The Nation Newspaper

Category: Thursday

  • Trump presidency so far

    Since January 2017 when Donald John Trump was sworn in as the 45th president of the United States of America, the world, for better or for worse, has not been the same. Before entering politics, he was a businessman and television personality with his net worth being US$3.1 billion. If America were an ordinary country, the world would not be concerned about who wins an election there to become president. America’s exceptionalism is captured by its president being regarded as the “leader of the free world”.  This was why it used to be said when one sneezes in Washington, the world catches cold! This was perhaps more appropriate when the world was polarized into the communist and the capitalist free enterprise world. Even then we in Africa were more or less dragooned into the so-called “free world”. Even when we were not free and we were under European colonialism, we were still made to look to the USA as our political Jerusalem. Until the 1960s, most of Africa were colonies of Great Britain, France, Belgium, Spain and Portugal. Even when Great Britain, Belgium and France withdrew politically from Africa, they still maintained a stranglehold on the economy of the continent. Spain and Portugal, the latter in particular, had to be forcefully expelled by force from the continent.

    The southern part of the continent remained until the end of the 20th century under white settler racist regimes. Majoritarian democracy was still alien to Southern Africa until the wind of change mentioned by the British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan reached the southern part of the African continent.

    As soon as Africa exited from white colonial domination, we joined the non-aligned nations and remained by and large positively neutral from big power competition and diplomatic entanglement. In a normal situation, we should not worry about what happens anywhere else but in Africa. But in a world of nuclear weapons where anywhere can be destroyed by pressing the nuclear button in Washington, Moscow or Beijing, Africa cannot remain isolated or insulated from happenings in other parts of the world. A world of polluted oceans washing the coasts of the world and a world of global warming occasioning climate change affecting the whole world, it is no longer arguable that the world is a global village.

    This is the world that the most powerful country and biggest economy is being led by President Donald Trump.

    As soon as he was sworn in, he must have sworn that he would undo all the landmark achievements of President Barack Hussein Obama whom he hated for many reasons first of which was being black and for dismissing him as an unserious and unelectable candidate. He targeted withdrawing from the TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) which was a proposed trade agreement among Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, Vietnam and the United States signed on February 4, 2016. The NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement), a free trade agreement among the USA, Canada and Mexico which was President Bill Clinton’s trade  agreement came under Trump’s attack and dismantling and renegotiating of which is going on. The Iran nuclear agreement among the P5+ 1 (the five permanent members of the UNSC plus Germany) was unilaterally undermined when Trump withdrew the USA from it even though Russia, Great Britain, France, China, and Germany have decided to carry on with the agreement. Trump is determined to make it difficult for European companies doing business in the USA to continue to do business in Iran. This agreement with Iran was designed to prevent the country from producing and storing nuclear grade refined uranium to produce nuclear weapons. Under pressure from Israel and the Israeli lobby, Trump walked away from a deal that at least for some time to come, made the Middle East free from nuclear confrontation particularly between Israel and Iran. Trump also undermined the so-called Obamacare, a health insurance scheme designed to insure millions of poor Americans who were previously uninsured. He dismantled the clean act regime to prevent polluting American environment through carbon emission from coal-burning power plants and automobile emission. He also withdrew from the Paris climate protocol globally entered into to save the global environment from continued degradation and abuse. Trump’s rather than stellar performance in the recent G-7 annual meeting of the most powerful economic powers in Canada during which he insulted his host, Justin Trudeau, the Canadian prime minister and colleagues almost made the USA a laughing stock in the international community. He even went to the ridiculous extent of saying Russia should be brought back into the group despite Russia’s aggressive tendencies in Europe and the Middle East. He may yet attack the United Nations Organisation as obsolete, ineffective and inefficient. He has already withdrawn America from UNESCO and treats the WTO with contempt. He is against multilateral diplomacy generally preferring to deal with countries on unilateral basis.

    The security architecture that had guaranteed peace since the end of the Second World War attracted his attention. He felt NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) was somehow obsolete and that it was a burden America was no longer prepared to bear. He felt members were not paying the 2% of their budget they had agreed to pay and that unless they paid it, America was no longer going to provide additional money to run the organisation. Founding members of NATO were Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the United Kingdom and the USA. Greece Turkey, West Germany and Spain later joined. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, most of the countries formerly in the Soviet sphere notably Hungary,  Rumania, Poland, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Bulgaria and the rump of former Yugoslavia with the exception of Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia  have joined NATO.

    So also have the Baltic states of Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia. It seems Trump sees no point in these states of Eastern Europe joining NATO. He recently wondered whether under article 5 that states that attack a member in Europe will be regarded as an attack on all – would mean USA going to war if tiny Montenegro is attacked following its accession into NATO. He seems to be on the same page with the Russian President Vladimir Putin in opposing NATO’s expansion eastwards to the Russian border.

    His apparent wish for friendly relations with Putin despite  the latter’s aggression in seizing Crimea  from Ukraine and military promenade into Georgia and Eastern Ukraine and aggressively backing Bashir al Azad in Syria has raised eyebrows in the west and  among his Democratic critics in the USA. His recent kowtowing before Putin in Helsinki, Finland has led to questions about his collusion with Russia to win the 2016 presidential election in the USA.

    In spite of no rhyme or rhythm in his policies, no one can deny that Trump has made some breakthroughs in USA relations with North Korea. He has met Kim Jon Un, the leader of the hermit state and signs are that there is some positive movement in USA- North Korea relations. His attempt to restart talks with Russia is a welcome departure from recent frosty relations between the two most powerful nuclear powers in the world. He has also forced all members of NATO to commit themselves to adequately funding the organization as well as increasing defence spending. He has forced Canada and Mexico to review the NAFTA so that the three countries can see some beneficial dividends from its operation.

    At home, Trump has put in place tax reforms to benefit mostly the rich and the middle class which has led to the growth of the economy to unprecedented 4.1% and unemployment rate down to 3.9%. The question to ask is if Americans are happier under Trump than his predecessors. The answer is a resounding NO. He has polarized the country and has made racism acceptable at home and abroad by fanning the flame of nativism and nationalism. There is no doubt that his policies at home are predicated on making America white again rather than accepting the reality of a multi-racial America.  He is however right to control illegal migration to his country. No country can allow hordes of undocumented immigrants to flood its country as is being done in the USA’s southern border with Mexico. His sexism and moral turpitude and unethical business attitude in the past are unusual burden for an American president to carry as head of state of “God’s own country”. Hs Middle East policy of arming the Arabs against Iran and unquestioning support for Israel may yet lead to war.

  • They will paint your ugliness in beautiful English

    The random newspaper, television station and online medium become vessels to itinerant grim reapers as you read. Editors of powerful news platforms, reporters and digital/mobile journalists in particular, have become death’s minstrels. Like Ogege, the spirit with embroidered woe, they have turned serpents, sleeping in Nigeria’s undergrowth, to merge with the hue of the prevailing wild.

    They forget that when Nigeria eventually submerges in the mire of bestial elements, even the press will be cannibalised. Nonetheless, the local media, like global news agencies, serve as emissaries and enablers of the dark, vicious lusts and ‘murders’ committed by politicians, industry titans and multinationals. How? By ignoring their monstrosities and couching their ugliness in beautiful English.

    It is hardly surprising that the politician and magnate remain the subjects of Nigerian media’s perennial fascination. Of these lot, the coarse and ferocious, wanton and bloodcurdling, are gleefully celebrated and coated in ornamental language by the press. The average newspaper, TV station and online medium wildly celebrates the ‘achievements’ and ‘statesmanship’ of established and closet criminals in public offices because it is very profitable to do so.

    To the press, it never matters that a state governor diverted and expended public fund to ship cronies and political associates abroad, to witness his lavish wedding to a trophy wife. The media hardly cares that a governor would splurge on an insolent ward’s wedding ceremony, at home and abroad, at a time he has refused to pay workers’ salaries and improve infrastructure citing ‘economic recession’ as his reason.

    Very few journalists are indeed, worried, that Nigeria’s incumbent public officers, like predecessors, have fleeced the country to the bones, in the guise of operational budgets and emoluments. State fund, stolen and diverted by these elements would attain judicious use if applied to nobler constitutional projects, like the provision of crucial infrastructure, security, potable water, stable electricity among others.

    The media hardly cares that such money could have saved lives if used to repair bad roads or renovate moribund primary health care centres. Thus while poor, underprivileged electorate die in ghastly road accidents; while thousands of newborn breathe their last and their mothers’ extinguish to birth complications, the Nigerian press obsesses about the ‘sterling statesmanship,’ ‘compassion,’ ‘brilliance,’ and ‘influence’ of the men and women  responsible for their untimely demise.

    Save some very few journalists and media that actually care, the majority of Nigeria’s Fourth Estate do not give a hoot about dying mothers and infants in Nigeria’s hospital labour rooms and corridors of death. They do not care that while the citizenry’s beloved die prematurely in extreme and avoidable circumstances, most incumbent and former senators, governors, presidents and even local council chairmen, sponsor their trophy wives, daughters and daughters-in-law abroad, to give birth in safer circumstances.

    Rather than speak truth to power, characters that could be mistaken for kindred spirits with the viper, scorpion, dung beetle, and hyena are elevated, worshipped and celebrated as the rarest of gems by the Nigerian press.

    The media celebrates these incarnations of humanity’s debris because doing otherwise could be suicidal. Politicians own the media. And tycoons determine the news. They place advertisements and pay the salaries of the men and women by whose professionalism or otherwise Nigeria accesses her news and information needs. Thus the quality of journalism you get.

    It is foolhardy of anyone to expect a journalist who hasn’t received  salaries in eight months to be objective about a news story involving a commoner and a politician. The commoner will ignite his conscience with tears but the politician will silence it with hefty ‘brown envelopes.’

    It is deceitful to anticipate fairness, honesty, integrity and accuracy from mainstream and online media whose existence and continuity are determined by the whims of influential politicians and business moguls.

    But the Nigerian society demands purity, integrity and impartiality from the press all the same.

    Journalists are accused as partners in crime with the Nigerian ruling class. To a great extent, this is true. It is also true that the Nigeria gets the journalism it deserves.

    Yet the society seeks fulfillment of tyrant fantasies. Such fantasies often vary from the destruction of an unpopular government or despot to a worn-out civilization. Reality however, affirms the duplicity of such mindset. In Nigeria, where voters are continually tamed and kept on a leash by a ruling class that capitalises on obvious handicaps: their impulsiveness, insensibility to reason and judgment, and overt sentimentality, it becomes increasingly difficult to nurture and enable a fair, vibrant press.

    Despite its faults, society conveniently picks on a scapegoat for its infinite timidity and cluelessness: the press. The journalist is thus expected to serve as the conscience and moral compass of the society, challenging the government and checking the excesses of the ruling class, selflessly and uncompromisingly.

    As utopian fantasies go, these are noble expectations of the journalist but the Nigerian society ignores its cultural shift from conventional morality to unbridled hedonism. It assumes, hypocritically, that the press will continually give it honest and developmental news even as every segment of the society strives to unmoor the journalist from his role as a crucial appendage of the nation’s critical mob.

    The public, comprising big business, the government, and civil societies among other mob segments, vilify any journalist or news medium that seeks to educate and engage rather than entertain and perpetuate their biased definitions of reality. Several organisations are placing media advertisements and parceling expensive gifts to halt publications or shut down reportage that could hurt their interests even as you read.

    Contemporary Nigeria embraces the horrendous pageant that has turned news into paid publicity and mindless entertainment. In response, the journalist slips to survival mode and kowtows to lusts and vanities of modern, politically-correct society.

    Beneath the mindless glamour, cultural and ethical decline however, an insidious reality festers in the death of hope and incandescence of tragedy.

    At the centre of the turmoil is the journalist whose fate is so critically bound with the country’s.

    Rather than pose a challenge to the system that domesticates and enslaves him, he chooses the easiest way out and plays junkyard dog to tyrant cabals and the predatory bunch constituting the nation’s citizenry and political class. He assumes the role of a poseur and pretends to fight for the interest of the public. This sad charade will end badly for everyone.

     

     

  •  Not an ‘order from above’

    IT IS IN the character of our security agents to overreach themselves. By so doing, they think they are serving the interest of their master. To them, the best way to be seen doing their job is by preempting the master; some kind of mind-reading  to know what the master wants or does not want. You cannot blame them because their masters too appear to take delight in such boot-licking. Over time, our security agents have come to see this as the best way to discharge their duty.

    When some one disagrees with the master, that person immediately becomestheir target. They will go after that person and do all within their powers to cut that person to size in order to win their master’s heart. Whenever they act over zealously, they quickly hide under what they call ‘’order from above’’. In most cases, they have no such orders to so act. But by dropping that line they know they will be covered.

    Citing ‘’order from above’’ when there is no such order amounts to acting illegally to deprive a citizen of his right. Many citizens have been unjustifiably held by security men purportedly acting on the authority of the state when there is  no such mandate. It is quite unfortunate that our security men who should be the custodians of law and order are the very ones who flout the laws. Under the military junta, Nigerians saw hell in the hands of these security men who always acted with impunity because they knew that whatever they did they would be covered.

    Nobody was considered sacred that they could not touch under this omnibus ‘’order from above’’. Your home, your office, your business or anywhere for that matter can be overrun within a twinkling of an eye by these goons acting under, you guessed right, ‘’order from above’’. Many newspaper houses were shut under former heads of state Gen Ibrahim Babangida and the late Gen Sani Abacha under this whimsical order. As military head of state, Maj Gen Muhammadu Buhari, as he then was, also got two journalists jailed under the obnoxious Decree 4 for doing their job. Under this democracy, we have had a fair share of this impunity.

    The police and the Department of State Service (DSS) are fond of singling out those with issues with the state for harassment. It is as if they are always waiting for friction between the government and an individual. Once they know of such problem, they tag the individual public enemy number one and go all out to get him. Since defection from one party to the other became a past time in the National Assembly, all eyes have been on our security agents to make a move for those seen to be giving the government tough time.

    They find it easy to identify those people. Once you are no longer in the ruling government’s party or its good book, you become a target. We can see that from what has been happening to Senate President Bukola Saraki,  Sokoto State Governor Aminu Tambuwal, Kwara State Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed and others in their camp. Though President  Buhari has since said the defectors were free to go their own way, our security men do not seem to have heard him loud and clear. For all they care, the President could not have meant what he said. They simply did not believe that he was serious about his statement.

    Since they have given the statement their own interpretation, it was just a matter of time before they moved against the government’s perceived enemies. They did that on Tuesday morning. Some armed DSS men, in hoods, stormed the National Assembly Complex and barred the lawmakers from gaining access to their offices. By their action, they also prevented the National Assembly leaders from holding a meeting to discuss crucial national issues. Interestingly, they claimed they were acting under ‘’order from above’’, implying that the government was aware of their action.

    It turned out that they were lying. They had no such order to shut down the National Assembly. It was the sacked DSS Director-General Lawal Daura that was exercising powers that he did not have. It is high time the DSS, the police, and related security agencies weaned themselves of this military era mentality of storming public and private places to intimidate people for no just cause, citing a vague ‘’order from above’’. Our security men should not always be in a hurry to turn their guns on the very people who pay their salaries. No wonder our people do not see eye to eye with security men. The duty of our security men is to protect the nation and its citizens.

    If the public hates the security agents with passion, they are the cause of it. There is no way any body can be friendly with the security agent who turns a gun on him. That is not possible. Daura and his men bit more than they can chew with Tuesday’s invasion of the National Assembly. They thought that it would be business as usual. But it turned out to be Daura’s last act and last lie in office. He lied to his men that he had an ‘’order from above’’ to shut down the National Assembly. The Presidency put a lie to his claim when it disowned him. He has since been sacked.

    In a statement, the Presidency described the invasion as ‘’a gross violation of constitutional order, rule of law and all accepted notions of law and order’’, adding : ‘’all persons within the law enforcement apparatus who participated in this travesty will be identified and subjected to appropriate disciplinary action’’.

    That is how it should be. Our security agents should not be allowed to trample upon the people and get away with it, all because they bear arms on behalf of the state. It is time they started to account for their action and inaction. This is how just and organised societies are built and Nigeria cannot be an exception.

  • Politicians and their language

    I KNEW it was going to play a major role when this whole thing started. It always does – either as a cudgel to pound the victim or as a tool for the victim to express his anguish after being mistreated. Besides, it may itself become the victim, bloodied, battered and bludgeoned.

    It is the weapon of muscle-flexing, of verbal assaults that fuel tension and of the shadow boxing and fleet footwork that precede a major battle. And what a role it has played in the current wave of defections, deflections and reflections that has enveloped the polity, relegating to the background the urgent and Herculean task of strengthening the economy.

    My apologies for this rather longish preamble. ‘‘Editorial Notebook” is not on a trip to nowhere, like many of our roads. Nor is it dwelling on some esoteric subject in order to escape the agonies of these interesting times. No. We are simply considering the role of language in the events of these past weeks. Language is, after all, the vehicle on which our thoughts travel. Imagery, proverbs, idioms, allegories and anecdotes are the oil that propel the engine.

    Benue State Governor Samuel Ortom started it all when he announced soberly that he had been given the “red card” by the All Progressives Congress (APC) in his state. Instead of leaving the pitch and heading for the dressing room, His Excellency stayed on the bench. He was persuaded not to abandon the team, but as events later showed he was far gone – to the point of no return – in the intrigues that led to the wave of defections, aforementioned. He quit the ruling APC for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

    Information Minister Lai Mohammed was later to latch onto the soccer imagery when he described Senate Minority Leader Godswill Akpabio’s imminent “defection” from the PDP to the APC as 1-1. A draw. He was referring to Senate President Bukola Saraki’s defection to the PDP.

    Many were curious the other day when a colleague announced excitedly that the Senate President was in “love”. “In love, with whom?” “Isn’t he married?” “How?” “Any proof?” “Who moved the motion; Dino?” “Under urgent matters of national importance or what?”

    Easy, please. I am glad to announce folks that the rumour is true ; the “ayes” have it; Saraki is in love – with Nigeria.

    Asked why his romance with the APC turned awry, Saraki told reporters: “The Federal Government appointed over 200 persons into juicy offices without allotting any to me or Dogara…If not for the love that I have for Nigeria, we would have scattered everything.”

    Trust his political opponents, who will never be objective with matters concerning him. Some have been asking how Saraki and the “we” he referred to “would have scattered everything”. Others are saying that with governance put in abeyance for politics – the supplementary budget, approval for foreign loans, request to fund INEC’s preparation for next year’s elections and more are just lying there unattended – is there anything left to be “scattered”?

    Besides, they are asking: What is a “juicy” position? “Juicy” as in orange juice, apple juice and mango juice?  Or something that spins so much money, as defined by the dictionary? Just imagine the power of this simple adjective “juicy”.

    Department of State Services (DSS) men suddenly appeared at the National Assembly on Tuesday, blocking the gates to the chambers. They and their instigators may have celebrated it as a show of force amid the political shenanigans going on in the land; a show of farce it turned out to be. Lawal Daura, who seemed untouchable, got the push for that foolish action. But, many are wondering: who is beating the drum to which Daura and his boys were dancing? Were they seized by some demonic powers to “scatter” our democracy?

    Just before Ortom took the plunge, APC Chairman Adams Oshiomhole was damn sure that those touted to have been ready to jump ship were honourable men who would not “vomit in the morning and convert it to lunch in the afternoon”. Apparently, Comrade Oshiomhole forgot that even among politicians there are few whose accounts are not in the red in the bank of honour.

    Ortom threw in the sponge, elbowed out by muscular opponents. Also gone were 14 senators and 37 House members. Sokoto State Governor Aminu Tambuwal waved (final?) bye to the APC. Saraki bailed out. To Oshiomhole and many others, Saraki should have resigned as Senate president.

    Said the APC chair: “You should not collect a crown that belongs to a family and wear it on behalf of the family. If for your personal reasons you have gone to another family, it is just a matter of honour to leave the crown in the house that the crown belongs.”  Will Saraki surrender the crown?

    Oshiomhole said yesterday in Ikot Ekpene, Akwa Ibom State, at the “unusual” rally for defecting “unusual” Senator Godswill Akpabio: “When the PDP chairman was born, his parents named him Secondus; that is why he is always second.

    “When I was born, my parents named me Adams.”

    He then turned to the crowd and asked: “Who is the first man God created? They replied: “Adams”.

    “That is why I will always be the first and they will be second,” Oshiomhole said.

    Secondus was yet to reply last night. I trust he will.

    When former President Olusegun Obasanjo was told in 2014 that former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar was running for president, he simply opened his mouth  for a while and let loose with a loud guffaw. “I dey laugh o,” he said. The put-down was so loud it reverberated all through the political landscape.

    Last weekend, Obasanjo was told of Atiku’s ambition. He said: ‘How can I be on the same side with Atiku? To do what? If I support Atiku for anything, God will not forgive me. If I do not know, yes, but once I know, Atiku can never enjoy my support.”

    Obasanjo, a master of studied obfuscation, left unresolved many questions in that Abeokuta encounter. What does Obasanjo know about Atiku that we do not have the privilege of knowing? Why will he not tell us? Is there no redeeming feature about Atiku –in Obasanjo’s view? When did Obasanjo get this strange and secret knowledge about Atiku?”

    Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka gave a clue at the presentation of his book in Lagos. He told of how Obasanjo knelt down for Atiku to get the PDP’s ticket for a second term. Soyinka said he warned Atiku to get set for the reward of humbling Obasanjo. Needless to say, Obasanjo hounded Atiku all through his second term.

    In replying Obasanjo, an Atiku spokesman said: “It is a bit suspect what Obasanjo means, that God will not forgive him if he supports Atiku. I think that is really a personal relationship between him and his God, and it will be better for him to use his later years to tidy up relationship between himself and his God, instead of hanging his judgment with God on things that concern him and Atiku.”

    Did this explanation clear the air? I doubt it. What exactly is the matter between Obasanjo and Atiku, a matter that seems to have taken on some ethereal colouration, with God being called in? Or is it just a question of Obasanjo relying on his theological experience, having just bagged a doctorate in that field? I really do not know, but many are advising the former president to consult Psalm 23 and note the place of forgiveness in God’s agenda. Will he? Others are saying, without stating what precisely the problem is: “Let Baba cast the first stone.”

    Talking about biblical analogies, Ekiti State Governor Ayo Fayose (where in the world is he; still nursing a broken neck?) deployed this so much – and effectively. He boasted that he would defeat the APC in the July 14 election, as if he was the candidate. In an interview, he said: “I am Peter the rock, if I hit you, you are in trouble; if you hit me you will crumble.” In another, he said: “My name is Peter the rock. The man God promised he would build Ekiti and Nigeria on his shoulder.”

    The governor is actually seen by his supporters to have been imbued with some spiritual powers, hence he likens himself to the biblical Peter, the apostle on whom Jesus built the church.

    Now, it is said that Buhari found a quarry manager in Fayemi who deployed some dynamite to smash the rock into mere pebbles.

     

    Blockade of the National Assembly

    THE lesson of the Tuesday blockade of the National Assembly is clear – those in positions of authority must never abuse their powers. Former Department of State Services (DSS) boss Lawal Musa Daura got the push for that nauseating action, which embarrassed all lovers of democracy.

    Kudos to Acting President Yemi Osinbajo who fired Daura, who carried on as if Nigeria was his sitting room, overruling the President and deciding who to see him. He launched operations without taking orders from the Commander-in-Chief. If these are mere allegations, how do we take the blockade of the National Assembly that sparked a national outrage?

    There should be a probe of the blockade to find out whose song Daura and his boys were singing. Was he acting alone? Why did he not inform the Acting President?  Was there any sign of a breakdown of order that could overwhelm the police?

    The message is clear – security agents must never meddle in politics. Nobody, except the people whose interest he was serving, should shed tears for Daura.

    I won’t.

  • Gabisiu Ayodele Williams: Gentleman, good man

    I was very sad when I heard about the demise of Dr Gabi Williams.

    I have never met anybody so considerate of others as Gabi Williams. ‘The child is the father of the man’ is a cliché that is well known.  Coming from a privileged background gave him a sense of noblesse oblige throughout his life.

    Gabi was born to an affluent Lagos family 81 years ago. Both his mother and father were Muslims. Young Gabi went to Ansarudeen Primary School, Alakuro, on the island of Lagos, and then to Methodist Boys’ High School, also on the Island of Lagos. His parents, though Muslims, were liberal enough to permit the young Gabi to acquire a western education wherever it was available. So, as soon as Gabi finished his school certificate examination, and, having performed very well in the sciences, his parents sent him to Great Britain for his Advanced Level in the sciences which he completed within a year with the idea of studying medicine. Medicine was his choice because in those days law was the preferred career choice of his contemporaries in Lagos and among his uncles and cousins – his cousin the late justice Fatai Williams became the Chief Justice of Nigeria.

    Armed with an impressive set of A-Level results, Gabi was admitted into Saint Mary’s medical school and graduated with MB, BS in 1963. After his internship in the same hospital, he proceeded to the Johns Hopkins University’s School of Hygiene and Public Heath in Baltimore, Maryland, for his postgraduate studies. Having acquired an excellent medical education, Gabi could have remained in either Britain or America to build for himself a prosperous private medical practice. However, Gabi came home because he knew his Lagos environment needed his service.

    Gabi became a medical officer of health in Lagos and was later elevated to Chief Health Officer of Lagos. The federal government, appreciating his sterling quality and service, brought him into the federal service where he rose to the post of Director of Disease Control and International Health. It was in this capacity that he represented Nigeria for a considerable number of years in the executive boards of the WHO, UNDP, and the WHO Special Programme of Research and Training on Tropical Diseases.

    Gabi’s achievements were made easy by the contribution to his life of his equally talented wife. Bisola, his wife, graduated from the University of Ibadan. She joined the federal civil service and rose to the esteemed post of Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Finance, during the tumultuous years of the Ibrahim Babangida regime – her Christian belief shielded her from the pressure and pull on her by very powerful people to bend the rules in their favour. The strong guiding hand of Gabi’s wife was many times decisive on the choices Gabi Williams made in life. Certainly, marrying a virtuous woman was an added advantage to Gabi Williams.

    At home in Nigeria, Gabi once served as chairman of the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria. As a result of Gabi’s deep knowledge and practical experience in the spheres of public and preventive medicine, he on several occasions gave lectures in his areas of specialty at the universities of Ibadan and Lagos.

    He retired voluntarily from the federal service in 1993. Although retired, he was not tired: Gabi wrote bestselling books on health matters. He continued to play sport – Gabi was a sportsman right from primary school where he developed a love for ping-pong – particularly squash as a young man and, in his later years, golf, which was almost an obsession for him. He was a member of several social/sports clubs in Lagos.

    Gabi was a happy-go-lucky kind of a man, and he never wanted anyone to be sad around him. He laughed infectiously, and as a doctor his attitude was that life is short and should be lived well.  He definitely lived well without being hedonistic. There was never a whiff of scandal around him. He was a gentleman to the core. There were two things that he had encyclopaedic knowledge about, namely, medicine and lawn tennis. If he was available, he ensured that he was in England during the finals of the Wimbledon tennis championship. When global beaming of this championship became available, he always sat by the television not wanting to be disturbed or distracted from watching his beloved passion of tennis. One interesting thing about his love for tennis was his preference for grass-court tennis, which is the defining feature of Wimbledon. He did not show the same kind of passion for the Australian, French or American Open championships. This makes one feel that Gabi was an Anglophile at heart, and he did love almost everything British. Of course, he was ‘au courant’ with advances in medicine worldwide and was very concerned about how the quality of education was declining in Nigeria.

    He was also concerned about the quality of life in Nigeria, notably, the consequences of the collapse of the electricity sector and the lack of supply of potable water in most parts of Nigeria. This was a real headache for somebody with such a deep knowledge of public health.  He had to be self-sufficient in these two areas in his own home through the use of a borehole and giant generators and this made him concerned that if this was happening to him in Victoria Island, where the elite and well-heeled people live, what would be happening in the poor areas where the vast majority of Nigerian humanity live? He used to ask for my views about the direction of our politics, somehow feeling I might have an understanding of what is a complex problem of an enigma wrapped in a puzzle.

    Dr Williams cannot be easily forgotten. His laughter,  his joie de vivre, his sharing whatever he had, his love for fellow human beings, his generosity, his friendship across generations, his patriotic love for his native Lagos and his love for Nigeria as a whole and his wish that Nigeria would realise it’s destiny… It is a pity he didn’t live to see Nigeria’s potentiality become a reality.

    My late wife, Abiodun, and I and our children enjoyed the love and joy of being welcomed into the Williams’ house and being cared for after I lost my wife. I pray to Almighty God to repay him with eternal bliss.

  • In defence of new national carrier

    After three years of planning, “the name, logo, colour scheme, structure, and types of aircraft of Nigeria’s national carrier were unveiled at Farnborough International Public Airshow on July 18, in London”. The government, according to the aviation minister, has set aside an initial $300 million and another $8.8 million for the airline’s take-off, covering aircraft acquisition and running costs for three years. Five of the projected 30 aircraft planned over five years are expected in Nigeria by December 19. The new national carrier, we are told, would operate 40 domestic, regional and sub-regional and 41 international routes. Other details include the selection of 81 routes for the commencement of operation of Nigeria Air. The minister listed some of the advantages of the new venture as job creation for pilots, aircraft engineers and other professionals; and Nigeria’s use of 78 Bilateral Air Service Agreements it had with other countries since 1970. And finally, we are assured the government had learnt a lot of lessons from the experience of the defunct Nigeria Airways, and was now determined not to repeat the mistakes.

    Of course these assurances have not stopped concerned Nigerians from expressing some anxiety about government involvement in business especially in the light of what a Punch newspaper editorial recently described as “monument of waste” covering the defunct national air carrier and national shipping line, the four public refineries in Port Harcourt, Warri and Kaduna, of Ajaokuta Steel Rolling Company and Nigeria Railways Corporation”.

    There are also those who believe government ownership of airlines is no more in vogue citing the privatization of British Airways after almost 80 years. Others also wondered why government want to dabble into an area where even  privately run local airlines such as Albarka, Okada, Oriental, Concord, Harka, EAS, Triad, Harco, Savannah, Bellview, ADC airlines, are known not to have survived our   hostile business environment.

    Of course, playing the opposition game, the PDP has expressed doubt about the viability of the project. For Ologbondiyan, the party’s spokesperson, “the Buhari-led administration is on a fantasy trip to beguile Nigerians and pave further ways for its humongous corruption”.

    But let us first address the fears of those who are apprehensive about state involvement in business especially in airline operations where both government and the private sector are on record as having failed the nation. The failure of both in my view underscores the need for a national carrier since the nation as a matter of honour cannot be expected to put her fate in the hands of foreign airlines. Having established that, I think the challenge for us is to find explanation for the failure of public enterprises and their private investor inheritors.

    We must start by admitting state intervention in public enterprises is not new. The western societies having realised since the 1940s that market economy which is about the survival of the fittest cannot bring national development adopted the Keynesian macroeconomic model which supports government intervention in order to create an egalitarian society. Nigerian founding fathers also keyed into this by adopting adopted public enterprises as vehicles for development. Building on Nigeria Railway Corporation, National Electric Power Authority (NEPA) and about 50 other public enterprises inherited at independence, Ahmadu Bello built the biggest business conglomerate in Africa just as Awolowo made giant strides in education, communication and agriculture.

    Of course back then the public enterprises performed their statutory roles because of the quality of leadership of NCNC, NPC and AG. The railways worked because the leader did not have private jets or bullet-proof cars. The hospitals worked because they would not use public fund to seek medical attention outside the country. And of course NEPA worked because they, like those they led, depended on it. They were also not patrons to importer of generators.

    The problem therefore is not government involvement in business but the character of our new inheritors of power after the civil war. Between Babangida’s self-serving commercialisation policies and Obasanjo’s ill-implemented privatization policies, Nigerian investment of over a $100b was sold off for about $1.5b. Policies and enterprises they later inaugurated or set up were designed to help themselves and members of the political class. Thus Obasanjo’s OFN only benefitted Obasanjo and some retired generals who took advantage of the Land Use Decree to confiscate other people’s land across the country.

    With Obasanjo as president in 2003, the Bill for the establishment of Petroleum Products, Prices Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) was passed into law and assented to by Obasanjo within three months even though PIB law had been pending for five years. PPPRA with staff strength of 249, supervised by an unwieldy 22-man strong board, earning a scandalously whopping salaries and allowances of N57.9 billion, became a vehicle through which PDP stalwarts and their children according to House report, forged documents to defraud the nation to the tune of N1.7trillion in one year.

    Under President Jonathan, stalwarts of PDP or their fronts allegedly bought PHCN (the DISCOs and GENCOs). And as if to confirm that, Jerry Gana, a stalwart of PDP, led a delegation of beneficiaries of PHCN sale to beg government to buy equity shares in their new companies, solicit for import duty waivers as well as plead for government bailouts. The Punch newspaper editorial was to lament: “It is little wonder that the government, after selling the power sector to private operators, is still interested in arranging a N213 billion bailout for them”.

    As for the PDP and its spokesman, they probably think Nigerians have short memories. But we have all not forgotten how a PDP effort to bequeath to Nigeria a befitting national carrier was sabotaged by PDP vultures. Princess Stella Oduah, the then minister of aviation at a stakeholders meeting presented a report of how “foreign airlines swindle Nigeria of about N3.7 billion yearly, violate Nigeria’s aviation laws and how foreign airline like British Airways swindle Nigerians by charging non-competitive fare of $10,070 for a First Class return seat from Abuja to London while the same facility through Accra costs $4,943,” to support the need for a national carrier.

    But Amos Akpan, the Managing Director of Capital Airlines was to argue that “the money the airlines make is not enough to pay for the cost of their operation and service their debts”. This was followed by insistence of   the Managing Director of Jimoh Ibrahim’s defunct ‘Air Nigeria’, Kinfe Kahssaye, that ‘the key way to ensure that Nigerian airlines return to profitability is for the federal government’s support in terms of finance or tax waivers. After the arguments of these airline stakeholders who can also pass for PDP stalwarts, the minister of aviation, against the CBN advice, vowed through FAAN spokesman, Yakubu Dati, that government had ‘concluded arrangement to purchase 30 brand new aircraft for airlines to boost their operations.

    But records show as at the time PDP left government in 2015, that domestic airlines like Arik, Aero and Air Nigeria whose managing director led the crusade and got N35.5 billion government bailout, were owing AMCON over $700m debt.

    Where PDP frittered away $500m airline intervention fund on PDP stalwarts posing as airline stakeholders, Buhari has promised to give the nation a national carrier with “$300 million and another $8.8 million for the airline’s take-off, covering aircraft acquisition and running costs for three years”.

    If public enterprises and their private sector inheritors have failed in recent times, it is probably because they were designed to fail. For instance, the current 350 Nigerians who appear to be ready to forfeit their assets rather than repay AMCON for their N1trillion toxic debt seem to confirm Professor Akinyemi’s thesis that most Nigerian billionaires made their monies through the state.

  • The traitor within

    A lawmaker got impeached for embezzlement of public funds. Today, that Speaker emerges from dishonour as “pride to her people.” Our thieving “Honourable” of yesterday, is today, an informed choice for ministerial appointment. That shameful “Honourable” has been exonerated and venerated as a fine stateswoman by the same assembly that disrobed her.

    A party chairman was prosecuted for dipping his hand in the public till, and he was issued a sentence, that even now, resounds as a pat on the back. A thieving pilfered the treasury silly, and he is let off the hook in an astonishing act of political expediency.

    A dishonest bank chief was caught stealing poor customers’ savings to service her vanities, and those of her rich, spoilt clients, and she was issued a punishment justifiable as a modest and enjoyable vacation.

    Political thugs, assassins, arsonists, executive fraudsters and murderous public officers are let off the hook in the wake of suspicious plea bargaining and bullying of the state. Such realities suggest rapid deterioration of our morals and mind. And the reasons are hardly far-fetched: despite our professed righteousness, the Nigerian society ennobles mindless profiteering off the state by public officers and their associates.

    The situation worsens by Nigerians’ seeming desperation to substitute virtue for vice and approximate the rewards for uprightness to loathsome ridicule, and an inclination to witch-hunt the just and ethically sound.

    This is not to imply that certain honest individuals do not exist in our clime, but they are persistently repudiated and consumed by the system they are committed to serve. Nigeria’s culture – despite our claims to probity – in fact, reveals a deeper evil than we renounce.

    It reveals the extent to which pretentiousness, selfishness and greed, erodes the average Nigerian’s capacity to grasp the precepts of honesty, human rights and associated values. It reveals a culture from which the expectations and realities of humanity has been totally wiped out.

    The downside is that public officers we elect to serve as the means to the attainment of our various ends, end up exploiting us as the means to insane ends. The greedier we evolve, the more neurotic we become – as elected representatives and electorate – in our practice of leadership and citizenship “for the general good of society,” “for the good of future generations” and everything and anything, except humankind.

    Hence the appalling recklessness with which we acquiesce to bestiality of all kinds, accept betrayal and the most atrocious mode of leadership indefatigably imposed by a treacherous minority on our wanton majority.

    A unilateral breach of contract characterizes the Nigerian leadership. Governance in Nigeria today, involves the most insidious form of tyranny exemplified by wanton disregard for human life and an indirect use of physical force. It consists, in essence, of one man or a group of men exploiting and monopolizing the material wealth of the entire nation, and then refusing to extend the benefits accruable from the exploitation of such resources – which is a cardinal principle of government by representation – to all.

    This privileged few ceaselessly misappropriating the nation’s wealth to themselves, can be likened to commonplace, contemptible fraudsters. The Nigerian leadership commits grievous acts of fraud and extortion utilising variants of an indirect use of force; which consists of obtaining material values, not in exchange for values, but by the threat of force, violence or other forms of unconscionable deterrents to any citizen courageous enough to challenge them and demand his constitutional right to equity promised as core dividend of democratic governance.

    Consequently, many Nigerians in desperate bid to be socio-politically correct, have perfected the art of moral subterfuge; the hallmark of which is the perverse inclination to aver that a thieving Governor actually means well or a light-fingered Speaker couldn’t help defraud the nation of hard-earned billions and dip his hand in the public till – because they were helpless pawns in the manifestation of a monumental rot the nation should be done with.

    There is no moral difference between a 20-year-old who resorts to armed robbery or advanced fee fraud to actualise his dream of owning a yacht, an expensive bar, penthouse and state-of-the-art Sports Utility Vehicle (SUV), and a Governor, legislator or President who in desperation to amass wealth and operate a Swiss bank account, advocates some grand scale public goal, without regard to context, costs and means – which are usually enshrouded in dense patches of venomous fog to hide the fact that millions of lives are devastated and national growth, grievously stunted, in the actualisation of such public goal.

    There is no excuse however, to justify the selfishness and greed of a Nigerian populace that persistently yields to cravings and temptations by which it loses its right to fair government and it’s much sought epoch of peace and abundance. Progress can only be achieved by a conscious effort to challenge the status quo and demand that among other things, a country’s leadership live up to promises it made at election time.

    Picture by what leaps our lot would improve if Nigerians did not involve in such abject perversions and evasions that spur them to delude that some criminally-minded and power-thirsty politician is motivated by patriotic concerns for the “public interest.”

    Picture what realities the nation could approximate if every citizen desisted from bartering their mandates for chicken-feed, rationalising and driving their minds into states of blind stupor, in dread of discovering that their favorite public officers are actually, mistaken or evil.

    The current generation of Nigerians will continue to plug away and die in preventable misery if they continue to worship and celebrate state actors and elected representatives, who pleaded for our votes,  that they may afflict us with poverty and unmitigated misery.

    Democratic tyrannies and corrupt governments continue to thrive wherever the governed barter their chances at progress, for a token, or gross, dangerous bigotries.

    As 2019 approaches, let us not articulate our miseries and dissent, like the proverbial pawns, eternally programmed to self-destruct.

  • Honouring our deserving lawmakers

    AFTER a long season of toiling in an environment that is everything but conducive to good government, our lawmakers have gone on a well deserved break. The recess ends on August 23.

    They surely deserve their rest. All those endless night meetings, condolence visits to members and their associates who lost loved ones, oversight duties to ministries and  agencies with wayward chief executives and those heated, cerebral arguments at plenary, among other exertions for which the distinguished senators and honourable members of the House get no commensurate reward. Instead of high praise, they get knocks from their constituents, the very people for whom they suffer these mental and physical deprivations.

    These people fulminate about senators carting home at least N13.2m monthly in allowances; nobody talks about their meagre salary. Is that fair, considering the complexity of their job?

    Now that lawmakers are on recess, it is fit and proper to appreciate those exemplary men and women on whose shoulders lie the onerous task of lawmaking for the well-being of the polity. In other words, dear reader, here is a mid-year report of our lawmakers in the upper chamber:

    The ding- dong battle over his political future went on for months. First, his associates served notice that they were leaving the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), claiming that they had got little or no compensation for their huge contributions to the party. Senate President Bukola Saraki himself began to allege persecution, after a band of brigands who killed no fewer than 33 persons in Offa, Kwara State, claimed to be his boys. He denied any link with the suspects. Before then, after a long drawn battle for his integrity, the Supreme Court cleared  him of non declaration of assets charges.

    The Senate President finally threw in the towel on Tuesday after so much drama. He resigned from the ruling party and returned to the PDP, saying: “The Federal Government appointed over 200 persons into juicy offices without allotting any slot to me or Dogara… If not for the love I have for Nigeria, we would have scattered everything.”

    Now, observers are asking: Did he ever leave PDP? Even if he and his supporters did, did PDP leave them?

    What is clear is that Saraki is the Most Talked About Lawmaker in this first half of the year.

    When his lawyer announced to the court that he had gone missing, probably kidnapped, on his way to Lokoja on Monday, many wondered if Senator Dino Melaye (Kogi Central) was not up to another round of buffoonery. A master stunts man, the lawmaker staged a dramatic appearance some 11 hours later, thanking Nigerians for their support. He said he was waylaid by assailants who had wanted to burn his vehicle after discovering that it was bullet proof. They then went to search for used tyres (Never mind how he knew they were going for used tyres), which they would set on fire to burn the vehicle and its VIP occupant, he claimed.  Melaye escaped from the scene and dashed like a speedster into a thick forest where he climbed a tree, atop which he watched as his assailants sped past in a desperate but futile search for him.

    Instead of rejoicing with the distinguished senator on his sensational escape, Nigerians have been probing his story as if it is another of those Nollywood movies with easily predictable endings. Some of the questions are simple; others are simply complex in their absurdity.

    How did he run that fast with his bulging tummy? Could he by any chance have trained as a palm wine tapper to be so skillful in tree climbing? Does the tree have a staircase? How was he feeding in those horrific 11 hours? Who supplied his food? Was he jumping from tree to tree like a monkey, plucking fruits? Did he have bananas on him?  What did he do to stay awake?

    Was Melaye alone? If he wasn’t, what happened to the others? Did they simply disappear? Did they climb trees like the lawmaker? Upon his return to Abuja, did Melaye report the matter to the police? This newspaper’s Saturday edition summed it up in a witty headline, “Dino releases Melaye”.

    This is not the senator’s first unpleasant experience during a trip to Kogi. The other time when the police bundled him into their vehicle to answer some charges in court, he, in a James Bond manner, jumped off the moving vehicle and landed in hospital. The charges, needless to say, had to wait.

    No doubt, Dino ‘Tarzan’ Melaye is the Most Ingenious Senator of this first half of the year.

    From relative obscurity as a disc jockey and frontline amateur pop dancer, he was vaulted into the hallowed upper chamber after the death of his brother, Osun State’s first civilian governor, himself the Serubawon, Senator Isiaka Adeleke (of exciting memories). Obviously now well grounded in the delicate art of lawmaking, Senator Ademola Adeleke has set his gaze on a loftier venture; he wants to be governor. After a keenly contested primary –the votes were counted twice –he carried the day to fly the PDP’s flag. But his opponent has gone to court to claim that his academic credentials are suspect.

    It is to his credit, however, that Senator Adeleke remains the darling of many Nigerians for his fleeting footwork, piercing voice and conviviality. He has with the sheer deployment of his skill debunked the theory that “only happiness induces dancing”. We have seen a dancing senator is a dancing governor on the way? I really can’t say, but one fact is incontestable: Adeleke has snatched away the trophy for the Happiest Senator.

    Senator Ike Ekweremadu  has been facing a massive probe by Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) detectives. The allegation: just 22 –yes; 22 only – undeclared properties in Abuja, United States, United Kingdom and United Arab Emirates. At a point, he was accused, of course without any proof in the public domain, to be selling off the properties to fend off his eventual prosecution. The deputy Senate president was grilled by the EFCC for over eight hours on Tuesday.

    The politician-lawyer has taken it all on the chin. His equanimity is remarkable. Step forward distinguished Senator Ekweremadu to receive the Symbol of Endurance Award.

    There have been rumours of a rift between Akwa Ibom Governor Udom Emmanuel and his predecessor Senator Godswill Akpabio. Some said it was all about pecuniary issues; others claimed the differences were about governance. Akpabio has just confirmed the shadow boxing between the duo. He has threatened to dump PDP and run in APC should the governor continue to neglect his area. No doubt this is the Threat of the Half Year, coming from the Minority Leader himself. But, will Akpabio take the plunge?

    When President Muhammadu Buhari met with APC senators the other day, he laughed as he shook Senator Lanre Tejuosho’s hand. “Your son is back home sir,” the Ogun Central senator told the President, who replied:

    “What would I have told the Kabiyesi?”  Tejuosho is Osile of Oke-Ona Egba’s son. He was one of those touted to have defected from the APC. Back home, the party pilloried him as a “traitor and betrayer.” His fellow “defectors” called him “spineless.”

    Is he any of these? Seems too early to say, but no doubt Tejuosho is Most Notable Procrastinator.

    After joining some of his colleagues to defect to the PDP, Senator Ibraheem Dan embarked on a road show in Sokoto. It was a disaster, reports said. His constituents stayed indoors as his convoy snaked through the streets. He may have gambled away his seat, an observer said. No doubt that was the Worst Popularity Test.

    Now, a note of caution. Do not fret if you disagree with this report; feel free to send in your views. In all, it has been a thrilling ride – full of fun, fire and fury – with our lawmakers in the past six months.

    So long!

    The brutes at LASPOTECH

    A WOMAN has accused security men at the Lagos State Polytechnic (LASPOTECH), Ikorodu campus, of  brutalising her and her son.

    Mrs Folake Sokoya’s son, Boluwatife Idowu, was said to have worn an ear ring to school. The security men, who insisted that he must have been a cult member to have done that, pounced on him, beating him mercilessly.

    When the young man extricated himself from their brutal grip, he called his mother, who rushed down to find out why such savagery was visited on her son. She got a raw deal – a broken lip, bruised legs and face and a torn dress. Incredibly, the security men insisted that Mrs Sokoya was the aggressor.

    Mrs Sokoya and Son
    Mrs Sokoya and Son

    Until recently, it was taboo for men to wear ear rings and plait their hair. Not anymore – no thanks to the huge effect of the pop culture that has seized the body and soul of our dear youths. But, is that enough to merit a brutal assault from security men who, ironically, are expected to protect students?

    Aren’t LASPOTECH authorities promoting violence by this primitive assault on the freedom of Mrs Sokoya and her son? The only defence the school spokesman put up is that there is a rule that bars boys from wearing ear rings. Is battery the appropriate punishment for disobeying this rule?

    The Sokoyas should demand an apology from LASPOTECH. If they don’t get any, they should head for the court to seek redress. An academic community should have no room for such savagery.

  • Saraki’s wars and victories

    Modern senates modelled after the original Roman senate whose essence, besides making laws, amending budget or repealing public policy and guarantee freedom and prevent tyranny, are meant to be chambers of “sober second thought” and are often made up of men of honour. Rather than strive towards these ideals, our senate since the birth of the fourth republic seem to approximate everything that is wrong with our nation – corruption, greed, treachery impunity and vileness. Saraki’s current 8th senate regarded by many Nigerians as the worst in our nation’s history, in addition boasts of not a few comedians and men without ambition.

    Bukola Saraki, inheritor of a fiefdom called Kwara State is and cannot be a democrat. It is therefore not a surprise that while swearing in the name of democracy, this veteran of civilian coup has done everything but promote the ideals of democracy in the last three years. Like Adolph Hitler, he is however not averse to using democrat’s tools such as parties and elections to fight democrats. His latest coup could therefore only have come as a surprise to some naïve leaders of APC who ought to have used the big stick when Saraki first demonstrated his lack of discipline to be a member of a political party which like a cult group has no room for traitors. His latest coup bore the hallmark of his style – some drama and some theatrics while assaulting the very basis of democracy.

    We woke up last week to be greeted with the news of a siege by security forces on the homes of Senate President Saraki and his deputy, Senator Ike Ekweremadu. Saraki’s spokesperson, Yusuf Olaniyonu, told Premium Times: “As I am talking to you, I cannot access the street. They have barricaded the road and I cannot say his whereabouts now.” The media aide to Ekweremadu, Uche Anichukwu, also confirmed the siege. Asked whether his principal would be in the senate plenary, he said “That I cannot say. When you attack a man’s house, how is he supposed to be at plenary?”  While Ekweremadu was far away from the said besieged house, Saraki was in the senate chambers presiding over the defection of some his vociferous supporters led by Dino Melaye to the opposition PDP.

    The police statement that “The police personnel seen in pictures in the media were those in the convoy of the senate president and others attached to him and that there was no authorized deployment of police personnel to besiege the residence of the senate president or his deputy as reported in the media” did not stop Prince Uche Secondus, PDP chairman and Kola Ologbodiyan, the party’s spokesman from holding a world press conference to accuse the president of an assault on democracy.  It also did not stop PDP stalwarts including Senator Ben Bruce who AMCON alleged owes N11billion toxic loan and Olisa Metuh, erstwhile PDP spokesman who has in the last two years appeared in courts where he is facing corruption charges on wheel chair or on a stretcher to celebrate the triumph of democracy with Ekweremadu and defecting senators entertained by Dino Melaye’s new release titled “PDP is good. There is everything for everybody in PDP”.

    The same drama and theatrics preceded Saraki’s first coup against his party in June 2015. He had then told a shocked nation how he hid inside a small car parked in front of the senate chambers for about four hours to outwit his fellow APC 52 elected senators having a meeting with the president before sneaking into the Senate chambers to be adopted senate president by acclamation by 49 PDP senators and eight APC senators. Itse Sagay had back then described Saraki’s coup as ‘a victory for impunity, a victory for fraud and a victory for political desperation and indiscipline”, while Auwalu Yadudu, former Dean of a Faculty of Law, Bayero University Kano had dismissed it as ‘lies in the face of democratic ideals’ since Saraki’s emergence stemmed from ‘a flawed election by a fraction of yet-to-be-constituted senate. But for him and his supporters, it was a victory for democracy.

    Hailed as a champion of democracy by a segment of the press after ceding the control of senate with 60 APC majority to PDP with 49 senators, denied his party the right to choose its leaders and traded off the deputy senate position which by convention belongs to the ruling party with a majority to Ekweremadu who had by the same convention occupied the position as David Mark’s deputy for eight years, he was ready to take on the nation.

    Since he started his political career fresh from a medical school in Britain as Obasanjo special assistant on budgeting, he decided his war for democracy must start with budget padding. The major actor in budget preparation is the executive since a government budget is the political tool with which government in power fulfils its electoral promises to the electorate.  The legislature debates, examines and authorizes spending of public revenue while areas of joint cooperation between it and the executive include implementation, monitoring, evaluation and reporting. But Saraki who has never known failure has other ideas.

    Thus when the 2016 Budget submitted to the House in December 2015 was returned some five months later, Audu Ogbeh, the agriculture minister was the first to claim he and his team discovered 386 “strange” projects worth N12.6billion inserted by the National Assembly after reducing the ministry’s budget proposals from N40, 918 billion to N31.618 billion to accommodate their own constituency projects. The Minister of Transport raised similar alarm about the cancellation of the Lagos – Calabar rail project to accommodate N3b National Assembly constituency projects such as provision of tricycles, town halls, classrooms, solar street lights, and pedestrian bridges.

    The 2018 budget suffered the same fate. The National Assembly, according to President Buhari, had made cuts amounting to N347 billion in the allocations to 4,700 projects submitted to them for consideration and introduced 6,403 projects of their own amounting to N578 billion. While many of the projects cut according to the president “are critical and may be difficult, if not impossible, to implement with the reduced allocation”, some of the new projects inserted by the National Assembly have not been properly conceptualised, designed and cost and will, therefore, be difficult to execute.”  But for Saraki and his supporters, it was a triumph of democracy.

    Long before the collapse of his trial before the Code of Conduct Tribunal, ever confident Saraki had dismissed his trial as an assault on democracy. The weighty allegations by Michael Wetkas, a detective with EFCC before a tribunal that  Saraki as governor diverted Kwara State government funds to pay loans he took to buy properties through his aides, one of whom lodged between N600,000 and N900,000 in the former governor’s account 50 times on a particular day were attributed to enemies of democracy. So was his  allegation that ‘Saraki collected salary as the governor of Kwara State for about four years after completing his second term in 2011’ . Even when it was confirmed by Secretary to the Kwara State Government, Isiaka Gold that N578, 188.00 which increased to N1, 239,493.94 monthly from October, 2014 was paid to Saraki not as salary but as pension, his supporters only hailed their champion of democracy.

    The strength of Saraki lies in the weakness of APC. This is why Saraki is thirsty for more blood. Last week after arrogantly directing his most strident supporters in the senate to decamp to PDP and ordering his Kwara APC constituency to join PDP, he gave no indication he was about to honourably vacate the senate presidency seat he has for three and half years deployed not for serving the country but to wage personal wars with eyes on personal victories.

  • Political fragmentation and consolidation

    The changing of parties in the National Assembly in Abuja has created some kind of crisis and depending on who you are, Nigeria seems to be entering a long dark tunnel while optimists feel it is a good thing for birds of the same feather to flock together rather than political parties being an all-comers affair without any ideological or moral cement binding members of political parties together and separating each party from the other.

    The leaders of the APC have said the party will come out of this dark tunnel and that there is light at the end of the tunnel. Cynics may even say the light at the end of the tunnel may be that of an onrushing train to create a serious crash. Whatever the case may be, it is better that real parties evolve from the present chaos. There is a need for the emergence of broad ideological parties that can  either be identified with people oriented party  as opposed to those who believe the people should eat from the crumbs falling from the rich men’s tables. There is a need for parties to be identified with the principle of political and economic restructuring of the country in a broad sense to give more powers to the periphery or what in Europe is referred to as subsidiarity and those who believe in the status quo that is not working.

    Even within parties it will not be strange to have left wing and right wings of the parties as one finds in the Labour and the Democratic parties in the United Kingdom and the USA respectively. The parties of the left usually agree on social democracy which most right thinking people would ordinarily subscribe to. Opposed to this political tendency will be the Republican and Conservative parties of the United States and Great Britain respectively with their beliefs in cut throat capitalism and survival of the fittest. Although this soulless political tendency is moderated by a sense of noblesse oblige in which rich and aristocratic people feel they have a responsibility to bring up the less fortunate people in the society.  This is why even Conservative and the Republican parties in the UK and USA respectively subscribe to payment of the dole and welfare cheques to the poor and the unemployed. I am sure we can find these tendencies in Nigeria for people to coalesce around rather than around ambitious people who are just using the people to get power with which they loot the treasury and rob the people.

    We need to build political parties around ideas rather than the ambitions of money bags who made their monies by ripping off the system and appropriating what belongs to the people and putting it in individual pockets. If both the APC and the PDP can organize themselves around well-articulated visions and specific missions, then something positive may yet come out of the current political shenanigans going on in Abuja.  Perhaps after this consolidation of parties, a case can then be made against carpet-crossing that has become the bane of Nigerian politics which now present politicians as commodities for sale and for purchase. These politicians may not know this, but the people are watching. There is a growing cynicism in the country that politicians are all the same and are all looking for regimes of “food is ready come and eat” without any consideration of where the food is from and how it was prepared. The ordinary people are beginning to join the “share the gari” politics during voting for candidates at election time and this tendency is captured in the saying of “Dibo ko se obe” meaning vote and get money to make stew. This tendency was carried to an extreme when the current governor of Ekiti who had not paid salaries for eight months on the eve of the last gubernatorial election, sent each civil servant and teachers N3,000 before the election and  gave N4,000 each on day of election to those who voted for the PDP. The APC would have been foolish to allow lightening to strike it twice by not rising to the occasion and be fooled again. This reminds me of the judge in the commonwealth of Massachusetts in the USA who publicly declared that he usually receives bribes from any two opposing parties in litigation before him but will then go ahead to give judgement correctly according to the law. He says he could not be bought! There is some logic in this case.

    Permit the digression. I blame the president for what has happened to the APC. He came in saying he belongs to “nobody but to everybody”. He surrounded himself with people of little or no political value. For six months, he refused to appoint his cabinet. He has not even finished constituting the boards of parastatals more than three years of coming into office. He has thus left in the cold politicians who made his victory possible. He publicly said politicians were unserious noise makers and distanced himself from the people who know the game of politics and have successfully played it at state and federal levels. The engine of politics everywhere in the world is oiled by what is referred to as pork barrel politics which means spending to benefit constituents for their political support. Rather than do this, Buhari has surrounded himself with his ethnic cohorts there by opening himself to charge of nepotism and parochialism. On top of this is his general lassitude and non-effective handling of the rampage of the killings by herders in the country. I sympathize with him a bit on the chaos in the country because he is not the one to do the fighting and if his security people are not performing what can he do? He can change them of course but I suspect the problem is so deep rooted that a clinical diagnosis would be required.

    As the Yoruba would say – the calabash is intact while the watered has been split .This means we can fill the calabash again with water. The president now knows his job is cut out for him and there can be no prevarication. If I were him, I would change the cabinet in consultation with the APC governors. Give Oshiomhole marching orders to build a closely knit party and find money for serious party bureaucracy either by surcharging all political appointees or soliciting for material support from government contractors. He should also form a committee of party leaders from all the different zones of the country to advise him on the way forward. Above all he has to deal ruthlessly with all those killing fellow Nigerians whether they are herders, cattle rustlers, farmers and all other kinds of brigands and kidnappers. He also has to spend more on the poor and the disadvantaged. He must ensure the ongoing infrastructural development and roads construction gather pace to make a difference in people’s lives. In other words, he must recover the lost good will of the people. He also needs to show more result in his war on corruption which appear to have consumed most of his time and attention these three years.

    I personally do not see any of these people running around in the National Assembly capable of solving the problems of Nigeria because many of them are the problems. These are the same people who led us to this deadlock in our developmental trajectory by doing nothing especially when we had money .They left the roads in dilapidated state and kept the country in darkness while purporting to spend billions on the power sector. The insecurity now tearing the country apart reared its ugly head during their time in government and in power. What is now needed is a strong government backed by a strong party with well-articulated and well-argued principle and programme and it will be left to the people to choose between  going to the promised land or going back to Egypt as my pastor would say. Our people would have to choose between transparency and honesty of political leadership and going back to “come and eat” ideology of the recent past.