The Nation Newspaper

Category: Thursday

  • What is restructuring?

    Many readers of this column are contacting me with the message that they do not have a clear idea about what is meant by restructuring. What is restructuring? How will a restructured Nigeria be different from today’s Nigeria?

    There have been many published responses to these questions. I will try and state mine. But before I do that, I need to point out humbly that I am not offering any new or original ideas on the subject, since all I will say here have been repeatedly offered by me and many other Nigerians. Moreover, I must remind my readers that in 2014, Nigeria held a National Conference in which nearly 500 selected citizens, representing all parts of Nigeria, met for about four months, debated the question of restructuring, and reached agreement by 70% majority vote on all that they agreed upon. In my view, the report of that conference is a very important resource on the issue of restructuring.

    First then, what kind of structure does the Nigerian federation have today? I would say that what we now have is not really a federation. The basic idea of a federation is that the various distinct parts of a country (especially a country comprising different ethnic nations) should be made a federating unit (or state). Each state should have the constitutional power to manage its unique problems and concerns, to develop its own resources for its people, to manage its own security, and to make its own kind of contributions to the well-being of the whole country. The central entity (or federal government) should manage common matters like the defence of the country, the relationship of the country with the rest of the world (or international relations), the country’s currency, the relations between the states of the country, and general principles like defence of human rights. That, essentially, was the federal arrangement that the fathers of the various sections of our country (Awolowo, Ahmadu Belo and Azikiwe) agreed upon in the 1950s.

    But, since independence, our leading politicians, and our military leaders (both, mostly from the Arewa North) have gradually destroyed this structure and replaced it with a structure in which the federal government is the controller of virtually all power and all resources as well as the power to develop all resources, and in which the states have no control over their resources and must depend on federal allocations of funds to exist at all. The federal government is over-burdened, controls too much money, has become egregiously inefficient and corrupt and, essentially, is destroying Nigeria. The states are impotent, cannot develop their resources, cannot fight poverty in their domains, and cannot make their contributions to the progress and prosperity of Nigeria. The cumulative effect of all these is that Nigeria and Nigerians have become horribly poor, that most public facilities (roads, electricity, water installations, public administration, etc.) are not working or have perished, that most Nigerian youths are unemployed and hopeless. The relations between Nigeria’s nations has degenerated into enmity and hostility. Crimes have made life very unsafe all over Nigeria. In various regions of Nigeria, and for various reasons, Nigerian youths are demanding the breaking up of Nigeria.

    Restructuring means that all these must be changed. It means that we must return to the kind of federal arrangement which our fathers evolved in the 1950s – even though we must now have more states than the three regions of the 1950s.

    How many states should we have? Very many people say that the present 36 states are just too many, and that with 36 states we are spending too much money on state administrations. Many of these people are suggesting that we should adopt the six zones now popular in our political life (North-west, North-east, North-central, South-west, South-east, and South-south), and make them our new states. Some others want the 36 states to stay. Their best known argument is that it is going to be extremely difficult to wind up the present 36 states in order to recreate the four Regions that we had by 1963, or to create the six zonal states.

    The 2014 National Conference heard all these arguments, as well as the special concerns of the various peoples of the North-central (aka Middle Belt) where religious and inter-ethnic conflicts have always been rampant. To be free from neighbours who are hostile and aggressive, various peoples of the Middle Belt asked for small states of their own. In sympathy with these peoples, the National Conference decided on nine states in each zone – making a total of 54 states. Critics of this 54-state decision have pointed out that 54 states are unreasonably too many, that each of the 54 will be weak, and that their weakness will only result in making the federal centre even stronger than before.

    But the conference also took certain other decision relevant to this. The most important was that, after creating the 54 states, any group of culturally related states may agree to merge together into a zonal federation inside the over-all Nigerian federation, or to set up development institutions or programmes for their collaboration in development. Another was that in those areas where the people desire to move across state boundaries to join their kith and kin, a referendum should be held to determine their wish – and if the referendum approves of their wish, the state boundary should be shifted to join them with their kith and kin.

    About the adjustment of power and resource control between the federal government and the states, the National Conference took very important decisions, all of which would take a lot of duties and responsibilities away from the federal centre and transfer them to the governments of the states. The most obvious concern the control and development of resources, and the control and management of education at all levels (though the federal government would still have some role in tertiary education – that is, education at the post-secondary level).  There are many others – but they are too many to be detailed out in this column.  The total effect is that the federal government will be smaller, leaner, control less money, and become much more efficient. The states will become what states are supposed to be in a federation – namely, the dynamic centres of development and growth. Hopefully, our states will resume the competition which used to exist among our regions in the 1950s up to 1966. As a result of that competition, the Western Region’s government worked closely with the Region’s farmers until they made Nigeria the second largest exporter of cocoa in the world; the Northern Region’s government worked closely with their region’s farmers until they made Nigeria the largest exporter of groundnuts in the world; and the Eastern Region’s government worked closely with their region’s farmers until they became the largest exporters of palm produce in the world. Cocoa earned the biggest income, made the Western Region our richest Region, and supplied most of federal foreign exchange. This is what development means – developing resources to generate money for further development.

    No federal government can do all these things from one centre. By 1965, Nigeria exported 675,000 metric tons of groundnuts. By 1984, after the transfer of all resource control and development to the federal government (gradually from 1966 on), Nigeria exported only 25,000 metric tons of groundnuts. Can you see now how the deep poverty that now grips the North was started. The same happened to our cocoa and pam produce farmers. By 1984, Nigeria had ceased being a serious exporter of these products. Someone might say that in the place of the income from these products, there came the income from oil. There is a big difference. Income from oil is not income produced by our people; it is income produced by other peoples on our land, income earned from rents, royalties and licenses, income going directly into the hands of our men in federal power, for them to mess around with, to steal, and to waste. That is why oil has been a curse to our country and our people. In contrast, income from our agricultural and other products is produced by our own people (the fathers and mothers of our families), comes directly into their hands, for providing directly for our families.

    If we restructure our federation now, and our states become again the rival centres of resource development, we may begin to see revival, and we may narrowly escape the break-up of Nigeria. If we continue to hold on to the present structure of our federation, Nigeria will surely break up – and very soon. Human tolerance for poverty and deprivation in the midst of plenty, and for chaos, hostility, violence and insecurity, has a limit. In Nigeria, we have reached that limit.

  • NASS should put on its thinking cap

    I have been amazed at the pedestrian level of legislation in the National Assembly especially when reacting to executive bills sent to it, the most recent of which is the current appropriation bill. It seems the National Assembly is bogged down by considerations that are far removed from rationality and national interest. Some weeks ago, the National Assembly was noisily condemning the Ministry of Petroleum Resources’ plan to bring in private investors to run the moribund petroleum refineries in Port Harcourt. This was perhaps because Oando, a Nigerian company in association with an Italian company was involved. The involvement of these two companies would have led to their investing billions of dollars to bring the useless refineries to life and optimum production something that has not happened since the 1970s.  These Port Harcourt refineries and the ones in Warri and Kaduna have been attracting billions of naira allocations for so-called annual overhaul maintenance without any result leading Nigeria to importing virtually all petrol and diesel we use for running our vehicles and mechanical plants. These refineries have thus become a conduit pipe for corruption and the ruin of the Nigerian economy. The foreign exchange earned from export of hydrocarbons and agricultural produce that would have been used for industrialization of the country is uselessly expended on importing what we should ordinarily produce. This corruption during the last regime led to trillions of naira being paid to so-called importers of petroleum products on the politically induced liberalization of importation of petroleum products. Things were so bad that any politically connected person simply had to get a company registered and whether or not the company imported any petrol, its accounts got credited with billions of naira. The cases of this unbridled financial rape and looting have been in the courts for the past two years and it is almost axiomatic that they will die there as many of the corruption cases have experienced.

    I remember with sadness Abacha awarding a one hundred million dollars contract to Total to rehabilitate the Kaduna refinery and I asked myself – how much does it cost to build a new one? At that time Singapore was building a new refinery for the same amount our country was using to do regular maintenance! The point I am making is that maintenance of these refineries have become cash cows for those in power. Now if these refineries can be sold, why would anybody be against it? Before Obasanjo left power in 2007, he invited Dangote to buy the Port Harcourt refineries and he had plans to sell the ones in Kaduna and Warri. But perhaps out of perfidy or inexperience, Yar’Adua cancelled the sale of the refineries. This apparently led Dangote to commence building of his massive refinery in Lagos. This is a refinery all Nigerians are waiting for with bated breath to save us from export of our foreign reserves through petroleum importation. Imagine if our overpaid legislators understood what is in our national interest, they should have hailed the plan to privatize all the money-guzzling refineries. In other countries facing this kind of humiliation of importing what they produce, these refineries would have been sold for one naira each in case there is a law against giving away public property.

    The second example of lack of proper understanding is the debate on the budget. First of all, the National Assembly lacks the expertise to draw up a budget or tamper seriously with a budget that took experts in the civil service and consultants months to prepare. It is not the duty and role of the legislature to begin to inject into the budget what in the considered opinion of the experts does not belong there. This budget had been subjected to budget hearing before the final budget was drawn up. In other words, no one is saying the National Assembly appropriation committee should have no input, what we are saying is that it should not be  altered beyond recognition

    Babatunde Raji Fashola, the minister in charge of works, power and housing has been unjustifiably attacked for drawing the attention of the public to the National Assembly’s radically slashing the allocation for the Lagos-Ibadan express way and the Second Niger bridge from Asaba to Onitsha to the extent that work may have to stop particularly on the expressway because what is in the budget is not enough to pay for work already done. Rather than show understanding of the problem, the minister is being accused on petty grounds of ethnic considerations. He was flippantly told he is no longer a governor of Lagos State but a federal minister.  This is an insult. He does not need to be told that. It is like giving a dog a bad name to hang it .I do not know anybody in that less-than-august body whose nationalist credential is better than that of Fashola.

    First of all the Lagos -Ibadan road is a national road connecting the rest of the country to the major ports of Apapa and Tincan Island which handle more than 90 percent of the carrying trade of the country. The road is not a Yoruba or south-western road. The National Assembly says the road is scheduled for private/public partnership. Was the failure of this not responsible for government take-over of the project after almost seven years of dilly-dallying on the project?  Why must the most important road in the country be used as an experiment? Has it occurred to our legislators that this reasoning is responsible for the collapse of Apapa network of roads since repairing it must be subject to federal character?

    Has it occurred to our distinguished senators that 60 percent of the national economy is tied to smooth running of this North -South road? Lagos is the cash cow of this country in terms of export and import, custom revenue, excise levies and Valued Added Tax. Our legislators need to take crash course in Economics 100 to appreciate the importance of Lagos to the national economy. Lagos is key to the overall development and successful diversification of the economy. Secondly, with all the agitation in the South-east, one would have thought this is the wrong time to cut the budget of the Second Niger Bridge. This may fuel further agitation about marginalization of the south-east.

    I am for equitable national development, but it is not every budgetary debate that should be based on federal character. How does the development, for example, of Murtala Muhammad International Airport in Lagos to make Nigeria the hub for West African aviation be reduced to if you build an airport in Lagos you must build one in Ado-Ekiti or Yola or if you begin re- afforestation to prevent desert encroachment in Katsina and Kano you must do the same thing in Edo and Abia. We need to get serious. This petty, penny-pinching and puerile thinking on the part of our fortunate legislators who do not take their job seriously should be condemned. They should stop heaping insults on a man like Fashola who is adjudged as a man capable of running this country with distinction if he was given the opportunity.

  • The Evans tale

    Since his arrest a few weeks ago, suspected kidnap kingpin Chukwudumeje George Onwuamadike aka Evans has been singing like the famed canary bird. They all do anyway when the chips are down. Many had thought that Evans would be different going by all they heard about him before he fell. He is not. He has been running his mouth non-stop.

    Since interrogators are not done with him yet, Evans would continue to talk and talk. Virtually everything he has said is in the public domain, courtesy of the press. The Evans story is not one that the press comes across everyday. Such stories come once in a blue moon. The press is feasting on the story because many of the things he said he did sound incredible.

    It is more of a movie stuff than a real life story but here we are confronted with it – a true story from the pit of hell.. It is not a dream at all. If any one is dreaming, it is Evans, who was cut down to size on June 10 in his palatial home in Magodo, Lagos. Evans lived big; though a common criminal, he did not live a commoner’s life. He lived more like a drug baron. That was the dummy he wanted to sell the police. Initially,  he told his interrogators that he got the scar  on his right shoulder from gun wounds after a messy drug business. It was a lie and he knew he was lying. He told the lie because he wanted to portray himself as a man forced by circumstances to take to crime.

    Hoodlums will never admit that they embraced crime out of choice. It is the choice they made with their eyes wide open because it is a path paved with gold and silver. It is an easy route to instant wealth,  which has made many, both young and old,  to lose their bearings in life. Crime may give wealth, stupendous wealth, but it will never last. Be it robbery, kidnapping, militancy, swindling aka 419, or money making rituals, it is only a matter of time before the bubble bursts. But while the money is rolling in, the criminal feels on top of the world. He sees himself as the master of his environment. Tell me, which kind of job will fetch someone millions instantly if it is not  shady?

    Criminals know that they will pay the ultimate price when they are caught, yet they are not deterred. The easy money they get has blindfolded them to the point that they are not bothered by the consequences of their actions, which they know too well. In the end, they want to be pitied. The pity they did not have on their victims they want the law to show them when they are caught.

    Evans is not different from the others. Whatever he says today will be to save his neck. He was a terror through and through who had his hands in everything bad. You name it, he was involved – drug trafficking, robbery and kidnapping. And he was never far from the bad guys – militants from whom he got his weapons and native doctors who made charms for him. The Evans story is however deeper than that. When we look at the calibre of his victims and those who assisted him, we will see that something is wrong somewhere.

    Most of his victims were businessmen from the Southeast and the Southsouth whose business integrity cannot be vouched for. Evans, it seems, deliberately chose them because he knew they had something to hide. It takes a criminal to know a criminal. He got good information on them before kidnapping them. And once they are in his hands, he sucks them to the last dollar before releasing them. These people pay quietly without fuss, thereby emboldening him to go after others. Some may wont to ask : if you are in their shoes, what would you have done? Truly, it is not easy to dare a kidnapper especially if you can pay the ransom. But what stops you from alerting the police after such payment?

    By keeping quiet, these victims turned Evans into a demi-god and he cashed in on their fears to keep on terrorising them. He was so sure of himself that he collected ransom twice from a victim. He first collected $1million and another $200,000 from the man. His collaborators were something else. As providers of information on the victims, they got a huge share of the ransom. According to Evans, he takes 40 percent of the ransom,  while 60 percent goes to “owners of the money”. Who are these owners? These are the people the police should go after immediately. As long as these people are free, the society is not safe. Kidnapping will continue to thrive and another kingpin, bolder and more brutal than Evans, may emerge.

    Evans did not operate in a vacuum. He had dens where he kept his victims and these dens were manned by his trusted aides. But these dens were on streets where people live. Mind you, these dens were not in isolated areas. They were in densely populated neighbourhoods like Igando, Isolo and Egbeda. Yet, his victims were taken to these places without people  living in those neighbourhoods knowing anything. It may be possible for one or two people not to know what is happening in their neighbourhoods, but it is impossible for everybody there not to know what is going on. What is the essence of being neighbours if we do not know what some people living in our areas are up to?

    In Evans case, his neighbours should have become alerted to what is happening because of the noise of music coming from his dens daily. What could he be celebrating behind the walls everyday that he will be disturbing others with music? If we do not take note of things like this, our society will never be safe. In those neighbourhoods, I am certain that some people may have complained of noise coming from mosques and churches, but they did not see anything wrong in the noise coming from those dens. We failed as a people to stop Evans earlier than now. The security agencies, the Neighbourhood Watch Corps and the public must take the blame for the rise of Evans.

    With his fall, we should resolve that never again will we allow evil to flourish around us. May Evans get his just deserts.

  • Yoruba as accomplice in war against Nigeria

    The Acting President’s on-going consultation with stakeholders over the current tension triggered by the age-long Igbo and Fulani rivalry for the soul of our country provides yet another opportunity to once again interrogate our crisis of nationhood and find a way forward. Unfortunately, the ambivalent response of the Yoruba country whether through Pa Ayo Adebanjo’s old Afenifere or through  his sons’ Afenifere Renewal Group portrays Yoruba not only as an accomplice in the prolonged Nigerian nightmare but probably explains why she has since 1962 been exploited as ‘the beautiful bride’ by rivals who have shown through documented history, that they do not want the best for the Yoruba  who by their “afenifere” motto have always wanted the best for others as they wanted for themselves.

    In 1962, the two rivals whose philosophy is ‘no one gets what either of them cannot get’; out of sheer envy exploited the intraparty feud in Action Group to destroy the West.  To disrupt proceedings in the Western House, Chief Remi Fani Kayode, encouraged by the Premier of the Eastern Region who had repeatedly called on the federal government to declare state of emergency in the West over alleged maltreatment of NCNC members, with some 12 Akintola supporters, had “created uncontrollable disorder, ringing a hand bell, using the chairs as blunt and breaking the mace’ the rumpus by less than a dozen lasted for less than a minute”. But that was all the two rivals needed to declare state of emergency in the West. Awo who wondered during proceedings of the house why a storm in a tea cup should attract state of emergency when neither  Isaac Boro’s insurrection in the east  nor  the Tiv popular uprising in the north, suppressed only through deployment of soldiers led to declaration of state of emergency – was overruled. So was Enahoro’s warning  that “what had started ‘was ‘going to go much farther than perhaps most of us here today imagine” was equally ignored. Balewa went on to kill the First Republic and banish democracy on May 29, 1962 by a mendacious claim that “the federal government had been motivated solely by the desire to ensure that peace order and tranquility are maintained throughout parts of the federation”. He went on to predict a unitary system for the country in future. “There would be such a time when we would have a unitary government in Nigeria. It may be after me. This I am certain it will certainly happen…”  But Trevor Clark, his biographer faulted him claiming “Two things are undeniable. Both NCNC and NPC politicians wanted to break Awolowo’s personal hold on the West and the threats to their concepts of how Nigeria should be ruled” Trevor Clark, Pg. 547.

    The two rivals moved on to create Mid-west Region ignoring Awo’s amendment in a motion calling for the creation of nine additional states to pacify some of the restive groups in the country. Balewa, whose northern legislature was the first to vote for carving of Mid-west, later followed by Eastern Region, however later accepted responsibility during a House session – “I would like to make absolutely clear my stand, the stand of the federal government and the NPC in this matter. We are opposed to creation of new states. But if a particular tribe is foolish enough…we shall always see to it that they are broken up into bits”.

    With Awo in prison, the two rivals went on to share an orphaned Western Region, with NCNC taking control of Mid-west and remnants of AG members that escaped imprisonment to form UPGA under Dr Michael Okpara who had exhibited nothing but hatred for the Yoruba. And for the other, the spoil of war after the humiliation of subdued West was Akintola’s NNDP and Midwest Democratic Front which together formed the NNA alliance that fought the 1964 Obasanjo’s equivalent of “do or die election”. It turned out a strategic error by the surviving mainstream Yoruba political tendency which ought to have allowed Igbo to face the anger of a betrayed husband who with control of state power went on to rig UPGA out before the bitter electoral contest took off. For the 1965 marred election that turned the West into ‘the Wild Wild West’, Akintola resisted pressure to step down by informing Ahmadu Bello that he and Fani Kayode merely adopted the 1964 NNA template.

    With selective killing of NNA politicians and northern military officers by the January 1966 Igbo-led coup and the elimination of Igbo military officers in Lagos, Abeokuta and Ibadan by Murtala Mohammed and Theophilus Danjuma-led July vengeance coup, the two rivals once again turned Yoruba land into a battle ground.

    First the call by Yoruba leaders for withdrawal of northern soldiers from the West was ignored by Gowon while Ojukwu went on to seize a Nigerian Airways aircraft with which Biafra started bombing Lagos. Then Midwest, betrayed by Delta Igbo officers was overrun with Biafra troops moving to Ore and a letter from Ojukwu promising to appoint Banjo administrator of the West while Biafra will be free to appoint administrator for Lagos at the end of the expedition. This was what finally dragged Yoruba fully into the war but once again, without insisting on their own vision of Nigeria before joining forces with the Fulani to keep Nigeria one, they were outwitted at the end of the war.

    In 1993, a pan-Nigeria Abiola’s mandate was annulled with Babangida citing opposition of some Generals and the Fulani establishment to Abiola’s presidency as if they owned Nigeria. It was once again an opportunity for the Yoruba to reassess its membership of a federation where its citizens are treated as a conquered people. They were again outwitted with the choice of Obasanjo as representative of the Yoruba by the military and the Fulani establishment. It was not an accident that Obasanjo, rejected by the Yoruba, surrounded himself with Igbo politicians and became obsessed with implementation of Balewa’s 1962 unitary agenda through massive election rigging in Edo, Ondo, Ekiti and Osun in 2003 and his duplicitous institutionalization of May 29 , the date Balewa banished democracy in the First Republic as ‘Democracy Day”.

    In the ongoing consultations, it is only the Yoruba leaders that are yet to state what they want from the federation. The Igbo with an investment of N43trillion in the north, controlling an area as big as the whole south-east in the north, 100,000 shops in Kaduna, Abuja millelium cities and mansions, choice properties spreading from the slums of Lagos through high-brow Banana Island and the emerging Atlantic City, their Ezes in all Yoruba cities with some challenging First Class Obas like the Oba of Lagos and Deji of Akure and their young men controlling street trading in Yoruba urban cities and sales of staple food such as, rice , beans, pap and akara in the Yoruba remote villages, they have said no one is going to stampede them out of Nigeria. They are however resolute in rejecting Fulani herdsmen and grazing zones in their communities back home.

    Of course the Fulani wants the current status quo that allows free movement of Fulani herdsmen across Nigeria, sustains their advantage in the number of local councils areas that depend on free allocation from the centre, and of course their alleged control of 85% of oil well allocations. But as has always been the case, they have a meeting point with their Igbo rivals: a citizenship bill that proclaims forests and cities across the country a “no man’s land.”

    But what is the Yoruba agenda? Tragically, Pa Adebanjo, framed up and jailed for coup planning along with Ikoku and Enahoro by the two rivals in 1962 has been hosting the Igbos while BolaTinubu, his son driven into exile by Abacha and persecuted by Obasanjo for his opposition to his mainstreaming, has been on the side-lines. All that the Yoruba expected of them is to stick to the Yoruba demand for  a federation, where each group develops at its own pace without interference from others, or  as Awo put it, where “some people will not hold the cow for a few to milk”.

  • The case for states Police Force

    The case for states Police Force

    The following article by me on the issue of the creation of states police force was first published in this paper in August, 2012. Now that retired General Ibrahim Babangida has made an astonishing ‘Pauline’ conversion in support of the long standing agitation for such a police force, it is being published again, without any amendments, to reinforce the argument for the creation of states police force.

    There is a growing demand in the country for the creation of states police force. It is one of the major controversial issues in the current debate on the review of the 1999 Constitution. The state governors are divided over the issue. While most of the Northern PDP governors are opposed to the idea of a state police, their Southern counterparts, particularly the ACN governors in the South West, are in favour of the proposal. The dispute is not about corruption in the Police, or its professional ineptitude. Rather, it is about the powerful role of the Police in future elections in the country. Both the ruling and opposition parties are already thinking of the critical 2015 elections and beyond, when the role of the Nigeria Police will become even more crucial and decisive.  An impartial and non-partisan police is crucial to free and fair elections. The political party that rules the country will control the Police. But the opposition parties do not believe that the Nigeria Police, under the control of the federal government, can be trusted to conduct free and fair elections in the country.

    The idea of a state police was first raised at the Lancaster House Independence talks in 1959 in London, when the Action Group, the ruling party in the former Western Region, demanded the creation of a regional police in the independence constitution. The party had become dissatisfied with the partisan role of the Nigeria Police in Nigeria’s politics and elections. Specifically, it had serious doubts that the Nigeria Police, under the control of a hostile federal government, could be relied upon to be politically impartial in enforcing law and order in Nigeria, and in ensuring free and fair elections in the country. But the federal government, led by the NPC and the NCNC coalition, that had control of the federal police, opposed the demand for regional police. With the active support of the British colonial government, the idea of a regional police was rejected at the conference. The Nigeria Police had inherited the traditions of the colonial police which was often used to smash political agitations in the colony. The Action Group found itself a lone voice crying in the political wilderness. The AG feared that the federal police would, in future, be used by the ruling party at the centre as a political instrument for intimidating the opposition parties and for rigging elections in the country. Its fears were real and proved justified later, shortly after independence in 1960.

    Before independence, most enlightened and educated Nigerians were not in support of a regional police force, which they equated with the notorious and hated old Native Authority police all over Nigeria, but particularly in the North, where it was used as an instrument of oppression against the people and the main opposition parties. It was assumed by the educated Nigerian elite that a sole federal police would be in a better position to enforce the right of free association and guarantee free and fair elections in Nigeria. But these enlightened views and assumptions soon proved unrealistic in the context of Nigerian politics in which, soon after independence, the Nigeria Police became increasingly involved in partisan politics and tended to support the ruling Party. For the NPC and the NCNC, the main coalition partners in the federal government, control of the Nigeria Police was vital if they were to maintain their dominant electoral position in the country. Under their joint control the single Nigeria Police Force could easily be used to advance their electoral interests.

    The fears of the Action Group opposition about the dangers to the regions of a sole federal police were soon justified by the 1959 federal elections in which the federal (Nigerian) Police were used massively, particularly in Northern Nigeria, to prevent the Action Group leaders from holding their political campaigns. The opposition parties were often refused police permits to hold political rallies in the Northern Region. Many opposition candidates were illegally arrested by the police, in breach of the electoral laws, and released only after the elections. Then again in 1962, during the internal crisis of the Action Group, the federal NPC/NCNC coalition government used the Nigeria Police which it controlled to intimidate the Action Group, the ruling party in the Western region, and break up demonstrations of public support for the party in the region. Specifically, the use of the police by the federal government to break up proceedings in the Western Region House of Assembly was plainly illegal and unconstitutional. Claiming falsely that there was a breakdown of law and order in the region, the federal coalition government declared a state of emergency in the region. The AG regional government was eventually turned out of office and the party destroyed. Soon after, most of the AG leaders, including Chief Awolowo, were incarcerated unfairly and subsequently tried and jailed on trumped up charges of treason. The Nigeria Police was used to carry out these unconstitutional and illegal acts by the federal coalition government to destroy the AG regional government.

    This regrettable development increased existing fears regarding the impartiality of the police in Nigerian politics and the use to which it could be put during elections to suppress the opposition. After the long military interlude, the partisan role of the Police in the 1979 federal elections and subsequent elections reinforced the growing feeling, particularly in the South, that the Nigeria Police was being used to rig elections in Nigeria in support of the ruling party. The classic case was that of the former Inspector General of Police, Mr. Adewusi, who, in the 1983 federal elections, announced publicly without any authority, and even before the results of the elections had been announced by the electoral commission, that President Shagari of the NPN had won the elections. He could barely conceal his brazen and ardent support for the ruling party, the NPN, in the elections. He threatened to arrest and detain any opposition leader who challenged the results of the elections which, by all accounts, were massively rigged. His role, as the head of the Police, was clearly partisan and a clear negation of the Constitution. The Nigeria Police had become increasingly corrupt and professionally inept in discharging its statutory functions. It was no longer an independent and neutral national security institution, but an extension of the federal government, controlled by the Northern political elite. Most of the Inspectors General of the Nigeria Police have come from the North. Public confidence in the integrity and professional competence of the Nigeria Police had fallen sharply. Now it was held in contempt by the public.

    There can be little or no doubt that in 2003 and 2007, the Nigeria Police was used by the PDP federal government to rig the elections. The Obasanjo PDP federal government certainly used the police as an instrument for the rigging of the 2003 elections, the ‘do or die’ elections, particularly in the South West where the PDP, except in Lagos, unbelievably swept the polls. This is the background to the present demand for the creation of states police, in addition to the existing federal police, now considered to be highly politicized and inherently incapable of being neutral in handling elections in the country. The truth of the matter is that the Nigerian Police has been made a political instrument of the federal authorities for subverting free and fair elections in the states and the nation. It is no longer trusted by the opposition parties.

    In different circumstances, there is a lot that can be said in favour of a sole federal police in the country. But this is only if the professionalism and political neutrality of the police can be guaranteed. This is by no means the case now. The Nigeria Police are answerable to only the federal authorities. In normal circumstances, the internal security of the nation should remain the constitutional responsibility of the federal government. But even in this case, the state governors are designated as the Chief Security Officers of their states. Obviously, there is an anomaly here as the state governors are not responsible for the police even in their states where the Police Commissioners are answerable only to the Inspector General of Police and, through him, to the Minister of Internal affairs, or the Minister for Police Affairs, a federal agent. In other words, the state governors are assigned responsibility without power. The case of the former governor of Anambra, Dr. Ngige, illustrates the dilemma faced by a state governor who has no control over the police in his state. The fear that the state governors will abuse the state police in the same manner as the federal government has been abusing the federal police is real. But that should not be advanced as a reason for opposing the demand for the creation of states police in Nigeria, a federal state.

    In the context of Nigerian politics, the case for a state police has become increasingly clear and urgent. With a population of over 150 million, Nigeria is too large to have a single police force. The point has been made repeatedly that Nigeria is currently under policed. This accounts for the sharp increase in Nigeria’s crime rate. There is no country with a comparable size and population that has a single Police Force; not the USA, India, Australia, Switzerland, nor Canada, all of which have federal constitutions. Even Britain, now a quasi-federal state, does not have a single Police Force. Each region, even Metropolis, has its own separate police. At the moment the Nigeria Police is under funded, under equipped and lacking the resources needed to ensure effective internal security in the nation. It is overstretched. It simply cannot cope with the increasing crime rate in the country, not to even talk about effectively tackling the menace of terrorism in the country.

    In addition, the Nigeria Police lacks the required local intelligence to tackle terrorism. Only a state police can fill this gap. A neighbourhood police is the most effective way to gather such intelligence. If the states are allowed to have their own police forces, it will relieve the federal police of its enormous security burdens, and allow the federal government to fund and equip it better. Broadly, the Nigeria Police should have functions similar to those of the FBI in the United States. The time has come for those states that would like to have their own police force to be allowed under the proposed new Constitution to do so. This will reduce the pressure on the federal police force and the high crime rate in the country.

  • Yemi Osinbajo…chastity is never enough

    It is acceptable wisdom across political and social circuits that the most virulent critic poses no threat to the devious and corrupt public officer. Thus no matter how brilliantly the critic articulates censure of a crooked official’s savage, mediocre performance, he poses no threat to the office and grotesqueness that the officer symbolises.

    Indeed, the harshest critiques have been known to bounce off the hide of the Nigerian politician as bed bugs fall off the tresses of the poodle’s medicated hair. This no doubt manifests as another malady in the Nigerian scheme of things. It is the ultimate malady.

    Very few people are genuinely interested in eliminating corruption and improving the quality of life in the country. Since the era when large segments of the citizenry, bludgeoned to acquiescence by corrupt leadership, swallowed dissent to hide behind the ‘Yabis’ of unrepentant government critics like late Fela Kuti, Nigeria has suffered freefall down the steep crag of institutionalised corruption.

    Very few Nigerians would dare the dangerous activism of self-appointed government critics like late Afrobeat maestro, Fela and human rights activist, Gani Fawehinmi. The duo were two of Nigeria’s most vocal critics even in the face of brutal backlash from the government and its apologists.

    Today, we suffer the absence of Fela Kuti and Fawehinmi among others. What we have left are pathetic impostors pretending to defend the citizenry’s rights. Despite the posthumous honours accorded Fela and Fawehinmi, few mothers would want their children to engage in such dangerous agitation in the  interest of the collective. ‘Were dun wo, ko se bi lomo,’ meaning: While it is fun to behold the antics of a lunatic, it is anathema to sire one.

    Late Fela and Fawehinmi are no lunatics, but they are the figurative madmen by whose tireless activism and exploits, Nigeria’s critical mob attained a semblance uprightness and political awareness. Despite their activism, the citizenry whose rights they aspired to protect towed the path unabashed spinelessness. This emphasises the role of the critic.

    There is no gainsaying that since the advent of Nigeria’s democratic experiment, the nation elevates corruption as its cultural essence. At President Goodluck Jonathan’s emergence, state-sponsored corruption mutated into the Nigerian persona: bigotry, decadence, terrorism and official looting were weaponised by public officers and their cronies in pursuit of selfish political and economic interests.

    The Nigerian decadence, ingenious in pleasures and cruelties, became the politically-correct personae, an acceptable profanation of morality and rape of ancestral norms. Thus in Jonathan’s era, corruption’s chthonian reverence assumed the imagery and dimensions of politicised orgy. Morality became un-Nigerian as the immediate past administration evolved a program and formula for looting the country silly.

    Enter President Muhammadu Buhari and his All Progressives Congress (APC); Buhari was  expected to clean Jonathan’s mess and rid the polity of corruption and administrative ineptitude wrought on the nation by successive military and democratic tyranny. Having sacked Jonathan and his People’s Democratic Party (PDP) with remarkable ease at the March 28, 2015 general elections, Nigerians believed he would rid the country of deviously orchestrated misdemeanours characteristic of Jonathan’s PDP.

    But like a recalcitrant bug that will not go away, mismanagement, corruption and a legion of more carefully orchestrated misdemeanours have resurfaced in the nation’s corridors of power, on Buhari’s watch.

    However, this writer would be committing duplicity similar to that which the incumbent government inflicts on Nigerians even as you read, if he fails to acknowledge the flashes of competence betrayed by Buhari and his bumbling team. Buhari’s initiative at establishing one purse for the Nigerian government is worthy of commendation. Mr. President’s military campaign against the dreaded Boko Haram is commendable too.

    Although, he has failed woefully at keeping his promise to rescue Chibok girls and exterminate the terrorist sect within his professed timeline, the military has succeeded considerably, at containing the terrorists’ activities.

    Skyrocketing inflation, rising debt profile and a weakened Naira, resurgence of Biafran clamour and other secessionist tumult, to mention a few, crept on the country in the wake of Buhari’s leadership. There are the usual hardships too, like unstable electricity, corruption in the oil and gas sector, politicised anti-corruption fight and cutthroat intraparty squabbles afflicting Buhari’s ruling party.

    Suddenly, the hero mutates into a villain in the estimation of an impatient electorate. The latter, split by ethnic and political bigotry since the March 28, 2015 presidential elections, yielded to greater animosity, political and tribal divisions as Buhari’s reticence about northern herdsmen’s murderous quests across eastern and southern farmlands resonate uglier narratives about his presidency.

    Then Buhari falls sick. However, in a manner reminiscent of late President Musa Yar’Adua’s ill advised circumstances, the presidency, allegedly held by the jugular, by a mythical cabal, fails to satisfactorily explain the actual nature of Buhari’s ailment thus substantiating dreadful conjectures by the electorate. Despite devoting public fund to Mr. President’s medical tourism abroad, Buhari’s ‘handlers’ and facetious media team have suddenly lost their voice alongside their wits.

    Now, we have Vice President Yemi Osinbajo in the saddle as Nigeria’s Acting President. Since he assumed office by constitutional dictates and at Buhari’s behest, Osinbajo, a presumably ‘quiet giant’ and ‘unflinching enforcer,’ has attracted flak from the mythical northern cabal. He attracts remarkable plaudits too, which is scary.

    Nigerians should be wary of heaping praise on Acting President, Yemi Osinbajo, lest he falls victim to hubris. We do not need him to be more ‘likable,’ ‘chaste,’ ‘humble’ or cut like a paper ‘intellectual.’ Nigeria needs Osinbajo to be more efficient. He should man up and clear some of the mess left by his boss, if he is indeed man enough for the job.

    Acting President (AP) Osinbajo recorded no extraordinary achievement as Nigeria’s Vice President. And he is yet to achieve any remarkable feat as Acting President. Except his closet and raucous sycophants consider his emergence as VP or AP his extraordinary achievement.

    No one expects Osinbajo to become an overnight success. No one expects him to magically resolve Nigeria’s institutionalised corruption and administrative ineptitude. After all, corruption remains a remarkable feature of his APC platform despite the party’s initial posturing otherwise. A cursory glance at the party’s current and estimated membership will convince you.

    No doubt, Osinbajo is incapable of ridding his party of corrupt but despite this sad reality and the hideous politics pitted against him, Nigeria expects him to perform creditably. He could begin by actually attempting to serve the interests of the impoverished and presumed dispensable divide.

    Unless Nigeria experiences ‘Change’ that reflects positively in the lives of the citizenry, Acting President Osinbajo will be dismissible as just another ‘ceremonial minder’ holding forte for an incapacitated President.

    Perhaps Osinbajo will evolve as everything but another disease of governance and civilisation. Let him remember that Buhari started out as a man devoted to wiping out corruption. He sought to do that while conveniently turning a blind eye to his inadequacies and self-imposed handicaps, or compromises, if you like.

    He forgot that nature and history only cares to identify individuals as intrinsic part of species and never as a lone genus. Will Osinbajo fare better?

  • Evans ‘the terrible’

    Evans ‘the terrible’

    Who is Chukwudumeje George Onuamadike, aka Evans?

    That question would have been appropriate before June 10. Not now. Until then, he was known only among security agents and those who had the misfortune of being his guests. His victims, perhaps out of fear, spoke in the comfort of their bedrooms about him; never in public.

    The police describe him as the “most creative and craftiest” kidnapper.

    Before him was Henry Chibueze, aka Vampire, “the deadliest” of them all, whose gang members once stormed a court hearing his case, shot at soldiers and snatched him away – leg chains and all. It  was like  a scene from a Hollywood thriller. He was later to die in a gun duel with the police. Americana, whose gang is believed to be holding the Lagos pupils, is said to be just as vicious.

    Evans was captured in Magodo, a highbrow Lagos neighbourhood.  Residents   were shocked. His homes – there are two of them in the estate – are beautiful but not extraordinary, compared with the others. He did not show off his dirty wealth. No big cars were parked in his compound. No stream of visitors driving latest limousines. No owambe parties. He rarely mixed.

    It was all part of his strategy to evade arrest.

    The mask fell off on June 10.  Evans was unmasked as the tsar of the underworld with specialisation in kidnapping men of immense means who pay handsomely for their freedom. Now the number of joggers has reduced in Magodo where residents talk about gbenigbeni (the kidnapper) as against the once popular  gbomogbomo  (the kidnapper of kids).

    Now that he has been captured, residents who had given up early morning jogging for fear of ending up in some God-forsaken bush in Igando or in the throbbing lakande Estate in fawaray Isolo  where Evans has his safe houses of horror will not rush back to the tracks with their pot bellies.

    The rich do not take chances. They would not be won back by the fact that Evans has been seized by the police. They fear members of his gang may launch a reprisal.

    Who can blame them?

    Evans collected ransom in hard currency because he wanted “to be different”.  His victims include frontline businessmen. A potential victim would put him on a retainer, as an insured against being kidnapped. His victims were kept under inhuman conditions for months, manacled.

    One of them got Evans angry. His family was said to have been rude. They paid more and got their man back later than expected.

    When a victim is released and he goes to church for thanksgiving, Evans features as one of the honoured guests. How does he feel in church? Does he also shout “alleluia” and “amen”? When he kneels down, what does he tell God; to bless him? Does he feel his exploits come from above? Does he have a conscience? Does he ever spare a moment for reflections?

    In detention, Evans has asked for a copy of the Holy Bible, which he has been reading as if he is preparing for a Bible College exam. His favourite books are said to be Psalms and Job. In fact, he is said to love reading Psalms 23 –”The Lord is my shepherd…”. Really? Who then is the shepherd of his victims?

    Ivan the Terrible, who is also known as Ivan the Fearsome (August 25, 1530 – March 18, 1584), was Russia’s first tsar. He ruled with an iron hand. His was a bloody, brutal reign.  Ivan brooked no opposition. He was believed to be mentally troubled.   In a fit of anger, he killed his son, Ivan Ivanovich, who would have succeeded him.  Is Evans mentally stable?

    He was loved by few, loathed by many and feared by all. So is Evans.

    In police custody, Evans has been sobered up. He has been singing like a bird. He has told of how his father did not send him to school. He has talked about his gang and its mode of operation. He says his wife has been having a time of her life; she denies being lavished with cash and gifts.  He claimed to have given his father N3m and luxury motorcars.

    The Evans fairytale has raised many questions about our moral values, law enforcement, parental care, citizen responsibility and more. Why did it take so long to capture Evans? The police had been searching for him since 2013. A bounty of N30 million was placed on his head. That seemed to have done the magic, but must citizens wait for such enticement before performing their duty to society? Why did his victims fail to give information which the police could use to track him down?

    How do Evans’ parents feel? Regrets? If they were too poor to send him to school, why didn’t they ensure that he learned a trade and stuck to it? He said his goods were seized by Customs. He then went into drug trafficking, a trade he dumped after his partner cheated him and attempted to kill him. He tried his hands on armed robbery. Not pleased, he went into kidnapping, which proved to be a goldmine.

    Must a man be involved in such lethal undertakings all in the battle to get rich? What is wealth when it can buy only comfort but cannot secure peace of mind?

    Our society regards those who are not wealthy as failures. When cash is involved, morality is thrown overboard. That is why a professor commands no attention at a village meeting but everybody yields the floor to a man whose only qualification to sit at such a gathering is that he is “loaded”. “Na prof we go chop?” We scorn professionals who do not have wealth to exhibit, even as they are rich in intellect and other natural endowments which they have worked so much to develop.

    Why is kidnapping such a lucrative trade that is so attractive despite the punishment? Is it just the mad ambition of a bad mind to get wealth? Or just man’s inhumanity to man? Why is man so inhuman?

    Many of us are guilty of aiding and abetting this abominable crime. Who is the doctor who treated one of Evans’ victims who was shot? The doctor went to one of Evans’ detention centres to do the job, which many hospitals would not touch, even with the approval of the police. Who is the businessman who paid Evans in lieu of being kidnapped? Who are his bankers? Did they care about the nature of his trade that brought such hefty deposits?  How did he run his accounts in these days of cashless policy?  Who sold Evans the Magodo luxury homes? Did they conduct background checks?

    He was said to have used 126 mobile phone numbers.  Who are the service providers? Are the cards registered as required by law?

    A woman was said to have played some roles in untying the Evans knot. How Does he also say “I love you” to her? Does he kiss and hug? Is he capable of showing affection, despite his wicked ways?

    When he collects a ransom, says Evans, he takes his share and gives the rest to “the owners”. Who are the owners?

    Where is the place of law in all this?  An interview with Evans’ wife published by a newspaper shows that  ogbologbo lawyers are already at work. She is being schooled to portray Evans as a victim of societal and parental neglect who deserves sympathy and rehabilitation.

    Soon, the lawyers, flying the banner of human rights, will set their hands to the plough, filing an application to enforce Evans’ fundamental rights. They will be asking for bail. They will be seeking the leave of the court to enforce his right to medical care, overseas, naturally. The court will be urged to consider the principle of animus nocendi and establish beyond a reasonable doubt whether Evans deliberately set out to harm those who got physically harmed during his escapades.

    After all, an accused is presumed innocent until proven guilty, the court will be reminded. And justice, being blind and no respecter of status, may shun the din of the marketplace and follow its dictates. Then, it will all become an academic debate on the letter of the law in contradistinction to the spirit of the law.

    The police deserve garlands for capturing Evans. But, there are many Evans out there. The six Lagos pupils remain in captivity, several weeks after. Ondo State All Progressives Congress (APC) chief Olumide Odimayo’s body was dumped  by his abductors. The police have some suspects; they  should go after the others. But the police require everybody’s co-operation to succeed.

    We all should help to expose these enemies of humanity.

  • Where are the elders?

    In traditional African setting, elders held a prime position. They were the conscience of their society and whatever they said was law. It will be an understatement to say that they were revered. They were next to the traditional ruler, who relied on their wisdom in running his domain. When the monarch held court, he was surrounded by elders who constituted members of his cabinet. It was a pride to be an elder then because of the respect for such people.

    It is still a pride to be an elder even in the kind of rotten society we are today. When elders are around, things are not supposed to go wrong. Their presence is expected to reassure the people that yes, no matter what, we have men and women that will set us on the right path. To become an elder is not a day’s job. One attains that status with age and with age is expected to come wisdom with which to guide the youths. Mind you, it is the child of today that becomes the elder of tomorrow. So, every elder today was a youth yesterday.

    So, what excites  the youth of today should not be new to an elder, who must have gone through such in the past. What a youth considers an adventure cannot be strange or new to an elder, who is more experienced about life. Of course, a youth can have many clothes, but he cannot have more rags than an elder whose eyes have sunk in because of the vicissitudes of life. An elder having seen a lot in his lifetime is expected to help the youth to avoid the mistakes he made while young. Thus, an elder who has witnessed war is expected to call the youth to order when walking that path.

    In the past few weeks, our country has been under tension because of the  threats by some Northern and South East youths. It all started with the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) calling for a sit-at-home last May 30 to mark the 50th anniversary of the defunct Biafra Republic. Before then, IPOB, the Movement for the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) and Biafra Independent Movement (BIM), among others, had been in the forefront of groups seeking to resuscitate Biafra. The Nnamdi Kanu-led IPOB has taken its campaign worldwide, setting up Radio Biafra in London to propagate its cause. The group led the observation of last month’s sit-at-home, which paralysed activities in the east.

    In response to its order, the Coalition of National Youths (CNY) aka Arewa youths gave the Igbo in the north up till October 1 to leave. The threats of secession and the ultimatum are one and the same thing – agitations to break up the country. No matter how you look at it, there is no way the threat to expel the Igbo from the east if they do not leave by October 1 will not cause chaos and there is also no way that the country will remain intact if IPOB should get the east to secede. Unfortunately, all this is happening right under the nose of Northern and South East leaders. If youths are behaving like youths, elders are not expected to behave as such. Being elders, they should know the implication of what these youths are doing and promptly step in to stop them from playing with fire.

    Yes, these boys are toying with fire and painfully, many elders who witnessed the civil war (1967 – 1970) are keeping quiet. We cannot afford to go to war over any mundane issue. Whatever it is that IPOB, MASSOB, BIM and all other groups agitating for Biafra want can be ironed out at a round table. What is more, they have people in the Senate and the House of Representatives who can take up their cause. There is no issue too big that cannot be discussed. Even wars are settled at round-table talks. We must condemn all these actions aimed at setting us back several years before they blow out of proportion and this is where the elders come in.

    Through their criminal silence, our elders have tacitly supported the actions of these youths. It is morally wrong. What kind of leadership are they providing if they cannot call these guys to order? Or are they afraid of them? An elder worth the name will not sit back and allow things go awry in the twilight of his life. What memory will he go to his grave with? That of a disintegrated Nigeria? God forbid. Acting President Yemi Osinbajo put the blame where it belonged when he met with some South East elders at the Villa last Wednesday. The elders, he noted, have been too quiet over this matter. I concur, sir. Some of them, to the shock of many, even came out to support what these boys are doing.

    To these elders, I say, what is bad is bad and we should collectively say so, so that these boys do not plunge us into another bitter war. What do they even know about war? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. The elders should educate them that war is a bitter enterprise which beginning we know but which end is beyond anybody’s comprehension. As the Acting President told his guests in Abuja, elders should always speak out against what is wrong because “violence pays no one.

    “Violence and war are not going to do anyone any good. Wars today hardly end. No one who has seen the face of wars even on television will wish it for anyone. We shouldn’t tolerate hate speeches or divisive comments.” These are immortal words and they will keep ringing in our ears.

  • Mabel Osuntokun (1932- 2017) – A virtuous woman

    The former Mabel Osanyin who married Joseph Oduola Osuntokun was the first child of the man who became the first bishop of Ekiti when the present four dioceses in Ekiti State were just one. This wonderful lady is being laid to rest tomorrow, Friday June 23 in Ibadan. She grew up in Kano where for some time, her father had served as a missionary in the Anglican Communion.  She grew up in Kano when the grandfather of the present emir was Ciroman Kano Sanusi before he became Sarkin Kano. Because of her sojourn in Kano, she spoke some Hausa and as a girl growing up in the restrictive cultural environment of Kano, she was rather shy and for a while withdrawn. Her father came from Ijebu-Jesha a town not too far from Okemesi where her future husband came from.  In other words both Mabel and her future suitor belonged to the Ijesha sub ethnic group of the Yoruba The Osanyin brothers apparently liked the northern part of the country where about three of their family found a place for their material sustenance. Her mother was an attractive lady who because of her initials L. B Osanyin was popularly known as “London Beauty”.  She was not an Ijesha like her husband. She complimented and added value to the work and life of her husband and she helped him build a solid middle class home which was rare in Nigeria of their time. She had a complex web of provenance stretching from Ado -Ekiti, Awo, and Ijero.

    Mabel Osanyin therefore belonged to the privileged class of children of the clergy especially at a time when the Anglican Communion (CMS) was the established church in Nigeria. She trained as a teacher. It was as a teacher that the man who later became her husband and who was looking for  a virtuous unspoiled and God-fearing and husband compliant lady found her and proposed marriage to her . She was 20 years old and perhaps too young and inexperienced for her suitor, a world wise, widely travelled man, a graduate, the second graduate in the whole of what is now Ekiti State, and a budding politician who was a member of the western house of Assembly. Oduola Osuntokun was almost a decade older than the young lady he wanted to marry. He was an irresistible handsome man with huge prospects for the future. He was a great catch and Mabel fell in love with him.

    In spite of ups and downs of life she stood by him in good times and in bad times. Their marriage was a wonderful union blessed with seven great children who have excelled in their various professions. Mabel Osuntokun that later became “Mama Tinu “ as she would be known by all and sundry was so beloved by all members of the Osuntokun family that whenever there was any argument between husband and wife the family always sided with the wife.  In this case blood was not thicker than water !When our father died and the burden of headship of the family fell on her husband rather than grumble she rose up to the occasion and supported her husband  in providing for the larger Osuntokun family.

    The inevitable storms in the life of a politician did not overwhelm her and she always took her problems to God. She who was used to affluence as the wife of a minister adjusted quickly when her husband had to go back to the humble life of a secondary school principal and teacher. She always made the home environment pleasant and soothing to her husband who sometimes found the transition so uncomfortable and dispiriting that he sometimes felt like a well beaten boxer. The larger Osuntokun family provided a psychological refuge at the time of difficulty and despair. Mabel in those years demonstrated financial and business acumen to provide for her growing family and one after the other her children became adults and were able to fend for themselves. She continued to provide a rallying point for members of the Osuntokun family outside her own immediate family. She was known by the growing little Osuntokuns as “Big Mummy” not because of her size, she was actually petite, but on account of being the wife of chief Oduola Osuntokun the scion and head of the family. Other women who came later into the large Osuntokun family looked up to her as the trailblazer. She fulfilled the role and loved the younger wives in the family who reciprocated by deferring to her in family affairs. Her husband in his later years was grateful to her for her unflinching support and unstinted love.

    Mrs Mabel Osuntokun, the child of an Anglican Bishop became a fervent supporter of the Pentecostal mode of worship to the extent that she turned her home into a chapel while her new denomination was building its church. She did not see any contradiction in this and her argument was that she would worship in any church where the name of Jesus Christ was the centre of worship. All her life she was used to being in the middle of large families whether in the vicarage where her parents lived and were supported by children of relatives and church members who were sent there for grooming or in her own family. When her children grew up and left home, she would go to the backwoods of Oyo State to bring poor children to live with her, send them to school and colleges and when they leave others will be brought to replace them in an unbroken chain of Christian charity. Whatever she had, she shared with others. She seemed to have found joy and satisfaction in not living alone but in harbouring total strangers and in stretching her hands of fellowship to the less privileged people who cannot reciprocate her acts of generosity.

    She lived for 85 years in good health until recently when her health deteriorated. She had the support of her children and members of the wider Osuntokun family and the Osanyin siblings towards the end of her life. She must have had satisfaction in knowing she was much loved and cherished. Life is fleeting and what will endure is not how long we live but how well.  Memories are for ever she will continue to be remembered with fondness and for good. In any case she lived long

    We have lost a wonderful, loving and caring person. She took care of everybody who needed care, food, shelter and love. She remained a beautiful lady till the end wishing the best for everyone. What we have lost is a gain by heaven. I have no doubt that her place in heaven is secure. I personally have lost not just a sister-in-law, but the lady who was responsible for my grooming and a lady who brought me up from a simple lad to a gentleman. Rest in perfect peace.

  • A nation held hostage

    Our dear nation has gone through very many difficult times. We’ve survived bloody coups, several rounds of ethno-religious violence; we’ve emerged even from a long and bloody Civil War” – Vice President Yemi Osinbajo.

    The warring Fulani and Igbo political rivals already know this. What Nigerians therefore want the acting President to tell the fortune-seeking Igbo political elite and their power-seeking Fulani rivals is that their unhealthy rivalry has held our nation down for far too long. Ironically while the duo pretended to be enemies, they have according to Brigadier General Alabi Isama, jointly ruled our country for the greater part of our independence.  Tragically, our nation has known no peace since 1962, when they unpatriotically undermined our constitution in order rule the nation according to their blurred vision of society.

    If we needed any reason to prove that the rivals are behind current tension in the nation, the well-crafted Monday letter to Osinbajo, and the measured response from Ohaneze settled that. The Arewa youth in the said letter had said the north cannot “afford to continue giving the keys to (their) cities to a people whose utterances, plans and arrangements are clearly geared towards war and anarchy”, as “Kanu and IPOB who preach hatred and war virtually every day, have not been cautioned by any Igbo leader”. We didn’t need to assume this was the case of the hand of Esau and the hand of Jacob as Fulani elders did not waste time before endorsing the statement.

    The Igbo political elite in its own response say – “That some individuals are pushing for self-determination in the South-east does not mean that the Igbo want to secede. The real situation is a protest against marginalization.” Since the Ibo political elite were not only influential during the administration of Jonathan who has confessed he was ‘caged all through his presidency’, one cannot divorce the madness and campaign of hate in the last two years from those who recently lost influence.

    After undermining our constitution, the two rivals first confronted themselves over the disputed 1963 census result. Outwitted by their rivals through the judiciary, the Igbo political elite understood that if democracy is game of numbers, the census returns figures for the north had foreclosed the possibility of an Igbo leader emerging through a constitutional means. Afterwards, what followed on the pages of newspapers was a campaign of hate with the Igbo dismissing the Fulani as ‘the kola-nut eating ignoramuses’ with the Fulani responding in kind about ‘half naked non-believers of the eastern forest’. This was the atmosphere under which the 1964 election was held. Again in the constitutional crisis thrown up by the disputed election result, the Fulani outfoxed their Igbo rivals.

    The first recorded Igbo victory against their Fulani political rivals followed the January 1966 Igbo led military coup which decimated the political and military leadership of the north. The victory however was short-lived as the Fulani came back with a vengeance in July 1966, mindlessly killing every Igbo military officer in sight. The civil war that followed (1967-70) ended in favour of Fulani political elite.

    By 1979, the Igbo political elite, often driven by quest for material resources and access to power have forgotten the scar of war as they became the ‘beautiful bride’ to Fulani-dominated NPN, an offspring of NPC of the first republic. Even rebel leader Odumegwu Ojukwu who escaped to Ivory Coast as Obasanjo closed on his last hold of Biafra, returned home to embrace the Fulani-controlled NPN. The romance between the two rivals again fell apart over sharing of offices and resources shortly before the 1983 election.

    In 1999, Obasanjo, the Fulani candidate was roundly rejected by his Yoruba people. Igbo political elite filled the gap. They featured prominently in his administration. They also exploited the clueless President Azikiwe Jonathan to the maximum building millennium cities and mansions in Abuja without remembering their south eastern states. Jonathan loss of power to a Fulani man has rekindled the old rivalry. They agonised not only because they are out of power but also because they lost the position of spare tyre they had always held to their Yoruba political enemy for the first time in our nation’s history.

    But who are the Fulani and the Igbo of Nigeria? The former were fortune seekers who came from Futa Jallon about 1804. Under the guise of purifying the Islamic faith that had existed for over 400 years, they overran the Hausa state.  But to underscore it was all about quest for power and quest for fortune, of the 12 leaders appointed by Othman Dan Fodio, all but one were of Fulani tribe .

    But the Fulani are astute politicians and empire builders. They adopted Hausa as the lingua franca while keeping their Fulfulde language, spoken only by the Fulani as language of power. Key influential members of the conquered territories are integrated through marriage, business and politics. Ahmadu Bello who was satisfied as the power behind the throne appointed Balewa, a non-Fulani minority who in his autobiography, had referred to his grandmother who had wished all Fulani sent away from their land or be killed, Prime Minister of Nigeria. The Fulani master stroke was deployed in July 1966, when the aggrieved mainstream Fulani military officers settled for Gowon, a Christian from Plateau state as Head of state.

    From the fortunes secured from the conquered territories, the Fulani overlords gave fish to the subjects rather than teach them how to fish. They eat food together from the same bowl while sitting on the bare floor with their subjects.  And because they have been programmed not to see the difference between the masters and the serfs, they are easy to mobilise to support and sustain the system that weighed heavily against them whether during elections, census exercises or even social upheavals.

    They became easy tools in the hands of their Fulani leaders which led to the killing of over 40 southerners. The northern mobs did not need more than the body language of their leaders in July 1966 before embarking to on mindless killings of those Igbo they believed openly celebrated the killing of their benefactors.

    The Igbo political elite on the other hand lack the political wizardry and the diplomatic astuteness of their Fulani rival.  For instance, despite claiming to have investment of about N43trillion in the north, they have for two years engaged on campaign of hate against the same north. They are not at peace with their neighbours including Rivers where the issue of Igbo abandoned properties had lingered on for about 50 years despite the fact that Ikwere Igbos produced the last three governors of the state. They are similarly not at peace with the Yoruba where they have always found acceptance.

    What they however also share in common with their political rival is the exploitation of their often vulnerable Igbo urban immigrants who need protection in a strangers land for political ends. For instance when Akinsanya, an Ijebu man and Zik’s candidate lost to Ernest Ikoli an Ijaw man and Awo’s candidate during Nigerian Youth Movement election, Awo was tarred with the brush of tribalism and the Igbo believed their leader.

    Although NCNC was a predominantly Yoruba, but the moment Zik lost a chance to represent Lagos to Dr. Olorunnimbe, another stalwart of NCNC, Yoruba became traitors to the Igbo cause. Zik as premier of East did not enjoy the support of mainstream Igbo who regarded him as Onitsha Igbo; but when the Yoruba in 1952 insisted they preferred Yoruba as premier of the West to an Igbo man, Igbo political elite claimed Yoruba started tribal politics in Nigeria.

    What unites the Fulani and their Igbo rivals who have over the years put the interest of their members above that of Nigeria is more than what divide them. Except the predatory political rivals who regard every part of Nigeria as “a no man’s land’, informed Nigerians know the cheapest way to tackle the menace of Fulani herdsmen terrorism, kidnapping and distribution of dangerous drugs is through state, local and community policing.