The Nation Newspaper

Category: Thursday

  • The scorched snake

    The fall of Sambisa Forest, the stronghold of Boko Haram, last December was received with joy nationwide. The Northeast especially was happy that, at last, the evil forest fell. The fall of Sambisa was something that the people had long looked forward to. They counted days and nights and waited months on end for it to happen. But it did not. It was a long and stressful wait. It all started in 2009 when the leader of the Boko Haram sect, Mohammed Yusuf, died in police custody.

    His followers believe that he was killed by the police and so they took up arms against the state and the citizenry. Right before our eyes, Boko Haram became a terror to the people. It is not that it was any better than that before the death of its leader. It just became worse after his death. Yusuf’s dearth was an opportunity for his successors to unleash the sect’s evil intentions on the society. Here is a group which by its name claims that ”western education is sin”, but yet it uses western tools to propagate its ideals.

    Boko Haram claims it is fighting the cause of Islam, yet it does not reckon with Muslim leaders in the country.  The reason for its action is not far-fetch. Members of the sect believe that they are more pious than other Muslims. So, they cannot be under the spiritual  command of any other Islamic leader except the one chosen by them. Boko Haram was a disaster waiting to happen in the north because of the overindulgence of its youths. The north believed and still believes in indulging its youths. Rather than allow them to utilise their time and God given talent in tangible things, it engages them in menial chores that will not profit them, but the high and mighty.

    The rich fed off the sweat of the poor, who they used as domestic servants and also allowed to beg with bowls on the streets. They do this with others’ children, while their own kids are sent to the best of schools in the country and abroad. It was just a matter of time before someone like the late Yusuf will surface and change the orientation of the hoi polloi. He came with the message that the youths can take their destinies in their own hands and that they did not need any godfather to become somebody. It may not have been the best of indoctrination, but what was the alternative?

    The alternative was to shun the late Yusuf and find a way to survive without his help, but many of his disciples were afraid of taking a plunge into the cold hard world of the unknown. What their leaders could not do for them, the late Yusuf did within seven years before his death. This is why they were devastated by his death and vowed to wreak havoc on the society. They achieved their aim. The havoc Boko Haram wreaked on the northeast, especially Maiduguri, is unquantifiable. The sect destroyed houses, schools, churches and mosques.

    It also killed, maimed, raped and robbed. There was nothing Boko Haram did not do in the years that it held sway in Sambisa, which became its fort of sorts. It kidnapped people and took them there. Once they are there, that is the end of the matter – the victims are gone for good except a miracle happens. It did the unthinkable on April 15, 2014 when it abducted over 200 pupils of the Government Girls Secondary School (GGSS), Chibok, in the wee hours of the night. It fled with the girls into Sambisa and dared the government to come for them there. For over one year, the girls were in captivity, with the then government doing nothing to rescue them.

    All that changed with the coming of the Buhari administration on May 29, 2015. The government has liberated the communities and local governments that were seized by Boko Haram and stamped its authority on those places. It has also rescued some of the Chibok girls, raising hope that more of them may yet be rescued. The sect’s abduction of the Chibok girls was the beginning of its end. If only it had known, it would not have snatched those girls from their school. That incident really showed the sect for what it is – a callous and bloodsucking monster.  Even those in the north who had sympathy for the group parted ways with it. The girls’ abduction was the height of its misadventure since it was founded in 2002.

    The Buhari administration’s determination to flush it out of Sambisa Forest yielded result when troops raided its theatre of operation codenamed Camp Zairo. The fall of Sambisa should have been the collapse of Boko Haram, but no it is not. Boko Haram is still struggling to remain a terror by attacking what the military calls ”soft targets”. Regrettably, it is doing more harm with these attacks because many of its members fled the evil forest long before troops captured it  The latest of such attacks was Monday’s invasion of a mosque in the University of Maiduguri (UNIMAID). Five persons, including Prof Aliyu Usman Mani, a veterinary doctor, were killed in the attack. We are happy that Sambisa has fallen, but we will be happier if Boko Haram too is crushed.

    The government also knows that Boko Haram will remain a threat as long as it has the power of attack by using minors as suicide bombers, just as it did in UNIMAID on Monday. The government has only done part of the job by annexing Sambisa, it will be doing the whole job by crushing Boko Haram never to rise again.  This will take time. But, we can help the government to hasten the fall of Boko Haram by giving out information on its activities.  If we know anything about the group and continue to keep quiet, it will not be fair to turn round to blame the government for the group’s continued threat, no matter how ”insignificant” such threats may be.

    In this battle against insurgency, we cannot afford to rest on our oars until Boko Haram is extinct. It is something that can be done because members of the sect are not ghosts; they are known to some people. Let us help the government to fish them out in order to save our country men and women from their fangs.

  • The best of 2016 (I)

    The best of 2016 (I)

    They gave us so much. Amazing stunts, openness, responsibility, sincerity, new words and phrases, hope and more.

    Hit by the vicissitudes of these times – recession, Boko Haram, southern Kaduna, kidnapping and hunger – we are tempted to forget their roles in making 2016 a truly remarkable year. We shouldn’t. This being the season of recognitions and goodwill, it is fit and proper to honour all those compatriots of ours who went the extra mile to make the society better. They are our best.

    As protocol demands, we start from the top. Former British Prime Minister David Cameron, the biggest casualty of the Brexit ignorance, looked good to carry the day when he gave us the phrase “fantastically corrupt”. It sparked a huge row that went on for days. Nigerians descended on Cameron for making such an uncomplimentary remark. The patriot in many a Nigerian was aroused. “Why call us corrupt when your U.K. is the receiver-in-chief of the proceeds of corruption? Isn’t this the worse hypocrisy anybody can think of?” many Nigerians grumbled to no one in particular even as everybody felt the depth of their anger. Some, the daring ones among the patriots, told the former P.M. bluntly: “Is it your money? What is your business in this? In fact, you must apologise to us.”

    With the uproar, it is a matter of great surprise that Mr. Cameron’s “fantastically corrupt” did not win the Phrase of the Year. Really? Not quite.  Aisha Buhari’s interview shocked many who never saw the critic in our affable First Lady. She said the administration had been hijacked by a cabal and warned that she might not support the President for another term should things continue the way they were.

    Many who had expected a civil war in the first family were disappointed when President Muhammadu Buhari dismissed it all with an amazing presidential jocularity. He said in far away Germany: “I don’t know which party my wife belongs to, but she belongs to my kitchen and my living room and the other room.” It was electrifying. Holidaying women rights activists, whose last known battle was fought and lost a few years ago when a distinguished senator insisted on marrying a minor, suddenly woke up. The President has offended women’s sensibility, they cried, demanding an apology. Needless to say, they got none as their voice was drowned in the euphoria that greeted the president’s salubrious sense of humour. Besides, the phrase “the other room” took on a life of its own, earning diverse interpretations, some of which I will not bother to repeat here, this being a family newspaper.

    Buhari’s “the other room”, without any fear of contradiction, is the Phrase of the Year. In fact, Mrs. Buhari’s interview easily qualifies for Interview of the Year, but for justice and equity, the first family will not be allowed to snatch away both trophies.

    Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) Babachir David Lawal has been gravely troubled since senators levelled some allegations against him and demanded that the President give him the push. They said they were in possession of a petition alleging that Lawal awarded a contract to a company in which he had an interest. If they had left it at that, perhaps the matter would have just fizzled out like so many others, but his traducers peppered it all with the allegation that the contract, aforementioned, was to cut grass in Yobe – at N272.52m.

    No grass was cut, Yobe Information Commissioner Mohammed Lamin said, arming Lawal’s opponents, who are obviously envious of his success, with a lethal weapon to deal him a fatal blow. President Buhari ordered a probe and Lawal was forced to defend his integrity, as if he is just an ordinary civil servant. He said he had quit the affairs of the company that won the small contract and that his son was in charge. Didn’t United States President–elect Donald Trump announce recently that he was ceding his position in his companies to his sons and nobody raised any eyebrow? Not so here. He should show proof that he was not signing the company’s cheques even after stating that he had quit, the SGF’s incorrigible traducers yelled. The more Lawal explained his position, the worse the public perception of him got. His account in the bank of credibility, it seemed, was already in the red. Overdrawn.

    All is not lost. Didn’t the great bard say “sweet indeed are the uses of adversity?” The controversial contract has attracted the attention of the intelligentsia, with many researchers signing up for funds to have an academic excursion into what they have termed in popular lingo “contract without tears”. One, a professor of many years standing, I am told, is writing a book on “the grass-to-grace story of the grass cutter of Abuja”. His grass cutter, according to reliable sources who have caught a rare glimpse of the first grade work, is not to be confused with the bush meat that has become a popular accompaniment to pounded yam in many homes in Ekiti.

    No doubt, this is the Contract of the Year.

    Not much was heard or known about All Progressives Congress (APC) Chairman John Odigie-Oyegun, a chief and former governor, after he joined the June 12 struggle against the vicious dictatorship of Gen. Sani Abacha (of dreadful memory). He was in politics quite alright but he never really hit it big until prominent politicians of like minds joined forces to form the APC that kicked the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) out of power. Oyegun, waving the banner of a democrat and an epitome of integrity, got vaulted into the powerful office of party chairman. Needless to say, he has done well for the party and – as some would argue- for himself.

    The APC was set to be announced the winner of the Kogi State governorship election when suddenly, its candidate, Abubakar Audu, died. Many thought his running mate, Abiodun Faleke, who had gone through thick and thin with him would be asked to step into his shoes. Oyegun found in that proposition neither logic nor sense and reason. He announced that a new candidate, Yahaya Bello, a fellow who had dumped the party and actively undermined it after losing the battle for its ticket, had been appointed.

    Those who felt Oyegun would stand by his party and insist that the election was over after the APC had in its kitty majority of the votes cast – which the rerun in a few places could not torpedo – were disappointed. “Is this the Oyegun we used to know? What has come upon the former NADECO chief?”

    The APC was plunged into turmoil. The sheep were in disarray as the shepherds tore at one another. The animosity was yet to subside when the Ondo State governorship election hit the scene. The primary was as acrimonious as a motor park union’s election. The delegates’ list was upturned and a new one surfaced on the eve of the primary. Those who were hurt did the right thing. They took their case to the party. No justice. Since then, there have been calls for Oyegun to go. Faced with such vociferous calls for his head, many a weak chairman would have chickened out, surrendered and claimed that they threw in the towel under duress. Not Oyegun.

    For clinging on tenaciously to his seat despite what is seen by his critics as his obvious misjudgments, which have bred so much bellicosity in the party, Oyegun is Chairman of the Year.

    Step forward Youth and Sports Minister Solomon Dalung. Those who are not his fans deride him as an unserious fellow who thinks a ministerial badge is a licence for executive tomfoolery. Some, without conceding to him his fundamental right to be cloaked as he likes, accuse him of dressing like a doorman. Others say his khaki and military police/ Boys Scout beret portray him as a new Civil Defence recruit or a Civilian Joint Task Force (CJTF) commander. I really don’t know.

    Despite the darts fired at him, Dalung carries on with remarkable sincerity. When Flying Eagles coach Samson Siasia took the team to Atlanta, United States of America (USA), which the minister erroneously referred to as United States of Nigeria, just before the Rio Olympics, Dalung declared them missing. Perhaps they would have remained missing but for this outcry. The team was eventually found. They arrived in Brazil in unpleasant circumstances and went on to shock the world by winning the bronze medal. An inconsiderate minister would have shunned this modest achievement. Not so Dalung. He let the world into the secret of the team’s success when he announced that his pep talks did the magic.

    The other day when the victorious Super Falcons staged a sit-in in their hotel to demand payment of arrears of allowances, the minister was quick to let the cat out of the bag. He confided in the public that the soccer authorities could not pay the girls, the defending champions who had won the Cup of Nations at least seven times, because they were never expected to win. What sincerity.

    When he faced the House of Representatives Committee on Sports recently, Dalung was as blunt and frank as ever. He told the lawmakers that the funds “spended” on the 2016 Olympics were “properly spended”. Some fellows who never see anything good in hard working government officials pounced on him.” Is he not a lawyer and a former university teacher?” they growled.

    Take a bow Dalung. For your frankness, which your critics deride as buffoonery, you have the Minister of the Year trophy.

    Other awards to follow shortly.

     

    …And one last word

    Dear reader, this is just to inform you that I won’t be attending the Donald Trump inauguration tomorrow because of my very tight schedule. See you in a fortnight.

  • Moremi controversy in S/West

    Ancient Ife, the first city kingdom founded by the Yoruba people, is a place of great legends and folktales. One of the most popular folktales from Ife is the Moremi story. In Yorubaland in modern times, Moremi has been widely celebrated in songs and drama – usually as a story of great heroism and patriotism. But now, in recent weeks, there has arisen a controversy over the exact significance of Moremi in Yoruba history. The Ooni of Ife has celebrated Moremi as a heroine and patriot with a beautiful statue in Ile-Ife. But the Oba of another Yoruba kingdom, the Olugbo of Ugbo, has responded that Moremi was not a patriot but a traitor – and a public controversy is raging.

    The first thing to say about controversies concerning Yoruba history is that the Yoruba are a very great African people – with one of the highest peaks of urbanism in world history, and with highly sophisticated political, social and intellectual accomplishments. The Yoruba have great stories to tell from their proud history but, unfortunately, because they did not develop writing as part of their civilization, oral traditions of their history can sometimes prove difficult to unravel. It is an honour for us historians to wrestle with these difficulties. And we must thank distinguished historians Toyin Falola and Jide Osuntokun and others for stepping into the present Moremi controversy. My brief intervention here is that of a historian who has spent a whole adult life researching and writing Yoruba history, and who is still strongly involved in the study.

    The setting for the Moremi story is the Ife town (Ile-Ife) in its earliest years. For many centuries before the creation of Ile-Ife, many tiny separate settlements had existed in the area of the Ife forest. (Clumps of such small settlements were many all over Yorubaland). In about the 9th century AD, the small separate settlements in the Ife forest coalesced into a single large town, Ile-Ife, ruled by one king – the first of such in Yorubaland. The path to the formation of this one Ile-Ife was rough, featuring conflicts and wars between the many small settlements of the area, conflicts and wars lasting, according to most traditions, more than 100 years. Even after the inhabitants of the small settlements finally agreed to end the conflicts and settle together in one large town (ile-Ife), there were some people who would not agree. These migrated away in anger into the forests far from Ileì-IfeòÌ, where they settled down and built settlements of their own. The people of Igbo-Igbo, one of such settlements, being still very angry, were determined to destroy Ileì-IfeòÌ. And so the stage was set for the Moremi story.

    Ileì-IfeòÌ town was new, young, and fragile. Suddenly, it found itself in grave danger. From somewhere in the deep forests, some people dressed in strange masks, and looking more like phantoms than humans, came attacking and rampaging in the dead of night, destroying and burning houses, killing people and kidnapping others. Before the Ileì-IfeòÌ people could respond, the phantoms vanished. Sometimes, the attack occurred frequently; at other times it occurred after long breaks. Nobody could tell when it would come. Fear gripped Ile-Ife; many people believed that the attackers were super-human. It sometimes seemed as if the town would break up.

    Among the king’s wives, there was one exceptionally beautiful young woman named Moremi. MoòreÌmi had only one son named Oluìorogbo. MoòreÌmi began to think of the terrible situation. Surely, she thought, there must be something that she could do to help her town. She finally came to a decision.

    One night, MoòreÌmi stole out of the palace and went to the small river EòsinÌmiÌnriÌn in the forest, not far from town. Standing in the darkness, she invoked the spirit of the river for help for Ile-Ife. At last the river spirit answered and agreed to help, but demanded a reward. Moremi pledged to offer her only son, Oluorogbo, as sacrifice to the river spirit as reward.

    And then the river spirit gave Moremi her instructions. On the next coming of the raiders, Moremi should deliberately let herself be kidnapped and taken away. She would go through a lot of experiences, but she should not fear, because she would be under protection. And she would someday come back to Ileì-IfeÌ, and her return would finally lead to the destruction of the enemies and the end of their attacks.

    So, when the attackers came next, Moremi let herself be captured by them. They rushed her and some other captives into the deep forests. After a long march in the forests, they reached their destination – a small town surrounded by thick dark jungles. Among Yoruba people, the practice was that kings and chiefs took as wives young women who were captured in war. So, the king took Moremi as wife.

    And so MoòreÌmi found herself in the very heart of the secrets of the enemies of Ile-Ife. In the many months that followed, as a wife to their ruler, she was able to listen to their conversations and plans and learn the minutest details of their secrets. They were not phantoms at all, but humans wearing masks. And their masks were inflammable.

    One morning, while fetching water alone at the brooks, Moremi felt the urge to bolt away. She said a short prayer and started off into the jungle. She had a fair knowledge of the forest paths. She knew that some men would soon be chasing her, but she was confident that they would not find her – that was what the spirit of the river had promised.

    Finally, she burst into her familiar Ile-Ife. She was taken before the Ooni and his chiefs, and she told them all she had done and suffered and learned. She revealed all the secrets of the supposedly phantom raiders, and made suggestions how their menace could be finally brought to an end.

    The raiders came at the time that MoòreÌmi had said they would. An ambush was waiting for them, mounted by men armed not only with the usual swords, spears, bows and arrows, but also with fiery torches. The phantom raiders were completely vanquished. The next morning, as MoòreÌmi had advised, a large army set out through the forests to go and attack Igbo-Igbo. The small town was taken by surprise and destroyed. Many survivors, including their king’s son, were brought captive to Ile-Ife. Many other survivors fled into the forests – and settled far away as new towns.

    In Ile-Ife, rather than order the execution of the captives, the Ooni allowed them to stay and live honorably as free citizens. The Ooni even conferred the title of a priest on their young captive prince, in which position he was allowed to wear his father’s crown. And Ileì-IfeòÌ lived and prospered from then on, and became the source from which many other YoruÌbaì city kingdoms were founded.

    MoòreÌmi’s personal story and agony was not yet ended. She still had her pledge to the spirit of the EòsiÌnmiÌnriÌn river to fulfill. One day, she took Oluorogbo to the bank of the river and offered him as sacrifice. Most versions say that, at that point, Oluìorogbo was snatched up to heaven and became a spirit. Some other versions say that after Oluìorogbo was sacrificed, the rulers and priests of IfeòÌ deified him. Oluorogbo’s shrine is said to exist still in Ile-Ife.

    Some historians doubt whether the Moremi story is myth or history. But, whichever it is, it is a very important story to the Ife people and to most Yoruba people.

    Moreover, if the Moremi story is indeed history, then it should not surprise us that, while most Yoruba regard Moremi as a heroine and patriot, people in some places in Yorubaland (probably descendants of those who suffered defeat and distress because of her actions) regard her as a traitor. In the history of the world, that commonly happens to important persons. It all depends on how an important person’s life impacted different people in his or her time. For instance, most French people regard Joan of Arc, who once saved France in a battle, as a heroine and patriot; but some regard her as an insane woman possessed of the devil.

    We Yoruba will always have colourful controversies from our great history. We must not quarrel about such. Our duty is to respect our past, and to try responsibly to study and understand difficult points in our traditions. Fortunately, we are always producing competent historians today. In the Moremi matter, the Ooni deserves our nation’s gratitude for the beautiful new statue of Moremi in Ile-Ife.  We Yoruba need to have many statues of our local and nationwide heroes and heroines in our homeland.

  • Magic and Buhari (2)

    Power is indeed seductive. Ask Muhammadu Buhari. He knows it is not necessarily just and kind. It is rarely patronising. Power is ravishing no doubt. But also a tad capricious and infinitely cruel. Power nurtures distaste for morality. Thus when a moral man like Buhari assumes power, he becomes incidental the moment he hearkens to the wisdom of political expediencies. This minute, every heady swill he takes of power, becomes a fog that muddles his morals, leaving him stupefied.

    Morality is never enough to occupy the seat of power, expedient morality to be precise. It is never a sturdy rampart against the storm of vanities incited by a nation of over 250 ethnicities and religious perversions.

    We think Buhari is a magician and expect him to save Nigeria. We expect him to rid us of corruption. But even Buhari deserves salvation, likewise his All Progressives Congress (APC). I do not say Mr. Buhari is corrupt but how does one make sense of his dalliance with the corrupt? This minute, Buhari wades deeper into murky waters; he burrows out of the morality ‘jailhouse’ he constructed for himself even as he collapses in moral dystrophia. Buharists will term this ‘political sagacity’ or ‘political expediency’ if you like. But I would call it ‘pitiful hara-kiri.’ At the backdrop of this calamity, Buhari’s ‘change’ gets tempered into a corny lie he had to tell, to earn electoral votes and a shot at Aso Villa.

    Yet I believe Buhari didn’t lie about his mission to ‘change’ Nigeria for better. He simply overestimated his abilities. Now that he is Mr. President, he looks back on his past condemnation of his predecessors and exaggerated moral crusade to heal Nigeria, as the tantrums of a child who swore to become everything but his father, only to grow up and become everything like his father. There is no gainsaying Buhari’s ‘change’ agenda has been hijacked and weaponised by his super ‘change’ team into a monstrosity of sort. Yet Buhari watches with disinterest, the happenstances that will eventually rid him of his stature as a moralist and positive ‘change’ agent, all for the love of power.

    In the wake of glaring misdemeanour and machinations by elements within his team to rob Nigeria silly via suspicious budgetary allocations, Buhari remains discomfortingly quiet. Equally disappointing is his silence over the persistent murder of peaceful citizenry across the country by rampaging herdsmen from the north. Buhari does not see anything wrong with a situation whereby gangs of herdsmen swoop on rural communities to maim, kill and rob the natives, in bid to claim their victims’ land as grazing patch for their cows.

    Buhari will not lift a finger in defense of the poor, helpless peasants brutally hacked to death by kinsmen from the north but he got jittery and instantly swung to action immediately Enoch Adeboye, General Overseer (GO) of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), urged his congregation to get more involved in politics in the tenor of civilised revolt, come 2019.

    Soon after he was forced to step down as RCCG overseer courtesy a new legal requirement by the Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria (FRCN) that leaders of all religious organizations observe a maximum leadership of their organisations for 20 years, Adeboye told his congregation: “Some people believe that RCCG is becoming too influential and we’re going to be more influential. When you get home, tell members to join a political party. Join a party and become a card-carrying member of any party. Just join any party. We shall decide issues right from the ward level.”

    Buhari considered Adeboye’s utterances as a veiled threat and admonition to Christians to vote against his 2019 ambition, thus he sacked Jim Obazee, the FRCN officer allegedly responsible for the enforcement of the law. He didn’t stop at that, he reconstituted the agency’s board and suspended the controversial law.

    This aspect of Buhari’s personality is no doubt enlightening to closet dissenters of Buharism even as it enriches the arsenal of the anti-Buhari and anti-change movement. Predictably, comical Governor of Ekiti State, Ayodele Fayose, among others, has ridiculed Buhari for his apparent cowardice in the face of Adeboye-led RCCG antagonism. He said, “Obviously, their attention is more on 2019, not on justice and any love for the sustenance of Christianity in Nigeria. Mind you, they have only suspended the implementation of the regulation, they did not abrogate it. It is obvious that they have an agenda. And if you look at the president’s pattern of life, he is a sectional leader, whose appointments reflect sectionalism and nepotism.”

    Governor Fayose’s drivel no doubt exemplifies the tenor of outrage and mockery of Buhari’s intriguingly swift and decisive action in respect of the FRCN/Adeboye drama. And in desperate bid to be considered a man of his words, Buhari and his ‘change’ agents claim they have begun the implementation of his N5, 000 lifeboat or stipend if you like, to Nigeria’s most impoverished. This no doubt deserves applause, according to zombie-Buharists.

    Agreed. But how did Buhari come by the database by which he determines folk deserving of the stipend? How were the beneficiaries mapped out? How did Buhari arrive at a figure of the actual number of recipients of his anti-poverty lifeboat? How has he ensured that the initiative is not hijacked and diverted to the villainous schemes of corrupt elements within his ‘change’ team and APC? Not by the spurious and pathetic explanation given by his spokesperson, I believe.

    Lest we forget his shameful reluctance to reprimand his close cronies among APC governors for gross acts of incompetence, insolence to the electorate and god complex; Buhari probably considers the rot in various states as manifestations of APC’s gospel of ‘change.’

    Buhari’s government has become food for maggots and carrion for familiar scavengers but all hope is not lost. There is still room for Mr. Buhari to right his wrongs and reclaim his honour. He could still actualise his romanticised fiction as the odd one out among Nigeria’s predatory ruling class.

    Buhari should simply stand like a man. His current stoop and sway to the rage and wile of tempestuous and corrupt beings contradicts every value he used to symbolise. Buhari and his automatons would recall that at the beginning of his administration, this writer lamented that he had peopled his cabinet with the shady and inept; and that in 2017, he would have cause to sack these characters and unburden his cabinet of their excess garbage. Well, Buhari is at the verge of sacking the shady and inept among his ministers. He is simply too embarrassed to acknowledge so.

    I would rather he sacked every member of his kitchen cabinet and start afresh with a more competent team but folk will say: “That’s rash and suicidal.” What manner of leadership did he think he would provide working with a team that lacks character?

    There is no super remedy or almighty formula he could adopt in order to become the leader of our dreams. Buhari should simply man up and determinedly appoint the men and women truly capable of manning Nigeria’s crucial public offices. Given his incapacities and shortcomings as a leader, he should seek established professionals and technocrats to man his team. His 2017 budget is an eyesore, he should investigate and prosecute the duplicitous characters involved in ‘padding’ the budget.

    Buhari should allocate greater resources to education and manpower development. He should reduce salaries and perks enjoyed by public officers by 40 per cent to reflect the ongoing recession. He should revivify the nation’s vocational education culture. Buhari should rid Aso Rock of familiar bogeys masquerading as lobbyists and friends of his government. He should quit distorting his character to fulfill dubious expediencies and political correctness. Buhari should quit doing the ‘done-thing’ building bridges and cementing relationships with the filthy rich and influential in the spirit of expediencies.

    He should quit the rat race for re-election in 2019. If he is able to resolve Nigeria’s gravest systemic and infrastructure woes, he would have no cause to engage in such desperate, shameful quest for re-election before the end of his first term.

  •  The fall guy

    Poor Jim Obazee. He was until Monday boss of the Financial Reporting Council (FRC). He lost his job barely 48 hours after the respected General Overseer (G.O) of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), Pastor E.A. Adeboye, stepped down for Pastor Joseph Obayemi as G.O, RCCG Nigeria. If only Obazee had known, he would not have been bent on implementing the code of corporate governance for not-for-profit organisations to which churches, mosques and civil society groups belong. Obazee appears to be a stickler for the rule.

    He believes that things should be done in accordance with the law. Remember his spat with former Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor Sanusi Lamido Sanusi? Obazee insisted that CBN is subject to the scrutiny of the Financial Reporting Council (FRC). He asked that the CBN  should open its books to the FRC for vetting. Since that was under another era – an era in which Sanusi was not favoured by those in power – Obazee had his way not only in dealing with Sanusi, who is now the emir of Kano, but with those in the banking sector.

    Obazee’s stock grew. After all, he was doing the job for which he was appointed. Before his coming, nobody knew anything about FRC. His activities brought the council to the limelight. Initially, we all mistook the council for the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN) because of the similarity in their acronym. He changed all that as he gave FRC its own image within a short time of coming to office. He was passionate about his job and he insisted on playing by the rules. He threw the book at those who questioned his actions, telling them that, that is what the law says. He forgot that laws are made for man and not man for the law.

    His insistence on implementing the governance code for religious organisations, many of which have today become profit-making bodies, may have cost him his job. He might have had good intentions on insisting that churches and mosques play by the rules, but he forgot that in a society like ours, there are exceptions to the rule. In a society where mega churches and mosques abound, the law cannot but be silent. This is what Obazee did not know. If he knew, he would have trodden softly in enforcing the law against them. He also forgot one thing and that is that virtually all our leaders are the spiritual children of these powerful clerics. So, how do you expect a spiritual child to correct his spiritual father?

    The odds were against Obazee. Head or tail, he would lose. You cannot fight religious organisations and win. The faithful will tell you that will be tantamount to fighting God. Forget that many of these bodies may not be doing God’s will, but that does not matter to their members, who are die-hard believers in their spiritual fathers. Obazee may have suffered from misjudgement. He might have thought that since he was serving under a government – which is fighting corruption and other unethical practices – whatever he does in that regard would be appreciated.

    If he could not enforce the governance code under the Jonathan administration, which appointed him, because of certain reasons, he might have thought that he could have his way under the Buhari administration, which has no special relationship with the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) leadership. From the word go, CAN has been against the implementation of the code, which it sees as interference in its members’ internal affairs. Its former president, Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor, criticised the law and used his connection then with Aso Villa to stop Obazee from moving against churches. Obazee’s hands were strengthened with the coming of the Buhari administration. The law can now take its course, he would have told himself and proceeded to implement it. Unknown to him, he was standing in the path of a moving train. The powerful whether in mainstream politics or outside it will always have their way.

    But Obazee did not read the situation well before moving against the churches as development as shown following Pastor Adeboye’s exit as G.O, RCCG, Nigeria. Industry, Trade and Investment Minister Okechukwu Enelamah was said to have directed him to suspend the implementation of the code’s provision, stipulating 20 years tenure for heads of religious and civil society groups . But he was said to have replied that there is no gazette to that effect and as such the provision could not be suspended. Adeboye cited this provision when he stepped down for Obayemi, saying many other G.Os in his shoes will soon follow suit

    Why did the minister want the code suspended? According to a newspaper report : ‘’There is an issue with the code of corporate governance and the minister wrote the FRC and told the council not to execute it because a lot of people from the private sector have complained about it. So, the minister wanted to look into it and see what the issues were. He (FRC boss) was asked not to go ahead with executing it. There is a controversy on that FRC issue and we are now looking into the matter to know what the issues are before we can finally take a decision. This is where the matter is currently’’. Denying the suspension of the code, the FRC said it is still in force. ‘’All the banks are complying with the code. If it has been suspended, why are they complying with it. The churches do not want it and that was why they went to court and they have lost’’.

    One would have thought that a matter like this would have been pursued up to the Supreme Court. But, no, the churches did not do anything after losing at the high court. Perhaps, they opted for ‘’administrative’’ solution to avoid a lengthy legal battle. So, whose order was Obazee executing in implementing the code? Can he allow his personal interest to conflict with his official function? Why did he not comply with the minister’s directive to suspend the implementation of the code? Who is in charge – he or the minister? Was anything at stake in his implementation of the code? Obazee might have misread the situation and conferred himself with the power he did not have in implementing the code, thereby forcing Adeboye to quit as RCCG, Nigeria leader.

    The government kept quiet for too long over this matter. If it had a position on the issue, did it make it clear to Obazee, who is expected to execute such decisions? Was the minister’s letter to him the government’s position? To avoid this kind of mess in future, which does not portray the government in good light, matters of this sensitive nature should be handled in public domain. By this,  I mean the government should have made it known through the media that it has suspended the implementation of the code. If it had done so, Adeboye would not have resigned ,  thereby throwing Nigeria, nay the world, into a frenzy.

    This turn of events at FRC is not good for the government. It shows that its house is not in order. If it was not Adeboye that resigned, would it still have sacrificed Obazee for ‘overreaching’ himself ? Blame not Obazee, but the government for this misadventure.

  • Wike Vs Police

    In the hierarchy of state security apparatus of power, the police take preeminence.  Either as guarantee against a descent into a state of nature where it is the survival of the fittest with everyone at war with one another or for security of life and property, peace and harmony, the police beyond taking care of the deviants also serve as arbitrators between warring husband and wives, landlords and tenants and the privileged and under privileged. In recent times, they have been called upon to navigate unfamiliar terrains such as protecting the public from governors as ‘thieves in government houses’, ensuring military Generals as accomplices in the sacking of military barracks and murder of military officers by Boko Haram face the law and alleged corrupt supreme court judges as merchants of injustice, receive a dose of what they routinely administer to criminals if they are found guilty.

    Our underpaid and overstretched police force, often accommodated in decrepit decaying buildings has received little attention from an ill-equipped self-serving political class. But then our military created ‘new breed’ politicians, who’s only known political socialization took place within the military unitary system cannot give what they don’t have. It is therefore not an accident that they have not been able to properly articulate our crisis of nationhood which, more than anything else is political in the last 17 years either because of their limitations or because they are beneficiaries of a lie we live as a federation. This explains why a Senator Dino Melaye will say “his goal in politics is to ensure youths get their own share of our resources”, a Tambuwal, former Speaker of the lower house and now governor of Sokoto State will say our fundamental crisis of nationhood can be solved with the centre pumping more money to the states without any reflection about a constitution of a multi-ethnic society that makes provision for only exclusive  and concurrent list with the former overriding the later in case of conflict which means the states can go to sleep waiting for hand-outs from a parasitic centre that pretends to own everything. And for our purpose which is the abuse of the Nigerian Police by ill-equipped politicians, we can add both Ayo Fayose of Ekiti and Nyesom Wike of Rivers who either out of ignorance or deceit see the federal police only as a veneer to commit illegality. It is not an accident that governing elite that obfuscate the role of police in society cannot see those who fell in the course of duty in the Boko Haram besieged North-east, in the Fulani herdsmen ravaged Middle Belt and in the dangerous Niger Delta creeks which added DSP (Deputy Superintendent of Police) Alkali Mohammed, of Mobile Police Unit 48, and his orderly to its long list of its victims on December 10, 2016 beyond just numbers.

    According to the General Officer Commanding (GOC) the newly-created Sixth Division of the Army in Port Harcourt, Maj.-Gen. Kasimu Abdulkarim, DSP Alkali Mohammed and his orderly were beheaded by hoodlums on Saturday December 10, 2016 during Rivers rerun legislative election at Ujju community near Omoku in Ogba/Edema/Ndoni council area, where the state’s chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Felix Obuah, hails from. The incident allegedly followed a false alarm by Wike and Obuah that the army and policemen had killed three PDP members, an allegation, Maj.-Gen. Abdulkarim dismissed as “mere farce to garner sympathy”, or a “design aimed at tarnishing the army’s image”.

    As it turned out, devious governing elite that have not deemed it fit to celebrate any of our past fallen police officers are not now in a hurry to secure justice for those “killed because they answered the call of duty to serve in an election”. The arrest of five suspects- Noble Nwaerema, Dike Deinpiribo, Valentine Alalibo, Onwunari J. Warmate, and Iloke Stephen and the decision of the Inspector General of Police (IGP) to set up a high powered investigation team, we now know are not enough guarantee these fallen police officers will ever get justice in the circumstances where Governor Nyesom Wike has already queried the position of IGP Ibrahim Idris and the army. He recently asked with an undisguised malice, ”The army announced that they recovered the uniforms from the forest; was there a polling unit in the forest?” Other questions followed in quick succession. “What is the polling unit where he was killed? “Where is the call log of a former commissioner who was alleged to have communicated with the killers? For Wike, the recovery of the headless body of the officer and the arrest of his suspected killers count for very little.

    And this was as the police top hierarchy insisted Wike deployed the services of the officers attached to him for illegal activities. According to statement signed by Force Public Relations Officer, Don N. Awunah, “police officers in the convoy of Rivers State governor, Mr. Nyesom Wike, on the day of the election misused the firearms in their possession contrary to the provisions of Force Order 237”. The statement added “The service personnel became overzealous, took laws into their hands and opened fire, causing panic in the crowd. They joined in storming the Port Harcourt City Council Secretariat and prevented the movement of election results of Mocha polling unit to the appropriate collation centre designated by INEC, in flagrant disregard and disobedience to senior Police officers present at the venue.”

    However, following the dismissal of the affected police officers by the police authorities, Wike insisted “The dismissed officers committed no crime other than foil a carefully-orchestrated electoral heist by officials of INEC in collusion with the APC and the Nigeria Police Force.” For him “The claim by the police that the affected officers misused their firearms while in the convoy of Governor Wake on December 10, 2016 is a wrong and cruel fabrication.” But he has not denied he had the police officers with him when by his own admission, “Two days after the elections, on December 12, 2016, he led thousands of Rivers people, to resist “an invasion by the police on the premises of the Port Harcourt City Local Government Council, in a brazen attempt to rig the elections in favor of the APC”.

    First, how can Wike who was not the one that issued out arms to the police officers dispute the claim by those who issued out the arms that the arms were misused? Then what is the motive of a governor who opted to deploy the police apparatus meant his protection to confront other senior police officers legally deployed to protect INEC office? One can hazard a guess as to the motive if it is recalled that not too long ago, Governor Wike protected by the police, allegedly in company of thugs, drove from the Government House to physically prevent a judge accused of corruption from being arrested in the middle of the night.

    And for Wike’s PDP, “The hurried dismissal” of the police men is another valid pointer to the pre-election rigging plans and the assassination attempt on Governor Wike”. The proof according to the Prince Dayo Adeyeye, the party spokesman: “NPC withdrawal of over 70 percent of its personnel deployed to Rivers State Government House and the Chief Security Officer (CSO) to the Governor a few days to the election.”

    It is on record that INEC had long before the election, condemned in very strong terms “the relentless false allegations, provocative and dangerous comments being made by Wike, all of which are capable of inciting people to commit violent acts” Maj.-Gen. Kasimu Abdulkarim put it differently “when you have people in leadership who do not take the responsibility of being a leader, this is what happens and they are issues that constitute threat to ordinary Nigerians.”

  • What is in a name?

    During the 2016 Christmas holidays, two little Osuntokun boys, aged  nine and  11 years and resident  in London  named “Beloved “and “Anointed “came to greet me as their grandfather  and as it is to be expected of these precocious lads, they asked me all kinds of questions. They saw a picture of me and Queen Elizabeth and the older of the two boys recognized the queen and asked me innocently: “Does she know you grandpa?”

    Before I could answer, the younger boy said “yes the queen knows everybody”. I explained to both boys, even though I had met her three times over the years, that the queen cannot possibly know me but that she knew I was a Nigerian because that was what she was told by her protocol officer who presented me to her. Then the boys moved round to view other photographs on the wall. They saw a picture of one of my children when he was young and asked “who is this boy in Afro hair cut?” I told them his name was Oluwaseyi. “Is he an Osuntokun too?” they asked. I told them he is. Before they continued, the older boy who had a Samsung tablet in his hand had opened it and Googled “osuntokun”. He then read out some entries about some of the OSUNTOKUNs and frowned unexpectedly when he said “what is osuntokun syndrome?” and asked if it is a disease. I told him it is a medical condition named after Professor Kayode Osuntokun who apparently first identified it. It is an “inherited familial disorder involving an inability to sense pain and auditory imperception where hearing is normal but the ability to make meaning of speech is lacking. Sensations such as temperature, pressure and touch are still able to be felt” The child still said he did not like the idea of his surname being identified with a disease. I told him that that’s the way of the world and that when he grows up he will find out about Newton’s law of gravity  and Albert Einstein’s laws of relativity and other  scientific principles identified with individuals for their intellectual achievements and that then they will be proud of one of their forbears.

    Now to the kernel of this essay. Why is it that Nigerians like to bear strange names these days? Beginning with my two little grandchildren. Why did their parents prefer names like “Beloved “and “Anointed”? What is wrong with “Oluwaferanmi”, “Oluwawemimo” which correspond to those strange English names?

    This reminds me of a young lady on admission to one of our universities who wrote her name as “God is great “ Igwe . The computer could not handle such a long prenom and the name came out as “Great Igwe “and that is the name that will be on the certificate of this lady when she graduates. Of course we know that the wave of Pentecostal Christian revival has led to a revolution in the first names of our children. We now have names such as “Overflow” “Victory at last” “Open heavens” “Blessed Assurance” and less jaw breaking names such as “Glory”  “Harmony” “Blessing” “Dominion” “Trinity” “Daily bread” “ Thank God” “God knows” “Good luck” among many  others. Thank God we have not got to the extreme of naming our children “Yesus” and “Jesus” as the Ethiopians and Spaniards do!

    Names such as “Long John”  “Clerk” “ Cookie”” African face” “Big boy”  “Government” “Chamberlain “ “Bismarck “ and even “Hitler” have traditionally been given to children in the Niger Delta. This was because of the Niger Delta’s long association with Europeans. I remember a distinguished former ambassador of Nigeria from the delta jokingly saying the Niger Delta people did not know us upland Nigerians until the white men who were their neighbours across the seas forced us on them in so-called country of Nigeria. He meant it of course as a joke but the truth is that there was a symbiotic relation between the coastal and up country people for mutual sustenance. Still on strange names, I remember an incident when I was ambassador to Germany. A Nigerian asylum seeker apparently from the Niger delta flew to Frankfurt with a Nigerian passport with his names as “Otto Von Bismarck”.

    The German immigration officer had to call his boss who asked the Nigerian “Du bist Otto Von Bismarck?” Somebody translated it to this intrepid Nigerian “Are you Otto Von Bismarck?” To which he answered in the affirmative. The immigration officer then spoke to him in German and English “herstliche wilkome”, “well come home”. For those who do not know the significance of this name, it is the name of the founder of modern Germany. I wonder what the reception would have been if his passport had read Adolph Hitler! It is not only in the Niger Delta that one finds people with non-African names. The Creoles and their descendants in Lagos also bear names of those who either enslaved them or who rescued them from slavery. Some people in the neighboring EGBA and Ijebu areas took on such names as Pythagoras Williams, Benson, and Cole just to appear civilized and westernized. Recently I met one man called Kissinger Chukwu! I could not but laugh.

    One thing I know is that the parents who are carried away by religious fervor and fanaticism are wasting their time because when our children grow up they will change these names to names they can live with or else their friends in school would not allow them to have peace because they will be the butt of jokes.

    There is nothing new under the sun. When I was young, my dad gave English or biblical names to his boys and girls. We had names like Joseph, Samuel, Edward, Keturah Rachel, Benjamin, Ezekiel, Peter, Enoch and Moses .My father named me Johnson to my future surprise because the name is not in the bible. Two of us were given English names, namely Edward and Johnson which my father picked up in the then Gold Coast (Ghana) when he went there in search of the Golden Fleece! I stopped bearing the name when I entered university following the examples of Dr Benjamin Nnamdi Azikiwe and Jeremiah Obafemi Awolowo who dropped their biblical colonial names like hot potatoes to signify their rejection of British colonialism. Those were the days of Mbonu Ojike, one of the early Nigerian nationalists whose motto was “boycott the boycottable”. He certainly felt we did not need European and biblical names to assert our humanity. He was right and still right today. Not everybody in Ojike’s generation listened to him. Certainly not Anthony Enahoro, an old boy like my brother Edward of Government College Ibadan both of whom seemed to have liked those English names. This must have been the influence of the white teachers in Government College Ibadan of those halcyon years.

    When the British came to Nigeria and asked for the names of our people they got such answers as “Ojo” “Nnamdi” “Zanna” “Muhammad” or “Tamunobere”. Then they would say “what is your father’s name?” The children would remain quiet because they did not know their father’s names. Even if they knew it, it was taboo to mention ones father’s names. Then the British began to call the first names of our people and then attach to them the names of their towns. So you had “Ojo Ibadan “Aminu Kano” “Nnamdi Onitsha” and so on. This was particularly the case in the colonial army the West African Frontier Force (WAFF).

    The names in the northern part of our country reflect the coming of Islam in some cases as early as 800AD (9th century) in Borno. This has had ramifying effect on the culture and mores of the people. It is in the area of names that the impact of the Islamic culture has been total. But even here, there has been attempt to Africanise some of the Arabic names. Thus we have “Muhammadu “Ahmadu” “Yakubu” “Aminu “and so on. We of course still have names such as “Tanko” Ganduje”Ardo and others which are obviously not of Arabic origin. I remember my Sudanese friends jokingly asking me why we Nigerians put “u” after every Arabic name.

    The Yoruba people have a saying that our names reflect what is happening in our homes and lives of our parents when we are born. This is why names prefaced by “Ade” such as Adeniji, Adegoke, Adejoke, Adewunmi  etc connote royalty “Akin” as in AKINJIDE, Akinwunmi, Akindele etc connotes courage. There are names one is born with if you are twins such as Taiwo and Kehinde and Idowu and Alaba and other names like Ojo , Aina , Ige and Ajayi that children bear to reflect the way they came into this world . I am for keeping our culture and what better way to preserve our culture than by preserving our languages and keeping our names rather than having foreign names. We should leave the white men to bear such names as Bullock, Bull, Stone, Bird, Pigeon and such funny names only white people can bear.

  • When will recession end?

    When will recession end?

    Nigeria is in a deep recession, a grave economic quagmire, with no respite in sight yet. In 2015, after a decade of impressive growth of nearly seven per cent annually, the economy stalled and went rapidly into a tailspin. There is now palpable and widespread public concern that the recession may slide into a depression. It has led to a massive loss of jobs, increased unemployment, spiralling inflation and infrastructure decay. The macro economy is in complete disarray. The poverty level in the country has worsened considerably as more and more people are falling into the poverty trap daily. At both the federal and state levels the governments have fallen into arrears on salaries and pensions. The FG and state governments are now borrowing to meet their financial obligations. Technically, our country is now almost insolvent. The CBN is reluctant to lend the FG more money.

    The long recession, possibly the worst in Nigeria’s recent economic history, has virtually wiped out the limited economic gains of recent years. For most Nigerians the future has never been more bleak or uncertain. The country was already in a recession and a grim economic situation when President Muhammadu Buhari took over in 2015. But he is now in charge and it is his government’s responsibility to end the recession and restore the economy to stability and growth. The buck stops with him. But the recession will not yield to quick fixes. It is largely structural. The solution to it has to be equally structural. The government has got to be more serious about introducing the painful structural reforms now needed. Basically, this task involves cutting imports and increasing non-oil exports. The trade balance has to be restored.

    Though baffled that its stimulus spending is not yet working, the Federal Government remains upbeat this strategy will soon begin to yield some positive results. In fact, the Governor of the CBN was reported a few months ago as declaring that the recession had virtually ended, that it had bottomed out, thereby raising false hopes among the people. But this was premature. Recessions do take a long time to resolve. To work effectively the stimulus spending has to be complemented by a range of fiscal and monetary policy instruments that are not yet fully in place. Until these measures are implemented fully, we cannot begin to talk about ending the recession. In its report for the third quarter of 2016 the National Bureau of Statistics announced that the economy recorded a negative growth of -2.24 per cent, down from -2.06 in the second quarter of the last FY. The report for the last quarter of FY2016 is not yet out. But it will almost certainly show that the recession is not yet over. A negative growth of that magnitude cannot be restored in a single quarter. If it does it would be a major economic miracle. So, a lot of work still has to be done by the financial authorities to tackle the root causes of the recession before we can even begin to think of economic stability and growth. This is by no means an easy task. It requires an appropriate, determined and consistent response to a financial crisis caused mainly by external shocks, triggering off maladjustment in the domestic economy. Is the government up to the task?

    The Federal Government appears optimistic that the measures and strategies it has introduced for ending the recession will impact soon positively on the economy. A few weeks ago, President Buhari assured the nation that the recession should end by the middle of this fiscal year. We can do with a dash of optimism all round, but this prediction may prove to be premature as well. It is overly optimistic and based more on hope than on the current economic realities in our country. We can forget the optimistic predictions of the religious seers and prophets who, as usual, have predicted our economic recovery this year. They are equally off the mark. These predictions are totally misleading and speculative. They should be totally ignored as voodoo economics.

    Now, why do I take a dim view of these optimistic predictions about the economy? Why do I believe that the recession is not about to end soon? It is simply because I believe the fundamental problems and challenges of the economy have not yet been fully grasped and addressed. Basically, we are in a recession because of the sharp fall in oil exports and revenues. The recession will end only when there is full recovery in oil exports and revenues. Earnings from non-oil exports have remained insignificant: less than eight per cent of total foreign exchange earnings. In the short run, earnings from agricultural exports cannot fill the gap in our foreign trade balance and foreign exchange earnings. This will take decades even if there is some expansion in agricultural exports. The much needed diversification of the economy away from its over dependence on oil revenues has not materialised over the years, despite record income from oil exports. This was easier to achieve during the decades of the oil boom. But that opportunity was lost again. Imports grew as rapidly, if not more rapidly, than exports, including the oil revenues. The overall cost of governance also increased significantly due to massive corruption in the public sector, and the half-hearted measures to bring it under control. There has recently been some recovery in oil prices rising from $30 per barrel to nearly $60 now. But this is still far short of our normal oil revenues before the economy went into a recession. This means that we are still short of the financial resources needed to pull the economy out of its deep recession. Without massive spending the economy cannot be pulled out of recession. And Nigeria’s financing gap, even with the record oil revenues of the last decade before the recession, was estimated at over $10 billion annually. With the massive loss of oil revenues, the financing gap has obviously grown much wider. Hence, the massive external borrowing by the Federal Government: another future debt burden.

    To this huge revenue deficit must be added Nigeria’s high import dependency. It is estimated that Nigeria spends well over N1 trillion a year on food imports alone. Its manufacturing industry, based on import substitution, a failed strategy, is also largely dependent on imports. And there is virtually little manufactured exports going on. It is the food imports, raw materials imports for industry, and other imported luxury goods that collectively put the domestic economy under intense foreign exchange pressures. This may seem elementary, but it is a lesson that Nigeria’s political leaders have consistently failed to learn over the years. Nigeria was in a similar dire financial predicament following the oil shocks of 1983-5, and a structural adjustment programme had to be reluctantly introduced by the Babangida military regime to address the problem. The economic situation in 1983-5 was, in fact, worse than it is now. There was a recession then too, far worse than what we have now. Nigeria fell into balance of trade and payments disequilibria as it could no longer pay for its vital imports. It was in payment arrears and its creditors cut it off from further credits. At first, we refused to even consider devaluation as a policy option. But later, when it became clear that we had limited options, the Babangida military government was forced in 1986 to devalue the naira. The strategy worked. It was painful as prices soared, but it worked. It was this painful economic stabilisation programme, particularly the naira exchange rate adjustment that ended the recession. Imports began to fall. Coupled with an increase in oil exports and revenues the economy returned to the path of stability and growth, averaging 5%. But regrettably, once the economy appeared to have recovered, Babangida undermined its future growth by frittering away the gains of the recovery on frivolous public expenditures. This was to hurt the domestic economy very badly.

    To some extent, this is what President Buhari has to do now with some modifications to end the recession. As we have no serious balance of payments disequilibrium now, the challenges involved are less serious than those that confronted Babaginda. But Buhari’s economic strategy has to be broadly similar to that of Babangida. He has very reluctantly ended some of the wasteful subsidies in the economy. You cannot pay subsidies with borrowed funds, but from a budget surplus. He was initially strongly opposed to any adjustment of the naira exchange rate, but he has now been forced by compelling circumstances and the realities of Nigeria’s economic situation to come to terms with this measure. But much valuable time was lost by the delay in deciding promptly to allow any devaluation of the naira.

    Timing matters in devaluing a currency. In fact, the devaluation of the naira should have begun in 2013 as soon as it became clear that global oil prices were falling. President Jonathan should have started that process. But by that time political pressures in the PDP, then the ruling party, had begun to build up in preparation for the 2015 elections. When a national currency such as the naira comes under exchange rate stress early devaluation as a policy adjustment has to be introduced promptly. By the time Jonathan left office the prevailing exchange rate of the naira was no longer tenable or sustainable. It had become grossly overvalued. It made imports attractive and cheaper and exports unattractive. And right now, the issue of the naira exchange rate is not yet fully resolved. The present inter-bank rate is N305 to the US dollar, while the rate in the parallel market is now close to N500 to the dollar. The gap between the two rates is much too wide and bad for economic planning of any kind. It is speculative and allows for much round tripping. This regime of multiple exchange rates creates financial uncertainties and is bound to hurt the economy badly, as it constrains foreign investment in the Nigerian economy. Already, because of the recession and other economic uncertainties in our country, Nigeria is no longer the first destination of foreign investors in Africa. It has been replaced by South Africa, Angola, and the Maghreb countries of North Africa, where there is far greater economic and exchange rate stability than here in Nigeria.  To restore our position as the first destination in Africa of foreign investors, we must bring to an end this system of multiple exchange rates. We should allow the naira to float freely. Yes, costs and prices will go up, but it will also restrain and reduce imports. There is no need for bans as they can be counter- productive. A combination of a unified exchange rate and appropriate tariffs on non-essential imports will stabilise the exchange rate of the naira.

    As for the possible impact of this year’s proposed N7.3 trillion budget on the economy and the recession, I doubt whether it can achieve much. Nominally, it is a huge budget. But when discounted for inflation and exchange rate adjustment it is not that huge. The budget deficit is very large with the government hoping to borrow nearly half of the budget at home and abroad. It is unlikely that it can meet either its revenue target or loans. Even if it does there is the perennial problem of budget implementation, the bugbear of budgets in Nigeria. It was estimated that last year only 56% of the budget was implemented due to financial and administrative constraints. It is unlikely that things will be different this year. As for the planned foreign borrowing, the government should instead seriously consider selling off some of its core assets in the oil industry. For instance, it holds 60 per cent in Mobil. There is no longer any need to hold a controlling share there. If the Federal Government sells only 20% of its shares in Mobil Oil, this will immediately yield US$20 billion, which will reduce its resort to foreign borrowing considerably. And this can be used for infrastructure development. The government must put its thinking cap on and be more serious and focused on tackling the recession more vigorously. Otherwise, it will take much longer than predicted for the recession to end.

     

  • Magic and Buhari

    Again, we find ourselves at the desert end of our green pasture. There is no one left to lead the charge for our world’s lost splendours. Except Muhammadu Buhari. The incumbent President seems our best hope of snatching Nigeria from the jaws of decline and devastation. But he won’t save Nigeria. Someone else will. Buhari can only prepare us for the one who will lead the charge for Nigeria’s lost splendours. The retired General from Daura cannot tease our practiced tremble to affect the bounteous tumult. This is because he has lost the battle against the elements he swore to neuter. This minute, Buhari, our romanticised revolutionary, functions as manipulable integer in the designs of masterminds he swore to get rid of.

    Buharists will frantically condemn this. They will say: “Are you saying there is no progress under Buhari?” “You are only writing what you have been paid to write.” I can only respond with silence to such hideous blather. There was a time I heartily rooted for Buhari. I wanted him to succeed. I still want him to succeed. He will succeed quite alright. But not as our hope for the future but as the man who would help usher in one of Nigeria’s most effective leadership. Sadly, the leader we seek is not a part of Buhari’s ‘change’ movement.

    Buhari and his All Progressives Congress (APC)’s victory at the last general elections was no doubt cathartic, a resounding response by the Nigerian electorate to 16 years of misrule by the People’s Democratic Party (PDP). But rather than serve as a clean breath of fresh air, Buhari’s leadership offers a mean draft of fresh stench. Rather than take us on a voyage from myth to truth, plunder to plenitude, Buhari and his APC takes Nigeria on yet another hazardous odyssey from old myth to new myth, familiar ugliness to fresh grotesqueness. The 2017 budget, like Nigeria’s previous budgets, presage revolting realities and fulfills unpleasant stereotypes.

    Buhari’s “Budget of Recovery and Growth” is expected to imbue Nigeria’s plummeting economy with sustainable growth. It should be his government’s manifesto of prudence and probity. Alas! these intrinsic traits that were used to vigorously market candidate-Buhari to the electorate during the elections have assumed creepy mutation.

    According to the budget, President Buhari will spend N53 million to drain the septic tank in Aso Rock Presidential Villa in this year alone. Thus he intends to spend about ?145,000 daily to drain human waste. Former President Goodluck Jonathan budgeted ?5 million for the same purpose in 2015. In 2016, PMB budgeted ?6 million. This simply means the excreta charge went up by 1050% compared with the 2015 budget, and 850% when compared with the 2016 budget. Apology to Nubari.

    Buhari also earmarked N43 billion as State House operational cost although Jonathan budgeted about ?23.5 billion in 2015 for the same purpose. Yet he budgeted ?77.5 million for Aso Villa rent although Nigerian tax payers own the residence. Two years ago, the rent was ?22.5 million; in 2016 it was pegged at about ?28 million. Nigerian tax payers built the lodge, yet Buhari, like his predecessor, extorts us for its rent. He is making us pay for the house we built.

    But rather than pander to trending anti-Buhari sentiments, this writer will take a leap of fate and aver that Buhari was never aware of the gross, dubious and brazen attempts to ‘pad’ the 2017 budget and siphon public fund to suspicious drainpipes. But this also implies that the President has no clue about goings on in his office and that, his super ‘change’ team is hardly the band of progressives he touted them to be.

    As you read, certain members of his team are embroiled in one nasty corruption scandal or the other yet Buhari takes pride in telling critics to stop tarring his ministers with the brush of corruption without facts. When you criticize him for his glaring inadequacies, he laments that it is corruption that is fighting back with big money and dubious media. Buhari scorns criticism from local media but he is always too eager to scurry to the foreign media to ‘tell his story.’

    It is about time Buhari understood that no matter how adroitly he cartwheels or somersaults before the foreign media, their narrative will always fulfill the nuances and politics of their governments’ agenda or ‘enlightened self-interests’ against Nigeria and his government. Why is he desperate to earn the foreign media’s approval? His frantic attempts to tower positively in their ratings, reduces him in stature and sullies the office of the President, Federal Republic of Nigeria.

    Rather than waste quality time and tax payers’ money, doing PR waltz to the damning opus of foreign governments and media, Buhari should accept his shortcomings as recounted by objective local analysts and take conscious steps to correct them. Agreed, his team of media nullifiers and sycophants will always tell him to ignore local narratives, dismissing them as part of the devious plots of his political detractors. But were his political ‘detractors’ responsible for padding the budget in very suspicious manner? Are his so-called ‘detractors’ responsible for his inadequacies and failed promises? Are they responsible for his barely disguised contempt for the ‘average Nigerian?’ Are Buhari’s detractors responsible for his groupies’ vicious barks against differing opinions and criticism of his shortcomings?

    It is never okay for him to dismiss his critics and the average Nigerian as ‘incorrigible’ elements desperate to sustain the country’s culture of corruption. His government too is corrupt. A cursory glance at his cabinet for instance, evokes unavoidable revulsion. His government should stop whining about his predecessor’s devastation of everything. He chanted ‘change’ and promised to halt the country’s spiral of death. He was even daring enough to outline measures and give timelines in which he would rescue Nigeria.

    Of course, some of us knew he was simply grandstanding, playing to the gallery. But we hoped he would honour his words. It is tragic to see him mutate from an ardent critic of corrupt systems to a perpetuator of similar system. Buhari takes one step forward and 19 steps backwards with his anti-corruption fight – no sentences, no prosecutions, just politics.

    Just recently, he awarded crude oil deals to a select few Nigerians. Inadvertently, he has created yet another band of billionaire oil magnates with pitiful entitlement mentality – a glance at the list of beneficiaries will repulse you. What he has done contradicts his promise to rid the oil sector of corruption and reactivate the country’s moribund refineries. On Buhari’s watch, the usual culprits have been licensed to commit the same sins for which he crucifies Jonathan’s government.

    If Buhari could ditch his premature and ill-advised campaign for a second term and actually commit to the actualisation of the promises he made, Nigeria will be better by it. More importantly, he would have no need to recruit familiar sycophants and sirens to engage in subtle, contrived crusade for his re-election, come 2019.

    It’s about time he honoured his promises of ‘change’ – progressive change to be precise. How wonderful it would be to see Buhari resolve the nation’s electricity woes, infrastructure inadequacies, persistent insecurity, among others. It can’t be done overnight. Indeed, Buhari is no magician. He only pretended to be one.

    To be continued…

  • Leaders are readers

    I read in one of our newspapers that His Excellency, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, Vice President gave presents of books to each member of the federal cabinet as Christmas gifts. I am sure some of them would have been pleasantly surprised. Others may have been disappointed. This is because Nigerians do not read and hardly value the gift of books. I also learnt he selected some books of Malcolm Gladwell, the author of OUTLIERS a hugely successful and provocative book about the secret of success across several human endeavours. In the book, Gladwell, a Canadian resident in New York examines everyone from business giants to scientific geniuses, sports stars to musicians, and reveals what they have in common. He goes behind the myths and the legends to show what really explains exceptionally successful people. When I read the book some years ago, I was surprised to know the difference in starting ages of children at primary school matters and that a few months difference in ages of young people starting school could mean much in the intellectual difference even at an early age. His recent book on DAVID and GOLIATH must have provoked some of my Pentecostal and orthodox Christians when he argued that the giant size of Goliath was due to some disease which blows people up rendering them weaker than they ordinarily would have been. This means that the divine assistance we have always thought was the secret of David’s success was debunked by Gladwell who insinuated Goliath was a sick man! Gladwell has written other provocative books titled THE TIPPING POINT and BLINK. What I know about this writer is that he is not just a man of letters but he is also a philosopher who has been taken notice of by the world and he is a potential Nobel laureate

    It is not Malcolm Gladwell the author that catches my fancy; it is the implied challenge to our leaders that they should find time to familiarize themselves with ideas that are current in the world that I find intriguing.

    When the outgoing president of the USA, Barack Obama was elected in 2008 at the height of the recession, the first thing he did was to collect several books on how the 1920s recession in the world was tackled. He read what the British economist Maynard Keynes and other Neo- Keynesian economists had to say about recent recessions. I will be the first person to say economics is too important to be left to economists! We all know economics is not a precise science in spite of whatever modelling econometrics may throw up. But it is still important to familiarize oneself with what economists have written about recession which has become a recurring decimal. The point I am making is what books on recession have those running our economy read? It will be interesting to find out if we are merely groping in the dark. Nigerians I am sorry to say do not read. A cynic said if you want to hide a secret in Nigeria put it in a book. We suffer from bibliophobia in Nigeria.  If you write a book in Nigeria, no matter how well written and how topical it may be, if you sell 5000 copies you would be deemed to be a successful author. In a country of 170 million people, this is simply unacceptable. Even if one writes a textbook, you are not likely to find buyers. This is what has led to the Nigerian unique fashion of book launch and presentation during which time publishers, as in auction, try to recover the cost of publication. It will amaze many people that our leaders do not even read newspapers. Their laziness is encouraged by press officials who read the newspapers and prepare summaries for their bosses in form of what they call “executive brief”. The result of this is total disconnect between the leaders and the citizenry.

    The reason for our aversion to reading is probably due to the fact that we did not have a written civilization. Apart from ajami in the Muslim Emirates of northern Nigeria, the rest of the country evolved along the lines of oral tradition. Both ajami and even oral tradition were not generally known to all but a few people like the Mallamai and griots who were specially trained. The point is that the written word in Nigeria came only with the advent of Christian missionaries in the 19th century. Appreciation of the written word and literature generally is still superficial. Even the educated elite is too involved in just surviving in the face of lack of electricity, water, all kinds of modern infrastructure, security and money and they hardly have time to read. Teachers across all levels of education hardly have time to update themselves. This is very critical in the universities where it is absolutely important that lecturers and professors need to be at the cutting edge of their disciplines. Students hardly read except to pass examinations. When I was an undergraduate, I had a library which forms the nucleus of my present library which runs into thousands of titles of books. These days, students do not buy books and they graduate and go out of the universities without books of their own. They depend on their lecturers from whom they borrow books with no respect for private property because they invariably go away with lecturers books. One of my former students jokingly and unashamedly told me he had a shelf of books which he borrowed from me in his house! Even if politicians do not read, the intelligentsia in the universities, business and the press must read.

    It is however a pity that politicians do not read. This is the reason for the gulf of difference between developed and under developed countries. Leaders in developed countries must necessarily be familiar with the advances in medicine, technology, environmental issues, energy and education. In their regular press conferences, a leader would be terribly embarrassed if he were asked questions on any burning issue and he was not familiar with it. This is one of the reasons why I will like us to return to the parliamentary form of government where the head of the government will be questioned by members of the opposition in order to elicit answers and understanding about government policies. What we have in our country is nocturnal government where people meet in the night and the wee hours of the morning to decide government policies. In Nigeria, our politicians do not sleep well. So-called supporters and members of the kitchen cabinet hang around till midnight preventing leaders from sleeping and without adequate sleep our leaders cannot think straight or well neither do they have time to rest or read. There is a saying that leaders are readers! To make this apply to Nigeria, there has to be a sea change in the way we play politics and run our government. We have to change from our current ways and embrace the notion that being in government is a ministerial assignment in the sense of a minister being a servant and not a master and appointment should not be seen from the prism of power for material self-aggrandizement. We must also know that nothing is new under the sun. Whatever problem we may face has been faced by other people in the past and it is incumbent on us to read and learn how others have coped with similar situations. The whole idea of reading is to sharpen our intellect and the purpose of education is application of knowledge to solve problems. Knowledge is not static it is dynamic and we must continually update our knowledge. That is the purpose of reading.