The Nation Newspaper

Category: Thursday

  • Balarabe Musa and June 12 ignoble players

    Balarabe Musa and June 12 ignoble players

    Jide Oluwajuyitan

    Speaking two weeks ago at an event to mark the June 12 Democracy Day, Balarabe Musa, a second republic governor of Kaduna and a social crusader whose pan-Nigerian views must be taken seriously called for probe of all those involved in the June 12 debacle.

    There have been very few pan-Nigerian vision-driven northern political leaders since the Enahoro’s 1953 ‘motion for independence’ constitutional crisis.  Ahamadu Bello who shortly after the event started exploring the possibility of drilling a canal to link the north with Congo river was given all he demanded for (the north must have 50% of members of the house and minority issues status must not be discussed) to remain part of Nigeria. Tafawa Balewa ignored the struggle for self-actualization of northern  45% minority and  35%  eastern region minority whose course Awo vigorously pursued up to the London 1957 constitutional debate to create a region for  the West’s  26.4% minority, a move designed to weaken Awolowo’s political base than a strategy to address crisis of nation-building that has continued to haunt us. The cry of ‘araba’ during the July 1966 Murtala Muhammed-led vengeance coup was designed to sink Lagos with a dynamite and take the north out of the country until Britain and American diplomats talked him out of such insanity. Shehu Shagari abandoned the Third Mainland Bridge just as he according to Alhaji Jakande,  derailed the Lagos Metroline apparently in line with northern politicians post-independence policy of standing-down projects that cannot be replicated in the north started by Balewa’s back benchers.

    Except for the likes of the late elder statesman Yusuf Maitama Sule, one time  Nigeria’s representative to the United Nations, late  Adamu Ciroma, former CBN governor and  Col Dangiwa Umar, one time governor of Kaduna State who resigned his commission over June 12 Abiola’s victory, not many northern leaders are known for pan-Nigerian sentiments or crusade for social justice.

    Buhari’s 2015 victory was on account of his 1984-85 pan Nigerian vision and his promise to restructure Nigeria. Unfortunately his inability to rein in Fulani herdsmen engaged in mindless killings in the Middle Belt region and other parts of the country has led many to accuse him of being indifferent, out of ethnic and geographic identity, to those rampaging the country in a bid for territorial expansion.

    But Balarabe Musa is widely regarded by many as the conscience of the north and the nation. His periodic interventions since he was impeached by those with Northern (arewa) agenda in the second republic have been about equity and social justice.

    While most northern governors were hiding behind one finger to escape blame for their neglect of ‘almajiris’ (disadvantaged children of the poor) in the wake of Covid-19 early this year, he  laid the blame on the door step of  northern leaders.  Asking the northern governors to learn from Awolowo’s example in the West in the 1950s, he recommended free and compulsory primary and compulsory education” as solution to the almajiri crisis in the north.

    He also not too long after blamed the general insecurity especially in the north on “the level of poverty, unemployment, the level of corruption, stealing and waste of resources particularly in the North.”

    Balarabe Musa has also criticized the current 36 unviable states structure and parasitic 774 LGAs, that most northern political leaders want to preserve reminding them of ‘the sense of responsibility in the leadership and coordinated progress achieved under our four regions of the first republic”, which he said justifies replacement of current structure with  “six or seven regions with each deciding  how many states and local governments it wants to have and finance.”

    His current call on President Buhari to “complete the task he started by investigating the circumstances that led to annulment of June 12, (fish out) those responsible for the annulment and punish them effectively so that it will not happen again” is therefore along his crusade for social justice.

    And perhaps since it is said we all suffer from collective amnesia in the absence of documented history, it may be pertinent to list some of those who played ignoble role in the June 12 war against Nigeria,

    Topping the dishonour list is General Babangida.  Claiming  “Buhari was too rigid and uncompromising in his attitudes to issues of national significance; efforts to make him understand that a diverse polity like Nigeria required recognition and appreciation of differences in both cultural and individual perception only served to aggravate those attitudes”, he carried out a palace coup, and told Nigerians that he  and his colleagues “are determined to change the course of history.”

    He postponed  his eight years “transition without end’ four times before the June 12 election ‘won round and square’ by MKO Abiola, but annulled on June 23, 1993, claiming “widespread use of money during the party primaries as well as the presidential election  and  irregularities and other acts of bad conduct leveled against the presidential candidates but NEC” .

    His principal partner in crime against the nation was Arthur Nzeribe , a military arms contractor who on June 10, 1993,  tried to stop the election, through a midnight order by Justice Bassey Ikpeme of Abuja High Court, secured by his pro-Babangida Association for Better Nigeria (ABN) which  Humphrey Nwosu, the chairman of the National Electoral Commission (NEC),  ignored citing section 19(1) of the presidential election decree 13 of 1993: “No interim or interlocutory order of ruling, judgment or tribunal before or after the commencement of this decree in respect of any intra-party dispute or any matter before it shall affect the date or time of holding the (presidential) election.”

    On the dishonour list are also two prominent Abiola fellow Egba kinsmen, Ernest Sonekan, the usurper and interim head of Babangida’s illegal interim government,  and, Obasanjo who claimed Abiola was not the messiah Nigerian were waiting for but went on to become the greatest beneficiary of Abiola’s sacrifice for democracy  when the northern hegemonic class imposed him as president. Babagana Kingibe, is on record as saying “one of the architects of the annulment, was ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo”.

    Others include  Alhaji Bashir Tofa, the defeated NRC candidate who was beaten even in his Kano base but refused to concede defeat, Walter Ofonagoro, his spokesman who provided intellectual justification for the annulment, Uche Chukumerije, Babangida’s Secretary for Information who laboured hard to reduce Abiola’s pan-Nigerian mandate, to a Yoruba mandate and the government critics to Lagos sectional press and of course Justice Minister, Clement Akpamgbo.

    There was also General Abacha, who facts after his death have shown was  a common thief. Rejecting all entreaties from world leaders including Pope John Paul II and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, he kept Abiola in a solitary confinement for four years with only the Bible and Qur’an until his mysterious death in detention.

    We also have on the list General Oladipo Diya who re-christened NADECO “Agbako”, General Jeremiah Useni who shared with Abacha the same predilection for insane acquisitiveness and some other quibbling loyalty-badge wearing ‘Generals’ like the  two Bamayis, Aziza, Akhigbe, Abdul Kareem Adisa and Tajudeen Olanrewajus who had no ambition beyond self-preservation after their treachery against Nigeria. There was also General David Mark who allegedly threatened to personally shoot Abiola if his electoral victory was upheld.

  • Obaseki, archetypal new-breed politician

    Obaseki, archetypal new-breed politician

    By Jide Oluwajuyitan

    The Nigerian Army of “anything is possible” (apology to General Saliu Ibrahim) is the curse of Nigeria. They destroyed virtually everything they touched from the nation’s vibrant economy through ill-advised commercialization and mismanaged privatization process, the educational system by trading away meritocracy for quota system of admission and our political socialisation process through proscription of disciplined modernisation parties and decreeing of two parties without founders but ‘equal joiners’.

    The emergence of PDP, “a club of elites for sharing of oil rents and political spoils” and its APC twin brother, formed not on the basis of shared ideas, shared values, shared commitment, have left the nation with only military-baked ‘new-breed’ politicians that lack character and breed only greed and sometimes corruption.

    Neither Oshiomhole nor Obaseki has told Nigerians the cause of their war of attrition, viciously fought without consideration for the health of their APC already riven between the party oligarchy made up of founders, former office holders including ex-governors Simon Lalong, Ibikunle Amosun,  Abubakar Yari and  Rochas Okorochas who wanted their own pound of flesh following Oshiomhole’s uncompromising stand on the 2019 APC primaries, and the young Turks who have their own ambitions.

    But Nigerian remember Oshiomhole’s vigorous campaign for Obaseki. It was as if his life depended on the victory of his godson.

    Since most outgoing Nigerian governors always try to influence their successors, the speculation then was that Oshiomhole was trying to cover up his tracks.

    Even as the vicious fight takes its toll on god father and godson, instead of the bomb-shell as to what Oshiomhole was trying to hide, all Obaseki has said even after his resignation from APC was that he was out to protect the resources of Edo State.

    Sympathisers of the godfather seem to be angry at Obaseki for biting the fingers that fed him. On the other hand, many who swore on Obaseki’s name including Emeka Nwachukwu who wrote a piece for The Guardian recently believes Obaseki “is being fought by enemies of the state because he refused to share the patrimony and resources of Edo State amongst a predatory group of godfathers and political thugs”.

    But we must not lose track of what sparked off the war between Obaseki and his estranged godfather. At the centre of the struggle was the control of Edo State House of Assembly. All the 24 state legislators in the state are members of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).

    To prevent Oshiomhole’s loyalists from taking control of the state legislature, nine out of the 24 lawmakers met at night to inaugurate the assembly and elected Okiye as speaker. Osifo and the 13 others went to court to file a case against the speaker and the eight others.

    While the case was in court, the seats of the 14 Oshiomhole loyalists were declared vacant by the factional speaker and was about to conduct election to fill the positions before he was stopped by the court.

    All efforts to find amicable settlement by the party, the National Assembly and the president was frustrated by Obaseki’s minority bent on holding on to what it illegally seized.

    But beyond playing the victim, I think Nigerians would want Obaseki to answer some questions. His supporters say he was trying to prevent Oshiomhole who persuaded Edo people to vote for him in 2016 from breathing down his throat.

    Was it before or after the midnight coup by his nine supporters and his inauguration of the assembly? Why was he desperate to take control of the house when there was no indication of conflict between him and his godfather that has just helped him to victory? How did he fall out with 14 elected members of the house even before its inauguration? If all Obaseki was trying to do with the midnight coup against his own government was to protect the scarce resources of Edo from his godfather, why is he trading a godfather that has no history of treasury looting for professional PDP looters that had been indicted by the courts for leaving Edo State like a war-ravaged city before Oshiomhole took over?

    In a participatory democracy, the party is supreme. How come Obaseki who was faithful to the rules of the party on whose back he rode to power suddenly found the same rule so objectionable that he was prepared to destroy the instrument which brought him to power?

    With all Oshiomhole’s shortcomings, what no one can take away from him is that he has tried to bring sanity and discipline to a party that had no direction under John Oyegun, his predecessor.

    Why is Obaseki colluding with “empire builders and fiefdom owners” who were caged by Oshiomhole for trying to use the party to serve self and their families? Why did Obaseki believe he will not be haunted by his certificate issue if fielded by PDP, his new party which first raised the issue in 2016 when he only escaped by the whiskers through court technicalities?

    But let me say that Obaseki is not under inquisition. He has not broken any rule of engagement of new-breed politicians that have come to define the fourth republic. In fact, he is in good company. In his Edo home state, we still remember Tony Anenih who as chairman of Babangida’s decreed Social Democratic Party (SDP) sold off the victory of his party.

    Tom Ikimi, his NRC counterpart rather than accept his party’s defeat gracefully buried Abiola’s victory by accepting to serve Abacha’s dictatorship as foreign minister. We also have in the same Edo State, John Oyegun, the immediate past chairman of APC who has been fueling the crisis within APC in his Edo State to spite Oshiomhole, his successor.

    But it must also be admitted that military-baked new-breed politicians are not the exclusive preserve of Edo State which is but a microcosm of Nigeria.

    Over 50% of governors elected on PDP platform in 1998 and 2003 were declared men without character by the courts that found them guilty of tampering with the resources of their various states.

    The first set of senators after the 1998 elections spoke openly about their desire to recoup their expenses on the election.

    Within three months they had come out with Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) through which fuel import licenses were allocated to over 100 companies fronting for them. A house probe was to later confirm the theft of about N1.7trillion through the fuel subsidy regime.

    And of course, long before Obaseki was a Bukola Saraki who damaged the fortune of his party by moving from PDP to APC. In APC, he admitted trading off the victory of his party to secure the senate presidency and when he fell out with APC, he again moved back to PDP.

    Other high-profile members of new-breed politicians include Aminu Tambuwal and Rotimi Amaechi. Both seem to be more loyal to themselves.

    It is not therefore a surprise that our new breed politicians in the National Assembly whether PDP or APC are adjudged the highest paid lawmakers in the world.

    But blame not Obaseki, Saraki, Tambuwal and all other military baked “new-breed” politicians. The fault is not with them but in their stars.

    The military, having destroyed our political socialization process and imposed their own values ‘new-breed’ politicians even when equipped with certificate from Babangida’s School of Democracy cannot give what they don’t have.

    Agents of political socialization such as the family, school, peers, the media, are under assault. Parents that are expected to influence the development of their children’s political orientations only know the military, PDP and APC.

    The school environment is toxic with cult member’s wars. Our children don’t read newspapers and you switch on the television our musicians are singing about making money without working.

  • The Obaseki expedition

    The Obaseki expedition

    By Lawal Ogienagbon

    Make no mistake, the impending Edo State governorship election will be tough and rough. The signs are already manifesting. It will be a poll like no other in the annals of the state known as the Heartbeat of the Nation.

    The major gladiators are well known to each other. Governor Godwin Obaseki, who will eventually get over the mines laid for him in his new club, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu were in the trenches in 2016 on different platforms which they have now swapped for the September 19 battle.

    Four years ago, Obaseki was the beloved of the All Progressives Congress (APC), while Ize-Iyamu, who along with others, built the party from scratch and was already  seeing himself as the next governor, became an outcast.

    The man behind that was former Governor Adams Oshiomhole, who is now APC national chairman. He sang Obaseki’s praise to high heavens, waving the governor’s credentials, the same credentials that could not get him the party’s ticket for second term, as his strength.

    Obaseki was a political nobody when Oshiomhole tapped him for governor. He came from the business world and he brought his expertise to bear on the Oshiomhole administration. The former labour leader was impressed.

    From that point, he made up his mind on his successor – Obaseki, who close friends call Seki Gee – all the way. There was no either or in the matter. No ambivalence whatsoever. In his support for Obaseki, Oshiomhole threw caution to the wind. He was not ready to listen to others’ views.

    He had made up his mind and that was it. His followers, not the least Ize-Iyamu, who had been made to believe that he was the governor in waiting, were shocked. Ize-Iyamu defected to the PDP, the same platform Seki Gee ran to last week,  to contest the election.

    How could the leader just wake up one day and say Obaseki would succeed him? Oshiomhole’s men wondered.  What qualities does he have that we do not possess? they asked no one in particular, as they bemoaned their fate.

    Yes, they agreed that he is an economic wizard, which informed why he headed the state’s economic management team then. But to them, economic wizardry is not the only quality required to be governor.

    They were not in support of their leader’s choice and they made their feelings known to him.  Oshiomhole was unperturbed. As far as he was concerned, he had found his man and those not satisfied with that can go look for another party.

    Ize-Iyamu returned to PDP from whence he joined APC and lost the election to Obaseki in that first round of their electoral battle four years ago.

    What Oshiomhole’s loyalists held and still hold against Obaseki is that he is not a politician. They seem to have forgotten that man is a political animal. Many claim not to be a politician when they are still testing the waters.

    Once, they get what they want they become the most power-hungry politician you can find anywhere. What Oshiomhole’s men were saying in effect is that Obaseki lacks the political sagacity to handle the high office of governor.

    It takes a lot to be governor. There are so many tendencies a governor must pander to considering the huge number of people that would help him into office.

    Apart from being a good administrator who must husband state resources well, he must also oil party machinery and cater to the interests of the political crowd around him. It will be politically suicidal for a governor to abandon his party men and women to patronise only his friends and associates after getting into office.

    This is not to say that he must dip his hands in the till to satisfy them. Far from it. The fact is, a governor, no matter how good he may be, must remember where he is coming from.

    In most cases, governors do not build the structures that bring them into office. Those structures are usually controlled by more entrenched interests who determine who gets what and how. It is not easy for political infants to take over or break those structures

    So, a governor, on getting into office cannot do away with those structures because he may need them again and again to remain politically relevant. It is a well known fact that the Oshiomhole structure got Seki Gee into office in 2016.

    Perhaps, Oshiomhole was not a godfather when he was propping up Obaseki for governor then, but today Seki Gee, who benefited most from that political patronage, has tagged him one.

    Time and tide, they say, wait for no one. The man, who was given APC’s governorship ticket four years ago on a platter of gold, has today found it impossible to get that same ticket despite being a sitting governor.

    He was said to have been unfaithful with little and so could not be trusted with much by giving him a second chance. I do not pretend not to know why Oshiomhole and Obaseki parted ways.

    From what is in public domain,  it has to do with the usual problem between two political friends who feel that they can no longer work together.

    Obaseki accuses Oshiomhole of playing the godfather in a state where he as governor fought people who styled themselves as such to a standstill.

    Oshiomhole denies the claim, arguing that he only wanted Obaseki to take care of those who worked for his election as governor.

    Obaseki has found a home in PDP, just as Ize-Iyamu did in 2016. To him, there is no ideological difference between APC and PDP as both parties are “all about sharing the money”. Meaning that he fell out with Oshiomhole because the APC wanted him to “share” public funds among party members.

    Obaseki believes that he is now strong enough to stand on his own and become a political leader in his own right. This is why when he defected to PDP last weekend, he said he was now the party’s leader in Edo.

    There is nothing bad in being ambitious. But he should remember that the control of state resources alone is not enough to make a president or governor a political powerhouse.

    If in doubt, let him ask former President Goodluck Jonathan and immediate past Lagos State Governor Akinwumi Ambode.

    Obaseki has chosen the path he wishes to take to return to power in September. If he overcomes the problem created by his defection to PDP, he and Ize-Iyamu will, again, be the leading contenders for the top job.

    Ize-Iyamu picked APC’s ticket on Monday; Obaseki is expected to get that of PDP today at the party’s primary, if it holds.  As in 2016, the second round of their governorship battle remains a two-horse race.

    The other contestants are not likely to spring any surprise at the poll. Will Obaseki be second time lucky or will the pendulum swing in Ize-Iyamu’s favour?

  • Fathers, Nigeria has a male problem (1)

    Fathers, Nigeria has a male problem (1)

    Olatunji Ololade

     

    Nigeria suffers a crisis of the male gender. The lobotomised male was manhood’s dirty secret. It’s not much of a secret anymore, however.

    Culturally benumbed to maleness, he loiters at ethical crossroads. He struggles “to be a man” while juggling traditional and liberal precepts of his becoming.

    Essentially, he must unlearn norms and notions of manhood. To unlearn what makes him man, however, is to fall, fatally. His fatal fall is a consequence of losing his role as the lead, in the gendered mating dance.

    But he can blame no one for falling for female belly magic. It’s a consequence of being smitten by woman’s uncanny being.

    Picture, for instance, the pathetic case of a southwest governor whose masculinity was challenged and cancelled out by his wife, in their youth.

    The wife, to the chagrin of the governor’s relatives, claimed to have lobotomised him. State House legend contends that Madam First Lady continually boasts to aides and peers that she is the de facto governor of the state.

    Her husband, His Excellency, reportedly found in her, a mentor and sex vixen in their youth. Consequently, she placed him on a leash of cash, connections, and sexuality grooming, she bragged.

    Now, stunted in full bloom, His Excellency is being kept as a parlour pet by his wife. The consequences of his failing, however, manifest dangerously on their ward(s) and poor citizenry of the state, who are forced to endure his effeminacy and inefficiency. Growing up, Mr. Governor lacked the presence of a worthy father-figure, it would seem.

    Masculinity flows from nature as an aspect of the birth mother, no doubt, but it is sculpted by society and a father figure into effective manhood.

    The boy-child learns by instruction, counselling, and imitation. The father moulds his character by careful nurturing, awarding punishment for vice, and reward for virtue. So doing, he teaches him to be a man within acceptable precepts of culture and society.

    Whatever the bent of the boy-child’s evolution, his resultant blooming reflects the quality of guidance he received as a child and his experiences through adolescence. Thus the maxim: The child is the father of the man.

    Of course, there would be no man without the pivotal nurturing from the womb through lactation and the priceless sacrifice of a birth mother.

    Hence the child is caught in a swirl of historical indebtedness to his mother. Fathers earn such allegiance by the magnitude of their immersion into the role of father, breadwinner, protector, provider, and hero, in ideal circumstances.

    Manhood, encumbered by their debt to a physical mother through birth, and to the significant female other through romance, procreation and uxorial labour, created an alternate reality in which they could repay their debts by protecting women and fending for their needs.

    Woman, at first placid in man’s protections but now inflamed via feminist-misandry with desire for her own illusory freedom, invades man’s systems and corrupts them by starting a gender war and rewriting man’s origins.

    Thus the corruption of Gender Studies and its fallacy that gender is a social construct. Overdosing on theoretical dope, the feminist-misandrist channels juvenile rage to usurp man’s roles at home and in the society.

    The manifestations are all around us as subtle and aggressive messages of misandrist campaigns at work, in the arts, literature, and media. Consider too, the periodic conferences of Nigerian and African women on professional and sociopolitical platforms.

    These fora have become a thing, mostly tailored to improve the lot of the female from high school students, undergrads, boardroom titans to housewives. This deserves applause.

    It may be decently inferred too, that Nigeria’s female folk deservedly dominate literary publishing as writers, critics, readers, and publishers. The genres of literary fiction and chick-lit are particularly dominated by female narratives.

    Where the writer isn’t female, he must present a female protagonist and patronise feminist or misandrist perspectives to enjoy acceptance and literary acclaim, oftentimes.

    Of course, there is nothing wrong if the protagonist is female, its the tenor and intent of the narrative that becomes cringe-worthy. Yet art must mirror reality, some would argue.

    How real and didactic are the narratives? Consequence-free promiscuity, lesbianism, transgenderism, misogamy, and outright misandry are common themes.

    Even the brilliant motifs of self-actualisation and financial independence of the woman are often weaponised and tailored for the random sex, lesbianism, misandrist wonderland.

    The movies are a different kettle of fish entirely as the highlighted themes are aggressively cued into plots of numerous ‘blockbusters’ and social dramas.

    Kudos, however, to Stephanie Okereke, whose movie, Dry, addresses the challenges of child marriage in progressive, resonant reels.

    While it is inspiring to see the Nigerian woman assert herself and take the lead in the gender politics and plots of her becoming, it is saddening to see our males stew in criminality and ignorance.

    Little wonder that misandry, masquerading as feminism, has gained a monopoly of Gender Studies. Men don’t have a gender identity anymore, only women have a gender identity and an intrinsic value to society, and this sentiment is scripted to carefully articulated propaganda.

    The concept of authoritative, strong, independent, passionate, and intelligent manhood is persistently repudiated except it serves the misandrist cause.

    So when a young boy reaches the age where it’s appropriate for him to be initiated into manhood, we find the whole idea of “reaching manhood” laughable.

    Yet while the successful woman mentors protégées and aids their growth, her male peer, in contrast, breeds protégés as thugs, treasury looters, assassins, terrorists, arsonists, internet hooligans, to mention a few.No man should blame the woman for stealing his thunder.

    The modern woman asserts her dominion in culture, sex, and gender politics, and her campaign is heavily funded too, by international NGOs seeking to destabilise the African family and social space.

    Of course, the Nigerian woman is game, craftily straddling the politics of influence, while decisively tossing the man in his place. But what really is the Nigerian man’s place? Confusion leads to grave consequences.

    Confusions about masculinity have led to a situation whereby Nigeria is afflicted by men who do not know how to be men.

    The predominantly male political and business classes, for instance, comprise amoral men, and weaklings, whose claim to renown subsists in predatory policies and transactions; then perverse sexuality and whoredom. This shady manhood persists in the shadowy middle class to the boondocks.

    Their vulturine disposition to governance, citizenship and family afflicts Nigeria with an army of young, virile males who are condemned to survive, daily, as maddened Marlians, treasury looters, school drop-outs, assassins, Yahoo-boys, kidnappers, terrorists, armed robbers, political thugs, ethnic warlords, land-grabbers, prostitutes and rapists to mention a few.

    Many among these grew up without appropriate father figures and male guardians. They grew up without the nurturing of appropriate mother-figures too.

    There are very few models of fatherhood in the country at the moment. Many men have ceded their roles to their wives, who in turn, have ceded motherhood and their inherited roles as fathers, to their wards’ teachers, pastors, neighbours, house-helps, and extended family members.

     

    To be continued…

    This piece was published last year but edited and reproduced in commemoration of the recent Fathers’ Day celebration.

  • Professor Ladipo Akinkugbe 1933-2020

    Professor Ladipo Akinkugbe 1933-2020

    Jide Osuntokun

     

     

    I first met the then young Dr Ladipo Akinkugbe in 1961, 59 years ago when he came to give a lecture on water-borne diseases to students of Ibadan Grammar School during my Higher School Certificate course.

    Our principal, Archdeacon Emmanuel Ladipo Alayande was known to cultivate the friendship of promising and intellectually brilliant young men and Akinkugbe was one of such young men. My Alma Mater, Christ’s School Ado Ekiti did not have HSC in arts subjects then.

    Even some of my very brilliant colleagues in the sciences preferred to have different experience than the one we had in Christ’s School by going to such schools as Ibadan Grammar School, Oyo Baptist College, Government College Ibadan, Abeokuta Grammar School etc.

    But quite a number got into the University of Ibadan through the concessional entrance examination rather than going through the circuitous route of the Advanced Level examination.

    Akinkugbe comes from a patrician family of the Akinkugbe/Ladapo lineage in Ode-Ondo. By the way the only other place prefaced with “Ode” in Nigeria is Ode-Itshekiri or “big Warri”. Without going too much into history, the people of the two places are linguistically related.

    Akinkugbe after his primary school in Ondo went to Government College Ibadan which distinguished itself by offering British-type “public school” kind of education. Unlike Barewa College in the northern part of the country, its students’ intake were usually the best selected after rigorous examination process.

    My brother Edward Abiodun was a senior to Akinkugbe in Government College. Akinkugbe’s classmates included the Nobel laureate for literature Wole Soyinka (W.S) and the late Professor Muyiwa Awe, another great man who made a first in physics in the University College Ibadan, before a PhD in physics in Cambridge.

    I must say if Akinkugbe had not studied medicine, he too would have made a mark in English literature judging from his mastery of the English language.

    One just has to listen or read his public lectures and autobiography “Footprints and Footnotes” to see the erudition that is native to the man.

    Akinkugbe belonged to the class of medical students at the University of Ibadan who had to leave Nigeria to go to London University College to finish their clinical studies before graduating M.B. B.S. (London).

    Those who came after him to Ibadan which by then had one of the best teaching hospitals in the Commonwealth, the UCH, finished their medical education in Ibadan but continued to get degrees of London University until 1964 when the University of Ibadan regrettably severed its ties with the University of London.

    I was at the University of Ibadan at that time and many of the students who started earning degrees of Ibadan after 1964 were not very happy with being denied London degrees.

    Would we have lost anything if we had maintained academic ties with the University of London? The modern trend in higher education nowadays is that the great universities of the world viz Harvard, Yale, Oxford, Cambridge, London, University of California at Berkeley etc. are establishing overseas campuses in the Middle East, Malaysia, Singapore and China to offer opportunity for students overseas for their brand of quality education.

    After graduating, Akinkugbe went to Oxford for advanced clinical studies earning a PhD (Oxon) in the process. Fortified with this and membership of the Royal College of Physicians, Akinkugbe joined the teaching staff of the College of Medicine at the University of Ibadan.

    He rapidly rose through the ranks becoming a professor and dean of the faculty in his thirties. His rise to the top was simply meteoric. He was succeeded by my late brother, Kayode Osuntokun, distinguished and world acclaimed neurologist with whom he developed a great friendship.

    During the expansion of tertiary institutions in Nigeria during the 1970s, Akinkugbe was asked to build initially a university college in Ilorin like the University of Ibadan Jos campus established in 1971.

    He had hardly settled down there and laid out his plans when he was asked by the federal government to become the vice chancellor of Ahmadu Bello University, the bastion of northern Nigerian nationalism.

    The Obasanjo/Muhammad military government at that time in the late 1970s was driven by some kind of nationalist fervor and thought it could unify the country by making the nation’s elite work in areas far away from their ethnic home land.

    For example, Professor Agodi Onwumechili was appointed vice chancellor of the University of Ife, J. C. Ezeilo was appointed vice chancellor of Bayero University, Kano and Umaru Shehu was appointed vice chancellor, University of Nigeria, Nsukka.

    The experiment in nation-building nearly ended in tragedy for Akinkugbe and Ezeilo who had to be spirited out of Zaria and Kano following students and staff rebellion against them on the grounds of their ethnic and religious differences.

    If left alone in Ibadan, Akinkugbe would have adorned the vice chancellorship of the University of Ibadan with erudition, scholarship and refinement. After this adventure in Zaria, he was later called upon to chair as pro-chancellor the governing councils of one or two universities in the country.

    He finally became the pro-chancellor of Ondo State University of Medical Sciences, a controversial university established by Governor Segun Mimiko on the eve of the end of his eight-year term as governor.

    This university was obviously a sop to the people of Ondo town who were complaining that their native son did nothing for their town in eight years.

    After retirement from Ibadan University, Akinkugbe set up the Ibadan Hypertension Centre with his own funds offering first class treatment to many of the people suffering from this silent killer.

    The Ibadan Hypertension Centre which Akinkugbe established and ran with his own funds unfortunately closed down in 2018 after he celebrated 60 years of medical practice and as the medical titan reached the age of 85.

    It is a pity that the government of Oyo or the federation could not take over the centre and run it as a referral centre or as an adjunct to the University of Ibadan Teaching Hospital.

    Probably 50 percent of us Nigerians are hypertensive. This disease is a silent killer, the management of which our governments have paid little attention to.

    Akinkugbe on his own pointed the way that we should go. It is a pity that our over-politicized country pays little regard to things that are worthy and deserving of attention and emphasis.

    Akinkugbe paid his dues to Nigeria and to humanity. He definitely earned his epaulettes as a distinguished professor of medicine.

    A grateful nation accorded him the highest honour of the NNOM. He was involved with credit to the development of higher education in Nigeria.

    His advice may not have been listened to all the time by those in power but his contributions are on record and history will be kind to him. Sixty years of medical practice is worth celebrating.

    The death of Professor Oladipo Olujimi Akinkugbe CON, CFR, PhD Oxon, M.D London FRCP London, DSC (Honoris causa) is a national loss, an African loss and a global loss.

    On a personal note, his death is a loss to us in the Osuntokun family. He was an in in-law because his nephew, Damola Ifaturoti is married to my niece Lola.

    He served on the Kayode Osuntokun Trust pro bono and with distinction for a decade.  We all will miss this gangling genius and embodiment of all that is good and wonderful.  Indeed, as the Yoruba’s will say, Erin wo Ajanaku sun bi Oke!

     

  • Beyond Buhari and Northern Elders feud

    Beyond Buhari and Northern Elders feud

    By Jide Oluwajuyitan

    Last Sunday harsh criticism of President Buhari’s handling of our security challenges by the Northern Elders Forum (NEF) has once again brought to the fore the debate about the need for alternative approach to the handling of our crisis of nation building. The forum’s criticism of President Buhari’s administration did not come as a surprise. The forum worked against his ambition during his first three failed attempts to win the presidency and supported him neither in 2015 nor 2019. The case against Buhari according to Abubakar Atiku who got the forum’s backing in 2019 was that Buhari is not Fulani enough. He was probably considered too independent minded while his romance with the poor convinced them he was not going to be a president of law and order which are necessary to sustain a caste system especially in the north.

    If there was a surprise at all, it was the government spokesmen resort to name-calling. After all, the forum merely stated the obvious. The ‘recent escalation of attacks by bandits, rustlers and insurgents”, they claimed “had left the people of the North completely at the mercy of armed gangs who roam towns and villages at will, wreaking havoc”. The body went on to accuse “the administration of President Buhari and governors of losing control over the imperatives of protecting people of the North, a constitutional duty that they swore to uphold.” And finally it was their view that  “the people of the North had never experienced this level of exposure to criminals who attack, kill, maim, rape, kidnap, burn villages and rustle cattle, while President Buhari issues threats and promises that have no effect”.

    The Presidency’s response to the grave allegations was the dismissal of the forum as “a conglomeration of fake elders” whose “antipathy against President Buhari, and its preference for another candidate” could not stop the president’s re-election in 2019. But for the presidency, it did not just rained but poured during the week, in spite of its scathing acidic words.

    Early in the week, there was a massive demonstration by Katsina indigenes who reminded the president that Abuja is not his father house just to let him know charity begins at home. A few days later, the Indigenous People of Katsina based in Abuja issued a statement saying Katsina residents now live in perpetual fear and are not sure of the safety of their lives and property. As they put it: “we have watched with a heavy heart how our people are being slaughtered like sheep and goats,…watched helplessly how communities are being invaded and how families and kindred are being wiped out by bandits while security agencies appear helpless.”

    It was also in the same week, Senator Abubakar Kyari (Borno) took the case of his people to the senate. He narrated how the latest Boko Haram attack on a village in Gubio Local Government Area of Borno State on June 9 left over 90 persons killed and over 50 critically injured.

    Senator Ali Ndume who admitted the killings that had been going on in the last 11 years in the north has been complicated  by added issues of banditry, herdsmen conflicts  and other security challenges in the North-central.   He urged the Federal Government to “immediately begin the implementation of the recommendations of the report of the Senate Ad Hoc Committee on Nigeria’s Security Challenges as a way of addressing the nation’s current security challenges”.

    It must be said that Katsina, the President’s home state, which has been under siege in the last four years shares similar fate with southern Kaduna where bandits, insurgents and herdsmen received settlement funds from government only to seize  Kaduna-Abuja roads for several months forcing travellers to use train or airline;  Taraba, where Theophilus Danjuma, former Defence Minister after accusing the police and soldiers of aiding the killer squad, called on Nigerians to embark on self-defence to protect their lives and properties. In Benue, Plateau and Nasarawa, the mindless killings have become periodic rituals. In Zamfara the deployment of police and army formations, tanks, fighter jets and helicopters has not stopped mindless killings.

    As against a government coherent strategy to confront the above tragedies, government spokesmen as usual reassured us that the president “is steadily and steadfastly focusing on the task of retooling Nigeria”.  I am not sure Nigerians have problems with President Buhari’s good intentions and his commitment to the Nigerian project. What Nigerians have problem with is strategy.

    The president’s response has similarly brought little relief. According to him, “ending insurgency, banditry and other forms of criminality across the nation is being accorded appropriate priorities and the men and women of the Armed Forces of Nigeria have considerably downgraded such threats across all geopolitical zones”. Not many Nigerians who have become used to the president’s sanctimonious sing-song since 2016 will take that seriously. The president also spoke of how “the security agencies can nip in the bud any planned attacks in remote rural areas”. He did not say how they will do this with his unyielding opposition to state policing.

    And finally, the president revealed that “the government had expanded the National Command and Control Centre to 19 states of the federation, resuscitated the National Public Security Communication System and commenced the implementation of the Community Policing Strategy.”

    Solution to our crisis of nation-building is not more centralisation but more devolution of power. Except for the northern governors including those of the besieged states, Nigerians want local policing and not community policing controlled by the federal government.

    In the north where Fulani constitute about 20% of the population, all emirs just as all governors, national assembly representatives and state houses of assembly members are said to be predominantly Fulani. The Fulani emirs and chiefs owned all the land while Hausas according to some recent studies own land only as a tenant of the local chief and must pay rents in form of produce every year. It is therefore understandable while northern governors are opposed to local policing.

    President Buhari however has a unique opportunity to change this narrative in the north because of the support he enjoys among the ‘talakawas’ that consistently gave him 12 million northern votes since his involvement in presidential contest, the reason he was detested by the northern hegemonic class. The ongoing revolts in Sokoto, Zanfara and Katsina are evidence enough that the current caste system in the north where 90% of the 10 million of out of school pupils are children of the poor is a recipe for more violence in the near future.

    It is also now clear that the old strategy of integrating a few non-Fulani through marriage, business and politics can no more serve the needs of 21st century northern Nigeria. Tafawa Balewa, a southern Bauchi minority whose grandmother according to Richard Sclar, his autobiographer wanted all Fulani out of their area or killed emerged prime minister only to fight Ahmadu Bello’s wars against Awo instead of Nigeria’s battle. In 1966, while the west was burning, he waited patiently for the premier of the north to return from Saudi Arabia before declaring state of emergency as demanded by students of the University of Ibadan. The waiting became too late for him and for the country. Like him, Gowon and Babangida fought wars on behalf of the northern hegemonic class. Buhari perhaps still has an opportunity to be remembered as a Nigerian leader.

  • Remember, ‘I belong to nobody’

    Remember, ‘I belong to nobody’

    Lawal Ogienagbon

    FOUR years ago,  yes, just four years ago, they were the best of political friends. Nothing, so it seemed, could separate them. Adams Oshiomhole was then governor of Edo State, while Godwin Obaseki was his chief economic adviser. Oshiomhole was about completing his two-term tenure of eight years and had tapped Obaseki as his successor. His political family, which considered and still considers Obaseki an outsider, was not happy with their leader’s decision. They told him that he would regret his action with time. Their fear has been justified.

    Today, Oshiomhole and Obaseki have parted way. In 2016, the elements were well mixed in Obaseki that Oshiomhole was raising his hand as “our governorship candidate”, four years later the reverse is the case. Oshiomhole’s once ‘beautiful bride’ has become the unwanted ‘woman’ of the house.

    In a state where Oshiomhole saw the back of godfathers who he derided at every opportunity for ruining the state, will he not be accused of treading that path, some people wondered then. To Oshiomhole, who is now national chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC),  that was not godfatherism in the sense of that much abused word. He explained that it was a political calculation to ensure that he did not leave the state in the hands of bandits. Then who is a godfather? Is he the one who picks a competent person for a job? Or is he the one who installs a puppet that will do his bidding?

    These posers arise today because Obaseki, who four years ago, saw Oshiomhole as his God sent chaperone, now refers to him derisively as a ‘godfather’ who wants to control the purse string of the state. Political godfatherism is perceived in bad light because from what the people saw in the past  it is all about helping a neophyte into office in order to have access to the treasury.  Where the godson refuses to act the script, he is dealt with. Is this what happened in the Oshiomhole-Obaseki scenario?

    Obaseki and his loyalists allege that, that is the case, but Oshiomhole and his supporters deny the claim. Obaseki, they alleged, has distanced himself from party members who worked for his victory in 2016. By refusing to give them their dues, he may be sounding the death knell of the party, they warnved, calling for urgent action to prevent that from happening. Theirs is not the first and certainly,  it would not be the last of such feuds between godfathers and their godsons.

    With the duo going their separate way,  the stage is set for a mother of all political battles. The bell for the first round has just gone, with Obaseki disqualified from seeking a ticket for his reelection on APC’s platform. The same Obaseki who Oshiomhole praised to high heavens in 2016 is now a pariah within the ruling party. The governor himself knew that picking a second term ticket in APC would amount to a camel passing through the eye of a needle. This was why he fought tooth and nail to get Oshiomhole out of the way long before the whistle was blown for the Edo governorship race.

    He got Oshiomhole suspended in his ward, barred him from coming to the state without first seeking permission and demanded an apology from him over a violence which resulted in the loss of lives. The governor also rebuffed all peace entreaties from within and outside the party. Try as much as President Muhammadu Buhari did, he could not settle the rift because Obaseki was not prepared to yield ground. All he wanted was to cut his party chairman to size. Obaseki thought that with the enormous resources at his disposal, he could bring heaven down. That he could not tame Oshiomhole was not for want of trying. The governor threw eveything he had into the battle, but Oshiomhole was always many steps ahead of him.

    With the aid of some of his fellow governors, one or two ministers and the late Chief of Staff Abba Kyari, he rattled Oshiomhole, but he could not achieve his heart desire to oust his predecessor as party chairman. Now, he is at the receiving end and he is running from pillar to post in order to get a second term ticket. On Friday, APC shut its doors against him when the screening committee disqualified him from contesting its primary billed for June 22. He tried to drag the Presidency into his reelection bid. After collecting his expression of interest and nomination forms at the party secretariat in Abuja on June 1, he ran to the Villa for a photo shoot with the President. The picture made the front pages of some papers the next day.  He did not achieve what he wanted to achieve with that picture. The screening panel was not impressed and he was disqualified.

    He had forgotten Buhari’s statement during the President’s first inauguration on May 29, 2015: “I belong to everybody and I belong to nobody”. If Obaseki had done an introspection, he would have known that Buhari minds his own business when it comes to such matters. The best the President offers those who run to him with their election problem is the best of luck. Yet, as Obaseki runs all over the place shopping for a platform on which to seek a second term ticket, he has not weaned himself of the Buhari mentality. He will, he says, decide on his next line of action after meeting with the President. He met with the President on Tuesday and told reporters after the meeting that he has defected from APC. It is believed that he will join the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

    The screening committee also queried Obaseki’s credentials and left the matter at that. But the appèal panel, which reviewed his screening, noted that he swore to an affidavit that he graduated from the University of Ibadan (UI) in 1976, but attached a certificate which bears 1979 to his nomination form.

    Could he have gained admission into UI with three credits and a Higher School (Leaving) Certificate, HS(L)C? Is there a certificate so called? Higher School Certificate (HSC), the academic world knows, but HS(L)C, many will say is not known to them. Did APC not know of all these before giving Obaseki its ticket in 2016? If it did, why did it clear him to run then? The answer is simple: he was a good boy then. The whip was applied four years later because he stopped being a good boy.

    The UI, which last week authenticated the governor’s 1979  certificate, still needs to shed more light on this matter. Is Obaseki’s controversial 1976 certificate also from the school? Did he meet the institution’s entry requirements before he was admitted? UI cannot afford to keep silent now because it is the only one that can unravel this certificate puzzle. Institutions, which pride themselves in honouring only students found worthy in learning and character, should be seen to live up to those attributes too; otherwise they will lose their moral authority.

    Has APC’s four-year silence  on Obaseki’s papers not made it an accessory to the fact? It does, but trust politicians, they will explain it away thus: “in this game, there is no permanent friend, but only permanent interest”. As long as politicians live by this maxim, cases like Obaseki’s will abound.

  • We have no other country but Nigeria

    We have no other country but Nigeria

    Jide Osuntokun

    General Muhammadu Buhari in his first coming as a military head of state after the coup d’état that swept  off the corrupt and rudderless Shehu Shagari regime in 1983 said something like Nigeria is the only country  we have and “ …we must all stay here and salvage it together”. This was in reaction to the trend in those days of young people leaving in droves to escape bad governance, unemployment and insecurity that became a plague on Nigeria. There was then a television mini film in which a young Nigerian called “Andrew  “with acquired American accent told his  Nigerian audience that he was fed up and could no more bear the pangs of the pain of underdevelopment and that he was “checking out”. Andrew then became a coded word for emigrating and leaving the country for those who had cornered it and were holding it down like a sheep good for slaughter. Sadly nothing has changed since 1983 in fact the situation is now worse!

    When the military government headed by Buhari and seconded by Tunde Idiagbon rolled in their tanks, so to say, many people received them with excitement and enthusiasm characteristic of Nigerians who, once fed up with whatever prevailing government they had, wanted some force to get rid of the blighters troubling them. The various draconian measures and the forced discipline imposed on them were gladly welcomed and tolerated by the people who felt the country could do for its own benefit with a dose of discipline forced down their throats if this would guarantee development. Whatever the excesses of the regime were tolerated until it was removed by the ever smiling Babangida who understood the psychology of Nigerians as a people who wanted the softer way of life. That regime ran down the economy and the national currency which by the time the structural adjustment program finished with the country, the national currency was reduced to mere coloured paper which was almost worthless. That government in one form or the other stayed on for too long until it ended in the tragedy that was Abacha’s government when the government was itself engaged in systematic official looting of its own treasury and carrying the national wealth away and stuffing it in several banks in Switzerland, Luxembourg, Jersey Islands, Britain and the United States in an operation never seen anywhere else before.

    Since 1999, Nigeria has been busy pleading with those holding its money to kindly release it to the government of the country.  Many sane people would argue that the receiver of stolen goods were as guilty as the thief. This did not occur to our friends in the West. In reaction to the pleas of the various Nigerian governments since that of Olusegun Obasanjo have been given all kinds of conditionalities before its national patrimony illegally spirited away into foreign banks would be released to it. Sometimes it was required to bring a court judgement stating that the money belonged to it. At another time, it was required to detail what the recovered loot would be used for. Sometimes it was required to give a pledge that the money given back to it would not be stolen again. Some people privy to the stealing of the national treasure have even filed court actions abroad claiming some of the money belonged to them.

    No matter what conditions Nigeria gave those in possession of stolen Nigeria’s money found a loophole to continue to keep stolen money. The bits and pieces that were returned did not come with interests on the principal sums lodged in the accounts for almost two decades. In normal banking practice these monies totalling about $6 billion should have doubled by the time the various governments demanded its repatriation. One time British Prime Minister David Cameron was alleged to have introduced our President Buhari to the Queen of England as president of the most corrupt country in the world. The Archbishop of Canterbury allegedly told the Queen that Buhari was not part of the corrupt regime. Thank God for that! Our president later said he didn’t mind the insult of David Cameron and all that he wanted was Nigeria’s money in England returned to his government. Up till now the British banks are still keeping Nigeria’s money. Recently a British Court put a lien on Nigeria’s assets globally because of a fraudulent case by a dead Irish man whose son claimed his father invested in a deal in which he would have been making millions yearly if Nigeria’s gas had been delivered to its castle in the air of a gas plant which he claimed he had plans to build somewhere in the southeast of our country!

    When I heard about this case I was so angry and I prayed the Nigerian government would call off the British Court‘s bluff and the shadowy people behind it. Not much has been heard from that quarter in recent times.

    Now here we are almost prostrate on our belly as a country. Our problems are legion. But we have nowhere to go than this country which God in its infinite mercy and wisdom gave to our fore fathers who passed it on to us. We all have to, in the words of the young Major General Buhari, “salvage it together”. It is usually said that when a mad man realizes that he is mad, then begins his healing. There is no doubt in my mind that even the most vociferous supporter of this government knows that our situation is dire. In the best of times, Nigeria is a very difficult country to rule. Our problems now have imposed on them the coronavirus pandemic. The country is large but it is not the biggest country in Africa. It however has the largest population with multitudinous languages but it is not more complex than India with which it shares the Victor Ludorum if poverty were a competition.

    Our country is blessed with good land for agriculture, educated people with vast technical, financial and administrative knowledge and capacity for innovation. Our country has tremendous amount of natural resources that can be harnessed for development. If we are stuck at this level of underdevelopment, then we should be asking ourselves what others in complex society like ours have done to extricate them and to come out of the arrested state of underdevelopment in which we find ourselves. We should stop blaming either the past or present administrations. We should come out with a new paradigm that will see us quickly reach our goal of development and contentment. This is important because we are currently not where we should be and many Nigerians are angrily asking questions as to why things are just not working. It is not necessary to give a litany of what is not working. We all know them and they can be put under the following broad categories, insecurity, infrastructural decay, lack of power to fire rapid development, educational backwardness, too much time spent on politics and political bickering to the detriment of the national economy and above all too much corruption.

    When writing on Nigeria I try very much not to dwell on negativity but it is difficult to be positive when nothing is working; yet Nigerians abroad are making waves running power systems, administering universities and hospitals and financial institutions. So what is our problem? I believe the structure of the country is against development. Let us move political activities to the periphery of the states while the centre merely coordinates policies while taking care of defence, immigration, currency, customs and foreign affairs while all other state responsibility are shifted to the states which will develop at their own pace as it is in all federal and in competition with one another without any imposed uniformity and homogenized parity in economic development.  I find it absurd that agriculture is on concurrent list. The federal government ordinarily has no land outside the federal territory. Many of these puny unviable states will have to merge with contiguous states with which they share cultural affinity. Until we restructure nothing will work and we will remain in a state of arrested political animation and economic underdevelopment. The Buhari government must take the lead in calling for a national convention on the way forward. A group of right thinking young people who can chart a way forward and draw up an appropriate grundnorm, some kind of basic law that would have to be approved by a referendum and I believe once we have a restructured country of about six or eight states, the rest will be a matter of detail or else the powerful countries in the world would continue to treat us and the blacks diaspora as freaks of nature and objects of derision, humiliation and crude racial jokes.

  • The con this time

    The con this time

    Olatunji Ololade

    Politicians boast of turning scorched earth to gold but all they do is dull precious metal to dross. They promise to turn the underdog to overlord, but all they do is make street-sweepers of the strapping and sewage cleaners of the literate.

    More impatient youth get by in the shadowy political economy as goons, assassins, career protesters, and internet hooligans. Those who fall outside the bracket of patronage end up as armed robbers, kidnappers, drug mules, and human traffickers.

    Thus is the fate of the jobless, the burly segment comprising Nigeria’s 23.1 per cent unemployed and 16.6 per cent underemployed youth, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. With over 20 million jobless youths, the catacombs of Nigeria’s unemployment maze are infinitely dilated for the incumbent administration’s gothic drama.

    On President Muhammadu Buhari’s watch, you win some, you lose more. But while his lackeys preach sacrifice as a necessary ritual of riddance of the afflictions wrought by previous administrations’ corrupt leadership, let them desist from making his government food for worms – that we might know if Buhari is truly in charge and he means well.

    Presidency groupies, waving a flag of integrity, highlight “change” and the “order of sacrifice” as infinitely matchless and preferable to the previous administration’s “transformation agenda.” But how do they define sacrifice?

    Does their definition address the legislative, executive, and judicial officers receiving outrageous salaries and illicit benefits even as the nation cowers in depression? Does it ignore and downplay troublesome political and ethical ambiguities of Buhari’s leadership?

    Is their demand for maximal sacrifice from the country’s working class, the unemployed and underprivileged divides matched with commensurate sacrifice by the nation’s ruling class?

    On Buhari’s watch, governance dissolves into a Darwinian spectacle, a cycle of turbulent energies: giving, denying, hindering, cherry-picking, name-calling, scaremongering, cajoling, looting, devouring.

    Yet public officers, party chieftains, and career rodents of the corridors of power cheekily request “sacrifice” in a tenor that would resonate, weary generations later as deceptive, sycophantic, and naive.

    How much was anticipated from the current leadership? How much has it delivered? Consider, for instance, President Buhari’s recent approval of the temporary employment of 774, 000 unemployed youths to sweep the streets and markets, and clear sewers for three months.

    The initiative, labelled the Special Public Works Programme (SPW) in the Rural Areas, will be funded from the N60 billion COVID-19 Intervention Fund and will last from October to December 2020, according to the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed.

    No skills or formal education are required for the SPW programme. The target areas are rural communities, and beneficiaries would earn N20, 000 monthly.

    Enthusing about its benefits, the Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Festus Keyamo (SAN), said the scheme targeted 1,000 youths each from the 774 local governments across the country, calling it one of the biggest social intervention schemes to be carried out within a short period of time by any government in the history of Nigeria.

    In a nutshell, the government has legitimised “innovative corruption,” as most of the beneficiaries would be ghost workers created by shady elements within its ranks and file. The scheme is yet another crafty means to swindle Nigeria of funding meant to tackle the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic.

    The initiative is condemnable; going by Mr. Truth’s simple arithmetic: 774 local governments multiplied by 1, 000 youths multiplied by N20, 000 = N15,480,000,000 billion monthly, from borrowed money, “to clean gutters in a country without road and gutters but political gutters.”

    By Mr. Truth’s narrative, if the government spends N15,480,000,000 billion on healthcare every month, foreigners will troop to the country on health tourism and bring us revenue. If the government spends N15,480,000,000 billion on agriculture, monthly, for two years, Nigeria will undoubtedly emerge as the food basket of Africa and the nation’s jobless youth will be gainfully employed.

    The borrowed money that is about to be squandered by the Buhari administration could be put to better use developing essential infrastructure and the nation’s agriculture economy. Such money could be used to eliminate structural impediments of unreliable power supply, non-existent and dilapidated irrigation systems, overcrowded ports, and bad roads. For example, it takes an average of six to eight days to move a truckload of tomatoes from Jibiya in the far north to Lagos in the southwest. Unless the cargo is refrigerated—and invariably it is not—it will perish before reaching Lagos port.

    At the moment, poverty has risen in Nigeria with almost 82.9 million people living on less than one United States dollar per day, according to a National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) May 2020 report.

    According to the report, 52.10 per cent of rural dwellers are living in poverty; little wonder many youths are deserting farming to seek menial work in the cities. Many become commercial motorcyclists and several others simply take to crime.

    They know that as farmers, they would not have access to a market for their goods due to underdeveloped value chains. The absence of adequate storage facilities means many farmers must sell immediately after harvest when prices are at their lowest or allow their produce to rot.

    For instance, Nigeria’s estimated demand for tomatoes is 2.2 million tons per year, notes the CSIS/APP, while annual production is 1.5 million tons; almost half—that is 0.7 million tons—is lost post-harvest, due to poor storage.

    The head of a U.S. social enterprise working to boost agriculture in Nigeria notes Richard Downie, rightly observed that “when it comes to food, Nigeria doesn’t have a production problem, it has a processing problem.”

    Rather than make jobless youth sweep the streets and clean sewers during off-farming seasons, the government could engage them productively in processing, marketing, and construction along the value chain of the agricultural economy.

    To make agriculture very attractive to the youth, the government should go beyond increasing farmer access to credit via initiatives like the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme (ABP) and address high levels of post-harvest loss via an electronic warehouse receipt scheme and strengthening of the warehousing system, in part by leasing and rehabilitating government grain storage facilities.

    For a small fee, farmers can deposit their produce at these facilities, confident that it will be safely and securely preserved. In return, they receive a receipt grading the value of their produce that can be used as collateral. So doing, participating farmers can hold back their produce and sell when the price is right, rather than immediately after harvest.

    The ABP and capitalization of Nigeria’s Bank of Agriculture were some of the visionary steps taken by the Buhari administration to stimulate and increase the flow of credit to farmers, but there is still much to be done, and the government’s initiation of the SPW smacks of an insidious lack of integrity, personal and institutional ethics.

    Buhari’s SPW resonates a terrible contradiction: he purportedly wishes to free governance from corruption but SPW will shackle him to the corrupt, and pronounce his government’s domination by chthonian nature. At every turn away from the infernal, he runs right back into its dark embrace.

     

     

     

  • June 12 still breathe

    June 12 still breathe

    By Lawal Ogienagbon

    Racism may not have a place here, but some of our leaders appear racist in their actions. They do not discriminate against their compatriots because of the colour of their skin since we all have the same complexion, but their political and social actions show where their sympathy lies.

    We live on a continent where we believe in the brotherhood of man, no matter the colour of our skin as determined by the part of the region we are from.

    It is unlike Europe and America where the Whites see themselves as superior to those referred to as people of colour. So, they relate with Blacks and Browns on the basis of this.

    They believe that they are a superior race to which others must bow. They came to Africa to colonise us and left after plundering our commonwealth.

    They never wanted to leave South Africa until they were literally forced out some years ago in the wake of Nelson Mandela’s release from 27 years unlawful imprisonment after a kangaroo trial.

    Unfortunately, the dying embers of racism keeps burning in the United States (US) of all places. United? Is America truly a united nation, considering how it treats its Black populace? In the US, racism is a badge of honour worn by Whites.

    Not even the emergence of an African-American, Barack Obama, as its 44th president between 2009 and 2017 changed anything. America has continued to treat its Blacks as unwanted second class citizens.

    The killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on May 25, by a White policeman has again brought to the fore the painful reality about racism in the self-styled God’s own country. What a misnomer when God is not a racist.

    In US, it is racism, in Nigeria, it is marginalisation. Many of those who should know better see nothing wrong in marginalisation.

    They will support it as long as they benefit from it. They are ready to trade off their friend, sibling, associate and even the very high office of president for such gains as it happened in the case of June 12, which 27th anniversary comes up tomorrow.

    The June 12 tale is a story of deceit, intrigues, envy, ambush, hatred and bitterness all rolled into one. It is a story of a politician who his associates did not see as  one of them.

    To them, Moshood Abiola did not belong; he was a non-politician who came into their fold and dominated them as he did in eveything he was part of and they did not like it.

    This was why his election was annulled and they abandoned him to his fate while paying lip service to his cause.

    What happened on that auspicious election date in 1993 was, according to the late Gen Sani Abacha, a watershed. He so described June 12 when he inaugurated the Eso panel on reform of the judiciary.

    What the politicians started crept into the courts in the desperation of some of them to ensure that the June 12 election final results were never announced,  but the world already knew the winner.

    Rather than be an impartial arbiter, the judiciary played into the hands of these politicians, issuing one conflicting order after the other, leaving the public confused on what was going on.

    The judiciary burnt its fingers over June 12 as it abandoned its duty to unabashedly join the fray. Today, the blame of that dark era in the nation’s history has been heaped on it. This informed Abacha’s decision to probe the institution.

    Yet, it seems, the judiciary learnt nothing from the June 12 debacle, going by some of its actions in related election matters of recent.

    The June 12, 1993 presidential election, which has been described as the freest and fairest in the nation’s history, was won by newspaper magnate, the late Chief M. K. O. Abiola. But before he could be declared winner, his bosom friend and then military leader, Gen Ibrahim Babangida, annulled the election.

    Till today, the nation has not been told the truth behind the annulment. Why did Babangida annul the election? He has refused to unravel the puzzle behind his action. He was however reported as saying that he would be killed if he handed over to Abiola.

    Uptil today, he has not revealed the identities of those people. There is still time for him to salve his conscience and put a close to his ignominious role in the June 12 saga by namimg them.

    If he knew that some people in the military would not allow Abiola to become president, why then was the businessman cleared to contest the election? The annulment of that election was the most heartless and callous thing Babangida could have done to his nation.

    The Babangida transition programme was long and torturous and yet it ended in a puff of smoke because he was not ready to go. If he had his way, he would have perpetuated himself in power after suffocating, as it were, life out of June 12.

    The annulment was to render June 12 breathless, just exactly what Derek Chauvin did when he placed his knees on Floyd’s neck and refused to let go despite his victim’s cry of: “I can’t breath”.

    Like Abiola, Floyd died. But June 12 did not die. Both men died fighting for their rights. Abiola died fighting for his mandate which was freely given to him by the Nigerian people.

    They are dead, but the causes they died for live after them. Today, the US knows no rest in the aftermath of Floyd’s death.

    Across the country, Blacks and their White sympathisers have intensified the fight for equality in a nation which prides itself as one in which “all men were born equal”. Do not snigger at that.

    Abiola surprised many by putting up a fight for June 12. Not many believed that he would go out of his way to do what he did because he was seen as an establishment man.

    Today, he is benefiting from that struggle, though in death. Two years ago, recognition finally came for June 12 as Democracy Day, shoving aside May 29, which had hitherto been so observed since the return to democracy in 1999.

    Abiola may not have mounted the saddle as president, but he will be remembered for bequeathing to the nation June 12 as Democracy Day.

    If Abiola had not fought for his mandate; if he had listened to those friends,  kinsmen and associates,  who sold out in private, rather than stand on June 12, as they said they would in public, he would have ended up in infamy.

    It is to his eternal glory that June 12 is still alive today and the vilest of his critics will always stand up in honour of this rare being who defied all odds to fight for what he believed in.