The Nation Newspaper

Category: Thursday

Africa: Shithole continent

While discussing the issue of immigration reform in the USA with Congressional leaders, Donald J. Trump, the USA president wondered why people from Haiti, El Salvador and the “shithole countries in Africa” were being allowed to come to the USA. He later followed it up by asking Norwegians to emigrate to the USA. Why will anyone from Norway that has the highest income per capita migrate to the USA with all its crime, guns and racism? From the time of the pilgrims’ progress1607-1620 and particularly in the 19th century, it was the bedraggled, depressed, disadvantaged and the poor and fugitives including Trump’s grandfather who sought better lives for themselves and their descendants in America. Trump had earlier on said pointedly that when Nigerians visit the USA, they are reluctant to go back to their huts. This remark has generated heated remarks from Americans and the global community particularly in Africa because of the malignant racism implicit in the president’s comments.

It is of course within the sovereign rights of the USA to determine what kind of colour of people it wants to have in its country. But it is not the right of the Americans to denigrate any country and a whole continent because of the colour of their skin. We know Trump was elected in reaction to the election of President Obama, the first Blackman to be so elected. It seems white Americans suddenly felt they were losing control of power. This was why a brilliant woman like Hilary Clinton lost election to this bumbling dotard of a president. The demographics of the United States are changing with the influx of Latin Americans mostly from Mexico and Central America. When added to the population of Afro Americans, Native Americans, Asian Americans and white women and college-educated young white men all inclined towards the Democratic Party, it is explainable why the white supremacists and their representative in the White House are fighting back. Donald Trump knows what he is doing. He is merely playing to his base and supporters by saying all these racist taunts including saying some of the white supremacists in Virginia were good people and calling on white policemen to shoot blacks before asking questions. If he has the power, Donald Trump will roll back the clock and cancel the civil rights of black peoples which people like Martin Luther King jnr. and Malcom X paid for with their lives.

We must however give it to the United States that it is still a country of laws and no matter how powerful their president may be, he is still bound by the laws of the land. One thing should however now be clear to people in the so-called “Third World” that the leader of the most powerful country in the world does not wish them well and they should adjust their policies in reaction to that fact. They should ally with countries that wish them well and that respect their people. It is not that Africa has no alternative to the USA in terms of trade and technology. Our diplomatic relations and global diplomacy should reflect the reality of American disregard, disrespect and hostility to us based on racism. We should make it clear that from now on we would not be bound by any American inspired and induced United Nations sanctions targeted against countries like Iran, and North Korea that we have no quarrel with. Let Donald Trump continue with his “America first” policy and isolationism while the rest of the world goes it alone and embraces the tested policies of multilateralism and globalization for which China has come out ready to provide leadership.

The other side of the coin is a clarion call to African and particularly Nigerian leaders to shape up or ship out. We do not have the luxury of time for non-performing government in the face of global and American hostility to us and our aspirations.

I called a few friends of mine in the USA to sound out their opinions about what is going on. Incredibly as it may sound the Africans among them including Nigerians said they agree with Trump’s description of their continent as “Shit hole”. They blame the leaders of Africa for this insult. They said with the constant killings and civil wars on the continent and lack of development leading to young people fleeing the continent to die in the Mediterranean Sea, Trump’s insult is deservedly earned. The situation in Nigeria is particularly pathetic. Here is a great country brought down through inept and uncaring leadership that is silent when insecurity is enveloping the whole country. People are afraid to travel on the highways because of fear of being kidnapped by so-called herdsmen who have abandoned herding cows for kidnapping hapless human beings for ransom. Our government keeps quiet sometimes saying these are foreigners as if foreigners have the right to come into our country to kill us! People are being slaughtered, kidnapped and prevented from farming and the security forces are kept in the barracks doing nothing thus inviting chaos of people resorting to self-help and arming themselves against armed marauders whether indigenous or foreign.

Of course we have problems in Africa and particularly in Nigeria. If Nigeria is not doing well, the entire continent suffers. We see the leadership of this continent slipping from our hands.

Why did it take Geoffrey Onyeama, the foreign minister a whole week before summoning the American ambassador to tell him off and send a stiff message to his president? South Africa did that immediately Trump made the offending statement so did Ghana. If the president was slow to give a directive, the minister should have done his job and then reported to the president. The worst that could have happened is for the presidency to disown the statement. This is allowed in international relations but the original national anger would have registered where it mattered. Calling in the ambassador after the brouhaha had died down amounts to shame, humiliation and national weakness. Nigeria may be needlessly poor because of poor leadership, but we are a sovereign nation and our founding fathers fought for this sovereignty. We should not allow our current inertia to permanently damage our leadership position on the African continent.

As for those of our folks abroad who say we, as a continent, deserve all the insults that Trump can heap on our heads, I remind them of the African proverb that says you do not point out to a man who has nine fingers that he has nine fingers. It is bad manners to point out the deformity of a fellow human being. Pointing this out could lead to irrational reaction. This is what President Trump has done to a whole continent. He can bar our people from coming to his country without insulting us. He must also be taught some history about how American capitalism was founded on the blood, tears and unpaid black slave labour for four centuries.

In the world of diplomacy, reciprocity and etiquette are greatly appreciated and they constitute the grundnorm of international relations. This is what the current occupier of the White House has breached and he should be told that he is wrong and this should be done explicitly without ambiguity and redundancy.

January 25, 2018
The road to 2019

ULTIMATELY, President Muhammadu Buhari has the last say on the matter – whether to go for a second term or not. The issue has gained currency in the last few months. It was the topic of discussion before 2017 ended and it is still the issue with the coming of the new year 2018. Within 72 hours between Sunday and Tuesday, the Presidency and one of the President’s ardent backers in 2015, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, spoke on the matter.

Before them, other Nigerians, including some All Progressives Congress (APC) governors, had also said their bit about the issue. The governors have come under attack for carrying their support for the President too far by endorsing him for a second term at a time when the nation should be mourning the killing of 73 people in Benue State by suspected herdsmen. Led by Kaduna State Governor Nasir El-Rufai, the governors after observing the Jumaat prayer with the President at the Villa on January 12, barely 24 hours after Benue buried its dead, said they had ”no apologies” for backing Buhari for another term.

In his element on such occasions, the loquacious El-Rufai said : ”We are politicians and those of us you see here want the President to contest the 2019 election. We have no apolgies for that…” The public did not take offence for the governors’ support for the President, but for the way they vented their position. Yes, the people know them as polticians, who will do anything to have their way when it comes to power, but they did not know them as insensitive leaders without a feeling for their fellow men. The governors did not show empathy for those mourning their loved ones, especially their brother Governor Samuel Ortom, who belongs to the same party with them.

Well, because they have said it does not mean that they would have their way. The Presidency knows this too. This is why it was non-committal on the matter when Buhari’s spokesman Femi Adesina chatted with reporters in Abuja on Sunday. ”Then talking of his own personal ambition or lack of it, we have to wait until he blows the whistle. You cannot start a race until the whistle is blown. So, when he blows the whistle and says ‘yes, this is my ambition’, then, the race starts. So, for now, we just say that we keep waiting on him to tell us what direction to go”, Adesina said, adding :

”So, those who believe in the Mandela option, it is their right. And it is also the right of the President to run or not to run. So, you do not abridge the right of anybody under a democracy…I believe that if the President wants to run, he can run. I will support him. I will support him any day. Then, has he done enough? More than enough. In fact, a second term will give him a chance to consolidate on what he has done. The things he has done are apparent : security; the economy is like a plane with its nose up; it went into recession and came out and the indices are good; anti-corruption, no friend, no foe”. On the critical issue of Buhari’s health, he said : ”Health is wealth. The President is not a frivolous person. If he thinks that his health cannot carry anything, he will not do it”.

In what he called a ”special statement”, Obasanjo did not mince words in asking the President not to seek a second term. In the 13-page statement, he said there were blood stains everywhere because the country is full of lice. ”The lice of poor performance in government – poverty, insecurity, poor economic management, nepotism, gross dereliction of duty, condonation of misdeed, lack of progress and hope for the future, lack of national cohesion and poor management of internal political dynamics and widening inequality – are very much with us today. With such lice of general and specific poor performance and crying poverty with us, our fingers will not be dry of blood”.

Nigerians, he said, were complaining, murmuring in anguish and anger. Obasanjo hit the nail on the head in his assessment. At the same time, he has stirred up the hornet’s nest. In the next few weeks, the former president may not know sleep. Some will take him to the cleaners; others will praise him for his stand. Obasanjo did not say anything new. He merely elucidated on what many Nigerians have been saying in bars and in the confines of their homes about the president. Buhari has let a lot of Nigerians down and it is quite unfortunate that things are turning out like this.

What made Obasanjo, who supported him against his own party, the then ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in 2015, to turn against him is the same reason many other Buharists are today wondering if they made the right choice about three years ago. Nigerians invested a lot in the Buhari Presidency because they believe in the man to take them from Egypt to the promised land. They placed their trust and faith in him and voted overwhelmingly for him at the poll. But the new dawn they voted him for seems to remain a mirage. Like all human beings, the President also has his shortcomings, but he should have, at least, shown that he was prepared for leadership having contested in three previous elections before the 2015 poll.

It is one thing to have the hoi polloi running after you in the street and singing your praise as their messiah, but it is another thing for you to show the stuff of which great leaders are made when the responsibility is thrust on you. Hailing a politician at campaign rallies and public functions is not the true test of leadership. The hallmark of leadership is to meet the expectations of the people in terms of providing infrastructure, revamping the economy and ensuring security of life and property. The President may have done all he can do but it appears that is not good enough.

Should he run again? According to Adesina, that is a question for the President to answer. That is very true. The President may decide not to listen to the noise of the market place if he wishes to run for a second term. But he should realise that the noise makers will determine his fate at the poll. Although Obasanjo has asked him not to run, he is not obliged to take that advice. At his age, the President knows what is good for him. How I wish he would take a few seconds to ponder what has happened between 2015 and now to make his support base shrink. Election can only be a walkover for a candidate if the electorate believe that he will deliver after the contest.

The President beat then President Goodluck Jonathan because the voters felt he would make a difference on being elected, but three years after, that feeling has given way to despair and despondency. In many places, the question is being asked: ”Is this what we voted for?” It is quite unfortunate that things have turned out this way. Many are waiting for 2019 to correct the wrong they believed they made in 2015. Buhari can run again, if he so wishes, but the electorate have the last say on who leads them. The electorate love the President, but they love their country more.

January 25, 2018
Fulani as Buhari’s burden

President Buhari whose commitment to the Nigeria project has never been in doubt has gone through severe stress and strain since the Fulani herdsmen’s last round of killing which claimed another 73 lives in Benue. With renewed and continued restiveness between those regarded as his people and farmers across the country, with emirs trying to dictate from their fiefdoms to governors of federating states, with the northern-dominated security apparatus of state unable to arrest let alone prosecute anyone in the last two years, and with Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association threatening to resist anti-grazing laws in some 75 local government areas in 21 states where they are already active, Buhari needs no enemies as he weighs his options as to whether to seek reelection in 2019.

These are times when for Buhari, who like other Nigerians should have no apologies for the tribes they belong to, membership of his Fulani tribe becomes more of a burden than an asset.

But beyond the threat to Buhari’s election, I think we must start to get worried about the danger some Fulani leaders with a mindset of “born to rule’, two centuries after the age of ‘divine right of kings’ poses to our corporate survival as a nation. History tells us that the Fulani arrived Nigeria with about 200 families in early 1800 and under the leadership of Uthman dan Fodio, an Islamic scholar, and their revered warrior, conquered Gobir and overran all other Hausa states between 1904 and d 1908, planting 11 Fulani and one Hausa as rulers of the conquered territories. But two centuries after and in an age when democracy has long become the reigning god, his descendants have continued to insist they are born not only to rule their great-grand father’s conquered territories but the rest of the country. Indeed until recently, car plate numbers in Sokoto where the ruling Fulani caste constitutes less than 20% of the population, carried ‘born to rule’ as “Cross of St. Christopher”.

Unfortunately, any perceived threat to this pathetic and farcical mindset has since the run up to independence in the 1950s met with “fire and fury”. Enahoro’s 1953’s motion ‘that this house accepts as its primary political objective the attainment for self-government for Nigeria in 1956″ which Ahmadu Bello considered a threat to the north was received with a threat of secession and reference to Lugard’s amalgamation of the north and south as the “mistake of 1914 coming to light”. And reacting to insults hauled at his entourage by Lagos mob at Ido railway terminus, he had said “when next I come, I’ll come with a sword’ and was overheard later talking about a union with French Niger”. If secession was averted at that point, it was largely due to the effort of Dan Bappar Mujibir, one of the three northern minsters who had argued “with patience, the north will win at the end, while to cut the rope under the chain now was to concede defeat to the south”.

With the control of the security apparatus of state power firmly in the hands northern leaders (Prime minister Tafawa Balewa, in control of the police and the army, Ribadu, as minister of defence and Shehu Shagari, as internal affairs minister), social conflicts that required political solution such as the quest for self- actualization by the Tiv of Benue valley and other minority groups in the north were met with force. Their sympathisers such as Awolowo and his Action Group (AG) that had canvassed ‘one man one vote’ as the shortest route to throwing off the Fulani hegemony were not spared.

Awo’s other cardinal offence, according to Trevor Clark was that he “enraged the Sadauna and permanently antagonised the Muslim northerners by a gratuitous reference to ‘the bones’ of Shehu dan Fodio; the tactlessness of this manner of naming the revered warrior was something neither he nor the other southern members were able to recognise, let alone admit then or since” .

Consequently, cashing in on intra-party crisis within AG, security probe of how public fund was channeled to AG account (which was not different from the practice of NPC since that was the source of implementing their different party programmes) was ordered and this led to Coker Commission of Inquiry.

When Awo was charged for treasonable felony over what he had dismissed as fabrications, Shehu Shagari as internal affairs minister was on hand to ensure that Gratian, Awo’s British lawyer who was also a member of Nigerian Bar Association was barred from entering Nigeria.

With the victory over Awo, Balewa on behalf of the north that had wanted secession but reluctantly agreed to a federal arrangement which they were sure to control in the run up to independence, held a press conference where he predicted “there would be such a time when we would have a unitary government in Nigeria. It may be after me, but I am certain it would certainly happen”.

But when the equation changed in January 1966 with temporary take- over of power by Igbo, Ironsi’s Decree 34 of 1966 which turned the country to a unitary system was met with “fire and fury” by northern mutineers led by Murtala Mohammed who after ferrying their wives and children to Kaduna in a hijacked British aircraft, threatened northern secession and sinking of Lagos with a bomb.

Just as Ahmadu Bello conceded leadership to a “fulanised “ Tafawa Balewa, a minority from southern Bauchi whose grandmother had prayed that Fulani be driven from their land or be killed, as Prime Minster in the first republic, Murtala Mohammed also conceded leadership to Yakubu Gowon, a Christian minority from southern Zaria after the July 1966 vengeance coup. That both were answerable to their northern natural leaders was indisputable. For instance, Balewa who as Prime Minister whimsically imposed a state of emergency on a federating region over throwing of chairs inside the assembly by some opposition members, an event that lasted for less than five minutes, was unable to act when violence engulfed the west with dead bodies littering the streets because Ahmadu Bello was on Hajj to Saudi Arabia. Similarly, after the vengeance coup of July 1966, Gowon saw the resolution of the national question from the stand point of the north, a decision that plunged the nation into a civil war.

From their baleful legacies such as taking the country for a dubious eight years transition only to annul an MKO Abiola’s pan-Nigeria mandate to satisfy some northern leaders, creation of more states and local council areas for the north and imposing Obasanjo, their preferred candidate to replace MKO Abiola who died in military custody protecting his mandate in spite of protest of Yoruba leaders, and the imposition of the current unitary military constitution on the country, it was very clear whose interest Babangida, Abacha and Abdul Salami Abubakar were out to serve.

Opposition to restructuring is today loudest among northern governors, emirs, and others benefitting from current unjust system. Others of course include “fulanised’ northern minority leaders who also share a mindset that only Fulani can provide leadership. In this category, we have David Mark who says restructuring is in our minds and Audu Ogbeh, who sees creation of dominions for cows across the country as substitute for an economically viable state or zone made up of Benue, Plateau, Taraba, Kogi and other areas, with state and local police to protect farmers from cross-border infiltrating Fulani herdsmen.

Besides the Fulani with a mindset of born to rule, the other threat to President Buhari’s re-election bid is the prevailing perception of victims of current Fulani aggression that Fulani, whose aspirations they believe he shares, only want Nigeria they can continue to exploit.

January 25, 2018
Obasanjo’s ‘open statement’ revisited

FORMER President Olusegun Obasanjo has grabbed the headlines again. He has just bagged a doctorate degree in Theology at the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN).

By the way, have you seen the video of a party to mark the award? Obasanjo shows his dancing skills as he holds his wife’s hands, twisting his waist and spinning round to face her again and again. Of course, there is applause. And then, he suddenly leaves madam on the dancing floor and walks away. What a spectacle.

Now Obasanjo has ignited a big debate on President Muhammadu Buhari’s political future that has generated so much sentiment and emotion. Internet warriors are up in arms. Newsrooms, staffrooms and restrooms are buzzing with comments on the latest bulletin from the Presidential Library, Abeokuta.

The former president has advised Buhari not to run in 2019. He should go home and have a deserved rest, after which he should join the league of statesmen to find a way out of the Nigerian malaise.

After a long time – of facts and figures, fun and fury – in the newsroom, I decided to feel the mood of the ordinary man on this matter. So, off to the barber shop I went yesterday for a rather belated haircut. You never get it wrong here. Everybody has an opinion. Two men in white shirts and ties – they are teachers from the nearby model college, I learnt – were slugging it out in a fierce debate; noisy.

The barber, a rotund, fairly old, half-bald fellow, seems to be disturbed by the noise of the debaters. “Order, gentlemen; order! I need to concentrate; this is a new customer,” he shouted at the duo locked in a noisy argument.

For a while all is quiet. Then, an old man, a big brownish leather bag slung on his right shoulder, appears. An excited kid announces his presence, screaming: “Papi D is here. Paaaapi!” A small crowd gathers. Papi D shakes hands with everybody and sinks into a chair.

“I’m sorry I’ve been away for some time. I have been out there on the mountain to seek answers to some of our common problems. These times call for spiritual hibernation, for ethereal sanctification and not for sanctimonious exhibitionism. So, pardon my rather long absence,” he says and begins to lick his lower lip.

A long silence. “We don’t understand you sir,” one of the teachers said.

“Even you; an educated fellow,” says the old man as he rumbles through his bag from which he whips out a small bottle of a popular gin. The cover creaks as he battles to open it. He pours the content into his mouth, frowns his wrinkled face and gulps the drink. A broad smile lights up his face.

“Young man, it is simple; I’m in high spirits. These are spiritual times. When big men are throwing blows, bombs and bangers, you should ask if it is a New Year party all over again. We must remain sober and constantly be in the spirit. Okay?”

“Papi, Obasanjo has issued a special statement asking Buhari to go home and rest instead of running in 2019. He is advocating a coalition. Obasanjo said and I quote, sir:’ President Buhari needs a dignified and honourable dismount from the horse. He needs to have time to reflect, refurbish physically and recoup and after appropriate rest, once again, join the stock of Nigerian leaders whose experience, influence, wisdom and outreach can be deployed on the sideline for the good of the country.’ What do you think sir?”

Papi D smiles broadly, strokes his beard and says slowly: “Thank you, young man. I’ve also read the special statement. You know me, I always look at the literary stylistics and lexical gymnastics of any writer. My fear is that before the anarchy some of us are scared of, we may ignite a huge protest of animals the way we court the animal imagery.

“And I’ll explain shortly. The other day it was hyenas and jackals. We were assured they would be ejected upon the lion’s arrival. The lion arrived actually, but some rats conspired and barred him from his office. We found a way round it. Then cows got angry. We paid with blood in Benue and some other places. Now Obasanjo is invoking the spirit of lice and horses and all that. I’m following the drama closely o.”

“Papi, what Obasanjo is saying is that Buhari should not run again. He should retire into statesmanship like him.”

“Look, boy. I understand the statesman and his statement. But, let me ask you, when did Obasanjo become a premiership team owner, announcing the striker to buy and the one to transfer? Is the transfer window open? Is it time to buy and sell players? Who is to do that; Nigerians or a conclave of former leaders with their own business and political interests? How do you offload a player? Has the referee blown the whistle for the game to start?

“Don’t get me wrong o. Obasanjo has a right to author an epistle, a special press statement or letter to his countrymen and people of like minds among who many men of no-distinct-position are counted, but we have a duty to reflect on it – the motive, the timing and all that. Many people feel he is a terrible interloper and unrepentant opportunist, who feels Buhari is vulnerable and it is time to deliver the killer blow.

“Yar’Adua was not good, you forced Jonathan off the horse and Buhari now is bad because ‘the economy does not obey military order’, APC is bad and PDP is bad. Will Buhari surrender? I doubt it; no General can intimidate another General.”

“Sir, he says the President should not overstretch his luck concerning his health.”

“My dear, it is only the manager who is at a boxer’s corner who knows when to throw in the towel. If the pummeling is so much and your man is bleeding badly and he collapses on the canvass, you know it is time to throw in the towel. Not when he is on his feet, even if his footwork is not that fast and his punches seem not to be hitting the target well. You don’t give up. A good coach must know the essence of endurance.

“Besides, young man, these are spiritual matters. Only God knows who is tired and who is as fit as a fiddle. It is a marathon; it is not a 100 metres dash for speedsters.”

“Papi D, Baba Obasanjo seems to be speaking the minds of many Nigerians o.”

Gbauu! Gbauuu! Huumm! Papi D coughs, his red eyes blinking with tears.”You see, Obasanjo spoke for many; you’re right. I read the statement o. Why the preamble of effusive praise of his himself, his peregrinations and how he is the poster boy of all that is good? Is he telling us that he alone has the answer to Nigeria’s problem and, ipso facto, must pick the surgeon who will perform the operation that will save Nigeria? He wants a Coalition for Nigeria Movement in which he will obviously play a major role. When the movement begins to dabble in politics, he says, he will step back. Subterfuge, obfuscation and sheer chicanery. It’s an old military strategy of ambush and attack. Come off it.”

“But, Papi, even the media are celebrating Obasanjo’s statement.”

“Wait a minute. The media are only doing their job – reporting. I saw some of the headlines at a newsstand yesterday. Leadership said, ‘3rd Term Godfather, OBJ, Opposes 2nd Term for PMB’. How about that?

“I believe Obasanjo must have contacted some former leaders before delivering this punch of a statement; he is also speaking for them. The herdsmen crisis is being mismanaged, there is cronyism and all that, but can we say for sure that Buharii has failed on all fronts? No. I have also heard people say statesmanship demands soberness. Was Obasanjo not joining the hysteria of the moment and, by that, helping to heat up the polity? He has a right to his freedom of speech, but was a public statement the right tool to deploy here ?”

“Sir, what do you think about the coalition Obasanjo is pushing?”

Papi D smiles derisively. He dips his hand into his bag and brings out the bottle. He gulps what is left of the content, holding the bottle in a way to ensure that all liquid content has been drained. He tugs at his beards. “You see, coalition is different from collation and collusion. When you mix them up, you get commotion.

“It is all settled in the ethereal realm. What will be will be. Nobody, no matter his self-glorification, has all the answers. Nigerians will decide. “

Cattle colony row settled – at last

Many states have rejected the idea of cattle colonies – the Federal Government’s antidote to the herdsmen/farmers clashes that have claimed many lives. The difference between human life and a cow’s seems blurred by the crises.

I am pleased to announce that Nigerians, ever inventive, have found an imaginative solution to this monster of a problem. A source close to the intellectuals who have been involved in this mental exertion sent me the result of their work. Here he goes: “

“Sambisa Forest – 686 square kilometers, 8 million hectares and 68 million plots of 100 feet by 100 feet. At five cows per plot, it can take 340 million cows; 340 million cows is 18 times the number of cows in Nigeria.

“There are 19 million herds of cattle in Nigeria, 72 million goats and sheep. Let the colony be built in Sambisa. With space for 340 million, Sambisa can accommodate all donkeys, cattle, goats, sheep and there would still be enough space.”

What remains is to demarcate that vast expanse into cattle colonies, with exclusive, unfettered grazing rights in perpetuity.

January 25, 2018
A time for moral courage

February 2017. A pretty, young girl blew up in Muna Dalti. She was a casualty of fear, the terror that makes us bestial. There were corn rows on the head of the girl bomber. There was a colourful bead on her wrist too. She probably loved to play dress-up and look good. Everybody forgets these bits of her.

Folk remember her as the ‘vixen’ who flicked a switch and blew up, into a puddle of flesh and bone fragments. No one cares if she was ever innocent or raised in virtue. The village is thankful that she took no innocent life, save her teenage accomplice’s. Their carcass lay strewn about the rustic community in Maiduguri, Borno State. Their innards and blood spatter sully the village even as you read.

Viewing her in the dust few metres from her shredded mate, the girl with the cornrows evoked the dread that wild weeds induce at the base of shoots. Two hours after her ‘sister’ and agent of a terrorist group, Boko Haram, detonated an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) at the Muna vehicle park, injuring eight people and burning 13 freight trucks, the girl with the cornrows sauntered into Muna Dalti with another ‘sister’ to explode among soft targets.

Till date, nobody knows the names of the girls that blew up in Muna Dalti but several folk would remember Maryam Alhaji-Wakil in whom the girl died on a sunlit afternoon in Bama. That fateful day in 2014, Boko Haram insurgents invaded her town and burnt her home. They killed her relatives and decapitated her neighbours. Then they abducted her. She was nine years old.

Maryam’s abductors whisked her to Sambisa Forest, their terror enclave. There, she was forcibly married to Modu, a ‘violent’ member of the sect. In two days, little Maryam was violently thrust into womanhood. Modu, 35, forced his way into her unripe orifice, robbing her of innocence and the mystic pleasure of first adult sexual experience. Modu was hasty and rough thus making her ‘first time’ bestial and replete with pain. She screamed in agony but Modu didn’t care. “The louder I screamed, the more violently he shoved into me until I passed out,” she told me in an exclusive interview.

When she came to, the nine-year-old from Bama had transformed into a broken woman in the corpse of a child.

Cut to a fresh hodgepodge of bloodshed and mayhem perpetrated in Benue, from dusk through dawn and you have a perfect picture of terror afflicting the Nigerian State.

January 2018. Year of the funeral pyre; hundreds are hacked to death on the pretext of herdsmen vs. host communities’ offensive in Benue.

Contrary to widespread belief, the terror we face are hardly the podgy, covetous creatures we ennoble with public office and the Nigerian till; true terror lives in the Nigerian youth.

The contemporary youth is both a victim and perpetrator of terror, paid for by the Nigerian ruling class.

In the wake of the frequent genocide, public officers and politicians of the ruling and opposition parties trade blame and play to the gallery. At the backdrop of their shenanigans, poor, helpless kids like Maryam and butchered residents of Benue lose their lives.

Irrational brick bats, incredible platitudes and senseless bloodshed have shaped our politics for too long. Many Nigerians, youth in particular, 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 and double-talk.

It took a perfect gathering of bad leadership to get to this moment; it would take electing an imperfect cannonball of a man or woman to brave through it and survive it. It’s about time Nigeria’s youth elected men of uncommon grit and fibre into public offices.

What we should be interested in is a president-elect capable of providing security, fostering policies that would generate employment and education that would provide the skilled force Nigeria needs to power her industry.

If the youth are gainfully employed, they wouldn’t become such easy marks for criminal masterminds seeking to deploy them as cannon fodder for mayhem. Today is spitting out monsters and tomorrow portends the emergence of a thousand more ogres.

What Nigeria needs at the moment are youth driven by moral courage to change the status quo; by influencing change beneficial to all. Moral courage encompasses the nerve to do the right thing and speak the truth always. It involves defying the mob as a solitary individual; to spurn the invigorating embrace of comradeship; to be disobedient to authority, even at the risk of your life, for a higher principle.

And with moral courage comes persecution and any other form of repercussion that exposes the individual as a defenseless mark to be preyed upon. Gani Fawehinmi had moral courage, so did Malcolm X. Predictably, advocates of such morality are either maligned by fate or ascribed rogue status by the State. Routinely they are accused and charged for treason. But in their touted notoriety subsists the irony of an incontrovertible metaphor; they usually represent the best of mankind and civilization in their time.

Come 2019, the youth should root for a candidate identifiable as the window into the people’s psyche. The one who internalizes the grief he has learnt from the streets. I speak of the candidate that manifests as the blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes can rally to project their dreams and needs; the passive yet active instrument by which Nigeria may prosper and we could achieve our dreams.

To find such a candidate, the search begins now. None of the current contenders is worthy of the Nigerian vote. If Nigeria recycles them in power, the world that awaits us would be more painful and difficult.

The youth needs a fresh platform to deliberate in Nigeria’s best interests.

January 19, 2018
Better life for cows

NOBODY saw it coming. Not the army of necromancers parading themselves as guardians of human destiny. Nor the soothsayers predicting all that lies in the belly of this interesting year. Nor the men of God who have issued predictions to guide the faithful. Nor the village fortune tellers on whose doors many knock before making any major move. Nor the elders who are the custodians of our collective wisdom. None.

In fact, if anybody had predicted that this day would come, he would have been scorned and derided as a fool seeking attention. He would have been dusnissed as a drunken motor park tout stricken by a strange fever.

After years of a bloody campaign – broken heads, devastated farms and shattered home (on both sides) – the trophy is here. Colonies for cows.

When Agriculture Minister Audu Ogbeh broke the news the other day, he attracted an avalanche of verbal assaults.

Suddenly, a cow’s life has become the envy of many, among them those who claim to have cried when the Federal Government missed its much-trumpeted goal of housing for all by the year 2000.

Ogbeh says the colonies for which no fewer than 16 governors have provided land will have all the facilities that herdsmen will need for their cattle – “water, grass, training for herdsmen, cattle breeding and insemination”. No more will these prized animals be forced to walk several kilometers on sometimes unfriendly terrain in search of green, lush pasture.

No more canes to whip them into line whenever their minders feel it is time to move on. No more broken hooves as a result of the long trekking everywhere and nowhere in particular. No more rage from farmers whose farmlands have been destroyed. No more rustling by desperate thieves who disappear with cows in hundreds as if they are some pins or needles.

It is a new life completely. A better life.

Now there will be an army of vet doctors and nurses to ensure that no calf gets sick. Cleaners will keep the environment spick and span. Gardeners will ensure that luxuriant fresh grasses are never in short supply. There will be no mad cow disease and other ailments that trouble this sacred animal.

No drinking from streams and dark, dirty and murky ponds with the attendant danger of contracting water-borne diseases. It is now clean, cold, fresh, pipe-borne water straight from the reservoir. Cow dung will no longer be scattered all over the place; instead, it will be gathered for some waste-to-wealth materials, such as manure.

Also likely on the cards is a subsidy for the cow as it is done in Europe, according to the honourable minister. Talk about the deification of cows. And the herdsman, who will no longer be a mere “daran daran” (herdsman) living in huts, but the proud owner of a colony, the envy of farmers who detest his movements as ruinous seasonal exercises.

Where are our animal rights activists? Where are those who claim – without any proof whatsoever – that we lack thinkers in government? Won’t they, for once, swallow their pride and hail this magical move?

The Yoruba who say contemptuously that a o le tori wipe a fe je’ran ka pe malu ni bu’oda (we can’t say just because we want beef we should revere the cow as an elder brother) may have to do some reframing of that common saying. By state policy, the cow’s status has changed – just like that.

Suddenly, cows have become the envy of all. A reliable source has just told me that grass cutter breeders have formed an association, which they hope will team up with piggery farmers, to demand their own colonies with all the appurtenances that go with such privileged facilities. They have hired an Abuja human rights lawyer, I am told, who is to file a writ at the high court to compel the Federal Government, its agents, privies, officers, servants, appointees, etc., etc., to accord them and their animals full recognition.

The breeders, according to a legal source, will be relying on the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights to which Nigeria is, thankfully, a signatory.

Members of the Poultry Association, I have just learnt, are also contemplating a legal action to compel the government to give them colonies so as to be free from unruly neighbours who claim that the smell from their poultries poses some health hazards even as breakfast tables are never complete without their products. They are demanding equity and justice for themselves and their trade.

Rabbit and snail farmers, claiming that “all animals are equal”, are said to be waiting and watching how the courts will handle some of the matters that have been filed before launching their own legal battle. What’s good for the goose is sauce for the gander, they insist.

An intelligence source has told my friend’s cousin’s mum of a long meeting of security chiefs held somewhere in Isale Igangan in the heart of the great city of Lagos. Top on the agenda, he swore, was how to pacify dog breeders who have suddenly formed an association, which will fight for their right to colonies of theirs after so many years of neglect. The source, who pleaded not to be named because of the security implication of the matter, said the breeders thought it was time to call the bluff of neighbours who claim to have been disturbed by the barking of dogs.

Should the government turn a deaf ear to their demand, the source went on, the dog breeders will issue a seven-day ultimatum after which they will sack their vets and compound the unemployment we are all battling. Should the government remain adamant, they will then fix a date on which they will unleash their ferocious pets on our cities and towns. Should the government fail to act, they will then mount a national protest day. Their members will hit the street in their thousands. Their battle cry: “Colony-for-one, colony-for-all”.

Even before the cattle colonies open, those armchair critics who have no knowledge of the workings of a government or how such lofty policies are formulated have started raising eyebrows. Where will the land for the colonies come from? Will the owners pay tax? Why should a man come from Gorom-Gorom or Ngaoundere to Abafakyai or Apeinumbu to set up a colony in Yakoyo or Gumel or Ikot Abasi or Patani or Abudu?

How will the resulting clash of cultures be contained? Hasn’t nature put everybody in his own place? Is it not man’s disruption of natural arrangements that has landed us all in many troubles?

There seems to be so much ignorance of the ABC of a cattle colony. Benue State Governor Samuel Loraer Ortom has confessed that he doesn’t understand it. He insists that ranching is the antidote to the crises that have claimed many lives. “Does it mean that herdsmen will colonise Nigeria as Britain once did?” one fellow was quoted as saying at a newsstand.

Those who are ignorant of what a cattle colony means should not panic. The government is said to be planning a seminar to be addressed by renowned pastoralists. But it is not yet clear if there are plans to bring back nomadic education – the highly successful Gen. Ibrahim Babangida era’s scheme under which herders were to get western education.

After consuming billions of Naira, the programme collapsed under the weight of its many contradictions and sheer envy. Itinerant drummers were also yearning for their own schools. So were itinerant shoe makers, tailors, sugar cane vendors, water vendors, “suya” hawkers and all sorts of hustlers.

Is there no end to their envy?

Senators at work

Some senators have proposed an answer to what they described as the grave security situation in the land. Senate President Abubakar Bukola Saraki should be appointed president, they said yesterday. Their logic is that since, in their view, the executive has failed to rise up to the challenge, the Senate president should step in.

Not so fast gentlemen – and women.

Presidents are elected; not appointed like primary school class monitors or janitors. Those making this repulsive suggestion, including Shehu Sani – what a disappointment – and Ben Murray-Bruce – common sense, indeed – seem to have two goals.

First, to hide under legislative immunity and incite Nigerians against the Executive by contriving a major constitutional crisis in which Dr Saraki will become a pawn in a lethal game of political barracudas.

Two, to simply set up the Senate leadership for ridicule and odium.

The suggestion has no place in the Constitution. Besides, it is immoral, self -serving and roguish. Even motor park chiefs are now elected as against the old order when the man with the strongest thugs carried the day.

The likes of Murray-Bruce, the beauty pageant/music shows organiser-turned senator to whom everything seems to be showmanship are the ones that have made the Senate an object of derision, denounced by all as a conclave of men and women of little minds.

We face serious security challenges. We should all tackle them. This is no time for empty histrionics and grandstanding. This time demands deep thinking, creativity and imagination. Senators should sincerely join the battle.

January 18, 2018
Fulani herdsmen, sponsors and patrons

Apart from its iniquity and brutality, very little was known of Nigerian Fulani herdsmen, rated by Global Terrorism Index as the fourth deadliest terrorist group in the world, coming after Boko Haram, ISIS and Al-Shabab. They reportedly killed about 1,229 Nigerians between 2013 and 2014. And since our traditional Fulani herdsmen don’t carry sophisticated arms, many had thought only infiltrators from neighbouring countries could have inflicted so much sorrow on innocent women and children across the Middle Belt of Nigeria. Armed with sophisticated weapons, these men whose identity, state of origin or nationality are unknown, killed, maimed and disappeared, leaving many in pain. Government even with its control of awesome apparatus of state power has yet to apprehend or prosecute any of their members.

The narrative however changed with last week intervention by Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi II and Alhaji Sale Bayeri, the Secretary-General of Gan-Allah Fulani Development Association and member of Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association’s (MACBAN) Board of Trustees. The former admitted he is a patron of Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria, the body that gives protection to Fulani herdsmen. Other patrons according to him include the Sultan of Sokoto, Lamido of Adamawa and emirs of Zazzau and Katsina.” The objective of the Fulani herdsmen umbrella body according to him is the “protection of the fundamental rights of herdsmen as Nigerians including constitutional right to freedom of movement and the ownership of private wealth and peaceful conduct of their business.”

He traces the cause of the crisis to “demographic implosion in the North, desertification, reduction in water reserves and competition for resources, crop production, animal husbandry and fishing” but blames the prolonged crisis and the attendant terrorism to “failure of political authority, the cynical manipulation of ethnic identity by failed governments and the impotence of our security machinery.”

He however vigorously defended the action of the herdsmen citing the alleged murder of “800 Fulani women, infants and the elderly.” whose personal dossier he claimed he “ personally handed over to the Federal Government with the names and pictures’ as well as names and addresses of persons known to have participated in these acts of ethnic cleansing”.

The latter, Alhaji Sale Bayeri, chose to warn us about the “grave consequences if 18 million Fulanis continue to perceive deliberate injustice”, threatening that “the Boko Haram insurgency would be a child’s play if herdsmen and farmers’ conflicts are not resolved in a way that is acceptable to all sides.” And what would appease the rampaging herdsmen, he said was contained in a 70-page letter he had sent to President Buhari before his inauguration. In it was a demand for an un-hindered grazing access in areas he identified as ‘trouble spots’ spread across 75 local government areas across 21 states including “ Oye Local Government in the northern part of Ekiti, Shaki in Oyo State, Akwa-Ibom, Cross River, Rivers, Delta, Edo, Bauchi, Gombe, Yola”.

And with foreboding finality, both Fulani leaders insist “Benue anti-grazing law cannot work”, while Bayeri seems to demand as of right that “there should be open grazing for those people who think it is traditional and cultural to do it because that is their only form of exercise, leisure and pleasure.” The ‘leisure and pleasure’ of herdsmen he seems to say, take precedence over ownership of cultivated farms or uncultivated land belonging to private individuals.

With such robust defence and backing of Fulani herdsmen by their principals, we need not ask the source of their sophisticated weapons, what embolden them to act with impunity and why no one has been brought to book to date.

The contempt and the arrogance exhibited by the aggressors while the bodies of their victims were about to be laid to rest once again raise the issue of restructuring as the only answer to our crisis of nationhood. It is apparent that some of our compatriots don’t believe we are running a federal system of government. This can only be the explanation why the Emir of Kano believes he can from his Kano fiefdom dictate to Benue State governor how to run the affairs of his state. Under a federal constitution, especially in an age when the federal arrangement has become market driven, the only option available to Emir Sanusi of Kano is to encourage settlers who are dissatisfied with Benue laws to migrate to Kano, if his fiefdom holds better prospects.

Within a federal set up, desert encroachment, population implosion or competition for resources may attract federal support but cannot be sufficient reasons to demand by force, free grazing zones in the farmlands of federating states or threat to invite fellow Fulani across the borders to unleash further terror if the federal government fails to prevail on recalcitrant states.

Beyond capturing territories, which His Royal Highness , Emir of Kano says is ‘daft argument’, it is not lost on many Nigerians that it is only those with mindset of feudal lords that will demand as of right to embark on open grazing across the farm lands of other federating states.

I sympathise with Governor Samuel Ortom and the people of Benue State who have just buried another set of 73 victims in the vicious cycle of terror that started in Tiv land long before independence. Unfortunately, until Governor Ortom, successive Tiv leaders betrayed the spirit of Joseph Tarka who along with Awo paid dearly for their attempt to create an identity for the Tiv people. Successive Tiv leaders including the David Mark, eight years Senate President and his group who are now threatening to set up an army have betrayed the Benue people by choosing to pick crumps from the table of those who have openly declared Tiv land as spoil of war following their great grandfather’s conquest of Tiv land.

And finally, I sympathise with President Buhari whose failure to seize an historic opportunity to become a statesman, with all his imperfections, alleged nepotism, cronyism and soft spot for Fulani herdsmen, he is the only Nigerian leader that has truly put Nigeria first not necessarily because of what he stands to gain politically or financially. He is unlike Obasanjo whose claim of being ‘Mr. Nigeria’ secured for him a military head of state and a two-term president when he would have not risen beyond a local council chairman due to the nature of politics of his Yoruba people.

I recently asked, unfortunately without getting an answer, someone I believe is sufficiently close enough to know the way the mind of the president works. It is curious that President Buhari would ignore the wise counsel of Nigerian patriots like Wole Soyinka, Emeka Anyaoku and others on restructuring and then move on to squander away the goodwill of millions of Nigerians who had wanted to make an Abraham Lincoln out of him, choosing to swim along with those with mindset of feudal lords and their public face like David Mark who has asked those who identified restructuring as answer to our crisis of nationality to “first restructure their minds”.

January 18, 2018
Fuel shortage madness

It is only a mad person who does things repeatedly in one fashion and expects to get different results. The political economy of petroleum resources is too important and critical in Nigeria to be left to the government alone. Supply and distribution of petrol (benzene) for fueling internal combustion engines whether vehicles or generators are not rocket science or neuroscience to be left to experts alone. It is simple economics of supply and demand. Countries that do not have or produce petroleum have to import and distribute the stuff without the agony and trauma that regularly befall Nigerians especially annually at Christmas.

Our basic problem is that we are not refining enough petroleum for domestic use. We have four refineries, two in Port Harcourt, one each in Kaduna and Warri. These are refineries established at different times and with different capacities starting with the first one in Port Harcourt in 1965. The one in Kaduna is poorly located and its location was probably influenced by political considerations. This was a wrong decision for a purely economic matter. This is because transportation of refined petroleum is easier and cheaper than the transportation of crude oil. This is more so since the Kaduna refinery was built to refine heavy crude imported from Venezuela at a point in time. We may in future be able to refine in Kaduna crude oil from Niger republic. However, the locational issue is now academic.

The reality is that all the refineries are not working at optimal level. This means we rely on imports to satisfy local need. The cost of imported fuel is subject to the vagaries of the up and down of global cost of petroleum. When the cost is low, government does not need to subsidize but when it is high the government in order to keep pump price low has to subsidize to keep importers to continue in business. Unfortunately this scheme has been so thoroughly abused in the past to the extent that trillions were used in one calendar year as subsidies. People who knew nothing about the oil and gas trade jumped unto the bandwagon and overnight became gas and oil business men and instant billionaires.

During the Jonathan regime politicians and their children used their connection for financial aggrandizement at the expense of the state and poor struggling Nigerians who bought fuel at prices dictated by cartels in cahoots with people in government. The huge amount spent on importing petrol led to the downward spiral of the Naira. So much foreign exchange was used for oil importation that the real sector of production was neglected because there was no hard currency to import spare parts and raw materials for local industries that unreasonably depended on imports. But because crude oil was selling sometimes close to $120 a barrel, it was easy for operators of the domestic economy to allow all kinds of imports thereby giving a feel-good effect for everybody while kicking forward the lean years which were bound to come when the price of crude oil drops. This came with the change of government in 2015 and drastic drop of crude oil production and price globally due to over supply of the world market. This overproduction came as a result of increased oil production in Russia, Saudi Arabia and the re-entry on a large scale of Iraq, Iran and the United States whose local production increased exponentially because of fracking which is now responsible for 50 percent of America’s oil output.

When this Buhari government came two years ago, subsidies were mercifully stopped to wide acclamation and trillions of naira were therefore saved. Subsidies could not continue because the country was broke. If Jonathan had won the election, he would have had to cancel the subsidy regime or allow the country to go bankrupt like Venezuela. The Buhari government however failed to educate Nigerians that the price of petrol would rise if the depressed price of crude oil at that time about $35 rose. The price of crude oil is now double what it was two years ago so the pump price of petrol must go up unless huge subsidies are again paid to importers. If after subsidies current pump price is maintained, Nigeria through smugglers will be providing refined petroleum products and gasoline to her neighbours. The point to make is that as long as we do not refine adequate amount of petroleum for domestic use, the price of petrol at the pump will vary with the vagaries of international price of crude oil. How much will be enough at the pump to encourage oil importers to continue in business without subsidies? How much can the people pay in a period of economic depression? What price is politically wise to ask hard pressed and struggling Nigerians to pay? Should market forces be allowed to operate without government intervention? These are the issues.

First of all, what can be done to speed up local refining of petroleum? The answer is not annual Turn Around Maintenance ( TAM). Some have wickedly described it as “ Automated Teller Machine) those working in NNPC. Can anyone blame them? This is a drainpipe of government revenue which has been going on since these refineries were built. Any sane man would have expected government to have signed maintenance agreements with those who built the refineries right from the start. I remember Sani Abacha asking TOTAL petroleum of France to do a TAM at the Kaduna refinery at a cost of US$100million when he was in power. This was at a time when a modest new refinery in Singapore was costing the same amount.Now we are being told again that NNPC is planning TAM for the old four refineries at $1.2 billion. This contract should be stopped immediately. The refineries should all be sold to oil companies doing business in Nigeria at buyer determined price.

If I was advising President Buhari, I will ask him to give them away at zero price with the condition that the companies buying them will make them work within a year. The other condition will be that continued business of these oil companies will depend upon cooperation with government to make these refineries work. The money saved from TAM will be used to import petrol while waiting for the repairs to be carried out at no cost to the national exchequer. The huge cost of TAM would therefore have been saved and used for importation and what would have been used for importation will sit pretty in our foreign reserves and be used to support economic development. Former president Olusegun Obasanjo had a plan like this in 2007 but those who moved in with President Umaru Yar’Adua sabotaged this plan and forced the health-challenged president to change course so that they could benefit and did benefit in the shady and corrupt Nigerian oil and gas business. These same people for two years prevailed on the Yar’Adua government to cancel contracts for building much needed electricity generating plants. It is not too late for Buhari to go back to the past and embrace this solution so that he can leave a lasting legacy. The annual Christmas headache of fuel shortage will end hopefully by the time the old refineries come alive at no cost to government and the much ballyhooed Dangote refinery in Lagos comes on stream. A private company would have come to the rescue of Nigeria and we will all be able to say like Martin Luther King junior “ Free at last, Free at last ,Lord God Almighty , we are free at last”.

January 18, 2018
Herdsmen killings: A post-mortem

THE killings did not start today, but in its characteristic manner, the government turned a blind eye to everything. As men, women and children were mowed down in some parts of the country, we only heard the wailing of the bereaved and not the action taken by the government to stem these killings. Until now, herdsmen and farmers skirmishes were a rarity. How and why things changed still remain a mystery. But some highly placed people seem to know more about the genesis of these clashes than what is in the public domain.

If we are to believe what the Emir of Kano Muhammadu Sanusi 11 told the Sunday Punch a few days ago, the herders are on a revenge mission. According to the emir, they are avenging the killing of their fellow herdsmen in some states. These killings, he said, were not reported by the media nor did the states where the dastardly acts occurred take any action against the perpetrators. As a respected monarch, Sanusi cannot lie, but it is worrisome that he is saying this at a time like this.

Sanusi’s remarks were revealing even though he said he was not justifying the herdsmen killings, but merely providing background information for what led to their action. From what he said, it is clear that some powerful people in the north are abreast of what the herdsmen are doing. If anything, the January 1 Benue killings have shown that we can only keep quiet over this issue at our own peril. The herders – farmers clashes will not disappear if we continue to look at them from ethnic or religious prism. Naturally, Emir Sanusi spoke like a Fulani whose kinsmen were being killed in some parts of the country, according to him, without the law enforcement agencies and the media lifting a finger in their aid. As he said in the Sunday Punch report, this is no time to play the blame game, but to look for a way out of these incessant skirmishes.

These clashes will continue to fester if the herdsmen continue to take out their cattle for grazing as they presently do. Even those of us living in cities like Lagos, Port Harcourt, Benin, Enugu, Ibadan and Calabar shudder at how these herdsmen rear their cattle in full public glare without a care for others feeling. From nowhere, these herdsmen and their cattle will invade public places under the guise of grazing. In such a situation anything can happen if the herdsman loses control of his cattle.

And this is what has happened in some instances when cows invade farms and eat up everything in sight. What should the farmer do in such a circumstance? Embrace the herdsman and his cows? A colleague of mine nearly lost his life a few years ago when a straying cow ran into his car in the wee hours of the night after he closed from work, damaging his windscreen. And on several occasions, motorists have had to compete for the right of way with cows on the Long Bridge on the Lagos – Ibadan Expressway. In most cases, these herdsmen feel that they can let their cows loose on the highway without a consideration for the lives of other road users.

This is where trouble starts from. Rather than admit their wrong, the herdsmen will claim that they also have the right to put their cows on the road. But cows are not meant to be on the road fighting for space with man and machinery. We have gone past that age of nomadic grazing. That kind of grazing was excusable in the Nigeria of the sixties, seventies and perhaps, eighties. Nigeria has reached a stage where we can no longer allow cattle rearers to move about town, doing whatever they like.

It is unfortunate that some people had to die before we woke up to the reality of the herdsmen menace. I do not have anything against herders, but truth be told their mode of operation is not the best at all. They feel that they have the right to graze anywhere even on private properties. Unfortunately, those who should call them to order do not see anything wrong in what they are doing. If these people love them that much why did they not release their own land to the herders for grazing? It is one thing to support the herders with words of mouth, but another when it comes to walking the talk. These powerful people have all it takes to give these herders grazing land. They have vast land not only in their domains, but also elsewhere in the country.

Will they have kept quiet if they were in the shoes of those whose farmlands these herders’ cattle destroyed? I believe we should not be emotional in our quest to find a lasting solution to the problem. Let us forget whether we are Fulani, Hausa, Yoruba, Efik, Igbo, Bini or Idoma and do what is right and just to ensure peace in every part of the country. There will be danger, serious danger, if any part of the country bleeds again from this crisis. Things started like this in 1967 before we slid into a three-year civil war in which one million people died. We do not pray for such a bitter enterprise again.

What has happened has happened – 73 killed in Benue on New Year’s day; scores killed in Enugu, Adamawa, Plateau and Nasarawa not too long ago; while a former presidential candidate, Chief Olu Falae, was kidnapped on his farm. He paid an undisclosed ransom before he was released. These are annoying acts, which could lead to one section of the country rising against the other. Let us put all these behind us and chart a new path forward. Establishing cattle colonies is a good idea, but we should think the matter through before embarking on the project because of the cost implication.

Is appeasement the solution? For how long will we watch people break the law – wanton killing and destruction of properties – and allow them to go scot-free? Should not those who kill intentionally be made to face the music? What happens to the bereaved families? Is the government considering compensating them? If we are thinking of building colonies for cattle rearers, we should also be thinking of what to do for the families of those killed and others whose farmlands were destroyed.

January 18, 2018
Your Excellency, you will die in common hours

What do politicians think at death’s door? How much money they could hoard into their caskets perhaps. What would you think at death’s door? You, the unbidden offering on the politician’s altar of greed?

Greed, weaving its tissues of lust, wraps us in her shroud at birth. We grow out of the mold, startled by a pat, into a larger frame of the world’s excesses. Until we become society; and society flips us by the senses, molding us from infancy into feral, garish cruciform.

The newborn grows into crucifixion in the house of the impoverished. He evolves through systolic throbbing of the heart at birth, oscillating between poverty and pain, power and weaknesses, ethics and amorality – vortices of a life foredoomed to a historical gyre of gloom and death.

The lucky child however, extinguishes at birth, in the home of the poor. Thus he is spared death in macabre warrens, like Ogun State’s dirt roads and dysfunctional hospitals. He is spared gruesome expiration as bone sliver, blood spatter and brain fragments, in Borno’s theatre of war and death.

If he doesn’t extinguish to lack of oxygen in the hospital labour ward or alagbo omo (traditional midwife)’s matted lab, he risks growing up to become a street-urchin, cult killer, armed robber, menial worker, prostitute, assassin, forever amenable to plots of the criminal ruling class.

At the backdrop of his grisly narrative, his privileged peer grows into lush, ornate extravagance; the latter, born into the aristocratic divide is however, feted on affluence and ravaged by wealth. He grows reprobate and unfeeling, weaned to extrude his savage lusts to the detriment of impoverished peer amid starving electorate – his parents’ meal ticket or family’s hound-meat if you like.

At election time, he glistens the news pages in family portraits and carefully orchestrated political media campaigns. He is the darling child whose testimonial for ‘daddy,’ ‘secret philanthropy’ and ‘very Nigerian’ fashion sense, arouses the wonder and goodwill of ‘poor, silly, sentimental electorate’ as his father would say.

As you read, he uploads in careless abandon, pictures of his wild cavorting aboard parents’ private jet bought with pilfered State funds. He throws the wildest fête champêtres at home where boondocks daughters become fair game to him and friends.

This minute, he is ramming into unsuspecting motorists and bystanders as they wait their turn to buy scarce PMS, made unaffordable by his ruling-class parents’ savage thrusts; next minute, he is uploading picture of the dent made on his father’s car at the densely populated filling station, by his victims’ splintered bones.

The privileged child, like the fabled palace troll, mutates into tyrant royalty. Having assimilated the ethical decay of his forebears, he blossoms in cruelty and procedural violence. He illustrates his class’ ferocious passions in the ways and pattern of licentious Rome.

Each sadistic exertion by him establishes portents of his underprivileged’s peer future torment, by the venal occult ruling class.

Nigeria thrives by this macabre rite. Thus while youthful electorate clamour for the ‘#nottooyoungtorun’ bill, the ruling class, comprising the All Progressives Congress (APC) and People’s Democratic Party (PDP), lend voice to the clamour, although at varying decibels and with vicious intent.

The ruling class plans to recycle itself in power courtesy their rich, spoilt wards. Thus they snigger at youthful electorate, ranting about “taking over.” The herd may vie for power but only patrician creatures and spawns, comprising drug addicts, sex perverts, trainee looters and Ivy League crooks among others will enjoy such privilege.

The votes our parents’ cast put us in such bind. The votes we cast puts our children in worse bind. This beggars the question: ‘For whom do we cast our votes in 2019? Whose constitution rejects our tragic ironies?

In 2019, will you vote for the APC or PDP candidate promising a prosperous future, by the lure of money, and bigoted, poisonous politics?

We face a far more difficult problem at our moment in history: the affliction of youth weaned on ferocious ill and savage materialism. Infant kids from two societal extremes, haves and have-nots, coalesce in ghastly pursuits inimical to the Nigerian project.

What do you promise youth that had been told that they can have anything they want without shedding sweat for it? How do you give them a new vision to deal with bitter reality? Which candidate projects a promising story of the future, a grand vision of possibilities that Nigerians believe?

How do we breed youth on the belief that success should never be about accumulating obscene wealth to show off but the right to live life more fully and engage more expansively, the elemental possibilities of human existence?

There is no gainsaying Nigerian politicians worship money and feed the youths’ mad lust for affluence. Brings to mind the story of the conqueror King: Alexander, after conquering many kingdoms, allegedly fell ill on his way home. On his death bed, he realized how his legendary conquests and wealth were of no consequence. He longed for the little moment that amounted to life’s essence: to see his mother’s face and bid her bye. But sinking health would not permit him.

In his last three wishes to his generals, he said his first desire is that his physicians alone must carry his coffin that people might realize that no doctor on earth can really cure anybody.

Second, he requested that the path leading to the graveyard be strewn with gold, silver and precious stones which he collected in his treasury that people should know that “not even a fraction of gold will come with me.”

“My third and last wish,” he said, “is that both my hands be kept dangling out of my coffin. I wish people to know that I came empty handed into this world and empty handed I go out of this world.” He died afterwards.

Dear governor, senator, president, you will die in common hours. And you don’t amount to a third of Alexander. Remember when death comes in your spittle.

January 12, 2018