The Nation Newspaper

Category: Thursday

  • Trump and the decline of the US

    When Donald Trump threw his hat into the ring for the Republican nomination, most Americans did not think he was a serious contender. There were others in the field with government experience either as governors or senators. Trump has no such experience. He was just a brash New Yorker with lots of money and television experience as host to a programme famous for his firing people. His critics even dispute how much money he has. He claimed to be a billionaire but his financial history is characterized by bankruptcies. In one of his businesses, he was awarding degrees in business without a university building or academic staff. The only thing he had was his braggadocio about how he could make people billionaires like himself after payment of appropriate fees. Many people were sucked into his scheme and when he was sued for fraud, he quickly gave their money back settling the cases out of the glare of the judicial system. He built many estates here and there and quietly banned blacks from owning any of his flats or apartment buildings. He also merely lent his notorious name to buildings all over the world, thus there were Trump Towers across the world. He also had casinos in Jersey and Las Vegas which closed down one after the other after fulfilling their money hacking purposes. He also ran the Miss World or Miss Universe pageants during which time he allegedly groped the girls.

    Now how can such a man be elected  president in the most advanced democracy and the most technologically advanced country in the world?  Under normal circumstances, he should not be elected dog catcher! He overwhelmed his Republican contenders by insults, bullying and  he reduced decent debates to exchange of insults and raw language. When he faced Hilary Clinton, he exploited Mrs Clinton’s secretive nature to say she has something to hide. Mrs Clinton’s long service and experience in government also proved her undoing during the election. Her use of private server for government e-mails did her incalculable damage. The shady and buccaneering way the Clinton Foundation was raising money sometimes using the facilities of the State Department to raise questionable donations was said by Trump to have amounted “to pay for play”. Incredibly, a man of Trump’s sexually explosive background was not ashamed to say former President Bill Clinton’s sexual peccadilloes disqualified his wife for the presidency and suggested Mrs Clinton bullied those women who were victims of her husband ‘s philandering and  that she prevented them from seeking justice.

    There were many  other reasons responsible for the rise of Trump chief among which was the loss of opportunities by blue collar white workers who lost out to workers in other parts of the world due to globalization. This sector of the American population who numbered about 40 percent of the population felt increasingly left out of the so-called American Dream because of its poor education vis-à-vis college educated young Americans.

    I remember discussing the prognosis of Mrs Clinton winning the election in November 2016 with Ambassador Akporode Clark and the wise analysis by this experienced retired ambassador telling me the Americans will not elect a woman after “enduring a black” for eight years. The analysis was right on the spot and has been proved right. This analysis has gained so much traction that President Barack Obama has had to deny being responsible for Trump’s election laying the blame at the door of the Republicans who for eight years had peddled the rumor that he was not born in America and was therefore not qualified to run for the exalted office of president and some of them had been responsible for the gridlock in Washington. Throughout the Obama years, Trump also represented the arrow-head of white American nationalism that felt threatened by Blacks, Latinos, Jews, Asians and by the youth and women coalition that was responsible for electing a black president twice for a period of eight years. Even Jeb Bush while campaigning for the Republican ticket said this much when he said he was the only white Republican who could defeat the strong Democratic coalition.

    Whatever was responsible for Trump’s election, it should be pointed out that while  he won the majority of the votes in the electoral college, Mrs Clinton won the plurality of the votes by about three million votes. But American system is the only one that does not reflect majority votes  but rather takes the election state by state as if it was different elections in American 52 states and territories.

    Now Trump has been president for the past seven and a half months and he has broken all known rules in American  democratic culture. He has packed his cabinet with retired Generals and right wing peoples spewing all kinds of largely unacceptable political messages that most civilized Americans find troubling. Because of general press opposition to his government, many of his appointees have had to resign because they were found to be unworthy of holding high offices of responsibility. His popularity has hung around 35 percent, the lowest in recent American history. Trump’s administration has suffered a high level of attrition in the revolving doors of coming in and going out of people in the White House. The government also suffers from accusations of nepotism with Trump’s son-in-law and daughter wielding unusual influence in government. Trump also has in residence one Steve Bannon who until recently before he too left a sinking ship served as some kind of Rasputin in the Trump court advising the president to follow a right wing trajectory not seen in American politics since Dwight Eisenhower.

    The president has alienated his neighbours in Canada and Mexico by abandoning North Atlantic Free Trade Area which bound the economies of the USA, Canada and Mexico, creating one of the biggest free trade areas in the world from which the three economies have ostensibly benefited. Trump says it has hurt American working class. He has withdrawn from the Pacific trading pact that would have created the biggest trading area in the world linking the economies of the North America, some South American economies and those of Asian countries bordering the Pacific Ocean. He was also not too excited about NATO, a defensive military alliance that had guaranteed world peace since 1945. He was determined on some trade wars with Europe, China and Japan.

    The only country he seems favorably disposed to is Vladimir Putin’s Russia that has been accused fairly of illegally helping elect Trump by leaking secrets about Hilary Clinton’s e-mails. It seems however that Congress would not allow any Trump-driven rapprochement with Russia. The final point of his unworthy leadership was demonstrated at Charlottesville in the state of Virginia when a mob of  KKK( Ku Klux Klan ) a cross-burning gang of black-killing and hating people to which Trump’s father allegedly belonged, and also including neo -NAZI group and other white supremacist groups invaded the small town allegedly demonstrating against the pulling down of the statue of General Robert Lee, a treasonable confederate general during the American Civil War of 1861 to 1865. The statue and others have been in recent times, symbols of persecution of Jews and Blacks and other minorities in the United States. A counter-demonstration led to one of these people using a high speed car to kill and wound the demonstrators. Rather than condemning the white terrorists, Trump seemed to have believed that there was a moral equivalence between the terrorists and racists and those protesting to reassert American values. After waiting for nearly 72 hours, Trump came out to condemn the racists but then immediately changed the issue to be between protecting American history and statues of people like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, founders of the American republic who were of course slave-holding Americans, thus reducing his own apparent failure of leadership to protecting American slave-holding national heroes like Washington and Jefferson.

    The point he does not seem to appreciate is that being heroes does not remove the fact that these people were moral delinquents and failures. We do not know where the ferment and political contradictions in America will lead the country.

    What is certain is that we are witnessing the decline of America from self-inflicted wounds leading to implosion which will definitely weaken America from within before an inevitable confrontation with the power of a rising China. This is a phenomenon which the virtual begging of China to rein in the North Koreans who are threatening to nuke America itself or to begin with, the American Pacific territory of Guam, clearly demonstrates. If American leadership under Trump knows a little bit about the reading of history predicted by the Grecian historian Thucydides of inevitable clash between a declining and a rising power, Trump should be doing everything to unite America for eventual conflict in Asia. This is of course assuming that this dangerous man understands the lessons of history.

    In the meantime, a country which prides itself as the moral and political leader of the world is being brought down by a president suffering from immense moral deficit.

  • Beyond Buhari’s return

    NTIL Saturday, August 19, 2017,the question was when will President Muhammadu Buhari return. The question was answered when his spokesman Femi Adesina issued a statement that he would return that day. Buhari coming home? Just like that, some one week after his media managers visited him in London without an inkling on when he will be back. Reporting on the visit after their return from London, Adesina said doctors would determine when the President would return.

    In an electronic statement, he said the President really wished to return home, but he could not without the doctors’ say so. On the visiting team were Information and Culture Minister Alhaji Lai Mohammed, Adesina, the Special Adviser on Media and Publicity,  Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity Garba Shehu, Personal Assistant on Digital/Online Media Lauretta Onochie and Senior Special Assistant on Diaspora Matters Abike Dabiri-Erewa. According to Adesina: “When the team expressed delight at the much improved health of the President, he retorted, ‘I feel I could go home, but the doctors are in charge. I have now learnt to obey orders, rather than be obeyed”.

    That visit was on Saturday, August 12. From Adesina’s account, it was obvious that he and others did not know that the President would return home a week later. As at the time of their visit, the doctors were not ready to discharge their patient. Since in matters of that nature, doctors know best, no one can query their judgement. But if within a week of the visit, they certified him fit to go then there was nothing to fear about his health when his media team came calling. The Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport in Abuja bustled with activities last Saturday as the news of the President’s return spread. Travellers at both the domestic and international wings tried to catch a glimpse of the presidential movement, but it was not easy.

    Security was tight. Only authorised people were allowed on to the tarmac to receive the President. These privileged few were Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, some ministers, governors and a few presidential aides. As he descended the stairs after Eagle One landed, the President looked anything but ill. There were no aides trying to help him down the stairs. He walked unaided and he betrayed no ill health. He looked hale and hearty and well rested after his 103-day medical sojourn in London. His long absence from home did not go down well with some people. They wondered why he should stay away for that long at a critical time when the country needed his leadership most. In his absence, a lot happened. Hate mongers seized the land, spewing all sorts of inanities.

    Biafra separatists led by Nnamdi Kanu threatened seccesion. Arewa youths countered by asking easterners in the north lo leave by October 1. And Boko Haram too continued to hit soft targets and wreak havoc in the Northeast. But all thanks to former Acting President Yemi Osinbajo, who showed leadership the way he tackled all the issues, especially the threats of disintegration. At a series of meetings with some political, religious and traditional leaders from across the country, Prof Osinbajo stated unequivocally that the nation’s unity was non-negotiable, a fact which the President reiterated in his broadcast on Monday. The broadcast was to announce his return to work. All eyes are on him to see how he will cope with the demands of his job.  A lot of water, as they say, passed under the bridge during his over 100 days absence. The fact is Buhari means well for the country. He wants to leave a mark as the leader who saved our country from years of economic afflictions.

    But his health challenge would not allow him. There is nothing a man can do, no matter how noble his intentions are, if he is not well. A nation whose leader is ill is also ill. Buhari’s illness, whether we accept the fact or not,  is affecting us as a nation. Yes, we had an acting president, but he was hamstrung in what he could do. If he asserted himself, Buhari’s sympathisers will weigh in to accuse him of seeking the President’s job. They will conveniently forget that he is only playing his constitutionally recognised role. Being acting president is not an envious job. The acting president must watch his back always because of fault finders. Whether he does good or not, they will always find fault with him.

    This is why I pray for good health for the President. His return, as his deputy noted on Saturday following his recovery, would also lead to the recovery of the country from its myriad socio-economic problems. Buhari’s recovery will reflect on governance because there can be nothing like having the substantive president on his seat. We do not pray for a leader that is well today, ill tomorrow. We want our president to be strong for us because he represents our collective strength. If illness hobbles him, it will tie us down as a nation. I only hope that the President is strong enough to stand the rigours of office. One hopes that the Resumeorresign group did not have anything to do with his return home. Even if it did, it shows that he is sensitive to the yearnings of his people.

    The group’s daily sit-in at the Eagle Square in Abuja, demanding that he resumes or resigns shows the beauty of democracy. Without such groups, our leaders will take us for granted. With such groups, our leaders will be mindful of their responsibilities to us as they will be conscious of those who will not follow the norm. We cannot all follow the norm anyway. Welcome back, Mr President. We hope that we will not miss you for another 103 days.

  • IBB’s baleful legacies

    Babangida’s last week 75th birthday celebration was low- keyed. Apart from his immediate family members and Shiek Isah Fari, the Chief Imam of Minna, only a handful of people including Abubakar Sani Bello, the governor of Niger State and his executive council members plus General Abdulsalami Abubakar, former Head of State were in attendance. Conspicuously missing were the hordes of professional well-wishers

    This was the same Babangida who, at the height of his power, held more chieftaincy titles than any Nigerian leader living or dead. “He is Opu-Omatu; Alabo (chief warlord of Rivers; Oka Ome – a man of his words of Enugu; the Ukporo Uwana of Cross Rivers, the comforter” –  (Oluwajuyitan, Nigerian under the Generals, pp. 58-62).

    Back then, honours were endlessly bestowed and fellowship awards freely conferred by not only comedians, musician associations, and public relations practionners, universities were also chasing Babangida and his wife around with honorary degrees. The Nigerian Medical Association and the West African College of Physicians were not left out; they also donated their fellowships. To round up the festival of awards and fellowships, Nigerian Economic Society (NES), the most authoritative body of Nigerian scholars on Nigerian economy bequeathed its own fellowship awards claiming “Babangida has distinguished himself in the management of our economy”. It did not matter that it was coming shortly after Financial Times of London had  reported the mismanagement  of $5b Gulf oil windfall and  the IMF, the World Bank and the Paris Club had jointly described Babangida’s  generous donations to all types of courses, as ‘fiscal indiscipline and recklessness’.

    But I think for Babangida, the absence of professional well-wishers during his 75th birthday celebrations was a blessing in disguise. It was a somber period and a unique opportunity to reflect on the limit of power, the worth of opportunism and the cost of betrayal of a nation that has been forced to go through a purgatory of 30 years and with no light at the end of the tunnel.

    Driven by blind ambition and share opportunism, Babangida had exploited a military junta’s joint resolutions which had an historic opportunity to set Nigeria on the path of sustainable development.  The junta had rightly and roundly rejected IMF’s bitter liberalization pill and chose to look inwards through issuance of import license to ensure we eat what we produce or as Nehru once told his Indian compatriots, go naked until we can make our own dresses.

    Although President Buhari recently told us Babangida, Abacha and Gusau carried out a palace coup in order to avoid inquisition over corruption, Babangida back then insisted his own vision through Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) was the only way to take Nigeria out of economic quagmire that the nation was thrown into by Shagari and Akinloye’s NPN.

    Babangida, Olu Falae, Kalu Idika Kalu and their Aso Villa professors were sworn to “change the course of history by making all essential commodities available and preventing the squandering of our scarce foreign exchange on primary products that were once the mainstay of foreign exchange earnings for the country”. They avowed: “Nigeria will never again be regarded and treated as a bankrupt nation incapable of meetings its international obligations; to remove the agony of Nigerian industrialists through the elimination of import licensing and promotion of non-oil exports in order to increase our non-oil earnings”.  And finally, “to prevent those who would squander our investments from attaining power through nurturing of new breed leaders that will detest the culture of deceit, election  as well as culture of violence and fraud”.

    They all turned out to be false promises and a forlorn hope.  The first set of ‘new breed’ graduates from Babangida’s school of democracy viz Ikimi and Kingibe, took after Babangida by celebrating opportunism. The next set was worse. They became shameless members of Abacha’s “five fingers of a leprous hand”. The next set was a tragedy. They, in the name of privatization sold to themselves the nation’s investment of over $100b for a paltry $1.6b. Besides padding of budget and shortchanging the country through unimplemented constituency projects, they have also engaged in outright stealing through fuel subsidy, import duty waivers and rural electrification scams.

    Babangida equally failed woefully on other scores. By the time Buhari came in 2015, our country had become a dumping ground for all manners of fake and substandard products from other parts of the world. Industrialists Babangida promised to protect had moved out of the country. Buhari had to start rationing scarce foreign exchange to the few left behind. And of course, before 2015, elections, contrary to Babangida’s pledge, had become war or “a do or die’ affair as ex-President Obasanjo put it.

    Babangida who has betrayed a nation that gave him so much opportunities is today at 75 a witness to his own baleful legacies. Unfortunately, having missed it 30 years ago, the task of nation-building has become more arduous. First, Buhari who picked up from where he left 30 years earlier is buffeted by old age and ill-health. And as he recently confessed, he is handicapped by the slow democratic process which he refers to as ‘due process’.

    More tragically, the military rule or outright dictatorship the world was prepared to live with 30 years ago have become an aberration. Yet there is no nation in history that has ever broken the underdevelopment yoke through democratic process for the simple reason that democracy which is just a method for attaining power does not guarantee economic development or good governance. History has shown that nations that have overcome crisis of underdevelopment have always done so through the intervention of a military junta, the owner of society or through dictatorship with a vision.

    Chairman Mao of China that is today contesting the world leadership looked inwards to resolve China’s crisis of underdevelopment.  It is on record that he at a period locked up his country and declared state of emergency in the health sector. He went on to decree three years training period for medical doctors who were thereafter deployed as ‘bared-foot doctors’ to the rural areas. Today, with millions denied of access to medical care, the West that once criticized Chairman Mao are sending their experts to understudy the Chinese health policies.

    Similar purpose could have been achieved by Buhari’s unorthodox economic approach widely criticized by the West in 1984. We unfortunately missed it with Babangida’s option of going to loan Kalu Idika Kalu from the World Bank the same way Obasanjo and Jonathan  fetched Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala from World Bank whose agenda is to complicate our social problems  as part of strategy to solve their own social problems,

    Worse still, 1985 options are no more viable in 2017. The prospect of establishing new  industries in an age of globalization, the new god and cultural imperialism  have been foreclosed with cheaper manufactured goods or even farm products within reach in a matter of days through the internet.

    Our nightmare is likely going to be prolonged with the hijacking of the state and its resources by Babangida’s ‘new breed Abuja ruffians. But it is a victory for a nation betrayed that Babangida at 75 is alive along with Falae, Kalu Idika Kalu, his rain doctors, to take responsibility for the pains they inflicted on our nation with their fraudulent claim that there was no alternative to SAP despite the late Professor Aluko’s warning that there was alternative to even death which he said was life.

  • ‘I am Nigerian, come rape me’

    The ability to fend off rape is a prerequisite of the Nigerian psyche. Vulnerability is a double-edged snare. It incites entrapment, creating a maelstrom of gluttony and death around the vulnerable and ethically frail.

    As you read, modern Nigeria manifests as a labyrinth of lust, an allegory of war and rape. In the wilderness of lust and shame, society becomes ‘slaughter slab,’ the multiple-room brothel, vibrantly themed and decorated for the Nigerian degenerate.

    Degeneracy abounds across societal slabs; across ruling class and the governed, rich and poor divides. While the incumbent ruling class touts its distorted fable of crooked martyrdom, donning the puritan’s cloak, the governed, comprising Nigeria’s teeming impoverished and fast disappearing middle-class, shed blood and brawn to ennoble the monstrosity of their common oppressor, the ruling class.

    Just recently, we saw how spectacularly the Charles Oputa aka Charly Boy-led protest group and a pro-Buhari faction hacked at each other with cudgels of folly and blades of rage.

    Charly Boy, despite harsh criticisms and unsparing mockery trailing his ‘Resume or Resign” campaign, mobilised his “Our mumu don do” civil society-driven movement to protest President Muhammadu Buhari’s elongated medical tourism in the United Kingdom, at Abuja, Federal Capital Territory (FCT)’s Unity Fountain and Wuse Market.

    One school of thought nullifies Charly Boy’s self-painted portrait as modern day hero, calling it an epic fraud. The self-acclaimed ‘Area father’s’ critics deride his professed passion and attempts to ride against violent currents of Nigeria’s tribal, religious bigotries.

    Despite their harsh criticism, Charly Boy’s apologists see him as a stunning, courageous patriot, devoted to restoration of the public parliament’s mythical state of influence and enormous power. To the latter, Charly Boy is the black knight and Nigeria, his damsel in distress.

    From a previous, violently quashed protest at Unity Fountain, Abuja, the Charly Boy gang moved its stage to FCT’s Wuse Market. But rather than join forces with the Area Father and his crew, a pro-Buhari group in the market, issued a decisive response, in a tenor of violence and murderous rage.

    Charly Boy was attacked in Wuse market by angry, pro-Buhari protesters – mostly northern youth. The musician and his cohort of disgruntled youth and cameramen eventually fled for their lives, with the pro-Buhari group hot in pursuit. The pro-Buhari group threw rocks at the 66-year-old, who was eventually rescued by another group of south-eastern youth and security operatives who fired gunshots and tear-gas to disperse the crowd.

    Thus an ethnic crisis was narrowly averted. It took the prompt intervention of security operatives for the situation to be salvaged. Charly Boy eventually suspended the protest, telling his cohort that their point had been made. “My brothers and sisters, I’ll like to say thank you for a good job well done; and to say to my fellow comrades, we’ve made our point, let Nigerians judge… Let Nigerians do the needful, do the right thing,” he said.

    “Permit me, my fellow comrades, to say that we’ve come to the end of this particular sit-out,” he said.

    “Charly Boy caused it, how can he go to Wuse Market to talk against Buhari?” “Those Hausa boys dealt with him…serves him right,” resonates the arguments on social media.

    Expectedly, Nigerians are queued in layers of conflicting perspectives in respect of the Charly Boy’s ill-fated protest.

    Armchair critics analyse the ensuing imbroglio claiming Charly Boy was probably pursuing someone’s agenda. He must be horseman to some political mastermind’s dark schema, they argue. He is too comfortable, too rich and catered for, to indulge in such desperate display of commoners’ grief, argues Nigeria’s armchair Trotskys.

    But that is simply one way to look it. Charly Boy and company perhaps intone a heartfelt misery. Perhaps he isn’t just another child of privilege paying lip service to commoner’s plight, but a true patriot whose love for Nigeria and the country’s suffering and smiley masses, transcends the bounds of his gated paradise.

    At the backdrop of these incidents, President Buhari remains in London on medical vacation spanning 100 days or thereabouts. His anti-corruption fight remains a sham, a pseudo war against institutionalised sleaze. And the National Assembly still impedes the strides of his administration.

    As usual, there were casualties during the recent protests. It is not surprising that the wounded are mostly unemployed youths, impoverished wards of commoners. However, a rare thing occurred by Charly Boy’s exposure to hurt. A child of privilege, like him, shouldn’t indulge in such dangerous enterprise. But Charly Boy did. Was he for real?

    Was his cohort for real? Are they true patriots? Or are they familiar victims of rape? Like hordes of underprivileged youths, were they caught in dizzying sexual dialectic, by which the Nigerian rapist(the ruling class), vainly and methodically strives to plow the raped (clueless, impoverished citizenry) barebacked?

    Did paltry sums change hands? Who paid who to stage a phoney protest? Was it a real protest? Was the pro-Buhari group driven by money or dangerous bigotry? Were both groups comprised of true patriots, seeking Nigeria’s best interests?

    Their savage world of rape is transcended by higher characters, the puppeteers, who determine the extremes of their ordeal but that is a discussion fit for other fora.

    Nigeria would be better off if its youth committed to more laudable ventures; like the pruning of the National Assembly to a unicameral legislature; like protesting against ‘budget padding’ and other corrupt acts by the country’s legislators, the presidency and governors.

    It’s about time Nigerian youth stopped lending themselves as muscles to every devious plot or shady protest for a paltry fee. Let the senators, governors, corporate titans and ministers hiding in the shadows, gather their children to lead the protest marches and their currency-activated bloody massacres.

    Nigerian youths may draw inspiration from their Kenyan peers. Cynthia Muge, 24, had no millions in her bank account. But few days ago, she contested as an independent candidate because she lacked the funds to obtain the Jubilee Party’s nomination form, and defeated five men to secure the Member of Country Assembly (MCA) seat in Kilibwoni Ward, Nandi County.

    Flat broke, the University of Nairobi graduate devised a social media and house-to-house campaign strategy to poll 8,760 votes and beat her closest competitor, Wilson Kiptanui of Jubilee Party’s 8,354 votes.

    John Paul Mwirigi’s story is equally inspiring. The 23-year-old unemployed orphan and sixth of eight siblings, also contested as an independent candidate against veteran politicians of established political parties. He emerged winner, polling 18, 867 against Jubilee Party’s Rufus Miriti, who had 15, 411 votes. Three other seasoned politicians — Mwenda Mzalendo (7,695 votes), Kubai Mutuma (6,331 votes) and Raphael Muriungi, a Deputy Governor, two-tome ex-MP and former Assistant Minister (2,278 votes) — were beaten by him. Yet Mwirigi lives in his family home, a local granary in his village.

    It is about time Nigerian youths assimilated the finer aspects of tact, humaneness, service and humility. The ‘popular’ musicians chanting their political ambitions on platforms of popular parties are undeserving of the citizenry’s votes. The truly committed patriot would distance himself from the usual ogres. Those who wouldn’t are simply out to ‘rape’ or be ‘raped,’ for a fee.

  • Do something for Nigeria

    President JF Kennedy at his inauguration as president of the United States in 1961 challenged his countrymen and women by saying “Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country”. This was a call on American patriotism at a time of crisis at home and abroad. The Vietnam War was spiralling out of control and the civil rights movement was gathering pace. This iconic president died in the process of offering enlightened leadership.

    Nigeria is faced with grave challenge the like it has not seen since the civil war that ended in 1970.

    The recrudescence of the quest for self-determination and resuscitation of the dead dream of Biafra is the extreme manifestation of the desire for restructuring of the country. The demand for restructuring is a testimony to the fact that the over-centralized and unitary form of government masquerading as federalism is not working. This demand is not restricted to the South-east alone. The South-east demand may be rooted in the politics of sharing and not genuine belief in secession.  Nevertheless the agitation raises the fundamental issue of political alienation. But in order to put these problems behind us we ought to look at the architectural design of the Nigerian house. We all agree that there are too many states therefore leading to burdensome administrative costs. We need to reduce the federating states to about six or at most eight while the present states would be mere provincial administrations if the emergent regions want them. The local governments belong to the regional federating units and not to the federal government. What needs to be said is that we must commence talking about the way forward. If there is need to summon a constituent assembly, so be it.  Asking for a new structure as contained in the Jonathan expensive jamboree of 2014 which recommended creation of additional states is not the way to go. But after saying this we must all accept the fact that Nigeria is worth fighting for and dying for by our leaders. Any leader who does not feel Nigeria is worth dying for has no business being our leader.

    We all seem to believe that the oil and gas below our soil and seas are fundamental to the economic survival of our country. While this may be true, it does not tell the whole story. The contribution of our agricultural sector is more fundamental to the economic well-being of the country. Just compare the situation in Venezuela which was pumping out close to 10 million barrels of crude oil daily compared with the two million barrels Nigeria was producing in the best of times. Now Venezuela is prostrate on its belly because it has no money to import food. The case of our sister country Angola that was producing almost the same volume of crude oil as Nigeria is not different. Angola which depends on food imports is down on its knees in the absence of foreign exchange. The question to ask is why is Nigeria different? The reason is that we can feed ourselves without importing food if we decide to eat what we produce. Local production of cassava of which we are the largest producer in the world, growing of yams and local production of rice and corn will suffice for our national need of carbohydrates.

    We also have millions of heads of sheep, cows, and goats not to talk of chickens and fishes which will take care of our protein needs. We have different seasonal fruits and vegetables for nutritional balance. Nigeria is a case of a country that can have food sufficiency in record time if we are serious. Even without being serious, we can do without food imports. In my home, I hardly eat foreign food and I am not in any way missing it. Nigeria is exceptional in this regard as far as Africa is concerned. We enjoy in our economy the economy of scale which a large population confers on us. Our physical size and variety of weather if not climate makes it possible for us to grow a variety of crops from cocoa, rubber palm produce cassava, yams, potatoes and so on in the south and  in the Middle Belt of our country. We can also grow sorghum, groundnuts, beans, cotton and all kinds of spices in the northern parts of the country.

    If we properly harness all our resources, we will find out that there is more than enough wealth to go round rather than playing politics of poverty and ethnic division and confrontation. Our large size is a potential deterrence to any invader. This means we cannot be conquered easily. Any invader will have to defeat us in detail. Our size confers on us considerable amount of influence if not power in the world but certainly power in our region. We do not want to throw away all this.

    No country in the world is perfect. The wars going on in several parts of the world are enough to convince us that while we have problems, they are not enough to lead us to destructive warfare. The human suffering in places like Iraq, Syria, the new country of South Sudan which broke away from the Sudan as well as the war in Yemen are sufficient warning to those of us who will goad other people’s children to sectarian or ethnic war which will eventually end by negotiation. The question then arises as to the efficacy of conflict over negotiation. As Kennedy once said “we must not fear to negotiate but we must never negotiate out of fear”. If we want to negotiate our way forward, we must sincerely lay our fears on the table and we must all make serious attempt to remove whatever lingering fear each of us has about the current structure of government that is preventing us from rapid development.

    No part of our country is completely made up saints or sinners and we must not make bogeymen out of each other.  We are first individuals, then families before being members of our different ethnic groups. We all want the best for ourselves and our families and perhaps for our different ethnic groups. The task before us is to find ways by which wanting the best for ourselves does not impinge on the welfare of our fellow Nigerians. That is the essence of constitutional government. I honestly believe in the destiny of our country as potentially a leader in Africa. The position of the black man in a racially divided world is so precarious that we must not trifle with the only genuinely Black Country that can stand up for the dignity of the black man. This was the destiny bestowed on us at independence and our founding fathers accepted this mission and for over 50 years, our foreign policy was based on this and we made humongous financial sacrifice to work for the liberation of the black man on his own continent. We just cannot throw this accomplishment away. We have only won the political battle; the war of economic development is just beginning. We must coordinate our economic development with those of the 53-odd African states because as separate puny states, we will not go far and we will open ourselves to being undermined by the forces of neo-colonialism. If we get our economy going and there are jobs for those who need them, it really will not matter which member of the ethnic group is in or out of power. In any case, this is why we are seriously advocating redesigning the constitutional architecture of our country to locate power politics and its bitterness not at the centre but in the constituent regions. The respect this country used to have in the comity of nations was based on our size and promise. We need to put our acts together to regain our lost glory. We are not going to get this back through national fragmentation or division but by making genuine compromise and by understanding each other’s fears. We can have a win-win situation in which Nigeria will be worth defending and dying for.

  • Jonathan’s mea culpa

    If there is one topic that former President Goodluck Jonathan shies away from, it is the fight against corruption. Even when he was in office between 2010 and 2015, he could barely mention the 11-letter word. To him, it is anathema to discuss corruption the way Nigerians want it discussed. Nigerians can be emotive when talking about corruption because it is a cankerworm which has destroyed the fabric of society.

    While other countries are progressing, we are lagging because of corruption. Truly, corruption did not start with the Jonathan administration, but it was elevated under that government. Some revelations today have shown that we were lucky that the government lost the 2015 election or else, we will be in worse situation by now. Jonathan seems to have his ears to the ground going by what he said at the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) convention in Abuja on Saturday. He hit the nail on the head when he said the talk in town is that the economy would have been worse off if the PDP had remained in power beyond 2015.

    Before the 2015 election, Nigerians had become fed up with PDP. Things were so tight for the governed, but those in power were enjoying. The painful thing is they were doing so with public funds. They were dipping their hands into the till and helping themselves to our commonwealth. As president, Jonathan was expected to call these people to order, especially his ministers, who saw their privileged position as an opportunity to steal the nation blind. Men, did they loot the treasury? You can ask that question again. What we are hearing today about funds and properties recovered from some of these former ministers would not have come to light if the Jonathan administration had remained in office till now.

    Would the government have told Nigerians about the arms funds, which its National Security Adviser (NSA) Col Sambo Dasuki managed and dispensed as he liked? Would it have told us about the millions of dollars allegedly kept in some safe houses and banks by his Petroleum Resources Minister Diezani Alison-Madueke? Would it? It won’t because all of them slept and faced the same direction. Alison-Madueke is alleging that she is being castigated for nothing because, according to her, she served the country to the best of her abilities. In a statement that has gone viral, she said the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) was witch-hunting her, reeling out all she did to reform the petroleum sector during her tenure. She denied that money was found in her account, saying she did not know where the EFCC got the cash from.

    To show how ‘special’ she and her ilk are, Alison-Madueke said ‘’the fight against corruption in Nigeria will be far better served if the EFCC focuses on incontrovertible facts, as opposed to media sensationalism and completely distorted stories, in their bid to demonise and destroy a few chosen Nigerians’’. Really, many are called, but only the few, who are true to their calling, are chosen. Alison-Madueke can never be among these few no matter how hard she  tries to burnish her image. It is too late in the day for that. She can only get the people’s sympathy if she comes up with hard facts on how she came by her stupendous wealth. It is all the fault of Jonathan, who once defended stealing while trying to draw a line between stealing and corruption.

    If our president could say on air that stealing is not the same thing as corruption, can he be counted on to move against his ministers if they stole? That statement emboldened his ministers to do whatever they liked with public funds since oga has said stealing is not corruption. It was a statement unbecoming of his office. It was a remark, which made us a laughing stock in the comity of nations. By speaking that way, Jonathan inadvertently endorsed graft and opened the way for  his ministers to pilfer the treasury. The message he sent to them was if una no steal na una know.

    His remarks at the PDP convention showed that he allowed corruption to thrive under him. He spoke like an accused  brought before a judge, who in his plea, said “I am guilty with explanation”. The standard practice is to plead guilty or not guilty after the charge has been read to an accused. But if the accused has something to hide, he will try to dress up his plea to, in his thinking, win the judge’s sympathy. But unknown to him, by so doing, he is shooting himself in the foot. Court: Are you guilty or not guilty? Accused : I am guilty with explanation. In law, there is nothing like guilty with explanation. Guilty is guilty.

    So,  Jonathan’s reason for not winning the corruption war is not tenable. Of his own volition, he has admitted that he is guilty as charged. The former president has told the whole world that his administration was corrupt through and through. So, where lies his claim that the Buhari administration has been hunting him and members of his family? If he could say what he said, is he not lucky that he is only being hunted and has not been hauled before the court to face trial? If an accused spoke like that in court, he would end up in jail.

    “Though we did not completely plug the loopholes in the fight against corruption, we did well’’, he said to the applause of members of his party. ‘’Did well’’? With what yardstick did he measure that when he did not tackle corruption frontally? Jonathan has said all we need to know about his administration and PDP. The party is not one to be trusted with the leadership of any country. We are where we are today because of its mismanagement of the economy  for 16 years (1999 – 2015). Instead of burying its head in shame for bringing the country to its lowest low, the party is thinking of coming back to power in 2019. I do not blame PDP; the fault is that of the All Progressives Congress (APC), which appears not to know what to do with power. And this is a party, which held out much hope for the country just three years ago. We are doomed as a nation if APC cannot get it right before the next election.

    APC would have shut PDP up for good if it had made the people to feel its impact in the last two years. Yes, it is fighting corruption. But governance is not all about fighting corruption alone. The masses are yearning for the betterment of their lives, a robust economy, uninterrupted power supply, good infrastructure and security of life and property. Until the APC is able to fulfil its obligation to the people, the PDP will continue to shoot its mouth and try to hoodwink Nigerians to return it to power. But, what has PDP got to offer that it did not show us in its first coming which lasted 16 years? Perhaps, it wants to return to continue the looting from where it stopped in 2015. But, is it PDP’s fault? No, it isn’t. APC has given it the munition with which to fight its way back to power.

  • Charly Boy and his Our-mumu-don-do crusaders

    Last week, Charly Boy’s “our mumudondo’ group of entertainers and Buhari’s supporters clashed for the second time on the streets of Abuja. The former is insisting President Buhari, who is convalescing in a London hospital must “return or retire”.  The latter, taking a cue from the President’s Daura’s kinsmen, is insisting “it is not a crime to be sick” and that the president has not broken any law since he ceded power to his vice president as spelt out in the constitution. They went on to accuse Charly Boy and his group of being driven by other motives including politics rather than altruism. Charly Boy’s group then introduced a new dimension: Their crusade, they now claim, is not about legality but about morality. Buhari’s supporters on the streets of Abuja, shot back, insisting, Charly Boy is ill-equipped and the least qualified to speak on sickness or morality as a self-confessed President Jonathan’s  confidant who along with others egged him on as he ran the ship of state aground.  Charly Boy is yet to respond.

    What I have however found intriguing in the exchange between the two groups so far is the politicization of the President Buhari’s sickness. In case our fellow compatriots are unaware, it is not just that anyone can fall sick as argued by Buhari supporters, but the fact that social psychologists have in fact now said we are all sick with everyone at different levels of insanity. For artists who see what the ordinary people don’t see, it manifests in form of what society consider as their anti-social behaviours such as wearing tattoos over the body and overdependence on drug which recently led to the untimely death of Michael Jackson,  and Prince, two of the world most celebrated entertainers. For instance, like Charly Boy who cherishes being called a boy at over 60, Michael Jackson was locked inside the body of a boy, making it impossible for him to accept responsibilities of adulthood all through his life.

    Those of us who dance to their sometimes weird music without rhyme are not left out. Part of their findings is that it takes some form of insanity to start jumping around hysterically with our hands and legs up and down.  But more revealing is their findings about political leaders.  Students of political psychology in international relations have in fact confirmed leaders like Hitler, Idi Amin, Mussolini and Trump were outrightly insane. As for us and our leaders, no scientific work is needed to confirm our state of insanity. The irrational actions and pronouncements of our leaders and the absurd responses of the led are all that is required to gauge the level of our insanity.

    For instance, we couldn’t have suddenly forgotten the recklessness of PDP leaders who embarked on the assassination of their leading lights over spoils of office after assuming power in 1999. On his own part, Obasanjo’s declaration that he was not obliged to listen to advice of experts but to God who brought him out of Abacha’s gulag to solve Nigerian problems was sufficient proof his recklessness. And if it is remembered that one of his obsession was to have a peaceful transition from civilian to civilian, a feat he achieved through Maurice Iwu’s massively rigged 2007 election which forced the winner of the electoral contest to protest against his own victory, the strange voice that finally drove him to the third term fiasco couldn’t have come from God. Obasanjo was probably suffering from “selective perception”, or the image in our heads, an affliction which sometimes makes us deny reality. Goodluck Jonathan, his godson suffered the same affliction. In power he looked the other way as his appointees looted the nation’s resource claiming stealing government funds was not corruption. Now out of government and with billions being recovered from his associates and family members, he is still in self-denial that he ran the economy aground and that he fought corruption but for “some unplugged loopholes”. Our current leaders have been  humble  enough to have publicly owned up to their different afflictions: Saraki – treachery; Ekwerenmadu – opportunism, and Melaye –obsession with cars.  In the case of Dogara, his estranged friends says it is  “budget  padding”; Buhari – stiffness and religious fundamental beliefs and love of his Fulani race, afflictions he shares with Osinbajo, his deputy.

    Now let us return to corruption, the other serious challenge facing our nation. It is the greed of corrupt political elite that deprive Nigerian youths of education, drive less-privileged Nigerians with broken limbs and bones from collapsed federal roads to seek remedy not in  Igbobi Orthopaedic Hospital established after the Second World War but in the Republic of Togo while the privileged with collapsed kidney arising from usage of imported fake drugs find their way to India and not UCH, Ibadan, once regarded as one of the best three teaching hospitals in the Commonwealth of nations.

    Charly Boy says some of his people voted for Buhari because of their confidence in his ability to fight corruption. And that is exactly what Buhari in or out of town has been trying to do for two years. There is sufficient proof he is changing the narrative.  Those who collected amounts ranging between N1b and N4b from the federal government to rig the last gubernatorial elections in the South-west, those from Charly Boy’s South-east that collected N34b of N44b budgeted for the dredging of River Niger without any work done and those from the North who ferried billions in foreign currency with truck from the CBN vault allegedly on the order of President Jonathan, are having their dates in courts.

    Today the Treasury Single Account (TSA) is said to have fetched the nation about N4trillion. Those who collected N4.6b for spiritual consultation are repaying back or having their dates in the courts; $9.88m and 74,000 pounds had been seized from Andrew Yakubu former GMD of NNPC while his supervising minister, Diezani Alison-Madueke has forfeited billions in local and foreign currencies as well as choice properties in Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt to government. Abdulahi Dikko former Comptroller General of Customs has forfeited $37.5m to government just as billions of naira and choice properties have been recovered from military officers. On his part, Magu, the EFCC boss has so far secured the conviction of about 200 swindlers of the nation’s resources.

    The nation has not only stopped the daily loss of about 500,000 barrels of oil but has more to show for the $52b oil revenue she earned in the last two years than the $445b accruing to the Jonathan administration between 2010 and January 2015.

    But Charly Boy remains unimpressed. He told Vanguard over the weekend that his “Return or Resign” crusade against recuperating Buhari will continue. With this type of mind-set, it is no more difficult to second guess whose battle Charly Boy and his group are out to wage. It couldn’t have been an accident that his crusade coincides with the regrouping of PDP and the chest- beating of ex-President Jonathan about his handling of the nation’s-economy and the war on corruption as president. But as Balarabe Musa, former Kaduna State governor said while reacting to Jonathan’s wild claims, last week: ‘Nigerians have short memories’.  Charly Boy who was said to be an unofficial adviser to ex-President Jonathan, like his principal, probably believe Nigerians suffer from collective amnesia.

  • Nigeria: Caution! Caution!!

    Thoughtful Nigerians are raising alarms about the escalating threat of massive disorder in our country. Acting President Yemi Osinbajo, former President Olusegun Obasanjo, eminent elder statesmen like Edwin Clark and Ayo Adebanjo and others, traditional rulers, top religious leaders (Christian and Muslim alike) – all are shouting for a change of direction. One of the latest to do so, our former Vice-President, Atiku Abubakar, in response to the terroristic threats flying all over our land, warned that “an eye for an eye will leave Nigeria blind”.

    More and more nations among the hundreds of nations of our country are saying more and more loudly that they do not want to continue to live in the horrific fears that Nigeria now represents – in the threat to their existence as peoples – in the poverty – in the marginalization – in the culture of violence and mass murders – in the crookedness, impunity and failure. Some are also saying that they do not want to continue to share in Nigeria’s burden of guilt for its crowded crimes against humanity. Thus, secessionist agitations have escalated in the Igbo South-east (where, apparently, most citizens now support the demand for a separate country of Biafra), and in the South-south (where various youth groups are blowing up oil installations and demanding a separate Delta country). In the South-west, many self-determination youth groups have come together to issue a very impressive demand for a separate Oodua country. Self-determination movements are becoming active even in the Middle Belt. In the predominantly Kanuri North-east, Boko Haram, apart from its Islamic fundamentalist agenda, is increasingly manifesting as, and gaining support from, Kanuri nationalism and separatism – and obviously reviving its murderous and destructive capabilities. In an obverse development, many strong Hausa-Fulani youth groups have joined hands and announced that they do not want their Hausa-Fulani nation to continue to live with the Igbo nation in the same country, have issued an ultimatum to all Igbo to leave the North, have advised all northerners resident in the South to return to the North, and have demanded the dissolution of Nigeria. From some of these Arewa youth sources, hate songs and terroristic threats are being circulated against the Igbo as a people.

    The Hausa-Fulani youth agitators in the North-west, in spite of their pungent and persistent threats against the Igbo people, seem to enjoy a privileged status that protects them from any kind of sanctions by Nigerian authorities. In contrast, in response to the agitations in the Igbo South-east, the Delta South-south, the Yoruba South-west, and the Middle Belt, the federal government is hurrying to beef up Nigeria’s military muscle. The police and military have been constantly active in the South-east against pro-Biafra agitators, with serious consequences in human fatalities and injuries. The military are also busy against the agitators in the South-south, and threatening much more massive operations there. To maximize power for these ends, the Buhari administration is busy shopping for arms around the world – and reportedly committing enormous amounts of money in spite of the depressed conditions of the Nigerian economy. Nigeria is reportedly negotiating for purchases of advanced weapons from some leading Western countries. The Buhari administration has also recently announced that Nigeria has reached agreements with Sudan and Pakistan for joint development and production of weapons, and has effected actual purchases of military aircraft from Pakistan. These are very ominous developments since Sudan has been the conduit pipe for most funds funnelled from the Arab world to Nigeria for jihadist purposes; and Pakistan has been the place where many Nigerian youths have been trained in Islamic fundamentalist terrorism.

    Meanwhile, the Fulani herdsmen terrorists are observed to be upgrading their attacks in many Southern and Middle Belt states. Terrorist attacks by herdsmen bringing hundreds of cows are, for the first time, being directed against school premises in some states, chasing young students out of their classrooms, and occupying the classrooms with cows. Also, herdsmen’s settlements are observed to be springing up in hundreds of locations in the Middle Belt and the South.

    Informed Nigerians believe that this intense new phase in the herdsmen’s terror campaigns, coupled with the military preparations at high levels of Nigeria’s government, is a sign that some well-prepared horror is about to burst across the length and breadth of the Nigerian South and Middle Belt. Some others believe that it is all part of preparations by the controllers of federal power to enforce their will more brutally and more irresistibly.

    Fear and resolve to resist are growing exponentially. The leadership of the elders of the Yoruba nation of the South-west, while intensifying their demands for the restructuring of the Nigerian federation, are, for the first time ever, warning that any genocidal attacks on the Igbo people this time around would be responded to by the Yoruba as an attack on the Yoruba. The leadership of the elders of the Delta have risen to work with the Yoruba and Igbo elders. Also, many significant elder citizens of the Middle Belt have stepped forth to collaborate with the growing southern resistance. From the Arewa North, various youth groups are issuing more and more terroristic threats against the Igbo. And from all parts of the South and, to some extent   the Middle Belt, youth groups are responding with intensified demands for secession and with terroristic threats against Hausa-Fulani folks.

    In the background to all these, poverty, deprivation and hardship are wracking the lives of most Nigerians and setting the stage for massive civic troubles. According to Nigeria’s Bureau of Statistics, by 2014 about 60.9% of all Nigerians lived in “absolute poverty”, and by 2016, the number had risen to 67% and was still rising. Today, starvation and destitution are massively and painfully visible across the face of Nigeria. Among all classes of Nigerians, desperation, moral collapse, crookedness, brigandage, violent crimes, and suicides are rampant. Various international agencies classify Nigerians among the world’s poorest in access to electricity, potable water, safe transportation, quality healthcare delivery, dependable public administrative services, public security, etc. Violent crimes have turned Nigeria into one of the most unsafe places in peace time in the world. Drastically poor support for education is resulting in teachers not getting their salaries paid for months in most states, and in poor conditions of learning in schools and in colleges and universities. By 2015, virtually all of Nigeria’s states were heavily burdened with debts and near bankruptcy, and not less than 27 state governments are still unable to pay the salaries of public employees and public school teachers when due. Huge numbers of Nigeria’s unemployed educated youths are regularly finding ways to flee to other countries from Nigeria’s crushing poverty and hopelessness. Businesses and investments are failing or are relocating away from Nigeria. A recent United Nations report describes Nigeria as “one of the poorest and most unequal countries in the world”.

    Thus, today, the dark clouds hanging over Nigeria are growing frighteningly darker. If the pressure on the peoples who are poised to resist coercion or terrorism should be stepped up with all the accumulated capacity of federal coercive power, plus the aggression of the armed Fulani herdsmen who have heavily infiltrated the Middle Belt and the South, destruction of life, of property and of means of livelihood, as well as human rights brutalities, already widespread in Nigeria, could quickly reach earth-shaking proportions.

    It is therefore time to defer to the many Nigerians who are pleading for caution. Those who are threatening others and bristling for violent action need to think again. Those in charge of public policy need to turn around and choose ways and means that will ensure the   sustenance of Nigeria on the basis of mutual love and mutual respect. This country cannot be built by threatening or intimidating. We live in times when it is impossible for any group or agency to command a monopoly of violence. Sure, we Nigerians disagree over a whole lot of important things. But it is not true that crushing or subduing opponents is the only way to settle matters. Learning to settle matters on the basis of fairness and long-term interest of Nigeria is a better way. What Winston Churchill said is true for us today – it is “better to jaw-jaw than to war-war”.

  • Reminiscences (GG at 85)

    Reminiscences (GG at 85)

    First, a confession: The subject of this article is well known to this reporter. So, dear reader, take it easy, if you feel that there is more than a tinge of subjectivity here. But, I assure you, “Notebook” will be as conscientious as it has always been.

    Our first meeting was in September, 1974. The sun was getting set to set, its recession a bit slow. Behind the hills that ring the town, the sun was showing its face, bright but weak. And there he was, just after a long row of palm trees that lined the red-earth, dusty road that led to the school premises, mowing a field of green grass that had grown wild. He had on only a pair of white shorts, his trademark, as I discovered later. No top.

    As he looked up from what I later found out to be a routine for him when students were on holiday, he wiped the sweat off his brow and continued his business. I announced my presence.

    “Good evening sir.”

    “Pele o (hello). How’re you?”

    “I’m Gbenga Omotoso, the table tennis player you discussed with Mr Babajide in Ibadan.”

    His face brightened up. He burst into laughter and seized my hand as he screamed: “Ping pong!”

    And so began my relationship with the man who paid my – and many others’ – way through secondary school, a teachers’ teacher, father of many children –none of them his, biologically – worthy chief, consummate farmer, confident trainer and frontline humanist.

    Chief Guy Gargiulo, an Italian naturalised Briton, was the headmaster at Ajuwa Grammar School, Okeagbe – Akoko, Ondo State, from 1963 to 1978. He had had a stint as a Physics teacher at Igbobi College, Lagos before moving to Okeagbe to help give the new school a push.

    He reached age 85 on August 13, but all was quiet as he was away in England. He has since returned to Nigeria and a reception was held in his honour last Saturday on the very premises where he helped shape the future of many students who are today prominent citizens

    Among them: Otunba Solomon Oladunni, former Vice Chair, Mobil; Tuyi Ehindero, ex-Managing Director, Unilever, Zambia; Dr Tunji Abayomi, rights activist-lawyer and politician; Akinwunmi Bada, ex-CEO, Transmission Company of Nigeria; Oba Oladunjoye Fajana, ex-African Development Bank/World Bank chief and now Ajana of Afa, Okeagbe; The Right Rev. Jacob Ajetunmobi, Bishop of the Anglican Communion, Ibadan Diocese; Tayo Alasoadura, former Commissioner for Finance, Ondo State; Rear Admiral Sanmi Alade, Commandant of the National War College; Mike Igbokwe, Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) and a legion of others in banking, sports, industry and government.

    There are not many people of whom one can say: “O…he had a great influence on my life.” Many there are who can proudly say this of GG, as we excitedly call him. All his efforts were geared towards implanting in us all the virtues to which he subscribed – hard work, courage, loyalty, endurance, honesty and more.

    He feared nothing. The only fear he ever had was being bitten by snakes, he told us. But the day he held one and was bitten, the fear ended. Then he started reading about snakes. We were taught how to catch and keep them. But GG warned us never to go near the cobra, saying there was no remedy to its poison. The last time I visited, he had at home two snakes, one of which he nicknamed Angelina.

    Gargiulo’s idea of education is not the mere acquisition of a certificate as a visa to some perceived Eldorado; not a theoretical exploration of some esoteric facts and figures, but a total package to prepare the youth for any challenge that life may hurl on their way. Every student was encouraged to learn a trade – bricklaying, auto mechanic and others. The Ajuwa Printing Press, which was run by students, was central to the programme.   It printed our exercise books, report cards, inspirational poems, such as Nobel laureate Rudyard Kipling’s “If” , and the ubiquitous poster, “Speak English, remember your WASCE” that adorned our classrooms.

    Gargiulo persuaded us all to love farming – we all had copies of a poem he wrote on then Head of State General Olusegun Obasanjo’s “Operation feed the nation” (everything in that military era was an “operation”) as he led the way every evening. The maize farm was a beauty to behold, the sheer greenery and the glittering golden, thread-like strands sprouting from the cobs. The vast row of teak, shedding their rustling leaves in the harmattan.  The short palm trees and their scarlet fruits. The gmelina.

    Our yam came from the school farm. The eggs we had once a week came from the school poultry. It was fun caring for the rabbits and watching the cows graze .Our farm produce were sold and the proceeds invested in shares in the name of the school.

    Sport was for GG a priority. The yearly marathon was compulsory for all. So was swimming. The community and the students built a dam to facilitate this. From the dark brown pool and the pontoon that were carved out of the dam, boys and girls were moulded into national champions. No fewer than two former students are now coaches. This reporter was a table tennis star, the very reason he won GG’s heart.

    GG believed that no student was so bad that there was no redeeming feature. He once told of a student who led the mechanics club. He was poor, academically, but Gargiulo predicted his greatness. The man rose to become a top Leventis Motors manager, admired by all for his deep understanding of Mercedes cars, just like the Germans who built them.

    It was not all fun at Ajuwa, however. I recall a riot. GG had gone to Ibadan to buy books. The day he was to return, students stormed the Okeagbe-Ikare road, wielding cudgels and clubs and chanting war songs. Some sympathisers advised GG to stay away to save his life. He refused.

    He parked the van a few metres away from the school, walked.  His face creased by a big frown, he asked the unruly students:”What’s going on here?” “You want to kill me? Go ahead now!” He was booming like a lion and swearing–he always did when seized by anger. His hair sprang up and his hands betrayed red hot blood coursing through his veins. His face was red – it was always so whenever he got angry. Oh, how we used to panic on such occasions.

    One after the other, the students dropped their weapons, ran to hide behind the palm trees and sneaked into the classrooms. Later that night, GG relived the incident. “I saw that you, like the others, held a stick, but I was damn sure you wouldn’t hit me,” he told me.” “It was the wise thing to do; otherwise you would be attacked,” he added. “I never knew he saw me among the mob.”

    GG had few friends.  Prominent among them was the late Tai Solarin, the frontline educationist and social activist.

    GG was always struggling to speak Yoruba. He reasoned that if he could speak Yoruba, there was no reason for us not to speak English. His favourite proverb is “Aya nini ju oogun lo” (Being bold is greater than having juju). To those who scorned him for always wearing shorts, he would say: “Sokoto gbooro ko d’ola” (A pair of trousers is no symbol of wealth). He wore trousers only on special occasions, such as when a governor was visiting.

    When Immigration officials harassed him in Akure, the Ondo State capital, demanding his papers, they got more than they bargained for. They asked him to be reporting in their office every day, wondering why he would not relinquish his British citizenship if he so much loved Nigeria. One day when he was tired of it all, GG faced the officials and said: “Gentlemen, “ ti a ba ti n fi apari isu han alejo…” (When hosts begin to show the guest the hard top of the yam, it’s time to leave.”

    “They didn’t let me finish,” he recalled. They said ‘go; just go now!’ That was the end of the matter.

    But he wondered why he should suffer to earn a permanent stay here after about 30 years. “Even in my old age, I can still contribute to building this great country.”

    Thankfully, Gargiulo’s immigration issue has been resolved. I hope and trust that Nigeria will reward him with a national honour – soon.

    The last time I visited my alma mater, less than two years ago, I learnt of how Gargiulo shed tears on seeing the destruction of his dream. I was touched. Ajuwa is  like a war- ravaged town, battered and bludgeoned by the very people who swore to care for it. Plundered. An old lady, used and dumped. Gone is the press. Wrecked are the mechanic’s workshop and the tractor . No cows and chicks. Rabbits? Gone. All gone.

    Rot, rot, rot everywhere.  But this is the story in almost all areas of our national life.   Ajuwa’s fate is not strange. But, when cometh another GG?

     

    • This article,first published in 2013, is being rerun with some changes as a tribute to this exemplary man, who was 85 on August 13.

     

     

    Charly Boy and the angry traders

    Eccentric musician Charles Oputa (aka Charly Boy) has grabbed the headlines, but not for a new hit song. He is in the news for leading the “Our mumu don do” (Enough of our stupidity) campaign asking President Muhammadu Buhari to “return or resign”.

    That is a legitimate venture. So is Buhari’s medical vacation.

    When Charly Boy, 66, carried the campaign to Wuse Market in Abuja on Tuesday, he was attacked by traders, who obviously believe that most Nigerians are no “mumu”.

    The Wuse attack was an attack on freedom of expression. It is unacceptable.

    A taxi-cab driver who claimed to have witnessed it all told of how Charly Boy escaped miraculously. One source told me that the musician was truly manhandled, but that it was incorrect that he lost all his custom-made jewellery. Intact are the hand chains, neck chains, ankle chains, waist chains, ear rings, nose ring and other pieces that define the essential Charly Boy.

    He escaped with all his trademark trinkets, to lead another demonstration again, soon, I gather   Nice work, Charly Boy.

  • Nigeria’s special fool

    Towards with columns pass as men of valour. I am a columnist and perhaps a coward. But you would never know. You could never tell if I am true to the calling or just another character pushing pen and idle rant to make ends meet.

    It is never my intent to arrogate to myself some blundering heroism or self-abnegating priesthood, there is too many of my ilk doing that. I write to vex your ego and caress it, as your prejudices dictate. I write to contend and affirm those defining moments in which you have discovered me to be a coward or villain, time and over again.

    Nigeria has taught me that heroism is overrated, villainy could be relative and cowardliness is a virtue, where perverted will consorts with ill.

    You are entitled to whatever you think of me. And I am entitled to what random thought I deem worthy of your readership – knowing the tenor of my rant inadvertently guides you to define me. So, if I am your hero, I believe you think too much of me. If I am your villain or contemptible coward, I guess it pleases you.

    But if you consider me to be an idiot, I hope you finally get to understand that no one can be a Nigerian without being in the strictest sense, an idiot. The average Nigerian is a special fool. The higher his status, the more adroit he is in perpetuating his folly. But this is hardly flak for the Nigerian fool in high places. It has always been his luck to find some greater fool to admire him. This is about the greater fool.

    This is about men and women whose nerves disoriented and moral fiber, handicapped. This is about men and women presumably of higher learning and good breeding. Those extraordinary Nigerians by whose talent and individuality, Nigeria customarily channels pride and banalities of a bettertomorrow.

    This is about the Nigerian columnist, the one whose dazzling intellectualism, Moliere’s riposte of the knowledgeable fool fittingly substantiates.

    Today, the Nigerian columnist grovels at the feet of the ruling class, like mongrels. Today, we recognize the stench of the looter with the fattest envelope and our trained eyeballs hardly misses the deep pocket with the promising smile.

    In our calling, there are still no-go areas. We can never question religion save the instances we get to castigate one faith to elevate another, in the heat of poverty-induced pogroms we have learnt to call ‘religious crises and ‘politics.’ Need I say people are simply hungry? They are jobless too. That is why they become willing muscles to criminal masterminds.

    The labourer still goes home with heavy steps, and the heart of the casual worker resuming night shift shrivels desolately, like fresh mutton sautéed with local gin. Even the newborn arrives sorrow-clad; he probably wishes that he had waited till never.

    Within this unbearable cheerlessness, the masses stare resignedly at our cover pages with knowing glares. They know they would never hear the infinitesimal clangour of chilled truth neither shall they enjoy the comfort of temperate hope because we have become the aberration of their desperate circumstances.

    The Nigerian columnist thinks himself a national hero. A noble intellectual and man of letters. Such is the wonder of a newspaper column; it goads too many of us columnists to think too highly of ourselves.

    Add to the mix, a mass of fawning, frosty readership and you have a perfect cocktail that makes a narcissist and lapdog of even the most modest journalist.

    How far we evolve depends on the quality of citizenship exhibited by the most patronizing and hostile audience. Yet it would never do to lay the blame for what we have become on society. That would be tantamount to perpetuating the “Nigerian factor” – that ageless pretext we have learnt to incite every time we fall short of measure.

    Who is your columnist? Is he truly that great, heroic man speaking and pricking conscience as a tireless patriot? Is he that uncommon, high-cultivated man of letters that has eluded our nation for so long? Is he a heroic seeker of truth and shiner of hope?

    It could be honourable to be all that and much more. But alas, we are no heroic bringers of light and that is because our readers aren’t heroic seekers of it. Very few columnists live to fight and conquer persistent monstrosities visited on us by the ruling class because they belong to the same school of ‘stomach infrastructure’ as their teeming readership.

    Columnists live to echo the cynicism and intolerable disloyalty of all manners of readership. And many a reader lives to applaud such treachery because it is politically correct to do so. The result is the gang of conscienceless and duplicitous citizenry that we have.

    If we could overlook such decadence in our readership, we can’t justify a smidgen of it in Nigeria’s Fourth Estate even if we tried. Now that we have replaced our heroes past, we embellish their truths into absurdities and bad lies. Every day, we fail our people with shame we do not feel. We have become the stamen that lets down the azalea, the comforter that brings grief, the emissaries of needless hate. We have become slaves to the tyrants we ought to remove. Did we fight the military to a standstill so that we may become their instruments as democratic tyrants? Shall we forever be gut-challenged?

    We offer no direction folks save our shenanigans in the interest of the ruling class. Today every columnist seeks friends in high places but then, we are only being Nigerian. It’s time we inspired by the wisdom of dead writers. Sages from whose ashes we struggle to rise. It’s time we held a cup of water for the dying veterans to sip. It’s time we searched their eyes to learn the gleam of courage and earn it.

    It’s time we screamed in coherence. It’s time we usurped the dominant order and rid our lives of the blanched bubus that makes us the vacuous wimps that we are. It’s time we congregated to produce the leadership that we crave. Now that the die is triple-cast, let us put our hearts to what our pens write.

    And if we fall to the inanities we suppress and yet ennoble in others, then we shall find that we are the broken clay pots calling the kettles black. We could midwife the dawn that would herald our freedom yet.

    Let us become the conscience of the ruling class and the pulse of the breadlines. Lest we become dead to future generations. Lest they never get to read of our selfless beginnings. Lest they only get to know of the noon that confused us and the sunset of our debauchery.

    If we fail to change, our twilight will malign us. And in death, we shall lay rapt in discomfort of our lowly graves, our ears keen for the least abrasive diatribe we may get to treasure as the eulogies we never had.

    Let us brighten our world with truth. Let us imbue it with wisdom and deep delight.