The Nation Newspaper

Category: Thursday

  • Matters spiritual and temporal

    WHEN men of God speak, we, their sheep, pay attention. We cling to every word that comes from their mouths because we believe they are led by the Spirit. To be led by the Spirit means that someone is hearing directly from God.  There is nothing bad to be so gifted, so far it is used to edify the society

    Paul, the Apostle, acknowledges the place of such gifts when he said in the Good Book that the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal.  The key words here are every man, but today, many of us have yielded ground to men of God to rule the roost, as it were, as we rely solely on them for spiritual and temporal matters.

    According to Paul,  spiritual gifts are as diverse as they come. They include word of wisdom, word of knowledge, the power of healing, the working of miracles, prophecy, the discerning of spirits, diverse kinds of tongues  and the interpretation of tongues. Some are favoured to have all these gifts; others have one or two. But many of us, whether men of God or not, like to show off. In our desire to be seen as gifted, we like to give what we do not have.

    Whether in the church, office or at home, some people take pride in assailing others with their God given attributes in order to impress. The bottom line is to get the not too discerning to say to their face and behind them that “God is really using that man” forgetting that the Good Book warns that we should not boast of such gifts. “Unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ… For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of  Christ.

    But why am I going spiritual today? It all has to do with the tale of the “Buhari double” on which the President cleared the air in Krakow, Poland on Sunday. The President told a town hall meeting : “It’s real me, I assure you’’. With those words, he doused the raging fire over whether we have been cohabiting with a clone since last year. A satirical piece by renowned journalism teacher and master of the trade, Prof Olatunji Dare, titled: “Buhari’s double’’ set the tone for the blistering comments on the state of the nation from the pulpit. In a sermon which has since gone viral, the renowned pastor quoted copiously from Dare’s November 27 article, forgetting that the writer dubbed it a tale reportedly originated by Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) leader Nnamdi Kanu.

    It was an imaginary write up in which the erudite essayist, in his inimitable style painted the cost of the “Buhari double” to the nation. It was not a news story, which was expected to be laden with all the facts of the matter, but some people lapped it up, taking it as a confirmation of a “Buhari double” at the Villa. Referring to what he called “disturbing information” which came from The Nation newspaper of  November 27, 2018, written by Olatunji Dare, the pastor said the article “exploded with authoritative assertions, claiming among others that President Muhammadu Buhari had died in the United Kingdom (UK) in 2017, where he was undergoing treatment. How?

    “That the entrenched cabal in Aso Rock has procured a Buhari double in Sudan and pressed him into service as Nigeria’s president. What? That the representatives of the Jubril family, that is his impostor, having discovered the gigantic swindle, suddenly showed up in Abuja the other day and demanded to be compensated with a power sharing arrangement at the federal level in perpetuity, with 50 percent of Nigeria’s oil revenues for 10 years in the first instance and that was on the back page of The Nation newspaper of Tuesday, November 27, 2018. That and I quote, failing this, they will tell their story to the whole world.

    “He further stated that the Nigerian authorities have entered into frantic negotiations with Jubril’s family to head off what is sure to be the world’s dirtiest and worst kept secret. And he concluded by saying that Britain is mediating”. Drawing his own conclusions from the article, the pastor said : ‘’So far to my knowledge, no official statement has refuted this claim, which simply means  Nigeria may truly be up for sale. The question is has Nigeria suddenly become a nation of fools? I believe it is time to come away from our slumber and salvage this nation from slavery. If this evil tide is not dealt with quickly and decisively Nigeria may be recolonised the second time and this time by another African country. What a shame and what a misfortune that would be. God forbid…If this is true, I wish it is not, but the word authoritative the writer wrote was what caught my attention.

    “If everything going on today, particularly this outburst on the back page of The Nation of November 27 is mere speculation then let our president address the nation right away to clear the air… but if the President will not address the nation on a subject as sensitive as this, it must have been proved beyond any iota of doubt that may be he is not our president”.

    As if taking a cue from the pastor, President Buhari dispelled the clone rumour on Sunday, saying many had wished him dead while he was ill. He did not die and the rumour mill started buzzing, with former Ekiti State Governor Ayo Fayose spearheading the attacks, with his wild claim that the President was brain dead. Didn’t the scripture admonish us, both sheep and shepherd, to be “swift to hear and slow to talk”? May we be doers of His word.

  • Alaafin of Oyo in contemporary Nigerian politics–3

    The Western Region was the leading region in the federation of Nigeria. It was the cocoa growing region and because of the accumulated reserves garnered over the years by the cocoa marketing board and then made available to the Western Nigerian government in the years before independence, the region had money to splash on its development schemes.  The idea of commodity board was to guarantee stable price in price of cocoa to the farmers. Surpluses were retained in good years and kept against years when prices fell. The farmers were guaranteed fair prices and were therefore encouraged to grow more. This financial health was reflected in the development scheme in western Nigeria. This involved construction of roads, radio and television station, stadium in Ibadan industrial estates in Ikeja and Ilupeju, potable water in many cities, building of farm settlements to absorb students from compulsory and free primary schools who could not go to high schools.

    Small scale industries and large agricultural estates to produce palm oil and rubber were established. There was expansion of secondary schools to absorb students from the free education scheme and the building of what was to become a first class university in Ile Ife. In the competitive federalism of the time, the West did very well. The Action Group felt it could replicate this at the federal level. But when this failed, disillusionment set in leading to internal combustion in the party sometimes due to policy or personality or programme and ideology. The upshot of this was the Action Group crisis of 1961 to 1963. This led to instability in Western Nigeria and without stability there could hardly be development. The crisis that enveloped Yorubaland was to have some repercussions on Alaafin Gbadegesin Ladigbolu who in 1965 conferred the title of Are Ona Kakanfo (Field Marshall of Yoruba Army) on Chief Samuel Ladoke Akintola more or less taking side in the epochal struggle for the soul of Yorubaland between Chief Akintola and Chief Awolowo. By this time, Chief Obafemi Awolowo was in prison for treasonable felony from 1963 to when he was released in 1966 after the second coup d’état. Chief Akintola along with Alhaji Ahmadu Bello, premier of Northern Nigeria, Alhaji Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, the prime minister of Nigeria and Chief Festus Samuel Okotie-Eboh, federal finance minister along with senior army officers mostly from western and northern Nigeria were killed by army mutineers led by junior officers of the Nigerian Army. Alaafin Ladigbolu himself died during the crisis that engulfed the country even though he was not personally involved or affected by the crisis.  Western Nigeria during the crisis witnessed some strange development in which a peasant revolt called “Agbe Koya” swept through the Oyo Yoruba speaking areas particularly Ogbomosho and Ibadan between 1967 and 1970. One needs to make the point that for reasons not very clear to this writer, Oyo was not touched by the incendiary movement. This was a protest movement by the peasantry who were called upon to pay taxes during the Nigerian civil war. The peasantry did not feel it benefited from government programmes and did not see any reason why it should be made to pay any tax whatsoever. The rebellion was an embarrassment for Major General Adeyinka Adebayo who had to call on Chief Obafemi Awolowo to help douse the fire of the rebellion.

    It was during this time that it became necessary to fill the vacancy created by the demise of Alaafin Ladigbolu. In the alternation of dynastic succession in Oyo, the house to provide a ruler was that of Adeyemi. There were of course several eligible princes. Even princes from the Ladigbolu ruling House showed interest. So also did people with marginal clams and connection to the Alaafin throne. At the end of the contest only one prince could become the Alaafin.

    Alaafin Lamidi (Ahmed) Olayiwola Adeyemi111 was chosen. But it was not really an easy route to the throne. The enemies of his father were very powerful in the military government of Yakubu Gowon. The government in the Western Region deferred to those who were in the Action Group. Chief Obafemi Awolowo served between 1967 and 1970 as vice chairman of the Federal Executive Council. His influence was written large on the power structure of Western Nigeria even though the military was in power. There were people who did not want the Adeyemi family to come back to the throne. But the politics of Yorubaland has never been monolithic. There were forces within the region which were still then hostile to the ambition of Chief Obafemi Awolowo or who felt more inclined to championing of Oyo cause. This group put pressure on General Adeyinka Adebayo to appoint Lamidi Adeyemi who was the choice of the Adeyemi ruling house.

    There is also evidence that when the old Ooni of Ife and former governor of Western Nigeria was consulted, he supported the choice of Alaafin Lamidi Adeyemi. It seems Lamidi himself had been well prepared for the throne. His father seemed to have made his choice of Lamidi well known to his innumerable number of children. His father, perhaps with some exaggeration was said to have had more than 200 wives. The practice then was that the wives of the previous Alaafin who were too old and were not taken care of   by their children remained in the palace and their burden was borne without complaint by the new Alaafin. This must have accounted for the story of the 200 wives of Alaafin Adeniran Adeyemi.

    Lamidi Adeyemi was born October 15, 1938. After his elementary school in Oyo, his father sent him to Saint Gregory’s College in Lagos. The fact of attending a catholic school made him broadminded as a Muslim. His father later sent him to be mentored by Chief H.O. Davies, a distinguished Nigerian lawyer and nationalist who at various times claimed that his ancestors came from Oyo and later from Efon – Alaye. Chief Davies was then a staunch member of the NCNC for which the Alaafin had sympathy. The young Lamidi after high school went into the insurance business instead of spending years to qualify as a lawyer like his mentor, Chief H.O Davies. It was from the life of business that Lamidi Adeyemi on November 18, 1970 ascended the revered throne of the Alaafin, 48 years ago.

    His reign has been marked by many highs and a few lows many ups and downs. He has had to contend with the perennial struggle with primacy among Yoruba kings with the Ooni. Most of the dice was loaded against him because the “Deep State” was usually on the side of the Ooni.  The then reigning Ooni Okunade Sijuade Olubuse 11 was a man of the world who as a business man had amassed a lot of wealth. He was quite close to the Awolowo family and on coming to the throne had made Mrs. H .I .D Awolowo the Yeyeoba of Ife. He therefore was more comfortable to wage a supremacy war against the Alaafin.

  • A visa and its weight

    Former Vice President Atiku Abubaker is a strong man.

    Since he dropped his hat in the ring for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential ticket, he seems to have amassed more enemies than friends.

    First, they told him to his face that the ticket was not for sale, as if he told them that he was seeking to buy it. Then when he eventually got the ticket after a keenly contested primary, his opponents and critics, among them those masquerading as public affairs analysts, commentators and activists, said he was the highest bidder. They claimed – tendering neither facts nor figures – that he plunked down a hefty $5,000 per delegate (there were 3,274 delegates, in all) to snatch the trophy.

    Trust Atiku. He never dignified them with a reply. Only his friends came out forcefully against the peddlers of that vacuous claim. Does a party member need as much as that to vote his or her favourite candidate? In fact, a fellow contestant was said to have bid and paid $1,000 per delegate. He was to be compensated later with a key position in the Atiku Campaign Organisation.

    All was peaceful. Atiku was getting set to launch out with a massive road show that would take his manifesto to all Nigerians. Unknown to him, his critics, those politicians who will never come out openly to challenge their targets but hide somewhere to be throwing darts at them, had perfected another mischief . They dug up a stale story that Atiku had been barred from the United States where, they claimed, he was being investigated for alleged financial improprieties. They dared him to procure a US visa and fly to New York.

    Just like the minimum wage, Atiku’s visa became a matter for debate and discussion in all platforms – newsrooms staffrooms, restrooms and other rooms.

    Never one to run away from a fight, Atiku threw in his all. He reportedly hired a lobbying outfit which is said to be well reputed and well respected in such matters, to mount a campaign for a US visa and, thereby reaffirm his integrity.

    The lobbyists were said to have told the authorities that the US would have struck the right cord by issuing Atiku a visa right away since, according to them, he was set to win the 2019 presidential election.

    As this was going on, Atiku took a short break to visit Dubai. He assembled a team of party chiefs, expats and experts to draw up his 2019 battle plan. The trip, like every step taken by the PDP candidate, became a subject of weird speculations and postulations.

    Some said he was going to draw from his vast foreign bank deposits enough money to buy up all the votes available in the election. Others said he was putting on sale some exotic properties to raise the cash. Yet others hinted at some dark strategies that the party was drawing up.

    As Atiku’s plane landed at the Abuja airport, security agents descended on it, sweeping it thoroughly. Nothing incriminating was found. The PDP went to town. It alleged that there were plots to plant some illegal materials on the plane and set Atiku up for a long struggle with the law. This, they asserted, quoting “authoritative”security sources, was to distract the Wazirin Adamawa from his campaign.

    Meanwhile, Atiku meticulously kept an eye on the visa matter. One weekend, the one before the last, specifically, the news broke that he had been granted the visa. He was, in fact, already on his way to the US, it was claimed.

    Those critics, aforementioned, began to deride that big feat. Most of them have never been to the US – many will never go there. They said the PDP should rather be ashamed that its candidate was celebrating a mere visa (imagine how much envy has blighted their sense of objectivity) as if the US visa is just any other document that can be obtained for a chickenfeed at the Federal Secretariat.  Not done, they vowed not to believe the feat until Atiku has actually landed in the US and returned.

    For PDP sympathisers, that, in any case, was no big deal. They simply pulled up a picture of Atiku getting off a plane and proclaimed boldly: “Done deal; Atiku in the US.” The unrelenting critics fired back: “Shame. This is an old picture.”

    Atiku, to his credit, stayed out of the controversy. In fact, for those who did not monitor the row closely, it was easy to conclude that he was not the subject of it all. Unknown to many, he was devising a way of beating his opponents and putting to shame those who claimed that he could never go to America.

    He hopped onto a plane and landed in London. An online publication scooped it that Atiku was off to the US. Alarm bells began to ring everywhere. Will his opponents be truly disgraced? What will the APC that has made a song and dance of his alleged inability to visit the US now say?  What lai (sorry, an error there; lie) will they tell now?

    Some reporters cornered a US Embassy official and demanded to know Atiku’s visa status. They were disappointed. The official told them pointblank that the information they sought belongs in the category that would not be discussed with a third party. He resisted all entreaties to make, as the police would say,” a useful statement”. No hint. No clue.

    As I was saying, Atiku landed in London en route to the US, as claimed by the said publication. PDP sympathisers went to town. Now that Atiku has gone to the US, let Buhari prove that he is Buhari, they screamed. What will they say now? Are we not on the way to Aso Villa next year? Hip hip hooray!

    Then it all came to a screeching halt. Suddenly. Atiku returned home. What went wrong? Did he not plan to visit the US? Some supporters who were already booking newspaper advertorials to welcome their hero back home withdrew their materials. Those who had ordered a special Ankara fabric, which was to have the PDP candidate’s picture – flashing the V-victory sign and smiling broadly – stopped the manufacturers. Food vendors were quickly disengaged. So were the numerous musicians who were to stage big shows in cities, towns and villages to celebrate the feat.

    Again, what went wrong? Some said Atiku never really wanted to go to the US; he got the visa just to prove to his traducers that he just didn’t need it all this while. His original and only destination, they insisted, was London. Atiku actually had, among other things, dropped in at the football stadium to cheer his favourite team Arsenal on to a thrilling 4-2 victory over Tottenham.

    Many cried sabotage. They claimed that Atiku was actually on the way to the US when somebody suddenly raised the issue that the State Department under which the visa section operates is different from the Justice Department, which can grab and detain a suspect, visa or no visa. Atiku, said those who claim to be his sympathisers, was being tricked to head to the US where he might have no control over his schedule, and may not return home early enough for the election. One of his challengers in the primary would then grab his ticket and run in the election. That, in any case, was neither here nor there.

    But the visa palaver has refused to go away. A group of youths stormed the US Embassy in Abuja yesterday –placards and all – urging the US to deny Atiku a visa. Has he applied? Will he apply? Has he not got the document? If not, what were his fans celebrating? What exactly is going on? Why has Atiku’s presidential ambition           been so heavily tied to his possession of a US visa?

    When did the US visa become the Holy Grail of politics and a presidential contest? Will Atiku ever go to the US? Anyway, what is the difference between US and UK? Yank off the “S’ and the “K”; any difference between the two?

     

    The First Lady and the two powerful men

    WHO are the two powerful men slowing down the Buhari Administration? The President’s wife said the government would have done better if the duo had not been throwing a spanner in the works.

    Rather than tackle these unnamed men, said Mrs Aisha Buhari, some men would go to the “retrogressive” duo at night, grovelling for favours. She sounded gravely disappointed.

    The audience was excited as she spoke at a National Women Leadership Summit in Abuja on Tuesday. But nobody could answer the biggest question of the day:  Who are these men?

    The First Lady spoke eloquently about the President’s social investment programmes and urged women to support the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the forthcoming elections.

    This is not the first time Mrs Buhari has spoken about “opposite people”  (God bless Fela Anikulapo- Kuti’s soul) “hijacking” the  government. She once told the BBC about people who did not join in the struggle reaping where they did not sow. Asked to name such people, she retorted: “You will know them if you watch television.”

    Some two years after that explosive interview, we are yet to know those “few people” who “hijacked” the government.

    This, I must confess, is a failure of reporting. We reporters are guilty. Now, a new opportunity to show our reporting skills has come.

    Who will unmask the “powerful” duo?

  • The Hijab controversy

    This minute, the International School Ibadan (ISI) elevates bullying to inconceivable heights. The school’s management immerses in a cycle of turbulent energies: fleeing and swearing, chasing and villifying minors on its watch.

    The management’s decision to end its morning assembly, abruptly, on sighting hijab-wearing students, for instance, betrays deeper managerial afflictions.

    On November 12, Muslim parents distributed hijabs to their wards in the school’s car park, three days after writing to notify the school of their decision to enable their children’s fundamental human right to don the hijab.

    Besides ending the assembly, the school was virtually shut for two days, and on resumption, the hijab-donning minors were denied access to classes. Subsequently, they were locked in the library, abused, and turned back at the gates.

    It is horrific to note that the bestial treatment was meted to the students by an adult management that owes them duty of care and education, among others. What quality of enlightenment has ISI given the teenagers by its assault?

    The school, in truth, is no different from the random tumble-down structure in the shanty corner, known for misappropriating ‘international status,’ among other lusts. Any school claiming international status, would humanely welcome and appreciate human diversity in its student population. By villifying its hijab-donning minors, ISI renounces its ‘international’ status, and reduces it to a trite moniker. It also abdicates its constructive, enlightenment roles, and takes hostility to civilisation farther than medieval savages. Locking students up in the library for wearing hijab, for instance, reveals a dark, terrifying monstrosity in the school’s leadership.

    All along, ISI had pretended to be just and evolved but the school only allowed Islamic Studies after 43 years in its 55 years of existence whereas Bible knowledge had been taught from inception. Even at that, the University of Ibadan Muslim community reportedly paid the salaries of the Islamic Studies teachers for two years.

    How much should we expect from ISI as an educational institution? How poorly should it deliver before it receives the knocks?

    A school like ISI thrives and sustains its notoriety in a clime where the media, afflicted by innate perversions, is infinitely unmoored from its statutory role as the society’s conscience, uncompromising critic and moral compass.

    Schools like ISI persist in notoriety, goaded by feral notions of their invincibility having placed the media on a leash of tokenism via puppet squads, personified by education reporters/editors turned publicity and PR puns – this, however, is discussion for another day.

    The current ISI management is split by a terrible contradiction; it claims to detach education from religious constraints, but it also wishes to demean the essence of one of its recognised religions, Islam, as an acceptable faith and reality of segments of its student population.

    However, ISI is not a secular school but a multi-religious institution. A secular school would not teach or recognise any religious faith or creed whereas ISI claims to recognise Islam alongside Christianity.

    At the school’s attempt to enforce its awry brand of political correctness, it runs smack into bigotry’s dark embrace, thus manifesting as a grand arena of intolerance, instability, delinquent authority and foetal adults.

    Post hijab-war critics seeking to rescue ISI from infamy and self-inflicted chaos, tend to ignore or downplay its troublesome moral and managerial ambiguities. And parties rooting for and against the school’s manic attack on its teenage hijab-wearers, brandish “ the school’s constitution” and “political correctness” as justification and weaponry in the theatrical conflict.

    The womblike walls of ISI are too tender for such acrid drama. Schools are meant to foster in the student, a sterling character and appreciable individuality, but at ISI, the notion becomes unseemly.

    The school’s shenanigans are barbarous. Its required roles as a reformer and moulder of character and enlightenment becomes sterile within its bigoted complex; by scorning civilisation, the school reflects enlightenment of the wild.

    It’s exaggerated crusade against what it terms the hijab-lovers’ unruliness portrays its perverse, split morality – much like a symphony of frost and angel dust. Thus at ISI, religious bigotry and terrorism is masqueraded as a sense of order.

    The management lacks the wisdom and maturity that should accompany dispensers of scholarly knowledge. In handling the issue, ISI authorities present like the vixen-governess, obsessed hierarch in Blake’s Turn of the Screw, who projects sexual sophistication upon a minor, who dies an exhausted prisoner of her febrile imagination.

    If great care is not taken, the victimised girls may forever lose their voice and suffer asphyxiation of self, in the vicious grip of their educators-turned-smotherers.

    As ISI regresses to bestiality in thought and conduct, we see its management’s fiendish rout across the threshold of humaneness into savage being; it assaults the girls with sadistic ferocity, drawing applause from Christian parents and politically-correct Muslims and commentators, who for curious reasons, believe that hijab-wearing teenagers would suddenly disrupt scholarship at ISI, Islamise fellow students and Nigeria.

    Its mortifying to read and listen to bigotry advanced in defence of the school’s inhumaneness. A cantankerous scholar recently held that the ISI teens were too young to adopt the hijab as an expression of piety and faith.

    But she exuberantly applauds 15-year-old Leah Sharibu, for refusing to humour her bloodthirsty Boko Haram captors. In her warped idealism, despite being a minor, Sharibu is not too young to hold tenaciously to her Christian faith in the face of death, but her peers at ISI are too young to decide, if they should adopt an article of clothing as part of their religious and social identity.

    Of course, I expect men and women of mischief, to raise a ruckus over my reference to Sharibu. Such characters would scorn the true import of my words and scream that I have made light of Sharibu’s predicament. To this rabid band, this writer pitifully remonstrates, that they evolve in mind and conduct before their twilight, lest they die as bigots and foetal adults.

     

  • Metele attack: A post-mortem

    IT is almost two weeks since the Metele attacks occurred. Details of the incident remain a matter of conjectural manipulation as in military matters of this nature.

    Politicians have latched onto it to lash the Muhammadu Buhari administration for insisting that Boko Haram, the terrorist group masquerading as an Islamic crusader, has been “technically defeated” and “degraded”. On social media, there are videos purporting to be actual reports of the attack.  At the National Assembly, there is anger. Lawmakers are warming up for a probe of the government spending in the anti-insurgency war. Fine.

    One fact seems incontrovertible – we lost many soldiers in that incident. But, as in all wars, truth is the first casualty. Nobody knows for sure how many of our compatriots died. Nor are we told that the insurgents lost any fighter. Boko Haram has used this incident to proclaim its “invincibility”, with the less discerning helping to push its propaganda by sending round the videos, which are believed to have been doctored.

    But the big question remains – what happened in Metele? How did Boko Haram, which is supposed to be receding with its rag-tag army of fighters, storm a military base and levelled it as if there was no resistance?

    Sabotage? Failure of intelligence? Fatigue? Superior firepower? Complacency?

    Many emergency military tacticians have suddenly surfaced,  making suppositions and postulations on what may have gone wrong. Troubled, I sought some experts’ views.

    “The boys may have relaxed,” one told me, “having not experienced such incidents for a long time”. This is a possibility. No normal human being can be on red alert in perpetuity. After a while during which what is feared has refused to manifest, it is logical to drop one’s guard a bit.

    Did that happen in Metele?

    Besides, the soldiers may have interacted with the community for long, making friends with the residents, some of whom may have been working for Boko Haram. They may have studied the base very well – its strength, mode of operation, weaponry, change of guards and all. “So, the boys were caught unawares, no doubt. There was no time to rally the troops. If there was time, the casualty would not have been so high,” said one of my sources, a retired senior officer.

    Contrary to the impression that Boko Haram fighters are novices, they are trained – courtesy of their affiliation with the ISIS, which supports them with weapons and cash. The group also earns handsomely from the huge ransoms paid for kidnap victims. Its fighters, having been brainwashed, are ready to die, believing that fighting to the death is a sure visa to heaven. That is why some are sent on suicide bombing missions. The military seems to have found a way round that; now the insurgents have resorted to fighting again.

    Some of the soldiers we lost in Metele are believed to be young and relatively inexperienced in warfare. Among them, most likely, are those encountering a real war situation, perhaps for the first time.  So, is quality of soldiering dropping? I really do not know, but some of the experts believe it is. Their verdict is that the soldiers of today are different from those who got accolades in Liberia, Lebanon, Sierra Leone and many other places.

    No doubt, there was failure of intelligence. Otherwise, the troops would not have been caught napping, as it seemed. Boko Haram and its local collaborators must have spent many days organising the attack, yet the information did not leak.

    If we note that intelligence may have failed, what about the Air Force; was it contacted as the bombardments began? Was there any response? In other words, was there any air support for our soldiers?

    The combat readiness of the Air Force, to one expert, can not be easily determined. It is true that modern wars are won by the Air Force, but the infantry remains the king of the Armed Forces because, according to the  source, they are the ones who hold the ground and the success of an operation is measured by their gains.

    Could it be, as many believe, that Boko Haram has superior weapons?  A General once told me that what the military owes a soldier is the rifle; any other equipment is a a supporting tool.  The soldier must hold on to his rifle even if he is down, the General said.  But he wondered if today’s soldiers die holding their guns, considering the unauthenticated – they won’t ever be, anyway – stories of soldiers taking off  their uniforms and fleeing the battle field.

    Like in many other matters of national interest. Metele has become a political device  to be pressed into service by politicians whose only interest is how to retain their seats, not in any patriotic or altruistic ventures which will be to the benefit of all. This is tragic.

    The National Assembly has been threatening to probe the funding of the Boko Haram war. It should go ahead. Leading the call for probe are many members of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) which was in power when Boko Haram attained its notoriety and its madness hit its full potential. The Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA) became a cash machine visited by leading lights of the PDP, who shared at least $2.1b earmarked for the purchase of arms.

    The money was diverted into the prosecution of the 2015 election and ended up in private pockets. Some of it even went into spiritual matters, with a former governor claiming that he spent over N2.2b on prayers. That has got to be the most expensive prayer ever undertaken anywhere in the world, I dare say.

    President Buhari has been pilloried for not talking about the incident until about a week after it occurred. The popular view is that he should have spoken, summoning the Service Chiefs and lashing them. Publicly, he should have demanded an answer to the question – what happened?

    That is not the way to go, an expert told me. In the expert’s view, by issuing a statement immediately, Buhari would have been reacting as if what has happened is unusual in a war. “Nigeria is at war; we shouldn’t deceive ourselves,” the source said, adding that Buhari, who fought in the Civil War, should have remembered some of the battles that were lost before the war ended.”In a war, you can’t win all the battles,” he said, adding: “Why lose focus because you’ve lost one.”

    To the retired officer, it is right for the citizenry to think that there should be no loss, but the Armed Forces do not think so. In fact, there is room for about 10 per cent loss in this kind of situation. “War is idiotic,” he said, adding that “the first to fire is the one without ideas”. The reality, in his view, is that “in a war, people must die”. This is very tough for non-soldiers to understand, he noted.

    This is why the government should find out what went wrong. Is it true that some of the people see the fight against Boko Haram as another business? Even then, shouldn’t there be a line that business must not cross – when it begins to consume human life in such a gruesome manner? Are we funding the military adequately? What are the roles of our neighbours?

    Senators called for a minute’s silence to honour the fallen heroes. This is hypocritical. The salary of 20 Generals, I am told, is less than a senator’s package–wardrobe allowance, wives allowance, children’s education allowance, out-of-station allowance, inconvenience allowance, gardner’s allowance, steward’s allowance and more. In fact, our lawmakers’ pay is one of the most guarded secrets ever–anywhere. They should cut their allowances and salaries and package a better welfare for our military men instead of honouring them with a minute’s silence whenever they fall in battle.

    Will they listen?

     

    Good times for whistle-blowers

    THE Federal Government has just given an update on its whistle-blower policy, which it says has raked in N540b – as of May. The cash came in various currencies (N527b, $53m and £122,890), recovered by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

    Besides the vast sums, many choice properties have been recovered from men – and women – who thought they were untouchable. Some are pleading to be left off the hook after surrendering their loot. Others are in court. But there are questions the public are asking: Is the cash lying idle somewhere? If so, when will it be spent and on what? How about the people who tried to squeal on others but got it all wrong? How many have been prosecuted?

    Magu
    Magu

    With the success of the whistle-blower policy, it is a mystery that no university has been able to design some courses in this lucrative area, to be taught by experienced professors. Ask 10 youngsters what they wish to become in future, no fewer than eight will reply: “Whistle-blower”.

    “Why?”

    “Simple; they make billions by just blowing a whistle.”

    It is surprising also that all those bogus job agencies are yet to see whistle-blowing as a veritable tool for their nefarious trade.

    When they finally get it, I can see some of such agencies coming up with notices, such as: “Wanted. Whistle-blowers. Age: Any age: Education: At least School Certificate. Experience: Not necessary but can be of advantage.”

  • Alaafin of Oyo in contemporary Nigerian politics – 2

    The rulership in Oyo alternated between the Ladigbolu house and that of Adeyemi . In actual fact one refers to the ruling houses as two when they both descended from the same person. Alaafin AdeniranAdeyemi had come to the throne of his ancestors just when the Second World War was coming to an end in 1945 with pomp and pageantry hoping to enjoy the wealth and power of his position. Then came the constitutional reforms of 1951 which led to regional governments being set up in Ibadan, Kaduna and Enugu leading to the transfer of power in domestic administration to Nigerian elected officials. The Alaafins under the British had enjoyed enormous influence and power. They were allowed to adjudicate in criminal and civil cases and to fix and collect taxes and to maintain law and order. The new reforms after 1951 led to reforms in local government administration and the setting up of customary courts and other courts manned by legally trained personnel. Oyo Division was divided into north and south and people of Oyo ancestry like AbiodunAkerele and Bode Thomas both of who were lawyers resident in Lagos moved to Oyo to take control of local administration. Bode Thomas before this time found favour wth the Alaafin who in 1950 made him the Balogun of Oyo. But by 1951, relations between Bode Thomas and the Alaafin had broken down irretrievably. What was at the root of the altercation was the way the Alaafin was treated as if he was a minor oba in Yorubaland. Seeing that modern politics had become the only avenue to power, the Alaafin decided to exploit the division between the nationalist parties struggling for the control of Yorubaland. He pitched his tent with the Nnamdi Azikiwe-led NCNC (National Council of Nigeria and The Cameroons) against the forces of the Obafemi Awolowo-led Action Group. When the Action Group won in 1951, it formed the government in the Western Region and appointed Bode Thomas who was the deputy leader of the Action Group and central minister representing the Action Group in all Nigerian government in Lagos. At 31, Bode Thomas had too much power that he could not have been expected to use it wisely because of his lack of earthly experience. He was born with silver spoon in his mouth. His father was a rich Lagos merchant rich enough to send his son to England for higher education. He was born and grew up in the mercantile city of Lagos which though had a monarchy was heavily exposed to the republicanism associated with commerce. He had graduated in his early 20s and was a successful lawyer who once successfully defended Ahmadu Bello against the Sultan of Sokoto, Sir Abubakar who was determined to jail him for embezzlement. When the campaign for the election into the Western House began in 1951, the Alaafin to checkmate Bode Thomas and publicly supported the NCNC of Azikiwe against the AG of Awolowo. It should however be borne in mind that the NCNC had as its first leader, Herbert Macaulay, a Lagos engineer-turned politician and the grandson of the first African Bishop of the Anglican Communion,  Bishop Ajayi  Crowther . In 1951, it was disputable if the Action Group was more acceptable to the Yoruba educated elite than the NCNC. This is made clear by the sweeping victory of all the NCNC candidates to the Western House from Lagos. However, the Action Group was in power in the West and it was determined not to brook any opposition. Efforts to reconcile the Alaafin to the political leaders  of the West failed because of the arrogance of power which led them to reduce salaries and perquisites of  office of not only the Alaafin but even of members of the Oyomesi (the Alaafin’s privy counsellors). Bode Thomas was the arrow head of the struggle with the Alaafin. Pitched battles were fought in Oyo and environs between supporters of each side and the government in Ibadan capitalized on this. While the struggle was going on, Chief Bode Thomas suddenly died in 1954 at the age of 34. In the Nigeria of those days, it was easy to say Bode Thomas was somehow bewitched by the Alaafin  and as a retribution, the Alaafin was removed and banished first to Lagos and finally to Ilesha.

    This was a sad situation of conflict between the old and new purveyors of power in Nigeria. Interestingly, the same struggle for power led in northern Nigeria in 1961 to the removal of the Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Ardo Sanusi. The coincidence of the two most powerful dynasties one in the north and another in the South coming to this denouement is very interesting and this history was to repeat itself in other places in modern Nigerian history.

    After a short interregnum, Alaafin GbadegesinLadigbolu came to the throne. By the time of his reign, the position of the Alaafin had been diminished in relation to that of the Ooni of Ife. The Action Group government Of Obafemi Awolowo was determined to permanently elevate the Ooni over the Alaafin. It is of course widely accepted by Yoruba people that Ile Ife is the ancestral home of all Yorubas including the Alaafin. Alaafin Oranmiyan, who founded old Oyo around 1200 A.D after an unsuccessful attempt to reign in Benin but subsequently, sired a child Eweka who later founded an Oranmiyan / Oduduwa dynasty in Benin. The two sisterly states, Benin and Oyo, developed into empires between the 16th and the 18th centuries while  Ile Ife remained a puny kingdom protected by the almighty power of Oyo. The power relationship between Ife and Oyo was like that of the pope and the emperor in the medieval Holy Roman Empire in Europe. The story is told about the pope criticizing the Nazi ruler of Germany, Adolph Hitler during the Second World War. Hitler was alleged to have asked how many army divisions did the pope have? This was the situation and none of the Alaafins accepted any diminution in their status vis-à-vis the Ooni of Ife. When a new Alaafin in the person of GbadegesinLadigbolu was installed, the nostalgia of the power surrounding the Alaafin of the past was ever in  his heart. This was partly assuaged when from 1955 to the collapse of the first republic, the position of the presidency of the House of Chiefs remained the preserve of the Alaafin. When  Chief Obafemi Awolowo left the premiership of the West in the hands of  Chief S.L Akintola and went to Lagos with the hope of becoming federal prime minister in 1959, the relationship of the Alaafin to the premier became more cordial. Chief Akintola came from neighbouring  Ogbomosho and was  a thoroughly adroit politician who made everybody comfortable in his presence. In spite of his high position, he was a strong believer in Yoruba culture and was not averse to paying homage in the traditional way to the Alaafin. This was in spite of the struggle over land that tended to cause disaffection between the Ogbomosho throne and the various Alaafin of Oyo.This mutual love and affection between Akintola and the Alaafin was to prove useful in the turbulent years after the independence of Nigeria from Great Britain in 1960.

  • Metele : A postmortem

    IT was a black Sunday. In a ferocious attack, Boko Haram insurgents killed scores of soldiers at the 157 Task Force Battalion in Metele, Borno State. The nation is still in shock over the tragedy eleven days after it happened. It will be an understatement to say that Nigerians are short of words over the incident. Many are still asking : what went wrong in Metele?

    Indeed, what went wrong in Metele that fateful Sunday? The public is finding it hard to comprehend how a ragtag army, such as the Boko Haram’s, will storm a military formation, kill the commanding officer and those with him (who probably may include civilians we do not know yet as their identities are still shrouded in secrecy) as well as many of his soldiers. For sure, we have yet to learn the truth, the whole truth about the unfortunate Metele massacre and the military, unfortunately, is not helping matters.

    Unofficially, we have heard all sorts of stories about the incident, mostly from the social media, which someone like me find difficult to swallow. However, through the social media, we can glean aspects of what happened at Metele. We have also been fed with stories of disgruntled soldiers, complaining about their welfare and the obsolete weapons they were issued to fight with. No matter how you look at it, what happened in Metele on Sunday, November 18,  is not good, at all, for the image of our military and, by extension, our country.

    While it is understandable when Boko Haram sneaks into a village to kill helpless women and children referred to as ‘’soft target’’ in military parlance, it is inexplicable when it storms a military base to kill soldiers cheaply. Whenever that happens, something must certainly be wrong somewhere. No soldier goes to war with the intention to die. Although, he would have it at the back of his mind that anything can happen, he would as much as possible banish the thought of dying on the battlefield.

    He knows that when he is in danger, he has his colleagues to cover him and vice versa. Soldiers always have one another’s back, more so when at war. Commanders too do not joke with the lives of their soldiers. A commander will do everything to ensure that he accounts for all the men he takes to the war front. And when casualties occur, you know that they came about because they were unavoidable. Was the Metele massacre not avoidable? This is the trillion naira question which the military brass should answer.

    Soldiers are killed in war, especially in the kind of guerrilla warfare they are engaged in with Boko Haram, but when the enemy invades their territory to inflict a colossal damage such as we experienced in Metele then there is cause for alarm. Questions are being asked because the public feel let down by what happened, but the government and the military are not ready to talk. Is it appropriate to keep sealed lips over this tragedy? It will not do us any good to keep Nigerians in the dark about what happened in Metele. As long as the military keeps quiet, the social media and the rumour mill will keep buzzing with tales about that tragedy.

    Threatening to use strong arm tactics cannot deter people from talking or posting all sorts of videos in the social media. Such threats will only make things worse. The military should come clean with us on what went wrong in Metele. The people deserve to know because it is their army that we are talking about here.  The military should not forget that these soldiers did not fall from heaven; they came from some homes and their people, whether extended or nuclear family, will want to know how they were killed. Their families know that such things are bound to happen in war, so they may have prepared themselves for such eventuality even before it occurs.

    Those with relations in the army have long accepted the fact that they have signed up to die for their country. But the country owes it a duty to ensure that they are well equipped to defend its territorial integrity. Are our troops well kitted for this counter-insurgency operation? What happened in Metele may have shown the underbelly of our military operation in the Northeast. Who do we hold responsible for this? The military brass in Abuja? The government? Military formations, even at peace time, are not penetrable. So, how did Boko Haram access the Metele Barracks so easily to inflict such a huge damage?

    This calls for a probe, especially with the stories flying about that the soldiers were not well equipped. Where then did all the money voted for their operation go? I only hope that history is not repeating itself as we have travelled this road before. I hate to think that we are experiencing again what happened under the immediate past administration when funds meant for military operation were pocketed by some people.

    Our soldiers deserve the best whether in peace or war time. We should not send them to war without providing adequately for them.  President Muhammadu Buhari as Commander-in-Chief owes it a duty to the nation and the memories of the slain soldiers to get to the root of the Metele massacre. May their death not be in vain.

  • Restructuring and Buhari’s place in history

    There are too many people talking lazily about restructuring in Nigeria. Unfortunately people are not asking them individually what they mean by restructuring….And now we have 36 states and the FCT. What form do they want? They are just talking loosely about restructuring. Let them define it and then we see how we can peacefully do it in the interest of Nigerians.” – President Buhari.

    Suddenly, President Buhari, a political adviser’s nightmare who routinely shoots himself in the legs must have forgotten ‘the buck stops at his desk”. With unhidden disdain for public opinion, he speaks as if he is doing Nigerians who elected him a favour. Although many Nigerians believe the president is committed to the Nigerian project, but not a few including some of his ardent supporters, have in the last two years started to fear that this type of gaffe and hypocrisy beyond his inaction may at the end deny him his place in history.

    It is on records that the president sold restructuring as part of his agenda to the electorate in 2015. It is also on record that the committee on restructuring set up by the President’s APC presented its report to the president earlier in the year. The president, feigning ignorance of what advocates of restructuring want, must have no doubt been a source of great anguish to his advisers.

    Undoubtedly, the president knows Nigerian patriots such as the late Pa Tony Enahoro who  until his last breath fought for the country to be restructured  in line with what he and our other founding fathers negotiated at independence, Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka, who served 30 months in detention during the civil war, Emeka Anyaoku, former secretary general of Commonwealth of nations, Balarabe Musa, ex- governor of old Kaduna State, and  ethnic representatives such as Pa Ayo Adebanjo of Afeniifere, Prof Nwabueze and General Theophilus Danjuma speaking for besieged Middle-Belt region  cannot just  be dismissed as  “those involved in loose talk”.

    At any rate, the president is very much aware that the quest for viable federal arrangement is not new. More than half of the nations of the world especially in the multi-cultural societies have adopted the federal arrangement. Europe after two World Wars said “never again” and embraced federal system in order to reduce social dislocation in their societies.

    The struggle in Nigeria started in the 1920s with the colonial power’s recommendation of “a ‘regional government that secures for each separate people, the right to maintain its identity, its individuality and its nationality and its own chosen form of government which have been evolved for it by the wisdom and by the accumulated experiences of generation of its forbearers’.  The constitutional changes of 1954, 1957 and the 1958 Lancashire debate at which October 1, 1960 was chosen as the date for our independence took their roots from this stated policy.

    Unfortunately, the core north’s political elite and their south-eastern counterpart who were opposed to any form of federal arrangement they would not control derailed it in 1962. The core northern political elite preferred a confederal arrangement but cajoled by British umpires to reluctantly embrace federal arrangement having negotiated and secured over 50% of the members of the House and guaranteed a perpetual hold on to power by virtue of higher population than the two southern regions since democracy is a game of numbers. The southeast ‘unitarists’ did not mind this because with a north desperate for qualified hands to man their regional bureaucracy, having just secured self-rule status, the junior coalition partner who according to Nnamdi Azikiwe had been destined by their god “to rule Africa”, a prospect which according to Daddy Oscar Onyeama “was only a matter of time when the Igbos would dominate others in Nigeria”, it was the manifestation of a self-fulfilling prophesy.

    With Tafawa Balewa as prime minister, the southeastern core political elite produced the Chief of Army Staff, the Chief of Naval Staff, the Chief of Defence Staff, the IGP, internal affairs minister, external affairs minister education minister, president of the senate, University of Ibadan VC, and University of Lagos VC. They similarly controlled the Nigerian Airways, the Nigerian Railways among others.

    Political calculations after the 1963 census crisis and the disputed 1964 election result forced the leadership of both groups to lobby the military. The January 1966 military intervention encouraged by southeast core political elite led to Unification Decree 34 of 1966 while the July vengeance coup sponsored by core north political elite resulted in Gowon’s 12-state federal structure.

    Successive northern military leaders  from Murtala Muhammed, Buhari, Babangida, Abacha, and Abdullsalami went on to consolidate northern position by creating in all 36 states and 774 LGAs, all looking up to the centre  that crafted a constitution without a residual list after taking over the sources of economic power of the states.

    Many Nigerians because of President Buhari’s antecedents had thought he is better placed to deal decisively with politicians and economic saboteurs benefitting from the unjust arrangement by restructuring the country along the line of sustainable development.

    Unfortunately, the president upon assumption of office, tried to hide behind one finger by directing advocates of restructuring to go through the National Assembly who, as beneficiaries of unjust order, are not likely going to commit political suicide.  Empire builders in many of the unviable states and LGAs that collect free money from the centre to which they are not accountable are not ready to change the status-quo. Rampaging herdsmen even from across the borders are hiding under the military constitution to justify mindless killing of Nigerians and seizure of territories.  Budding industries collapsed because smugglers of fake products are hiding under the same constitution to carry out their nefarious activities in the name of trading.

    Meanwhile the rivalry between those who destroyed our federal arrangement and have held the nation to ransom since 1962 is being rekindled anew. Professor Ango Abdullahi, former ABU vice chancellor and current spokesman for Northern Elders’ Forum has tried to justify killing and sacking of villages by suspected herdsmen by claiming Igbo traders have not been prevented from carrying out their trading activities around the country.  Professor Nwabueze, the author of the 1966 Unification Decree and 1993 Interim Decree  has proclaimed himself as the chief campaigner for Abubakar Atiku in 2019, a man he said would restructure the country.

    In a bizzare turn of events, President Buhari the messiah many had thought would free the nation from the strangle-hold of the warring enemies of our country, has been accused of taking side with the core northern political elite that did not only refuse to endorse him for his current position but in fact master-minded his defeat during his first three unsuccessful outings. His political foes have also drawn a parallel between his current provincialism and that of southeast core political elite in the first republic and under President Azikiwe Goodluck Jonathan presidency. And because of his slow response to the human tragedies in the Benue basin as well as  to the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association’s threat to resist anti-grazing laws in some 75 local government areas in 21 states, they have accused him of silently waging the late Ahmadu Bello’s unfinished battle against those he once described as his  “ancestors’  properties”.

    Suddenly, being a member of core north political elite has become a threat to the president’s 2019 re-election bid. Those who denied him membership of the group and rigged him out of election in the past have now found in it a potent weapon in the run up to 2019.

    True lovers of our nation however know the country is doomed without restructuring. The president by now should also know he alone cannot be right while all others are wrong. He can therefore  in spite of the theatrics of his political enemies still overcome some of his personal failings  and  save our nation from the impending doom even in the twilight of his first term which ends in May 2019.

  • Buhari’s Next level…lest we fade in the chorus

    Muhammadu Buhari is perhaps one of the most misunderstood Presidents of Nigeria. Cynics project a rigid moralism upon him but that is because he has affected such; politically expedient Buhari, however, seeks to dispel notions of his perceived intolerance and disregard for rule of law by adopting an administrative tenderness alien to him.

    That tenderness, mutates atrociously, thus making him pander to expediences that sometimes, portray him as ‘insensitive’ as occasioned by the herdsmen killings, then ‘clueless’ or ‘lethargic’ as he had been described in certain quarters, particularly in the first few months of his tenure.

    However, Buhari has metamorphosed in the estimation of his most virulent critics, from ‘Baba Go-Slow,’ who took several months to pick his cabinet, to all shades of character.

    Every action and utterance of Buhari attracts criticism, thus like his predecessor, Goodluck Jonathan, he unwittingly becomes the punchline of every comedian and publicity junkie’s tripe on public stage or social media.

    Comedy skits alluding to widespread discontent with his second term dream, currently flood the social media but to these, Camp Buhari responds with witty ripostes and poetry of his successes, mostly ‘remarkable firsts.’

    Whatever the arguments for and against him, Buhari will contest the 2019 presidential election dreaming of victory. Unlike his rivals, he seeks redemption, or rather ‘to redeem Nigeria,’ to echo Buhari-speak.

    Buhari seeks redemption because he is a casualty of unfinished purpose, an unfulfilled mission, a life not fully lived. But does anyone fully lives?

    His first term, barely six months to an end, is a whirlpool of tragedy, conflicts and mixed blessings. Had it not been for the precious months he spent fighting off an illness, he could have done more…achieved more, argues a spirited segment of his camp. There are others who would gleefully reel out, perceived feats and progress, achieved on his watch.

    On the flipside, critics of Buhari, mostly People’s Democratic Party (PDP) members and hitherto apathetic sections of the populace, would cynically tell you that Buhari failed and it is time to ‘change his Change.’

    The blame for such notion should be shared by the President and his team. While Buhari set to work, frantically seeking to make up for the months he spent incapacitated by illness, his cabinet devoted time and resources to editing out familiar ugliness experienced on his watch rather than own it and explain progressive measures been taken to mitigate impact of such happenstances.

    Several aides and associates of the President, for instance, wasted quality time editing out of his first term narrative, the brute reality that Nigeria faces on their watch, if they are not blaming it on the locust years in which the country bore the affliction of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP).

    Perhaps Buhari could not bear to live with the ‘consequences’ of a Nigeria without him at the helm, come 2019, if truly, there would be ‘consequences.’ Perhaps his spirited bid to govern Nigeria for another four years is meant to correct perceived misinterpretations of his inactions in matching imagination to reality, will to morality.

    Maybe Buhari is simply ravaged by guilt and not the virulent hubris that incapacitated his predecessors in power. If he feels guilt, let’s hope he knows that, guilt too could be a facet of hubris.

    To understand, we have to journey with him through crevices of his redemptive vision, into the social and economic realms of humane good wishes, where the misjudged visionary is often beset by doubt, anxiety and guilt.

    There is no gainsaying the PDP personified horrors of ineptness, corruption, infantile hostility, social and economic crimes, but is Buhari’s APC any better? This is discussion fit for another day.

    Recently, Buhari launched his campaign for a second term in power, professing his wish to take Nigeria to the ‘Next Level.’

    This, sadly, offers too little in terms of conviction, hope and passion for actual positive change as marketed via his ‘Change’ mantra. What really is the ‘Next Level?’ Perhaps the incumbent president should be given the benefit of doubt and accorded the opportunity to actualise his campaign beyond the precepts of stereotypes and pseudo-reality.

    Is he consciously set to do that, or is his second term bid yet another act made for Nigeria’s political theatre?

    The audience is crucial to the politician’s performance in contemporary politics. Thus in search for applause, the politician stages pseudo-events and declarations, often orchestrated by publicists, political mercenaries, with intent to appear real. The unmasking of a stereotype and pseudo-reality, however, destroys its foundations and credibility.

    Such is the task required of the citizenry as Nigeria prepares for the 2019 general elections. An electorate that cannot distinguish between fiction and reality, will forever interpret reality through illusion.

    It’s about time we disregarded random facts or obscure bits of data and trivia used to sanctify illusion and give it authenticity.

    If Camp Buhari will continually project him as the candidate to beat, let them establish their claims with verifiable facts and data – the type that are amenable to and truly reflective in the lives of the people.

    Come 2019, Nigeria deserves a President, among other public officers, who is inured to the shift in values from humaneness to humour, fixed morality to the artifice of presentation.

    In that candidate subsists, the old political culture, that, values thrift and hard work, integrity and culture above charm, fascination and likeability.

    Is that candidate Buhari? If he isn’t, its about time we sought him out, far from the propaganda of ‘remarkable firsts,’ happy thoughts, ethno-religious sentiments, and fickle truths, lest we become part of the chorus, or the loser that fades on our bankrupt reality show.

  • Knowledge ASUU needs

    Nigerians have long come to terms with the fact that public universities can hardly have a strike-free session. It was therefore no news to many that Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) embarked on yet another round of strike last week after accusing government of lack of commitment to the 2009 pact between her and the government over the release of N1.3 trillion to address the decay in our tertiary institutions. The problems over which ASUU has battled government since the early 80s have not changed. So is ASUU’s strategy.

    The travails of tertiary institutions in Nigeria started with the incursion into politics of a military populated by the less-privileged in society who joined the military for a chance to climb the social ladder. Because they were envious of their better placed compatriots, their first set of victims when they forcefully took over power in 1966 were the politicians, considered as the source of their misfortune, intellectuals, bureaucrats and the press who they envied for their superior knowledge.

    The January 1966 coup plotters wiped out the politicians, the benefactors who had made it possible for them to get into the military in the first place. Yakubu Gowon then embarked on his own war against the intellectuals, ordering them to move out of their ivory towers. Murtala Muhammed and Olusegun Obasanjo who did not know the bureaucrats are the ‘salt of life’ embarked on a senseless retirement of highly trained and experienced civil servants ‘with immediate effect’. Obasanjo took over privately owned Daily Times, the most influential and most widely circulated newspaper in Africa south of Sahara. Buhari, besides jailing journalists for reporting the truth also jailed politicians irrespective of their offences for long periods ranging between 100-200 years. Babangida without contesting or winning an election hilariously called himself president. He and Abacha also deluded themselves thinking they could decree political parties and even teach democracy.

    The ill-educated soldiers did not stop at that. They effected what Tekena Tamuno called “a status coup”.  In 1960, only the prime minister earned more than a vice chancellor (4,500 to 3700.punds). A professor earned more than a cabinet minister and an army general while a first degree holder joining the civil service earned more than a second lieutenant. But all that changed by 1975 with generals not only earning more than professors but earning their salaries for life.

    But I think the misadventure of a military not trained in the art of managing society can at best be described as a folly. That their unpatriotic and unambitious creation – the ‘new breed’ politicians allocate outrageous salaries to themselves should only attract the sympathy from ASUU.  In any case, the entry point for professors as recently observed by Kayode Fayemi, the governor of Ekiti State is about N500, 000. Except those in the banking and oil industry, very few Nigerians earn that. And compared with the media, an institution which like the universities is engaged in the business of trading in knowledge, the universities are not doing badly.  As an executive director of Guardian newspapers with turnover in billions, for 18 years, four of them as chief operating officer, I did not earn anything close to that.

    But beyond issue of salaries, the current ASUU strategy and dubious claims such as the country is rich enough to execute free university education,  cannot move those who believe you can without education,  become president, chairmen of international conglomerates and earn higher salaries by merely allocating more weight to brawn than brain.

    We saw the effect of ASUU’s false and unchallenged claim aimed at blackmailing government on our students who unfortunately are incapable of articulating our current problems as they demonstrated on the street of Abuja last Monday demanding an increase in the current education budget to 28%.

    This was long after Adamu Adamu, the minister of education had made it clear that the pledged made by Yar’Adua and Jonathan  which the duo could not implement at a period of economic boom cannot be fulfilled now that the economy is just recovering from a recession. This was also after the   chairman of the implementation monitoring committee of the agreement, Wale Babalakin, citing other competing expenditure demands, that require funding ‘which, government cannot ignore’, has appealed to ASUU for dialogue. And this was after the government has said it has no money to pay except it takes a bond which will become a burden for the youths in future.

    And contrary to ASUU’s claim, there are very few places in the world where good and qualitative education is free. It is true Canada gives grants to its citizens, but this is because the country suffers a deficit of qualified professionals. And because such grants are tied to performance, those who fall below standard have access to students’ loan. It is also true the US and Britain give grants to their universities (US $76 billion in 2013, Britain £12.1 billion in 2016 – Punch editorial November 14). But in both nations, the grants are not substitutes for school fees. Hillary Clinton during the US presidential contest of 2016 was on record as promising to bring relief to those American youths saddled with $75,000 indebtedness after graduation.

    In Britain, most of the universities are self-sustaining through payment of fees, especially by foreign students and patenting their research findings. Fees charged to non-EU students are unregulated and higher than for UK and EU students. This income allows universities to fund activities where costs exceed income.  Unfortunately for the first generation universities that used to attract foreign students in the 60s and 70s, ASUU’s endless strikes have become a disincentive to foreign students.

    For years, ASUU has been unreasonably opposed to payment of school fees by university students .The usual self-serving argument is the protection of the children of the poor. But if one may ask, how many children of the poor can compete with the children of the elite who attend elite secondary schools where fees can be as high as N1.5m for admission to universities of Lagos, Ibadan, Nsukka and ABU?  Over 50% of those who get admitted to these first generation universities went through diploma or DUPEB where in some universities they pay as high as N400, 000. But as soon as such children get absorbed into 200 levels, their parents join the league of poor people who can only afford N20, 000 school fees.

    Unlike in the US, where federal aid in the form of Pell Grants is awarded to students from families with annual incomes generally below $60,000 per year, those who benefit from government subsidies to the universities here are the political, economic, military and intellectual elite.

    Sadly, the poor artisans, market women, fruit and vegetable sellers whose interest ASUU claim to be protecting  are the ones who pay through their noses to put their children who never stood a chance getting admitted to the first generation Nigerian universities in the private universities in Nigeria, Republic of Benin and Ghana.

    ASUU must stop celebrating their knowledge of history and politics of ‘what was, what is’ and ‘who gets what, when and how’ and acquire some knowledge of economics. Besides, as against infantile duels, current ASUU leadership should show interest in making contributions to the policy thrust of government. That was the case in the 60s and 70s.