The Nation Newspaper

Category: Thursday

  • As Osun goes to the polls

    FORGET the brickbats. Put aside the empty sentiments. The jokes. The dull, drab and dumb debates. The gossip and the beer-parlour talk. Dump them all. Let’s get down to brass tacks.

    Osun State is lucky. There is an army of candidates – 48 in all – running in Saturday’s governorship election. With the field so crowded, it is easy for the less discerning to lump them all together – the serious, the tricksters and the pranksters.

    Of all the candidates, five seem to be the front runners. All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate Gboyega Oyetola; Moshood Adeoti Shehu, African Democratic Party (ADP); Ademola Adeleke, People’s Democratic Party (PDP); Iyiola Omisore, Social Democratic Party (SDP), and Fatai Akinmade, African Democratic Congress (ADC). All are eminently qualified to get the trophy.

    Adeoti used to chair the APC. He was prominent in the days of the struggle to retrieve Rauf Aregbesola’s stolen mandate from the PDP predators who had seized the state by the throat. After Aregbesola’s legal victory, Adeoti mounted the saddle as chairman. He landed the prestigious Secretary to the State Government (SSG) post.

    When it was time to choose an APC candidate to join the race for Aregbesola’s successor, Adeoti threw his hat in the ring. He expected that the prize should be his, naturally. “I have suffered a lot for this party,” he was quoted as saying. The elders rejoined – trust elders and their wisdom – that he was right. “Eight years as SSG after being chairman; what suffering could be bigger than that? No greater sacrifice can a true party man make,” he was told.

    Before the APC could decide on the way forward, a divisive and bitter campaign had taken off. Enter “West lokan”(it is the turn of the West). Suddenly, it was no longer in the best interest of the state to have the best; just anybody as long as he is from the West.

    The party organised a free and fair primary. Sadly, not many members remembered how Adeoti “suffered” for them. By direct primary, they chose Oyetola. Adeoti and his associates stomped out of the party to berth at ADP.

    Adeoti studied Business Administration at the University of Benin (UNIBEN). From 1975 to 1978, he was the manager at Igbehin Adun Sawmill in his Iwo hometown.

    Wherever he goes now, his supporters scream “Sheeeehu!” and many mistake him for a famous Islamic scholar who goes by that name, but he is not bearded.

    Otunba – sorry; I take that back – Dr Iyiola Omisore is widely seen as a pugnacious fellow who hugs controversy like a long-lost-and-found lover. He is seen as brash and harsh. His associates dismiss that as a wrong impression. He is just audacious, they say, stressing that this is in no way a bad quality.

    On account of the N1.7b he was said to have got from the N4.6b collected from the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA) in the days of the PDP bazaar, he is seen as tainted. In fact, it is said, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) would not let him rest until he pays back the cash in full. What they forget is that everybody who was somebody in the PDP – Omisore was indeed a political juggernaut– was a partaker of the largesse.

    Those who obviously would like to provoke the usually reticent politician and master of the cut and thrust politics by alluding to the Bola Ige murder must remember that a court had long ago found Omisore not guilty of the crime.  They should also remember that Omisore’s kinsmen voted him as senator while he was in prison – a record no Nigerian politician  has matched. What greater love can a people show their dearest son!

    Now, the former deputy governor is running a familiar race; he wants to be governor – to crown a glorious political career that opponents describe as turbulent and full of desperation. They say he loves corn-on-the-cob so much that he chomps two cobs at a time, one in each hand.

    Until the sudden passage of Senator Isiaka Adeleke, little was known about his younger brother Ademola, now a senator – thanks to a sympathetic electorate who felt the family deserved to be compensated with the seat.

    Adeleke has a family tree festooned with frontline entertainers, businessmen and politicians. He has since become famous after taking his seat in the Red Chamber. This is not on account of the motions he has moved. Nor is it for his contributions, rendered with remarkable oratory. Nor for his erudition on and off the floor.

    But, fair is fair; no lawmaker – living or dead – has Senator Adeleke’s dancing skills.

    To those who know him, this is no surprise. He used to be a disc jockey in the United States, they claim. Video clips of his dancing skills have suffused the social media. You cannot but marvel at how he does it; he is obese, yet he swings his waist like a teenager’s, rolls his massive buttocks seductively and swings his hands like a master choreographer’s.

    Everywhere he performs, the audience keeps screaming: “Wow! More! More!” He reminds many of the late pop icon, Michael Jackson and the dancer Jeffrey Daniels of the American band, Shalamar.

    Adeleke’s fans are already visualising the great tourism potential of a dancing governor. A huge disco hall at the Government House, free shows for residents at festive seasons and street parties for all.

    To his opponents, however, such prospect of an unending parties makes no sense. They say the distinguished senator often puts his foot in his mouth. They refer to a video in which he says Aliko Dangote, the shrewd business giant and Femi Otedola, the diesel magnate who has recently been threatening to join the race for Lagos governor, promised to daze Osun residents with cash to pave the way for his (Adeleke’s) governorship.

    His opponents, who are obviously busybodies and idle critics, swore that Adeleke never went to school. They have since been put to shame as liars. The senator did not only go to school, he has a WASSCE result showing that he actually sat for the exam and failed in just one subject, the only one he attempted. Is there any crime in that?

    Adeleke  actually enrolled in a university. Perhaps unable to figure out how it would help his career, he quit. Again, any crime in that?

    Goaded on by his people, Adeleke has since set his hand to the plough, but the busybodies, aforementioned, are asking no one in particular: “Is this your best?”

    Akinmade, an engineer, is a former SSG. He used to chair the PDP when the party had the state in its pocket and winning elections was as simple as ABC. Besides, he used to be Works Commissioner (1994-1998).

    When he failed to get the PDP’s ticket, he defected to the ADC, the one backed by former President Olusegun Obasanjo, who once swore that he was done with partisan politics.

    Handing Akinmade the mandate, in the view of his critics, amounts to returning Osun to what President Muhammadu Buhari called the “dark days”. Undaunted and confident, Akinmade soldiers on.

    Oyetola has a Bachelor’s (B.Sc.) degree in Insurance and a Master’s in Business Administration (MBA), Finance. He worked in Leadway, Crusader and Alliance and General Insurance before founding Silvertrust Insurance Brokers, which he ran until his appointment as Chief of Staff to the governor – a job he did with remarkable passion and dexterity.

    He was chairman of Ebony Properties, Executive Vice Chairman, Paragon Group and Director, Pyramid Securities Ltd. His campaign is built around the continuity theme. Continuity of what? His critics ask derisively. He replies eloquently: “Continuity of the fantastic infrastructural development embarked on by the Aregbesola administration – those beautiful schools, roads and bridges – the school pupils’ feeding programme, the big investment in security that has made bank robbery a suicidal venture, the health projects, including the ‘O Ambulance’  and many more.”

    Oyetola is that steady hand that Osun needs now; not some revisionists threatening to bring the roof down on everyone. When brain counts and brawn is of no use; when experience counts and apprenticeship is out of the way and when wisdom counts as against tomfoolery,  Oyetola is the man. My money is on him.

     

    Dariye and the limits of confidence

    FORMER Plateau State Governor Joshua Dariye does not seem to have faced the reality of his doing time in prison. He has obtained the expression of interest and nomination forms to contest the next senatorial election.

    He is serving a 14-year jail term for fraud. It is not that his party, APC, is short of aspirants; there are two others. But Mr Chindo Dafat, the publicity secretary, believes that with his popularity – indeed – Dariye will carry the day.

    Breaking: Court sentences Dariye to 16 years imprisonment
    Joshua Dariye

    It is true that no law stops Dariye from obtaining the nomination and expression of interest forms, but whatever happened to our values? He has appealed his conviction and we are praying for him, Dafat said.

    But why put the cart before the horse? Why not wait for the court’s verdict before running?

    What drives Dariye’s ambition? The public interest he so blatantly betrayed? Sheer selfishness? Conceit? Mere fancy?  I really don’t know.

    Dariye should reflect more and be sober. The race can do without him.

  • The Leah Sharibu saga

    AT 15, Leah Sharibu has gone through a lot for someone her age. As I write this on Tuesday night, the girl is still in captivity seven months after she and 109 others were abducted from the Government Girls Secondary School in Dapchi, Yobe State, on February 19. Her story is moving. It is the stuff of epic films. But this is not make believe. It is real. About four months ago, her mates were released, but the abductors held on to her because she refused to renounce her faith.

    They wanted her to convert to Islam. She refused and they refused to let her go. Leah showed a strong will even in the face of danger. It may be correct to say that she is still being held because she has stuck to her guns not to renounce Christianity. Are we even sure that she will be released if she agrees to be a Muslim?  Nobody can say for sure that they will let her go if she embraces Islam. Be that as it may, the Leah Sharibu fight is not one to be fought by the girl alone.

    This girl has tried. In her own small way, she has put up a good fight. She has done all she can do to resist the intimidation of her abductors. I can hear her tiny voice in my subconscious mind, calling out to us all to come to her rescue. Just imagine the trauma she is going through. Here she was with her friends a while ago and all of a sudden, they allowed them to go except her. That experience alone is killing.

    She must be strong, really strong to have held on without friends and family since others were released in May. Those of us enjoying our freedom in the comfort of our homes may not appreciate what this brave girl is going through in the lion’s den. We cannot abandon her to her fate as a nation.  We should be angry with what is happening to this girl. Our anger should move us to act in whatever way possible to bring her back home. What will it cost to free her?

    By now, the government should know what it will take to get her out, using the channels of communication between it and Boko Haram. It was through these channels that it got back the other girls. But it seems lethargy has set in. I do not know what the sect’s demands are, but whatever they may be, the government must find a way round them in order to free Leah. Let’s face it, like any other parent, Leah’s parents will not be interested in any story about why their daughter cannot be gotout of captivity. As each day passes, the news they are eagerly waiting to hear is that Leah has been released. Like her parents, Leah too is anxious to return home.

    Few weeks ago, she sent the nation a message, asking us not to forget her in captivity. The government has assured the nation that she would not be abandoned to her fate. Leah has become the bone tied to the dog’s neck which nothing must happen to. We cannot afford to be lethargic about Leah’s case. Everyday she spends with her abductors is a sad reminder of our inability as a nation, so far, to spring her from captivity. Again, what will it take to get this girl back? If she were to be the child of one of those in power will the matter be treated like this? We know the length the government will go to bring her out if Leah were to be the child of a powerful man in the society.

    Her abductors are emboldened by our attitude to the issue to make all sorts of demands. They are now threatening to kill the girl if the government does not pay them ransom within one month. If that is what it will take to get her back, the government should quietly settle with them and bring this matter to a closure. We should also remember that some Chibok schoolgirls too are still with the Boko Haram insurgents. Over 100 of them are still being held in God knows where.

    Since the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) is demanding ransom to free Leah, we can add the Chibok girls into the bargain and get them out along with her. Yes, as some will argue, it is not good to negotiate ransom with abductors. But in a situation like this, what do we do? Abandon the girls with their abductors? Since the alternative is to resort to force, are we ready for that considering the attendant risk? This alternative is not an option in this circumstance. The only choice we have is to negotiate the girls’ way out.

    Boko Haram has given us a month to do that. To show that it means business, ISWAP released the video of a slain abducted aid worker, Saifura Ahmed. It threatened to kill the two remaining aid workers and Leah if its ransom demand is not met. “The other nurse and midwife will be executed in similar manner in one month, including Leah Sharibu”, ISWAP said in the video released on Monday. A lot can be achieved in a month. Let us seize this opportunity to bring this saga to an end.

     

    Evans’ way

    KIDNAP suspect Chukwudumeme Onwuamadike aka Evans does things in style. He likes the good life and he lived it to the full before his arrest. He allegedly kidnapped people and demanded ransom in hard currencies. His victims reportedly paid him in pounds, dollars and euros. His trial is showing us many aspects of his life. On Monday, a witness, Edwin Uduji, told Justice Adedayo Akintoye of the Lagos High Court how Evans’ men warned him of the consequences of paying ransom for his kidnapped younger brother, James, a businessman, with fake dollars.

    According to the witness, the kidnappers told him that for every fake $100 note, he would pay $10,000 fine. What do we call the fine? Second ransom? See how Evans lived and terrorised those unfortunate to fall into his hands! Today, he is shedding crocodile tears in detention. He is weeping for the fate that awaits him. May his tribe continue to shrink.

     

  • Democracy in Nigeria

    The crowd of people wanting to contest election to be president of Nigeria in 2019 has given any intelligent Nigerian food for thought. When one looks at the individuals who want to be president, the question one asks himself is who has asked them to contest? What are their qualifications? Why are others not contesting? Do these people truly believe they have something to offer? What are their visions and missions? Are they representing themselves or hidden interests? What are the operational instruments of their promised service delivery?

    Why are they all politicians who have held offices before and made lots of money? Where are the real makers of Nigeria like trade unionists, teachers, doctors and engineers and others producers of national wealth? There was a study done on the USA senate and it was found out that 85% are lawyers.  Why are our senators and those running for president retired public servants? These are possibly eternal questions which many people ask in countries with democratic system of government.

    Right from the time of its origin in ancient Athens, democracy has had its limitations as a system of government. Franchise was limited to only citizens and men. Women, slaves and men who were under the age of military service were not eligible to vote or be voted for. But the good thing about Athenian democracy was that any citizen could be a candidate to be voted for. The system had its antithesis in the military dictatorship of Sparta which was more efficient and effective but not enduring. The synthesis of these two systems was the representative democracy which evolved in 19th century Europe especially in revolutionary France since 1789. Even then the vote was tied to property ownership and national military service (levee en masse). Before this time particularly after the declaration of American independence from Great Britain, the idea of representative government based on limited franchise based on property right had become the norm in democratic practice. This is why critics dismissed this as bourgeois democracy and the state and its bureaucracy as organized instrument to protect the bourgeoisie. The so-called “rule of law” is a clever way to defend the rights of the property owning class. This debate recently came up with President Muhammadu Buhari’s raising the debate about raison d’état and regle de loi. This was a philosophical question which was debated under Rousseau’s concept of the General Will which needed not be the sum total of the wills of individuals in the society but could indeed be the will of the minority or a few or even one person manifesting the knowledge of the higher interest of the good of the society.

    The possibility of this idea being hijacked by a ruling class or even one person is the reason for the fear by society that this can be manipulated. But this fear does not obviate the possibility of a few people rather than the crowd of people knowing what is in the overall interest of society. Democrats the world over have distinguished between mob rule and democratic rule. The difference is that those the French called the crowd may not know what is good for the society whereas the educated propertied class presumably know. This was amply demonstrated during the French Revolution by the descent into Jacobin terror which only the man on the horseback, Napoleon Bonaparte’s military intervention put an end to. The excess of democracy can either lead to dictatorship of the Left or the Right. As shown during the French Revolution, there are times when in the national interest, a strong government is needed to guarantee the larger interest of the people.

    Now back to the horde of contestants for elective offices in Nigeria. One of the problems in the case of Nigeria is that political parties that are normally designed to aggregate the views and interests of the people are either absent or inchoate. Political parties are normally built around enduring philosophy or ideology which shows a group’s world view (weltanschauugen) and how the group would want to shape the society which it wants to govern. In advanced democracies like the USA or the United Kingdom, belonging to parties is taken seriously. The Conservative and Liberal parties in the United Kingdom have existed in one form or the other for centuries either as Tory or Whig parties. Even the younger Labour Party has been in existence for more than 100 years. The same can be said for the Republican and Democratic parties of the United States. On the continent of Europe particularly in Germany, one can trace the ancestry of the existing political parties for more than a hundred years. In France, people seem to coalesce around tendencies and policies of either the Left, Centre, Far left and extreme Right. Whatever the case may be, one does not find parties existing without the cement of ideas, ideologies or philosophy of government. Perhaps because of the low education of our people, parties at least for now, only approximate ethnic, religious and regional interests. This makes it difficult for effective national parties to exist and politics therefore seems to be about sharing of whatever wealth exists and not about building or creating the wealth. Policies put in place do not build up the nation but rather emphasize the ethnic fault lines and division. Yet, during the last stages of colonial rule in Nigeria and elsewhere in Africa, we had mass parties like the NCNC (National Convention of Nigeria and the Cameroon (citizens) and la rassemblement nationale Africaine in many African countries in West Africa. Of course, even these so-called rallies were assemblages of all kinds of groups of students, trade unions, tribal unions and so on and were doomed to emphasize fissiparous tendencies in later years even before independence. The Action Group founded by Awolowo and the Yoruba elite was tightly organized party around the person of Obafemi Awolowo but broke into pieces when it tried to transform into a proper ideological and national party. Its counterpart, the Northern People’s Congress (NPC) was pure and simple, a regional party formed to defend its regional interest. The Northern Elements Progressive Union (NEPU) of Aminu Kano was formed to defend the interest of the talakawa in the northern part of Nigeria. In other words it too did not have a national political horizon.

    Does this mean that political party formation in Nigeria is doomed and dead on arrival? One may also ask if regional and ethnic parties are of necessity bad in a plural society of different ethnic groups and different interests. These interests may not necessarily be in conflict and even if they are in conflict, are they not to be negotiated since we cannot change are neighbours? Who better to negotiate our mode of association if not people we can relate to because of our primordial ties?

    In a developed country like Germany, there is a Danish party with representatives in the local parliament in the state of Schleswig-Holstein. In Italy, there is a German party in South Tyrol (Alto Adige) and German Party in Belgium formed strictly to defend the ethnic interests of Danish and German minorities in those countries. In other words, there may be nothing wrong in people coming together to defend certain particularistic ethnic interest. This was the idea embraced by Chief Awolowo in his suggesting creation of states based on linguistic consanguinity and affinity. This would have meant some states will be large while others may be small  like in California, Texas and Rhode Island respectively but the feeling of ethnic freedom would make up for whatever imbalance may exist in the larger confederation.

    Ahmadu Bello seemed to have agreed with Awolowo but to an extent but that the historic boundaries would also count along with language. The point I am making is that perhaps the political parties of the past should have been built upon instead of decreeing into existence soulless parties not rooted in our history. Perhaps what would have evolved is the perennial coalition governments characteristic of Germany and Italy which would have taken care of the hue and cry about marginalization and exclusiveness. This would not have been perfect but neither is the present lopsided democracy in the favour of plutocracy perfect. How many ordinary Nigerians have the millions being demanded by parties for right to contest in their primaries? Our so called “fledgling” democracy has a long way to go and a situation of a few rich people of doubtful provenance imposing themselves on the vast Nigerian humanity is not my idea of democracy.

  • When brigands and outlaws mate…

    The joke persists in moral circuits that when brigands and outlaws copulate, their incestuous liaison produces the lawmaker – the Nigerian lawmaker to be precise. If you would excuse the ribaldry therein, you would find that the contemporary lawmaker hardly epitomises unimpeachable humaneness and civilization which are prime essentials of the legislature. Neither does the legislative chamber symbolise the conurbation of nationalism, detribalised evolution, altruism and high art oft associated with evolved species of humankind.

    In Nigeria the lawmaker sticks out like metastasized tumour; a priapism of vice and nuisance to be endured, like varicose veins or ethno-religious bigotry.

    A surfeit of base politics and exaggerated high jinks perpetrated on the floor of the country’s Senate and House of Representatives further establishes the National Assembly as a coven of adult delinquents.

    One week after a male senator was forced to apologise to his female colleague for dealing her a blinding slap, a chairman and deputy chairman of a House of Representatives committee got locked in a fight with the deputy chairman, a woman, dealing the chairman several blows.

    The latter completely lost his balance as the impact of the assault from the heavily built female legislator shattered his eye glasses to smithereens and left him with a bloody eye. Pandemonium ensued when he tried to retaliate but he was prevented by their colleagues who formed a ring around his female aggressor.

    Cut to another hodgepodge of members of the Federal House of Representatives embroiled in a free-for-all fight, street-brawler style. The lawmakers engaged in fisticuffs on the floor of the house as members opposed to the embattled speaker of the house at the period, tried to introduce a motion for his impeachment over corruption allegations. Parties loyal to the aggrieved rebels pounced on them and they exchanged blows to the amusement of the world.

    Few years after the disgraceful incident, one of the major characters whose dress was torn to shreds as he got beaten to a pulp, made the news again. The hilarious character in decadent rage, allegedly threatened to beat up and impregnate a fellow senator.

    At the backdrop of these shameful proceedings, you could be forgiven for likening the National Assembly to a mental asylum – apology to sane, decent folk therein. There is no gainsaying the fact that the upper and lower legislative chambers move epic clowning, violence and tomfoolery into the open air of gangsterism and psychosis – while the world watches.

    In the National Assembly, institutions and culture fade into irrelevance as the ‘honourable’ legislators mutate into insuperable thorns and impediments to Nigeria’s progress; they are currently engaged in feverish quest to tame and woo the executive into a romance of mutually rewarding incestuous relations.

    But President Muhammadu Buhari would have none of that; the retired General from Daura, Katsina, nurtures a different view of governance. Before the truth dawned on Mr. President, he derived comfort perching on a three-legged stool of contrived supremacy and invincibility, to onslaughts by antagonists in the Judiciary and the country’s Eighth National Assembly.

    Buhari sought to eradicate diseased plants from the nation’s fields of enterprise even as sickly seeds sprouted, on his watch, under the roof of the Nigerian barn house. Crucial appointments he made and wanton concessions he approved of, apparently in the spirit of political expediency, hinders the impact of his anti-corruption crusade in real time.

    Then a desperate thing happened; gangs of hoodlums masquerading as the country’s esteemed lawmakers and custodians of morals and culture, threatened to impeach  Buhari – simply because he seeks to unmoor their holy place of sleaze from the country’s bastion of law and ethics.

    Lawmakers loyal to the embattled senate leadership dubiously claim, that the ongoing travail of the leadership, is a slight on the honour and the integrity of the country’s National Assembly.

    Perhaps if the National Assembly had established itself as a body of honourable men and women truly involved with the citizenry and attuned to their pains, needs and fundamental human rights, the Nigerian electorate would be sympathetic to their cause.

    There is no gainsaying the National Assembly is currently infested by shades of poorly, self-centred characters thus the nation’s hope rests on the Executive and Judicial arms of government – the Presidency in particular as most state governors personify the worst of Nigeria’s political predators.

    Buhari and his deputy, Yemi Osinbajo, cut a portrait of hope and prosperity for the nation – compared to worse alternatives – given both men’s touted and fairly established distaste for corruption, and their predilection to truly serve. But their government still rides on a great deal of presumption and moral baggage. While Buhari and his VP signify hope, prudence and inestimable opportunity for redeeming our corrupt social and political institutions, his team becomes the bane to the successful attainment of our ideal state.

    His ministers are dubious change agents feigning his morality and growth crusade. Like many state governors and lawmakers operating on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and People’s Democratic Party (PDP), they epitomise a moral, philosophical duplicity. They negate and reject the strife of contraries by which true, positive ‘change’ evolves.

    President Buhari of course must be aware of this bitter reality. If he isn’t, then he must be truly naive and incapacitated by his overwhelming desire to grow bananas out of a pine tree.

    As it is now, the Nigeria is caught in the vortex of dysfunctional public institutions and organs of government. The executive and legislature crush the hope of the citizenry and stifle the birth of progressive vistas of the future, in a cycle of incestuous cannibalism enacted by male and female tin gods, who attack and retreat in obsessive rhythms of attack and counter-attack, victory and defeat.

    In the crushing, bloody symbolism, the Nigerian citizenry is cast as a babe, persistently dragged, and violently exchanged by ogres who nail her down upon a rock, bind iron thorns around her head and waist, pierce her palms and feet, and cut her heart out to make it feel the heat and frost of their inordinate hankering for riches and bloodlust. The executive and legislature live on the shrieks and cries of the babe. They nourish from her blood and forcefully suckle from its unformed tits.

    It’s about time we reversed the cycle.

  • The 2019 presidential race: An update

    HAVE you noticed the slight but significant change in the President’s language? He seems to be more combative, frank and direct nowadays. Seen by many as reserved, simple, taciturn and, at times, naïve, President Muhammadu Buhari does not often get involved in the bare knuckle brawl that politics often turns to.

    Not anymore. The presidential election is less than six months away. It is now impolitic to allow the opposition have the last word on any key issue. Just on Tuesday, Buhari tongue-lashed  those who defected from the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), dismissing them as “selfish” and “paperweight” politicians.

    Imagine the likes of Senate President Bukola Saraki, Governors Samuel Ortom (Benue), Aminu Tambuwal (Sokoto) and Abdulfatah Ahmed (Kwara) being scorned as mere irritants, featherweight political pugilists whose vision of a great nation is blurred. That is the ultimate put-down.

    Buhari spoke during the presentation of the Expression of Interest and Nomination forms to him by a hitherto unknown group that goes by the exotic name Nigerian Consolidation Ambassadors Network (NCAN) whose members, “hundreds of thousands of people”, pooled resources to obtain the N45m forms for His Excellency.

    The President said: “Today, I am pleased to say the weakest amongst us, those whose selfish expectations did not align with our patriotic zeal, have exited our party.”

    It is to be noted that the drama that attended the presentation of the form was, however, incomparable with that of former Vice- President Atiku Abubakar who was so overwhelmed by emotion that he simply lost his voice and burst into tears over the gesture of his admirers who paid for the forms.

    Buhari spoke about the 2007 election, which he lost and challenged in court. He, however, forgot to say that he shed tears during the legal battle to reverse the result. It is, therefore, on record – for those who like to keep records – that Atiku is not the first political heavyweight – I hope there is no argument about that – to shed tears.

    Atiku has since moved on from that incident to the intellectual terrain where he sparred with Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo on restructuring – the elitist antidote to Nigeria’s debilitating ailments. He has promised to restructure Nigeria in six months upon attaining power, which he plans to keep for just one term of four years.

    Osinbajo says Nigeria’s problem is not geographical restructuring but prudent management of its resources. It will not mean much, he insists, “if our leaders see public resources as an extension of their bank accounts”.

    The APC joined the debate, describing Atiku as a latter-day convert to the idea. Atiku kicked. He said he had been an advocate of restructuring since 1995.

    An average Nigerian keeps asking: “What is all this?”

    Omowole Sowore, one of the leading advocates of citizen journalism, who has taken a sudden plunge into the murky waters of politics, must have now realised the enormity of the task he has set for himself. There is an urgent need to revive and rework our people’s orientation and value systems.

    A simple proposal by Sowore has sparked a worrisome debate about his suitability for the office of president, which he is interested in contesting for. He said at an event organised by an NGO, Centre for Social Justice that Nigeria will export Indian Hemp if he is elected president.

    “We have to start taking care of our weed (Igbo), such that we can also contribute to the GDP of the world,” Sowore said, adding: “Some of the best weed are grown in Ekiti State. I’m very serious. People are making billions out of that particular plant that is very potent in Nigeria. We should be focusing on it. Our NDLEA should get the notice in advance that Nigeria will be exporting weed to cure cancer in other parts of the world.”

    Simple? Not really. Many, apparently seeing the great economic potential in Sowore’s proposal, are contesting the acclamation of Ekiti as the home of the best weed. By the way, the magical plant is called by various names, such as Indian hemp, marijuana (pronounced mariwana by Jamaicans whose music legends, such as Bob Marley and Peter Tosh – both of exciting memory – have advocated legitimacy for the plant in popular songs), Oja, Gbarimu, Stone and Smoke.

    As I was saying, Ekiti is not finding it easy keeping its title as the grower of the best weed. Now Edo State, I understand, is disputing that. So is Benue. So is Delta. Some Ondo State boys are also said to have dismissed Sowore’s assertion, insisting that the title legitimately belongs to their territory. They are said to have contacted some trademark experts to examine how they can protect their interest.

    Has Sowore tried the weed from all the states? How did he come to that conclusion that Ekiti has the best? Does he think we are talking about palm wine or pounded yam? Where is the copy of his research on which his assertion is based? Who conducted the research and how scientific is it?

    These are some of the arguments all over town since Sowore broached the idea of that export line.

    Nor is that the end of the matter. Some busybodies posing as youth rights  advocates are saying Sowore’s plan could encourage our young ones to keep puffing at Indian hemp and getting high. Wrong. Today’s youths prefer shisha, codeine, tramadol and other sophisticated materials. They are the Science Students (apologies, hip hop star Olamide).

    Former Jigawa State Governor Sule Lamido is threatening not to step down for Atiku in the crowded race for the PDP’s ticket. The former Vice-President told party chiefs in Dutse that being his younger brother with whom he shared the same ideology, Lamido would step down for him. Never, the former governor rejoined. Atiku, he said, is his junior in politics. “I was in the House of Representatives in 1979 when he was an employee of the Nigeria Customs Service. And if age is the criterion for standing election, he should drop out for Buhari.”

    Will Atiku quit the race for Buhari? Incredible.

    Saraki was in the Southeast last week. With him, among others, was Senator Dino Melaye, the garrulous one and record breaker – he once spent 11 hours on a tree to escape assassins who were hot on his trail. They were dressed in full Igbo attire – red cap and all. At the airport in Enugu, many were excited to see Dino. A trader was said to have asked: when will this man release another video?

    After a long hibernation, Dr Doyin Okupe – You should remember him; the one who vowed that Buhari will never be president – is back on the beat. He has just been appointed the chief spokesman of the Saraki Campaign. But his Accord party has expelled him for anti-party activities. There were no details.

    Kinglsley Moghalu, the former Central Bank deputy governor, who is also in the race for president, has since dumped the group, Presidential Aspirants Coming Together (PACT) after Fela Durotoye was chosen as the consensus candidate. He said the process was flawed and vowed to pitch his tent with another camp.   He has since been unanimously proclaimed candidate of the Young Progressive Party.

    Those who deride the young aspirants as unserious are now mocking them, saying “do they think it is aluta?”

    Many politicians insist that they are in the race for a lifetime opportunity to fight for the poor by turning around the economy and fighting corruption. The public is sneering at that, turning it all into a joke. Consider this that a friend sent me:

    “Caller: Is this INEC office?”

    “Official: Yes sir.”

    “Caller: How prepared are you for the coming election?”

    “Official: Sir, as I speak to you, everything is ready, including the results.”

     

    Rain, rain go away…

    It is often cloudy nowadays. The sky suddenly turns dark, losing its bright, beautiful grey. The sun recedes after making a brief appearance that gives a false hope that the weather will be kind. It is cold and wet as the rains pound the roofs.

    Many homes are flooded. Farms are flooded and farming is impeded in many areas. In towns and cities, traffic is slow, at times grounded as roads are ripped open by water. Some vehicles, unable to stand the heat of the crawling traffic, get stuck. Where the roads are really bad, vehicles turn over, spilling goods of great value. Lives are lost to floods. Homes are lost. Roads are washed away.

    A flooded street
    A flooded street

    But this is a yearly ritual we often seem unprepared for. The authorities claim the rains scupper their plan to fix roads. You wonder what they do before the seasonal rains. Mechanics are having fun, just like village kids who run around as the heavens release the showers.

    There is little we can do, I’m afraid. Let’s just comfort ourselves with the famous nursery rhyme:

    Rain, rain, go away

    Come again another day

    Daddy wants to play

    Rain, rain go away…

  • Africa’s external relations in age of rising nationalism

    The recent visits to Africa of the president of France, Monsieur  Emmanuel Macron, the German chancellor, Angela Markel and Prime Minister Theresa May and planned visit of the wife of President Donald Trump, Melania Trump, have at least brought attention to the usually  least remembered continent  because of the usual negativity attached to the continent. The European leaders particularly Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel are concerned about the unceasing migration of young black Africans to Europe across the Sahara desert and the Mediterranean Sea. It has become obvious that this migration is not welcome in Europe and it is causing the upsurge of nativism and racism in Europe and causing  negative political effect across that is destabilizing Europe from France to Germany and Italy and across Central Europe. It has become a problem for the entire European Union over sharing of these so-called refugees  if and when they land in Italy or are rescued from drowning in the Mediterranean. Because of this refugee problem, right wing parties are rapidly growing and Italy now has a right wing government that rode to power on the slogan of throwing out the refugees besieging their country.

    European leaders are now beginning to  consider whether the tide of this black peril can be stopped in Africa before it reaches Europe. They have adopted two strategies. One is to help Libya come alive through support, with or without election, some kind of “Egyptian solution” of a military strongman to emerge and hold power in Libya. This is the position of  Emmanuel Macron. This strategy of supporting strong leaders in Africa, whether democratic or not, is the position of the former British Prime Minister David Cameron. This may also be the position of Donald Trump and perhaps Angela Merkel.  The second strategy is to find jobs for young Africans through  creation of  employment by private entrepreneurs. All of these leaders now seem to encourage private investment in Africa to help create jobs to keep their young people at home instead of looking for non existent El dorado abroad. They also seem driven by not abandoning Africa to Chinese enterprises. The Chinese are particularly good in supporting infrastructural development in Africa. But in spite of the hue and cry about Chinese takeover of Africa, they are still behind the USA and Great Britain in  the volume of their private investment in Africa. The Chinese are interested no doubt in Africa’s raw materials such as copper, uranium and land for agricultural development particularly in sparsely populated East African countries. They  are financing the huge hydroelectricity project in Ethiopia, a project that has sometimes  nearly brought Egypt and Sudan into armed conflict  against Ethiopia over the control of the Nile river upstream in the Ethiopian highlands.

    As for the British,  the Brexit problem at home has compelled the government to begin to look for market all over the world including Africa. The countries of the Commonwealth immediately recommend themselves as possible areas of British enterprise and investment. A new policy of the British Prime Minister Theresa May is to tie British overseas development assistance to promotion of Britain’s investment so as to create market for British goods for what she said will be  of mutual interest and benefit to Africans and the British. She has said the budget of the ministry of international development would now become some kind of seed money for Anglo- African private joint partnership. How this will work has not apparently been determined yet. But opponents are already criticizing her for mixing philanthropy with business.

    Africa should embrace increased foreign investment no matter the motives of those investing. African states should in fact make their countries investment-friendly by having proper legal regime to protect their people and their national sovereignty. It is now well known that the best way to eradicate poverty is through private investment. This does not preclude a strong state intervention when necessary. The phenomenal development of China and Southeast Asia has been through private investment coupled in the case of China and Singapore with Chinese discipline and Confucian ethics and determination of the various authoritarian political leaders in places like Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam to leapfrog several stages in development. Whether Africa has a stomach for the kind of strong regime that will facilitate rapid development is a moot question.

    A decade ago, Africa experienced phenomenal strides in economic development following the rise in commodity prices and democratization on the continent. But the collapse of commodity prices and the failure of African states to save against a rainy day has led to general collapse of the economies of African states and consequent loss of prestige, weight and influence internationally. Africa has found itself almost totally ignored in a world dominated by rising nationalism and isolationism particularly in Trump’s America. The situation is further worsened by the coarseness of the international environment characterized by the rise of resurgent Russia and the strive for global influence of the rising economically powerful China. The  situation has not been  helped by the various wars in the Middle East and the rise of Islamic fundamentalist terrorism of which Nigeria and west and eastern Africa as well as the the Maghreb and the Horn of Africa have been victims. Even where there has been political stability on the African continent, it has been at the  expense of democracy. West Africa and in particular Nigeria suffer from threat of Islamic terror and farmer-herder struggle over fodder for cattle. The so-called Democratic Republic of the Congo has remained unstable since 1960 and the country has been carved out into territories run by warlords while a huge UN force looks on. The Central African Republic, Southern Sudan and Somalia remain the most wretched countries in the world with minimum regard for human lives in the absence of strong central governments that can impose their will on their territories. There is now a seeming pessimism globally about Africa and the endlessness of young Africans migration across the Sahara desert and the Mediterranean Sea have become manifestation of the helplessness of Africans in managing their own affairs and  thus creating problems for Europe. This is making European leaders look down on Africa and to ignore its people’s sensitivity about the lack of respect for Africa’s sovereign rights as independent countries. How Africa will emerge from this prostrate situation without a second Colonisation lies in the belly of time.

  • Not so fast, IG

    NOT a few believed it when the news broke on September 4 that policemen stormed the home of Ijaw leader Chief Edwin Clark in search of arms and ammunition. The policemen led by an Assistant Superintendent (ASP) were said to be acting on a tip-off that the former federal commissioner of information was stockpiling arms in his home. The information turned out to be false.

    The informant, Ismail Yakubu, later said he got the information from a taxi driver, which is an euphemism for gossip in beer parlours and barber shops. This kind of talks is common in viewing centres, commercial buses, particularly molue and danfo, bars, saloons and boutiques. These places are always buzzing with all sorts of information, real and untrue. You do not go away from there holding on to what you have heard as the gospel truth. But you go away with your head tinkling with the latest gist in town.

    Yakubu, the informant, was only playing his part as a citizen by passing the information to the police. As he said when he was paraded, his duty is to pass information to the police which he discharged conscientiously. For effect, he added that it is not his duty to ascertain the veracity of the information. Picking up information from buses and related places did not start today. Even in advanced countries, these places are veritable sources of information.

    A good reporter gets vital information from those places, at times, and makes headline news with it. But like every damn good reporter knows, you must filter the information before use. The policemen who rushed to Clark’s home did not do this and they ran into trouble. Which brings us to the issue of the training of these men comprising the ASP and three inspectors. That is if we believe they were acting on their own. It beats me hollow that the officers could rush into Clark’s home just like that based on Yabubu’s information. A recruit would not act like that.

    If an ASP and three inspectors cannot show restraint in the face of sensitive information, I wonder the kind of policemen we are breeding. Whistle-blowing is fast becoming part of our culture because of the monetary gain attached to it under the anti-corruption crusade. Since there is something in it for the whistle-blower, people are quick these days to rush to the authorities with information as soon as they suspect anything. Since the authorities have called for whistle-blowing in order to sanitise the society, they should be prepared to go the extra mile in verifying information before acting on it so that the innocent do not suffer unjustly.

    If it were to be another person and not Clark that was involved in this case, the outcome would certainly have been different. The police would have found one way or the other to justify their action rather than apologise as the Inspector-General (IG), Ibrahim Idris, did to Clark. Also, he dismissed the three inspectors and suspended the ASP whose fate now lies in the hands of the Police Service Commission (PSC). Despite the steps the IG took, there is more to this issue than meets the eye.

    People find it hard to believe that the ASP and the inspectors went to Clark’s home on such a mission without the knowledge of their superiors. Honestly, it is difficult to believe that they had no authority from high up before embarking on what turned out to be a futile exercise. The IG may have acted swiftly to save the image of the police, but there is something still  being shrouded in secrecy in all of this. Mr IG, who authorised the raid on Chief Edwin Clark’s home on Tuesday, September 4? Until this question is answered, whatever the IG has done so far will amount to begging the issue.

    If the IG wants to be honest with himself, he should fish out the top officer, who gave the ASP and the inspectors the authority to go on that mission. It is good that he has apologised to Clark, but the apology will amount to nothing if those poor officers are made the fall guy for carrying out superior orders. A mistake has been made; we should not compound it by adding injustice to it. It will be the height of injustice to sacrifice these officers just like that  in order to assuage Clark, who has already accepted the IG’s apology.

    Clark has since petitioned President Muhammadu Buhari, demanding a probe into the invasion. Such a probe is necessary so that we will know those who did what and not just make those officers scapegoats. To those officers, they were carrying out orders, which to all intents and purposes, they thought were lawful. The order of a superior officer is like a court order which must be obeyed even if perverse. A subordinate can only refuse to carry out such orders at his peril. That being the case, there is no way a junior officer can disobey his superior.

    Going by Clark’s narrative, if the officers were not acting on ‘order from above’ (aaah, these words again!),  they would have had a rethink, especially after an ambassador was said to have called an assistant inspector-general of police (AIG). Who is an ASP or an inspector when an AIG is talking? For the ASP and the inspectors to have disobeyed the AIG shows that someone higher than the AIG knew about the invasion. Why is that officer being shielded and the boys he sent on errand being punished? If  very senior officers know how to issue unlawful orders, they should also know how to bear the consequences of their action when something goes wrong.

    It does not speak well of that officer that he has abandoned his boys to their fate. The police is an organisation with command and structure. Everything is done in line with laid down rules. An ASP is a superior officer but there is a limit to his powers. An ASP cannot authorise that raid on Clark’s house. What we deserve in this case is a public probe, not an in-house investigation where things will be swept under the carpet in order not to truncate the career of some top officers who have few years left to retire. But what of  the boys whose career has been truncated?

  • 2019: We’ll get the government we deserve

    Struggle for power in Nigeria is a study in paradox. Awolowo who burnt the midnight candles to discover ‘the path to Nigeria’s freedom’, a path never taken, to our eternal damnation, an ill-equipped Obasanjo boasted he got on a platter of gold what Awo started struggling for while he, Obasanjo was a mere bare-footed school boy.  Zik, a foremost Nigerian nationalist who ‘eleczikfy’ the Nigerian press preaching liberation from colonial rule was sidelined when freedom came. The crown went to Tafawa Balewa of a fiercely anti-Fulani minority tribe from southern Bauchi, courtesy of Ahmadu Bello, who preferred the Northern Region premiership to Nigerian Prime Minister. MKO Abiola won a pan-Nigerian mandate; Babangida with Obasanjo’s support substituted his mandate with an illegal Interim National Government. Following his death in prison, Obasanjo was brought out of Abacha’s gulag to be crowned president. And while Obasanjo for eight years failed to acknowledge the immense contribution of Abiola to democracy, President Buhari, whose regime was toppled back in 1985 by Babangida coup bankrolled by Abiola, made justice denied him by Obasanjo, his kinsman possible.

    We must also add that Shehu Shagari wanted to be just a senator; Obasanjo admitted influencing his emergence as president after publicly stating the best candidate in the 1979 election didn’t have to win to spite Obafemi Awolowo, Shagari’s opponent. Obasanjo equally admitted aiding ailing Umaru Yar’Adua and an ill-prepared Goodluck Jonathan to power.

    As part of the paradox, the north had wanted a confederacy in 1953 but reluctantly accepted a federal arrangement they were allowed to control. The north sponsored the July 1966 coup to resist a unitary system instituted by Ironsi through decree 34 of 1966. Today as the greatest beneficiary of the current unitary system we fraudulently call federalism, they are opposed to a restructured workable federal arrangement in line with what we inherited from our founding fathers.

    And what can today be more paradoxical than Obasanjo and PDP who for 16 years destroyed the country through massive corruption, through ill-implemented self-serving privatization and monetization policies, now forming an alliance to stop Buhari’s second term for allegedly condoning corruption, among other reasons?

    Of course Buhari and his APC, many believe have not met the aspirations of Nigerians. Many feel betrayed that Buhari needed six months and over two years to constitute a cabinet and the boards of over 500 small governments that he needs to execute his party programme. They agonise over the president’s decision to surround himself with those who appear not to share his pan-Nigeria vision. It is equally no relief that due to the president’s error of omission, APC, the platform with which he secured his mandate for the greater part of the last three and half years,  displayed  instincts of factions with divergent tendencies interested only in power. The division in the party and the attendant crisis have overshadowed whatever efforts the president is making in tackling the party’s  eight-point cardinal programme viz  electricity generation, war against corruption, food security,   integrated transport network and free education, devolution of power, accelerated economic growth and affordable health care.

    There are also concerned Nigerians who also believe the president has not risen to the challenges of modern government. By his opposition to restructuring, devolution of power, state policing etc., they say, is evidence of his lack of understanding of our national diversity and the reason why his approach to national divisive issues continues to fail to inspire confidence.

    But Obasanjo and PDP with his sabre-rattling Kola Ologbondiyan, its spokesman, are not prepared to allow Buhari to be haunted in the 2019 election by his personal inadequacies and his party’s failure to fulfill its electoral promises. Obasanjo, a master of political subterfuge, is fuelling intra party feuds within the APC while PDP spokesman deploys language of fear when not fabricating lies.

    Obasanjo who had on February 11, 2015, at the launch of his autobiography titled, My Watch, in Nairobi, Kenya said of Buhari “He is smart enough, he is educated enough. He’s experienced enough. Why shouldn’t I support him?” in January 23, wrote an open letter to Buhari, claiming his administration is “characterised by poverty, insecurity, poor economic management, nepotism, gross dereliction of duty and condonation of misdeed”. He followed up with the formation of a ‘Coalition for Nigeria Movement’ (CNM). The CBM has since been collapsed into the African Democratic Congress (ADC) for the purpose of the 2019 election.

    But as part of the paradox, Obasanjo is not only not taking responsibility for his role as the father of PDP that has brought the nation to its knees in the last 16 years, he wants Nigerians to forget that he and Murtala Mohammed planted the seeds of today’s social dislocations back in 1975 with their destruction of the bureaucracy and the academia, two critical institutions without which a nation decays.

    It is also as if PDP wants to wish away its  baleful legacies which include wrecking of the aviation, pharmaceutical, textile industries through the importation of labour of other societies,  mad rush to build private universities with unexplained sources of fund after destroying the world class institutions they inherited, trading our refineries for fuel importation through which about 140 oil importers appointed by Ahmadu Alli, according to a house probe Stole N1.7 trillion; ill-implemented privatization programme through which they sold NITEL, a successful outfit that posted a profit of N53bn in 2002 to proxy company;   Daily Times with onshore and offshore assets including NSE House on Customs Street, for N1.2b; the entire Trade Fair Complex  for as low as N10bn; ALSCON, built with $3.2b dollars for $250m out of which only $130m was paid and, sharing 60 licensed Independent Power Producers (IPPs), among its members and sympathizers.

    The same PDP now says of Buhari: “Instead of fighting corruption, Buhari’s  administration is practically a felonious empire of corrupt individuals, certificate forgers, contract inflators, looters of treasuries and well-known liars, making it, ‘head to toe’, the biggest assemblage of plunderers in the history of our nation. Largely, due to the incompetence and corruption of the Buhari Presidency, our once robust economy has been wrecked, resulting in unbearable hardship, unemployment, hunger and starvation, strange sicknesses and untold depression with compatriots resorting to suicide missions and slavery as options”. PDP is “urging Nigerians not to despair especially as the 2019 general elections offer them the firm opportunity to vote out this inept administration and return a development-oriented and competent government on the platform of the repositioned and rebranded PDP.”

    Calling attention to the paradox of those who are now proclaiming themselves as our new redeemers is not a call for their rejection in 2019.  If frank and honest Buhari loses to slyness and deviousness, he should take solace in the fact that democracy, as Richard Geibis once observed shortly before the hand-over of Hong Kong by Great Britain to Mainland Chinese, is “the rule of the easily manipulated mob”.  A white supremacist mob recently elected a sly multi billionaire tax evader and women abuser, whose close aides claim does not know his left from his right, in America, the home of democracy. And finally as Alexis-Charles-de Tocqueville (1805-1859) a French political thinker put it in his ‘Democracy in America’, “in a democracy, the people get the government they deserve”.

  • ‘You can’t keep writing English’

    New months ago, a colleague of mine told me in a voice laden with contempt that, “Nobody reads you guys anymore. Nobody cares what you write as a columnist. You are just wasting your time,” he said. According to him, the best form of social commentary is that which seeks to elevate and shamelessly venerate even the worst of Nigeria’s ruling class. “You have to be smart,” he advised.

    Few months later, another colleague told me in the same tenor that it’s about time I started sucking up to the politicians and industry leaders. “You need them more than you would ever know. You need connections with them and the money they can give you. You can’t keep writing English, you have to be smart,” he said.

    Between the two, an indisputable truth resonates jarringly; it echoes the depth of our descent as men and citizens. Both colleagues of mine, while issuing a subtle mockery of my professional and personal ethics, endeavoured to tell me the truth as they have learnt to see it.

    I agree with them that being close to politicians and sucking up to the latter manifests in almost instant and outrageous wealth for many journalists. Forget journalists, it is a veritable shortcut to instantaneous and sudden wealth for Nigerians of all gender, professional, religious and ethnic divides even as you read.

    Little wonder it has become trendy for many a Nigerian to virulently criticise the incumbent leadership or opposition until they are co-opted into the special circuit of treasury looters, associate looters or aspiring looters. And this is the point at which they begin to exhibit ‘table manners.’

    According to a famous and now domesticated human rights and political activist, “Table manners demand that when you eat, you don’t talk.” Thus in showing table manners, many Nigerians careen in the perilous swirl of the country’s tragedies, with their mouths stuffed, until the end.

    The end is what should scare us. I speak of that imminent epoch when we shall grope through personal misfortune into national tragedy; when anarchy and genocide finds perch, past corruption and greed, in our hearts – while we burn and flay for mammon, tribe and tin-gods.

    The language of our rage will not be understood by all even as our fury is patronised by all. In our tumult, our perverted neighbours of the ‘first world’ shall nourish and thrive. Nigeria shall become that perfect prey for the ‘first world’ and all manners of world to rip off.

    It’s not such a long haul to that epoch right now; the tragedies that would ruin us are right at our doorsteps. They are rooted in our hearts and clannish havens of chaos and plunder. They manifest as Boko Haram, characterless politicians, falling oil prices, comatose industry, persistent looting of our treasury by the ruling class and gradual mutation into a corrupt, one-party state.

    But even as we fret over the likelihood of the country’s eventual descent into socioeconomic and political recession, friends like mine and of the ruling class fixate on the next corrupt politician, whose deep pocket they could scavenge from.

    These parasites could be likened to the mythical harpies and servants of the furies. They abide in and currently run amok our socioeconomic and political space doling unequal plaudits to a savage ruling class, for a fee.

    The servile journalist becomes a perfect symbolism of the harpies. He is a fortune hunter and airborne brigand, befouling society and our corridors of power with anal droppings. He represents the aspect of bestiality that ravages and kills for the sake of lust.

    He would argue that a murderous, thieving public official or politician is the best Nigeria ever had. He would argue that a ruthless dunce was the best thing to happen to Nigeria, politicizing the latter’s perceived ”humility” and “love of God” to the fascination and appreciation of groupies nationwide.

    There is the oft-repeated logic and inclination to blame this persistent and saddening malaise on greed, ‘enlightened self interest’ or capitalism; however, the impulse for giving a monster a mild name, the lust for acquisition, pursuit of gain and money are merely symptoms, of the society’s steady descent the slope of the decadent and grotesque.

    Max Weber, the late German economist and social historian would say it has been common to all sorts and conditions of men at all times, and in all cultures of the earth but I would say that the Nigerian malaise is brought about by the absence of an enduring moral code.

    This deficit manifests in deficiencies of personal and societal ethics – the consequence of which is the regeneration of tyrants, greedy-guts, fraudsters, narcissists, murderers and bloodhounds of all nature, across the country’s landscape.

    The trials of Nigerians’ moral degeneration – as exemplified by the citizenry’s inordinate lust for money and the country’s recurrent tragedies– reveal an overarching tendency to savour short-term greed and relief over long-term prosperity.

    Despite our afflictions of impoverishment and bad leadership, Nigerians continue to look for quick fix solutions by casting their votes for the clueless and corrupt at election time, for a fee, thus mortgaging the country’s present and future for short-term benefits.

    Through decades of self-inflicted scourges and disasters, Nigerians continue to bemoan their tragic fate; while many argue that the country ruins because the youth are too weak and too selfish to spill as much blood as is required to rid the nation of every human and institutional affliction, many more contend that the country’s woes will disappear immediately poverty is eradicated by the ruling class.

    It is our so-called intellectuals, labour leaders, radicals and human rights activists that amaze me; add to the mix every mercantile journalist, ‘columnist of note and substance’ and you have a perfect blend of Nigeria’s worst enemies. It will no longer do to excuse subnormality and greed as political and socioeconomic expediencies. Everybody knows that every one of us is playing his own card.

    We are enjoying a great deal by selling out. It is what the domesticated activist called exhibition of “good table manners.” Funny how every journalist, labour leader, banker, doctor, cleric and activist to mention a few, have developed excellent “table manners.”

     

     

  • Atiku’s tears and the road to 2019

    IT was meant to be a small ceremony. Brief remarks, presentation, and  departure. But it turned out to be much more – full of drama like an Indian movie – with women dancing and men cheering.

    That was last Friday’s presentation of the Expression of Interest and nomination forms to former Vice President Atiku Abubakar in Abuja.

    The presenters said they had taxed themselves to raise N40m for the forms as an expression of their love for the Turaki Adamawa, who is in the 2019 presidential race. He is seeking the ticket of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

    Overcome by emotion, Atiku burst into tears, wiping his face with a white handkerchief .  The gesture was, to him and his admirers, a rare display of affection. He promised not to let them down.

    Trust the media. They focused on Atiku’s tears instead of the import of this show of love. Why he wept became the subject of hot debates all over the country. Some said he was weeping because the ticket was slipping off his hands, following the entry of a sea of big aspirants into the race. Others said it was all a gimmick to curry sympathy.

    “Who is he deceiving? So, Atiku is so poor he can’t afford the forms? Is it a case of the poor losing the little he has to the rich?”  (You need attribution here.)

    Yet, others turned it into a joke. “We don’t need a crying president,” one said. Another claimed that Atiku wept because he remembered former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s statement: “God will not forgive me if I support Atiku to be president.”

    “What have I done to Obasanjo, Atiku must have been wondering,” the fellow said, adding: “Was Atiku actually crying or sobbing or weeping or wailing?”

    There were also those who brought in the medical angle. They claim that doctors recommend that we should cry in order to free our bottled- up feelings, which must be released lest some veins burst. Besides, said the emergency experts, tears are necessary to clean our eyes.

    When are tears genuine? When are our tears a result of some  negative or positive feeling, the type described as tears of joy? Is it when we are really hurt physically and emotionally? How do we convince our sympathisers that we are not shedding crocodile tears? This is really difficult to say.

    When Ekiti State Governor Ayo Fayose showed up on television on the eve of the July 14 governorship election with a broken arm and a neck brace, crying like a victim of a Lagos pickpocket, some busybodies concluded – with no proof whatsoever – that it was all a show.

    Why will a governor cry in public like a little boy whose lollipop has been snatched by an inconsiderate man? The busybodies said it was another vote harvesting stunt to prop up the failing stomach infrastructure for which Ekiti became famous as the home of well fed men and women with chubby cheeks and rotund tummies – all proof of good governance.

    They were neither medical doctors nor traditional bone setters, yet they insisted that the brace on Fayose’s neck was worn upside down and that his hand should not have been hung on his broken neck. Where it should have been, they never said.

    Pardon the seeming digression. We return to Atiku’s tearful ceremony. The rich also cry, a colleague said on reading the story. He was alluding to the now rested popular soap opera. Yes, another rejoined and sparked off a debate, which I considered unnecessary, on the difference between a rich man crying and a poor man crying.

    “Atiku did not talk much. Tears welled up in his eyes and he brought out of his pocket a white handkerchief with which he wiped the tears before they could start dropping,” my colleague said, adding: “That’s a big man crying. And when the rich cry, their loved ones and hangers-on will, of course, be there to hug them and pat them on the back, whispering into their ears soothing words of comfort. That’s how the rich cry.”

    As if on cue, the other guy said: “When the poor cry, it is a different and difficult matter. It begins with a sob, then an attempt to fight back the tears, a coughing bout and then screaming and swearing. His two hands are clasped on his head. He wipes his face with the edge of his dirty dress. For better effect, he may begin to jump up and crash onto the ground. His friends and neighbours will grab him by the waist or the shoulder, depending on how dramatic he is. They will be telling  him: “You wan kill yasef? You be baby? A beg e don do o.”

    I have just been told of how a young politician who has been threatening to also run for president has been crying for days. He says he is rehearsing how he will cry when his friends and admirers eventually decide to hand him the cash to buy the forms. Atiku’s tears, he vowed, will be a mere drop; his will be a flood.

    There is hardly any situation without a redeeming feature. Those who have been scoffing at the idea of an Atiku presidency, describing him as a moneybag have now seen his modesty. He is wealthy enough to hire a million mourners to shed tears on his behalf on that emotional occasion, but he chose to do it all alone.

    Poor Atiku. Nothing he has done or said since he proclaimed his ambition has gone without being severely criticised. When he said he would serve one term if elected president, many scorned him and said he was desperate. When he visited Lagos to secure the backing of the pan-Yoruba group, Afenifere, after promising to restructure Nigeria within six months of taking office, he was derided as a dreamer. Is it a crime to dream?

    As for those who think that Atiku may have shed tears because of the crowded field, their position is understandable.   The waters are infested with sharks and barracudas. There are many mean men of immense means. Former Senate President David Bonaventure Mark has just joined the race. I have it on good authority that Mark, who doubtlessly numbers among the few many would call stupendously rich, bought his form before any group could donate the cash to him and force him to shed tears.

    Senate President Bukola Saraki has joined the race. Count him out at your own risk. Former Kaduna State Governor Ahmed Makarfi is also running. He has advised the party not to hand over the ticket to a moneybag, but he refused to be specific, even as almost all the contestants are perceived to be moneybags. Former Kano Governor Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso announced his bid for the ticket last week. As he reeled out his manifesto in Abuja, his former supporters were burning the red cap, the symbol of his Kwankwasiyya group, in Kano. Dr Datti Ahmed is in the race.

    Attahiru Bafarawa, the former Sokoto State governor, has extricated himself from the EFCC web. He is consulting. Sokoto Governor Aminu Tambuwal is in the race. Former Special Duties Minister Tanimu Turaki is forging ahead in his battle for the ticket. Gombe State Governor Ibrahim Dankwabo has been going round. So is former Jigawa Governor Sule Lamido.

    The race, as it is, is not likely to the tearful.