The Nation Newspaper

Category: Thursday

  • Like America,  like Nigeria

    HATE. This four-letter word evokes fear wherever it rears its ugly head. It is an ugly word and it leaves a lot of ugliness in its trail after the clash of hate-mongers. Unfortunately,  the innocent, those trying to restore order in those times of madness, are usually the victims.

    Hate is a bad thing.  It leaves an otherwise rational person totally mad and unreasonable. At that particular moment,  nothing and nobody matter to him. All he wants is the head of his perceived enemy. And who is this enemy? He may be none other than the guy next door with whom he has lived for years.

    Hate sheds us of our humanity. It brings out the beast in us as we bay for the blood of our compatriots. It is a momentary madness  which leaves a people, a community,  a country with colossal damage.  A damage that cannot be repaired for ages. Ask the United States. America knows the prize of hate, yet it has not been able to prise itself of the monstrous devil. The White hate the Black, who they refer to as people of colour. Tell me, is white not also a colour?

    Hate in America did not start with what happened in Charllotesville last month. It predated Charllotesville and woke America up to the fact that as great as it is its past will always come back  to haunt it if it does not address this issue of racial discrimination once and for all. Race is at the heart of America’s hate.  The White have been pushing their so-called supremacy over the Black for centuries.  They believe that they own the land and with a president in Donald Trump, who has promised to win back their country for them, the ‘supremacists’ have renewed the racial war.

    As a country,  we do not have racial issues, but the hate that is eating us up is a big threat to our unity. We have always looked out for one another and tried as much as possible to be our brother’s keeper.  Everywhere is home to every Nigerian and President Muhammadu Buhari reiterated this fact in his August 21 broadcast after his return from London. Until the civil war, a product of hate, which broke out in 1967, we were one big family living under the same roof. For three years,  brothers killed brothers in a senseless war.

    Though, we came out of the bitter enterprise still a united nation, the bond of brotherhood was broken.  Since 1970, we have been barely tolerating  one another. It seems as if we are in a forced union because at every turn, we have regularly heard about those agitating to secede and those threatening to blow up oil installations from which we derive our national wealth. The  civil war was to protect the unity of Nigeria. It was our way of saying no to secession, no to disintegration, but some people want to fake us back to that dark past. Some elements in the east are still living  in the past. They want to resuscitate Biafra. Led by the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), the separatists are not letting up on their agitation.

    This agitation is causing disaffection in the land. They may not be the harbinger of hate which seemed to have engulfed the country, but their actions have in no small manner stoked the fire. The major problem we are facing is that the elders who should call them to order are under their spell. These elders were around during the civil war when many of these young agitators had not been born and they knew what their region went through then.

    Rather than help these youths in their ill advised mission,  methinks, they should summon the courage to let them know that they are playing with fire. The youths may have their reason for seeking to leave the commonwealth, but they should do so within the ambit of the law. Training a so-called security service in the bush  is not the way to go. Who is the security outfit preparing to engage? That is treading the path of perfidy. IPOB’s threat to secede from the union on May 27 to mark the 50th anniversary of Biafra was uncalled for. It was taking agitation too far because it bordered on treason.

    The Arewa youths counter threat to flush the Igbo out of the north by October 1 in response to IPOB’s threat was absolute nonsense.  IPOB was not speaking for all Igbo, though the group may delude itself that it has the back of its people. When the chips are down, the Nnamdi Kanu-led IPOB will know that it is on its own.  Instead of making hate speeches, Kanu, who is out on bail, should obey the terms of his temporary freedom not to be in a gathering of more than 10 people or engage in political activities.

    Kanu, like every other Nigerian is not above the law. Contrary to his believe, heavens will not fall if his bail is revoked for defying court order.  People greater than him were detained in the past without the country going up in flames. His case will not be different. Our leaders share in the blame of what is happening today. They are fond of keeping quiet in the face of what Wole Soyinka calls  tyranny.  They do not want to offend their kinsmen by being seen to be critical of them. But how will our  kinsman know that he has crossed the line  if we who are close to him do not tell him. The wicked, says a Yoruba adage, knows he is wicked; he is only waiting for who to tell him.

    Do we want to end hate in the land or do we want it to grow to the level where people kill themselves in the streets as it often happens in the US? It is a tough call, but we can conquer hate  if we collectively choose to speak out against what is wrong and not wait to do damage control after the harm has been done.

  • Food security and S/West governors

    Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant and whoever wants to be first must be servant of all” – Jesus Christ (Mark 10:43)

    Last week, tomatoes and vegetables disappeared from Lagos markets. This was attributed to disruption in the regular flow of some food items from the north to the south by the sallah holiday. Our inability to feed ourselves 17 years into the fourth republic is perhaps a clear manifestation of deficit of Christ’s defined attributes of servant-leadership among some of our clowning South-west ‘activists’, the ‘constituted authority and ‘Oshokomole – Ebora tin je jollof’ governors who behave and act as if they are beyond reproach or that leadership is about being hailed by sycophants, thugs and okada commercial motorcyclists.

    But it has not always been like this. We were once blessed selfless leaders and role models with templates for developmental strategies that did not only guarantee self-sufficiency in food production but promises of a more just, egalitarian society. We remember with nostalgia the selfless services of leaders like Obafemi Awolowo, S L Akintola, Anthony Enahoro, Oduola Osuntokun Abraham Adesanya, and their other colleagues who left a lasting legacy in education, health, housing and agriculture with judicious management of the little resources available to them. Their second republic successors such as Olabisi Victor Onabanjo, Lateef Jakande, Bola Ige, Ambrose Alli and Adekunle Ajasin who as governor refused to spend N50, 000 to fix a leaking government house claiming Ondo State could not afford the luxury at the time, followed the footsteps of their illustrious predecessors by providing quality service to their people. The fourth republic threw up Ahmed Bola Tinubu, Niyi Adebayo, Segun Osoba and Pa Bisi Akande who like Jakande used his personal car as official car until the state forced him to abandon it. Like their predecessors, they selflessly served the people and we today remember them with melancholy.

    The crisis of leadership in the West started in 2003 when Obasanjo under his dubious mainstreaming policy decided to impose leaders on the West. He was to become a godfather to the likes of Lucky Igbinedion, Segun Agagu, Ayo Fayose, Segun Oni, Gbenga Daniel and Olagunsoye Oyinlola as well as other ambitious individuals such as journalists, academics and other professionals who, following their losses in the primary elections of their parties, were seduced by Obasanjo federal government’s offer of funds, security and vehicles to destabilize south-west.

    Obasanjo’s hand-picked leaders as it turned out, unlike their predecessors, served none but themselves. Igbinedion left Benin City after eight years in office like a war-torn city. Fayose traded a College of Medicine for a fraudulent poulty farm during his first coming; Oni took Ekiti through three years of nightmare while fighting to keep a mandate the courts finally ruled he never won. His major legacy includes foisting three universities, including the one sited in his village on Ekiti that had no resources to effectively run one. Olagunsoye  Oyinlola who admitted to a judicial commission of inquiry of awarding and paying in advance contractors to build stadia around some towns in Osun State and Gbenga Daniel who went around Ogun State with ex-President Jonathan commissioning uncompleted  and yet to take off projects.

    With Obasanjo’s humiliating defeat by Tinubu, some of the immediate and current leadership which represents the mainstream south-west political orientation were expected to have taken after their first and second and republic forbearers. Unfortunately they seem to have found their shoes too big.

    Let us start with Ekiti, the land of honour.  Fayemi no doubt made some impact in education and social welfare. But with Ekiti State as the 35th  out of 36th on the nation’s revenue ladder, diverting N2.7b of the  N25 billion bond  his administration secured from the capital market to build a grandiose government house because the then ‘Osuntokun Lodge lacked many facilities befitting of the residence of a governor  and therefore very inferior’ to other government houses in the country was indefensible when his government could have rehabilitated the run-down  Ikun Dairy farm established by Ajasin in the second republic as part of solution to a geographical region that depends on other geographical zones for the 10,000 heads of cow  it consumes daily.

    Aregbesola, after retrieving his stolen mandate through the courts had enjoyed tremendous support and goodwill of the people, all of which he seems to have frittered away because of his leadership style. Although he swears by Awo’s name, he appears to be his own role model. His rather insensitive comment about the state of mind of Ademola Adeleke who recently defeated his APC candidate in the Osun south senatorial by-election after rightly reminding Ede people that the senatorial seat was not hereditary seem to confirm the fears of those who argue Aregbesola has been wearing a shoe bigger than his leg.

    Ajimobi during his first term, keyed into Buhari’s  green alternative initiative which focuses on commercial agriculture development programme, by allocating tractors, planters and harvesters to each of the 33 local government areas. Most of those equipment are however said to have either been sold off or mismanaged by past caretaker chairmen while he as ‘the constituted authority’ battles those who put him in power especially students of Oyo State tertiary institutions who have been out of schools for the greater part of the year and their civil servants and pensioners parents who have not been paid for several months.

    Ajimobi who started well is also today enmeshed in Ibadan traditional chieftaincy controversy as he apes ill-informed military men who unilaterally made kings out of ‘Baales’ as he creates, by fiat, kings with crowns and sceptres without kingdoms.

    While Ibikunle Amosun of Ogun State on his part is striving to turn his state to number one industrial hub in Nigeria with plans to build airport before 2019, two years to the end of his second four years term, his plan towards agriculture that will lead to industrialisation remains a plan. In any case, since people have to eat before the transformation of agriculture from commercialization to industrialization, keying into the Buhari agriculture initiatives designed to achieve food security, alleviate rural poverty and end hunger ought to be the starting point.

    If leadership, as Sun Tzu, (Chinese General, and 544–496BC) has said “is a matter of intelligence, trustworthiness, humaneness, courage, and discipline”, a well-focused Governor Akinwunmi Ambode of Lagos who operates as a servant rather than a ‘constituted authority’ better appropriates the virtues of his forbearers. After insisting “there is no alternative to achieving food security other than tilling the land and embrace best practices that will improve efficiency in the agricultural value chain”, he has in practical terms sealed a landmark partnership with Kebbi State government for the development of agricultural commodities such as rice, wheat, groundnut, onion, maize and beef value chain. His government has also acquired 500 hectares of farm land for rice cultivation in Eggua, Ogun State, 84.7 hectares at Okinni in Osogbo for oil palm processing.

  • Our ailing nation and its ailing President

    Our ailing nation and its ailing President

    These are definitely not the best of times for our country and our president, Muhammadu Buhari. Both are ailing badly. First, the nation has, for two years now, been grappling with a painful recession that has left the economy devastated. The recession, arguably the worst  we have ever had, has been made worse by massive public corruption at all levels. Domestic prices are rising sharply. The current inflation rate has been put at just under 17 per cent. Bank lending rates are at very high levels and, instead of a single FX rate, we have multiple rates to ration out our falling FX earnings. This is the legacy President Buhari inherited from his predecessors in office, particularly President Jonathan.

    Although, as claimed by the CBN and other economic experts, the recession may have bottomed out, all well informed financial and economic analysis have indicated that growth in the next few years is not expected to rise by more than 1 per cent. Growth in the second quarter of this year has been put at only 0.55 per cent. In effect, there is not going to be a significant recovery in our economy in the next few years. The situation in the oil sector on which Nigeria depends heavily remains uncertain and fragile. Production and export cuts may be forced on our oil sector by uncertainties in the global  oil market. Diversification of the economy away from its heavy dependence on oil exports has not yet materialized. In fact, some will say that our feeble efforts in the diversification of the domestic economy from its excessive dependence on oil exports have failed woefully.

    Sadly, the fight against mass public corruption in our country is losing momentum. Some, including Mr. Magu, the acting chairman of the EFFC, believe the fight has already been lost. Due to tardy and inefficient prosecutions there has been virtually no jailing of any high profile pubic officials for corruption. Some of the public institutions that should support the anti-corruption struggle are far too weak and too compromised to rise to the challenges involved in fighting corruption in our country. Many of them have proved to be largely ineffective in the fight against public corruption. Some of them are even pushing back against the war on corruption, the primary focus of the Buhari APC federal government.

    At the political level, the state is having to cope desperately with terrorism in Bornu, increased separatist tendencies all over the country, kidnappings, assassinations, and ritual killings. There is a near total breakdown of law and order in our country. The government is left bewildered and increasingly helpless in its efforts at tackling its security challenges. But the law and order agencies are hobbled largely by inadequate financial and logistics resources. They are overstretched. The call for the creation of state police forces to provide some relief for the federal police has, for political reasons, been largely ignored by the federal government. Nigeria is beginning to look increasingly like a failed state. The process of failure of a state can go on, gradually, for years, with the state struggling desperately to survive. That is where we are now. Progress of any kind has been very slow in our country. Vital public institutions, including the public service, the Police, and other security agencies remain very fragile, too weak to support and sustain the country.

    And now, the nation’s woes are being further compounded by an ailing president. Since coming to power two years ago, President Buhari has been hobbled by his poor health. He has had to go to the UK twice, for extended periods, to receive medical attention for an undisclosed illness. He returned home from the UK only a few weeks ago after an extended stay of over 100 days abroad. We must continue to pray for his speedy recovery. It is in the interest of our country that he recovers fully from his illness. In these difficult times, with a myriad of very complex and disturbing challenges, the state needs a physically and mentally fit president to provide the much needed leadership and steadying hands in our country.  His poor health will limit his ability to govern effectively and take the right decisions in the interest of our nation.

    The decisions that we take daily in our lives are often affected by the state of our health. A prolonged and debilitating illness, such as that of President Buhari, can affect the quality of decisions we take. Good health is even more important in the case of heads of state as they have enormous responsibilities and wield a lot of power. Their decisions are easily adversely affected by poor health.  But for his poor health, President Yar’Adua who died in office showed early promise of being a good president. His judgments in office were consistently sound and in the national interest. But when he fell ill there was a power vacuum. He could no longer govern effectively. Some of his cronies virtually seized power and served only their individual and selfish interests

    After the defeat of Nazi Germany and the death of its leader, Adolf Hitler, historians of the Third Reich were able to establish easily that some of Hitler’s bizarre political and  military decisions, such as the sudden and reckless invasion of Russia, Germany’s ally, and the refusal to withdraw his beleaguered troops from Leningrad when they faced certain defeat, were due to his poor health. His quack German doctor, Theodor Morell, had to give him injections on a daily basis to keep him going. This dependence on drugs affected his political and military judgments. His illness, carefully concealed from the public, accounts for some of his outrageous decisions and ambitions as the leader of Nazi Germany. It has been offered as an explanation for the German concentration camps in which 6 million Jews perished. Such brutality can only have been the product of a demented mind, a kind of mental illness and amnesia.

    Another equally bad case of poor judgment as a result of  illness is that of Sir Anthony Eden (later Lord Avon) who succeeded Winston Churchill as British Conservative Prime Minister. Anthony Eden, a brilliant and capable man, had made a name for himself as a principled and courageous politician when he resigned in 1936, or thereabouts, as a junior minister in the Foreign Office, in protest against the appeasement of Hitler by Neville Chamberlain, the British Conservative Prime Minister. But in 1956, he destroyed his reputation when he suddenly invaded and seized the Suez Canal in collaboration with France and Israel. His action was totally unjustified and reckless. And it was widely condemned  in Britain and abroad. Under international pressure, particularly from his principal ally, the United States, Anthony Eden was forced to withdraw his forces from Egypt in disgrace. Britain’s reputation for fairness was badly damaged. His action presaged the fall of the British empire in Africa. . Soon after, he was forced to resign from office due to bad health. His political career and reputation were destroyed.

    In Africa too, we have the examples of Idi Amin of Uganda, and Mobutu Sese Seko of the Congo whose political judgments were badly affected by their poor health. Some of their outrageous decisions as heads of state have been attributed to the bad health from which they both suffered. In the case of Idi Amin, he was widely believed to have suffered from syphilis which accounted for his brutality. I was serving in our high commission in Kampala at the time and thought most of his decisions bizarre. Even here in our own country, there has been some speculation that the poor state of health of Gen. Sani Abacha, when he was military head of state, affected his political judgments, including his megalomania, very badly. He should have left office to look after his health. But he was no longer fit enough to take a rational  decision, even in his own interest.

    It is not being suggested here that President Buhari is in that situation right now, in which his poor health may have begun to affect his judgment. But it is also possible that is the case right now. There is little or no doubt that the pace of his government has slowed down considerably. A bit of lethargy has set in and the government is perceived as being increasingly slow in taking some vital decisions. A lot of decisions regarding important public appointments are being left in abeyance. This has led to speculations about the emergence in the presidency of a so-called cabal, the ‘jackals and hyenas,’ that is now taking vital decisions on behalf of the President. This would, for example, seem to explain the contradictions between the Foreign Office and the presidency over Morocco’s application to join ECOWAS. Instead of working together, they seem to be pulling in different directions to the detriment of our country. Many would, in fact, like him to go now and look after his personal health. But that is a decision that only he can make. It cannot be forced on him as he has a mandate to govern until 2019 when the next presidential elections are due.

    There is no doubt that, during President Buhari’s long absence from our country, Vice President  Yemi Osinbajo showed his mettle and capability in the able manner he ran the country, for which he has been publicly commended by President Buhari. But there were still critically important decisions that he could not take on his own. Some of these were pressing and urgent, but required the discretion of the president himself. Even if, in the absence of the president, he had full authority to act, the vice president would still have needed to be cautious and circumspect in taking some important decisions on behalf of the president. Professor Osinbajo is a competent and able man, and a great patriot. But he is no politician and most of the decisions the president has to take are political in nature, with political consequences.

    Now that the president has returned to his duties, he should  delegate more responsibilities to the Vice president and his more senior advisers. It is obvious, even from his photographs that he has not yet recovered fully from his illness. At 74, it is unlikely that he will recover fully. We can only hope that he will be able to serve out his remaining term in office. But he should focus his attention on more important state matters, such as the fight against public corruption in our country, the poor economy, the continuing reform of state institutions to make them more viable and stronger, and state security. On account of his age and poor health, it is unlikely that President Buhari will seek a second term in office. In effect, he has only two more years left to shape the legacy he is going to leave the country with. That should be his main concern now.

  • How to process restructuring

    In the statements emanating from the Buhari presidency soon after the president returned home a couple of weeks ago, Nigerians were told that, in effect, the president was not sure how restructuring should be processed – especially who was to do what? The National Assembly, it was said, has the duty of undertaking amendments to the constitution; and the National Assembly and the National Council of State were the two institutions in which national discourses should be conducted. It was also said that this president, being an elected president in a democracy, could not possibly decree restructuring like a military ruler. Whether deliberately or inadvertently, the presidency made the process of restructuring look confused, tangled, and even intractable. In reality, it is not. If a president recognizes that it is his duty to lead his country through the kind of mammoth national debate that Nigeria is now going through concerning restructuring, he would not, and should not, give in to any confusion – he would do his duty. We Nigerians expect President Buhari to step forth and do his duty. We have the right to demand it.

    Yes, it is time for President Buhari to get into action. The time of debate over whether we should or should not restructure our federation is over. Of the six geopolitical zones of Nigeria, virtually all Nigerians of note from the South-west, South-east, South-south and North-central support and demand restructuring. From the North-west, some of the topmost notables support and demand it – including one of the most experienced citizens in the governing of Nigeria under our present constitution, former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar and, very significantly, the Sultan of Sokoto. The Sultan has given his huge voice to some of the key points that the proponents of restructuring have been repeating – first, that restructuring does not divide or break up Nigeria, and second, that restructuring will redress the power and wealth imbalance that threaten Nigeria with conflict and disintegration. It is by no means presumptuous to claim that the proponents of restructuring have won this debate resoundingly. Repeat: It is time for President Buhari to embark on the process of leading us through the process of restructuring our country, in the best interest of our country, and in the best interest of all of us Nigerians.

    Since the president has said that he is in doubt about how to work on this important project, any Nigerians who may have any idea to suggest to him should now suggest it. I hereby offer a suggestion, and it is a suggestion from my knowledge of how a country similar to Nigeria once handled the task of restructuring its federation. I refer to India – the Union of India.

    India is similar to Nigeria in important particulars. Like Nigeria, India is made up of very many nationalities. Like Nigeria, India needed to restructure its federation after independence (in 1947); the nationalities were demanding self-determination and some measure of autonomy. Religious differences added to the tension. As no response to the self-determination agitations were forthcoming, the northern, predominantly Muslim, provinces seceded and became Pakistan and, soon after, Pakistan broke up into Pakistan and Bangladesh. What remained of India was still very large – it is the largest country in territory in the world today, and it has over 2000 nationalities. Increasingly in the country, demands began to be voiced for restructuring, so as to let different sections manage their affairs and development in their own ways. Most of the foremost politicians, including Prime Minister Nehru, opposed restructuring, for fear that it would result in the breaking up of India. In fact, Nehru threatened that if it was decided to restructure, he would resign as Prime Minister. But that did not reduce the demand. The demand kept escalating. At last, the Prime Minister and most of the big politicians surrendered to the wish of their people, and the road became clear to restructuring.

    Therefore, in 1953, Nehru’s government set up a States Reorganization Commission charged with the task of charting the process of restructuring. The commission started with the principle that the nationalities (called the linguistic nations) of India were the fundamental component entities of India, and therefore the real makers of the Indian Federation – which they ultimately named the Indian Union (Union of the nationalities of India). On that basis, they established the further principle that the structure of the Indian Union, as well as the governance of it, would respect the integrity and culture of the nationalities.

    To delineate the federating units (that is, the states) of the Indian Union, the commission decided that each large nationality would be one state, and that small contiguous nationalities in other parts of India would join hands together to form states. Also, no small nationality would be split by any state boundaries, and each nationality would be intact and undivided in the state to which it belonged. Furthermore, no small nationality would be forced to join any particular state; each would be free to choose the state it wanted to join. On the basis of all these criteria, 28 states were formed. Each was a viable state, capable of competently managing its own affairs. Even in the states comprising different nationalities, respect for the integrity and culture of each nationality was to be the way of life, politics and governance.

    The commission then dealt with the very important issue of the sharing of power and resource control in the Union. Most of the powers and resource control that had belonged to the central government were taken away from it and given to the state governments. In any sharing of funds between the Union Government and the State Governments, the State Governments (plus their Local Governments) were to receive a much larger percentage than the Union Government. (Now, the proportion is 85% for the states and 15% for the Union).  Indian scholars call these changes a copious exercise in power devolution.

    As a result of these changes, India quickly settled down and became a progressively stable country. For such a large country with so many ethnic or linguistic nationalities, India is doing very well indeed. Gradually, the various nationalities became contented to be part of India, and India is widely recognized as the world’s largest democracy today. Also, the states of India became progressively powerful and dynamic centres and agencies of socio-economic development. Up to the early 1950s, India was a frightfully poor country, and garish pictures of countless beggars in the streets of Indian towns regularly shocked the world. Today, all of that has changed. India is becoming one of the world’s economic super powers.

    Nigeria is by no means naturally less endowed than India. In fact, in some respects, Nigeria is naturally more endowed than India. The imposition of a unitary structure on Nigeria, Nigeria’s rigid system of central control, the consequent impunity, corruption and confusion characteristic of Nigeria’s system of governance, the inevitable hostilities characteristic of Nigeria’s inter-ethnic relations and the input of tenacious religious pressure by some nations on others – all these not only make Nigeria’s leadership strangely primitive, they make Nigeria’s image grossly incompatible with the image of countries in the modern world. As long as these last, Nigeria will not only continue to fail to make serious progress in the world, she is very likely to continue to generate more and more poverty, more and more deprivation, and more and more conflicts for her citizens, and she is very likely to continue to stumble until she disintegrates. President Muhammadu Buhari holds the decisive key today. I do not insist that he should take Nigeria through exactly the process that Pandit Nehru took India in 1953. All I ask as a Nigerian is that he should take some dutiful action as Nehru did in 1953 to guide his country out of a dark night of impending implosion to the light of survival and revival. He can do it. Will he do it?

     

  • Mr. Osinbajo, shall we now treat ‘hate governance’ as terrorism?

    As Acting President, Yemi Osinbajo mustered a pious parallel to Nigeria’s cult worship of deviltry and vile. But despite his affectation of innate rebellion against the hateful and vile, Nigeria drowns in the flood of his expendable truths.

    Hate speech is terrorism, according to Osinbajo. Thus while his boss, President Muhammadu Buhari, enjoyed medical tourism abroad, and ‘poor’ Nigerians cowed from a vicious health system, the hatred and savage antics of separatists from the north and southeast, Osinbajo ignited the dying embers of his government’s resolve, into a fierce fire.

    As Acting President, Osinbajo spat fire in measured cadence. Perhaps he meant to scald, among other ills, Biafran separatist and hatemonger, Nnamdi Kanu and his kindred spirits in the northern Arewa youth group.

    Perhaps not. But when Osinbajo declared that those found to be promoting hate speech would be treated as terrorists, discerning folk at home and abroad, rejoiced that it was only a matter of time before Nigeria’s merchants of odium and grief, scalded in then Acting President, Osinbajo’s anti-hate speech inferno.

    But for all his bluster, his fire is tame; like  the random politician’s, it will scald no one, burn no one, except human integers beneath the nation’s sociopolitical hierarchies.

    “The Federal Government has today drawn the line on hate speech. Hate speech is a species of terrorism. Terrorism as it is defined popularly is the unlawful use of violence or intimidation against individuals or groups especially for political ends,” ýsaid Osinbajo, at a National Economic Council (NEC) retreat on national security at the Banquet Hall of the Presidential Villa.

    To an assemblage of state governors, ministers and other stakeholders, said: “As I have said, we’ve drawn a line against hate speech, it will not be tolerated, it will be taken as an act of terrorism and all of the consequences will follow it.”

    Sadly, Osinbajo’s pronouncement, like Buhari’s anti-corruption crusade, reverberates like a rat’s sigh under the claws of a wild cat. The anti-terrorism law, like the All Progressives Congress’s ‘Change’ mantra, resonates as the triumph of noise over bite; the elevation of will from juvenile fantasy to eternal hysterics. It’s the paroxysm of mind over matter, often likable to the wishful thoughts of a cripple at the sight of a newly broken stallion.

    Osinbajo said that the intimidation of a population by words is an act of terrorism, that the APC administration intends to curtail. He noted that the Terrorism (Prevention) Act 2011 (as amended), defined terrorism as an act which is deliberately done with malice which may seriously harm or damage a country or seriously intimidate a population.

    Such pronouncement could be considered noble and perhaps valiant, in saner clime and under more promising considerations. But this is Nigeria, a nation where politicians pay lip service to ‘change.’

    Like his principal, Osinbajo lives oblivious to the miseries and deaths of Nigeria’s hopeless, impoverished, vulnerable divide. Indigent husbands and wives, the young and elderly, toddlers and newborns, die excruciatingly by affliction of hate governance and abhorrent leadership epitomised by the incumbent ruling class.

    Many more are falling off or getting bumped off the All Progressives Congress (APC)’s wagon of ‘Change’ via deathly roads, unemployment, terrorism and poverty. Sadly, Osinbajo, Buhari and their feeble opposition in the PDP,  live oblivious to these tragic realities.

    Both men, despite their overhyped “body language” which allegedly abhors corruption, have developed a knack for platitudinous chant and sound bites; Buhari vowed to wipe out corruption and Osinbajo vowed as Acting President, to treat hate speech as terrorism.

    Yet they conveniently ignore the inconvenient truths and symbolism that insinuates duplicity in their will. Both men are unable to weed out corrupt elements in their cabinet. Their administration lacks ingenuity, ethical and intellectual capacity to resolve the country’s electricity, security, unemployment and energy conundrum.

    Even if they reclaim power in 2019, Osinbajo, his boss, Buhari and cabinet, won’t resolve the nation’s electricity, security and unemployment woes.

    This is attributable to lack of will, inventiveness, moral certitude and proficiency of their administration. Thus the rot persists on their watch: Nigeria’s road transport network is in the worst state ever and there are no concrete plans to establish a functional and dependable rail system, road, air and sea transportation among others.

    It remains extremely impossible for children of ‘political nobodies’ and commoners to access quality education, loans and self-empowerment provisions touted by Osinbajo and his boss, as part of their grand plot to combat unemployment.

    Persistent ritual killings, by Badoo gang and company, still persists across the country and Nigeria pulses dangerously with hospital corridors of death. General hospitals and other primary care health centres (PHCs) are poorly staffed and underfunded. Little wonder Buhari had to embark on medical tourism abroad, in flagrant contradiction of the APC’s mantra of ‘change.’

    The APC leadership is unable to prosecute public officers perceived to be corrupt and answerable to scandalous charges, according to the EFCC.

    While Osinbajo mustered his anti-hate speech philosophy, was he unaware of hateful governance perpetrated by the APC and People’s Democratic Party (PDP) leadership across the country?

    Ogun State still looms like a gothic platitude of pain and death from its transit townships but the “Gateway State” remains Governor Ibikunle Amosun’s bower of bliss. There, in his stately Eden, he lives immune and insensate to the ravages of ill-will and pent-up fury tearing the natives apart from inside out.

    Amosun has a blast inside the Government House at Oke Mosan everyday simply because he does not have to stir and retire to bed wondering if he would die along the deadly stretch of Lagos-Abeokuta highway, particularly at the spots where innocent children, mothers, fathers – dependants and breadwinners – die like stray fowls, accidentally or by installments, in his severely cratered, administrative landmine.

    It’s the same rot across 36 States  of the federation. And this writer’s summation is amply substantiated by prominent chieftain of Osinbajo’s APC, Senator Dino Melaye, whose controversial recall was ‘unsurprisingly’ stalled in more controversial circumstances.

    “Unfortunately, we the leaders, myself inclusive, have failed this nation and have failed the younger generation, myself inclusive.

    “The reason why we are where we are today is because there is a disconnect between leadership and followership. Once there is no trust between the followership and the leadership, it will definitely have a negative concomitant effect on the economy, and every other facet of our national life.

    ‘’What we should fix is democracy; Democracy is government of the people, by the people and for the people.

    “What we have is greediocracy; government of the greedy by the greedy, for the greedy. ‘We the leaders want to win elections at all cost, so we spend money to win elections.

    “The followership also is greedy, they accept money to vote. So, head or tail, there is a need for attitudinal change and this is affecting everything,” admitted Melaye.

    It would be lovely and humane of Nigeria’s Vice President, Osinbajo, and his boss, President Buhari, to also treat hate governance as an act of terrorism, making sure that “all of the consequences will follow it.”

  • Buhari’s return: 12 days after

    Buhari’s return: 12 days after

    Those who thought President  Muhammadu Buhari would not make it back home from his London medical vacation must by now be wondering how they got it all wrong. Simple. Some of them were so sure of the President’s health status that they vowed to commit suicide if he ever returned to Nigeria.

    They did not realise that there is an unseen hand at work in human affairs.

    As if to underscore the futility of their calculations, there was talk of hyenas and jackals seizing the Villa. They would be evicted on the lion king’s return, the President’s wife vowed.

    That powerful imagery sparked a lot of reactions.  It carried the insinuation that a vicious cabal was at work at the Villa. The Presidency issued a strong denial, but it cut no ice with the cynical public that had come to believe that a cabal was indeed haunting the Presidency .

    Besides, a strange group, led by the eccentric musician, Charles Oputa, also known as Charly Boy (never mind the nickname; he’s 66) mounted a protest  to push its Buhari -must -return-or-resign battle. When nobody listened to them, they stormed the Wuse market to woo the traders to their cause. The traders detested that. They replied with stones and cudgels. Charly Boy and his followers were beaten, battered and bloodied. They fled the scene. Never to return.

    Then the President returned. That was on August 19. The reception was tumultuous. It brought back memories of the electoral campaigns that heralded Buhari’s victory at the poll two years earlier.   Excited residents lined the route from the airport, screaming: “Sai baba!”

    Buhari made a short broadcast that drew comments ranging from the  objective to the downright ridiculous. Some said it was short as if there is a rule that a presidential speech must always be long, full of anecdotes, clichés and unnecessary allusions. Others dissected the content and condemned the language.

    They said it was indecent of the President to say that “terrorists and criminals” must be “destroyed”.

    What is their problem if  they are neither terrorists nor criminals?

    I think Buhari made his point. The message was loud and clear. Anyway, has the President, taciturn and seen by many to be choleric, ever been a man of many words?  He said Nigeria’s unity was “settled and non-negotiable”. What is wrong in that? He never said apostles of “restructuring”, “federalism”, “regionalism” and all other ideological postulations should never air their views. No. Buhari only stated the position of his administration. In any case, do Nigerians agree on what “restructuring” is all about?

    The President met with security chiefs, apparently to find out why the Boko Haram insurgency seemed to have taken on a new vigour and kidnappers were having a field day, even as robbers remained unchallenged.

    He also met with governors and leaders of the major political parties, including the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Buhari called for a vibrant opposition. The Labour Party (LP) and the Advanced Peoples Democratic Alliance Party (APDA) protested that they were not invited.

    A politician who wished not to be named, retorted: “LP? Yes; maybe. APDA? Do they think it is a town hall meeting or a village square gathering?” The Presidency replied that only the APC and the PDP had asked for the meeting.

    Among the few who did not attend the meeting was Ekiti Governor Ayo Fayose, one of the President’s most unrelenting critics whose vituperations have been condemned by many as a kind of hate speech. He had actually threatened to release 11 photographs of the President in a bad shape at a London hospital. Now, many are saying the governor may have been duped by the unknown photographers.

    But Fayose had an excuse for not attending the meeting.   He was in Ado-Ekiti, taking a chieftaincy title. Now His Excellency has added another one to his heavy bag of titles. You may wish to recall that the House of Assembly once met to proclaim him “the leader of the opposition in Nigeria”. Before then, he had conferred on himself the title “Architect of modern Ekiti”. He is also Ore mekunnu, friend of the poor, the Osokomole,” Ebora t’onje jollof” and “Inventor of stomach infrastructure”. Now in the kitty is Apesin of Ado-Ekiti.

    Even Idi Amin must be envious wherever he is now. At this rate, Fayose will soon shatter the former Uganda strongman’s record.

    The President replied critics of his long stay in London. He said mockingly: “In fact, some groups…asked that I should go back home. Indeed, I have come back home. I hope those who went there are not stuck there. I hope they will come back and join us.”

    Buhari last Thursday signed nine agreements with the United Arab Emirates (UAE). They cover the economy, security and the anti-corruption battle, among others. Some Nigerians are believed to have hidden their ill-gotten wealth in Dubai. Now they will have problems keeping such wealth. Among them are former Petroleum Minister Diezani Alison-Madueke, seven ex-governors, some ex-ministers and businessmen.

    After a meeting with some ministers and Central Bank Governor Godwin Emefiele,  the President announced that the economy was picking up. Strangely,  there has been no contrary opinion. Is the recession over only in official circles?

    Of all the events that have occurred since Buhari’s return, none has been as controversial as the seemingly innocuous announcement that the President would be working from home because his office would need some renovation, having been run over by rodents.

    When the history of the Buhari presidency is written, there is no doubt that the deployment of the animal imagery to drive home some messages will be a strong theme.  The other day, we had the lion, hyenas and jackals. Today, rats have taken over the seat of power, forcing the President to be working from home. Talk about the audacity of rats.

    To his critics, the announcement that Buhari would be working from home was indicative of his state of health. If he was hale and hearty as being touted by his aides and associates, they reasoned, why should he be working at home just because some rats had invaded the office in his absence? Are rats not part of our common urban mess in which we have learnt to operate, with man and rat showing mutual respect for each other?

    From very serious discussions on security, patriotism and the economy, the subject has shifted to – of all things- rats and their powers.

    A Lagos rat poison vendor has mounted a small billboard to advertise his trade. The board has a green-white-green national motif with a big picture of a rat in flying posture, its hind legs firmly on the ground. On the board is the message: “Come talk to us before they chase you out. They chased out the lion.”

    Even in the animal kingdom, the rat has never been this elevated and celebrated. Now, the tortoise, with all its wiles and cunning, will be full of envy. The rat, a detested pest, has become the toast of the town, featuring in discussions in newsrooms, staffrooms and restrooms.

    The talk in juristic and law-enforcement circles, I gather, is that the rat would have been taken in for alleged treasonable felony if it had been in the days gone by when we had attorneys-general who were alive to their delicate duties, churning out decrees by the hour. Not anymore.

    Those who are sympathetic to the Villa have praised the authorities for the swift move to curtail what is being seen by political opponents as the growing influence of rats in the polity. Among them are those who warned that the nation lost billions of Naira to wharf rats who made huge containers of quality goods, including raw materials for factories, vanish at our ports, just like that. And now, there are Villa rats to which the President must cede his office – seat, table, flags and all.

    What is the world coming to, they are asking?

    Trust the Presidency. No rats will cross its red line and get away with it. Construction giant Julius Berger has been hired to dislodge them and renovate the office. A source who claims to have seen the contract has told me in confidence that the rats will be spared and discreetly relocated. The wisdom, he says, is to avoid a clash with animal rights activists, following intelligence reports that the services of Charly Boy’s “Our mumu don do” protesters may be procured to march on the Villa in a desperate bid to affirm the rights of the rats to a decent life.

    There is no bad situation without a redeeming feature. Now, those who draw up  the Villa’s yearly budget need no reminder that money must be set aside to keep rats, flies and ants away from the President’s office.

    Trust Nigerians, they have already found an avenue for jokes in all this. A friend sent me this: “Nobody should come and tell us that they spent N200 million for rat eradication at the President’s office. Price list for rat poison brands : N100 for rat bomb; N200 for Kill and Dry; N350 for Rat Roundup,  and N400 for Otapiapia. And if all that fails, dem dey sell two wild Ajaokuta pussycats, male and female N500 for Wuse market and they guarantee your money back if you even smell any rat after 24 hours of lodging them in-house.

    “I have said my own o.”

    As I see it, there is no need to groan and moan over the President’s plan to work from home. Must we carry placards over every issue, no matter how trivial? In any case, where is our sense of humour, the one that fetched us the enviable accolade of  “The  happiest people on earth”?

    Don’t we need it now that the times are so hard?

  • Leadership challenge in Nigeria

    The National Intelligence Council (NIC) report, ‘Mapping Sub Saharan Africa’s Future’, which painted a depressing picture of the African continent, had engendered several discussions. Using indices such as globalization, patterns of conflict, terrorism, democratization, AIDS, evolving foreign influences and religion, the report specifically estimated that Nigeria could fragment in the next 15 years. This categorisation of Nigeria as a prospective failed state had raised concern and even apprehension at the nation’s top policy making levels. Before now, the failed states phenomenon in Africa had often been associated with countries like Somalia, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Angola, Burundi and Congo at different stages of their evolving histories.

    Leadership plays a pivotal role in the descent into failure and collapse. Africa’s political history is replete with leadership crises. In Mobutu Sese Seko’s Zaire, Samuel Doe’s Liberia or Somalia, the ruler-led-oppression provoked a countervailing reaction on the part of resentful groups that led to the eventual collapse of the state. Governments are unable to set in place transparent and accountable institutions capable of securing economic progress, governing effectively, and protecting their citizens.  This lack of capacity is amplified by recourse to authoritarianism and repression, dramatic economic decline precipitated by indiscriminate corruption, and the adoption of exclusive (ethnic) policies to assure self-succession tendencies.

    In the absence of patriotic and charismatic leadership, corrupted elites model the state to serve their narrow interests, instead of the interests of the citizens.  As a consequence, the state itself is unable to fulfill its purpose or perform those functions of protection, delivery of basic social services and provisions of institutions to respond to legitimate demands and needs. The failure to perform these functions creates three major gaps in most African societies, notably ‘security gap’, ‘capacity gap’ and ‘legitimacy gap’.

    Security gaps have been most evident in Africa, because of the inability of African states to preserve effective sovereignty and order within their territories, situations that other states, non-state actors, and simple criminals seek to fill with violent, hostile, or illicit acts.  Capacity gap exists when a state fails to play a central role in meeting the needs of its citizens. In the same manner, legitimacy gap provides an opening for political upheavals and crisis. This gap exists when the state fails to maintain institutions that protect basic rights and freedoms, hold individuals accountable for their actions, enforce laws and ensures broad- based citizen participation in the political process.

    Nigeria provides a perfect case study on problems of leadership because only few countries in Africa have experienced greater trauma in the attempts to fill the gaps examined above. Years of military rule and the attendant problems of corruption and accountability had widened these gaps.  In his book Power And Leadership In Nigeria, Chuba Okadigbo (1987: 134) examined the role of leadership in Nigeria and concluded that: “The lack of national cohesion, indeed of any bold attempt by raising institutions or leaders to really unite Nigeria, is indicative of leadership failure in Nigeria, i.e. of failure of personal leadership as well as institutional or structural failure”.

    Professor Chinua Achebe came to the same conclusion in his book The Trouble with Nigeria, when he simply identified the problem of Nigeria as failure of leadership.  The Nigerian problem, he concluded, “is the unwillingness or inability of its leaders to rise to the responsibility, to the challenge of personal example, which is the hallmark of true leadership”. Still on the problems of leadership in Nigeria, Mahmud Tukur (1999: 393) argued that generally most governments in Nigeria have failed to take “an activist conception of the purposes and functions of the state…the basic inclination (is) to regard the sphere of social morality as lying outside the purview of public concern”.

    To underscore the importance of the leadership element, reference is made to the South East Asian nations, where the quality of leadership had brought dynamism and greater prosperity even in the face of globalisation. These countries have also made a tremendous progress in building sturdier and more capable democratic institutions. By contrast, African countries have either stagnated or failed, due to an interplay of demographics, poverty, disease, and most importantly, poor governance.

    The NIC report’s projection that Nigeria would fail as a state in the next 15 years had drawn attention to the country’s enduring problem of leadership.  Interestingly, Robert I. Rotberg in his analysis even categorised Nigeria as a state that collapsed in the 1990s, but gradually recovered and is now weak.  If Rotberg’s categorisation is accepted with all its flaws, the question to ponder is, can Nigeria relapse into failed state as predicted by the NIC report and what is the critical role of leadership in averting this situation?

    Two responses are likely to quickly emerge reflecting the positions of the two dominant paradigms for analysing Nigerian politics. The realist paradigm would argue that Nigeria cannot fail, because it has all the physical characteristics of a continental or middle power: large population, a vast land area, huge mineral resources including petroleum, growing industrial work force, vast arable land and a large military force.  Underlying these characteristics is the widely held assumption that Nigeria being the ‘giant of Africa’ would not be allowed to fail by the West because of the consequent effect this would have on the West African sub-region. By contrast, the radical paradigm sees Nigeria as essentially a dependent state whose future, growth and influence are rather unstable and unsustainable. Such a state it could be argued is likely to fail or collapse. In deference to these two paradigms, the position this paper takes is that although Nigeria has potentials, its growth and influence cannot be assured unless it has a Strategic National Leadership that can harmonise and utilize its current capabilities to realize its national interest.

    The history of failed or collapsed states has clearly shown that failure or collapse is not equivalent to the absence of physical national attributes or capabilities. Many of the failed countries in Africa like Zaire and Liberia are rich in natural resources such as diamonds, oil, gold etc.  In the same manner, ethnic, religious and cultural homogeneity is not a guarantee that a state will not collapse as Somalia had shown. In all these cases the vital missing link was leadership, where political leaders were unable to deliver political goods or close the gap on the essential issues of security, capacity and legitimacy.

    Like most African countries, Nigeria is experiencing difficulties in the delivery of political goods for its citizens, despite the abundance of natural resources. At the level of security, while Nigeria is not confronted by an immediate external threat to its sovereignty, internally the government is battling with the problem of providing security for the lives and prosperity of its citizens. The problems of armed robbery and banditry are effectively challenging the nation’s internal security mechanisms.  In addition, there are other forms of ethnic and religious strives that threaten the state.  However, the most fundamental security problem is the proliferation of ethnic militia and separatist movements in the country.

    According to Nnamdi K. Obasi (2002: 1), “the proliferation of ethnic militia, vigilante and separatist groups has been one of the most significant failures of Nigerian society and politics in recent years.”  These groups subvert the rule of law, create violence in Nigeria, and thus constitute threat to national security. Crucially also, is the fact that Nigeria faces the problem of meeting the needs of its citizens due to years of mismanagement, profligacy and endemic corruption.  Thus inadequate capacity to meet social welfare need of citizens or sustain the intermittent reinforcement of social goods and services had resulted in the erosion of public confidence and popular support.

    While Nigeria does not fit perfectly into any of the categories considered, it would be no exaggeration to say that the country exhibits some of the characteristics of a weak state as identified by Rotberg, notwithstanding the imperfections in his thesis. It should be noted, however, that categorising a state as failing, does not necessarily doom it irretrievably to full failure. Failure is a fluid halting place, with movement forward to weakness and backward into collapse always possible.

    The problem of failed states remains a core security problem of the 21st century, not only to the countries that suffer the fate, but also to the international community. Failure and collapse are undesirable results for states, but fortunately they are preventable. Human factors rather than structural flaws or situational insufficiencies are almost invariably responsible for the slides from weakness (or strength) towards failure and collapse.

    The most fundamental measure required in confronting the challenge, and averting the Nigerian state from failure and collapse is strategic and progressive leadership. The importance of strategic leadership is that it identifies and harmonizes national capabilities to achieve the national interest. The following recommendations classified as long-term are proffered to meet this challenge.

    1. Create effective national institutions that can meet citizens’ needs and take full part in the workings of the international community.
    2. Undertake concerted development, broadly understood as progress toward stable, accountable society.

    iii. Restructure the polity to ensure equity, justice and fairness.

     

    • Ambassador Wando, MFR, mni is a diplomat.
  • Not the poster woman

    Not the poster woman

    Women take pride in their honesty and, if you like, their holiness in comparison to men. Nothing gives them more joy than to snigger at us that they are better managers of men and materials. Nothing that is kept with them will ever go missing, they say. As our mothers and wives, we fawn over them. I daresay that a household is incomplete without a girl child. They start fighting for attention right from the cradle. It is as if they have been told that they must not yield ground to men if they wish to succeed.

    Though the weaker sex, women pack a lot of power.  Men dare not do some of the things they do. There are many things that a woman will do and people will overlook.  But, if a man tries it, he is done for. Women can use their gender to make or mar society.  Where women come together for the good of all, society progresses but where they are divided, things will not work fine. Women know how to manipulate us. They use their innate power to get what they want.

    Besides, they can get away with anything all because they are women. They are delicate,  precious, enchanting and cunny. Women can save and they can kill. There is no man born of woman who can escape their wrath once they set a trap for him.  In the past,  we looked down on them. We relegated them because we considered it a man’s world. Their job then was to take care of the home and warm our beds. They had their duty cut for them. When the men talked, they listened. Or better still, they stayed in their rooms with their children until they were sent for.

    Gone are the days when women were sent for before they came out. These days,  they lead the way. In some instances, men play second fiddle to them. Our women have come of age. In this modern era, gender is no obstacle to the height any one can attain, whether man or woman. Like their counterparts elsewhere, the Nigerian woman has grown socially and politically. They have their eyes set on the ultimate political office – the Presidency.  There is nothing stopping them from gunning for that exalted office, if they feel they have what it takes to hold the post.

    Elsewhere, we have had women leaders.  So, our women will be in good company if their dreams of leading Nigeria come true. We have the women who can hold down the job. Their counterparts who did it elsewhere and are still doing it in some countries do not have two heads. But do our women, that is those aspiring to political leadership, have the impeccable character of the Golda Meirs (Israel), Margaret Thatchers (Britain), Sonia Ghandis (India), Corazon Aquinos (Phillipines), Ellen Sirleaf-Johnsons (Liberia) and Angela Merkels (Germany) of this world?

    I ask this question because of what two women who found themselves in office between 2010 and 2015 did. The story has not been fully told, but the little we have heard is disturbing. One was the First Lady, Dame Patience Jonathan, the other was Petroleum Resources Minister Dame Diezani Alison-Madueke. Mrs Alison-Madueke went overboard in her spending of public funds. She used the money just the way she came across it. Since it was free money, by her own reckoning, she felt she could do whatever she liked with it. She acquired a princely sum, but today, she cannot enjoy the wealth because of her health challenge.

    Why then did she amass wealth when she knew she was ill? I am not rejoicing over her predicament. Far from it, I am just ruminating over the futility of some of the actions we take when we do not know what wil happen tomorrow. If Mrs Alison-Madueke knew that things will end this way, she would not have bothered taking our money the way she did. The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) is hard pressed today trying to locate where she kept all the money in dollars, pounds, euro and naira and the property she acquured across the country and abroad.

    The agency has been able to trace some, which the court has said should be forfeited to the government. Rather than keep quiet, Mrs Alison-Madueke is going about, claiming that she is being persecuted by EFCC. Persecution in what sense? When did it become an offence for a public officer to be asked to return what she allegedly acquired illegally? As a mother,  wife and daughter,  Mrs Alison-Madueke is supposed to have milk of kindness. Did she show that kindness the way she handled public funds?

    No, she did not.  She misappropriated the money meant fi2r our collective good and today, she is crying persecution when the people should be calling for her crucifixion. We have seen how former leaders who misbehaved in other climes were treated.  They ended up in jail after their tenure since they had nowhere to run to. From London, Mrs Alison-Madueke has been throwing  stones at home, alleging that she was accused of what she did not do.

    So, who owns all the billions of naira and millions of dollars and pounds said to have been found in her accounts? The money just walked in there, I suppose. What about the property she was said to have acquired? Well, someone is surely lying between her and EFCC and I am sure it cannot be the agency. What will it gain by wrongly accusing Mrs Alison-Madueke instead of going after the real culprit? Everything is not about beauty. What is the essence of beauty if not matched with integrity, honesty and the fear of God? Indeed, everyday is for the thief and one day is for the owner.

  • Danger of unshackled Trump

    I am your voice”, President Trump, intrigued by the level of his own success, has repeatedly bellowed following his unexpected victory over much favoured Hillary Clinton in the 2016 American Presidential election. An ill-equipped and ill-prepared President Trump has since moved on to proclaim himself the voice of the disgruntled white racist off springs of yesterday confederates. The deadly violence at the Charlottesville rally, which was organized by neo-Nazis and white supremacists, two weeks back presented an opportunity for President Donald Trump to reassure his constituency of fellow racists and white supremacist that ‘the godfather never sleeps’. His natural inclination was to first blame both white nationalists and counter-protesters for the deadly violence at the Charlottesville rally before he was forced by public opinion to live in denial by denouncing the activities of his natural allies- the white supremacists on whose back he rode to power. But from his body language and pronouncements, it was clear to everyone that President Trump did not see anything wrong in his supporters’ decision to parade the street of Charlottesville in their regalia  to prove they have finally ‘taken their country back’ from those Trump had labelled ‘Muslims who have training camps where they want to kill us’, ‘illegal ‘immigrants who illegally voted for Hillary Clinton,’ ‘Mexican rapists’ and the blacks and urban criminals vociferous supporters of President Obama whose citizenship he disputed even in the face of overwhelming evidence.

    Racism is the underlining impetus for slavery, the economic model through which Africans were first drawn into the globalised economy. The foundation of American prosperity can therefore be said to be built on racism and it was an attempt by the benefiting southern confederate state to protect and sustain the source of their economic prosperity that led to America civil war. Alexander Stephens, the vice president of the short-lived government of the seceding 11 southern states made this clear in his famous March 21, 1862 speech when he declared “the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition.”

    It follows therefore that Trump did not invent racism. He inherited it. As a product of his environment, racism is in his blood. What Trump who cannot help himself therefore needs when it comes to racism is sympathy and not ridicule from American ‘fake media’. The innuendo in “we will take our country back’ during the presidential contest between him and Clinton in 2016 was the product of this inner turmoil. It was this that has manifested as President Trump’s subtle encouragement of racial attacks on innocent citizens by racists, Islamophobia, uneducated college white on whose back he rode to power. It has also found expression in his first equivocation over the Charlottesville demonstration by ‘swastika-toting Nazis and hood-wearing KKK members who mindlessly and provocatively waved Confederate flags while chanting Nazi-era slogans’. And of course if his last week pardon of convicted former Sheriff Joe Arpaio in spite of criticism from members of his party was not a sufficient evidence that racism flows in his blood, those with racist inclinations such as Stephen Miller; Sebastian Gorka and Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn as well as Steve Bannon, the chief host of Breitbart, the platform for white supremacists he appointed as advisers provides supportive evidence.

    Unfortunately, the American ‘fake media’ ignored all these overwhelming self-evident facts to ‘fraudulently’ claim that Trump was unmasked by his  reaction to Charlottesville clash between the white supremacist and their opponents . These peddlers of ‘fake news’ conveniently forgot that long before Charlottesville tragedy, Barton Silverman of New York Times had reminded his readers how Donald Trump and his father, Fred, were sued in 1973 for systematically discriminating against black people in housing rentals which the Trumps eventually settled on terms that were regarded as a victory for the government; that long before Charlottesville, Trump, by embracing racism, has by default rejected the 13th amendment to the American constitution which, as a follow up to the Emancipation proclamation of 1863, permanently outlawed slavery and that by threatening to deport all children born in America by non-American citizens, Trump has rejected the 14th amendment to the American constitution which confers citizenship on all children born in America. When reminded of his constitutional limitations, as president, he had said he would explore other means to bypass the constitutional process which he said is too slow,

    For highlighting his disposition towards racism, the press has become target of attack by Trump and his raucous supporters. As against the famous declaration of  his illustrious predecessor, Thomas Jefferson, the American founding father and the principal author of American Declaration of Independence (1776) that “were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter”. Trump would rather run a government without the press, the only exception being the right wing press which shares some of his extreme right wing racist views.

    Finally, Trump believes neither in the democratic process nor in the party system. If Trump whose appeal to Russia for the release of Clinton’s private e-mail messages during election, a development that has the potential to undermine the American democratic system, has any faith in democracy, it is to the extent it helps him achieve power.

    And as for the Republican Party, Trump after hijacking its machinery to win a ticket and the presidential election, proceeded to assault the soul of the Republican Party as well as its core values, he has also continued to undermine the credibility of the leading lights of the party. Both leaders of the two houses which are controlled by the party have come under severe attack. Last week he took the battle to Arizona home of Republican, Senator Jeff Flake and Republican Senator John McCain who have been critical of his subtle encouragement of racism as evidenced by his response to the wild and unruly Charlottesville rally and his presidential pardon for convicted former Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

    With his victory in the civil war he ignited in the Republican Party, his unrestrained attack on the party’s elected leaders in the two houses, Trump is not likely going to deliver on most of his controversial policies. This is likely going to become source of frustration for his disgruntled, racist, Islamophobic, college uneducated white workers he has mobilised through his message of hate.

    An unrestrained unpredictable Trump may take a precipitate action which poses danger to not only America but to the rest of the world. Perhaps now is the time to revisit the recent warning by Ian Kershaw, a professor of modern history at Sheffield University on the need for international cooperation to restrain potential “mad dogs” that are adept at exploiting democratic structures before they bite.

  • Our ‘legendary’ schools are bereft of theories

    Our clothes are too big for us now. Fat has thinned on our bones and skin hangs loosely on our sketchy frames.

    Forget the few who got fat, (awon awodi jeun epe sanra – the birds that nourish from the pot of the accursed) we have become weightless for lack of wisdom;

    PhD, MSc, HND, BSc… name it, we have it. Yet Nigeria flounders for lack of wisdom.

    Our afflictions were of predatory leadership and ravenous citizenship. Today, we mutate into murderous Boko Haram and hate-mongering IPOB. Recently, a desperate clown announced Biafra’s secession.

    If we look beyond the comedies of these antlers of currency-activated tragedy, we would find that we are indeed a curious lot. We stifle the brainy, bury the clever and make the hare-brained determiners of our life course.

    Thus in our country, there is no distinction between the cockeyed and the shrewd, anymore. Up is down and down is up.

    “Nigeria is a failed state…We are hostages to a greedy few,” becomes our mournful cry. How long shall we feed grief on impotent saw?

    In the distance, brilliant spokes of our ‘brighter future’ evade us. Around the corner, Nigeria’s ‘future’ or ‘promising youth’ if you like, flash senior citizens scary sneers at dagger-point; sometimes, at gun-point, to obtain the poor victims’ wallets.

    Pan to the first illicit meeting inside the grifter’s bedroom, dormitory or crummy café. The pace slows. Hustler meets hustled. The pace quickens, the ‘future’ scarcely breathes, until the beep that distils anxiety fetes with cold, sly gluttony. Maga don pay, shout Alleluia!

    Our ‘promising youth’ have learnt to be fraudsters. Let Magu mount the heat on ‘Yahoo boys,’ the con will always yield. It’s a fool’s paradise that we inhabit.

    Our maidens are still out in the cold, pulling a different kind of trick by the street-corner, every hour. Some days, they do the hustle on sidewalks, in the privileged neighbour’s bedroom, on the boss’ sofa and under the flicker of neon lights. Whatever the venue, pleasure seethes and sizzles beneath the shimmer of colourful, ‘sexy’ underwear.

    Our children have become brainy in the devil’s workshop. Their minds are busy where pernicious wile mutates to scourge. They are no more the ‘addle-brained’ in over-burdened lecture halls.

    Our schools are open but the theatres of true scholarship remain shut. Parents grieve, the studious weep and ASUU stews in the lull of true scholarship but our predatory governors and senators are having a blast.

    They do not care that Nigerian schools have become tombs of scholarship and unfettered endeavour.

    Who cares if our schools remain shut? Let ASUU embark on the lengthiest of strike actions, it is our children that would know grief.

    True scholarship, the knowledge that lifts, are meant for the children of the ruling class and their partners in crime, or ‘state-made billionaires’ if you like. That is why they plunder coffers to educate their children abroad.

    Statesmanship wrought in foundries of deceit; t is the way of our leaders to have our schools shut while their wards enjoy sterling scholarship overseas.

    While they rob us silly, we break into hymns of random intellectualization, seeking to impress our peer and fellow impoverished, with frantic wit and tedious platitudes.

    I could do-the-done-thing and romanticize the tragedy of our educational system. As usual, I could recycle solutions and couch them in feathery words. I could demand that government honour its pact with ASUU but would it change a thing?

    We have been thoughtless for too long but we would never know that because we do not stare hard at the picture enough.

    Our schools are not on the front row with the eminent and we do not even lead the back row of the delinquent.

    Every hour, we caress what we used to be and deny what we have become. It does not matter that our schools are never good enough, our hopes entwine delusions of grandeur. Hence our preoccupation with ‘universities global ranking.’

    In the ferocity of our silliness, we moot tiresome slogans, glorifying the apprentice shops we call ‘universities.’ For all our bluster, our schools are yet to birth a Nigerian theory. After too many years, it’s only fair that they evolved a Nigerian theory. Perhaps our home-grown socio-political theory of corruption.

    Brings to mind the story of the itinerant scholars, who came from the Middle East. Studious and parched, they arrived to cup spirited sips from our prairie spring, at that hyperbolic flagship, we call ‘Premier’ of the pack.

    Nobody told them of the conveniences that stink of shit. Nobody told them of the open galleries that doubled as baths, and sometimes, glorified latrines.

    They thought it was a joke that the laboratories are bare, at the flagship they painstakingly separated from the pack.

    One desperate call and they were back in their homeland, away from the stink of filth of Nigeria’s premier university – hope diminished, lessons learnt. No more shall their inborn thirst covet the spring of our exchange programmes.

    Still we remain what we have become. Seeking hope and finding none, we struggle to bear-hug our spent glories.

    These days, we labour to answer our famished names. Would cadavers stir to the forced, cold airs of praise? Would the tragedies of today smother in the reality of yesterday?

    Ill-informed and at tethers end, we extol over-burdened curricular like spider webs on a moth in distress. As if that would answer our flimsiest problems. Forgive me folks, if like the ‘standard’ intellectual, I recycle frantic answers to tiresome ills.

    Everything rubs on the other, to rob the other. Wisdom has deserted us. Of what use are academic honours that make our lives no better? It’s time we strip the clueless of power.

    Apology to the ‘change’ movement but our education sector reflects the ineptness of the government in power. Apology retracted, it shames me to think the incumbent government is bereft of ideas.

    While our kids stew in the stagnant filth of substandard education, APC governors jet out to celebrate their wards’ graduation from Ivy League schools’ abroad. And you and I are paying for it. Our children suffer for our frantic lust to play dumb.

    It’s about time we rid Nigeria of the empty heads holding sway.  ’Improved public schools in Rwanda see private academies close down.’ If only the headline would read: “Improved public schools in Nigeria force private schools to shut down.”

    In Rwanda, “Many private schools reported a two-thirds decline in student admissions at the close of 2016… Students in private schools decreased from 101,510 in 2012 to 79,076 last year while enrolment in public and government-aided schools almost doubled in the same period.

    Rwanda’s Ministry of Education simply expanded capacity and teaching infrastructure in public schools, it also introduced the school feeding programme and abolished school fees.

    Let us wrest our destinies from the grip of the ethically-bankrupt and intellectually-challenged leadership.

    Buhari and Osinbajo are never enough. Their ‘body language’ do not serve us. It’s about time we neutered their generation from power. It’s about we sought the candidates whose humaneness and ethics deserve our votes.