The Nation Newspaper

Category: Thursday

  • Ranting of a general

    Ranting of a general

    Former Chief of Army Staff Lt Gen Ishaya Rizi Bamaiyi has opened a Pandora’s box with his memoir titled :’’ Vindication of  a general’’. How he arrived at that title I do not know. What I know is that Nigerians will never forget how he dealt with them as army chief between 1996 and 1999. Bamaiyi was a disaster of an army chief. He held an office which he did not have the temperament for. Though I have not been privileged to read his book, what I have gleaned from newspapers so far is enough for me to talk about the man Bamaiyi because I was in this country when he was army chief.

    Bamaiyi served as the late Gen Sani Abacha’s army chief. If Abacha was evil, Bamaiyi was devilish. He was the power behind the throne who goaded the late head of state to do most of the things he did. As army chief, Bamaiyi was the eyes and ears of the late Abacha, who took all he told him as the gospel truth. Since the late Abacha was ensconced in the Villa for the fear of God knows what, the likes of Bamaiyi had a field day feeding him with titillating stories of how some people were always plotting to overthrow him. As army chief, Bamaiyi took delight in framing people up for phantom coups. Today, he wants us to see him as the best army chief this country has ever had. But no so fast, general.

    An army chief worth that name would have taken many things into consideration, particularly the period he served, before taking certain actions. Bamaiyi came into office at a most inauspicious time in the political annals of the country. It was the time the country was split along the north-south divide – a situation brought upon the country by the same army which he then headed. The annulment of the June 12, 1993 election by the Babangida junta set the country on edge. The annulment was a fatal error and in his sober moments, Gen Ibrahim Babangida will always regret his action.

    Many military officers  supported their then commander-in-chief. They felt that within a few weeks things would return to normal. They never thought that the late Chief M.K.O Abiola would put up a spirited fight for the restoration of his mandate “freely given to him by the Nigerian people on June 12, 1993”. In the heat of the June 12 crisis, Babangida was forced to ‘’step aside’’. He handed over to the dark-goggled Abacha. In no time, Abacha detained Abiola for declaring himself president at Epetedo on June 11, 1994. This was the setting when Bamaiyi became army chief in 1996. “As chief of army staff”, he said in his book, ‘’I experienced the most turbulent tenure and challenges in the history of the Nigerian Army”. He was right, but it was a problem the military brought upon itself.

    What did he do to rectify things? Rather than break the ice, he exacerbated things. But in his book, he tried to portray himself as a saint who was made to suffer for nothing. “The most challenging of my challenges is my unfair incarceration for eight years”, he claimed. If he alleges that he was “unfairly incarcerated”, what will the late Abiola family say of the treatment meted out to its patriarch. Bamaiyi was not “unfairly incarcerated”. Some of those he claimed to have treated him unjustly like former President Olusegun Obasanjo have replied him. One of those he framed up over the 1995 phantom coup, Col Gabriel Ajayi, who found some of the claims in his book horrible, also took him to the cleaners. According to Bamaiyi, former head of state Gen Abdulsalami Abubakar, Babangida and others installed Obasanjo as president in 1999. He also claimed that the Obasanjo administration planned to kill him, while Abiola died mysteriously in detention under Abdulsalami’s regime.

    Trust Obasanjo not to allow any attack to go unreplied. ‘’Who the hell is he that I would want to kill him? Kill him, for what? To achieve what? What of the people he killed? My government did not plot to kill him. My government asked him to answer to those that were alleged to have been killed by him, and that is legitimate. That if there is an allegation that you have done something, that you have committed a crime and you are arrested, you should answer. There were allegations. The police and other law enforcement agencies decided to look into the allegations. They invited him and they asked him to answer as a result of what was found. So, they charged him to court’’. It is the outcome of the court case that has emboldened Bamaiyi to write the ‘’Vindication of a general’’. He may have been acquitted by the law court, but he will never be acquitted in the people’s court.

    Describing him as a liar for his claim that Abiola died mysteriously under Abdulsalami’s watch, Col Ajayi said : ‘’It is not in my character to impugn the sanctity of senior military officers because we worship  people like that in the military. Unfortunately, when a senior officer descends into the sewage tank, the officer cannot expect to smell of perfume. Bamaiyi is a devious person. He is a fraud. The book is a comedy of errors and a fictional thriller. It should be titled: The platform of Mallam Bamaiyi (reminds me of the late Cyprian Ekwensi’s great novel: The passport of Mallam Ilia). Do not mind him. At the Oputa panel, Gen Ibrahim Sabo alleged that when Abacha died, Bamaiyi said the military should equal the equation. How could he claim that Gen Abdulsalami should be held accountable for Abiola’s death when he was among those who tortured Abiola before he died’’.

    I do not know what prompted Bamaiyi to write this book than his hunger for vindication. His acquittal for the attempted murder of Mr Alex Ibru, the late Guardian publisher, will never wash him clean of all the atrocities he committed under the late Abacha. ‘’History’’, the late Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe said, ‘’will vindicate the just’’. But the posterity, which Bamaiyi claimed to have written his book for, will never vindicate him because he was not just, fair and equitable while in office.

  • ‘Let us give our leaders a mass burial’

    There is a trending video on social media. In the video, some disillusioned youth suggested: “Let us give our leaders a mass burial.” Beneath his disillusionment and perceptible scorn, he probably speaks the mind of a greater section of the Nigerian youth – boondocks youth to be precise.

    Time will come when the Nigerian ruling class will pay with blood and despair. From six-feet under and grisly jail cells, they will lust for life and desperately seek a second chance with a kind of humble defeatism. Likewise, the Nigerian electorate will pay with greater bloodshed and tragedy, while craving the peace they gobble up as ‘stomach infrastructure’ even as you read.

    Every Nigerian yearns for a better tomorrow but we have “today” and fail to make the best of it. Now more than ever, we enumerate that pitiful lack of wisdom and aversion to freedom. Like the ruling class, a greater section of the Nigerian citizenry despise intellect and knowledge – useful knowledge to be precise. Little wonder, the Nigerian family chooses to stand with #Efenation, #Bisolanation, #TBossnation, on Big Brother Nigeria’s perverse reality even as they wish death and interminable bloodshed on our fatherland.

    Even if spurred by inexorable courage to topple the elite and change our stars, the Nigerian tragedy will persist in frequency and extent. This is because it is a human tragedy and not a quirk interred in some mythical ‘system.’ After the bones of the last of the ruling class are interred, we shall raise our heads to seek our next best hero only to find none because the survivors will be worse than the interred ruling class.

    The average Nigerian is a beast in the closet. Left to his devices, he displays unforgivable inhumaneness and lack of character. Simply put, were our dreams of change realisable, we shall always remain the next awful alternative. Sophistry and deceit are the springboards from which much of our civilization evolve. Add mediocrity, mindlessness and greed, and you have a perfect representation of the Nigerian state.

    We were wrong to think it a matter of years and decades that we would improve in citizenship and insight. We pride ourselves on our education but yet remain unaware – like our base and iniquitous elite – that true knowledge essentially translates to being an emissary of truth, hope, superior culture and progress to both the literate and unschooled.

    We forget too that the true essence of learning, that is, both intellectual and vocational learning, is never simply to teach breadwinning, furnish teachers for the public schools or be an epitome of polite society. It should above all be the appendage of that fine adjustment between reality and the growing knowledge of life. An adjustment which discovers the secret of civilization and the solution to its seemingly intractable problems, according to WEB Dubois.

    Insanely, to this end, we apply religion and milk it. Thus by every manner of faith, we commit gross inhuman transgressions – like playing God, terrorism, mass murder, inordinate lust for flesh and money.

    Today, we lack that broad knowledge of what the world knows and strives to know of progress – which besides food, shelter and clothing is knowledge. Without it, we become basically unequipped and sorely handicapped to satisfy our need for food, shelter and clothing.

    Thus the need to evolve and painstakingly propagate practicable knowledge and culture in unexploited and infinite capacity.Until we attain a broad, busy abundance of such understanding, not all the finest flavours of the proverbial national cake – be they oven-baked or sand-baked – can save us from our lusts and the affliction by the Nigerian ruling class.

    The knowledge we flaunt is basically a ghost of human education. Sadly, it despises the enlightenment and empowerment of the masses. Thus under its foul stench, we fight a lost battle for survival within the tainted air of politicised corruption, social strife and entrepreneurial selfishness. More significantly, the progress we seek is impeded by our lust for cynicism and delusions of grandeur. We starve and die for lack of honest and broadly cultured men.

    Patience, humility, good breeding and taste. Comprehensive high schools and kindergartens, universities and polytechnics, industrial and technical colleges, teacher training colleges, literature, tolerance and tact – all these spring from proper learning and culture.

    It’s time we engaged in pursuit and dissemination of knowledge devoid of loose and careless logic, like the type that produced and still produce a good number of the Nigerian electorate and ruling class. And Du Bois intones, the final product of our training must be neither a medical doctor nor journalist but a man. A full man to be precise.

    To make such men, our learning process must be replete with ideals as well as broad, pure, practicable and inspiring ends of living. Not desperate, sordid, money-grabbing sound bites. The end product of our educational process must have learnt to work for the glory of his calling, not simply for pecuniary gains. The intellectual must think for truth and progress, not for fame or the applause of the gallery.

    All these are attainable via human endeavour and a conscious quest for truth and beneficial knowledge. To bring about such bliss requires the presence of substantially gifted men of courage and culture – a principal prerequisite we seem infinitely handicapped to fulfill. Thus we have shadows of men constituting the Nigerian ruling elite and youth. Consequently, we have learnt to live off the attainments of men of stature accessible now in history and diminishing daguerreotypes.

    The ruling class couldn’t be bothered if our educational system is wrecked beyond redemption; the philosophy of its intransigence is discernible in its greed and brazen disregard for the future. The politics of greed and incompetence of the incumbent administration, like its predecessors, demands that it neglects the core issues militating against the success of the Nigerian education enterprise. Such issues include inadequate funding, poor research facilities, inadequate infrastructure, outdated lecturers and teaching methods, obsolete libraries and laboratories and the degenerate politics of discrimination between Nigeria’s polytechnic and university enterprise.

    Hence the fraudulence and apparent cowardliness of the incumbent administration in addressing Nigeria’s unending educational crisis – simply because the final products end up to be you and me and every minion unfortunate to belong to the Nigerian working class.

    It is therefore, the duty of every constituent of the Nigerian youth to see that in the future competition for our mandate, the survival of the fittest shall mean the triumph of the humane, unpopular and true.

  •  Democracy blues

    THE foundation of the executive-legislature rift which we are witnessing today was laid about two years ago.  The proclamation and dissolution  of the National Assembly are a presidential prerogative, according to Section 64 (3) of the 1999 Constitution. In exercising this power, President Muhammadu Buhari about two weeks after he assumed office on May 29, 2015, issued an order for the proclamation of the National Assembly on June 9.

    On the day of the Senate’s inauguration, only Dr. Bukola Saraki and his loyalists were in the Red Chamber, Ahmad Lawan and his supporters were at the International Conference Centre (ICC)  waiting for a meeting with the president that never held. The All Progressives Congress (APC) was lucky that the opposing Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) did not contest the Senate presidency with Saraki. If the party had, Saraki’s chances of getting the plum job would have been slim because it had the number that day to do havoc to his ambition.

    The PDP showed its strength in the election of deputy Senate president in which Ike Ekweremadu floored Ali Ndume. This was the faulty premise on which the Senate took off. Rather than put that episode behind it, APC keeps returning to it and dragging the country backward. Being the upper chamber in the bicameral legislature, anything that happens in the Senate affects the National Assembly. If all is well with the Senate, it will be well with the National Assembly. And if anything is wrong with the Senate, it will rub off on the National Assembly.

    I believe strongly that we should look beyond Saraki in our relationship with the Senate. Saraki is an individual, who is fortunate to be Senate president today. Certainly, he cannot hold that office forever, but the Senate will long remain after he is gone.

    Our respect for the Senate should not be misconstrued as respect for Saraki. But, this is not to say that we should not respect him as Senate president. In a democracy, the legislature stands out. Without it, governance may get stuck. There is no way the executive can perform without the support of the legislature and vice versa. Like hands, they must wash each other to be clean.

    What will the people gain from the executive-legislature rift?  Nothing, because when two elephants fight, the grass suffers. The executive and legislature should complement each other instead of antagonising themselves. Their rift does not bode well for the country. The way to get them to work together is to ensure that each knows its place in the scheme of things. The Senate should not bite more than it can chew, while the executive should not try to lord it over the upper chamber.

    In the past few months, we have witnessed an unnecessary power show between the Senate and some individuals. We have seen the Senate battle the Presidency to no end over the confirmation of Ibrahim Magu as Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) chairman. The senators are bent on taking on Comptroller-General of Customs Col Hameed Ali (rtd) over whether or not he should appear before them in uniform. They are not keeping quiet over Secretary to the Government of the Federation David Babachir Lawal who they accused of corruption. There is also the face off with eminent lawyer Prof Itse Sagay (SAN) over whether or not he should appear before the Senate. What about the threat not to screen resident electoral commissioners (RECs) because of the executive’s refusal to comply with its resolutions? These are issues which should not generate heat, if there is an understanding between the executive and the legislature. But, the chemistry,  which could get them to work together, is missing because some people have not forgotten how the Senate leadership emerged.

    Unfortunately, if things remain as they are, the people will continue to pay the price. As a sage once said, it is good to know how to fight, but it is better to know when to retreat. I think both arms are at war because they are not conversant with their powers under the Constitution. By virtue of Section 171 (1)  of the Constitution, the president can appoint persons to hold or act in certain offices without recourse to the Senate. Some of these offices are : Secretary to the Government of the Federation;  Head of the Civil Service of the Federation; Permanent Secretary in any Ministry or Head of any extra-ministerial department of the government of the federation howsoever designated; and Any office on the personal staff of the president.

    Such appointments, according to Section 171 (6) shall be at the pleasure of the president and shall cease when the president ceases to hold office. The Senate should stop fighting over Magu’s nomination because constitutionally, it has no power whatsoever to screen him since he is to head an extra-ministerial department of government. It may have a point in insisting on Ali appearing before it in uniform because he heads a uniformed para-military outfit. If Ali had been appointed from within the service, he would today be donning the customs uniform. So, why is he shying away from wearing  uniform? Whether he wears uniform or not will have no bearing on his performance because the hood does not make the monk. But as head of a disciplined organisation, he should show discipline by wearing uniform.

    Who can the Senate summon? Section 89 (1) (c) states unambiguously that the Senate can summon any person in Nigeria to give evidence at any place or produce any document or other thing in his possession or under his control… So, by virtue of this provision, the Senate can summon anybody that it feels can help it in the discharge of its duty and also examine him or her,  if need be. The Constitution also empowers it to compel the attendance of such person, if he or she refuses to answer the summon. Our democracy is on trial today because we are still learning. But in the process, we should be careful not to destroy the institutions of democracy.

    We may not like the faces of many of our senators today, but we should refrain from disrespecting the Senate as an institution because of what it stands for as the highest lawmaking organ in the country. Hopefully after last Tuesday’s peace meeting convened by APC, things will begin to move the way they should between the executive and legislature. How I wished the reconciliation came earlier.

  • Dino Melaye as the Nigerian story

    Who is Dino Melaye? This is a question that has agitated the minds of Nigerians whose sensibilities have come under severe assault in the last two years. However, relief seems to have come the way of affronted Nigerians with the outcome of a probe of educational claims of Melaye by the Senate Committee of Ethics and Privileges. The outcome has convinced outraged Nigerians that besides sympathy and understanding, Melaye deserves admiration for his courage to turn adversity into opportunity. Melaye represents the archetypal Nigerians who Chinua Achebe in his “The trouble with Nigeria” says have been in the rain for too long, and the moment they got out of the rain, swore none of their generations would go back to the rain.

    We now have an explanation for Melaye’s obsession with exotic cars each of which he named after himself. We now know why he proudly told a reporter he had built his Abuja mansions long before he became a senator in 2015 even though available records show the only job he ever did besides serving as Special Adviser on Youths under Obasanjo’s presidency in 2005 was as a member of House of Representatives for four years. This also gave us an idea as to how Melaye has been able to secure the support of. Nigerian youths especially those from his Kogi West who were falling over each other to give him awards upon awards  and their community leaders that overwhelmed him with chieftaincy titles. And finally the outcome of the probe provides an insight into why Melaye and Saraki were desperate to capture the 8th Senate.

    For Melaye, charity begins at home. He launched his crusade by first seducing our miracle-seeking Nigerian youths, starting with those of his Kogi West Local Government, by attributing the source of his stupendous wealth to God. And to secure their unwavering loyalty, he swore he was in politics to ensure ‘Nigerian youths get their own fair share of the national resources.’This message of miracle from Melaye whose life itself is a miracle resonates well with our jobless youths, especially those of his Kogi West.  The passionate appeal by Oby Ezekiweili, a former Education Minister,  to Nigerian youths to take their future in their hands  and  stop laughing ‘while tragi-comedians that cost more than 100 billion’ carry on at the national assembly’, went into the deaf ears as the youths honoured Melaye with award after award. He is today the proud recipient of the following awards: the ‘Best Honourable Representative of the Year from the Global Youth Awareness and Development Initiative; the ‘Protector of the Youth’ award from the PDP National Youth Vanguard, ‘the Epitome of Servant’ from the National Association of Kogi State Students …And  to the  Nigerian Economic Students Association,  he is ‘ Great Motivator of Students’  and to the  Kogi Peoples Forum, he is the ‘Icon of Good Leadership and from the Vision 2020 Youth Group, he acquired ‘ the most performed National Legislator’ award.

    Melaye has since extended his exploits to the elders of his Kogi West community who, like their counterparts elsewhere in the country, have traded their taste for local wine for imported spirits, and the value they once placed on name and character for free money either in form of 5% LG budget allocation from Abuja or direct donation from their Abuja representatives or ministers. That Melaye has found acceptance among his community elders is evidenced by the number of chieftaincy titles he has so far acquired.  They include  the ‘Otunba of Bunu Kingdom’, the Arogundade of Ogagi Amuro; Olugbayi of Gbede; Gbeluro of Ogidi; Ariwajoye of Ekinrin Adde; Oluamofin of Okoro Gbede; Asiwaju of Oke-Offin; Olugbeye of Aiyetoro-Gbede; Alutushe of Oke-bukun;and Bolagunwa of Obajana, among others.

    To move from the home front to the national arena, Melaye came up with other strategies. He became a social critic and a crusader who, according to Magu, was fighting corruption along with EFCC operatives…As a senator elect in 2015, he was sure of his mission in the Senate. His popularity and influence have been on the rise from the moment he seconded Yerima’s motion to adopt Saraki as President of the Senate by acclamation in the absence of 51 elected APC members. He has moved on to become the de facto deputy senate president whose major assignment seems to be crude attack on his principal’s political adversaries. To execute this goal, he constituted himself into an effective leadership of the ‘82 like minds senators’ that have demonstrated on many occasions that they are ready to swim or drown with Saraki. If there is any doubt as to who the 8th  Senate is out to serve,  Melaye cleared such doubt during his last week interview with Channels Television over the suspension of Senator Ndume for calling for a probe into the Customs and Sahara Reporters allegations against Saraki and Melaye.  According to him, ‘if Ndume shows remorse, apologises to the senate’, Bukola Saraki who is a compassionate leader who does not engage in witch-hunting, will persuade members to either reduce the punishment or to forgive him.’  Dear compatriots, what is the worth of the Nigerian 8th Senate?  The picture of the 8th Senate in people’s head after this unguarded and unrestrained statement is that of Kwara fiefdom Bukola Saraki inherited from his father after fifty years of manipulation and exploitation of the state’s hapless citizens.

    Perhaps what may end up as Melaye’s  greatest victory is the current efforts at dragging the nation to their level. Some otherwise credible Nigerian opinion leaders are already saying the answer to Melaye and Saraki is negotiation and that the name of the game in the US is lobbying. But while both houses in the US protect interests of groups, what the Saraki and Melaye new converts are not telling Nigerians is whose interest Melaye and the 82 like mind senators are protecting. The more we look, the more blurred the difference between the interest of Saraki and those of the captured 82 like mind senators becomes.

    Melaye, according to the outcome of the probe by the Senate Ethics and Privileges Committee, is a third class graduate of ABU. And I think for holding in check 82 like mind senators, some of whom are professors, captains of industries and accomplished professionals, he deserves our admiration. As Bishop Mathew Kukahw reportedly  observed: the story of our country is that the first-class brains read medicine and engineering, the second-class brains read MBAs to manage the most talented in our society while the third class go into politics to manage all of us.

  • Recession, exchange rate adjustment and growth

    Recession, exchange rate adjustment and growth

    For more than two years now, Nigeria has been in a recession, one of the worst in its recent economic and financial history. Last year, the economy contracted by 1-3 per cent, the exchange rate of the naira against the US$ fell sharply as a result of falling oil revenues, and the inflation rate rose to nearly 18 per cent. All these economic and financial indicators caused much concern in our country. The direct consequences of the sudden downturn in the domestic economy included massive job losses, large federal budget deficits, a resort to both internal and external borrowing to cover the huge deficits, and a loss of investors’ confidence in our economy.

    Obviously, something radical and drastic needed to be done to stabilise the domestic economy and bring it back into equilibrium. In all this, domestic factors are clearly important. Some of these include our high population growth rate (averaging 3 per cent), mass poverty, high rate of unemployment, high infant mortality rates, low literacy rates, terrorist activities, a fragile political system and institutional weaknesses. All these make it more difficult to effect the necessary structural adjustment to tackle the recession in our economy and adjust to external factors. In view of Nigeria’s high import dependency, we needed to cut back on imports by introducing a barrage of fiscal and monetary measures. Of these, the most crucial is the exchange rate adjustment of the naira, the national currency.

    This is the economic and financial situation the CBN has been battling with in the last two years. Its strategy was one of managed exchange rate adjustment, instead of a free floating exchange rate adjustment. But the practical and predictable effect of its strategy was the wide divergence of exchange rates of the official market and the so-called black market, with the latter forcing the official rate down. This divergence in exchange rates has led to policy distortions. Instead of a uniform exchange rate, we have had at least five different exchange rates. These multiple exchange rates, including a different one for religious pilgrimage, indicate a form of subsidy, a negation of the policy and strategy of the removal of all forms of subsidies from the domestic economy. Now, these distortions in exchange rates lead to a loss of investors’ confidence in the economy. It makes planning of any kind virtually impossible and constrains growth in the economy.

    More recently, the increase in oil exports and revenue has allowed the CBN to increase its supply of forex into the economy. It has begun to drop its resistance to the nominal devaluation of the naira, a policy that was doomed to failure in the light of the sharp fall in oil revenues and forex. The naira remained overvalued. One indicator of overvaluation of any currency is the difference between official nominal exchange rates and parallel market rates. Where, as in Nigeria, the parallel market rate is a third higher than the official rate, there is a case of overvaluation involved. As was expected, the divergence in exchange rates between the official inter-bank market and the bureaux de change has narrowed considerably because of the increased supply by the CBN into the economy. It is reported that the CBN’s strategy and target is to get the exchange rate down to N250 to the US dollar. This is commendable and, if sustained, will be a shot in the arm for the economy.

    However, despite the obvious signs of a contraction in the recession, and the narrowing of the divergence in the exchange rates of the official and parallel markets, it is not yet UHURU. The IMF is not always right in its advice and prescriptions to poor countries that are facing a recession. Its blanket advice to cut public spending tends to intensify a recession rather than ease it. It does not take account of the variability in the economic conditions of the countries to which it is offering advice. To get out of a recession, governments need to spend more through internal and external borrowings to stimulate economic activities and create more jobs. However, our fiscal and monetary authorities cannot completely ignore advice from the IMF and the World Bank on how to end the recession and resume growth. In addition to our forex strategy, the economy needs complementary fiscal and monetary measures to bring it out of recession and resume modest growth.

    In its recent review of the economic situation in Nigeria, while commending the CBN for its forex management, the IMF advised the Nigerian authorities to ‘remove the remaining restrictions and multiple currency practices, thus unifying the foreign exchange market’, and this strategy ‘should be supported by tighter monetary policy and fiscal consolidation to anchor inflation expectations”. This is advice that should not be ignored. Inflation is now close to 18 per cent as a result of the sharp increase in money supply. Inflation undermines economic growth and tends to reinforce the divergence in exchange rates between the official and parallel markets. In addition, the injection of forex into the economy should be measured and not done too hurriedly as it has the potential of ‘overshooting’ the stability needed in the exchange rates.

    There is already a slum in the demand for forex, a clear indication that some of the demand was speculative. There is also some evidence of round tripping in the sale and disbursement of forex by the banks. It was reported recently that two directors of the CBN were implicated in the fraudulent round tripping of forex to the BDCs. Too much supply of forex to the banks will reinforce this criminal tendency in the sale of foreign exchange. Besides, there is a lot of stolen money being hurriedly converted into forex to conceal it from prying eyes, particularly the EFCC.

    In addition, it is difficult to predict how long the increase in oil exports and revenue will last. A crisis in oil exports and revenue is always around the corner. The CBN will, in the circumstances, be well advised to keep the sale of forex to its barest minimum so as to avoid getting again into a situation of wider divergence in exchange rates.

     

  • Domesticated Buhari and more serious matters

    Muhammadu Buhari is responsible for his travails via the Nigerian Senate. But this is a discussion for another day. There are more important things to worry about than the domestication of the Nigerian President by a juvenile senate.

     

    Shame…

    Shame. It’s an embarrassment that no one can see it or ably do something about it: I speak of that keen, thin scent of decay that scorches our psyche and everything; that afflicts with a terrible streak, the superficial inertia, abiding laziness and fraudulence that fills our hearts.

    We have been corrupted by money and sentiment; and sentiment even more dangerous because we still can’t name its price. A man open to bribe is to be relied upon below a certain figure, gratification or artifact, but sentiment may uncoil in the heart at a name, a platitude…even a smell remembered.

    Bet you can feel it now, even as you read; that flagrant, scented stench of putrefaction that announces our innate nature. Feel it now; that you may remember this stench when everybody and everything are shed of trait, in that dreaded epoch when Nigeria gives to rancidness and collapse.

    Until then, we shall continue to have “today” everyday. And every day, “today” will continue to be unfortunate – because we are simply programmed to self-destruct. How unfortunate! Nigeria’s unfortunate situation besides it’s benefaction of a class of desperate, uncultured, emasculated and hopeless breadline, has also foisted upon the nation, an inferior working class who, in spite of daunting socio-economic realities, are accumulating property and obviously indefensible academic honours.

    This class is not nearly as powerful as a fairer socioeconomic system might make it, hence those who survive in spite of the daunting economic realities are handicapped in intellect and character and thus accomplish much less than they deserve to. The fraction of the successful within this class is usually left to chance and accident, and not to any intelligent culling or rational method of selection.

    We cannot hope, then, in this generation, or for several generations, that the mass of the Nigerian working class can be excited to assume that humane and altruistic leadership of the underprivileged which our current reality so desperately demands. Such leadership culture must be fostered by the underprivileged working class itself.

    For a long while, the Nigerian ruling class have doubted, albeit justifiably, as to whether the country’s working class could develop that humane leadership we profess to want; today no one can seriously dispute the incapability of this class of Nigerians to nurture, incorporate and ably exploit such culture and uncommon aptitude of modern civilization for the benefit of present and future generations.

    In pursuit of a remedy for this evident deterioration in citizenship and thought, we must accept the inferiority and degeneracy of the Nigerian working class as a reality, unpardonable in its intensity, regrettable in consequence, and perilous for the future.

    Thus the imperativeness of crucial and practicable steps by the working class to forge its way out of the thorny thickets and tangles of our current situation – the survival of Nigeria depends on the survival of this class. This imposes the essential demand for trained, dependable Nigerian leaders sired from the working class.

    These individuals of aptitude and character are inherently men of ability, sophistication, and industry. They are men who thoroughly understand and treasure modern civilization; men capable of assuming leadership of Nigerian communities and improving them by force of precept and example, unfathomable compassion, and the inspiration of common blood and ideals.

    But if such men are to be effectual, they must have access to power – they must be bolstered by the best public opinion and be able to wield for their objects and aims such weaponry as the experience of the world has taught are indispensable to human cum national progress.

    Of such weapons the greatest, perhaps, in the modern world used to be the power of the ballot; but ever since the Nigerian populace forsook their right and power to choose the best among our kind to lead us to the future of our dreams; the need for a pervasive and ultimately progressive culture of citizenship cum patriotism became more pronounced.

    The attitude of the Nigerian mind toward democracy and other political measures of self-determination can be traced with unusual accuracy to our prevalent conceptions of government. In pursuit of freedom from our British colonialists, we argued that no social class or race was so good, so true and disinterested to be trusted wholly with the political destiny of its neighbors; that in every state the best arbiters of their own welfare are the persons directly affected; and that it is only by arming every hand with a ballot, with the right to have a voice in the policy and politics of the state, that the greatest good to the greatest number could be attained.

    Expectedly, there were objections to these arguments, but we thought we had answered them quite convincingly; if someone complained of the ignorance of voters, we recommended that we educate them. If another complained of their venality, we suggested that we disenfranchise them or cast them in jail. And in response to fears of demagogues and the natural perversity of certain Nigerians, we insisted that time and bitter experience would teach even the most hideous among them.

    It’s over five decades since we won our right to self-rule and Nigeria disappointedly remains a deterrence in the human propensity to self-destruct. Having won back our freedom, we have become wholly incapable to protect Nigeria from us who do not believe in our freedom and have not yet charted a blueprint for believing in our right to have it.

    This explains why we are yet to use the ballot intelligently and quite effectively. We do not understand how to channel that proverbial power we are believed to possess nor have we been able to discern the possession of a power so great that it could compel the more privileged and politically conscious elements amongst us to educate, enlighten and thus emancipate the less privileged and ignorant to its clever use.

    It is no minor impediment that trammels the economic and intellectual development of the Nigerian citizenry. Can we establish a mass of students, laborers, artisans and technocrats who, by law and collective opinion, constitute a great, reckonable voice in shaping the political and economic clime in which they live and toil?

     

    •To be continued

  • Senators at work

    Senators at work

    UNKNOWN to its army of critics, the Eighth Senate is methodically writing its way into the history books. In other words, by the time it winds down and becomes history, it would have entered history – as the most memorable assemblage of our best.

    The pace of legislative work is breathtaking. It is unprecedented. The Bill to prohibit tribal marks is almost ready. So also is the one on genital mutilation. Many resolutions and motions have been passed,  including the one for Nigerian men to be allowed to marry two wives, moved by Senator Ali Ndume, the fellow who got into trouble by suggesting, perhaps against all known ethical standards of the Senate, that Senate President Bukola Saraki and Senator Dino Melaye be investigated.

    All this and more are targeted at eliminating all those ideas, thoughts and practices that have held Nigeria hostage.

    But will the hunter’s enemies ever concede to him that he has killed a big game? Will they ever stop saying, “See the little animal he has killed and he celebrates himself as a great hunter?”  The Senate, like the hunter, keeps attracting critics who will never appreciate its huge contributions to the survival of our democracy.

    Consider the simple matter of the Customs chief Hameed Ali who has been honoured with a summons to appear before the Senate in the uniform of the Comptroller General (C.G.). He has refused to oblige. He says the matter has become the subject of a legal dispute and any further move, thought, action and statement on it would be prejudicial to the proceedings. The Senate stands its ground, insisting that Col. Ali must comply with its resolution or face sanctions.

    From a small Committee Room at the National Assembly where Col. Ali was turned back on account of improper dressing, the matter has become the subject of major discussions in restrooms, newsrooms, staffrooms and courtrooms. Everywhere.

    Some say Ali should just have respected the institution of the Senate – not necessarily the senators – by wearing the uniform. By so doing, say those who belong in this school of thought, he would  be contributing his own quota to building institutions, an ideal which we all must pursue to nurture our democracy to maturity. Individuals will pass on but institutions will remain, perhaps forever, they say.

    Others disagree, saying: “Uniform or no uniform, is the Customs Service doing well or not? Those who wore the uniform in the past, what did they do? Why make a mountain out of a molehill? Na uniform we go chop?”

    Contrary to what some people have been alleging without proof, the Senate did not embark on the Ali-must-wear-Customs-uniform debate out of idleness or to kill boredom.

    One usually knowledgeable source has told me exclusively that, after what he described as a long, tortuous, painstaking and rigorous intellectual brainstorming, after considering all the facts available to it, the Senate came to the firm conclusion that if  all key government officials wear uniforms, there would be a dramatic improvement in our standards of living. Life expectancy would skyrocket, infant mortality would be a thing of the past, and poverty would get a final farewell. Besides, corruption would be checkmated in its desperate bid to kill Nigeria.

    Senators, in other words, have discovered that our problem as a nation lies essentially in our mode of dressing.

    Imagine the Works, Power and Housing Minister going to work in a workman’s boots, overalls or a pair of jeans and a helmet. This, going by the exotic wisdom and logic of the senators’ formula, will surely make everybody sit up. The  epileptic electricity supply will give way to a new era of abundance in which more ECOWAS countries will enjoy uninterrupted supply – courtesy of Nigeria. All the potholes on our roads will simply disappear and we will all be driving with great pleasure. Old, rickety bridges will be smashed and in their place new, glittering edifices that will make many of the world’s big cities envious. What is more, every Nigerian who desires to own a house will have his dream fulfilled.

    The minister of Health, needless to say, should always deck out in a doctor’s white coat, a stethoscope dangling on his neck like a hip hop star’s golden necklace. All the challenges that have ailed that sector – strikes, obsolete equipment, fake drugs, fake personnel and poor funding, will, of course, vanish like ice cream under the scorching sun.

    Aviation has been in the news recently, with the closure of the Abuja Airport and the rehabilitation of the alternative Kaduna Airport. Would all the noise over the repair of the Abuja Airport’s runway be necessary if Minister Rotimi Amaechi had adopted the uniform formula? Imagine the honourable minister showing up in a pilot’s uniform. There would have been no such problem as safety concern, grounded airlines, inadequate navigational aids and shortage of funds. Above all, no aircraft will drop from the sky.

    The controversial matter of Senator Dino Melaye’s educational background seems to have been settled somehow. He did everything to convince the world that he at a certain time was a student of the famous Ahmadu Bello University(ABU). He posted on the internet a picture of his NYSC days, with the senator wearing just a blue shirt while others turned out in the NYSC uniform. In fact, the Vice Chancellor was at the National Assembly to testify that Melaye was, indeed, a former student who went by the name Daniel Jonah Melaye.

    Melaye, fearing that all this might not avail, stormed the National Assembly in an academic gown. And all the noise subsided. Ah, the power of a uniform. His action, many have said, was a denigration of the academic culture. He is not qualified to wear the particular dress he wore as it is not for holders of first degrees.

    Another source, no less reliable, has just told me how, long before the uniform issue became the subject of a national debate, a minister had discovered the astounding gains of wearing a uniform. He designed one for himself and has been wearing it for official and private engagements.

    Those ignorant fellows who hide under dubious appellations, such as analysts, public affairs commentators and social critics, descended on the minister. Some described him as a new Civil Defence recruit awaiting his first set of uniforms. Others said he was an overzealous member of the Boys Scout. Yet, others dismissed him as an ex-serviceman-turned-doorman.

    But, nobody, not even the most virulent of his critics, will deny that his ministry has recorded some marvelous achievements that have made him the envy of his peers. Again, the wonders of a uniform.

    Step forward Solomon Dalong, the Honorable Minister of Youth and Sport.

    Now, those who have seen the senators’ fixation with uniforms as an aberration may have a rethink. Among them are those who turned it all into jokes to deride the lawmakers. I recall one of such jokes, which a colleague sent to my mobile: “PHCN. So una  finally increase una tariff after the Senate directed otherwise. Your MD must appear in uniform to explain.”

    The Senate has suspended the confirmation of 27 Resident Electoral Commissioners (RECs) because, according to them, Ibrahim Magu, the Acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), is still at his desk after failing to clear the confirmation hurdle, following a damning report from the Department of State Services (DSS).

    Magu denies any wrongdoing and is contesting the report.

    Senators are angry also that Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) Babachir Lawal shunned their invitation to answer questions on the N1.3b Presidential Initiative on the North East (PINE) contracts. He should be fired, the lawmakers said.

    President Buhari remains quiet. Magu continues to press the throttle of investigations of alleged financial misdemeanors of some Senate President Bukola Saraki’s aides. At issue is about N3.5b said to be part of the Paris-London Club loan refund to states.

    An unconfirmed source, whose maternal uncle is close to an aunt of a senator’s friend, has just told me that if the Executive still remains unyielding after the suspension of the confirmation of the RECs, the distinguished fellows will simply pass a resolution to disband it.

    A senator of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) will stand up and plead to be allowed to raise “a matter of national importance”. The Senate President, presiding, will recognise him.

    He begins to scream, his right hand pumping the air, the left holding his babaringa dress that keeps falling off his shoulders, the rage that has seized the hallowed chamber etched on his visage:

    “Considering the fact that Nigeria must not be allowed to be a greedocracy, a government of the greedy, by the greedy and for the greedy. And whereas I am ready to say the truth rather than toe the line of lies like the Executive, I hereby move that we, this distinguished Senate, suspend the Presidency until further notice. All those being persecuted for alleged corruption are hereby asked to go about their businesses in peace. President Buhari has 14 working days to report here and address distinguished senators on why Magu and Lawal are still in office. Buhari is hereby ordered to appear in the full regalia of the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. And I so move.”

    A stampede to second the motion follows.  Then, a brief debate, spiced with exceptional bitterness.

    The motion is put to the vote

    Verdict:  “The ayes have it”.

    No prize for figuring out the mover of this motion.

     

  • Arab winter

    Some years ago, the whole western press and governments were excited about the  so-called Arab Spring manifesting in revolts in the streets of Arab capitals like Tunis, Tripoli, Algiers, , Cairo , Damascus, and  in a few places in Oman , Morocco,  Yemen, and even in the emirates.

    What started over the death a young man selling fruits in Tunis who was killed by the police after allegedly resisting arrest led to regime changes in some of the Arab countries. The causes of the revolts were deep. Some arose as a result of anger against sit-tight dictatorship occasioning corruption of many of the autocratic regimes. Secondly, many of the regimes maintained themselves by brutal secret policing which included tortures, killing of opponents , abridgment of fundamental human rights, if not total intolerance of these rights . Thirdly: unemployment and hopelessness on the part of the youth and the urban and rural poor. Fourthly: the pressure from outside through the press and western -inspired telecommunication highway and the spread of western political and economic ideas in the days of globalisation.

    In the case of Libya, there was definite western subversion of the Muamar Ghadafi regime and outright military intervention by NATO, when it seemed the Ghadafi government might survive. NATO’S intervention happened because of deep-seated western hatred of the regime and the revolt merely presented it an opportunity to get rid of a troublesome presence.

    What followed is generally well known. The Tunisian regime was the first to fall, followed the Egyptian regime and then Libya. The Islamic Salvation Front (Front Islamique de Salut (FIS) tried to seize power in Algeria but the deeply entrenched FLN government led by Mohammad Abdul aziz al Bouteflika that had remained in power for decades was able to militarily suppress the incipient revolt. General Muhammad Mubarak was not able to do this in Egypt because the armed forces there broke ranks.

    The revolts in Oman, the emirate states and Syria took sectarian turn and became a struggle between Shia and Sunni. Saudi Arabia, the big elephant in the room, stood steadfast and was able to assist the Emirate states to put down some of the rebels while Oman had no problem in dealing with its malcontents. Yemen was a difficult case because of its poverty and Iranian interest in supporting the apparently Shia majority.

    Syria was a difficult and complex country, having a Sunni majority but for almost four decades ruled by a family of Alawites (Shia) represented by Bashar al Assad who is the second brutal dictator of the same family. His father had ruled for decades before him. Within Syria was not only Sunni, and Shia arabs, there were also orthodox and Assyrian Catholics, Armenians, Kurds as well as a small group of people speaking the ancient tongue of Aramaic.

    To complicate a complex situation the Russian federation that had been an ally of Syria since the soviet era had a military and naval base on its Mediterranean coast. Russia felt and feels it was being relegated to play a second fiddle to the USA in international relations with particular reference to the Middle East which is geopolitically more important to it than to the USA. It is therefore not surprising that the so-called Arab Spring in Syria has now turned to winter. The winter of despair is not only in Syria but in Yemen, Iraq and to a certain extent in Egypt, the most important of the Arab states.

    We have now witnessed the utter destruction of Syria and its ancient civilisation. The same is true of Iraq where one of the ancient civilisations of Mesopotamia has virtually been erased. The unity of Iraq has been reduced to an academic question and the country is split along sectarian and ethnic lines of Sunni, Shia and Kurd, and a new independent Kurdish state is being carved out of Iraq. Arab lands in Syria, Iraq and Yemen have been turned into shooting range and their people into target practice where new weapons are being tested through Arab surrogates or through direct military engagement by Russia.

    I recall the late president of Senegal, Leopold Sedar Senghor, the iconic intellectual statesman referring to Arabs, Jews and Africans as “a trilogy of suffering peoples.” How very apt this description of Arabs and Africans is! Of course, the Jews, like Africans, have suffered much injustice historically and are still targets of campaign of hatred. Although the Jews in the state of Israel can justifiably be regarded as oppressors of the Palestinians, the trilogy of suffering people is apt .Egypt, where the Arab Spring initially succeeded in getting rid of the kleptomaniac Mubarak regime is back in the hands of another pharaoh, General Ahmed al Sisi. It is only God or death that can remove him from office.

    The whole idea of forcing democracy down Arab throat has proved futile, and the average Arab in these ruined countries must be asking themselves what benefits have accrued to them from toying with this imported democratic ideology. Serious and fierce wars are going on in the Sinai where an affiliate of the Abubakar al Baghdadi’s caliphate is waging a terrorist campaign against the Egyptian government. Syria eventually may have to be partitioned into three spheres, Sunni, Shia and Kurd. Mosul the biggest city in Iraq, like Aleppo in Syria, is being destroyed as part of the struggle with the caliphate or the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).  Yemen is going through a proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia supported by the west through expensive sales of weapons to the Saudis. Libya no longer exists as a state and it has been reduced to a land where warlords carve out different fiefs and where the ordinary man is neither safe nor secure.

    It can easily be said that Arab lands, from North Africa to the Persian gulf, are under severe strain where internal division have been magnified by sectarian differences which, for geopolitical and economic reasons, are being exploited by Russia and the USA. For a long time to come, the Middle East is going to remain distressed, disturbed and destabilsed with dire consequences for all countries in the region, including Turkey, and with possible spillover to Europe which has now become a victim of forced migration, which is creating negative result of populism and xenophobia.

  • Breaching public trust

    STILL WONDERING why we are where we are? You need not look further because the weevil that destroys the beans lives in the beans. Our country is where it is today because of the avarice of our leaders. We have been saying this for long that our leaders are our greatest undoing. All they are interested in is their own welfare. As long as they and their families are comfortable, they care less about the people.

    A leader in the true sense of the word is expected to have the love of his people at heart because he did not put himself in office. Since he got into office by the votes of the people, he is expected to take care of their interests and do everything for their good. But what do we see? The people are only good to be courted for elections. That is when they promise us heaven and earth. It is the period we normally hear them promising to build bridges right into our bedrooms so that we would not walk to get home.

    These suckers of politicians are good at making promises, but not good at keeping them. This is why some say that if a politician greets you good morning, you should quickly look through the window to confirm that it is actually morning before replying him. What we have seen in the past 18 years shows that politicians are cut of the same cloth when it comes to stealing public funds. Party affiliation does not matter when it comes to that. If the party they belong to matters, we would have heard them disagreeing at their meetings when the issue at stake is money, but rather, it is then that they really bond together.

    Money, some say, is spirit. Whenever our governors gather at their forum, they are seized by the kukushi spirit to the extent that they forget about the people who voted them into power and start to play ludo with our money. They have not  learnt from what befell their predecessors some of whom have been publicly disgraced for looting our commonwealth. Their greed for money knows no bound and there is no money too big or too small for them not to steal. The bigger the cash the better for them. This has left people wondering whether they came to office just to steal.

    The little I know about money is that you can treat your personal money anyhow, but when it is others’ money, you must tread gingerly. Not so our governors who do not differentiate between their personal and public money. To them, every snake is to be consumed, no matter the consequence. In the last three years, workers have been groaning under the yoke of non-payment of salaries. When President Muhammadu Buhari mounted the saddle on May 29, 2015, he gave the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) a bail out to pay workers’ salaries.

    Many governors diverted the money to other things. Some, we heard, even spent the cash on their mistresses. Till today, some states are owing their workers up to 10 months. Worried by this development, the president gave some conditions for which  the Paris Club refund due to the states will be released to them. They are to settle workers’ salaries with the cash, he said, among other terms. The states agreed and part of the cash was released to them. Have they paid workers with the money? It is not certain that all the governors are doing that. One of them, who holds a ranking position in the governors’ forum, has diverted the cash to personal use.

    The governor, who belongs to the ruling party, was said to have diverted the N500million he collected to a mortgage bank. The N500million is his state’s share of the N19billion first tranche of the Paris Club cash released to states. What kind of governor is that, that would feed fat on the entitlements of his workers? Why are some of our governors so callous? Why are they so concerned about themselves without giving a thought to others? Is the world made for them and their children alone? Are they the only ones who should live well?

    Although the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission is said to have recovered the money from him, the case should not end there. The EFCC should dig deeper into it and bring the governor and his ilk  to book after the expiration of their tenure. We must do everything to stop this audacious stealing before our corrupt governors cripple the country.

    Haba, police chief

    IN every society, the police are the custodians of law and order. They enforce the law and ensure that offenders do not go unpunished. But our policemen and women seem to act in a curious way. They take delight in harassing the people on and off the road. They act contrary to the global best practice of dealing with people in a civil manner. They are brash and feel they are law unto themselves because of their uniform. The uniform does not confer them with power to deal with people, not even a criminal suspect, anyhow.  Contrary to the law, they consider you guilty even before they hear from you. This is why they are so quick to beat up  people in public or fire at them at the slightest provocation. The gender of the person they are dealing with does not matter to them. Whether a man, woman or child, they deal with them the same way. A nursing mother, Mrs Toyin Adeyeye, is their latest victim. The woman was beaten blue and black last Friday at a checkpoint in Ado Ekiti for allegedly refusing to bribe some policemen. In their defence, the policemen claimed that they descended on her because she tore their uniform.

    That’s a tall story. Their commissioner, Abdullahi Chafe, who is not in Ekiti ‘’to fight Fayose’’ swallowed the story hook, line and sinker. He did not stop there. For good effect, he added : ‘’Those people slapped my policemen on duty and tore their uniform. Uniform is an authority and what those people did was against the law and it is not good for a civilian to slap a policeman. It is not good for somebody to prevent a law enforcement officer from carrying out his lawful duty. Somebody wearing uniform? It is not about his age but the authority he carries…’’. Did Chafe hear from the woman before arriving at that conclusion? How can he be the accuser, the prosecutor and the judge in a case in which he is an interested party. Since Chafe knows the law inside out, who are we to teach him the law. With due respect to him, he was hasty in his conclusion

     

  • Between Ambode and Fashola 

    Governor Ambode is a politician. Ex-Governor Fashola is a technocrat. They will naturally see things differently. Their body language during their recent official engagement in Lagos did not only bring out their differences but also betrayed the frosty relationship between them. If you missed that, you couldn’t have but observed their choice of words as they laboured to give an impression that all was well. As if to soothe the raw nerves of his guest whom he had accused of frustrating the efforts of his administration, Ambode broke the ice by observing that ”whatever it is that we have done in the last 22 months is just more or less a fall out of the great achievements the former governor had already put in place.”

    Ambode, the brilliant politician, however did not forget to quickly add that the “remarkable change between 1999 and now was made possible by the solid foundation laid by Ahmed Bola Tinubu.” Reading in between the lines, it is not difficult to understand Ambode’s subliminal message: If Tinubu, in spite of laying the solid foundation, was humble enough to describe himself as ‘the visionary’ and Fashola ‘the actualiser’, the minister should look beyond mischief makers demonstrating in his name to emulate Tinubu who as a leader did not feel diminished by the success of his predecessor.

    The chilly relationship had been kept away from the public until Ambode’s public expression of frustration with Fashola’s Ministry of Works over his efforts to fix the broken MM International Airport Road. He had told journalists while inspecting some ongoing projects in Lagos that, ”the present state of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport Road was a national disgrace and required immediate attention to salvage the nation’s image.”  He blames the Federal Ministry of Works which, according to him, “believe that they should do the road, but have not been able to do it all these years past,” and has now constituted itself into a stumbling block at a time the state is ready with “a design of 10 lanes from Oshodi to the International Airport, cash and a willing contractor set to start and finish the work in six months.”

    Fashola , the technocrat, seems satisfied  establishing his ministry’s support for Lagos State which,  according to him, approved ‘the use of the Federal Ministry of Works yard at Oworonsoki for Lagos State Government to create a lay-by to ease traffic; granted Lagos State the Rights to manage the Street Lighting on the 3rd Mainland Bridge to support the security initiatives of the State, a request which the previous Federal Government administration had denied Lagos State for years; and that the Hon Minister also ‘supported the approval of the World Bank Loan of $200m to Lagos State, again a request the previous administration had denied Lagos State.” But the technocrat missed the point. His narratives are unrelated to the broken MM International Airport Road. In fact, with Fashola’s tales, it is not out of place to be wondering if he wants a medal for doing the right thing.

    And when it came to addressing the source of Ambode’s frustration, it was a litany of excuses. First, Raji Fashola tries to educate us on the complexity of decision-making process by the National Executive Council (NEC).  This, according to him, involves thorough debate of all issues,  and in the case of roads, it sometimes requires making surveys, maps and other material available to assist members understand the location and connectivity of the roads.’ He also wants the public to understand that Ambode’s request is complex as two of the roads he wants to take over connect Ogun State. Kaduna State, with a less complex request, according to him, followed due process by waiting for ten months to get NEC’s nod. Fashola, who does not see this as evidence of indolence on the part of NEC, seems to be asking Ambode to suspend all plans and await NEC’s due process.

    With the above scenario, we need not search any further as to why our federal system is dysfunctional at a period government has become a science with templates for managing federal government projects, procurement,  acquiring real properties and for construction. It explains why, instead of adopting the best practices in the world, we would rather settle for retroactive laws to legalise confiscation of private and public land and properties, as was the case with Babangida,   or come up with disingenuous laws enacted for the purpose of sharing our national patrimony, as was the case under the Obasanjo’s monetisation policy

    Fashola is probably too refined to become intoxicated by federal power, to deliberately set out to sabotage a state he had selflessly served for eight years as governor, but this does not make him any less dangerous to Lagos State or the west he represents in Abuja. Fashola, as a technocrat performing a political function, poses a danger to those he represents.

    For instance, as governor of Lagos State, his critics claim he was not particularly supportive of the Development Agenda for Western Nigeria (DAWN). His artless argument was that Lagos was not part of the west. It is only Fashola, the technocrat, who would not remember that the Federal  Capital  administered by the  Federal Ministry of Lagos Affairs had always been part of the west; that it was after  Dr. Olorunnibe’s  refusal to step down to allow Zik go to the centre to represent Lagos  in the early fifties that politicians like Ozumba Mbadiwe moved the motion to cede Lagos out of west, a motion ignored by Prime Minister Tafawa Balewwa  and that Ikeja, Agege, Mushin, Ikorodu, Epe, and Badagry  were taking out of   western Nigeria by Decree 14 of 25 May, 1967,  to create the present Lagos State.

    Hiding under the excuse that the roads Ambode wants to take over connect Ogun State as the reason for inaction seems to vindicate those who said the west did not need a technocrat but an astute politician in Abuja where everything is politics and where, with devious moves, deal makers could reduce a victorious party to an opposition party overnight. Fashola must realise that even as President Buhari’s foreman, he is in Abuja as a politician to protect the interest of the west, especially after eight years of marginalisation by a vindictive ex-President Obasanjo and another six years under ex-President Jonathan, his godson.

    He must not delude himself by assuming President Buhari, his principal, is not a politician. Politics flows naturally in his blood and, by the way, no one understands power politics more than a Fulani man.