The Nation Newspaper

Category: Thursday

  • Stop indiscriminate approval of private varsities

    Some years ago, l wrote an article on the growing numbers of private universities in Nigeria and I am ashamed that I have to take up the same issue again. Some two weeks or so ago, the Federal Ministry of Education announced approval of five new private universities in different parts of the country bringing the number of private universities to 74. The question to ask is where the staff will come from. Will they come from existing universities? The answer is yes because no foreign academics, not even from other African countries, will be willing to earn the ridiculously poor salaries paid in Nigerian universities.

    The existing private universities are having problems with students’ admission. It is not because there are no willing students, but the fact is that many of them are technically not qualified. They in most cases do not have the prerequisite number of credits at ordinary level. Even with the watered down variant of NECO, many still cannot meet the standard. Private universities also charge tuition fees that are in most cases beyond the purse of parents who are either peasant farmers, artisans, unemployed or sacked workers. There is a lot of frustration in the existing private universities where salaries are paid only with difficulty. Many of them are run as businesses depending solely on students’ fees. Their teachers in most cases are visiting or adjunct teachers who have full time jobs in their home universities. Greedy young people sometimes teach in two, three or four universities at the same time. Some run from one university lecture room to another university some distance away thus endangering their lives. The result of this buccaneering approach to education is poor quality of teaching, supervision and end product of unemployable and poorly educated young people.

    Currently, according to NUC report, the percentage of university teachers with doctorate degrees in their various fields is just about 60 %. The meaning of this is that many of the university teachers are not qualified and should still be students in graduate schools. The result of this is that some of the people holding professorial appointments are not up to mark. About a month ago, several professors in Federal University, Otuoke, Bayelsa State hurriedly established by former President Goodluck Jonathan were downgraded some to lecturer Grade One or even to Lecturer Grade Two! A year or so ago, thesame thing happened in Federal University, Owerri. We have no idea how widespread this malady affecting the universities is. President Jonathan a former lecturer contributed to this bastardization of university education by establishing 12 federal universities without planning the cost or staffing as part of his “dividends of democracy”.  Vice chancellors were appointed as jobs for the boys and each given N2 billion to start with no master or any plan at all. I know one of these so called “dividends of democracy” universities that spent huge amount of this money on hotel bills since it operated virtually from ahotel. It is sad to hear PDP claiming this as part of their achievements during the Jonathan regime. Needless to say that there is no correlation between the manpower needs of the country and these innumerable universities that exist as duplication of existing courses and academic facilities.I am afraid to say that this indiscriminate establishment of universities in Nigeria since 1999 has not helped Nigeria in any way.

    It is not just private universities that are being established; the federal and state governments are also doing the same. In some cases, states that cannot fund one university adequately have established two or three as in Ondo, Edo, Kano and Ogun states. Each of the 36 states of the federation excluding Abuja has a federal university.This means there are 36 federal universities and more than 36 state universities. We now have about 150 universities in Nigeria. This is just not sustainable. This situation has brought the idea of university education to disrepute. We all know that none of the universities in Nigeria is ranked in the first 1000 or perhaps 2000 in the world. Yet when people in my generation went to University of Ibadan, our degrees received global recognition. A Nigerian in those days heading for post-graduate studies anywhere in the world did not even have to study for a Master’s degree before being registered for a doctoral degree. Medical doctors from Ibadan were immediately registrable in any part of the Commonwealth. Professors and senior lecturers could spend their sabbatical years in many Commonwealth and American universities. Examinations were externally moderated and a first class degree anywhere in Nigeria was globally recognized. The standards have so fallen that it will be a miracle to go back to where we were in the 1970s.

    The reason for this apparent collapse is due largely to poor funding because of the overwhelming numbers of federally and state-funded universities.  Most of the private ones are in hopeless condition because of the tight financial situation in which they have found themselves. Some private universities like AfeBabalola University,Ado-Ekiti and Lead University, Ibadan belong to a new and different category of well-funded and well-run private universities.  Generally, the private universities established by religious and sectarian institutions like Redeemers University, Ede, Ajayi Crowther and Covenant universities are doing reasonably well.  In general, religious mission-backed universities stand better chance of survival than others. But even within these sectarian organizations, the usual Nigerian problem of ethnic division has crept in to affect the funding of their universities. Thus for example, instead of having one Anglican or Catholic university supported by the weight of national church, what you have is division of efforts between the various church organizations along regional and ethnic lines. This does not augur well for these institutions. Religious organizations that operate nationally are more likely to have better universities in the long run. But the private universities established for profit are doomed to fail and close down. The money needed to run good universities are just not what business men will invest because the dividends are not likely to manifest soon and Nigerian business men and women do not have the patience to invest in a long term project like establishing tertiary institutions. Would it not have made sense if business people are encouraged to establish technical and polytechnic colleges to train skilled artisan and technologists? Most of the current federal and state polytechnics have diverted from the right path and are now graduating people in mass communication, accountancy, business administration instead of focusing on core engineering and technical courses. The NUC and the body in charge of polytechnics should ensure that when they are licensed, they should as much as possible, avoid duplicating existing courses available in other institutions. They should be encouraged to innovate and bring up courses that are new and that would promote self-employment. The professional bodies like engineers and physicians should make it difficult for private universities and even state universities to start professional courses they do not have staff, facilities or funding for.

    I do not want to be misunderstood as wanting university education for only a fraction on Nigerians. An argument can be made for university education being an elite thing for that critical mass that can serve as leaven to change society for the better. But even if we embrace the American idea of mass university education in Nigeria, the universities our children attend must be universities in truth and indeed. We must not just call any building a university and start admitting students into it and to graduate them with their wishy washy education after a period of forgettable stay in such an institution. Whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well. If we must have universities in every village, let us plan for them; let us determine their specialization and staff. This was what the NUC assisted universities to do in the 1970s following the first wave of tertiary education expansion in the country. We sent students to best universities in Canada, the USA and the United Kingdom for doctoral degrees. Professor JibrilAminu planned this very well and I was involved in students placement first in Canada and then in the USA between 1978 and 1982. Expansion, even though resisted at that time, was well planned and the results have borne out the far-sightedness of the policy. It was not done haphazardly and unreasonably as it is being done today. If we do not put a stop to this incessant approval of universities establishment in Nigeria, the country will suffer the unpleasant consequences of producing certificated illiterates and unemployable graduates.

  • The law as an ass

    THE Constitution is a social contract with the people. It is a people-oriented document, detailing the laws for the smooth running of society. The Constitution is a nation’s supreme law. Any other law bows before it. No matter how strong a criminal or civil law is, it is nothing before the Constitution. In the face of any conflict, the constitutional provision takes precedence. The Constitution, according to lawyers, is the nation’s grund norm, that is the law on which other laws derive their powers.

    But like everything created by humans, the Constitution is not perfect. Thus, the 1999 Constitution, as amended, has many flaws. Though an offshoot of the 1979 Constitution, it was hurriedly cobbled together in 1999 to meet the exigencies of the time. It contains provisions on citizenship,  fundamental rights, legislature, executive, judiciary, elections, creation of executive bodies, governance and the three tiers of government.

    In fact, it comprises virtually everything on statehood. One of its interesting provisions can be found in Section 158. This provision, taking at its face value, looks like any other provision in the Constitution. But on a closer look, it has deep, very deep meaning. The section talks about the independence of certain federal executive bodies created under Section 153. These bodies, according to Section 158 (1) cannot be subject to the direction or control of any authority or person in the exercise of their appointment and disciplinary powers.

    They are the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB), the National Judicial Council (NJC), the Federal Civil Service Commission (FCSC), the Federal Judicial Service Commission (FJSC), the Revenue Mobilisation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). Relying on the provision of Section 158, the Court of Appeal on December 11, 2017, in Justice Hyeldazira Nganjiwa’s case, held that no judicial officer can be brought for trial without first being taken before the NJC. The framers of the Constitution may have meant well in inserting this provision, but with what is happening today, there is need for a  rethink on it.

    No matter how grave an offence a judge may commit, if he is not first taken to the NJC, which has no adjudicatory power, he cannot be charged to court, going by that verdict, which remains the law until set aside by the Supreme Court. This issue has become worrisome because the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) Walter Onnoghen, who chairs the NJC, is today caught in the web of Section 158. The CJN has been accused of false assets declaration, an offence for which he will soon be charged before the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT). The question is what is the essence of this Section 158, which confers NJC, CCB, FCC, INEC, RMAFC, FCSC and FJSC the power to first sanction their erring officials administratively before they can be charged to court?

    Can these bodies be trusted to discharge this constitutional duty with utmost good faith knowing full well the implication if such officials are found wanting? The framers of the Constitution, in their wisdom, would have thought that members of these bodies will be above board; men and women that money cannot buy. People with conscience who will serve their nation without thinking of what is in it for them. The CJN is the nation’s chief law officer as the head of the judiciary, the third arm of government. It is rather unfortunate that he is in this mess today. Many have read politics into his travails. They may be right, but they should take a look at his reported response to the allegations against him.

    ”My asset declaration form numbers SCN 00014 and SCN 00005 were declared on the same day, 14/12/2016, because I forgot to make a declaration of my assets after the expiration of my 2005 declaration in 2009. Following my appointment as acting CJN in November 2016, the need to declare my assets anew made me to realise the mistake…”, he was quoted as saying. If he had appeared before the NJC and made this submission in his defence, what would the august body have done? Spare him? Sanction him? By virtue of his status, the likelihood of NJC being biased is high, quite high. That is the truth. Criminal matters involving anybody, be he a judicial officer or not, are best handled by the police and the courts. NJC or any other body for that matter should not play intermediary role in cases that should go straight to court. Thus, there is need to amend the Constitution to remove Section 158 which confers the status of super citizens on some Nigerians.

    As a judge, what will His Lordship, the CJN say if in a case like this the appellant is quoted on records as having said that he forgot to declare part of his assets? Go and sin no more? He will not say that; he will bring the full weight of the law to bear on the appellant. What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.

  • Hostage to the flesh envelope

    This minute, Nigeria pulses to fluid femaleness. Next minute, fluidity may surge trapped, and femaleness, bland, as the sharp lance turns blunt in the hands of the worn knight.

    Thus goes the rite of hierarchies by which a dominant male divide, harness female spunk to win elections.

    How do politicians define a woman with a voter’s card? As manipulable muscle perhaps. In truth, she is a worker of marvels. She is a peasant farmer and market woman of the sidewalk. She is a maternal hero and guardian of fruits from errant male loins. She is the spangled artisan mining the dreams of those that would put her in fetters.

    A shackled woman is a shackled nation; repressed womanhood often manifests dangerously; recent figures by the National Population Commission (NPC) and the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), estimate Nigeria at 193 million people with approximately 51 percent males and 49 percent females.

    The figures hardly translate in favour of women in governance and elective positions.

    For instance, women recorded low representation at the 2015 general elections, securing a paltry 6.2 percent (seven female senators) of seats in the Senate while men constituted 93.8 percent. Only six women emerged as deputy governors in the 36 states of the country and no woman was elected governor.

    At the backdrop of this worrisome narrative, the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, revealed that more men voted than women in 2015, thus bemoaning the marked decrease in the number of women who have won elective positions since 2007: 11 percent in 2007, seven percent in 2011 and 5.6 percent in 2015.

    In 2015, only 44 percent of female voters were accredited to vote compared to 56 percent male voters, he said.

    Thus Mufuliat Fijabi, founder of the Nigerian Women’s Trust Fund (NWTF), pleads for a level playing field with men, stressing, that women can excel and contribute immensely to the advancement of democratic governance in Nigeria.

    Again, Nigeria pulses to this frantic fiction of change; as INEC, civil and women’s rights groups demand greater women participation in politics.

    But getting more women involved in politics, portend no solution at a short stretch, rather greater attention should be paid to the quality of their political awareness.

    Unlike her male counterpart, the female voter is modern politics’ most significant personae; a reckoning of phenomenal realities, she possesses immense power yet untapped.

    Crucial questions should be asked: What is the pattern of votes cast by women? Who are their preferred candidates? What’s the quality of their electoral decision?

    Are they rooting for” the candidate who always delivers?” What are the poetics of such delivery? Or are they clamouring to re-elect the candidate who bought them pepper grinders, ice coolers, ankara and bread loaves during the last general elections?

    I remember an encounter with two female voters and neighbours, whose recent ‘upgrade’ to minor party chieftains at the grassroots excites them. Both are victims of “irresponsible baby daddies” and they are working for an aspirant, seeking to represent their constituency for the third time, at the federal legislative chambers.

    At the latter’s first tenure, he promised them a borehole that never got built. At his second time out, however, he pleaded for forgiveness and bought pepper grinding machines, ice coolers and food warmers for women across the local districts of their constituency.

    This time around, brandishing a hazy list of beneficiaries, he promises to give their children scholarships, valued at N20, 000 each. Of the figure, the recipient will pay a commission of N5, 000 to the woman leader, who facilitates the inclusion of her child’s name in the list of recipients. They have vowed to get him re-elected at all costs.

    The duo is a fragment of a larger percentage of females, who like their male peers, are blinded by an insidious culture of tokenism, to gaping inadequacies of their preferred candidates and the consequences on the economic, social, and political structures that herald their lives.

    They do not understand, that, these structures, which they have been tutored to serve, must be abolished to avoid disaster. The bane of such female voter divide is their handlers. Political parties activate their campaign teams with influential females answering to the title of ‘women leader.’

    The latter flaunt the lustre of folk heroines and local champions, who develop multiple forms of sentiments in the female populace, exploiting emotionality for political benefits.

    Some evolve into the political femme fatale, committing to their parties’ candidate irrespective of the latter’s true ethical bent. They play the devil’s advocate, showering plaudits and heroism on aspirants, whose lives are often examples of moral squalor and unchecked greed.

    Local politics careens dangerously by the antics of such femme fatale, who survive by the mystique of an equation akin to politics of the herdsmen and the herd.

    Women constitute a significant and very powerful section of the political divide no doubt. Societal problems, however, persist where they fail to wield their power and influence decisively in their interest and for the benefit of the country.

    The social afflictions of inadequate primary healthcare centres, substandard education, gender violence, and economic insecurity persist, where women fail to participate in national, state and grassroots politics by their own terms

    It is often argued that if more women get into politics, there would be less failure and tragedy in governance. This argument, however, falls flat on the face at the backdrop of revelations of monumental corruption perpetrated by female public officers at all levels of government.

    Yet it may be argued that the culprits are victims of an interplay and intra-play of forces led by powerful male elements holding sway over public and private institutions.

    Leadership failure is undoubtedly a male sport, invented by the politically dominant male to patent victory by the choices of a hapless electorate. In order to fulfill this dysfunction and make it amenable to modern precepts of political correctness, the Nigerian female is occasionally tossed political office, like a gift of bone to a starving dog.

    Thus the emergence of often ceremonial female deputies and commissioners to male governors – even though their functions at times, conflict with the offices of their principals’ First Ladies. Such deputy governors, commissioners at the end, settle into roles and functions beneath their designations.

    This is a manifestation of flawed choice, an ultimate human dilemma, precipitated by survival instinct, in a blemished system. The gravest challenge to our hopes and dreams as a nation, are the messy political transactions prevalent at the grassroots and party arena, every minute and hour of every day.

    More women suffer the scourge of tarnished awareness in a political high drama that renders their conscience, a pitiful hostage of its flesh envelope; “whose surges and secret murmurings they cannot stay or speed,” says Paglia.

    If the woman’s body is truly a labyrinth in which the man is lost, the Nigerian woman should loom formidably and intimidatingly over him as negotiations intensify on the country’s next social, political hierarchies. The conflict of economies and social ironies notwithstanding,

    A new class of womanhood must emerge not as a corpse in future argument with itself, but as a heroic shiner of light and hope on Nigeria’s dark aspects.

     

  • Spectacle of the herdsmen and the herd (1)

    If there is a cautionary tale in Nigerian politics, it is in the tension between the politician and voter. Both schemers, their hostility echoes the proverbial race between the fox and tortoise. The fox, for all its brawn and trickery meets his match in the tortoise, whose cunning eventually wins the race. Thus goes the ethically-correct narrative.

    The fable, however, dissembles in the Nigerian wild. Ultimately, it manifests in reverse: picture the politician as the fox, the electorate as the tortoise, and the political arena as the wild. The fox beats the tortoise silly thus winning the race time and again.

    At the forthcoming general elections, the foxes will carry the day. It’s a given. The race has always been rigged in the interest of the foxes.

    Thus this year as all others, Nigeria reels at the borderline between republic and empire.

    The voters’ bent, however, will determine if the country would re-emerge as a republic of free people, from the 2019 elections. At the moment, the indices are clear, and all the aspects manifest to reinforce the actuality of the country as an oligarchic empire.

    The oligarchy that corrupted Nigeria’s politics, has been on song and its manipulative best en route the 2019 elections. The most affluent of the coven assign public offices by whim and lottery thus affirming the grim unreality of the electoral process.

    These formidable oligarchs, in a bid to perpetuate themselves in power, assign national tracts and public offices to their children, quoting phantom egalitarianism.

    To their stooges, they equally assign power, contracts and public offices with cautious benevolence and a disdainful smile.

    They expect their child and protégé to enter the power elite, infinitely beholden to them, often through a rigged process. Of course, the recipients of such tarnished benevolence accept to play ball.

    On assumption of office, they attempt a perfect interpretation of the script handed out to them, in a political high drama, in which they play deity and minion for applause, as the circumstances dictate.

    They will scorn the poesies of democracy, likewise the humaneness and progress they hitherto promised the electorate en route the polls.

    They will embrace moral nihilism and so doing, perpetuate a radical evil, sustainable by what Hedges calls the collaboration of a timid, confused electorate, a system of propaganda and mass media that offers strictly spectacle and amusement in lieu of news, and an educational system incapable of transmitting transcendent values and nurturing the capacity for individual conscience.

    Having ignored the societal play of forces operating beneath current political platforms, Nigeria and her people will once again, bear the curse of pitiless forms of governance through all tiers of government.

    Dissent would be outlawed and deemed inconsequential; and the shrill, occasional cries of the few who dare to protest, will resonate, like the spatter of spilt milk on sand dunes.

    Silence would be appreciated while duplicity gets celebrated across social strata, fragmented families, public and private institutions.

    It doesn’t matter who wins the election, the political complex, established and presided over by the oligarchy, will subsist but the electorate would remain compliant and endure the bestial system foisted on them, often turning impatiently, to seek a cosy place within its crannies.

    The prospective ruling class, like its predecessors, will set out to diminish the individual, and crush his or her capacity for moral choice, thus ushering him into a seemingly harmonious collective.

    This warped realism, has previously manifested through spells of bad governance and tokenism inflicted on long-suffering communities and states across the country.

    Each human fragment of the electorate knows what issues and inadequacies require urgent resolution but most would rather keep mute no matter their afflictions.

    The persistent lack of electricity supply, bad roads, substandard health care, insecurity, unfavourable business clime and an economy rigged in the interest of thievish bank chiefs, giant corporate thieves and political class, remain the bane of Nigeria’s micro and macro development since independence.

    Nonetheless the victors at the 2019 polls will maintain the status quo. Like previous governments, they will muster life-boat solutions as responses to the country’s towering adversities.

    Of the 36 state governors that would emerge from the forthcoming elections, for instance, a paltry five would preside fairly and manage the resources of their states judiciously. The remaining 31, would loot their states’ coffers to purchase outrageously priced tracts in Banana Island, and exclusive neighbourhoods abroad. They will connive with bank chiefs to pilfer their states’ treasuries and divert money meant to build schools, hospitals, and rehabilitate crucial infrastructure into their concubines’ and private accounts at home and abroad.

    Resistance to such maladies will be impossible because the electorate lacks the knowledge and introspection required to articulate and weaponise dissent at ballot time.

    Schools and religious houses won’t impart such enlightenment because the pedagogical and ascetic structures, that, should facilitate such awareness have collapsed around specialisations and prophesies designed to maintain the status quo.

    However, frantic idealists and erratic pundits will ornament politics and the media space, as they do en route the elections, with unrealistic fantasies of progress via monetised columns, television and internet soapboxes.

    Call them journalists, if you like. In truth, they are out to further confuse an already confounded electorate, and so doing, persuade all to reason and speak as a harmonious herd.

    The actual controllers of the herd, however, are the political, business class in the shades: those who own and control the press. The press is relegated to the lower rung, where it plays herdsman, driving the citizenry, like cattle, through thickets of sentiments and outrageous bigotries, on to their principals’ chosen paths.

    Thus Nigeria will emerge from the polls, to trudge and dissemble in familiar hardship and chaos, because the press has lost its ethical, rhetorical rhythm. This can be rectified, however.

     

    • To be continued…

  • Jimi Agbaje and his politics

    Those who know Jimi Agbaje, the Lagos PDP serial gubernatorial candidate say he is a fine gentleman. Most discerning people however agree that running Lagos State, the fifth biggest economy in Africa, requires much more. Unfortunately, with no experience in the public service and without a record of any outstanding achievement in the private sector where he has since 1982, managed a one-shop pharmacy enterprise, many believe he is driven more by opportunism, bereft of vision and perhaps by a sense of self-worth and a sense of entitlement.

    First rather than pay his dues in his first party, CAN, he migrated to Democratic People’s Alliance (DPA) that had a gubernatorial ticket to hawk. He waited until the eve of the next election to join PDP where he fought a bitter primary with those he met in the party. And when the position of PDP chairman zoned to the west was up for grab, he squared up against Bode George, his godfather, Professor Tunde Adeniran, RashidiLadoja and other PDP stalwarts. He was only forced to step down 24 hours to the contest by Ayo Fayose who whilst admonishing him to “pursue his aspiration with decorum and make sure that the PDP and Nigeria remained his focus instead of personal interests”, reminded him that “with seven out of all nine aspirants coming from the Southwest will work to the detriment of our zone when it comes to voting.”

    From his last week outing, there was no evidence he is changing his old strategy. Just as in 2014 when he allegedly promised to create a fiefdom for Igbo in Lagos where they would have their own king by declaring without restraint that the political class in Lagos State does not like the Igbo or as he put it “The narrative that Lagos dislikes the Igbos is extremely false…, your political establishment does”, he is once again set to exploit the schism between the Igbo Lagos immigrant and their Yoruba hosts. Besides the only discernible message that he is seeking election to pursue Igbo agenda, his other motivation, he says is to displace the current leadership in the state. In his words: “This time round, we intend to take over Lagos in 2019; we have a situation where it had been under the grip of one or two persons and we are tired of that.” He did not say what happens after. He did not talk of another blueprint. He simply assumes today’s prosperous Lagos is an accident. He also took up arms against the Oba of Lagos who back in 2014 warned him not to trade off the interest of Lagos in the pursuit of his ambition. According to him, “the royal utterance of 2015 is still fresh in mind of the entire electorate”. With no new vision unveiled, one can safely conclude Agbaje is on a vengeance mission to right the perceived wrongs done to Igbo.

    But I think Agbaje is a poor student of history. By their culture and values, the Yoruba are very receptive to immigrants. In fact, this is their strength. What the Lagos elite have tried to do was to protect Lagos and the Yoruba from, first, the Portuguese and the British fortune-seekers and since the 1930s, Igbo self-serving leaders, trading with the name of their compatriots and successive Nigerian military and civilian leaders who after building their fortune and political career in Lagos, often turn around to bite the finger that fed them.

    The Oba and Lagos political elite’s grouse, Agbaje ought to know, is not with Igbo and other immigrants who made their living in Lagos and in the process contribute immensely to the development of the city. It is against such  mischief makers who claim they were on civilization drive to turn Lagos which had a population 99,890  in 1921 compared to Enugu, a mining village’s 3,170, Aba’s 2,327 and Onitsha’s 10,309, from a jungle to a modern city. It is against self-style beautiful brides like Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, admired in most Yoruba urban towns, deeply loved by Lagos white cap chiefs and Imams who regarded him as an adopted son of Herbert Macaulay. Even though he was according to Richard Sclar, the only Igbo man during the inaugural meeting of NCNC shortly before it transformed into a political party in 1944, he had no opposition from Yoruba majority when he assumed the leadership of NCNC following the death of Macaulay in 1947.  But Zik saw nothing wrong in ceding the NCNC presidency to Okpara when he vacated the position as against Fadahunsi, the candidate of TOS Benson and his Yoruba group. Similarly when Zik also vacated the senate presidency in 1960, he ceded the office not to any of the Yoruba NCNC stalwarts but to Dennis Osadebey. The only reason Jimi Agbaje found this historical facts objectionable can only be opportunism.

    It is perhaps only Agbaje on a vengeance mission that will regard Lagos establishment’s rejection of Zik’s labeling of Yoruba as tribalist over NCNC intra-party feuds in the forties. Prince AdelekeAdedoyin and Dr. Olorunnimbe, members of NCNC delegation to Britain had accused the leadership of NCNC of mismanagement of funds and Zik of being the sole author of the memorandum and constitutional proposal submitted to the colonial secretary. The two were consequently expelled but the expulsion was ineffective as Olorunnimbe went on to win an election to the central legislature because Lagos NCNC was not owned by Igbo. And later when attempt by the party to prevail on Olorunnimbe to step down to pave way for Zik failed, Zik claimed he was being marginalized as an Igbo man by Yoruba tribalists. The Lagos Igbo State Union believed him. OzumbaMbadiwe thereafter embarked on a crusade to separate Lagos from the West. The irony was that this was in the 1940s a time when non-indigenous Onitsha were regarded as settlers and denied the same privileges as the Onitsha indigenes.

    But blinded by ambition without preparation, Agbaje in search of Igbo votes has unwittingly joined the league of political adventurers and fortune seekers who treat Lagos as victim of envy and vengeance. Balewa was made in Lagos. Yet when DrMajekodunmi, his friend and personal doctor introduced a health bill that would be beneficial to Lagos workers, Balewa did nothing when the northern back benchers opposed it just because it was not going to be replicated in the north.

    In 1966 when Lagos  was turned to a battle ground by warring Fulani and Igbo estranged coalition partners and their military sympathisers, but for the intervention of Britain and US, Murtala Muhammed was about to sink Lagos with a dynamite. Babangida after exploiting the Lagos media that crowned him ‘the prince of the lower Niger’, promulgated Decree 52 of 1993 backdated to January 1, 1975 to confiscate 150 choice plots at the reclaimed Osborne Road as parting gifts to his ministers. He later annulled the June 1993 election won by MKO Abiola. There was also the late Shehu Shagari, who according Alhaji Lateef Jakande, his friend, derailed the Lagos metro line project out of envy. We can add President Obasanjo who illegally sat on Lagos State LGA allocations for two years because he did not want Lagos to become London.

    And finally, if only Agbaje had taken time to study the role of Obas in Yoruba land, he would have known that the Oba of Lagos cannot swim against the tide. Unlike such places like Ogoni land where traditional rulers have been described by SaroWiwa as ‘vultures’ feeding on the misery of their people, Obas in Yoruba land can only want what their subjects want. As Thomas Hodgin has explained, ‘Yoruba Obas are constitutional monarchs who ratify decisions made by council of hereditary lineage chiefs who had consulted the wishes of their people’

  • The young shall grow

    Some 30 or so years ago when one of my nieces was getting married, I went to the ceremony with my young daughter who, having been born abroad was not familiar with our culture of deference to those who are older than us. I was already sitting on reserved chairs like all invited guests when one of my brother’s friends came in and could not find a seat shouted at me saying –”why are you sitting when there is no chair for me?” In good humour I stood up and gave him my chair. My daughter was upset and burst into tears and came to me saying I should not have stood up for the “bully”. I tried to explain perhaps unsatisfactorily that the man was “my older brother” who was exercising the right of an older sibling and that this was normal in Nigeria.

    Now the man who was a young man then is now my old self who is now the head of the extended family. That my “older brother” is still alive but blind but I will mention this article to him so that he can have a big laugh.

    I am acutely aware that times have changed and that I have no right to lord anything over even the youngest in the extended family. I can’t even decide for my own immediate nuclear family because they also belong to their own nuclear families as married people. In fact the tendency now is for my children to want to control my life because they think old age has caught up with me. Who knows? They may be right.

    It is a matter of joy seeing my children, my nephews and nieces making great strides in life.

    Some weeks ago in a phone conversation with Chief DejiFasuan from Ado Ekiti, he reminisced about the incomparable brilliance of my late brother Kayode Osuntokun while both of them were children in Christ’s School Ado Ekiti. He then asked me with concern and curiosity if any of Kayode’s children inherited his brain. He also asked with compassion for my brother’s widow, Olabopo who herself retired from the College of Medicine in Ibadan as a professor Of Ophthalmology. I told Chief Fasuan that the children were brilliant in their different ways spread across the professions of law, accountancy and medicine. None of them is in academia strictly speaking. I almost wrote thankfully when I said they are not teaching in any university where the vows of poverty would have been taken. Their father would have been disappointed about this but I do not think it would have mattered or changed the children from their carefully chosen career paths.

    One of his children has just made a mark which any parent would be proud of. Segun his third child and first son has just been appointed managing partner in London of a firm called Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner (BCLP). This firm has 1400 lawyers in 32 offices across the USA , Europe, the Middle East and Asia.

    BCLP has a turnover in excess of $900 million. Segun is the managing partner of the City of London office of the firm. The city office has a turnover of over $200 million with 600 lawyers 150 of whom are partners. To the glory of God, Segun is the first and only Nigerian to be the managing partner of a significantly-sized city law firm or company. Having been educated in the London School of Economics and Oxford University, Segun is well prepared for his march through life. Segun unfortunately did not go to Christ School! Chief Fasuan would have been disappointed about this. I am also not too happy that none of my own children was baptized by the Holy Spirit in Christ School! I suppose those of us who went to the great school can stand in the gap as we say in the Pentecostal churches for our children!

    My late brother loved Christ School so much that he wrote in his will and made provision for an annual award and a cash prize for the best science student in the school. This award has been made 23 times since his joining the saints triumphant. I am sure Chief Fasuan is now persuaded that Kayode’s children are chips of the old block.

    Remembering the old times, Professor Kayode Osuntokunmost times felt the only pursuit worth following was medicine. If he could force all his five children, he would have made them doctors. I remember how disappointed he was when his second child, Remi said that she did not want to study medicine but that she actually hated the profession. When this child later became a chartered accountant and was recruited by an international oil company and she showed her father her salary package, he could not believe it and jokingly exclaimed that the daughter’s salary was more than the combined salaries of both her parents who were professors of medicine. In spite of this, he did not think too much of any other profession and he showed disappointment in people like me who took a totally different academic path. He was particularly pleased with his two youngest sons and two of his nephews and a niece who followed him into the medical profession. He had confided in me that he wanted his youngest son to specialize in nuclear and molecular medicine because according to him, that was the future of medicine and was prepared to spend all he had to support him. His early death changed all this and perhaps the young man he wanted to build in his own image would not have wanted to have gone the way his father plotted. It is nice to have a great father and Segun who is the centre of this article was pushed hard by his father. When he realized the young boy was not going to be a doctor or a scientist, he allowed him with tender advice to plot his own professional path. A good degree in Economics from LSE provided a jump off platform for the young man who later added an M. A in law from Oxford University, thus combining radical London training with that of conservative English legal education.

    In reflection, I am happy to witness the quiet successes of my nieces, nephews and my own children. But for the dire economic situation in Nigeria, these young people would have been at home to add to the quantum of knowledge necessary for the development of our country. It seems there are more members of my extended family outside Nigeria than in Nigeria. Well, I guess, we are in a global village but how does this satisfy the need for family ties and physical comradeship and relationship? One thing I am trying to prevent among those of us at home is letting politics spoil our family ties. People have strong views about politics. It is perhaps good that members of the family have different views and positions about the present and future of our country. My experience of growing up in a political family is not too good and if I have my way, I would not want any member of my family being involved in politics. That of course is not possible.Good and knowledgeable people’s involvement in national politics can only be profitable in the long run or else we will be ruled by idiots and nincompoops.  No one knows what the future will bring and no one can stop the march of God on earth and the future is pregnant only God knows what it will bear.

    The young shall grow indeed.

  • A year of drama is here

    THE soothsayers seem to be right on target this time.

    The year 2019 will be dramatic, they had predicted. Dramatic? That’s loaded. Cheery and dreary? Hot and cold? It is neither here nor there, but it seems we may not experience the apocalypse that we so much dread.

    For sure, we have the Boko Haram headache, the varsity teachers’ strike, the minimum wage brouhaha and the labour leaders’ bravado as well as other pains in the neck, but the fact is clear – the year has begun on a dramatic note.

    Consider the distinguished Senator Dino Melaye. For eight days, he engaged the police in a sensational stand-off. The police invited the senator to say all he knew about an alleged homicide, but Dino, a wise man, thought that was no invitation to a dinner. Obviously leery of the police – he had had many encounters with them – the senator claimed that there was a plan to inject him with a lethal poison. The police laid siege to his Abuja home. He bluffed it off and announced that he was out of town and that he would report to the police upon his return. The police would not budge; they stayed put. Knowing that he was surrounded, Dino surrendered.

    And what a spectacle. The television beamed Dino being helped out of the house, his wobbling feet sweeping the ground, eyes half closed and head hanging loosely on his thick neck. He was like a drunk battling a terrible hangover.

    At the police office, Dino just collapsed, his huge frame lying on the floor. He was rushed to the hospital where, thankfully, he has recovered. The police have, in fact, certified him fit to undergo the investigation of how his aides allegedly shot and injured a policeman in Kogi. The good people of Kogi West have the enviable honour of being represented by the popular senator.

    The situation has, ironically, boosted Dino’s fame. Now his fans are all over the place requesting desperately for his old videos. The hottest is the one in which he raised his hands and shook his head as he reminisced about his days in the PDP; the one in which he sang, “Home my home, when shall I see my home, PDP”. Also in high demand is the video of the lawmaker singing, “Ajekun iya ni o je, ajekun iya ni o je, eniti o to’ni mu, t’ondena deni, ajekun iya ni o je ( He will suffer in full measure, the one who can’t beat his opponent but elects to lay in ambush for him).

    Dino’s opponents have also flooded the social media with his photograph when he collapsed, placing this beside that of Chief Ayo Fayose – many are wondering where in the world he is; he is in Ekiti fighting Senator Biodun Olujimi for the control of the Atiku campaign  – and asserting that His Excellency will sue Dino for alleged copyright infringement. They are referring to the former Ekiti State governor’s prized photograph in which he collapsed on the bare ground of the Government House, his head in the hands of dutiful aides pouring water on him in a desperate bid to revive him after the police allegedly fired teargas canisters into the exclusive facility. Fayose, being a liberal man, I must stress, may not be sending Dino a writ of summons over this little family matter, which the PDP can easily settle in-house. Dino, ever so creative, may not have deliberately set out to steal Fayose’s or anybody’s intellectual property.

    There are also pictures of the lawmaker posing with exotic cars. “He invested in these, instead of investing in people. Now let his cars fight for him,” a commentator said. Another claimed to have known how Dino made his money. He said the senator was a rent-a-crowd contractor who did so well for himself. “Where is the crowd now to protest, if Dino was good to them?” he wondered.

    \Others were recalling his controversial educational background. Yet others swore he used to be a philanderer of note. They painted derisive pictures of his sexual peccadilloes. It is, however, to his credit that Dino’s constituents still retain a good measure of confidence in him. In fact, despite the jeering and sneering, the PDP in Kogi State has vowed to ensure that Dino returns to the Senate.

    The photograph of the President, Ogun State Governor Ibikunle Amosun and Allied People’s Movement (APM) governorship candidate Adekunle Akinlade  was splashed on newspaper pages. The mood was boisterous; they were laughing like a drain. They all raised their hands and flashed eight fingers (four on each hand).

    Apparently, the Ogun helmsman was reassuring Buhari that despite the civil war in the local APC, his second term of four years was assured. Amosun, in a fit of fury, after being dismissed as a budding emperor by APC National Chair Adams Oshiomhole, corralled his supporters to join another party. He vowed to back Buhari for president. How he wants to walk this tight rope remains to be seen.

    Former Governor Aremo Olusegun Osoba had earlier visited the Villa with the party’s candidate, Dapo Abiodun. The President raised Abiodun’s hands and flashed his trademark toothy smiles. That was after Amosun had chaperoned the APM chair, Yusuf Dantalla,  into the Villa to announce that its party had adopted Buhari.

    Should Buhari have received his guests so warmly? Is he naively convinced that the Amosun formula will work some magic? Who will Buhari support – his party’s candidate or the stranger? One thing remains as clear as day – we are yet to see the end of this drama.

    Elsewhere in town, the drama continues. A man was held in Akure, the Ondo State capital, for allegedly collecting women’s underpants. A mob descended on him, stripped him naked and beat him black and blue. Why? It has been rumoured that women’s panties are being used for money rituals.

    The jungle justice would probably have been fully served with a burning car tyre hanging on the man’s neck – a victim of a savage ritual to appease the vengeance of a people driven to anger by the vicissitudes of life with which they are struggling to cope. Law enforcement agents yanked him off the hands of his tormentors. He was later to be declared insane.

    How will a ritual performed with a woman’s underpants evoke the spirit of cash in which the beneficiary will begin to swim? What kind of ritual is this? Who are the beneficiaries of this strange enterprise? Is this a mere rumour taken too far or the reality of voodoo? Isn’t this another avenue of duping those who believe that hard work won’t ever pay and that there is a short cut to wealth? Is this part of the Yahoo Yahoo and Yahoo Plus ventures in which many of our youths have found expression for their skills?

    What kind of undergarments are the strange collectors’ favourites – G-String? C- String? Bikini? V Kini? Boot Booster? Classic Briefs? Or just any type?

    Where are our women rights activists? Isn’t this a clear case of discrimination and sexism and misogyny? Now, women are being advised to dry their underpants in their rooms; no more on the lines in the backyard. How about those who stay in hostels and others who don’t have a room to themselves?

    It all sounds so strange. Crude and rude. But then, the prognosticators have warned us – this is a dramatic year. They seem to be right.

     

    Amina Zakari and her traducers

    THERE has been so much noise since the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) announced Mrs Amina Zakari as Head of the Election Collation Centre Committee. The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) alleges that she is a relation of President Muhammadu Buhari and ipso facto could swing the poll for him.

    The PDP’s fear is not out of place. Here is a party whose chieftains believe the presidential election is theirs to win or lose. Little wonder they are fighting to smash any obstacle on their way to victory.

    Not so fast, I dare say.

    Amina Zakari

     

    The woman says she is no relation of the President. INEC says she will have nothing to do with the collation and announcement of the results; Chairman Mahmood Yakubu says it is his job. The Presidency has debunked the assertion. Mrs Zakari’s family has defended her integrity and family background..

    The controversy should end. Calling in the UN, the United States and the United Kingdom is taking it too far; we can manage our affairs. Is Mrs Zakari not qualified? Isn’t there a way of monitoring her performance when it is believed that the job she has been given is so sensitive? Has she no right to work at INEC just like any other Nigerian?

    Didn’t the security agencies certify her to be fit in learning and character for the INEC job? Will she be collating results from all the polling units, even if her job is collation?

    The row is needless; it should end.

  • The army show

    THE insurgency war seems not to be going the military’s way. It has thrown everything into the war, yet the insurgents are still coming up strong. The insurgents are putting all they have into the war, including kids, who they use as suicide bombers. The military has a tough job on its hands because as experts have said this is not a conventional war.

    They say it is guerrilla warfare, meaning the military cannot apply the rules of conventional war in the prosecution of the anti-insurgency campaign. The Federal Government, like the military, would have liked the war to end long ago.

    This was why it stepped up the anti-insurgency war as soon as it came into office in 2015. In no time, soldiers levelled Sambisa Forest, the base of Boko Haram, turning it to Ground Zairo. It also said the troops had whittled the power of the insurgents to cause havoc. But it seemed, the government counted its chicks before they were hatched. The insurgents, despite all the blitzkrieg, remain standing. The more they take, the more hardened they become.

    The campaign to finish off Boko Haram is a national task to which our soldiers are committed. They are ready to do anything to rout the insurgents since they signed up to defend the nation’s territorial integrity whenever called upon to do so. The Boko Haram war is one that affects everyone of us because the men and women in the Northeast, the epicentre of the conflict, are our compatriots. We cannot close our eyes to what is happening in that region because it is they who are over there today, we do not know who may be next and in what part of the country tomorrow.

    We do not pray for the escalation of the Boko Haram war because it is not in the nation’s interest for there to be crisis in any part of the land. Nigerians will be too happy if the Boko Haram war ends today. The military is giving the campaign its all, no doubt, but more still needs to be done. For Boko Haram to be routed, the military needs to carry along every section of the country because it does not know where information may come from that will help in untying the Gordian knot which this insurgency thing seems to have become.

    It seems the battle is getting to the military, especially with what happened in Metele, Borno State, last December when insurgents attacked the 157 Task Force base, killing scores of soldiers. The Metele attack touched a raw nerve in the military and since then our soldiers have turned to wounded lions. The military has become touchy that it would react to anything, no matter how minute. In this war, the military rather than look for more enemies outside the battlefield, should court those that can help it in crushing Boko Haram.

    In this regard, one of its partners should be the press. Usually,  the military does not like to befriend the press because it believes journalists cannot be trusted. Unknown to the military and others who think like that, the press is the best secret keeper in the world once you take it into confidence. There is need for press briefing  once in a while by military chiefs so that journalists can know what is happening in the Northeast. Such briefings should come with the understanding that they are not for publication.

    But where the military tries to hoard information, you can be sure that the press will release it once it stumbles on it. What happen between the military and the Daily Trust could have been averted if there was two-way communication between the military and the press. I will be the first to admit that under the present circumstance, the press should be circumspect in publishing certain stories on the Boko Haram war in order not to give out military plan. There are certain stories that should not be carried in the national interest when our country is at war.

    We are all stakeholders in the Nigeria project so it will be in our collective interest to bear that in mind and do things that will not jeopardise national security. The questions then arise: Should Sunday Trust  have carried its front page lead story: Military prepares massive operation to retake Baga, others last Sunday? Was the military right to have invaded the newspaper’s offices in Abuja, Borno and Lagos over the publication? In the national interest, the press should be mindful of what it carries in times like this and the military too should exercise restraint in reacting to media reports no matter how bad it may consider them to be. It should remember that under the law, a man cannot be a judge in his own case.

    The military spoilt an otherwise good case by its hasty action. If it had sought second opinion, perhaps, it would not have reacted that way. You do not right a wrong with another wrong. Thank God that reason has prevailed in the matter. This is where the Information Minister should come in. To avoid a recurrence, there should be periodic interaction between the military and the press moderated by the minister where they would rub minds on national security matters, especially the dragging Boko Haram war.

    Of course, it would be off record. At that forum, issues will be thrashed out to the satisfaction of all so that the military and the press will become partners in progress.

  • Looking beyond 2019 elections

    This year, the general elections will be contested by deceptive personae: all the contenders are driven by delusions of sainthood and inflamed ego.

    The career contenders, widely renowned as Wole Soyinka’s ‘Wasted Generation’ declare, with measured spunk and fire, their right to sustain their oligarchic tyranny. The new kids on the block, however, seek to illustrate a new fable; chanting the ‘Not Too Young To Run’ anthem, they wear naivete like a badge, and brandish ebullience as replacement for substance.

    Together, they fulfill the purpose of a taxidermic decoy, like Spenser’s False Florimell.

    They are out to incite and exploit the electorate’s frantic hopes in order to dash them. Like a changeling of fickle principles, passion and integrity are changeful in their wake.

    The electorate must make its way past the fraud and extortion of these seasoned politicians and younger aspirants, who are out to lure the psyche into committing political capital (that is, electoral votes) to unsound judgements and investments.

    But to achieve this, the Nigerian voter must begin to see the incumbent ruling class and current young aspirants as false messiahs and conmen. These range from the stark illiterates to the supposedly erudite contenders. The former justify their claim to power by their ill-gotten riches, army of thugs, assassins and a devious soul. The latter, equally validate their claim to power touting paper qualification, ill-gotten wealth, an army of thugs, assassins and deviousness.

    How do illiterate voters avoid the snare of such conmen? The answer lies in the capacity of the politically literate amid the ranks of Nigeria’s electorate – comprising impoverished breadlines and the middle class – to sensitise their kind, to repel the scourge of predatory politicians.

    But that is in the long-run; no degree of push-back could work against such political elements at the moment. Like every other constituent of the country’s electorate, the true patriot and politically literate, will watch helplessly, as familiar tricksters scuttle the electoral process via vote-buying, filthy propaganda, hooliganism, and wanton assassinations.

    Whoever wins the 2019 elections, across all levels of government, the flawed systems will remain in place; the patrons of the systemic anomalies are too powerful to be challenged.

    It’s time to look beyond the 2019 elections. The politically literate should create a dependable platform and start conversations by which the electorate can be sensitised to the urgency of looking beyond the current crop of politicians and self-appointed messiahs.

    The average voter must understand, that, Nigeria’s most dangerous enemies are not Boko Haram, thieving bank chiefs, armed robbers, industrial monopolists, corrupt security operatives and government puppeteers in the corporate business sector, but the real enemies are the brains behind these maladies and the illiterate voter who would gladly pawn his vote for money and religious, ethnic bigotries.

    The voter’s card thus becomes a weapon of mass destruction in the hands of such a voter.

    Knowing this, the fraudulent contender plies prospective voters with bigotries and lies masked as truth.

    The big truth however, subsists in the buried narratives: that fictions of growth have a hollow underside; that Nigeria and constituent states must ultimately learn to live within their means; that regional claims of marginalisation are have undertones of lies, religious and ethnic bigotries; that terrorism has its patrons in government and Nigeria’s wanton oligarchs; that government size and spending has to be surgically pruned; that Nigeria has to move from a consumer economy to a producer economy; that at the end, votes hardly count; that power is finite and voter apathy and ignorance, keep predators in public office, indefinitely.

    The theme of the forthcoming elections, as advanced by the contenders, is that of salvation. Each candidate pronounces himself/herself as the virtuous of our world, by whose virtues Nigeria may attain salvation.

    Too little supports what each candidate advances as his/her messianic, moral programme. For instance, of the platitudes issued by the contenders, no aspect progressively addresses the abysmal states of the health and education sectors.

    There is no candidate with a heartfelt plan to truly commit, at least 30 per cent, of Nigeria’s annual budget to health and education – split at 15 per cent each. None of the candidates can do that. None will do that. None has ever done that.

    Those who propose higher do so to amass political capital and ultimately, win votes.

    Of all the contenders, none would agree to the surgical trimming of the nation’s legislature, while legislative work is reduced to part time assignment.

    Yet several voters would dance and maim, bicker and kill, to guarantee their easy access to the nation’s public offices.

    The Nigerian voter thus creates a plenum, from which he/she would not escape for another four years. This would be blamed on ‘voter illiteracy’ at crunch time, when reality bites harder, and the frenzied, ignorant voter of today relapses in sober awareness tomorrow.

    At the moment, there is no contest between President Muhammadu Buhari and his major rival, former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar; the latter, like a placebo, presents as false contrary to Buhari’s candidacy, while emerging to fulfill due process and validate the forthcoming elections with the seemliness of a fair contest.

    This minute, the press has been contracted to clothe dross as gold, and ornament misgovernance as quintessential brass. This reinforces the failure of the media: more journalists have become praise-singers of the failed ruling class and common carriers of its propaganda. We’ve sort of given up being independent on our own, in order to survive.

    Through these maladies, Buhari would win the forthcoming elections, but not because he has any magic formula to turn Nigeria’s fortune around, but because he and his deputy, Yemi Osinbajo, represent dignified statesmanship and the latent strength to facilitate the emergence of Nigeria’s extraordinary league of detribalised, patriot leaders, outside the folds of the prominent parties.

    The latter would reinvigorate Nigeria’s comatose industries, eliminate terrorism, achieve 24-hour electricity supply, revivify substandard health and education sectors, and truly fight corruption.

    But the task of finding them can’t be left to Buhari and Osinbajo, for they lack the will and purpose to actualise their emergence.

  • Great expectations for 2019

    The year 2018 has not been too great for Nigeria. Too many people died needlessly. Too much blood has been shed in the land. The souls of these people are crying to those of us who are still alive and they are saying “Never again”.The carnage in Zamfara State has gone almost unreported because the print media do not have reporters there. The tragedy in Zamfara is almost inexplicable and inexcusable. It began as a conflict of farmers versus herders but has now morphed into total breakdown of law and order almost on Hobbesian state of brutish violence.The Boko Haram insurgency seems to dominate the media and to capture all our attention. The war against Boko Haram is not only consuming our children, it is also eating into our national treasury. Killings on the Jos plateau, Adamawa, Taraba, Benue and Nassarawa states are also occasionally brought to our notice. The killings in other parts of the country by cattle herders, kidnappers, highway robbers and small time brigands are reported with embellishments and these are the ones that strike terror into the hearts of the people in the south. The tendency all over the country is to look at these problems as not our own until they strike nearer home. The fact however remains that we have never been faced with this countrywide general insecurity and pervasive fear of evil and violence lurking in the corner. There is evil in the land but this does not mean Nigeria is a failed state. There is no country in the world today that is absolutely safe. But we just cannot afford the sobriquet of Nigeria being a failed state.

    I am not surprised that the EU, Great Britain and the USA are issuing travel warnings to their people to boycott Nigeria for now. Even those of us marooned here are trying to avoid traveling unless it is absolutely necessary. Many people did not go home to their towns and villages as they would normally have done during Christmas. The reason for this is because of the general insecurity in the country. People who are over 60 years old remember with nostalgia spending Christmas holidays in the places of their birth when they were young.  I remember people liked to travel at night because of the generally low temperature in the absence of air conditioning in those days .We can only remember those days and not relive them today. Even people traveling between towns on business are nowadays unsure if they will see their loved ones again. If they are not killed by all types of criminals, the potholed roads may swallow them. These brigands always waylay people at the bad portions of our roads with our people suffering the double jeopardy of having accidents on the bad roads and being captured on these bad portions by kidnappers.

    What went wrong and where did we go wrong? One young man asked me this question at Christmas. I tried to tell him that our problem began after the civil war in 1970. Many soldiers on both sides of the war had to be demobilized and left to fend for themselves. The weapons purchased to prosecute the war also fell into the hands of wrong people. The upsurge of violence in our country after the civil war was therefore understandable. But that was several years ago. We had the opportunity and fortune of stupendous oil wealth to solve the problem of post-war violence but we took the wrong steps of indulging in rampant corruption and unnecessary expansion in administrativeinstitutions and expansion and duplication of agencies and parastatals while neglecting the infrastructure that would have provided us the foundation of a modern economy to absorb our population whichgrew in geometrical proportion. Our porous borders have also been exploited by our poorer neighbours, the Cameroons, Chad, Niger and Benin to infiltrate our country and empty their surplus population into our country thus spreading poverty in Nigeria. Many of the problems of insecurity in our northern states are traceable to the influx of people from across western and central Africa. The result of all this is that our resources are grossly inadequate to cope with this ballooning demographic burden. Even the hydrocarbons on which we have unfortunately depended in the past have become unreliable commodities to depend upon. First, oil and gas are finite assets. Secondly, they are becoming environmentally unsustainable in this era of global warming due to greenhouse gas emissions.

    What is to be done? We must build or rebuild our security architecture. This will include not only the armed forces but all armed parastatals of the customs, immigration, police and national guard. There is also a need to revamp our intelligence organizations for both internal and external surveillance. Emphasis must be placed on brilliant people because intelligence operations go beyond carrying arms. All this require spending a lot of money. We must reduce the cost of running the country by cutting the salaries and allowances of legislators and government officials. Do we really need full time legislators at federal and state levels? We have to raise the money through indirect and direct taxation. It is scandalous that out of a doubtful population of around 180 million people, less than 10 million people pay taxes compared to other countries where payment of taxes is a civil obligation.Federal allocation should be made on the basis of the number of people paying taxes in a state. This will force each state to collect internal revenue and also stop states forging their population figures.

    We must move away from over dependence on oil and gas revenues. This is because it is dangerous to depend on a single product for national revenue. On top of this, hydrocarbons are going to become superfluous in a world rapidly moving away from carbon pollution if we are going to save the global environment and reverse global warming.

    It is not only the armed forces and intelligence agencies that need reforms. The police and the national guard will need additional resources to have highway patrol vehicles to stop all those killing and kidnapping people. Anybody caught must be dealt with promptly. Those who deserve to leave civilized society for prison must be made to do so and those who have committed murder must be made to leave this world.

    China has a population six times our own they are not faced with this problem. India is also six times our size and both countries have more poor people than us and do not have this kind of crazy problems. In China, corruption attracts capital punishment. Even if we don’t go that far, we need to shake up the judiciary and our interminable legal adjudication to make it responsive to quick dispensation of justice. Even if we cannot restructure the country, we can restructure the police and have regional police in case some states cannot afford to fund state police but states that can fund state police should be allowed to establish theirs.

    We also need some kind of moral rearmament. We need to teach our young people that corruption does not pay. We must enlist the support of our religious people, Muslims, Christians and traditional religious practitioners. In order to be effective, our leaders must not equivocate on the issue of corruption and corrupt people must not be celebrated but rather disgraced. This is a matter of life or death. The country is slipping away from our hands and our country is gradually becoming ungovernable. We must have a sense of urgency because we are honestly faced with existential insecurity.

    Finally, the 2019 elections must be approached as if our lives depend on them. In actual fact they do. It is not only the presidential election that is important. All of them are important. The quality of those who go into the local councils, state assemblies, House of Representatives and the Senate and those who become governors are fundamental to good governance and development. The president is merely the apex of the political pyramid. Of course it is important to elect a man of integrity and discipline and I have no doubt that Nigerians would vote wisely.  The issue of trust is fundamental to good governance. Our leaders must again build the kind of trust people had in the leadership of Awolowo, AhmaduBello, Nnamdi Azikiwe and Abubakar Tafawa Balewa. There is no trust in the leaders of today. People generally feel unrepresented. This is why senators are ferrying home monthly humongous amount of Naira while we debate if we can afford to pay workers N30,000 a month . Times are hard for everybody but it could be worse. We must have a country, a peaceful and secure country before we can have progress. No president will deliberately impose hardship on his people and nobody has accused President Buhari of deliberate wickedness and at his age he knows history will judge him critically so it is in his own interest to leave a legacy of fairness, equity and transparency. If there are people in his government or in his inner circle who will deny him his rightful place in history, this is the time to remove them. 2019 cannot be government as usual. To me, the choice is clear between an ex-Customs man and a retired General when our country is faced with armed rebellion and insurgency.