of his place in history. Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was not just a man, he was a special being. His life was inspiring; a life that was full of ups and downs. He took things as they came, believing in his own conviction that at the appropriate time, he will be vindicated. History will surely vindicate this rare human being, who gave as much as he could take. ”The struggle is my life”, he said at the height of his travails in South Africa.

It was a statement he lived up to in his lifetime. There was no time in his eventful life that he forgot this mantra. He never deviated from it, whether in prison or out of prison. That was what made the man; his associates and followers knew that they could take him for his words. He put others first and himself last. Just as Julius Caesar said in the Shakespeare work of the same title : ”What touches us most shall last be served”. No wonder, the late Madiba fell in love with the book when he read it in prison.

Mandela was a legend, a hero and an icon all rolled into one. He came ahead of his time. Many may say he should not have been of this earth, but God knew what he was doing by placing him here. The Almighty, perhaps, wanted the world to see Him in Mandela and so sent him to earth and a country where he would be initially treated like a second class citizen before becoming the first citizen. There is a lot to learn from Mandela’s life. His life tells us that it is not over until it is all over. Even Mandela himself, while alive, would have been stunned by the turn of events in his life.

When he was jailed for life in 1964, the apartheid regime in South Africa then did not mean well for him. The plan was to get him out of the way for life. It was not intended that he would come out of jail. He was meant to rot away there, with his carcasses probably thrown to the dogs after his death. Unknowing to them, Providence had other plans for him because as we have come to see Mandela was the apple of the Lord’s eyes. Like the biblical Joseph, he survived all human antics to achieve God’s purpose for his life. He was beaten, battered, brutalised and tortured, he survived it all to outlive many of his tormentors.

Indeed, when God has plans for a person, there is no Jupiter on earth that can alter them, except if that person wishes to perish in his foolhardiness. Mandela was the beloved of the Lord, if he was not, he would not have spent 27 years in jail and come out to spend another 23 years in freedom before his death last Thursday. He fought to the end like the true activist that he was. For over one year, he engaged death face to face before succumbing to the master reaper on December 5. He was first hospitalised in December, last year, for lung infections. This recurring ailment saw him in and out of the hospital. The world never gave him a chance of coming out of the hospital alive.

We had all given up on Madiba that if it was God’s time for him to go then, so be it. After all, he had done his beat. He had beaten a path for not only his compatriots in South Africa, but for the world to follow. Today, the global community is hailing this great citizen of the world because he was a moral compass. No doubt, he had his own foibles, who does not, but Mandela’s goodness and forbearance were out of this world. He was extraordinary human specie. God does not seem to create them like that anymore. How many of us in Mandela’s shoes would have acted the way he did after he regained his freedom from the Victor Verster Prison in 1990? Wouldn’t we have gone after all those that we perceived to be behind our predicament? On becoming president like he did four years after his freedom, wouldn’t we have perpetuated ourselves in office believing that the position is our birthright having ‘suffered’ in jail for 27 years?

This man did not do that. He was focused on laying the foundation for a stronger South Africa led by blacks. He was an advocate for the young taking up the leadership of their countries in Africa. At the age of 76 when he became South Africa’s president, he felt he was too old for the office, but buckled under pressure to lead his country because the people considered him the natural choice for the exalted seat after all he went through during the apartheid years. South Africa may not have reached there yet, but considering what the country went through in recent memory can we say it has not tried for itself? Today, South Africa is, arguably, the leading country on the continent. The country has Mandela to thank for where it is today.

Even though a tree does not make a forest, a man can make the difference in the affairs of his country, team or school and we have seen this in the role Mandela played in the struggle to free his people from the yoke of apartheid. The world mourns because he stood for peace, for which he jointly won the Nobel Peace Prize with F.W. de Klerk , respect for human rights and gender balance. It was hard to find fault with Mandela not because he was a saint but because he had this God given grace to win people to his side. His compatriots knew he had his faults but they tolerated him because he was a trusted leader. Whatever Mandela did, he considered his people first. If he had played Tom Quisling, Mandela may not have spent 27 years in jail, but today who will be remembering him?

Nobody, he would have long been forgotten like other sell – outs in history. Because he had the courage of his conviction and stood to the end, Mandela did not only make history, he was history. Beyond all the outpouring of emotions, the essence of Mandela is best captured in this stanza of Henry Longfellow’s poem, A Psalm of Life : ”Lives of great men remind us we can make our lives sublime, and departing, leave behind us footprints on the sands of time”. If there ever was a great man, here was one. Our leaders have the life of Mandela to learn from so that on their death they can be praised as the late anti – apartheid is being eulogised worldwide today. Here was a Mandela! When comes such another?