The Nation Newspaper

Category: Thursday

  • Alaafin of Oyo in contemporary Nigerian politics – 1

    The title Alaafin, meaning “owner of the palace” indicates the importance of the Alaafin in Yoruba history. It signifies the fact that there may be existence of other palaces but the real and the supreme palace is the one in Oyo. The British have a saying at the demise of their monarchs – “The king is dead, long live the king”; in other words they try to separate the personality of the ruler from the institution. This eternity of the monarchical institution is captured by the saying in Yoruba “Baba ku baba ku”, meaning “father is dead but father lives “. Nevertheless, the Alaafin as an institution is no doubt affected by the personality and persona of whoever occupies the position. He remains “Iku baba yeye” a man with supreme power of life and death over his subjects. But this awesome power can rise or fall on the strength of character of the man on the throne.

    The history of the Alaafin over time has shown the changing vagaries of Yoruba politics. The institution has remained relevant even though in diminished but not degraded in importance. The supremacy of the Alaafin  Of Oyo was further enhanced from the 1600s when a dynastic religion, the deification and worship of a once powerful Alaafin Shango became the official religion of the people following the well-established tradition in other climes that the religion of the ruler is the religion of the people. One of the factors, among others, that facilitated the collapse of Old Oyo was the coming of Islam from the north and Christianity from the south. In fact, there is incontrovertible evidence that the coming of Islam not only to Ilorin but to Oyo itself facilitated the rebellion of Are Ona Kakanfo aided by Alimi and his son Abdulsalaami. Most of the leaders of the Afonja rebellion were not Fulani but Yoruba Muslims. This interpretation is supported by Abdullahi Smith, the English historian of the Sokoto Caliphate. There is evidence that Alaafin Awole on whose head the empire collapsed in the late 1820s was himself a Muslim convert. The point being made is the role of religion in building loyalty to the throne and surrounding the person of the ruler with some transcendence and mystery which only religion can provide. When this religious glue and mystery are removed, the ruler becomes an ordinary person. This is the dilemma the Alaafin and other Muslim and Christian rulers in Yoruba land face today.

    Modern Nigerian politicians whether civilian or military have always found traditional rulers useful in the political mobilization of the people. It is doubtful if any politician in Nigeria will seriously advocate the abolition of the traditional kingly institutions as was done in India after independence. In fact, what we have seen in Nigerian history is that politicians want to become honorific chiefs and the only people who can confer on commoners the titles are traditional rulers. These days, distinguished and highly educated people including retired army generals are finding their ways to the thrones. These institutions have therefore come to stay because the people identify with them simply because modern governmental institutions and officials appear remote and sometimes irrelevant to the people. A position like that of the Alaafin has become part of the embodiment of the people’s culture and whether the Alaafin still continues to wield untrammelled power is irrelevant; it is the symbolism that attracts people to the institution. But there is no doubt that in the time and tide of history, the Alaafin has seen better times than today. But the strength of an institution is the ability to adapt to changing times. The Alaafin is not unique in this. Most monarchies including even powerful ones like those of Japan, Great Britain and Spain have become constitutional monarchies in one form or shape. What is important to stress is that the Alaafin institution has survived almost a thousand years and rulership has remained within one extended family in-spite of the fact that Oyo has over time moved its capital to three different places because of external and internal pressures before finally settling in its present location. The vitality of the institution has however remained. The constitutional contribution of the Alaafin institution to African politics is in  the checks and balances it embodies which in distant past, guarded against tyranny and dictatorship characteristic of most monarchies in Africa and elsewhere.

    Modern Nigerian politics can be said to have begun at the creation of the Lugardian state of Nigeria following the amalgamation of the southern and northern protectorates and the colony of Lagos and the removal of the awkward independence of Egbaland at the outbreak of the First World War in 1914. Right from that time, the pre-eminent position of the Alaafin in Nigeria was recognized when Alaafin Ladigbolu and Sarkin Abbas, emir of Kano were made members of the Nigerian Council – the highest organ for the administration of the newly created Nigeria. This council was of course a rubber stamp for the decisions of Sir Fredrick Lugard, the Governor General, yet the fact that the Poobah then ruling Nigeria felt it necessary to seek and enlist the support of the two most important rulers in Nigeria in his scheme of administration is significant. It was an attestation to the level of political development and sophistication of Oyo and Kano. It was also meant to signify that as much as possible, native rulers would play significant roles in the administration of their domains and finally the two rulers fitted tightly the indirect rule programme of the Governor General. This was because the two rulers were supported and recognized by their people and they controlled significant expanse of territory and were prepared to rule with the British colonial government providing military and police backing to ensure continued loyalty to the native rulers and their British overlords.

    Read also: Calls for Yoruba unity resonate at Alaafin’s 80th birthday

    Right from the time when Alaafin Adeyemi 1 signed the protocol with the British to end the Yoruba civil war in 1886, the position of the descendants of Alaafin Atiba who founded the New Oyo in 1830 after the withdrawal of the Alaafin from Old Oyo following the collapse of central authority, had become useful to the British and was accountable for Alaafin Ladigbolu’s membership of the Nigerian Council. When Lugard decided to replicate the indirect rule system in Yoruba land, he decided to use the Alaafin as the pyramid of political hierarchy in Yoruba land. He was so successful in this regard that the late Professor AderemiAtanda insinuated that the British created a new Oyo empire. What he meant was that the Alaafin under the British enjoyed too much and sometimes illegitimate power. The Alaafin’s position was supreme in most of what later became the Yoruba part of western Nigeria under the British. With the exception of Ijebu land and some adjoining coastal areas, every part of Yoruba land felt the influence if not the power of the Alaafin.  The relationship of the Alaafin and the Ooni of Ife was guided by an unwritten but understood norm of behaviour of Oyo’s protection and guardianship of Ile Ife. Even the British understood the spirit behind Oyo’s relations with Ife and sometimes consulted the Ooni whenever there was dispute on succession to the throne in other parts of Yoruba land outside the influence or power of the Alaafin. This power stretched into present day Benin Republic and the Republic of Togo. The weight and burden of this imperium sometimes led to revolts which were brutally suppressed with the suppression fuelling future anger and rebellion. Ruling conquered territories were to prove to be Oyo’s Achilles heels. Be that as it may, the position of the Alaafin as consenting authority in the choice of obas in the Oyo-speaking areas of Yoruba land remained until the dusk of British rule in Nigeria. This was to change finally in 1955 following the deposition and banishment of Alaafin AdeniranAdeyemi, son of Alaafin AdeyemiAlowolodu who signed the treaty putting an end to the civil war in Yoruba land that began at the beginning of the 19th century following the glorious reign of Alaafin Abiodun which ended in 1789. The civil war in Yoruba land continued till 1896 when the British finally imposed a pax Britannia on the whole of Yoruba land after the conquest of Ilorin.

  • Of money doublers and Buhari’s double

    IT is a great spectacle in downtown Yaba in the heart of Lagos Mainland. The popular bus stop is, as usual, throbbing with crowds of people. Many are running up and down, going nowhere in particular. Nobody is asking anybody where everybody is heading to – except the bus conductors screaming all manner of destinations and asking would-be passengers to hurry up and get onboard.

    It is a sunny, sweltering afternoon.

    Big radio-cassette players mounted on shoulders of vendors are belting out new works of leading musicians, including the philosopher-activist Fela “Augustine” Anikulapo-Kuti (of exciting memory). The rail line is blocked with wares – used clothes, food stuff, used shoes, old books, drinks and more.

    A woman is sobbing, holding her head in her hands. She has just lost her master’s cash to some guys inviting people to “come and win big; double your money” in a game of cards.

    Beside the wall that blocks off the rail line is a long line of people. A young man is ringing a bell furiously and screaming in Yoruba: “E wa wo’ri o; ori t’on so’ro! E wa wo’ri o; ori t’on so’ro”. “Come and watch a talking head; a head! Come and watch the head that is talking!”

    More people join the line, sweating and swearing as some jump the queue. There is a small makeshift cubicle covered by a piece of white cloth, which obviously used to be somebody’s bed sheet. In the cubicle lies the “talking head”. At the entrance is a big carton in which every spectator drops 50kobo before going in to see the head of a young man who speaks in various ways by changing his voice. He smokes like a chimney- and drinks also. After about two minutes, the visitor is hustled out for the next client on the line to see the “talking head”. Of course, after dropping the gate fee.

    That was in the 90s in good, old, swinging Lagos, the home of wisdom, street wisdom (Eko ile ogbon) and the nemesis of the foolish.

    The show went on for days, until the police stormed the scene to dismantle the makeshift tent and haul out the man from the hole that had been dug to hide the other parts of his body and the big crate on which a space had been cut for his head to stick out. The end.

    The end of the show. The end of a scam. Needless to say, the venture had fetched a fortune for its investors. A flashback.

    Now, fast forward to 2018.  In place of Lagos, throw in Abuja. A huge scam is in the smithy. Some are resisting it; others are just laughing it off as extreme desperation by political desperados who are desperate to carry the day in the desperate 2019 elections. Yet, some are, surprisingly, seized of its veracity – that a Buhari double exists in the Villa!

    It is potentially the biggest political scam ever foisted on a people’s credulity.  Who wants Buhari dead? Who are the purveyors of this ugly tale? What scientific facts do they have? How credible are they?

    Again, some flashback. The President’s last trip to the United Kingdom sparked a big row. The Opposition said he was dying and would not return. After a few days, when His Excellency was due to return, the rumour machine was revved up and throttled to lightning speed. Buhari, said the rumour mongers, unable to bend his health challenge, had decided to end it all.

    A former governor had, in fact, boasted during Buhari’s earlier trip that he had pictures of the President as he lay dying in a hospital. He threatened to release the pictures. He actually had pictures, it was learnt, but it turned out that the fellow, a master of stealth and cunning in financial matters, had been out-scammed. Buhari was hale and hearty.

    Now they say a certain Jibrin or Jubril or Jubrin from Sudan is Buhari’s doppelganger who has been re-engineered to take his place at the Villa. A cabal of some sharks and barracudas in Buhari’s kitchen cabinet has been aiding and abetting the scam, they claim. Again, no proof.

    Will the First Family be this calm if the President had passed away? I have combed through the Constitution; nowhere is it stated that there should be no mourning if a president has passed on. Is there really a mystery Fulani man from Sudan? Why are some people ready to swear with their all that any other person can acquire Buhari’s mannerisms, gait, voice and all so easily- in a matter of days?  Is he a former soldier? Who are his school mates? Where are his certificates? Was he the one who recently got an attestation?

    Is he also the one who will be all over the place campaigning for re-election? When will his family in Sudan move into the Villa in Abuja to complete the game and make it foolproof? Is he on loan from the Sudanese Government? For how long? Who is paying for his strange services?

    Who is the source of this rumour? Nnamdi Kanu; yes, Kanu, the fugitive; the one who recently surfaced in Israel after jumping bail here. Now he has found a new pastime after failing to incite his hardworking Igbo people to violence. Now, it is expensive rumours to be swallowed by the gullible. Is Kanu a credible source? No, I dare say. He is not, even as he threatens to back up his claim with hard proof.

    On the social media, the matter has sparked fierce battles between PDP and APC fans. Former Minister Femi Fani-Kayode wrote that he was damn sure Buhari’s double was at the Villa. One fellow rejoined, without saying he was replying Fani – Kayode: “Didn’t they say Tramadol and Codeine have been banned?”

    Unfazed, Buhari has been carrying on with his duties. Some governors, I am told, had to touch him after shaking his hand at a recent meeting so as to be fully convinced that he is the same old president – just as many had thronged Yaba to watch the “talking head” and confirm that, indeed and in fact, a head could talk. Please, don’t laugh.

    Lately, the tale bearers have padded up their lie – for effect. They claim – again without any proof whatsoever – that “the cabal” at the Villa had warned Vice President Yemi Osinbajo that if he attempted to let the cat out of the bag, he would face the law for allegedly stealing NEMA funds.

    Will this line work? No; not at all. It has neither rhyme nor reason. It will find meaning only among the fools who are looking for the foolish who are ready to be fooled and who are, unfortunately, among us. Osinbajo’s integrity has long been established. It remains solid.

    But we need to take it easy with the gullible. The line between fiction and fact is so thin here. Thieves no longer steal in millions; they cart away billions. Poverty walks the street. Moral depravity reigns. Robbers have turned more vicious. Hired killers are thriving, their evil trade unchecked. It is all sickening.

    As I said here a few days ago, it is not all the time we are offered an offence that we take offence. We need not take offence that we are being told that a Buhari double is running the show – a bitter insult. If we take offence all the time, people may begin to doubt our robust sense of humour.

    One fellow said the other day: “It’s November and there is no sign of Harmattan and Buhari is not doing anything about it – PDP.”

    I have just got a new passion; golf. But time has been so unfriendly, even as there are few courses around. I have, thankfully, found a way round it.  I have just ordered that my clone be created. He will stand in for me while I run off to play golf. So, dear reader, if you find something not quite right or discover some of those howlers, don’t howl. The editor is off to the golf course; my clone is on the seat.

     

    And Atiku’s wife defends her love

    WILL those alleging that former Vice President Atiku Abubakar is corrupt now keep quiet?

    His wife Amina Titi Atiku-Abubakar has put up a stout defence of her man, stressing that she fell head over heels in love with him because of his integrity.

    Her story:” I was on my way back from Benin Republic when I went to visit my aunt at the Idiroko border and was accosted by officers of the Customs Service. They had demanded that I pay duty for a pair of brocade material, which was a gift from my aunt. An argument ensued between us and I told them to have the material for a keep because I couldn’t comprehend why I should pay duty for a pair of brocade.

    “Suddenly, an officer by name Atiku Abubakar who heard our argument summoned the officers to come along with me to his office. He was the head of the command at the time. After listening to both sides, Atiku demanded for the duty charge, dipped his hand into his pocket and paid the duty and handed me the receipt, smiling and saying that ‘I will pay him back’.”

    Atiku's policy document embodies yearnings of Nigerians - PDP
    Atiku

    “As the head of the command, he could have simply commanded them to let me go if he chose to, but his patriotism to fatherland would never allow him do so, and that singular act swept me off my feet and I eventually fell in love,” she said.

    There you have it, champions of the anti-corruption war, those who say Atiku is threatening to sell the NNPC to his friends– if he is elected.  How many wives can remember how their husbands wooed them and why they fell in love?  How many can state categorically that their men’s integrity won them the prize?

  • Regrets

    ON TUESDAY, the cream of society gathered in Abuja for the presentation of former President Goodluck Jonathan’s book: My Transition Hours to mark his 61st birthday. The much-awaited book tells us about his days in office, especially towards the end of his tenure in 2015. It is understandable that the book dwells a lot on the 2015 election which he lost to President Muhammadu Buhari.

    It is clear from his offering that he has not forgotten the roles of some people in his defeat in that election. The election, as elections go in this part of the world, was Jonathan’s to win. As an incumbent he had everything at his disposal to win the election. Though his chances of winning were slim because the people were disenchanted with him. He could have used what we call in this clime ‘’incumbency power’’ to weave his way back to office.

    He tried to do that subtly using the state of security and what his administration termed as the lack of preparation by the electoral umpire to shift the poll. By the way, Jonathan, it was said, would have loved to return to power in 2015 because that would have given him an opportunity to celebrate his 60th birthday last year as the sitting president. His loyalists, say sources, were already looking towards November 20, 2017 for the grand celebration of his birthday in Aso Rock.

    Such things, which do not count among ordinary folks, are seen as big deals in the circle of power. They give aides a chance to fawn over their principal and tell him lies about the situation in the country. So, the aides paint a picture of a people happy with their leader when the reverse is the case. They know the truth but they prefer to lie because the leader himself, who should check on things through other means like moving about in the night incognito as some leaders do, has chosen not to face reality.

    If the leader is ready to face reality, he would devise means of double checking what his aides say and not swallow everything they tell him hook, line and sinker. Jonathan is a favoured being. From a humble background he became president in fortuitous circumstance. The death of President Umoru Yar’Adua in office in 2010 paved the way for him to step into that exalted office. As if that was not enough, barely a year after, he won election in his own right in 2011 as president.

    Read also: Jonathan book: elementary book of tales, says Borno Governor

    Four years after, the issue of whether or not he could seek a second term reared its head within his party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), as many members from the north felt that since the late Yar’Adua did not complete his two-term of eight years before he died, the region should still fill the post. That was the genesis of the crisis over whether or not he should contest the 2015 election. The intra-PDP crisis was Jonathan’s greatest undoing in the countdown to that election. Every other thing that followed, as the Yoruba would say, was the fiery thunder that aided the bomb of the intra-party feud.

    The protracted Boko Haram insurgency, the abduction of the Chibok schoolgirls (oh that!), the defection of some PDP governors and the plundering of the country by top government officials made things worse for Jonathan. Foreigners, as he wants us to now believe, were not the cause of his problems. The United States (US) and the United Kingdom (UK) did not make him to lose the election. He lost the election because Nigerians were fed up with PDP.

    There was no way the US and UK won’t have interfered (that is if we can call it that) in our electoral process at the time they did. But can we really call that interference as Jonathan did in his book? That was no interference but an advice to the government to ensure that nothing was done to truncate the process. Was there any justifiable reason for the government to have shifted the poll from February 14 to March 28, 2015? Well, based on information at its disposal, the government cited security for the shift. It said it needed three weeks to rein in Boko Haram, but the sect kept on wreaking havoc on some parts of the country till even the new date for that election.

    The only thing the government gained from the shift was the delivery of some of the equipment for waging the insurgency war. From what we are hearing today, part of the money meant for the acquisition of those equipment ended in the pockets of some top military officers, who are today standing trial for corruption. Thus, there was no way the US and UK would not have shouted foul, especially with the main opposition party then, the All Progressives Congress (APC), raising hell over the shift. That the Council of State (CoS) endorsed the postponement is not enough justification for the shift. Anyway, the CoS could not have had any other choice than to back the president’s position since it is constitutionally only an advisory organ.

    There was nothing the US and UK said that diminished our status as a sovereign nation. Is it because they called for free and fair elections that we now want to assert our sovereignty? This is the corner to which we have boxed ourselves in Africa. Since we need these countries, they will continue to have a say on how we conduct our elections. If Jonathan had won that election, his narrative will be different today. He wrote the way he did because he lost to Buhari.

    What is Jonathan’s proof that the US, especially, ‘’meddled’’ in the election? He is offended that former US President Barack Obama, in a video message, urged Nigerians to open the ‘’next chapter’’ by their votes. “Those who understood subliminal language”, he added, “deciphered that he was prodding the electorate to vote for the opposition”. Another evidence is that Obama said ‘’all Nigerians must be able to cast their votes without intimidation or fear’’. So, what is wrong in that advice? Did the Jonathan administration plan to create an atmosphere of fear and intimidation before the election?

    Jonathan has played his part on the Nigerian stage and signed off in an enviable manner by conceding defeat in that election and not doing anything to truncate the emergence of President Buhari as Elder Godsday Orubebe attempted to do. With what Orubebe did while votes were being collated after the election, can we honestly say today that the US and UK were not right in calling for a credible and transparent poll?

    Jonathan has run the race and kept faith with Nigerians through a smooth transition and for that posterity will remember him.

  • Media aides get confused too

    A notable politician dismisses fear of backlash, over his persistent rape and impregnation of minors. He brags to a friend in Diaspora, that, “The news is dead on delivery,” because he has journalism’s shining lights on a leash of cash.

    As the mongrel dares extremities for a gift of bone, so do his ‘boys’ in the media, he claimed.

    Predictably, the most senior media aide in the culprit’s pack of hounds spread the cash and killed news of his sex crimes.

    It is only fair that the aide watches helplessly as randy, power-drunk politicians rape his daughters and infect them with gonorrhea, like his principal’s underage victims. By Edumare’s retributive grace. That he might understand agonies of his principal’s victims and their families.

    The media aide is neither conflicted nor appalled. A passion for truth and ethics could never spur him to imperil his job – which he considers his ‘out’ from bleak, thankless Journalism.

    The life of a journalist-turned-media-aide is a parody in which honour plays no part. Unlike other members of his principal’s court, he enjoys no prideful place. He sits on his haunch, like a dog on its paws outside its master’s court.

    Like the hound, he is forever waiting to lunge, with a kill-cry and bare fangs, at perceived ‘detractors’ of his principal, the dog owner.

    ‘Ki lo ma nse awon boys yii naa?’ (What’s wrong with these boys?), he drones irritably, whenever his former colleagues in the media, subject his principal to harsh scrutiny and objective criticism. He assures his principal – who could be the president, senate president, a state governor, legislative speaker or local government chairman – that the press can be bought over.

    Media aides wrongly assume every journalist to be manipulable by cash, a foreign trip, a gallon of vegetable oil, Christmas/Ileya ram or a bag of rice. Thus he gets a generous budget to silence the ‘boys’ and inspire them to ignore the ineptitude and corruption of his principal.

    Of the bribe allotment, he siphons 70 per cent to his personal account, and splits the remainder among the ‘boys.’ It never gets old to see so-called ‘press boys’ scurry for residue of the bribe with dark delight.

    Rebels against the rot are daubed unfairly aggressive, biased, sanctimonious or driven by questionable animosity because they have been ‘left out.’

    There is a difference between ‘press boys’ and ‘Gentlemen of the Press.’ The press boy forever prowls, lobbying along the corridors of power in frantic quest to become media aide. A ‘Gentleman of the Press’ however, is a true ethical native. And he exists.

    He understands that the work of a media aide connotes the soul’s struggle against the body. Thus he rejects the role, knowing that as media aide, he would suffer the affliction of languid ethics, insatiable lusts and poisonous glamour; like a courtesan haunted in post-orgasmic flush by relentless spasms of lust for riches and unearned pleasure. Like fabled Tantalus, his thirst is never quenched.

    Media aides get confused too. Mcenteer calls this condition occupational hazard for those who move from journalism into government, or vice versa. They experience confusion of professionalism and their evolving identities.

    Several media aides of note, venerated critics celebrated at home and abroad suffer irredeemable descent as justifiers of ineptitude and political trifles as Special Adviser to governors and the Nigerian President. Their apologists, however, justify their indiscretions claiming, “What are they supposed to do? Would you quit if it were you?”

    Nobody is asking them to quit. Yet it is instructive that men of immense wisdom and worth, are reduced to political ‘bingos’ on a leash of cash.

    Their difficulties vary in character and severity but are classifiable as problems of ethics, irony, conflict, confusion and blur. What if they had vied for their principals’ offices? This couldn’t be preposterous given their once luscious reputation as a thought moulders, managers of men and resources.

    Sadly, they mutate from glowing works of self-sculpture, into political statuettes and every gadfly’s unfinished model.

    Similar ethical dilemma afflict journalists across the seas. Charles Royer suffered unpleasant, public, irony at his election to Seattle City Hall. Before he became American Mayor, Royer attained fame for his nightly 60 to 90-second political commentaries on KING-TV.

    In 1976, his half-hour documentary, “The Bucks Stop Here,” exposed improper use of special-interest money in the state legislature.

    The programme earned him two national journalism awards. When he became Mayor in 1977, Royer decided to share valuable information with his former press colleagues in off-the-record sessions. But TV crews wanted to bring their cameras into the meetings, against his wishes. Royer eventually showed up on TV and newspaper front pages, shoving TV cameras out. He will forever remember the headline with the photo: “TV Commentator turned Mayor shuts out TV.”

    Another poignant example is Edward R. Murrow, respected radio and TV journalist’s alleged bid to prevent the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)  from airing “Harvest of Shame” soon after he became the head of United States Information Agency. It was one of Murrow’s final documentaries for the CBS network and it revealed the terrible living and working conditions of migrant farm laborers in Florida.

    His attempt however, failed, but leaked to the press thus embarrassing the novice bureaucrat. “Murrow, the government propaganda chief, had tried to censor Murrow, the muckraking journalist,” notes Mcenteer.

    Despite their shortcomings Royer and Murrow served in ennobling circumstances. Not as glorified errand boys or attack hounds. It’s about time Nigerian journalists turned media aide played heaven’s advocate to their principals’ innate demons.

    They could start by offering constructive criticisms, from patriotic and envisaged media perspective, of their principals’ intended policies or actions before they are made public.

    If it is their principals’ wish to transform Nigeria into a heaven on earth, media aides should help them understand that in heaven, saints don’t become ‘God’ and an angel is nobody in particular.

  • From grounds of JF K’s assassination in Dallas

    I was a freshman at the University of Ibadan on November 22, 1963 when the news of the assassination of President J.F .Kennedy (JFK) was broken to us in the campus. Some heard it first on BBC radio but others heard about it from our lecturers.  Our political science lecturers, Father James O ‘Connell,   Essien-Udom and Richard Sklar had solid insight into American politics and government and were particularly shocked by the terrible news. Father James O’ Connell was an Irish friar and like most Irish all over the world, celebrated the presidency of Kennedy and enjoyed the glow and glory surrounding the charismatic young politician who at 43 was the youngest man to be president of the USA. Kennedy was the first and last Catholic to be president. Essien Udom was an American-trained political scientist who did ground breaking research on the black Muslims. His wife was an American lady.  Richard Sklar was a perceptive liberal Jewish American. So we were well placed to get critical information on American politics. The youths all over the world including Nigeria were swept off by the Kennedy wave of global love and affection. We had Kennedy haircuts and dreamt of being young leaders like Kennedy in our country. His famous speech to Americans at his inauguration about patriotism saying “ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country” resonated with people all over the world. His Peace Corps volunteers were teaching in Nigerian schools. Later somebody like James Meredith a black student who Kennedy used National Guards to force the University of Mississippi to admit later came to the University of Ibadan to study. In short, we were all caught up in the idealism that Kennedy represented.

    At the official government level, our prime minister, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa had in 1961 at the invitation of Kennedy made a state visit to the USA and addressed the Congress, the first and last time an African leader had done so. Our president, Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe was educated in the USA and in all his life he loved America. When the news became official, President Azikiwe made an emotional broadcast to the nation and a week of national mourning was declared and our flag was flown at half-mast .There was genuine sadness all over the country and people were touched when the photos of the weeping widow, Jacqueline Kennedy and her two little children, Caroline and John Kennedy jnr., with the latter saluting the casket of his father in Washington D.C, were splashed over all Nigerian newspapers.

    On my recent visit to Dallas, visiting the sites of the assassination was irresistible. The person who took my party round expressed his sorrow that what was a bitter experience has now become a tourist industry in Dallas. We were shown the route of the motorcade until it got to the Texas School Book Depository (now the Dallas County Annex) where the alleged killer, Lee Harvey Oswald, a twenty something year old young man was working. I saw the point where the president’s car made a left turn to go under the bridge before the shots rang out.  The points of impact of the gunshots are clearly marked with big white X on the road. These spots have become some kind of pilgrimage to tourists. The number of shots is disputed. Some said up to four shots were fired, two from Lee Harvey Oswald and one or two shots from the so called grassy knoll on the right of the presidential motorcade while turning left. In the melee that followed, Lee Harvey Oswald left the place and took a taxi to the outskirts of the town.  We were shown his roomy residence where he had a room rented from a lady. We were also taken to the point where he shot a policeman, J.D Tippit known to him in the area. Lee Harvey Oswald then took a cab to Texas Theatre. It was in the theatre that Oswald was surrounded by a company of policemen where he engaged them in a shoot-out.  In the meantime the president and governor, John Connolly of Texas were rushed to hospitals for treatment. The president was there pronounced dead. The body was subsequently flown to Washington during which time the Vice President Lyndon Baines Johnson of Texas was sworn in while the wife of the slain president still splattered with the blood of her husband looked on. In the meantime, Lee Harvey Oswald was taken to the County Criminal Courts Building which housed the Sheriff’s Office and county jail. Some days later, Lee Harvey Oswald who denied killing Kennedy and described himself as a “patsy”, some kind of small fry in the whole sordid tragedy of killing the president of the United States. On life television with his hand handcuffed to one of the Sheriffs while being taken before a judge to make his plea, suddenly a certain Jack Ruby well-known in the underworld pulled out a gun and fired several shots at Lee Harvey Oswald. This changed the whole global perception of the assassination. The new president set up a commission under the Chief Justice of the USA, Earl Warren to investigate the events surrounding the killing of the president. The Commission’s report did not satisfy many in America and the rest of the world. Other steps to reopen the enquiry have not yielded much definitive answer. One after another, all those accused in the assassination either were killed or died under suspicious circumstances. Recently, President Donald J. Trump ordered the release of certain documents related to the assassination. What was released raised more questions than answers and because the intelligence people (Deep State) advised against release of all the documents, even the iconoclastic President Trump has had to withdraw its decision to open all the documents.

    From my professional experience as an historian, I think Lee Harvey Oswald was certainly not alone. The young man had lived in the Soviet Union, married a Russian wife, visited the Russian embassy in Mexico City shortly before the assassination of the president and had tried to go to Fidel Castro’s Cuba. This was after the abortive Bay of Pigs failed US invasion of Cuba led by Cuban exiles under the CIA prodding and after the USSR blinked in the confrontation with the USA in 1962 over the removal of Russian missiles from Cuba. Some people in the military establishment wanted a full scale military invasion which Kennedy refused and thereby angered the military industrial complex to use the worlds of President Dwight David Eisenhower. The Russians who were humiliated in the Cuban missile crisis may also have been involved. There is allegation of the mob being involved and that the FBI was not averse in the days of his director Edgar Hoover of using the mob to do some of its dirty jobs. A poster placed on the route of the president’s motorcade before the shooting illustrates the paranoia in the US at the time. Enemies of Kennedy accused him of “violating states’ rights “by forcing the state of Mississippi to admit a black student into its university. A large poster pasted along the route of the president’s route in Dallas spoke volumes. President Kennedy was accused as a traitor for among other reasons, subjecting the sovereignty of the USA to the “Communist-controlled UN”. He was accused of “giving support and encouragement to the communist inspired racial riots”. He “has consistently appointed anti-Christians to Federal office and upholds the Supreme Court in its Anti-Christian rulings”. The increased pressure mounted on the mob by the tough attorney general, Robert F. Kennedy, the brother of the president angered the men of the underworld to the extent of wanting to kill the Kennedys.

    The memory of the terrible situation in Dallas was very painful for me and many people all over the world. These were dark moments in American history. The country was engaged in the destructive Vietnam War on which the country was divided. More assassinations followed. Malcom X on February 21, 1965; Martin Luther King jnr., in April 1968 and Robert F. Kennedy on June 6, 1968 were separately slaughtered. Their killers were found out but in most cases their killers represented the dark secrets of American life. During my visit to Dallas, which for many years was avoided by Americans and the global community, I found out that guns there were as American as apple pie. The city has since recovered from its sordid character and the fact that I came visiting is a manifestation of the recovery but not amnesia about the violence rooted in the history and politics of this frontier oil.

  • Of cabals, dynasties and emperors

    AT first it all seemed like a storm in a teacup – many still insist it is. Pockets of protests. Some big guns threatening hell unless they have their way. Desperate shuttles to the seat of power in Abuja. Peace talks here and there. More firefights.

    The All Progressives Congress (APC) could not douse the huge fire sparked by its acrimonious but remarkable primaries. Never mind, the irony is sweet; party supremacy trumps impunity. Ego gets a bloody nose. But some governors and party chair Adams “Comrade” Oshiomhole have been locked in a bitter public spar and spat.

    The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) makes a song and dance over the search of Atiku Abubakar’s plane on its arrival from Dubai where the presidential candidate had been strategising for the coming campaigns. The opposition party claims that the search is an act of “violence” and calls on the world to prevail on the Muhammadu Buhari administration to stop what it describes as its intimidation of opponents.

    Shi’ite leader El-Zakkyzakky remains in detention. Attempts by his resolute followers to get him out backfire; shots are fired. Fatal.

    What is all this? It is so difficult to follow the events, let alone reflect deeply on them and comment dispassionately. They happen at such dizzying speed. At times such as this, it is better to just listen to our usually large army of commentators, including emergency pollsters, tricksters and pranksters – all posing as experts.

    Where else do you find a pool of such specialists? The barber shop, of course. So, to Magodo I headed early in the week – after a long while during which my hair had become a bit bushy; neither an afro nor a low cut. Rough, but not the little mounds some men, most especially aspiring pop stars, love to sport.

    The shop is in full swing. Noisy and rancorous. The barber, a fairly old man, rotund and, as they say, full of life.”Order! Order!” he shouts like a court clerk. He holds his client by the chin, bends down for a critical view of his work and says with a grunt: “I need to concentrate, please.”

    All is quiet. But for a short while. Outside, some boys are trailing an old man, singing his praise and hailing him. “Baba oyoyo; baba oyoyo,” they sing. The old man is slutching a dark piece of cloth that passes for his handkerchief. It obviously used to be white. He throws it into the air like a performing highlife maestro in response to the accolades rained on him.

    Papi D sinks into a chair. He dumps his big, brown bag that has obviously seen better days. He wipes sweat off his dark face, smiling.

    “Thank you all. I appreciate the honour. Good to see you,” he says, raising his hands like a politician.

    All is quiet. A bearded fellow who has been busy on the draught board abandons his game, turns to Papi D. “We have missed you sir. So much has happened. We need your wisdom to make sense of all this nonsense.”

    “You’re right; it’s crazy out there. Politics has eventually caught up with some politicians, dealing them deadly blows.”

    “Sir, what exactly is the matter. Okorocha says Oshiomhole won’t give his in-law the governorship ticket. They have been quarrelling. The Comrade is accusing the governor of planning to build a dynasty. What is all that?”

    “You see, these are interesting times. There are nice dynasties and there are nasty dynasties. There were great dynasties in China, India and even in our dear Africa. What Oshio Baba is saying is that government is not a family business. If you’re governor, your son in-law is the candidate, your daughter is a commissioner and even your father in-law has a federal appointment, you need to slow down. People are watching. If they keep quiet, fine but where there is resentment, democracy must prevail – in an era of change.”

    “But Papi D, some people are saying Oshiomhole is merely grandstanding and that he would not have been this hard on Okorocha if the governor had honoured him with a statue in Owerri.”

    “I don’t know about that; the erection of statues as a state policy is yet to be proven as an effective weapon against the hunger and poverty we confront everyday. But you may have a point, if Oshio’s erection had been suggested by the experts, Okorocha would have erected it to save the budding dynasty. It is too late now. No sculptor worth his name will embark on such an erection now.”

    A young man in sports gears cuts in: “Even in Ogun, the matter is tough, with the governor not being able to secure the governorship ticket for his favourite aspirant. Why should Oshiomhole stop him and call him an emperor? Is it fair?”

    “You see, don’t misunderstand the party chair. His stand is simply that party tickets can’t be handed out like candies to kiddies. Even if you must be an  emperor, don’t be a Nero. The Roman emperor was not just accused of making merry and playing his fiddle while Rome was burning, he was said to have started the fire. No chairman worth his chair will accept that.

    “Amosun, the governor, as you may have heard, has since replied Oshiomhole. He said a valid congress was held – Oshiomhole rejects that vehemently – and candidates were elected, but that the party chair colluded with the ‘Lagos cabal’ to do him in.

    “I can’t just stop laughing. A congress with self-appointed officials presiding. And you’re shouting ‘cabal, cabal’. ‘Cabals are to be differentiated from ‘cannibals’. The goal should always be fairness and justice so that in the end democracy is enriched.”

    “But, Papi D, the DSS has invited Oshiomhole who has been accused of taking bribes and selling tickets.”

    “Oshiomhole selling tickets? Where; at the stadium or at the theatre? You see, young man, the DSS seems to have some zealots who are being overzealous if not outright mischievous. What business has the security outfit in a party’s internal affair? If governors can’t secure tickets for their surrogates, how has that become a security threat to Nigeria? This is why we say regime protection should not be mixed with national security.

    “Soon, husbands will be reporting their wives to the DSS and vice versa.”

    “The leader of the Islamic Movement is being held despite a court admitting him to bail. Is this rule of law?”

    “Now you are going spiritual. Spiritual matters, law, politics and rights issues often collide. You need to be in the spirit to sort them out. He drags his bag from the floor, opens the side and brings out a medium-sized bottle of a popular gin. He opens it carefully and kisses the bottle. He gulps the entire content of the half-full bottle, his face wearing a deep frown. He smiles and clears his throat ’gbai!gbai!gbau!’.

     “I am sorry for that short break. I needed to be in the spirit since you people are going spiritual. You see, it is not lawful to keep a man in detention after a court has asked him to go home on bail. A spiritual leader who can find worthy sureties. But then, when  rule of law jams rule of interests, there is ruin of law. I hear the man’s upkeep is huge. If he is let off, what happens to the contractors supplying his exotic meals? Several cows a day, the best of non-alcoholic wines the world can offer, the golden plates and cutlery sets, the expensive toothpicks, the imported bottled water, the water bed on which he relaxes and such other items that befit a royalty.  For once we should be proud; ours is the world’s most expensive detainee.“

    “Hmmm!’ the small crowd choruses. Papi D stands up and hauls his bag from the floor onto his shoulder. “Gentlemen, I leave. God bless Nigeria.”

     

    The last flight

    He was always the first to welcome me home whenever I visited my picturesque hometown. He would walk majestically from the lush grass while foraging for little insects, turning his neck slowly to survey his surrounding. After going round the car for a short while and seeing his image on it – courtesy of the glittering paint – he would then set to work. Kaa! Kaa!Kaa!  He would be pecking the body, poking some annoying marks on it.

    Visitors who loved their vehicles never found this funny. They would grumble and threaten him. Those who dared him by trying to chase him off their vehicles ended up taking a flight as he would suddenly turn to attack them. He was always walking alone, shunning the others who obviously had learnt to let him be.

    In a good mood, he would twerk to shake his massive feathers, raise them gradually until they formed the shape of a big hand fan. He would then turn around to show his back side, its colours winking and glowing. He would turn and turn to becomes a moving rainbow of seductive colours.

    Visitors would bring out their phones to record the exciting spectacle. After a while, he would end the show by just bringing down the flowers in a mechanical manner, like a tipper after dropping its load of gravel or sand. He would then walk away  in those slow loyal steps as if to say, ‘that’s enough for now’.

    Alas, he will no longer show off. Last Wednesday, I got a call that my favourite peacock was dead, stung by bees. Incredible. If any bird was qualified to be so called, he was, going by his mannerism. I have been searching for an expert to tell me how a swarm of bees could kill a peacock, leaving the others, including some peahens and peachicks.

    So sad.

  • Wrong target

    SECURITY operatives everywhere are the same. They act alike. A security agent in Nigeria is not different from his counterpart either in the United Kingdom (UK) or the United States (US). Some people may argue  that Nigerian security operatives cannot be compared with their counterparts elsewhere because of their brashness and other uncivil conduct.

    The Nigerian policeman, soldier and other security operatives may operate on a short fuse, but that is not peculiar to them. It is a trait they share with their counterparts worldwide. Yes, the Nigerian policeman shoots at people at will; slams you with frivolous allegations and does not allow you to defend yourself before dumping you in the slammer, with the clincher: na there you go die.

    That is their stock-in-trade, be the policeman a Nigerian, Briton, American or French. As the Nigerian policeman guns people down in the street so does his American or French or German counterpart in their own countries. If you have seen one policeman in action, whether here or yonder, you have seen them all. As bad as they are, it is painful that we cannot do without them. If we are attacked by hoodlums, we run to the police for protection. If there is external aggression, we rely on the army to defend us.

    We need the police, the army, the air force, the navy, the secret service agencies and related outfits as much as they need us. For them to carry out their duties, they must rely on, and relate with, the civilian populace for information. But over the years, the civilians have come to see the security operatives as enemies. It is a sad development which we must collectively address. Today, many Nigerians do not believe in their police and military.

    Where possible, communities keep the police and the army at bay. They do not want them in their communities no matter the challenges they may be facing. I remember what happened a few years ago when troops were deployed in a community in Ogun State where pipeline vandals were holding sway. Rather than rejoice at the deployment of the soldiers, the community populated by well educated people kicked at their coming. The residents did not want the soldiers to live in their midst for fear of  harassment.

    The relationship between security operatives and civilians was smooth until things suddenly went awry. The immediate and remote cause of this strain in relationship can be found in the incessant communal crises, which have become the order of the day in some parts of the country. Add to these, the wave of insurgency attacks across the Northeast. Those hard hit have come to see the security agencies, which should stem these crises, as part of the problem. In the North, the other ethnic groups have come to perceive the Fulani as their enemies.

    With herdsmen accused of destroying farms and other properties in many cities, the hitherto monolithic north had never been this divided. The region no longer speaks with one voice because its people now view one another with suspicion. The security agencies are suspected by the Berom, Idoma, Sayawa and Hausa ethnic groups, among others, as taking sides with the Fulani. They believe that the security agencies will never call the Fulani to order because the ethnic group is well connected in high places.

    What we are witnessing today is dangerous to our continued co-existence as a nation. We cannot afford to keep quiet in the face of what is going on. The security agencies may have time and again opened fire on civilians in the line of duty, but that is not enough reason to make the police and the army our enemies. As a people we cannot afford to turn on our soldiers and policemen because of the belief that they are biased in the handling of some security matters. There are ways of dealing with soldiers and policemen involved in extra judicial killing. We should allow the law to deal with them as appropriate.

    Ambushing soldiers and policemen and killing and dumping their bodies in ponds will not solve the problem, it will only aggravate it. No matter how aggrieved we may be with ourselves, the solution is not in taking out our anger on soldiers and policemen from the ethnic groups that we believe are behind our woes. This is why we should condemn the killing of Maj.-Gen Idris Alkali, former Chief of Administration at the Army Headquarters in Abuja in Jos, the Plateau State capital, on September 3. He was killed in a gruesome manner, buried in a shallow grave and his car dumped in a disused mining pond.

    It did not end there. After the search for him started, his body was exhumed, packed in a sack filled with stones and dumped in another disused mining pond. This is a callous act. This is not the way to treat our soldiers and policemen no matter how bad some of them may be. If I may ask, are the civilians engaging in these barbaric acts better than those they are condemning? Our people should not exacerbate matters with such despicable acts. Thank God that the military did not react rashly, otherwise we would have had another Odi and Zaki Biam on our hands.

    Before that incident, some people had killed three police officers and two members of a vigilance group in August in Taraba State, again for no just cause. As civilians, we should not push our luck too far with this kind of attacks on soldiers and policemen because the end result may not be palatable.

  • Pa Adebanjo in service of his people

    Pa Ayo Adebanjo is undoubtedly passionate about Nigeria. But the service to his Yoruba nation is his life.   Indeed if there is any other Yoruba leader of his generation worthy of being described as a Yoruba irredentist after the death of his illustrious forebears – Chief Bode Thomas, founding member and deputy leader of Action Group, who died at 34 in 1953 and Chief SLA Akintola, the nemesis of the colonial powers and terror to the northern feudal lords killed as premier of Western Region during the January 1966 military coup, it is Pa Adebanjo. He has for over 60 years fought on the side of his people.

    He has been unequivocal as to what his people want out of Nigeria: “autonomy, within Nigeria as an independent entity, self-sustained but not subservient to any part in a true federation.” He has since the collapse of the first republic in 1966 insisted “We must restructure and put in place true federal constitution”; reminding Nigerians that “that was the agreement reached by our founding fathers: the Awolowos, the Azikiwes and the Sardaunas and sanctioned by the colonialists in London in 1954 and implemented in 1960. Those who don’t understand restructuring should go and read the agreement and even those who benefited from the agreement and are in office and not obeying the agreement”, he had advised.

    But he has an axe to grind with President Buhari. This may not be unconnected with Buhari’s 1984 treatment of his leader, Awolowo whose house he allegedly ordered ransacked and his other colleagues such as Olabisi Onabanjo, Pa Adekunle Ajasin, Prof Ambrose Alli and others who were jailed for spending their state resources to build universities for their people while their counterparts in NPN and NPP spent their states’ allocations to set up private banks or marry new wives.

    Even after publicly thanking his son, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu for liberating Yorubaland from Obasanjo and his PDP, he could not resist throwing his weight behind ex-President Jonathan and his PDP when it became obvious Buhari was flying APC flag in 2015. He has been very critical of his administration. As 2019 draws near, his attack and criticism have become more acerbic.  While appealing last week to his Yoruba people to reject Buhari in 2019, he said “People have seen him to be fake. He is not somebody anyone can rely upon and I have no doubt in my mind that Tinubu would have seen the stupidity of aligning with him”; adding without restraint, “three years down the line, Nigerians, especially the Yoruba, have realised that the president is not a man of integrity who also failed to keep to his promises, one of which is restructuring which is in the manifesto of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).”

    Before his last week eruption, Pa Adebanjo had picked the president up on nearly every issue. Starting with the rampaging herdsmen that turned the middle belt region into a killing field, he had warned “The herdsmen cannot continue to harass us, we are agrarian communities in the Southwest, many of our people cannot farm again because the herdsmen have taken over their farmlands, this cannot continue and that must stop immediately.”

    On MKO Abiola’s posthumous award, he had said: “I am not excited about it; it is welcome; however, it is late and belated. But he did not stop at that, he started to read motive to the award claiming “if Buhari has now done it because the presidential election is coming, well, he cannot bamboozle anybody with that”.

    While one had expected Pa Adebanjo to be happy that PDP was denied a foothold in Yorubaland, a project he had campaigned for in the past, he and Afenifere however in a bizarre move suspended Omisore who had joined resources with APC to make it happen. Pa Fasanmi, a fellow Afenifere member says of the action “It is laughable and disappointing for anyone to desecrate the hallowed name of Chief (Obafemi) Awolowo with conservative political tendency as being espoused by the Fasoranti and Ayo Adebanjo group that has crossed the red line. For him “The spirit of Chief Obafemi Awolowo will never forgive whoever has taken steps to bastardise the legacies he fought for all his life.” He says the Fasoranti-led Afenifere had no moral right to suspend Omisore for teaming up with a progressive party to win an election.

    But Pa Adebanjo and Afenifere are weighed down by other moral burdens. His current support for Atiku and Obasanjo was for instance on account of their promise to restructure the country. But In a chat with Jide Ajani of Vanguard newspapers during his 90th birthday celebration titled ‘Encounters with a man who likes TELLING IT AS IT IS’ (the title of his autobiography) (April 8), he had said “I will never agree to have anything to do with Obasanjo politically, because I don’t see any virtue in him, nothing credible in him, particularly as far as the interests of the Yoruba people are concerned.   Obasanjo is not a Yoruba man, he doesn’t want what the Yoruba people want and I’ve always said so.”

    This strong rebuttal followed Obasanjo’s betrayal of Afenifere on the issues of his national conference. Obasanjo, according to Pa Adebanjo “knew what he wanted all along. He drew AD leaders out and swindled them knowing that restructuring had become bait.”

    Obasanjo exploited the above moments of inattentiveness of the elders in 2003 to rig-out AD governors, substituting the ‘Omoluabis’ like Bisi Akande, Segun Osoba, Niyi Adebayo, Lam Adesina, with the likes of Ayo Fayose, Adebayo Alao-Akala Gbenga Daniel and Olagunsoye Oyinlola some of whom are currently in court defending their honour over financial malfeasance. Unfortunately the Yoruba nation paid dearly for the lack of attentiveness of the elders, as Obasanjo through his ‘mainstreaming’ agenda reversed all the gains the Yoruba made between 1952 and 1966 and also destroyed the second republic  legacies of Bisi Onabanjo, Bola Ige , Pa Ajasin, Ambrose Alli and others.

    Obasanjo derives his strength in proclaiming himself a Nigerian leader while denying being a Yoruba leader, a strategy that has allowed him to literarily climb the palm tree from the top by becoming president without a political base. Pa Adebanjo has not told us if Obasanjo now sees himself as a Yoruba leader and whether he now shares the aspirations of the Yoruba people.

    He has also not addressed Pa Fasanmi’s question as to why he wants to trade progressive with all its imperfections under Buhari with Obasanjo/Atiku conservative we all saw in action for 16 years beyond calling him an old man who has lost direction as if our revered Pa Adebanjo at 90 even without his current confusion is a young man.

    He is also haunted by another moral burden. General Alabi Isama recently claimed the Igbo have been part of every government in Nigeria since 1959. In other words, this is the first time the Yoruba mainstream political tendency is joining the north with Ayo Adebanjo’s son, Osinbajo, married to the grand-daughter of Awo, the leader on whose name he swears. This historic shift is what Pa Adebanjo says he wants to reverse so that power can return to the conservatives he had fought for over 60 years.

    Pa Adebanjo, a pride of Yoruba nation must take a journey back through memory. Yoruba never had a leader no matter how powerful they cannot handle. Sango brought glory to the Oyo Empire. But intoxicated with power, he dared the people. They humoured him with the talking drum until he committed suicide. In contemporary times, Akintola, a foremost Yoruba irredentist dared the people. (Akintola t’aku). The Are Ona Kankafo was to later commit suicide by confronting an army with a gun. Bola Ige, a well-loved leader took Yoruba through PDP, ANPP and AD. The people humoured him on as he embarked on a suicide mission to Obasanjo and his PDP.

  • Lest we end up as tissues and blood in their gourds

    The year, 2018, presented as the umpteenth scene of Nigeria’s grotesque political drama. January unfurled grotesquely, cloaked in blood and sadism of clashing tribal characters. Herdsmen plundered subsistence farms up-north, crossing the middle-belt into Nigeria’s south-lands, to steal from and murder impoverished families, tilling the soil to eke a meal.

    They maimed rural fathers, murdered and raped mothers and daughters in righteous rage a la Boko Haram. The latter, characteristically, continued its campaign of violence and death in the north-east. Despite the formidable exploits of the armed forces, the massacre persisted in real time. It persists even as you read.

    Thus at the start of the year, the dominance of despair seemed so complete and insurmountable, as usual. Government habitually played dumb, issuing excuses and clueless ripostes to critics and opposition’s wanton diatribes. As the carnage persists, the government is unruffled and the governed stays inert.

    The government knows the governed (electorate) through sadistic plowing. Nailing the latter down by a leash of cash and manipulative sentiments, the government, like a bloodthirsty cult, catches their shrieks in a metaphoric calabash. The vessel is chillingly archetypal, reflective of indigenous cults’ demonic bloodfest.

    The government’s gourd vine connotes its egoistic self-preservation: career politicians desperately seek re-election or a change of public office hence the insolence of outgoing governors dying to become senators, even in states where the electorate dies by their ineptness and brazen pillage.

    The latter’s metaphoric calabashes are their exaggerated pride and incestuous self-idolatry. A poisoned chalice. Like the Biblical whore of Babylon, they hold their gourds scummy with lusts and amorality; one governor, following eight years of his maladministration and impoverishment of the state and electorate, seeks to install his son-in-law as governor to continue his pauperisation legacy; another with a curious kink for risible caps, fights to install his “chosen wizkid” as his successor in a badly governed state, where the electorate is dying to escape his asphyxiating tenure.

    The insolence persists across the country and political platforms; politicians pant to the venom of serpents interred in their possessed spirits.

    We have seen how such individuals and their bungling parties sadistically mauled sound to sight, sighs, and cries to streaming blood.

    It’s about time the Nigerian electorate divested the country’s battered chests and earth of their murderous forms. Lest we end up as tissues and blood in their gourds.

    Yet the monstrous ruling class reflect our decadence back to us. They actuate rather than constrain our perversions.

    Boorstin would call it the mirror effect. The ruling class’ administrative hearse becomes the realistic carriage of our death-tending impulses. On their watch, insecurity persists: terrorism, kidnap for ransom and armed robbery fluorishes.

    Fraud, embezzlement of public funds persist in this government as its predecessors, though in tidier proportions.

    Public officers afflicted with inferioritycomplex, god-complex, inordinate greed, among other esteem issues, subject the citizenry interminable miseries occasioned by deadly, cratered highways, declining health and education institutions, a depressed economy, gory, methodical massacre of the citizenry by bloodthirsty herdsmen and political thugs.

    Notwithstanding the ruling class’ failings, the electorate is poised to return them to power, come 2019.

    In a few months, Nigerian voters will once again, fall victim to an ageless ruse repeatedly weaponised by the ruling class. Every politician seeking public office understands that the political arena is a theatre, where the most essential skill required is artifice.

    But that is simply one way to look at it. The Nigerian political arena equally unfurls like a red light district, an expansive brothel, where electorate bodies are the stringed instruments hysterically plucked by politician-patrons.

    The governed, or electorate if you like, are sometimes mauled by career rapists cum sadomasochists in a frenzy, as is reflective in the imagery of Nigeria’s badly governed states.

    In this decadent theatre, politicians emerge as master harpists, making dark melody to the electorate’s torment, and for their guilty pleasures. In their anguish, the electorate gains identity as Nigeria’s faceless natives; bleeding saps for whom the ruling class’ utopia manifests as infernal dystopia.

    The discerning sees through the ruling class’ artifice. They know the pleading candidate’s smile masks a scowl. They know that incumbent public officers and the opposition seeking to usurp power from them are birds of a feather, criminals on flipsides of the divide, using the media, among other tools of mass propaganda, to create a sense of faux intimacy with citizens.

    The incumbent ruling class sustains its vice grip on power and public office by weaponising tokenism and politically compromised media. Deploying such instruments, they know they do not need to be competent, sincere or honest to earn trust, win votes and elections, they only need to appear to have these qualities.

    More importantly, they know they must be adept at creating and establishing a false narrative of their sainthood and the opposition’s villainy. The consistency and emotionality of the story are paramount.

    And the story must be entertaining and wildly infused with absurd drama. Thus the scandalous affairs of paedophile, bribe-taking and machete-wielding governors, and a threesome-loving lawmaker caught pants-down, are inconsequential in considerations of their suitability for re-election. Rather than make them pariahs, it earns them empathy and votes.

    The sad fate of 12 teenagers gruesomely crushed to death by a steel container in an accident caused by government negligence of Ogun State’s death roads becomes irrelevant in electoral considerations, as the parlous infrastructure dotting Nigeria’s emerging dystopia.

    As medieval royalty deployed court drama and conspiracies to divert the attention of their subjects from daily miseries, so do the ruling class and opposition divert electorate attention from the real issues as another election year approaches.

    It’s about time the electorate devised the plot of Nigeria’s political theatre; the real issues aren’t what the ruling class narrate to us. The real narrative is in everything they would rather not tell us.

    What is the nature of government expenditure on Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), and the result of such spending? What is the real impact of the anti-corruption fight? Of government spending, how much is truly committed to education and health financing? Does the government still pay itself outrageous salaries?

    What has the incumbent government done differently from its predecessors, beyond the bounds of its statutory responsibilities? Do Nigeria’s two most prominent parties deserve a single vote? Why?

     

     

  • Taming dynasty-building governors

    In the ongoing war of words between aggrieved APC’s governors, Okorocha of Imo, Amosun of Ogun, Akeredolu of Ondo and Abdulaziz Yari of Zamfara State, I think Adams Oshiomhole as chairman of APC and custodian of the party’s laws, has the last word. He has been unequivocal as to his compliance with his party’s guidelines in the recently concluded APC acrimonious primaries. The party, he also said, gave aggrieved party members opportunities to seek redress.  APC national leader Asiwaju Bola Tinubu admonished the aggrieved governors to be conscious of the broader interest of the party while reminding them that Oshiomhole merely implemented rules and guidelines set by the National Working Committee (NWC) of the party. President Buhari, the leader of the party in spite of his many photo shows with some of the aggrieved governors especially Amosun and Okorocha, has shown by his body language that he favoured compliance with rules and guidelines of the party. With the above position of APC’s critical stakeholders,  one is left with the impression that the protesting governors who believe they are bigger than the party and have been threatening to damage the party’s fortunes in the 2019 election if their selfish demands were not met are just bad losers.

    And it is just as well Oshiomhole decided to call off their bluff. A political party after all is like a cult. You either comply with the rules or you are out. Loyalty is political party’s highest badge of honour.

    Oshiomhole however went on to list some of the aggrieved governor’s infractions against APC primary election guidelines. According to him, after eight years as governor elected on the platform of APC, Okorocha wanted to transit from the governor’s lodge to the senate while his wife becomes a member of the Lower House and his son in law succeeds him as governor of Imo State and another brother as deputy governor. This may appear obscene and immoral, but that was not the only problem.  The real scandal was that Okorocha and his family members emerged winners of a primary that was supervised by an appointed official of his government.  I guess it was for this reason Oshiomhole insisted he was not prepared to promote the building of Okorocha dynasty in Imo State especially when the state with her well educated elite is not Okorocha’s family fiefdom.

    As for Governor Amosun of Ogun State, he was accused by chairman Oshiomhole of coming up with a list of consensus candidate for the 2019 election without consulting critical stakeholders of the party including the vice president, the highest ranking political office holder from Ogun State. Consensus for him according to the APC chairman, is transiting from governor after eight years to become senate candidate by forcing the incumbent Senator LanreTejuoso who is from his senatorial district to step down. Consensus for him also meant single handedly handpicking the governorship candidate who will succeed him, the speaker of the state House of Assembly among about 16 other elective positions.

    Perhaps from the benefit of insight, Oshiomhole realising the consequences of APC’s failure to use the big stick when BukolaSaraki and Yakubu Dogara seized the leadership of the two houses and went on to make the county ungovernable for three and half years before their recent defection back to PDP, he was not going to allow the governors to hold the party to ransom.

    I think that was a bold decision. Democracy cannot survive without disciplined political parties and loyal members. That has been the experience in most developed democracies where the political parties have continued to serve as modernising agents. And this was also our experience in Nigeria between 1952 and 1966, a period regarded as the golden era of Nigeria. The first republic collapsed partly as a result of indiscipline of S. L.Akintola who was constitutionally removed from office by the governor of Western Region, Sir AdesojiAderemi, but sought the support of the NCNC/NPC coalition partners who exploited the intra-party crisis to destabilize and derailed the development programme of the region.

    Building a disciplined and modernizing political party is an arduous task that requires long period of political socialization. Unfortunately, Oshiomhole’s APC as presently constituted is an extension of PDP once described by Campbell, America’s former ambassador to Nigeria as “an elite cartel at the centre of power in Nigeria that came together with no ideological or programmatic basis, but simply as essentially a club of elites for sharing of oil rents and political spoils”.

    AuduOgbe, a former PDP chairman was to later validate Campbell’s thesis when he said “When I was chairman of PDP, my son never got involved in oil but two PDP national chairmen after me, their sons pocketed over N400 billion without supplying a tea cup of oil.”

    The collapse of our political party system started with ill-advised proscription of the then existing political parties by our successive military regimes. Then the  idea that a political party can be an association of ‘equals without joiners and founders’ became a fraud sold by fraudulent Babangida military regime and its state house professors of political science

    Unlike what obtained during Obasanjo’s presidency when he took control of PDP, routinely and unilaterally removed and replaced party chairmen, imposed challenged presidential and governorship candidates, political parties in a democracy are not the properties of presidents of governors.  Political parties are the properties of party oligarchies made up founders and former political office holders. They are the stakeholders who as guardians of the ideals of the party are often saddled with providing a moral voice and direction when challenged by current office holders who are often driven by ambition as we currently have in the case of Oshiomhole’s “empire and dynasty-building” aggrieved governors.

    I am sure by first taming Okorocha and Amosun in order to underscore the importance role of discipline in a political party system, Oshiomhole who during his first meeting with APC lawmakers in August this year spoke of “a strategy of building a party “formed on the basis of shared ideas, shared values, shared commitment,” understands the arduous task ahead of him and the role of discipline in building a virile modernizing political party.