The Nation Newspaper

Category: Thursday

Beyond agenda setting

By vowing “to root out corruption, revive the economy and defeat the Islamist Boko Haram insurgency” in the run up to the 2015 presidential elections, candidate Buhari did what most veteran politicians do – promising miracles. He nearly got away with his ambitious agenda along with other successes in the areas of agriculture, infrastructural developments and taking the country out of recession but for the massive unemployment of our youths and his mishandling of the herdsmen-farmers crisis. Even at that, he defended his performance by reminding his critics that “judging by the prior depth of decay, deterioration and disrepair that Nigeria had sunken into, foundational work which is not often visible, is vital to achieving the kind of country we desire”. He insisted his administration has “laid the foundations for a strong, stable and prosperous country for the majority of our people.” Not many objective Nigerians including those who solidly voted against him in 2019 will disagree with his claim except that such achievements have no effect on our crisis of nationality.

For the 2019 election, a more confident President Buhari promised even more miracles with his five point agenda designed ‘to take the people to the next level’. To solve the country’s unemployment crisis put at 18.8 per cent, he had said N-Power would engage one million graduates and will also “skill up 10 million people under a voucher system in partnership with private sector.” He also promised an “Anchor Borrowers’ programme to support input and jobs to one million farmers; Livestock Transformation Plan to create 1.5 million jobs along dairy, beef, hide and skin, blood meal, crops; and agriculture mechanisation policy with tractors and processors to create 5 million jobs.” He gave an undertaking to provide $500 million in funding for the tech and creative industry to create 500,000 jobs and train 200,000 youths for outsourcing market in technology, services and entertainment; ‘300,000 extra jobs’ for vendors and farmers by increasing the number of children fed under the school feeding programme from 9.2 million to 15 million.”

The President promised more. Roads, rail, power, and the Internet, marked to be treated as ‘a critical infrastructure’. He would complete the Lagos – Ibadan-Kano Rail, Eastern Rail (Port-Harcourt-Maiduguri) taking the network through Aba, all Southeast state capitals, Makurdi, Jos, Bauchi and Gombe, and the Coastal Rail (Lagos-Calabar).

He will create regional industrial parks and special economic zones, and “Next Level of 109 Special Production and Processing Centres (SPPCs) to spur production and value additive processing (as well as) tractors and processors plan in each senatorial district.

To facilitate business and entrepreneurship among market women, there would be ‘people moni bank’, ‘entrepreneurship bank’, easing business process, and MSMEs clinics”.

And still promises of more miracles: “Through renewable, clean energy sources such as solar, he wants to ‘energise’ universities and up to 300 markets across the country to have an uninterrupted power supply. “A minimum of 1,000 MW new generation incremental power capacity per annum on the grid; distribution to get to 7,000 MW under distribution expansion programme”.

“Every child counts will make our students digitally literate in science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics,” and “all teachers will be retrained to deliver digital literacy”. The president further vows 10,000 schools per year will be remodeled and equipped.

The season of agenda-setting is a season of blind faith by a nation of miracle seekers. How can we be anything else with the number of prosperity prophets in our midst, exceeding those recorded in both the old and new testaments, according to Robert Mugabe? Instead of interrogating how these miracles will be achieved within such a short period, even the president’s yesterday political foes are now trying to outdo the president supporters as to who sets for him the most ambitious agenda. Halting its five years hostility, Raymond Dokpesi’s African Independent Television (AIT) wants him to “address the unholy act of kidnapping, assassination, robbery and political thuggery” all of which according to it, ‘have negative effects on national growth’. Battle-weary Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), wants him to fulfill promises because “undertakings represent social contracts that must be kept and delivered for the improvement of lives and well-being of the down-trodden”. The Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI), wants the president to commit his administration .to “policies and programmes that would accelerate economic growth and ensure that the growth rate surpass the rate of population growth.”

The Centre for Petroleum, Energy, Economics and Law (CPEEL), wants him “to look at the privatisation agreement especially the Electric Power Sector Reform Act of 2005, if we must ensure the energy sector supports growth in the Nigerian economy”. The Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) wants him to find solution to the labeling of Nigeria as “the poverty capital of the world” by tackling our economic challenges”. Guild of Public Affairs Analysts of Nigeria (GPAAN), wants him to focus “on the imperative of restructuring of the polity away from the bloated centre” as well as ensuring his appointment to reflect federal character. The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) wants the president commitment on “judicial corruption, the establishment of special anti-corruption courts and removal of immunity for president, vice president, state governors and deputy governors.

And finally, Ahmed Raji, (SAN), wants the president to ‘have a rethinking on the contentious issue of restructuring’ because according to him, the major problems of corruption and terrorism confronting Nigeria today are products of bad structure and model of government wondering how any leader can effectively fight corruption in a society where a contestant to the office of governor spends an average of N5 billion on the election”.

Unfortunately, President Buhari’s ‘next level’ miracles and those of the agenda setters will not save us from ourselves. Our problem is more of politics than economics. Those who truly have faith in Nigeria know 80 percent of our self-inflicted crises will disappear if President Buhari and other stakeholders in the Nigerian project have the political will to address our crisis of nationality.

After 30 years of failed military social engineering efforts and 20 years of failed ‘mainstreaming attempt by military-baked ‘new breed’ politicians, we are as divided today as we were before the civil war. The pattern of voting, violence and the acrimonies in the ongoing elections are manifestations of our crisis of nationality. The Ijaw nation is as resilient in their quest for self-actualisation today as they were when Isaac Boro first led an armed insurrection against the state in the early days of independence. The Bantus of Benue valley are as determined for self-actualization as their forbearers who refused to be treated as slaves by Fulani empire builders before and after independence. The lost secession war by the Igbo nation has only intensified their struggle for self-actualization within the greater Nigerian nation.

Liberation of groups and individuals from the tyranny of the state cannot be achieved through miracles, deceit or attempt to take advantage of others but through genuine commitment to nation-building. President Buhari is a very lucky Nigerian. His re-election in spite of the conspiracy of all the elements – age, failing health, mischievous Generals, errant elders; Christians without the spirit of Christ, cannot now be about miracles and battles he was prevented from waging even when he had the energy in the 1980s. I think the re-election provides him an historic opportunity to write his name in gold by serving as an honest arbiter in the resolution of the national question, just as the British did during our 1957 London Constitutional Conference.

March 14, 2019
A time for everything

THE elections are over, but the fallout will linger. For some, the elections went as expected, for others, things did not quite go their way. Before the elections, the contenders and the pretenders had high hopes. They spoke confidently of winning, even where the pretenders knew they stood no chance. Elections are an open contest – where freely contested. Where they are not, anything can happen

Where they are open and transparent, the strong stand the risk of losing and this was what happened in some places. Did giants fall in these elections? They fell flatly on their faces. The election lived up to its name in many villages, towns and cities where the people turned against those hitherto seen as their benefactors.

The elections were a contest between the strong and the weak. The weak were those who got to power with the help of some so-called godfathers, the strong men of politics in their areas of influence. In a state or two, the godfathers knew that they were up against the people who had served them for years. Three states typify the fall of some political titans during these elections.

Kwara, Benue and Akwa Ibom were states under the control of three strong political figures – Senate President Bukola Saraki and former Senate Minority leaders George Akume and Godswill Akpabio. The Saraki family held Kwara in its palm for over 40 years. The Saraki political dynasty was built by the late Dr Olusola Saraki, the Senate leader in the Second Republic. He made and unmade governors in the state until he died in 2012. He handed over the political baton to two of his children Bukola and Gbemisola.

But the siblings have been at war since Bukola kicked against their father’s decision to make his sister a governor in 2011. They have yet to settle that rift, eight years after the 2011 governorship election. So, when the O To Ge (Enough is enough) Movement started few months ago, Gbemi saw it as an opportunity to pay his elder brother back in his own coin. Make no mistake about it, the O To Ge Movement is not about Bukola as a person, it is about the Saraki political dynasty that he heads. The dynasty which many Kwarans today claimed has further pauperised them instead of taking them out of poverty. The movement is a campaign against what its proponents call their enslavement by the Sarakis for 41 years.

They claimed to have served the Sarakis diligently for years, without anything to show for it. With the help of Gbemi and Information Minister Alhaji Lai Mohammed, among others, the people ended the Sarakis’ reign in Kwara. What analysts do not understand is why Gbemi teamed up with his brothers opponents to break the Saraki dynasty when she is a Saraki herself.

Gbemi may not be the face of the O To Ge Movement, but she played a prominent role in the fall of the Saraki dynasty. Is that what she really wants? I do not think so. What Gbemi wants is to cut his brother to size and she has succeeded by helping to dethrone him as the strong man of Kwara politics, a position their father held until he died seven years ago.

Can Gbemi ride on the back of the movement to political power herself? For now, nobody can say.

In Benue and Akwa Ibom, Akume and Akpabio were the lords of the manor until their political fortunes changed. As governors of their respective states at different times, they worked tirelessly for the development of Benue and Akwa Ibom. The people compensated them by sending them to the Senate after their tenure. Then came their defection from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the All Progressives Congress (APC), also at different times. Akume’s defection went down well with his people in 2014. But that of Akpabio scared many in Akwa Ibom who saw his defection as bad omen for the governor. Akume installed Governor Samuel Ortom in 2015, but they fell apart before the March 9 poll. Akpabio also made Governor Udom Emmanuel his successor in 2015, but his defection last year, raised fears about the governor’s reelection bid. But the elections have put a lie to these men’s acclaimed political clout. They lost their bid to return to the Senate and failed to win the governorship for APC in their states. Will they bounce back or have Emmanuel and Ortom become the new strong men of Akwa Ibom and Benue politics? Time will tell.

He flew away too soon

HIS kind is rare to come by. Young, sharp and unassuming, Pius Adesanmi was a Nigerian that made other Nigerians proud in any part of the world. He held his ground among his peers and his elders. He spoke with candour and his brilliance shone. This brilliant young man, as you must be aware, died on Sunday in the Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 Max 8 plane crash. He was going on another intellectual mission when he died. Adesanmi’s literary mind was something else. It was simply out of this world A teacher and scholar, he wrote and spoke with his eyes on the future. He was not a seer, but he had the gift of one. His writings mirrored his thinking. It was as if he knew his time was short on earth. Even before he boarded the ill-fated plane, he wrote about being held in the right hand of God if he flew away, quoting Psalms 139 : 8 – 9.

•The late Adesanmi

About six years ago, he wrote in that uncanny manner of his how he would like to be remembered after his passage. “Here lies Pius Adesanmi who tried as much as he could to put his talent in the service of humanity and flew away home one bright morning when his work was done”. True to his prediction, he flew away in the morning at about 08.44 Ethiopian time, which was 01.44 Nigerian time. But was his work done? Methinks, he still had much to offer. But we cannot query God. May he find rest in the Lord’s bosom.

March 14, 2019
Notes on Elections 2019

I have always been intrigued by the fecundity of an average Nigerian’s mind. Every situation is an opportunity for creativity.

The elections may not have been the ideal that we all strive to attain, people may have died (unnecessarily because an election is not a war), giants may have been humbled and hobbled, wrong choices may have been made and relationships that took many years to build may have been shredded, yet many will agree that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) put in so much to ensure a smooth exercise. It has been rough in some areas, not because INEC did not play its role, but the Nigerian factor threw in its usual intrigues.

By March 23, it will all be over – hopefully. And the battle will shift to the tribunals where the disputes will eventually be settled. What will not be in dispute is the hilarity of the situation, courtesy of our compatriots’ ability to see a window of humour in every situation, no matter how dark.

An NGO was campaigning that the electorate should vote wisely. “Some Nigerians went to their polling units looking for wisely on the ballot boxes,” a fellow said the other day. Another was wondering why the President reportedly lost in the polling units around the Villa. “Yes; that is very simple; corruption is fighting back. Who are the people living in this area? How have they been affected by Buhari’s policies and style of governance? These are the questions to ask,” said yet another fellow.

As the collation and announcement of results dragged on, somebody suggested that INEC should announce results for only the two leading parties – the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). The others, he said, should buy scratch cards to check their results on the INEC website. INEC, being not that business inclined, did not consider the suggestion, let alone table it before the parties.

The social media was alive. When it was rumoured that former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s candidate Atiku Abubakar lost in the polling unit where the former president voted, he was said to have smiled and retorted churlishly: “Am I contesting; wetin be my own? If Atiku lose nko? Dat na im toro, naim sabi.”

It is heartwarming to know that PDP Chairman Uche Secondus has been at the vanguard of the battle to reclaim what he and his candidate believe is their stolen mandate, marching on INEC and threatening to go to court. Some morbid analysts had suggested that Secondus should fulfil his promise to die should Atiku lose the election. They suggested that if Secondus could summon the courage to commit hara-kiri, the PDP secretariat should be named after him as a mark of honour for a man who sacrificed it all for a noble party. But when will the PDP complete the building of the edifice?

That, to me is unfair. Should Secondus be asked to fall on his sword just because Atiku lost? How about the other godfathers, those who swore – and worked as if it was their final assignment here – that Buhari will go? Obasanjo was speculated to have left Nigeria for good after Buhari won the election. I am happy to report that the former president is back, rambunctious as ever. He has threatened to continue to lash Buhari. He will surely be angry enough to.

Buhari has promised to find out what happened to the $16b that allegedly went down the drain in our desperate search for electricity during the Obasanjo Presidency. Just before the probe, may I report that Obasanjo once said whoever was looking for the cash should go to the ports where the equipment imported for the projects were lying abandoned. He was later to admit that about $6.5b went into the project. But will Buhari stop asking: “Where is the power?”

When the Ibadan spiritualist, the self-styled “perfect living master” advised Atiku not to contest his loss in court, lawyers were up in arms against him. They grumbled that when soothsayers, necromancers and futurists descended on the Atiku Project, no lawyer complained. Now, said the learned men, when it is their turn to do business with the PDP and its candidate, he is being advised to smoke the peace pipe with Buhari. One lawyer, I learnt, was already compiling papers to sue on behalf of his fellow SANs for an express enforcement of their fundamental rights to encourage their client to launch a legal battle. Thankfully, there will be no such dispute anymore. Atiku has assembled a team of lawyers who have been working to ensure that he retrieves his “mandate”.

Talking about Atiku’s mandate, a cheeky colleague sent me what was obviously a mischievous cartoon the other day. There is an Atiku effigy watching with deep interest a woman’s heavy back side. The woman is wearing a tight pair of jeans trousers, with the buttocks threatening to burst out of the enclosure into which they have been forced. The caption: “Ah! I have found where APC and Buhari have hidden my mandate.” Thankfully, our women’s rights activists did not notice the drawing; we would have been battling to quench the fire and fury of women who will be demanding apologies from all those sharing the offensive drawing on the social media. They would have been asking: “Is a woman’s backside now the vault for a stolen mandate?”

There is also the picture of Governors Rochas Okorocha (Imo) and Ibikunle Amosun (Ogun), dejected, rejected and depressed. Sober. The caption: “See the demigods of yesterday.” Amosun’s trade mark long cap is also pictured lying on a table with the caption: “Here lies a monument to self-conceit and the Samson’s Syndrome.” Apparently, the writer was referring to His Excellency’s failed battle to install a successor of his choice. APC’s Dapo Abiodun won the election.

Okorocha has been through hell in a bid to make his in-law Uche Nwosu succeed him. APC Chairman Adams Oshiomhole accused him of erecting a monarchy. Many of his close allies felt the idea of his in-law mounting the saddle after him was nauseating; they jumped ship. His Excellency joined the senatorial race. The speculation was that the electorate punished him by voting for his opponents.

Suddenly, the ballot was shoved aside for the bullet – so goes the story – and the Returning Officer announced Okorocha as winner. INEC kicked. It refused to recognise His Excellency’s dramatic victory. The Returning Officer said he announced Okorocha winner under duress. Nwosu is crying like a baby whose new toy has been grabbed by an unconscionable elderly man. He said he was robbed in the governorship race. PDP’s Emeka Ihedioha has been basking in the euphoria of his victory at the polls.

Okorocha had been quiet since he was stripped of the trophy. He recovered from the hangover of the INEC shocker yesterday to tell the electoral umpire that it has no power to hold on to his certificate of return. Some of his kinsmen, who would not understand the sobriety of the situation, stormed Owerri, the state capital, and maliciously pulled down one of those statues for which the city has been famous. “No more Okorocha’s erection,” they were screaming.

In Cross River, Prof. Ben Ayade has been celebrating his victory. He has promised that by the time he will be leaving office, the state will be competing with Lagos. That is the spirit.

Talking about celebration, a colleague yesterday sent me a video of some young women cat walking into an expansive sitting room. They all look like beauty pageant participants getting set for a parade – rotund buttocks in bum shorts, short skirts, big eyeglasses, eye shadows, eyelashes and high heels. They are obviously excited as they wave “hi” to some boys in the room. The caption: “See heavy materials. They have just arrived government house for His Excellency’s victory party.” The scene – somewhere in the Niger Delta. The guests – likely flown in from South Africa, going by those unmistakable hips, according to a colleague who would rather argue about the identities of the governor’s guests. No need to guess.

Viva democracy.

…And the Word of the Week

SUPPLEMENTARY elections will be held on March 23 to determine who should get the prize in the governorship elections in six states where the polls have been declared “inconclusive”. For the exercise are Adamawa, Bauchi, Kano, Plateau, Sokoto and Benue. Interesting.

Some are blaming it on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). That isn’t fair. INEC did not ask politicians to organise thugs who snatched ballot boxes and disrupted the process. Results were either shredded or mutilated, not by INEC, but by unscrupulous politicians and their agents. Ad hoc staff were abducted — by INEC? Of course, no.

Now, the most popular word in town is “inconclusive”. It has become a subject of jokes everywhere. Cartoonists are not left out. I saw one on Tuesday in a newspaper. A man relaxing on a chair asks his son about his report sheet. He presents it and the man goes through. He discovers that mathematics is omitted and asks the son why the subject is not listed. The youngster replies: “The teacher has declared the exam inconclusive.”

March 14, 2019
Justice in the crypt

Chthonian vigour becomes the fetish of the legal profession. Or whatever is left of it.

The logic and rigour of the Rule of Law incinerate in the searing crust of venal rites. No thanks to the corrupt lawyer and jurist.

The synthesis of their articulated and unarticulated sinful lusts is of enormous consequence. Justice now subsists as monetised and politicised privilege.

The gross and barbaric proliferates within the judiciary and the legal profession because men and women with the character of the dung-beetle and the carabid are deified as gems and cultural touchstones.

While the corruptible jurist presides as minister of judicial decay, the venal lawyer, flaunting the finesse of the carabid, splashes and wades in the judicial bath of dissolution.

Integrity is exorcised. Duplicity is internalised. The system dissembles because it has been compromised and bonded to a leash of cash, by unrepentant occults.

If the laws could speak for themselves, they would complain of the lawyers in the first place, argues Edward Wood aka Lord Halifax.

And speaking to the nub of the legal profession’s deathly rally, French dramatist and writer, Jean Giraudoux, states, that, “There’s no better way of exercising the imagination than the study of law. No poet ever interpreted nature as freely as a lawyer interprets the truth.”

The corrupt lawyer would misappropriate the first sentence of his paragraph and pay no heed to the second part. Perhaps because he is a creature of forgettable parts. Call it selective adoption or adaptation. I would call it the insolence of intelligence; the blooming of brawn and perverse intellect.

The malady persists where a supposedly brilliant, connected, legal luminary wields his passion and intellect, as the political goon or assassin would, a machete and gun, at a price.

Many a poor, ordinary client, who hires an ‘unconnected’ lawyer in pursuit of justice often suffers the treatment of the adulterous widow, who hires her lover cum husband’s murderer to protect her from the ire of vengeful in-laws.

This is perhaps an extreme take on the value of the lawyer to the justice system as there are a few good lawyers, who have committed their professional lives to equity and justice. These people are not the target of this article, but the maleficent band, masquerading as truth-seekers and legal activists.

Just recently, the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) reportedly issued a query to Aliyu Umar (SAN), the prosecutor of the suspended Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Walter Onnoghen, in the ongoing trial of the latter, at the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT), for taking up the brief.

The NBA, in the February 12, 2019 query accuses Umar of professional misconduct for accepting the brief and the query has triggered discord along the north-south divide following an alleged secret move to de-robe and delist Umar as a lawyer because the NBA demanded a copy of his Call to Bar certificate.

Some lawyers are of the opinion that the NBA issued the query in response to a petition filed against Umar. How convenient? To the litany of arguments and counter-arguments trailing the NBA’s combative disposition to the Federal Government’s prosecution of the former CJN, I find a worthy retort in prominent lawyer and human rights activist, Femi Falana (SAN)’s take on the nation’s legal system.

In an interview with The Punch’s Gbenro Adeoye, published on October 22, 2016, Falana says: “For ideological reasons, I have always had enemies in the legal profession. I am not bothered because some of the NBA leaders are not defending judges but themselves. When I was working with the late Comrade Alao Aka-Bashorun, who is rated as the best NBA president so far, the NBA did not address press conferences to declare a state of emergency, whatever that means. If judges were harassed or lawyers were detained, the NBA leaders would meet the Attorney-General or President of a country to find out the basis of any arrest.

“Aka-Bashorun did that in Nigeria, Togo and Ghana. In 1987, Aka-Bashorun mobilised 270 lawyers to defend the late Gani Fawehinmi. He was fighting a very corrupt military junta. When the same military dictators later charged some of us with treasonable felony, the NBA also defended us.

“At that time, the NBA never mobilised 90 lawyers to defend any lawyer charged with corrupt practices…The human rights committees of the NBA were mobilised to challenge the violation of the human rights of the Nigerian people.

“I am only asking the NBA to return to the glorious era of defending popular causes. But I cannot be part of the NBA if it goes around assembling scores of lawyers to appear for other lawyers when they are charged with bribing judges. If you organise a press conference to issue threats over the arrest of judges accused of corruption, you simply parade the NBA as a pro-corruption society.”

Although Falana’s take on NBA’s complicity was issued in response to a separate incident, it no doubt suffices against the volley of expletives and righteous vituperation issued by the NBA and certain self-appointed judicial activists, in condemnation of Onnoghen’s trial.

For the records, Onnoghen was suspended by President Muhammadu Buhari for failing to declare his assets, estimated at $3 million in domiciliary accounts, in full, before assuming office as CJN. Buhari issued the penalty, guided by the order of the Code of Conduct Tribunal of January 23.

Responding to the charges, Onnoghen said he forgot to declare the assets, describing the non-declaration of his domiciliary accounts as a mistake. Uglier details unfurl in the wake of his prosecution.

Given the facts of the case, it is mind-boggling that so-called senior lawyers, mostly Senior Advocates of Nigeria (SANs), would feverishly defend Onnoghen. In tune with their character, they belted a ludicrous aria, projecting shrilly and disconcertingly, a vulgar melody, chock-full of hatred and ethnic bigotries. They spun tiresome yarns to dull the ugliness of Onnoghen’s misdemeanour.

In truth, their frantic struggle is to keep the skeletons in their closets safely tucked from the prying eyes of the government and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), especially lawyers who may be found complicit making unjustifiable deposits in the CJN’s problematic accounts.

At a round-table with the government, concerned lawyers made outrageous demands, including the reversal of Onnoghen’s suspension and letting him go scot-free with the money in his frozen bank accounts.

This is what happens when duty and ethics get drenched in the fount of errant lusts, and repute drowns in torrents of money that extinguishes brilliance like a muck-sodden ember.

By their concerted effort to scuttle Onnoghen’s prosecution to the curious query issued to Onnoghen’s prosecutor, Nigeria’s so-called legal giants commit to unprecedented ridicule.

They would never query a colleague for exploiting legal loopholes to free an established looter or mass murderer. They would rather wield their query, like a sword, on Onnoghen’s prosecutor.

Nigeria is in dire need of true ethical natives, heroes of the judiciary and legal profession, on whose watch, justice may experience a spirited rebirth.

At the moment, justice subsists as wild privilege; it suffers savage extraction from the womb without the possibility of rebirth. Think of it as a forgotten corpse in the judicial tomb.

Its varnished vault, like Paglia’s cave art, is a hymn to daemonic darkness.

March 13, 2019
Election 2019: A mock trial

THE presidential election is over – won and lost. Not quite. The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, Atiku Abubakar, has been threatening to challenge the outcome in court.

Atiku insists that he, in actual fact, was robbed of the prize. Who stole Atiku’s “mandate”? How? Was it an armed robbery or a burglary? When; at night when everybody was asleep? Daylight? Who are the witnesses to this infernal heist? Were PDP leaders and their army of supporters on holiday when the thief struck? What kind of weapon was he carrying? A rifle? A pistol? Dynamite? Bombs?

The court has its job cut out for it.

Before the PDP could assemble its team of legal giants to file its case, before its supporters could get over the trauma of the loss, before the electoral umpire could be summoned to defend its decision and before the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and its candidate, President Muhammadu Buhari, could pick up the gauntlet, an army of legal experts with all manner of wonky opinions on the matter had sprouted all over the place. Incredible.

In other words, the matter had become a subject of postulations, permutations and presuppositions in barbershops and coffee shops. Many Nigerians who have never held in their hands a copy of any law book, let alone see the four walls of a law school have been running mock trials on this landmark case.

I stumbled on one of such gatherings the other day at the barber shop. Except that the protagonist was not dressed like a judge and the main actors decked no wigs and gowns, it was a typical courtroom setting.

It is a bit rowdy. Then, one of the youths screams: “C-o-u-r-t!” All is quiet. “The next case is PDP, Atiku Abubakar and others versus APC, Muhammadu Buhari, INEC and others,” a young man says in a low voice portraying the sobriety of the matter at hand.

One of the youths stands up. “My lord, I am Chief Oreofero Ojulari, SAN. I announce my appearance for the plaintiff. With me are Okwudili Afemefuna Chiachogomnma, SAN, Ahmed Amid and others.” Another rises. “My lord, I am Ogbonlogba Abijawara, SAN. My colleagues and I appear for the defence.”

It was as if everything had been rehearsed. The gentleman posing as the judge adjusts his glasses. He pores over a copy of an old newspaper he is holding like a case file. “Thank you. Let the plaintiff come forward to present his case,” he says.

“Milord, as I have said, I represent the plaintiff. I will like to crave your indulgence to cross-examine my client so as to present our case in a logical and conclusive manner that will help this honourable court to arrive at a just decision, which will reverse the injustice that my clients have suffered. Unjustly.”

Atiku steps into the witness box. He dips his left hand into his pocket and brings out a white handkerchief. He removes his glasses and cleans his face. He is given a copy of the Holy Koran to swear. “I, Atiku Abubakar, do solemnly swear that everything that I will say is the truth and nothing but the truth. So help me Lord.”

“Are you Atiku Abubakar, the candidate of the PDP in the February 23 election?”

“Yes; I am – by the grace of the Almighty Allah, the One who gives power to whoever He pleases. May His holy name be glorified.”

“Thank you. Is it true that you are saying and campaigning that you won that election but that your mandate, which was given to you freely and fairly by millions of Nigerians to keep and to enjoy as you deem best under the Constitution, was stolen. Why did you allow it to be snatched from you?”

“Milord. I have witnesses. I did everything to keep my mandate. I hired no fewer than 40million Nigerians to police it from 119,973 polling units to collation centres, yet these people came, like cattle rustlers, in the dead of the night, burgled the place and stole my golden mandate, which I am pleading with this honourable court to retrieve for me.”

“Okay. Can you identify your mandate if you see it? Do you know its colour, size, texture and other features of the said mandate? How is it different from the one Muhammadu Buhari has?”

“Yes, Milord. Yes; I can. I got it on February 23 from over 100,000 polling units across the country, in cities, towns and villages where thousands of our supporters came out ‘en masse’ to vote for me, Atiku. And I had warned the world that the APC people planned to come with some gadgets, which look like telephone sets, to slow down the card readers. Our people would then get impatient and storm out of the polling centres. Disenfranchised. That’s how they stole it.

“The use of the card readers, I insist, was enforced in my strongholds. Southsouth, Northcentral and Southeast. Not so in the Southwest, Northwest and Northeast where the APC says it is strong.

“Besides, Milord, the results were not electronically collated.”

“Okay. It is alright. Can you confidently claim that you won the election despite all the anomalies that you have pointed out? Was the APC not affected by the card reader problems? Where were the 40million men you hired to collate the results? Again, who stole your mandate?”

“I know them. APC, INEC, Buhari and Oshiomhole, who said I was not destined to be president. It was a huge conspiracy. They connived with the security people to snatch it from us. (He wipes his face again, shakes his head slowly and removes his glasses to wipe his face. The lawyer interjects: ‘Milord, we are sorry for that short break; my client is gripped by emotion over the traumatic events of those days. We are sorry. He needs to get himself together. The judge nods his head to show his understanding of the situation).”

“Okay. How did you know you had won? Where was your confidence coming from?”

“I was sure of my chance. Obasanjo, my former boss, who was always abusing me, fighting me and calling me names, forgave me. He campaigned for me. The international community was behind me. They said I couldn’t go to America, I went there and returned. No problem. Even the foreign observers who are now applauding the election can’t say that they didn’t know that I won. I had it all wrapped up. Unknown to me, they planned to snatch it at the point of delivery (He wipes his face again).”

“At what point was it clear to you that your mandate or been stolen, hijacked, grabbed, snatched and pilfered?”

“Simple. When the INEC people started announcing those figures. I was hearing, one million aight handired and sebunti poor thousand nan handred and pipty two botes and such things. I knew I had been robbed.”

“Is it true that you lost your polling unit? Is it true that Obasanjo did not win his? Did you win in your village? Did your man Buba Galadima win his polling unit? Did Kwankwaso win his polling unit? So how did you win the away matches if you and your men lost at home?”

“I didn’t lose my polling unit. No. That’s mere propaganda.The collation was the problem. My agents told them to stop it, but INEC refused to listen. Even when we told them that the Northeast that was under Boko Haram attack could not have voted that much for APC, they dismissed it. You see?”

“I am okay for now,” the lawyer says. Atiku is asked to leave the witness box.

“The court will adjourn till May 29 for the defence to open its case. I hope the date is suitable for us all,” says the judge, checking his diary. “No, Milord; that is the day my client will be inaugurated as the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces,” says the defence lawyer.

The plaintiff’s lawyer springs up to his feet. “Objection, Milord. I will advise that we stop the inauguration, until the determination of the substantive matter.”

“recally, I advise you file a formal objection. You can’t ambush this court, please. The two parties should agree on a suitable date. I rise.”

“C-o-u-r-t!”

Rapists on the loose …who will save us

WHY has rape suddenly become an epidemic?

A 16-year-old girl was in tears on Tuesday as she told an Ikeja Magistrates’ Court how she was abducted and gang – raped by four evil men at the Army Cantonment in Maryland, Lagos. It was an emotional session.

The young girl was sent to buy pepper. She said: “They called me but I did not answer. They came and held my hands and put me in tricycle. Immediately my body changed and I started feeling somehow.” That was the beginning of a four-day ordeal for the poor girl.

Three of the suspects, among them two students, are facing a three-count charge of conspiracy, defilement of a minor and abduction before Magistrate Bola Osunsami, who ordered that they be remanded in prison, pending advice from the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP).

This and many other cases should interest our activists. Rapists are on the loose. It has never been this bad. Many of our youths are on drugs. Elders have lost their moral values, blinded by mad pursuit of wealth. The line of difference between man and animals is getting thinner by the day as many embrace a life fit for the jungle in towns and cities.

Who will save our humanity?

March 7, 2019
Atiku’s burden and Buhari’s challenge

President Buhari by INEC returns defeated Atiku Abubakar, his PDP opponent round and square in the February 23 presidential election. He scored 15,191,847 (55.6o %) to Atiku’s 11,191,847 (41.22%) leading with a margin of 3,918,870. The election was adjudged free and fair across the nation by local and international observers save for Rivers where unruly armed militants met their match in a well-equipped security personnel including the military whose conduct international observers also adjudged as ‘highly professional’.

However, perhaps arising from his false sense of entitlement, Atiku, having been in search of the plum job since 1992 when he first took part in SDP primaries which he lost to MKO Abiola; 2003 when he, with the aid of South-south governors led by James Ibori, attempted to deny Obasanjo a second term and as he changed party at every approach of election,( 2007 AC 2011, PDP 2014 APC, and 2019 PDP) rejected the result claiming he has never “in his democratic struggles for the past three decade, seen our democracy so debased as it was on Saturday, February 23, 2019”. He has opted to challenge what he described as “result of the February 23, 2019 sham election” in court.

It is perhaps only Atiku Abubakar, whose every action in office as vice president(1999-2007)was according to Obasanjo, dictated by his reliance on marabouts and sorcerers who would downplay Buhari’s cult-like support among the poor in the north and his above average performance in the last four years to assume he would be a push-over. And it must have been the height of arrogance for Atiku who was bringing nothing beyond the scars of his 13 years duel with Obasanjo over who of the duo was more corrupt to assume he could defeat President Buhari known only for his integrity.

Except for the sane voice of Olisa Agbakoba who has counselled Atiku to “to move into the position of a statesman” others, including some elders as ethnic irredentists who from the outcome of the election are unarguably out of tune with those they claim to speak for are urging him on. They include Chief John Nwodo and his Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Ango Abdullahi and his Northern Elders Forum, Ayo Adebanjo and his Afenifere as well as Chief Edwin Clark and his Pan Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF) who had while endorsing him before the election, told Nigerians Atiku was “the only candidate among many good candidates we interacted with who can retool Nigeria to move on the path of development as a true federal entity”. Urging Atiku to go to court, ‘they claimed without proof, that “The outcome of the elections was clearly premeditated in the refusal of the president to sign the Electoral Act and the orchestrated suspension of Justice Walter Onnoghen as the CJN shortly before the composition of electoral tribunals.”

Other prominent leaders who urged Atiku to go to court include former Head of State Abdulsalami Abubakar, Catholic Bishop of Sokoto, Matthew Hassan Kukah, Winners Chapel’s Bishop David Oyedepo and, Sheik Abubakar Gumi, all members of Abubakar peace committee. We can add, Prophet Udoka Daniel Okechukwu, an Anambra-based pastor who had predicted Atiku’s victory. He has urged Atiku to reject the result because “the outcome was not the will of God”.

I share the sentiments of those who are urging Atiku to also take the battle to the next level. Such a move will provide a healing balm for injured egos of mischievous elders, prosperity prophets, Christians without the spirit of Christ, IPOB that had a last minute change of mind to allow voting in southeast allegedly on the promise of referendum, Atiku’s western sympathisers and business friends waiting to buy NNPC and Iran who allegedly chipped in some support for Atiku candidacy in the hope that Atiku presidency would grant amnesty to embattled Ibrahim Yaqoub El Zakzaky, leader of Shi’a Muslim Islamic Movement in Nigeria, IMN.

But while Atiku is weighed down by the burden of taking the battle to the next level to please his disappointed supporters and betrayed sponsors at home and abroad, President Buhari by far faces a greater challenge by the nature of the clear message contained in the voting pattern of Nigerians in the February 23 election.

Atiku might have lost the election but his outing was no less remarkable. Here was a man damaged beyond repairs through PDP intra-party struggle over the sharing of our confiscated assets, flying the flag of a totally discredited PDP that pillaged the country for 16 years, going on to secure over 11 million votes in “an election that was in many ways a referendum on honesty” according to New York Times editorial.

The bulk of the 11million votes came from south-south and southeast where the impact of Buhari’s administration has been felt more in four years than during the previous 16 years of PDP. The only plausible explanation for this voting behaviour therefore can only be attributed to the nation’s unresolved national question or our crisis of nationality. It is instructive to note that what the two restive geo-political zones share in common is quest and struggle for self-actualisation. IPOB which has continued to hold the five south-eastern states and their governors’ hostage is agitating for independent state of Biafra. The south-south has since independence starting with Isaac Boro’s insurrection taken up arms against the state over the control of oil resources in their region. Poverty and lack of opportunity arising from destruction of rivers and land by multinational oil companies has led to renewed intensification of the struggle since the beginning of the fourth republic.

The middle belt region notably Taraba, Plateau Benue and Adamawa that equally supported PDP and Atiku have long before the current mindless killing and confiscation of their land by migrating herdsmen, fought for self-actualization within the greater Nigerian nation state. The Tiv uprising was suppressed by the military power shortly after independence.

The demands of the two northern geopolitical zones that massively voted Buhari are not necessary antithetical to those of the aforesaid three geopolitical zones. As the poorest areas of the country with the greatest number of unemployed youths and children out of school, they need development which cannot come from the current feeding-bottle federal arrangement but by organizing the area into viable geopolitical-zones with regional and local police to protect themselves and their territories from migrating herdsmen across the borders.

Of course, the southwest is by nature federalists and has engaged in the struggle for restructuring of Nigeria along viable federal states since the collapse of the first republic.

If President Buhari in his first term failed to take a cue from other heterogeneous and multicultural societies that adopted the federal arrangement to liberate individuals and groups in their societies from the tyranny of the state, the voting pattern during his second coming last week compels him to do so in order to end military imposed ‘mainstreaming” experiment consolidated by Obasanjo who embarked on forceful take-over of regional institutions including universities that are todays shadows of what they used to be.

March 7, 2019
A governor for all

OGUN is one of the states where the governorship and House of Assembly elections will hold on Saturday. Ogun is the closest state to Lagos and their boundary at the Ojodu Berger end of the Lagos – Ibadan Expressway tells a lot about both states. As you exit Lagos to enter Ogun after leaving Berger you get this sinking feeling. You are gripped by a sense of foreboding. You are heading home, but you feel like staying back in town or at work in Lagos where things work.

I have lived in Ogun, Arepo, specifically, in the past 10 years. Arepo was a virgin land when it was discovered by the Lagos State Council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) under the able leadership of Deaconess Funke Fadugba some 16 years ago. Arepo then was a mangrove of sorts, save for its rustic village which stands till today in the midst of the modernisation going on around it. There was no road, except for a dusty, undulating path which led to the forest that NUJ acquired for its estate.

The Journalists’ Estate, the precursor of the many estates now dotting the Arepo landscape, was a product of toil, sweat and perseverance. Nobody, not even the journalists themselves, in their wildest dreams, gave the estate a chance. To them, it was a long shot. ‘’Why put money in a venture that will yield nothing?’’ many asked those who bought into the project. Though it took long, the estate has come to stay, with many moving in as far back as 2006/2007. At least for opening up Arepo, the Journalists’ Estate has helped in facilitating the development of this otherwise forgotten community.

It was and still is a community at the mercy of pipeline vandals who use the beach that separates it from Ikorodu for their illicit trade. Part of that beach is today home to Beachland Estate. Even at that, the vandals are not deterred. They still come through the beach to break pipes and siphon fuel at enormous risk to their lives. Residents now enjoy some respite, with the deployment of troops to keep the vandals at bay. This is what development can bring about. But the development is not moving as fast as the residents want. For instance, the only road leading into Arepo from the Lagos – Ibadan Expressway is nothing to write home about.

Former Ogun State Governor Gbenga Daniel’s administration hurriedly cobbled the road together when journalists started moving into the estate. We had hoped that the government would do the road and drainage before leaving in 2011. It did not. But it did not deceive us by purportedly awarding the project to a contractor who will put up a sign that work will soon begin. When he assumed office in 2011, the community had high hopes in outgoing Governor Ibikunle Amosun fixing the road. Our hopes were buoyed when in 2012 a contractor put up a sign that work will soon begin on the road. Till today, the contractor has done nothing on the road. Yet, the signpost is still by the gate into our estate, serving as a reminder of our helplessness to get the government, which we voted for, to fix our bad road.

The signpost is also mocking us, especially the journalists, day and night as we move in and out. It is telling us that despite being journalists, we could not get the government to fix our road. We have come together as a community to do the road, but because of the huge financial outlay, the residents cannot do much. In 2015, Amosun, at the commissioning of the Arepo-based WFM 91.7, the only woman radio station in the country, promised that he would do the road. He later reneged on his promise on the grounds that ‘‘how many votes does Arepo have’’. It is time to pay him back and show him that Arepo’s votes matter in determining who governs the state. The choice before us now as the governorship election holds on Saturday is to go with the candidate who we can count on to help in the greater development of Arepo, in particular, and Ogun, in general. And who is the candidate? Since Amosun has failed us, I will not be comfortable going with his candidate – Abdulkabir Akinlade of the All Peoples Movement (APM).

There are three other serious contenders – Dapo Abiodun of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Buruji Kashamu, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and Gboyega Isiaka, African Democratic Congress (ADC). Of the lot, I am tipping Abiodun for the job. Before you say, what do you expect of a writer from this stable, let me state right away that I am supporting Abiodun out of my free will and not under the influence of anybody. Abiodun has a track record in business. With his business acumen, he has what it takes to run Ogun. I have heard him campaign and studied his manifesto in which he distilled his plan for the state. Abiodun will be a listening governor. He will not get into office and turn himself into tin god overnight.

With former Governor Olusegun Osoba backing him for the job, Abiodun knows that the stakes are high and that he cannot afford to fail when he gets to office. He is the governor that Ogun needs for a time like this. I am supporting him for a selfish reason and that is that he does the Arepo road if he wins. That is not to say that he should neglect other parts of the state. Is it too early to say, congrats, the governor-elect? I do not think so. Omo Ogun, ibo ya!

March 7, 2019
Agenda for Buhari’s second term

Pundits have done several analyses of the recent presidential and congressional elections in Nigeria. They have highlighted the fact that less than 30 million people voted which is a little over 30 percent of the over 80 million registered voters and that 18% of the electorate elected the president. My take on this is that I have always argued that the so-called 200 million population of Nigeria is a myth. We are far from that figure. In fact if I am generous, Nigeria is not more than 120 million. The problem we have is the tying of population to revenue allocation and political power. Any student of the history of Nigeria’s demography knows that this has always been negotiated whenever we conduct our census. The British started this in 1956 and since that time we have always used mathematical progression to arrive at our probable population.

All regions and ethnic groups in Nigeria inflate their population whenever things are to be shared. I remember a time in 1978 on the eve of the federally-funded universal basic education and states were asked to supply figures of children under the age of six years for purpose of planning. One state with a population of less than four million turned in a figure of nearly three million before it was told, it was not possible for a state of four million to have pre-school population of threemillion!A friend of mine some years ago told me they were collecting money to give to enumerators during a census operation and that it was necessary for them to do this in order to get “a respectable census figure!”

I have read some commentators of the current election saying votes in Akwa Ibom, Delta and Rivers states were deliberately suppressed because their votes this time were lower than in 2015. Their votes in 2015 were deliberately inflated by the Jonathan regime. The late Dr Gabriel Akinola of the University of Ibadan,while writing on the 2015 elections said those three states of Delta, Riversand Akwa Ibom returned over 95% of their registered votes which he said,in electoral terms and in comparison with other parts of the world was “statistically impossible”. So what happened in 2019 reflects the true reality as much as possible. I have always wondered while Oyo State’s total number of votes is always abysmally low compared with votes from Kano, Katsina, Kaduna, Rivers, Delta and Akwa Ibom yet of the 10 most populous cities in Nigeria, three are in OyoState namely Ibadan, Ogbomoso and Oyo. The point I am making is that our population data is faulty and any analysis based on them are not likely to be correct. Unfortunately this is the reality and we have to work with it until such a time the country is united enough to face its demographic daemon.

The other myth that was broken during this election was the defeat of some of the politicians who have for ever abused the trust of their people to monopolize power in their own hands and as gods dispense this power to whoever they wish and also commandeer the resources of their states into their own pockets. Some were earning salaries as senators while also earning full salaries as former governors and collecting humongous allowances as senators as well as former governors. This went on for years while the poor seethed with anger until this last election provided them some release from their pent-up anger. Some have even said this election was some kind of struggle between the rich and the poor. There was an element of this in the election. Certainly the billionaire civil servants in Abuja and their lesser colleagues at state level do not like the TSA and BVN regime enforced by the Buhari regime and some of the oil and gas billionaires are also not sure if the searching light of poke nosing intelligence agents may smell them out. Whatever may be the fears of some politically exposed individuals, the drying up of the “awhoof” money in recent times has led to some resentment against the current regime. The election has been won by Buhari and it is left to him to write himself into the history of our country if he so desires and decides. In order for history to favour him, I suggest the president should do the following things.

He cannot afford the mistake of the past where he allowed untrustworthy people to take the leadership of the legislative branch and frustrate his government by acting as cogs in the smooth implementation of his programmes. He and his party must impose discipline on party members and choose those who will lead the legislature so as to facilitate seamless governance.

He must see the entire country as his own constituency and act accordingly. Therefore his ministers, advisers and security chiefs must reflect the ethnic diversity and differences of the country. It is obvious that there is a strong demand for structural changes in governance away from too much concentration of power in the centre. Without constitutional changes and with executive fiat, the president can decentralize the police force so that community, state and regional police are formed from existing police force with additional training and recruitment from able-bodied and willing young people who are currently roaming the streets.

The federal ministry of agriculture should be abolished and its powers transferred to the states. The states should be empowered and mobilized for agricultural production in areas of their comparative advantage.Emphasis should be placed on mechanization away from the back-breaking hoe and cutlass peasant farming. Resources must also be transferred to the states to assist in the agricultural revolution towards diversifying the economy away from over dependence on oil and gas. The government must provide small and intermediate mills and other machines to add value to rice, corn,millet,cassava, sorghum and yams. Government should also subsidize farmers planting economic trees like cocoa, tea, coffee, sugar cane, cotton and gum Arabic with eye on export.The whole idea is to ensure food security and export of agricultural produce after adding value to them. The states should be encouraged to establish commodity boards to stabilize fluctuating prices and to facilitateexport, proceeds of which must go largely to producers with commodities board keeping a fraction for their operations.

Funds of universal basic education and the entire programme should be transferred to the states for proper monitoring so that the states can see themselves as stakeholders of the programme. In conjunction with states primary and secondary school, education must be revived and their infrastructure revamped.

The current ministry of works and housing needs to be reorganized on zonal basis and appropriate mechanisms for project funding should be provided while a regime of closer supervision and execution of projects should be put in place. Government should continue with its well-articulated transportation projects in railways, aviation and roads and bridges construction. In all these, contractors must be prevailed upon, as deliberate government policy, to hire young Nigerian engineers in large numbers for training and retraining for which government must be ready to compensate the contractors.

The federal ministry of health needs to be better funded especially in the area of epidemiology and disease prevention. The referral hospitals made up of the university teaching hospitals need adequate funding and equipment and at least six zonal super teaching hospitals out of the university teaching hospitals should be chosen and adequately provided for. Doctors coming out of medical schools must transit seamlessly from academic programmes to their professional internship programmes.

Within six months of the second term, the embarrassment and shame of Apapa and Tin Can ports and their roads tie up must be resolved. This should go pari passu with opening up the existing ports in the Delta and South-south zone and diverting of cargo there to relieve Lagos of the killing burden of shouldering the shipping business of Nigeria.

There is a need for a government to have a new industrial policy that will combine private investment with state promoted industries in areas where there are no private investors. This may be frowned upon by the high priests of private enterprises and free market forces who in their countries promote their state enterprises while denouncing the same practice in weaker economies of developing countries.

Developmental projects directed towards the oil producing communities not necessarily the states must be thought of and embarked upon.

The fight against corruption must continue and whatever is retrieved and recovered must be accounted for. All the savings and blockage against stealing of state funds as constituted by the TSA must be accounted for and deployed in ways everybody will see and acknowledge and commend this government. In this regard the civil service must be reduced not through sacking but through attrition and non-replacement of retirees.

In all these suggestions, Buhari must run an open and transparent administration designed to inspire the citizens of this country. His cabinet must be the best this country can produce and could include some of the young people who have recently showed interest in politics following the president’s signing of the “not too young to rule” law.

There is a need for the president to ask for advice from friendly nations on what to do to secure this country from marauding herders and terrorists masquerading as jihadists. In this regard, the president needs to replace his security chiefs and try new hands and adopt new tactics to tackle the incendiary problems confronting the country. All these suggestions will need considerable level of socio-political mobilization.The president should mobilize all students in tertiary institutions during their vacations and other unemployed young people for some of his programmes.

If it is clear to everybody that the president truly belongs to them he will succeed and his name will be written in gold in the annals of this country’s history.

March 7, 2019
Gloves off, Buhari

Before Aso Rock turns jail-house to Muhammadu Buhari; before the presidential villa becomes tomb to his presidential copse, will he neuter the myth of his impending nemesis? Or will he nurture it? Will he deprive his ego the lyricism of the mystic cabal?

What cabal? The one crawling out of the woodwork, as you read. The one scurrying in ravenous packs, like spectres and gnomes of primeval murk, to parade as patriots. In a few months, Buhari will be seen as a national boon or disaster, depending on how he responds to their lure.

The quality of his response would determine if he would be hailed as a true change agent by 2023, or inexhaustibly maligned as the fig that let down the leaf, the affliction Nigeria ought to have expunged.

En route the polls, contemporary boondocks legend mooted parables of him as a warrior in wolf-skin vest, brandishing a shield of steeled morality and a stone-axe, forged to hack down monuments, that, the corrupt ruling class built to entrench corruption.

His second coming, like his first, was undoubtedly borne of reaction. But he never mulled how people see him: be it as the ‘cloned Jubril of Sudan,’ an ‘unrepentant nepotist,’ ‘religious fundamentalist’ or devoted ‘Change’ agent;’ Buhari adopts the eloquence of silence.

The new president-elect dissolved into multiple identities characterised by the political arena’s familiar bogeys. His transformation was akin to Daniel Orowole Fagunwa’s mythical forest ghommid’s.

Other beings passed through him as if he were a wraith. He mutated like Fagunwa’s ghommid, who transforms into a tree, an antelope, a raging inferno, a bird, water and a menacing snake. While Fagunwa’s mythical creature assumes more or less the characteristics typical of its new category of being, Buhari struggled to preserve his individuality, mostly the capacity to think and act humanely, against the assault and intimidation of Nigeria’s tyrant herd.

At his re-election, the New York Times, opined that it “was in many ways a referendum on honesty, as voters once again embraced a candidate who held up a broom at rallies, declaring to sweep away the graft that has given the nation a bad reputation worldwide.

“It was also a tribute to the power of incumbency. For all Mr. Buhari’s talk of fighting corruption, some prominent suspects – including a governor caught on camera handing out a bribe – have gone unprosecuted under his regime. Critics say he targeted political opponents in his anti-graft inquiries.”

The foreign newspaper, so doing, launched a subtle attack at Buhari. Was it right by its critique or not? Does it intone a honest appraisal of Buhari’s first term or does it follow coordinated attempts by so-called super powers and their agents to thwart Buhari’s re-election, citing his suspension of former Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Walter Onnoghen, and his alleged attempt to muzzle the opposition en route the elections.

It was public knowledge, that, these self-acclaimed champions of the ‘First World,’ severely starved of slush money hitherto channelled into their economies via money laundering and other shady international transactions by corrupt public officers, made frantic efforts to influence the February 23 elections in favour of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)’s Atiku Abubakar.

A Summit of Nigerian leaders and elders reportedly drawn from Afenifere, Northern Elders Forum, Ohaneze Ndigbo, Pan-Niger Delta Forum and Middle Belt Forum equally endorsed Atiku Abubakar, for the presidential poll.

All the retired generals, bank chiefs were solidly against Buhari’s re-election, since he caused them serious ‘bad business.’ His implementation of the Treasury Single Account (TSA) policy, for instance, severely hampered their access to unearned benefits among other proceeds of their corrupt enrichment hitherto channelled into their banks’ coffers by dishonest public officers and government ministries in connivance with private collaborators.

One of the most curious kinks of the February 23 presidential elections, was the patronage of these predators by large segments of the voter divide, blinded by hatred of Buhari. As it was in 2015, this motley gang, comprising civil servants/treasury looters, pipeline vandals/oil magnates, thieving bank chiefs, chronic billionaire debtors, prophets of Mammon, ethnic/religious bigots, serving and retired military men, conspired to halt the Buhari shuttle.

They composed a soulful melody of hate, tainting Buhari as the most hideous villain bestriding the political space but thankfully, their melody fell flat on notes and lyricism as Nigeria refused to waltz to their spirited jazz of hatred and inordinate lusts.

Buhari’s re-election puts an end to the era, in which such desperate, lazy characters trooped to the presidential villa for hand-outs and unjustifiable favours.

Another beauty of his re-election is that none among them can misappropriate the glory of his electoral victory.

Buhari owes his second coming to the market woman of the sidewalk, the plumber, the bus conductor, the farmer, unemployed youth, student among others. He owes his re-election to everybody, including the career wailers and hailers and his most virulent critics.

Thus he must understand, that, he is not exclusively, the president of the north and parts of the south-west, south-east and south-south, where he won block votes. He is President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, warts, haters and all.

This time around, Buhari should feel free and very obliged to be decisive. He could start by scorning the renewal of licenses of shady individuals holding oil blocs in the country. How progressive it would be, if oil rich states rather than retired military generals, are exclusively allowed ownership and control of oil blocs.

Buhari should henceforth avoid a situation, wherever it exists, that the presidency is forced to pay the salaries of staff of private businesses of former heads of state; such malady is perpetrated by sneaking names of the latter’s staff into government payrolls as ghost workers.

Imagine a situation, whereby, a retired public officer, has about 400 of his staff on the payroll of the presidency or a federal ministry.

The multiple failures that beset the country, from the corrupt judiciary, executive and legislature, insecurity, substandard education, lack of quality healthcare, looting of public treasury, to the bloody insurgency in the northeast, are attributable to the dominance of a predatory ruling class.

At Buhari’s re-election, Nigerians expect that he would uncompromisingly lay to waste, the corrupt institutions built by his predecessors.

To achieve this objective, his mantra of chastity and change must neither be diametrically opposed to the realities of his ethics nor should it suffer the affliction of mutating expediences. The new president-elect must never dilute his moralist communion with toxic liquor. Lest he evolves as a revolutionary of the comedies.

He won’t eliminate besmirched society by redeeming morals with the amoral thus let him distance himself from toxic company.

Let him settle down to real work. In his recent address, he said there are tough times ahead. True. That warning is as much a jolt to him as it should be to its intended recipients.

The time for cuddling Buhari is now over. Let him truly aspire to fulfill his promises of ‘Change’ that every body can believe in and prosper by.

On this page, I campaigned for Muhammadu Buhari. On this page, I say, let him not conduct himself like the proverbial shepherd, who having lived among pigs, renovates his home after the sty with cinematic splendour.

March 6, 2019
Atiku calls Obasanjo

BOOKMAKERS were confused. Some said it was going to be down to the wire. Others saw a rout. Atiku Abubakar, they vowed, was set to retire Muhammadu Buhari and send him back to Daura to tend his cows. Buhari, others claimed, will carry the day.

And the long wait – the election took place on Saturday and the winner was announced at 4.39 a.m. Wednesday when many Nigerians were still snoring in bed – had everyone in a flap.

Will an Elder Godsday Orubebe – where in the world is he? – show up at the collation centre, screaming and huffing and kicking and cursing and swearing and daring Prof. Mahmood Yakubu to continue the collation and announcement of the results? Can Yakubu play Jega, Prof Attahiru Jega, his predecessor at the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), who remained unfazed as Orubebe went gaga? Will a judge issue an injunction stopping the show? The rumour was all over the place that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) was shopping for a judge who will grant an “ex parte order” that the exercise should be stopped. Will somebody listen to the PDP’s shrill cry that the collation be cancelled? When exactly will the winner collect his prize? The anxiety was so much you could feel it. Many were wondering what the PDP had up its sleeves as it summoned its war council, the national caucus, to pooh-pooh the election.

And the denouement. Yakubu announced Buhari as winner. He won with 15,191,847 votes. Atiku scored 11,262,978.

There were many rumours. Some said Atiku was meeting with some foreign envoys to complain that he had been robbed. They should intervene to save democracy, he was said to have told them. As usual with such speculations, nobody could confirm it as no documentation of such meetings existed. Others said Atiku was under pressure to call Buhari and congratulate him. Yet, others –again without any proof whatsoever – swore that Atiku called former President Olusegun Obasanjo, one of his major backers, to seek advice on his next line of action.

Could that be true? Is it not logical for Atiku to call Obasanjo, who put his integrity on the line for him in so controversial a manner? What did they discuss? “Editorial Notebook” asked an Atiku aide to clear the air on the rumour. He declined comments. Luckily, this reporter ran into a former school mate who claims to be close to the uncle of a friend of his whose maternal cousin works in the sprawling hilltop facility of the former president in the heart of Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital. He swore that Atiku actually called Obasanjo, but he confessed that he was not privy to the details of their discussion, even as he pleaded not to be named because of what he called the “sensitivity” of the matter.

Here, nevertheless, is a conjectural account of the discussion between Obasanjo and Atiku since nobody would confirm or deny that they talked, let alone divulge the details:

Atiku lies on a couch in the living room, surrounded by some friends and aides who are harrumphing about the election and its result. He suddenly rises and asks for his mobile phone. He goes into a room and calls Obasanjo.

“Good morning, Your Excellency. This is Atiku Abubakar. I hope I didn’t wake you up sir.”

Obasanjo: Waziri, is that you? Good morning. And how are you?

Atiku: I am fine sir. And you, baba?

Obasanjo: Thank you. I dey kampe.

Atiku: Your Excellency, I am a bit worried. I am sure you must have heard the result of the election. Is this a true reflection of the wishes of the majority of Nigerians? What is going on? I am worried, walahi, that democracy is being emasculated.

“Huuuu! Huuuum! (Obasanjo clears his throat).You see, Abubakar, why are you worried? Is this the first time you have lost an election? Why allow your soul to be troubled?”

“Baba, people have been mounting pressure on me to surrender. These are people, who should be fighting this big injustice against us; this obvious rigging and theft of my mandate, a mandate freely given to me by Nigerians. I will go to court, I swear. I am a fighter and I will fight this injustice.

“One even said I should call Buhari and congratulate him. And I said, ‘for what?’ Where is that done? You contest an election, you are rigged out and you won’t go to court to fight it out and you will, instead, be calling the so-called winner. I am not a fool; I won’t.”

“You see, Waziri, if I were you, I will simply call my opponent and say, ‘okay, as things stand now, you won, abi? It was all a game and in the true spirit of true sportsmanship, I congratulate you’, Chikena! I will move on. But you politicians are hard of hearing.”

“Sir, you say ‘we politicians’; are you no longer one of us? Are you not our leader?”

“Me? I am not a politician o. With due respect, I am not. I am a statesman. I said so a long time ago. That is why I have stayed out of it. Nigeria is my politics. Anybody, I repeat, anybody who wants to destroy Nigeria, I don’t care; I am ready to go konko bilo with that person, no matter his position.

“If they say Buhari has won, so be it. But if you have the courage to fight, as you have claimed, rally the media, get your supporters to organise mass protests in major cities and call on the world to rise and save democracy in Nigeria.”

“Baba, what will our people say, our supporters across the length and breadth of this country? The masses of our people who we promised jobs, education, security; those who expect us to get Nigeria working again; what do we tell them? I refuse to surrender.”

“Waziri, if anybody says you have not done well, dat na dem toro. You don’t owe anybody any apology. Let them also try and see how easy it is.”

“Sir, what is the feeling of our foreign friends? I was surprised to see that some of them saw nothing wrong in the process – the violence, the disenfranchisement of many people who wanted to vote for us – and I said kai! And I… .”

“Okay. Hold on. Hold it, please. You see, Oyinbo people won’t say what they didn’t see o. I didn’t expect it to go this way. I must confess. We can’t condemn this election on the basis of violence; it was largely peaceful. Is that clear?”

“But, baba, if you tell them it is not peaceful; won’t they believe you?”

“Please, my dear Waziri. Again, with due respect, I can’t lie. I have never lied. I don’t know how to lie and it is too late at my age to learn how to lie. God has given me all that I have asked for. So, why should I lie? But if you want me to join this fight, I will. I can talk to our foreign friends and my fellow statesmen, the Generals that they should not allow democracy to suffer.”

“Some of our people are even saying you destroyed my chances with all you wrote about me in your book. I have told them not to embarrass you and… .”

“Please, hold it! Don’t annoy me o. Me? Embarrass me? Point of correction. And get me straight and clear; nobody can embarrass Obasanjo. Not me. Never. If I wrote about you nko? Were they deaf when I told the whole world that you had repented? I said, ‘yes, Atiku was bad; he has confessed and repented and I have forgiven him. He promised not to do it again. Not so? If they are now saying all that nonsense and jagbajantics, that I contributed to your loss, that’s their problem, not my headache.”

“No problem sir. I hear they are so afraid we could cause problems for them. They have asked the security people to start watching us.”

“Security? Trouble ko treble ni? Let them keep watching. Security my foot. I dey my house, let them come and carry me.”

“Even Secondus is asking me to call you and say my mind – that I must defend democracy and … .”

“W-a-z-i-r-i. Thank you. Secondus; who is so called? I dey laugh o! (He chuckles). You see, when you make Secondus your chairman, do you need to search for why you’re second? If you carry second, na Obasanjo do am? A beg I need to go back to bed. I have a squash game to play in a few hours. I wish you all the best.”

“Bye-bye sir.”

UNILAG Eight and their distraught victim

A UNIVERSITY of Lagos (UNILAG) student, 17, has told of how eight fellow students gang-raped her, filmed the act and blackmailed her with it. Five of the suspects have been arraigned before a court. The others are being sought.

The victim was afraid of telling her story, but her friend helped her to unload her burden. She was hospitalised for days. The parents of some of the suspects offered her parents between N3m and N5m to settle the matter, but they refused to sell their dignity.

Justice Sururat Soladoye of the Ikeja Domestic Violence and Sexual Offences Court has adjourned the hearing till March 18. Rights activists and all lovers of justice should pay attention to this case, which is a vivid expression of man’s inhumanity to man, pure savagery and bestiality.

The parents who tried to bribe the victim’s family are shameless and useless – even to their children who took a fiendish pleasure in hurting their fellow student. Where is that common humanity that separates us from animals in the jungle? We need to find it and restore it through the instrumentality of law and justice as well as good parenting..

February 28, 2019