The Nation Newspaper

Category: Thursday

  • Omo-Agege as victim of high-handedness

    Delinquency, thuggery and criminality as well as self-help are metaphors for the 8th Senate. With last week’s invasion of the Senate chambers and carting away of the mace by those described as thugs and criminals allegedly sponsored by embattled Senator Ovie Omo-Agege, it was the case of those who sowed the wind reaping the whirl-wind. But this has not stopped the nation from being assailed with precipitate recriminations, denunciations and loud wailings especially by masters of political intrigues and veterans of self-help.

    Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu who finally found his voice after the hoodlums had accomplished their mission saw the assault as “an institutional infraction” while his soul mate, Bukola Saraki, the Senate President says “What happened was a disgrace.  To Aliyu Sabi-Abdullahi, chairman, Senate Committee on Media and Public Affairs, “The action is an act of treason.” Organised Labour on its part says the invasion was a “violation of the sanctity of the Senate”. For Femi Gbajabiamila, it was “an indication the lawmakers are a sitting duck”. And while the opposition PDP saw it as “a direct assault on the legislature”, the ruling APC saw “the invasion as an attack on democracy.” Unfortunately, the fire, fury and the wailings have in the main focused on symptoms instead of the fundamental problem of a culture of self-help, impunity and delinquency which define the 8th Senate.

    Again, it is worth repeating how waywardness of the current leadership of the Senate got us to this sorry pass.  In 2015, APC as a party duly met and conducted a straw poll and clear candidates emerged. Dissatisfied, Saraki after trading off the position of deputy senate president to the opposition outwitted his fellow 51 APC senators holding a meeting with the president in another venue and sneaked into the chambers to be pronounced senate president by acclamation after a motion by Senator Dino Melaye supported by predominantly PDP opposition senators. Prof. Itse Sagay had then described the act of treachery which propelled Saraki to power as “an act of illegality and criminality, because there is no way a Senate can be formally inaugurated without all the members present –provided they want to be present”. For him, Saraki’s perfidy was nothing but an attempted coup”.

    To consolidate the position, Senate Standing Rules were allegedly forged, a claim confirmed by the police interim report. Based on the report, Saraki’s aggrieved and outwitted colleagues dragged him and his deputy, Ekweremadu, to court. The Senate leadership quickly resorted to self-help by passing a resolution to the effect that there was no forgery. Since, courts cannot question how the Senate runs its internal affairs, the protesting senators lost out.

    Saraki, Melaye and their group celebrated their victory at the Senate executive session of July 12, 2016. It was there Senator Dino Melaye gave an order that “because already there is a resolution of the Senate that the rules of the Senate were not forged, all those who have gone to court should go and withdraw their names from court and that if at the end of the day those who refused to withdraw their names from court, we should penalise them by suspending them”.

    And if further evidence that the Senate resorted to self-help to pervert justice is needed,  the statement issued by Lagos State senators to denounce Dino Melaye’s harassment and intimidation of Senator Remi Tinubu provided just that. According to the statement, “As distinguished members of the Red Chamber, we are strongly in favour of resolving any conflict that has arisen in the course of our representation and national duty through dialogue and due process and we will not be part of any solution obtained through any form of coercion, threat, intimidation and ungentlemanly conduct of the distinguished office of a senator.”

    Unfortunately, little has changed in the way the senate is run three years down the line.

    It can also now be argued that Saraki probably deployed self-help tactics to mollify some of the protesting APC senators. The salaries of senators have been shrouded in secrecy until a few weeks back, when ‘saint’ Senator Shehu Sani told the nation that in addition to senators’ N700, 000 official monthly salary, senators also collect N13.5m monthly which they are free to spend as they like as long as they are retired with receipts. This he said was in addition to the N200m constituency project budget senators preside over. I cannot think of a more plausible explanation as to why APC senators who once pretended to be on the side of the people would choose to drown with the Senate leadership even as they got embroiled in more scandals.

    For instance, on March 18, 2017, Sahara Reporters had with a howling headline reported “Senate on Vengeance after Nigerian Customs Seized Senator Saraki’s Bulletproof Range Rover over Fake Documents”. The story was that the customs “ had on January 11, 2017, intercepted and impounded a Range Rover SUV which carried documents that claimed its chassis number was “SALGV3TF3EA190243”, valued  at  N298 million, with an alleged fake documents presented by the driver showing payment of N8m as against expected customs duty of N74 million. The Senate quickly resorted to self-help. The Senate, after adopting a motion raised by Senator Dino Melaye against Hameed Ali, the Comptroller General of Customs, was ordered to appear in the upper house. Dino Melaye insisted he must appear wearing Customs-General uniform despite Femi Falana’s argument that “Neither the constitution not the Rules of Procedure of the Senate has conferred on it the power to compel the CGC to wear customs uniform when he is not a serving customs officer.” The Senate at the end became a judge in its own case with its internal probe exonerating the Senate President while putting the blame squarely on the importer of the car.

    Finally, we can mention a few other instances when the Senate resorted to self-help to pervert the course of justice. Following newspapers’ investigations that showed some serving senators including the Senate President who were once governors were earning double salaries, the Senate through an internal probe came out to inform the public that the governor-turned senators were receiving pensions and not salaries.

    When Minister Raji Fashola in 2017 decried lawmakers’ diversion of budgetary allocations from critical projects designed to benefit the people to their controversial constituency projects, he was summoned and browbeaten while the then Acting President Osinbajo who was critical of the lawmakers action was threatened with impeachment.

    In the Sahara Reporters claim that Senator Melaye was dressing himself in borrowed robes by claiming to be alumni of some prestigious institutions around the world, instead of allowing an independent body to examine the online newspaper claim, they once again resorted to self-help by setting up an internal probe which confirmed that Dino Melaye indeed earned a third class degree certificate in Geography from ABU, Zaria.

    Omo-Agege has not denied he belongs to the Buhari Support Group. It was perhaps for this reason he alleged that because “only 36 of 360 members of the House of Representatives adopted the report on the amendment to the Electoral Act while the Senate did not form a quorum the day it passed the bill”, the whole exercise was aimed at undermining Buhari’s chances in 2019.

    Even after he had been forced to apologise for his comments, Dino Melaye the Senate ‘enforcer’ still went ahead to move a motion for his suspension for 181 days. And Saraki,  claiming to be concerned about the preservation of the integrity of the Senate  as an institution, approved Melaye’s motion but reduced the suspension to 90 legislative days’ subject to his withdrawing his case against the Senate in court.

    Even the rebellious Jews in response to Jesus Christ’s “let him without sin throw the first stone” John (8:7) simply melted away. Senator Saraki and Senator Dino Melaye seem to think Nigerians cannot see through their perfidy.

  • Reminiscences about Christ’s School Ado-Ekiti

    I was in Christ’s School Ado-Ekiti between 1956 and 1960 as a teenage boy. I had the greatest time of my life in this school. The school is a sectarian school belonging to the Anglican Communion. When I was there, the entire population of the school was about 250 students from form one to five. We sat for our Ordinary Level certificate of the University of Cambridge Overseas Examination Board at the end of the fifth year.

    There were 50 students per form and each form was divided into two classes of 25 each. Each class was small enough for all the students to know each another and for the teachers to know each of us by our first names. We had good teachers and dedicated teachers. Of course we did not have as many graduate teachers as in the various government colleges. But our teachers and students were determined to do well.

    The secret of the success of the school lay in the leadership of our principal the Reverend Cannon Leslie Donald Mason, an English gentleman and a devoted missionary who gave his life to serve others. He embraced the “in loco parentis” concept of standing as a parent for all of us while we were in school. He was not only a teacher, administrator, cleric, doctor and nurse; he was also a strict disciplinarian. He actually moulded our character. He ran the school as a typical British public school on the model of Harrow, Eton or Winchester. This included waking up early in the morning at 6am to pray before going out to do physical jobs such as cutting the lawns and taking care of the gardens generally .

    Praying was very important in the life of the school. We prayed at 6am in our various dormitories after which we cut grasses and kept our lawns green and tidied up our various dormitories before going to the cafeteria at 7.30am. We prayed before and after each meal.  Then we would go to the chapel for congregational service between 8.30 and 9am conducted by the school principal. Then we would march to the classrooms accompanied by the school bands.

    The academic activities began immediately and lasted till about 12.30pm when we would have a short break till 1pm. Academic activities would then resume until 2pm when we would go for lunch. After lunch then we would go to our different dormitories for siesta of one hour. We had four dormitories named Harding, Dallimore, Bishop (Mason), and Babanboni houses named after Anglican missionaries who opened the Ekiti area to Christian proselytisation in the past.

    Our siesta lasted for one hour and by 3.30 pm we were up and headed for personal studies and games which then ended at 6pm and by 6.30pm we went for dinner which ended at 7pm and we would go for evening studies affectionately called “Prep” till 9pm. Then we would end the day at the chapel before going to bed. “Lights out” was at 9.30 pm.

    This routine was repeated every day of the week with the exception of Saturday and Sunday. Saturday was generally for cleaning of our dormitories and our surroundings and for games. We were allowed to go out of the campus for about five hours once in a month if we wanted to go out. Those who had nowhere to go stayed and played on campus. On Sunday, we would worship in our chapel in the morning and evening. Our uniform during the week was white shirt over blue shorts. On Saturdays, we wore khaki shirts over khaki shorts. On Sundays, we wore white shirts over white shorts while the senior boys in form five wore white trousers.

    The senior boys ruled the schools like army captains over their recruits. Prefects were appointed from the senior form and a head boy was on top of the prefectorial hierarchy. Secondly, seniority started from form two upwards and if you were one year ahead  of any other student, you wielded considerable power over those one year below you. There was fagging and bullying of junior students and everybody looked forward to when they too will be seniors. We dared not call our seniors by name even if you were older and you came from the same primary school or home. We had to prefix their names by “senior”.

    We celebrated academic excellence and we followed the example of old students who did well after school and we tried to follow what they did. This made our students to do very well in our final year examinations. But whatever we did was anchored on discipline. Punishment was sure and swift for any infraction of school regulations. We had three types of punishment. The lesser one was what was called “school imposition” which was for minor offenses. There was “Yoruba imposition” for anybody who spoke Yoruba on the campus. This banning of Yoruba language was to enforce the mastery of the English language. Finally there was what was called “school detention” which was reserved for serious offenses such as stealing or fighting or cheating. Any student who got into school detention three times could be expelled. Expulsion was very rare in the school.

    Apart from academic activities, the school also encouraged students to participate in farming, carpentry and bricklaying. A few students were involved in running the generating plant that provided the school electricity because Ado-Ekiti in those days did not have municipal potable water and electricity. Students also ran the school health centre after rudimentary training by experts and the school principal. On the whole, no one could pass through the school and not be prepared for the outside world. This was a great thing for teenagers exiting the school after five years. Some left the school into life of work as teachers and as clerks in government and commercial organizations. Many left and through self-help of going to Advanced Level schools, found their ways into the universities at home and abroad and made something of their lives as doctors and secondary school teachers and university professors and civil servants.

    There was no guidance and counselling about what young people could do after school. Until recently, very few Christ’s school old students became engineers, lawyers, surveyors, architects, pharmacists, insurers or estate managers. We did not know much about professional courses. Those who became doctors were by chance and this is why there are many old boys who are professors across Nigerian universities after their doctorate degrees in various academic areas. This is because all they wanted to be was become physicists, chemists, zoologists, botanists, mathematicians, historians, economists, geographers and so on. Unfortunately, this is responsible for the dearth of entrepreneurs in Ekiti.  The role of this school in Ekiti State, southwestern Nigeria and Nigeria has been phenomenal and there are few schools that have made this kind of impression that Christ’s school has made in Nigeria.

  • Oyegun’s tenure and APC’s future

    ALL Progressives Congress (APC) Chairman John Odigie-Oyegun’s political future is hanging in the balance, with the President leaving no one in doubt that he will not back any attempt to elongate the tenure of the National Working Committee (NWC).

    Poor Oyegun. He is set to quit a job he has done with so much passion and in strange ways that have kept people asking if he thought it was a long beach carnival that would never end. Even if he thought so, he must have realised now that that reasoning has no basis. The party is getting set for a convention to elect new officials who will run its affairs. And the road show will come to a screeching stop. History will then take over to deliver its verdict on his role in how a party that came with so much promise almost slipped off the track as discipline broke down and its leaders began to carve out fiefdoms for themselves.

    The dream of an elongated tenure collapsed when President Muhammadu Buhari made it clear that he would not advise the party to do anything illegal. He said: “I think if we deviate from constitutional provisions, we might be endangering the fortunes of our party. If the tenure of our party executives can be legally faulted, then, it means that any nomination and primary election that they may conduct can also be faulted.”

    Despite the dictates of the party’s constitution, Oyegun, buoyed by a group of party chiefs with poor vision, was ready to cling on to his job until the President weighed in on the side of the law.

    There are challenges in the APC, a party built on the finest principles of progressive democracy, rule of law and welfarism.  It got overwhelmed by the very circumstances of its birth, being a child of many parents with various orientations and  principles. The party is not as cohesive as it used to be. Most of the state chapters are troubled. Besides, some of its leading lights, blinded by sheer ambition, are insincere. These are some of the factors that have corraded its ability to run the government in a way that should have earned it a standing ovation from Nigerians who invested so much hope in it.

    But, how did it get to this stage? Let’s begin from the beginning. Immersed in the euphoria of its victory at the poll, the party forgot that it needed a solid base in the legislature to face the challenges of governance. It paid little attention to the election of officers at the National Assembly. The unforced error that culminated in the emergence of Ike Ekweremadu as Deputy Senate President  has haunted the party to date. The question many were asking when the fatal mistake was made is, where is the party’s leadership?

    The Oyegun team was asleep. By the time it woke up, the curtain had been drawn on who got what at the National Assembly. The party that set the dinner table was scrambling for crumbs. If the party’s role in the Assembly debacle could be explained away as mere intrigues of politics and power game, not so that of the Kogi governorship election.

    The APC was heading for victory in the election with the late Abubakar Audu as its candidate. All was well. Until the eve of the announcement of the winner. Audu died. The end? Not quite. The announcement could have been made and Audu’s running mate, Hon. James Abiodun  Faleke, should have been asked to step forward for the prize. Oyegun did not think so.

    Goaded on by external forces -some spoke of personal considerations – Oyegun drafted in an outsider, a man who had worked for the opposition after being bitter that he lost the party’s ticket, to step onto the podium and be handed the trophy. Enter Yahaya Bello, Governor of Kogi State.

    Today, Kogi residents are celebrating as if it is Christmas that they have Bello as their governor. He rules with a rod of iron. He would not brood any voice of dissent. He has been kept busy by the factionalisation of the party and the antics of Senator Dino Melaye, who has taken his case against the governor to the marketplace, composing songs on video to scorn His Excellency. Monarchs are warned to toe the government’s line or risk removal. When civil servants complained that they were being owed salaries, Bello knocked the bottom out of their case by taking huge spaces in a newspaper to publish periodically the list of those who got paid.

    Now, Kogi residents and its leading lights are asking: “How did we get this lucky?”

    Back to Oyegun. The President, in an attempt to unite the party ahead of the 2019 elections, appointed Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu to lead its reconciliation battle. The astute politician set his hand to the plough. He soon realised that there was a stumbling block – the leadership of the party was pulling back the hand of the clock. Tinubu wrote to Oyegun, asking him to unclog  the peace train. He would not budge, even after writing that he would back the peace moves.

    There is no doubt that Oyegun’s successor has a Herculean task ahead of him. The party is buffeted by internal crises in many states. There are battles of ego and clashes of personal interests. In Kano, Governor Abdullahi Ganduje and his predecessor, Senator Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, are at each other’s throat. Bauchi State Governor Mohammed Abubakar and House of Representatives Speaker Yakubu Dogara are no friends. The three senators from the state are also not in good terms with the governor.

    In Katsina, Governor Aminu Masari is battling a group of party chiefs who have disagreed with him. Ondo State Governor Rotimi Akeredolu and Senator Ajayi  Boroffice would not sit together. Kaduna State Governor  Nasir El-Rufai is locked in a clash of principle -and egoism –  with Senator Shehu Sani and Senator Suleiman Hunkuyi. When a faction of the party, led by Hunkuyi, set up an office, the governor sent in the bulldozer to level it.

    Instead of defending the party’s integrity and ensuring a sound future for it, the leadership has been engrossed in an egomaniacal voyage to nowhere. Those interested in its health believe that a surgical operation will not do the job, but a complete organ replacement will – ahead of the 2019 elections.

    Will Oyegun contest for his job at the May 14 convention? That is neither here nor there. His home-state Edo is backing former Governor Adams Oshiomhole. Others in the Southsouth do not seem to agree that the former labour leader should get the job.

    But 17 governors- the party has 24 – have told the President that their money is on Oshiomhole. It will be futile for Oyegun to soldier on. The show has ended. It’s time to go home.

     

    A song for Dino Melaye

    WHEN it rains, it pours. Senator Dino Melaye has been in and out of trouble recently. He is in court fighting to fend off an attempt by his constituents to recall him. The police charged him with giving false information after he claimed that assassins were after him. Then, the police arrested some suspects who said the senator armed them with guns – and cash. Ever since, it has been a kind of hide and seek between the law and the lawmaker.

    The matter took a new twist on Monday when Melaye was stopped at the Abuja Airport from travelling to Morocco. He created a scene. Immigration officials said they had instructions to stop him.

    dino melaye
    Melaye

    From the airport, the show moved to Melaye’s home. The police laid a siege to the place. Then, some Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) bearing placards stormed the scene, demanding that the siege be lifted. Hours later, Melaye turned himself in to the police. He was hustled into a police vehicle to be driven to Kogi State. Melaye kicked.

    As the story goes, the senator jumped out of the vehicle – in a desperate attempt to stall the Kogi State trip – which was forced to stop by a group of thugs. He was injured and taken to a hospital.

    The Senate leadership was at the hospital to see Melaye yesterday. He is said to be doing well. Good. One hopes the Melaye matter will soon be settled. Even buffoonery in high places, such as the Senate, has its intrinsic value. Melaye has been posting on the social media videos of his clownish thoughts and actions.

    Another video, I am told, was due just before the incident that has kept him bedridden. Now, his fans are unhappy that they have been deprived of the opportunity of seeing his new video. I have learnt of their plan to hire a lawyer who will file a case to enforce their fundamental human rights.

    And now a song for the senator: “Kangun kangun kangun, a kangun sibi kan o… kangun kangun kangun a kangun sibi kan.”  (No matter how long the ding-dong, it will end somewhere).

     

     

  • Men, like blood clots

    Simple lusts become the Nigerian woe. Yet nobody speaks our gestured woes. Those congealed like blood clots; those heightened in transit, as we wander the corridors of our rusted ghetto-shacks. Apology to Brutus. But there is wildness yet undisclosed by his “unarticulated simple lust.”

    Were he Nigerian, he would know better. He would know for instance, why our lives eclipse like tadpoles buried in a mud pile by the uncompassionate ghetto child. He would understand why through hunger pangs, our glands water for carcasses we make to rot in our slug-fields.

    It is few months from 2019; and as the election year draws nearer, our hope burns like the proverbial wicker shorn of oil and the thread that lights.

    Of the prospective candidates, whose ventricles echo our heartbeats? Whose antecedents incites the passing tribute of a sigh?

    To what do they owe our reverence of them? By their citizenship, do they furnish pathways to empower disillusioned, jobless youths of Umukegwu, Akokwa, Urualla, Borno, Apongbon, Idumota, Agege, Agbor, Sango Ota, Sankwala, to mention a few?

    Do they teach the youth particularly, to evolve beyond the greed, selfishness and idiosyncrasies of their generation?

    Do they teach us to change realities we cannot accept, like our penchant to turn foster predatory politics?

    Do they teach us that at the end, we get to choose what to make of our lives and our world?

    The answer resonates in their utterances and deeds.

    Transcendent moments and heroism are deeds of an exalted intelligence. Do these candidates possess such lofty acumen?

    Despite our protests and dissatisfaction with the status quo, do the Nigerian citizenry project strength of character and intelligence – prime requirements in the constitution of a progressive race?

    Predictably, digital and traditional media are agog with bitter scuffles among supporters of the presidential candidates. The blind jostles with the blind to be led by the one-eyed. Quite sad.

    Our lives as electorate illustrates a fable. Our lust to be misled and dominated is not of latent strength but disintegration. It reveals the weakness and shallowness of the Nigerian electorate’s awfully preadolescent mind. Such mind is inherently incapable of identifying leaders worthy of being called gods of unconditional love and compassion. All we are capable of are gods of impoverishment and gods of war.

    Of the candidates, I see men enslaved to power and god complex. I see voyagers hampered by baggage from a present and past that would forever haunt them. Even the ‘new kid on the block’ comes forged in the shape of a minnow by sentimental ogres. How would he prove he’s a titan?

    While his handlers paint a ravishing portrait of him, critics dismiss him as yet another genome of leadership, dastardly and base like the Casanova lost in the folds of the bearded meat.

    At the moment, none of the candidates excite passion and hope, save dangerous fits characteristic of their pawns and puppets on the social media. At the moment, no candidate is worthy of our votes; will we eventually settle for a Hobson’s choice? As usual.

    It’s about time we identified the contender jostling to handle our heartfelt yearnings like a tuberous burden. The one who would cradle our dreams like eggs hatched by a tired fowl in the throes of twilight.

    The candidates say too little about the issues that embitter you and I. They are yet to tackle convincingly, fundamental issues they would eventually grapple as President.

    Irrational brick bats, unbelievable platitudes and senseless bloodshed have shaped our politics for too long. Many Nigerians are probably living through one of the worst decade of their lives. They read of bloody genocides at dawn, poverty and strife in the next city – many more live through such. And as usual, an economy patched with foreign loans, exaggerated growth and duplicity.

    It took a perfect gathering of bad leadership to get to this moment. It would take an imperfect cannonball of a man to brave through it and survive it. Sadly, none of the candidates are wrought of such fibre. None.

    What we should be interested in is a president-elect capable of fostering education that would provide the skilled force Nigeria needs to power her industry. We have no need of a big and egocentric President in hard times; what we need is a humble man of great depths.

    A President capable of knowing that he would forever be indebted to Nigeria, for the opportunity to serve Nigeria. We need one now that today is spitting out monsters and tomorrow portends the birth of a thousand trolls.

    We had believed too much in past Presidents of touted ‘meekness and honour,’ ‘Spartan discipline and incorruptibility’ but they mutated, like their predecessors, into egomaniacs enslaved to incoherent sinful lusts. Nepotism, incompetency, hubris and god complex has been the bane of our leadership for too long.

    We are done believing in the dignified duplicity of treacherous men. We need a President that would man up. One who wouldn’t keep blaming predecessors for his incompetence. We need a President who acknowledges that today, everything is broken – and that the very system that produced him needs to be fixed in a way that wouldn’t make deity of him and sacrificial lambs of the Nigerian people.

    We need a President capable of speaking gently and intelligently too. A President who listens. Nigeria deserves a man who internalises the grief of our people in order to end them.

    We may identify such a leader by his antecedents and present conduct. We could organise debates where no candidate has dibs on location, panel of moderators, questions and issue selection. We could blacklist the candidate who backs out.

    Let us seek the candidate who would become the blank screen, on which Nigerians of vastly different stripes may rally and project their idiosyncrasies and wants. And he wouldn’t lose his head. We have no need of disdainful, tactless men.

  • Can Nigeria afford our current presidential system?

    For the benefit of younger Nigerians, it is important to state that we used to have a parliamentary system of government in which both  key functionaries of the executive and  the legislative branches of government worked through the parliament. Ministers were chosen from the ranks of elected members. They were political leaders on their own whose opinions the premier and leader of the House had to take cognizance of. Each minister was in the House to argue and shepherd his bills through parliament until they became laws. The minister of finance was a very important cabinet position and in some cases was regarded as possible successor to the premiership or prime ministerial position because the success or failure of a government depended on how the economy was run. There was collective responsibility and the premier could reshuffle his cabinet any time in case a minister was not performing well or had lost popular support. Such a minister would be shunted to another less important ministry and will be made the ‘fall guy’ for a policy that was commonly agreed to by the party . In this way, government gave the appearance at least of having a listening ear to the electorate. Parliamentary debate was important and an inarticulate minister or premier or prime minister stood no chance of success. This system of government demanded reasonable amount of knowledge and level of education from participating parliamentarians. This system was built on strong political parties with well organized leadership architecture that prepared manifestos on which political parties contested elections.

    Such was the case by which the Obafemi Awolowo party by all acclamation ran the government of Western Nigeria successfully between 1951 and 1959.

    The system provided for a recognized opposition whose leader was recognized by the constitution and tradition. The opposition leader was recognized and provided for with official quarters and ministerial salary. A government falls if it loses a vote of confidence in parliament. Because of the importance of parliamentary debates, parliamentarians who could debate well were favoured with cabinet positions. It was during one fierce exchange between Alhaji Adegoke Adelabu, leader of the opposition and the premier of Western Nigeria, Chief Obafemi Awolowo sometimes in 1956 that Adelabu accused the government of making a “peculiar mess” of a certain situation which on hearing this, his excited illiterate supporters in the gallery shouted “penkelemesi”. This stuck to Adelabu for the rest of his life and became an appellation which industrious Yoruba talking drums artists made popular as “Adelabu penkelemesi”. At the centre in Lagos, Chief Ladoke Akintola made mincemeat of the government through his mastery of the English language as a lawyer and former editor of a major national paper the Daily Service.

    Parliamentary democracy is efficient, cheap and swift unlike the much more expensive, clumsy and slow presidential system with its parallel bureaucracy distinct from the normal civil service. In our experience in Nigeria where it takes forever for annual budgets to be passed, budgets in parliamentary system is a matter of weeks not months so that the real work of government can commence in earnest. There is no clear separation of powers between the legislative and the executive as in the presidential system and the principle of collective responsibility makes for solid work before policies are tabled in parliament unlike what we see in Nigeria where the right hand does not know what the left hand is doing. The bevy of legislative assistants makes the current system not only expensive but also makes confidentiality difficult to enforce.

    In the First Republic, the legislature was run on part time basis. Every member at regional and federal levels had their full time jobs as teachers, lawyers or business women and men. They were paid sitting allowances when parliament met. The same was true of local government areas some of which are now states.  But what do we have today?

    We are now told that the cost of maintaining a senator per day is one million naira which includes constituency allowances of N200 million a year, monthly running cost of N13.5 million, salaries of N750,000 a month and sundry allowances for housing, cars, clothing, newspapers, touring, hardship etc. We probably have the most expensive governance architecture in the whole world. What operates at bicameral legislature at the federal levels also operates at the unicameral legislatures at the state and local government administrations. With bloated bureaucracies at federal, state and local government administrations, these add up to make operating cost of government to consume close to 80 percent at the federal level and more than that at state levels and in most cases 100 percent at the 774 LGAs which were created without rhyme or reason but on the basis of vested interests of the military leadership who imposed this untenable system on the country.

    The result of all this is that there is neither development nor growth in Nigeria and the economy. There are also no well-articulated policies on infrastructure, education, health and the unsustainable growth of the country’s population which is becoming a time bomb now and in the nearest future. There is a virtual collapse of the roads network in Nigeria. Roads that were once motorable even when we did not have oil have become death traps. The railroad is still waiting for completion in spite of the daily promises we are subjected to, “hospitals are mere consulting clinics”. Public primary and secondary schools have been abandoned to the poor while the elite send their children to private primary and secondary schools. The same is true of the strikes-plagued tertiary institutions which the elite are now boycotting in favour of schools abroad and in other African countries in west, east and southern Africa. The power situation remains the same and yet everyone knows Nigeria will never develop until we fix the power problem. The GDP of this country will quadruple the day we are able to fix the power situation. In Nigeria we have given up on urban water supply. My house built in Ibadan over 20 years ago has never had water except from my dugout well at the back of the house. Regular water and electricity are things we fast and pray for in Nigeria. Yet we set up governance infrastructure on the same level and on a level much more expensive than in the United States. Something has to give.

    The signs of things to come can be seen in the wanton killings of people particularly in the north-central part of Nigeria by the so-called herdsmen, cattle rustlers and the inevitable militia gangs protecting their people. These are the issues our leaders should be tackling and not who becomes one elected office holder or the other because at the end of the day, the spreading violence may make the state disappear as in Somalia, Libya, Central Africa Republic, Guinea-Bissau and previously in Sierra Leone and Liberia . When that happens, there may be no state or people to govern. The time to prevent this eventuality is now and not in the future.

  • Price of ignoring public opinion

    In democracy as in dictatorship, public opinion is everything. And   because government is built around people’s sentiments, leaders can only ignore public opinion at their own peril. As Abraham Lincoln, the 16th American president, credited with an extraordinary gift of interpreting the sentiments of the people without display of emotions puts it: “Whoever can change public opinion can change the government”. We don’t need to look further for evidence beyond the tragic end and baleful legacies of Nigeria successive leaders who first rode on the sentiments of the people to power but came to grieve when they chose to ignore public opinion in preference to their blurred vision of society between the end of our civil war in 1970 and 2015 when a serving government that boasted to rule for 60 years was voted out of power.

    General Yakubu Gowon, hero of the civil war and author of “no victor no vanquished” lost out when he succumbed to pressure of some of his federal commissioners to insist 1976, the year widely accepted by Nigerians as the handover date by the military, was no more realistic. He was marooned in Britain where as a former Head of State, joined fresh undergraduates to queue for food.

    Buhari, anti-imperialist, anti-corruption crusader and the author of “Nigerians have no other country than Nigeria”, quickly became the conscience of the nation following Shagari and Akinloye NPN’s profligate years (1979-1984). He ended up in prison when he ignored the sentiments of Nigerians and went ahead to kill drug offenders under a retroactive decree and jailed Tunde Thompson and Nduka Irabor both of The Guardian under his junta’s obnoxious Decree Four which prescribed jail terms for journalists who publish the truth if such truth embarrasses government officials who are mere servants of the people.

    Ibrahim Babangida who exploited the groundswell of unfavourable public opinion against Buhari to topple his government in 1985, took Nigeria to Organisation of Islamic countries (OIC) in 1986 despite the sentiments of Nigerians as to the secularity status of their country and the fact that Christianity and Islam, the two dominant Abrahamic religions are among many other religions in Nigeria.  From them on, Babangida the ‘maradona’ of Nigeria politics who acquired scores of honorary degrees and as many chieftaincy titles across the country, moved from disaster to disaster.  He ignored Nigerians’ anti-World Bank/IMF sentiments and with the support of Kalu Idika Kalu, his Minister of Finance and Olu Falae, his Secretary to the Government of the Federation, foisted the IMF-inspired Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) on Nigeria. Inflation immediately went up from about 5.4% to about 54%; foreign exchange rate nose-dived from about N1 to $1 to about N6 to $1. And with the collapse of all our budding industries, the nation became a dumping ground for all manners of goods from ceramics, furniture to food items. Our country became net importer of labour of other societies, marking the beginning of today’s massive unemployment of our youths.

    And still giddy with power, Babangida, the ‘evil genius’ discountenanced the vote of 14m Nigerians and annulled the result of the most credible election ever conducted in our country’s history. With the support of Obasanjo who said MKO Abiola, the president-elect was not the messiah Nigerians were waiting for, Babangida foisted an illegal contraption called Interim National Government headed by Ernest Shonekan on Nigeria. Babangida was later humiliated out of office with the help of Nigerian public opinion moulders, civil society groups and the press. The response of Abacha, his comrade in arms and crime who succeeded him to unfavourable public opinion was assassination of critics. Abacha, the terror of Nigerians, also came to a miserable and tragic end after allegedly eating some apples procured by some Indian prostitutes.

    He was followed by Abdulsalami Abubakar, who kept faith with Nigerians by implementing a transition programme which Babangida could not implement in eight years in one year. It is instructive that he remains the only Nigerian past leader with his honour intact.

    Obasanjo, following his election in 1999 made it clear he was not obliged to listen to his advisers let alone be swayed by public sentiments. Obasanjo who suffers from messianic complex admitted influencing the emergence of Shagari in 1979, Yar’Adua in 2007 and an ill-prepared Jonathan in 2011 as presidents. Insisting he knows what Nigerians want without asking them, he is currently grooming what someone has described as a “coalition of disgruntled politicians”  to take over power from Buhari whom he had accused of incompetence and failure  for failing to clear the mess he, Babangida and their ‘new breed’ politicians created between 1985 and 2015.

    President Buhari who has unfortunately refused to learn from his past mistakes or those of others is today haunted by his perceived disdain for public opinion.

    For instance, it is only he and he alone  who can explain why he has chosen to shoot himself in the leg by refusing to label herdsmen killers  a terrorist group even after Governor Nasir El Rufai of Kaduna State  has disclosed the  killer group is made up of diaspora Fulani herdsmen and even when from the president’s pronouncement in London last week, he is convinced the killers are remnants of Gadhafi’ armed gangs let loose on sub-Sahara Africa following dictator’s death, and long after the international security watch has proclaimed the killers ‘the fourth most dreaded terrorist group in the world’.

    It is the president alone who can justify retaining in his cabinet a defence minister who by his public utterances is considered  by victims of mindless killings in the middle belt region of Benue, Plateau, Taraba and Nazarawa whose votes will be critical to the president’s re-election bid in 2019. It is the president alone that can explain why he has been trying to validate the sentiments of  those that have accused him of selective anti-corruption war  by authorizing the recall of Professor Usman Yusuf, the embattled National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) boss who is facing EFCC investigation over alleged N919m fraud, from suspension  and for retaining Abubakar Malami as Attorney General and Minister of Justice after his failed attempt to re-instate Abdulrasheed Maina, chairman of the defunct Presidential Task Team on Pension reforms, a fugitive offender earlier indicted by a house probe and who was facing EFCC alleged fraud charges back into the civil service through the back door.

    If there is any threat to Buhari’s 2019 re-election bid, such will not be coming from discredited  PDP whose only strategy for now seem to be exploitation of Buhari’s failings without a genuine attempt at rebuilding their battered image. It will also not be coming from ex-President Obasanjo and his coalition of ‘disgruntled politicians” many of whom have been found to be men with feet of clay.

    If you ask me, I will say what President Buhari who has been busy in the past  week trying to build support for his 2019 re-election bid in faraway Great Britain, needs most is changing the unfavourable perception and sentiments of Nigerians whose expectations he has not met these past three years and whose opinions he has continued to ignore. “Public sentiments”, as Abraham Lincoln once warned “is everything. With it nothing can fail. Against it nothing can succeed. Whoever moulds public sentiments goes deeper than he who enacts statutes or pronounces judicial decisions”.

  • Encounter with a Nigerian immigrant

    HE looks well fed, hale and hearty. Dressed in a pair of blue jeans trousers, a yellow T-shirt and a fine leather jacket, he is quite different from many of those hanging out at a public park nearby and smoking like a chimney- apparently in a desperate attempt to ward off the cold tearing at their dark faces.

    He has some shopping bags in both hands. Beside him is a young white woman. We enter a shop and there he is right behind us. “Hallo, hallo! Where are you guys from?” he asks and drops his bags. “We are Nigerians. Is anything the matter?” “No. I’m Yoruba and I heard you speak the language and I was excited. My name is Ola. This is my wife (a friendly smile lights up her face as she stretches out her hands). “Buongiorno (good morning),” she says in Italian.

    “I suspect that you are new in this city. Whatever I can help you with, let me know. I’m off work today,” Ola says with the confidence of an indigene of this historic city. And so we hit it off right away. We struck a friendship not because he showed me the city; nor because he offered me “banku”, the local staple; nor because he got me onto the tramp without hassles and took me to a shop for some good bargain.

    Ola is an immigrant full of real life stories that sound like fiction. He symbolises the can-do spirit of the Nigerian youth, who is full of anger over the conspiracy of the elite that has constrained his talents and boundless energy.

    I have read many stories on the horrors of illegal migration. Death in the Sahara Desert and at sea after several hours of travelling on turbulent waters that seem to be furious at those who won’t let it be at peace. Detention camps, rejection and frustration. For the illegal immigrant, the lot is a full package of horrendous experiences.

    I got a first-hand account of it all from my new friend, Ola whom I met last week in Messina, the alluring Italian town in Sicily, which is famous for its link to the mob. “How did you get here?” I ask him. “Ah, baba, it is a long story, but we thank God.”

    He looks at me, smiles and begins to reel off a long tape of incredible tales. A barber, he used to live in Ibadan with his mother. A customer of his, who found him likeable, promised to help him get to Europe. Ola was excited. His dreams – a great time in the West, good food, 24 hours electricity, security, jobs, health care and more – will, at last become real. He plunged into it with his life savings. After a short prayer from his mother, our man was set for the dreamland.

    “I noticed that she was crying, but her tears were just dropping inside her; her face was dry. She was saying, I learnt people die on this kind of journey, but you won’t die. You and I will see again -alive – and laugh, so long as I have not done  evil to any man.”

    Ola landed in Libya on the first leg of his journey to Europe and discovered a hellish and brutish life. There is little law and order. Guns are dirt cheap. And so is life. Even kids carry sophisticated rifles just like toys. “I was on my way home one evening when I saw some boys a few metres away. I was carrying a poly bag of rice, my dinner which I planned to share with an army of boys in the rundown apartment that had been my home since I got there. I wanted to turn back, but that would have encouraged them to shoot at me. They were all armed,” says Ola, his voice quaking.

    He detoured to a nearby food shop and got out a few minutes later to shake off his would-be assailants. “I walked fast; I dared not run. Anybody can shoot, believing that one is a criminal. As I tried to turn a bend, a shot rang out. Another. Yet another and another. I kept walking fast, even as I was scared stiff. In fact, I thought I had been hit,” Ola recalls.

    At the dungeon of a home he shared with others who are also seeking the El Dorado, he announced soberly that he had been shot, but no wound was found. On the bag of food, just four big bullet holes gaped at them. The bullets tore through bag but spared Ola’s body. A miracle.

    “I saw many strange things. People were being sold as slaves. Women were raped with impunity. It was one huge jungle of wild animals tearing at one another,” Ola recalls.

    When he had saved enough money to embark on the journey to Europe, he joined others on a boat meant for short trips with about 50 people. They were over 150 onboard. “A good friend of mine, an Ijaw man, was in charge. It was not really a boat; just a raft. We all prayed before setting out very early in the morning. In fact, we agreed to fast. All was well for a few hours. It was very cold. The boat nearly capsized several times. People would scream and shout prayers to God. Then we realised that we were adrift. The journey had become perilous. We’d lost our way,” Ola says, his voice shaking and his face betraying some emotion.

    “Baba, it was a day of tears. We lost hope. And my friend (I had paid his way several times), the Ijaw man, suddenly started misbehaving, I think the myth that evil spirits inhabit the seas is real. He had been seized by a strange spirit of the water. He would not listen to anybody, including me. He threatened to kill us all and swim ashore. People started crying. Many broke their fast. We had many packets of biscuits in the boat.

    I said my prayers, my last, I had thought. And I broke my fast. I thought it would not be nice to meet God with an empty stomach.”

    But, help seemed to be on the way. A ship showed up some kilometres away, but the immigrants’ boat captain kept drifting away onto the high seas. Says Ola: “Unknown to us, he was targeting a red light that glimmered in the far distance. We later discovered that we would just have disappeared at that place, which all experienced sailors avoid. The light was a sign of danger.”

    A few hours later, an Italian Navy ship showed up to rescue the troubled boat and its cargo of dejected people. They were taken to a camp for profiling. Our man explained why he was escaping from home. He was lucky. His story hit a sympathetic chord. He got papers to stay.

    “But, baba, many are unlucky. They are still being put under watch. Some died on the way.  Others are doing dehumanising jobs to survive. Many want to return home, but they can’t raise the fare. Besides, they are afraid and ashamed; what will they say upon their return to Nigeria?”

    Ola goes on: “I’ve seen girls who were tricked to come here. They were told of a life of bliss; some paradise on earth. Now they are being forced into prostitution to buy their freedom at a price they can never pay.”

    The Oba of Benin cursed the kingpins of human trafficking. “Yes, it’s working,” Ola notes, adding: “I’m told that some of them have repented. They want to look for another trade. But the big issue is that our leaders should find out why youths want to escape from Nigeria. They need to convince them that there is hope.”

    In Napoli (non-Italians call it Naples) stands a monument built in memory of thousands who perished at sea after embarking on the “one chance” journey to Europe. It is a moving testimony to the disillusionment that has gripped our continent.

    Again, the leadership question. We need to rebuild our economy and get our politics right. Nigeria remains the hope of the Black man. It should lead the way – to prosperity and growth. Should this country lose it ,we have had it, as they say.

     

    Chaos in the Senate

    Security chiefs got yesterday a 24-hour deadline to retrieve the mace from hoodlums who stormed the Senate to seize its symbol of authority. The Senate described the action as treason.
    The invasion is unacceptable, but senators brought it upon themselves. There have been so many attempts to ridicule the institution by those who swore to uphold the fundamental reasons for its creation – making laws for the well-being of the society and acting as a check on the Executive, among others.
    The Senate has constituted itself into a stumbling block to almost everything good that has come from the Executive. It has been carrying on as if all senators belonged in the opposition party. Some members have been everything but good representatives of their people, behaving like kindergartners crying for ice cream. Any voice of dissent is muzzled in a chamber that should be the beacon of free speech. Senator Ovie Omo-Agege (Warri no dey take last) was suspended for exercising his right to free speech.
    When will our pampered and overpaid senators grow up?
    The Senate needs a sincere and bold self-assessment.

  • In heaven saints don’t become ‘God’ and an angel is nobody in particular

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    They should pitilessly offer harsh but constructive criticisms from patriotic and envisaged media perspective, of their principals’ intended policies or actions before they are made public.

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

  • Buhari and the Nigeria Exodus story

    PRESIDENT  Muhammadu Buhari’s administration has been buffeted with criticisms even before he announced his plan to seek another term.

    The attacks have been fierce since Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo said N150billion was withdrawn from the treasury just two weeks before the 2015 election. That was about three weeks ago. Since then, some Nigerians, particularly the leading lights of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), have stepped up their attacks on the government.

    The PDP challenged the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) to name the champions of the scorched earth policy that left the treasury in tatters. It did. And that sparked the renewed animosity against the administration. An elder statesman, who had renounced politics after shredding his party card in public, has suddenly jumped on the political train, even as he claims to be apolitical.

    The criticisms have suddenly hit a crescendo, recreating the scenario in which  the children of Israel challenged Moses and demanded to be returned to Egypt. The Biblical days are here again. Here is the Nigerian version:

    And it came to pass that less than three years after leaving Egypt, the people, led by some elders and prominent individuals, including contractors, obstructors and detractors, rose up in anger and said:

    “Is this the honey and milk you promised us? Almost three years we have followed you on this journey to the land which you said the Lord had directed you to take us. Now, food is expensive. A 50 kg bag of rice is N20,000; it cost N13,000 in Egypt. Fuel is expensive. Milk is for the rich and their children. There is no water; we are thirsty. Would it not have been better if we had been left to die peacefully in Egypt than to drink the water of Marah?”

    And the leaders of the party replied them, saying: “Yes, we promised to take you to a land flowing with milk and honey, jobs, security, quality education and good health care delivery. We did. But ye unrepentant advocates of the Pharaoh days, remember we never promised that the journey would be as smooth as a knife slicing through butter. We knew it would be tough and full of challenges. You told us to go ahead. Why are you tired less than midway to this journey? We never promised you that you will be dancing on dollar bills even as foreign reserves will be tumbling by the day. Never. We did not promise a long Lagos owambe party that never ends. Never.

    “As for rice, must you consume foreign rice? We have saved a fortune growing rice in Nigeria. Lagos, Kebbi, Ebonyi, Ogun and many others are now planting rice. Farmers are happy, with the assistance of the Central Bank. Change your taste and eat our homegrown rice, which is more nutritious and be merry.”

    “Your former leaders, who ruled for 16 years, grabbed the treasury in a strange group robbery, perhaps the worst ever visited on a national asset by people who swore on oath to protect and nurture it. Instead of building schools and roads, they ministered to their personal needs. They were proud that they produced a group of former vandals and vagabonds now flying private jets. To them, that was how best to measure a country’s growth and fulfilment of its people.”

    Lo and behold. One of the former leaders was incensed. He shouted with a great voice of anger: “For about six years I ruled in peace, respecting the rule of law. Now I am in pursuit of the cause of democracy. I said while in office that my ambition was not worth the blood of any Nigerian. I maintain that stand, even now. But I will not stand by and allow my name to be dragged in the mud. I am not a thief. Enough is enough.”

    And it came to pass that the government vowed to join issues with the disavowing former leader. It said: “If you provoke us to anger, we will arrest you and show you all the facts we have been concealing. If you didn’t steal, from where did your wife get all the mountains of cash found in her bank accounts? Why is she begging for an out-of-court settlement?”

    But the people’s anger had been kindled. Some of them met and decided to seek a leader who will head their rebellion. They got an elder, a self-appointed kingmaker, who is said to have remained unhappy and aggressive since he lost his desperate bid to rework the constitution and continue in office. To him they said: “Thou wily master of intrigues and subterfuge, appoint for us a leader. We are tired of this administration. We recall our days in Egypt when we sat by the flesh pot, and when we did eat bread to the fill. They have brought us forth to this wilderness to kill us all with hunger. Where are the cucumber, the garlic and onions of Egypt? Appoint for us a leader to take us back to Egypt.”

    And the elder stood up in the camp, cleared his throat and shouted like a politician, even as he proclaimed his neutrality: “You tell us about challenges, challenges all the time. We are tired. If there were no challenges, we would not have called upon you to rescue the people. Is it not in times of challenges that leaders show their skills?”

    He was fuming, frowning, gesticulating and shouting. His audience, a group of youths, was moved. Some grimaced in bewilderment; others shook their heads in agreement. It was a call to arms. If he had instructed them to march on Abuja, they would have done so there and then. They were convinced.

    “It is time you stopped recalling the past. That is gone. Instead of taking action you say you want to continue. I don’t think we can continue this way o. There is a lesson they taught us in the military – never reinforce failure,” the old fox said.

    And it came to pass that the elderly statesman gathered some of the former leaders of the people, who had ruled before with impunity and great greed. He announced that he was forming a coalition to defeat the Buhari administration at the poll. Some of the people rejoiced; others warned, saying: “Beware, o ye people, of this elder. He had been there and back; what did he bring? He even appointed for us a government of rogues who looted our common wealth. Did he not tell us that he had forsaken politics? Why this? What is this called if not politics?”

    But the man was unrepentant. He went from town to town and from one city to another, preaching his new message and collecting signatures. And some people hailed him, saying: “Now we shall have a leader who will take us back to Egypt.”

    The administration got angry, but it decided not to confront the elderly one. He was Buhari’s boss in the military. Besides, does our African culture not say elders are to be respected?

    Then Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo beseeched the people to keep their heads and be patient. “They earned more from oil and did little. They stole so much that we had to help many states to pay salaries. Many of them are in court defending the sources of their stupendous wealth. Now they are threatening to return. Say to them, ‘Never again’. With the little we have earned, we have done more. Thousands of kids are having one meal a day, with the chain effects on suppliers, including our farmers. Many of our compatriots have got loans to run their small businesses. Rail has been brought back on track. Major roads are being built.”

    “If you will diligently hearken to our voice and will be more patient even beyond 2019, we will permit none of these plagues upon thee – corruption, hunger, impunity, looting, thuggery and rigging. Our land and people shall be prosperous again. ”

     

    The Police and the Offa robbery

    IT was like a scene straight from an action movie. A group of robbers storms a town. They divide themselves into two. One surrounds the police station, blocking the town’s major security artery. The other rumbled through the streets to five banks. It was bloody.

    A movie? No. It all happened in Offa on April 5. By the time the marauders disappeared, many residents, including policemen, bankers and their customers, were lying flat on the ground. Dead.

    Senate
    Ibrahim Idris

    This is not the first time Offa has suffered such a major calamity. The gory memories of the first attack five years ago are being recalled with fear. What went wrong? The police have complained of being understaffed; what happened to the plan to recruit more men every year? Why was it difficult for reinforcement to reach Offa, even from Abuja if the nearest command could not help? The robbers seized the town by the throat for almost two hours, we are told. How was such a massive attack planned without the intelligence community picking up any clue? How did the evil men move undetected before they struck?

    Now, the condolences -the sincere and the political. An average policeman is not an ideal security man. He is ill-dressed, ill-equipped and ill-trained.  For how long shall the police continue to be like an orphan? The Offa bloodshed should be a wake-up call to the government to do something about this weak link in our security chain. It is getting too late.

  • General insecurity: What’s to be done?

    The convocation remark by General T.Y Danjuma at Taraba State University, Jalingo, has generated a lot of comments, disquiet and interest. This is because of what was said and who said it. Coming from the retired chief of staff of the army and defence minister of the country means his comments on general insecurity in our country cannot be ignored. The General’s statement needs to be thoroughly interrogated and solutions to the issues he raised must be found. The usual statement that it is when a mad man realizes that he is mad that the cure of his madness begins applies to our country from the diagnosis of the General. From Danjuma’s diagnosis of the sickness of our country, we can begin to find cure to our national madness. What exactly is our problem? Is it political tribalism or ethnic tribalism occasioning ethnic cleansing? Or is it the struggle for economic resources particularly land which is becoming scarce because of climate change? Or further still, can it be because of poor education or no education at all? Is the situation complicated by religion or conflict in world view that Germans call weltanschauugen? Perhaps if we know exactly what has suddenly precipitated this national malady, we may be able to find a comprehensive cure.

    I find it difficult to believe that the ethnic background of the political leadership in the country can be responsible for this sudden collapse of internal order and peace and paralysis of the security forces in the face of these serious challenges. Apparently, this situation must have been building over a long time before suddenly coming to the surface following the economic crisis occasioned by the recession. There is growing violence in the rural areas and it is beginning to be seen in the cities in the growing wave of violence and robberies by jobless young men snatching bags from women and people snatching motorcycles from their riders. Sometimes innocent people are killed during such operations. Because of this creeping violence, night life economy has become a victim because people hurry home before dark to avoid being attacked in the largely unlit streets of our cities. The killing of farmers by so-called herders and the cases of cattle rustling by criminals are unfortunately killing the economy and are sure to lead to food insecurity and mass starvation and disease. What is happening in Nigeria is a civil war in which the towns for the time being remain oases of peace but for how long if we do not find radical solutions to these existential problems. There can be no development without peace. This is a challenge this government must confront head on.

    The government unfortunately must fight different kinds of wars on different fronts. The problem in the Northeast is not going away and Boko Haram can still strike at will even if it is not holding any easily identifiable district. Its recent display of force and bravado in Dapchi has struck terror into the hearts of rural Nigeria. The frightening thing is that this jacquerie  is spreading into many states not directly related to the Boko Haram although there is an extant view that some elements of the Boko Haram have metamorphosed into the AK47-wielding cattle herders who seem to enjoy wanton killing even without any cause or provocation. We definitely have the problem of the spread of light weapons and small arms in the country. Some are as a result of the collapse of Libya and infiltration of al Qaeda in the Maghreb and West Africa. Other weapons are coming through our ports and porous borders. Some politicians are already stockpiling light weapons to be given to hard men who will be used as battle axes during the coming elections. Some militants in the Niger Delta are already armed and if the government does not stop the herders from attacking farmers, there will be gradual move towards self-help. Who knows whether this will be the solution based on the theory of balance of terror at a rudimentary and local level? If terrorists know that everybody is armed, they may think twice. This, I believe is what General Danjuma as a military tactician and strategist is talking about. This is a well-tested theory. But as we can see, it has not worked in the maintenance of law and order in the USA. At a macro level of super power nuclear deterrence, it has worked but within national boundaries it may not work.

    So what is the solution? The answer is good governance. National resources must be judiciously utilized so that all our citizens have a sense of belonging and feel that they are stakeholders in the peace and security of the country. The level and quality of education need to be improved nationally but particularly in the North. There is a need to put emphasis on female education in the North and gender balance nationally. Some of our problems begin at home so we need to guarantee minimum national education and nutrition. This must be accompanied by radically reduced size of the family and the onus must be on the man. No man should have more than two children unless he can prove he has the resources for more than two children.

    We must put an end to cattle rustling and killing by herders. We must disarm these herders and others who may have armed themselves in resistance. Since the herders started this problem, disarmament must begin with them but everybody must be seen to be disarmed. During the process of doing this, a state of emergency lasting a month or months must be declared in all affected areas. The police and the armed forces and other security forces must be equally deployed so that joint operations can be mounted to avoid any accusations of partiality. I cannot understand security forces being asked to remain neutral in the face of killings. They must intervene to deal ruthlessly with whoever may be taking other people’s lives. That is what governments exist to do. When governments fail to do this, then we are back to state of chaos. Open grazing, we must accept, belongs to the past and the future of the cattle industry is through ranching as it is done in most parts of the world. If needs be, government can subsidize the process of setting up ranches initially.

    As for political tribalism, the national government no matter how it was elected and no matter the ethnic background of the man or woman leading it, must represent and express the national will. It is in the interest of any national government to be so totally fair that no scintilla of partiality must be able to stick to it. In a multi ethnic and plural society like our country, any perceptions of some people being favoured at the expense of others is not only dangerous but a threat to the corporate existence of our country. The onus is on the leadership of this country to demonstrate that it understands the burden of leadership which it must carry without fear or favour.

    Already in international circles, people are already peddling religious rumours and identifying religious coloration to the spate of killings particularly in the North. Foreign newspapers are already calling on their governments to intervene to save certain religionists. We have seen this before during the unfortunate Nigerian civil war. We should not give room to external forces to complicate an internal problem which we ought to be able to solve if we are fair, equitable and determined. We need to demonstrate our capacity to maintain law and order in our country or else our enemies will find reasons to intervene in our domestic affairs and to ridicule us. We must not leave crevices in our walls for lizards to entire our homes.