The Nation Newspaper

Category: Thursday

  • Abuse of uniform

    THEIR uniform confers authority on them. It portrays them as agents of the state with the mandate to deal with unscrupulous elements and also maintain law and order. Unfortunately, our uniform men, in most cases, break the law rather than keep it. And they do so with impunity. These uniform men have no regard for others, whether on the road, in a banking hall or at any other gathering.

    It is mostly on the road that they show the stuff they are made of. When you see them in traffic, you will be shocked by their behaviour. When traffic is so bad that motorists are sweating, groaning and swearing under their breathe, they will come from nowhere with blaring siren, kicking up dust all over the place. Woe betide the motorist who does not move out of their way fast. They will hit your car, beat you to a pulp and drag you along with them, if you are unlucky.

    The uniform men have grade, with soldiers comprising the army, air force and navy at the top. When the soldiers sneeze, the other uniform men consisting of the police, Department of State Service (DSS), customs, immigration, prison, civil defence, road safety and traffic managers, such as the Lagos State Traffic Management Authority (LASTMA) catch cold. Times without number, soldiers and the police have clashed over issues that do not matter. Mercifully, they have stopped fighting; but they have now found a ‘common enemy’ in LASTMA.

    LASTMA ensures the free flow of traffic in Lagos and beyond. Though there are some bad eggs in LASTMA that does not in any way detract from the good job the authority is doing. We all know how many motorists behave on the road when there are no traffic wardens around. Even our uniform men join in causing chaos on the road and anybody who calls them to order is done for. On many occasions, some LASTMA officials have paid the price for doing their job. Some even paid the ultimate price.

    Rather than stop, these deadly attacks are rising by the day because soldiers and policemen see themselves to be above the law. On November 28, LASTMA officer Rotimi Adeyemo was killed by a police officer in the line of duty. What was Adeyemo’s offence? He stopped the police officer for committing a traffic offence and before onlookers could say IG, the offender had pulled out his gun and shot the LASTMA official in full public glare at Iyana Ipaja.

    On Tuesday at the popular Jesu Oyingbo axis near Maryland, a LASTMA official, Afeez Badru, was forcefully whisked away by soldiers, who took the dedicated Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) lane. Our soldiers and policemen should set example for others in public. They should not engage in conduct that will ridicule the institution they represent. They should be officers and gentlemen. They should not be seen brutalising LASTMA officials. Rather, they should be working with them to ensure sanity on the road.

    Most importantly, they should come to the aid of LASTMA officials whenever street urchins try to descend on them. Unfortunately these days, we can hardly distinguish between soldiers and street urchins.

     

    The randy don 

    A former teacher at the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Prof Richard Akindele, will curse the day he first set eyes on a student, Miss Monica Osagie. At that their first meeting, Monica seemed irresistible to the Prof and he resolved to eat the ‘forbidden fruit’. He must have fixed his gaze on the girl and vowed within him that omo yi oni lobe. What to do? Since he holds the the yam and the knife, he quickly put two and two together and hatched a plan. He won’t pass the girl until she plays ball. He told her his mind and the girl played along, so he thought. But the girl had a different plan. She recorded all their meetings unknown to Mr Teacher whose lust got the better of him. When the scandal blew open, OAU fired him after an investigation. Then, the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) moved in for the kill. Akindele was arraigned before an Osogbo High Court, which on Monday sentenced him to a six-year imprisonment for demanding sex to pass Monica. Rejecting the convict’s counsel’s plea for a suspended sentence, Justice Maureen Onyetenu said :

    ‘’Telling me to suspend the sentence does not arise. Plea bargain does not arise. May be the case continues to occur and reoccur because someone has not been used as a scapegoat. It is time for the court to start upholding the right of children, especially female students. The case is endemic…The rampant cases of students’ harassment by lecturers should be stopped’’. On the institution’s plan to make lecturers’ offices open by building the front side with glass in order to stop such amorous act, Her Ladyship said : ‘’Do you think they do it in the office? They go to hotels”. As the court pleases.

     

    60, still counting

    IT was a few minutes past midnight on December 12 when the message came in. When I checked my phone, it turned out to be a birthday notice from no other person than my street Coordinator, the irrepressible Mr Abiodun Foluso, who turns 60 on December 24. For those of us who live in Journalists’ Estate Phase 1, Arepo in Ogun State,  Foluso is a well known face at our monthly meetings. He is also active, very, very active on our WhatsApp platform. His is a voice that cannot be stilled at any of our forum. As a political scientist, he likes to discuss politics and hardly can you find him not taking a stand on issues, especially those he feels strongly about. Foluso is one of those who make our estate tick and we are richer (not materially o!) and better for it. It is in recognition of his innate qualities that we chose him as our street Coordinator and this retired insurance chief turned school proprietor has been coordinating well. As he joins the elite Senior Citizens’ Club on Monday, I wish him a happy birthday, long life and prosperity.  As your days, so shall your strength be.

  • Sex and the fall of the mighty

    WHEN will men learn?

    A remarkable academic journey that has seen him cresting on the top of his career, a  good family life, the warmth of friends and associates, the respect of subordinates and, of course, some financial security.

    All that has just collapsed at the gates of a prison – no thanks to the indiscretion that often assails men’s character. Human foibles.

    Can we pass any judgment? No; a judge has just done that. Besides, who is “he that is without sin”, ready to “cast the first stone”? But, that is not the question. Why do great careers sometimes crash on the hot laps of women?

    These – and more – must be going through the troubled mind of the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) teacher who has just bagged a six-year jail term for demanding sex to pass a student. For Prof. Richard Iyiola Akindele, it is the sad end of an exciting career that promised even more exciting days.

    The story is well known. A student, Monica (namesake of the former White House intern whose testimony almost wrecked Bill Clinton’s presidency) Osagie complained that Akindele demanded sex to pass her. Her boyfriend advised her to record the professor’s demand.

    Unaware that a trap had been set, Akindele got engrossed in a salacious telephone conversation with Monica. The audio hit the Internet and went viral. Akindele’s voice was heard the world over, demanding to sleep with his student five times before passing her.

    What a test!

    The student must sit for it five times before being certified to have passed.

    Justice Maurine Onyetenu of an Osogbo High Court rejected the defence counsel’s plea to suspend Akindele’s sentencing for a plea bargain.

    “Telling me to suspend sentence does not arise. Plea bargain does not arise. Maybe the case will continue to occur and reoccur because someone has not been used as an example,” the judge said.

    She sentenced the convict to six years in jail. His cell phone in which “sensitive materials” were found is to be forfeited to the Federal Government.

    It remains to be seen whether Akindele’s fate will deter other teachers who take advantage of their students. Even as the case was going on, there were reports of some other incidents of that kind in other schools.

    Monica’s lawyer is happy that justice has been served. Akindele’s friends and associates are sad that he has joined the long list of men who failed the test of fidelity in matters of concupiscence. No one, it seems, is exempted from such temptation.

    Monica Lewinsky hit the headlines when details of her tell-it-all erotic affair with former President Bill Clinton were unveiled. If any proof were needed of how easy it is to bring down an empire without firing a shot, there it was, laid bare on national television and on newspapers across the world.

    Lewinsky was an unknown White House intern, who was believed to have had a sexual relationship with Mr Clinton, who after much pressure, insisted that what they had was “oral sex”, not “sexual intercourse”.

    Before the world could say Lewinsky, “Monicagate” was here. “I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky,” Clinton told a White House Conference that was televised nationally and internationally.

    The statement sent analysts falling over one another in a  race to define what constitutes “sexual relations”. In fact, Mr Clinton maintained that because certain acts were “performed on him, not by him”, he did not engage in sexual relations. But the semantic gymnastics did not last.

    After being confronted with the raw evidence of a stain on Lewinsky’s blue dress that matched his DNA, Mr Clinton knew the game was up. He admitted having an “inappropriate intimate contact”.

    In a trial that lasted 20 days, Mr Clinton’s presidency nearly collapsed under the weight of a woman’s flesh, but the Senate vote fell short of the two-thirds majority required to remove him from office.

    But the phenomenon of sexual peccadilloes of great men did not begin with the Clinton-Monica affair. Recall the Biblical era. David and Uriah’s wife.

    Fidelis Oyakhilome; remember him? He was doing well as head of the anti-drug squad, the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), until a society woman showed up in his life. Jennifer Madike was amorously linked with the tough guy and then began his descent to first professional turbulence, then a web of controversy and finally oblivion.

    Sani Abacha (of dreadful memory) seized Nigeria by the throat between 1993 and 1998. His name evoked fear. The treasury was plundered in so reckless a manner that the world was to later acknowledge as most bizarre. The courts were castrated as many, including the president-elect, Moshood Abiola, were hauled into detention without trial.

    It was at the point when many eminent citizens thought it was better to go for broke that fate supervened in the shape of some unknown Indian women of easy virtue. The story of how the despot was despoiled of his evil powers, many insist – they are right, I must say – is yet to be told.

    Consider Helen of Troy, the exceptionally beautiful wife of Menelaus who was abducted by Paris, over whom the 10-year Trojan War was fought.

    Paul Wolfowitz, former World Bank President, former number two at the Pentagon in Bush’s America, and, according to our own Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, leader of the Third World’s anti-corruption battle.

    When he approved hefty allowances for his girlfriend, no one, least of all Mr Wolfowitz, knew that, by so doing, he was digging his own grave.  The bank’s board, goaded on by widespread workers’ indignation, set up a panel to examine the propriety of Wolfowitz’s action. They found him to have behaved below standards and, bowing to pressure from the White House, asked him to resign – a soft landing that was roundly condemned as a mere slap on the wrist.

    “Iron” Mike Tyson was once the world heavyweight boxing champion. So confident of his raw physical power was he that he boasted that he could tear a lion apart with his bare hands. He knocked out opponents as if they were novices. Then at the peak of his reign, he was accused of raping a former beauty queen, Desiree Washinton. Tyson was jailed. His career crashed. He lost everything – fame and fortune.

    Former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn got into trouble for allegedly having a coerced sexual relationship with an employee.  He left with a payoff, lucky man. His wife took no offence. She dismissed it all as a “one- night stand which is now behind us”.

    There is also the more recently case of the powerful CBS chieftain Les Moonves, whose 30-year creer at the top of the entertainment industry in America crashed, following revelations of an improper sexual relations with a string of women at CBS.. He forfeited his severance pay of $120 million.

    Perhaps the greatest golfer to have swung the club, Tiger Woods, got into trouble when many women claimed to have had affairs with him. His wife left him; he was depressed; he lost form and fortune.

    He is still battling to return to the top.

    Back to Akindele. His conviction came at a time the police in Lagos sparked off a controversy over the appropriateness or otherwise of having sex in a car. Car sex – for ease of reference.

    It is illegal, Police Commissioner Edgal Imohimi said, quoting Section 134 (a) Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2015, which states that such an act is indecent. He was reacting to an earlier position by a subordinate who said it was fine to unzip in a car.

    Some have said such an act in a car is private, even if it is done right there on the roadside, so long as other road users are not denied of their right to movement. But, what if passersby decide to watch and form a crowd, the ubiquitous Lagos crowd that unnecessarily slows down traffic? Is an air-conditioned car with tinted glasses not private enough for such a show?

    How will a policeman know what is going on in a parked car? Can he check by peeping without being invited? Won’t that amount to intrusion on a citizen’s privacy? If a whistle-blower reports to the police, what happens if the show has ended before an officer arrives at the scene?

    I hope the police are not planning to deploy more men in the streets to be on the lookout for those doing it in the car. There are more serious matters, including violent crimes, demanding attention.

    Meanwhile, psychologists will someday answer convincingly the question  why sex holds such a devastating power on  men and women.

     

    Unruly lawmakers

    OUR lawmakers were at their best again yesterday. They heckled President Muhammadu Buhari as he presented next year’s budget to the joint session of the National Assembly. To his credit, Buhari remained composed all through as they jeered, sneered and grumbled. He only advised the unruly lawmakers to behave because “the world is watching”.

    Did they listen?

    Not for them a thought on all the fine components of the document – the coming minimum wage, the explanation of the controversial subsidy issue, the battle to diversify the economy and all that. They seemed to have set out to embarrass Buhari.

     

    Is anybody surprised? Not at all. It would have been baffling if the lawmakers had sat through it all with the sobriety that such an occasion demands. The vacuous expression on their faces – those who were not snoring that is – showed it all. Little wonder they soon relapsed into the drama they so much love to sell as lawmaking, throwing up their arms like touts struggling for the control of a motor park. Indecorous.

    Here are people whose pay is one of the best kept public secrets anywhere. They do not know which party has the majority. National Assembly workers are not paid. Bills are piling up.

    The lawmakers may have conducted themselves as beer parlour clients because, as a colleague observed, Nigerians have seen that many of them are, indeed and in fact, lawbreakers. He asked: “Didn’t they say tramadol and codeine are banned?

  • Neither presidential nor parliamentary

    While our past and present leaders and other beneficiaries of our current dysfunctional structure continue to play the ostrich, a bill to return Nigeria to the parliamentary system of government sponsored by 71 members of the lower house passed its first reading at plenary last Thursday . The lawmakers whose membership cut across party lines  are seeking an amendment to the 1999 Constitution to revert from the current presidential system to the parliamentary system, first introduced by 1954 Lyttleton constitution and was in operation until  the first republic was wrecked in 1966 by military self-proclaiming messiahs.

    They advanced reasons for their proposed bill. “Studies”, according to them, “have shown that countries run by presidential regimes consistently produce lower output growth, higher and more volatile inflation, and greater income inequality relative to those under parliamentary ones”.They also spoke ofquick passage of economic bills due to the fusion of power that it embodies and promotion of”inclusion and collectiveness, which is critical to equality of income distribution and opportunities.”

    With frustrations because of resistance to change, it is easy to find justification to dump the current dysfunctional system. For instance, unlike what we today have under the presidential system where lawmakers elected on the platform of the same party works against the interest of theirparty, the executive branch of governmentin the parliamentary system has the direct or indirect support of the parliament.

    It is bad enough that we run a unitary system where 36 states and 774 LGAs look up to the centre for survival and fraudulently insist it is federal. But the problem is not in the label but in the character of our leaders who shamelessly exploit the virtues of the labels for personal gains at the expense of the nation.

    But I think what we need first is restructuring. It is the structure that defines the system. This has been the experience of India parliamentary system where the prime minister determines when a state which threatens stability of India ceases being a state. It is France’ structure that determined her hybrid system. It is similarly the structure of the US after their civil war and that of Germany at the end of World War 2 that determined their federal systems. It is on record that the golden era of our country was when we practiced parliamentary system as dictated by our structure between 1954 and 1966 contrary to the claim by the military that it introduced presidentialism in response to restiveness and acrimonies that defined the first republic.

    Once again, a brief journey through memory will reveal how and why we derailed. In the run up to independence, the preoccupation of the dominant ethnic groups – Hausa/Fulani, Igbo and Yoruba was the struggle for the control of their regions. And their weapons of war were their ethnic based political parties: Northern People’s Congress, (NPC), National Council of Nigeria and Cameroons (NCNC), and Action Group (AG).  But besides the dominant ethnic groups,there were also sub-national groups located within each of the dominant regions that equally craved for self-actualisation within the greater Nigerian nation. And to throw away the hegemony of their local oppressors, they sought the help from political enemies of their local oppressors. It was a win-win situation for the ethnic based parties that needed alliances to win election at the national level.

    Unlike Awolowo’s colleagues such as Bode Thomas, S L Akintola, RotimiWillaims and others in AG, who were satisfied with regionalism which as far as they were concerned was enough to prevent the country from being run by a one-eye king, Awolowo, whether  driven by his believe in federalism, the object of his lifelong research which resulted in his “path to Nigerian freedom” – a treatise on managing crisis of social dislocations in a multicultural Nigeria or  by his ambition to rule Nigeria one day, became the chief crusader for minority rights. In the process, he stepped onAhmadu Bello’s toes.

    One must also appreciate the fears of Ahmadu Bello who regarded Awo’s attempt to liberate those he described as his grandfather’s slaves as an attempt to undermine his authority in his region. This was an era when democracy, the new value system that places emphasis on individuals as against group, was yet to be fully embraced in the more educationally advanced Western Region where the deadly struggle between Alaafin of Oyo and Bode Thomas led to the deposition of the former and the sudden death of the latter. There was also Ife where an attempt by Fani-Kayode (born in London, groomed in Lagos) to treat Modakeke farmers and potential voters as equal with Ife landowners set him against the Ooni and  led to his loss of two consecutive elections before decamping to NCNC in 1959.

    But in 1962, Ahmadu Bello got his pound of flesh by supporting Akintola in his bitter struggle against his party. The coalition partners (NPC and NCNC) in breach of the constitution, interfered in the affairs of the west, declared state of emergency, sent Awo to detention, imposed Akintola who had been constitutionally removed by the governor of the west as premier, without election. Then the coalition partners  while ignoring agitation for state creations by restive minority groups in the north and east, went on to create Midwest in an effort to weaken the political base of Awolowo, the self-appointed  minority rights chief crusader.

    The 1963 republican constitution merely reinforced the lopsidedness of the federation. This effectively left the north with bigger land area and more population than the southern regions, to rule in perpetuity since democracy is a game of numbers.

    The 1964 disputed federal election led to constitutional crisis between the president and the prime minister during which both sought the help of the military. In the end, it was resolved in favour of the prime minister. The northern-controlled federal government, now used to having its ways, went on to supervise the rigging of 1965 Western Region election on behalf of embattled S.L Akintola. An attempt by the Sardauna to impose a premier rejected by the people on the west led to an orgy of violence.

    The Ironsi-led military junta that emerged after January 1966 coup, the MurtalaMuhammed and Theophilus Danjuma-led vengeance coup of July 1966, the plunging of the nation into a civil war by Ojukwu and Gowon,  Murtala/ Obasanjo, Buhari/Babangida/Abacha and Abdulaslami Abubakar juntasthat seized resources of regions to fund new states and LGAs created to consolidate the lopsidedness of the north, were proxy wars on behalf of the east and the north that have held the nation to ransom since 1966.

    The mandate of custodians of our constitution and their ‘newbreed’ politicians was as clear in 1966 as it is today. In 1966, it was to deal decisively with those who betrayed the letter and the spirit of the constitution and made change impossible. That simple task was elusive 52 years ago just as it is today with our current leaders’ continued resistance to restructuring without advancing a superior argument to prove it is not all about maintaining the status quo.

  • Because we fail as patriots

    Nigeria is still not the greatest country in Africa. She is not the greatest nation in the world. Some have called her a creature borne of violence. But she is hardly the ‘contraption’ frequently alluded to by generations of revolutionary poseurs and armchair Trotskys.

    The latter would wish our problems away by simply calling for secession; an end to the ‘forced marriage’ of cultures and ethnicities by British colonialists. This is shallow reasoning.

    Nigeria fails as a nation because we fail as patriots and progenitors of humane civilisation. We do not muster a superior culture of nationhood and society, rather we curate the worst that our forebears dared espouse, coating it as the ‘Nigerian factor,’ and embellish it as a flamboyant code of conduct.

    Thus we covet an incestuous relationship with self – the dark, chthonian parts of innate nature, and mould our clans where ethnic foolery fraternises with vile. 

    Senior citizenry molest our young in a never-ending cycle of sleaze and moral paedophilia. But the young are hardly the prey we think they are. Every second, they morph from starry-eyed victims to eager participants in our dehumanising ritual of violence, mental and biological aberration.

    Ours is a classic tale of Darwinian waste and mayhem, the squalor and rot of Nigerianness – a distortion of African civilisation. But we block the true import and consequences of this hideous cycle on our psyches and our future as a nation, that we might retain our integrity as brutes and eternal wildlings?

    Western science and cultural aesthetics, predictably, become apparatus in our frantic attempt to revise the Nigerian horror into imaginatively palatable form.

    Notwithstanding our frantic lunge for substance and acclaim on frontiers, where the world’s more advanced civilisations project their race and illusions of oneness, Nigeria remains hideous in name and status.

    While we make exaggerated gestures in fields of space science, information technology, industry, sports, and so on, Nigerian children die at birth and thousands of mothers die in painful labour.

    The youth are unemployed. Public officers loot public coffers with impunity and disregard for Rule of Law. Law enforcement officers turn violent affliction on the citizenry and society they are meant to protect; and the executive, legislative and judicial arms of government mesh in a fetid whirl of strife and plunder. Anarchy rules our hinterlands and metropolitan Nigeria.

    Within such stew and stink, Nigeria ranked 152nd of 188 countries in the 2016 African Human Development Index (HDI) according to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

    Thus we are back at the crossroads of vile and extinction. There has been little improvement in our plight.

    While this piece too, resounds as hackneyed howl and lamentation, a regurgitation of towering monstrosities we have become, it need be said that our ultimate nemesis is the Nigerian youth.

    The youth epitomise the nub of discord and deathly rally ripping the tide and march to progress of our fatherland. But why do promising youth evolve like brutes and loathsome trolls? How did our once incandescent spokes of dawn erupt in moonshine?

    Many have attributed the affliction of the Nigerian youth to bad leadership, endless dominance of the predatory ruling class and tiring recalcitrance of the younger generation to engage in communal and national politics in a beneficial manner.

    Many more would readily diagnose the maladies of the nation’s youth to structural bane and the perverse culture of citizenship by which they are weaned and ushered into adulthood.

    In the wake of plausible and often far-fetched analyses, too many ‘patriots’ conveniently excuse themselves from the nexus of blame and severally propound the sad realisation that Nigerians are innately incapable of self-determination and self-governance.

    Many have recommended the American example, the British palliative, the Chinese abracadabra and Malaysian ingenuity to mention a few, as the ultimate measures to resolve the nation’s ills. How?

    These arguments have overtime, attained a language of their own and thus evolved as a dialect of dissent and exaggerated self-abnegation. The nation’s academic elite, political and economic ruling classes frequently marshal clashing precepts as solutions and justifiable putdown of the ruling class and the lower working class as their politics dictate.

    A more damning view identifies the breadlines’ persistent ‘claims to victimhood and sense of entitlement’ as whiny and symptomatic of a dense and irresponsible citizenry. Between the conflict of hyperboles and sentimental vituperation, Nigeria suffers the affliction of intellectual miscreants and disillusioned youth.

    As youths, the coordinated tragedies afflicting our consciousness daily, append the only real structure to our lives as impoverished Nigerians. The burdensome reality of fast slipping youth, the recurrent rites of bigotry and ethical quandary of coping with the strict moral code of adulthood and ideal society, obscures our understanding of life’s ultimate purpose and meaning.

    It spurs millions of misguided youth to engage in desperate pursuit of fast, fleeting riches even as ripples of their actions keep hundreds of millions more in the doldrums and binds of despair.

    Consequently, the revolutionary dissent that sprouts from oppression is pitiless and unbending. It radically splits our world into ‘insensitive ruling class’ and ‘clueless lower class,’ ‘elite’ and ‘downtrodden,’ ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots.’

    It fosters even more fragmented discord that continually pits Nigerian Christians against Muslims, Hausa against Igbo, Igbo against Yoruba, Yoruba against Ijaw.

    It fosters spurious segmentation of our society into moral and amoral, good against evil, and apostates versus believers. Within this poisonous clime, the Nigerian child is born. If he survives birth hour, he is violently thrust into adolescence and misshapen adulthood.

    From Boko Haram and Niger Delta Avengers (NDA) terrorism, internet fraud, cyber-terrorism, financial/bankers’ terrorism and political terrorism emblematic of the ruling class, recent developments in the country present a sad prologue to a heinous and wider conflict between the nation’s rich ruling class and the impoverished majority of the breadlines and disappearing middle-class.

    A bloody and protracted war thus ensues: this war, caused by diminishing resources, chronic unemployment, substandard health facilities, rising food prices, big business and government conspiracies against the Nigerian state, manifest at alarming proportions daily and by the second.

    Thus our society is flung rudderless on a seething sea of sleaze. Now that our world as we have made it, begins to collapse, we withdraw from the possibility of rebirth, and choose to exploit ‘infinite possibilities’ in our fragility and doomsday predictions.

    The youth predictably become prominent actors in the theatre of ruin and discord. They become the muscle to actualise the ruling class’ blueprint of collapse. But if we consider our plight deeply enough, we would find that no child of the ruling class is co-opted in the drama of violence and bloodshed. They are tucked safely, abroad.

    Picture the NDA, Boko Haram, MASSOB, IPOB, OPC, and so on with sons, daughters and wives of Nigerian ruling class. Let our governors, legislators, and presidency, people these groups with their sons, daughters and wives.

    It’s about time we shunned the politics of spurious militancy, bloodshed and devastation to embrace growth and immense possibilities of progressive endeavour, like a political platform founded by the youth, for all and posterity.

  • Alaafin of Oyo in contemporary Nigerian politics – 4

    The Alaafin must have paid a fortune to lawyers over the various cases he had had to take to court if not on political supremacy with the Ooni but also on who owns the land of Oyo with Asipa of Oyo who claimed his family owns the entire new Oyo settled by Atiba in 1830. He also went to legal battle with the Soun of Ogbomosho over their territorial boundary as well as who had consenting authority over such towns as Ifon, Iresaadu and Ikoyi in the territorial jurisdiction of the Soun even though history links them with the Alaafin throne.  In most of the legal battles he waged against his opponents, he sometimes went to the national archives in Ibadan to search for documents to validate his position. The Alaafin may not have a string of degrees but he possesses deep knowledge to make appear as a “philosopher king “. The Alaafin has been known to quote in certain public speeches from the holy Bible, the Koran and Ifa odu demonstrating intellectual eclecticism.

    When Osun State was carved out of Oyo and the Ooni then became permanent chairman of the Osun State Council of Obas, the Alaafin was then faced with competition with the Soun of Ogbomosho and the Olubadan of Ibadan. In Yoruba tradition, the Olubadan and the Soun of Ogbomosho were not the equal of the Alaafin. But today both Ogbomosho and Ibadan are much bigger than Oyo and by the size of their population they deserve recognition, but by culture and tradition of the Yoruba, they must follow the Alaafin and not lead him. An analogous situation to this is the prickly relations between highly populous and wealthy Kano and small Sokoto, the seat of the Caliphate, yet Kano defers to Sokoto. When a regime of rotational chairmanship was put in place to accommodate the Soun and the Olubadan, the Alaafin refused to participate in what he considered infra digitatem and hence the shut down of Oyo State Council of chiefs and Obas for years. It will remain shut down until there is a policy based on historical facts and legacy to guide whoever wields political power of the moment. There was even an attempt by a civilian governor to raise the status of Asipa to that of a king. This muddling of history did not fly. Many of the questions the Alaafin has had to contend with have not been settled and laid down to rest and perhaps will not be settled soon until we go back to find acceptable solutions based on our history and culture. The Abacha dictatorship tried unsuccessfully to humiliate the Alaafin to force him to support his regime against the interest of the Yoruba people by impugning the integrity of the Alaafin. This was a testy period especially when the same Abacha had no qualms in engineering the removal of Ibrahim Dasuki as Sultan of Sokoto.

    The last 48 years in Oyo has seen tremendous progress and achievements. The education front has witnessed remarkable progress. Many secondary schools have been built. There is a federal girls’ school and college of special education as well as the Oladipo Alayande College of Education. There is a private Atiba University at an embryonic state and there is Bishop Ajayi Crowther University in full bloom. Oyo is linked to Ibadan by an expressway which will soon reach Ilorin. There are other roads linking Oyo with the upper Ogun area thus making Oyo the centre of a thriving agricultural area. There is need to invest in the hospitality business and to build excellent hotels which are still few and far between.

    The present Alaafin has been well recognized by the federal government which at one time made him the Amir-ul – hajj of the annual pilgrimage by Nigerian Muslims to Mecca. This is the first time a Yoruba leader or Oba has been so recognized. The Alaafin was also at one time chancellor of the University of Sokoto. The status of the Alaafin remains formidable and the present young Ooni of Ife Oba Ogunwusi in visiting the revered ruler and breaking whatever historical taboo against such an act of camaraderie has ensured that a new beginning has begun in the Alaafin of Oyo’s relation with Ife and thereby laying the basis of unity in Yorubaland. One fact that remains is the dichotomy in the politics of Yorubaland namely the divergent Awolowo and Akintola traditions. For good or ill, the Alaafin has found himself pulled to the side of the Akintola tendency perhaps willy-nilly because the Awolowo tradition has pigeonholed him into that tendency.  He has had to tread softly in order to avoid falling into the trap of enemies made by him and those inherited by the son of whom he is and the position he holds. His political allies have always been those on the conservative tradition of Yoruba politics. Among these were Chief M. K. O Abiola whom he made the Are ona Kakanfo and the likes of the late Arisekola Alao and Adedibu. His recent elevation of the relatively young Ganiyu Adams as Are ona Kakanfo has not gone down well with the Yoruba elite who feel the title is demeaned by the fact that Ganiyu Adams has not proved himself even though he is able to mobilize the youth for action if needs be. The Alaafin will argue that it is because of that ability to mobilize the youth that makes his appointment right for these times. Surprisingly, the Alaafin has remained aloof to the demand for the creation of either a new Oyo State or Oke Ogun State perhaps not being sure such a state will have Oyo town as its capital. It is usually said that traditional rulers should stay away from politics but it is however difficult for a person holding the position of the Alaafin to avoid politics completely when by the nature of the history of Yorubaland, politics remains an essential part of any Alaafin’s DNA.

     

    • Concluded.

  • Another season of goodwill

    Christmas beckons.  Harmattan is here with its harsh, dry and dusty air. Gone is the greenery of the fields. The lush grass of the golf course and the plants that bloom during the rains to beautify the countryside. It is cloudy and hot. Nature has a tough and rough way of reminding us that another season of goodwill has come.

    How many among us know that, indeed, it is Yuletide? Can we blame anyone for this seeming oversight? Boko Haram, the snake with a truncated tail, is furious and vicious in its bloody campaign. Kidnappers are raking in ransom in millions of Naira. One used to settle only for hard currency, until time caught up with him. Robbers are as daring as ever. Jobs are scarce. Many are losing their mental balance. Strikes. Doctors, teachers, civil servants: everybody is angry.

    The times are hard indeed, but not so hard as to kill what has become a tradition for “Editorial Notebook”. So, dear reader, it is time again to remember our compatriots who deserve the gifts it dispenses during this season, lest they feel neglected. Here then is my mailing list for the Yuletide.

    President Muhammadu Buhari tops the list, for obvious reasons. When he travelled to Britain early in the year to see his doctors, the rumour mill hit  overdrive. Some said he would throw in the towel and quit for health reasons; others simply delivered a brutal and fatal verdict – they said he was dead. Buhari, needless to say, returned hale and hearty, with more vigour, bouncing like an athlete primed for the Olympics.

    Unrelenting, the purveyors of those uncharitable rumours then stepped up their game. They said his “double”, an unknown Jibril or Jibrin or Jubril, a Sudanese, was the one at the Villa, performing state functions.  As idiotic as this claim was, many lapped it up and challenged Buhari to prove that he, in fact and indeed, is the real Buhari, the man we elected to run Nigeria. The source of this foolish claim was, incredibly, Nnamdi Kanu, the provocatively reckless pro-Biafra fugitive, who led many youths astray and then fled into a safe haven somewhere overseas.

    For Buhari, I have packaged 12 bottles of the tested multivitamin , Centrum Silver. Taken regularly, this supplement will surely help the President in fighting the effects of aging, thereby confounding and confusing his traducers about his physique and intellect.

    Those who waited eagerly for former President Goodluck Jonathan’s memoirs seem not to be satisfied with “My Transition Hours,” which has just been published. They insist that His Excellency left out many facts – and fictions — that needed to be cleared in the work.

    For instance, said the critics, he did not address how he was caged at the Villa, as he once confessed. Who caged him? Men? Women? How? Why? What is the truth about the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA) funds? Who actually took what? And many other questions the reader of the book expected Dr Jonathan to address.

    Going by the title, I guess that the work is not meant to address the Jonathan  presidency’s six years. That will be difficult in just 167 pages. I am told by sources close to the former president that a full, uncensored biography will soon be in the works. I would have recommended Dr Reuben Abati for the job, he being an insider, a member of the kitchen cabinet, but he is nowadays damn too busy with  campaigns in Ogun State. Abati is – yes; he is – PDP governorship “candidate” Buruji Kashamu’s running mate.

    From me, Dr Jonathan will get a copy of Curtis Bisel’s book, “How to write an autobiography. The secret tips on how to finally get started”. I remember mailing a copy last year. I wonder if His Excellency ever got it.

    Former President Olusegun  Obasanjo loves drama. When he eventually proclaimed that he had forgiven Atiku Abubakar’s sins, he ensured that some clerics were present. He has since taken the relationship further by backing his former deputy for president. To many observers, however, a mere pronouncement of forgiveness from the hilltop Presidential Library is no full atonement for all those big sins he had ascribed to the Wazirin Adamawa. Nor is Atiku’s purgatory complete without Obasanjo expunging from his book, “My Watch” the odious references to the PDP presidential candidate.

    Atiku, some have suggested, should sue to salvage his integrity. How do you sue a benefactor who has been so magnanimous in forgiving you your sins? What if he takes it all in bad faith and withdraws your forgiveness and your sins return? Should Atiku decide to take the legal option, I am mailing a list of the best lawyers in this area–defamation.

    Besides, this being the season of campaigns and sleepless nights for politicians, His Excellency will get from me a big basket of kolanuts to keep him alert – always.

    All Progressives Congress (APC) National Chairman Adams Oshiomhole has been under pressure over the party’s rancorous (in some states) primaries. Ogun State Governor Ibikunle Amosun is restless; his favourite Adekunle Abdulkabir Akinlade for governor missed the ticket. Amosun insists nevertheless that Akinlade must fly the flag, but Oshiomhole would not budge. He says there is no room for an emperor. Okorocha is pushing for his in-law to succeed him. Oshiomhole disagrees. He would not allow anybody to create a “dynasty”.

    So much pressure being piled on Oshiomhole.   From me, he will get the new version of the M2 Basic Automatic Blood Pressure Monitor, the OMRON brand.

    Governors are hardly remembered when they leave the office. Theirs is, as many of them have been grumbling, a thankless job. Their sacrifice, sleepless nights, endless meetings and long tours are often forgotten so fast. Lest this group get angry, I have picked one of them for the mailing list.

    Former Ekiti State Governor Ayo Fayose’s expensive vehicles seem to be prone to accidents. Last year, one of those exotic SUVs, a Mercedes Benz G-Class, caught fire in Oshodi, Lagos sometime in October, last year. By the time the fire was put out,  piles of crisp Naira notes had been scorched; the notes were quickly retrieved  from the smouldering interior.  And just last week, His Excellency’s G-Wagon was involved in an accident on the Third Mainland Bridge in Lagos.

    Chief Fayose will get a “manual on safe driving, and a two-week training offer for his drivers, who will also undergo drug tests – all at no expense to His Excellency.

    Our lawmakers will surely get angry, should they be left out of my list. I do not want to be summoned before these distinguished men – and women – who deserve nothing less than the best the season can offer for their sacrifice. The Distinguished Senator representing the good people of Kogi West, Dino Melaye,  has always made the list. I am glad to announce – to the delight of his constituents, I hope – that Melaye will get 12 packs of the soothing tea, Chamomile, to help him stay calm all day. Last year, I sent 10 packs of the herbal medication “Kalms” that steadies the nerves for the sobriety and restraint a lawmaker of Melaye’s standing requires. I hope he got them.

    Women won’t be left out. Since former Finance Minister Kemi Adeosun  quit the Buhari cabinet in controversial circumstances,  her whereabouts have become a subject of intense arguments in boardrooms, bedrooms and restrooms. Why did she quit suddenly? Was NYSC threatening to prosecute her for allegedly forging its  exit document?

    For Mrs Adeosun, I have ordered the book “A Separation” by Katie Kitamura, “a story about betrayal and how impossible it is to know another person”.

    All through this season of goodwill, my mailing list remains open. Should there be any omission on which you feel strongly, dear reader, do not hesitate to point it out. I will make amends.

    Meanwhile, all the best for an exciting Yuletide.

     

    A family tragedy in Rivers

    WHY will a man kill his four kids, set his home on fire and then take his own life? This is the big puzzle detectives are battling to resolve in Alesa, Rivers State.  Achibong Patrick reportedly attacked his wife, who escaped by running away from their home, before descending on the innocent children, strangling them.

    Doctors are battling to save the distraught woman’s life. She remains a key witness in the investigation. Before the police call it a day, it is pertinent to ask some questions. What kind of man was citizen Achibong? Was he mentally stable? Did neighbours notice any strange behaviour of his and failed to report to the authorities? Were they in a position to save the kids? Was Achibong driven to this tragic end by poverty?

    How was he able, in the interval between the time his wife sounded the alarm and neighbours rushed to her rescue – how was he in that interval able to strangle his four children, set the house ablaze, and hang himself?

    The Achibongs are not alone. Such tragic incidents occur quite often nowadays. As claimed by experts, some 40 million Nigerians are suffering from mental illness. Why? What is the remedy?

    Fathers assault their daughters. Young men assault elderly women for diabolical purposes. Minors are not spared.

    The probe of the Alesa tragedy should go beyond the usual; it should find out the state of mental health in Nigeria.

  • Expensive visa

    AMERICAN visa, though sought by many, is hard to get. In some cases, it will be easier for the camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for an applicant to obtain the American visa. So, applicants do their homework well before applying for the visa. They leave nothing to chance in their desperation to get to God’s own country. Many seek the face of God over the project, turning it to a prayer point.

    The craze for the American visa is informed by the belief that it is a land flowing with milk and honey; a country which you get to and pronto,  things will turn around for you. This is why the young and the old keep vigil at the American Embassy and endure whatever insult is hurled at them by the staff. For them, it is America or nothing. Those whose applications are turned down try and try and try again to see if they will be lucky the second, third or fourth time.

    The American visa is a matter of life and death for many of our people, but that cannot be said of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar. As a former vice president, who I believe must enjoy some privileges even if he is no longer holding a Diplomatic Passport, obtaining the American visa should not be a big deal. But there is this belief that Atiku cannot visit the United States of America (USA) because of the yoke of corruption that is hanging around his neck. Ever before Atiku and his boss former President Olusegun Obasanjo left office in 2007, all sorts of claims were flying around about how he made his money.

    Some claimed that he made his money as a customs officer, but not through his legitimate earnings, an euphemism for shady deals. Others said he cornered all the enterprises that were privatised under his watch as chairman of the National Council on Privatisation (NCP) by virtue of his position as vice president between 1999 and 2007.

    Since he joined the presidential race after picking the ticket of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), those in the opposing camp have stepped up their campaign that he is not fit for the nation’s highest office because he is corrupt. Ask them for proof. They will refer you to the Jefferson case in the US in which he was mentioned. William Jefferson, who was a Congressman, was jailed in 2009 for corruption. He has since been released

    What nailed him was the $90,000 found in his freezer. He also reportedly told an investor that he must give Atiku $500,000 as a ‘’motivating factor’’ to get a contract for the investor’s firm in Nigeria. Atiku was expected to appear in court in the US for the case, but he did not go. The court was said to have ordered that he be arrested if he comes to the US. Nine years after the case, its fall out is still reverberating. The issue is back on the front burner because of Atiku’s interest in the Presidency. What has the American visa got to do with the 2019 presidential election?

    You apply for a visa if you have the resources to travel to the country of your choice. Our people prefer the US, the United Kingdom despite its BREXIT brouhaha, Canada and those countries commonly referred to as Schegen nations. Applying for a visa is a matter of choice and it is treated in strict confidence by the country you are proposing to visit. Hints about Atiku’s visa were first dropped by his campaign chief, Otunba Gbenga Daniel, who said on a television programme that his principal has asked him to apply for the American visa on his (Atiku’s) behalf. I do not know if people can apply for visa by proxy.

    The Federal Government may have taken note of Daniel’s disclosure. On November 29, Information and Culture Minister Alhaji Lai Mohammed implored the American Embassy not to grant Atiku a visa so as not to be seen as taking sides in the forthcoming presidential election. ‘’Our position is that if the former vice president already has a US visa, we have no problem about it. What we warn the US Government against is not to give the impression that it is endorsing one particular candidate over the other. That is what is going to happen if, for instance the former vice president is granted a visa’’.

    Elections have a way of getting at people. Remember that former President Goodluck Jonathan, in his memoir, claimed he lost the 2015 election to President Muhammadu Buhari because of the interference of the US and UK, among other countries. Isn’t that the same path the present administration is treading even before the outcome of next year’s election is known?  Whether Atiku gets an American visa or not should not be something for the government to lose sleep over. It should concentrate on governance and allow its work to speak for it at the poll.

    Trying to stop Atiku from getting an American visa or calling him all sorts of names will not do the trick. Can the corruption allegations against him stand when he has not been convicted of them? The government has since said it has no evidence yet with which to try him for graft. Despite that, it still maintains that the poll will be a battle between a man with integrity and another who it claims is not clean. The man with the chances of winning the election, it says, “is a man who has integrity, a man who does not have a single stain on his name, the man the world respects… not those who cannot travel to ordinary America that we all travel to now and then. Anybody who has a baggage, particularly when it involves corruption and lack of integrity cannot win. Nigerians know’’.

    Yes, they know. That is why no matter what we say or do, the fate of all the contestants lies in the people’s hands.

  • Democracy and disciplined political party are Siamese twins

    Nigerian governors wield enormous powers. And answerable to none including the electorate in an era when ‘stomach infrastructure’ has become a substitute for party manifesto; they are perhaps the most powerful political office holders in the world. For them, voters are nothing but mere participants in a four year periodic ritual called election. They are also untouchable because they have constitutional immunity which precludes them from prosecution even for criminal offences while in office. And with some of them presiding over huge budgets sometimes bigger than those of some African countries, governors in Nigeria are dispensers of patronages. And because they control their party state structures, they are the custodian of elective and appointive positions.  The fate of LGA, state and National Assembly office seekers is therefore in their hands. We must not also forget that governors’ words are laws. They once declared 17 greater than 19 during one of their forum’s elections and Jonah Jang who by their crooked logic won by securing lower votes celebrated his victory by doing a thanksgiving in his church.

    Although governors approve mouth-watering severance packages covering houses in their states and Abuja, periodic change of cars and salaries for life, they never retire. They just ease themselves into the senate after installing their preferred successors. This has been the narrative since the beginning of the fourth republic in 1999.

    In fairness to outgoing Imo State governor Rochas Okorocha and his Ogun State counterpart, Ibikunle Amosun, who have been under great stress and strain these past weeks, they have not demanded for anything extraordinary. All they have tried to do after securing their party’s ticket to the senate in the 2019 election was to follow an already established tradition of installing their own successors. Then came APC new  chairman, Adams Oshiomhole who during his own time  criss-crossed  the whole of Edo State selling his preferred successor to the electorate as if his life depended on it, now armed with  a  retroactive law targeted at those he describes as ‘dynasty and empire’ builders.

    The two governors who have so much in common have however sworn that Oshiomhole and APC will know no peace except their demands to impose their successors are met. Already Ibikunle Amosun has said that his anointed candidate, Adekunle Akinlade, has his “full blessing” to pursue his governorship ambition in the Allied Peoples Movement (APM). “I, Senator Ibikunle Amosun will not work for any other candidate that they are rooting for to become governor”, he recently declared with a ring of foreboding finality. He has also expressed open support for another 26 of his aggrieved loyalists that crossed over to APM to contest for Ogun State House of Assembly seats.  Rochas Okorocha has also adopted Amosun’s template. They have also sought relief from the courts despite the dangling of  ‘Article 20, Subsection 10’ of APC constitution which talks about charges of ‘subversion of party regulations for members who fail to exhaust the party’s intermediation processes before going to court’ by chairman Oshiomhole.

    Unfortunately, the problem is not with the two governors who have done no wrong by trying to observe existing PDP and APC protocols. The tragedy of our political party system is located within our ill-equipped military that whimsically destroyed our political socialization process in 1966 and went on to arrogantly arrogate to themselves the powers to teach Nigerians that started experiment on party formation in 1923, how to form political parties. Babangida hilariously decreed short-lived  NRC and SDP  (1990-93) followed by  Abacha’s ‘five fingers of a leprous hand’ with his Congress for National Consensus (CNC), Democratic Party of Nigeria (DPN) and the National Centre Party of Nigeria (NCPN) among others and the military packaged PDP, consisting of   groups such as the G-18 and G-34.  PDP has since its formation in 1998 run by garrison commanders led by President Obasanjo who shuffled senate presidents and party chairmen according to his mood. Audu Ogbeh once narrated how Obasanjo had a lunch of pounded yam with him  after which he brought out from his pocket, a prepared letter of his resignation as PDP chairman for him to sign.

    Far from being a political party, PDP is an association of traders and rent seekers camouflaging as one. Anxious to recoup the funds they claimed they expended on 1999 election, they hurriedly set up PPPRA, an instrument their members according to a house probe deployed for stealing about N1.7trillion under fuel subsidy scam. With their self-serving monetization policy, they shared inherited landed properties dating back to the colonial period. With its ill-implemented privatization policy, they shared our budding industries among themselves. Only last week, APC national leader, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu reminded Nigerians of how PDP spent $16b on the power sector and went on to share it among themselves on the eve of their departure from office all in the name of privatization.

    It was not long PDP imploded over sharing of spoils of office with Bukola Saraki and some others joining APC. By his own admission, Saraki confessed selling his new party’s victory for a pot of porridge in order to snatch the presidency of the senate. There-after, he made the country ungovernable for about three years before crawling back to PDP where he lost his presidential bid to Abubakar Atiku, who by his own periodic haggling for presidential ticket among Nigerian parties has also demonstrated his lack of abiding faith in the ideals of a political party.

    Of course the APC, until the emergence of Oshiomhole not too long ago, was seen by many as an extension of PDP. Its elected senators and House of Representative members are marketable commodities.  Although both houses are controlled by APC, elected party members have behaved more like opposition working against the policies of their president.

    As for Amosun and Okorocha, a part cannot be holier than the whole. By their own antecedents they have not shown they are any different from their PDP and APC trading colleagues. Okorocha had decamped from the PDP to the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA). He was suspended by APGA in December 2011 for allegedly storming the Imo State secretariat of APGA with dozens of thugs, who allegedly beat up several top officers of the party. But despite his suspension by APGA, he went on to win the 2011 election.  Rochas decamped to the All Progressives Congress in 2013. For the 2015 he also went on to defeat former deputy speaker, House of Representatives, Hon. Emeka Ihedioha. Amosun was also first elected to the seat of Ogun Central Senatorial district in 2003 on the platform of ANPP. He failed to win the 2007 governorship election and thereafter joined ACN where he won the 2011 and 2015 elections. With their antecedents, it is no surprise they have chosen to now run with the hare and hunt with the hound.

    I sympathise with Oshiomhole, the APC chairman. His argument in support of a crusade for a strong disciplined political party is unassailable. The 600 years head start Europe and other industrialised and developed democracies had over the underdeveloped societies have been attributed to the ingenious creation and deployment of disciplined political parties as modernization agents by European political elite of the 15th century. The golden age of our nation, 1952-62 was the period our founding fathers, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, Ahmadu Bello and Obafemi Awolowo, relied on political parties (NCNC, NPC and AG) as modernization agents.

    Democracy and disciplined political party are like Siamese twins. One cannot survive without the other. If Oshiomhole and his APC are serious about consolidating the democratization process, this is an opportunity to take a decisive action even if it involves using the big stick against Amosun and Okorocha who appear not to be in a hurry to jettison their old ways.

  • Life parody

    What do politicians think at death’s door? How much money they could hoard into their caskets perhaps. What would you think at death’s door? You, the unbidden offering on the politician’s altar of greed?

    Greed, weaving its tissues of lust, wraps us in her shroud at birth. We grow out of the mould, startled by a pat, into a larger frame of the world’s excesses. Until we become society; and society flips us by the senses, moulding us from infancy into feral, garish cruciform.

    The newborn grows into crucifixion in the house of the impoverished. He evolves through systolic throbbing of the heart at birth, oscillating between poverty and pain, power and weaknesses, ethics and amorality – vortices of a life foredoomed to a historical gyre of gloom and death.

    The lucky child, however, extinguishes at birth, in the home of the poor. Thus he is spared death in macabre warrens, like Ogun State’s dirt roads and dysfunctional hospitals. He is spared gruesome expiration as a bone sliver, blood spatter and brain fragments, in Borno’s theatre of war and death.

    If he doesn’t extinguish to lack of oxygen in the hospital labour ward or alagbo omo (traditional midwife)’s matted lab, he risks growing up to become a street-urchin, cult killer, armed robber, menial worker, prostitute, assassin, forever amenable to plots of the criminal ruling class.

    At the backdrop of his grisly narrative, his privileged peer grows into lush, ornate extravagance; the latter, born into the aristocratic divide is, however, feted by affluence and ravaged by wealth.

    He grows reprobate and unfeeling, weaned to extrude his savage lusts to the detriment of impoverished peer amid starving electorate – his parents’ meal ticket or family’s hound-meat if you like.

    At election time, he glistens the news pages in family portraits and carefully orchestrated political media campaigns. He is the darling child whose testimonial for ‘daddy,’ ‘secret philanthropy’ and ‘very Nigerian’ fashion sense, arouses the wonder and goodwill of ‘poor, silly, sentimental electorate’ as his father would say.

    As you read, he uploads in careless abandon, pictures of his wild cavorting aboard parents’ private jet bought with pilfered State funds. He throws the wildest parties at home, where boondocks daughters become fair game to him and friends.

    This minute, he is ramming into unsuspecting motorists and bystanders as they wait their turn to buy scarce PMS, made unaffordable by his ruling-class parents’ savage thrusts; next minute, he is uploading pictures of the dent made on his father’s car at the densely populated filling station, by his victims’ splintered bones.

    The privileged child, like the fabled palace troll, mutates into tyrant royalty. Having assimilated the ethical decay of his forebears, he blossoms in cruelty and procedural violence. He illustrates his class’ ferocious passions in the ways and pattern of licentious Rome.

    Each sadistic exertion by him establishes portents of his underprivileged peers’ future torment, by the venal occult ruling class.

    Nigeria thrives by this macabre rite. Thus while youthful electorate clamour for the ‘#nottooyoungtorun’ bill, the ruling class, comprising the All Progressives Congress (APC) and People’s Democratic Party (PDP), lend voice to the clamour, although at varying decibels and with vicious intent.

    The ruling class plans to recycle itself in power courtesy their rich, spoilt wards. Thus they snigger at the youthful electorate, ranting about “taking over.”

    The herd may vie for power but only patrician creatures and spawns, comprising drug addicts, sex perverts, trainee looters and Ivy League crooks among others will enjoy such privilege.

    The votes our parents’ cast put us in such bind. The votes we cast puts our children in a worse bind, which beggars the question: ‘For whom do we cast our votes in 2019? Whose constitution rejects our tragic ironies?’

    In 2019, will you vote for the APC or PDP candidate promising a prosperous future, by the lure of money, and bigoted, poisonous politics?

    We face a far more difficult problem at our moment in history: the affliction by youth weaned on ferocious ill and savage materialism. Twisted youth from two societal extremes, haves and have-nots, coalesce in ghastly pursuits inimical to the Nigerian project.

    What do you promise youth that had been told that they can have anything they want without shedding sweat for it? How do you give them a new vision to deal with bitter reality? Which candidate projects a promising story of the future, a grand vision of possibilities that Nigerians may believe?

    How do we breed youth on the belief that success should never be about accumulating obscene wealth to show off, but the right to live fully and engage more expansively, the elemental possibilities of human existence?

    There is no gainsaying Nigerian politicians worship money and feed the youths’ mad lust for affluence. Brings to mind the story of the conqueror King: Alexander, after conquering many kingdoms, allegedly fell ill on his way home. On his deathbed, he realized how his legendary conquests and wealth were of no consequence. He longed for the little moment that amounted to life’s essence: to see his mother’s face and bid her bye. But sinking health would not permit him.

    In his last three wishes to his generals, he said his first desire is that his physicians alone must carry his coffin that people might realize that no doctor on earth can really cure anybody.

    Second, he requested that the path leading to the graveyard be strewn with gold, silver and precious stones which he collected in his treasury that people should know that “not even a fraction of gold will come with me.”

    “My third and last wish,” he said, “is that both my hands be kept dangling out of my coffin. I wish people to know that I came empty handed into this world and empty handed I go out of this world.” He died afterward.

    Dear governor, senator, president, you will die in common hours. And you don’t amount to a third of Alexander. Remember when death comes in your spittle.

  • Obasanjo’s crusade for LG autonomy

    President Obasanjo fights for anything he believes in with all his might. As military Head of State back in the mid- 70s, he midwifed  the 1976 local government reforms, considered back then as the most revolutionary in the history of local government reforms in the country dating back to 1914. Not too long ago, he embarked on a new crusade for local government autonomy. Responding to an appeal for backing towards the actualization of an autonomous local government system by Comrade Ibrahim Khaleel, the National Union of Local Government Employees, (NULGE) who led other union leaders on a working visit to him in Abeokuta not too long ago, he had said: “When in 1976, we brought in local government reforms, it was meant to be the third tier of the government and not meant to be subjected to the whims and caprices of any other government”.

    “Local Government”, he continued “is meant to be autonomous from the state government just the same way that the state government is autonomous from the federal government.” Accusing states executives of ‘stealing local government funds’ and labelling legislatures that have prevented the bill from being passed as ‘enemies of the people’, he asks “if the federal government allows the states to enjoy their autonomy, why don’t you want local government to enjoy autonomy?”

    Here, Obasanjo, in his new crusade for local government autonomy, a continuation of the 1976 got it all wrong by giving the impression that the states exist at the behest of the federal government. The principle of federal arrangement everywhere in the world is that the states are not inferior to the centre. The centre and the federating states operate on the basis of a constitution which allocates power to the centre and the federating states.

    In view of the contradictions associated with Obasanjo’s 1976 local government reforms, it is difficult to fault the argument of those who claim it was designed to buy legitimacy and undermine state governments as against vehicles for development of the rural areas as canvassed by the then military government.

    Let us try to be charitable by accepting Robin Luckman’s sociological analysis of Nigerian military misadventure into politics that they were motivated by patriotism but became clueless when confronted by socio-economic realities they were ill-equipped to address. We can then amuse ourselves with the belief that Obasanjo, like many of his military adventurers who foisted ill-digested policies such as  Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) that unfortunately turned our nation to importer of the labour of other societies,  decreed  political parties  that gulped  a whopping N531m as take-off grant with N3billion party headquarters later taken over by reptiles, breeding the current set of ‘new breed’ politicians from their school of democracy, substitution of  our working federal structure with  unviable 36 states and 774 LGAs created without objective criteria beyond pleasing their family members and political associates, indeed had good intentions with the 1976 revolutionary local government reform.

    The problem however is that confronted with the consequences of their failed policy initiatives which have on a few occasions brought us closer to the brink of the precipice, it is most improbable that they would have continued to live in denial. For instance, it is only President Buhari and his military colleague, ex- President Obasanjo who cannot see the contradictions in the 1976 reform and the injustice in the country’s current 36 states and 774 councils structure they continue to promote.

    First, unlike the  1914-1950 Native Authority or Indirect Rule reform, which was initiated because the illiterate traditional rulers who ‘executed delegated policies of the colonial power had no power to meet the demands of their people’ and the 1950 to 1966, local administration system and 1967 to 1976, changes which stemmed from 1947 policy thrust of the last colonial secretary of state, Lord Creech-Jones,  that: “the key to resolving the problems of African administration lay in the development of an efficient and democratic local government that is close to the people”, the 1976 reform tried to create uniformity among the federating states by making the newly reformed democratic local government councils a third tier of government with constitutional recognition.

    If we accept local government as “a political subdivision of a nation or (in a federal system) state, which is constituted by law and has substantial control of local affairs including the powers to impose taxes or to exact labour for prescribed purpose”, this is an aberration. There is no known federation where the local councils which are part of the state are described as third tier of government. In fact our 1999 constitution forecloses this type of abuse of federal power when it clearly states: “The House of Assembly of a state shall have power to make laws for the peace or good governance of the state or any part thereof with respect to any matter not included in the concurrent legislative list”.

    The foundation of the 1976 reform was no doubt built on a shifting ground. This perhaps explains why in spite of many changes starting with the 1984 Dasuki Report; the 1988 Civil Service Reforms; the 1989 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria; the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and the 2003 Review of Local Government Council in Nigeria, the current local council structure has continued to be a source of tension and resentment among Nigerians. The current structure is illegal, immoral and unjust.

    What, if one may ask are the objective criteria for creating 413 councils for the north and 355 to the south? Ex-President Obasanjo, his fellow mainstreamers and opponents of a restructured Nigeria have not explained to Nigerians why for instance, Kano and Jigawa, that used to be one state with same population as Lagos have federal funded 71 councils to Lagos’ 20. What is the explanation for decreeing uniformity in terms of minimum wage and remuneration for the governor between Lagos whose IGR exceeds those of all the northern states put together?

    Local government is a state affair. It is immoral for the federal government to forcibly seize resources of the states and deploy parts of it to local councils that are not accountable to it, to buy legitimacy and undermine developmental efforts of state governments. It was Professor Soludo, one time governor of the CBN who observed not too long ago that Nigeria is the only known nation in the world where the centre allocates funds to LGAs that are not accountable to it.

    Credible voices in our land have warned our governing elite who have chosen to play the ostrich of the consequences of current injustice across the land. They have recommended restructuring of the country along the lines of sustainable development as the first step towards resolving our crisis of nation-building. And they are not alone. Before them, the 2014 Jonathan National Political Confab debated the issue of restructuring and recommended that federal government stop allocating funds to LGAs but only to the recognized federating states.