The Nation Newspaper

Category: Thursday

  • Contemptible rascals

    This minute, Nigeria pulses with revolutionary marches. In the melee, politicians call the shots,  career hoodlums, activists and secessionists feed fat and the youth serve as disposable pawns, guzzling on spite and sound bites like incurable idiots. The average youth becomes an easy mark in the frantic enterprise. It doesn’t make a darn bit of difference what his causes are. He fully immerses into the backward civilization into which he has been born, evolving bald-facedly like a barbarian, badgering onto the stage for acclaim through the trap-door.

    The problem of the Nigerian youth is that he believes himself staggeringly capable of revolt, but he does not know how to revolt. At the end, in his desperate bid to rebel against the established and much dreaded order, he becomes easy mark to political puppeteers and criminal masterminds. He ends up propagating the contradiction of that style of living which cultivates sincerity and at the same time frustrates it. Thus the Nigerian youth remains his own greatest enemy and the most inimitable adversary to the Nigerian dream.

    No revolution can be successful if the human elements serving as its force of change are wholly incapacitated to see to the fruitful end, the ideals of the insurrection; which brings me to the quality of youth mooting the revolt.

    Revolution is never the rebellion against a pre-existing order, but the setting-up of a new order contradictory to the traditional one. How different could an order anchored by the current crop of Nigerian youth be? They are not yet the patriots they are meant to become. Thus the nerve and degeneracy of the overfed and overcompensated juvenile; having gathered more than he could chew, gets high on his own saliva and condemns his peer mooting a revolution or calling for referendum.

    This citizenship business still confounds him and youth like him. Education has failed to improve them. They have learnt too little and they have too little to pass on, save hooliganism, insolence, incompetence and greed.

    Such youth are driven by panic; fear plays a greater part than hope in their affairs. They obsess more about possessions they may acquire or lose, than of the progressiveness and joy that they might create in their own lives and in the lives of others. Russell would say “It is not so that life should be lived” but the Nigerian youth could not be bothered even if they knew that much.

    Many whose lives ought to be fruitful to them, to their friends, and to the world in entirety are hardly inspired by hope and sustained by joy. They seek in imagination, the vanities that might be and how they could be actualised.

    Ultimately they choose the path of decadence. In their private relations, they are pre-occupied with the vacuous. They are engage in giving affection and respect at a price and the reward often comes by their desperate quests.  In their work they are haunted by jealousy of competitors, and are least concerned with the actual task that has to be done.

    In politics, they spend time and passion defending unjust privileges of their benefactors, godfathers, class or ethnicity, even as they make their world less happy, less compassionate, less peaceful, more full of greed and underprivileged whose growth is perpetually dwarfed and stunted by oppression.

    A spectre is haunting the Nigerian youth. They have entered an unholy alliance with the ruling class. They do not constitute formidable opposition to keep leadership on its toes neither do they offer invaluable support to keep it on track.

    Their approach to politics complicates class antagonisms: society as a whole is splitting up more and more into two great hostile camps, the ruling class and the working class; the proverbial middle class got lost somewhere at the crossroads where the bourgeoisie swallows up the proletariat.

    Though youth does not really have the means to stop the economy, the ruling class dreads the youth, as was discernible when a wave of panic seized the Nigerian government by the jugular in the wake of the Occupy Nigeria protests. What do they fear? It’s without doubt the frequency and the potentials of youth mobilizations. Massive youth mobilizations were taking place across the globe and with often grievous and far-reaching consequences in the affected nations; the Nigerian leadership no doubt dreaded a Nigerian manifestation of the Arab Spring.

    The fear of the Nigerian leadership was however hardly far-fetched given the tainted radicalism of the Occupy Nigeria movement. In a violent society that has no future to offer them, the Nigerian youth have very little to lose thus their lack of hesitancy in confronting the State. The wish to abolish status quo was widespread among the nation’s youth as they romanticised the idea of a revolution as the protests dragged.

    In spite of the youth’s passionate struggle against the incumbent leadership’s utter insensitivity and cluelessness, the eventual result was predictable. Having put up a great show and ear-splitting noise, the youth retired to their respective homesteads.

    A more discerning school of thought argues that the Occupy Nigeria enterprise succeeded because desperate, self-serving politicians bankrolled it; inciting it mostly jobless and unemployed youth with platitudes  and coordinated spite.

    This says a lot about the Nigerian youth’s revolutionary potential. Eventually, the nation’s youth were written off and their grievances dismissed as the crazed rant of a pathetic mass of political zombies and revolutionary impostors. The youth were eventually dismissed as essentially hopeless and misdirected.

    Despite the fervor of the Occupy Nigeria movement, the youth remain exploited and perpetually exploitable – victims of what George Bernard Shaw, terms “the stupid system of violence and robbery which we call Law and Industry.”

    Most of the time, youth mobilizations and revolutionary movements attract sympathy from the workers and the population, as if the youth were saying loudly what the majority couldn’t afford to say. Thus, in many instances, youth mobilizations restore to the social camp the confidence in the masses’ ability to resist; and in some cases other working sectors engage in mobilization, following the youth. The Nigerian youth however, presents a contradiction to the benefits of such relationship of trust.

    He is accustomed to keep his head down like one eternally doomed to be adept in all the arts of the beggar. He even presumes a little upon the possession of talents which, as he ought to know, can never compete with cringing mediocrity. In the long run he comes to recognize the inferiority of those who are placed over his head, and when they inflict greater hurt upon him, he becomes refractory and shy, turning round to crawl into the wall when he is backed against it. This is hardly the way to get on in the world.

    “We have only two days to live; it is not worth our while to spend them in cringing to contemptible rascals,” Voltaire would say. But what if “contemptible rascals” also qualify a greater percentage of the Nigerian youth?

     

    • To be continued…

  • Ruffians as parliamentarians

    These are indeed trying times for Nigerians who feel diminished by the resolve of our distinguished parliamentarians to bequeath their current values as acceptable standard for our youths. Already, the current 8th Senate with its leading lights such as senators Bukola Saraki, Dino Melaye, Ekweremadu, Abaribe and Bala Ibn Na’allah has been adjudged the worst in our nation’s history. Unfortunately, rather than try to prove those who have come to the sad conclusion that our nation has been hijacked by ruffians who freely deploy self-help tactics such as subterfuge, treachery, opportunism  and blackmail, wrong, they have continued to reinforce such assertion.

    And now as a ‘force majeure’, or as Melaye puts it, the ‘irremovable’ distinguished senators, literarily climbed the tree beyond the leaves last week when they openly threatened  the survival of a democracy Nigeria achieved through the sacrifice of  our heroes  past. They openly boast of having the power to impeach and replace the acting President by one of their own all in the pursuit of their selfish interest.

    First, the parliamentarians are at war with the acting President for criticizing their criminal act of padding the budget after the second reading. Second, they are enraged by the acting President’s claim that the presidency’s decision to retain Magu as acting chairman of EFCC despite Senate’s opposition is backed by the constitution.  On both issues, the Senate was wrong.

    First, public budgeting is the political tool with which government in power fulfills its electoral promises to the electorate and the major actor in budget preparation is the executive.  The legislature debates, examines and authorizes spending of public revenue. To avoid any ambiguity, areas of joint cooperation include implementation, monitoring, evaluation and reporting. To protect the interest of their constituencies, the legislature, like all other actors such as NGOs, pressure groups and international donors, are expected to lobby the executive at the budget preparatory stage.

    But what obtains in the last 16 years is padding of the budget in the name of constituency projects after second reading which under our law is a criminal act. To make matters worse, this was always done for selfish reasons. Last year, Abdul Mumin Jibrin, reacting to his removal as chairman of the appropriation committee following a claim he ‘unilaterally padded the 2016 budget to the tune of N4.1 billion to his Kiru/Bebeji federal constituency in Kano State, attributed his travails to his inability “to admit into the budget almost N30 billion personal requests from Mr. Speaker and the three other principal officers”. There is currently a pending  petition before the UN against House Speaker Yakubu Dogara  by SERAP claiming  ‘removal of critical projects and replacement of such projects with constituency projects, not only undermined the fight against corruption in the country, but also exacerbated extreme poverty’ of the same people on whose behalf Dogara and his House members pretended to fight.

    We also now know that about N350billion appropriated by the National Assembly in respect of about 2,516 projects spread across the country in the last five years never took off even after full payment had been made. On July 17, 2016, The Nation in a report titled “Constituency Projects – a ritual of monumental waste” summarized the result of a survey of 436 projects spread across 16 states of the federation by a Civic Technology Organisation-BudgIT. It listed on pages 9, 10 and 11, 211 projects such as water bore-holes, rural electricity and roads projects and primary health centres designed to alleviate the suffering of the poor but abandoned across 16 states of the federation. Rather than prove the report wrong or apologise to the nation, our parliamentarians, determined to continue with the monumental waste are threatening to carry out a civilian coup.

    Of course, the acting President also stands on a more solid ground in the case of Magu. If the parliamentarians’ opposition to Magu’s confirmation was not driven by self-interest as a result of Magu’s insistence on continuing with the investigation and prosecution of about 15 members of the Senate over financial malfeasance, the appropriate response would have been to challenge the President’s position in court rather than a threat to impeach and replace him with one of their own.

    To consolidate their position, those who insist our nation has been taken over by tough guys have also called our attention to the activities of our lawmakers since the inauguration of the 8th Senate on July 9, 2015. They have challenged us to find appropriate description for the action of someone who admitted that in order to secure his current position, he outwitted his fellow 51 APC elected senators by hiding inside a car in front of the Senate chambers while his colleagues were at a meeting with the President in another venue only to sneak into the Senate chambers to be adopted Senate President by acclamation by 49 opposition senators who share his values.

    They also cited the case of Ike Ekweremadu, his deputy who regaled Nigerians with the tales of how he planned with stalwarts of defeated PDP all through the night inside David Mark’s room to ‘literarily’ steal the office that by convention he had enjoyed for eight years rightly belongs to the ruling party with a majority?

    And since it is said Nigerians suffer from collective amnesia, they have also reminded us of the Senate’s recent war against the Customs Comptroller General. Instead of addressing the issue of multi-million SUV bullet proof car imported and cleared with forged documents, the Senate in the words of Itse Sagay “think they have power and decided to be unjust, oppressive and dismiss the interest of this country with levity and contempt” by ordering the Customs Comptroller General to wear uniform like a school boy. It turned out after they were forced to institute an internal probe by public opinion, that the multi-million bullet-proof SUV vehicle cleared with forged papers to evade the tariff accruable to government indeed belongs to the Senate President who was cleared of any wrong doing on the ground that the new addition to his fleet was imported on his behalf by a third party.

    They also reminded us of how Dino Melaye’s alleged false claim of being an alumni of Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) Zaria as well as that of many prestigious  universities across the globe was  resolved in his favour through a Senate  internal probe that confirmed he at least obtained  a third class degree from ABU Zaria.

    Finally, to consolidate their otherwise unassailable position, our attention was turned to Ekweremadu’s last week foreclosure of the outcome of INEC ongoing Melaye’s recall exercise. He insisted the Senate has in its kitty a new law which will render the outcome an exercise in futility.

    I am sure those who feel diminished by seizure of our country by  ruffians understand  no one can dare our all-powerful parliamentarians who are too quick to resort to tough guy self-help  tactics like accusing ministers of  “impinging on the privilege of the members of the National Assembly and inciting Nigerians against the parliament” for merely informing Nigerians of diversion of budgetary allocations from Lagos-Ibadan expressway and the 2nd  Niger Bridge to accommodate controversial constituency projects such as state roads, street light and boreholes.

    But much as it is difficult to checkmate our all-powerful tough guys, one thing they cannot stop Nigerians from doing is addressing them the way they are dressed.

  • Floods of death, destruction

    It was a tragedy foretold. Months before the rains started, the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NIMET) warned that there would be flooding in most parts of the country and advised those living in flood-prone areas to relocate. Rather than heed the advice, our people as usual pretended that there was nothing to worry about. They went about their businesses with fire literally on their roofs. The Federal and state governments, which should get the people to comply, were also not forceful enough.

    Both tiers of government did not want to offend voters. This has always been our problem. We are fond of giving every issue, no matter how serious it may be, ethnic or religious or political coloration. What is tribal, political or religious about an advice that those living in flood-prone areas should move for their own safety? Why can’t the government get the people to do the needful instead of waiting until the worst has happened? Which is better – prevention or damage control?

    The truth is there is nothing to do damage control about once the harm is done. How do you bring back a person killed by flood? How do you recompense a family who lost all to flood? How do you console an aged landlord whose house and only means of livelihood is swept away by flood in the twilight of his life? How! How!! How!!! The hows are many, but suffice it to say  that we brought whatever we might be experiencing today from the floods caused by last weekend’s downpour across the country upon ourselves. Despite NIMET’s warnings, we were not prepared for the floods.

    I make this submission with heavy heart because the pictures I saw of flooded roads, houses and submerged cars were not something to smile about. They were something to cry about and I wept in my subconscious mind for my country. The floods were brought about because we did not plan in advance. We knew all along that the rainy season was coming, but we did not deem it fit to prepare for the floods which will certainly follow. We have roads without drains and where there are drains, they are blocked by wastes and pet bottles. Many homes are the same; people care less about the condition in which they live; they know little or nothing about hygiene and when you try to tell them, they pick a fight with you.

    Many will not forget in a hurry what happened last weekend in the plush neighbourhoods of Ikoyi, Victoria Island, Lekki, Banana Island, Park View, Victoria Garden City and environs in Lagos as well as in the not so rich towns in Niger State, where floods wreaked havoc. Eleven persons died in Suleja near Abuja and other towns in Niger State after a five-hour rainfall. In many of these places, nobody could escape the anger of the floods. Even those living in high-rise buildings were not safe. The floods were as high as these buildings that their inhabitants sought refuge on trees.

    Can we call these floods natural or man made disasters? I will say it was man made to some extent in the sense that we have tampered with the topography of the earth, especially around the coastlines, where new towns are springing up. For sure, society will develop, but such development should not be at the expense of human lives. If we are reclaiming the ocean for societal good as we are doing around the lagoon, what measures are we putting in place to safeguard lives and properties against disasters?

    Most of the plush Lagos neighbourhoods were submerged because there were no plans for arresting floods during disasters like this. And water, we are told, must always find its level. In doing that, it will force its way through whatever lies in its path, be it house, car, wall. Nothing can stop the force of water when it is angry. This is why it is dangerous to build on water channels or block dams, canals or drains because when there is a downpour the damage can be catastrophic. Many families are still counting their losses from last weekend’s downpour. We can still save ourselves from a bigger calamity by taking the necessary precautions.

    The rains have just started. The season is expected to be with us till around October/November. To say that it will not rain again like it did last weekend will be wishful thinking. We owe ourselves the duty of safeguarding our lives. We should not wait for the government to do that for us. Let us clear our surroundings of anything that can bring about flooding, while the government takes up the larger responsibility of cleaning the drains.

    And more important, the government should ensure that reclaimed areas are free of encumbrances that could lead to flooding. Otherwise, what happened in those posh areas last weekend will be child’s play compared to what may happen if such magnitude of rain – 178 millimeters – falls again.

  • Osun PDP’ senatorial seat victory

    I saw it coming and I predicted it to my friends that the leadership of the APC in Osun State was disconnected from the people. Governor Rauf Aregbesola has my support because he has done well for the people of Osun particularly in the education sector. He has built first class schools at primary and secondary levels, the two levels that are usually neglected in Nigeria. His school feeding programme has been embraced by the federal government and commended by foreign institutions and embassies in Nigeria. Whenever I travel to Southern Africa, I am always ashamed about the ramshackle buildings called schools all over Nigeria but Aregbesola’s schools have put a smile on my face. These schools are not just in the state capital of Oshogbo but they are all over the place. I had discussions with teachers in some of these schools in the last two years praising the governor for his revolutionary facilities for schools and the retort was always that salaries were not being paid to teachers in full. What does anyone say to people who say they cannot satisfy the needs of their families from their vastly reduced pay packets?

    Governor Aregbesola’s infrastructural programme was also revolutionary. He had plans to build good roads all over the state. He has also changed the face of the rather traditional and rustic town of Oshogbo in the last six years. He was also trying to link Oshogbo with the now dilapidated Ilesha-Ibadan expressway but he has not been able to fully execute the plan. He was also building an expressway to link Oshogbo with Offa on a road that is a federal road and like all the other magnificent plans, it seems the state bit more than it can chew. The federal government has not always been helpful. The federal roads linking the state with neighbouring states have been abandoned. The old federal road linking Ilesha, the biggest city in the state with Oshogbo the state capital is now largely unmotorable. The local people who do not know which road is state or federal blame Aregbesola’s government. The problem Aregbesola’s government has is that it is overcommitted. I wish this governor had all the money he needed so that he could have turned Osun State into the best state in the federation. He has plans to build a road that would have bypassed Ibadan to link Osun apparently through Ijebu-Igbo with Lagos-Benin expressway.

    In hindsight it seems Aregbesola could not cure himself of the Lagos mega infrastructural projects syndrome which he got used to when in the words of his biographer Professor Ayo Olukoju he was the “First Commissar of works” whatever that means! Because of these megalomaniac projects, the government of Osun State is over-borrowed and the debts are being paid monthly from federal financial allocation before whatever is left gets to Oshogbo. Public servants including teachers and judicial officers are being doled out money to in proportion to their earnings with junior workers getting most of their salaries. When Aregbesola’s first came to power, the first thing he did was to slash fees of tertiary institutions in the state.  This unwise enthusiasm was not limited to Osun it was something the APC governments in the South-west were guilty of. Some of the states quietly had to eat their vomit when they realized they had no resources to fill the financial gaps. I sympathize with these governors because the welfarist policies of the old Action Group and Unity Party of Nigeria have become so ingrained in our people that even the PDP governors in the South-west dare not depart from this state dependency culture.

    These preambular paragraphs are to explain the loss of the seat vacated by Alhaji Isiaka Adeleke following his unfortunate demise a few months ago. Isiaka Adeleke was a former governor of Osun State and popularly and affectionately called “Serubawon”. I do not know the origin of the name but the rough translation of Serubawon is “frighten them”. Isiaka Adeleke’s father was a senator and trade unionist in the First Republic. The Adelekes in Ede cannot reasonably be ignored. Isiaka’s younger brother, Dr Deji Adeleke is a successful businessman and founder and proprietor of Adeleke University in Ede.  This is one of the most resource endowed universities in Nigeria. It’s buildings are first world type buildings. This is a university employing hundreds of Osun particularly Ede indigenes in the junior ranks of the university staff. I do not know if there are other Adeleke family businesses apart from shopping complexes in Ede. The point I am making is that in a money-starved state like Osun, one cannot ignore providers of paid, emphasis on “paid” employment.

    When Isiaka Adeleke died suddenly, I nearly lost my life coming to Ede that Sunday evening following the sudden outpouring of grief leading to rioting and violence by the village underclass and urban proletariat. I have lived in Ede for the past two years to drive on the cratered and potholed roads of Ede city and Osun State in general.

    If there was any intelligence outfit in the state, the leadership of the APC should have known the sense of loss by the people of the state by the death of Senator Isiaka Adeleke. The proper thing for the governing party to have done the moment Ademola Adeleke indicated interest in serving out his brother’s term, was to have simply conceded it to Ademola Adeleke. First the party first disqualified Alhaji Hussein, who is a serving commissioner in the lately assembled cabinet after a  one man riot squad of the governor himself alone running the state. Then the party came back to call for  a new selection which now said Ademola Adeleke was no longer the APC candidate. This created a lot of confusion and Adeleke pitched his tent with the rival PDP. With the resources at their command and the sympathy of the general public and the piled up frustration with Aregbesola’s style of administration, it did not come to me as a surprise that Adeleke won a personal battle and victory for his family which felt the government of Osun showed little sympathy to them after the death of their iconic head of the family and a former state governor of Osun State.  The government may have been legally correct in setting up a coroner’s inquest to find out the cause of the death of Isiaka Adeleke, but this was against the wish of the departed senator’s family. The government’s argument that it accommodated Isiaka Adeleke in the APC after being forced out of the PDP, and persuaded Husain to stand down for him in 2015 is not convincing because the political weight of Adeleke is much heavier than that of Hussein. I hope reconciliation with the new PDP senator, Ademola Adeleke can be arranged so that he can come back to the APC.

    The government, immediately the rains stop, or even before that time, must find money to repair municipal roads in Osun State starting with the deplorable roads in Ede. The governor must go to Abuja to plead with the presidency for help. The defeat of the APC is a warning shot to the party. It must not ignore this. It must immediately react before it is too late or this will be a sad signal to what may happen in 2019. Many of us will be sad to see the corrupt regime of the past come back to finally finish off Nigeria.

  • Presidency, Senate faceoff

    Presidency, Senate faceoff

    Crises are never far away from our country. And in many cases, they are needless and self inflicted by our political leaders. This regrettable trend makes the country inherently unstable politically. In the last few weeks, a serious constitutional imbroglio has emerged between the Presidency and the Senate over the federal budget, and the refusal of the Senate to confirm the appointment, two years ago, of Mr. Magu as the Chairman of the EFCC. In the case of the crisis over 2017 budget, the Presidency has complained that the appropriation bill submitted to the NASS for consideration and approval had been significantly altered in several respects. Specifically, the acting President, Professor Oshinbajo, publicly expressed his concerns that some of the critical items on capital expenditure on infrastructure had been deleted, or reduced, and replaced by items that are not really of any national significance, such as local boreholes and health clinics. In the case of the renewed rejection by the Senate of Mr. Magu’s long standing nomination as the Chairman of the EFCC, the acting President has said that the federal government will not change its mind about Mr. Magu’s nomination and that, despite his rejection by the Senate, Mr. Magu will continue in office in an acting capacity. The NASS is divided over this issue with the House of Representatives wisely dissociating itself from the Senate.

    Now, this open disagreement between the Presidency and the Senate raises some fundamental constitutional questions which need to be resolved, if necessary, by the Supreme Court. Can the Presidency reject a decision by the Senate regarding both the budget and appointments? Ordinarily, one should say ‘no’. The NASS has both legislative and watch dog functions that are necessary both for good governance and as a check on the Executive. That is the essence of the Whitehouse presidential system of government, with its ‘checks and balances’. The NASS must enjoy and maintain the right to check any political excesses on the part of the Executive. One should expect a robust interaction and engagement between the executive and legislative branches of the government. That is the true essence of responsible government. But the power enjoyed bt the legislature places on it an enormous responsibility which it should exercise wisely collectively, and with a lot of circumspection and discretion. It should not be used to obstruct the executive needlessly. This implies that its decisions on matters of national importance should not be taken capriciously, or in a brazenly partisan and selfish manner. Whatever decisions it takes must be seen to be in the national interest, and not in the interest of only a few members of the Senate.

    In the current faceoff between the Presidency and the Senate over the federal budget and the confirmation of Mr. Magu’s appointment as the Chairman of the EFCC, it cannot be said with any conviction that the Senate has acted in the national or public interest. In both cases the public perception has been that the Senate acted only in the interest of a few, and that its decisions were politically motivated. In the case of changes made to the federal budget appropriations bill, the Senate has argued that it acted within its constitutional powers by altering the budget. Technically, this may be right. But the manner in which its power over budget appropriation was used in this case leaves a lot to be desired. It has not only replaced critical items of capital expenditure with mundane items, but has also increased the total budget by nearly a third. This increase in budget appropriations by the Senate is both unrealistic and impractical, in view of the nation’s current difficult financial situation. The federal government is responsible for revenue collection. Its budget proposals are based on its revenue estimates, in which the Senate or NASS are not involved. It is in a far better position to know or determine what budget is financially feasible The 2017 federal budget is a deficit budget. About a third of the budget, nearly N3tr, will have to be borrowed both locally and abroad. In view of the poor state of global finances, this will prove to be a difficult challenge. It may not in fact meet its budget target. In the circumstances, how then can the Senate justify its decision to increase the budget when all indications are that even the revenue target for 2017 may not be met? In view of the considerable delay in the passage of the 2017 budget, what should be of even greater concern to the NASS is how much of the budget can be implemented in the limited time left in the 2017 fiscal year. To be blunt, it is unlikely that the federal government can implement more than 40 per cent of the overall budget this year. This means that the much expected stabilization and recovery from the current recession will prove to be even more difficult to achieve.

    In the case of the deletion or reduction by the Senate of vital items of capital expenditure, replacing them with items of only local significance, this is completely wrong and unacceptable. In its budget proposals the federal government is expected to take a holistic or national view of its capital expenditure, with a view to improving the woeful infrastructure in our country that has for decades retarded our economic development. With a good infrastructure, Nigeria’s growth prospects will be far better. To replace this national approach and perspective with items such as bore holes and clinics that are better handled by the state governments and local governments cannot be said to reflect what is in the national interest. Of course, Senators can be expected to show some interest in what goes to their various constituencies in the budget. But this should not override due consideration of what is in the national interest. After all, when vital roads and bridges are built right across the country, everyone benefits from them. And all these critical infrastructure capital expenditure items were cleared by the Executive with the Senate at the Committee stage when the budget proposals were being considered in the Senate.

    The federal government will be right in ignoring items ‘smuggled’ into the budget by the Senate. It has primary responsibility for the execution and implementation of the budget in the best interest of our nation. There is no compelling constitutional reason for accepting the changes introduced to the budget by the Senate. The Presidency is right in insisting that it cannot accept the changes by the Senate in the 2017 budget. The Senate will grumble, but it will be unwise of it to seek to impeach the government or the President on a crucial matter such as this on which it has little or no public support. It will fail and throw the nation into an unnecessary constitutional crisis. Both the Presidency and the Senate must seek an amicable settlement of this regrettable imbroglio in the interest of the nation.

    With regard to the Senate’s refusal to approve Mr. Magu’s appointment as the Chairman of the EFCC, the Senate is even on a weaker wicket. The reason or reasons it has advanced for doing so are even more spurious than those of the budget. The fact of the matter is that Mr. Magu, and the EFCC, are believed by the Nigerian public as doing a good job. The Presidency considers Mr. Magu the best man for the job. Under his leadership, the battle against public corruption has gathered momentum. Many public figures, including state governors, federal ministers, and other public officials, are either under investigation, or being charged with fraud. In fact, the general public complaint is that many more public officials should be in the EFCC drag net, and that the prosecution of those being charged for corruption is not diligent enough. Because of this lack of diligence by the EFCC some of those being charged, including some high Court judges, have escaped conviction through legal loop holes.

    Why then is the Senate demanding the removal of Mr. Magu? The obvious reason is that there are so many members of the Senate, including its President, Senator Saraki, who fear that they are targets of EFCC investigation. They want to obstruct the ongoing investigation of these Senators. But they cannot be above the law. They cannot claim any immunity for financial crimes against our nation. The fight against public corruption is fully supported by the public. It will fail if the Senate is seen as fighting against the tide. It will further discredit the Senate in the eyes of the public.

    It has even been suggested that the Senate’s refusal to confirm the appointment of Mr. Magu as the Chairman of the EFCC is part of a wider plot by the Senate and a Camarilla (cabal) in the Presidency to bring down the government. If this is true, then it is irresponsible of the Senate and all those involved in the plan. It will lead nowhere as the public will be totally opposed to such a despicable ploy. The Senate is not held in high esteem by the public because of its massive failure to act responsibly, and in the national interest. The Senate will not, in present circumstances, defeat the Presidency in a constitutional battle. It should sheathe its sword for the greater battles ahead as the defender of the rights of the people. By its seeking to obstruct the work of the EFCC, it will be seen as setting itself up against the public interest and the massive discontent with public corruption in our country.

    Our nation is presently facing a lot of challenges, including its survival. These ought to engage the serious attention of those in authority, particularly the NASS. For the Senators to engage themselves in a despicable ploy to impeach the government over issues that can be so easily reconciled could be the last straw that could imperil our very existence as a nation. It could lead to a public revolt against the National Assembly. Many are now calling for it to be occupied by the public. Let wiser counsels prevail.

  • Yemi Osinbajo, ‘incestuous’ bullies and tumours

    The joke persists in moral circuits that when brigands and outlaws copulate, their incestuous liaison produces the Nigerian lawmaker. If you excuse the ribaldry therein, you would understand why the lawmaker excites the loathsome tribute of inexorable scorn. There is no gainsaying that the Eighth National Assembly hardly symbolises the conurbation of nationalism, detribalisation, altruism and high ethics often associated with evolved species of humankind.

    The Nigerian lawmaker sticks out like metastasized tumour; a priapism of vice and nuisance to be endured, like varicose veins of a veteran harlot. A surfeit of base politics and exaggerated high jinks perpetrated on the floor of the country’s Senate and House of Representatives further establishes the National Assembly as a coven of adult delinquents.

    It would be recalled that one week after a male senator was forced to apologise to his female colleague for dealing her a blinding slap, a chairman and deputy chairman of a House of Representatives committee got locked in a fight. The deputy chairman, a woman, dealt the chairman several blows.

    The latter completely lost his balance as the impact of the assault from the heavily built female legislator shattered his eye glasses to smithereens and left him with a bloody eye. Pandemonium ensued when he tried to retaliate but he was prevented by their colleagues who formed a ring around his female aggressor.

    Cut to another hodgepodge of members of the Federal House of Representatives embroiled in a free-for-all fight, street-brawler style. The lawmakers engaged in fisticuffs on the floor of the House as members opposed to the embattled Speaker of the House at the period, tried to introduce a motion for his impeachment, over corruption allegations. Parties loyal to the aggrieved rebels pounced on them and they exchanged blows to the amusement of the world.

    Few years after the disgraceful incident, one of the major characters whose dress was torn to shreds as he got beaten to a pulp, has made the news again. The controversial lawmaker’s name will still not be mentioned on this page lest it desecrates this column and offend the sensibility of decent folk. The hilarious character, in degenerate fit, allegedly threatened to beat up and impregnate a fellow senator. He was recently embroiled in a fake certificate scandal thus calling to question his claims to higher education. Nigeria waits with baited breath as the lawmaker fights his proposed recall by the constituency he represents. Lest we forget the Senate leadership that was recently acquitted of corruption charges in suspicious circumstances.

    At the backdrop of these shameful proceedings, you could be forgiven for likening the National Assembly to an asylum – apology to sane, decent folk therein. There is no gainsaying that the upper and lower legislative chambers move epic clowning, violence and tomfoolery into the open air of gangsterism and psychosis to the amusement of the world.

    In the National Assembly, institutions and culture fade into irrelevance as the ‘honourable’ legislators mutate into insuperable difficulties and impediments to progress. Their feverish quest to tame and woo the executive into a romance of mutually rewarding incestuous relations equally evokes the dread locusts inflame in the heart of the peasant farmer.

    Against their onslaught, incumbent President, Muhammadu Buhari put up a feeble response. The retired military General, before his incapacitation by an undisclosed ailment, stuck to his carrot and stick approach, perching on a three-legged stool of contrived supremacy and invincibility to Nigeria’s legislative antagonists.

    Buhari sought to eradicate diseased plants from the nation’s fields of enterprise even as he sowed sickly seeds under the roof of the Nigerian barn house. Crucial appointments he made and wanton concessions he approved, in the spirit of political expediency, ultimately neuters the impact of his anti-corruption crusade. Now a desperate terror unfolds; Nigeria fears that its amoral Senate, having overwhelmed and domesticated Buhari’s presidency may move on to the next phase of its plan, and impeach President Buhari.

    Acting President Yemi Osinbajo, despite his tough composure, is considered featherweight by the impenitent horde occupying the nation’s legislative chambers. Thus their desperate antics to tame and bully him.

    Conflict over the national budget and the legislature’s untoward theatrics beyond the bounds of its constitutional duties pit them at loggerheads with Osinbajo. The lawmakers seek to turn him to a parlour pet same way they domesticated his boss. But would Osinbajo roll over and play pup? Will he accept to be turned into a glorified puppet collared to the legislature’s cassock of notoriety?

    There is no gainsaying that the National Assembly is currently infested by shades of poorly, self-centred characters thus the nation’s hope rests on the Executive – since the judiciary has established itself as highly unreliable and hostile to justice and national progress. Acting President Yemi Osinbajo, cuts another portrait of hope for the nation just like Buhari did before his demystification.

    Despite his alleged distaste for corruption and predilection to truly serve, Osinbajo should understand that the government he presides over, ride on a great deal of presumption and moral baggage. Nigerians believed that Buhari and Osinbajo signified hope, prudence and inestimable opportunity to eradicate corruption but  their team and All Progressives Congress (APC) platform, becomes the bane to the successful attainment of our ideal state.

    Osinbajo should always remember that Buhari became conflicted in personal and administrative ethics hence the catalogue of failures and inaction already listed in his wake. For instance, he has been accused of nepotism, god-complex and intellectual languor. Will Acting President Osinbajo these pitfalls?

    The presidential cabinet subsists with dubious change agents feigning a moral and growth crusade. Like many state governors and lawmakers operating on the platform of the APC and rival parties, they epitomise ethical deceit. They negate and reject the strife of contraries by which true, positive ‘change’ evolves.

    Osinbajo of course, must be aware of this bitter reality. Unlike his boss whose naïveté and duplicity goaded to grow bananas out of a pine tree. Nigeria needs Osinbajo to be tirelessly honest, decisive and humane. It doesn’t matter if his spell as ‘President’ is temporary, Nigeria needs him to stand as a man.

    This minute, Nigeria flounders in a vortex of dysfunctional public institutions and organs of government. The legislature, executive and judiciary crush the hope of the citizenry and stifle the birth of progressive vistas of the future, in a cycle of incestuous cannibalism. In the crushing, bloody symbolism, the Nigerian citizenry is cast as a babe, persistently dragged and violently exchanged by ogres who nail her down upon a rock; they bind iron thorns around her head and waist, pierce her palms and feet, and cut her heart out to make her feel the heat and frost of their inordinate hankering for riches and bloodlust.

    They live on the shrieks and cries of the babe. They nourish from her blood and forcefully suckle from its unformed tits. It’s about time we reversed the cycle.

  • ABC of restructuring

    ABC of restructuring

    THESE are exciting times. It all looks so surreal; the dizzying rate at which events occur.

    After a long while in detention, Nnamdi Kanu, the enigmatic separatist, was let off on bail. He defied the bail conditions and carried on like an outlaw. Some youths in the North took a cue from him and issued an October deadline for the Igbo to leave the North. Ever since, nobody has rested.

    From the extremist secession campaign and hate speeches, the row was scaled down to referendum. Now it is restructuring, which has elbowed off the front page kidnapping – the six Lagos pupils remain in captivity and Evans “The Fearsome” has gone to court to assert his fundamental rights –and terrorism (Boko Haram chiefs are said to be turning themselves in). Cultism makes occasional appearances. And, as has just been discovered, Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camps have changed from being workshops for officials with itchy palms to veritable baby making factories. Talk of the wonders of adversity (apologies to the bard).

    How do we make sense of all this? To the barber shop I returned the other day to have a feel of how an average Nigerian sees the drama.

    It was alive, as usual. The conviviality and the camaraderie were easily noticeable. Two men, surrounded by a small crowd of youths, were slugging it out on the draught board. Then a rotund old man with a glittering Hitler-style moustache walked in, dragging his ageing feet like a drunken reveller.

    “Papi D is here,’’ a young man screamed excitedly. “It’s time for national issues,” he said.

    The old fellow smiled, his mouth betraying a set of thick, brownish teeth. They looked starved of a good tooth paste. He must have had more than his share of kolanuts. He lit a cigarette and turned his face up to let the huge smoke billow into the air.

    Papi D sank into an old arm chair, which one of the youths yielded to him as a mark of respect. “I won’t stay long today. I need to see a doctor,” he announced he to the crowd of anxious youths, who began to fire questions at him.

    “Sir, what is this diversification the Buhari administration has been shouting?”

    “What a question. When you explore one path for so long and you’re making no progress, you quit that line and start anew. The other day I was reading how that wicked boy Evans spoke about his beginning as a spare parts dealer. Customs seized his goods and he lost everything. He then diversified into drug. His South African partner got angry one day and trained his gun on him. He fled to Nigeria and then tried his hands on armed robbery. Evans dumped that. Again, he diversified – to kidnapping. He was reaping bountifully from that until he was captured. Now he has sued the police, demanding N300m damages and people are asking: ‘Did he kidnap the IG?’ “

    “Nigeria has just exported its first consignment of yams. Oil is under threat. That is diversification, my dear. Instead of praising Audu Ogbeh’s ingenuity, some are scorning him. On the internet, those hailing the move to earn more forex through yam export and critics of the idea, who are crying that it would spark a huge shortage, are tearing at one another.

    “Know why they are angry? GEJ converted dollars to yam. PMB is converting yam to dollars,’ one of the gladiators wrote. Must we shred every idea?”

    All was quiet as the man spoke. He cleared his throat and coughed violently. Gbaa!Gbaa!Hmmm.

    “I apologise for that brief interruption, gentlemen.”

    One of the youths said: “Thank you sir. What is quit notice?”

    “Now you’re going technical. That is what you get when a landlord wants to assert his land lordship. I guess you are referring to the one issued by some youths in the North to the Igbo. An eviction notice is sent by a lawyer, not necessarily an ogbologbo lawyer. It is either a seven-day notice or a 30-day notice, depending on how much the landlord’s mood has been fouled. This one from the youths is more than five months. That is why we scholars see it as a comical relief in a tragic situation.

    “Usually, the lawyer will write: ‘I, Chief Adewale Ajantala of Gbotikuyo Chambers, Advocate and Notary Public, write on behalf of Mr Oley Intashua, hereinafter referred to as our client. The same Mr Intashua, aforementioned, being your landlord and owner of the four-room bungalow which you currently occupy as a tenant on 2, Lampai Crescent, Kano, has instructed us and we have instructions from him to ask you to deliver up and surrender to him possession of the said four-bedroom bungalow that lies and situate at the said 2, Lampai Crescent, Kano and all its appurtenances on or before the 30th day of July 2017.

    “The landlord, our client, aforementioned, needs the said bungalow, which your good self occupy, for his private and personal use. We have been informed and we have verified and confirmed that you have done so much damage to the premises by your indecent activities of noisy parties and excessive smoking and drinking.

    “You are required to settle and pay all outstanding electricity and water bills and keep the bungalow in a tenantable condition.

    “Take notice that should you ignore this notice or fail to comply with the above demands, an action will be instituted against you in a competent court of law to recover our client’s property and all payment arrears accordingly. A word is enough for the wise.”

    “Now tell me, who are these youths issuing the Igbo an ultimatum? Are they lawyers? Are they learned? How much are the Igbo owing? From where did they acquire the right to issue such deadlines? Please, give me a break.”

    A  brief bout of laughter. Applause. The audience seemed mesmerized by the old lawyer’s wisdom. He smiled with a sense of satisfaction.

    “Thank you, Papi D. One more; what is this restructuring cry all over the place? How do we restructure?”

    “Simple. You see, when a building is distressed, you issue an advertorial in a national newspaper, calling for an Expression of Interest from chartered structural engineers, structural designers, structural architects, structural builders and structural dredgers. These are the experts who will advise if you need to knock down the building or patch it and dress it up with new paints and accoutrements. Is a new foundation required? Do we pile the site with more sand to strengthen the building?

    “What is the opinion of the residents who occupy this building? How do we get them to agree that we need to restructure in a particular way that will accommodate them all?”

    Another coughing bout.Gbau!Gbauuu! Hmmm.Apologies.Papi D dipped his hand into his jacket’s pocket, brought out a small bottle, which he opened gently, apparently in respect of the contents. He poured it all into his mouth and frowned like a whipped kid, his mouth firmly shut. The smell of gin hit the air. More cough. Apologies.

    “You see, these are spiritual matters. One needs to be in the spirit to ventilate them. Why the restructuring and secession cry now when Nigerians are making waves all over the world? Our students are breaking records. Our soccer stars are teaching the world how to play. Some of our Chibok girls were at the White House. We have a world boxing champion. At home, we ramble, fumble and tumble.

    “Let’s face the fact: all we need is good leadership that will tackle corruption, nepotism and ethnicism.  There should be equity, justice and the fear of God. And a robust sense of humour.”

    Applause. Applause.

     

     

    And the Senate got it ALL wrong

    MANY Nigerians were disappointed on Tuesday when senators drew a line in the sand and resolved to shun nominations from the executive. They have been called names and accused of plotting to derail our democracy with their legislative pomposity.

    The distinguished senators brought this upon themselves. Against all expectations, they shunned a serious matter concerning a fellow senator and plunged headlong into a needless test of strength with the Executive.

    I speak of the matter involving Senator Bukar Abba Ibrahim, the distinguished senator representing the good people of Yobe East and a former governor. A video purported to be that of His Excellency in a romp with two women has been making the rounds. I have refused to watch it so as not to be charged with willful intrusion of the integrity of a distinguished senator for which one could be summoned.

    Why has the Senate overlooked this matter of grave security implications? Where is Senator Dino Melaye? Shouldn’t he have taken a few minutes off his battle against recall to raise this “urgent matter of national security”?

    Who decides how many women should warm a senator’s bed at a time? Isn’t this a private matter? Have matters  of concupiscence ever resulted in any legislative laxity? Was anybody’s daughter missing?

    Ibrahim’s traducers, who we all know are politically motivated anyway, are shouting shame. Pray, whatever is shameful in a senator having a test of his manliness? Must we take the anger –and envy – against our senators to this ridiculous level of regulating their copulatory  activities? How many of these biased critics can perform the senator’s feat?

    Not one to run away from a fight, Ibrahim has told his disparagers to go to hell. He said it was all between consenting adults.

    The other time when Senator Sani Ahmed Yerima married the love of his life, those envious fellows who will never mind their own business, said the bride was a child. They even attempted to charge the former Zamfara governor and chief advocate of the Sharia with child abuse. He was called a pedophiliac.

    If the Senate had moved then to check that abuse of a member’s right, Ibrahim wouldn’t have suffered this wanton damage to his glittering reputation.

    Now a point of order. I hereby move that the Senate pass a resolution not to consider any public bill until all those watching this salacious video have appeared before the Ethics Committee to purge themselves of this egregious intrusion.

    Any seconder?

     

  • Badoo

    Things have been wrong in Ikorodu,  a town on the fringes of Lagos as you head out of the mega city for Sagamu in Ogun State, for months now. Ikorodu is one of the five divisions of Lagos and it has been part of the city for ages. It is not a new town development that should be shackled by hoodlums. But unfortunately, Ikorodu, the proud ancestral home of many topnotch Lagosians, has been in the news for all the wrong things because of a faceless group known as Badoo.

    Badoo, the name sends a chill down the spine. It evokes fear because it connotes something evil, something sinister, something bad.  Perhaps, it is a derivative of the word, bad. Since the coming of Badoo, which we have been told, is a cult group, Ikorodu has lost its serenity. People go to bed everyday in fear, uncertain whether or not they will be attacked by Badoo that usually strikes in the wee hours of the day. For sure, Badoo is not inanimate, but it wants to convey the impression that it is a spirit in order to create a larger than life image for itself.

    It is flesh and blood, but it has been capitalising on the people’s fear to wreak havoc on Ikorodu. The people of Ikorodu like to refer to themselves as masters. Ikorodu oga, they call themselves. Sadly, they have not brought this their so-called ogaship to bear on the Badoo saga. Rather, the Ikorodu ogas have been quiet, too quiet, over the matter. It is as if all is well when they are not. As a Lagos boy, I know a bit about Ikorodu. While in secondary school, we visited Ikorodu often to attend inter-house sports at Oriwu College or literary and debating contest or quiz competition. Ikorodu then was not as developed as it is today. Yet, our safety was guaranteed. There was also no fear of Badoo whenever we went to the college’s neighbouring Government Technical College at Igbogbo.

    We were innocent boys then visiting an innocent town unmindful of the tale surrounding the ancient community. Badoo has destroyed that innocence and given fillip to the myth surrounding the town. How did Badoo rear its head in Ikorodu? This is a question I have tried to answer again and again since the group surfaced from nowhere. In my subconscious mind, I have tried to surmise what could have led to its sudden emergence in a town as enlightened as Ikorodu. Ikorodu is not a backwater community where people still  live in caves and huts. No, Ikorodu passed that stage long ago even though its development may not have been as rapid as it should be. If it were, Lekki would not be standing near Ikorodu today at all.

    Yet,  that does not make it a place for a group like Badoo to thrive. But Badoo now has a foothold (is stronghold not more appropriate?) over the place. It is unbelievable that Badoo could seize Ikorodu by the throat with its prominent sons and daughters looking the other way. Badoo cannot be bigger than the Ikorodu community, except there is more to it than meets the eye. The Badoo menace has festered for too long in a town that has a monarch and chiefs. The Badoo threat is a direct challenge to the royal authority of Ikorodu. How big is Ikorodu that such a faceless group will hold it to ransom? For all we know, Badoo may be peopled by those close to the men of power and means in that town. But, why are they interested in the blood of folks just looking for means of survival?

    What is happening is not good for Ikorodu. More important, it is not good for the image of the Ayangburen, his chiefs and eminent subjects across the country. Wherever Ikorodu sons and daughters are, this is the time for them to rush back home to pool resources and find a way out of this Badoo shame. It is a big shame that Ikorodu is under the throes of the Badoo menace. If it were to be another town, it would have been understandable. But, Ikorodu? It should not be heard that in this 21st Century, a cult group held sway over Ikorodu without the Ayangburen and his chiefs being able to curtail the gang.

    It is the failure of the monarch and the police to stop the group that has led the people to defend themselves. And we all know the consequences of such action, which we are already seeing. Suspected Badoo members are being lynched by some angry residents. Indeed, in a situation like this, reasoning always takes flight. Because people act in a frenzy, their emotions will override their thinking considering what Badoo has done – killing families by smashing their skulls with mortars. Every sane person will  react the way those guys did if they ever saw the handiwork of Badoo. But, we will appeal to them to take things easy because you do not solve a crime by committing another crime.

    They should not take the law into their hands in hunting for Badoo members. Let them apprehend these people and hand them over to the police. This is the way to go and sooner than later, we will see the end of Badoo and its sponsors.

  • Identity crisis in Nigeria

    Linguists have identified about 400 distinct languages in Nigeria. Almost three quarters of these languages are found on the Jos Plateau, Southern Zaria of Kaduna State, Bauchi and Adamawa hills and upper Benue River Valley as well as the Cross River valley and Middle Niger River valley. The area so described approximates the Middle Belt region of Nigeria. This is the region of Nigeria’s ethnic minorities. There are of course ethnic minorities in the Southern part of Nigeria especially in the so-called South-south region. Apart from these minorities who together constitute substantial component of Nigeria are the so-called majority groups like the Igbo, Hausa, and Yoruba. This group were regarded as the tripodal foundation on which the Nigerian house stood. The federal architectural design for the Nigerian house was built on the fact of this triune nature of Nigeria.

    For a long time this was the accepted reality until the so-called minorities in the three regions even before the exit of the British began to agitate for their own home rule or for special institutions to be created to facilitate their quick economic and educational development.

    The Action Group of Chief Obafemi Awolowo was the first to recognize the potency of this ethnic force by embracing the creation of states as the party’s strategy of winning power at the centre. Chief Awolowo recognized that the only way he could come to power was through a coalition of the various minority groups presumably under the leadership of his largely Yoruba party. The constitutional angle to this strategy was fiscal federalism, meaning a loose federation in which each federating unit managed its financial resources but contributing enough to the centre to run common services like defence, aviation, communication, transportation and currency and no more.

    The other two main parties, the NCNC (National Council of Nigerian Citizens) led by Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe and the NPC (Northern People’s Congress) led by Alhaji  Ahmadu Bello were opposed to creation of states for their  own strategic reasons.  Ahmadu Bello did not want the North, his base of power split. Azikiwe for the same reason wanted the East to remain undivided. He also was opposed to the federal structure of government preferring a unitary constitution as a way of overcoming ethnic divisions in Nigeria. Even though Awolowo and Ahmadu Bello were ideological enemies, they however were staunch supporters of fiscal federalism. Federalism was of course more realistic and Awolowo and Ahmadu Bello wanted control of the agricultural wealth of their regions whereas Azikiwe who led the agriculturally poor Eastern Region wanted Unitarian structure so that the East could benefit from a collective pool of the national wealth.

    This was the political setting that took us to independence in 1960. The story of how the northern and the eastern political forces combined to finish off Awolowo and to send him to jail exploiting the division in the Action Group is well known. During the Action Group crisis and the weakening of the Western Region, the Mid-west Region was created in 1963 from the West while unlike what Awolowo advocated which was, contemporaneous creation of state’s in the three regions, the remaining regions remained intact.

    The civil war gave Awolowo opportunity to see the creation of states as part of the strategy of winning the civil war and perhaps to realize his long held view on state creation. Thus the 12 states structure under Yakubu Gowon gave the minorities in the Eastern Region and in the North something to fight and to die for. Unfortunately, instead of keeping this 12 states structure, each succeeding military ruler has further divided the country into small and unviable states arbitrarily and without rhyme or reason and sometimes to satisfy the desires of those in power. We now have 774 local government areas and 36 states not counting Abuja which is a state but not in name. The result of this is that almost 80 percent of national resources are used in administrative costs of payment of salaries and allowances and humongous payment of federal legislators. There is no money left to maintain nationwide infrastructure of roads, rail, and other infrastructure such as ports, air ports and other means of communication and aviation.  Money so spent on administration would have provided jobs for our teeming population of youths who have now been mobilized into ethnic armies and movements by charlatans looking for what to eat. School dropouts are issuing statements on behalf of nations like the Yoruba, Igbo and Hausa while responsible people for fear for their lives are keeping quiet.

    There is nothing wrong in being patriotic and embracing one’s ethnicity but not to the extent of hating and denigrating fellow countrymen and women. It is my considered opinion that it is the dwindling opportunities for employment that is fuelling the ethnic fissiparous tendencies in the country. It is idle hands that the devil finds work for. It is the frustration that nothing is working and nobody is trying to find solutions to pressing problems that is making people to go back to their ethnic comfort zones. The question is where are the Nigerians and how do we build a country we can all call our own?  Karl Marx is right when he said economics is at the basis of all relationship. You are a good father when you can provide for your family. A country is worth dying for when that country can provide for you and for your descendants. We all want to live and provide for ourselves in a country which has a future for our families. In the absence of this, we look for alternatives. The lack of opportunities and the level of poverty in the land is driving us to the edge of the precipice.

    Looking at Nigeria in historic perspectives shows us that we are not as different from each other as we think. Going from the South-west, the Yoruba has always shared historical ties with the Nupe, Borgawa,, Kanuri, Igalla, the pre-Fulani Gobirawa in the north and the Edo in the south. The Edo had historical relations with the Igbo in the western periphery of their land. The Edo have some relations with the Nupe just as Igalla have with the Nupe. The entire Benue valley was influenced by the Jukun. Sometimes Jukun influence spread to the Hausa states. Hausa land looked eastwards to the Kanuri for enlightenment.  In other words there were chains connecting all our people in the distant past before the advent of British colonialism. We may be speaking different languages today but most of the languages spoken in Nigeria belong to the Kwa group of the Niger-Congo family of languages.

    The material culture of the Nigerian area as seen in the Nok, Ife, Ugbo Ukwu, Benin, Idah, and Bida leaves no doubt about the cultural sameness and uniformity of the Nigerian area before the advent of the British. The concentration of unique African culture of dance, song, cuisine, couture and civilizations in the area at the central Atlantic and at the trigger of the African continent imposes some kind of mission on this area in the leadership of the African people. If all this is true, why then do we have the problems of forging a nation out of the multitude of tongues it has pleased the Almighty to endow us with?

    What we need to do is re-engineering of the country to make it workable. The centre is too strong. We must devolve power to the regions whatever the number of them we collectively agree to have. We must free the resources of this country from over-administration and channel them to physical development and industrialization so as to create jobs for our people.  We must embrace the principle and practice of fiscal and cooperative federalism. If people have jobs and they can fully realize their potentialities, it will not matter to them who is president or prime minister. In any case, the arena of politics should be shifted to the regions while the centre will simply manage affairs collectively assigned to it. We spend too much time on politics and little time for development. It is not so in serious countries like Japan, Germany and Canada to mention a few.

    Whatever we finally agree to do in this country, we must realize that the forces and facts of history and geography have made it impossible for us to separate. We cannot change our neighbours so it is futile to be talking about separation. If we are not happy about our current political structure, we must agree to reconfigure it and this must not be done by threats and blackmail. We are and remain Nigerians.

  • Chinweizu’s Igbo/Yoruba rapprochement

    As against those who advertise Nigeria to the outside world as a zoo, I believe, stripped of the evil conspiracy of some selfish politicians, ours is a blessed nation and about one of the best countries in the world. Evidences abound. Our land is flowing with milk and honey with vegetable actually sprouting in front of houses and fruits all-round the seasons. We have huge human resources. Ours is a country where our children graduate as  medical doctors, lawyers  engineers  at between ages 22 and 23 without having to repay loans of $75,000 over a period of 15 years as most graduates do in the US. And with all our self-inflicted hardship, they move on to outperform their colleagues from other parts of the globe in the graduate schools in Europe and America. Ours is the only country in the world where an Igbo Lagos street hawker or his Yoruba vulcaniser counterpart will build a mansion in the suburbs of Lagos without being indebted to the banks for the rest of their lives.  God loves our country despite the fact that our churches and mosques harbour corrupt politicians who daily mock God and who the acting President a few days back, suggested must be exposed.

    The good news once again is that following the consultations of the acting President with the representatives of Igbo and their Fulani rivals, the tension that enveloped our country since the Arewa boys issued a quit notice to Igbo living in the north has disappeared.  His meeting with the five South-east governors, National Assembly members led by Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu and  Ndigbo Ohanaeze leadership, led by its President John Nwodo, and others has resulted in the denunciation of the campaign for secession being championed by the Nnamdi Kanu-led Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB).

    Alhaji Yerima on behalf of the Coalition of Arewa youths that issued a quit notice to the Igbo residing in the north has also issued a statement saying “We are happy that the Igbo leaders have taken a step to curtail some people who have been trying to hold the country down through their actions. Now that they have done what we expect of them, we would have to reconsider our position. We will meet and make our position known to the world.”

    After two years of tacit support for IPOB rascality and Niger Delta Avengers’ assault on our economy, the Igbo leadership, has once again conceded defeat to their Fulani rivals claiming it was all a strategy for demand for restructuring than a quest for secession.

    The temporary truce has enabled Chinweizu, an accomplished Igbo scholar to advance a case for a rapprochement of Igbo with the Yoruba. This according to him was sequel to the discovery of Zik’s threat of aggression against the Yoruba, in Joseph Appiah’s autobiography of an African Patriot, pp160-161. From the work, Chinweizu called our attention to an editorial in the edition of Nigeria’s West African Pilot of September, 8 1948, with the following ominous words: “Henceforth the cry must be one of battle against the Egbe Omo Oduduwa, its leaders at home and abroad, uphill and down dale, in the streets of Nigeria and in the streets of London and in the residence of its advocates”. The declaration according to him was in spite of existence of an Ibo Union.

    “For seven decades”, the Igbo according to him “have paid for Zik’s aggression against the Yoruba. The Cold War which Zik started made it possible for the British to install the NPC in power in 1959 when Zik refused to join with Awo to form the federal government. Concluding he admits: “We are not the innocent victims of Yoruba tribalism and hatred. The truth should inform Igbo attitude in seeking rapprochement with the Yoruba to escape imprisonment in Lugard’s Nigeria”.

    I sympathise with Chinweizu, a resourceful intellectual, who as colleague at The Guardian in the 80s, I have the privilege to call my friend.  First the Yoruba clearly understand that the Igbo elite only seek rapprochement whenever they have a temporary disagreement with the Fulani with whom they share a common world view. Secondly, what the Igbo need most is rapprochement with self. For decades, the Igbo of Nigeria suffer from persecution complex sometimes even when they are the aggressors as Chinweizu has admitted.

    The Yoruba clearly understand that in 1964, when the Igbo sought rapprochement with the Yoruba, it was because their Fulani estranged ally threatened to do to the East what they did to the West – dismemberment .Yoruba also remember Zik betrayed Awo during the independence constitutional conference in London by reneging on an earlier agreement to insist on carving out of regions for restive ethnic groups as a precondition for independence. He cast his lot with Ahmadu Bello who like Zik did not want his region balkanized.  Following Awo’s temporary walk out, Zik reached a compromise on all other outstanding issues and congratulated himself for preserving the unity of Nigeria. In 1959, as Chinweizu has observed, Zik betrayed Awo after misinforming his Igbo followers. In 1979, the Igbo cast their lot with their Fulani rivals. In 1993, the Igbo including Ojukwu, lined up with Fulani against the Yoruba.

    The second task is no less difficult. If it took Chinweizu who made his major contribution to knowledge over 40 years ago so long to acknowledge the documented truth about Zik’s aggression and series of misinformation against the Yoruba, it will take longer time to disabuse the minds of less endowed Igbos.

    How do you convince  an Igbo man that the 1964 joint rally at Mapo Hall Ibadan by Mrs. Awolowo and Okpara was not sufficient proof that Okpara cared for the Yoruba  except he is made to  peruse the documentary evidence of  Dr Okpara’s refusal to  recognize Alhaji Adegbenro as Premier of the West even after  the London Privy Council had ruled Akintola was properly removed by the Governor of the Western Region  choosing  instead to give  tacit support  to Chief Remi Fani-Kayode’s   assault on the Western House to justify his earlier  call for declaration of state of emergency in the west?

    My experience last Sunday in the Igbo-dominated Catholic Church where I worship convinced me of the enormity of the task before Chinweizu and other Igbo elite. The presiding priest who happened to be Yoruba had pointed out during the homilies, the futility of those trying to run from Nigeria to Biafra because the dreamed Biafra will be run by current Nigerians. He was literarily shouted down.

    Now they have to deal with ridiculous  tales like Awo’s support for Ernest Ikoli, an Ijaw man against Akinsanya, his fellow Ijebu man  during a Nigerian Youth Movement election makes Awo a tribalist; that Dr Olorunnibe’s refusal to step down for Zik after winning an election was a war against Igbo  which required Ozumba Mbadiwe to move the motion for ceding Lagos out West and for choosing to be governed by  a Yoruba man in 1952 at a time an easterner was ruling the east and a northerner,  the north, constituted a Yoruba declaration of war against the Igbo, an untruth  zealously promoted by highly respected Chinua Achebe. This has produced today’s Igbo mind-set where the demand by Lagos State for land rent on Igbo luxury mansions is interpreted by Igbo urban immigrants as an attack on Igbo race or a curse by the Oba of Lagos on those who would work against the interest of Lagos after enjoying all the opportunities Lagos offers as declaration of war against the Igbo.

    What the Igbo need first is lifting the burden of persecution siege. As for rapprochement, they have in the last 70 years demonstrated they share a common world view with their Fulani rivals as opposed to Awo’s ‘Path to Nigeria Freedom’ and Yoruba vision, which from experience of First Republic had promised a more egalitarian society.