The Nation Newspaper

Category: Thursday

  • Buhari was elected to govern

    Buhari was elected to govern

    The reappearance of long queues at filling stations with thousands of Nigerians desperate to spend the Christmas and new year holidays  with their loved ones, stranded at motor parks across the country and the recent release of some 1,488 names including ‘dead appointees’, to fill vacant board positions are all symptoms of absence of governance. The president admitted this much with his apology to Nigerians during his New Year address four days ago. He told Nigerians that he was “saddened to acknowledge that for many, this Christmas and New Year holidays have been anything but merry and happy”, blaming  everything on our compatriots who, “Instead of showing love, companionship and charity, chose this period to inflict severe hardship on us all by creating unnecessary fuel scarcity across the  country.” He promised ‘to get to the root of this collective blackmail of all Nigerians and ensure that whichever groups are behind this manipulated hardship will be prevented from doing so again.”

    For several days before this apology, it was a blame game. The Senate asked us to hold NNPC and independent marketers responsible for our sufferings. This was followed by buck-passing between NNPC, Independent Petroleum Marketers of Nigeria (IPMAN) Petroleum Products Marketing Company (PPMC). Then followed the theatrics of Dr. Maikanti Baru,   the NNPC-Group Managing Director as he spoke of attempts to arrest tankers trying to cross the borders in the north, or agonised over those diverted from Abuja to south-east or personally sealing off defaulting fuel stations. On his part, Ndu Ughamadu, the NNPC spokesman was asking no one in particular questions which he and his boss could answer such as why our daily consumption of 30million litres of fuel suddenly jumped to 50million litres. As in the many times we passed through this familiar path in the past, government officials’ diversionary tactics did not bring relief to desperate Nigerians searching for fuel for their cars or to power their generators.

    And why is absence of governance a betrayal of sacred trust between the government and the governed? It is because thinkers all over the ages discovered that of all God’s creations, man is the most evil. They are fortune-seekers who often want freedom for themselves while abridging freedom of others. The privileged who often live on the blood of the weak and poor want freedom without responsibility.  Because of man’s inhumanity to man, life was nasty, brutish and short. To cage man who more often than not is insane, thinkers settled for government. And to head the government, they recommended not a righteous man such as a pastor or an imam but a Leviathan-a huge fearful sea monster whose authority cannot be questioned once we promised our allegiance and traded our freedom for his protection of our lives and properties.

    For his honesty and patriotic zeal, Buhari earned our trust. We therefore in 2015 elected him to replace Jonathan who instead of governing allowed his party men and ministers to convert our commonwealth and national patrimony to personal use. We equipped Buhari with awesome apparatus of state power starting with the police, secret police, soldiers EFCC, ICPC etc. to hunt down well known evil men among us such as armed robbers, kidnappers thieving governors, budget padding senators and assembly men, some NNPC and PPPRA officials and their fronts-the oil marketers. We didn’t ask Buhari to appeal to man’s conscience because we found that to be a scarce commodity among enemies of state. We had expected his government to take protective and pre-emptive actions when the stability of state is threatened but Buhari chose not to govern.

    For instance, this column like other concerned Nigerians has in the last two years appealed to him and his APC to constitute the boards of some of the over 500 small government his administration needs to execute his programmes. Instead of hearkening to our plea, he chose to put his fate and by extension fate of Nigerians in the hands of members of his self-serving incompetent kitchen cabinet and institutions like NNPC and PPPRA.

    If a further proof of absence of governance is needed, it would be in Garba Shehu, the president’s spokesman’s claim that “the president’s trips for medical attention slowed down completion of the process,” of appointing board members. If the president was away, there was an acting president. And that no one cross-checked the list to ensure round pegs are not put into squared holes is sufficient evidence that the list was released not for the purpose of implementing party policies but probably to forestall a backlash from disgruntled party members in 2019 which is just around the corner.

    Most of the small governments whose boards Buhari is now trying to belatedly constitute have been in the hands of his political opponents in the last six years. For instance, PPPRA was a creation of PDP as a response to artificial fuel scarcity they created at the beginning of the fourth republic with a bill passed into law by NASS in February 2003 and assented to by Obasanjo in May 2003.  Before Buhari took over reins of power, this was “an agency with staff strength of 249, supervised by an unwieldy 22-man strong board, earning a scandalously whopping salaries and allowances of N57.9 billion per annum”. Its mandate: To “liberalise the downstream sector of the petroleum industry, privatise the refineries, deregulate and liberalise the imports of petroleum products and, generally, make the products available at reasonable prices”. Incidentally, this mandate happened to be a mere duplication of that of Pipelines and Product Marketing Company, (PPMC) which was set up in 1988 to “profitably and efficiently market refined petroleum products in the domestic as well as export markets, especially in the ECOWAS sub-region, provide marine services and also maintain uninterrupted movement of refined petroleum products from the local refineries.”

    The staffs of PPPRA were the greatest defenders of Diezani Alison-Maduekwe, the former minister of petroleum, now facing money laundry charges in Britain. They once told Nigerians that “the minister of petroleum resources has put measures in place that consistently prevented corruption in the downstream sector of the oil industry” even at a time a house committee report confirmed that a theft of N1.7 trillion occurred in PPPRA in 2011, when Col. Ahmadu Alli served as chairman of the body.

    What, if one may ask, is the relevance of these parasitic bodies two and half years into President Buhari’s administration?

    In his intervention on the fuel scarcity crisis, Prof Wole Soyinka, our elder-statesman reminded us that faced with fuel scarcity crisis in 1977, Buhari as minister for oil had back then assured Nigerians it would be over in one year. That was 40 years ago and two and half years as President doubling as oil minister. It is Soyinka’s belief that Nigerians as “a people, are surely credited with the most astounding degree of patience and forbearance on the African continent – except of course among themselves, when they turn into predatory fiends”.

    But has it not be said that, a people deserve the government they get? Buhari might have not been able to properly articulate our crisis of nationhood, but the successes he has recorded in his anti-corruption crusade, Boko Haram insurgency war and the battle against economic saboteurs are clear demonstrations of his commitment to the nation. The question at this critical period in our nation’s history therefore is – if not Buhari who else? Can we conceive of Saraki, Ekwerenmadu, Dogara, Dino Melaye El-Rufai, David Mark or any of those former ex- governor turned senators’ presidency today?

  • This year…as all others

    (Portrait of the Nigerian journalist in 2017)

    This year as all others, we pretended to have answers to everything. Did we? This year, we spat words and ate them, like the dog that waddles back to gobble its vomit.

    This year, we quoted Nietzsche, Plato, Disreali, Awolowo,Maitama Sule, Ojukwu, among others, to garnish our columns while we silenced true-born dissent on our news pages and networks, lest we incur the ire of irate benefactors.

    I tender unreserved apology to the few media and journalists who lived up to full measure in the spirit of integrity, social responsibility and unimpeachable ethics. They remain Nigerian journalism’s shining lights in a wilderness of vice.

    Yet this is the year we ennobled the thieving statesman and denied the patriot the plaudits we save for noble compatriots. This is the year we celebrated underachievers as the best of overachievers. This year, we celebrated the vanities of dim-witted celebrities on front-pages of our national newspapers.

    Here goes the year we exhausted newsprint and priceless airtime to glamorize the shenanigans of “society bigwigs and dim wigs” although we cannot tell and still cannot tell, the simplest manifestations of our news practice, on say, the vendor who markets the newspaper or the child-labourer to whom Universal Basic Education (UBE) remains an everlasting fantasy.

    This year, we feted the northern mafia, eastern cabal, western gerontocracy, and south-south uprising, as usual, even as they undermined our collective dreams of progress.

    Beyond our elegant words and brazen manifestations of high character, our practice is modeled after some greedy few’s cartography of citizenship than by any internal dynamic of allegiances. Hence our misinterpretation of the social contract between the media and the society we serve.

    Thus this year as all others, we hid behind interviews, ‘big interviews,’ to abdicate our responsibilities to the Nigerian public. Then we taught the public to digest perversion because we know if we treat them to such depravity, we would get more adverts and keep smiling to the banks.

    This year as all others, we turned a blind eye and conveniently lost our voice as creatures running the three arms of government squandered public fund to feed their gluttony. We watched unperturbed as most of our colleagues ennobled and defended with their lives, the rights of the ruling class to pilfer our chests and rob us silly because leaders of men like them deserve to eat and dwell like no ordinary man.

    This year, the ruling class afflicted our lives with ineptitude and savagery. In response, we cried ourselves hoarse, twisting logic and lip service, for and against our favourite public officer; eventually, we lost our voices to bigotry and confusion.

    This is the year in which our brothers in the north-east tirelessly blew to death, our mothers and daughters, sons and fathers, in the market place, schools, on the playground, in the bedrooms and houses of worship, in the name of politics and religion. This year, our brothers in the south-east determinedly kidnapped our wives and daughters, mothers and fathers, sons and heirs apparent, for a ransom, in pursuit of unearned affluence. This is the year in which our brothers in the southwest habitually mortgaged our future on the altar of politics, personal and sectarian greed. This year as all others, we refused to dissect these maladies in the interest of our nation thus helping the world to understand why we are regarded as the inheritors in whose hands the heritage dies.

    This year, we affirmed that we are amoral and somewhat intellectually challenged courtesy our ethnic and intellectual bigotry.

    This year, we failed to actualize press freedom because it was socio-politically incorrect to do so. This year as all others, we failed to acknowledge that our survival or death as a nation is undeniably entwined with the tenor of practice and citizenship of the Nigerian press.

    This year as all others, I make a case for re-sensitization of the Nigerian press. It is time we dismembered our clan of the charlatan.

    In spite of everything, we choose to play god. That is why “dogs don’t eat dogs” in our Fourth Estate although it’s okay if we eat the entrails of a few ordinary Nigerians like the unfortunate adulterer caught pants down even as we underreport thieving bankers stealing from the poor to enrich rogue CEOs and the ruling class.

    I hope we find the courage to report; “The Rot in the Media” and that for every kobo looted by government, from public and private coffers, the press gets its share. Dateline: media parleys, press conferences and governors’ roundtables.

    This year as all others, I suggest humaneness and high ethics, to improve our welfare and standard of delivery. It’s time we asked: “Who is a journalist?” and aspire to an untainted definition of it. It’s about time we redefined what level of knowledge, qualification and professionalism is expected of a journalist. It’s time we ascertained what manner of passion channels the direction of our news practice.

    This year as all others, I suggest we ditch politicians who treat us as disposable pawns in their grand theme of schemes. Come 2018, shall we service depravity of folk for whom our pens write melodies, instead of maladies impoverished folk are dying to have us publicize that they might fare better?

    In 2018, shall we remain intellectual hit men for every hoodlum with deep pocket? Shall we become cliff-hangers to take portraits of looters and celebrity-nincompoops with promising smiles? Shall we remain the media managers that pay poorly even as we label expatriate firms slave-drivers?

    Next year, will the masses stare at our cover pages resignedly, knowing they would never feel or hear the infinitesimal clangor of freed hope because we remain aberrations of their desperate circumstances? Shall we continue to speak from both sides of the mouth? Shall we continue to eat like “idiots” at the feast of the one who calls us “idiot?”

  • Yuletide blues

    Yuletide blues

    We saw it coming. It is an old trick that rarely fails. Cry wolf for some time, forge a scarcity, watch the people suffer as if we are at war, issue a long emotional statement of sympathy -and empathy – loaded with facts and figures on why a price hike is imminent and then, launch a big push for a new price.

    That has been the game in the past two or so weeks. A crushing petrol scarcity has marred what would have been for many an exciting Yuletide. How did we get here?

    Marketers have been demanding to be paid billions of naira for supplies made in those days of subsidy bonanza when every trickster, prankster and hustler in town was an oil and gas magnate. All you needed was to know somebody in the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) or in any of its subsidiaries; you were made for life – just by hawking some papers. Genuine and counterfeit traders were lumped together in a pool of sharks and barracudas tearing at one another. Bloody. In the end, the treasury bled and bled. We could no longer fund the bazaar. And here we are.

    As I was saying, the present situation followed the old pattern. Marketers launched a push for their money; the government replied with some pussyfooting around the matter and then senior oil workers threatened to go on strike. A great show of pacification began. By the time oil workers shelved their plan after much persuasion, a petrol scarcity had forced its way in.

    The NNPC hit the old, weary path of explaining the landing cost of petrol (N171.40 per litre), freight cost and all that. It spiced it up with the smuggling theory, stressing how our petrol has become smugglers’ favourite. They are attracted to it as bees to honey. Of course, there is also the extenuation of how a long, endless stretch that is our border can’t be policed. But, said the oil giant, a month’s reserve was sitting pretty in the depots. Besides, ships were on their way with petrol. We relaxed.

    Obviously enraged, those behind the scarcity – we may never know them, as usual – pressed the throttle harder. Petrol price hit N400 a litre. Filling stations shut down. Some opened in the dead of the night. One mounted a big pipe from its storage to the back of its filling station, dispensing the stuff at its own price. Many had been fleeced before the bubble burst. Black marketers seized the roads, making brisk business. Travel plans were shattered.

    Marketers returned to the fray. They said banks were after their property for not repaying their loans, the fate of their legion of workers was hanging in the balance and their depots were empty. They could no longer raise the cash to fund imports and NNPC had become the sole importer of petrol.

    The NNPC fought back yesterday, accusing  Depot and Petroleum Products Marketers Association (DAPPMA) members of owing the Petroleum Products Marketing Company (PPMC) N26.7b.

    Now that the message seems to have hit the right target, there seems to be some respite – in some cities.

    Why do we have to go through this cycle of anguish every year? Who are the big masqueraders behind the yearly scarcity? Why are marketers whose debts have been verified not paid? What is the state of our troubled refineries? Are DAPPMA members right  to blame it all on the NNPC – if it is true their members are owing the PPMC N26.7b? Why has this problem become part of us? Is corruption fighting back (pardon the “cliché”)? Why has the crash in oil price not reflected in petrol price? Will the oil sector ever get it right? Will anybody get punished for this?

    Trust Nigerians. Amid the despair, they found time to crack some ribs in the social media. There is the picture of a young man with a puffy face. His eyes are shut. His lips are swollen. He cuts a pitiable picture of a hit-and-run driver’s victim The caption: “I shouted ‘sai Baba’ at a filling station.”

    A car with the hash tag “I stand with Buhari” is being filled from a jerry can on the street. That drew some bitter comments from people who do not think the administration has done well. Of course, Buhari’s admirers picked up the gauntlet and gave it to them in equal measure.

    A 50-litre black jerry can of fuel is spruced up – ribbons and all – and presented as one of the items demanded for the bride price at a wedding.

    But the biggest comical relief of all did not seem to have worked. The Presidency had announced that a documentary on the soft side of the President would be aired on television. Some counselled that the timing was not right. Others asked how television sets would be powered to watch the documentary, considering the fact that public electricity remained unstable and fuel was scarce. The show went on. Then, the criticisms started pouring in–in torrents.

    Human side? Who has said the President is inhumane? How has this shown the President’s “human side”? Isn’t this a mere show of loyalty and panegyric on the aides’ relationship with the President? Where are his jokes? Is this the best way to tell the world that our President has a remarkable sense of humour? Where is the witty President who sent us reeling – and furious – with “my wife belongs to the kitchen, my living room and the other room”.

    When former Vice President Atiku Abubakar quit the All Progressives Congress (APC), Buhari dismissed it all in a jocular manner. He told party Chairman John Odigie-Oyegun: “I learnt that one of your prominent members resigned. Please, accept my sympathy.”

    There you have it: a parallel between former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s “I dey laugh o” when told that Atiku was planning to run. Buhari even poked fun at himself when he flashed that gap tooth, smiled and said: “I know people call me Baba Go-slow.”

    How has His Excellency reacted to any major calamity? Has he ever shed tears? How did he feel when his health became a challenge? What are those situations in which the soldier in him could give way?

    The documentary and the fuel crisis were not the only hallmark of what many have referred to as a dull Yuletide. The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) said it was investigating how $48,485,127 was diverted at the Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF) when Dr Ngozi Olojeme was chairman. A court granted the agency’s request to detain Mrs Olojeme for two weeks after which it plans to take her to court. Mrs Olojeme reportedly denied all the allegations against her and swore to defend her integrity in court.

    Then the EFCC claimed to have recovered 38 houses, which it believed belong to her. Before one could scream “incredible”, a court said she should temporarily forfeit the houses – until the matter is decided. We are holding our breath.

    Before we could make any sense of the EFCC-Olojeme matter, another story of graft on a gargantuan scale had grabbed the headlines. Some of former President Goodluck Jonathan’s aides are said to have shared N27b Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) sales proceeds. The cash, it was reported, was meant for insurance premiums of disengaged PHCN staff. The matter is in court.

    Apparently shocked by the irrational behaviour of some of our leaders, the Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi, recommended that they should be tested for drug abuse. He spoke at a roundtable on “drug abuse epidemic in Nigeria”, organised by the Senate in Kano.

    Hours after the Kano talks, a video hit the social media. A senator in a simple “buba” and “sokoto”, a tray of groundnuts perching on his head, hawking on a busy street. He persuades motorists to buy his groundnuts. Dear reader, there is no prize for guessing who the senator-hawker is.

    I support the Emir. Some of our leaders need to be weaned off drug abuse. By the way, where is Senator Dino Melaye (Kogi West)? He should raise a point of order for a matter of national importance.

    So much for an exciting Yuletide.

     

    Again, Honours 2017

    By popular demand, we continue today to honour those compatriots whose actions have contributed to our collective wellbeing, lest they feel disenchanted to do more in the new year.

    Hajiya Aisha “Mama Taraba” Alhassan would easily have snatched away the trophy for Minister of the Year, considering her courage and forthrightness in speaking truth to power. But, the trophy isn’t hers.

    Take a bow, Honourable Minister of Youth and Sport Solomon Dalung . He knows his beat like the back of his palm. He recently said the Super Eagles qualified for the World  Cup without conceding a goal. Besides, said the minister, our stars do not need to train overseas to do well. Told of the decaying National Stadium in Abuja, Dalung said, “but we have repaired the swimming pool in Sportscity, Surulere, Lagos”.

    Despite the harsh criticisms of his mode of dressing – some said he looks like an excited door man; others said he dresses like a Civil Defence recruit awaiting his first set of uniforms – Dalung soldiers on. He is Minister of the Year.

    Abdulrasheed Maina, the Pension Task Force Team boss, was fired and declared wanted for alleged misappropriation of funds running into billions. He went into hiding. He suddenly returned, got reinstated and promoted – to the consternation of all. There was outrage. President Muhammadu Buhari moved in. He fired Maina and ordered a probe. Maina has disappeared again. When will he return?

    No doubt, Maina is Civil Servant of the Year.

    An unnamed girl is said to have stolen $40,000 from the Abuja office of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF). She reportedly handed the cash to money doublers. How did an intern have access to the NFF’s vaults? Has the cash been recovered.

    It is incontrovertible; the unnamed girl is Intern of the Year.

  • Season’s greetings and musing

    This is the time of the year when I look back over my life with nostalgia. I remember that as a child I would be eager to find out what kind of shoes and clothes I would wear on Christmas day. In those days we did not eat rice every day as we now do in Nigeria. Rice was eaten during important feasts like Christmas Day , New year and Sallah( Eid al Adha or what we call in Nigeria Eid el Kabir).We jokingly dismissed rice as only good for birds. Of course whatever rice we ate was grown in Nigeria not in Chile, Peru, Thailand, India, China, America or Vietnam. Essentially Christmas was for children while New Year was for adults. I remember after my own family began to grow, how I made sure my children also had new clothes, shoes and wrapped up gifts to put around our Christmas tree pretending that Santa Claus aka Father Christmas came through the chimney after riding his reindeers from the North Pole bringing gifts to all children in the world.

    My kids were born outside Nigeria or grew up in foreign countries so they got into the culture of the West and its consumerism during Christmas. When my kids got home to Nigeria, I switched from celebrating Christmas with turkey to buying a goat or a ram so that they could enjoy tearing at solid meat like our Muslim compatriots during Sallah.  My wife and I used to wrap gifts for each other and left them with those of the kids by the Christmas tree .Those days are gone for ever what I have left are memories. Unfortunately, Abiodun my wife God chose for me is not here to share these memories with me. Whenever I say this, I involuntarily shed tears! It is well. While on this, I lost a good friend Funso  Alayande, son of Archdeacon Ladipo Alayande veteran principal of Ibadan Grammar school and from his mother’s line ,grandson of the late Anglican Bishop of Ibadan , Bishop Akinyele who was an older brother to an Olubadan, Oba Akinyele. Funso’s pedigree was impeccable and if things were normal, a man like Funso would have brought colour and class to the position of Oyo State governor. Our generation was indeed a wasted generation. At the time we should have made impact, soldiers took over our country in a buccaneering assault that finally ended in 1999 or has it really ended bearing in mind that Obasanjo and Buhari are a continuation of military rule.

    I was not at home when Funso died but my thought went to his family. Wherever I was in my peregrinations, Funso kept in touch and when I did not hear from him this time, I should have guessed something was amiss. Rest in Peace Dear friend.

    Archdeacon Dr. Akinwunmi Akinyemi, a physician and cleric, my senior and a prefect in Christ School Ado-Ekiti and older brother to Professor Bolaji Akinyemi, former Minister of External Affairs, also passed on. He was much loved at school. Even though a quiet man, he was strong willed and was a stickler for rules, regulations and principles. Just like Funso, Akinwunmi’s own father, Archdeacon Akinyemi was a veteran principal of Ilesha Grammar School and like Archdeacon Ladipo Alayande, he was also a politician in clerical robes rising to become a member of parliament in the First Republic. Adieu Akinwunmi Akinyemi . I know you will find rest in the bosom of father Abraham and at the feet of our Lord Jesus Christ. We should number our days when people close to us die.

    I sometimes wonder where Nigerian politicians get the courage to struggle for power which is transient and ephemeral. Already 16 months before the next election, people are already jostling for positions. Only God Almighty knows who will be around tomorrow. Not only  are they doing that , incumbent governors like the one in Ekiti State has chosen who will succeed him as if Ekiti State is a Rotten Borough to  be given to  a favourite as electoral passage to power. I am very pessimistic about our country because the right questions are not being discussed by our politicians. We are told that in 30 years’ time, Nigeria will have a population of one billion at current rate of growth as well as the porosity of our borders and growth of population of our neighbours in Cameroon, Chad, Benin, Niger and Togo whose people flock to Nigeria ceaselessly seeing Nigeria as their safety net for their surplus population. A friend jokingly chided me that what is my concern about Nigeria’s population growing to one billion when I would not be around. I have not seen any plans about Nigeria’s economy post hydrocarbon-dependent economy currently prevailing in our country. We are daily watching what the price of Brent crude oil is and celebrating the rise in our foreign reserves without thought of immediate collapse of the foreign exchange when the price nosedives.  What will happen to this country when to save planet earth, hydrocarbons as sources of energy are banned?

    I have not seen any serious debate on kidnapping which has rendered us imprisoned in our homes and watching our miserable lives pass by uneventfully. The National Universities Commission is still remorselessly licencing more universities when existing private ones have no students and are bound to close down one after the other. Our roads are impassable and the most economically important road in Nigeria the Lagos – Ibadan Road is caught up in politics while money for the road is being diverted by the Bukola Saraki-led Senate to digging bore holes in preferred places in Nigeria. Apapa and Tin Can Island ports are inaccessible with collapsed roads while Lagos State government has had to take over constructing access roads to the major international hub of Nigeria and West Africa – the Murtala Muhammed Airport .This eyesore of an airport has no ceiling from the finger to the main hall and all the escalators and conveyor systems have packed up, yet 60% of internally generated revenues come from these sea and airports and industries in Lagos. I think people in government need to take courses in economics to realize that if the economy of Lagos is buoyant, it will redound in Kano and Sokoto states. With the way things are done in Nigeria I am becoming pessimistic about our future and this is at a time when black peoples are being sold by Arabs in Libya. This is a case of history repeating itself in the re-run of the Trans Saharan slave trade. If I was advising Buhari, this is the time to divert our attention by a robust intervention in Togo to ask the juvenile Eyadema to go before millions of his people arrive in Lagos as refugees. They are already roaming around on Lekki – Epe Road. We need to shake off the inertia and immobilism that seem to pervade both our foreign and domestic policies.

    On a lighter note, let me share an experience with my readers on November 24 known worldwide as “Black Friday” which marks the beginning of Christmas shopping mania. I found myself in London. I told my host that I had a meeting with an academic colleague at School of Oriental and African Studies and that I would be returning later in the day. At around 6pm, there was stampede somewhere around Regent Street and Piccadilly’s circus. Rumours had it that there was shooting going on in the streets on this bitterly cold day. I was very far from the scene. I was in fact in the underground train returning to the home of my hosts. Everybody was now trying to find me and my relations at home and abroad were alerted that I had been caught up in the London bombing. Prayer warriors were summoned and were binding whatever daemons that might have taken over my life when eventually  I came out from the underground train and my phone started ringing I was chastised for wandering around when I should have been resting my old bones where I was staying. Actually it was a serious situation but I was nowhere near the Centre of the commotion. I now know how much loved I am. But one funny thing these days is that my oldest daughter almost acts as my mother believing I am not as smart as I once was. She is probably right. I cannot swear I can beat my four year old granddaughter in a one hundred metres dash yet I used to ask her father to stay well in front of me in running practice in those days.  Am I smarter than my grandchildren? Who knows? On a recent visit to Canada and carrying an IPAD, my three year old granddaughter snatched it from my hand and asked “Papa what’s your pass word?” Needless to say I was shocked. Our brain degenerates as we age so it is very likely that my grandchildren may be smarter than myself. I suppose this is our lot as mortal men!

    May God be with all my loved ones, with my country Nigeria and with all Nigerians. May our wishes in the New Year come true and may this our country fully realize its potentialities. And I say we should all in the immortal words of J F Kennedy ask not what our country can do for us but what we can do for our country. Merry Christmas and happy New Year.

  • ‘Doc., welcome to VIP Lodge’

    I was on the way to work on December 19 when my phone rang. I was in the car of a colleague,  Bunmi Ogunmodede. At the other end was my sister, Kudi, who wanted to know whether she should give my number to Jumoke, who she did not know, but who I know very well having been introduced to me by our brother, Rasaq, a doctor at the Presbyterian Joint Hospital in Uburu, Ebonyi State.

    Following my say so, she gave my number to Jumoke whose call came in as soon as I arrived in the office. It was bad news. She said she had been trying Rasaq’s number all day without success. When she eventually got through to him, she was alarmed by what he told her.   According to her, they spoke for only 50 seconds, but it was a conversation the poor girl will never forget. She said Rasaq told her he was in trouble. Trouble? What kind of trouble? I asked. ‘’Daddy, Rasaq told me he has been kidnapped’’, she said in tears.  He was kidnapped in the night of December 18 as he got home from work.

    After breaking the shocking news to some colleagues in the office, I promptly sprang into action to confirm what I just heard. I was in a daze as I did not know anybody in the hospital to call. Somehow, I got the numbers of some people who confirmed the kidnap of their medical director in the night of Monday, December 18. Then the longest five days ever of my life began. By Tuesday morning, the kidnappers had called, demanding N50 million ransom. The hospital secretary, Rev Eze Umahi, the accountant, Mr Chijioke Nwankwo, and former Presbyterian Church of Nigeria Director of Publicity Rev Emeh Kalu, now a parish priest in Umuahia, Abia State, who I interacted with, assured me that the hospital and the church were doing all they could to ensure that Rasaq came to no harm.

    I bombarded these gentlemen with calls daily, demanding swift action in the rescue of my brother. I told them that things were not moving as fast as they should, wondering if they were doing anything at all to rescue him. The kidnap saga was a big burden for me. I could not bring it to the attention of our aged parents because of its implication for their health. After informing Ganiu, my immediate younger brother, who lives in Abuja, about the incident, we both agreed that we should do everything possible to keep it away from them. We did not know that we were only deceiving ourselves. They got to know about it last Thursday when the kidnappers called them shortly after contacting me through Rasaq’s number.

    Between the hospital and I, it was tug of war as I continued to pile pressure on the secretary and the accountant to act fast as time was running out. From N50 million, the kidnappers came down to N10 million. In a fit of anger, I called the Prelate and Moderator of the Presbyterian Church of Nigeria, Most Rev Nzie Nsi Eke, complaining about the hospital’s handling of the incident. The man of God calmed me down, saying everything was being done to get my brother out. ‘’Nothing will happen to him because he is into saving lives’’, the Prelate assured me, adding : ‘’we are all praying for his safe return’.

    Indeed, prayer warriors went to work for my brother. My father-in-the-Lord, Rev (Dr) M. A. Adegboye and Minister-in-charge, Christ Apostolic Miracle Centre (CAMC), Lagos 1 Rev Biodun Okunade (JP) and other ministers immediately embarked on praying and fasting as soon as I informed them of the matter. So also did my childhood friend, Pastor Yomi Ogbaro, who is now a regional overseer with the Mountain of Fire and Miracles Ministry (MFM). The hospital too was praying. Everybody was praying for Rasaq.  I thank you all for your selfless act. And then what I feared most happened. The kidnappers called my parents after talking with me last Thursday. ‘’I have been kidnapped’’, came the whispering voice on phone as I strained my ears to hear the caller well. I knew the caller was my brother; I will recognise that voice anyday, anywhere and at any time. I was in my office with some colleagues discussing his case then. I hushed them to quiet as I attended to the call. I pretended I have not heard about the incident as I asked Rasaq where and when he was kidnapped.

    Before he could respond, his kidnappers took the phone from him. They told me that they have been holding him since Monday night, adding that all they wanted was N10 million. The hospital, they claimed, was ‘’playing games with us’’. I implored  them to reduce the N10 million ransom, but they refused. On Friday morning, the kidnappers called again, asking for the ransom.  That Friday night, the accountant and I virtually spat on each other’s face on phone. I was at my wits’ end.

    On Saturday, my nightmarish five days ended, with calls from the secretary, the accountant and Offia Matthew, another official of the hospital. They broke the news of Rasaq’s release to me around 7. 25 a.m. After I missed his call, the secretary sent me this terse message at 7.36 a.m : ‘’Rasaq is back’’. Was I relieved? I shed tears of joy when I spoke with him on phone few minutes later to confirm his release.

    We are happy over Rasaq’s return and his first act upon his release is worth recalling here as told by the secretary. “From where I sat, I saw an Okada coming towards the hospital with Rasaq on it; I could not believe my eyes until I saw him disembarking. I was getting up to receive him when he breezed past me and went straight to the chapel and I said see Rasaq has become born again’’. Who won’t after such a terrible experience? How will anybody feel being surrounded by four gun wielding men? How will that person feel being bundled into the boot of his own car after being blindfolded with his singlet? They took him to a clearing in a thick forest, where he was ushered in with these words :

    “Doc., welcome to VIP Lodge; we will give you VIP treatment. Just stay there; if you want to piss, piss there, if you want to shit, shit there.” Throughout his stay with them, they gave him only one pure water a day.  His freedom did not come easy; it came by divine intervention. What a terrible experience for a young man just starting out in life.  As he did following his release, we return all the honour and glory of his safe return to God.

  • $1b ECA fund and its critics

    $1b ECA fund and its critics

    I think the question as to whether President Buhari needs $1b approved by the governors’ forum for the purpose of ending the Boko-Haram insurgency is legitimate. The latest report of Global Terrorism Index has after-all only recently confirmed that terrorism in Nigeria has decreased by unprecedented 80% in two years compared to 40% in Iraq, 24% in Syria, 14 % in Afghanistan and 12% in Pakistan.  Some have called attention to other demands on government such as decayed infrastructure and unemployment. Some would rather have government go through the National Assembly (NASS) for appropriation if such huge amount is required while a few others believe the governors’ forum has no constitutional right to decide on how the LGA’s part of the excess crude fund is deployed. But as it is often said in this business, the medium is the news. The question is how credible and sincere are some of those now trying to pontificate on how Boko Haram war should be fought.

    Yari, the chairman of the governors forum has explained to Nigerians that   because the governors felt they ‘should not compromise the issue of security for the entire country’ they agreed to forfeit $1bn out of our (their) own share of excess crude ‘to purchase equipment for the military’. Such a decision, he added also happened during Jonathan’s era when they all agreed ‘to withdraw $2bn to procure equipment and logistics for the military’. Of the 32 governors in attendance when the decision was taken, there was, according to him ‘no single opposition’

    Governor Ayo Fayose of Ekiti has however dissociated himself from decision insisting ‘all accruals to the federation must be shared by the three tiers of government’. His argument is that Ekiti’s problem is not Boko Haram but Hunger-Haram. His trenchant cry has since become   “I want my Ekiti money”, asking, ‘Since they said they have defeated Boko Haram, what else do they need a whopping sum of $1bn (over N365bn) for, if not to fund the 2019 elections?’

    For Governor Dickson of Bayelsa however, Fayose was only up to his antics. According to him “Our duty is to collaborate among ourselves, collaborate with the federal government on two critical issues of national security and issues of the economy… and I think that we leaders must be circumspect in terms of creating controversies on issues of national security”.

    The new PDP, like Fayose, was however suspicious, such amount might be diverted to fighting the 2019 election. This is understandable. Both are not strangers to the use of funds budgeted for military hardware and soldiers welfare as war chests. Fayose according to EFCC and Senator Musliu Obanikoro who ferried N3 billion of $2.1 of arms funds from Dazuki Jonathan’s NSA in two aircrafts confirmed Fayose received the money. EFCC has since traced the said amount to personal accounts of Fayose and linked some of the funds to properties he acquired in Lagos and Abuja. Like Fayose, the current PDP leadership was also privy to the sharing of the said military hardware votes by PDP stalwarts and ministers as war chest.

    Unfortunately, since there is no evidence Fayose invested any part of this money in Ekiti, it is difficult to believe his current trenchant cry of “give me my Ekiti money’ is motivated by love for Ekiti. This is also a man who traded off Prof Adeniran, his fellow Ekiti compatriot and the best of all the PDP chairmanship contestants for a possible VP slot in 2019. Fayose, like his brother governors who took Obasanjo to court citing constitutional backing over the sharing of the excess crude oil funds, is driven by anything but the love of Ekiti people.

    And a man who cannot remember it was only yesterday  Obasanjo took him from Adedibu, the Ibadan garrison commander, and made him governor of Ekiti State but now publicly accused him “of opening his rotten mouth to criticize PDP that gave him an opportunity to be a two-term president” adding, “where is Obasanjo today? His era is gone. We are now in charge” cannot be taken seriously if he read motives to President Buhari’s actions.

    While it will be uncharitable to lump other critics together to clowning Fayose, I think three quick observations can be made in respects of the fears they expressed. First, our current federal arrangement is a fraud.  The umbilical cords that link the LGAs together with the states cannot be severed just because of an aberration that the former is funded with other peoples’ resources by a centre they are not answerable to. The governors can legitimately speak for their LGAs.

    The sincerity of those asking Buhari to put his fate in the hands of the current NASS is also questionable. We cannot pretend not to know that ‘the cloak does not make the monk”. There is no difference between David Mark/Ekweremadu’s 7th Senate and its offshoot, the 8th Saraki/Ekweremadu Senate. The former worked against the interest of Nigerians. While it was busy sharing our national patrimony with David Mark leading the way with his confiscation of the Senate President’s mansion, a national heritage, other PDP stalwarts and ministers looted the nation. The 7th Senate was also busy serving its members while Generals stole military hardware and soldiers’ welfare funds resulting in Boko Haram insurgents hoisting of caliphate flags in some conquered areas of the north-eastern Nigeria.

    The latter, Saraki/Ekweremadu 8th Senate has only improved on the baleful legacies of its forbears.  It has for the past two years despite public opinion, served none but its members. They have demonstrated their opposition to Buharis anti-corruption crusade.  Twice they rejected his nomination for the chair of EFCC for no other reasons than he had earlier investigated corruption cases against some of their members. President Bubari’s Special Anti-corruption Court bill named “Special Criminal Courts Act” has remained unattended to since last year. The Anti –money Laundry Bills have been in the Senate since 2015. And without the passage of this anti-corruption courts legislation, special anti-corruption courts cannot be created to speed up corruption trials. For now, the over N2trillion recovered looted funds cannot be used for the benefit of the people since the cases are still going to the Supreme Court.

    And lastly, with nothing but sabotage coming from  the legislature, the judiciary and even some segments of the media, we seem to have forgotten that Buhari as an elected sovereign in a democracy cannot cite these impediments  as excuses for not fulfilling his electoral promises at the end of four years.  As a democratically elected sovereign, he is allowed to employ blackmail, intimidation and stick and carrot approach and if needs be, only the stick for the greater good of the greatest number of people in society according to his interpretation. (This is currently going on in Trump America, the home of democracy).

    The problem with President Buhari is that he has been too timid to use the power of the sovereign. This was perhaps why exasperated Itse Sagay said not too long ago that the enemies of Nigeria in the National Assembly are lucky he was not the President. In a democracy, the tale does not wag the dog.

    And finally, I think it will be short-sighted to cite the near or total defeat of Boko Haram as excuses for not equipping our armed forces for future challenges. There must be something to learn from our recent history. Obasanjo and Yar’Adua saved for the raining day but probably paid less attention to our armed forces. And after Jonathan and PDP, like Epicureans ate everything kept in their care for our tomorrow,  all we had when Boko Haram struck, was an army that could not  defend its own barracks where Generals died while literarily protecting their families members under Boko Haram siege inside a church with their bare hands.

  • Dear Child, school is not for slapping Satan

    Dear Child, school is not for slapping Satan

    Dear Child, I understand that school has become the rattlesnake that swallows its own tail, the ethical swamp where teachers lead scholars to absorb criminal etiquettes like sanitary towel. How long since you soaked up our dam of folly?

    I cannot paint to you what knowledge was nor can I teach you the fire in Jonathan Swift’s heart as he wrote If.

    I can’t teach you the swirl of half-familiar, half-strange songs of Gabriel Okara’s Piano and Drums.

    I can’t teach you to feel the madness of the unfettered poet neither can I oblige you the wisdom of Ise logun ise lest you fail to find in D.O. Fagunwa, a kindred spirit.

    But I could unschool you from the gospel of the new enlightenment. Alas! I see you dance where the beat splays rhythm. I see you stomp your feet as you sing and slap Satan: Gba, gba, gba…gba Satani leti ! (Slap, slap, slap…slap Satan’s ears) in ‘praise and worship’ every morning at the school assembly.

    Then you do the fundamentalist hustle into decrepit classrooms where you learn to war with ‘infidels’ on the watch of perpetually inept teachers, everyday.

    We have left the era of the teachers that taught us to be leaders of men. We are in the era of the tutors that bandy the “end time” in lieu of expensive knowledge, for which papa burns sweat and mama goes a-borrowing, everyday.

    And so you learn, not knowing. And so you grope, not feeling. And so you grow, ill-equipped to pursue the future you would never have.

    But who cares if tomorrow dies with the glow of our desultory sunset, today? You have got the ‘word’ and it’s all that matters.

    You, a mere child, have become “prayer-warrior” and unrepentant merchant of the “end time.”

    I do not blame you kid, for we force you to believe that you were at birth, a sinner, were you?

    It is the way of the world to make you die before your time, will you? Would you rather live? Would you rather know?

    Would you rather feel all that makes life worth living and all that makes it worthless? Would you rather lose, yet find, life’s conceit and essence in a single line of poetry?

    Would you rather find the pains and comfort of certainty in the cold, harsh chambers of science?

    Would you rather live by the “word” as you should know it or as you have been tricked to believe it?

    Would you rather go to school to learn how knowledge could really become power?

    I hope you discover why at birth, you chanced on our twilight of death: death of knowledge, death of being, death of history, death of joy, at the end of our sad, sad life.

    Child, in your eyes, I see our “better tomorrow” in full blossom and demise. I see you walk the beaten path because you have been taught to tread no other.

    In your eyes, I see the fires of decadence burning, I see the dreams of a fraudster. In your silence, I hear the rumours of dawn that’s radiant with moonshine. In your eyes, I see the dreams that rebel; I see the patriot’s death, the politician’s greed and the vanity of impatient youth.

    “Money talks bullshit works;” “Woe betide knowledge, and pain, and toil.” Labour has lost its honour, in your eyes. I should ask why but I know you know that “Slow and steady” wins no race in our fatherland.

    I see you have learnt to despise teachers, hate the police and treat journalists with disdain, because we taught you to see them as human antlers on the pate of the damned.

    We have thought you to follow the money thus you avoid the mindless burrow like a mole grasping through blindness of bliss and sorrow, on the bypass to fast-fleeting fortune.

    Child, you will grow up inept to blame us and fault others for the mistake your life would become, if you follow the fleeting path.

    You will lay the fault for choices no one forced you to make on us, on others, worse still, on our Creator. We have failed you. Fault accepted, blame resolved, will you now grow up?

    I hope things change soon. I hope you find thirst for history, hunger for poetry and insatiable craving for the ends of science.

    I hope you find the joys of childhood, the trauma of adolescence and the tumult of early adulthood. I hope you learn life’s bitter truths early enough.

    I hope you get to understand that school is for learning and the worship houses should do for slapping Satan.

    Perhaps you will discover the ignorance of your learning process and understand that slapping Satan every morning would make your life no better. The best-heard prayers are hardly said. They are the shiny rivulets masking the face of the factory hand. They are the recalcitrant throb in the forelock of the insatiable scholar and teacher. They are the fires burning within the heart of the patriot dying to make a difference.

    I hope you get to make a difference. I hope you become the patriot we never were.  Perhaps you will learn to become a man on your own terms and eventually become more than an appendage of the dreams of those whose hands are white and their hearts, black.

    But having gone through the rites of rot we call schooling, can you guarantee the future we may never have? Will you parade something more than a charred brain?

    I hope you shame us. I hope you grow up, find purpose and put our wealth to better use. I hope you become a true leader of men.

    If you don’t, you will end up tormenting us like the ruling class, or the militants pretending to fight for the poor in the creeks of the dying delta and the forest of Sambisa, ‘in the name of God.’

  • Gathering storm in the Middle East

    It is strange that just as ISIS has largely been defeated in Racca, headquarters of their caliphate in Syria and routed from Mosul, the second largest city after Baghdad in Iraq the struggle between Saudi Arabia and Iran has gathered pace and is becoming dangerous to the point where Israeli Defence minister is openly calling on Saudi Arabia and the Arabs to join it in confrontation against Iran. Iran is the leading Shiite nation while Saudi Arabia is Sunni. Thank goodness Egypt has not come out to take sides yet, but when the chips are down, Egypt will not abandon fellow Sunnis in the confrontation with Iran. Outside the Middle East, there are of course Sunni Pakistan and Afghanistan which share borders with Iran. Any conflict based on this sectarian divide in Islam could engulf the entire Islamic world drawing in, Africa and Turkey the most powerful Sunni nation. There is hardly any part of the Islamic world where the division between the two sectarian tendencies do not exist.

    The division between Shiite and Sunni Islam is rooted in history. The beginning goes back to the dispute about succession to Prophet Muhammad who died in AD 632. The dispute was between supporters of Husain bin Ali who was a cousin to Prophet Muhammad and after marriage to Fatima the prophet‘s daughter Ali became his son in law and was therefore considered by Shiites the first imam of Islam. It was claimed that Ali was the preferred Caliph and his successor by Prophet Muhammad. His Companions (Sahaba) finally prevailed on Ali to become Caliph in 656 and was assassinated five years later in 661. But this was after there had been three other Caliphs beginning with Abu Bakre (Abdullah) a trusted companion who was also father-in-law to the prophet through Aisha the prophet’s wife. He became the first Muslim caliph and ruled over the Rashidun caliphate from 632 to 634. His claim to the caliphate seat was disputed by some of Muhammad’s companions who believed that the prophet had designated Ali as his successor.  The first four caliphs known as “the Rightly guided ones “ were Abu Bakr, Umar ibn al- Khattab, Uthman  ibn Affan and Ali ibn Abi Talib. All the caliphs were regarded as amir al muminin while the Shiites consider only Ali as the only legitimate caliph and Amir al Muminin. This straight forward historical struggle for power had now snowballed into sectarian and doctrinal schism in Islam. The Arab Muslim armies conquered Persia, now Iran in 651 which led to the decline of the Zoroastrian religion in Persia. Persia had been an advanced civilization before the Arab conquest. But this conquest has always given the Arabs a sense of superiority which no Iranian would ever accept.

    The most extensive Islamic caliphate was that of the Ottoman Empire in Turkey which covered parts of Arab lands in North Africa and the Middle East but not Persia/ Iran.  What is important to note is that apart from Egypt at a point in time, Iranians never conquered Arab land. But there is no doubt that Persian influence in the Middle East has been considerable in modern times in the face of absence of a pan Arab nation. It is now that Saudi Arabia is trying to rally Arabs against what it considers unacceptable Iranian power and influence.

    The defeat of the ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria)or ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) has extended Iranian influence to the borders of Saudi Arabia because the government of Iraq is largely a Shiite regime and there are Iranian military units fighting along with Iraqi troops. This fear made the Saudi regime not to have been too excited in the war against the ISIS caliphate in spite of the horrible crimes committed by ISIS against humanity.  On the South-western border of Saudi Arabia is Yemen where Iranian backed Houthis rebels are challenging the Sunni dominated legitimate government of Yemen. This is a country that has not been at peace for almost two decades. Yemen is quite close to Saudi Arabia. In fact Osama bin Laden, the leader of Al Qaida was an ethnic Yemeni. The Bin Laden family as represented by Osama’s father made all their billions in Saudi Arabia and have become a formidable family in construction and civil engineering sector in Saudi Arabia. The existential threat the Houthis pose to Saudi Arabia was the firing of a missile to Riyadh the capital of Saudi Arabia in October this year. In spite of Saudi Arabia‘s constant aerial campaign against the Houthis, the rebels have continued to wax stronger because of Iranian military backing. In Lebanon, the Shiite party of Hezbollah (the party of God) has continued under Hassan Nasrallah to dominate the country to the point where the Sunni Prime Minister Saad Hariri resigned suddenly for fear of being assassinated. He announced his resignation on a Saudi Arabian television station in Riyadh leading to the perception that Hariri was forced to do this and that he was in fact in Saudi Arabian detention.  Hariri has now gone back to Lebanon and the situation remains inchoate. The Sunni and Shiites in Lebanon are evenly balanced at 27% each making a total of 54% while the different Christians divided along sectarian groups constitute about 40%. Lebanon is a small complex country that exists at the sufferance of her neighbours. Saudi Arabia now feels the newly emboldened Hezbollah, fresh from military successes in Syria, has become the main power in Lebanon opening the doors to Iranian influence in Lebanon. The Sunni revolt  in Syria, hijacked by ISIS and Al Qaida has finally been put down  by a strange and complex uncoordinated military campaigns by Russia, the United States, the forces  of Bashar al Assad, Iran, Hezbollah and Syrian Kurds in the north of the country has confirmed the hold of  the Alawite/ Shi’a  sect of Bashar al Assad. This also has confirmed preponderant Iranian influence on another Arab country after Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen and then Syria. Even small Qatar is not out of the Iranian influence which has led to the United Emirates, Egypt and Saudi Arabia cutting off ties with Qatar.

    One of the reasons for Iranian apparent success is because unlike Sunni Islam, the Shiites have a hierarchical order of priesthood from Ayatollah to grand and supreme Ayatollah making mobilization easier. This kind of organization is absent among the Sunni. It is also debatable whether the Shiites are as numerically smaller than the Sunnis in Arab countries. It seems that even where the Sunni are in power, there seems to be millions of Shiites without political voice which have been suppressed for long and is just waiting to break out whenever the opportunity presents itself. Also perhaps the sectarian cleavage merely hides deep seated political divisions in Islamic countries. What is important to state is that Iran through Shiite Iraq and Alawite Syria has a land route north of Arab lands all the way to the Mediterranean.

    This is the situation which seems to make Saudi Arabia feel that Arabs cannot just kowtow to Iran. Analysts feel what is happening is that Iran just happens to back the winning parties in all these theatres of conflicts.  To be on the winning sides also means supporting the right causes. Iran is not a democratic country but practices some kind of guided democracy under a theocracy, whereas the Arab states are either monarchies or oligarchies of family and military rulers. There is not much choice between the two but power and money  for example in Saudi Arabia are concentrated in the hands of thousands of princes and others holding their positions as fronts or nominees of the ruling Al – Saud family. This kind of government is replicated in most of the Arab monarchies. Egypt did away with its monarchy in 1956 but it is run now by a military class headed by Field Marshal Abdel Fattah Saeed Hussein Khalil el- Sisi.

    Perhaps in reaction to the feeling of weakness and paralysis, the Saudi monarchy has decided to pass on power to a 31-year old crown prince Muhammad Bin Salman Al Saud.

    The young prince is moving at a frenetic pace of change in the kingdom. He has liberalized the lives of women. They will be allowed to drive, and take part in sports. Education is being made available to them. Some form of elections to elect local officials is being followed. The crown prince has decided to tackle corruption no matter whose ox is gored including several princes who are now cooling their heels in detention. He is also committed to reining in funding of Islamic extremism abroad. The most dramatic move is the decision to challenge Iran. He is building formidable Saudi armed forces through purchase of billions of dollars’ worth of weapons from the United States and Great Britain and other western countries. It is curious that Turkey is not on board as can be seen in Turkish support for Qatar that has been put at arm’s length by the Saudis. The Saudis have the support of President Trump who recently made a highly publicized and triumphal visit to Saudi Arabia when the Saudis ordered almost a trillion dollars’ worth of weapons. If war were to break out in the Middle East, it will be terrible and may bring Russia and the United States into conflict either directly or through their proxies. The fear of some in the West is that the rapidity of events may undermine the Saudi dynasty itself.

  • ACAOSA 77/78 Set: Celebrating a milestone

    ACAOSA 77/78 Set: Celebrating a milestone

    IT IS ALWAYS fun whenever we gather. And so it was when we converged on R & A City Hotel in Ikeja last Saturday to round off the celebration of our 40th anniversary of leaving Anwar-ul Islam College, Agege (ACA).

    Our journey which started 44 years ago when we entered school has seen us through thick and thin. For five years, we lived together, played together, ate together, slept and woke up together, worked together and read our books together.

    We were either in the same class or in the same dormitory. Even where we were not in the same class and dormitory that did not make us enemies. We bonded together not on the basis of religion and ethnicity but on the basis of our humanity. We treated ourselves like brothers and it is still like that up till today. Though we have our quarrels now and then, but before you know it, we would have put such fights behind us and moved on. Long after we left school in 1977/78, the paths of many of us did not cross again. As we headed into the world to make out something for ourselves, we went in different directions.

    From ACA, that is the shortened form of Ahmadiyya College, Agege, the name by which our school was popularly known before it was changed to Anwar-ul Islam College in 1976, we dispersed into the world in pursuit of different interests. But our training at Ahmadiyya – aah,  many of us love that name – stood us in good stead wherever we went. It could not have been otherwise since we had Alhaji Jimoh Adisa Gbadamosi aka Oga as our principal. The principal emeritus, who groomed us and the generations before us remains our beacon of light till today. Oga was 90 in March and we pray that he will remain with us for more years to come. Abubakar Adenle of the 1979/80 Set represented Oga at  Saturday’s event.

    Today, under the aegis of Anwar-ul Islam College  Agege Old Students’ Association, ACAOSA 77/78 Set, we are reliving our school years. Even though we cannot turn back the hand of the clock to 1973 – 1977/78, our reunion at our meetings often evokes memories of the past. Last Friday as part of the celebrations of our 40th anniversary, which was ably packaged by Wasiu Bawalah and Rahman Alarape and their team, some members of our set gave career talk to pupils of the school. Yomi Ojo spoke on engineering; Mufutau Ottun, taxation and Alarape, human resources. Then followed the novelty match between ACAOSA and Ansar-udeen High School Surulere Old Students Association (AHOSA), where the Diyya Giants led by Alarape , with Dr Tajudeen Afolabi in goal, ran rings around their opponents.

    It was a full house at Saturday’s show-stopping event. Many of us were there, with our President-General Lawal Pedro (SAN) taking the lead. Pedro noted that ‘’these past 40 years have been full of mixed memories for us…however, our supportive friendship and enduring relationships over the years have kept us together…over the past four decades, we the then young boys have established ourselves and grown to become great men…I still remember those days with nostalgia…and 40 years later we are still together with different stories to tell’’.

    In appreciation of their support to the association and the school, some members were honoured. Among those honoured were Senator Musiliu Obanikoro (the most popular ex-Diyya Giant ever – we are privileged to have him in our set),   Hakeem Ogunniran, Managing Director, UAC Property Development Company (UPDC), Afolabi and two of our seniors, Maj-Gen Tajudeen Olanrewaju and former national team Coach Tunde Disu. How can I end this without mentioning our man at the secretariat, the indefatigable Kamoru Tijani and his soulmate Ganiyu Eleha. Kudos to Prof Gbenga Ojo, Moshood Bakare, Abass Obatolu, Dr Nurudeen Bello, Lateef Adams, Dipo Oyetayo, Hafeez Kareem,  the judge in the house, Bankole Kaffo, who is now based in Canada, Prince Ademola Akitoye, Ahmed Rasaq aka Konjo, Mukadas Akinwande,  Tajudeen Smith, Tunji Sogbesan, Muyideen Pereira, Azeez Sanni, Clerk of Lagos State House of Assembly,  Ibukunoluwa Olaide Peter aka Jugnu, ace musician Kunle Dizzy K Falola, Bola Anifowoshe, Omotunde Pinheiro and a host of others  for your steadfastness. It is impossible to mention everybody because of space constraint, but surely you all know that I hold you in high esteem.

    It was a night to remember and as we look forward to the school’s 70th anniversay next year and our own golden anniversay in 2027,  we pray that ACA will continue to wax stronger. As our school motto reads: Aut Optimum Aut Nihil (either the best or nothing), our school deserves nothing but the best. Thank you Oga for making us who we are today. We are eternally grateful to you sir.

  • Honours 2017

    Honours 2017

    It’s Christmastime. Never mind the harmattan – dry, dusty and cloudy – dampening the excitement of the season. Carols, concerts and carnivals are here.

    There seems to be a great rebellion against nature and the other odds – insecurity, hunger, collapsed infrastructure, kidnapping, robbery, fake drugs and petrol scarcity. Talk about the indomitable spirit of the Nigerian. There are big shows all over town.

    As the discerning reader may have noticed, “Editorial Notebook” has a tradition of honouring those compatriots of ours whose actions – or inactions – have made our country a better place. This year’s awardees have been chosen after days and nights of remarkable intellectual exertions. They are worthy in all ramifications.

    Where do we start from? The top, of course. Many who doubted the influence of an extraterrestrial force in the affairs of man have been ruing their fate, biting their fingers since President Muhammadu Buhari’s return from a 90-day overseas medical trip.

    There were dreadful rumours and reckless conjectures over his health. A governor swore that Buhari would not return alive. In fact, the governor said he was in possession of some exclusive pictures of the President on his sick bed, with his doctors throwing up their hands in abject capitulation.

    Some sources claimed that His Excellency had written an obituary. Besides, a verbal war of sorts almost broke out over the presidential seat. But God, not being human, debunked all the gloomy prognostications. Buhari returned hale and hearty. Needless to say, he has since been working with the energy of a soccer star.

    The governor buried his head in shame – for a long while – having suffered some kind of double jeopardy. He lost everything he had in the bank of credibility and a hefty sum of money, in dollars (according to the sources, aforementioned) to the vendors of the fake photographs.

    Take a bow, Buhari. You are, no doubt, the Patient of the Year.

    When former President Olusegun Obasanjo bagged a degree in Religious Studies, many were excited. He was slobbered with praises. But, Baba detests half measures. He enrolled for a doctorate degree. Just last weekend, he tucked a PhD Christian Theology into his bag of credentials after a 163-minute defence of his thesis at the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN).

    The defence was conducted by eminent academics of many years standing. Asked by Dr Samaila Mande, who chaired the panel, to state why he should be awarded a PhD, Obasanjo, according to a report, said he had put in “enough study” and “intellectual rigours” to produce his thesis.

    A source close to a friend of a maternal uncle of one of the panel member’s brother, who pleaded for anonymity because he would not want to be charged with  divulging official secret, swore that the encounter was underreported. He said, for instance, that when a panelist noted that Obasanjo should be commended for being a diligent and obedient student, the former president frowned his face, raised his left hand and said gruffly: “Point of correction, oga lecturer, professor or whatever you’re called here. I’m no longer a student; I’m now a scholar. Please, get that straight. Only small boys are students. I’m a scholar. Now, continue.”

    Trust the academics, they would not be intimidated.

    I join his army of admirers in praising Obasanjo’s sense of mission – and accomplishment. Who else should be Student of the Year?

    Some have described him as inconsistent as the weather. Others have accused him of disloyalty. But nobody has said that former Vice President Atiku Abubakar does not know what he wants. They say he is ambitious and desperate. Isn’t it natural for a politician to be ambitious? Desperate? Yes; that’s no crime either. All because he quit the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) where he had been before jumping ship.

    Atiku has kept his eyes on the ball, despite the baseless criticisms. If he does not get the PDP ticket, he will simply return to the APC or find a party looking for a candidate. There are scores of them now. How else can consistency be measured?

    For staying firm, despite the vituperations of his opponents, Atiku is the Politician of the Year.

    Now a confession. It was difficult choosing the Governor of the Year, considering the wonderful performances of many state chief executives. The panelists, I am glad to report, found a way round it, ensuring that no member of this elite group will have cause to grumble.

    In the hot race were Rivers State Governor Nyesom Wike, Ayo Fayose (Ekiti), Nasir El-Rufai (Kaduna), Rochas Okorocha (Imo) and Yahaya Bello (Kogi). The prize would have easily been Wike’s for outsmarting his naïve opponents, who some day will accept that His Excellency has talents. They accuse him of ineptitude and non performance. Is it for nothing that many residents of the state have virtually forgotten the governor’s name, addressing him as “Mr Projects”?

    His opponents, who obviously are blinded by politics of the most virulent type, lay the blame for insecurity at his doorstep. They have forgotten that when killers struck in those early days of the administration, they carted away the heads of their victims. That has stopped. He was the force – financial and physical – behind the emergence of a new leadership in the troubled PDP.

    Wike did not get the prize. Nor Fayose, despite his landmark achievements. A man of numerous titles, he is “friend of the poor, leader of opposition, architect of modern Ekiti, the Osokomole, Irunmole to’nje dollar ati jollof  (the deity that eats jollof rice and dollars) and the Apesin Apagun Pote and more”.

    When it is all over in a few months, Fayose will be remembered as the one who showed Ekiti people exemplary love. An average Ekiti resident sports rosy cheeks and bulging tummies – courtesy of the state’s enviable policy of “stomach infrastructure”.

    When His Excellency announced his plan to kit 10,000 kids for Christmas, many thought they were dreaming. A source told me that the governor himself designed the dresses. We saw him on television the other day working a sewing machine, a tailor’s tape rule dangling from his executive neck and some aides cheering him on. The source confessed to some politicians that the tailors, dazed by the unprecedented order, were scared that they might fail to meet the deadline, but His Excellency lent them a hand. Unfortunately, he had to take time off the sewing machine–to attend the PDP convention and to protest the approval of $1b Excess Crude cash to fight insecurity, leaving the poor tailors to their own devices.

    The panelists awarded Fayose Designer of the Year.

    His opponents disparage him for not paying salaries and pensions–is he the accountant-general?–among other politically-induced complaints. Not a man to be threatened, Owelle Rochas Okorocha has soldiered on with his lofty programmes. He demolished the Ekeukwu market – an action his predecessors could not take for fear of reprisals. He mounted in Owerri several statues of eminent persons, including South African President Jacob Zuma, who has just lost his leadership of the African National Congress (ANC).

    Okorocha became the subject of invectives, scorned by an ungrateful populace. Then he created the Ministry of Happiness and Purpose Fulfilment, headed by no less a personality than his sister. Now, happiness has found a home in Imo and everybody is happy. Officials have been overstretched by the sheer number of people flocking into the state to partake of the happiness. All the kids born at this period of a great phenomenon are being named Happiness by their happy parents.

    I am sure, dear reader, that you will be happy to learn that Okorocha, orator, philanthropist, eminent politician and first class art connoisseur, is Governor of the Year – for his creativity and demystification  of  the office of governor as well as its workings.

    Now to the Lawmaker of the Year before those distinguished fellows feel neglected and disrespected. Who wants to risk being summoned and ordered to appear in full uniform?

    Naturally, the Senate President would have carried the day, but this is not about raising the gavel and banging the table. It was, I must confess, another tricky one.

    When distinguished Senator Isah Misau (Bauchi Central) accused the police high command of gargantuan corruption, the force fought back, alleging that he was a deserter. Adamant, Misau fired more missiles. All was quiet for a while.  Then, the police threatened to launch a legal battle against him. He then dropped the bombshell, accusing Inspector -General Ibrahim Idris of infidelity and infelicitous conduct.

    He made salacious allegations, some of them bordering on concumbinary and concupiscence. This being a family newspaper, it will not be nice to repeat them here.

    A Senate panel set up to probe the allegations got the wind taken out of its sail when the police bundled Misau before a court for alleged forgery and lying against the IG.

    For taking a bullet for the Senate, Misau is Lawmaker of the Year.

    Step aside, Davido, 2face, Falz , Wizkid, Banky W and others. New stars are here. Senator Dino Melaye’s critics have been most unfair to him and the good people of Kogi West, whom he represents. He has been called a thug, a philanderer, a rent-a-crowd merchant and a man with dubious academic credentials. Melaye has taken it all on the chin, showing his traducers that he has talents. Videos of the senator railing against his opponents have been a big hit on the Internet.

    But Melaye missed the Entertainer of the Year – narrowly.

    Step forward and take a bow, distinguished Senator Ademola Adeleke (Osun West)  Some have derided him for dancing like a teenager. Others say he looks like an overfed night club bouncer. He is yet to move any motion; nor has he seconded any since fate vaulted him onto the senatorial stage, his crtics claim.

    We have been regaled with stories of how the mere shaking of his vast backside has forced the presiding officer to bring down the gavel whenever the senator stands up to talk. Besides, many are learning new dance steps by watching the senator’s videos.

    Senator Ademola Adeleke is the indisputable Entertainer of the Year.

    A post script:: there are indeed no losers; all are winners.

    Merry Christmas.