The Nation Newspaper

Category: Thursday

  • The other woman

    THESE are interesting times. A time that you do not know what may happen in the next minute. A time that a politician elected on the platform of party A may defect to party B  without even his close friends and family members knowing his plan. Where a politician stands today is not necessarily where he will stand tomorrow and it is going to be like this until the elections are over in 2019.

    It is in the nature of politicians to change camps as a chameleon changes its skin to match the colour of its environment. Politicians will always be politicians, those who know will say. By that, they are saying that many politicians have no scruples. They do not stand for something, rather they stand for everything.  A politician who does not stand for something, we are told, will stand for nothing.

    I beg to disagree with the view that our politicians do not stand for something. They stand for something. If for nothing else, they stand for their own personal interest. They stand for something by reaping where they did not sow. They stand for something by appropriating money for their own comfort while the people they represent live in abject poverty. They stand for something by legislating laws to give themselves immunity from being prosecuted. If these are not issues a politician should stand for, I wonder what is worth standing for.

    Politicians can be sly and deceptive. They say one thing and mean another. You can never understand their ways. This is why they say in politics, there are no permanent friends but permanent interests. The two leading parties in the country today following the 2015 elections are the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). The APC is a coalition of parties comprising PDP, All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA), Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), and Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN).

    Those who joined APC from PDP did so from what they called the New PDP (nPDP). You would think that such people will never have anything to do with their former party again, going by what they said about it when they were leaving the fold four years ago. There was nothing they did not say about the party and its leadership then. Today, the same PDP has become a beautiful bride, or if you like the other woman, to them. For those who are fond of hitting the bottle the other woman analogy would not sound strange. It is a term used to describe those who take alcohol with reckless abandon. If a man can abandon his family for the bottle, something must definitely be wrong with him.

    To the nPDP men of yesterday, the rejected PDP has today become the cornerstone of their refuge having become tired of their romance with APC. This estrangement is happening just as we approach another election year as it was the case when they were dumping PDP in 2014. Again, they jumped ship after moving out of APC to form what they called the Reformed APC (rAPC). In which vehicle will they drive out of PDP on the eve of the 2023 elections? Let me hazard a guess – the Energised PDP (ePDP)! You cannot put anything beyond our politicians. They are here today and there tomorrow.

    They will always find reasons for their actions. When some members of the National Assembly comprising 13 senators and 37 House of Representatives members defected from the APC to PDP and the African Democratic Congress (ADC) last Tuesday, it was a sure sign that the crack in the ruling party was widening. Though the party leadership tried to stop the defections, its efforts were a little too late. Even President Muhammadu Buhari, who also intervened by inviting Senate President Bukola Saraki and others to the Villa, could not stem the defection tide.

    More defections were expected to follow and they happened again on Tuesday when Saraki took leave of the PDP. ‘’For me, I leave all that behind me. Today, I start as I return to the party where I began my political journey, the PDP’’, he said in a statement on Tuesday. Saraki’s defection did not come as a surprise to political pundits. He was expected to make that move as most of his loyalists had already left APC for PDP. They even told him that well ‘’Oga we have left o. If you like remain there, you are on your own’’. Defection and cross carpeting on the floor of parliament are all part of the democratic process. It is just that our politicians use these as instruments to arm twist their party leaders for election tickets and other favours.

    Often, it happens as an election year approaches, especially when it is time to pick candidates. So, defection has become an instrument of blackmail in the hands of unpopular politicians who feel that, that is the only way they can have their way and make it back to office. The APC defections are rather curious though. Why did its members become disenchanted with it so early in its life? The party is just four years old and has only spent three years in office. So, what went wrong? Is it that the party was just patched together for acquiring power without a meaningful plan for fostering internal democracy and governance.

    No doubt a ruling party will always be under intense pressure, but that is when it is expected to show its character as a strong entity that can withstand any crisis. It is good that APC is facing this kind of crisis early in its life. It should be a learning curve for it. If it thought it was immune to the kind of crisis that swept PDP out of office in 2015, this has shown  that it assumed too much too early. The party needs to move fast to put its house in order for next year’s elections. Defections are not new; they will always occur in a democracy. So, losing your members to a rival party does not mean your end.

    It should be a wake-up call for the party to address the genuine grievances raised by those departing to avert a recurrence in future. The problem is politicians can never be predicted nor trusted. They will always have one thing or the other against their party.  If that is not resolved in their favour, defection beckons. Will the defection of Saraki, Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed of his home Kwara State affect the party there during the 2019 elections? What are Saraki’s chances of retaining his seat as Senate president following his defection?

    Will Saraki and his supporters be truly accommodated in PDP? Will the party throw its arms wide open to receive them or will it be shortlive romance just like that with APC? Will both parties respect the terms of their new found romance? Time will tell.

  • ‘I am Nigerian, come rape me’ (2)

    The ability to fend off rape is a prerequisite of the Nigerian psyche. Vulnerability is a double-edged snare. It presents a trap, creating a maelstrom of gluttony and death, around the vulnerable and ethically frail.

    As you read, modern Nigeria manifests as a trap. Some would call it a labyrinth of lust, where society becomes maze and ‘slaughter slab,’ a multiple-room brothel, vibrantly themed and adorned for the Nigerian degenerate.

    There is no gainsaying degeneracy abounds across societal slabs; across ruling class and electorate, rich and poor divides. While the incumbent ruling class touts its distorted fable of crooked martyrdom, donning the puritan’s cloak, the governed, comprising Nigeria’s teeming impoverished and fast disappearing middle-class, shed blood and brawn, to ennoble the monstrosity of their common oppressor, the ruling class.

    Few months ago, we saw how spectacularly the Charles Oputa aka Charly Boy-led protest group and a pro-Buhari faction hacked at each other with cudgels of folly and blades of rage.

    Charly Boy, despite harsh criticisms and unsparing mockery trailing his ‘Resume or Resign” campaign, mobilised his “Our mumu don do” civil society-driven movement to protest President Muhammadu Buhari’s elongated medical tourism in the United Kingdom, at Abuja, Federal Capital Territory (FCT)’s Unity Fountain and Wuse Market.

    One school of thought nullified Charly Boy’s self-painted portrait as modern day hero, calling it an epic fraud. The self-acclaimed ‘Area father’s’ critics disparaged his professed activism and attempt to ride against violent currents of Nigeria’s tribal, religious bigotries.

    Despite their harsh criticism, Charly Boy’s apologists saw him as a stunning, courageous patriot, devoted to restoration of the public parliament’s mythical state of influence and enormous power. To the latter, Charly Boy was the black knight and Nigeria, his damsel in distress.

    From a previous, violently quashed protest at Unity Fountain, Abuja, the Charly Boy gang moved its stage to FCT’s Wuse Market. But rather than match antics with the Area Father and his crew, a pro-Buhari group in the market, responded decisively, in a tenor of violence and murderous rage.

    Charly Boy, 66, was attacked in Wuse market by angry, pro-Buhari protesters – mostly northern youth. The musician and his cohort eventually fled for their lives, with the pro-Buhari group hot in pursuit. Charly Boy was eventually rescued by another group of south-eastern youth and security operatives, who fired gunshots and tear-gas to disperse the mob.

    Thus an ethnic crisis was narrowly averted. Charly Boy eventually suspended the protest, telling his cohort that their point had been made. “Permit me, my fellow comrades, to say that we’ve come to the end of this particular sit-out,” he said.

    Expectedly, Nigerians queued in layers of conflicting perspectives, in respect of the ill-fated protest.

    Armchair critics analysed the imbroglio, suggesting that Charly Boy actualised some puppeteer’s agenda. He must be horseman to some political mastermind’s dark schema, they argued, claiming that he is too comfortable, too rich and catered for, to indulge in such desperate display of commoners’ grief.

    But that was simply one way to look it. Charly Boy and company perhaps intoned a heartfelt misery. Perhaps he wasn’t just another child of privilege paying lip service to commoners’ plight, but a true patriot whose love for Nigeria transcends his gated ‘paradise.’

    There were casualties during the recent protests. It was not surprising however, that the wounded were mostly unemployed youths and impoverished wards of commoners. Nonetheless, a rare thing occurred by Charly Boy’s exposure to hurt. Was he for real? Was his cohort for real?

    Are they true patriots? Or were they victims of a familiar rape culture? Like hordes of underprivileged youths, were they caught in dizzying sordid dialectic by which the Nigerian rapist (the ruling class), methodically plowed the raped (clueless, impoverished citizenry) barebacked?

    Was the protest phony? Were the conflicting parties driven by money or dangerous bigotry? Or were they comprised of true patriots, seeking Nigeria’s best interests?

    Their savage world of rape undoubtedly, features higher characters: the puppeteers, who determine the extremes of their ordeal but that is a discussion fit for other fora.

    Nigeria would be better off if its youth committed to more laudable ventures; like the pruning of the National Assembly to a unicameral legislature; like protesting against ‘budget padding’ and other corrupt acts by the country’s legislators, the presidency and governors.

    It’s about time Nigerian youth stopped lending themselves as muscles to every devious plot or shady protest for a paltry fee. Let the senators, governors, corporate titans and ministers hiding in the shadows, gather their children to lead such protest marches and their currency-activated bloody massacres.

    Nigerian youths may draw inspiration from Kenyan peers; Cynthia Muge, 24, had no millions in her bank account but few months ago, she contested as an independent candidate because she lacked the funds to obtain the Jubilee Party’s nomination form. She defeated five older men to secure the Member of Country Assembly (MCA) seat in Kilibwoni Ward, Nandi County.

    Flat broke, the University of Nairobi graduate devised a social media and house-to-house campaign strategy to poll 8,760 votes and beat her closest competitor, Wilson Kiptanui of Jubilee Party’s 8,354 votes.

    John Paul Mwirigi’s story is equally inspiring. The 23-year-old unemployed orphan and sixth of eight siblings, also contested as an independent candidate against veteran politicians of established political parties. He emerged winner, polling 18, 867 against Jubilee Party’s Rufus Miriti, who had 15, 411 votes. Three other seasoned politicians — Mwenda Mzalendo (7,695 votes), Kubai Mutuma (6,331 votes) and Raphael Muriungi, a Deputy Governor, two-tome ex-MP and former Assistant Minister (2,278 votes) — were beaten by him. Yet Mwirigi lives in his family home, a local granary in his village.

    It is about time Nigerian youths assimilated the finer aspects of tact, humaneness, and patriotism. They could start by ditching the ‘popular’ parties and politicians, and commit to truly patriotic and unsullied candidates. Those who wouldn’t are simply out to be ‘raped’ for a fee.

     

  • Red card, defections and other stories

    IT was just a matter of time before it happened. All has not been well within the  ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), the coaliton of parties, which wrested power from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in 2015.

    The APC, their beloved party, some members alleged, has become more like PDP when it was in power, if not worse. Most of these aggrieved members were from the rump of PDP, which walked out of the then ruling party’s convention in Abuja.

    That action was the beginning of PDP’s fall from power. Among the protesting party chieftains then were governors, senators and House of Representatives members. In no time, they formed the New PDP (nPDP) on which platform they joined forces with the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA), the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) and the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) to form APC.

    In the past three years, APC has pursued with zeal its programmes, which are aimed at making lives better for the people. APC’s fight against corruption and the recovery of looted funds have, however, brought it in collision with many people, including some top members of the party. Rather than support President Muhammadu Buhari’s anti-corruption war, they are against it because as they claimed ‘’it is selective’’.

    The crisis in APC today can be located in the anti-corruption war and the relationship between the leadership of the National Assembly, on one hand, and the Presidency and the party’s leadership on the other hand. Not to talk of that with some governors.

    Many lawmakers do not fancy the anti-graft war, which they feel is directed at some of them, and this has further caused a division among these erstwhile political friends.

    APC was the party many Nigerians looked forward to, following its formation, to make a difference in their lives. As at the time it was formed, the people were fed up with PDP. It is, therefore, unfortunate that today, the same APC, which was expected to bring hope and consolation to them is in crisis. Will this fresh crisis engendered by the defection of 51 of its National Assembly members comprising 14 senators and 37 representatives affect its political fortune? This is the question the party leadership must answer.

    The defectors will never wish the party well, just as those who left PDP for APC plotted the then ruling party’s downfall in the 2015 elections. To lose 51 lawmakers at one fell swoop is not something to brush aside with a wave of the hand. Some of them may have climbed the backs of others to get to power, as the party’s National Chairman, Adams Oshiomhole, observed on Tuesday shortly after their defection, but tell me who is that politician that does not need a strong backer to rise.

    These are trying times for APC. Just imagine what it is going through when it is yet to complete its first term in office. It is obvious that the defectors’ aim is to scuttle the party’s chances in the 2019 elections. After severing relations with the party, there is no way they will ever wish it well. Their loyalty now is to the PDP to which many of them have returned. It is not even certain that we have seen the last of these defections, which Benue State Governor Samuel Ortom hinted about last week.

    Ortom also crossed from PDP to APC on the eve of the 2015 elections and was given the party’s governorship ticket. He won the election, with the support of Benue strongman Senator George Akume. It seems Ortom and his godfather have fallen apart and the governor is afraid that he may not get a second term ticket. Last week, the governor whose state is under the siege of herdsmen said he had been given a ‘’red card’’ . A red card when he is not a footballer? Well, it was a manner of speech. Ortom, who has the sympathy of his people because of the killings in his state, said he is now out of the pitch as a result of the card. ‘’I am waiting for another club to sign me’’, he told his people.

    What the governor was saying in effect is that he too may jump ship if nothing is done to reassure him of his place within the party. Oshiomhole has told him he has nothing to fear, but it seems he does not believe his chairman. The governor is still going around talking about the red card. It is also not certain that more people will not leave the party at the National Assembly. The defection of the 51 on Tuesday may have been to prepare the ground for the next set of defectors. One name being touted to quit the party is Senate President Bukola Saraki, who got that position contrary to the party’s wish. Will Saraki defect?

    All signs are that he will because many of his loyalists are among those that defected on Tuesday in the National Assembly. In his home Kwara State many of his supporters have also been leaving the party. Saraki and his men are fighting the party for not according the Senate president the respect they think he deserves. To Saraki, what has been happening to him in the past three years, is political persecution. He said the time wasted on such persecution could have been spent on making lives better for the people.

    This is a delicate issue which the APC must handle with tact because of the forthcoming elections. It is not good to lose members when elections are near like this, so the party must move fast to do damage control. You cannot be too sure about elections. No two elections are the same. That the people voted APC and Buhari in 2015 does not mean that they will do the same in 2019. The defectors have their own plans; the APC should come up with its and not assume that they are political paper weight.

    Like what happen before the 2015 elections, the aggrieved APC members have formed the Reformed APC (rAPC). With rAPC, they have signed a pact with PDP and 38 other parties to slug it out with APC in the 2019 elections. What is APC’s response to this challenge? It should not make the same mistake as the PDP did in 2015 when the then ruling party dismissed  APC’s threat of wresting power from it as nothing.

     

    Agony of a dad

    THERE was pin-drop silence as he spoke at the Bagauda Kaltho Press Centre at Alausa, Ikeja, Lagos, on Tuesday. He did not give his name nor did he allow his photograph to be taken. He was in pain, serious pain. His wife and daughter were burnt in the June 28 Otedola Bridge tanker explosion. He spent over N4 million on them in a private hospital before moving them to the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH), Ikeja.

    He is not satisfied with the treatment they are getting, so he wants to move them abroad. The only snag is that the passport of the girl, who is his only daughter, has expired. She cannot be moved in her condition to any of the Passport Offices in Lagos for capturing (taking of her picture). So, he is begging Governor Akinwunmi Ambode to help in getting the authorities in Abuja to bring the necessary machine down to LASUTH for the girl’s capturing. Nothing can beat a father’s love for his daughter. I know that the listening Governor Ambode will hearken to the man’s cry. May his wife and daughter live.

     

  • Defectors at work

    Dino, comical and shallow, is not qualified to be described as a good striker. Neither is he a lethargic defender. He surely knows how to kick his master’s opponents in the groin, raising his hands in the air to show that he is not the aggressor while the opponents are growling in pains. Can Dino be a good buy? The season will soon open

    IS it for no reason that Tuesday’s events at the National Assembly happened at a time when major soccer leagues around the world are embroiled in their transfer season?

    The World Cup has just ended. Offers are pouring in for the stars who sparkled at the tournament, including our dearest Ahmed Musa, whose goal has been listed among the best. Teams armed with incredible offers are falling over one another to buy good players. When the new season opens after the closure of the buzzing transfer window, we should have a great spectacle of soccer artistry.

    Why have our lawmakers chosen this season to hit the transfer market? Their love for soccer? Mere coincidence? Just to animate the dull political scene and restore the vivacity it lost long ago? Could they just be playing to the gallery to draw attention to how serious our never appreciated lawmakers take their job?

    It is neither here nor there, but what is clear is that our lawmakers have jammed the transfer window. In all, 14 senators defected from the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) to the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the African Democratic Congress (ADC). But the APC keeps its majority with 52 senators. The PDP has 50. There are 109 senators. Two are dead and one, Joshua Dariye, is in jail for corruption. The ADC has three and the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) has two.

    In the House, 37 members dumped the APC, which retains its majority with 192. PDP has 156 members. APGA has five.

    Benue State Governor Samuel Ortom was the first to parlay the soccer metaphor to explain his political discomfiture. “I have been given a red card by the APC,” he announced the other day with the soberness of a bereaved man.

    The party at the local level rejoined that His Excellency has no electoral value. The National Secretariat assured Ortom that all would be well, but like a bush fire the crisis at the state level seems to be spreading. It has engulfed the House of Assembly, which is split, with one arm saying the Speaker has been impeached and the other screaming that the status quo remains.

    Ortom finally found his way out of APC yesterday.

    How easy is it for a team that is, for instance, two goals down at almost full time to level up and win when its best striker has bagged a red card? But does being a governor even make Ortom APC’s number one striker? Even if he is not, should he be treated with contempt and odium as if he is not part of the first 11?

    Back to the National Assembly. How many of these defectors are good strikers on whom the party and the electorate can depend to fight their battle and protect their future? How many have manned their positions well in the 4-4-3 formation led by Buhari? Has the goalkeeper lived up to expectation, considering the number of goals conceded? Who are the players acting like victims here?

    In other words, how many progressive bills have they passed? Of these distinguished senators and honourable members, how many have moved a motion that has become a tangible instrument for the improvement of the lives of the common man? Will this mass transfer boost the receiving team’s chances in the coming elections?  This is too early to determine.

    The PDP, hobbled by its past and confused by its future, is eager to unveil its new signings. Their leading lights have been having fun – laughing, huffing and  taunting about how the APC will find its Waterloo in the coming elections.

    To former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, who many deride as a serial defector and a desperate presidential aspirant, the defections “indicate that there is hope that Nigeria can be rescued from the misrule of the APC”. His campaigner-in-chief Otunba Gbenga Daniel (remember him; the former Ogun State governor, whose tenure ended on a turbulent and sensational note has also hailed the defectors.

    President Muhammadu Buhari views the defections as a seasonal occurrence  on the eve of major elections. He is confident that they will not harm the party.

    Rivers State Governor Nyesom Wike views it all as “democracy  taking shape”. He gloats that “it is a happy day”. A cheeky fellow has asked why Ekiti State Governor Ayo Fayose is yet to comment on the defections. A source close to His Excellency has said he has been so busy, torn between preparing his handover notes and putting together his manifesto for his historic presidential ambition that was subsumed in the failed battle to install his protégé, Prof. Kolapo Olusola, as his successor. Besides, the governor has been visiting the physiotherapist on account of his neck, broken mysteriously by teargas during the battle, aforementioned.

    The good news from one of his most trusted aides: “Oga is recovering fast.”

    Senator Lanre Tejuosho (Ogun Central), one of the defectors, is not likely to win an election on his own, even if he is backed by any of the major parties. He says he is without a party now. His political future remains a matter of mental conjecture, he would like us to believe.

    Senator Suleiman Hunkuyi (Kaduna North), one of the defectors, may not seek re-election.  He and Governor Nasir El-Rufai have been holding each other by the throat for the control of the APC. Who will blame the distinguished senator; his building, which housed his faction of the APC, has been demolished – an operation  El-Rufai was said to have personally led. The influential striker of a senator is yet to announce his future.

    Senator Dino Melaye (Kogi West), fresh from another controversy, was all over the chamber on Tuesday, as excited as a kid who has just landed a bowl of ice cream. He claimed recently to have survived an assassination attempt. The police disagreed, saying the senator’s guards fired at their men. One policeman is said to be in intensive care after the incident. Besides, the distinguished senator was arraigned yesterday for attempted suicide.

    Dino, comical and shallow, is not qualified to be described as a good striker. Neither is he a lethargic defender. He surely knows how to kick his master’s opponents in the groin, raising his hands in the air to show that he is not the aggressor while the opponents are growling in pains. Can Dino be a good buy? The season will soon open.

    The story has been told of how Governor Abiola Ajimobi brought Senator Monsurat Sunmonu (Oyo North) into politics, all the way from London. After a stint as Assembly Speaker, she became a senator. Apparently believing that the party may not bless her return to the Senate, she has pitched her tent with Ajimobi’s opponents to turn the heat on him. Will the PDP celebrate this new sign-on? Again, time will tell.

    Kano’s Senator Rabiu Kwankwaso has also jumped ship. He has Governor Abdullahi Ganduje of APC to contend with and Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau, staid, but calculative, to battle. Both are seeking the same prize – a presidential ticket.

    The popular thinking is that our senators lack the team spirit that Nigeria badly needs now. They have constituted themselves to a major opponent of the executive, oblivious of the public interest but fully awake to their own selfish interest that has seen each carting home month after month an incredible N11.3m, besides other perks of office. All that matters is politics. And politics. Nothing else. No ideology. Nor principle.

    Unlike the Croatian World Cup team, our team of senators lacks the fighting spirit of great athletes, the agility of champions and the vision of great leaders. Little wonder they have become the subject of derisory and scornful jokes.

    Consider this sent to me by a friend; it is titled: “Innocence at its best”:

    “A small boy parks his bicycle near the parliament house and walks on. A police constable stops him and asks: ‘why did you park your bicycle here? Don’t you know about this road? Many MPs, sometimes CMs, even President and cabinet ministers and politicians pass from here…’

    “The boy replied innocently: ‘Don’t worry, I have locked my bicycle.”

  • Red card, defections and other stories

    IT was just a matter of time before it happened. All has not been well within the  ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), the coaliton of parties, which wrested power from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in 2015.

    The APC, their beloved party, some members alleged, has become more like PDP when it was in power, if not worse. Most of these aggrieved members were from the rump of PDP, which walked out of the then ruling party’s convention in Abuja.

    That action was the beginning of PDP’s fall from power. Among the protesting party chieftains then were governors, senators and House of Representatives members. In no time, they formed the New PDP (nPDP) on which platform they joined forces with the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA), the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) and the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) to form APC.

    In the past three years, APC has pursued with zeal its programmes, which are aimed at making lives better for the people. APC’s fight against corruption and the recovery of looted funds have, however, brought it in collision with many people, including some top members of the party. Rather than support President Muhammadu Buhari’s anti-corruption war, they are against it because as they claimed ‘’it is selective’’.

    The crisis in APC today can be located in the anti-corruption war and the relationship between the leadership of the National Assembly, on one hand, and the Presidency and the party’s leadership on the other hand. Not to talk of that with some governors.

    Many lawmakers do not fancy the anti-graft war, which they feel is directed at some of them, and this has further caused a division among these erstwhile political friends.

    APC was the party many Nigerians looked forward to, following its formation, to make a difference in their lives. As at the time it was formed, the people were fed up with PDP. It is, therefore, unfortunate that today, the same APC, which was expected to bring hope and consolation to them is in crisis. Will this fresh crisis engendered by the defection of 51 of its National Assembly members comprising 14 senators and 37 representatives affect its political fortune? This is the question the party leadership must answer.

    The defectors will never wish the party well, just as those who left PDP for APC plotted the then ruling party’s downfall in the 2015 elections. To lose 51 lawmakers at one fell swoop is not something to brush aside with a wave of the hand. Some of them may have climbed the backs of others to get to power, as the party’s National Chairman, Adams Oshiomhole, observed on Tuesday shortly after their defection, but tell me who is that politician that does not need a strong backer to rise.

    These are trying times for APC. Just imagine what it is going through when it is yet to complete its first term in office. It is obvious that the defectors’ aim is to scuttle the party’s chances in the 2019 elections. After severing relations with the party, there is no way they will ever wish it well. Their loyalty now is to the PDP to which many of them have returned. It is not even certain that we have seen the last of these defections, which Benue State Governor Samuel Ortom hinted about last week.

    Ortom also crossed from PDP to APC on the eve of the 2015 elections and was given the party’s governorship ticket. He won the election, with the support of Benue strongman Senator George Akume. It seems Ortom and his godfather have fallen apart and the governor is afraid that he may not get a second term ticket. Last week, the governor whose state is under the siege of herdsmen said he had been given a ‘’red card’’ . A red card when he is not a footballer? Well, it was a manner of speech. Ortom, who has the sympathy of his people because of the killings in his state, said he is now out of the pitch as a result of the card. ‘’I am waiting for another club to sign me’’, he told his people.

    What the governor was saying in effect is that he too may jump ship if nothing is done to reassure him of his place within the party. Oshiomhole has told him he has nothing to fear, but it seems he does not believe his chairman. The governor is still going around talking about the red card. It is also not certain that more people will not leave the party at the National Assembly. The defection of the 51 on Tuesday may have been to prepare the ground for the next set of defectors. One name being touted to quit the party is Senate President Bukola Saraki, who got that position contrary to the party’s wish. Will Saraki defect?

    All signs are that he will because many of his loyalists are among those that defected on Tuesday in the National Assembly. In his home Kwara State many of his supporters have also been leaving the party. Saraki and his men are fighting the party for not according the Senate president the respect they think he deserves. To Saraki, what has been happening to him in the past three years, is political persecution. He said the time wasted on such persecution could have been spent on making lives better for the people.

    This is a delicate issue which the APC must handle with tact because of the forthcoming elections. It is not good to lose members when elections are near like this, so the party must move fast to do damage control. You cannot be too sure about elections. No two elections are the same. That the people voted APC and Buhari in 2015 does not mean that they will do the same in 2019. The defectors have their own plans; the APC should come up with its and not assume that they are political paper weight.

    Like what happen before the 2015 elections, the aggrieved APC members have formed the Reformed APC (rAPC). With rAPC, they have signed a pact with PDP and 38 other parties to slug it out with APC in the 2019 elections. What is APC’s response to this challenge? It should not make the same mistake as the PDP did in 2015 when the then ruling party dismissed  APC’s threat of wresting power from it as nothing.

     

     Agony of a dad

    THERE was pin-drop silence as he spoke at the Bagauda Kaltho Press Centre at Alausa, Ikeja, Lagos, on Tuesday. He did not give his name nor did he allow his photograph to be taken. He was in pain, serious pain. His wife and daughter were burnt in the June 28 Otedola Bridge tanker explosion. He spent over N4 million on them in a private hospital before moving them to the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH), Ikeja.

    He is not satisfied with the treatment they are getting, so he wants to move them abroad. The only snag is that the passport of the girl, who is his only daughter, has expired. She cannot be moved in her condition to any of the Passport Offices in Lagos for capturing (taking of her picture). So, he is begging Governor Akinwunmi Ambode to help in getting the authorities in Abuja to bring the necessary machine down to LASUTH for the girl’s capturing. Nothing can beat a father’s love for his daughter. I know that the listening Governor Ambode will hearken to the man’s cry. May his wife and daughter live.

  • Character of Ekiti voters and leaders

    Chinua Achebe’s “Eneke the bird says that since men have learned to shoot without missing, he has learned to fly without perching (Things Fall Apart). It will appear Ekiti voters who decided to sell their votes during July 14 governorship elections have finally seen through the hollowness and hypocrisy of the same set of cynical leaders that have taken them for a ride these past 19 years. Voters behaviour during the election was evidence enough that those who opted to sell their votes did not see much difference between leaders who do not understand that democracy as a process is not just about self-righteousness but also requires some sense of humour, common touch and respect for the views of the governed, and those who fraudulently claim serving is a matter of life and death whether the people wanted them or not. If voters who sold their votes are prostitutes, how about the fair-weather leaders who do not seem to believe in anything?

    We can trace the collapse of our political socialization process to Babangida and Abacha’s 13 years of fraudulent transition programme that produced our current ‘new breed’ politicians that bred nothing but greed. Obasanjo’s eight years of failed ‘mainstreaming’ through which he destroyed all budding political parties finally ended a political socialization process that started back in the 1923 with the inauguration of Herbert Macaulay’s ‘People Democratic Party’, the first political party in Nigeria.

    Since the led look up to their leaders for direction, it can be argued that voters who behaved like prostitutes by opting to sell their votes to the highest bidders during the July 14 governorship election were only following the foot-steps of their   political leaders.

    Let us start with Ayo Fayose. He was rigged into power by Obasanjo’s PDP in 2003. Following his impeachment in 2006, he sought accommodation in the Labour Party under whose platform he contested for a senatorial seat which he lost to Babafemi Ojudu. He then briefly flirted with Action Congress party before ex-President Jonathan who was desperate to use Ekiti as a springboard for his 2015 doomed re-election bid, provided N4.7b, thousands of policemen, soldiers and other security personnel to rig sitting governor, Kayode Fayemi out of office in 2014. Today, besides a bridge over land, Fayose has little to show for his second coming. The return of an ill-equipped man who does not understand even the meaning of government seems to have been designed to prolong the nightmare of Ekiti people. While he owed workers about six months backlog of unpaid salary arrears, he was alleged to have wired miserable N4000 and N7000 respectively to civil servants and pensioners on the eve of the July 14 election.

    We also have Engineer Segun Oni who was in the progressive camp until Obasanjo used him to settle scores with Fayose, his estranged godson. Obasanjo rigged him to office in 2007. While on the stolen throne, the sing song of his men was “we are in government, they are in court”. And for those three years, Oni pitched towns against one another over the siting of a nebulous University of Education. Oni moved from recklessness to folly creating disorder among his people. He later returned to his natural habitat-the progressive fold where he quickly rose to the position of deputy national chairman, southwest.

    Ayo Arise was a successful businessman before joining politics. For him therefore, politics is business, Thus when he lost the AD governorship primary election in 2003 and again that of AC in 2007, he without hesitation crossed over to PDP controlled in the southwest by Obasanjo, Adedibu, Bode George and Tony Anenih. He went on to win a controversial senate seat under his new party which was nullified by an appeal court ion July 8, 2009 as a result of ‘flaws during the conduct of the election’. He later won in the re-run election.

    Again, following irreconcilable differences between him and Fayose, he ran back to APC. While Governor-elect Fayemi has denied vote-buying in his own constituency where he voted, Arise, as a chieftain of APC was on Channels Television last week saying “My people told me PDP had paid them some money.  What do you expect me to do?”

    Opeyemi Bamidele, a brilliant and talented politician was a leading light of AC and APC in Ekiti before some disagreement with his friend and political ally, Fayemi drove him to the Labour Party. He contested against Fayemi and Fayose in 2014 declaring “God sees my heart, the only reason I am involved in Ekiti politics is to serve and help the people; I do not have any reason to be desperate”.

    But from the pronouncements of his PDP backers from Abuja, it was obvious he was used as a spoiler to narrow the chances of Fayemi in 2014. In fact the first person Fayose thanked for making it possible for him to become a governor after his controversial victory over Fayemi was Bamidele. Today he is back as a chieftain of APC.

    Prince Adeyeye is a progressive who once served as the national publicity secretary of the pan-Yoruba socio-political group, Afenifere, and also served as the national publicity secretary of the Alliance for Democracy (AD).He left the progressive fold in December 2006 when he contested in the defunct Action Congress (AC) governorship primary won by Fayemi alleging the exercise was marred by irregularities. He dumped his progressive credentials and joined the PDP and was made State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB) chairman by former Governor Segun Oni before he was later appointed Minister of State for Works by former President Goodluck Jonathan. He also served as PDP national caretaker committee publicity secretary.

    However, following the loss of the governorship primary to Fayose’s preferred successor, Deputy Governor Kolapo Olusola, not too long ago, he went back to APC claiming opposition to Fayose’s “continuity of impunity, imposition, poverty and unprecedented looting of the people’s common patrimony.” He said he was ‘joining forces with other eminent Ekiti sons and daughters to free the state from the vulture and predator feeding fat on the state’s commonwealth.’

    Another APC catch on the eve of the July 14 governorship election was Fatimat Raji Rasaki, representing Ekiti Central Senatorial District. She is the wife of a former military governor of Lagos. Ekiti voters surely know Rasaki is one of Abuja senators smiling to their banks every month with a mouth-watering N13.5m besides her salary.

    It must be admitted Ekiti ‘new breed’ politicians are not different from their counterparts in nPDP or R-APC. Even Senate President Saraki who literally stole the senate presidency in 2015 now says moving back to PDP, a party he dumped in 2013, was informed by concerns for survival of democracy and the future of the country they have made ungovernable in the past three years and continue to impoverish through gluttonous consumption by their members.

    It is just as well that except for the nosy reporters and election monitors, none of the above Ekiti ‘new breed’ politicians is complaining. They cannot begrudge followers for following the foot-steps of their leaders.

  • Apapa ports of national shame

    Nigeria has 853 kilometres of coastline running through seven of the southern states of the federation, namely Lagos, Ondo, Delta, Bayelsa, Rivers, Akwa Ibom and Cross River. Any of these seven states has the potential of having a sea port that could have been developed if we have had visionary planners.

    When the British developed the port of Lagos after its bombardment in 1851, the idea of being the main port of Nigeria had not crystallized because the idea of a country called Nigeria had not dawned on the British or anybody for that matter. But by the time of amalgamation in 1914, the British realized that Apapa did not have the capacity to be the main port of Nigeria. In spite of several attempts to expand it, the water was too shallow and what later became Victoria Island was too rough for a port. The British then decided to build a port in the eastern part of Nigeria in the area of Diobu and named it Port Harcourt after the then British Secretary of State for the colonies, Sir Lewis Harcourt. But before the port became operational, the First World War broke out in Europe. Money became scarce and the development of the port suffered. After the war, money for reconstruction became a priority and development in all the British overseas territories fell into abeyance and before long, the Second World War broke out in 1939 and ended in 1945.

    Britain itself needed funds from America like other parts of Europe from the Marshall Plan and what would have been a major port in the eastern part of the country was a victim of historical accidents. After independence, rather than build a port in Port Harcourt to complement Lagos, the federal government decided to build Tin-Can Island as an extension of Apapa with the same road approach but without railways which are the normal features of ports everywhere in the world for delivery of exports and evacuation of imports.

    I do not know any port anywhere in the world where goods are evacuated by trucks and lorries. That is the history of the tragedy of Apapa. Perhaps a functioning railway to the port would have made the difference. But what we have are the thousands of articulated trucks snaking through the roads of Lagos and trying to enter and come out of the Apapa Port to the discomfort of road users, residents of Apapa and the drivers of these trucks who live and sleep rough on the streets for weeks. When they finally exit what is effectively their prisons, they drive like escaped prisoners sometimes killing fellow road users. The story of the chaos is made worse by the presence of oil storage tanks in Apapa necessitating oil tankers coming into the port to lift oil to various depots in the country.

    In a normal country, the fuel being carried in fuel tankers would have been piped. But not in Nigeria. The pipes have been waylaid and broken into by petrol thieves who in spite of danger to themselves and the society continue their nefarious activities. If we were a sane country, our four refineries located in Warri, Port Harcourt and Kaduna would have been producing optimally and we would not have had to be importing petroleum products and there would have been no oil storage tanks and fuel tankers to lift oil to different parts of the country. The roads of Lagos would not have been the killing fields they are today.

    The result of this haphazard planning or no planning at all is incalculable. Lives have been ruined. Expensive properties have been damaged beyond repair. Vast areas of prime land have been polluted. A major quarter of Lagos has been ruined and made almost inhabitable. The economy of Nigeria has suffered and billions of revenue that could have been used to develop the country has been lost. The uneven development and concentration of all maritime activities in Lagos has led to massive migration of undesirable jobless people to Lagos thus swelling urban proletariat in Lagos and consequent increase in crime.

    What I find most amazing or distressing is the fact that the federal government that rakes in trillions of Naira from the activities in the port finds it difficult to spend just a fraction of it to keep the goose that lays the golden eggs alive. It is simply short-sightedness. When the issue of Apapa is being discussed in parliament, people will be asking why money needed for the port is not shared out on federal character basis, forgetting that without revenues there will be nothing to share. It is gratifying to note that the federal government is taking palliative effort to once again solve what has become a malignant problem. I wrote about this crazy situation in Apapa about five years ago and nothing has changed and yet a layman like me can proffer straightforward solutions both short term and long term solutions.

    First we must immediately close the port for a few weeks and ask competent companies to work day and night to fix the roads. When fixed, the roads must be continually maintained. The Nigerian Ports Authority must be made to allocate substantial amount of its revenues to the maintenance of the roads and ports facilities. On the alternative, the Apapa Port can be transferred to Lagos State to run and maintain and pay royalties to the federal government like New York in the USA. The long term solution is to immediately plan seven new ports in the aforementioned seven coastal states preferably in collaboration with foreign private interests. In this way, Lagos will be spared of the scourge of being overrun and overwhelmed by trucks and people from up country.

    Hopefully when Dangote completes his refinery, the tank farms in Apapa will be rendered redundant and will have to be closed down. The new Lagos – Kano railways should also begin at the port so that trains and not trucks will evacuate imports.

    One hopes we would have learnt a lesson from the tragedy of Apapa Port. The Lekki – Epe axis with the exclusive economic zone planned for the area, the new airport and ocean port and the Dangote refineries coming up there ought to call for serious thought about evacuation of goods from that axis so that we don’t repeat the Apapa tragedy a second time there. The time to make sure this does not happen is now!

    A fourth bridge across the lagoon terminating in Ikorodu to link up with Ikorodu – Shagamu Road is of absolute necessity or in the alternative, the Lekki- Epe express can be continued to Ijebu Ode from where vehicles going to Edo, Delta, Bayelsa and the eastern states can then proceed. The possibility of linking the Lekki – Epe axis with the national railway should also be a priority if we are to avoid the present Oshodi- Apapa nightmare. Until our illiterate legislators realize that Lagos is the linchpin of the economic development of Nigeria, they will continue to treat Lagos as if it were just another state subjecting it all the time to debate about allocating revenue on federal character basis while cleverly forgetting that Lagos contributes 90 percent of excise duties and the various taxes on manufacturing and services in Nigeria. Service deserves its rewards must be additional principle to the much ballyhooed federal character principle when the case of Lagos is being considered.

  • Character of Ekiti voters and leaders

    Chinua Achebe’s “Eneke the bird says that since men have learned to shoot without missing, he has learned to fly without perching (Things Fall Apart). It will appear Ekiti voters who decided to sell their votes during July 14 governorship elections have finally seen through the hollowness and hypocrisy of the same set of cynical leaders that have taken them for a ride these past 19 years. Voters behaviour during the election was evidence enough that those who opted to sell their votes did not see much difference between leaders who do not understand that democracy as a process is not just about self-righteousness but also requires some sense of humour, common touch and respect for the views of the governed, and those who fraudulently claim serving is a matter of life and death whether the people wanted them or not. If voters who sold their votes are prostitutes, how about the fair-weather leaders who do not seem to believe in anything?

    We can trace the collapse of our political socialization process to Babangida and Abacha’s 13 years of fraudulent transition programme that produced our current ‘new breed’ politicians that bred nothing but greed. Obasanjo’s eight years of failed ‘mainstreaming’ through which he destroyed all budding political parties finally ended a political socialization process that started back in the 1923 with the inauguration of Herbert Macaulay’s ‘People Democratic Party’, the first political party in Nigeria.

    Since the led look up to their leaders for direction, it can be argued that voters who behaved like prostitutes by opting to sell their votes to the highest bidders during the July 14 governorship election were only following the foot-steps of their   political leaders.

    Let us start with Ayo Fayose. He was rigged into power by Obasanjo’s PDP in 2003. Following his impeachment in 2006, he sought accommodation in the Labour Party under whose platform he contested for a senatorial seat which he lost to Babafemi Ojudu. He then briefly flirted with Action Congress party before ex-President Jonathan who was desperate to use Ekiti as a springboard for his 2015 doomed re-election bid, provided N4.7b, thousands of policemen, soldiers and other security personnel to rig sitting governor, Kayode Fayemi out of office in 2014. Today, besides a bridge over land, Fayose has little to show for his second coming. The return of an ill-equipped man who does not understand even the meaning of government seems to have been designed to prolong the nightmare of Ekiti people. While he owed workers about six months backlog of unpaid salary arrears, he was alleged to have wired miserable N4000 and N7000 respectively to civil servants and pensioners on the eve of the July 14 election.

    We also have Engineer Segun Oni who was in the progressive camp until Obasanjo used him to settle scores with Fayose, his estranged godson. Obasanjo rigged him to office in 2007. While on the stolen throne, the sing song of his men was “we are in government, they are in court”. And for those three years, Oni pitched towns against one another over the siting of a nebulous University of Education. Oni moved from recklessness to folly creating disorder among his people. He later returned to his natural habitat-the progressive fold where he quickly rose to the position of deputy national chairman, southwest.

    Ayo Arise was a successful businessman before joining politics. For him therefore, politics is business, Thus when he lost the AD governorship primary election in 2003 and again that of AC in 2007, he without hesitation crossed over to PDP controlled in the southwest by Obasanjo, Adedibu, Bode George and Tony Anenih. He went on to win a controversial senate seat under his new party which was nullified by an appeal court ion July 8, 2009 as a result of ‘flaws during the conduct of the election’. He later won in the re-run election.

    Again, following irreconcilable differences between him and Fayose, he ran back to APC. While Governor-elect Fayemi has denied vote-buying in his own constituency where he voted, Arise, as a chieftain of APC was on Channels Television last week saying “My people told me PDP had paid them some money.  What do you expect me to do?”

    Opeyemi Bamidele, a brilliant and talented politician was a leading light of AC and APC in Ekiti before some disagreement with his friend and political ally, Fayemi drove him to the Labour Party. He contested against Fayemi and Fayose in 2014 declaring “God sees my heart, the only reason I am involved in Ekiti politics is to serve and help the people; I do not have any reason to be desperate”.

    But from the pronouncements of his PDP backers from Abuja, it was obvious he was used as a spoiler to narrow the chances of Fayemi in 2014. In fact the first person Fayose thanked for making it possible for him to become a governor after his controversial victory over Fayemi was Bamidele. Today he is back as a chieftain of APC.

    Prince Adeyeye is a progressive who once served as the national publicity secretary of the pan-Yoruba socio-political group, Afenifere, and also served as the national publicity secretary of the Alliance for Democracy (AD).He left the progressive fold in December 2006 when he contested in the defunct Action Congress (AC) governorship primary won by Fayemi alleging the exercise was marred by irregularities. He dumped his progressive credentials and joined the PDP and was made State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB) chairman by former Governor Segun Oni before he was later appointed Minister of State for Works by former President Goodluck Jonathan. He also served as PDP national caretaker committee publicity secretary.

    However, following the loss of the governorship primary to Fayose’s preferred successor, Deputy Governor Kolapo Olusola, not too long ago, he went back to APC claiming opposition to Fayose’s “continuity of impunity, imposition, poverty and unprecedented looting of the people’s common patrimony.” He said he was ‘joining forces with other eminent Ekiti sons and daughters to free the state from the vulture and predator feeding fat on the state’s commonwealth.’

    Another APC catch on the eve of the July 14 governorship election was Fatimat Raji Rasaki, representing Ekiti Central Senatorial District. She is the wife of a former military governor of Lagos. Ekiti voters surely know Rasaki is one of Abuja senators smiling to their banks every month with a mouth-watering N13.5m besides her salary.

    It must be admitted Ekiti ‘new breed’ politicians are not different from their counterparts in nPDP or R-APC. Even Senate President Saraki who literally stole the senate presidency in 2015 now says moving back to PDP, a party he dumped in 2013, was informed by concerns for survival of democracy and the future of the country they have made ungovernable in the past three years and continue to impoverish through gluttonous consumption by their members.

    It is just as well that except for the nosy reporters and election monitors, none of the above Ekiti ‘new breed’ politicians is complaining. They cannot begrudge followers for following the foot-steps of their leaders.

     

  • Portrait of Nigeria’s youth as caged animals (2)

    Millennials” have a delusive edge to them; a supposed sense of worth and ardour for growth that defies convention. Digital broadcaster, DSTV/Multichoice, understands this “truth” hence it sinks its fangs into their minds, as the falcon does to stray rat.

    There is no one to protect this significant youth divide from the aggressive cues and wild decadence the broadcaster insinuates into their psyches. The fault is hardly with DSTV/Multichoice, however, but with Nigerian parents who leave the purveyor of filth to the task of raising their wards.

    The blame goes to a Nigerian leadership stymied in a swamp of freebies, like complimentary boxes of the broadcaster’s DSTV Explora, free satellite subscriptions, among others.

    The press, which ought to serve as Nigeria’s shield and last bastion of resistance to the South African broadcaster’s perverse programming, like Big Brother Naija (BBN), and other weird inclinations, is enslaved to its tokens.

    In pursuit of N45million and a brand new SUV, inmates of BBN’s amorality jailhouse shunned dignity, decorum and supposed good breeding, to engage in wanton sex, voyeurism, and tantrums.

    Like dogs and bitches in heat, they had sex in a public toilet, before a global audience. The depletion of condoms provided by the show’s organisers, by inmates, further emphasised the crooked bent of the show. They wanted inmates to have random sex without inhibitions or fear of venereal diseases.

    The scene prefigures the transition in Nigerian civilisation from high morality to decadence. The antics of youth in the debate about the BBN depravity, however, emphasised a throwback to primordial whim.

    One hyperactive youth responded to my critique of the show, stressing that it offers youth like him, limitless opportunity to ‘blow’ (become celebrities) and achieve their dreams. He cited the case of certain former inmates who attained instant fame at their exit from the BBN show.

    To that, I said: “Should terrorism be legalised and considered productive because perpetrators make a fortune by it?” The youth quipped in response: “Oga na English u dey speak.”

    Since Shekau and co attained eminence and cult-following via Boko Haram; and the terrorist sect’s commanders receive at least N500, 000 monthly stipend in hard currency, for provisions and ‘running costs,’ why not declare Boko Haram, a legitimate path to acclaim and self-actualisation?

    Going by pro-BBN argument on social media, we could also approve armed militancy in the Niger Delta, because Asari Dokubo made a fortune by it. Then we can go on to legitimise armed robbery, internet scams/advance fee fraud, public office corruption and organised prostitution etc. because some youths attain celebrity and wealth by towing these criminal paths.

    The obsession with DSTV/Multichoice’s BBN show thrives by the broadcaster’s smirking depravity and the sudden melting of inhibitions of its Nigerian public. It’s like the holocaust and apocalypse.

    Society stands at ground zero, incinerated by the South African invader, DSTV/Multichoice. The latter’s Nigerian staff play pimping pawns; they persistently solicit for secondary pawns comprising fame-junkies and fortune hunters, eager to live like caged animals or guinea pigs, in the broadcaster’s televised dross – for prize money.

    The shows’ participants simply cheat themselves of a learning experience; they circumvent slow, steady, educative path to acclaim, to self-intoxicate in BBN’s accidental celebrity. Unknown to them, the instant fame and opportunities in which they luxuriate are merely flash currents in the electric moment before lightning strikes, and they are reduced to rubble: celebs, glitter and all.

    A glance behind the glitter usually reveals something more than a colourful paradise. It invalidates the deceptions of fame and instant wealth. It is akin to what Saul Bellow likened to picking up a dangerous wire fatal to ordinary folk or rattlesnakes handled by hillbillies in a state of religious exaltation, in his novel, Humboldt’s Gift.

    Many who grasped these super-charged wires and serpents have been found to incandesce in acclaim for a little while, and then they wink out, which leads to a more profound suspicion of DSTV/Multichoice’s BBN celebrity culture.

    Winners and losers are goaded into a maenadic dance of death by the manipulative broadcaster and their puerile, fawning fans. Eventually, they incinerate in despair, to rigid definitions of their lives by the public and their handlers.

    The discerning among them eventually understand, that they weren’t really significant. Looking inwards, they will cringe from different labels they had been led to bear and answer to, like bitches and pups in a dog farm.

    There is no gainsaying DSTV/Multichoice’s BBN perversity unmoors its audience from reality, coaxing them into a world of magic. In the cowardly retreat, truth is reviled and ignored according to manipulations of a predetermined universe, where the search for truth and solutions to real life problems become irrelevant in the scheme of things.

    At the moment, the Nigerian youth is too intoxicated by filth and primordial sentiments to mind real issues that affect their world, and which may ruin their lives in the long run. Boko Haram’s abduction of 110 school girls in Dapchi, for instance, was negligible to them.

    The sad case of Hauwa Mohammed, the 25-year-old midwife and ICRC staff who got kidnapped by Boko Haram wasn’t worthy of their fury or obsession. Hauwa’s death cry, via Whatsapp didn’t incite their angst. It hasn’t provoked them to action.

    “Please go and tell my parents they don’t know the situation that their daughter is in now. For God’s sake, go and tell them…We are now in the barracks and the gunmen have come back again. Oh, Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi rajiun (We belong to Allah and to Him we shall return),” she cried.

    Hauwa still isn’t considered front-page material by a cowardly press, and her abduction doesn’t infuriate her spineless peer or spur them against the criminal leadership that renders several Hauwas easy marks to terrorists and other delinquents.

    They would rather fixate on peers bonking each other like he-goats and dogs in heat, in the BBN show.

  • Peace like a river in Ekiti

    The election in Ekiti has come and gone. Kayode Fayemi has been re-elected by the Ekiti electorate while his competitor, Olusola Eleka on the other side has been rejected. Both ran on the records of Fayemi and Fayose and the Ekiti people preferred the Fayemi record. We don’t have to go into details and comparisons again. That was done during the electioneering campaign. President J.F Kennedy after his victory over Richard Nixon and at his inauguration in January 1961 said the work of government was not done in one administration or even in a life time or in a generation.  But that work must begin to rebuild once again on what may have been achieved in the past and to mend what may have been damaged. One administration builds on the records and achievements of a previous administration. A new government  inherits whatever problems a previous one leaves behind. It is going to be obvious to Fayemi that he will have to find a way to pay half a year’s unpaid salaries, pensions and gratuities that have not been paid for a year.

    My worry is where will Fayemi find this humongous amount to pay to workers in Ekiti? There is no doubt that Ekiti is a poor state. It gets, along with Gombe, the smallest allocation from the federally collected and distributed revenue. It generates very little revenue internally. The internal revenue that increased under Fayemi fell precipitously under Fayose. Unless a way is quickly found to  increase internally generated revenue, or get the federal government to pay whatever it owes Ekit in terms of reimbursement for  repairs and reconstruction of federal government roads in the state, Fayemi will find it hard going.

    There is also a need for the federal government to repair and possibly dualise the Ado – Akure Road, Ado- Osogbo Road  through Okemesi- Imesi Ile  and Ado – Ilorin to link the state with neighboring states of Ondo, Osun and Kwara to increase the tempo of trade and economic activities in the state and in that part of the Southwest. This is the time for the federal government to assist Ekiti to get over its problems ahead of the coming 2019 elections.

    It is also likely that the coming Fayemi’s administration will usher in  increased private investment and interest in the state. With Fayemi’s penchant for serious planning and clinical diagnosis of matters of governance and economy, we will expect him to have a well reasoned blueprint to bring back Ekiti to economic and political health. This will also mean running an all-inclusive government of all factions of the APC and independents who can offer disinterested advice. Fayemi should also talk to the  Fayose people and let them know the election is over and what is needed is everybody’s commitment to stabilty peace and development which should be a non-partisan  issue. He should remind the Fayose people that in spite of his views  on the PDP shenanigans of 2014, he accepted  Fayose’s controversial victory.

    Of course Eleka has made the usual Nigerian post-election noise about rigging. This is to be expected. All politicians do the same thing. It is part of the ritual. But what Ekiti people are interested in right now is moving the state forward in economic development. Some of us have not been visiting Ekiti for a while because of the apparent instability in the place and the unruly behavior of political thugs and the  over excited politicians who seemed to have taken over the state and  were driven by more enthusiasm than wisdom in their demonstrations of irreverence and intolerance with people who disagreed with them.

    Fayose no doubt did his best but it is time to move on. The world is like a stage and everyone has its role. Whether for good or ill, Fayose has played his part and history will either be kind to him or not. We need a new and different paradigm moving forward. We must know the strength and weakness of our state. In terms of human capital, there is no state that can beat Ekiti. We must ensure that the state does not lose  its competitive edge in this regard. The next generation must be given the opportunity to prepare for the future by making sure that our educational institutions are well endowed to deliver in this regard. Fayemi as an old Christ’s School alumnus should ensure support for that school and other schools like it by  giving them the opportunity to become boarding schools like it used to be when we all went there and from there we developed not only our intellect but our character. To me character is everything. I hope the incoming government will also help Ekiti State University (EKSU) to be self-sustaining. Ekiti is a civil service state but must it remain so?

    The outgoing government was said to have sent employment letters to thousands of people as part of mobilization towards the last election. Of course, those letters would have to be disowned. What the new government should do is to encourage entrepreneurship in Ekiti by bringing the Bank of Industry ( BOI) to Ekiti in a big way to support small industries and enterprises in Ekiti. He should encourage retiring civil servants to go into business not by sitting  in Ado or any of the towns in Ekiti but by moving to Lagos and Abuja to hustle like everyone else.  Bill Gates in his well-publicized meeting with the Federal Executive Council correctly said the reason for our primitive and unproductive agriculture is because the banks don’t give credits to farmers. Fayemi should lead in this regard by putting seed money into a leading bank and asking that bank to lead the way in helping our farmers to contribute to the economy of the state.

    I have always worried why our intellectual power has not made any impact on our environment  and over all economic development in Ekiti. We should be making things rather than just teaching in the universities all over Nigeria and being civil servants waiting to become permanent secretaries with regular salaries while illiterate businessmen are making millions. I don’t want to be misunderstood. Teaching at any level of our educational institutions and being civil servants are important but those are not the only important things in life. A situation where for example, Ijebu Ode can raise more money than the whole of Ekiti is a challenge that we should rise up to meet.

    Of course I know we have the disadvantage of distance from the coast which historically has remained a centre of opportunity. But we must bridge this geographical gap. This is why we welcome the federal government’s promise of extending the new railway planned to link Ibadan with Kano having a spur to Ado- Ekiti. Ekiti is a cocoa-growing state and it produces some upland rice  and with enough encouragement, the state can grow the special rice that is much in demand  in the urban areas of our country and particularly in northern Nigeria. With encouragement we have enough granite that can provide resources for polished granite for the building industry. We have some minerals which are not tapped yet and we have  an agricultural economy that needs modernization.

    I remember an Israeli ambassador telling me some years ago that if Israel had as much land as Ekiti, it would be able to feed the whole of Africa. Since our people are not intellectually deficient, we should challenge ourselves to do something with our land. In these days of environmental and green movement, we should invest in promoting Ekiti as an environmental paradise  by encouraging green tourism.

    All these ideas will not materialize unless we have peace like we used to have. At a time, one could drive to anywhere in Ekiti at any hour of the day and night without being waylaid and robbed. Those days need to be brought back. Ekiti people may be poor but they were never thieves. We can rebuild Ekiti to the level of our vision if we are determined and ready to invest in the land of our birth and to ask ourselves what we can do for Ekiti and to be determined to leave the state better than what it was when were young.

    I bear testimony that John Kayode Fayemi  will make us proud and will provide the kind of leadership that will carry us in our journey of economic development which will be anchored on peace and stability in our state.