The Nation Newspaper

Category: Thursday

  • Mauled by dogs

    ONLY a miracle could have saved her. Her bloodcurdling story first published in last Wednesday’s edition of The Punch pointed towards anything but her death.

    With her face, parts of her thigh and leg bandaged, five-year-old Aliyah Masaku was a sight to behold as she sat on her father’s laps in the accompanying picture to the story. The father sat dejectedly bemoaning his daughter’s fate. In that mood, I am sure if one could read his mind, Wasiu Masaku, a vulcaniser, would be wondering why this happened to him. His hope like that of thousands of others who read that heartrending story would be that she survives. But Aliyah did not.

    Her condition was so bad that her doctors thought she was dead when she was brought in. Said a medical officer at the Ikorodu General Hospital, where she was rushed to : ‘’When she was brought here, we thought she was dead. One of her eyes is damaged. It might take a plastic surgery for her to see again. A tooth was removed by the dogs, while the other teeth were seriously affected. She has multiple lacerations on her face, legs, arms and other parts of her body’’.  Aliyah was a victim of circumstance. She did not go out of her way to play with the dogs before they devoured her.  Is it not ironic that the same dogs she was fond of playing it with ended up killing her?

    Her father never thought she was in harm’s way when he left her at home with the dogs to get the animals’ feed on February 20.  ‘’Aliyah, my daughter, was formerly staying with her mother in Cotonou, Benin Republic, before she started living with me. Since then she has become familiar with the dogs and played with them. If any visitor is scared of coming into the house, she goes out to bring them in. She was supposed to go to school on Monday, February 20, but because I had an issue with her teacher, I asked her to stay at home till I get her a new school. I left her in the house around 3p.m., and went to buy feed for the dogs. I left two of the dogs roaming free because they were docile. I, however, put Rover in a kennel because it is ferocious and has broken free several times. Some minutes after I went to the market, I got a call that my daughter had been attacked by the dogs. I ran back home and checked the compound without seeing anything. I searched the street as well without any result. Later, somebody raised the alarm that she was at the backyard. There, I saw three dogs on my daughter, who lay still’’.

    Aliyah was like other children. At that age, they could do anything and even play with the devil himself. To children, dogs are play things, though not like the toys and dolls they are used to. Commonly known as man’s best friend, a dog is good at keeping intruders at bay. It also keeps its owner company. Dogs are good and bad. It is because of these contrasting qualities that some people do not keep dogs at home. But because of the insecurity in the land, we have resorted to all kinds of ways, including using dogs, to secure ourselves. These dogs are put in chains or kept in kennels in daytime and set loose at night because of robbers.

    There is certainly nothing bad in keeping a dog as long as the owner will ensure that it does not stray out to harm others. Dog owners should not turn what they consider their own security measure into what can endanger other peoples’ lives. No matter how friendly a dog may be, it should always be kept at arm’s length for the safety of its owner and those in the neighbourhood. A dog will always act like a dog no matter how close it may be to its owner or the tender. Aliyah’s father believed that the dogs in their Ikorodu home would never attack his daughter and so he left two which he considered ‘’docile’’ unchained while he went for their food.

    A dog will wag its tail on seeing its owner bringing it food as long as it is in good mood. But, once it is famished, everything, including its owner, becomes food. A dog, to borrow a Yoruba adage, should know the face of its owner. But, in some cases, this is not so. It may plunge at or pounce on its owner, if it loses its head. Rover and the two other dogs lost their heads and pounced on an innocent child who used to cater for them.

    Aliyah was not in their way in anyway to warrant such a ferocious attack. She was asleep when the mad dogs came into her father’s apartment. Aliyah went to sleep probably without closing the door because she felt safe with the dogs. In a house with 15 dogs, the girl had become used to living among the carnivorous animals. She had become the courageous little girl, who could lead those afraid into the compound and also take them out if need be.

    But, can we blame her father for leaving her alone that day in a house with dogs such as Alsatians, Bullmastiff and Bulldog? As a father, Masaku would be concerned with the safety of his daughter. He could not have intentionally left his daughter for those dogs to devour. The thing is that he may have had too much trust in his girl’s ability to handle the dogs come what may. It was this trust that gave him the false sense of security that Aliyah would be safe with them. I can even envision the girl telling her daddy to quickly go and get the dogs food and not to bother too much about her.

    For the safety of everybody in society, it is high time we reviewed the laws on the keeping of animals. Should the government keep quiet in the face of the danger posed to society by some of these animals? In the case of a dog killing someone as in Aliyah’s case, what should be done to the owner or his agent, the tender? Should the owner face trial for the act done by his pet since the dog cannot be tried? Sadly, in this instant case, Aliyah’s father is the agent. Dogs are good to have at home for our security, but we should not close our eyes to the danger they pose to the larger society, if not properly kept.

  • Big Brother’s guinea fowls (1)

    •Making sense of DSTV/Multichoice’s perverse reality

    God is a taboo to DSTV/Multichoice, Nigeria. The Omnipotent Creator is cast in the same category of the dirtiest swear words by DSTV/Multichoice Nigeria. Thus any mention of ‘God’ in any movie or documentary is blurred, cancelled out, by the Nigerian managers of the digital satellite medium. But while it treats God as profanity, the satellite broadcaster celebrates random sex, consequence-free promiscuity, gender war, chaos, wild and subtle homosexuality, lesbianism, among others, as the finest of contemporary civilisation, courtesy its media fare.

    There is something about DSTV/Multichoice, Nigeria that rankles, like an ominous note. The satellite media broadcaster seem resolute in its quest to establish itself as a merchant of decadence and ill-bliss. And the Nigerian state fosters its debauchery by enabling it with lax laws and dormant regulations. Ever wonder why the Nigeria Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) remains a paper bull-dog? It has been domesticated and placed on a leash by social agents, like DSTV/Multichoice perhaps. Tragic.

    There is no gainsaying DSTV/Multichoice, Nigeria manifests as a harbinger of amorality and cultural decline. It celebrates the kind of debauchery that led to the ruin of medieval Rome. Consider for instance, its ongoing Big Brother Nigeria (BBN) reality show. There is nothing to distinguish the BBN house from a henhouse except that the inmates seem human and yet endowed with the intelligence quotient (IQ) of the guinea fowl – if I may insult the poor animal by comparing it with them.

    However, despite the guinea fowl’s predilection to brutishness, it is not so completely unintelligent, mindless and brazen like the BBN house ‘inmate.’ Big brother, while showing them up as disposable lab rats, calls BBN contestants as ‘housemates’ but reality instructs that every participant in the Big Brother ‘experiment’ is captive to inordinate greed, poverty of the intellect and soul, lust for unearned riches and acclaim, and the ever domineering, voyeuristic, faceless “Big Brother.”

    Participants in the BBN show, like their counterparts world over, elevate narcissism and absurdity to unimaginable degrees. Inmates take their bath naked, knowing videos and images of their bath sessions are being broadcast to the world via digital satellite television. They indulge in reverse-intellectual chatter, unprotected and presumably consequence-free sex, disgraceful bickering, cutthroat rivalry and frittering away of precious time, just for the kicks of doing so.

    This further emphasizes the kindred spirit they share with the guinea fowl although the latter seem startlingly more sophisticated and elevated in character than the average BBN inmate. Guinea fowls hardly bicker because they are known to evolve and adhere religiously to a pecking order. The guinea fowl is a proud creature. Unlike the BBN inmate, it rarely mates in the open. You will seldom, if ever, see it breed. When it does, it’s super-quick and can be easily mistaken for a swift little scuffle.

    Wonder what the guinea fowl would think of BBN inmates like Bisola Aiyeola. Bisola effortlessly overwhelms defunct Big Brother reality show Nigerian inmates in notoriety without doubt. Perhaps at the end of the show, whether she wins the prize money or not, Bisola would claim she did her ancestors proud. Just like her predecessors claimed they did Nigeria proud at the show’s previous sloth-fests.

    Bisola generates a buzz by her actions in the BBN house. She has given a lap dance to a married man, engaged in smooching sessions with him and given her sexually rabid mate a blow-job meaning: Bisola Aiyeola has sucked on his penis till he orgasmed on live TV. Bravo.

    Wonder what Bisola’s mother would tell Bisola’s daughter. It would be priceless to hear her explain to her grand-daughter, why her mother had to frequently perform oral sex on a married man, on live TV. How will Bisola’s daughter explain to her classmates, class teacher and neighbourhood friends her mother’s wild sexual proclivities on TV?

    Bisola and crew sully the image of the contemporary Nigerian youth. They represent an abnegation of Dante Alighieri’s caution: “Consider your origins: you were not made to live as brutes, but to follow virtue and knowledge.

    True, only brutes (animals) enjoy the exclusive preserve of ignorance and shamelessness in matters pertaining to sexual instincts, violence and other base impulses that relegate the brute to the bottom of nature and creation’s pecking order. However, current realities reveal an increasing permissiveness and blurring of lines between the human and the animal, the virtuous and debauched.

    While it’s disconcerting that the inmates’ parents and family see nothing wrong with their conduct, it would be amusing to know how they would justify the morality and benefits of going nude and engaging in a sexual acts before the camera and millions of viewers across the world, to their children and grand-children, when eventually their actions haunt them in their sober hours.

    Notoriety is the tool that Bisola and company seek to exploit in a desperate bid to win the much coveted N25 million BBN winner-takes-all prize. Notoriety is the resource by which they seek to attain wealth and acclaim. And even though many of them will fail in their bid except the only lucky inmate, they will all emerge from the show as celebrities. They will get movie deals, corporate endorsements, breakfast and dinners with Nigerian governors and senators, among other perks.

    Soon after booted she was booted out of the BB show, Nigerian newspapers swooped on a previous housemate, splashing syndicated interviews of the BB evictee across one or two pages, each story struggling to garner for her, unquestionable acclaim and soft-landing. She reportedly hoped to exploit the situation to her advantage: “If you guys watched Big Brother, you would be very sure that I can act,” she was quoted in an interview.

    Her statement, particularly her reference to her acting ability, no doubt revealed that the Big Brother show, contrary to its claims of being a social experiment that thrives on truth and reality, is actually a scripted TV show in which every participant puts up an act before the camera, as conditioned by the contest provisions and their frenzied lust for the outrageous prize money.

    Bisola and her fellow inmates seek to float upon “hype,” which is really the ubiquitous journalist turned publicist’s gas – and which is maniacally deployed oftentimes, to set afloat an image and personality that doesn’t quite exist. Hype, like Epstein aptly notes, is what gives us a new class or hierarchical categorisation of celebrities.

    To be continued…

     

    N.B:

    My attention has been drawn to a complaint by one of my readers, Tony Ademiluyi, over my piece, “Kayode Fayemi…The devil’s in his details (2).” He complained that that I used some of the things he said to me in a  personal chat about the column without due attribution. This is unfortunate. I deliberately left out his name and used his statement in quote, because I felt he might not like the negative publicity it may generate.

    “Agreed, many youths here have entitlement mentality but is it entirely their fault? Does the system give them room to turn their nightmares into dreams? I read Fayemi’s ‘Out of the Shadows.’ He left the country in frustration in 1989 because he was owed salaries in two places he worked – the defunct City Tempo magazine and another publication.

    “How many Nigerian youths would be privileged to have a wife with a British passport like he did? Many go there illegally or worse still by road. You need to read the chilling story of Uche Nworah, a former academic at the University of Greenwich who went to Germany by road. He (Fayemi) displayed crass insensitivity but such is life!”

    Some folk, Fayemi inclusive, would find several things wrong with this argument. But a lot of youth would agree with the reader/writer who penned the argument.

    That was exactly the way I used it. And the reader/writer who penned the argument to me in a chat on Facebook was “Tony Ademiluyi.” It was never a sad case of plagiarism. The omission, deliberate or not, is highly regretted.

  • Health Matters

    Health Matters

    I had not planned to write about Nigeria’s poor health status, clearly evident in my column this week. But last week there was a mild protest in Lagos by health care workers to call the nation’s attention to the deplorable state of health care delivery system in Nigeria and the appalling conditions of health care workers. Then there were one or two articles in the media warning about the deteriorating situation of health care in our country. Shortly after that I received an alarming tweet that Nigeria ranked 187 of 190 nations whose health status was surveyed in 2000 by the World Health Organization (WHO). I found this shocking and disturbing. I had no idea that health care in our country was that bad. Of the African countries on which the survey was carried out, only the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and the Central African Republic (CAR) ranked below Nigeria in terms of health care, with Myanmar bringing up the rear.

    Even though I was fully aware of the appalling state of Nigeria’s health care delivery system and its deterioration in recent years, I still found the alarming report attributed to the WHO incredible. I decided I would google the WHO report myself. What I found out about the global health ranking of Nigeria was even more disturbing. The WHO report for 2014 showed that of the 200 countries surveyed, Nigeria ranked 197 in health care delivery. Again, only the DCR the CAR and Myanmar still ranked below Nigeria. All other African countries on which the WHO carried out a medical survey in 2014 ranked above Nigeria. Absolutely shocking.

    Here are some of the randomly selected incredible WHO rankings for African states in health care: Morocco, the African leader (29), Senegal (59), Libya (87), Benin Republic (97), Burkina Faso (132), Ghana (135), Cote d’Ivoire (137), Burundi (143), Uganda (149), Zimbabwe (155), Cameroon (164), Rwanda (172), Chad (178), Somalia (179) and Ethiopia (180). All those countries, including war- torn Sudan (134) and Somalia (the failed state), ranked incredibly above our own country, Nigeria. How come Nigeria, an oil producing country, touted as the largest economy in Africa, ranked so low in WHO’s ranking of global health care? All our relatively poorer West African neighbours, including Chad, Niger, Togo, Burkina Faso, were ranked higher than Nigeria in health care delivery. So were Ghana and Cameroon.  Further afield, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Rwanda and Burundi, all vastly poorer than Nigeria, were reported as having better health care delivery systems than Nigeria. Now, Nigeria’s low ranking is not due solely to its large population. China, India and Brazil have large populations too, but rank far ahead of Nigeria. They spend a lot more on health care than Nigeria.

    When I checked the WHO data for health care in Nigeria it was even more disturbing. In virtually all cases we were worse off than other African countries. From 85 in 2000, infant mortality has increased to 110 per 1000 live births in 2014, globally one of the worst. The rate of maternity deaths has also increased substantially. The WHO had recommended that all states should commit 15 per cent of their annual budgets to health care. Nigeria signed the protocol to this WHO recommendation, but it has always fallen way below it. In the last two or three decades Nigeria’s total annual expenditure on health care has averaged only 3.7 per cent instead of 15 per cent prescribed by the WHO. The average for Africa was given as 8 per cent, more than double that of Nigeria. In 2016, while Nigeria spent only US$40 million on its health care, Kenya, a much smaller and poorer country, spent over US$100 million on its health care. It was only in 1998/9 and 2002/3 that Nigeria spent 5 per cent of its budget on health care. These figures include expenditure on health care by the states. The WHO recommends the annual expenditure of US$3400 per head on health care. Nigeria’s average as at 2014 was only US$217. As the WHO report observed, “Nigeria lacks a serious approach to health care”. In fact, the situation is worse at the level of primary health care which, due to wilful neglect, has declined very rapidly over the years. When he was Minister of Health, the late Professor Olikoye Ransome Kuti tried very hard, and with some success, to reform and stabilise our primary health care system.

    But the improvements he made in our primary health care have not been sustained largely due to our failure to increase public expenditure on health care. The WHO report also referred to poor training facilities for health care workers and lack of the necessary medical equipment in our hospitals, including the most advanced. We have over 50 university teaching hospitals, but they all lack the necessary medical equipment to function maximally. This situation applies to the private hospitals as well. Very often surgeries cannot be performed on patients because of the irregular and uncertain power supply, In both urban and rural areas of our country, access by the poor to health care is very poor. The limited private health care available mostly in the urban areas is very expensive. Children, women and the elderly are highly vulnerable to this appalling lack of an efficient and affordable health care delivery system. Where it exists at all, the facilities are very poor and inadequate. The national health insurance scheme is a total failure. It covers only a negligible few. To further complicate matters, drugs, most of which are imported, have become outrageously expensive, due to the exchange rate adjustment of the naira.  Only the rich can afford them. The poor now resort increasingly to self medication, quacks, or dubious herbalists for their health care. It is estimated that there are 4,000 Nigerian trained doctors now living and working in the US and Britain. There could be another 1,000 of them working elsewhere. Most of them emigrated abroad because of poor pay and poor working conditions here at home. Our rich now routinely go abroad for medical treatment because they know what is available locally is wholly inadequate. And because they can afford private health care they care very little about the appalling state of public health care in our country. Right now, President Muhammadu Buhari is receiving medical attention abroad. President Yar’Adua died while receiving medical care in Saudi Arabia. This is a national shame and embarrassment.

    Now, despite competing financial needs, I believe Nigeria can afford an efficient and respectable health care delivery system. What is lacking is the commitment of its leaders to this objective and the vast public corruption that diverts huge financial resources away from investment in human development. Cuba, under its late leader, Fidel Castro, showed, within a generation, what a committed leadership can do for health care, particularly at the primary level. Cuba, despite its financial constraints, has one of the most advanced health care delivery programmers in the world. It concentrates mainly on primary health care. The development of physical infrastructure (roads, electricity and public transportation) is important. But the development of social infrastructure (health and education) is even more important. Investing in the development of social infrastructure is even more profitable. It should be treated as a priority in public expenditure. It creates more jobs and has a more positive effect on the economy.

    Health care matters. Health is wealth. A healthy nation is a prosperous nation. Its workers are more productive. Some of the social divisions and conflicts in our country are made worse by the existing poor health care. Though there can be no justification for it, the poor are tempted to take to crimes, such as kidnapping and armed robbery when they are unable to meet their health challenges and medical bills. A good and affordable public health system will reduce some of the violence in our country. Nigeria does not lack the financial resources to improve on its health care. In 1953, when Chief Obafemi Awolowo introduced his free health programme in the then Western Region, he committed 50 per cent of his government’s budget to health and education. That gave the Western Region a good start in health care, which it has maintained since. The region is far ahead of other regions of Nigeria in health care. We must find a way of getting our governments at all levels to commit themselves to meeting the WHO prescription of spending 15 per cent of our annual budgets on heath care. The National Assembly must take the bull by the horns. It should pass the necessary legislation that will compel the Federal Government to meet its financial obligations in that respect to a better health care delivery system. In addition the importation of vital drugs should be made easier and cheaper by lowering the tariff or duty on imported drugs.

  • Wrecking Nigeria! Enough is enough

    My message in this column today is an answer to the statements which Professor Ango Abdullahi, a respected Hausa-Fulani elder and president of the Arewa Elders Forum, uttered in an interview with The Punch a few days ago. Professor Abdullahi said again and again that the North (by which he must really have meant his North-west) is ready for Nigeria’s dissolution. By that he means that his Hausa-Fulani nation of the North-west (or Arewa North) would rather see Nigeria dissolved than see the Nigerian federation restructured in ways that most other Nigerian peoples (the vast majority of Nigerians) are demanding. He has said about the same things on other occasions before. And various Fulani leaders have said before that they would rather go to war than allow the Nigerian federation to be restructured into a proper federation. Many have even said that they would start a war rather than see their Arewa North lose power-control and resource-control over the Nigerian federation. And many have bragged that the North is ready for war – or more ready for war than the South.

    One Fulani notable named Aliyu Gwarzo wrote in 2014, ‘’When I say that the Presidency must come to the north next year I am referring to the Hausa-Fulani core north and not any northern Christian or Muslim minority tribe.

    The Christians in the north such as the Berom, the Tiv, the Kataf, the Jaba, the Zuru, the Sayyawa, the Bachama, the Jukun, the Idoma, the Burra, the Kilba, the Mbula, and all the others are nothing, and the Muslim minorities in the north, including the Kanuri, the Nupe, the Igbira, the Babur, the Shuwa Arabs, the Marghur, the Bade, the Bura, the Igalla, the Zerma, the Bariba, the Gbari and all the others know that when we are talking about leadership in the north and in Nigeria, Allah has given it to us, the Hausa-Fulani.

    They can grumble, moan and groan as much as they want but each time they go into their bedrooms to meet their wives and each time they get on their prayer mats to begin their prayers, it is we the Fulani that they think of, that they fear, that they bow to and that they pray for.

    Some of them are even ready to give us their wives and daughters for one night’s sport and pleasure. They owe us everything. This is because we gave them Islam through the great Jihad waged by Sheik Uthman Dan Fodio.

    We also captured Ilorin, killed their local king and installed our Fulani Emir. We took that ancient town away from the barbarian Yoruba and their filthy pagan gods. We liberated all these places and all these people by imposing Islam on them by force.

    It was either the Koran or the sword and most of them chose the Koran. In return for the good works of our forefathers, Allah, through the British, gave us Nigeria to rule and to do with as we please. Since 1960 we have been doing that and we intend to continue. The Igbo tried to stop us in 1966 and between 1967 and 1969 they paid a terrible price. They were brought to heel and since then they have been broken.

    No Goodluck or anyone else will stop us from taking back our power next year. We will kill, maim, destroy and turn this country into Africa’s biggest war zone and refugee camp if they try it.

    Many say we are behind Boko Haram. My answer is what do you expect? We do not have economic power or intellectual power. All we have is political power and they want to take even that from us.

    We must fight and we will fight back in order to keep it…The war has just begun, the Mujahadeen are more than ready and by Allah we shall win. If they don’t want an ISIS in Nigeria, then they must give us back…our power”.

    By now, the rest of us Nigerians have become accustomed to hearing our Fulani brethren talk in these ways about the affairs of Nigeria, and about those of us who are not Fulani or Hausa. For us, it all paints a horrid picture about the realities of citizenship in the country called Nigeria. Even if the Fulani were an absolute majority in Nigeria, it would still be unacceptable to hear them talk in these ways about the rest of us.  But they are not close to being a majority. At an estimated Fulani population of about 7-9 million out of the total of about 49 million Hausa-Fulani, the Fulani are a small minority among the Hausa-Fulani; and they are a much smaller minority among the total of about 190 million Nigerians.

    Whatever may have been the privileges enjoyed by the Fulani in the composite Hausa-Fulani society before the coming of British rule, the only thing that the Fulani can claim as qualification for their dominance over Nigeria since independence is British manipulation of everything in Nigeria before independence (census, constitution, politics, and the pre-independence election of 1959) in order to place Nigeria under the control of the Fulani. As one British official of the last years of British rule has since written in his memoir, the British wanted to leave Nigeria at independence in the hands of “a friendly people”. The reason for that is well known. The Second World War, 1939-45, had devastated the economy of Britain. British cities were in ruins. Reconstruction demanded a lot of resources. Nigeria was Britain’s largest and richest possession in Africa, and the discovery of oil in the Niger Delta promised to make Nigeria’s economy even richer. So, the British went all out to leave Nigeria in the hands of a friendly people – the Fulani.

    By accepting to be partner with Britain in such an arrangement, our Hausa-Fulani leaders entered into something that was bound to hurt our country; and it has hurt our country very calamitously. Its most destructive outcome is that it lured the Hausa-Fulani part of our country’s leadership into an unwholesome mentality concerning our country – the mentality whereby they view Nigeria as their empire bequeathed to them by the British, an empire that they must forever find ways to subdue and control.

    But, attempts to subdue and control the rest of Nigeria, to subdue giant and dynamic nations like the Yoruba and Igbo, as well as smaller but equally proud nations like the Kanuri, Ijaw, Edo, Ibibio, Tiv, etc, etc, was bound to be an impossible task. It has proved to be an impossible task, in spite of its appearing to have won some ephemeral successes. The employment of federal power for a big assault on the Western Region in 1962 in order to destabilize and subdue that region and crush its Yoruba leadership seemed successful for a start. But when the Yoruba responded, their response shook Nigeria to its foundations. Disaster upon disaster followed. The massacre of tens of thousands of Igbo folks in northern towns in 1966, and the 30-month bloody civil war which claimed nearly two million Igbo lives, all together seemed at first to have subdued the Igbo nation. Well, look what we have today! Are the Igbos subdued? The peoples of the Delta seem very small in the face of Nigeria’s military might. That military might has been hauled at them again and again for over five decades, and they are by no means subdued.

    Even the relentless distortion of our federation in an attempt to pile all power and resource control in the hands of a federal government controlled by Arewa North, how successful has it been in achieving its objective? Sure, it has reduced our federation to chaos and poverty, and paved the way for Nigeria’s disintegration. But does the intended northern control of all of Nigeria now look achievable or sustainable? All there is to show is endless Fulani threats of war, inter-ethnic vitriol, religion-based disruption – and the probability that Nigeria will never be a country happily bound together by love and mutual respect.

    It is time the Fulani leadership gave up this ambition; it is time they join hands with the rest of Nigeria to work for an orderly and sustainable federation. But if they choose to continue to hug the mirage of dominance over Nigeria, the rest of us must now seriously begin to tell them that having no Nigeria at all will soon be the outcome.

    My academic colleague, Prof. Ango Abdullahi, says the North-west will welcome the dissolution of Nigeria. I respond promptly that we in the South-west will welcome the dissolution of Nigeria too. As for the South-east and South-south, and the North-central too, there is no doubt about their responses. Since that is what the majority of Nigerian peoples and Nigerians seem to want, then let’s be civilized men enough to meet face to face and get it done. Enough is enough.

  • Adieu Prince Adewale Aladesanmi

    About two months ago, I got a call from Mr Kayode Alabi one of my seniors at the famous Christ School Ado-Ekiti who has relocated back to his home town of Ado from Lagos. I was very happy to reconnect with him. After returning from London where he had spent a very long time, he came back to Lagos and worked with our mutual friend the late Senator Kunle Agunbiade. My association with Alabi (Oga Kayode) goes back beyond Christ school. His mother as I recollect, was a successful textile trader and rich woman in the 1950s. She was therefore quite influential in Ado of those days. Kayode her son lived briefly with Chief Oduola Osuntokun, a young dashing and handsome budding politician at that time. Chief Osuntokun was not only a parliamentarian, he also played the centre-forward for Ekiti football team. He was also the second graduate in what is now Ekiti State. But he was better known as a strict disciplinarian. Because of this reputation, influential Ekiti families sent their children to him for grooming. Chief Osuntokun did not spare the rod. I know this because I was a reluctant victim of his philosophy of spare the rod and spoil the child. I recollect that Chief Peter Ajibade, SAN, former Attorney General of the old Western State was one of the graduates of the Osuntokun School of discipline. Kayode Alabi and Prince Adewale Bejide Aladesanmi were later to follow. It seems in retrospect that from the Osuntokun School, one went to Christ School. Even after entering Christ School, Chief Osuntokun kept an eye on his wards either by making them cut the grass in his yard or cleaning his compound as part of the compulsory early morning work every Christ School boy had to do before going to classes. Chief Osuntokun at this time was a rising star in Ekiti. He was a member of the Western House of Assembly. He shared with Chief Anthony Enahoro, brilliant debating skill which was highly valued in parliamentary system of government. The leader of government and later Chief Obafemi Awolowo valued this attribute. By 1955, Chief Awolowo made Chief Osuntokun Minister of Works and after the election of 1956, Chief Osuntokun became Minister of Finance in the old Western Region and he was only 34 years old. This was the Osuntokun who mentored many Ekiti people including those I already mentioned and others like Chief Afe Babalola, Architect Alade, professors Adelola Adeloye, Fola Esan and of course, his younger brother, Kayode Osuntokun and  many others. I was a small boy in those days but I remember and to quote Chukwu Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu – “Because I was involved”.

    Prince Aladesanmi who now belongs to the ages was one of the “Osuntokun boys” I grew up knowing as a brother. He was extremely fair and handsome. He was well liked by people. Sometimes in the 1950s, I do not remember precisely the exact year, there was a big ceremony in Ado when I believe Prince Adewale was presented to the public in some kind of ceremonial bath in which he was carried around the town as a future king. In Ado, princes were called “Oba” and princesses were called “oja”. During my primary school days, I knew a few of these princesses and princes because of the closeness of Chief Osuntokun to Oba Aladesanmi, the father of the departed Adewale. At a point, Chief Osuntokun’s immediate younger brother, the late engineer Edward Abiodun Osuntokun, one of the first Ekiti boys to attend Government College Ibadan was a fiancé to Princess Yetunde, the first child of Kabiyesi. In short the Osuntokuns were part of the royal fabric of Ado-Ekiti. This writer at a time in my last year at secondary school was quite close to one of the Ado princesses!

    I say all this to show that the death of Oga Bejide was a personal loss. I had not seen him for a long time. When his father, Kabiyesi Aladesanmi “Waja” in 1982 or thereabouts, I came to sympathize with the family but I did not see the prince. Neither did I see Adedeji who was my friend, classmate and age mate. I only saw my former friend the princess that I was familiar with. Two months ago, Prince Adewale called me more or less from the blues. I was pleasantly surprised. He told me his friend Kayode Alabi had given him my number. He wondered why I had not been visiting him. He reminded me I had travelled all the way from London to see him in Newcastle upon Tyne in 1965 and yet I won’t come and visit him in Ado. He then said “Don’t you know the immense contribution of your family to Ado-Ekiti?” I apologized to him that I will soon come and see him in Ado. Then he added “your pounded yam is waiting for you”. My readers can then imagine the shock I had when Oga Kayode Alabi phoned me wailing that he has lost one of his best friends and wondering what to do. I felt guilty and regretted not seeing and saying fare well to a brother. If I knew he would pass on so soon, I would have gone to Ado to see him.

    Prince Adewale, I believe, made his own mark. He lived the leisured life of a prince as a young man. He was known all over Ado as someone who was special. When his colleagues were struggling to go to the local universities in Nigeria, his father,Kabiyesi Aladesanmi sent him abroad to prepare him for a bright future possibly in industry, commerce, government and on the throne. He justified his father’s confidence in him. He studied accountancy and banking in Newcastle upon Tyne. He rose to the rank of general manager in the banking sector before he retired into business and the corporate world as a member of a few boards before settling down into the life of a prince and head of his father’s family. He combined the refinement of a modern man with deep knowledge and commitment to his roots. He will be sorely missed and he has carried to eternity solid and treasured knowledge of traditional institutions and culture of Ado. ERINWO AJANAKU SUN BI OKE!

  • Jonathaniana

    Since he left office on May 29, 2015, former President Goodluck Jonathan has been busy both at home and abroad. He has gone on many international missions, carrying out one assignment or the other. His almost five years in office has stood him in good stead in discharging this onerous task, especially in a world never in short supply of crises. He has intervened in some African countries at the behest of the African Union and has presented papers at some fora in the United Kingdom (UK) and the United States (US).

    Since his Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) lost power to the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the 2015 general elections, the former president, like a true party man, has been working quietly behind the scene to see what could be done to end the wranglings within the group. The PDP became a shadow of itself after 2015 as members traded words over why it lost the presidential election which it thought was a walkover for it.

    Former Bauchi State Governor Adamu Muazu, who led the party to the elections as its national chairman was forced to throw in the towel. He paid the price as a general whose side lost the war, but his exit was the beginning of the party’s  crisis, which is now threatening to consume it. Uche Secondus took over from him as acting national chairman. Secondus ran the show for some months before handing over to Senator Modu Ali Sheriff, former Borno State governor.  Governors Ayo Fayose (Ekiti) and Nyesom Wike (Rivers), among other stalwarts,  made Sheriff’s coming easy. They wanted a rich man to lead their party and they found one in Sheriff, but they never bargained for the fact that he would be his own man.

    After becoming tired of him, they planned to remove him at the party’s convention in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, last August 17. Meanwhile, Fayose and Wike had begun shopping for a new chairman. Under the guise that Sheriff could not preside over a convention, where he plans to run for party chair, they brought in Senator Ahmed Makarfi as caretaker chairman. Confusion set in as the party paraded two leaders and each went to court to lay claim to the post. With the conflicting orders that followed, PDP sank deeper into morass.

    The Court of Appeal settled the tussle in favour of Sheriff last Friday. As the court has spoken, Sheriff, whether anybody likes it or not, is today PDP chairman until the verdict is quashed by the Supreme Court. But, rather than obey the court, some leaders of the party who are dissatisfied with the verdict have been acting contemptuously. The way to go is not to act in contempt of court but to explore the right of appeal, which every aggrieved litigant has. The appellate courts – the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court – are there so that litigants will not resort to self help in resolving disputes.

    Since the appeal court has ruled that Sheriff is PDP  chairman, no other person can be so addressed as at today until the order is set aside. And no other person, except Sheriff, can call any meeting of PDP leaders in line with that order. To do otherwise will amount to contempt, which the courts frown at. I do not know the purpose of the meeting called by the Makarfi camp last Monday in Abuja  some 96 hours after the appeal court verdict. There was no need to convene the meeting under the name of PDP since the group is not the recognised leadership of the party. Its purpose is to exacerbate the crisis and create the impression that the group is the authentic leadership of the party, which is far from the truth.

    Jonathan spoke well on the crisis hours after the botched meeting when he received Sheriff and his entourage in Abuja. The former president, who declined the offer to be the party’s national leader shortly after he left office, said there were no factions in PDP as he kept referring to Sheriff as ‘’my chairman’’. Understandably, Jonathan will not want to admit that there is crisis in PDP as doing so may be munition in the hands of some of its elected members in the National and Houses of Assembly to jump ship. There is crisis in PDP and many of the former president’s men are stoking the fire. With the way he has spoken, may be the Wikes, Fayoses, Fani-Kayodes et al, who are his boys and die hard supporters of Makarfi,  will see the light and mend their ways.

    “We are not factionalised. We are one. There are bound to be differences in politics. We cannot run away from that. It is the way we resolve these differences that makes us human beings and that is what makes us leaders. I have met with Sheriff. And I have met with others. I will still meet with others, so that we will be able to do what is expected of us as a political party’’, Jonathan said. But those benefiting from the crisis will not want it to end soon. They want it protracted for their own selfish gain. With Jonathan’s promise to reach out to more people, the political solution to this problem now lies in his hands.

    He knows how to whip his boys into line and soon we may see them accepting Sheriff as their leader just as he did. Will they listen to him? How they react to whatever their boss tells them will show whether or not they still hold him in high esteem. Or were they just Jonathan boys because of what they could get from him when he was president?

     

    Uncle Yem @ 70

    This picture shot out of the paper as I ran through last Monday’s edition of The Punch. I took another look at the picture. Lo and behold, it was him and his name came out of my mouth : Uncle Yem. Seeing him in that picture, those who do not know him will see only the handsome face and his grey hair. Looking dashing and smiling straight at the camera, I wondered what life would have been like if he had not lost the use of his legs in that accident some decades ago. As I looked at the picture again,  I was overcome by nostalgia. Reason : I saw what many who may have read that paper day did not see. Chief Anthony Adeyemi Bamgbose (JP) is paraplegic and he has been in that condition for over 30 years. He was already in that state when our path crossed in Ikeja in the 1980s. Uncle Yem, as we call him, then lived on Unity Road, Ikeja, in one of the houses owned by his uncle, the late Christopher Daniel. In front of his home was Christopharm, a pharmacy, where he worked. We converged at the bar in front of the shop every night to while away time. It was those days when boys were boys. We the boys then looked up to people like Uncle Yem, who related well with us in everything. He told us stories of his growing up days in Isale Eko, where a vehicle rammed into him right in front of his father’s house and broke his spinal cord. That was how he ended up on a wheel chair. Those days, it was fun wheeling Uncle Yem up and down. If one us did not do it, there was someone else ever ready to do it. It was a competition of sorts to wheel him. Many years have gone by and we have gone our different ways. The boys are now scattered. Uncle Yem, who turned 70 on Monday, has also since moved back to Isale Eko. The last time I saw him was in his ancestral home on Igbosere Road just behind the Supreme in Lagos Court building. Oh, what a life! So, Uncle Yem could turn 70 without the boys being around to celebrate with him. I thank God for Uncle Yem’s life and join his daughter Efunyemi and grandchildren in wishing him a happy birthday. Igba odun odun okan.

  • Travails of Arumemi-Ikhide and Arik

    Although like most of those featured on these pages in the last seven years, I have never been privileged to meet  Arumemi-Ikhide, but watching from afar, his exploits and travails, I think he is a unique Nigerian who if only for his courage and bold initiatives, deserve our sympathy. More than his personal failings as a manager, an investor and the Arik airlines corporate misgovernance, I strongly believe he is a victim of the Nigerian system and the ‘fantastically’ corrupt federal government of patronage which stifles initiatives and abridges dreams of unique risk-takers like Arumemi-Ikhide.

    First to have survived the stress and the strain associated with the frightening scenarios painted by AMCON while taking over his beleaguered Arik Airlines two weeks back, Arumemi-Ikhide must have been a man with a heart of steel. His airline was said to be indebted to creditors to the tune of staggering N300billion, accused of owing several months in arrears of staff salaries and of defrauding the federal government for years by not remitting the taxes of workers to relevant bodies, his airline was also said to be in perpetual default in its lease payments and insurance, leading to regular and embarrassing repossession of its aircraft by lessors. Above all, his unpaid workers became targets of attack by aggrieved irate local and international passengers.

    If one may ask, how does a man like Arumemi-Ikhide cope with such  stress and strain and still able to sleep at night?

    It will be recalled that this was a risk-taker who was never given a chance from the onset. Many tales were woven around him by many of his detractors who like the faithful servant in Jesus’ parable of the talents( Mathew 2514-30) chose to bury his talents in order to please a master who he acknowledged ‘reaps from where he does not sow’. First, were wild rumours that he was fronting for either ex-President Obasanjo, or ex-Governor Odilli of Rivers or both. Then without evidence, they alleged the airline was established with stolen funds. But Arumemi-Ikhide proved all tale-bearers wrong. When his Arik Airlines  took over the assets of liquidated national carrier in 2006, unlike others in  the aviation industry who diverted government bailouts into other businesses before declaring bankruptcy, or others that embarked on asset stripping after buying government privatized companies under the flawed government  privatization  policy, he braved all the vicissitudes of the airline industry and took delivery of three new Bombardier CRJ900 aircraft to operate on domestic routes, a gamble that enabled the airline capture 55% of Nigeria’s domestic airline market.

    In 2008, his Arik Airline launched its first long-haul flight between Lagos and London Heathrow with an Airbus A340-500, while in June 2009, it commenced flights to its second long haul destination in Johannesburg, South Africa and other West African nations, including Sierra Leone, Senegal, The Gambia, Benin Republic and Ghana. It went on to launch its New York route in 2009 with non-stop flight services three times a week. This was a feat that is yet to be matched by any domestic airline.

    His bold initiative was not only greeted with resentments by his competitors in the industry, the Jonathan government hardly took notice of Arumemi-Ikhide’s unique contribution to a nation without a national carrier whose citizens were left at the mercy of shylock foreign airlines. He was denied of government’s much-needed patronage by ex-President Jonathan and his PDP national wreckers for whom the health of the Nigerian economy was in the number of private jets owned by governors and senators who in one day invaded Jomo Kenyatta International Airport with as many as 11 private jets.

    It was an era of debauchery and licentiousness when Abuja lawmakers who chose not to have shinning private jets routinely grounded foreign airlines that failed to offer them and their families, first class seats.

    Arumemi-Ikhide’s Arik airline did not fare better under the APC notoriously lethargic government of change that spent almost two years without reconstituting various small governments that it needed for governance. The government therefore watched as troubled Arik wobbled until its belated admission two weeks back that government intervention will “stabilise the operations of the airline, enhance its long-term economic value and revitalize its ailing operations as well as sustain safety standards in view of Arik Air’s pivotal role in the Nigerian aviation sector.”

    Two years of inaction by a government of change that held on to the bulk of 10 aircrafts inherited from the previous administration while Arik airlines, the closest to a national carrier wobbled on was indefensible. In fact one may not be far from the truth by saying the Buhari languid government was forced by exigencies of the time to act. The ministers which many believe only act based on the body language of President Buhari, “our baba go slow” suddenly realized it was in the enlightened self-interest of the federal government to take control of Arik airlines. The foreign exchange is simply not available for junketing around. The truth of the matter is that the government and Nigerians today need Arik Airlines more than Arumemi-Ikhide needs Arik. That probably explains why the Federal Ministry of Aviation has undertaken to ‘support the new management of the strategic carrier, and ensure that there would be no undue disruption to Arik’s regular businesses’.

    Weak institutions have been acknowledged as the bane of our society. But the federal government that often exploits these institutions as weapons for political patronage hardly helps matters. It is for instance not enough to accuse  Arumemi-Ikhide of hiring his son, Martins Arumemi-Ikhide on a monthly salary of N30m,  hiring more expatriates, notably Indians than Nigerians, or of dedicating a private jet to fly Cardinal Olubunmi Okogie to Rome at short notice with all expenses borne by Arik Air Ltd. The question was why the regulatory agencies especially the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) which apart from ‘certifying every single technical personnel, equipment and airport’ has  dossier on all the 554 licensed pilots; 913 licensed engineers and 1700 cabin personnel  in the industry outwitted by Arumemi-Ikhide who allegedly populated his organization with expatriates at the detriment of Nigerians.

    Again, the most plausible answer is the federal government that institutionalizes corruption through imposition of ministry of aviation on the aviation industry, a practice long jettisoned by many nations including Ghana our closest neighbour. The position of many aviation experts including Capt. Daniel Omale who recently canvassed for the scrapping of the aviation ministry is strengthened by the fact that most of our past aviation ministers in the last 16 years were found to be men with feet of clay with some of them still in court trying to defend their honour.

    Arumemi-Ikhide’s travails can therefore not be separated from the federal government’s sponsorship of corruption through allocation of resources generated by other federating units to an irrelevant and unproductive federal ministry of aviation.

    In a restructured Nigeria where the federal government is made to face issues of security, foreign relations and external trade while those who generate revenue decide how to spend their revenue, there will be no room for a parasitic insensitive centre to deviate from internationally accepted best practices. Like that of the United Kingdom where ‘the UK Government requires that the CAA’s costs are met entirely from its charges on those whom it regulates’ our own NCAA should be able to run their institutions without depending on federal allocations which ministers in most cases deploy to buy bullet proof cars or convert to personal use along with revenues generated by the regulatory bodies from sundry sources such as advertising.

  • Kayode Fayemi…The devil’s in his detail (2)

    Kayode Fayemi spoke truth to silly. It would seem. Very few people understood his tough love for the graduating youth of his alma mater, University of Lagos (UNILAG). In his speech, the Minister of Solid Minerals hazarded a theory of industry, altruism and progress, apparently to sensitize the graduands to proper character and approach to whatever challenges lie ahead. Any misinterpretation of his outwardly heartfelt admonition to the youth may be understood as a swerve from objectivity, a scorning of truth – in the estimation of Fayemi.

    But Fayemi’s truth excites the primacy of uglier truth(s). He urged the replacement of lethargy with enthusiasm, selfish-entitlement with altruism, resignation with unflagging passion and industry; all in an environment riddled with violence – the violence of tangible and intangible odds to be precise.

    Fayemi like several politicians of his class, was peremptory in his judgment. He decided and still decides perhaps, what realities and odds to acknowledge, in the never-ending pillorying of the contemporary ‘me-generation.’ His seemingly informed analysis is bogged by as much exclusion as inclusion of bias. His advice to the youth despite its political correctness, is besmirched by haughtiness that cannot impartially alleviate his audience’s apprehension about the uncertainties of breaking even and making ends meet, in a world made hostile by Fayemi’s ruling class. Thus Kayode Fayemi’s speech for all its outward profundity, resounds with upper crust arrogance and ignorance.

    This is the juncture at which the Minister of Solid Minerals probably snorts and recalls his ‘innumerable’ lifeboats to indigent youth and the ‘priceless support’ and ‘wisdom’ he offers to the needy as his ‘progressive’ spirit dictates. But how progressive is Fayemi? Does his PhD in War Studies, ‘cryptic’ literature and ‘practical’ wisdom project him as heroic shiner of light and truth to generations of Nigerian youth?

    In response to the first part of this piece, several youths home and abroad, argued that Fayemi had no right to mount the soapbox to admonish any segment of the country’s youth. Their responses ranged from caustic vituperation, incoherent bile to well-articulated angst and rebuke of the Minister of Solid Minerals. Some even went as far as hoping that this writer was simply ‘fooling around with satire’ by applauding Fayemi’s ‘insensitivity’ to the youth.

    Most of the country’s youth believe Fayemi had no moral right to counsel the youth on the benefits of being industrious and patriotic simply because he belongs to the ruling class. Of course, the latter argument is untenable and wanting in substance; it is wrong for anyone to deny Fayemi his right to free speech.

    “Agreed, many youths here have entitlement mentality but is it entirely their fault? Does the system give them room to turn their nightmares into dreams? I read Fayemi’s ‘Out of the Shadows.’ He left the country in frustration in 1989 because he was owed salaries in two places he worked – the defunct City Tempo magazine and another publication.

    “How many Nigerian youths would be privileged to have a wife with a British passport like he did? Many go there illegally or worse still by road. You need to read the chilling story of Uche Nworah, a former academic at the University of Greenwich who went to Germany by road. He (Fayemi) displayed crass insensitivity but such is life!”

    Some folk, Fayemi inclusive, would find several things wrong with this argument. But a lot of youth would agree with the reader/writer who penned the argument. Many more youth however, berate the former Governor of Ekiti state for what they consider his misappropriated self-righteousness. They wonder why he is unable to distinguish himself as a ‘progressive’ of real depth and class.

    Those who have read his books argue that his literature has accomplished no miracles, save its affirmation of his intellect and scholarly inclinations, which is a characteristic of every other academic. You could be forgiven for thinking Fayemi’s admonition a treacherous theorem of truth, uttered to rile the Nigerian youth and sully their thought-process in his frantic bid to fulfill his lust for applause and political correctness.

    Whatever the shades of public opinion about Fayemi’s speech, nobody can deny him his right to free speech. The Minister of Solid Minerals was unrepentantly sincere in his propagation of tough love and his version of the clarion call. In saner clime however, his admonition would be weaponised by the minds and will of youths driven by a progressive lust for ‘change.’

    Fayemi’s words will become the incendiary prod that would spur generations of the country’s youth to seize their destinies from the grasp of his ruling class.

    The youth addressed by Fayemi thus owe themselves and Nigeria a relentless quest for freedom from the incumbent ruling class. Although Fayemi would argue that he is not cut of the breed responsible for Nigeria’s current situation, many of the country’s youth are of a different opinion. Indeed, there is little the younger generation can learn from Fayemi’s ruling class in terms of honesty, altruism, duty, rationality, perception and courage. The grotesqueness of his ruling class, makes it impossible to distinguish him as a humane politician and leader different from peer.

    Being a former state governor, his acceptance of the role of Minister of Solid Minerals smacked of the random politician’s lust to remain perpetually in power. It seemed like a demotion for a man who once served as Executive Governor of Ekiti State. Could he have rejected the appointment with humility and firmness? Or was it truly part of his manouvering to serve the country in more valuable and esteemed capacities? Did Fayemi hanker for ministerial role driven by the average politician’s inordinate craving to remain in power? Is Kayode Fayemi just another average politician? If he isn’t, what distinguishes him from every other politician?

    This writer once dreamed of an epoch in which a man like Kayode Fayemi would emerge as Nigeria’s President, Senate President or Vice President? At his foray into politics, he seemed a rare shiner of light and hope in the country’s political wilderness.

    It is saddening to see a man like Fayemi play politics the tragic way of the incumbent ruling class. It negates everything he purportedly stood for. But what do we know? Fayemi understands himself and his politics better than anyone. Beyond sound bites and political correctness, only Fayemi knows what he truly stands for.

    But does he know what his ruling class stand for? Does he know that his ruling class is fatal to Nigeria’s future? Is he aware that his ruling class, like the mythical Medusa, castrates lives, dreams and ambitions of the country’s youth via corrupt and poor governance?

    Sadly, Fayemi has been unable to distinguish himself from his peer in governance. His culture of politics founders at extreme variance with his oft romanticised ideals as a true ‘progressive.’ And his controversial admonition to the youth resonates as yet another gothic ritual of political grandstanding.

    Like the petulant Aiyekooto, Fayemi confidently twittered truths the Nigerian youth are wary to admit. Could he likewise, confront truths his ruling class has never been able to bury or explain away, despite its desperation to do so?

    Fayemi became popular courtesy his native land’s disavowal of him. Ekiti chose Ayodele Fayose over him thus inciting a flurry of gaudy stereotypes and the tragic theory of the people’s abjuration of brilliance for the love of ‘stomach infrastructure.’ Why would the people of Ekiti do that?

    If Fayemi can correctly answer this rhetoric, he just might experience the sublime rapture that purges national icons of the gothic slop of impious wiles.

  • Ibori return to ‘fantastically corrupt country’

    David Cameron, the former British Prime Minister while briefing her majesty the Queen, Elizabeth the second of Great Britain about an official visit of President Muhammadu Buhari described our country as “fantastically corrupt”. He however added that President Buhari was not corrupt but he has inherited a corrupt country and he needs all the help he can get from the international community to make a success of his regime. Many commentators said Buhari should have asked for an apology for the derision with which his country has been treated. Buhari, a simple soldier, asked ruefully what he would do with an apology when what he needs is the return of the billions of pounds stashed by corrupt leaders in British banks.

    If there are people who  still believe Buhari should have asked for an apology, the return of Ibori in a chartered aircraft to Benin, followed by a long convoy of cars to Oghara his home town where he was celebrated by virtually the entire town, has settled the argument. Corruption is as Nigerian as apple pie is American. It seems our people have willed the commonwealth to their leaders to do whatever pleases them with it. In other parts of the world, an ex-convict would go quietly home to his family and lie low for years hoping that people would see his contrition and forgive him of his crime. But not in Nigeria where ex-convicts return to society on horseback or on the backs of their poor people who while sweating carry the unrepentant renegade on their backs while dancing wildly after consumption of poorly produced local liquor. What a life!

    It was not just the ordinary people who may have been rented to demonstrate support for Ibori. Political elite in Delta State and perhaps in other states in the South-south and possibly in other parts of Nigeria went to felicitate with Ibori. Senator Nwobosisi had earlier on, on behalf of Ibori, boasted that while in prison, he was responsible for electing his daughter into the House of Representatives and he also claimed he helped Bukola Saraki to become Senate President. Obviously Nwobosisi himself became a senator because of Ibori’s backing from prison.

    Before he returned home from London, it was reported that the Delta State government had paid him several millions of Naira in back gubernatorial allowances and other financial support befitting a former governor in spite of the British saying he robbed the state blind an offense for which they sentenced him to 13 years. He was released after serving half of his time in jail.

    The result of all this is that the international community is likely to sit on the proceeds of corruption in their countries’ banks. They will argue that if they returned the money, our various governments may return same to the thieving looters. This of course will be a convenient excuse for not releasing the money which can be put to better use in their countries. It is a case of fools would soon part with their riches.

    With the kind of leaders we have in this country, Nigeria is in trouble. One thing that baffles me is the general ignorance of the people, not just the uneducated but the apparently superficially educated persons who always demonstrate more enthusiasm than wisdom in politics. Some of these people do not mind Ibori soiling his hands and spoiling the name of our country. They will go on to say he is not the only one who is guilty as if this is a justification for his bad behaviour. Unless there are laws preventing this type of people from aspiring to the highest post in the land, one would not be surprised if Ibori runs for the presidency. His supporters would argue that the British were unfair to him and would cite the fact that a corrupt Nigerian court had said he had no case to answer when he was faced with 170 violations of the criminal code. Although the EFCC appealed the case and technically the case has not been dispensed with. This is the problem. How many corrupt cases have been decided even during the current dispensation?

    Many of the previously accused individuals are now senators earning humongous salaries and allowances as well as collecting millions of Naira as former governors. Until everybody realizes that there is a possibility of revolt by the suffering masses which in blind fury would terminate our lives, our leaders will continue to behave with the impunity which makes them inured to all criticisms.

    Recently the police displayed millions of Naira seized from INEC officials after the bye-elections in Rivers State. These monies were allegedly given to the officials of the electoral body by the governor of Rivers State. The governor has denied the accusation but we have some kind of evidence of Nigerian currency running into hundreds of millions displayed by the police as if they were chiffon de papier – mere pieces of paper as the French will say. When I saw this, I was depressed seriously because our national currency has been so thoroughly abused that one feels humiliated working to earn the dirty money so carelessly displayed by the police. With the Naira so easily available to be dispensed by governors, is it any wonder why the Naira value has so totally collapsed? In a country where salaries are not being paid when due, the sight of so much money on display can make the poor desperate. This desperation manifests in the current wave of kidnapping and waylaying of people on the highways.

    All people of good conscience must support this current government to rein in this monster of corruption. This brings me to the unkind, uncaring and hateful rumours peddled over the president’s medical condition. This is a man trying to slaughter the demon of corruption for which some are wishing him dead. Can people not make a connection between the vastly reduced price of crude oil on the world market and Nigeria’s total dependence on earnings from much reduced oil production because of sabotage in the Niger Delta and our present economic situation and recession? When apparently sane people tell the government to immediately diversify the economy, I ask myself whether these are serious people. To do that will take time. If we want to grow enough rice to feed ourselves and industrialize the country to stop imports, will these not take some time? All this whingeing will amount to nothing unless we radically boycott all luxuries we current indulge in and make use of local goods. I want to end this piece by parroting Buhari’s words that if we do not kill corruption, corruption will kill this country.

  • Villain as hero, patriot as traitor

    It is a season for expression of solidarity and dissent. It is not unusual during such periods to see villains celebrated as heroes and patriots as traitors. The massive rally that canonise convicted ex-Governor James Ibori in Delta and demonstration against President Muhammadu Buhari’s handling of the affairs of the nation in the last two  weeks once again highlighted our crisis of nationhood. The canonization of Ibori as a hero and Buhari as a traitor define who we are -a nation of divisive nationalities with different cultures, values and world view who disagree on virtually everything including who qualifies as Nigerian heroes. Two weeks back, the people of Niger Delta, welcomed back home their hero with an ecstatic crowd led by Mr. Festus Ovie Agas, the Secretary to the state government who stood in for the governor who was alleged to have made provision for N350m to organise a welcome party for their Niger Delta illustrious son. Ibori dearly loved by his people but disparaged by many Nigerians and foreigners including misguided London court that chose to weep louder than the bereaved by describing him as ‘a thief in government house’ before jailing him for thirteen years for converting his state public fund to private use, offence for which he had been discharged and acquitted by an Asaba court with some help from the then Delta state government, returned to the warm embrace of his people.

    For them, Ibori is a hero perhaps because of what they perceive as his triumph over his past travails and exploits in the murky waters of Nigerian politics. These, of course, include his conviction in 1991 and 1992 for credit card fraud in Britain,  his  allegedly conviction for criminal breach of trust in Nigeria and his subsequent exoneration by the Nigerian Supreme Court that chose to ignore the evidence of the judge that convicted him, his deployment of an estimated Niger Delta N50b to  procure  a Yar Adua’s  electoral victory in the flawed 2007 election,  the dismissal and humiliation of Nuhu Ribadu from the police following his refusal to play ball  even with a mouth watering $15m bribe and the dismissal of Mr. Ibrahim Magu, the leading key investigators  into politically exposed persons, ‘for keeping files of accused in his house’ .

    And from the accounts of his wild jubilating kinsmen, we can also add to this list of his heroic exploits to his ability to influence the emergence of Bukola Saraki, his friend as Senate President, install the current Delta State Governor as well as law makers, including his daughter from inside his prison walls in far away in London.

    The Asaba wild rally was followed by last week’s protests and demonstrations, in Lagos and Abuja against President Muhammadu Buhari, a 74-year-old former military ruler currently on medical leave in Britain. They were organised by those who regarded him a villain  and therefore proclaim their “duty is to liberate Nigeria from shackle of poverty, suffering, disease, squalor and undemocratic tendencies of Buhari’s government”.  Buhari ironically is a Nigerian patriot who during his first coming as a head of a military junta in 1984 strived to make Nigeria a better place for all insisting Nigerian has no other place to call their own. Except for few excesses associated with military juntas, he demonstrated his passion for service to the country until he was removed through a palace coup by Babangida and Abacha for threatening corrupt elements within the military. Elected after three earlier attempts in 2015 on pledges to diversify the economy and fight corruption, his administration has come under serious threat in the last two years by corrupt elements that bled the nation for sixteen years and today openly justify the unwholesome activities of sponsored Niger Delta militants.

    However, Bola Tinubu, a chieftain of APC while appealing to the misguided protesters who are at best victims of misplaced aggression for patience and understanding, reminded them that “We are two years into the administration. To make those changes effectively and positively eventually, we have to be patient; we have to have the hope. The damage of 16 years will go through the system. You cannot get water out of a dry land.”

    Addressing the Abuja protesters put at about 700 by Reuters, Osinbajo, the acting President, blamed corruption which he says is “wealthy, powerful, influential and it is in every aspect of our lives,” And finally assuring the misguided protesters he said. “Things might be difficult today, but I am completely sure if we stay the course this country will not only get out of recession but always go to the path of sustainable development,”

    Bola Tinubu, the ‘Jagaban’ of Nigerian politics’ who went around the nation mouthing restructuring and Professor Osinbajo, an eminent legal mind know that whatever victory is achieved after this economic recession will be a pyrrhic victory. Unlike some of the misguided protesters who did not demonstrate against Jonathan creeping dictatorship when he sacked CBN governor for raising an alarm about missing  $20b in NNPC account, sacked a justice of an appeal court that ruled against his party but now want Nigerians to believe they are fighting Buhari’s dictatorship  and many of their co- travelers occupying state houses as governors and national assembly’s as law makers, who cannot articulate our crisis of nationhood, they know the truth. They know our crisis of nationhood is politics and not economics or economic recession.

    Our problem is the tyranny of the state which federal arrangement sets out to resolve. We should find out why restive groups are prepared to wreck the nation. Why are Niger Delta leaders and avengers sabotaging the economy of the country? Why   were federal ministers stealing and stacking dollars in their homes? Why did federal ministers of Finance who know importation of labour of other societies would sound the death knell of our own economy deploy the bulk of our foreign earnings to importation of everything under the sun for 16 years?  Why do bureaucrats steal pensioners’ funds? Why are our two houses of assemblies, houses of deals? The most plausible answer is that people are ready to destroy the system they don’t have faith in. After all, no sane man sets out to destroy his father’s house.

    The celebration of a villain as a hero and the morbid wish of those who want Buhari dead because with exchange rate of N500 to a dollar, they could no more make easy billions through importation of everything under the sun at the expense of poor Nigerians is a call for a restructured Nigeria. Nigeria will be better off with a Niger Delta region or group of states paying dividends on the nations investment which Kachikwu put at $40b and 50% taxation on her earnings as it was in the first republic than the current situation where we do not know what was produce or when what was refined or imported is diverted to private dumps owned by some ministers.

    A restructured Nigeria is  a win-win for every group. The Niger Delta will be free to celebrate their heroes. With industries springing up in the east, unpatriotic importers of substandard goods in the name of business will be forced to look inwards. A viable middle belt region can contain the threat of Fulani herdsmen. The Fulani who currently armed killers because the constitution allows them to invade other people’s farms and homes will be forced live in the 21st century by providing deep water irrigation to feed their cattle and they will be free to welcome their kit and kin from Northern Cameroon and Niger who they claim are the foreign cattle rustlers. And of course the south west that survives on yam and tomatoes from the north and consumes10,000 head of cows daily  will be forced to look inward or pay the economic rate for products of those who without government subsidy ferry their goods in  amidst man- made huddles including police bribes at every state border.