The Nation Newspaper

Category: Thursday

  • An apology and its crisis

    WHEN Afrobeat legend Fela Anikulapo-Kuti was jailed in Maiduguri, he took ill and was hospitalised. The judge who jailed him, Justice Gregory Okoro-Idogwu, was visiting. Told that Fela (of exciting memory) was hospitalised, he decided to see him. Perhaps out of sympathy or curiosity or troubling conscience – or all.

    The judge saw Fela and, according to the music icon, confessed that he was under pressure to jail him. He apologised. Fela, a master of yabis, quickly sent a message to his younger brother, the late Beko Ransome-Kuti, saying “the judge don beg me”. Newspapers picked it up, splashing the story on their front pages with the screaming headline, “Judge don beg me – Fela.” His fans, sense of defiance got tougher, with their hero’s unbroken spirit.

    Even after the death of the Abami Eda (the Weird One), as Fela loved being hailed by his admirers, the question remained in legal and social circles if actually Justice Okoro-Idogwu begged him for forgiveness, but his fans would not stop hailing him in public: “The judge don beg me!” He, characteristically, replied with a clenched fist thrown up in the air.

    The music giant also waxed an album, “Unnecessary Begging”, to reflect the mood of that time. The sober lyrics dramatised the often hostile encounter between a lender and his debtor. “Unnecessary begging as we dey call am for area, oro ebe o sele (We call this unnecessary begging; no need for it.”

    Why is “Editorial Notebook” waxing lyrical now? Is this a voyage into the  seductive world of music to take a soothing break from the depressing  occurrences of these days? No. Not at all.

    It is all in a bid to query the idea and spirit of the act of begging for forgiveness. When is an apology genuine? Is saying “sorry” a true reflection of a remorseful heart?

    Since the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) said the magic word “sorry” on Monday, it has been difficult to ascertain whether Nigerians will accept the apology and let bygones be bygones. After all, we are known to forget so fast any evil visited on us as if it never happened. We even at times ascribe it all to God’s will against which we, being human, are powerless. Besides, we often say, to Him belongs justice and the power to say, “Go and sin no more”.

    PDP Chair Uche Secondus, who delivered the apology, said: “I am the very first to admit that our party made many mistakes. Consequently, we were roundly sanctioned by Nigerians, occasioning our loss at the polls in 2015. Let me seize this opportunity to apologise to Nigerians unequivocally for the several shortcomings of our party in the near and far past. It was all part of our evolution process without which there can be no maturity.”

    He spoke of “impunity”, “imposition” and all that. Secondus was not done. He  announced the PDP’s plan to “rescue” Nigeria.

    The apology sparked a wave of comments. The ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) sympathised with the PDP and advised it to go all the way by confessing its sins , making some restitution and staying in the purgatory for more than the 16 years for which, according to the party, it sinned against Nigerians.

    As if taking a cue from the APC, many, including ordinary folks and notable compatriots, began to scream:

    “No, no; confess first.”

    “Eh!  PDP don beg, but where is the loot?”

    “Good, but surrender the loot first.”

    “No to half confession; full disclosure; tell us who stole what; where is the loot?”

    And so on and so forth.

    Before we could make sense of the fast motion the commotion was taking, Mr Secondus somehow recanted. He said the apology was for allowing  APC to mount the saddle in the first place.

    But that did not stop the hullabaloo; it only deepened the row.   It was the tower of Babel all over again – all because of a questionable apology.

    “Ha, can PDP ever repent, let alone confess? If PDP confesses, won’t Nigeria burn?”

    “Will Orubebe tell the world the writer of the script he was delivering as Jega was announcing the result of that election?”

    A colleague was wondering why Nigerians were driven to such frenzy by a  former ruling party’s mere apology on behalf of its reckless and feckless leaders.

    He had the answer. He said the Secondus apology came the same day when the news broke of the death of Mavrodi Mondial Moneybox (MMM) founder Sergei Mavrodi of a heart attack. Tens of thousands of Nigerians had subscribed to the Ponzi scheme, losing their life savings. Students eager to join the gravy train invested their school fees. Instead of making a kill, they killed themselves.

    Mavrodi’s death, needless to say, sparked an avalanche of comments on the social media.

    Samples:  “So finally confirmed. Sergei Mavrodi is dead. Nigerians. Amadioha and Sango double barrel strike for the man’s heart. Chai!”

    “MMM has been scamming people all over the world without repercussions…Just the small money scammed in Nigeria last year… the dude is dead. So Amadioha can kill someone in Moscow?”

    “Sergei  Mavrodi is afraid of Nigeria coming to the World Cup in June. He will resurrect in August after the World Cup.”

    And this: “JAMB 2019 question. What did Sergei Mavrodi die of? (a) Spiritual attack (b) Counter attack (c) Heart attack (d) Armed robbers attack (e) All of the above.”

    There is also a picture of a group of youths bearing stones of various sizes, peeping behind a wall, apparently laying ambush for somebody. The caption: “Nigerians who died because of MMM waiting for Sergei Mavrodi at the gates of hell.”

    Back to Secondus and his apology for the PDP:  “We are sorry – PDP. Sorry for what? Without confession, there is no forgiveness (1John 2:1),” many responded, going spiritual.

    Others rejoined: “Don’t mind them. Apology rejected. They know that the foreign reserve has gone up to $42.8billion. They are thinking of how to share it. No way.”

    Secondus’ apology came as former President Goodluck Jonathan protested that Vice- President Yemi Osinbajo said N150billion was looted from the treasury two weeks before the 2015 election. Dr Jonathan said he was in Sierra Leone pursuing the cause of democracy when he learnt that a smear campaign against him was in the offing. “When I was in power, I said my ambition is not worth the blood of any Nigerian. Even out of power, I continue to hold that belief.”

    He added that “no matter how far and fast falsehood has travelled, it must be overtaken by truth”.

    That, obviously, did not go down well with those Dr Jonathan was addressing. “While Jonathan is busy defending his integrity,” a source told this newspaper, “his wife Dame Patience is asking for an out-of- court settlement “of all suspicious transactions and funds traced to her”. Her lawyer, said the source, wrote to the EFCC. “About 31 persons and companies paid over $11,489,069.03 into her two domiciliary accounts,” he said.

    Mrs Jonathan had earlier claimed she inherited the fortune of her wealthy mother who had passed on. Is she ready to reveal how her mother came by this huge pile  and others reportedly found in her bank accounts?

    After Dr Jonathan’s reaction on his Facebook page, the official sources threatened to unveil more of the cesspool of corruption (or stealing, if you like) the PDP would have loved covered for ever.

    Can there be forgiveness without sincere contrition? Where is the place of justice in all this? Will a mere apology suffice for what some analysts have described as part of the greatest national heists of all time? Who and who have turned in their loot in exchange for no prosecution? Can those who betrayed our trust for 16 years, earning the sobriquet Papa Deceive Pickin be trusted again?

    Can the PDP ever truly apologise?

     

    The Police v Dino Melaye

    JUST one week after the police announced with remarkable glee that they had arrested three suspects who reportedly confessed that Senator Dino Melaye (Kogi West) armed them and gave them N430,000, the suspects have vanished into thin air. They escaped from custody, we were told yesterday.

    Police chief Ibrahim Idris removed the commissioner, Ali Janga, for negligence. Dino, who struts Abuja like any of our overfed lawmakers, has been declared wanted. He was at the National Assembly yesterday.

    What is going on in Kogi?

    Melaye is full of drama, thrilling the social media audience with videos in which he acts like a trainee comedian, pouring invectives on Governor Yahaya Bello, who is consumed by all manner of trivialities.

    He is more involved in its party’s politics  at the national level than in tackling matters that concern his state. Herdsmen and their cows are riding roughshod over farms that represent many decades of toil and sweat. Monarchs have not been  spared in the bloodletting that has seized the state. In Kogi, kidnappers have found a cozy home for their evil trade.

    For many of the state’s leading lights, it is politics first; all other things can follow later. Melaye, in particular, has been everything but a good ambassador of the state’s elite with his mendacious propaganda, part of the reason the Senate has been seen as a conclave of jokers who feed fat on our sweat.

    The drama in Kogi is getting more absurd by the day. The dramatis personae should spare a thought for the people and stop the nonsense. Today.

  • Life on a sweepstake

    We speak in several pitiful tongues. Every tongue reels a different story of identical loss and misery. Hence one comes to callousness, a savage culture of protest that drives us to ruin our world: dateline Boko Haram, Big Brother Naija, MEND, Ombatse and the complex bigotry, avarice, decadence and bloodlust characteristic of all.

    We blame the older generation for everything. We claim they created a tough world for us to live in; a world that is rigged to against us. We also accuse the ruling class of keeping us unemployed, prone to corruption, exploitation, crime and the devastation of our economy and social infrastructure. We accuse them of denying us access and right to the Nigerian dream.

    What have we done with our world? What are we doing to make it better? Nothing.

    Rather than evolve in thought and attitude, we choose to rant impotently and wallow in self-pity. And when we choose to productively engage our faculties, our conscious quest is marred by our inclinations to self-destruct.

    If our world is ruined, we are to blame for it. This is because we are major actors in every tragedy that afflicts us. We are the hoodlums causing chaos at random, according to the whims of criminal, benevolent godfathers. We are the policemen mounting roadblocks to fleece hardworking compatriots of the little money they make, every day. When they refuse to cooperate, we simply shoot them to death.

    We are the bankers pilfering the life savings of the poor. We are the bank chiefs stripping Peter to pay Paul and robbing the downtrodden to feed our wantonness and greed. We are wives to the thieving governor, and gigolo to the rogue bank chief. We are the journalists who sold out, the watchdog who became lapdogs and then, dung-dogs. We are armed robbers and thieves. We are the activists exploiting the downtrodden to perpetuate our grand schemes of greed.

    No matter the ills visited upon our generation, we lost the right to howl and cry ‘foul!’ the moment we agreed to do everything and anything to make money, like becoming instruments for the attainment of the perverse goals of the criminal ruling class.

    Shame, that we have to look unto the same generation that we accuse of ruining our world to take measures necessary to save our world. The current ruling class won’t save us. They can’t. Like you and I, they are held captive by greed, irrationality amongst several base immoralities.

    Every generation considers itself uniquely challenged like we do and each generation truly is, in different ways. But I don’t buy into over-generalizations and self-pity. Like we accuse older generations before us, successive generations will accuse us of ruining their world claiming we had better chances to resolve our crises and recreate the world that they would inherit from us.

    Our sense of entitlement goads us to believe that we are entitled to a good, fair life but for the ruling class and older generation that thwarts our dreams of bliss. When the older generation call us “illiterate and unemployable,” we respond that they render us so with visionless leadership and substandard education.

    Truth is, school is a bore to many of us. We breeze through school and apprenticeship unenthusiastically, thinking that somewhere or somehow, something would give and we would chance on bliss.

    Notwithstanding, some of us enter the labour market thinking it wouldn’t hurt to be exploited a little. Having been raised on the mantra that “Slow and steady wins the race and tiny drops make an ocean,” we subject our will to the grindstone and stoically tread the path of obedience and honest labour.

    Eventually, we realize that the system is rigged to thwart our dreams even as it fulfills the fantasies of the exploitative one percent at the top. Then we get mad. We get mad because our leaders do not see us as human beings with cosmic value and rights anymore. But despite our dissatisfaction, we keep them in power and keep asking them for handouts.

    We do not choose to be treated with respect. That is why the government takes away our dignity. We should be embarrassed by our failure as a generation. We should be ashamed that we go through life thinking the world’s a sweepstake.

    We believe the world is for the taking by a lottery; this is understandable as a carrot on a stick that the top one percent – comprising government and big business – perpetually dangle before us.

    Thus the Nigerian dream has evolved from a promise and belief that every Nigerian will get to have a good life, a job they enjoy, a generous paycheck, affordable housing, healthcare and transportation and a secure retirement, into some reality show fantasy and a pipedream.

    Today, the Nigerian dream comprises a tall fantasy that every Nigerian will get to live a charmed life. It offers attractive fancies of palatial residences in exclusive neighbourhoods, home and abroad; fancy cars, easy money, consequence-free indolence, random sex, fraudulence and violence to mention a few.

    We consider these perks our birthright and heartily pursue them on the streets and now ubiquitous reality TV shows where parents and children from relatively humble backgrounds engage in funfest of folly and inordinate lust for unearned riches.

    The tragedy of this development resonates in the number of ‘has-beens’ and reality show runners-up still loitering the red carpets for the barest chance to hug the limelight for no justifiable reason or attainment.

    Each generation has a responsibility to wisely develop itself and become indispensable to the world despite all odds. It’s about time we equipped ourselves to take over the country’s leadership and use the resources and power available to us to build a more secure, sustainable than the one inherited.

    We need to stop whining and take urgent action to reverse Nigeria’s decline. If we wait, life in the future will be worse.

     

    • To be continued…

  • Police tales of herdsmen exploits

    Police as a vital state institution often defines a society. The orderliness our people experience in Britain, their second home is but a reflection of the British trust in their police, a trust earned by its ability to draw a balance between public safety, social order and individual liberty and freedom. But back home, Nigerians have faith neither in her police that behave like an army of occupation, nor in in our politicians who seem to live on the blood of the people. Unfortunately, rather than address the national question which often defines identity and loyalty, we have chosen to play the ostrich by embarking on fruitless subliminal crusade with campaign line such as “the police is your friend”.

    This perhaps explains why we today carry a burden of ill-trained, ill-mannered and overworked and underpaid disgruntled police force that is answerable  not to the state but ethnic groups and powerful individuals including criminals. People’s police, as we have in Britain, many have argued, can only emerge from community policing which our successive leaders since the end of the civil war have opposed because of a mind-set of control as we had under the military or mainstreaming, as we have under PDP and APC.

    Unfortunately, rather than interrogate reasons for the failure of successive Inspectors General of Police (IGPs) since the birth of the Fourth Republic, the House of Representative last week passed a resolution calling on President Buhari to sack the IGP Ibrahim Idris, over his “lack of capacity” to address security challenges in the country, particularly the killings by herdsmen in Benue State.

    If our lawmakers are sincere, they know no IGP, even if he comes from the moon, can successfully tackle our security challenges with the police as currently structured. This is not because Idris’ appointment, like those of his predecessors, was not based on merit or that he has had to study the president’s body language before appearing before lawmakers to echo the president sentiments about peaceful coexistence without justice. According to him, “to reduce the incidence of clashes between farmers and herders in Nigeria, state governments should endeavour to establish grazing ranches in their various states before enacting laws to prohibit open rearing and grazing”. He concluded by insisting, “It is when grazing ranches are established that herders can be arrested and punished for rearing and grazing on the open places.”

    A structure that sustains an IGP’s arrogance in selectively determining which states laws to implement cannot effectively address states’ security challenges.  This is why it has been tales after tales from Idris and his police even as killings of innocent Nigerian continue in many of the states.

    Only last Friday, there was a report of “five persons in Ughoha and Odiguete communities, in the Esan South-East and the Ovia North-East Local Government Areas of Edo State, who were said to have been ambushed by suspected herdsmen who opened fire on them and later invaded the community shooting sporadically, killing two persons in the process. From the picture painted, the alleged unimaginative killer headsmen that attacked their host community could only have escaped with their cattle with the help of the police.

    The previous  Wednesday,  we were told of how about 500 suspected Fulani herdsmen in military fatigue, wielding AK-47 assault rifles arrived to lay waste communities in Dekina and Omala Local Government Areas of Kogi State. They vanished into the thin air after killing 32 and torching 20 houses.  Again but for the confirmation by the Deputy Commissioner of Police Monday Bala during a press conference, the incident itself sounded like a police tale of no arrest and no clue as to the whereabouts of the killers.

    And if the attack was a reprisal for a 2016 altercation that led to the death of four Fulani herdsmen and an unspecified number of cattle, according to a resident, what did the Nigerian police do to bring perpetrators to book?  Or did they just wait for aggrieved victims to return for their own pound of flesh while they looked the other way?

    More intriguing was the herdsmen attack in Kogi State. This is a state whose governor, Yahaya Bello only in February donated 15,000 hectares of land for the controversial federal government’s cattle colony policy. Of course only Idris and his men who call themselves Nigerian Police by virtue of uniform they wear, have an answer as to why the suspected herdsmen chose to shoot themselves in the leg by attacking their trusted ally.

    The herdsmen’s attack and killing of 23 in Plateau State, another trusted ally is no less intriguing. As in character, the police including the DSS, the grassroot operators, heard nothing, saw nothing and did nothing. Even the 23 bodies recovered at Mararaba Dare, shortly before Rafiki Village on Wednesday, March 14, was done by the military.

    Similarly, in spite of many leads that could have led to the unravelling of notorious killers that feast on their hosts, it has all been tales after tales from the Idris and his men.

    It will be recalled that at the first General Assembly of the Interfaith Dialogue Forum for Peace in Abuja, the Sultan of Sokoto as patron of Miyetti Allah had urged the federal government to go after perpetrators of the herdsmen killings, while assuring Nigerians “We will never condone anybody taking up arms to kill innocent citizens.” This was long before the latest round of mindless killings in Benue, Taraba, Plateau and Kogi states. The Emir of Kano Muhammadu Sanusi II at the same conference challenged the police to unravel the sources of “AK-47carried by herdsmen in full public glare, where the arms came from and who is arming them”.

    Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar also issued a statement only on March 11, claiming – “Labelling the attackers as Fulani is wrong. Fulani people are peaceful and live in harmony with other ethnicities. To call the killer herdsmen Fulani is a misnomer”. Unfortunately so far no one has been prosecuted by Idris and his men to validate or invalidate Atiku’s thesis.

    Governor Nasir El Rufai of Kaduna not too long ago also told us that killer herdsmen “are non-Nigerian Fulani from Niger, Mali, Chad and other such places”. He was also reported as saying some amount of money was paid to the marauders to stop the attack on his people. Without looking at the merits and demerits of his initiative, this was a lead that could also have led to the unraveling of the herdsmen’s mystery of killing, and confiscation of farmlands of victims by killers who, according to police tales, disappear into the thin air after each round of mindless killings.

    And finally if IGP Idris and his Nigerian police talebearers needed  further lead, Governor Ortom provided that when he called the attention of the president during his last visit to Benue: the Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore May 30, 2017 ‘World Press Conference’ held in Abuja, where they expressed opposition to Benue  ranching law and ‘called on Fulani herders in all of West Africa to come into Benue to help them reclaim their land’; the Miyetti Allah Cattle Herders Association’s press conference where they ‘declared that more blood will flow in Benue if the ranching law is not rescinded’. Blood has not ceased flowing ever since and there is no evidence Idris and his men have questioned any of these arrogant Fulani leaders despite denunciation of their pronouncements and actions by credible Fulani leaders like the Sultan and Atiku Abubakar.

  • The worst of all possible worlds

    Sometimes when I can’t sleep, my mind wanders around the whole world trying to figure  out which part of the world is in good shape and which is not and why. It is sad to say very few spots are in good shape.

    Today the wars in the Middle-eastern countries of Yemen, Syria, Iraq and further afield in Afghanistan, have led to massive migration of people into Europe, destabilizing and leading to the rise of racism and nationalism which may yet plunge the world into serious crisis the end of which we cannot easily foresee. The rise of right-wing political parties in Italy, Germany and France as main opposition parties and governments in waiting and with Vladimir Putin riding the wave of a grumbling and angry Russian nationalist fervour constitutes a bad augury for the future.

    On the continent of Asia, China is determined to assert itself in relation to the previously dominant role of the USA in the area. America is tentatively developing a south-Asian strategy of  an alliance between it and India the biggest democratic nation in the world and presumably with India’s bitterest enemy, Pakistan both of which are likely to blow themselves up with nuclear weapons than join the USA to confront China. America is pursuing a policy of an entente cordiale with its former enemy Vietnam to confront China. Whether any of American moves succeed is moot question. What is certain is that America will not give up its privileged position in the East and South China Sea without a fight. In other words, a conflict between China and the USA is almost inevitable. The pregnant problem of North Korea remains. It is not likely that North Korea can be persuaded to give up its nuclear weapons yet America says it will demand denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula in its impending talks with North Korea in May. If the talks fail, it will be difficult to restrain Japan from developing a nuclear weapons programme either openly or clandestinely. Although this will be a painful decision away from its pacific constitution, it will be difficult for Japan to continue to cringe before its former colony while North Korea holds the sword of nuclear Damocles over its head. It  is obvious  that peace in our times  in Asia  and Perhaps Europe is going to be illusory.

    America which used to be a force for good has withdrawn to fortress America under the “Make America Great Again” slogan of its erratic and irrational president, Donald Trump who represents the worst manifestation of the “ugly American”. He is undermining international global institutions like the United Nations and its specialized agencies as well as the World  Trade Organisation. It is a truism in international relations that countries that trade with one another usually do not go to war with one another. Trump has embarked on trade protectionism and tariffs wars. He has also withdrawn his country from the Paris protocol to save the environment and prevent or mitigate climate change. Even the global military architecture of the western alliance – NATO on which the balance of power in relation to Russia and the successor states of the former Soviet Union is based – has not received unqualified support from him. Even NAFTA (North American Free Trade Area) is being held by the gruff by Donald Trump thus threatening the shared prosperity of the American hemisphere. NAFTA was programmed to extend to the whole of the hemisphere but this is now dead.

    The poverty of people in Latin America is likely to increase and Trump wants to keep people from the South American “shithole” countries far from his “God’s own country” by building a wall to keep America white. Trump and his circle sees the world from racial and colour prisms. South Americans are largely black and brown just like Africans. This reminds me of the racist joke of the 1960s which says “If you are white, you are alright; if you are brown, stick around; and if you are black, get lost!”

    Africa is in a bad shape. There is no country on the continent apart from perhaps Botswana and Namibia that are doing reasonably well. This is largely because of good management of their resources and general good governance. South Africa has managed to get rid of the embarrassment of Jacob Zuma but the fundamental problem of the yawning gap between the rich and the poor, between the white and the non-white parts of its population remain. In Angola, the national wealth has been privatized into the pockets of the family of its former president, Jose Eduardo dos Santos from which the current president, Joao Lourenco is trying to free it. Zimbabwe after its economic collapse finally freed itself from one man rule of Robert Mugabe even though the country is still very far from its democratic journey. Zambia is  tied down by its total dependence on copper export while Malawi is largely forgotten and apparently condemned to vegetate in its grinding poverty.

    East Africa suffers from the African malady of tribalism and violence while the most naturally endowed country in Africa, the Democratic Republic of the Congo is too rich for its own good and too large for African administrative genius or capability. Since its independence in 1960,  it has suffered from the twin evils of  dictatorship and underdevelopment. War and violence have been the daily experience of its people. The DRC shares the primacy of the worst place of governance in Africa with the Central African Republic (CAR)  and the newly created Southern Sudan  with its people jumping from the frying pan of Arab dictatorship and oppression in the old Sudan to their present tragedy of mutual ethnic slaughter under a black dictatorship.

    Arab countries of Morocco, Mauritania, Algeria, Tunisia and Egypt and the “disappeared state” of Libya vary from one country to the other. Morocco remains stable under its sharifian king. Tunisia where the “Arab Spring” began is the only regime standing after the revolution. Egypt has reverted to its usual dictatorship under its maximum military ruler, General Abdel Fattah el Sisi. After the challenge of the fundamentalist movement known as FIS (Front Islamique Salut), the old FLN (Front de Liberation National) under the leadership of the old and sick Abdelaziz Bouteflika who has been in power since 1999, has asserted itself. In both Egypt and Algeria, it is the peace of the grave that exists with occasional eruptions which are brutally suppressed. Libya has descended to the rule of regional warlords in spite of international effort to cobble up a national government. There is absolute lawlessness and violence in Libya that has spread to West Africa. This has led to proliferation of light weapons and small arms in places like Nigeria, Niger, Mali, Boukina Fasso, Cameroon and even small Guinea-Bissau. This has fuelled insurgency movements in Mali and the Boko Haram in Nigeria, Niger, Chad and the Cameroons. Money that would have been used for economic development is being diverted to counter insurgency and military operations thus fuelling the ranks of unemployed youth occasioning migration into Libya and across the Mediterranean into Europe.

    From Senegal to the Cameroons, democracy in one form or the other has flourished but this has not been accompanied by economic development and employment opportunities for the young in particular. This youth unemployment has created frustrations and insecurity in most of West Africa leading to all sorts of unorthodox ways of migration abroad. In Nigeria and Togo, this problem has been exacerbated by ethnic division and in the case of Nigeria, manifesting in mutual slaughter between herders and farmers, a phenomenon that has not been seen on this scale before. With nowhere to go or run to, Africans would have to face their problems and find solutions to them.

  • Happiness as choice

    WHERE were you last Tuesday?

    I guess you didn’t know it was Happiness Day. A brief background. Statesman, activist, philanthropist and frontline United Nations (UN) advisor Jayne Illien pushed the idea that March 20 should be marked as Happiness Day to boost the global happiness movement . The UN bought the idea, which was adopted by all UN member-states on June 11, 2012.

    The idea is that “the pursuit of happiness is a fundamental human goal”. The UN recognised “the need for a more inclusive, equitable and balanced approach to growth that promotes sustainable development, poverty eradication, happiness and the well-being of all peoples” in making the proclamation.

    Did we mark the Day here? Perhaps at UN offices. Civil Society Organisations were all quiet. The government was too busy to spare a thought for this day. Of course, there are those who have never felt happy; the needy, who incidentally are many among us. Who cares about them? There are, also, those with itchy palms who are sad and mad at the system that has stopped them from stealing from the common till.

    There is so much to cry over here. An ocean of tears won’t be enough to assuage our feelings. So, why don’t we just choose to be happy, despite the odds? But can there be happiness amid so much gloom and doom? Where is the place of humour amid so much horror and terror? Is happiness a commodity to be bought off the shelf like a good book? In other words, is there a correlation between wealth and happiness? If so, why do the rich cry – sometimes? Why are their wives and kids depressed? If cash can buy comfort, can it be a fuel for joy?

    Considering the savagery that has become a regular feature on the menu here, how many can be happy – and truly so? Abductions for cash. Highway robbery. Herdsmen as marksmen.  Road accidents. Hunger. Suicide bombings. And more.

    There have been no earthquakes, hurricanes and such natural calamities. All our disasters have been man-made. So, amid such gargantuan horror, humour becomes a matter of choice. After all, didn’t the Bard say “sweet are the uses of adversity?”

    Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo could not help going back the other day to the looting that went on as governance in the Dr Goodluck Jonathan administration and how it helped to bring the economy to its knees. Just two weeks before the general election in 2015,  he claimed, N150billion was withdrawn – perhaps for spiritual contractors (where in the world is former Sokoto State Governor Attahiru Bafarawa, by the way?), bribe couriers and emergency publicists.

    Should we cry? No. After all, we got a new postulation; some theory that our frontline scholars are yet to resolve till now; is corruption the same as stealing? When our academic giants eventually crack this nut, a huge leap would have been made in the sociology of crime.  The gains of such a breakthrough, I have been told by sources close to the head researcher, will simply be breathtaking. Immeasurable.

    Poor Benue State Governor Samuel Ortom. After weeks of sleepless nights over the plight of those displaced by marauding herdsmen, he visited the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camp last week and found himself dancing. If the people had accepted their fate and decided to dance it all off, why would His Excellency not join them? Should he keep crying?

    Whenever it gets so stressful, I hit the social media. It’s always an exciting voyage of humour – and rumours – full of salacious and tantalising stories . Just yesterday, I found this picture of a governor. His Excellency bends down, sitting on his knees as if set for a frog jump, in front of a woman selling avocado. He picks one off the tray and begins to bargain. The woman’s bosom is half-covered as she bends down to attend to this unusual customer. The governor’s eyes are well trained at the vendor’s heavy chest. Then the caption of the picture: “What exactly does His Excellency want to buy?”

    You are free to guess who this governor is.

    There were also the story and photographs of a Catholic priest who dumped the cassock and got married. His face brightened by toothy smiles, he says: “It’s the beginning of my new life.” Rev. Patrick Edet, who quit priesthood six months ago, adds that “life is one; if you want to live it, live it to the full”.

    He quit his former calling because he was being persecuted and had “little space to operate”. Senior government officials and many dignitaries were at the wedding in Uyo, the Akwa Ibom State capital. But, some key members of Rev.  Edet’s family boycotted the show. Were they angry that he dumped celibacy?

    What kind of persecution was the Reverend gentleman talking about? Who were his persecutors? He had little space to operate; what manner of operation? At what point did he change his mind and opted to “live life to the full”. How does he feel to become a husband after many years of celibacy? Will brother Edet need lessons in handling today’s women? Who will put him through? What will his former colleagues be saying? Will his action not trigger another renunciation of this age-old life of sanctification?

    Those making a song and dance about Senator Ademola  Adeleke (Osun West) not sponsoring a bill since fate vaulted him into the Upper Chamber do not really know the essence and intricacies of lawmaking. I stumbled on the distinguished senator’s video on Facebook the other day. And what a spectacle. He holds the microphone, singing. Suddenly, he begins to shuffle his feet. He rolls his body, swinging like a belly dancer. He gyrates – to the wild admiration of his audience – congregants in a church.

    Before the crowd could say “more”, the distinguished senator begins to sing: “I have a God who never fails; I have a God who never fails; I have a God who never fails; Jesus never fails for evermore. Amen, Jesus never fails…”

    He wowed  the congregants into a frenzy. They were all clapping and screaming for more. Even the famous Atilogwu dancers would have been green with envy.

    How many bills can have this electrifying effect? A cynical fellow remarked after seeing the video: “Who will get N13.5million and N750,000 per month and not dance?”

    The fellow was referring to the jumbo salary that Senator Shehu Sani (Kaduna Central) says our lawmakers are collecting. Now Prof Itse Sagay, the chair of the Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption (PACAC) is threatening to announce what the Senate President and the House Speaker earn. He says Nigeria would burn if he did.

    Former presidential spokesman Doyin Okupe (where in the world has he been?) has challenged Sagay to release the details and those of the President and the Vice-President as well as ministers. Sagay replied him, saying Okupe is an “expired” politician.

    C’mon Prof., go ahead; such facts don’t shock us anymore; they are amusing. Even if they don’t make us happy, won’t they make us laugh?

     

    Return of the Dapchi girls

    AFTER 31 days in captivity, 104 of the 110 kidnapped Dapchi girls returned yesterday to the excitement of their parents and all those genuinely concerned about their plight. Five died. One reportedly refused to renounce Christianity; the terrorists kept her.

    When the Chibok girls were similarly trucked off by the insurgents, we all thought some lessons would be learnt. How wrong we were. I hope a thorough postmortem will be done this time so that we won’t again be rushing to shut the stable after the horse has escaped.

    But there are questions to be tackled even as the military and Amnesty International (AI) quarrel over the incident. Were those who claim that the girls were kept within Yobe State wrong?

    “The girls are in Bulabulin. The military is aware that Boko Haram has been in that place for over four years,” Goni Buka, who represents Bursari/Yunusar/Gaidam Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives, told this newspaper. He was dismissed as a rabble-rouser. Is he?

    How long did it take the trucks to return to Dapchi with their unwilling cargoes? Could they have come from outside Nigeria? Are there no informants in all the villages around the trouble spots? Are the terrorists living in outer space from where they emerge to do evil and vanish at will?

    Some critics are said to be flaying the abduction of the Dapchi girls as phony. Why don’t we credit our leaders with some credibility, no matter how little? We shouldn’t see an opportunity for politics in everything, especially a                              major tragedy of this magnitude. Whoever wants to tell a man who is mourning his mother that he isn’t crying enough should kill his or hers and show the world how to mourn.

    Isn’t there a line between sheer cynicism and criticism?

  • The North’s headache

    IT is a big challenge for which the north must find a way out soonest. The problem has lingered because of the region’s lukewarm attitude. Until now, the north perceived itself as monolithic. Its leaders believe that they have control over their people – the proletariat, call them the talakawa,  if you like – who they could use at will.  And those people were ever willing to follow them – even to war blind.

    But something snapped and the talakawa rebelled. Their rebellion has  turned the north into a killing field of sorts. The leaders no longer have control over the boys who hitherto did their bidding, no matter how difficult the task is. In the days of the late Sultan Ahmadu Bello, the north spoke with one voice. Just as the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo and the late Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe dominated the west and the east, the Sultan held sway in the north.

    All the regions have the same problems but that of the north seems to be getting out of hand. Every day dawns with fresh trouble. It is as if the region is at war with itself. Killings, kidnappings, herders – farmers clashes and related violence have become the order of the day. The Boko Haram insurgency started like child’s play in 2009, but today it has become something else. When it started, the leaders maintained sealed lips; they did not come out to condemn the atrocious acts of the late Muhammed Yusuf-led sect. Today, Boko Haram has broken into factions, with each group as deadly as the other.

    Now, it no longer rains, it pours. Killer-herdsmen have taken to the Boko Haram path, killing, maiming, looting and burning. What has been coming out of the region in the last few years is bad, really bad. Will things have become that bad if the region’s leaders had moved fast to stop the rot? Perhaps, what they now call ‘’negative narratives” would not have been if they had risen up before now to do the needful. The needful would have been going all out to condemn Boko Haram’s activities and helping the government to bring the insurgents to book. But then, they saw the sect as fighting for their region and so tacitly backed it. This has since backfired.

    Unfortunately today, we are no longer talking about Boko Haram alone. The herdsmen, who have been killing and maiming in Benue, Plateau, Nasarawa, Taraba and Enugu, among other states, are now in the picture. Worried by these developments, the region’s apex socio-cultural group, Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), cried out on Tuesday that it was time the ‘’negative narratives’’ became ‘’positive’’. That same day, the Jama’atu Nasril Islam (JNI), which is led by Sultan Abubakar Sa’ad of Sokoto, implored the government to wake up to its responsibility of ‘’protecting lives and properties’’ because of the killings in Bassa Local Government Area of Plateau State.

    Referring to the killing of women and children; the abduction of  hundreds of Chibok and Dapchi schoolgirls, ACF Chairman and former police chief Ibrahim Coomassie said the north could not continue to be on the ‘’negative footage at all times as it has been the case since the return to democracy in 1999. Chibok girls are still missing. Now, it has gone to Dapchi in Yobe State, what happened? Are we always going to be the victims? Boko Haram, see what they did to the Northeast. They have spread to the Northcentral and even to the Southern part of the country. Should we continue to be regarded in the negative side? No. We are leaders in our own right and we must exercise this responsibility for our people”.

    “Whenever there is a crisis, women and children are always the major victims. Enough is enough. Enough of the killing of our women and children; enough of kidnapping of our daughters and enough of the destruction of our properties…’’ Coomassie told the leading northern women socio-cultural organisation, Jam’iyya Matan Arewa (JMA). Whatever might have happened in the region is all the fault of its leaders, many of  who kept quiet in the face of the Boko Haram insurgency. See where their silence  has led not only the north, but the entire country.

    They cannot absolve themselves from blame. Coomassie’s lamentations will not solve anything except he and his ilk are ready to take the bull by the horns and let the Boko Haram insurgents know that there will be no hiding place for them anywhere in the north. As for his claim that Nigeria cannot survive without the north, I beg to submit that it can only be the other way round. It is the north that cannot survive without Nigeria.

     

    Dapchi girls: Free at last

    FREEDOM came for  some of the 110 abducted Dapchi schoolgirls early yesterday. They were dropped off in their school, the same way they were snatched on February 19, by Boko Haram. Ninety-one of them were freed. Earlier in  a statement, Information and Culture Minister Lai Mohammed put the figure at 76.

    The figure has risen to 104, with  the 105th girl said to be a Christian, still being held. Five are said to have died. T The circumstances of their release are shrouded in secrecy as their captors were allowed free passage into Dapchi to drop them off. Their parents are happy. Who won’t if he was in their shoes. The government has lived up to his word to bring back the girls. My heart goes out to the parents of the dead girls and I pray that we do not witness this sort of thing again. Never again should we expose our schoolgirls to harm whether in Dapchi, Chibok or anywhere else in the country.

  • Much ado about nothing

    IT IS NOT a matter to lose sleep over, but to the ruling All Peoples Congress (APC), it is a big deal. The order in which the 2019 elections should be held is assuming a life and death dimension among the party’s stalwarts. Ordinarily, the party caucus should have ironed out the matter, but from the look of things, the falcon can no longer hear the falconer. The party leadership and its members who dominate the National Assembly have been working at cross purposes since 2015.

    In all honesty, a simple matter like this should not cause a rift between the executive and the legislature considering that APC is the party in power. As the majority in the National Assembly, the party should be using its number to get its way. Unfortunately, it is not doing that. Rather than work as a team, the executive and the legislature have been at each other’s throat. Since the party came to power in 2015, it has been one problem or the other between both arms of government.

    No one can really pinpoint the cause of the problem, but some suggest that it has its root in those who emerged as principal officers of the National Assembly contrary to the wish of the party. It has been about three years since then. So, isn’t that enough time for the party to forget the past and move forward? President Muhammadu Buhari was so concerned with the problem that he raised a panel headed by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo to see how the relationship between the two arms of government could become smooth. One year after the panel came into being, nothing seems to have changed.

    Did the panel achieve results? It didn’t. If it did, the President won’t have complained last month that the frosty relationship between the executive and the legislature was slowing down government. If care is not taking, it may affect next year’s elections. In the not too distant past, the order of elections was nothing to worry about. Until a few years ago, the presidential election had always been held last, without anybody raising an eyebrow. Constitutionally, the electoral umpire fixes the dates of the elections and decides in which order they would come.

    But because of the cold relationship between  the National Assembly and the Presidency, the lawmakers have changed the order of elections by amending Section 25 (i) of the Electoral Act. Under the amendment, the National Assembly poll is billed to come first in the new sequence. Before the amendment, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had fixed dates for the 2019 polls, with the Presidential and National Assembly coming up on February 16 and  the Governorship and Houses of Assembly,  March 2.

    Is the National Assembly right to have altered the order of elections? Has it not overreached itself in taking this action? The National Assembly, without doubt, can amend the electoral law, but it cannot fix dates for, nor organise,  elections. These are jobs within the purview of INEC. Having said this, then why the noise over the amendment of Section 25 (i) of the electoral law? It is all because of fear and suspicion that some people may want to stop some National Assembly members  from contesting the 2019 elections. And where those who are not favoured manage to get their party’s ticket, it is believed, everything will be done to make them lose the election. Who loses in that situation? The party or the contestant?

    Ever before the amended bill got to the President, some had said he would not assent to it. Truly, he has vetoed the bill. Giving the reasons for his action in a letter to Senate President Bukola Saraki and House Speaker Yakubu Dogara, Buhari said the lawmakers might have infringed on the “constitutionally guaranteed discretion of INEC to organise, undertake and supervise all elections provided for in Section 15 (a) of the Third Schedule to the Constitution’’. ‘’The amendment to Section 138 of the principal act to delete two crucial grounds upon which an election may be challenged by candidates unduly limits the rights of candidates in elections to a free and fair electoral review process’’, the President added.

    He went on : ‘’The amendments to Section 152 (3 – 5) of the principal act may raise constitutional issue over the competence of the National Assembly to legislate over local government elections’’. The National Assembly has not formally reacted to the President’s veto, but it is certain that it will pay him back in kind. The President took his action under Section 58 (4) of the Constitution,which states: Where a bill is presented to the President for assent, he shall within 30 days thereof signify that he assents or he withholds assent. The lawmakers have shown that they feel strongly about this matter, with the way the Senate, especially, has dealt with those against the bill.  It is therefore as sure as daylight that they will not allow this matter to end like this. I see them overriding the President’s veto, coming under Section 58 (5) of the Constitution, which stipulates :

    Where the President withholds his assent and the bill is again passed by each House by two-third majority, the bill shall become law and the assent of the President shall not be required. It is just a matter of time before the National Assembly uses its power under the Constitution to get its way on this matter. At a time like this, we do not need this kind of feud. There are many governance issues contending for the attention of the executive and the legislature. The nation does not need this fight over the order of elections, which is borne out of the fear that there are plans to stop some people from returning to the National Assembly in 2019.

    Is their personal interest more important than the national interest? They should put themselves in the position of the people they say they represent. How will they feel if the shoe was on the other foot? Governance is not about one’s self but the ability to do the people’s will. If it is true they represent us,  they should show it in their deed.

  • Language in the time of politics

    THEY are not new, but by virtue of the uses (and abuses) to which they are being deployed, they deserve more than a cursory glance. They define the thoughts, actions and inaction of some of the leading actors on our national stage. They convey to us the feelings of our leaders and offer us a glimpse into the fecundity of their minds.

    They are words and phrases that have been effectively used by some of our compatriots to comment or act on the state of the nation. But, this is not just another voyage into the world of linguistics. Nor is it a matter of semantics as an end in itself. No. After all, words are mere vehicles conveying our thoughts.

    When the literary giant, Prof. Wole Soyinka, said President Muhammadu Buhari had committed some “unforced errors”, some excited lawn tennis enthusiasts were wondering whether the Nobel laureate had been sweating it out on the court to keep fit. Before anybody could find out if tennis was the secret of Soyinka’s agility and trim figure, politicians had seized upon the innocent phrase as a weapon to fight their battles.

    Akwa Ibom Governor Emmanuel Udom got an award from the Nigeria Television Authority (NTA), sparking an outrage in the camp of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the state. The party claimed that the governor had done nothing to earn the award, which they never claimed was not worthy of the importance the giver and the recipient attached to it. The APC wrote to the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), complaining that a Federal Government institution should not have honoured the governor, who belongs in the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). The party said it thought little of it until Udom “turned the award into a political campaign slogan”.

    The APC urged SGF Boss Mustapha to call Udom to order as, according to the party, he was planning to erect billboards carrying his photograph while receiving the award from the SGF. It is still unclear if Mr Mustapha accepted this plea. Or whether Udom will agree to be called to order.

    Minister of Information Lai Mohammed also got an open letter from the APC on the award. The party wondered why the NTA should honour Udom.  That Udom got the award , the PDP said, was “an unforced error”.

    Not willing to turn the other cheek, the PDP fought back, calling the APC’s “attacks” “devilish” and “very petty”. Did the NTA actually commit an “unforced error”? Where was the APC when the NTA announced the winners of its National Service Awards? Why shut the stable after the horse had escaped? Should the governor not be allowed to enjoy the excitement of his prize?

    Isn’t the “forced error” actually APC’s? Why didn’t the party approach a court of competent jurisdiction to seek an order that Udom should not be honoured by the  Federal Government, its proxies, agencies, representatives, officials, servants and any other who may be directed, permitted and requested to confer such honours? Besides, it could also seek a declaration that the governor deserved no honour?

    Ever since a Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) official claimed that a mystery snake swallowed N36million belonging to the agency, the word “swallow” has taken on a new meaning. The official is said to have since recanted, saying the cash was actually collected from her by her boss.

    Despite that, some Nigerians have been claiming that animals, including monkeys, are swallowing cash. When President Buhari went to Ghana’s independence anniversary celebration, he promised that Nigeria would assist that country to fight corruption. The innocuous pledge became the subject of cruel jokes. Ghanaians were saying we should capture the snake that swallowed  N36million before lending them a hand.

    At restaurants now, it is no longer fashionable for diners to request for “swallow”. Asked if he would like to have rice and beans or “swallow”, a patron would simply retort: “Me, swallow? Am I a snake?”

    Until Senator Shehu Sani (Kaduna Central) let the cat out of the bag on the delicate matter of senators’ salary and allowances, it was as if the words “jumbo” and “bumper” had become obsolete. A senator gets N13.5million monthly running cost and a salary of N750, 000. Besides, there is N200million for constituency project.

    “I decided to burst it open. It was a moral issue,” Sani told the BBC. Senate spokesman  Aliyu Sabi Abdullahi confirmed Sani’s assertion, saying it was not new. Now many Nigerians are saying the “jumbo” running cost must be reduced or stopped altogether. Some are pushing for the “bumper” salary to be reviewed.

    Others are demanding an explanation of what the “running cost” actually stands for. Has the National Assembly become a factory? There are those who have called for the abolition of the National Assembly, saying as usual without facts and figures that it is a conclave of thieves who are bound together by a common goal – to loot the treasury and drop crumbs for their constituents.

    They have been deriding senators as greedy, lazy and shameless. Is this fair?

    The business of lawmaking is hazardous, riskier than working a rice milling machine, physically and mentally exerting. Sleepless nights, oversight duties, public hearings, motions, counter-motions, seminars and more. And all that for  chicken-feed.  Given the sacrifice of our lawmakers, I am afraid, we will all wake up some day to find out that they have gone on strike for a better pay and an environment conducive to their job.

    No prize for guessing the would-be mover of the motion for a better pay for legislators?

    The word “reconciliation” seems to have got more prominence since President Buhari chose Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu to lead the battle for peace in the ruling APC.  To many, the task is Herculean, but those who are familiar with Asiwaju’s tenacious grip on whatever cause he believes in have no doubt that he will succeed.  However, the popular question is, would there have been any need for a peacemaker if the party leadership was alive – morally and practically?

    When former President Olusegun Obasanjo issued his controversial “special press statement” in which he lashed out at the Buhari administration, he spoke of the need for a “third force”. He then threatened to form a Coalition for Nigeria Movement. Weeks after, former Cross River State Governor Donald Duke and former Osun State Governor Olagunsoye Oyinlola stormed Abuja to join Ahmadu Ali (remember him? The one who got shoved off the PDP chair and, thereafter went into the political cooler) and others to present the Coalition.

    Ever since, it has remained a mystery how this “third force” will take concrete form.  Obasanjo, a sworn statesman, who has publicly renounced politics, has been strutting across the land – from Bayelsa where he had lunch at former President Goodluck Jonathan’s home to Makurdi where he laid a wreath at the graveside of the victims of herdsmen’s attacks.

    Some of Obasanjo’s associates have dumped the PDP for the Social Democratic Party (SDP). Is SDP the “third force”? The party denies it all. And the old fox, the mischievous chief, keeps them guessing.

     

    The blind versus Okorocha

    THERE is so much discontent in the land. Protests in Benue over killings by herdsmen. Anger in Plateau over killings. More protests over abductions – of Chibok and Dapchi girls – by Boko Haram. Pensioners are up in arms against governments.  Lawyers marched on Tuesday in Lagos over the Land Use Charge, which the government is ready to discuss.

    In Imo State, an unusual kind of protest was staged on Monday. Hundreds of people with visual impairment, under the aegis of the Nigeria Association of the Blind (NAB) marched on the Government House in Owerri, blocking the gates.

    Okorocha Imo
    Owelle Okorocha

    Their grouse?

    Non-payment of their “welfare packages, annual subventions and unfulfilled promises by the governor”. Governor Rochas Okorocha said NAB leader Mr Kalu Christopher promised to establish a Special School for the Blind. “No blind person in Imo has access to education, except those who can afford to travel to Ebonyi and Enugu states… .We met the governor in 2013. He promised that the school would take off in September 2014.But in November when we led a protest to him, you know what the governor told us? He said to us ‘had it been you came earlier, you would have seen truck carrying gravel to the new school site’.

    “But, since that 2014 till today, we have not seen the truck or the gravel and not even the school site has been shown to us. It is only in Imo State that a leader in that high position can openly lie without minding the effect.”

    Poor fellows. It is not only in Imo that leaders lie; they lie all over the place – with impunity. An activist has suggested that His Excellency should rather shelve his plan to erect more statues and pump the cash into building the school for the blind–as being recommended by some so-called experts–he should mount a huge statue of  the NAB leader in Owerri.

    That way, he said, the blind would  have a sense of belonging. Besides, Okorocha could set up a ministry for the blind and appoint one of his sisters as commissioner. Or draft in one of his in-laws who are eyeing his seat to be Special Assistant on the Blind Affairs.

    But Okorocha is not all sentiment.  He is also a man of equity.  Those who know him well say they would not be surprised if they woke up one day and found that he had erected a monument to the blind in the Owerri city centre.

  • The Dapchi debacle

    I was in denial for a long time that 110 young girls were again kidnapped from their boarding school in Yobe State in the distressed and disturbed Northeast. After the spiriting away of almost 300 girls from Chibok in Borno State almost four years ago, this recent event in Dapchi is a national tragedy and humiliating national embarrassment. The way they were physically removed from their school was quite annoying because this was done in flagrant disregard and disrespect of the state of Nigeria. It was like there was no government presence and these hoodlums masquerading as religious fundamentalists simply moved in to fill the vacuum temporarily vacated by security forces and did their ghastly deed of removing innocent children some as young as 10 years old and spirited them away for raping orgies in some God-forsaken hideouts in the crannies of isolated villages in Yobe State.

    I know Yobe State. Certainly it is far from Sambisa Forest in Borno. In fact, there is no forest in Yobe State. These people rode in open pick up vehicles across some local government areas and villages without anybody stopping them or challenging them about their mission. There was no police to ask about their” particulars” or to collect the usual toll. Or perhaps after dropping “something “the police simply waved them on. What for God’s sake has happened to police intelligence department or the “E branch”?

    In an area of military operation and emergency, what happened to agents of Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA)? Was the Department of State Security (DSS), our own internal secret service, out of combat so to say in the area? If as being suggested these unfortunate children may have been spirited out of the country to neighbouring Niger republic, has our Nigerian Intelligence Agency (NIA)  been  totally decapitated by its internal wrangling and executive meddling that it is no longer able to collect useful information in neighbouring Niger? These are questions that easily come to the mind of someone familiar with governance.

    What about the emirate institutions in the area? Was the district head of the area so totally disconnected from the local people that he had no information on what was going on in the place? In any case, these kidnappers operated not clandestinely but openly driving vehicles over tens of kilometres and possibly over a hundred kilometres with nobody calling for their stoppage and interdiction. What does the emirate institution use its 5% local government allocation for? Or perhaps their allocation is being hijacked at the state level that they do no longer see themselves as agents or participants of government to maintain law and order? These are questions that government must interrogate to find out the weak link. I refuse to believe that there is total paralysis in government institutions that would permit this kind of open brigandage and challenge to the police and armed forces of the federal republic. If these people get away with their action, government control will no longer be respected in many parts of the country and our country will become a victim of warlordism. Any group would arm itself and challenge government whenever it feels aggrieved. Of course this is happening in the Niger Delta already and the Boko Haram insurgency and treason leading to purported carving out a portion of Nigeria and putting it under a foreign caliphate ruled by the Iraqi Abubakar al- Baghdadi is the extreme manifestation of challenge to government. This Dapchi episode must not be allowed to linger on indefinitely. Government must move in with violent ferocity to smoke out these people hiding and raping under-age children in some God-forsaken hideout. They must be found out and put away to rot in some isolated jails specially built for them because they do not belong in civilized Islamic community anywhere in Nigeria. The president recently said this is the last time this tragedy will occur. I say amen to his optimism and I hope nobody is sabotaging his efforts because this cannot be ruled out. The danger of dragging on this episode for too long is that copy cats hoping to reap bountiful harvest from ransom money being allegedly paid to secure Boko Haram captives would strike again in a remote region of Nigeria. God knows there are many remote areas of Nigeria where there is absolute absence of government. Nigeria of today does not seem to have enough police to secure every area of Nigeria. In other words the country is under-policed and this is why there is incessant call for state police and community police to work in tandem with the federal police as it is the norm in other parts of the world.

    The question of paying ransom to insurgents may have to be looked at again. Huge ransom payment emboldens the militants and provides oxygen for their movements. They are able to buy more weapons, pay their foot-soldiers and provision them as in normal armies. I know most countries make under-the-table payments to abductors of citizens while openly deprecating the practice. We however have to be careful that wholesale kidnapping of schoolchildren does not become an economic venture as the case of Dapchi seems to be. This is why these children must be rescued even with the possibility of collateral damage.

    It was amusing seeing Nigerian Air Force amassing their planes for operations in the Dapchi area. With all deference to military strategists, I do not see the need of deploying the air force in this instance apart from aerial surveillance that the air force can provide. What is needed is counter-insurgency operations like the one carried out in Indonesia and Malaysia in the 1950s and 1960s against communist insurgents. We also need to rejig the intelligence agencies where there is evidence of underperformance. Intelligence is not necessarily a matter of physical force anymore; it is more of brain than brawn. In recruiting into our intelligence outfits, we must recruit computer and electronic savvy individuals, historians knowledgeable of the various societies and their history and political analysts who can elicit policies from an assemblage of various types of information. This policy prescription is of course not for now, but for the future. Right now we have a battle to fight and win.

    There is nothing new under the sun. We have been here before. In the 1980s, Nigeria witnessed this kind of warped “Islamic” insurgency in the Maitatsine in Kano and its Bulunkutu variant in Maiduguri and Gombe. With combination of military and police force, they were put down. The officer who commanded the military in those operations was Muhammadu Buhari. Of course he is now an old, laid-back politician but he surely knows the terrain. Things are also a little different now. Today, because of the externally-induced collapse of Libya by NATO, there is a proliferation of light weapons and small arms across the whole of West Africa. The emergence of Al Qaida and the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and their offshoots in the Maghreb and West Africa has internationalized a local problem. This is why Boko Haram has festered this long. But with the crushing of the so-called Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, the internationalization of our problem is reduced to the Libyan question where all efforts to put together the Humpty Dumpty of the Libyan State have failed. What we must seek is international action to fashion out an effective government in Libya by the same NATO which ab initio was responsible for the destruction of the Libyan State. In the meantime, we must intensify cooperation with the Chad Basin countries of Niger, Chad and Cameroon’s to root out Boko Haram from our country. This military operation would have to be accompanied by political rebuilding of governance institutions and economic development.

  • Senators’ earnings as mere symptoms

    Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, back in 2010, as CBN governor was the first to alert the nation of the danger the consumptive pattern of a National Assembly that cornered 25% of the national budget posed to the well-being of Nigerians and the growth of the economy. The National Assembly denied Sanusi’s claim but for over seven years refused to make public the breakdown of its budget despite public demand for transparency.

    We have however now been told that our senators, widely rumoured as the highest paid lawmakers in the world, only earn a modest N750,000, monthly and another N13.5m to be receipted for. Individual senators, we also now know, presides over how N200m constituency projects are executed annually.  Credit for these facts goes to Senator Shehu Sani, a very credible source whose claim that President Buhari was fighting corruption among his close allies with deodorant while using insecticides to wage the same crusade among his political foes was validated when the president, after initial vacillation was forced to sack Babachir Lawal, his secretary to government who was to be later recommended for prosecution over alleged corruption and abuse of office.

    But long before Shehu Sani finally laid to rest the controversy surrounding what our lawmakers pay themselves, suspended House of Representative Appropriation Committee chairman, Abdulmumin Jibrin had revealed  the 2016 budget was inflated by as much as N4b to fund constituency projects of members. However, his allegation that principal officers of the lower house including the Speaker, benefitted from such illegal diversion, did not throw much light on what the lawmakers pay themselves. Jibril himself suffered from credibility deficit as his allegations came after his suspension over his committee’s alleged unilateral removal or diversion of budgeted funds for Lagos-Calabar coastal railway.

    That what the lawmakers pay themselves was shrouded in secrecy was not the only source of worry to Nigerians. Consensuses among all those who have dealings with the upper and lower houses seem to confirm the two as houses of deals. Minister Raji Fashola disclosed how allocations in the 2017 budget to important federal projects including the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway which is critical to the development of the economy was slashed to accommodate lawmakers’ constituency borehole projects. President Buhari had also taken his frustration with the lawmakers to the court of public opinion by calling attention to how, in spite of his advice, the lawmakers frittered away public funds on state of the art expensive toys even after collecting personal car loans often retired through earned allowances. And finally, worried by the level of larceny going on the National Assembly, ex-President Obasanjo who was instrumental to the removal of about three senate presidents in quick succession over corruption charges described our legislators as ‘armed robbers’. Of course Obasanjo, now out of office should, from the benefit of hindsight, know better. He is not expected to have kind words for those who during his administration, deployed the instrumentality of government policy thrust to defraud the nation,  derail his energy sector reforms as well as the rural electrification contracts which they awarded to their own companies.

    But no matter how much we rail against thieving members of the National Assembly, they are mere symptoms of our crisis of nationhood. The fundamental question we have failed to address is why members of the governing elite have waged endless war against Nigeria since 1962. Since studies have shown people are indifferent and in fact work for the collapse of a system in which they have no stake, the most plausible explanation is lack of faith in Nigeria as a corporate entity by Nigerian critical stakeholders. Ahmadu Bello’s “the mistake of 1914 has come to play” following disagreement over Enahoros 1953 motion for “independence in 1956” more than captured this. And before him, Obafemi Awolowo had also admitted Nigeria was a geographical expression while Balewa was to later describe Nigeria as a British intention. In other words, Nigeria was nothing but an idea, first nurtured by the colonial masters and later by representative of nationalities that own the space described as Nigeria. But our ill-informed and ill-educated military thought the structural blocks designed to build the Nigerian nation were the problems and decreed them out of existence. Unfortunately, 60 years after the death of an idea, the military as represented by retired Generals Obasanjo and Buhari and their fronts – the major beneficiaries of the current anarchy, have continued to confuse symptoms with the fundamental cause of our crisis of nationhood.

    Their fraudulent claim we can literarily climb the palm tree from the top by imposing a nation on nationalities without first resolving the fundamental issue of how the nationalities want to live together, probably explains why, every emerging new set of the parasitic ruling elite, loyal to none but themselves, is often worse than the one preceding it.  For instance, as if they were not called upon to serve the nation, the 1999 set insisted on recouping funds they expended on fighting elections. The David Mark/Ekweremadu that followed supervised free looting of the nation with Mark going to court to defend his immoral confiscation of the senate presidential mansion for an amount EFCC alleged was far below market price of the structure.

    The Saraki/Ekweremadu set holds no pretence to any form of morality. Those who by their own accounts literarily sold off the victory of their party cannot be said to be driven by any lofty ideals or loyalty to the state. That they have resolutely stood against government’s pro-Nigeria policies in the last three years  more than demonstrate they are in office to serve none but themselves. The Senate’s spokesperson, Aliyu Sabi Abdullahi has even tried to justify the scandalous N13.5m senators’ monthly running costs by claiming “almost all holders of elective or appointive office have running costs allocated to their offices”  without citing where else in the world whether in a democracy or dictatorship  such practice is sustained.

    Thieving members of the executive, lawmakers or ‘armed robbers’, as Obasanjo calls them, or supreme courts judges that trade in justice as well as the compromised members of the fourth estate of the realm, are not the sources of our nation’s nightmare.  They are all symptoms of a state as an orphan.

    The truth is that we are today back to 1962 when those who had no faith in Nigeria seized the country. A clear evidence of this is the recent APC response to clamour for the restructuring of the country. The recommendation by its committee on restructuring headed by Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State that ‘indigene-ship’ be replaced with residency or citizenship in a federal constitution is a reinforcement of an old policy that has been successfully used for the pacification and assimilation of all the Hausa-conquered territories in the north. It is also a policy whose covert implementation in the unconquered Middle Belt territories has resulted in social dislocations among a people that are being prevented from taking their own destinies in their own hands.  APC’s ploy is nothing but another name for the military and its PDP political arm’s failed ‘mainstreaming’ gamble.

    Finally, modelling Nigeria, inhabited by unconquered nationalities that cherish and celebrate their different cultures and values after America, a nation conquered through force of arms by adventurers and criminals from Europe, amounts to intellectual fraud. If there is a lesson to be learnt at all, it has to be from our European colonial masters who, based on their own long history of internal strife and two devastating world wars, had advised us on path to peaceful co-existence, a path we traded for mainstreaming in 1962.