The Nation Newspaper

Category: Thursday

  • 2027: North as ‘beautiful bride’!

    2027: North as ‘beautiful bride’!

    When In the build up to the 1982 presidential election in the aborted Second Republic the flamboyant Chief Nnamdi Azikiwe described himself as the “beautiful bride” of Nigerian politics, it was for a reason and just for that season. The late President Shehu Shagari was seeking reelection, and he required all the votes that he can muster to return to office.

    As it were, votes from the Southeast and Southwest where Zik and the legendary Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Shagari’s formidable opponents came from, were locked down for the duo. Shagari needed votes from both regions to win, just as the duo required those votes and more from the north to oust him. It became a game of political romance among the trio in order to get the winning votes. Election is a game of numbers; it is not only about popularity. Zik and Awo found out the hard way in the 1978 elections which ushered in the Second Republic on October 1, 1979.

    They were popular than Shagari by the fact of their political antecedents. Mind you, Shagari too was no push over, but he was not in the class of Awo and Zik, who once held sway in the western and eastern regions before they left their bases in Ibadan and Enugu to play national politics in Lagos. As it was then, so it is today. There must be some sort of political marriage between the north and south before any candidate can become president. No region can go it alone. It would be impolitic for any candidate to go on a solo mission, no matter the millions of votes he can garner from his region.

    The late President Muhammadu Buhari is a clear case in point. He finally made it to the Presidency in 2015, after three failed attempts in 2003, 2007 and 2011, following his strategic alignment with the Southwest. It has now dawned on all pragmatic politicians that this alignment must be sustained for power to continue to rotate between both regions seamlessly until we get to the stage where such things no longer matter, except competence. The north takes delight in the fact that it has the numbers to make a president, but the reality is things are not as simple as that.

    The ‘huge’ numbers are there, no doubt, but those figures alone cannot do the magic. They must be supported by the ‘marginal’ or what many top northerners, in the wake of Buhari’s victory in the 2015 and 2019 elections, now consider the “inconsequential” votes from the south. No matter how meagre the south’s votes are, they are as important as the north’s large votes in an electoral contest. Many contestants have lost elections, which they could have easily won, just by one vote because of their hubris. The search for these magical numbers which can turn the tide in an election has become intense..

    The aim  is to wrest power from President Bola Tinubu in 2027, the way he led the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) to oust President Goodluck Jonathan in 2015. Since then, the APC has been in power, with Tinubu succeeding Buhari in 2023. Many who were with Tinubu then have joined forces with others to work against him now. Their coalition led to the takeover of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), which is more of a vehicle for electoral contest than a political platform. ADC is now in disarray, with some old members rejecting the new comers.

    Despite the uncertainty surrounding their platform, they have been playing the northern card ahead of 2027. They are heaping all the problems of the north on the present administration. Some of their leading lights claim that the north is backward; the north is neglected; the north is marginalised and without infrastructure, and blame it all on the President who came into office only two years ago. They conveniently forget that  some of them were in office at the highest level not too long ago and never did anything for the region.

    Their cry has political undertone. It is to whip up northern sentiments against the government and hinder its return to power in 2027. Do they have the power to sway the people of the region to their side? They do not. Many of them do not command any following. They rode on Buhari’s back to power as governors and lawmakers. Following Buhari’s death about three weeks ago, they are orphaned. They craved Buhari’s blessings for their gang up against Tinubu and APC so that they could present that to the people as his endorsement of their new found group.

    Read Also: 55% of Nigerian youth unemployed or underemployed due to skill gaps — Speaker Abbas

    Buhari was wary of them. But at every opportunity, they dropped his name, as they angled for ways to use it to worm their way into the hearts of the poor people of the region who consistently gave Buhari millions of votes in all the elections he contested in 2003, 2007, 2011, 2015 and 2019. Are those votes said to be 12 million still intact? If Buhari were alive today, could he have influenced the talakawa to vote for any of these people who when they had the opportunity to lead the country did nothing for them?

    Looking at the federal level alone, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, who is desperate to have the ADC coalition as a special purpose vehicle for running for president again in 2027, and erstwhile Senate president David Mark, ADC interim chairman, were at a time the numbers two and three citizens of this country and they are from the north. What did they do for the region whose condition they are deploring today? The north has the votes to make a candidate president, but it is not beholden to Atiku, Mark and their ADC crowd to give them those votes.

    Those votes are not transferable from Buhari to them. If they want those votes, they must earn them like Buhari did by living a spartan and frugal life. They should stop throwing the north in people’s faces. The region and its people are important, but they are not at the beck and call of  these self conceited politicians. The talakawa know the way to go in 2027. They do not need Atiku, Mark, Nasir El-Rufai, and co, to tell them what to do.

  • Time to stop the carnage in Gaza

    Time to stop the carnage in Gaza

    In some years to come, our grandchildren or great grandchildren may ask us what position we held when Israel seemed to have been granted a licence by the whole world or a critical part of it, to slaughter defenceless children, women and elderly people in Gaza against the Geneva protocol on interstate conflict with regards to the protection of unarmed women, the elderly and children. 

    Some argue that Israel is taking these military actions in retaliation against the Hamas administration in Gaza because of its failure to prevent terrorists from there going to Israel to slaughter some Jews and carrying other Israeli Jews into captivity during a religious celebration.

    The world, including our government, condemned this terrorist attack against civilians but at the same time has not condemned the one-sided war since then against the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank of the River Jordan which in terms of numbers would soon reach a hundred thousand souls. This disproportionate retaliation war has spread to Lebanon where the Israeli military might has dealt a deadly blow against Hezbollah forces for their support for the Palestinians. The same has happened to the Houthis in Yemen and the newly created army of Syria after the collapse of the Alawite terrorist dynasty of Bashar al Assad. The culmination of the unrestrained military promenade of Israel in the Middle East was the recent attack and victory of Israel over Iran in the 12-day war in which the USA joined Israel in the apparent obliteration of Iranian nuclear assets.

    With all these wars, Israel has definitely become the supreme military power in the Middle East. Turkey is the only power that is capable of challenging it in the wider area extending to Turkey. Turkey of course has its own problems with its minorities of Kurds, Circassians, Arabs and Jews which put together constitute about 27% of the entire population. Possible Turkey’s military confrontation with Israel is obviated by Turkish membership of NATO of which America is  the dominant power and America ‘s protection of Israel’s interest is solid and this will not allow the USA to allow Turkey to be involved in any anti-Israeli confrontation in the wider Middle East. This overwhelming power of Israel therefore remains unchallenged unless an Islamic revolution sweeping through the Middle East and extending to Turkey were to occur to change the current power configuration in the entire region. This possibility should hopefully constrain the current wild power Judaic hegemonic considerations in Israel to be careful about how it throws its weight around in its merciless treatment of the Palestinians in their home country.

    Right now Israel is enjoying the support of Europe and the USA because of their victimisation in the hands of the German NAZI during the Second World War and their historic victimisation in continental Europe spreading from the Atlantic to the Urals. The question may be asked in future whether the Arabs were the ones who unleashed genocide on the Jews and why the Palestinians were being made to bear the brunt of retaliatory destruction caused on them by the Jews using American and European weapons. When this time comes, each and every one of influence in the world will be asked our roles either as individuals or as governments.

    As far as I know, Africa has not taken a position despite the fact that for years, the Organisation of African Unity (the African Union) accepted the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) as an observer. The only African state that has taken a position on this issue is the Republic of South Africa which took a courageous step of taking Israel to the World Court of Justice on the charge of committing war crimes and actions that could lead to genocide over the starvation of the Gaza Palestinians.   The UN has described the so called feeding of the starving Palestinians by the American/Israeli Gaza humanitarian organisation as “drip feeding “of millions of people in Gaza encircled by Israeli military. These are people surrounded by Israeli troops preventing the world body  from taking food to the starving population of Gaza while the rest of the world lay prostrate begging Israel to permit them access to the starving  Palestinians.  

    Read Also: Stranded Nigerian miners in CAR arrive Embassy

    Israel has expelled virtually all agencies of the UN including the WHO involved in humanitarian activities in Palestine, while in the meantime, the Israeli military has turned into killing fields, the various depots jointly established by the Israeli – American Gaza humanitarian organisation into killing spots where starving Palestinians are shot as sport on the grounds of rowdy behaviour in tens, hundreds and thousands. The situation has been criticised by global  organisations and governments especially in Europe, Latin America, Africa and some parts of Asia while America that has the power to make Israel change its murderous policies in Israel has remained unconcerned. 

    Britain and America bear moral responsibility for the existence of Israel in the land of Palestine. It was Britain as administrator of ancient Palestine that in 1917 during the First World War promised the land by the Lord Balfour declaration that Palestine would be given to the Jews as their eternal homeland and in 1948, it was the American government that first recognised the Israeli state against the interest of Palestine. It seems now both Israel and the USA are following a policy of starvation as weapons of war. What is most disgusting in the situation is the weak response of the entire Arab world and the organisation of Islamic countries including Nigeria. What is morally wrong to us Christians would or should be wrong to our Muslim brothers. I don’t believe that because we are a plural country, our foreign policy should not be guided by moral principles. For most of my involvement in our foreign policy at the global stage, we have always supported the Palestinian cause even though not all the Arabs and the Iranians have supported the African struggle for independence and against the apartheid regime. This did not make us withdraw support for the Palestinian cause. So what has changed? Have we lost our moral compass? I am aware of our current economic weakness but poverty is not an incurable disease; it only compels us to work hard. It should not muffle our voice against moral injustice as in the Palestinian case. I am a Christian and a practising and believing Christian but this does not make me deaf to the wailing of suffering Muslim humanity in Palestine and I don’t see why our government should remain silent in the face of the tyranny of the Israelis against the Palestinians. We should not wait until France, Britain join the other European countries like Ireland, the Nordic countries, and a host of other countries recognise Palestine before we do what is right.

  • Ghosts of Mokwa

    Ghosts of Mokwa

    Saratu’s grief is a ghost no one can exorcise. Every evening, she still cooks for her sons. Three boys perpetually living in her memory, weeks after they were buried in a mass grave.

    Nigeria may have forgotten, but Saratu hasn’t. She still sets their plates on the bare floor of what used to be their home before it was ruined by the flood. On May 29, Saratu’s world shattered as a flood triggered by a downpour from the previous night surged through her home in Mokwa and swept away her three sons.

    Saratu watched death happen three times, under 30 minutes. That morning, as the water surged all over Mokwa, she watched her sons drown one after another, as if the river intended to drink her womb dry.

    What does it mean to survive, if survival comes at the price of one’s children? This is the nagging question left to mothers like Saratu, to widows whose breadwinners were carried off by the flood, and to children orphaned overnight. On that same day, a Quranic school in Tiffin Maza, the Madarasatul Tarbiyyatul Islamiyya, was submerged by the flood; the boys inside it were not spared. They were wandering scholars otherwise known as almajirai. The flood stole upon them while they were curled on their prayer mats; some of them in their school and the rest, in a masjid opposite it.

    AbdulMalik, 15, from Sokoto; Abba, also 15, from the same state; Lawwali and Salamanu from Niger, 16 and 18 respectively; Muhammadu, 20, were pulled like withered leaves from a branch.  Their names are now footnotes in receded waters, their memories drifting like flotsam in a nation that never learned to mourn with sincerity.

    About 207 people were confirmed dead in the Mokwa flood disaster, and more than 1,000 were declared missing. Hundreds were injured, entire villages got displaced, and the silence that now surrounds their suffering is even more devastating than the catastrophe itself.

    Why must we speak again of Mokwa? Because it is too easy not to. Because Nigeria has a pattern: we wail at the scene of disaster, and become silent once the waters recede. Once the television vans roll away and the tweets lose traction, what is left for Saratu, who lost all three sons to the floodwaters? What is left for the over 416,600 residents displaced and the countless others nursing physical, emotional, and existential wounds?

    What becomes of the widowed, the orphaned, and the maimed when the world stops watching? We have seen this before. We saw it in Hurti, Bokkos LGA, Plateau State, where villagers were massacred and the news cycled out in a few days, drowned in political headlines. The bereaved wailed into the void and, when no justice came, learned to bury their pain in silence.

    We saw it in Benue, where murderous herdsmen reduced farming communities to ash and carcass. The same template is playing out in Mokwa: grand declarations, flurries of humanitarian attention, and then, nothing.

    We treat disasters like dramas. Once the curtain falls, the audience departs, and the victims are left stranded on a ruined stage. This must not be our script. Not anymore.

    President Bola Ahmed Tinubu must lead a shift in national consciousness. Disasters, whether natural or man-made, should not be reduced to photo opportunities or soundbites. They demand long-term action, transparent systems of relief, and above all, compassion with structured support.

    Tinubu’s administration must surpass the issuance of condolence messages with a more concrete system of intervention. Nigeria needs a dependable national framework for disaster response that includes structured monitoring, targeted relief evaluation, and a publicly accountable system of rehabilitation and reintegration for victims.

    For too long, Nigeria has operated without an effective mechanism to track relief materials or the billions supposedly allocated for disaster response. Where is the roadmap for recovery in Mokwa? Who is keeping track of the displaced? Who has audited the relief funds promised? Who is ensuring that mothers like Saratu are not merely left to mourn in tatters, while government officials return to ribbon-cuttings and press briefings?

    Victims are not mere statistics. They are citizens. They are human.

    Every flood victim is a citizen owed dignity. Every massacre victim is a Nigerian whose blood must not vanish into statistical abstraction. There must be a real-time, verifiable system for disbursing compensation, not filtered through bloated bureaucracies or compromised middlemen, but directly to the afflicted. In Mokwa, that means establishing a local registry of verified victims inclusive of names, households, and identities.

    It means deploying federal monitors, not appointees of politicians, but trained humanitarian actors, to assess and report progress. It requires a disaster victims’ welfare board, independent of political control, reporting directly to the presidency, with audited results published every quarter.

    What is justice if it is delayed until the dead are forgotten? In Benue, where hundreds were displaced by floods and bandit incursions, women still sleep on mats beneath battered roofs. In Hurti, survivors still stare at burnt compounds, waiting for homes that will never be rebuilt. If we are not careful, the disaster victims of Mokwa may suffer a similar fate.

    Read Also: Stranded Nigerian miners in CAR arrive Embassy

    This is not just about structures, it is about heart. We must begin to feel again. We must see the pain of our fellow citizens as a collective wound. When the almajirai drowned in Mokwa, there was no state funeral. No candlelight vigil televised or national day of mourning was declared. These were children; poor, yes, but children nonetheless. What does that say about us?

    Somewhere, a widow in Tiffin Maza is still spreading a wet wrapper on an unmade mat, an orphaned child is still waiting for parents who will not return. Nigeria must not leave them to heal alone.

    If President Tinubu truly seeks to write a redemptive legacy, he must pay good mind to the ordeal of those rendered homeless and bereaved by the Mokwa flood disaster, the Plateau and Benue massacres among others. Good governance is not merely the construction of roads or the expansion of tax bases, it is also the healing of wounds. And Nigeria is bleeding.

    Mr President must direct the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, and the Ecological Fund Office to adopt more transparent systems of intervention. The Office of the Vice President, under whose purview social investment and humanitarian oversight supposedly lies, must inaugurate a citizens’ panel to track post-disaster interventions. The affected states, too, should be held accountable through emergency task forces made up of civil society members, local religious leaders, and professionals drawn from the affected communities.

    Too many disasters have ended with slogans and forgotten press releases. But to forget Mokwa is to rehearse failure. It is to rail at every victim, dead or alive, that their lives do not matter. That the flood is their fate, and their sorrow is no one’s responsibility.

    Nigeria must no longer be that kind of country. We must stop writing elegies for children drowned by our neglect and start writing policies that save the next generation.

    So, we remember the drowned almajirai. We remember Saratu’s sons. We remember the unnamed boy whose body washed up like driftwood, faceless but no less human. It’s about time their tragic demise provoked action.

    The flood may have drowned their lives and bodies, should we let their memories drown too?

  • Between Baba-Ahmed and Usman Bugaje

    Between Baba-Ahmed and Usman Bugaje

    All through the pre-independence and post- independence years, the northern ruling caste effortlessly harvested votes from the region through weaponisation of religion, poverty and tribe. At every critical period of our nation’s history, the ruling caste have never been in short supply of elders statesmen like Dr. Hakeem Baba-Ahmed and Dr. Usman Bugaje who equally serve as adequate representative of their people when it comes to waging subliminal battle over the minds of northern voters when their interest clash with other political interest especially from the south. Although both have often been behind most controversial divisive issues in the country, they remain the envy of many informed Nigerians because of their clear-headed analysis of some of these controversial issues.

    Let us start from the run up to independence power struggle among the nationalists. The 1953 Kano riot was sparked by tensions between northern and southern Nigerian political leaders over the pace of Nigeria’s independence. Following Ahmadu Bello and other northern leaders’ particularly members of the ruling caste’s rejection of a motion for self-government by 1956 and the subsequent hostile reception they faced in Lagos, the northern ruling caste, never known for forgiveness,  waited patiently for revenge against their southern tormentors.

    An opportunity soon came with Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s decision to send a chieftain of his party, Chief SL Akintola, to mobilize the youth of Kano for support of Action Group’s (AG) policies including free and compulsory education. Two prominent NPC stalwarts were deployed to Kano. Their task was to mobilize Kano youths against southern infidels attempting to desecrate their Islamic religion and ridicule their leaders. That was all the uninformed, uneducated Kano street urchins without hope or future needed to unleash terror on non-Hausa/Fulani urban immigrants especially Igbo and Yoruba, with harvest of the death of 44 innocent people.

    Read Also: FG launches YouthCred credit scheme to support 400,000 young Nigerians

    Today the tool remains the same – mobilization of brainwashed disruptive and unproductive street urchins often celebrated by the ruling caste as tools for winning elections in Nigeria.

    Not too long ago, Nasir El Rufai boasted that the north because of its numerical strength, will always decide the outcome of any election in Nigeria. He has also in recent times told President Bola Tinubu to await the revenge of the north in 2027. To ensure the voting strength of the north remains unassailable, Dr. Usman Bugaje told Nigerians not too long ago that APC then in opposition, imported some Fulani from the Sahel region for the purpose of 2015 election.

     Hakeem Baba Ahmed is a former spokesman for Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF). Accepting Tinubu’s appointment as special adviser to the presidency in 2023, he had said: “This is not the time for fence-sitting or criticism when you can be useful in turning the country around. I am honoured and humbled. Please pray for me and Nigeria. However in his April open letter to the president, he declared “the north is drifting from your leadership under weight of economic hardship, insecurity and alienation”.

    Reminded by Seun Okinbaloye, during last week Politics Today” television show, that these problems predate Tinubu’s two years administration, his quick answer was – “Tinubu’s performance is worse than abysmal”. Egged on by the same reporter who asked if there is anything Tinubu did to warrant mobilization of northern voters by northern political elite against his two years administration, rather than going to convoluted argument, he simply said “the north awaits Tinubu in 2027”.

    Incubation of Almajiris and other northern youths without a future appear to be a deliberate policy of northern ruling caste. Even with the north in control of power for the greater part of our independence years, with the likes of Babangida retiring to build a scandalous mansion among the squalor of his people, and Abacha stealing billions of Nigeria’s foreign exchange earnings, with Atiku Abubakar, two-term VP allegedly buying off a huge chunk of his state, we have no evidence these powerful northern leaders gave a thought to the plight of millions of northern youths without a future.

    The Arewa Consultative Forum, Hakeem Baba-Ahmed once spoke for, is dominated by rich and accomplished members of northern ruling caste. His younger brother Datti Baba Ahmed, Peter Obi’s running mate in the last election, owned one of the most expensive private universities in Nigeria that attract only people like Rotimi Amaechi, (eight years speaker of Rivers State House of Assembly, eight years as governor of the oil-rich state before moving on to serve as super Minister of Transportation, and Dino Melaiye, with a massive Abuja mansion adorned with the state-of-the-art cars without visible means of work.

    We have no evidence that rich members of this forum, many of whom allegedly made fortune, saw millions of impoverished northern youths beyond instrument for winning election.

    But for Baba Ahmed, Tinubu’s two-year old government is the source of nightmare of northern poor thus the ringing echo of his outing on Channels TV last week is Tinubu must resign.

    Like Baba Ahmed, Usman Bugaje, Nigerian elder-statesman was once an APC member. He had moved from PDP to APC and later moved back to PDP. He is today very critical of Tinubu’s administration.

    But let us first locate the god he serves. This became apparent a  few years back when he shocked the oil-producing state when he with clinical precision, argued that Nigeria oil belongs to the north.

    According to him, “One state in the north can take more than two of the spaces of the total southeast. The north has the landmass. What I am saying is that if 78% of that landmass gives you that mileage into the sea where your oil comes from, the 78% of whatever mileage we get into the sea can therefore be claimed because the 78% landmass belongs to the north which is the majority.

    “My point is that there is no oil-producing state. The only oil-producing state is the Nigerian state itself. Derivation is based on the fact that because extraction is being done in a particular state, it comes with the destruction of the environment. Therefore, there is a need to make resources available that would address that destruction to cushion the effects of that particular process. And it is not because it belongs to anybody”.

    Like Hakeem Baba Ahmed, he has been very critical of Tinubu’s administration which he describes as “rudderless”. “They came with a promise of fixing the country and, apparently, they did not do their homework. And we are in a much deeper mess than when he started. In my view, I think they have no ideas. I think he should apologize to Nigerians for deepening their woes”, said Bugaje.

    When asked by Okinbaloye whether it was fair to heap the blame of the crisis of insecurity, economy, forex, power supply, successive Nigerian leaders failed to tackle since 1999 on Tinubu’s two years administration, rather than answer the question, he went into a tirade declaring “I think they have no ideas. I think he should apologize to Nigerians for deepening their woes, they seem to just go about their businesses, enjoying their lives and taking good care of themselves the way they have always done in Lagos irrespective of the suffering of people. What I see that they do is just loot the treasury”.

    Of course the consequences of President Tinubu’s harsh economic policies are still biting. The president while reassuring Nigerians that the worst is over admitted this much. Besides, Bugaje’s call for the president’s resignation is coming at a time when local economic institutions and international economic institutions like IMF and the World Bank, whose reform recommendations Tinubu deviated from, are hailing what they described as “his home reforms”.

    The question then is–why is Bugaje and Baba-Ahmed so desperate for Tinubu to resign after only two years that they are doing everything, including swearing in the name of northern youths, just as they did in the run up to independence, to prevent free education for northern youths who the ruling caste regard as serfs? Of course those in the inner circle of Tinubu are expressing the sentiment that it is because his current economic policies have the potential to end the northern ruling caste’s continuing living on sweat and blood of those they see only as tools for political bargaining?

    What is not in doubt however is that Baba-Ahmed and Bugaje, our respected elder-statesmen have other gods they serve within the Nigerian state. And this is why I think the title of Bugaje latest work – Nigeria in crisis: Where are the statesmen? should read “Northern Nigeria in Turmoil: Where are members of northern ruling caste?

  • When the grim ripper struck three times

    When the grim ripper struck three times

    In the last few weeks, highly significant people passed on to eternity in Nigeria. They are namely Victor Omololu Olunloyo a mathematician, politician and an engineer all wrapped up in one person, and  Kabiyesi Kayode Adetona, the Awujale of Ijebu land and a first class traditional  ruler, and Muhammadu Buhari, a military and political leader of Nigeria. In the various spheres of our national lives, these people made serious impacts on the history and politics.

    Olunloyo was easily one of the greatest intellectual geniuses this country has produced particularly in the area of mathematical engineering. Although he was distracted from his calling and misdirected his efforts into politics, and it is here that he is well known. He was born in Ibadan in 1935 to the family of  Vincent Horatio Sowemimo Olunloyo, one of the earliest Christians in Ibadan who had worked with the pioneers of Christianity in Ibadan the Reverend  Henri and Mrs  Anna Hinderer and who became not only an early convert to the Christian religion but also to western education. After having had a stint in the West African Frontier Force, he married Alhaja Abebi who bore him five children, with Omololu being the oldest.  Horatio unfortunately died at an early age of 43 in 1948 the very year his son gained admission in to the well-known Government College, Ibadan popularly known as GCI, which he attended on scholarship from 1948 to 1953. He did not do extremely well until his second year from when he always led his class made of distinguished people like the late Professor Olujimi Akinkugbe, a distinguished medical professor at the University of Ibadan, Professor Oluwole Soyinka, a Nobel laureate in literature, Professor Suleiman Lagundoye, another medical guru at the University of Ibadan and Dr. Olalekan Are who  was a distinguished  agricultural scientist and philanthropist.

    Olunloyo later distinguished himself in the universities of Saint Andrews, Dundee and Cambridge with degrees in Mathematics and Engineering before returning to the premier university Ibadan to lecture in the Department of Mathematics. In a citation, his Head of Department said about him: “… he graduated with B.Sc. (General Engineering- civil and mechanical engineering) in June 1957 having notable first in first class in theory of structures and all mechanical subjects and first class in mechanical design.) He completed his PhD in mathematics in two years”. Olunloyo did not have time to settle down in academia before the Dr Koyejo Majekodunmi  who was the administrator of Western Region appointed him in 1962 as commissioner in his administration.  The Majekodunmi administration was set up by the federal government headed by Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa to replace the Akintola government following the Action Group crisis of 1961 to 1962. He was appointed Commissioner of Economic development when he was just about settling down as a serious academic. The army took over power in Nigeria in 1966 when he had hardly returned to his post as a senior lecturer in Mathematics in the University of Ife, Ibadan campus; he was again appointed the Commissioner for Local Government under the regime of Colonel Adeyinka Adebayo. Whether by design or fate, Omololu’s academic trajectory seemed to be doomed without the fulfilment of earning a chair which is the desire of most academics.

    He was particularly effective as local government commissioner at a time of crisis in Western Nigeria culminating in the seamless appointment of Kabiyesi Lamidi Layiwola Adeyemi III as Alaafin of Oyo in 1971. He also held the position of Rector of Ibadan Polytechnic, chairman, Western Nigeria Housing Commission before becoming Executive Secretary of the National Polytechnics and Technical Commission. He is better known for his brief time as governor of Oyo State for two months from October to December 1983 having defeated the incumbent Bola Ige, a competent administrator, legal luminary and public orator in a much controversial election marred by allegations of rampant rigging.

    It is sad that for all his intellectual gift, Victor Omololu Olunloyo’s gubernatorial ascendancy was terminated by a coup d’état led by Major General Muhammadu Buhari in December 1983 which ended the regime of Aliyu Shehu Shagari’s headship of the federal government.

    Read Also: World Bank, partners back Nigeria’s 90,000km fibre optic network drive

    Buhari led the government of Nigeria from 1983 to 1985. The coming of his first headship of the federal government was popular because the preceding administration was marred with massive corruption, maladministration, inefficiency and complete neglect of agriculture for corrupt importation of rice from all over the world. Buhari was forced to ban all imports and to begin rationing imports licences and strictly enforcing a  regime of discipline at every area of our national life including queuing up to buy so-called essential goods like cement, rice, sugar and to board public transport where and when available. Drug trafficking was suppressed by public executions of those caught. The  public went for the stifling discipline including soldiers caning in public, those who were guilty of indiscipline until sudden change of the national currency and accusations of corruption in the exchange of old currency notes for new involving an emir whose  military officer son facilitated smuggling of millions of old Naira notes from outside the country. Even though the officer was cashiered off from the army, the incident derogated from the claim of uprightness of the regime. When in 1985 Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida overthrew the strict regime of Mai Gaskiya (upright leader), no one wept for it. The reaction was “good bye to bad rubbish “.

    When in old age and apparently bad health Buhari in his fourth attempt at becoming an elected president was elected president in 2015 and remained in power till 2023, he was a shade of his former self. He spent months going to Britain for health reasons. In one of his trips, he told a British prime minister that Nigeria was hopelessly corrupt as if he was talking about a strange country somewhere in another distant country. He was absolutely not in charge of his government and smart ministers stole and stole under him. Two examples will suffice: the governor of the Central bank of Nigeria, CBN, suddenly decided to succeed him as president and bought several cars, branded them with his photo and launched a campaign for president while still the central bank governor and nobody, not the president called him to order until there was an outcry against this violation of the law that the man involved decided to call his mad journey into infamy a day. A minister of aviation under Buhari decided to launch a new national airline despite the corruption that had marred earlier efforts. He allocated billions of Naira for this purpose. He suborned Ethiopian Airlines to paint one of its planes in Nigerian colours and brought it to Nigeria for show. When the public began shouting about the deception, the minister let the show end without accounting for the billions already spent. When this was pointed out to President Muhammadu Buhari, his retort was always that the Nigerian public should go after those adjudged as corrupt in his government.

    I wish Buhari had not come back as a civilian ruler and just kept his record as a disciplined military ruler; history would have been fair to him. The accusations by Abubakar Sola Saraki of malfeasance in the petroleum ministry when he headed that ministry would have remained an unproven allegation designed to blemish a clean record.

    The third man in the trio of the national loss is Kabiyesi Adetona, the recently departed Awujale of Ijebu land. By any standards, the Awujale Adetona had a great reign and was loved by his people until the end. Those who now malign him because his family did not allow him in death to be buried in the traditional way of course have a point. It is my plea that they let the great Oba rest in peace and do an analysis of the total contribution of the man to governance. It was during his reign that a magnificent palace was built by the Ijebu people for their king. A flourishing university exists now in Ago Iwoye in Ijebu land and the departed Oba endowed a chair there worth millions for a professorship in public governance.

    The national image and weight of the Awujale wherever it leans in the past has had meaning. He leaned on the two political parties now APC to come together in ushering the reign of Buhari as president. He cannot however be blamed for lack of performance of the government. His role was the facilitation of national unity. At critical times in the history of our country, when we were under Abacha tyranny and when everybody kept quiet in the face of tyranny, when the number two in government was going to be executed accused of involvement in a phantom coup d’état, it was only the Awujale who spoke for his Ijebu son. Wherever the Ijebu interest was involved, he spoke for them and believed that there was no conflict between Ijebu patriotism and Nigerian nationalism.

    In their different ways, the death of these great patriots constitutes an irreparable loss to Nigeria. Of course they did not die in harness, because they were all old and tired, but their collective wisdom was a repository which Nigeria could have continued to benefit from.

  • Natasha: Sound and fury…

    Natasha: Sound and fury…

    Since the July 4 decision of the Federal High Court on the famous Natasha case, the plaintiff and her enablers have been treating the public to all kinds of drama over what the judge said and did not say. On the day of the verdict, the social media, which is known more for its sensationalism and recklessness in the way it treats sensitive and even, non-sensitive issues, reported that Justice Binta Nyako had ordered that Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan be recalled from her six-month suspension.

    Did the court really say that? We will answer the question presently. As Natasha wanted, the story trended on social media, a space where she is comfortable fighting her suspension battles, rather than laying the cards on the table. The traditional media too did not help matters in reporting the verdict. The story was slanted to put in the court’s mouth what it did not say. The certified true copy (CTC) of the verdict has put the lie to these reports.

    Natasha is wittingly using the media to fight her battle. She knows the power of the media, and she is exploiting it, especially the online platforms, to paint herself as a victim in a family dispute of sorts, which could have been settled internally within the Senate without too much fuss. But Natasha will not be Natasha without the gra gra and the showboating that have become her stock in trade. Honestly, I do not have anything against Natasha. I like her guts as a woman who is ready to stand up for her rights and speak her mind, any time, any day.

    But she needs to tone down the drama. Theatrics will never help her case, particularly in a judicial dispute where everything is black and white. There is nothing hidden in a court matter. The cards are usually face up, as the facts are there –  for all to see. She did no wrong by going to court in anticipation of a breach of her fundamental right, as held by Justice Nyako. But, without mincing words, she and her enablers made the wrong move by trying to colour the verdict to favour her. That was patently wrong. No litigant can ever colour a judgment in order to change its content to suit his or her wish because court proceedings, like the hansard of parliament, are well kept.

    If these documents are doctored, it means that something untoward must have happened inhouse. As the Yoruba will say: ejo l’owo ‘nu (someone has tampered with the records). Justice Nyako was clear and unambiguous in her pronouncement in the 33-page judgment in the Natasha case, which was well reviewed by our Abuja Bureau Deputy Chief Eric Ikhilae on the Law pages of this paper on Tuesday. The judge was careful in her use of words. She could not understand why the Senate who sits for 181 legislative days  would suspend a member for 180 days.

    To her, “to make a law that has no end is excessive”. She was referring to the Senate Rules that allow the upper chamber to suspend a senator for as long as it wishes. But she could not do anything about it because her hands are tied under the doctrine of separation of powers – that is to say the court cannot interfere in the work of the legislature – except there is a breach or anticipatory breach of a person’s fundamental right. The court made its position clear on page 31 of the judgment. Justice Nyako held that it was not the intention of the Constitution that a senator be suspended ad infinitum (forever).

    Read Also: World Bank, partners back Nigeria’s 90,000km fibre optic network drive

    She refrained from making any order, citing the principle of separation of powers, and chose to appeal to the conscience of the Senate to forgive Natasha. She held: “I am of the opinion that the Senate has the power to review…the Senate Rules and even amend Section 14 (2) of the Legislative Houses (Powers & Privileges) Act for being over reaching. The Senate has the power to and I believe should recall the plaintiff and allow her to same time, represent the people who sent her there to represent them”. In law, this is not an order, but an opinion, which a judge can digress and make in the course of delivering a judgment.

    It is called obiter dictum (‘something  said in passing’) and the ninth edition of Black’s Law Dictionary defines it as: “a comment made while delivering a judicial opinion, but one that is unnecessary to the decision in the case and therefore not precedential (although it may be considered persuasive)”. So, if the Senate is persuaded enough by the opinion, it may recall Natasha, but if not, the heavens will not fall if it does not recall her. The court did not compel the Senate to recall her. As a lawyer, she knows what to do to end this matter. It is not by trying to force her way back into the National Assembly Complex with her enablers and a motley crowd in tow, as they attempted to do on Tuesday. Enough of the drama!

    Natasha knows that the court did not order her recall. She is deliberately raising the political temperature by resorting to self help to enforce, mind you an opinion, which is different from an order, which Black’s Law Dictionary describes as “a written direction or command delivered by a judge”. Ironically, the orders the court made were all against her for contempt. For now, Natasha should cut the drama and allow the matter to run its course at the appellate courts, where she and Akpabio have headed for. This is the right thing to do.

    She should concentrate on her appeal and stop this shenanigan of trying to come through the back door to get what the court did not give her in the first place. It will not work. It is an  action full of sound and fury signifying nothing, apologies to Shakespeare.

  • Scapegoat republic

    Scapegoat republic

    As foreseen, Nigerians bared their hearts, graveside of Muhammadu Buhari.

    The polity became loud with folk unrestrained in grief and brazen in triumphal gloating. A curious theatre unfurled across the Nigerian mindscape as digital timelines and comment threads became moral coliseums. The dead had barely stiffened, yet the young and old, educated and illiterate, privileged and underdog, rushed to spit on his memory.

    Some truly mourned. While a defiant mob crooned: “You can’t tell us how to respond to his death.” And so doing, resorted to arrant mockery, dancing on the grave of the dead with shoes muddied in their own complicity.

    Of particular note was a senior investigative j0urnalist; this self-glorifying grandma was unexpectedly loud with venom, relishing the death of the former President. Things, however, got to a head when she accused him of corruption. Promptly, a younger female colleague, retorted:“You lack the moral right to talk ma…You, who extorted an impoverished and blind, elderly man of N30,000 in May 2015, before reporting an injustice done to him. President Buhari was never corrupt. You are the corrupt one ma.”

    Livid, the senior journalist attacked her for being “too disrespectful” even as she gaslighted her claim. She did not consider her bribe-taking as a moral baggage. And she will “never reveal her private dossier” on Buhari’s alleged corruption for “security reasons.”

    Many castigated the younger journalist saying she “wouldn’t go far in the profession” for daring to disrespect a senior journalist. The same senior journalist who maligned a late President, without evidence, for sport.

    Let’s say we are all just broken inside – unable to distinguish fabricated contempt from merited disdain. Let’s say the villainy in us thrive on the victimhood of others, especially folk we have been taught to hate. Let’s say victimhood and villainy are simply abstract labels we feverishly impose on those we’d love to suffer for our enjoyment.

    Buhari was no saint. He was deemed austere, aloof. Sometimes, embarrassingly so. His administration superintended economic hardship, insecurity, a failing Naira, and the growing sense that Nigeria was slipping into institutional twilight. But to declare him the sole architect of Nigeria’s ruin is dishonest and cowardly.Much of what Nigerians blamed Buhari for—terror, infrastructure rot, deaths in hospitals, epileptic power supply, failing education—are neither the doing nor undoing of one man. Yet, at his death, the very people who helped build that flawed system brandished hashtags like flaming pitchforks, declaring their disdain for Buhari.

    Some called it speaking truth to power. But I call it performative rage. The self-proclaimed truth-tellers of social media recalled their pain under Buhari’s reign with poetic indignation. “We were in hell,” they cried, “and no one can tell us not to curse him in death!”

    What we witnessed wasn’t righteous anger, but a morbid exhibitionism; a dark joy over the demise of a man already diminished by time and illness. Their statements were phrased as bravery. But what I saw was the insecurity of a generation addicted to performance;  products of a culture that mistakes loudness for honesty, and vulgarity for courage.

    Read Also: NAFDAC confiscates 88,560 litres of bomb making acids in Kano

     Buhari wasn’t perfect. Neither was he a miracle. He was a man, fallible and finite, working with the implements available in the toolbox of a severely broken state. His government did not descend from outer space. It was born of our choices, our ideologies, our tribe-first, truth-last tendencies. And even now, long after his demise, we continue to mask our complicity behind critique.

    Perhaps because Buhari did not die a man. He died an effigy, scorched by the flames of national disillusionment. He was once the Apollo of our republic, fashioned into a figure of marble discipline and anti-corruption rage. The general returned, many thought, to drive out the Dionysian chaos of excess and impunity. He was the god we made in our hunger for form and order. When the sculpture cracked, and the wind of national suffering exposed the clay beneath the marble, we turned on him with a sculptor’s fury, and smashed our idol to pieces.

    Buhari did not ask for worship; we gave it freely. Then we withheld it cruelly. He was blamed for everything and praised for nothing. An all-powerful figure in our collective myth, omnipresent in failure, absent in success. We called him tyrant when we meant disciplinarian; we called him deaf when he did not echo our contradictions. We hated him as a god we could not command, not as a mortal with limitations. He became a totem that failed to perform magic.

    Those who will not mourn Buhari seek to punish him for not being a better version of who they are. But to blame Buhari alone for Nigeria’s rot is to mistake the statue for the temple. Every failing we heap upon his name is the fault of a million faceless hands. A woman dies in childbirth because the diesel meant to power the theatre generator was sold in the black market by hospital staff, and anesthesiologists were never employed because some hospital board member diverted their salary into his wife’s boutique.

    Death by terrorism, also, was often blamed on “Buhari’s failure” while we conveniently ignore how billions earmarked for defense vanish yearly in a maze of kickbacks and inflated contracts. Who exposes how state governors divert security votes, or how military generals and police chiefs profit from the chaos they are paid to contain? The rise of terror comprise a federal calamity and system-wide rot, from the state capital to the village checkpoint.

     Why blame Buhari for our collective inability to build a society that works? In mocking him, we seek to mask our own failures. Even  the mythical Greek gods, for all their fabled hauteur, never suffered such graceless vilification.

     Buhari’s silence was his boundary. His distance was his restraint. His refusal to seduce us with false eloquence was the very reason we once loved him. And now, it is why many revile him. It’s about time we looked inwards and stop pretending that each leader is our redeemer or our ruin. We must equally begin to hold accountable the desks and counters of every office where public trust is betrayed. We must teach our children to ask better questions, not just recite better slogans. Democracy is not a spectator sport. It demands participation, vigilance, and sacrifice.

     Nigeria’s problems, certainly, has many faces. Some smile at us in our mirrors every morning. Some sign contracts, forge receipts, sell hospital drugs, and vote for the highest bidder. The question is not whether Buhari failed us. It is whether we, as a people, ever gave him, and indeed, any leader, a working system to govern.

     The real demons walk among us: driving our ambulances late, hoarding power cables, doctoring school records, falsifying election results, stealing medical supplies, inflating military contracts, and forging government receipts. These are our anomalies and they are citizens. Until we confront them, Buhari will die again and again in different faces and different names.

    Yet, we must learn to treat our dead with dignity. Whether we liked Buhari or loathed him, his death is a national moment. A chance to reflect, not gloat. We owe ourselves the maturity of measured silence, the courage of critical introspection, and the grace to grieve, even when the deceased did not meet our expectations.

    For in the end, how we treat our dead says less about them and more about us.

    And right now, we are not looking very well.

  • Buhari’s place in history

    Buhari’s place in history

    By nature, besides our immediate families, we all belong to two groups- our cultural group and as membership of greater society. That we very often first gravitate towards our cultural group is natural because we are products of that culture. Therefore no one should be ashamed of being Igbo, Hausa/Fulani, Yoruba, and Ijaw Ibibio etc. The true test of leadership however is the capacity to break through this cultural barrier and still be fair to all in a multi-cultural and heterogeneous society. This critical test, many have argued, Buhari failed especially during his first coming as a military leader

     It was as if he had come to continue Uthman Dan Fodio, his great forbearer’s unfinished war against the Yoruba nation. He and Tunde Idiagbon, also Fulani, openly lied against Awolowo’s progressive governors of Edo, Ondo, Ogun and Lagos states claiming they confessed to receiving bribes. What happened was that some contractors made donations to the ruling UPN party. The donations were properly documented. And the proceeds were deployed by the governors to build universities, teaching hospitals and other social infrastructures in Edo, Ondo, Ogun and Lagos for the benefit of all Nigerians. But Buhari and Idiagbon went on to sentence  the old men to jail terms ranging from 100 years to 200 years with some of them becoming blind in prison.

    Wole Soyinka, the conscience of the nation was forced to observe that the Buhari coup was a coup against the opposition. First, the characters responsible for the collapse of the second republic were known. Obasanjo publicly admitted he aided the emergence of Shehu Shagari as president in 1979.  MKO Abiola, his fellow Egba kinsman and a business partner of some military leaders was one of those who wrecked the economy between 1999 and 1983 as a beneficiary of indiscriminate issuance of import license to import communication equipment that were never installed. To many, he was a man without moral compass who publicly admitted getting his American ITT chairman drunk to take over as chairman for Africa after sending his pathetic picture to ITT headquarters. The legendary Fela waxed a record about “ITT, international thief thief.”

    Buhari and his military junta could also not have pretended not to know those who rigged the 1983 election with the help of the likes of Walter Ofonagoro with crooked theory of “land and sea-slide victories’ in opposition strong holds “and those who in four years ran the economy aground despite Awolowo’s repeated warning that ‘the economic ship of state was heading towards the rocks’ and those who engaged in massive rigging of the 1983 election.

    Yet President Shagari on whose desk the buck stops was kept under a house arrest in Sokoto while Alex Ekwueme, his VP was in detention  and NPP and NPN coalition partners, who diverted secured foreign infrastructural loans  to setting up private banks and building new houses got away with a slap on the wrist.

    But in spite of Buhari’s failure in the above department, history will record him as a Nigerian patriot who, unlike his illustrious forebears including the revered Uthman dan Fodio, Ahmadu Bello and his fellow nationalists, Nnamdi Azikiwe and Obafemi Awolowo, chose from age 19 to fight and defend the integrity of Nigerian state and remained faithful until his death at 81 last week. Indeed with the exception of Herbert Macaulay who died in the north mobilising Nigerians against the British, long before independence, there is no record of any other Nigerian leader that set out at dawn to defend the integrity of the nation.

    In this regard, let us take a brief journey through recent history.

    Uthman Dan Fodio never pretended to be a Nigerian. He is remembered more as a revered Islamic scholar who following the murder of his host, King Yunfa of Gobir, employed the services of Benue and Plateau professional mercenaries, to carry out a jihad among the Hausa states between 1804 and 1808. He thereafter shared the spoils of war as emirates among his children and brothers.

    While Buhari enjoyed cult life followership among ordinary poor northerners, Ahmadu Bello was a feudal lord who enjoyed the loyalty of his serfs. He never pretended to be a Nigerian. In fact in 1950, he gave the condition for the north to remain part of Nigeria. Between 1960 and 62, he was involved in controversial northernisation policy which saw to the exit of over 2000 Igbo and British expatriates workers from the northern bureaucracy. He was always referring to the 1914 amalgamation of the north and south as the “mistake of 1914”.

    Awolowo said “in spite of his protestation to the contrary, Azikiwe himself was an Ibo jingoist” who gave the game completely away when he, as president of Ibo State Union formed in 1943 declared “it will appear the God of Africa has specifically created the Ibo nation to lead Africa from bondage of all ages”. But when in 1948, the Yoruba intelligentsia after their 16 years Yoruba war with the launching of Egbe Omo Oduduwa in Lagos (not Onitsha or Enugu), Zik’s West African Pilot declared war  “against the Egbe Omo Oduduwa leaders at home, and abroad, uphill and down dale in the streets of Nigeria and residences of its leaders with Zikist youths in the manner of today’s ‘Obidients’ attacking the persons and properties of leaders like Sir Adeyemo Alakija, Dr Akinola Maja, Sir Kofo Abayomi, Bode Thomas and others.

    Chief Awolowo along with his lieutenants SL Akintola, Bode Thomas, Adekunle Ajasin etc. were foremost Nigerian nationalists and federalists. While their world view is “wanting the best for others as they want for themselves”, they never believed any other culture was superior to their Yoruba culture in Nigeria. It was on account of this they came up with regionalism, which they claimed will prevent the nation from being ruled by one-eyed king.

    Read Also: Nigeria’s rebased GDP hits 3.13 percent in Q1 2025

    Buhari was the only Nigerian who set out at dawn to protect the unity of Nigeria. At 19, he was indoctrinated to march from Makurdi to Enugu believing he was fighting a war to keep Nigeria united when in fact the war was initially between the Hausa Fulani and Igbo. At 21, his commitment to the Nigerian nation became only consolidated when the Igbo rebels rather than confront their attackers from the northern front, chose to overrun Benin where they appointed an Igbo administrator.

    Then they entered the West through Ore with eyes on Lagos whose administrator, Emeka Ojukwu arrogantly declared he would appoint after its pacification. In fact, Obasanjo was to admit it was the Biafra misadventure that turned the table against the Igbos with Yoruba youths joining the military in droves to meet the shortfall of less than 50 Yoruba foot soldiers on January 16 1966 when Igbo and Hausa Fulani soldiers turned our historic cities of Ibadan, Abeokuta and Lagos to cities of blood and pain.

    During his first coming in 1983, there was no doubt Buhari fell fighting on behalf of Nigeria. His rejection of IMF loan including devaluation of naira, opening of our market to labour of other societies, removal of fuel subsidy and stoppage of importation of wheat and attracted the IBB-CIA sponsored palace coup that led to his incarceration for three years while IBB fulfilled IMF demand that landed us in today’s economic quagmire.

    He tried to return to power in 2003, 2007 and 2011 all ending in heroic failures. He wept publicly for Nigeria he loved dearly. But Tinubu brought him back from political retirement and saw to the actualization of his dream in 2015.

    Before he took over in 2015, former CBN governor, Chukwuma Soludo, and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the Jonathan finance minister admitted Jonathan administration was borrowing money to pay salaries with both predicting a dire economic future.

    His inability to take hard decisions in order not to hurt his cult-like followership led to the near collapse of the economy with some of his trusted appointees like CBN’s Godwin Emefiele engaged in printing of over N30 trillion in ways and means while he and his friends smiled to the bank through foreign currency round tripping. Unfortunately, his social intervention initiatives, by far the largest in the history of the nation, could not stand against hard economic laws.

    As President Tinubu and many others have said in their tribute, Buhari’s good intentions were never in doubt. Buhari, the author of ‘Nigerians have no other country to call their own’, who selflessly fought for the most vulnerable Nigerians will forever live in the hearts of millions who saw him as incorruptible.

    I am not sure we can say that of many of his contemporaries.

  • Death and the Mai Gaskiya

    Death and the Mai Gaskiya

    Mai Gaskiya ne; Mai Gaskiya ne, the crowd roared and roared as the convoy of vehicles screeched to a halt on one of his campaign trails in the north. Of course, you guessed right. The roaring crowd, made up of the masses, was hailing none other than General Muhammadu Buhari. Mai Gaskiya, the honest one, was an appellation that stuck to him like a second skin until his death five days ago. Buhari died in London on Sunday and was buried in his Daura hometown in Katsina State on Tuesday. Buhari was a crowd puller in the north, especially among the talakawa, the hoi poloi, that never got a second look from many other politicians, except at election time.

    Buhari had time for them all the time. He was at home with the poor, the vulnerable and the downtrodden. Buhari did not just happen on the political scene.  Long before his foray into politics, he was a military general known for his ruthlessness. His tough reputation preceded his coming into office in 1983 as military head of state, following the ouster of the Shagari government. His first coming as the nation’s leader is remembered till today because of his relentless war against indiscipline, corruption, and drug abuse.

     He ruled with fiat like all military dictators, sending people to jail and death, even before prosecution! He jokingly referred to this era in one of his rare interviews as civilian President. Buhari rued that he could not rule with such iron fists in a democratic setting no matter how strongly he felt about certain issues. Things must follow due process and cannot be done with ‘automatic alacrity’ a’la the military. He ruled with decrees, churning them out at a frightening rate that made the public shiver. The more famous ones were Decrees 2, 3 and 4.

    Decree 2 was for the detention of persons for eternity until the junta decides otherwise ; Decree 3 established the military tribunals under which many Second Republic politicians were tried and jailed for donkey years for corruption; and Decree 4 was the anti-media law that punished practitioners even for publishing the truth. Tunde Thompson and Nduka Irabor had a bitter taste of  Decree 4. Many Nigerians, save for the talakawa, who saw themselves in him because of his asceticism, never forgave him for his deeds between 1984 and August 1985 when he held office as military ruler.

    His deputy, Tunde Idiagbon, was not different. They were two of a kind. And the duo struck fear into Nigerians. Buhari took a big gamble when he decided to go into politics, some years ago. Does he think we have forgotten what he did as military ruler? Is that what he wants to come and replicate as President? President ko, President ni. The questions and remarks came in torrents. Amid the umbrage, he took the plunge, pitching his tent with the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP). To the political class, Buhari was an outsider to be kept at arm’s length. They could not give him the cold shoulder for long, though, because he was ‘a man of the people’.

    There is nothing more that politicians crave than to have such a man in their corner. With Buhari on their side, his party members were sure that they would get block votes from the north. The question was: will his much-touted 12 million votes be enough to get him the Presidency? It was a poser that they could not answer during three election cycles spanning 2003 to 2011. Buhari was always sweeping the polls in the north, making mincemeats of his opponents, leaving them with little or no votes in the presidential elections of 2003, 2007 and 2011. His talakawa again and again delivered the votes in those polls, as he emerged as the north’s top politician since the days of Sir Ahmadu Bello, Mallam Aminu Kano, and Prime Minister Abubakar Tafawa Balewa. A new northern leader has risen, but the handshake across the Southwest that would give him the Presidency was elusive. He needed that handshake badly in order to cross the presidential finish line.  

    In 2014, the handshake that will shake the foundation of the nation finally took place when Buhari joined forces with President Bola Tinubu. Tinubu was then the leader of the Action Congress of Nigera (ACN), while Buhari was the stalwart of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC). With the rumps of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) and ANPP from which Buhari had carved out CPC, the two political titans built the All Progressives Congress (APC). APC created a major political upset, the first in the country’s annals when it defeated the incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan of PDP.

    Read Also: Buhari’s death a major loss to Nigeria, Africa, says Shettima 

    From then on, Buhari’s political fortunes changed. After three attempts, he finally made it to the Presidency. All eyes were now on him as he succeeded Jonathan at a time of great anxiety. The challenges were legion. Insecurity and the economic doldrums were the major issues. With his military background, Buhari was expected to tame the monster of banditry, terrorism and kidnapping. With some states and local government areas in the hands of Boko Haram, he was expected to move with haste to liberate those territories. After all, he did so before as a military officer.

    When shortly after assuming office, he said he was relocating to Maiduguri, the Borno State capital, which remains the epicentre of Boko Haram insurgency, a troubled nation hoped that at last, the troublers of Nigeria had met their match. Buhari was a veteran of such battles. As general officer commanding (GOC) in the Second Republic, he pursued members of the Maitatsine sect who wreaked havoc on Kaduna out of the country. Even when asked to stop by his commander-in-chief, he reportedly did not relent until he achieved his goal. Since then, the Maitatsinists seem to have learnt a lesson. Why did he not do the same to Boko Haram? Some analysts have asked, claiming that there is no difference between both sects

    They also question his economic credentials. There is a reason or reasons for every season and epoch in every country. Some leaders attain geat heights in certain seasons, while others do not. Buhari might have had his shortcomings, but he had a good heart. Good heart may not be enough to run a nation, but it is enough to chart the path for others to follow. Buhari led to the best of his ability. He remained true to himself to the end. People around him may have capitalised on his simplicity and his health challenge to commit all kinds of atrocities in the name of governance. He might have found out too late also that politicians ose nu enu fun (politicians cannot be trusted) as the Yoruba will say.

    Governance is no tea party. Buhari knew that well having been a military ruler earlier. But as he later learnt, democracy is a different ball game. He might have been overwhelmed by the art of nation building, but his concerns for a united and indivisible Nigeria where the people, especially his beloved talakawa live a good life, were true and genuine. Little wonder that the heavens themselves blazed forth his exit. Adieu, Mai Gaskiya.

  • Trump’s humiliation of some African presidents

    Trump’s humiliation of some African presidents

    Some opponents of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu of Nigeria had been jubilating that President Donald John Trump of the United States of America snubbed Nigeria by not inviting him along with the presidents of Gabon, Guinea – Bissau, Senegal, Mauritania and Liberia  even before they knew the subject of the discussion.

    Thank God Nigeria was not invited because if we had been invited and talked down the insulting way these presidents were treated, our president would not have been able to return home either with honour or dishonour. Nigerians would have been so upset by such a humiliation meted to these presidents that our claim to sovereign nationhood would have meant nothing and the honour of an independent sovereignty that our fathers fought for would have been seen to have been dragged in the mud and stepped upon by somebody who feels black people were nothing but hewers of wood and drawers of water.

    When I saw those black leaders standing before Trump in the White House as specimens of inferiority, I remember what Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana used to say to Africans in my youth that it was better to be kings in our African independent countries which critics of African countries said were being poorly run, than being slaves in the paradise of colonial tutelage of white-ruled African countries which were presented as heaven on earth. It has now transpired that the American administration is looking for land for dumping immigrants rejected from America. In the case of Nigeria, we had apparently been approached to take Venezuelans described by Trump as murderers, rapists, robbers and rogues. The man must love us and wish us so well that these are the types of exports America thinks we deserve. As respectfully and diplomatically as it was possible, Nigeria had told the Americans that we have our own problems at home and would not like to add to them. The five countries of Gabon, Senegal, Guinea-Bissau, Senegal, and Mauritania must have told the Americans that they were prepared to help America solve its domestic problems of getting rid of its unwanted immigrant population which had become a population bomb in the USA.

    Perhaps if we had been represented at the highest level of having an ambassador in the USA, the Americans would have been told that Nigeria would not accept any of the immigrants Trump was looking for a place to dump and that Nigeria was not that type of a country that would accept rejects from another country and that Nigeria was poor but not poorly insane.

    I don’t know why after two years, President Tinubu has found it inconvenient to send ambassadors to all countries that Nigeria has accreditation. This kind of subject would have been discussed at official ambassadorial levels and sorted out and would not have been elevated to presidential level. I plead with our president to fill all ambassadorial positions not only for the purpose of adequate representation and raising the flag, but for the traditional role of ambassadors in the promotion of trade and political relations. The real fact is that Nigeria is not a strategic country to the United States. We had chance to be strategic to the United States but the old-fashioned diplomats who surrounded Aso Rock between 1999 and 2015 blew the chance when the USA approached us with locating the African command in Nigeria and we said a flat “No” when we could have answered in the affirmative but attached conditions to it such as helping us to develop Nigeria‘s navy and air force comparable with that of Egypt and promoting considerable American investment in our military and industrial complex.  If we had been in a strategic position as we were when in the 1970s and 1980s when we supplied the USA with considerable amount of petroleum and gas, they would not have insulted us with asking us to take immigrants from Latin America.

    Trump is used to humiliating African countries. Recently he brought the presidents of Rwanda and the Congo DR and virtually locked them in the White House and gleefully announced to the journalists assembled in the White House lawn that he has two African presidents who had been fighting for about two decades and who had listened to nobody about peace but to him to settle their problems and had listened to him, a global peace maker and were making peace at his instance. Then later, he produced the grinning African leaders who claimed they were ready to sign a peace agreement. The following day, the Congo president said he was ready to alienate vast amount of land to American companies to prospect for all kinds of strategic minerals. It is this kind of freehand in Africa that led him to decide which African countries he would invite to be shown to the world grovelling before him and ending by nominating him for the Nobel peace prize which any reasonable person knows would be a kiss of death for the Nobel organization at least in the peace category.

    Read Also: Buhari’s death a major loss to Nigeria, Africa, says Shettima 

    Looking at the weak African countries invited, one can identify commonalities among them. They are all small countries population-wise. Gabon is just about one million and Guinea-Bissau is even less. Senegal, Liberia and Mauritania are in the region of between 15 and 20 million and these figures are by world and African standards, relatively small and they are all by economic standards, poor countries. Some people have suggested that they constitute countries from where immigrants flood the United States. That is not true. Gabon and Guinea-Bissau do not fit that picture. Senegal and Liberia have large diaspora communities in the USA and there are historical ties between Liberia and United States because the founding of Liberia in 1847 was by liberated African slaves. As for Mauritania, there are very few people from Mauritania in the USA. The only reason why Mauritania was included was to elevate Mauritania to the level of the Arab states that have established diplomatic ties with Israel. Bringing the dirt-poor Mauritania into the American orbit serves as a link with those Arab countries establishing ties with Israel.

    The other foreign dimension for us in Nigeria is that four of the five countries are members of ECOWAS – namely Senegal, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia and Mauritania. The most surprising one of these countries is Senegal which has just elected a left wing government and had just closed down French military base in the country or perhaps they are looking for replacement for France because of the economic implications of the closure of the French military base. Gabon on the other hand has natural resources and is rich in oil, timber and other minerals and has a small population which if well run, should be a viable and stable country.

    Nigeria needs to interrogate why countries in ECOWAS would take humiliating steps that could embarrass them and the region and Africa without first discussing it at the regional level and intimating Nigeria that had invested human and material resources in their stability. These are difficult questions to ask ourselves about non-diplomatic representation even at regional level if not at the global level. If we have had full functioning embassies with relevant intelligence officers, information would have reached our government about what the United States was going to be asking African states to do; we would have been in a position to influence the reaction of other African states at least those in our region because when an African state is embarrassed, we are all humiliated a little even if not directly but at least vicariously.